SIX SUNNY MONTHS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.
CHAPTER III.
A LITTLE PLOT.
The next morning the girls set their possessions in order, brought out the few books they had thought worth while to take with them, and the little ornaments they had bought by the way, and scattered them about the rooms.
Among these objects was a large and populous photograph-book, which Isabel displayed to the Signora, introducing the strangers to her, and recalling to her memory the friends whose faces had changed beyond her recognition.
“This is Louis Marion,” she said; “and I shouldn’t be surprised if we were to see him here before long. We must introduce him to you—that is, if he should call on us. He used to be a great friend of ours, but, for some reason or other, he grew a little cool before we left, and didn’t even come to say good-by. I never could understand what was the matter. May be it wasn’t anything; and we were in such a bustle of preparation and taking leave of everybody that there was no chance to ask for explanations.”
The Signora looked with interest at this picture; for the person, though a stranger, had been much in her mind of late. His looks pleased her. It was a good face, not too handsome, but with fine eyes, and an appearance of strength softened here and there by some delicate finish. She had hoped
most decidedly that he would come, and a letter which she had received that morning made her desire his coming more than before.
“I have no patience with Isabel Vane,” the writer declared energetically. “She is so wrapped up in herself, and so insensitive, that delicacy is quite thrown away on her. She is one of those persons who think no one can talk except those who will interrupt and talk loudly, and so, with the greatest apparent unconsciousness, she monopolizes all the attention of their friends, and sets Bianca aside as if she were a nobody. It never occurs to her that a gentleman may admire her sister; and yet Bianca is very much admired, in an odd, provoking kind of way. Most people, you know, attend to the loudest talker; and in the presence of Isabel her sister was sometimes almost neglected, even by those who were constantly thinking of her. Anybody with two eyes could see that Louis Marion liked her, and I am sure she thought he did, and that there was a sort of tacit understanding between them. They didn’t talk much together, but I’ve seen them manage to be near each other, and where they could hear each other’s voices, and one of them never left the company without glancing back and receiving a glance in return. At length, I don’t know how it came about, but
Isabel seemed to take his attentions to herself, and may be she said something about him to Bianca. Then a coldness grew up between her and Marion, and a thousand little complications helped it on, and he began to absent himself from the house, and Bianca pretended not to see him unless he came to speak to her, and so they separated, and all in consequence of the stupid conceit of a girl whom I could shake with a good will.”
We need not quote the letter further, though the writer, in the fulness of her heart, added several pages of amplifications on the theme, all which the Signora had read and re-read.
Bianca was arranging books on the table when the photograph-book was opened. She continued her employment a few minutes; but when they approached the page where Louis Marion’s picture was she turned away, and when his name was mentioned she was leaning out of the window, much interested apparently, in something going on in the street.
“Whose photographs are these?” the Signora asked.
“Oh! they are all family friends,” was the reply. “I might say they are mine, for I asked for the most of them. Neither papa nor Bianca would have thought of it. But they belong to the firm.”
The Signora prided herself on being a rather exceptionally honest and straightforward woman; but at this moment a very complicated little plot was forming itself in her mind. She could guess with how tender an interest Bianca might regard this photograph, but how impossible it might be for her to show anything but the utmost indifference to it, and how, sometimes, it might be a pleasure to contemplate
it when she would not venture to do so. She could guess that it had been really given for her sake, though she had not been the one to ask for it, and what faint bloom of a downcast smile the gentleman might have seen in her face when it was put in its place.
“It is a darkish face, and the least in the world too small for the place,” the Signora said; “and so is this one next it.”
A word of cool depreciation is enough to take the lustre from a star with most people, and Miss Isabel Vane was no exception. If one abuses a person’s friends or ridicules their possessions, they may be stirred to anger; but that dispassionate, slighting way gives the deadliest of shocks to friendship.
“It scarcely does him justice,” the young lady owned; “and, as you say, the photographs are a little too small for their places. I must ask Marion for another when he comes, if he should come. The other I do not care about. He was simply put in to fill up. I must buy four more to put in these vacant places.”
“Stay!” the Signora said. “I have some which are worth more than merely to fill the vacant places; they will adorn the book.”
She brought from her room a little box of card-photographs, and began to select from them. “Here is the Holy Father on his knees before what seems to be the statue of St. Joseph holding the Child; and here are four cardinals and a patriarch. See how well they fit in! Do you mind my taking these two out?”
“Oh! no.” Isabel was too much pleased with these notable additions to her gallery to care for the two indifferent acquaintances who made
room for them. But as the Signora carelessly, and quite as a matter of course, tossed the two cards into the box where their substitutes had been, she saw that Bianca had turned from the window and was regarding them. Even in the half glance she cast she could know that the turning had been sudden, and that the girl’s head was held very high.
The Signora rose. “Well, children, if we are going to Santa Croce we must start in an hour. It is a great festa there, and I think there will be a crowd. Didn’t Bianca promise to braid my hair in a wonderful new way? I remembered it this morning, and have only given my locks a twist about the comb, and they are on the point of falling about my shoulders in the most romantic manner.”
She would not seem to see the faint shade of disturbance with which Bianca followed her from the room. She well knew that in seeming to slight the one that tender heart held dear she had chilled the heart toward herself; but that was not to last long, neither the pain nor the displeasure. She slipped a white dressing-sack on, seated herself before the long mirror, and shook her hair down. “Now, my dear, make me as beautiful as you like,” she said; and, taking the box of photographs she had brought with her on her lap, began to turn them over. “You had better take charge of these,” she remarked, laying the two at the top aside before beginning her survey of the others.
Bianca said nothing, but her hands, combing out the long, fair locks, were a little unsteady, and her face blushed in the mirror, a swift, startled blush.
“Three strands, my dear,” the Signora said. “I never fancied a
braid of any other sort for the hair. More than three strands always seems to me like a market-basket on the head of a market-woman. I always thought very elaborate hair-dressing vulgar and unbecoming. I like the way yours is done this morning.”
Bianca’s hair was in a few large satin-smooth curls tied back with a ribbon of so fresh a green as to be almost gold, and the Signora knew that, after a careful brushing, five minutes had accomplished all the rest. There were no curl-papers nor hot irons; it was only to brush the tress about the pretty fore-finger, and it dropped in glossy coil on coil.
“Many people do not like curls,” Bianca said. “But it seems a pity to straighten out and braid curly hair. I think nature meant such hair to have its own way, just like vine tendrils, though the use may not be so evident.”
She spoke with a certain quietness, not cold, yet not cordial, and kept her eyes fixed on the braid her skilful fingers were weaving rapidly.
The Signora took up the photographs she had laid aside, glanced at one, and dropped it, then looked at the other for some time in silence. “What fine, earnest eyes he has!” she said at length. “There is even something reproachful in their expression, as if he were looking at one who had doubted him. I do not doubt you, sir. On the contrary, I am disposed to have the utmost confidence in you. Moreover, I shall be happy to see you in Rome.”
She laid the photograph carefully on the other, and, closing her eyes, resigned herself entirely to the care of her pretty handmaiden. There was silence for a few minutes while the braids were being finished; then
she felt a soft hand slip down each cheek with a caressing touch. “Open your eyes, carissima mia,” said a voice as soft, “and tell me how these are to be arranged. Will you have them looped or in a crown?”
