It is a very different appraisement, however, from the “inventory

stare” of Fifth Avenue. Here, not money value but beauty of line--blend

of colour, grace, _verve_--is the criterion. And the modestly gowned

little _midinette_ receives as many admiring glances as the gorgeous

demi-mondaine, if only she has contrived an original cut to her frock,

or tied a clever, new kind of bow to her hat. Novelty, novelty, is the

cry of the exacting _artiste_; and who obeys wins approval--who has

exhausted imagination is laid upon the shelf.

But, again, this is not the shifting, impermanent temper of Madame New

York; it is the fickle variability of the great artist, exercising

her eternal prerogative: caprice. She accepts a fashion one week,

discards it the next for one newer; throws that aside two days later,

and demands to know where everyone’s ideas have gone. It is not that

she is pettish, but simply that she is used to being slaved for, and to

being pleased--by something different, something more charming every

hour. Infinite pains are taken to produce the merest trifle she may

fancy. Look from your window into the rows of windows up and down the

street, or that line your court: everywhere people are sewing, fitting

minute bits of delicate stuffs into a pattern, threading tiny pearls

to make a border, straining their eyes in dark work-rooms,--toiling

indefatigably--to create some fragile, lovely thing that will be

snatched up, worn once or twice, and tossed aside, forgotten for the

rest of time.

Yet no one of the workers seems to grow impatient or disheartened

over this; the faces bent absorbedly over their tasks are bright with

interest, alert and full of eagerness to make something that will

captivate the difficult mistress, if only for an hour. They may never

see her--when she comes to inspect their handiwork, they are shut

behind a dingy door; at best, they may only catch a glimpse of her as

she enters her carriage, or sweeps past them outside some brilliant

theatre of her pleasure. But one cries to another: “She’s wearing my

fichu!” The other cries back: “And I draped her skirt!” And supreme

contentment illumines each face, for each has helped towards the

goddess’s perfection--and they are satisfied.

As I heard one unimportant little _couturière_ remark, “_Dieu merci_,

in Paris we _all_ are artists!” And so they all are responsible for

the finished success of the star. One cannot help contrasting this

ideal that animates the most insignificant of them--the ideal of sheer

beauty, towards which they passionately toil to attain--with the stolid

“what-do-I-get-out-of-it” attitude of the Anglo-Saxon artisan. French

working people are poorly paid, they have little joy in life beyond

the joy of what they create with their fingers; yet there is about

them a fine contentment, an almost radiance, that is inspiring only to

look upon. When they do have a few francs for pleasure, you will find

them at the _Français_ or the _Odéon_--the best to be had is their

criterion; and when the theatres are out of their reach, on Sundays

and holidays they crowd the galleries and museums, exchanging keenly

intelligent comment as they scrutinize one masterpiece after another.

The culture of the nation, at least, is not artificial; but deep-rooted

as no other race can claim: in the poorest _ouvrier_, no less than

in the most polished gentleman, there exists the insatiable instinct

for what is fine and worthy to be assimilated. And if the prejudiced

concede this perhaps, but add that it remains an intellectual instinct

always--an artistic instinct, while the heart of French people is

callous and cold, one may suggest that there are two kinds of artists:

those who give away their hearts in their art, and those who jealously

hide theirs lest the vulgar tear it to pieces.

And the _great_ artiste, however gracious she may be for us, however

kind may be her smile, never lets us forget that we are before a

curtain; which, though she may draw it aside and give us brief glimpses

of her wonder, conceals some things too precious to be shown.

II

ON HER EVERYDAY PERFORMANCE

Sight-seeing in Paris must be like looking at the Venus of Milo on

a roll of cinematograph films--an experience too harrowing to be

remembered. I am sure it is the better part of discretion to forswear

Baedeker, and without system just to “poke round.” Thus one catches the

artists, in the multiform moods of their life, as ordinary beings; and

stumbles across historic wonders enough into the bargain.

Really to take Paris unawares, one must get up in the morning before

she does, and slip out into the street when the white-bloused baker’s

boy and a sleepy _cocher_ or two, with their drowsy, dawdling horses,

are all the life to be seen. One walks along the empty boulevards,

down the quiet Rue de la Paix, into the stately serenity of the

Place Vendôme and on across the shining Seine into the grey, ancient

stillness of the crooked Rue du Bac. And in this early morning calm, of

solitary spaces and clear sunshine, fresh-sprinkled streets and gently

fluttering trees, one meets with a new and altogether different Paris

from the dazzling, exotic city one knows by day and at night.

Absent is the snort and reckless rush of motors, the insistent jangling

of tram and horse’s bells, the rumble of carts and clip-clop of their

Norman stallions’ feet; absent the hurrying, kaleidoscopic throngs who

issue from the subway stations and fill the thoroughfares; absent even

that familiar smell-of-the-city which in Paris is a fusion of gasoline,

wet asphalt, and the faint fragrance of women’s _sachet_: this virgin

morning peace is without odour save the odour of fresh leaves, without

noise, without the bustle of moving people. The city stretches its

broad arms North and South, East and West, like a serene woman in the

embrace of tranquil dreams; and suggests a soft and beautiful repose.

But, while still you are drinking deep of it, she stirs--opens her

eyes. A distant cry is heard: “_E-e-eh, pommes de terre-eeeeh!_” And

then another: “_Les petites fraises du bois! Les petites fraises!_” And

the cries come nearer, and there is the sound of steps and the creak of

a hand-cart; and Paris rubs her eyes and wakes up--she must go out and

buy potatoes!

The same fat, brown-faced woman with the same two dogs--one pulling

the cart, one running fussily along-side--has sold potatoes in the

same streets round the Place Vendôme, ever since I can remember. For

years, her lingering vibrant cry has roused this part of Paris to the

first sign of day. And while she is making change, and gossiping with

the concierge, and the smaller dog is sniffing impatiently round her

skirts, windows are opened, gratings groan up, at the corner some

workmen call to one another--and the day is begun.

While the streets are still comparatively empty, let us follow the

first abroad--the little _midinette_ (shop-girl) and her mother--to

mass. They will choose one of the old, unfashionable churches, like

St. Roch or _La Trinité_; though on Sundays they go to the Madeleine

to hear the music, and revel in splendid pomp and pageantry. France at

heart is agnostic; a nation of fatalists, if anything. But the vivid

French imagination is held in thrall by the colour and mystic ritual

of the Catholic church: by the most perfect in ceremonial and detail

of all religions. When the curtain rises on the full magnificence of

gorgeous altar, golden-robed bishop and officiating priests; when, in

accompaniment to the sonorous _Aves_, exquisite music peals forth, and

the whole is blended, melted together by the soft light of candles, the

subtle haze of incense: into French faces comes that ecstasy with which

they greet the perfect in all its manifestations. They are _dévotes_ of

beauty in the religious as in every other scene.

But now our _midinette_ and her _maman_ enter a dusky unpretentious

old church, where quietly they say their prayers and listen to the

monotonous chanting of a single priest, reading matins in a little

corner chapel. The two women cross themselves, and go out. In the

_Place_, the younger one stops to spend twopence for a spray of

muguet--that delicate flower (the lily-of-the-valley) that is the

special property of the _midinettes_ of Paris, and that they love. On

their Saint Catherine’s Day (May 1st), no girl is without a little

bunch of it as a “_porte-bonheur_” for her love affairs during the next

year.

But the _midinette_ calls, “_au ’voir_”; and the _maman_ returns, “_à

ce soir_!” And they disappear, the one to her shop, the other to her

duties as concierge or storekeeper, and we are left in the Place alone.

What about coffee? Let us take it here at the corner brasserie, where

the old man with his napkin tucked in his chin is crumbling “crescents”

and muttering imprecations at the government--which he attacks through

the _Matin_ or _Figaro_ spread upon his knees. A young man, with

melancholy black moustaches and orange boots, is the only other client

at this early hour. He refuses to eat, though a _café complet_ is

before him; and looks at his watch, and sighs. We know what is the

matter with _him_.

Considerate of the lady who is late, we choose a table on the other

side--all are outdoors of course, in this Springtime of the year--and

devote ourselves to discussing honey and rolls and the season’s styles

in hosiery, which young persons strolling towards the boulevard

benevolently offer for our inspection. Occasionally they pause,

and graciously inquire if we “have need of someone?” And on our

replying--with the proper mixture of apology and admiration--that all

our wants seem to be attended to, pass on with a shrug of resignation.

Motor-buses are whirring by now, and a maze of _fiacres_, taxis,

delivery-boy’s bicycles, and heavy trucks skid round the slippery

corner in dangerous confusion. The traffic laws of Paris are of the

vaguest, and policemen are few and far between; all at once, the Place

seems unbearably thick and full of noise. We call for our _addition_,

exchange complaisances with the waiter, and depart--just as the young

man with the orange boots, with a cry of “_enfin!_” tucks the hand of a

bewitchingly pretty young lady (doubtless a mannequin) within his arm,

and starts towards the Rue de la Paix.

The Rue de la Paix at half past nine in the morning does not

intrigue us. We prefer to wait for it until the sensational _heure

des rendez-vous_, in the evening. Why not jump into a cab and bowl

leisurely out to the Bois? It will be cool there, and quiet during

the hour before the fashionable _cavaliers_ come to ride. With a wary

eye for a horse of reasonable solidity, we engage a blear-eyed Gaul

to tow us to the Porte Dauphine. We like this Gaul above other Gauls,

because his anxious flop-eared dog sitting next to him on the box

gives every sign of liking him. And though, even before we have turned

into the Champs Elysées, there have been three blood-curdling rows

between cabby and various colleagues who presumed to occupy a place in

the same street; though whips have been brandished and such ferocious

epithets as “brother-in-law of a bantam!” “son of a pigeon-toed hen!”

have been brandished without mercy by our remorseless Jehu, we take the

reassuring word of his dog’s worshipping brown eyes that he is not a

bad sort after all.

He cracks us out the Champs Elysées at a smart pace; yet we have

time to gloat over the beauties of this loveliest of all avenues:

its spacious gardens, its brilliant flower-plots, its quaint little

_guignols_ and donkey carriages for children. Vendors of jumping

bunnies and squeaking pigs thread in and out the shady trees, showing

their fascinating wares; and one does not wonder at the swarm of

small people with their bright-ribboned nurses, who flock round to

admire--and to buy.

This part of the avenue--from the Concorde to the Rond-Point--is given

over to children; and all kinds of amusements, wise and unwise, are

prepared for them. But by far the most popular are the _guignols_:

those theatres-in-little, where Punch and Judy go through their

harassing adventures, to the accompaniment of “_c’est joli, ça!_”

and “_tiens, que c’est chic!_”; uttered by enthusiastic small French

throats, seconded by applauding small French hands. For in Paris even

the babies have their appreciation for the drama that is offered them

before they can talk; and show it so spontaneously, yet emphatically,

that one is arrested by their vehemence.

But we can take in these things only in passing, for Jehu and the

flop-eared dog are carrying us on up the suavely mounting avenue,

beyond the haughty portals of fashionable hotels and automobile houses

_de luxe_; round the stately Arc de Triomphe, and into the Avenue du

Bois. Here a sprinkling of governesses and their charges, old ladies,

and lazy young men are ranged along in the stiff luxury of penny

chairs. On a Sunday we might stop and take one ourselves, to watch

the parade of toilettes and the lively Parisian _jeunesse_ at its

favourite game of “_faire le flirt_”; but this morning the terrace

is half asleep, and above it the houses of American millionaires and

famous ladies of the demi-monde turn forbidding closed shutters to our

inquiring gaze. Jehu speeds us past them, and we alight at the Porte

Dauphine, the principal entrance to the Bois.

Green grass, the glint of a lake, broad, sandy roads and intimate

slim _allées_ greet us, once within the gates; while all round and

overhead are the slender, grey-green French poplars, fashioned into

gracious avenues and seductive pathways, with its gay little restaurant

at the end. Of all styles and architecture are these last: Swiss

châlets, Chinese pagodas, Japanese tea-houses, and the typical French

_pavillon_; they have one common trait, however--that of serving

atrocious food at a fabulous price. Let us abjure them, and wander

instead along the quite expansive lake, to the rocks and miniature

falls of _Les Rochers_.

All through the Bois one is struck with the characteristic French

passion for vistas. There is none of the natural wildness of Central

Park, or the uninterrupted sweep of green fields that gives the charm

of air and openness to the parks of London; but--though here in Paris

we are in a “wood”--everywhere there is the elaborate simplicity of

French landscape gardening: trees cut into tall Gothic arches, or

bent into round, tunnel-like curves; brush trimmed precisely into

formal box hedges; paths leading into avenues, that in turn lead

into other avenues--so that before, behind, and on every side there

is that prolonged silver-grey perspective. One sees the same thing at

Versailles and St. Cloud: in every French forest, for that matter. The

artist cannot stay her hand, even for the hand of nature.

