Letters of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy from Italy and Switzerland. Felix Mendelssohn-BartholdyЧитать онлайн книгу.
to-night, and we have got over the worst hill; you can learn the name at the next stage.—I hesitated, and we drove on. They did not know the name at the next stage, nor at the following one either. At length, at the end of seven long wearisome hours, we arrived, and before I left the carriage, I said, who were the party who drove to Salzburg this morning in two carriages? and received the quiet reply—Baroness Pereira; she proceeds to Gastein early to-morrow morning, but returns four or five days hence. Now I had arrived at a certainty, and I also spoke to her driver, who said that none of the family were here. The two gentlemen I met in a carriage on the road, were sons of the Baroness (the very two I had never seen). In addition to all this, I remembered a wretched portrait that I had once got a glimpse of at our aunt H——'s, and the lady in the black dress was Baroness Pereira! Heaven knows when I may have another opportunity of seeing her! I do not think that she ever could have made a more pleasing impression on me, and I shall not assuredly soon forget her attractive appearance, and her kind expression of countenance.
Nothing is more unsatisfactory than a presentiment; we all experience them, but we never discover till too late, that they really were presentiments. I would have returned then and there, and travelled through the night, but I reflected that I should only overtake her at the very moment of her departure, or that possibly she might have left Salzburg before my arrival, and that I should thus frustrate all the plan of my journey to Vienna. At one moment I thought of going to Gastein, but I could not help feeling that Salzburg had treated me very badly, so I once more said adieu, and went to bed very crest-fallen. Next morning I desired that her empty house should be pointed out to me, and made a sketch of it for you, dear mother. My bad luck, however, was still growling in the distance, for I could find no favourable spot to take my sketch from. Besides, they charged me more than a ducat at the inn for one night's entertainment, etc., etc. I gave utterance to various anathemas, both in English and German, and drove away, laying aside among the things of the past, Ischl, Salzburg, Baroness Pereira, and the Traunsee; and so I came on here, where I have taken a day's rest.
To-morrow I intend to pursue my journey, and (D. V.) to sleep in Vienna the day after. I will write to you further from thence. Thus ended my day of misfortunes; "truth, and no poetry," not even the leaning the hand against the door of my carriage is invention; all is a portrait taken from life. The most incomprehensible thing is that I should have totally overlooked Flora, who it seems was also there, for the old lady in a tartan cloak, who went into the inn, was Frau von W——, and the old gentleman with green spectacles who followed her, could not well have been Flora? In short, when things once take a wrong turn, they will have their course. I can write no more to-day, for my disappointment is still too recent; in my next letter I will describe the Salzkammergut, and all the beauties of my journey yesterday. How right Devrient was to advise me to take this route! The Traunstein also, and the Traun Falls, are wonderfully fine; and after all, the world is a very pleasant world, and it is fortunate for me that you are in it, and that I shall find letters from you the day after to-morrow, and possibly much that is agreeable besides. Dear Fanny, I mean now to compose my Non nobis, and the symphony in A minor. Dear Rebecca, if you could hear me singing "Im warmen Thal" in a spasmodic fashion, you would think it rather deplorable; you could sing it better. Oh, Paul! can you declare that you understand the Schein Gulden, W. W. Gulden, heavy Gulden, light Gulden, Conventions Gulden, and the devil and his grandmother's Gulden? I don't, one bit. I wish therefore that you were with me, but for many reasons besides this one. Farewell!
Presburg, September 27th, 1830.
Dear Brother,
Peals of bells, drums and music, carriages on carriages, people hurrying in all directions, everywhere gay crowds, such is the general aspect around me, for to-morrow is to be the coronation of the King, which the whole city has been expecting since yesterday, and are now imploring that the sky may clear up, and wake bright and cheerful, for the grand ceremony which ought to have taken place yesterday was obliged to be deferred on account of the torrents of rain. This afternoon the sky is blue and beautiful, and the moon is now shining down tranquilly on the tumult of the city. To-morrow at a very early hour the Crown Prince is to take his oaths (as King of Hungary) in the large Market-place; he is then to go to church in grand procession, attended by a whole array of bishops and nobles of the realm, and afterwards rides up the Königsberg, which lies opposite my windows, in order to wave his sword towards the banks of the Danube and the four quarters of the globe, in token that he takes possession of his new realm.
This excursion has made me acquainted with a new country; for Hungary with her magnates, her high dignitaries, her Oriental luxury, and also her barbarism, is to be seen here, and the streets offer a spectacle which is to me both novel and striking. We really seem here to approach closer to the East; the miserably obtuse peasants or serfs; the troops of gipsies; the equipages and retainers of the nobles overloaded with gold and gems, (for the grandees themselves are only visible through the closed windows of their carriages); then the singularly bold national physiognomy, the yellow hue, the long moustaches, the soft foreign idiom—all this makes the most motley impression in the world.
Early yesterday I went alone through the streets. First came a long array of jovial officers, on spirited little horses; behind them a crew of gipsies, making music; succeeded by Vienna fashionables, with eye-glasses and kid gloves, conversing with a Capuchin monk; then a couple of uncivilized peasants in long white coats, their hats pressed down on their foreheads, and their straight black hair cut even all round, (they have reddish-brown complexions, a languid gait, and an indescribable expression of savage stupidity and indifference); then came a couple of sharp, acute-looking students of theology, in their long blue coats, walking arm-in-arm; Hungarian proprietors in their dark blue national costume; court servants; and numbers of carriages every moment arriving, covered with mud. I followed the crowd as they slowly moved on up the hill, and so at last I arrived at the dilapidated castle, which commands an extensive view of the whole city and the Danube. People were looking down on all sides from the ancient white walls, and from the towers and balconies; in every corner boys were scribbling their names on the walls for the benefit of posterity; in a small chamber (perhaps once on a time a chapel, or a sleeping-apartment) an ox was in the act of being roasted whole, and as it turned on the spit, the people shouted with delight; a succession of cannons bristled before the castle, destined to bellow forth their appropriate thunders at the coronation.
Below, on the Danube, which runs very rapidly here, darting with the speed of an arrow through the pontoon bridge, lay a new steamer, that had just arrived, laden with strangers; then the extensive view of the flat but wooded country, and meadows overflowed by the Danube; of the embankments and streets swarming with human beings, and mountains clothed with Hungarian vines—all this was not a little strange and foreign. Then the pleasant contrast of living in the same house with the best and most friendly people in the world, and finding novelty doubly interesting in their society. These were really among the happy days, dear brother, that a kind Providence so often and so richly bestows on me.
September 28th, one o'clock.
The King is crowned—the ceremony was wonderfully fine. How can I even try to describe it to you? An hour hence we will all drive back to Vienna, and thence I pursue my journey. There is a tremendous uproar under my windows, and the Burgher-guards are flocking together, but only for the purpose of shouting "Vivat!" I pushed my way through the crowd, while our ladies saw everything from the windows, and never can I forget the effect of all this brilliant and almost fabulous magnificence.
In the great square of the Hospitallers the people were closely packed together, for there the oaths were to be taken on a platform hung with cloth; and afterwards the people were to be allowed the privilege of tearing down the cloth for their own use; close by was a fountain spouting red and white Hungarian wine. The grenadiers could not keep back the people; one unlucky hackney coach that stopped for a moment was instantly covered with men, who clambered