I went to Munich to sing for Baron S----, who liked me and offered me a contract, depending on the outcome of two _Gastspiele_, or guest performances, to be absolved the following October, my contract then to go into effect. My farewell in Darmstadt was "Carmen" and the people _were_ good to me. After the last curtain I left the stage for a minute, and when I came back to take my calls the stage was filled from side to side with flowers; they were banked and grouped all round me. The curtain then went up and down innumerable times, till I felt like weeping at leaving all these kind friends. For some reason my cab did not come for me and when I left the theatre the crowd waiting at the stage door followed me home, calling out "Come back soon," "Auf Wiedersehen," and many kind things. These are not perhaps great triumphs, but they make an artist's life very happy, and the life I led for those three years, comes very near being the ideal one for an opera singer. I think it was two years before this, on returning to Paris, that I took part in Strauss' "Salome." We gave six performances at the Châtelet. I took the page's small part, just for the fun of it, and so as to study the opera. The stage manager was a German of course, and spoke very little French. The singers were all Germans, and the "figurants," supers, all French. Things did not go well at rehearsals. Burrian, as the King would cry for wine or grapes, and no one moved to get what he wished, as no one understood what he was saying, and so could not get the musical cue. I was the only person able to speak the two languages fluently, and finally the stage manager asked me to take charge of all the business on my side of the stage. "_Suivez Madame!_" he would yell. So I said "Remove throne." "Bring golden vessels." "Clear stage," etc., to the intelligent crowd of supers, many of whom were young actors, who wanted as I did to study the opera. I remember one hideous little girl, who had an unattractive sore lip. Some one told her that it did not matter much, trying to comfort her, as she seemed so depressed about it, but she was inconsolable, and replied darkly, "it was always seven days lost." This brave effort to create the impression of an otherwise lurid existence deceived no one however, though they were too polite to show their doubt. Destinn's voice rose thrillingly in the love phrases that _Salome_ pours at _John_; and though she wore a costume that my young French friends considered consisted chiefly of _chats enragés_,--mad cats,--as it had two huge animal heads of gold, where such types of stage villainesses are always heavily protected, the tense quality of her voice, and the simple strength of her acting suited the character as Strauss had painted it with his music, and she achieved results that no other singer I know of could have done.