And so, in the Bois, rocks have been built into grottos, and trickling

waterfalls trained to form cascades above them; and little lakes and

islands have been inserted--everything, anything, that the artistic

imagination could conceive, to enhance the sylvan scene for the

critical actors who frequent it. Which reminds us that these last will

be on view now--it is eleven o’clock, their hour for riding and the

promenade. So let us leave _Les Rochers_, and the greedy goats of the

_Pré Catalan_, and hasten back to the Avenue des Acaçias and the famous

Sentier de Vertu.

Here, a _chic_ procession of _élégantes_ and their admirers are

strolling along, laughing and chatting as they come upon acquaintances,

forming animated little groups, only to break up and wander on to

join others. Cavaliers in smart English coats, or the dashing St.

Cyr uniform, canter by; calling gay greeting to friends, for whose

benefit they display an elaborately careless bit of clever horsemenship

_en passant_. Ladies and “half-ladies” in habits of startling yet

somehow alluring cut and hue--heliotrope and brick pink are among the

favourites--allow their mounts to saunter lazily along the allées,

while their own modestly veiled eyes spy out prey. They are viewed with

severity by the _bonne bourgeoise_ of the tortoise-shell lorgnettes

and heavy moustache; who keeps her limousine within impressive calling

distance, while she, with her fat poodle under her arm, waddles along

ogling the beaux.

A doughty regiment of these there are: young men with marvellous

waists and eager, searching eyes; middle-aged men with figures “well

preserved,” and eyes that make a desperate effort at eagerness, but

only succeed in looking tired; and then the old gallants, waxed and

varnished, and gorgeously immaculate, from sandy toupée to gleaming

pointed shoes--the three hours they have spent with the barber and in

the scrupulous hands of their valet have not been in vain. They do the

honours of the _Sentier_, with a courtliness that brings back Louis

Quatorze and the days of Ninon and the lovely Montespan.

But there are as lovely--and perhaps as naughty?--ladies among these

who saunter leisurely down the grey-green paths today. In wonderfully

simple, wonderfully complicated _toilettes de matin_, they stroll

along in pairs--or again (with an oblique glance over the shoulder,

oh a quite indifferent glance), carelessly alone with two or three

little dogs. I read last week in one of the French illustrated

papers a serious treatise on ladies’ dogs. It was divided into the

three categories: “Dogs for morning,” “Dogs for afternoon,” “Dogs of

ceremony”--meaning full-dress dogs. And the article gravely discussed

the correct canine accessory that should be worn with each separate

costume of the _élégante’s_ elaborate day. It omitted to add, however,

the incidental value of these costly scraps of fuzz, as chaperones.

But with a couple of dogs, as one pretty lady softly assured me, one

can go anywhere, feeling _quite_ secure; and one’s husband, too--for of

course he realizes that the sweet little beasts _must_ be exercised!

So the conscientious ladies regularly “exercise” them; and if

sometimes, in their exuberance, Toto and Mimi escape their distressed

young mistresses, and must be brought back by a friend who “chanced” to

be near at hand--who can cavil? And if the kind restorer walks a little

way with the trio he has reunited, or sits with them for a few moments

under the trees, why not? They are always three--Toto and Mimi and the

lady--and one’s friends who may happen to pass know for themselves how

hard dogs are to keep in hand!

So we have a series of gay, well-dressed couples wandering down the

intimate allées, or scattered in the white iron chairs within the

trees: a very different series from those who will be here at eleven

o’clock tonight--and every night. The Bois is far too large to be

policed, and the grotesque shapes that haunt it after dark--crouching,

low-browed figures that slink along in the shadows, greedy for any sort

of prey--make one shudder, even from the security of a closed cab.

All about are the brilliant, bright-lit restaurants with their crowds

of feasting sybarites; yet at the very door of these--waiting to fall

upon them if they take six steps beyond the threshold--is that grisly,

desperate band, some say of Apaches, others say monsters worse than

those.

At all events, it is better in the evening to turn one’s eyes away

from the shadowy paths, and towards the amusing tableaux to be seen in

passing fiacres and taxis. To the more reserved Anglo-Saxon, French

frankness of demonstration in affairs of the affections comes always

as a bit of a shock. To see a lady reclining against the arm of a

gentleman, as the two spin along the boulevard in an open horse-cab; to

watch them, quite oblivious of the world looking on, ardently turn and

kiss one another: this is a disturbing and meanly provocative scene to

put before the susceptible American. No one else pays any attention to

it--they have acted that scene so many times themselves; and when, in

the friendly darkness of the Bois at night, all lingering discretion

is thrown to the winds, and behind the cabby’s broad, habituated back

anything and everything in the way of fervid love-making goes on--who

cares? Except to smile sympathetically, and return to his own affair,

more ardently than ever. The silhouettes one sees against taxi-windows

and the dust-coloured cushions of _fiacres_ are utterly demoralizing to

respectable American virtue.

Let us turn on the light of day, therefore, and in a spasm of prudence

mount a penny-bus that traffics between the Étoile and the Latin

Quarter. It is a flagrant _faux-pas_ to arrive in the Latin Quarter by

way of anything more sumptuous than a penny-bus or a twopenny tram. It

shrieks it from the cobbles, that one is a “_nouveau_”; and that, in

the Quarter, is a disgrace too horrible to be endured.

We rock across the Pont Royal, then, on the precarious upper story of

an omnibus; and wind along the narrow Rue du Bac, which, since our

visit of early morning, has waked to fitful life in its old plaster

and print shops. Second-hand dealers of all kinds flourish here, and

the medley of ancient books, musty reliquaries, antique jewelry, and

battered images minus such trifles as a nose or ear, makes the street

into one continuous curiosity-shop. Until one reaches the varnish

and modern bustle of the Bon Marché stores; then, when we have been

shot through the weather-beaten slit of the Rue des Saints Pères, I

insist that we shall climb down and go on foot up quaint, irregular

Notre-Dame-des-Champs to the garden where I spent many joyous days as a

student.

It is in a crooked little street which runs breathlessly for a block

between Notre-Dame-des-Champs and the Boulevard Montparnasse--and there

stops; leaving you with the insinuation that it has done its best to

squeeze in on this frazzled boundary of the old Quarter, and that more

cannot be expected of it. On one side of the abrupt block, rambles

the one-time _hôtel_ of the Duchesse de Chevreuse; _intrigante_,

cosmopolitan, irresponsible lover of adventure, who kept Louis XIII’s

court in a hubbub with her pranks and her inordinate influence over

Queen Anne.

The grey court that has seen the trysts of Chalais, Louvigni, even

of the great Richelieu himself, rests still intact; and they say the

traditional secret passage also--leading from a hidden recess in the

garden to the _grands palais_. But that is only legend (which, by some

vagary, still clings to the feelers of the practical twentieth century

mind), and I have never seen it. The _hôtel_ is now covered yearly with

a neat coat of yellow paint, and used as an apartment house; crowded by

the usual rows of little Quarter shops: a cobbler’s, a blanchissage,

a goldsmith’s on the East wing; the beaten-down door of an antiquary

on the West: until its outraged painted bricks seem to bulge out over

the thread of a side-walk, in continual effort to rub noses with the

_hôpital_ opposite--the only other house of any age in the street.

One peep at the garden--and you will admit it is worth it, with its

lovely plaintive iris, its pale wistaria, its foolish pattering

fountain--and we turn towards the Boulevard and lunch. I have said

this bit of a street along which we are walking is on the boundary of

the old Quarter. Alas, in these days there is no Quarter. One tries to

think there is, particularly if one is a new-comer to the Left Bank,

and enthusiastic; but one learns all too soon that there is not. There

are students, yes, and artists; and the cafés and paintshops and pretty

grisettes that go with students and artists. But the quarter of Rudolph

and Mimi, of Trilby and Svengali: can you find it in steam-heated

apartments, where ladies in Worth gowns pour tea? Or in the thick blue

haze about the bridge and poker games at the Café du Dôme?

The Quarter has passed; there remains only its name. And that we should

use with a muttered “forgive us our trespasses”; for it is the name of

romance, shifted onto commonplaceness.

Yet one can still enjoy there the romance of a delicious meal for two

francs fifty; and there are any number of jealously hidden places from

which to choose. Let us go to Henriette’s, this tiny hole-in-the-wall,

where one passes the fragrant-steaming kitchen on the way to the little

room inside, and calls a greeting to the cook--an old friend--where

he stands, lobster-pink and beaming, over his copper sauce-pans. Back

under a patched and hoary skylight the tables are placed; and a family

of mild-mannered mice clamber out over the glass to peer inquiringly

at the gluttons below--who eat at one bite enough cheese to keep any

decently delicate mouse for a week.

We order an omelette _aux champignons_, a Chateaubriand (corresponding

to our tenderloin of steak) with pommes soufflés; as a separate

vegetable, _petits pois à la Française_, and for dessert a heaping

plate of wild strawberries to be eaten with one of these delectable

brown pots of thick _crême d’Isigny_--aih! It makes one exquisitely

languid only to think of it, all that luscious food! We lean back

voluptuously in our stiff little chairs, and gaze about us while

waiting for it.

At the half dozen tables round us are seated the modern prototypes

of Rudolph and Mimi: mildly boisterous American youths from the

Beaux Arts and Julien’s; careworn English spinsters with freckles

and paint-smudged fingers; a Russian couple, with curious “shocked”

hair and vivid, roving black eyes; a stray Frenchman or two, probably

shop-keepers from the Boulevard, and a trio of models--red-lipped,

torrid-eyed, sinuously round, in their sheath-fitting tailored skirts

and cheap blouses. They are making a nonchalant meal off bread and

cheese, and a bottle of _vin ordinaire_: evidently times are bad, or

“_ce bon garçon_ Harry’s” remittance has not come.

Proof of other bad times is in the charming frieze painted, in

commemoration of the Queen of Hearts, by two girl artists of a former

day, who worked out their over-due bill to the house in this decorative

fashion. For the poverty, at least, of the traditional Quarter

survives; though smothered into side streets and obscure “passages” by

the self-styled “Bohemians” of Boulevards Raspail and Montparnasse. And

one notices that the habitués of Henriette’s and of all the humbler

restaurants have their own napkin-rings which they take from the rack

as they come in; does it not save them ten centimes, an entire penny,

on the charge for _couvert_?

They have their own tobacco too, and roll their cigarettes with care

not to spill a single leaf at the process; and you feel a heartless

Dives to sit smoking your fragrant Egyptians after your luxurious meal

and sipping golden Bénédictine at the considerable price of forty

centimes (eight cents). Our more frugal neighbours, however, show

no sign of envy, or indeed of interest of any sort; their careless

indifference not only to us, but to their own meal and the desultory

chatter of their comrades, speaks of long and familiar experience

with both. Somehow they are depressing, these Rudolphs without their

velveteens, these Mimis without their flowers and other romantic

trappings of poverty; the hideous modern garments of the shabbily

genteel only emphasize a sordid lack of petty cash.

I suggest that we run away from them, and hie us to the lilac-bushes

and bewitching _bébés_ of the Jardin du Luxembourg; for in the realm

of the great _artiste_ even the babies contribute to the scene, and

in their fascinating short frocks, and wee rose-trimmed bonnets,

are a gladsome troupe of Lilliputians with whom to while away one’s

melancholy. But you may have an inhuman apathy towards babies, and

prefer to taxi out to St. Germain for a view of the terrace, and a

glimpse en route of sadly lovely Malmaison--the memory-haunted home

of Josephine. Or you may suggest the races--though I hope you won’t,

because in France the sport is secondary; and mannequins are a dull

race. I had rather you chose an excursion up the Seine, on one of the

fussy little river-boats; though of course at St. Cloud we should be

sure to find a blaring street fair in possession of the forest, and at

Meudon the same: the actors must bring their booths and flying pigs

into the very domain of Dame Nature herself; being no respecters of

congruity where passion for the theatric is concerned.

But we should have the cool vistas of the inner forest, and the stately

satisfaction of historic stone stairs and mellow creamy-grey urns

and statues through the trees; or we can go down the river instead

to old Vincennes, and have a look at the grim prison-castle that

has sheltered many a noble in disgrace. Which shall it be? To use

Madame La France’s borrowed Spanish expression: I am “_tout à votre

disposition_.”

III

AND ITS SEQUEL

Whichever it is, we must be back in time for tea at one of the

fashionable “_fiv’ o’clocks_”; for, though many ladies who buy their

clothes in Paris do not know it, looking at _grandes dames_ is vastly

different from looking at mannequins or the demi-monde; and the French

_grande dame_ is at her best at the tea hour. Someone has said, with

truth, that the American woman is the best-dressed in the morning,

the Englishwoman the best-dressed at night; but that the Parisienne

triumphs over both in the gracious, clinging gown of afternoon.

Let us turn into this exclusive little establishment in the Place

Vendôme, and from the vantage of a window-table in the mezzanine

observe the lovely ladies as they enter. The first to come is in the

simplest frock of leaf-green--the average American woman would declare

it “positively _plain_”; there is not a sign of lace or hand embroidery

about it, only at the open throat a soft fall of finest net, snowy as

few American women would take pains to have it. And the lady’s hair is

warm copper, and her hat a mere ingenious twist of leaf-green tulle;

but a master hand has draped it and the simple frock of green; and the

whole is a beautiful blend of line and colour, as unstudied as a bit of

autumn woodland.

