ing to interpret the great masters
through the medium of an orchestra, possessed him to the point of
obsession; but where to find an orchestra to conduct was a problem. The
barrier "no experience" was erected across his path as it had been
across mine, though he must serve an apprenticeship somewhere.

The musical life of Germany attracted him for the same reasons as it had
attracted me, and so he endured a veritable martyrdom in the pursuance
of his dream. He was a pupil of Nikisch and told us Nikisch had told him
he made half his career with his cuffs. Whoever has watched him shoot
them gently out as he begins to conduct will know what he meant.

Our rooms were a sort of haven for this boy, I think, where he could
talk of the things that absorbed him in a language that was his servant
instead of his master. In return he would play so gorgeously for us,
that our little upright piano rocked under the strain. He could suggest
a whole orchestra in his playing. Strauss' "Salome" was brand new then
and he revelled in it, and adopted the motif of _Jochanaan_ as a signal
which he and the baritone would whistle under our windows. Sometimes he
would get lost at the piano and play for hours, till our supper time was
past, and our good friend Emma Seebold, the "_Hoch Dramatische_," would
rush in and urge us to hurry and get ready for some mythical dinner to
which we were invited. This was always successful, owing to Seebold's
talent.

We grew very fond of her and often spent our evenings together. She had
a lovely voice and would put her head back on her chair sometimes in the
evening and sing us languorous Austrian peasant songs with her
fascinating Viennese accent. Her passion was remnants, and she would
send home boxes of scraps of passementerie and odds and ends of silk
trimmings which she would sew all over her costumes. The richness she
saw in it was pathetic. Bargain gloves were also irresistible, and she
had green ones and purple ones, spotted and mildewed ones, and loved
them all because they were cheap.

The pianist and the baritone often met at our rooms and got on
surprisingly well considering their utter lack of points of contact and
the natural contempt that they felt for each other. The Frenchman was
certainly mildly crazy. He believed that his astral body, or psychic
envelope, or something was visible as an aura of light around his hand,
and he would hold it up and look at it and say, "_Ah, oui, elle est
la--j