15385	----	A Cathedral Singer [Illustration] A Cathedral Singer BY JAMES LANE ALLEN Author of "The Sword of Youth," "The Bride of the Mistletoe," "The Kentucky Cardinal," "The Choir Invisible," etc. WITH FRONTISPIECE BY SIGISMOND DE IVANOWSKI NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1916 Copyright, 1914, 1916, by THE CENTURY CO. _Published, March, 1916_ TO PITY AND TO FAITH A Cathedral Singer I Slowly on Morningside Heights rises the Cathedral of St. John the Divine: standing on a high rock under the Northern sky above the long wash of the untroubled sea, above the wash of the troubled waves of men. It has fit neighbors. Across the street to the north looms the many-towered gray-walled Hospital of St. Luke--cathedral of our ruins, of our sufferings and our dust, near the cathedral of our souls. Across the block to the south is situated a shed-like two-story building with dormer-windows and a crumpled three-sided roof, the studios of the National Academy of Design; and under that low brittle skylight youth toils over the shapes and colors of the visible vanishing paradise of the earth in the shadow of the cathedral which promises an unseen, an eternal one. At the rear of the cathedral, across the roadway, stands a low stone wall. Just over the wall the earth sinks like a precipice to a green valley bottom far below. Out here is a rugged slope of rock and verdure and forest growth which brings into the city an ancient presence, nature--nature, the Elysian Fields of the art school, the potter's field of the hospital, the harvest field of the church. This strip of nature fronts the dawn and is called Morningside Park. Past the foot of it a thoroughfare stretches northward and southward, level and wide and smooth. Over this thoroughfare the two opposite-moving streams of the city's traffic and travel rush headlong. Beyond the thoroughfare an embankment of houses shoves its mass before the eyes, and beyond the embankment the city spreads out over flats where human beings are as thick as river reeds. Thus within small compass humanity is here: the cathedral, the hospital, the art school, and a strip of nature, and a broad highway along which, with their hearth-fires flickering fitfully under their tents of stone, are encamped life's restless, light-hearted, heavy-hearted Gipsies. * * * * * It was Monday morning and it was nine o'clock. Over at the National Academy of Design, in an upper room, the members of one of the women's portrait classes were assembled, ready to begin work. Easels had been drawn into position; a clear light from the blue sky of the last of April fell through the opened roof upon new canvases fastened to the frames. And it poured down bountifully upon intelligent young faces. The scene was a beautiful one, and it was complete except in one particular: the teacher of the class was missing--the teacher and a model. Minutes passed without his coming, and when at last he did enter the room, he advanced two or three steps and paused as though he meant presently to go out again. After his usual quiet good-morning with his sober smile, he gave his alert listeners the clue to an unusual situation: "I told the class that to-day we should begin a fresh study. I had not myself decided what this should be. Several models were in reserve, any one of whom could have been used to advantage at this closing stage of the year's course. Then the unexpected happened: on Saturday a stranger, a woman, came to see me and asked to be engaged. It is this model that I have been waiting for down-stairs." Their thoughts instantly passed to the model: his impressive manner, his respectful words, invested her with mystery, with fascination. His countenance lighted up with wonderful interest as he went on: "She is not a professional; she has never posed. In asking me to engage her she proffered barely the explanation which she seemed to feel due herself. I turn this explanation over to you because she wished, I think, that you also should not misunderstand her. It is the fee, then, that is needed, the model's wage; she has felt the common lash of the poor. Plainly here is some one who has stepped down from her place in life, who has descended far below her inclinations, to raise a small sum of money. Why she does so is of course her own sacred and delicate affair. But the spirit in which she does this becomes our affair, because it becomes a matter of expression with her. This self-sacrifice, this ordeal which she voluntarily undergoes to gain her end, shows in her face; and if while she poses, you should be fortunate enough to see this look along with other fine things, great things, it will be your aim to transfer them all to your canvases--if you can." He smiled at them with a kind of fostering challenge to their over-confident impulses and immature art. But he had not yet fully brought out what he had in mind about the mysterious stranger and he continued: "We teachers of art schools in engaging models have to take from human material as we find it. The best we find is seldom or never what we would prefer. If I, for instance, could have my choice, my students would never be allowed to work from a model who repelled the student or left the student indifferent. No students of mine, if I could have my way, should ever paint from a model that failed to call forth the finest feelings. Otherwise, how can your best emotions have full play in your work; and unless your best emotions enter into your work, what will your work be worth? For if you have never before understood the truth, try to realize it now: that you will succeed in painting only through the best that is in you; just as only the best in you will ever carry you triumphantly to the end of any practical human road that is worth the travel; just as you will reach all life's best goals only through your best. And in painting remember that the best is never in the eye, for the eye can only perceive, the eye can only direct; and the best is never in the hand, for the hand can only measure, the hand can only move. In painting the best comes from emotion. A human being may lack eyes and be none the poorer in character; a human being may lack hands and be none the poorer in character; but whenever in life a person lacks any great emotion, that person is the poorer in everything. And so in painting you can fail after the eye has gained all necessary knowledge, you can fail after your hand has received all necessary training, either because nature has denied you the foundations of great