THE
CITY WITHOUT JEWS
A NOVEL OF OUR TIME
BY
HUGO BETTAUER
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
BY
SALOMEA NEUMARK BRAININ
[Illustration]
_Authorized English Translation_
BLOCH PUBLISHING COMPANY
NEW YORK 1927
COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY
BLOCH PUBLISHING CO., INC.
_International Copyrights Secured_
SECOND PRINTING
Printed in the U. S.
CONTENTS
PART I
CHAPTER PAGE
1. THE ANTI-JEWISH LAW 3
2. HERR SCHNEUZEL AND HIS SON-IN-LAW 23
3. AT CLOSING TIME 27
4. A SHOT 30
5. GIRLS AMONG THEMSELVES 35
6. DR. SCHWERTFEGER 39
7. A MIDDLE-CLASS VIENNESE HOME 48
8. “MY DEAR CHRISTIANS!” 57
PART II
1. LOTTE SPINEDER TO LEO STRAKOSCH, 22 RUE FOCH, PARIS 65
2. ROUGH WOOLENS--THE LATEST STYLE 72
3. THE OLD-TIMER 77
4. “SOMETHING HE CANNOT FINISH” 80
5. HENRY DUFRESNE 84
6. THE END OF THE TENANTS’ PROTECTIVE LAW 94
7. ZWICKERL GOES INTO BANKRUPTCY 99
8. THE SWEET, GAY YOUNG THINGS 105
9. THE END OF THE HAKENKREUZLER 109
10. CHEAP SUMMER-RESORTS 114
11. A STORMY DEBATE 121
12. THE LEAGUE OF TRUE CHRISTIANS 125
13. A MELANCHOLY CHRISTMAS 132
14. AN INFLAMMATORY SPEECH 137
15. HERR LABERL TURNS 144
16. “DOWN WITH THE GOVERNMENT!” 149
17. PREPARATIONS 156
18. THE ELECTION 165
19. A DISASTROUS DRINK 169
20. THE REPEAL OF THE ANTI-JEWISH LAW 177
21. “MY BELOVED JEW!” 186
INTRODUCTION
The City Without Jews! It sounds almost like a jest, a paradox. The
cosmopolitan will smile at the title; yet both Jews and Christians will
prick up their ears and wonder: “Does such a thing exist?”
Some will consider this book merely a clever fantasy. Still, the
reading of it will make them feel that _The City Without Jews_ is
symptomatic of our time.
One fine day a law is passed in the great city, Vienna (but it might
just as well have been New York or London), expelling all Jews from the
country. Not only Jews and converted Jews must leave, but also those of
Jewish origin: that is, the children of mixed marriages.
The law, which the most rabid Ku Klux Klansman, _Hakenkreuzler_, or
anti-Semite could not have conceived more skilfully even in his wildest
dreams, is rigorously enforced. “Unregistered merchants, retail-dealers
and so-called commission agents must leave the country within three
months of the passage of the law; registered proprietors of firms,
clerks, civil service employes, and manual laborers, within four
months; artists, scholars, physicians, attorneys and the like, within
five months. Directors of corporations, banks, and industries that paid
taxes on an income of more than two hundred million kronen in the past
year, are given six months’ time.”
After six months, the city without Jews comes into being.
As for Hugo Bettauer, its author--this whimsical flight of his fancy
cost him his life. In March, 1925, not long after the publication of
the novel, he was killed by a zealous twenty-year old ‘Nordic’. At the
trial, the murderer declared himself content with his deed, as he had
resolved to save German _Kultur_ from degeneration, and believed that
Bettauer was a menace to this _Kultur_.
But curiously enough Hugo Bettauer was himself a good Christian, the
scion of a Protestant Viennese merchant family. Not a Jew--not an
interested propagandist! A talented journalist of the Danube City,
whose versatile pen mastered the novel as well as the feuilleton.
What was Bettauer’s crime? He wrote a novel of our time. His
journalistic temperament, his many travels and adventures had brought
him in contact with all spheres of society. Twelve years of his life
were spent in New York--he knew metropolitan life in both hemispheres,
knew it as thoroughly and intimately as only a finely discerning
observer can. That is why Bettauer’s _City Without Jews_ became a
universal novel, transcending the geographical boundaries of Austria.
That is also why Bettauer’s Vienna will seem so familiar to New
Yorkers, Londoners, even Parisians.
Wittily, fascinatingly, colorfully, Hugo Bettauer builds the city
without Jews. With a sure touch he raises the curtain behind which this
hundred per cent Christian city works and plays. Nonchalantly, with
an ironic smile, the Viennese artist takes us to the stock exchange,
the theatre, the great department stores, shows us the night life,
the middle-class Viennese home, the Parliament and the café. We see
and enjoy the city without Jews in all its phases. Dispassionately,
Bettauer paints a modern picture that lives and breathes. But why do we
read the novel as though it were a thrilling episode in contemporary
history? And why did Hugo Bettauer receive the fatal bullet as royalty
for his novel?
An attempt to answer this scientifically would bring us to the
fundamental question of the mutual adaptability of Jews and non-Jews.
It would touch upon the race problem that still torments the world--now
more than ever--and which Bettauer knew so well. Propagandist phrases
could easily slip in, phrases that would again stir up the ancient
controversy between the Jewish and the Christian _Weltanschauung_.
It would be unfair toward the author of this book. For Bettauer
successfully escaped the temptation to propagandize.
The City Without Jews was built by Bettauer, the fearless Christian.
Explanation, comment, or an analysis of his purpose, would be out of
place, and might be interpreted as an attempt to use his novel as
political propaganda.
In Europe, _The City Without Jews_, is arousing an unabating interest.
In less than a year, a quarter of a million copies of the novel have
been sold, an unprecedented figure in German modern literature. The
translation for the American edition was made from the fifty-fourth
edition, following exactly the simple, unaffected style of the original.
_New York, 1926_ THE TRANSLATOR
PART ONE
CHAPTER I.
THE ANTI-JEWISH LAW
A solid human wall, extending from the University to the Bellaria,
surrounded the beautiful and imposing Parliament Building. All
Vienna seemed to have assembled on this June morning to witness an
historic event of incalculable importance. Businessmen and laborers,
fashionable ladies and women of the people, half-grown boys and old
men, young girls, little children, invalids in rolling chairs--all
were intermingled, shouting, debating, and perspiring. And ever and
again someone suddenly felt the urge to deliver a speech before his
neighbors, ever and again there burst forth the cry: “Throw out the
Jews!”
Ordinarily it happened at such demonstrations that people with hooked
noses or conspicuously black hair were given a thorough beating. But
this time nothing of the sort occurred, for not a Jew was in sight;
and the cafés and banking-houses of the Franzensring and Schottenring
sagely taking into account all possibilities, had closed their doors
and pulled down their shades.
Suddenly a deafening roar filled the air.
“Hail Dr. Karl Schwertfeger--Hail, hail, hail! Hail the liberator of
Austria!”
Slowly an open automobile rolled through the human mass as it receded
to make way. In the car sat a powerful old man, his massive skull
covered with unruly tufts of white hair.
He took off his soft gray hat, nodded to the jubilant crowd, and
twisted his face into a smile. But it was a sour smile, somehow belied
by the two furrows that ran downward from the corners of his mouth.
And the expression of his deep-set gray eyes seemed somber rather than
joyful.
Laughing girls crowded forward, swung themselves on the running-board;
one tossed flowers to the great man, another, bolder, threw her arms
around Dr. Schwertfeger’s neck and kissed him on the cheek. The
chauffeur, apparently familiar with his master’s reaction to such
emotional outbursts, made the car give a lurch forward, so that the
girls were suddenly thrown off backward. But they were not hurt, for a
dozen arms stretched out to catch them as they fell.
Within the Parliament Building, however, the vociferous enthusiasm
of the street did not prevail; in its place was feverish excitement,
too intense to be expressed aloud. The deputies,--not one of whom was
missing,--the ministers and ushers went about in anxious silence; and
even the overcrowded galleries made not the slightest noise.
Only whispers issued from the press tables, where careless ease had
always been the rule. And a definite territorial division had been
made. The compact Jewish majority of the reporters had crowded its
chairs together, while the representatives of the Christian-Socialist
and German-Nationalist papers formed a group of their own. Formerly
the Jewish and Christian newspapermen had mingled freely--in their
profession they were not partisans, but only colleagues. Furthermore,
since the Jewish journalists generally had more news, and were able to
turn it to better account, their anti-Semitic brothers depended on them
a good deal. Today, however, the Christians cast malevolent glances
toward the Jews; and when little Karpeles of the _Weltpost_, who had
just come in, greeted Dr. Wiesel of the _Wehr_ with a friendly “Good
morning,” the latter turned his back without responding.
Newspapermen continued to pour in; among them were representatives of
the foreign press, just arrived in Vienna for this occasion.
“Impossible to move,” growled Herglotz, of the Christian _Tag_,
whereupon a bearded little fellow with a tremendous waistline, replied:
“Only a few days more, then we’ll have plenty of room here!”
Subdued coughs, laughter, and smiles on the one side, an exchange of
significant glances on the other.
A blond, pink-cheeked young man bowed slightly to the left and to the
right.
“I’m Holborn, of the _London Telegraph_. Got here just an hour ago,
and don’t know where I am. Arrived in London day before yesterday
after a six months’ stay in Sydney--and an hour later I was in the
train again, on my way to Vienna. Our managing editor, the old fool,
told me nothing, but only said: ‘Plenty of excitement in Vienna these
days--they’re throwing out the Jews. Go there and cable me till the
wires burn up!’ So it would be very kind of you, I’d be eternally
grateful, if you’d tell me what it’s all about.”
This speech had been delivered in so droll an Anglicized German that
the tension was somewhat relieved. Gesticulating violently, Minkus of
the _Tagesbote_ took hold of his English colleague and began:
“Now, I’ll explain everything to you....” But Dr. Wiesel did not let
him continue. “You will pardon me, but it would be more appropriate for
this explanation to come from _our_ side.”
A menacing tone, ominous emphasis on the word “our.”
And in a trice Holborn was in the Christian corner, where, in a few
terse sentences, Wiesel sketched the situation:
“As to what is going to happen, you will hear that shortly from the
lips of our Chancellor, Dr. Karl Schwertfeger, who will go into the
details of the law for the expulsion of all non-Aryans from Austria.
Briefly, the history is as follows: After our so-called financial
recovery, which lasted for two years, Austrian money again fell into
a disorganized state. And when the value of the krone had fallen
to the two hundredth part of a centime, chaos set in. Ministries
fell one after the other, disturbances occurred every day, there was
looting of shops, to say nothing of pogroms--the populace, desperate,
stopped at nothing, until finally new elections had to be called. The
Social-Democrats entered the campaign with their old program, while
the Christian-Socialists swarmed about their gifted leader, Dr. Karl
Schwertfeger, whose rallying-cry was: Throw out the Jews from Austria!
Now, as you may be aware,”--Holborn nodded, though he knew nothing
about it,--“the result of the elections was a complete collapse of the
Social-Democrats, Communists, and Liberals. Even the working masses
voted for ‘throwing out the Jews,’ and the Socialist party, formerly
the strongest, barely salvaged eleven seats. The Pan-Germans, however,
who came out with flying colors, had also taken up the cry of ‘Throw
out the Jews.’
“So, with his genius, his fearless energy, his bold impetuosity and
eloquence, Dr. Schwertfeger succeeded in obtaining the consent of the
League of Nations for this great expulsion of the Jews; for he had
placed before the League the alternative of the annexation of Austria
to Germany or a free hand in this matter. And now Schwertfeger is to
propose the law, which will certainly be passed. You are, therefore,
witnessing an historic....”
Calls of “Hush!” came from all sides. Wiesel could not continue,
for the Presiding Officer of the House, a red-whiskered Tyrolese,
flourished his gavel and gave the floor to the Chancellor.
Sepulchral silence, through which the humming of the ventilators
sounded weirdly. A suppressed cough, the rustling of papers in the
press gallery--everything was heard distinctly.
Inordinately tall although his head was thrust forward and his
shoulders stooped, the Chancellor stood on the platform. His hands,
clenched into fists, rested on the desk; from under the bushy gray
brows his keen, glittering eyes sped over the auditorium. He stood
thus, motionless, until suddenly, throwing back his head, he began with
the powerful voice that had always commanded attention at even the most
turbulent meetings:
“Ladies and gentlemen! I am about to propose the law and the amendments
to our constitution that purpose nothing less than the expulsion of the
non-Aryan,--to be precise, of the Jewish elements from Austria. Before
I proceed to this, however, I wish to make some purely personal remarks.
“For five years I have been the leader of the Christian-Socialist
party; and for a year I have been Chancellor, having been chosen for
this position by an overwhelming majority of this House. During these
five years the so-called liberal papers and the Social-Democratic
sheets,--in short, all the papers edited by Jews,--have depicted me
as a sort of bugbear, a rabid Jew-hater, a fanatic enemy of the Jews
and everything Jewish. Just today, when the power of this press is
approaching its irrevocable end, I feel impelled to explain that all
this is not true. Yes, I have the courage to state today, from this
platform, that I am much more a friend than a foe of the Jews!”
The hall rustled with whispers like a field from which a flock of birds
is rising.
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I like the Jews. Before I entered the
seething arena of politics I had Jewish friends; in the lecture
halls of our Alma Mater I sat at the feet of Jewish teachers whom I
revered, and still revere. And I am always ready to recognize--yes,
to admire--the native virtues of the Jews, their extraordinary
intelligence, their strivings for higher things, their model family
life, their internationalism, and their ability to adapt themselves to
any environment!”
Cries of “Hear! Hear!” were audible, the deputies and visitors became
tense with excitement. The English journalist, who had not understood
everything, curiously asked Dr. Wiesel whether the man down there were
not the spokesman of the Jews.
The Chancellor went on.
“In spite of this,--or, rather, because of it,--I became more and more
convinced, as the years passed, that we non-Jews can no longer live
together with the Jews, that we must either bend or break, that we
must give up either our Christian ways, our own life and customs, or
the Jews. Ladies and gentlemen! The trouble is simply that we Austrian
Aryans are no match for the Jews, that we are ruled, oppressed, and
violated by a small minority because this minority possesses qualities
which we lack. The Latin peoples, the Anglo-Saxons, the Yankees, even
the North Germans and the Suabians can digest the Jews because these
nations equal, if they do not surpass them in agility, tenacity,
energy, and business sense. We, however, cannot digest them; with us
they always remain a foreign element that spreads over our entire body
and finally enslaves us. The vast majority of our people comes from the
mountain country; it is a simple and sincere people, dreamy, playful,
given to impractical ideals, fond of music and calm contemplation of
nature, upright and pious, thoughtful and good. These are marvellously
beautiful qualities which can give rise to a splendid culture and a
wonderful new life--if they are given free play and an opportunity to
develop. But the Jews among us did not permit this quiet development.
With their uncannily keen intelligence, their worldliness and
freedom of tradition, their catlike versatility and their lightning
comprehension--with all their faculties, accentuated by centuries of
oppression, they overpowered us, became our masters, and gained the
upper hand in all our economic, spiritual and cultural life.”
Shouts of “Bravo!” “Quite right!” “That’s so.”
With his bony right hand Dr. Schwertfeger raised the glass to his thin
lips, as his half ironic, half satisfied gaze swept the hall.
“Let us look at our little Austria today. In whose hands is the press,
and therefore public opinion? In the hands of the Jew! Who has piled
billions upon billions since the ill-starred year 1914? The Jew! Who
controls the tremendous circulation of our money, who sits at the
director’s desk in the great banks, who is the head of practically
all industries? The Jew! Who owns our theatres? The Jew! Who writes
the plays that are produced? The Jew! Who rides about in automobiles,
who revels in the night resorts, who crowds the cafés and fashionable
restaurants, who covers himself and his wife with pearls and precious
stones? The Jew!
“Ladies and gentlemen! I have said, and still maintain, that
essentially, when considered objectively, the Jew is an excellent
individual. But is not the rose-beetle with its iridescent wings
essentially also a beautiful, excellent creature? And notwithstanding
this is it not destroyed by the careful gardener who is more interested
in the rose than in the beetle?--Is not the tiger a splendid animal,
strong, fearless, intelligent? And do we not hunt it down because
the struggle for our own existence necessitates it? Only from this
standpoint can we Austrians view the Jewish problem. Either we, or the
Jew! Either we, who make up nine-tenths of the population, must perish,
or the Jew must go! And now, when at last we have the power, we would
be fools--nay, criminals--we would be sinning against ourselves and
our children were we not to make use of this power to expel the small
minority that is destroying us. Here we cannot consider high-sounding
words like humanity, justice, and tolerance--for our existence, our
very lives and the lives of future generations are at stake! The past
few years have increased our wretchedness a thousandfold; our state is
completely bankrupt, we are headed for disaster,--in a couple of years
our neighbors, under pretense of restoring order here, will pounce upon
us and tear our little country to pieces. But the Jews, unaffected by
all these events, will continue to thrive and flourish and to be the
masters of the situation. And as they have never been Germans in their
heart and soul, they will remain the masters when conditions will have
changed and we are slaves!”
Fearful agitation prevailed throughout the house. Savage cries burst
forth: “That must never be! Let us save ourselves and our children!”
And from the street came the echo, from ten thousand throats: “Throw
out the Jews!”
Dr. Schwertfeger let the excitement run its course, shook hands with
his colleagues in the ministry, and then spoke on the enforcement
of the law. For the sake of humanity, and in compliance with the
conditions specified by the League of Nations, great consideration and
absolute justice would be the rule. Everyone was to have the right
to take along as much of his property as consisted of cash, valuable
papers, and jewelry, as well as to sell his real estate and business
as he pleased. Enterprises that could not be sold would be taken over
by the state, the net profits for the past year, as entered in the
tax report, being taken as five per cent of the total value. Thus, if
an enterprise had produced a net profit of half a million in the past
year, it could be redeemed for ten million. The Chancellor’s lip curled
in a malicious smile.
“In the calculation of these amounts, as well as in giving permission
for the taking along of cash, we shall of course be guided by the tax
returns only. Thus a man who has claimed to have no money will not
be permitted to take any with him; and if he nevertheless has some
property it will be confiscated. If a man has given the net profit of
his business as half a million, he may take along ten million, even
though it should develop that his actual income was ten times more.
In this way many a sin will receive bitter retribution,” observed the
speaker, as the hall rocked with laughter. Then he continued:
“Those who do intellectual work and men who receive a definite
salary, who really own no property,--like physicians,--will, on their
departure, receive from the state the amount they designated as their
yearly income on their tax report. So that if a physician has stated
his income to be three hundred thousand kronen, he will receive this
sum. To prevent any further evasion of taxes the law includes the
Draconian provision that any attempt to take out sums greater than
those permitted is to be punished by death. Similarly, Jews or those of
Jewish origin who attempt to continue staying in Austria secretly, do
so under pain of death.
“The law is to be enforced as follows:
“Unregistered merchants, retail-dealers, and so-called commission
agents must leave Austrian territory within three months of the passage
of the law; registered proprietors of firms, clerks, civil service
employes, and manual laborers, within four months; artists, scholars,
physicians, attorneys, and the like, within five months. Directors of
corporations, banks, and industries that paid taxes on an income of
more than two hundred million kronen in the past year are given six
months’ time.
“And now I come to an important point, to which I will ask you to give
close attention. As you know, the law of expulsion applies not only to
Jews and converted Jews, but to those of Jewish origin as well. This
term includes the children resulting from mixed marriages. If, for
example, a Christian woman of pure Germanic-Aryan stock has married a
Jew, he and the children of this marriage are to be expelled, while
the wife is permitted to remain in Austria. After mature deliberation,
however, the government has decided to consider the grandchildren of
mixed marriages as being not of Jewish origin, but Aryan. Thus if a
Christian has married a Jewess the children will be expelled, but the
grandchildren may remain in the country, provided that their parents
have not mixed again with Jewish blood. This, however, is absolutely
the only concession made by the law; no other exceptions can be
permitted. We have received requests from many quarters to provide for
certain exemptions, that, for example, the law should not apply to
people who have passed a certain age, to invalids, and to Jews who have
performed special services for the state.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Had I listened to such counsel the whole law
would have become a farce. Jewish money and influence would have worked
day and night, tens of thousands of exceptional cases would have been
fabricated, and fifty years from now we would be in exactly the same
position as today. No! There will be no preference, no exception, no
pity, no passive collusion. The government will place splendid hospital
trains at the disposal of the sick and infirm; and only those Jews
whom a medico-judicial investigation finds absolutely incapable of
transportation will be permitted to await their recovery or death here.”
Dr. Schwertfeger bowed slightly and sank heavily into his chair.
But his last pronouncement had had a peculiar effect. Only a few
cheers came from the audience; a distinct, almost palpable cloud of
uneasiness hung over the house; many faces reflected unmistakable
terror and anxiety; there was some disturbance in the gallery, and a
woman shrieking, “My children!” fell in a swoon. And though thunderous
applause followed the Chancellor’s speech, yet the little group of
Social-Democrats shouted in unison: “Shocking! Shameful! An outrage!”
And now the red-bearded Presiding Officer gave the floor to Professor
Trumm, the Finance Minister. He was a small man, dry and shrivelled
as a prune, endowed with a treble voice; and his speech suffered
occasional interruptions that served to free his tongue when it became
caught between his gums and the upper edge of his dental plate. He
discussed the financial aspects of the expulsion law before a deeply
interested house. The redemption of Jewish concerns and real estate
would make heavy drains not only on the private capital of the
Christians but on the finances of the state as well. Thousands of
billions of kronen would barely suffice; and it had to be recognized
that one of the first results of the expulsion of the Jews would be all
sorts of financial difficulties.
“But, heaven be praised,” here the Finance Minister crossed himself,
“we will not stand alone in the dark days to come! I bring to the
House the joyful tidings that the true Christians of all the world
have united to help us. Not only has the Austrian government conducted
international negotiations for months, but the Pius Association has
been making unobtrusive but effective propaganda that is bearing
splendid fruit. The League of the Active Christians of the Scandinavian
Countries, whose members include many powerful bankers and merchants,
places at our disposal great credits in Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian
money. The American industrial king, Jonathan Huxtable, one of the
richest men of the world and a zealous champion of Christianity, has
declared his readiness to invest twenty million dollars in Austria. The
Christian League of France is mobilizing a hundred million francs,--in
short, billions of kronen will have to be sent out of the country to
let in a flood of billions in gold!”
Tremendous enthusiasm throughout the house. Several dozen deputies,
hurriedly leaving their seats, dashed to the telephones to give their
banks orders to sell foreign money. The switchboard could hardly
manage the rush of calls for “Karpeles & Co.,” “Veilchenfeld & Son,”
“Rosenstrauch & Butterfrass,” “Kohn, Cohn, & Kohen” and all the rest
of the great banking-houses. And while the Finance Minister, who had
wasted an entire minute to free his imprisoned tongue, went on with
his speech, Holborn, the Englishman, grinned as he told the other
newspapermen:
“Jonathan Huxtable is a fine fellow! He’s been raving and ranting
against the Jews ever since his wife eloped with a Jewish prize
fighter. He’s a strict prohibitionist, but he gets drunk every day on
a cordial he buys from his druggist. Drinking a whole bottle of Eau de
Cologne in one breath is said to be nothing unusual for him. And if
he’s going to invest twenty million dollars here, he surely expects to
make fifty.”
Dr. Wiesel’s face expressed disapproval, while the Jewish reporters
quickly took down notes for some last malicious items.
Speakers, _pro_ and _con_, came forward. The Social-Democrats attacked
the law; but when Weitherz, their leader, in calm and measured terms
expressed his indignation and called the proposed measure a disgrace
to humanity, a terrific uproar arose, the galleries threw keys and
crumpled paper at the Social-Democrats, a fist fight ensued, and the
small opposition left the hall under protest. Pastor Zweibacher lauded
Dr. Schwertfeger as a modern apostle who deserved canonization; the
Pan-German deputies Wondratschek and Jiratschek, however, discussed the
law from the racial point of view only, and Jiratschek, who spoke with
a pronounced Bohemian accent, wept with emotion and closed with the
words: “Wotan is among us!”
The last speaker, received with cries of “Hep! Hep!” and jeering
“Ai-wai” calls, was the solitary Zionist deputy, the engineer Minkus
Wassertrilling. With folded arms the tall, slender, handsome young man
waited until order was restored, and then said:
“My dear disciples of the Jew who, in order to save humanity, was
foolish enough to let himself be crucified!”
Vehement interjections of “Throw out the Jews!”
“Yes, gentlemen, I join your cry of ‘Throw out the Jews!’ And I will
gladly cast my vote in favor of this law. We Zionists welcome it, for
it falls in line with all our aims and tendencies. About half of the
five hundred thousand Jews expelled by this law will unite under the
Zionist standard, and I know that the others will be received with
open arms in France and England, Italy and America, Spain and the
Balkan countries. I am not worried about the fate of my people--what
your spiteful malice and stupidity intend as a curse will become a
blessing.”
The hooting that again broke out drowned the rest of his speech, and
finally the Zionist also was pushed out of the hall.
When the roll was called, therefore, the law was passed unanimously;
and that same day it was rushed through the committee and the second
and third readings.
Late at night, when the deputies were at last able to leave the hall,
they saw Vienna illuminated for a celebration. Red and white flags
waved over all the public buildings, fireworks were displayed, and
until long after midnight processions marched past the Chancellor’s
palace to cheer Dr. Schwertfeger and extol him as the liberator of
Austria.
CHAPTER II.
HERR SCHNEUZEL AND HIS SON-IN-LAW
The next morning--it was a Sunday--Antonius Schneuzel, member of the
National Assembly, the Municipal Council, the Board of Overseers of the
Poor, and the Board of Trade, appeared at the family breakfast table
a good deal the worse for his zealous celebration of the victory; and
immediately he sensed trouble in the air. His wife’s nose seemed longer
than ever--a signal of approaching storm; the eyes of his daughter,
Frau Corroni, were swollen; her husband, the young business man Alois
Corroni, greeted his father-in-law with an impudent and scornful smile;
and when Herr Schneuzel, worried and confused, let his little eyes rove
about the table, his two grandchildren, Lintschi and Hansl, burst into
a fearful howl.
“Why, what in the world is the matter?”
Frau Schneuzel held her arms akimbo.
“What’s the matter, you idiot? Nothing’s the matter, except that you,
you old fool, have helped drive your daughter and your grandchildren
out of the country!”
“Why, how in the world--” stammered Herr Schneuzel. But the horrible
truth began to dawn upon him. Quite right,--in the course of the years
he had entirely forgotten that in his early youth his son-in-law, Herr
Alois Corroni, had borne the name of Sami Cohn,--that he had been able
to stand on his own feet when he was received into the arms of the
Church. And now he would have to get out, and with him would go the
children, who were of Jewish origin!
“It’s a mean trick,” Frau Corroni sobbed into her handkerchief.
“What’ll I do with the children now? Perhaps you want me to emigrate to
Jerusalem, you unnatural father, you?”
“It really is going a little too far,” Herr Corroni now declared,
emphasizing every word, “to chase a man of my sort out of the country
like a mad dog. I dare say I am at least as good a Christian as a
thousand others who spend all day in the barroom.--To drive out a man
like me, whose children are growing up in the Christian faith!”
Herr Schneuzel wanted to reply, and muttered something about a great
and sacred cause, about principles that could give no consideration to
individual cases. But no sooner had he begun than he felt his spouse
seizing him by his thin hair; nor did she relax her grip before she had
pulled out a good handful of the ever scantier foliage.
“Imbeciles, that’s what you are, all of you! You can go to the devil,
you and your Christianity! Hasn’t Loisl always been good to our Annerl?
Didn’t he give her a muskrat coat, doesn’t he raise the children like
princes? You should thank God she got a Jew, and not a fellow like you,
a drunkard and rowdy!”
“I ain’t a-goin’ to Jerusalem,” Lintschi now wailed, while Hans grasped
the opportunity to snatch the sugar roll from grandfather’s plate.
When the uproar was at its height Pepik, the cook, came in, resolutely
cleared the table, and calmly announced:
“I’m goin’! I’m goin’ to marry my Isidor, as is a clerk in the
co-op’rative store, an’ if he has to get out I’ll get out with him.
I wouldn’t care if the dep’ties and the Chancer would all hang
theirselves.”
After the excitement had died down Herr Corroni gave a calm exposition
of the situation.
“Of course I’m not even dreaming of emigrating to Palestine, if for no
other reason than that they wouldn’t let me in, since I’m a converted
Jew. No; I have a brother in Hamburg,--Uncle Eduard, you know; and
though he is angry with me because of my conversion, he won’t leave me
in the lurch now. Jews don’t forget family ties, thank God,” (these
words were punctuated by a cutting glance at Schneuzel). “And there
I will build up a new future for myself and my family--unless Annerl
would prefer to stay with you.”
Whereupon Frau Anna, tired and faded as is usual after fifteen years
of married life, suddenly recovered the pink cheeks of her youth, and,
fondly throwing her arms about the neck of Alois Corroni, (née Sami
Cohn), kissed him as a bride kisses her bridegroom, and really looked
like a girl again. And finally Herr Schneuzel, desperate and altogether
upset, had to promise to give his son-in-law a million to take along to
Hamburg as a sort of cornerstone for his new future.
In the afternoon Schneuzel, member of the National Assembly, the
Municipal Council, and the Board of Overseers of the Poor, went alone
to a Sievering bar, and began to fight with a crowd that was still
shouting “Throw out the Jews!” And he broke his bottle over the head of
one of the shouting celebrants, wherefor he received a most terrible
thrashing.
CHAPTER III.
AT CLOSING TIME
A talk in a niche beside a window of the Café Wögerer, opposite
the Stock Exchange, between Herr Strauss, proprietor of a banking
house, and his nephew, Siegfried Steiner, a medical student. Similar
conversations were taking place at every table; and on this day, far
from being boisterous, they were carried on almost inaudibly, with much
gesturing.
The young man was shaking his uncle’s hand.
“I thank you, dear Uncle, for promising to take me to London
with you. That’s a great consolation for me, for, between
ourselves--Jerusalem--never! Not for me! Nothing but Jews--I can’t
imagine it!”
The uncle smiled a slow smile. “I don’t give a rap about Jerusalem
myself. In London I’ll go into partnership with my old friend Moe
Seegward, who has a fine brokerage house there.”
Siegfried Steiner leaned forward and whispered: “I’d like to know one
thing, Uncle. You surely didn’t enter the actual amount of your fortune
and income in your tax report. So how are you going to get your money
over there, considering that since yesterday all our letters are being
censored?”
The uncle let the ashes of his cigar fall on his vest.
“_Chammer!_ Why does one have Christian friends? I went to see
Schuster, the manufacturer, today; and, confidentially I gave him a
billion in securities and cash, for which he gave me a draft on a
London bank. Of course the _ganef_ doesn’t do it for nothing, but makes
quite a bit on this transaction.”
The nephew nodded with satisfaction; and at thirty other tables various
other conversations also ended with nods of satisfaction.
An old Jew in a caftan, and with cork-screw curls, came in and went
from table to table, repeating his little speech: “Give alms to an old
Jew who lost everything he had in the Lemberg pogrom!”
Someone called from one of the tables: “Tell me, old man, where’ll you
go now?”
The old fellow wagged his head. “_Herrleben_, if I could get out of
the burning Lemberg Ghetto and reach Vienna, I guess I’ll find some
place to go to from Vienna. It’s all the same to me whether I _schnorr_
in Vienna, or Berlin, or Paris. Only I won’t talk about the pogrom any
more, but I’ll tell ’em how they threw out an old Jew like me.--Tell
me, _Herrleben_, do you think it’s good to buy Siemens before the
Exchange closes?”
CHAPTER IV.
A SHOT
A group of friends had gathered in the villa of Herbert Villoner, the
author, in Alt-Aussee. Well-known men of letters, painters, sculptors,
musicians, publishers. As a rule they went to the country resorts only
after the summer had reached its height; but this year they had fled
from the city in June, to escape as much as possible of the filthy
spray of Viennese politics.
The evening meal was over. They were sitting on the terrace, leaning
back in their wicker chairs; the lovely lake lay below, mirroring
the moon--into the motionless air curled wreaths of cigarette smoke.
Everyone was absorbed with his own thoughts, until Villoner broke the
profound silence.
“So there is no doubt that most of us are spending our last summer
in Aussee, and will have to shake the dust from our feet and proceed
into foreign lands like vagabonds. Odd, isn’t it? My father, a famous
physician who contributed not a little to the fame of the Viennese
medical school--my grandfather, a merchant of Mariahilf whose family
had long been resident there--and myself. Well, they say that my dramas
and novels express the essence of Viennese life, that no one has
matched my knowledge and descriptions of Viennese youth and the gay
young thing. But now all this counts for nothing--I am merely an alien
Jew, and must get out like some Galician refugee washed into Vienna on
a tide of speculation.”
“Still,” Max Seider, a young poet, said in a low, quivering voice,
“you will be able to feel at home even when you are far away from
your ungrateful native land. Berlin will receive you with open arms,
the intellectuals there are already planning to honor you. You are
so strong and mature that you will be able to produce great works
wherever you may be. But what can I do? I am only at the beginning, I
can live and work only when I stroll through the green Wienerwald, when
the graceful outline of the Kahlenberg shows me my way. From them an
inexhaustible fountain of life flows forth. I must labor and struggle
for every line, for every stanza--I can do this only in Vienna.”
“Nonsense,” Wallner, a composer, exclaimed angrily. “The devil take
your Vienna and all the blockheads in it! I’m going to the South of
Germany, where I’ll rent a little house in the Black Forest and live
like a lord with my Lene. Won’t we, darling?”
The fair-haired young woman suffered her husband to lay her
Madonna-like little head on his shoulder; but the shadow of a malicious
smile hovered on her voluptuous lips as she exchanged a significant
glance with the playwright Walter Haberer. The breast of the latter
swelled with triumph. He knew that the composer’s wife would stay
there--no one could force her to accompany her husband into exile.
And they had agreed that when the husband would at last be out of the
way she would become his.--But not only she,--all Vienna, all Austria
would be his! For all those who had pushed him into the background,
all those whose plays were being produced while his grew mouldy in the
pigeon-holes of the directors’ desks--all of them, Villoner and Seider,
Hoff and Thal, Meier and Marich, all would have to go away and leave
him to rule the realm of the Muses.
Frau Lene nodded and smiled at him while her husband lovingly stroked
her cheek.
With a thunderous roar of laughter Armin Horch, the great actor, burst
forth:
“Gentlemen, now it must be told! I, too, will have to leave Austria!
For I, whom the _Wehr_ and other papers have always extolled as the
ideal of Aryan beauty,--I must confess to my Jewish descent. My father
came from Brody, and his name was not Horch, but Storch!”
Peals of laughter broke out, the mirth became boundless, appropriate
anecdotes were told.
“And you, Herr Pinkus--where will you transfer your publishing house?”
someone asked the stout little publisher with the bowed legs and the
unmistakably Jewish features.
“I? I stay here! Don’t you know that I’m a genuine Christian?”
And when everybody laughed he said, with a serene smile:
“All jokes aside, I am an unadulterated _goy_! My grandfather, Amsel
Pinkus, was a cloth dealer in Frankfurt am Main, and a good, pious Jew.
But when he fell in love with my grandmother, Christine Haberle, a
little singer of Stuttgart, he became converted, as she wouldn’t marry
him otherwise. Well, my father also married a Christian girl, so that
I’m a third-generation Christian; and therefore I won’t be expelled,
although I look and act exactly like my grandfather.”
“Long live Pinkus, the Christian,” merrily cried the host, and,
laughing, all raised their glasses. Just then, like the lash of a whip,
a report sounded from the lake. And Villoner, filled with a strange
premonition, cried: “Where is Seider?”
But people were already bringing up the body of the young poet. He had
shot himself, down there beside the lake, so that his sensitive, weary
soul would not have to starve in a foreign land.
CHAPTER V.
GIRLS AMONG THEMSELVES
Panic prevailed in Lona’s house, in the Gumpendorferstrasse. Eight
young ladies, all superlatively beautiful, had already gathered there,
and still the stout housekeeper, Frau Kathi Schoberlechner, had to open
the door again and again to let in new arrivals.
The drawing-room was permeated with a strong aroma of Houbigant, Ambre,
Coty Rouge, and cigarettes; golden, red, chestnut and dusky heads,
diamonds and pearls shone and glittered. All were dressed in silks and
laces, only Lona wore a fragrant negligée, open in front so that her
snow-white bosom almost burst forth; and her stockingless feet were
encased in little red mules.
Black-haired Yvonne wept as if her heart would break, while red-headed
Margit pounded on the table and cried angrily:
“We got to protes’! If I ever get hold o’ one o’ them dep’ties, I’ll
scratch ’is eyes out for ’im!”
“Wotta dirty trick! W’at they expec’ us to do w’en they throw out the
Jews?”
Yvonne wept more passionately. “An’ jus’ now, w’en Fredi Pollak jus’
ordered a new car for me.”
“I’m gettin’ ten million a month from Reizes, w’at I been goin’ with
fer two weeks. I’d like to know if them Christian gents’ll be so free
with their money?”
“Y’know, I got that Zwitterbauch from Mährisch-Ostrau, w’at keeps me
altogether, and comes to Vienna on’y for a week outa ev’ry month!”
A voluptuous golden-haired Juno crossed her beautiful though rather
thick-set legs so that her blue silk garters peeped out, drank a little
glass of cointreau, and said in a resonant alto:
“Children, I think I’ve had more experience than all the rest of you
put together. And all I can say is that after the Jews are gone we’ll
either have to starve or look around for jobs as cloak-room maids in
the cafés. Only the Jews leave money behind ’em--the rest of ’em all
want a lot of loving and no expense! I went with Baron Stummerl, of the
Foreign Office, for ten years--and in those ten years he gave me a gold
bracelet, a fur neckpiece, and a thousand gulden. I was lucky I had
Herschmann of the Anglobank at the same time, or I might actually have
had to go to work. Since then I’ve gone in for Jews only!”
Nervously Claire toyed with the diamond-studded gold cross she wore on
a platinum chain. “Wonder what Karl’ll say when I stop gettin’ things
from Dr. Baruch!”
New plaints arose, wails filled the air. In the excitement of recent
events they had not thought of this: What would become of the friends
they loved and supported, after the friends who paid would be gone?
Just then Frau Kathi ushered in one of these friends.--Pepi represented
the ideal of the well-dressed man. Impeccable from his soft gray velvet
hat and his hand-knit tie to his tan oxfords and the dark blue silk
socks.
Sobbing, the charming black-haired Yvonne fell into the arms of her
beloved. All greeted him noisily,--he was pelted with a shower of calls
and questions. Calmly Pepi sank back into an armchair, took Yvonne on
his knee, pinched the naked calves of Lona, (who sat beside him), and,
after permitting the girls to put a cigarette into his mouth, observed:
“There’s nothing to do, my dears, but leave the country, too!”
“Yes,” countered clever, golden-haired Carola, “but where’ll you get
your passport, and who’ll let you in?”
“Very simple,” laughed Pepi. “Tomorrow I’ll go to the City Hall, and
renounce all religious affiliations. The day after I go to the Jewish
synagogue, assure the Hebrew race of my staunch support, and become
a Jew--without the operation, I hope. Then we’ll get married, take
the money that’s coming to us from the government, and settle down
somewhere else, as provided by the League of Nations. We’ll go to
Paris, or Brussels, or some other place where things are lively.”
Yvonne laughed through her tears. “Go on! What’ll I do in Paris after
I’m married?”
“Silly! No one’ll have to know we’re married! You rent a flat, find a
friend who’ll keep you, and I’ll take care of your heart as always.”
During the next few days the liberal papers reported that hundreds of
valiant Christian youths, indignant at the injustice done the Jews, had
demonstratively determined on their conversion to the Jewish faith,
that they might share the fate of the sorely tried people of Israel.
CHAPTER VI.
DR. SCHWERTFEGER
On a warm September day the Chancellor--who, being also the Minister
for Foreign Affairs, resided in the Foreign Office--stood on his
balcony and, looking past the street, watched the doings in the
public park. But the movement there seemed less animated than in past
years,--only a few white-enameled baby carriages rolled over the paths,
and in spite of the mild weather the chairs and benches were almost
unoccupied.
Someone knocked at the door. Sharply the Chancellor called “Come in!”
and his departmental chief, Dr. Fronz, entered.
At the end of June, shortly after the passage of the expulsion law,
Schwertfeger had gone to the Tyrol to recuperate after the nervous
strain of the great responsibility and hard work of the previous
weeks. For more than two months he lived incognito in a village near
the Arlberg. Except for his departmental chief no one knew his
whereabouts; he permitted no letters or reports to be sent to him,
paid no attention to current events, and let Fronz write him only of
unusually important occurrences. As a matter of fact, everything had
been provided for: The chief of the Viennese police and the captains of
the various districts had received precise instructions, and Parliament
had adjourned until autumn. Therefore Dr. Schwertfeger felt that he
could be dispensed with, and considered it his duty to gather new
strength and energy for the tasks to come. He had returned to Vienna
this morning; and now Fronz was to give him a detailed report. After
various departmental matters had been disposed of, Schwertfeger, with
a thud, sat down before his desk, took pen and paper for stenographic
notes, and, seeming very calm and cool though his every nerve was
vibrating with excitement, said:
“Now, dear friend, tell me about the execution and visible results of
the new law so far. How is our financial situation? I’m entirely in the
dark, you know.”
Dr. Fronz cleared his throat, and began:
“Financially, things aren’t running as smoothly as we had hoped. At
first the krone rose by leaps and bounds to the hundredth part of a
centime in Zurich; then there were some slight though insignificant
fluctuations, and since the end of July the krone has not progressed,
but is remaining stationary, in spite of the enormous influx of gold
from the treasuries of the great Christian associations and of the
banker Huxtable. Strangely enough, our hopes for large payments from
the exiles have not materialized as yet. No considerable amounts in
either kronen or foreign securities are gravitating toward the revenue
offices. It seems that our Christian fellow-citizens include thousands
of parasites who unscrupulously take over the excess property of the
Jews, taxes on which had been withheld fraudulently; and in return they
give the Jews cheques on foreign banks.”
“That was only to be expected,” said the Chancellor, a contemptuous
smile playing on his compressed lips. “All of them, Jew and Christian,
are selfish and grasping!”
“The Jew papers mustn’t hear that,” thought Fronz as he continued:
“As I may conclude from the extremely pessimistic report of our Finance
Minister, Professor Trumm, the expulsion of the Jews will burden us
with enormous debts, payable in gold, while the circulation of our
bank-notes will not be diminished to any appreciable extent.”
“Is everything going smoothly in the liquidation and taking over of the
financial houses, banks, and corporations?”
“In this connection everything is in full swing; but unfortunately it
seems that our native capitalists are either unwilling or unable to
take over the large undertakings, so that the overwhelming majority
of the new entrepreneurs are foreigners. Already the Länderbank, the
Kreditanstalt, the Anglobank, the Escompte-Gesellschaft, and other
great banks have fallen into the hands of Italians, Englishmen,
Frenchmen, Czechoslovaks, and the like, as have also our great
industrial enterprises. Only today a Dutch syndicate has taken over
the Simmering locomotive factory. Of course we’re devilish careful
that no foreign Jews worm themselves into the country in this way, and
every sale contract emphasizes the clause that denies the privilege of
either temporary or permanent sojourn in Austria to foreign Jews also.
But there is no way of preventing Jews from being included among the
stockholders and directors of the foreign companies which are buying up
our corporations.”
The Chancellor rested his massive round forehead on his bony hand;
with a wave of his hand he dismissed all unpleasant thoughts, and said
evenly:
“Transitory manifestations, which will take care of themselves later.
How is the expulsion going on?”
“Exactly as provided by the law. Both the police and the railway bureau
are doing excellent work; an average of ten trains full of exiles
leaves Austria every day, going in all directions; and so far about
four hundred thousand Jews have left the country.”
Schwertfeger looked up in amazement. “How can that be? We had intended
to exile about half a million. And now, when only a third of the
calculated time has passed, we are through with four-fifths of them?”
Dr. Fronz smiled feebly. “We underestimated the great number of
converts and of people of Jewish extraction. Today the state police,
having a better view of the situation, no longer count with half a
million, but with eight hundred thousand, perhaps even a million
persons who are subject to the law. I might mention, incidentally,
that the expulsion has had some untoward consequences, frequently
very unpleasant, sometimes merely grotesque. Ten Christian-Social
deputies had to be expelled as being of Jewish origin; almost a
third of the Christian newspapermen were affected either directly or
through members of their families. It has developed that our best
Christian citizens are steeped in Israel--our oldest families are
being torn apart. Indeed, there has occurred something that has made
us the laughing-stock of not only the Jewish papers, which of course
will badger us to the last minute, but of the foreign press as well.
A sister of the princely Archbishop of Austria, Cardinal Rössl, is
married to a Jew, and his brother to a Jewess, so that the law robs
His Eminence of his closest relatives, including all his nieces and
nephews! Perhaps it would be advisable, under these circumstances, to
submit to the National Assembly an amendment to the law, providing that
in certain cases persons of Jewish origin be permitted to stay....”
The Chancellor sprang to his feet and brought down his fist on the desk
with such violence that the ink spattered out from its container.
“Never! Never, while I am in office. The granting of any such
exceptions would make the entire law a universal joke, international
Jewry would celebrate an unprecedented triumph, and all doors would
be opened wide to corruption and bribery. You know our regional and
government clerks with their open hands and empty pockets! No, there
can be no exceptions, the grief of individual families may not shake
the foundations of the law! The war that we waged in the name of the
Hapsburgs cost a million lives--and no one dared say a word. Compared
to that, what is a little inconvenience or vexation for a few thousand,
or a hundred thousand persons? I will ask you to instruct the Christian
papers accordingly. Better still, let the political press bureau
immediately send out a statement on this to the papers. And I beg you
never again to let yourself become the vehicle for such suggestions!”
Paling, Dr. Fronz bowed.
“Then it would be superfluous for me to tell Your Excellency of the
terribly pitiful scenes that occur every day at the departure of the
evacuation trains--scenes which often become so heart-rending that even
the mob, gathered about the outgoing trains to abuse the exiles, is
moved to silence and tears.”
“Such scenes were foreseen, and are inevitable! Let the police be
instructed immediately to shut off the railroad stations, arrange that
wherever possible the trains should leave at night, and see to it that
the main stations should not be used, but only the shunting stations
outside the city. And now one more question: How do people in general
view the execution of the law?”
“With tremendous enthusiasm, of course. The police are having a hundred
clever plain-clothes men mingle in the crowds and make observations.
And they are unanimous in reporting that the Christian population is
actually delirious with joy, and is expecting an early change for the
better in general conditions, a decrease in the price of food, and a
more equalized distribution of wealth. Even among the working-men who
are still organized as Social-Democrats there is great satisfaction
with the exodus of the Jews. On the other hand, however, it cannot
be denied that the populace is excited and uncertain. No one knows
what the future will bring, the masses live from hand to mouth, there
is amazing extravagance among the lower classes, and intoxication is
increasing from day to day.
“An important factor in the prevalent high spirits is the sudden end
of the housing shortage. Since the beginning of July forty thousand
apartments, hitherto occupied by Jews, have been vacated in Vienna
alone. A direct result of this is a veritable flood of weddings,--the
priests have to marry ten or twenty couples at a time.”
Schwertfeger, who was a bachelor, nodded and smiled with satisfaction.
“I think we’ve done enough for today. Now that I have a more or less
complete view of the situation I’ll settle down with the reports of the
various ministries.”
A nod, and the departmental chief was dismissed. But Fronz remained in
the room and, discreetly clearing his throat, regained the attention of
the Chancellor, who had already opened one of his reports.
“I should like to inform Your Excellency that the Municipal Council
of Vienna has decided, by a great majority, to change the name of
the Schottenring to ‘Dr. Karl Schwertfeger Ring,’ and that a similar
renaming of streets and squares has been resolved upon by three hundred
other Austrian municipalities. In Innsbruck they have even organized
a monument committee that expects to erect a marble monument to Your
Excellency next year.”
The Chancellor rose, went over to the balcony, and again looked down
on the park; furiously he paced twice through the large room before he
said:
“Put a stop to all such tributes! Let them be postponed until we
celebrate the tenth anniversary of the liberation of Vienna from the
Jews!”
CHAPTER VII.
A MIDDLE-CLASS VIENNESE HOME
Christmas Eve in the home of Hofrat Franz Spineder. The little yellow
brick house, which the Hofrat had inherited from his grandfather, lay
far out in Grinzing, beyond the end of the tramway line. Viewed from
the outside the one-story house with a high gate of green-painted wood
and the green shades looked almost primitive; but when one opened the
gate and saw the courtyard with its old-fashioned pump, one stopped
short, amazed and delighted. The courtyard gradually developed into
a gently sloping garden that seemed almost endless. In the summer
wall-flowers, tulips, roses, and carnations shone in southern
splendor,--behind the ornamental garden hundreds of trees were bowed to
the ground under their burden of apples, pears, apricots, plums, and
cherries. But the orchard was not the end of the garden, which rose
steeply through a vineyard to a little Old Viennese summer-house with
multicolored windows, perched on the crest of the hill.
Enchanting as the unsuspected garden, were the furnishings of the
living-room. Ancient, comfortable, stiff and graceful furniture of
the Baroque, Congress, and Biedermeier periods, valuable etchings
and paintings on the walls, two genuine Waldmüllers, a Schwind in
the drawing-room, beautiful glassware of many colors, Old Viennese
porcelain, sparkling silver in glass cases and on the side-board,--one
only had to close one’s eyes to see men and women in the costume of
Maria Theresa’s time and in the Biedermeier coat.
Franz Spineder was a government official, as his father and grandfather
had been before him; however, he was not dependent on his salary from
the Ministry of Education, but possessed considerable private means.
Even the house with its enormous garden and its valuable furnishings
represented millions at the current rate. Besides, his wife came of
the Halbhuber family, whose remote ancestors had amassed great wealth
as tanners and manufacturers of leather goods. And as the Spineders
now had only one child, Lotte, who was just eighteen, they could live
comfortably in spite of the high prices and the confusion of the times.
Silently Lotte and Frau Spineder decorated the Christmas tree, attached
chocolate cookies, candies, glass balls, and candles to the fragrant
boughs. Frau Spineder, a plump, still pretty woman, cast a side-long
glance toward her slender, blonde, strikingly beautiful and charming
daughter.
“Lotte! Now you’ve tears in your eyes again! Think of Papa--tonight, at
least, he wants to see cheerful faces! And don’t make poor Leo’s heart
any heavier!”
Lotte dropped a little chocolate chimney-sweep so that his head broke
off; covering her face with her hands, she leaned on her mother’s
shoulder and began to sob bitterly.
“My heart’s breaking, Mother! You’ll see, I won’t survive Leo’s having
to leave the country! Please, Mother--let me go with him!”
Tenderly Frau Spineder, whose eyes also were moist, stroked the soft,
shimmering golden hair of her daughter.
“You can’t do it, Lotte! Remember--Papa is sixty, and since that
dreadful war took our son he has only you. You can’t expect him to let
you go out into an uncertain future, however fond he is of Leo. Just
think: Leo is going to Paris; with the depreciation of the krone we
couldn’t possibly support you with francs, and you might come to want
without Papa’s being able to help you. But if he’s alone Leo will make
his way, and you’re both still so young that you can wait for better
times. Now hush--Father’s coming! And the bell’s ringing--that must be
Leo.”
Herr Spineder, who now came into the room to light the candles, was
typical of the old Austrian Hofrat at his best. Fond of music and a
skilled instrumentalist, highly cultured, well groomed without and
within, always seeking beauty, loving life and affirming it, just,
conscientious, and tolerant--yet a little narrow-minded, cautious and
hesitant. He still wore his beard in the antiquated fashion of Francis
Joseph, for he considered it beneath his dignity to make any concession
on his person to the new conditions. Though he was a Democrat through
and through, and a loyal servant to the Republic, Angeli’s beautiful
portrait of the Emperor still hung over his desk. As he entered the
room now the old gentleman with his snow-white hair and his gentle
grayish-blue eyes represented the genuine Old Austrian whom we soon
will know only from books.
“Leo is outside, scraping off the snow from his shoes,” said Herr
Spineder as he slowly lighted the candles. “Go out to him--I’ll prepare
the presents, and ring when I’m ready.”
Frau Spineder paid a brief visit to the kitchen to look after her carp,
cake, and apple-fritters; but Lotte, throwing her arms about Leo’s
neck, was weeping silently on his breast.
Leo Strakosch--slender, dark-haired, and smooth-shaven, with sparkling
brown eyes that flashed forth wit and humor--was ten years older than
Lotte. During the last year of the war he had entered the army for his
year’s service, and at the front had met Rudolf Spineder, the Hofrat’s
son; soon the young men, who were of the same age, were fast friends.
In the last battle of the Piave Rudolf had been wounded in the head and
had breathed out his young life in the arms of his friend--but only
after begging him to convey a last message to his parents and little
sister. This is how Leo had come into the house of the Spineders; and
the poor son of a petty commission-agent felt entirely at home in the
cultured bourgeois atmosphere. When Lotte grew from childhood into
beautiful blooming girlhood, he determined: “This one, or none!” And
Lotte returned the love of the bright, clever, talented young man with
all her heart.
Herr Spineder had no objections as he watched the development of this
love. Leo Strakosch was an etcher, quite extraordinarily successful in
spite of his youth; people were beginning to fight over his pictures,
and a Leo Strakosch Album, which had appeared about a year before,
was even being noticed abroad. Both the Hofrat and his wife rightly
admitted to themselves that they could put their child in no better
hands than Leo’s, whom they gradually came to love as their own son.
The fact that Leo was a Jew did not in the least perturb Herr Spineder.
His house was a rendezvous for many musicians, authors and painters,
the majority of whom were Jews; and the late attorney Viktor Rosen had
even been Spineder’s closest friend.
A year before, when political circles were just beginning to whisper
about the plan of the Christian-Socialist leader to put through an
anti-Jewish law, Herr Spineder was unwilling and unable to believe that
such a thing could be done. And when events forced him to believe it
his indignation knew no bounds. Greater still was his sorrow over the
blow that Leo’s imminent expulsion would be for his daughter. But he
rejected unconditionally the thought of permitting his Lotte to join
Leo in his exile; for here his love for his only child and the egoism
of age united to make him absolutely inflexible.
Christmas presents were plentiful; Lotte’s parents had been generous,
yet she scarcely glanced at the fur scarf, silk stockings, books, and
music, but constantly pressed to her trembling lips the little picture
of Leo, encased in a gold locket, which he had given her. Now they
were all seated about the holiday table, but the mood was mournful
rather than festive, and Herr Spineder’s efforts to carry on a light
conversation met with failure. When the home-made golden wine was
poured out, Herr Spineder raised his glass and said, with deep feeling:
“Your health, Leo! May good fortune be with you abroad, and may fate
bring us all together again before long! I know that you are angry with
me, children,--but I can’t do anything except suffer with you. You see,
Mother and I have the best part of our lives behind us--I’m on the
threshold of old age; so it’s only natural for us to resist with every
fibre of our being the departure of the last sunbeam that shines for
us. But even if we were capable of such almost superhuman selflessness
my sense of duty would not permit it. Were we living in normal times
I would let you go, and would say that after all we could spend a
couple of months with you in Paris every year. But today, when the
krone is almost worthless, that is impossible. Only speculators can
indulge in such luxury today; and you know that although we live well
and comfortably we nonetheless must count with every thousand-kronen
bill. If Lotte were to go abroad with you now she would lose her home
forever. And not only she, but your children, too, would be homeless
exiles, wouldn’t know the soil in which their grandparents are buried.
And--who knows?--perhaps the day would come when you, Lotte, would
be seized with such homesickness that it would crowd out your love
for your husband, and your entire being would become embittered with
reproach of him whom you followed into exile. You are young, both of
you. You, Lotte, are almost a child--you, Leo, a youth; and your whole
life lies before you. Let a few years pass. Then, perhaps, you will
have grown apart--or there will be new developments that will unite you
again.”
While Lotte and her mother wept inconsolably, Leo, too, raised his
glass:
“Father--I suppose I may still call you by that name--I must respect
your reasons for refusing to let Lotte go with me; I’d probably do the
same if I were in your place. But there is one thing I must say to
you, and to Lotte, whom I will always love: From now on my life will
be one great struggle! My people is said to possess tenacity--well, I
will unite all the faculties of my race in myself. With my brain and
my heart, with all my power and all my will I shall work to win Lotte,
by fair means or foul! They may drive me out like a mangy dog, but
they cannot kill my will-power! And I drink to your health and to our
reunion, which will come sooner than any of us dares hope today.”
The next day Leo Strakosch left the country on a train occupied mostly
by intellectual workers and artists. The Hofrat, Frau Spineder, and
Lotte saw him off. Except for them Leo left no dear ones behind him,
for his parents had died long before.
CHAPTER VIII.
“MY DEAR CHRISTIANS!”
For Vienna the last day of this year was a holiday unparalleled in
the history of that gay and carefree city. By mobilizing all means of
transportation, by borrowing locomotives from neighboring countries,
and by interrupting all other traffic the authorities had succeeded
on that day in sending out the last Jews, in thirty enormous trains.
In the forenoon the directors and high officials of the great banks
went away, at noon the Jewish journalists and their families. They
had stayed to the last second, had composed and edited the evening
papers, and had let the new masters take possession of the editorial
rooms only after the damp sheets had begun to fly out from the whirling
presses. Most of the Viennese journalists had found positions on
papers in Germany proper, or on German papers in Czechoslovakia;
many were emigrating to America; and a few had decided to turn to
other professions.--However, the publisher of the great _Weltpresse_,
together with a small staff of collaborators, was moving to London,
where he intended to publish a German weekly, to be called _Im Exil_,
which would concern itself primarily with Austria.
At one o’clock in the afternoon whistles proclaimed that the last
trainload of Jews had left Vienna, and at six o’clock in the evening
all the church bells rang to announce that there were no more Jews in
all Austria.
Then Vienna began to celebrate its great festival of emancipation. Red
and white striped flags fluttered over a hundred thousand roofs, all
the shops were decorated with these colors, Japanese lanterns burned
before every window. On this frosty starlit night a million people
walked over the creaking snow to form processions. Men, women, and
children carried lanterns, the various district parades were headed
by bands, loud rejoicing filled the air, and again and again there
resounded the cry: “Long Live Christian Vienna!”
All the parades met at the City Hall. Fairy-like in its splendor,
Meister Schmidt’s beautiful Gothic building shone as one enormous
flame, fed by millions of electric lamps. On a platform the peerless
Viennese Philharmonic Orchestra,--purged of Jews, and therefore
somewhat diminished in numbers,--played popular airs, while the Male
Choir of Vienna sang its best songs. The People’s Hall, the large space
before the City Hall, and the Ring from the Schottentor to the Bellaria
formed a solid human wall. And at eight o’clock it was no longer a cry,
but a howl that rose again and again from a million throats and shook
the air.
At last the great moment came. On the balcony appeared Mayor Karl
Maria Laberl with Chancellor Schwertfeger. With his powerful voice,
audible even at the opposite end of the square, the Chancellor began to
speak--briefly, coolly, but all the more effectively:
“Fellow-citizens, a gigantic task has been completed. Everyone who is
not Austrian at heart has left the territory of our small but beautiful
country. Now we are alone, a single family; henceforth we must depend
on ourselves and our own peculiar qualities--with our own power will
we now reorganize our clean house, will we brace up decaying walls and
build up falling foundations. Citizens of Vienna and of our entire
country! Today we are celebrating a holiday the like of which has
never been seen before. Tomorrow marks the beginning of a new year,
and of new life for all of us. Tomorrow we may still lean back and
meditate. But then we must work as we never worked before. We must
dedicate all our ability to our country--we must make the most of
every hour. We must show all the world that Austria can live without
the Jews. Nay, more--we must show that we will recover because we have
removed the foreign element from our organism. In this solemn hour,
fellow-citizens, you must promise me faithfully that we will no longer
live only for today and its pleasures, but that we will work, work, and
do nothing but work until the fruits of our labors have matured.”
“We promise!” roared the crowd; strangers shook each other’s hands,
men and women wept and laughed in one another’s arms, someone sounded
the new national hymn and was joined by the entire chorus. And then,
spontaneously, there rose as from one throat the cheer: “Hail our Dr.
Schwertfeger, the liberator of Austria!”
When the joyful shouting had subsided a little, Mayor Karl Maria Laberl
finally had an opportunity to say something. He began his speech with
the words:
“My dear Christians!...”
But the crowd did not hear much more, for the warm southwind that had
been blowing through the previously ice-cold night was now followed by
a shower. Screaming and shrieking, the mob dispersed, to hurry to the
tramway lines through a sea of slush and melted snow.
PART TWO
CHAPTER I.
LOTTE SPINEDER TO LEO STRAKOSCH, 22 RUE FOCH, PARIS
“Just a year has passed, darling, since I stood in the West Station
waving good-bye to you with my tear-soaked handkerchief. And the first
Christmas that I have had to spend without you as your betrothed is
over. It was very sad again, and Papa, quite worried, said that I would
be sick and wretched if I continued giving way to my grief so much. I’m
always very pale these days, sleep poorly, suffer much from headaches,
and tire so easily. Our family physician thinks it’s anæmia, and
prescribed Guber water for me, but I know that it’s only my longing for
you that makes me weak and ill.
“I can’t tell you how happy I was over your wonderful album, which
came in just on Christmas Eve. As anyone can see from these marvellous
etchings, you’re a great artist now; Papa, who understands these things
so well, says that you already are one of the great masters, and railed
against our government, which drives such men out of the country
instead of honoring them. Of course your letter, in which you tell of
your great success, made me very happy, and Papa calculated that the
thirty thousand francs which you got for this album amount to hundreds
of millions of Austrian kronen. For the krone has again fallen very
low. But when I read that you attend so many social functions, and can
hardly manage your innumerable invitations to the best houses, my heart
missed a beat. Won’t you forget your poor little Lotte, surrounded as
you are by beautiful Parisian girls? Oh, what will become of us, Leo?
When will I be able to put my head on your shoulder again? You know,
Leo, the other day a big aeroplane flew westward over the Kahlenberg,
and then I thought that if I only could I’d fly straight to Paris to
you, whether my parents would consent or no. I’ll tell you--if I knew
how to get a passport without anyone’s finding out about it, I’d let
you send me the money, and would run away to you. I know that would
hurt Papa and Mama terribly, but my longing for you is so great that
I’ve become very wicked and cruel.
“You ask me to outline for you the state of affairs since the Jews are
gone, as the colorless and boring Viennese papers don’t give you a real
picture of conditions here. Well, I’ll try to tell you everything
I see myself or hear from others; but you mustn’t laugh at me if it
sounds silly.
“I suppose you read in the papers all about the great rejoicing and the
many parades on last New Year’s Eve, after all the Jews had left Vienna
and Austria. Well, this mood continued throughout January, everybody
was cheerful, there was celebration after celebration, and again and
again the people paraded before the City Hall or the Chancellor’s
palace, to pay homage to Mayor Laberl or Dr. Schwertfeger. I noticed
myself that the people in the tramway were much more pleasant and
courteous than before, and Hofrat Tumpel, who comes to see us--you
know, the one with the blond beard, whom you never liked--said
triumphantly:
“‘You see, the sunny Viennese temperament, which was so long
overshadowed by all the foreign elements, is coming to the fore again.’
“‘Fiddlesticks,’ growled Papa. ‘That’s only because the whole thing is
a big picnic for the Viennese, and because victuals are cheaper and
it’s possible to get apartments again.’ But Tumpel retorted: ‘Oh, no,
my friend, that’s not all--the Indo-Germanic naíveté of our people is
venturing out in the open again!’
“Food really had become much cheaper, for at that time our krone was
very high. I remember Mama coming home very happily one day last
winter, and telling us that it was possible to live again, as a pound
of lard cost only about twenty thousand kronen. And the apartments
brought much joy to the Viennese. Just imagine, suddenly almost every
house displayed a sign offering apartments or furnished rooms for rent.
People used to go from house to house looking at apartments merely to
pass the time. And moving vans were rolling through the streets all day
long.
“This lasted till Lent, but then the high spirits subsided. Suddenly
there was much unemployment. The clothing industry was at a
standstill--we’d hear of a new failure every minute. The papers said
that the honest Christian merchants who had taken over the old Jewish
concerns but were unable to cope with their task, should be subsidized
by the state. But the unemployed raised a rumpus, paraded on the Ring,
demolished a couple of stores, broke windows, and finally forced the
state to pay them ten thousand kronen a day for the support of their
families. Then the krone began to fall, for, as Papa explained, there
was a tremendous increase in the circulation of bank-notes. Say what
they would, the krone soon was lower than ever, and victuals became
as expensive as before, if not more so. Today Mama told me, with much
agitation, that butter has gone up to a hundred and fifty kronen. Since
spring people have been sulky again, and there is much grumbling on
the tram. Especially about the profiteers, who are pushing up all the
prices--only, they don’t talk about Jewish profiteers, but in general.
“You want to know whether I go to the theatre often? Oh, no, dear Leo!
Except for the opera there’s nothing whatever going on in the theatre.
All the houses are continually playing Ganghofer and Anzengruber, for
they’re not allowed to produce anything written by a Jew, and the
classics don’t draw the crowds. For a while they played a good deal of
Shaw; but since he declared in an English paper that Vienna has become
an international exhibition of asininity, he is taboo. Especially
because he also said that he prefers one intelligent Jew to ten stupid
Christians. The musical comedy houses are all high and dry. (Do you
remember how I laughed when I first heard you use that expression?)
It developed, you see, that all of our musical comedies, old and new,
were either written or composed by Jews, if not both. Besides, they
are short of singers, as practically all the tenors had to emigrate. Of
course a few one hundred per cent Aryan musical comedies were quickly
manufactured, but the audience hissed them, for they were fearful
trash. Hofrat Tumpel declared that it was because Christian art is
suited only for serious things, not for such frivolous stuff. Whereupon
Papa smiled and said that people would soon realize how well the Jews
and Christians complemented each other in Austria.
“When I was in the Graben at noon the other day it struck me that one
does not see nearly as many well-dressed men and women this year as
formerly. People simply don’t indulge in fashions any more. I must
admit, however, that I don’t at all miss the repulsive faces of the
Jewish profiteers, which used to make you so angry, too. Their place
is taken by a great many young fops who look like peasants and wear
impossible clothes, and who infest the Drive with their enormous
watch-chains and fat diamond-ringed fingers. Altogether it seems to
me that nowadays all our transient visitors are peasants. Recently
the owner of the Hotel Imperial complained in one of the papers
that the guests he has these days go to bed without removing their
hobnailed shoes, and wash their woolen underwear in the bathtubs. If
you’d walk through the Kärtnerstrasse you’d be amazed at the lack of
elegance in the stores today!--Now I must close, for it’s one o’clock
in the morning, and I have nothing more of importance to say besides.
Good-bye, my beloved, and invent some way of bringing us together
soon--for otherwise I can’t live any more. Thousands and thousands of
kisses from your disconsolate
LOTTE.”