Seeing Europe with Famous Authors Volume VI Part 2

During my stay in the beautiful b.u.t.ter-colored palace that is now a hotel, I went round the museums, galleries, and universities, most if not all of which are free to the public. It would be unfair to give the idea that Cracow has completely fallen to decay. This is not the case.

Austria has erected some very handsome buildings; and a town with such fine pictures, good museums, and two universities, can not be complained of as moribund. At the same time, I can only record faithfully my impression, and that was that everything new, everything modern, was hopelessly out of tone in Cracow; progress, which, tho' desirable, may be a vulgar thing, would not suit her, and does not seem at home in her streets.

About the Florian's Thor, with its round towers of old, sorrel-colored brick, and the Czartoryski Museum, there is nothing to say that the guide-book would not say better. In the museum, a tattered Polish flag of red silk, with the white eagle, a cheerful bird with curled tail, opened mouth, chirping defiantly to the left, imprest me, and a portrait of Szopen (Chopin) in fine profile when laid out dead. For amus.e.m.e.nt, there was a Paul Potter bull beside a Paul Potter willow, delightfully unconscious of a coming Paul Potter thunderstorm, and a miniature of Shakespeare which did not resemble any of the portraits of him that I am familiar with. Any amount of Turkish trappings and reminiscences of Potocki and Kosciuszko, of course. As I had no guide-book, I am quite prepared to learn that I overlooked the most important relics.

In the cathedral, away up on the hill of Wawel, above the river Vistula (Wisla) I prowled about among the crypts with a curious specimen of beadledom who ran off long unintelligible histories in atrocious Viennese patois about every solemn tomb by which we stood. So far as I was concerned it might just as well have been the functionary who herds small droves of visitors in Westminster Abbey. I never listen to these people, because (i) I do not care to be informed; and (ii) since I should never remember what they said, it is useless my even letting it in at one ear. The kindly, cobwebby old person who piloted me among those wonderful kings' graves in Cracow was personally not uninteresting, indeed a fine study, and his rigmaroles brought up infallibly upon three words which I could not fail to notice: these were "silberner Sarg vergoldet" (silver coffin, gilded). It had an odd fascination for me this phrase, as I stood always waiting for it; why, I wondered, should anybody want to gild a good solid silver coffin?

At the time of my first visit, the excavation necessary to form the crypt for the resting-place of Mickiewicz[18] was in progress, and I went in among the limey, dusty workmen, with their tallow candles, and looked round. In return for my gulden, the beadle gave me a few immortelles from Sobieski's tomb, and some laurel leaves from Kosciuszko's; and remembering friends at home of refinedly ghoulish tastes, I determined to preserve those poor moldering fragments for them.

Most of my days and evenings I spent wandering by the Vistula and in and out of the hundred churches. My plan was to sight a spire, and then walk to the root of it, so to speak. In this manner I saw the town very well.

The houses were of brick and plaster, the rich carmine-red brick that has made Cracow so beautiful. On each was a beautiful facade, and pediments in renaissance, bas-relief work of cupids, and cla.s.sic figures with ribands and roses tying among them, seeming to speak, somehow, of the dead princes and the mighty aristocracy which had cost Cracow so dear.

In the Jews' quarter that loud lifelong market of theirs was going forward, which required seemingly only some small basinfuls of sour Gurken and a few spoonfuls of beans of its stock-in-trade. Mingling among the Jews were the peasants, of course; the men in tightly fitting trousers of white blanket cloth, rich embroidered on the upper part and down the seams in blue and red; the women wearing pink printed muslin skirts, often with a pale blue muslin ap.r.o.n and a lemon-colored fine wool cloth, spotted in pink, upon the head. They manifested a great appreciation of color, but none of form, and after the free dress of the Hucal women, these people, mummied in their red tartan shawls--all hybrid Stewarts, they seemed to me--were merely bright bundles in the sunshine.

In the shops in Cracow, French was nearly always the language of attack, and a good deal was spoken in the hotel. I had occasion to buy a great many things, but, according to my custom, not a photograph was among them; therefore, when I go back, I shall receive perfectly new and fresh impressions of the place, and can cherish no vague memories, encouraged by an alb.u.m at home, in which the nameless cathedrals of many countries confuse themselves, and only the Coliseum at Rome stands forth, not to be contradicted or misnamed.

