wounded on Monte Cimone, how he spent three months in hospital in Trieste and then got the gold medal for bravery. In fact he always tells the same story, and he tells it to everybody who goes to see him on whatever occasion. The old man has the merit of being able to make excellent tea and also of not having bad breath, even though he is so old — getting on for eighty-five — for there is nothing that makes me dread visiting old men so much as the smell of their breath. The old man hasn’t let himself go, even though, as I say, he’s getting on for eighty-five, and he’s not in the least unappetising. He has a housekeeper who looks after him and whom he calls Muxi — nobody knows what that stands for — and who withdraws to the kitchen when he has visitors. Every half hour or so she puts her head round the door and asks the old man if there is anything he wants. No Muxi, he always says, and when she’s closed the door again he leans forward and says, She’s as stupid as they come! It’s always the same. I have to admit that I went to see the old man at Niederkreut out of sheer desperation, simply to free myself from the absurd idea of going away, of going away to Palma moreover, which was probably altogether the absurdest idea possible in my situation. I was simply exploiting him, to be quite honest, in my dreadful situation. He just happened to be the person I needed to put me off the idea of going to Palma. When I pulled the bell I heard the housekeeper coming to open the door to me. The gentleman is here, she said. I went in. I hope I’m not disturbing you, I said on entering the old man’s room, which the housekeeper had made cosy and warm for him, and as I uttered these words I was annoyed to think that they were precisely the words which are continually being used by my sister and never fail to make me angry because they are the most hypocritical in the language. The old gentleman got up and shook hands with me. Then we both sat down. I was just going to make myself some tea, he said. He was holding a book. It’s my reading time, he said. A silly book, something about Marie-Louise. My sister sent it me, but I must say I find it very dull. What things people write, without caring one jot about the facts! What are their qualifications for writing anyway? I had no wish to engage in a conversation with the old man on this subject, but as soon as I sat down, in expectation of a cup of tea, I was aware of my travel plans receding. Life’s not all that impossible here, I said to myself, and I looked at the pictures on the wall. That’s my grandfather, who was a Field-marshal and Commander-in-Chief of the whole of the southern Adriatic front, the old man said. But you’ve heard that hundreds of times, he added as the housekeeper brought in the water and disappeared again. Wars are waged very differently today, he said, quite differently. Everything is different today. He lifted the lid of the teapot and stirred the tea. As he did this he said, Everything has turned through a hundred and eighty degrees. This is an expression he uses constantly: no sooner is one with him than he finds an occasion for saying, Everything has turned through a hundred and eighty degrees. There are only thirteen people still alive who received the gold medal for bravery from the Emperor himself. Only thirteen, just imagine! At first he had considered leaving his property to his daughter, who lived in England, he said, but then he realised that this was nonsense. Then he had thought of leaving it to the church. But the church had disappointed him, so then he wanted to leave it to the state welfare service. But the state welfare service also stinks, he now said. There isn’t a single institution I would leave anything to. Or a single person I know either. And so I decided to send for a London telephone directory. What do you think I did that for? He paused, poured a cup of tea for me and one for himself, and said, I opened it at random — at page two hundred and three, as I later discovered — and, with my eyes closed, I put the index finger of my right hand on a certain spot. When I opened my eyes I found that the tip of my finger was resting on the name Sarah Slother. I don’t care who this Sarah Slother is — her address is 128 Knightsbridge. I’m going to leave everything I have to this address, no matter who or what is concealed behind it. My dear friend, that gives me the greatest satisfaction. As a matter of fact, I’ve already settled the legal side of this curious affair. When you come to think about it carefully, we just can’t leave anything to a single person we know, he said. At least I can’t. I was quite fascinated by the old man: I’d never have believed him capable of a thing like this. But what he said was true. The rest of the afternoon and evening was occupied with the usual old men’s gossip, but it was all nothing compared with this revelation of his. But keep quiet about it, he told me; I haven’t told anybody about it. And it isn’t a joke. You’re the only person who I know will keep it to himself. It’s quite a relief to me. Anyhow, he said, you now know what’s coming to this Slother woman. My God, he added, how devious I am! And he quite clearly enjoyed his deviousness. When I went home, not only was I not deflected from my travelling plans but suddenly they no longer seemed absurd. On the contrary, I suddenly felt that I could do myself no better service than to leave as quickly as possible — for Palma of course. I suddenly had the refreshing idea of catapulting myself out of my morgue at the last moment, the very last moment, and I thought to myself, However much I may curse her, my sister’s had the right idea yet again. I was suddenly quite obsessed with my travel plans. Even the old man at Niederkreut had suddenly opened my eyes, which had for so long been closed. Though I had gone to see him to be deflected from my travel plans, he had on the contrary made me half crazy about them. You’ve got to clear out of this place; you mustn’t think of ways of being diverted from your plans by every possible and impossible person in the neighbourhood. You must leave, go away, as soon as possible. My sister, my confounded sister, had once again been on the right scent. But all the same I also had the choice of going to Vienna for a while. I don’t have to stay in my sister’s apartment, I told myself. I can go to the Elisabeth or the Konig von Ungarn. But much as I thought about Vienna, I was still completely dominated by the idea of Palma. What have I got in Vienna? I asked myself, and the very act of recalling the names of all the people I knew in Vienna horrified me — with very few exceptions, and these exceptions could be ruled out either because of illness or because they had died long ago. For years I had had Paul Wittgenstein, the nephew of the philosopher, as my friend, but I’m bound to say that his death, after a long and painful illness, came at exactly the right time, when Vienna had ceased to mean anything to him. He had walked the streets of Vienna for decades, and it no longer had anything to do with him. There was nobody as clever as he was, nobody as poetic and as incorruptible in all things. Now that I’ve lost him there’s nothing more for me to lose in Vienna. I lived in Vienna for twenty years without a break. It was probably the best and most enjoyable time of my life, but it can’t be repeated: by comparison everything today is a pathetic rehash which I should be ashamed to be involved in. Vienna has become a proletarian city through and through, for which no decent person can have anything but scorn and derision and the profoundest contempt. Whatever was once great or simply remarkable about it, compared with the rest of the world, has long been dead. The scene today is dominated by baseness and stupidity and by the charlatanry which makes common cause with them. My Vienna has been totally ruined by tasteless, money-grubbing politicians and become unrecognizable. There are still some days when one gets a breath of the old air, but not for long; then once more everything is engulfed by the scum that has taken over the city in recent years. In Vienna today art is nothing but a sickening farce, music a worn-out barrel organ, and literature a nightmare. I won’t speak of philosophy, for even I can’t find words to describe it, and I’m not one of the least imaginative people. For a long time I used to think of Vienna as