Gérard de Nerval

Travels in the Near East (Voyage en Orient, 1843)

Part II: Introduction – Towards the Orient (1839-40, 1842-43)

From Paris to Cythera: Chapters 6-11

Schönbrunn. The Palace Square, Vienna, 1815 - 1856, Rudolf von Alt

Schönbrunn. The Palace Square, Vienna, 1815 - 1856, Rudolf von Alt
Rijksmuseum

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Chapter 6: Amorous Adventures in Vienna.
Chapter 7: Journal Entries Continued — I.
Chapter 8: Journal Entries Continued — II.
Chapter 9: Journal Entries Continued — III.
Chapter 10: Journal Entries Continued — IV.
Chapter 11: The Adriatic.

Chapter 6: Amorous Adventures in Vienna

You made me promise to send you my sentimental impressions of my travels, from time to time, which would interest you more, you told me, than any picturesque description. I will begin. Let Laurence Sterne (see his ‘Sentimental Journey through France and Italy’) and Giacomo Casanova (see his ‘Memoirs’) be of assistance to me in distracting you. I will simply advise you to reread them, while confessing that your friend has neither the style of the former nor the numerous merits of the latter, and that by parodying them he may seriously compromise the esteem in which you hold him. Yet, since it is, above all, a question of serving you by providing you with observations from which your philosophy may draw maxims, I have decided to tell you, at random, everything that happens to me, interesting or not, and day by day if I can, in the manner of Captain James Cook, who writes that he saw a gull or a penguin on such and such a day, and only a floating tree trunk on another; or, here the sea was clear; there, muddy. But, amidst those idle signs, those changing waves, he dreamt of unknown, perfumed islands, and ended by landing, one evening, among those retreats of pure love and eternal beauty.

November 21st, 1839. —I was leaving the Leopoldstädter theatre. I must tell you first that I understand very little of the Viennese dialect. It is therefore important that I seek some pretty girl in the city who will be kind enough to acquaint me with the common tongue. Such was Byron’s advice to travellers. For three days now I have been pursuing brunettes and blondes commonly called sperls (sparrows: there are almost only blondes here), through theatres, casinos and dance-halls, and generally received scant welcome from them. Yesterday, at the Leopoldstädter theatre, I was outside, having reserved a seat: a charming young blonde asked me, at the door, if the performance had started. I chatted with her, and obtained this information, that she was a maid, and that her mistress, wishing them to enter together, had told her to wait at the theatre door. I made, on receiving this news, the most exorbitant offers; I spoke of a front, a proscenium, box; I promised a splendid supper, but found myself refused with outrage. The women here are ready with such superlatives, which, however, one should not fear too much, to combat the insolent.

The girl seemed very worried by her mistress’s non-arrival. She began to race along the boulevard; I followed her, taking her arm, a very beautiful one. During our travels, she spoke to me in various languages, which allowed me to grasp most of what she was saying. Here is her story. She was born in Venice, and was brought to Vienna by her mistress, who is French; so that, as she told me, smilingly, she knows no language well, but speaks a little of three of them. A concept fit for a comedy by Machiavelli or Molière! Her name is Catarina Colassa. I told her in good German (which she understands well, and speaks badly) that I could not bring myself to desert her, and I constructed a sort of rather pleasant madrigal. At that moment, we were in front of her house; She asked me to wait, then came back to tell me that her mistress was in fact at the theatre, and that we had to return.

Returning to the theatre door, I still offered a proscenium box; but she refused once more, and purchased an upper gallery seat at the ticket-office; I was obliged to follow, exchanging my lower gallery seat for an upper, which greatly astonished the ticket-seller. There, she gave herself over to expressions of joy on seeing her mistress in a box, beside a gentleman with a moustache. She was obliged to go and speak to her; on her return she told me the show did not amuse her, and that we would do better to go for a walk: they were performing a play by Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer (Robert der Tieger); and, indeed, it was unamusing. So we went to the Prater, and I attempted, as you can imagine, the most complex of seductions.

My friend! Imagine her a beauty of the kind we have so often dreamed of — the ideal woman from some painting of the Italian school, the Venetian described by Marco Gozzi, bionda e grassota (blonde and ample, see Gozzi’s ‘Memori Inutili: Book III’), here she is, found! I regret not being well-skilled enough as an artist to sketch all her features exactly. Picture to yourself a ravishing blonde head; pale satin skin, as if it had been preserved under glass; the noblest features, an aquiline nose, high forehead, cherry-red lips; then a long, sleek pigeon’s neck, encircled by a pearl necklace; and firm white shoulders, implying the strength of Hercules yet the slenderness and charm of a two-year-old child. I explained to this beauty that she pleased me, above all, because she was, so to speak, Austro-Venetian, and that she realised in herself alone the whole Holy Roman Empire, which compliment seemed to move her but little.

I led her back to the theatre through a somewhat tangled web of streets. As I did not know the address where I might find her again, she was kind enough to write it down, by the light of a street lamp — and I enclose it for you to show you that it was no easier to decipher her writing than her speech. I am afraid that these characters are not in any known language; so, you’ll see that I’ve traced a map in the margin so as to recognise her door the more surely.

Now, here is the sequel to my adventure. She had arranged to meet me in the street at noon: I arrived early to stand guard in front of the sacred dwelling, number 189. As no one descended, I ascended. I found an old woman on the landing, cooking on a large stove, and, as an older woman usually announces one to a younger one, I spoke to her; she smiled and made me wait. Five minutes later, the beautiful blonde appeared at the door and asked me to enter. It was a large room; she was having lunch with her mistress and asked me to sit behind her on a chair. The lady turned round: she was a tall, bony young person, who asked me, in French, my name, my intentions and all sorts of details; then said to me:

— ‘That’s all fine; but I need this young lady till five today; after that, she is free for the evening.’

The pretty blonde walked me out, smilingly, and said:

— ‘At five o’clock’.

Here I am; I write to you from a café where I wait for the hour to strike; though all this seems very much like a shepherd mooning over his shepherdess.

November 22nd. — But that’s another matter! Let me resume the thread of events. Yesterday, at five, Catarina, or rather Katty, as she is called at home, came to see me in the kaffeehaus where I awaited her. She was very charming, with a pretty silk headdress covering her beautiful hair; — hats here are worn only by society women. — We were to attend the Kärntnertortheater, to see Donizetti’s opera Belisario performed; but now she wanted to return to the Leopoldstädter, telling me that she must return early. The Kärntnertortheater is at the other end of the city. Well! We reached the Leopoldstädter; she wanted to pay for her seat, declaring to me that she was not a grisette (as we say in French), and that she wished to pay or she would not enter. Ah! If only all ladies understood such delicacy!... It seems it remains a custom of this particular country.

Alas, my friend, I make a very feeble Don Juan! I tried the darkest seduction, but nothing worked. I was obliged to see her leave, and leave alone! At least, at the entrance to her street. But she made an appointment for five o’clock the next day, which is today.

Now here is where my Iliad begins to turn into an Odyssey. At five o’clock, I was walking in front of the door of number 189, treading the flagstones with a proud step; Catarina did not emerge from her house. I wearied of my patrol (may the National Guard protect you from such a chore in bad weather!). I enter the house, I knock; a young girl comes out, takes my hand, and walks along the street with me. This is not a bad sign. Then, she explains to me that I must go away, that the mistress is furious, and that, moreover, Catarina had gone to my lodgings during the day to warn me. As for myself, I have lost the thread of her German; I imagine, on the strength of a verb of doubtful conjugation, that she means that Catarina cannot go out yet, and asks me to wait a little longer; I answer: ‘That’s fine!’ and continue to beat the pavement in front of the house. Then, the girl returns, and when I explain to her that her pronunciation seems to alter the meaning of her words a little, she runs inside, and brings me a scrap of paper containing what she had said. The scrap of paper tells me that Catarina has gone to find me at the Black Eagle, where I am staying. So I run to the Black Eagle; the boy tells me that indeed a young girl has asked for me during the day; I let out eagle-like cries, and return to number 189: I knock; the person who had already spoken to me descends; there in the street, she listens to me with angelic patience; I explain my position; we fail to agree on a word; she enters, and returns with her written answer. Catarina does not live in the house; she only comes during the day, and for the moment she is not there. Will she return in the evening? She doesn’t know; but I have achieved a greater clarity. The young person, a model, moreover, of kindness and patience (picture this girl in the street throwing ashes on the fire of my passion?) tells me that the lady, the mistress, was very angry (and she expresses this anger to me by expressive gestures).

— ‘And so?’...

— ‘It’s just that Catarina has another lover in town.’

— ‘Oh, indeed!’ I said to that. (You understand me, I had no expectation of winning over a freshly minted heart). ‘Well, enough; I know; I’m happy for her, I’ll take care not to compromise her.’

— ‘No, no,’ replied the young girl (I’ll edit this whole dialogue a little for you, or rather condense it), ‘my mistress was angry because the young man came last night seeking Catarina, who had told him that her mistress needed her till evening; he found her absent, since she was with you, and they conversed for such a long time.’

Now, my friend, this is how I am situated: I was planning to take her to the play this evening, then to the Gespräch, where they play music and sing, and I am here, alone, at half-past six, drinking a glass of rosolio (an Italian cordial comprised of spirits and sugar) in the gasthof, waiting for the theatre to open. But poor Catarina! I shall not see her until tomorrow; I shall wait for her in the street as she passes on her way to her mistress’s house, and I shall know all!

November 23rd. — I realise that I have not yet spoken about the city. However, I needed to set the scene a little with regard to my romantic adventures, because they are not yet at an end. Also, though I would like to describe Vienna for you, I have delayed so long in doing so that I no longer know what to say, or how to interest you; the task would have been easier for me immediately on arrival, because everything astonished me, everything was still new to me, the dress, the customs, the language, the appearance of this great city, situated almost at the extremity of civilised Europe, rich and proud like Paris, and which does not yet borrow from Paris all its fashions, nor all its pleasures; these contrasts, I say, seized me vividly, and I was set to render them with warmth and poetry. Today, I am too familiar with all its novelties; now, I am as embarrassed as a Parisian would be if asked for a description of Paris; I have become quite the Viennese habitué, living according to their customs without thinking of them further, and forced to make an effort to recall how they differ from ours. It is true that having penetrated deeper into society, I will now have to descend somewhat if I want to seek that local individuality which scarcely exists anywhere except in the lower classes. I need to do as the good Hoffmann’s hero did, who, on New Year’s Eve (see Ernst Hoffman’s tale of that name) leaving the lawyer’s party in his doublet and hose, had so imbibed of aesthete’s tea that, on the way, he remembered ‘the poor creature small beer’ (see Shakespeare’s ‘Henry IV Part II, Act 2, Scene 2, Prince Hal speaking’). It was then that, in defiance of a host of social and private considerations, he did not fear to descend, in gala dress, the worn steps of that illustrious beer-cellar, where he was to meet, at the same table, the fellow who’d lost his shadow, and the one who’d lost his reflection in the mirror.

