none of the company dared to oppose her, and I intervened with some frank criticism, she usually accepted it with unreserved merriment.  To her and her husband I probably seemed a good-natured sort of fool and nothing more, for my conversation was generally in a joking strain, as I was utterly indifferent to their earnestness.  In fact, when I gave my concerts in Vienna later on, Frau Laube remarked with the most friendly air of surprise that I was quite a good conductor, contrary to what she had expected after reading some newspaper report or other.

For one thing, Laube’s practical knowledge was not without importance, as he could tell me all about the character of the chief inspectors of the Royal and Imperial Court Theatre.  It now transpired that the Imperial Councillor, von Raymond, was a most important personage, and the aged Count Lanckoronski, the Lord High Marshall, who in other respects was extremely tenacious of his authority, could not trust himself to come to any decision in matters of finance without consulting this exceedingly competent man.

Raymond himself, whom I soon got to know and regard as a model of ignorance, took fright and felt bound to withhold his consent to my performance of Tristan, mainly on account of the Vienna papers, which always ran me down and scoffed at my proposal.  Officially I was referred to the actual manager of the Opera, Herr Salvi, who had formerly been the singing-master of a lady-in-waiting to the Grand Duchess Sophia.  He was an absolutely incapable and ignorant man, who was obliged to pretend in front of me that, according to the command of the supreme authorities, nothing lay so near his heart as the furtherance of the performance of Tristan.  Accordingly he tried by perpetual expressions of zeal and goodwill to conceal the increasing spirit of doubt and hesitation with which even the staff was imbued.

I found out the state of affairs one day when a company of our singers was invited with me to the country house of a certain Herr Dumba, who was introduced to me as a most enthusiastic well-wisher.  Herr Ander had taken the score of Tristan with him, as if to show that he could not part with it for a single day.  Frau Dustmann grew very angry about it, and accused Ander of trying to impose upon me by playing the hypocrite; for he knew as well as any one else that he would never sing that part, and that the management was only awaiting a chance of preventing the performance of Tristan in some way or other, and then laying the blame on her shoulders.  Salvi tried most zealously to interfere in these extremely awkward revelations.  He recommended me to choose the tenor Walter, and as I objected on the ground of my antipathy to the man, he next referred me to certain foreign singers whom he was quite ready to approach.