Vienna and I

I

MANY years ago someone inquired of the wisest man in England, Mr. Punch, whether or not to marry. His reply was brief and historic: ‘DON’T.’ But it is not of record that there were fewer marriages that year, and it may well be that, in some form or other, marriage has come to stay. Now, were a man to come to me for advice, I would say, ‘If you are marrying for the long pull, look the girl’s mother over very carefully, and if you like what you see and can’t possibly control your emotions, go ahead.’ This, at any rate, is the advice I gave myself, and I do not regret taking it. A more amiable, generous, and charming woman never lived than my motherin-law — and she was a Viennese. She was always planning some little pleasure for me or my friends. Someone had early told her, or she may have discovered the fact for herself, that the way to a man’s heart is through the stomach. Be this as it may, from the day I became engaged, almost to the day of her death, she fed me with toothsome dainties which seemed especially designed to destroy a good digestion and to distort a once faultless figure.

Thus emotionally predisposed to Vienna, I first went to that city many years ago — and I hated it. It was in midwinter and the weather was awful. I went to the Bristol, a very expensive hotel; it was almost deserted, for the court was in half-mourning, owing to a scandal in which some demirep relative of the Emperor had been discovered. The streets of Vienna are not crowded at night as are the streets of other great cities. There is plenty of ‘night life,’ but it goes on behind closed doors. How the people get from one place to another I have never discovered.

In some way or other I had caught a bad cold in the Liechtenstein Gallery — which I remember as a palace with miles of concrete passages carpeted with cocoa matting, full of pictures of doubtful authenticity — and one evening I left my hotel to go in search of a drug store. I found one, but it was closed. (I did not then know, what I have since been told, that it is customary in Vienna, when a drug store closes, for the proprietor to affix to the door a small sign, giving the address of the nearest shop likely to be open. But I saw no such sign, nor could I have read it if I had. And incidentally I might say that in foreign cities a chemist’s shop is by no means a small department store and a ‘quick lunch’ establishment, as with us, but a small and dignified place where drugs are compounded and sold, the proprietor of which looks upon himself, not as a tradesman, but almost as a gentleman of science.) I looked elsewhere, wandering here and there, and lost my way; it came on to rain, there was no one on the streets to direct me, and I could not find a cab; at last, drenched to the skin, I reached my hotel, and the next morning I took a train direct to London!

It is quite a jump from Vienna to London, and by the time I got there my cold was better, my anger had cooled, and I was not exactly proud of my behavior. I had intended to break the journey home (to London, that is) by short stays in Munich, Frankfort, Cologne, and Antwerp, but in my disgust I went right slapdash through to the Hook of Holland and Harwich. And so it is that whenever I have heard Vienna mentioned — coupled always with a glowing description of its interest and loveliness, the charm and hospitality of its men, and the beauty and style of its women — I have felt that I owed it to myself to go back to Vienna and behave like a human being.

And in this frame of mind on a fine spring morning I found myself riding, in a comfortable taxi, along what the guidebooks call Vienna’s ‘Girdle of Splendor’ — the Ringstrasse — to my hotel, this time the Imperial.

II

Vienna is a very large and beautiful city, almost as beautiful as Paris, but it is off the beaten track and it is not gay in the same way that Paris is; it is much more leisurely and seemingly sedate; that is to say, it is gay (or was) in its own way, and it seems unable to advertise its charms. In the old days it had no wish to. To-day it needs the tourist, but does not seem able to ‘sell itself’ to the world, to use an advertising phrase. I never met a man or a woman who had spent any time in Vienna who did not love it and its people.

