The pater wants to know whether some music paper would be welcome; I ought to write a good military march, so that English soldiers could at last stop playing Austrian marches.
And both of them tell me that Bean was simply dying with anxiety for me. Bean is Violet Dicks. She hates flower names and prefers to be a vegetable. In war time evidently vegetables have a greater value than flowers, but she had already had this mad idea in peace time, from the very day when her tiny brain awoke to wisdom. And yet, she is in love with me. If she knew that I am writing the story of another girl! No, little Bean, no! Anyhow, not yet—if ever! And so I return to Vienna.
I had made a rule of going every evening to a theatre. The theatres are beautiful, and the performances generally excellent. This evening, the first day of my stay at the Karlsgasse, I went to the Burg theatre to see Macbeth. I had arranged with Mr. Doblana that we should meet at a certain café after the performance.
I found him there sitting at a large round table amongst his friends, a dozen or more, who were all actors, or artists, or belonged in some fashion to the theatrical world. One of them was an officer, but seemed nevertheless to belong to the company. They called him "Herr Graf." Doblana was sitting to his left and seemed to have kept a place next to himself for me.
I had, on my journey to Vienna, stopped in various towns in Germany, here for a few days, there for a few weeks, and had been introduced to some such companies. But while in Germany women were admitted, actresses mostly, we were only men in Vienna. This may account for the fact that the conversation was generally much more of a serious character. There was but one individual, a Hungarian, who with a loud and discordant voice told funny yarns and tried to attract the general attention. He was a theatrical agent, named Maurus Giulay, and remarkable by the quantity of black hair which grew in his nose instead of on his head, and by the amount of diamonds which adorned his coarse, greasy fingers. His stomach was rather protuberant. So was a roll of fat that protruded beyond the back of his collar. He displeased me intensely, and I took an immediate dislike to him.
Not knowing anybody present I took no part in the conversation. Besides, I was not acquainted with the subjects which were being discussed. So it happened that keeping quiet, from no choice of my own, I overheard a part of the dialogue which just was taking place between Doblana and the Herr Graf.... My host was entreating his neighbour not to take a certain matter as lightly as he did.
"After all," he said, "your share is as large as mine, so should your interest be!"
"If it is a question of money," retorted the other, "although I don't owe you anything, you know that you may count on any compensation from me for the ill-luck which has befallen you."
"I know that you are always generous," answered Doblana, "and I thank you from my heart. But it is not a question of money. Think only: the result of a full year's work, and it has been announced to the press..."
"You know that I was always against this announcement."