GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Every one has heard of the gentleman who went to spend a fortnight at
Vienna in the prime of his youth, and died there at a ripe old age,
having never afterwards been beyond the walls of the town. Though the
climate is allowed to be detestable, the heat of summer being aggravated
by a paucity of shade and a superabundance of dust, whilst the rigorous
cold of winter is enhanced by the absence of fire-places and the
scarcity of fuel; though the streets are narrow and the carriages
numerous, the hotels always full, and the shops very dear; though the
police is strict and officious to a degree, and its regulations
tyrannical in the extreme; though every house, private as well as
public, must be closed at ten o'clock, and a ball-giver or lady who
"receives" must have a special permission from the Government,--yet,
with all these drawbacks, no city in the world, not even lively Paris
itself, seems so popular with pleasure-seekers as Vienna. There is a
gaiety in the very air of the town: a smiling, prosperous good-humour
visible on the countenances of its inhabitants, a picturesque beauty in
the houses, a splendid comfort in the shops, and a taste and
magnificence in the public buildings, which form a most attractive _tout
ensemble_.
Then you lead a pleasant, cheerful, do-nothing sort of life. You have
your coffee in bed, where you can also read a novel in perfect comfort,
for German beds have no curtains to intercept the morning light, or make
a bonfire of the nocturnal student. You perform an elaborate toilet
(are not Vienna gloves the only good fits in the world?), and you
breakfast about noon in the _salon_ of some luxurious hotel, where you
may sit peradventure between an Austrian Field-Marshal, decorated with a
dozen or so of orders, and a Polish beauty, who counts captives by the
hundred, and breaks hearts by the score. Neither will think it
necessary to avoid your neighbourhood as if you had confluent small-pox,
and your eye as if you were a basilisk, simply because you have not had
the advantage of their previous acquaintance. On the contrary, should
the courtesies of the table or any chance occurrence lead you to hazard
a remark, you will find the warrior mild and benevolent, the beauty
frank and unaffected. Even should you wrap yourself up in your truly
British reserve, they will salute you when they depart; and people may
say what they will about the humbug and insincerity of mere politeness,
but there can be no doubt that such graceful amenities help to oil the
wheels of life. Then if you like to walk, have you not the Prater, with
its fine old trees and magnificent red deer, and its endless range of
woodland scenery, reminding you of your own Windsor forest at home; if
you wish to drive, there is much beautiful country in the immediate
vicinity of the town; or would you prefer a quiet chat in the friendly
intimacy of a morning visit, the Viennese ladies are the most
conversational and the most hospitable in the world. Then you dine at
half-past five, because the opera begins at seven, and with such a band
who would miss the overture? Again, you enter a brilliant, well-lighted
apartment, gay with well-dressed women and Austrian officers in their
handsome uniforms, all full of politeness, _bonhommie_, and real
kindness towards a stranger. Perhaps you occupy the next table to
Meyerbeer, and you are more resolved than ever not to be too late. At
seven you enjoy the harmony of the blessed, at a moderate outlay that
would hardly pay for your entrance half-price to a farce in a London
theatre, and at ten o'clock your day is over, and you may seek your
couch.
I confess I liked Vienna very much. My intimacy with Victor gave me at
once an introduction into society, and my old acquaintance with the
German language made me feel thoroughly at home amongst these frank and
warm-hearted people. It has always appeared to me that there is more
homely kindliness, more _heart_, and less straining after effect in
German society than in any other with which I am acquainted. People are
less artificial in Vienna than in Paris or in London, better satisfied
to be taken for what they really are, and not what they wish to be, more
tolerant of strangers, and less occupied about themselves.
I spent my days very happily. Victor had recovered his spirits, those
constitutional good spirits that in the young it requires so much
suffering to damp, that once lost never return again. Valerie was
charming as ever, it may be a little more reserved than formerly, but
all the more kind and considerate on that account; then when I wearied
of society and longed for solitude and the indulgence of my own
reflections, could I not pace those glorious galleries of ancient art,
and feast my eyes upon the masterpieces of Rubens or Franceschini, in
the Hotel Liechtenstein and the Belvedere? My father's blood ran in my
veins, and although I had always lacked execution to become a painter,
keenly and dearly could I appreciate the excellencies of the divine art.
Ah! those Rubenses, I can see them now! the glorious athletic
proportions of the men, heroes and champions every one; the soft,
sensuous beauty of the women,--none of your angels, or goddesses, or
idealities, but, better still, warm, breathing, loving, palpable women,
the energy of action, the majesty of repose, the drawing, the colouring,
but above all the honest manly sentiment that pervades every picture.
