For mere recreation and pleasure the foreign watering-places have great advantages over those at home. Saratoga cannot be compared to Baden any more than Long Branch to Biarritz. The promenades and promenaders beyond the sea have far more pleasantness and variety; the scenery is more picturesque, and the general comfort and satisfaction immeasurably greater. There is much less of that desire of one to outdo the other, much less feverish unrest, much less ambition and anxiety for display. Each person lives according to his or her means; has no heart-burnings or envy on account of people in more fortunate circumstances. The gardens of the spas are delightful, and when the bands play, as they do at stated intervals, and the fountains flash in the sunbeams or the moonlight, and the gay throng passes to and fro, and easy prattle is interspersed with merriment and laughter, all the externals for enjoyment are furnished. The promenades, like the gaming saloons, are as a gay masquerade. On them and in them are men and women of every grade, and they all mingle together, though without recognition, as a well-dressed and well-bred democracy. Balls and concerts are given every week; and these, with dining, and wining, and driving, and flirting, and the countless follies and jollities of fashionable life, make the season pass swiftly in one round of delicate dissipation and refined revelry. Such extremes and excesses as we have are not observable there. The social tone is more elegant, although a fairer outside may conceal darker and deeper deeps. To an observer and student of human nature, the German spas are certainly more attractive and retentive than our own summer resorts. They do not weary you after a few days, or weeks at most, but draw you back to them year after year with a freshness of flavor and the spice of a new zest.
MYSTERIOUS CHARACTERS.
This continuity of charm is shown by the large number of regular habitués which each of the four springs has. I have met at Baden and Wiesbaden elderly couples who had been coming there since their early marriage, and who regarded the places and the play as indispensable to their contentment. You see there, season after season, mysterious characters that you never see anywhere else,—men apparently wealthy, with fine manners and a grand air, who, for aught you know to the contrary, may be pirates or highwaymen. Eccentric women flock there, too, about whom there are endless rumors, but no authentic information. They may be duchesses or demi-mondists, actresses or adventuresses, leaders of the ton or ladies of the sidewalk. So long as they conduct themselves properly, no one cares to inquire who they are or whence they come. The atmosphere of the Taunus and the Black Forest is free, and not a taint of Puritanism is in it. They whose position is fixed are so much assured thereof that they do not fear any passing wind which may blow between them and their nobility.
GAMBLING SALOON AT BADEN.
REMARKABLE ADVENTURESSES.
One of the oldest known frequenters of Homburg is the Countess Kisselef, the former wife of the Russian minister to Rome. She has never missed a season for forty years, and recently she has been a permanent resident of the little capital. She must be seventy now; is so broken in health, and infirm of body, that she is forced to hobble about with a cane and a crutch. Age and debility have not, however, lessened her passion for roulette, the only game she plays. Her passion for it is ineradicable, and the story is, that her husband long ago separated from her because she would not give up gambling, to which she devoted the greater part of her income. Having married her, it is said, for her fortune,—originally several millions of roubles,—he was angry that she should risk at the tables what he wished to use for himself. Her losses are reported to have been immense,—I have heard them estimated at a million and a half of dollars,—and yet she has quite enough left to enable her to bet freely in the Cursaal. Her gray hair, aquiline nose, sharp chin, and large and crippled figure are familiar to everybody. She is usually one of the first persons seated at the table, and some minutes before eleven o’clock you may see her helped into the room by the lackeys, or some of her own servants. She occupies a particular chair, and she is always in it, except when she goes to dinner and to sleep; taking no rest even on Sunday, when the game is generally more animated than on any other day.
The countess is very much attached to Homburg, where she has put up many handsome buildings, opened several new streets, and in many ways contributed to its improvement. Exceedingly homely as she is now,—she reminds me of a feminine grenadier wounded in different campaigns,—she is reputed to have been beautiful once, and to have been a fascinating and dangerous coquette. Such tales are told of nearly all women known in society who are noticeably ugly and obese. I can’t believe that the Countess Kisselef could ever have been charming. I should sooner expect her to break the bank at Homburg ten times a day in her present old age, than think it possible for her to have broken a masculine heart in all the freshness of her youth. A woman of her form and feature might be formidable as a foe, but never perilous as a friend. The aged countess has had her obituary written several times, but she was still alive, and still watching the ivory ball, the last season, and will be, I am sure, for many seasons to come. [The gambling tables were closed last year because the license expired with 1872, and the countess can hardly survive. Roulette has so long been her sustenance that she must perish if deprived of it for many seasons.]
A FORTUNATE WOMAN.