in those early years of struggle, and she was
beautifully dressed. Harsanyi himself had changed very little. He had
put on his best afternoon coat in honor of his pupil, and wore a pearl
in his black ascot. His hair was longer and more bushy than he used to
wear it, and there was now one gray lock on the right side. He had
always been an elegant figure, even when he went about in shabby clothes
and was crushed with work. Before the curtain rose he was restless and
nervous, and kept looking at his watch and wishing he had got a few more
letters off before he left his hotel. He had not been in New York since
the advent of the taxicab, and had allowed himself too much time. His
wife knew that he was afraid of being disappointed this afternoon. He
did not often go to the opera because the stupid things that singers did
vexed him so, and it always put him in a rage if the conductor held the
tempo or in any way accommodated the score to the singer.

When the lights went out and the violins began to quaver their long D
against the rude figure of the basses, Mrs. Harsanyi saw her husband's
fingers fluttering on his knee in a rapid tattoo. At the moment when
SIEGLINDE entered from the side door, she leaned toward him and
whispered in his ear, "Oh, the lovely creature!" But he made no
response, either by voice or gesture. Throughout the first scene he sat
sunk in his chair, his head forward and his one yellow eye rolling
restlessly and shining like a tiger's in the dark. His eye followed
SIEGLINDE about the stage like a satellite, and as she sat at the table
listening to SIEGMUND'S long narrative, it never left her. When she
prepared the sleeping draught and disappeared after HUNDING, Harsanyi
bowed his head still lower and put his hand over his eye to rest it. The
tenor,--a young man who sang with great vigor, went on:--

"WALSE! WALSE! WO IST DEIN SCHWERT?"

Harsanyi smiled, but he did not look forth again until SIEGLINDE
reappeared. She went through the story of her shameful bridal feast and
into the Walhall' music, which she always sang so nobly, and the
entrance of the one-eyed stranger:--

"MIR ALLEIN WECKTE DAS AUGE."

Mrs. Harsanyi glanced at her husband, wondering whether the singer on
the stage could not feel his commanding glance. On came the CRESCENDO:--

"WAS JE ICH VERLOR, WAS JE ICH BEWEINT WAR' MIR GEWONNEN."

(All that I have lost, All that I have mourned, Would I then have won.)

Harsanyi touched h