Budapest and I
I
WHEN you tell a man or a woman in Vienna that you are going to Budapest, the eyebrows are raised, as who should say, ‘I wonder why?’ If the subject is continued, a concession may be made and you may be told that ’the old city, Buda, is interesting, but . . .’ Or you may be told that the ‘ new city, Pest, is beautiful, but. . . Now the fact is that Budapest is both interesting and beautiful, one of the finest cities in Europe. The entrance to it is, speaking generally, Vienna, and the Austrians and the Hungarians hate each other cordially; they always have, and seemingly they always will. My time permitted me to go either to Budapest or to Prague. I chose the former. I should have gone to both; I shall have to go back.
The first, I might say the only, bit of modern, up-to-date enterprise I saw in Vienna was not Viennese but Hungagarian. In the office of the American Express Company I observed a sign calling attention to a certain all-inclusive ticket from Vienna to Budapest and return — a ticket which gave one the choice of half a dozen of the best hotels, meals (except breakfast, which naturally one takes in his room, or where he will), and other things, and all for a ridiculously small sum. The ticket was issued by the Hungarian government. In other words, an effort was being made to sell to tourists the idea of going to Budapest, the Hungarians relying, quite naturally, upon the charm of the city to keep the tourist there once it gets him.
I have, no doubt, been fortunate in the Hungarians I have known. Where is the book collector who does not know Gabriel Wells? I knew him first, twenty-five years ago, as Gabriel Wiess. Disliking the Germans, when the war broke out he changed his name to Gabriel Wells, and he said that when the United States entered the war, as he prophesied we should, he would change it again to George Washington. But we told him that he had gone far enough, and that everyone knew what his initials G. W. stood for anyway. So, although he is a Hungarian and honored in his native city, for which he has done much, Gabriel Wells he remains, and he divides his time between New York and London. Effendi (F. N. Doubleday) once told me that Gabriel Wells’s word was as good as a certified check.
I once knew another Hungarian whose check sometimes came back to me with that horrid little notation thereon, ‘No funds,’ but my friend was so cultivated, so altogether charming, that our cordial relations continued until his death. This man — bless his memory — told the truth with the utmost reluctance, and I once said to him, ‘Alois, why do you not tell the truth more frequently?’ ‘Eduard,’ he replied, ‘let me make it clear to you. We Magyars are a very old race; we have a civilization of a thousand years. A thousand years ago, at a time when your ancestors were savages hunting in the swamps of what is now London, my ancestors had discovered that a man who tells the truth is very likely to be disagreeable.’
My friend had an excellent education; he had never gone to school, but had had tutors in everything. He spoke Hungarian, a most difficult language, faultlessly, no doubt; German like a native, English acceptably, and French sufficiently. His profession — so far as he had a profession — was architecture. He was very handsome, and he was an accomplished horseman. Forty years ago he used to drive tandem up Fifth Avenue, — a great art, — and through Central Park, the observed of all observers. He wrote verses and I could talk English literature to him as I would to my college-professor friends. He drank little, never smoked, and he had one accomplishment of which he was really proud: he played the piano magnificently. His great joy was to get two Steinway pianos in a large empty room, seat Joseffy at one of them, place himself at the other — and spend the day. Except when he was angry, he concealed the fact that he thought Americans barbarians.
I knew another — but enough: the Hungarian, man or woman, is a delightful companion. Shall I be understood if I say that every man should go to Budapest before he is married, taking with him a robust constitution and a lot of money, and be careful how he spends them?
II
The country to the west and south of Vienna is beautiful; indeed, some of the finest scenery in Europe is not far off, and were it possible for the Austrian to live on landscape and music, he would be the most fortunate of mortals. Unluckily, however, he requires food. From Vienna we made only one excursion — to Melk, that noble old monastery built on a great mountainous rock which projects into the Danube, an unsurpassed location. Those old monks had an eye for the picturesque — and for many other things. The road to Melk — we went by motor — is the road the crusaders took in their journeys overland to and from Jerusalem. I have always been interested in the crusades, those enormous surges of people who, prompted by piety, avarice, love of adventure, or what not, trudged wearily thousands of miles, it may be, in the hope of at last reaching the Holy Sepulchre. And of all who started, how many arrived, and in what condition! And what a welcome awaited them in the City of Peace!
