LOTTA SCHMIDT
AND
OTHER STORIES.
BY
ANTHONY TROLLOPE,
AUTHOR OF
“TALES OF ALL COUNTRIES,”
“DOCTOR THORNE,”
“PHINEAS FINN,”
“ORLEY FARM,”
ETC. ETC.
FOURTH EDITION.
LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY.
1876.
(The right of translation is reserved.)
LOTTA SCHMIDT.
LOTTA SCHMIDT.
S all the world knows, the old fortifications of Vienna have beenpulled down,—the fortifications which used to surround the centre orkernel of the city; and the vast spaces thus thrown open and forming abroad ring in the middle of the town have not as yet been completelyfilled up with those new buildings and gardens which are to be there,and which, when there, will join the outside city and the inside citytogether, so as to make them into one homogeneous whole.
The work, however, is going on, and if the war which has come and passedhas not swallowed everything appertaining to Austria into its maw, theugly remnants of destruction will be soon carted away, and the oldglacis{4} will be made bright with broad pavements, and gilded railings,and well-built lofty mansions, and gardens beautiful with shrubs, andbeautiful with turf also, if Austrian patience can make turf to growbeneath an Austrian sky.
On an evening of September, when there was still something left ofdaylight, at eight o’clock, two girls were walking together in theBurgplatz, or large open space which lies between the city palace of theemperor and the gate which passes thence from the old town out to thenew town. Here at present stand two bronze equestrian statues, one ofthe Archduke Charles, and the other of Prince Eugene. And they werestanding there also, both of them, when these two girls were walkinground them; but that of the prince had not as yet been uncovered for thepublic.
There was coming a great gala day in the city, Emperors and empresses,archdukes and grand-dukes, with their archduchesses and grand-duchesses,and princes and ministers, were to be there, and the new statue ofPrince Eugene was to