The way Vienna came to be so very beautiful is this. It is very old and for centuries was a walled city, and its people found the wall useful, for it was frequently besieged. The wall extended right around the city, and outside it there was a wide open space or glacis on which no buildings were allowed within eighteen hundred feet of the wall. This open space became a parade ground. After the Emperor, whom we shall always think of as old Kaiser Franz Josef, had been upon the throne ten years, he caused the wall, which was no longer of any protection and had become a nuisance, to be removed. There arose, of course, the question: To whom did this great space belong — to the city or to the nation? The Kaiser decided, wisely, — perhaps it was the only wise decision he ever made, — that it belonged to the nation and to the city, fifty-fifty, as we should say. A magnificent boulevard, which all the world knows as the Ringstrasse, was then constructed, and the open space not required for that purpose was sold for enormous sums, and with the money thus obtained some of the finest modern buildings in the city, some of the finest I have ever seen, were erected. I entered few of them; public buildings, museums, and picture galleries are very fatiguing.

But one building, in the centre of the old city, interested me enormously — the Hofburg. It is a colossal, shapeless pile about as unimposing from the outside as the Vatican in Rome. Whenever an Austrian Emperor wanted to build anything, no matter what,—a stable, a library, a church, a conservatory, or a theatre, — he just built it on to and made it a part of the Hofburg, so that in this great sprawling palace there is, or was, accommodation for man or beast in whatever might happen to be his mood. The theatre and the church are pulled down now; there remains, however, ‘the Hofburg,’ one of the show places of Europe.

The library, which interested me most, is one of the great libraries of the world. The building itself is the work of the famous Fischer von Erlach, an architect to whom Vienna owes some of its finest buildings. The great hall is one of the most superb rooms in Europe. It is baroque at its very best, and is so placed that the doors at one end can be opened and it becomes a part of a great ballroom. We first visited it, under very distinguished patronage, by way of the great balcony which extends around the entire room, after having been shown some, and only some, of its magnificent bibliographical treasures. The books are those which originally formed the Imperial Library, together with those of Prince Eugene of Savoy, who was not only a great soldier but a collector as well. The National Library in Paris is the most unhospitable institution in the world; the British Museum holds out a welcoming hand to the scholars of all nations; but in sheer beauty the Hofbibliothek surpasses anything I have ever seen.

Not very far away is something very different — the Spanish Riding School, it is called. It was once a plaything of the imperial family, and here a special breed of magnificent white horses are trained to dance and otherwise keep time to the music of an orchestra. The riding school, together with a small stable where the exhibition horses are kept, was formerly very private indeed. Since the fall of the Empire, however, it is open to the public every Sunday morning upon payment of a small fee.

I had an amusing experience on the Sunday that I visited it. I wanted to smoke while the horses were going through their paces, but a sign, NICHT RAUCHEN MACHEN, warned me not to. Regaining the open, I took from my pocket a cigar and found I had no match. I sought a shop, found one, two, half a dozen — all closed. I still wanted to smoke. Presently I saw two taxi drivers on a street corner smoking cigarettes, but I could not for the life of me think of the German word for match. All I could think of was Kreuger, that Napoleon of the match business who, all too late for the world, had just blown his brains out. So, very politely, I went up to them and in my sweetest tones said, ‘ Bitte sehr, hast du ein Kreuger? ’ There was for a moment a look of amazement, and then a hearty laugh — and I got my match.

Ill

The conservatory and rooms of the Hofburg containing the crown jewels and other insignia of office, imperial plate, glass, and china, are much visited. I protested that I would not look at any of these things, but I was overruled and almost fainted when I saw such a display of wealth in gold and jewels as (if they are real) would almost suffice to put Austria financially upon her feet again. I staggered by case after case of magnificent robes and crowns and sceptres from the time of Charlemagne — Charlemagne maybe? — down to the present. After all this I was not surprised to see a complete solid-gold dinner service for one hundred and forty persons and a similar service of silver for a thousand. One born and brought up in a republican atmosphere cannot possibly understand the feeling of divinity that doth hedge a king, the feeling that he is the Lord’s anointed, the belief that he can do no wrong. And all this gear, all these trappings, passed too frequently from scoundrel to scoundrel, until at last the whole scheme blew up and the last Emperor died in exile in the Island of Madeira.