feeling, or because, having these foundations, you have failed to make them the foundations of your work. "But among a hundred models there might not be one to arouse such emotion. Actually in the world, among the thousands of people we know, how few stir in us our best, force us to our best! It is the rarest experience of our lifetimes that we meet a man or a woman who literally drives us to the realization of what we really are and can really do when we do our best. What we all most need in our careers is the one who can liberate within us that lifelong prisoner whose doom it is to remain a captive until another sets it free--our best. For we can never set our best free by our own hands; that must always be done by another." They were listening to him with a startled recognition of their inmost selves. He went on to drive home his point about the stranger: "I am going to introduce to you, then, a model who beyond all the others you have worked with will liberate in you your finer selves. It is a rare opportunity. Do not thank me. I did not find her. Life's storms have blown her violently against the walls of the art school; we must see to it at least that she be not further bruised while it becomes her shelter, her refuge. Who she is, what her life has been, where she comes from, how she happens to arrive here--these are privacies into which of course we do not intrude. Immediately behind herself she drops a curtain of silence which shuts away every such sign of her past. But there are other signs of that past which she cannot hide and which it is our privilege, our duty, the province of our art, to read. They are written on her face, on her hands, on her bearing; they are written all over her--the bruises of life's rudenesses, the lingering shadows of dark days, the unwounded pride once and the wounded pride now, the unconquerable will, a soaring spirit whose wings were meant for the upper air but which are broken and beat the dust. All these are sublime things to paint in any human countenance; they are the footprints of destiny on our faces. The greatest masters of the brush that the world has ever known could not have asked for anything greater. When you behold her, perhaps some of you may think of certain brief but eternal words of Pascal: 'Man is a reed that bends but does not break.' Such is your model, then, a woman with a great countenance; the fighting face of a woman at peace. Now out upon the darkened battle-field of this woman's face shines one serene sun, and it is that sun that brings out upon it its marvelous human radiance, its supreme expression: the love of the mother. Your model is the beauty of motherhood, the sacredness of motherhood, the glory of motherhood: that is to be the portrait of her that you are to paint." He stopped. Their faces glowed; their eyes disclosed depths in their natures never stirred before; from out those depths youthful, tender creative forces came forth, eager to serve, to obey. He added a few particulars: "For a while after she is posed you will no doubt see many different expressions pass rapidly over her face. This will be a new and painful experience to which she will not be able to adapt herself at once. She will be uncomfortable, she will be awkward, she will be embarrassed, she will be without her full value. But I think from what I discovered while talking with her that she will soon grow oblivious to her surroundings. They will not overwhelm her; she will finally overwhelm them. She will soon forget you and me and the studio; the one ruling passion of her life will sweep back into consciousness; and then out upon her features will come again that marvelous look which has almost remodeled them to itself alone." He added, "I will go for her. By this time she must be waiting down-stairs." As he turned he glanced at the screens placed at that end of the room; behind these the models made their preparations to pose. "I have arranged," he said significantly, "that she shall leave her things down-stairs." It seemed long before they heard him on the way back. He came slowly, as though concerned not to hurry his model, as though to save her from the disrespect of urgency. Even the natural noise of his feet on the bare hallway was restrained. They listened for the sounds of her footsteps. In the tense silence of the studio a pin-drop might have been noticeable, a breath would have been audible; but they could not hear her footsteps. He might have been followed by a spirit. Those feet of hers must be very light feet, very quiet feet, the feet of the well-bred. He entered and advanced a few paces and turned as though to make way for some one of far more importance than himself; and there walked forward and stopped at a delicate distance from them all a woman, bareheaded, ungloved, slender, straight, of middle height, and in life's middle years--Rachel Truesdale. She did not look at him or at them; she did not look at anything. It was not her role to notice. She merely waited, perfectly composed, to be told what to do. Her thoughts and emotions did not enter into the scene at all; she was there solely as having been hired for work. One privilege she had exercised unsparingly--not to offer herself for this employment as becomingly dressed for it. She submitted herself to be painted in austerest fidelity to nature, plainly dressed, her hair parted and brushed severely back. Women, sometimes great women, have in history, at the hour of their supreme tragedies, thus demeaned themselves--for the hospital, for baptism, for the guillotine, for the stake, for the cross. But because she made herself poor in apparel, she became most rich in her humanity. There was nothing for the eye to rest upon but her bare self. And thus the contours of the head, the beauty of the hair, the line of it along the forehead and temples, the curvature of the brows, the chiseling of the proud nostrils and the high bridge of the nose, the molding of the mouth, the modeling of the throat, the shaping of the shoulders, the grace of the arms and the hands--all became conspicuous, absorbing. The slightest elements of physique and of personality came into view powerful, unforgetable. She stood, not noticing anything, waiting for instructions. With the courtesy which was the soul of him and the secret of his genius for inspiring others to do their utmost, the master of the class glanced at her and glanced at the members of the class, and tried to draw them together with a mere smile of sympathetic introduction. It was an attempt to