readers of the foregoing pages will have had occasion to remark that, except when diversified by fire or bloodshed, life at hermanstadt was not a lively one; therefore an invitation which i received during my second winter in transylvania to spend some weeks at klausenburg during the carnival season was very welcome. it was a decided relief to get away from the vulgar monotony of those antiquated flirtations which in hermanstadt did duty for society, and to be reminded of things one was in danger of forgetting—of fresh young faces, light pretty dresses, and real dancing.
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nor was i disappointed in what i saw during my fortnight’s stay at klausenburg: pretty dresses in plenty; prettier faces, for the girls of the place are justly celebrated for their good looks; and as for dancing—why, i do not think i ever knew before what it was to see real, heartfelt, impassioned, indefatigable dancing. an account of the three last carnival days, as i spent them at klausenburg, will convey some notion of what is there understood by the word dancing.
we had arrived late on the evening of the saturday preceding ash-wednesday, therefore only the gentlemen of the party, unwilling to lose a single instant of their precious holiday-time, rushed off to a large public ball or redoute.
the following evening—carnival sunday—assembled the whole society in the salons of the military commander, baron v——, whose guest i was at the time. there were from thirty to thirty-six dancing couples, and the first thing to strike a stranger on entering the room was, that not a single plain face was to be seen among them. almost all the young girls were pretty, some of them remarkably so; dark beauties mostly, with a wealth of black plaits, glorious eyes, and creamy complexions, and with the small hand and high-curved instep which characterize hungarian ladies. the faintest suspicion of a dark shade on the upper lip was not without charm in some cases; and when viewed against a strong light, many of the well-cut profiles had a soft, downy appearance, which decidedly enhanced their piquante effect. side by side with these, however, were one or two faces fair enough to have graced any english ball-room.
what pleased me here to see was, that the married women, as a matter of course, leave the dancing-field to the young girls, and do not attempt, by display of an outrageous luxury in dress, to concentrate attention on themselves: the particular type of exquisite élégante never missing from a french or polish salon has no place here. this is surely as it should be and as nature intended; pleasure, dancing, flirtation are for the young and the unmarried, and those who have had their turn should be content to stand aside and look on henceforth; but when, as is too often the case, it comes to be a trial of strength between matrons and maidens as to which shall capture the best partners and carry off the greatest number of trophies, the result can only be an unnatural and distorted state of society.
what edinburgh society was to london some fifty years ago, so does klausenburg stand to-day with regard to pesth. as nearly all{333} the people here are connected by ties of blood as well as of friendship, something of the privacy of a family circle marks their intercourse; and while lacking none of the refining touches of modern civilization, a breath of patriarchal sans gêne pervades the atmosphere.
the weak side of klausenburg society at present is a minority of gentlemen, as of late years many members of distinguished families have got to prefer the wider range of excitement offered by a season at buda-pesth to the more restricted circle of a purely transylvanian society which satisfied their fathers and grandfathers. on this occasion, however, there was no lack of dancers, for the young hussars who had come with us from hermanstadt efficiently filled up the social gaps, restoring the balance of sex in the most satisfactory manner.
what interested me most in the ball-room was to watch the expression of the tzigane musicians crowded together in a door-way; their black eyes rolling restlessly from side to side, nothing escapes their notice, and they are evidently far better informed of every flirtation, mistake, coolness, or quarrel in the wind, than the most vigilant chaperon.
of course here, as at every hungarian ball, the principal feature was the csardas; and it was curious to see how, at the very first notes of this dance, the young people all precipitated themselves to the end of the room where the musicians were placed, jostling one another in their anxiety each to get nearest to the music. to an uninitiated stranger it looks most peculiar to see this knot of dancers all pressed together like herrings in a barrel in one small corner, while fully two-thirds of a spacious ball-room are standing empty; but the hungarians declare that the tziganes only play the csardas with spirit when they see the dancers at close quarters, treading on their very toes and brushing up against the violins. sometimes the band-master, unable to control his excitement, breaks loose from the niche or door-way assigned to the band, and, advancing into the room, becomes himself the centre of the whirling knot of dancers.
whenever the csardas comes to an end there is a violent clapping of hands to make the music resume. hungarians are absolutely insatiable in this respect, and, however long the dance has lasted, there will always be eager cries for more and more and more.
the cotillon, which was kept up till seven in the morning, was much prettier than any i remember to have seen danced before, for{334} hungarians are as superior to germans or englishwomen in point of grace as they are to poles in the matter of animation—and they executed all the usual figures demanding the introduction of a cushion, a mirror, a fan, india-rubber balls, etc., in a manner equally removed from boisterous romping as from languid affectation.
