Seeing Europe with Famous Authors Volume V Part 9

Ever since our merchants have beaten a peaceful and free uninterrupted trade into this town and elsewhere within and without the Sound, with their manufactures of wool, and found the way also to the White Sea to Archangel and Moscow. Insomuch that the premises being well considered, it was a happy thing for England that that clashing fell out betwixt her and the Hans, for it may be said to have been the chief ground of that shipping and merchandising, which she is now come to, and wherewith she hath flourished ever since. But one thing is observable, that as that imperial or committal ban, p.r.o.nounced in the Diet at Ratisbon against our merchants and manufactures of wool, incited them more to industry.

So our proclamation upon Alderman c.o.c.kein's project of transporting no white cloths but dyed, and in their full manufacture, did cause both Dutch and Germans to turn necessity to a virtue, and made them far more ingenious to find ways, not only to dye but to make cloth, which hath much impaired our markets ever since. For there hath not been the third part of our cloth sold since, either here or in Holland.

[Footnote A: From "Familiar Letters." "Montaigne and 'Howell's Letters'," says Thackeray, in one of the "Roundabout Papers," "are my bedside books." Howell wrote this letter in Hamburg in October, 1632.]

HAMBURG[A]

BY THeOPHILE GAUTIER

To describe a night journey by rail is a difficult matter; you go like an arrow whistling through a cloud; it is traveling in the abstract. You cross provinces, kingdoms even, unawares. From time to time during the night, I saw through the window the comet, rushing down upon the earth, with lowered head and hair streaming far behind; suddenly glares of gaslight dazzled my eyes, sanded with the goldust of sleep; or the pale bluish radiance of the moon gave an air of fairy-land to scenes doubtless poor enough by day. Conscientiously, this is all I can say from personal observation; and it would not be particularly amusing if I should transcribe from the railway guide the names of all the stations between Berlin and Hamburg.

It is 7 a.m., and here we are in the good Hanse town of Hamburg; the city is not yet awake, or at most is rubbing its eyes and yawning. While they are preparing my breakfast, I sally forth at random, as my custom is, without guide or cicerone, in pursuit of the unknown.

The hotel, at which I have been set down, is situated on the quay of the Alster, a basin as large as the Lac d'Enghien, which it still further resembles in being peopled with tame swans. On three sides, the Alster basin is bordered with hotels and handsome modern houses. An embankment planted with trees and commanded by a wind-mill in profile forms the fourth; beyond extends a great lagoon. From the most frequented of these quays, a cafe painted green and built on piles, makes out into the water, like that cafe of the Golden Horn where I have smoked so many chibouques; watching the sea-birds fly. At the sight of this quay, this basin, these houses, I experienced an inexplicable sensation: I seemed to know them already. Confused recollections of them arose in my memory; could I have been in Hamburg without being aware of it? a.s.suredly all these objects are not new to me, and yet I am seeing them for the first time. Have I preserved the impression made by some picture, some photograph?

While I was seeking philosophic explanations for this memory of the unknown, the idea of Heinrich Heine suddenly presented itself, and all became clear. The great poet had often spoken to me of Hamburg, in those plastic words he so well knew how to use--words that were equivalent to realities. In his "Reisebilder," he describes the scene--cafe basin, swans, and townsfolk upon the quays--Heaven knows what portraits he makes of them! He returns to it again in his poem, "Germania," and there is so much life to the picture, such distinctness, such relief, that sight itself teaches you nothing more.

I made the circuit of the basin, graciously accompanied by a snow-white swan, handsome enough to make one think it might be Jupiter in disguise, seeking some Hamburg Leda, and, the better to carry out the deception, snapping at the bread-crumbs offered him by the traveler. On the farther side of the basin, at the right, is a sort of garden or public promenade, having an artificial hillock, like that in the labyrinth in the "Jardin des Plantes." Having gone thus far, I turned and retraced my steps.

Every city has its fashionable quarter--new, expensive, handsome--of which the citizens are proud, and through which the guide leads you with much complacency. The streets are broad and regular, and cut one another at right angles; there are sidewalks of granite, brick, or bitumen; there are lamp-posts in every direction. The houses are like palaces; their cla.s.sically modern architecture, their irreproachable paint, their varnished doors and well-scoured bra.s.ses, fill with joy the city fathers and every lover of progress. The city is neat, orderly, salubrious, full of light and air, and resembles Paris or London. There is the Exchange!

It is superb--as fine as the Bourse in Paris! I grant it; and, besides, you can smoke there, which is a point of superiority.

