IV
And that second day, which dawned with a beautiful blue sky, how sunny and radiant it seemed to us! How happy we were and how full of joyful anticipation! We knew Richard Wagner and he knew us.
"Come early to-morrow," he had said to us. That was better and more real than mere politeness. The disciples pleased the Master, of that we were blissfully sure. But, all the same, we must not arrive too soon at Tribschen, and how should we pass the time until the fitting moment arrived? Villiers, who wished to be very smart, went in search of a hairdresser, and fixed his choice upon a certain Monsieur Frey. Installed in the chair, a towel under his chin, his cheeks all covered with soapsuds, the patient, still lost in his dream, recalled a phrase from the letter that Wagner had written me about the Meistersinger. "My barber told me the other day, that this part pleased him best of all." So the barbers of Lucerne were Wagnerians? Then he could talk; and with no further hesitation he entered with Monsieur Frey into a dissertation upon the music of the future. The Swiss Figaro did his best to fulfil his part, and the talk being prolonged, Villiers came out of the little shop with a head tightly curled all over like an astrakhan cap. Thus elaborated, he joined us upon the wharf at the edge of the lake, and to forget our impatience we prowled about among the bales and bundles of cordage. My companion hummed a motif from the overture to the Meistersinger, which charmed him more and more. He tried to prevail upon me to sing at the same time the second motif, where it mingles with the first.
"How can I, in the open streets? They would throw us both into the lake!"
"Then let us get out of sight of the passers-by."
So behold us forthwith clambering over joists and building materials of all kinds, to reach a deserted corner. Villiers was enchanted with our humming, which we had to recommence many times. His quick imagination supplied all that was lacking; he fancied he could hear the whole orchestra. Suddenly he caught sight of something, and stopped short, his clear blue eyes very wide open. Staring unwinkingly, he began to laugh.
"What on earth is that extraordinary word, 'Dampfschifffahrtgesellschaft?'"
True enough, there was the word in big letters on a board painted white, high up between two posts driven into the soil.
"Six vowels among twenty-three consonants, and all in one word!" cried Villiers. "What can such a word mean?"