Something contemporary! he exclaimed, something contemporary! Amusing, but profound! Set in a theatrical milieu incidentally. He played the part of a writer who had married into the aristocracy. Not necessarily first class, he said, but entertaining and not unintelligent, far from unintelligent in fact — a very English play, good entertainment value and not excessively demanding intellectually. A rather sloppy translation, he said, but I’m tidying up the text. If only we had one good writer! he suddenly exclaimed, but we haven’t any. In the whole of Germany there isn’t a single good writer, let alone in Austria — to say nothing of Switzerland. And as a result only foreign plays are put on — plays by English, French or Polish playwrights. It’s a calamity, he lamented. Not a single readable play in twenty years. Dramatic talent has died out in German-speaking Europe, he said, leaning back and blowing his cigar smoke at Auersberger, who promptly began to cough. Probably the age we live in isn’t an age for playwrights, said the actor. When a talent does emerge it soon turns out to be a non-talent. How much garbage gets rave notices in the press! he said. It’s incredible what passes for talent these days, what is regarded as dramatic art. I found myself sickened by what he was saying. You know, he went on, you’ve no idea what it’s like having to rehearse with untalented people, having to grind away with them for weeks, sometimes for months. Young people in the theater today are all so spoiled, he said; the papers are always saying that they’re so gifted, that they’re geniuses, while in reality they’ve no gift whatever, not the least talent. And their most notable characteristic is their indolence. Like the rest of today’s youth they’re thoroughly spoiled, having been brought up in the most stupid fashion, said the actor. While I was working on The Wild Duck I saw what was wrong with these young people: they will not tolerate discipline. But the actor who plays Gregers is quite outstanding, Jeannie Billroth objected at this point. To which the Burgtheater actor replied, Everybody says Gregers is good, but I don’t understand what they see in him: I find his performance just average, no more than average — a piece of positive miscasting. Jeannie Billroth was the only other guest who had actually seen the production at the Burgtheater, and the others, having started off without even knowing what The Wild Duck was and only gradually learning that it was a play, were condemned to silence. Every now and then they nodded, either looking straight at the actor or gazing down at the tablecloth, or else staring in bewilderment at the person sitting opposite; they had no chance whatever of participating in the actor’s performance, with which he was regaling them so uninhibitedly, knowing that none of them could inhibit him. Auersberger’s wife, far from inhibiting him, repeatedly urged him to go on, and it was natural that the actor, having just come from performing in The Wild Duck at the Burgtheater, should continue to expatiate on the performance and related matters. It was a wonder, he said, that The Wild Duck had been put on at all in Vienna—put on was a phrase he used repeatedly — since putting it on in Vienna was a risk. After all The Wild Duck was a modern play. He actually used the term modern to describe a play that was just a hundred years old and was still as great, after a hundred years, as it was when it was written: to call such a play modern was patent nonsense. To present The Wild Duck to the Viennese public was not just a risk, said the actor, but a considerable gamble. The Viennese simply did not respond to modern drama, as he put it — they never had responded to modern drama. They preferred to go and see classical plays, and The Wild Duck was not a classical play — it was a modern play, which might admittedly one day become a classic. Ibsen might one day join the classics, and so might Strindberg, said the actor. He had often felt that Strindberg was a greater dramatist than Ibsen. Yet at other times, he said, I’ve felt the opposite to be true — that Ibsen is superior to Strindberg and has a better prospect of becoming a classic. Sometimes I think Miss Julie will one day become a classic, and at other times I think it’ll be a play like The Wild Duck. But if we attach too much importance to Strindberg we do Ibsen an injustice, he said, just as we do Strindberg an injustice if we attach too much importance to Ibsen. Personally, he said, he loved the Nordic way of writing, the Nordic way of writing for the theater. He had always loved Edvard Munch too. I’vealways loved The Cry, he said—which of course you are all familiar with. What an extraordinary work of art! I once went to Oslo just to see The Cry, when it was still in Oslo. That doesn’t mean that I have a preference for the Scandinavian countries, he said. Whenever I was in Scandinavia I had a nostalgia for the south, or at least for Germany, he said. Stockholm — what a dreary city! To say nothing of Oslo — so enervating, so soul-destroying. And Copenhagen — enough said! Young actors are always clamoring to get to the Burgtheater, he said, and even if they have no talent they get engagements there through personal connections — through having an uncle who’s on the board of management of the Volksoper or an official of the Federal Theater Trust. If somebody has an aunt in the Ministry of Education, he’s taken on at the Burgtheater as soon as he’s qualified at the Reinhardt Seminar, said the actor, though he may not have the slightest talent. These twenty-year-olds then sit around in the rehearsal rooms, blocking the way for other people and simply making a nuisance of themselves. Semi-talents at best, said the actor, which simply atrophy in our leading theater, keeping out the genuine talents. The only advice I would give to a young person with genuine talent would be not to go to the Burgtheater, since that would be a sure path to total destruction at the very beginning of his development, said the actor, helping himself to the dessert, a rum-flavored chocolate cake covered in whipped cream, of which I ate only one mouthful, reflecting that a dessert like that was far too rich for such a late supper. But all the others ate theirs, and so did the actor from the Burgtheater, who, having eaten half of his dessert, returned to the subject of The Wild Duck. Actually I should have played in Wallenstein, and originally I was to have played in the new Calderón production, but nothing came of either, I’m now thankful to say. I myself never dreamed of such a success, such a resounding success, said the actor. To think that The Wild Duck was produced at the Burgtheater — and was a success! He had been completely bowled over, he said. In April I’m going on my annual journey to Spain, he said — Andalusia, Seville, Granada, Ronda, he said, finishing his dessert. My Spanish nostalgia, he said, his mouth still full of chocolate cake. It was almost impossible to follow what he was saying with his mouth full of chocolate cake, even when, alarmed at his own table manners, he said, I do beg your pardon! and gulped down the last mouthful. In recent years I’ve taken to visiting Spain, turning my back on Italy so to speak. Spain is still an unspoiled country — at least large parts of it are unspoiled — so sparse, he said, using his napkin to wipe not only his mouth and mustache, but the whole of his beard and his forehead. Charles V, the Prado, he said, looking around the table.