Looking For Work

Being Some Adventures and Reflections of a Slightly Cosmopolitan Young Lady

MADDY VEGTEL

EDITOR'S NOTE: Maddy Vegtel, the author of this article is a wiiter new to Vanity Fair— and, incidentally one of its youngest contributors. She was born, in the Hague, in 1901, and at the age of twenty, had already achieved considerable reputation as a caricaturist in Holland. In 1922, Miss Vegtel went to Munich and began to contribute to the European magazines, especially the Dutch, such as De Hofstad, Elsevier, de Kronik, Handels, and thet Vaderland. Then she lived successively in Munich, Vienna and Budapest. She was married and came to America in the autumn of 1925.

I HAVE been looking for work ... for three days now. . . . Four days ago I arrived in Vienna . . . from Rome . . . Rome-VeniceVienna ... A through trip . . . with a Cook's international travelling ticket ... By myself . . . just as I had left five weeks ago.

In Rome ... in the Hotel de Russie . . . in a small room . . . with "a splendid view overlooking the Pincio" . . . Papa died.

We buried him together . . . Monsieur Begaud, the fat lawyer and I . . . Monsieur Begaud put a wreath of white roses on the grave . . . and I branches of mimosa . . . The sky was so blue and the sun so bright-gold and the cypresses so very, very black that for a moment I forgot it was Papa we were burying there.

A week later the fat lawyer told me . . . with a je-le-regrette-infniment air . . . that there would be no estate and no money.

We were sitting in the lounge of the Hotel de Russie when he told me ... It was past six o'clock . . . and we had had our tea and toast ... we sat next to each other . . . and for a specific purpose ... to talk business ... I was watching two American girls who sat playing cards amidst a chaos of empty tables . . . they were already dressed for dinner ... in decollete gowns.

Opposite them a young Italian officer was standing . . . glimpsing a newspaper . . . he was a fine-looking young officer . . . but really no finer looking than the others that were to be seen every day, at sunset, strolling in the Villa Borghese ... or in the Piazza di Sfagna.

Suddenly the lawyer broke into my thoughts . . . "Have you any plans for the future?" ... "1 will go back to Vienna" . . . "Have you any relatives there?" ... I shook my "head . . . "No relatives?" . . . "None" . . . He sighed when I said that.

I knew something was troubling him . . . for he got very red in the face . . . and then he asked me: "Money. Have you money?" . . . "Yes," I said, "a hundred and sixty-one liras . . . one million kronen," . . . "Is that all you have?" . . . "Ten gold marks . . . Yes, that's all."

"And you arc going back to Vienna?" . . . "Of course, I can't prevent you . . . but

Two days later he put me into the express train . . . with a bouquet of violettes de Panne . . . and a handful of yellow Narcissus . . . with Alfhonse XIII Demasque . . . with Vogue, Reigen and the Mercure de France . . . with a box of bon-bons ... a box of cigarettes . . . and a bottle of cognac . . .

He kissed me on both cheeks . . . very tenderly . . . squeezed my arm . . . then he flattened his nose against the window ... to ask once more if really I was comfortable . . . such a dear, dear lawyer . . .

I have been looking for work . . . for

three days now . . . the first day Jack was here . . . Jack . . . two o'clock ... a Sunday afternoon . . . February . . . the eighth . . . Sitting together in a large room . . . the curtains drawn ... an electric light burning . . . the curtains of red velvet . . . and the tablecloth also . . . and the cushions on the sofa ... on which I am sitting . . . Jack . . . sitting on the edge . . .

I am always small, dark and pale . . . this afternoon I am smaller,'paler and darker than ever. Idealized, I am Lady-Hamilton-painted by-Reynolds . . . actually I am—God knows why—exceedingly unlike her.

Jack says . . . "I'm taking the 3:45 train to Budapest." I am surprised . . . but for a week I have known it . . . that on Sunday, the eighth of February, Jack would take the 3:45 train to Budapest ... I move a little nearer to him . . . put my hand on his shoulder . . . "Can't you take the nighttrain?" . . .

I am thinking of the times we dined together . . . thinking of Hopfner's . . . our small table to the right . . . oeufs a la Rossini . . . the Tziganes playing Traviata's VAmore! PA?nore! . . . Jack takes my hands ... I lean a trifle towards him . . . our knees touch . . . "Jack!" . . . No, he can't take the night-train ... I lean back . . . open my bag ... powder my nose . . . For a moment I am intensely preoccupied . . . Jack asks me: "Why don't you come tomorrow . . . or the day after" . . . "I go to Budapest . . . what for?" ... I close my bag . . . fold my hands . . . look at him . . . "Well, why not?" he asks ... I shrug my shoulders.

THE situation irritates me . . . the situation which has been described thousands and thousands of times in words . . . sweet . . . subtle . . . passionate . . . crude . . . phantastic . . . the parting of two lovers . . . who have ceased to love . . . Suddenly I get up from the table . . . wrap my coat around me . . . "Goodbye" ... I feel myself ridiculous ... in any case I would think myself so . . . "Goodbye," I say again . . . Jack stands in front of me ... his face absolutely without expression ... I wonder what he is thinking ... he says nothing . . . but starts to give me his hand . . . "Oh!" I say, "you may kiss me if you like" . . . we kiss . . . he opens a door ... I am standing in a corridor . . . The elevator ... is it to the right ... or the left? ... I must ask a waiter . . . "Claire!" . . . Jack's voice . . . I wait . . . "Yes" I answer . . . He comes towards me . . . "You forgot them . . . your flowers" . . . He gives me my bouquet of violettes de Panne . . . and the yellow Narcissus . . . yesterday . . . the lawyer . . . And for a reason . . . indefinable ... I blush.

