After having resumed our usual clothing, we went down again to the
drawing-room. The Master came to meet us, and pretending not to have
recognised us through our disguises, he cried:
"Heavens! where have you been? Why are you so late? We had here a
troupe of wonderful comedians, who played the drollest possible
piece.... How unfortunate that you missed them! You will never see
anything like it again!"
As to the worthy visitors, the prime cause of this unique
representation, sober, imperturbable, upright in their chairs, in their
severe costumes, they sat without moving, listening intently, watching
with all their eyes, but probably understanding very little.
I feel sure that they remained forever convinced that it was all from
some new work of the Master--some unpublished fragment, perhaps from
the _Ring of the Nibelung_!
And now again it was the farewell evening.
* * * * *
In order to soften the bitterness, Wagner took a score and went to the
piano.
"To-day," said he, "let us make peace with the _Meistersinger_."
The Master believed, in spite of my efforts to convince him to the
contrary, that I did not care for the _Meistersinger_. The truth is,
that all I had heard of the opera was a few fragments played at the
popular concerts or at the piano. All that I knew delighted me, but
Wagner would not believe it.
"I do not want you to misunderstand this work," said he, as he opened
the book.
And, for several hours he went through the score, playing, explaining,
commenting with wonderful kindness.
The music of the _Meistersinger_ is especially difficult to render at
the piano and Wagner was not a very skilful performer--Richter knew
that, so he was very restless and followed the Master's playing, note
by note, with the greatest anxiety. He knew it all, even the most
uninteresting passages; he touched the notes that the hand of the
Master was too small to include. From time to time he was carried out
of himself, and struck the piano hurriedly, saving an effect which was
in danger of being lost, completing a harmony, or striking a chord
between the Master's hesitating fingers.
I am not sure that Wagner was not a little irritated by this
infringement upon his territory. It was quite useless, moreover, for
no virtuoso could have been able to render the deep meaning and secret
tenderness of the work as well as its author. How grateful we were! How
completely the _Meistersinger_ was absolved. On that point Wagner had
no longer any doubts.