break the ice. For them it did break the ice; all responded with a smile for her or with other play of the features that meant gracious recognition. With her the ice remained unbroken; she withheld all response to their courteous overtures. Either she may not have trusted herself to respond; or waiting there merely as a model, she declined to establish any other understanding with them whatsoever. So that he went further in the kindness of his intention and said: "Madam, this is my class of eager, warm, generous young natures who are to have the opportunity of trying to paint you. They are mere beginners; their art is still unformed. But you may believe that they will put their best into what they are about to undertake; the loyalty of the hand, the respect of the eye, the tenderness of their memories, consecration to their art, their dreams and hopes of future success. Now if you will be good enough to sit here, I will pose you." He stepped toward a circular revolving-platform placed at the focus of the massed easels: it was the model's rack of patience, the mount of humiliation, the scaffold of exposure. She had perhaps not understood that this would be required of her, this indignity, that she must climb upon a block like an old-time slave at an auction. For one instant her fighting look came back and her eyes, though they rested on vacancy, blazed on vacancy and an ugly red rushed over her face which had been whiter than colorless. Then as though she had become disciplined through years of necessity to do the unworthy things that must be done, she stepped resolutely though unsteadily upon the platform. A long procession of men and women had climbed thither from many a motive on life's upward or downward road. He had specially chosen a chair for a three-quarter portrait, stately, richly carved; about it hung an atmosphere of high-born things. Now, the body has definite memories as the mind has definite memories, and scarcely had she seated herself before the recollections of former years revived in her and she yielded herself to the chair as though she had risen from it a moment before. He did not have to pose her; she had posed herself by grace of bygone luxurious ways. A few changes in the arrangement of the hands he did make. There was required some separation of the fingers; excitement caused her to hold them too closely together. And he drew the entire hands into notice; he specially wished them to be appreciated in the portrait. They were wonderful hands: they looked eloquent with the histories of generations; their youthfulness seemed centuries old. Yet all over them, barely to be seen, were the marks of life's experience, the delicate but dread sculpture of adversity. For a while it was as he had foreseen. She was aware only of the brutality of her position; and her face, by its confused expressions and quick changes of color, showed what painful thoughts surged. Afterward a change came gradually. As though she could endure the ordeal only by forgetting it and could forget it only by looking ahead into the happiness for which it was endured, slowly there began to shine out upon her face its ruling passion--the acceptance of life and the love of the mother glinting as from a cloud-hidden sun across the world's storm. When this expression had come out, it stayed there. She had forgotten her surroundings, she had forgotten herself. Poor indeed must have been the soul that would not have been touched by the spectacle of her, thrilled by her as by a great vision. There was silence in the room of young workers. Before them, on the face of the unknown, was the only look that the whole world knows--the love and self-sacrifice of the mother; perhaps the only element of our better humanity that never once in the history of mankind has been misunderstood and ridiculed or envied and reviled. Some of them worked with faces brightened by thoughts of devoted mothers at home; the eyes of a few were shadowed by memories of mothers alienated or dead. II That morning on the ledge of rock at the rear of the cathedral Nature hinted to passers what they would more abundantly see if fortunate enough to be with her where she was entirely at home--out in the country. The young grass along the foot of this slope was thick and green; imagination missed from the picture rural sheep, their fleeces wet with April rain. Along the summit of the slope trees of oak and ash and maple and chestnut and poplar lifted against the sky their united forest strength. Between the trees above and the grass below, the embankment spread before the eye the enchantment of a spring landscape, with late bare boughs and early green boughs and other boughs in blossom. The earliest blossoms on our part of the earth's surface are nearly always white. They have forced their way to the sun along a frozen path and look akin to the perils of their road: the snow-threatened lily of the valley, the chill snowdrop, the frosty snowball, the bleak hawtree, the wintry wild cherry, the wintry dogwood. As the eye swept the park expanse this morning, here and there some of these were as the last tokens of winter's mantle instead of the first tokens of summer's. There were flushes of color also, as where in deep soil, on a projection of rock, a pink hawthorn stood studded to the tips of its branches with leaf and flower. But such flushes of color were as false notes of the earth, as harmonies of summer thrust into the wrong places and become discords. The time for them was not yet. The hour called for hardy adventurous things, awakened out of their cold sleep on the rocks. The blue of the firmament was not dark summer blue but seemed the sky's first pale response to the sun. The sun was not rich summer gold but flashed silver rays. The ground scattered no odors; all was the budding youth of Nature on the rocks. Paths wind hither and thither over this park hillside. Benches are placed at different levels along the way. If you are going up, you may rest; if you are coming down, you may linger; if neither going up nor coming down, you may with a book seek out some retreat of shade and coolness and keep at a distance the millions that rush and crush around the park as waters roar against some lone mid-ocean island. About eleven o'clock that morning, on one of these benches placed where rock is steepest and forest trees stand close together and vines are rank with shade, a sociable-looking little fellow of some ten hardy well-buffeted years had sat down for the moment without a companion. He had thrown