What I Remember, Volume 1

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

The latter part of our voyage was especially interesting and beautiful, but tantalising from the impossibility of landing on every lovely spot which enticed us. Nevertheless, we at last found ourselves at Vienna with much delight, and our first glimpses of the city disposed us to acquiesce heartily in the burthen of the favourite Viennese folk-song, “Es ist nur ein Kaiserstadt, es ist nur ein Wien!”

I remember well an incident which my mother does not mention, but which seemed likely to make our first début in the Kaiserstadt an embarrassing one. There was in some hand-bag belonging to some one of the party an old forgotten pack of playing cards, which the examining officer of the customs pounced on with an expression of almost consternation on his face.

“Oh, well, throw them away,” said the spokesman of our party airily, “or, if the regulations require it, we will pay the duty, though we have not the least desire to retain possession of them.”

But this we soon found did not meet the case by any means. We had been guilty of a serious misdemeanour and offence against the law by having such things (undeclared too) amongst our baggage! There must be a report, and a written petition, setting forth with due contrition, and humble peccavi admissions, our lamentable ignorance, and perhaps the enormity might be condoned to a foreigner! After a little talk, however, and the incense of a little consternation on our faces, duly offered to the official Jove (who entirely spurned any offering of another sort), the said Jove wrote the petition for us himself, carried it somewhere behind the scenes, and shortly announced that it was benignly granted: as I believe, by himself! The accursed thing was ceremoniously destroyed before our eyes, and we were free to walk forth into the streets of the Kaiserstadt.

I revisited Vienna two or three years ago, and found that “ein Wien” had become at least three! If the increase and changes of London and Paris have made my early recollections of those cities emphatically those of a former age, the changes at Vienna, though of course smaller in absolute extent, have yet more entirely metamorphosed the character of the place. The abolition of the wall, which used to shut in the exclusive little city, and placed between it and the suburbs not only a material barrier, but a gulf such as that which divided Dives from Lazarus, has changed the social habitudes and even the moral characteristics of the inhabitants.

In the days of my first visit, now just a little more than fifty years ago, nobody who was anybody would have dreamed of living on the outside of the sacred barrier of the wall, any more than a member of the fashionable world of London would dream of living to the eastward of Temple Bar. I think, indeed, that the former would have been more utterly out of the question than the latter. I remember that even in the case of foreigners like ourselves, it was deemed, in accordance with the best advice we could procure on the subject, necessary, or at least expedient, that we should find lodgings in the city, despite the exceeding difficulty and the high price involved in procuring them. The division of the society into classes, still more marked in Vienna than probably in any other city of Europe, at that time almost amounted to a division into castes; and in the case of the higher aristocracy to have lived in any one of the suburbs would assuredly have involved a loss of social caste.

Mainly this arose of course from the inappellable law of fashion that so it should be. But in part also it probably arose from the little social inconveniences arising from mere distance. The society of Vienna at that day—society par excellence—was a very small one. Everybody knew everybody, not only their pedigree and all their quarterings (very necessary to be known), but the men and women themselves personally. I forget entirely what were the introductions which placed my mother and her party at once in the very core of this small and exclusive society. But we did find ourselves so placed, and that at once. Probably the general notion in England was then, and may be still, that the aristocratic society of Vienna would be less likely to open its doors to one who had no title whatever to enter them save a literary reputation, than the corresponding classes in any other European capital. But whatever was the “Open Sesame” my mother possessed, the fact was that all doors were open to her with the most open-handed hospitality. And, as I have said, to know one was, even in the case of a stranger, pretty nearly equivalent to knowing them all.

The by far greater number of this small society of nobles were, as was to be expected, wealthy men; some, more especially the Hungarians, were such even if estimated by English standards. But there were some among them who were very much the reverse. And my opportunities of observation were abundantly sufficient to enable me to perceive without any fear of being mistaken, that the terms of intimacy and equality upon which these latter lived with their wealthier neighbours were no whit affected by their comparative impecuniosity. One single lady of very noble birth I well remember, who to a great pressure of the res angusta domi added no small spice of eccentricity; but there was no mansion so magnificent that did not open its doors very widely to her. No fête was complete without her. She always wore a turban, and always carried it about with her in her pocket. And I have seen her pause in the midst of a splendid entrance hall, with half a dozen lackeys standing around, while she took her turban from her pocket, adjusted it on her head, and changed her shoes.

The ladies of the grand monde in Vienna in those days had the queer habit of writing no notes. Their invitations and the answers to them, and the excuses, or any other communications arising from the social intercourse of the day, were all sent by word of mouth by footmen. Whether the highest bon ton required an affectation of not being able to write, I cannot say! But such was the practice.

Another specialty consisted in a practice of the young men of the same world. Every man of them retained in his special pay and service one of the (very excellent) hackney coaches of the city, which he always expected to find ready for his service, and the driver of which was trusted by him as much, or more perhaps, than a man is in the habit of trusting his own servant.