The Vienna Melody (31 page)

M. Mercier's question was logical. But his report left the answer in the air. He confirmed the fact that on Sunday evening thousands of lanterns and flaming torches were carried by people on the Kahlenberg Heights overlooking Vienna and they sang and yelled all sorts of things. Among others, “Hurrah for Schoeffel! Long live the Second Internationale!” The first cry had seldom been heard and the second never before in Vienna, and neither apparently had the slightest relation to the other. The police, arriving too late on the scene, found, in any event, no reason to interfere, except in the case of three particularly vociferous young men whose names the Parisian columnist rescued from oblivion. They were Berg, Ebeseder, and Oppenheim. Berg and Oppenheim were University students; Ebeseder was at the Academy of Painting.

Whether by coincidence or not, on the following Monday there were four instances of unrest in Vienna factories. They occurred in the Urban and Brévillier screw factory, the two hardware factories, Felton-Guillaume and Brand and Lhuillier, and the C. Alt piano factory.

When Hans, on this morning, appeared in the Wiedner Hauptstrasse building shortly after the hateful reminder emitted by the factory whistle, it struck him that the workday noises were not as much in evidence as usual. But blue Mondays were not an exception. Yet at seven forty-five (Papa arrived on the dot of eight o'clock) it was obvious that no work was being done either in the wire-drawing or metal-casting departments; the hammering of the cabinetmakers was the only customary sound. Hans's head was full of more important things, for he had evolved the idea of suggesting to his father that he should allow him to take an evening course at the University. He could hardly refuse him, since the classes began only after factory hours. Uneasy at last over the quiet, he left his bleak task of compiling export statistics to go down to the cellar and investigate what the matter was.

He was not popular with the workers. Papa's insincere efforts to make him so upset him, and the inhibitions he succumbed to whenever he was unsure of himself contributed to this unpopularity. To the workers, as he well knew, he was nothing but the owner's son and the future proprietor, and therefore his father's pretence that he was just another worker seemed quite false. To be sure, after he finished school, he had skimmed through the various factory departments as an apprentice. But only skimmed through—and now he had a little office of his own where he engaged in writing but no manual labour. He attempted to conceal his feeling that he was an intruder and that he had neither fondness for nor interest in the enterprise of his forbears, because he considered it tactless to demand work of others which you do not like to do yourself. And he was equally determined not to inveigle himself into their good graces. Since he felt that they despised him, he was as reserved with the workers as he had been with his schoolmates for eight years.

Four of them came towards him. They were still in their street clothes, and started to pass him without any greeting to go upstairs to the first floor.

“What's going on here, Czerny?” he asked, for it seemed to him they might have said “Good morning.”

“That's just it. Not a thing,” was the reply of the man he had addressed; and his three companions laughed, as did the others in the vaulted cellar. The casemates echoed.

“Is your father upstairs yet?” asked the same man, a foreman of the wire-drawers.

“I don't know,” Hans answered. “Do you want to see him?” The man admitted that they were on their way to the boss. “Come on. Let's get going,” he said, turning to the other three in whom Hans recognized the foremen of the metal-casters. And to the others, standing idly around in their work clothes in the cellar, which was artificially lighted despite the fact that it was a sunny day, he added: “Now, fellows, watch out! Don't stir till we get back. And don't listen to anyone. Not even to the young master here!” With that the four men went on up the stairs.

Hans lingered irresolutely in the subterranean workshops. He felt that the workers' eyes were on his face, and he was ashamed of blushing. His position seemed to him so ridiculous that, because of his inner dread of derision, he made himself ask, “You gentlemen apparently are in a bad humor?” It sounded arrogant.

No one answered him.

He sensed that he must assert himself. “I spoke to you,” he said sharply.