upon the bench beside him his sun-faded, rain-faded, shapeless cap, uncovering much bronzed hair; and as though by this simple act he had cleared the way for business, he thrust one capable-looking hand deep into one of his pockets. The fingers closed upon what they found there, like the meshes of a deep-sea net filled with its catch, and were slowly drawn to the surface. The catch consisted of one-cent and five-cent pieces, representing the sales of his morning papers. He counted the coins one by one over into the palm of the other hand, which then closed upon the total like another net, and dropped the treasure back into the deep sea of the other pocket. His absorption in this process had been intense; his satisfaction with the result was complete. Perhaps after every act of successful banking there takes place in the mind of man, spendthrift and miser, a momentary lull of energy, a kind of brief _Pax vobiscum_ my soul and stomach, my twin masters of need and greed! And possibly, as the lad deposited his earnings, he was old enough to enter a little way into this adult and despicable joy. Be this as it may, he was not the next instant up again and busy. He caught up his cap, dropped it not on his head but on one of his ragged knees; planted a sturdy hand on it and the other sturdy hand on the other knee; and with his sturdy legs swinging under the bench, toe kicking heel and heel kicking toe, he rested briefly from life's battle. The signs of battle were thick on him, unmistakable. The palpable sign, the conqueror's sign, was the profits won in the struggle of the streets. The other signs may be set down as loss--dirt and raggedness and disorder. His hair might never have been straightened out with a comb; his hands were not politely mentionable; his coarse shoes, which seemed to have been bought with the agreement that they were never to wear out, were ill-conditioned with general dust and the special grime of melted pitch from the typical contractor's cheapened asphalt; one of his stockings had a fresh rent and old rents enlarged their grievances. A single sign of victory was better even than the money in the pocket--the whole lad himself. He was strongly built, frankly fashioned, with happy grayish eyes, which had in them some of the cold warrior blue of the sky that day; and they were set wide apart in a compact round head, which somehow suggested a bronze sphere on a column of triumph. Altogether he belonged to that hillside of nature, himself a human growth budding out of wintry fortunes into life's April, opening on the rocks hardy and all white. But to sit there swinging his legs--this did not suffice to satisfy his heart, did not enable him to celebrate his instincts; and suddenly from his thicket of forest trees and greening bushes he began to pour forth a thrilling little tide of song, with the native sweetness of some human linnet unaware of its transcendent gift. Up the steep hill a man not yet of middle age had mounted from the flats. He was on his way toward the parapet above. He came on slowly, hat in hand, perspiration on his forehead; that climb from base to summit stretches a healthy walker and does him good. At a turn of the road under the forest trees with shrubbery alongside he stopped suddenly, as a naturalist might pause with half-lifted foot beside a dense copse in which some unknown species of bird sang--a young bird just finding its notes. It was his vocation to discover and to train voices. His definite work in music was to help perpetually to rebuild for the world that ever-sinking bridge of sound over which Faith aids itself in walking-toward the eternal. This bridge of falling notes is as Nature's bridge of falling drops: individual drops appear for an instant in the rainbow, then disappear, but century after century the great arch stands there on the sky unshaken. So throughout the ages the bridge of sacred music, in which individual voices are heard a little while and then are heard no longer, remains for man as one same structure of rock by which he passes over from the mortal to the immortal. Such was his life-work. As he now paused and listened, you might have interpreted his demeanor as that of a professional musician whose ears brought tidings that greatly astonished him. The thought had at once come to him of how the New York papers once in a while print a story of the accidental finding in it of a wonderful voice--in New York, where you can find everything that is human. He recalled throughout the history of music instances in which some one of the world's famous singers had been picked up on life's road where it was roughest. Was anything like this now to become his own experience? Falling on his ear was an unmistakable gift of song, a wandering, haunting, unidentified note under that early April blue. He had never heard anything like it. It was a singing soul. Voice alone did not suffice for his purpose; the singer's face, personality, manners, some unfortunate strain in the blood, might debar the voice, block its acceptance, ruin everything. He almost dreaded to walk on, to explore what was ahead. But his road led that way, and three steps brought him around the woody bend of it. There he stopped again. In an embrasure of rock on which vines were turning green, a little fellow, seasoned by wind and sun, with a countenance open and friendly, like the sky, was pouring out his full heart. The instant the man came into view, the song was broken off. The sturdy figure started up and sprang forward with the instinct of business. When any one paused and looked questioningly at him, as this man now did, it meant papers and pennies. His inquiry was quite breathless: "Do you want a paper, Mister? What paper do you want? I can get you one on the avenue in a minute." He stood looking up at the man, alert, capable, fearless, ingratiating. The man had instantly taken note of the speaking voice, which is often a safer first criterion to go by than the singing voice itself. He pronounced it sincere, robust, true, sweet, victorious. And very quickly also he made up his mind that conditions must have been rare and fortunate with the lad at his birth: blood will tell, and blood told now even in this dirt and in these rags. His reply bore testimony to how appreciative he felt of all that faced him there so humanly on the rock. "Thank you," he said, "I have read the papers." Having thus disposed of some of the lad's words, he addressed a pointed question to the rest: "But how did you happen to call me mister? I