Here is a combination more striking. The lady just stepping from the

pansy limousine has chosen yellow for her costume of shimmering crêpe;

a rich dull ochre, with a hint of red in its flowing folds. At the neck

and wrists are bits of fragile old embroidery, yellow too with age,

and that melt into the flesh-tones of the wearer till they seem part

of her living self; while at the slim waist-line is a narrow band of

dusky rose--the kind of rose that looks faintly coated with silver--and

daringly caught up high at the right side, a single mauve petunia. The

hat of course is black--a mere nothing of a tiny toque, with one spray

of filmy feather low against the lady’s blond hair.

“But she is not pretty at all,” you realize suddenly; “she’s really

almost ugly, and yet--”

Exactly. A Frenchwoman can be as ugly as it pleases perverse Heaven

to make her; there is always the “and yet” of her overwhelming charm.

You may call it artificial if you like--the mere material allurements

of stuffs and bits of thread; but to arrange those stuffs there must

be a fine discrimination, to know how to use those bits of thread, a

subtle science no other woman has--or ever quite acquires. Look about

you in the tea-room--now fast filling with women of all ages and all

tastes--what is it that forms their great general attraction? White

hands, shown to perfection by a fall of delicate lace, or the gleam of

a single big emerald or sapphire; hands moving daintily among fragile

china, the sheen of silver, the transparency of glass. And above the

hands, _vif_ faces, set in the soft coquetry of snowy ruches, graceful

fichus, piquant Medici collars, but all open upon the alluring V of

creamy throat.

What is it these women have? You can set down what they have on, but

what is it you cannot set down, yet that you know they possess? It is

the art of supreme femininity, carried out in the emphasis of every

charm femininity has; by means of contrast, colour, above all by the

subtlest means in everything: simplicity. And there is added to their

conscious art a pervading delicate voluptuousness, that underlies the

every expression of themselves as women; and that completes the havoc

of the male they subjugate.

Look at him now. Do you know any man but an Englishman who _likes_ tea?

Yet here they are, these absinthe-ridden Frenchmen drinking it with a

fervour; but their eyes are not within their cups! For again the highly

proper little dogs are present--“dogs for the afternoon,” of course;

and the management has been thoughtful in providing discreet corners

and deep window-seats, where a tête-a-tête may be enjoyed without too

many interruptions on the part of the _chic_ waitress with a windward

eye to tips.

Another precaution these abandoned couples take is a third

person--usually a young girl--to be with them. Madame starts out with

the young girl, by chance they meet Monsieur X at the five-o’clock,

and have tea with him; of course he escorts the ladies home, and

equally of course the young girl is “dropped” first. If between her

house and that of Madame’s, the better part of an hour is employed

in threading the tangled traffic of that time of evening, who can

say a word except the chauffeur--who is given no reason to regret

his long-suffering silence on such subjects. Thus during the hour

after tea, the hour between six and seven, when kindly dusk lends her

cloak to the game, husbands and wives play at their eternal trick of

outwitting one another.

It may be a game that disgusts you, you may find it sordid, even

repellent, to watch; but, among people with whom the marriage of

convenience is universal (and in most respects turns out excellently

well), what can you expect? A lover or a divorce, for both parties; and

the French man and woman prefer to maintain the stability of house and

name, and to wink at one another’s individual peccadilloes. They are

generally very good friends, and devoted to their children; and never,

never do they commit that crassness of the Anglo-Saxon, in bringing

their amours within the home.

[Illustration: L’HEURE DU RENDEZ-VOUS. RUE DE LA PAIX]

So let us watch the departing couples whirl away from the little

tea-room, without too great severity; and ourselves wander out into

the Place, and up the short, spectacular Rue de la Paix. This above

all others is the hour to see it--when fashion throngs the narrow

pavements, or bowls slowly past in open motor cars; and when the courts

of the great dressmaker’s shops are filled with young blades, waiting

for the mannequins to come down. One by one these marvellously slim,

marvellously apparelled young persons appear; each choosing the most

effective moment she can contrive for her particular entrance into

the twilight of the street. A silken hum of skirts precedes her; the

swains in the doorway eagerly look up--adjust their scarf-pins, give a

jauntier tilt to their top-hats--and the apparition, sweetly smiling

and emphatically perfumed, is among them.

There are murmured greetings, a suggestion from two of the bolder of

the beaux, a gracious assent from the lady; and the three spin away

in a taxi, to Armenonville or Château Madrid, for dinner. They have a

very pleasant life, these mannequins; for lending the figure the _bon

Dieu_ gave them--or that they painstakingly have acquired--they receive

excellent salaries from the great _couturiers_. In consideration of

which they appear at the establishment when they please, or not at all,

when they have the caprice to stay away. If the figure is sufficiently

remarkable, there is no limit to the whims they can enjoy--and be

pardoned, even eagerly implored to return to their deserted posts.

And then, as we see, after professional hours--what pleasaunce of

opportunity! What boundless possibilities of _la vie chic_! Really,

saith the ex-midinette complacently, it is good to have become a

mannequin.

Some there are who at this excellent business-hour of evening, make a

preoccupied exit; sweep past the disappointed gentlemen in waiting,

and walk swiftly towards the maze and glitter of the Boulevard. The

gentlemen shrug, comprehending. A _rendez-vous_. Out of idle curiosity,

one of them may follow. “_Mais, ma chère!_” he murmurs reproachfully,

at sight of the ill-restored antiquity the lady annexes at the corner.

She makes a deprecatory little face, over her shoulder, which says,

“You ought to understand, one must be practical. But what about

tomorrow night?” And a bit of paste-board flutters from her gold purse

and at the feet of the reproachful gentleman; who smiles, picks it

up, reads it, shrugs, and strolls back to his doorway, to find other

extravagance for this evening.

What a Paris! you exclaim; is there anything in it besides the

_rendez-vous_? Not at this hour. For mechanics and midinettes,

bank-clerks and _vendeuses_, shop-keepers and ever-thrifty daughters of

joy, pour into the boulevards in a human flood; and always, following

Biblical example, they go two by two. In another hour they will be

before their _croute-au-pot_, in one of these omnipresent cafés;

for the present they anxiously wait on corners, or, with a relieved

smile, link arms and move off at an absorbed, lingering gait down the

boulevard.

Some halt, to sit down at the little tables on the side-walk, and drink

an _apéritif_. Here too, the old dogs of commerce and industry get

together over a _Pernod_ or a _Dubonnet_, and in groups of twos and

threes heatedly thrash out the unheard-of fluctuations of the Bourse

today. The _bon bourgeois_ meets his wife, and hears of the children’s

cleverness, the servant’s perfidy, over a _sirop_; two anæmic young

government clerks gulp Amer Picon, and violently contradict one another

about the situation in Morocco; a well-known _danseuse_ sips vermouth

with the long-haired youth who directs the orchestra at the Folies

Bergères: it is as though, between six and seven, all Paris is strung

along outside the cafés that link the boulevard into a chain of chairs

and tables. And in the street, down the middle, motor-buses honk their

horns, horse-buses crack their whips, cochers and chauffeurs shout

anathema to one another and malediction on policemen and the human worm

in general; while the traffic thickens and crawls slower with every

minute, and a few helpless _gendarmes_ struggle in vain to preserve

order.

Let us out of it all, and to dine. We can go to Château Madrid, and eat

under the trees, and watch the gorgeous Parisiennes in the gallery as

instinctively they group themselves to lend heightened effect to the

_ensemble_; or we can go to Paillard’s and pay ten dollars apiece for

the privilege of sitting against the wall and consuming such sauces

as never were in Olympus or the earth beneath; or we can dine above

the gardens of the _Ambassadeurs_, in the elegant little balcony that

overhangs a miniature stage, and later look on at the _revue_. Or we

can sail up the river in the balmy gloaming, and eat a _friture_ of

smelts on the terrasse of the _Pêche Miraculeuse_--there are a score

of places where we can find a delicious meal, and in each observe a

different world; running from _do_ to _do_ in the scale of the race.

I suggest, however, that we choose a café in the Quarter--not one

of the tiny eating-houses like Henriette’s where we lunched, but a

full-fledged, prosperous café; frequented by the better-off artists

and the upper-class Quarter grisettes. Ten minutes in the Underground

lands us at the door of one of the best-known of these places. In the

front room, with big windows open to the street, is the _café des

consommateurs_; in the rear, the restaurant and card rooms, and a

delightful galleried garden, where also one may dine. Alluring strains

of Hoffmann’s _Barcarolle_ entice us thither with all speed; and soon

our enthusiasm is divided between chilled slices of golden melon and

the caressing sensuousness of the _maître d’orchestre’s_ violin.

In passing, one may note that good music in Paris is a rare quantity.

Though many people come to study singing, there are few vocal concerts,

and the _Touche_ and the _Rouge_ are the only orchestras of any

importance. They give weekly concerts in small halls, hardly bigger

than an ordinary-sized room, and the handful of attendants smoke their

fat porcelain pipes and extract cherries out of glasses of _kirsch_,

and happily imagine themselves music-lovers. But the great _artiste_ is

an artist through sight rather than through sound; and even in opera,

where the dramatic element is or should be subservient to the music,

the superdramatic French are ill-at-ease and hampered. Some of the

performances at the Opéra Comique are delightful, for here the lighter

pieces of Massenet and Debussy are given, with the French lilt and

dash peculiar to these masters. But, at the Opéra itself, the Wagnerian

compositions are poorly conducted, the audience uninterested and

uninteresting; and even the beautiful foyer--which, since the famous

New Year’s Eve balls have been done away with, knows no longer its

former splendours--cannot compensate for the thoroughly dull evening

one endures there.

Far happier is one listening to the serenades and intermezzos of the

cherubic Alsatian violinist at the Quarter café-restaurant. And,

after dinner, he plays solos out in the café proper, for the same

absorbed polyglot audience that has listened to him for years. Let

us range ourselves in this corner against the wall, between the two

American lady artists of masculine tailoring and Kansas voices, and the

fierce-mustachioed Czek, mildly amused over a copy of the _Rire_. Every

seat in the big double room is taken now, and we are a varied crew of

French _bourgeois_, Russian, Norwegian, and German students, English

and American tourists, Japanese attachés (or so one supposes from

their conversation, in excellent French, with our neighbour Czek), and

blond and black bearded artists who might be of any nation except the

Oriental.

They all know each other, and are exchanging jokes and cigarettes

over their _café crême_--which they drink, by the way, out of glass

tumblers--and paying goodnaturedly for a _bock_ for Suzanne or

Madeleine, whose _bocks_ some other person should be paying. The room

has taken on the look of a big family party, some talking, some

writing letters, others reading from the shiny black-covered comic

papers; all smoking, and sipping absently now and then from their

steaming glasses or little _verres de liqueur_. The music drifts in

soothingly, between spurts of conversation, and one is conscious of

utter contentment and well-being.

Suddenly a door is flung open. In whirls a small hurricane, confined

within a royal purple coat and skirt; gives one lightning glance round

the circle of surprised merry-makers, and with a triumphant cry pounces

on Suzanne yonder, with the fury of a young virago. “So!” pants the

vixen, shaking poor Suzanne. “So you thought to outwit me, you thought

to oust me, did you? _Me_, whom he knew six months before ever he saw

you--me whom he took to Havre, to Fontainebleau, to--to--traitress!

Coward! _Scélérate!_ Take that--and that--and that!”

She slaps Suzanne soundly on both cheeks; Suzanne pulls her hat

off--each makes a lunge at the other’s hair. “_Mesdames, mesdames_,”

cries the _patron_, hurrying forward. “_Je vous en prie_--and

monsieur,” reproachfully, “can you do nothing?”

Monsieur--the monsieur who kindly, and quite disinterestedly, paid

Suzanne’s book--sits by, lazily tapping his fingers against the glass.

“What would you?” he says, with a shrug. “Women--” another shrug--“one

had as well let them finish it.”

But the _patron_ is by no means of this mind. He begins telling those

ladies that his house is a serious house; that his clients are of the

most serious, that he himself absolutely demands and insists upon

seriousness; and that if these ladies cannot tranquillize themselves

instantly----

But of a sudden he halts--pulled up short by the abrupt halt of

the ladies themselves. In the thick of the fray Suzanne has flung

contemptuous explanation; Gaby, the virago, has caught it. A truce

is declared. Curt conversation takes place. Monsieur, still lazily

tapping, consents to confirm the defendant’s statement as fact. Gaby,

though still suspicious, consents to restore the hated rival’s hat;

and in ten minutes the three are tranquilly discussing Cubism and a

new round of _demi-brunes_. The audience, who have gazed on the entire

comedy with keen but quite impartial interest, shrug their shoulders,

light fresh cigarettes, and return to their papers and pens. Since the

first start of surprise, there has not been a murmur among them; only

complete concentration on the drama, which the next minute they as

completely forget.

