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ON THE WAY TO THE FRONT 25
whole world and cause rivers of blood and tears to flow, bring
nameless misery to ravaged homes and ruined countrysides,
untold nights of anguish and expectation and long years of
inconsolable grief and sorrow.
But the evening is wearing on. We have left Naumburg
behind us. The good people in the town have gone to bed,
for the lights are mostly out and the windows dark. Tucked
into their snug beds they listen to the whir of the motor-cars
and the warning tooting of horns, and their thoughts no doubt
run on to the fateful west whither the cars are speeding. But
they will soon get left behind, the buzz dies away in the
distance, and sleep carries them into the peaceful realm of
dreams. I too begin to get a little sleepy. My eyelids begin
to droop and my head feels heavy ; it sinks down and recovers
with a jerk as the car quickly takes a corner. The excellent
Rittmeister seems to suspect something, for he slackens speed
and says it is only a few minutes to Kösen ; he asks what I
think of this little watering-place as a spot for putting up for
the night. Yes, I think Kösen is an ideal spot and quite
agree that we ought to stop there. So we drive quietly into
the little town, the two halves of which are separated from
one another by the Saale, but reunited by a stone bridge. We
stop at the hotel Zum nintigen Ritter and are soon wide-
awake again in its parlour, with a warming cup of steaming
tea before us. The host keeps us company and tells us that all
the visitors disappeared like magic when the war broke out,
and that his own hotel business has dwindled to nothing at
all. " But what does that matter as long as we win," he
adds.
The i6th September was heralded by a cloudy sky and
heavy, sleepy raindrops, which, however, soon stopped falling
after obligingly laying the dust. From Kösen there was a
steady rise across and along the heights which line the Saale
and Ilm valleys in the north. Pretty vistas open up at the
sides, where the valleys sink between the hills and where the
forest, dark and heavy, silently mounts guard over its secrets.
A little further on the country becomes more broken and the
road winds along in big curves. On the left we leave the
Apolda and its valley. On a commanding height we catch
sight of a so-called Bismarck tower of granite, with the great
chancellor’s name hewn into the stone at the top and his
portrait medallion at the bottom. These towers are often to
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