The thin ice was quite melted; and when the hair-dressing was finished, Bianca went off to her own room, bearing the treasure that had been put into her possession in such an artful manner. “It makes me feel very twisted to act in such a crooked way; but if it is a crooked it isn’t a dark way. And the dear child is so happy!” the Signora thought.
A shower was passing to the south when our party came out of the church at noon, and the sun was so veiled that they sent their carriage on, and walked from Santa Croce to St. John Lateran. They could see a pearly stream of water pouring down far away from a dark spot in the sky to a dark spot on the earth; but the clouds over their heads were as tender and delicate as the shadows of maidenhair ferns about a fountain. They lingered till every one had passed them, and, when they came to the last mulberry-tree of the beautiful avenue, there was left only a contadino lounging on the stone bench there. He was a spectacle of faded rags and superb contentment, and seemed to have neither desire nor intention to leave the place for hours; but when he saw them look longingly at the seat, he rose, saluted them with an indescribably shabby hat, in which were stuck three fresh roses, and relinquished the bench to them.
Bianca sighed with delight as she glanced about, but said nothing. The others seemed disposed to talk.
“I heard this morning, Signora, what made me understand your admiration
for the Italian language,” Mr. Vane said. “While you three were in the church I went outside the door, and presently, as I stood there, I heard two men talking behind me. Of course I did not understand a word they said, but I listened attentively. I never heard such exquisite spoken sounds in my life. The questions and replies made me think of the beautiful incised wreaths and sprigs on your candelabra. There wasn’t a syllable blurred, as we constantly hear in our own language; but I am sure every word was pronounced perfectly. When the two seemed to be going, I looked round and saw two Capuchin monks with bare ankles, and robes faded out to a dull brick-color.”
“Those same faded robes may cover very accomplished men,” the Signora said. “Some of them are fine preachers. I wish we had more preaching in Rome. One very seldom hears a sermon. The first one I heard made the same impression on me, as to the language, that the talk of these monks has made on you. I did not understand, but I was charmed. It reminded me of—Landor, wasn’t it? writing of Porson:
“‘So voluble, so eloquent,
You little heeded what he meant.’
That was in St. Philip Neri’s Church.”
“Dulness is inexcusable in a Catholic preacher in any language,” Mr. Vane said. “If they should not have much talent of their own, they have such a wealth to draw from—all the beautiful legends and customs, and the grand old authors, and the lives of the saints. A dull Protestant preacher has the Bible, it is true; but, as a rule, I find that only the eloquent ones use that source of wealth freely, or know
how to use it. One of the most eloquent Catholic preachers I ever heard used to make his strongest hits by simply refraining from speech. I recollect one sermon of his where he spoke of St. Augustine, whom I thought he was going to describe, but whom he made appear more brilliant by not describing. ‘His genius,’ he began, then stopped, seemed to search for words, at last threw his head back and clasped his hands. ‘Oh! the genius of St. Augustine,’ he exclaimed. Of course the tribute was more splendid than the most rolling period could have been. Nearly all his effective climaxes were like that—noble words breaking up into silence, like a Roman arch into a Gothic.”
“You will have to renounce your Gothic, Bianca,” the Signora said; “at least, while you are in Rome. You won’t even want to see it here, and you may lose your taste for it as church architecture. I sometimes think I have, though I was once enthusiastic about it. Now the single column or the massive pier, with the round arch above, seems to me the perfect expression of a perfect and serene faith. It is a following of the sky-shape. The complications and subtilty of the Gothic are more like the searching for truth of an aspiring and dissatisfied soul. When I go from under the noble arches and cupolas of Santa Maria Maggiore to the church of St. Alphonsus Liguori, just beyond it, I receive an impression of fretfulness and unrest.”
“I should be sorry to give up Notre Dame de Paris and the two churches at Rouen,” Bianca murmured half absently, her soft, bright eyes gathering in all the beauty within their ken.
Isabel was differently employed.
She was busy noting facts in a little plethoric book with yellow covers and an elastic strap that she always carried in her pocket. “Do you know how long and how wide this open space between the two basilicas is?” she asked of the Signora, holding her lead-pencil suspended.
“Oh! it is long enough for a nice walk, you see, and broad enough to see everything at the other side without bumping your eyes. That is the city wall opposite, you know.”
“I’d like to know how many acres there are,” Isabel said to herself. “I believe I could measure it by my eyes. Let me see! It’s a foot to that stone. Five and a half feet make a rod, pole, or perch. Five and a half that distance would go to the next tree. A rod, then, from me to the tree. Now for a rood! Sixteen and a half—no! How I do forget! Three barley-corns make one inch, twelve inches make a foot, five and a half feet make a rod, pole, or perch, sixteen and a half rods, poles, or—bah! that isn’t it. Signora, will you be so good as to tell me how many rods make a rood?—that is, if it is rods that they make roods of. I used to know it, but there’s a hitch somewhere.”
“How should I know, my dear?” asked the Signora with mild surprise.
“Oh! don’t measure things, Bell!” pleaded her sister. “Remember London Tower.”
For Miss Vane had presumed to ask the superb “beef-eater” who escorted them through the Tower how thick might be the walls, the solidity of which he was enlarging upon, and the cool stare with which he drew the eyes of the whole party upon her, and the gently sarcastic “I do not know; I have never measured them,” with which he replied,
had silenced her for the whole afternoon. “That was because I had asked something he could not answer,” she said, in telling the story. “And his manner was so imposing that it was hours before I could rid myself of the impression that I had put a very absurd and improper question. He didn’t refuse sixpence, though, for a piece of ivy from Beauchamp Tower,” she added, shrugging her shoulders.
“Bell,” whispered her sister, “I’ll tell you about the rods and roods, if you won’t measure any more.” Then, having received the promise, she explained the “hitch,” which has doubtless left its little tangle on many a youthful memory.
A woman with a white handkerchief on her head came along, and beckoned to the ragged man with the roses, who was still lounging near, and the two went off together.
“Did you notice how she beckoned?” the Signora asked. “I always notice that here. They beckon as if indicating the feet, the palm of the hand being downward, the fingers toward the ground. We beckon with the palm and fingers upward, indicating the head. It used to confuse me, and I fancied myself sent away with a refusal when I was invited to enter. You will have to learn their signs. A certain shrug and raising of the eyebrows mean no. Another no—an odious one to me—is to wag to and fro the uplifted forefinger of the right hand. This is nearly always accompanied by a compression or puckering up of the mouth. But, my dear friends, it is time for luncheon. Shall we go?”
They rose slowly, and slowly strolled across the open space where art and nature lived peacefully together. No busy hands and spades uprooted the plots of wild-flowers,
infantile little pink convolvuli, snowy daisies, and all their blue and yellow kin, that had sprung up here and there in the gravelled plain, or the detached tiny plants that make each its own solitude, spreading its small leaves out over the pebbles, and raising its delicate head freely, as if to induce the passer-by to pause and admire for once the exquisite grace of the weeds he despised.
