Читать книгу A Tramp's Wallet stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France - William Duthie - Страница 6

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My first notes in Vienna must undoubtedly be devoted to the police. As Hannibal and I arrived at the guard-house of the Tabor Linie, or barrier, we were ordered by the sentinel to halt and hand over our papers; and, upon doing so, received a slip of very little better than sugar paper in return, with printed directions in German, French, and Italian, commanding our attendance at the chief police office within twenty-four hours. We knew better than to disobey. On the following morning we presented ourselves and handed in our tickets, when mine was returned to me with the words: “Three days’ residence,” written on the back.

“And should I not obtain employment in three days?” I inquired. “Then you must leave Vienna.”

Hannibal was permitted greater licence, being a native of one of the states of the Bund; but both he and his fellow-townsmen of Lübeck were taken into fictitious employment, in order to obtain the necessary residence-card. Alcibiade, as a Frenchman, and, moreover, as being still possessed of a certain amount of hard cash, was also more leniently dealt with. Not having found work on the fourth day I waited again upon the police, and was at first peremptorily ordered to depart; but, upon explaining that I had friends in the city, a further stay of fourteen days was promised, on the production of a written recommendation. On the following day, through the friendship of our Viennese companion of the road, I found work at a small shop-keeper’s in the suburb of Maria-hilf. Mark the routine. From my new employer I received a written attestation of my engagement; with this I waited upon the police commissioner of the district for his signature, and thence to the magistrate of the suburb to obtain the authority of his name to the act. This done, I was in a position to face the head police authorities in the city, and they, to my astonishment, doled out a six weeks’ permission of residence only, and charged me a gulden, two shillings, for the document. I pleaded my position as a workman, but was answered that my passport was that of a merchant. This was disproved by every entry on its broad sheet, more especially by a written description by the magistrate of Perleberg, Prussia. All remonstrances were, however, in vain: while unemployed they had dealt with me as a workman without resources; now that I was under engagement, they taxed me like a proprietor. Alcibiade at once furnished the means of meeting this new difficulty, as, indeed, of every other connected with our finances at this period, and we consoled ourselves with the assurance that one of us at least was in employment. Our disgust was only equalled by our despondency when, upon reaching home, we were met with the news that my new Herr refused to complete his engagement, having met with an old workman whom he preferred to a stranger. By law he was bound to furnish me with a fortnight’s work, and I threatened him with an enforcement of my claim; but I knew I should come off the worse in the struggle, and submitted to the injustice.

In the meantime two of our silversmiths were under fictitious engagements—a common occurrence, and almost excusable under the circumstances—and were dining upon credit. The times were bad. I did not really commence work till the fourth week, and Alcibiade a week later. But, these first difficulties overcome, our condition improved daily; and for myself I can say with gratitude, that nowhere in Germany was I more happy than in Vienna. Our position was this: Alcibiade was engaged as a diamond jeweller at a weekly sum of six guldens, or twelve shillings, a little more than half the sum he had earned in Berlin; but no doubt, had he remained longer in the Austrian capital, he would have increased his rate of pay. Unfortunately, after three months’ stay there came word from Paris requiring his presence by a certain day at the military court of the department of Seine et Oise, to which, being a native of Argenteuil, he belonged, to draw for the conscription. Alcibiade was too good a Frenchman to hesitate about obeying this summons, or even to murmur at the sacrifice it demanded of him. He left Vienna with regret, but with the utmost alacrity; and thus I lost for a time my best companion and sincerest friend. My first essay as a workman in Vienna was discouraging, for I undertook, in my extremity, to execute work to which I was unaccustomed, and made such indifferent progress at the outset, that the Herr, a Russian from St. Petersburg, would only pay me five guldens, or ten shillings a week. We worked twelve hours a day, commencing at six o’clock in the morning in summer time; but there were a number of fête and saint days in the year, which were paid for—I think eight in all—including St. Leopold, the patron saint of Vienna; the birth of the Virgin; Corpus Christi Die, and other church holidays. As I improved in the practice of my new branch of business, I gained additions to my wages, till I received nine gulden, eighteen shillings, a week; a sum certainly much above the average pay.

