Abroad with the Jimmies Part 16

There were any number of little parties made up after that, for, of course, we returned the civility of the officers. But after awhile Ischl, in spite of the bracing air, and bewitching drives, and occasional glimpses of royalty, and daily meetings with our beloved officers, Jimmie and I began to think longingly of green fields and pastures new. It was a little hard on Bee, and even on Mrs. Jimmie, to drag them away from the morning promenade, where they always saw the rank and fashion of Austria. I wondered what Bee's feelings would be at parting with her loved ones, for most of our conversations lately had tended toward turning our journeyings aside from Vienna to go north to the September manoeuvres, in which our friends were to take part. We in turn combated this by begging them to meet us in Italy in three months.

You should have seen their anguished faces when Jimmie and I mentioned three months! A week's separation was more than they could think of without tying c.r.a.pe on their arms. To our amazement they a.s.sured us that a leave was out of the question. Von Engel declared that he had not had a leave of absence for ten years and he doubted if he could obtain one on any excuse short of a death in the family.

At last, however, one fine day, with farewell notes and loaded with flowers, and with the prettiest of parting speeches, we tore ourselves away and were off for Vienna.

As Bee leaned back in the railway carriage with one glove missing, I looked to see her very low in her mind, but to my surprise she was smiling slowly.

"You don't seem to mind leaving them very much," I observed, curiously.

"I haven't left them for long," she replied, drawing her face into complacent lines. "They are both coming to Vienna on leave."

"On _leave_?" I cried.

CHAPTER X

VIENNA

If Americans continue to flock to Europe in such numbers, the whole country will in time be as Americanised as the hotels are becoming.

Vienna, with her beautiful Hotel Bristol, is such an advance in modern comfort from the best of her accommodations for travellers of a few years ago that she affords an excellent example, although for every steam-heater, modern lift, and American comfort you gain, you lose a quaintness and picturesqueness, the like of which makes Europe so worth while. The whole of civilised Europe is now engaged in a flurried debate as to the propriety of remodelling its travelled portions for the benefit of ease-loving American millionaires.

It was not the season when we arrived in Vienna, but we had letters to the old Countess von Schimpfurmann, who had been lady-in-waiting to the Empress Elizabeth when she first came to the court of Austria, a mere slip of a girl, with that marvellous hair of hers whose length was the wonder of Europe, dressed high for the first time, but oftenest flowing silkily to the hem of her skirt. The countess was something of an invalid, and happened to be in town when we arrived. Her husband, the old count, had been a very distinguished man in his day, standing high in the Emperor's favour, and died full of years and honour, and more appreciated, so rumour had it, by his wife in his death than in his life.

We also had letters from a lady whose friendship Mrs. Jimmie made at Ischl, to her daughter-in-law, Baroness von Schumann, the baron being attached to an Austrian commission then in Italy; to several officers who were friends of our officers in Ischl, and, last but not least, to a little Hungarian, to whom I had a letter from America, who was so kind, so attentive, so fatherly to us, that he went by the name of "Little Papa"--a soubriquet which seemed to give him no end of pleasure.

Thus well equipped, we prepared to fall in love with Vienna, and we found it an easy task, for in spite of it being out of season, we were vastly entertained, and in all likelihood obtained a more intimate knowledge of the inner life of our Vienna friends than we could have done if we had arrived in the season of formal and more elaborate entertainment.

The opera was there, and, with all due respect to Mr. Grau, I must admit that we saw the most perfect production of "Faust" in Vienna than I ever saw on any stage.

The carnival was going on, where no Viennese lady, so the baroness declared, would _think_ of being seen, because confetti-throwing was only resorted to by the _canaille_ (and officers and husbands of high-born ladies, who went there with their little friends of the ballet and chorus), but where we _did_ go, contrary to all precedent, persuading the baroness to make up a smart party and "go slumming." Her husband being in Italy, she had no fear of meeting _him_ there, and she took good care to send an invitation to any one who might have been inclined to be critical, to be of the party, which, after one mighty protest as to the propriety of it, they one and all accepted with suspicious alacrity.

It was not so very amusing. It consisted of merely walking along a broad avenue lined with booths, and flinging confetti into people's faces.

More rude than lively or even amusing, it seemed to me, and my curiosity was so easily satisfied that I was ready to go after a quarter of an hour. But do you think we could persuade the other ladies to give it up?

Indeed, no! Like mischievous children, with Americans for an excuse, they remained until the last ones, laughing immoderately when they encountered men they knew. But as these men always claimed that they had heard we were coming, and immediately attached themselves to our party as a sort of sheet armour of protection against possible tales out of school, our supper party afterward was quite large. A carnival like that in America would end in a fight, if not in murder, for the American loses sight of the fact that it is simply rude play, and when he sees a handful of coloured paper flung in his wife's face, it might as well be water or pebbles for the stirring effect it has on his fighting blood.

The baroness had such a beautiful evening that she quite sighed when it was over.

"Don't you ever have this in America?" she asked Bee.

"No, indeed," said Bee. "And if we did, we wouldn't go to it. We reserve such frolics for Europe."

"Exactly as it is with us," declared the baroness; "Carl and I always go in Paris and Nice, but here--well, we had to have you for an excuse. I must thank you for giving us such an amusing evening!" she added, gaily.

"After all, it is so much more diverting to catch one's friends in mischief than strangers whom no one cares about!"

