Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

92 MY MUSICAL EXPERIENCES
and wine and lemonade were handed round—Liszt
rose to depart, and, as was the case when he came in,
all the guests present rose, and remained standing
until he had left the room. When he was gone I was
conscious of a sensation which I am quite sure was
shared by pretty nearly everyone in the room,
whether they were quite aware of the feeling or not.
Everything seemed to have become all at once flat
and dull and uninteresting ; conversation languished ;
it was as if a shadow had fallen on a landscape, and
that which a moment before, when illumined by the
sun, was a mass of warm and glowing colours, was
now all gray, monotonous, and chill. We soon took
our leave of the two kind sister-hostesses (the Fraulein
Stahr), and each hastened back to his or her lodging
or pension in the town or its suburbs. The young
musician who had so kindly introduced me at these
reunions accompanied me on the way home; and I
opined from his conversation—an opinion which his
playing later on fully proved—that he was a true
artist. Yes, he was one in every sense of the word,
and, but for his untimely death in London some two
years since, would be now standing in the front rank
with the younger generation of pianists—with Silotti,
Eeisenauer, Schonberger, Stavenhagen, and several
others whom I do not name here.
The next day I took up my abode in the house of
the two Fraulein von Hummel. The piano I had
already secured was sent in, and placed in the front