The key turned in the lock and the narrow studded door was swung wide, revealing a narrow cell of no more than the dimensions of a double bed. It contained two occupants. One was a woman of the bestial type, almost wholly animal. Her feet were bare, her hair hung matted upon her forehead. Her features were swollen and debased. There was no infamy of uncleanness and violence of which she was not capable. Probably she, too, had her excuses. On the other side of the cell, smiling with wistful expectancy, stood a pretty child. She had black curling hair, a complexion of most delicate rose and coyly-lidded Irish eyes. She leant against the wall, small-boned and frail, confidently surveying us. She was nearly fifteen. This was her second term. She had already served a previous sentence of eighteen months. What for? Stealing. Starvation. No, we hadn't come to release her—only to gaze at her. But she had thought we were Americans! Her eyes filled and her lip drooped. The door swung to; it clanged pitilessly. She ran forward with a pleading gesture; then the sight of her was shut out. Her hope was gone. We had consigned her to her hell. And she might have been your daughter or mine.
CHAPTER IV—THE SIGN OF THE FALLING HAMMER
There is an institution in Vienna known as the Dorotheum. It is the Government pawnshop and ===has for its sign a falling hammer against a sinking sun. More than two hundred years ago it was founded by the good Emperor Joseph to protect his people against the rapacity of private brokers. Formerly the rule was that if articles were not reclaimed within the space of ten months, they would be passed under the hammer. Today the respite for redemption has been cut down to three months; the Government cannot take the risk of a declining currency over a longer period.
This afternoon I visited the Dorotheum. It is a vast building, constructed on the grand scale like a palace. Up and down its marble stairway throng the more respectable part of the tragedy of Vienna; pressing hard upon its heels come the vulture purchasers, for the most part foreigners, intent on making bargains out of Austria's want. The Dorotheum is a museum of domestic sacrifices. Here is the complete story of a country gone bankrupt. There is no exchange in the world that is so crowded. Never in its history did it do so thriving a trade. Early in the morning the crowd begins to gather, each individual carrying a shamefully concealed bundle; it does not disperse till the gates are closed at night. The Dorotheum is patronised by all classes, from the bank-clerk, raising a few crowns on an alarm clock, to the archduchess, pledging her jewels. It is one of the last ports of call of the proudly destitute.
Before I made my tour of inspection I was ushered into the presence of the supervisor—a sad, thin man in a flapping black coat who had the nervous cough of an undertaker. He explained that the season being Christmas he was very busy. Trade was brisk; everyone in Vienna had something to sell. This may strike you as quaint, but in Vienna nowadays Christmas is celebrated by pawning and not by purchasing. Because of this the supervisor asked to be excused from conducting me personally over his mausoleum. He entrusted me to a gray, unshaven man who had the appearance of a broken Count. He may have been a Count. An Admiral, who was the hope of the Adriatic navy, is banging at a typewriter today.
This morning I shook the hand of a General, earning ten dollars a month, who once made the Allies tremble by his prowess against the Russians. You can never be quite sure of your companion in this fallen city of tragic transformations.
The first room we entered was jammed to the ceiling with everything from the cheapest electric fittings to the loot of palaces. I noticed a complete set of Empire drawing-room furniture marked at the absurd price of a thousand crowns—rather less than a dollar and a half. There were rare rugs on the walls—the kind one would purchase at Sloane's for anything above three thousand dollars; they were offered at from three to sixty dollars. The sixty dollar one was a magnificent specimen. In another room there was an art gallery, guarded by an ex-engineer of European reputation, who now survives chiefly on tips. The pictures which he guarded were all for sale and many of them the work of famous modern painters. The cheapest I saw was a signed Russian landscape; it would have cost me thirty cents. The dearest, frame and all, could have been mine for six dollars. Art is not much in demand in Vienna.
But the more pathetic sight was not the luxuries of the rich, but the necessities of the respectable middle-class, which had been left unredeemed for three months and were now to be auctioned off. The price on the tags represented one-third their value, which had been advanced to their owners, plus a margin of interest on the Government's outlay. Here were dresses, millinery, fur coats, gramophones, silver wedding-presents, libraries and even cradles. There was nothing you can think of that goes to make a home that some unfortunate had not pledged and lost.