BOOK VIII[239]
Journal from Padua to Prague, from the 20th to the 26th of September 1833—Conegliano—The translator of the Dernier Abencerrage—Udine—Countess Samoyloff—M. de La Ferronays—A priest—Carinthia—The Drave—A peasant lad—Forges—Breakfast at the hamlet of St. Michael—The neck of the Tauern—A cemetery—Atala: how changed—A sunrise—Salzburg—A military review—Happiness of the peasants—Woknabrück—Reminiscences of Plancoët—Night—German and Italian towns contrasted—Linx—The Danube—Waldmünchen—Woods—Recollections of Combourg and Lucile—Travellers—Prague—Madame de Gontaut—The young Frenchmen—Madame la Dauphine—An excursion to Butschirad—Butschirad—Charles X. asleep—Henry V.—Reception of the young men—The ladder and the peasant-woman—Dinner at Butschirad—Madame de Narbonne—Henry V.—A rubber—Charles X.—My incredulity touching the declaration of majority—The newspapers—Scene of the young men—Prague—I leave for France—I pass by Butschirad at night—A meeting at Schlau—Carlsbad empty—Hollfeld—Bamberg—My different St. Francis' Days—Trials of religion—France.
I was greatly distressed, when passing by Mestre, towards the end of the night, not to be able to go down to the shore: perhaps a distant beacon in the furthermost lagoons would have shown me the fairest of the islands of the Old World, even as a tiny light revealed to Christopher Columbus the first island of the New World[240]. It was at Mestre that I landed from Venice, at the time of my first journey in 1806: fugit ætas.
I breakfasted at Conegliano; I there received the compliments of the friends of a lady who had translated the Abencerrage and who doubtless resembled Bianca:
"He saw a young woman come out, attired much after the fashion of those Gothic queens sculptured on the monuments of our old abbeys... a black mantilla was thrown over her head; with her left hand she held the ends of this mantilla crossed and drawn up close like a veil over her chin, so that nothing was seen of her whole face but her large eyes and rosy mouth."
I pay my debt to the translator of my Spanish reveries by reproducing her portrait here.
When I climbed back into my carriage, a priest harangued me on the Génie du Christianisme. I was crossing the scene of the victories which led Bonaparte to encroach upon our liberties.
Udine is a beautiful town: I noticed a portico copied from the Palace of the Doges. I dined at the inn, in the room lately occupied by Madame la Comtesse de Samoyloff; it was still quite full of her disorder. Is that niece of the Princesse Bagration, "another injustice of years," still as pretty as she was in Rome, in 1829, when she used to sing so wonderfully at my concerts? What breeze had blown that flower once again under my feet? What wind impelled that cloud? O daughter of the North, you enjoy life; make haste: harmonies that used to delight you have already ceased; your days will not have the length of the arctic day.