Jerome Klapka Jerome

DIARY OF A PILGRIMAGE
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SATURDAY, 24TH--CONTINUED

A Man of Family.--An Eccentric Train.--Outrage on an Englishman.-- Alone in Europe.--Difficulty of Making German Waiters Understand Scandinavian.--Danger of Knowing Too Many Languages.--A Wearisome Journey.--Cologne, Ahoy!

There was a very well-informed Belgian in the carriage, and he told us something interesting about nearly every town through which we passed. I felt that if I could have kept awake, and have listened to that man, and remembered what he said, and not mixed things up, I should have learnt a good deal about the country between Ostend and Cologne.

He had relations in nearly every town, had this man. I suppose there have been, and are, families as large and as extensive as his; but I never heard of any other family that made such a show. They seemed to have been planted out with great judgment, and were now all over the country. Every time I awoke, I caught some such scattered remark as:

"Bruges--you can see the belfry from this side--plays a polka by Haydn every hour. My aunt lives here." "Ghent--Hotel de Ville, some say finest specimen of Gothic architecture in Europe--where my mother lives. You could see the house if that church wasn't there." "Just passed Alost--great hop centre. My grandfather used to live there; he's dead now." "There's the Royal chateau--here, just on this side. My sister is married to a man who lives there--not in the palace, I don't mean, but in Laeken." "That's the dome of the Palais de Justice--they call Brussels 'Paris in little'--I like it better than Paris, myself--not so crowded. I live in Brussels." "Louvain--there's Van de Weyer's statue, the 1830 revolutionist. My wife's mother lives in Louvain. She wants us to come and live there. She says we are too far away from her at Brussels, but I don't think so." "Leige--see the citadel? Got some cousins at Leige--only second ones. Most of my first ones live at Maestricht"; and so on all the way to Cologne.

I do not believe we passed a single town or village that did not possess one or more specimens of this man's relatives. Our journey seemed, not so much like a tour through Belgium and part of Northern Germany, as a visit to the neighbourhood where this man's family resided.

I was careful to take a seat facing the engine at Ostend. I prefer to travel that way. But when I awoke a little later on, I found myself going backwards.

I naturally felt indignant. I said:

"Who's put me over here? I was over there, you know. You've no right to do that!"

They assured me, however, that nobody had shifted me, but that the train had turned round at Ghent.

I was annoyed at this. It seemed to me a mean trick for a train to start off in one direction, and thus lure you into taking your seat (or somebody else's seat, as the case might be) under the impression that you were going to travel that way, and then, afterwards, turn round and go the other way. I felt very doubtful, in (...)

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