Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

2i6 MY MUSICAL EXPERIENCES
at having to go to Weimar without me. I left St.
Petersburg at the end of May, about the same time
that Henselt set out for Warmbrunn. I went to stay
with some friends in Berlin for a week or two on my
way to Warmbrunn, and, while sitting out in the
garden, my ankles were so bitten by mosquitoes
which are very troublesome in Berlin—that I could
scarcely move the day before I left. I made light of
it, however, and started. But when I reached Warm-
brunn, after travelling all night, my ankles were so
much inflamed that I was obliged to send a message
to Frau von Henselt, begging her to send me a doctor.
This gentleman arrived in the course of an hour or so,
and told me I would have to keep my room for some
days, as I was suffering from blood-poisoning, which
had brought on erysipelas.
He was not long gone before Henselt and his wife
appeared in my room, asked me what the doctor had
said, and looked all round to see what might be
possibly wanting for my comfort. When they went
home, Frau von Henselt sent her maid round to me
with a large hair pillow, her own cosy dressing-
slippers, and her own handbell; for in Warmbrunn,
bells, as we have them—rung by wires through the
walls—are, if not quite unknown, looked on as a
luxury in which every householder does not in-
dulge.
Next day I felt very ill, and had to keep my bed,
and the Von Henselts came again to see me ; the
—