Just to think of all the articles they are writing at home to prove that we are fast developing an artistic sense!
Anything more inconvenient than the arrangement of meals would be hard to find—with the exception of breakfast. This is served when and where you want it and consists of rolls and coffee. It seems we are especially lucky inasmuch as we receive honey also "without extra charge," as the Baroness impressively added. At eleven o'clock comes the Zweites Frühstück which I rather imagine I shall omit. At one occurs Mittaggessen, a pompous meal requiring at least an hour. At five every one has afternoon coffee and a bit of cake. I hear there are any number of beguiling outdoor cafés where one can sit under the trees and hear good music. At seven-thirty your true son of Germany hungers yet again, and Abendessen (supper) is served. If, however, one wishes to attend any form of entertainment he must eat a cold supper early, in a bare and deserted dining-room, for the opera and concerts generally begin at seven o'clock. Do not imagine, my dear, that the German can now go to bed satisfied, for the Baroness assures me that he either sets out at once for a beer-hall and lingers over his stein all the evening, or about ten he has brought to his room such soporific things as cheese sandwiches, cold sausage, and, of course, the inevitable beverage. It's simply impossible for people to be hungry here. They don't have time to acquire an appetite.
Good night to you now, for it is growing late. I wonder what it will all be like, everything seems so strange now, and I feel as though I were a year's journey from America. Well, I shall do my best to write you all that happens. My plan is to keep a musical journal; that is, a record of all that occurs relating to my studies, and occasionally you won't mind, will you, if I copy an item or two from that into your letters? It will seem so much more as though I were talking to you if I scribble down things from day to day and then send the whole off in a batch, instead of writing in the conventional way one generally does. There is a clock striking now. It must be that of the two-towered Frauenkirche which is so near. So this time really good night and angenehme Ruh', which means "a pleasant rest to you!"
September 19.
It was with a certain repressed excitement that I made my way toward Ainmüllerstrasse, at half-past eight this morning, to pay my first visit to Professor Thuille. My letters of introduction were clasped tightly in my hand, and I walked so rapidly that by the time I found myself on the landing before his door, after climbing several flights of stairs,—you know every one lives in a Wohnung (apartment) here, and an elevator in a dwelling-house is an almost unheard-of luxury,—I was completely out of breath. It still lacked fifteen minutes of the appointed time, so I had ample opportunity to regain my composure as I sat in the cosy reception room into which the maid had ushered me. Behind the closed doors at the further end of the apartment I could hear a pupil playing a Beethoven sonata, and a man's voice occasionally interrupting. I adjusted my hat for the twentieth time, smoothed my hair back over my ears, and endeavored to appear outwardly as if I were not at all in a flutter of expectation. Perhaps my excitement was increased by the remembrance of the impression I had made at supper last night, when I casually mentioned that I had come to Munich to study composition with Professor Thuille. Every one became attentive immediately, and spoke in the highest terms of his genius as a composer. I felt not a little proud, and somewhat uneasy, at the thought of meeting him.
"Richard Strauss was a pupil of his," said Herr Doktor, calmly, as he helped himself to a third piece of black bread. Thereupon I really trembled. So now, in order to quiet my nerves, I began to look about me.
The first thing which caught my eye was a landscape in vivid blues and greens, framed in massive and evidently costly style. From the inscription beneath I gathered that this creation was the gift of a grateful chorus to their "beloved director, Ludwig Thuille." Over the bookcase hung several giant laurel wreaths, their leaves now crisply yellowing. To these were attached brilliant, silver-lettered ribbons which, as they floated flamboyantly against the subdued gray of the wall-paper, proclaimed that these tokens, too, were the gifts of appreciative souls. The table near the door held a beautifully carved loving-cup of silver also bearing an inscription. Truly, gratitude must be the virtue par excellence of Germany!
If I had insensibly acquired an impression of ostentation from all this array of tributes—a common custom of every artist here, they tell me—this vanished the moment the door opened, for Professor Thuille and anything like ostentation are as far from one another as the poles. I was surprised to see a man so young in appearance, for I had in some inexplicable way formed the idea that he was much older. My second thought was that I had never seen so charming and cordial a smile. Of course he shook hands, as all these people do, and bade me be seated while he opened the letters. He is short in stature, with sandy hair, and a long mustache curled up at the ends in true imperial manner. His eyes, blue and kindly, looked straight and sympathetically at me. His face is deeply lined and shows tense sensitiveness in every feature. The rather strained expression vanishes, however, the moment he smiles. As he turned over my letters I noted that the fingers of his right hand were stained a deep yellow; already the faint aroma of cigarette smoke had reached me. Intuitively I felt that these two things indicated one of his characteristics. I had happened on the Leitmotif, as it were, of Thuille.
"Ach! dass ist sehr nett!" (That is very nice!) he said, laying down the letters. "You know Herr Chadwick and I studied in the same class in the old Conservatory. It is indeed delightful to hear from him again. And now about yourself. I understand that you want to study composition with me, Fräulein," he continued, looking at me with kindly scrutiny.
"If you will take me for a pupil, Herr Professor," said I.