Читать книгу One Year Abroad - Blanche Willis Howard - Страница 4

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There is a wild, fantastic poem, thronged with more phantoms, goblins, and horrors than are the legends of the Blockberg. It narrates in singularly vivid style the deeds of a frightful fiend, and is, believe me, a truly remarkable work. I beg you will not scorn it because it exists only in the brain which it entered one stormy night at sea. There it reigned, triumphant, through long sleepless hours; but for certain reasons—which are, by the way, perfectly satisfactory to my own mind—it will never be committed to paper. Its title is “The Screw,”—the screw of an ocean steamer.

Christmas is the best wishing-time in the year. One can wish and wish at Christmas, and what harm does it do? So I will wish my poem all written in stately, melodious measure, yet with thoughts that would make your cheek pale, and your very soul shudder; and then—since wishing is so easy—I will wish that I were an intimate friend of Gustave Doré, to whom I would take my masterpiece to be illustrated; and I would beg him to allow his genius for drawing awful things full sway, and I would implore him not to withhold one magic touch that might suggest another horror, so that extending from the central object—the terrible Screw—there should be demons reaching for their prey, howling and laughing in fiendish glee. Then I would say, “More, more, my good M. Doré!—more hideous faces, more leering phantoms, more writhing legs and arms, please!” For perhaps Doré never crossed the ocean in bad weather; perhaps he never occupied a state-room directly over the Screw; perhaps he never experienced the sensation of lying there in sleepless, helpless, hopeless agony, clinging frantically to the side of his berth, hearing the clank of chains, the creaking of timbers, the rattling of the shrouds, the waves sweeping the deck over his head,—most of all, the Evil Screw beneath, rampant and threatening. It may be Doré does not know how it feels when that Screw rises up in wrath, takes the steamer in his teeth and shakes it, then plunges deep, deep in the waves; while all the demons, great and small, stretching their uncanny arms towards the state-rooms, shriek, “We'll get them! We'll have them!” and the winds and waves in hoarse chorus respond, “They'll have them—have them—have them!” and again uprises the Screw and shakes himself and the trembling steamer. So through the night, and many nights, alas!

And yet, O Screw! thing of evil, thing of might, I humbly thank you that you ceased at last your terrible thumps, your jarrings and wicked whirls,—and silenced your chorus of attendant demons, with their turnings and twistings and mad laughter; I thank you that you did not get us! Truly, I believed you would. I thank you that you did not choose to keep us miserable souls wandering forevermore through the shoreless deep, or to sink us, as the phantom-ship sinks in “Der Fliegender Holländer,” amid sulphurous fumes and discordant sounds, down to that lurid abyss from which you came.

Do you all at home know this legend of the Flying Dutchman? At least, do you know it as Wagner gives it to the world, in words as lovely as its melodies? The music is worth hearing, and the story well worth a little thought. But perhaps you know it already? Because, if you do, of course I shall not tell it, and in that case we need not sail off in strange crafts for the wild Norway coast, but will only steam safely up the Elbe to Hamburg.

There are travellers from the Western World who, after months of sight-seeing, return home weary and disappointed because they have never once been able to “realize that they were in Europe.” Not realize! Not know! Not feel with every fibre that one has come from the New to the Old! Why, the very lights of Hamburg gleaming through the rain and darkness, as we cold and wet voyagers at last drew near our haven, even while they gave us friendly greeting, told us unmistakably that their welcome was shining out from a strange land, from homes unlike the homes we had left behind.

Dear people who never “realize” that it is “Europe,” who never feel what you expected to feel, may one less experienced in travel than yourselves venture to tell you that it is that fatal thing, the guide-book, that weighs you down? Not total abstinence in this respect, but moderation, would I preach. Too much guide-book makes you know far too well what to do, where to go, how long to stay. It leaves nothing to imagination, to enthusiasm, to the whim of the moment. Dear guide-book people, don't know so much, don't calculate so much, don't measure and weigh and test everything! Don't speak so much to what you see, and then what you see will speak more to you. Even here in old Hamburg, the haughty free city of commerce, the rich city boasting of her noble port filled with ships from every land,—proud of her wealth, her strength, her merchants, and her warehouses,—looking well after her ducats, caring much for her dinner, plainly telling you she is of a prosaic nature, leaving tales of love and chivalry to the more romantic South,—even here the air is full of subtle intangible influences, that will move you deeply if you will but receive them. A city a thousand years old must have something to say of far-off times and of the living present, if one has ears to hear.

