First sight is less fallible, and as long as my intercourse with the world is of a passing kind, my feeling with regard to it is free from any doubt, resembling, as it does, that perfect consciousness which comes to us on better acquaintance with people, after we have thrown off prolonged and laboriously sustained illusions.  Even the passing sight of individuals, in whose features I see nothing but the most terrible error of life,—­a restless, either active or passive, desire,—­affects me painfully; how much more then must I be terrified and repelled by a mass of people whose reason for existence appears to be the most shallow volition.  These finely and very clearly cut physiognomies of the French, with their strong feeling for charming and sensuously attractive things, show me the qualities which I see in other nations in a washed-out, undeveloped state, with such precision as to make illusion even for a moment impossible.  I feel more distinctly than elsewhere in the world that these things are quite strange to me, just because they are so precise, so charming, so refined, so infallible in form and expression.  Let me confess to you that I have scarcely been able to look at the marvellous new buildings erected here; all this is so strange to me that, although I may gaze at it, it leaves no impression on the mind.  As no delusive hope, that might be excited here, has the slightest attraction for me, I gain by my absolutely unimpassioned position towards these surroundings a calmness which—­let me say it with a certain ironic humour—­will probably be of advantage to me in gaining that for which I strove here in my early days, and which now, as it has become indifferent to me, I shall probably attain.

What this possible “attainment” may be I can only briefly indicate to you.  The object of my journey has been the securing of the rights of property in my operas, and beyond this I can look for nothing except what is freely offered to me, and the only person who seems inclined to make a definite offer is the manager of the “Theatre Lyrique.”  I saw his theatre; it pleased me fairly well, and a new acquisition he had made, a tenor, pleased me very much.  In case he is prepared for more than ordinary efforts, as to which of course I must have every security, I might give him “Rienzi,” provided that I succeeded (perhaps through intercession of the Grand Duke of Baden with the Emperor of the French) in obtaining the exceptional privilege of having my opera performed at this theatre without spoken dialogue.

“Ollivier,” whom I did not meet till yesterday, and with whom I am going to dine en garcon today, received me with such amiable kindness that I imagined I had arrived at “Altenburg.”  He made me an unlimited offer of his services with the manager of the Theatre Lyrique, a personal friend of his, amongst other people.  Well, we must see what will come of it; in any case, I should surrender, without much scruple of conscience, “Rienzi,” to gain me an entry, but of course only on the supposition that considerable pecuniary advantages would accrue to me.