About three miles away from the great mass of the Hofburg is another palace, Schönbrunn, the summer palace, designed by Maria Theresa to be larger and finer than Versailles, but this idea was not completely carried out. Here it was that the Congress of Vienna, a gathering of all the wasps and butterflies of Europe, was held. Twice after successful battles Napoleon made it his home, and here, in a magnificent apartment once occupied by his father, died the Duke of Reichstadt. There is also another palace, the Belvedere, right in the heart of the city in a lovely garden, one of the finest in Europe. This was the winter home of the Crown Prince, Franz Ferdinand, whom the Emperor, his uncle, and everyone else hated. It was his murder in Bosnia that started the World War. But these were not enough. Some years ago two more magnificent palaces were planned — one actually erected. It was not entirely completed when the war broke out, and, now that there is no one to occupy it, it has been turned into a museum.

There are, of course, many other palaces and châteaux scattered all over the country, and while this life of luxury was going on the condition of the poor of Vienna was something pitiable. It is said that thirty thousand families lived in one room each, and if the room happened to be a large one, two families occupied it, it being divided by a clothesline. But the people were for the most part uncomplaining; they had plenty of excellent music for little or nothing, and few actually starved. The court was haughty, cruel, and corrupt, and into it no modern idea ever penetrated; moderation was a nonexistent word in the lexicon of the Hapsburgs.

One would almost suppose that some thoughtful aristocrat would have said, ‘Times are not what they were; we must watch our step. Indifference to the sufferings of the poor brought on the French Revolution. If we are not careful, we shall lose our fortunes, if not our heads.’ But no, right up to the outbreak of the World War, Wein,Weib, und Gesang was the motto of the aristocracy — taken from Luther, by the way. A tourist in Paris is accustomed to see more than traces of the luxury of the kings of France and of Napoleon, but it came to an end more than a century ago — and it seems longer. In Vienna luxury lasted until yesterday, when the termination of the Great War left Austria prostrate, and what had once been the richest empire the world had ever seen — save Rome — came to an end. The corpse was buried while it was yet breathing; four men — Clemenceau, Orlando, Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson — were the pallbearers. What happened to Austria is unbelievable — positively fantastic.

The old empire was composed of many nations, all of whom hated one another; there were differences of language and of religion. Into this mess Woodrow Wilson threw a phrase which was like a firebrand in a barrel of gunpowder. With his fatal facility of speech he spoke of the ‘necessity for the self-determination of small nations,’ and the damage was done — but not entirely completed; it was completed at the Congress of Versailles. Hence it is that Vienna, one of the largest cities on the continent of Europe, is isolated; it has no hinterland.

Before the war, the Dual Monarchy, Austria and Hungary, had a population of fifty millions. Hungary is now a kingdom without a king, and Austria a socialistic republic with a population of about six millions, of whom two millions live in Vienna — two millions of people with nothing to do. They are patient, kindly folk, accustomed to poverty — but they must eat occasionally. The question is: How are they to get food? Vienna produces practically nothing. Its mechanics and craftsmen are the best in the world, but they must have materials with which to work; materials cost money, and they have none. One cannot live on music or scenery, however grand. Vienna is at present a ruined and deserted city, deserted, not by its population, but by trade. It is curiously amusing the way different nations take their troubles. The American says much and does little; the Englishman says little and does much. In Berlin they say the situation is serious but not hopeless; in Vienna they say that it is hopeless but not serious.

The world affects an interest in the Russian experiment in government, but the country is so large and its population so vast that no one knows what will happen or when. In Austria the problem may be studied. One can easily go to Austria; one can talk to the people freely — my wife did — and learn how the people feel and what they think; and one is as safe there as one is — I was going to say at home, but that would be silly: one is much safer. We are not naturally a law-abiding people; the Austrians are. I venture the guess that one is safer in Vienna than in any large city in the United States. There was no revolution in Vienna, as there was a hundred and thirty-five years before in Paris, or as there was in Russia during the war. No guillotine or other murdering device was set in motion. Most of the Austrian aristocrats were ruined by the war; their sufferings had been terrible, and those who had escaped death were deprived of their property by due process of law, by the Social Democrats who took matters in hand.