Seven hundred years ago this now almost deserted road was occasionally a busy thoroughfare — and once the scene of one of the romances of history. For along this road Richard I of England, Richard Cœur de Lion, on his return from Palestine was caught, in the dress of a serving man, it is said, while attempting to make his way home, and thrown into Dürrenstein Castle, there to be discovered by the troubadour Blondel, according to the story, singing, for the purpose, under his window. There is the castle; it is a ruin now, as so many old castles are, but the legend remains. And at the foot of the castle is a small town with a fine church and the Richard Cœur de Lion Inn, where we had a glass of the wine of the country. There has been a place of refreshment there always, it is said.
We had received an invitation from the Abbot of Melk to have lunch with him, which we accepted gladly. ‘The meal is not much,’ the Abbot said, passing me the menu, ‘but all from the heart.’ The wine was excellent, but I was careful, as I always am in drinking strange vintages. I knew that the Abbey cellars were famous; indeed, the immense monastery was the outgrowth of several centuries of profitable traffic in wine.
The Abbot, who was a delightful old man, became much interested when I told him —my wife acting as interpreter — that I had seen his famous Gutenberg Bible sold at auction in New York. This is the Bible that Dr. Rosenbach bought for $106,000 and sold to Mrs. Harkness, who gave it to the Library at Yale. ’Has it a good home?’ the Abbot inquired. I assured him that it had, that it was in the keeping of an especial friend of mine, Professor Tinker, who would see that no harm came to it. ‘I was sorry to part with it,’ the old man went on to say, ’but we have many noble books in our library, which you shall see after lunch, and we had to have money for some very necessary repairs. We are very poor now.’ But he seemed happy, as why should he not be? Content with this world, sure of the next, no wife to order him about — an Abbot has much to be thankful for. I had never before thought of turning Abbot. It is a matter deserving consideration.
III
The country east of Vienna shortly becomes as flat, and uninteresting as Kansas or Nebraska, and for the same reason — it is one huge wheat field, mile after mile of slightly undulating plains, with hardly a house or a barn in sight, without a tree or a fence to indicate where one property ends and another begins. But presently one notices markers, just such stones as we employ to indicate a cemetery lot. And I thought of individualistic England with the limits of every man’s farm indicated by hedges or ditches or fences of stone or wood or wire, sometimes by all of them, lest by some mischance a man or an animal should stray beyond bounds.
After a journey of about five hours the train rolls into an indifferent railway station and you are at the end of your journey. Driving to the hotel, you instantly realize that the city is very beautiful but very foreign. To see signs all over, and not one which by any possibility you can make out, is an unusual experience. The Hungarian language is very difficult, resembling Finnish, one is told, which helps very little. The words are immensely long, with accents, which are equivalent to danger signals, over the vowels, violently changing any sound which in one’s ignorance one might presume to give to them. I made out a list of perfectly preposterous words one afternoon, but the only two that I am sure of I scribbled in my guidebook — Póggysdszkiádszás, which to the best of my knowledge and belief means luggage office, and when you seek a drug store you ask for a Gyógyszébár. One of the daughters of the House of Vanderbilt married a Count Széchényi — scion of one of the oldest families in Hungary — and she has, I am told, learned to speak the language perfectly, a great accomplishment.
