Europe After 8:15 Part 3

From there we go to the Rauhensteinga.s.se and enter Maxim's, brazenly heralded as the Montmartre of Vienna. Then on to the Wallfischga.s.se to mingle with the confused visitors of the Trocadero, where we are urged to have supper. But time is fleeting. The cabmeter is going round like a tortured turbine. So we hasten out and seek the Wiehburgga.s.se, where we discover a "Palais de Danse"--seductive phrase, suggestive of ancient orgies. But we cannot tarry--in spite of Mimi Lobner (Ah, lovely lady!) who sings to us "Liebliche Kleine Dingerchen" from "Kino-Konigin," and makes us buy her a peach _bowle_ in payment. One more place and we are ready for the resort in the Prater, the Coney Island of Vienna. This last place has no embroidered name. Its existence is emblazoned across the blue skies by an electric sign reading "Etabliss.e.m.e.nt Parisien." It is in the Sch.e.l.lingga.s.se and justifies itself by the possession of a very fine orchestra whose _militar-kapellmeister_ knows naught but inebriate _tanzmusik_.

Again in the open air, headed for the Kaisergarten, we reflect on our evening's search for _nachtvergnugungen_. With the lone exception of our half-hour with Mimi, it has been a sad chase. All the places (with the possible exception of the Trocadero) have been cheaply imitative of Paris, with the usual appurtenances of arduous waiters, gorgeously dressed women dancing on red velvet carpets, fortissimo orchestras, expensive wines, _blumenmadl_, hothouse strawberries and other accessories of manufactured pleasure. But compared with Paris these places have been second rate. The _damen_ (I except thee, lovely Mimi!) have not inflamed us either with their beauty or with manifestations of their _esprit gaulois_. For the most part they have been stodgy women with voluminous bosoms, Eiffel towers of bought hair--bison with astonishing hyperboles and parabolas, dressed in all of the voluptuous splendour but possessing none of the grace of the Rue de la Paix.

Furthermore, these establishments have lacked the deportmental abandon which saves their prototypes in Paris from downright ba.n.a.lity. All of their deviltries have been muted, as if the guests suffered from a pathological fear of pleasure. Strangers we were when we entered. As strangers we take our departure.

Why do I linger thus, you ask, over these hothouse caperings? For the same reason that we are now going to inspect the Kaisergarten. Because this phase of life represents an unnatural development in the Viennese mode of pleasure, something grafted, yet something characteristic of the impressionability of the Viennese mind. The Viennese are a hybrid and imitative people. They have annexed characteristics distinctly French.

In the Kaisergarten these characteristics are more evident than elsewhere. Here is a people's playground in which all manner of amus.e.m.e.nts are thrown together, from the _balhaus_, where nothing but expensive champagne is sold, to the scenic railway, on which one may ride for fifty h.e.l.ler. This park presents a bizarre and chaotic mingling of outdoor concerts, variety theatres, _bierkabaretts_, moving picture halls, promenades and sideshow attractions of the Atlantic City type.

The Kaisergarten is the rendezvous of the bourgeoisie, the heaven of hoi polloi--rotund merchants with walrus moustachios, dapper young clerks with flowing ties, high-chokered soldiers, their boots polished into ebony mirrors, fat-jowled maidens in rainbow garb.... There is lovemaking under the Linden trees, beer drinking on the midway, _schnitzel_ eating in the restaurants. Homely pleasantries are thrown from heavy German youths to the promenading _madchen_. One catches such greetings and whisperings as "_Du bist oba heut' fesch g'scholnt_" and "_Ko do net so lang umananderbandln_." There exists a spirit of buoyant and genuine fellowship. But here again it is a private and personal brand of gaiety. Let the obvious stranger whisper "_Schatz'rl_" to a powdered Fritzi on the bench next to him, and he will be ignored for his impertinence. The same salutation from a Viennese will call forth a coquettish "_Raubersbua_." Even the _Amerikan-bar_ in the centre of the Kaisergarten (in charge of no less a celebrity than Herr Pohnstingl!) will not offer the tourist the hospitality he hopes to find. He will find neither Americans nor American drinks. The c.o.c.ktail--that boon to all refined palates, when mixed with artistry and true poetic feeling--circulates _incognito_ at Herr Pohnstingl's. Such febrifuges as masquerade under that name are barely recognisable by authentic connoisseurs, by Rabelaises of sensitive esophagi, by true lovers of subtly concocted gin and vermouth and bitters. But the Viennese, soggy with acid beer, his throat astringentized by strong coffee, knows not the difference. And so the _Amerikan-bar_ flourishes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIENNA]

