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[Illustration: EUROPE AFTER 8:15]
[Illustration: BERLIN]
EUROPE AFTER 8:15
BY
H. L. MENCKEN
GEORGE JEAN NATHAN
WILLARD HUNTINGTON WRIGHT
WITH DECORATIONS
_By_ THOMAS H. BENTON
NEW YORK--JOHN LANE COMPANY
TORONTO--BELL & COCKBURN--MCMXIV
Copyright, 1914
BY JOHN LANE COMPANY
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE IN THE SOCRATIC MANNER 7
VIENNA 35
MUNICH 71
BERLIN 111
LONDON 145
PARIS 189
PREFACE IN THE SOCRATIC MANNER
"Nothing broadens and mellows the mind so much as foreign
travel."--_Dr. Orison Swett Marden._
The scene is the brow of the Hungerberg at Innsbruck. It is the
half-hour before sunset, and the whole lovely valley of the Inn--_still
wie die Nacht, tief wie das Meer_--begins to glow with mauves and apple
greens, apricots and silvery blues. Along the peaks of the great snowy
mountains which shut it in, as if from the folly and misery of the
world, there are touches of piercing primary colours--red, yellow,
violet--the palette of a synchromist. Far below, hugging the winding
river, lies little Innsbruck, with its checkerboard parks and Christmas
garden villas. A battalion of Austrian soldiers, drilling in the
Exerzierplatz, appears as an army of grey ants, now barely visible.
Somewhere to the left, beyond the broad flank of the Hungerberg, the
night train for Venice labours toward the town.
It is a superbly beautiful scene, perhaps the most beautiful in all
Europe. It has colour, dignity, repose. The Alps here come down a bit
and so increase their spell. They are not the harsh precipices of
Switzerland, nor the too charming stage mountains of Northern Italy, but
rolling billows of clouds and snow, the high-flung waves of some titanic
but stricken ocean. Now and then comes a faint clank of metal from the
funicular railway, but the tracks themselves are hidden among the trees
of the lower slopes. The tinkle of an angelus bell (or maybe it is only
a sheep bell) is heard from afar. A great bird, an eagle or a falcon,
sweeps across the crystal spaces.
Here where we are is a shelf on the mountainside, and the hand of man
has converted it into a terrace. To the rear, clinging to the mountain,
is an Alpine _gasthaus_--a bit overdone, perhaps, with its red-framed
windows and elaborate fretwork, but still genuinely of the Alps. Along
the front of the terrace, protecting sightseers from the sheer drop of a
thousand feet, is a stout wooden rail.
A man in an American sack suit, with a bowler hat on his head, lounges
against this rail. His elbows rest upon it, his legs are crossed in the
fashion of a figure four, and his face is buried in the red book of Herr
Baedeker. It is the volume on Southern Germany, and he is reading the
list of Munich hotels. Now and then he stops to mark one with a pencil,
which he wets at his lips each time. While he is thus engaged, another
man comes ambling along the terrace, apparently from the direction of
the funicular railway station. He, too, carries a red book. It is
Baedeker on Austria-Hungary. After gaping around him a bit, this second
man approaches the rail near the other and leans his elbows upon it.
Presently he takes a package of chewing gum from his coat pocket,
selects two pieces, puts them into his mouth and begins to chew. Then he
spits idly into space, idly but homerically, a truly stupendous
expectoration, a staggering discharge from the Alps to the first shelf
of the Lombard plain! The first man, startled by the report, glances up.
Their eyes meet and there is a vague glimmer of recognition.
The First Man--"American?"
The Second Man--"Yes: St. Louis."
"Been over long?"
"A couple of months."
"What ship'd you come over in?"
"The _Kronprinz Friedrich_."
"Aha, the German line! I guess you found the grub all right."
"Oh, in the main. I have eaten better, but then again, I have eaten
worse."
"Well, they charge you enough for it, whether you get it or not. A man
could live at the Plaza cheaper."
"I should _say_ he could. What boat did _you_ come over in?"
"The _Maurentic_."
"How is she?"
"Oh, so-so."
"I hear the meals on those English ships are nothing to what they used
to be."
"That's what everybody tells me. But, as for me, I can't say I found
them so bad. I had to send back the potatoes twice and the breakfast
bacon once, but they had very good lima beans."
"Isn't that English bacon awful stuff to get down?"
"It certainly is: all meat and gristle. I wonder what an Englishman
would say if you put him next to a plate of genuine, crisp, _American_
bacon?"
"I guess he would yell for the police--or choke to death."
"Did you like the German cooking on the _Kronprinz_?"
"Well, I did and I didn't. The chicken _à la_ Maryland was very good,
but they had it only once. I could eat it every day."
"Why didn't you order it?"
"It wasn't on the bill."
"Oh, bill be damned! You might have ordered it anyhow. Make a fuss and
you'll get what you want. These foreigners have to be bossed around.
They're used to it."
"I guess you're right. There was a fellow near me who set up a holler
about his room the minute he saw it--said it was dark and musty and not
fit to pen a hog in--and they gave him one twice as large, and the chief
steward bowed and scraped to him, and the room stewards danced around
him as if he was a duke. And yet I heard later that he was nothing but a
Bismarck herring importer from Hoboken."
"Yes, that's the way to get what you want. Did you have any nobility on
board?"
"Yes, there was a Hungarian baron in the automobile business, and two
English sirs. The baron was quite a decent fellow: I had a talk with him
in the smoking room one night. He didn't put on any airs at all. You
would have thought he was an ordinary man. But the sirs kept to
themselves. All they did the whole voyage was to write letters, wear
their dress suits and curse the stewards."
