CHAPTER VII.
Baden-Baden. It is like a dream to me now to think of that long, dusty road from Paris, with its rattling pavement, its noisy postilions, shouting ostlers, bowing landlords, dirty waiters, garlic diet, and hard beds; and here I sit by my open window, with a bright river beneath my feet, the song of birds on every side, a richly wooded mountain in front, and at the foot a winding road, which ever and anon gives glimpses of some passing equipage, bright in all the butterfly glitter of female dress, or, mayhap, resounding with merry laughter and sweet-voiced mirth. How brilliant is every thing!—the cloudless sky, the sparkling water, the emerald grass, the foliage in every tint of beauty, the orange-trees and the cactus along the terraces, where lounging parties come and go; and then the measured step of princely equipages, in all the panoply of tasteful wealth! Truly, Vice wears its holiday suit in Baden, and the fairness of this lovely valley seems to throw a softened light over a scene where, as in a sea, the stormy waves of every bad passion are warring.
When, in all the buoyant glow of youth and health, I remembered feeling shocked, as I strolled through the promenade at Carlsbad, at the sight of so many painful objects of sickness and suffering; the eager, almost agonising, expressions of hoping convalescence; the lustreless stare of those past hope; the changeful looks of accompanying friends, who seemed to read the fate of some dear one in the compassionate pity of those who passed, were all sights that threw a chill, like death, over the warm current of my blood. Yet never did this feeling convey the same intense horror and disgust that I felt last night as I walked through the Cursaal.
To pass from the mellow moonlight, dappling the pathway among the trees and kissing the rippling stream, from the calm, mild air of a summer’s night, when every leaf lay sleeping and none save the nightingale kept watch, into the glare and glitter of a gilded saloon, is somewhat trying to the jarred nerves of sickness. But what was it to the sight of that dense crowd around the play-table, where avarice, greed of gain, recklessness, and despair are mingled, giving, even to faces of manly vigour and openness, expressions of low cunning and vulgar meaning? There is a terrible sameness in the gambler’s look, a blending of slavish terror with a resolution to brave the worst, almost demoniacal in its fierceness. I knew most of the persons present; I need not say, not personally, but from having seen them before at various other similar places. Many were professed gamblers, men who starved and suffered for the enjoyment of that one passion, living on the smallest gain, and never venturing a stake beyond what daily life demanded; haggard, sad, wretched-looking creatures they were, the abject poverty of their dress and appearance vouching that this métier was not a prosperous one. Others farmed out their talents, and played for those who were novices. These men have a singular existence; they exact a mere per-centage on the winning, and are in great request among elderly ladies, whose passion for play is modified by the fears of its vicissitudes. Then there were the usual sprinkling of young men, not habitually gamblers, but always glad to have the opportunity of tempting Fortune, with here and there some old votary of the “table” satisfied to witness the changeful temper of the game without risking a stake.
Into many vices men are led by observing the apparent happiness and pleasure of others who indulge in them. Not so with regard to play. No man ever became a gambler from this delusion, there being no such terrible warning against the passion as the very looks of its votaries.
But it is not in such a low tripot of vice I care to linger. It was a ball-night, and I turned with a sense of relief from the aspect of sordid, vulgar iniquity, to gaze on its more polished brother (quore, sister?) in the salle de danse.
Here there was a large—I might almost call it a brilliant—company assembled: a less exclusive assemblage cannot be conceived; five francs and clean gloves being the only qualification needed. The guests were as varied, too, in nation as in rank. About equal numbers of German and French, several Russians, and a large proportion of English, with, here and there, a bilious-looking American, or a very dubious Marquis from beyond the Alps. Many of the men I knew to be swindlers and blacklegs of the very lowest stamp; some others I recognised as persons of the highest station in my own country. Of the lady part of the company the disparities were even greater.
There was, it is true, a species of sifting process discernible, by which the various individuals fell among those of their own order; but though this was practicable enough where conversation and grouping were concerned, it was scarcely attainable in other circumstances, and thus, the Mazurka and the Polka assembled ingredients that should never have been placed in close propinquity.
The demoralising influence of such reunions upon the daughters of our own land need not be insisted upon. Purity of mind and simplicity of character are no safeguard against the scenes which, in all the propriety of decorum, are ever occurring. And how terribly rapid are the downward steps when the first bloom and blush of modesty have faded! It demands but a very indifferent power of observation to distinguish the English girl for the first time abroad from her who has made repeated visits to foreign watering-places; while even among those who have been habituated to the great world at home, and passed the ordeal of London seasons, there is yet much to learn in the way of cool and self-possessed effrontery, from the habits of Baden and its brethren.
I was dreadfully shocked last night by meeting one I had not seen for many years before. How changed from what I knew her once!—what a terrible change! When first I saw her, it was during a visit I made to her mother’s house in Wales; her brother was an Oxford friend, and brought me down with him for the shooting season to Merionethshire. Poor fellow! he died of consumption at two-and-twenty, and left all he possessed—a handsome estate—to his only sister. Hence all her misery! Had she remained comparatively portionless, rich only in her beauty and the graces of a manner that was fascination itself, she might now have been the happy wife of some worthy Englishman—one whose station is a trust held on the tenure of his rectitude and honour; for such is public feeling in our country, and such is it never elsewhere.