The direct intention so truthfully carried out to bid the human form and
the human face express the passions and the feelings of the human heart.
I could look at them for hours.
Valerie used to laugh at me for what she called my new passion--my
devotion to art; the goddess whom I had so neglected in my childhood,
when with my father's assistance I might have wooed and won from her
some scraps of favour and encouragement. One morning I prevailed on
Victor and his sister to accompany me to the Hotel Liechtenstein, there
to inspect for the hundredth time what the Countess termed my "last and
fatal attachment," a Venus and Adonis of Franceschini, before which I
could have spent many a long day, quenching the thirst of the eye. It
was in my opinion the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of the master; and yet, taking it
as a whole, there was no doubt it was far from a faultlessly-painted
picture. The Adonis appeared to me stiffly and unskilfully drawn, as he
lay stretched in slumber, with his leash of hounds, undisturbed by the
nymphs peering at him from behind a tree, or the fat golden-haired
Cupids playing on the turf at his feet. All this part of the picture I
fancied cold and hard; but it was the Venus herself that seemed to me
the impersonation of womanly beauty and womanly love. Emerging from a
cloud, with her blue draperies defining the rounded symmetry of her
form, and leaving one exquisite foot bare, she is gazing on the
prostrate hunter with an expression of unspeakable tenderness and
self-abandonment, such as comes but once in a lifetime over woman's
face. One drooping hand carelessly lets an arrow slip through its
fingers, the other fondling a rosy Cupid on her knee, presses his cheek
against her own, as though the love overflowing at her heart must needs
find relief in the caresses of her child.
"It is my favourite picture of all I ever saw, except one," I remarked
to my two companions as we stopped to examine its merits; I to point out
its beauties, they maliciously to enumerate its defects.
"And that other?" asked Valerie, with her quick, sharp glance.
"Is one you never saw," was my reply, as I thought of the "Dido" in the
old dining-room at Beverley. "It is an Italian painting with many
faults, and probably you would not admire it as much as I do."
Valerie was not listening; her attention was fixed on a party of
strangers at the other end of the room. "_Tenez, ce sont des Anglais_,"
said she, with that intuitive perception of an islander which seems born
in all continental nations. I knew it before she spoke. The party
stopped and turned round--two gentlemen and a lady. I only saw _her_;
of all the faces, animate and inanimate, that looked downward with
smiles, or upward with admiration, in that crowded gallery, there was
but one to me, and that one, was Constance Beverley's.
I have a confused recollection of much hand-shaking and
"How-do-you-do's?" and many expressions of wonder at our meeting
_there_, of all places in the world, which did not strike me as so
_very_ extraordinary after all. And Valerie was _so_ enchanted to make
Miss Beverley's acquaintance; she had heard so much of her from Victor,
and it was so delightful they should all be together in Vienna just at
this gay time; and was as affectionate and demonstrative as woman always
is with her sister; and at the same time scanned her with a
comprehensive glance, which seemed to take in at once the charms of mind
and body, the graces of nature and art, that constituted the weapons of
her competitor. For women are always more or less rivals; and with all
her keenness of affections and natural softness of disposition, there is
an unerring instinct implanted in the breast of every one of the gentler
sex, which teaches her that her normal state is one of warfare with her
kind--that "her hand is against every woman, and every woman's hand
against her."
I dared not look in Miss Beverley's face as I shook her hand; I fancied
her voice was _harder_ than it used to be. I was sure her manner to _me_
was as cold as the merest forms of politeness would admit. She took
Victor's arm, however, with an air of _empressement_ very foreign to the
reserve which I remembered was so distinguishing a characteristic in her
demeanour. I heard her laughing at his remarks, and recalling to him
scenes in London and elsewhere, which seemed to afford great amusement
to themselves alone. Even Ropsley looked graver than usual, but masked
his astonishment, or whatever it was, under a great show of civility to
Valerie, who received his attentions, as she did those of every
stranger, with a degree of pleasure which it was not in her nature to
conceal. Sir Harry fell to my share, and I have a vague recollection of
his being more than ever patronising and paternal, and full of good
advice and good wishes; but the treasures of his wisdom and his little
worldly sarcasms were wasted on a sadly heedless ear.
I put him into his carriage, where _she_ was already seated. I ventured
on one stolen look at the face that had been in my dreams, sleeping and
waking, for many a long day. It was pale and sad; but there was a hard,
fixed expression that I did not recognise, and she never allowed her
eyes to meet mine.
How cold the snowy streets looked; and the dull grey sky, as we walked
home to our hotel--Victor and Ropsley on either side of Valerie, whilst
I followed, soberly and silently, in the rear.