"They tell me over here that the best eating is on the French lines."
"Yes, so I hear. But some say, too, that the Scandinavian lines are
best, and then again I have heard people boosting the Italian lines."
"I guess each one has its points. They say that you get wine free with
meals on the French boats."
"But I hear it's fourth rate wine."
"Well, you don't have to drink it."
"That's so. But, as for me, I can't stand a Frenchman. I'd rather do
without the wine and travel with the Dutch. Paris is dead compared with
Berlin."
"So it is. But those Germans are getting to be awful sharks. The way
they charge in Berlin is enough to make you sick."
"Don't tell _me_. I have been there. No longer ago than last
Tuesday--or was it last Monday?--I went into one of those big
restaurants on the Unter den Linden and ordered a small steak, French
fried potatoes, a piece of pie and a cup of coffee--and what do you
think those thieves charged me for it? Three marks fifty! Think of it!
That's eighty-seven and a half cents. Why, a man could have got the same
meal at home for a dollar. These Germans are running wild. American
money has gone to their heads. They think every American they get hold
of is a millionaire."
"The French are worse. I went into a hotel in Paris and paid ten francs
a day for a room for myself and wife, and when we left they charged me
one franc forty a day extra for sweeping it out and making the bed!"
"That's nothing. Here in Innsbruck they charge you half a krone a day
_taxes_."
"What! You don't say!"
"Sure thing. And if you don't eat breakfast in the hotel they charge you
a krone for it anyhow."
"Well, well, what next? But, after all, you can't blame them. We
Americans come over here and hand them our pocket-books, and we ought to
be glad if we get anything back at all. The way a man has to tip is
something fearful."
"Isn't it, though! I stayed in Dresden a week, and when I left there
were six grafters lined up with their claws out. First came the
port_eer_. Then came--"
"How much did you give the port_eer_?"
"Five marks."
"You gave him too much. You ought to have given him about three marks,
or, say, two marks fifty. How much was your hotel bill?"
"Including everything?"
"No, just your bill for your room."
"I paid six marks a day."
"Well, that made forty-two marks for the week. Now the way to figure out
how much the port_eer_ ought to get is easy: a fellow I met in
Baden-Baden showed me how to do it. First, you multiply your hotel bill
by two, then you divide by twenty-seven, and then you knock off half a
mark. Twice forty-two is eighty-four! Twenty-seven into eighty-four goes
about three times, and a half from three leaves two and a half. See how
easy it is?"
"It _looks_ easy, anyhow. But you haven't got much time to do all that
figuring."
"Well, let the port_eer_ wait. The longer he has to wait the more he
appreciates you."
"But how about the others?"
"It's just as simple. Your chambermaid gets a quarter of a mark for
every day you have been in the hotel. But if you stay less than four
days she gets a whole mark anyhow. If there are two in the party she
gets half a mark a day, but no more than three marks in any one week."
"But suppose there are two chambermaids? In Dresden there was one on day
duty and one on night duty. I left at six o'clock in the evening, and so
they were both on the job."
"Don't worry. They'd have been on the job anyhow, no matter when you
left. But it's just as easy to figure out the tip for two as for one.
All you have to do is to add fifty per cent., and then divide it into
two halves, and give one to each girl. Or, better still, give it all to
one girl and tell her to give half to her pal. If there are three
chambermaids, as you sometimes find in the swell hotels, you add another
fifty per cent. and then divide by three. And so on."
"I see. But how about the hall porter and the floor waiter?"
"Just as easy. The hall porter gets whatever the chambermaid gets, plus
twenty-five per cent.--but no more than two marks in any one week. The
floor waiter gets thirty pfennigs a day straight, but if you stay only
one day he gets half a mark, and if you stay more than a week he gets
two marks flat a week after the first week. In some hotels the hall
porter don't shine shoes. If he don't he gets just as much as if he
does, but then the actual 'boots' has to be taken care of. He gets half
a mark every two days. Every time you put out an extra pair of shoes he
gets fifty per cent. more for that day. If you shine your own shoes, or
go without shining them, the 'boots' gets half his regular tip, but
never less than a mark a week."
"Certainly it seems simple enough. I never knew there was any such
system."
"I guess you didn't. Very few do. But it's just because Americans don't
know it that these foreign blackmailers shake 'em down. Once you let the
port_eer_ see that you know the ropes, he'll pass the word on to the
others, and you'll be treated like a native."
"I see. But how about the elevator boy? I gave the elevator boy in
Dresden two marks and he almost fell on my neck, so I figured that I
played the sucker."
"So you did. The rule for elevator boys is still somewhat in the air,
because so few of these bum hotels over here have elevators, but you can
sort of reason the thing out if you put your mind on it. When you get on
a street car in Germany, what tip do you give the conductor?"
"Five pfennigs."
"Naturally. That's the tip fixed by custom. You may almost say it's the
unwritten law. If you gave the conductor more, he would hand you change.
Well, how I reason it out is this way: If five pfennigs is enough for a
car conductor, who may carry you three miles, why shouldn't it be enough
for the elevator boy, who may carry you only three stories?"
"It _seems_ fair, certainly."
"And it _is_ fair. So all you have to do is to keep account of the
number of times you go up and down in the elevator, and then give the
elevator boy five pfennigs for each trip. Say you come down in the
morning, go up in the evening, and average one other round trip a day.
That makes twenty-eight trips a week. Five times twenty-eight is one
mark forty--and there you are."
