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Postponing the visit a week or two, he had time to complete the work, which stands today, as he wrote it then, with scarcely a correction. At Raff's suggestion, MacDowell visited Liszt in the spring of 1882. The dreaded encounter with the master proved to be a delightful surprise, as Liszt treated him with much kindness and courtesy.
"Hoot, vrouw," spoke up Raff hastily, "thou'rt fresher and rosier this minute than both our chicks put together." This remark, though not bearing very strong testimony to the clearness of Raff's newly awakened intellect, nevertheless afforded the dame immense satisfaction. The meal accordingly went on in the most delightful manner.
More came back to him: Mina Raff's parents had died when she was a young girl, and the Groves had rescued her from the undistinguished evils of improvidence; she had lived with them until, against their intensest objections, she had gone into moving pictures.
The vrouw looked for an instant as if Raff's recovery was becoming rather a doubtful benefit; her word was no longer sole law in the house. Fortunately the proverb "Humble wife is husband's boss" had taken deep root in her mind; even as the dame pondered, it bloomed. "Very well, Raff," she said smilingly, "it is thy boy as well as mine. Ah! I've a troublesome house, young masters."
You will have to fight them both in him where they, too, may come to blame you and about you. There is a strain of narrow intolerance through all that blood." Mina Raff's eyes fluttered like two clear brown butterflies which, preparing to settle, had been rudely disturbed.
What do you mean by Raff's confidential letter against the "Tannhauser" notice in the Grenzboten? Do not be offended, dearest friend, because I have not yet written to you about the "Ring of the Nibelung" at greater length. It is not my business to criticize and expound so extraordinary a work, for which later on I am resolved to do everything in my power in order to gain a proper place for it.
The people who know me best have complained that what patience I had has gone; even Ira, I'm certain, notices it. I have no success in what used to do to get along with; my rattle of talk, my line, is gone." "Those relations of Mina Raff's, the Groves," he said, shifting the talk to the subject of his thoughts, "are very engaging. Mrs. Grove specially.
At the height rings out the main tune of yore, transformed in triumphant majesty. The musical design embraces various phases. First is the clear rhythmic sense of the ride. We think of other instances like Schubert's "Erl-King" or the ghostly ride in Raff's "Lenore" Symphony. The degree of vivid description must vary, not only with the composer, but with the hearer.
By the date of these lines you will sufficiently see in what grief and sorrow I have been living for months. On the 7th I have to be back in Weymar to conduct Raff's opera; the work is too important for Raff's career for me to neglect it. But the thought of that journey, while my whole soul, my whole faith, and all my love must remain here at the sick-bed, is terrible to me. Let us talk of you.
This was the story of the watch that for ten long years had been so jealously guarded by Raff's faithful vrouw. Through many an hour of sore temptation she had dreaded almost to look upon it, lest she might be tempted to disobey her husband's request. It had been hard to see her children hungry and to know that the watch, if sold, would enable the roses to bloom in their cheeks again.
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