Up to a century or two ago Latin was the language of the court and of the courts. People who were interested in reading had to learn the languages and the literatures of the world, but a hundred years or so ago it was discovered that a national literature was in the making, and the Hungarians are now excessively proud of what they have accomplished in poetry, in the drama, and in fiction. You never hear a word upon the street that can be understood, but at your hotel you are addressed very courteously in excellent English, and upon being shown to your room the windows are thrown open and you look out upon a magnificent panorama: below is the terrace, and beyond the Danube, and across the river rises the fine old city of Buda.
IV
Pest, the ‘modern’ city where the great hotels are, is built upon the left bank of the Danube, which is flat, whereas on the right, Buda, the ‘old’ city, climbs, terrace upon terrace, up the hills, and upon the topmost ridge is an old fortress which has long ceased to serve any purpose, but it bulks large in the history of the country, having been several times besieged and at least once taken by the Turks. Below is a magnificent palace built by Maria Theresa, and a noble old church, with a glorious spire, which is known as the Coronation Church, a part of which dates back to the time of Stephen, the first Christian King of Hungary. His Apostolic Majesty — a title conferred upon him by one of the Popes a thousand years ago — became a Saint after his death. And centuries later the title was renewed in favor of Queen Maria Theresa, by virtue of which it was one of the many titles assumed by the late Kaiser Franz Josef. It is also known as the Church of St. Matthias, Matthias also being a Saint as well as a King. It is really not surprising that the Kings of Hungary were made Saints by the Roman Church when it is remembered how valiantly, for centuries, they fought the Turks, whose aim was to make all the world Mohammedan. Had the Turks been successful in keeping Buda, and had they captured and retained Vienna, we — you and I, reader — might to-day be Mohammedans and not Christians.
The last coronation to take place in this church was that of the unlucky King Charles, the successor of Franz Josef, and his Queen Zita. Their reign was brief, for in 1919 they were obliged to flee for their lives to Switzerland, where they remained for three years, during which Hungary had become some sort of socialistic republic — but, beyond painting the domes of some old churches red and temporarily disfiguring some historic monuments, the republicans did little. The government was seen to be weak and vacillating; at any rate Charles, who was an amiable man but a heavy drinker, probably inspired by his wife Zita, an ambitious woman, thought the time had come to regain his Kingdom if not his Empire. So from Switzerland he came with Zita by aeroplane to the estate of one of his followers, whence he took train, as he hoped, for Budapest. All went well for a time, but as the special train neared the city it was discovered that the tracks were torn up, and what was intended to be a triumphal entry was no entry at all but another flight, this time to the Island of Madeira, and in six months he was dead.
It is said that Charles was a coward; this may or may not be true, but it is certainly not true of his wife. She is a woman to be reckoned with, and she has a son, the Crown Prince Otto, who is now a handsome young god of twenty — biding his time, with his mother, in poverty in Brussels. The claim is now made that Charles never gave up the throne of Hungary, that he declined to rob his children of their inheritance. ‘ There must remain Hapsburgers in the world,’ he cried, when urged to yield his crown voluntarily and take a pension which was offered him. ‘Never, never! Otto will come after me.’ And no doubt he will; the stage is being set for him.
Hungary is at present a kingdom, governed by a Regent, not merely lacking but wanting a king. We saw the Regent, Admiral Horthy, who has been at the head of the government since Charles fled, more than twelve years ago, take the salute from the palace one Sunday morning while a great crowd stood with uncovered heads and a military band played the national anthem. His title is Regent, but he was dressed in the uniform of an Admiral of the Navy, although the Hungarian navy now ranks with that of Switzerland. Chaos will play with the hands of the Hapsburgs; there are plenty of them. They are a prolific race and will not die. Otto has six brothers and sisters. Should the male line fail, the ‘pragmatic sanction’ may again be invoked to put a queen upon the throne which was once Maria Theresa’s.
