n will please themselves in the matter of
eating and drinking." So the Herrschaften did not please themselves at
all, but splashed along through rain and sleet, through hospitable
villages all painted over with scrollwork about beer, and coffee, and
sugar-bakery, and all that "Restoration" which our poor drenched bodies
and souls were lacking so woefully. For we had stalls at the Court
Theatre of Munich, and it was the last, the very last, night of "The
Magic Flute"! The Brocken journey on the diligence-top came to an end;
the train at Garmisch was caught by just two seconds; we were safe at
Munich. But I was prone on a sofa, with a despairing friend making
hateful attempts to rouse me. Go to the play? Get up? Open my eyes to
the light? My fingers must have fumbled some feeble "no," beyond all
contradiction. "But your ticket--but 'The Magic Flute'--but you have
come three days' journey on purpose!" I take it my lips achieved an
inarticulate expression of abhorrence for such considerations. After
that I do not exactly know what happened: my exhausted will gave way. I
was combed and brushed, thrust into some manner of festive apparel,
pushed into a vehicle, pulled out of it, and shoved along, by the
staunch and (as it seemed) brutal arm of friendship, among crimson and
gilding and blinding lights all seen at intervals through half-closed
eyes. A little bell rang, and I felt it was my death knell. But through
the darkness of my weltering soul (for I was presumably dead and
undoubtedly damned) there marched, stood still, and curtsied
majestically towards each other, the great grave opening chords of the
overture. And when they had delivered, solemnly, their mysterious
herald's message and subsided, off started the little nimble notes of
the fugue, hastening from all sides, meeting, crossing, dispersing,
returning, telling their wonderful news of improbable adventures;
multitudinous, scurrying away in orderly haste to protect the hero and
heroine, and be joined by other notes, all full of inexhaustible
good-will; taking hands, dancing, laughing, and giving the assurance that
all is for the best in the world of enchantment, in the world of
bird-calls, and tinkling triangles and magic flutes, under the spells
of the great Sun-priest and Sun-god Mozart. I opened my eyes and had no
headache; and sat in that Court Theatre for three mortal hours, in
flourishing health and absolute happiness, and would have given my soul
for it to b