All my social experiences during the seven months I spent in Venice were limited to these few attempts at friendly intercourse, and apart from these my days were planned out with the utmost regularity during the whole time.  I worked till two o’clock, then I got into the gondola that was always in waiting, and was taken along the solemn Grand Canal to the bright Piazzetta, the peculiar charm of which always had a cheerful effect on me.  After this I made for my restaurant in the Piazza San Marco, and when I had finished my meal I walked alone or with Karl along the Riva to the Giardino Pubblico, the only pleasure-ground in Venice where there are any trees, and at nightfall I came back in the gondola down the canal, then more sombre and silent, till I reached the spot where I could see my solitary lamp shining from the night-shrouded facade of the old Palazzo Giustiniani.  After I had worked a little longer Karl, heralded by the swish of the gondola, would come in regularly at eight o’clock for a few hours’ chat over our tea.  Very rarely did I vary this routine by a visit to one of the theatres.  When I did, I preferred the performances at the Camploi Theatre, where Goldoni’s pieces were very well played; but I seldom went to the opera, and when I did go it was merely out of curiosity.  More frequently, when bad weather deprived us of our walk, we patronised the popular drama at the Malibran Theatre, where the performances were given in the daytime.  The admission cost us six kreuzers.  The audiences were excellent, the majority being in their shirt-sleeves, and the pieces given were generally of the ultra-melodramatic type.  However, one day to my great astonishment and intense delight I saw there Le Baruffe Chioggiote, the grotesque comedy that had appealed so strongly to Goethe in his day, at this very theatre.  So true to nature was this performance that it surpassed anything of the kind I have ever witnessed.

There was little else that attracted my attention in the oppressed and degenerate life of the Venetian people, and the only impression I derived from the exquisite ruin of this wonderful city as far as human interest is concerned was that of a watering-place kept up for the benefit of visitors.  Strangely enough, it was the thoroughly German element of good military music, to which so much attention is paid in the Austrian army, that brought me into touch with public life in Venice.  The conductors in the two Austrian regiments quartered there began playing overtures of mine, Rienzi and Tannhauser for instance, and invited me to attend their practices in their barracks.  There I also met the whole staff of officers, and was treated by them with great respect.  These bands played on alternate evenings amid brilliant illuminations in the middle of the Piazza San Marco, whose acoustic properties for this class of production were really excellent.  I was often suddenly startled towards the end of my meal by the sound of my own