But it became necessary to put a period to my wandering, unless I wished to find myself stranded in Vienna with "neither cross nor pile." The references to money-matters have been designedly slight throughout these pages. It is not my habit to keep accounts. I have never found that you get any money back by knowing just how you have spent it, and a conscience-p.r.i.c.king record of expenses is very ungrateful reading. So, when a certain beautiful evening came, I felt that I had to look upon it as my last. Being too early for the train, I bid the man drive about in the early summer dark for three-quarters of an hour.

To such as do not care for precise information and statistics in foreign places, but appreciate rather atmosphere and impression, I can recommend this course. In and out among the pretty garden woods, outside the town, we drove. Buildings loomed majestically out of the night; sometimes it was the tower of an unknown church, sometimes it was the house of some forgotten family that sprang suggestively to the eye, and I was grateful that I was left to suppose the indefinite type of Austrian bureau, which occupied, in all probability, the first floor. Then we came to the river, and later, Wawel stood ma.s.sed out black upon the blue, the glorious gravestone of a fallen Power.

All the stars were shining, and little red-yellow lights in the castle windows were not much bigger. Above the whisper of the willows on its bank came the deep, quiet murmur of the Vistula, and every now and then, over the several towers of the solemn old palaces and the spires of the church where Poland has laid her kings, and so recently the king of the poets, the stars were dropping from their places, like sudden spiders, letting themselves down into the vast by faint yellow threads that showed a moment after the star itself was gone.

Later, as I looked from the open gallery of the train that was taking me away, I could not help thinking that, just a hundred years ago, Wawel's star was shining with a light bright enough for all Europe to see; but even as the stars fell that night and left their places empty, so Wawel's star has fallen and Poland's star has fallen too.

ON THE ROAD TO PRAGUE[19]

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

I was pleasantly disappointed on entering Bohemia. Instead of a dull, uninteresting country, as I expected, it is a land full of the most lovely scenery. There is everything which can gratify the eye--high blue mountains, valleys of the sweetest pastoral look and romantic old ruins.

The very name of Bohemia is a.s.sociated with wild and wonderful legends of the rude barbaric ages. Even the chivalric tales of the feudal times of Germany grow tame beside these earlier and darker histories. The fallen fortresses of the Rhine or the robber-castles of the Odenwald had not for me so exciting an interest as the shapeless ruins c.u.mbering these lonely mountains. The civilized Saxon race was left behind; I saw around me the features and heard the language of one of those rude Slavonic tribes whose original home was on the vast steppes of Central Asia.

I have rarely enjoyed traveling more than our first two days' journey toward Prague. The range of the Erzgebirge ran along on our right; the snow still lay in patches upon it, but the valleys between, with their little cl.u.s.ters of white cottages, were green and beautiful. About six miles before reaching Teplitz we pa.s.sed Kulm, the great battlefield which in a measure decided the fate of Napoleon. He sent Vandamme with forty thousand men to attack the allies before they could unite their forces, and thus effect their complete destruction. Only the almost despairing bravery of the Russian guards under Ostermann, who held him in check till the allied troops united, prevented Napoleon's design. At the junction of the roads, where the fighting was hottest, the Austrians have erected a monument to one of their generals. Not far from it is that of Prussia, simple and tasteful. A woody hill near, with the little village of Kulm at its foot, was the station occupied by Vandamme at the commencement of the battle. There is now a beautiful chapel on its summit which can be seen far and wide. A little distance farther the Czar of Russia has erected a third monument, to the memory of the Russians who fell. Four lions rest on the base of the pedestal, and on the top of the shaft, forty-five feet high, Victory is represented as engraving the date, "Aug. 30, 1813," on a shield. The dark pine-covered mountains on the right overlook the whole field and the valley of Torlitz; Napoleon rode along their crests several days after the battle to witness the scene of his defeat.

Teplitz lies in a lovely valley, several miles wide, bounded by the Bohemian mountains on one side and the Erzgebirge on the other. One straggling peak near is crowned with a picturesque ruin, at whose foot the s.p.a.cious bath-buildings lie half hidden in foliage. As we went down the princ.i.p.al street I noticed nearly every house was a hotel; we learned afterward that in summer the usual average of visitors is five thousand.[20] The waters resemble those of the celebrated Carlsbad; they are warm and practically efficacious in rheumatism and diseases of like character. After leaving Teplitz the road turned to the east, toward a lofty mountain which we had seen the morning before. The peasants, as they pa.s.sed by, saluted us with "Christ greet you!"

