Читать книгу The Story Teller of the Desert—"Backsheesh!" or, Life and Adventures in the Orient - Thomas Wallace Knox - Страница 67

At every step you might find an Englishman, a Frenchman, or a German endeavoring to explain to an Italian, a Spaniard, or a Chinese, the relations between the solar plexus, and the atomic theory as applied to the construction of cart wheels. The amount of science evolved on that evening was frightful to contemplate, as nearly every man was science-sharp in some way or other, and your genuine man of genius is pretty certain to become more and more talkative the more he gets drunk. There was an immense amount of international fraternizing; and if all the good words and wishes uttered on that occasion and moistened with champagne could have effect, there would never be any more wars among nations, and the various governments of the earth might disband their armies and convert their artillery into locomotives and dirt-carts. Not only were the international jurors there, but a good many other loafers, such as city officials, attaches of the government bureaus, newspaper men, and diplomates. The Emperor was not there, but some of the Archdukes were, and there were lots of Austrians, with any number of decorations hanging on the front of their coats.

You couldn’t move without hitting a dignitary in official costume, or a fellow so full of dignity in plain clothes that you would recognize him at once as a heavy swell; and the mingling of the nationalities as the evening wore on was funny to behold.

Germans and Russians, and others of the continental people were hugging each other, and you had the spectacle—curious and novel to an American—of bearded men kissing and re-kissing like couples of school-girls.

They swore eternal friendship, and pledged each other till their hearts and heads were too full and their tongues too thick for utterance. The waiters got drunk, owing to the numbers of “heel-taps” and the general abundance and freedom of the champagne. They got into rows among themselves and with some of the guests, and altogether there were half a dozen scrimmages of greater or less magnitude. Most of them were fortunately confined to words, and were soon quelled, but there were two rows in which there was some pushing, but no actual blows.

One American had his vest torn in a scuffle with a waiter. He went next morning to the consulate, bearing the torn garment as proof of the affray; but as he could not tell how the affair occurred, and could not remember the name and face of the waiter who assaulted him, the Consul declined to make the quarrel a national one.

It was long after midnight when the last of the convives went home; and when the sun rose next morning, Vienna contained an unwonted number of heads swollen to unusual size and bursting with the pain of too much drink the night before.

The words “West Portal” in very large letters. Man proposes and the police dispose. The police turned us off at one of the bridges, and would not allow us to go anywhere near the western entrance, but sent us away in the direction of the south portal. Then another lot of police stopped us a quarter of a mile from the gate, so that my ride to the Exposition was more in theory than in practice.

Vehicles of every description were depositing people at the gates, and thousands were going thither on foot. Many had come expecting to spend an hour in the building before the beginning of the fête, but in this they were disappointed, as the doors were closed at six o’clock, instead of seven, the usual hour. The crowd kept coming, and coming; you couldn’t find a vacant chair at any of the restaurants and beer halls, and you found it no easy matter to walk about. I think that by eight o’clock there were not less than a hundred thousand people in the grounds, and they kept coming as late as nine o’clock. As a fête, strictly speaking, the affair did not amount to much. Half a dozen bands of music were playing in various parts of the grounds, and at the spot known as the Mozart Platz, there was an Austrian singing-society.

That Sommerfest will be remembered by all who were there, and sadly by more than one respectable head of a family.

Another night there was a festival in the grounds around the Exposition building. I started for that place leisurely about five o’clock, under agreement to meet a friend near the west portal, and mounted to the deck of an omnibus which bore numbering about five hundred voices. Then there were electric lights, nearly a dozen of them, that made the spot brilliant, and when all their rays were thrown on the great dome they brought it out into bold relief.

“How magnificent that dome appears,” said an American near me to his friend; “you can see every part of it distinctly.”

“That may be,” said the other; “but you could see it a great deal better in the daytime without paying a cent.”

Bless his practical mind! I never thought of that!

The light had a strange appearance when thrown on the trees and buildings and fountains, and the scene reminded me of representations of fairyland, such as we sec in the Black Crook, or in the panorama of the Pilgrim’s Progress. If some of my theatrical friends could have been there, I think they would have found some new hints for stage effects. The jewels in the great crown that surmounts the dome were sparkling very brilliantly, and I imagine that more than one individual in the crowd thought that the crown would be a nice thing to plunder. The effect of the lights when turned from you was very pleasing, but when you had to look one of them in the face it became a nuisance. They had a way of changing the colors of the lights that reflected upon the fountains so that they became by turns red, blue, green, yellow, and white, eliciting a great many murmurs of applause.

By half past nine the people began to move away, and there was a jam on all the streets that led through the Prater up to the Praterstern. Vehicles could only proceed at a walk, and even that pace could not always be maintained. I was on the top of an omnibus, and rarely have I seen so large a crowd as the one I looked upon from my post of observation. The streets from the Praterstern spread out like the arms of a fan, or more like the spokes of a wheel, and on all these streets people were about as much crowded as they could be, and there was a much larger sprinkling of women than you see in a crowd in America. Vehicles were moving as best they could, and despite the rush and the jam everybody was good natured.

Nearly up to midnight the crowd surged along from the Prater, and evidently people were in no hurry to go to bed. All Vienna seemed to be out of doors, and the beer-halls were doing an enormous business. I would not ask for a better fortune than to have a dollar for each glass of beer drank in Vienna in the twenty-four hours ending the next morning at sunrise. There were probably half a million people drinking beer on that festive day, at an average of ten glasses each.

As an illustration of European customs, I will relate an incident of my stay in Vienna:

One day, three American ladies were in the Exposition building, and attracted the attention of a couple of strangers, one an Austrian officer, and the other a Russian of considerable distinction in his own home. The freedom of their manners, so natural to American women, was misinterpreted, and the gentlemen made themselves obnoxious by following them wherever they went, and, finally, by speaking to them, and offering to be their escort.

Though repulsed, they followed; and, finally, near the Rotunda, the ladies met a gentleman who was husband to one of them and brother to the other. They told him the story, and pointed out their troublesome followers, who were standing a little distance away. The American walked to where the pair stood, and after a few words he coolly knocked the Russian down.