Do you remember what the ‘pragmatic sanction’ was? When Maria Theresa’s father came to the throne he, by a famous edict (so called), settled the succession upon his daughter, but immediately upon his death Frederick the Great sought to overthrow her. A twenty-five-year war ensued, and, the lady winning not only on the battlefield but also in diplomacy, she became the greatest ruler in Europe. The encyclopædias say that the ‘pragmatic sanction’ — both the term and the thing — is now obsolete, owing to the spread of constitutional government. But what is the constitution among friends — and enemies? Order, and Hungary seems orderly at present, will make for the status quo. How long will it last? This is one, and only one, of the many problems of the future.
V
The Italians have a saying, ‘See Naples and die,’ but I have no desire to die in Naples, or, at present, elsewhere. More properly one should say, ‘See Budapest and live.’ The two cities, separated by the Danube, which here varies in width from one to two thousand feet, are connected one with the other by six fine bridges, and luckily the river traffic, which is considerable, goes on well below the street level so that the noble Franz Josef Quai, on which the principal hotels of Pest are situated, is in reality a broad promenade, closed to vehicles. It is a mile long and is usually referred to as the Corso. It was on a fine Sunday afternoon that we first saw it, thronged with handsome men and women, well dressed and irreproachable in conduct. The hotels formed a long line, and in front of each was an open-air café crowded with people drinking coffee and eating brioches, those exquisite sweet rolls for which both Austria and Hungary are famous. And that reminds me of a story.
We have all eaten and enjoyed at good restaurants and cafés in Europe, and occasionally in New York, a crescent-shaped roll which has several names, according to the country one is in. In Austria it is called a Kipft, which is a man’s name. My story is how it came to be so called. For centuries Vienna stood foursquare against the Turk. The old wall which encircled Alt Wien was erected centuries ago and stood firm against almost continuous attack for nearly a hundred and fifty years. In 1683 the Turk came and sat down outside the wall with the fixed determination of starving out the city. The siege was a long one, and among other efforts made was that of mining the wall with the intention of making a breach in it. One night a baker working at his trade heard a noise — something unusual was going on under his cellar. An alarm was given and it was discovered that the Turks were engaged in making a passage to and under the wall which was to be filled with powder and exploded. The entrance to the mine was discovered and stopped, the mining Turks lost their lives, and Vienna was saved. The baker’s name was Kipfl, and he was given the sole right to make rolls in the shape of a crescent, the emblem of Turkey. Patriotic people insisted upon eating Kipfl, as the crescents came to be called, and nothing else — the baker soon becoming prosperous and rich. And the story goes that when the Turks finally raised the siege they left behind them some bags of coffee which the Viennese soon learned to use. And now Vienna bread and rolls are famous the world over — and so is its coffee.
There is but one great international sport to-day. It is the game which Pip played with Estella to the delight of Miss Havisham, in Great Expectations. It is called ‘Beggar Your Neighbor.’ By a series of tariff walls every nation tries to beggar every other, with such brilliant success that perhaps a quarter of the world’s productive energy is now unemployed. This game is played with unexampled skill in southeastern Europe, where no one will trade or have anything to do with a member of any nation except his own. This ‘selfdetermination ’ of small nations is amusing and annoying to the traveler when he comes upon a new nation every few hours, though I am bound to confess that customs officers gave us little trouble. They asked the customary questions about cigars and cigarettes, and received the customary answers. They asked how much money we had and in what form, looked at our passports and our letter of credit, made curious little notations thereon with an indelible pencil, and disappeared. But it is a horrid blunder to offer a Hungarian a piece of Austrian silver, or vice versa. Except in the hotels, the people shrink back from it as from an adder. A German word is never heard in Hungary, and a German play or opera is a thing taboo.
