Chapter XXVIII

After having resumed our usual clothing, we went down again to the drawing-room. The Master came to meet us, and pretending not to have recognised us through our disguises, he cried:

"Heavens! where have you been? Why are you so late? We had here a troupe of wonderful comedians, who played the drollest possible piece.... How unfortunate that you missed them! You will never see anything like it again!"

As to the worthy visitors, the prime cause of this unique representation, sober, imperturbable, upright in their chairs, in their severe costumes, they sat without moving, listening intently, watching with all their eyes, but probably understanding very little.

I feel sure that they remained forever convinced that it was all from some new work of the Master--some unpublished fragment, perhaps from the _Ring of the Nibelung_!

And now again it was the farewell evening.

* * * * *

In order to soften the bitterness, Wagner took a score and went to the piano.

"To-day," said he, "let us make peace with the _Meistersinger_."

The Master believed, in spite of my efforts to convince him to the contrary, that I did not care for the _Meistersinger_. The truth is, that all I had heard of the opera was a few fragments played at the popular concerts or at the piano. All that I knew delighted me, but Wagner would not believe it.

"I do not want you to misunderstand this work," said he, as he opened the book.

And, for several hours he went through the score, playing, explaining, commenting with wonderful kindness.

The music of the _Meistersinger_ is especially difficult to render at the piano and Wagner was not a very skilful performer--Richter knew that, so he was very restless and followed the Master's playing, note by note, with the greatest anxiety. He knew it all, even the most uninteresting passages; he touched the notes that the hand of the Master was too small to include. From time to time he was carried out of himself, and struck the piano hurriedly, saving an effect which was in danger of being lost, completing a harmony, or striking a chord between the Master's hesitating fingers.

I am not sure that Wagner was not a little irritated by this infringement upon his territory. It was quite useless, moreover, for no virtuoso could have been able to render the deep meaning and secret tenderness of the work as well as its author. How grateful we were! How completely the _Meistersinger_ was absolved. On that point Wagner had no longer any doubts.