Her patriotism, too, is of the lasting sort.
But the very same evening I saw something different. The name won't matter.
I had accepted an invitation to dinner. It was a good dinner—war or peace. Its pièce de résistance was a whole broiled ham, which, as my hostess admitted, had cost in the clandestine market some one hundred and forty marks, roughly twenty-five dollars at the rate of exchange then in force. There was bread enough and side dishes galore. It was also a meatless day.
The ham was one of several which had found the household in question through the channels of illicit trade, which even the strenuous efforts of the Prussian government had not been able to close as yet. The family had the necessary cash, and in order to indulge in former habits as fully as possible, it was using that cash freely.
After living for several days in plenty at the Palads in Copenhagen, and ascertaining that paling—eel—was still in favor with the Dutch of The Hague, I returned to Vienna. Gone once more were the days of wheat bread and butter.
One rainy afternoon I was contemplating the leafless trees on the Ring through the windows of the Café Sacher when two bodies of mounted police hove into view on the bridle path, as if they were really in a great hurry. I smelled a food riot, rushed down-stairs, caught a taxi on the wing, and sped after the equestrian minions of the law. Police and observer pulled up in the Josephstadt in the very center of a food disturbance.
The riot had already cooled down to the level of billingsgate. Several hundred women stood about listening to the epithets which a smaller group was flinging at a badly mussed-up storekeeper, who seemed greatly concerned about his windows, which had been broken by somebody.
The police mingled with the crowd. What had happened? Nothing very much, said the storekeeper. That remark fanned the flame of indignation which was swaying the women. Nothing much, eh? They had stood since high noon in line for butter and fat. Up to an hour ago the door of the shop had been closed. When finally it was opened the shopkeeper had announced that he had supplies only for about fifty fat coupons. Those who were nearest his door would be served and the others could go home.
But somehow the crowd had learned that the man had received that morning from the Food Central enough fat to serve them all with the amount prescribed by the food cards. They refused to go away. Then the storekeeper, in the manner which is typically Viennese, grew sarcastically abusive. Before he had gone very far the women were upon him. Others invaded the store, found the place empty, and then vented their wrath on the fixtures and windows.
I was greatly interested in what the police would do with the rioters. But, instead of hauling the ringleaders to headquarters, they told them to go home and refrain in future from taking the law into their own hands. Within ten minutes the riot resolved itself into good-natured bantering between the agents of the law and the women, and the incident was closed, except for the shopkeeper, who in court failed to clear up what he had done with the supplies of butter and fat that had been assigned him for distribution. He lost his license to trade, and was fined besides.