Diary of a Pilgrimage
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Jerome K. Jerome >> Diary of a Pilgrimage
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10 This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk,
and Andrew Wallace, email andy@linxit.demon.co.uk, from the 1919
J. W. Arrowsmith edition.
Diary of a Pilgrimage
PREFACE
Said a friend of mine to me some months ago: "Well now, why don't you
write a SENSIBLE book? I should like to see you make people think."
"Do you believe it can be done, then?" I asked.
"Well, try," he replied.
Accordingly, I have tried. This is a sensible book. I want you to
understand that. This is a book to improve your mind. In this book
I tell you all about Germany--at all events, all I know about
Germany--and the Ober-Ammergau Passion Play. I also tell you about
other things. I do not tell you all I know about all these other
things, because I do not want to swamp you with knowledge. I wish
to lead you gradually. When you have learnt this book, you can come
again, and I will tell you some more. I should only be defeating my
own object did I, by making you think too much at first, give you a
perhaps, lasting dislike to the exercise. I have purposely put the
matter in a light and attractive form, so that I may secure the
attention of the young and the frivolous. I do not want them to
notice, as they go on, that they are being instructed; and I have,
therefore, endeavoured to disguise from them, so far as is
practicable, that this is either an exceptionally clever or an
exceptionally useful work. I want to do them good without their
knowing it. I want to do you all good--to improve your minds and to
make you think, if I can.
WHAT you will think after you have read the book, I do not want to
know; indeed, I would rather not know. It will be sufficient reward
for me to feel that I have done my duty, and to receive a percentage
on the gross sales.
LONDON, March, 1891.
DIARY OF A PILGRIMAGE
MONDAY, 19TH
My Friend B.--Invitation to the Theatre.--A Most Unpleasant
Regulation.--Yearnings of the Embryo Traveller.--How to Make the
Most of One's Own Country.--Friday, a Lucky Day.--The Pilgrimage
Decided On.
My friend B. called on me this morning and asked me if I would go to
a theatre with him on Monday next.
"Oh, yes! certainly, old man," I replied. "Have you got an order,
then?"
He said:
"No; they don't give orders. We shall have to pay."
"Pay! Pay to go into a theatre!" I answered, in astonishment. "Oh,
nonsense! You are joking."
"My dear fellow," he rejoined, "do you think I should suggest paying
if it were possible to get in by any other means? But the people
who run this theatre would not even understand what was meant by a
'free list,' the uncivilised barbarians! It is of no use pretending
to them that you are on the Press, because they don't want the
Press; they don't think anything of the Press. It is no good
writing to the acting manager, because there is no acting manager.
It would be a waste of time offering to exhibit bills, because they
don't have any bills--not of that sort. If you want to go in to see
the show, you've got to pay. If you don't pay, you stop outside;
that's their brutal rule."
"Dear me," I said, "what a very unpleasant arrangement! And
whereabouts is this extraordinary theatre? I don't think I can ever
have been inside it."
"I don't think you have," he replied; "it is at Ober-Ammergau--first
turning on the left after you leave Ober railway-station, fifty
miles from Munich."
"Um! rather out of the way for a theatre," I said. "I should not
have thought an outlying house like that could have afforded to give
itself airs."
"The house holds seven thousand people," answered my friend B., "and
money is turned away at each performance. The first production is
on Monday next. Will you come?"
I pondered for a moment, looked at my diary, and saw that Aunt Emma
was coming to spend Saturday to Wednesday next with us, calculated
that if I went I should miss her, and might not see her again for
years, and decided that I would go.
To tell the truth, it was the journey more than the play that
tempted me. To be a great traveller has always been one of my
cherished ambitions. I yearn to be able to write in this sort of
strain:-
"I have smoked my fragrant Havana in the sunny streets of old
Madrid, and I have puffed the rude and not sweet-smelling calumet of
peace in the draughty wigwam of the Wild West; I have sipped my
evening coffee in the silent tent, while the tethered camel browsed
without upon the desert grass, and I have quaffed the fiery brandy
of the North while the reindeer munched his fodder beside me in the
hut, and the pale light of the midnight sun threw the shadows of the
pines across the snow; I have felt the stab of lustrous eyes that,
ghostlike, looked at me from out veil-covered faces in Byzantium's
narrow ways, and I have laughed back (though it was wrong of me to
do so) at the saucy, wanton glances of the black-eyed girls of Jedo;
I have wandered where 'good'--but not too good--Haroun Alraschid
crept disguised at nightfall, with his faithful Mesrour by his side;
I have stood upon the bridge where Dante watched the sainted
Beatrice pass by; I have floated on the waters that once bore the
barge of Cleopatra; I have stood where Caesar fell; I have heard the
soft rustle of rich, rare robes in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair, and
I have heard the teeth-necklaces rattle around the ebony throats of
the belles of Tongataboo; I have panted beneath the sun's fierce
rays in India, and frozen under the icy blasts of Greenland; I have
mingled with the teeming hordes of old Cathay, and, deep in the
great pine forests of the Western World, I have lain, wrapped in my
blanket, a thousand miles beyond the shores of human life."