It was here that I discovered Gabrielle, a sad little French girl, alone and forsaken in the midst of merriment, drinking Dubonnet and dreaming of the Boulevard Montparna.s.se. I bought her another Dubonnet--what stranger would have done less? In her was epitomized the sadness of the stranger in Vienna. Lured by lavish tales of gaiety, she had left Paris, to seek an unsavoury fortune in the love marts of Vienna. But her dream had been broken. She was lonely as only a Parisian can be, stranded in an alien country. She knew scarcely a score of German words, in fact no language but her own. Her youth and coquetry did not avail. She was an outsider, a deserted onlooker. She spoke tenderly of the Cafe du Dome, of Fouquet's, the Cafe d'Harcourt, Marigny and the Luxembourg. She inquired sentimentally about the Bal Bullier.

She was pretty, after the anaemic French type of beauty, with pink cheeks, pale blue eyes and hair the colour of wet straw. She had the slender, shapely feet of the French cocotte. Her stockings were of thin pink silk. Her slender, soft fingers were without a ring. Her jewelry, no doubt, had long since gone to the money lender. She seemed childishly happy because I sat and talked to her. Poor little Gabrielle! Her tragedy was one of genuine bereavement, or perhaps the worst of all tragedies--loneliness. I shall never think again of Vienna without picturing that stranded girl, sipping at her reddish drink in the _Amerikan-bar_ in the Kaisergarten. But her case is typical. The Viennese are not hospitable to strangers. They are an intimate, self-sufficient people.

Let us turn, however, from the little Gabrielle to a more fascinating and exquisite creature, to a happier and more buoyant denizen of Viennese night life, to a lady of more elegant attire. In short, behold Fraulein Bianca Weise. In her are the alkaloids of gaiety. She irradiates the joyfulness of the city. In her infancy she was hummed to sleep with s.n.a.t.c.hes from the "Wiener Blut," the booziest waltz in all Christendom. Bianca is tall and catlike, but deliciously proportioned.

Her hair is an alloy of bronze and gold. Her skin is pale, and in her cheeks there is the barest bit of rose, like a flame seen through ivory.

Her eyes are large, and their blue is almost primary. Her face is a perfect oval. Her lips are full and abnormally red. Her slender, conical hands are always active like those of a child, and she wears but little jewelry. Her gowns come from Paquin's and seem almost a part of her body.

This is Bianca, the most beautiful woman in all Europe. Do I seem to rave? Then let me answer that perhaps you have not seen Bianca. And to see her is to be her slave, her press agent. It was Bianca's picture that went emblazoning over two continents a few years ago as the supreme type of modern feminine beauty, according to the physiological experts and the connoisseurs of pulchritude. But it is not because of the lady's gift of beauty that I feature her here. It is because she so perfectly typifies the romance of that whirling city, so accurately embodies the spirit of Vienna's darkened hours. In the afternoon you will find her on the Karntnerstra.s.se with her black-haired little maid. At five o'clock she goes for _kaffeetsch'rl_ to Herr Reidl's Cafe de l'Europe, in the Stefanplatz. With her are always two or three Beau Brummels chatting incessantly about music and art, wooing her suavely with magnificent technique, drinking coffee intermittently, and lavishly tipping the _kellner_.

These _kaffeehauser_ are the leading public inst.i.tutions of Vienna.

