Classic Audiobook Collection - The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen by Elizabeth von Arnim ~ Full Audiobook [adventure]

Episode Date: October 2, 2023

The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen by Elizabeth von Arnim audiobook. Genre: adventure In this semi-autobiographical travel comedy of manners, Elizabeth von Arnim sends her quick-witted alter ego, Elizabeth, off to the Baltic island of Rugen in the summer of 1901 with an unlikely expedition: a maid, a driver, a carriage stacked with luggage, and a woman friend who seems determined to knit through every surprise the road can offer. Elizabeth dreams of exploring the island on foot for the pure freedom of it, but plans rarely survive first contact with weather, timetables, and other people's ideas of what a lady ought to do. As the carriage rolls from seaside views to village encounters, Elizabeth sketches the landscape with rapturous attention and turns her sharp, self-deprecating humor on the petty tyrannies of comfort and convention. Along the way she collects a gallery of memorable figures: a snobbish bishop's wife, her personable son, a dressmaker, and an unexpected cousin, Charlotte, whose complicated domestic situation threatens to turn a quiet holiday into a social tangle. Part travelogue, part character study, this is a charming, observant journey that finds adventure in the smallest detours. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:36:31) Chapter 02 (01:18:21) Chapter 03 (02:10:18) Chapter 04 (02:37:12) Chapter 05 (02:57:14) Chapter 06 (03:24:57) Chapter 07 (03:44:04) Chapter 08 (04:23:19) Chapter 09 (04:54:55) Chapter 10 (05:23:45) Chapter 11 (05:53:13) Chapter 12 (06:12:19) Chapter 13 (07:01:59) Chapter 14 (07:46:59) Chapter 15 (08:13:46) Chapter 16 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen by Elizabeth von Arnhem Chapter 1 Part 1, the first day, from Miltzau to Lauterbach. Everyone who has been to school and still remembers what he was taught there knows that Rögen is the biggest island Germany possesses, and that it lies in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Pomerania. Round this island, I wish to walk this summer, but no one, would walk with me. It is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things. It is the one way of freedom. If you go to a place on anything but your own feet, you are taken

there too fast and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside. If you drive, you are bound by a variety of considerations, eight of the most important being the horse's legs. If you bicycle, but who that love? to get close to nature wood bicycle. And as for motors, the object of a journey like mine was not the getting to a place, but the going there. Successively did I invite the most likely of my women friends, numbering at least a dozen, to walk with me. They one and all replied that it would make them tired, and that it would be dull. And when I tried to remove the first objection by telling them how excellent it would be for the German nation,

especially those portions of it that are still to come, if its women walked round Rögen more often. They stared and smiled, and when I tried to remove the second, by explaining that by our own spirits are we deified, they stared and smiled more than ever. Walking then was out of the question, for I could not walk alone.

The grim monster conventionality, whose iron claws are forever on my shoulder, forever pulling me back from the harmless and the wholesome, but a stop to that, even if I had not been afraid of tramps, which I was. So I drove, and it was round Rugen that I drove, because one hot afternoon when I was idling in the library, not reading, but fingering the books, taking out first one, then another, dipping into them,

deciding which I would read next. I came across Marianne Norse recollections of a happy life and hit upon the page where she begins to talk of Rugen. Immediately interested, for it's not Rugen nearer to me than any other island, I became absorbed in her description of the bathing near a place called Putbuss, of the deliciousness of it in a sandy cove where the water was always calm and of how you floated about on its crystal surface and beautiful jellyfish, stars of purest colors floated with you. I threw down the book to ransack the shelves for a guide to Rugen.

On the first page of the first one I found was this remarkable paragraph. Hearest thou the name Ruegen, so doth a wondrous spell come over thee. Before thine eyes, it rises as a dream of far away, Beautious fairylands, images and figures of long ago beckon thee Across the marvellous places, Where in grey prehistoric times they dwelt, And on which they have left the shadow of their presence. And in thee stirs a mighty desire to wander over the glorious legend-surrounded island.

Cored up then thy light bundle, take to heart. part Shylock's advice and put money in thy purse, and follow me without fear of the threatening seasickness, which may overtake thee on the short crossing, for it has never yet done anyone more harm than imposing on him a rapidly passing discomfort. This seemed to me very irresistible. Surely a place that inspired such a mingling of the lofty and the homely in its guidebooks must be well worth seeing. There was a place. There was a drought just then going on at home. My eyes were hot with watching a garden parched browner day by day beneath a sky of brass. I felt that it only needed a little energy, and in a few hours, I too might be

floating among those jellyfish in the shadow of the cliffs of the legend-surrounded island. And even better than being surrounded by legends, those breathless days, would it be to have the sea all round me. Such a C-2, did I not know it? Did I not know its singular limpidity? The divineness of its blue where it was deep, the clearness of its green where it was shallow, lying tideless along its amber shores. The very words made me thirsty, amber shores, lazy waves lapping them slowly, vast spaces for the eye to wander over, rocks and seaweed, and cool, gorgeous jellyfish. The very map at the beginning of the guidebook made me thirsty. The land was so succulently green.

The sea all around so bland a blue. And what a fascinating island it is on the map. An island of twists and curves and inland seas called Bodden, of lakes and woods and frequent fairies. Lesser Islands dotted about its coasts, with bays innumerable stretching their arms out into the water, and with one huge forest, evidently magnificent, running nearly the whole length of the East Coast, following its curves, dipping down to the sea in places, and in others climbing up chalk cliffs, to crown them with the peculiar splendor of beaches.

It does not take me long to make up my mind, still less to cord up my light bundle, for somebody else does that, and I think it was only two days after I first found Marianne North and the guidebook that my maid Gertrude and I got out of a suffocating train into the freshness that blows round the rye fields near the sea and began our journey into the unknown. It was a little wayside station on the line between Berlin and Strausslung, called Miltzau, a solitary red building on the edge of a pine wood that witnessed the beginning of our tour. The carriage had been sent on the day before, and round it on our arrival stood the station authorities in an interested group. The stationmaster everywhere in Germany an elaborate Olympic person in white gloves, actually helped the porter to court on my hold-all with his own hands, and they both lingered over it as if loaf to let us go.

Evidently, the coachman had told them what I was going to do, and I suppose such an enterprising woman does not get out at Milzow every day. They packed us in with the greatest care, so much care that I thought they would never have done. My whole doll was the biggest piece of luggage, and they courted it on in an upright position at our feet. I had left the choosing of its contents to Gertrude, only exhorting her, besides my pillow, to take a sufficiency of soap and dressing gowns. Gertrude's luggage was placed by the porter on her lap.

It was almost too modest. It was one small black bag, and a greater part of its inside, must, I knew, be taken up by the stockings she had brought to knit and the needles she did it with. Yet she looked quite as respectable the day we came home as she did the day we started, and every bit is clean. My dressing case was put on the box, and on top of it was a brown cardboard hat box containing the coachman's wet weather hat. A thick coat for possible cold days made a cushion for my back and Gertrude's waterproof did the same thing for hers. Wedged in between us was the tea basket,

rattling inharmoniously, but preventing our slipping together in sloping places. Behind us in the hood were the umbrellas, rugs, guidebooks, and maps. Besides one of those round, shiny yellow wooden band boxes, into which every decent German woman puts her best hat. This luggage and some mysterious bundles on the box that the coachman thought were hidden by his legs, but which bulged out unhidably on either side, prevented our looking elegant. But I did not want to look elegant, and I had gathered from the remarks of those who had refused to walk that Ruegen was not a place where I should meet anyone who did.

Now, I suppose I could talk for a week, and yet give no idea. whatever of the exultation that filled my soul as I gazed on these arrangements. The picnic-like simplicity of them was so full of promise. It was as though I were going back to the very morning of life, to those fresh years when shepherd boys and others shout round one for no reason except that they are out of doors and alive. Also, during the years that have come after, years that may properly be called riper, it has been a conviction of mine that there's nothing so absolutely bracing for the

soul as the frequent turning of one's back on duties. This was exactly what I was doing, and oh, ye rigid female martyrs on the rack of daily exemplariness, ye unquestioning patient followers of paths that have been pointed out, if only you knew the wholesome joys of sometimes being less good. The point at which we were is the nearest from which Rugen can be reached by persons coming up from the south and going to drive. No one ever gets out there who is bound for Rugen because no one ever drives to Rugen. The ordinary tourist, almost exclusively German, goes first to Strasund, is taken across the narrow strip of water, train and all, on a steam ferry and continues without changing till he reaches the open sea on the other side of the island at Sosnich.

Or he goes by train from Berlin to Stettin and then by steamer down the odor, crosses the open sea for four hours and arrives probably pensive for the boats are small and the waves are often big at Goren, the first stopping place on the island's east coast. We were not ordinary tourists, and having got to Milzau were to be independent of all such weariness as trains and steamers till the day we wanted to come back again. From Miltsau we were going to drive to a ferry three miles off at a place called Stalbrod, cross the mile of water, land on the island's south shore, and go on at once that afternoon to the jellyfish of Miss Norse Putbuss. which were beckoning me across to the legend-surrounded island far more irresistibly than any of those grey figures the guide-book talked about. The carriage was a light one of the Victoria genus with a hood.

The horses were a pair esteemed at home for their meekness. The coachman, August, was a youth who had never yet driven straight on for an indefinite period without turning round once, and he looked as though he thought you were going to enjoy himself. I was sure I was going to enjoy myself. Gertrude I fancy was without these illusions, but she is old and has got out of the habit of being anything but resigned. She was the sop on this occasion thrown to the grim one of the iron claws,

for I would far rather have gone alone. But Gertrude is very silent. To go with her would be as nearly like being alone as it is possible to be when you are not. She could, I knew, be trusted to sit by my side knitting, however bumpy the road, and not opening her lips unless asked a question. Admirable virtue of silence, most precious, because most rare, jewel in the crown of female excellences, not possessed by a single one of those who had refused to walk. If either of them had occupied Gertrude's place and driven with me,

would she not, after the way of women, have spent the first half of the time telling me her secrets, and the other half being angry with me because I knew them? And then Gertrude, after having kept quiet all day, would burst into activities at night. Unpacked the whole doll, produce pleasant things like slippers, see that my bed was as I like it, and end by tucking me up in it, and going away on tiptoe with her customary quaint benediction, bestowed on me every night at bedtime. The dear God protect and bless the gracious one, says Girdrude as she blows out the candle. And may he also protect and bless thee, I reply, and could as ill spare my pillow as her blessing. It was half-past two in the afternoon of the Middle Friday in July when we left the station officials to go back to their dull work and trotted round the corner into the wide world.

The sky was a hot blue. The road wound with gentle ups and downs between fields whitening to harvest. High over our heads, the larks quivered in light, shaking out that rapturous song that I can never hear without a throb of gratitude for being alive. There were no woods or hills, and we could see a long way on either side. See the red roofs of farms clustered wherever there was a hollow to protect them from the wild winds of winter. See the straight double line of trees where the high road to Stralsund cut across ours. See a little village, a mile head of us with a venerable church on a mound in the middle of it gravely presiding over the surrounding wide parish of corn. I think I must have got out at least six times during the short drive between

Miltzau and the fairy pretending I wanted flowers, but really to enjoy the delight of loitering. The rye was full of chicory and poppies. The ditches along the road where the spring dampness still lingered were white with the delicate loveliness of cow parsley, that most spiritual of weeds. I picked an armful of it to hold up against the blue of the sky while we were driving. I gave Gertrude a bunch of poppies, for which she thanked me without enthusiasm. I put the little posies of chickery at the horse's ears. In fact, I felt and behaved as if I were 15 and out for my first summer hot. But what did it matter? There was nobody there to see. Stahlbrod is the most innocent looking

place, a small cluster of cottages on grass that goes down to the water. It was quite empty and silent. It has a long, narrow wooden jetty running across the marshy shore to the ferry, and moored to the end of this jetty lay a big fishing smack with furled brown sails. I got out and walked down to it to see if it were the ferry boat, and whether the ferryman was in it. Both August and the horses had an alarmed, pricked-up expression as they saw me going out into the jaws of the sea. Even the emotionless Gertrude put away her stocking

and stood by the side of the carriage watching me. The jetty was roughly put together, and so narrow that the carriage would only just fit in. A slight wooden rail was all the protection provided, but the water was not deep, and heaved limpedly over the yellow sand at the bottom. The shore we were on was flat and vividly green. The shore of Rugen opposite was flat and vividly green. The sea between us was a lovely sparkling blue.

The sky was strewn across with loose clusters of pearly clouds. The breeze that had played so gently among the air. years of corn round miltsau danced along the little waves and splashed them gaily against the wooden posts of the jetty as though the freshness down there on the water had filled it with new life i found the boat empty a thing of steep sides and curved bottom a thing that was surely never intended for the ferrying across of horses and carriages no other boat was to be seen up the channel and down the channel there was nothing visible but the flat green shores, the dancing water, the wide sky, and the bland afternoon light. I turned back thoughtfully to the cottages. Suppose the ferry were only used for ferrying people. If so, we were in an extremely tiresome fix. A long way back against the sky, I could see the line of trees bordering the road to Strausson, and the whole dull, dusty distance

would have to be driven over if the stalbrood fairy failed us. August took off his hat when I came up to him and said ominously, Does the gracious one permit that I speak a few words? Speak them, August. It is very windy. Not very. It is far to go on water. Not very.

Never yet have I been on the sea. Well, you are going on it now. With an expression made up of two parts fright and one resignation, he put on his hat again and relapsed into a silence that was grim. I took Gertrude with me to give me a countenance and walked across to the inn. A new red brick house standing out boldly on a bit of rising ground endways onto the sea. The door was open and we went in, knocking with my sunshade on the floor. We stirred up no life of any sort. Not even a dog barked at us. The passage was wide and clean with doors on each side of it and an open door at either end. The one we had come in by followed by the afternoon sun and the other framing a picture of sky with the sea at the bottom. The jetty, the smack with folded sails, and the coast of Rugen. Seeing a door with gosh stube painted on it, I opened it and peeped in.

To my astonishment, it was full of men smoking in silence, and all with their eyes fixed on the opening door. They must have heard us. They must have seen us passing the window as we came up to the house. I concluded that the custom of the district requires that strangers shall in no way be interfered with until they actually ask definite questions, that it was so became clear by the lacrity

with which a yellow-bearded man jumped up on our asking how we could get across Tudugin and told us he was the ferryman and would take us there. But there is a carriage, can that go too? I inquired anxiously, thinking of the deep bottom and steep sides of the fishing smack. Alles, he said cheerily, and calling to a boy to come and help. He led the way through the door framing the sea, down a tiny sand. Andy garden prickly with gooseberry bushes to the place where August sat marvelling on his box. Come along, he shouted as he ran past him. What, along that thing of wood? cried August, with my horses and my newly varnished carriage. Come along, shouted the ferryman halfway down the jetty.

Go on, August. I commanded. It can never be accomplished, said August, visibly breaking out. into a perspiration. Go on, I repeated sternly, but thought it on the whole more discreet to go on myself on my own feet, and so did Gertrude.

If the gracious one insists, faltered August, and began to drive gingerly down to the jetty with the face of one who thinks his last hour well on the way. As I had feared, the carriage was very nearly smashed, getting it over the sides of the smack.

I sat up in the boughs looking on in terror, expecting every instant to see the wheels wrenched off and with their wrenching the end of our holiday. The optimistic ferryman assured us that it was going in quite easily, like a lamb, he declared, with great boldness of imagery. He sloped two ineffectual planks, one for each set of wheels, up the side of the boat, and he and Auguste, hat like, coatless and breathless, lifted the carriage over onto them. It was a horrid moment. The front wheels twisted right round and were as near coming off as any wheels I saw in my life. I was afraid to look at August. So right did he seem to have been when he protested that the thing could not be accomplished.

Yet there was Ruegen, and here were we, and we had to get across to it, or turn round and do the dreary journey to Stroudsland. The horses both exceedingly restive had been unharnessed and got in first. They were held in the stern of the boat by two boys who needed all their determination to do it. Then it was that I was thankful for the boat's steep sides, for if they had been lower, those horses would certainly have kicked themselves over into the sea, and what should I have done then, and how should I have faced him who is in authority over me if I return to him without his horses? We take them across daily, the ferryman remarked, airily jerking his thumb in the direction of the carriage.

Do so many people drive to Ruegen? I asked astonished, for the planked arrangements were staringly makeshift. Many people, cried the ferryman. Rightly speaking, cried, He was trying to make me happy. At least it reassured August to hear it, but I could not suppress a smile of deprecation at the size of the fib. By this time we were underway, a fair wind sending us merrily over the water. The ferryman steered, August stood at his horse's heads, talking to them soothingly. The two boys came and sat on some coiled ropes close to me, leaning their elbows on their knees and their chins on their hands, and fixing their blue Fisher Boy eyes on my face kept them there with an unwinking interest during that entire crossing. Oh, it was lovely

sitting up there in the sun, safe so far, in the delicious quiet of sailing. The tawny sail, darned and patched in diverse shades of brown and red and orange, towered above us against the sky. The huge mass seemed to brush along across the very surface of the little white clouds. Above the rippling of the water we could hear the distant larks on either shore. August had put his scarlet stable jacket for the work of lifting the carriage in and made a beautiful bit of color among the browns of the old boat at the stern. The eyes of the ferrymen lost all the alertness they had had on shore, and he stood at the rudder gazing dreamily out at the afternoon light on the Ruegen Meadows.

How perfect it was after the train, after the clattering along the dusty road, and the heat and terror of getting on board. For one exquisite quarter of an hour we were softly lapped across in the sun, and for all that beauty we were only asked to pay three marks, which included the horses and carriage and, the labor of us getting in and out. For a further small sum, the ferryman became enthusiastic and begged me to be sure to come back that way. There was a single house on the Rugen shore where he lived, he said, and from which he would watch for us. A little dog came down to welcome us,

but we saw no other living creature. The carriage conducted itself far more like a lamb on this side, and I drove away well pleased to have got over the chief difficulty of the tour, the soft-voiced fairy man wishing us Godspeed, and the two boys unwinking to the last. So here we were on the legend-surrounded island. Hail thou isle of Fairyland, filled with beckoning figures, I murmured under my breath, careful not to appear too unaccountable in Gertrude's eyes.

With eager interest, I looked about me, and anything less like Fairyland, and more like the coast of Pomerania lately left, I have seldom seen. The road, a continuation of the road on the mainland, was exactly like other roads that are dull as far as a rambling village three miles farther on called Garz. persons referring to the map at the beginning of this book will see with what a melancholy straightness it proceeds to that village and after Garz I ceased to care what it was like for reasons which I will now set forth. There was that afternoon in the marketplace of Garz, and I know not why, since it was neither a Sunday nor a holiday, a brass band playing with a singular sonorousness. The horses having never before been required to listen to music,

their functions at home being solely to draw me through the solitudes of forests, did not like it. I was astonished at the vigor of the dislike they showed, who were wont to be so meek. They danced through garts, pursued by the braying of the trumpets, and the delighted shouts of the crowd, who seemed to bray and shout the louder, the more the horses danced. And I was considering whether the time had not come for clinging to Gertrude

and shutting my eyes when we turned a corner and got away from the noise onto the familiar rattle of the hard country road. I gave a sigh of relief and stretched out my head to see whether it were as straight a bit as the last. It was quite as straight, and in the distance, bearing down on us was a black speck that swelled at an awful speed into a motor car. Now, the horses had not yet seen a motor car. Their nerves, already shaken by the brass band, would never stand such a horrid sight,

I thought, and Prudence urged an immediate getting out and are rushing to their heads. Stop a gust, I cried. Jump out, Gertrude, there's a dreadful thing coming. they're sure to bolt. While Gus slowed down in apparent obedience to my order, and without waiting for him to stop entirely, the motor being almost upon us, I jumped out on one side,

and Gertrude jumped out on the other. Before I had time to run to the horse's heads, the motor whizzed past. The horses, strange to say, hardly cared at all, only mildly shying as August, drove them slowly alone. without stopping. That's all right, I remarked greatly relieved to Gertrude, who still held her

stocking. Now we'll get in again. But we could not get in again because Auguste did not stop. Call him to stop, I said to Gertrude, turning aside to pick some unusually big poppies. She called, but he did not stop. Call louder, Gertrude, I said impatiently, for we were now a good way behind. She called louder, but he did not stop. Then I called, then she called, then we called together, but he did not stop. On the contrary, he was driving on now at the usual pace, rattling noisily over the hard road, getting more and more out of reach. Shout, shout, Gertrude, I cried in a frenzy, but how could anyone so respectable as Gershud shout? She sent a faint shriek after the ever-receding August, and when I tried to shout myself, I was seized with such

uncontrollable laughter that nothing whatever of the nature of a noise could be produced. Meanwhile, Auguste was growing very small in the distance. He evidently did not know we had got out when the motor car appeared and was under the pleasing impression that we were sitting behind him being jogged comfortably towards Putpas. He dwindled. He dwindled. and dwindled with a rapidity distressing to witness. Shout, shout, shout, I gasped. Myself contorted with dreadful laughter, half wildest mirth and half despair.

She began to trot down the road after him, waving her stocking at his distant back, and omitting a series of shrill shrieks goaded by the exigencies of the situation. The last we saw of the carriage, was a yellow glint as the sun caught the shiny surface of my band box. Immediately afterwards, it vanished over the edge of a faraway dip in the road, and we were alone with nature. Kertrude and I stared at each other in speechless dismay. Then she looked on in silence while I sank

onto a milestone and laughed. There was nothing, her look said, to laugh at, and much to be earnest over in our tragic predicament. And I knew it, but I could not stop. August had had no instructions as to where he was driving or to where we were going to put up that night. Of Putbus and Mariana North, he had never heard. With the open ordinance map on my lap, I had merely called out directions since leaving Miltzau at crossroads. Therefore, in all human probability he would drive straight on till dark, no doubt in growing private astonishment at the absence of orders and the length of the way. Then when night came he would, I suppose, want to light his lamps, and getting down to do so would immediately be frozen with horror at what he saw, or rather did not see, in the

carriage. What he would do after that I could not conceive. In sheer despair I laughed till I cried, A sight of Gertrude watching me silently from the middle of the deserted road only made me less able to leave off. Behind us in the distance, at the end of a vista of Chosecet, trees, were the houses of Garz. In front of us, a long way in front of us, rose the red spire of the Church of Kastniewicz, a village through which, as I still remembered from the map, now driving along by itself, our road to Putbus lay. Up and down the whiteness of this road not a living creature, either in a cart or on its legs, was to be seen. The bald country, here very bald and desolate, stretched away on either side into nothingness. The wind sighed about, whisking little puffs of derisive dust into our eyes as it passed.

There was a dreadful absence of anything like sounds. No doubt, said Gertrude, Auguste was. soon return? He won't, I said wiping my eyes. He'll go on forever. He's wound up. Nothing will stop him. What then will the gracious one do? Walk after him, I suppose, I said, getting up and trust to something unexpected, making him find out he hasn't got us. But I'm afraid nothing will. Come on, Gertrude. I continued feigning briskness while my heart was. as lead. It's nearly six already, and the road is long and lonely. Ah, groaned Gertrude, who never walks. Perhaps a cart will pass us and give us a lift.

If not, we'll walk to that village with the church over there and see if we can get something on wheels to pursue a rust with. Come on, I hope your boots are all right. Ah, groaned Gertrude again, lifting up one foot as a dog pitiful. lifts up its wounded paw and showing me a black cashmere boot of the sort that is soft and pleasant to the feet of servants who are not required to use them much. I'm afraid they're not much good on this hard road, I said. Let us hope something will catch us up soon. Ah, groaned poor Gertrude, whose feet are very tender, but nothing did catch us up, and we trudged along in grimly silence the desire to laugh all gone. End of Chapter 1, Part 1.

Chapter 1, Part 2 of The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rogen. This is a Lipperwarks recording. All Lipperwarks recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit liverwarks.org. Read by Vera. the adventures of elizabeth in rougan by elizabeth von anem chapter i part two the first day from milsau to lautabach you must my dear gettruhe i said after a while seeking to be cheerful regard this in the light of healthful exercise you and i are taking a pleasant

afternoon walk together in Rogen. Gertroth said nothing. At all times, loathing moment, out of doors, she felt that this walking was peculiarly hateful because it had no visible end. And what would become of us if we were forced to spend the night in some inn without our luggage? The only thing I had with me was my purse. the presence of which containing as it did all the money i had brought caused me to cast a careful eye at short intervals behind me

less in the hope of seeing a cart than in the fear of seeing a tramp and the only thing get-truth had was her half-knitted stalking also we had had nothing to eat but a scrappy chee-basket lunch hours before in the train and my intention had been to have food at putbus and then drive down to a place called lautabakh which being on the seashore was more convenient for the jellyfish than putbus and spend the night there in an hotel much recommended by the guide-book by this time according to my plans we ought to have been sitting in putpus eating cald's snitschre getter i asked rather faintly my soul drooping within me at the thought of the cald snits are you hungry getter sighed it is long since we ate she said we we trudged on in silence for another five minutes gethruth i asked again for during those five minutes my thoughts had dwelt with a shameful persistency on the succulent on the cross are you very hungry the gracious one too must be in need of food evaded geth ruth who for some reason never would admit she wanted feeding Oh, she is, I sighed, and again we trudged on in silence. It seemed a long while, before we reached that edge over which my pan-box had disappeared,

flashing farewell as it went, and when we did get to it, and eagerly looked along the fresh stretch of road, in hopes of seeing August, miraculously turned back, we gave a simultaneous groan for it was as deserted as the one we had just come along something lay in the middle of it a few years on a dark object like a little heap of brown leaves thinking it was leaves i saw no reason for comment but katezoth whose eyes o very sharp exclaimed what do you see our ghost i cried no no but there in the road the tea-basket it was indeed the tea-basket shaken out as it naturally would be on the removal of the bodies that had kept it in its place come to us like the ravens of old to give us strength and sustenance it still contains food said gethrall hurrying towards it thank heaven said i we dragged it out of the the road to the grass at the side and Getrude lit the spirit lamp and warned what was left in the teapot of the tea.

It was of an awful blackness. No water was to be caught near and we dared not leave the road to look for any in case August should come back. There were some soury pieces of cake, one or two chicken sandwich, grown unaccountably horrible and all those strawberries we had avoided at lunch because they were too small or too much squashed all these mournful revels the church spire of casnovice now came much closer presided it was the silent witness of how honorably we shared and how getzrews got the odd sandwich because of her cashmere boots then we buried the tea-basket in a ditch in a bed of long grass and cow-parsely for it was plain that i could not ask get-through who could hardly walk as it was to carry it and it was equally plain that i could not carry it myself for it was as mysteriously heavy as other tea-paskets and in size very nearly as big as i am so we buried it not without some natural regrets and a dim feeling that we were flying in the phase of providence and there it is i suppose grown very rusty to this day after that gaitreel got along a little better and my thoughts being no longer concentrated on food i could think out what was best to be done the result was that on reaching castles

We inquired at once which of the cottages was an inn, and having found one, asked a man who seemed to belong there to let us have a conveyance with as much speed as possible. Where have you come from? he inquired, staring first at one and then at the other. Oh, from cats? From cats? Where do you want to go to? to put bus to put bus are you staying there no yes anyhow we wish to drive there kindly let us start as soon as possible start i have no card sir said gethrer with much dignity why did you not say so at once yeah yeah fraulein Why did I not? We walked out. This is very unpleasant, Gator, I remarked,

and I wondered what those at home would say if they knew that on the very first day of my driving tour I had managed to lose the carriage and had to bear the banter of publicans. There is a little shop, said Gatru. Does the gracious one permit that I make inquiries there? We went in, and Gietroo did the talking. Putpas is not very far from here, said the old man, presiding,

who was at least polite. Why do not the ladies walk? My horse has been out all day, and my son who drives him has other things now to do. Oh, we can't walk, I broke in. We must drive because we might want to go beyond Putt-Pas. bus, we are not sure, it depends. The old man looked puzzled. Where is it that the ladies wish to go, he inquired, trying to be patient. To put bus, anyhow, perhaps only to put bus,

we can't tell till we get there, but indeed, indeed you must let us have your horse. Still puzzled, the old man went out to consult with his son. and we waited in profound dejection among candles and coffee. Put-Bus was not, as he had said, far, but I remembered how on the map it seemed to be a very nest of cross-roads, all radiating from a round circus sort of place in the middle. Which of them would August consider to be the straight continuation of the road from cars? Once beyond Putpas, he would be lost to us indeed.

It took about half an hour to persuade the sun and to harness the horse, and while this was going on, we stood at the door, watching the road and listening eagerly for sounds of wheels. One cart did pass, going in the direction of cars, and when I heard it coming, I was so sure that it was so sure that it was. August that I triumphantly called to Gertruth to run and tell the old man we did not need his son. Gertruth, wise sir, waited till she saw what it was, and after the quenching of that sudden hope, we both trooped more than ever. Where am I to drive to? asked the son, whipping up his horse and bumping us away over the tones of Kassniewicz. He sat, huddled up, looking exceedingly sulky, manifestly disgusted, at having to go out again at the end of a day's work. As for the cart, it was a sad contrast

to the cushioned comfort of the vanished Victoria. It was very high, very wooden, very shaky, and we sat on a plank in the middle of so terrible a noise that when we wanted to say anything we had to shout. Where am I to drive to? repeated the youth, scowling over his shoulder. Please drive straight on until you meet a carriage. A what? A carriage. Whose carriage? My carriage. He scowled round again with deepened.

discussed. If you have a carriage, he said, looking at us as though he were afraid we were lunatics, why are you in my card? Oh, why, why are we? I cried, wringing my hands, overcome by the wretchedness of our plight. For we were now beyond Kassnavitz and gazing anxiously ahead with the strange eyes of Sister Annes, we saw, the road as straight and as empty as ever the youth draw on in sullen silence his very years seeming to flap with scorn no more good words would he waste on two mad women the road now lay through woods beautiful beech woods that belong to prince putbus not fenced off but invitingly open to everyone with green shimmer depths and occasional flashes of deer the tops of the great beaches shone like gold against the sky the sea must have been quite close for though it was not visible the smell of it was everywhere the nearer we got to put bus the more civilized did the road become seeds appeared on either side at intervals that grew more frequent Instead of the usual wooden signposts, iron ones with tarnished gild, littering pointed down the forest lanes, and soon we met the first of the purpose lamp pose, also iron unelaborate, wandered out as it seemed, beyond the natural sphere of lampos, to light the innocent country road.

all these signs portended what germans call baude guest in english obviously bath guests or more elegantly visitors to a bathing resort and presently when we were nearer put-bus we began to pass them strolling in groups and couples and sitting on the seats which were of stone and could not have been good things for warm bath gas to sit on. Wretched as I was, I still saw the quietness and prettiness of Put-Bus. There was a notice up that all vehicles must drive through it at a walking pace, so we crawled along its principal streets, which, whatever else it contained, contained no sign of August. This street has Prince Putpus grounds on one side and a line of irregular houses, all white, all old-fashioned, and all charming, on the other. A double row of great trees forms a shady walk on the edge of the grounds, and it is bountifully supplied with those stone seeds so fatal.

I am sure to many and honest bath guests. The grounds, trim and shady, have neat paths, winding into their recesses from the road, with no fence or wall or obstacle of any sort to be surmounted by the timid tourists. Every tourist may walk in them, as long and as often as he likes, without the least preliminary bother,

of gates and lodges. As we jolted slowly over the rough stones, we were objects of the liveliest interest to the bath guests, sitting out on the pavement in front of the inns having supper. No sign whatever of August was to be seen, not even an ordinance map, as I had half expected lying in, the road our cart made more noise here and ever it being characteristic of put-bus that things on wheels are heard for an amazing time before and after the passing

it is the drowsiest little town grass grows undisturbed between the cobbles of the street along the gutters and in the cracks of the pavement on the sidewalk one or two shops seem sufficient for the needs of all the inhabitants including the boys at the school here which is a sort of german eton and from what i saw in the windows their needs are chiefly picture postcards and cakes there is a white theatre with a colonnade as quaint as all the rest the houses have many windows and boxes have many windows and box The balconies hung about with flowers. The place did not somehow seem real in the bright flood of evening sunlight. It looked like a place in a picture or a dream. But the bath guests, pausing in their eating to stare at us, were enjoying themselves in a very solid and undream-like fashion,

not in the least in harmony with the quaint's background. in spite of my forlorn condition i could not help reflecting on its probable charms in winter under the clear green of the cold sky with all these people away when the frosted branches of the trees stretch across to deserted windows when the theatre is silent for months when the inns only keep as much of themselves open as meets the the requirements of the infrequent commercial traveler, and the cutting wind blows down the street, empty all day long. Certainly a perfect place to spend a quiet winter in, to go to when one is tired of noise and buzzle

and of a world choked to the point of suffocation with strenuous persons trying to do each other good. rooms in one of those spacious old houses with the large windows facing the sun and plenty of books if i wear that abstracted but happy form of reptile called a book form which i believed i am prevented from being only by my sex the genus i am told being persistently male i would take care to spend at least one of my life's winters in my own in Put-Bus. How divinely quiet it would be! What a place for him who intends to pass an examination. To write a book,

or who wants the crumples got by crushing together too long with his fellows to be smoothed out of his soul. And what walks there would be to stretch legs and spirits grown stiff in the crisp wintry woods where the pale sunshine falls across unspoiled snow. Sitting in my cart of sorrow in summer sultriness, I could feel the ineffable pure cold of winter strike my face at the mere thought, the ineffable pure cold that spurs the most languid mind into activity.

Thus far had I got a cold, in my reflections, and we had jolted slowly down about half the length of the street, when a tremendous clatter of hoofs and wheels coming towards us apparently at a gallop in starkest defiance of regulations brought me back with a jerk to the miserable present. Bolted remarked the surly youth, hastily drawing on one side, The bath-guess, at supper, flung down their knives and forks, and started up to look. Halt ha! cried some of them. Es is where porten.

Shrit! Shrit! How can he halt? cried others. His horses have bolted. Then why does he beat them? cried the first. It is a ghost!

Shrieked gets. tooth, August, August, we are here, stop, stop. For, with staring eyes and said mouth, our ghost was actually galloping past us. This time he did hear get-roads shriek, acute with anguish, and pulled the horses onto their haunches. Never have I seen unhappy coachman with so wide a face, He had had, it appeared, the most stringent private instructions before leaving home to take care of me,

and on the very first day to let me somehow tumble out and lose me. He was tearing back in the awful conviction that he would find Gietro and myself in the form of corpses. Thank God, he cried, devoutly on seeing us. Thank God, is the gracious one unheard? Certainly poor August had had the worst of it. Now, it is most unlikely that the pathguess of Budbuss

will ever enjoy themselves quite so much again. Their suppers all grew cold while they crowded round to see and listen. August, in his relief, was a changed creature. He was voluble and loud, as I never could have believed. Jumping off his box

to turn the horses round and help me out of the car, he explained to me and to all and any who chose to listen how he had driven on and on through Put-Bus, straight round the circus

to the continuation of the road on the north side, where, Signposts revealed to him that he was heading for Pagan, more and more surprised at receiving no orders, more and more struck by the extreme silence behind him. The gracious one he amplified for the benefit of the deeply interested tourists. Exchanges occasional observations with Froulin. The tourists gazed at Gertrude. And the cessation of these,

became by degrees noticeable. Yet it is not permissible that a well-trained coachman should turn to look or interfere with a hair shaft that chooses to be silent. Let us get on, August, I interrupted, much embarrassed by all this. The luggage must be seen to

the strain of the rapid driving. A dozen helpful hands hands stretched out with offers of string finally continued august not to be stopped in his excited account manipulating the string and my hold all with shaking fingers finally by the mercy of providence the map used by the gracious one fell out i knew it would as a peasant was passing he called to me he pointed to the road I pulled up, I turned round, and what did I see? What I then saw, I shall never, no, never forget, no, not if my life should continue to a hundred. He put his hand on his heart and gasped. The crowd waited breathless.

I turned round, continued August, and I saw nothing. But you said you would never forget what you saw, objected a dissatisfied-looking man. Never, never shall I forget it. Yet you saw nothing at all. Nothing, nothing. Never will I forget it. If you saw nothing, you cannot forget it, persisted the dissatisfied man. I say I cannot. It is what I say. That will do. I said, I wish to drive on. The surly youth had been listening with his chin on his hand. He now removed his chin, stretched his hand across to me, sitting safely among my cushions,

and said, pay me. Pay him, Gertruth, I said. And having been paid, he turned his horse and drove back to Kaskovitz, scornful to the last. Go on, August, I ordered. Go on. We can hold this thing on with our feet. Get on to your box and go on. The energy in my voice penetrated at last through his agitation. He caught up on to his box, settled himself in a flustered sort of fashion.

The tourists fell apart, staring their last and hardest at a vision about to vanish. and we drove away. It is impossible to forget that which has not been, called out the dissatisfied man as August passed him. It is what I say, it is what I say, cried August irritated. Nothing could have kept me in putbus after this. Scurting the circus on the south side, we turned down a hill to the right,

and immediately were in the country again with cornfields on either side and the sea like a liquid sufferer beyond them. Gertruth and I put a coat between us in place of the abandoned tea basket and settled in with an appreciation of our comforts that we had not had before. Gertruth indeed looked positively happy, so thankful for. was she to be safely in the carriage again, and Joy was written in every line of August back. About a mile and a half off lay Lauterbach, a little straggling group of houses, down by the water and quiet by itself. A mile to the left of Lauterbach, I could see the hotel we were going to, along with. white building something like a Greek temple, with a portico and a flight of steps, the entire length of its facade conspicuous in its whiteness against the background of beach woods.

Woods and fields and sea, and a lovely little island, a short way from the shore called Wilm, where bathed in sunset splendor. loutherpak and not putbus then was the place of radiant jellyfish and crystal water and wooded coves probably in those distant years when marianna north enjoyed them lautapag as an independent village with a name to itself did not exist a branch railway goes down now to the very edge of the sea we crossed the line and drove between chestnut trees and high grassy banks starry with flowers to the greek hotel how delightful it looked as we got out of the deep chestnut lane into the open space in front of it before we were close enough to see the time had been unkind the sea was within a stone's throw on the right beyond a green marshy rushes Meadow. On the left, people were mowing in a field. Across the field, the spire of the little Lutheran Church looked out oddly round the end of the pagan portugal. Behind and on either side were beaches.

Not a soul came out as we grew up at the bottom of the steps. Not a soul was to be seen except the souls with scythus in the meadow we waited a moment thinking to hear a bell rung and to see flying waiters but no one came the scythus in the meadow swished the larks called down that it was a fine evening some fowls came and pecked about on the sunny steps of the temple some red sails passed between the trunks of the willows down near the water. Shall I go in? Inquired Ketrel. She went up the steps and disappeared through glass doors. Grass grew between the stones of the steps

and the walls of the house were damp and green. The ceiling of the portico was divided into squares and painted sky blue. In one corner paint and plaster had come off, together probably in wild winter nights and this under grass-grown steps and the silence gave the place a strangely deserted look i would have thought it was shut up if there had not been a table in the protocol with a reassuring red check cloth on it and a coffee-pot

Gertruth came out again, followed by a waiter and a small boy. I was in no hurry and could have sat there contentedly for any time in the pleasant evening sunshine. The waiter assured me there was just one room vacants for me, and by the luckiest of chances, just one other leading out of it for the frulein. I followed him up the steps. The portico open at either end, framed in delicious pictures.

