and as he passes the buildings that still remain of the ancient
famous university, thoughts are kindled of the wonderful renown this
institution had, six centuries ago, when it was easily the foremost
educational institution of the world. Fifteen thousand students, from
every quarter of the earth, gathered to hear its celebrated savants,
and the revels and achievements of those days have gone down in prose
and rhyme. Five thousand students still attend, two thirds of them
Czechs and the others German; but the revelry of to-day is largely the
bitter and bruising encounters that are continually arising between
these conflicting hot-heads. The intellectual impulse is strong in
Prague. It has poly-technic institutes, art schools, and learned
societies, and one of the most famous conservatories of music in the
whole of Europe.
The west bank of the Moldau, the Kleinseite district, was royalty’s
region in the olden time when Bohemian kings and queens dwelt in the
huge Hradschin on the ridge of the hill. Seen from the Karlsbrücke,
toward five o’clock, the long slope rises toward the declining sun
with many more suggestions, even now, of the pomp and circumstance
that have departed than of the modernism that has taken their place.
There is a dreary and saddening array of closed and boarded palaces,
arcaded and many-windowed, whose owners are rich and powerful Bohemian
nobles with a preference for the gayeties and frivolities of the court
life of Vienna. One regards with especial interest the long, rambling
one of Wallenstein, to make room for which one hundred houses had to
be torn down, where this rival of royalty retired in the interval of
imperial disfavor and held magnificent court with hundreds of followers
and attendants. Among the many chambers of that great honeycomb was
one equipped as an astrological cabinet—for Wallenstein always had
faith in his star. How vividly it recalls the Schiller dramas and the
operations of the uncanny Ceni! “Such a man!” exclaims a character at
the conclusion of “Wallensteins Tod.” Born a Protestant, he well-nigh
became their exterminator; turned Jesuit, the Jesuits distrusted and
hated him. With his sword he made and unmade kings and carved out
principalities for himself—and yet he was but fifty-one years old at
the time of his assassination!
Like an aged soldier nodding in his armchair in the sun, the
Wallenstein Palace, once passion-rocked and treachery-haunted, basks
this afternoon in an atmosphere of the intensest calm and peace.
To ramble through it is to learn history from a participant. One
courtyard, in particular, is so serene and lovely as to be really
unforgettable. One entire side of this enclosure is a lofty, echoing
_loggia_ three stories high, with arching spans for a roof supported on
graceful, towering columns. Within the _loggia_ are heavy sculptured
balustrades, and a broad flight of marble steps flanked by huge stone
urns leads to a beautiful open space of soft lawns bordered with simple
flowers. It was a favorite resort of Wallenstein’s, and he called it
his _sala terrina_. In its present mellow and half-deserted beauty it
is a place for a poet to dream away a life in.
Staring gloomily down on the Kleinseite, and set solidly far above it
on a precipitous hill, the rugged old Hradschin, Prague’s acropolis,
warms into mild ruddy tones in the afternoon sun. I have said it
reminds one of a barracks, such an enormous, rambling affair as it
is; though its commanding situation and impressive proportions would
immediately suggest to a stranger some more consequential employment
in other days. Undoubtedly it is the most striking feature of Prague.
