Darkness had long since gathered when they crossed the starvation-line
into Austria. Perhaps it was no more than imagination, but he
immediately became conscious of a vague depression. Glancing through
the misty panes, he espied no signs of life--only bare fields, pollarded
trees like gallows, and the sullen profiles of shrouded houses. No
trains flashed by, going in the opposite direction. Wayside stations
were shuttered. Night was a stagnant tank. In the all-pervading silence
the sound of their own going was the only clamor.
It was not until they were nearing Vienna that any lights broke
the monotony of the blackness--even these, like lanterns of lonely
grave-diggers, were faint and rare. Shadowy apartment-houses and rotting
factories looked less like habitations than monstrous sepulchers. It
was difficult to believe that this pulseless carcass had once been the
Bacchante among modern metropolises--that even at this moment memories
of its rhythm were setting the feet of happier streets to music. He
caught the vision of other cities after nightfall; New York, a tall
white virgin, sheathed in jewels; London, a grimy smith, striking sparks
from a giant anvil; Paris, a wanton goddess, smiling through the dusk,
her face lit up by fire-fly constellations. How impossible it would be
to approach any one of them without becoming aware of its presence! Yet
a man might easily travel through Vienna without suspecting that it lay
cowering behind the darkness.
It was after midnight when the train halted in the empty cathedral of
the Bahnhof. Directly the doors were opened, lean men poured into
the compartments, whining for the privilege of handling the baggage.
Hindwood delayed until he had allowed the Captain sufficient time to
make his exit, then he thought it safe to assist Santa to the platform.
Once again, despite the lateness of the hour, it was necessary to go
through tedious formalities. The question asked most pressingly, as at
the German frontier, was whether they were possessed of fire-arms.
At last they were free to go in search of beds. As they stepped into
the station-yard, they got their first glimpse of Austria's destitution.
Huddled against the walls was a collection of human derelicts which
seemed more in keeping with Dante's “Inferno” than the city which had
set the world waltzing to _The Merry Widow_. They were of all conditions
and ages, from grandparents to toddling children, from artisans to
aristocrats. In the scant light they lifted up greenish faces which
snarled, while their extended hands demanded charity. The police beat
them back, like huntsmen separating hounds from their quarry. They
retreated whimpering into the shadows.
From the line of worn-out vehicles which were waiting, Hindwood selected
a creaking taxi. Having seen Santa seat herself, he ordered the man to
drive to the Hotel Bristol.
“Pretty awful,” he groaned, as he sank back against the musty cushions.
She stifled a sob. “It was nothing. It's worse than that.”
He spoke again. “I didn't see the Captain. I think we're rid of him.”
“I wouldn't be optimistic.”
Down the long, deserted Mariahilfer Strasse they bumped and rattled. It
was ungarnished and forbidding as an empty house. The few people whom
they met scuffled out of sight at sound of intrusion, looking less like
human beings than vermin. Over all there hung a sense of evil, as though
a crime lay undiscovered behind the silence.
As they turned into the Ring, which circles the inner city, Santa woke
into animation. Leaning from the window, she pointed. “Do you see that
huge pile like a palace, with all the statues and the steps going up to
it? That's the Opera House. I danced there once at the command of the
Emperor.”
“Then you're known here?” He clutched her hand.
She shook her head sadly. “I was the toast of Europe then. Whereas
to-day---- It makes a difference.”
In the Kârtner-Ring they drew up before a blazing entrance. Laughing
people were passing in and out, women muffled in costly wraps,
accompanied by men in evening-attire.
“What's this?” The change was so sudden that it shook his sense of
reality. “This doesn't look like--”
She placed her lips close to his ear as she alighted.
“It looks like asking for revolution. 'After me, the deluge'--you
remember? The men aren't Austrians. They're foreign vultures here to
snatch bargains--human bargains as well. But the women--”
Inside the doors of the hotel every reminder of famine had been blotted
out. Its white marble halls and stairways were richly carpeted. Its
furnishings in gilt and satin had been carried out with the utmost
lavishness. The costal of its chandeliers glittered with a dazzling
intensity. From the restaurant drifted the wild gayety of a gipsy
orchestra, enfever-ing the atmosphere with the yearning of elusive
romance. Whispering to the beat of the music came the glide of dancing
footsteps. Flunkeys with powdered heads, tricked out in plush breeches
like marionettes, hurried to and fro on all-absorbing errands.
After Santa had been shown to her ornate room, he stepped out into the
gloomy street to assure himself. It was all true, in spite of the lie
which he had witnessed. The pinched faces were still there, and the
enfeebled bodies crawling through the shadows.
As he reentered the white glare which shone from the hotel, he glanced
back with a sense of impending ruin. For a second time his mind was
filled with a tremendous picture: “And there was a certain rich man and
a beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed.
Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores.”
He caught the vision of his food-ships piling up stores in Holland. At
the thought, as he crept between the sheets in his comfortable bed, he
sickened.