Alcibiade and I lodged in a narrow slip of a room, the last of a suite of three, on the first floor of a house, or rather conglomerate of houses, in the Neudegger Gasse, Josephstadt. Our landlord was a worthy Bohemian cabinet-maker; his wife, a Viennese, who kept everything in the neatest order. I do not know how many families lived in this house; but it was a huge parallelogram with a paved courtyard, in the centre of which stood a wooden pump. There was a common stair in each corner, all of stone, and a common closet at the bottom of each staircase, equally of stone, seat and all, and very common indeed. Each lodging consisted of three continuous rooms, with only one entrance from the common stair: first was the kitchen, with cooking apparatus, and the oven, which warmed the whole suite; then a larger room with two windows, at once workshop, dining-room, and bed-room; and beyond this the narrow closet with one window, which was our dormitory. Thus we had to pass through our landlord’s bed-room to get to our own. The other portions of the building were arranged much in the same manner, and the house must have had, in all, at least a hundred inhabitants. There are much larger houses in the suburbs of Vienna, but they are all built upon the same principle, with trifling modifications. Here are two cards of address, which are models of exactness in their way, and will illustrate the nature of these barracks in the best possible manner:

“Joseph Uberlachner,

Master Tailor,

Lives in the Wieden, in the Lumpertsgasse, next to the Suspension bridge, No. 831, the left hand staircase on the second floor, door No. 31.”

“Martin Spies,

Men’s Tailor,

Lives in Neubau, Stückgosse, No 149, in the courtyard, the right hand staircase, on the second floor, door on the left hand.”

The entrance to our house from the street was small and unimportant, and, as may naturally be supposed, always open. The law was, however, strict upon this subject, and permitted the house to be open in summer from five in the morning till ten o’clock at night only; in winter from seven till nine. There was a little room opening from the passage, where dwelt the porter of the mansion. It was his duty to close the door at the appointed hours; a duty which he scrupulously fulfilled, seeing that the law empowered him to levy a fine of six kreutzers for his own especial benefit, upon every inhabitant or stranger seeking egress or ingress after the authorised hour of closing. The Viennese insist upon it that this impost is recoverable by law; but, as the porter’s whole existence depends upon the employment of his labour in and about the house, and therefore upon the good-will of its inhabitants, he takes care in general not to be too pressing for his toll.

Our dormitory, diminutive as it appeared, still managed to contain two single bedsteads (French), a wash-hand-stand, wardrobe, used in common by landlord and lodgers, a table, and two chairs. We paid in rent twelve florins a month, or barely ten shillings between us; add to this, for washing, candles, and morning coffee (a tiny cup at six in the morning, before starting to work), another four florins, and our united expenses for these necessaries did not exceed thirteen shillings per month. As in Berlin, we dined at a “restauration,” or at the “Fress Madam’s” (Mrs. Gobble’s), a jocose term for a private eating-house, well known to the jewellers. The mid-day meal of the Viennese workman is remarkable for strength and solidity, but also for its sameness. It always takes the shape of fresh boiled beef and vegetables, the latter arranged in a thick porridge of meal and fat. It commences, of course, with soup; is followed by the “rind-fleisch and gemuse,” as above; and, if you can afford it, is concluded by some such sweet dish as flour puddings stewed with prunes, a common sort of cake called zwieback, omelette, macaroni, or a lighter kind of cake, baked and eaten with jam. All solid, wholesome, and of the best. There is a choice of other more relishing dishes, and of these we usually partook, with an occasional descent into the regions of beef and greens. Vienna prides itself upon its baked chickens and Danube carps, but these were beyond our reach on ordinary occasions; and our usual delectation was upon Augsburger sausages; bacon and sour kraut; breaded veal cutlets; ditto lamb’s head; and roasted liver and onions. When we drank the ordinary white wine, we did so much diluted. To sup at the “restauration” would have entailed too great an expense; we therefore contented ourselves with bread and a taste of butter at home, moistened by a glass of a liquor resembling gin, seeing that it was made of the juniper berry, which our landlord obtained for us at about tenpence a quart. It was supposed to be smuggled from Hungary, and Vater Böhm coloured and sweetened it with molasses, and called it Schlipowitzer.

