Chapter IV

Each morning bills were posted, giving the programmes of the music to be played in the different beer-gardens of Munich during the two o'clock dinner-hour. Numerous selections from the Wagner operas appeared in these programmes, and so we decided to leave the hotel of the _"Trois Rois Mages"_ and its commonplace table d'hôte in order to take furnished apartments and be free to choose the place for our meals according to the musical menu. Behold us then, our resolution taken, rushing from one end of the city to the other in search of the appointed restaurant, and, once there, hobnobbing with its population, whether turbulent students, or middle-class families who love to dine to the sound of fiddles.

To us, who were so unaccustomed to them, these restaurant orchestras seemed excellent, and we had great pleasure in listening to the fragments which we so rarely had the opportunity to hear at home. We were delighted to notice that the dining public always gave an especially warm reception to the selections from Wagner.

One day we went to a very distant restaurant where the overture of _"Die Meistersinger"_ was to be played. The orchestra was disposed in a most extraordinary fashion. In default of a better place they had installed it upon the outside gallery of a châlet which was in the midst of the garden, a narrow balcony where two musicians could with difficulty sit abreast, so that the whole number of the players extended from one end to the other of the façade and the double-basses were a long distance from the brass instruments. We left the table where we had dined to find seats in the enclosure so that the sounds should be less scattered, and took our places in front of the balcony facing the leader, who occupied the very centre.

Not far from us were seated three young men who had also drawn near to the musicians, and who scrutinised us secretly and persistently. One of them, a very fair blond, tall and slight, seemed to me the perfect type of the German student; he had long hair, straight as a poker, of a colour lighter than his face, and his delicate profile recalled the portraits of Schiller. One of his companions, whose golden beard and gold-rimmed eye-glasses glistened in the sun, had an expressive face which fairly radiated happiness and enthusiasm. The third was rather small, and one could hardly see his features through the disordered profusion of his brown hair, his eyebrows and his beard. A white dog stayed close by his side.

Suddenly I heard the young man with the golden beard say, in a very audible voice, as he looked at us.

"I'll wager it is they."

After the last notes of the overture of _"Die Meistersinger,"_ as we applauded with all our might, the group of strangers came nearer.

"No longer any doubt," one of them said, "since they applauded."

And the young man with the golden beard advanced without hesitation.

"I am Hans Richter--" said he as he saluted us--"and you certainly must be the friends who have just been visiting Richard Wagner. The Master wrote me to put myself at your service and to act as your guide about Munich, but he did not tell me where to find you."

Hans Richter, the chief of 'Orchestra of the Royal Theatre, who would have the honour of conducting the "_Rheingold_!"

After cordial greetings Richter presented his friends, first the heavily bearded man, then the other.

"Herr Scheffer, a Wagnerian fanatic. Herr Franz Servais, son of the celebrated Belgian violinist; he has just come from Brussels to hear the _"Rheingold"_."

So the man who had appeared to be the personification of a German student was a Belgian composer!

All seated at the same table with foaming bocks before us, we quickly became acquainted, and found each other very congenial, since we served under the same banner. It appeared that they had been searching for us all over Munich. Our passage to the hotel of the Three Kings had been traced, but we had gone from there without leaving any address, and from that point they could find no clue. Herr Scheffer had been very keen to find us before this especial day was over, and had applied to the police, but chance had forestalled them.

"We had promised," said Richter, "to conduct you to a reunion this evening, at the house of the Countess of Schleinitz. We shall all be there."

"Liszt will be there," exclaimed Servais, "he arrived in Munich yesterday, and you will also see the Countess Muchanoff."

"Liszt!"

I thought of Cosima, and her sorrow at being disapproved of by her father: I felt I would rather not see him. But my companions had already joyfully accepted, and had arranged a meeting place for the evening, at eight o'clock.