"I see. By the way, what hotel are you stopping at?"
"The Goldene Esel."
"How is it?"
"Oh, so-so. Ask for oatmeal at breakfast and they send to the livery
stable for a peck of oats and ask you please to be so kind as to show
them how to make it."
"My hotel is even worse. Last night I got into such a sweat under the
big German feather bed that I had to throw it off. But when I asked for
a single blanket they didn't have any, so I had to wrap up in bath
towels."
"Yes, and you used up every one in town. This morning, when I took a
bath, the only towel the chambermaid could find wasn't bigger than a
wedding invitation. But while she was hunting around I dried off, so no
harm was done."
"Well, that's what a man gets for running around in such one-horse
countries. In Leipzig they sat a nigger down beside me at the table. In
Amsterdam they had cheese for breakfast. In Munich the head waiter had
never heard of buckwheat cakes. In Mannheim they charged me ten pfennigs
extra for a cake of soap."
"What do you think of the German railroad trains?"
"Rotten. That compartment system is all wrong. If nobody comes into your
compartment it's lonesome, and if anybody _does_ come in it's too damn
sociable. And if you try to stretch out and get some sleep, some ruffian
begins singing in the next compartment, or the conductor keeps butting
in and jabbering at you."
"But you can say _one_ thing for these German trains; they get in on
time."
"So they do, but no wonder! They run so slow they can't _help_ it. The
way I figure it, a German engineer must have a devil of a time holding
his engine in. The fact is, he usually can't, and so he has to wait
outside every big town until the schedule catches up to him. They say
they never have accidents, but is it any more than you expect? Did you
ever hear of a mud turtle having an accident?"
"Scarcely. As you say, these countries are far behind the times. I saw a
fire in Cologne; you would have laughed your head off! It was in a feed
store near my hotel, and I got there before the firemen. When they came
at last, in their tinpot hats, they got out half a dozen big squirts and
rushed into the building with them. Then, when it was out, they put the
squirts back into their little express wagon and drove off. You never
saw such child's play. Not a line of hose run out, not an engine
puffing, not a gong heard, not a soul letting out a whoop. It was more
like a Sunday school picnic than a fire. I guess if these Dutch ever
_did_ have a civilised blaze, it would scare them to death. But they
never have any."
"Well, what can you expect? A country where all the charwomen are men
and all the garbage men are women!"
For the moment the two have talked each other out, and so they lounge
upon the rail in silence and gaze out over the valley. Anon the
gumchewer spits. By now the sun has reached the skyline to the westward
and the tops of the ice mountains are in gorgeous conflagration.
Scarlets war with golden oranges, and vermilions fade into palpitating
pinks. Below, in the valley, the colours begin to fade slowly to a
uniform seashell grey. It is a scene of indescribable loveliness; the
wild reds of hades splashed riotously upon the cold whites and pale hues
of heaven. The night train for Venice, a long line of black coaches, is
entering the town. Somewhere below, apparently in the barracks, a sunset
gun is fired. After a silence of perhaps two or three minutes, the
Americans gather fresh inspiration and resume their conversation.
"I have seen worse scenery."
"Very pretty."
"Yes, sir; it's well worth the money."
"But the Rockies beat it all hollow."
"Oh, of course. They have nothing over here that we can't beat to a
whisper. Just consider the Rhine, for instance. The Hudson makes it look
like a country creek."
"Yes, you're right. Take away the castles, and not even a German would
give a hoot for it. It's not so much what a thing _is_ over here as what
_reputation_ it's got. The whole thing is a matter of press-agenting."
"I agree with you. There's the 'beautiful, blue Danube.' To me it looks
like a sewer. If _it's_ blue, then _I'm_ green. A man would hesitate to
drown himself in such a mud puddle."
"But you hear the bands playing that waltz all your life, and so you
spend your good money to come over here to see the river. And when you
get back home you don't want to admit that you've been a sucker, so you
start touting it from hell to breakfast. And then some other fellow
comes over and does the same, and so on and so on."
"Yes, it's all a matter of boosting. Day in and day out you hear about
Westminster Abbey. Every English book mentions it; it's in the
newspapers almost as much as William Jennings Bryan or Caruso. Well, one
day you pack your grip, put on your hat and come over to have a
look--and what do you find? A one-horse church full of statues! And
every statue crying for sapolio! You expect to see something
magnificent, something enormous, something to knock your eye out and
send you down for the count. What you _do_ see is a second-rate
graveyard under roof. And when you examine into it, you find that
two-thirds of the graves haven't even got a dead man in them. Whenever a
prominent Englishman dies, they put up a statue to him in Westminster
Abbey--_no matter where he happens to be buried_. I call that clever
advertising. That's the way to get the crowd."
"Yes, these foreigners know the game. They have made millions out of it
in Paris. Every time you go to see a musical comedy at home, the second
act is laid in Paris, and you see a whole stageful of girls doing the
hesitation, and a lot of old sports having the time of their lives. All
your life you hear that Paris is something rich and racy, something that
makes New York look like Roanoke, Virginia. Well, you fall for the
ballyhoo and come over to have your fling--and then you find that Paris
is largely bunk. I spent a whole week in Paris, trying to find something
really awful. I hired one of those Jew guides at five dollars a day and
told him to go the limit. I said to him: 'Don't mind _me_. I am
twenty-one years old. Let me have the genuine goods.' But the worst he
could show me wasn't half as bad as what I have seen in Chicago. Every
night I would say to that Jew: 'Come on, now Mr. Cohen; let's get away
from these tinhorn shows. Lead me to the real stuff.' Well, I believe
the fellow did his darndest, but he always fell down. I almost felt
sorry for him. In the end, when I paid him off, I said to him: 'Save up
your money, my boy, and come over to the States. Let me know when you
land. I'll show you the sights for nothing. You need a little
relaxation. This Baracca Class atmosphere is killing you.'