“I wonder if any one but Ruskin ever stopped to look at weeds!” the Signora said. “It was he, I think, taught me. I first thought of it on seeing an illustration in Modern Painters. It was a bit of weed-covered earth seen close, as one would see it when lying on the ground—only a little tangle of leaves and grasses; but, touched by his pen and pencil, its beauty was revealed.”
“I sometimes think,” Bianca said, “that it is a mercy we cannot see all the beauty there is about us; for, if we did, we should do nothing but stand and stare for ever.”
“One might do worse than stand and stare at beauty for ever,” her father replied. “I’ve no great opinion of business.”
She slipped her hand in his arm before answering, knowing that inaction was a subject that always found him a little sensitive. “That depends, you know,” she said. “When the business is to make your tea or hem your handkerchief, why it wouldn’t do for me to be going into trances.”
Isabel took his other arm. “But when the business is measuring places for the pleasure of knowing and telling how large they are, or when it is taking the census, or any of those countings of units, then he despises it.”
“When the business is poking a
nose in other people’s business, I certainly object to it,” he said.
Walking along, he drew the two fair hands that clung to him into his own, and clasped them together against his breast, smiling down into the girls’ upturned faces; and for a moment the three, in their mutual affection and confidence, forgot the Signora. She walked on in front of them, her eyes cast down, and seemed to desire to remain apart. A silence fell upon them all—perhaps a sense of the silence about them, or perhaps that silence that always follows an expression of deep and tender affection, as when through the light and varied chat of a company is heard the tone of a musical instrument, and all the talk ceases for a moment; or, it may be, some touch from within or from without had reminded them that it was the day of the Holy Cross.
The drive home was very quiet, the Signora pointing out now and then some object of superlative interest as they passed it. “This is St. Clement’s, an ancient church over a still more ancient church. Mustn’t it be delightful to go digging under your house some day to repair a drain, or do some such thing, and presently come across the arch of a buried door, then, digging farther, find the whole door, then a mosaic pavement and a column of verde-antique, and so on, till a whole temple is revealed where you expected to find only earth and stones? Some such thing happened here. There is the Roman Forum a little beyond. Need I introduce this ruin to you?”
She pointed to the Colosseum, and then left them to their reflections. “Drive through the Via della Croce Bianca,” she said to the coachman, “and under the Arco dei
Pontani. Then pass Santa Maria in Monti, and go up Via de’ Santa Pudentiana.”
She saw them look eagerly at the beautiful fragments of Pallas Minerva and Mars Ultor she had chosen the route to show them; but they asked no questions, and she volunteered no explanations.
When they reached home the windows were all closed, and the curtains and persiane half drawn for coolness, and there was such a fragrance in the rooms that they all exclaimed. Every tall vase was crowded full of roses pink and yellow, and every little one held a bunch of deep purple violets.
“Could any one leave a prettier card?” the Signora asked, displaying her treasures. “When I find heaps of violets and roses in the spring, I always know who has been here during my absence. It is Mr. Coleman,” naming her bachelor friend of the semi-weekly cup of tea. “I bespeak for him a kind place in your regards. He is faithful, honest, obliging, and refined. I am under obligations to him for many kindnesses.”
“Marion says that violets are the Mayflowers of Italy,” Isabel remarked; “that they come as plentifully at the same time, and are sold as universally, as the trailing arbutus in New England.”
“And see what a deep blue they are!” the Signora said, leading the conversation away from Marion. “These came from the Villa Borghese. I know by the color. Oh! the fields are full of flowers now. You will, perhaps, see some this evening. There are almost always a few people come in this night of the week—people who never find me at any other time. It isn’t a reception, you know. I don’t bind myself. Among them
will be your Italian teacher; so you can arrange when to begin studying. I sent him a note this morning. And, stay! Apropos of violets, I have something lovely to show you.”
She opened a little case that the servant had given her as she entered. “These were left while we were out. I had ordered some changes to be made in them. See! they are the Borghese violets set in dew and petrified.”
The case contained a brooch, a pair of bracelets and sleeve-buttons, all of plain and highly polished silver, in each of which was set a large, deep-purple amethyst.
“Why did I never think of a silver setting?” Bianca exclaimed. “I always admired amethysts till they were set; then I found them spoilt. It was the ugly purple and yellow contrast. These are lovely, and just suit you, Signora mia. How I wish I could wear such things!”
“And why can you not?” Mr. Vane asked, with all the simplicity of a man who can admire results without understanding what produces them.
“Because they would make me look like a starless twilight,” the girl replied. “I should be obliged to paint my cheeks if I put on such colors. Poor me! I could wear only rubies, or opals, or diamonds, perhaps emeralds set in diamonds.”
Her father’s face assumed that sad and troubled expression a man’s face always wears when one he loves wishes for something out of his power to give. “Are you not rather young, my dear, to wear much jewelry?” he asked doubtfully.
“He thinks I am pining for trinkets,” she said smilingly. “Certainly,
papa, I am altogether too young, and am, moreover, disinclined to wear it. Don’t look so sad about it! My ribbons and flowers satisfy me quite. I shall beg some rosebuds of the Signora for this evening, and you shall see how much prettier they will be than rubies, besides having perfume, which rubies have not.”
Isabel had arranged the bracelets around her neck, and fastened the brooch in her lace ruffle.
“They do make one look three shades darker,” she said, and sighed deeply in taking them off. “I would like to go dressed in jewels from head to foot,” she added.
But, as Isabel was always sighing to possess every beautiful thing she saw, and, if it were possible, would have had the Vatican for her abode and St. Peter’s for a private chapel, nobody took her longings very much to heart; the less so, moreover, as she managed to live a very gay and happy life in spite of those unsatisfied longings.
Other pretty things had come in during their morning’s absence: a pile of books, old copies of the Italian poets newly bound over in white vellum with red edges to the leaves, a pile of Roman photographs which were to be sent to America, and a collection of little squares of marbles, porphyries, and alabasters, a stone rainbow, destined also for America.
“But we need photographs in Rome,” the Signora said. “Looking at them, we discover a thousand beauties which we missed when we saw the original.”
A strange croaking sound drew the attention of the girls to the windows, and they saw a little caravan of crates carried past on carts, going from the railway station to the great markets of the city.
Out of the holes in these crates protruded heads and necks of every sort of fowl—turkeys, hens, ducks, and pigeons. The poor wretches, huddled and crowded together, seemed to know that they were on their way to execution, and to implore the pity of the bystanders.
Bianca pressed her lips together and said nothing; Isabel leaned out and contemplated them with a smile. “Those dear turkeys!” she said with the greatest affection.
“You like them?” the Signora asked, rather surprised that any one should choose pets so grotesque.
“Yes, immensely!” was the reply. “They’re so nice roasted.”
And then, obliterating this painful and awkward reminder of what lay under the surface of their daily comforts, came a piercingly-sweet chorus of trumpets, twenty trumpets playing together. A regiment was passing, going from a camp in one part of the city to a camp in another part. The men were dressed in gray linen, and, in the distance, were hardly to be distinguished from the street, and their bearing was not very soldier-like; but the wild and sunny music gave a soul and meaning to them, and, rising through the hot and silent noon, stirred even the most languid pulses.