I soon discovered why my Viennese friends spoke so slightingly of the charms of Budapest. Dislike of its people and envy of its relative prosperity are the cause. I once heard a German college professor say, at my own dinner table, — he came to the table wearing black kid gloves, a long frock coat, russet shoes, a celluloid collar, and a blue tie upon which an adoring wife had embroidered pink forget-me-nots, — I heard this Herr-Professor-Doctor say that, one hour east of Vienna, one was in the Orient. I did not know enough at the time to contradict him. If the statement still calls for denial, I now deny it. Vienna has an architecture which has influenced all of Austria: it is baroque — and magnificent. Budapest is, however, if anything, Gothic, with scarcely a suggestion of the East. The Parliament Building is magnificent and as Gothic as the House of Parliament in London. We were conducted all over it with great ceremony, and regretted that it was too early in the season for us to spend an evening in the long portico café where the townspeople dine and sip their coffee and drink wine from the famous Rathskeller.
I have said that Budapest is in the centre of the greatest wheat-raising countries in Europe, hence it is that the city ranks next to Minneapolis in milling. Its streets are immaculately clean; one almost hesitates to knock the ashes from his cigar, and, as for throwing a piece of paper away carelessly, it is not done: a receptacle is always at hand — and used. And I suspect that the people are clean too, beyond those of any other nation, for there are baths, medicinal and other, everywhere.
VI
To a stranger the history of Hungary is especially complex. Her union with Austria was forced upon her, and but for the regard of the Magyars for their Queen Elizabeth, the Austrian Empress, Franz Josef’s wife, separation of the two countries would probably have come sooner than it did. The death of the old Emperor and the flight of his successor afforded the occasion.
History comes rolling in as one takes his place on a bench with his back to the river, facing the splendid hotels and watching the crowd. Suddenly my wife, who has eyes like a hawk and who always, for reasons which I never could understand, keeps one of them on her husband, said to me: ‘Do you see that man over there, in a gray suit, without a hat, looking at us? I have seen him somewhere; I think I recognize him. He has been at “Oak Knoll” — I am sure of it. Go over and speak to him.’
‘In Hungarian, I suppose,’ was my obvious answer.
‘No; he speaks English, I am sure.’
While we were debating the matter, for the man seemed to me a perfect stranger, he separated himself from the crowd, came over, and, bringing his heels together, made a stiff little bow, saying: ‘I think I cannot be mistaken; I had the honor of visiting you in Philadelphia. I never hoped that I should have the pleasure of seeing you in Budapest.’ Then it began to dawn upon me that years ago, in the early days of the war, I had picked up at my club a man, a handsome young officer in the Austrian army who was pleasantly occupied in doing ‘ missionary work ’ in the United States while his compatriots were fighting. It was indeed he. We called him Captain — his name I had forgotten, if I ever knew it. This chance meeting made our brief stay in Budapest delightful. He appropriated us, went everywhere with us, lunched and dined with us, never offering to pay a penny for anything — I am quite sure he did n’t have a penny.
Now for a story which, among many, he told us in the library at ‘Oak Knoll’! He did not like the army, he said, but what was he to do? The army was a tradition in his family — ‘it was that or raise pigs.’ He was a petty officer and he wanted a captain’s commission. An examination was necessary; he must be able to do this and that — nothing very difficult, as it seemed to me. Finally he had to pass an oral examination. This was not so easy. So he went to Budapest to do what we should call ‘intensive study.’ But no sooner had he arrived than he met a girl, — a very beautiful, compliant girl, — the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. With her he spent many delightful hours; examinations were forgotten, study could not be thought of when that beautiful young woman occupied his every hour, day and night.
But put off is not done with — the day of examination approached. My friend, after bidding a fond adieu to the lady, packed up a lot of books and went into the country to study at a little inn, far from the seductions of a great city. But unluckily at this inn was a maid, — servant, that is, — also the most beautiful young girl he had ever seen. With her he spent many delightful hours, etc. But he must pass that examination or go to pig-raising. He was in a terrible predicament; what was to be done? In the army was an old man, a friend of his family, famous for his gallantries. To him he went and frankly recounted his difficulties.
