At the sound of the little bells and the wheels of the coach, Richter came down with the handbag; then came Wagner followed by Scheffer.
The Master looked very well, and the serenity of his humour seemed to have increased since the day before.
After we had started, I complimented him upon the strength of mind which sustained him in the face of this disaster, upon his magnanimous resignation, or perhaps, his Olympian scorn.
"Neither the one nor the other!" said he. "I have found my force in the belief that nothing essential, nothing of that which is closest to me, is hurt by this contention. My work, after the impression which it has made upon all of you, who understand me so intimately, must be just what I wished for it, and it soars away intact and free, from amidst the tawdry rubbish with which they try to disguise it.
"There is still another thing; it is that human malignity is no longer able to reach or hurt me deeply across the warm affection and the devotion which surround me. This certainty has comforted me. You see that even here, as I go away, I leave friends. You also know with what anxious tenderness they watch for my arrival at home! Truly, when I think of the past and the despair into which such circumstances as these would have plunged me then, when I had to bear my pain alone, I am able to feel almost joyous. Stop, look at the excellent Richter!" added he with a laugh, "he feels as I do, at twenty-eight he loses a position that a mature man would find it difficult to obtain, and, in place of the downcast countenance he ought to have, he shows us a sincere expression of the most complete satisfaction."
As a matter of fact, sitting opposite the Master, Richter, the golden, gazed at him with an air of utter beatitude.
"It is because Richter, he also," say I, "soars above the 'misérabilités,' he even carries a glorious palm, and, like the martyrs of the Coliseum, he sings thanksgivings while the lions are eating him."
"Verily," cried Richter, "I go, like them, straight to Heaven!"
That was true, for Wagner had "commanded" Richter to go and instal himself at Tribschen and await events there.
As we passed through the Maximilian Square, the Master called attention to a statue with which he was unfamiliar.