In the Courts of Memory, 1858-1875 Part 52

To this remark he did not pay the slightest attention. Between a sneeze and a cough--we were rapidly catching our deaths--he said, under his breath, "If they smell us they go away."

The _treibers_ work in couples, Count Westphal leading them. It is not etiquette for the host to shoot; he must leave all the chances of glory to his guests. Among the _treibers_ were various servants and _cha.s.seurs_ carrying extra guns and short daggers for the final despatch (_le coup de grace_). We heard them coming nearer and nearer, but we saw no boar. Many other animals came wonderingly forward: some foxes, trailing their long tails gracefully over the snow, looked about them and trotted off; a furtive deer cautiously peered around with ears erect and trotted off also; but it is not for such as these we stand ankle-deep in the snow, shivering with cold and half frozen. A shot now would spoil all the sport.

One has a longing to talk when one is told to be quiet. I can't remember ever having thought of so many clever things I wanted to say as when I stood behind the ducal back--things that would be forever lost! And I tried to enter them and fix them in my brain, to be produced later; but, alas!

The Duke (being, as I said, very short-sighted) came near shooting one of his own servants. The man who carried his extra gun had tied the two ends of a sack in which he carried various things, and put it over his head to keep his ears warm. Just as the Duke was raising his gun, thinking that if it was not a boar it was something else, I ventured a gentle whisper, "C'est votre domestique, Monseigneur." "Merci!" he whispered back, in much the same tone he would have used had I restored him a dropped pocket- handkerchief.

Finally (there must be an end to everything) we saw beneath us, on the plains, three wild boars leaping in the snow, followed by a great many more. They had the movements of a porpoise as he dives in and out of the water, and of an ungraceful and hideous pig when hopping along.

The Duke fired his two shots, and let us hope two boars fell. The others flew to right and left, except one ugly beast, who came straight toward our own tree. I must say that in that moment my little heart was in my throat, and I realized that the tree was too high to climb and too small to hide behind. The Duke said, in a husky voice, "Don't move, for G.o.d's sake, even if they come toward us!"

This was cheery! Abraham's blind obedience was nothing to mine! Here was I, a stranger in a foreign land, about to sacrifice my life on the shrine of a wild boar! Count Metternich, behind the next tree, fired and killed the brute, so I was none the worse save for a good fright. It was high time to kill him, for he began charging at the beaters, and threatened to make it lively for us; and if Count Metternich had not, in the nick of time, sent a bullet into him, I doubt whether I should be writing this little account to you at this moment.

There was a great deal of shouting, and the hounds were baying at the top of their lungs, and every one was talking at the same time and explaining things which every one knew. Counting the guests, the servants, the trackers, the dilettantes, there were seventy people on the spot; and I must say, though we were _transis de froid_, it was an exhilarating sight --the snow is such a beautiful _mise en scene_. However, we were glad to get back into the sheep-skin bags and draw the fur rugs up to our noses, and though I had so many brilliant things to say under the tree I could not think of one of them on our way home.

Fourteen big, ugly boars were brought and laid to rest in the large hall, on biers of pine branches, with a pine branch artistically in the mouth of each. They weighed from one to three hundred pounds and smelled abominably; but they were immensely admired by their slayers, who pretended to recognize their own booty (don't read "beauty," for they were anything but beautiful) and to claim them for their own. Each hunter has the right to the jaws and teeth, which they have mounted and hang on their walls as trophies.

Count Westphal has his smoking-room filled to overflowing with jaws, teeth, and chamois heads, etc. They make a most imposing display, and add feathers to his already well-garnished cap.

Howard said, in French, to the Duke, in his sweet little voice, looking up into his face, "I am so sorry for you!"

"Why?" inquired the Duke.

"Because the Prussians have taken your country."

We all trembled, not knowing how the Duke would take this; but he took it very kindly, and, patting Howard on the back, said: "Thank you, my little friend. I am sorry also, but there is nothing to be done; but thank you all the same." And his eyes filled with tears.

The next day he gave Howard his portrait, with, "Pour mon pet.i.t ami, Howard, d'un pauvre cha.s.se.--Adolf, Duc de Na.s.sau." Very nice of him, wasn't it?