They take the place of private teas, culture clubs, dramatic readings and sewing circles in other countries. All Vienna society turns out in the afternoon to partake of _melange_, _kaffee mit schlagobers_, _kapuziner_, _schwarzen_, _weckerln_ and _kaisersemmeln_. But no hard drinks, no vulgar pretzels and wursts. Only Americans order beer and cognac at the coffee houses, and generally, after once sampling them, they follow the bibulous lead of the Viennese. Each _kaffeehaus_ has its own coterie, its own habitues. Thus, at the Cafe de l'Europe one finds the worldly set, the young bloods with artistic leanings. The Cafe de l'Opera, in the Opernring, is patronised by the advocates and legal attaches. At the Cafe Scheidl, in the Wallfischga.s.se, foregather the governmental coterie, the army officers and burgomasters. The merchants discuss their affairs at the Cafe Schwarzenberg, in the Karntnerring. At the Cafe Heinrichshof, in the Opernring, one finds the leading actors and musicians immersed in the small talk of their craft. Thus it goes.

In all the leading cafes--the Habsburg, Landtmann, Mokesch, Gartenbau, Siller, Pruckl--the tables are filled, and the coffee drinking, the _baunzerln_ eating and the gossiping go on till opera time.

The theatre in Vienna is a part of the life. It is not indulged in as a mere amus.e.m.e.nt or diversion, like shooting the chutes or going to church. It is an evening's obligation. This accounts for the large number of Vienna theatres and for their architectural beauty. But do not think that when you have attended a dozen such places as the Hofoperntheatre, the Hofburgtheatre, the Deutsches Volkstheatre and the Carltheatre you have sensed the entire theatrical appeal of Vienna. Far from it. No city in the world is punctuated with so large a number of semi-private intimate theatres and cabarets as Vienna--theatres with a seating capacity of forty or fifty. You may know the Kleine Buhne and the Max und Moritz and the Holle, but there are fifty others, and every night finds them crowded.

Theatregoing is occasionally varied with lesser and more primitive pastimes. Go out on the crooked Sieveringerstra.s.se and behold the mult.i.tudes waxing mellow over the sweet red _heuriger_. Go to the Volksgarten-Cafe Restaurant any summer night after seven, pay sixty h.e.l.ler, and see the crowds gathered to hear the military band concerts; or seek the halls in winter and join the audiences who come to wallow in the florid polyphonies of the _Wiener Tonkunstler Orchester_. Sundays and holiday nights go to Grinsing and Nussdorf and watch the people at play. Make the rounds of the wine houses--the Rathaus Keller, the Nieder-Oesterreichisches Winzerhaus, the Tommasoni--and behold the spooning and the rough joking.

All this is part of the night life of Vienna. But it is not the life in which Bianca partic.i.p.ates. Therefore we cannot tarry in the wine houses or at the concerts. Instead let us attend the opera. We go early before the sun has set. The curtain rises at six-thirty to permit of our leaving by half past ten, for there is much to do before morning. After the performance--dinner! The Viennese are adepts in the gustatory art.

Their meals have the heft of German victualty combined with the delicacies and imaginative qualities of French cooking. An ideal and seductive combination! A rich and toothsome blending!... Bianca touches my arm and says we must make haste. This evening I am to be honoured with dinner in her apartment. So we drive to her rooms on the Franzenring overlooking the Volksgarten.

The Viennese dinner hour is eleven, and this is why the tourist, fingering his guide book, looks in vain for the diners. Sacher's, the Imperial, the Bristol and the Spatenbrau are deserted in the early evenings. Even after the Opera these restaurants present little of the life found in the Paris, Berlin or London restaurants. The Viennese is not a public diner; and here again we find an explanation for the tourist's impressions. When the Viennese goes to dinner, he does so privately. Bianca's dinner that night was typical. There were twelve at table. There was music by a semi-professional pianist. The service was perfect--it was more like a dinner in a _cabinet particulier_ at a Parisian cafe than one in a private apartment. But here we catch the spirit of Vienna, the transforming of what the other cities do publicly into the intimacies of the home.

At one o'clock, the meal finished, the intimate theatre claimed us.

