In the spring of 1878 Maurice Strakosch, an old concert manager, called
on my father and asked him whether he would permit me to go on a
Southern concert tour with the celebrated violinist, August Wilhelmj,
who was then touring the country under Strakosch management. Mr. Max
Liebling, his regular accompanist, had been taken ill and as both
Wilhelmj and Strakosch knew that I had accompanied my father a great
deal at home, they thought that I could acceptably fill the position at
such short notice. I was naturally wild with delight at the idea and
prevailed on my father to let me go. I was to receive the, for me,
munificent salary of a hundred dollars a week and all my railway
expenses.
We set forth the following Monday, the company consisting of Wilhelmj, a
soprano singer whose name I have forgotten, and Teresa Carreno, who was
then already a great pianist and certainly the most beautiful woman I
had ever seen.
Wilhelmj, who was exceedingly lazy, refused even to rehearse with me.
Our first concert was in Washington and I was to accompany him, among
other things, in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. I was naturally
nervous about it, and to my delighted astonishment, on the afternoon of
the concert, Carreno turned on Wilhelmj, reproaching him for not giving
me a rehearsal and insisting that rather than put me to such an unfair
strain, she would accompany him in the concerto herself. This was a
characteristic act of this remarkable artist and woman, and I shall
speak more in detail about my immediate adoration for her in another
chapter.
In Washington Baron von Schloetzer, the Prussian minister, who was an
old friend of my father’s, received me very kindly, and, to my delight,
included me in the dinner which he gave in honor of Wilhelmj and
Carreno. He was an original and delightful old bachelor and wildly fond
of music, although his only accomplishment in that line was a real
talent for whistling, his _pièce de résistance_ being the “Tannhäuser
Overture,” in which he would whistle the “Pilgrim’s Chorus” and the
fluttering accompanying violins seemingly at the same time.
At his dinner he treated me somewhat as an older man would a child, and
would tell his butler to my great chagrin to only half fill my glass
because I was too young to drink as much as the older people. He had
several rare vintages of claret standing on the sideboard and some of
these I was not allowed even to taste, all for the same reason.
After dinner both Wilhelmj and Carreno played and then the beautiful
Mme. de Hagemann, American wife of the Swedish Minister, sang most
delightfully. She has since written charming memoirs of her earlier
diplomatic life abroad, especially of the Court of Napoleon the Third
just before the Franco-Prussian War, entitled “Courts of Memory.”
From Washington we went farther and farther South and my young mind was
tremendously impressed by its romantic atmosphere, the luxuriant
tropical foliage and the lazy, cheerful life of the “niggers” swarming
everywhere.
At Macon, Georgia, Wilhelmj and I stopped at an old ramshackle hotel in
two rooms en suite. We did not wake up until about eleven o’clock the
following morning, feeling very heavy and headachy, and on examination
found our trunks rifled of whatever valuables they contained. We had
evidently been chloroformed. A burly detective was engaged by Wilhelmj
to take charge of the case, but of course nothing happened except that
Wilhelmj and I purchased revolvers. His was very large and mine very
small and this is about the only weapon that I ever acquired, and of
course never used.
New Orleans was a real revelation. It was then still an absolutely
French city. I was invited to dinner at several delightful Creole
families and French was the language at table. The old Creole
restaurants were at the height of their glory, and such delicious crabs,
pompano, and shrimps I had never eaten before. Alas, their nice sanded
floors have been replaced by dancing parquets, and noisy ragtime bands
and wretched cooking are but poor substitutes for their past glories.