Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/399

 as a dessert and a glass of wine. The company was mixed, but this made it easier for us to imagine ourselves during the meal as living in the ideal state of general fraternity.

Other expenses, of laundry and of an occasional fire in my room, brought the amount of the whole budget to not quite three francs a day, less than sixty cents in American money, or ninety to ninety-three francs a month. I could permit myself even some luxuries: the purchase of a few books, some of which are still in my possesion; also occasional tickets for the parterre in the Odéon or in a Faubourg theatre; now and then a cup of coffee on the Boulevard and—only now and then, to be sure—I could afford to see Rachel at the Théâtre Français. Thus I managed to incur no debts, to save a small reserve, to be obliged to nobody for anything, and to feel myself quite independent and comfortable.

Of course I could not, under such circumstances, indulge in expensive social enjoyments. Aside from an occasional visit to the salon of the Countess d'Agoult, the well-known friend of Franz Liszt, my intercourse remained mainly confined to German exiles, some students and young artists who pursued their studies in Paris, and also some young Frenchmen who attended lectures at the Sorbonne or other institutions of learning, and in this circle I found very agreeable companions. We had every week a “musical evening”; sometimes in my room, in which young musicians—among them Reinecke, who afterwards became the famous director of the well-known “Gewandhaus Concerts” in Leipzig—reviewed the most recent composers, and now and then produced their own compositions, while I and others served as an enthusiastic public. On such occasions we used to drink a punch which, for reasons of economy, left nothing to be desired in point of weakness.

In this circle my good comrade, Adolph Strodtmann, was