"That was your father's seat," she reminded them every time. "The
second row from the end. He came in at the door to the left. And
that," pointing to the conductor's raised chair, "is where Franz will
sit some day." For she dreamed of Franz in all the glory of
KAPELLMEISTER; saw him swinging the little stick that dominated the
theatre-audience, singers and players alike.

And the children, hanging over the high gallery, shuffling their
restless feet, thus had their path as dearly traced for them, their
destiny as surely sealed, as any fate-shackled heroes of antiquity.



* * * * *



Late one afternoon about this time, Franz might have been found
together with his friends Krafft and Schilsky, at the latter's lodging
in the TALSTRASSE. He was astride a chair, over the back of which he
had folded his arms; and his chubby, rubicund face glistened with
moisture.

In the middle of the room, at the corner of a bare deal table that was
piled with loose music and manuscript, Schilsky sat improving and
correcting the tails and bodies of hastily made, notes. He was still
in his nightshirt, over which he had thrown coat and trousers; and,
wide open at the neck, it exposed to the waist a skin of the dead
whiteness peculiar to red-haired people. His face, on the other hand,