most amateurish timidity; he did not enunciate a single note of the song clearly, and nothing but astonishment at so unprecedented a performance appeared to restrain the audience from breaking out into marked disapproval.  Yet, in spite of this, Lindau, who had all sorts of explanations and excuses to offer for his short-comings, contrived to insinuate himself into my house, if not as a successful singer, at least as a sympathetic friend.  There, thanks to Minna’s partiality, he soon became an almost daily guest.  In spite of a certain inward repugnance towards him, I treated him with tolerant good-nature, not so much because of the ‘enormous connection’ he said he could influence, but because he really showed himself to be a most obliging fellow on all sorts of occasions.

But the fact that finally induced me to grant him a share in the translation of Tannhauser was his suggestion that young Roche should also participate in the work.

I had become acquainted with Roche immediately after my arrival in Paris (in the September of the previous year), and this in a somewhat remarkable and flattering way.  In order to receive my furniture on its arrival from Zurich I had to go to the Custom House, where I was referred to a pale, seedy-looking young man, who appeared full of life, however, with whom I had to settle my business.  When I wished to give him my name, he enthusiastically interrupted me with the exclamation, ’O, je connais bien Monsieur Richard Wagner, puisque j’ai son portrait suspendu au-dessus de mon piano.’  Much astonished, I asked what he knew about me, and learned that by careful study of my pianoforte arrangements he had become one of my most fervent admirers.  After he had helped me with self-sacrificing attentions to complete my tiresome business with the Custom House, I made him promise to pay me a visit.  This he did, and I was able to obtain a clearer insight into the necessitous position of the poor fellow, who, so far as I was able to judge, showed signs of possessing great poetic talent.  He further informed me that he had tried to eke out a precarious living as a violinist in the orchestras of the smaller vaudeville theatres, but that being a married man he would, for the sake of his family, much prefer a situation in some office with a fixed salary and prospects of promotion.  I soon found that he thoroughly understood my music, which, he assured me, gave him the only pleasure he had in his hard life.  As regards his power of poetical composition, I could only gather from Gasperini and other competent judges that he could, at any rate, turn out very good verse.  I had already thought of him as a translator for Tannhauser, and now that the only obstacle to his doing the work, his ignorance of the German language, was removed by Lindau’s proffered collaboration, the possibility of such an arrangement at once decided me to accept the latter’s offer.