thought boss was what you little New-Yorkers generally said." "I'm not a New-Yorker," announced the lad, with ready courtesy and good nature. "I don't say boss. We are Southerners. I say mister." He gave the man an unfavorable look as though of a mind to take his true measure; also as being of a mind to let the man know that he had not taken the boy's measure. The man smiled at being corrected to such good purpose; but before he could speak again, the lad went on to clinch his correction: "And I only say mister when I am selling papers and am not at home." "What do you say when not selling papers and when you are at home?" asked the man, forced to a smile. "I say 'sir,' if I say anything," retorted the lad, flaring up, but still polite. The man looked at him with increasing interest. Another word in the lad's speech had caught his attention--Southerner. That word had been with him a good deal in recent years; he had not quite seemed able to get away from it. Nearly all classes of people in New York who were not Southerners had been increasingly reminded that the Southerners were upon them. He had satirically worked it out in his own mind that if he were ever pushed out of his own position, it would be some Southerner who pushed him. He sometimes thought of the whole New York professional situation as a public wonderful awful dinner at which almost nothing was served that did not have a Southern flavor as from a kind of pepper. The guests were bound to have administered to them their shares of this pepper; there was no getting away from the table and no getting the pepper out of the dinner. There was the intrusion of the South into every delicacy. "We are Southerners," the lad had announced decisively; and there the flavor was again, though this time as from a mere pepper-box in a school basket. Thus his next remark was addressed to his own thoughts as well as to the lad: "And so _you_ are a Southerner!" he reflected audibly, looking down at the Southern plague in small form. "Why, yes, Mister, we are Southerners," replied the lad, with a gay and careless patriotism; and as giving the handy pepper-box a shake, he began to dust the air with its contents: "I was born on an old Southern battle-field. When Granny was born there, it had hardly stopped smoking; it was still piled with wounded and dead Northerners. Why, one of the worst batteries was planted in our front porch." This enthusiasm as to the front porch was assumed to be acceptable to the listener. The battery might have been a Cherokee rose. The man had listened with a quizzical light in his eyes. "In what direction did you say that battery was pointed?" "I didn't say; but it was pointed up this way, of course." The man laughed outright. "And so you followed in the direction of the deadly Southern shell and came north--as a small grape-shot!" "But, Mister, that was long ago. They had their quarrel out long ago. That's the way we boys do: fight it out and make friends again. Don't you do that way?" "It's a very good way to do," said the man. "And so you sell papers?" "I sell papers to people in the park, Mister, and back up on the avenue. Granny is particular. I'm not a regular newsboy." "I heard you singing. Does anybody teach you?" "Granny." "And so your grandmother is your music teacher?" It was the lad's turn to laugh. "Granny isn't my grandmother; Granny is my mother." Toppling over in the dust of imagination went a gaunt granny image; in its place a much more vital being appeared just behind the form of the lad, guarding him even now while he spoke. "And so your mother takes pupils?" "Only me." "Has any one heard you sing?" "Only she." It had become more and more the part of the man during this colloquy to smile; he felt repeatedly in the flank of his mind a jab of the comic spur. Now he laughed at the lad's deadly preparedness; business competition in New York had taught him that he who hesitates a moment is lost. The boy seemed ready with his answers before he heard the man's questions. "Do you mind telling me your name?" "My name is Ashby. Ashby Truesdale. We come from an old English family. What is your name, and what kind of family do you come from, Mister?" "And where do you live?" The lad wheeled, and strode to the edge of the rock,--the path along there is blasted out of solid rock,--and looking downward, he pointed to the first row of buildings in the distant flats. "We live down there. You see that house in the middle of the block, the little old one between the two big ones?" The man did not feel sure. "Well, Mister, you see the statue of Washington and Lafayette?" The man was certain he saw Washington and Lafayette. "Well, from there you follow my finger along the row of houses till you come to the littlest, oldest, dingiest one. You see it now, don't you? We live up under the roof." "What is the number?" "It isn't any number. It's half a number. We live in the half that isn't numbered; the other half gets the number." "And you take your music lessons in one half?" "Why, yes, Mister. Why not?" "On a piano?" "Why, yes, Mister; on _my_ piano." "Oh, you have a piano, have you?" "There isn't any sound in about half the keys. Granny says the time has come to rent a better one. She has gone over to the art school to-day to pose to get the money." A chill of silence fell between the talkers, the one looking up and the other looking down. The man's next question was put in a more guarded tone: "Does your mother pose as a model?" "No, Mister, she doesn't pose as a model. She's posing as herself. She said I must have a teacher. Mister, were _you_ ever poor?" The man looked the boy over from head to foot. "Do you think you are poor?" he asked. The good-natured reply came back in a droll tone: "Well, Mister, we certainly aren't rich." "Let us see," objected the man, as though this were a point which had better not be yielded, and he began with a voice of one reckoning up items: "Two feet, each cheap at, say, five millions. Two hands--five millions apiece for hands. At least ten millions for each eye. About the same for the ears. Certainly twenty millions for your teeth. Forty millions for your stomach. On the whole, at a rough estimate you must easily be worth over one hundred millions. There are quite a number of old gentlemen in New York, and a good many young ones, who would gladly pay that amount for your investments, for your securities." The lad with eager upturned countenance did not conceal his amusement while the man drew this picture of him as a living ragged gold-mine, as