From a Terrace in Prague

by B. Granville Baker

I am describing the space between Town Hall and Cathedral as a square, which is as about as accurate as the German name "Altstädter Ring." The Czech name for it is easier to pronounce than most of their words. Czech is an immensely difficult language, and I still marvel at the clever inhabitants of the country who pronounce it with ease—even with great fluency. They can make jokes in it too, for the pleasant sound of laughter is often heard in this "City Beautiful." I have never tackled a Czech joke, but am quite prepared to give it credit for all the wit and humour required of a joke, and as long as somebody is happy over it all is well, and I smile with him.

Really there is something about this city which is smile-producing. It is difficult to analyse, and may be attributed to the sheer beauty of the place. And your smile may well go with a catch in your throat, for there is always pathos in great beauty, and nowhere more so than here in Prague. There is the delicate beauty of the Town Hall Chapel, and facing it the tall steeples of the Tyn Church, with clusters of quaint little pointed turrets, overtop a row of houses that seem to have set themselves down with the deliberate intention of blocking the west entrance. Now these houses are arcaded, and so are those on the south side of the square. You puzzle for a while and then recall Padua, Verona and other towns of Northern Italy; so now you know whence came the inspiration that set up arcades in a northern capital. You ask how and when this influence came to Prague, so I remind you of the relations that existed between Bohemia and Italy, and of which I have told you when discussing King John and his great son Charles. Under the guidance of the latter, the Renaissance was not long in making its influence felt in Prague—in fact, in all Bohemia—and Italian architects who introduced the arcaded house added fresh beauties to the city. To the earlier period of Italian influence must be attributed a quaint arched house, the one at the corner of the Tynska Ulice. It seems to block the west entrance to the Church of Our Lady of Tyn. The old house dates back to the early days of the fourteenth century, at which period the Tyn Church, though founded in the eleventh century, was still a-building. I cannot blame the old houses for having squatted down in front of this church; they were probably under the impression that it would never be finished. They have at least left a vaulted alley-way leading to the somewhat insignificant west entrance. The Tyn Church, though not completed till fairly recently, has actually served as the principal church of the Old Town since 1310. Here the reformers, preachers that I have already mentioned, Conrad Waldhauser and Milič of Kroměřiže, drew large congregations by their fiery denunciations and their call to repentance. Our Lady of Tyn is to Prague what St. Paul's is to London in a certain degree; many celebrities are buried here, among them that strange character Tycho de Brahe, astronomer, logician, drunkard and duellist, the friend of Keppler and his own worst enemy.

The show-entrance to the Tyn Church is a Gothic porch of rarest beauty; it is tucked away in the little alley on the north side, and generally closed. You are expected to enter by the south door.

A word of warning here: never try to be enterprising between midday and 2 p.m. in Prague, or for that matter anywhere else in the country, unless it be in search of food. At midday everything closes down—churches, museums, shops; they do not open again till the good people in charge of them have had sufficient time for an ample meal—two hours are considered sufficient. You will therefore find the cathedral closed to you until the vergers have dined. But in the meantime you will find the quaint conglomeration of buildings at the east end of the cathedral very attractive. These buildings originally served many purposes—cathedral close, market and custom house, and even at times as bear-garden or zoo. To my thinking, the outside of the cathedral is far more attractive than the inside, which suffers from over-decoration in the incongruous style peculiar to Continental churches. I shall not conduct you personally round the Church of Our Lady of Tyn.

Good King Wenceslaus, of whom we sing at Christmas-time, seems to have caused the chapel and tower of the Town Hall to be built, at least according to archæologists; the sign of a kingfisher within a wreath which appears here is taken to denote work done in his time. The master architect of those last decades of the fourteenth century was Peter Parler, who also did a good deal of work on the Tyn Church.

The tower was added to the house of Welflin od Kamene, which was acquired in 1538, and some fifty years later the beautiful chapel, the Gothic projection of which looks out on to the scene of martyrdom of 1621. You will find two very interesting and lovely Sessions Rooms in this Town Hall. In one of these George Podiebrad, a native of Bohemia and of the country's faith, was elected and proclaimed King in 1458. To my thinking, the best time of day on which to come upon this old Town Hall is of an evening, say in late autumn; approach it by that quaint little alley, the Melantrichova, called so in honour of Melantrich, who was famous as printer and publisher in the latter half of the sixteenth century. While wandering about the narrow alleys, these quaint passages under the houses, a peculiar feature of Prague, you will pick up something of the old spirit of the city and repeople it with the shades of former inhabitants or visitors to suit your taste or knowledge of its history. There is, for instance, one visitor whom I can quite see roaming about in nocturnal Prague—Dr. Faust. Local legend prefers to call him Wilhelm instead of Heinrich, but that does not matter—he fits into the picture.

Sooth to say, I find about this old quarter of the city a certain atmosphere spiced with wickedness, not thoroughly bad, just enough to keep you amused. Look round for yourself o' nights, and you will probably find reason to agree with me. There is again, in this spicy atmosphere, a local—or shall we say native?—foundation with a markedly exotic top-dressing. For the foundation of this peculiar atmosphere I make Good King Wenceslaus responsible. I have already suggested that he was "hot stuff," and certainly, when he moved into the palace that stood near the "Powder Tower," he made things merry and bright in the Old Town. A night out with Wenceslaus was a liberal education. Fundamentally his form of amusement was probably the same as you may enjoy to-day if you are inclined that way. An exotic touch is given to nocturnal diversions nowadays by American bars and "Palais de Danse" varying in degree of respectability; here the English language seems to predominate, in our version and that of our distant relatives across the Atlantic. The natives of the city do not frequent these haunts in any great numbers; they have their own amusements, but they look in occasionally, possibly as a mark of respect to the great allied nations, and their representatives, the bearers of western culture. The Bohemian when thinking of America recognizes only the United States of that continent. Many of them emigrate to that country; some return with their own rendering of the English language and a professed admiration for the country of their sometime sojourn, of its institutions and leading citizens. The Pragers have expressed this admiration by naming their finest railway station after President Wilson of the Lost Points, whereas their own President has to be content with a rather grubby old terminus.

It would be quite possible for me to enlarge upon the subject of night life in Prague, but discretion advises me not to do so; this is a side of Prague which you must find out for yourself. When after a good dinner you proceed to draw those furtive covers in the region between the Town Hall and the "Powder Tower," you may pick up the scent which, I maintain, hangs about there—that of rather spicy wickedness. I do not mean anything offensive in this; in fact, everything is conducted decently and in good order, also with a certain geniality; the suggestion is rather that you might be mildly wicked if you wanted to be. However, though we have to live in this world we need not be of it.