Don’t be surprised, then, if I speak to you alternately of the palace and the tavern; my status as a foreigner gives me the right to frequent both, to rub shoulders with a Bohemian or a Styrian peasant, dressed in animal skins, and a prince or a magnate, dressed in a black tailcoat like myself. But these last, you know them well; they are people of our Parisian world; they have rendered themselves our fellow citizens and our equals, in so far as they can, like those kings of the East who once showed themselves proud of the title of Roman bourgeoisie. Let us begin, then, with the street and the tavern, and later we will visit, if we wish, the palace, when adorned, illuminated, full of dazzling costumes and sublime artists; when, by dint of splendour and wealth, it has ceased to resemble our hotels and houses.

Well, this is a city that must be explored in every detail; for its inhabitants are singular, and yet at first appearance it reveals nothing but the most commonplace of aspects. One traverses broad suburbs with uniform housing; then, in the midst of a belt of walks, beyond an enclosure of ditches and walls, one finally encounters the city, as large, at most, as a district of Paris. Suppose one isolated the area around the Palais-Royal there, and, having endowed it with the walls of a fortified city, and boulevards a mile wide, ignored the whole extent of the surrounding suburbs, then you would have a complete idea of Vienna’s situation, its degree of wealth, and activity. Might you not, immediately, think that a city built in such a way offers scant transition between luxury and misery, and that the central district, full of splendour and wealth, requires, indeed, bastions and ditches to isolate it, so as to keep the poor labouring suburbs in check? Though this is a view, entirely liberal and French in nature, which the happy people of Vienna have, certainly, never held. For my part, I recalled a few pages of a novel, entitled, I believe, Frederick Styndall (by Auguste Kératry), whose hero felt mortally sad the day he arrived in this capital city. It was around three o’clock, on a misty autumn day; the wide avenues which separate the two regions of the city were filled with elegant men and brilliant women, whose carriages waited at the roadside; further on, a motley crowd pressed beneath the dark gates, and suddenly, on passing through the enclosure, the young man found himself in the very heart of the great city. And woe to him who does not drive a carriage on these beautiful granite paving stones, woe to the poor, the dreamer, the idle passer-by! There is room here only for the rich and their servants, for bankers and merchants. The carriages pass each other noisily in the darkness, which descends so quickly in the middle of these narrow streets, between these tall houses; the shops soon burst with light and wealth; the large vestibules are lit up, and enormous Swiss, richly-braided, await, almost at every door, the carriages which are gradually returning. Unheard-of luxury in the city centre, and poverty in the districts surrounding it: that is Vienna at first glance. All this luxury frightened Frederick Styndall; he said to himself that it would take a lot of audacity to enter this special world, so well-walled and so well guarded, and it was while thinking of this, I believe, that he was knocked down by the carriage of a beautiful and noble lady, who became his patroness and the source of his fortune.

If I remember correctly, that is how the novel, forgotten today, begins. I regret not having gained any other impression, since that first one is just and true; at the same time, nothing is sadder than being forced to leave, in the evening, the ardent and illuminated centre, and traverse again, so as to regain the suburbs, the long promenades, with their lantern-lit avenues which intersect each other as far as the horizon: the poplars shiver under a perpetual breeze; one is forever forced to cross the black water of some river or canal, while the lugubrious sounds of the clocks alone warns one, on all sides, that one is in the heart of a city. But, on reaching the suburbs, one feels as if in another world, where one breathes more easily; it is the abode of a good, intelligent, joyful population; the streets are, at once, calm and animated; if carriages still circulate, it is only in the direction of the dance-halls and theatres. At every step, there’s the sound of music and dancing, bands of cheerful companions singing opera choruses; cellars and taverns compete by means of illuminated signs and bizarre placards: here, one hears Styrian singers; there, Italian improvisers; comical monkeys, a Hercules, a premier singer from the Paris Opera; a Moravian lion-tamer, Isaac van Amburg, with his beasts; and a host of acrobats; in truth, everything that we see in Paris only on major holidays is lavished on these tavern regulars without the slightest hope of remuneration. On a higher note, the poster of a sperl framed in coloured glass, is addressed to the grand nobility, as well as honourable soldiers, and the amiable public; the masked balls, the undress balls, the balls dedicated to this or that saint, are uniformly directed by Johann Strauss or by Joseph Lanner, the Philippe Musard and Louis Jullien of Vienna; such is the whole country’s taste. The former two illustrious conductors nonetheless preside, equally, over the festivities of the court and those of each wealthy mansion; and, as they are recognised, doubtless, everywhere they are announced, I suspect them of having had wax masks made in their image, which they distribute among their skilled lieutenants. But we will speak later of the sperls, and the dance-halls similar to our Prado in Paris, and Vauxhall Gardens in London; we will also dive without hesitation into a cave, and we will find there something truly German, that dense cigar-smoke which intoxicated Hoffmann, and that strange atmosphere amidst which Goethe and Schiller often make their grotesque or savage worker or student types move.

Let us enter the popular Leopoldstädter theatre, where they perform many an amusing local farce (in Vienna, a ‘locale posse’), which I attend very often, since I am lodged in the Leopoldstadt suburb, the only one which borders on the central city, from which it is separated only by a branch of the Danube.

Chapter 7: Journal Entries Continued — I

November 23rd. —Yesterday evening, finding myself idling in the theatre, and almost alone among the so-called civilised, the rest being composed of Hungarians, Bohemians, Greeks, Turks, Tyroleans, Romans and Transylvanians, I thought of recommencing my role of Casanova, already quite well begun the day before yesterday. The role seemed more likely to succeed than might appear, given the customs of the country. I sat down near to two or three women, on their own, in succession; I ended by starting a conversation with one whose language was not overly Viennese; afterwards, I wanted to attend on her, but she only allowed me to touch her arm for a moment under her coat (another very beautiful arm!) among all sorts of silks, and pelts or furs. We walked for a very long time, then I left her at her door, she not seeking, however, to admit me; though she gave me an appointment for this evening at six.

A second adventure! This girl is not quite as attractive as the other, but seems to be of a higher class. I shall find out this evening. But does it not astound you, that a stranger could become intimately acquainted with two women in three days, that one should come to meet him, and that he should go to visit the other? And no suspicious appearance to all this. No, I had been told so, but refused to believe it; this is how love is handled in Vienna! Well, it is charming. In Paris, women make you suffer for three months, such is the rule; and few men have the patience to wait for them. Here, arrangements are made in three days, and one senses from the first that the woman would yield, if she were not afraid of giving you the impression of being a grisette; for that, it seems, is their great concern. Besides, nothing is more entertaining than this ready pursuit in the theatres, casinos and dance-halls; it is so well received that the most honest are not surprised in the least; at least two thirds of the women arrive at gatherings alone, or walk alone in the streets. If you happen to come across one of the virtues, your advances fail to offend her in the least, she talks with you for as long as you wish. Any woman you approach lets you take her arm and attend upon her; then, at her door, where you hope to enter, she gives you a very kind and mocking farewell, thanks you for having shown her home, and tells you her husband or father awaits her in the house. Make a point of seeing her again, and she will tell you clearly that, the next day, or the day following, she must attend a certain ball or a certain theatre. If at the theatre, while you are talking with a woman alone, the husband or lover, who has gone for a walk among the galleries, or down to the café, suddenly returns, he is not surprised to see you talking familiarly; he greets you and looks the other way, happy it seems to be relieved of his wife’s company for a while.

I speak to you here from my own experience a little, and more from that of others — yet to what can it be due? For, truly, I have seen nothing like it even in Italy — doubtless, to the fact that there are so many beautiful women in the city, that the men who suit them are, in proportion, much less numerous. In Paris, pretty women are so rare, that they are put out to auction; they are pampered, kept, and feel the full worth of their beauty. Here, women belittle themselves and their charms; for it is evident that such are as common as those of beautiful flowers, creatures, birds, which, indeed, are commonplace so long as one takes care to tend and nourish them well. Now, the fertility of this country render life so easy, so pleasant, that there are few ill-nourished women, and consequently, one sees none of those dreadful species of which our tradeswomen or countrywomen are composed. You cannot imagine how extraordinary it is to meet, at every moment, in the streets, radiant girls with wondrous complexions who are surprised that you even notice them.

This atmosphere of beauty, grace, and amorousness, has something intoxicating about it: one loses one’s head, one sighs, one is madly in love, not with one, but with all these women at once. The odor di femina is everywhere in the air, and one breathes it in from afar, like Don Juan. What a pity it’s not Spring! A sunlit landscape is needed to complete so beautiful an impression. However, the season is not yet without its charms. This morning, I entered the great Imperial Garden, at the end of the city; there was no one visible. The wide paths ended, far away, in charming grey and blue views. Beyond there is a large hilly park with ponds, which is full of birds. The flowerbeds were so spoiled by the bad weather, that the flowers on the ruined rosebushes were left trailing in the mud. Beyond, the view gave on the Prater and the Danube; it was delightful in spite of the cold. Ah! You see, we are still young, younger than we thought. But then Paris is such an ugly city, and populated by such stupid people, that it makes one despair of all creation, of women and poetry too....

December 7th. — I am transcribing five lines onto another sheet. Days have passed since the four preceding pages were written. You have received letters from me, you have seen the cheerful side of my situation, and a fortnight separates me from those first impressions of my stay in Vienna. However, there is a close connection between what I am about to say and what I wrote previously. The outcome you might have foreseen by reading my first pages has remained in suspension all this time.... You know very well I’m incapable of telling stories merely for fun, or spending my feelings on imaginary events, do you not? Well, if you’ve taken an interest in my first adventures in Vienna, read and learn....

