Even the most beautifully brought-up Viennese children got our of hand when an Ausflug was brewing in the household. When Franz and Ferdinand put on their green baize aprons and started on an endless round of trips up to the attic and down to the cellar, when wine baskets and binoculars, fitted hampers and butterfly nets accumulated in the hallways, when Resi roasted and baked and Herra took the plaids from the camphor and beat them thoroughly and noisily in the courtyard, when Frau Baronin sent for her dirndls, then everyone—including the parents and the dogs—went completely to pieces with the delirium of the moment.
Preparations for the outing were not simply a matter of packing food and drink. An Ausftug required Lederbosen, leather breeches, and Lederbosen required lean, sunburned knees. Herr Baron had to time his last skiing trip so that has knees would still be brown for the first Ausflug. His unpretentious little Tyroler hat, apparently no different from those that covered every head in Austria, had to go back to Habig, Vienna's most renowned hatter, to be reblocked, and the hard-won Gemsbart, the little chamois-hair brush that decorated it—a trophy of the hunt—had to be adjusted. Herr Baron laid aside formalities along with his striped trousers. His native costume meant release and relaxation—also, it became him very well.
Frau Baronin might keep her sawdust-filled muslin dress form at Drecoll in Pan's, but this stratagem was a frivolity compared to the importance of filling into her dirndl. She quickly organized four “apple days” before the Ausflug, to insure the perfect fit of the skintight bodice. She abandoned her smart pompadour for the twisted braids of the simpler rustic hair Style, and she unearthed her beautiful old peasant jewelry and her white Loden shepherd's cape.
For some long-forgotten reason, which no one questioned, an Ausflug, a “flight out, ” could not be planned within normal bounds. Three or four elaborate and beautifully arranged courses suited to outdoor eating were unthinkable. The menu had to assume the proportions of a restaurant bill of fare, with several choices for each course. There had to be Vorsprisen, or first-course dishes, of fish as well as of shellfish and eggs. The main course had to include a selection of game, beef, and birds, salads, a selection of fruit, vegetables, and rice, and desserts a choice of both pastries and creams as well as the omni-present Torte. On top of all this, the fruits of the season were gathered by the children and added to the menu. Certain preparations were made to accommodate this battery of food most advantageously—little barquetts and shells were baked to hold the Walderbeeren—the wood strawberries that the children would pick—and the chilled Bowie lacked only the fresh Waldmeisfer, or woodruff, also to be supplied by the children when they arrived at the outing spot. Aspects not only of seasonal perfection but of geographical suitability affected the menu planning. If an Ausflug went to the Danube, a Litizerlorta and a light Klosterneuburger wine were essential; if it went to Baden, the occasion called for Badener Krapfen. No opportunity for including more food could be missed. The making of the menu became doubly complicated since, on an Ausflng. everyone was allowed to order his Leibspeise, his favorite dish. Frau Baronin loved cold trout, Herr Baron would start with crayfish and follow it with a rare filet of beef, interrupting his meal only to taste a little of the trout and a little of everything else. The children always insisted on mandarin oranges stuffed with pheasant mousse, less out of passion for the dish than delight in the name. They had long since conjured up a magnificently bearded old mandarin who lived exclusively on pheasant mousse, and each year they revived him and his insatiable appetite. Out of respect for Frau Baronin, everyone ate a slice of her special Linzersorte. If they had no room left for any more food, they would play a strenuous game before proceeding to the desserts.
When the preparations were well under way, Herr Baron always Said, “Also—where shall we go this year?” This was a delightful game: everyone suggested a different place, from mountainous Semmering to Krems, on the Danube. The family discussed every location in happy detail and weighed all pros and cons seriously. They could play this game quite safely since they all knew perfectly well that they would end by going to Durnstein They had gone there ever since Herr Baron, as a little boy, had discovered a marked resemblance and a deep sympathy between himself and Richard Löwenherz, the Lion-Hearred, who had lain imprisoned there in a deep dungeon, in 1193.
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