There the glorious Bianca met her lovers, her little following. At these theatres every one knows every one else. It is the social lure as well as the theatrical appeal that brings the people there. Bianca chats with the actors, flirts with the admiring Lotharios and drinks champagne. At her side sit the greatest artists and dramatists of the day, princes and other celebrities. At one of these performances I saw her bewitching two men--one a composer, the other a writer--whose names lead the artistic activities of Southern Europe. But Bianca is prodigal with her charms, and before the final curtain was dropped she had shed her fascinations on every patron in the theatre. And I, whose thirty kronen had pa.s.sed her by the satin-pantalooned and lace-bosomed doorkeeper, was quite forgot. But such is Viennese etiquette. An escort may pay the _fiacre_ charge and the entrance fee, but such a meagre, vulgar claim does not suffice to obtain a lady's entire attention for the evening. Such selfishness is not understood by the Viennese.

The real business of the evening came later. The coffee drinking, the theatre and the dining had been so many preliminaries for that form of amus.e.m.e.nt which forms the basis of all Viennese night life--dancing. The Viennese dance more than any people in the world. During _Faschingzeit_ there are at least fifty large public b.a.l.l.s every night. These b.a.l.l.s become gay at one o'clock and last through the entire night. For the most part they are masked, and range from the low to the high, from those where the entrance fee is but two kronen to the elaborate ones whose demand is thirty kronen. Every night in Vienna during the season fifty thousand people are dancing. Nor are these b.a.l.l.s the suave and conventional dances of less frank nations. By the mere presentation of a flower any one may dance with any one else. In every phase of night life in Vienna flowers play an important part. They const.i.tute the language of the carnival. To such an extent is this true that, though you may ask for a dance by presenting a flower, you may not ask verbally, though your tongue be polished and your soul ablaze with poetry. And while you are dancing you may not talk to your partner. She is yours for that dance--but she is yours in silence. Should you meet her the following afternoon in the Prater or on parade in the Karntnerstra.s.se, her eyes will look past you, for the night has gone, carrying with it its memories and its intoxications.

It is this spirit of evanescence, this youthful buoyancy, s.n.a.t.c.hed out of the pa.s.sing years, lived for a moment and then forgot, which const.i.tutes the genuine gaiety of Vienna. It is an unconscious gaiety, sensed but not a.n.a.lysed, in the very soul of the people. It keeps the Viennese young and makes him resent, intuitively, the invasion of other nations to whom gaiety is artificial. That is why the dances are open to all, why the formality of introductions would be scoffed at. Their blood has all been tapped from the same fountain head. There are affinities between all Viennese phagocytes. The basis of all romance is ephemeral in its nature, and in no people in the world do we find so great an element of transitoriness in pleasure-taking as in the Viennese.

A description of one of the masked b.a.l.l.s would tell you the whole of the night life in Vienna, but until you have become a part of one of them you would not understand them. Not until you yourself had accompanied the fair Bianca and watched her for a whole evening, could you appreciate how these dances differ from those of other cities.

Externally they would appear the same. Photographed, they would look like any other carnival ball. But there are things which a photographic plate could never catch, and the spirit of merriment which runs through these dances is one. If you care to see them, go to the Blumensale or to the Wimberger. The crowds here are typical. However, if you care for a more lavish or elaborate gathering, you will find it at the Musikvereinsale or the Sofiensale. These latter two are more fashionable, though no one remains at any of the _maskenballe_ the whole evening. The dancers go from one ball to another; and should you, at five in the morning, return to a _balhaus_ where you had been earlier in the evening, you would find an entirely new set of dancers.

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 pa.s.s out into the bleak street, the first faint flush of dawn is in the east. The _wa.s.serer_ are washing off the cabs; a helmeted _hauptmann_ salutes lazily as we pa.s.s, 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 pa.s.s 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

[Ill.u.s.tration: MUNICH]

MUNICH

Let the most important facts come first. The best beer in Munich is Spatenbrau; the best place to get it is at the Hoftheatre Cafe in the Residenzstra.s.se; the best time to drink it is after 10 P.M., and the best of all girls to serve it is Fraulein Sophie, that tall and resilient creature, with her appetizing smile, her distinguished bearing and her superbly manicured hands.

