reminded one of Retzsch's presentation
of "Faust" and Wagner walking before the gates of Leipzig. The deaf
painter made comments to me in his mad way, and bade me observe
especially the broad, measured walk of Paganini. "Does it not
seem," said he, "as if he had the iron cross-pole still between his
legs? He has accustomed himself to that walk forever. See, too, in
what a contemptuous, ironical way he sometimes looks at his guide
when the latter wearies him with his prosaic questions. But he can
not separate himself from him; a bloody contract binds him to that
companion, who is no other than Satan. The ignorant multitude,
indeed, believe that this guide is the writer of comedies and
anecdotes, Harris from Hanover, whom Paganini has taken with him to
manage the financial business of his concerts. But they do not know
that the devil has only borrowed Herr George Harris' form, and that
meanwhile the poor soul of this poor man is shut up with other
rubbish in a trunk at Hanover, until the devil returns its
flesh-envelope, while he perhaps will guide his master through the
world in a worthier form--namely as a black poodle."

But if Paganini seemed mysterious and strange enough when I saw him
walking in bright midday under the green trees of the Hamburg
Jungfernstieg, how his awful bizarre appearance startled me at the
concert in the evening! The Hamburg Opera House was the scene of
this concert, and the art-loving public had flocked there so
early, and in such numbers, that I only just succeeded in obtaining
a little place in the orchestra. Although it was post-day, I saw in
the first row of boxes the whole educated commercial world, a whole
Olympus of bankers and other millionaires, the gods of coffee and
sugar by the side of their fat goddesses, Junos of Wandrahm and
Aphrodites of Dreckwall. A religious silence reigned through the
assembly. Every eye was directed towards the stage. Every ear was
making ready to listen. My neighbor, an old furrier, took the dirty
cotton out of his ears in order to drink in better the costly
sounds for which he had paid his two thalers.

At last a dark figure, which seemed to have arisen from the
underworld, appeared upon the stage. It was Paganini in his black
costume--the black dress-coat and the black waistcoat of