i.

"After I had worked a little longer Karl, heralded by the swish of the
gondola, would come in regularly at eight o'clock for a few hours chat
over our tea. Very rarely did I vary this routine by a visit to one of
the theatres. When I did, I preferred the performances at the Camploi
Theatre, where Goldoni's pieces were very well played; but I seldom went
to the opera, and when I did go it was merely out of curiosity. More
frequently, when bad weather deprived us of our walk, we patronized the
popular drama at the Malibran Theatre, where the performances were given
in the daytime. The admission cost us six kreutzers. The audiences were
excellent, the majority being in their shirt-sleeves, and the pieces
given were generally of the ultra-melodramatic type. However, one day to
my great astonishment and intense delight I saw there _Le Baruffe
Chioggiote_, the grotesque comedy that had appealed so strongly to
Goethe in his days at this very theatre. So true to nature was this
performance that it surpassed anything of the kind I have ever
witnessed."

Wagner's impressions of Venice, where, some twenty-four years later, he
was to end his anxious and marvellous life, seem to me so interesting
that I quote a little more: "There was little else that attracted my
attention in the oppressed and degenerate life of the Venetian people,
and the only impression I derived from the exquisite ruin of this
wonderful city as far as human interest is concerned was that of a
watering-place kept up for the benefit of visitors. Strangely enough, it
was the thoroughly German element of good military music, to which so
much attention is paid in the Austrian army, that brought me into touch
with public life in Venice. The conductors in the two Austrian regiments
quartered there began playing overtures of mine, _Rienzi_ and
_Tannhaeuser_ for instance, and invited me to attend their practices in
their barracks. There I also met the whole staff of officers, and was
treated by them with great respect. These bands played on alternate
evenings amid brilliant illuminations in the middle of the Piazza San
Marco, whose acoustic properties for this class of production were
really excellent. I was often suddenly startled towards the end of my
meal by the sound of my own overtures; then as I sat at the restaurant
window giving myself up to impressions of the music, I did not know
which dazzled me most, the incomparable Piazza magnificently illuminated
an