In the previous year, 1871, it had become apparent that Stevenson was
neither fitted by bodily health nor by inclination for the family
profession of civil engineer. Accordingly his summer excursions were
no longer to the harbour works and lighthouses of Scotland, but to
the ordinary scenes of holiday travel abroad.
_Brussels, Thursday, 25th July 1872._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I am here at last, sitting in my room, without coat or
waistcoat, and with both window and door open, and yet perspiring like a
terra-cotta jug or a Gruyere cheese.
We had a very good passage, which we certainly deserved, in
compensation for having to sleep on the cabin floor, and finding
absolutely nothing fit for human food in the whole filthy embarkation.
We made up for lost time by sleeping on deck a good part of the
forenoon. When I woke, Simpson was still sleeping the sleep of the just,
on a coil of ropes and (as appeared afterwards) his own hat; so I got a
bottle of Bass and a pipe and laid hold of an old Frenchman of somewhat
filthy aspect (_fiat experimentum in corpore vili_) to try my French
upon. I made very heavy weather of it. The Frenchman had a very pretty
young wife; but my French always deserted me entirely when I had to
answer her, and so she soon drew away and left me to her lord, who
talked of French politics, Africa, and domestic economy with great
vivacity. From Ostend a smoking-hot journey to Brussels. At Brussels we
went off after dinner to the Parc. If any person wants to be happy, I
should advise the Parc. You sit drinking iced drinks and smoking penny
cigars under great old trees. The band place, covered walks, etc., are
all lit up. And you can't fancy how beautiful was the contrast of the
great masses of lamplit foliage and the dark sapphire night sky with
just one blue star set overhead in the middle of the largest patch. In
the dark walks, too, there are crowds of people whose faces you cannot
see, and here and there a colossal white statue at the corner of an
alley that gives the place a nice, _artificial_, eighteenth century
sentiment. There was a good deal of summer lightning blinking overhead,
and the black avenues and white statues leapt out every minute into
short-lived distinctness.
I get up to add one thing more. There is in the hotel a boy in whom I
take the deepest interest. I cannot tell you his age, but the very first
time I saw him (when I was at dinner yesterday) I was very much struck
with his appearance. There is something very leonine in his face, with a
dash of the negro especially, if I remember aright, in the mouth. He has
a great quantity of dark hair, curling in great rolls, not in little
corkscrews, and a pair of large, dark, and very steady, bold, bright
eyes. His manners are those of a prince. I felt like an overgrown
ploughboy beside him. He speaks English perfectly, but with, I think,
sufficient foreign accent to stamp him as a Russian, especially when his
manners are taken into account. I don't think I ever saw any one who
looked like a hero before. After breakfast this morning I was talking to
him in the court, when he mentioned casually that he had caught a snake
in the Riesengebirge. "I have it here," he said; "would you like to see
it?" I said yes; and putting his hand into his breast-pocket, he drew
forth not a dried serpent skin, but the head and neck of the reptile
writhing and shooting out its horrible tongue in my face. You may
conceive what a fright I got. I send off this single sheet just now in
order to let you know I am safe across; but you must not expect letters
often.