The waiter led me through a spacious boarded hall, where a narrow table along one side told of recent supper, through intricate passages, across little inner coats with shrubs on greenery and blue sky above,

and lilacly bushes in tubs looking as though they had to pretend they were orange trees, and that this was Italy, and that the white plaster walls so moldy in places, were the marble walls of some classic baths. Up strange stairs that sloped alarmingly to one side along more passages, and throwing open one of the many small white doors, said with pride, Here is the apartment. It is a fine, a big, a splendid apartment. The apartment was of the sort that produces an immediate determination in the breast of him,

to whom it is offered to die sooner than occupy it. Sleep in its gloomy recesses and particular bed, I would not. sooner would i brave the authorities and taking my hold all for a pillow go out to the grasshoppers for the night in spite of the waiter's assertion made for the glory of the house that this was the one room unoccupied i saw other rooms perhaps smaller but certainly vacant lurking in his eye therefore i said firmly show me something else the house was nearly all at my disposal i found it is roomy and there were hardly a dozen people staying in it i chose a room with windows opening into the portico through whose white columns i would be able to see a series of peaceful country pictures as i lay in bed the boats were bare and the bed was covered with another of those parti-coloured quills that suggest a desire to dissemble spots rather than wash them out the greek temple was certainly primitive and would hardly appeal to any but the simplest meekest of tourists i hope i am simple and meeked i felt as though i must be as i looked round this room and new

that of my own free will i was going to sleep in it and not only sleep in it but be very happy in it it was the series of pictures between the columns that had fascinated me while gaitreel was downstairs superintenting the bringing up of the luggage i leaned out of one of my windows and examined the delights i was quite close to the blue and white squires of the portico's ceiling and looking down i saw its grass-grown pavement and the head of a pensive tourist drinking beer just beneath me here again big lilac bushes planted at intervals between the columns did duty for orange trees the north end framed the s the sky and fields and distant church. The south end had a picture of luminous water shining through beach leaves. The pair of columns in front and closed the chestnut-lined road, we had come along on the outermost white houses of Putpus among dark trees against the sunset on high ground behind. Through those on the left water,

the sea hardly sea here at all the bay is so sheltered and hardly salt at all for grass unrushes touched just then by the splendor of light into a transient divine brightness lay all along the shore truly the light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun i thought allowed i suppose for get-truth coming in with the hold-all said did the gracious one speak quite unable to repeat this rapturous conviction to geth truth i changed it into a modest request that she should order supper how often in these grey autumn days have i turned my face away from the rain on the window and the mournful mistiness of the november feels or my mind from the talk of the person next to me to think with the smile of the beauty of that supper not that i had beautiful things to eat for lengthy consultations with the waiter let only to eggs, but they were brought down steep steps to a little nook among the beaches at the water's edge, and this little nook on that particular evening was the loveliest in the world. Enthusiastically, did I eat those eggs, and murmur, earth has not anything to show more fair, as much, that is, of it as could be,

made to apply. Nobody could see me or hear me down there, screened at the sides on back and overhead by the beaches, and it is an immense comfort secretly to coat. What did it matter if the tablecloth were damp, besides having other imperfections? What if the eggs cool down at once, and cool eggs have always been an abomination to me. What if the waiter forgot the sugar, and I dislike coffee without sugar? Sooner than go up and search for him and lose one moment of that rosy splendor on the water, I felt that I would go forever sugarless. My table was nearly on a level with the sea. A family of ducks were slowly paddling about in front of me, making little furrows in the quiet water and giving an occasional placid quack. The ducks, the water, the island of Wilm opposite, the Lauterbach, jetty, half a mile off across the little bay with a crowd of fisher boats moored near.

it all were on fire with the same red radiance the sun was just down and the sky behind the dark putbus woods was a marvel of solemn glory the reflections of the beech trees i was sitting under lay black along the water i could hear the fishermen talking over at the jetty and a child calling on the island so absolute was the stillness and almost before i knew how beautiful it was the rosiness faded off the island lingered a moment longer on the mass of the fisher boats gathered at last only in the pools among the rushes died away altogether the sky paled to green a few stars looked out faintly a light winkle in the sun the solitary house on bilm and the waiter came down and asked if he should bring a lamp a lamp as though all one ever wanted was to see the tiny circle round oneself to be able to read the evening paper or write postcards to one's friends or so i have a peculiar capacity for doing nothing and yet enjoying myself to sit there and look out into what whitman calls the huge unthoughtful night was a comely and sufficient occupation for the best part of me and as for the rest the inferior or domestic part the fingers that might have been busy the tongue that might have wagged the superficial bit of brain in daily use for the planning of trivialities how good it is that all that should often be idle with an impatience that surprised him i refuse the waiter's lamp

End of Chapter 1, Part 2 Section 2 of the Adventures of Elizabeth in Roigen This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org The second day,

Leutabach and Film A ripe experience of German pillows in country places leads me to urge the intending traveler to be sure to take his own. The native pillows are mere bags in which feathers may have been once. There is no substance in them at all. They are of a horrid flabbiness. And they have, of course, the common drawback of all public pillows.

They are haunted by the nightmares of other people. A pillow, it is true, takes up a great deal of room in one's luggage. But in Royan, however simply you dress, you are better dressed than the others, so that you need to take hardly any clothes. My hold-all, not a specially big one, really did hold all I wanted. The pillow filled one side of it and my bathing things, a great part of the other. And I was away eleven days, yet I am sure I was admirably clean the whole time, and I defy anyone to say my garments were not both. appropriate and irreproachable. Towards the end, it is true, Gertrude had to mend and brush a good deal.

But those are two of the things that she is there for, and it is infinitely better to be comfortable at night than, by leaving the pillow at home, and bringing dresses in its place, be more impressive by day. And let no one visit Roygan, who is not of that meek and lowly character, that would always prefer a good pillow to a diversity of raiment, and has no prejudices about its food. Having eased my conscience by these hints, which he will find invaluable to the traveler, I can now go on to say that except for the pillow I would have had, if I had not brought my own, for the colored quilt, for the water to wash with brought in a very small coffee pot, and for the breakfast, which was as cold and repellent, as in some moods some persons find the world.

My experiences of the hotel were pleasing. It is true that I spent most of the day, as I shall presently relate, away from it, and it is also true that in the searching light of morning, I saw much that had been hidden. Scraps of paper line about the grass near the house. an automatic bonbon machine in the form of a brooding hen and an automatic weighing machine both at the top of the very steps leading down to the nook that had been the night before enchanted

and were shock of all an electric bell piercing the heart of the very beech tree under which I had sat but the beauties are so many and so great that if a few of them are spoilt there are still enough left to make launderback one of the most delightful places conceivable. The hotel was admirably quiet. No tourists arrived late, and those already in it seemed to go to bed extraordinarily early. For when I came up from the water soon after ten, the house was so silent that instinctively I stole along the passages on the tips of my toes, and for no reason that I could discover felt

conscience-stricken. Gertrude, too, appeared to think it was unusually late. She was waiting for me at the door with a lamp, and seemed to expect me to look conscience-stricken. Also, she had rather the expression of the resigned and forgiving wife of an incorrigible evil-doer. I went into my room much pleased that I am not a man and need not have a wife who forgives me. The windows were left wide open, and all night through my dreams I could hear the sea, gently rippling among the rushes. At six in the morning, a train down at the station hidden behind the chestnuts began to shunt and to whistle, and as it did not leave off, and I could not sleep till it did, I got up and sat at the window and amused myself watching the pictures between the columns in the morning sunlight. A solid

mower in the meadow was very busy with his scythe, but its swishing could not be heard through the shunting. At last the train steamed away and peace settled down again over Lauterbach. The scythe swished audibly. The larks sang rapturously, and I felt to say in my prayers, for indeed it was a day to be grateful for, and the sea was the deepest, divinest blue. The bathing at Lauterbach is certainly perfect. You walk along a footpath on the edge of low cliffs, shaded all the way from the door of the hotel to the bathing huts by the beech wood, the water heaving and shining just below you. The island of Philem opposite, the distant headland of Tiso, a hazy violet line between the misty blues of sea and sky in front. And at your feet,

moss and grass and dear common flowers flecked with the dancing lights and shadows of a beech wood when the sun is shining oh this is perfect i exclaimed to gertrude for on a fine fresh morning one must exclaim to somebody she was behind me on the narrow path her arms full of towels and bathing things won't you bathe too afterwards Gertrude? Can you resist it? But Gertrude evidently could resist it very well. She glanced at the living loveliness of the sea with an eye that clearly saw in it only a thing that made dry people wet. If she had been Dr. Johnson, she would boldly have answered, Madam, I hate immersion. Being Gertrude, she pretended that she had a cold. Well, tomorrow then, I said hopefully, but she said colds hung about her for days.

Well, as soon as you have gotten over it, I said, persistently and odiously helpful, but she became prophetic and said she would never get over it. The bathing huts are in a row far enough away from the shore to be in deep water. You walk out to them along a little footbridge of planks and find a sunburnt woman, amiable as all the people seem to be who have their business in deep waters and she takes care of your things and drives them for you and provides you with anything you have forgotten and charges you twenty fennings at the end for all her attentions as well as the bath the fatherest hut is the one to get if you can another invaluable hint it is very roomy and has a sofa a table and a big looking-glass and one window opening to the south and one to the east. Through the east window you see the line of low cliffs with the woods above till they melt into a green plain that stretches off into vagueness towards the haze of Tiso. Through the

south window you see the little island of Philem with its one house set about with cornfields and its woods on the high ground at the back. sat on the steps knitting while I swam round among the jellyfish and thought of Marianne North. How right she was about the bathing and the colors and the crystal clearness of the water in that sandy cove. The bathing woman leaned over the handrail watching me with a sympathetic smile. She wore a white sunbonnet, and it looked so well against the sky that I wish Gertrude could be persuaded to put one on two in place of her uninteresting and imminently respectable. black bonnet. I could have stayed there for hours perfectly happy floating on the sparkling stuff.

And I did stay there for nearly one, with a result that I climbed up the cliff, a chilled and saddened woman, and sat contemplating the blue tips of my fingers while the waiter brought breakfast, and thought, what a pitiful thing it was to have blue fingertips. instead of rejoicing, as I would have done after a ten minutes swim in the glorious fact that I was alive at all on such a morning. The cold tea, cold eggs, and hard rolls did not make me more cheerful. I sat under the beaches, where I had had supper the night before, and shivered in my thickest coat with the July sun blazing on the water and striking brilliant colors out of the sails of the passing fisher boats. The hotel dog came along the shingle with his tongue out and lay down near me in the

shade. Visitors from Putwos arriving in an omnibus for their morning bathed, passed by fanning themselves with their hats. The Putbus visitors come down every morning in a sort of wagonette to bathe and walk back slowly up the hill to dinner. After this exertion they think they have done enough for their health and spend the rest of the day sleeping or sitting out of doors drinking beer and coffee. I think this is quite a good way of spending a holiday if you have worked hard all the rest of the year, and the tourist I saw looked as if they had. More of them stay at Putwuss than at Lauterbach, although it is so much farther from the sea, because the hotel I was at was slightly dearer than I ought rather to say,

judging from the guidebook, not quite so cheap as the Put-Wos Hotels. I suppose it was less full than it might be because of this slight difference, or perhaps there was the slight difference because it was less full. Who shall solve such mysteries? Anyhow, the traveller need not be afraid of the bill, for when I engaged our rooms, the waiter was surprised that I refused to put myself on Pension, and explained in quite an aggrieved voice that all the Herrshaften put themselves on Pension, and he hoped I did not think five marks a day for everything a too expensive arrangement. I praise the arrangement as just and excellent and said that, being a bird of passage, I would prefer not to make it.

After breakfast, I set out to explore the gore, the lovely beechwoods stretched, along the coast from the very doors of the hotel. I started so briskly down the footpath on the edge of the cliffs in the hope of getting warm, that tourists who were warm already and were sitting under the trees gasping stared at me reproachfully as I hurried past. The gore is beautiful. The path I took runs through thick shade with many windings and presently comes out at the edge of the wood down by the sea in a very hot sheltered corner where the sun beats all day long on the shingle and coarse grass. A solitary oak tree, old and storm-beaten, stands by itself near the water. Across the water is the wooded side of film, and if you continue along the shingle a few yards,

you are away from the trees and out on a grassy plain where lilac scabrius bend their delicate stalks in the wind. An old black fishing smack lay on its side on the shingle, its boards blistered by the sun. Its blackness and the dark lines of the solitary oak sharply cleft the flood of brilliant light. What a hot, happy corner to lie in all day with a book. No tourist go to it, for the path leads to nowhere, ending abruptly just there in the coarse grass and shingle, a mixture grievous to the feet of the easily tired. The usual walk for those who have enough energy, it is not a very long one and does not need much,

is through the gore to the north side, where the path takes you to the edge of a clover field, across from which you see the little village of filmnets, nestling among its trees and rye, and then brings you back gently and comfortably and shadily to the hotel. but this turning to the right only goes down to the shingle, the old boat, and the lonely oak. The first thing to do in that hot corner is to pull off your coat, which I did. And if you like heat and dislike blue fingertips and chilled marrows,

lie down on the shingle, draw your hat over your eyes, and bake luxuriously, which I did also. In the pocket of my coat was the prelude, the only book I had brought. I brought it because I know of no other book that is at the same time so slender and so satisfying. It slips even into a woman's pocket and has an extraordinarily filling effect on the mind. Its green limp covers are quite worn with the journeys it has been with me. I take it wherever I go. And I have read it and read it for many summers without yet having entirely

assimilated its adorable stodginess, oh shade of Wordsworth, to think that's so unutterable a grub and grob as I am should dare call anything of thine stodgy. But it is this very stodginess that makes it, if you love Wordsworth, the perfect book, where there can be only one. You must, to enjoy it, be first a lover of Wordsworth. You must love the uninspired poems for the sake of the divinness of the inspired poems, you must be able to be interested in the description of Simon Lee's personal appearance and not mind his wife, an aged woman being made to rhyme with the village common. Even the idiot boy should not be a stumbling block to you. And you're having learned the pet lamb in the nursery is no reason why you should dislike it now. They all have their beauties.

there is always some gem more or less bright to be found in them. And the pages of the prelude are strewn with precious jewels. I have had it with me so often in happy country places that merely to open it and read that first cry of relief and delight, oh, there is blessing in this gentle breeze, brings back the dearest remembrances of fresh and joyous hours, and how wholesome to be. reminded when the days are raining and things look blank, of the many joyous hours one has had,

every instant of happiness is a precious possession forever. That morning my prelude fell open at the residence in London, a part where the gems are not very thick, and the satisfying properties extremely developed. My eye lighted on the bit where he goes for a walk in the London streets. And besides a nurse, a bachelor, a military addler, and a dame with decent steps, figures with which I too am familiar, he sees, with a basket at his breast, the Jew, the stately, slow-moving Turk with freight of slipper piled beneath his arm, the Swede, the Russian, from the genial south, the Frenchman and the Spaniard, from remote America, the Hunter Indian, Moors, Malays, Lascars, the Tartar, the Chinese,

and Negro ladies in white muslin gowns. Figures which are not, at any rate, to be met in the streets of Berlin. I'm afraid to say that this is not poet. for perhaps it is only I do not know it. But after all, one can only judge according to one's lights. And no degree of faintness and imperfection in the lights will ever stop anyone from judging. Therefore, I will have the courage of my opinions and express my firm conviction that it is not poetry at all. But the passage set me off musing, that is the pleasant property of the prelude. It makes one at the end of every few lines, pause, and muse,

and presently the image of the negro ladies in their white muslin gowns faded. And those other lines, children of the self-same spirit but conceived in the mood when it was divine, stood out in shining letters, not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter naked. I need not go on. It is sacrilege to write them down in such a setting of commonplaceness. I could not say them aloud to my closest friend with a steady voice. They are lines that seem to come fresh from God. And now I know that the Negro ladies, whatever their exact poetic value may be, had become a very real blessing to an obscure inhabitant of Prussia, for in the future I shall only need to see the passage to be back instantaneously on the hot shingle with the tarred edge of the old boat above me

against the sky, the blue water curling along the shore at my feet, and the pale lilac flowers on the delicate stalks bending their heads in the wind. About twelve, the sun drove me away. The backs of my hands began to feel as though they proposed to go into blisters. I could not lie there and deliberately be blistered, so I got up and wandered back to the hotel to prepare Gertrude for a probably prolonged absence, as I intended to get across somehow to the island of Philem. Having begged her to keep calm if I did not appear again till bedtime, I took the guidebook and set out. The way to the jetty is down a path through the meadow close to the water, with willows on one side of it and rushes on the other.

Ten minutes you have reached Lottabak, seen some ugly little new houses where tourists lodge, seen some delightful little old houses where fishermen live, paid ten fennings toll to a smiling woman at the entrance to the jetty, on whom it is useless to waste immobilities, she being absolutely deaf. And having walked out to the end, begin to wonder how you are going to get across. There were fishing smacks at anchor on one side, and a brig from Sweden was being unloaded. A small steamer lay at the end, looking as though it meant to start soon for somewhere, but on my asking an official who was sitting on a coil of ropes staring at nothing,

if it would take me to fill him, he replied that he did not go to fill him, but would be pleased to take me to Baba, never having heard of Bob. I had no desire to go to it. He then suggested Greifswald and said he went there the next day. And when I declined to be taken to Griefsvold the next day, instead of Tefillum, that day, he looked as though he thought me unreasonable, and relapsed into his first abstraction. A fisherman was lounging near, leaning against one of the posts, and also staring straight into space. and when I turned away he roused himself enough to ask if I would use his smack. He pointed to it where it lay a little way out, a big boat with the bright brown sails that make such brilliant splashes of color in the surrounding blues and whites.

There was only a faint breeze, but he said he could get me across in 20 minutes and would wait for me all day if I liked, and would charge only three marks. Three marks for a whole fishing smack with great. golden sails, and a fisherman with a golden beard, blue eyes, stalwart body, and whose remote grandparents had certainly been Vikings. I got into his stingy without further argument and was rode across to the smack. A small Viking, appropriately beardless, he being only ten, but with freckles, put his head out of the cabin as we drew alongside, and was presented to me as the eldest of five sons. Father and son made a comfortable place for me in a not too fishy part of the boat, hauled up the huge poetic sail,

and we glided out beyond the jetty. This is the proper way, the only right way to visit Philem, the most romantic of tiny islands. Who would go to it any other way, but with a Viking and a golden sail? Yet there is another way I found out, and it is the one most used. It is a small launch plying between Lauterbach and Philem, worked by a machine that smells very nasty and makes a great noise. And, as it is a narrow long boat, if there are even small waves, it rolls so much that the female passengers, and sometimes even the male, scream. Also, the spray flies over it and drenches you. In calm weather, it crosses swiftly, doing the distance in ten minutes. My smack. took 20 to get there, and much longer to get back. But what a difference in the joy. The puffing little

launch rush past us when we were midway, when I should not have known that we were moving, but for the slight shining ripple across the boughs, and the thud of its machine and the smell of its benzene were noticeable for a long time after it had dwindled to a dot. The people in it certainly got to their destination quickly, but Philem is not a place to hurry to. There is nothing whatever on it to attract the hurried, to rush across the sea to it, and back again to one's train at Lauterbach is not to have felt its singular charm. It is a place to dream away, a summer in, but the wide-awake tourist visiting it between two trains would hardly know how to fill up the three hours allotted him you can walk right around it in three quarters of an hour in three quarters of an hour you can have seen each of the views considered fine and accordingly provided with a seat

have said oh there is tiso again on looking over the sea to the east and oh there is putt-wis again on looking over the sea to the west and oh that must be gryffswald on remarking far away in the south the spires of churches rising up out of the water. You will have had ample time to smile at the primitiveness of the bathing hut on the east shore to study the names of past bathers scribbled over it, besides poems, valedictory addresses, and quotations from the German classics, to sit for a little on the rocks thinking how hard the rocks are, and at length to wander around in sheer inability to fill up the last hour to the inn, the only house on the island, where at one of the tables under the chestnuts before the door, you would probably drink beer till the launch starts. But that is not the way to enjoy, Philem. If you love out-of-door beauty,

wide stretches of sea and sky, mighty beaches, dense bracken, meadows, radiant with flowers, chalky levels purple with gentians, solitude, and economy, go and spend a summer at Philem. The inn is kept by one of Prince Putbuss's foresters, or rather by his amiable and obliging wife. The foresters' functions being apparently restricted to standing, picturesquely propped against a tree, in front of the house, in a nice green shooting suit, with a telescope at his eyes. through which he studies the approaching or departing launch. His wife does the rest. I sat at one of the tables beneath the chestnuts waiting for my food. I had to wait a very long while, and she came out and talked. The season, she explained, was short, lasting two months, July and August at the longest,

so that her prices were necessarily high. I inquired what they were, and she said five marks a day for a front room looking over the sea, and four marks and a half for a back room looking over the forest, the price, including four meals. Out of the season, her charges were lower. She said most of her visitors were painters, and she said she could put up four and twenty with their wives. My luncheon came while she was still trying to find out if I were a female painter, and if not, why was I there alone instead of being one of a batch, after the manner of the circumspect pedicoted. And I will only say of the luncheon that it was abundant. Its quality after all did not matter much. The rye grew up to within a yard of my table and made a quivering golden line of light

against the blue sparkle of the sea. White butterflies danced above it. The breeze coming over blue sweet country smells in my face. The chestnut leaves shading me, rustled and whispered, all the world was gay and fresh and scented. And if the traveler does not think these delights make up for doubtful cookery, why does he travel? Frau Forrester insisted on showing me the bedrooms. They are simple and very clean, each one with a beautiful view. The rest of the house, including the dining room, does not lend itself to enthusiasm. description. I saw the long table at which the four and twenty painters eat. They were doing it when I looked in and had been doing it the whole time I was under the chestnuts. It was not because of the many

dishes that they sat there so long, but because of the few waiters. There were at least 40 people learning to be patient, and one waiter and a boy to drive the lesson home. The bathing too at Philem cannot be mentioned in the same breath with the glorious bathing at Lauterbach. There is no smiling attendant in a white sun bonnet waiting to take your things and dry them to rub you down when you come out shivering, and if needful jump in and pull you out when you begin to drown. At Philem, the bathing hut lies on the east shore, and you go to it across a meadow. The divinest strip of meadow, it is true, with the sea behind you and the sea before you, and cattle pasturing, and a general radiant air about it,

as though at any moment the daughters of the gods might come over the buttercups to bleach their garments whiter in the sun. But beautiful as it is, it is a very hot walk, and there is no path, except the path through the rye from the landing stage up to the inn, there is not a regular path on the island, only a few tracks here and there where the cows are driven home in the evening, and to reach the bathing hut you must plunge straight through meadow grass and not mind grasshoppers hopping onto your clothes. Then the water is so shallow, just there that you must wade quite a dangerous-looking distance before lying down.

It will cover you, and while you are waiting, altogether unable, as he who has weighted knows, to hurry your steps. However urgent the need, you blush to think that some or all of the four and twenty painters are probably sitting on rocks observing you. Waiting back, of course, you blush still more. I never saw so frank a bathing place. It is beautiful, in a lovely curve, cliffs clothed with beaches on one side, and the radiant meadow along the back of the rocks on the other. But the whole island can see you if you go out far enough to be able to see. swim, and if you do not, you are still a conspicuous object, and a very miserable one, bound to catch any wandering eye as you stand there alone, towering out of the water that washes just over your ankles. I sat in the shadow of the cliffs and watched two girls who

came down to bathe. They did not seem to feel their position at all, and splashed into the water with shrieks and laughter that rang through the mellow afternoon air. So it was that I saw how shallow it is and how embarrassing it would be to the dignified to bathe there. The girls had no dignity and were not embarrassed. Probably one or two of the four and twenty were their fathers, and that made them feel at home. Or perhaps, and watching them, I began to think that this was so. They would rather have liked to be looked at by those of the painters who were not their fathers. Anyhow, they danced and laughed and called to each.

each other, often glancing back inquiringly at the cliffs, and indeed they were very pretty, in their little scarlet suits in the sapphire frame of the sea. I sat there long after the girls were clothed and transformed into quite uninteresting young women, and had gone their way noisily up the grass slope into the shadows of the beaches. The afternoon's stillness was left to itself again, undisturbed by anything louder than the slow ripple of the water round the base of the rocks. Sometimes a rabbit scuttled up the side of the cliff, and once a hawk cried somewhere up among the little clouds. The shadows grew very long, the shadows of the rocks on the water,

looked as though they would stretch across to Tiso before the sun had done with them. Out at sea, far away beyond the hazy headland, a long streak of smoke hung above the track where a steamer had passed on the way to Russia. I wish I could fill my soul with enough of the serenity of such afternoons to keep it sweet forever. Philem consists of two wooded hills joined together by a long, narrow, flat strip of land. This strip beyond the meadow and its fringing trees is covered with coarse grass and stones, and little shells, clumps of wild fruit trees scattered about it here and there, look as if they knew what roughing it is like.

The sea washes over it in the winter, when the wind is strong from the east, and among the trees are frequent skeletons, dead fruit trees these many seasons passed, with the tortured look peculiar to blasted trees, menacing the sky with gaunt, impotent arms. After struggling along this bit, stopping every few minutes to shake the shells out of my shoes, I came to uneven ground, soft green grass, and beautiful trees, a truly lovely part at the foot of the southern hill. Here I sat down for a moment to take the last shells out of my shoes and to drink things in. I had not seen a soul since the bathing girls, and suppose that most of the people staying at the inn would not care on hot afternoons to walk over the prickly grass and shells

that must be walked over before reaching the green coolness of the end. And while I was comfortably supposing this, in shaking my shoes slowly up and down and thinking how delightful it was to have the charming place to myself, I saw a young man standing on a rock under the east cliff of the hill. in the very act of photographing the curving strip of land with the sea, each side of it, and myself in the middle. Now, I am not one of those who like being photographed much and often. At intervals that grow longer, I go through the process at the instant prayers of my nearest and dearest, but never other than deliberately. After due choice of fitting attitude and garments, the Kodak and the instantaneous,

Penaeous photograph taken before one has had time to arrange one's smile are things to be regarded with abhorrence by every woman whose faith in her attractions is not unshakable. Movements so graceful that the early Victorians would have described them as swan-like. Those early Victorians who wore ringlets curled their upper lips, had marble brows, and were called Georgiana. movements, I say, originally swan-like in grace, are translated by the irreverent snapshot into a caricature that to the photograph appears not even remotely like and fills the photographs friends with an awful secret joy. What manner of young man is this, I asked myself, examining him with indignation?

He stood on the rock for a moment, looking about as if for another good subject, and finally his eye alighted on me. Then he got off his rock and came towards me. What manner of young man is this? I again asked myself, putting on my shoe in haste and wrath. He was coming to apologize, I supposed, having secured his photograph. He was.

I sat gazing severely at Tiso. There is no running away from vain words or from anything else on an island. He was a tall young man, and, there was something indefinable and reassuring about his collar. I am so sorry, he said, with great politeness, I did not notice you. Of course I did not intend to photograph you. I shall destroy the film. At this I felt hurt.

Being photographed without permission is bad, but being told your photograph is not wanted and will be destroyed is worse. He was a very personable young man. and I like personable young men. From the way he spoke German and from his collar, I judged him English. And I like Englishmen. And he had addressed me as Gennaticus Fowlein,

and what mother of a growing family does not like that? I did not see you, I said, not without blandness, touched by his youth and innocence. Or I should have gotten out of your way. I shall destroy the film, he again assured me. and lifted his cap and went back to the rocks. Now if I stayed where I was, he could not photograph the strip again,

for it was so narrow that I would have been again included, and he was evidently bent on getting a picture of it and fidgeted about among the rocks waiting for me to go. So I went, and as I climbed up the south hill under the trees, I mused on the pleasant slow manners of Englishmen, who talk and move as though life were very spacious, and time may as well wait. Also I wondered how he found this remote island. I was inclined to wonder that I had found it myself, but how much more did I wonder that he had found it?

There are many rabbit holes under the trees at the south end of Philem, and I disturbed no fewer than three snakes, one after the other in the long grass. They were of the harmless con, but each in turn made me jump and shiver, and after the third I had had enough, and clambered down the cliff on the west side, and went along at the foot of it, towards the father's point of the island, with the innocent intention of seeing what was round the corner. The young man was round the corner, and I walked straight into another photograph. I heard the camera snap at the very instant that I turned the bend. This time he looked at me with something of a grave inquiry in his eye. I assure you, I do not want to be photographed, I said hastily. I hope you believe that I did not

intend to do it again, he replied. I am very sorry, said I. I shall destroy the film, said he. It seems a great waste of film, said I. The young man lifted his cap. I continued my way among the rocks eastward. He went steadily in the opposite direction. Around the other side of the hill, we met again. Oh, I cried, genuinely disturbed. Have I spoiled another? The young man smiled, certainly a very personable young man, and explained that the light was no longer strong enough to do any more. Again in this explanation, did he call me Gnerius Freiline, and again I was touched by so much innocence, and his German too was touching. It was so conscientiously grammatical, so laboriously put together, so like pieces of Gerta learn by heart.

By this time the sun hung low over the houses of Putwuss, and the strip of sand with its coarse grass and weather-beaten trees was turned by the golden flush into a ferry bridge, spanning a mystic sea, joining two wonderful shining islands. We walked along with all the radiance in our faces. It is, as I have observed, impossible to get away from anyone on an island that is small enough. We were both going back to the inn, and the strip of land is narrow. Therefore, we went together, and what that young man talked about the whole way in the most ponderous German was the absolute.

I can't think what I have done that I should be talked to for 20 minutes by a nice young man who mistook me for a fraulein about the absolute. He evidently thought the innocence of him that being German I must, whatever my sex, and the shape of my head, be interested. I don't know how it began. It was certainly not my fault. For till that day, I had had no definite attitude in regard to it. Of course I did not tell him that. Age has at least made me artful. A real frulein would have looked as vacant as she felt. and have said, what is the absolute? Being a matron and artful, I simply looked thoughtful. Quite an easy thing to do, and said,

how do you define it? He said he defined it as a negation of the conceivable. Continuing in my artfulness, I said that there was much to be said for that view of it, and asked how he had reached his conclusions. He explained elaborately, Clearly, he took me to be an intelligent frulein, and indeed I gave myself great pains to look like one. It appeared that he had a vast admiration for everything German, and especially for German erudition.

Well, we are very erudite in places. Unfortunately, no erudition comes up my way. My acquaintances do not ask the erudite to dinner. one of the reasons, as insufficient as the rest, being that they either wear day clothes in the evening or, if worldly enough to dress, mar the effect by white satin ties with horseshoe pins in them, and another is that they are liberals and therefore uninvitable. When the unknown youth, passing naturally from Kant and the older philosophers, to the great Germans now living, enthusiastically mentioned the leading lights,

in science and art, and asked if I knew them or had ever seen them, the mere seeing of them, he seemed to think, would be a privilege. I could only murmur no. How impossible to explain to the skyon of an unprejudiced race the limitless objection of the class called Juncker. I am a female yonker, to mix on equal terms with a class that wears white satin ties in the evening. But it is obvious that a man who can speak with the tongue of angels, who has put his seal on a sentry, and who will be remembered when we have returned, forgotten, to the Prussian dust, from which we came, or rather not forgotten, because we were at no time remembered, but simply ignored. It is obvious that such a man may wear what tie he pleases when he comes to dine, and still ought to be received on

metaphorical knees of reverence and gratitude. Probably, however, if we live in the country, and think no end of ourselves, did invite such a one, and whether there were hostesses on knees waiting for him or not, he would not come. How bored he would be if he did. He would find us full of those excellences, Pater calls, the more obvious parochial virtues, jealous, to madness of sensitive and bloodthirsty appendage known as our honor exact in the observance of minor conventionalities correct in our apparel rigid in our views and in our effect uninterruptedly so perific the man who had succeeded in pushing his thoughts farther into the region of the hither to unthought than any of his contemporaries would not i think if he came once come again but

it is supposing the impossible, after all, to suppose him invited. For all the great ones of whom the unknown youth taught, are liberals, and all the yunkers are conservatives. And how shall a German conservative be the friend of a German liberal? The thing is unthinkable, like the young man's own definition of the absolute. It is a negation of the conceivable. By the time we had reached the chestnut grove in front of the inn, I had said so little that my companion was sure I was one of the most intelligent women he had ever met. I know he thought so, for he turned suddenly to me, as we were walking past the Frau Forster's wash house and rose garden up to the chestnuts and said, How is it that German women are so infinitely more intellectual than English women?

intellectual how nice and all the result of keeping quiet in the right places i did not know they were i said modestly which was true oh but they are he assured me with great positiveness and added perhaps you have noticed that i am english noticed he was english from the moment i first saw his collar i suspected it from the moment he opened his mouth and spoke i knew it and And so did everybody else under the chestnuts who heard him speaking as he passed. But why not please this artless young man? So I looked at him with a raised eyebrows of intense surprise and said, Oh, are you English? I have been a good deal in Germany, he said, looking happy. But it is extraordinary, I said.

It is not so very difficult, he said, looking more and more happy. But really not German? Faberavad. The young man's belief in my intelligence was now unshakable. The frau forester, who had seen me disembark and set out for my walk alone, and who saw me now returning

with a companion of the other sex, greeted me coldly. Her coldness I felt was not unjustifiable. It is not my practice to set out by myself and come back telling youths I have never seen before that their accomplishments are fabo half i began to feel coldly towards myself and turning to the young man said goodbye with some abruptness are you going in he asked i'm not staying here

but the launch does not start for an hour i go across two then i am not crossing in the launch i came over in a fishing smack oh really he seemed to meditate how delightfully independent he added Have you not observed that the German frulein is as independent as she is intellectual? No, I have not. That is just where I think the Germans are so far behind us. Their women have nothing like the freedom ours have. What? Not when they sail about all alone in fishing smacks? That certainly is unusually enterprising. May I see you safely into it? the frau forester came towards us and told him that the food he had ordered for eight o'clock was ready no thank you i said don't bother there is a fisherman and a boy to help me in it is quite easy oh but it is no bother i will not take you away from your supper are you not going to have supper here i lunched here today so i will not sup is the reason a good one you will see good-bye

I went away down the path to the beach. The path is steep, and the corn on either side stands thick and high, and a few steps took me out of sight of the house, the chestnuts, and the young man. The smack was lying some distance out, and the dinghy was tied to her stern. The fisherman's son's head was visible in a peaceful position on a heap of ropes. It is difficult as well as embarrassing to shout, as I well knew, but somebody would have to and as nobody was there but myself, I was plainly the one to do it. I put my hands to my mouth, and not knowing the fisherman's name, called out, See? It sounded not only feeble, but rude, when I remembered the appearance of the golden-bearded Viking,

his majestic presence, and dreamy dignity. I was ashamed to find myself standing on a rock and calling him as loud as I could, C. The head on the ropes did not stir. I waved my handkerchief. The boy's eyes were shut. Again I called at sea and thought it the most offensive of pronouns. The boy was asleep, and my plaintive cry went past him over the golden ripples towards Lauterbach. Then the English man appeared against the sky up on the ridge of the cornfield. He saw my dilemma, and taking his hands out of his pockets, ran down. "'Nedegas Fraulein is in a fix,' he observed, in his admirably correct yet so painful German.

"'She is,' I said. "'Shall I shout? Please.' He shouted. The boy started up an alarm. The fisherman's huge body reared up from the depths of the boat. In two minutes the dinghy was at the little plank jetty, and I was in it. It was a very good idea to charter one of those romantic smacks to come over in, said the young man on the jetty wistfully. They're rather fishy, I replied, smiling as we pushed off.

But so very romantic. Have you not observed that the German frulein is a romantic creature? The dinghy began to move. A beautiful mixture of intelligence, independence, and romance? Are you staying at Putwuss? No, goodbye. Thanks for coming down and shouting. You know your food will be quite cold and uneatable.

I gathered from what you said before that it will be uneatable anyhow. The dinghy was moving fast. There was a rapidly widening strip of golden water between myself and the young man on the jetty. Not all of it, I said, raising my voice. Try the compote. It is a lovely compote. It is what you call in England, glorified gooseberry jam. Glorified gooseberry jam, echoed the young man.

Apparently much struck by these three English words. why, he added, speaking louder, for the golden strip had grown very wide. You said that, without the ghost of a foreign accent. Did I? The dingy shot into the shadow of the fishing smack. The Viking and the boy shipped their oars, helped me in, tied the dinghy to the stern, hoisted the sail, and we dropped away into the sunset. The young man on the distant jetty raised his cap.

He might have been a young archangel, standing there, in the center of so much glory, certainly a very personable young man. End of Section 2, read by Andrea Dase, Norfolk, Virginia. Chapter 3 of The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visitlibrovox.org. read by Mattia Brachich.

The Adventures of Elizabeth in Ruegen. by Elizabeth von Anim. The third day, from Lauterbach to Goerun. The official on the steamer at the Lauterbach jetty had offered to take me to Barber when I said I wanted to go to Vilm, and I had naturally refused the offer. Afterwards, on looking at the map, I found that Barber is a place I would have to pass anyhow, if I carried out my plan of driving right round Ruegen. The guidebook is enthusiastic about Barber, and says,

after explaining its rather odd name as meaning the Einsame, the lonely one, that it has a pine forest, a pure sea air with ozone in it, a climate both mild and salubrious, and that it works wonders on people who have anything the matter with their chests. Then it says that to lie at Barber embedded in soft dry sand, allowing one's glance to rove about the broad sea with its foam-crested waves, and the rest of one to rejoice in the strong air is an enviable thing to do. Then it bursts into poetry that goes on for a page

about the feelings of him who is embedded, written by one who has been it. And then comes the practical information that you can live at Barbe on Pension for four marks a day and that dinner costs one mark twenty phoenix. Never was there a more irrepressibly poetic guidebook. What tourist wants to be? told first how he will feel when he has embedded himself in sand. Pleasures of a subtle nature

have no attraction for him who has not dined. Before everything, the arriving tourist wants to know where he will get the best dinner and what it will cost. And not until that has been settled, will there be, if ever, raptures. The guidebook's raptures about Barber rang hollow. The relief chest sufferers would find there if they could be induced to go, and the poem of the embedded one would not, I felt, have been put in if there had been anything really solid to praise. Still, a place in the forest near the sea called the Einsama was to me at least attractive, and I said goodbye to the Lauterbach I knew and loved, and started full of hope for the barber I was all ready to love.

It was a merry day of bright sun and busy breeze. Everything was moving and glancing and fluttering. I felt cheerful to hilarity when we were fairly out in the fields that lie between the Greek temple and the village of Wilmnitz. Privately hilarious, of course, for I could not be openly so in the sober presence of Gertrude. I have observed that sweet smells and clear light and the piping of birds, all the things that make life lovely have no effect whatever on Gertrudes. They apparently neither smell nor see nor hear them. They are not merely unable to appreciate them.

They actually do not know that they are there. This complete unconsciousness of the presence of beauty is always a wonder to me. No change of weather changes my Gertrude's settled solemnity. She wears the same face. among the roses of June that she does in the nipping winds of March. The heart of May, with which every beast keeps holiday, never occupies her respectable interior. She's not more solemn on a blank February afternoon

when the world outside in its cold wrapping of mist shudders through the sodden hours than she is on such a day of living radiance as this third one of our journey. The industrious breeze lifted up the stray hairs from her forehead And gave it little pats and kisses That seemed audaciously familiar applied to a brow of such decorum. The restless poplar leaves whispered all the secrets of life in her unhearing ears. The cottage gardens of Vernitz blazed that day with the white flame of lilies

Poured their stream of scent into the road And the wind caught it up and flung it across her sober nostrils and she could not breathe without drawing in the divinesess of it, yet her face wore exactly the same expression that it does when we are passing pigs. Are the gattroods of this world, then, unable to distinguish between pigs and lilies? Do they, as they toss on its troublesome waves, smell perpetual pigs? The question interested me for at least three miles. And so much did I want to talk it over that I nearly began,

talking it over with Gertrude herself, but was restrained by the dread of offending her. For to drive round Rögen side by side with an offended Gertrude would be more than my fortitude could endure. Filmnitz is a pretty little village, and the guidebook praises both its inns. But then the guidebook praises every place it mentions. I would not myself make use of Filbnitz except as a village to be driven through on the way to somewhere else. For this purpose it is quite satisfactory, though its roads might be less sandy, for it is a flowery place with picturesque, prosperous-looking cottages, and high up on a mound the oldest church in the island.

This church dates from the 12th century, and I would have liked to go into it, but it was locked and the parson had the key, and it was the hour in the afternoon Parsons' sleep, and wisdom dictates that while they are doing it they shall be left alone. So we drove through Vilnitz in all the dignity that asks no favours and wants nothing from anybody. The road is ugly from there to a place called Stresor, but I do not mind making an ugly road if the sun will only shine, and the ugly ones are useful for making one see the beauty of the pretty ones.

