Читать книгу One Year Abroad - Blanche Willis Howard - Страница 8

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This letter is going to be about nothing in particular. I make this statement with an amiable desire to please, for so much advice in regard to subjects comes to me, and so many subjects previously chosen have failed to produce, among intimate friends, the pleasurable emotions which I had ingenuously designed, there remains to me now merely the modest hope that a rambling letter about things in general may be read with patience by at least one charitable soul. Bless our intimate friends! What would we do without them? But aren't they perplexing creatures, take them all in all! “Don't write any more about peasant-girls and common things,” says one. “Tell us about the grand people,—how they look, what they wear, and more about the king.” Anxious to comply with the request, I try to recollect how the Countess von Poppendoppenheimer's spring suit was made in order to send home a fine Jenkinsy letter about it, when another friend writes, “The simplest things are always best,—the flower-girl at the corner, the ways of the peasants, ordinary, every-day matters.” Have patience, friends. You shall both be heard. The Countess von Poppendoppenheimer's gown has meagre, uncomfortable sleeves, is boned down and tied back like yours and mine, after this present wretched fashion which some deluded writer says “recalls the grace and easy symmetry of ancient Greece”; but if he should try to climb a mountain in the overskirt of the period he would express himself differently.

As to the king, one sees him every day in the streets, where he courteously responds to the greetings of the people. He must be weary enough of incessantly taking off his hat. The younger brother of Queen Olga and of the Emperor of Russia, the Grand Duke Michael, came here the other day. Seeing a long line of empty carriages and the royal coachmen in the scarlet and gold liveries that betoken a particular occasion,—blue being the every-day color,—we followed the illustrious vehicles, curious to know what was going to happen, and saw a gentlemanly-looking blond man, in a travelling suit, welcomed at the station by different members of the court; while all those pleasing objects, the scarlet and gold men, took off their hats. For the sake of the friend who delights in glimpses of “high life,” I regret that I have not the honor to know what was said on this occasion, our party having been at a little distance, and behind a rope with the rest of the masses.

But really the common people are better studies. You can stop peasants in the street and ask them questions, and you can't kings, you know. Peasants just now can be seen to great advantage at the spring fair, which with its numberless booths and tables extends through several squares, and to a stranger is an interesting and curious sight. This portion of the city, where the marketplace, the Schiller Platz, and the Stiftskirche are, has an old, quaint effect, the Stiftskirche and the old palace being among the few important buildings older than the present century, while the rest of Stuttgart is fresh and modern. From the high tower of this old church one has the best possible view of Stuttgart, and can see how snugly the city lies in a sort of amphitheatre, while the picturesque hills covered with woods and vineyards surround it on every side. One sees the avenues of chestnut-trees, the Königsbau, a fine, striking building with an Ionic colonnade, the old palace and the new one, and the Anlagen stretching away green and lovely towards Cannstadt. On this tower a choral is played with wind instruments at morn and sunset, and sometimes a pious old man passing stops to listen and takes off his hat as he waits.

In the little octagonal house up there lives a prosperous family, a man, his wife, and ten children. The woman, a fresh, buxom, brown-eyed goodwife, told us she descended to the lower world hardly once in three or four weeks, but the children didn't mind the distance at all, and often ran up and down twelve or fifteen times a day. How terrific must be the shoe-bill of this family! Ten pairs of feet continuously running up and down nearly two hundred and sixty stone steps! She was kind enough to show us all her penates,—even her husband asleep,—and everything was homelike and cheery up there, boxes of green things growing in the sunshine, clothes hanging out to dry, canary-birds singing.

There is a small silver bell—perhaps a foot and a half in diameter at the mouth—at one side of the tower, and it is rung every night at nine o'clock and twelve, and has been since 1348. It has a history so long and so full of mediæval horrors, like many other old stories in which Würtemberg is rich, that it would be hardly fitting to relate it in toto, but the main incidents are interesting and can be briefly given.

On the Bopsa Hill where now we walk in the lovely woods, and from which the Bopsa Spring flows, bringing Stuttgart its most drinkable water, stood, once upon a time,—in the fourteenth century, to be exact,—a certain Schloss Weissenburg, about which many strange things are told. The Weissenburgs conducted themselves at times in a manner which would appear somewhat erratic to our modern ideas.

