A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

the rent in my conscience which I made by traveling to

Baden-Baden that Sunday. We arrived in time to furbish

up and get to the English church before services began.

We arrived in considerable style, too, for the landlord

had ordered the first carriage that could be found,

since there was no time to lose, and our coachman was

so splendidly liveried that we were probably mistaken

for a brace of stray dukes; why else were we honored

with a pew all to ourselves, away up among the very elect

at the left of the chancel? That was my first thought.

In the pew directly in front of us sat an elderly lady,

plainly and cheaply dressed; at her side sat a young

lady with a very sweet face, and she also was quite

simply dressed; but around us and about us were clothes

and jewels which it would do anybody’s heart good to

worship in.

I thought it was pretty manifest that the elderly lady

was embarrassed at finding herself in such a conspicuous

place arrayed in such cheap apparel; I began to feel sorry

for her and troubled about her. She tried to seem very busy

with her prayer-book and her responses, and unconscious

that she was out of place, but I said to myself, “She is

not succeeding–there is a distressed tremulousness

in her voice which betrays increasing embarrassment.”

Presently the Savior’s name was mentioned, and in her flurry

she lost her head completely, and rose and courtesied,

instead of making a slight nod as everybody else did.

The sympathetic blood surged to my temples and I turned and gave

those fine birds what I intended to be a beseeching look,

but my feelings got the better of me and changed it into

a look which said, “If any of you pets of fortune laugh

at this poor soul, you will deserve to be flayed for it.”

Things went from bad to worse, and I shortly found myself

mentally taking the unfriended lady under my protection.

My mind was wholly upon her. I forgot all about the sermon.

Her embarrassment took stronger and stronger hold upon her;

she got to snapping the lid of her smelling-bottle–it

made a loud, sharp sound, but in her trouble she snapped

and snapped away, unconscious of what she was doing.

The last extremity was reached when the collection-plate

began its rounds; the moderate people threw in pennies,

the nobles and the rich contributed silver, but she laid

a twenty-mark gold piece upon the book-rest before her

with a sounding slap! I said to myself, “She has parted

with all her little hoard to buy the consideration of these

unpitying people–it is a sorrowful spectacle.” I did not

venture to look around this time; but as the service closed,

I said to myself, “Let them laugh, it is their opportunity;

but at the door of this church they shall see her step

into our fine carriage with us, and our gaudy coachman

shall drive her home.”

Then she rose–and all the congregation stood while she

walked down the aisle. She was the Empress of Germany!

No–she had not been so much embarrassed as I had supposed.

My imagination had got started on the wrong scent, and that

is always hopeless; one is sure, then, to go straight

on misinterpreting everything, clear through to the end.

The young lady with her imperial Majesty was a maid of

honor–and I had been taking her for one of her boarders,

all the time.

This is the only time I have ever had an Empress under

my personal protection; and considering my inexperience,

I wonder I got through with it so well. I should have

been a little embarrassed myself if I had known earlier

what sort of a contract I had on my hands.

We found that the Empress had been in Baden-Baden

several days. It is said that she never attends

any but the English form of church service.

I lay abed and read and rested from my journey’s fatigues

the remainder of that Sunday, but I sent my agent to represent

me at the afternoon service, for I never allow anything

to interfere with my habit of attending church twice every