Читать книгу Europe After 8:15 - George Jean Nathan - Страница 5

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The casual Sunday School superintendent, bursting with visions of luxurious gaieties, his brain incited by references to Wiener blut, his corpuscles tripping to the strains of some Viennese schlagermusik, will suffer only disappointment as he sallies forth on his first night in Vienna. He is gorgeously caparisoned with clean linen, talcumed, exuding Jockey Club, prepared for surgical and psychic shock, his legs drilled hollow to admit of precious fluids, his pockets bulging with kronen. He is a lovely, mellow creature, a virtuoso of the domestic virtues when home, but now, at large in Europe, he craves excitement. His timid soul is bent on participating in the deviltries for which Vienna is famous. His blood is thumping through his arteries in three-four time. His mind is inflamed by such strophes as "Es giebt nur a Kaiserstadt; es giebt nur a Wien" and "Immer luste, fesch und munter, und der Wiener geht nit unter." But he is brought gradually to the realisation that something is amiss. Can it be that the vice crusaders have been at work? Have the militant moralists and the professional women hunters, in their heated yearnings to flay the transgressor, fallen foul of Vienna?

He expected to find a city which would be one roseate and romantic revel, given over to joys of the flesh, to wine-drinking and confetti-throwing, overrun with hussies, gone mad with lascivious waltzes, reeking with Babylonish amours. He dreamed of Vienna as one continual debauch, one never-ceasing saturnalia, an eternal tournament of perfumed hilarities. His lewd dreams of the "gayest city in Europe" have produced in him a marked hallucinosis with visions of Neronic orgies, magnificently prodigal—deliriums of chromatic disorder.

But as he walks down the Kärntnerstrasse, encircles the Ring and stands with bulging inquisitive eyes on the corner of the Wiedner Hauptstrasse and Karlsplatz, he wonders what can be the matter. Where, indeed, is that prodigality of flowers and spangled satin he has heard so much about? Where are those super-orchestras sweating over the scores of seductive waltzes? Where the silken ankles and the glittering eyes, the kisses and the flutes, the beery laughter and the delirious leg shaking? The excesses of merrymaking are nowhere discoverable. Des Moines, Iowa, or Camden, New Jersey, would present quite as festive a spectacle, he thinks, as he gazes up at the sepulchral shadows on the gigantic Opernhaus before him. He cannot understand the nocturnal solitude of the streets. There is actual desolation about him. A chlorotic girl, her cheeks unskilfully painted, brushes up to him with a careless "Geh Rudl, gib ma a Spreitzn." But that might happen in Cleveland, Ohio—and Cleveland is not framed as a modern Tyre. He is puzzled and distressed. He feels like a Heliogabalus on a desert isle. He consults his watch. It is past midnight. He has searched for hours. No famous thoroughfare has escaped him. He has reconnoitred diligently and thoroughly, as only a pious tourist bent on forbidden pleasures knows how. He is the arch-type of American traveller; the God-fearing deacon on the loose; the vestryman returning from Jerusalem. Hopefully, yet fearfully, he has pushed his search. He has traversed the Kärntnerring, the Kolowratring, peered into Stadt Park, hit the Stubenring, scouted Franz Josefs Kai, searched the Rotenturmstrasse, zigzagged over to the Schottenring, followed the Franz, Burg and Opern-Rings, and is back on the Karlsplatz, still virtuous, still sober!

Not a houri. Nary a carnival. No strain of the "Blaue Donau" has wooed his ear. No one has nailed him with sachet eggs. He has not been choked by quarts of confetti. His conscience is as pure as the brews of Munich. He is still in a beneficent state of primeval and exquisite prophylaxis, of benign chemical purity, of protean moral asepsis. He came prepared for deluges of wine and concerted onslaughts from ineffable freimaderln. But he might as well have attended a drama by Charles Klein for all the rakish romance he has unearthed. His evening has gone. His legs are weary. And nothing has happened to astound or flabbergast him, to send him sprawling with Cheyne-Stokes breathing. In all his promenading he has seen nothing to affect his vasomotor centres or to produce Argyll-Robertson pupils.

