—a kind of ironic carnival title, but they took this bitter jest of mine at face value. Instead of traveling extensively, instead of broadening their minds by extensive travel, as they could so easily have afforded to do with all their money, they wasted all their time — whole decades of their lives — aping the upper crust and endeavoring to be aristocrats. These sedulous apes exhausted themselves in this aristocratic mania of theirs, of which they could not be cured and had no wish to be cured, I thought. They made a show of being artistic, yet remained essentially petit bourgeois, too feeble to behave like members of the true bourgeoisie, let alone its upper reaches, which they feebly affected to despise, I thought. And so they exploited to the utmost anyone who walked into their trap, I thought. But the people they exploited had no one to blame but themselves, I thought, for they were fully aware that they were being exploited and derived the greatest benefit from it. The victims of the Auersbergers’ exploitation did indeed benefit from it, just as I did for years. It would be true to say that this exploitation eventually had the same effect as a health cure: the Auersbergers’ exploitation cure finally brought me back to health, I thought. Having been thoroughly sick in both mind and body when I first met them thirty years ago, I regained my health, though not my happiness, through submitting to the Auersbergers’ exploitation cure, I thought as I sat in the wing chair. They rescued me thirty years ago, I thought, but I also rescued them — that’s the truth. Now they’re pretending that they’re giving their artistic dinner for the artists they’ve invited, whereas in reality they’re giving it for their own miserable selves. Ostensibly they’re giving it for the actor, who, being an actor from the Burgtheater, allows himself to be fêted everywhere, just as all Burgtheater actors allow themselves to be fêted everywhere and all the time in every corner of the city — ostensibly they’re giving this party for the highly successful and highly acclaimed starof The WildDuck,for Ekdal, but really they’re giving it simply for themselves — ostensibly the dinner is being given for the guests, but as always it’s being given for the hosts, I thought, sitting in the wing chair. They’ve bought masses of food, all to be cooked and dished up for their artistic guests, yet it’s actually been bought and cooked for themselves, and then they’ll call this artistic dinner of theirs a contribution to the patronage of the arts. For weeks on end they’ll tell everybody in Vienna that they gave a dinner for the actor who played Ekdal in The WildDuck,but what they won’t tell them is that he accepted their invitation only after they’d begged him for weeks, and that in order to get hold of him they’d almost torn themselves apart, as they say in Vienna. They’ll tell people that they gave a dinner, an artistic dinner, for the Burgtheater actor, as well as for a host of other artists who are not quite as distinguished as the actor, but nonetheless great artists, people who are also artists, artistic also-rans, one might say. They say they’re giving a dinner for this actor, yet in all probability he agreed to come only under duress, for there’s an element of blackmail in all their invitations, I thought, sitting in the wing chair. They owe their entire social life to blackmail, I thought: whatever social show they put on, it’s always contrived by blackmail. Even if people go to their dinner parties more or less of their own free will, I thought, the Auersbergers still put them under a certain degree of duress. They’d much rather be entertaining aristocrats at their dinner table in the Gentzgasse, or at least people they take to be aristocrats, instead of the people who are here this evening, I thought, sitting in the wing chair. They’d rather be entertaining some seedy prince or degenerate count and his hangers-on than these artistic folk, of whom they’ve always had a horror; for they’ve never really been keen on anything artistic: they’ve only ever put on a show of being artistic, I thought, just as they’re putting on this supper party as an artistic dinner, as a kind of show in other words. They’re probably thinking that even if they don’t have a prince or a count at their dinner table, they do at least have an actor from the Burgtheater,I thought, sitting in the wing chair, at the very moment when the actor arrived. People always refer to this man as a Burgtheater actor,because he has been playing at the Burgtheater for the last thirty or forty years. At dinner I was placed opposite Jeannie Billroth, the person I had found so revolting that afternoon at Kilb. They had all taken their places in the dining room before I was asked to the table — I was summoned so late, in fact, that I could only assume that they had forgotten about me, as they probably had. I had actually dozed off for a few moments in the wing chair, out of exhaustion, and woke up only when I was called to the dining room, that exquisite Empire monstrosity of theirs. Auersberger’s wife came into the anteroom to summon me to dinner. She must have spent some time trying to rouse me, for when I first heard her call my name I was at once aware that she must have called it several times already. She was about to shake my shoulder to wake me, but I forestalled her and pushed her hand away, perhaps a little roughly. In the semidarkness of the anteroom I could not see the expression on her face, but I think I must have offended her by my somewhat abrupt reaction. However, I immediately got up and followed her into the dining room, where, as I have said, they had all taken their places, with the Burgtheater actor in the place of honor. I now realized that I had slept through his entrance. I had not heard him come in, and since he would have had to walk right in front of me to reach the dining room and I had not heard him, I realized that I must have been asleep, presumably for several minutes, possibly even for half an hour or longer. When I took my place at the table I was still somewhat dazed. I watched the cook bring in the soup — an absurd procedure at a quarter to one in the morning, I thought. They all ate hurriedly, listening to what the actor had to say as he spooned up his soup. It had not been a good night,he said: Notmy bestnight,as he put it. Several times the audience at the Burgtheater had shouted Speak up,speak up, no doubt because he was speaking his lines too softly. He did not know why — it sometimes happened that an actor became so completely absorbed in his art while performing on stage that he entirely forgot about the audience, whereas the audience wanted not only to see him, but to hear him and understand what he said. He eats his soup as clumsily as he acts, I thought, though my eyes were not on the actor, but on Jeannie Billroth. She, on the other hand, was watching him and apparently taking in everything he said as he hurriedly spooned up his soup, as though what he had to say were something quite extraordinary, something unique. I found myself sitting opposite the Virginia Woolf of Vienna, this creator of tasteless poetry and prose who has never done anything throughout her life, it seems to me, but wallow in her petit bourgeois kitsch. And someone like this dares to say that she has surpassed Virginia Woolf, whom I consider the greatest of all women writers and have admired for as long as I have been competent to form a literary judgment — somebody like this has the temerity to assert that in her own novels she has surpassed The Waves, Orlandoand Tothe Lighthouse. Jeannie showed herself once more in her true petit bourgeois colors when we were at Kilb, I now reflected, sitting opposite her and cursing this grotesque and distasteful artistic dinner, which was now, thanks to the Burgtheater actor, a late-night artistic supper.