THE CHINA MAIL, TUESDAY, MAY 24, 1955.
The gilt is back...the jeeps are gone... the girls are graceful
REUNION IN VIENNA
HE chocolate-uniformed sleeper attendant knocked on the door. "Vienna," he said.
He looked at me to see whether I had appreciated the full significance of this its whole implication of "gniety, wine, women, waltzes."
By Sefton Delmer
frontier was crowded inside and out.
my carriage, in the corridors, with travellers. They stood and in the lavatories
Every few miles the train was brought to a halt. The Austrian passengers were made to show their papers to the soldiers of the occupying Powers. First to the French, then to the Ameri-,
then to the Russians..
Clearly in his eyes I had cans, then to the British, and not. So he winked and re- peated. "Vienna, sir, we are there."
Now, to tell the honest truth, 1
..
Gleam
Everywhere there are
of their offices and shops to catch their trams for home,
i
To me they looked a remark- ably wholesome, comfortable, und well-satisfied lot of people. What delighted me were the have even replaced the famous large, new, and modem. They
They seem to have adopted the latest Italian Jeep, in which the inter-Allied police patred the city. Russians, fashions in hair style and in Americans, French, and British dress and they are wearing sitting stiffty and peacefully them with even greater grace side by side.
than the Italian girls themselves.
The Jeep was got amart "enough for the
smart new When Vienne,
cxe at the Western Fowers is in charge of the city the patrol goes out in a. bright
Chevrolet, Cream painted as though it were a gepsy caravan with the arms of
the supying Powers,
have never had much luck with How worried and apprehen- this gay Vienna stuff on mysive they all were about thore
When the Russians are in the previous visits here. Congress Red Army men. I can still hear
the nervous chatter has always had a day off from
chair the police use of relief
a green- dancing when I turn up. The which set in
when at last the coloured Russian car, the best gaiety has been either a matter
train got going again and the the Soviet Union can provide. of past glory."Ah, you should people in my carriage know that have been here when
this time at least they were safely through the Red corridor,
11 has been a matter of vague future promise."Wait until......‚'
Glitter
HOWEVER,
I immediately looked out of the sleeper window and I was staggered. There it was, a fabulous new station, "Vienna West,"
And then carme Vienna itself. A horror of bombed and broker buildings and streets.
The Viennese in the sircets looked like shabby beggars, And most of them were....
And here I
now in rebuilt, a Vienna refurbished, bigger, brighter, and more ton- All, super-modem and fune- Adent than ever it was when tional with miles of glass, steel, visited it between the two wars, concrete, and ersatz marble. Yes, the gilt has
bear put Chromium and plate glass back on Vienna, The marble sausage stands alterniated with fountains of the Graben Street chromium and plate-glass gleam with a new cont of gold. bookstalls, chromium and plate-
The gilt which had beers glass Bower shops, chromium
fram the imperial delicatessen pecting and plate glass
before the | Stores. Marvellous. Marvel- monuments" long
(British and American bombs lously Prussian.
were thought of has been
Only one thing' was lacking. restored. In all this elegance not a single luggage porter was in sight. I had to hump my bags myself.
Gay Vienna? Gay enough, I must say, for those watching
me struggle
But it is an amazing trans- formation all the samë, this stalion and the whole of this rebuilt
today Viena which awalts the new Vienna peace congress.
An amazing transformation when I from what I found arrived here for the first time. after the war not quite 10 years aga....
Dazzle
Awhat has happened to the LL this is symptomatic of
Delight
THE Viennese themselves? I sat in one of the new Espresso cafes they are at the rage just now in Vienna just as they are in London and watch ed the city workers coming out
I
י
Don't
on
AETY? Wine, women, and
waltzes?.. I went. round of the usuni gay spots. I aldn't feel it was terribly gay. suppose it is my fault. But 1
In wine bar I found the usual bright young couples do- ing Vienna-style boogle-woogle. Ratffer rheumatically, it seemed to 'me.
No one was waltzing, for no waltzes were played,
But don't, next time I visit of Vienna, start talking to me the happy, gay, and prosperous old times of the Occupation. would be more than I That could bear.
For that is just what I fear.
THE HISTORIC PARTY POWER, PELF & PRIVILEGE
Just let us but a nice
REAL majority – tmij a#!
