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PRAGUE—4 P.M. TO 5 P.M. · Around the Clock in Europe : A Travel Sequence

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Section four of Around the Clock in Europe a Travel Sequence. This is a
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LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
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or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Ted Leinhardt.
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Around the Clock in Europe A Travel Sequence by Charles fish Howell. Prague four
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p m to five p m. A brooding, stolid city. Is Prague,
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the somber capital of a restless, feverish people. It is the hot
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bed and darling seat of all Bohemia, and Bohemia languishes for her lost independence,
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as Israel did by the waters of Babylon. She does not, however,
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pine in hopeless despair like the Hebrews, but nourishes a keen expectation of
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regaining her lost estate and grits her teeth in the meanwhile with fiery impatience.
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She points and with reason to the fact that the Slavs, checks Slovaks and
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Moravians easily outnumber the Hungarians. Yet Hungry is free, and she in bondage,
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and so Bohemia. For all her exterior of gracious courtesy is bitter and
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hard at heart, a people of a passionate, thwarted patriotism, a people
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that has suffered and been degraded, but that has never for a moment forgotten.
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Prague is an expression of all this in her sullen, gloomy architecture,
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in the persistence of national types and characteristics, and peculiarly in the wild,
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reckless moldow, which visualizes the traditional savage intolerance that is bred in the bone
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of the fatalistic slav There are too many DAWs about for Prague to wear her
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heart on her sleeve, so while she bides her time, she presents a
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smiling mask. It may sometimes be a rather weary smile, and the forests
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that engulf her are gloomy and sinister, but her skies are not always lowering
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and overcast, and the peace of her fatigue from the national struggle is profound.
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It is just this deep, brooding piece that appeals to the stranger within
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her gates, and along with it he senses here a wonderful charm and underlying
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subtility that invests this curious old city with a lambent play of the imagination.
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It was of Prague that Alexander von Humboldt said, it is the most beautiful
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inland city I have ever seen, And it must have been of some such
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spot that RLS was mindful when he expressed the paradox that any place is good
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enough to live a life in, while it is only in a few and
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those highly favored, that we can pass a few hours agreeably. Restfulness is
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surely one of the prime essentials of the highly favored few. And there is
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no restfulness at all comparable with that we feel in some venerated spot, whose
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present hush and quiet is a reaction from its other days of fever and turmoil.
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One finds these qualities in Prague, whose calm and serenity seem doubly intense
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in contrast with its history of tumult and savagery, and the hatred and violence
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that racked and convulsed it for hundreds of years. It has frequently been lightly
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disposed of as being an out of the way place. But no place is
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more delightful than an out of the way place, and particularly when it has
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the natural and architectural beauty of this one, or has been the theater of
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such unusual and stirring occurrences. Had we but one hour to spend in Prague,
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we should certainly choose the charmed one. Between four and five o'clock of
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an afternoon, the sunshine is then most languid in golden, and the day
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declined slowly over the castle tops of the Haradshian crowned slope, and the lengthening
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shadows of towers and turrets creep out on the river, and the copper domes
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and ruddy tiles of the Neustadt glow in bright spots against the darkling green of
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the wooded hillsides. If one does not then feel a profound and elevating sense
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of tranquility and translating beauty, it will be because he has eyes to see,
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yet sees not since progress under the imputation of being out of the way.
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And even Shakespeare set this inland kingdom down as a desert country near the
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sea, and lost his compass completely in the shipwreck in the Winter's Tail,
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with Antigonus exclaiming our ship hath touched upon the deserts of Bohemia, and a
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confused mariner replying, aye, my lord, in fear we've landed in eald
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time. We may perhaps be pardoned for observing that in general appearance, it
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is a wooded valley traversed in its full length by a swift, turbulent river
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which follows a northerly course, excepting where it bends sharply to the east in
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the very heart of the city. This stream, the Moldau, rushes along,
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as if in desperate haste to throw itself into the elbe, and seems
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to have the one idea as it dashes through Prague, of getting done with
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its business and on its way at the earliest moment possible. It has scoured
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its islands into ovals, slashed the rocky bases of the hills, and continually
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assailed its bridges and keys. But through all its exhibitions of ill humor,
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the Praguers have indulgently condoned and even extolled it. It was only when the
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beloved and venerated Carlsbruka fell a partial victim to its violence a dozen years ago
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that patients ceased to be a virtue, and the unnatural Marauder was comprehensively anathematized.