Stand on the heights by the river and look down on all the noble ships at anchor there. The old windmill turns lazily before you. The flag on a building near by moves softly in the breeze. The tender, hazy, late-autumn day, kind to all things, beautifies even bare trees and withered grass. A large-eyed boy, his school-books under his arm, stares curiously at you, then longingly looks at the water and the great ships. The picture has its meaning, which you may breathe in, drink in if you will, but you will never find it if you are comparing your “Appleton” with your “Baedecker,” or estimating the number of square feet in the grass-plot where you stand, or looking hard at the ugly “Sailors' Asylum” because you may be so directed, and refusing to see my pretty boy with the wistful eyes because he's not mentioned in the guide-book.

Everywhere are little stories, pictures, glimpses of other people's lives, waiting for you. The flower-girl at the street-corner holds out a bunch of violets as you pass. Pale, thinly clad, she stands there shivering in the cold November wind. On you go. The shops are large and brilliant, the people seem for a time like those in any large city. You think you might as well be in New York, when suddenly you see, walking tranquilly along, a peasant-woman in the costume of her district,—short, bright gown, bodice square and high, with full white sleeves and a red kerchief round her shoulders, and on her head the most curious object, a thing that looks like a skullcap, with a flaring black bow, as large as your two hands, at the back, from which hangs her hair in two long braids. Sometimes there is also a hat which resembles a shallow, inverted flat basket. Why it stays in place instead of wabbling about as it might reasonably be expected to do, and whether there is any hidden connection between it and that extraordinary black bow, are mysteries to me, though I peered under the edge of the basket hat of one Vierländerin with great pertinacity.

The Hamburg maid-servants also wear a prescribed costume. A casement high above you swings open and discloses a little figure standing in the narrow window. A blond head, with a white bit of a cap on it, leans out. You catch a glimpse of a great white apron, and of a neat, sensible, dark cotton gown, made with a short puffed sleeve which leaves the arm bare and free for work. You wonder why the girl looks so long up and down the busy street, and what she hopes to see. To be sure, it may be only Bridget looking for Patrick, or, worse, Bridget thinking of nothing in particular; simply idling away her time, instead of sweeping the garret. But if her name is perhaps Hannchen, and she looks from a window, narrow and high, and the morning sunshine touches her yellow braids, and she stands so still, far above the hurrying feet on the pavement, how can one help finding her more interesting, as a bit of human nature to study and enjoy, than a beflounced and beribboned Bridget at home? And when, in her simple dress, well suited to her degree, she runs about the streets on her mistress's errands, carrying many a parcel in her strong round arms, she is a pleasant thing to see, and, because she does not ape the fine lady, loses nothing when by chance she walks by the side of one in silk attire.

Ah! if one has ever groaned in spirit to see the tawny daughters of the Penobscot Indians, those dusky maidens who might, in reason, be expected to bring into a prosaic town some wildwood grace, some suggestion of the “curling smoke of wigwams,” of “the dew and damp of meadows,” selling their baskets from door to door in gowns actually cut after a recent Godey fashion-plate, much looped as to overskirt, much ruffled and puffed and shirred,—then indeed must one rejoice in the dress of the Hamburg maids, and in these sturdy country-women trudging along in their picturesque but substantial costume, to sell their fruit and vegetables in the city markets.

In the olden time the good wives of Hamburg no doubt wore such gowns. One sees now in the street called Grosse Bleichen great buildings, banks and shops, and all the evidences of busy modern life; but one shuts the eyes and sees instead groups of women in blue and red, coming out from the city walls to lay on the green grass the linen they have spun, that it may whiten in the sunshine. They spun, and wove, and bleached. They lived and died. The growing city built new walls, and took within its limits those green banks once beyond its gates. The women knew not what was to be, when their spinning was all done. Nor did the maids, whose busy feet trod the path by the river-side, dream that the Jungfernstieg, or Maiden's Path, would be the name, hundreds of years after, of the most-frequented promenade of the gay world of a great city.

