there were few single-ticket holders, so that there was not enough left to pay my travelling and hotel expenses, which had been increased by the inclusion of my agent and servant.  I consequently gave up the idea of having a third concert, and set off once more for Paris in a not very cheerful frame of mind, but with the gift of a vase of Bohemian glass from Mme. Street, Klindworth’s daughter whom I have already mentioned.  Nevertheless, my stay in Brussels, including a short trip from there to Antwerp, had served to distract my thoughts a little.  As I did not at that moment feel at all inclined to devote my precious time to looking at works of art, I contented myself in Antwerp with a cursory glance at its outward aspect, which I found less rich in antiquities than I had anticipated.  The situation of its famous citadel proved peculiarly disappointing.  In view of the first act of my Lohengrin I had presumed that this citadel, which I imagined as the ancient keep of Antwerp, would from the opposite side of the Scheldt be a prominent object to the eye.  Instead of which, nothing whatever was to be seen but a monotonous plain, with fortifications sunk into the earth.  After this, whenever I saw Lohengrin again, I could not restrain a smile at the scene-painter’s castle, perched aloft in the background on its stately mountain.

On returning to Paris at the end of March my sole anxiety was how to repair my impecunious and therefore hopeless position.  The pressure of these monetary cares seemed all the more incongruous from the fact that the notoriety of my position had made my house, where, of course, I allowed no signs of poverty to appear, exceedingly popular.  My Wednesday receptions became more brilliant than ever.  Interesting strangers sought me out, in the hope that they, too, might attain to equal fortune through knowing me.  Fraulein Ingeborg Stark, who afterwards married young Hans von Bronsart, put in an appearance among us, a vision of bewitching elegance, and played the piano, in which she was modestly assisted by Fraulein Aline Hund of Weimar.  A highly gifted young French musician, Camille Saint-Saens, also played a very agreeable part in our musical entertainments; a noteworthy addition to my other French acquaintances was made in the person of M. Frederic Villot.  He was Conservateur des Tableaux du Louvre, an exceedingly polished and cultured man, whom I met for the first time in Flaxland’s music-shop, where I did a good deal of business.  To my surprise I happened to overhear him asking about the score of Tristan, which he had ordered.  On being introduced to him I learned, in reply to my inquiry, that he already possessed the scores of my earlier operas; and when I then asked whether he thought it possible for me to make my dramatic compositions pay, as I could not understand how he, without any knowledge of the German language, could rightly appreciate the music, which was so closely allied to the sense of the poetry, he answered wittily that it was precisely