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HERR VON SCHNABELEWOPSKI.
105

9. The Bacchus Hall.

10. And, finally, the City Theatre.

This last deserves to be specially praised. Its members are all good citizens, honourable fathers of families, who never let themselves be substituted or disguised,[1] and never act so as to deceive anybody for an instant—men who make of the theatre a church, since they convince the unhappy man who has lost faith in humanity, in the most actual manner possible, that all things in this world are not delusion and a counterfeit.[2] In enumerating the remarkable things in Hamburg, I cannot refrain from mentioning that in my time the Hall of Apollo, on the Drehbahn, was a very brilliant place. Now it has very much come down, and philharmonic concerts, and shows by professors of legerdemain, are there given, and professors of natural history are fed. Once it was different. The trumpets pealed, the drums rattled and rolled loudly, ostrich feathers fluttered, and Heloise and Minka ran the races of the Oginski polonaise, and everything was so perfectly respectable! Sweet time it was for me when fortune smiled. And this fortune was called Heloise. She was a charming, loving, pleasure-giving treasure, with

  1. Verstellen. To misplace, sham, disguise.
  2. By all this Heine simply means that nobody is "taken in" by the acting in question.