‘General,’ he said, ‘I fell in love. You, I know, are not too old to sympathize with me.’ (The General, who was well over seventy, sighed.) ‘But I must pass that oral. What is to be done? Can you not discover what questions I shall be asked? In confidence, General, in perfect confidence. My honor, the honor of my family, is at stake. Perhaps you have at this moment a pretty woman waiting for you somewhere.’
The General nodded his head. ‘To whom do you report for your oral?’ he said.
‘To General—.’He mentioned some name I have forgotten; it makes no difference.
‘He knows nothing but one thing, and very little of that. He is afraid of showing his own ignorance. He will ask you to tell him of the rifle of 1892 — of anything else he knows nothing. Learn all there is to know about the rifle of 1892. I think you will have no difficulty.’
My friend made another fond adieu to the maid — servant — and locked himself in his room with his books and a pot of strong black coffee. At the end of twenty-four hours there was nothing, no detail, of the rifle of 1892 which he did not know. The day of the fateful examination came. My friend entered the room alone to find an old man covered with decorations in a profound slumber; to rouse him was to kick a sleeping dog. Presently he turned uneasily in his chair, opened his eyes, and growled, ‘What do you want?’
‘My oral, General,’ said my friend, bringing his heels together and leaping into the air. Nothing was said for a time; then the General remarked brusquely: —
‘What do you know of the rifle of 1905?’
The rifle of 1905! My God, nothing!
But my friend did not lose his presence of mind. He began in a dull, monotonous voice, ‘In order that one may understand the rifle of 1905, it is first necessary that one should know thoroughly the rifle of 1892. This excellent arm,’ and on and on, and on. The General was seen to nod; as he went off into a doze, he was heard to murmur, ‘Come to the rifle of 1905.’
‘Immediately, General,’ and on and on he went, talking in a voice which would soothe a nervous child. The General was sound asleep. If the young cadet stopped talking he might wake, and so, with only a momentary pause, he continued to talk about the only rifle of which he knew anything, occasionally bringing in with a firm voice, ‘the year 1905.’ At last the General opened his eyes, looked around, and uttered the Hungarian equivalent of ‘Excellent!’ My friend brought his heels together, leaped into the air, made a salute, and left the room a Captain. There is a pretty maid — servant —at the inn. And there is a lady waiting for a Captain in Budapest.
Do you remember? — Of course you don’t; you are too young. During our own Spanish-American War, the American Commander in Chief in Cuba, who was a man weighing two hundred and fifty pounds, was seen in a hammock, sound asleep, one afternoon after an excellent lunch, with two young orderlies gently fanning him and keeping the flies from annoying him. Seeing which, a young soldier remarked, sententiously, ‘This is what Sherman meant when he said, “War is hell.’”
VII
I one day asked my friend the Captain — we called him Captain and he may have been one — to take us to an excellent, characteristic Hungarian restaurant, where there was no music. He took us to the Marvanymennyasszony, meaning ‘Marble Bride,’ and as I looked around me I was struck with the expression of content, if not of satisfaction, upon the faces of those about me; and I remembered that the English economist and philosopher, Herbert Spencer, when he was asked in New York, fifty years ago, what seemed to him to be especially characteristic of us, replied, ‘A sort of “do or die” expression upon your faces.’ With the passing of years this expression has developed into one of apprehension. Most of us look as though we had lost our last cent — and many of us have, and this at the end of fifty years of unexampled, if misdirected, effort. What have we to show for what Andrew Carnegie called our ‘ triumphant democracy ’? We have fooled ourselves, and, more important still, we have given a wrong lead to the world. Having no standard of success but that of wealth, we became moneymad, and honesty was thrown to the winds. Seemingly we have neither the ability nor the integrity to govern ourselves without the direction of a lot of crooks. It is not pleasant to write these words, but why should I not? I never expect to run for public office. They would not have me on a school board — they would prefer a bootlegger.