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With all the sibilant fury of the hissing tongue of the check speed apart,
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there is little to complain of with the Moldau. It is broad and
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of a pleasant, deep blue and the beauty it supplies to the setting of
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the city is supplemented by the importance of its traffic, the amusements on its
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many little wooded islands, and the delights of its boating and bathing. In
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a word, it is a noble stream, and nonetheless bohemian, perhaps for
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being a little proud and headstrong. As the afternoon sun lies heavy over Prague,
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one notes with delight how snugly the old city nestles along the river and
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up the hill sides of the valley, and with what unnatural and comfortable air,
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Not at all as though trying, as newer cities do, to shoulder
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its suburbs out of the way. It seems a perfect type of the medieval
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town, with buildings of south stone of an agreeable and universal creamy tone,
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four square and enduring. It abounds in quaint, high pitched roofs and curious
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turreted spires, in red tiles and green copper domes, and in objects of
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antique and archaic fascination. Shade trees are everywhere, indeed, from the thickly
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wooded heights of the surrounding hills right down to the river keys. The gray
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of the houses and the red and green of the roofs make beautiful color combinations
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with a feathery foliage. One stands on the old College Bruca and looks upstream,
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and there he sees the rocky heights of the Wishirod hill on which the
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fair and wise Lebusa reared her castle when she laid the foundations of the city
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thirteen centuries ago, in which he will want to visit later to look over
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the fortifications and to study the glowing frescoes on the cloister walls of the Benedictine
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Monastery of Amaus in the elbow of the Moldau. Downstream, he will observe
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the old sections of Prague, huddled together in cramped confusion, with no sign
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left of the ancient separating walls that once defined the original seven districts, though
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he is to learn by and by that the early names remain unchanged, the
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Old Stadt and the Jewish joseph Stadt, and around and above them the Neustadt,
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which, of course, from an American time point, is really not
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new at all. On his left, along the river, he sees the
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kleind Sitas spread out, and on a hillside above it that far famed acropolis,
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the redoubtable Rodshan, with its dusty barracks like royal and state palaces,
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and the great bulk of the Cathedral of Saint Vidas rising out of it like
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some man made mount such as the first bird's eye impression Prague, set in
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its wooded slopes, stolid and softly colored. Later on, one can scrape
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acquaintance with its rambling, flourishing modern suburbs to the eastward and downstream, and
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wrestle at his pleasure with such impressive nomenclature as kier Linenthal and Bubno Hoolschewitz.
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Between four and five o'clock, the visitor will find an especial pleasure in noting
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the activities that prevail in the several little green islands that fret the impetuous Moldau
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as it hurries through this hundred towered golden Prague. The dearest of these to
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the sentimental check is bright Sophian insel that you could almost leap onto from the
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stone coping of the neighboring Kaiser Franzbruka. It always wears a gay and inviting
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appearance, with cafe tables set under fine old oaks, but precisely at four
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summer afternoons, the leader of its military band lifts his baton, It launches
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some crashing prelude, and the noising company instantly stills and with nervously tapping fingers
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and glowing eyes, abandons itself to that music passion, which is the deepest
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and most intense expression of the Bohemian temperament. It gives the dilettante a new
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conception of the power of this inspiring art. To observe the significant and varying
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expressions that play over the faces of a prague audience under its influence, he
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witnesses then the profoundest stirring of the Slavic nature and the moving of emotional depths
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beyond the conception of the reserved and impassive Anglo Saxon. Especially is this so
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when the music is of a national character, such as the mav Lost symphonic
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poems of Smetana or a Slavic dance of Dvorix. These Bohemian masters, with
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their fellow countrymen Fibitsch, constitute a trinity that is reverenced in their native land
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to an extent that almost passes belief, and that has done so much in
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making Prague, one of the foremost centers of Europe. The music from the
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Sophian Insult floats down the river to our vantage point on Karlsbruck, mellowed and
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softened, and contributes just the right pleasing note to the agreeable mood. These
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picturesque surroundings excite. The ponderous antique old structure on which we stand has the
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appearance of some full page color illustration for a charming middle aged romance. For
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half a millennium. It has dug its broad arches into the bottom of the
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Moldau, stoutly defiant of flood or storm. Its massive buttresses are crowned with
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heroic statues so deeply revered that pilgrimages are made by the faithful to pay their
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devotions before them. Four third of a mile, this old veteran strides the
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stream, and at each end he lifts in amazing medieval tower, well worth
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a journey to stare at. These ponderous structures, weathered by centuries of storm
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to a rich brownish black, are pierced by a deep Gothic archway through which
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the street traffic pours all day. Their sides are decorated with colonnades and traceries,
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armorial bearings and statues of ancient heroes of the city, and their tops
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are incredible creations of slender turrets and of pointed roofs so desperately precipitate that they
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seem like long, narrow paving stones tilted end to end. Catholic legend and
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ceremonial run riot on the old bridge. The statues are almost altogether of a
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religious character, and two of them, the Crucifixion group and the Bronze when
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of Saint John napomic are practically never passed without the sign of the cross and
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the raising of hat or cap. In the case of the latter, the
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devout will touch the tablet that marks the spot from which he is said to
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have been cast into the river, and then kissed their fingers and blessed themselves.
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For Saint John Napomack, of all the Holy Martyrs, was Prague's very
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own. The legend is dramatic. Father John was the Queen's confessor five hundred
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years ago, and when he declined to oblige the king by revealing what the
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queen had told under the seal of the Confessional, his Majesty had him summarily
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cast into the Moldau from just where we are standing at the center of this
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bridge. The result was far from the expectations of the king, for not
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only was the poor priest preserved from sinking, but which is quite as hard
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to believe of so swift a stream as this, he actually remained floating for
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four days at the very spot where he fell, and five bright stars hung
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above him all the while. When they took him out, he was dead.
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And to this extent only did the king succeed as was perfectly natural.
