Europe After 8:15 | Page 9

justifies itself by the possession of a very fine orchestra whose milit?r-kapellmeister knows naught but inebriate tanzmusik.
Again in the open air, headed for the Kaisergarten, we reflect on our evening's search for nachtvergn��gungen. 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, blumenm?dl, 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 m?dchen. 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.
[Illustration: VIENNA]
It was here that I discovered Gabrielle, a sad little French girl, alone and forsaken in the midst of merriment, drinking Dubonnet and dreaming of the Boulevard Montparnasse. I bought her another Dubonnet--what stranger would have done less? In her was epitomized the sadness of the stranger in Vienna. Lured by lavish tales of gaiety, she had left Paris, to seek an unsavoury fortune in the love marts of Vienna. But her dream had been broken. She was lonely as only a Parisian can be, stranded in an alien country. She knew scarcely a score of German words, in fact no language but her own. Her youth and coquetry did not avail. She was an outsider, a deserted onlooker. She spoke tenderly of the Caf�� du D?me, of Fouquet's, the Caf�� d'Harcourt, Marigny and the Luxembourg. She inquired sentimentally about the Bal Bullier. She was pretty, after the an?mic French type of beauty, with pink cheeks, pale blue eyes and hair the colour of wet straw. She had the slender, shapely feet of the French cocotte. Her stockings were of thin pink silk. Her slender, soft fingers were without a ring. Her jewelry, no doubt, had long since gone to the money