Old Masters Read Free

degrees Celsius, which is maintained here all the year round at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, I also said to Irrsigler. Irrsigler only nodded his head. Reger is a figure highly thought of throughout the world of musical scholarship, I said to Irrsigler yesterday, only here, in his native country, no one wants to know about him, on the contrary, here in his native country, Reger, who has left all the others in his field far behind him, that whole revolting provincial incompetence, is being hated, yes, nothing less than hated in his native Austria, I said to Irrsigler. A genius like Reger is hated here, I said to Irrsigler, regardless of the fact that Irrsigler had not understood at all what I meant by saying to him that a genius like Reger was hated here, and regardless of whether it is actually correct to speak of Reger as of a genius, a scholarly genius, and indeed a human genius, Ireflected, that Reger was certainly. Genius and Austria do not go together, I said. In Austria one has to be mediocre in order to be listened to and taken seriously, one has to be a person of incompetence and of provincial mendacity, a person with an absolute small-country mentality. A genius or even an exceptional mind is sooner or later finished off here in a humiliating manner, I said to Irrsigler. Only people like Reger, whom one can count on the fingers of one hand in this dreadful country, survive this state of degradation and hatred, of oppression and disregard, of that universal anti-intellectual meanness which reigns everywhere in Austria, only people with a magnificent character and a truly acute incorruptible intelligence. Although Herr Reger has a far from unhappy relationship with the directress of this museum and although he knows this directress well, I said to Irrsigler, he would never have dreamt of asking this directress for anything concerning himself and this museum. Just as Herr Reger had decided he would inform the management, and that means the directress, of the shabby state of the settee covers in the rooms and possibly induce her to have new settee covers made, the settees were re-covered; and very tastefully too, I said to Irrsigler. I do not believe, I said to Irrsigler, that the management of the Kunsthistorisches Museum is aware that Herr Reger has been coming to the museum every other day for more than thirty years in order to sit on the settee in the Bordone Room, that I do not believe. Because that would surely have cropped up in conversation at a meeting between Reger and the directress, as far as I know, the directress is unaware of it because Herr Reger never mentioned it and because you, Herr Irrsigler, have always kept quiet about it because it has been Herr Reger's wish that you would keep quiet about the fact that for over thirty years Herr Reger has been visiting the Kunsthistorisches Museum every other day except Mondays. Discretion, that is your very strong suit, I said to Irrsigler, I reflected, while regarding Reger who was in turn regarding Tintoretto's White-Bearded Man and who, for his part, was being regarded by Irrsigler. Reger was an exceptional person and exceptional persons had to be handled carefully, I said to Irrsigler yesterday. That we, that is Reger and I, should visit the museum on two successive days is unthinkable, I said to Irrsigler yesterday, and yet I have come back today, of all days, because Reger had expressly wished me to do so, but for what reason Reger is here today I do not know, I reflected, but I should soon know it. Irrsigler, too, had been rather astonished when he saw me today, because only yesterday I had told him that it was quite out of the question that I should go to the Kunsthistorisches Museum two days running, just as until now it had been out of the question for Reger. And now we are both, Reger and myself, back today at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, where we were only yesterday. This must have confused Irrsigler, I thought. It was possible, I thought, to make a