[Illustration:
_Lilian Bell_
Duogravure
From the Painting by Oliver Dennett Grover]
Abroad with the Jimmies
BY
LILIAN BELL,
AUTHOR OF
"THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID," "THE EXPATRIATES," ETC.
LONDON:
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED,
NEW YORK & MELBOURNE.
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO _My Dear Father_, WHOSE HIGH TYPE OF PATRIOTISM, STEADFAST LOYALTY TO THE GOVERNMENT, AND DEVOTION TO HIS FAMILY HAVE TAUGHT ME WHEREIN LIE THE IDEALS OF LIFE.
Preface
If the critical public had cared to snub Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie and Bee, I, who am a fighting champion of theirs, would never have run the risk of boring it by a further chronicle of their travels. But from a careful survey of my mail, I may say that the present volume of their doings and undoings is a direct result of the friendships they formed in "As Seen by Me," and has almost literally been written by request.
With which statement, as the flushed and nervous singer, who responds to friendly clappings, comes forward, bows, sings, and retires, so do I, and the curtain falls on the Jimmies and Bee and me, all kissing our hands to the gallery.
Contents
CHAPTER
I. Our House-boat at Henley
II. Paris
III. Strasburg and Baden-Baden
IV. Stuttgart, Nuremberg, and Bayreuth
V. The Passion Play
VI. Munich to the Achensee
VII. Dancing in the Austrian Tyrol
VIII. Salzburg
IX. Ischl
X. Vienna
XI. My First Interview with Tolstoy
XII. At one of the Tolstoy Receptions
XIII. Shopping Experiences
CHAPTER I
OUR HOUSE-BOAT AT HENLEY
It speaks volumes for an amiability I have always claimed for myself through sundry fierce disputes on the subject with my sister, that, even after two years of travel in Europe with her and Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie, they should still wish for my company for a journey across France and Germany to Russia. Bee says it speaks volumes for the tempers of the Jimmies, but then Bee is my sister, or to put it more properly, I am Bee's sister, and what woman is a heroine to her own sister?
In any event I am not. Bee thinks I am a creature of feeble intelligence who must be "managed." Bee loves to "manage" people, and I, who love to watch her circuitous, diplomatic, velvety, crooked way to a straight end, allow myself to be so "managed;" and so after safely disposing of Billy in the grandmotherly care of Mamma for another six months, Bee and I gaily took ship and landed safely at the door of the Cecil, having been escorted up from Southampton by Jimmie.
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: Abroad with the Jimmies by Lilian Bell
- 2: One Sunday morning Bee and Mrs
- 3: The Princeton crew shipped their oars
- 4: And with that they all struck up Lu
- 5: They told us that it generally rained during Henley week
- 6: Thus forming a typical river audience
- 7: They said they never heard of the word sod
- 8: As this occurred when every stateroom was filled
- 9: And although Jimmie was furious
- 10: Jimmie invited his wife to go canoeing
- 11: Because Miss Wemyss wanted him to
- 12: As the Princeton man in Bee's boat said
- 13: Then Jimmie introduced his friends
- 14: Exclaiming A letter to Max Nordau
- 15: Max Nordau is one of his idols
- 16: He forgot his awe and said What's the matter with Bryce
- 17: I looked triumphantly at Jimmie as Doctor Nordau said that
- 18: We had just seen Cheiro in London
- 19: And Jimmie's is the colossal statue of the river Tiber
- 20: Madame sits in the morgue wagon
- 21: I have not been disappointed in the beer
- 22: Thereby giving Strasburg to France
- 23: We were there on Monday when the clock struck noon
- 24: At luncheon it was decided to go to Baden Baden
- 25: During two mortal weeks we stayed at Baden Baden
- 26: Bee stuck her blaue cravatte
- 27: There is one hotel called Hotel Billfinger
- 28: Parsifal was three days distant
- 29: To go instead to the Bratwurst Glocklein
- 30: And Bayreuth itself was so picturesque
- 31: I heard a perfect Parsifal without knowing that
- 32: In the estimation of the Burgomeister of Oberammergau
- 33: Jimmie gave an ecstatic bounce
- 34: But the Oberammergau peasants walked with a slower step
- 35: Oberammergau spirit of a life of devotion
- 36: Anna Flunger was the real Virgin Mary
- 37: The weeping becomes lamentation
- 38: Each took a stein or two or three
- 39: And that is that also in Alte Residenz
- 40: Jimmie obligingly took us at once to the Hofkirche
- 41: Jimmie insisting on his replica
- 42: I repeated this to Madame Carreno at Jenbach
- 43: And yet the Koenigsee is as green as the Achensee is blue
- 44: Or the Hotel Rhiner on the Achensee
- 45: Especially in the vicinity of the Achensee
- 46: And began to dance the schuplattle
- 47: The Fraeulein Therese came over to our table
- 48: Until you have seen the Achensee
- 49: The Koenigsee was something of an anticlimax
- 50: If I could hear and see the pansymphonicon just once
- 51: And on that Sunday I almost hated Jimmie
- 52: Before we got to the first wayside inn we were ravenous
- 53: Blindly following our guide who sat astride of a pole
- 54: Always seeing nothing but salt salt salt
- 55: If Ischl is a royal country seat
- 56: Ischl appears when you are least looking for it
- 57: Air is not essential after all when royalty is present
- 58: Jimmie would have dropped or broken it
- 59: Whose name shall be Count Andreae von Engel
- 60: The Empress Elizabeth was of such a high strung
- 61: I am positive I heard Von Furzmann whisper to Bee
- 62: We prepared to fall in love with Vienna
- 63: With views of the Danube and distant Vienna
- 64: Was marked to be stricken down by the red hand of anarchy
- 65: When they must take train for Ischl
- 66: And there stood the proprietor
- 67: And by cutting in at any attempt at a tete a tete
- 68: Which caused Von Engel to colour
- 69: I received a letter of the sincerest apology from one
- 70: Some little distance out of Moscow
- 71: Having once entered this antechambre
- 72: I'll tell him how badly Dmitri treated you
- 73: Many consider Tolstoy a poseur
- 74: Would you enfranchise the women
- 75: Tolstoy takes himself with profound seriousness
- 76: The Countess Tolstoy and her daughter and young son
- 77: It couldn't have been the wheat
- 78: At this juncture Countess Tolstoy drew nearer to Bee and Mrs
- 79: For Tolstoy had not perpetrated that as a jest
- 80: Verestchagin paints war hideous war
- 81: Jimmie and I leaned back involuntarily
- 82: In all the conversations I ever had with Max Nordau
- 83: Nordau gives with generous enthusiasm of his time
- 84: My first dish would be a fricassee of French dressmakers
- 85: But the Dresden works of art are peculiarly its own
- 86: Vienna fashions are very elegant
- 87: I remember Smyrna with particular delight
- 88: We laughed at their embroideries
- 89: These bazaars deserve more than a passing mention
- 90: And hay coloured side whiskers
- 91: I discovered that I must buy three more blouses
- 92: Jimmie seldom resents anything
- 93: Bee looked very much mortified