the table, she sewed steadily.
As the beggars and wanderers went slinking out of the room, some called
impudently, cheerfully:
'_Nacht, Frau Wirtin--G'Nacht, Wirtin--'te Nacht, Frau_,' to all of
which the hostess answered a stereotyped '_Gute Nacht_,' never turning
her head from her sewing, or indicating by the faintest movement that
she was addressing the men who were filing raggedly to the doorway.
So the room was empty, save for the landlady and her sewing, the staid,
elderly villager to whom she was talking in the unbeautiful dialect, and
the young serving-woman who was clearing away the plates and basins of
the tramps and beggars.
Then the villager also went.
'_Gute Nacht, Frau Seidl_,' to the landlady; '_Gute Nacht_,' at random,
to me.
So I looked at the newspaper. Then I asked the landlady for a cigarette,
not knowing how else to begin. So she came to my table, and we talked.
It pleased me to take upon myself a sort of romantic, wandering
character; she said my German was '_schön_'; a little goes a long way.
So I asked her who were the men who had sat at the long table. She
became rather stiff and curt.
'They are the men looking for work,' she said, as if the subject were
disagreeable.
'But why do they come here, so many?' I asked.
Then she told me that they were going out of the country: this was
almost the last village of the border: that the relieving officer in
each village was empowered to give to every vagrant a ticket entitling
the holder to an evening meal, bed, and bread in the morning, at a
certain inn. This was the inn for the vagrants coming to this village.
The landlady received fourpence per head, I believe it was, for each of
these wanderers.
'Little enough,' I said.
'Nothing,' she replied.
She did not like the subject at all. Only her respect for me made her
answer.
'_Bettler, Lumpen, und Taugenichtse!_' I said cheerfully.
'And men who are out of work, and are going back to their own parish,'
she said stiffly.
So we talked a little, and I too went to bed.
'_Gute Nacht, Frau Wirtin._'
'_Gute Nacht, mein Herr._'
So I went up more and more stone stairs, attended by the young woman. It
was a great, lofty, old deserted house, with many drab doors.
At last, in the distant topmost floor, I had my bedroom, with two beds
and bare floor and scant furniture. I looked down at the river far
below, at the covered bridge, at the far lights on the hill above,
opposite. Strange to be here in this lost, forgotten place, sleeping
under the roof with tramps and beggars. I debated whether they would
steal my boots if I put them out. But I risked it. The door-latch made a
loud noise on the deserted landing, everywhere felt abandoned,
forgotten. I wondered where the eight tramps and beggars were asleep.
There was no way of securing the door. But somehow I felt that, if I
were destined to be robbed or murdered, it would not be by tramps and
beggars. So I blew out the candle and lay under the big feather bed,
listening to the running and whispering of the medieval Rhine.
And when I waked up again it was sunny, it was morning on the hill
opposite, though the river deep below ran in shadow.
The tramps and beggars were all gone: they must be cleared out by seven
o'clock in the morning. So I had the inn to myself, I, and the landlady,
and the serving-woman. Everywhere was very clean, full of the German
morning energy and brightness, which is so different from the Latin
morning. The Italians are dead and torpid first thing, the Germans are
energetic and cheerful.
It was cheerful in the sunny morning, looking down on the swift river,
the covered, picturesque bridge, the bank and the hill opposite. Then
down the curving road of the facing hill the Swiss cavalry came riding,
men in blue uniforms. I went out to watch them. They came thundering
romantically through the dark cavern of the roofed-in bridge, and they
dismounted at the entrance to the village. There was a fresh
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