IV

All my life (all my married life, that is — all that counts) I have been hearing of the court of Kaiser Franz Josef: how exclusive and aristocratic it was, how different from the vulgar court of the German Emperor and from the democratic court of the King of England. I did not dare tell my dear little mother-in-law how rotten it was, nor would she have believed me if I had. One of her brothers, whom I learned to love and call ‘Uncle Louis’ (he was a tall, distinguished-looking man, and what a gentleman! — he had been an officer in the Austrian army), was represented, in the family, as having been something of a favorite with the old Kaiser. He left Vienna because his rank in the army would not permit him to marry a lady with whom he was in love, who had no fortune. I never met Uncle Louis without his making a little, almost unconscious motion of bringing his heels together and saying, ‘Service, Eduard,’ and I never knew him to greet my wife without a bow and, ‘Küss’ die Hand, gnädige Frau.’

The Kaiser himself was a good, busy, and respected man of simple tastes. He slept on a camp bedstead — you see them in half-a-dozen palaces in Austria. He was an early riser, and, neglecting everything important, made himself a master of petty detail. It is said that when he and his friend Edward VII, King of England, went together to one of their favorite spas, they usually met at the same hour, — five in the morning, — the Emperor just beginning his day’s work, the King on his way to bed. Franz Josef’s wife was the beautiful Empress Elizabeth, with whom he did not get on well. She was greatly beloved by the Hungarians, whereas they had small regard for him and he none for them.

There was no crime or misfortune that did not come very near to his heart. A revolution placed him on his throne, and almost immediately there was an attempt upon his life. His brothers — there were several — were so mean and degenerate that, even in a court in which degeneracy and vice were the distinguishing marks of nobility, they could not be tolerated. His favorite brother was Maximilian, whom the French sought to make Emperor of Mexico, whereupon the Mexicans promptly and properly shot him. What rights had he in Mexico? Presently Franz Josef became involved in a war with Prussia, which he lost, and with it he was forced to yield much territory. The Empress Elizabeth was stabbed to death by a lunatic in Switzerland. His great grief, however, was the romantic suicide or murder of his only son, the Crown Prince Rudolph; the details of his death are still obscure.

A Hapsburg, one of the proudest men in Europe, compared to whom Kaiser William was but a weed of hasty growth, he was forever concealing or attempting to conceal some fresh disgrace which had fallen upon some member of his family, but he could not bring himself to permit anyone not of aristocratic birth — however useful to himself or his Empire — to break the charmed circle of his court. In addition to his iron cot beds, one sees his tall desks at which he used to stand all day reading reports, signing papers, and no doubt thinking of himself as the flywheel of a colossal machine, whereas he was in effect a mere nut which kept the wheel on. When in the midst of the World War it fell off, the wheel came with it and a sevenhundred-year-old machine fell quickly to pieces. But long before the World War the old man had practically withdrawn from the direction of forces which he could no longer control, and this was the condition of affairs when, at the cracking of the German Emperor’s whip, he declared war on Serbia, knowing — he must have known — that his action would bring about the general war which one section of Europe was hoping for and the other fearing. The rest is the history of yesterday.

All his life long the Kaiser had enjoyed the company of very charming ladies, but for the last thirty years of his life he wras devoted to one — Frau Schratt, an opera singer, whose portrait might be seen, when she herself was not, in the royal box, decorated with the insignia of the House of Austria. She had a small palace in Vienna near the Hofburg, and a villa near Schönbrunn opposite a small green gate — to which the Emperor and his lady alone had a key — in the wall of the garden surrounding the palace. More than this, she had houses dotted all over the Empire — and her jewels are said to be magnificent. The lady, she is a very old lady now, knows more scandal than any person living, and it is said she has declined a million dollars from an American publisher to tell it. Perhaps her ‘recollections’ will some day be published.

