Hills bound the town on two sides—thickly wooded, with ravishing shades of green, to the side of which a schloss, or convent, or perhaps only a terraced restaurant, clings like a swallow's nest. All the bridle-paths, walks, and drives around Salzburg lead somewhere. You may be quite certain that no matter what road you follow you will find your diligence rewarded.
There is one curious restaurant where we went for our first dinner, because two rival singing societies were to furnish the programme. It is reached by an enormous elevator which takes you up some two hundred feet, where there spreads before you a series of terraces, each with tables and diners, and above all the band-stand. Here were the singers singing quite abominably out of key, but with great vigour and earnestness, and always applauded to the echo, but getting quite a little overcome by their exhilaration later in the evening. Then there is the fortress protecting the town, the Nonnberg, the cloisters in whose church are the oldest in Germany, and they won't let you in to see them at any price. This of itself is an attraction, for as a rule there is no spot so sacred, so old, or so queer in all Europe that you can't buy admission to it. But when I found the cloisters of the Convent Church closed to the gaping public, I thanked God and took courage. We found another spot in Salzburg where they allow only men to enter, but as we found plenty of those in Turkey, we paid no particular attention to the Franciscan Monastery for barring women, except that we had some curiosity to hear the performance which is given daily on the pansymphonicon, a queer instrument invented by one of the monks. Jimmie, of course, came out fairly bursting with unnecessary pride, and to this day pretends that you have lived only half your life if you haven't heard the pansymphonicon. We gave him little satisfaction by asking no questions and yawning or asking what time it was every time he tried to whet our curiosity by vague references and half descriptions of it. Jimmie is a frightful liar, and would sacrifice his hope of heaven to torture us successfully for half a day. I don't believe one word of all he has said or hinted or drawn or sung about that thing, and yet, I would give everything I possess, and all Bee's good clothes, and all Mrs. Jimmie's jewels, if I could hear and see the pansymphonicon just once!
One of the most romantic things we did was to take the little railway leading to the top of the Gaisberg, where we spent the night at the little Hotel Gaisbergspilze, and saw Salzburg lying beneath us, twinkling with lights, and making a sight to be remembered for ever. Tucked in among the Salzburg Alps you can see seven little lakes, and the colouring, the dark shadows, and fleecy belts of clouds make it a ravishing view, and full of a tender, poetic melancholy. Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie sat very close together, and renewed the days of their courting, but poor Bee and I held each other's hands and felt lonely.
The romance of the situation drove me to poetry, and reduced Bee to the submission of listening to it—for a short time. Trust me! I know how far to trespass on my sister's patience! But when I said, mournfully:
"Never the time and place
And the loved one all together,"
Bee nodded a plaintive acquiescence.
In the morning, we almost saw the sun rise, but not quite. Aigen, the chateau of Prince Schwarzenberg, was more cheerful; so was Mozart's statue and his Geburthaus. I didn't know that Mozart was born in Salzburg, but he was. There is something actually furtive about the way certain facts have a habit of existing and I not learning of them until everybody else has forgotten them.
We decided to make the excursion to the salt mine on Monday, and on the Sunday Jimmie arranged for us to visit the Imperial chateau of Helbrun, built in the seventeenth century, and promising us several new features of amusement and interest not generally to be met with. Our hotel being a very smart one, filled with Americans, we naturally had on rather good frocks, for it was Sunday, and we were to drive instead of taking the train. We had all been to the church in the morning, and felt at liberty to escape from the gossip of the piazzas, and to amuse ourselves in this decorous way.
Now, Jimmie is thoroughly ashamed of himself, and would give anything if I would not tell this, but I have recently suffered an attack of pansymphonicon, and this is my revenge.