Everywhere we received praise and were promised the speedy issuance of the privilege. As, however, the matter had to take a regular course, and it was evident that some time must elapse, we petitioned meantime for a mere license to work, which we received within a few weeks, so that I was able to begin printing without further delay.
Herr von Hartl became more friendly each day, and opened for me the most beautiful outlook on the future. My easily moved imagination interpreted his speeches as brightly as possible, and I imagined that I saw fortune and position close at hand. I worked all the harder, therefore, to fulfill his expectations; and as his chief object was printing on cotton I threw myself zealously into the study of color, as absolute permanence was needed besides beauty of printing.
During this time Herr Gleissner had left Offenbach and had returned to Munich with his children. As I was in partnership with him, and he could make himself useful in the printing of music, Herr von Hartl decided to have him come to Vienna, and his wife took it on herself to get him and arrange for an extension of his leave of absence. She found him in the saddest of circumstances. In his ignorance of such things, he had sold all the furniture in Offenbach for a mere joke of a sum. Most of this money had been used to defray his traveling expenses, and she found the family stripped of even necessaries. What was to be done? Her husband and children needed clothing that they might not make a bad impression in Vienna, her husband's debts had to be paid, and then came the traveling expenses. The money advanced by Herr von Hartl was not nearly enough for all this. She wrote to me to ask him for an additional sum of three or four hundred gulden.
This was exceedingly unpleasant for me. I should have to tell him the truth, and thus place Herr Gleissner in a bad light right in the beginning. Furthermore, he had received no too favorable a report about the domestic management of the two, either from Herr Andre's friend in Vienna or perhaps from Herr Andre himself. It was torture for me to ask him for money, especially if it was to be used for something not absolutely necessary for the business in hand, as I knew his opinions in that respect. Willingly as Herr von Hartl gave money when it was needed to achieve a useful object, so reluctant was he if he deemed that it was to be wasted. In my embarrassment I dropped a hint as to the situation to our hostess, Madame von Tannenberg. She counseled me at once not to ask, as the family would lose the respect of Herr von Hartl entirely, and offered voluntarily to advance Madame Gleissner four hundred gulden herself, if I would guarantee the payment of it in half a year. Nothing seemed more certain to me than that I could save such a sum in that time. I accepted her offer and sent the money to Munich on the same day. I would not mention this apparently trivial matter, if it were not for the fact that in the end it was the cause of the ruin of all my hopes in Vienna.
The dealers had spared no pains to oppose my franchise in the beginning, before they knew of my connection with Herr von Hartl, and while they still considered me an unimportant foreigner, who had neither friends nor influence. When they discovered the truth, their noise became clamorous, for they had to fear in earnest now that their trade would suffer, since so eminent and rich a man was associated with the new art. The more important art dealers feared it less than the smaller ones, among whom Herr Sauer and the new Industrie-Komptoir were my most active enemies. Despite this, there opened a way suddenly by which I could make peace with the art dealers and even draw considerable profit from them.
Through Herr von Hartl, I became acquainted with a skillful clavier-player, Teuber, who was also a composer, and at once showed great interest in my invention. He spoke to his acquaintances, Herr Sonnleithner and Herr Ricci. Through their intervention the art dealers asked me if I would abstain from establishing a music-printery of my own, providing they guaranteed me a sufficient amount of work. I calculated that I could print six thousand sheets of music a day with the three presses that I had planned. This, at the low price of twenty-five kreuzer per hundred impressions, would amount in all to a sum of twenty-five gulden. Also if I accepted, say, work that would average three hundred impressions, there would be needed ten stones, counting two sheets to each stone. Thus there would be a further engraving profit of ten gulden, because I received fifty kreuzer for each sheet, but paid my note-writer only twenty kreuzer. For house, color, acids, polisher's wages, etc., there must be reckoned four gulden a day. The six printers to operate the three presses would cost four gulden a day also. Now if I reckoned two gulden a day for possible accidental errors, etc., there would still remain twenty-five gulden a day profit. This meant seven thousand and five hundred gulden clear profit in the three hundred working days of a year, without the least risk.
As I considered this a satisfactory profit for one single branch of my art, I told Herr Sonnleithner that I would attempt to induce Herr von Hartl to give up the idea of establishing his own publishing house, provided that the united art dealers would guarantee me that amount of work and agree also to reimburse me if the presses were not kept busy, excepting through my own fault. Herr Sonnleithner welcomed the proposal, not doubting that the dealers would need all the work stipulated, and, indeed, declaring that the Art and Industrie-Komptoir alone might give me twice that much.
I knew that Herr von Hartl had entertained little regard for this branch of work. Therefore I thought it would delight him to find that he could not only relieve himself from further expense in this line, but gain several thousand gulden. I was mistaken. He deduced that music-printing was not so unimportant as he had imagined; and he told me to inform the dealers that I would take as much work as they offered at low prices, but that we could not make ourselves dependent on them.
As the dealers refused decidedly to give me the means with their own hands of building up a great establishment, the project fell entirely.
However, Herr von Hartl now had declared himself in favor of establishing a music-printery; and a few days later there came a highly favorable opportunity to start one at once under happy auspices, together with a complete art publishing establishment.