“War will never be done away with till trumpets are abolished,” Mr. Vane said. “I have no doubt that even I should make a very good fighter if I had a band of them in full blast at my elbow while the battle lasted. It wouldn’t do for them to stop, though. Fancy a charge for which no trumpet sounded! It would no more go off, you know, than a gun would without powder. Why doesn’t somebody
take care of that child?” he concluded abruptly.
For a soiled little wretch was sitting directly in the street, on a cushion of dust, and staring contentedly at the soldiers as they passed, as unconscious and unafraid as if it had been a poppy sprung up there between the paving-stones, instead of a human being with a body out of which the soul might be kicked or crushed.
“Somebody is taking care of it,” Bianca said. “Everybody is taking care of it.”
In fact, the long line of soldiers made a tiny curve to accommodate this bit of humanity, and the tide of life passing at the other side made another, like a brook around a stick or stone. At length a woman, not too much afraid, certainly, snatched the child away, and, in the face of the world, administered a sound castigation, the meaning of which, it was to be hoped, the child understood.
“I never saw such countryfied things happen in any other city,” Mr. Vane said. “It is, perhaps, one reason why life here is so picturesque. Nobody, except the small class of cultivated people, behaves any differently in public from what they do in private, and the common people do not pretend to be what they are not.”
“I wish sometimes that they were a little less sincere,” the Signora remarked coldly. “One could spare that portion of the picturesque which offends against decency. They seem to have no respect for public opinion; though, perhaps,” she added, “public opinion here is not worthy of much respect. It tolerates strange customs, certainly. The workmen hammer away and saw stone all day Sunday at the house opposite, and nobody protests,
that I know of. Some clergymen did think of complaining against the work going on on Sunday in the piazza above, but it would have been in vain for them, of course. Let us go to luncheon, please. I am in danger of becoming ill-natured, so many things here annoy me. Do you remember the old Protestant missionary hymn about ‘Greenland’s icy mountains’? Two lines of it often occur to me here:
‘Though every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile.’
I shall think better of them when I have had something to eat. Hunger makes one critical. I fancy that critics are always badly-fed people. I’m very sure that if Dr. Johnson had had a comfortable dinner before he sat down to my last book, he would never have cut it up so—the book, I mean. A good roastbeef would have taken the edge quite off his blade. A dinner,” said the Signora, waxing eloquent as she seated herself at a very pretty and plentiful table—“a dinner is the most powerful of engines, and wealth is powerful only because it will procure dinners. A person whom you have fed is obliged to serve you, and the person whom you are going to feed never finds you ugly or uninteresting.”
Bianca contemplated her friend with an expression of grieved astonishment. “How can you talk so with all these flowers in the room listening to you?” she exclaimed.
“Besides, you are going to feed me, but I never saw you so near being ugly. I think, indeed, you are a little bit ugly.”
The Signora laughed pleasantly. “If I had known that the dearest flower in the room was going to find a reproachful tongue for me, I
should never have uttered such shocking opinions. Never shake your sunny locks at me. It was not I who said it; ‘twas hunger. It was Bailey’s wolf. You do not know Clive Bailey? He will come this evening, and I think you may be interested in him. I must tell you about his wolf. The poor fellow was, at the age of twenty, left poor indeed; suddenly found himself without a cent in the world, after having been brought up with the expectation of a competency, and studiously educated to do nothing. Fortunately, his taste had led him to read a good deal, and he had also a fancy for writing fiction. It was being thrown into the sea to learn to swim. He began to write for the cheap newspapers, always intending to find some other employment; but what with the necessity of writing a great deal to keep himself alive, and the shock to his sensitive nature of finding himself in such a situation, he only succeeded in living the life he had stumbled into, without power to make another. It was the old story of poor writers, with, however, a pleasant ending in this case. He managed to squeeze a fair novel out of intervals in his drudge-work, and that won him a better market. In the height of his success he gathered those first sketches into a volume, and published them, giving the name of the author as A. Wolf, Esq. When somebody, not knowing the book to be his, asked him what Wolf it was who wrote those sketches, he answered: ‘The wolf at my door.’ And he insists that the same wolf is the most voluminous writer the world has ever produced, and that the title-pages of at least half the books written should bear his name. Buon appetito!”
CHAPTER IV.
“A FLOCK OF SHEEP THAT LEISURELY PASS BY.”
Several persons came in that evening from seven to nine. First appeared Mr. Coleman, a mild-looking, bald-headed man of an uncertain age. Isabel immediately absorbed him. Next followed a new-comer in Rome, on whose card was inscribed “Mr. Geo. Morton.” After having seen him once, the Signora was guilty of dubbing him Mr. Geometrical Morton. “He is ridiculous, but excellent,” she told her friends while describing him. “He never laughs, because he thinks there is nothing laughable in creation, every whim of nature, human or inanimate, being the result of a mathematical principle, and every disorder only order under an extraordinary form. Of course this is neither new nor peculiar; but he announces it as if it were new, and has a peculiar manner of clapping his measuring instruments on to everything. Not a bit of cirrus can pass over the sky nor your mind, but instantly he will tell you the philosophy of it. In fine, he strips everything to the skeleton, and cannot see that it is a bore, but calls it truth, as if the flesh and drapery were not truths also, as well as more graceful. I had a quarrel with him when he was here last—or rather, I got out of all patience, and scolded him almost rudely, and he listened and replied with the most irritating patience and politeness. I suppose he thought there was some mathematical reason for my being angry, and was studying it out with his great, solemn eyes. He’s kind and honest, I am sure, and as handsome as a picture. I
pity the woman he will choose for a wife, though. If she should scold, he will bring out the barometer; if she weep, the rain-gauge; if she should be merry and affectionate, he will consult the thermometer. Ugh! he makes me feel all three-cornered.”
This gentleman made his salutations with the most perfect gravity and courtesy, and, after considering the situation a moment, seated himself by Bianca.
“Well, what conclusions have you arrived at concerning Rome?” he asked, after a few preliminary remarks.
“None,” she replied; “but I have made a good many beginnings; or I might say I have arrived at some fragmentary conclusions.”
“As what?” he persisted gently, desirous to make her talk; for she had shrunk so shyly from him that her father had come to her other side, which was unique. The young man had not often the opportunity to study a shy feminine specimen.
“Oh! well,” she said doubtingly, then laughed; “apropos of papa’s checked clothes, which distress me, I have discovered that the clergy are the only well-dressed men in Rome. The others do not look like gentlemen. But the long robe, whatever the color of it, and the cloak they are always arranging, are so graceful, the hat is so picturesque, and, above all, the buckles on the shoes please me.”
“Below all, you mean,” her father remarked.
The young man looked the least in the world disconcerted; for he wore every day a suit of the same objectionable check cloth. Besides, he was not prepared to take on himself the instruction of a young woman whose tall father chose to assist at the lessons, and put in his word in season and out of season.
At this moment Mr. Clive Bailey made his appearance. His bright, clever face lighted up at sight of the new-comers, whom he had been expecting with interest, having heard a great deal about them.
“I hope you intend to make Rome your home,” he said to Mr. Vane. “The Signora has suggested such a possibility.”