We stopt for the night at the foot of the peak called the Milleschauer, and must have ascended nearly two thousand feet, for we had a wide view the next morning, altho' the mists and clouds hid the half of it. The weather being so unfavorable, we concluded not to ascend, and descended through green fields and orchards snowy with blossoms to Lobositz, on the Elbe. Here we reached the plains again, where everything wore the luxuriance of summer; it was a pleasant change from the dark and rough scenery we left.

The road pa.s.sed through Theresienstadt, the fortress of Northern Bohemia. The little city is surrounded by a double wall and moat which can be filled with water, rendering it almost impossible to be taken. In the morning we were ferried over the Moldau, and after journeying nearly all day across barren, elevated plains saw, late in the afternoon, the sixty-seven spires of Prague below.

I feel out of the world in this strange, fantastic, yet beautiful, old city. We have been rambling all morning through its winding streets, stopping sometimes at a church to see the dusty tombs and shrines or to hear the fine music which accompanies the morning ma.s.s. I have seen no city yet that so forcibly reminds one of the past and makes him forget everything but the a.s.sociates connected with the scenes around him.

The language adds to the illusion. Three-fourths of the people in the streets speak Bohemian and many of the signs are written in the same tongue.

The palace of the Bohemian kings still looks down on the city from the western heights, and their tombs stand in the cathedral of St. John.

When one has climbed up the stone steps leading to the fortress, there is a glorious prospect before him. Prague with its spires and towers lies in the valleys below, through which curves the Moldau with its green islands, disappearing among the hills which enclose the city on every side. The fantastic Byzantine architecture of many of the churches and towers gives the city a peculiar Oriental appearance; it seems to have been transported from the hills of Syria....

Having found out first a few of the locations, we haunted our way with difficulty through its labyrinths, seeking out every place of note or interest. Reaching the bridge at last, we concluded to cross over and ascend to the Hradschin, the palace of the Bohemian kings. The bridge was commenced in 1357, and was one hundred and fifty years in building.

That was the way the old Germans did their work, and they made a structure which will last a thousand years longer. Every pier is surmounted with groups of saints and martyrs, all so worn and timebeaten that there is little left of their beauty, if they ever had any. The most important of them--at least to Bohemians--is that of St. John Nepomuk, now considered as the patron-saint of the land. He was a priest many centuries ago [1340-1393] whom one of the kings threw from the bridge into the Moldau because he refused to reveal to him what the queen confest. The legend says the body swam for some time on the river with five stars around its head.

Ascending the broad flight of steps to the Hradschin, I paused a moment to look at the scene below. A slight blue haze hung over the cl.u.s.tering towers, and the city looked dim through it, like a city seen in a dream.

It was well that it should so appear, for not less dim and misty are the memories that haunt its walls. There was no need of a magician's wand to bid that light cloud shadow forth the forms of other times. They came uncalled for even by Fancy. Far, far back in the past I saw the warrior-princess who founded the kingly city--the renowned Libussa, whose prowess and talent inspired the women of Bohemia to rise at her death and storm the land that their s.e.x might rule where it obeyed before. On the mountain opposite once stood the palace of the b.l.o.o.d.y Wlaska, who reigned with her Amazon band for seven years over half Bohemia. Those streets below had echoed with the fiery words of Huss, and the castle of his follower--the blind Ziska, who met and defeated the armies of the German Empire--molders on the mountains above. Many a year of war and tempest has pa.s.sed over the scene. The hills around have borne the armies of Wallenstein and Frederick the Great; the war-cry of Bavaria, Sweden and Poland has echoed in the valley, and the red glare of the midnight cannon or the flames of burning palaces have often gleamed along the "blood-dyed waters" of the Moldau...

On the way down again we stept into the St. Nicholas Church, which was built by the Jesuits. The interior has a rich effect, being all of brown and gold. The ma.s.sive pillars are made to resemble reddish-brown marble, with gilded capitals, and the statues at the base are profusely ornamented in the same style. The music chained me there a long time.

There was a grand organ, a.s.sisted by a full orchestra and large choir of singers. It was placed above, and at every sound of the priest's bell the flourish of trumpets and deep roll of the drums filled the dome with a burst of quivering sound, while the giant pipes of the organ breathed out their full harmony and the very air shook under the peal. It was like a triumphal strain. The soul became filled with thoughts of power and glory; every sense was changed into one dim, indistinct emotion of rapture which held the spirit as if spellbound.

