Decidedly, Richter's anxiety explained itself and extended to us.
At last the time had come! The last rehearsal but one was about to begin. How mysterious and imposing was the empty and dimly lighted theatre! It appeared immense, almost like a cathedral, the stage all bathed in a blue haze, produced, no doubt, by some reflection of the outside daylight, for it was then three o'clock in the afternoon.
Only a very few had been accorded the favour of being present at this rehearsal, which was without stage scenery or costumes.
Liszt was there. His tall dark silhouette loomed up from the orchestra stalls. I hastened to salute the Great Man, now become the friend, and I asked if he would permit me to remain near him during the rehearsal, that he might explain to me some things in the opera, the score of which I did not sufficiently know. The permission was very graciously accorded.
Now the musicians began to arrive and to take their places! How solemn and almost religious was the emotion we felt!
"For very many years I have waited for this moment," said Liszt, "and I have feared, indeed, that it would never come.... If you but knew the miseries, the wrecked and perished hopes despite which this work has germed and flowered! I have seen it all and I have suffered too because of it. I do not know how Wagner has been able to preserve his divine inspiration intact. He seems to me like a traveller who bore a cup full of water through the midst of a whirlwind without being forced to spill a single drop. But even in harbour, you see, he finds no shelter.... Dining his exile he was for many years the only German who had not heard _Lohengrin_. To-day, the tones of his great orchestra revealing his new work to the world, will sound for the first time and he will not hear them. Ah, what a ransom ought to be paid to genius!"
Now came Richter, pale and grave, and mounted to his desk.
We were hardly a dozen listeners in the dark audience hall. I caught a glimpse of the blond, almost white locks of Servais, and I divined the form of Edouard Schuré beside him. I also saw a shadow, climbing over the orchestra chairs: it was Villiers hastening to seat himself farther back, in order to be quite alone, quite undistracted.