Discontent was rampant among the gay young things of Vienna. Instinctively they felt in their subconscious minds that the lofty and exalted policy of the government was, to an appreciable extent, carried out at their expense. During the last half century it had become a tradition that the pretty young girl of the Viennese middle class should have a Jewish sweetheart. Let the father be an enthusiastic Christian-Socialist, let the brother be just as enthusiastic a German nationalist--Poldi or Fini, Mitzi or Grete “went” with a Jew, who might be a salesman or a bank clerk, a business man or a student. Those of their friends who had no Jews would often taunt and jeer at them--but always were they envied. For to have a Jew as one’s lover meant to be taken to the theatre and to nice cafés, to be well treated and to receive generous gifts. As for marriage with a Jew--that was considered the grand prize, a guarantee of comfort, fur coats, and pretty clothes. If one asked Poldi or Tini why she preferred a Jewish sweetheart, the answer was always the same. “A Jew’s always liberal, and when he marries a Christian girl he’s her slave. Besides, they don’t get drunk. I used to go with a Christian before, and on Sundays I was always scared to death that he’d get drunk and start a row. Now that I’ve got a Jewish friend we always go to nice places, he drinks hardly anything, he’s smart, always has a lot of things to talk about, and never gets rough.” But when the sweet young things were gathered together privately, in an intimate group, and began to tell one another their erotic experiences and exploits, then they spoke of the sensuousness of the Jews and of the manifoldness of their erotic inclinations as contrasted with their Aryan friends--good Christians and splendid fellows, but far less entertaining.... It is possible, and even probable, that one cause for the profound and fanatic anti-Semitism among the male inhabitants of Vienna during the last few decades was the fact that the youth with the _Hakenkreuz_ could not stomach the sight of his Jewish rivals snatching away all the pretty girls. Now all this had been changed; no longer was it necessary to compete with the Jews, and the Viennese girl was wholly dependent on her fellow-Aryans. But comparison and reminiscence could be neither prevented nor prohibited.