ersed in the small talk of their craft. Thus it goes.
In all the leading cafes--the Habsburg, Landtmann, Mokesch, Gartenbau,
Siller, Prueckl--the tables are filled, and the coffee drinking, the
_baunzerln_ eating and the gossiping go on till opera time.

The theatre in Vienna is a part of the life. It is not indulged in as a
mere amusement or diversion, like shooting the chutes or going to
church. It is an evening's obligation. This accounts for the large
number of Vienna theatres and for their architectural beauty. But do not
think that when you have attended a dozen such places as the
Hofoperntheatre, the Hofburgtheatre, the Deutsches Volkstheatre and the
Carltheatre you have sensed the entire theatrical appeal of Vienna. Far
from it. No city in the world is punctuated with so large a number of
semi-private intimate theatres and cabarets as Vienna--theatres with a
seating capacity of forty or fifty. You may know the Kleine Buehne and
the Max und Moritz and the Hoelle, but there are fifty others, and every
night finds them crowded.

Theatregoing is occasionally varied with lesser and more primitive
pastimes. Go out on the crooked Sieveringerstrasse and behold the
multitudes waxing mellow over the sweet red _heuriger_. Go to the
Volksgarten-Cafe Restaurant any summer night after seven, pay sixty
heller, and see the crowds gathered to hear the military band concerts;
or seek the halls in winter and join the audiences who come to wallow in
the florid polyphonies of the _Wiener Tonkuenstler Orchester_. Sundays
and holiday nights go to Grinsing and Nussdorf and watch the people at
play. Make the rounds of the wine houses--the Rathaus Keller, the
Nieder-Oesterreichisches Winzerhaus, the Tommasoni--and behold the
spooning and the rough joking.

All this is part of the night life of Vienna. But it is not the life in
which Bianca participates. Therefore we cannot tarry in the wine houses
or at the concerts. Instead let us attend the opera. We go early before
the sun has set. The curtain rises at six-thirty to permit of our
leaving by half past ten, for there is much to do before morning. After
the performance--dinner! The Viennese are adepts in the gustatory art.
Their meals have the heft of German victualty combined with the
delicacies and imaginative qualities of French cooking. An ideal and
seductive combination! A rich and toothsome blending!... Bianca touches
my arm and says we must make haste. This evening I am to be ho