OPTIMIST But that still seems to lie some way off. I had the impression just recently that Archduchess Blanka’s car drew the most respectful attention, and when the traffic comes to a standstill on the Graben, it can only be Archduke Eugen’s stately appearance that has drawn the crowd.
GRUMBLER Archduke Max in particular is undoubtedly popular. He inherited his cheerful disposition from his father and could even gallop over coffins if need be, something the World War would provide plenty of opportunity to do.
OPTIMIST Only a grumbler could take it amiss that he—
GRUMBLER —organized a sausage supper at the Polo Club during the seventh battle of the Isonzo, and used official court motorcars to transport the guests and musicians. One is deeply ashamed at being forced to stand up or doff one’s hat whenever the gullible, infatuated mob takes it into its head to pay homage to one of these feudal bloodsucking leeches, to raise three cheers for one of these parasitical buffoons, who can’t even do without their orgies and idiotic revels while a military offensive is under way; just as the memory of the connections between the Capuchin Crypt and all-night bars, doubtless a reflection of the times, fills one with nausea. What price imperial loyalty when dynastic nausea has become indissolubly linked with a smoke-filled nightclub, suddenly the scene of a right royal rave-up where patriotism is blended with sentimental love songs, now that the sacred melodies of a faded glory have been dishonoured by modern militarism! Only in such a place can we envisage the shameful spectacle of profiteers, barmaids, thieves, and suckers of every stripe rising deferentially to their feet, flanked by waiters bearing drinks, cloakroom personnel, and last but not least the lavatory attendant. This was the milieu in which love for the House of Habsburg was most deeply rooted. Monarchists, who are not in short supply, whom a war cannot kill off, and who will survive even this war, disregard those self-defeating characteristics of a ruling family, as if they were the heritage of all dynasties. But they can’t possibly deny that such displays, blatant excesses in permissive times compounded by the scandalous, even criminal complicity of those in high places, far from setting an example to a world they themselves have bled white, undermines the monarchic idea; and that this idea might have been damaged by the sad recognition that a world war has been fought for an imperial family that was not worth a charge of buckshot. When an Imperial Highness is not only Inspector General of Artillery, but also an army contractor in cahoots with a profiteer on a deal worth millions, one that in no small measure contributes to the starvation at the front, then the national anthem is in urgent need of a new text, or else laurels would inevitably be confused with dried vegetables. Spectral figures who wanted only peace and quiet, which is why they waged war, and dashing devils who spent it carousing and profiteering — they shall rule us no more!
OPTIMIST In truth, what rules us all is—
GRUMBLER —Wolf in Gersthof’s face on that nightclub poster! Look, there it is! Do you remember my prophecy? Four years ago — and how the face has grown! The bloodshot eyes are still there, yet this Austrian visage claims a golden heart.
OPTIMIST You exaggerate. You’re saying he’s turned into a symbol of our national character, like the head of Hindenburg has for Prussia’s?
GRUMBLER Hindenburg is head and shoulders above us. We’re fine fellows, but we don’t look so serious or confident! Just as old Radetzky once surveyed us from his pedestal, so now the head of this folksy hero serenely contemplates the chaos into which we are plunged.
OPTIMIST But my God, it’s just a poster — all it signifies is—
GRUMBLER —that millions had to die; but he survives, he is larger than life! How the enemy will stare when they arrive, a year from now.
OPTIMIST But I don’t think you’ll be able to extend the link between a poster and the World War any further.
GRUMBLER Right to the bitter end! If the posters had been shot, the people would have survived.
OPTIMIST I don’t follow your train of thought.
GRUMBLER Don’t worry, just stay as you are. The monologue I’m conducting with you has tired you out. The realities that you don’t see are my visions, and where nothing has changed for you, for me it’s a prophecy come true. Between my prediction that the World War would transform the world into a vast hinterland of fraud, degeneracy, and the most inhuman betrayal of the divine, and my assertion that it has already happened, there lies only the World War. If you harbour the same doubts about the connection, all you need do is ignore the state of the world. Are you not the one grumbling against the ideal which you grant has been dishonoured by the world? While I, an optimist, must acknowledge that my most pious hope remains unfulfilled, since my prophecies have come true. At the outset of this calamity I prayed that God might make the misbegotten feel that it is finished! But it was not their blood that was shed to expiate the deed that was in the beginning, the blood of the fraudsters, degenerates, and betrayers of the divine. He permitted them, instead, to sacrifice the blood of others, and to survive the destruction of the world unscathed. Truly, were the ways of the Lord not unfathomable, they would be inexplicable! Why did he allow the war to blind us!? Behold, the halt and the lame, tap-tapping their way through life, trembling beggars, pallid, prematurely aged children, mothers deranged by the trauma of military offensives, heroic sons, their eyes wavering with mortal fear, and all strangers to daylight and to sleep, mere ruins of a shattered creation. Meanwhile, the laughter rings out of those who have presumed to defy the judge enthroned on high — too high above the stars for his arm to reach out and smite them. It is finished — is it not? Their soul retains no scar, for it was never wounded by what they did, what they knew, what they allowed to happen. It is the fate of mankind to have a bullet go in through one ear and out through the other. Let us turn our backs on this laughing monstrosity, the Austrian face with its infinitely bloodstained smugness!
(Change of scene.)
Scene 43
Vienna, Stadtpark. An enormous crowd surrounds the terrace of the Kursalon restaurant and dance hall.
NEWSPAPER VENDOR Midday News! The Battle of the Piave! Austrians storm into attack!
FIRST LADY My God, I’m so excited—
SECOND LADY So you’re going to subscribe to the war loan?
FIRST LADY Me? Are you mad, I’m just curious—
(The public becomes restless.)
GENTLEMAN No pushing, please, ladies and gentlemen—!
HUSBAND It’s all a hoax, you’ll see.
WIFE But I’m telling you, it was in the paper this morning—
HUSBAND Here’s Die Zeit—show me where.
WIFE Are you blind? There, at the top, even before the editorial—
HUSBAND Upon my soul! I never thought to look there — (he reads) Today, Thursday, 23 May at 12.30 pm, on the terrace of the Kursalon in the Stadtpark, Herr Hubert Marischka of the Theater an der Wien will bestow a kiss on the lady who makes the greatest sacrifice for the Eighth War Loan. — Well, I can tell you right now, you won’t be making any sacrifice for the Eighth War Loan, d’you hear?!