at Dresden, namely, my bed and a few other things to which I was accustomed, ’so that when I went to see her,’ she said, ’I should find everything in proper order.’  I did not want to act contrary to the established fiction which was to make the parting from me easier for her; I therefore sent her what she wanted, and bought new furniture for my home on the Rhine with the assistance of a Wiesbaden manufacturer, who allowed me fairly long credit.

At the end of September I went to Frankfort for a week to take over the rehearsals of Lohengrin.  Here again I went through the same experience as I had so often done before.  I no sooner came into contact with the members of the opera company than I felt a desire to throw up the undertaking on the spot; then the general consternation and the entreaties that I would persevere caused a reaction, under the influence of which I held out until I at last became interested in certain things for their own sake, and quite apart from any consideration of the wretched singers.  The things that pleased me were the effect of an uncurtailed performance, and the employment of correct tempi and correct staging.  Yet I suppose Friederike Meyer was the only one who completely realised these effects.  The usual ‘animation’ of the audience was not lacking, but I was told later on that the subsequent performances fell off, so that the opera had to be curtailed in the old way to keep it going. (They were conducted by Herr Ignaz Lachner of Frankfort, a smart, sleek man, but a wretchedly bad, muddle-headed conductor.)

I was the more prostrated by the effect of all this because even the Bulows had failed to pay me their expected visit.  Cosima, as I was now informed, had passed me by in haste on her way to Paris to offer her support for a short time to her grandmother, who was suffering from a tedious illness, and had now received a most painful blow by the news of the death of Blandine after her confinement, which had taken place at St. Tropez.

I now shut myself up for some time in my house at Biebrich, the weather having suddenly turned cold, and prevailed on my thumb to prove itself capable of writing down the instrumentation of some extracts for immediate concert purposes from the Meistersinger, which was now complete.  I sent the prelude to Weisheimer at once to be copied at Leipzig, and also set the Versammlung dor Meistersinger and Pogner’s Anrede for orchestra.

By the end of October I was at last ready to start on my journey to Leipzig, in the course of which I was induced in a strange way to enter the Wartburg once more.  I had alighted for a few minutes at Eisenach, and the train had just begun to move as I was hurriedly trying to catch it.  I ran after the vanishing train involuntarily with a sharp cry to the guard, but naturally without being able to stop it.  A considerable crowd, which had gathered on the station to watch the departure of a prince, thereupon broke into loud outbursts of laughter, and