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The amazed Progres could see nothing in all this but an astounding miracle. And
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when Catholicism had finally displaced the Protestantism that followed the Hussite Wars for two hundred
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years, their clamor for the canonization of Father John eventually resulted in placing the
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name of Saint John Napomic in the catalog of Rome. Equipped with a saint
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all their own, they adroitly converted the statues of the Protestant John huss that
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stood here and there about town into Saint John Napomics by the simple expedient of
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adding a five starred halo to each. Now, if today were the sixteenth
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of May Saint John Napomic's special day, we should behold the greatest festival of
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all the year. An altar would be erected beside his statue here on the
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bridge, and mass celebrated before enormous kneeling crowds. Bohemian peasants would flock into
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town for miles and miles around in all the picturesque finery of the national dress.
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Gallop performances would be given at the theaters, and a special illumination of
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the city made at public expense, and fireworks displayed tonight on shoots and insult.
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It would be an orderly celebration too, for the Czechs are more fond
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of dancing than drinking, and religious enthusiasm would be practically universal. For Prague,
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which for two centuries was exclusively Protestant, now numbers at least nine Catholics
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out of every ten of its people. As we look about us this afternoon,
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we derive a vivid consciousness of being very far from home, set down
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in an environment that is for Europe oddly foreign and unfamiliar. The soft,
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sibilant prattle of the Zekish speech is heard on every hand, and the names
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on cars and corners are outlandish to us, with their profusion of consonants and
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curevarious accent marks like our O and V. One sees a great disproportion in
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numbers between the German and Zekish population. Only thirteen to the hundred are said
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to be German, but in the opinion of Bohemians, that is too many
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for the stubborn struggle for the existence of the old national speech and spirit against
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the threatening usurpation of the Teutonic invaders is a real matter of life and death.
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As we watch the crowds throng along the bridge, the prevalence of the
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Slavic type is very noticeable. Short of body, heavy of head, and
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with high cheek bones and coarse features. The general expression is one of settled,
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melancholy bread of their peculiar fatalism. Having heard the Bohemian Girl and read
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the foundationless libels of popular French literature, one looks about for Gypsies. He
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will be lucky if he finds one. Bohemia, as he should have known,
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is one of the leading in dusthetrial countries of Europe, and Prague is
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made up of hard working, skillful mechanics. Energy and resolution are stamped on
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these serious, rugged faces, on the powerful men, the tall strong women,
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and even on the little black eyed children. And they can do many
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worthy things well. They market the country's rich coal and iron deposits, make
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garnets to perfection, and manufacture beech sugar by thousands of tons. Who is
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not heard of Bohemian glass or pills, no nor beer? And shall we
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belittle the resourcefulness of Bohemia with the prosperous resorts of Carlsbad and Marian bod Well
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within the western boundary of the bahmer Wald. If this does not convince,
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one has only to run over to Dresden, seventy five miles away, which
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he can reach by rail in four hours at an outlay of but eight florins.
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And ask anyone where the finest farm produce comes from, and what section
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yields the best fruit and honey, butter and eggs, milk and cheese.
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If now we can manage to look away from the bridge and its crowds,
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we shall observe that the afternoon activities of the river life of Prague are manifold
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and highly interesting. There is a prodigious bustling about of long shoremen on the
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fine broad keys and boats of many descriptions and diversified cargoes are laboriously struggling upstream
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or drifting guardedly down. From time to time, huge unwieldy rafts pass along
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to the din of vigorous shouting and hysterical warnings. Bathers at the riverside establishments
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are adding their share of laughter and frolic, their diversions watched with vast amusement.
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By the afternoon idlers loitering along the embankments on our right, the shaded
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walks and trim lawns of the popular Rudolph's Key are comfortably filled with a leisurely
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company of promenaders and of nursemaids airing their charges. All this contributes an agreeable
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note of homeliness and contentment, and seems eminently in harmony with the prevailing serenity
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and peace of the surrounding groves. There is at hand a little chained footbridge,
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which they call the Kettensteg, and in a beautiful clump of Linden's at
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its end rises the sculptured porticoes of the classic Rudolphinum Prague's noble home of the
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Arts and Industries, enter it and you find whole halls devoted to the work
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of Bohemian artists, with a school of old Theodoric of Prague represented in surprising
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completeness, an entire cabinet filled with the engravings of that famous prager Vnsil Holar,
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and many of the most beautiful paintings of such celebrated Bohemians as Gabriel Max
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Vaklevbrosic and Joseph Mainz. With artistic bridges arching the river in whichever direction you
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look, with music and soft voices welling up from the gay islands, and
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with a full and virile life at cry along the keys, you find yourself
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about as far removed as possible from the atmosphere of Longfellow's beleaguered city. Quote.
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Beside the Moldau's rushing stream, with the Wan Moon overhead, there stood,
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as in an awful dream, the army of the dead end quote.
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Assuredly, there is no army of the dead at this hour beside the Moldau,
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whatever there may be under the wan Moon. In a poet's eye,
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on the contrary, there is an army of the living, a quarter million
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of them, and it marches without resting, day in and day out.
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Along the Grobin and the stately Venseil's plots, and through the venerable grocer Ring
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and the narrow crooked alleys of Old joseph Stadt. Walk east across Carlsbruca,
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pass under the Gothic arch of the somnolent Altstadt Tower with a stony steps.
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You have Carl the fourth on your left, and you will shortly emerge on
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the Grosser Ring and can settle the matter for yourself. This fantastic Ring is
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the oldest and most famous square of the city, still preserving its ancient appearance.
