Bolero gradually brought back all the different stations in Joana’s life. I saw her alternately in the Sebastiansplatz, in Kilb, and in Maria Zaal, where she had often been a guest. She loved wearing clothes of her own design, I thought, and ancient Egyptian bracelets and Persian earrings; she had a very keen and very feminine interest in ancient African and Asiatic cultures, about which she read every book and article she could find. She would wrap herself in Indian silks and wear Afghan, Chinese and Turkish necklaces. No one else talked more about her dreams, which she tried to explore and trace back to their origins. I used to spend whole nights with her exploring her dreams. She was interested in other people’s dreams too; she made a study of them, one might say, and hence the exploration of dreams became her second art, I thought. She often described herself as a dreamwalker, leading a dreamwalking existence. I remembered how she liked to surround herself with young people—preferably very young people who can still dreamwalk,she would say, who’ve not yetbeen spoiled and corrupted by culture and education. Naturally she had a fantastic feeling for fairy stories, which were her favorite reading, and she liked reading them aloud, sometimes publicly. Dreams and fairy stories were the real stuff of her life, I thought. That was why she killed herself, because a person whose life is built on dreams and fairy stories can’t survive in this world — has no right to survive, I thought. She was a fairy-tale figure herself, and no doubt all her life she believed herself to be a figure in a fairy story — Elfriede Slukal, who in the fairy story was called Joana, I thought. I must say the Bolero was always her piece, the center of her existence. We shouldn’t be afraid of letting sentimentality take over from time to time, I thought, and I now let the Bolero take over; I let myself go, surrendering myself to the music and my feelings for Joana, until the moment when Jeannie Billroth asked the actor, who was sitting next to me but opposite Jeannie, what he thought of the fact that a new director was about to enter the house on the Ring,that the Burgtheater was going to be exposed to a new wind — a fresh wind, some thought, that would sweep out everything in the Burgtheater that was stale and dead and horrible, everything that had become revolting and disgusting and appalling over the years. What did he think of the fact that one of the best theater people was about to move into the Burgtheater, a Germangenius,a Germantheatrical genius of the first rank,the veryfirst rank,a first-classtheaterfanatic, as Jeannie put it, or rather as it had been put by others, for she was only quoting what she had heard or read in the newspapers, she said — she was not expressing her own opinion about the new man from Germany, whom she did not know, who still had to convince her, who was still an unknown quantity as far as she was concerned. A theatrical tornado, the papers had said, an elemental man of the theater such as the Burgtheater had not seen for a hundred years was about to move into the Burgtheater, if she might venture to quote what the papers had said. The Burgtheater actor, who had dozed off briefly, was startled by this sudden question. So,what do you think of this new man who’s coming to your theater? Jeannie persisted, as though she had at last found a quarry for the malice that had been lying in wait all evening and suddenly saw how to bring her quarry to bay and dispatch it. But surely you have an opinion about the new man? she said several times. At this the actor became indignant; he sat up in his chair, drew in his legs, raised his head high, and said, Good, fine, so a new man’s taking over. But that was of no interest to him, he said, it could no longer be of any interest to him. He had seen so many directors take up the post only to lose it again that this new man was of no interest to him. They come and they go, he said, they’re received with open arms and then ignominiously sent packing. It had always been like that, he said, and the new man would be no exception. All right, he said, the new man may be a genius, as you say. To this Jeannie replied that she had not said he was a genius — that was what the newspapers had said. It was not she who had said it, but the papers. Every day one read something in the papers about this genius from Germany, she went on — it was not she who had said it. The Burgtheater actor replied, Whether the papers say it or whether you say it, my dear, it’s a matter of complete indifference to me who the new man is who’s taking over. It had always been a matter of indifference to him, he said. He had outlived ten or eleven Burgtheater directors who had all vanished without trace—nobody could remember their names any longer. They’re appointed by the minister, who has no idea about the theater and is guided only by his political instinct. They work for a year and then they’re shed, said the actor, suddenly becoming heated again. The minister appoints the man he thinks will be most useful to him, naturally always for political reasons,never for artistic reasons, and no sooner has the new man signed the contract than he encounters hostility, and every effort is made to get him out as quickly as possible. Two or three productions get good notices, and then the critics start attacking and destroying the man they’ve just praised for a whole year before he signed the contract. If the newspapers say he’s a genius before he’s signed the contract and taken up his post, they’ll call him an idiot afterwards. No matter what productions he puts on, they’ll attract less and less praise, and in two or three years he’ll be no good at all, said the actor. If he stages classical plays it’ll be stupid, and if he stages modern plays it’ll be equally stupid. If he favors Austrian playwrights it’ll be wrong, and if he goes for foreign playwrights it’ll be equally wrong. If, before coming to the Burgtheater, he’s been told that his Shakespeare productions are overwhelming,altogether the bestShakespeareproductions the critics have ever seen, he’ll be told they’re a disaster as soon as he’s in his post at the Burgtheater. The kingmakers of the Burgtheater turn into regicides the moment they’ve achieved their aim and the new king is on the throne, he said. Ah, you know, he said to Jeannie Billroth, if you’re a good actor you don’t care who the theater director is. A new director loses his attraction in no time. Hardly has he been seen in the Kärntnerstrasse a few times or dined once or twice at the Sacher or the Imperial, than he’s finished. There have always been favorite actors at the Burgtheater, my dear, but there’s never been a favorite director. If you really want to know, it’s a matter of complete indifference to me who’s going to succeed our present director, he said. Suddenly everyone was listening with the greatest interest, and the actor was now not only smoking a cigar, but drinking white wine. The actors at the Burgtheater put down roots in Vienna, he said. They buy properties in Grinzing and Hietzing and Sievering and Neustift, and they live out their boring lives in their boring villas until they reach their boring old age, but the directors of the Burgtheater haven’t the slightest chance of putting down roots in this beautiful city. Woe betide any director who buys himself a house here: before he’s even moved into it he’ll be frozen out or kicked out. The story of the directors of the Burgtheater is not just a scandalous story, said the actor, it’s possibly the saddest of all Viennese stories. Vienna is an