B., to whom I explained my leaning towards this style of diction,
said that exactly the same effect could be produced by writing about
places quite handy. He said:-
"I could go on like that without having been outside England at all.
I should say:
"I have smoked my fourpenny shag in the sanded bars of Fleet Street,
and I have puffed my twopenny Manilla in the gilded balls of the
Criterion; I have quaffed my foaming beer of Burton where
Islington's famed Angel gathers the little thirsty ones beneath her
shadowing wings, and I have sipped my tenpenny ordinaire in many a
garlic-scented salon of Soho. On the back of the strangely-moving
ass I have urged--or, to speak more correctly, the proprietor of the
ass, or his agent, from behind has urged--my wild career across the
sandy heaths of Hampstead, and my canoe has startled the screaming
wild-fowl from their lonely haunts amid the sub-tropical regions of
Battersea. Adown the long, steep slope of One Tree Hill have I
rolled from top to foot, while laughing maidens of the East stood
round and clapped their hands and yelled; and, in the old-world
garden of that pleasant Court, where played the fair-haired children
of the ill-starred Stuarts, have I wandered long through many paths,
my arm entwined about the waist of one of Eve's sweet daughters,
while her mother raged around indignantly on the other side of the
hedge, and never seemed to get any nearer to us. I have chased the
lodging-house Norfolk Howard to his watery death by the pale lamp's
light; I have, shivering, followed the leaping flea o'er many a mile
of pillow and sheet, by the great Atlantic's margin. Round and
round, till the heart--and not only the heart--grows sick, and the
mad brain whirls and reels, have I ridden the small, but extremely
hard, horse, that may, for a penny, be mounted amid the plains of
Peckham Rye; and high above the heads of the giddy throngs of Barnet
(though it is doubtful if anyone among them was half so giddy as was
I) have I swung in highly-coloured car, worked by a man with a rope.
I have trod in stately measure the floor of Kensington's Town Hall
(the tickets were a guinea each, and included refreshments--when you
could get to them through the crowd), and on the green sward of the
forest that borders eastern Anglia by the oft-sung town of Epping I
have performed quaint ceremonies in a ring; I have mingled with the
teeming hordes of Drury Lane on Boxing Night, and, during the run of
a high-class piece, I have sat in lonely grandeur in the front row
of the gallery, and wished that I had spent my shilling instead in
the Oriental halls of the Alhambra."
"There you are," said B., "that is just as good as yours; and you
can write like that without going more than a few hours' journey
from London."
"We will discuss the matter no further," I replied. "You cannot, I
see, enter into my feelings. The wild heart of the traveller does
not throb within your breast; you cannot understand his longings.
No matter! Suffice it that I will come this journey with you. I
will buy a German conversation book, and a check-suit, and a blue
veil, and a white umbrella, and suchlike necessities of the English
tourist in Germany, this very afternoon. When do you start?"
"Well," he said, "it is a good two days' journey. I propose to
start on Friday."
"Is not Friday rather an unlucky day to start on?" I suggested.
"Oh, good gracious!" he retorted quite sharply, "what rubbish next?
As if the affairs of Europe were going to be arranged by Providence
according to whether you and I start for an excursion on a Thursday
or a Friday!"
He said he was surprised that a man who could be so sensible,
occasionally, as myself, could have patience to even think of such
old-womanish nonsense. He said that years ago, when he was a silly
boy, he used to pay attention to this foolish superstition himself,
and would never upon any consideration start for a trip upon a
Friday.
But, one year, he was compelled to do so. It was a case of either
starting on a Friday or not going at all, and he determined to
chance it.
He went, prepared for and expecting a series of accidents and
misfortunes. To return home alive was the only bit of pleasure he
hoped for from that trip.