“You compliment me more than you do our country,” Mr. Vane replied. “I have been told that it would be unpatriotic for me to prefer any other country to America as a residence. People talk that way. At the same time I should like to stay, and I have an impression that North America, as a whole, will not be aware of my absence.”
“Oh! I don’t mean to disparage any country,” Mr. Bailey said promptly; “only the climate is so hard. Those northeast winds whistle through my button-holes. By the way, a friend of yours asked me to-day if you had arrived, and would have come up to-night to see, if he had not been engaged: John Adams. You recollect him?”
“John Adams? Of course I recollect him. But what brought him here? I never heard him speak of Italy but to abuse it.”
“Oh!” the young man said, lowering his voice a little, and glancing at the Signora, who was near them, “he was brought by the same reason that brought him before, and
will keep him this winter—to wit, to woo.”
“To woo! To who?” retorted Mr. Vane.
“Not a whit of your to who!” replied the other with a laugh.
“What are you quoting Wordsworth for?” asked the Signora, overhearing the last part of their talk.
“Apropos of Mr. Adams, Signora,” Mr. Vane said, looking at her attentively.
She blushed and seemed annoyed, and, as if about to say something, finally turned away without speaking. It displeased her to have her name used in connection with that of any gentleman, and, besides, she did not mean to marry Mr. John Adams.
Here the door opened with a little breeze and three persons entered: a bright-eyed, beautiful young lady with a somewhat Jewish cast of face, who produced the impression that a bird had fluttered in, and, following her, a young girl of not more than sixteen, and an elderly woman, evidently a companion.
The Signora met the new-comer cordially.
“My dear countess, I do not know whether you are more welcome or unexpected.”
“I have but two minutes,” the young lady said in the prettiest breathless manner. “I am just on my way to dine out, and stop to ask a favor. But first let me introduce my friends.”
They were a young baroness from the Azores Islands, who had spent ten years in Egypt with her father, and was now on her way to her native country to join her husband, and her lady companion.
“She has to leave Rome the day after to-morrow,” her friend explained,
“and wants an introduction to Monsignor M——. She wishes to take some things from him to a friend of hers; and you know one doesn’t often have an opportunity to send to the Azores direct. Now, dear Signora, if you would be so very kind as to introduce her to Monsignor. You know I am not acquainted with him.”
“I will take her to him to-morrow morning,” the Signora said. “But they need not go now, if you do.”
“I was going to ask your hospitality for them while the carriage takes me, for I have to call for cousin Anne. And now, will you do me the favor to make me acquainted with the friends who have come to live with you? I must apologize for my abrupt coming and going.”
She made her apologies in the most graceful and simple way, and looked at Bianca a little lingeringly in meeting her, as if struck by her face. “I meant to call on you first,” she said to the sisters, “and will come to-morrow, if you permit me.”
The Signora followed her out to the landing. “I want a glimpse of your dress,” she said. “You know I never go out after dark; and yet I do so like to see a lady dressed for the evening.”
The countess smilingly threw back the long white cloak that covered her from head to foot, and displayed a beautiful silk robe of so pale a blue as to be almost white. Pink roses fastened the rich lace in the square bosom and loose sleeves, and looped the braids of dark hair, and she wore no jewels but some large strung pearls on her neck and wrists.
“It is lovely!” the Signora exclaimed, and looked admiringly after the lady as she tripped down the stone stairs, holding her rustling robes up about her.
Going back, she found Mr. Coleman and Bianca trying to entertain the rather stupid lady companion, Isabel taking her first lesson in mathematics, and the girl baroness, a dark, plain, talkative little creature, chatting away in very good English to Mr. Vane.
“I never saw my husband but once,” she said. “We were always betrothed since we were babies, but his father, the old Baron of Santa Cruz, had him sent to school in Lisbon, and I was always in a convent. My mamma was dead, and I had no brothers nor sisters, and papa was in Egypt. He has a high office there. Then Pedro came home from Portugal, and I went to papa. Two years ago we met in Rome and were married, so that I could go to him later with my companion. Papa couldn’t leave to go to the Azores, and Pedro couldn’t come again for me.”
She told the story in a very childish, simple way, and seemed to regard her marriage as quite a business-like and proper arrangement.
“You think that you will like Fayal as well as Cairo?” Mr. Vane asked kindly, pitying this child-wife who seemed to have so little of family affection to surround her in the most important time of her life.
“I cannot think, I cannot remember it,” she said. “When I try, it is Paris or Rome that comes up, and I get confused. If I should not like it, I shall ask Pedro to take me somewhere else. He has written me that he will always do everything I wish him to do.”
Mr. Vane scarcely felt a disposition to smile at this perfect trust. He found it pathetic.
“But I would like to go to your country,” she resumed with animation. “Pedro’s sister Maria went
there for a journey when she married, and she wrote me the most wonderful things. Perhaps she did not tell the truth. She may have been writing something only to make me laugh. You will not laugh if I tell you?”
Mr. Vane promised to maintain his gravity at all risks.
“Well,” she said confidentially, “Maria wrote me that the snow there is whiter than sea-foam on the rocks, and that one can walk in it and not be wet, and that carriages drive over and make a solid road of it, just as if the streets were paved with smooth, white marble, and that, at the sides, it piles up and stays in shape, like heaps of eider-down. It isn’t true, is it?”
She looked at him doubtfully and searchingly while he assured her of the correctness of the picture.
“And, more than that,” he said, “I have seen the snow so deep and solid that men would cut it in great blocks like Carrara marble, and, when they were standing in the place they had dug, you couldn’t see their heads over the top of the drifts. Did you ever see ice?”
“I saw some this morning, but it wasn’t white,” she said. “A carload of it went past the hotel. It was grayish and crumbly. The men had cut grass and weeds and piled over it to keep it from the sun.”
Mr. Vane, too, had seen this pitiful apology for the glorious crystal blocks of New England ice-cutters as he looked from his window that morning, and had indulged for the moment a feeling of scornful pride. “Fancy that mat of fresh grass and wild-flowers trembling over one of our ice-carts or snow-drifts!” he had said to Bianca. “Yes,” she had replied, but at the same moment had pointed out to him a
lovely compensation for the absence of these frigid splendors in the land of the sun. Beneath their window passed two men, bearing each on his head a large basket, one flat, and covered with camellias laid singly, a pink by a white one, each flower glistening with freshness; the other deep, and heaped with pink roses and buds, among which might be seen yellow roses tied in large, nodding bunches. Yes, the snow of the tropics was a snow of flowers.
The Signora passed near enough to Isabel and her companion to catch a part of their conversation. “Since you entered this room,” the gentleman was saying, “you have doubtless, either consciously or unconsciously, gone through with a good deal of swift reasoning. Some people you have liked more, others less, and in both cases the feeling, as you would call it, has been the result of a certain calculation as exact as anything in mathematics could be. You have been pleased with one for certain manners, or looks, or for certain qualities which you believe him to possess; and there are also exact and mathematically calculable reasons why these things should please you.”
Isabel looked edified, but puzzled. “If, then,” she ventured, “there is so much more reason in us all than we are aware of, why need we correct ourselves? I should think we might be all the better satisfied with what goes on in our minds, and let them arrange their own processes without troubling ourselves.”
