Baron Haupt, the Austrian Minister, was exceedingly helpful. The passport was at once prepared by his secretary. A permit from the Swiss police to leave the country by a different frontier from the one by which I entered was all I needed in addition, and this was granted with the cordiality which the Swiss have invariably shown me whenever I have made a request. I was very happy to be equipped at last for the journey I had tried so often to take. I wanted intensely to discover for myself if the painful stories of Vienna’s misery were really true. I hoped I might find them grossly exaggerated.
It became rumoured in Berne that I was going to Vienna. Within half an hour half a dozen people unknown to me came and begged me to take parcels of food to their starving relations. The Swiss allowed a maximum of only 8 kilos (about 20 lb.) of food to be taken out of Switzerland by each traveller. It was necessary to protect their own people from the famine which would have ensued if unlimited quantities of food could have been carried away in this fashion. It was manifestly impossible to oblige all those poor people. I took 8 kilos of food for one family of whom I had heard and whose necessity was great. Several times en route attempts were made to relieve me of that box of food, but I would allow nobody to touch it. I almost literally sat on it by day and slept on it by night, and so contrived to bring it safely to its destination. I picture now the grateful look of the man who took the box from me with the air of receiving its weight in pure gold. It was my first glimpse at the reality of life in Vienna.
But there were troubles in Berne before I got away. I wanted to travel by the Entente express which touched at Basle on a particular date. To my astonishment I learnt that it was necessary to get permission from the French to board that train. Baron Haupt had received from Dr. Renner in Paris a telegram to say that the Foreign Minister was touching Basle on his way to Vienna with the Treaty of St. Germains in his pocket on a particular date, and that there would be five empty available places in his coach. The Austrian Minister offered me one of these places. But I must first ask leave of the French! It seemed utterly preposterous. The Austrians paid for the carriage. I was prepared to pay for my ticket. The seats were unoccupied. What had the French to do with it, if the Austrian Foreign Minister did not object to me as a fellow-traveller?
However, this was the rule, and must be obeyed. I hied me to the French Embassy feeling anything but pleased. I asked to see the First Secretary. I saw three men in succession, not one of whom knew a word of English, and told my story separately to each. I wanted to go to Vienna to investigate the condition of the people, and in particular the needs of the children, with a view to organizing relief. Where was the harm in that?
Three grave men solemnly debated the matter with shrugs of the shoulder and nods of the head, and finally decided to refuse permission. They excused the discourtesy by saying that only soldiers and diplomats travelled by that train, a statement which I knew to be untrue. Incredible numbers of French traders seeking to sell soaps and scents to the starving Viennese travelled regularly by the Entente trains. The stories I heard in Vienna of the abuse of this quick service would fill a book with scandalous tales. The result of this refusal was unpleasant for me. I was obliged to take the slow train. Instead of the twenty hours which the journey with the fast train would have occupied, I was four days and three nights travelling from Berne to Vienna. The horror of that journey is a recurring nightmare to this day!
It was not so much the physical discomfort I minded. I was prepared for that in a measure. I had brought with me cheese and chocolate for the journey. I dressed with the idea of having to curl up uncomfortably for two nights in the train. I plaited my hair in two severe bands, which I pinned tightly across my head, to present as neat an appearance as might be in the complete absence of toilet facilities. I took with me only a light suit-case, which I could carry with one hand, and the box of food with the other. The masses of flowers which were the farewell gift of the Hungarians had wilted in the heat before I reached Buchs. I left them in the train. I anticipated, as I thought, every trouble. But it was worse, far worse than my imagination had conceived.
The beginning was not so bad, although the inn at Buchs was far below the standard of Swiss inns. My room was small and dirty, and at the top of the building. The food was poor and badly served. Not till noon of the day following did the laggard train move out of Buchs for Feldkirch, the Austrian frontier town. There began the screaming and quarrelling and pushing and swearing I was familiar with on other frontiers, the stupid passport and Customs business which had delayed us at Buchs.
There were about three hundred passengers for the journey. I observed two women at the passport office, but I saw only one of them again. She was a beautiful Viennese prostitute. She succeeded in getting herself attached to a Spaniard who was travelling, a handsome, boisterous boy, with a very fine tenor voice. The other was an elderly Englishwoman married to an Austrian.
“Pardon me, madam,” I heard a thin voice say, as we struggled to get into the passport office. “I see you have an English passport, and I heard you say your name was Snowden. Do you by any chance know a Mr. Philip Snowden, who lives in England?”
“I know him very well,” I said, smiling at her eager old face. “He is my husband.”