Another time a much more terrible occurrence took place, but very much “behind the scenes.” I was in Boston with the Grau Opera Company and, at a Saturday matinée, “Carmen” was given with Madame Calvé in the title rôle. I did not conduct that opera, and happened to saunter on the stage after the third act. I found the whole company in a state of only half-suppressed merriment. While Madame A—— was singing _Micaela’s_ air on the stage, in which she implores _Don Jose_ to leave _Carmen_ and return to his old mother, one of these young wretches from Harvard had crept into her dressing-room, and in order to have a triumphant souvenir to hang up in his rooms at college he had stolen her— No, not her stockings, but another important part of her wearing apparel. Madame A——, on returning to her dressing-room, had discovered the theft. Her maid had told the wardrobe mistress, the wardrobe mistress had told the stage carpenter, he had repeated it to the stage-manager, and so forth and so on, the whole company revelling in it, especially as Madame A—— was herself of New England parentage and was considered an exceptionally proper young person. [Illustration: CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS AND WALTER DAMROSCH From a snapshot taken in Paris at the wedding reception of Gretchen Damrosch, July 17, 1920] XII ROMANCE “At last!” my readers will exclaim. “All these reminiscences about musicians are well enough, but it is their love-affairs that we are interested in. Think of Beethoven and the Countess Giucciardi, of Berlioz and Miss Smithson, of Liszt and the Countess d’Agoult, of Wagner and Madame Wesendonck. Musicians are so romantic, so different from ordinary men. They wear their hair longer; they affect delightful eccentricities of conduct and of clothes; the ordinary humdrum of life does not touch them, and they live only in the higher and rarer atmosphere of art and poetry.” Therefore woman, who is so much more spiritual than man, sometimes thinks in her unguarded moments that true happiness can only be found by falling in love with an artist or, better still, having him fall in love with her. Without venturing to place myself in the same category as the great musicians mentioned above, I nevertheless propose in this chapter to give a full and detailed account of all my love-affairs—all, or at least of as many as can be crowded into the confines of a chapter. I have lived a great many years and my life, like that of other artists, has been full to the brim of all kinds of interesting and fascinating happenings, and in order that my readers may gain a true picture I shall begin at the very beginning, promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.