“No,” he said with earnest gravity. “There are good reasons and bad reasons; and by knowing why we may correct the bad reasons. For example, your tooth aches; the reason is because there
is a defective spot in it. You go to the dentist, and the pain ceases. Or you do not fancy a person; the reason is because that person does not flatter you, and you are fond of flattery. You correct your inordinate love of praise, and thus appreciate the worth of one who tells you the truth, and also make it more easy for him to praise you sincerely.”
“But all this takes so much time,” she said, seeing that he waited for a response.
“It is for such uses that time was given us,” he replied.
She struggled for another objection, her mind rapidly becoming swamped in the conversation. “Then you think that we can arrange and order all our feelings, and make our hearts as regular as clocks; and if we lose a friend, by examining why he died, and why we grieve for him, we can reason ourselves into indifference.”
“No,” he said again. “We can undoubtedly subdue the violence of unreasonable grief by such examination, but there are deep and ineradicable reasons why we should grieve when we lose those dear to us.”
The girl’s eyes brightened. “Why,” she said, “it all seems to me only a difference of terms. You mean just what everybody means, only you say everything, and others haven’t time nor wit for that. It all amounts to the same thing in the end. We say, ‘Such and such a thing is natural,’ where you say it is mathematical, voilà tout.”
He began to say something about the natural including both good and bad, while his meaning was to exclude the bad; but the Signora took pity on his victim, and stopped his eloquence by offering him a cup of tea.
“He will take the tea,” she thought, pouring another cup, “because the beverage is agreeable to the palate and refreshing to the body, and, by consequence, enlivening to the mind, and he will see the whole subject worked out to its smallest part as he stirs in the sugar. He will put in sugar because—because—dear me! I wonder what is the good reason for putting sugar in tea! How uncomfortable it all is! I should go mad with such a man about me all the time. And yet how well-bred, and earnest, and handsome he is! If only it might happen that he would mellow with time, and learn to take subjects by their convenient handles, and not spread them out so! He makes me remember that I am a skeleton, with—pah! How glad I am I don’t know all about my bones!”
“What are you studying out, Signora?” asked Isabel at her elbow.
“I am trying not to see everything crumble at once into its elements,” she replied distressfully. “My dear, if you will make that man talk like a human being, I shall be thankful. Find out if he has a heart, or only a triangle instead; and just watch his fingers to see if there are little scales and figures marked along the insides of them. He is worth rescuing. I like him.”
The little baroness went, and more people came in. It was after Ave Maria, and they were obliged to light the candles, and close the windows and shutters on the street. But the great sala needed not to be closed, for no one could see into it, and so the exquisite twilight was left free to enter, with only the soft light of a single hanging lamp to shame its tender radiance. This
inner light, the steady, deep-hued flame of olive oil, burning in an antique bronze lamp, made the room softly visible, and, shining out into the garden, turned the yellow gold of the jasmine blossoms into red gold here and there, and made the snow-white of the orange-flowers look like a sun-lighted drift of the north.
TO BE CONTINUED.
A JOURNEY TO THE LAND OF MILLIARDS.[199]
There is much in a title. Many an insignificant if not objectionable individual is widely welcomed and sweetly smiled upon because he boasts a “handle to his name”; and that which is true as regards man is equally so of books. Many a shallow and worthless production, like the monstrosities produced in the floral world by fancy horticulturists, becomes “the rage” from its pretentious or, as the case may be, its unpronounceable name.
There is, then, much in the title of a book; and yet, had M. Victor Tissot sent into the world his Voyage au Pays des Milliards under the sober superscription of “Travels in Germany,” although it might not so immediately have attracted the public eye, it must ultimately have secured the attention and interest it so justly merits, and which have necessitated the issue of nine editions in the course of a few weeks.
This interest is sustained throughout the book by the varied information it contains respecting facts connected with Prussianized Germany, which are related not only with that happy fluency of style which is the gift of most literary
Frenchmen, but also with a justice of reasoning and fairness of appreciation of which one of his nation dealing with such a subject might not always be found capable.
The work professes to be simply notes de voyage addressed to a friend; a series of sketches which introduce the reader in a familiar manner—“looking at everything, listening everywhere”—to this new Germany, such as she has sprung forth, sword in hand, from the brain of Herr von Bismarck.
The first part of the book relates to Southern and Central Germany.
France, before the time of her misfortunes, was wont to say with her old university professors, Qui non vidit Coloniam non vidit Germaniam,[200] but now the proverb is changed, and it must rather be said, “He who would see Germany must see Berlin.” In the vast Germanic body, Berlin has alike usurped the place of head and heart; she it is who conceives, meditates, contrives, commands; she who deprives and bestows, legislates and executes; and she who distributes glory. Towards her flow the life and warmth of that Germany which is now no
more the land of picturesque and simple legends, sweet ballads, Gothic dreams, holy cathedrals, but the land of blood and iron. The knight Albrecht Dürer no more finds his steps arrested in the enchanted forest of poetry and art, but rides rough-shod over the high-roads of Europe, armed with a needle-gun, and with a spiked helmet on his head.
“Had we but known,” sighed France, after the war—“if we had only known!” Yes, often enough has it been repeated that her ignorance respecting her neighbors, of all that they were secretly designing and silently doing, was one chief cause of her disasters.
“Had we but known!” “Well, then,” writes M. Tissot, “for the future let us know! Let us be aware that the Germans ransack our country in every sense; that they study our language, manners, customs, and institutions; following us step by step, and spying us everywhere, until they know France more thoroughly than we know it ourselves. For thirty years past has their spyglass been busily scrutinizing every corner of our land.… Let us then learn to do among them what they do among us: the weak place in the breastplate of the German Colossus is not very difficult to discover.”
In going forth to repel invasion, Germany has suffered herself to be carried away by the spirit of conquest, and has returned home with a rear-guard of vices which before she knew not, and under a despotism which it had cost her the struggle of centuries to break. Having departed from the path of humanity and civilization, she has gone back to her wild forests despoiled of her studious leisure and with the tradition of her ancient domestic virtues
well-nigh lost; while, a prey to all the material appetites, she forgets God, or else denies him, and no longer believes in anything except the supreme triumph of her cannon.
From fear of being attacked by the revolution, she enters into an alliance with it. In proof of this, we have but to observe with what gratified attention the socialists, not only in Germany but all over Europe, watch the moral decomposition which is going on in this atmosphere of materialism and of pride. They know very well that the day is sure to come, and is perhaps not far distant, when “they will make a descent into the arena with their knotted clubs; and that this argument will suffice to put to flight the gentlemen whose wisdom has discovered the soul to be composed of cellular tissue, and has shut up patriotism in a membrane.”
The Catholics also act with energy in the strength of their (for the most part passive) resistance to an oppressive and unjust power, whose hypocritical excuses render it as contemptible as its tyranny makes it odious in the eyes of every upright man, whether Catholic or Protestant.
