To the Wiener Café daily went these men and women to eat the food so renowned for its cooking. Where was such delicious coffee to be found in Berne? Where was there a greater variety of well-cooked and properly seasoned dishes? The wine was a glory. The Hungarian gipsy band played bewitching music, and brought home near enough for tears to those who came from the lands of the East.
But the Wiener Café drew men and women from the four corners of the earth for something more than its good food and glowing wines. They came for talk, to meet fellow exiles and entertain interesting strangers; to discuss the terrible march of events; to debate political theories; to escape loneliness; to hear gay music, and forget their sorrows in congenial fellowship.
Mr. Rinner of the Wiener Café radiated a welcome from his whole portly person. The waiters, always smiling and efficient, served you as if it were their great privilege to do so and not, as in so many English cafés, as though they were conferring a favour upon you. You never felt constrained to eat so fast that you choked in an effort to get out of the place as quickly as possible. You stayed hours if you desired to read or to play cards or chess. A second portion of every dish could be had if wanted without any further charge. All sorts of delightful odd corners, softly cushioned and conveniently partitioned, furthered conversation, and supplied a certain amount of privacy, contrasting favourably with the square horse-box appearance of so many eating houses in other places. And this is a typical good-class European restaurant.
I made my first acquaintance with the Wiener Café as the guest of Mr. Rudolf Kommer. Mr. Norman Angell and Mr. J. R. Macdonald were of the party. We talked for hours of the day’s happenings at the Conference, and reviewed the prospects of an early peace now rapidly vanishing into thin air. All the time there came through the glass partition the tantalizing strains of the ’cello and violin playing Hungarian dances. I had hoped to see as well as hear these gipsy musicians. And so it happened. The door opened and in they came to give us a private performance.
Smiling, bowing, they drew near to the table, almost bending over it, playing softly, sweetly, merrily, the expression of their faces interpreting the song. They had never studied a note of music. They played solely by ear. Yet they had caught the magic spirit of music, the soul and the rhythm of it. Their bodies swayed in time with the song. Their intimate black eyes invited to the dance. Our feet tapped time to their swaying forms. It was utterly joyous, abandoned, divine! I hear it now:
“Nimm Zigeuner deine Geige, lass sehn was du kannst.”
Our host crowned the evening’s enjoyment with stories of the old café’s famous habitués. At the very table where we were seated Lenin in exile had discussed his political philosophy with admirers and doubters through a summer’s night. In the chair I occupied the volatile and relentless Trotsky had lounged and gossiped. The charming, exuberant Prince Windischgraetz and his beautiful wife had frequently supped there. Crownless kings and exiled grand dukes had played their less dangerous game at the bridge-table in the corner. Poets and philosophers, journalists of all nations, destroyers of old states and architects of new, propagandists of the old order and spies of the new, lovely women of scandalous reputation, virtuous and sober citizens of Berne, delegates to international conferences, travellers to Paris held up on the way, connoisseurs of good beer—all found their way to this famous house of good cheer and joyous fellowship, and have helped Herr Rinner and the Gipsy Primas to make of it to thousands a memory of rich delight or of the haunting sorrow which is akin to joy.
When shall I see the Wiener Café again? I ask myself. And I know that I shall never see it as it was in those days of the war and the peace. All the old friends are gone. Even the gipsy band has fled. Perhaps there remain a few political exiles in Berne who find their way to the café occasionally. It may be that Dr. Ludwig Bauer, that amiable giant who eats at a sitting enough for four ordinary men and washes it down with incredible quantities of beer, calls occasionally to play a game of cards with a fellow-journalist, or to write his daily article in the little back room reserved for honoured and familiar guests. I do not know. All I know is that I have but to close my eyes and listen, and through the windows are wafted softly the strains from the gipsy band:
“Nimm Zigeuner deine Geige, lass sehn was du kannst,
Schwarzer Teufel spiel und zeige wie dein Bogen tanzt.”