One might think it a solid architectural mass, as seen from the
Karlsbrücke, but on closer inspection it resolves itself into a series
of separate structures falling into irregular groups, but which, taken
together, composed the setting of the imperial court during the long
period of Bohemia’s independence. That splendid fragment, the vast
cathedral of St. Vitus, supplies a worthy centrepiece; and is full of
interest, too, with its rich Gothic windows, chapel walls set with
precious stones, marble tombs of the Bohemian kings, and the wonderful
silver monument to St. John Nepomuc. Indeed, the whole Hradschin
abounds in rich surprises. Such, for instance, is the venerable church
of St. George, awkward and archaic, which has stood for nine hundred
years and is the sole memorial in Bohemia of the earliest period of
Romanic architecture. Every one, of course, hurries to see the rude
royal palace of the Hofburg, on the edge of an adjacent steep hill,
from the windows of whose Kanzlei Zimmer the Imperial Councillors were
“defenestrated” and the Thirty Years’ War, in consequence, precipitated
upon the troubled states of Europe. And then there is the archbishop’s
palace, across the quadrangle from the Hofburg, in whose courtyard the
church authorities impotently burned the two hundred Wycliffe books
that John Huss had loaned them with the challenge to read and, if they
could, refute. Two grim towers on the eastern extremity, the Daliborka
and the Black Tower, have no end of creepy legends of tortures and
prison horrors. The former takes its name from a romantic knight,
Dalibor, who is said to have been long confined there and of whom and
his solacing violin we hear at pleasant length in Smetana’s opera of
that name. One of the most curious sights of the Hradschin is the low,
drawn-out Loretto church, with a maximum of frontage and a minimum
of depth, like city seminaries for young ladies. Among the red tiles
of its steep roof, giant stone saints perform miracles of precarious
footing, and out of the centre of the façade, on a base of colossal
spirals, rises an antique belfry spire set with domes and turrets
and bearing aloft a huge clock dial like a burnished shield. Surely,
somewhere in this Hradschin-wonderland occurred the unrecounted events
of that much-interrupted narrative of the “King of Bohemia and his
Seven Castles,” which Trim tried so hard to tell to Uncle Toby Shandy;
and may we not be confident that the charming Prince Florizel, whose
strange adventures Stevenson has so gracefully recounted, once lived
and courted perils in these romantic surroundings!
It is to be hoped that every visitor will have more than one hour in
Prague; and then, of course, he will want to go up to the Hradschin
and loiter through and about it at his leisure. He will find large and
beautiful gardens where he can rest under noble trees and enjoy an
inspiring view of the city in the pleasant companionship of statuary
and fountains. When he has exhausted this viewpoint he can secure quite
another from the colonnaded verandas of the Renaissance Belvedere; or,
perhaps better still, he will journey out to the picturesque Abbey of
Strahow, embowered in blooming orchards that are vocal with blackbirds,
and from its yellow stuccoed walls look down on the dense forests of
the Laurenzberg sweeping in billowy green to the very banks of the
Moldau.
At this hour a sharp point of light, seen from the observation tower
on the summit of the Hasenberg, marks the location of a little white
church on a distant hilltop—and when you have been told all about
what happened there at the fatal battle of the White Hill you will
have listened to the bitterest chapter in the whole history of Bohemia
and will know how the national life of this kingdom gasped itself out,
three centuries ago, in the panic and rout of the “Winter King’s”
ill-managed soldiery before the fierce infantry of Bavaria. There fell
the state won by the flails of a fanatical peasantry whose sonorous
war-hymn, “Ye Who Are God’s Warriors,” had so often struck terror into
the ranks of the finest armies of Europe. Those were the men whom
the furious Ziska led—Ziska, the squat and one-eyed, the friend and
avenger of Huss; “John Ziska of the Chalice, Commander in the Hope
of God of the Taborites.” Such was the terror in which this dread
chieftain was held by his foes that they feared him even after his
death and declared that his skin had been stretched for drum-heads to
summon his followers on to victory.
Since the battle of the White Hill there has been little for Prague in
the way of war except sieges and captures; and it has mattered little
to her whether it was Maria Theresa come to be crowned, or Frederick
the Great come to destroy, or the Swedes of Gustavus Adolphus come
to plague and offend. Suffering has been her regular portion. During
the Thirty Years’ War alone, Bohemia’s population declined from four
millions to fewer than seven hundred thousand.
The stranger on the Karlsbrücke will turn from thoughts of Ziska’s
peasants to regard with increased interest the occasional specimen
of the countryman who strides past along the bridge with no
embarrassment at appearing in the streets of his capital in the costume
of his nation. Behold him in his high boots, tight buff trousers,
well-embroidered, blue bolero jacket with many buttons, broad lapels
and embroidered cuffs, his soft shirt puffed out like a pigeon, and
the jaunty Astrachan cap cocked to one side. And there, too, marches
his wife; boots laced high, bodice bright and abbreviated, petticoats
short and broad and covered by a wide-bordered apron, her arms bare to
the shoulders, and her headdress of white linen very starchy and stiff.