LOATING
"IT'S NOT YOU SO MUCH,FAUNTLEROY, IT'S YOUR AWFUL GANG "
All dressed up and somewhere to go
WAS
incredibly filled clouds riding in the young then, 20, and sky. 1 rose late, saddled &
I was working on a grey mare called Mariposa whole city. Where before there
farm. that is on an and we set off on the dusty was only one skyscraper here,
Venado track. estancia, near today there are five,
After a little while Dazzlingly bright new spires Tuerto in the Argentine. It I heard a voice behind me gicam from the freshly-tiled was hard work and on Sun shouting, "Don Pedro." I" tessellated
Tools. of the days all I could think of reined in. churches, rebuilt exactly as their medieval and baroque as to do nothing, which in
A man who worked on the architects laid down
meant taking a farm rade up. my case
His name was Tram cars, new and freshly-horse and riding round the Paco, and he had come to work painted In bright red and flat countryside. cream, trundle through The It was
vila
a hot Sunday in budding
January with a few heat
The train that brought me streets hero then from the
Swiss trees + "={
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on the estarscia only a fort- night before. He came on horse- back which even in those days was already rare among 14. bourers.
11
Perfect
He had black eyes, a sillow skin and a vast black moustache in short he looked like the story- book gaucho. And on that Sun- day he was the perfect gaucho because he wore a black som brero, a black shirt and black bombachas. His belt was studded with silver. At his side dangled
DRAWING BY KOOLMAN
and it would be good to sit in their shade. A light breeze was shaking the dust.
"I will wait for her in
a knife which shone in the sun-
that light.
clump of trees. She won't see "You did dress up for the me till she arrives. Yes, I wil day," I said.
wal: there for her and you will bring her to me."
"It is a sort of holiday for me," he said, riding at my side.
I was mildly surprised by his having ridden up to me. He was
an aloof fellow, keeping to him- self and seldom talking..
Where are you going?" he asked.
"Nowhere in particular;" sald, pointing with my whip at the yellow, scorched" land.
I
"But how?" I asked
I was rather astonished and didn't fancy myself in that arid land as Cupid's messenger. If he had wanted a glass of water
ร
W
SOON YOU WILL FORGET AND THINK IT NEVER HAPPENED, HE SAID. BUT IT WAS NOT AN INCIDENT TO FORGET... ·AND IN
ANY CASE
DID IT HAPPEN?
He looked like the story-book gaucho, Àt bis side dangled a gleaming knife. "la that village," "ka said, "livaa somebody with whom i murt exchange a few words."
"Goodbye! Aren't you coming back to the estancia?"
"I can't go back," he said. "I will leave you in a few minutes, then ride north day and night, I'll go perhaps to Florida, per- You haps to the Gran Chaco. see, I came here only on An errand. It took me two years to find her." He shook his head thinking of the two years.
"Two long years. First I didn't know where she was. Some told me she was in Cordoba, some said she was down here. She had left the man with whom. she had run away, then there was another man, and it was by accident that a friend of that man told me of her whereabouts. Then she left that man, too. By then she was in Rosario.
STOW
She knew WANTEDERSPELTOE (E)..
"She was good at leaving her
very good indeed, "Are you called Esperanza?" men,
But "Women love mystery: you'll I asked.
there is justice, Don Pedro, as find that out in time; and she
"Yes," she said.
will find out when you loves rich men, though they don't know me?
"Do you you
older. I rode into that often come her way. It she asks you what I look like, say I have easy
Now I perceived that it wasn't village looking for work and to be a messenger/ I saw her. Saw her after two fair hair or red hair and am fumbled for the right words years, but she didn't see me. So very tall. Then she think I which wouldn't come. She, on went to work on the estancla am a rich foreigner."
the other hand, helped me out; to have enough money when I for the moment aware that a rich man from an Justice could be done.
she became flee north. Now I have it, so
estancia was interested in. her she was ready to go anywhere his knife. "She was my wife.
"I killed her," he said, patting.
"But doesn't she know you?" "She knows me all right, but you see we had a sort of a little tiff and so she might she guessed it's me."
pot come to meet him.
Now his eyes were on me anxious eyes and Mariposa "shook her mane and I my head because of the flies.
In a hurry BOBOTOSANIKKIE: PU
Frandy I don't very much leaning by PETER
"So you wouldn't mind going DE POLNAY
towards that village yonder?” he said.
"Not at all."
from the fountain in the village "Then we can ride together," I should have considered it he said.
more natural.
Difficult
133342
i
feel like it,” I said.
"But
He leaned forward to stroke his horse's neck. "When she saw me she knew." He leaned over and grasped my hand. "Thank "But who is he?" she asked you again, Don Pedro. Don't
over the counter. look at me like that. Don't think "What does he look like? Do of it either, Soon you'll forget Дод Pedro," Paco you work for him?”
it and you'll think it never hap exclaimed, "you can't refuse me.
pened, "1 do," I said. rich, and "has it
for me."
hair." voice, urgent yet patheti cally
pleading. seemed to have
"I like
fair men," she said nothing la common
with the making eyes at me, Paco was quiet little man sitting on a bay right; she wasn't difficult to gelding. His body was motion deal with, "When does he want Ides while he pleaded. I decided to meet me? This sounds very
interesting."
