Without responding, Richter seized the Master's hand and kissed it.
The heartless whistle of the train interrupted us. We must separate. Wagner rose and stepped into the carriage; the door was closed. Still leaning from the window, he waved his grey hat; the wind scattered the locks of his hair about his splendid forehead, and, as long as the train remained in sight, we continued to signal with our handkerchiefs our latest farewell.
Richter's mother lived in a little village somewhere in the neighbourhood of Munich. He had planned to pass two or three days with her before his departure for Lucerne and had asked us to go with him; he would show us the country and we should be able to return to Munich the same day before the evening meal.
Villiers and Servais were of the party. We passed through pleasant and hilly country, picturesque with the villages of the suburban residents.
Frau Richter was a professor of singing, and it was the lesson hour when we entered the little house where she lived. Scales and trills of remarkable shrillness struck our ears, while we waited on the ground floor for the lesson to be over. The pupils passed us on their way out, and Richter conducted us up to the first floor and into the drawing-room, which was well furnished in a homelike and very German fashion.
Frau Richter was still a young woman, of attractive presence and manner. She spoke very regretfully of the events which had led to the dismissal of her son and she seemed to fear that he would never again find so good a position.
They brought us beer and bretzels. The talk languished a little at first, but when Richter told us that his mother had invented a method of singing which increased the power of the voice five-fold, she at once became interested and animated.
In fact, the pupils we had heard just before, had seemed to us to have a very unusual volume of tone.
Frau Richter's method consisted in throwing the sound, when singing, against the vault of the palate, which then forms a sort of drum increasing the resonance and the force of the tone to an astonishing degree.
Richter sat down at the piano and sang according to this method. His voice came out in tremendous volume, making the little house tremble to its foundation.