themselves, acquired by practice in the back streets of the two
towns when other people were in bed; for back they must go over
that unspeakable journey with their pious mission unfulfilled.
These humiliated outcasts had the frowsy and unbrushed and
apologetic look of wet cats, and their eyes were glazed with
drowsiness, their bodies were adroop from crown to sole, and all
kind-hearted people refrained from asking them if they had been
to Bayreuth and failed to connect, as knowing they would lie.
We reached here (Bayreuth) about mid-afternoon of a rainy
Saturday. We were of the wise, and had secured lodgings and
opera seats months in advance.
I am not a musical critic, and did not come here to write
essays about the operas and deliver judgment upon their merits.
The little children of Bayreuth could do that with a finer
sympathy and a broader intelligence than I. I only care to bring
four or five pilgrims to the operas, pilgrims able to appreciate
them and enjoy them. What I write about the performance to put
in my odd time would be offered to the public as merely a cat’s
view of a king, and not of didactic value.
Next day, which was Sunday, we left for the opera-house–
that is to say, the Wagner temple–a little after the middle of
the afternoon. The great building stands all by itself, grand
and lonely, on a high ground outside the town. We were warned
that if we arrived after four o’clock we should be obliged to pay
two dollars and a half extra by way of fine. We saved that; and
it may be remarked here that this is the only opportunity that
Europe offers of saving money. There was a big crowd in the
grounds about the building, and the ladies’ dresses took the sun
with fine effect. I do not mean to intimate that the ladies were
in full dress, for that was not so. The dresses were pretty, but
neither sex was in evening dress.
The interior of the building is simple–severely so; but
there is no occasion for color and decoration, since the people
sit in the dark. The auditorium has the shape of a keystone,
with the stage at the narrow end. There is an aisle on each
side, but no aisle in the body of the house. Each row of seats
extends in an unbroken curve from one side of the house to the
other. There are seven entrance doors on each side of the
theater and four at the butt, eighteen doors to admit and emit
1,650 persons. The number of the particular door by which you
are to enter the house or leave it is printed on your ticket, and
you can use no door but that one. Thus, crowding and confusion
are impossible. Not so many as a hundred people use any one
door. This is better than having the usual (and useless)
elaborate fireproof arrangements. It is the model theater of the
world. It can be emptied while the second hand of a watch makes
its circuit. It would be entirely safe, even if it were built of
lucifer matches.
If your seat is near the center of a row and you enter late
you must work your way along a rank of about twenty-five ladies
and gentlemen to get to it. Yet this causes no trouble, for
everybody stands up until all the seats are full, and the filling
is accomplished in a very few minutes. Then all sit down, and
you have a solid mass of fifteen hundred heads, making a steep
cellar-door slant from the rear of the house down to the stage.
All the lights were turned low, so low that the congregation
sat in a deep and solemn gloom. The funereal rustling of dresses
and the low buzz of conversation began to die swiftly down, and
presently not the ghost of a sound was left. This profound and
increasingly impressive stillness endured for some time–the best
preparation for music, spectacle, or speech conceivable. I should
think our show people would have invented or imported that simple
and impressive device for securing and solidifying the attention