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You find it in an irregular quadrilateral, surrounded by quaint, gloomy colonnaded
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houses, churches and dilapidated palaces. There towers in its center a somber memorial
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column called the marian Soila, commemorating Prague's liberation from the Swedes at the close
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of the Thirty Years War. The very first thing to catch the eye is
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the singular Taine Kirsha, the old Gothic church where John huss So often preached,
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where their astronomer Tychobrahe lies entombed in red marble and in whose shadows.
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Through five centuries many of the bloodiest events of the city had their inception and
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execution. The influence of us on the Europe of his day was so great
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and has continued so long that it is hard to realize that he had only
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reached his forty sixth year when the Council of Constance sent him and his friend
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Jerome of Prague to the stake. The old tine Kirka, where he so
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often attacked the doctrines of Rome, still rears its battered and darkened bulk from
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behind a melancholy row of colonnaded houses, and gazes solemnly and patiently over them
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at the noisy ring. Its lofty spires, curiously clustered with airy turrets like
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hornets nests on some old tree directly opposite the modern Gothic roth house shoulders up
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to the motoring tower of its predecessor, whose famous clock has delighted its thousands
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with the surprising things the automatic figures do when the hours and quarters roll around
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just at hand. A portion of the old erkir Capella still stands in excellent
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preservation, and you could not find more beautiful Gothic windows in all Prague,
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nor finer canopied saints nor more richly sculptured coats of arms before this building a
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place of hideous history. The best blood of the city was spilled after the
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fall of Bohemian independence at the fateful Battle of the White Hill three centuries ago,
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when twenty seven nobles were butchered here on the scaffold. A dozen years
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passed, and again blood soaked this earth with a stony hearted Wallenstein executing eleven
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of his chief officers for alleged cowardice at the Battle of Lutzen. Prague still
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shows the palace of Wallenstein and those of the other two famous generals of his
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period, Gallis and Piccolomini. The clam Galas Palace is just at hand in
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the Husgasa, distinguished for its beautiful portal, flanked with colossal caryatids and s
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vulptured urns, and surmounted by a marble balustrade wrought with a perfection of life.
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A final note in the Old World charm of the grosser Ring is contributed
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by the ancient Kinsky Palace, adjoining the tang Kirkha in the elaborate Baroque architecture,
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despised of mister Ruskin people in the manner and seeming of today, walk
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and talk, barter and sell under the nodding brows of these historic buildings.
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But the visitor stands among them, unconscious of their noisy presence and the spell
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such storied surroundings cast on every phase of fancy and imagination. There is a
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peculiar fascination about aimless rambles and prague. Modern improvements have come, of course,
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but many an old and rare landmark has been reverently preserved, with a
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result that you can scarcely turn a corner or cross a square without coming face
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to face with some fantastic and black and architectural fragment that holds you spellbound with
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wonder and delight. Whole sections, indeed, are of such a character as
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you would find were you to fare forth from the grosser ring and seek adventures.
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By crossing the Kettenstagg and invading the region beyond the Rudaulphinum, with almost
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the suddenness of tumbling into a river, you would find yourself groping, even
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at this bright hour of the afternoon, in the black and twisting mazes of
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the old Jewish ghetto that still goes by the name of Joseph Stadt. Here
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you have at once all the detail and color of a romance of the Crusades.
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Everything appears aged and eccentric the time. Weary saddened ramshackle houses project their
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upper stories feebly and seek to rest their wrinkled foreheads on one another. Tortuous
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winding alleys that you can almost span with your outstretched arms, reel giddily all
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ways from a straight line, plodding wearily up hill and sliding helplessly down on
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all sides. There seems to be a general feeling that nothing matters, that
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everything comes by accident or caprice. Over the frowsy heads of slovenly children quarreling
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in the doorways, Glimpses are to be had of dark and filthy interiors from
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which foul orders escape to the street. Long coated, unkempt patriarchs of Israel
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lope solemnly by with rounded shoulders and hands clasped behind, And if you follow
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in their wake, you will sooner or later arrive at a curious, melancholy
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rod house. It is a rare jumble of architectural orders, and has an
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extraordinary steeple that might once have done time on a Chinese temple. This very
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inclusive structure, persisting in its oddities to the end, makes a great point
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of staring down at the gaping crowds out of a big belfry clock that has
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one dial Hebrew and one Christian, but a single marvel is as nothing in
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this old wonderland. Where As Alice would have remarked, things become curiouser and
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curiouser. If your eyes popped at the roth house, what will they do
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at the gaunt barn like synagogue next door. Here is the thing that every
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visitor to Prague goes straight to see. Its early history is lost in legends,
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but you will be disposed to credit them all, even to that one
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about the Prague Jews fleeing from Jerusalem to escape the persecutions of Titus. Once
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you have seen its doleful walls and breakneck roof, and have passed through the
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narrow black doorway into that shadowy tomb of an interior. Brass lamps depend by
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long chains from the smoky ceiling, but they only intensify the gloom with their
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feeble light and deepen the feeling of creepy depression. Visitors are told that during
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the horrors of the Hussite Wars, this black hole was literally packed with the
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bloody corpses of Jews, and that, in a bitter spirit of defiance,
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no attempt was made for three hundred years to efface the frightful stains. Little
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wonder that the Prague Jews evolved out of their hatred and ancient malediction that ran,
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May your head be as thick as the walls of the radshan your body
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grow as big as the city of Prague. May your limbs wither away to
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bird's claws, and may you flee around the world for a thousand years.
