The Great Pianist
No, marriage is a waste of money. Let the other fellow marry her. (He approaches the closing measures of the finale.) And now for a breathing spell and a swallow of beer. American beer! Bah! But it’s better than nothing. The Americans drink water. Cattle! Animals! Ach, München, wie bist du so schön!
(As he concludes there is a whirlwind of applause and he is forced to bow again and again. Finally, he is permitted to retire, and the audience prepares to spend the short intermission in whispering, grunting, wriggling, scraping its feet, rustling its programs and gaping at hats. The Six Musical Critics and Six Other Men, their lips parched and their eyes staring, gallop for the door. As The Great Pianist comes from the stage, The Janitor meets him with a large seidel of beer. He seizes it eagerly and downs it at a gulp.)
The Janitor
My, but them professors can put the stuff away!
VI.—SEEING THE WORLD
VI.—Seeing The World
The scene is the brow of the Hungerberg at Innsbruck. It is the half hour before sunset, and the whole lovely valley of the Inn—still wie die Nacht, tief wie das Meer—begins to glow with mauves and apple greens, apricots and silvery blues. Along the peaks of the great snowy mountains which shut it in, as if from the folly and misery of the world, there are touches of piercing primary colours—red, yellow, violet. Far below, hugging the winding river, lies little Innsbruck, with its checkerboard parks and Christmas garden villas. A battalion of Austrian soldiers, drilling in the Exerzierplatz, appears as an army of grey ants, now barely visible. Somewhere to the left, beyond the broad flank of the Hungerberg, the night train for Venice labours toward the town.
It is a superbly beautiful scene, perhaps the most beautiful in all Europe. It has colour, dignity, repose. The Alps here come down a bit and so increase their spell. They are not the harsh precipices of Switzerland, nor the too charming stage mountains of the Trentino, but rotting billows of clouds and snow, the high flung waves of some titanic but stricken ocean. Now and then comes a faint clank of metal from the funicular railway, but the tracks themselves are hidden among the trees of the lower slopes. The tinkle of an angelus bell (or maybe it is only a sheep bell) is heard from afar. A great bird, an eagle or a falcon, sweeps across the crystal spaces.