actually put together and made up of pieces of fabulous treasure. A child's notion of wealth is the power to pay for what it has not. The wealth that childhood _is_, escapes childhood; it does not escape the old. What most concerned the lad as to these priceless feet and hands and eyes and ears was the hard-knocked-in fact that many a time he ached throughout this reputed treasury of his being for a five-cent piece, and these reputed millionaires, acting together and doing their level best, could not produce one. Nevertheless, this fresh and never-before-imagined image of his self-riches amused him. It somehow put him over into the class of enormously opulent things; and finding himself a little lonely on that new landscape, he cast about for some object of comparison. Thus his mind was led to the richest of all near-by objects. "If I were worth a hundred million," he said, with a satisfied twinkle in his eyes, "I would be as rich as the cathedral." A significant silence followed. The man broke it with a grave surprised inquiry: "How did you happen to think of the cathedral?" "I didn't happen to think of it; I couldn't help thinking of it." "Have you ever been in the cathedral?" inquired the man more gravely still. "Been in it! We go there all the time. It's our church. Why, good Lord! Mister, we are descended from a bishop!" The man laughed outright long and heartily. "Thank you for telling me," he said as one who suddenly feels himself to have become a very small object through being in the neighborhood of such hereditary beatitudes and ecclesiastical sanctities. "Are you, indeed? I am glad to know. Indeed, I am!" "Why, Mister, we have been watching the cathedral from our windows for years. We can see the workmen away up in the air as they finish one part and then another part. I can count the Apostles on the roof. You begin with James the Less and keep straight on around until you come out at Simon. Big Jim and Pete are in the middle of the row." He laughed. "Surely you are not going to speak of an apostle as Pete! Do you think that is showing proper respect to an apostle?" "But he was Pete when he was little. He wasn't an apostle then and didn't have any respect." "And you mustn't call an apostle Big Jim! It sounds dreadful!" "Then why did he try to call himself James the Greater? That sounds dreadful too. As far as size is concerned he is no bigger than the others: they are all nine and a half feet. The Archangel Gabriel on the roof, he's nine and a half. Everybody standing around on the outside of the roof is nine and a half. If Gabriel had been turned a little to one side, he would blow his trumpet straight over our flat. He didn't blow anywhere one night, for a big wind came up behind him and blew him down and he blew his trumpet at the gutter. But he didn't stay down," boasted the lad. Throughout his talk he was making it clear that the cathedral was a neighborhood affair; that its haps and mishaps possessed for him the flesh and blood interest of a living person. Love takes mental possession of its object and by virtue of his affection the cathedral had become his companion. "You seem rather interested in the cathedral. Very much interested," remarked the man, strengthening his statement and with increased attention. "Why, of course, Mister. I've been passing there nearly every day since I've been selling papers on the avenue. Sometimes I stop and watch the masons. When I went with Granny to the art school this morning, she told me to go home that way. I have just come from there. They are building another one of the chapels now, and the men are up on the scaffolding. They carried more rock up than they needed and they would walk to the edge and throw big pieces of it down with a smash. The old house they are using for the choir school is just under there. Sometimes when the class is practising, I listen from the outside. If they sing high, I sing high; if they sing low, I sing low. Why, Mister, I can sing up to--" He broke off abruptly. He had been pouring-out all kinds of confidences to his new-found friend. Now he hesitated. The boldness of his nature deserted him. The deadly preparedness failed. A shy appealing look came into his eyes as he asked his next question--a grave question indeed: "_Mister, do you love music?_" "Do I love music?" echoed the startled musician, pierced by the spear-like sincerity of the question, which seemed to go clean through him and his knowledge and to point back to childhood's springs of feeling. "Do I love music? Yes, some music, I hope. Some kinds of music, I hope." These moderate, chastened words restored the boy's confidence and completely captured his friendship. Now he felt sure of his comrade, and he put to him a more searching question: "Do _you_ know anything about the cathedral?" The man smiled guiltily. "A little. I know a little about the cathedral," he admitted. There was a moment of tense, anxious silence. And now the whole secret came out: "Do you know how boys get into the cathedral choir school?" The man did not answer. He stood looking down at the lad, in whose eyes all at once a great baffled desire told its story. Then he pulled out his watch and merely said: "I must be going. Good morning." He turned his way across the rock. Disappointment darkened the lad's face when he saw that he was to receive no answer; withering blight dried up its joy. But he recovered himself quickly. "Well, I must be going, too," he said bravely and sweetly. "Good morning." He turned his way across the rock. But he had had a good time talking with this stranger, and, after all, he _was_ a Southerner; and so, as his head was about to disappear below the cliff, he called back in his frank human gallant way: "I'm glad I met you, Mister." The man went up and the boy went down. The man, having climbed to the parapet, leaned over the stone wall. The tops of some of the tall poplar-trees, rooted far below, were on a level with his eyes. Often he stopped there to watch them swaying like upright plumes against the wind. They swayed now in the silvery April air with a ripple of silvery leaves. His eyes sought out intimately the barely swollen buds on the boughs of other forest trees yet far from leaf. They lingered on the white blossoms of the various shrubs. They found the pink hawthorn; in the boughs of one of those trees one night in England in mid-May he had heard the nightingale, master singer of the non-human world. Up to him rose the enchanting hillside picture of grass and moss and fern. It was