could have imagined he would supply a libretto intended solely for the German stage at the paltry price offered by his German customer.  As I had formed my own private opinion as to procuring French librettos for operas, and as nothing in the world would have induced me to set to music even the most effective piece of writing by Scribe or St. Georges, this occurrence delighted me immensely, and in the best of spirits I let myself go on the point for the benefit of the readers of the Abendzeitung, who, it is to be hoped, did not include my future ‘friend’ Lachner.

In addition, my work on Halevy’s opera (Reine de Chypre) brought me into closer contact with that composer, and was the means of procuring me many an enlivening talk with that peculiarly good-hearted and really unassuming man, whose talent, alas, declined all too soon.  Schlesinger, in fact, was exasperated at his incorrigible laziness.  Halevy, who had looked through my piano score, contemplated several changes with a view to making it easier, but he did not proceed with them:  Schlesinger could not get the proof-sheets back; the publication was consequently delayed, and he feared that the popularity of the opera would be over before the work was ready for the public.  He urged me to get firm hold of Halevy very early in the morning in his rooms, and compel him to set to work at the alterations in my company.

The first time I reached his house at about ten in the morning, I found him just out of bed, and he informed me that he really must have breakfast first.  I accepted his invitation, and sat down with him to a somewhat luxurious meal; my conversation seemed to appeal to him, but friends came in, and at last Schlesinger among the number, who burst into a fury at not finding him at work on the proofs he regarded as so important.  Halevy, however, remained quite unmoved.  In the best of good tempers he merely complained of his latest success, because he had never had more peace than of late, when his operas, almost without exception, had been failures, and he had not had anything to do with them after the first production.  Moreover, he feigned not to understand why this Reine de Chypre in particular should have been a success; he declared that Schlesinger had engineered it on purpose to worry him.  When he spoke a few words to me in German, one of the visitors was astonished, whereupon Schlesinger said that all Jews could speak German.  Thereupon Schlesinger was asked if he also was a Jew.  He answered that he had been, but had become a Christian for his wife’s sake.  This freedom of speech was a pleasant surprise to me, because in Germany in such cases we always studiously avoided the point, as discourteous to the person referred to.  But as we never got to the proof correcting, Schlesinger made me promise to give Halevy no peace until we had done them.