continue to act as musical director at the theatre by himself.

Strange to say, this trying experience coincided with an
important change in the life of another young friend of mine,
Hans von Bulow, whom I had known in Dresden. I had met his father
at Zurich in the previous year just after his second marriage. He
afterwards settled down at Lake Constance, and it was from this
place that Hans wrote to me expressing his regret that he was
unable to pay his long-desired visit to Zurich, as he had
previously promised to do.

As far as I could make out, his mother, who had been divorced
from his father, did all in her power to restrain him from
embracing the career of an artist, and tried to persuade him to
enter the civil or the diplomatic service, as he had studied law.
But his inclinations and talents impelled him to a musical
career. It seemed that his mother, when giving him permission to
go to visit his father, had particularly urged him to avoid any
meeting with me. When I afterwards heard that he had been advised
by his father also not to come to Zurich, I felt sure that the
latter, although he had been on friendly terms with me, was
anxious to act in accordance with his first wife's wishes in this
serious matter of his son's future, so as to avoid any further
disputes after the friction of the divorce had barely been
allayed. Later on I learned that these statements, which roused a
strong feeling of resentment in me against Eduard von Bulow, were
unfounded; but the despairing tone of Hans's letter, clearly
showing that any other career would be repugnant to him and would
be a constant source of misery, seemed to be ample reason for my
interference. This was one of the occasions when my easily