"And yet Paris is famous all over the world. No American ever came to
Europe without dropping off there to have a look. I once saw the Bal
Tabarin crowded with Sunday school superintendents returning from
Jerusalem. And when the sucker gets home he goes around winking and
hinting, and so the fake grows. I often think the government ought to
take a hand. If the beer is inspected and guaranteed in Germany, why
shouldn't the shows be inspected and guaranteed in Paris?"
"I guess the trouble is that the Frenchmen themselves never go to their
own shows. They don't know what is going on. They see thousands of
Americans starting out every night from the Place de l'Opéra and coming
back in the morning all boozed up, and so they assume that everything is
up to the mark. You'll find the same thing in Washington. No
Washingtonian has ever been up to the top of the Washington monument.
Once the elevator in the monument was out of commission for two weeks,
and yet Washington knew nothing about it. When the news got into the
local papers at last, it came from Macon, Georgia. Some honeymooner from
down there had written home about it, roasting the government."
"Well, me for the good old U.S.A. These Alps are all right, I guess--but
I can't say I like the coffee."
"And it takes too long to get a letter from Jersey City."
"Yes, that reminds me. Just before I started up here this afternoon my
wife got the _Ladies' Home Journal_ of month before last. It had been
following us around for six weeks, from London to Paris, to Berlin, to
Munich, to Vienna, to a dozen other places. Now she's fixed for the
night. She won't let up until she's read every word--the advertisements
first. And she'll spend all day to-morrow sending off for things--new
collar hooks, breakfast foods, complexion soaps and all that sort of
junk. Are you married yourself?"
"No; not yet."
"Well, then, you don't know how it is. But I guess you play poker."
"Oh, to be sure."
"Well, let's go down into the town and hunt up some quiet barroom and
have a civilised evening. This scenery gives me the creeps."
"I'm with you. But where are we going to get any chips?"
"Don't worry. I carry a set with me. I made my wife put it in the
bottom of my trunk, along with a bottle of real whiskey and a couple of
porous plasters. A man can't be too careful when he's away from home."
They start along the terrace toward the station of the funicular
railway. The sun has now disappeared behind the great barrier of ice and
the colours of the scene are fast softening. All the scarlets and
vermilions are gone; a luminous pink bathes the whole scene in its fairy
light. The night train for Venice, leaving the town, appears as a long
string of blinking lights. A chill breeze comes from the Alpine vastness
to westward. The deep silence of an Alpine night settles down. The two
Americans continue their talk until they are out of hearing. The breeze
interrupts and obfuscates their words, but now and then half a sentence
comes clearly.
"Have you seen any American papers lately?"
"Nothing but the Paris _Herald_--if you call _that_ a paper."
"How are the Giants making out?"
"... badly as usual ... rotten ... slump ... shake up...."
"... John McGraw ... Connie Mack ... glass arm...."
"... homesick ... give five dollars for...."
"... whole continent without a single baseball cl...."
"... glad to get back ... damn tired...."
"... damn...."
"... _damn_...."
VIENNA
[Illustration: VIENNA]
VIENNA
The casual Sunday School superintendent, bursting with visions of
luxurious gaieties, his brain incited by references to _Wiener blut_,
his corpuscles tripping to the strains of some Viennese _schlagermusik_,
will suffer only disappointment as he sallies forth on his first night
in Vienna. He is gorgeously caparisoned with clean linen, talcumed,
exuding Jockey Club, prepared for surgical and psychic shock, his legs
drilled hollow to admit of precious fluids, his pockets bulging with
kronen. He is a lovely, mellow creature, a virtuoso of the domestic
virtues when home, but now, at large in Europe, he craves excitement.
His timid soul is bent on participating in the deviltries for which
Vienna is famous. His blood is thumping through his arteries in
three-four time. His mind is inflamed by such strophes as "_Es giebt nur
a Kaiserstadt; es giebt nur a Wien_" and "_Immer luste, fesch und
munter, und der Wiener geht nit unter_." But he is brought gradually to
the realisation that something is amiss. Can it be that the vice
crusaders have been at work? Have the militant moralists and the
professional women hunters, in their heated yearnings to flay the
transgressor, fallen foul of Vienna?
He expected to find a city which would be one roseate and romantic
revel, given over to joys of the flesh, to wine-drinking and
confetti-throwing, overrun with hussies, gone mad with lascivious
waltzes, reeking with Babylonish amours. He dreamed of Vienna as one
continual debauch, one never-ceasing saturnalia, an eternal tournament
of perfumed hilarities. His lewd dreams of the "gayest city in Europe"
have produced in him a marked hallucinosis with visions of Neronic
orgies, magnificently prodigal--deliriums of chromatic disorder.
But as he walks down the Kärntnerstrasse, encircles the Ring and stands
with bulging inquisitive eyes on the corner of the Wiedner Hauptstrasse
and Karlsplatz, he wonders what can be the matter. Where, indeed, is
that prodigality of flowers and spangled satin he has heard so much
about? Where are those super-orchestras sweating over the scores of
seductive waltzes? Where the silken ankles and the glittering eyes, the
kisses and the flutes, the beery laughter and the delirious leg shaking?