Can it be true, he wonders, that, after all, Viennese gaiety is an illusion, a base fabrication? Is the Wiener blut, like Iowan blood, calm and sluggish? Is Vienna's reputation bogus, a snare for tourists, a delusion for the unsophisticated? Where is that far-renowned gemüthlichkeit? Has an American press agent had his foul hand in the advertising of Austria's capital? Perhaps—perhaps! … But what of those Viennese operas? What of those sensuous waltzes, those lubric bits of schramm-musik which have come from Vienna? And has he not seen pictures of Viennese women—angels à la mode, miracles of beauty, Loreleis de luxe? Even Baedeker, the papa of the travelling schoolmarms, has admitted Vienna to be a bit frivolous.

A puzzle, to be sure. A problem for Copernicus—a paradox, a theorem with many decimal points. So thinks the tourist, retiring to his hotel. And figuring thus, he falls to sleep, enveloped in a caressing miasma of almost unearthly respectability.

But is it true that Vienna is the home of purity, of early retirers, of phlegmatic and virtuous souls? Are its gaieties mere febrile imaginings of liquorish dreamers? Is it, after all, the Los Angeles of Europe? Or, despite its appearances, is it truly the gayest city in the world, redolent of romance, bristling with intrigue, polluted with perfume? It is. And, furthermore, it is far gayer than its reputation; for all has never been told. Gaiety in Vienna is an end, not a means. It is born in the blood of the people. The carnival spirit reigns. There are almost no restrictions, no engines of repression. Alongside the real Viennese night life, the blatant and spectacular caprices of Paris are so much tinsel. The life on the Friedrichstrasse, the brightest and most active street in Europe, becomes tawdry when compared with the secret glories of the Kärntnerring. In the one instance we have gaiety on parade, in strumpet garb—the simulacrum of sin—gaiety dramatised. In the other instance, it is an ineradicable factor of the city's life.

To appreciate these differences, one must understand the temperamental appeals of the Viennese. With them gaiety comes under the same physiological category as chilblains, hunger and fatigue. It is accepted as one of the natural and necessary adjuncts of life like eating and sleeping and lovemaking. It is an item in their pharmacopœia. They do not make a business of pleasure any more than the Englishman makes a business of walking, or the American of drinking Peruna or the German of beerbibbing. For this reason, pleasure in Vienna is not elaborate and external. It is a private, intimate thing in which every citizen participates according to his standing and his pocketbook. The Austrians do not commercialize their pleasure in the hope of wheedling dollars from American pockets. Such is not their nature. And so the slumming traveller, lusting for obscure and fascinating debaucheries, finds little in Vienna to attract him.

Vienna is perhaps the one city in the world which maintains a consistent attitude of genuine indifference toward the outsider, which resents the intrusion of snoopers from these pallid States, which deliberately makes it difficult for foreign Florizels to find diversion. The liveliest places in Vienna present the gloomiest exteriors. The official guides maintain a cloistered silence regarding those addresses at which Viennese society disports itself when the ledgers are closed and the courts have adjourned. The Viennese, resenting the intrusion of outsiders upon his midnight romances, holds out no encouragement for globe-trotting Don Juans. He refuses to be inspected and criticised by the inquisitive sensation hunters of other nations. Money will not tempt him to commercialize his gaiety and regulate it to meet the morbid demands of the interloper. Hence the external aspect of sobriety. Hence the veneer of piety. Hence the sepulchral silence of the midnight thoroughfares. Hence the silence and the desolation which meet the roaming tourist.

