Afterwards I would have liked best to go home and to sleep with the
sound of it still in my heart, but Kloster sent round a note saying I
was to come to supper and meet some people who would be useful for me
to know. One of his pupils, who brought the note, had been ordered to
pilot me safely to the house, it being late, and as we walked and
Kloster drove in somebody's car he was there already when we arrived,
busy opening beer bottles and looking much more appropriate than he had
done an hour earlier. I can't tell you how kindly he greeted me, and
with what charming little elucidatory comments he presented me to his
wife and the other guests. He actually seemed proud of me. Think how
I must have glowed.

"This is Mees Chrees," he said, taking my hand and leading me into the
middle of the room. "I will not and cannot embark on her family name,
for it is one of those English names that a prudent man avoids. Nor
does it matter. For in ten years--nay, in five--all Europe will have
learned it by heart."

There were about a dozen people, and we had beer and sandwiches and
were very happy. Kloster sat eating sandwiches and staring
benevolently at us all, more like an amiable and hospitable prawn than
ever. You don't know, little mother, how wonderful it is that he
should say these praising things of me, for I'm told by other pupils
that he is dreadfully severe and disagreeable if he doesn't think one
is getting on. It was immensely kind of him to ask me to supper, for
there was somebody there, a Grafin Koseritz, whose husband is in the
ministry, and who is herself very influential and violently interested
in music. She pulls most of the strings at Bayreuth, Kloster says,
more of them even than Frau Cosima now that she is old, and gets one