The excesses of merrymaking are nowhere discoverable. Des Moines, Iowa,
or Camden, New Jersey, would present quite as festive a spectacle, he
thinks, as he gazes up at the sepulchral shadows on the gigantic
Opernhaus before him. He cannot understand the nocturnal solitude of the
streets. There is actual desolation about him. A chlorotic girl, her
cheeks unskilfully painted, brushes up to him with a careless "_Geh
Rudl, gib ma a Spreitzn._" But that might happen in Cleveland, Ohio--and
Cleveland is not framed as a modern Tyre. He is puzzled and distressed.
He feels like a Heliogabalus on a desert isle. He consults his watch. It
is past midnight. He has searched for hours. No famous thoroughfare has
escaped him. He has reconnoitred diligently and thoroughly, as only a
pious tourist bent on forbidden pleasures knows how. He is the arch-type
of American traveller; the God-fearing deacon on the loose; the
vestryman returning from Jerusalem. Hopefully, yet fearfully, he has
pushed his search. He has traversed the Kärntnerring, the Kolowratring,
peered into Stadt Park, hit the Stubenring, scouted Franz Josefs Kai,
searched the Rotenturmstrasse, zigzagged over to the Schottenring,
followed the Franz, Burg and Opern-Rings, and is back on the Karlsplatz,
still virtuous, still sober!
Not a houri. Nary a carnival. No strain of the "Blaue Donau" has wooed
his ear. No one has nailed him with sachet eggs. He has not been choked
by quarts of confetti. His conscience is as pure as the brews of Munich.
He is still in a beneficent state of primeval and exquisite prophylaxis,
of benign chemical purity, of protean moral asepsis. He came prepared
for deluges of wine and concerted onslaughts from ineffable
_freimaderln_. But he might as well have attended a drama by Charles
Klein for all the rakish romance he has unearthed. His evening has gone.
His legs are weary. And nothing has happened to astound or flabbergast
him, to send him sprawling with Cheyne-Stokes breathing. In all his
promenading he has seen nothing to affect his vasomotor centres or to
produce Argyll-Robertson pupils.
Can it be true, he wonders, that, after all, Viennese gaiety is an
illusion, a base fabrication? Is the _Wiener blut_, like Iowan blood,
calm and sluggish? Is Vienna's reputation bogus, a snare for tourists, a
delusion for the unsophisticated? Where is that far-renowned
_gemüthlichkeit_? Has an American press agent had his foul hand in the
advertising of Austria's capital? Perhaps--perhaps!... But what of those
Viennese operas? What of those sensuous waltzes, those lubric bits of
_schramm-musik_ which have come from Vienna? And has he not seen
pictures of Viennese women--angels _à la mode_, miracles of beauty,
Loreleis _de luxe_? Even Baedeker, the papa of the travelling
schoolmarms, has admitted Vienna to be a bit frivolous.
A puzzle, to be sure. A problem for Copernicus--a paradox, a theorem
with many decimal points. So thinks the tourist, retiring to his hotel.
And figuring thus, he falls to sleep, enveloped in a caressing miasma of
almost unearthly respectability.
But is it true that Vienna is the home of purity, of early retirers, of
phlegmatic and virtuous souls? Are its gaieties mere febrile imaginings
of liquorish dreamers? Is it, after all, the Los Angeles of Europe? Or,
despite its appearances, is it truly the gayest city in the world,
redolent of romance, bristling with intrigue, polluted with perfume? It
is. And, furthermore, it is far gayer than its reputation; for all has
never been told. Gaiety in Vienna is an end, not a means. It is born in
the blood of the people. The carnival spirit reigns. There are almost no
restrictions, no engines of repression. Alongside the real Viennese
night life, the blatant and spectacular caprices of Paris are so much
tinsel. The life on the Friedrichstrasse, the brightest and most active
street in Europe, becomes tawdry when compared with the secret glories
of the Kärntnerring. In the one instance we have gaiety on parade, in
strumpet garb--the simulacrum of sin--gaiety dramatised. In the other
instance, it is an ineradicable factor of the city's life.
To appreciate these differences, one must understand the temperamental
appeals of the Viennese. With them gaiety comes under the same
physiological category as chilblains, hunger and fatigue. It is accepted
as one of the natural and necessary adjuncts of life like eating and
sleeping and lovemaking. It is an item in their pharmacopoeia. They do
not make a business of pleasure any more than the Englishman makes a
business of walking, or the American of drinking Peruna or the German of
beerbibbing. For this reason, pleasure in Vienna is not elaborate and
external. It is a private, intimate thing in which every citizen
participates according to his standing and his pocketbook. The Austrians
do not commercialize their pleasure in the hope of wheedling dollars
from American pockets. Such is not their nature. And so the slumming
traveller, lusting for obscure and fascinating debaucheries, finds
little in Vienna to attract him.
Vienna is perhaps the one city in the world which maintains a
consistent attitude of genuine indifference toward the outsider, which
resents the intrusion of snoopers from these pallid States, which
deliberately makes it difficult for foreign Florizels to find diversion.
The liveliest places in Vienna present the gloomiest exteriors. The
official guides maintain a cloistered silence regarding those addresses
at which Viennese society disports itself when the ledgers are closed
and the courts have adjourned. The Viennese, resenting the intrusion of
outsiders upon his midnight romances, holds out no encouragement for
globe-trotting Don Juans. He refuses to be inspected and criticised by
the inquisitive sensation hunters of other nations. Money will not tempt
him to commercialize his gaiety and regulate it to meet the morbid
demands of the interloper. Hence the external aspect of sobriety. Hence
the veneer of piety. Hence the sepulchral silence of the midnight
thoroughfares. Hence the silence and the desolation which meet the
roaming tourist.