In this respect Vienna is different from any other large city in Europe. The joys of Parisian night life are as artificial as cosmetics. They are organised and executed by technicians subtly schooled in the psychology of the Puritan mind. To the American, all forms of pleasure are excesses, to be indulged in only at rare intervals; and Paris supplies him with the opportunities. Berlin, and even Munich, makes a business of gaiety. St. Petersburg, patterning after Paris, excites the visitor with visions of gaudy glory; and London, outwardly chaste, maintains a series of supper clubs which in the dishonesty of their subterranean pleasures surpass in downright immorality any city in Europe. Budapest is a miniature Babylon burning incense by night which assails the visitor's nostrils and sends him into delirious ecstasies. San Francisco and New York are both equipped with opportunities for all-night indulgences. In not one of these cities does the sight seeker or the joy hunter find difficulty in sampling the syrups of sin. Mysterious guides assail him on the street corners, pouring libidinous tales into his furry ears, tempting him with descriptions like Suetonius's account of the Roman circuses. Automobiles with megaphones and placards summon him from the street corners. Electric signs—debauches of writhing colour—intoxicate his mind and point the way to haunts of Caracalla.

But Vienna! He will search in vain for a key to the night life. By bribery he may wring an admission or obtain an address from the hotel clerk; but the ménage to which he is directed is, alas, not what he seeks. He may plead with cabmen or buy the honour of taxicab drivers, but little information will he obtain. For these gentlemen, strange as it may seem, are almost as ignorant of the gaiety of Vienna as he himself. And at last, in the early morning, after ineffectual searching, after hours of assiduous nosing, he ends up at some kaffeehaus near the Schillerplatz, partakes of a chaste ice with Wiener gebäck and goes dolorously home—a virgin of circumstance, an unwilling and despondent Parsifal, a lofty and exquisite creature through lack of opportunity, the chaste victim of a killjoy conspiracy. He is that most tragic figure—an enforced pietist, a thwarted voluptuary. Eheu! Eheu! Dies faustus!

In order to come into intimate touch with the night life of Vienna one must live there and become a part of it. It is not for spectators and it is not public. It involves every family in the city. It is inextricably woven into the home life. It is elaborate because it is genuine, because it is not looked upon as a mere outlet for the repressions of puritanism. From an Anglo-Saxon point of view Vienna is perhaps the most degenerate city in the world. But degeneracy is geographical; morals are temperamental. This is why the Viennese resents intrusion and spying. His night life involves the national spirit. His gaiety is not a prerogative of the demi-monde, but the usufruct of all classes. Joy is not exclusive or solitary with the Viennese. He is not ashamed of his frolics and hilarities. He does not take his pleasures hypocritically after the manner of the Occidental moralist. He is a gay bird, a sybarite, a modern Lucullus, a Baron Chevrial—and admits it.

To be sure, there is in Vienna a miniature night life not unlike that of the other European capitals, but it requires constant attention and assiduous coddling to keep it alive. The better class Viennese will have none of it. It is a by-product of the underworld and is no more characteristic of Vienna than the gilded cafés chantants which cluster round the Place Pigalle on Montmartre are characteristic of Paris. These places correspond to the Palais de Danse and the Admirals Palast in Berlin; to the Villa Villa and the Astor Club in London; to Reisenweber's in New York; to L'Abbaye and the Rat Mort in Paris—allowing of course for the temperamental influences (and legal restrictions) of the different nations.

Let us arouse a snoring cabman and make the rounds. Why not? All merrymaking is shot through with youth, no matter how dolorous the joy or how expensive the indulgence. So let us partake of the feast before us. Our first encounter is with the Tabarin, in the Annagasse, an establishment not unlike the Bal Tabarin in Paris. We hesitate at the entrance, but being assured by the doorkeeper, garbed like Louis Seize, that it is "ein äusserst feines und modernes nacht etablissement" we enter, partake of a bottle of champagne (thirty kronen—New York prices) and pass out and on to Le Chapeau Rouge, where we buy more champagne. From there we go to the Rauhensteingasse and enter Maxim's, brazenly heralded as the Montmartre of Vienna. Then on to the Wallfischgasse to mingle with the confused visitors of the Trocadero, where we are urged to have supper. But time is fleeting. The cabmeter is going round like a tortured turbine. So we hasten out and seek the Wiehburggasse, where we discover a "Palais de Danse"—seductive phrase, suggestive of ancient orgies. But we cannot tarry—in spite of Mimi Lobner (Ah, lovely lady!) who sings to us "Liebliche Kleine Dingerchen" from "Kino-Königin," and makes us buy her a peach bowle in payment. One more place and we are ready for the resort in the Prater, the Coney Island of Vienna. This last place has no embroidered name. Its existence is emblazoned across the blue skies by an electric sign reading "Etablissement Parisien." It is in the Schellinggasse and justifies itself by the possession of a very fine orchestra whose militär-kapellmeister knows naught but inebriate tanzmusik.

