The probe was fixed for seven, and shortly after that time we set off for the Tonhalle, or concert-hall, in which it was held.
“We shall be much too early,” said she. “But the people are shamefully late. Most of them only come to klatsch, and flirt, or try to flirt, with the Herr Direktor.”
This threw upon my mind a new light as to the Herr Direktor, and I walked by her side much impressed. She told me that if I accepted I might even sing in the concert itself, as there had only been four proben so far, and there were still several before the haupt-probe.
“What is the haupt-probe?” I inquired.
“General rehearsal—when Herr von Francius is most unmerciful to his stupid pupils. I always attend that. I like to hear him make sport of them, and then the instrumentalists laugh at them. Von Francius never flatters.”
Inspired with nightmare-like ideas as to this terrible haupt-probe, I found myself, with Anna, turning into a low-fronted building inscribed “Städtische Tonhalle,” the concert-hall of the good town of Elberthal.
“This way,” said she. “It is in the rittersaal. We don’t go to the large saal till the haupt-probe.”
I followed her into a long, rather shabby-looking room, at one end of which was a low orchestra, about which were dotted the desks of the absent instrumentalists, and some stiff-looking Celli and Contrabassi kept watch from a wall. On the orchestra was already assembled a goodly number of young men and women, all in lively conversation, loud laughter, and apparently high good-humor with themselves and everything in the world.
A young man with a fuzz of hair standing off about a sad and depressed-looking countenance was stealing “in and out and round about,” and distributing sheets of score to the company. In the conductor’s place was a tall man in gray clothes, who leaned negligently against the rail, and held a conversation with a pretty young lady who seemed much pleased with his attention. It did not strike me at first that this was the terrible direktor of whom I had been hearing. He was young, had a slender, graceful figure, and an exceedingly handsome, though (I thought at first) an unpleasing face. There was something in his attitude and manner which at first I did not quite like. Anna walked up the room, and pausing before the estrade, said:
“Herr Direktor!”