Blackstone and the New World

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The beer hall’s sole purpose was to make the burly men in lederhosen forget that they had left their home country for ever, and in this it was a great success.

They sat, squeezed tightly together, at the long wooden tables. Some rubbed shoulders with lifelong friends, some with casual acquaintances and some with men they had only just met. None of that mattered, because they were all Bavarians, and when one spoke of the mountains and lakes he had once known, they all pictured it in their minds.

They drank foaming beer from stone steins, and nibbled at large German sausages. They swayed — gently and in unison — to the syrupy music which was being pumped out by the two accordionists on the small stage. Occasionally, one of them would sing, and even if his voice was not particularly strong, the others would beat out the time on the table in a gesture of solidarity — for though they all led separate lives on the outside, in here they were a single entity.

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