MORE SUNDAYS ABROAD.
Still on tramp toward the south, we came to Dresden, and there rested
five days; but as they were week-days their experiences gave us no
insight into the Sunday usages of the place, and I only allude to them
because it would seem unbecoming to pass the capital of Saxony without a
word; and because I feel morally convinced that of all the art-wonders
collected in the Zwinger, Das Grune Gewolbe, and in the picture gallery,
all of which we visited, not any of them are visible to the public on
Sunday. {173} On a sultry day in August we struggled, dusty and athirst,
into Vienna. It is said that the first impressions of a traveller are
the most faithful, and I therefore transcribe from a diary of that time
some of my recollections of the first Sunday spent in the capital of
Austria. It is not flattering.
"Yesterday (Sunday), we rambled through a part of the city known as
Lerchenfeld, in the suburb of St. Joseph, where the low life of Vienna is
exhibited. It was a kind of fair. The way was lined with petty booths
and stalls, furnished with fruit, pipes, and common pastry. Here were
sold live rabbits and birds; there, paper clock-faces, engravings, songs,
and figures of saints. In one part was a succession of places of public
resort, like our tea-gardens in appearance, but devoted to the sale of
other beverages; tea being here almost unknown, except as a medicine.
From each of them there streamed the mingled sounds of obstreperous music
and human voices, while in several there appeared to be a sort of
conjuring exhibition in course of performance. Further on, there came
from the opposite side of the way the screaming of a flageolet, heard far
above its accompaniment of a violin and a couple of horns, to all of
which the shuffling and scraping of many feet formed a sort of dull bass,
as the dancers whirled round in their interminable waltz. Looking into
the window of the building thus outrageously conspicuous, we saw a motley
crowd of persons of both sexes, and in such a variety of costumes as
scarcely any other city but Vienna could furnish; some of them careering
round in the excitement of the dance; others impatiently awaiting their
turn, or quizzing the dancers; while a third party sat gravely at the
side-tables, smoking their pipes, playing at cards, and sipping their
wine and beer. Passing onward, we came upon a diminutive merryman,
screaming from the platform of his mountebank theatre, the nature of the
entertainment and the lowness of the price of admission--'Only four
kreutzers for the first place!'
"Continuing our course, we were attracted into a side-street by a crowd,
among whom stood conspicuous a brass musical band, and an old man in a
semi-religious costume of black and white, bearing a large wooden
crucifix in his hand. In anticipation of some religious ceremony, we
waited awhile to watch its development. It was a funeral, and the whole
procession soon formed itself in the following order:--First came the
large crucifix, then a boy bearing a banner on which was painted the
figure of the Virgin; then came six other boys, followed by the same
number of girls, all neatly and cleanly dressed; and then the coffin,
hung with scarlet drapery, adorned with flowers, and having a small
silver crucifix at its head. We were told it was the funeral of a girl
of thirteen. Close upon the coffin came the minister, or priest, clad in
a black, loosish gown, and wearing a curiously crown-shaped cap, also
black. Every head was uncovered as he and the coffin passed. Then came,
as we imagined, the real mourners of the dead, followed by six
exceedingly old women, mourners by profession, and immediately behind
them the brass band which had first attracted our attention. The latter,
as soon as the procession was fairly in motion, burst forth into a noisy,
and by no means melancholy strain, and continued to play for some time;
they suddenly ceased, and there was heard from some one at the head of
the procession a Latin prayer, which was immediately echoed by the old
women in the rear, in the same drowsy, monotonous tone in which the
church responses are usually made. The scene was altogether curious and
striking; the progress of the procession was everywhere marked by
uncovered heads and signs of sympathy and respect; but in spite of its
attempted solemnity, there was a holiday appearance about it which jarred
sadly with its real character of grief and death."
