an smells? It was most unpleasant,
disenchanting. He could not, it appeared, find himself attracted
to Teuton university expounders--those gods of wisdom who had
repulsed him.

Whether it was his unfortunate luck or not, he was not able to
summon a desire to go again. He had not forgotten his other
experience. It was a part of that something fundamentally,
monumentally lacking in the German race--something shoddy,
deceptive, which he had met with at so many turns.

CHAPTER XXX

VILLA ELSA OUTDOORS

In the vernal season the lectures and theaters were dropped for
neighborhood excursions of which the Buchers, like all German
families, were extremely fond. A rendezvous would be made for
dinner, for instance, at some attractive spot up the Elbe. It would
be a walking trip from Loschwitz along the winding banks or up on a
higher path stretching from one smooth, low-lying hilltop to
another. Everywhere the invigorating odor of pine lay in the air.
The company assembled by twos or singly at their convenience during
the late afternoon. Generally the Herr would be last. And when he
was spied approaching, with a cock's feather in his hat and
supporting himself authoritatively on his big stick, a chorus of
acclaim greeted him, for craving appetites were now to be
satisfied.

The household would pass the evening dining _al fresco_ and enjoying
the landscape studded with historic and other enduring memories.
Near by was Hosterwitz, where Weber composed "Oberon" and "Der
Freischuetz." Often mists from the Elbe rose mystically to engarland
the crenelated castles here and there on the heights. A drowsy river
boat in that long agreeable northern twilight would finally gather
up the family at the dock and drop them off at home.

Sundays were the favorite time for these little outings. Lessons,
classes, tasks, were then lightened. Gard had quickly become aware
in Germany that the Sabbath is considerably a day of work as well as
pleasure. The usual impression in America that the Germans are
religious, not to speak of being moral, was dispelled. This had been
a fragment of his erroneous idea that they are active Protestants in
the sense that carries any Calvinistic or ethical meaning.

Neither the Buchers, nor any of the families whom Kirtley met
through them, went to church. The Protestant churches were, in fact,
gloomy, tasteless and almost empty. Their services appeared
cheerless and forbidding. Tremendous fear was thei