I called upon him and found him to my surprise completely businesslike. He was still ugly, and his voice loud and discordant, but he did not in his office tell any funny yarns as he used to do at the Round Table. That he was clever, there could not be the slightest doubt, for in scarcely a week's time he had induced the manager of the Brünn municipal theatre to play my opera. At the same time he also settled that Mitzi was to make her début as Lady Macbeth. Mitzi, or as she was called in the contract, Amizia Dobanelli. Four performances were mutually guaranteed—by the manager to be performed—by me to be paid for should the receipts not be sufficient.
Please, merciful reader, spare me; and do not enquire about the other points of that contract. They were so many humiliations. It would make me blush. Still it was a contract, and I confess, I would not have been able to get it by myself.
My business with Giulay had been the pretext for much intercourse, and my desire to know him better had determined me to see him more often than was strictly necessary.
One day I found an old lady in his office. Like Giulay, she wore a lot of jewellery, like Giulay she had a discordant voice. And from one particularity, namely, from the extraordinary amount of refractory black hair which grew in her nose I could make a guess at some consanguinity. As a matter of fact she was his mother, and in spite of her negative beauty seemed to be a decent sort. Giulay made a fuss about me and my opera, and the result was an invitation to come and lunch on the following Sunday with the two Hungarian people at their home in the Maroccanergasse. This street, although situated in a fashionable quarter, was far from smart, the principal reason for this being that one side was filled nearly in the whole of its length by the ugliest barracks in the whole town. So at least the negative beauty of the two Giulays was in harmony with their surroundings. Nor was the house where they lived one of the palatial buildings of which you see so very many in Vienna. It was a modest dwelling, one of those habitations where fortunes are made rather than spent. There was no marble hall, no carpet in the stairs, no electric light. Still it was very decent. In the third story of this house my hosts had their abode.
When I rang the bell, Maurus Giulay himself came to open the door. The apartment had an air of stinginess which contrasted with its jewel-bedecked inhabitants. It was all respectable and without any artistic taste, the right lodging for small people. Only one detail struck me as remarkable, namely, that the walls of the drawing-room were entirely covered with photographs. There were artists and artistes, authors and composers, some famous and most unknown. Whether there was any wall paper beneath these photos I could not say; probably there was, but it had certainly not proved sufficiently hideous.
The meal was scanty and pretended to be refined. We had about two dessert-spoonfuls of soup served in coffee cups, then a little anchovy paste on tiny pieces of toast as a hors d'œuvre, and one whiting between us three. I must say that the old lady hardly ate anything, busy as she was waiting upon us two gentlemen. Yet it looked rather funny, that solitary whiting, as did afterwards the two thrushes for three, accompanied by a little salad adorned with a hard egg, which was cut into quarters, so that there was even one too many. And then there was a little cheese, a little butter, with a little bread, and a little fruit, very little, and some coffee in mocha cups, viz.: smaller cups than those which had served for the soup.
There was also in the centre of the table a cake, rather a large cake, if you please, and to be candid, I had enjoyed the prospect of having some. I daresay I would have endured it. But none was offered, and to this day I do not know whether it was a dummy or a real one, and in the latter case whether it was one they had kept from one year to the other for such festivities, or if it was to serve for another party in the evening.
Yet, I must not get too slanderous, for there was at least one thing I enjoyed thoroughly: a Coronas cigar that Giulay offered me. It is not an expensive cigar, costing about sixpence, but I recommend it to the few Englishmen who will, after the war, visit Austria.
While I was smoking it, Mrs. Giulay apologized for her lunch and especially for her waiting upon us.
"You see," said she, "it is not at all easy to be at the same time cook, housemaid, and hostess. But I am used to having no servants. When Maurus was born, his father was a dying man. I was left very poor. I have had to struggle badly to give my boy a sound commercial education. I could not afford a servant girl during these hard times. Ten years ago he opened his agency and was at once very successful. Still for several years the utmost economy was necessary. Then the habit was formed; and I cannot get myself used to the idea of having a servant."