Vienna, Saturday

Another request came today from Ballplatz, this time in official form, asking me to move to the Hofburg and occupy at least a wing of it. Again I declined, stating I would not do so unless instructions to that effect came from Paris. But a few hours later I was beset by a temptation that was much more difficult to resist than the previous invitations. The major-domo of Duke Philip of Coburg put in an appearance at my dismal quarters in the hotel. He came with letters from Admiral Hohnel and a card from Sternberg, who, like everyone else, I had known in Paris and Baden-Baden years ago when he was a prominent figure in the racing world—Sternberg has gone quite democratic and his visiting card simply reads, “Otto, a descendant of the former Counts of Sternberg.” He did not deny his forebears but as to himself he has forsworn the title they had borne so proudly for many generations. Now he is seeking a job under the Socialist government. The major-domo was a sleek and comfortable-looking person, as was to be expected in a representative of the caste that had battened for years upon the largesse of princes. But for all that, his face was careworn and it was apparent that peering into the future he saw dark days ahead. However, he came straight to the point. “His Royal Highness,” he explained, “is living on his estates in the country where he is safer. His little palace here is an architectural gem, as you will remember.” (And indeed I did. It was altogether charming, and here Duke Philip lived with his wife, the rather plain sister of the beautiful Empress Elizabeth. Gossip in Vienna was that she had been selected as the consort of Francis Joseph, but that as he came to the Bavarian Court on Brautschau he had caught sight of her beautiful, dark-eyed sister, a little girl of thirteen, and had decided to postpone marriage until she reached marriageable age.)

“This architectural gem is in danger, we fear. Almost every day the street Gesindel gather in crowds before it, shouting foul words about his Royal Highness and throwing sharp stones. If you would only move in and hoist your honored flag, Your Excellency would be, as you should be, suitably lodged, and the palace would be preserved for the delectation of generations to come.” With that the insinuating fellow threw a contemptuous glance about him at the sordid surroundings, which was all that the Bristol could afford its guests in these dark days.

Was I weakening or was I merely curious? Be this as it may, I must admit that through chattering teeth I inquired: “How about the heating?”

“Modern central heating,” he said proudly. True in the bins there is no coal, but a word from you and they will be replenished.

Shame on me, while I did not say yes, I did not say no. “My plans are so uncertain,” I faltered. “My mail and important visitors come to the hotel almost every hour. To move would be inconvenient, any moment cable instructions may come transferring me to another equally vital post. Did you say that the central heating was in working order?”

“Perfect, only coal is lacking, and a word from you would procure it in any desired quantity.”

I did not say yes and I did not say no, but the major-domo thought he had me. With a sweeping bow he withdrew, saying, “I shall wait on Your Excellency in the morning to learn your wishes.” And true enough, he came in with my coffee.

“I neglected to tell you yesterday,” he began, “that in the garage of his Imperial Royal Highness there are five cars. Three Italian Fiats and two admirable French cars.” If he had mentioned those items the day before I do not know what might have happened. That was indeed a temptation to a man who was dependent on the whims of the transportation pool at the Crillon, with whom he stood none too well because of a smashing accident for which he was by no means responsible, but this added inducement had come too late.

“My instructions have reached me,” I said. “I am leaving Vienna on Thursday.” And then: “Thank His Royal and Imperial Highness for his hospitable offer and tell him that only the demands of my important duties prevent me from accepting it.” The major-domo was crestfallen. He had thought he had me, and perhaps he had before those blessed instructions to return to Paris came. Would I have continued to resist the archducal palace—and the five cars in the garage? I fear that I, for one, will never know!

During the last days of my stay in Vienna I became greatly attached to a tall and lanky American soldier with an “affidavit” face who by some quirk of fortune had become attached to the Food Administration after the Armistice. As I suspected his origin, and his loneliness was only too evident, one day I said: “Virginia?” and he answered gladly, proudly, “Big Stone Gap.”

“Then you must have known John Fox?”

“Know Mr. John? My father grew up with him. Many and many a time I sat on his lap.” Detached from his organization, the boy was cruelly homesick and, poor reed that I was, he clutched at me as a drowning man does to a floating plank, and when I talked about John and how we had been together in the Santiago campaign, his features brightened wonderfully and he would say, “Do tell.” He was depressed and oh, so homesick, and what really appalled him most, as he later admitted, were the strange words of the strange languages he heard on every side. Now that the war was over he wanted to go home and if that was impossible he wanted to be alone with the memories of his village and out of hearing of those outlandish words.

I gave him an extra key to my room and there he would sit when off duty, alone with his hopes and his dreams, because the American papers that I turned over to him did not detain him for long. “There was practically no news from Big Stone Gap in them,” he commented. And sometimes we plotted together how he could rejoin his organization, and, above all, how he could get home where, as he asserted—I agreeing—he “belonged.” One day he began to talk with me about a photographing “outfit” that had been abandoned in Vienna some weeks before. There was a lieutenant and three soldier photographers from Chicago. There had been some mix-up about their orders and their pay checks, and the lieutenant had taken what money there was and gone to Paris to straighten things out with the Signal Corps section that had been entrusted with the task of photographing “Europe—After the War.” Soon he would return and continue their task, but down to the present the lieutenant had not done so.

“How do they live? ” I asked.

“Hoover’s men let them have rations but they don’t need them. They are livin’ mighty high, I should say, on what fat is left in this skinny land. They have gone into business and are making money hand over fist. They understand all these lingoes and are getting into every deal.” Then in a tone of grudging admiration, “They are smart. I have to give ’em that. If you and I were left on our uppers as they wuz, I reckon we would jest naturally starve to death, but those boys are on the way to be millionaires.”

The next day he pointed the “Chicago boys” out to me. They were in the back, or tradesmen’s lobby, of the hotel and busy as bees. They belonged to a race that has often been persecuted, a people who have often seen their property expropriated, but have always risen superior to adverse fortune. They were now surrounded by groups of half-starved people to whom they were opening up business opportunities—for a consideration. “They say they are speculating, making business deals,” said the Big Stone Gap man contemptuously, “but they are smuggling. Just now they have a corner in coffee.”

I watched the Chicago boys for a day or two very closely, with feelings in which admiration and indignation were mixed about fifty-fifty. They had their fingers in every small business operation that was in progress in the Kaiserstadt-that-was. All the profiteers and Schiebers from the squalid quarters of the Leopoldstadt sat at their feet glowing with something that approached adoration. “If you let them go on they will have all the money that is left in this poor-folksy land,” warned the Virginia boy, and he was right. The strain from which they sprang, the struggle for existence in Chicago which they had survived, had prepared them for the emergency that had now overtaken them.

I intervened. I put in a word at the proper quarter and orders and transportation came, and they departed for Paris with their pockets full of money. Once there I fear a rude awakening awaited them, the moment when they transferred their Austrian gains into a more substantial currency. But they would be able to cope with that and with any emergency that might arise, in civilian and commercial life, at least. And the Big Stone-Gaper paid them his tribute too. “Wonderful boys they were,” and then he repeated: “Ef we had been left on our beam ends as they wuz we’d hev starved to death.” And that was a true word.