From the historian's notes

Trieste, 1912

Italy · Europe · October 1912 · autumn

What it was high

the Austro-Hungarian Empire's great seaport, about 230,000 people at the 1910 census and still growingRoman Tergeste; the Habsburg free port since 1719

That year

• The First Balkan War begins: Montenegro declares war on the Ottoman Empire on 8 October, and Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece follow within ten days. A port whose ships sail to the Levant feels it first October 1912 highthe war the Adriatic has been bracing for
• James Joyce lives here, teaching English at the Berlitz school and in private lessons; he has just come back from what will be his last visit to Ireland September 1912 highone exile among many in an exile's city
• His pupil Ettore Schmitz, a paint-company manager, writes novels in Italian as Italo Svevo these years highthe city's literature written in its spare hours

Who held it high

Austria-Hungary: Trieste is an imperial free city and the capital of the Austrian LittoralEmperor Franz Joseph I, on the throne since 1848; the Littoral's governor is Prince Konrad zu Hohenlohe-SchillingsfürstItalian, Slovene and German loyalties pull against one another in every election, and this month the Balkans go to war across the Adriatic

Its name high

Trieste in Italian and the Triestine dialect of the streets; Triest to the German-speaking administration; Trst to the Slovenes of the KarstWritten in Latin

The date, there high

1912Gregorian; Central European Time on the railways since 1891Railway time sets the city's clocks; the Lloyd's sailing schedule sets its weeks; church bells still count the hours.

Money medium

Austro-Hungarian krone100 hellera coffee or a tram ride: some heller, not crowns

Weather medium

October: mild days around 15–20 °C, cooler nights, the first autumn rainthe bora, the cold north-east wind off the Karst, can blow at storm force; ropes are strung along exposed streets for pedestrians to hold

Things

ObjectsAustrian Lloyd sailing timetables; picture postcards of the waterfront; newspapers in Italian, German and Slovene on café racks; coffee sacks from Santos in the free-port warehousesFoodcoffee as the city's daily ritual; jota, a bean-and-sauerkraut soup; the Triestine buffet: boiled pork, mustard and grated horseradish; Viennese pastry beside Italian breadClothViennese tailoring on the Corso; sailors' blue serge; Slovene market women in white headscarvesGetting aboutelectric trams; the Opicina tramway climbing the Karst (since 1902); Lloyd steamers to Venice, the Levant and Bombay; the new Transalpina railway northIn the airroasting coffee; coal smoke from the steamers; salt and wet stone; the bora's clean, cold air

What she'd hear

Triestine dialect in the street, German in the offices, Slovene at the markets, Greek and Serbian in the merchant houses, and Joyce's English in a few classrooms.

Where she could stand

• the post and telegraph palace — the imperial post office of the 1890s, with its poste restante counter
• Via San Nicolò — the street of the pension with the blue door, four years on
• the Molo San Carlo — the long stone pier where the city walks at evening
• the Canal Grande — the short commercial canal of the Borgo Teresiano, its head closed by the domed Serbian Orthodox church of San Spiridione
• Caffè Tommaseo — the old café near the Riva, mirrors and newspapers on poles

Researched for this card · confidence high