lock and last through the entire night. For the
most part they are masked, and range from the low to the high, from
those where the entrance fee is but two kronen to the elaborate ones
whose demand is thirty kronen. Every night in Vienna during the season
fifty thousand people are dancing. Nor are these balls the suave and
conventional dances of less frank nations. By the mere presentation of a
flower any one may dance with any one else. In every phase of night life
in Vienna flowers play an important part. They constitute the language
of the carnival. To such an extent is this true that, though you may ask
for a dance by presenting a flower, you may not ask verbally, though
your tongue be polished and your soul ablaze with poetry. And while you
are dancing you may not talk to your partner. She is yours for that
dance--but she is yours in silence. Should you meet her the following
afternoon in the Prater or on parade in the Kaerntnerstrasse, her eyes
will look past you, for the night has gone, carrying with it its
memories and its intoxications.

It is this spirit of evanescence, this youthful buoyancy, snatched out
of the passing years, lived for a moment and then forgot, which
constitutes the genuine gaiety of Vienna. It is an unconscious gaiety,
sensed but not analysed, in the very soul of the people. It keeps the
Viennese young and makes him resent, intuitively, the invasion of other
nations to whom gaiety is artificial. That is why the dances are open to
all, why the formality of introductions would be scoffed at. Their blood
has all been tapped from the same fountain head. There are affinities
between all Viennese phagocytes. The basis of all romance is ephemeral
in its nature, and in no people in the world do we find so great an
element of transitoriness in pleasure-taking as in the Viennese.

A description of one of the masked balls would tell you the whole of
the night life in Vienna, but until you have become a part of one of
them you would not understand them. Not until you yourself had
accompanied the fair Bianca and watched her for a whole evening, could
you appreciate how these dances differ from those of other cities.
Externally they would appear the same. Photographed, they would look
like any other carnival ball. But there are things which a photographic
plate could never catch, and the spirit of merriment which runs through
these dances is one. If you care to see them, go to the Blumensaele or to
the