VIENNA, _October 2, 1854_.
Really and truly, this good city of Vienna is an agreeable
stopping-place, and now that I have friends here, and have learned the
joy of being an idler, it requires an unyielding strength of mind to
tear myself away from it. Besides this, I have the advantage of hearing
the news from the Crimea several minutes before you. Since day before
yesterday we have suffered every stage of excitement.
Has Sebastopol fallen? When this letter reaches you, all doubt will be
at an end. Here, it is believed, but in my opinion with a certain
incredulity. Excepting a few of the old families, whose sympathies are
with Russia, the Austrians are offering congratulations. I was
congratulated day before yesterday by a cabman as I was leaving the
Opera House. God grant that this is not some of the news that the
electric telegraph sends out when it has nothing else to do. However
that may be, I consider it admirable that our soldiers, six days after
landing, should have given the Russians a vigorous drubbing.
Stopping in our house is Lady Westmoreland, sister of Lord Raglan and
mother of his aide-de-camp. She has been in a terrible state. She
received yesterday a line from her son, written after the battle. We are
amused at the countenances of the Russians in Vienna. Prince Gortchakof
remarked that the battle was a mere incident, but that it did not alter
the principle involved in the war. The Belgian Minister, a man of fine
wit, retorted that Gortchakof was right to retrench himself behind his
principles, since they could not be captured at the point of a bayonet.
Speaking of wit, I am designated here as a _lion_, whether I will or
not. You must pronounce this _laïonne_ in English so that you may have
no misconception of the rôle I am made to play.
A few days ago I visited Baden. It is charmingly situated in a valley,
only a stone’s throw from Vienna, but one would fancy himself a hundred
miles from a large city.
My keeper has presented me to a number of beautiful ladies. Society here
being so _gemüthlich_, everything that a Frenchman says is accepted as
clever. They consider me uncommonly amiable. I have written sublime
thoughts in their albums. I have made them drawings; in a word, I have
made myself perfectly ridiculous, and it is on account of a sense of
humiliation for having been up to such a trade that I am leaving to-day
for Dresden. I shall stop there but one day, and then go on to Berlin.
After visiting the Museum I shall start for Cologne, where there will be
a letter from you.
Did I tell you that I went to Hungary? I was in Pesth for three days,
and imagined I was in Spain, or rather in Turkey. While there my modesty
was excessively shocked, for I was taken to a public bath, where I saw
the Hungarian men and women helter-skelter in a court-bouillon of hot
mineral water. I noticed there a lovely Hungarian woman who concealed
her face in her hands, not having, like Turkish women, a covering with
which to veil her face. This spectacle cost me six _kreutzer_, namely,
four half-pennies.
I went to the Hungarian theatre to see _La Dame de Saint-Tropez_, not
having wit enough to recognise a French melodrama under the title
_Saint-Tropez à Unôz_. I heard some Bohemian musicians play Hungarian
melodies, which were strange beyond measure. This music sets the natives
mad. It begins with something intensely mournful, and ends in an
_allegro con spirito_, which completely captivates the audience, who
stamp on the floor, break their glasses, and dance on the tables.
Foreigners, however, are not so affected by this marvellous music.
Finally, and I have reserved the best for the last, I have seen a
collection of very old Magyar jewels of exquisite workmanship. If I
could have brought you one of these you would have come to meet me at
Cologne in order to have it the sooner.
During my entire journey I have been unusually well. The weather is
delightful, but cold at night. I have no dread of the cold during my
travels, for I have bought an enormous pelisse that cost me seventy-five
florins. You could find here magnificent furs for nothing. They are, I
think, the only things in this country that are cheap. I have gone
bankrupt on cabs and dinners down town. The custom is here to pay the
servants for one’s dinner: upon leaving you pay the porter; indeed, you
pay at every step, but only a trifle at a time.
Good-bye. I am not any too well pleased with your last letter, except
when you tell me of your approaching return to Paris. Although I am
bringing you no Magyar chains, I hope you will give me a welcome. I am
beginning to long for my own hearthstone, and the evenings seem to me a
little tedious. I expect to reach Cologne in less than a week, and to be
in Paris from the 10th to the 15th.