Prussia.”
“What’s that, you trying to talk down Bavaria?” roared Thimoteus. “Who’s dependent on who? What’s dependent on what? Those lousy Prussians can all take a hike to Switzerland! What the heck do I need tourism for? Tourists don’t buy nothing from me. Got me a brick factory, used to be a butcher!”
“Ho-ho!” the hotelier flared up. “Ho-ho, my dear sir! If it weren’t for tourism, Bavaria’s sovereignty would be in dire straits. We need the Northern-German spa guests; we need the foreign spa guests, especially the Anglo-Saxon spa guests; but what we are sadly still frequently lacking is a more accommodating approach to the influx of foreigners. We have to adapt ourselves even more keenly to the foreign psyche. Though of course, when the dear Minister of Finance declares …”
And here is where Thimoteus exploded.
“Those ain’t ministers—just a bunch of Prussians!” he raged. “Scoundrels, the whole lot of ’em, no exceptions. Who’s sucking wind here? The middle-class! And who’s making a killing? The workers! The workers are smoking cigarettes at six pfennigs a pop … My dear sirs, like I always say: Berlin!”
“Bravo!” said the hotelier, and continued memorizing the sentence about the asphalt-German.
The gentleman in the corner stood up and hastily left the compartment. He stood at the window, gazing out sadly at the beautiful Bavarian countryside. He felt sincerely sorry for that countryside.
“He’s outside now. I guess I gave him the boot,” Thimoteus was pleased to declare.
“I follow the homestead movement with great interest,” answered the hotelier.
“You blockheads!” thought Kobler, and turned towards his window.
There were people working in the fields, cattle at pasture and deer standing at the edge of the forest. If it were not for the apostolic patriarchal crosses of the overhead power cables, you might forget it was the twentieth century. The sky was blue and the clouds were white and molded in Bavarian-baroque.
Meanwhile, the express train was approaching the southern border of the German Republic. At first it rolled past huge lakes where the mountains still appeared small on the horizon, but now the mountains kept getting larger and larger, the lakes smaller and smaller, and the horizon closer and closer. And then the lakes disappeared altogether; all around there were just more mountains. This was the Werdenfelser Land.
The hotelier got off at Partenkirchen and did not even deign to look at Kobler. Herr Bschorr likewise got off and tripped over a four-year-old child in the process. “Jarghh!” he said. The child let out a terrible squeal because it had nearly been trampled by Herr Bschorr.
The express train resumed its journey.
Mittenwald-bound.
The gentleman who had been sitting in the corner returned to the compartment because Kobler was now alone. He sat down across from him and said, “And there you can see the Zugspitze!”
As is generally known, the Zugspitze is Germany’s tallest mountain, though sadly a third of it happens to belong to Austria. And so a few years ago they built a suspension railway up to the Zugspitze, even though for the last twenty years the Bavarians had been wanting to do just that. This, of course, really angered the Bavarians, as a consequence of which they finally managed to build a second train up to the Zugspitze, and a purely Bavarian one at that—not some aerial suspension railway, but a solid rack-and-pinion railway. Both trains up to the Zugspitze are undeniably grandiose achievements at the pinnacle of modern mountain railway structural engineering, and by mid-September 1929, the project had already claimed the lives of around four dozen workers. However, until the Bavarian train up to Zugspitze was operational, numerous workers would sadly just have to keep believing in the project, the management reassured.
“I once told a lady this,” the gentleman said to Kobler, “but the lady said that
“What’s that, you trying to talk down Bavaria?” roared Thimoteus. “Who’s dependent on who? What’s dependent on what? Those lousy Prussians can all take a hike to Switzerland! What the heck do I need tourism for? Tourists don’t buy nothing from me. Got me a brick factory, used to be a butcher!”
“Ho-ho!” the hotelier flared up. “Ho-ho, my dear sir! If it weren’t for tourism, Bavaria’s sovereignty would be in dire straits. We need the Northern-German spa guests; we need the foreign spa guests, especially the Anglo-Saxon spa guests; but what we are sadly still frequently lacking is a more accommodating approach to the influx of foreigners. We have to adapt ourselves even more keenly to the foreign psyche. Though of course, when the dear Minister of Finance declares …”
And here is where Thimoteus exploded.
“Those ain’t ministers—just a bunch of Prussians!” he raged. “Scoundrels, the whole lot of ’em, no exceptions. Who’s sucking wind here? The middle-class! And who’s making a killing? The workers! The workers are smoking cigarettes at six pfennigs a pop … My dear sirs, like I always say: Berlin!”
“Bravo!” said the hotelier, and continued memorizing the sentence about the asphalt-German.
The gentleman in the corner stood up and hastily left the compartment. He stood at the window, gazing out sadly at the beautiful Bavarian countryside. He felt sincerely sorry for that countryside.
“He’s outside now. I guess I gave him the boot,” Thimoteus was pleased to declare.
“I follow the homestead movement with great interest,” answered the hotelier.
“You blockheads!” thought Kobler, and turned towards his window.
There were people working in the fields, cattle at pasture and deer standing at the edge of the forest. If it were not for the apostolic patriarchal crosses of the overhead power cables, you might forget it was the twentieth century. The sky was blue and the clouds were white and molded in Bavarian-baroque.
Meanwhile, the express train was approaching the southern border of the German Republic. At first it rolled past huge lakes where the mountains still appeared small on the horizon, but now the mountains kept getting larger and larger, the lakes smaller and smaller, and the horizon closer and closer. And then the lakes disappeared altogether; all around there were just more mountains. This was the Werdenfelser Land.
The hotelier got off at Partenkirchen and did not even deign to look at Kobler. Herr Bschorr likewise got off and tripped over a four-year-old child in the process. “Jarghh!” he said. The child let out a terrible squeal because it had nearly been trampled by Herr Bschorr.
The express train resumed its journey.
Mittenwald-bound.
The gentleman who had been sitting in the corner returned to the compartment because Kobler was now alone. He sat down across from him and said, “And there you can see the Zugspitze!”
As is generally known, the Zugspitze is Germany’s tallest mountain, though sadly a third of it happens to belong to Austria. And so a few years ago they built a suspension railway up to the Zugspitze, even though for the last twenty years the Bavarians had been wanting to do just that. This, of course, really angered the Bavarians, as a consequence of which they finally managed to build a second train up to the Zugspitze, and a purely Bavarian one at that—not some aerial suspension railway, but a solid rack-and-pinion railway. Both trains up to the Zugspitze are undeniably grandiose achievements at the pinnacle of modern mountain railway structural engineering, and by mid-September 1929, the project had already claimed the lives of around four dozen workers. However, until the Bavarian train up to Zugspitze was operational, numerous workers would sadly just have to keep believing in the project, the management reassured.
“I once told a lady this,” the gentleman said to Kobler, “but the lady said that
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