| Krušina, sedlák | p. ryt. Skramlík. | |
| Ludmila, jeho manželka | sl. Vykoukalova. | |
| Mařenka, jejich dcera | sl. Veselá. | |
| Mícha, statkář | p. Viktorin. | |
| Háta, jeho manželka | pí. Klánová-Panznerova. | |
| Vašek, jejich syn | p. Krössing. | |
| Jeník, selský hoch | p. Veselý. | |
| Kecal, dohazovač | p. Heš. | |
| Komediant, principál | p. Mošna. | |
| Esmeralda, jeho dcera | sl. Cavallarova. | |
| Ind án, komediant druhý | p. Pulc. | |
| První | —selský kluk— | p. Mušek |
| Druhý | sl. Vobořilova | |
| Selská chasa, komedianti, kluci. | ||
| Děj v čas pouti na české vesnici. | ||
Coming home from the Divadlo I lost myself, and had a bad quarter of an hour wandering around small back streets and trying to ask my way in Czechish. The theatres begin at half-past six in Prague, some of them as early as five, so that soon after ten there are very few people in the streets. It was half-past ten when I succeeded in getting out of a labyrinth of byways into what looked like a main thoroughfare, and then there was not a soul to be seen—not even a Prague policeman with ostrich feathers in his hat. I wondered how on earth I should get to my hotel, for I hadn’t the faintest idea where it was, and one street was very like another to me. I wandered up and down for a quarter of an hour, hoping a belated wayfarer would come along, but I only met a couple of cats swearing at each other in Czechish, and they fled at my approach.
What was I to do? I didn’t feel inclined to wander about Prague all night. Suddenly a brilliant idea occurred to me. I saw a red light over a door, and outside a bell, with the German for night bell written below it. A doctor lived there. I hesitated a moment, and then I rang it. Presently a gentleman put his head out of an upper window and addressed me in Czechish. I replied in German that I didn’t understand the language. Then he asked me what I wanted in German. I replied, ‘Advice; I am not well. Please come down and feel my pulse and look at my tongue.’ He closed the window, came down and opened the front-door, and asked me to come in. ‘No, thank you,’ I said; ‘I am in a hurry. Come under the lamp-post.’ He came under the lamp-post, looked at my tongue, felt my pulse, and said that I was only a little bilious. I had better go to the chemist’s and get some antibilious pills. ‘Thank you, doctor,’ I said. ‘What is your fee?’ He told me his fee was three gulden for a night consultation. I paid the money, and then I said to him: ‘And now, doctor, if you will kindly tell me which is my way to the Hôtel Royal, I shall be much obliged to you.’ The doctor gave me minute directions, bowed, put my three gulden in the pocket of his dressing-gown, and went back to bed; and I went back to my hotel and did ditto.
It was rather an expensive method of asking your way, but what are you to do when you are lost in a town where everybody goes to bed at ten, and not a living soul reappears in the streets till the next morning? I don’t know whether the policemen go to bed, but I didn’t see one about. Perhaps they were all having pipes round a quiet corner.
Messrs. Slavata and Martinitz owe their immortality to their having been victims of that excellent Bohemian method of getting rid of an enemy which is called ‘po starotshesku.’ There is a splendid simplicity about the process. It merely consists of taking your enemy by the legs and throwing him out of the window. The higher the window the better for you and the worse for your enemy. Slavata and Martinitz were flung out of the window of a high tower in which the Council Chamber was situated. Although both fell actually on their heads, they figuratively fell on their feet, for a heap of manure received them safely and broke the news that they had arrived at their destination gently to them. They escaped and lived for some years afterwards, but the religious party in whose cause they had made themselves objectionable kept their memory green, and to-day in Prague, after you have honoured St. John of Nepomuk, you are expected to pay homage to the memory of Slavata and Martinitz.
After I had finished the Hradshin, and wandered through the royal palace, I had to lead my guide through the palace of Wallenstein, where he pointed out to me all the mementoes of the mighty general of the Thirty Years’ War in the famous halls. By this time I was so dog-tired that I began to hate Bohemia, and almost to think unkind things about St. John of Nepomuk; and when my guide wanted me to take him over another church, I rose up and politely intimated to him that if he asked me to see anything else that day I would give him a chance of immortality by throwing him into the Moldau at the very spot where Nepomuk perished. I think he saw I meant it, so he allowed me to put him in a carriage and take him home.
I have only hummed one air since I came into Austria, and that is, ‘Oh, them gulden slippers.’ They give you your gulden in a banknote, and a gulden is not quite two shillings. The astonishing rapidity with which those guldens became gulden slippers must be seen to be believed. Cabmen, railway porters, restaurant waiters, and the people generally who expect tips, never have any change, and it is cheaper to give the gulden than to wait while they go to the Bank of Austria to get it changed. If they have change it is of such a character that you are better without it. Eating cheap tinned peas, the colour of the O’Flaherty floral abomination, is a harmless amusement compared with keeping the small coin currency of the Austrian Empire in your pocket with chocolate creams, peppermints, cough lozenges, digestive tablets, and other delicacies of the season.
CHAPTER XXII.
VIENNA.
Under a domed roof, a green garden with flower-beds and gravel paths. In the centre a fountain. The outer circle built as a series of stages, each with a set scene—one a scene from a Russian play, another a scene from a German opera, another a scene from a Hungarian comedy, and so forth, until about a dozen set scenes have been set out. Around, in outer rings, with rooms branching off, various galleries containing old musical instruments, cases of theatrical costumes, portraits of actors and actresses, and working models of stages. Beyond, in the grounds, cafés, restaurants, and wooden theatres in which performances of various kinds are given; also ‘Old Vienna,’ after the manner of ‘Old London.’ That is the Vienna Musical and Dramatic Exhibition of 1892.