Now I am in Vienna ... in a small hotel . . . in a "small-room-with-central-heating" . . . everything is painted bright yellow . . . and bright green . . . when I arrived the walls were bare but above my bed I have hung a coloured print . . . Vue de St. Croix a Amsterdam ... I have only one photograph here . . . from all I own ... a young man taken . . . It must be fifteen years ago . . . I don't know him ... he is the cousin of somebody . . . and the son of somebody else . . . for me he is: Lc Prince Lointain . . .

ON my casement ... a hyacinth ... a white one ... in blossom ... it blossoms and docs not move . . . and smells sweet . . . Rose was in my room a moment ago .... Rose came to bring me cigarettes . . . Rose lives next door . . . Ttir 24 . . . next to her live Marie and Hermann . . . next to them Dr. Blair . . . they are Americans ... in their rooms are improvised book-shelves . . . Freud, Jung, Adler ... on top . . . underneath ... on the shelves . . . Rose sits down on my bed ... we smoke and dangle our legs . . . she says: "It's like being back in college ... all on the same floor . . . And then she says, looking important, "You know, this hotel is getting a good reputation because of us" . . . "Why?" . . . "Oh, well, you know it's on the police department list" . . . "Is it?," I ask, and start humming:

Ich zeeiss auf der Wieden,

Ein kleines Hotel . . .

Rose tells me: "Tonight I am going to WagnerJauregg's lecture. I have a child under observation, a new psycho-analytical case—a child that ..." But I do not care. I am not interested in Rose . . . or in the child . . . or in Wagner-Jauregg ... I get up . . . look out of the window . . . the sky is grey . . . of that same delicate greyness as on the day . . . the day that Jack and I were at Schonbrunn together . . . with autumn hovering over us . . . How long ago was that?

. . . 13487 years . . . Why no! . . . It was October . . . last October ... I want to cry out . . . Jack . . . Jack . . . Jack . . . But I don't want Jack ... I want Jack's love . . . I almost forgot ... I am looking for work . . . the 62 page Sunday edition of the Vienna Tagblatt is lying next to my pillow . . .

I have written a letter . . . To Herr Bela Pick, Merchant, Nagv-Kaniza, Hungary . . . I saw his advertisement:

KINDERFRAULEIN ERWUNSCHT!

Suche zu ineir.en drei und fiinfjahrigen Kindern, Kinderfraulein, das auch im Haushalt mithilft. Mit Franzosisch bevorzugt.

. . . A governess to two children ... to help with the housework . . . speaking French ... at Nagv-Kaniza . . . What a strange name for a town . . . where is it? ... In the country: . . . Surely Herr Bela Pick lives in the country ... I see myself racing over the plain—over the Puszta . . . one hand on the three year old child . . . the other on the five year old . . . Herr Pick? . . . Does he live on the fifth floor perhaps? . . . third-door-to-the-right in an apartment house . . . Midnight . . . creeping to my room . . . tired out after the week's washing is finished ... an attic room! . . . mice gnawing at my door ... Is Herr Pick married? ... his wife ... a hopeless invalid . . . with bloodless hands and a hollow voice ... As I stand beside her deathbed she whispers: "It is to you I trust the children" . . . Pathetique . . . Or is she a woman with an evil eye . . . who gives me bread without butter . . . And Herr Pick? ... Is he like Graf Pallavicini? ... Or Baron Bethanyi? . . . Is he like them—colourless with distinction? . . . Or is he like an operetta hero with dark, flashing eyes? . . . Or Attila in red riding boots? . . . Will he talk to me superiorly —as if he were not talking to me but to dust in the air? . . . will he . . . under the table . . . squeeze my ankles between his feet ... I don't know ... I don't know anything . . . All I know is: I have written three pages here in my diary.

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I have taken a bath . . . and dressed ... I have pinned some violets on my astrakhan coat ... I go out . . . knowing that I look ugly—but interesting . . . And now the Hotel Regina . . . nine o'clock . . . there is no one there . . . Three waiters are huddled together ... as in a picture by Aubrey Beardsley ... I sit at a table . . like the tables Jack and I always sat at . . . but every table in every restaurant reminds me ... of Jack . . . The head-waiter shows me the menu ... he points . . . tomato soup ... If, at that moment, an orchestra had started playing Butterfly's lament-at-the-window, I could have had by the grace of God, a voice to move an audience to tears . . . Somebody enters ... a chair is moved ... at my table . . . why at my table when all the other tables are unoccupied ... a shadow falls across it ... I eat my meat . . . my salad . . . the shadow remains . . . it moves . . . increases in size . . . envelops the entire table . . . a voice . . . such a voice as we hear in our dreams . . . tender . . . soft . . . warmly interested inquires of me: "Surely your name ... is Cho Clio San? . . . I . . . Madame Butterfly?

I am back in my little room . . . the central heating has made the room smell of radiator paint . . . because of that I have opened both windows ... I am lying in bed ... on my back . . . , with my hands folded ... I repeat:

Jesus Christ, thou child so wise Bless mine hands and fill mine eyes And bring my soul to Paradise

A light shines . . . from Rose's room it shines on my white, motionless, blossoming hyacinth ... It shines on the letter . . . the letter to Herr Pick . . . the merchant.