There are many Han graves, big mounds with trees growing on them, and I suppose Hans inside them, round Stresor, and a monument reminding the passer-by of a battle fought there between the Prussians under the old Desauer and the Swedes. We won. It was my duty as a good German to swell with patriotic pride on beholding this memorial, and I did so. As a nation, the least thing sets us swelling with this particular sort of pride. We acquire the habit in our childhood when we imitate our parents, and on any fine Sunday afternoon, you may see whole family's standing round the victory column and the statues in the Ziegis Alley in Berlin engaged in doing it. The old Desauer is not very sharply outlined in a mind that easily forgets,

and I am afraid to say how little I know of him except that he was old at a Desauer. Yet I felt extremely proud of him and proud of Germany, and proud of myself, as I saw the place where we fought under him and won. Oh, blood and iron, I cried. glorious and potent mixture. Do you see that monument, Gertrude? It marks the spot where we Prussians won a mighty battle led by the old, the heroic Dessauer. And though Gertrude, I am positive, is even more vague about him than I am, at the mention of a Prussian victory, her face immediately and mechanically took on the familiar expression of him who is secretly swelling.

Beyond Strezold, the road was hilly and charming, with woods drawing, sometimes to the edge of it and shading us, and sometimes drawing back to the other side of meadows. And there were the first fields of yellow lupins and flower, and I had the delight to which I look forward every year as July approaches of smelling that peculiarly exquisite scent. And so we came to the region of Barber, passing first round the outskirts of Selin, a place of villas built in the woods on the east coast of Ruegen, with the sea on one side, and the big lake called the Zelenor Zee on the other. And driving round the north end of this lake,

we got on to the dullest bit of road we had yet had, running beside a railway line and roughly paved with stones, pinewards on our left, shutting out the sea, and on our right across a marshy flat the lake, and bare and dreary hills. These then were the woods of barber. Down the straight road, unpleasing even in the distance, I could see new houses standing aimlessly about, lodging houses out of sight and sound of the sea

waiting for chess sufferers, the lodging houses of the lonely one. I will not stay at Barber, I called energetically to August, who had been told we were to stop there that night. Go on to the next place. The next place is Goeren, and the guidebook's praise of it is hysterical. Filled with distrust of the guidebook, I could only hope it would be possible. possible to sleep in it, for the shadows had grown very long and there is nowhere to stop at beyond Goerun except Tiesel, the farther southern point on the island. Accordingly, we drove past the two barber hotels, little wooden houses built on the roadside facing a line, with the station

immediately opposite their windows. A train was nearly due, and intending passengers were sitting in front of the hotels drinking beer while they waited, and various conveyances had stopped there on their way to Guren or Selen. And the lonely one seemed a very noisy, busy one to me as we rattled by over the stones, and I was glad to turn off to the left at the signpost pointing towards Guren, and get on to the deep, sandy, silent forest roads. The forest, at first only pines and rather scrubby ones, stretched the whole way from Barbe to Goerun, and grows more and more beautiful. We had to drive at a walking pace because of the deep sand, but these sandy roads have the advantage of being so quiet that you can hear something besides the noise of wheels and hooves.

Not till we get to Goerun did we see the sea, but I heard it all the way, for outside the forest the breeze had freshened into a wind, and though we hardly felt to beaureen, we had to I could see it passing over the pine tops and hear how they sighed. I suppose we must have been driving an hour among the pines before we got into a region of mixed forest, beaches and oaks and an undergrowth of water berries. And then tourists began to flutter among the trees, tourists with baskets searching for berries.

So that it was certain, Guren could not be far off. We came quite suddenly upon its railway station, a small building alone in the woods, the terminus of the line whose other end is Putbos. Across the line were white dunes with young beaches bending in the wind, and beyond these dunes the sea roared. Beaches and dunes were in the full glow of the sunset. We, skirting the forest on the other side, were in deep shadow. The air was so fresh that it was almost cold. I stopped August and got out and crossed the deserted line.

and climbed up the dunes, and oh, the glorious sight on the other side, the glorious, dashing, roaring sea! What was pale Lauterbach compared to this? A mere lake, a crystal pool, a looking glass, a place in which to lie by the side of still waters and dream over your own and heaven's reflection. But here no one could dream, here was life, vigorous, stinging blood, Lustering life, and standing on the top of the dune, holding my hat on with both hands, banged and battered by the salt wind, my clothes flapping and straining like a flag and a gale on a swaying flagstaff. The weight of a generation was blown off my shoulders, and I was seized by a craving as unsuitable as it was terrific to run and fetch a spade and a bucket and dig and dig till it was too dark to dig any long. and then go indoors, tired and joyful, and have periwinkles or shrimps for tea. And behold, Gertrude, cold reminder of realities beside me, cloak in hand.

And she told me it was chilly, and she put the cloak round my unresisting shoulders, and it was heavy with the weight of hours in custom. And the sun dropped at that moment behind the forest, and all the radiance and colour went out together. you, Gertrude, I said as she wrapped me up, but though I shivered, I was not grateful. It was certainly not the moment to loiter on dunes. The horses had done enough for one day, nearly half their work having been over heavy sand, and we still had to look for our nightly quarters. Loutabah had been empty, therefore, with the illuminating logic of women, I was sure

Guren would have plenty of room for us. It had not. The holidays had just begun and the place swarmed with prudent families who had taken their rooms weeks before. Guren is built on a very steep hill that drops straight down onto the sands. The hill is so steep that we got out and August led or rather pulled the horses up it. Luckily the forest road we came by runs along the bottom of the hill and when we came out of the trees and found ourselves without the least warning of stray houses or lamp-posts in the heart of Guren, we had to climb up the road and not drive down it. Driving down it must be impossible, especially for horses which, like mine, never see a hill in their own home. When we had got safely to the top, we left August and the horses to get their wind,

and set out to engage rooms in a hotel, the guidebook says, is it. the best. There is practically only that one street in Guren, and it is lined with hotels and lodging houses, and down at the bottom, between the overarching trees, the leaden waves were dashing on the deserted sands. People were having supper. Whatever place we passed at whatever hour during the entire tour, people were always having something. The hotel I had chosen was in a garden, and the windows evidently had lovely views over the green carpet of the level tree tops. As I walked up to the door, I pointed to the windows of the bedroom I thought must be the nicest, and told Gertrude it was the one I should take.

It was a cold evening and the bath guests were supping indoors. There was no hall porter or anyone else whom I could ask for what I wanted, so he had to go into the restaurant, where the hold strength of the establishment was apparently concentrated. The room was crowded and misty with the fumes of suppers. All the children of Germany seemed to be gathered in this one spot, putting knives into their artless mouths, even when it was only sauce they wanted to eat, and devouring their soup with a passionate enthusiasm.

I explained my wishes, grown suddenly less ardent, rather falteringly to the nearest waiter. All the children of Germany lifted their heads out of their soup plates to listen. The waiter referred me to the head waiter. Embarrassed I repeated my wishes, cooled down to the point where they almost ceased to be wishes, to this person, and all the children of Germany sat with their knives suspended in the air and their mouths open while I did it. The head waiter told me I could have the rooms on the 15th of August, it was then the 17th of July, at which date the holidays ended and the families went home.

Oh, thank you, thank you, that will do beautifully, I cried, only too grateful that the families had left no corner unoccupied into which I might have felt obliged by the lateness of the hour to force my shrinking limbs. And hurrying to the door, I could hear how all the children of Germany's heads seemed to splash back again into their soup plates. But my pleasure at not being doomed to stay there was foolish, as I quickly perceived, for stay somewhere I must, and the guidebook was right when it said this was the best hotel. Outside in the windy street, August and the horses were waiting patiently. The stars were coming out in the pale green of the sky over Geren, but from the east the night was dragging up a great curtain of chill black cloud.

For the best part of an hour, Gertrude and I went from one hotel to another, from one lodging house to another. The hotels all promised rooms if I would call again in four weeks' time. The lodging houses only laughed at our request for a night's shelter. They said they never took in people who were not going to stay the entire season, and who did not bring their own bedding. Their own bedding! What a complication of burdens to lay a. on the back of the patient father of a family.

Did a holiday maker with a wife and, say, four children have to bring six sets of bedding with him? Six sets of teutonic bedding stuffed with feathers? Six pillows, six of those wedge-like things to put under pillows called keelkisson, and six quilted coverlets with insides of eiderdown if there was a position to keep up, and of wadding if public opinion could afford to be defied. Yet the lodging houses were full, and that there were small children in them was evident from the frequency

with which the sounds that accompanied the act of correction floated out into the street. We found a room at last in the gloomiest hotel in the place. Only one room under the roof in a kind of tower with eight beds in it and no space for anything else. August had no room at all and slept with his horses in the stable. There was one small iron washstand, a thing of tears with a basin at the top, a soap dish beneath it, underneath that a water bottle,

and not an inch more space in which to put a sponge or a nail brush. In the passage outside the door was a chest of drawers reserved for the use of the occupiers of this room. It was by the merest chance that we got even this, the arrival of the family who had taken it for six weeks having been delayed for a day or two. They were coming the very next day, eight of them, and were all going to spend six weeks in that one room, which, said the landlord, explains the presence of so many beds. But it does not explain the presence of so many beds in one room, I objected, gazing at them resentfully from the only corner where there were none.

"'The Herrshaftern are content,' he said shortly. "'They return every year.' "'And they are content, too, with only one of these,' I inquired, pointing to the extremely condensed wash-stamp. The landlord stared. "'There is the sea,' he said, "'not without impatience at being forced to state the obvious, "'and disliking, I suppose, the tone of my remarks.

"'He hurried downstairs. "'Now it is useless for me to do so. describe Goerun for the benefit of possible travellers because I am prejudiced. I was cold there and hungry and tired and I lived in a garret. To me it will always be a place where there is a penetrating wind, a steep hill and an iron washstand in tears. Someday when the distinct vision of these things is blurred, I will order the best rooms in the best hotel several months beforehand to be kept for me till I come, wait for fair windless weather, and the passing of the holidays, and then go once more to Gervon. The place itself is, I believe, beautiful. No place with so much

sea and forest could help being beautiful. That evening the beauties were hidden, and I abruptly left the table beneath some shabby little chestnuts in front of the hotel where I was trying, in gloom and wind, not to notice the wetness of the tuesday of the tuesdays. table napkin, the stains on the cloth, and the mark on the edge of the plates where an unspeakable waiter had put his thumb and went out into the street. At a baker's I bought some rusks, dry things that show no marks, and continued down the hill to the sea. There is no cold with quite so forlorn a chill in it as a sudden interruption of July heats, and there is no place with quite so forlorn a feeling about it as deserted sands on a leaden evening.

Was it only the evening before that I had sailed away from film in glory and in joy, leaving the form of the abstruse but beautiful youth standing in such a golden radiance that it was as the form of an angel? Down among the dunes where the grey ribbons of the seagrass were violently fluttering, and indigo clouds lay in an unbroken level over leaden waves. I sat and ate my rusks and was wretched. My soul rebelled both at the wretchedness and at the russks. Not for these had I come to Ruegen.

I looked at the waves and shuddered. I looked at the dunes and disliked them. I was haunted by the image of the eight beds waiting in my garret-for. me, and of certain portions of the wall from which the paper was torn. The summer before, probably, by one or more of the eight, struggling in the first onslaughts of asphyxia, and had not been gummed on again. My thoughts drifted miserably into solemn channels, in the direction of what Carlisle calls the immensities. I remembered how I was only a speck after all in uncomfortably limitless space, of no account whatever in the general scheme of things, but with a horrid private

capacity for being often and easily hurt. And how specks have a trick of dying, which I, in my turn, would presently do, and a fresh speck, not nearly so nice, as I hoped and believed, would immediately start up and fill my vacancy, perhaps so exactly my vacancy, that it would even wear my gloves and stockings. The last rust, drier and dreier than any had gone before was being eaten by the time I thought emerged from the gloom that hangs about eternal verities to the desirable concreteness of gloves and stockings. What I wanted became of the gloves and stockings of the recently extinguished female speck. Its Gertrude would, I suppose, take possession of its dresses. But my Gertrude, for instance, could not wear my gloves, and I know believes only in those stockings she has knitted herself.

Still, she has nieces, and I believe aunts, she would send them all the things she could not use herself, which would not be nice of Gert Wood. It would not matter, I suppose, but it would not be nice. She would be letting herself down to being a kind of ghoul. I started up with the few. that I must go and remonstrate with her before it was too late. And there, struggling in the wind and deep sand towards me, her arms full of warm things and her face of anxious solicitude was the good Gertrude herself. I have prepared the gracious one's bed, she called out breathlessly.

Will she not soon enter it? Oh, Gertrude, I cried, remembering the garret and forgetting the ghoul. "'Which bed?' "'With the aid of the chambermaid, "'I have removed two of them into the passage,' "'said Gertrude, buttoning me into my coat. "'And the washstand?' she shook her head. "'That I could not remove,

"'for there is no other to be had in its place. "'The chambermaid said that in four weeks' time—' "'She stopped and scanned my face. "'The gracious one looks put out,' she said. "'Has anything happened?' "'Put out, my dear Gertrude, I have been thinking very serious things. "'You cannot expect me to frolic along parts of the thought that lead to mighty and unpleasant truths. "'Why should I always smile? I'm not a Cheshire cat.

"'I trust the gracious one will come in now and enter her bed,' said Gertrude decidedly, "'who had never heard of Cheshire cats, and was sure that the mention of them indicated a brain in need of repose. Oh, Gertrude, I'd cried, intolerably stirred by the bare mention of that bed. This is a bleak and mischievous world, isn't it? Do you think we shall ever be warm and comfortable and happy again? End of Chapter 3. Section 4 of the Adventures of Elizabeth in Roiggen. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rogen by Elizabeth von Annen, Section 4.

The Fourth Day, From Goring to Teethsel. We left Gorn at seven the next morning and breakfasted outside it where the lodging houses end, and the woods begin. Gertrude had brought bread and butter and a bottle of milk, and we sat among the nightshades, whose flowers were everywhere, and ate in purity and cleanliness while August waited in the road. The charming little flowers with their one half purple and other half yellow are those that have red berries later in the year and are called by Keats, ruby grapes, of prosopina.

Yet they are not poisonous, and there is no reason why you should not suffer your pale forehead to be kissed by them if you want to. They are as innocent as they are pretty, and the wood was full of them. Poisoned. death and prosapina seemed far enough away from that leafy place and the rude honesty of bread and butter. Still, least I should feel too happy and therefore be less able to bear any shocks that might be awaiting me at T-cell. I repeated the melancholy and beautiful ode for my admonishment under my breath. It had no effect. Usually it is an unfailing antidote in its extraordinary depression to any excess of cheerfulness, but the wood and the morning sun and the bread and butter were more than a match for it.

No incantation of verse could make me believe that Joy's hand was forever at his lips bidding adieu. Joy seemed to be sitting contentedly beside me, sharing my bread and butter, and when I drove away towards Tiesel, he got into the carriage with me and whispered that I was going to be very happy there. Outside the wood, the sandy road lay between corn, cornfields, gay with corn cockles, bright reminders that the coming harvest will be poor. From here to Thysel, there are no trees except round the cottages of Phillipshagen, a pretty village with a hoary church, beyond which the road became pure sand, dribbling off into mere uncertain tracks over the flat pasture land that stretches all the way to

Tisle. The guidebook warmly recommends the seashore when the wind is in the east, which it was, and the quickest and firmest route from Gorin to Thiesel. But I chose rather to take the road over the plane because there was a poem in the guidebook about the way along the shore. And the guidebook said it described it extremely well. And I was sure that if that were so, I would do better to go the other way.

This is the poem. The translation is exact, the original being unrhymed, and the punctuation is the poets. Splashing waves, rocking boat, dipping gulls, dunes, raging winds, floating froth, flashing lightning, moon, fearful hearts, morning gray, storming nights, faith, I read it marbled and went the other way. Thysau is a place that has to be gone to for its own sake alone, as a glance at the map will show.

If you make up your mind to journey the entire length of the plane that separates it from everywhere, else, you must also make up your mind to journey the entire length back again to see Goran once more, to pass through Baba, and to make a closer acquaintance with Selen, which is on the way to the yet unvisited villages going north. It is a singular drive down to Thiso, singular because it seems as though it would never leave off. You see the place far away in the distance the whole time, and you jolt on and on at a walking pace towards it, in and out of ruts, over grass mounds, the sun beating on your head, sea on your left rolling up the beach in long waves, more sea on your right, across the undulating greenness,

a distant hill with a village by the water to the west, sails of fisher boats, people in curious costume, mowing in a meadow a great way off, and tethered all over the plain, solitary sheep and cows, whose nervousness at your approach is the nervousness begotten of a retired life. There are no trees, and if we had not seen Tiso all the time we should have lost our way, for there is no road. As it is, you go on till you are stopped by the land coming to an end, and there you are at Tiso.

I believe in the summer you can get there by steamer from going or Baba, but if it is windy and the waves are too big for the boats that land you to put off, the steamer does not stop, so that the only way is over the plain or along the shore. I walked nearly all the time. The jolting was so intolerable. It was heavy work for the horses and straining work for the carriage. Gertrude sat gripping the bandbox, for with every lurch it tried to roll out. August looked unhappy. His experiences at Gorn had been worse than ours, and he so was right down at the end of all things, and had the drawback, obvious even to August, that whatever it was like, we would have to endure it. swelter back again over the broiling plain only to stay a second night at Gorn was as much out of the question for the horses as for ourselves. As for me, I was absolutely happy. The wide plain, the wide sea, the wide sky were so gloriously full of light and life. The very turf beneath my feet had an eager spring in it. The very daisies covering it look sprightlier than anywhere else.

And up among the great piled clouds, the blessed little larks were fairly drunk with delight. I walked some of the way ahead of the carriage so as to feel alone. I could have walked forever in that radiance and freshness. The black-faced sheep ran wildly round and round as I passed, tugging at their chains in frantic agitation. Even the cows seemed done easy if I came too close, and in the far-off meadow the mower stopped mowing to watch us dwindle into dots. In this part of Oregon, the natives wear a particularly hideous dress, or rather the men do,

the women's costume is not so ugly, and looking through my glasses to my astonishment, I saw that the male mowers had on long, baggy white things that were like nothing so much as a woman's white petticoat on either leg. But the mowers and their trousers were soon left far behind. The sun had climbed very high, was pouring down almost straight onto our heads. and still tisal seemed no nearer well it did not matter that is the chief beauty of a tour like mine that nothing matters as soon as there are no trains to catch a journey becomes magnificently simple we might loiter as long as we liked on the road if only we got to some place any place by nightfall this of course was my buoyant midday mood before fatigue had weighed down my limbs and hunger gnawed holes in my cheerfulness the wind smelling of sea and freshly cut grass, had quite blown away the memory of how tragic life had looked the night before, when set about by too many beds and not enough washstand. And I walked along with

what felt like all the brightness of heaven in my heart. At the end of this walk, I think of it as one of the happiest and most beautiful I have had, came about one o'clock at that dull hour when the glory of morning is gone, and the serenity of afternoon has not begun. we arrived at a small gray wooden hotel, separated from the East Sea by a belt of firwood, facing a common to the south, and about 20 minutes walk from theesau proper, which lies on the sea on the western and southern shore of the point. It looked clean, and I went in. August and Gertrude sat, broiling in the sun of the shelterless sandy road in front of the

lily-grown garden. Somehow I had no doubts about being taken in here, and I was a very much of the sun. at once shown a spotless little bedroom by a spotless landlady. It was a corner room in the southwest corner of the house, and one window looked south, onto the common, and the other west onto the plain. The bed was drawn across this window, and lying on it, I could see the western sea, the distant hill on the shore with its village, and grass, grass, nothing but grass, rolling away from the very wall of the house to infinity and the sunset. room was tiny. If I had had more than a whole doll, I should not have been able to get into it.

It had a locked door leading into another bedroom, which was occupied, said the chambermaid, by a quiet lady who would make no noise. Gertrude's room was opposite of mine. August cheered up when I went out and told him he could go to the stables and put up, and Gertrude was visibly, agreeably surprised by the cleanliness of both our rooms. I lunched on a veranda overlooking the common with the madonna lilies of the little garden within reach of my hand, and the tablecloth and the spoons and the waiter were all in keeping with the clean landlady. The inn being small, the visitors were few, and those I saw dining at the other little tables on the veranda appeared to be quiet, inoffensive people, such as one would expect to find in a quiet out-of-the-way place.

The sea was not visible, but I could hear it on the other side. of the belt of hers, and the veranda facing south, being hot and airless, a longing to get into the cool water took hold of me. The waiter said the bathing huts were open in the afternoon, from four to five, and I went upstairs to tell Gertrude to bring my things down to the beach at four, when she would find me lying in the sand. While I was talking, the quiet lady in the next room began to talk to, apparently to the chambermaid, for she talked of hot water. I broke off my own talk, short. It was not that the partition was so thin that it seemed as if she were in the same room as myself, though that was sufficiently disturbing. It was that that I thought for a moment I knew the

voice. I looked at Gertrude. Gertrude's face was empty of all expression. The quiet lady, continuing, told the chambermaid to let down the sunblinds, and the note in her voice that had struck me was no longer there. Feeling relieved, for I did not want to come across acquaintances. I put the prelude in my pocket and went out. The fir wood was stuffy and suggested mosquitoes, but several bath guests had slung up hammocks and were lying in them dozing, so that there could not have been mosquitoes. And coming suddenly out onto the sands, the idea of stuffing is vanished, for there was the same glorious, heaving, sparkling, splashing blue that I had seen from the dunes of going the evening before at sunset. The bathing house, a modest place with only two cells, and

and a long plank bridge running into deep water was just opposite the end of the path through the furs. It was locked up and deserted. The sands were deserted, too, for the torus roll-dosing in hammocks or in beds. I made a hollow in the clean, dry sand beneath the last of the fir trees, and settled down to enjoy myself till Gertr came. Oh, I was happy. These I was so quiet and primitive. The afternoon, so radiant, the colors of the sea and of the long line of civil,

silver sand, and of the soft green gloom of the background of the firs, so beautiful. Commendably, far away to the north, I saw the Coast Guard Hill belonging to Gorn. On my right, the woods turned into beech woods, and scrambled up high cliffs that seemed to form the end of the peninsula. I would go and look at all of that later on after my bath. If there is a thing I love, it is exploring the little paths of an unknown wood, finding out the corners where it keeps its periwinkles and anemones, discovering its bird's nests, waiting motionless for its hedgehogs and squirrels, and even searching out those luscious recesses, oozy and green, where it keeps its happy slugs.

They tell me slugs are not really happy, that nature is cruel, and that you only have to scratch the pleasant surface of things to get at once to blood-curdling brutalities. Perhaps if you were to go on scratching, you might get to consolations and beneficencies again, but why scratch at all? Why not take the beauty and be grateful? I will not scratch. I will not criticize my mother, who has sheltered me so long in her broad wisdom, and been so long my surest guide to all that is gentle and lovely. Whatever she does, from thunderbolts to headaches, I will not criticize. For if she gives me a headache, is there not pleasure when it leaves off? if she hurls a thunderbolt at me and i am unexpectedly exterminated my body shall serve as a basis for fresh life and growth and shall blossom out presently into an immortality of daisies

i think that i must have slept for the sound of the waves grew very far away and i only seemed to have been watching the sun on them for a few minutes when gertrude's voice floated across base to my ears and she was saying it was passed for and that one lady had already gone down to bathe and that as there were only two cells if i did not go soon i might not get a bathe at all i sat up in my hollow and looked across to the huts the bathing woman in the usual white calico sunday bonnet was there, waiting on the plank bridge. No one was in the sea yet. It was a great bore that there should be anyone else bathing just then, for German female tourists are apt to be extraordinarily cordial in the water. On land, laced into suppressive whalebone, dressed, and with their hair dry and curled, they cannot but keep within the limits set by convention. But the more clothes they take off, the more they do seem to consider the last barrier between human creature and human creature broken down, and they will behave towards you, meeting you on this common ground of wateriness,

as though they had known you and extravagantly esteemed you for years. Their cordiality, too, becomes more pronounced in proportion to the coldness and roughness of the water, and the water that day looked cold and was certainly rough, and I felt that there being only two of us in it, it would be impossible to escape the advances of the other one. Still, as the cells were shut at five, I could not wait till she had done, so I went down and began to undress.

While I was doing it, I heard her leave her cell and anxiously ask the woman if the sea were very cold. Then she apparently put in one foot, for I heard her shriek. And then she apparently bent down, and scooping up water in her hands, splashed her face with it, for I heard her gasp. Then she tried the other foot and shrieked again, and then the bathing woman, fearful least five o'clock should still find her on duty,

began malefewously to persuade. By this time I was ready, but I did not choose to meet the unknown emotional one on the plank bridge, because the garments in which one baths in German waters are regrettably scanty, so I waited, peeping through the little window. After much talk, the eloquence of the bathing woman had its effect, and the bather with one wild scream leapt into the foam, which immediately engulfed her, and when she emerged, the first thing she did on getting her breath was to clutch hold of the rope and shriek without stopping for at least a minute. Unvertegis benemen I observed to Gertrude

with a shrug. It must be very cold, I added to myself, not without a secret shrinking. But to my surprise, when I ran along the planks above where the unfortunate clutched and shrieked, She looked up at me with a wet but beaming countenance and interrupted her shrieks to gasp out. Prokvall! Really, these bath-guests in the water, I thought indignantly. What right had this one, only because my apparel was scanty, to smile at me and say, Prokful? I was so much startled by the unexpected exclamation from a person who had a minute before

been rending the air with her laments that my foot slipped on the wet planks. I just heard the bathing woman advising me to take care, just had time to comment to myself on the foolishness of such advice to one already hurling through space, and then came the shock of an all-engulfing coldness and wetness and suffocation. And the next moment there I was, gasping and sputtering, exactly as the other bath guest had gasped and sputtered, but with this difference,

that she had clutched the rope and shrieked, and I, with all the convulsive energy of panic, was shrieking and clutching the bath guest. Pracht vonich, I heard her say with an odious jollity through the singing in my ears. Every wave lifted me a little off my feet. My mouth was full of water. My eyes were blinded with spray. I continued to cling to her with one hand, miserably conscious that after this there would be no shaking her off.

And rubbing my eyes with the other looked at her. My shrieks froze in my lips. Where had I seen her face before? Surely I knew it. She wore one of those gray India rubber caps drawn tightly down to her eyes. They keep the water out so well and are so hopelessly hideous. She smiled back at me with the utmost friendliness and asked me again whether I did not think it glorious. Ah, yeah, yeah, I panted, letting her go and groping blindly for the rope.

Thank you, thank you. pardon me for having seized you so rudely. Bita, bita, bit she cried, beginning to jump up and down again. Who in the world is she? I asked myself, getting away as fast as I could. Where have I seen her before? Probably she was an undesirable acquaintance. Perhaps she was my dressmaker. I had not paid her last absurd bill, and that, and a certain faint resemblance, to what my dressmaker would look like in an India rubber cap, was what put her into my head, and no sooner had I thought it, than I was quite sure of it,

and the conviction was one of quite unprecedented disagreeableness. How profoundly unpleasant to meet this person in the water, to have come all the way to Rugen, to have suffered at Goren, to have walked miles in the heat of the day to Thiesel, for the sole purpose of bathing tte-tat-t with my dressmaker, and to have tumbled in on top of her and clung about her now, neck. I climbed out and ran into my cell. My idea was to get dressed in a way as speedily as possible, yet with all Gertrude's haste, just as I came out of my cell, the other woman came out of hers and

her clothes, and we met face to face. With one accord we stopped dead, and our mouths fell open. What? She cried. It is you? What? I cried. It is you. It was my cousin Charlotte, who I hadn't not seen for 10 years. End of Section 4. Read by Andrea Dace, Norfolk, Virginia. Section 5 of the Adventures of Elizabeth in Rougan. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Dr. Yel Martin, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rougain. by Elizabeth von Arnhem, Section 5, at Tissau. My cousin, Charlotte, was 20 when I saw her last. Now she was 30, besides having had an India rubber cap on. Both these things made a difference to a woman, though she did not seem aware of it,

and was lost in amazement that I should not have recognized her at once. I told her it was because of the cap. Then I expressed the astonishment I felt that she had not at once recognized me, and after hesitating a moment she said that I had been making too many faces, and so with infinite delicacy did we avoid all illusion to those ten unhideable years. Charlotte had had a checkered career, at least beside my placid life, it seemed to have bristled with events. In her early youth and to the dismay of her parents, she insisted on being educated at one of the English colleges for women.

It was at Oxford, but I forget its name, a most unusual course for a young German girl of her class to take. She was so determined and made her relations so uncomfortable during their period of opposition that they gave in with what appeared to be more distant relatives who were not with Charlottes. all day long, a criminal weakness. At Oxford, she took everything there was to take in the way of honors and prizes and was the joy and pride of her college. In her last year, a German savant of 60, an exceedingly bright light in the firmament of European learning, came to Oxford and was feted. When Charlotte saw the great local beings, she was accustomed to look upon as the most marvelous men of the age, the heads of colleges, professors, and other celebrities, vying with each other in honoring her countrymen. Her admiration for him was such that it took her breath away.

At some function she was brought to his notice, and her family being well known in Germany, and she herself then in the freshness of 21, besides being very pretty, the great man was much interested and beamed benevolently upon her and chucked her under the chin. The head, in whose house he was staying, a person equally exquisite in appearance and manners who had had much to forgive that was less excellent in his guest, and had done so freely for the sake of the known profundity of his knowledge, could not but remarked this interest in Charlotte, and told him pleasantly of her promising career. the professor appeared to listen with attention and looked pleased and approving,

but when the head ceased, instead of commenting on her talents or the creditable manner in which she had developed them, what he said was, a nice, round little girl, a very nice round little girl, colossal A Petit Lique. And this, he repeated emphatically several times, to the distinct discomfort of a little girl, colossal apatelique. the head, while his eyes followed her benignly into the distant corner placed at the disposal of the obscure. Six months later, she married the professor. Her family whipped and implored in vain, told her in vain of the terrificness of marrying a widower with seven children all older than herself. Charlotte was blinded by the glory of having been chosen by the greatest man Oxford had ever seen. Oxford was everything to her.

Her distant German home and its spiritless inhabitants were objects only of her good-natured shrugs. She wrote to me saying she was going to be the life companion of the finest thinker of the age. Her people, so illiterate and so full of prejudices, could not, she supposed, be expected to appreciate the splendor of her prospects. She thanked heaven that her own education

had saved her from such a laughable blindness. She could conceive nothing more glorious than marrying the man in all the world whom you most reverently admire than being chosen as the sharer of his thoughts and the partner of his intellectual joys. After that I seldom heard from her. She lived in the south of Germany

and her professor's fame waxed vaster every year. Every year too, she brought a potential professor into a world already so full of them, and every year death cut short its career after a period varying from ten days to a fortnight, and the Croyceitum seemed perpetually to be announcing that Hoitafru is my lae, Frau Charlotte von Eindemströmann Jungen Leit and Bruchlick in Buden-Worden, and Hoit star of our son Bernard in Sarton Alter von Sway, Fokke, None of the children lived long enough to meet the next brother, and they were steadily christened Bernard, after a father apparently thirsting to perpetuate his name. It became at last quite uncomfortable.

Charlotte seemed never to be out of the Kreuzzi tomb. For six years, she and the poor little Bernard's went on in this manner, haunting its birth and death columns, and then abruptly disappeared from them. and the next I heard of her was that she was in England, in London, Oxford, and other intellectual centers, lecturing in the cause of woman. The chrysaitoom began about her again, but on another page. The chrysitune was shocked, for Charlotte was emancipated. Charlotte's family was so much shocked that it was hysterical.

Charlotte, not content with lecturing, wrote pamphlets, lofty documents of a deadly earnestness in German and English, and they might be seen any day in the bookshop windows, Untered in London. Charlotte's family nearly fainted when it had to walk Unterden London. The radical papers, which were only read by Charlotte's family when nobody was looking, and were never allowed openly to darken their doors, took her under their wing and wrote articles in her praise.

It was, they said, surprising and, refreshing to find views and intelligence of the sort emerging from the suffocating ancestral atmosphere at hangs about the Londa dell. The paralyzing effect of too many ancestors was not as a rule to be lightly shaken off, especially by the female descendants. When it did get shaken off, as in this instance, it should be the subject of rejoicing to every person who had the advancement of civilization at heart. The civilization at heart, the subject of the subject of civilization at heart. the civilization of a state could never be great so long as it's women etc etc my uncle and aunt nearly died of this praise her brothers and sisters stayed in the country and refused invitations only the professor seemed as pleased as ever charlotte is my cousin i said to him at a party in berlin where he was being lionized how proud he must be of such a clever wife i had not met him before and a more pleasant rose

a nice little old man I have never seen. He beamed at me through his spectacles. Almost could I see the narrow line that separated me from a chin-chucking. Yes, yes, he said, so they all tell me. The little latte is making a noise. Empty vessels do. But I dare say what she tells them is a very pretty little nonsense. One must not be too critical in these cases. And seizing upon the cousinship, he began to call me due. I inquired how it was. She was wandering about the world alone. He said he could not imagine.

I asked him what he thought of the pamphlets. He said he had no time for light reading. I was so unfortunate as to remark, no doubt with enthusiasm, that I had read some of his simpler works to my great benefit and unbounded admiration. He looked more benign than ever and said he had had no idea that anything of his was taught in elementary in a word i was routed by the professor i withdrew feeling crushed and wondering if i had deserved it he came after me calling me his lebeclina cozina and sitting down beside me patted my hand and inquired with solicitude how it was he had never seen me before renewed attempts on my part to feed like a bee on the honey of his learning were met only by pats he would pat but he would not impart wisdom and the longer he patted the more perfect did his serenity seem to become when people approached us and showed a tendency to hang on the great man's lips he looked up with a happy smile and said this is my little cousin we have much to say to each other and turned his back on them

and when i was asked whether i had not spent a memorable and elevating evening being talked to so much by the famous nieberline i could only put on a solemn face and say that i should not soon forget it it will be something to tell your children of in the days to come when he has a splendid memory said the enthusiast oh won't it i ejaculated with the turned-up eyes of rapture tell me one thing i said to charlotte as we walked slowly along the sands towards the cliff and the beechwood why since you took me for a stranger were you so well so gracious to me in the water gertrude had gone back to the hotel laden with both our bathing things. She may as well take mine up at the same time. Charlotte had remarked, piling them on Gertrude's passive arms. Undeniably she might, and accordingly she did. But her face was wry, and so had been the smile with which she returned Charlotte's careless greetings. You still keep that old fool, I see, said Charlotte. It would send me mad to have a person of inferior intellect forever fussing round me. It would send me much matter to have a person of superior intellect buttoning my boots and scorning me while she does it, I replied,

Why was I so gracious to you in the water? repeated Charlotte in answer to my inquiry, made not without anxiousness, for one likes to know one's own cousin above the practices of ordinary bath guests. I'll tell you why, I detest the stiff, icy way women have of turning their backs if they don't know each other. Oh, they're not very stiff, I remarked, thinking of the past bathing experiences, and besides, in the water, it is not only unkind, it is simply wicked. For how shall we ever be anything but tools and drudges if we don't cooperate, if we don't stand shoulder to shoulder? Oh, my heart goes out to all women. I never see one without feeling I must do all in my power to get to know her, to help her, to show her what she must do. so that when her youth is gone, there will still be something left,

a so much nobler happiness, a so much truer joy. Then what? I asked, puzzled. Charlotte was looking into my eyes as though she were reading my soul. She wasn't, whatever she might have thought she was doing. Then what she had done before, of course, she said, was some asperity. But perhaps what she had before was just what she liked best. but if it was only the sort of joy every woman who is young and pretty gets heaped on her does it not take wings and fly away the moment she happens to look haggard or is low-spirited or ill it was as i had feared charlotte was strenuous there was not a doubt of it and the strenuous woman is a form of the sex out of whose way i have hitherto kept

of course i knew from the pamphlets and the lectures that she was not one to stay at home and see the point of purring over her husband's socks but i had supposed one might lecture and write things without bringing the pamphlet manner to bear on one's own blood relations you are very jolly in the wife's own I said. Why are you suddenly so serious? The water, replied Charlotte, is the only place I am ever what you call Jolly in. It is the only place where I can ever forget how terribly earnest life is. My dear Charlotte, shall we sit down? The bathing has made me tired. We did sit down, and leaning my back against a rock and pulling my hat over my eyes, I gazed out at the sunlit sea. and at the flocks of little white clouds hanging over it to the point where they met the water. Well, Charlotte talked. Yes, she was right, nearly always right, in everything she said,

and it was certainly meritorious to use one's strength and help and talents as she was doing, trying to get rid of moldy prejudices. I gathered that what she was fighting for were equal rights and equal privileges for women and men alike. It is a story I have heard before, and up to now it has not had a satisfactory ending. And Charlotte was so small, and the world she defied was so big and so indifferent, and had such an inconsequent habit of associating all such efforts, in themselves, nothing less than heroic, with the ridiculousness of cropped hair and extremities clothed in bloomers. I protest that the thought, the thought of this brick wall of indifference with Charlotte hurling herself against it

during all the years that might have been pleasant was so tragic to me that I was nearly tempted to try to please her by offering to come and hurl myself too. But I have no heroism. The hardness and coldness of bricks terrifies me. What I wondered could her experiences with her great thinker have been to make her turn her back so as, absolutely on the fair and sheltered land of matrimony. I could not but agree with much that she was saying, that women, if they chose, need not do or endure any of the things against which those of them who find their voice cry out has long been clear to me.

That they are, on the whole, not well-disposed, towards each other, is also a fact frequently to be observed, and that this secret antagonism must be got over before there can be any real cooperation, may, I suppose, be regarded as certain. But when Charlotte spoke of cooperation, she was apparently thinking only of the cooperation of those whom years in place of the might of youth have provided with the sad sensibleness that comes of repeated disappointments. The cooperation, that is, of the elderly, and the German elderly in the immense majority of cases remains obscurely in her kitchen and does not dream of cooperating.

Has she not got over the conjugal quarrels of the first married years? Has she not filled her nurseries and become indefinite in outline? And do not these things make for content? If thoughts of rebellion enter her head, she need only look honestly at her image in the glass to be aware that it is not her kind that will ever ring concessions from the other sex. She is a brave frow and a brave frow who should try to do anything beyond keeping her home tidy and feeding its inmates would be almost pathetically ridiculous. You shouldn't bother about the old ones, I murmur. watching a little white steamer rounding the Gurren headland. Get the young to cooperate, my dear Charlotte. The young inherit the earth.

Teutonic earth, certainly they do. If you got all the pretty women between 20 and 30 on your side, the thing's done. No ringing would be required. The concessions would simply shower down. I detest the word concession, said Charlotte. Do you? but there it is. We live on the concessions made us by those beings you would probably call the enemy. And after all, most of us live fairly comfortably. By the way, she said, turning her head suddenly and

looking at me, what have you been doing all these years? Doing, I repeated in some confusion. I don't know why there should have been any confusion unless it was a note in Charlotte's voice that made her questions sound like a stern inquiry after that one talent which is death to hide lodged with me useless. Now as though you didn't very well know what I have been doing. I have had a row of babies and brought it up quite nicely. That isn't anything to be proud of. I didn't say it was. Your cat achieves precisely the same thing. My dear Charlotte, I haven't got a cat. And now, what are you doing now? Now, what are you doing? You see what I am doing? Apparently, exactly what you are. I don't mean that. Of course you know I don't mean that. What are you doing now with your life? I turned my head and gazed reproachfully at Charlotte.

How pretty she used to be. How prettily the corners of her mouth used to turn up as though her soul were always smiling. and she had had the dearest chin with a dimple in it, and she had had clear, hopeful eyes, and all the lines of her body had been comely and gracious. These are solid advantages that should not lightly be allowed to go. Not a trace of them was left. Her face was thin, and its expression of determination made it look hard. There was a deep line straight down between her eyebrows, as though she frowned at life more than her.

than is needful. Angles had everywhere taken the place of curves. Her eyes were as bright and intelligent as ever, but seemed to have grown larger. Something had completely done for Charlotte as far as beauty of person goes, whether it was the sixth Bernard's or her actual enthusiasms or the unusual mixture of both, I could not at this stage discover, nor could I yet see if her soul had gained the beauty that her body had lost, which is undoubtedly what the rightly cared for soul does do. Meanwhile, anything more utterly unlike the wife of a famous professor I have never seen. The wife of an age German celebrities should be and is calm, comfortable, large, and slow. She must be and is proud of her great man.