V

Too much cannot be said in praise of the Austrians. From top to bottom an amiable, polite, and considerate people. If the aristocrat in his heart of hearts despises you, as he undoubtedly does, he conceals it. ‘Service’ and ‘Küss’ die Hand’ are not idle words. The French have the reputation of being polite, but their politeness is as nothing compared to that of the Austrian. Make this test. Go to a café in Paris and order something to drink. You drink it and immediately the waiter will take your glass away, ask if you will have another, and, if you won’t, begin to wipe off your table with a dirty towel and ultimately wipe you out of your chair. Not so in Vienna. Go to your café and order a drink. You drink it slowly; presently the waiter comes up, very politely removes your empty glass, and brings two other glasses — two, mind you — and fills both of them with water; this so that you may not feel embarrassed at having nothing before you to drink. In all probability he will bring you a newspaper, making a faultless guess as to what language you read with the greatest facility.

And now I have come to the thing for which, after their music and medicine, the Viennese are most famous the world over — the café. England has its public house, commonly called a pub. We have had the saloon, and now, sad to say, we have the speak-easy. The café is the essential Vienna; there are over a thousand in the city. Every man and many women have their café to which they resort daily to drink coffee — and the best coffee in the world. Austrians are frugal; their wines are not much to boast of; substantial food is usually a sandwich. But their Kuchen! Curious and bewildering names ring in my ears, meaning the richest and most delicious shape-destroying individual rolls, buns, and cakes that can be conceived of. One does not so much eat them as let them melt in the mouth.

In a Viennese café, hurry is unknown; a ‘quick lunch’ — that abomination — is unthinkable. One goes to one’s café,—I soon discovered mine; it was the Herrenhof, — gets, if he can, a seat by a window, and takes no note of time. But one observes everything else. The air becomes warm and agreeable, if one likes the smell of tobacco — which I do. The place is or becomes crowded with quiet men and a sprinkling of women who talk by the hour in tones so low that they can scarcely be heard, even if one understands the language — which I do not. Small ices and a cooling drink, resembling raspberry shrub, are in demand. Have these people anything to do? Seemingly not. But they are intensely interested in conversation. I presume that there are political and professional and musical and literary cafés. The Café Herrenhof is distinctly literary — perhaps journalistic would be a better word. With a pleasant companion I can imagine no more delightful place in which to pass an hour or an evening than the Herrenhof in the Herrengasse.

There is a ritual in ordering and receiving supplies in a Vienna café which it is most important to observe, and I have no doubt that in my ignorance I did many things that distinctly were ‘not done.’ If you take the Besitzer (proprietor) for a Herr Oher (head waiter), you are done for. If you call a common or garden waiter Herr Ober, he knows you for a fool. The Herr Ober takes your order, and ultimately your money and your tip, but a Speisenträger (waiter) brings you your drink and food, and expects a tip too, naturally. There is also a Kuchenträger (cake waiter), who brings a big tray of cakes and expects to be paid and tipped. It is all very simple when you know it — as most things are — and very complicated when you don’t. But one may read or write or play cards or flirt by the hour, quite undisturbed, with two glasses of cold water before him after he has had his, for the Besitzer, more profitable drink. It is sehr gemüthlich, and if you ask me what that means, I would reply that it is a sort of courteous comradeship, conspicuous in our country by its absence.

VI

I know nothing and have no wish to know anything about the several political parties in Austria. There are all kinds of Socialists, and Communists, whose creed is to take from those who have and to give to those who have not. This will always have the approval of the majority.

