MOSELLE AND RHINE

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22111, 5 June 1937, Page 17

MOSELLE AND RHINE

♦ an unkept diary (aPBCIAX.LT WRITTEN FOR THE PRESS.) [By J.H.E.S.] IX Beilstein is not all steps and ledges. The Cafe Lippmann lets you in from the cramped centre of the village and lets you out again 0 n the other side into a garden. This again slopes easily down to a terrace, tree-shaded, vine-shaded, iust above the Moselle. Downstream, right, the hills look as if they are swelling to cast their closelung vineyards into the water; but house-frontage shuts out from this level refuge the imminence m Ipar of equally heavy, threatening bulges and it is extraordinarily agreeable to sit there,* with a long dreen stretch of the river to watch for canoes and little white steamers, a wide field-country on the n her side to carry the eye back to 'S, vague, blue ridges. Agreeable, ako to try the effect of sprudelwasser on parched clay. Minera water aerated water, soda water: these’ are dull terms, when one comes to think of it. “Bubble-water” is much better, though a poor translation because sprudel-wasser does much’more than bubble; it sprudels _a word which it is sad not to have in English. It was while I was writing a post-card or two and drinking snrudel-wasser that Lady Doubtful as H. G. Wells taught us to say with dots, came into my life . . . Lady Doubtful go well turned out that it was clear nobody needed to tell her she was fair, shapely and vivacious, she was sitting at another table on the terrace, also drinking sprudelwasser. She stepped over to borrow pen and ink. So we began, just like the French grammar-bobks, with simple sentences about writing materials; only it was die Feder” instead of “la plume, and “Tencre” became das Time. She spoke English very well, having spent four years in America, but her German was more animated. She had travelled —everywhere. She had just been to the Black Forest. It was better to be in Germany, after all. American men—ach Gott! American women—what kittens and cats! And these to be fancying they must lead and teach the world! American culture, said Lady Doubtful, was auatsch. (I remember at this moment that Mr Wells once said it was “like a burst haggis. ) Upon such high discourse W. broke in, having hung out the washing (one shirt, one handkerchief) from Lippmann’s bedroom window. So, by way of a revival of interest in sprudel-wasser, we fell to talking about tap water, whether it was safe'■to drink it hereabouts. Lady Doubtful spoke with a m( ? st sprightly, knowing vigour on the subject. Sprudel-wasser, now: that r was all right—very good for the kidneys; but ordinary water, Heaven forbid! Drink that, she said, and lit lizards in the tummy for certain. (It wasn’t lizards she promised, but lizards will do.) She embroidered her theme with renarkable gusto and range of pathobgical detail. She was great fun. But suddenly she faltered and piped town. Two or three men came in, me of whom, she said, was her husband, and she must join him. She did away, and till their party left die was mim and meek as a vestry mouse. Frau Zweifel she had told us she was called. Lady Doubtful is near enough, and a sort of keyname to remember her by—the liveliness, the colour, the cornic. iporitaneity that she had, and tfip peer, quick way she doused them and became somebody else.

