Duchess.  She gave me the impression that she felt something more important ought to happen for me than, from the spirit and character of her mistress, she could expect.  I was, however, not taken to pay my respects to the Grand Duchess at once, but received first of all an invitation to an evening party in the apartments of the lady-in-waiting, at which, among others, the Grand Duchess herself was to be present.  Here Anton Rubinstein did the musical honours, and after the hostess had introduced me to him, she ventured to present me to the Grand Duchess herself.  The ceremony went off fairly well, and, as a result, I shortly afterwards received a direct invitation to a friendly evening tea-party at the Grand Duchess’s house.  Here, in addition to Fraulein von Rhaden, I met the lady next to her in rank, Fraulein von Stahl, as well as a genial old gentleman, who was introduced to me as General von Brebern, for many years one of the Grand Duchess’s closest friends.  Fraulein von Rhaden appeared to have made extraordinary efforts on my behalf, which for the present resulted in the Grand Duchess expressing a wish that I should make her better acquainted with the text of my Nibelungen Ring.  As I had no copy of the work with me, although Weber of Leipzig ought by this time to have finished printing it, they insisted that I should at once telegraph to him in Leipzig to send the finished sheets with the utmost despatch to the Grand Duchess’s address.  Meanwhile my patrons had to be content with hearing me read the Meistersinger.  To this reading the Grand Duchess Marie was also induced to come—­a very stately and still beautiful daughter of the Tsar Nicholas, who was notorious for the passion she had shown throughout her life.  As to the impression made upon this lady by my poem, Fraulein von Rhaden only told me that she had been seriously alarmed lest Hans Sachs might end by marrying Eva.

In the course of a few days the loose proof-sheets of my Nibelungen work duly arrived, and the Grand Duchess’s intimates met at four tea-parties to hear me read it, and listened with sympathetic attention.  General von Brebern was present at them all, but only, as Fraulein von Rhaden said, ’to blush like the rose’ in profoundest slumber, a habit which always afforded a subject for merriment to Fraulein von Stahl, a very lively and beautiful woman, when each night I accompanied the two court ladies from the spacious salons along endless corridors and staircases to their distant apartments.

The only other person in the great world whom I learned to know here was Count Wilohorsky, who occupied a high position of trust at the Imperial court, and was chiefly esteemed as a patron of music, and considered himself a distinguished violoncello-player.  The old gentleman appeared well disposed towards me, and altogether satisfied with my musical performances.  Indeed, he assured me that he had first learned to understand Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony (in F major) through my interpretation.  He also considered