The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 10. Коллектив авторов
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Название: The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 10
Автор: Коллектив авторов
Издательство: Public Domain
Жанр: Зарубежная классика
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Be sure to write me detailed information as to your personal condition. Greet mother, our relations, if they are still there, Leontine, the children, Stolberg, Wentzel, and all the rest. Farewell my angel. God preserve you.
Your most faithful v.B.
Ofen, June 23, '52.
My Darling,—I have just left the steamer, and do not know how better to utilize the moment at my disposal until Hildebrand follows with my things than by sending you a love-token from this far-easterly but pretty spot. The Emperor has graciously assigned me quarters in his palace, and I am sitting here in a large vaulted chamber at the open window, into which the evening bells of Pesth are pealing. The view outward is charming. The castle stands high; immediately below me the Danube, spanned by the suspension-bridge; behind it Pesth, which would remind you of Dantzig, and farther away the endless plain extending far beyond Pesth, disappearing in the bluish-red dusk of evening. To the left of Pesth I look up the Danube, far, very far, away; to my left, i.e., on the right-hand shore, it is fringed first by the city of Ofen, behind it hills like the Berici near Venetia blue and bluer, then bluish-red in the evening sky, which glows behind. In the midst of both cities is the large sheet of water as at Linz, intersected by the suspension-bridge and a wooded island. It is really splendid; only you, my angel, are lacking for me to enjoy this prospect with you; then it would be quite nice. Then, too, the road hither, at least from Gran to Pesth, would have pleased you. Imagine Odenwald and Taunus moved close together, the waters of the Danube filling the interval; and occasionally, particularly near Wisserad, a little Dürrenstein-Agstein. The shady side of the trip was the sunny side; it burned as if they wanted tokay to grow on the steamer, and the crowd of travelers was large; but, just imagine, not one Englishman; it must be that they have not yet discovered Hungary. For the rest, there were queer fellows enough, dirty and washed, of all Oriental and Occidental nations. * * * By this time I am becoming impatient as to Hildebrand's whereabouts; I am lying in the window, half musing in the moonlight, half waiting for him as for a mistress, for I long for a clean shirt. * * * If you were here for only a moment, and could contemplate now the dull, silvery Danube, the dark hills on a pale-red background, and the lights which are shining up from Pesth below, Vienna would lose much in your estimation compared to Buda-Pescht, as the Hungarian calls it. You see I am not only a lover, but also an enthusiast, for nature. Now I shall soothe my excited blood with a cup of tea, after Hildebrand has actually put in an appearance, and shall then go to bed and dream of you, my love. Last night I had only four hours of sleep, and the court here is terribly matutinal; the young gentleman himself rises as early as five o 'clock, so that I should be a bad courtier if I were to sleep much longer. Therefore I bid you good-night from afar, with a side-glance at a gigantic teapot and an enticing plate of cold jellied cuts, tongue, as I see, among the rest. Where did I get that song that occurs to me continually today—"Over the blue mountain, over the white sea-foam, come, thou beloved one, come to thy lonely home"? I don't know who must have sung that to me, some time in auld lang syne. May God's angels keep you today as hitherto.
Your most faithful v.B.
The 24th.
After having slept very well, although on a wedge-shaped pillow, I bid you good-morning, my heart. The whole panorama before me is bathed in such a bright, burning sun that I cannot look out at all without being blinded. Until I begin my calls I am sitting here breakfasting and smoking all alone in a very spacious apartment—four rooms, all thickly vaulted, two something like our dining-room in size, thick walls as at Schönhausen, gigantic nut-wood closets, blue silk furnishings, a profusion of large spots on the floor, an ell in size, which a more excited fancy than mine might take for blood, but which I decidedly declare to be ink; an unconscionably awkward scribe must have lodged here, or another Luther repeatedly hurled big inkstands at his opponents. * * * Exceedingly strange figures, brown, with broad hats and wide trousers, are floating about on long wooden rafts in the Danube below. I regret I am not an artist; I should like to let you see these wild faces, mustached, long-haired with excited black eyes, and the ragged, picturesque drapery which hangs about them, as they appeared to me all day yesterday. * * * Farewell, my heart. God bless you and our present and future children.
Your most faithful v.B.
Evening.
I have not yet found an opportunity to send this. Again the lights are shining up from Pesth, lightning appears on the horizon in the direction of the Theiss, and there is starlight above us. I have been in uniform most of the day, handed my credentials to the young ruler of this country at a solemn audience, and received a very pleasing impression of him—twenty-year-old vivacity, coupled with studied composure. He can be very winning, I have seen that; whether he always will, I do not know, and he need not, for that matter. At any rate, he is for this country exactly what it needs, and more than that for the peace of its neighbors, if God does not give him a peace-loving heart. After dinner all the court went on an excursion into the mountains, to a romantic spot called the Pretty Shepherdess, who has long been dead, King Matthias Corvinus having loved her many hundred years ago. Thence the view is over woody hills, like those on the Neckar banks to Ofen, its castle, and the plain. A popular festival had brought thousands up to it, and the Emperor, who mingled with them, was surrounded with noisy cheers; Czardas danced, waltzed, sang, played, climbed into the trees, and crowded the court-yard. On a grassy slope was a supper-table of about twenty persons, sitting along one side only, leaving the other free for a view of wood, hill, city, and country, high beeches over us, with Hungarians climbing among the branches; behind us a densely crowded and crowding mass of people near by, and, beyond, alternate horn-music and singing, wild gipsy melodies. Illumination, moonlight, and evening glow, interspersed with torches through the wood; the whole might have been served, unaltered, as a great scenic effect in a romantic opera. Beside me sat the whitebearded Archbishop of Gran, primate of Hungary, in a black silk talar, with a red cape; on the other side a very amiable and elegant general of cavalry, Prince Liechtenstein. You see, the painting was rich in contrasts. Then we rode home by moonlight, escorted by torches; and while I smoke my evening cigar I am writing to my darling, and leaving the documents until tomorrow. * * * I have listened today to the story of how this castle was stormed by the insurgents three years ago, when the brave General Hentzi and the entire garrison were cut down after a wonderfully heroic defence. The black spots on my floor are in part burns, and where I am now writing to you the shells then danced about, and the combat finally raged on top of smoking débris. It was only put in order again a few weeks ago, against the Emperor's arrival. Now it is very quiet and cozy up here; I hear only the ticking of a clock and distant rolling of wheels from below. For the second time from this place I bid you good-night in the distance. May angels watch over you—a grenadier with a bear-skin cap does that for me here; I see his bayonet two arm-lengths away from me, projecting six inches above the windowsill, and reflecting my light. He is standing on the terrace over the Danube, and is, perhaps, thinking of his Nan, too.
Tomsjönäs, August 16, '57.
My Dearest,—I make use again of the Sunday quiet to give you a sign of life, though I do not know what day there will be a chance to send it out of this wilderness to the mail. I rode about seventy miles without break, through the desolate forest, in order to reach here, and before me lie more than a hundred miles more before one gets to provinces of arable land. Not a city, not a village, far and wide; only single settlers in wide huts, with a little barley and potatoes, who find rods of land to till, here and there between dead trees, pieces of rock, and bushes. Picture to СКАЧАТЬ