Antiquities Lippmann’s has not a great flooripace, but it piles up; and every torn o’f the stairs brings in sight resh trophies of arms—ancient |Uns, swords, spears, axes, pikes, ialberds, helmets, and such-like, the place is a sort of museum, in ict; and one large room, into which fe peered through the glass of the bcked door, is furnished as a nediaeval dining hall—long, black falnut table, heavy, carved chairs, iU|p fireplace, and suits of armour, tart door is the kitchen, spick and •pan, where hangs a less obsolete ffmoury of scoured copper. It bunds an impossible mixture with lie equipment and ornament of an therwise not-unusual provincial Intel; but it mixes quite easily, [fobably because no fuss is made. Ihe museum-pieces and antique hall Je. npt obtruded or advertised, roey do not lengthen the bill or Ween bad service. They are merely 'art: of Lippmann’s, because (I supnse) sopie Lippmann was once invested, ip such things and saw no between caring for [Ctiquities and caring for his guests. is there. It is the catch-penny motive that would throw everything “fa falsity. fa the morning, after breakfast f the fresh terrace, we took the iver-boat for Cochem and in half dozen miles ran past as many 'wages— pretty, Quaker-grey wateraers—until Burg Cochem owned down on us from the cone rts hill. This castle is a grand low-place, triple-starred on any “./-schedule of Sehenswiirdigmten; but our heedless business in °chem was only to catch the train ir Moselkern. Burg Eltz Moselkern, a dowdy little place, cere the fowls pick about the * e et, sits on the Moselle at the fa® of the brook Eltz from its glen; “d upf there some distance is tatted'the Castle Eltz that Willi 'fabacfc would have us see. The jwdinegs of Moselkern falls behind , as the path turns into this 'erful .valley, rambling first by cotta? orc^.rdsand small vineyards, J*.Pushing between the closehiils. The orchards deploy *OB cherry-trees irregularly along and the cherries were Abetter to look at than to eat, richly red they hung in a rainiJtaung slatey air against the oortc-green forest walls. One 6 va] fay and the stream, ‘iy, and enters the forest, across the strongly moulded * and. gradually up. Somelower slope falls, as the aiope rises, through screen screen of beeches without ®hd; sometimes the fall is and more open, to the amber Jf the Eltz. We had seen the [prest above Beilstein in the its we saw under soft mists, their grey light f beauty not less than the

other returned to the bold summer challenge, but finer, hiore gentle. toned to a melancholy unresisted and not unwelcome. The last approach to the castle is by abrupt steps and a road through which breaks the foundation rock of this stronghold, a great s P reac ? height of sullen stone, formidable, yet freaked into a fairy-tale innocent look at last by the witch-bon-net towers, the peeping slot-win-dows, the enormous, :iron-bound doors you would keep shut and_the sly, small ones you would slip in and out by. . . • But a stronghold, nevertheless. Whoever built it chose this site because, singly among these rival hills, it offers only one easy quarter of access. On two sides the declivity is abnormally sharp; along another side it is almost sheer. From the courtyard wall, over the tops of the trees that have grown since the fighting men kept the cliff naked, you may look down and see almost immediately below, but far below, the grass carpet of a • clearing by the stream. The castle is built into the blunted angle of these three steeps and commands the remaining, easier slope. Dorni ford Yates might have made notes on this place for one of his Carmthia.n romances. . . . Like them, too, it is a bit of a fake. The castle has been ever so artistically done up and restored; and it bears a faint, ineffaceable smirk. Here, for the first time we encountered obvious sightseers. We were getting near the Rhine. Horrid Hatzenport From Moselkern, after a l°ng> one-sided match, spitting cherrystones from the bridge at a mark the brook, we walked on to Hatzenport. Willi Wembach s ad““cfrTno farther than Burg Eltz. 7entv Un of hja timTVatenport waa S Sown the Moselle But Batonnort was no good. It is St hich here 3l^ g iSt 6 and 6 dull. If Moselkern is dowdy, Hatzenport is £sv Many more fowls scavenge ft but' unsuccessfully. The houses stare wUh a stupid, bleared expresSnn across the river, and with a stuoid envy, too. Because it is a that on the other side, Brodenfcrch looks as sweet, neat, and srnilFnc as Hatzenport looks sordid unkempt, and scowling. Brodenbach t-_c all the advantages, certainly, it lies on the interesting, hiU-crowned bank; it is charmingly environed, it flourishes; and the perpetual sight of its serene, fortunate neighbour has turned Hatzenport mqrbid. It ha? sunk. It doesn’t care, and has mowTaslattern; yet it cares very mnoh and hates to see Brodenbach s“ trim and Itself so dirty. It has lost self-respect and unreasonably miles its fault a grievance. Its nose is out of joint. There it is. a hope l t_even^presSlght over to Brodenbach by the ferry - (To be continued.)