There are a dozen such scenes a day, in one’s wandering about Paris;

that is, a dozen scenes as sudden, as intense, and as quickly over.

The everyday life of the people is so vivid, of such swift and varied

contrast, that the theatre itself, to satisfy them, must overreach

into melodrama before it rouses. I believe that no other city in the

world, unless it be the next most dramatic, New York, could support a

theatre like the _Grand Guignol_ for example. I have seen there, in

one evening, gruesomely realistic representations of a plague scene in

India; the destruction of a submarine, with all the crew on board;

and the operating-room of a hospital, where a woman is unnecessarily

murdered to pay the surgeon’s wife’s hat bill.

The French imagination, turned loose on dramatic situations, is like

a cannibal before a peck of missionaries; only instead of eating ’em

alive, the Frenchman makes them live--and diabolically accurate. But

not for the doubtful interest of studying French psychology through

its horrors, shall we end our day by a visit to the _Guignol_. Nor

yet to the _Français_ or the _Odéon_, as we are a bit tired to follow

Molière or Racine tonight. What do you say to looking in at the

cheerful rowdyism of the _Moulin Rouge_, and then on for a bite at

one of the restaurants on “the Hill”? It would never do for you, as

a self-respecting American, to leave Paris without properly “doing”

Montmartre; and as for me, I want to prove to you my assertion that

Montmartre exists for and off visiting strangers like ourselves.

Let us make short work of the _Moulin_ therefore--which is neither

more nor less raw than the rest of the variétés prepared for foreign

consumption--and go on up to the Place Pigalle; to the racket and

ribaldry of the _Café Royal_. Other night-restaurants make some

pretense of silver-gilding their vulgarity; the _Abbaye_ and the _Rat

Mort_ have their diamond dust of luxury to throw into one’s eyes. But

the _Royal_ is unadulterated Montmartre: the girls, most of them,

shabby--their rouge put on without art; the harsh red coats of the

tziganes seemingly made of paper, and their songs lacking even the

thinnest veneer of French wit.

In the small low room upstairs fresh air is left behind by those who

enter. Instead, the heavy-scented powder of the dancing girls, the

sweet sickening perfume of great baskets of roses on sale, and the

pervading odour of lobster, combine to assail us as we steer through

the crowded room to a table. These last are arranged in the familiar

hollow square round the wall, leaving a cleared space in the centre for

dancers.

We order supper, and then look about us. It is still a different

world from the many we have seen today: a world of “wire-pulled

automatons,”, who laugh dead laughter, and sing dead tuneless songs, in

their clock-work dance of pleasure. There is a sinister host of these

puppet-people: girls of seventeen and eighteen, with the hard, settled

features of forty; Englishmen, very red and embarrassed, blatantly over

for a “larky weed-end”; next them a mere baby of fourteen, with sleek

curls to her shoulders, and a slazy blue frock to her knees--chattering

shrilly to the Polish Jew with the pasty white face, and the three

pasty-white necks rolling over his collar. Yonder, a group of

Brazilians, most of them very boys, who have captured the prettiest

_danseuse_ and carried her off for champagne; beyond them, torpid-eyed

Germans seeking shatzkinder, and American drummers by the dozen--their

feet on the bar-rail, their hats on the back of their heads, grinning

half sheepishly like nasty little boys on a forbidden holiday.

Well, does it amuse you--this “typical slice of French life,” as the

guidebooks label it? And what of the dances--but, rather than look at

them, let us talk to this girl who is passing. She seems different from

the rest, in her dark “tailor-made” and plain white shirt; among the

satin and tinsel of the other women, her costume and her white, almost

transparent face cry attention to themselves by very modesty. Perhaps

she will talk real talk; occasionally--when she finds she has nothing

to gain as marionette--one of them will.

We ask her to have some champagne. Nonchalantly she accepts, and sits

down. Is she new at the _Royal_? is the leading question. Oh no, she

has been coming here for nearly a year. But this gentleman is new

(quickly)? You reply, with a certain intonation, that you will always

be “new,”--that you will not come again. She sends you a searching

side-glance--and understands.

The preliminaries clearly disposed of, we get to the meat of things;

baldly and with no apology, now that we have thrown down our hand. What

is she doing here? Can’t she find a better place? Has she no family to

help her?

She smiles, flicks the ash from her cigarette. But yes, she has a

family: a blind mother, two little sisters, and a half-witted brother.

She is sole bread-winner for the lot. As for this place--a shrug,

laconic, unresentful, as she throws a glance round the murky room--it

is not _chic_, true it is second-rate; but the commissions are good,

and clothes here do not cost much, and-- “the simple fact,” says she,

gazing quietly over our shoulder into the glass, is, “that to work any

trade successfully, one must have the proper tools. I was young, or I

should have thought of that before I began.”

You gasp, under your breath. This French girl, when she draws aside

the curtain, draws it to reveal--with terrible sincerity--a thin white

face. She tells no tale of an attempt to live “honestly,” of pitiful

struggles as dressmaker, shop-girl, and the rest of the sentimental

dodges. She bares her tragedy simply as only a French person can; and

it is that she has not the proper tools!

You mumble something meant to be consoling, and shamefacedly slip a

louis under her plate. She accepts it with no trumped-up emotion, but a

frank “_merci!_” And evidently fearing to bore us, moves away with the

nonchalance characteristic of her type.

When she is gone, we are suddenly aware of wanting to leave. For,

among the grinning ghosts, reality has passed; touching with her grim

wand the puppets, to show them as naked souls--each with its uncovered

reason. So seen, they send a shudder through us: the baby-faced girl in

her blue frock, now sleepily batting kohl from her eyes in desperate

effort to remain amusing; the dancing-girls with their high nervous

laughter; the set, determined smiles of the better-dressed _cocottes_:

it is the artist playing in the meanest of all theatres, the artist

born without the “proper tools,” or who lost hers, but playing

stoically to the end.

And the tziganes are twanging deafening accompaniment on their guitars,

and shouting “Patita” at the top of their execrable voices; and smoke

and the thick smell of sauces and the scent of the women’s _sachet_

hangs in sickening haze through the place. Let us go--let us flee from

it! For this is not Paris; it is the harlot’s house: and that is the

loathsome property of the universe.

We rush from it out into the silent street--the air strikes sharp and

fresh upon our faces. For it rains, a pearly mist, and the thousand

lights make rainbows on the flat wet flags of paving. We hail a cab,

but leave the top open to the grateful dampish cool; and glide away

down the slippery hill into what looks like dawn.

But it is only other lights--mist-veiled, and gleaming more intimately

now; like the gems of a woman who has gone to her boudoir, but not yet

taken off her jewels. The woman calls, softly. Can you keep yourself

from answering? You may have your loyalty to faithful London, the

Comrade; you may burn your reverential candle before the mystic vestal,

Rome; or shout yourself hoarse before the triumph of New York, the

star: but can you resist the tugging, glowing, multiple allurement of

everyman’s One Woman, Paris?

Can you go back over this night when her jewels flashed for you into

the Seine, when the rich rumble of her voice called to you across the

bridges, when the cool, sweet smell and the throb and cling of her

were for you--_you_; and not thrill to her and yearn for her, as men in

spite of their inconstancy have thrilled and yearned and come back to

One out of all the rest, throughout the history of women?

I hope that you cannot. For, as you return again and again, the

“make-up” of the woman fades; the great artist lays aside the cautious

mask, steps down from the stage, and for you becomes that greatest of

all: a simple human being.

III

THE CHILDREN’S PERFORMANCE

(Vienna)

I

THE PLAYHOUSE

To see Vienna properly, one should be eighteen, and a young person of

good looks and discretion. Patsy was all this, and I, being Patsy’s

uncle, was allowed my first peep at the jolliest of cities through her

_lunettes de rose_. It was a bleak, grey morning in January--with the

mercury at several degrees below zero--when we rattled through the

quiet streets to our hotel.

“Ugh!” said Patsy, some three minutes after we had left the station,

“what a horrid dreary place!”

I suggested deprecatingly that places had a fashion of so appearing at

ten after seven in the morning.

“Yes, but look at those great, gloomy buildings and you know, Uncle

Peter, you always say that what people build betrays what they are.”

“Dear me, Patsy, do I say that?” It is alarming to be confronted with

one’s platitudes before breakfast!

“Yes (emphatically). Well, _I_ think that, if the Viennese are like

their architecture, they must be appallingly dull!” And Patsy wraps her

furs and an air of bitter disappointment round her, and subsides into

silence.

I am secretly apprehensive. To carry off a young lady of capricious

fancy and unquestionable loveliness, from the thick of the balls and

parties of her first season, under oath that she shall enjoy even

giddier gayety in the Austrian Carnival; and to behold her gravely

displeased with the very bricks and stones of the place--you will admit

the situation called for anxiety.

I did what I always do in such a case, and with such a young lady:

fed her--as delectable and extensive a breakfast as I could command;

and then sent for a young man. To be exact, I had taken this latter

precaution two or three days before, being not unacquainted with

Patsy’s psychology and predilections. The young man arrived--an

officer (it is always best to get an officer when one can) of no mean

proportions in his dashing blue uniform and smart helmet. I introduced

him to Patsy as the son of my friend Count H----, former minister to

the United States. Patsy smiled--as Patsy can, and gave him a dainty

three fingers. Captain Max clicked his heels together, bowed from his

magnificent waist, and kissed her hand with an impressive: “_Ich habe

die Ehre, gnädige fräulein!_” And we went to watch Guard Change in the

Burg.

It is fascinating enough in itself, this old courtyard with its many

gates, and weather-beaten walls surrounding the residence of the

Hapsburg princes; and when filled with the Emperor’s Guards, in their

grey and scarlet, and the rousing music of the royal band--to say

nothing of that fierce white-whiskered old presence in the window

above, surrounded by his brilliant gentlemen--I assure you it can

thrill the heart of even an uncle!

Nowhere as in this ancient stronghold, under the gaze of those stern,

shaggy-browed old eyes, does the tragic history of Austria so haunt

one. Admitting only the figures and episodes of the life of this

present Emperor, one is assailed by the memory of Elizabeth--his

Empress--and her shameful assassination at Geneva; the ghastly mystery

of the death of Crown Prince Rudolf, the one son of the ill-starred

royal pair; and the hardships and struggles of Maria Christina (the

Emperor’s sister) in Spain, and the terrible murder of his brother

Maximilian--sent forth in splendour to be Emperor of Mexico, but marked

for death from the first. One sees the desolate mad figure of his widow

shut within the wild beauty of Castle Mirmar, and wonders only how the

Emperor himself can have escaped her fate. Bereft of his beautiful

wife, the son he idolized, the brother he himself unknowingly sent to

his destruction, Francis Joseph of Austria is at once the most solitary

and indomitable personality among the rulers of the world today. Never,

through all his misfortunes, has his iron pride given way to complaint

or regret; and never has he confessed himself beaten.

At the age of eighty-four, he still sits erect in his saddle, and

commands with characteristic imperious fire. The people sometimes laugh

at his eccentricities, and are impatient of his old-fashioned ideas

on certain things, but the tone in which they pronounce his title,

“_Unser Kaiser_,” conveys their acceptance of his divine right as the

pivot of their universe. In the recent war of the Balkan Allies, when

the progressive Austrian party under Archduke Ferdinand clamoured

against the conservative policy of the crown, the great mass of the

people stood loyally by the Emperor--and so perhaps were saved the

horrors and draining expense of a war of their own.

Austria is always in a ferment of one kind or another, composite as

she is of half a dozen distinct and antagonistic strains of blood

that have yet to be really amalgamated; but her Grand Old Man does

his best to keep peace between his Slavs and Hungarians, Bohemians

and Poles--and generally succeeds. He loves the pomp attached to his

imperial prerogative, and is never so happy as when the centre of some

elaborate ceremonial in one of his kingdoms. It tickles his vanity

always to have extravagant precautions taken for his safety; and on the

days when he drives to Schönbrunn (his favourite country residence)

two plain clothes men and two uniformed guards are stationed at every

block of the entire way from the Burg to the palace. Punctuality is

another of his strong points; he departs or arrives on the dot of the

hour appointed, and demands the same exactness of the officials and

detectives along the road.

With all his dignity, he is an old person with a temper, and an

obstinacy hard to subdue. During one of his recent illnesses he

absolutely refused to be shaved; also, what was more important, to eat.

The entire palace was in despair, when Mademoiselle Z---- arrived one

afternoon on her daily visit. She is a homely lady (formerly a great

actress) of almost as many years as the Emperor, and comes every day

to play chess with him. When she heard of his stubborness on this

particular occasion, she marched into the imperial presence with a bowl

of soup and some biscuits, and called out: “Come, Franz Joseph, don’t

be a fool! Sit up and eat.”

The Emperor gave her one furious look--and obeyed; afterwards meekly

suffering himself to be shaved and put in proper order as an invalid.

