“I made a little excursion through the streets of the town. They swarmed with people of all nationalities, who looked very much preoccupied, and as if in search of something. The reason of this anxious search I discovered only too soon, as I myself had to share it. All these restless people, wandering through the town, were seeking to satisfy the pangs of hunger, which even the fulness of artistic enjoyment could not entirely assuage. The little town offers, it is true, sufficient shelter to strangers, but it is not able to feed all its guests. So it happened that, even on the very day of my arrival, I learnt what ‘the struggle for existence’ can mean. There are very few hotels in Bayreuth, and the greater part of the visitors find accommodation in private houses. The tables d’hôte prepared in the inns are not sufficient to satisfy all the hungry people; one can only obtain a piece of bread, or a glass of beer, with immense difficulty, by dire struggle, or cunning stratagem, or iron endurance. Even when a modest place at a table has been stormed, it is necessary to wait an eternity before the long-desired meal is served. Anarchy reigns at these meals; everyone is calling and shrieking, and the exhausted waiters pay no heed to the rightful claims of an individual. Only by the merest chance does one get a taste of any of the dishes. In the neighbourhood of the theatre is a restaurant which advertises a good dinner at two o’clock. But to get inside it and lay hold of anything in that throng of hungry creatures is a feat worthy of a hero. “I have dwelt upon this matter at some length with the design of calling the attention of my readers to this prominent feature of the Bayreuth Melomania. As a matter of fact, throughout the whole duration of the festival, food forms the chief interest of the public; the artistic representations take a secondary place. Cutlets, baked potatoes, omelettes, are discussed much more eagerly than Wagner’s music. “I have already mentioned that the representatives of all civilised nations were assembled in Bayreuth. In fact, even on the day of my arrival, I perceived in the crowd many leaders of the musical world in Europe and America. But the greatest of them, the most famous, were conspicuous by their absence. Verdi, Gounod, Thomas, Brahms, Anton Rubinstein, Raff, Joachim, Bülow had not come to Bayreuth. Among the noted Russian musicians present were: Nicholas Rubinstein, Cui, Laroche, Famitsin, Klindworth (who, as is well known, has made the pianoforte arrangement of the Wagner Trilogy), Frau Walzeck, the most famous professor of singing in Moscow, and others.