Now came for me a time, a whole year, when I lived for only one object,—Song; that had now become the “one important thing.” On the very day after our interview the instruction began. In order that it might make rapid progress, and I might in a year advance as far as others did in a conservatory course of several years, the lessons were fixed at four hours a day,—two hours in the forenoon and two in the afternoon, with the requisite interval of rest between. Scalesinging, vocal exercises, score-reading, the science of harmony: I was to become a thorough musician; as phenomenal in artistic schooling as in vocal talent,—simply the greatest cantatrice of the century. Herr Beranek went into ecstasies every day, and thus kept us fancying that the marvelous had really come to pass, that an enormous prize had fallen to me in the lottery of life. Or rather that a treasure-trove was assuredly within sight, but that it must be dug for. And I dug and dug with a diligence, a perseverance, a joy, that was unique of its kind. From morning till night, through the long months of the autumn, of the winter, of the spring, nothing but notes,—sung, played, read, written notes,—and yet it was a whole world, full of sweetness and beauty, full of inspiration, full of proud satisfaction. I do not know (seeing that I never attained to it) whether a successful career as a prima donna really carries with it as much happiness as is to be experienced in the preparation for it, when the time is occupied with study, and triumph seems sure.