The Orthodox Tattooed Man
Was There, Too, First Standing Up To Display The Text And Accompanying
Illustrations On His Front Cover, And Then Turning Round So The
Crowd Might Read What He Said On The Other Side.
And there was
many another familiar freak introduced to our fathers by Old Dan
Rice and to us, their children, through the good offices of Daniel's
long and noble line of successors.
A seasonable Sunday is a fine time; and the big Zoological Garden,
which is a favorite place for studying the Berlin populace at the
diversions they prefer when left to their own devices. At one
table will be a cluster of students, with their queer little
pill-box caps of all colors, their close-cropped heads and well-shaved
necks, and their saber-scarred faces. At the next table half a
dozen spectacled, long-coated men, who look as though they might
be university professors, are confabbing earnestly. And at the
next table and the next and the next - and so on, until the aggregate
runs into big figures - are family groups - grandsires, fathers,
mothers, aunts, uncles and children, on down to the babies in arms.
By the uncountable thousands they spend the afternoon here, munching
sausages and sipping lager, and enjoying the excellent music that
is invariably provided. At each plate there is a beer mug, for
everybody is forever drinking and nobody is ever drunk. You see
a lot of this sort of thing, not only in the parks and gardens so
numerous in and near any German city but anywhere on the Continent.
Seeing it helps an American to understand a main difference between
the American Sabbath and the European Sunday. We keep it and they
spend it.
I am given to understand that Vienna night life is the most alluring,
the most abandoned, the most wicked and the wildest of all night
life. Probably this is so - certainly it is the most cloistered
and the most inaccessible. The Viennese does not deliberately
exploit his night life to prove to all the world that he is a gay
dog and will not go home until morning though it kill him - as the
German does. Neither does he maintain it for the sake of the coin
to be extracted from the pockets of the tourist, as do the Parisians.
With him his night life is a thing he has created and which he
supports for his own enjoyment.
And so it goes on - not out in the open; not press-agented; not
advertised; but behind closed doors. He does not care for the
stranger's presence, nor does he suffer it either - unless the
stranger is properly vouched for. The best theaters in Vienna are
small, exclusive affairs, privately supported, and with seating
capacity for a few chosen patrons. Once he has quit the public
cafe with its fine music and its bad waiters the uninitiated
traveler has a pretty lonesome time of it in Vienna. Until all
hours he may roam the principal streets seeking that fillip of
wickedness which will give zest to life and provide him with
something to brag about when he gets back among the home folks
again.
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