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It is like escaping from a sick bed to come out of this chamber of
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horrors and cross the street to the quiet and hush of the wonderful old ghetto
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cemetery. Here we have another of the sights of the joseph Stadt. In
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the refreshing coolness of its elder trees, one looks about on as extraordinary a
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three acres as can be found anywhere in all Europe. The Jews insist that
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they have buried here for twelve or fourteen hundred years, and in riptions can
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be found that date back at least half that far. By the simple process
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of spreading new layers of earth. This plot has been packed with graves six
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deep, and all that was accomplished one hundred and fifty years ago, the
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cemetery not having been in use since the middle of the eighteenth century. The
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closeness of the black mossy tombstones and their toppled and huddled look suggests the troubled
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shouldering of some gigantic, ghoulish mole at work deep down in the horror crowded
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darkness underground. The ancient tribal insignia of Israel are found graven on these tottering
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slabs, the hands of Aaron, the cup of Levi, the double triangle
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of David, the stag, the fish, et cetera. And here and
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there you come across those little piles of stones heaped on graves that mark a
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Jewish act of reverence for the resting place of some long buried ancestor. Hold
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to a generally southern direction in your afternoon's stroll through the narrow ghetto alleys,
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and shortly you will meet with a fine reward in the shape of a face
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to face contemplation of one of Prague's most cherished antiquities, the pulver tom They
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may have once stored powder here, as the name implies, or they may
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not, But almost anything looks to have been possible to the sturdy brown survivor
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of the Middle Ages, under whose broad Gothic archway the twentieth century crowds are
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passing day and night. Set solidly down in the thickest stream of traffic.
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It has the look of those unconquerable obstructions that have to be tunneled through.
30:44
It looms above you a great, dark, dusty mass out of time.
30:48
In every particularity of design and decoration, stubbornness and defiance are expressed in every
30:56
line, and with its atmosphere of drowsy aloofness and mystery, there is such
31:00
an element of loneliness among such modern surroundings that one could almost believe he sometimes
31:06
hears the old veteran's sigh. Certainly you would say it is brooding over memories
31:11
centuries dead. So incongruous and distrait is its seeming, So anachronous are its
31:18
whimsical turrets, fantastic roof statues, arms, and sculptured traceries. This impression
31:26
of isolation is enhanced as one reflects that the most ultra modern of Prague's new
31:32
buildings all stand within easy range. Could one of the polver Tomb's ancient archers
31:37
take up a position in any of those lofty turrets and wing an arrow from
31:41
his stout crossbow toward what quarter of the heavens he chose. When you have
31:48
passed under the arch of the polver Torm, you have entered the Grabin,
31:52
and so reached the business heart of the city. The Grabin has nothing to
31:57
day to suggest the ditch that its derivative source implies, unless you fancifully regard
32:04
it as a moat of the modern commercial ramparts. On the contrary, it
32:08
presents a busy array of all the leading hotels, shops, restaurants and cafes.
32:15
Overhead trolley cars splutter along it, and you see gray stone buildings of
32:21
irregular roof lines, with skylight dormers in the tiles and Venetian blinds in the
32:27
windows, narrow sidewalks decorated in mosaic designs, and active throngs of strong featured
32:35
men and bare headed, vigorous women whose chief pride of dress concerns itself with
32:40
capacious aprons elaborately embroidered. Were you to visit the second story cafes, whose
32:47
gay window boxes look so inviting. From the street. You would find games
32:53
of chess and checkers in progress at this hour, and more than one merchant
32:58
who had stolen from shop to have a look at the proger tagblot over a
33:02
glass of pilsner or three fingers of the plum brandy they call Slivovitz, or
33:09
a dram of chai which is tea and rum, or a cup of tay
33:15
which is just plain tea and cream. Coffee and chocolate, of course,
33:20
would be found in general demand. One passes out of the Grobin into the
33:25
fine boulevard of the Venzil Plots, and at once exchanges bustle and uproar for
33:31
the quiet and dignity of the most beautiful and stately avenue of the city.
33:37
It is broad and well paved, with buildings of elaborate design, with shop
33:42
fronts protected by bright hautings, and with fine shade trees every few yards along
33:47
its entire length. At the corner of the Stott Park, one finds a
33:52
beautiful cascade fountain, and beside it a noble building which is the center of
33:58
all that is best and most in tents in the new movement for the reviving
34:02
and vitalizing of the national spirit among Bohemians the New Bohemian Museum. Were you
34:09
to enter it, you would doubtless be astonished to see how many souvenirs of
34:14
Bohemian history have already been assembled there, autographs and documents, ancient musical instruments,
34:22
art objects, flails of the Hussites, and scientific collections such as the
34:29
intellectual Bohemia of today. From this pleasant stroll, one wends his way back
34:35
to the Carlsbruca, and as he passes the buildings that still remain of the
34:38
ancient famous university, thoughts are kindled of the wonderful renowned as institution had six
34:45
centuries ago, when it was easily the foremost educational institution of the world.
34:52
Fifteen thousand students from every quarter of the earth gathered to hear its celebrated savants,
34:59
and the and achievements of those days have gone down in prose and rhyme.
35:05
Five thousand students still attend, two thirds of them Czechs and the others
35:09
German. But the revelry of today is largely the bitter and bruising encounters that
35:15
are continually arising between these conflicting hotheads. The intellectual impulse is strong in Prague.