I have, in my time, sat under many and many superior _kellnerinen_, some as regal as grand d.u.c.h.esses, some as demure as shoplifters, some as graceful as _prime ballerini_, but none reaching so high a general level of merit, none so thoroughly satisfying to eye and soul as Fraulein Sophie. She is a lady, every inch of her, a lady presenting to all gentlemanly clients the ideal blend of cordiality and dignity, and she serves the best beer in Christendom. Take away that beer, and it is possible, of course, that Sophie would lose some minute granule or globule of her charm; but take away Sophie and I fear the beer would lose even more.

In fact, I know it, for I have drunk that same beer in the Spatenbraukeller in the Bayerstra.s.se, at all hours of the day and night, and always the ultimate thrill was missing. Good beer, to be sure, and a hundred times better than the common brews, even in Munich, but not perfect beer, not beer _de luxe_, not super-beer. It is the human equation that counts, in the _bierhalle_ as on the battlefield. One resents, somehow a _kellnerin_ with the figure of a taxicab, no matter how good her intentions and fluent her technique, just as one resents a trained nurse with a double chin or a gla.s.s eye. When a personal office that a man might perform, or even an intelligent machine, is put into the hands of a woman, it is put there simply and solely because the woman can bring charm to it and irradiate it with romance. If, now, she fails to do so--if she brings, not charm, not beauty, not romance, but the gross curves of an aurochs and a voice of bra.s.s--if she offers bulk when the heart cries for grace and adenoids when the order is for music, then the whole thing becomes a hissing and a mocking, and a grey fog is on the world.

But to get back to the Hoftheatre Cafe. It stands, as I have said, in the Residenzstra.s.se, where that narrow street bulges out into the Max-Joseph-platz, and facing it, as its name suggests, is the Hoftheatre, the most solemn-looking playhouse in Europe, but the scene of appalling tone debaucheries within. The supreme idea at the Hoftheatre is to get the curtain down at ten o'clock. If the bill happens to be a short one, say "Hansel and Gretel" or "Elektra," the three thumps of the starting mallet may not come until eight o'clock or even 8:30, but if it is a long one, say "Parsifal" or "Les Huguenots," a beginning is made far back in the afternoon. Always the end arrives at ten, with perhaps a moment or two leeway in one direction or the other.

And two minutes afterward, without further ceremony or delay, the truly epicurean auditor has his feet under the mahogany at the Hoftheatre Cafe across the platz, with a seidel of that incomparable brew tilted elegantly toward his face and his glad eyes smiling at Fraulein Sophie through the gla.s.s bottom.

How many women could stand that test? How many could bear the ribald distortions of that lens-like seidel bottom and yet keep their charm?

How many thus caricatured and vivisected, could command this free reading notice from a casual American, dictating against time and s.p.a.ce to a red-haired stenographer, three thousand and five hundred miles away? And yet Sophie does it, and not only Sophie, but also Frida, Elsa, Lili, Kunigunde, Martchen, Therese and Lottchen, her confreres and aides, and even little Rosa, who is half Bavarian and half j.a.panese, and one of the prettiest girls in Munich, in or out of uniform. It is a pleasure to say a kind word for little Rosa, with her coal black hair and her slanting eyes, for she is too fragile a fraulein to be toting around those gigantic German schnitzels and bifsteks, those mighty double portions of sauerbraten and rostbif, those staggering drinking urns, overballasted and awash.

