This page needs to be proofread.

and other celebrities. At one of these performances I saw her bewitching two men—one a composer, the other a writer—whose names lead the artistic activities of Southern Europe. But Bianca is prodigal with her charms, and before the final curtain was dropped she had shed her fascinations on every patron in the theatre. And I, whose thirty kronen had passed her by the satin-pantalooned and lace-bosomed doorkeeper, was quite forgot. But such is Viennese etiquette. An escort may pay the _fiacre_ charge and the entrance fee, but such a meagre, vulgar claim does not suffice to obtain a lady's entire attention for the evening. Such selfishness is not understood by the Viennese.

The real business of the evening came later. The coffee drinking, the theatre and the dining had been so many preliminaries for that form of amusement which forms the basis of all Viennese night life—dancing. The Viennese dance more than any people