Our stay in Palestine was all too short. We had promised to return to Rome for the end of the season and in February we regretfully left the Holy Land for the Eternal City. During my absence J. had made some necessary alterations to our apartment, adding, among other things, a fireplace to our spare room, where our young guest soon began to feel herself at home.
Rome. February 23, 1896. Great depression here over the Abyssinian War. The poverty is very sad, and the Adowa defeat casts a gloom. It seems now that the carrying on of the war is a matter of pride and a fear of loss of Italy’s prestige; the pride will cost the nation a cruel tribute of blood, treasure and broken hearts.
We have just returned from a trip around the Sorrentine peninsula. You remember the beauty of that country? The drive is now completed; we drove to Amalfi from Sorrento and on to La Cava, stopped at Ravello and wandered over the villa of Mr. Reed, the English gentleman you remember. It was all just as it was when we saw it in 1878. From La Cava we visited the Benedictine monastery founded in the eleventh century. Saw many interesting manuscripts, among others a marriage contract written on a sheepskin so cut that one sees where the neck and the legs of the animal came. It is dated A.D. 710. The husband endowed the wife with one fourth of his worldly goods; save the Egyptian papyri, I have never seen so curious a document.
Langen Schwalbach. May 15, 1896. We spent a night at Weisbaden on our way here. There we had the luck to see the German Kaiser at the theater. The town was hung with wreaths, filled with triumphal arches, and quite beside itself on account of the visit of Imperial Bill. He sat in the front of the box surrounded by officers in shining uniform. I don’t like him, because he has treated his mother so outrageously, and because he is so selfish in constantly “dropping in” for a friendly visit to Italy, which costs the Italian Government a pretty penny it can ill afford. The visits are not returned, but he does not take the hint and comes again! He looks like his pictures, only more arrogant. Do you remember how gracious the old Emperor William was, and the Emperor Frederick? He is not like either of them.
Langen Schwalbach. June 20, 1896. I am aghast as you must be at the Cretan horror; and when the newspapers speak of the United States having helped the Cretans so much in the revolt against their Turkish masters in 1867, I think of Papa and you, who were the moving spirits in that great and generous American aid. I feel so little and helpless, I wish I could have been a giant too! But what was Caesar’s son? After all, I think you and Papa are lucky in that you didn’t have a family of fools, like so many great people.
Partenkirchen. July 4, 1896. Here we are in the Bavarian Highlands, near the boundary of the Austrian Tyrol. You can hardly fancy even with your poet’s imagination how lovely it is. Our hotel is a clean countrified sort of place built like a Swiss châlet. The men wear the pretty picturesque old costume almost exclusively. The green felt Tyrolese hat with the bunch of feathers at the back is universal with the middle class. The peasants wear black leather breeches embroidered daintily in green, ending above the knees, which are bare like the Highlanders’; below the knee is a gray or green stocking finishing just above the ankle. The white linen shirt is very full, with braces embroidered in green over it. The jacket, sported only when it is cold, is of gray or green cloth with silver or stag horn buttons. The politeness of the people I never saw equaled. Everybody bows to us, and in the more primitive towns the little children come gravely up to us and shake hands as we pass their houses. The piety is very impressive after Italy. There are shrines everywhere, and over many of the house fronts frescoes of sacred subjects; so far however I have not caught sight of a priest or a monk. I like these simple mountain folk much. From nine in the morning till nightfall we are out of doors; we climb, we walk, we drive. From here we shall visit poor King Ludwig’s wonderful castles, which perhaps cost him his crown, his liberty, his life.
Partenkirchen. July 11, 1896. I sent you a line from Oberammergau written on the way to that enchanted fairyland of the poor mad dreamer, Ludwig. We saw his two castles, Linderhof and Hohenschwangau, dreamlike places full of a haunting romance and fantastic luxury. Ludwig used to drive through the forests at night in a huge sledge of silver and blue drawn by six snow-white horses, his way lighted by flashing torches. On his visits to the castles he always arrived exactly at midnight. Hohenschwangau is built close to the old schloss of the Knights of the Swan. There are swans everywhere, a lake full of live ones, and in the Castle a thousand swans, of silver, ivory, porcelain,—every conceivable material. These castles are in the heart of the mountains, far from all other human habitations. The effect of this majestic luxury with the background of snow-capped mountains and foreground of forest and mountain brooks where we saw the deer running wild, surpasses anything I have ever seen.
I wonder if Ludwig II was really mad, or if he was only a born poet and dreamer who had the power to try and realize his dreams in bricks and mortar, as few poets ever had. He drained the treasury of his country to build these palaces, and it was not hard perhaps for his dull and greedy relatives to shut him up so that they might reign in his stead. One of his extravagances was to have the Wagner operas performed at midnight, his favorite hour, with no one present but himself.
We have had many glimpses of the Empress of Austria. She is an imperial looking woman with her splendid figure and her gorgeous hair, still bright brown, wound in close braids round and round her head. The day when we drove from Linderhof to Hohenschwangau, she walked! It took us six hours to drive and it took her ten hours to walk. She was accompanied by one forester and her Greek teacher, a young man of about thirty. She recognized us, for we have met her several times walking in the forest. She bowed and smiled very sweetly to us. Her face is tragically sad in repose. She lives in great retirement since the mysterious death, murder, or suicide, of her only son Rudolph, who was found with his mistress killed in a hunting lodge.
Baden Baden. August 1. We left Bayreuth day before yesterday. The operas were all that the most enthusiastic Wagnerian ever told you. They are given in the following sequence; the “Rheingold”, the “Walküre”, “Siegfried” and the “Götterdämmerung.” It is all very impressive, more like a religious function than an amusement. We stayed at the house of Carl Boller, kaufmann, had pleasant rooms infested with paper flowers and china knickknacks, but clean to a nicety and smelling only of new oil-cloth. The theater is finely situated outside the town on a hill. At four in the afternoon the audience of sixteen hundred and fifty souls assembled. The exterior of the building is ugly and humdrum but the acoustics are perfect. Shortly before the time for the beginning of the opera a band of trumpeters sounded forth a splendid call, different on each occasion and taken from some theme in the act following. At the third trumpet call the doors are shut, and the fellow who is shut out must wait till the act is over before they are opened. The theater is so constructed that it is claimed every seat is equally good, and while one may have one’s preference this is practically true; that there are no bad seats is certain. The floor slopes down like that in a circus but not so steep. The orchestra is out of sight. When the audience is comfortably seated the lights are turned low, the women take off their bonnets and the wonderful overture begins.