I have given this description a front place because it is the worst thing
I can say of Vienna, and in no other part of the city did I ever see its
like. During a stay of twelve months, I lost no opportunity of enjoying
all that the Viennese enjoyed, or of witnessing whatever was part of the
national customs in festival, holiday, or religious ceremonial. In
addition to the Sundays, which were all, to a certain extent, days of
rejoicing--there were nine distinct festivals in the year enjoined by the
church, and on which, if they fell on week-days, the working people
rested from their labours. Of course each of these days had its special
religious reference and obligations, and these were in general faithfully
observed; but, apart from this, they were essentially holidays, and, as
no deduction of wages was made by the employers on their account, they
did not fall as a burden upon the working classes. These days were: New
Year's Day, the Annunciation, Good Friday, Easter and Whit Sunday, Corpus
Christi Day, All Saints' Day, the Birth of the Virgin, Christmas Day, and
the festival of St. Leopold, the patron saint of Vienna. On the strictly
church festivals, with the exception of All Saints' Day, theatrical
performances, and public amusements generally, were interdicted, but rest
and quiet recreation, in addition to the religious observances, were
their great characteristics. Easter and Whit Monday were among the Volks
Feste (people's feasts), as well as one known as that of the Brigittenau,
from the place in which it is held; and another on the first of May, when
the laufer (running footmen) have their races in the Prater, and the
emperor permits himself to be mobbed--at least the Emperor Francis
did--as he strolls for a half-hour or so among his people in their own
park. Then the Bohemians have a special religious festival, when one is
astonished to see, in out-of-the-way niches and corners, a perhaps
hitherto-unobserved figure of an amiable-looking priest, with a star on
his forehead, now hung about and conspicuous with wreaths and festoons of
flowers, and bright with the glittering of tiny lamps. This is the Holy
St. John of Nepomuk. I have, however, nothing to do with the religious
ceremonies of the Catholic Church. It is sufficient for my purpose to
know that I watched the solemn and splendid procession of mingled
royalty, priest, and people, on Corpus Christi Day, from the open door of
a coffee and wine-house in the Kohl-market; and that, at the Easter
festival, after ascending and descending the Mount Calvary, near Vienna,
or rather having been borne up and down its semicircular flight of steps,
and past the modelled groups of painted figures to represent the life of
Christ, from the birth to the crowning act of the crucifixion on the
summit, I then sauntered away with my landlord (a cabinet-maker) and his
family to Weinhaus, to drink of the new wine called heueriger. It is
enough that, on All Saints' Day, after wandering awhile about a swampy
churchyard in the suburb of Maria Hilf, to see the melancholy spot of
light which glimmered at each grave-head, I went to the Burg Theatre, and
witnessed Shakespeare's play of "King Lear" (and the best actor in Vienna
played the Fool); and further, that I spent the evening of Christmas Day
in Daum's coffee-house in reading _Galignani's Messenger_, in order to
bring myself, in imagination at least, as near home as possible.
The jewellers in Vienna are not such elderly apprentices as they are in
Hamburg, Leipsic, and the majority of small towns in Germany. They dine
at gast hause, and sleep in the independence of a separate lodging. They
have, therefore, more liberty; but there are many trades in Vienna among
whom the old usages still exist, by which they become a kind of vassals,
living and sleeping under the patriarchal roof. All worked twelve hours
a-day alike, from six till seven, including one hour for dinner. Various
licences were, however, allowed; quarter-of-day or half-hour deductions
were scarcely known; and I have myself spent the morning at a public
execution, without suffering any loss in wages. This brings me to the
Sunday work; and I say, unhesitatingly that, as a system, it does not
exist. I never worked on the Sunday myself during my whole twelve
months' stay. I do not know that there was any law against it; but rest
was felt to be a necessity after a week of seventy-two hours' labour. It
is not unusual, both in Germany and France, to engage new hands on the
Sunday morning, because it is a leisure time, convenient to both master
and workman; and I have sought for work at this time, and found the Herr
in a silk dressing-gown, and white satin slippers with pink bows. I
recollect visiting a working cabinet-maker's on one Sunday morning, whose
men slept on the premises, and found the workshop a perfect model of
cleanliness and order: every tool in its place, and the whole swept and
polished up; and was once invited, under the impression that, as an
Englishman, I ought to know something of newspaper presses, to inspect
those of the Imperial Printing Office, with the last number of the Wiener
Zeitung in type; and this was on a Sunday morning--a time especially
chosen on account of the absence of the workmen. My landlord, a
master-man, would sometimes work in the Sunday morning when hard pressed;
but, if he did, he took his revenge in the week.
