SECOND BLACK-MARKETEER I still remember the heading: Encirclement of Russian troops by German army: Russians driven into Masurian swamps.
FIRST BLACK-MARKETEER Yes, well that’s exactly what you get, only it’s funnier — he goes glug-glug, glug-glug as they choke to death. I tell you — that charming face he pulls, Salzer, with those little piggy eyes of his — it’s worth every penny.
THIRD BLACK-MARKETEER Shh — look out — here come the Field Greys. (They stand motionless.)
SECOND BLACK-MARKETEER (devoutly) In their shining armour.
FIRST BLACK-MARKETEER Ah yes, the Germans!
(Enter three German grenadiers, one behind the other, each accompanied by a Viennese municipal official in tails and top hat.)
FIRST MUNICIPAL OFFICIAL (Viennese accent) That’s the opera house, now we’re entering the Kärntnerstrasse, where I’ll point out the Iron Post, the most notable landmark in Vienna that we have, erected to remind us that journeymen passing through each used to hammer in a nail, just as you’ve seen people doing at the Iron Warrior. Then comes the so-called Plague Column, because the plague was raging in the city of Vienna at that time, and he made a solemn vow to erect a great monument on the site.
FIRST GRENADIER By Jove, that’s quite something!
SECOND MUNICIPAL OFFICIAL (Viennese accent) That’s the opera house, now we’ll go along the Kärntnerstrasse to the so-called Iron Post, a landmark because journeymen passing through each hammered in a nail. Then I’ll show you the Plague Column, that was when he made a solemn vow, because the plague was raging in the city at that time, just like with the Iron Warrior, and that’s why a monument was erected on the site.
SECOND GRENADIER By Jove, fantastic!
THIRD MUNICIPAL OFFICIAL (Viennese accent) There you’ve got the opera. But here’s Kärntnerstrasse coming up, we’ll go along to the Iron Post, that’s where the journeymen passing through used to hammer in a nail, just like they do now with the Warrior. Then I’ll take you to a monument on the Graben, the greatest landmark we have, for that’s where the plague raged on the site, and he made a solemn vow, so that’s the famous story of how the Iron Post came about.
THIRD GRENADIER By Jove, that’s really amazing!
FIRST REPORTER (to another) Look, there you can really see what it means to stand shoulder to shoulder.
SECOND REPORTER They seem to understand each other well, but you can’t hear what they’re saying.
FIRST REPORTER He’s explaining it to them.
BERLIN BLACK-MARKETEER (speaking very fast in Berlin slang to a porter) You there, come here and run across to that restaurant and see if there’s a gentleman waiting there, or go and ask the pageboy or the waiter after Section Head Swoboda, one of the most influential people you have in Vienna right now, he has an appointment with a Mr. Zadikower from Berlin, ask him to be so kind as to wait a bit longer and to indicate what table he’s at, the reservations book is probably at the reception desk, in case I’m held up, then I’ll have dinner with him, but I’ve still one bit of business to do, but — d’you hear — in case I’m still held up, could he please come later to the Moulin Rouge or whatever the establishment is called now, you know, don’t you, the place Mizzi dances, one of the prettiest girls you have in Vienna right now, I’ll be there at a quarter to twelve, so quick now, did you understand? (The porter stares at the stranger in amazement and says nothing.) Heavens above! Don’t you understand German?
PORTER Kum-agen-wot-was-it-ya-sed-ya-wonted?—
BERLIN BLACK-MARKETEER (enraged, turning to the passersby, who gather in a group) It’s unheard of, listen to me, how dare he, it’s absolutely scandalous, the things that go on in your beloved Vienna, I’ve had many a surprise, as a German from the Reich, we’re well used to your laid-back Viennese slovenliness after all, charming little people that you are, but that really takes the biscuit, that’s only possible in Vienna, to think that a population we are fighting shoulder to shoulder with can put up with such stupidity, it’s staggeringly mind-boggling, you Viennese have simply no conception of being at war, that’s why after a year you’ve hit rock bottom, whereas in Germany, one can certainly say, people take things seriously but are nonetheless confident, you, on the other hand — well, Hindenburg should be told, and I’m the man to do it, I’ll give him a full account—
CROWD But what happened?
BERLIN BLACK-MARKETEER What happened? What a question! Funny little people! That man there, he was standing there like a proper Viennese porter, I wanted to send him over to the restaurant with an important message for a Section Head I had a rendezvous with, and he — I ask you, in wartime—
CROWD What’s this all about, what did he do?
BERLIN BLACK-MARKETEER —he answered me in a foreign language!
(He goes off in high dudgeon. The crowd looks at the porter questioningly. He has stood as if frozen the whole time, and now walks off proudly.)
CROWD Gott strafe England!
NEWSPAPER VENDOR Ex-tra-aa edi-shun—! Clawrious fig-tree for our boys!
(Change of scene.)
Scene 2
Optimist and Grumbler in conversation.
GRUMBLER Do you think it’s humanly possible for an Eskimo and a negro from the Congo to communicate with one another for any length of time, or even to fight together shoulder to shoulder? In my opinion, only if it’s in an alliance against Prussia. An alliance between brash Berliners from Schöneberg and sentimental Viennese from Grinzing seems to me impractical.
OPTIMIST Why’s that?
GRUMBLER In tales of old, of wonders much is told — as when the Nibelungs first swore their blood oath. But what are such tales in comparison with the wondrous, fabulous special relationships of our own bloodcurdling times? Think of a city like ours where you can’t even make a telephone call, and a city like theirs where they do nothing but make telephone calls — two different worlds, surely. Can there really be a spiritual bond between them when there’s scarcely a telephone connection? Think of two creatures shoulder to shoulder, one of them having made disorder the substance of his life, surviving through ingrained slovenliness, and the other whose sole purpose consists of being well organized?
OPTIMIST That being the model exemplified by our comrades-in-arms, whose organization in peacetime, tried and tested—
GRUMBLER —would soon slacken after contact with the model of slovenliness, if it were not already doomed to self-destruct in this war. The outer and the inner order of the German world is a shell that will soon crack open. Let it shatter then, shoulder to shoulder with us.
OPTIMIST Do you believe that German officialdom, for example, with its proven sense of duty, could ever slacken or even become corrupted?
GRUMBLER Recently, on the German-Swiss border, a railway official in uniform provided a symbol of the way things are going in Germany. He came up to me beside the ticket office and, under his breath, offered me a better exchange rate than the official railway one.
OPTIMIST Where you see moral degeneration, I see—
GRUMBLER —spiritual rebirth. It’s a vision which will end up helping to change reality. Under the influence of the self-deluding war propaganda, chaos will become endemic. As the German war effort gains momentum, who’ll be in charge of the clattering train?
OPTIMIST And what of us, in Austria?
GRUMBLER No further decline is necessary, surely. Here, it was war already in peacetime, with audiences after a concert fighting to reach the exit as if it was a chaotic retreat. We have a track record.