And what were these Italian composers compared with him? His music was full of deep meaning, truly dramatic, besides which every character had its musical brief, and as Shakespeare's kings were ushered in by a flourish of trumpets, so were his heroes by a few bars of instrumental performance. He scorned all that was pleasantly unmeaning, all that was attractively melodious; when his heroes sang, it was but a musical mode of speaking, to which the orchestra imparted all sharper accents, and a few significant inter-punctuations. But when the tempest of his genius stirred up the depths of the orchestra, so that in almost every bar some old musical rule suffered shipwreck, and the most outrageous impossibilities, the most startling dissonances dashed into the air like spectral water spouts out of the foaming, splashing waves; then indeed must enthusiasm, ecstasy know no bounds, and even the public be transformed into a stormy, raging mass, out of which the thunder of applause should break loose as if with elementary power. This Müller had, it is true, never experienced, but he saw and heard it in imagination. If he could only once touch the conductors desk with that ebon magic wand, this unbounded exultation of delight must be set free. But it never came about; the directors were to blame. Instead of it the coquettish tone-muse of Italy, which is so undramatic that she represents Luciâ di Lammermoor's madness in the most lively dance music, flaunted upon the stage with all her tinsel of trills and _fioriture_. In such a frame of mind, Müller von Stallupöhnen helped the venomous reporters to lay traps for the directors and for the wicked representative of Italian monkey-like art. On the evening of the performance of the "Barbière" the house was filled, but a peculiar disquiet prevailed, as if some unusual event were in the air. Kuhl sat in the stalls beside his Cäcilie, who now appeared to be inseparable from him, and near poet Schöner.