He and the doughty old _artiste_ have been close friends for forty

years, and he is fond of remarking that there is one woman in the world

who makes up in brains what she lacks in features. I should like to see

the two shrewd old heads over their chess.

Instead, I must remember my responsibilities, and come back to Patsy

and her _hauptmann_. He is bending towards her solicitously; suggesting

a walk in the Garden, a cup of chocolate at Demel’s, the concert at the

Volksgarten after lunch, perhaps in the evening some skating at his

club? Patsy finds time to whisper to me that she thinks the Viennese

not _too_ dull, after all. She hears they even have balls--masked

balls, in fancy dress, on the ice. Doesn’t Uncle Peter think waltzing

on ice sounds rather nice?

Uncle Peter, who has rheumatism, feebly agrees that it does _sound_

very nice; and falls into his proper background as chaperone, while

the young people dart ahead down the narrow street to the Garden.

Here, in the fashionable short promenade, an exhilarating sense of

prosperity fills the air. There is the soft elegance of furs, the

scent of violets, the occasional gleam of scarlet lining an officer’s

picturesque white cloak; brilliant shops draw their knots of pretty

women to the windows, well set-up men stroll by in long fur coats

or drive their own superb horses to and fro: all is easy, gay and

care-free, betokening an idle happiness.

“And there are no beggars,” sighs Patsy contentedly, “I _am_ glad of

that!”

It is true--and rather extraordinary for a city of almost two million

inhabitants; but, on the surface at least, there seem to be no actually

poor people in Vienna. The more one knows the place the more one is

impressed with the fact that, while the upper classes are extravagant

and show-loving, the lower seem to have imbibed a spirit of cheerful

thrift which keeps them from real poverty. They have enough to eat

and to wear, and for an occasional bit of pleasure; what more, their

good-humoured faces seem to ask, could they want?

Only the very wealthy Viennese can afford a house to himself. The great

majority of people rent a story, or half a story, of the huge residence

buildings that give the city its monotonously gloomy look. Row after

row of these line the streets, all the same height and the same style;

but in no way do they resemble the typical “apartments” of England,

America or France. Each dwelling in itself is the size of a house of

moderate dimensions, with its own inner stairways and separate floors.

There are certain conveniences in the arrangement, but I cannot say I

find it on the whole satisfactory. One has constantly the feeling of

having strayed into a public building to eat and sleep; which causes

one to do both under a depressing sense of apology.

The people unconsciously admit this lack of home attraction by their

incessant attendance at cafés. While the Frenchman or the Spaniard

spends an hour a day in his favourite café, chatting with friends, the

Viennese spends an entire morning, afternoon or evening--or all three.

Coffee or chocolate with whipped cream (the famous _Wiener Mélange_) is

the usual drink with which he pays for his seat, and the illustrated

papers that are his obsession. He, or Madame his friend, will remain

in a comfortable corner of the window hour after hour, reading and

smoking, smoking and reading; only looking up to sip chocolate, or to

stare at some newcomer. The café, also the constant cigarette-smoking,

is as much a habit with the women of Vienna as with the men. And one

is not surprised to hear that there are over six hundred of these

(literally) “coffee-houses” in the city, and that all of them are

continually full.

Some of the larger establishments provide excellent music--and here

we are fingering the edges of Viennese character and culture: next to

(or along with) love of gayety go a love and understanding of music,

that amounts almost to a passion. Besides the café concerts, there are

military concerts, philharmonic concerts and symphony concerts; to

say nothing of the host of notable recitals crowding one another for

attention.

One is struck by the enormous and enthusiastic patronage given to

these affairs, each and all. In Anglo-Saxon countries the ventures of

a concert-manager are at best precarious, and, in spite of the high

price of tickets, frequently result in a dead loss. An Anglo-Saxon

audience is tepid, for both music and drama, being roused to fervour

not by either art in itself, but only by a great name made actual upon

the stage. In Germany music is a religion; in Vienna there is added

a fire and dash which make it no less pure, while more seductive.

From _operette_ to _concerto_, the Viennese run the gamut of musical

expression, in every phase pre-eminent.

Nor have they an ounce of the artistic snobbishness made fashionable by

peoples with whom music is an acquired taste rather than an instinct.

They are as frank in enjoyment of “The Merry Widow” as of a Strauss

recital with the master conducting; because they regard each as a high

art unto itself. There is no aristocracy of music, and so there is no

commercialism to degrade it. One may hear grand opera from an excellent

seat for fifty cents; or the Philharmonic Orchestra, with Weingartner

conducting, for the same price. The secret of the whole system is that

to the Viennese good music is not a luxury, but food and drink and

essential to life; and therefore to be had by everyone.

Concert audiences are attentive to a degree, and during the performance

the slightest disturbing sound is sternly hissed. This is true even in

the public parks where the people listen in crowds to the fine military

bands that play every day. While at the Volksgarten (frequented by the

middle classes and by nobility as well) Patsy was crushed on her first

afternoon by the stertorous rebuke of a _wienerische_ dowager, because

the child removed her gloves during the overture!

“Disagreeable old thing,” grumbled Patsy, when it was finished,

“doesn’t she know I can’t hear with my gloves on?”

Captain Max, in a tumult of perturbation over the episode, solemnly

suggested that he convey this unhappy fact to the good lady. But

Patsy’s naughty mouth was twitching at the corners, and she said she

had rather he ordered chocolate. She has a conscience somewhere, has

Patsy; in spite of being a pretty woman.

We drank our delicious brew of _Mélange_ between Beethoven and Bach,

and had another after the Schumann Symphony--being seated like everyone

else at one of the little tables that fill the Volksgarten. This is

under cover in winter, and three times a week indoor classical concerts

are held, under the direction of the leading conductors. Ladies bring

their crochet, young girls their gallants; and during the intermissions

it is a lively scene, when tables are pushed together, waiters hurry

to and fro with the creamy chocolate, or big frothing _seidels_ of

Münchener, and conversation and good cheer hum all round.

Let the orchestra reappear, however, and there is silence--so prompt

as to be almost comical. Sentences are left unfinished, chairs are

hastily and noiselessly shoved back, and the buzzing crowd of two

minutes ago is still as a pin; alert for the first note of music.

The tickets for these symphonious feasts cost thirty cents, but the

audience could not show more devoted attention (or get finer return) if

they had paid five dollars.

Here, as everywhere in Vienna, one is impressed with the good looks

and attractiveness of the people in general. In their careful grooming

and prevailing air of prosperity, they bear a distinct resemblance

to Americans; and one may go deeper under the surface and find a

reason for this in the highly complex mixture of race in both nations.

There is the same tall, rather aggressive build among the men; the

same piquant features, bright hair and pretty colouring among the

women of the two countries. And, to go further, there is the same

supreme fondness for dress and outward show, that results in reckless

extravagance.

With the Viennese, however, this trait is not subjective--i. e., to

create a personal impression--but simply part and parcel of the central

aim of their existence: to have a good time, and enjoy life to the

fullest. They are by no means a people with a purpose, like Americans;

they have neither the desire, nor the shrewdness, nor the ambition to

make something remarkable of themselves. Rather do they frolic through

life like thoughtless children; laughing, crying, falling down and

picking themselves up--only to fall again; but always good-natured,

kindly and gay, with a happy-go-lucky cheerfulness that is very

appealing as well as contagious whilst one is among them.

There is none of the studied courtesy of the Parisian, nor yet his

studied elegance; but a bright spontaneity both in outward effect

and natural manner, which shows itself in many captivating little

customs of everyday. Take for instance the pretty fashion of kissing a

lady’s hand: in France this is confined to occasions of ceremony, and

so creates at once an atmosphere of the formal; in Vienna it is the

ordinary expression of joyous welcome, so that even the shop-keepers,

on the entrance of a lady customer, exclaim: “_Kuss die Hand, gnädige

Frau!_” While to a gentleman they declare: “I have the honour (to greet

you) _meinherr_!”

Everyone is anxious to please, and quick to help the stranger in his

struggles with language. As in Bavaria, the German spoken is softened

of its original starchiness; so that _mädchen_ becomes _mädl_,

_bischen bissell_, etc. Strict Hanoverians scorn such vandalism, but

in the mouth of the gentler-tongued Southerners it is very pretty.

The “low dialect” of the people, that is, the typical _wienerisch_,

is an appalling jargon quite incomprehensible to the foreigner. But

kindliness, the language spoken by one and all of the warm-hearted

Viennese, is everywhere recognized and appreciated.

Patsy assures me that, even in their impertinences, the young blades

of the town are never crass; but show, rather, a lively humour and

child-like interest in the lady of their admiration. I well remember

that first evening, after the _hauptmann_ had left us, when my niece

told me seriously that she was convinced of the grave libel cast on

Austrians as a whole and Austrian officers in particular.

“You know, Uncle Peter,” says she, swinging to my arm, as we enter our

hotel, “they say they are horrid and dissipated, and will take the

first opportunity to say shocking things to a girl. But _I_ think they

are far too clever for that, besides too fine. I am sure they know what

one is, the minute they look at one; and behave accordingly. Don’t

you,” adds Patsy anxiously, “think so too, Uncle Peter?”

“Perhaps, perhaps,” I return dubiously, “but there’s their

architecture, you know. You can’t get round that. What people build--”

A slim hand is clapped over my mouth. And, “you are to remember

please,” says Patsy severely, “we are talking now not of architects but

of officers.”

It was true. And, singularly, we have been talking of them a good deal

ever since.

II

THE PLAYERS WHO NEVER GROW OLD

Not many days after our establishment in the Carnival City, Patsy had

her first experience with the smart “masher” and his unique little

game. I being by no means bred to chaperoning, and in all respects,

besides, immorally modern, allowed the young lady to go round the

corner to a sweet-shop unaccompanied. She came back with a high colour

instead of caramels, and--no, there is no way of softening it--she was

giggling.

Patsy never giggles unless something scandalous has happened. “What’s

the matter?” I asked, instantly alarmed.

She tumbled into a chair, laughing helplessly. “The--the funniest

thing,” she began, gasping.

“A man, I suppose?”

Patsy stopped laughing, and regarded me admiringly. “What an analyst

you are, Uncle Peter! Yes, of course a man; but--”

“Did he follow you--did he speak to you?” I may be modern, but I had

one eye on my hat and overcoat.

Patsy giggled again. “No--oh no, Uncle Peter. He didn’t follow me,

he _went ahead_ of me; and, when I reached the corner, there he was

standing, hat in hand, with the most injured air--as though our

appointment was for half past two and I had kept him waiting quite an

hour! His expression was perfectly heavenly--plaintive resignation just

giving way to radiant delight--I can’t think how he managed it on such

short notice. Probably by extensive practice before the glass.

“Anyhow, there was one moment of awful apprehension for him, just as I

came up; and then--the most crestfallen disappointment you can imagine.

He had arranged everything so considerately and subtly for me, and I,

all unconscious of him, passed on! I didn’t dare look back, but out of

the tail of my eye I could see his chagrin as I disappeared--into the

side entrance of the hotel. All that art gone for nothing I suppose he

thought; and to be begun over again at the next corner,” added Patsy,

who is a young woman of rather terrible discernment, at times.

“But it is nice of them not to speak, isn’t it?” she said. “It shows

how really clever they are. No Englishman or Frenchman of the same

er--proclivities would have been as subtle.”

Nor as dangerous, thinks Uncle Peter to himself, with a promise to curb

his modernity for the future. It is all very amusing, this manœuvre of

the flirtatious Viennese male; and, since Patsy’s encounter, I have

seen it so many times as to know it to be typical; but in its very

refinement lies its evil. If the Austrian, even in his vices, were not

so free from crudity--so transparently naïve, his attraction would be

halved--if not lost entirely. But Patsy was right in her surmise that

he can place a woman at a glance; and if he ventures to lead her a bit

further than her looks suggest, and than he afterwards finds possible,

he is quick to realize his mistake and if he can to make reparation.

As a student, like his German cousin, he lives in frank unmorality.

There are thousands of students in Vienna--students at the

universities, medical students, music students--each with his

_schatzkind_, who often shares his studies as well as his garret. This

thoroughly cosmopolitan set of young people plays a distinct part in

the free and easy jollity of the city as a whole. You see them in the

streets and cafés, in the topmost gallery at the Opera, and forming

enthusiastic groups at all concerts; their shabby velveteens a nice

contrast with their vivid, impressionable faces.

During Carnival they are natural leaders in the routs and festivities;

this entire season is for them one rollicking fancy-dress ball. They

may go hungry, but they can always arrange a new and clever costume;

and one meets them coming home arm-in-arm through the dusk, carrying

bulky parcels and humming the waltz from the latest operette. They

smile at everybody, and everybody smiles back, and unconsciously

starts humming too. Patsy says there is something about dusk, and big

packages, and soft-falling snow that makes one hum. I feared from the

first that this was a demoralizing atmosphere for Patsy.

