"I know it and deplore it. For this is the explanation of your indifference now. You had taken a prejudice against the thing. But should it therefore be lost altogether?"
"Well," said the Herr Graf haughtily, "I do not care, and I have heard enough of the whole affair."
Whereupon Mr. Doblana looked very distressed and assumed an air of an even more unspeakable sadness than that which I had noticed when I first had seen him.
At this moment a new guest arrived, evidently a popular knight of this Round Table, for they were all eager to shake hands with him. If he was not King Arthur himself, he was nevertheless something very near to this exalted personage, namely, Vienna's most celebrated actor, Alfred Bischoff.
The table was rather full, however he managed to squeeze himself between Doblana and me. As he did so, he uttered some words of apology. I had not recognized this clean shaven man with his heavy eyelids and deep drawn features, but I recollected at once his incomparable voice. If I am not much of a musician, after all, I have at least good ears, a minor detail for a composer, when you think of Beethoven.
"Mr. Bischoff," I cried, "I have just had one of the greatest experiences one can imagine: your Macbeth. How happy I am to make your acquaintance!"
He looked at me.
"You are an Englishman," he said, which made me think that if all was said my accent must be more pronounced than my vanity would have wished; yet, though vexed, I answered in a meek affirmative.
"Then," he continued, "there is no danger of your being an Anti-Semite and of your withdrawing your admiration once you have heard from Alfred Bischoff himself, that he is neither a bishop, nor even a Christian at all, but a simple Jew named Aaron Cohn."
The Herr Graf distorted his features a little.