Children create a strange picture of the world for themselves, finding some small detail or other that comes to characterize cities and countries for them for years to come. Thus Vienna to me was the city of pink tissue paper, for the washerwomen there placed sheets of pink tissue paper between individual garments when they returned them – which looked
very pretty and dainty. Whenever I heard the name Vienna soft pink sheets of tissue paper immediately appeared before my eyes. Germany, on the other hand, was closely linked to fine railway stations and thick slices of bread and butter. The fine station was the one at Frankfurt-am-Main. We passed through it once and, while the train was stopped, went for a walk on the platform. Grandmother explained to me that this was the finest railway station in Europe. It made a great impression on me, far greater than Cologne Cathedral, which we saw on the same trip. There it was only the mosaic on the floor that pleased me.
As for the thick slices of bread, they were for many years my only memory of the beautiful landscape around Lake Constance. We were travelling from Lindau to Rorschach and on the steamer ordered bread and butter. It came and so completely astonished me – accustomed as I was to paper-thin English sandwiches – that I was almost angry, for I thought, for some unfathomable reason, that thick slices of bread, especially when thickly spread with butter, were vulgar. Grandmother explained to me that in Germany one always gets thick sandwiches. My view of the German Empire was formed immediately: it was a vulgar country with beautiful railway stations.
One of my first travel remembrances is of Venice. It is not a beautiful memory. I was at that time separated from grandmother and was travelling with my parents. It was winter. The lagoons were grey and gloomy and foul-smelling. On top of it all, in an effort to educate me – I was then seven years old – I was dragged through all the galleries. I saw picture after picture and found them all deadly boring. When I shyly explained that I had had enough of the innumerable saints, I received the inevitable “what an idiot you are,” which for a long time afterwards completely spoiled the old masters for me. Even at a time when I had begun to take genuine delight in works by Perugino and Luini, I refused – out of spite – to say so and it was not until I was quite grown up and was spending two years in Florence with my parents that I admitted to getting pleasure from painting.
*
When my father was posted to Lisbon, he had the unhappy idea, for me at least, of taking me along with him. And so I was again obliged to leave
“home” and go to be with two people who were really complete strangers to me. Of the trip I remember only that I was horribly seasick in the Bay of Biscay. When the ship cast anchor in Lisbon harbour I had a terrible
fright. Out of little bobbing boats dark, bearded creatures emerged and clambered up to our ship. I thought they were monkeys. Later I realized that they were men. In Lisbon I saw for the first time the reverse side of having colonies. Soldiers were coming home from the Portuguese colony of Lourenço Marques – wounded men and men sick with yellow fever. They were received with great ceremony; the court and the entire diplomatic corps showed up. Well-dressed, well-nourished, healthy people, gathered respectfully around the beautiful queen and the fat king, stood about the dock, but from the ship came yellow shadows, emaciated, desiccated from the deadly climate. Many staggered as they disembarked, others had to be carried. There were also simple women there, weeping bitterly because their son was not among those who had been shipped back. I remember my father remarking scornfully on the way home: “The blessings of colonialism.”
From Lisbon my mother and I went to Madeira. The ship put out to sea in the late afternoon. When we reached the dreaded bar where the Tagus empties into the ocean, the sun went down. The great waves boiled blood-red about the ship like liquid flames, and in the distance lay the ocean, dark and infinite. On this trip I came into contact with a person whom I have never been able to forget in the many years that have passed since that time, and of whom I shall always think with gratitude. The weather was bad, the trip took five days instead of the usual three, and I was seasick the whole time. My mother stayed up on deck: children do not know how to be seasick gracefully and are not a particularly pleasant sight in this condition. To the misery of seasickness would have been added the misery of loneliness had it not been for a big English sailor with red hair and many freckles. Perhaps he had children at home, perhaps he was simply a good man; at any rate he took care of me, as the saying goes, as a father takes care of his child. In the morning he came into my cabin and dressed me. To this day I remember how gentle and careful his big hands were. Then he carried me out on deck and helped me to combat seasickness. To accomplish this he employed the strangest means. I had to eat sour things, drink salt water and when none of this did any good, he resorted to the remedy he no doubt considered a universal cure and forced me to down a large glass of pure whisky. He was bitterly disappointed when that too failed to help. But throughout the entire day, he found time to come to me every little while, tuck me into my blanket, cheer me up, and promise
me good weather and a smooth sea on the following day. In the evening he carried me back to the cabin and undressed me. I have forgotten his name, but not the man himself, with his big, strong, soft hands and the kindly smile on his freckled face.
In Madeira an old Baron W. came to meet us. We climbed into the funny little sledge-like oxcart, and I was very anxious to sit on the rear seat. But the old gentleman assumed a pompous expression and said, pointing to the front seat: “Excuse me, Countess, but I know my Gotha.” How strong the class feeling must have been in the old man for the sight of an eight-year-old child who had turned quite yellow from sea-sickness to make him think of the Gotha! For some reason or other my memories of Madeira have faded. I see now only the great camelia bushes, the thickly wooded village of Monte from which you slid down the polished cobblestone path to Funchal in a sort of bob-sled, as though it were a toboggan-run. I also remember a dreadful, seemingly endless dinner which the Austrian consul gave in honour of my mother, and at which twenty-five different vintages of Madeira wine were brought out.
Our next stop was in Tenerife. Here it was very beautiful; the hotel lay right by the sea, and the mighty Pic rose up snow-covered into the blue sky.
There were weird cacti that produced yellow, edible pears and eucalyptus trees with their wonderfully strong smell. One of the residents of the hotel was a beautiful Englishwoman who played the guitar and showed the most friendly interest in me. My mother forbade me to speak to her. I racked my brains for a reason for this prohibition. What could such a lovely, charming woman have done? And how did my mother – who was not even acquainted with her – know that she had committed a crime? I worried a great deal about the beautiful woman and often, while I was playing alone on the beach, I would think how I might help her get away in case the police came after her.
After a month we returned to Lisbon where the Feast of Saint Anthony of Padua, who was born in the city, was being celebrated with much festivity.
There were lights on all the hills surrounding the city, fireworks crackled all around, and against the night sky you could see the saint preaching his famous sermon to the fishes.
By autumn my period of exile was finally over and I was allowed to return to grandmother.