Not far from this place is the palace of Wallenstein, in the same condition as when he inhabited it. It is a plain, large building having beautiful gardens attached to it, which are open to the public. We went through the courtyard, threaded a pa.s.sage with a roof of rough stalact.i.tic rock and entered the garden, where a revolving fountain was casting up its glittering arches.

THE CAVE OF ADELSBERG[21]

BY GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD

The night had been pa.s.sed at Adelsberg, and the morning had been agreeably occupied in exploring the wonders of its celebrated cavern.

The entrance is through an opening in the side of a hill. In a few moments, after walking down a gentle descent, a sound of flowing water is heard, and the light of the torches borne by the guides gleams faintly upon a river which runs through these sunless chasms, and revisits the glimpses of day at Planina, some ten miles distant.

The visitor now finds himself in a vast hall, walled and roofed by impenetrable darkness of the stream, which is crossed by a wooden bridge; and the ascent on the other side is made by a similar flight of steps. The bridge and steps are marked by a double row of lights, which present a most striking appearance as their tremulous l.u.s.ter struggles through the night that broods over them. Such a scene recalls Milton's sublime pictures of Pandemonium, and shows directly to the eye what effects a great imaginative painter may produce with no other colors than light and darkness. Here are the "stately height," the "ample s.p.a.ces," the "arched roof," the rows of "starry lamps and blazing cressets" of Satan's hall of council; and by the excited fancy the dim distance is easily peopled with gigantic forms and filled with the "rushing of congregated wings."

After this, one is led through a variety of chambers, differing in size and form, but essentially similar in character, and the attention is invited to the innumerable mult.i.tude of striking and fantastic objects which have been formed in the lapse of ages, by the mere dropping of water. Pendants hang from the roof, stalagmites grow from the floor like petrified stumps, and pillars and b.u.t.tresses are disposed as oddly as in the architecture of a dream. Here, we are told to admire a bell, and there, a throne; here, a pulpit, and there, a butcher's shop; here, "the two hearts," and there, a fountain frozen into alabaster; and in every case we a.s.sent to the resemblance in the unquestioning mood of Polonius.

One of the chambers, or halls, is used every year as a ball-room, for which purpose it has every requisite except an elastic floor, even to a natural dais for the orchestra.

Here, with the sort of pride with which a book collector shows a Mazarin Bible or a folio Shakespeare, the guides point out a beautiful piece of limestone which hangs from the roof in folds as delicate as a Cashmere shawl, to which the resemblance is made more exact by a well-defined border of deeper color than the web. Through this translucent curtain the light shines as through a picture in porcelain, and one must be very unimpressible not to bestow the tribute of admiration which is claimed.

These are the trivial details which may be remembered and described, but the general effect produced by the darkness, the silence, the vast s.p.a.ces, the innumerable forms, the vaulted roofs, the pillars and galleries melting away in the gloom like the long-drawn aisles of a cathedral, may be recalled but not communicated.

To see all these marvels requires much time, and I remained under ground long enough to have a new sense of the blessing of light. The first glimpse of returning day seen through the distant entrance brought with it an exhilarating sense of release, and the blue sky and cheerful sunshine were welcomed like the faces of long absent friends. A cave like that of Adelsberg--for all limestone caves are, doubtless, essentially similar in character--ought by all means to be seen if it comes in one's way, because it leaves impressions upon the mind unlike those derived from any other object. Nature stamps upon most of her operations a certain character of gravity and majesty. Order and symmetry attend upon her steps, and unity in variety is the law by which her movements are guided. But, beneath the surface of the earth, she seems a frolicsome child, or a sportive undine, who wreaths the unmanageable stone into weird and quaint forms, seemingly from no other motive than pure delight in the exercise of overflowing power.

Everything is playful, airy, and fantastic; there is no spirit of soberness; no reference to any ulterior end; nothing from which food, fuel, or raiment can be extracted. These chasms have been scooped out, and these pillars have been reared, in the spirit in which the bird sings, or the kitten plays with the falling leaves. From such scenes we may safely infer that the plan of the Creator comprehends something more than material utility, that beauty is its own vindictator and interpreter, that sawmills were not the ultimate cause of mountain streams, nor wine-bottles of cork-trees.

THE MONASTERY OF MoLK[22]

BY THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN

We had determined upon dining at Molk the next day. The early morning was somewhat inauspicious; but as the day advanced, it grew bright and cheerful. Some delightful glimpses of the Danube, to the left, from the more elevated parts of the road, accompanied us the whole way, till we caught the first view, beneath a bright blue sky, of the towering church and Monastery of Molk.