The revolution in Austria was accomplished without the shedding of a drop of blood — of that there had been enough during the war; there was no fight left in anyone. There were misery and starvation, of course, but they were nothing new, nor was misgovernment. The last Emperor, Charles, abdicated in November 1918 and fled the country, and the printing press completed the ruin of the Empire. Whoever was in power at the time gave the fatal order. They began to print kronen until they became worthless — fourteen thousand paper kronen to one gold one. Such a process is like drinking sea water to quench thirst. By this time my daughter, who is a fluent German scholar, was doing relief work in Vienna under the guidance of the ‘Anglo-American’ something or other — for which the ‘Anglo’ took the credit and the ‘American’ put up the money. I remember that she came home for a little respite, and as she was packing to return I noticed a large bundle of ‘money’ of which she seemed very careless. I upbraided her, as is a father’s duty, and she said, ‘Pooh! I’m not going to take that back. I have n’t room for it, and it would n’t buy a newspaper, anyway.’

And then came the permanent tragedy, compared to which war is merely an opportunity to show heroism. Wealth is, generally speaking, of two kinds — paper evidences thereof, such as bonds and stocks, as we should say, and real estate. These billions of millions of paper kronen put into circulation made all other paper evidences of wealth not relatively but absolutely worthless. A man who by thrift had saved up ten thousand kronen as a solace for his old age now found himself ihe possessor of a questionable fifteen cents, or, to put it another way, of two loaves of bread. If, on the other hand, he had real estate to sell or to rent, he received paper kronen with the same result — RUIN.

VII

Come we now to another experiment in government. The Social Democrats by a simple twist of the wrist acquired the physical assets — all that was left of the Empire. These they proceeded to distribute. By legal robbery they found themselves possessed of immense areas of land; then, securing the services of the best architects, they proceeded to build the finest apartment houses, flats, community dwellings — call them what you will — that have ever been erected for the laboring classes. These buildings are at once the despair of the economist and the delight of the social worker, the architect, and the engineer. Obtaining the services of an excellent guide, with proper introductions and a wife whose mother tongue is the pleasant patois of Vienna, I spent several days in studying these buildings and their occupants.

The immensity and substantial character of these model tenements are beyond belief, and their exterior beauty is hardly excelled by the great apartment houses in New York or Chicago. The gardens in which they are placed, or which have been constructed around them, have well-kept lawns, dotted with trees and beds of flowers, with artistic fountains or statuary here and there for the solace of age, and playgrounds which are the joy of children. From having been born and bred in slums, Viennese children now have the care and amusements of the children — I was going to say of the very rich, but I know no rich children whose wants, real or imaginary, are so catered to. A pool for wading in summer automatically becomes a skating or sliding rink in winter. But have they skates and shoes? I do not know. I was there in the spring when everything was abloom.

I think few blocks of buildings are more than five stories high, although I noticed some of nine stories, this height being employed, I fancy, to break the monotony of the sky line, and there are miles of streets of small ‘detached’ cottages. The flats are of one, two, three, five rooms each, open to the sun, frequently with balconies looking out into the gardens. The cooking, toilet, and laundry arrangements are amazingly complete. In some of the largest of these flats the laundries are equipped with the most modem electrical apparatus, which in size would admirably serve a modem hotel.

I know something of the cost of electric equipment and I can tell when money has been thrown away with both hands. To operate a laundry completely furnished with the most modern and complicated electrical devices takes skillful operators, and not such folk as have been, in the past, accustomed to washing their clothes on a smooth stone laid flat on a river bank. And of what use can a mangle be, which at one operation will smooth a tablecloth six feet wide, to a group of women who have nothing to eat? I protested vigorously against such wastefulness and likened it to the barbaric extravagance of the old régime, and was told that the manufacture of this equipment gave work to mechanics who otherwise would have had nothing to do. Knowing, as I did, that Austria is obliged to import its coal, and has unsurpassed facilities for making electricity from water power, I suggested that hydroelectric plants and the electrical equipment of their railways might have given the needed relief to labor and at the same time have enabled the state railways to operate more economically. To this there was no adequate reply.

