There is no coffee like German
coffee, though the French coffee is undeniably pleasanter to the mere
superficial palate. But it doesn't touch the heart, as everything German
touches my heart when I come back to the Fatherland."
He chattered on in tremendous high spirits.
"And to think that to-night we shall sleep in true German beds," he
said. "I allow that the duvet is not so convenient as blankets, and that
there is a watershed always up the middle of your bed, so that during
the night your person descends to one side while the duvet rolls
down the other; but it is German, which makes up for any trifling
inconvenience. Baireuth, too; perhaps it will strike you as a dull and
stinking little town, and so I dare say it is. But after lunch we shall
go up the hillside to where the theatre stands, at the edge of the
pine-woods, and from the porch the trumpets will give out the motif of
the Grail, and we shall pass out of the heat into the cool darkness of
the theatre. Aren't you thrilled, Comber? Doesn't a holy awe pervade
you! Are you worthy, do you think?"
All this youthful, unrestrained enthusiasm was a revelation to Michael.
Intentionally absurd as Falbe's rhapsody on the Fatherland had been,
Michael knew that it sprang from a solid sincerity which was not ashamed
of expressing itself.
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