I love that woman. You must, do
"He is very masses of fair WORLD COPYRIGHT RESERVED
DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?
"I told you she is a very vain I would help him. Since I had woman," he said, "so it won't nothing to do it would be no be difficult to cajole her into waste of time. A gaucho wanted "He wants to raeet you now. going to the trees. She's been to meet the serving girl from. In fact be-is waiting in the under trees many times." He the inn; why not? brooded on that for a time. She
He didn't speak till the village hove into sight. It appeared is the serving girl in the inn at slowly rising out of the heat. He the village. Why she chose this reined in and I pulled Mariposa village she alone knows. So all
up.
you have to do is to go to the inn. In the afternoon it is
Looked older FIDAATAMEN
clump of trees.over there. "you come?"
Can
"I think so," she said, "but I won't be able to stay for long"
She came and I walked beside. "What is her name?" I asked her leading Mariposa In the "Esperanza," he said, "and harsh light she locked cider.
"In that village," he said, "Lives somebody with whom I empty, so she can absent herselt now you go to the inn. I to the She was at least thirty years old. must exchange a few words." He for a while."
took of his combrero and scratched his head. "A few words, but words of importance. I wonder if you'd help me."
"Certainty," I said.
clump of trees, and when you She had a curious gast" us. I bring her leave her before she "But what shall I say to her?" enters the shade. And don't waiting to the time of a tange in fer head. She I asked.
for me." I said I wouldn't, humming
be grateful to you all my plied me with questions, and in the end I told knew little
her of the rich man because I "That is easy, too. I thought en
was it out when the other men told He rode across the flat field quite now on the estancia.
the trees, and I rode wit is a
As we approached the trees difficult matter, but the you go roaming aimlessly the towards
countryside on Sundays. You into the village, which was in I saw they were in a hollow, everything to do with worden is will say to her there is a rich fested with chicken. The inn their afternoon shade stretched difficult. "Don't you agree?”. man on the estancia hint it was at the entrance to the out to meet us.
"He's in
dark because the Tl leave you" I salonow
closed It WES
1. agreed hastily because I is the manager who has been village, F went into a cool knew little of women.
her and has taken a great Hiking dark roun, to her and is waiting for her in shutters were The woman in that village that clump of trees, and sent you empty, doesn't know I am here. It is as his messenger because he very important that
I clapped, a
on
door opened and
be Esperanza, I said to mysel
She didn't
bother to answer me. She was too much in a
get among the trees. mounted Mariposa, and rode
of. I reached the conclusion
I asked for a bottle didn't
she doesn't want to be seen in the a woman appeared., That must shouldn't know till she meets village. me that I am here. It is too long a story to explain to you and perhaps you are too young
to understand th For the
present, af any rate." While he poke his eyes were on the village: be never looked at me. "She
is a very vain "woman, un fortunately. But that will help us at present. You see that champ of trees over there?"
I had no diffeulty in spotting the clump of trees. Those frees were the only trees for miles, They looked fresh" and green,
"A TRUE coinopoliton, PETER DE POLNAY is Hungarian by birth went to school in England, Ihed before the war in Faria, Big Ha was in France at the henta
alag of the German, occupation,
and Tonerror shout and joined the Carpe
of beer.
taller
much care for her. I She was rode slowly; atter a while tall, much than Paco, rather heard a horse Behind me ep- broad but had a proaching at a gallop. big, fine head and
green・・ eyes. - Her hair was-anburn.
She inust be. I
the counter marked.
Justice BLOKIRTEENTECESOLU
"Bere I am, Don Pedro," sald Paco, pulling the gelding up. She stood But what happened?”.
you quarrel eyeing me calmly again "Duk Here was a tace "We fidn't quarrel," he said. that wouldn't lose "But I cans after you to thank easily its repose, you and to say goodbye to you
YES
NO
- Put your tick in the space above-and keep this panel by you until todnarrow' *•» when the answer vii be gives-with- another story in this surlar by ... MICHAEL PERTWEE
'@. Did. pastorday's story-Foot- steps On The Stain, by Spencer Chapman-actually happen?. Tise. answer: NO.
POCKET CARTOON
₺, OSBERT LANCASTER-
"Of course I realise that so 'you I'm just a social butter-
fly, but honestly, Leon,
illar's not the real mai“)