Our weekly outlay for food during the first month of residence in Vienna, especially while unemployed, did not exceed five florins, i.e. four shillings each. We ate bread and fruit in large quantities; indeed, during one day my “rations” consisted of: breakfast at eight, half of a coarse loaf and thirty plums; at twelve, one dozen pears and the other half of the loaf; at seven a whole loaf, and forty more plums. Cost of the whole, nine kreutzers (schein), or scarcely three halfpence in English money. It was not surprising that I should fall ill upon this diet, and this I accordingly did. When, however, we were in constant work, we lived as I have already described, and at an average expense of seven florins—five shillings and tenpence each weekly—and thus the individual outlay for lodging, food, and other necessaries, was, in round numbers, seven shillings and sixpence a week. A dinner on New Year’s Day, of baked pork and fried potatoes, with bread, wine, and apple puffs, cost ninepence.

To return to the police. When my six weeks’ permission of residence was expired, I attended again at the chief office in the Stadt, with the certificate of my employer, signed and countersigned by police-commissioner and magistrate, and was granted thereon a further term of three months at the same fee, two shillings; to me at that time a day’s wages. Subsequently, however, the “Herr,” by means of a further attestation, with vouchers from the landlord of the house, and the usual official signatures, obtained for me a card of residence for six months, gratis, and I experienced no more trouble on that head. This, and the various other certificates, were upon stamped paper of the value of six kreutzers, or one penny. While upon this subject I may observe, that domestic servants must make known to the police every change of service. They are hired by the month. Change of residence is also a matter of official interference: a printed sheet is handed to the new lodger, with spaces for name, age, country, religion, condition, married or single, where last resided, and probable length of stay in new apartments. All these particulars must be stated and signed, witnessed by your own particular landlord, and attested by the landlord of the house. The document is then deposited in the archives of the district police.

At the termination of my first year’s stay in Germany, I found that my receipts in wages, during the twelve months, amounted to twenty-one pounds six shillings and fourpence, an average of eight shillings and twopence-halfpenny per week; but it must be remembered that, during nine months of that period, board and lodging formed part of my remuneration. I stayed a full year in Vienna, and received in wages, in all, three hundred and sixty-two guldens, thirty kreutzers, or thirty-six pounds five shillings. This would give, in round numbers, fourteen shillings per week throughout the year. Of this sum, as I have said, seven shillings and sixpence were on an average spent weekly in lodging and necessary food; there therefore remained six shillings and sixpence for clothes, amusements, and savings.

When the period arrived at which I had determined upon starting on foot for Paris, my savings amounted to seven pounds sterling, and with that sum I thought myself amply provided for the journey. In order that it may not be supposed that I had suffered undue privations, or enforced, in financial arrangements, anything beyond a reasonable economy, I must state, that in addition to paying to the Guild and police, during the year, eight florins twelve kreutzers, or six shillings and tenpence, I had witnessed twenty-three theatrical representations, at prices varying from fourpence to a shilling, at a total cost of eleven shillings and fourpence; been present at eighteen concerts, at an outlay of seven shillings and eightpence; and had visited the Brühl, Wöslau, Mödlin, Laxenburg, Helena-Thal, Klosterneuburg, Grinzing, and Weinhaus; the Treasure Chamber, and picture-galleries innumerable; which latter, although supposed to be open to public inspection free of expense, were not conveniently accessible without a fee. Twenty-five kreutzers, or fourpence, was the price of a seat in the gallery of the suburban theatres of the Leopold, Joseph, and Wiener vorstädte; while tenpence and a shilling procured a similar place in the imperial opera and play-house. Hot sausages and beer were the luxuries vended in the former; while ices, coffee, and delicate pastry, were the bonnes bouches prepared for the latter.