35:22
It has polytechnic institutes, art schools and learned societies, and one of
35:29
the most famous conservatories of music in the whole of Europe. The west bank
35:35
of the Moldau, the Kleinsided district, was royalty's region in the olden time,
35:40
when Bohemian kings and queens dwelt in the huge Rodschian on the ridge of
35:45
the hill seen from the Carlsbruka toward five o'clock, the long slope rises toward
35:52
the declining sun with many more suggestions even now of the pomp and circumstances that
36:00
have departed, then of the modernism that has taken their place. There is
36:04
a dreary and saddening array of closed and boarded palaces, arcaded and many windowed,
36:10
whose owners are rich and powerful bohemian nobles with a preference for the gaieties
36:15
and frivolities of the court life of Vienna. One regards with his special interest
36:22
the long rambling one of Wallenstein, to make room for which one hundred houses
36:27
had to be torn down, where this rival of royalty retired in the interval
36:32
of Imperial disfavor, and held magnificent court with hundreds of followers and attendants.
36:39
Among the many chambers of that great honeycomb was one equipped as an astrological cabinet,
36:45
for Wallenstein always had faith in his star. How vividly it recalls the
36:52
Schiller dramas and the operations of the Uncanny Sini. Such a man exclaims a
36:58
character at the conclin illusion of Wallenstein's taut Born a Protestant, he well nigh
37:05
became their exterminator, turned at Jesuit. The Jesuits distrusted and hated him.
37:10
With his sword, he made and unmade kings, and carved out principalities for
37:15
himself. And yet he was but fifty one years old at the time of
37:20
his assassination. Like an aged soldier nodding in his armchair in the sun.
37:25
The Wallenstein Palace, once passion rocked and treachery haunted, basks this afternoon in
37:32
an atmosphere of the intensest calm and peace. To ramble through it is to
37:38
learn history from a participant. One courtyard in particular, is so serene and
37:44
lovely as to be really unforgettable. One entire side of this enclosure is a
37:50
lofty, echoing loggia three stories high, with arching spans for a roof supported
37:55
on graceful towering columns. Within the loggia are heavy sculptured balustrades, and a
38:04
broad flight of marble steps flanked by huge stone urns, leads to a beautiful
38:09
open space of soft lawns bordered with simple flowers. It was a favorite resort
38:15
of Wallenstein's, and he called it his Sala Tarina. In its present mellow
38:22
and half deserted beauty, it is a place for a poet to dream away
38:25
a life in staring gloomily down on the Klein, saida, and set solidly
38:31
far above it on a precipitous hill. The rugged old rodschin Prague's acropolis warms
38:39
into mild ruddy tones in the afternoon sun. I have said it reminds one
38:45
of a barracks, such an enormous, rambling affair as it is, though
38:50
its commanding situation and impressive proportions would immediately suggest to a stranger some more consequential
38:58
employment in other days. Undoubtedly it is the most striking feature of Prague.
39:04
One might think it a solid architectural mass as seen from the Carlsbruca, But
39:09
on closer inspection it resolves itself into a series of separate structures, falling into
39:16
irregular groups, but which taken together, composed the setting of the Imperial court
39:22
during the long period of Bohemia's independence that splendid fragment. The vast Cathedral of
39:30
Saint Vitus supplies a worthy centerpiece and is full of interest too, with its
39:36
rich Gothic windows, chapel walls set with precious stones, marble tombs of the
39:42
Bohemian kings, and the wonderful silver monument to Saint John Napolmaic. Indeed,
39:49
the whole Rajan abounds in rich surprises. Such for instance, is the venerable
39:54
Church of Saint George, awkward and archaic, which has stood for nine one
40:00
hundred years, and is the sole memorial in Bohemia of the earliest period of
40:05
Romanic architecture. Everyone, of course, hurries to see the rude royal palace
40:10
of the Hofburg, on the edge of an adjacent steep hill, from the
40:15
windows of whose constlye Zimmer the Imperial councilors were defenestrated, and the Thirty Years
40:22
War in consequence precipitated upon the troubled states of Europe. And then there is
40:29
the Archbishop's palace across the quadrangle from the Hofburg, and whose courtyard the church
40:36
authorities impotently burned the two hundred Wycliffe books that John huss had loaned them with
40:42
a challenge to read and if they could refute. Two grim towers on the
40:47
eastern extremity, the Dali Borca and the Black Tower, have no end of
40:52
creepy legends of tortures and prison horrors. The former takes its name from a
40:59
romantic dalibor who is said to have been long confined there, and of whom
41:05
in his solacing violin we hear at pleasant length in Smetana's opera of that name.