She attends to his bodily wants and does not presume to share her. his spiritual excitements. In their common life, he is the brain, she, the willing hands and feet. It is perfectly fair. If there are to be great men, someone must be found to look after them. Someone who shall be more patient, faithful, and admiring than a servant, and unable like a servant to throw up the situation on the least provocation. A wife is an admirable institution. She is the hedge set between the precious flowers of the male intellect and the sun and dust of sordid worries. She is the flannel that protects when the winds of routine are cold.

She is the sheltering jam that makes the pills of life possible. She is buffer, comforter, and cook. And so long as she enjoys these various roles, the arrangement is perfect. The difficulties begin when, define, nature's teaching, which on this point is luminous, she refuses to be the hedge, flannel, jam, buffer, comforter, and cook. And when she goes so far on the sulfuric path of rebellion as to insist on being clever on her own account, and publicly she has in Germany at least set every law of religion and decency at defiance,

Charlotte had been doing this. If all I had heard was true, for the last last three years therefore her stern inquiry addressed to a wife of my sobriety struck me as singularly out of place what had i been doing with my life looking back into it in search of an answer it seemed very spacious and sunny and quiet there were children in it and there was a garden and a spouse in whose eyes i was precious but i had not done anything and if i could point to no pamphlets or lectures, neither need I point to a furrow between my eyebrows. It is very odd, Charlotte went on as I sat silent, our meeting like this. I was on the verge of writing to ask if I might come and stay with you. Oh, were you? So often lately, I have thought, just you might be such a help to me, if only I could wake you up. Wake me up, my dear Charlotte. Oh, I've heard about you.

you. I know you live stuffed away in the country in a sort of dream. You needn't try to answer my question about what you have done. You can't answer it. You have lived in a dream, entirely wrapped up in your family and your plants. Plants, my dear Charlotte, you do not see nor want to see farther than the ditch at the end of your garden. All that is going on outside, out in the real world where people are in earnest, where they strive and long and suffer, where they unceasingly pursue their ideal of a wider life, a richer experience, a higher knowledge, is absolutely indifferent to you. Your existence, no one can call it life, is quite negative and unemotional. It is as negative and as unemotional as she paused and looked at me with a faint, compassionate smile,

as what? I asked, anxious to hear the worst. Frankly, as an oysters. Really, my dear Charlotte, I exclaimed, naturally upset. How very unfortunate that I should have hurried away from Guren. Why had I not stayed there two or three days, as I had at first intended? It was such a safe place. You could get out of it so easily and so quickly. If I were in oyster, curious how much the word disconcerted me, at least I was a happy oyster, which was sheerly better than being miserable and not an oyster at all. Charlotte was certainly nearer being miserable than happy. People who are happy do not have the look she had in her eyes, nor is their expression so uninterruptedly determined. And why should I be lectured? When I am in the mood for a lecture,

my habit is to buy a ticket and go and listen, and when I have not bought a ticket, ticket, it is a sign that I do not want a lecture. I did not like to explain this beautifully simple position to Charlotte, yet felt that at all costs I must nip her eloquence in the bud, or she would keep me out till it was dark. So I got up, cleared my throat, and said, in the balmy tone in which people on platforms begin their orations, Gerta and Vizenda, are you going to give me a lecture? she inquired with a surprise smile in return for yours my dear soul may i not talk to you about anything except plants i really don't know why you should think plants are the only things that interest me i have not yet mentioned them and as a matter of fact you are the last person with whom i would share my vegetable griefs but that isn't what i wish to say i was going to offer you girtra on vizenda a few remarks about husbands. Charlotte frowned, about husbands, I repeated blandly in a voice of milk and honey,

Gerta on Vesenda, in the course of an uneventful existence, I have had much leisure for reflection, and my reflections have led me to the conclusion, erroneous perhaps, but fixed, that having got a husband, taken him of one's own free will, taken him sometimes, even in the face of opposition, the least one can do is to stick to him. Now, Charlotte, where is yours? What have you done with him? Is he here? And if not, why is he not here? And where is he? Charlotte got up hastily and brushed the sand out of the folds of her dress. You haven't changed a bit, she said with a slight laugh. You are just as silly, I suggested. Oh, I didn't say that. And as for

Bernard. He is where he always was, marching triumphantly along the road to undying fame. But you know that. You only ask because your ideas of the duties of women are medieval and you are shocked. Well, I'm afraid you must be shocked then. I haven't seen him for a whole year. Luckily at this moment, for I think we were going to quarrel, Gertrude came heaving through the sand towards us with a packet of letters. She had been to the post and knowing I loved getting letters came out to look for me so that I might have them at once. And as I eagerly opened them and buried myself in them, Charlotte confined her occasional interjections to deprecating the obviously inferior shape of Gertrude's head.

End of Section 5. Section 6 of the Adventures of Elizabeth and Rogan. This is a Libervox recording. All Labor Box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Rose. The Adventures of Elizabeth and Rogan by Elizabeth von Arnhon. The Fifth Day, from Thiaso to Selen.

Many a time have I wondered at the unworthy ways of fate, at the pettiness of the pleasure it takes in frustrating plans that are small and innocent, at its entire want of dignity, at its singular spitefulness, at the resemblance of its manners to those of an evilly-disposed kitchen-made. but never have I wondered more than I did that night at Thaiso. We had been for a walk after tea through the beechwood, up a hill behind it to the signal station, along a footpath on the edge of the cliff with blue gleams of sea on one side

through a waving fringe of blue and purple flowers, and the rye fields on the other. We had stood looking down at the village of Thiaso far below us, a cluster of picturesque roofs surrounded on three sides by sunlit water, had gazed across the vast plain to the distant hill and village of Grosakau. Watched the shadows pass over meadows miles away, seeing how the sea to the west had the calm colors of a pearl, how the sea beneath us through the parting stalks of scabas and harebells was quiet, but very blue, and how behind us, over the beach tops, there was the eastern sea where the wind was,

as brilliant and busy and foam-ficked as before. It was all very wide and open and roomy. It was a place to bless God in and cease from vain words. And when the stars came out, we went down into the plain. and wandered out across the dee grass in the gathering night. Our faces toward the red strip of sky where the sun had set. Charlotte had not been silent all this time. She had been, on the contrary, passionately explanatory. She had passionately explained the intolerableness of her life with the famous Niebuhrine.

She had passionately justified her actions and cutting it short. In listening in silence, I had soon located the real wound, the place she did not mention where all the bruises were. For talk and explain as she might, it was clear that her chief grievance was that the great man, had never taken her seriously, to be strenuous, to hold intense views on questions that seem to you to burn, and to be treated as an airy nothing, a charming nothing perhaps, but still a nothing, must be, on the whole, disconcerting. I do not know that I should call it more than disconcerting. You need not, after all, let your vision be blocked entirely by the person with whom you chance to live,

however vast his intellectual bulk may be. You can look round him and see the stars in the sky are still there, and you need not run away from him to do that. If the great Niebuhrine had not taken Charlotte sufficiently seriously, she had manifestly taken him much too seriously. It is better to laugh at one's neighborline than to be angry with him, and it is infinitely more personally soothing. At presently you find you have grown old together, and that your neighborline has become unaccountably precious, and that you do not want to laugh at all. Or if you do, it is a very tender laughter, tender almost to tears. And then as we walked on over the wonderful starlit plain and the huge hush of the brooding night, the air, heavy with dew and the smell of grass cut that afternoon in distant meadows, so sweet and soft

that it seemed as if it must smooth away every line of midday eagerness from our tired faces. Charlotte paused, and before I had done praising Providence for this refreshment, she not yet having paused at all, she began again in a new key of briskness, and said, By the way, I may as well come with you when you leave this. I have nothing particular to do. I came down here for a day or two to get away from some English people I was with at Binns, who had rather got on to my nerves. And I have so much to say to you, and it will be a good opportunity.

We can talk all day while we are driving. Talk all day while we are driving. If Hazlitt saw no wit in talking and walking, I see less than none in talking and driving. It was this speech of Charlott's that set me marveling anew at the maliciousness of fate. Here was I, the most harmless of women, engaged in the most harmless of little expeditions, asking and wanting nothing but to be left alone. A person so obscure as to be, one would think, altogether out of reach of the blind fury, with the cursed shears.

A person with a plan so mild and humble that I was ashamed of the childish of fate that would waste its energies spoiling it. Yet before the end of the fourth day, I was confronted with the old familiar inextorableness, taking its stand this time on the impossibility of a possibility of refusing the company of a cousin whom you had not seen for ten years.

Oh, Charlotte, I cried, seizing her arm convulsively, struggling in the very clutches of fate. What a good idea! And what a thousand pities that it can't be managed. You see, it is of Victoria, and there are only two places because of all the luggage, so that we can't use the little seat, or Gertrude might have sat on that. Gertrude, send her home.

What do you want with Gertrude if I'm with you? I stared dismayed to the desk at Charlotte's determined face. But she packs, I said. Don't be so helpless, as though two healthy women couldn't wrap up their own hairbrushes. Oh, it isn't only hairbrushes I went on, still struggling. It's everything. You can't think of how much I loathe buttoning boots. I know I never would button them, but go about with them undone, and then I'd disgrace you.

And I don't want to do that. But that isn't it really either, I went on hardly, for Charlotte had opened her mouth to tell me I felt certain that she would button them for me. My husband never will let me go anywhere without Gertrude. You see, she looked after his mother, too, and he thinks awful things would happen if I hadn't got her. I'm very sorry, Charlotte. It is most unfortunate. I wish I had thought of bringing the omnibus. But is your husband such an absurd tyrant, asked Charlotte, a robust scorn. from my flabby obedience in her voice.

Oh, tyrant, I ejaculated, casting up my eyes to the stars, and mentally begging the unconscious innocence pardon. Well then, we must get a luggage cart and put the things into it. Oh, I cried, seizing her arm again, my thoughts whirling around in search of a loophole of escape. What, what another good idea? And Gertrude can go in the cart too.

So she can. What a trilogy of good ideas? Have you got any more, Charlotte? Whatever resourceful woman you are. I believe you like fighting and. and getting over difficulties. I believe I do, said Charlotte complacently. I dropped her arm, ceased to struggle,

walked on vanquished. Henceforth, if no more interesting difficulties presented themselves, Charlotte was going to spend her time overcoming me. And besides an eloquent Charlotte sitting next to me, there would be a cart rattling along behind me all day. I could have wept at the sudden end to my peace and perfect freedom of my journey. I went to bed, to a clean and pleasant bed that at another time would have pleased me,

strongly of opinion that life was not worth while, nor did it comfort me that from my pillow I looked out at the mysterious dark plain with its roof of stars and its faint red window in the northwest, because Charlotte had opened the door between our rooms, and every now and that asked me if I were asleep. I lay making plans for the circumvention of Charlotte, and rejecting them one after the other as to uncusnly, and when I had made my head ache with the difficulty of uniting a becoming cousinliness with the cold-bloodedness necessary for shaking her off. I spent my time feebly depreciating the superabundance of cousins in the world. Surely there are too many. Surely almost everybody has more than he can manage comfortably. It must have been long after midnight that

Charlotte, herself very restless, called at once more to know if I were asleep. Yes, I am, answered. Not quite kindly, I fear, but indeed it is an irritating question. We left thiaso at ten the next morning under a grey sky and drove at the strong recommendation of the landlord along the hard sands as far as a little fishing place called lubber art where we struck off to the left onto the plane again and so came once more to a flipping shogun and the high road that runs from there to goren bab and selen i took the landlord's advice willingly because i did not choose to drive on that gray morning in my altered circumstances over the plain along which i had walked so happily only the day before the landlord as obliging a person as his wife was a capable one

had provided a cart with two long-tailed, raw-boned horses, who would come with us as far as bins, my next stopping place. Gertrude sat next to the driver of this cart looking grim. Her prospects were gloomy, for the seat was hard, the driver was dirty, the cart had no springs, and she had to pack Charlotte's clothes. She did not approve of the frau professor. How could she? Gertrude read her chrysit-tong as regularly as she did her Bible,

and she believed it as implicitly. She knew all about the pamphlets, and only from the chrysot-t-tongue. Deng's point of view, and then Charlotte made the mistake, clever people sometimes do, of too readily supposing that others are stupid, and it does not need much shrewdness on Gertrude's part to see that the frau professor disliked the shape of her head. The drive along the wet sands was uninteresting because of the prevailing grayness of sky and sea, but the waves made so much noise that Charlotte, unable to get anything out of me but head-shakings and pointings to my ears, gave up trying to talk and kept quiet. The luggage cart came on close behind, the lean horses showing an under undesirable skittishness, and once, in an attempt to run away, swore so close to the water, that Gertrude's gloom became absolutely lead in. But we reached Laberroft safely, plowed up through the deep sand onto the track again, and after Philip Shoggin, the sky cleared, the sun came out, and the world began on a sudden to sparkle.

We did not see Gowran again. The road, very hilly just there, passes behind it between steep, grassy blanks, blue with hair bells, and with a strip of brilliant sky above it, between the tops of the beaches. But once more did I rattle over the stones of the lonely one, past the wooden inn where the same people seem to be drinking the same beer and still waiting for the same train, and drive along the dull strait between Babe and the first pines of Selen. At Selen, we were going to lunch, rest the horses, and then late in the afternoon, go on to bins. Selen from this side is a pine forest with a very deep sandy road. Occasional villas appeared between the trees, and becoming more frequent join into a string from one side of the road. After passing them, we came to a broad gravel road, at right angles to the one we were on, with restaurants and villas on either side, trim rows of iron lamp posts and stripling chestnut trees,

and a wide gap at the end at the edge of the cliff below which lay the sea. This was the real sillen, this single wide hot road with its glaring white houses, and at the back of them on either side the forest rushing up against their windows. It was one o'clock. Dinner bells were ringing all down the street. Visitors were streaming up from the sands into the different hotels. Duce is clattered, and the air was full of food. On every balcony, families were sitting round tables, waiting for the servant who was fetching their dinner from a restaurant.

Down at the foot of the cliff, the sea lay in perfect quiet, a heavenly blue, at a reach in that bay of the wind that was blowing on thiaso. There was no wind here, only intense heat and light, and smells of cooking. Shall we leave August to put up and get away into the forest and let Gertrude buy some lunch and bring it to us? I asked Charlotte. Don't you think dinner in one of these faces will be rather horrid? what sort of lunch will gertrude buy inquired charlotte cautiously oh bread and eggs and fruit and things it is enough on a hot day like this my dear soul it is not enough surely it is foolish to starve i'll come with you if you like of course but i see no sense in not being properly nourished and we don't know where and when we shall get another meal So we drove on to the End Hotel, from whose terrace we could look down at the deserted sands and the wonderful color of the water. August and the driver of the luggage cart put up. Gertrude retired to a neighboring cafe, and we sat and gasped under the glass roof of the veranda of the hotel while a hot waiter brought us boiling soup.

It is barbarous custom, this of dining at one o'clock. Under the most favorable circumstances, one o'clock is a difficult hour to manage profitably to the soul. There's something particularly base about it. It is the hour, I suppose, where the life of the spirit is at its lowest ebb, and one should be careful not to extinguish it altogether under the weight of a gigantic menu. I know my spirit fainted utterly away at the aspect of those plates of steaming soup, and at the smell of all the other things you're going to be given after it. Charlotte ate her soup calmly and complacently. It did not seem to make her hotter. She also ate everything else with equal calmness, and remarked that full brains are never to be found united to an empty stomach.

but a full stomach is often to be found united to empty brains, I replied. No one asserts the contrary, said Charlotte, and took some more winder breast. I thought that dinner would never be done. The hotel was full and the big dining room was crowded, as well as the veranda where we were. Everybody talked at once, and the noise was like the noise of the parrot house at the zoological gardens. It looked as if it were an expensive place. It had parked floors and flowers on the tables and various other things I had yet not come across in Rogan. and when the bill came I found that it not only looked so, but was so.

All the more then was I astonished at the number of families with many children and the necessary furlines staying in it. How did they manage it? There was a visitor's list on the table, and turning it over, I found that none of them, in the nature of things, could be well off. They all gave their occupations, and the majority were apotheker and photographing. There were two Herr Piano Fabricatten, several Lerrer, and Herr Geyheim Calculator,

that is, and many bank-botoman or clerks, and when surely who must have found the place beyond his means, a hair shrift-stellar. All these had wives and children with them. I can't make it out, I said to Charlotte. What can't you make out? How these people contrive to stay weeks in a dear hotel like this? Ode is quite simple. The Bader East is the great event of the year. They save up for it all the rest of the year. They live at home as frugally as possible so that for one magnificent month they can pretend to waiters and chamber and the other visitors that they are richer than they are. It is very foolish, sadly foolish. It is one of the things I am trying to persuade women to give up.

But you are doing it yourself. But surely there is a difference in the method. Besides, I was run down. Well, so I should think were the mothers of the families by the time they kept house frugally for a year. And if it makes them happy, why not? Just that is another of the things I am working to persuade them to give up. What, being happy?

No, being mothers of families. my dear Charlotte, I murmured, and mused in silence on the six burrards. Of unwieldingly big ones, of course, I mean. And what do you understand by unwieldingly big ones, I asked, still musing on the burn-hards? Any number above three, and for most of these women, even three is excessive. The images of the six burn-hards troubled me so much that I could not speak. Look, said Charlotte, at the women here, all of them, or any of them. The one at the opposite table, for instance.

Do you see the bulk of the poor soul? Do you see how difficult existence must be made for her by the circumstance alone? How life can be nothing to her but uninterrupted panting? Perhaps she doesn't walk enough, I suggested. She ought to walk around Rogan once a year instead of casting anchor in the flesh pots of Selen. She looks fifty, continued Charlotte. And why does she look fifty? Perhaps because she is fifty?

Nonsense, she is quite young, but those four awful children are hers, and no doubt there is a baby, or perhaps two babies, and they have finished her. How is such a woman to realize herself? How can she work on her own salvation? What energies she must have spent on her children? And if she ever tries to think, she must fall asleep from sheer torpor of brain. Now why should she be deprived of the use of her soul? Charlotte, are you not obscure? Tear, take my pudding. I don't like it. I hoped the pudding would stem the stream of her eloquence. I feared an impending lecture. She had resumed the pamphlet manner of the previous afternoon, and I felt very helpless. She took the pudding.

and I was dismayed to find that though she ate it, it had no effect whatsoever. She did not even seem to know that she was eating it, and continued to address me with rapidly increasing vehemence on the proper treatment of female souls. Now why could she not talk on this subject without being vehement? There is something about vehemence that freezes responsiveness out of me. I suppose it is what Charlotte would call the oyster characteristics coming out. Anyhow, by the time the waiter brought cheese and woolly radishes

and those wicked black slabs of leather called pumpernickel. I was sitting quite silent, and Charlotte was leaning across the little table hurling fiery words at me. And as for the stout lady who had set her ablaze, she had almonds and raisins with a sublime placidity, flowing the almonds down on the stone floor, cracking them with the heel of her boot, and exhibiting an unexpected nibbledness in picking them up again.

Do you suppose that if she hadn't had those four children, and heaven knows how many besides she wouldn't be different from what she is now? as Charlotte leaning her elbows on the table and fixing me with eyes whose brightness dazzled me. As different as days from night, as health from disease, as briskness from torpor, she had looked and felt ten years younger. She'd have had all her energies unimpaired. She'd have had the use of her soul, her time, her individuality. Now it is too late. All that has been choked out of her by the miserable daily drudgery.

What would the man, her smug husband there, say if he were made to help in the soul-killing work a woman is expected to do as a matter of course? yet why shouldn't he help her bear her burdens? Why shouldn't he take them on his stronger shoulders? Don't give me the trite answer that it is because he has his own work to do. We know his work, the man's work, at its hardest full of satisfaction and pleasures and hopes and ambitions, besides coming to an end every day at a certain hour, while she grows old and hopeless, hideous, never-ending dredgery. There was a difference between the two that make my blood boil.

Oh, don't let it boil, I cried, alarmed. We're so hot as it is. I tell you, I think that woman. over there as tragic a spectacle as it would be possible to find. I could cry over her. Poor, dumb, half-conscious remnant of what was meant to be the image of God. My dear Charlotte, I murmured uneasily. There were actual tears in Charlotte's eyes, where I saw only an ample lady, serenely cracking almonds in a way condemned by the polite. Charlotte's earnest glance pierced the veil of flesh to the withered, stunted soul of her. And Charlotte was so sincere, was so honestly grieved by the hopeless

dullness of the fulfilment of what had once been the blithe promise of young girlhood, that I began to feel distress, too. It cast glances of respectful sympathy at the poor woman. Very little more would have made me cry, but I was saved by something unexpected, for the waiter came round with newly arrived letters for the visitors. And laying to by the almond-eating lady's plate, he said quite distinctly, and you both heard him distinctly. Zwafer, Frowlein Schmidt,

and the eldest of the four children, a pert to little girl with a pig-tail, out. Aye, aye, haste, hutsgloch, Tant Marie, and having finished our dinner, we got up and went on our way in silence. And when we were at the door, I said with a suavity of voice and manner meant to be healing, Shall we go into the woods, Charlotte? There are a few remarks I would like to offer you on the souls of maid and ants, and Charlotte said with some petulance, that the principle was the same, and that our head ached, and would I mind being quiet? End of Section 6. Section 7 of The Adventures of Elizabeth in Roiggen. This is a Libravox recording.

All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. The Adventures of Elizabeth in Roigen by Elizabeth von Arnim, Section 7. The fifth day continued, from Zaline to Bince. Suppose a being, who should be neither man nor woman, a creature wholly removed from the temptations that beset either sex, a person who could look on with absolute indifference at all our various ways of wasting life,

untouched by the ambitions of man and unstirred by the longings of woman. What would such a being think of the popular notion against which other uneasy women, besides Charlotte, raise their voices, that the man should never be bothered by the cares of the house and the babies, but rather go his daily round of business or pleasure precisely as he did before he had his house and his babies. I'd love to have the details of life arranged with fastidious justice, all its little burdens distributed with an exact fairness

among those who have to carry them. And I imagine that this being, who should be rather more than man and less than God, who should understand everything and care nothing, would call it wrong to allot a double weight to the strong merely because he is strong, and would call it right that he should have his exact share and use the strength he has left over, not in carrying the burden of some weak friend who, burdenless, is still of no account in life, but in praising God, going first, and showing the others the way. Thus did I meditate, walking in silence by Charlotte's side, in the beach forest of Selene. Not for anything would I have put my meditations into words, well aware that though they might be nourishing to me, they would poison Charlotte.

The maiden aunt and the dinner together had given Charlotte a headache, which I respected by keeping silent. And for two hours we wandered and sat about among the beaches, sometimes on the grassy edge of the cliffs, our backs against tree trunks, looking out over the brilliant blue water with its brilliant green shallows, or line in the grass, watching the fine weather clouds floating past

between the shining beach leaves. Those were glorious hours, for Charlotte dozed most of the time, and it was almost as quiet as though she had not been there at all. No bath guests, part of the branches to stare at us. They were sleeping till the cool of the day. No pedestrians with field glasses came to look at the view and ask each other, with one attentive eye on us, if it were not colossal. No warm students walked along wiping their foreheads as they sang of love and beer. Nothing that had dined at a tabledote could possibly move in such heat. And so it came about that Charlotte and I shared the forest with only birds and squirrels. This forest is extremely beautiful.

It stretches for miles along the coast and is full of paths and roads that lead you to unexpected level. sudden glimpses of the sea between huge beach trunks on grassy plateaus, deep revines with their sides clothed with moss, with water trickling down over green stones to the sea out in the sun at the bottom, silent glades of bracken, silvery in the afternoon light, where a fallow deer examine you for one brief moment of curiosity before they spring away, panic-stricken, into the deeper shadows of the beaches. In that sun-flecked place, so exquisite, whichever way I looked, so spacious and so quiet, how could I be seriously interested in stuffy indoor questions such as the quality of the sexes,

in anything but the beauty of the world, and the joy of living in it? I was not seriously interested. I doubt if I have ever been. destiny having decided that I shall walk through life petticoated, weighed down by the entire range of disabilities connected with German petticoats. I will waste no time arguing. There it is, the inexorable fact, and there it will remain. And one gets used to the disabilities and finds on looking at them closer that they exclude nothing that is really worth having.

I glanced at the dozing Charlotte, half inclined to wake her up, to tell her this, and exhort her to do as the dragons in the glorious verse of Dr. Watts, who changed their fierce hissings into joyful songs, and praised their maker with their forked tongues. But I was afraid to stir her up, least her tongues should be too forked, and split my arguments to pieces. So she dozed on undisturbed, and I enjoyed myself in silence, repeating gems from the pages of the immortal doctor. the days when I lisped in numbers that were not only infant, but English, at the knee of a pious nurse from the land of fogs. At five o'clock, when I felt that a gentle shaking of Charlotte was no longer avoidable if we were to reach bince that evening, and was preparing to apply it

with cousinly gingerliness, an obliging bumblebee who had been swinging deliciously for some minutes passed in the purple flower of a foxglove on the very edge of the cliff, backed out of it, and blundered so near Charlotte's face that he brushed it with his wings. Charlotte instantly sat up, opened her eyes, and stared hard at me. Such is the suspiciousness of cousins, that though I was lying half a dozen yards away, she was manifestly of opinion that I had tickled her. This annoyed me, for Charlotte was the last person in the world. would think of tickling. There was something about her that would make it impossible,

however sportively disposed I might be, and besides, you must be very great friends before you begin to tickle. Charlotte and I were cousins, but we were, as yet, nowhere near being very great friends. I got up, put on my hat, and said rather stiffly, for she still sat staring that it was time to go. We walked back in silence, each feeling resentful, and keeping along the cliff passed, just before we came to Selin, a little restaurant of colored glass, a round building of atrocious ugliness, which we discovered was one of the prides of Selen, for afterwards, driving through the forest to Bince, all the signpost had fingers pointing in its directions and bore the inscription, glass pavignon sure eusts Selein's. the shunna auschist was indisputable, but to choose the loveliest spot and blot its beauty with a colored glass restaurant so close to a place full of restaurants is surely unusually profane. There it is, however, and all day long it industriously scents the forest round it with the smell of soup. People were beginning to gather about its tables, the people we had seen dining and who had slept since, and some of them were already drinking coffee and eating slabs of cherry cake with a pile of whipped cream on each slab for all the world as though they had had nothing since breakfast.

Conspicuous at one table sat the maiden aunt, still rosy from her sleep. She too had ordered cherry cake, and the waiter put it down before her as we came by, and she sat for a moment fondly regarding it, turning the plate round and round so as to take in all, its beauties. And if ever a woman looked happy, it was that one. Poor dumb, half-conscious remnant, I murmured under my breath. Charlotte seemed to read my thoughts, for she turned her head impatiently away from the cake and the lady, and said once again, and defiantly, the principle is the same, of course. Of course, said I. The drive from Selin to Bince was by far the most beautiful I had had.

Up to that point, no drive had been uninterruptedly beautiful, but this one was lovely from end to end. It took about an hour and a half, and we were the whole time in the glorious mixed forest belonging to Prince Putwuss, and called the Grenad's. As we neared Bince, the road runs down, close to the sea, and through the overhanging branches, we could see that we had rounded another headland and were in another bay. Also, after having met nothing but shy troops of deer, we began to pass increasing numbers of bath guests, walking slowly, taking the gentlest of exercise before their evening meal. Charlotte had been fairly quiet. Her head apparently still ached, but suddenly she started and exclaimed, There are the Harvey Browns! And who pray are the Harvey Browns? I inquired following the direction of her eyes. It was easy enough to see which of the groups of tourists were the Harvey Browns. They were going in the same direction as ourselves, a tall couple in close of surpassing simplicity and excellence.

Immediately afterwards we drove past them. Charlotte bowed coldly. The Harvey Browns bowed cordially, and I saw that the young man was my philosophic friend of the afternoon at film. And who pray are the Harvey Browns? I asked again. the English people I told you about, who had got onto my nerves, I thought they'd have left by now. And why were they on your nerves? Oh, she's a bishop's wife, and is about the narrowest person I have met, so we're not likely to be anywhere but on each other's nerves.

But she adores that son of hers, and would do anything in the world that pleases him. And he pursues me. Pursues you, I cried, with an incredulous. that I immediately perceived was rude, I hasten to correct it by shaking my head in gentle reproof and saying, Dear me, Charlotte, dear, dear me, simultaneously I was conscious of feeling disappointed in young Harvey Brown. What do you suppose he pursues me for?

Charlotte asked, turning her head, looking at me. I can't think I was going to say, but stopped in time. The most absurd reason he torments me with attentions because of I am Bernhardt's wife. He is a hero worshipper, and he says Bernhardt is the greatest man living. Well, isn't he? He can't get a hold of him, so he hovers around me, and talks Bernhardt to me for hours together. That's why I went to Tiso. He was sending me mad. He hasn't an idea, poor innocent, that you don't, that you no longer... I have as much courage as other people, but I don't think there's enough of it for explaining things to the mother. You see, she's the wife of a bishop.

Not being so well acquainted as Charlotte with the characteristics of the wives of bishops, I did not see, but she seemed to think it explained everything. Doesn't she know about your writings, I inquired? Oh yes, she came to a lecture I gave at Oxford. The boy is at Ballio, and she read some of the pamphlets he made her. Well, oh, she made a few, you. She made a few, few conventional remarks that showed me her limitations. And then she began about Bernhardt. To these people, I have no individuality, no separate existence, no brains of my own, no opinions worth listening to. I am solely of interest as the wife of Bernhardt. Oh, it's maddening. The boy has put, I don't know what, ideas into his mother's head. She has actually

tried to read one of Bernhardt's works, and she pretends she thought it's sublime. She quote it. I won't stay at Binz. Let's go on somewhere else tomorrow. But I think Binz looks as if it were a lovely place, and the Harvey Browns looked very nice. I'm not at all sure I want to go on somewhere else tomorrow. Then I'll go on alone and wait for you at Zaznitz. Oh, don't wait. I mightn't come to Zaznitz. Oh, well, I'm sure to pick you up again somewhere. It isn't a very big island, and you are a conspicuous object driving round it. This was true, so long as I was on that island, I could not hope to escape Charlotte. I entered Bince in a state of moody acquiescence.

Every hotel was full, and every room in the villas was taken. It was a gone experience all over again. At last we found shelter by the merest chance in the prettiest house in the place. We had not dared inquire there, certain that its rooms would be taken, first of all. A little house on the sands overhung at the back by beech woods, its windows garnished with bright yellow damas curtains, its roof very red, its walls very white. A most cheerful, trim little house, with a nice tiled path up to the door, and pots of geraniums on its sills, a cleanly person of the usual decent widow type, welcomed us with a cordiality contrasting pleasantly with the indifference of those widows whose rooms had been all engaged. The entire lower floor, she said, was at our disposal. We each had a bedroom

opening onto a veranda that seemed to hang right over the sea, and there was a dining room, and a beautiful blue and white kitchen, if we wanted to cook, and a spacious chamber for Gertrude. the price was low even when I said that we should probably only stay one or two nights it did not go up the widow explained that the rooms were engaged for the entire season but that the Berlin gentleman who had taken them was unavoidably prevented coming which was the reason why we might have them for it was not her habit to take in the passing stranger I asked whether it were likely that the Berlin gentleman might yet appear and turn us out. She stared at me a moment as though struck by my question, and then shook her head. No, no, she said decidedly. He will not appear.

A very pretty little maid-servant, who was bringing in our luggage, was so much perturbed by my innocent inquiry that she let the things drop. Hedwig, do not be a fool, said the widow sternly. The gentleman, she went on, turning to me. cannot come because he is dead oh i said silenced by the excellence of the reason charlotte being readier of speech said indeed the reason was a good one but when i heard it it seemed as if the pleasant rooms with the beds all ready and everything set out where the expected one took on a look of awfulness it is true it was now past eight o'clock and the sun had gone and across the bay the dusk was creeping I went out through the long windows to the little veranda. It had white pillars of great apparent massiveness, which looked as though they were meant to support vast weights of masonry,

and through them I watched the water rippling in slow, steely ripples along the sand just beneath me, and the ripples had the peculiar, lonely sound that slight waves have in the evening when they lick a deserted shore. When was he expected? I heard Charlotte within the Rome, ask, in a depressed voice. Today, said the widow. Today, echoed Charlotte. That is why the beds are made.

It is lucky for you, ladies. Very, agreed Charlotte. Her voice was hollow. He died yesterday, an accident. I received the telegram only this morning. It is a great misfortune for me. Will the ladies sup? I have some provisions in the house

sent on by the gentleman for his supper tonight. He, poor soul, will never sup again. the widow more moved by this last reflection than she had yet been sighed heavily she then made the observation usual on such occasions that it is a strange world that one is here today and gone tomorrow or rather correcting herself here yesterday and gone today and that the one thing certain was the shornist esson at that moment on the shelves of the larder Would the ladies not seize the splendid opportunity and sup? No, no, we will not sup, Charlotte cried with great decision. You won't eat here tonight, will you? she asked through the yellow window curtains, which made her look very pale.

It is always horrid in the lodgings. Shall we go to that nice red-brick hotel we passed, where the people were sitting under the big tree looking so happy? We went and silenced to the red-brick hotel, and threading our way among the crowded tables set out under a huge beech tree a few yards from the water to the only empty one, we found ourselves sitting next to the Harvey Browns. Dear Fraul Liebelin, how delightful to have you here again, cried the bishop's wife in tones of utmost cordiality, leaning across the little space between the tables to press Charlotte's hand. Rosie has been scouring the country on his bicycle, trying to discover your return. treat and was quite disconsolate at not finding you scouring the country in search of charlotte heavens an eye who had dropped straight on top of her in the waters of tiso without any effort at all

thus does fortune withhold blessings from those who clamour and piles them unasked on the shrinking heads of the meek rosy harvey brown meanwhile like a polite young man acquainted with jermyn custom had got out of his chair and was waiting for Charlotte to present him to me. Oh, yes, my young philosopher, I thought. Not without a faint regret. You are now to find out that your promising and intellectual frulein isn't anything of the sort. Pray present me, said Brozie. Charlotte did. Pray present me, I said, in my turn, bowing in the direction of the bishop's wife. Charlotte did. At this seven, the bishop's wife's face took on the look of one who thinks there really is no need to make fresh acquaintances in breathless hurries. It also wore the look of one who, while admitting a nibeline within the range of her cordiality on account of the

prestige of that nibeline's famous husband does not see why the nibolines obscure female relatives should be admitted to. So I was not admitted, and I said, outside and studied the menu. How very strange, observed Brosey in his beautifully correct, Herman, as he dropped into a vacant chair at our table, that you should be related to the Niebelines. One is always related to somebody, I replied, and marveled at my own intelligence, and how odd that we should meet again here. One is always meeting again on an island, if it is small enough. This is a sample of my own. my conversation with Rosie, waiting on my part with solid truths, while our supper was being

prepared, and while Charlotte answered his mother's questions as to where she had been, where she had met me, and how we were related, and who my husband was. Her husband is a farmer, I heard Charlotte say in the dreary voice of hopeless boredom. Oh, really, how interesting, said Mrs. Harvey Brown, and immediately ceased to be interested. The lights of Saznitz twinkled on the other side of the bay. A steamer came across the calm gray water, gaily decked out in colored lights. The throbbing of her paddle wheels heard almost from the time she left Saznitz in the still evening air. Up and down the road between our tables and the sea, groups of bath guests strolled,

artless family groups, Papa and Mama arm and arm, and in front the daughter and the admirer. of girls in the backfish stage, tittering and pushing each other about, quiet maiden ladies, placid after their supper, gently praising as they passed, the delights of a few weeks spent in the very bosom of nature, expatiating on her peace, her restfulness, and the freshness of her vegetables. And with us, while the stars flashed through the stirring beach leaves, Mrs. Harvey Brown rhapsodized about the great neighbor line to the blank Charlotte, and Brozy tried to carry on a reasonable conversation about things like souls with a woman who is eating an omelette.

I was in an entirely different mood from the one of the afternoon at film, and it was a mood in which I liked to be left alone. When it is on me, not all the beautiful young men in the world, looking like archangels and wearing the loveliest, linen would be able to shake me out of it. Brozy was apparently in exactly the same mood as he had been then. Was it his perennially? Did he always want to talk about the unknowable and the unthinkable?

And the unspeakable. I am positive. I did not look intelligent at this time, not only because I did not try to, but because I was feeling profoundly stupid. And he still went on. There was only one thing I really wanted to know. know, and that was why he was called Brozy, while I ate my supper and he talked, and his mother

listened during the pauses of her fitful conversation with Charlotte. I turn this over in my mind. Why Brozy? His mother kept on saying it. To Charlotte, her talk, having done with Niebuhrine, was all of Brozy. Was it in itself a perfect name, or was it the short of something long, or did it come under the heading pet? Was he perhaps a twin, and his twin sister was rosy? In which case, if his parents were lovers of the need, his own name would be almost inevitable. It was when our supper had been cleared away,

and he was remarking for the second time, the first time he remarked it, I had said, what? That ultimate religious ideas are merely symbols of the actual, not cognitions of it, and his mother, not well-knowing what he met, but afraid it must be something a bishop's son ought not to mean, said with gentle reproach. My dear Brosey, that I took courage to inquire of him. Why, Brozy? It is short for Ambrose, he answered. He was christened after Ambrose, said his mother, one of the early fathers, as no doubt you know.

But I did not know, because she spoke in German. the sake, I suppose, of making things easier for me, and she called the early fathers, Frutseitiga Feta, so how could I know? Futsaigafeita, I repeated dully. Who are they? The bishop's wife took the kindest view of it. Perhaps you do not have them in the Lutheran church, she said, but she did not speak to me again at all, turning her back on me quite at this time, and wholly concentrating her attention on the monosobilic Charlotte. My mother, mother ambrose explained in subdued tones meant to say kerchenfeiter i am sorry i said politely that i was so dull and then he went on with the paragraph for to me it seemed as though he spoke always in entire paragraphs instead of sentences he had been engaged upon when i interrupted him and for my refreshment i caught fragments of mrs harvey brown's conversation in between i have a message for you dear

Dear Fra Lébelin, I heard her say, a message from the bishop. Yes, said Charlotte, without warmth. We had letters from home today, and in his he mentions you. Yes, said Charlotte, ungratefully cold. Tell her, he writes, tell her I had been reading her pamphlets. Indeed, said Charlotte, beginning to warm. It is not often, the bishop has time for reading, and it is quite unusual for him to look at anything written by a woman,

so that it is really an honour he has paid you. Of course it is, said Charlotte, quite warmly. And he is an old man, dear Fra Lébeline, of ripe experience, an admirable wisdom, as no doubt you have heard, and I am sure you will take what he says in good part. This sounded ominous, so Charlotte said nothing. Tell her, he writes,

Tell her that I grieve for her. There was a pause. Then Charlotte said loftily, It is very good of him. And I can assure you, the bishop never grieves without reason, or else in such a large diocese, he would always be doing it.

Charlotte was silent. He begged me to tell you that he will pray for you. There was another pause. Then Charlotte said, Thank you. What else was she to say? What does one say in such a case? Our governesses teaches how pleasant and amiable an adornment is politeness, but not one of mine ever told me what I was to say when confronted by an announcement that I was to be included in somebody's prayers. If Charlotte, anxious to be polite, had said, oh, please don't let him trouble, the bishop's wife would have been shocked. and if she had said what she felt and wholly declined to be prayed for at all by strange bishops mrs harvey brown would have been horrified it is a nice question and it preoccupied me for the rest of the time we sat there and we sat there a very long time for although charlotte was manifestly sorely tried by mrs harvey brown i had great difficulty in getting her away each time i suggested going back to our lodge to bed, she made some excuse for staying where she was.

Everybody else seemed to have gone to bed, and even Ambrose, who had been bicycling all day, had begun visibly to droop before I could persuade her to come home. Slowly she walked along the silent sands. Slowly she went into the house. Still more slowly into her bedroom, and then, just as Gertrude had blessed me and blown out my candle in one breath, in she came with a light, and remarking that she did not feel sleepy, sat down on the foot of my bed and began to talk. She had on a white dressing gown, and her hair fell loose about her face, and she was very pale. I can't talk. I am much too sleepy, I said, and you look dreadfully tired.