In this respect Vienna is different from any other large city in
Europe. The joys of Parisian night life are as artificial as cosmetics.
They are organised and executed by technicians subtly schooled in the
psychology of the Puritan mind. To the American, all forms of pleasure
are excesses, to be indulged in only at rare intervals; and Paris
supplies him with the opportunities. Berlin, and even Munich, makes a
business of gaiety. St. Petersburg, patterning after Paris, excites the
visitor with visions of gaudy glory; and London, outwardly chaste,
maintains a series of supper clubs which in the dishonesty of their
subterranean pleasures surpass in downright immorality any city in
Europe. Budapest is a miniature Babylon burning incense by night which
assails the visitor's nostrils and sends him into delirious ecstasies.
San Francisco and New York are both equipped with opportunities for
all-night indulgences. In not one of these cities does the sight seeker
or the joy hunter find difficulty in sampling the syrups of sin.
Mysterious guides assail him on the street corners, pouring libidinous
tales into his furry ears, tempting him with descriptions like
Suetonius's account of the Roman circuses. Automobiles with megaphones
and placards summon him from the street corners. Electric
signs--debauches of writhing colour--intoxicate his mind and point the
way to haunts of Caracalla.
But Vienna! He will search in vain for a key to the night life. By
bribery he may wring an admission or obtain an address from the hotel
clerk; but the ménage to which he is directed is, alas, not what he
seeks. He may plead with cabmen or buy the honour of taxicab drivers,
but little information will he obtain. For these gentlemen, strange as
it may seem, are almost as ignorant of the gaiety of Vienna as he
himself. And at last, in the early morning, after ineffectual searching,
after hours of assiduous nosing, he ends up at some _kaffeehaus_ near
the Schillerplatz, partakes of a chaste ice with _Wiener gebäck_ and
goes dolorously home--a virgin of circumstance, an unwilling and
despondent Parsifal, a lofty and exquisite creature through lack of
opportunity, the chaste victim of a killjoy conspiracy. He is that most
tragic figure--an enforced pietist, a thwarted voluptuary. _Eheu! Eheu!
Dies faustus!_
In order to come into intimate touch with the night life of Vienna one
must live there and become a part of it. It is not for spectators and it
is not public. It involves every family in the city. It is inextricably
woven into the home life. It is elaborate because it is genuine, because
it is not looked upon as a mere outlet for the repressions of
puritanism. From an Anglo-Saxon point of view Vienna is perhaps the most
degenerate city in the world. But degeneracy is geographical; morals are
temperamental. This is why the Viennese resents intrusion and spying.
His night life involves the national spirit. His gaiety is not a
prerogative of the _demi-monde_, but the usufruct of all classes. Joy is
not exclusive or solitary with the Viennese. He is not ashamed of his
frolics and hilarities. He does not take his pleasures hypocritically
after the manner of the Occidental moralist. He is a gay bird, a
sybarite, a modern Lucullus, a Baron Chevrial--and admits it.
To be sure, there is in Vienna a miniature night life not unlike that
of the other European capitals, but it requires constant attention and
assiduous coddling to keep it alive. The better class Viennese will have
none of it. It is a by-product of the underworld and is no more
characteristic of Vienna than the gilded _cafés chantants_ which cluster
round the Place Pigalle on Montmartre are characteristic of Paris. These
places correspond to the Palais de Danse and the Admirals Palast in
Berlin; to the Villa Villa and the Astor Club in London; to
Reisenweber's in New York; to L'Abbaye and the Rat Mort in
Paris--allowing of course for the temperamental influences (and legal
restrictions) of the different nations.
Let us arouse a snoring cabman and make the rounds. Why not? All
merrymaking is shot through with youth, no matter how dolorous the joy
or how expensive the indulgence. So let us partake of the feast before
us. Our first encounter is with the Tabarin, in the Annagasse, an
establishment not unlike the Bal Tabarin in Paris. We hesitate at the
entrance, but being assured by the doorkeeper, garbed like Louis Seize,
that it is "_ein äusserst feines und modernes nacht etablissement_" we
enter, partake of a bottle of champagne (thirty kronen--New York prices)
and pass out and on to Le Chapeau Rouge, where we buy more champagne.
From there we go to the Rauhensteingasse and enter Maxim's, brazenly
heralded as the Montmartre of Vienna. Then on to the Wallfischgasse to
mingle with the confused visitors of the Trocadero, where we are urged
to have supper. But time is fleeting. The cabmeter is going round like a
tortured turbine. So we hasten out and seek the Wiehburggasse, where we
discover a "Palais de Danse"--seductive phrase, suggestive of ancient
orgies. But we cannot tarry--in spite of Mimi Lobner (Ah, lovely lady!)
who sings to us "Liebliche Kleine Dingerchen" from "Kino-Königin," and
makes us buy her a peach _bowle_ in payment. One more place and we are
ready for the resort in the Prater, the Coney Island of Vienna. This
last place has no embroidered name. Its existence is emblazoned across
the blue skies by an electric sign reading "Etablissement Parisien." It
is in the Schellinggasse and justifies itself by the possession of a
very fine orchestra whose _militär-kapellmeister_ knows naught but
inebriate _tanzmusik_.