Sometimes one passes wearing a hat that suggests Spain, but he, too, as
they all do, wears the tight trousers and the close-fitting knee boots.
In time one learns to distinguish the Slovaks and Moravians by their
long, sleeveless white coats, tight blue trousers, and white jackets
with lapels and cuffs embroidered in red.
One hears many interesting things about these peasants. Throughout
the year, it is said, they fare frugally on black bread and a cheese
made of sheeps’ milk, to which is added an occasional trout from the
mountain streams. The great age some of them attain speaks well for the
diet. Strangers who go up into the hills to stalk chamois and have a
go at the big game come back with surprising stories of the inherited
deference that is still paid in the country to caste. They will tell
you that the peasant still kisses the hand of the lord of the soil.
The Praguer thinks highly of his country brother, though he finds a
vast amusement in observing his rustic antics when he comes to town on
St. John Nepomuc’s Day and shuffles about the streets, wide-eyed and
gaping, after the manner of _rus in urbe_ the world over.
Curious stories are told of peasant customs. Christmas is their day
of days, and preparations for its proper observance are made long in
advance. They believe it to be a season when evil spirits are powerless
to injure and may even be made to aid. When the great day arrives, the
cottages are scrupulously cleaned, fresh straw laid on the earthen
floor, and the entire household assembled for a processional round
of the outbuildings. In the course of this ceremonial parade, beans
are carefully dropped into cracks and chinks of the buildings, with
elaborate incantations for protection against fires. Bread and salt
are offered to every animal on the place. The unmarried daughters are
sprinkled with honey-water to insure them faithful and sweet-natured
husbands. The family drink of celebration is the plum-distilled
_slivovitz_.
What effective use the great national composers of Bohemia—Smetana,
Dvorak, and Fibich—have made of the native melodies and costumes!
Smetana, a friend and protégé of Liszt,—the master utilizer of
Hungarian folk-themes,—was determined that Bohemia, too, should
have music of a distinctively national character; and in his eight
operas and six symphonic poems, as well as in his beautiful stringed
quartette, the “Carnival of Prague,” he abundantly realized his
ambition. There is no more popular opera played in Prague to-day than
his “Bartered Bride.” One hears a great deal of Smetana in talking
with the people of this city; of his poverty and sadness, his final
deafness, and of how, when fame at last crowned him so completely, he
was dying in an asylum here. Music is a favorite topic of conversation
in Prague. A violin player in one of the local theatre orchestras was
no less a person than the great Dvorak, a pupil of Smetana’s; and he,
too, added to Bohemian musical glory with his Slavonic rhapsodies and
dances and the splendid overture that he constructed on the folk-melody
“Kde Domov Muj.” There was a sort of Bach-like foundation for all these
composers in the early litanies of the talented Bishop of Prague. The
Czech temperament finds its natural expression in music. It is even
insisted that their most popular movement, the polka, was invented by a
Bohemian servant girl.
Certainly there has been no lack of beautiful legendary material on
which to construct effective compositions. These traditional stories
are all full of sadness and superstition, and they always revolve about
simple, natural elements—the rain, the mountains, the valleys, ghosts,
and wild hunters, and, above all, that most recurrent and universal of
themes, love.
Could we win favor with some old Praguer this afternoon and entice him
into the sunny corner of Karl IV’s monument place, beside the bridge,
we should close out our hour with many a captivating and romantic
story that would alone have made our visit well worth while. Such, for
example, is the legend of the “Spinning Girl.” Deserted by her lover,
she wove a wonderful shroud threaded with moonbeams, and in this she
was buried, and by its magic she appeared to him on his wedding night
and lured him to leap to his death in the river. And there is the story
of the “Wedding Shirt”: A girl implores the Virgin either to let her
die or restore her absent lover who, unknown to her, has been dead some
time. The Virgin bows from the holy picture, and forthwith the pallid
lover appears and conducts his sweetheart by a midnight journey to the
spot where his body lies buried. Thereupon ensues a desperate struggle
by fiends and ghouls to capture the soul of the girl, who is finally
rescued by the interposition of the Virgin to whom in her terror she
appeals. The wedding shirts that she had brought as her bridal portion
are found scattered in fragments by the sinister spirits on the
surrounding graves. The flight of the maid and her ghostly lover is
vividly depicted at length, and is expressed, in translation, by such
lurid lines as—
“O’er the marshes the corpse-lights shone,
Ghastly blue they glimmered alone.”