My soul is tired, tired out utterly by that woman. I wanted to ask you if you won't come away with me tomorrow. I can't go away till I've explored these heavenly forests. I can't stay here if I'm to spend my time with that woman. That woman, oh Charlotte, don't call her such awful names. Try and imagine her sensations if she heard you. Why, I shouldn't care. Oh, hush, I whispered. The windows are open. She might be just outside on the beach. It gives me shivers only to think of it. Don't say it again. don't be such an audacious german think of oxford think of the venerable things like cathedral closes and bishop's palaces think of the dignity and deference that surround mrs harvey brown at home and won't you go to bed you can't think how sleepy i am will you come away with me to-morrow we'll talk it over in the morning i'm not nearly awake enough now charlotte got up and went to the door leading into her bed-wereld her bed-work

and then she came back and crossed over to the windows and peeped out between the yellow curtains. It's bright moonlight, she said, and so quiet. The sea is like a pond. How clear the Sassanit's lights are. Are they, I murmured drowsily. Are you really going to leave your windows open? Anyone can get in. We are almost on a level with the beach. To this I made no answer, and my little travelling clock on the table gave point to my silence by chiming twelve charlotte went away slowly candle in hand at her door she stopped and looked back it seems she said that i have got that unfortunate man's bed so it was the berlin gentleman who was making her restless and you she went on have got the one his daughter was to have had is she alive i asked sleep Oh, yes, she's alive. Well, that was nice anyway. I believe you are frightened, I murmured, as she still lingered. Frightened? What of? The Berlin gentleman. Absurd, said Charlotte, and went

away. I was having a most cheerful dream in which I tried hard to remember the exact words Herbert Spencer uses about effete beliefs that in the stole still cling about the necks of priests and, in gaiters, linger round the legs of bishops, and was repeating the words about the bishops in a rapture of enjoyment, and indeed it is a lovely sentence, when a sudden pause of fear came into my dream, and I felt that someone besides myself was in the room. The dark to me. The dark to me has always been full of terrors, I can look back through my memories and find past years studded with horrible black nights, on which I woke up and was afraid, till I have lit a candle, how can I remember that I do not believe in ghosts, and in nameless hideousnesses infinitely more

frightful than ghosts? But what courage is needed to sit up in all the solid pressing blackness and stretch out one defenseless hand into it to feel about for the matches, appalled by the echoing noises the search produces, cold with fear that the hand may touch something unknown and terrible. And so at Bince dragged out of my pleasant dream to night and loneliness, I could not move for a moment for sheer extremity of fright. When I did, when I did put out a shaking hand to feel for the matches, the dread of years became a reality. I touched another hand. Now I think it was very wonderful of me not to scream. I suppose I did not dare. I don't know how I managed it, petrified as I was with terror,

but the next thing that happened was that I found myself under the bedclothes thinking things over. Whose hand had I touched? And what was it doing on my table? It was a nasty cold hand, and it had clutched at mine as I tore it away. Oh, there it was coming after me. It was feeling its way along the bedclothes. Surely it was not real. It must be a nightmare. And that is why no sound came when I tried to shriek for Charlotte. But what a horrible nightmare. So very, very real. I could hear the hands sliding along the sheet to the corner where I was huddling. Oh, why had I come to this frightful island? A gasp of helpless horror did get out, and instantly Charlotte's voice whispered, Be quiet, don't make a sound. There's a man outside your window. At this, my senses came back to me in a rush.

You've nearly killed me, I whispered, filling the whisper with as much hot indignation as it would hold. If my heart had had anything the matter with it, I would have died. Let me go. I want to light the candle. What does a man, a real living man, matter? Charlotte held me tighter. Be quiet, she whispered. In an agony it seemed to fear. Be quiet. He isn't.

He doesn't look. I don't think he's alive. What? I whispered. Shhh, shh, your windows open. He only need put his leg over the sill to get in. But if he isn't alive, he can't put his leg over sills. I whispered back incredulously.

He's some poor drowned sailor washed ashore. Oh, be quiet, Lord Charlotte, burying her face on my shoulder, and having got over my own fright, I marveled at the abjectness of hers. Let me go. I want to look at him, I said, trying to get away. Shue, don't move. He'd hear. He's just outside. And she clung to me in terror. But how can he hear if he isn't alive? Let me go. No, no, he's sitting there just outside. He's been sitting there for hours and never moves. Oh, it's that man, I know it is. I knew he'd come. What man? Oh, the dreadful, dreadful Berlin man who died. My dear Charlotte, I expostulated, feeling now perfectly calm in the presence of such a collapse. Let me be. go, I'll look through the curtains, so that he shall not see me. And I'll soon tell you if he's

alive or not. Do you suppose I don't know a live man when I see one? I wriggled out of her arms and crept with bare silent feet to the window, and cautiously moving the curtains a slit apart peeped through. There certainly was a man outside, sitting on a rock, exactly in front of my window, with his face to the sea. Clouds were passing slowly across the moon, and I waited for them to pass to see him more clearly. He never moved, and when the light did fall on him, it fell on a well-clothed back with two shining buttons on it, not the back of a burglar, and surely not the back of a ghost. In all my varied imaginings, I had never yet imagined a ghost and buttons, and I refused to believe that I saw one then. I crept back to the cowering Charlotte.

It isn't anybody who's dead, I whispered cheerfully, and I think he wants to paddle. Paddle? echoed Charlotte, sitting up. The word seemed to restore her to her senses. Why should he want to paddle in the middle of the night? Well, why not? It's the only thing I can think of that makes you sit on rocks. Charlotte was so much recovered and so much relieved at finding herself recovered that she gave a hysterical giggle. instantly there was this light noise outside, and the shadow of a man appeared on the curtains. We clung to each other in consternation. Hedwig, whispered the man, pushing the curtains a little aside and peering into the darkness of the room. Kleiner shouts, and lichter, las me so long a-awattin.

He waited, uncertain, trying to see in. Charlotte grasped the situation quickest. "'Hedwick is not here,' she said with immense dignity, "'and you should be ashamed of yourself, disturbing ladies, in this manner. "'I must request you go away at once, "'and to give me your name and address, "'so that I may report you to the proper authorities. "'I shall not fail in my duty,

"'which will be to make an example of you.' "'That was admirably put,' I remarked, "'going across to the window and shutting it. only he didn't stay to listen now will light the candle and looking out as i drew the curtains i saw the moonlight flash on flying buttons who would have thought i observed to charlotte who was standing in the middle of the room shaking with indignation who would have thought that that very demure little heggig would be the cause of a night of terror for us who would have imagined her so depraved said charlotte it wrathfully. Well, we don't know that she is. Doesn't it look like it? Poor little thing. Poor little thing. What drivel is this? Oh, I don't know. We all want forgiving very badly, it seems to me. Hedvig not more than you and I. And we want it so much more badly than we

want punishing, yet we were always getting punished and hardly ever getting forgiven. I don't know what you mean, said Charlotte. It isn't very clear, I admitted. End of Section 7, read by Andrea Dace, Norfolk, Virginia. Section 8 of The Adventures of Elizabeth in Reuden. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

The Adventures of Elizabeth in Ruegen by Elizabeth von Arnim. The sixth day, the yacht-sloss. She was asleep next morning when I looked into her bedroom, so I shut the door softly, and charging Gertrude not to disturb her, went out for a walk. It was not quite eight, and people had not got away from their coffee yet,

so I had it to myself, the walk along the shore beneath the beaches, beside the flashing morning sea. the path runs along for a little close to the water at the foot of the steep beach-grown hill that shuts the west winds out of bince a hill steep enough and high enough to make him pant grievously who goes up it after dinner then on the right comes a deep narrow cutting running up into the woods cut it seems entirely out of smoothest greenest moss so completely are its sides covered with it standing midway up this cutting in the soft gloom of its green walls with it with the side of its green walls with the side of its green walls with the same way up this cutting in the soft gloom of its green walls with the branches of the beaches meeting far away above, and down at the bottom the sheet of shining water, I found absolutely the most silent bit of the world I've ever been in. The silence was wonderful. There seemed positively to be no sound at all. No sound came down from the beach leaves,

and yet they were stirring. No sound came up from the water, not a ripple, not a splash. I heard no birds while I stood there, nor any hum of insects. It might have been the entrance to some holy place, so strange and solemn was the quiet, and looking from out of its shadows to the brightness shining at the upper end, where the sun was flooding the bracken with happy morning radiance, I felt suddenly that my walk had ceased to be a common thing, and that I was going up into the temple of God to pray. I know of no surer way of shaking off the dreary crust formed about the soul by the trying to do one's duty or the patient enduring of having somebody else's duty done to one, then going out alone, either at the bright beginning of the day

when the earth is still unsoiled by the feet of the strenuous, and only God is abroad, or in the evening when the hushes come, out to the blessed stars, and looking up at them, wonder at the meanness of the day just past, at the worthlessness of the things one has struggled for, at the folly of having been so angry and so restless and so much afraid. Nothing focuses life more exactly than a little while alone at night with the stars. What are perfunctory bedroom prayers hurried through in an atmosphere of blankets to this deep abasement of the spirit before the majesty of heaven?

And as a consecration of what should be yet one more happy day, of what value are those hasty morning devotions, disturbed by fears lest the coffee should be getting cold, and that person present in every household whose property is always to reprove, be more than usually provoked, compared to going out into the freshness of the new day and thanking God deliberately, under his own wide sky for having been so good to us i know that when i had done my open air te deum up there in this unflutted space among the shimmering bracken i went on my way with a light-heartedness never mine after indoor religious exercises the forest was so gay that morning so sparkling so full of busy happy creatures it would have been a sorry heart that did not feel jolly in such society in that all-pervading wholesomeness there was no room for repentance no place for conscience-stricken beating of the breast, and indeed I think we waste a terrible amount of time repenting. The healthy attitude, the only reasonable one towards a fault made or a sin committed, is surely a vigorous shake of one's moral shoulders, vigorous enough to shake it off

and out of remembrance. The sin itself was a sad waste of time and happiness, and absolutely no more should be wasted in lugubriously reflecting on it. Shall we poor human beings at such a Disadvanted from the first in the fight with fate through the many weaknesses and ailments of our bodies, load our souls as well with an ever-growing burden of regret and penitence? Shall we let a weight of vivid memories break our hearts? How are we to get on with our living if we're continually dropping into sloughs of bitter and often unjust self-reproach? Every morning comes the light and a fresh chance of doing better. Is it not the sheerest folly and ingratitude to let yesterday spoil the God

given today? There had been a heavy dew, and the moss along the wayside was soaked with it, and the leaves of the slender young beaches sparkled with it, and the bracken bending over the path on either side left its wetness on my dress as I passed. Nowhere was there a single bit of gloom where you could sit down and be wretched. The very jays would have laughed you out of countenance if you had sat there looking sorrowful. Sometimes the path was narrow and the trees shut out the sky. Sometimes it led me into the hot sunshine of an open forest-fringed space. Once it took me along the side of a meadow, sloping up on its distant side to more forest,

with only a single row of great beaches between me in the heat and light dancing over the grass, and all the way I had squirrels for company, chattering and enjoying themselves as sensible squirrels living only in the present do, and larks over my head singing in careless ecstasy just because they had no idea. They were probably bad larks with pasts, and lizards down at my feet motionless in the hot sun quite unaware of how wicked it becomes to lie in the sun doing nothing directly you wear clothes and have consciences

as for the scent of the forest he who has been in it early after a dewy night knows that and the effect it has on the spirits of him who smells it so i need not explain how happy i was and how invigorated as i climbed up a long hill where the wood was thick and cool and coming out at the top found i had reached a place of turf and sunshine with tables in the shade at the far side and in the middle coffee-pot in hand a waiter this waiter came as a shock my thoughts had wandered quite into the all-sumption and in the old this waiter came as a shock my thoughts had wandered quite into the opposite channel to the one that ends in waiters there he stood however solitary and suggestive in the middle of the sunny green a crumpled waiter in regard to shirt-front and not a waiter i should say of more than bi-weekly washings but his eye was persuasive steam came out of the spout of his coffee-pot and out of his mouth as i walked towards him issued appropriate words about the weather i had meant to go back to breakfast with charlotte and there was no reason at all why i should cross the green and walk straight up to the waiter but there was that in his eye which made me feel that if i did not drink his coffee not only had i no business on the top of the hill but i was unspeakably base besides so i sat down at one of the tables beneath the beaches there were at least twelve tables and only one other visitor a man in spectacles and the waiter produced a table-cloth that made me shiver and poured me out a cup of coffee and brought me a roll of immense resistance one of yesterday's i imagined the roll-cart from bintz not having yet had time to get up the hill he fetched his roll from a pretty house with latticed windows standing on the side of the green and he fixed me with his hungry eye and told me the house was an inn and that it was not only ready but anxious to take me as a lodger for any period i might choose i excused myself on the plea of its distance from the water he said that precisely this distance was its charm the lady he continued with a wave of his coffee-pot that immediately caused a thin streak of steam to rise from the grass the lady can see for her

how idyllic is the situation the lady murmured assent and in order to avoid his hungry eye busied herself dividing her roll among some expectant fowls who plainly used to the business were crowding round her so that the role's staleness perhaps intentional ended by being entirely to the good of the inn by the time the fowls were ready for more the waiter who had nothing pressing on hand had become a nuisance too great to be born i would have liked to sit there and rest in the shade watching the clouds appear above the treetops opposite, and sail over my head and out of sight, but I could not because of the waiter. So I paid him, got up, once more firmly declined, either to take or look at rooms in the inn, and wished him a good morning, instinct with dignity and chill. The lady will now, of course, visit the Yagdschloss, said the waiter, whipping out a bundle of tickets of admission. The Yagdschloss? I repeated, and following the direction of his eyes, I saw a building through the trees just behind where I had been sitting on the top of a sharp ascent.

So that was where my walk had led me to. The guidebook devotes several animated pages to this Yachtchelos, or shooting lodge. It belongs to Prince Putbuss. Its round tower rising out of a sea of wood was a landmark with which I had soon roan familiar. Whenever you climb up a hill in Ruegen to see the view, you see the Yagschloss. Whichever way you drive, it is always the central feature of the landscape. If it isn't anywhere else, it is sure to be on the horizon. Only in some northern parts of the island as one get away from it,

and even there, probably a telescope used with skill would produce it at once. And here I was beneath its walls. Well, I had not intended going over it, and all I wanted at that moment was to get rid of the waiter and go on with my walk. But it was easier to take a ticket than to refuse, and hear him exclaim in protest. So I paid fifty penics, was given a slip of paper. and started climbing the extremely steep ascent.

The site was obviously chosen without the least reference to the legs or lungs of tourists. They arrive at the top warm and speechless and sinking down on the steps between two wolves made of copper. The first thing they do is to spend several minutes gasping. Then they ring a bell, give up their tickets and umbrellas, and are taken round in batches by an elderly person, who manifestly thinks them poor things. When I got to the top, I found the other visitor, the man in spectacles, sitting.

on the steps, getting his gasping done. Having finished mine before him, he being a man of bulk, I rang the bell. The elderly official, who had a singular talent for making one feel by a mere look, what a worm one really is, appeared. I cannot take each of you round separately, he said, pointing at the man still fighting for air on the bottom step, or does your husband not intend to see the Schloss? My husband, I echoed astonished. Now, sir, he continued impatiently, addressing the back below. Are you coming or not? The man in spectacles made a great effort, caught hold of the convenient leg of one of the copper wolves, pulled himself onto his feet with its aid, and climbed slowly up the steps. The public is requested not to touch the objects of art,

snapped the custodian, glancing at the wolf's leg to see if it had suffered. The man in spectacles looked properly ashamed of his conduct. I felt ashamed of myself too, but only on the more general grounds of being such a worm, and together we silently followed the guide into the house. Together we gave up our tickets, and together laid our stick and sunshade side by side on a table. A number was given to the man in spectacles. And my number, I inquired politely. Surely one suffices, said the guy, eyeing me with disapproval, for taking me for the wife of the man in spectacles, he regarded my desire to have a number all to myself as only one

more instance of the lengths to which the modern woman in her struggle for emancipation will go. The stick and sunshade were accordingly tied together. Do you wish to ascend the tower, he asked, my companion, showing us the open-work iron staircase winding round and round inside the tower up to the top. Got do al-michtig on nine, was the hasty reply after a glance and a shudder, taking for granted that without my husband I would not want to go up towers, he did not ask. me, but I at once led the way through a very charming hall, decorated with what are known as trophies of the chase, to a locked door before which stood a row of enormous grey felt slippers.

The public is not allowed to enter the princely apartments unless it has previously drawn these slippers over its boots, said the guide as though he were quoting. All of them? I asked, faintly facetious. Again he eyed me, but this time in silence. The man in spectacles thrust his feet into the nearest pair. They were generously roomy even for him, and he was a big man with boots to match. I looked down the row, hoping to see something smaller and perhaps newer, but they were all the same size, and all had been worn repeatedly by other tourists. The next time I come to the Yachtch-sloss, I observed thoughtfully as I saw my feet disappear

into the gaping mouths of two of these woolly monsters. I shall bring my own slippers. This arrangement may be useful, but no one could. call it select neither of my companions took the least notice of me the guide looked disgusted judging from his face though he still thought me a worm he now suspected me of belonging to that highly objectionable class known as turned having seen us safely into our slippers he was about to unlock the door when the bell rang he left us standing mute before the shut door and leaning over the balustrade for a reader as charlotte bronte would say he had come upstairs he called down to the freiline who had taken our stick and sunshade to let in the visitors she did so and as she flung open the door i saw through the pillars of the balustrade brosy on the threshold and at the bottom of the steps leaning against one of the copper wolves her arm indeed flung over its valuable shoulder the bishop's wife gasping at this sight the custodian rushed downstairs the man in spectacles and myself mute meek and motionless in our felt slippers held our breaths the public is requested not to touch the objects of art, shouted the custodian as he rushed.

Is he speaking to me, dear? asked Mrs. Harvey Brown, looking up at her son. I think he is, mother, said Ambrose. I don't think you may lean on that wolf. Wolf, said his mother in surprise, standing upright and examining the animal through her eyeglasses with interest. So it is. I thought they were Prussian eagles. Anyhow, you mustn't touch it, mother, said Ambrose, a slight impatience in his voice. he says the public are not to touch things. Does he really call me the public? Do you think he is a rude person, dear?

Does the lady intend to see the Schloss or not? Interrupted the custodian. I have another party inside, waiting. Come on, mother, you want to, don't you? Yes, but not if he's a rude man, dear, said Mrs. Harvey Brown, slowly ascending the steps. Perhaps you'd better tell him who father is. I don't think it would impress him much, said

Rosie smiling. Parsons come here too often for that. Parsons, yes, but not bishops, said his mother, coming into the echoing hall, through whose emptiness her last words rang like a trumpet. He wouldn't know what a bishop is. They don't have them. No, bishops, exclaimed his mother, stopping short and staring at her son with a face of concern. "'Bitte um the eintritskarten,' interrupted the custodian, slamming the door, and he pulled the tickets out of Brosey's hand.

"'No, bishops,' continued Mrs. Harvey Brown. "'And no early fathers, as that smashed-looking person, "'that cousin of Frau Niebel lines told us last night. "'My dear Brosey, what a very strange state of things. "'I don't think she quite said that, did she? "'They have early fathers right enough. "'She didn't understand what she. you meant. Stick and umbrella, please, interrupted the custodian, snatching them out of their passive hands.

Take the number, please. Now this way, please. He hurried or tried to hurry them under the tower, but the bishop's wife had not hurried for years, and would not have dreamed of doing so, and when he had got them under it, he asked if they wished to make the ascent. They looked up, shuddered and declined. Then we will at once join the other party, said the custodian, bustling on. other party, exclaimed Mrs. Harvey Brown in German, Oh, I hope no objectionable tourists. I quite thought coming so early we would avoid them. Only two, said the custodian, a respectable gentleman and his wife.

The man in spectacles and I, up to then mute, meek and motionless in our grey slippers, started simultaneously. I looked at him cautiously out of the corners of my eyes and found to my confusion that he was looking at me cautiously out of the corners of his. In another moment the Harvey Browns stood before us. After one slight look of faintest surprise at my companion, the Pleasant Ambrose greeted me as though I were an old friend, and then, bowing with a politeness acquired during his long stay in the fatherland

to the person he supposed was my husband, introduced himself in German fashion by mentioning his name and observed that he was exceedingly pleased to make his acquaintance. "'Es freud me very beaconshap to make, said the Pleasant Ambrose.' "'Glaich false, "'glech, "'murred the man in spectacles, "'bowing repeatedly and obviously astonished. "'To the bishop's wife he also made rapid and bewildered bows "'until he saw she was gazing over his head,

"'and then he stopped. "'She had recognized my presence by the merest shadow of a nod, "'which I returned with an indifference that was icy. "'But oddly enough, what offended me more than her nod "'was the glance she'd bestowed on the man in spectacles "'before she began to gaze over his head. "'He certainly did not belong to, to me, and yet I was offended. This seemed to me so subtle that it set me off pondering.

The public is not allowed to enter the princely apartments unless it has previously drawn these slippers over its boots, said the custodian. Mrs. Harvey Brown looked at him critically. He has a very crude way of expressing himself, hasn't he, dear, she remarked to Ambrose. He's only quoting official regulations. He must, you know, mother, and were undoubtedly the public. ambrose looked at my feet then at the feet of my companion and then without more ado got into a pair of slippers he wore knickerbockers and stockings and his legs had a classic refinement that erred if at all on the side of over-slanderness the effect of the enormous grey slippers at the end of these attic legs made me for one awful moment feel as though i were going to shriek with laughter an immense effort strangled the shriek and left me unnaturally solemn mrs harvey brown had now caught sight of the row of slippers. She put up her eye glasses and examined them very carefully. How very German, she remarked. Put them on, mother, said Ambrose, we're all waiting for you. Are they new, Brosey? She asked,

hesitating. The lady must put on the slippers or she cannot enter the princely apartment, said the custodian severely. Must I really? Brozy, she inquired, looking extremely unhappy. I'm so terribly afraid of infection, or other things, do they think we shall spoil their carpets? The floors are polished, I imagine, said Ambrose, and the owner's probably afraid the visitors might slip and hurt themselves. Really, quite nice and considerate of him, if only they were new. Ambrose shuffled to the end of the row in his and took up two. Look here, mother, he said, bringing them to her. Here's quite a new pair. Never been worn before. Put them on. They can't possibly do any harm.

They were not new, but Mrs. Harvey Brown thought they were and consented to put them on. The instant they were on her feet, stretching out in all their hugeness, far beyond the frills of her skirt, and obliging her to slide instead of walk, she became gracious. The smile with which she slid past me was amiable as well as deprecatory. They had apparently reduced her at once to the level of other sinful mortals. This effect seemed to me so subtle that again I felt a pondering. "'Fraun Niebuhrlein is not with you this morning,' she asked pleasantly, "'as we shuffled side by side into the princely apartments. "'She's resting. She had rather a bad night.

"'Nurves, of course.' "'No. Ghosts?' "'It's the same thing,' said Ambrose. "'Is it not, sir?' he asked amiably of the man in spectacles. "'Perhaps,' said the man in spectacles, cautiously. "'But not a real ghost?' asked Mrs. Harvey Brown interested. "'I believe the great point about a ghost is that it never is real.

The bishop doesn't believe in them, but I, I really hardly know, when here's such strange tales, the wife of one of the clergy of our dioces believes quite firmly in them. She's a vegetarian, and of course she eats a great many vegetables, and then she sees ghosts.

The chimney-piece, said the guide, is constructed entirely of Roman marble. Really, said Mrs. Harvey Brown, examining it abstractedly through her eyeglasses. she declares their vicarage is haunted and what in the world do you think by the strangest thing it is haunted by the ghost of a cat the statue on the right is by torvaldsen said the guide by the ghost of a cat repeated mrs harvey brown impressively she seemed to expect me to say something so i said indeed that on the left is by rauch said the guide and this cat does not do anything i mean it is not prophetic of impending family disaster it simply walks across a certain room the drawing-room i believe quite like a real cat and nothing happens but perhaps it is a real cat oh no it is supernatural no one sees it but herself it walks quite slowly with its tail up in the air and once when she went up to it to try to pull its tail so as to convince herself of its existence she only clutched empty air

the frescoes with which this apartment is adorned are by colbe and ebe said the guide you mean it ran away no it walked on quite deliberately but the tale not being made of human flesh and blood there was naturally nothing to pull beginning from left to right we have in the first a representation of the entry of king waldemar eince into rigen said the guide but the most extraordinary thing about it happened one day when she put a saucer of cream on the floor for it she thought it all over in the night and had come to the conclusion that as no ghost would lap cream and no real cat be able to help lapping it this would provide her with a decisive proof one way or the other the cat came saw the cream and immediately immediately lapped it up. My friend was so pleased because of course one likes real cats best. The second represents the introduction of Christianity into the island, said the guide. And when it had done, the saucer was empty. She went over to it. The third represents the laying of the foundation stone of the church at Vilmnitz, said the guide. And what do you think happened? She walked straight through it.

"'Through what?' I asked profoundly interested. "'The cream or the cat?' "'Ah, that was what was so marvellous. "'She walked right through the body of the cat. "'Now, what had become of the cream?' "'I confess this story impressed me more than any ghost story I've ever heard. "'The disappearance of the cream was so extraordinary.' "'And there was nothing.

"'Nothing at all left on her dress?' I asked eagerly. "'I mean, after walking through the cat, one would have thought that some, at least of the cream, not a vestige. I stood gazing at the bishop's wife absorbed in reflection. How truly strange, I murmured at length, after having vainly endeavored to account for the missing cream. Wasn't it? said Mrs. Harvey Brown, much pleased with the effect of her story. Indeed, the amiability awakened in her bosom by the grey-felt slippers had increased rapidly, and the unaccountable conduct of the cream seemed about to cement our friendship.

when, at this point, she having remarked that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, and I, in order to show my acquaintance with the classics of other countries, having added, as Chaucer justly observes, to which she said, ah, yes, so beautiful, isn't he? A voice behind us made us both jump, and turning round we beheld at our elbows the man in spectacles. Ambrose, aided by the guide, was on the other side of the room, studying the works of Colbe and Ebo. the man in spectacles had evidently heard the whole story of the cat for this is what he said the aborician madam if it has any meaning at all which i doubt being myself inclined to locate its origin in the faulty digestion of the lady seems to point to a life beyond the grave for the spirits of cats considered as a proof of such a life for the human soul which is the one claim to our interest phenomena of the kind can possess it is of course valueless mrs harvey brown stared at him a moment through her eyeglasses christians she then said distantly need no further proof of that may i ask madam what precisely you mean by christians inquired the man in spectacles briskly define them if you please now the bishop's wife was not used to being asked to define things and disliked it as much as anybody else besides though rays of intelligent interest darted through his spectacles the wearer of them also wore clothes that were not only old but peculiar and his whole appearance cried aloud of much work and small reward. She therefore looked not only helpless, but indignant. Sir, she said icily, this is not the moment to define Christians. I hear the name repeatedly, said the man in spectacles, bowing but undaunted, and looking round me, I ask myself,

where are they? Sir, said Mrs. Harvey Brown, they are in every Christian country. And which pray, madam, would you call the Christian countries? I look round me, and I see nations arm to the teeth, ready and sometimes even anxious to fly at each other's throats their attitude may be patriotic virile perhaps necessary conceivably estimable but madam would you call it christian sir said mrs harvey brown having noticed by your accent madam that the excellent german you speak was not originally acquired in our fatherland but must be the result of a commendable diligence practised in the school-rooms of your youth and native land and having further observed from a certain unmistakable signs that the native land in question must be England, it would have a peculiar interest for me to be favoured with the exact meaning the inhabitants of that enlightened country attached to the term. My income, having hitherto not been sufficient to enable me to visit its hospitable shores, I hail this opportunity with pleasure of discussing questions that are of importance to us all,

with one of its no doubt most distinguished daughters. sir said mrs harvey brown at first went on the man in spectacles one would be disposed to say that a christian is a person who believes in the tenets of the christian faith but belief if it is genuine must necessarily find its practical expression in works how then madam would you account for the fact that when i look round me in the provincial town in which i pursue the honourable calling of a pedagogue i see numerous christians but no works sir i do not account for it said mrs harvey brown angrily for consider madam the lively faith inspired by other creeds place against this inertia the activity of other believers observe the dervish how he dances observe the fakir hanging from his hook i will not sir said mrs harvey brown roused now beyond endurance and i do not know why you should choose this place and time to thrust your opinions on sacred subjects on a stranger and a lady with which she turned her back on him and shuffled away with all the dignity the felt slippers allowed the man in spectacles stood confounded the lady i said desirous of applying balm is the wife of a clergyman heavens if she had heard me and is therefore afraid of talking about things that must lead her on to sacred ground i think you will find the sun very intelligent and ready to talk but i regret to say the man in spectacles seemed extremely shy of me whether it was because the custodian had taken me for his wife or because i was an apparently unattached female wandering about and drinking coffee by myself, contrary to all decent custom. I do not know. Anyhow, he met my well-meant attempt to explain Mrs. Harvey Brown to him with suspicion, and murmuring something about the English being

indeed very strangely mannered, he etched cautiously away. We now straggled through the rooms separately, Ambrose in front with the guide, his mother by herself, I, by myself, and a good way behind us, the mortified man in spectacles. He made no effort to take my advice and talk to Ambrose, but kept carefully as far away from the rest of us as possible, and when we presently found ourselves once more outside the princely apartments, on the opposite side to the door by which we had gone into them, he slid forward, took off his felt slippers with the finality of one who shakes off dust from his feet, made three rapid bows, one to each of us, and hurried down the stairs. Arrived at the bottom, we saw him take his stick from the Freeline, shake his head with indignant vigor

when she tried to make him take my son's shape two, pull open the heavy door, almost run through it. He slammed it with an energy that made the Yachtch-Schloss tremble. The Freulein looked first at the slammed door, then at the sunshade, and then up at me. Quarled, said the Freulines look as plainly as speech. Ambrose looked at me, too, and in his eyes was an interrogation. Mrs. Harvey Brown looked at me, too, and in her eyes was coldest condemnation. Is it possible, said Mrs. Harvey Brown's eyes, that any one can really move. marry such a person? As for me, I walked downstairs, my face bland with innocence and unconcern. How delightful, I said enthusiastically. How truly delightful these walls look, with all the antlers

and things on them. Very, said Ambrose. Mrs. Harvey Brown was silent. Probably she had resolved never to speak to me again, but when we were at the bottom and Ambrose was bestowing fees on the Freulein and the custodian, she said, I did not know your husband was traveling with you. "'My husband,' I repeated inquiringly. "'But he isn't. He's at home, minding I hope, my neglected children.' "'At home? Then whose husband was that?' "'Was what?' I asked, following her eyes, which were fixed on the door so lately slammed. "'Why, that man in spectacles?'

"'Really, how can I tell? Perhaps nobody's? Certainly not mine.' Mrs. Harvey Brown stared at me in immense surprise. How very extraordinary, she said. End of Section 8, read by Sandra 22. Section 9 Of the Adventures of Elizabeth in Ruegen. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. The Adventures of Elizabeth in Ruegen by Elizabeth von Arnim. The sixth day continued, the Granitz Woods, Schwartz Osset, and Kikouver. In the woods behind Bintz, alone in the heart of them near a clearing, where in past days somebody must have lived, for ancient fruit trees still mark the place that used to be a garden, there is a single grave on which the dead beach leaves, slowly dropping down through the days and nights of many autumns, have heaped a sober cover. on the headstone is a rusty iron plate with this inscription. Here root a finisher-criger, 1806. There is no fence round it and no name on it. Every autumn the beech leaves make the unknown soldier a new brown paw,

and through the sparkling frozen winters, except for the thin shadows of naked branches, he lies in sunshine. In the spring the blue hepaticus, children of those that were there the first day, gather about his sodden mound in little flocks of loveliness then after a warm rain the shadows broaden and draw together for overhead the leaves are bursting the wind blowing on to him from the clearing is scented for the grass out there has violets in it the pear-trees in the deserted garden put on their white robes of promise and then comes summer and in the long days there are wanderers in the woods and the chance passer-by moved perhaps by some vague sentiment of pity for so much lonely throws him a few flowers or a bunch of ferns as he goes his way there was a cross of bracken lying on the grave when i came upon it still fresh and tied together with bits of grass and a wreath of sea holly hung round the headstone sitting down by the side of the nameless one to rest for the sun was high and i began to be tired it seemed to me as i leaned my face against his cool covering of leaves still wet with the last rain that he was very cozily tucked away down there, away from worries and the chill fingers of fear with everything over so far as he was concerned,

and each of the hours destined for him in which hard things were to happen lived through and done with. A curiosity to know how he came to be in the granite's woods at a time when Rögen, belonging to the French, had nothing to do with Finland, made me pull out my guidebook, but it was blank. The whole time I was journeying round Ruegen, it was invariably blank when it ought to have been illuminating. what had this man done or left undone that he should have been shut out from the company of those who were buried in churchyards why should he because he was nameless be outcast as well why should his body be held unworthy of a place by the side of persons who though they were as dead as himself still went on being respectable I took off my hat and leaned against the Finnish warrior's grave, and stared up along the smooth beach trunks to the point where the leaves, getting out of the shade, flashed in the sun at the top, and marveled greatly at the ways of men who pursue each other with conventions and disapproval, even when their object, ceasing to be a man, is nothing but a poor, unresentful, indifferent corpse. It is, certainly with me it is, a symptom of fatigue and want of food to marvel at the ways of men. my spirit grows more and more inclined to carp as my body grows more tired and hungry when i'm not too weary and have not given my breakfast to fowls my thoughts have a cheerful way of fixing themselves entirely on the happy side of things and life seems extraordinarily charming but i see nothing happy and my soul is lost in blackness if for many hours i have had no food

how useless to talk to a person of the charities if you have not first fed him how useless to explain that they are scattered at his feet like flowers if you have fed him too much. Both these states of being overfed and not fed enough are equally fatal to the exquisitely sensitive life of the soul. And so it came about that because it was long past luncheon time and I had walked far and it was hot, I found myself growing sentimental over the poor dead fin, inclined to envy him because he could go on resting there while I had to find a way back to bince in the heat and excuse my absence to an offended cousin, launching, indignant at his having been denied Christian burial, into a whole sea of woeful reflections on the spites and follies of mankind, from which a single piece of bread would have rescued me,

and I was very tired, and it was very hot and very silent and very drowsy, my grumblings and disapprovals, grew gradually vaguer, grew milder, grew confused, grew intermittent, and I went to sleep. Now, to go to sleep out of doors on a fine summer afternoon is an extremely pleasant thing to do if nobody comes and looks at you and you are comfortable. I was not exactly comfortable for the ground round the grave was mossless and hard, and when the wind caught it, the bracken cross tickled my ear, and jerked my mind dismally onto earwigs. Also, some spiders with frail long legs, which they seemed to leave lying about at the least and gentlest attempt to persuade them to go. away, walked about on me, and would not walk anywhere else. But presently I left off feeling them or caring and sank away deliciously into dreams. The last thing I heard being the rustling of leaves, and the last thing I felt the cool wind lifting my hair. And now the truly literary, if he did

not hear digress into a description of what he dreamed, which is a form of digression skipped by the truly judicious, would certainly write, How long I slept, I know not. And would then tell the reader that waking with a start he immediately proceeded to shiver. I cannot do better than imitate him, leaving out the start and the shiver, since I did neither, and altering his method to suit my greater homelessness, remark that I don't know how long I had been asleep, because I had not looked at a watch when I began. But opening my eyes in due season, I found that they stared straight into the eyes of Mrs. Harvey Brown, and that she and Brozy were standing side by side looking down at me.

being a woman my first thought was a fervent hope that I had not been sleeping with my mouth wide open, being a human creature torn by ungovernable passions. My second was to cry out inwardly and historically, will no one rid me of this troublesome preletus? Then I sat up and feverishly patted my hair. I am not in the guidebook, I said, with some asperity. We came to look at the grave, smilingly answered Mrs. Harvey Brown. May I help you up? asked Amber. "'Thanks? No. "'Brosy. Fetch me my camp-stool out of the fly. "'I will sit here a few minutes with Frau X.

"'You were having a little post-prandial nap?' "'She added, turning to me still smiling. "'Anti-prandial.' "'What, you've been in the woods ever since we parted this morning at the Yachtschloss?' "'Brosy,' she called after him, "'bring the tea-basket out as well. "'My dear Frau X, you must be absolutely faint. Do you not think it injudicious to go so many hours without nourishment?

We will make tea now instead of a little later, and I insist on your eating something. Really, this was very obliging. What had happened to the bishop's wife? Her urbanity was so marked that I thought it could only be a beautiful dream, and I rubbed my eyes before answering. But it was, undoubtedly, Mrs. Harvey Brown. She had been home since I saw her last, rested, lunched, put on fresh garments, perhaps bathed, but all these things soothing as they are could not by themselves account for the change also she spoke to me in english for the first time you're very kind i murmured staring

just imagine she said to ambrose who approached across the crackling leaves with the camp-stool tea-basket and cushions from the seats of the fly waiting in the forest road a few yards away this little lady has had nothing to eat all day oh i say said brosie sympathetically "'Little lady,' I repeated to myself more and more puzzled. "'If you must lean against a hard grave,' said Brozy, "'at least let me put this cushion behind your back, "'and I can make you much more comfortable if you'll stand up a moment.' "'Oh, I'm so stiff,' I exclaimed as he helped me up. "'I must have been here hours. What time is it?' "'Past four,' said Brosey.

"'Most injudicious,' said his mother, "'Dear Frau Ix, you must promise me never to do such a thing again. What would happen to those sweet children of yours if their little mother were to be laid up? Dear, dear me, what was all this sweet children, little mother? I could only sit on my cushions and stare. This, she explained, noticing, I suppose, that I looked astonished, and thinking it was because Brose was spreading out cups and lighting the spirit lamp, so very close to the deceased Finn, is not desecration.

It is not as though we were having tea in a churchyard, which, of course, we never would have. This is unconsecrated ground. One cannot desecrate that which has never been consecrated. Desecration can only begin after. Consecration has taken place. I bowed my head and then cheered into speech by the sight of an approaching rusk, I added. I know a family with a mausoleum, and on fine days they go and have coffee at it. Germans, of course, said Mrs. Harvey Brown, smiling, but with an effort,

one can hardly imagine English. Oh, yes, Germans. when anyone goes to see them, if it is fine, they say, let us drink coffee at the mausoleum, and then they do. Is it a special treat? asked Rosie. The view there is very lovely. Oh, I see, said Mrs. Harvey Brown relieved. They only sit outside.

I was afraid for a moment that they actually... Oh, no, I said, eating what seemed to be the most perfect rask ever produced by German baker. Not actually. What a sweet spot this is to be buried in? remarked Mrs. Harvey Brown, while Brosey, with the skill of one used to doing it, made the tea, and then, according to the want of good woman, when they speak of being buried, she sighed, I wonder, she went on, how he came to be put here. That is what I have been wondering,

ever since I found him, I said. He was wounded in some battle and was trying to get home, said Brosey. You know, Finland was Swedish in those days, and so was Oregon. As I did not know, I said nothing, but looked exceedingly bright. he had been fighting for sweden against the french i met a forester yesterday and he told me there used to be a forester's house where those fruit trees are and the people in it took him in and nursed him till he died then they buried him here but why was he not buried in a churchyard asked his mother i don't know poor chap i don't suppose he would have cared the great point i should say under such circumstances would be the being dead my dear brosie murmured his mother which was what she always murmured when he said things that she disapproved without quite knowing why. Or a still greater point, I remarked, moved again to cheerful speech by the excellent tea brosie had made, and his mother, justly suspicious of the tea of Teutons, had smuggled

through the customs, as she afterwards told me with pride. A still greater point, if those are the circumstances that lie in wait for one, would be the never-being-born. Oh, but that is pessimism, cried Mrs. Harvey Brown, shaking a finger at me, what have you, of all people in the world, to do with pessimism? Oh, I don't know. I suppose I have my days like everybody else, I said, slightly puzzled again by this remark. Once I was told of two aged Germans, I continued, for by this time I had had three rusks and was feeling very pleasant. Of two aged Germans whose digestive machinery was fragile. Oh, poor things, said Mrs. Harvey Brown sympathetically. And in spite of that, they drank beer all their lives,

persistently and excessively. How very injudicious, said Mrs. Harvey Brown. They drank such a fearful lot, and for so long, that at last they became philosophers. My dear frau, ick, said Mrs. Harvey Brown incredulously. What an unexpected result. Oh, but indeed there is hardly anything you may not at last become, I insisted, if, besides being German, your diet is indiscreet enough. Yes, I quite think that, said Mrs. Harvey Brown.