I suppose, in showing Vienna to us, we showed more of Vienna to the baroness and her friends than they ever had seen before. We went into all the booths and shows; we were in St. Stephen's Church at sunset to see the light filter through those marvels of stained-gla.s.s windows.

Instead of stately drives in the Prater, we took little excursions into the country and dined at blissful open-air restaurants, with views of the Danube and distant Vienna, which they never had seen before. They became quite enthusiastic over seeking out new diversions for us, and, through their court influence, I feel sure that few Americans could have got a more intimate knowledge of Vienna than we.

An amusing coincidence happened while we were there, concerning the gown Mrs. Jimmie was to be painted in. The baroness's brother, Count Georg Brunow, was an authority on dress, and, as he designed all the gowns for his cousin, who was also in the Emperor's suite, he begged permission to design Mrs. Jimmie's. His English was a little queer, so this is what he said after an anxious scrutiny of Mrs. Jimmie's beauty:

"You must have a gown of white--soft white chiffon or mull over a white satin slip. It must be very full and fluffy around the foot, and be looped up on the skirt and around the decollete corsage with festoons of small pink considerations."

"Considerations?" said Mrs. Jimmie.

"Carnations, you mean," said Bee.

"Yes, thank you. My English is so rusty. I mean pink carnations."

Mrs. Jimmie thanked him, and we all discussed it approvingly. Still, she told me privately that she would not decide until she got back to Paris to her own man, who knew her taste and style.

"You know, for a portrait," said Count Georg, "you do not want anything p.r.o.nounced. It must be quite simple, so that in fifty years it will still be beautiful."

When we got back to Paris, we presented ourselves before Mrs. Jimmie's dressmaker, who has dressed her ever since she was sixteen. She told him to design a gown for a full-length portrait. He looked at her carefully and said, slowly:

"I would suggest a gown of soft white over a white satin slip. It should be cut low in the corsage, and have no sleeves. A touch of colour in the shape of loops of small pink roses at the foot, heading a triple flounce of white, and on the shoulders and around the top of the bodice. You know for a portrait, madame, you want no epoch-making effect. It should be quite simple, so that in the years to come it may still please the eye as a work of art and not a creation of the dressmaker's skill."

Bee and I nearly had to be removed in an ambulance, and even Mrs.

Jimmie looked startled.

"Order it," I whispered. "Plainly, Providence has a hand in this design.

It might be dangerous to flout such a sign from heaven."

All of which goes to prove that the eye of the artist is true the world over. Or, at least, that is the deduction I drew. Bee is more skeptical.

The Countess von Schimpfurmann lived in a marvellous old house, to which we were invited again and again, her dear old politeness causing her to give three handsome entertainments for us, so that each could be a guest of honour at least once, and be distinguished by a seat on the sofa. The Emperor being at Ischl, we were permitted all sorts of intimate privileges with the Imperial Residenz, the court stables and private views not ordinarily shown to travellers, which were more interesting from being personally conducted than by the marvels we saw, for several years of continuous travel rather blunt one's ecstasy and effectively wear out one's adjectives.

Again, as in Munich, we were never tired of the picture-galleries, the whole school of German and Austrian art being quite to our taste, while if there exists anywhere else a more wonderful collection of original drawings of such masters as Raphael, Durer, Rubens, and Rembrandt which comprise the Albertina in the palace of the Archduke Albert, I do not know of it.

The old countess had numerous anecdotes to tell of the beautiful Empress, all of which confirmed and strengthened my belief that she was most of all a glorious woman gloriously misunderstood by her nearest and dearest. What other prince or princess of Europe in all history turned to so n.o.ble a pursuit as culture, learning, and travel to cure a broken heart and a wrecked existence in the majestic manner of this silent, haughty, n.o.ble soul? The excesses, dissipation, and intrigue which served to divert other bruised royal hearts were as far beneath this imperial nature as if they did not exist. Her life, in its crystal purity and its scorn of intrigue, is unique in royal history. Yet she, this blameless princess, this woman of imperial beauty, this n.o.blest of all empresses, was marked to be stricken down by the red hand of anarchy, to whose crime, and poison, and danger we open our national ports with an unwisdom which is criminal stupidity, and of which we shall inevitably reap the benefit. America cannot warm the asp of anarchy in her bosom without expecting it to turn and sting her.

The deference paid to royalty is so difficult of comprehension to the republican mind that every time we encountered it it gave us a separate shock of surprise. At least, it gave it to me. I have an idea from the way events finally shaped themselves that Bee and Mrs. Jimmie were a little more alive to its possibilities than I was.

The Bristol was quite full when we arrived and Jimmie could not get communicating rooms, nor very good ones. I did not particularly notice it at the time, but I remembered afterward that Bee kept urging him to change them, and Jimmie made two or three endeavours, but seemed to obtain no favour at the hands of the proprietor.

One morning, however, when Jimmie started to leave the sitting-room, he opened the door and closed it again suddenly. We were sitting there waiting for breakfast to be served, and we were all three struck by the expression on his face.

"What's the matter, Jimmie?"

He looked at us queerly.

"What have you three been up to?" he asked.

"Nothing. Honestly and truly!" we cried. "What's out in the hall? Or are you just pretending?"

"The hall is full of menials and officials and gold lace and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. I hope you haven't done anything to be arrested for!"

Bee began to look knowing, and just then came a knock at the door.