One of the most romantic of these legends is the “Golden
Spinning-Wheel.” A king loses his way while hunting and stops for a
drink at a peasant’s cottage. There he finds a marvelously beautiful
girl, to whom he eagerly offers himself in marriage. This girl is an
orphan, with a stepmother and stepsister who are cruel and jealous.
Under pretense of accompanying her to the king’s castle they lure
her into a black forest and slay her, taking great pains to conceal
her identity by removing and carrying with them her eyes, hands,
and feet. They then proceed to the castle and the wicked daughter
successfully impersonates the good one, whom she closely resembles.
Seven days of wedding festivities ensue, at the end of which the king
is called away to the wars. In the mean while a mysterious hermit—a
heavenly messenger in disguise—takes up the dead body in the forest,
dispatches his lad to the castle and secures the eyes, hands, and feet
by bartering for them a golden spinning-wheel, a golden distaff, and a
magic whirl. Thus equipped, he miraculously restores the girl to life
and limb. When the king returns from the wars he invites his false
bride to spin for him with her new golden wheel, and forthwith the
magic instrument sings aloud the whole miserable story. The furious
king rushes to the forest, finds his real sweetheart, and installs her
in his castle, while the murderers are mutilated as she had been, and
cast to the wild wolves.
It may be thought that I have gone somewhat out of my allotted way in
taking such notice as I have of the superstitions, customs, and music
passion of the Bohemians, but I cannot believe that a satisfactory
idea of Prague can be had in this, or any other hour, without some
conception of the fundamental traits that so powerfully sway this
people. For the real significance of the city lies deeper than its
surface-showing of wooded hillsides sown with quaint buildings and
a broad blue river rushing under many bridges; it is its peculiar
raciness of the soil that underlies the Czech’s mad devotion to his
capital. Expressing, as only Prague does, so much that is dear and
beautiful to him, it centres in itself the most burning and passionate
interests of the race. Without some knowledge of this desperate
attachment one would fail utterly to grasp the force and truth of such
a fine observation as Mr. Arthur Symons has made on the devotion of the
Bohemian to this city: “He sees it, as a man sees the woman he loves,
with her first beauty; and he loves it, as a man loves a woman, more
for what she has suffered.”
[Illustration]
SCHEVENINGEN
5 P.M. TO 6 P.M.
Nurtured in the salt sadness of the sea, Scheveningen is a Whistler
nocturne. Its prevailing and distinctive tones are neutral and elusive.
There are, of course, days when the sun is as clear and powerful here
as elsewhere, but more often it is obscured; then the sky becomes
pearly, the sea opalescent, the shore drab and dun. Presently a thin
fog drifts in, or vapors steal over the trees from the inland marshes,
and all tints are rapidly neutralized into a common dimness of that
vague and sentimental mistland so dear to the heart of the painter.
This is the characteristic suspended color note of the average day at
Scheveningen. It harmonizes to perfection with the sentiment of the
environment and invests the region with a marvelous charm—peculiar,
distinctive, and of the finest dignity.
The power of Scheveningen’s attraction, the force of its appeal,
lies largely in its grim aloofness and self-sufficiency. It is
unsympathetic, discouraging. It consistently dominates its visitors,
and, indeed, with an easy insolence and indifference. Wealth and
fashion may abide with it for a few days, under tolerance, but the
impression of the temporary and migratory character of their sojourn
is always present. Undistracted, the fierce and gaunt sea assails
the stark and surly shore, and the grim fishermen stand by and have
their toll of both. Of the presence of the strangers they are all but
unaware. In a brief day the incongruous invaders will have gone, but
this relentless warfare will continue unabated. All the way from Helder
to the Hook glistening seas will hiss over the flat beaches, snarling
and biting at the shoulders of the dunes. All through the long, bitter
winter, without an instant’s intermission, the struggle will go on. It
is, consequently, of the very heart of the charm of the place that one
has the feeling of intruding on battle; of tolerated propinquity to
Titanic contenders.