December 13th. — So many events have happened since those first four days which provided the commencement to my letter, that I find it difficult to connect them to what is happening today. I dare not claim my career as Don Juan has continued with the same good fortune.... Katty is in Brünn (Brno) at this moment with her mother, who is ill; I was to go and join her there by the fine stretch of track, thirty leagues in length, which begins at the Prater; but that kind of journey strains my nerves in the most unbearable manner. Meanwhile, here is a further adventure, which has only just commenced, and of which I faithfully send you the initial details.

As a general observation, know that in this city no woman has a natural way of progressing. You note one, you follow her; she makes the most incredible turns and zigzags from street to street. Choose a somewhat deserted place to approach her, and she will never refuse you an answer. This is widely accepted. A Viennese woman will not demur. If she has someone already (I am not talking about the husband, who is never of any account), if, ultimately, she is too preoccupied for various reasons, she will tell you so and advise you not to seek a meeting till the following week, or to be patient, without fixing a date. It is never long denied; the lovers who have preceded you become your best friends.

Thus, I had followed a beauty whom I had noticed in the Prater, where crowds hasten to view the sleighs, and reached her door without our speaking, since it was broad daylight. These sorts of adventures amuse me infinitely. Fortunately, there was a café almost opposite the house. So, I returned, at dusk, to sit near the window. As I had expected, the lovely person in question soon emerged. I followed her, spoke to her, and she told me simply to give her my arm, so that passers-by would not note us. Then she led me through all sorts of neighbourhoods: first to a shop on the Kohlmarkt, where she bought some mittens; then to a pastry-maker, where we shared a cake; finally, she took me back to the house from which she had exited, spent an hour conversing with me on the doorstep, and told me to return the following evening. Next day, I returned faithfully, knocked at the door, and suddenly found myself in the midst of a group consisting of two other young girls, and three men dressed in sheepskins, and wearing something akin to Wallachian hats. Since the company received me cordially, I prepared to be seated: but no. The candles were extinguished, and we set off for somewhere in the suburbs. No one disputed my conquest of the day before, though one of the individuals was after a wife, and we arrived, finally, at a smoke-filled tavern. There, representatives of the seven or eight nations who share the good city of Vienna seemed to have gathered for their entertainment. It seemed they were drinking sweet red wine, mixed with an older white wine. We drank a few carafes of the mixture. It was pleasant enough. At the rear of the room, there was a sort of platform where they were singing plaintively in an obscure language, the lyrics seeming to greatly amuse those who understood them. The young man lacking a wife sat down beside me, and, as he spoke fluent German, a rare thing in this country, I enjoyed the conversation. As for the woman with whom I had come, she was absorbed in the spectacle in front of us. Indeed, true comic-opera scenes were being played out, before us. Four or five singers, performed, left the stage, and then reappeared in fresh costumes. They played complete pieces, with songs and choruses. During the intervals, the Moldavians, Hungarians, Bohemians and others consumed dishes of hare and veal. The woman, who sat near me, gradually became more animated, thanks to the red wine blended with white. She looked most charming then, being ordinarily a little pale. She is a true Slavonic beauty; broad, solid features indicating her unmixed heritage.

It should be noted that the most beautiful women here are those of the commoners, and the aristocracy. I am writing to you from a café, where I am waiting for the hour when the entertainment begins; but the ink is of poor quality, and I shall delay continuing my observations.

Chapter 8: Journal Entries Continued — II

December 31, 1839. New Year’s Eve. — ‘A devil of a sugar-candy lawyer!’ as Hoffmann said, on this very day (see again Hoffman’s story ‘New Year’s Eve’ where the hero fleeing the lawyer’s diabolical party, dreams that the latter is made of sugar candy). You’ll understand the import of my comment.

I write to you, not from that smoky tavern, from the depths of that fantastic cellar whose steps were so worn that, as soon as one set foot on the first, one felt oneself unwittingly borne downstairs, and seated at a table, between a jug of old wine and one of new, while at the other end were ‘the man who had lost his reflection’ and ‘the man who had lost his shadow’ in grave conversation; rather I’ll describe a tavern no less smoky, but much more brilliant than the Rathskeller in Bremen, or Auerbachs Keller in Leipzig; a certain cellar that I discovered near the Red Gate (Rotenturmtor), and which you should know about; for it is the very one concerning which I have already said a few words in my previous letter.... There the preface to my amorous adventure was sketched.

It is indeed a cellar, vast, and deep: to the right of the door is the host’s counter, surrounded by a tall rail laden with pewter pots; from there flow, in abundance, the imperial beers of Bavaria and Bohemia, as well as the red and white wines of Hungary, notable for their bizarre names. To the left of the entrance is a vast buffet loaded with meat, pastries, and sweets, and where the wiener schnitzel, that favourite dish of the Viennese, continually steams. Lively serving-girls distribute the dishes, table to table, while the waiters undertake the more strenuous task of delivering beer and wine. All sup in this way, with aniseed cakes for bread, or cakes with a salty glaze which rouses a thirst. Let us not linger in the first room, which serves both as an office for the host and a backstage for the actors. Here, there are only dancers donning their shoes, young leading-ladies dabbing on their rouge, and soldiers dressed as extras; there, are the waltzers’ dressing-room, and the refuge of those surly dogs who are hostile to music and dance, and the rest room for the Jewish tradesmen, who go about, in the intervals between the plays, waltzes, and songs, offering their perfumes, oriental fruits, or innumerable tickets for the great Meidling lottery.

It is necessary to climb several steps, and push through the crowd, in order to reach the main room at last: it is, as usual, a regularly arched vault, walled-about; tightly-packed tables line the walls, but the centre is left free for dancing. The decoration is painted en rocaille; and, at the back, behind the musicians and actors, there is a sort of bower of vines and trellises. As for the company, it’s very mixed, one might say; nothing low however; the costumes are extravagant rather than poor. The Hungarians wear semi-military dress, for the most part, with bright silk braid, and large silver buttons; the Bohemian peasants have long white coats, and small round hats crowned with ribbons or flowers. The Styrians are remarkable for their green hats decorated with feathers, and their Tyrolean hunter’s costumes; Serbs and Turks are scarcer amidst this bizarre assembly of the many peoples to which Austria is home, and among which the true Austrian population is perhaps the least numerous.

As for the women, apart from a few Hungarians, whose costume is half-Greek, they are generally dressed very simply; almost all are beautiful, lissom, and well-made, most of them blonde, and of a magnificent complexion. They abandon themselves to the waltz with singular ardour. Scarcely has the orchestra finished playing a prelude than they rush from the tables, leaving their half-empty glasses and their interrupted suppers, and there commences, amidst the noise and thick tobacco smoke, a whirlwind of waltzes and gallops of which I had no previous idea. These are not our ‘barrier’ dances, those timid bacchanals of ribald Parisians, where the municipal official plays the role of Modesty, and poses from time to time like a stern caryatid. Here, the municipality is entirely lacking (or, at least, what takes the place of that institution in Vienna); the waltz is the sole dance of the people; but the waltz as they understand it is that of a pagan orgy or Gothic sabbath; Goethe had this very model before his eyes when he described Walpurgis Night, and had Faust circle in the arms of the mad witch, who, in an intoxication of pleasure, released red mice from her lovely mouth.

However, there is no subversive intent, no equivocal gestures in these wild dances, which would make our depraved suburbanites blush; it is all as simple and serious as are nature and love; it is a voluptuous not a lascivious waltzing, worthy of an ardent and honest population that has neither read Voltaire nor sung Béranger’s songs. What is astonishing is the endurance of the men, and the grace, calmness, and constant freshness of the indefatigable women, who never have to fear their revealing tired and tarnished features at daybreak; moreover, it must be noted that they seem indifferent to each other: the woman waltzes with a man, without the man; I cannot describe how far they seem to take ease, coldness, and abandonment.

The waltz over, all begin eating and drinking again; singers and acrobats appear at the back of the room, behind a sort of barrier covered with a tablecloth, and lit with candles; or, more often still, a drama or comedy is performed without further ado. This is both part-theatre and part-parade; but the pieces played are mostly very amusing, and executed with great verve and naturalness. Sometimes, one hears small Italian comic operas, con Pantaleone e Pulcinella (commedia dell’arte characters). The narrow stage is not always sufficient to contain the action; then, the actors reply to each other from several points; fights even take place in the middle of the room between costumed extras; the barrier becomes a besieged city or a ship attacked by the corsairs. Apart from the costumes and this minimal staging, there is no more decoration than in the London theatres of Shakespeare’s day, and not even the signs which announced on his stage that there was a city here, and a forest there.

When the play is over, whether comedy or farce, they sing its theme to the audience, to a popular tune, which is always the same, which seems to charm the Viennese greatly; then the artists spread out, and move from table to table receiving congratulations and kreutzers. The majority of the actresses and female singers are very pretty; they sit down at the tables without ceremony, and there is not one of the workmen, students, or soldiers who does not invite them to drink from his glass; these poor girls do little more than wet their lips with the contents, but it is a politeness they cannot refuse. Then comes some improviser, or rhapsodist, declaiming poetry.

One evening my ears were struck by the sound of Napoleon’s name, which seemed to me to resound loudly beneath the vault, in the midst of this gathering of so many half-civilised people. It was that magnificent ballad by Joseph Christian Zedlitz, the Nightly Review (‘Die nächtliche Heerschau’), which was thus recited. This magnificent poetry was applauded with enthusiasm, since Germany now remembers only its glorious conquests; yet it did not prevent the waltz from resuming with fury, once that elegy, invoking so many sacred shades lost to the fields of Germany and France, had ended.

Such, my friend, are the lively pleasures of the people. They do not numb themselves, as is widely believed, with tobacco and beer; they are witty, poetic, and curious like the Italians, but with a more marked trait of good-nature and seriousness; I should note their apparent need to exercise all the senses at once, and indulge simultaneously in food, music, tobacco, dance, and theatricals. I’m reminded of that passage from Rousseau’s Confessions in which he describes the supreme pleasure he experienced, sitting in a good armchair, in front of an open window, before a vast horizon, at sunset, reading a book that pleased him, while dipping a biscuit in a glass of champagne: meanwhile the Angelus sounded in the distance, and the garden sent to him its perfumed breezes. Is it right to believe that several impressions combined destroy each other or weary the senses? Is it not rather the case that collectively they result in a sort of harmony, precious to active minds?

