3. Hans Becomes a Bread Merchant

One day, Breuer was sitting in his laboratory when he was told that a young man was waiting for him, “decently dressed, like from the city.” The professor winced. He did not like to be disturbed in his work. And then there’s the city costume of an unknown visitor.

“Tell me I’m not at home,” he replied to Karl, his servant.

“I told him. The young man replied that he would wait until you returned.”

“Tell him, then, that I won’t be back today,” Breuer replied irritably and plunged into his studies.

The next morning, Karl reported that yesterday’s visitor had come back and again asked to be received. And the servant held out a business card.

The professor, seeing that he could not get rid of the importunate visitor, sighed and stepped out into the sitting room. A clean-shaven young man with large round glasses on his nose, dressed with exaggerated elegance, rose to meet him.

“Forgive me, dear professor,” the visitor spoke quickly, “that I violated your privacy …”

“I am very busy and can give you no more than five minutes,” the professor replied dryly.

“I won’t keep you. I am a correspondent for a Berlin newspaper …” the young man named one of the major newspapers. The professor grunted in displeasure when he learned that he was dealing with a correspondent. “The editors instructed me to talk with you about your greatest invention …”

“What invention?” Breuer was concerned.

“The invention of ‘eternal bread’, of course. After all, this opens up such grandiose prospects …”

“What ‘eternal bread’?” shouted the professor, turning purple all over. “Where did you get this info? All this is nonsense, idle chatter. I did not invent any ‘eternal bread’.”

The young man listened to this heated speech with a smile, which irritated the professor even more.

“Dear professor,” he replied, “we would not dare to invade the secrets of your work if chance had not revealed them to us. We stumbled onto this.”

“What chance?” the professor asked, feeling that his secret had indeed been divulged.