no more; but this is the old, old, the very oldest
story.

CHAPTER III. OUR THEATRE.

IN the Gaming Place stands the theatre
—a great yellow Parthenon-looking building
standing by itself, like most theatres in
Germany. We may walk round it. The
performers have not to skulk down a squalid
lane to get to their stage, or to enter by a mean
door, nor is the building to which that door
gives admittance a grim and dirty house, built
for a jail, long before jails were made architectural.
This is a bright flashing structure;
perhaps not so bright inside as it is outside. It
begins its entertainment like a good rational
theatre at half-past six, and concludes it at nine.
The prices are wonderful; the best places, and
which are practically the worst, cost no more
than three-and-sixpence, and you can have a
numbered pit stall for about a shilling and
twopence. Best place of all, however, is a
class of seat unknown to us at home—a row of
boxes under the regular boxes, and which are a
little raised above the heads of those in the
pit. These are known as "Parterre-loges," and
cost about one-and-sixpence. For this one-and-
sixpence we have had many a pleasant evening,
and listened to an inexhaustible variety
of operas wonderfully done. If there was a
weakness on the stage as to voices, the good
orchestra carried all through. But in other
points, chorus, scenery, and even ballet, every
thing was excellent. For this is the state
theatre, and our grand-duke (who is like a
German professor, with his spectacles coming
so oddly on the top of a uniform) takes a
pride in having his opera and his ballet
to show to a stray kinglet or dukelet coming
that road. And the orchestra—very large and
well crowded, and their music-books all glaring
white from shaded lamps—has quite a Grand
Opera look.

One night we had the delightful Faust—
Faust the New; not poor old-fashioned Faust
of Capelmeister Spohr, now for ever exploded.
The orchestra played it with delight. Marguerita
becoming here "Margot," came to us as a
"Fräulein Peckl"—a name with all the force
of a douche as regards romance.

Yet "Fräulein Peckl," although her hair was
of the blackest, and the most abundant black,
and although she married M. Gounod's charming
music to profuse "nishts" and "ishes,"
and although a little gaunt about the shoulders,
did wonderfully well, sang with spirit and taste,
though, perhaps, scarcely with Italian feeling.
In the famous jewel song, so delicate and airy
that the touch should be as light as the fluttering
of insects (has it been noted with what
exquisite effect the intractable accompaniment of
cymbals has been introduced into this song?),
she did her work with effect. So, too, with
"Herr Caffieri," who played Faust with taste,
although at times, when wrestling with some
trying high note, he showed a distress that
seemed to reach almost to agony. But for the
arch enemy not much can be said, for not much
could be said for an arch enemy, heavy, lumbering,
corpulent, and painfully thick about the
throat. He made a grave and thoroughly
German business of it, too, going through it
conscientiously, and without a particle of the
conventional jocularity, shrugs, faces, sneers, which
we have been taught to associate with an arch
enemy. The scenery—the cathedral and witches
scene—ballet and choruses were charming and
wonderful for that parterre-loge price.

The next night we looked on the Barbière;
the next night at Matilda, a pleasant little
opera by an obscure German composer; and
on the next night we hurry to the battle-ground
of Party, and hear The Flying Dutchman, a
very remarkable work of Richard Wagner. To.
those who love music, and the politics of music,
this is a more serious question than could
be supposed. There can be no question that
his principles, though not officially recognised,
hare exercised a great influence on the music of
the last ten or twelve years. Three operas of
Verdi, the Traviata, the Ballo, and his newest,
La Forza, all exhibit strong Wagnerian traces.
In Meyerbeer's Dinorah we find some also.

CHAPTER IV.  OUR MUSIC AND DANCING.

AT times, when the rain is dripping down
among the orange-trees and splashing on the
lake, all the company drifts into the great
ballroom, where the orchestra, perched in a gallery,
are to play. Glass doors open out on M.
Chevet's restaurant, and the usual "main" of
coffee and ice is turned on. Then comes that
exhibition of human selfishness which is always
to be reckoned on where the question of chairs
arises. Scrape a Tartar, said Napoleon, in the
well-frayed saying; but put a foreign lady among
chairs while music is playing, and all the earthy
part of her nature breaks out. Three are not too
many for one, for a book must have a chair as well
as a human being, and feet must have their chair
too. The great room becomes as a gipsy encampment;
its spring velvet sofas are loaded with
heavy bourgeois men and women, who perhaps
cannot afford to sit so comfortably elsewhere;
work is brought, a hundred circles are formed,
and every one sets himself to be comfortable
and happy. Outside, among the orange-trees,
hundreds are walking up and down, and the
two black swans live sumptuously for an hour
or so. Should they ever be sent away to
quieter and more innocent ponds, at the sound
of music of any quality, they will be sure to
hurry to the edge, and expect their banquet.

Wonderful life this for men and women—and
the natural question is, who supports these thick-
throated, shaven-cheeked men, whose whole life
seems to have no wider circle than the little
marble table on which their coffee-cup stands,
and whose thoughts do not travel a longer
journey than the end of their cigar? Who helps
these gentry to eat the bread of idleness in such
comfort? As for some of the ladies, they have
an "industry" of their own.