the following evening (monday) the society reassembled at the pleasant and hospitable house of mme. de z——, whose dark-eyed daughters take a foremost rank among transylvanian beauties. in order to have some strength remaining for what was still to come, dancing was on this occasion reduced to the modest allowance of six hours, the gypsies being compulsorily sent away soon after three o’clock, in order to force the young people to take some rest.
on tuesday we all met again at the casino for the bachelor’s ball, given by the gentlemen of the place, and where, with the exception of supper and occasional snatches of refreshment, dancing was kept up uninterruptedly till near eight o’clock next morning. at the conclusion of the cotillon each lady received from her partner a pretty white and silver fan, on which her initials were engraved—a souvenir which i have much pleasure in preserving, in remembrance of the happy days i passed at klausenburg.
an old traditional dance, which they here call écossaise (but which in reality is simply a pot-pourri of several english country-dances), is danced at klausenburg after midnight on shrove-tuesday, or rather ash-wednesday morning.[76] this dance having been somewhat neglected of late years, the young people blundered sorely over some of the figures, and the dance would have lapsed into hopeless chaos had not the former generation gallantly thrown themselves into the breach. respectable fathers of grown-up daughters, and white-haired grandmothers, now started to their feet, instinctively roused to action by vivid recollections of their own youth; and such is the power of memory that soon they were footing it with the nimblest dancers, going through each figure with unerring precision, and executing the complicated steps with an accuracy and grace which did honor to the dancing-masters of half a century ago.
one of these figures was the old one of cat and mouse, in which{335} the girl, protected by a ring of dancers, tries to escape the pursuit of her partner, who seeks to break through the line of defenders—the moment when the cat seizes its prey being always marked by the band-master causing his violin to give a piteous squeak, imitating to perfection the agonized death-shriek of a captured mouse.
it is de rigueur that the last dance on ash-wednesday morning should be executed by daylight. this was about seven o’clock, when, the lights being extinguished and the shutters flung open, the gypsies threw all their remaining energies into a last furious, breathless galop—a weirder, wilder scene than i ever witnessed in a ball-room, to look at this frenziedly whirling mass of figures, but dimly to be descried in the scarcely breaking dawn—gray and misty-looking as ghosts risen from the grave to celebrate their nightly revels, and who, warned by the cock’s crow of approaching daybreak, are treading their last mazes with a fast and furious glee; while the wild strains of the tzigane band, rendered yet more fantastic by the addition of a monstrous drum (expressly introduced for the purpose of adding to the turmoil), might well have been borrowed from an infernal orchestra.
when the galop came to an end at last, from sheer want of breath on the part of both players and dancers, daylight was streaming into the room, disclosing a crowd of torn dresses, crushed flowers, and flushed and haggard faces, worn with the dissipation of the previous hours—a characteristic sight, but not a beautiful one by any means. each one now rushed to the tea-room to receive the cups of fresh steaming kraut suppe, served here at the conclusion of every ball. it is made of a species of pickled cabbage, and has a sharp acid flavor, most grateful to a jaded palate, and supposed to be supreme in restoring equilibrium to overtaxed digestions.
while the ladies were resting till their carriages were announced, the gentlemen began to light their cigars, and the tziganes, having recovered strength, resumed their bows; but what they now played was no longer dance music, but wild, fitful strains and melancholy national airs, addressed now to one, now to another of the listeners grouped about.
in other continental towns dancing is brought to an end on ash-wednesday morning, and most people would suppose that having danced for three nights running, even the youngest of the young would be glad to take some rest at last. not so at klausenburg: nobody is ever tired here or has need of rest, as far as i can make out;{336} and it is a special feature of the place that precisely ash-wednesday should be the day of all others when gayety runs the wildest. the older generation, indeed, lament that dancing is no longer what it used to be; for in their time the shrove-tuesday party used never to break up till the thursday morning, dancing being kept up the whole wednesday and the following night, people merely retiring in batches for an hour or so at a time to repair the damages to their toilets.
such desperate dissipation has now been modified, in so far as the party, separating towards 8 or 9 a.m., only meet again at 6 p.m., first to dine and then to dance. i could not get any one to explain to me the reason of this ash-wednesday dissipation, which i have never come across in any other place. most of those i asked could assign no reasons at all, except that it had always been the custom there as long as any one could remember; but one version i heard was that in 1848 the austrian government took into its head to forbid dancing in lent. “so, naturally, after that we had to make a point of dancing just on ash-wednesday to show our independence,” said my informant. the delicate flavor of forbidden fruit, which, no doubt, adds so much to the sweetness of these ash-wednesday parties, is kept up by the klausenburg clergy, who, after having for years vainly attempted to put a stop to this regularly recurring lenten profanation, now contents itself with a nominal protest each year against the revellers. thus, as often as the day comes round, a black-robed figure, sent hither to preach sackcloth and ashes, makes his appearance on the ball-room premises; but, more harmless than he looks, his bark is worse than his bite, and he interferes with no one’s enjoyment. he does not indite maledictions in letters of fire on the wall; neither does he act the part of banquo’s ghost at the banquet. probably he has in former years too often acted this part in vain, so finds it wiser now to compromise the matter by accepting a modest sum as alms for his church, and abandoning the sinners to their own devices.