At the baptism of an infant daughter, Papa von Weissenburg was killed by the falling of some huge stag-antlers upon his head. We are glad to read about the baptism, for later there doesn't seem to have been a strong religious element in the family. Shortly afterwards Rudolph, the eldest son, was stabbed by a friend through jealousy because young Von Weissenburg had won the affections of the fair dame of whom both youths were enamored. Then followed strife between the surviving brother and the monks of St. Leonhard, who would not allow the murdered man to be buried in holy ground, the poor boy having had no time to gasp out his confession and partake of the sacrament, and they even refused to bury him at all. Hans von Weissenburg swore terrible oaths by his doublet and his beard, and cursed the monks till the air was blue, and came with his friends and followers and buried his brother twelve feet deep directly in front of St. Leonhard's Chapel (there is a St. Leonhard's Church here now on the site of the old chapel), and forbade the monks to move or insult the body. Later, when they wished to use the land for a churchyard, they were in a great dilemma. Rudolph's bones they dared not move and would not bless; at last, what did they do but consecrate the earth only five feet deep, so the blessing would not reach Rudolph, who lay seven feet deeper still,—and they also insulted the grave by building over it. Hans, on this account, slew a monk, and was in turn killed because he had murdered a holy man, and that was the end of him.

There remained in the castle on the hill Mamma von Weissenburg, or rather Von Somebodyelse, now, for she had wept her woman's tears and married again. When the infant daughter, Ulrike Margarethe, whose baptism has been mentioned, had grown to be a beautiful young woman, the mother suddenly disappeared and never was seen again. The daughter publicly mourned, ordered a beacon-light to be kept continually burning at the castle, gathered together all her silver chains and ornaments, and had them melted into a bell, which was hung on the castle tower, and which she herself always rang at nine in the evening and at midnight, for the sorrowing Ulrike said her beloved mother might be wandering in the dense woods, and hearing the bell might be guided by it to her home.

Ulrike was a pious person. She said her prayers regularly, went about doing good among poor sick people, never failed to ring the bell twice every night, and was always mourning for her mother. When at last she died, she gave orders that the bell should always be rung, as in her lifetime, from the castle; and in case the latter should be disturbed, or unsafe, the bell was to be transferred to the highest tower in Stuttgart. So Ulrike the Good bequeathed large sums of silver to pay for the fulfilment of her wishes, and died. Accordingly the little bell was brought, in time of public disturbance, to the small tower on the Stiftskirche in 1377, the higher one not then existing, and in 1531 was moved to its present position.

The next important item in the bell-story is that in 1598 the Princess Sybilla, daughter of Duke Friedrich I. of Suabia, was lost in the woods, and, hearing the bell ring at nine, followed the sound to the Stiftskirche, and in her gratitude she also endowed the bell largely, declaring it must ring at the appointed hours through all coming time.

So the little bell pealed out for many years,—just as it does this day,—until one night, two days after Easter, 1707, and three centuries and a half after the death of the exemplary Ulrike, it happened, in the course of human events, that the man whose office it was to ring the midnight bell was sleepy and five minutes late. Suddenly a woman's figure draped in black, with jet-black hair and face as white as paper, appeared before him, and asked him why he did not do his duty. He rang his bell, then conversed with the ghost, who was Ulrike von Weissenburg, and obtained from her valuable information. She must ever watch the bell, she said, and see that it was rung at the exact hours; and she it was who carried the light that confused travellers and led them to destruction near the ruins of Weissenburg Castle; and she was altogether a most unpleasant ghost, who could never rest while one stone of the castle remained upon another.

This was her condemnation for her evil deeds. She had murdered her mother, for certain ugly reasons which in the old chronicle are explicitly set forth, and she had stabbed her two young sons of whose existence the world had never known; and her career was altogether as wicked as wicked could be; but this Ulrike, like many another clever sinner, never lost her saintly aspect before the world.

They granted her rest at last by pulling down the remaining stones of the castle, and giving them to the wine-growers near by for foundations for the vineyards; so now no ghost appears to rebuke the bellringer when too much beer prolongs his sleep. Bones were found beneath the castle where Ulrike said she had hidden the bodies of her mother and children, thus clearly proving, of course, the truth of the tale. It is the most natural thing in the world to believe in ghosts when you read old Suabian stories. The Von Weissenburgs seem to have been, for the age in which they lived, a very quiet, orderly, high-toned family.

Now how do I know but that somebody will at once write, “I don't like stories about silver bells,” which will be very mortifying indeed, as it is evident I consider this a good story, or I should not take the trouble to relate it.