Farther on you observe the Palace of Justice, the bank, etc., built in the style you know well, adored by Philistines of every land. Doubtless that house must have cost enormously; it contains all possible luxury and comfort. You feel that the mollusk of such a sh.e.l.l can be nothing less than a millionaire. Permit me, however, to love better the old house with its overhanging stories, its roof of irregular tiles, and all its little characteristic details, telling of former generations. To be interesting, a city must have the air of having lived, and, in a sense, of having received from man a soul. What makes these magnificent streets built yesterday so cold and so tiresome, is that they are not yet impregnated with human vitality.

Leaving the new quarter, I penetrated by degrees into the chaos of the old streets, and soon I had before my eyes a characteristic, picturesque Hamburg; a genuine old city with a medieval stamp which would delight Bonington, Isabey or William Wyld. I walked slowly, stopping at every street-corner that I might lose no detail of the picture; and rarely has any promenade amused me so well.

Houses, whose gables are denticulated or else curved in volutes, throw out successive overhanging stories, each composed of a row of windows, or, more properly, of one window divided into sections by carved uprights. Beneath each house are excavated cellars, subterranean recesses, which the steps leading to the front door bestride like a drawbridge. Wood, brick, stone and slate, mingled in a way to content the eye of a colorist, cover what little s.p.a.ce the windows leave on the outside of the house. All this is surmounted by a roof of red or violet tiles, or tarred plank, interrupted by openings to give light to the attics, and having an abrupt pitch. These steep roofs look well against the background of a northern sky; the rains run off them in torrents, the snow slips from them; they suit the climate, and do not require to be swept in winter. Some houses have doors ornamented with rustic columns, scroll-work, recessed pediments, chubby-cheeked caryatides, little angels and loves, stout rosettes and enormous sh.e.l.ls, all glued over with whitewash renewed doubtless every year.

The tobacco sellers in Hamburg can not be counted. At every third step you behold a bare-chested negro cultivating the precious leaf or a Grand Seigneur, attired like the theatrical Turk, smoking a colossal pipe.

Boxes of cigars, with their more or less fallacious vignettes and labels, figure, symmetrically disposed, in the ornamentation of the shop-fronts. There must be very little tobacco left at Havana, if we can have faith in these displays, so rich in famous brands.

As I have said, it was early morning. Servant-maids, kneeling on the steps or standing on the window-sills, were going on with the Sat.u.r.day scrubbing. Notwithstanding the keen air, they made a display of robust arms bare to the shoulder, tanned and sunburned, red with that astonishing vermilion that we see in some of Rubens' paintings, which is the joint result of the biting of the north wind and the action of water upon these blond skins; little girls belonging to the poorer cla.s.ses, with braided hair, bare arms, and low-necked frocks, were going out to obtain articles of food; I shivered in my paletot, to see them so lightly clad. There is something strange about this; the women of northern countries cut their dresses out in the neck, they go about bare-headed and bare-armed, while the women of the South cover themselves with vests, haicks, pelisses, and warm garments of every description.

Walking on, still at random, I came to the maritime part of the city, where ca.n.a.ls take the place of streets. As yet it was low water, and vessels lay aground in the mud, showing their hulls, and careening over in a way to rejoice a water-color painter. Soon the tide came up, and everything began to be in motion. I would suggest Hamburg to artists following in the track of Ca.n.a.letto, Guardi, or Joyant; they will find, at every step, themes as picturesque as and more new than those which they go to Venice in search of.

This forest of salmon-colored masts, with their maze of cordage and their yellowish-brown sails drying in the sun, these tarred sterns with apple-green decks, these lateen-yards threatening the windows of the neighboring houses, these derricks standing under plank roofs shaped like paG.o.das, these tackles lifting heavy packages out of vessels and landing them in houses, these bridges opening to give pa.s.sage to vessels, these clumps of trees, these gables overtopped here and there by spires and belfries; all this bathed in smoke, traversed by sunlight and here and there returning a glitter of polished metal, the far-off distance blue and misty, and the foreground full of vigorous color, produced effects of the most brilliant and piquant novelty. A church-tower, covered with plates of copper, springing from this curious medley of rigging and of houses, recalled to me by its odd green color the tower of Galata, at Constantinople....

As the hour advanced, the crowd became more numerous, and it was largely composed of women. In Hamburg they seem to enjoy great license.

Very young girls come and go alone without anyone's noticing it, and--a remarkable thing!--children go to school by themselves, little basket on the arm, and slate in hand; in Paris, left to their own free will, they will run off to play marbles, tag, or hop-scotch.