in place of the limp and crushed tulles and tarlatans of the previous night, the young girls had now appeared mostly in pretty muslin and fresh summer toilets adorned with natural flowers. some of them looked rather pale, as well they might after their previous efforts; but at the first notes of the csardas every trace of fatigue was gone as if by magic, and not for worlds would any one of them have consented to sit through a single dance. “of course i am tired,” said a young girl to me, very seriously, “but you see it is quite impossible to sit{337} still when you hear the csardas playing; even if you are dying you must get up and dance.”
for my part, i confess that the mere effort of looking on this fourth night was positive exhaustion. long after midnight they were still dancing away like creatures possessed—dancing as though they never meant to stop, and as though their very souls’ salvation depended on not standing still for a single moment. my brain began to reel, and feeling that worn-out nature could do no more, i made the best of my way to carriage and bed, pursued by nightmares of a never-ending csardas.
after ash-wednesday klausenburg society settled down to a somewhat calmer routine of amusement, consisting in skating, theatre-going, visiting, and parties.
there is a pleasing elasticity about klausenburg visiting arrangements, people there restricting themselves to no particular hour, and no precise costume for going to see their acquaintances; so that ladies bound for the theatre or a party may often be seen paying two or three visits en route, not at all embarrassed by such trifles as short sleeves or flowers in the hair.
about two parties a day seemed to be the usual allowance here in lent. some of these reunions, beginning at five o’clock, were accompanied by cold coffee, ham sausages, and cakes; others, commencing at nine in the evening, were connected with tea and supper, so that frequently the self-same party might be said to begin in one house and terminate in another.
the gypsies were everywhere and anywhere to be seen, for most of these social gatherings end in dancing, and without the tzigane no pleasure is considered complete. pougracz, the present director of the tzigane band at klausenburg, has, so to say, grown up in society, his father having filled the post before him, and he himself, a man well on in middle-age—with such a delightfully shrewd, good-natured, rascally old face—has played for another generation of dancers, fathers and mothers of the young people who now fill the ball-room. there are other tzigane bands as good, but his is the only one “in society,” and it is most amusing to note the half-impudent familiarity of his manner towards both gentlemen and ladies who have grown up to the sound of his fiddle. it is positive agony to him to witness bad dancing, and he was wont to complain most bitterly of one gentleman to whom nature had denied an ear for music (a rare defect in any hungarian).{338} “none of you young people dance particularly well nowadays,” he remarked, with frank criticism, “but among you there is one who makes me positively ill to look at. if i were not to play at him and send my violin into his feet, he would never be able to get round at all.”
on another occasion, when the figures of the écossaise threatened to melt away into hopeless confusion, pougracz angrily turned round and apostrophized a married lady who was sitting near me. “how can you sit there and see them making such a mess of it all?” he said. “it is not so long ago that you were dancing yourself as to have forgotten all about it, so go and make order among them!”
the pretty old-fashioned custom of serenades being still here en vogue, sometimes on a dark winter’s night, between two and three o’clock, one may hear the tzigane band strike up under the window of some fêted beauty, playing her favorite air or nota. the serenade may either have been arranged by a special admirer, or merely by a good friend of the family. often, too, several young men will arrange to bring serenades to all the young ladies of their acquaintance, going from one house to another. the lady thus serenaded does not show herself at the window, but if the attention be agreeable to her, she places a lighted candle in the casement in token that the serenade is accepted.
such acceptance is, however, by no means compromising, no serious construction being necessarily put upon what may simply be intended as a friendly attention.
there is something decidedly refreshing about such frank ovations nowadays, when the lords of creation have become so extremely chary of their precious attentions towards the fair sex. to offer a nosegay to a girl is in some places so fraught with ominous meaning as to be considered equivalent to a marriage proposal, and exquisite young dandies are apt to feel themselves seriously compromised by the gift of a single rose-bud.
only, the klausenburg roses have no such treacherous thorns, it seems; and methinks society must surely be healthy in a place where any gentleman may, without laying himself open to the charge of lunacy, wake up a whole street at 3 a.m. by instigating a musical row beneath the window of a young lady acquaintance.