Let us not, however, be unjust to the estimable Herr Wirt of the Hoftheatre Cafe, with his pneumatic tread, his chaste side whiskers and his long-tailed coat, for his drinking urns, when all is said and done, are quite the smallest in Munich. And not only the smallest, but also the shapeliest. In the Hofbrauhaus and in the open air _bierkneipen_ (for instance, the Mathaser joint, of which more anon) one drinks out of earthen cylinders which resemble nothing so much as the gaunt towers of Munich cathedral; and elsewhere the orthodox goblet is a gla.s.s edifice following the lines of an old-fashioned silver water pitcher--you know the sort the innocently criminal used to give as wedding presents!--but at the Hoftheatre there is a vessel of special design, hexagonal in cross section and unusually graceful in general aspect. On top, a pewter lid, ground to an optical fit and highly polished--by Sophie, Rosa _et al._, poor girls! To starboard, a stout handle, apparently of reinforced onyx. Above the handle, and attached to the lid, a metal f.l.a.n.g.e or thumbpiece. Grasp the handle, press your thumb on the thumbpiece--and presto, the lid heaves up. And then, to the tune of a Strauss waltz, played pa.s.sionately by tone artists in oleaginous dress suits, down goes the Spatenbrau--gurgle, gurgle--burble, burble--down goes the Spatenbrau--exquisite, ineffable!--to drench the heart in its nut brown flood and fill the arteries with its benign alkaloids and ant.i.toxins.

Well, well, maybe I grow too eloquent! Such memories loose and craze the tongue. A man pulls himself up suddenly, to find that he has been vulgar. If so here, so be it! I refuse to plead to the indictment; sentence me and be hanged to you! I am by nature a vulgar fellow. I prefer "Tom Jones" to "The Rosary," Rabelais to the Elsie books, the Old Testament to the New, the expurgated parts of "Gulliver's Travels" to those that are left. I delight in beef stews, limericks, burlesque shows, New York City and the music of Haydn, that beery and delightful old rascal! I swear in the presence of ladies and archdeacons. When the mercury is above ninety-five I dine in my shirt sleeves and write poetry naked. I a.s.sociate habitually with dramatists, bartenders, medical men and musicians. I once, in early youth, kissed a waitress at Dennett's.

So don't accuse me of vulgarity; I admit it and flout you. Not, of course, that I have no pruderies, no fastidious metes and bounds. Far from it. Babies, for example, are too vulgar for me; I cannot bring myself to touch them. And actors. And evangelists. And the obstetrical anecdotes of ancient dames. But in general, as I have said, I joy in vulgarity, whether it take the form of divorce proceedings or of "Tristan und Isolde," of an Odd Fellows' funeral or of Munich beer.

But here, perhaps, I go too far again. That is to say, I have no right to admit that Munich beer is vulgar. On the contrary, it is my obvious duty to deny it, and not only to deny it but also to support my denial with an overwhelming ma.s.s of evidence and a shrill cadenza of casuistry.

But the time and the place, unluckily enough, are not quite fit for the dialectic, and so I content myself with a few pertinent observations.

_Imprimis_, a thing that is unique, incomparable, _sui generis_, cannot be vulgar. Munich beer is unique, incomparable, _sui generis_. More, it is consummate, transcendental, _ubernaturlich_. Therefore it cannot be vulgar. Secondly, the folk who drink it day after day do not die of vulgar diseases. Turn to the subhead _Todesursachen_ in the instructive _Statistischer Monatsbericht der Stadt Munchen_, and you will find records of few if any deaths from delirium tremens, boils, hookworm, smallpox, distemper, measles or what the _Monatsbericht_ calls "liver sickness." The Muncheners perish more elegantly, more charmingly than that. When their time comes it is gout that fetches them, or appendicitis, or neurasthenia, or angina pectoris; or perchance they cut their throats.

