BEFORE leaving Frankfort I hurried to Cook’s office to look after my mail. I found awaiting me a special delivery letter from a friend of Barfleur’s, a certain famous pianist, Madame A., whom I had met in London. She had told me then that she was giving a recital¹ at Munich and Leipzig and that she was coming to Frankfort about this very time. She was scheduled to play on Wednesday, and this was Monday. She was anxious to see me. There was a long account of the town outside Berlin where she resided, her house, its management by a capable housekeeper², etc. Would I go there? I could have her room. If I did, would I wait until she could come back at the latter end of the month? It was a most hospitable³ letter, and, coming from such a busy woman, a most flattering one and evidently instigated⁴ by Barfleur. I debated whether to accept this charming invitation as I strolled about Frankfort.
 
At one corner of the shopping district I came upon a music store in the window of which were displayed a number of photographs of musical celebrities⁵. A little to my surprise I noticed that the central place was occupied by a large photograph of Madame A. in her most attractive pose. A near-by bill-board contained full announcement of her coming. I meditated⁶ somewhat more mellowly⁷ after this and finally returned to Cook’s to leave a telegram. I would wait, I said, here at Frankfort until Wednesday.
 
In due time Madame A. arrived and her recital, as455 such things go, was a brilliant success. So far as I could judge, she had an enthusiastic following in Frankfort, quite as significant, for instance, as a woman like Carreno would have in America. An institution known as the Saalbau, containing a large auditorium⁸, was crowded, and there were flowers in plenty for Madame A. who opened and closed the program. The latter arrangement resulted in an ovation⁹ to her, men and women crowding about her feet below the platform and suggesting one composition and another that she might play—selections, obviously, that they had heard her render before.
 
She looked forceful, really brilliant, and tender in a lavender silk gown and wearing a spray of an enormous bouquet¹⁰ of lilacs that I had sent her.
 
This business of dancing attendance upon a national musical favorite was a bit strange for me, although once before in my life it fell to my lot, and tempestuous¹¹ business it was, too. The artistic¹² temperament¹³! My hair rises! Madame A. I knew, after I saw her, was expecting me to do the unexpected—to give edge as it were to her presence in Frankfort. And so strolling out before dinner I sought a florist¹⁴’s, and espying¹⁵ a whole jardinière full of lilacs, I said to the woman florist, “How much for all those lilacs?”
 
“You mean all?” she asked.
 
“All,” I said.
 
“Thirty marks,” she replied.
 
“Isn’t that rather high?” I said, assuming that it was wise to bargain a little anywhere.
 
“But this is very early spring,” she said. “These are the very first we’ve had.”
 
“Very good,” I said, “but if I should take them all would you put a nice ribbon on them?”
 
“O-o-oh!” she hesitated, almost pouting¹⁶, “ribbon is456 very dear, my good sir. Still—if you wish—it will make a wonderful bouquet.”
 
“Here is my card,” I said, “put that in it.” And then I gave her the address and the hour. I wrote some little nonsense on the card, about tender melodies and spring-time, and then I went back to the hotel to attend Madame.
 
A more bustling¹⁷, aggressive little artist you would not want to find. When I called at eight-thirty—the recital was at nine—I found several musical satellites dancing attendance upon her. There was one beautiful little girl from Mayence I noticed, of the Jewish type, who followed Madame A. with positively¹⁸ adoring glances. There was another woman of thirty who was also caught in the toils¹⁹ of this woman’s personality and swept along by her quite as one planet dislocates the orbit of another and makes it into a satellite. She had come all the way from Berlin. “Oh, Madame A.,” she confided²⁰ to me upon introduction, “oh, wonderful! wonderful! Such playing! It is the most wonderful thing in the world to me.”
 
This woman had an attractive face, sallow and hollow, with burning black eyes and rich black hair. Her body was long and thin, supple²¹ and graceful²². She followed Madame A. too, with those strange, questioning eyes. Life is surely pathetic. It was interesting, though, to be in this atmosphere of intense artistic enthusiasm.
 
When the last touch had been added to Madame’s coiffure, a sprig of blossom of some kind inserted in her corsage, a flowing opera cloak thrown about the shoulders, she was finally ready. So busy was she, suggesting this and that to one and another of her attendants, that she scarcely saw me. “Oh, there you are,” she beamed finally. “Now, I am quite ready. Is the machine here,457 Marie? Oh, very good. And Herr Steiger! O-o-oh!” This last to a well-known violinist who had arrived.
 
It turned out that there were two machines—one for the satellites and Herr Steiger who was also to play this evening, and one for Madame A., her maid and myself. We finally debouched from the hall and elevator and fussy²³ lobby, where German officers were strolling to and fro, into the machines and were away. Madame A. was lost in a haze²⁴ of artistic contemplation with thoughts, no doubt, as to her program and her success. “Now maybe you will like my program better,” she suggested after a while. “In London it was not so goot. I haf to feel my audience iss—how do you say?—vith me. In Berlin and here and Dresden and Leipzig they like me. In England they do not know me.” She sighed and looked out of the window. “Are you happy to be with me?” she asked naïvely.
 
“Quite,” I replied.
 
When we reached the auditorium we were ushered²⁵ by winding²⁶ passage............