One thinks constantly when traveling abroad of how drab our life is at home. There is nothing interesting or picturesque to do, no respectable place to go to have a good time. We have in our employ, and have had for some years, a Viennese butler, a well-educated man; his history is a romance and not mine to tell, but he is a gentleman and a philosopher, occupying, on my small estate, a pretty little cottage which I built for him. Not long ago, on his day off, I asked him what he intended to do with his time, — where was he going? — for of course he has a Ford. ‘Oh, nothing much,’ he replied. I have some odd jobs to do in my garden, and I shall listen in on my radio. Where should I go in my car? If I could go to a good beer garden and hear some music, I would do so, but to ride twenty miles to get an ice-cream cone is not good enough. I prefer to stay at home.’
How entirely the art of living has decayed in this country! We were taught to do nothing but work, and there is now no work to be had. What a commentary upon our scheme of government! That the richest nation in the world, with all the coal and wheat and oil and every other mortal thing except tea, coffee, and rubber, should be flat on its back, pawing the air! For this condition there is blame enough to go round.
One blessing at least we have, but it is not of our making — we are free from attack. There is something, no doubt, in the slogan, ‘United we stand, divided we fall’; we shall not be divided by pressure from without. I am not of those who indulge themselves in eloquent folly in speaking of our country. I read the other day that ‘we are not so much a nation as an aspiration.’ This sounds like nonsense to me. But I subscribe to what Gerald Chittenden says in his Reflections of a Resident Expatriate, which is what I am: ‘We were the first people to conceive the idea of furnishing opportunity to all citizens and then to do something to interpret the dream in action. . . . This initiative is our great contribution to world civilization. It will remain whatever happens to us.’
VIII
In the excellent company of our newfound companion we saw much which under less fortunate conditions would have escaped us. I cannot say that he could tell us very much about the museums of the city, and for this I thanked him, but he named the churches as we passed them, — correctly, I hope, — explained the monuments, and was really eloquent when he came to that of Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot. My old friend Louis K. Comstock, of New York, who is known to everyone in the electrical trade, is named after him. And our friend was really magnificent when one said ‘Goulash’ or ‘Paprick chicken,’ or when I ventured upon a recollection of a vintage wine which, forty years ago, I enjoyed at the old Café Hungaria in Union Square, New York.
One has the feeling of being very far from home in Budapest. This is due, not to the people or one’s surroundings, but to the language. One cannot get accustomed to hearing conversation all about and not by any chance hearing a familiar word. But the music that one hears is magnificent. At the hotel half a dozen men with fiddles, a piano, and a czimbalom play weird, melancholy rhapsodies until one feels that his heart is breaking, and then after a few chords they break into a waltz that makes the recollection of the cacophonous noise that passes for dance music at home and elsewhere seem like a nightmare. For the equivalent of a dollar any orchestra would play waltzes from ‘The Merry Widow,’ and again and again the ‘Blue Danube,’ until I thought my wife would desert me in favor of that captain whose morals I knew to be reprehensible.
The shops are excellent, the people have style and taste. Men’s and women’s tailoring establishments abound, prices are low, and the ‘fit’ admirable. One of the specialties of the city is ‘jewelry,’ and we bought a lot of trash, which we saw being made, similar to that which, a few years before, we had bought in Egypt, being told that the stones were semiprecious and came from India. I do not doubt that the ‘stones’ were glass — most jewelry is.
All during my stay in Budapest and Vienna I had been ruminating upon the difference between the Royal House whose empty palaces we had been tramping over and the House of Windsor, which alone among the great nations of the world has kept its crown upon its head. The Hapsburgs are dead or in exile. William Hohenzollern, covered with whiskers and disgrace, is in Holland; the Romanoffs were murdered in cold blood; George V is respected as no other man has been in my time.