“We have nothing to say to you,” came the retort. Hans noticed that it was made by Bochner, a metal-caster, but he acted as though he did not know who spoke. With the same presence of mind which his mother could produce in critical moments he said, in the silence which had fallen: “That is too bad. I don't know what you have on your minds, but it might not have been a bad idea on your art to take me into your confidence.” Whereupon he went back to his ground-floor cubbyhole, on either side of which the turners and the cabinet-makers were busily at work.

 

His grandfather Stein used to introduce his lecture on the philosophy of law with these words: “The fate of the world may ever and again be determined according to whether some individual or other at a given moment has dined, digested, or slept well or badly.” At this moment it was determined by the fact that the apprentice and heir of the C. Alt Piano-maker Firm felt himself to be despised. His being looked upon as a fifth wheel to the coach had been carried too far. This was rather illogical, however; for he did not have any exaggerated opinion of himself. He settled down to adding up the number of grand pianos and concert grands which had been exported to Belgium in February. Then the sound of voices suddenly struck his ears with such force that he gave up his figuring. He knew his father's flaring temper. After a while he went upstairs to the first floor.

It was on the first floor, where Great-grandfather Christopher's own apartments had been, that the offices of the firm were situated. Until recently Papa had had his private office next to the salesroom on the ground floor, immediately beyond the glass door, and this was where Great-grandfather and Grandfather Alt had sat until their deaths. The chief clerk, Mr. Foedermayer, however, had convinced that this was no longer a suitable place for the head of such an important enterprise. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry should not be able to step from the street right into the sanctum of a purveyor to the Imperial and Royal Court.

When Hans entered his father was sitting at his desk. Mr. Foedermayer, with his face even more drawn than usual, stood beside him, and the four workmen faced them. Papa was saying to Czerny, “Anyone who does not like it here can go. I'm not obliging any one to stay. That is my final word!” To his son he said with equal violence, “What do you want here?”

“I thought,” Hans began shyly, and wanted to add, “that I might be of help to you.” If Franz had let him finish his sentence Professor Stein's theory about the trivial causes precipitating world events would have had one less confirmation. But in his present state of indignation the head of the firm imagined that his ever-recalcitrant son was against him and intended to take up the cudgels for the opposing side. If for no other reason he must make an example of him. The boy should see what authority was.

“You can think less and work more!” he yelled at him. “That goes for you too, you men! And now clear out—the whole lot of you!”

The foreman Czerny said to Hans, “Thank you, sir. That was very decent of you. But we'll be able to settle with your father without your help.” And the four of them went on out.

“What are you still standing there for?” Papa roared. And with that the spark of understanding, kindled in Hans by his sense of being scorned by the workers earlier and by Fritz's influence over him, was promptly smothered. His only reaction to this yelling at one another, and the implication that the louder voice carried the better argument, was opposition. Without a word he left the room.

Meanwhile the turners and cabinet-makers had laid down their tools. From his nook, to which he had returned, Hans heard them all go down together to the cellar. Then for a while silence reigned. Fritz's saying, that of two people who disagree both are right, did not apply to Papa's case, thought Hans. Papa was always wrong. Even if he were to say that twice two is four it would not be so.

Then he heard a loud voice from below which he took to be that of Czerny, the foreman: “ … lacking in all understanding and appreciation for other classes or other people … rigid … unbending … sticks to the letter of the contract when the basis for it has completely changed with the passing of time … He says he is our friend. No one who distrusts you is your friend. He is our enemy, and so are all of his kind.” And constantly interlarded was the expression “Comrades!”

This man was saying almost word for word what Hans was thinking. No one who distrusts you is your friend. No one who lacks not only the power but also the will to understand you. He hurried down into the cellar. There stood Czerny, on a platform improvised out of two wooden cases, haranguing away with large gestures. When Hans appeared they ostentatiously made way for him.

“In the presence of the future owner of the factory, who has more social consciousness than his father, I call on you to vote on our motion,” said the speaker, and as they were crying, “Hooray for Alt Junior,” Hans said:

“I want to tell you that I feel exactly as you do.”

“Hear! Hear!” called Bochner, the metal-caster.

