My bed is made up with a spread of the most beautiful colors, about forty inches in length, and to this is buttoned a napkin, which serves as a sheet. When I have adjusted this over me, my servant spreads over the whole an eiderdown, which I spend my entire night in tumbling up and replacing in position. On the other hand, I eat all sorts of remarkable things; among others preserved mushrooms, which are delicious, and wild fowls, delicious also. All this does not prevent my longing for your presence.
Apparently, you are getting on amazingly at D., with no thought of the miserable people who are roaming in Bohemia. Your sublime indifference, whether sincere or assumed (I have never been able to discover which), is extremely irritating. With you, it is out of sight out of mind. I am in great uncertainty as to my future course. If I were absolutely sure of provoking you by remaining a long time in Vienna, I should settle down here for goodness knows how many months; but you would not miss a single meal on my account, and besides, I fear I should become mortally bored with their gemüth. It is probable, therefore, that I shall remain in Vienna only long enough to enjoy its novelty; that is, until towards the end of the month. I may be in Berlin about the first of October, and by the 10th or 12th in Paris.
I suppose you have already sent me a letter here in Vienna, to tell me what you are doing and what you expect to do: all this will have its influence on my plans. I have just seen some autographs of Ziska and John Huss. Considering that they were heretics, they wrote very well indeed.
CLXI
Vienna, October 2, 1854.
Really and truly, this good city of Vienna is an agreeable stopping-place, and now that I have friends here, and have learned the joy of being an idler, it requires an unyielding strength of mind to tear myself away from it. Besides this, I have the advantage of hearing the news from the Crimea several minutes before you. Since day before yesterday we have suffered every stage of excitement.
Has Sebastopol fallen? When this letter reaches you, all doubt will be at an end. Here, it is believed, but in my opinion with a certain incredulity. Excepting a few of the old families, whose sympathies are with Russia, the Austrians are offering congratulations. I was congratulated day before yesterday by a cabman as I was leaving the Opera House. God grant that this is not some of the news that the electric telegraph sends out when it has nothing else to do. However that may be, I consider it admirable that our soldiers, six days after landing, should have given the Russians a vigorous drubbing.
Stopping in our house is Lady Westmoreland, sister of Lord Raglan and mother of his aide-de-camp. She has been in a terrible state. She received yesterday a line from her son, written after the battle. We are amused at the countenances of the Russians in Vienna. Prince Gortchakof remarked that the battle was a mere incident, but that it did not alter the principle involved in the war. The Belgian Minister, a man of fine wit, retorted that Gortchakof was right to retrench himself behind his principles, since they could not be captured at the point of a bayonet. Speaking of wit, I am designated here as a lion, whether I will or not. You must pronounce this laïonne in English so that you may have no misconception of the rôle I am made to play.
A few days ago I visited Baden. It is charmingly situated in a valley, only a stone’s throw from Vienna, but one would fancy himself a hundred miles from a large city.
My keeper has presented me to a number of beautiful ladies. Society here being so gemüthlich, everything that a Frenchman says is accepted as clever. They consider me uncommonly amiable. I have written sublime thoughts in their albums. I have made them drawings; in a word, I have made myself perfectly ridiculous, and it is on account of a sense of humiliation for having been up to such a trade that I am leaving to-day for Dresden. I shall stop there but one day, and then go on to Berlin. After visiting the Museum I shall start for Cologne, where there will be a letter from you.