“From a distance,” says M. Tissot, “it might be easy to deceive one’s self into a doubt as to the dangerous nature of so many alarming symptoms, but on the spot I know for a certainty that an attentive listener cannot fail to hear the pulsations of a nation disturbed to its very depths, and ill at ease. Is it,” he asks, “as a means of escape from impending dangers, and to prepare the minds of the people for a skilful diversion, that the parliamentary orators and the official Prussian press keep them in a continual ferment of warlike excitement, and appear to regret the milliards
left behind on the banks of the Rhone and the Garonne? This is the opinion of thoughtful minds, for it is on the field of battle only that a reconciliation between the Catholics and their adversaries can be expected to take place.”
Before visiting the imperial capital, the traveller on whose work the present observations are principally based begins with the southern states, “being desirous of interrogating those ancient provinces which have sacrificed their autonomy to a gust of glory, and of asking if the mess of pottage is still savory, or whether, awakening from recent illusions, there is not some regret for the good old times.”
After visiting Ulm, with its enormously increased fortifications; Stuttgart, the sunny capital of Würtemberg; and the little university town of Heidelberg—respecting all which places M. Tissot has much to say—the impression resulting from his observations is that South Germany was duped and alarmed into submitting to Prussia. With regard to Frankfort, no longer the free city of past times, his conviction is that the real population, quite as much as that of Metz and Strassburg, detests the sight of the spiked helmets and the sound of the Prussian fifes and drums (the latter shaped like small saucepans), constantly passing through the streets.
The particulars of the Prussian occupation of this city in 1866 are still fresh in the memory of its inhabitants. “The history of those days,” M. Tissot tells us, “has never been written.” We will give in his own words the account he received from an eye-witness:
“On the 6th of July, the Senate announced to the townspeople the impending entry of the Prussians, ‘whose good
discipline was a sure guarantee that no one would be exposed to inconvenience.’
“In spite, however, of this ‘good discipline,’ all the banking-houses hastened to place themselves under the protection of the foreign consuls, and hoisted American, English, French, or Swiss colors. The streets were as deserted as a cemetery.
“The Prussians did not arrive until nine in the evening, when they made a triumphal entry. At their head, with his sword drawn, rode General Vogel von Falkenstein; music played, drums beat; there was noise enough to wake the dead. Billeting tickets had been prepared for this army of invaders, who, however, preferred to select their own quarters. The troops divided into squadrons of 50, 70, 100, or 150 men, and, led by their officers, forced their way into houses of good appearance. The inmates, who had, in some cases, retired for the night, ran bewildered through their rooms. The officers, finding ordinary candles on the tables, held their pistols at the throats of the women, and ordered them to bring wax-lights. But their first care was to demand the keys of the cellar, after which they passed the night in drinking the best wines, making especial havoc among the champagne.
“Next day, General Vogel von Falkenstein, surnamed Vogel von Raubenstein, or the bird of prey, caused to be read and posted up in the streets a proclamation establishing the state of siege. He suppressed all the newspapers, prohibited all private réunions, and announced moreover a long list of requisitions.
“On the 18th of July, General von Falkenstein, who the day before had compelled the town of Frankfort to purchase from the contractor of the Prussian army many thousands of cigars, now demanded that there should be delivered to him 60,000 ‘good pairs of shoes,’ 300 ‘good saddle-horses,’ and a year’s pay for his soldiers—promising, in return, to make no other requisition upon the inhabitants.… On the 19th they brought him six millions of florins; but as, in the course of that same evening, General von Falkenstein was called to command elsewhere, the Senate received anew, on the morning of the 20th, a note expressed as follows:
“‘Messieurs the senators of the city of Frankfort are informed that their town
is laid under a contribution of war for the amount of twenty-five millions of florins, payable within twenty four hours.
“‘Manteuffel.
“‘Headquarters, Frankfort, July 30, 1866.’”
“Three of the principal bankers of Frankfort were immediately delegated to present themselves before General Manteuffel, to remind him of the promises given by his predecessor, and to entreat him to withdraw this fresh imposition. All that they obtained was a delay of three times twenty-four hours.
“‘I know,’ said Manteuffel to them, ‘that I shall be compared to the Duke of Alva, but I am only here to execute the orders of my superiors.’
“‘And what shall you do if, between now and Sunday, we have not paid?’ asked a member of the deputation—‘you will not——?’
“‘I read the word on your lips,’ rejoined the General; ‘alas! yes, I shall give up the town to pillage.’
“‘In that case, why do you not at once, like Nero, set fire to the four corners of Frankfort?’
“To this sally General Manteuffel contented himself by answering: ‘Rome arose only more fair from her ashes.’[201]
“Before quitting the General, the deputation asked whether this imposition would be the last.
“‘On my part, yes; I give you my word of honor for it; but another general may come and replace me, with orders of which I know nothing.’
“The threat of the pillage and bombardment of the city spread with the rapidity of lightning; the burghers and bankers contributed together to pay the ransom.
“Five days later, General de Roeder sent for the President of the Chamber of Commerce, to whom he read the following telegram, which he had just received from M. von Bismarck:
“‘Since the measures hitherto taken have not been found sufficient to obtain their object, close, from this evening, all the telegraph and post-offices, the hotels, inns, and all public establishments; prohibit the entry into the town of any persons, and of every kind of merchandise.’
“These few facts, selected from innumerable others of a similar kind, and which are of warranted authenticity, are sufficiently edifying.”
We may add, that with memories like the foregoing we cannot wonder that Frankfort, once the free, is now the irreconcilable, city.
But we hasten on to glance at the capital, where, more plainly than anywhere else, may be seen the impress of events more recent still. Space fails us to do more than merely refer to the descriptions given of the material city, its public buildings, its homely palace, its long, monotonous lines of streets, “ruled straight by the cane of the corporal-king,” and built right and left of the pestiferous Spree; the colossal arsenal, piled with the captured arms of France, and which is to Berlin what their cathedral is to other European cities. Leaving all this, and much besides, we will briefly consider the effects of the late war and of the milliards of France upon the people of Germany.
On entering Berlin the visitor, as he leaves the railway carriage, is greeted by the sight of a large placard posted up at the four corners of the station, and bearing the appropriate warning, “Beware of Thieves.” This is a small indication of a momentous fact; for if, from her very beginning, Prussia has chosen Mars for her tutelar divinity, her worship of Mercury since the last war has left him but a divided throne.[202]
Like the arsenal, the Bourse sums up the recent history of Prussia. The greed of gain has in fact taken entire possession of the people, and in no other European city is covetousness so ferocious or the thirst for gold so ardent as in the Prussian capital. Princes, ministers of state, and high functionaries of
the crown meditate financial combinations, and launch into speculative investments, from which they intend to secure large profits; tradespeople and manufacturers invent skilful falsifications, whether in figures or in merchandise; students of the university arrange lotteries—all, great and small, rich and poor, are alike in search of prey.
In a pamhlet published by Herr Diest-Haber, under the characteristic title of Plutocracy and Socialism (“Geldmacht und Socialismus”) are to be found revelations which are anything but edifying, and supported by proofs, respecting the more than questionable probity of certain ministers of high position in the state. Gustaf Freitag, also, wrote in 1872: “Great evils have resulted to us from victory. The honor and honesty of the capital have greatly suffered. Every one is possessed by a senseless passion for gain: princes, generals, men in high administrative positions, all are playing an unbridled game, preying on the confidence of small capitalists, and abusing their position to make large fortunes. The evil has spread like fire; and at the sight of this widely extended corruption it is impossible not to fear for the future.”