41:12
One of the most curious sights of the Rodchan is the low drawn out
41:16
Loretto Church, with a maximum of frontage and a minimum of depth, like
41:22
city seminaries for young ladies. Among the red tiles of its steep roof,
41:28
giant stoned saints perform miracles of precarious footing, and out of the center of
41:34
the facade on a base of colossal spirals, rises in antique belfry spire,
41:39
set with domes and turrets, and bearing aloft a huge clock dial like a
41:45
burnished shield. Surely somewhere in this Rodchian wonderland occurred the unrecounted events of that
41:52
much interrupted narrative of the King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles, which Trim
41:59
tried so hard to tell to Uncle Toby Shandy. And may we not be
42:04
confident that the charming Prince Florizel, whose strange adventures Stevenson has so gracefully recounted,
42:10
once lived in courted perils. In these romantic surroundings. It is to
42:15
be hoped that every visitor will have more than one hour in Prague. And
42:21
then, of course he will want to go up to the Ragen and loiter
42:23
through and about it. At his leisure. He will find large and beautiful
42:29
gardens where he can rest under noble trees and enjoy an inspiring view of the
42:34
city and the pleasant companionship of statuary and fountains. When he has exhausted his
42:39
viewpoint, he can secure quite another from the colinaded verandas of the Renaissance Belvedere,
42:46
or perhaps better still, he will journey out to the picturesque abbey of
42:52
Strehou embowered in blooming orchards that are vocal with blackbirds, and from its yellow
42:59
stuccoed world looked down on the dense forests of the Laurensburg, sweeping in billowy
43:05
green, to the very banks of the Moldau. At this hour, a
43:08
sharp point of light seen from the observation tower on the summit of the Hasenburg,
43:14
marks the location of a little white church on a distant hilltop. And
43:19
when you have been told all about what happened there at the fatal Battle of
43:22
the White Hill, you will have listened to the bitterest chapter in the whole
43:27
history of Bohemia, and will know how the national life of this kingdom gasped
43:32
itself out three centuries ago, and the panic and rout of the winter King's
43:38
ill managed soldiery before the fierce infantry of Bavaria. There fell the state won
43:45
by the flails of a fanatical peasantry, whose sonorous war him ye who are
43:51
God's warriors, had so often struck terror into the ranks of the finest armies
43:57
of Europe. Those were the men who the furious Ziska led Ziska the squat,
44:02
and one eyed the friend and adventure of huss John Ziska of the Chalice,
44:09
commander in the Hope of God of the Taborites. Such was the terror
44:14
in which this dread chieftain was held by his foes, that they feared him
44:17
even after his death, and declared that his skin had been stretched for drumheads
44:23
to summon his followers on to victory. Since the Battle of the White Hill,
44:29
there has been little for Prague in the way of war except sieges and
44:32
captures, and it has mattered little to her whether it was Maria Teresa come
44:38
to be crowned, or Frederic the Great come to destroy, or the Swedes
44:44
of Gustavus Adolphus come to plague and defend. Suffering has been her regular portion.
44:52
During the Thirty Years War alone, Bohemia's population declined from four millions to
44:58
fewer than seven hundred thousand. The stranger on the Karlsbruka will turn from thoughts
45:04
of Ziska's peasants to regard with increased interest the occasional specimen of the countryman whose
45:10
strides passed along the bridge with no embarrassment at appearing in the streets of his
45:15
capital in the costume of his nation. Behold him in his high boots,
45:22
tight, buff trousers, well embroidered blue bolero jacket with many buttons, broad
45:28
lapels and embroidered cuffs, his soft shirt puffed out like a pigeon, and
45:34
the jaunty astrachan cap cocked to one side. And there too marches his wife
45:40
boots laced high bodice, bright and abbreviated, petticoats short and broad and covered
45:46
by a wide bordered apron, her arms bare to the shoulders, and her
45:52
head dress of white linen, very starchy and stiff. Sometimes one passes wearing
45:58
a hat that suggests Spain, but he, too, as they all do,
46:02
wears the tight trousers and the close fitting knee boots. In time,
46:07
one learns to distinguish the Slovaks and Moravians by their long sleeveless white coats,
46:14
tight blue trousers, and white jackets with lapels and cuffs embroidered in red.
46:20
One hears many interesting things about these peasants throughout the year. It is said
46:24
they fare frugally on black bread and a cheese made of sheep's milk, to
46:30
which is added an occasional trout from the mountain streams. The Great Age.
46:35
Some of them attained speaks well for the diet Strangers who go up into the
46:39
hills to stalk Chammi and have a go at the big game, come back
46:44
with surprising stories of the inherited deference that is still paid in the country to
46:50
cast. They will tell you that the peasant still kisses the hand of the
46:53
Lord of the soil. The proger thinks highly of his country brother, though
46:59
he finds a vast amusement in observing his rustic antics when he comes to town
47:04
on Saint John Napalmick's day and shuffles about the streets wide eyed and gaping after
47:10
the manner of ross in Erba. The world over, curious stories are told
47:15
of peasant customs. Christmas is their day of days, and preparations for its
47:22
proper observance are made long in advance. They believe it to be a season
47:25
when evil spirits are powerless to injure, and may even be made to aid.
47:30
When the great day arrives, the cottages are scrupulously cleaned, fresh straw
47:37
laid on the earth and floor, and the entire household assembled for a processional
47:42
round of the outbuildings. In the course of this ceremonial parade. Beans are
47:46
carefully dropped into cracks and chinks of the buildings, with elaborate incantations for protection
47:53
against fires. Bread and salt are offered to every animal on the place.