It would have been different if we hadn’t known people. But we did

know people--a delightful handful, eager to lavish their boundless

hospitality on the _wunderschönes mädl_. And then there was Captain

Max, whose marvellous uniforms and crisp black moustache soon became

as familiar to our hotel as the bow of the head waiter. Two or three

days after our arrival, Captain Max and his mother took Patsy to her

first Viennese ball. I stayed at home to nurse my rheumatism, which

the freezing temperature and constant snow had not improved. But I was

waiting by our sitting-room fire to “hear all about it,” when Patsy

returned at half past three--her arms full of roses, her auburn head

less strictly coiffed than when she sallied forth.

“Oh, Uncle Peter!” She kissed me at her favourite angle somewhere

behind the ear, and sank into a cushion with her chiffons like a flower

into its petals.

“Well, well, did you amuse yourself? The Countess wasn’t difficult?”

“She was a duck! (I should no more think of apologizing for Patsy’s

English than for her _retroussé_ nose. Both, as my French friend says,

intrigue me infinitely.) She danced harder than anyone, and _lieber

Himmel_,” says Patsy with a gusty sigh, “how they do dance! But I’ll

begin at the beginning and tell you everything.

“Of course you know it was this club Captain Max belongs to, and that

they dance every month in the ball-rooms of the different hotels.

There are only thirty or forty members in the club, so it’s nice and

small--not one of those herd affairs. Most of the people had arrived

before us, and were sitting in the galleries round the ball-room; and

before ever the dancing began, Uncle Peter, they all were eating and

drinking things. The galleries are raised by just a few steps from the

floor of the room itself, and there are lots of tables where continuous

supper goes on--really, one is expected to eat _something_ between

every two dances.

“Fancy, Uncle Peter, one is busily dissecting a quail when one’s

partner appears; one finishes the waltz, and returns to take another

bite, only to be interrupted again, and carried off. It is provoking!

But the tables are convenient as an anchor to steer for and much more

fun for the chaperones, I should think, than those dreary chairs

against the wall, at home.

“I haven’t told you the appalling ordeal of actually arriving, however.

Every girl with her escort, must walk the length of the ball-room

_alone_, while the lucky ones who are already settled in the gallery

pass judgment on one’s frock, coiffure and all the rest. Captain

Max hadn’t warned me, and when I found myself under that battery of

lorgnettes and monocles I was petrified. I knew that my train was a

fright, and every pin in my hair about to fall; but somehow I got

across that terrible expanse of slippery floor, and to our table.

“The Countess’s sister was there--the one who called on Sunday you

know--and her son and daughter, such a pretty girl, Uncle Peter! Black

hair and creamy skin--of course the whole family shows the Hungarian

strain--and a delicious frock just to her ankles. It seems all the

young girls here wear short dresses for dancing, and so they don’t

have that draggled look we get with our trains. Everyone at the table,

including the women, rose during introductions; and of course all the

men kissed one’s hand. Then they brought dozens of other men. Captain

Max says there are always three times as many as there are girls at

these dances--and I met such a lot that for the rest of the evening I

had no idea whom I knew and whom I didn’t.

“We began to dance directly, and oh, my dear, the Vienna waltz! I’ve

seen it on the stage, and it looked easy--just standing in one spot

and whirling round; but when one actually attempted it--! At first I

was so dizzy, I could only hold up my train and keep my feet going. I

know now all the sensations of a top when it’s spun at full speed, and

never allowed to die down. But, after a while, I regained sufficient

consciousness to catch the little step they take on the second step,

and then it was easier. There’s a sort of swing to it, too, that’s

rather fascinating; and Captain Max does do it well.”

Patsy, on her cushion, gazed into the fire--then at the roses in her

lap. “Ahem!” I coughed, as an uncle will when the clock points to four

of the dawn. “You were saying?”

“Oh!--yes. Well, the music of course was heavenly; one could have

danced to it all night, as most of them do here. The Frau Gräfin said

hardly anyone goes home before six in the morning, and some at eight!

That is why the Viennese laugh at their own custom of paying the porter

twenty _hellers_ for opening the door after half past ten; they all

come home in the morning, after the house is unlocked again!

“But I couldn’t have kept it up any longer, Uncle Peter. In the first

place you are never allowed to sit out a dance, not even part of one.

The minute you drop into a chair out of sheer weariness, some one comes

and clicks his heels together, bows profoundly, and off you have to go

with him. Then they have a habit of breaking in, that is convenient at

times, and annoying at others. All the men who have no partners stand

in the middle of the room, and when you have had a round or two with

one person, another very courteously but firmly stops you and claims

his turn. In this way, each dance is divided between four or five men.

It’s all very well when you don’t like your partner of the moment,

but--”

Patsy again was looking at her yellow roses. “There are disadvantages?”

I suggested.

“Yes. Oh, several kinds of disadvantages, Uncle Peter. Most of my

dances were silent as the grave. I would say, ‘you speak English?’ My

partner would reply, ‘alas, fräulein, a few words only. But you, surely

you speak German?’ ‘Unfortunately, not at all.’ Then dead silence. But

they are all kindness in trying to understand, and everyone wants to

learn our way of waltzing--‘_so langsam_,’ they say wonderingly. When

Captain Max and I tried it, so that I might get a little rest, all the

others stopped dancing and watched the performance. Then every man I

met wanted me to teach him--they are just like children over something

new.

“Poor Uncle Peter, you’re yawning. Only let me tell you about the other

dances, and then you can go to bed. There were two quadrilles, not the

old-fashioned kind, but quite like cotillon figures--really charming.

They showed the pretty costumes of the girls and the uniforms of the

officers to much better advantage than the round dances do. Then there

was a terrible thing called the _Polka Schnell_--faster even than the

regular waltz, and that makes one giddy to watch. But the Countess and

all the chaperones threw themselves into it as madly as the younger

ones, and weren’t in the least out of breath at the end. I believe

Viennese women never grow old. They seem to have as good a time at

sixty as at sixteen, and to be as popular.

“After the second quadrille, we had ‘supper’--though we’d been eating,

as I told you, all evening. But now we sat down formally to chicken and

salad, cakes of all sorts and cheese and beer. It was a funny supper,

wasn’t it, Uncle Peter? I suppose they’d sniff at our champagne and

ices; they like a substantial meal. The dance immediately after supper

is Ladies’ Choice, and it’s amusing to watch the frantic efforts of

each man to engage the favour of his particular divinity. They lean

against a pillar and stare into one’s eyes with the most despairing

gaze, looking anxiously meanwhile to see if one holds their bouquet. I

forgot to tell you the pretty custom they have of bringing one roses

and violets all during the evening. The men have great baskets of

flowers in their dressing-room, and hurry to and fro with posies for

the ladies they admire. By the time you are ready to go home, you have

quite an imposing collection.”

“All of one colour, it seems,” I observed innocently, as Patsy herself

stifled a yawn, and rose regretfully from her cushioned nest.

“Oh,” said Patsy with immoderate indifference, “they’re all in my

room--the violets and everything. These”--looking down at Captain Max’s

roses--“I must have forgotten these!” she decides with a brilliant

smile. “Goodnight, Uncle Peter--you’re rather a dear.”

That settled it; as any properly trained uncle would have known. When

a healthy young woman begins to call her moth-eaten male relatives by

endearing names, it is time to lock the stable door--or at least to

realize one’s temerity in having opened it in the first place. But,

as Patsy’s mother, from her severe infancy, has told me, I am most

improperly trained; so I hastened to accept an invitation from Countess

H----, bidding my niece and me to a skating party at her son’s rink

next evening.

Every true Viennese has his private rink membership, as he has his

other clubs, and is an expert skater. All afternoon and evening the

various skating resorts are crowded with devotees of the graceful

sport; which is held, by the way, out of doors--the large rinks

being simply walled in from the street. Captain Max’s is of quite

imposing proportions, a very different affair from the cramped, stuffy

“ice-palace” of Paris or London. There is a building, to be sure, but

this is merely for the _garde-robe_ and the inevitable refreshment

rooms. The skating takes place on the vast field of ice outside.

At night this is brilliantly illuminated with parti-coloured lights,

and the scene during Carnival--when the skaters are frequently in

fancy-dress--is fascinating beyond description. As I first saw it,

gipsies were gliding over the ice with pierrots, geisha girls with

pierrettes; Arabs in the ghostly burnous swept past with Indians,

painted and feathered, and a whole regiment of Rough Riders swooped

down upon them, with blood-thirsty yells. A wonderful polar bear (under

his skin a lieutenant of cavalry) lumbered about with his friend

an elephant; and devils, ballet-girls (by day perfect gentlemen),

_toreros_ and jockeys, frisked from one end of the rink to the

other--while one of the two seductive Viennese bands was always playing.

Patsy at last saw dancing on the ice, and lost her heart once for all

to this marvellous accomplishment. When Captain Max, in his subduing

red-and-black Mephistopheles costume, begged her to try it, she clapped

her hands like a child and flew with him to a quieter corner of the

rink where he might teach her the difficult gyrations. Before the

evening was over she was waltzing delightedly in the centre, with the

best of them. I struggle not to dote, but I must set down here that I

have seen few sights as alluring as that young witch, in her bright

Cossack’s jacket and trim skirt, gliding and whirling in the slippery

dance; with the maze of other brilliant costumes round her, the fairy

lights overhead, and in the air the lilt and thrill of a Vienna waltz.

When we went into the pavilion later for something hot, I noticed with

amazement how many of the pierrots had grey hair under their caps, and

how many of the geisha girls and pierrettes were addressed as “mother.”

“But certainly!” said our charming Frau Gräfin with spirit. “Because

they have children, are they dead? Because they have gone through much

trial in life, are they to mope in a corner and know none of life’s

joy? Pardon me, honored _meinherr_, if I suggest that they are not as

old as some of your American young people of twenty!”

I saw that we had fallen on a tender subject with the delightful

lady; who, herself the mother of a boy of twenty-eight, is (as Patsy

remarked) quite as lively as any girl of sixteen. And who, if I

remember rightly, was rather harshly criticised thereupon at the time

of her residence in Washington. She had certainly a just revenge in

her own criticism of the blasé, weary American youth of today; and the

contrast between him and the Viennese of middle age or even advanced

years as other nations number them. Fresh, _vif_, alert with interest

for everything, and time for everything as well, the Austrians may be

children to the end of their days; but they are wise children, who

stay young by design, not by incapacity.

As we have said before, they are so entirely unself-conscious that they

never fear making fools of themselves; and, in consequence, do not do

so. Young and mature, they throw themselves into everything, with a

whole-hearted abandon that in itself stimulates a like enthusiasm in

all about them. They are each other’s currents of energy that is never

exhausted, but always procreative. And nothing is too much trouble.

They will take infinite pains, and go to any amount of expense, to help

towards the success of the smallest festivity, while their thought and

generosity for others in either joy or trouble is a revelation to the

more stolid Anglo-Saxon.

Among our Viennese friends was a charming bachelor, Herr von G----. He

started to Paris one week-end, and had got as far as Munich when he

heard from someone that Patsy had tonsilitis. He took the next train

back to Vienna, and presented himself at our hotel the same evening.

It distressed me very much when I heard why he had come, as the child

was really not seriously ill; but Herr von G----said earnestly, “I

do not return to bore you; I am merely on hand if you need me.” And

for a wonder he was not in love with Patsy. The act was one of simple

friendship for us both.

When Patsy had recovered, Herr von G----, instead of going on with

his postponed journey, took us up to Semmering for two or three days

of winter sports. Here, within an hour’s ride of their own city, the

Viennese revel in the delights of lugeing, ski-ing, and sleighing--as

well as skating, of course; giving themselves to the healthful exercise

with characteristic zest and skill. The tiniest children manage their

skis with lightning dexterity, and it is beautiful to watch their small

swaying bodies skim across the snow like white birds on wing. This kind

of flying combines the æsthetic with the practical, and leaves to its

natural majesty the clearest of crisp blue skies overhead.

Tobogganing is scarcely less favoured by the Austrians, who sweep down

their dizzy hills with a vim that knows no fear. Horses are waiting at

the foot, to drag the toboggans up again; and all day long the laughing

groups of men and women, young girls, officers and children, dart down

the snowy steeps--ten and twenty strong on each sled--and are hauled

back to begin anew. Observing the crowds of Viennese who daily go to

and from Semmering, and knowing as one does many of them who would

think a week without this excursion shorn of its greatest pleasure, one

does not wonder at the happy healthy faces and splendid colour of this

sport-loving people.

In the Spring and Fall they play tennis and ride in the Prater--a large

park on the outskirts of Vienna; while in the summer everyone who can

goes walking in the Tyrol or the German mountains. Women as well as men

are expert walkers and mountain-climbers, and their horsemanship is

the pride of the nation. It is interesting to note that the Viennese

have never paid much attention to golf, and the reason: it is too tame

for them. All their sports are swift, dashing, and full of a light

individual grace. They are devoted to fencing--to anything that calls

into play the quick and skilful move of the individual body; the heavy

and brutal are unknown to them. Like children they boldly attack the

feat that lures the eye; and, like children always, achieve therein a

_succès fou_.