Well, then what happened, asked Brozy with smiling eyes? Well, they were naturally profoundly pessimistic, both of them. You are, you know, if your diet... Oh, yes, indeed, agreed Mrs. Harvey Brown with the conviction of one who has been through it. They were absolutely sick of things. They loathed everything, anybody said or did, and they were disciples of Nietzsche. Was that the cause or the effect of the excessive beer drinking, asked Brozy? Oh, I can't endure, Nietzsche.

cried Mrs. Harvey Brown. Don't ever read him, Brosey. I saw some things he says about women. He's too dreadful. And one said to the other over their despairing potations, only those can be considered truly happy who are destined never to be born. There, cried Mrs. Harvey Brown.

That is Nietzsche all over. Rank pessimism. I never heard ranker, said Brozy, smiling. And the other thought it over and then said drearily. But to how few. falls that happy lot. There was a pause. Brozy was laughing behind his teacup. His mother, on the contrary, looked solemn and gazed at me thoughtfully. There's a great want of simple faith about Germans, she said. The bishop thinks it's so sad. A story like that would quite upset him.

He's been very anxious, lest Brozy our only child, dear Frau Eakes, so you may imagine how precious should become tainted by it. I dislike beer, said Brozy. That man this moment this for instance, did you ever hear anything like it? He was just the type of man quite apart from his insolence that most grieves the bishop. Really, I said, and wondered respectfully at the amount of grieving the bishop got through. An educated man, I suppose, did he not say he was a schoolmaster, a teacher of the young without a vestige himself of the simple faith he ought to inculcate? For if he had had a vestige, would it not have prevented his launching into an irreverent conversation with a lady who was not only a stranger but the wife of a prelate of the Church of England.

He couldn't know that, mother, said Brosey. And from what you told me, it wasn't a conversation he launched into, but a monologue. And I must beg your pardon, he added, turning to me with a smile, for the absurd mistake we made. It was the guide's fault. Oh, yes, my dear Frout Wigs, you must forgive me. It was really too silly of me. I might have known. I was completely taken aback, I assure you, but the guide.

was so very positive, and there followed such a number of apologies that, again, I was bewildered, only retaining the one clear impression that the bishop's wife desired exceedingly to be agreeable. Well, a woman bent on being agreeable is better than a woman bent on being disagreeable, though being the soul of caution in my statements, I must add, not always, for I suppose few of us have walked any distance along the path of life without having had to go at least some part of the way, in the company of persons who filled with the praiseworthy wish to be very pleasant, succeeded only in drenching our spirits with the depressing torrents of effusion. And effusiveness applied to myself has precisely the effect of a finger applied to the horns of a snail,

who shall be innocently airing himself in the sun. He gets back without more ado into his shell, and so do I. That is what happened on this occasion, for some reason which I can only faintly gas, the bishop's wife after disapproving of me in the morning was petting me in the afternoon. She had been lunching, she told me, with Charlotte, and they had had a nice talk, she said, about me. About me. Instantly, I scrambled back into my shell. There is surely nothing in the world so tiresome as being questioned as I now was on one's household arrangements and personal habits. I will talk about anything but that. I will talk with the courage of ignorance about all high matters, of which I know nothing. I'm ready to do.

to discourse on all or any of the great abstractions with the glibness of the shallow mind. I will listen sympathetically to descriptions of diseases suffered, and operations survived, of the brilliance of sons and the beauty of daughters. I will lend an attentive ear to an enumeration of social successes and family difficulties, of woes and triumphs of every sort, including those connected with kitchens, but I will not answer questions about myself. And indeed, what is there to talk about? is interested in my soul, and as for my body, I long ago got tired of that.

One cannot, however, eat a person's resks, without assuming a certain amount of subsequent blandness. So I did my best to behave nicely. Brozy smoked cigarettes. Whatever it was that had sent me up in his mother's estimation had apparently sent me down in his. He no longer, it seemed, looked upon me as a good specimen of the intelligent German female. I might be as eloquently silent as I liked, and it did not impress him in the least. The few remarks he made showed me that. This was grievous, for Brosey was in person a very charming young man, and the good opinion of charming young men is quite a nice thing to possess. Now I began to regret, now that he was merely interjectional, those earnest paragraphs in which he had talked the night before at supper

and during the sunset walk on the island of the film. Observing him sideways and cautiously, I saw that the pretty speeches his mother was making me, apropos of everything and nothing, were objectionable to him, and I silently agreed with him that pretty speeches are unpleasant things, especially when made by one woman to another. You can forgive a man, perhaps, because in your heart, in spite of all experience, lurks the comfortable belief that he means what he says,

but how shall you forgive a woman for mistaking you for a fool? They persuaded me to drive with them to the place in the woods they were bound for called Kikawa, where the view over the bay was said to be very beautiful, and when I got on to my feet I found I was so stiff that driving seemed the only thing possible. Ambrose was very kind and careful of my bodily comfort, but did not bother about me spiritually. Whenever there was a hill, and there kept on being hills, he got out and walked, leaving me wholly to his mother. But it did not matter any more, for the forest was so exquisite that way, the afternoon so serene, so mellow, lovely light that I could not look round me without being happy. Oh, blessed state, when mere

quiet weather, trees and grass, sea and clouds can make you forget that life has anything in it but rapture, can make you drink in heaven with every breath? How long will it last this joy of living, this splendid ecstasy of the soul? I'm more afraid of losing this, of losing even a little of this, of having so much as the edge of its radiance dimmed than of parting with any other earthly possession. And I think of Wordsworth, its divine singer, who yet lost it so soon and could no longer see the splendor in the grass, the glory in the flower, and I ask myself with a sinking heart if it faded so quickly for him who saw it and sang it by God's grace to such perfection, how long, oh, how long does the common soul half blind, half dead, half dumb, keep its little precious

share? My intention, when I began this book, was to write a useful god. to Ruggin, one that should point out its best parts and least uncomfortable inns, to any English or American traveller whose energy lands him on its shores. With every page I write, it grows more plain that I shall not fulfil that intention. What, for instance, have Charlotte and the bishop's wife of illuminating for the tourist who wants to be shone the way? As I cannot conscientiously praise the inns, I will not give their names, and what is the use of that to a tourist who wishes to know where to sleep and dine? I meant to disdain. I meant to disdain. I meant to disdise. describe the Yachtschloss, and find I only repeated a ghost story. It is true, I said the rolls at the

inn there were hard, but the information was so deeply embedded in superfluities that no tourist will discover it in time to save him from ordering one, still anxious to be of use. I will now tell the traveller that he must, on no account, miss going from Bintz to kickover, but that he must go there on his feet and not allow himself to be driven over the roots and stones by the wives of bishops, and that shortly before he reaches Kikur, low German, for look, or peep over, he will come to four crossroads with a signpost in the middle, and he's to follow the one to the right, which will lead him to the Schwarzesee or Black Lake, and having got there, let him sit down quietly and take out the volume of poetry he ought to have in his pocket,

and bless God who made this little lovely hollow on the top of the hills, and drew it round with a girdle of forest, and filled its reedy curtail. herves with white water lilies, and sat it about with silence, and gave him eyes to see its beauty. I'm afraid I could not have heard Mrs. Harvey Brown's questions for quite a long time, for presently I found she had sauntered round this enchanted spot to the side where Brozy was taking photographs, and I was sitting alone on the moss, looking down through the trees at the lilies and listening only to frogs. I looked down between the slender stems of some silver birches that hung over the water. every now and then a tiny gust of wind came along and rippled their clear reflections,

ruffling up half of each water lily leaf, and losing itself somewhere among the reeds. Then when it had gone, the lily leaves dropped back one after the other onto the calm water, each with a little thud. On the west side, the lake ends in a reedy marsh, very froggy that afternoon, and starred with the snowy cotton flower. A peculiarly fragrant smell like exceedingly delicate, Russian leather hangs round the place, or did that afternoon. It was, I suppose, the hot sun bringing out the scent of some hidden herb, and it would not always be there. But I like to think of the

beautiful little lake as forever fragrant, all the year round lying alone and sweet-smelling and enchanted, tucked away in the bosom of the solitary hills. When the traveller has spent some time lying on the moss with his poet, and he should lie there long enough for his soul to grow as quiet and clear as the water, and the poet, I think, should be Milton. He can go back to the crossroads, five minutes walk over beach leaves, and so to Kikov, about half a mile further on. The contrast between the Schwarzesee and Kikovar is striking. Coming from that sheltered place of suspended breath, you climb up a steep hill and find yourself suddenly on the edge of high cliffs, where the air is always moving and the wind blows freshly onto you across the bay.

Far down below, the blue water heaves and glitters. In the distance lies the headland beyond Sassnitz, hazy in the afternoon light. The beech trees, motionless round the lake, here keep up a ceaseless rustle. You who have been so hot all day find your growing almost too cool. "'Sie'est ch'un, Unserre Ossse, what?' said a hearty male voice behind us.

"'We were all three leaning against the wooden rail put up for our protection on the edge of the cliff. A few yards off is a shed, where a waiter, battered by the sea breezes he's forced daily to endure, supplies the thirsty with beer and coffee. The hearty owner of the voice, Brown with the sun, damp and jolly with exercise in beer drinking, stood looking over Mrs. Harvey Brown's shoulder at the view

with an air of proud proprietorship, his hands in his pockets, his legs wide apart, his cap pushed well off an extremely heated brow. he addressed this remark to mrs harvey brown to whom i suppose she being a matron of years in patent sobriety he thought cheery remarks might safely be addressed but if there was a thing the bishop's wife disliked it was a cheery stranger the pedagogue that morning so artlessly interested in her conversation with me as to forget he had not met her before had manifestly revolted her i myself the previous evening though not cheery still a stranger had been objectionable too her how much more offensive then was a warm man speaking to her with a familiarity so sudden and jolly as to resemble nothing so much as a slap on the back she of course took no notice of him after the first slight start and glance round but stared out to sea with eyes grown stony in england you do not see such blue water what shouted the jolly man who was plainly in the happy mood the french called de boutonet his wife and daughters ladies clothed in dust cloaks sitting at a rough wooden table with empty beer glasses before them laughed hilariously.

The mere fact of the Harvey Browns being so obviously English appeared to amuse them enormously. They too were in the mood de Boutanais. Ambrose, as ready to talk as his mother to turn her back, answered for her, and assured the jolly man that he had indeed never seen such blue water in England. This seemed to give the whole family intense delight. Yeah, shouted the father. Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber alas. And he trolled out that famous song in the sort of voice known as rich.

Quite so, said Ambrose politely when he had done. Oh, come, we must drink together, cried the jolly man. Drink in the best beer in the world to the health of old England, what? And he called the waiter. And in another moment he and Ambrose stood clinking glasses and praising each other's countries, while the hilarious family laughed and applauded in the background. The bishop's wife had not moved. She stood staring out to sea, and her stare grew ever stonier.

I wish, she began, but did not go on. Then, there being plainly no means of stopping Ambrose's cordiality, she wisely resolved to pass the time while we waited for him in exchanging luminous thoughts with me. And we did exchange them for some minutes until my luminousness was cladier. and put out by the following short conversation. I must say I cannot see what there is about Germans that so fascinates Ambrose. Do you hear that empty laughter?

The loud laugh that betrays the empty mind? As Shakespeare says, Dear Frau, Ix, you are so beautifully read. So nice of you. I know you are a woman of a liberal mind, so you will not object to my saying that I am much disciplined. in the Germans. Not a bit. Ambrose has always been so enthusiastic about them that I expected quite wonders. What do I find? I pass over in silence many things, including the ill-bred

mirth. Just listen to those people. But I cannot help lamenting their complete want of common sense. Indeed, how sensible English people are compared to them. Do you think so? Why, of course, in everything. But are you not judging the whole nation by the few? Oh, one can always tell. What could be more supremely senseless, for instance? And she waved a hand over the bay, than calling the Baltic the Ostsee.

Well, but why shouldn't they if they want to? But dear frau, Ix, it is so foolish, East Sea. Of what is it the east? One is always the east of something, but one doesn't talk about it. The name has no meaning whatever. Now, Baltic, exactly describes it. End of Section 9, read by Sandra, Montreal, 2022. Section 10 of the Adventures of Elizabeth in Erudin.

This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. the adventures of elizabeth in ruden by elizabeth von arnim the seventh day from bince to stubenkmer we left bince at ten o'clock the next morning for sasnitz and stupenkmer sasnitz is the principal bathing place on the island and i had meant to stay there a night but as neither of us liked the glare of chalk roads and white houses we went on that day to stubenkamer where everything is in the shade Charlotte had not gone away as she said she would, and when I got back to our lodgings the evening before, penitent and apologetic, after my wanderings in the forest, besides being rather frightened, for I was afraid I was going to be scolded and was not sure that I did not deserve it.

I found her sitting on the pillared veranda, indulgently watching the sunset sky, with the prelude lying open on her lap. She did not ask me where I'd been all day. She only pointed to the prelude and said, This is great rubbish, to which I only answered, oh? Later in the evening I discovered that the reason of her want of interest in my movements and absence of reproachfulness was that she herself had had a busy and a successful day. Judgment, hurried on by Charlotte, had overtaken the airing Hedwig,

and the widow expressing horror and disgust, had turned her out. Charlotte praised the widow. She's an intelligent and a right-minded woman, she said. She assured me she would rather do all the work herself and be left without a servant altogether than keep a wicked girl like that. I was prepared to leave at once if she'd not dismissed her, then and there. Still later in the evening I gathered from certain remarks Charlotte made

that she had lent the most lurid of her works, a pamphlet called the Beast of Prey, to the widow, who, to judge from Charlotte's satisfaction, was quite carried away by it. Its nature was certainly sufficiently startling to carry any ordinary widow away. We left the next morning, pursued by the widow's blessings,

blessings of great potency, I suppose, of the same degree of potency, exactly as the curses of orphans. And we all know the peculiar efficaciousness of those. Good creature, said Charlotte, touched by the number of them as we drove away. I'm so glad I was able to help her a little by opening her eyes,

the operation, I observed, is not always pleasant. But invariably necessary, said Charlotte with decision. What then was my astonishment on looking back as we were turning the corner by the Red Brick Hotel to take a last farewell

of the pretty White House on the shore, to see Hedbig, hanging out of an upper window waving a duster to Gertrude, who was following us in the luggage cart, and chatting and laughing while she did it with the widow standing at the gate below. That house is certainly haunted, I exclaimed. There's a fresh ghost looking out of the window at this very moment. Charlotte turned her head with an incredulous face. Having seen the

apparition, she turned it back again. It can't be Hedbeck, I hastened to assure her, because you told me she had been sent to her mother in the country. It can only then be Hedwig's ghost. She's very young to have one, isn't she? But Charlotte said nothing at all. and so we left Bintz in silence and got into the sandy road and pine forest that takes you the first part of your way towards the north and Sassnitz. The road I had meant to take

goes straight from Bints along the narrow tongue of land, marked Schmala Hayde on the map, separating the Baltic Sea from the inland sea called Yasmunderboden. But outside the village I saw a sheet of calm water shining through pine trunks on the left, and I got out to go and look at it and august always nervous when i got out drove off the beaten track after me and so we missed our way the water was the schmachter sea a real lake in size not a pond like the exquisite little schwarzse

and i stood on the edge admiring its morning loveliness as it lay without a ripple in the sun the noise of the sea on the other side of the belt of pines sounding unreal as the waves of a dream on that still shore and while i was standing among it its reeds, August was busy thinking out a shortcut that would strike the road we had left higher up. The result was that we very soon went astray, and emerging from the woods at the farm of Dolan, found ourselves heading straight for the Yasmantra-Botten. But it did not matter where we went so long as we were pleased, and when everything is fresh and new, how can you help being pleased? So we drove on, looking for a road to the right that should bring us back again to the Shmala Hayde, and enjoyed the open fields in the bright morning and pretended to ourselves that it was not dusty at least that is what i pretended to myself charlotte pretended nothing of the sort on the contrary she declared at intervals that grew shorter that she was being suffocated and that is one of the many points on which the walker has the advantage of him who drives he can walk on the grass at the side of the road or over moss or hortleberries and need not endure the dust kicked up by eight hoofs

but where is he not the advantage? The only one of driving is that you can take a great many clean clothes with you. For the rest there's no comparing the two pleasures. And after all, what does it matter if for one fortnight out of all the fortnights there are in a year, you're not so clean as usual? Indeed, I think there must be a quite peculiar charm for the habitually well-washed in being for a short time deliberately dirty. at Lubkov, a small village on the Yasmunderbaden, we got on to the high road to Bergen, and turning up it to the right, faced northwards once more. Soon after passing a forestry in the woods, we reached the Schmala Heidi again, and then for four miles drove along a white road between young pines, the bluest of skies overhead, and on our right, level with the road, the violet sea.

This was the first time I saw the Baltic really violent. On other days it had been a deep blue or a brilliant green, but here it was a wonderful dazzling violet. At Noemukron, all these places are on the map, we left the high road to go on by itself up to the inland town of Sagart, and plunged into sandy shapeless country roads, trying to keep as near the shore as possible. The rest of the way to Sosnitz was too unmitigatedly glaring and dusty to be pleasant. There were no trees at all, and as it was up here, hill nearly the whole way, we had time to be thoroughly scorched and blinded, nor could we keep near the sea. The road took us farther and farther away from it as we toiled slowly up between

cornfields, crammed on that poor soil with poppies and marguerites and chicory. Earth and sky were one blaze of brightness. Our eyes filled with dust were smarting long before we got to the yet fiercer blaze of Sassnitz, and it was when we found that the place is all chalk and white houses. built in the open with the forest pushed well back behind, that with one accord we decided not to stay in it. I would advise the intending tourist to use Sussnitz only as a place to make excursions to, from Bintz on one side or Stubenkamer on the other,

though aware of my peculiarities, I advise it with diffidence, for out of every thousand Germans 999 would give with emphasis a contrary advice, and the remaining one would not agree with me. But I have nothing to do with the enthusiasms of other people, and can only repeat that it is a dusty glaring place, quaint enough on a fine day with its steep streets leading down to the water, and on wet days dreary beyond words, for its houses all look as if they were built of cardboard

and were only meant as indeed is the case, to be used during a few weeks in summer. August, Gertrude, and the horses were sent to an inn for a three, hours rest, and we walked down the little street, lined with stalls covered with amber ornaments and photographs to the sea. As it was dinner-time, the place was empty, and from the different hotels came such a hum and clatter of voices and dishes that, remembering Salon, we decided not to go in. Down on the beach, we found a confectioner's shop, directly overlooking the sea, with sunblinds and open windows and no one in it. It looked cool, so we went in and sat at a marble table in a draft.

and the sea splashed refreshingly on the shingle just outside and we ate a great many cakes and sardines and vanilla ices and then began to feel wretched what shall we do till four o'clock i inquired disconsolately leaning my elbows on the window-sill and watching the heat dancing outside over the shingle "'Do,' said somebody, stopping beneath the window. "'I walk with us to Stubbenkamer, of course.' "'It was Ambrose, clad from head to foot in white linen, "'a cool and beautiful vision. "'You here? I thought you were going to stay in Bince. "'We came across for the day in a steamer. "'My mother's waiting for me in the shade.

"'She sent me to get some biscuits, "'and then we're going to Stubbuncommer. "'Come, too.' "'Oh, but the heat! "'Wait a minute. "'I'm coming in there to get the biscuit.' He disappeared around the corner of the house, of the door being behind. He is good-looking, isn't he? I said to Charlotte.

I dislike that type of healthy, successful, self-satisfied young animal. That's because you've eaten so many cakes and sardines, I said soothingly. Are you never serious? But invariably, frankly, I find nothing more tiring than talking to a person who is persistently playful. That's only those three vanilla ices, I assured her encouragingly. You hear, too, Frau Nieberlein, exclaimed Ambrose coming in. Oh, good, you will come with us, won't you? It's a beautiful walk, shade the whole way.

And I have just got that work of the professors about the Frigians and want to talk about it frightfully badly. I've been reading it all night. It's the most marvelous book. No wonder, revolutionized European thought. Absolutely epic-making. He bought his biscuits as one in the dream, so greatly did he glow with rapture. Come on, Charlotte, I said, a walk will do us both good.

I'll send word to August to meet us at Stubencomer. But Charlotte would not come on. She would sit there quietly, she said, bathe perhaps later, and then drive to Stubbenthammer. I tell you what, Frownieberlein, cried Ambrose from the counter. I never envied a woman before, but I must say I envy you. What a marvellously glorious fate to be the wife of you! of such an extraordinary thinker. Very well, then, I said quickly,

not knowing what Charlotte's reply might be, you'll come on with August and meet us there, Alvidozain Luchin, and I hurried Embrose and his biscuits out. Looking up as we passed beneath the window, we saw Charlotte still sitting at the marble table gazing into space. Your cousin is wonderful about the professor,

said Ambrose, as we crossed a scorching bit of chalky promenade to the trees where Mrs. Harvey Brown was waiting. In what way wonderful, I asked uneasily, for I had no wish to discuss the Niberline conjugalities with him. Oh, so self-controlled, so quiet, so modest, never trots him out, never puts on airs because she's his wife. Oh, quite wonderful. Ah, yes. About those Phrygians. And so I got his thoughts away from Charlotte, and by the time we'd found his mother, I knew far more about Frigians than I should have thought possible.

The walk along the coast from Sasnitz to Stubenkamer is a lone-worthy journey to Ruegen. I suppose there are few walks in the world, more wholly beautiful from beginning to end. On no account, therefore, should the traveller, all unsuspecting of so much beauty so near at hand, be persuaded to go to Stubb and Kamer by road. The road will give him merely a pretty country drive, taking him the shortest way, quite out of sight of the sea. The path keeps close to the edge of the cliffs and is a sea, series of exquisite surprises. But only the lusty and the spare must undertake it, for it is not

to be done under three hours, and is an almost continual going down countless steps into deep ravines and up countless steps out of them again. You are, however, in the shade of beaches the whole time, and who shall describe as you climb higher and higher, the lovely sparkle and colour of the sea as it curls far below you, in and out among the folds of the cliffs? Mrs. Harvey Brown was sufficiently spare to enjoy the walk. Ambrose was perfectly content telling us about Niberline's new work. I was perfectly content, too, because only one ear was wanted for Niberline, and I still had one over for the larks, and the lapping of the water, besides both my happy eyes. We did not hurry, but lingered over each beauty, resting on little sunny plateaus high up on the very edge of the cliffs. We're sitting on the hot, sweet grass, we saw the the color of the sea shine through the color of the fringing scabius, a divine meeting of colors, often to be seen along the rig and coast in July, or in the deep shade at the bottom of a ravine we rested on the moss by water trickling down over slimy green stones to the sea, which looked

from those dark places like a great wall of light. Mrs. Harvey Brown listened with a placid pride to her son's explanations of the scope and nature of Niebueline's book. His enthusiasm made him talk so much that she, perforce, was silent, and her love for him written so plainly on her face showed what she must have been like in her best days, the younger days before her husband got his gaiters and began to grieve. Besides, during the last and steepest part of the walk, we were beyond the range of other tourists, for they had all dropped off at the Voltaala, a place halfway where you drink, so that there was nothing at all to offend her. We arrived there for at Sto Gungammer about six o'clock in a state of perfect concord,

pleasantly tired and hot enough to be glad we'd got there. On the plateau in front of the restaurant, there is, of course, a restaurant at the climax of the walk. There were tables under the trees and people eating and drinking. One table at a little distance from the others with the best view over the cliff had a white cloth on it, and was spread for what looked like tea. There were nice thin cups and strawberries, and a teapot and a jug in the middle with roses in it.

And while I was wondering who were the privileged persons for whom it had been laid, Gertrude came out of the restaurant, followed by a waiter carrying thin bread and butter, and then I knew that the privileged persons were ourselves. I had tea with you yesterday, I said to Mrs. Harvey Brown. Now it is your turn to have tea with me. How charming, said Mrs. Harvey Brown with a sigh of satisfaction, sinking into a chair and smelling the roses.

your maid seems to be one of those rare treasures who like doing extra things for their mistresses. Well, Gertrude is a rare treasure, and it did look clean and dainty next to the beer-stained tables at which coffee was being drunk and spilt by tourists who'd left their Gertrudes at home. Then the place was so wonderful, the white cliffs cutting out sheer and sharp into the sea, their huge folds filled with every sort of greenery, masses of shrubby trees, masses of ferns, masses of wildflowers. Down at the bottom there was a steamer anchored, the one by which the Harvey Browns were going back later to Bince,

quite a big two-funneled steamer, and it looked from where we were, like a tiny white toy. I fear the gracious one will not enjoy sleeping here, whispered Gertrude as she put a pot of milk on the table. I made inquiries on arrival, and the hotel is entirely full, and only one small bedroom in a pavilion detached among trees can be placed at the gracious one's disposal. And my cousin?

The room has two beds, and the cousin of the gracious one is sitting on one of them. We have been here already an hour. August is installed. The horses are well accommodated here. I have an attic of sufficient comfort. Only the ladies will suffer. I will go to my cousin. Show me, I pray, thee the way.

Excusing myself to Mrs. Harvey Brown, I followed Gertrude. At the back of the restaurant there's an open space where a great many feather beds in red covers were being aired on the grass, while fowls and the waiting drivers of the Sussnitzwagonettes wandered about among them. In the middle of this space is a big bare yellow house, the only hotel in Stuggenkamer, the only house, in fact, that I saw at all, and some distance to the left of this, in the shade of the forest, one-storied, dank, dark, and mosquitoy, the pavilion. Gertrude, I said, scanning it with a sinking heart. Never yet did I sleep in a pavilion. I know it, gracious one, with shutterless windows on a level with the elbows of the

passers-by? What the gracious one says is but too true. I will enter and speak with my cousin Charlotte. Charlotte was, as Gertrude had said, sitting on one of the two beds that nearly filled the room. She was feverishly writing something in pencil on the margin of the beast of prey and looked up with an eager, worried expression when I opened the door. Is it not terrible? she said, that one should not be able to do more than one's best, and that one's best is never enough. What's the matter? Oh, everything's the matter. You're all dull, indifferent, dead into everything that is vital. You don't care. You let things slide. And if anyone tries to wake you up and tell you the truth, you never, never listen. Who? Me? I asked,

confused into this sad grammar by her outburst. She threw the pamphlet down and jumped up. "'Oh, I'm sick of all your sins and stupidities,' she cried, "'pulling her hat straight and sticking violent pins into it. "'Who's mine?' I asked in great perplexity. "'It would almost seem,' said Charlotte, fixing me with angry eyes. "'It would really almost seem that there is no use whatever "'in devoting one's life to one's fellow creatures. "'Well, one naturally likes to be left alone,' I murmured.

"'What I try to do is pulling. them out of the mud when they're in it, to warn them when they're going in it, and to help them when they have been in it. Wow, that sounds very noble, being full of noble intentions. Why on earth, my dear Charlotte, can't you be placid? You're never placid. Come and have some tea. Tea? What? With those wretched people, those leathern souls, those Harvey Browns? Come along. It isn't only tea. It's strawberries and roses and looks lovely. Oh, those people. How? Those people, "'They're so pleased with themselves, so satisfied with life. "'Such prigs! Such toadies! What have I in common with them?'

"'Nonsense. Ambrose is not a toady at all. He's nothing but a deer, and his mother has her points. Why not try to do them good? You'd be interested in them at once if you'd look upon them as patience. I put my arm through hers and drew her out of the room. "'This stuffy room is enough to depress anybody,' I said, and I know what's worrying you. It's that widow. I know what's an irritating trick of yours, exclaimed Charlotte, turning on me. It's always explaining the reason why I say or feel what I say or feel. What? And isn't there any reason? That widow has no power to worry me. Her hypocrisy will bear its own fruit and she will have to eat it. Then, when the catastrophe comes, the sure consequence of folly and

weakness. She'll do what you all do in face of the inevitable. Sit and lament and say it was somebody else's fault. And of course every single thing that happens to you is never anybody else's fault, but your own miserable selves. I wish you would teach me to dodge what you call the inevitable, I said. As though it wanted any teaching, said Charlotte, stopping short in the middle of the open space before our table to look into my eyes. You've only not to be silly. But what am I to do if I am silly, naturally silly, born it. The tea is getting very cold, called out Mrs. Harvey Brown plaintively. She had been watching us with impatience and seemed perturbed.

The moment we got near enough, she informed us that the tourists were such that no decent woman could stand it. Ambrose has gone off with one of them, she said, a most terrible old man, to look at some view over there. Would you believe it? While we were quietly sitting here, not harming anybody, this person came up the hill and immediately began to talk to us, as if we knew each other. He actually had the audacity to ask if he might sit with us at this table, as there was no room elsewhere. He was most objectionable.

Of course I refused, the most pushing person I've met at all. But there is ample rooms, at Charlotte, to whom every thing the bishop's wife said and did appeared bad. But my dear frau neberline, a complete stranger, and such an unpleasantly jocular old man, and I think it's so very very ill-bred to be jocular in the wrong places? I always think it a pity to cold shoulder people, said Charlotte sternly. She was not, it seemed, going to stand any nonsense from the bishop's wife. You must be dying for some tea, I interposed, pouring it out as one who should pour oil on troubled waters. And you should consider, continued Charlotte, then in fifty years we shall all be dead, and our opportunities for being kind will be over. My dear frau, neberline!

ejaculated the astonished bishop's wife. "'Why, it isn't certain,' I said. "'You'll only be 80, then, Charlotte, and what is 80? "'When I'm 80, I hope to be a gay grand dumb, "'skilled in justic lore, frisking beneath the burden of four-score. "'But the bishop's wife did not like being told "'that she would be dead in fifty years, "'and no artless quotations of mine could make her like it,

"'so she drank her tea with an offended face. "'Perhaps then, she remarked, you will tell me I ought to have accepted the proposal one of the other tourists. A woman made me a moment ago. She suggested that I should drive back to Sassnitz with her and her party and have the expense of the fly. Well, and why should you not? said Charlotte. Why should I not? There were two excellent reasons why I should not.

First, because it was an impertinence, and secondly because I'm going back in the boat. The second reason is good, but you must part. pardon my seeing no excellence whatever in the first. Your son's tea will be undrinkable, I said, feebly interrupting. I can never see two people contradicting each other without feeling wretched. Why contradict? Why argue at all? Only one's best beloved, one's closest and most understanding, should be contradicted and argued with. How simple to keep quiet with all the rest and agree to everything they say. Charlotte, up to this, had kept very quiet in the presence

of Mrs. Harvey Brown had said yes in the right places, and had only been listless and bored. Now, after reading her own explosive pamphlet for an hour, stirred besides by the widow's base behavior and by the failure of her effort to induce penitence in Hedwig by means of punishment, she was in the strenuous mood again, and inclined to see all manner of horrid truths and fates hovering round the harmless tea-table, where denser eyes like mine, and no doubt Mrs. Harvey Brown's, only saw a pleasant flicker of beech leaves over cups and saucers and bland strawberries in a nest of green. If women did not regard each other's advances with so much suspicion, Charlotte proceeded emphatically,

if they did not look upon every one of a slightly different class as an impossible person to be avoided, they would make a much better show in the fight for independent existence. The value of cooperation is so gigantic. "'Ah, yes, I fancy I remember you're saying something like this at that lecture in Oxford last winter,' interrupted Mrs. Harvey Brown with an immense plaintiffness. "'It cannot be said too often.' "'Oh, yes, dear Frow, Nieberline, believe me, it can. What, for instance, has it to do with my being asked to drive back to Susnitz with a strange family in a fly?'

"'Why, with that it has very much to do,' I interposed, smiling pleasantly on them both. you would have paid half, and what is cooperation if it is not paying half? Indeed, I've been told by people who have done it that it sometimes even means paying all, in which case you don't see its point. What I mean, of course, said Charlotte, is moral cooperation, a ceaseless working together of its members for the welfare of the sex. No opportunity should ever be lost. One should always be ready to talk to, to get to know, to encourage. One must cultivate a large love for humanity to whatever class it belongs, and however individually objectionable it is.

You, no doubt, she continued, waving her teaspoon at the staring bishop's wife. Kurtly refused the very innocent invitation of your fellow creature, because she was badly dressed and had manners of a type with which you are not acquainted. You considered it an impertinence, nay, more than an impertinence, an insult to be approached in such a manner. Now, how can you tell? Here she leaned across the table, and in her earnestness pointed the teaspoon straight at Mrs. Harvey Brown, who stared harder than ever. How will you ever know that the woman did not happen to be full, full to the brim of that good soil in which the seed of a few encouraging words dropped during your drive would have produced a splendid harvest of

energy and freedom? But my dear frau, Niebuhrine, said the bishop's wife, much taken aback by this striking image. I do not think she was full of anything of the kind. She did not look so, anyhow, and I, myself, to pursue your metaphor, am hardly fitted for the office of an agricultural implement. I believe all these things are done nowadays by machinery, are they not? She asked, turning to me in a well-meant effort to get away from the subject. The old-fashioned and picturesque sewer has been quite superseded, has he not? Why are you talking about farming? asked Ambrose. Ambrose, who came up at this moment. We are talking of the farming of souls, replied Charlotte.

Oh, said Ambrose, in his turn taken aback. He pretended to be so busy sitting down that he couldn't say more than just, oh. We watched him in silence fussing into his chair. How pleasant it is here, he went on when he was settled. No, I don't mind cold tea a bit, really. Mother, why wouldn't you let the old man sit with us? He's a frightfully good sort. "'Because there are certain limits beyond which I decline to go,' replied his mother,

visibly annoyed that he should thus unconsciously sighed with Charlotte. "'Oh, but it was rough on him, don't you think so, Frown Nieberline. We have the biggest table, and only half fill it. And there isn't another place to be had. It is so characteristically British for us to sit here and keep other people out. He'll have to wait heaven knows how long for his coffee, and he's walked miles. I think, said Charlotte slowly, loudly and weightily, that he might very well have joined us. But you did not see him, protested Mrs. Harvey Brown. I assure you he was really impossible,

much worse than the woman we were talking about. I can only say, said Charlotte, even slower, louder and more weightily, that one should, before all things, be human, and that one has no right whatever, to turn one's back on the smallest request of a fellow creature. Hardly had she said it. Hardly had the bishop's wife had time to open her mouth and stare in stonyest astonishment. Hardly had I had time to follow her petrified gaze, than an old man in a long waterproof garment with a green felt hat, such a skew on his venerable head. came nimbly up behind Charlotte, and bending down to her unsuspecting ear, shouted into it, the amazing monosyllable,

Bo! End of Section 10, read by Sandra. Your Montreal, 2022. Section 11 of the Adventures of Elizabeth in Rudin. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libervox. box.org.

The Adventures of Elizabeth in Ruegen by Elizabeth von Arnim. The seventh day continued at Stuppenkamer. I believe I have somewhere remarked that Charlotte was not the kind of person one could ever tickle. She was also the last person in the world to whom most people would want to say, Bo. The effect on her of this bow was alarming. She started up as though she'd been struck and then stood as one turn.

to stone. Brozy jumped up as if to protect her. Mrs. Harvey Brown looked really frightened and gasped. It's the old man again. An escape lunatic. How very unpleasant. No, no, I hurriedly explained. It is the professor. The professor? What? Never the professor. What? The professor? Brosey. Brosey, she leaned over and seized his coat in an agony of haste. "'Never breathe, it's the old man I've been talking about. "'Never breathe it. "'It's Professor Niberline himself.' "'What?' exclaimed Rosie, flushing all over his face.

"'But the professor took no notice of any of us, "'for he was diligently kissing Charlotte. "'He kissed her first on one cheek, "'then he kissed her on the other cheek, "'then he pulled her ears, "'then he tickled her under the chin, "'and he beamed upon her all the while "'with such an uninterrupted radiance

that the coldest heart must have glowed only to see it. So here I meet thee little treasure, he cried. Here once more thy twitter falls upon my ears. I knew at once, thy little chirp. I heard it above all the drinking noises. Come, come, I said to myself, if that is not the little lot. And chirping the self-same tune I know of old, and the beautiful English tongue,

turn not your back on a creature turn not your back only on the old husband one turns the pretty back what fie fie the naughty little lot i protest i never saw a stranger sight than this of charlotte being toyed with and the rigidity of her how charming the simple german ways are cried mrs harvey brown in a great flutter to me while the toying was going on she was so torn by horror at what she had said, and by rapture at meeting the professor, that she hardly knew what she was doing. It really does one good to be given a peep at genuine family emotions. Delightful, Professor, you heard what he said to the Duke after he had gone all the way to Bon on purpose to see him? And my dear Frau Ix, such a duke! And she whispered the name in my ear as though it were altogether too great to be said aloud. I conceded by a nod that he was a very superior duke, but what the professor said to him, I never heard, for at that moment,

Charlotte dropped back into her chair, and the professor immediately scrambled, I fear there is no other word, he did scramble, into the one next to her, which was Brozies. Will you kindly present me, said Brozy to Charlotte, standing reverential and bareheaded before the great man. Ah, I know you, my young friend, already, said the professor, Jane we have just been admiring nature together at this the bishop's wife blushed deeply thoroughly a thing i suppose she had not done for years and cast a supplicating look at charlotte who sat rigid with her eyes on her plate brozy blushed too and bowed profoundly i cannot tell you sir how greatly honoured i feel at being allowed to make your acquaintance he said said the professor luchon present me to these ladies. What? He did not remember me? What, after the memorable evening in Berlin? I know a few things more wholly grievous than to have a celebrated connection who forgets he has ever seen you.

I must apologise to you, madame, he said to the bishop's wife, for taking a seat at your table after all. Oh, Professor, murmured Mrs. Harvey Brown. But you will perhaps forgive my joining a party of which my wife is a member. Oh, Professor, do pray believe. I know a Brown, he continued. In England, there is a brown, I know. He is of a great skill in card tricks. Hold, I know another Brown, nay, I know several. Relations no doubt of yours, Madame. No, sir, our name is Harvey Brown. Ah, so, I understood Brown. So it is Harvey. Yes, yes. Harvey made the excellent sauce. I eat it daily with my fish. Madam, a public benefactor.

Sir, we are not related. We are the Harvey Browns. What, you are both Harvys and Browns? And yet not related to either Browns or Harvys? Nay, but that is a problem to split the head. "'My husband is the bishop of Babacombe. "'Perhaps you have heard of him, Professor. "'He, too, is literary. "'He annotates. "'In any case, madam, his wife speaks admirable German,' said the professor with a little bow.

"'And this lady,' he asked, turning to me. "'Why, I am Charlotte's cousin,' I said, "'no longer able to hide my affliction at the rapid way in which he had forgotten me, "'and accordingly yours, do you not remember I'm you last winter in berlin at a party at the hofmeyers of course of course that is to say i fear of course not i have no memory at all for things of importance but one can never have too many little cousins can one young man sit they down next to me then shall i indeed be a happy man with my little wife on one side and my little cousin on the other so now we are comfortable and when my coffee comes i shall ask for nothing more young man when you marry see to it that your wife has many nice little cousins it is very important as for my not remembering thee he went on putting one arm round the back of my chair while the other was round the back of charlotte's be not offended for i tell thee that the day after i married my lot here i fell into so great an abstraction that i started for a walking tour in the alps with some friends i met and for a entire week she passed from my mind it was at lucerne so completely did she pass from it that i omitted to tell her i was going or bid her farewell i went dost thou remember lutchin i came to myself on the top of pilatus a week after our wedding-day what ails thee man

said my comrades for i was disturbed i must go down at once i cried i've forgotten something bah "'You do not need your umbrella out here,' they said, "'for they knew I forget it much.' "'It is not my umbrella that I've left behind,' I cried. "'It is my wife.' "'They were surprised, for I had forgotten to tell them I had a wife, "'and when I got down to Lucerne, "'there was the poor lot, quite offended.'

