Let us then take our departure, with the masked ball still in full progress, our hearts still thumping to the measures of an intoxicating waltz, the golden confetti still glistening in our hair, perfumed powder on our clothes, the murmuring of clandestine whispers still in our ears, the rhythm of swaying girls still in our blood. As we pass out into the bleak street, the first faint flush of dawn is in the east. The wässerer are washing off the cabs; a helmeted hauptmann salutes lazily as we pass, and we drive home full of the intoxications of that pagan gaiety which the Viennese, more than any other people, have preserved in all its innocence, its sensuous splendour, its spontaneity and youth.
Bianca? By now she has forgotten with whom she came to the dance. Next week my name will be but one of her innumerable memories—if, indeed, it does not altogether pass away. For Bianca is Vienna, lavish and joyous and buoyant—and forgetful. I danced with her three times, but my three roses, along with scores of others, have long since been lost in the swirl of the evening.
I wish I might think only of Bianca as the shadows dissolve from the streets and the grey morning light strikes the great steeple of Stefans-Dom. But another picture presents itself. I see a little French girl, out of touch with all the merriment around her, sipping her Dubonnet in solitude—a forlorn girl with pink cheeks, pale blue eyes and hair the colour of wet straw.
MUNICH
