Chapter 2

CHAPTER II Heidelberg [Landing a Monarch at Heidelberg]

We stopped at a hotel by the railway-station. Next morning, as we sat in
my room waiting for breakfast to come up, we got a good deal interested
in something which was going on over the way, in front of another hotel.
First, the personage who is called the PORTIER (who is not the PORTER,
but is a sort of first-mate of a hotel) [1. See Appendix A] appeared
at the door in a spick-and-span new blue cloth uniform, decorated with
shining brass buttons, and with bands of gold lace around his cap and
wristbands; and he wore white gloves, too. He shed an official glance
upon the situation, and then began to give orders. Two women-servants
came out with pails and brooms and brushes, and gave the sidewalk a
thorough scrubbing; meanwhile two others scrubbed the four marble steps
which led up to the door; beyond these we could see some men-servants
taking up the carpet of the grand staircase. This carpet was carried
away and the last grain of dust beaten and banged and swept out of it;
then brought back and put down again. The brass stair-rods received an
exhaustive polishing and were returned to their places. Now a troop of
servants brought pots and tubs of blooming plants and formed them into
a beautiful jungle about the door and the base of the staircase. Other
servants adorned all the balconies of the various stories with flowers
and banners; others ascended to the roof and hoisted a great flag on
a staff there. Now came some more chamber-maids and retouched the
sidewalk, and afterward wiped the marble steps with damp cloths and
finished by dusting them off with feather brushes. Now a broad black
carpet was brought out and laid down the marble steps and out across the
sidewalk to the curbstone. The PORTIER cast his eye along it, and found
it was not absolutely straight; he commanded it to be straightened; the
servants made the effort--made several efforts, in fact--but the PORTIER
was not satisfied. He finally had it taken up, and then he put it down
himself and got it right.

At this stage of the proceedings, a narrow bright red carpet was
unrolled and stretched from the top of the marble steps to the
curbstone, along the center of the black carpet. This red path cost the
PORTIER more trouble than even the black one had done. But he patiently
fixed and refixed it until it was exactly right and lay precisely in the
middle of the black carpet. In New York these performances would have
gathered a mighty crowd of curious and intensely interested spectators;
but here it only captured an audience of half a dozen little boys who
stood in a row across the pavement, some with their school-knapsacks on
their backs and their hands in their pockets, others with arms full