As we did not work, at what did we play? Perhaps there was a sick
comrade to visit in the great hospital; and we paced the long corridors,
and stepped lightly through the lofty wards to his bedside. Or, if he
were convalescent, we sought him out, among many others, in the open
square, with its broad grass-plots and young trees, where, in his grey
loose gown, he smoked a morning pipe. Or we went to church, I, with
others, to the Evangelical Chapel near the Augustine Platz. There, among
a closely-pressed throng, we heard admirable discourses (and not too
long, the whole service being concluded in an hour), and heard much
beautiful music; but, to my mind, there were too many tawdry ornaments in
this place of worship--too many lamps about the altar; and the
altar-piece itself--a gigantic figure of the Saviour on the Cross, said
to be by Albert Durer--seemed to be out of place.
It was lawful in Vienna to bathe on Sunday; and this we did, with great
delight, in the public baths upon the Danube. Or we strolled about the
Glacis; attended the miniature review in the Hof-Burg; wandered out as
far as Am-Spitz, by the long wooden bridge over the broad and melancholy
river; or, what was better, sauntered in some one of the beautiful
gardens of the Austrian nobility,--those of Schwargenberg, Lichtenstein,
or in the Belvidere--thrown open to the public, not only on Sunday, but
on every day in the week.
As the day waned, music burst forth in many strains at once. There was a
knot of artisans in our back room, who were learning the entire "Czar and
Zimmerman," and who were very vigorous about this hour. At seven, the
theatres opened their doors, with something of our own rush and press,
although there was a guard-house, and a whole company of grenadiers in
the ante-room; but, once in the interior, all was order and decorum.
There was, of course, a difference in tone and character between the city
and the suburban theatres, inasmuch as the ices and coffee of the court
playhouses found their parallel in the beer and hot sausages of the
Joseph Stadt and An-der-Wieden; but the performances of all rarely
occupied more than two, and never exceeded three hours; and there was an
amount of quiet and propriety manifested during the entertainment, which
said something for the authorities, but more for the people.
As the night deepened, the ball-rooms and dancing-booths of Vienna,--the
Sperl's, Das Tanz Salon beim Schaf, and so downward to the dens of
Lerchenfeld--grew furious in music, and hysterical in waltz. It was
something fearful. It made your eyes twinkle, and your head dizzy, to
see that eternal whirling of so many human teetotums. They seemed to see
nothing, to feel nothing, to know nothing; there was no animation in
their looks; no speculation in their eyes; nothing but a dead stare, as
if the dancers were under a spell, only to be released when the music was
at an end. Generally speaking, I think the ball-rooms of continental
cities are the curses and abominations of the Sunday. My landlord, who
was no moralist, but played faro, draughts, and billiards on the Sunday
evening, would not hear of his daughter attending a public ballroom.
There is a curious anomaly in connection with places of public
entertainment which strikes a stranger at once, and which is equally true
of Berlin as of Vienna; it is this: that, while private houses are closed
at nine and ten o'clock, according to the season of the year,
coffee-houses, taverns, dancing and concert-rooms, are open till
midnight. Up to the former hours you may gain admission to your own
house by feeing the porter to the extent of twopence; but, later than
this, it is dangerous to try the experiment.
