of the voluptuous splendour but possessing none of the grace of the Rue de la Paix. Furthermore, these establishments have lacked the deportmental abandon which saves their prototypes in Paris from downright banality. All of their deviltries have been muted, as if the guests suffered from a pathological fear of pleasure. Strangers we were when we entered. As strangers we take our departure.
Why do I linger thus, you ask, over these hothouse caperings? For the same reason that we are now going to inspect the Kaisergarten. Because this phase of life represents an unnatural development in the Viennese mode of pleasure, something grafted, yet something characteristic of the impressionability of the Viennese mind. The Viennese are a hybrid and imitative people. They have annexed characteristics distinctly French. In the Kaisergarten these characteristics are more evident than elsewhere. Here is a people's playground
