Readers who are familiar with other works by humorist Jerome K. Jerome, but who have not read this, may experience a pang of dismay upon reading the preface. “Wait! I didn’t sign on to read an educational book!” By the third paragraph, you realize the author has his tongue planted firmly in cheek, and you are in for a very enjoyable ride.
J. and his friend B. travel to Germany to see the Passion Play presented once each decade at Ober-Ammergau. This isn’t exactly a travelogue about Germany, but mostly a collection of anecdotes about events that occur during the journey. The Question of Luggage (what to pack). A Playful Boat (seasickness). Trains that Start from Nowhere - Trains that Arrive at Nowhere - Trains that Don’t Do Anything (railway timetables). The Common, or Bed, Sheet, Considered as a Towel. And much, much, much more.
There are a few serious passages to offset the humor, so you can catch your breath. A most delightful book.
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An excerpt:
Quote:
The bath was very refreshing; but I should have enjoyed the whole thing much better if they had provided me with something more suitable to wipe upon than a thin linen sheet. The Germans hold very curious notions as to the needs and requirements of a wet man. I wish they would occasionally wash and bath themselves, and then they would, perhaps, obtain more practical ideas upon the subject. I have wiped upon a sheet in cases of emergency, and so I have upon a pair of socks; but there is no doubt that the proper thing is a towel. To dry oneself upon a sheet needs special training and unusual agility. A Nautch Girl or a Dancing Dervish would, no doubt, get through the performance with credit. They would twirl the sheet gracefully round their head, draw it lightly across their back, twist it in waving folds round their legs, wrap themselves for a moment in its whirling maze, and then lightly skip away from it, dry and smiling.
But that is not the manner in which the dripping, untaught Briton attempts to wipe himself upon a sheet. The method he adopts is, to clutch the sheet with both hands, lean up against the wall, and rub himself with it. In trying to get the thing round to the back of him, he drops half of it into the water, and from that moment the bathroom is not big enough to enable him to get away for an instant from that wet half. When he is wiping the front of himself with the dry half, the wet half climbs round behind, and, in a spirit of offensive familiarity, slaps him on the back. While he is stooping down rubbing his feet, it throws itself with delirious joy around his head, and he is black in the face before he can struggle away from its embrace.
When he is least expecting anything of the kind, it flies round and gives him a playful flick upon some particularly tender part of his body that sends him springing with a yell ten feet up into the air. The great delight of the sheet, as a whole, is to trip him up whenever he attempts to move, so as to hear what he says when he sits down suddenly on the stone floor; and if it can throw him into the bath again just as he has finished wiping himself, it feels that life is worth living after all.
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This has 71 half-page illustrations, I didn't make a TOI because I didn't feel up to inventing 71 captions. Embedded decorative font for chapter heads. Small drop-caps.
Hope you get a giggle or two.
EDIT--uploaded version 2, some format tweaks and a different font.
previous downloads: 108
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