"Dearest Princess, Limburger cheese is the only sort the Master cares for. You had better take that Gruyère cheese away"; whilst an extremely attractive little Countess, the bearer of a great German name, would trip vaguely about, announcing to the world that "The Master thinks that he could eat two more black puddings. Where do you imagine that I could find them?"
Meanwhile from another quarter one would hear an eager "Dearest Princess, could you manage to get some raw ham? The Master thinks that he would like some, or else some raw smoked goose-breast." "Aber, allerliebste Gräfin, wissen Sie nicht dass der Meister trinkt nur dunkles Bier?" would come as a pathetic protest from some slighted worshipper who had been herself reproved for ignorance of the Master's gastronomic tastes.
It must regretfully be confessed that these tastes were rather gross. Meanwhile Wagner, dressed in a frock-coat and trousers of shiny black cloth, his head covered with his invariable black velvet skull-cap, would munch steadily away, taking no notice whatever of those around him.
The rest of us stood at a respectful distance, watching with a certain awe this marvellous weaver of harmonies assimilating copious nourishment. For us it was a sort of Barmecide's feast, for beyond the sight of Wagner at supper, we had no refreshments of any sort offered to us.
Soon afterwards Rubinstein, on his way to St. Petersburg, played at Madame de Schleinitz's house. Having learnt that Wagner always made a point of having two grand pianos side by side when he played, Rubinstein also insisted on having two. To my mind, Rubinstein absolutely ruined the effect of all his own compositions by the tremendous pace at which he played them. It was as though he were longing to be through with the whole thing. His "Melody in F," familiar to every school-girl, he took at such a pace that I really believe the virulent germ which forty years afterwards was to develop into Rag-time, and to conquer the whole world with its maddening syncopated strains, came into being that very night, and was evoked by Rubinstein himself out of his own long-suffering "Melody in F."
Our Ambassador, himself an excellent musician, was an almost lifelong friend of Liszt. Wagner's wife, by the way, was Lizst's daughter, and had been previously married to Hans von Bulow, the pianist. Liszt, when passing through Berlin, always dined at our Embassy and played to us afterwards. I remember well Lord Ampthill asking Liszt where he placed Rubinstein as a pianist. "Rubinstein is, without any question whatever, the first pianist in the world," answered Liszt without hesitation. "But you are forgetting yourself, Abbé," suggested the Ambassador. "Ich," said Liszt, striking his chest, "Ich bin der einzige Pianist der Welt" ("I; I am the only pianist in the world"). There was a superb arrogance about this perfectly justifiable assertion which pleased me enormously at the time, and pleases me still after the lapse of so many years.
Bismarck was a frequent visitor at our Embassy, and was fond of dropping in informally in the evening. Apart from his liking for our Ambassador, he had a great belief in his judgment and discretion. Lady Ampthill, too, was one of the few women Bismarck respected and really liked. I think he had a great admiration for her intellectual powers and quick sense of intuition.
It is perhaps superfluous to state that no man living now occupies the position Bismarck filled in the "'seventies." The maker of Modern Germany was the unchallenged dictator of Europe. He was always very civil to the junior members of the Embassy. I think it pleased him that we all spoke German fluently, for the acknowledged supremacy of the French language as a means of communication between educated persons of different nationalities was always a very sore point with him. It must be remembered that Prussia herself had only comparatively recently been released from the thraldom of the French language. Frederick the Great always addressed his entourage in French. After 1870-71, Bismarck ordered the German Foreign Office to reply in the German language to all communications from the French Embassy. He followed the same procedure with the Russian Embassy; whereupon the Russian Ambassador countered with a long despatch written in Russian to the Wilhelmstrasse. He received no reply to this, and mentioned that fact to Bismarck about a fortnight later. "Ah!" said Bismarck reflectively, "now that your Excellency mentions it, I think we did receive a despatch in some unknown tongue. I ordered it to be put carefully away until we could procure the services of an expert to decipher it. I hope to be able to find such an expert in the course of the next three or four months, and can only trust that the matter was not a very pressing one."
The Ambassador took the hint, and that was the last note in Russian that reached the Wilhelmstrasse.
We ourselves always wrote in English, receiving replies in German, written in the third person, in the curiously cumbrous Prussian official style.