Page - 141 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

Jewish Spaces of Retreat at the Turn of the Twentieth Century | 141 without a concrete travel destination, Lipperl only wants to leave as quickly as possible, regardless of where he may end up. He is determined to leave on the earliest train possible. Th e station staff informs him that the next train departs for Grosswardein. Until it arrives, he reads the paper to pass the time. During this spell, he notices an advertisement from an Englishman (Engländer) who is traveling in Europe. Th e latter had heard the song “To Grosswardein” (“Nach Grosswardein”), which was beloved in Austria-Hungary, and decided to go there. However, he still needed a travel companion and writes that interested parties should meet him at the train station at nine o’clock. Lipperl immediately decides to off er to accompany the Englishman. Maxi appears shortly thereafter. He is also running away from his wife. He explains that they have been married for fi ve years. His wife is angry that their marriage has remained childless and blames him for it. Always irritable, she fi ghts with him tirelessly and does not hesitate to infl ict physical harm upon him. First thing in the morning, she threw dishes at him, one of which struck his head. Maxi also read the Englishman’s notice in the newspaper and wants to travel with him to Grosswardein. When Lipperl sees him, he thinks Maxi is the sought-after Englishman, so he addresses him in English. However, Maxi only speaks Ger- man. When Lipperl asks him, “How do you do?” he hears, “Hau du Jud, du” (“Get lost, you Jew, you!”). After a while, they resolve the confusion and are both deeply disappointed. In the third scene, two new characters are introduced: Mayer Jamfrosch and his son Lebele. Both are from Grosswardein and are in Vienna for a visit. Lebele is scared of train travel and seeks excuses to avoid the journey. Soon thereafter, Teppenhuber and Rosl, the only non-Jews among the protagonists, arrive at the station. In contrast to the others, who continually intermingle Yiddish words like meshugge, ganef, treyf, and tsores in their speech, Teppenhuber’s and Rosl’s extremely limited vocabulary is made up of pure German words. In the course of the conversation, they refer to themselves as “honest farm folk,” whereas the oth- ers emphasize their Jewishness. Lebele falls in love with Rosl, who is admittedly less taken with him. Finally, Rosalia and Jentel, the wives of Lipperl and Maxi, mingle among those waiting on the platform. Th ey are also looking for the Englishman, because they have seen his newspaper announcement. Unlike their husbands, they do not seek to join him because they want to escape the fi ghting and hostility, but rather because their husbands are missing and they no longer have any reason to stay at home. It takes a while for Lipperl’s and Maxi’s wives to notice them on the platform. In the fi fth scene, a group of students comes to the train station. Among them is Fritz, who placed the notice in the paper. He explains that he was falsely taken for an Englishman because he had declared his name to be Fritz Engländer. He is also a member of a fraternity. Subsequently, the train to Grosswardein arrives, but This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.