ITHE 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 herlunettes 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,Ithink 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-whiskeredold 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 histitle, “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 MademoiselleZ—— 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 oldartistehave 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 herhauptmann. 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 nottoodull, 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 doessoundvery 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, “Iamglad 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 innerstairways 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 famousWiener 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 saynothing 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. Fromoperettetoconcerto, 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 soundis 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 awienerischedowager, 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 ofMélangebetween 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 frothingseidelsof Münchener, and conversation and good cheer hum all round.
Let the orchestra reappear, however, and there issilence—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—onlyto 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 thatmädchenbecomesmädl,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 typicalwienerisch, 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; butshow, rather, a lively humour and child-like interest in the lady of their admiration. I well remember that first evening, after thehauptmannhad 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. ButIthink 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 peoplebuild—”
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.