Every second the distance between the carriages diminishes. Occasionally more fashionable equipages mingle in the oft-interrupted procession. The carriages no longer dash along. Finally, about five or six hours before dark, the individual horses and carriages condense into a compact line, which, arresting itself and arrested by new vehicles from every side street, obviously belies the truth of the old proverb: "It is better to ride in a poor carriage than to go on foot." Stared at, pitied, mocked, the richly dressed ladies sit in their carriages, which are apparently standing still. Unaccustomed to constant stopping, the black Holstein steed rears, as if intending to jump straight up over the wicker-carriage blocking its way, a thing the screaming women and children in the plebeian vehicle evidently seem to fear. The cabby, so accustomed to rapid driving and now balked for the first time, angrily counts up the loss he suffers in being obliged to spend three hours traversing a distance which under ordinary conditions he could cover in five minutes. Quarreling and shouting are heard, insults pass back and forth between the drivers, and now and then blows with the whip are exchanged.
Finally, since in this world all standing still, however persistent, is after all merely an imperceptible advancing, a ray of hope appears even in this status quo. The first trees of the Augarten and the Brigittenau come into view. The country! The country! All troubles are forgotten. Those who have come in vehicles alight and mingle with the pedestrians; strains of distant dance-music are wafted across the intervening space and are answered by the joyous shouts of the new arrivals. And thus it goes on and on, until at last the broad haven of pleasure opens up and grove and meadow, music and dancing, drinking and eating, magic lantern shows and tight-rope dancing, illumination and fireworks, combine to produce a pays de cocagne, an El Dorado, a veritable paradise, which fortunately or unfortunately—take it as you will—lasts only this day and the next, to vanish like the dream of a summer night, remaining only as a memory, or, possibly, as a hope.
I never miss this festival if I can help it. To me, as a passionate lover of mankind, especially of the common people, and more especially so when, united into a mass, the individuals forget for a time their own private ends and consider themselves part of a whole, in which there is, after all, the spirit of divinity, nay, God Himself—to me every popular festival is a real soul-festival, a pilgrimage, an act of devotion. Even in my capacity as dramatic poet, I always find the spontaneous outburst of an overcrowded theatre ten times more interesting, even more instructive, than the sophisticated judgment of some literary matador, who is crippled in body and soul and swollen up, spider-like, with the blood of authors whom he has sucked dry. As from a huge open volume of Plutarch, which has escaped from the covers of the printed page, I read the biographies of these obscure beings in their merry or secretly troubled faces, in their elastic or weary step, in the attitude shown by members of the same family toward one another, in detached, half involuntary remarks. And, indeed, one can not understand famous men unless one has sympathized with the obscure! From the quarrels of drunken pushcart-men to the discords of the sons of the gods there runs an invisible, yet unbroken, thread, just as the young servant-girl, who, half against her will, follows her insistent lover away from the crowd of dancers, may be an embryo Juliet, Dido, or Medea.
Two years ago, as usual, I had mingled as a pedestrian with the pleasure-seeking visitors of the kermis. The chief difficulties of the trip had been overcome, and I found myself at the end of the Augarten with the longed-for Brigittenau lying directly before me. Only one more difficulty remained to be overcome. A narrow causeway running between impenetrable hedges forms the only connection between the two pleasure resorts, the joint boundary of which is indicated by a wooden trellised gate in the centre. On ordinary days and for ordinary pedestrians this connecting passage affords more than ample space. But on kermis-day its width, even if quadrupled, would still be too narrow for the endless crowd which, in surging forward impetuously, is jostled by those bound in the opposite direction and manages to get along only by reason of the general good nature displayed by the merry-makers.