In the evening they played cards, with interruptions such as "Der verfluchte Kerl," meaning "a boar that refused to be shot," or "I could easily have killed him if my gun," etc., till every one, sleepy and tired, had no more conversation to exchange, and the Duke left, as he said, to write letters, and we simpler mortals did not mind saying that we were dead beat and went to bed.

The next day being Sunday, I sang in the little church (Catholic, of course, as Westphalia is of that religion). The organist and I had many rehearsals in the _schloss,_ but none in the church, so I had never made acquaintance with the village organ. If I had, I don't think I should have chosen the _Ave Maria_ of Cherubini, which has a final amble with the organ, sounding well enough on the piano; but on that particular organ it sounded like two hens cackling and chasing each other. I had to mount the spiral staircase behind the belfry and wobble over the rickety planks before reaching the organ-loft. Fortunately, Count Metternich went with me and promised to stay with me till the bitter end; at any rate, he piloted me to the loft. The organ was put up in the church when the church was built, in the year Westphalia a.s.serted herself, whenever that was; I should say B.C. some time. It was probably good at that time, but it must have deteriorated steadily ever since; and now, in this year of grace, owns only one row of keys, of which several notes don't work. There are several pipes which don't pipe, and an octave of useless pedals, which the organist does not pretend to work, as he does not know how. However, there is no use describing a village organ; every one knows what it is. Suffice to say that I sang my _Ave Maria_ to it, and the Duke and my hosts, miles below me, said it was very fine, and that the church had never heard the like before, and never would again. Certainly _not from me!_...

The village itself is a pretty little village and very quaint; it has belonged to the _schloss,_ as the _schloss_ has to it, for centuries. The houses are painted white, and the beams of oak are painted black.

On the princ.i.p.al cross-beams are inscriptions from the Bible, cut in the oak, and the names of the people who built the house. There is one: "Joseph and Katinka, worthy of the grace of G.o.d, on whom He cannot fail to shower blessings. For they believe in Him." The date of their marriage and their virtues are carved also (fortunately they don't add the names of all their descendants). Sometimes the sentences are too long for the beam over the door, and you have to follow their virtues all down the next beam.

This is perplexing on account of the German verb (which is like dessert at dinner--the best thing, but at the end), and _gehabt_ or _geworden_ is sometimes as far down as the foot-sc.r.a.per. Some houses are like barns: one roof shelters many families, having their little booths under one covering, and they sit peacefully at their work in front of their homes smoking the pipe of peace, and at the same time cure the celebrated hams which hang from the ceiling. I won't say all hams are cured in this way, because, I suppose, there are regular establishments which cure professionally. But I have seen many family hams curing in these barns.

The costumes of the women are wonderful, full of complexities; you have to turn them around before you can tell if she is a man or a woman; they wear hats like a coal-carrier in England, pantaloons, an ap.r.o.n, and--well! the Countess had a woman brought to the _schloss_ and undressed, so that we could see how she was dressed. I ought to send a photograph, because I can never describe her. There is a bodice of black satin, short in the back, over a plastron of pasteboard of the same, and a huge black-satin cravat sticking out on both sides of her cheeks, a wadded skirt of blue alpaca, and pink leg-of-mutton sleeves. I can make nothing of this description when I read it. I hope you can!

Count Metternich entertained us all the afternoon talking about himself.

He has fought with the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico, and when he speaks of him the tears roll down his bronzed cheeks. He has fought in all Don Carlos's battles, and is a strong partisan of the Carlist party. His description of Don Carlos makes one quite like him (I mean Don Carlos). He said that Don Carlos goes about in a simple black uniform and _beret_ (the red cap of the Pyrenees), with the gold ta.s.sels and the Order of the Golden Fleece on his neck (I call that fantastic, don't you?). During his campaign he suddenly swoops down upon people, no matter what their condition is, and immediately there is a sentinel placed before the door.

The _consigne_ is not strict: any one can come and go as he pleases: photographers, autographers, reporters, without hindrance, and there is a general invitation to tea at headquarters. He has an army of volunteers, of whom the Count is one. The rations are one-half pound of meat, one-half pound of bread, and three-quarters liter of Navarre wine, which the Count says is more fit to eat than to drink, "it is so fat." Navarre furnishes the wine gratis, and promises to furnish twenty-four thousand rations daily as long as the war lasts. The artillery is "not good," Count Metternich added, but the officers are "colossal," a word in German that expresses everything.

