Scribe in Paris. With this manuscript I sent a letter to the
famous operatic poet, in which I suggested that he might make use
of my plot, on condition that he would secure me the composition
of the music for the Paris Opera House. To convince him of my
ability to compose Parisian operatic music, I also sent him the
score of my Liebesverbot. At the same time I wrote to Meyerbeer,
informing him of my plans, and begging him to support me. I was
not at all disheartened at receiving no reply, for I was content
to know that now at last 'I was in communication with Paris.'
When, therefore, I started out upon my daring journey from Riga,
I seemed to have a comparatively serious object in view, and my
Paris projects no longer struck me as being altogether in the
air. In addition to this I now heard that my youngest sister,
Cecilia, had become betrothed to a certain Eduard Avenarius, an
employee of the Brockhaus book-selling firm, and that he had
undertaken the management of their Paris branch. To him I applied
for news of Scribe, and for an answer to the application I had
made to that gentleman some years previously. Avenarius called on
Scribe, and from him received an acknowledgment of the receipt of
my earlier communication. Scribe also showed that he had some
recollection of the subject itself; for he said that, so far as
he could remember, there was a joueuse de harpe in the piece, who
was ill-treated by her brother. The fact that this merely
incidental item had alone remained in his memory led me to
conclude that he had not extended his acquaintance with the piece
beyond the first act, in which the item in question occurs. When,
moreover, I heard that he had nothing to say in regard to my
score, except that he had had portions of it played over to him
by a pupil of the Conservatoire, I really could not flatter
myself that he had entered into definite and conscious relations