Those women with the spinning-wheels, silent now so long, the young maids with their waterjars, chatting together in the early morning by the river, still speak to us, if we but listen. Though the voices of the city are so loud, we can hear quite well what they tell us; but indeed, indeed, dear friends, it is not written in the guide-book.

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Stories everywhere, did I not say? Why, I even found one imbedded in—candy!

Listen, children, while I tell you about marzipan. The grown people need not hear, if they do not wish.

Marzipan (or St. Mark's bread—marzi panis) is the name of a dainty which is made into bonbons of every shape and size and color imaginable; all, however, having the same flavor, tasting of sugar and vanilla and rose-water and almonds, and I know not what beside. There are tiny potatoes, dark and gray, with marvellous “eyes,” that would delight your souls; there are grapes, and nuts, and large, red apples, all made from the delectable marzipan. And most particularly there are little round loaves, an inch long, perhaps, which are the original celebrated marzipan, pure and simple, the other form being modern innovations. And why Mark's bread? Because, my dears, there was once a famine in Lübeck, and tradition saith that the loaf which each poor woman took from the baker to her starving bairns grew each day smaller and smaller, until finally it was such a poor wee thing it was no more than an inch long; and on St. Mark's Day was the famine commemorated, while the shape and size of the pitiful loaves are preserved in this sweetmeat, peculiar, I believe, to North Germany. Hamburg children—bless them!—will tell you the tale of famine, and swallow the tiny loaves as merrily as though there was never a hungry child in the world.

Hamburg children! Indeed, I have reason to bless them. Shall I not always be grateful to the fate that showed to eyes weary with gazing upon wet decks, dense fog, and the listless faces of fellow-voyagers, a bright and beautiful vision? Most travellers in Hamburg visit first the Zoölogical Gardens, and then immediately after—is it to observe the contrast or the similarity between the lower animals and noble man?—the Exchange or Börse, where they look down from a gallery upon hundreds, thousands of busy men, whose voices rise in one incessant, strange, indescribable noise—hum—roar—call it what you will. Neither of these spectacles, happily, was thrust at once before me. Did I not interpret as a happy omen that my first “sight” was twenty little German children dancing?

Can I ever forget those delicious shy looks at the queer stranger who has suddenly loomed up in the midst of their festivities? And the carefully prepared speech of the small daughter of the house who with blushes and falterings, much laughter, many promptings, and several false starts, finally chirps like a bird, trying to speak English, “I am va-ry happy to zee you,” and for the feat receives the felicitations of her friends, and retires in triumph to her bonbons.

Sweetest of all was the gracious yet timid way in which each child, in making her early adieus, gave her hand to the stranger also, as an imperative courtesy.

Each little maid draws up her dainty dancing-boots heel to heel, extends for an instant her small gloved hand, speaks no word except with the shy sweet eyes, gravely inclines her head, and is gone, giving place to the next, who goes through the same solemn form.

Dear little children at home, you are as dear and sweet as these small German girls—dearer and sweeter, shall I not say?—but would you, could you, prompted only by your own good manners, march up to a corner where sits a great, big, entirely grown-up person from over the sea, and stand before her, demure and quaint and stately, and make your stiff and pretty little bows? Would you now, you tiniest ones? Really?

Yet, do you know, if you would, of your own free will, without mamma visible in the background exhorting and encouraging, you would do a graceful thing, a courteous and a kindly thing, in thus including the dread stranger within your charmed circle, and in welcoming her from your child-heart and with your child-hands. You would be telling her, all so silently, that though her home is far away, she has her place among you; that kindness and warmth and free-hearted hospitality one finds the wide world over. And your pretty heads, bending seriously before her, and your demure, absurd, sweet, pursed-up baby-mouths might conjure up visions of curly gold locks, and soft dimpled faces far off in her home country, and she would—why, children, children, I cannot say what she would do! I cannot tell all that she would think and feel. But this I know well, she would love you and your dear little, frightened, welcoming hands, and she would say, with her whole heart, as I say now,—

“Merry, merry Christmas, and ‘God bless us every one!’”

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