"'And he pulled her nearest ear "'and laughed until his spectacles grew dim. "'Delightful!' whispered Mrs. Harvey Brown to her son. "'So natural.' her son never took his eyes off the professor ready to pounce on the first word of wisdom and assimilate it as a hungry cat might sit ready for the mouse that unaccountably delays ah yes sighed the professor stretching out his legs under the table and stirring the coffee the waiter had set before him never forget young man that the only truly important thing in life is women little round soft women little purring pussy-cats a lot some of them will not always purr will they little lot some of them mew much some of them scratch some of them have days when they will only wave their naughty little tails in anger but all are soft and pleasant and add much grace to the fireside how true murmured mrs harvey brown in rapture how very very true so so different from nietzsche

what thou art silent little treasure he continued pinching charlotte's cheek thou lovest not the image of the little cats no said charlotte and the word was jerked up red-hot from an interior manifestly molten well then pass me those strawberries that blink so pleasantly from their bed of green and while i eat pour out of thy dear heart all that it contains concerning pussies which interest thee greatly as i well know and all else that it contains and has contained since last i saw thee for it is long since i heard thy voice and i have missed thee much art thou not my dearest wife clearly it was time for me to get up and remove the harvey browns out of earshot i prepared to do so but at the first movement the arm along the back of the chair slid down and gripped hold of me not so restless not so restless little cousin said the professor smiling rose did i not tell thee i am happy so and wilt thou mar the happiness of a good old man but you have charlotte and you must wish to her certainly i do wish it but talking to charlotte excludeth not the encircling of elizabeth and have i not two arms i want to go and show mrs harvey brown the view from the cliff i said appalled at the thought of what charlotte when she did begin to speak would probably say said the professor gripping me tighter we are very well so the contemplation of virtuous happiness is at least as edifying for this lady as a contemplation of water from a cliff delightful originality murmured mrs harvey brown madam you flatter me said the professor whose ears were quick oh no professor indeed it is not flattery madam i am the more obliged

we have so long wished we could meet you my son spent the whole of last summer in bond trying to do so waste of time waste of time madam and all in vain and this year we were both there before coming up here and did all we could but also unfortunately in vain it really seems as if providence had expressly led us to this place to-day providence madam is continually leading people to places and then leading them away again. I, for instance, am to be led away again from this one with great rapidity, for I am on foot and must reach a bed by nightfall. Here there is nothing to be had. Oh, you must come back to Bince with us, cried Mrs. Harvey Brown. The steamer leaves in an hour, and I'm sure room could be found for you in our hotel. My son would gladly give you his, if necessary. He would feel only too proud if you would take it would you not brosie madam i am overwhelmed by your amiability you will however understand that i cannot leave my wife where i go she comes too is it not so little treasure i am only waiting to hear her plans to arrange mine accordingly i have no luggage i am very movable my night attire is on my person beneath the attire appropriate to the day in one pocket of my mantle i carry an extra pair of socks in another my handkerchiefs of which there are two and my sponge damp and cool is embedded in the crown of my hat

thus madam i am of a remarkable independence its one restriction is the necessity of finding a shelter daily before dark tell me little lot is there no room for the old husband here with thee and there was something so sweet in his smile as he turned to her that i think if she had seen it she must have followed him wherever he went but she did not raise her eyes i go to berlin this evening she said i have important engagements and must leave at once my dear frown nieberline exclaimed the bishop's wife is not this very sudden rosy who had been looking uncomfortable for some minutes quite apart from not having got his mouth pulled out his watch and stood up if we are to catch that steamer mother i think it would be wise to start he said nonsense brosie it doesn't go for an hour said mrs harvey brown revolted at the notion of being torn from her celebrity in the very moment of finding him i'm afraid we must insisted brosey it takes much longer to get down the cliff than one would suppose and it is slippery i want to take you down an easier and rather longer way and he carried her off ruthlessly cutting short her parting entreaties that the professor would come to. Come tomorrow, then. Come without fail the next day, then, to Bince. And he took her, as I observed, straight in the direction of the herta-see as a beginning of the easy descent, and the hertassee, as everybody knows, is in the exactly

contrary direction to the one he ought to have gone. But no doubt he filled up the hour instructively with stories of the ancient heathen rites performed on those mystic shores, and so left Charlotte free to behave to her husband as she chose. How she did behave, I can easily guess, for hurrying off into the pavilion, desirers of nothing except to get out of the way. I had hardly had time to marvel that she should be able to dislike such an old dear when she burst in. Quick!

Quick! Help me to get my things, she cried, flying up and down the slit of a room and pouncing on the bags stowed away by Gertwood in the corners. I can just catch the night train at Sassnitz. I'm off to Berlin. I'll write to you from there. Why, if that fool, Gertrude hasn't emptied everything out! What a terrible fate yours is, always at the mercy of an overfed underling,

a person who empties bags without being asked. Give me those brushes. And the papers. Well, you've seen me dragged down into the depths today, haven't you? And she straightened herself from bending over the bag, a brush in each hand, and looking at me with a most bitter and defiant smile, incontinently, began to cry. "'Don't cry, Charlotte,' I said, who had been dumbly staring.

"'Don't cry, my dear. I didn't see any depths. I only saw nice things. "'Don't go to Berlin. Stay here and let us be happy together.' "'Stay here? Never.' And she feverishly crammed things into her bag, and the bag must have been at least as full of tears as other things, for she cried bitterly the whole time. "'Well, women always have been a source of wonderment to me, and myself included, who am forever hurled in the direction of foolishness, forever unable to stop,

and never are they so mysterious, so wholly unaccountable as in their relations to their husbands. But who shall judge them? The paths of fate are all so narrow that two people bound together, forced to walk abreast, cannot, except they keep perfect step, but push each other against the rocks on either side,

so that it behooves the weaker and the lighter, if he would remain unbruised, to be very attentive, very adaptable very deft i saw charlotte off in one of the waiting wagonettes that was to take her to sassnitz where the railway begins i'll let you know where i am she called out as she was rattled away down the hill and with a wave of the hand she turned the corner and banished from my sight gone once more into those frozen regions where noble and forlorn persons pursue ideals walking back slowly through the trees towards the cliffs i met the professor looking everywhere for his wife what time does lot leave, he cried when he saw me. Must she really go? She is gone. No, how long since? About ten minutes. Then I, too, take that train, and he hurried off clambering with the nimbleness that was all his own into a second Wagonet, and disappeared in his turn down the hill. Dearest little cousin, he shouted just before being whisked round the corner,

permit me to bid thee farewell and wish thee good luck. I shall seriously endeavour to remember thee this time. Do, I called back, smiling, but he could not have heard. Once again I slowly walked through the trees to the cliffs. The highest of these cliffs, the Kinigstool, jutting out into the sea forms a plateau where a few trees that have weathered the winter storms of many years stand in little groups.

For a long while I sat on the knotted roots of one of them, listening to the slow wash of the waves on the shingle far below. I saw the ribbon of smoke left by the Harvey Brown's steamer get thinner and disappear. I watched the sunset red fade out of the sky and sea, and all the world grow grey and full of secrets. Once after I sat there a very long time, I thought I heard the faint, departing whistle of a far-distant train, and my heart leapt up with exultation.

Oh, the gloriousness of freedom and silence, of being alone with my own soul once more. I drew a long, long breath and stood up and stretched myself in the supreme comfort of complete relaxation. You look very happy, said a rather grudging voice close to me. It belonged to a Freiline of uncertain age, come up to the plateau in Galoshes to commune in her turn with night and nature. And I suppose I must have been smiling foolishly all over my face

after the manner of those whose thoughts are pleasant. A Harvey Brown impulse seized me to stare at her and turn my back, but I strangled it. Do you know why I look happy? I inquired instead, and my voice was as the voice of turtle-douse. No. Why?

was the eagerly inquisitive answer. Because I am, and nodding sweetly, I walked away. End of Section 11, read by Sandra, near Montreal, 2022. Section 12 of The Adventures of Elizabeth and Rougan. This is the Lipperwarks recording. All Lipperwarks recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,

please visit lipperwarks.org. Read by Vera The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rougan by Elizabeth von Anem. the eighth day from stupid karma to glove when reason lecturing us on certain actions explains that they are best avoided and experience with her sledge hammers drives the lesson home why do we convinced unbattered repeat the actions every time we get the chance i have known from my youth the opinion of solomon that he does passeth by and middleth with strife belonging not to him is like one that taketh a dog by the ears and i have a wise relative not a blood relation but still very wise who at suitable intervals addresses me in the following manner don't meddle yet now i have to relate how on the eighth day of my journey round rougan in defiance of reason experience Solomon and the wise relative I began to meddle.

The first desire came upon me in the night, when I could not sleep because of the mosquitoes and the constant coming into the pavilion of late and juvial tourists. The tourists came in in jolly batches till well on towards morning, singing about things like the Rhine on the fatherland's frontiers, glorious songs and very gory as they passed my hastily shut window on their way round to the door. After each batch had gone, I got out and cautiously opened the window again, and then waited for the next ones, slaying mosquitoes while I waited, and it was while I lay there, sleepless and tormented,

that the longing to help reunite Charlotte and her husband first entered my head. it is true that i was bothered for some time trying to arrive at a clear comprehension of what constitutes selfishness but i gave that up for it only made my head ache surely choletta for instance was intensely selfish to leave her home and heedless of her husband's unhappiness live the life she preferred but was not he equally selfish in wanting to have her back again for whose happiness would that be he could not suppose for hers if she determined to be unselfish went home she would only be pandering to his selfishness the more she destroyed her individuality and laid its broken remains at his feet the more she would be developing evil qualities in the accept of such a gift Peer thoughts that our duty is to make each other good and happy, not bad and happy. Charlotte, therefore, would be doing wrong if making the professor happy. She also made him bad because he had a sweet way with him.

And she had not, he got all the sympathy, including mine. And of course, the whole of that windy mass of biased superficiality called Publicity. opinion was on his side. But how can one, if one truly loves a woman, wish her to live a life that must make her wretched? Such love can only be selfish. Accordingly, the professor was selfish. They were both selfish, and if one were not, so the other would be more so. And if to be unselfish meant making those about you the opposite. Then it must be wrong. And were it conceivable

that a whole family should determine to be unselfish and actually carry out the dreadful plan, life in that doomed house would become a perpetual combat degenerosity. Not in any way to be born. Here it was that my head began to ache. What stuff is this? I thought.

wearing round suddenly to the easeful simplicity of the old conventions. Just to think of it gives me a headache. The only thing I know of that does not give a woman a headache is to live the life for which she was intended. The comfortable life with a brain at rest and a body wholly occupied with benevolences. And if her meekness makes her husband bad, what does that matter in the end to anyone but him. Shalada ought to be very happy with that kind old man. Any woman would be. Her leaving him must have been owing to some trifling misunderstanding. I'm sure it would be for her happiness to go back to him. She would grow quite round and mellow. Could I not do something, say something to get her

to give him another trial? I wish. Oh, I wish I could. Now, from time to time, the wise relative quoted about amplifies his advice in the following manner. Of all forms of meddling, that which deals with man and wife is, to the meddler, the most immediately fatal. But where are the persons who take advice? I never yet met them. When the first shaft of sunshine slanted through my window, it fell on me in my dressing gown, feverishly writing to Charlotte. The eloquence of that letter. I really think it had all the words in it I know,

except those about growing round and mellow. Something told me that they would not appeal to her. I put it in an envelope and locked it in my dressing case still. Unconscious of what was in store for her, she should send me her address, and then, full of the glove, that warms the doer of good actions, equally with the officious, I put on my bathing things, a decent skirt and cloak over them, got out of the window and went down the cliff to the beach

to bathe. The water was icily cold in the shadow of the cliffs, but it was a wonderful feeling getting all the closeness of the night dashed off me in that vast and splendid morning, solitude. Dripping, I hurried up again, my skirt and clout over the soaped bathing dress, my wet feet thrust into shoes I could never afterwards wear, a trickle of salt water marking the way I took. It was just five o'clock as I got in at the window. In another quarter of an hour I was dry undressed and out of the window a second time. Getting, getting in and out of that window had a singular fascination for me, and on my way for an early exploring of the woods. But those stupid karma words were destined never to be explored by me,

for I had hardly walked ten minutes along their beach and ways, listening to the birds and stopping every few steps to look up at the blue of the sky between the branches. before I came to the Hertha Sea, a mysterious silent pond of black water, with reeds rounded and solemn forest paths, and on the moss by the shore of the Hertha Sea, his eyes fixed on its sullen waters. Deep in thought, said the professor. Don't tell me, you have forgotten me again. I exclaimed anxiously, for his. His eyes turned from the lake to me as I came over the moss to him in an unchanged abstraction. What was he doing there? He looked exceedingly untidy and his boots were white with dust.

Good morning, I said cheerfully, as he continued to gaze straight through me. I have no doubt whatever that this was the place. He remarked, and Glover was correct in his. his conjuncture. Now what is the use, I said, sitting down on the moss beside him, of talking to me like that when I don't know the beginning. Who is clover, and what did he conjecture? His eyes suddenly flashed out of their dream, and he smiled and patted my hand.

Why, it is the little cousin, he said, looking pleased. It is. ask what you're doing here? Doing? agreeing with Clover that this is undoubtedly the parts. What's part? Thaxetus describes it so accurately that there can be no reasonable doubt. Oh, Thaksitus, I thought Clua had something to do with Shalotta. Where is Shalota? Conceived the procession of the goddess Nurtas, or Hertha, mother of the earth, passing through these secret grows on the way to bless her children. Her car is covered so that no eye shall behold her. The priest alone, walking by the side, is permitted to touch it. Wherever she passes, holy day is kept.

Arms are laid aside. Peace reigns absolute. No man may seek to slay his brother while she who blesses all alike is passing among her children. Then, when she has once more been carried to her temple, in this water, though here ceased in this very lake, her car and its draperies are cleansed by slaves, who, after performing their office, are themselves thrown into the water and left to perish, for they had laid hands on the,

that which was holy and even today when we are half-hearted in the defense of our adoration and rarely set up altars in our souls. That is a dangerous thing to do. Dear Professor, I said, it is perfectly sweet of you to tell me about the goddess Nurtas. But would you mind before you go any further telling me where Charlotte is? when I last saw you, you were whirling after her in a wagonette. Did you ever catch her? He looked at me a moment, then gave the bulging pocket of his waterproof, a sounding slap. Little cousin, he said, in me thou beholdest a dreamer of dreams, an unpractical grey-beared, a venerable sheep's head.

never i suppose shall i learn to remember unaided those occurrences that i feign would not forget therefore i assist myself by making notes of them to which i can refer unfortunately it seldom happens that i remember to refer though however haste reminded me of them i will now seek them out and he dragged different articles from the bulging pocket, laying them carefully on the moss beside him in tidy rows. But the fact of only one of the two handkerchiefs being there nearly put him off the track. So much and so long did he marvel where its fellow could be. Also, the sight of his extra pair of socks reminded him of the urgent need they were in of mending, and he broke off his search for the notebook to hold each up in turn to me, and eloquently lament. Nine, nine, was first zoken.

He moaned, with a final shake of the head, as he spread them out too on the moss. Yes, they are very bad, I agreed for the tenth time. Bad, they are emblematic. will you let me mend them or rather i hastily added cause them to be mended for my aversion to needles is at least as great as charlotte is no no what is the use there are cupboards full of socks like them in bonn skeletons of that which once were socks mere outlines filled in with holes and all are emblematic every single one but this time he looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. I don't think, I said, that I would let my soul be ruffled by a sock. If it offended me, I would throw it away and buy some more. Behold wisdom, cried the professor gaily, proceeding from the mouth of an intellectual

suckling, and without more eddo, he flung both the socks into the Hertha Sea. There they lay like strange flowers of yellow wool, motionless on the face of the mystic waters. And now the notebook? I asked, for he had relapsed into immobility and was watching the socks with abstracted eyes. Ah, yes, the notebook. Being heavy, it was at the very bottom of what was more like a sack in size than a pocket. but once he had run his glance over the latest entries he began very volubly to tell me what he had been doing all night it had been an even busier night than mine shallotter he explained had left sassanets by the baleen train and had taken a ticket for baleen as he ascertained at the booking office a few minutes before he took his he arrived at the very last moment yet as he jumped into the last departing train he caught sight of her sitting in a lady's compartment she also caught sight of him i therefore gave a sigh of satisfaction he continued

lit my pipe and contemplating the evening heavens from the window happy in the thought of being so near my little wife i fell into an abstraction i shook my head these abstractions professor i observed or inconvenient things to fall into what had happened by the time you fell out again i found that i had emerged from my compartment and was standing on the ferry that takes the train across the water to star's sun the ancient city rose in venerable majesty Never mind the ancient city, dearest professor. Look at your notes again. What was Shalota doing? Shaloda? She had entirely escaped my memory.

So great was the pleasure excited in my breast by the contemplation of the starlit scene before me. But glancing away from the massive towers of Stralson, my eye fell on the word frown on the window of the lady's carriage. Instantly remembering Charlotte, I clambered up eager to speak to her. The compartment was empty.

She too was contemplating the starlit scene from the deck of the ferry? She was not. Were there no bags in the carriage? Not a bag. What had become of her? She had left the train,

and I will tell thee how. At Bergen, our only stopping place, we crossed a train returning to Sarsnitz. Plentiful applications of drink money to officials reveal the fact that she had changed into this train. Not very clever, I thought. No, no, said the professor, as if he had heard me thinking. The little lord's cleverness invariably false just shot off the demands made upon it. at critical moments when the choice lies between the substance on the shadow i have observed she unfailingly chooses the shadow this comical life she leads what is it but a pursuit of shadows however and he stopped short not caring i suppose to discuss his wife where do you think she is now i conjure not far from here

I arrived at Saznets at one o'clock this morning by the Swedish boat train. I was told that a lady answering her description had got out there at eleven, taken a fly and driven into the town. I walked out here to speak with thee, and was only waiting for the breakfast hour to seek thee out, for she will not being so near thee, woman to join thee. You must be perfectly exhausted, what I most wish for is breakfast.

Then let us go and see if we can't get some. Gertruth will be up by now and can produce coffee at the shortest notice. Who is Gertruth? Another dear little cousin? If it be so, lead me, I pray thee, at once to get truth. I laughed, and explaining Gertruth to him helped him pack his pocket again.

Then we started for the hotel full of hope, each thinking that if Shalada were not already there, she would very soon turn up. But Shalada was not there, nor did she, though we loitered over our coffee till we ended by being as late as the latest tourist turn up. She is certain to come during the day, said the professor. her. I told him I had arranged to go to Glover that day, a little place further along the coast,

and he said he would, in that case, engage my vacant pavilion bedroom for himself and stay that night at Steuben Karma. She is certain to come here, he repeated, and I will not lose her a second time. You won't like the pavilion, I remarked. About 11, there being still known, signs of Charlotte, I set out on foot on the first stage of my journey to Glove, sending the carriage round by road to meet me at Loam, the place where I meant to stop for lunch, and going myself along the footpaths down to the show. The professor, who was a great worker and extraordinarily active for his years, came with me part of the way. He intended, he said, to go into Sassanets that afternoon if Charlotte did not appear before then and make inquiries, and meanwhile he would walk a little with me. So we started very gaily down the same zigzag path up, which I had crawled dripping a few hours before. At the bottom of the ravine, the shore path from Stuban-Kama to Loma begins.

It is a continuation of the lovely path from sarsnets but less steep. It keeps closer to the beach. It is a white chalk path running along the foot of cliffs clothed with moss and every kind of wild flower and fern. Masses of the leaves of lilies of the valley show what it must look like in May. And on the day we walked there, the space big. when the twisted beach trunks, twisted into the strangest contortions under the lash of winter storms, was blue with wild campanula. What a walk that was! The sea lay close to our feet in great green and blue streaks.

The leaves of the beaches, on our left, seemed carved in gold. They shone so motionless against the sky. And the professor was so gay, so certain the, the world. that he was going to find Charlerota, that he almost danced instead of walking. He talked to me, there is no doubt, as he might have talked to quite a little child. Of erudition, there was not a sign of wisdom in Brosse's sense, not a word. But what of that? The happy result was that I understood him, and I know we were very merry. If I were Charlotte, nothing would induce me to stir from the side of a woman.

good-natured man who could make me laugh. Why, what a quality in a husband, how precious and how rare. Think of living with a person who looks at the world with the kindliest amused eyes. Imagine having a perpetual spring of pleasant mirth in one's own house, babbling coolly of refreshing things on days when life is dusty. Must not wholesomeness pervade the very soon. sellers and lumber rooms of such a home? Well, I meant to do all in my power to persuade Charlotte to go into the home again.

How delightful to be the means of doing the dear old man beside me a good turn. Meanwhile, he walked along happily, all unconscious that I was meditating good turns, perhaps happy for that very reason and full of confidence in his, his ability to catch and to keep Charlotte. Where she goes, I go with her, he said. I now have my summer leisure and can devote myself entirely to her. Do not fall into abstractions then, dear professor, at important moments, I said, and inwardly rehearse the eloquent pleadings with which I meant to shake

Charlotte's soul when next I saw her. We said goodbye where the wood ends. on the white path goes into the sun. Be sure you let me know when you meet Charlotte, I said. I want particularly to speak to her, something really important. Tell her so. And I have a letter for her if I can't see her. Don't forget, I sleep at Glover tonight.

I will telegraph very stay tomorrow. Don't forget. Won't you be very nice and make notes of it? he promised wished me god speed kissed my hand and turned back into the wood swinging his stick and humming gay little tunes and i went on in the sun to loma there i bathed again a delicious solitary bathed just as the woman was locking up for the day and afterwards when she had gone away up the cliff to her dinner i sat on the empty beach in the sun and thought of all I was going to say to Charlotte. It interested me so much that I forgot I had meant to lunch at Loma, and when I remembered it, it was already time to go up and meet the carriage.

It did not matter as the midday meal is the best one to leave out, and Loma is not the kind of place I would ever want to luncheon. The beach at the foot of the cliffs is quite unpleasant. and from it you can see the misty headland of Arcona and its lighthouse, the northernmost point of the island far away on the left. Loma itself is a small group of hotels and lodging houses on the top of low cliffs, very small and modest compared even to bins and sarsnets, which are not very big themselves and much more difficult to get at,

there is no railway nearer than sassnets and the few steamers that stop there disgorge the tourists who wants to get out into a small boat and steam away leaving him to his fate which is only a nice one on quite calm days safely on land he climbs up a shadeless zig-zag path which must be beautiful in june for the cliffs are thickly covered with wild rose bushes and at the top finds himself among the lodging-houses of loamme the one thing i saw when i got to the top that made me linger was a row of tubs filled with nasturtiums along the little terrace in front of the first hotel i passed The way those nasturtiums blazed against the vast blue curtain of sea and sky that hung behind them, with no tree or bush anywhere near, to shadow their fierce splendor, was a sight well worth coming to Lome for. There is no shade anywhere at Lomeh. it stands entirely exposed out in the open beyond the stupid calmer forest and on a dull day must be dreary it is i imagine a convenient place for quiet persons who do not wish to spend much and the air is beautiful in spite of the heat i felt as if it were the most breezing air i had yet come across on my journey The carriage was waiting just outside the empty, sunny little place,

in a road that winds chalkily between undulating fields in the direction of globe. Get-Root's face wore a look of satisfaction as she got into her old seat beside me and took out her knitting. She had not been able to knit during those few dreadful days in which her place had been usurped and she had bumped after us ignominiously in a cart and how pleasant it was not to have the ceaseless rattle just behind yes it became more and more clear that shalada ought to be in her own home with her husband her being there would undoubtedly promote the general peace and why should she go about stirring people up and forcing them to be dodged by luggage carts The road wound higher through the cornfields, dwindling at last into a stony track. The country heaved away in ample undulations on either side. There were no trees, but so many flowers that even the ruts were blue with chicory.

On the right over the cornfields lay the ball thick. I could still see Arcona in front of me on the dim edge of the world. Down at our feet Stretch the calm silver Of the Yesmunda Borden The biggest of those Inland seas That hollow out the island

Into a mere frame And a tongue of pine forest Black and narrow Curved northwards between its pale waters And the vigorous blue of the sea I stopped the carriage As I love to do in lonely places

and there was no sound but a faint whispering in the corn. We throw down over stones between grassy banks to a tiny village with a very ancient church and the pleasing name of Bobbin. I looked wistfully up at the church on its mound as we passed below it. It was very old, six centuries the guide-book said, and fain would I have gone into it. but I knew it would be locked and did not like to disturb the person for the key. The person himself came along the road at that moment, and he looked so kind, and his eye was so mild

that I got out and inquired of him with what I hope was an engaging modesty whether the guidebook were correct about the six centuries. He was amiability itself. Not only he said was a church ancient but interesting. Would I like to see it? Oh, please. Then would I come to the parsonage while he got the key? Oh, thank you. The bobbin parsonage is a delightful little house of the kind that I dream of for my declining years with latticed windows and a wine. It stands in a garden so pretty, so full of narrow paths disappearing round corners, that I longed far more to be shown where they led to than to be shown the inside of the church. Several times I said things that ought to have resulted in my being taken along them.

But the person he did not. His talk was and remained holy church. A friendly dog lay among croquet hoops on the lawn, a pleasant silent dog who waked his tail when I came. came round the corner and saw no reason why you should bark and sniff. No one else was to be seen. The house was so quiet it seemed asleep while I waited in the parlour. The person took me down a little path to the church, talking amiably on the way. He was proud, he said, of his church. Very proud on weekdays. On Sundays, so few people came to the services that his pride was.

was quenched by the aspect of the empty seats. A bell began to toll as we reached the door. In answer to my inquiring look, he said it was the gibbet-glocker, the prayer-a-bell, and was rung three times a day, at eight and twelve and four, so that the scattered inhabitants of the lonely countryside, the sover in the fields, the housewife among her pots, the fisherman on the bottom, or over there in quiet weather on the sea, might hear it and join together spiritually at those hours in a common prayer. And do they? I asked. He shrugged his shoulders and murmured of hopes.

It is the quietest church. The vaulted chancel is the oldest part, and there is an altar-piece put there by the Swedish field-marshal, Rangel, who in the 17th century lived in a torated schloss, nearby, that I had seen from the hills. A closed-in-seat high up on the side of the chancel was where he sat. It has latticed windows and curiously painted panels, with his arms in the middle panel and those of Prince Put-Bus, to whom the Schloss now belongs on either side. The person took me up into the gallery

and showed me a picture of John the Baptist's head, just off with Herodius trying to pull out his tongue. I said I thought it nasty, and he told me it had been moved up there because the lady downstairs over whose head it used to hang was made ill by it every Sunday. Had the parishioners up in the gallery thicker skins, I asked.

But there was no question of skins, because the congregation never overflowed into the galleries. There is another picture up there, the supper at a mouse, with the scripture account written underneath in Latin. The parson read this aloud,

and his eyes otherwise so much, walked into gleams of enthusiasm. It sounded very dignified and compressed to ears accustomed to Luder's lengthy rendering of the same thing. I remarked how beautiful it was, and with a pleased smile he at once read it again, and then translated it into Greek, lingering lovingly over each of the beautiful words. I sat listening in the cool of the dusty little gallery, gazing out at the summer fields and the glistening water of the bottom through the open door. His gentle voice made a soft droning in the emptiness.

A swallow came in and skimmed about anxiously trying to get out again. The painted pulpit was also given by Wrangell, said the person as we went downstairs. he seems to have given a great deal he needed to to make good all his sins he replied with a smile many were the sins he committed i smiled too posterity in the shape of the parishioners of barbain have been direct gainers of wrangle's sins good you see comes out of evil i observed he shook his head well painted pulpits do then i amended for who that is in his senses would contradict a person i gave a last glance at the quaint's pulpit across which a shaft of coloured sunlight lay inquired if i might make an offering for the poor of babin made it thanked my amiable guide and was accompanied by him out into the heat that danced among the tombstones down to the carriage to the last he was mild and kind tucking the hull and cover round me with the same solitude that he might have shown in a january snowstorm glove my destination is not far from bobbin on the way we passed the sloss with the four towers where the wicked wrangle committed all those sins that presently crystallized into a

painted pulpit. The schloss, called the spiker schloss, is led to a farmer. We met him riding home to his coffee, I suppose, it being now nearly five, and I caught a glimpse of a beautiful old garden with ancient pyramids of box, many flowers, broad alleys, and an aggressively new baby in a perambulator beneath the trees, renting the holy quiet of the avatement. afternoon with its shrieks. They pursued us quite a long way along the Bald High Road that brought us after another mile to Glover. Glover is a handful of houses built between the High Road and the Sea. There is nothing on the other side of the road but a great green plain stretching to the porden. We stopped at the first inn we came to. It was all. almost the first house, a meek, ugly little place,

with the following severe advice to tourists hanging up in the entrance. Sack was to whilst kiss and bestimmed. Las a les alishion afreshen failen. We need slu's unserre saith uns named. Besthields us and do solst not stealen. accordingly i was very short with the landlord when he appeared left out most of my articles all of my adjectives clipped my remarks of weaknesses such as please and thank you and became at last ferociously monosyllabic in my effort to give satisfaction my room was quite nice with two windows looking across the plain cows were tithertoed on it almost to wear the bottom glittered in the sun and it was scattered over with great pale patches of clover on the left was the spiker sloss with the spire of poppin church behind it far away in front blew with distance but still there rose as usual the round tower of the ubiquitous yacht sloss i leaned out into the sunshine and the

air was full of the freshness of the pines I had seen from the heights and the freshness of the invisible sea. Someone downstairs was playing sadly on a cello, tunes that reeked of Welshmas and overheard the lark's shrilled and exquisite direction. I thought I would combine lunch on tea and dinner in one meal and so have done with food for the day. So I said to the landlord, still careful to be coarse and bestimmed, bring food. I left it to him to decide what food, and he brought me fried eels and asparagus first, sausages with cranberries second, and coffee with gooseberry jam last. It was odd and indigestible, but quite clean. Afterwards I went down to the shore, through, an ear-wiggy stuffy little garden at the back where mosquitoes hummed round the heads of silent bath guests sitting statuously in tiny arbores and flies bust about me in a cloud

on the shore the fisherman's children were wading about and playing in the parental smacks the sea looked so clear that i thought it would be lovely to have yet another bath. So I sent a boy to call Gertruth and set out along the beach to the very distance and solitary bathing house. It was clean and convenient, but there were more local children playing in it, darting in and out of the dusky cells like bats. No one was in charge, and rows of towels and clothes hung up on hooks, only asking to be used. Gier Truth brought my things and I got in the water seemed desperately cold and stinging colder far than the water at stooping calm at that morning almost intolerably cold but perhaps it only seemed so because of the eels and cranberries that had come to the children were deeply interested and presently undressed and followed may in one girl bathing only in her pinafore they were very kind to me showed me the least stony places encouraged me when i shivered and made a tremendous noise i concluded for my benefit because after every outburst they paused and looked at me with modest fright

when i got out they got out too and insisted on helping get truth wring out my things i distributed fannings among them when i was dressed and they clung to me closer than ever after that escorting me in a body back to the inn and hardly were they to be persuaded to leave me at the door that evening was one of profound pace i sat at my bedroom window my body and soul in a perfect harmony of content my body had been so much bathed and walked about all day that it had been so much bathed and walked about all day that it was was incapable of intruding its shadow on the light of the soul and remained entirely quiescent pleased to be left quiet and forgotten in an easy chair the light of my soul feeble as it had been since thee's soul burned that night clear and steady for once more i was alone and could breathe and think and rejoice over the serenity of the next few that lay before me like a fair landscape in the sun. And when I had come to the end of the island, and my drive, I would go home and devote ardent weeks to bringing Charlotte and the professor together again.

If necessary, I would even ask her to come and stay with me. So much stirred was I by the desire to do good. Matchmaking is not a work I have cared about since, one that I made with infinite enthusiasm resulted a few months later in reproaches of a bitter nature being heaped on my head by the persons matched, but surely to help reunite two noble souls, one of which is eager to be reunited and the other only does not know what it really wants. Is a blessed work? Anyhow, the contemplation of it made me glow. After the sun had dropped behind the black line of pines on the right, the plain seemed to wrap itself in peace. The road beneath my window was quiet, except for the occasional clatter passed off a child in wooden shoes. Of all the places I had stayed at in Ruben, this place was the most contrified and innocent. idly I sat there, enjoying the soft dampness of the clover-ladden air, counting how many stars I could see in the pale sky,

watching the woman who had been milking the cows, far away, across the plane, come out of the dusk towards me, carrying the frothing pails. It must have been quite late, for the plane had risen up in front of my window, like a great black wall. When I heard a rattle of wheels on the high road in the direction of Bourbon, at first, very faint it grew rapidly louder. What a time to come along

this lonely road, I thought, and wondered how it would be further along where the blackness of the pines began. But the cart pulled up immediately beneath my window and, leaning out, I saw the light from the inn-door, stream on to a green hat that I knew, unfamiliar shoulders draped in waterproof clothing. Why? What in the world? I exclaimed. The professor looked up quickly.

Lord left Sassanets by steamer this morning. He cried in English and in great jubilation. She took a ticket for Arcona, I received full information in Sassnets, and started at once. This horned cattle of a coachman, however, will drive me no further. I therefore appeal to thee to take me on in thy carriage.

What? Never tonight? Tonight? Certainly tonight. Who knows where she will go tomorrow? But Arcona is miles away. We should never get there. It would kill the horses. Tat, tut, tut was all the answer I got, ejected with a terrific impatience,

and much accompanying clinking of money, made it evident that the person described as horned cattle was being paid. I turned and stared at cattle, who had been arrested by this conversation, in the act of arranging my bed with a stare of horror. Then, in a flash, I saw which was the one safe place, and I flung myself all dressed into the bed. Go down, Gertrude, I said, pulling the bedclothes up to my chin,

and say what you like to the professor. Tell him, I'm in bed and nothing will get me out of it. Tell him, I will drive him to my chair. to any place on earth. Yes, tell him that. Tell him, I promise. I promise faithfully to see him through. Go on, unlock me in.

For I heard a great clamor on the stairs. And who knows what an agitated wise man may not do, and afterwards pretend he was in an abstraction. But I had definitely. pledged myself to a course of active meddling. End of Section 12. Section 13 of The Adventures of Elizabeth and Rogen. This is a Liberwax recording.

All Liberwax recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreWax.org. Read by Vera. The Adventures of Elizabeth and Rewood. by elizabeth von anem the ninth day from glove to weak the landlord was concerned gaitreth told me when he heard we were going to drive to arcona at an hour in the morning known practically only to birds professor neberline after fuming long and audibly in the passage downstairs had said sent her up with a request made in his hearing that the carriage might be at the door for that purpose at four o'clock at that tower there is no door said the landlord tut tut said the professor the landlord raised his hands and described the length and sandiness of the way three o'clock then was all the professor said to that calling after gaitreel

oh oh was my eloquent exclamation when she came in and told me and i pulled the bed-clothes up still higher as though seeking protection in them from the blows of fate it is possible august may overslep himself suggested gertrude seeing my speechless objection to starting for anywhere at three o'clock so it is i think it very lightly i'm I said, emerging from the bedclothes to speak earnestly. Till six o'clock, I should think he would sleep, at least till six. Should not you, Gertruth? It is very probable, said Gertruth, and went away to give the order. August did. He slept so heavily that eight o'clock found the professor and myself still at Glover,

breakfasting at a little table in the road. before the house on flounders and hot gooseberry jam. The professor was much calmer, quite composed in fact, and liked the flounders, which he said were as fresh as young love. He had been very tired after his long day on the previous sleepless night, and when he found I was immovable,

he too had gone to bed and overslept himself. immediately on seeing him in the morning i told him what i felt sure was true that charlotta knowing i would come to urcona in the course of my drive round the coast had gone on there to wait for me so there is really no hurry i added hurry certainly not he said gay and reasonable after his good-night we will enjoy the present little cousin on the admirable flounders and he told me the story of the boastful man who had wanted the loftiness of his rooms to a man poorer than himself except in wit and the poorer man weary of this talk of ceilings was goaded at last to relate how in his own house the rooms were so low that the only things he could ever have for meals were flounders and though i had heard the story before i took care to exhibit a decent mirth in the proper place ending by laughing with all my heart only to see how the progress laughed and wiped his eyes. It was a close day of sunless heat.

The sky was an intolerable gray glare. There was no wind, and the flies bust in swarms about the horse's heads as we drove along the straight white road between the pines towards Arcona. Getruth was once more relegated to a cart, but she did not look nearly so grim as before. She obviously preferred the professor to his wife, which was a lapse from the normal discretion of her manners, get-rudes not being supposed to have preferences, and certainly none that are obvious. From Clover, the high road goes through the pines, almost without a bend to the next place, Eulius Rue. About an hour and a half north of Clover.

We did not pass a single house. The way was absolutely lonely and its toughness dreadful. We could see neither the Baltic nor the bottom, though both were only a few yards off on the other side of the pines. At Eulius Rue, a flat, airless place of new lodging houses, we did get a glimpse of a mud-colored sea. and after Julio's route, the high road and the pines abruptly ending, we got into the open country of whose sandiness the global landlord had spoken with uplifted hands. As we labored along at a walking pace, the greyness of the sky grew denser, and it began to rain. This was the first rain I had had during my journey, and it was delicious. The ripe corn on our left looked a deeper cold against the dull sky.

The ditches were like streaks of light. They were so crammed with yellow flowers. The air grew fragrant with wetness. And best of all, the dust left off. The professor put up his umbrella, which turned out to be so enormous when open that we could both sit comfortably under it and keep it. dry, and he was in such good spirits at being fairly on Charlotte's tracks that I'm inclined to think it was the most agreeable drive I had had in Rougain.

The traveler, however, who does not sit under one umbrella with a pleased professor on the way to Arcona, must not suppose that he too will like this bit best, for he will not. The road turns off sharply inland, at Witt, a tiny fisher hamlet we came upon unexpectedly, hidden in a deep clef. It is a charming little place, a few fishermen's huts, are minute inn, and a great many walnut trees. Passing along the upper end of the cluff, we looked straight down its one shingly street to the sea, washing among rocks. Big black fisher boats were howled up among into the street itself. The forlone artist's umbrella stood all alone halfway down, sheltering an unfinished painting from the gentle rain, while the artist,

I supposed him to be the artist because of his unique neck arrangements, watched it wistfully from the indoor. As wit, even in rain, was perfectly charming, I can confidently recommend it to the traveller, for on a sunny day it must be quite one of the prettiest spots in Rogen. If I had been alone, I would certainly have stayed there at least one night, though the inn looked as if its beds were feather and its butter bad. But I now had a mission. and he who has a mission spends most of his time passing the best things by is not that a little paradise i exclaimed the professor quoted dr johnson and charles lamb remarking that he understood their taste better than that of those persons who indulge in ill-defined and windy ruptures about scenery and the weather but we cannot all have the taste of great scholars, I said rather coldly, for I did not like the expression, windy ruptures. If thou meanest me by great scholars, thou female babe, know that my years and poor rudiments

of learning have served only to make it clear to me that the best things in life are of the class to which, sitting under one umbrella with a dear little cousin belong. I endeavoured yesterday to impress this result of experience on the long Englishman. But he is still knee-deep in theories and cannot yet see the simple on the clothes at hand. I don't care one little bit for the umbrella form of joy, I said obstinately. It is the blankest dullness compared to the joy to be extracted from looking at a place like widths, in fine weather. Tutt, said the professor,

talk not to me of weather, thou dost not mean it from thy heart, and he arranged the rug afresh round me so that I should not get wet, and inquired solicitously why I did not wear a waterproof cloak like his, which was so very practish. From wit the road to Arcona describes a triangle of which the village of Putgarten is the apex,

the round which it took us half an hour to drive, we got to Arcona which consists solely of a lighthouse, with an inn in it, about one. Now for the little lot, cried the professor, leaping out into the rain, and hastening towards the emerging landlord, while I hurriedly rehearsed the main points of my arguments. But Shalota was not there. She had been there, the landlord said, the previous afternoon.

Having arrived by steamer, had asked for a bedroom, been shown one, but had wanted better accommodation than he could give. Anyhow, after drinking coffee, she had hired a conveyance, and had gone on to weak. The professor was terribly crestfallen.

