MihaElla > Recent Status Updates

It seems to be a train that starts out from Munich at 1.45, and goes off on the loose. Possibly, it is a young, romantic train, fond of mystery. It won’t say where it’s going to. It probably does not even know itself.  It goes off in search of adventure.

“I shall start off,” it says to itself, “at 1.45 punctually, and just go on anyhow, without thinking about it, and see where I get to.

B. and I very nearly had an accident one warm night, owing to our ignorance of this custom. Each time after we had swallowed the quart, we left the pot, standing before us with the cover up, and each time it was, in consequence, taken away, and brought back to us, brimming full again. After about the sixth time, we gently remonstrated...

I think one would learn to love these German women if one lived among them for long. There is something so sweet, so womanly, so genuine about them. They seem to shed around them, from their bright, good-tempered faces, a healthy atmosphere of all that is homely, and simple, and good...

As for pictures and sculptures, I am thoroughly tired of them.  The greatest art critic living could not dislike pictures and sculptures more than I do at this moment.  We began by spending a whole morning in each gallery.  We examined each picture critically, and argued with each other about its “form” and “colour” and “treatment” and “perspective” and “texture” and “atmosphere.” ..

At this point,we hear a sharp knock at the door that separates the before-mentioned ladies’ room from our own. We both start & turn pale,& then look at each other. B. is the first to recover his presence of mind. Eliminating,by a strong effort,all traces of nervousness from his voice,he calls out in a tone of wonderful coolness:

Yes, what is it?

Are you in bed?comes a voice from the other side of the door.

And now, as to the right or wrong of the performance [Passion Play] as a whole. Do you see any objection to the play from a religious point of view?

He was a German Count,if I remember rightly,& like most German Counts, had not much money;& her father, as fathers will when proposed to by impecunious would-be sons-in-law, refused his consent.  The Count then went abroad to try and make, or at all events improve, his fortune.  He went to America, and there he prospered. In a year or two he came back, tolerably rich—to find, however, that he was too late...

B. bought some cigars and offered me one.I did not want to smoke.Smoking seemed to me, just then, a foolish waste of time and money. As I said to B.:

In a few more years, perhaps before this very month is gone, we shall be lying in the silent tomb, with the worms feeding on us. Of what advantage will it be to us then that we smoked these cigars to-day?

The ungenteel people in a country are so much more interesting than the gentlefolks.  One lady or gentleman is painfully like every other lady or gentleman. There is so little individuality, so little character, among the upper circles of the world.  They talk like each other, they think and act like each other, they dress like each other, and look very much like each other. We gentlefolks only play at living...

I skimmed through all this nonsense, but not a word could I discover anywhere about a savoury omelette.  Under the head of “Eating and Drinking,” I found a short vocabulary; but it was mainly concerned with “raspberries” and “figs” and “medlars” (whatever they may be; I never heard of them myself),& “chestnuts,”& such like things that a man hardly ever wants, even when he is in his own country.

I still had a little German left, even after that.  So I ordered an omelette also.

Tell him a savoury one,” said B., or he will be bringing us something full of hot jam and chocolate-creams.  You know their style.

Oh, yes, I answered. Of course.  Yes.  Let me see.  What is the German for savoury?

“Savoury?” mused B. Oh! ah! hum!  Bothered if I know!  Confound the thing—I can’t think of it!

At five a.m. (how fair and sweet and fresh the earth looks in the early morning!  Those lazy people who lie in bed till eight or nine miss half the beauty of the day, if they but knew it.  It is only we who rise early that really enjoy Nature properly) I gave up trying to get to sleep, and made my way to the dressing-room at the end of the car, and had a wash...

Whenever a German railway-guard feels lonesome,& does not know what else to do with himself, he takes a walk round the train,& gets the passengers to show him their tickets, after which he returns to his box cheered and refreshed. Some people rave about sunsets and mountains and old masters;but to the German railway-guard the world can show nothing more satisfying, more inspiring, than the sight of a railway-ticket

Notes continued: “The Ubii did something on the right bank of the Rhine at an early period, and afterwards were found on the other side.  (Expect the Ubii were a tribe; but make sure of this, as they might be something in the fossil line.)  Cologne was the cradle of German art.  Talk about art and the old masters.  Treat them in a kindly and gentle spirit.  They are dead now. [...]

