On the way home, we were storm-bound at Copenhagen, and I at once fell in love with that city, and its wonderful blond race of big men and women. We heard stories of divorces and passionate love affairs, that made other nations pale by contrast. One delightful man told us he had had no objection to his wife having _one_ lover, but when he found she had seven, he thought it time to get a divorce! He still quite often saw her, and said they were the best friends in the world. He liked to take her out to dinner and the theatre and tell her all about everything. He called us "The Misses Chickens Howard," and was only restrained by business engagements from following us from place to place. That was a hobby of his, he said, when he found a sympathetic artist. We crossed back to Germany, and I sang with Nickisch for the first time, in Hamburg. His room behind the stage swarmed with ladies, in the _entr'acte_, and the concert master told me it was always so. A valet looked him over carefully before he went on the stage, pulled down his coat, and patted the Herr Professor's shoulders. I remembered the cuff story in Metz and watched through the crack of the door to see if it still held good--and it did! Later I sang with Mengelberg in Frankfort. He said to me, eating apples the while: "I engaged you because friends of mine in Holland told me you could sing. Can you?" After the concert he came to me again, still eating apples, and said: "_Es is wahr. Sie haben eine Prachtvolle Stimme, und koennen prachtvoll singen_," and kissed my hand. To hear Mengelberg direct "Tod und Verklaerung" of Strauss, with his own orchestra is one of the most tremendous things I have ever experienced. One is transported. A little man with a tight mouth and an aureole of fair hair, he is feared by his men, but _how_ he is respected! That winter he spent almost every night in the train, as he conducted regularly in Holland, Germany and Russia. I have always been able to get on with really great musicians, and have found only the second best _difficile_ and small. The path seems suddenly smooth when in rehearsal, you feel this wealth of absolute knowledge and authority supporting, leading and inspiring you. Anxiety vanishes and one's best pours from one without effort, only with the sensation of wringing every last drop of beauty from the phrase. We returned to Sweden to concerts with Stenhammer, and I should have crossed to Helsingfors to sing _Dalila_, but had to return on account of engagements in Germany.