VOICES FROM THE CROWD Bravo! Hear, hear! Serbia — we’ll murder ’er! — Like it or not! — Every one shot!
VOICE FROM THE CROWD And Russia too—
SECOND VOICE (bellows) — what a crew!
THIRD VOICE Not a clue! (Laughter.)
FOURTH VOICE Give ’em their due!
ALL Bang bang! Yahoo!
SECOND VOICE And then to France?
THIRD VOICE Just watch ’em prance! (Laughter.)
FOURTH VOICE At the end of our lance!
ALL Will they fight? No chance!
THIRD VOICE Who else do we hit? Every Brit!
FOURTH VOICE The Brit we’ll hit!
ALL Bravo! A Brit with every hit! Bravo!
BEGGAR BOY Gott strafe England!
VOICES Strafe them all! England stinks!
FIRST GIRL Poldi promised me a Serb’s guts. I wrote about it to the Reichspost.
VOICES Hurrah for the Reichspost! Our Christian daily!
SECOND GIRL I wrote to them too. Ferdie’s going to bring me back a Russian’s kidneys!
CROWD Bring ’em on!
POLICEMAN Keep to the left, please, to the left.
INTELLECTUAL (to his girl) This is where we could plumb the soul of the people, if we had the time — what is the time? According to today’s editorial, it’s a joy to be alive. Isn’t Benedikt brilliant, the way he says the glory of classical antiquity illuminates our own age.
FIRST GIRL It’s half past now. Ma said I’m in for it if I don’t get home by half past.
INTELLECTUAL Ah, don’t go, stay. Just look at the people, in a state of ferment! Look, they’re uplifted!
FIRST GIRL Where?
INTELLECTUAL I mean, spiritually, as if they’d been transformed, purified — like it says in the editorial, pure heroism. Who would have thought it possible, how the times have changed, and how they’ve changed us.
(A cab draws up outside a house.)
FARE How much?
CABBY Your honour surely knows.
FARE I don’t know. How much?
CABBY The normal fare.
FARE And what is the fare?
CABBY Same as you pay everyone else.
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.