Half Brunswick went to the theatre every night of its life.  The ladies made no pretence of elaborate toilets, but contented themselves with putting two tacks into the necks of their day gowns so as to make a V-shaped opening. (With present fashions this would not be necessary.) Over this they placed one of those appalling little arrangements of imitation lace and blue or pink bows, to be seen in the shop windows of every German town, and known, I think, as Theater-Garnitures.  They then drew on a pair of dark plum-coloured gloves, and their toilet was complete.  The contrast between the handsome white-and-gold theatre and the rows of portly, dowdy matrons, each one with her ample bosom swathed in a piece of antimacassar, was very comical.  Every abonne had his own peg for hanging his coat and hat on, and this, and the fact that one’s neighbours in the stalls were invariably the same, gave quite a family atmosphere to the Brunswick theatre.

The conductor was Franz Abt the composer, and the musical standard of the operatic performances was very high indeed.  The mounting was always excellent, but going to the theatre night after night, some of the scenery became very familiar.  There was a certain Gothic hall which seemed to share the mobile facilities of Aladdin’s palace.  This hall was ubiquitous, whether the action of the piece lay in Germany, Italy, France, or England, Mary Queen of Scots sobbed in this hall; Wallenstein in Schiller’s tragedy ranted in it; Rigoletto reproved his flighty daughter in it.  It seemed curious that personages so widely different should all have selected the same firm of upholsterers to fit up their sanctums.

The Spiegelbergs had many friends in the theatrical world, and I was immensely thrilled one evening at learning that after the performance of Lohengrin, Elsa and the Knight of the Swan were coming home to supper with us.  When Elsa appeared on the balcony in the second act, and the moon most obligingly immediately appeared to light up her ethereal white draperies, I was much excited at reflecting that in two hours’ time I might be handing this lovely maiden the mustard, and it seemed hardly credible that the resplendent Lohengrin would so soon abandon his swan in favour of the homely goose that was awaiting him at the Spiegelbergs’, although the latter would enjoy the advantage of being roasted.

I was on the tip-toe of expectation until the singers arrived.  Fraulein Scheuerlein, the soprano, was fat, fair, and forty, all of them perhaps on the liberal side.  As she burst into the room, the first words I heard from the romantic Elsa, whom I had last seen sobbing over her matrimonial difficulties, were:  “Dear Frau Spiegelberg, my...” (Elsa here used a blunt dissyllable to indicate her receptacle for food) “is hanging positively crooked with hunger.  Quick!  For the love of Heaven, some bread and butter and sausage, or I shall faint;” so the first words the heroine of the evening addressed