As it turned out, however, he had never had a more enjoyable holiday
in his life before. The whole event was a tremendous success.
And after that, he had made up his mind to ALWAYS start on a Friday;
and he always did, and always had a good time.
He said that he would never, upon any consideration, start for a
trip upon any other day but a Friday now. It was so absurd, this
superstition about Friday.
So we agreed to start on the Friday, and I am to meet him at
Victoria Station at a quarter to eight in the evening.
THURSDAY, 22ND
The Question of Luggage.--First Friend's Suggestion.--Second
Friend's Suggestion.--Third Friend's Suggestion.--Mrs. Briggs'
Advice.--Our Vicar's Advice.--His Wife's Advice.--Medical Advice.--
Literary Advice.--George's Recommendation.--My Sister-in-Law's
Help.--Young Smith's Counsel.--My Own Ideas.--B.'s Idea.
I have been a good deal worried to-day about the question of what
luggage to take with me. I met a man this morning, and he said:
"Oh, if you are going to Ober-Ammergau, mind you take plenty of warm
clothing with you. You'll need all your winter things up there."
He said that a friend of his had gone up there some years ago, and
had not taken enough warm things with him, and had caught a chill
there, and had come home and died. He said:
"You be guided by me, and take plenty of warm things with you."
I met another man later on, and he said:
"I hear you are going abroad. Now, tell me, what part of Europe are
you going to?"
I replied that I thought it was somewhere about the middle. He
said:
"Well, now, you take my advice, and get a calico suit and a
sunshade. Never mind the look of the thing. You be comfortable.
You've no idea of the heat on the Continent at this time of the
year. English people will persist in travelling about the Continent
in the same stuffy clothes that they wear at home. That's how so
many of them get sunstrokes, and are ruined for life."
I went into the club, and there I met a friend of mine--a newspaper
correspondent--who has travelled a good deal, and knows Europe
pretty well. I told him what my two other friends had said, and
asked him which I was to believe. He said:
"Well, as a matter of fact, they are both right. You see, up in
those hilly districts, the weather changes very quickly. In the
morning it may be blazing hot, and you will be melting, and in the
evening you may be very glad of a flannel shirt and a fur coat."
"Why, that is exactly the sort of weather we have in England!" I
exclaimed. "If that's all these foreigners can manage in their own
country, what right have they to come over here, as they do, and
grumble about our weather?"
"Well, as a matter of fact," he replied, "they haven't any right;
but you can't stop them--they will do it. No, you take my advice,
and be prepared for everything. Take a cool suit and some thin
things, for if it's hot, and plenty of warm things in case it is
cold."
When I got home I found Mrs. Briggs there, she having looked in to
see how the baby was. She said:-
"Oh! if you're going anywhere near Germany, you take a bit of soap
with you."
She said that Mr. Briggs had been called over to Germany once in a
hurry, on business, and had forgotten to take a piece of soap with
him, and didn't know enough German to ask for any when he got over
there, and didn't see any to ask for even if he had known, and was
away for three weeks, and wasn't able to wash himself all the time,
and came home so dirty that they didn't know him, and mistook him
for the man that was to come to see what was the matter with the
kitchen boiler.
Mrs. Briggs also advised me to take some towels with me, as they
give you such small towels to wipe on.
I went out after lunch, and met our Vicar. He said:
"Take a blanket with you."
He said that not only did the German hotel-keepers never give you
sufficient bedclothes to keep you warm of a night, but they never
properly aired their sheets. He said that a young friend of his had
gone for a tour through Germany once, and had slept in a damp bed,
and had caught rheumatic fever, and had come home and died.
His wife joined us at this point. (He was waiting for her outside a
draper's shop when I met him.) He explained to her that I was going
to Germany, and she said:
"Oh! take a pillow with you. They don't give you any pillows--not
like our pillows--and it's SO wretched, you'll never get a decent
night's rest if you don't take a pillow." She said: "You can have
a little bag made for it, and it doesn't look anything."
I met our doctor a few yards further on. He said:
"Don't forget to take a bottle of brandy with you. It doesn't take
up much room, and, if you're not used to German cooking, you'll find
it handy in the night."
He added that the brandy you get at foreign hotels was mere poison,
and that it was really unsafe to travel abroad without a bottle of
brandy. He said that a simple thing like a bottle of brandy in your
bag might often save your life.