The army is also tainted. In 1873, an aid-de-camp of a small German prince, whose services in the war had brought him nothing, thought well to indemnify himself, and by forging his master’s signature pocketed the sum of 300,000 thalers from the coffers of the state.
But the example is set in high quarters, where in everything might is made to overrule right. Could it be expected that so many thrones confiscated, without a thought of justice; so many provinces seized,
to form the lion’s share; so complete an overthrow of the most ordinary moral principles; treaties torn up like false bank-notes; a policy at the same time so crafty and audacious, could fail to find sedulous imitators in a people naturally prone to rapine?
The arrival of the five milliards upset the equilibrium of the German brain. Every form of speculation sprang from the ground like fungi after a shower; everything—breweries, grocery companies, streets, roads, canals—was parcelled out in shares. Houses were sold at the exchange, and in the course of two hours had five or six times changed their owner. In eight months, the price of tenements was doubled; fifty or sixty persons would dispute the possession of a garret. In 1872, the average number of persons inhabiting a house of three or four stories (the usual height in Berlin) was from fifty-five to sixty-five, or ten persons to a room. Masons made fortunes, worked ten hours, went in a cab from the stone-yard to the restaurants, and drank champagne in beer-glasses. A simple brick-and-mortar carrier earned five thalers a day; and small bankers’ clerks, at the present time out of situation and shoe-leather, paraded in white kid gloves in the first boxes of the theatre—not to speak of far worse extravagances still. Societies of share venders fiercely quarrelled with each other over the purchase of feudal castles in the neighborhood, which were to be transformed into casinos on a large scale, with theatre in the open air, artificial lakes and mountains, Swiss dairies, and games for every taste. But this dream of the Thousand-and-one Nights did not last a year. The temples of pleasure are bankrupt,
and “the police have seized Cupid’s quiver.” The whole of Germany—“the nation of thinkers,” as her philosophers love to call her—was dazzled by the deceitful mirage, and so fierce was the eagerness for gain that at one time it was scarcely prudent to go to the exchange without a revolver. Fights were of constant occurrence, and ardent speculators would collar each other like stable-boys.[203] Before the close of 1872, nearly eight hundred and fifty different shareholding investments had sprung up. The middle classes, the representatives of honest and laborious industry, have been the principal victims of these hollow speculations; and in a public report made by the Governor of the Bank of Prussia, January 1, 1873, it was stated that in the course of two years several millions of thalers had been extorted by unscrupulous adventurers from the credulous public.
In various ways it is evident that, if France paid dearly for her defeat, Germany is paying far more dearly for her glory, besides having so mismanaged matters that peace to her is more costly than war. Herr Schorlemer-Ast lately declared in the Reichstag that the financial burdens of the empire, from her system of complete and permanent armament, are crushing all classes. “The milliards,” he says, “that we have received are already converted into fortresses, ships-of-war, Mauser rifles, and cannon; the military budget has this year increased by nineteen millions of marks, … and into this budget we cast all our resources, all our reserves, all our savings, but never can we meet its
demands; and thus the land becomes more and more impoverished.” There is another method, also, by which the “eminently moral” government of the Emperor seeks to increase its resources, and this is by lotteries. A Protestant minister observing to his majesty that these lotteries were a very bad example, the latter replied, “You are mistaken; they are instituted to punish already on earth the cupidity of my people: the great prize is never drawn.”
Fresh imposts are also created; but the time for these is scarcely the present, when, according to the testimony of Germans themselves, commerce languishes, the manufacturing interest is passing through a crisis of which it is impossible to foresee the end, and on all sides arise murmurs and complaints. And yet we hear of proposals like that of Herr Camphausen in the Reichstag, namely, to “demand more labor from the artisan and pay him less for it.” A profitable subject, truly, for communist declamation must this be; and well might Bebel, the notorious socialist of Leipzig, say, “Prussia is doing our work for us; we need but fold our arms and wait,” and his colleague, Liebknecht, declare that “M. de Bismarck has done more for the radical interest than five socialist ministers could have done. The people see with bitterness how little has been gained by sacrifices so great. The expense of living has doubled since the war, but the salaries have not increased in proportion.… In the manufacturing districts there is fearful distress.… Families of five or six persons obliged to starve on a thaler a week! See what the milliards have done for us! No wonder that month after month sees ten or fifteen
thousand Germans emigrate to other lands.”
We pass over the dark portraiture of “misery and crime” in Berlin, and also the information respecting the reptile agency of the official press, the political dye-house of the empire, whose business it is to color all communications with the hue required by the prime minister. Nor have we space to dwell on the state of education in Prussia, which is far behind the rest of Germany,[204] nor the falsification of history and even geography in its educational books. We cannot, however, forbear producing the lesson with which the studies of the day begin in the primary schools.
The master holds up before his pupils the Emperor’s portrait, asking, “Who is this?”
Making a reverential bow, they answer, “His majesty the Emperor.”
“What do we owe to him?” resumes the teacher, in a grave and impressive tone.
“We owe him obedience, fidelity, and respect; we owe him all that we have and all that we possess.”
Would any child, unless a German or a Russian, find its loyalty increased after two or three weeks of this daily exercise? We doubt it.
The Catholic clergy proving a hindrance to the government in the application of its new catechism, the law on secular instruction
was passed to force them out of the schools: the state, henceforth sole master, can form at the will of Cæsar, not Christians, but soldiers or slaves, which are more in accordance with its taste—all that is taught being made to converge to the one end of blind and absolute submission to secular power.
God being set aside to make way for the Emperor and his Church trampled under foot for the good pleasure of the prime minister, we or our children may see the fulfilment of the prediction written thirty or forty years ago by Heinrich Heine, in which, after announcing the reconstitution of the Germanic Empire, he says: “The Empire will hasten to its fall; and this catastrophe will be the result of a political and social revolution, brought about by German philosophers and thinkers. The Kantists have already torn up the last fibres of the past, the Fichteans will come in turn, whose fanaticism will be mastered neither by fear nor instinct. The most of all to be dreaded will be the philosophers of nature, the communists, who will place themselves in communication with the primitive forces of the earth, and evoke the traditions of the Germanic pantheism. Then will these three choirs intone a revolutionary chant at which the land will tremble, and there will be enacted in Germany a drama in comparison to which the French Revolution shall have been but an idyl.”
[199] Voyage au Pays des Milliards. V. Tissot. Paris: Dentu.
[200] He who has not seen Cologne, has not seen Germany.
[201] “I have this dialogue from one who was present.”—M. Tissot.
[202] M. Tissot’s book contains some painful pages having relation to the votaries of Venus also, to which we need do no more than allude.
[203] The Tribune for August 1, 1872, has the following: “Never has the liquidation been so quiet as to-day. Not a single box on the ear was given in full exchange, nor had the syndic to interfere on account of abusive language.”
[204] “Prussia is of all Germany the country which contains the largest number of persons unable to read and write,” is the testimony of Herr Karl Vogt.