Again in the open air, headed for the Kaisergarten, we reflect on our
evening's search for _nachtvergnügungen_. With the lone exception of our
half-hour with Mimi, it has been a sad chase. All the places (with the
possible exception of the Trocadero) have been cheaply imitative of
Paris, with the usual appurtenances of arduous waiters, gorgeously
dressed women dancing on red velvet carpets, fortissimo orchestras,
expensive wines, _blumenmädl_, hothouse strawberries and other
accessories of manufactured pleasure. But compared with Paris these
places have been second rate. The _damen_ (I except thee, lovely Mimi!)
have not inflamed us either with their beauty or with manifestations of
their _esprit gaulois_. For the most part they have been stodgy women
with voluminous bosoms, Eiffel towers of bought hair--bison with
astonishing hyperboles and parabolas, dressed in all of the voluptuous
splendour but possessing none of the grace of the Rue de la Paix.
Furthermore, these establishments have lacked the deportmental abandon
which saves their prototypes in Paris from downright banality. All of
their deviltries have been muted, as if the guests suffered from a
pathological fear of pleasure. Strangers we were when we entered. As
strangers we take our departure.
Why do I linger thus, you ask, over these hothouse caperings? For the
same reason that we are now going to inspect the Kaisergarten. Because
this phase of life represents an unnatural development in the Viennese
mode of pleasure, something grafted, yet something characteristic of the
impressionability of the Viennese mind. The Viennese are a hybrid and
imitative people. They have annexed characteristics distinctly French.
In the Kaisergarten these characteristics are more evident than
elsewhere. Here is a people's playground in which all manner of
amusements are thrown together, from the _balhaus_, where nothing but
expensive champagne is sold, to the scenic railway, on which one may
ride for fifty heller. This park presents a bizarre and chaotic mingling
of outdoor concerts, variety theatres, _bierkabaretts_, moving picture
halls, promenades and sideshow attractions of the Atlantic City type.
The Kaisergarten is the rendezvous of the bourgeoisie, the heaven of hoi
polloi--rotund merchants with walrus moustachios, dapper young clerks
with flowing ties, high-chokered soldiers, their boots polished into
ebony mirrors, fat-jowled maidens in rainbow garb.... There is
lovemaking under the Linden trees, beer drinking on the midway,
_schnitzel_ eating in the restaurants. Homely pleasantries are thrown
from heavy German youths to the promenading _mädchen_. One catches such
greetings and whisperings as "_Du bist oba heut' fesch g'scholnt_" and
"_Ko do net so lang umananderbandln_." There exists a spirit of buoyant
and genuine fellowship. But here again it is a private and personal
brand of gaiety. Let the obvious stranger whisper "_Schatz'rl_" to a
powdered Fritzi on the bench next to him, and he will be ignored for his
impertinence. The same salutation from a Viennese will call forth a
coquettish "_Raubersbua_." Even the _Amerikan-bar_ in the centre of the
Kaisergarten (in charge of no less a celebrity than Herr Pohnstingl!)
will not offer the tourist the hospitality he hopes to find. He will
find neither Americans nor American drinks. The cocktail--that boon to
all refined palates, when mixed with artistry and true poetic
feeling--circulates _incognito_ at Herr Pohnstingl's. Such febrifuges as
masquerade under that name are barely recognisable by authentic
connoisseurs, by Rabelaises of sensitive esophagi, by true lovers of
subtly concocted gin and vermouth and bitters. But the Viennese, soggy
with acid beer, his throat astringentized by strong coffee, knows not
the difference. And so the _Amerikan-bar_ flourishes.
[Illustration: VIENNA]
It was here that I discovered Gabrielle, a sad little French girl,
alone and forsaken in the midst of merriment, drinking Dubonnet and
dreaming of the Boulevard Montparnasse. I bought her another
Dubonnet--what stranger would have done less? In her was epitomized the
sadness of the stranger in Vienna. Lured by lavish tales of gaiety, she
had left Paris, to seek an unsavoury fortune in the love marts of
Vienna. But her dream had been broken. She was lonely as only a Parisian
can be, stranded in an alien country. She knew scarcely a score of
German words, in fact no language but her own. Her youth and coquetry
did not avail. She was an outsider, a deserted onlooker. She spoke
tenderly of the Café du Dôme, of Fouquet's, the Café d'Harcourt, Marigny
and the Luxembourg. She inquired sentimentally about the Bal Bullier.
She was pretty, after the anæmic French type of beauty, with pink
cheeks, pale blue eyes and hair the colour of wet straw. She had the
slender, shapely feet of the French cocotte. Her stockings were of thin
pink silk. Her slender, soft fingers were without a ring. Her jewelry,
no doubt, had long since gone to the money lender. She seemed childishly
happy because I sat and talked to her. Poor little Gabrielle! Her
tragedy was one of genuine bereavement, or perhaps the worst of all
tragedies--loneliness. I shall never think again of Vienna without
picturing that stranded girl, sipping at her reddish drink in the
_Amerikan-bar_ in the Kaisergarten. But her case is typical. The
Viennese are not hospitable to strangers. They are an intimate,
self-sufficient people.
Let us turn, however, from the little Gabrielle to a more fascinating
and exquisite creature, to a happier and more buoyant denizen of
Viennese night life, to a lady of more elegant attire. In short, behold
Fräulein Bianca Weise. In her are the alkaloids of gaiety. She
irradiates the joyfulness of the city. In her infancy she was hummed to
sleep with snatches from the "Wiener Blut," the booziest waltz in all
Christendom. Bianca is tall and catlike, but deliciously proportioned.