On leaving the tavern, one is astonished to find a large crucifix over the door, and often, in the corner, an image of a saint in wax and dressed in tinsel. For here, as in Italy, religion is never hostile to joy or pleasure. The tavern has something serious about it, just as the church often wakens thoughts of celebration and love. On Christmas Eve, eight days ago, I was able to realise their alliance, so alien to us. The festive population passed from the church to the dance-hall with almost no change of mood; and the streets, moreover, were filled with children who carried fir-trees, their foliage adorned with candles, cakes and sweets. These Christmas trees offered, in their multitude, an image of that mobile forest which marched to meet Macbeth. The interiors of the churches, that of St. Stephen’s especially, were magnificent and radiant. What I admired was not only the immense crowd in festive attire, the gleam of the silver altar in the middle of the choir, the hundreds of musicians hanging, so to speak, from the slender balustrades that surmount the pillars, but also the sincere and frank faith that united all those voices in a prodigious hymn. The effect of these thousands of voices is truly surprising to the French, accustomed to the uniform baritone of the cantors or the shrill tenor of the devout. Then, the violins and trumpets in the orchestra, the voices of the singers rising from the stalls, the theatrical pomp of the service, all that, doubtless, would seem most unreligious to our sceptical population. But it is only amongst us that people are possessed by the idea of a Catholicism so severe, so guarded, so full of thoughts of death and deprivation, that few people feel worthy of practicing and believing in it. In Austria, as in Italy and Spain, religion retains its hold, because it is amiable, and straightforward, and demands faith more than sacrifice.

Thus, all that noisy crowd, which had come, like the first believers, to rejoice, at the feet of God, over the happy birth, would end its night of celebration by dining and dancing, to the notes of the very same instruments. I was pleased at attending, once more, those beautiful solemnities that our Church has proscribed, and which truly ought to be celebrated in countries where belief is taken seriously by all.

I feel you would wish to know of the denouement to my latest adventure. Perhaps I was wrong to tell you of all that went before. I must seem a wretch, a pedant, a foolish traveller who represents his country only in taverns, and whose immoderate taste for imperial beer, and fanciful encounters leads far too readily to love affairs. I will come, shortly, to more serious adventures ... and, as regards the one I spoke to you of before, I regret greatly not having given you all the details as they occurred: but it is too late. I am too far behind in my journal, and all the little facts I would have complacently detailed to you then, I would fail to recapture today. Be content with learning that, as I was conducting the lady home, at a rather late hour, a dog became involved in our amorous affair, which ran about like Faust’s poodle, and appeared mad. I took it immediately for a fatal augury. The lovely woman began to caress the dog, which was all wet; then told me that it had probably lost its master, and that she wished to take him indoors with her. I asked to enter too, but she answered me: Nicht! or, if you like: Nix! with a resolute accent that made me think of the 1814 invasion. I said to myself:

— ‘It’s that rascal of a black dog bringing me bad luck. It’s obvious that without him I would have been received.’

Well, neither the dog nor I entered. The moment the door opened, he sped away like the fantastic being he was, and the lovely woman made an appointment with me for the next day.

Next day I was furiously annoyed; it was very cold; I had business to effect. I failed to arrive on time, but did so later in the day. A male individual opened the door and asked me, like Jacques Cazotte’s camel’s head (see his tale, ‘Le Diable Amoureux’): Che vuoi? As he was less frightening, I was ready to answer: ‘I wish to see Miss ...’ But, oh misfortune! I realised that I was completely ignorant of my mistress’s surname, though, as I told you, I had known her for three days. I stammered; the gentleman looked at me as if I were some sort of intriguer; I left. Ah, well.

In the evening, I wandered about the street; I saw her reach home; I apologised, and said to her very tenderly:

— ‘Miss, would it be indiscreet of me to ask your name, now?’

— ‘Vhahby’.

— ‘I beg your pardon?’

— ‘Vhahby’.

— ‘Ah! Please write it for me. Ah! So, you are Bohemian or Hungarian?’

She is from Olmütz (Olomouc), this dear child... Vhahby is a Bohemian name, indeed, and yet the girl is sweet and blond, and says her name so softly, that she seems like a lamb speaking in its mother tongue.

And so, it drags on; I understand that there is a courtship to be performed. One morning, I go to see her, and she tells me with great emotion:

— ‘Oh! My God! He’s ill.’

— ‘Who is?’

She pronounces a name as Bohemian as her own; and says to me: — ‘Come’.

I enter a second room, and see, lying on the bed, the tall dolt who had accompanied us to the tavern, and the evening’s entertainment I described, who is currently dressed as a comic-opera huntsman. The lad welcomes me with demonstrations of joy; a large greyhound is lying close to the bed. Not knowing what to say, I said: ‘That’s a fine dog’ I stroked the creature, I addressed it, all this went on for a very long time. Above the bed hung the gentleman’s rifle; which, however, given his cordiality, was not at all menacing. He told me he had a fever, which troubled him greatly, because the hunting was currently very good. I asked him, naively, if he hunted chamois; he pointed to some dead partridges with which some children were amusing themselves in a corner.

— ‘Ah! Well done, sir.’

To maintain the conversation, as the lovely woman failed to return, I said, in my most bourgeois manner:

— ‘Now, are these children being schooled? Why are they not there?’

The hunter replied:

— ‘They’re not old enough.’

I replied that in my country children are sent to mutual schools (run on the monitorial system) from the cradle. I continued with a series of observations on that mode of teaching. Meanwhile, Vhahby appeared with a cup in her hand; I said to the hunter:

— ‘Is it quinquina (aromatised wine containing cinchona bark, so providing quinine for his fever)?’

— ‘Yes,’ he said.

It appeared he had failed to understand, since I saw him, a moment later, dipping bread into the cup; I had never heard of quinquina soup, and, in fact, it was broth. The sight of this lad eating his soup was as uninteresting as the story I am telling you involving that same ... What a charming encounter I have been granted. I say farewell to the hunter, wishing him better health, and return to the other room.

— ‘Ah,’ said I, to the young Bohemian girl, ‘is this sick gentleman your husband?

— ‘No.’

— ‘Your brother?’

— ‘No.’

— ‘Your lover?’

— ‘No, no.’

— ‘Who is he, then?’

— ‘He’s a hunter. That’s all.’

It must be observed, for the better understanding of my interrogation, that there were three beds in the second room, and that she had told me one was hers, and that it was this which prevented her from receiving me. In conclusion, I have never been able to understand the presence of this personage. She told me, however, to return the next day; still, I thought, if I was to enjoy the hunter’s conversation it would be better to wait until he had recovered. I did not see Vhahby again until eight days later; she was no more surprised at my return than at my having waited so long without returning. The hunter had recovered, and gone.... I did not understand the reason for her lack of hospitality, she told me the children were in the other room.

— ‘Are the children yours?’

— ‘Yes.’

— ‘The devil they are!’

There were three of them, blonde as ears of corn, blonde as she was. I found it all so constraining that I’ve not yet returned to the house; I will return when I choose. The three children, the hunter, and the girl will still be there — I shall revisit them all when I have time.

Chapter 9: Journal Entries Continued — III

Such is my life: every morning I rise, and exchange a few greetings with some Italians who are also lodging at the Black Eagle; I light a cigar, and amble along the main street of the suburb of Leopoldstadt. On the corner, overlooking the quay beside the Wien, a little river that separates us from the city centre, there are two cafés, where crowds of Jewish men, always meet, and form a sort of stock-exchange there, some in the open air, others, the wealthiest, in the inner rooms of the cafés. There, one sees marvellous beards, and hears a continual humming like that of a hive.

It is pleasant, in the morning, to sip a small glass of kirsch in one of the cafés; then one can venture on to the Red Bridge, which communicates with the Rotenturmtor, the fortified gate of the city. Let us stop, however, on the glacis to read the theatre posters on the wall at the corner. There are almost as many as in Paris. The Burgtheater, which is the city’s Comédie-Française, announces plays by Goethe or Schiller, the Corneille and Racine of classical German theatre; then comes the Kärntnertortheater, or theatre of the Carinthian Gate, which will perform Meyerbeer, Bellini, and Donizetti; after which, we have the Theater an der Wien, with melodramas and vaudevilles, mostly translated from French; then the theatres of Josephstadt, Leopoldstadt, etc., not to mention a host of café-theatres, the like of which I described earlier.

Once I have decided where to spend the evening, I traverse the Red Gate below the rampart, and head to the left, towards a certain gasthof, where the Hungarian wines are of quite decent quality. Tokay is sold there at six kreutzers a jug, and is used to wash down fresh mutton or pork chops, the taste of which is enhanced by a wedge of lemon.

There is a charming means of payment here; one carries no purse; one has change only in the form of small kreutzer coins, worth about seventeen French sous. These serve only for a tip; otherwise, one pays in notes. Pretty ‘assignats’ graduated in value from one franc to the wildest sums, fill your wallet and are decorated with intaglio engravings done to astonishing perfection. A delightful profile of a woman, entitled Austria inspires in one the keenest regret at parting with these imprints, and a greater desire to acquire new ones. It is important to note that these notes are of two kinds, either in conventional currency, worth only half the value represented, or in real currency, whose face value is supported more or less, according to political circumstances.

I know not if all these details interest you, but they are precious to me at the moment, especially since the number of imprints I possess is decreasing day by day. Let us not dwell on this detail, but go and take our coffee in the city centre, near the brilliant Graben square, whose funereal name (tomb) hardly corresponds to its splendours.

Usually, after lunch, I follow the Rotenturmstrasse, a shopping street, animated by the proximity of the markets, until I find myself on the square housing St. Stephen’s Church, the famous Viennese cathedral, whose spire is the tallest in Europe. The tip leans slightly, having been struck long ago by a cannonball fired by the French army. The roof of the building presents a brilliant patterned mosaic of glazed tiles, which reflect the rays of the distant sun. The brown stone of this church reveals unheard-of refinements of feudal architecture. Leaving this illustrious monument on the left, one arrives at the corner of two streets, one of which leads to the Carinthian Gate, the other to the Mahlmarkt, and the third to the Graben. At the corner of the first two is a sort of pillar whose purpose is very strange. It is called the Stock im Eisen. It is simply a tree trunk which, it is said, was once part of the forest on the site of which Vienna was built. This venerable stump has been religiously preserved, embedded in the front of a jeweller’s shop. Every journeyman of that trade who arrives in Vienna must hammer a nail into the tree. For many years, it has been impossible to drive yet one more in, and bets are made on this subject with newcomers. Happy the people that still enjoys such pranks!... I wonder, sometimes, if there will ever be a revolution in Vienna. The granite paving stones, admirably cut, are welded, so to speak, with bitumen and meshed one with the other, so that it seems impossible to move them and construct barricades. Each paving stone costs the government a zwanzig (twenty kreutzers). Will such a sacrifice prevent revolution?

Here we are on the Graben; it is the central and brilliant square of Vienna; the square is an oblong, which is the shape of all the city’s squares. The houses are eighteenth century; rocaille flourishes in all the ornamentation. In the centre is a monumental column resembling a giant cup and ball. The ball is formed of sculpted clouds which support gilded angels. The column itself appears twisted, like those of the Solomonic order, and the whole is loaded with festoons, ribbons and other ornaments. Think of the elegant shops in the richest districts of Paris, and the comparison will appear all the more just, since most of the shops are occupied by fashion houses and traders in novelties who are part of what is called here the French colony. There is, in the middle of the square, a shop dedicated to Archduchess Sophie, who must have been a very beautiful woman if the sign painted on its door is anything to go by.

There is only one more small street to follow to reach the main café on the Kohlmarkt, where your friend is now indulging in the pleasures of what is called a mélange, which is nothing other than coffee with milk served in a stemmed glass, while reading those French newspapers that the censor allows him to receive.

January 11th, 1840. — I find myself forced to interrupt this narrative of the day’s pleasures to inform you of an adventure much less gracious than the others, which has come to disturb my serenity.

You should know that it’s very difficult for a foreigner to prolong his stay beyond a few weeks in the capital of Austria. One can barely stay here twenty-four hours, if one fails to possess a recommendation from a banker, who is personally responsible for the debts one may incur. Then there is the matter of politics. From my first day here, I thought my every action was being noted… You know with what speed and investigative eagerness I travel the streets of a foreign city, so that the task of the spy following me cannot have proved easy.

In the end I noted a particular man, with dull blond hair, who seemed to follow, assiduously, the same streets as I did. I made up my mind; I traversed a passage, then halted suddenly, and, turning around, found myself face to face with the gentleman who served as my shadow. He was very out of breath.

‘It is useless,’ I said, ‘to tire yourself so much. I am accustomed to walking very quickly, but I can adjust my pace to yours and thus enjoy your conversation.’

The poor fellow seemed most embarrassed; I put him at his ease, by telling him that I knew what precautions the Vienna police were obliged to take with regard to foreigners, and particularly the French.

— ‘Tomorrow,’ I added,’ I will go and see your director and reassure him of my good intentions.

The lackey said little in answer, and slipped away, pretending not to understand my poor German.

To reassure you as to my tranquillity as regards the whole affair, I must tell you that a journalist friend of mine had given me an excellent letter of recommendation for one of the chief inspectors of the Viennese police. I had promised myself to profit from it only for a serious reason. The next day, therefore, I went to the headquarters of the Politzey.

I was greeted profusely: the person in question, who is called Baron Joseph Christian von Zedlitz, is a former lyric poet, ex-member of the Tugendbund (The League of Virtue, a quasi-masonic and revolutionary organisation) and various other secret societies, who joined the police as he grew older, much as one settles oneself down after the follies of youth.... many German poets have found themselves in the same situation. In Vienna, moreover, the police have something patriarchal about them which supports this kind of transition better than elsewhere.

We spoke of literature, and von Zedlitz after ascertaining my position, gradually admitted me to a sort of intimacy.

— ‘Do you know, he said to me, that your adventures amuse me infinitely?’

— ‘What adventures?’

— ‘Why those you relate so charmingly to your friend, and that you send by post to Paris.’

— ‘Ah! You read them?’

— ‘Oh! Don’t concern yourself; nothing in your correspondence is of a nature to compromise you. And even the government thinks highly of those foreigners who, far from fomenting intrigues, eagerly profit from the pleasures of our good city of Vienna.’

I was far from surprised by this confidence; I knew perfectly well that all letters passed through a black room, not only in Austria, but in most German countries. I turned the whole thing into a joke — so much so that I advanced far in the confidence of Baron von Zedlitz, who himself would provide me with many a subject for observation. Are we not also, we writers, members of a sort of moral police?...

He ended up encouraging me to come, whenever I wanted, to read the newspapers opposing the police, ... since it was the freest place in the empire.... One could talk about anything there without danger.

January 14th. — Yesterday, Baron von Zedlitz summoned me to his house, and said: ‘Enjoy reading this letter.’ Great was my astonishment on recognising that it was addressed to my uncle, from Périgord, being a copy of a letter to him from my cousin Henri, the diplomat, who left Vienna a few days ago.

Here are the contents:

‘My dear uncle,

Since the moment when the Minister of Foreign Affairs deigned, on your powerful recommendation, to initiate, at last, my diplomatic career, by attaching me to the Swedish embassy, I may say that a new day has dawned for me! My mind, benefitting from your advice and experience, asks to be deployed widely in this sphere, where you once obtained such splendid triumphs. Although I must, according to that advice, confine myself, for the present, to writing, in legible style, the dispatches, notes, memoranda, conference minutes, etc., the copying of which will be entrusted to me; to drawing up legalisation paperwork and visas, in the absence of the Chancellor; to summarising reports, and above all to producing envelopes and forming wax seals of a satisfactory circularity, I feel that I shall not always be restricted to these preliminaries of the diplomatic art, which are, no doubt, not to be neglected, but which cover, as with a veil, the profound political arcana to which I long to be soon initiated.

And first of all, since you have allowed me to submit my personal observations to you with all possible prudence, I am taking advantage of a special courier to send you this letter, which will not be read at the post office, as those may be which I will send by ordinary means during the course of my journey.

Are you not be surprised, knowing that I left for chilly Sweden, to receive my letter dated from Vienna, the Austrian capital? I am quite surprised myself, and can only attribute what is happening to me to the new complications which have suddenly arisen with regard to the Eastern question.

Only a week ago, I was about to take leave of my superiors in order to depart the same evening for my destination; I had chosen the land route, given the advanced season, and intended to go straight to Frankfurt, then to Hamburg, halting in each of those two cities, with then, as you know, only a short sea crossing to make from Hamburg to Stockholm. I studied the map a hundred times while waiting for my audience with the minister; but the latter decided otherwise. His Excellency was, that day, visibly preoccupied. I was received in a passageway after many difficulties. “Ah! is that you, Monsieur? Your uncle is still in good health, is he not?”— “Yes, Monsieur the Minister, but a little unwell ... that is to say, he thinks he is ill.” — “A fine intelligence, sir! These are the men we still need; those of whom Bonaparte said: There is a new breed to be created! And he created it. But, here, it is dying out like the rest....” I was about to reply that I hoped to follow your example in everything, when the Cabinet Secretary came in: “Not a single courier!” he said to the minister; “The one who was to arrive from Spain is ill; the others have left, or have not arrived, the roads being so bad!” — “Well,” said the minister, “we have Monsieur here; give him your letters; even an attaché may be of some use!” — “Can you leave today?” the Secretary asked me. “I was planning to leave this very evening.” — “Which route are you taking?” — “By way of Trier and Frankfurt.” — “Well, you can take this package to Vienna. That will take you a little out of your way,” said the Minister, in a kindly tone, “but you will be able to learn more of Germany on the way, which is useful.... Do you have a post-chaise?” — “Yes, Minister.” — “You will need six days, six and a half days perhaps, due to the floods,” the Secretary observed. — “Anyway, today is Thursday, you will be there next Thursday.” Such were the Minister’s last words, and I left the same evening.

“You can imagine my joy, dear uncle, in seeing myself charged with a message of State! And what good advice you gave me to buy the post-chaise, which my aunt found so expensive! “An attaché without a post-chaise,” you said to me, “is like a snail ... (I think that was the comparison you employed) …without a shell.” The image seems very apt to me, apart from the speed of the creature you mentioned, which is in no way appropriate.

I like a jest, I’ve even committed many youthful follies; but I reflect seriously on my career, I concern myself with my future, after your good advice; sadly, not all young people think the same. Who do you think I met in Munich at the table d’hôte of the Hôtel d’Angleterre?... I heard myself addressed from the other end of the table, I turn, I think I am mistaken... Not at all: it is my cousin Fritz, who left Paris eight days before me, and left to visit you in your Périgord.

Understand, dear uncle, that the idea was not his, but his father’s, who always imagines that I am courting you at my cousin’s expense. You yourself know if I have ever spoken the slightest ill word concerning him. That he has rejected all sensible occupation, or at least that he has given himself over to a thousand frivolous occupations; that he has dissipated all his mother’s property, and a third of our estate at M***; that he wanders about the world, the matter of his artistic tastes, his pretensions of wit, his mad love affairs, and his thousand whims which shock all accepted ideas, as you know, my uncle, concern me scarcely at all. However, I will admit that it is never pleasant for me to meet such a scatterbrain in the high society to which my position calls me.

That is not the case here, we merely met at an inn in Munich. However, I know not why I chose not to dine in my apartment, which would have spared me the encounter. Whenever one does not act sensibly, one can be sure of having to repent of it; it is one of your principles that I never forget. Here, in sum, is the conversation established at a distance between the two of us; you may imagine that I only answered in monosyllables. The seats were full only of English and Germans, but we were understood nonetheless. He jested, with the wit that you know him to possess, regarding my new diplomatic position, and asked if I brought war or peace, along with other such foolish questions. I made a sign to him that it was imprudent to speak thus; and, indeed, I learned afterwards that there was at that very table a Prussian spy, and likewise an English spy; I myself was considered a French spy, despite my title of attaché. The Germans are unaware of, or wish not to believe, the fact that our government does not avail itself of such means and that we never affect anything but a sound, constitutional policy.

In the end, I rose, took him aside, and gave him to understand how indiscreet his conduct was. “We are no longer young fools,” I told him; “the government in its wisdom has granted me a new title and duties. The post-chaise which is transporting me to Vienna is perhaps charged with the destinies of a great country....” “Are you in a post-chaise?” my cousin replied immediately. “I myself travel in no other way —it is convenient indeed when one prefers not to go on foot. I travel on foot when the countryside is beautiful — a great pleasure — however, this country is very dull: flat, sandy countryside, and only pine forests for variety; rivers without water, towns without paving, taverns without wine, women....” I hastened to stop him speaking, for he would have compromised me still further. “I must retire,” I said; “I only stopped in Munich for dinner.” — that is to say, for supper, for we dine here at one o’clock, and it was now eight. — “Good-bye then. You are not staying to see old Schroeder-Devrient in Medea?” — “I have more pressing duties.” — “I am capable of doing something crazy” says he. — “No doubt.” — “Here’s my situation. I left Paris to visit our uncle; I took the road through Burgundy, so as to avoid the monotony of the highway. I made a detour to see the Jura, then to see Constance, the city of councils (our Opéra sets are quite inaccurate, by the way); the most beautiful thing in Constance is the steamboat which bears you away from there, and allows you to touch on five different nations in six hours. I had longed to set foot in Bavaria; but, at Lindau, I was told of the wonders of Munich. I have toured the city in a day, and had enough; you have an empty seat in your post-chaise, you are off to Vienna, I’ll accompany you there. I’m very curious to see that capital.”

I thought I would stop the flow by asking him if he had letters of credit; he showed me a note from one of the Rothschilds, who recommended him to all his correspondents. I have no idea what the note is worth, it seeming to me to be a simple recommendation written out of politeness; but, in Vienna, I may judge for myself. I have learned, from a good source, that twenty-four hours is all they allow a foreigner whose wallet is not well, and validly, stocked.

Meanwhile, his conversation distracted me during the journey, which was not at all comfortable, especially around Salzburg, one of the most untamed regions on earth. In Vienna he stayed at a suburban inn, wishing, he said, to keep the strictest incognito. I am charmed by that, as I wish to frequent him as little as possible. He will probably write to you to apologise for having taken the road to Vienna instead of that towards Périgord. It is likely that, the earth being round, nothing will prevent him from paying you his respects during the course of next year.’

Such is the youth’s letter.... What say you? This is how one is served by one’s parents.

Baron von Zedlitz urged on me the greatest secrecy regarding this friendly communication; one finds the paternal Vienna police good for something ... at least, when one has friends!

Vienna appears to me like Paris in the eighteenth century, in 1770, for example; and I myself regard myself as a foreign poet, lost in this society half glittering aristocracy, and half carefree populace, or so it would seem. The Magyars, Tyroleans, Illyrians, and so on, are more than preoccupied with their diverse national affairs, and lack the means to reach a joint understanding, in the event that their objectives should coincide. Moreover, the cautious and ingenious imperial police refuse to allow even one unemployed worker to remain in the city. All the trades are organised in corporations; a journeyman who arrives from the provinces is subject to well-nigh the same rules as a foreign traveller. He must be recommended by a patron or by a notable citizen who must answer for his conduct and the debts he may incur. If he fails to offer such a guarantee, he is allowed a twenty-four-hour stay, in order to view the monuments and attractions, then his pass is stamped for any other city he is pleased to indicate, where the same difficulties await him. In the event of his resistance, he is returned to his place of birth, whose municipality is then responsible for his conduct, and usually makes him work on the land, if work is unavailable in the cities.

The whole regime is extremely despotic, I agree; and but remain to be convinced that Austria is the China of Europe. I have passed beyond its Great Wall ... and only regret that it lacks literate mandarins.

Such an organisation, conducted with intelligence, might, indeed, present fewer drawbacks: that is the question that the philosopher-emperor, Joseph II, imbued with Voltairean and Encyclopedist ideas, wished to resolve. The current administration despotically follows that tradition, but, being no longer philosophical, tends to appear simply Chinese.

The idea of establishing a learned hierarchy may indeed be excellent; but, in a country where hereditary rule dominates, it is quite common to think that the son of a learned man must be one himself. He receives the appropriate education, writes verses and tragedies, as one learns to do at school, and succeeds to the genius and employment of his father, without rousing the least objection. If he is entirely incapable, a history book, a volume of verses or a heroic tragedy is written for him by his tutor, and the same effect obtained.

What proves whether the patronage granted to literature by the Austrian nobility is intelligently applied or no, is that I have witnessed the most illustrious German writers, unknown and enslaved, trailing their degraded grandeur in lowly employment.

I possessed a letter of recommendation to one of them, whose name is perhaps more famous in Paris than in Vienna; I had much difficulty finding him in the humble corner of the ministerial office which he occupied. I sought to ask him to introduce me to various salons, where I only wished to be introduced under the auspices of talent; I was surprised and distressed by his response.

— ‘Simply introduce yourself,’ he said to me, ‘as a foreigner; and say that you are related to an embassy attaché (my cousin Henri!), and you will be perfectly-well accepted; for here everyone is kind, and happy to welcome the French, at least those who do not offend the government. As for ourselves, poor poets, what right have we to go and shine among princes and bankers?’

I felt sorry for his confession, and the ironic misanthropy of a famous man, whom fate had nevertheless forced to accept a wretched job in a society which nonetheless knows his worth, yet which grants his talent only sterile laurels.

The situation regarding musicians is not the same: they possess the advantage of providing instant entertainment for the nobility, who welcome them with every mark of sympathy and admiration. They easily become familiars and friends of great lords, whose self-esteem is flattered by granting them visible patronage. They are therefore invited to all the parties. Only, they must bring their instrument with them, their livelihood: that is, their ball and chain. — One of them, who affects socialist ideas, took it into his head to declare Prince *** his friend, remarked that he was also a friend of the princess, and said that he wished to appear simply as a guest, at the next party to be given in the palace, and not play his instrument.

‘That’s fine,’ said the prince; ‘I shall say you are unwell.’

— ‘No, I don’t wish to appear unwell.’.

— ‘Well, my friend, I will ask my friends what they think.’

The result was that the musician failed to receive an invitation. He left, in a fury, for Hungary, where magnificent ovations compensated him for the foolish etiquette of the Vienna salons.

January 18th. —Let us speak a little more of the pleasures the Viennese pursue; it’s a more cheerful subject. The Carnival approaches, and I frequent the ballrooms of the Sperl Saal and the Goldenen Birn, which are more amusing than others and which cater especially for the bourgeoisie. They are vast establishments and splendidly decorated. The women are better dressed, that is to say, in a more Parisian fashion, than those of the lower class; they represent here that of the Parisian grisette. The waltz is as energetic, as wild, as in the taverns, and the cloud of tobacco smoke it emits scarcely less dense.

At the Sperl Saal, one dines or sups too amidst dancing and music, and the gallop winds about the tables without disturbing the diners. My first view of the Sperl recalled somewhat that of the musicos of Holland; I like to think, however, that the dancers commonly belong to a more respectable level of society than those whose grandmothers provided so many models for Rubens and who would not be tolerated by the paternal government of Austria. Presumptuous foreigners assure you that this system is far from having delivered moral improvement, and each of them, having spent only a winter in Vienna, will enumerate for you the two hundred and thirty conquests, at least, which form the German contingent on Don Juan’s list. But these are mere exaggerations; the ease with which Viennese women enter into conversation with the cavaliers who place themselves beside them, in the theatre or ballroom, may have given rise to the phenomenon. If you are told, also, that great ladies are always a little eighteenth century in behaviour, here, where the nineteenth has not yet begun, do not believe the tales propagated by our modern Casanovas; rather reflect on the fact that the number of lovely women in Austria is so great that most of them behave less stand-offishly since they are less appreciated.

The beauty of its women also strikes the stranger with astonishment when passing through Lintz, the first Austrian town over the border from Bavaria. I arrived there on a Sunday, and viewed the countrywomen on their way to church; they almost all wore the national costume: a brightly coloured petticoat, an embroidered vest, a necklace, and a large bonnet of gold-embroidered cloth, fit to delight a theatre director. These women were generally of a dazzling beauty; travel books fail to warn travellers of the fact, and, in that respect at least, they are perfectly correct. I spent the day traversing the squares and streets without my admiration tiring. However, in Lintz, the physiognomy is always more or less the same: they are tall women with regular, mild faces, beautiful eyes, blonde-haired and pale, with a delicacy of complexion which is the same among peasant women as among the city dwellers. In the end, one would no doubt weary of this uniformity of features, which explains their beauty, in the way breeding, and the excellence of the climate, may explain some beautiful strain of domestic creature.

In Vienna, on the contrary, features vary greatly, though it is still possible to classify a small number of analogous types. In general, blondes and brunettes both have extremely pale and delicate skin, perfect figures, and superb arms and shoulders. It might be said that the middle class is less favoured; but the beautiful aristocratic women, who gather at the grand soirées and concerts, and those of the lower class, who rarely miss the dances at the Sperl and the Volksgarten, compete to an equal degree in beauty, freshness, and often even in elegance and grace.

These are cheerful countries, especially when one thinks of the sad creatures who populate our cities and countryside; it is the sign at once of the well-being of the lower class, and of the easy labour which is sufficient to procure it for them. Without claiming to pen here a panegyric of the Austrian government, I can assure you that it is the most favourable of all to the happiness of the people, as well as the upper classes; as for the bourgeoisie, we know, from our own experience, that it is the only class which ever gains from a revolution.

I regret that I can only speak to you of the winter pleasures of the Viennese. The Prater, which I have only seen when stripped of its verdure, has not lost all its beauty; especially in the snow, it presents a charming sight, and crowds invade its numerous cafes, casinos, and elegant pavilions, betrayed at first by the bareness of the trees. Troops of roe-deer roam freely about the park, where they are fed, and several branches of the Danube split the woods and meadows into islands. On the left, the road from Vienna to Brünn (Brno) commences. A mile further on is the Danube (for Vienna is no more on the Danube than Strasbourg is on the Rhine). Such is the Champs-Elysées of this capital. Its largest public garden is found a short distance away, in the Leopoldstadt district. When I entered it, its long paths were empty, its flowerbeds yellowed. From time to time, one discovers charming views; mountains crowned with castles indicate the distant banks of the Danube. Another garden, called the Volksgarten, is located within the ramparts, near the imperial castle.

