Tourist

(Early 20^th century Vienna. Over the sound of a busy metropolis, a young male voice, somewhat harsh and cracked by poverty, speaks to himself)

There’s one now. Looks like he’s from out of town. Yes, indeed, that coat’s not the fashion in these parts, sir. Bound to be looking for a few souvenirs. Come on, come on, this way. Don’t look at that imbecile’s stuff on the other side. Fellow’s no idea how to paint buildings, not the faintest notion of a clean architectural line. Just a ragbag of portraits, so far as I can see – and who comes to Vienna to see the people? Only the lowest sort of gawper. This way… that’s it… that’s it. Those spectacles don’t fool me, you’re only posing as a collector. Not the type, I think, to pick me up on a couple of well-turned copies. I’m too sly for you, sir. Let me fix you once with my artist’s stare and we’ll see whose will is stronger…

[Speaking aloud]

This, sir? It’s the Opera House, sir, a very good morning to you. I have several from different angles, if you… Yes, buildings are my special study, sir… That’s the Hof, sir, from a point in the Burggarten, there’s a café there… Oils? No, I don’t care for oils, sir… Well, I dare say they do, but I see things differently… [With mounting irritation] German, sir, German. From Linz – that’s as German as anyone in Munich, I… [With icy control] Indeed. Then I wish you well on your way, sir.

[To himself, again]

Petit bourgeois ignoramus! Nothing between the ears, I know the sort. Brain and marrow rotted by their nightly escapades on the Leopold. Do I look Czech? Do I sound it, emanate it? Is my painting low, spiritless, deformed, like that wretch’s up the street? This is more my city than it’ll ever be yours, sir. You’re a transient, like a million others, while me – my destiny lies here.

[Pause; then, in sudden tones of grief]

Then why doesn’t it seize me?! Now, when I’m ready. When my sense of greatness is equal to it, when I could answer any calling. Why must I keep shuffling from place to place, in the dirt and decay, a Bettgeher? Am I being tested? So many an artist, composer, writer is. Then how long must I endure? Did I miss it, the moment? Did I fail to seize it back when I should? Harsh law, that keeps me unallotted, a sightseer here, even as it drives me to belong.

[Torn from him in anguish]

Mother! Father! Why didn’t I listen? A little more study, a year more of school, and my talent would be safely coming into the light. There’d be a roof instead of benches, doorways, or the wretched, chlorine-stained bunk. There’d be daily bread, teachers. I could talk to Gustl again, one academician to another, he with his music, me with my plans, my designs. Joint favourites of fortune! Instead, now I have to shun any chance of a meeting, lest he should be witness to my condition, unless this my… struggle… should get back to her. The beautiful, the beloved. Better to starve, to become vapour, than pollute so… pure a flame with the knowledge.

[Pause. Then, with regathered, deadly composure]

No, the rope of my fate will break before it winds that way. A great mystery remains to be solved. How it is that the true man – truly Viennese, born German – must wait at the city gate while the foreigner, the traveller, the drifter comes to be settled here. There is the question, which forms itself before my eyes, even as I gaze out onto the masses on the streets. What are these uncanny laws that keep me and my kind from laying hold of our natural right? We have claims of blood, yet they take possession, as if – unendurable! – each building on the Ring were to be replaced, one by one, by a Tartar’s domes or a Yankee’s concrete towers. Yes, Providence has placed me here, at the crater’s edge, to stare down into this pit and find out its sulphurous core. The man who observes it, studies it, observes again but never succumbs to its violations – he is the man of destiny.

[Pause as his attention comes back to his immediate surroundings]

Here’s a couple, now. They look young, foolish, too absorbed in one another to sneer at ‘cheap paints’ or ‘picture postcard views’. Yes, come this way with your idle chatter and your rich clothes – let’s see what I can make you part with. How strikingly like my Steffi she looks! That same torrent of golden hair, the same glittering eyes! This city can still rejoice in the sight of a true-born German. That fellow she’s with, though, can have no such claim. Unworthy of her, he seems – black eyes and crooked brows. I shall speak only to her, German to German, transact only with her. It will be as if he does not exist. In such ways must the great campaign begin. The seeing only of what belongs here, the unseeing of what does not.