I know nothing as to welfare clinics for children, but here, too, I saw what seemed to my untutored eye such elegance of equipment for the health and amusement of the children of the poor as I cannot believe exists elsewhere in the world. If ten of the richest men in New York were to vie with one another in providing a health kindergarten, if such a thing might be, the result in beauty and in artistic and hygienic arrangement might approach what has been provided for the poor folk of Vienna. I ask you to see to it, Mrs. Astorbilt, that your children’s toothbrushes match in color and material their tooth mugs — it is most important. How many kindergartens are thus functioning in Vienna? I have no idea, but there are many. The children arrive at seven in the morning and remain under constant care and supervision until six in the evening, for which the charge is merely nominal, from two to four shillings — that is to say, at most fifty-six cents a week, including meals.

VIII

Let us turn now to the economic side of this pleasant picture. Whence came the wealth which provided all this? From the rich, who under the guise of taxation have been impoverished, if not to a man, certainly to a family. What contribution do the poor themselves make? Well, in the first place, the poor have little or nothing, and, as the Socialists themselves say, in some literature which was provided me (in English), ‘The Municipality of Vienna does not put any interest on the capital invested [in these undertakings]. When the building is completed the capital outlay is reckoned at zero. Accordingly the Municipality can confine itself strictly to levying from its tenants the mere cost of upkeep and repair. The rents vary from 15 to 20 groschcn per month per square metre.’ That works out to something almost infinitesimal. I hate figures; the reader may do it for himself. A square metre is 10¾ square feet, and 100 groschen are equal to one Austrian shilling, or fourteen cents. This is the rent, and I go on to read that ‘the housing tax in a worker’s dwelling amounts to a little more than one shilling per month, and on a modest middle-class home a few shillings per month. Large apartments and business premises are more severely taxed, naturally.’ Is it any wonder that for this accommodation, which may fairly be described as luxurious, there is an unlimited demand?

Austria is a Catholic country — next to Spain, perhaps the most Catholic country in Europe. The population has declined, but marriage has risen from an average of 19,000 annually for the years 1910—1913 to 25,000 annually for 1919-1924, and the Church sees to it that the marriages are fruitful. Birth control — one certain way out of the world’s economic distress — is taught to be a crime. Let me add that 64,000 dwellings of all kinds have been erected since the fall of the Hapsburgs. One more question and a most important one: Are the people thus mothered and fathered by the benevolent despotism of the Socialist happy? Distinctly not. They are as unhappy as it is within the power of a pleasureloving Viennese to be. ‘What is the use of it all?’ they say. ‘What we want is work.’ But alas! there is no work. Austria is like a body from which hands and feet have been removed.

I say that it is largely the ignorant or vindictive achievement of four men whose names are to me anathema.

IX

But there is another picture, and a pleasanter one. ‘He studied medicine in Vienna,’ says someone, wishing to pay tribute to the skill of some excellent physician; and, when that physician comes and is through prescribing for his patient, he will tell you how happy he was to work under the watchful eye of this great man or that, and of the joy of his student days, and how he longs to go back. I visited the great infirmaries and hospitals, famous all over the world, and thought for a time that I would take advantage of the opportunity of having something cut out of me or something useful inserted in my anatomy, but, after feeling myself carefully all over, I determined to carry on ‘as is’ for a while longer. I shall soon be coffin-ripe anyhow, and at my age capital repairs are expensive, and may be dangerous.

The centre of Alt Wien is the Hofburg; the centre of modern Vienna is the Opera House. Paris for art, Vienna for music! The people live upon it; it seems more necessary to them than bread. It is not so with me. I went to the opera several times; a good husband is obliged to make concessions to his musical wife; but I was more interested in ‘Sacher’s’ immediately behind the Opera House. Sacher’s was the most exclusive, expensive, and, they say, the naughtiest hotel in Europe. Old Man Sacher has been dead for some time; Frau Sacher died quite recently. Their hotel faded, however, like everything else in Vienna during the war, and with the extinction of certain archdukes and their ladies, who seldom appeared in the rather dingy public dining room, its glory has departed, and will never return. If the mirrors in its chambres séparées could portray what they once reflected! If their walls had ears and mouths too! But it is better as it is.

Vienna will live down her scandals — all but one, which I must refer to, however shocking it may be. The famous Danube is brown, not blue.