The gardens of Schönbrunn were no less desolate when I traversed them. Schönbrunn is the Versailles of Vienna; the village of Hietzing which adjoins it is still, every Sunday, the rendezvous of joyful companies. Johann Strauss the Younger presides all day over his orchestra at the Hietzing casino, and nevertheless returns, in the evening, to conduct waltzes at the Sperl. To reach Hietzing, one crosses the courtyard of Schönbrunn castle; marble Chimeras guard the entrance; its deserted courtyard, decorated in eighteenth century taste, is wholly neglected; the castle itself, whose façade is imposing, contains nothing of interest internally except the immensity of its rooms, where whitewash almost everywhere coats the old gilded rocailles. But, on leaving the gardens, one enjoys a magnificent view, the impression of which is not diminished by memories of Saint-Cloud and Versailles.

The pavilion of Marie-Thérèse (the Belvedere) situated on a hill beneath which immense sheets of greenery unfurl, is of a completely enchanting architecture, to which nothing compares. Composed of a long open colonnade whose four arches at the centre are alone glazed with mirrors to form a lounge, the building is both a palace and a triumphal arena. Seen from the road, it crowns the full width of the castle and seems a part of it, because the hill on which it is built raises its base to the level of the roofs of Schoenbrunn. It is necessary to ascend for a long time through pine-tree avenues, and over lawns, and past fountains sculpted in the style of Pierre Puget and Edmé Bouchardon, admiring all the divinities of this mannered Mount Olympus, in order to reach, finally, the steps of a temple worthy of them, which rises so boldly in the air, and offers, floating there, all the festoons and astragals of George Scudéry’s poem (Alaric, 1654) ....

I escaped through the garden to return to the suburbs of Vienna by the beautiful avenue of Mariahilf, adorned for a league or so with a double row of immense poplars. The Sunday crowd make their way towards Hietzing, halting on numerous occasions in the cafes and casinos which line the entire road. It is the most beautiful entrance to Vienna: it is a decent, and bourgeois La Courtille (a pleasure area in Belleville, a village then, now a suburb of Paris) which the finest carriages do not scorn.

To finish my comments on the suburbs of Vienna, which are barely separated from Schönbrunn and Hietzing, I must speak to you again of the three theatres which complete the series of popular amusements. The Theater an der Wien (of Vienna), and those of Josephstadt and Leopoldstadt, are, in fact, theatres dedicated to the popular taste, comparable to our boulevard theatres. The other theatres of Vienna, that of the Burgtheater for comedy and drama, and that of the Carinthian Gate (the Kärntnertortheater) for ballet and opera, are situated within the walls. The Theater an der Wien, in spite of its humble location, is the most beautiful in the city and the most magnificently decorated. It is as large as the Paris Opéra, and resembles, greatly, in its design and ornamentation, the great theatres of Italy. Historical dramas, grand fairy-tale ballets, and some small introductory pieces, imitative generally of our vaudeville pieces are played there. When I arrived in Vienna, a melodrama by Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer, The Styrians, was enjoying great success. At the same time, another play by the same lady was being performed in Leopoldstadt, as I have already informed you. Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer is the Joseph Bouchardy of the German theatre. She frankly calls her plays popular dramas; but it would be doing her too much honour to compare her to our compatriot otherwise than by her successes. I also saw Schiller’s William Tell performed at the Vienna theatre; which proves that imperial censorship is not as fierce as it is made out to be; for, assuredly, no one would contest its right to proscribe a performance of William Tell.

Yet the censor also allowed us to see Ruy Blas performed in Leopoldstadt, under the title of Master and Valet; it is true that the outcome is slightly modified. Ruy Blas only threatens his master with the famous sword that he so boldly snatches from him. The rest follows; the valet finds his parents again, like Figaro; but, more happily than the latter, he finds them to be rich and noble. I even believe that in the outcome he marries the queen, and becomes a sort of Saxe-Coburg husband (a consort, like Prince Albert), which is even more constitutional.

The theatres of Leopoldstadt and Vienna are both served by an acting troupe under the direction of Carl-Carl (the stage name of Karl Bernbrunn). The basis of their repertoire is composed of local farces, a species of bizarre spectacular, of which the Viennese never tire. To form an idea of them, one would, in France, be obliged to combine Jean-Gaspard Deburau’s pantomimes with the most eccentric vaudevilles of the Théâtre des Variétés. Les Saltimbanques (by Théophile Dumersan, and Charles Varin, 1838) would provide a kind of preview. The logical, ordered mind of the average Parisian bourgeois would prove unable to endure the wild freedom and comic gaiety of these compositions. The most famous, and so to speak the model of the genre, is entitled: Thirty Years in the Life of a Scoundrel (‘Dreissig Jahre aus dem Leben eines Lumpen’, 1828). Almost all of these local farces have as their author an actor named Johann Nestroy, who plays the main roles with great verve and wit.

The Josephstadt theatre, whose interior resembles the hall of the Gymnasium, has been occupied for the past two months by sessions involving a physicist-magician named Ludwig Dobler. This artist fails to rise much above the level of the Italian magician Bartolomeo Bosco, who is at this moment charming the people of Constantinople. Since his departure, Josephstadt has rejuvenated the eternal subject of The Rebellion in the Seraglio (‘La Révolte au Serail’, libretto by Filippo Taglioni, score by Theodore Labarre, 1833), which, thanks to the pretty extras on stage, and the tribulations of the unfortunate Europeanised Turks, is all the rage at the moment; the Viennese people have only recently begun to mock the Turks, which also explains their excessive satisfaction with the piece.

I witnessed, at Josephstadt, a performance of which we have scarcely any notion in France. It was an Academy given by the famous Moritz Saphir, one of the most distinguished journalists and poets in Germany. A crowd of artists, moreover, competed in this literary session. It began with a scene in verse, by Saphir, entitled The Conjugation of the Verb to Love. Three of the prettiest actresses of the Imperial Theatre represented, one the mistress, the other two the schoolgirls. This ingenious idea was charmingly executed. Then, the nocturne, En Rêve, sung by an actor from the Kärntnertortheater, was accompanied on the piano by Franz Liszt himself. Then Miss Caroline Miller played a solo comedy in three acts, fortunately very short, also composed by Saphir. It was a sort of parody in which the witty beneficiary criticised our modern comedies. Miss Miller shared the applause given to the work. It is known that this actress is called the Mademoiselle Mars (Anne Salvetat) of Germany. A journalist from Vienna recently remarked, in this connection, that it would perhaps be more appropriate to say that Mademoiselle Mars is the Caroline Miller of France. I declare that I do not disagree. The Academy session, after several verse readings, ended with a humorous reading that Saphir enacted in person. We had first conceived some anxiety about the fate of this long literary production, which came after the singers, the actors, after the music of Franz Liszt, and Charles-Auguste de Bériot. If someone chose to read to a French audience an unpublished article by Voltaire, they would quickly demand, like Georges de Buffon, their carriage, or a comedy. Well, all that brilliant Viennese audience stayed to hear the article, which was a development of a philosophical paradox, and they applauded Saphir, and asked for an encore. This is what an Academy is in the cities of Germany; a man of letters gives concerts involving poetry and music, like a simple artistic performer. Saphir’s Academy brought him in three thousand florins. It is impossible to give a more extensive idea of the pleasures of high society in Vienna; one must separate, completely, the former from the latter; for, here, there is still a high society, do not doubt it.

Such are the pleasures of Vienna in the winter. And it is only in winter that one can study this city in all the original nuances of its semi-Slavonic, semi-European character. In summer, the beau monde vanishes, travels to Italy, Switzerland, and the spa towns, or goes and sits in its castles in Hungary and Bohemia; the populace transfer to the Prater, the Augarten, or to Hietzing, all the ardour and intoxication of their festivals, waltzes, and interminable suppers. It is necessary, therefore, to take the Danube boat, or the imperial post-coach, and leave this capital to its everyday life, so varied and yet, at the same time, so monotonous.

Vienna, in the summertime, becomes as tedious a city as Munich is at all times.

Chapter 10: Journal Entries Continued — IV

February 1st, 1840 — Let me resume the story of my adventures.... And let me now sound the trumpet; and clothe my past defeats in the triumphs of today. They are fine flags, flags of linen and silk that I raise now. Here I reach the city from the suburbs, and from the city....

But not yet.

My friend, so far, I have faithfully described to you my affairs with humbly-placed beauties; poor affairs! Nonetheless, they were very pleasant and sweet. The first gave me all the love she could; then departed, like a lovely angel, to visit her mother in Brünn (Brno). The other two welcomed me in a most friendly manner, and opened their smiling lips to me like flowers waiting to fruit; it was only right of them to take their time, for the honour of the city and its suburbs. But, my faith, my beauties, the Frenchman is fickle!... the Frenchman has broken the Viennese ice which presents obstacles to the simple traveller, the one who passes by and flits away. Now I have a right to citizenship, a street address, I turn my attention to the great ladies!... ‘They are grandes dames, you see!’ as my friend, the actor, Bocage (Pierre-Martinien Touzet) used to declaim (As Buridan, in Gaillardet’s ‘Tour de Nesle’ which Alexandre Dumas rewrote in 1832).

You will think me overjoyed; but no, I am very calm; things are as I say, that’s all.

I hesitate to continue my confession, my dear friend! For, as you read, I have long hesitated to send this letter. Is not my conduct perfidious towards these good creatures, who could not have imagined that the secrets of their beauty their whims would be scattered to the universe, and travel almost eight hundred miles to delight the thoughts of a jaded moralist (yourself, that is), and furnish him with a series of physiological observations.

Do not go about revealing, especially to Parisians, the details of our confidences, or else say it is all pure imagination; and, moreover, that it is happening far away (as Racine said in the preface to Bajazet!) and finally, see that names, addresses and other information are sufficiently disguised that nothing here resembles an indiscretion. And, anyway, what does it matter?... We don’t simply live, we don’t merely love. We study life, we analyse love, we are philosophers, for goodness’ sake!

Picture to yourself a large fireplace of carved marble. Fireplaces are rare in Vienna, and exist only in palaces. The armchairs and sofas have gilded feet. Around the room there are gilded console tables; and the panelling ... well, there is also gilded panelling. The scene is complete, as you see.