“There is much help in Silence.  From its touch we gain renewed life.  Silence is to the Soul what his Mother Earth was to Briareus.  From contact with it we rise healed of our hurts and strengthened for the fight.

Amid the babel of the schools we stand bewildered and affrighted.  Silence gives us peace and hope.  Silence teaches us no creed, only that God’s arms are around the universe.”

Nothing irritates a man more than being rapped over the toes, especially if he feels that he has done nothing to deserve it.  He says, “Oh, damn!” this time, and spasmodically doubles up his legs, thus giving his knees a violent blow against the board at the side of the bed...

We washed ourselves in the Rhine at Cologne (we had not had a wash since we had left our happy home in England).  We started with the idea of washing ourselves at the hotel; but on seeing the basin and water and towel provided, I decided not to waste my time playing with them. As well might Hercules have attempted to tidy up the Augean stables with a squirt.

I’ll tell you what’s the matter with you, J.—you know too many languages for this continent.  Your linguistic powers will be the ruin of us if you don’t hold them in a bit.  You don’t know any Sanscrit or Chaldean, do you?

I replied that I did not.

“Any Hebrew or Chinese?”

“Not a word.”

“Sure?”

“Not so much as a full stop in any of them.”

I seized him by the arm, and, in Scandinavian that must have been quite pathetic in its tragic fervour, I asked him if he had seen my friend—my friend B.

The man only stared.

I grew desperate.  I shook him.  I said:

“My friend—big, great, tall, large—is he where?  Have you him to see where?  Here?”

I was very sleepy indeed when they routed us out at Herbesthal, to examine our luggage for Germany.  I had a vague idea that we were travelling in Turkey, and had been stopped by brigands.  When they told me to open my bag, I said, “Never!” and remarked that I was an Englishman, and that they had better be careful....

“English seems to be the popular language for quarrelling in, among foreigners.  I suppose they find it more expressive.

We all watched the group from the window.  We were amused and interested.  In the middle of the argument an early gendarme arrived on the scene.  The gendarme naturally supported the station-master...

It is the unwritten law among travellers that a man’s luggage deposited upon a seat, shall secure that seat to him until he comes to sit upon it himself.  This is a good law and a just law, and one that, in my normal state, I myself would die to uphold and maintain. But at three o’clock on a chilly morning one’s moral sensibilities are not properly developed...

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...

I met our doctor & he said: Don’t forget to take a bottle of brandy with you. It doesn’t take up much room,& 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,& 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

“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.”

He thanked God in his thought for the gift - he could not find another word, because only the gifts are so unexpected and wonderful. Gleb couldn't help but marvel at how close he had become to a person who was still a stranger to him yesterday. She had become part of his own self, and now he loved Katia with a double love - as someone close to him and as himself...He could not cope with the love that overwhelmed him.

After returning the confiscated book to Gleb's grandfather, she, slightly theatrically, took him by the elbow and led him to the window. Pointing to the sky, she said: Yuri Gagarin flew into space, but he did not see God - you have to agree! Mefodii bowed politely: Indeed, Iuri Gagarin did not see God. Without taking his eyes from the sky in the window, the old man smiled broadly. But God saw him. And he blessed him.

The young man waits on the side of the road. Eyes seek the driver’s eyes. A hundred miles down the road. Head swims, belly tightens, wants crawl over his skin like ants:
went to school, books said opportunity, ads promised speed, own your home, shine bigger than your neighbor, the radiocrooner whispered girls, ghosts of platinum girls coaxed from the screen, ...

But, senator, J W said with some impatience, it’s the principle of the thing. Once government interference in business is established as a precedent, it means the end of liberty and private initiative in this country.

It means the beginning of red Russian bolshevistic tyranny, added Colonel Judson, with angry emphasis.

Senator Planet laughed. Aren’t those rather harsh words, Joel?