Arriving in Vienna … gaiety and music … Christopher takes it all in wide-eyed. The dialogue is part of the set change.
CHRISTOPHER Is the city always like this, Mr Weinberl? All this gay panoply …
WEINBERL (slightly puzzled) Well … more or less …
CHRISTOPHER (enthusiastically) Bands playing—streets full of colourful costumes—it’s like a great parade …
WEINBERL (thoughtfully) Yes …
CHRISTOPHER What would old Zangler think if he saw us now?
WEINBERL Oh yes … (The penny drops.) Parade?!
CHRISTOPHER Parade!
The parade is going right by them.
WEINBERL My God, suppose Zangler happens to—There he is!—get down …
Weinberl and Christopher obviously see Zangler approaching. The parade music suddenly incorporates the massed spurs of the Grocers’ Company. Christopher dismounts and he and Weinberl exit under cover of Lightning.
Annagasse exterior—Madame Knorr’s Fashion House.
Distant parade. Christopher and Weinberl enter running. They come to a breathless halt outside the windows which flank the entrance door of the fashion house. Windows above.
CHRISTOPHER Well, we nearly had an adventure.
WEINBERL Yes that would have been our final fling if Zangler had caught sight of us.
CHRISTOPHER On the other hand we don’t want to end up flingless …
WEINBERL Dishonoured and unflung …
CHRISTOPHER You’re not downhearted, are you?
WEINBERL I don’t know. I’ve been getting a sharp stabbing pain just here.
CHRISTOPHER You’ve got the stitch.
WEINBERL I don’t think so. It only happens when I see an open grocer’s shop. It’ll be just my luck if I’ve got Weinberl’s Disease.
CHRISTOPHER It would certainly be a coincidence. Still, it sounds like the sort of thing people come to Vienna for from all over the world, so to get it while you’re here on a rare visit smacks of outrageous good fortune. I’m trying to make you look on the bright side.
WEINBERL Christopher.
CHRISTOPHER Yes, Mr Weinberl?
WEINBERL Embrace me. What happened to Lightning?
CHRISTOPHER She always turns up.
WEINBERL What will we do if she’s gone?
CHRISTOPHER We’ll bolt the stable door.
WEINBERL And keep mum.
CHRISTOPHER If only she could see me now … Well, where’s the razzle?
WEINBERL There’s plenty of time. There’s probably an adventure laying in wait for us at this very spot.
PHILIPPINE seen moving about inside, putting the lights on. The light illuminates, for the first time, the words ‘Knorr’s Fashion House.’
WEINBERL For all we know we have made an appointment with destiny.
CHRISTOPHER Nothing is going to happen to us in a pokey little cul-de-sac like this.
WEINBERL The parade must be over. Let’s go.
CHRISTOPHER We might run into the boss.
WEINBERL No, no—he’s got the whole of Vienna to choose from, there’s absolutely no reason why …
Distant footfalls and jingle of spurs approach. The little street echoes with the sound.
WEINBERL It’s Nemesis!
CHRISTOPHER Well, he’s got Zangler with him!
They run in opposite directions, then change their minds, then rush through the doorway into the shop. Their faces appear in the windows, one in each, watching the street cautiously as Zangler comes into view. (In the original production Zangler was accompanied by the ‘little sextet’ which serenaded the windows until summarily dismissed by Zangler after Melchior’s arrival.) To their consternation Zangler walks straight to the shop. The faces disappear. As Zangler turns the door handle, two voluminously swathed tartan mannequins leap into the windows, one in each. At the same moment Melchior runs in from the side while Zangler is in the doorway.
MELCHIOR Sir!—Oh what luck! The Classinova person—the whosit incarnate—the Don Juan is at the Imperial Gardens Café with a nice young lady like a ladylike young niece!
ZANGLER (emerging confused) Eh, what? What? Who’s this?
MELCHIOR Herr Zangler!
ZANGLER Your servant, sir—no, by God it’s mine. What are you doing here?
MELCHIOR I came to find you, your eminence.
ZANGLER I told you to go straight to the restaurant.
MELCHIOR I did but the Cassata incarnate has arrived and the tart!
ZANGLER But that’s just desserts. What about my dinner?
MELCHIOR The dinner is all arranged, but I’m on the trail of the Casserola and you must come immediately before it gets cold.
ZANGLER Tell them to put it in the oven. You seem to lack a sense of proportion. I am about to present myself to my fiancée in no uncertain terms, and I’m damned if I’m going to be harried and put off my stroke by the ridiculous self-importance of a jumped-up pastry-cook. Honestly, these fashionable eating houses, they think they’re doing you a favour by taking your money. I told you to wait for me.
MELCHIOR I was waiting for you, sir, and who should arrive by horsecab but the very same seducer I saw leave your home.
ZANGLER There you are, you see!—I should have remained true to the Black and White Chop House.
MELCHIOR He had a young woman with him.
ZANGLER Of course