Before this fireplace, three charming ladies are seated: one is Viennese; of the other two, one is Italian, the other English. One of the three is the mistress of the house. Of the men who are there, two are counts, another is a Hungarian prince, another is a minister, and the others are young men full of promise. Among them are the ladies’ husbands and known, and avowed, lovers; but, as you know, lovers generally become husbands, that is to say they no longer count as masculine individuals. The thought is deep, think on it.

Your friend is therefore the only man in this company, if you consider his position carefully; setting aside the mistress of the house (which must be the case), your friend therefore has a chance of gaining the attention of the two remaining ladies, though even he can win little merit by it, for the reasons I’ve just explained.

Your friend has dined comfortably; he has drunk the wines of France and Hungary, and taken coffee and liqueurs; he is well dressed, his linen is of an exquisite fineness, his hair is silky and lightly curled; your friend exemplifies a paradox, which had been among us for ten years, but is brand-new here. Foreign lords are not powerful enough to compete on the firm ground that we have seized. Your friend blazes and sparkles; when you touch him, flames emerge.

Here is a well-set young man; he pleases the ladies prodigiously; the men are most charmed too. The people of this country are so nice! Your friend therefore passes for a pleasant conversationalist. People complain that he says little; but, when he warms up, he talks excellently!

I will tell you that, of the two ladies, there is one I like very much, and the other greatly too. However, the Englishwoman has such a sweet way of speaking, she sits so neatly in her armchair; she has such beautiful blonde hair with red highlights, such white skin; such silk, padding, tulle, pearls and opals, that one does not really know what’s in the midst of it all, but it is so well-composed!

This is a kind of beauty and charm that I am beginning to comprehend now; I am growing old. So much so that here I am, occupying myself all evening with a pretty woman in an armchair. The other one seems to be enjoying herself greatly in the conversation of a gentleman of a certain age who seems very much in love with her, in the manner of a Teutonic patito (suitor) which is not pleasant. I was talking with the little lady in blue; I was ardently revealing my admiration for the hair and complexion of true blondes. At this, the other, who was listening to us with one ear, suddenly quit the conversation with her suitor and joined in ours. I wished to avoid being questioned. She had heard everything. I hastened to establish a distinction between brunettes with pale skin and others; she answered me that hers was dark.... So, here is your friend reduced to quibbles, conventional phrases, protestations. I thought I had greatly displeased the brunette. I was sad, because after all she was very beautiful and very majestic in her white dress, and resembled Giulia Grisi in the first act of Mozart’s Don Juan. The memory served, however, to temper things a little. Two days later, I met one of the counts who was there, at the Casino; we chanced to go to dinner together, and then to the theatre. We became friends in an instant. The conversation turned to the two ladies I mentioned above; he suggested that I introduce myself to one of them: the dark-skinned one. I raised my previous clumsiness.

He told me that on the contrary, it had gone very well. The man is deep.

I feared, at first, that he was the lady’s lover and was trying to rid himself of her, especially since he said:

— ‘It’s very useful to know her, because she has a box at the Kärntnertortheater, and you can attend whenever performances you wish’.

— ‘Dear Count, that is excellent; introduce me to the lady.’

He warned her, and the next day, today, here am I at this beautiful lady’s house, at about three. The drawing room is full. My presence hardly seems to register. However, a tall Italian makes her a bow, and departs, then a large fellow, who reminds me of Hoffman’s registrar, Heerbrand (see his tale, ‘The Golden Pot’), then my count, who has business elsewhere. The Hungarian prince and the patito remain. I wish to depart in turn; the lady restrains me by asking if ... (I was going to write a sentence that would yield you a clue). Anyway, simply know that she asks for a small favour I can perform for her. The prince goes off to play a game of tennis. The old man (we'll call him a marquis, if you like), the old marquis holds firm. She says to him:

— ‘My dear Marquis, I am not sending you away, but I must write something.’

He rises, and she says to me:

— ‘No, stay; I must give you the letter.’

Here we are alone. She continues:

— ‘There is no letter; let us talk a little; it is so tedious to talk to several people at once! I wish to visit Munich, tell me how things are there?

I answer:

— ‘I have a superb guide-book, with engravings, I will bring it tomorrow.’

That was quite clever of me; then I said a few words about Munich, and we moved on to other topics of conversation.

But ... it seems I am in the process of relating the most common adventure in the world. Brag about it? Why? I will even admit it ended badly. I had allowed myself, with complacency, to describe my love affairs, but only as a study in foreign customs, with regard to women who speak almost none of the European languages ... and, as for the rest, I remembered in time Friedrich Klopstock’s line: ‘Here, discretion beckons me with its bronze finger.’ (see ‘Ma Patrie’, in Gérard’s selection ‘Poésies Allemandes’, 1830)

P.S. — Do not be too severe on this letter made of fragments.... In Vienna this winter I have continually lived in a dream. Is the sweet atmosphere of the Orient already acting upon my head and heart? —I am, however, only halfway there.

Chapter 11: The Adriatic

(Translator’s note : Gérard de Nerval’s eventual route to Cairo and the Near-East was not that described here. From Vienna, he, in fact, returned, penniless, to Paris in March, or at the start of April, 1840. He left Marseilles on his actual route at the end of December 1842, taking ship via Livorno, Civitavecchia, Naples, Malta, and Syros, arriving in Alexandria around January 14th, 1843. He then made a five-day boat journey to Cairo.)

What a catastrophe, my friend! How am I to tell you all that has happened, or rather dare to deliver this confidential letter to the imperial post office! Remember I am still on Austrian territory, that is to say, on a wooden deck that forms part of it — that of the Francesco Primo, a vessel belonging to the shipping company Österreichischer Lloyd. I am writing to you in sight of Trieste, a rather gloomy city, situated on a strip of land that juts out into the Adriatic, with wide streets that transect it at right angles, and through which a continual wind blows. Doubtless, there are beautiful views to be had of the dark mountains that pierce the horizon; but you can read admirable descriptions of those in Jean Sbogar (1818) by Charles Nodier, the author of Mademoiselle de Marsan (1832); why repeat them? As for my journey from Vienna here, I came by train, except for about twenty leagues through mountain gorges covered with fir trees powdered with frost.... It was very cold. It was not cheerful, but it was in keeping with my inner feelings. Be content with this confession.

You will ask me why I did not travel eastwards via the Danube, as was my first intention. Let me inform you that the pleasant adventures which kept me in Vienna far longer than I wished, led me to miss the last steamboat which goes downriver to Belgrade and Semlin, from which one usually takes the Turkish post-coach. The river was iced over, it was no longer possible to sail. I was minded to finish the winter in Vienna and not leave again till the spring ... perhaps never. The gods decided otherwise.

No, you know nothing of this as yet. I must set an expanse of sea between myself and ... a sweet, sad memory.

Do you know where I am going now, on this beautiful Österreichischer Lloyd vessel?

I will dream of my amours... on the island of Cythera.

We sail south, in the Adriatic, in terrible weather; it is impossible to see anything but the misty coasts of Illyria to the east, and the numerous islands of the Dalmatian archipelago. The country of the Montenegrins is only a dark silhouette on the horizon, which we perceived as we passed Ragusa, a wholly Italian city. We put in to Corfu later, to take on coal and receive a party of Egyptians, commanded by a Turk named Soliman-Aga. These brave folk have established themselves on deck, where they remain, squatting during the day and lying down, each on his own mat, at night. The head of the group alone sits with us, between decks, and takes his meals at our table. He speaks a little Italian and seems a cheerful enough companion.

The storm has increased as we approached Greece. The rolling was so violent during dinner that most of the guests gradually regained their hammocks.

In these circumstances, where, after many attempts at bravado, the table, at first full, gradually becomes empty, to great bursts of laughter from those who resist the effect of the pitching and tossing of the ship, a sort of maritime fraternity is established among the latter. What was for all but a meal becomes for those who remain a feast, which is indulged in for as long as possible. It is a little like the game of pool in billiards; the aim is not to ‘die’.

To die!... you will decide if the allusion is apt. There were four of us left at the table, after having seen thirty guests fail shamefully. Besides Soliman and I, an English captain and a Capuchin from the Holy Land, named Father Charles. He was a fine fellow who laughed heartily with us and who pointed out that, today, Soliman-Aga had not poured himself any wine, which he usually drank in abundance. He told him so jestingly.

— ‘Today,’ replied the Turk, ‘the thunder is too loud.’

Father Charles rose from the table, and took a cigar from his sleeve, which he offered to me very graciously.

Lighting it, I still wished to keep company with the two who remained; but soon felt it healthier to go and take the air on deck.

I stayed there only a moment. The storm was still in full force. I hastened to return to steerage. The Englishman indulged in great bursts of laughter, and ate every dish, saying that he could willingly consume the dinner of a whole barracks (it is true, the Turk helped him powerfully). To complete his bravado, he asked for a bottle of champagne, and offered us some; none of those who had retired accepted his invitation. He then said to the Turk:

— ‘Well, we’ll drink it together!’

But at this moment there was a rumble of thunder, and Soliman-Aga, perhaps believing it a temptation of the devil’s making, left the table, and vanished without answering.

The Englishman, annoyed, cried out:

— ‘Well, so much the better! I’ll drink it all by myself, and down another after that!’

Next morning the storm had abated; the cabin boy, on entering the cabin, found the Englishman lying half on the table, his head resting on his arms. They shook him. He was dead!

— ‘Bismillah!’ cried the Turk.

Which is the word the Turks say to ward off any fatal thing (equating to ‘In the name of Allah,’ a truncation of ‘Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim’, meaning ‘In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful) …

The Englishman was indeed dead. Father Charles regretted that he could not pray for him as a priest; though he certainly prayed for him, silently, as a man.

A strange fate! The Englishman was a former captain of the East India Company, suffering from a heart condition, who had been advised to drink only Nile water. The wine had failed to mix with the water in time.

All being said, was it not a most unhappy way to die?

We will stop at Cythera to leave the Englishman’s body there. That will allow me to land on the isle, at which the vessel does not usually stop. You will have understood, no doubt, the reason that made me leave Vienna so abruptly.... I tear myself away from such memories. — I will add not a word more. I am reticent in my pain, like a wounded animal that retreats to solitude, to suffer there awhile, or succumb without complaint.

(Translator’s note: on Gérard’s route, in 1843, he viewed Cythera only from a distance, in passing, at dawn on January 10th, aboard the ‘Minos’.)

The End of Part II of Gérard de Nerval’s ‘Travels in the Near East’

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