Again in the open air, headed for the Kaisergarten, we reflect on our evening's search for nachtvergnügungen. With the lone exception of our half-hour with Mimi, it has been a sad chase. All the places (with the possible exception of the Trocadero) have been cheaply imitative of Paris, with the usual appurtenances of arduous waiters, gorgeously dressed women dancing on red velvet carpets, fortissimo orchestras, expensive wines, blumenmädl, hothouse strawberries and other accessories of manufactured pleasure. But compared with Paris these places have been second rate. The damen (I except thee, lovely Mimi!) have not inflamed us either with their beauty or with manifestations of their esprit gaulois. For the most part they have been stodgy women with voluminous bosoms, Eiffel towers of bought hair—bison with astonishing hyperboles and parabolas, dressed in all of the voluptuous splendour but possessing none of the grace of the Rue de la Paix. Furthermore, these establishments have lacked the deportmental abandon which saves their prototypes in Paris from downright banality. All of their deviltries have been muted, as if the guests suffered from a pathological fear of pleasure. Strangers we were when we entered. As strangers we take our departure.

Why do I linger thus, you ask, over these hothouse caperings? For the same reason that we are now going to inspect the Kaisergarten. Because this phase of life represents an unnatural development in the Viennese mode of pleasure, something grafted, yet something characteristic of the impressionability of the Viennese mind. The Viennese are a hybrid and imitative people. They have annexed characteristics distinctly French. In the Kaisergarten these characteristics are more evident than elsewhere. Here is a people's playground in which all manner of amusements are thrown together, from the balhaus, where nothing but expensive champagne is sold, to the scenic railway, on which one may ride for fifty heller. This park presents a bizarre and chaotic mingling of outdoor concerts, variety theatres, bierkabaretts, moving picture halls, promenades and sideshow attractions of the Atlantic City type. The Kaisergarten is the rendezvous of the bourgeoisie, the heaven of hoi polloi—rotund merchants with walrus moustachios, dapper young clerks with flowing ties, high-chokered soldiers, their boots polished into ebony mirrors, fat-jowled maidens in rainbow garb. … There is lovemaking under the Linden trees, beer drinking on the midway, schnitzel eating in the restaurants. Homely pleasantries are thrown from heavy German youths to the promenading mädchen. One catches such greetings and whisperings as "Du bist oba heut' fesch g'scholnt" and "Ko do net so lang umananderbandln." There exists a spirit of buoyant and genuine fellowship. But here again it is a private and personal brand of gaiety. Let the obvious stranger whisper "Schatz'rl" to a powdered Fritzi on the bench next to him, and he will be ignored for his impertinence. The same salutation from a Viennese will call forth a coquettish "Raubersbua." Even the Amerikan-bar in the centre of the Kaisergarten (in charge of no less a celebrity than Herr Pohnstingl!) will not offer the tourist the hospitality he hopes to find. He will find neither Americans nor American drinks. The cocktail—that boon to all refined palates, when mixed with artistry and true poetic feeling—circulates incognito at Herr Pohnstingl's. Such febrifuges as masquerade under that name are barely recognisable by authentic connoisseurs, by Rabelaises of sensitive esophagi, by true lovers of subtly concocted gin and vermouth and bitters. But the Viennese, soggy with acid beer, his throat astringentized by strong coffee, knows not the difference. And so the Amerikan-bar flourishes.