What is a rheumatic uncle among such people? All he can do is to open

doors--which by no amount of gymnastics is he able to shut when he

should.

III

THE FAIRY PLAY

Between officers’ cotillons and opera, _thés dansants_ and military

concerts at the Stadt Park, Patsy sandwiched conscientious layers

of sight-seeing. I am not of those who follow Baedeker (even in a

shame-faced brown linen cover), but I dutifully accompanied her to the

gallery and the royal stables, and to worship before Maria Theresa’s

emeralds in the Treasury. At the Rathaus I balked--nothing except

rice pudding is as depressing to me as a town-hall; when it came

to the Natural History Museum I was tepid also. And from that time

forth Patsy--with the irrepressible superiority that belongs to born

sightseers and to people who take cold baths--announced that she would

take the maid.

I thought this a philanthropic idea, and for several reasons worthy of

encouragement. So Patsy and the red-cheeked _mädl_ embarked on a heavy

sea of churches, the _mädl_ munching apples under rose-windows, while

Patsy inspected the pulpit. A week had been spent in this innocent

diversion, when the dire news came to us that the _mädl_ had been

taken to a hospital with peritonitis. The sour-faced spinster who

succeeded her Patsy would have none of. “I shall go alone to see the

engravings,” she announced firmly.

I resigned myself to accompany her; but when we reached the Albertina

Burg I was persuaded to take “a tiny stroll” into the Graben, and

return for Patsy in half an hour. There seemed nothing out of bounds

in this, as the library where Archduke Albert housed his engravings,

like most libraries, is sternly shunned by all but the semi-defunct and

care-takers. It shares the usual old court with the usual old palaces

of mediæval Austrian nobility; and I waited at the gate till Patsy had

entered the open square, hesitated a moment before the several doors

confronting her, and finally followed sedately in the wake of some

Americans--past a pompous gold-lace porter--into the first door on the

right. The rest of the story is hers.

She walked leisurely up some shallow stairs, without noticing at first

that the Americans had stayed behind to converse with the porter; and

that finally they went out instead of following her above. She did

think the porter was rather elaborate for a library, said Patsy, but in

Austria he didn’t seem extraordinary. The staircase was, however; and

she wondered why Baedeker had passed it by. Beautifully carved in white

marble, it was carpeted with old Turkish rugs and hung with splendid

portraits of the Hapsburgs, and--at the landings--with charming old

French clocks.

Patsy admired all these treasures at length, serenely ignoring another

and still more imposing guard who scrutinized her sharply as he

passed. She has a way with guards, has Patsy; they are generally

reduced to becoming humility, no matter how arrogantly they start in.

This one stalked on downstairs, leaving her to proceed on her way

upward. She was still searching Baedeker for the key to the interesting

portraits, and also to the whereabouts of the famous engravings--as yet

nowhere to be seen.

According to the guide-book, these should be “in two long rows above

the book-cases”; and “one should sit down at the small tables provided

for inspecting them, as the crowd of tourists makes it difficult to see

the drawings satisfactorily.” This was puzzling. Patsy, now in solitary

possession of the large room at the head of the stairs, saw neither

engravings nor tables nor tourists. She was quite alone in the centre

of the beautiful empty apartment.

She looked at the Louis Quinze furniture, at the gorgeous onyx table

set with miniatures; at the impressive portrait of Maria Theresa over

the mantelpiece, and several autographed pictures of kings. Baedeker

said nothing of all this. It occurred to Patsy then that it must have

been the reception-room of the late Archduke, and that the engravings

were probably on the floor above. But, before going on, she paused in

one of the gold and grey chairs for a moment, further to admire the

exquisite room.

While she sat there, she was startled by the sudden appearance of two

footmen, in the same grey and gold livery of the porter downstairs.

They showed no signs of surprise at her presence, however, but mumbled

obsequious greetings and backed into the room beyond. Hardly had they

disappeared when another installment of flunkies came in, carrying

great trays of food; they too, at sight of Patsy, bent as low as they

could under the circumstances--but she now was thrown into a tumult of

trepidation. When the door into the other room was opened again, she

had a glimpse of a great round table laid with gold plate and crystal

and _sèvres_; grand high-backed chairs surrounded it, and more Hapsburg

portraits lined the walls.

Patsy gasped with terror and astonishment. At last it dawned on her

that she was in the wrong place!

She caught up her furs and the miserable guide-book, and started

towards the door. Only to suffer still worse fright, when she was

confronted there by a tall man in uniform; who in most courteous French

insisted on her staying to lunch. He was young and had black hair and

blue eyes (I will not vouch for the authenticity of these details,

as Patsy just then saw all uniforms possessed of black hair and blue

eyes); and it was hard to be stiff with him. But she managed to explain

with some dignity that she had come to the Albertina to see the

engravings, but had evidently entered the wrong door; that she deeply

regretted the intrusion, which she begged this gentleman to excuse, and

that she must forthwith find her uncle who was waiting in the court

below.

I wasn’t, but that is beside the story. The blue eyes of the young

man being as keen as most Austrians’ at a second glance, he realized

his own mistake, and apologized in turn; hastening to add that

mademoiselle could not intrude in this house, as it was honoured by

her presence, and that she and her esteemed uncle would be welcome

whenever they might be gracious enough to visit it. He begged leave to

accompany her downstairs and, as Patsy could hardly refuse, she went

with him--“knees wobbling, and my heart still in my mouth, Uncle Peter!

When the glum old porter saw us, he all but went into catalepsy; and

bowed to the ground, while the nice uniformed man was talking fast to

him in German.

“Then he--the nice man--kissed my hand, and held the door for me

himself, and said all the polite things over again. I was feeling

relieved by this time, so I thought I might smile when I said _Au

revoir_, and begged pardon once more for my stupidity. I stole a last

look too at that lovely staircase and the fierce old portraits; and

now, Uncle Peter, I want to get Captain Max and find out directly whose

they are!”

Captain Max was inclined to be what Patsy calls “starchy” over the

affair. “Gray uniform--blue eyes--black hair?” he repeated tersely.

“And the door was the first on the right, in the Albertina Palace?”

Patsy nodded. Suspense overpowered her speech.

“Then it was Salvator, brother of Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the

throne. He was probably having one of his famous little luncheons in

the Archduke’s palace.” And Captain Max scowled darkly, first at Patsy,

then at me. He thinks, poor enamoured young man, I should have a

guardian, myself.

“Then I was in the Archduke Ferdinand’s palace?” cried Patsy. “But why

was I allowed? Where were all the guards and things? I might have had a

bomb in my muff!”

“We don’t have suffragettes in Austria,” said Captain Max loftily. “And

the Heir is what you say ‘strong’ for democracy. He has fewer servants

than anybody. Those that he has were probably getting Salvator’s

luncheon ready!”

A look I well know came into Patsy’s limpid eyes. “It looked like a

very nice luncheon,” said she; “I wish now that I’d stayed.”

The _hauptmann_ coloured furiously. Then all at once he laughed. “You

will have a chance to tell him so,” he said blandly, “when you make

your curtsey to him at the ball next week!”

Really, he is not so bad, this young man for whom I opened the door.

The ball was the famous _Metternich Redoute_, given every year, during

Carnival, by the old Countess who was Austrian ambassadress at the

court of the third Napoleon. Each year she names her _masque_ by a

different fantasy and, once it is announced, excitement runs high

over costumes, head-dress, etc. This winter it was _Meeresgrund_,

“The Bottom-Of-The-Sea Ball,” and the shops along the Graben and

Kärtnerstrasse displayed seductive ropes of coral, glittering

fish-skins, pearls and golden seaweed--all the heart of mermaid could

desire. The one topic of conversation at parties, between acts at the

opera, and in the boudoir at home, closeted with anxious maids, was:

what shall her costume be for the _Meeresgrund_?

It must be something original, something _chic_ (that word that is

almost more Viennese than French), something beautiful and costly--for

does not Royalty open the ball? Patsy’s Titian head all but turned grey

during the racking period of indecision. When finally with impressive

secrecy she and the recovered _mädl_ had spirited her disguise behind

locked doors, there was still a tantalizing week before the great

event. I did what I could to assuage impatience, in the way of opera

tickets, concerts and a performance of Duse.

Over the actress Patsy went as mad as any Viennese; and even I

cried a mild _bravo_ or two. Curious, how the sight of a charming

woman playing a captivating part, like _La Locandiera_, has the

effect of opening one’s mouth, and making one emit strange sounds!

The same thing happened to me at the Sunday-morning concert of the

_Männergesangverein_--it looks like a Sanskrit idiom, but it is a

simple society of simple Viennese business-men, clubbed together to

sing a delightful two hours on an occasional Sabbath morning. They make

no pretense at high art, but are fated (by birth and every instinct) to

achieve it; and when they stand up, two hundred strong, and roll out

the majestic phrases of Beethoven’s “Hymn of Praise,” it is time for

even a moth-eaten mere relative to make a fool of himself.

I behaved better at opera. If there is any behaviour in one, opera

will bring it out. In Vienna, I mean, of course; not in New York or

Paris or Covent Garden, where manners and clothes to be _au fait_ must

be _au minimum_--and where the real performance is mannequin parade, by

the great jewellers and dressmakers. In Vienna, opera-goers have the

unique custom of going to hear opera. They arrive on time; or if they

do not they wait outside in the corridor till the end of the first act.

The conclusion is drawn by the audience in general, that it is present

to hear and see what is going on up on the stage; any interruption to

this, whether of whispering or rattled programmes, is rudely hissed.

While one who attempts to leave or to approach his seat after the first

note of the overture has been sounded finds himself detained with

greater force than fondness. The rare premise is entertained that opera

is designed to furnish music, and that the music is worth hearing. It

does not seem to occur to anyone to dispute this by leaving before the

final note is struck, and the final curtain falls. To the New Yorker

especially, thirsting for his champagne and lobster, this must be a

diverting system.

But the New Yorker has probably disdained Vienna opera altogether as

too cheap to be worth anything. The best seats in the house are only

three dollars, while excellent places may be had for half that price,

and the students and enthusiasts up in the gallery pay a sixth of

it. Officers come off better still: in the circular pit reserved for

them, though they have to stand, these servants of the Emperor pay the

Imperial Opera only eighty _hellers_ (eight-pence). Of course there

is a goodly show of uniforms all over the house as well; and, with the

pretty toilettes of the women, the audience is a gay and attractive

one. Though the horseshoe is only about half the size of the New York

Metropolitan Opera, there is a comfortable intimacy in its rich gold

and scarlet loges; besides (the one elegance the Metropolitan lacks)

the quartered trappings of the royal box.

This last is often occupied by one or another of the Archdukes and

their wives, and several times a year the Emperor himself is present.

Then it is gala performance, and all ladies who attend must be in light

evening frocks; gentlemen, of course, in the regulation claw-hammer.

It is somewhat disconcerting to see--as I did for the first time--this

fashionable assembly extract from its coat pockets a generous ham

sandwich, and begin to eat it before the curtain goes up; also to watch

the rows of elegant ladies and gentlemen waiting their turn in line at

the refreshment bar between acts, and to behold the enthusiasm with

which they devour large cheese cakes and beer. The fact is that opera

in Vienna begins so early--seven o’clock, as a rule--few people have a

chance to dine before they leave home; and they are far too sensible

to sit hungry through a long performance, or to satisfy their appetite

surreptitiously, as Anglo-Saxons would. They want food, and they go and

get it--in as frank quantity as they desire. I have seen our charming

Frau Gräfin dispose of as many as nine ham sandwiches in the course

of an evening, calmly whisking the crumbs from her white satin gown

meanwhile.

It is superfluous to speak of the all-satisfying delight of the music

itself at the Imperial Opera. No one who has seen Weingartner conduct

needs to have it described. For no one who has not seen him can it be

described. Sufficient to say that the merits of the piece are not left

in the hands of a quartet of fabulously paid principals, or to the

luxurious detail of extravagant mounting; but that every voice in the

chorus, every inconspicuous instrument of the orchestra, is planned

and trained and worked into an _ensemble_ as perfect as a master ear

can make it. And the _bravos_ that resound at the end of each act are

the sure token of the master’s success; for nowhere is there a more

critical or a more appreciative opera audience than in Vienna.

This is true of the _Volksopera_ as well as of the Imperial. Though at

the “People’s Opera” the lighter pieces are given for half the price

charged at the more pretentious house, the lower middle class who

attend them are no less musically trained and difficult to satisfy.

But while every class demands and is given high excellence in classical

music, it is in the operette that they unconsciously recognize and

worship the true soul of Vienna. As far removed from English musical

comedy as caviar from candy, this sparkling, rippling, dashing whirl

of airs and waltzes seems to catch up the familiar types out of the

streets and cafés, ballrooms and boudoirs, and present them here on

the stage _en masse_. In place of the musical comedy milkmaid, with her

Louis heels and pink satin décolleté, we have the well-known students

and _grisettes_, _grandes dames_ and varnished old _noceurs_ seen in

the Graben every day. They wear real clothes, and say real things, and

make real mistakes--all to the most entrancing music Franz Lehar or Leo

Fall can contrive; and the result is a madness of delight on the part

of the audience, such as comes only when people are shown _themselves_.

