To return to our description. Next to the Countess’s drawing-room are the bedrooms, and to the right of these again is a hall, where an enormous black-oak staircase, reminding one of the other staircase at Schönhausen, leads to the upper story. In this hall, and in the antechamber, one sees the horns of two immense moufflons, two tremendous stag-antlers, and some others of different ages. These all belong to Bismarck’s hunting expedition in the park at Schönbrunn, when he hunted there after the Danish war, with his royal master, as the guest of the Emperor of Austria. The Emperor Francis Joseph at that time very graciously sent these trophies to Bismarck at Berlin.
On the other side of this hall, by way of a small room, one passes behind the dining-room into a large garden saloon and conservatory, with a pretty pavilion. In one of the guest-chambers of the right wing, on the ground-floor, there is a picture ghastly to look upon, of the master of the house, in life-size, which, as Friedrich Gerstäcker, the unwearied traveller, informs us, is sold in great numbers in Venezuela. A worthy transatlantic Correggio, the name not yet known to fame, has depicted the Count in a sky-blue miller’s coat and bright green trowsers, red neckerchief, and rosy red gloves, such as the dandies of Caraccas probably wear, after a photograph. There is not a trace of likeness in the face, and yet there is something so characteristic in the attitude, that one immediately knows who one has before one—something so like that the very dogs bark at it. Bismarck, it is well known, is an especial favorite among the Germans in America. Several new cities have been named after him; there is a Bismarck on the Conchos in Texas, and a Bismarck in Missouri; the locality of a third we do not recollect. A considerable trans-oceanic trade is carried on in terribly bad photographs of the Minister-President, and a German cutler has made himself a little fortune by his Bismarck knives; these knives are distinguished by a very sharp and strong blade. Nor has the old world remained behind the new in its admiration. German vessels bear Bismarck’s name and likeness, under the black and white and red flag, to the farthest shores. Acute champagne-makers compete with Veuve Clicquot and the Duc de Montebello under the designation of Bismarck-Schönhausen, and from Cannes, in Southern France, to Rügenwaldermünde, in Farther Pomerania, speculative hotel-keepers announce that “Rooms have just been engaged here for Count Bismarck.” After the English style, the name of Bismarck has been bestowed as a baptismal name; we ourselves know a little Fräulein von X., named Wilhelmine Bismarck Sadowa, born the 3d of July, 1866. In Spain the lucifer-match boxes significantly bear the portraits of Bismarck and his royal master.
We have been especially pleased at finding Bismarck’s name in the true German household phrases. Thus, a dear and lately deceased friend, the Privy Councillor Dr. von Arnim, wrote over his door:—
Lang lebe und blühe König Wilhelm, mein Held;
Mit ihm soll behalten Graf Bismarck das Feld!
Long live and flourish King William, my hero; with him shall Count Bismarck keep the field.
Several house proprietors in Berlin have adopted this sentence; but still more apposite is the following inscription on the house of a master weaver:—
Als Wilhelm wirkt und Bismarck spann,
Gott hatte seine Freude dran. 1866.
As William worked and Bismarck spon,