You may ride for hours in the shade of gnarled oak-trees, or, emerging on to an open glade, indulge in a long-stretched gallop over the velvety sward. In spring-time these grassy stretches are crowded thick with scented violets, whose purple heads are crushed by dozens at each stride of your horse; and in autumn, when the grass is close cropped, these meadows become one vast playing-ground for legions of brown field-mice, scampering away from under the horse’s feet, or peeping at us with beady black eyes from out the porticos of their sheltering holes.
But once the winter has fairly set in, when those same frisky brown mice have retired to their strongholds in the bowels of the earth; when the last flower has withered on its stalk, and birds of passage have left the land; when streams have ceased babbling, and mill-wheels, made captive by chains of glittering icicles, are forced to stand still; when parasols have been exchanged for muffs, and the new toll-dog has already been eaten by the wolf—then indeed a season of desperate desolation settles down on the place. What is usually understood by the word amusement does not here exist. There is a theatre, it is true, but this is available in summer only; for as the crazy old tower which has been turned into a temple of the muses cannot be heated, it remains closed till the return of spring brings with the swallows some theatrical company of third or fourth class to delight the population during a space of some weeks. Now and then a shabby menagerie or still shabbier circus finds its way to the place; and such minor attractions as an educated seal, a fat lady, or a family of intelligent fleas, offer themselves for the delectation of a distinguished public. I have known persons who paid as many as six visits to the seal and eight to the fat lady during this period of vital stagnation. Is not this bare statement wellnigh pathetic in its dreary suggestiveness? What stronger proof can there be of the mournful state of an intellect reduced to seek comfort from seals or fat women?
STREET AT HERMANSTADT.
Had it not been for the resources of the Bruckenthal library, life would have hardly been endurable at this saison morte; but after all, even reading has limits, and the question of what next to do was apt to become puzzling to unfortunate mortals whose tastes did not happen to lie in the directions of music, love, or cookery.
About the liveliest thing to be done was to go often to the place on market-days, and watch the endless succession of pictures always to be found there. It is the sort of market-place which would be a perfect godsend to any artist in search of models for his studio. No difficulty here in collecting types of every sort: an amazing display of pretty dark-eyed women in rich Oriental costumes; a still greater assortment of shaggy, frowning figures armed with dagger and pistol, representing every possible gradation of the Italian bandit or the mediæval bravo. Here a sweet-faced young Roumanian woman, tenderly pressing a naked sucking-pig to her breast, might sit for a portrait of the Madonna; there a Saxon matron, prim and puritanical in her stiff old-fashioned dress, is offering cider for sale in a harsh metallic voice; yonder a row of old dames, who sit weaving funeral wreaths out of berries and evergreens, would offer famous models for the Parques, or the Tricoteuses under the guillotine (it was just about here, by-the-way, that the scaffold used to stand in olden times). Dishevelled gypsy women are trying to dispose of coarse wooden spoons, or baskets made out of shavings, no doubt combining their trade with a little profitable pocket-picking; and half-naked gypsy children are searching the mire for scraps of bread or vegetables which no well-bred dog would condescend to regard.
There is no great choice of delicacies to be found at this Hermanstadt market-place. Game is but rare, for reasons that I have mentioned before, and the finer sorts of vegetables are entirely wanting. The beef, veal, pork, and mutton, which form the whole répertoire of the butcher’s stall, cannot be compared to English meat, but have the great advantage of being much cheaper—beef about 4d. and mutton 3d. per lb. Eggs and butter are good and plentiful; and as for the milk, let no one pretend to have tasted milk till he has been in Transylvania; so thick, so rich, so exquisitely flavored is the milk of those repulsive-looking and ferocious buffaloes, as good almost as cream elsewhere, and for the rest of your life putting you out of conceit of your vaunted Alderney or short-horn breeds, and making everything else taste like skim-milk by comparison. Some people indeed there are, of superdelicate digestions, who cannot stand buffaloes’ milk, and are deterred by the delicate almond flavor usually considered to be its greatest attraction.
The Transylvanian wines have been described and extolled by other authors (Liebig, for instance), and deserve to be yet more widely known. There are, of course, many different sorts and gradations, those from the Kokel valley being the most highly prized. It is mostly white, and even the common vin du pays is distinguished by its rich amber hue, making one think of liquid topazes, if ever topazes could be melted down and sold at sixpence the gallon.
It is a noticeable and praiseworthy fact that at Hermanstadt there are no beggars. It is the pride of the Saxons to be absolutely without proletariat of the kind which seems as necessary an ingredient of other town populations as rats and mice. Even the Roumanians, though poor, are not addicted to begging, and, excepting the gypsies, I do not recollect one single instance of meeting a beggar in or about the town. Nor can the gypsies be called beggars by profession; no gypsy will in cold blood set himself to go begging from door to door, though he instinctively holds out his hand to any one who passes his tent.
Curious old legends occur to us while picking our way about the streets, and more than one old house is pointed out as being inhabited by ghosts. Also, Dr. Faust, of famous memory, is said to have long resided at Hermanstadt, and of him a very old woman who died not long ago used to relate as follows: