THE SWEET, GAY YOUNG THINGS
Discontent was rampant among the gay young things of Vienna.
Instinctively they felt in their subconscious minds that the lofty and
exalted policy of the government was, to an appreciable extent, carried
out at their expense. During the last half century it had become a
tradition that the pretty young girl of the Viennese middle class
should have a Jewish sweetheart. Let the father be an enthusiastic
Christian-Socialist, let the brother be just as enthusiastic a German
nationalist--Poldi or Fini, Mitzi or Grete “went” with a Jew, who might
be a salesman or a bank clerk, a business man or a student. Those of
their friends who had no Jews would often taunt and jeer at them--but
always were they envied. For to have a Jew as one’s lover meant to
be taken to the theatre and to nice cafés, to be well treated and to
receive generous gifts.
As for marriage with a Jew--that was considered the grand prize, a
guarantee of comfort, fur coats, and pretty clothes.
If one asked Poldi or Tini why she preferred a Jewish sweetheart, the
answer was always the same.
“A Jew’s always liberal, and when he marries a Christian girl he’s her
slave. Besides, they don’t get drunk. I used to go with a Christian
before, and on Sundays I was always scared to death that he’d get drunk
and start a row. Now that I’ve got a Jewish friend we always go to nice
places, he drinks hardly anything, he’s smart, always has a lot of
things to talk about, and never gets rough.”
But when the sweet young things were gathered together privately, in an
intimate group, and began to tell one another their erotic experiences
and exploits, then they spoke of the sensuousness of the Jews and of
the manifoldness of their erotic inclinations as contrasted with their
Aryan friends--good Christians and splendid fellows, but far less
entertaining....
It is possible, and even probable, that one cause for the profound and
fanatic anti-Semitism among the male inhabitants of Vienna during the
last few decades was the fact that the youth with the _Hakenkreuz_
could not stomach the sight of his Jewish rivals snatching away all the
pretty girls.
Now all this had been changed; no longer was it necessary to compete
with the Jews, and the Viennese girl was wholly dependent on her
fellow-Aryans. But comparison and reminiscence could be neither
prevented nor prohibited.
The girls behind the counters and in the offices, in the sewing-rooms
and factories, understood little of politics, but much of practical
life. And they began to miss the Jewish young men very much. At
first they had been carried away by the general enthusiasm; but when
the morning after dawned they found their lives emptier and more
poverty-stricken than before. They began to long for their exiled
sweethearts, the good qualities of the Jews as lovers were exaggerated
in the memory; these good qualities were constantly thrown in the teeth
of their Christian successors, and the two were compared continually,
much to the disadvantage of those in power.
One day the _Arbeiter-Zeitung_ described a characteristic scene, which
a reporter had observed in the inn of an excursion resort.
A beautiful young creature had, for some reason or other, quarreled
with her companion, who exclaimed in the course of the argument:
“Wish you’d gone away with your Jew!”
Whereupon the girl wiped the tears from her eyes and answered loudly:
“Wish I had! I ain’t the only girl what had a Jewish friend, and
we’re all sorry we ain’t got them any more! What do we get from you?
You drink and gamble away your money, and we’ve got to buy our rags
with what we make ourselves. And none of you is so nice to us as my
Fritz was, or Trudl’s Rudi, or his friend Karl, what went with Liesl.
They never let us pick up or carry anything, they always bought us
the prettiest and best things, and when we went out with them they
didn’t take us to such cheap lunchrooms, but to Hopfner, or the
Opernrestaurant, and later to a swell café where there was music and
people in fine clothes. And where love’s concerned--well, you can’t
talk about such things, but them Jews knew how to treat a girl, and
when they loved they never was so selfish like you fellows, what ain’t
got no idea of what a woman needs!”
These resolute words called forth a storm of indignation among the
young men; the girls, however, silently exchanged glances, and nodded.