After that there was a real Swedish celebration of farewell which lasted until long past midnight--only, as the nights were almost as bright as day in that far northern country, it was difficult to tell the time. I remember that after supper I suddenly recalled that Caruso had written, asking me to secure him a complete set of Swedish stamps, as he was a postage-stamp fiend. When I told His Majesty of this, the King sent out and secured a complete set of stamps, which I forwarded to Enrico with the compliments of the King of Sweden. As I was leaving and saying farewell, for we were to go on the morrow, His Majesty said: "Next year, Mademoiselle Farrar, you must sing again in Stockholm." "I shall be delighted, Your Majesty," I replied. "Meanwhile, you sing only in Berlin?" "Oh, no," I answered, "I have been offered a reengagement for Monte Carlo next March." "Monte Carlo, eh?" And His Majesty laughed. "My dear Mademoiselle Farrar, my physician has been urging me to visit Monte Carlo. I shall time my trip so that I shall be sure to hear you sing there." What a perfect darling old King Oscar was! CHAPTER X MY FOURTH SEASON The month of June found me in Paris, where I sang at a charity concert, and in August I went to Bayreuth for the first time and was greatly moved by "Parsifal." On August 12 my diary says: "To-day I placed a laurel wreath on the grave of Liszt." In October, 1904, before the opening of the regular season in Berlin, I went to fulfill a special engagement in Warsaw. An incident characteristic of the impetuous Poles occurred on the train, which resulted in more than a year's annoyance of rather an amusing character. My mother and I were traveling in a private compartment, with the door open on the main corridor of the train. A tall, handsome, bearded gentleman had passed that door no less than a dozen times. Finally he passed just at the moment when my mother wished the train porter to change German gold into Russian money. The porter did not have the change. Here was the chance of the bearded man's lifetime. He projected himself into the compartment, he made the change, he introduced himself gracefully, and calmly announced that he knew me all the time as "_Die Farrar aus Berlin_," the singer, and he wished to do everything in his power to make us comfortable during our stay in Warsaw. He turned out to be Count Ischki P----, a very wealthy nobleman with a most romantic temperament and also with the persistence of fly-paper. We could not disengage ourselves from his courtesy on the train, and he became doubly irksome when he bombarded my apartments in the Hotel Bristol,--the magnificent hostelry, by the way, which Paderewski built and owns in Warsaw,--sending me flowers, sweetmeats, candies, and even attempting to send me jewelry. The poor Count Ischki wanted me to look with favor upon his suit. Never, outside the pages of a novel, have I met any one quite so ardent, in so many languages.