48:00
The unmarried daughters are sprinkled with honey water to ensure them faithful and sweet natured
48:05
husbands. The family drink of celebration is the plumb distilled Slivovitz. What effective
48:13
use the great national composers of Bohemia, Smetana, Devoric and Fibitsch, have
48:19
made of the native melodies and costumes. Smetana, a friend and protegee of
48:24
Liszt, the master utilizer of Hungarian folk themes, was determined that Bohemia too
48:31
should have music of a distinctively national character. And in his eight operas and
48:37
six symphonic poems, as well as in his beautiful stringed quartet The Carnival of
48:44
Prague, he abundantly realized his ambition. There is no more popular opera played
48:50
in Prague to day than his Bartered Bride One. Hears a great deal of
48:54
Smetana in talking with the people of this city, of his poverty and sadas,
49:00
his final deafness, and of how when fame at last crowned him so
49:05
completely he was dying in an asylum here. Music is a favorite topic of
49:10
conversation in Prague. A violin player in one of the local theatre orchestras was
49:16
no less a person than the great de work, a pupil of Smetanis,
49:21
and he too, added to Bohemian musical glory with his Slavonic rhapsodies and dances,
49:27
and the splendid overture that he constructed on the folk melody today de mau
49:31
mouge. There was a sort of bach like foundation for all these composers in
49:37
the early litanies of the talented Bishop of Prague. The Czech temperament finds its
49:44
natural expression in music. It has even insisted that their most popular movement,
49:50
the polka, was invented by a Bohemian servant girl. Certainly, there has
49:54
been no lack of beautiful legendary material on which to construct effect of compositions.
50:00
These traditional stories are all full of sadness and superstition, and they always revolve
50:07
about simple natural elements, the rain, the mountains, the valleys, ghosts
50:13
and wild hunters, and above all that most recurrent and universal of themes,
50:19
love. Could we win favor with some old proger this afternoon, and entice
50:23
him into the sunny corner of carl Forth's monument place beside the bridge, where
50:30
we should close out our hour with many a captivating and romantic story that would
50:35
alone have made our visit well worth while. Such, for example, is
50:39
the legend of the spinning girl. Deserted by her lover, she wove a
50:45
wonderful shroud threaded with moonbeams, and in this she was buried, And by
50:50
its magic she appeared to him on his wedding night and lured him to leap
50:54
to his death in the river. And there is the story of the wedding
50:59
Shirt. A girl implores the Virgin either to let her die or restore her
51:04
absent lover, who, unknown to her, has been dead some time.
51:09
The Virgin bows from the holy picture and forthwith the pallid lover appears and conducts
51:15
his sweetheart by a midnight journey to the spot where his body lies buried.
51:21
Thereupon ensues a desperate struggle by fiends and ghouls to capture the soul of the
51:27
girl, who is finally rescued by the interposition of the Virgin, to whom
51:32
in her terror, she appeals. The wedding shirts that she had brought as
51:37
her bridal portion are found scattered in fragments by the sinister spirits on the surrounding
51:44
graves. The flight of the maid and her ghostly lover is vividly depicted at
51:49
length, and is expressed in translation by such lurid lines as quote o'er the
51:55
marshes, the corpse lights shone gasly blue, they glimmered alone. One of
52:04
the most romantic of these legends is the Golden spinning Wheel. A king loses
52:08
his way while hunting and stops for a drink at a peasant's cottage. There
52:14
he finds a marvelously beautiful girl to whom he eagerly offers himself in marriage.
52:20
This girl is an orphan with a step mother and stepsister who are cruel and
52:24
jealous. Under pretense of accompanying her to the king's castle, they lure her
52:30
into a black forest and slay her, taking great pains to conceal her identity
52:37
by removing and carrying with them her eyes, hands and feet. They then
52:43
proceed to the castle, and the wicked daughter successfully impersonates the goodwin, whom
52:47
she closely resembles. Seven days of wedding festivities ensue, at the end of
52:53
which the king is called away to the wars. In the Meanwhile, a
52:58
mysterious hermit, a heavenly messenger in disguise, takes up the dead body in
53:04
the forest, despatches his lad to the castle, and secures the eyes,
53:08
hands and feet by bartering for them a golden spinning wheel, a golden distaff,
53:15
and a magic whirl. Thus equipped, he miraculously restores the girl to
53:21
life and limb. When the king returns from the wars, he invites his
53:25
false bride to spin for him with her new golden wheel, and forthwith the
53:30
magic instrument, sings aloud the whole miserable story. The furious king rushes to
53:37
the forest, finds his real sweetheart, and installs her in his castle,
53:43
while the murderers are mutilated as she had been, and cast to the wild
53:47
wolves. It may be thought that I have gone somewhat out of my allotted
53:52
way, and taking such notice as I have of the superstitions, customs,
53:57
and music passion of the Bohemians. But I cannot believe that a satisfactory idea
54:01
of prague can be had in this or any other hour. Without some conception
54:07
of the fundamental traits that so powerfully sway this people. For the real significance
54:14
of the city lies deeper than its surface, showing of wooded hillsides sown with
54:19
quaint buildings, and a broad blue river rushing under many bridges. It is
54:24
its peculiar raciness of the soil that underlies the Zech's mad devotion to his capital,
54:31
expressing, as only Prague does, so much that is dear and beautiful
54:36
to him. It centers in itself the most burning and passionate interests of the
54:40
race. Without some knowledge of this desperate attachment, one would fail utterly to
54:46
grasp the forest and truth of such a fine observation as mister Arthur Simmons is
54:52
made on the devotion of the Bohemian to this city. Quote, he sees
54:58
it as a man sees the woman he loves with her first beauty, and
55:01
he loves it as a man loves a woman more for what she has suffered
55:07
end en Section four