Saunterings eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 306 pages of information about Saunterings.

Saunterings eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 306 pages of information about Saunterings.

I spent some days in calling upon the worthy frauen who made these alluring offers.  The visits were full of profit to the student of human nature, but profitless otherwise.  I was ushered into low, dark chambers, small and dreary, looking towards the sunless north, which I was assured were delightful and even elegant.  I was taken up to the top of tall houses, through a smell of cabbage that was appalling, to find empty and dreary rooms, from which I fled in fright.  We were visited by so many people who had chambers to rent, that we were impressed with the idea that all Munich was to let; and yet, when we visited the places offered, we found they were only to be let alone.  One of the frauen who did us the honor to call, also wrote a note, and inclosed a letter that she had just received from an American gentleman (I make no secret of it that he came from Hartford), in which were many kindly expressions for her welfare, and thanks for the aid he had received in his study of German; and yet I think her chambers are the most uninviting in the entire city.  There were people who were willing to teach us German, without rooms or board; or to lodge us without giving us German or food; or to feed us, and let us starve intellectually, and lodge where we could.

But all things have an end, and so did our hunt for lodgings.  I chanced one day in my walk to find, with no help from the advertisement, very nearly what we desired,—­cheerful rooms in a pleasant neighborhood, where the sun comes when it comes out at all, and opposite the Glass Palace, through which the sun streams in the afternoon with a certain splendor, and almost next door to the residence and laboratory of the famous chemist, Professor Liebig; so that we can have our feelings analyzed whenever it is desirable.  When we had set up our household gods, and a fire was kindled in the tall white porcelain family monument, which is called here a stove, —­and which, by the way, is much more agreeable than your hideous black and air-scorching cast-iron stoves,—­and seen that the feather-beds under which we were expected to lie were thick enough to roast the half of the body, and short enough to let the other half freeze, we determined to try for a season the regular German cookery, our table heretofore having been served with food cooked in the English style with only a slight German flavor.  A week of the experiment was quite enough.  I do not mean to say that the viands served us were not good, only that we could not make up our minds to eat them.  The Germans eat a great deal of meat; and we were obliged to take meat when we preferred vegetables.  Now, when a deep dish is set before you wherein are chunks of pork reposing on stewed potatoes, and another wherein a fathomless depth of sauerkraut supports coils of boiled sausage, which, considering that you are a mortal and responsible being, and have a stomach, will you choose?  Herein Munich, nearly all the bread is filled with anise or

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Project Gutenberg
Saunterings from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.