Loafing at Scheveningen is the apotheosis of idleness. The strong wind
stimulates, the broad beaches delight, the solemn sea inspires. To
this must be added the sense of strong contrasts. It emphasizes the
impression of having dropped, for a time, out of the familiar monotony
of Life’s treadmill; of being away from home; of both resting and
recreating. It is present to the eyes in the eloquent disproportion
between the vast Kurhaus and the diminutive homes of the villagers;
in the incongruity of Parisian finery invading the savage haunts of
the gull and the curlew. In the novel and bizarre activities of the
fisher-folk, as in their theatrical surroundings as well, one finds
just the right touch of the picturesque and the unfamiliar to complete
the full realization of _dolce far niente_.
Of the fabled monsters of the wild North Sea the imaginative man will
believe he sees one certain survivor in that languid sea-serpent of
a pier—the “Jetée Königin Wilhelmina”—that stretches its delicate
length a quarter mile over the waves from off the drab sand dunes of
Scheveningen. Its pavilion-crowned head snuggles flatly on the water.
In the afternoon and evening, when its orchestra is playing, one
fancies the monster is actually singing. At five o’clock, precisely,
we have its last drowsy utterance as it drops off into a three-hours’
nap—quite as Fafner, in the opera, yawns at Alberich and mutters
“lasst mich schlafen!” It must be admitted it is a highly pleasing song
he sings,—a Waldteufel waltz, more than likely,—and we come in time
to recognize in it the closing number of the _matinée musicale_. And
then, like Jonah’s captor, he wearies of his living contents; and we
see them emerge by hundreds, scathless and unafraid, gay with parasols
and immaculate of raiment, and pick their way leisurely along his back
until they have rejoined their friends in the voluble company that
crowds the cafés of the Kurhaus. In a moment more the abandoned monster
is fast asleep; which, by a familiar association of ideas, is a sign to
the multitudes on the beaches that surf-bathing ends in just one hour.
Forthwith, there is a great bustling all along the shore side of the
broad boulevard they call the “Standweg.” Bathers pick themselves up
regretfully from sunbaths in the soft, powdery sand and trot down
for a final dip in the surf, and those already in hasten to convert
pleasure into work with increased energy and enthusiasm. To all such
the implacable watchman shall come within the hour and beckon them out
with stern and remorseless gestures, and the curious little wagons they
call bath-cars will engulf each in turn and trundle them up out of the
water, while the nervous old women who look after the bathing-suits
will hover about with anxious eyes and lay violent hands on the
dripping and discarded garments.
[Illustration: SCHEVENINGEN BEACH]
And now a tremendous clamor arises from all the little Holland
children, who, from early morning, have been indulging the national
instinct for dike-building and surrounding their mothers’ beach-chairs
with scientific sand-bulwarks against the imaginary encroachments of
the sea. For lo! their nurses approach, wonderful in white streamers
and golden head-ornaments, and visions of the odious ante-prandial
toilet rise like North Sea fogs in every youngster’s eye until even
dinner itself appears abhorrent. Vagabond jugglers run through their
final tricks, fold their carpets and steal away. Itinerant peddlers
redouble their efforts and retire disgusted or jubilant as Fortune
may have hidden or shown her face. More than ever does the sea front
take on the appearance of a long apiary, with the hundreds of
tall, shrouded beehives of beach-chairs emptying themselves of their
comfortable occupants and being bundled by bee-men in white linen
to safety for the night. And of all the odd sights of Scheveningen
certainly no other will remain longer in mind than this curious,
huddled colony of beach-chairs. What a pleasing and cheerful spectacle!
Thronging the shore for quite a mile they contribute to the local
picture decidedly its most jolly and fantastic feature. Between the
beach-chairs and the boulevard there is a picket line of prim little
peaked white tents, with the top of each precisely matching all the
others in an edging of stiff, woodeny scallops; now that the flaps are
thrown back and the sides rolled up, we see tables and chairs inside,
with evidence of recent and jovial occupancy.