all like a sheet of soft organ music to his nature-reading eyes. While he gazed, he listened. Down past the shadows and the greenness, through the blossoms and the light, growing fainter and fainter, went a wandering little drift of melody, a haunting, unidentified sound under the blue cathedral dome of the sky. He reflected again that he had never heard anything like it. It was, in truth, a singing soul. Then he saw the lad's sturdy figure bound across the valley to join friends in play on the thoroughfare that skirts the park alongside the row of houses. He himself turned and went in the direction of the cathedral. As he walked slowly along, one thing haunted him remorsefully--the upturned face of the lad and the look in his eyes as he asked the question which brought out the secret desire of a life: "Do you know how boys get into the cathedral choir school?" Then the blight of disappointment when there was no answer. The man walked thoughtfully on, seemingly as one who was turning over and over in his mind some difficult, delicate matter, looking at it on all sides and in every light, as he must do. Finally he quickened his pace as though having decided what ought to be done. He looked the happier for his decision. III That night in an attic-like room of an old building opposite Morningside Park a tiny supper-table for two stood ready in the middle of the floor; the supper itself, the entire meal, was spread. There is a victory which human nature in thousands of lives daily wins over want, that though it cannot drive poverty from the scene, it can hide its desolation by the genius of choice and of touch. A battle of that brave and desperate kind had been won in this garret. Lacking every luxury, it had the charm of tasteful bareness, of exquisite penury. The supper-table of cheap wood roughly carpentered was hidden under a piece of fine long-used table-linen; into the gleaming damask were wrought clusters of snowballs. The glare of a plain glass lamp was softened by a too costly silk shade. Over the rim of a common vase hung a few daffodils, too costly daffodils. The supper, frugal to a bargain, tempted the eye and the appetite by the good sense with which it had been chosen and prepared. Thus the whole scene betokened human nature at bay but victorious in the presence of that wolf, whose near-by howl startles the poor out of their sleep. Into this empty room sounds penetrated through a door. They proceeded from piano-keys evidently so old that one wondered whether possibly they had not begun to be played on in the days of Beethoven, whether they were not such as were new on the clavichord of Bach. The fingers that pressed them were unmistakably those of a child. As the hands wandered up and down the keyboard, the ear now and then took notice of a broken string. There were many of these broken strings. The instrument plainly announced itself to be a remote, well-nigh mythical ancestor of the modern piano, preternaturally lingering on amid an innumerable deafening progeny. It suggested a superannuated human being whose loudest utterances have sunk to ghostly whispers in a corner. Once the wandering hands stopped and a voice was heard. It sounded as though pitched to reach some one in an inner room farther away, possibly a person who might just have passed from a kitchen to a bedroom to make some change of dress. It was a very affectionate voice, very true and sweet, very tender, very endearing. "Another string snapped to-day. There's another key silent. There won't be any but silent keys soon." There must have been a reply. Responding to it, the voice at the piano sounded again, this time very loyal and devoted to an object closer at hand: "But when we do get a better one, we won't kick the old one down-stairs. It has done _its_ best." Whereupon the musical ancestor was encouraged to speak up again while he had a chance, being a very honored ancestor and not by any means dead in some regions. Soon, however, the voice pleaded anew with a kind of patient impatience: "I'm awfully hungry. Aren't you nearly ready?" The reply could not be heard. "Are you putting on the dress _I_ like?" The reply was not heard. "Don't you want me to bring you a daffodil to wear at your throat?" The reply was lost. For a few minutes the progenitor emptied his ancient lungs of some further moribund intimations of tone. Later came another protest, truly plaintive: "You couldn't look any nicer! I'm awfully hungry!" Then all at once there was a tremendous smash on the keys, a joyous smash, and a moment afterward the door was softly opened. Mother and son entered the supper-room. One of his arms was around her waist, one of hers enfolded him about the neck and shoulders; they were laughing as they clung to one another. The teacher of the portrait class and his pupils would hardly have recognized their model; the stranger on the hillside might not at once have identified the newsboy. For model and newsboy, having laid aside the masks of the day which so often in New York persons find it necessary to wear,--- the tragic mask, the comic mask, the callous, coarse, brutal mask, the mask of the human pack, the mask of the human sty,--model and newsboy reappeared at home with each other as nearly what in truth they were as the denials of life would allow. There entered the room a woman of high breeding, with a certain Pallas-like purity and energy of face, clasping to her side her only child, a son whom she secretly believed to be destined to greatness. She was dressed not with the studied plainness and abnegation of the model in the studio, but out of regard for her true station and her motherly responsibilities. Her utmost wish was that in years to come, when he should look back upon his childhood, he would always remember with pride his evenings with his mother. During the day he must see her drudge, and many a picture of herself on a plane of life below her own she knew to be fastened to his growing brain; but as nearly as possible blotting these out, daily blotting them out one by one, must be the evening pictures when the day's work was done, its disguises dropped, its humiliations over, and she, a serving-woman of fate, reappeared before him in the lineaments of his mother, to remain with him throughout his life as the supreme woman of the human race, his idol until death, his mother. She now looked worthy of such an ideal. But it was upon him that her heart lavished every possible extravagance when nightly he had laid aside the coarse half-ragged fighting clothes