The sun was just rising over the cathedral as we reached Cologne.

“Let’s get out here and have our breakfast comfortably, see the cathedral, and take the next train to Berlin,” I said to my companion.

She is the courier and I am the banker.  She hastily consulted her indicateur and assented.  We only had about two seconds in which to decide.

“Let’s throw these bags out of the window,” she said.  “I’ve seen other people do it, and the porters catch them.”

“Don’t throw them,” I urged.  “You will break my toilet bottles.  Poke them out gently.”

She did so, and we hopped off the train just at daybreak, perfectly delighted at doing something we had not planned.

A more lovely sight than the Cologne cathedral, with the rising sun gilding its numerous pinnacles and spires, would be difficult to imagine.  The narrow streets were still comparatively dark, and when we arrived we heard the majestic notes of the organ in a Bach fugue, and found ourselves at early mass, with rows of humble worshippers kneeling before the high altar, and the twinkle of many candles in the soft gloom.  As we stood and watched and listened, the smell of incense floated down to us, and gradually the first rays of the sun crept downward through the superb colored-glass windows and stained the marble statues in their niches into gorgeous hues of purple and scarlet and amber.

And as the priests intoned and the fresh young voices of an invisible choir floated out and the magnificent rumble of the organ shook the very foundation of the cathedral, we forgot that we were there to visit a sight of Cologne, we forgot our night of discomfort, we forgot everything but the spirit of worship, and we came away without speaking.

* * * * *

From Cologne to Dresden is stupid.  We went through a country punctuated with myriads of tall chimneys of factories, which reminded us why so many things in England and America are stamped “Made in Germany.”

We arrived at Dresden at five o’clock, and decided to stop there and go to the opera that night.  The opera begins in Dresden at seven o’clock and closes at ten.  The best seats are absurdly cheap, and whole families, whole schools, whole communities, I should say, were there together.  I never saw so many children at an opera in my life.  Coming straight from Paris, from the theatrical, vivacious, enthusiastic French audiences, with their abominable claqueurs, this first German audience seemed serious, thoughtful, appreciative, but unenthusiastic.  They use more judgment about applause than the French.  They never interrupt a scene or even a musical phrase with misplaced applause because the soprano has executed a flamboyant cadenza or the tenor has reached a higher note than usual.  Their appreciation is slow but hearty and always worthily disposed.  The French are given to exaggerating an emotion and to applauding an eccentricity.  Even their subtlety is overdone.