Part 15 (1/2)
Its sickening anticlimax to poor Queen Louise was so exactly in keeping with the smaller disappointments which a.s.sail her more humble sister women in every walk of life that it takes on the air of a heart tragedy. I tried to imagine the feelings of the Queen when _she_ journeyed to Memel to hold her famous interview with Napoleon. How her pride must have suffered at the thought of lowering herself to plead for her husband and her country at Napoleon's hands! How she hated him before she saw him! How she more than hated him after she left him!
How she must have scorned the beauty upon which Napoleon commented so idly when a nation's honor was at stake! A typical act of the emperor of the French nation! Napoleon proved by that one episode that he was more French than Corsican.
In the Queen's illness at Memel she was so poorly housed that long lines of snow sifted in through the roof and fell across her bed. But that was as nothing to her mental disquiet while the fate of her beloved Prussia hung in the balance.
There is a bridge across the Memel at the exact spot where the famous raft conference is said to have taken place. As we crossed this bridge it seemed so far removed from those stormy days of strife that it was difficult to imagine the magnificent spectacle of the immense armies of Napoleon and Alexander drawn up on either bank, while these two powerful monarchs were rowed out to the raft to decide the fate of Frederick William and his lovely queen.
And although to them Prussia was the issue of the hour, how like the history of individual lives was this conference! For Prussia's fate was almost ignored, while the conversation originally intended to consume but a few moments lengthened into hours, and Napoleon and Alexander, having sworn eternal friends.h.i.+p, proceeded to divide up Europe between them, and parted with mutual expressions of esteem and admiration, having quite forgotten a trifle like the King and Queen of Prussia and their rage of anxiety.
But all these memories of Napoleon and Prussia gave way before the vital fact that we were to visit a lovely Polish princess and see some of her charming home life. I had been duly informed by my friends of the various ceremonies which I would encounter, and which, I must confess, rendered me rather timid. I only hoped my wits would not desert me at the crucial moment.
For instance, if the archbishop were there I must give him my hand and then lean forward and kiss his sleeve just below the shoulder. I only hoped my chattering teeth would not meet in his robe. So when I saw the state carriage of the princess at the station of Memel, drawn by four horses, and with numbers of servants in such queer liveries to attend to my luggage, I simply breathed a prayer that I would get through it all successfully; and if not, that they would lay any lapses at the door of my own eccentricities, and not to the ignorance of Americans in general, for I never wish to disgrace my native land.
The servants wore an odd flat cap, like a tam-o'-shanter with a visor.
Their coats were of bright blue, with the coat-of-arms of the princess on the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. This coat reached nearly to their feet, and in the back it was gathered full and stiffened with canvas, for all the world like a woman's pannier. I thought I should die the first time I got a side view of those men.
It was late Friday afternoon when we left the train, and we drove at a tremendous pace through lonely forests which we were only too happy to leave behind us. Suddenly we came upon the little village of Kretynga, whose streets were paved with cobblestones the size of a man's two fists.
To drive slowly over cobblestones is not a joy, but to drive four Russian horses at a gallop over such cobblestones as those was something to make you bite your tongue and to break your teeth and to shake your very soul from its socket.
The town is inhabited by Polish Jews, and a filthy, greasy, nauseating set they are, both men and women. The men wear two or three long, oily, tight curls in front of their ears. Their noses are hooked like a parrot's. Their countenances are sinister, and I believe they have not washed since the Flood. The women, when they marry, shave their heads. Then they either wear huge wigs, which they use to wipe their hands on without the ceremony of was.h.i.+ng them first, or else they wear a black or white or gray satin hood-piece with a line to imitate the parting of the hair embroidered on it.
Nothing is clean about them. I no longer wonder that Jews are expelled from Russia. It makes one rather respect Russia as a clean country. As it was Friday night, one window-sill in each house was filled with a row of lighted candles representing each member of the family who was either absent or dead.
Being so far away from home myself, this appealed to me as such a touching custom that it made my eyes smart.
Presently a clearing in the forest revealed the famous monastery of Kretynga--a monastery famous for being peopled with priests and monks whom the Tzar has exiled because they took too much interest in politics for his nerves. Then soon after pa.s.sing this monastery we entered the grounds of the castle. Still the longest part of the drive lay before us, for this one of the many estates of the Princess lies between the Memel and the Baltic Sea, and covers a large territory.
But finally, after driving through an avenue of trees which are worth a dictionary of words all to themselves, we came to the castle, a huge structure, which seemed to spread out before us interminably, for it was too dark to see anything but its majestic outlines.
The Princess in her own home was even lovelier than she had been in Paris, and charitably allowed us to have one night's rest before meeting the family.
About three o'clock in the morning I was awakened by a mournful chant, all in minor, which began beneath my windows and receded, growing fainter and fainter, until at last it died away. It was the hymn which the peasants always sing as they go forth to their work in the fields; but its mournful cadence haunted me. The next morning the largeness of the situation dawned upon me. The size of the rooms and their majestic furnis.h.i.+ngs were almost barbaric in their splendor. The tray upon which my breakfast was served was of ma.s.sive silver. The coffee-pot, sugar-bowl, and plates were of repousse silver, exquisitely wrought, but so large that one could hardly lift them.
In a great openwork basket of silver were any number of sweetened breads and small cakes and buns, all made by the baker in the castle, who all day long does nothing but bake bread and pastry. They do not serve hot milk with coffee, for which I blessed them from the bottom of my soul, but they have little brown porcelain jugs which they fill with cream so thick that you have to take it out with a spoon--it won't pour,--and these they heat in ovens, and so serve you hot cream for your coffee.
I call the G.o.ds from Olympus to testify to the quality of the nectar this combination produces. Some of those little porcelain jugs are going on their travels soon.
Meeting the various members of the Princess's charming family and remembering their t.i.tles was not an ordeal at all--at least it was not after it was over. They were quite like other people, except that their manners were unusually good. There was to be a hunt that morning--an amusing, luxurious sort of hunt quite in my line; one where I could go in a carriage and see the animals caught, but where I need not see them killed.
They were to hunt a mischievous little burrowing animal something like our badger, which is as great a pest to Poland as the rabbits are to Australia. They destroy the crops by eating their roots, so every little while a hunt is organized to destroy them in large numbers. The foresters had been sent out the night before to discover a favorite haunt of theirs, and to fill up all the entrances to their burrows; so all that we had to do was to drive to the scene of action.
It sounds simple enough, but I most solemnly a.s.sure you that it was anything but a simple drive to one fresh from the asphalt of Paris, for, like Jehu, they drove furiously.
Their horses are all wild, runaway beasts, and they drive them at an uneven gallop resembling the gait of our fire-engine horses at home, except that ours go more slowly. Sometimes the horses fall down when they drive across country, as they stop only for stone walls or moats.
The carriages must be built of iron, for the front wheels drop a few feet into a burrow every now and then, and at such times an unwary American is liable to be pitched over the coachman's head. ”Hold on with both hands, shut your eyes, and keep your tongue from between your teeth,” would be my instructions to one about to ”take a drive”
in Poland.
When we came to the place we found the foresters watching the _dachshunde_. These I discovered to be long, flat, shallow dogs with stumpy legs--a dog which an American has described as ”looking as if he was always coming out from under a bureau.” Very cautiously here and there the foresters uncovered a burrow, and a _dachshund_ disappeared. Then from below ground came the sounds of fighting. The _dachshunde_ had found their prey. The foresters ran about, stooping to locate the sound. When they discovered the spot a dozen of them at once began to dig as fast as they could.