To return to out-of-door amusements. A visit to Schoenbrun was business
for a whole afternoon; for we must perforce each time unravel the
windings to the pure spring in the maze, with vague and mysterious ideas
of some time or other falling upon the grave of the Duc de Reichstadt,
there secretly buried, according to popular tradition. On rare occasions
we spent the whole of Sunday in some more distant palatial domain, or
suburban retreat. In Klosterneuburgh, with its good wine: in the Bruhl,
with its rugged steeps, its military memorials, and ruined castles; at
the village of Bertholdsdorf, with its Turkish traditions; among the viny
slopes of the Leopoldiberg, or the more distant and wilder tract of
mingled rock and forest which encircle the Vale of Helen. Above all,
there was Laxenberg,--an imperial pleasure-palace and garden, and a whole
fairy-land in itself, peopled by the spirits of ancient knights and
courtly dames. Some one of the Hapsburgs had built, many years ago, a
knightly castle on a lake, and in it were stored dim suits of armour of
Maximilian; a cabinet of Wallenstein; grim portraits of kings and
warriors; swords, halbards, jewelled daggers, and antique curiosities
innumerable; only rather prosaically completed by the exhibition of the
every-day suit of the last Emperor of Austria, which, however affecting a
spectacle for a simple-hearted Viennese--and they are mere babies in
matters of royalty--irresistibly reminded one of Holywell Street, London,
and cast-off regimentals. Laxenberg is distant less than a shilling
ride, and about two hours' walk from Vienna; and, like our Hampton Court
Palace, is thrown unreservedly open to the public. There were no end to
its wonders: fishing-grounds, and boats upon the lake; waterfalls, and
rustic bridges were there; and one little elegant pavilion, perched on
the water, dedicated to the beauties of Windsor, illustrating its scenery
in transparent porcelain. There was a list for knightly riders; a dais
for the Queen of Beauty; and places for belted nobles, saintly abbots,
and Wambas in motley; an Ashby-de-la-Zouch in miniature, which a little
imagination could people. Then, for the plebeians, there were
leaping-bars and turning-posts, skittle-alleys, and the quintain; and,
for all alike, clusters of noble trees, broad grassy meads, and flowers
unnumbered. There was even a farm-house, homely and substantial, with a
dairy and poultry-yard, sheep in the paddocks, and cattle in the stalls.
We started from Vienna on a Sunday morning on board the steamboat Karl
for Linz; and trudging thence on foot came on the following Saturday
night into Salzburg, the queen of the Salzack. We rested here one happy
Sunday: not so much in the town, which had its abundant curiosities, as
in the pleasure gardens of the old Archbishops of Salzburg, at an easy
stroll from it. This garden is pleasant enough in itself, but there are
besides a number of water eccentricities in it such as I should think
were in their peculiar fashion unequalled. Here blooms a cluster of
beautiful flowers, covered as it were by a glass shade, but which turns
out to be only water. There a miniature palace is in course of erection,
with crowds of workmen in its different storeys, each man at his
avocation with hammer and chisel, pulley and wheel, and the grave
architect himself directing their labour. All this is set in motion by
water, and is not a mere doll's house, but a symmetrical model. Then we
enter a subterranean grotto, with a roof of pendant stalactites, where
the pleasant sound of falling waters and the melodious piping of birds
fill all the air. There is a sly drollery too in some of the water
performances, invented years ago by the grave Archbishops of Salzburg;
for suddenly the stalactites are set dripping like a modern shower bath:
and the gigantic stags at its entrance spout water from the very tips of
their horns. The garden is not a Versailles, for there is nothing grand
in any of its hydraulic arrangements; but in the beauty with which are
clothed such trifles, the artistic spirit which has suggested its
objects, and the humour which spirts up tiny jets of water by seats where
lovers sit, and in unsuspected places where the public congregate, even
in the middle of a walk, it is a wonderful and delightful exhibition.
This garden was thronged by the holiday folks of Salzburg. There was an
official to explain the curious display, and nothing but innocent gaiety
was to be seen.
The Sunday we spent in Munich was passed in the Kirche Unserer Lieben
Frauen, with its self-supporting roof; in the English Garden; and at a
lovely spot on a hill-side, in the environs of the city. During the week
we were escorted by a friend to a sort of tea-gardens of some notoriety,
but found it silent and deserted. Our friend apologised for its dulness,
but exclaimed, in part explanation, "You should see it on Sunday!" It
was evident that Sunday was a day of rest and enjoyment, and not a
working day in Munich. My own impression of the Munichers was, that they
drank too much beer every day in the week.
Still tramping towards France, we passed one Sunday in Heidelberg, among
all its romantic wonders; but as everybody knows, or ought to know, all
about Heidelberg, I will not allow my enthusiasm to lead me into a
description which would not be novel, and might probably be tedious.
