CHAPTER X.
CHEAP SUMMER-RESORTS
On a glorious June day Leo Strakosch, _alias_ Dufresne, went to the City Park, to gather further impressions of the new Vienna. As a rule he seldom left the Nineteenth District, where he was always either working in his studio or taking long walks in the Wienerwald with Lotte. Now, strolling about among the crowded tables of the inn, he felt so amused that he laughed aloud.
“For heaven’s sake--what has become of my beautiful, elegant Vienna!”
There seemed to be a general craze for Alpine costume and tourist dress; as far as he could see there were men, old and young, in rough wool coats, knickerbockers, and green Alpine hats. And the women! Most of them wore peasant costume, which, while it might have been very charming and graceful in the open country, here looked like a caricature or a bad joke. People had become very unassuming; besides, now they were all one big family, and there were no strangers around for whom it might be necessary to “dress up.”
Occasionally one did see elegantly dressed men and women; but they were so few as to be conspicuous, and sneering remarks about them issued from the Alpine tables. Strakosch felt highly uncomfortable whenever he noticed a “peasant girl” staring at him through her lorgnette--probably only because his dark blue suit, patent leather shoes, and costly silk tie attracted attention.
An electric tramway line, municipal music, and peasant girls who wore lorgnettes--Leo pinched himself. He hurried out of the Park into the Ringstrasse, where the cafés presented a sorry sight; he grinned as he noted that people were greeting one another with “Hail!”; and he had to search for quite some time before he found a taxicab. For even these public vehicles had become a luxury indulged in by so few that most of the drivers had given up their business.
Late in the afternoon, around sunset, he met Lotte at the edge of the Kobenzlwald, as they had arranged. They settled down on a bench, and, after a prologue of kisses, Lotte told him that her parents had decided to move to their little villa on the Wolfgangsee the next week.
“What’ll become of us now?” she wailed. “How can I bear not to see you all summer?”
“Nothing of the sort is expected of you, darling. I’ll take a vacation, too; when you’re in St. Gilgen I’ll be in Wolfgang, and you’ll come over every day so that we’ll be together at least an hour.”
“M-m-m,” Lotte replied happily, “that’s something like! But now I’ll have to tell you about the argument Papa and I had yesterday. Just think, suddenly Papa looked me straight in the eye and said very seriously: ‘What have you been doing all by yourself lately, for hours at a time? You know we give you as much freedom as possible--but there’s a limit!’
“I felt myself getting red as a beet and thought the best thing would be for me to confess.”
“What!” interrupted Leo, horrified. “You told your father?”
“Let me finish, silly,” laughed Lotte, pinching his ear. “I confessed, but only what I wanted. I told Papa that I had met a very splendid young man at Erna’s house, that I like him as well as he likes me, and that I often meet him for walks. He’s a Frenchman, I said, by the name of Henry Dufresne, and he’s putting through some big business deals here.
“At first Papa was absolutely speechless, then he asked why I don’t invite this Frenchman to the house. Whereupon I answered that I’m not entirely sure of my feelings, and therefore don’t want to make the matter seem official. And finally I cried, quite indignantly:
“‘You know you can trust me, Papa! You can be sure I won’t do anything wrong, and Henry will come to you as soon as I think it necessary and proper. But now let me go my own way!’
“After this Papa was very kind and nice to me, and so was Mama. But later I heard Papa telling Mama: ‘I’d never have believed that Lotte would forget poor Leo so quickly and thoroughly. Still, I’m very glad she’s found a new object for her affections, and we won’t put any obstacle in her way.’
“And Mama, who is so fond of you, shook her head and said: ‘I don’t understand that girl at all! Her cheeks have actually become pink again, and she sings all day as if she had never had a heartache.’
“You know, Leo, it surely isn’t nice of us to fool my parents this way--but I’m so happy that you’re here in Vienna!”
Leo pulled Lotte toward him, gave her a long kiss, and then said with an important air:
“Now we’ll go to the country, and when I come back I’ll fool the whole town and I’ll do it properly, too! I can’t tell you any more today--but you’ll see some marvelous doings.”
This was the second summer to console the Viennese for the great inconvenience and bitter disappointments they had suffered. In former years the most beautiful towns and resorts of diminished Austria had become the playground of the Jews. All of the beautiful Salzkammer region, the Semmering district, and even the more modernized sections of the Tyrol, had been flooded with Austrian, Czechoslovakian, and Hungarian Jews; the appearance of anyone who might be suspected of being a Gentile would actually create a sensation in Ischl, Gmunden, Wolfgang, Gilgen, Strobel, Aussee, or on the Attersee. Not without justification the Christians--partly because of lesser wealth, and partly because of greater conservatism in the matter of money-spending--felt that they were being pushed aside, and had to content themselves with the less expensive, but also much less beautiful resorts of Lower Austria and Steiermark, or with out-of-the-way Tyrolese villages. Since the expulsion of the Jews all this had changed. The most beautiful summer-resorts were crowded no longer, inquiries from city dwellers received immediate and very courteous replies, and in spite of the otherwise increased cost of living the rents of rooms or summer homes were considerably lower than two years before. And therefore all who had the time and the money flocked to the places that had formerly disgusted the genuine Viennese.
The owners of the great hotels, health resorts, and so-called sanatoria, however, were not so well pleased. They had always lived off international Jewry--their entire business depended on people who do not calculate cost when their comfort is at stake; and now, as it was impossible for them to be cheap, they could not find enough patrons. The great Semmering hotels did not open at all, and many hostelries of the Salzkammer region and the Tyrol were forced to close and dismiss their employes in the middle of the season. This was gall in their cup of joy, and caused ill will among the country people, who were accustomed to sell their products to the great hotels at enormous prices, and to let their sons and daughters make goodly sums of money as valets and chambermaids during the summer.
The mayor of Semmering had the courage to say openly, at a meeting of the Town Council:
“Together with the Jews we drove prosperity out of the country. If this lasts a few years longer we may be good Christians, but we’ll be as poor as church mice!”