Conceive what you please, and yet you shall not conceive the situation of this monastery. Less elevated above the road than Chremsminster, but of a more commanding style of architecture, and of considerably greater extent, it strikes you--as the Danube winds round and washes its rocky base--as one of the n.o.blest edifices in the world. The wooded heights of the opposite side of the Danube crown the view of this magnificent edifice, in a manner hardly to be surpa.s.sed. There is also a beautiful play of architectural lines and ornament in the front of the building, indicative of a pure Italian taste, and giving to the edifice, if not the air of towering grandeur, at least of dignified splendor....

As usual, I ordered a late dinner, intending to pay my respects to the Princ.i.p.al, and obtain permission to inspect the library. My late monastic visits had inspired me with confidence; and I marched up the steep sides of the hill, upon which the monastery is built, quite a.s.sured of the success of the visit I was about to pay. You must now accompany the bibliographer to the monastery. In five minutes from entering the outer gate of the first quadrangle--looking toward Vienna, and which is the more ancient part of the building--I was in conversation with the Vice-Princ.i.p.al and Librarian, each of us speaking Latin. I delivered the letter which I had received at Salzburg, and proceeded to the library.

The view from this library is really enchanting, and put everything seen from a similar situation at Landshut and almost even at Chremsminster, out of my recollection. You look down upon the Danube, catching a fine sweep of the river, as it widens in its course toward Vienna. A man might sit, read, and gaze--in such a situation--till he fancied he had scarcely one earthly want! I now descended a small staircase, which brought me directly into the large library--forming the right wing of the building, looking up the Danube toward Lintz. I had scarcely uttered three notes of admiration, when the Abbe Strattman entered; and to my surprise and satisfaction, addrest me by name. We immediately commenced an ardent unintermitting conversation in the French language, which the Abbe speaks fluently and correctly.

I now took a leisurely survey of the library; which is, beyond all doubt, the finest room of its kind which I have seen upon the Continent--not for its size, but for its style of architecture, and the materials of which it is composed. I was told that it was "the Imperial Library in miniature,"--but with this difference, let me here add, in favor of Molk--that it looks over a magnificently wooded country, with the Danube rolling its rapid course at its base. The wainscot and shelves are walnut tree, of different shades, inlaid, or dovetailed, surmounted by gilt ornaments. The pilasters have Corinthian capitals of gilt; and the bolder or projecting parts of a gallery, which surrounds the room, are covered with the same metal. Everything is in harmony.

This library may be about a hundred feet in length, by forty in width.

It is sufficiently well furnished with books, of the ordinary useful cla.s.s, and was once, I suspect, much richer in the bibliographical lore of the fifteenth century.

On reaching the last descending step, just before entering the church, the Vice-Princ.i.p.al bade me look upward and view the corkscrew staircase.

I did so; and to view and admire was one and the same operation of the mind. It was the most perfect and extraordinary thing of the kind which I had ever seen--the consummation, as I was told, of that particular species of art. The church is the very perfection of ecclesiastical Roman architecture; that of Chremsminster, altho' fine, being much inferior to it in loftiness and richness of decoration. The windows are fixt so as to throw their concentrated light beneath a dome, of no ordinary height, and of no ordinary elegance of decoration; but this dome is suffering from damp, and the paintings upon the ceiling will, unless repaired, be effaced in the course of a few years.

The church is in the shape of a cross; and at the end of each of the transepts, is a rich altar, with statuary, in the style of art usual about a century ago. The pews--made of dark mahogany or walnut tree, much after the English fashion, but lower and more tasteful--are placed on each side of the nave, or entering; with ample s.p.a.ce between them.

They are exclusively appropriated to the tenants of the monastery. At the end of the nave, you look to the left, opposite--and observe, placed in a recess--a pulpit, which, from top to bottom, is completely covered with gold. And yet, there is nothing gaudy or tasteless, or glaringly obtrusive, in this extraordinary clerical rostrum. The whole is in the most perfect taste; and perhaps more judgment was required to manage such an ornament, or appendage--consistently with the splendid style of decoration exacted by the founder, for it was expressly the Prelate Dietmayr's wish that it should be so adorned,--than may on first consideration be supposed. In fact, the whole church is in a blaze of gold; and I was told that the gilding alone cost upward of ninety thousand florins. Upon the whole, I understood that the church of this monastery was considered as the most beautiful in Austria; and I can easily believe it to be so.