I was drifting with the current and found myself in the centre of the causeway upon classical ground, although I was constantly obliged to stand still, turn aside, and wait. Thus I had abundant time for observing what was going on at the sides of the road. In order that the pleasure-seeking multitude might not lack a foretaste of the happiness in store for them, several musicians had taken up their positions on the left-hand slope of the raised causeway. Probably fearing the intense competition, these musicians intended to garner at the propylaea the first fruits of the liberality which had here not yet spent itself. There were a girl harpist with repulsive, staring eyes; an old invalid with a wooden leg, who, on a dreadful, evidently home-made instrument, half dulcimer, half barrel-organ, was endeavoring by means of analogy to arouse the pity of the public for his painful injury; a lame, deformed boy, forming with his violin one single, indistinguishable mass, was playing endless waltzes with all the hectic violence of his misshapen breast; and finally an old man, easily seventy years of age, in a threadbare but clean woolen overcoat, who wore a smiling, self-satisfied expression. This old man attracted my entire attention. He stood there bareheaded and baldheaded, his hat as a collection-box before him on the ground, after the manner of these people. He was belaboring an old, much-cracked violin, beating time not only by raising and lowering his foot, but also by a corresponding movement of his entire bent body. But all his efforts to bring uniformity into his performance were fruitless, for what he was playing seemed to be an incoherent succession of tones without time or melody. Yet he was completely absorbed in his work; his lips quivered, and his eyes were fixed upon the sheet of music before him, for he actually had notes! While all the other musicians, whose playing pleased the crowd infinitely better, were relying on their memories, the old man had placed before him in the midst of the surging crowd a small, easily portable music-stand, with dirty, tattered notes, which probably contained in perfect order what he was playing so incoherently. It was precisely the novelty of this equipment that had attracted my attention to him, just as it excited the merriment of the passing throng, who jeered him and left the hat of the old man empty, while the rest of the orchestra pocketed whole copper mines. In order to observe this odd character at my leisure, I had stepped, at some distance from him, upon the slope at the side of the causeway. For a while he continued playing. Finally he stopped, and, as if recovering himself after a long spell of absent-mindedness, he gazed at the firmament, which already began to show traces of approaching evening. Then he looked down into his hat, found it empty, put it on with undisturbed cheerfulness, and placed his bow between the strings. "Sunt certi denique fines" (there is a limit to everything), he said, took his music-stand, and, as though homeward bound, fought his way with difficulty through the crowd streaming in the opposite direction toward the festival.
The whole personality of the old man was specially calculated to whet my anthropological appetite to the utmost—his poorly clad, yet noble figure, his unfailing cheerfulness, so much artistic zeal combined with such awkwardness, the fact that he returned home just at the time when for others of his ilk the real harvest was only beginning, and, finally, the few Latin words, spoken, however, with the most correct accent and with absolute fluency. The man had evidently received a good education and had acquired some knowledge, and here he was—a street-musician! I was burning with curiosity to learn his history.
But a compact wall of humanity already separated us. Small as he was, and getting in everybody's way with the music-stand in his hand, he was shoved from one to another and had passed through the exit-gate while I was still struggling in the centre of the causeway against the opposing crowd. Thus I lost track of him; and when at last I had reached the quiet, open space, there was no musician to be seen far or near.
This fruitless adventure had spoiled all my enjoyment of the popular festival. I wandered through the Augarten in all directions, and finally decided to go home. As I neared the little gate that leads out of the Augarten into Tabor Street, I suddenly heard the familiar sound of the old violin. I accelerated my steps, and, behold! there stood the object of my curiosity, playing with all his might, surrounded by several boys who impatiently demanded a waltz from him. "Play a waltz," they cried; "a waltz, don't you hear?" The old man kept on fiddling, apparently paying no attention to them, until his small audience, reviling and mocking him, left him and gathered around an organ-grinder who had taken up his position near by.
"They don't want to dance," said the old man sadly, and gathered up his musical outfit. I had stepped up quite close to him. "The children do not know any dance but the waltz," I said.
"I was playing a waltz," he replied, indicating with his bow the notes of the piece he had just been playing. "You have to play things like that for the crowd. But the children have no ear for music," he said, shaking his head mournfully.