We will go on then, he said. We will at once proceed to weak. Where weak is, I conclude we shall ultimately discover. I know where it is. It's on the map. I never doubted it. I mean, I know the way from here. I was going there anyhow, and Charlotte knew that.

but we can't go on yet dear professor the horses would never get us there it must be at least ten miles off and off will sand the whole way it took me some time and many words to convince him that nothing would make me move till the horses had had a feat under rest we will only stay here a few hours i comforted and get to weak anyhow to-day but who can tell whether she will be there two nights running cried the professor excitedly striding about in the mud why we can when we get there and it's no use bothering till we are there but i'm sure she will wait till i come let us go in out of the rain i will hire a cart he announced with great determination what and go on without our own me? I tell thee, I will hire a cart. No time shall be lost. And he ran back again to the landlord, who was watching us from the door, with much disapproval. For, I suppose, Charlotte's refusal to consider his accommodation worthy of her had not disposed him well towards her friends, and possibly he considered the professor's rapid movements among the puddles, too unaccountable to be

nice. There was no cart, he said, absolutely none, and the professor in a state of fuming dejection was forced to what resignation he could muster. During this parlaying, I had been sitting alone under the umbrella, the rain falling monotonously on its vast surface, running off the glazed lid of my yellow bandbox in streams, and dripping from the brim of August. hat down his patient neck. A yard or two behind sat Gertrude on the hold-all, dimly visible through the cloud of steam, rising from the back of her soaked cart-horse. I could hear the sea at the foot of the cliff, sluggishly heaving on and off the shingle, and I could see it over the edge of the cliff, to the east, and hear for the first time round the bend of the island to the north.

It was flat, oily, and brown. Never was such a dreary sea or such a melancholy spot. I got out and went into the house, feeling depressed. The landlord led us into a room at the back, the room in front being for the use of fishermen wishing to drink. Clouds of smoke and a great glamour smote our senses when he opened the door. The room was full of what, looked like an excursion, about 30 people, male and female, sitting at narrow tables, eating, chattering, singing, and smoking, all at once. Three specially variegated young woman dressed in the flimpsiest of fine weather clothes, all damp muslin and feathers, pretty girls with pronounced hair arrangements. were smoking cigarettes and in the corner near the door demure and solitary sat another pretty young woman in black with a very small bonnet trimmed with a very big Alsatian bow on the back of a very elaborately curled head. Her eyes were discreetly fixed on a wiener's nitzel that she was eating with a singular mincingness.

And all those young men who could not get near the girls and muslin were doing their utmost to attract this one's notice. We can't stay here, I whispered to the professor. It is true dreadful. Dreadful? It is humanity, little cousin. Humanity at its happiest. In other words, at its dinner. And he pulled off his cloak and hung up his hat

with a brisk cheerfulness at which I, who had just seen him striding about among puddles, rent with vexation, could only marvel. But there is not. room i objected there is an ample sufficiency of room we shall sit there in the corner by the young lady in black well you go and sit there and i will go out into the porch place over there and get some air never did i meet anyone needing so much air air hast thou not then been aired the entire morning but i made my way to my way through the smoke to a door, standing open at the other end that led into a little covered place through which was the garden. I put my head gratefully round the corner to breathe the sweet air.

The garden is on the west side of the lighthouse, on ground falling steeply away to the flat of the cornfields that stretch between Arcona and Putgarden. it is a pretty place full of lilies in flower that day and of poplars those most musical of trees rough steps cut in the side of the hill lead down out of the garden to a footpath through the rye to put garden and on the top step as straight and motionless as the poplars stood two persons under umbrellas gazing in silence at the view how unmistakable english backs and most unmistakable of all backs the backs of the harvey browns i pulled my head into the porch again with a wrench and instinctively turned to flee but there in the corner of the room sat the professor and i could hear him being pleasant to the young person in the ulcerian bow i did not choose to interrupt him for she was obviously mrs harvey brown's maid but i did wonder whether the bishop had grieved at all over the manifest unregeneracy of the way she did her hair hesitating where to go and sure of being ultimately caught wherever i went i peeped again in a sort of fascination of the two mackintoshed figures outlined against the lowering heavens and as so often happens the persons being looked at turned round

my dear frau x you here too when did you arrive in this durable place cried mrs harvey brown hurrying towards me through the rain with outstretched hand and face made up of welcome and commiseration this is too charming to meet you again but here imagine it we were under the impression it was a place one could stay at and we brought all our luggage and left our comfortable bins for good it is impossible to be in that room we were just considering what we could do and feeling really desperate brousie is not this a charming surprise brossey smiled and said it was very charming and he wished it would leave off raining he supposed i was only driving through on my way round yes i said a thousand thoughts flying about in my head have you seen anything more of the neighbour lines asked mrs harvey brown shutting her umbrella and preparing to come inside the porch too my cousin left that evening as you know i said yes i could not help wondering began mrs harvey brown but was interrupted by her son who asked where i was going to sleep that night i think at week i answered isn't weak a little place on the began brossey but was interrupted by his mother who asked if the professor had followed his own his own wife. Yes, I said, I confess, I was surprised, began Mrs. Harvey Brown, but was interrupted by her son,

who asked whether I thought loam possessed an hotel where one could stay. I should think so from the look of it as I passed through, I said. Because began Brassy, but was interrupted by his mother, who asked whether I had heard anything of the dear professor since he left. Delightful genius, she added enthusiastically. Yes, I said. I suppose he and his wife will go back to Bonn now? Soon, I hope. Did you say he had gone to Berlin? Is he there now? No, he isn't. Have you seen him at him? again. Yes, he came back to stupid karma. Indeed, with his wife? No, Shalota was not with him.

Indeed? Never was a more expressive, indeed. My cousin changed her plans about Berlin, I said hastily, disturbed by this expressiveness, and came back too, but she didn't care for stupid karma. She's waiting for me, for us, at week. She is waiting there till I, till we come. Oh, really? And the professor? The professor goes to week, too. Of course.

Mrs. Harvey Brown gazed at me a moment, as though endeavouring to arrange her thoughts. Do forgive me, she said, for seeming stupid. But I don't quite understand where the professor is. He was at Steuben Karma, and he will be. at week. But where is he now? In there, I said, with a nod in the direction of the dining room, and I wished with all my heart that he wasn't. In there, cried the bishop's wife, Prozzi, do you hear? How very delightful, let us go to him at once, and she rustled into the room,

followed by Prozzi and myself. You go first, dear, dear, frau X. She turned round to say, don't it by the clouds of smoke, and all the chairs and people who had to be got out of the way, for by this time the tourists had finished dining, and had pushed their chairs out into the room to talk together, more conveniently, and the room was dim with smoke. You know where he is. I can't tell you how charmed I am. Really most fortunate. he seems to be with an english friend she added for the revelers having paused in their din to stare at us the professor's cheery voice was distantly heard inquiring in english of some person or persons unseen whether they knew the difference between a canary and a grand piano always in such genial spirits murmured mrs harvey brown rapturously here there was a great abstraction a group of people blocking the passage down the room and having to be got out of the way before we could pass and when the scraping of their chairs and their grumbles had ceased we caught the professor's conversation a little further on

he was saying i cannot in that case my dear young lady caution you with a sufficient earnestness to be of an extreme care when purchasing a grand piano i don't ever think of doing such a thing interrupted a shrill female voice at whose sound mrs harvey brown made an exclamation tut tut i'm putting a case suppose you wish to purchase a grand piano and did not know as you say you do not the difference between it i shan't wish though i would be a nice silly too nay but suppose you did wish what's the good of supposing silly things like that you are a funny old man andrews said mrs harvey brown at this point emerging on the absorbed couple and speaking with you are a funny old man andrews said mrs harvey browne at this point emerging on the absorbed couple and speaking with the languid gentleness that curled slightly upwards into an interrogation at the end. Andrews, whose face had been overspread by the expression that accompanies titters, started to her feet and froze before our eyes into the dumb passivity of the decent maid. The professor hardly gave himself time to bow and kiss Mrs. Harvey Brown's hand,

before he poured forth his pleasure that this charming young lady should be of her party your daughter madam i doubt not my maid said mrs harvey brown in a curdled kind of voice andrews please see about the luggage she is rather a nice-looking girl i suppose she conceded anxious to approve of all the professor said and dead nice looking she is so exceedingly pretty madam that i could only conclude she must be your daughter this elementary application of balm at once soothed mrs harvey brown into a radiance of smiles perplexing in conjunction with her age and supposed superiority to vanities forgetful of her objections to german crowds and smoke she sat down in the chair vacated by andrews made the professor sit down again in his and plunged into an exuberant conversation which began by an invitation so warm that it almost seemed on fire to visit herself and the bishop before the summer was over in the episcopal glories of babacomb this much i heard as i slipped away into the peace of the front room rosy came after me to him the picture of the professor being wrapped about in mrs harvey brown's amenities was manifestly displeasing the front room seemed very calm unspacious after what we had just been in a few fishermen were drinking beer at the bar in a corner of a corner of a little bit of a corner of a little bit of a little fisherman were drinking beer at the bar in a corner of a corner of

said Andrews and Gertrille, beginning unnecessarily inarticulate acquaintance over the hold-alls. Both window and door were open, and the rain came down straight and steady, filling the place with a soft murmuring and dampness. Across the clearness of my first decision that the professor must be an absolutely delightful person to be always with, had crept a slight film of doubt. There were some things about him that might possibly, I began in a dim way to see, annoy your wife. He seemed to love Charlotte and he had seemed to be very fond of me. Anyhow, never before had I been so much padded in, so short a space of time. Yet the moment he caught sight of the Alsatian bow, he forgot my presence and existence, forgot the fluster he had been into get on after his wife and attached himself to it with a vehemence that no one could be expected to like a shadowy conviction began to pervade my mind that the sooner i handed him over to charlotta and drove on again alone the better surely shallotah ought to go back to him and look after him why should i be obliged to drive round rougain first with one knee-pe

a line and then with the other. The ways of fate are truly eccentric, I remarked half to myself, going to the door and gazing out into the wet. Because they have led you to Arcona on a rainy day? asked Prozzy. Because of that and because of heaps of other things, I said.

And sitting down at a table on which lay a bulky tomb with much-thumbed covers. I began rather impatiently to turn over its pages. But I had not yet reached the limits of what fate can and will do to a harmless woman who only asks to be left unnoticed. For while, Brosey and I were studying this book, which is an ancient visitor's book of 1843 kept by the landlord's father or grandfather. I forget which and quite the best thing Arcona possesses so that I advise the traveller whose welfare I do my best

at intervals to promote, not to leave Arcona without having seen it. While I say we were studying this book, admiring many of its sketches, laughing over the inevitable inaptitudes that seemed to drop with so surprising a facility from the pens of purse. who inscribed their names, examining with all the signatures of celebrated men who came here before they were celebrated. Bismarckes as assessor in 1843, Caprovies as a lieutenant, Wal-Dazis also as lieutenant, and others of the kind. While, I repeat, we were innocently studying this book. fate was busy tucking up her sleeves preparing to hit me harder than ever it was not fate interrupted the wise relative before alluded to as i sat after my return recounting my adventures and trying to extract sympathy it was the first consequence of your having meddled if you had not well well the great comfort about relatives is that though they may make what assertions they like you need not and do not believe them

and it was fate and nothing but fate that had dodged me mullivulantly all round rughan and join me here at argona once more to mrs harvey brown in she came while we were bending over the book followed by the professor who walked as a man may walk in a dream his eyes fixed on nothing and asked me without more ado whether i would let her share my carriage as far as weak then you see dear frau x i shall get there she observed but why do you want to get there i asked absolutely knocked over this time by the fists of fate oh why not we must go somewhere and quite the most natural thing to do is to join forces you agree don't you prosely dear the professor thinks it an excellent excellent and is charming enough to want to relinquish his seat to me, if you will have me. Are you not, Professor? However, I only asked to be allowed to sit on the small seat, for the last thing I wish to do is to disturb anybody.

But I fear the professor will not allow, and she stopped and looked with arch-placiness at the professor who murmured abstractedly. certainly certainly which of course might mean anything my dear mother began brossey in a tone of strong remonstrance how i'm sure it is the best thing we can do brosie i did ask the landlord about hiring a fly and there is no such thing i will only be as far as weak and i hear that is not so very far you don't mind do you dear frau ex mind i cried wriggling out a smile mind but how will your son i don't quite see and your maid oh brossey has his bicycle and if you will let the luggage be put in your luggage cart andrews can quite well sit beside your maid of course we will share expenses so that it will really be mutually advantage Mrs. Harvey Brown, being one of those few persons who know exactly what they want, did as she chose with wavering creatures like myself. She also did as she chose with Brozze, because the impossibility of publicly rebuking one's mother shut his mouth. She even did as she chose with the professor, who, declaring that sooner than in commode,

the ladies, he would go in the luggage cart, was in the very act as we were preparing to start off of nimbly climbing onto the trunk, next to the one on which Andrew sat, when he found himself hesitating, coming down again, getting into the Victoria, subsiding on to the little seat, and all in obedience to a clear something in the voice of Mrs. Harvey Brown. Never did unhappy celebrity sit more richardly than the poor professor. It was raining so hard that we were obliged to have the hood up, and its edge came to within an inch of his nose. Would have touched it quite if he had not sat as straight and as far back as possible.

He could not, therefore, put up his umbrella and was, reduced, while water trickled ceaselessly off the hood down his neck, to pretending with great he roisten that he was perfectly comfortable. It was impossible to sit under the snuck hood and contemplate the drenched professor outside it. It was impossible to let an old man of 70, and an old man, besides of such immense European value, catch his death before my very eyes. Either he must come between us and be what is known as Botkin, or someone must get out and work. And the Bodkin's solution, not commending itself to me, it was plain that if someone walked, it must be myself. In an instant, the carriage was stopped. Protestations filled the air.

I got out. The professor was transferred to my place. The bishop's wife turned deaf ears to his entreaties that he might go in the luggage cart and hold his big umbrella over the two poor drowning maids. The hood became vocal with arguments, suggestions, expultulations apologies and go on august i interrupted and dropped behind into sand and silence we were already beyond putgarten in a flat uninteresting country of deep sand and treeless hedgeless corn-fields i had no umbrella but a cloak with a hood to it which i drew over my head throwing gear through with my head when she too presently heaved past in a cloud of expostulations. Go on, go on! I called to the driver with a wave of my hand, seeing him hesitate. And then stood waiting for Brose, who was some little way behind pushing his bicycle,

dismally through the sand, meditating no doubt, on the immense difficulties of dealing with mothers who do things one does not like. When he realized that the solitary figure with the peaked hood outlined against the sullen gray background was mine, he pushed along at a trot with a face of great distress. But I had no difficulty in looking happy and assuring him that I liked walking, because I really was thankful to get away from the bishop's wife, and I rather liked, besides, to be able to stretch myself thoroughly, while as far getting wet, to let oneself slowly be soaked to the skin while walking in a warm rain has a charm all its own. Accordingly, after the preliminary explanations, we plotted along comfortably enough towards

weak, keeping the carriage in sight as much as possible, and talking about all the things that interested Brosse, which were mostly things of great obscurity to myself. I suppose he thought it safest to keep to high truths and generalities, fearing lest the conversation in dropping to an everyday level should also drop on to the nibah lines, and he seemed quite anxious. not to know why Charlotte was at weak by herself while her husband and I were driving together without her. Therefore, he soured carefully in reams of pure reason, and I, silent and respectful, watched him from below, only I could not help comparing the exalted vagueness of his talk with the sharp clearness of all that the old and wise professor said. after all turned out to be hardly more than five miles from argona but it was heavy going what with the bicycle on my wet skirts on the high talk we got along slowly and my soul grew more chilled with every step by the thought of the complications the presence of the harvey browns was going to make in the delicate task of persuading shallota to return to

her husband. Rosie knew very well that there was something unusual in the Nipaline relations and was plainly uneasy at being thrust into a family meeting. When the red roofs and poplars of Wake came in sight, he sank into thoughtfulness and we walked the last mile in our heavy sand-caged shoes in almost total silence. the carriage and cart had disappeared long ago urged on no doubt by the professor's eagerness to get to charlotta and away from mrs harvey brown and we were quite near the first cottages when august appeared coming back to fetch us driving very fast with gethrews's face peering anxiously round the hood it was only a few yards from there to the open space in the middle of the village in which the two inns are and brazi got on his bicycle while i drove with gaitrude wrapped in all the rugs she could muster there are two inns at wake and one is the best the professor had gone to each to inquire for his wife and i found him striding about it but i found him striding about it.

about in front of the one that is the best and i saw at once by the very hang of his cloak and position of his hat that shalada was not there gone gone he cried before the carriage stopped even gone this very day this very morning gone at eight at the selfsame hour we wasted over those accursed flounders. Is it not sufficient to make a poor husband become mad? After months of patience. To miss her everywhere by a few miserable hours, I told thee, I bet thee to bring me on last night. Brazy, now of a quiet, deadly anxiety to keep out of Niebuhrine complications, removed himself and his bicycle with all possible speed. Mrs. Harvey Brown, watching my arrival from an upper window, waved a genial hand with ill-timed cordiality whenever I looked her way.

The landlord and his wife carried in all the rugs that dropped off me, unheeded into the mud, when I got out, and did not possibly turn a hair at my peak. hood and draggled garments. Where has she gone? I asked as soon as I could get the professor to keep still and listen. We will drive after her the first thing tomorrow morning. Tonight, if you like.

Drive after her? Last night when it would have availed, thou wouldest not drive after her? Now, if we follow her, we must swim. She has gone to an island. An island, I tell thee, of which I never till this day heard. An island to reach which requires much wind from a favorable quarter,

which without wind is not to be reached at all. And in me thou now beholdest a broken-hearted man. End of Section 13. of the Adventures of Elizabeth in Rögen. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org.

The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen by Elizabeth von Anim. The 10th Day, From Vic to Hidency. The island to which Charlotte had retired was the island of Hidenci, a narrow strip of sand to the west of Rögen. Generally so wordy, the guidebook merely mentions it

as a place to which it is possible for Ruegen tourists to make excursions, and proffers with a certain timidity, the information that pleasure may be had there in observing the life and habits of seabirds. To this place of seabirds, Charlotte had gone, as she wrote in a letter left with the landlady for me, because during the night she spent at Wicke, A panic had seized her, lest the Harvey Browns should, by some chance, appear there in their

wanderings before I did. I dare say they will not dream of coming round this way at all, she continued. But you never know. You certainly never know, I agreed, Mrs. Harvey Brown being at that very moment in the room Charlotte had had the panic in, and I lay awake elaborating a most beautiful plan by which I intended at one stroke to reunite Charlotte and her husband, and free myself of both of them. this plan came into my head during the evening while sitting sadly listening to something extremely like a scolding from the professor it seemed to me that i had done all in my power short of inhumanity to the horses to help him and it was surely not my fault that charlotte had not happened to stay anywhere long enough for us to catch her up my intentions were so good far preferring to drive alone and stop where and when i pleased at vit for instance among the walnut trees

I had yet given up all my preferences so that I might help bring man and wife together. If anything, did not this conduct incline towards the noble? Your extreme simplicity amazes me, remarked the wise relative, when arrived at this part of my story on my return home, I plaintively asked the above question. Under no circumstances is the meddler ever thanked. Meddler? Helper, you mean?

Apparently you would call every person who has. helps, a meddler? Armes Kint, proceed with this story. Well, the professor who had suffered much in the hood between Arcona and Vique was more irritated by his disappointment on getting to Vick than seemed consistent with the supposed serenity of the truly wise, was telling me for the tenth time that if I had brought him on at once from Glow as he had begged me to do, we would not only have escaped the Harvey Browns, but would have caught his Charlotte by now, seeing that she had not left Vigfer he didn't see until eight o'clock of this Saturday we had now got to, and I was drooping more and more under these reproaches when, with the suddenness of inspiration, the beautiful plan flooded my

dejected brain, with such a tearful light that I lifted my head and laughed in the professor's face. Now, pray tell me, he exclaimed, stopping short in his strides about the room. "'What thou seest to laugh at in my present condition? "'Nothing in your present condition. "'It's the glories of your future one that made me laugh. "'Surely that is not a subject on which one laughs, "'nor will I discuss it with a woman, "'nor is this the place or the moment.

"'I refer thee,' and he swept round his arm "'as though to sweep me altogether out of sight, "'I refer thee to thy pastor. "'Dearest professor, don't you. be so dreadfully cross. The future state I was thinking of isn't further off than tomorrow. Sometimes there's a cunning about a woman's wit that you great artists in profundity don't possess. You can't, of course, because you're so busy being wise on a large scale, but it's quite useful to have some cunning when you have to work out petty schemes, and I tell you solemnly

that at this moment I am full of it. He stopped again in his striding. The good landlady and her one handmaiden were laying the table for supper. Mrs. Harvey Brown had gone upstairs to put on those evening robes in which it appeared she had nightly astonished the ignorant tourists of Ruegen.

Rosie had not been seen at all since our arrival. What thou art full of is nothing but poking of fun at me, I fear, said the professor, but his kind old face began to smooth out a little. I'm not. I'm only full of artfulness and anxious to put it all at your disposal, but you mustn't be quite so cross. Pray, am I no longer than your dear and little cousin?

When thou art good, yes. Whom to pat is pleasant? Yes, yes, it is pleasant, but if unreasonableness develops. And with whom to sit under you. one umbrella is a joy? Surely, surely, but thou hast been of a great obstinacy. Well, come and sit here and let us be happy. We're very comfortable here, aren't we? Don't let us think any more about the wet, horrid, obstinate, disappointing day we've had. And as for tomorrow, I've got a plan. The professor, who had begun to calm, sat down beside me on the sofa, the landlord,

deft, and noiseless, was giving a finishing touch of roses and fruit and candles to the supper table. He had been a butler in a good family and was of the most beautiful dignity and solemnity. We were sitting in a very queer old room, used in past years for balls to which the quality drove in from their distant estates and danced through winter nights. There was a gallery for the fiddlers, and the chairs and benches ranged round the walls were still covered with the festive-looking faded red stuff. In the middle of this room, the landlord had put a table for us to sup at, and had arranged it in a way I had not seen since leaving home. No one else was in the house but ourselves. No one, hardly of the tourist class, comes to weak, and yet,

or because of it, this inn of all the inns I had stayed at was in every way quite excellent. Tell me then thy plan, little one, said the professor, settling himself comfortably into the sofa corner. Oh, it's quite simple. You and I, tomorrow morning, will go to Yudensi. Go? Yes, but how? It is Sunday, and even if it were not, no steamers seem to go to what appears to be a spot of great desolation. We'll hire a fishing smack. And, if there is no wind, we'll pray for wind. And I shall spend an entire day within the cramped limits of a vessel, in the company of the English female bishop, I tell thee it is not to be accomplished.

No, no, of course they mustn't come too. Come, she will come if she wishes to. Never did I meet a more commanding woman. No, no, we must circumvent the Harvey Browns. Do thou stay here then and circumvent, then shall I proceed in safety on my way? Oh, no, I exclaimed in stuvent. some consternation, the success of my plan, which was by no means to be explained in its entirety to

the professor, wholly depended on my going too. I want to see Charlotte again. You know, I'm fond of Charlotte. And besides, long before you got to Hedensi, you would have sunk into another abstraction and began to fish or something, and you'd come back here in the evening with no Charlotte and only fishes. Well, do I now know what is the object I have in view? Don't be so proud, remember Pilatus. Thou art beginning to be like a conscience to me, rebuking and urging onwards the poor old man in bewildering alternations, but I tell thee there is no hope of setting sail without the English madam unless thou remainest here while I secretly slip away. I won't remain here. I'm coming too. Leave the arrangements to me, dearest professor, and you'll see we'll secretly slip

away together. Mrs. Harvey Brown, sweeping in at that moment in impressive garments that trailed, our conversation had to end abruptly. The landlord lit the candles, the landlady brought in the soup. Brozy appeared, dressed as one dresses in civilized regions. Cheer up, I whispered to the professor as I got up from the sofa, and he cheered up so immediately, and so excessively, that before I could stop him, before I could realize what he was going to do, he had actually chucked me under the chin. We spent a constrained evening, the one remark Mrs. Harvey Brown addressed to me during the hours that followed this chin-chucking was, I am altogether at a loss to understand and Frau Nieberlein's having retired without her husband to yet another island.

Why, this regrettable multiplicity of islands? To which I could only answer that I did not know. The next day, being Sunday, a small boy went up into the wooden belfry of the church, which was just opposite my window and began to toll two bells. The belfry is built separate from the church and commands a view into the room of the inn that was my bedroom. I could see the small boy, walking leisurely from bell to bell, giving each a pull, and then refreshing himself by leaning out and staring hard at me. I got my opera glasses and examined him

with equal care, trying to stare him out of countenance. But though small, he was also a bold boy, and not to be abashed, and as I would not give in either, we stared at each other steadily between the tolls, till nine o'clock when the bell-ringing ceased. Service began, and he, reluctantly went down into the church, where I suppose he had to join in the singing of the tune, to which in England the hymn beginning, all glory, laud, and honour is sung, for it presently floated out into the quiet little marketplace, filling it with the feeling of Sunday. While I lingered at the window, listening to this, I saw Mrs. Harvey Brown emerge from the indoor in her Sunday-took, and crossing the marketplace, followed by Brozy, go into the church.

in an instant i had whisked into my hat and hurrying downstairs to the professor who was strolling up and down a rose-bordered path in the garden at the back of the house informed him breathlessly that the harvey browns might now be looked upon as circumvented what already thou art truly a wonderful ally he exclaimed in great glee oh that's nothing i replied modestly as indeed it was let us start at once then He cried briskly and we accordingly started, slipping out of the house and round the corner down to the quay. The sun was shining, the ground was drying. There was a slight breeze from the east, which ought, the landlord said, to blow us gently to Hidence, if it kept up in about four hours.

All my arrangements had been made the night before with the aid of August and Gertrude and the brig, Bertha, quite an imposing-looking craft that plied on weekdays, whether permitting between Vic and Straussund, had been hired for the day at a cost of 15 marks, including a skipper with one eye, and four able seamen. The brig Berta seemed to me very cheap. She was to be at my disposal from dawn till as far into the night as I wanted her. All the time the bell-boy and I were exchanging increasingly sarcastic stares,

she was lying at the quay, ready to start at any moment. She had been chartered in my name, and for that one day she, her skipper, and her four able seaman, belonged entirely to me. Gertrude was waiting on board and had arranged a sort of nest of rugs and cushions for me. The landlady and her servant were also there with a basket of homemade cakes and cherries out of the inn garden. This landlady, by the way, was quite ideal. Her one aim seemed to be to do things like baking cakes for her visitors and not putting them in the bill. I met nothing else at all like her, or her husband on my journey round Ruegen, or anywhere else. Their simple kindness shall not go unsung, and therefore do I pause here,

with one foot on the key, and the other on the brig-berta, to sing it. But indeed the traveller, who does not yearn for waiters, and has no prejudices against crawling up a staircase so steep that it is practically a ladder when he wants to go to bed, who loves quiet, is not insensitive. to the charms of good cooking and thinks bathing and sailing agreeable pastimes could be extremely happy at a very small cost at veik and when all other pleasures are exhausted he can hire the berta and go to hidansay and study sea-birds thou take us the excellent but unprepossessing gertrude with thee inquired the professor in a slightly displeased voice seeing her immovable and the sails being hoisted yes i don't like being sick without her. Sick? There will hardly be a sufficiency of wind for the needs of the vessel. How wilt thou be sick in a calm? How can I tell till I have tried? Oh, gay voyage down the Vika Bodden, over the little dancing waves under the serene summer sky. Oh, blessed change from the

creaking of a carriage through dust to rippling silence and freshness. The professor was in such spirits that he could hardly be kept from doing what he called manning the yards, and had to be fetched down when he began to clamber by the alarmed skipper. Gertrude sat watching for the first glimpse of our destination with the intentness of a second brangene. The wind could hardly be said to blow us along. It was so very gentle, but it did waft us along smoothly and steadily, and Vick slipped into distance and its bells into silence, and the occasional solitary farms on the flat shores, slid away, one after the other, and the farthest point ahead came to meet us, dropped astern, became the farthest point behind, and we were far on our way, while we were

thinking we could hardly be moving. The reader, who looks at the map, we'll see the course we took, and how with that gentle wind it came to be nearly twelve, before we rounded the corner of the Vika-Bodden, passed a sandbank crowded with hundreds of seagulls, and headed for the northern end of Edensee. Ydencee lay stretched out from north to south, long and narrow, like a lizard lying in the sun. It is absolutely flat, a mere sandbank, except at the northern end where it swells up into hills and a lighthouse. There are only two villages on it with inns, the one called Vita, built on a strip of sand so low, so level with the sea that it looks as if an extra big wave, or indeed any wave,

must wash right over it and clean it off the face of the earth, and the other called Closter, where Charlotte was. I observe that on the map Closter is printed in large letters as though it were a place of some importance. It is a very pretty, very small, handful of fishermen's cottages, one little line of them in a green nest of rushes and willows along the water's edge, with a hill at the back, in some way up the hill, a small dilapidated church, forlorn and spirless, in a churchyard bear of trees. We dropped anchor in the glassy bay about two o'clock, the last bit of the Viter Bodden, having been slow, almost windless work, and were road ashore in a dingy, there not being enough water within a hundred yards to float so majestic a craft as the Berta.

The skipper leaned over the side of his brig, watching us go, and wishing a-o'clock, and wishing us, "'Fil Falknugnugnugn. The dingy and the two rowers were to wait at the little landing-stage till such time as we should want them again. Gertrude came with us, carrying the landlady's basket of food. Once more thou takeest the excellent but unprepossessing Gertrude with thee,' inquired the professor with increased displeasure, yes, to carry the cakes. And he muttered something that sounded irritable about the libel got having strewn the world with so many plain women. This isn't the time to bother about plain women, I said.

Don't you feel in every fibre that you are within a stone's throw of your Charlotte? I am sure we've caught her this time. For a moment he had forgotten Charlotte, and all his face grew radiant at the reminder. With the alacrity of eighteen, he leapt ashore, and we hurried along a narrow, rushy path at the water's edge to the one inn, a small cottage of the simplest sort, overlooking green fields and placid water. A trim servant in Sunday raiment was clearing away coffee cups from a table in the tiny front garden, and of her we asked with some trembling after our many disappointments,

whether Frow Nieberline were there. Yes, she was staying there, but had gone up on to the downs after dinner. In what direction? passed the church up the lighthouse's way the professor darted off before she had done i hastened after him gertrude waited at the inn with my own eyes i wished to see that he actually did meet charlotte for the least thing would make him forget what he had come for and so nimble was he so winged with love that i had to make desperate and panting efforts to get up to the top of the hill as soon as he did up we sped in silence past the bleak church churchyard onto what turned out to be the most glorious downs. On the top the professor stopped a moment to wipe his forehead, and looking back for the first time, I was absolutely startled by the loveliness of the view. The shining bodon with its bays and little islands lay beneath us. To the north was the

sea, to the west, the sea, to the east right away on the other side of distant Rhegen, the sea. Far in the south rose the towers of Stralstrandt. Close behind us, a forest of young pines filled the air with warm waves of fragrance. At our feet the turf was thick with flowers. Oh, wide and splendid world! How good it is to look sometimes across great spaces, to lift one's eyes from narrowness, to feel the large silence that rests on lonely hills. Motionless, we stood before this sudden unrolling of the beauty of God's earth. The place seemed full of a serene and mighty presence. Far up, near the clouds, a solitary lark was singing its joys. There was no other sound. I believe if I had not been with him, the professor would

again have forgotten, Charlotte, and lying down on the flowery turf with his eyes on that most beautiful of views have given himself over to abstractions. But I stopped him at the very moment when he was preparing to sink to the ground. No, no, I besought. don't sit down not sit and why then shall not a warm old man sit first let us find charlotte at the bare mention of the name he began to run the inservant had said charlotte had gone up to the lighthouse from where we were we could not see it but hurrying through a corner of the pine-wood we came out on the north end of hidencet and there it was on the edge of the cliff then my heart began to beat with a-he-de-sehine-way then my heart began to beat with a point of the pine-wood we came out on the north end of the cliff then my heart began to beat with mingled feelings, exultation that I should be on the verge of doing so much good, fear lest my plan by some fatal mishap should be spoiled, or if it succeeded, my actions be misjudged. Wait a moment, I murmured faintly, laying a trembling hand on the professor's arm.

Dear Professor, wait a moment. Charlotte must be quite close now. I don't want to intrude on you both at first, so please, will you, will you "'You give her this letter?' "'And I pulled it with great difficulty, "'it being fat and my fingers shaky, "'out of my pocket, "'the eloquent letter I had written in the dawn

"'at Stuben-Kammer, "'and pressed it into his hand. "'Give it to her with my love, "'with my very dear love.' "'Yes, yes,' said the professor, "'impatient of these speeches, "'and only desirous of getting on. "'He crushed the letter, unquestioningly,

"'into his pocket, and we resumed our hurry, walking. The footpath led us across a flowery slope, ending in a cliff that dropped down on the sunset side of the island to the sea. We had not gone many yards before we saw a single figure sitting on this slope. It's back to us, its slightly dejected head and shoulders appearing above the crowd of wildflowers, scabious, harebells, and cow parsley, through whose frail loveliness flashed the shimmering sea. It was Charlotte. seized the professor's hand. Look, there she is. I whispered in great excitement, holding him back for one instant. Give me time to get out of sight. Don't forget the ladder. Let me get into the wood first and then

go to her. Now, all blessings be with thee, dearest professor. Good luck to you both. You'll see how happy you both are going to be. And wringing his hand with a fervor that evidently surprised him, I turned and fled. Oh, how I fled. never have i ran so fast with such a nightmare feeling of covering no ground back through the wood out on the other side straight as an arrow down the hill towards the bottom taking the shortest cut over the turf to cluster oh how i ran it makes me breathless now to think of it as if pursued by demons i ran not daring to look back not daring to stop and gasp away i flew past the church past the parson who i remember stared at me aghast over his garden wall past the willows past the rushes down to the landing-stage and gertrude everything was ready i had given the strictest private instructions in dropping speechless into the dinghy a palpitating mixture of heat anxiety and rapture was rowed away as fast as two strong men could row me to the brig and the waiting skipper the wind was terribly light the water terribly glassy at first i lay in a quivering heap on the cushions hardly daring to think we were not moving hardly daring to think we were not moving hardly daring to think we were not moving hardly daring to think we were not moving hardly daring but to remember how I had seen a small boat tied to a stake in front of the inn, and that if the

Bertha did not get away soon, then fortune smiled on the doer of good, a gentle puff filled the sails. There was a distinct rippling across the boughs. It increased to a gurgle and cluster with its willows, its downs, its one inn, and its impossibility of being got out of, silently withdrew into shadows. Then did I stretch myself out on my rugs with a deep sigh of relief and allow Gertrude to fuss over me. Never have I felt so nice, so kind, so exactly like a ministering angel. How grateful the dear old professor would be! And Charlotte, too, when she had read my letter and listened to all he had to say,

she would have to listen. She wouldn't be able to help herself, and there would be heaps of time. I laughed aloud for joy at the success. of my plan, there they were on that tiny island, and there they would have to stay at least until tomorrow, probably longer. Perhaps they would get so fond of it that they would stay on there indefinitely. Anyhow, I had certainly reunited them, reunited them, and freed myself. Emphatically, this was one of those good actions that blesses him who acts and him who is acted upon, and never did well-doer glow with a warmer consciousness of having done well, then I glowed as I lay on the deck of the

Bertha, watching the seagulls in great comfort, and eating not only my own cherries, but the professors as well. All the way up the Vicar Bodnan we had to tack. Hour after hour we tacked, and seemed to get no nearer home. The afternoon wore on. The evening came, and still we tacked. The sun set gloriously. The moon came up. The sea was a deep violet. The clouds in the eastern sky about the moon shone with a pearly whiteness. The clouds in the west were gorgeous, past belief, flaming across in marvellous colours, even to us.

The light reflected from them, transfiguring our sails. Our men, our whole boat into a spirit ship of an unearthly radiance, bound for Elysium, manned by immortal gods. Look now how colour, the soul, bridegroom makes the house of heaven splendid for the bride. I quoted, awestruck, watching this vast plain of light with clasped hands and rapt spirit. It was a solemn and magnificent close to my journey. End of Section 14, read by Sandra. Section number 15 of the Adventures of Elizabeth in Rougan. This is a Librevox recording.

are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rougan by Elizabeth von Arnhem. The 11th day, from Vique, home. The traveller in whose interests I began this book, and who has so frequently been forgotten during the writing of it, might very well protest here that I have not yet been all around Rougain and should not therefore talk of closes to my journey, but nothing that the traveller can say will keep me from going home in this chapter. I did go home, on the morning of the 11th day, driving from Vick to Bergen and taking the train from there, and the red line on the map will show that except for one dull corner in the southeast,

I had practically carried out my original plan, and really had driven all round the island. Reaching the inn at Vick at 10 o'clock on the Sunday night, I went straight and very softly to bed, and leaving the Inuit Vick at 8 o'clock on the Monday morning, I might have got away without ever seeing Mrs. Harvey Brown again if the remembrance of Brosey's unvarying kindness had not stirred me to send Gertrude up with a farewell message. Mrs. Harvey Brown, having heard all about my day on the bertha from the landlady and how I had come back in the unimpeachability of singleness,

the professor safely handed over to his wife, forgave the chin-checking, forgave the secret setting out and hurried on to the landing in a wrapper, warmth in her heart and honey on her lips. What, are you leaving us, dear frau, X? she called over the balister, so early, so suddenly? I can't come down to you do come up here. Why didn't you tell me we're going today? She continued, when I'd come up, holding my hand in both hers, speaking with emphatic cordiality, an altogether melted and melifluous bishop's wife. I hadn't quite decided. I fear I must go home today. They want me badly. That I can quite understand. Of course they want their little ray of sunshine, she cried, growing more and more malefluous.

Now tell me, she went on, stroking the hand she held. When are you coming to see us all at Babacomb? Babacombe. Heavens. When indeed, never, never, never, shrieked my soul. Oh, thanks, murmured my lips. How kind you are, but do you think the bishop would like me? The bishop? He would more than like you, dear Frau, X. He would positively glory in you. Glory in me, I faintly gasped, and a gaudy vision of the bishop glorying, that bishop of whom I had been taught to think as steeped in chronic sorrow swam before my dazzled eyes. How kind of you are, but I'm afraid you are too kind. I'm afraid he would soon see there wasn't anything to make

him glory, and much to make him grieve. Well, we mustn't be so modest. Of course the bishop knows we are all human, and so must have our little faults. But I can assure you he would be delighted to make your acquaintance. He is a most large-minded man. Now promise. I murmured, confused then, and tried to draw my hand away, but it was held tight. I shall miss the midday train at Bergen if I don't go at once, I appealed. I really must go. You long to be with all your dear ones again, I'm sure. If I don't catch this train, I shall not get home tonight.

I really must go. Home! How charming your home must be! One hears so much about the charming German home life. But unfortunately, just traveling through the country one gets no chance of a peep into it. Yes, I've felt that myself in other countries. Goodbye, I absolutely must run. Goodbye!

And tearing my hand away with the energy of panic, I got down the ladder as quickly as I could without actually sliding, for I knew that in another moment the bishop's wife would have invited herself. Oh, it did not bear thinking of. And the Niebuylanes? She called over the baluster,

suddenly remembering them. They're on an island. Quite inaccessible in this wind. a mere desert, only sea birds, and one is sick getting to it. Goodbye. But do they not return here? She called still louder, for I was through the door now and out on the path. No, no, Strausson, Berlin, Bonn, goodbye. The landlord and his wife were waiting outside. The landlady with a great bunch of roses and yet another basket of cakes. Brozy was there too and helped me into the carriage.

I'm frightfully sorry you're going, he said. so am I but one must ultimately go observe the eternal truth looking in that sentence if ever you were wandering about germany alone do come and see us i should love to and thus with mutual amenities brosie and i parted so ended my journey around rougan for there is nothing to be recorded of that last drive to the railway station at bergen except that it was flat and we saw the yagschloss in the distance at the station i bid farewell to the carriage in which i had sometimes suffered and often been happy, for August stayed that night in Bergen and brought the horses home next day. And presently the train appeared and swept up Gertrude and myself, and Rougain knew us no more. But before I part from the traveller, who ought by this time to be very tired, I will present him with the following condensed experiences. The nicest bathing was at Lauterbach, the best inn was at Vique. I was happiest at Lauterbach and Vique. I was most wretched at Gorin.

The cheapest place was Thiso. The dearest place was Stubenkamer. The most beautiful place was Hiddensi. And perhaps he might like to know, too, though it really is no business of his, what became of the Niebuhrlands. I'm sorry to say that I had letters from them both of a nature that positively prohibits publication,

and a mutual acquaintance told me that Charlotte had applied for a judicial separation. When I heard it, I was thunderstruck. The end. End of section number 15. End of the Adventures of Elizabeth in Rougan by Elizabeth von Arnhem.