Dogs are muzzled in Hamburg all the week, but on Sundays they are left at liberty to bite whom they please. They are taxed, and appear to be esteemed; but the cats are sad and unappreciated. Recognizing in me a friend, they cast melancholy glances at me, saying in their feline language, to which long use has given me the key:

"These Philistines, busy with their money-getting, despise us; and yet our eyes are as yellow as their louis d'or. Stupid men that they are, they believe us good for nothing but to catch rats; we, the wise, the meditative, the independent, who have slept upon the prophet's sleeve, and lulled his ear with the whir of our mysterious wheel! Pa.s.s your hand over our backs full of electric sparkles--we allow you this liberty, and say to Charles Baudelaire that he must write a fine sonnet, deploring our woes."

As the Lubeck boat was not to leave until the morrow, I went to Wilkin's to get my supper. This famous establishment occupies a low-ceiled bas.e.m.e.nt, which is divided into cabinets ornamented with more show than taste. Oysters, turtle-soup, a truffled filet, and a bottle of Veuve Cliquot iced, composed my simple bill of fare. The place was filled, after the Hamburg fashion, with edibles of all sorts; things early and things out of season, dainties not yet in existence or having long ceased to exist, for the common crowd. In the kitchen they showed us, in great tanks, huge sea-turtles which lifted their scaly heads above the water, resembling snakes caught between two platters. Their little h.o.r.n.y eyes looked with uneasiness at the light which was held near them, and their flippers, like oars of some disabled galley, vaguely moved up and down, as seeking some impossible escape. I trust that the personnel of the exhibition changes occasionally.

In the morning I went for my breakfast to an English restaurant, a sort of pavilion of gla.s.s, whence I had a magnificent panoramic view. The river spread out majestically through a forest of vessels with tall masts, of every build and tonnage. Steam-tugs were beating the water, towing sailing-vessels out to sea; others, moving about freely, made their way hither and thither, with that precision which makes a steam-boat seem like a conscious being, endowed by a will of its own, and served by sentient organs. From the elevation the Elbe is seen, spreading broadly like all great rivers as they near the sea. Its waters, sure of arriving at last, are in no haste; placid as a lake, they flow with an almost invisible motion. The low opposite sh.o.r.e was covered with verdure, and dotted with red houses half-effaced by the smoke from the chimneys. A golden bar of sunshine shot across the plain; it was grand, luminous, superb.

[Footnote A: From "A Winter in Russia." By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1874. Hamburg is now the largest seaport on the continent of Europe. London and New York are the only ports in the world that are larger. Exclusive of its rural territory, it had in 1905 a population of 803,000.]

SCHLESWIG[A]

BY THeOPHILE GAUTIER

When you are in a foreign country, reduced to the condition of a deaf-mute, you can not but curse the memory of him who conceived the idea of building the tower of Babel, and by his pride brought about the confusion of tongues! An omnibus took possession of myself and my trunks, and, with the feeling that it must of necessity take me somewhere, I confidingly allowed myself to be stowed in and carried away. The intelligent omnibus set me down before the best hotel in the town, and there, as circ.u.mnavigators say in their journals, "I held a parley with the natives." Among them was a waiter who spoke French in a way that was transparent enough to give me an occasional glimpse of his meaning; and who--a much rarer thing!--even sometimes understood what I said to him.

My name upon the hotel register was a ray of light. The hostess had been notified of my expected arrival, and I was to be sent for as soon as my appearance should be announced; but it was now late in the evening, and I thought it better to wait till the next day. There was served for supper a "chaud-froid" of partridge--without confiture--and I lay down upon the sofa, hopeless of being able to sleep between the two down-cushions which compose the German and the Danish bed....

I explored Schleswig, which is a city quite peculiar in its appearance.

One wide street runs the length of the town, with which narrow cross streets are connected, like the smaller bones with the dorsal vertebrae of a fish. There are handsome modern houses, which, as usual, have not the slightest character. But the more modest dwellings have a local stamp; they are one-story buildings, very low--not over seven or eight feet in height--capped with a huge roof of fluted red tiles. Windows, broader than they are high, occupy the whole of the front; and behind these windows, spread luxuriantly in porcelain or faience or earthen flowerpots, plants of every description; geraniums, verbenas, fuchsias--and this absolutely without exception. The poorest house is as well adorned as the best. Sheltered by these perfumed window-blinds, the women sit at work, knitting or sewing, and, out of the corner of their eye, they watch, in the little movable mirror which reflects the streets, the rare pa.s.ser-by, whose boots resound upon the pavement. The cultivation of flowers seem to be a pa.s.sion in the north; countries where they grow naturally make but little account of them in comparison.