O, come over, friends, and write the letters yourselves, and then you will see how it is! Worst of all is it when we write of what strikes us as comic precisely as we mention a comic thing at home, or of mighty potentates, giving information obtained exclusively from German friends, and other German friends are then displeased. But is it worth while to resent the utterance of opinions that do not claim to be the infallible truth of ages, but only the hasty record of fleeting impressions? Peace, good people; let us have no savage criticism or shedding of blood, though we do chatter lightly of majestäte, saying merely what his subjects have told us.

We are all apt to be too sensitive about our own lands and their customs. Yet have we not learned to smile quietly when we are told that American gentlemen sit in drawing-rooms, in the presence of ladies, with their feet on the mantels; that American wives have their husbands “under the pantoffel” (would that more of them had); that America has no schools, no colleges, no manners; that American girls are, in general, examples of total depravity; that pickpockets and murderers go unmolested about our streets, seeking whom they may devour; that we have no law, no order, no morality, no art, no poetry, no past, no anything desirable? What can one do but smile? Smile, then, in turn, you loyal ones, when I have the bad taste to call ugly what you are willing to swear is beautiful as a dream. Thoughts are free, and so are pens; and both must run on as they will.

Let me, therefore, hurt no one's feelings if I say that Stuttgart in winter, with little sunshine, a dreary climate, and a peculiar, disagreeable, deep mud in the streets, does not at first impress a stranger as an especially attractive place. But now, with its long lines of noble chestnut-trees in full blossom; with the pretty Schloss Platz and the Anlagen, where fountains are playing and great blue masses of forget-me-nots and purple pansies and many choice flowers delight your eyes; with the shady walks in the park, where you meet a dreamer with his book, or a group of young men on horseback, or pretty children by the lake feeding the swans and ducks; with the lovely air of spring, full of music, full of fragrance; and, best of all, with the beauty of the surrounding country,—he would indeed be critical who would not find in Stuttgart a fascinating spot.

There is music everywhere, there are flowers everywhere. Your landlady hangs a wreath of laurel and ivy upon your door to welcome you home from a little journey, and brings you back, when she goes to market, great bunches of sweetness,—rosebuds and lilies of the valley. You climb the hills and come home laden with forget-me-nots,—big beauties, such as we never see at home,—violets, and anemones. It has been a cold spring here until now, but the flowers have been brave enough to appear as usual, and, wandering about among the distracting things with hands and baskets as full as they will hold, a picture of days long ago darts suddenly before me,—two school-girls, their Virgils under their arms, rubber boots on their feet, stumbling through bleak, wet Maine pasture-lands, bearing spring in their hearts, but searching for it in vain in the outer world around them. The other girl will rejoice to know that here I have found spring in its true presence.

And then there is May wine! Do you know what it is, and how to make it? You must walk several miles by a winding path along the bank of the Neckar. You must see the crucifixes by the wayside, and the three great blocks of stone,—two upright and one placed across them,—making a kind of high table, for the convenience of the peasant-women, who can stand here, remove from their heads their heavy baskets, rest, and replace them without assistance. You must peep into the tiniest of chapels, resplendent with banners of red and gold and a profusion of fresh flowers, all ready for the morning, which will be a high feast-day. You must pass through a village where women and children are grouped round the largest, oldest well you ever saw, with a great crossbeam and an immense bucket swinging high in the air. And at last you must sit in a garden on a height overlooking the Neckar. There must be a charming village opposite, with an old, old church, and pretty trees about you partly concealing the ruins of some old knight's abode. Don't you like ruins? But just enough modestly in the background aren't so very bad. You hear the sound of a mill behind you, and the falling of water, and, in the branches above your head, the joyful song of a Schwarz Kopf. And then somebody pours a flask of white wine into a great bowl, to which he adds bunches of Waldmeister,—a fragrant wildwood flower,—and drowns the flowers in the wine until all their sweetness and strength are absorbed by it, and afterwards adds sugar and soda-water and quartered oranges,—and the decoction is ladled out and offered to the friends assembled, while there is a golden sunset behind the hills across the Neckar. And you walk back in the twilight through the village that is so small and sleepy it is preparing already to put itself to bed. And the peasants you meet say, “Grüss Gott!” “Grüss Gott!” say you, which isn't in the least to be translated literally, and only means “Good day,” though the pretty, old-fashioned greeting always seems like a benediction. You hear the vesper-bells and the organ-tones pealing out from the chapel; you see some real gypsies with tawny babies over their shoulders (poor things! they will steal so that they are allowed to remain in a village but one day at a time, and then must move on). You feel very bookish, everything is so new, so old, so charming,—and that is “Mai Wein.”

How it would taste at dinner with roast-beef and other prosaic surroundings,—how it actually did taste, I haven't the faintest idea.

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