Hardly a ringing endorsement, London thought.
She wished she knew why he was being so aloof.
The exit and gangway were now clear of passengers. and the groupmade their way down to join the locals and tourists who swarmed the streets.
“What a mess today is going to be!” Audrey complained. “We shouldhave skipped Bamberg, just like I told you. But does anybody ever listen to myadvice? No! And now we’re about to walk straight into pure bedlam!”
London stifled a sigh. She thought that the bedlam in view seemedquite cheerful. At the base of the gangway, a German band had gathered towelcome the American tourists. The musicians were all dressed in lederhosen,and their instruments included a trumpet, a trombone, a tuba, and a couple ofless familiar-looking horns, along with an accordion.
The tuba kept jaunty time with a steady old-fashioned oompah,oompah, oompah while men and women in Bavarian costumes danced nearby.
As the group stopped to listen, Emil nodded his head to the musicand grumbled sarcastically.
“Oh, yes. A revered and venerated classic, ‘Bayern des Samma Mir.’It sets the tone perfectly for a celebration of an icon of German creativitylike E.T.A. Hoffman. I fear that no translation can hope to capture theexquisite poetry of the lyrics, but they go something like this …”
Then he recited in a tone of mock grandeur and loftiness.
“Bavarians, that’s what we are!
Oh, yeah!
Bavarians, that’s what we are!
Oh, yeah!”
Emil continued, “The words go on to praise Bavarian beer—‘ourliquid bread’—and Bavarian beer purity laws. The song was recently performed—‘covered,’I believe is how you put it in English—by the death-metal rock group Rammstein.I cannot say it was an improvement. But let us soldier on.”
He led the way across the Inselstadt, the island betweenthe two arms of the Regnitz River that formed the center of the city. As theywended their way along narrow streets among half-timber houses and buildings,they encountered plenty of revelers. Most of them were dressed in the usual dirndlsand lederhosen, but some were in stranger gear.
Even Emil’s frown disappeared at the sight of a man wearing ablack half-mask and a tight-fitting outfit all covered with diamond-shapedpatches, and carrying a long, flat stick.
In fact, the historian almost smiled.
“That is Harlequin,” he told them, “a stock character from thetraditional Commedia Dell’Arte. The stick he’s carrying is a ‘slapstick.’It is designed to make a loud slapping sound, so he doesn’t have to hit otheractors very hard in order to make a lot of noise.”
“But what does he have to do with E.T.A. Hoffmann?” Letitiaasked.
Emil said, “Hoffmann was a composer as well as a storyteller andpainter, and he wrote a ballet about Commedia characters called Harlequin.”
Emil pointed to a group of brightly dressed people moving aboutin a strange mechanical manner, almost like wind-up toys. Their “leader” wasdressed in a brightly colored Turkish costume.
Emil explained, “Those people are dressed as characters fromHoffmann’s story Automata, which deals in part with remarkable machinesthat imitate the actions of people. An early example of science fiction, in itsway.”
Then Emil actually became animated when a woman dressed in ragsapproached. She wore a bushy gray wig and a long fake nose with a wart on it,and she carried a basket of apples.
“Would you like to buy an apple, young man?” she asked Emil inGerman.
Emil waved her away as he replied in German.
“Begone, old woman! Go turn into a beet!”
A beet? London was startled by his rudeness.
But the costumed woman let out a wild, gleeful cackle.
“Then away with you, child of Satan!” she laughed. “Run into thecrystal which will soon be your downfall!”
Emil laughed as the woman hobbled away. He turned to the groupand explained, “The lady and I just acted out a scene from Hoffmann’s novella TheGolden Pot—although if we’d done it accurately, I would have knocked herwhole basket of apples to the ground. I was playing a young student namedAnselmus, who winds up imprisoned in a crystal bottle—among many other strangeadventures.”
Emil pointed to a group of three young women doing a shimmyingdance while dressed in full bodysuit leotards all covered with green sequins.
“For example,” Emil continued, “those attractive young ladies areenchanted snakes, the daughters of an alchemist named Lindhorst, who isactually a magical salamander exiled from the lost continent of Atlantis. OnceAnselmus is freed from his crystal bottle, he will marry Serpentina, theloveliest snake of the three. Oh—and the apple seller really will turn into abeet.”
Proceeding on their way, the group passed an ensemble of menplaying the most gigantic horns London had ever seen. Each of the instrumentswas about three yards long.
“Those are alphorns,” Emil grumbled less cheerfully. “They wereinvented to send messages up in the mountains. Alas, they are also used asmusical instruments of a sort.”
When they arrived at the bank of the Regnitz River on the farside of the island, a quaint and peculiar sight awaited them—the AlteRathaus, or the Old Town Hall.
“Why, the whole building looks as though it was dropped into theriver!” Letitia cried.
“In a way, that’s not far from the truth,” Emil replied with achuckle. “When Bamberg’s original town hall burned to the ground, the Bishop ofBamberg refused to grant land to build a new one. So the builders literally putup a building on stilts in the middle of the river—a building that grew anddeveloped over the centuries until it became its own artificial island.”
The Rathaus was a startling mix of architectural styles,from ornate and stately looking to medieval half-timber. Emil led them acrossan old stone bridge that connected the riverbanks and literally cut through thebuilding in the form of an arched passageway. The building’s façade wascompletely covered by beautiful fresco mural paintings portraying heroicfigures. Emil explained, “The original murals were painted by Johann Anwanderin 1755, but they have been restored and repainted many times over.”
“The figures look so lifelike,” one man observed. “They appearcompletely three-dimensional, although I know they are actually flat.”
Emil chuckled again.
“Interesting you should say that,” he said. “Look here.”
He pointed to a painting of a cherub.
As they all stared, Audrey commented, “That’s not just an opticalillusion.”
One of the little angel’s legs was sculpted from stone and stuckout from the wall. Audrey actually