This was the last Sunday we spent on German ground. So far as Germany is
concerned, you may look upon everything but museums, picture galleries,
and the like, on Sunday; you may, as Luther says you ought, "dance on it,
ride on it, play on it,--do anything"--but see that which is most likely
to instruct you. You may visit tawdry shows, and inspect badly painted
scenery; you may let off fireworks; gamble to your ruin; smoke the eyes
out of your head, and dance the head off your shoulders; but you shall
not, with few exceptions, look upon works of art, or the results of
science in museums and picture galleries. Let it be said, however, that
the general opportunities for acquiring correct and elevated taste are,
on the whole, greater in Germany than in England; and that in many cities
there is a profusion of exterior ornament, more especially in Munich, in
the shape of the fresco paintings of the Palace Garden, on Isar Thor, and
in the Basilica and churches generally, so that the eye is better
educated in artistic combinations; and the same necessity does not exist
for special art instruction with them as with us. Then, let us never
forget that their public and other gardens are as free to them as the air
they breathe, and that music is almost as universal.
The remembrances I have of Paris Sundays decidedly possess a character of
rest and recreation; of waking in the morning to a grateful sense of
repose; of clean shirts and trimmed beards; and of delicious breakfasts
at our Cafe aux Quatres Mendiants, of coffee and white bread, instead of
the bouillon and confiture of the atelier. Did we not work, then?
Assuredly we did sometimes, when hard pressed; but the recollection of
those few occasions is drowned in that of a flood of happy, tranquil
Sundays. When we did work it was from eight till twelve, which made half
a day, and this was the rate at which all overtime was reckoned. One
hard taskmaster I remember, who, instead of paying us our dues, as is the
custom on Saturday night, at the end of quinze jours, cajoled us to come
and work under the promise of their payment on the Sunday morning. He
failed us like a rogue; and we drudged on for another quinzaine, Sunday
mornings included, in hopeful anticipation of the receipt of our wages.
When we found that he slunk out of the way, without paying us a sou, we
rebelled, sang the Marseillaise, demanded our wages, and never worked
another Sunday.
I am lost in my endeavours to define the mingled recollections of Sunday
tranquillity, enjoyment, and frivolity during a stay of eighteen months
in Paris. My thoughts run from the Madelaine to Minu-montant; from
Versailles to the Funambule; from Diogenes' lantern at St. Cloud to the
blind man's concert in the Palais Royal. Sometimes I wander over the
plains of Auteuil and Passy; then suddenly find myself examining a
paper-making machine in the Museum of Arts and Trades. Or I look over
the vine fields from the heights of Montmorency at one moment, and the
next am pacing the long galleries of the Louvre, or the classic chambers
of the Palais des Beaux Arts. I have passed a Whitsunday morning at
Versailles among the paintings; the afternoon at Sevres among glass and
porcelain; have won a game at dominoes after dinner in Paris; and have
heard the last polka at the Salle Vivienne in the evening. Paris is a
city of extremes; the young Theophile who works by my side, and is an
ingenious fellow and a clever workman, you will meet next Sunday in the
Louvre discoursing energetically on the comparative merits of the French
and Italian schools of painting; yet this same Theophile shall be the
Titi of the gallery of the Porte St. Martin in the evening, who yells
slang at his friend on the opposite side; and the Pierrot or Debardeur of
the next opera masquerade.
With the vivid impressions of many Sundays abroad upon my mind, I have
been wondering whether, after all, the practices of the continental
Sunday have anything to do with the opening of a museum or
picture-gallery in London; and, after profound study, in the laborious
course of which I have several times fallen asleep, I have come to the
deliberate conclusion that there is no connection between the two things.
In the first case, as regards Germany, seeing that they there almost
sedulously close all that relates to art or science, and give full
licence only to beer and tobacco, to music and dancing on the
Sunday--where is the parallel? In the second, as regards France or
Paris, although it must be admitted that there is unfortunately no
comparison between the Louvre and the National Gallery, it can at least
be claimed that there is no resemblance between the British Museum and
the Bal des Chiens in the Rue St. Honore. I take it that to preserve the
English Sunday as a day of greater rest than French or German Sundays
ever were, and to add to it such rational and instructive recreation, as
a Museum or a Picture-Gallery, or a place of innocent recreation could
supply, might be a good thing in the eyes of religious men; and I have
not yet heard of any society or association in any part of the United
Kingdom, which proposes to open a Sunday evening ball at the Pig and
Tinderbox, or to grant licences to the theatrical performances at the
Penny Gaff in the New Cut.
NOTE.
{173} This is incorrect; the Picture Gallery is open during the mid-day
hours on Sunday.