t was the name of that little red-cheeked girl at the cafe
in the Franzjosefstrasse--that girl with the gold tooth and the silk
stockings? I'll have to look her up.

THE VIRGIN

What an artist! What a master! What a----

THE MARRIED WOMAN

Has he really suffered, or is it just intuition?

THE GREAT PIANIST

No, marriage is a waste of money. Let the other fellow marry her. (_He
approaches the closing measures of the finale._) And now for a breathing
spell and a swallow of beer. American beer! Bah! But it's better than
nothing. The Americans drink water. Cattle! Animals! _Ach, Muenchen, wie
bist du so schoen!_

(_As he concludes there is a whirlwind of applause and he is forced to
bow again and again. Finally, he is permitted to retire, and the
audience prepares to spend the short intermission in whispering,
grunting, wriggling, scraping its feet, rustling its programs and gaping
at hats. The_ SIX MUSICAL CRITICS _and_ SIX OTHER MEN, _their lips
parched and their eyes staring, gallop for the door. As_ THE GREAT
PIANIST _comes from the stage_, THE JANITOR _meets him with a large
seidel of beer. He seizes it eagerly and downs it at a gulp._)

THE JANITOR

My, but them professors can put the stuff away!

_VI.--SEEING THE WORLD_

_VI.--Seeing The World_

_The scene is the brow of the Hungerberg at Innsbruck. It is the half
hour before sunset, and the whole lovely valley of the Inn_--still wie
die Nacht, tief wie das Meer--_begins to glow with mauves and apple
greens, apricots and silvery blues. Along the peaks of the great snowy
mountains which shut it in, as if from the folly and misery of the
world, there are touches of piercing primary colours--red, yellow,
violet. Far below, hugging the winding river, lies little Innsbruck,
with its checkerboard parks and Christmas garden villas. A battalion of
Austrian soldiers, drilling in the Exerzierplatz, appears as an army of
grey ants, now barely visible. Somewhere to the left, beyond the broad
flank of the Hungerberg, the night train for Venice labours toward the
town.

It is a superbly beautiful scene, perhaps the most beautiful in all
Europe. It has colour, dignity, repose. The Alps here come down a bit
and so increase their spell. They are not the harsh precipices of
Switzerland, nor the too charming stage mountains of the Trentino, but
rotting billows of clouds and snow, the high flung waves of some titanic
but stricken ocean. Now and then com