ABSTRACT
My parents were their best friends; and they lived close by, no further than a pleasant twenty-minute walk through the vineyards and fruit orchards of a Viennese suburb that was then still a self-contained village. But Count Max Traun-Trauneck and Maria Mueller came to our home only twice a year: on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Miss Maria—as she was always called—was a leading actress at Vienna’s main theater, the “Burgtheater” (originally the theater of the Imperial court) and also one of its producers and stage managers. She deemed it her duty to be at the theater whenever there was a performance, whether she played in it or not. And Christmas Day and New Year’s Day were the only days during the season, other than Good Friday, at which there was no evening show.