When I was last in London there was a story going around regarding the activities of the royal family in a certain week during which someone had kept tabs on it. Everyone had been busy with philanthropic or humanitarian duties, and no one is more so than the Prince of Wales. Here is a reported day which cannot be regarded as typical, for no man could stand such a strain. The Prince had breakfasted at the Palace with the King to meet someone. Then he had flown to the north of England to affect an interest in a cattle fair. Then he had visited some miners who are out of work, have been for years, and seemingly will continue to be. During his visit he inadvertently trod on the foot of a small boy, who began to whimper. Quick as a flash he said, ‘Don’t cry; be a man; tread on mine!’ (There may be no truth in this story, but it is much that such a story can go uncontradicted.) Then he flew back to London, handed out some tennis trophies, and at ten at night, in the uniform of a Colonel of the Welsh Guards, attended a city dinner. This spells WORK.
IX
Compared to Austria, Hungary is prosperous; her lands are fertile and she cannot starve. The World War was not of her making, but she suffered severely by it. At the end she was torn asunder, losing two thirds of her territory. I bought one day a picture postcard which shows more plainly than words the partition of Hungary. Upon pulling a string, portions of the old kingdom separate themselves from the centre portion, in the midst of which is Budapest, and a part joins itself to what is now Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and what not. One afternoon we were driving along a magnificent boulevard to a park near which is the Tomb of the Unknown Hungarian Soldier. Close by is a tall flagstaff upon which the national flag floated at half-staff. At its base two young cadets stood at attention with fixed muskets. They are relieved every hour, and the watchword is, ‘We’ll take it back.’
When Prince Otto — whose full name is Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Maximilian Heinrich Xavier Felix Fenatus Ludwig, and many more— thinks that the time is ripe, or his mother thinks so for him, he will make his way to whichever capital city, Vienna or Budapest, will rise to meet him, and we shall have another war, and so on, and so on. Southeastern Europe has always been in a turmoil and will remain so; it is full of age-old antipathies. Byron may have had it in mind when he said, ‘Man is an unlucky rascal.’ And Gibbon called history a ‘register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.’
X
‘Did you see this, that, or tother thing in Salzburg? ’ inquired my up-anddoing daughter, and, upon being answered in the negative, she demanded, ‘ Why then did you go?’ My reply, ‘To rest my feet,’ roused her to fury. We went to Salzburg with a fixed determination to see as little as possible, for the Belgian blocks of the footways in Vienna, and to a lesser extent in Budapest, are very fatiguing. But Salzburg is a delightful city, straddling a swiftly flowing river. It seems always to have been a favorite place of residence for a long line of rich and powerful bishops, who, looking for a locality preëminently suitable for palaces from which they could dispense hospitality and royally entertain their numerous lady friends, pitched, almost automatically, upon this little jewel box. There are many, far too many, fine churches and other evidences of former ecclesiastical magnificence, but its churchly glory has departed, and it now exists largely for its music. Mozart was born here, and in the summer it is crowded with musickers from all over the world. How happy I was to escape them!
When we were there the town was just beginning to awaken from its winter’s sleep, the trees were just coming into leaf, and we spent some days very pleasantly in an excellent hotel — the Õsterreicherhof—doing little but looking at mountains. Soon I found myself getting tired of ‘noble wild prospects’ and bethought me of Dr. Johnson’s remark that ‘the noblest prospect a man ever sees is the highroad that leads him to England.’ I felt London pulling at my heartstrings, and, taking my wife gently but firmly by the hand, led her to the railway station.
And we had been in our little flat in Jermyn Street just long enough to unpack, settle ourselves, and remark, ‘This is the life,’ when the door opened and in walked Gabriel Wells and Professor Tinker—dear old Tink, now, among other things, keeper of the rare books at Yale. How delighted we were to see them! Both men speak English faultlessly, especially Gabriel, and after all the filthy languages which had been polluting our ears, what a relief!
‘And so you are just come from Budapest! Is it not a beautiful city, and did you call on my brother?’ said Gabriel. ‘But never mind, we’ll talk it over together at the Hungarian Restaurant while Mrs. Newton and the Professor are dancing a czárdás.‘
I think my wife will be the undoing of the Professor.