Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/113

Rh shabby players whom I have to engage; and when that has gone on all day, and I say to myself, it is all for the Düsseldorf theatre and its salvation, my temper becomes terribly bad. At the day before yesterday I made up my mind, shook myself free of the whole business, and now I am a man again. It was, indeed, a difficult matter to inform our theatrical autocrat, alias stage-mufti, of this resolution. He bit his lip at me as if he was going to devour me whole, but I delivered him a short, impressive speech, and informed him that my own work concerned me more than the future of the Düsseldorf theatre, so in spite of the utmost desire, etc. etc. In short, they let me go under the sole condition that I should, from time to time, act as conductor, and this I promised and will observe.

With “St. Paul” I have now reached a point at which I should like to play it to someone, only I can’t find the right person. My friends here are quite delighted with it, but that does not prove very much. I miss the cantor with her thick eyebrows and her critical sense. I have almost got the second part into shape in my mind up to the place where they imagine St. Paul to be Jupiter, and want to sacrifice to him; several great choruses will have to come in here, but I have no notion of them yet—it is hard. You ask if I have made any arrangements for publishing at Leipsic. Breitkopf and Hartel, however, give me to understand