Our travellers might, in another mood and
place, have thought it droll to arrive at that sublime spectacle through
a Bierhaus, but in this enchanted city it seemed to have a peculiar
fitness.
A narrow corridor gave into a wide festival space occupied by many
tables, each of which was surrounded by a group of clamorous Germans of
either sex and every age, with tall beakers of beaded lager before them,
and slim flasks of Rhenish; overhead flamed the gas in globes of
varicolored glass; the walls were painted like those of such haunts in
the fatherland; and the wedding-journeyers were fair to linger on their
way, to dwell upon that scene of honest enjoyment, to inhale the mingling
odors of beer and of pipes, and of the pungent cheeses in which the
children of the fatherland delight. Amidst the inspiriting clash of
plates and glasses, the rattle of knives and forks, and the hoarse rush
of gutturals, they could catch the words Franzosen, Kaiser, Konig, and
Schlacht, and they knew that festive company to be exulting in the first
German triumphs of the war, which were then the day's news; they saw
fists shaken at noses in fierce exchange of joy, arms tossed abroad in
wild congratulation, and health-pouring goblets of beer lifted in air.
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