Her hair is an alloy of bronze and gold. Her skin is pale, and in her
cheeks there is the barest bit of rose, like a flame seen through ivory.
Her eyes are large, and their blue is almost primary. Her face is a
perfect oval. Her lips are full and abnormally red. Her slender, conical
hands are always active like those of a child, and she wears but little
jewelry. Her gowns come from Paquin's and seem almost a part of her
body.
This is Bianca, the most beautiful woman in all Europe. Do I seem to
rave? Then let me answer that perhaps you have not seen Bianca. And to
see her is to be her slave, her press agent. It was Bianca's picture
that went emblazoning over two continents a few years ago as the supreme
type of modern feminine beauty, according to the physiological experts
and the connoisseurs of pulchritude. But it is not because of the lady's
gift of beauty that I feature her here. It is because she so perfectly
typifies the romance of that whirling city, so accurately embodies the
spirit of Vienna's darkened hours. In the afternoon you will find her on
the Kärntnerstrasse with her black-haired little maid. At five o'clock
she goes for _kaffeetsch'rl_ to Herr Reidl's Café de l'Europe, in the
Stefanplatz. With her are always two or three Beau Brummels chatting
incessantly about music and art, wooing her suavely with magnificent
technique, drinking coffee intermittently, and lavishly tipping the
_kellner_.
These _kaffeehäuser_ are the leading public institutions of Vienna.
They take the place of private teas, culture clubs, dramatic readings
and sewing circles in other countries. All Vienna society turns out in
the afternoon to partake of _melange_, _kaffee mit schlagobers_,
_kapuziner_, _schwarzen_, _weckerln_ and _kaisersemmeln_. But no hard
drinks, no vulgar pretzels and wursts. Only Americans order beer and
cognac at the coffee houses, and generally, after once sampling them,
they follow the bibulous lead of the Viennese. Each _kaffeehaus_ has its
own coterie, its own habitués. Thus, at the Café de l'Europe one finds
the worldly set, the young bloods with artistic leanings. The Café de
l'Opéra, in the Opernring, is patronised by the advocates and legal
attachés. At the Café Scheidl, in the Wallfischgasse, foregather the
governmental coterie, the army officers and burgomasters. The merchants
discuss their affairs at the Café Schwarzenberg, in the Kärntnerring. At
the Café Heinrichshof, in the Opernring, one finds the leading actors
and musicians immersed in the small talk of their craft. Thus it goes.
In all the leading cafés--the Habsburg, Landtmann, Mokesch, Gartenbau,
Siller, Prückl--the tables are filled, and the coffee drinking, the
_baunzerln_ eating and the gossiping go on till opera time.
The theatre in Vienna is a part of the life. It is not indulged in as a
mere amusement or diversion, like shooting the chutes or going to
church. It is an evening's obligation. This accounts for the large
number of Vienna theatres and for their architectural beauty. But do not
think that when you have attended a dozen such places as the
Hofoperntheatre, the Hofburgtheatre, the Deutsches Volkstheatre and the
Carltheatre you have sensed the entire theatrical appeal of Vienna. Far
from it. No city in the world is punctuated with so large a number of
semi-private intimate theatres and cabarets as Vienna--theatres with a
seating capacity of forty or fifty. You may know the Kleine Bühne and
the Max und Moritz and the Hölle, but there are fifty others, and every
night finds them crowded.
Theatregoing is occasionally varied with lesser and more primitive
pastimes. Go out on the crooked Sieveringerstrasse and behold the
multitudes waxing mellow over the sweet red _heuriger_. Go to the
Volksgarten-Café Restaurant any summer night after seven, pay sixty
heller, and see the crowds gathered to hear the military band concerts;
or seek the halls in winter and join the audiences who come to wallow in
the florid polyphonies of the _Wiener Tonkünstler Orchester_. Sundays
and holiday nights go to Grinsing and Nussdorf and watch the people at
play. Make the rounds of the wine houses--the Rathaus Keller, the
Nieder-Oesterreichisches Winzerhaus, the Tommasoni--and behold the
spooning and the rough joking.
All this is part of the night life of Vienna. But it is not the life in
which Bianca participates. Therefore we cannot tarry in the wine houses
or at the concerts. Instead let us attend the opera. We go early before
the sun has set. The curtain rises at six-thirty to permit of our
leaving by half past ten, for there is much to do before morning. After
the performance--dinner! The Viennese are adepts in the gustatory art.
Their meals have the heft of German victualty combined with the
delicacies and imaginative qualities of French cooking. An ideal and
seductive combination! A rich and toothsome blending!... Bianca touches
my arm and says we must make haste. This evening I am to be honoured
with dinner in her apartment. So we drive to her rooms on the
Franzenring overlooking the Volksgarten.
The Viennese dinner hour is eleven, and this is why the tourist,
fingering his guide book, looks in vain for the diners. Sacher's, the
Imperial, the Bristol and the Spatenbräu are deserted in the early
evenings. Even after the Opera these restaurants present little of the
life found in the Paris, Berlin or London restaurants. The Viennese is
not a public diner; and here again we find an explanation for the
tourist's impressions. When the Viennese goes to dinner, he does so
privately. Bianca's dinner that night was typical. There were twelve at
table. There was music by a semi-professional pianist. The service was
perfect--it was more like a dinner in a _cabinet particulier_ at a
Parisian café than one in a private apartment. But here we catch the
spirit of Vienna, the transforming of what the other cities do publicly
into the intimacies of the home.