Coming home, I ran against a literary friend of mine. He said:
"You'll have a goodish time in the train old fellow. Are you used
to long railway journeys?"
I said:
"Well, I've travelled down from London into the very heart of Surrey
by a South Eastern express."
"Oh! that's a mere nothing, compared with what you've got before you
now," he answered. "Look here, I'll tell you a very good idea of
how to pass the time. You take a chessboard with you and a set of
men. You'll thank me for telling you that!"
George dropped in during the evening. He said:
"I'll tell you one thing you'll have to take with you, old man, and
that's a box of cigars and some tobacco."
He said that the German cigar--the better class of German cigar--was
of the brand that is technically known over here as the "Penny
Pickwick--Spring Crop;" and he thought that I should not have time,
during the short stay I contemplated making in the country, to
acquire a taste for its flavour.
My sister-in-law came in later on in the evening (she is a
thoughtful girl), and brought a box with her about the size of a
tea-chest. She said:
"Now, you slip that in your bag; you'll be glad of that. There's
everything there for making yourself a cup of tea."
She said that they did not understand tea in Germany, but that with
that I should be independent of them.
She opened the case, and explained its contents to me. It certainly
was a wonderfully complete arrangement. It contained a little caddy
full of tea, a little bottle of milk, a box of sugar, a bottle of
methylated spirit, a box of butter, and a tin of biscuits: also, a
stove, a kettle, a teapot, two cups, two saucers, two plates, two
knives, and two spoons. If there had only been a bed in it, one
need not have bothered about hotels at all.
Young Smith, the Secretary of our Photographic Club, called at nine
to ask me to take him a negative of the statue of the dying
Gladiator in the Munich Sculpture Gallery. I told him that I should
be delighted to oblige him, but that I did not intend to take my
camera with me.
"Not take your camera!" he said. "You are going to Germany--to
Rhineland! You are going to pass through some of the most
picturesque scenery, and stay at some of the most ancient and famous
towns of Europe, and are going to leave your photographic apparatus
behind you, and you call yourself an artist!"
He said I should never regret a thing more in my life than going
without that camera.
I think it is always right to take other people's advice in matters
where they know more than you do. It is the experience of those who
have gone before that makes the way smooth for those who follow.
So, after supper, I got together the things I had been advised to
take with me, and arranged them on the bed, adding a few articles I
had thought of all by myself.
I put up plenty of writing paper and a bottle of ink, along with a
dictionary and a few other books of reference, in case I should feel
inclined to do any work while I was away. I always like to be
prepared for work; one never knows when one may feel inclined for
it. Sometimes, when I have been away, and have forgotten to bring
any paper and pens and ink with me, I have felt so inclined for
writing; and it has quite upset me that, in consequence of not
having brought any paper and pens and ink with me, I have been
unable to sit down and do a lot of work, but have been compelled,
instead, to lounge about all day with my hands in my pockets.
Accordingly, I always take plenty of paper and pens and ink with me
now, wherever I go, so that when the desire for work comes to me I
need not check it.
That this craving for work should have troubled me so often, when I
had no paper, pens, and ink by me, and that it never, by any chance,
visits me now, when I am careful to be in a position to gratify it,
is a matter over which I have often puzzled.
But when it does come I shall be ready for it.
I also put on the bed a few volumes of Goethe, because I thought it
would be so pleasant to read him in his own country. And I decided
to take a sponge, together with a small portable bath, because a
cold bath is so refreshing the first thing in the morning.
B. came in just as I had got everything into a pile. He stared at
the bed, and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was packing.
"Great Heavens!" he exclaimed. "I thought you were moving! What do
you think we are going to do--camp out?"
"No!" I replied. "But these are the things I have been advised to
take with me. What is the use of people giving you advice if you
don't take it?"
He said:
"Oh! take as much advice as you like; that always comes in useful to
give away. But, for goodness sake, don't get carrying all that
stuff about with you. People will take us for Gipsies."
I said:
"Now, it's no use your talking nonsense. Half the things on this
bed are life-preserving things. If people go into Germany without
these things, they come home and die."
And I related to him what the doctor and the vicar and the other
people had told me, and explained to him how my life depended upon
my taking brandy and blankets and sunshades and plenty of warm
clothing with me.
He is a man utterly indifferent to danger and risk--incurred by
other people--is B. He said:
"Oh, rubbish! You're not the sort that catches a cold and dies
young. You leave that co-operative stores of yours at home, and
pack up a tooth-brush, a comb, a pair of socks, and a shirt. That's
all you'll want."
I have packed more than that, but not much. At all events, I have
got everything into one small bag. I should like to have taken that
tea arrangement--it would have done so nicely to play at shop with
in the train!--but B. would not hear of it.
I hope the weather does not change.
FRIDAY, 23RD
Early Rising.--Ballast should be Stowed Away in the Hold before
Putting to Sea.--Annoying Interference of Providence in Matters that
it Does Not Understand.--A Socialistic Society.--B. Misjudges Me.--
An Uninteresting Anecdote.--We Lay in Ballast.--A Moderate Sailor.--
A Playful Boat.
I got up very early this morning. I do not know why I got up early.
We do not start till eight o'clock this evening. But I don't regret
it--the getting up early I mean. It is a change. I got everybody
else up too, and we all had breakfast at seven.
I made a very good lunch. One of those seafaring men said to me
once:
"Now, if ever you are going a short passage, and are at all nervous,
you lay in a good load. It's a good load in the hold what steadies
the ship. It's them half-empty cruisers as goes a-rollin' and a-
pitchin' and a-heavin' all over the place, with their stern up'ards
half the time. You lay in ballast."
It seemed very reasonable advice.
Aunt Emma came in the afternoon. She said she was so glad she had
caught me. Something told her to change her mind and come on Friday
instead of Saturday. It was Providence, she said.
I wish Providence would mind its own business, and not interfere in
my affairs: it does not understand them.
She says she shall stop till I come back, as she wants to see me
again before she goes. I told her I might not be back for a month.
She said it didn't matter; she had plenty of time, and would wait
for me.
The family entreat me to hurry home.
I ate a very fair dinner--"laid in a good stock of ballast," as my
seafaring friend would have said; wished "Good-bye!" to everybody,
and kissed Aunt Emma; promised to take care of myself--a promise
which, please Heaven, I will faithfully keep, cost me what it may--
hailed a cab and started.
I reached Victoria some time before B. I secured two corner seats
in a smoking-carriage, and then paced up and down the platform
waiting for him.
When men have nothing else to occupy their minds, they take to
thinking. Having nothing better to do until B. arrived, I fell to
musing.
What a wonderful piece of Socialism modern civilisation has become!-
-not the Socialism of the so-called Socialists--a system modelled
apparently upon the methods of the convict prison--a system under
which each miserable sinner is to be compelled to labour, like a
beast of burden, for no personal benefit to himself, but only for
the good of the community--a world where there are to be no men, but
only numbers--where there is to be no ambition and no hope and no
fear,--but the Socialism of free men, working side by side in the
common workshop, each one for the wage to which his skill and energy
entitle him; the Socialism of responsible, thinking individuals, not
of State-directed automata.
Here was I, in exchange for the result of some of my labour, going
to be taken by Society for a treat, to the middle of Europe and
back. Railway lines had been laid over the whole 700 or 800 miles
to facilitate my progress; bridges had been built, and tunnels made;
an army of engineers, and guards, and signal-men, and porters, and
clerks were waiting to take charge of me, and to see to my comfort
and safety. All I had to do was to tell Society (here represented
by a railway booking-clerk) where I wanted to go, and to step into a
carriage; all the rest would be done for me. Books and papers had
been written and printed; so that if I wished to beguile the journey
by reading, I could do so. At various places on the route,
thoughtful Society had taken care to be ready for me with all kinds
of refreshment (her sandwiches might be a little fresher, but maybe
she thinks new bread injurious for me). When I am tired of
travelling and want to rest, I find Society waiting for me with
dinner and a comfortable bed, with hot and cold water to wash in and
towels to wipe upon. Wherever I go, whatever I need, Society, like
the enslaved genii of some Eastern tale, is ready and anxious to
help me, to serve me, to do my bidding, to give me enjoyment and
pleasure. Society will take me to Ober-Ammergau, will provide for
all my wants on the way, and, when I am there, will show me the
Passion Play, which she has arranged and rehearsed and will play for
my instruction; will bring me back any way I like to come,
explaining, by means of her guide-books and histories, everything
upon the way that she thinks can interest me; will, while I am
absent, carry my messages to those I have left behind me in England,
and will bring me theirs in return; will look after me and take care
of me and protect me like a mother--as no mother ever could.
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