The church in Schleswig had in store for me a surprise. Protestant churches in general, are not very interesting from an artistic point of view, unless the reformed faith may have installed itself in some Catholic sanctuary diverted from its primitive designation. You find, usually, only whitewashed naves, walls dest.i.tute of painting or bas-relief, and rows of oaken benches well-polished and shining. It is neat and comfortable, but it is not beautiful. The church at Schleswig contains, by a grand, unknown artist, an altar-piece in three parts, of carved wood, representing in a series of bas-reliefs, separated by fine architectural designs, the most important scenes in the drama of the Pa.s.sion.

Around the church stand sepulchral chapels of fine funereal fancy and excellent decorative effect. A vaulted hall contains the tombs of the ancient Dukes of Schleswig; ma.s.sive slabs of stone, blazoned with armorial devices, covered with inscriptions which are not lacking in character.

In the neighborhood of Schleswig are great saline ponds, communicating with the sea. I paced the high-road, remarking the play of light upon this grayish water, and the surface crisped by the wind; occasionally I extended my walk as far as the chateau metamorphosed into a barrack, and the public gardens, a miniature St. Cloud, with its cascade, its dolphins, and its other aquatic monsters all standing idle. A very good sinecure is that of a Triton in a Louis Quinze basin! I should ask nothing better myself.

[Footnote A: From "A Winter in Russia." By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1874.]

LuBECK[A]

BY THeOPHILE GAUTIER

In the evening the train carried me to Lubeck, across magnificent cultivated lands, filled with summer-houses, which lave their feet in the brown water, overhung by spreading willows. This German Venice has its ca.n.a.l, the Brenta, whose villas, tho not built by Sanmichele or Palladio, none the less make a fine show against the fresh green of their surroundings.

On arriving at Lubeck, a special omnibus received me and my luggage, and I was soon set down at the hotel. The city seemed picturesque as I caught a glimpse of it through the darkness by the vague light of lanterns; and in the morning, as I opened my chamber-window, I perceived at once I had not been mistaken.

The opposite house had a truly German aspect. It was extremely high and overtopped by an old-fashioned denticulated gable. At each one of the seven stories of the house, iron cross-bars spread themselves out into cl.u.s.ters of iron-work, supporting the building, and serving at once for use and ornament, in accordance with an excellent principle in architecture, at the present day too much neglected. It is not by concealing the framework, but by making it distinct, that we obtain more character.

This house was not the only one of its kind, as I was able to convince myself on walking a few steps out of doors. The actual Lubeck is still to the eye the Lubeck of the Middle Ages, the old capital of the Hanseatic League.[B] All the drama of modern life is enacted in the old theater whose scenery remains the same, its drop-scene even not repainted. What a pleasure it is to be walking thus amid the outward life of the past, and to contemplate the same dwellings which long-vanished generations have inhabited! Without doubt, the living man has a right to model his sh.e.l.l in accordance with his own habits, his tastes, and his manners; but it can not be denied that a new city is far less attractive than an old one.

When I was a child, I sometimes received for a New Year's present one of those Nuremberg boxes containing a whole miniature German city. In a hundred different ways I arranged the little houses of painted wood around the church, with its pointed belfry and its red walls, where the seam of the bricks was marked by fine white lines. I set out my two dozen frizzed and painted trees, and saw with delight the charmingly outlandish and wildly festal air which these apple-green, pink, lilac, fawn-colored houses with their window-panes, their retreating gables, and their steep roofs, brilliant with red varnish, a.s.sumed, spread out on the carpet.

My idea was that houses like these had no existence in reality, but were made by some kind fairy for extremely good little boys. The marvelous exaggeration of childhood gave this little parti-colored city a respectable development, and I walked through its regular streets, tho with the same precautions as did Gulliver in Liliput. Lubeck gave back to me this long-forgotten feeling of my childish days. I seemed to walk in a city of the imagination, taken out of some monstrous toy-box. I believe, considering all the faultlessly correct architecture that I have been forced to see in my traveler's life, that I really deserved that pleasure by way of compensation.

A cloister, or at least a gallery, a fragment of an ancient monastery, presented itself to view. This colonnade ran the whole length of the square, at the end of which stood the Marienkirche, a brick church of the fourteenth century. Continuing my walk, I found myself in a market-place, where awaited me one of those sights which repay the traveler for much fatigue: a public building of a new, unforeseen, original aspect, the old Stadthaus in which was formerly the Hanse hall, rose suddenly before me.