From Berlin to Leipsic by rail, in an open carriage, is not the most interesting journey in the world. Whirr, whizz, burr! away we hum through the keen Spring air, between pleasant banks and dark fir-woods, not very rapidly indeed, for we travel under government regulations, but pleasantly enough if it were not for the sparks and the dust. There are few objects of interest on our route, till we perceive the towers of Wittenberg rising out of the hollow on the left, and we are at once buried in a dream about the simple monk of Eisleben, who, in his struggle against the papal authority, grew into the gigantic proportions of a Luther.
At Köthen we change carriages, for we are on the Saxon frontier. With a snort and a roar, we start upon our journey over the dull waste, which can be described in no better way than by the single word repeated: sand, sand, sand. And now it comes on to rain, and my thin blouse is but a sorry shred to withstand the cold, dead drizzle. By degrees the heavy night clouds wrap themselves round us, fold by fold, till we see the engine fire reflected on the ground like a flying meteor; and the forms of lonely trees on the roadside come upon us suddenly, like spectres out of the darkness.
“Have you a lodging for the night, friend?” inquires a kind voice near me, speaking to my very thoughts.
The inquirer is a little man with a thin face, and a voice which might be disagreeable, were it not mellowed by good nature. He tells me, then, that he is a jewel-case maker, and has no doubt that I shall find a ready shelter in the herberge of his trade till the morning, if I am willing to accept of it. It is in the Little Churchyard. In spite of this ominous direction I shake the good man heartily by the hand, and, although I lose him in the darkness and confusion of the railway-station, cling mentally to the Little Churchyard as a passport to peace and rest. I don’t know how it is that I escape interrogation by the police, but once out of the turmoil of the crowd, I find myself wandering by a deep ditch and the shadowy outline of a high wall, seeking in vain amid the drizzling mist for one of the gates of the city. When almost hopeless of success, a welcome voice inquires my destination; and, under the guidance of a worthy Saxon, I find myself in Kleine Kirche Hof at last. There is the herberge in question, but with no light—welcoming sign!—for it is already ten o’clock, and its guests are all in bed. Dripping with rain, and with a rueful aspect, I prefer my request for a lodging. The “vater” looks dubiously at me out of the corner of one eye, till, having inspected my passport, he brightens up a little, and thinks he can find me a bed, but cannot break through the rules of his house so far as to give me any supper. It is too late.