Thirdly, and to make it short, lastly, the late Henrik Ibsen, nourished upon Munich beer, wrote "Hedda Gabler," not to mention "Rosmersholm" and "The Lady from the Sea"--wrote them in his flat in the Maximilianstra.s.se overlooking the palace and the afternoon promenaders, in the late eighties of the present, or Christian era--wrote them there and then took them to the Cafe Luitpold, in the Briennerstra.s.se, to ponder them, polish them and make them perfect. I myself have sat in old Henrik's chair and victualed from the table. It is far back in the main hall of the cafe, to the right as you come in, and hidden from the incomer by the gla.s.s vestibule which guards the pantry. Ibsen used to appear every afternoon at three o'clock, to drink his vahze of Lowenbrau and read the papers. The latter done, he would sit in silence, thinking, thinking, planning, planning. Not often did he say a word, even to Fraulein Mizzi, his favourite _kellnerin_. So taciturn was he, in truth, that his rare utterances were carefully entered in the archives of the cafe and are now preserved there. By the courtesy of Dr. Adolph Himmelheber, the present curator, I am permitted to transcribe a few, the imperfect German of the poet being preserved:

November 18, 1889, 4:15 P.M.--_Giebt es kein Feuer in diese verfluchte Bierstube? Meine Fusse sind so kalt wie Eiszapfen!_

April 12, 1890, 5:20 P.M.--_Der Kerl is verruckt!_ (Said of an American who entered with the stars and stripes flying from his hat.)

May 22, 1890, 4:40 P.M.--_Sie sind so eselhaft wie ein Schauspieler!_ (To an a.s.sistant Herr Wirt who brought him a Socialist paper in mistake for the London _Times_.)

Now and then the great man would condescend to play a game of billiards in the hall to the rear, usually with some total stranger. He would point out the stranger to Fraulein Mizzi and she would carry his card.

The game would proceed, as a rule, in utter silence. But it was for the Lowenbrau and not for the billiards that Ibsen came to the Luitpold, for the Lowenbrau and the high flights of soul that it engendered. He had no great liking for Munich as a city; his prime favourite was always Vienna, with Rome second. But he knew that the incomparable malt liquor of Munich was full of the inspiration that he needed, and so he kept near it, not to bathe in it, not to frivol with it, but to take it discreetly and prophylactically, and as the exigencies of his art demanded.

Ibsen's inherent fastidiousness, a quality which urged him to spend hours shining his shoes, was revealed by his choice of the Cafe Luitpold, for of all the cafes in Munich the Luitpold is undoubtedly the most elegant. Its walls are adorned with frescoes by Albrecht Hildebrandt. The ceiling of the main hall is supported by columns of coloured marble. The tables are of carved mahogany. The forks and spoons, before Americans began to steal them, were of real silver. The chocolate with whipped cream, served late in the afternoon, is famous throughout Europe. The Herr Wirt has the suave sneak of John Drew and is a privy councillor to the King of Bavaria. All the tables along the east wall, which is one vast mirror, are reserved from 8 P.M. to 2 A.M.

nightly by the faculty of the University of Munich, which there entertains the eminent scientists who constantly visit the city. No orchestra arouses the baser pa.s.sions with "Wiener Blut." The place has calm, aloofness, intellectuality, aristocracy, distinction. It was the scene foreordained for the hatching of "Hedda Gabler."

But don't imagine that Munich, when it comes to elegance, must stand or fall with the Luitpold. Far from it, indeed. There are other cafes of n.o.ble and elevating quality in that delectable town--plenty of them, you may be sure. For example, the Odeon, across the street from the Luitpold, a place lavish and luxurious, but with a certain touch of d.o.g.g.i.ness, a taste of salt. The _piccolo_ who lights your cigar and accepts your five pfennigs at the Odeon is an Ethiopian dwarf. Do you sense the romance, the exotic _diablerie_, the suggestion of Levantine mystery? And somewhat Levantine, too, are the ladies who sit upon the plush benches along the wall and take Russian cigarettes with their kirschenwa.s.ser. Not that the atmosphere is frankly one of Sin. No! No!

The Odeon is no cabaret. A leg flung in the air would bring the Herr Wirt at a gallop, you may be sure--or, at any rate, his apoplectic corpse. In all New York, I dare say, there is no public eating house so near to the far-flung outposts, the Galapagos Islands of virtue. But one somehow feels that for Munich, at least, the Odeon is just a bit tolerant, just a bit philosophical, just a bit Bohemian. One even imagines taking an American show girl there without being warned (by a curt note in one's serviette) that the head waiter's family lives in the house.