“I hope you won't think that I came here to seek your applause,” Hans went on, instinctively uncomfortable at being in the foreground. “I came because I feel that I have to do what I can to convince my father that you are right.” He was on the point of saying that his father was a person who meant well but from whom you could get nothing by force, when the police appeared at the entrances to the cellar shops. “No one move!” came the order.

One man yelled, “Shame!” Then every voice took up the cry, “Shame!” Had there been but one man among them all—the police put the count at ninety-two—who might have been willing to go back to work, the fact that the police had been called in now made them all irreconcilable.

The police officer in charge, a lieutenant, acted as though he were preparing an army roll call, and began to take down Christian and surnames, dates of birth, religion, and home addresses.

But before he had finished with the first one Czerny, the foreman, asked, “Just what are you doing here? We were quietly discussing a weekly pay increase of fifty hellers. We had a perfect right to do that.”

“We were informed that you were planning a strike,” replied the police lieutenant.

“We have a perfect right to do that too,” declared Czerny.

“No,” answered the lieutenant. “That would have been a criminal extortion.”

“I'd like to see you prove that!” Czerny said. ‘‘Now in the textile strike in Glasgow—”

“We're not in Britain,” the lieutenant cut him short. “According to our criminal code, a strike is a crime of extortion, and inciting to strike is inciting to a crime of extortion. Which of you is called Anton Czerny?”

The foreman acknowledged that that was his name. The three other foremen, also called up, acknowledged theirs. They were declared under arrest.

“And what is your name?” Hans was asked.

“He had nothing to do with it,” explained Czerny.

For the second time Hans blushed. The first time it was at the unbelievable cowardice of his father's calling the police. Now it was because of the protection offered him for nothing.

“He was making a speech when we came in,” contradicted the lieutenant. “How was it that he was making a speech if he had nothing to do with it!”

It was only now Hans learned that the whole incident was caused by a difference in wages amounting to fifty hellers a week. On the other hand, the fact was known to him that the export balance of the firm of C. Alt had shown a net profit of seventy-four thousand crowns for the last six months.

He said nothing, but went with the others. That Papa had not even put in an appearance made him most indignant of all.

As they were being escorted into the waiting green patrol wagon a shot was fired which wounded the lieutenant in the arm. Immediately afterwards Bochner, the metal-caster, was thrown into the wan with the others.

Towards three in the afternoon the workers of the metal-shops of Urban and Brévillier, Felton-Guillaume, Brand and Lhuillier, the Floridsdorf Locomotive Works, the United Machine Shops, the Wiener Neustaedter Machine Shops, left and walked four abreast down the Ring Boulevard. When they reached Schwarzenberg Square they were joined by more than a thousand workers from the Landstrasse and Ottakring districts, from the Dreher, Mautner von Markhof, and Kuffner breweries. They carried placards, inscribed by hand, with the words; “A strike is not extortion!” “Working Vienna, awake!” “Long live the Second Internationale!” and “Down with Reaction!” Before the demonstrators reached the Parliament building they were met by two squadrons of mounted police, who drove a wedge in them and forced them off into the outlying districts. One hundred and twelve participants in the demonstration were ridden down by the police, of whom ninety-five men and four women died. By evening order was restored.

 

Hans, spending the night in the Elizabeth Promenade Police Prison, knew nothing of all this. The prison was a new structure, and it still smelled of paint and plaster in the immense hall into which the new arrivals were put, but Hans preferred that odour to those of the drunks who lay on benches along the walls, sleeping off their sprees. The society of beggars, vagrants, pickpockets, and prostitutes, with whom he now found himself and in whose company he was obliged to remain until the regular morning hearing in court, was less frightening to him than it was repulsive. It was less a sense of fear, too, that possessed him than one of fresh bewilderment. That others too were in conflict with his father did not make his own conflict easier, and the fact that their conflict was vastly more important than his was something he was unwilling to admit, nor could he see any solution.