You could not say that it was more gigantic than The Ring, more human than the Meistersingers, more emotional than Parsifal, but it was utterly and wholly different to anything else he had ever seen or conjectured.

Falbe, he himself, the thronged and silent theatre, the Emperor, Munich, Germany, were all blotted out of his consciousness.
He just watched, as if discarnate, the unrolling of the decrees of Fate which were to bring so simple and overpowering a tragedy on the two who drained the love-potion together.

And at the end he fell back in his seat, feeling thrilled and tired, exhilarated and exhausted.
"Oh, Hermann," he said, "what years I've wasted!" Falbe laughed.
"You've wasted more than you know yet," he said.

"Hallo!" A very resplendent officer had come clanking down the gangway next them.
He put his heels together and bowed.
"Lord Comber, I think ?" he said in excellent English.
Michael roused himself.
"Yes ?" he said.
"His Imperial Majesty has done me the honour to desire you to come and speak to him," he said.
"Now ?" said Michael.
"If you will be so good," and he stood aside for Michael to pass up the stairs in front of him.
In the wide corridor behind he joined him again.
"Allow me to introduce myself as Count von Bergmann," he said, "and one of His Majesty's aides-de-camp.

The Kaiser always speaks with great pleasure of the visits he has paid to your father, and he saw you immediately he came into the theatre.