Count Metternich is the greatest gentleman jockey in the world; he has not got a whole bone in his body. They call him _der Mexicano_, as he is so bronzed and dark-skinned and has been in Mexico.

But he cannot rival Count Westphal, who, in his time, was not only the greatest gentleman jockey, but a hero. At a famous race, where he was to ride the horse of Count Furstenberg, he fell, breaking his collar-bone and his left arm; he picked himself up and managed to remount his horse. He held the reins in his mouth, and with the unbroken arm walloped the horse, got in first, and then fainted away.

It was the pluckiest thing ever seen, and won for him not only the race, but the greatest fame and his Countess, who made him promise never to ride in a race again, and he never has. She told me that many ladies fainted and men wept, so great was the excitement and enthusiasm! Count Furstenberg had a bronze statue made of the horse, and it stands on Count Westphal's table now, and is an everlasting subject of conversation.

The Duke invited us all to come to Lippspringe. He and all the hunting-men have clubbed together and have hired the estate from the Baron B----, who owns both house and country and is fabulously rich, so people say. Here these gentlemen (I think there are twenty of them) go to pa.s.s two months every year to hunt foxes. There are forty couples of foxhounds, which have been imported from England.

There were eight of us, and we quite filled the four-horse break, servants and baggage followed later. We arrived at Paderborn, a thriving and interesting town of historical renown (see Baedeker). A two hours' drive left us rather cold and stiff, but we lunched on the carriage to save time. At the hotel we found a relay of four fresh horses harnessed in the princ.i.p.al street, the English grooms exciting great admiration by their neat get-up and their well-polished boots, and by the masterful manner they swore in English.

After racing through the quiet streets at a tearing pace, we arrived at the villa (_alias_ club-house) at six o'clock, in time to dress for dinner at eight. The gentlemen appeared in regular hunting-dress: red evening coats, white buckskin trousers, top-boots, white cravats, and white vests; the ladies were _decolletees en grande toilette_.

Our dinner lasted till ten o'clock. The French chef served a delicious repast; everything was faultless even to the minutest details; the servants were powdered, plushed, and shod to perfection. Then we went to the drawing-room, where cards, smoking, billiards, and flirtation went on simultaneously until the small hour of one, when we retired to our rooms.

Countess Westphal and I had adjoining rooms, very prettily furnished in chintz. Everything was in the most English style.

It is the correct thing here to affect awful clothes in the daytime. The Baron (_der alte Herr_), when not hunting, wears an Italian brigand costume (short breeches, tight leggings, stout boots) and some animal's front teeth sewed on his Tyrolean hat to hold the little feathers. But in the evening, oh, dear me! nothing is equal to his elegance.

The next day the gentlemen (twenty in number), all splendidly mounted on English hunters, rode off at eleven o'clock, ma.s.ses of grooms and _piqueurs_, with lots of hunting-horns and the dogs. We ladies followed in the break. The masters of the hounds were already at the rendezvous on the hill. They soon started a fox, and then the dogs tore off yelping and barking, and the riders riding like mad; and we waited in the carriages, sorry not to be with them. The red coats looked well against the background; the dogs, all of the same pattern, were rushing about in groups with their tails in the air; but while our eyes were following them the fox ran right under our noses, within a hair's-breadth of our wheels. Of course the dogs lost the scent, and there was a general standstill until another fox was routed out, and off they flew again.

_Der alte Herr_ is very much thought of in these parts; he was the only one who dared oppose the House of Peers in Berlin in the question of war with Austria in 1866, and made such an astounding speech that he was obliged to retire from politics and take to fox-hunting. He gave the speech to me to read, and--I--well!--I didn't read it!

The Westphalians seem to go on the let-us-alone principle; they seem to be anti-everything--from Bismarck and Protestantism downward. I sang the last evening of our stay here. The piano belonging to this hunting-lodge is as old as the _alte Herr_, and must have been here for years, and even at that must be an heirloom. The keys were yellow with age and misuse, and if it had ever been in tune it had forgotten all about it now and was out of it altogether. I picked the notes out which were still good, and by singing Gounod's "Biondina" in a loud voice and playing its dashing accompaniment with gusto, I managed to keep myself awake. As for the tired hunters who had been in the saddle all day, they were so worn out that nothing short of a bra.s.s band could rouse them long enough for them to keep their eyes open.