I found the workmen in Vienna industrious and submissive; gay, thoughtless, and kind-hearted. In some trades it was still the practice for the workmen, if not numerous, to sleep in the workshop. I knew a cabinet-maker who did so, and he was very cleanly and well lodged. I knew one or two married journeymen, and there were no doubt very many in so large a capital as Vienna, but marriage among artisans was generally condemned. The wages were on the average much less than I have stated; I knew silversmiths who were earning only three and four florins a week—six shillings and eight shillings; and I have no doubt that tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, and others, were paid even less. I visited one family circle in the Leopoldstadt which consisted of the man, his wife and child, and three single men lodgers, who all lived and slept in one room. I found the lodgers airing themselves in the court-yard, while the beds were made and the room set in order. But I saw very little of squalor or filth even in the poorest quarters. As a check upon the assumed thoughtlessness of the Viennese artisans, the pawnbrokers are by civil ordinance closed a week before and after every great holiday, such as Easter, Whitsuntide, etc.

There were very many small masters, known in England as master-men, who worked at home, and by their skill and quickness earned superior wages. My own landlord was one of them, and called himself a “Gallanterie Tischler.” He was chiefly employed in ornamental woodwork for the silversmiths, and, being tasty and expert, earned a very respectable living. He used to buy English knives for certain parts of his work, on account of the superiority of the steel, but he complained bitterly of their clumsy and awkward fashion. He was extremely industrious during the week, and many a pleasant Sunday visit have we paid to Weinhaus and other suburban villages, when the “heueriger”—the young, half-made wine—was to be tasted. Heueriger was sold at a few pence a quart, and is a whitish liquid of an acid but not unpleasant flavour. It is a treacherous drink, like most white wines, and from its apparently innocent character tempts many into unexpected inebriation. The Viennese delight in an Italian sausage called “Salami,” said to be made of asses’ flesh, and a pale, but highly scented cheese, as the proper accompaniments to the heueriger.

Domestic servants in Vienna have one very laborious duty to perform, and that is the fetching of water from the springs. These springs are simply pumps in appearance, and were so formerly, but the flow of water is now continuous, and to be obtained without effort. It is painful to see the poor girls bending under the weight of their water troughs, which are carried on the back, and shaped something like a pannier with a flat side. They are made of wood, hooped like a barrel, and have a close-fitting lid. The Bohemian women perform duties even more unsuitable. They are bricklayers labourers; and sift sand, mix mortar, and carry slates on their heads to the highest houses. In these labours they are sometimes assisted, or set aside, by the soldiery, the more well-behaved of whom are allowed to hire themselves as labourers and porters. In one case, as I know, a soldier was “put in possession,” as his Imperial Majesty’s representative, and provided daily with a sum of money as an equivalent for food.

There is another class of labourers who make themselves particularly conspicuous in the streets of Vienna, and that is the “holzhacker,” or wood-chopper. Wood is the universal fuel, and is sold in klafters, or stacks of six cubic feet. A klafter consists of logs, each about three feet long, and apparently the split quarters of young trees of a uniform size. This wood, when delivered to the purchaser, is shot upon the footpath in front of the house, or in the court-yard, if there be a porte cochêre, which is not usual. The business of the holzhacker is to chop the logs into small pieces for the convenience of burning, and this he does in an incredibly short space of time, but to the great inconvenience and sometimes personal risk of the passers by. He is, however, very independent in his way, and is treated with astonishing forbearance by the police. He is, moreover, the street wit of Vienna.

The Viennese workmen are not merely uninformed of, but in general, perfectly indifferent to political matters. This ignorance may in a great measure result from the unthinking and pleasure-seeking character of the Viennese public—which levity is encouraged by the Government, as taverns and concert rooms are open long after private houses are closed—but is also to be traced to the uneasy position which the citizens hold with respect to the police. It is not alone that the restrictions and impediments of official routine render his social existence a matter of public legislation, but there is an unpleasant consciousness that his landlord, his neighbour on the same flat, his barber, or his fellow workman, may be a “vertrauter,” a spy in the pay of the police, and his simplest actions, through their means, perverted into misdemeanours. A worthy cooper, with whom I occasionally dined, on reading a skeleton report of a public meeting in England, where working men had made speeches and moved resolutions, exclaimed, as he threw down the paper: “But, seriously, don’t you think this very ridiculous?”