Shocking? Yes, frequently. The Viennese and their operettes that

reflect them are apt to shock many a conventional-minded foreigner.

They even shock themselves sometimes--but excuse the episode a minute

later. For they are quick to forgive, and are not over-particular as

to morals, if the person eschewing them be gay, attractive and clever.

Hence the heroes and heroines of their operettes are audacious to a

degree somewhat startling to the uninitiated in Viennese life.

But they make up for it in _verve_ and brilliancy. See them dash

through three acts of wit and lightning movement--with all their

liveliness they never romp; hear them sing their complicated, racing

songs, without a fault; watch them whirl and glide in the heady

waltz--laughing, dancing, singing all at once, and perfectly. Shocking?

you cry, pounding your cane to bits in time with the tune. Piffle!

It does not do to say this to Patsy. But Patsy, happily, understands

very little German; so that I was able to indulge my vice for operettes

with her uncurbed. Patsy’s thoughts were all on the _Meeresgrund_. As

we intended to leave Vienna the day after that, it may without fantasy

be supposed that some of her less well-behaved thoughts left the bottom

of the sea for a certain skating rink, where she had learned the

guiding value of blue eyes and black hair. But outwardly everything was

concentrated on the Redoute.

I am not a spiteful person, but I was inclined to gloat when the

momentous night arrived, and Patsy, in her shimmering costume,

confronted our good Countess. American youth settled its score, I

think. For the good lady--herself marvellous in lobster pink and

a white wig--flew to Patsy, kissed her on both cheeks, and cried:

“_Aber!_ It is of an enchantment, a loveliness of fairies, _wunderbar_!”

And, if I do say it who had no part in the creation, she was right.

Patsy stood before us as a fisher girl, her filmy golden nets caught

over her shoulders and round the waist with glistening crabs and little

brilliant lizards. In contrast with the other women present and their

elaborate headgear, the witch had let down her rippling auburn curls to

fall in simple glory to her waist. Her cheeks were softly flushed, and

her big yellow-brown eyes were shining as she asked demurely, “Do you

like me, Uncle Peter?”

I was not too dazzled to forget it was not I actually being asked.

But as Captain Max maintained absolute silence--that most ominous of

answers!--I replied with nice restraint that I found her charming. And

we entered the ball.

It was a vast hall surrounded by shallow galleries, and at the far

end a platform arranged in the style of a royal drawing-room. In the

ballroom itself great ropes of seaweed and ruddy coral hung pendant

down the blue-green walls; mammoth shells of palest pink held the

mermaids’ chaperones; a fairy ship twinkled one entire side of the hall

with favors and fancies awaiting the dance of the sirens; while at

every nook and corner lustrous crinkled pearls gleamed forth light.

The glassy floor pool in the midst of all this fantasy was crowded with

Neptunes and nereids, water sprites, lovely white chiffon gulls, and

Loreleis with their combs of gold. But they were very modern Loreleis,

who kept their hair up in correct ondulation, and whose fascinations

proved less irresistible than those of one little red-locked fisher

girl. Like everybody else, she was masked, and flitted about the

giant circle of the promenade with a tall Captain of the Guards in

brilliant full-dress uniform. The Metternich Redoute is the one event

of Carnival at which only the women appear in fancy dress. The officers

and civilians, in sober garb, form a phalanx in the center of the room,

whence they watch the gorgeous procession of _promeneuses_. For until

the Court arrives everyone walks about and admires everyone else, while

one of the two royal bands plays constantly. Laughing masked ladies,

unknown to one another, exchange gay greetings; compliments are

bestowed and received in German, French, English, Spanish, Italian and

Hungarian; while the familiar “_du_” is the rule of the evening.

All at once something electric passes over the chattering assembly.

From a splendid shifting mass it divides into two solid lines, leaving

a broad open space down the centre. The sprightly old hostess is in

her place, the bands burst into the stirring chords of the national

hymn--and the Court enters!

First the old Emperor with his two gentlemen of the Household:

erect, fiercely handsome in his blue-gray uniform of the Hapsburgs

glittering with orders. The young lieutenants who have spent the

afternoon ridiculing his war policy, at sight of the well-known,

grizzled head, forget their grievances and salute with a fervour. The

old man, haughtily unconscious, passes on. Next comes the young Heir

Apparent, with Archduchess Maria Annunziata--the Emperor’s niece and

the first lady of the land--who wears Maria Theresa’s emeralds and a

magnificent tiara overshadowing those of the ladies who follow her. But

each of them, too, is ablaze with jewels, while for sheer beauty and

distinction a more remarkable retinue of women could not be found.

There is the ruddy fairness of the German, the wild grace of the Slav,

the rich olive and great dark eyes of the Hungarian, the chestnut

hair and black brows of Lombardy: every type as it passes is sworn

the loveliest--and then forsworn when the next comes by. The court

ladies have confined their fantasy to the coiffure, and some of these

headdresses are marvels of ingenuity and elegance. Wigs are much

favoured; white and high, and crowned with ships of jewels, or monster

pearls, or nets of diamonds interwoven with every sort of precious

stone. The archdukes and high officers, in their mere uniforms, for

once are insignificant in the trail of this effulgence of their women;

and Patsy did not even see her Prince Salvator till all of them were

seated on the platform and the ball was formally begun.

Twelve young girls and men of the nobility open the dance with a

quadrille, prescribed according to court etiquette, and marked by a

quaint stateliness. The girls are dressed alike in simple frocks of

white and silver, while the young men are in more or less elaborate

uniform. After the quadrille, dancing is general, but the crowd is too

great for it to be any pleasure at first. Not till after the Court

has gone is there really room to move about in. Meanwhile, favoured

personages are led to the Master of Ceremonies, and by him presented to

Royalty on its dais.

Thanks to Countess H----, Patsy and I were permitted to pay homage; and

even the severe old Emperor himself unbent to smile at the witch in her

shimmering frock when she made her _révérence_. There was a look about

Patsy that night that a stone image must have melted to--a radiance at

once so soft and so bright, no man could have resisted, or woman failed

to understand. I can see her now, the colour deepening in her cheek as

she made her curtsey to Archduke Salvator. Captain Max was just behind

her, the Countess and I at one side.

The Archduke--who did have blue eyes and black hair--was about to

return Patsy’s salutation with his bow of ceremony when suddenly he

looked into her face. His own for a moment was a study. Then, gazing

over her shoulder at Captain Max in his glowering magnificence, he

inquired gravely: “And this, then, is the uncle?”

The rose swept Patsy’s cheek to her slender neck. For an instant she

hesitated; then, looking straight at me instead of at the Archduke, she

said sturdily: “This is the uncle’s nephew-to-be, and your Highness is

the first one to learn of it.”

Of course the Countess turned faint, and all but forgot court etiquette

in a frenzied hunt for her salts; and the Archduke kissed Patsy’s

hand and shook Max’s, and amid a host of incoherent congratulations,

discovered that he and Max belonged to the same regiment; and somehow

we bowed ourselves out of the Presence and into the gallery again.

The Countess embraced Patsy, within shelter of a

blue--pasteboard--grotto, and would have carried her off for a good

cry, but Patsy turned to me. “Uncle Peter,” she swung to my arm with

that destructive wheedlesomeness of hers, “Uncle Peter, you _are_

pleased?”

Max, too, approached me with an anxiety that would have flattered

a Pharaoh. “Patsy,” said I, admirably concealing my overwhelming

surprise, “I have only one thing to say: _you_ shall be the one to tell

your mother!”

Of course she wasn’t. I knew from the first that she wouldn’t be; and

I meekly endured the consequences. But all that is sequel. For the

rest of the Redoute I sat with the Countess in the jaws of a papier

mâché crocodile, and ate macaroons and discussed family pedigree; and

Patsy and my nephew-elect fed off glances and waltzed till five in the

morning. It was the most hectic evening of my two score years and ten.

When at last we left the bottom of the sea, gaiety was at its crest.

The Court had departed long since, but nymphs and nereids whirled more

madly than ever, Lorelies spun their lures with deeper cunning than

before--now they were unmasked; and mere men were being drawn forever

further and further into the giddy, gorgeous opalescence of the maze.

In retrospect they seemed caught and clung to by the twining ropes of

coral; mermaids and men alike enmeshed within the shining seaweed and

pale, rosy shells--compassed, held about by the blue-green walls of

their translucent prison. The pearly lights gleamed softer, the music

of the sirens floated sweeter and more seductive on each wave, the

water sprites and cloudy gulls circled and swam in wilder, lovelier

haze.

And then--the wand of realism swept over them. They were a laughing,

twirling crowd of Viennese, abandoned to the intoxication of their

deity: the dance. Reckless, pleasure-mad, never flagging in pursuit

of the evanescent _joie de vivre_, they became all at once a band of

extravagant, lovable children who had stayed up too late and ought to

have been put to bed.

But I was always a doting uncle. I left them to their revel, and

departed. I shall go back some day, for I have now in Vienna the gay,

the _gemütlich_, a niece named Patsy--and it all came from choosing a

train that arrived before breakfast!

IV

THE BROKEN-DOWN ACTOR

(Madrid)

[Illustration: THE SOUL OF OLD SPAIN]

I

HIS CORNER APART

In spirit, as in distance, it is a far cry from the childlike gaiety

and extravagance of Vienna to the gloom and haughty poverty of Madrid.

Gloomy in its psychic rather than its physical aspects is this city of

the plain, for while the sun scorches in summer and the wind chills in

winter, thanks to the quite modern architecture of New Madrid, there is

ample light and space all the year round.

Any Spanish history will tell you that Charles V chose this place for

his capital because the climate was good for his gout. One author

maintains that it was for the far subtler reason that Madrid was

neutral ground between the jealous cities of Toledo, Valladolid and

Seville. But everyone, past and present, agrees that the Spanish

capital is the least Spanish of any town in the kingdom. It shares but

one distinctive trait with the rest of Spain--and that the dominant

trait of the nation: pride, illimitable and unconditioned, in the glory

of the past; oblivion to the ruin of the present.

Like a great artist whose star has set, Spain sits aloof from the

modern powers she despises; wrapped in her enshrouding cloak of

self-sufficiency, she dreams or prattles garrulously of the days when

she ruled without peer--not heeding, not even knowing, that the stage

today is changed beyond her recognition.

The attitude is, however, far more interesting than the bustle and mere

business efficiency of the typical modern capital. After the vastness

and confusion of Waterloo and St. Lazare, one arrives in Madrid at a

little station suggestive of a sleepy provincial town. Porters are

few and far between, and one generally carries one’s own bags to the

primitive horse cabs waiting outside. Taxis are almost unheard of, and

the few that are seen demand prices as fabulous as those of New York.

Every _Madrileño_ who can possibly afford it has a carriage, but the

rank and file use the funny little trams--which I must say, however,

are excellently conducted and most convenient.

Both the trams and all streets and avenues are plainly marked with

large clear signs, and the pleasant compactness of the city makes it

easy to find one’s way about. The centre of life and activity is the

Puerto del Sol--Gate of the Sun--an oval plaza which Spaniards fondly

describe as “the busiest square in the world.” There is no doubt at all

that it is the noisiest; with its clanging trams, rattling carriages,

shouting street vendors, and ambulant musicians.

These latter, with the beggars, form to my mind the greatest plague

of Madrid; their number is legion, their instruments strangely and

horribly devised, and they have the immoral generosity to play on, just

the same, whether you give them money or not. Though, as a matter of

fact, when you walk in the Puerta del Sol, they are forever under your

feet, shaking their tin cups for _centimos_ and whining for attention.

I infinitely prefer the gentle-voiced old men--of whom there is also

an army--who offer soft balls of puppies for sale; and, when they are

refused, tenderly return the cherished scrap to their warm pockets. The

swarm of impish newsboys are hard to snub, too: Murillo has ingratiated

them with one forever--their rags and their angelic brown eyes in

rogues’ faces.

But I find no difficulty at all in refusing the beggars. These are of

every age, costume and infirmity; and enjoy full privilege of attacking

citizen or stranger, without intervention of any kind by the police.

A Spanish lady naïvely explained to me that they had indeed tried to

deal with the beggars; that the government had once deported them one

and all to the places where they were born--for _of course_ none of

them came originally from Madrid! But, would I believe it, within a

week they were all back again? Perhaps I, as a foreigner, could not

understand how the poor creatures simply loved Madrid too passionately

to remain away.

I assured the señora gravely I could understand. In fact, it seems to

me entirely normal to be passionately attached to a place that yields

one a tidy income for nothing. No, rather for the extensive development

and use of one’s persuasive powers. Imagination, too, and diplomacy

must be employed; and sometimes the nice art of “coming down.” The

monologue runs like this: