2. Years of Learning and Suffering in Vienna
When my mother died, Fate had already made its decision in one respect.
During the last months of her life I had gone to Vienna to take the entrance examination for the Academy. Armed with a thick bundle of drawings I had set out, convinced I would find the examination mere child’s play. In the realschule I had been far the best draftsman in my class; since then my ability had gone on developing in quite extraordinary fashion, so that my own satisfaction led me to hope proudly and happily for the best.
There was one single fly in the ointment: my talent for painting often seemed to be exceeded by my ability as a draftsman, in almost every department of architecture particularly. And my interest in architecture kept growing. The process had been speeded up since the time when I, a boy not yet sixteen, made my first visit of a fortnight to Vienna. I went to study the art gallery of the Court Museum, but I had eyes almost solely for the museum itself. From early morning until late at night I trotted from one sight to another, but only the buildings really held my attention. I could stand for hours looking at the Opera House, and for hours admire the Parliament buildings; the whole Ringstrasse seemed to me like an enchantment out of the Thousand and One Nights.
Now I was in the beautiful city for the second time, waiting, all afire with impatience and proud confidence, for the result of my entrance examination. I was so sure of success that my rejection struck me like a bolt from the blue. And yet so it was. When I went to call on the head of the Academy, and asked the reasons why I had not been admitted to the School of Painting, he assured me that my drawing showed unmistakably my inaptitude for
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