At Vienna you naturally spend some evenings at the theatre and the opera. It is famous for its stage. There, however, you do realize how Vienna has fallen. The theatres are all full, but not full of the sort of people who demand excellence. Perhaps it would be unfair to judge the opera by a performance of "Parsifal," that heavily over-dressed story of sentimental religiosity and pedestrian symbolism, but it was done in the most slatternly perfunctory style. The theatre was crowded. But it was a strangely mixed crowd. In lonely grandeur in one of the boxes were three Englishmen in evening dress. In the fifth row of the stalls was a servant-girl who kept asking her neighbours the time in the midst of Parsifal's mystical moments. It was her night out, but she had to be home by ten. She looked at the play with her mouth, and lolled to and fro. Occasionally some people down below set about clapping, but were silenced by hisses from the people up above, who hissed down all claps: the theme was too holy. However, in the entr'acts, how the beer flowed in the buffet. It was not too holy to drink beer.
"The profiteers have all the seats in the theatres," say the cultivated Austrians. "They don't understand opera and serious drama, but it has the name, and they could not afford to go before, so they go now. It is only the people in the gallery who know what is good."
"The people in the gallery always know that," said I. "It is the people in the circles who are not sure."
"What I mean is, the people who used to have stalls are now in the gallery, and the people who formerly never came to a theatre are now in the stalls," said the Austrian solemnly.
The intelligent Austrians are in a very gloomy frame of mind. Although the Government is nominally Christian-Socialist, it is very weak and practically unable to cope with the Communist and extreme Radical elements. It is a common opinion that Austria lies almost as low as Russia. "The social destruction of Russia is being done bloodlessly in Austria. The working class is well-off; every one else, except the speculators, is in poverty," said Dr. B.
"We have the officials for a first-class State, and the need for the number of a third-class one," said Capt. S. "Our army now, the new army which we have obtained, is the worst army ever known in any country. I have been in Haiti, and the Haitians are splendid fellows compared with them. Our soldiers are merely a bodyguard for the Socialists, and robbers all. The true army, that went through the unspeakable sufferings of the war, was turned on the streets to starve. Austria may have been serving a bad case, but the army was not to blame—it was doing its duty. But there is one humble consolation now; we have a condition of affairs in Austria which cannot continue. Austria has become an economic plague-spot in Europe."
"It would interest me to have your opinion," I asked. "Has Austria a national spirit? Does the heart respond to its name?"
Capt. S. thought not. "I favour union with Germany as the only issue. Few would grieve if 'Austria' were no more. We are German, and the idea of union with Germany has now made considerable progress with the people. But it is possible that the idea is not so popular in Germany. It would be a grave responsibility to unite any country with the financial and political wreck which we have here."
I put this question of the future of Austria to a Monarchist. He did not favour the idea of a union with Germany, but of a renewed union with Hungary. He still believed the Hapsburgs could return.
I put it to a working man, but he favoured the State as it was. If only the cost of living could be brought down it would be a very fine State, as wages were so high.