One young soldier, who was trying to eat a plate of soup near us, I felt quite sorry for. Every time he got the spoon near his mouth an officer invariably hove in view, and down would have to go the spoon, soup and all, and up he would have to rise. It never seemed to occur to the silly fellow to get under the table and finish his dinner there.
We had half-an-hour to spare between dinner and the starting of our train, and B. suggested that we should go into the cathedral. That is B.'s one weakness, churches. I have the greatest difficulty in getting him past a church-door. We are walking along a street, arm in arm, talking as rationally and even as virtuously as need be, when all at once I find that B. has become silent and abstracted.
I know what it is; he has caught sight of a church. I pretend not to notice any change in him, and endeavour to hurry him on. He lags more and more behind, however, and at last stops altogether.
"Come, come," I say to him, encouragingly, "pull yourself together, and be a man. Don't think about it. Put it behind you, and determine that you WON'T be conquered. Come, we shall be round the corner in another minute, where you won't be able to see it. Take my hand, and let's run!"
He makes a few feeble steps forward with me, and then stops again.
"It's no good, old man," he says, with a sickly smile, so full of pathos that it is impossible to find it in one's heart to feel anything but pity for him. "I can't help it. I have given way to this sort of thing too long. It is too late to reform now. You go on and get a drink somewhere; I'll join you again in a few minutes.
Don't worry about me; it's no good."
And back he goes with tottering steps, while I sadly pass on into the nearest cafe, and, over a glass of absinthe or cognac, thank Providence that I learnt to control my craving for churches in early youth, and so am not now like this poor B.
In a little while he comes in, and sits down beside me. There is a wild, unhealthy excitement in his eye, and, under a defiant air of unnatural gaiety, he attempts to hide his consciousness of guilt.
"It was a lovely altar-cloth," he whispers to me, with an enthusiasm that only makes one sorrow for him the more, so utterly impossible does it cause all hope of cure to seem. "And they've got a coffin in the north crypt that is simply a poem. I never enjoyed a sarcophagus more in all my life."
I do not say much at the time; it would be useless. But after the day is done, and we are standing beside our little beds, and all around is as silent as one can expect it to be in an hotel where people seem to be arriving all night long with heavy luggage, and to be all, more or less, in trouble, I argue with him, and gently reprove him. To avoid the appearance of sermonising as much as possible, I put it on mere grounds of expediency.
"How are we to find time," I say, "to go to all the places that we really ought to go to--to all the cafes and theatres and music-halls and beer-gardens and dancing-saloons that we want to visit--if you waste half the precious day loafing about churches and cathedrals?"
He is deeply moved, and promises to swear off. He vows, with tears in his voice, that he will never enter a church-door again. But next morning, when the temptation comes, all his good resolutions are swept away, and again he yields. It is no good being angry with him, because he evidently does really try; but there is something about the mere odour of a church that he simply cannot withstand.
Not knowing, then, that this weakness of his for churches was so strong, I made no objection to the proposed visit to Cologne Cathedral, and, accordingly, towards it we wended our way. B. has seen it before, and knows all about it. He tells me it was begun about the middle of the thirteenth century, and was only completed ten years ago. It seems to me that there must have been gross delay on the part of the builder. Why, a plumber would be ashamed to take as long as that over a job!
B. also asserts that the two towers are the highest church towers in the world. I dispute this, and deprecate the towers generally. B. warmly defends them. He says they are higher than any building in Europe, except the Eiffel Tower.
"Oh, dear no!" I say, "there are many buildings higher than they in Europe--to say nothing of Asia and America."
