no room at all, and slept with his
horses in the stable. There was one small iron wash-stand, a thing of
tiers with a basin at the top, a soap-dish beneath it, underneath that a
water-bottle, and not an inch more space in which to put a sponge or a
nail-brush. In the passage outside the door was a chest of drawers
reserved for the use of the occupiers of this room. It was by the merest
chance that we got even this, the arrival of the family who had taken it
for six weeks having been delayed for a day or two. They were coming the
very next day, eight of them, and were all going to spend six weeks in
that one room. 'Which,' said the landlord, 'explains the presence of so
many beds.'

'But it does not explain the presence of so many beds in one room,' I
objected, gazing at them resentfully from the only corner where there
were none.

'The _Herrschaften_ are content,' he said shortly. 'They return every
year.'

'And they are content, too, with only one of these?' I inquired,
pointing to the extremely condensed wash-stand.

The landlord stared. 'There is the sea,' he said, not without impatience
at being forced to state the obvious; and disliking, I suppose, the tone
of my remarks, he hurried downstairs.

Now it is useless for me to describe Goehren for the benefit of possible
travellers, because I am prejudiced. I was cold there, and hungry, and
tired, and I lived in a garret. To me it will always be a place where
there is a penetrating wind, a steep hill, and an iron wash-stand in
tiers. Some day when the distinct vision of these things is blurred, I
will order the best rooms in the best hotel several months beforehand to
be kept for me till I come, wait for fair, windless weather and the
passing of the holidays, and then go once more to Goehren. The place
itself is, I believe, beautiful. No place with so much sea and forest
could help being beautiful. That evening the beauties were hidden; and I
abruptly left the table beneath some shabby little chestnuts in front of
the hotel where I was trying, in gloom and wind, not to notice the
wetness of the table-napkin, the stains on the cloth, and the mark on
the edge of the plates where an unspeakable waiter had put his thumb,
and went out into the street. At a baker's I bought some rusks--dry
things that show no marks--and continued down the hill to the sea. There
is no cold with quite so forlorn a chill in it as a sudden interruption
of July heats; and there is no place