The next day we bade our hosts good-by and, thanking them for our delightful visit, we departed. I wonder if the gentlemen liked being trespa.s.sed upon as much as we did who did the trespa.s.sing. However, they were polite enough to say that they had never enjoyed anything so much as our visit, and especially my singing. What humbugs! I was polite enough not to say that I had _never_ enjoyed anything so _little_ as singing for sleepy fox-hunters.

ROME, _January, 1875._

DEAR MOTHER,--I am here in Rome, staying with my friends the Haseltines, who have a beautiful apartment that they have arranged in the most sumptuous and artistic manner in the Palazzo Altieri. Mr. Haseltine has two enormous rooms for his studio and has filled them with his faultless pictures, which are immensely admired and appreciated. His water-colors are perfection.

I have met many of your friends whom you will be glad to hear about; to begin with, the Richard Greenoughs, our cousins. We had much to talk about, as we had not seen each other since Paris, when he made that bust of me. They are the most delightful people, so talented in their different ways, and are full of interest in everything which concerns me. She has just published a book called _Mary Magdalene_, which I think is perfectly wonderful.

I have made the acquaintance of William Story (the sculptor). He spoke of you and Aunt Maria as his oldest and dearest friends, and therefore claimed the right to call me Lillie.

I have not only seen him, but I have been Mrs. Story, Miss Story, and the third story in the Palazzo Barberini, where they live, and I have already counted many times the tiresome one hundred and twenty-two steps which lead to their apartment, and have dined frequently with them in their chilly Roman dining-room. This room is only warmed by the little apparatus which in Rome pa.s.ses for a stove. It has a thin leg that sticks out of a hole in the side of the house and could warm a flea at a pinch.

The hay on the stone floor made the thin carpet warmer to my cold toes, which, in their evening shoes, were away down below zero, but my cold and bare shoulders shivered in this Greenland icy-mountain temperature which belongs to Roman palaces. This was before I was an _habituee_; but after I had become one I wore, like the other jewel-bedecked dames, woolen stockings and fur-lined overshoes. The contrast must be funny, if one could see above board and under board at the same time.

The Storys generally have a lion for dinner and for their evening entertainments. My invitations to their dinners always read thus: "Dear Mrs. Moulton,--We are going to have (mentioning the lion) to dinner. Will you not join us, and if you would kindly bring a little music it would be such a," etc. No beating about the bush there! The other evening Miss Hosmer--female rival of Mr. Story in the sculpturing line--was the lion of the occasion, and was three-quarters of an hour late, her excuse being that she was studying the problem of perpetual motion. Mr. Story, who is a wit, said he wished the motion had been perpetuated in a _botta_ (which is Italian for cab).

_February 1st._

Last Thursday, at nine o'clock in the morning, a card was brought to my bedroom. Imagine my astonishment when I read the name of Baroness de C----, the wife of the French Amba.s.sador to the Vatican. What could she want at that early hour? I had heard many stories of her absent- mindedness. I thought that nothing less than being very absent-minded, or else the wish to secure my help for some charity concert, could account for this matutinal visit, especially as I knew her so slightly.

To my great surprise she had only come to invite me to dinner, and never mentioned the word charity concert or music. I thought this very strange; but as she is so _distraite_ she probably did not know what time of day it was, and imagined she was making an afternoon visit.

One of the stories about her is that once she went to pay a formal call on one of her colleagues, and stayed on and on until the poor hostess was in despair, as it was getting late. Suddenly the amba.s.sadress got up and said, "Pardon, dear Madame, I am very much engaged, and if you have nothing further to say to me I should be very grateful if you would leave me." The Baroness had been under the impression that she was in her own salon. They say that, one day, when she was walking in the Vatican gardens with the Pope, and they were talking politics, she said to him, "Oh, all this will be arranged as soon as the Pope dies!"

Well, we went to the dinner, which was quite a large one, and among the guests was Signor Tosti, which would seem to denote that there _was_, after all, "music in the air"; and sure enough, shortly after dinner the amba.s.sadress begged me to sing some _pet.i.te chose_, and asked Tosti to accompany me. Neither of us refused, and I sang some of his songs which I happened to know, and some of my own, which I could play for myself.

However, I felt myself recompensed, for when she thanked me she asked if I had ever been present at any of the Pope's receptions.

I told her that I had not had the opportunity since I had been here.