Karl Kraus - The Last Days of Mankind

FARE Have you any change? ( Hands him a gold 10-crown piece .)

CABBY Change? I can’t take a coin that size, it might be French gold!

HOUSE-PORTER ( approaches ) What’s that? A Froggy? Well, well, what have we here! A spy, I shouldn’t wonder — let’s show ’im! Where’s he come from?

CABBY The Eastern Station.

HOUSE-PORTER Aha, from Petersburg!

CROWD ( which has collected around the cab ) A spy! A spy! ( The fare has disappeared through a doorway .)

CABBY ( calls after him ) Stingy bastard!

CROWD Ah, let ’im go! No reprisals, they’ve no place here — that’s not our style.

AMERICAN FROM THE RED CROSS ( to another ) Look at the people how enthusiastic they are!

CROWD They’re English, those two! Speak German! Gott strafe England ! Let them have it! You’re in Vienna! ( The Americans escape through the doorway .) Ah, let ’em go. That’s not our style.

TURK ( to another ) Regardez l’enthousiasme de tout le monde!

CROWD Two Frogs! Speak German! Let ’em have it! You’re in Vienna! ( The Turks escape through the doorway .) Ah, let ’em go. That’s not our style. Hey, they’re Turks! Didn’t you see, they had a fez? They’re allies! Get them back here and sing the “Prince Eugene March”!

(Enter two Chinese in silence.)

CROWD Japs! Japs in Vienna, what next! They want hanging by their pigtails, the rascals!

FIRST VOICE Let ’em go! They’re Chinese!

SECOND VOICE You’re one too!

FIRST VOICE Speak for yourself!

THIRD VOICE All Chinks are Japs!

FOURTH VOICE Are you a Jap then?

THIRD VOICE No.

FOURTH VOICE A Chink — or the missing link! ( Laughter .)

FIFTH VOICE Half a mo, half a mo, that’s going too far, get an eyeful of this, in the paper it says ( he takes a sheet of newspaper from his pocket ) “Such patriotic excesses cannot be tolerated under any circumstances, and are moreover likely to damage tourism.” So how can we develop tourism afterwards, tell me that?

SIXTH VOICE Bravo! He’s right. Tourism, to push it up, that’s no easy task, it’s not as if—

SEVENTH VOICE Belt up! War is war and when someone comes along jabbering in American or Turkish or—

EIGHTH VOICE That’s right. We’re at war, no doubt about it! ( Enter a lady with just the hint of a moustache .)

CROWD Look at that! A spy in disguise, spotted it straight away! Arrest ’er! Lock ’er up, on the spot!

CIRCUMSPECT PERSON But gentlemen — think about it — surely she would have had it shaved off!

FIRST VOICE Who?

CIRCUMSPECT PERSON If she were a spy.

SECOND VOICE He forgot! Gave himself away!

VOICES Who? — Him! — No, her!

THIRD VOICE That’s how cunning them spies are!

FOURTH VOICE So we can’t spot ’em as spies, they grow a moustache!

FIFTH VOICE Don’t talk tosh, she’s a female spy, and so we can’t spot it she’s stuck on a moustache.

SIXTH VOICE She’s a female spy disguised as a man!

SEVENTH VOICE No, a man disguised as a female spy!

CROWD At any rate, a suspicious character, needs questioning by the police! Grab ’im!

(The lady is led off by a policeman. Singing can be heard—“Staunch stands and true/the Watch on the Rhine.”)

FIRST REPORTER ( holding a notebook ) That was no flash in the pan, no sudden drunken rapture, no feverish roar of mass hysteria. Vienna has accepted, with manly fortitude, the decision that will determine its manifold destiny. Know how I’ll summarize the atmosphere? The atmosphere can be summarized in the phrase: far from being high-handed or fainthearted. Far from being high-handed or fainthearted, that’s the slogan we’ve coined for the prevailing atmosphere in Vienna, and it cannot be said often enough. Far from being high-handed or fainthearted! What do you say?

