No more definite name was given to the malady on the master's return to Vienna after some six weeks' treatment at Carlsbad, and his request that he should be told 'nothing unpleasant' was scrupulously observed. He went about as before, dining more frequently, however, with his most intimate friends the Fellingers, Fabers, Millers, Conrats, Strauss' and von Hornbostels, and often accepting the offer from one and another of a seat in a box at the Burg Theater. He became very testy if asked how he was or if told that he looked better, and answered to every inquiry, 'Each day a little worse,' but continued in letters to his stepmother and other friends at a distance to keep up the fiction that he was suffering from an ordinary jaundice which only needed patience. Those who loved him, however, looked with dismay at the alteration that was taking place in his appearance. The yellow colour, which had been the first striking symptom of his condition, was changing gradually to a darker hue, the bulky figure shrinking to terrible emaciation; the firm gait was beginning to falter, the head was no longer held erect. A visit to Vienna, early in December, of Joachim and his colleagues of the Quartet gave him touching pleasure; he was with them as much as possible during the day, and generally remained with them, after attending their concerts, until late at night. He continued to take interest in important new compositions, and begged Hausmann to come to his rooms to play him Dvorák's Violoncello Concerto. He accompanied the entire work on the piano, and broke into enthusiastic admiration at the end of each movement, exclaiming after the last one, 'Had I known that such a violoncello concerto as that could be written, I would have tried to compose one myself!' He not only spent Christmas Eve with the Fellingers, but invited himself to dine with them also on December 25, 26, and 27. Frau Fellinger gave him a 'secco,' a soft, short coat, as one of her Christmas presents, and it seemed a sort of comfort to him to put it on when he was at the house, where it was kept in readiness for his use, and to sit quietly in the family sitting-rooms without need of exerting himself. After dinner on the 27th he raised his glass, saying, 'To our meeting in the New Year,' but by-and-by added, pointing downwards, 'But I shall soon be there.' He dined again on New Year's Day with the same dear friends, whose joy it was to feel that they were privileged to afford him some solace in his weakness and suffering.