THE REAL VIENNA

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11411, 6 January 1923, Page 15

THE REAL VIENNA

ITS TERRIBLE PRIVATIONS. PLIGHT; OF THE WOMEN. (By MBS C, N. WILLIAMSON.) .Vienna now —ter life, her poverty, her* war profiteering, her surface pleasure, the deep anguish underneath—are like terrible and beautiful music; a .choral symphony on a vast scale embracing.not billy the Bounds of the great city, the. thoughts;..; the .heartbreakings, the hopes that arise and fall and die; ;the *gay beauty that is gone, the sad. beauty that remains. I went to Vienna last spring, after hearing from friends whose errand there had teen to buy ‘“perfectly gorgeous furs )for tuppence, my dear” that it was' “all nonsense” about the awful plight of Vienna in particular and Austria in general. I wanted to see for myself, beoaiuse I’d always had a “strong weakness” for' Austrians, and didn’t believe they had share the Germans’desire for war. I meant to stay i two ■ weeks, end stayed six, trying to study the true social condition of every dess. Of course, these social conditions, which have gradually become worse and worse with the tragic fall of the Austrian crown, are lanply the result of the partitioning of the country and the loss of great industries. 'Austria of to-day, having lost most of ter coal,her leather, her famous glass, her wonderful garnets, and mapv other things, has to struggle on as test as she can with ter salt mines, the wood of her .beautiful forests, and agriculture. But it costs so much for workers to live in these days that manufacturers can hardly pay them, and pay themselves; While as for the agriculturists, the sternest of the Allied creditor countries are not so hard as they. These of the nobles on whose lands are .prosperous farms, and the peasant farmers themselves, are also the only Austrians left who are rich. They are the war profiteers—the “schiebers” as they are contemptuously angrily named by those whose thin fleece they shear. . THE PROFITEERS. Those “schiebeire” wake some very tierce, jarring notes in the miusio of Vienna’s despair 1 Just at first, when I found myself at one of the best hotels, (paying leas than one shilling and. sixpence (in English money) for- a charming room, and ordering exquisite food (which would have run te pounds in London hotels) for two or three shillings; when I saw the pleasure parks full of some sort of people in the late"' afternoons and evenings, with music playing, I wondered if things could be aa bad as the Viennese said they were. If I hadn’t come for the purpose of finding out —if I’d been contented with tbe surface, I might have gone on wondering. As it was, I soon ceased to wonder. I knew. If you care to know tilings as they are in Vienna and don’t wish just to shut your eyes to all that’s sad, down , you plunge under the bright surface where shops still glitter and music playa. Even walking in the Prater the most beautiful spring park in the world—you realise the change from I pre-war dart,. Gone arc the lovely, j smiling ladies hi the fine carriages—|

few people smile now. |Mipms. drive in shabby teniae tnaia-g nan”; the Yi«maaa wßr>(-wr, wihn<? the. Viennese wferara earning » bring-* wage walk.- The Viennese of the upper abases are ashamed tarhow fteh- i five-year-old ofotheo-and.lurfu on the > promenade; No"lougpr is'the gram hke green plush. It'hnstlea with weedo and clover. No loopr n. tbi Fritter at night a fairyland at rpdnhow-oakun- . ed fountains .under iter "trees. :,Hm fountains jtef no more. ’ Oadjr trees are left.- Tbey arß.eUßf telloti.ful, aa all Viemiif ia huantim i ( «nmite - the tech that" wham. they can’t bo msifc- 'Halter’U BwyS would haws tisea teautafol in mgs; l *, and Vienna is the Hlwlso of cities. There ore no f sii at ingyamg Iw. tenants and hnpoateg old gates ala 1 sauntering tnchrtte moom on oteefcnot trees, ter hnfah’a army ia dim banded. There are m* aoldlean at aIL Axoept a tew tote begpwi In faded tudfonpa, unless you ocuofi m Und of. militia md .tin awSdid ftha aha keep order m the rinda There rid generals stem at rorihle to asdK, rist on then: they paring hpMng, their old wfvto to keep lwnto|WJ«te'l era. "" *— THE GREATEST TMfIBH. "Serve item right for wanting the warl*’ some may say. Bat the vSennese and Austrians of all claasss row that theydidn’tj waul the wwITTO the" day war was declared, they aaid, “Germany rained us,” and when Bgland came in, "We have last bar bast friend.” “We’re making oar .ilmirew oat of curtains now,” the girla of a family once rich told me. “When the certains are worn oat I don't" knew what we shall dol One can’t drasa'ja'Vsrpetal” These girls are among toe peril lost in Vienna, which is saying a great deal, aa we all know. And, alas, some of the wrong people know, and speculate upon the beauty of Vienna’s women. "What would you de if yon were a girl and you and your parents wero on the verge of starvation —or if yon were a young married woman and mother, whose husband could get no work? You would try fancy-work—-that exquisite fancy-work for which Vienna is famous. But then, if .you couldn’t earn a living wage with that? Why, there is one thing yon might be tempted to do, to feed those yon love, if not yoursrif. And because men of other countries who can afford to pay hear that young women of good family in Vienna are desperate enough to sell themselves, they come to the" city—t seeking. To myrihind it is one of the greatest tragedies of Vienna now. Yes, the music that Vienna plays to the world audience is terrible music. Even in one of her gay-seeming hotels (delightfully furnished, save, for such things as wear out—carpets, curtains, and dishes that will crack), yon tear the disoords, and your heart aches.