SECOND REPORTER What can I say? Brilliant!

FIRST REPORTER Far from being high-handed or fainthearted. Thousands, nay, tens of thousands surged through the streets today, arm in arm, rich and poor, young and old, high and low. The bearing of each and every one showed he is fully aware of the gravity of the situation, but also proud to feel throbbing in his own veins the pulse of this dawning age of grandeur.

VOICE FROM THE CROWD Kiss my arse!

FIRST REPORTER Listen to them striking up the “Prince Eugene March” and the national anthem, over and over, and of course the “Watch on the Rhine”, that goes without saying, signalling our good faith towards our allies. Work finished earlier than usual this evening in Vienna. And before I forget, we must make a point of describing the crowd massing in front of the War Ministry. But above all, the one thing we mustn’t forget to mention — guess what?

SECOND REPORTER I know! We mustn’t forget to mention the crowd massing in their hundreds, nay, in their thousands in Fichtegasse, in front of the offices of the Neue Freie Presse .

FIRST REPORTER Clever boy! Yes, that’s what the boss likes. But why hundreds and thousands? Figure it out. Why not thousands, nay, tens of thousands, what does it matter since they’re already massing?

SECOND REPORTER All right, as long as it’s not taken to be some hostile demonstration. Remember last Sunday — after all, the age of grandeur was already dawning — the paper still had all those ads for masseuses.

FIRST REPORTER In this age of grandeur such a petty thought is out of the question. Leave that to Kraus in the Fackel . They were all cheering our paper and shouting: Read it out to us! Read it out! — obviously the article on Belgrade — followed by thunderous ovations—

SECOND REPORTER Thunderous, nay, tens of thunderous ovations—

FIRST REPORTER —ovations for Austria, for Germany, and for the Neue Freie Presse . The sequence wasn’t exactly flattering for us, but what a tribute from the rapturous crowd! All evening long, whenever they weren’t busy in front of the War Ministry or the Foreign Office, they stood packed together in Fichtegasse, shoulder to shoulder, massing.

SECOND REPORTER Where do they get the time for it, I’m always amazed.

FIRST REPORTER Simple, in an age of grandeur there’s time to spare! The news in the evening edition was cited and discussed again and again. The word Auffenberg flew from mouth to mouth.

SECOND REPORTER How’s that?

FIRST REPORTER I can tell you, it’s an editorial secret, so don’t mention it until after the war. Here’s what happened. Roda Roda telegraphed the paper yesterday about the battle of Lemberg, and at the end of the telegram were the words: Beat the drum for Auffenberg. The words had already been set. At the last minute someone noticed and they took them out, but they did beat the drum for the exploits of Auffenberg!

SECOND REPORTER Street scenes are now the boss’s big thing. He wants evocations of every cornerstone a dog has left its manifesto on. He called me in yesterday and said I should observe typical street scenes as if they were genre pictures. But that’s just what worries me, I don’t like crowds, yesterday I had to join in singing the “Staunch stands and true/the Watch on the Rhine”—let’s get away, it’s starting up again, just look at these people, I know this atmosphere, all of a sudden you’re swept up and singing “God Preserve the Emperor.”

FIRST REPORTER God forbid! You’re right, I don’t see why you have to be there in person either, it’s lost time, you should be writing about it instead of just standing around. Before I forget, it’s very important to describe how resolute they all are, with here and there some individual tearing himself away, wanting to do his bit at all costs. You can bring that out very vividly. The boss called me in yesterday and said you have to whet the public’s appetite for the war, and for our paper too — they go hand in hand. The particulars are very important, the details, in a word the nuances, and especially the distinctive Viennese tone. For instance, you must mention that as a matter of course all class distinctions have been set aside with immediate effect — people wave from their automobiles, even from their carriages. I myself have seen one lady in her lace finery get out of her car and fling her arms round the neck of a woman in a shabby headscarf. It’s been that way since the ultimatum, everyone united, heart and soul.