A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

With a perfectly breath-taking suddenness several mast

sheaves of varicolored rockets were vomited skyward out

of the black throats of the Castle towers, accompanied by

a thundering crash of sound, and instantly every detail of

the prodigious ruin stood revealed against the mountainside

and glowing with an almost intolerable splendor of fire

and color. For some little time the whole building was

a blinding crimson mass, the towers continued to spout

thick columns of rockets aloft, and overhead the sky

was radiant with arrowy bolts which clove their way to

the zenith, paused, curved gracefully downward, then burst

into brilliant fountain-sprays of richly colored sparks.

The red fires died slowly down, within the Castle,

and presently the shell grew nearly black outside;

the angry glare that shone out through the broken arches

and innumerable sashless windows, now, reproduced the

aspect which the Castle must have borne in the old time

when the French spoilers saw the monster bonfire which

they had made there fading and spoiling toward extinction.

While we still gazed and enjoyed, the ruin was suddenly

enveloped in rolling and rumbling volumes of vaporous

green fire; then in dazzling purple ones; then a mixture

of many colors followed, then drowned the great fabric

in its blended splendors. Meantime the nearest bridge

had been illuminated, and from several rafts anchored

in the river, meteor showers of rockets, Roman candles,

bombs, serpents, and Catharine wheels were being discharged

in wasteful profusion into the sky–a marvelous sight indeed

to a person as little used to such spectacles as I was.

For a while the whole region about us seemed as bright as day,

and yet the rain was falling in torrents all the time.

The evening’s entertainment presently closed, and we

joined the innumerable caravan of half-drowned strangers,

and waded home again.

The Castle grounds are very ample and very beautiful;

and as they joined the Hotel grounds, with no fences

to climb, but only some nobly shaded stone stairways

to descend, we spent a part of nearly every day in

idling through their smooth walks and leafy groves.

There was an attractive spot among the trees where were

a great many wooden tables and benches; and there one could

sit in the shade and pretend to sip at his foamy beaker

of beer while he inspected the crowd. I say pretend,

because I only pretended to sip, without really sipping.

That is the polite way; but when you are ready to go,

you empty the beaker at a draught. There was a brass band,

and it furnished excellent music every afternoon.

Sometimes so many people came that every seat was occupied,

every table filled. And never a rough in the assemblace–all

nicely dressed fathers and mothers, young gentlemen

and ladies and children; and plenty of university

students and glittering officers; with here and there

a gray professor, or a peaceful old lady with her knitting;

and always a sprinkling of gawky foreigners.

Everybody had his glass of beer before him, or his cup

of coffee, or his bottle of wine, or his hot cutlet

and potatoes; young ladies chatted, or fanned themselves,

or wrought at their crocheting or embroidering;

the students fed sugar to their dogs, or discussed duels,

or illustrated new fencing tricks with their little canes;

and everywhere was comfort and enjoyment, and everywhere

peace and good-will to men. The trees were jubilant

with birds, and the paths with rollicking children.

One could have a seat in that place and plenty of music,

any afternoon, for about eight cents, or a family ticket

for the season for two dollars.

For a change, when you wanted one, you could stroll

to the Castle, and burrow among its dungeons, or climb

about its ruined towers, or visit its interior shows–the

great Heidelberg Tun, for instance. Everybody has heard

of the great Heidelberg Tun, and most people have seen it,

no doubt. It is a wine-cask as big as a cottage, and some

traditions say it holds eighteen thousand bottles, and other

traditions say it holds eighteen hundred million barrels.

I think it likely that one of these statements is

a mistake, and the other is a lie. However, the mere

matter of capacity is a thing of no sort of consequence,