Part 27 (1/2)

And an hour later she was seeing them.

XV

Amsterdam was in full glory that evening, in the strange radiance that s.h.i.+nes for her, as for Venice, when red wine of sunset and purple wine of night mingle together in the gold cup of the west.

At such a time she is a second Venice, not because she is built upon piles and stands upon many islands linked by intricate bridges, but because of her glow and dazzle, her myriad lights breaking suddenly through falling dusk, to splash the rose and violet of the clouds with gilded flecks, and drop silver into glimmering ca.n.a.ls, as if there were some festive illumination; because of her huge, colorful buildings, and her old, old houses bowing and bending backward and forward to whisper into each other's windows across the darkness of narrow streets and burning lines of water.

The fierce traffic of the day was over, but the dam roared and rumbled, in vast confusion, with its enormous structures black against the moldering ashes of sunset.

”A cathedral without a tower; a palace without a king; a bishop's house without a bishop; a girl without a lover,” is the saying that Amsterdammers have about the dam; and I repeated it as we drove through, while my friends searched the verification of the saw. All was plain enough, except the ”girl without a lover”; but when they learned that she was a stone girl on a pedestal too constricted for two figures they p.r.o.nounced her part of the distich far-fetched.

Undaunted by all they had done that day, they would go out again after dinner, when Amsterdam was blue and silver and s.h.i.+ning steel in the quiet streets, with a flare of yellow light in the lively ones, where people crowded the roadways, listening to the crash of huge hand-organs, or shopping until ten o'clock.

We supped at the biggest _cafe_ in Europe; and then for contrast, since we were in a city of contrasts, I took them to the quaintest inn of Amsterdam--a queer little pointed-roofed house hiding the painted ”Wilderman” over his low-roofed door, behind a big archway, in the midst of all that is most modern, but with an interior of a rich gold-brown gloom, lit by glints of bra.s.s and gleams of pewter which would have delighted Rembrandt.

Next day it was to his house, in the strange, teeming Jewish quarter that we went first of all; but Nell and Phyllis were heartsick to find the rooms, once rich in treasures, piled untidily with ”curiosities” of no great beauty or value.

Then, by way of a change after the Old Town, and the harbor with its queer houses, like drunken men trying to prop each other up, I chose the Heerengracht, all the city has of the richest and most exclusive. But the tall mansions, with their air of reserve and their selfishly hidden gardens, struck the eye coldly; and not even my tales of tapestry, lace, old silver, and, above all, Persian carpets, to be seen behind the veiled windows, could arouse the ladies' curiosity. It was well enough to have built Amsterdam in concentric crescents, with the Heerengracht in the center, and to say arbitrarily that the further you went outwards, the further you descended in the social scale. That distinction might do for the townspeople; as for them, they would rather live in a black and brown house in the Keizergracht, with a crane and pulley in one of the gables, and white frames on the windows, than in this dull street of wealth and fas.h.i.+on.

”Even half a house, with a whole door of my own, like most middle-cla.s.s Dutch houses, would be nicer,” said Nell. ”Yes, I could be happy in 'a _boven huis_,' with my little stairway and hall quite to myself.”

But when I had shown her my favorite bit of Amsterdam, she became unfaithful to the Keizergracht, and its picturesque fellows.

To reach this bit, we turned from the roar of a noisy street, and were at once in the calm of a monastic cloister.

It was like opening a door in the twentieth century, and falling down a step into the seventeenth, to find Time lying enchanted in a spell of magic sleep.

What we saw was a s.p.a.cious quadrangle with an old-fas.h.i.+oned, flowery garden in the midst, and ranged round it pretty little houses, each one a gem of individuality. There was a church, too, a charming, forgotten-looking church; and in the quadrangle nothing stirred but gleams of light on polished windows and birds which hopped about on the pavement as if it had been made for them.

”I believe they're the inhabitants of the place, who've hurriedly changed into birds just while we are here, but will change back into little, trim old ladies and old gentlemen,” whispered Nell; for it seemed sacrilege to break the silence.

With that, a house door opened, and just such an old lady as she described came out.

”Oh, she didn't know we were here. She won't have time to get into her birdhood now,” chuckled Nell, ”so she's making the best of it. But see, she's turned to warn her husband.”

”She hasn't any husband,” said I.

”How can you tell?” asked the girl.

”If she had, she couldn't live here,” I explained, ”because this is the Begynenhof, half almshouse, half nunnery, which has been kept up since our great year, 1574. But oddly enough the chapel of the sisterhood who established it, has been turned into an English church. Queer, in the little Catholic village hidden away from the great city; but so it is.

And isn't it a serene spot?”

”Almost nicer than Aalsmeer,” murmured the Chaperon. ”I wonder if----”

But Starr was at the door of the exit before she could finish wondering.

The palace, more suitable for a magnificent town hall than a regal dwelling, was the next violent contrast in my bag of colors; but, royal though it was, there was nothing in it they cared for much except the throne-room, which they had to admit was not to be surpa.s.sed. There were a few mantel-pieces too, which the Chaperon thought she would accept from the Queen as presents; but as for the carpets, they were no less than tragic, and it would be better to go about opening bridges, or laying dull cornerstones, then stay at home and look at them.

My way of showing Amsterdam was to work slowly up to a grand crescendo effect; and the crescendo was the Ryks Museum. We had two days of Amsterdam (the second was mostly spent at the diamond cutters') before I suggested the museum.