She had made an engagement to appear three times at the Burgtheater without considering that just then she was not likely to make a good appearance on the stage, particularly before the Viennese public.  Her serious illness, the recovery from which had been attended by the most exciting circumstances, had disfigured her and made her very thin.  She had also gone almost entirely bald, but nevertheless persisted in her great objection to wearing a wig.  Her sister’s hostility had estranged her colleagues at the theatre, and as a result of all this, and also on account of her unfortunate choice of a role, her appearance was a failure.  There could be no question of her being taken on at that theatre.  Although her weakness increased, and she suffered from constant insomnia, she still tried, in her magnanimity and her shame, to hide from me the awkwardness of her situation.  She went to a cheaper inn, the ‘Stadt Frankfurt,’ where she intended to wait and see the result of sparing her nerves as far as possible.  She seemed to be in no embarrassment as far as money was concerned, but at my request consulted Standhartner, who did not seem to know how to help her much.  As open-air exercise had been strongly recommended, and as the weather was at present bitterly cold (from the end of November to the beginning of December), I hit on the idea of advising her to go to Venice for a prolonged stay.  Once again there seemed no lack of means, and she followed my advice.  One icy morning I accompanied her to the station, and there for the present I left her, as I hoped, to a kinder fate.  She had a faithful maid with her, and I soon had the satisfaction of receiving reassuring accounts—­of her health especially—­from Venice.

While my relations with her had brought me troublesome complications, I still kept up my old Viennese acquaintances.  A curious incident occurred at the very beginning of my visit.  I had to read the Meistersinger aloud to the Standhartner family, as I had done everywhere else.  As Dr. Hanslick was now supposed to be well disposed towards me, it was considered the right thing to invite him too.  We noticed that as the reading proceeded the dangerous critic became more and more pale and depressed, and it was remarked by everyone that it was impossible to persuade him to stay on at the close, but that he took his leave there and then in an unmistakably vexed manner.  My friends all agreed in thinking that Hanslick looked on the whole libretto as a lampoon aimed at himself, and had felt an invitation to the reading to be an insult.  And undoubtedly the critic’s attitude towards me underwent a very remarkable change from that evening.  He became uncompromisingly hostile, with results that were obvious to us at once.