of the streets. In those after years when he was to gaze backward across a long distance, he must be made to realize that when he was a little fellow, it was his mother who first had seen his star while it was still low on the horizon; and that from the beginning she had so reared him that there would be stamped upon his attention the gentleness of his birth and a mother's resolve to rear him in keeping with this through the neediest hours. While he was in his bath, she, as though she were his valet, had laid out trim house shoes and black stockings; and as the spring-night had a breath of summer warmth, of almost Southern summer warmth, she had put out also a suit of white linen knickerbockers. Under his broad sailor collar she herself had tied a big, soft, flowing black ribbon of the finest silk. Above this rose the solid head looking like a sphere on a column of triumph, with its lustrous bronzed hair, which, as she brushed it, she had tenderly stroked with her hands; often kissing the bronzed face ardent and friendly to the world and thinking to herself of the double blue in his eyes, the old Saxon blue of battle and the old Saxon blue of the minstrel, also. It was the evening meal that always brought them together after the separation of the day, and he was at once curious to hear how everything had gone at the art school. With some unsold papers under his arm he had walked with her to the entrance, a new pang in his breast about her that he did not understand: for one thing she looked so plain, so common. At the door-step she had stopped and kissed him and bade him good-by. Her quiet quivering words were: "Go home, dear, by way of the cathedral." If he took the more convenient route, it would lead him into one of the city's main cross streets, beset with dangers. She would be able to sit more at peace through those hours of posing if she could know that he had gone across the cathedral grounds and then across the park as along a country road bordered with young grass and shrubs in bloom and forest trees in early leaf. She wished to keep all day before her eyes the picture of him as straying that April morning along such a country road--sometimes the road of faint far girlhood memories to her. Then with a great incomprehensible look she had vanished from him. But before the doors closed, he, peering past her, had caught sight of the walls inside thickly hung with portraits of men and women in rich colors and in golden frames. Into this splendid world his mother had vanished, herself to be painted. Now as he began ravenously to eat his supper he wished to hear all about it. She told him. Part of her experience she kept back, a true part; the other, no less true, she described. With deft fingers she went over the somberly woven web of the hours, and plucking here a bright thread and there a bright thread, rewove these into a smaller picture, on which fell the day's far-separated sunbeams; the rays were condensed now and made a solid brightness. This is how she painted for him a bright picture out of things not many of which were bright. The teacher of the portrait class, to begin, had been very considerate. He had arranged that she should leave her things with the janitor's wife down-stairs, and not go up-stairs and take them off behind some screens in a corner of the room where the class was assembled. That would have been dreadful, to have to go behind the screens to take off her hat and gloves. Then instead of sending word for her to come up, he himself had come down. As he led the way past the confusing halls and studios, he had looked back over his shoulder just a little, to let her know that not for a moment did he lose thought of her. To have walked in front of her, looking straight ahead, might have meant that he esteemed her a person of no consequence. A master so walks before a servant, a superior before an inferior. Out of respect for her, he had even lessened the natural noisiness of his feet on the bare floor. If you put your feet down hard in the house, it means that you are thinking of yourself and not of other people. He had mounted the stairs slowly lest she get out of breath as she climbed. When he preceded her into the presence of the class, he had turned as though he introduced to them his own mother. In everything he did he was really a man; that is, a gentleman. For being a gentleman is being really a man; if you are really a man, you _are_ a gentleman. As for the members of the class, they had been beautiful in their treatment of her. Not a word had been exchanged with them, but she could _feel_ their beautiful thoughts. Sometimes when she glanced at them, while they worked, such beautiful expressions rested on their faces. Unconsciously their natures had opened like young flowers, and as at the hearts of young flowers there is for each a clear drop of honey, so in each of their minds there must have been one same thought, the remembrance of their mothers. Altogether it was as though they were assembled there in honor of her, not to make use of her. As to posing itself, one had not a thing to do but sit perfectly still! One got such a good rest from being too much on one's feet! And they had placed for her such a splendid carved-oak chair! When she took her seat, all at once she had felt as if at home again. There were immense windows; she had had all the fresh air she wished, and she did enjoy fresh air! The whole roof was a window, and she could look out at the sky: sometimes the loveliest clouds drifted over, and sometimes the dearest little bird flew past, no doubt on its way to the park. Last, but not least, she had not been crowded. In New York it was almost impossible to secure a good seat in a public place without being nudged or bumped or crowded. But that had actually happened to her. She had had a delightful chair in a public place, with plenty of room in every direction. How fortunate at last to remember that she might pose! It would fit in perfectly at times when she did not have to go out for needlework or for the other demands. Dollars would now soon begin to be brought in like their bits of coal, by the scuttleful! And then the piano! And then the teacher and the lessons! And _then_, and _then_-- Her happy story ended. She had watched the play of lights on his face as sometimes he, though hungry, with fork in the air paused to listen and to question. Now as she finished and looked across the table at the picture of him under the lamplight, she was rewarded, she was content; while he ate his plain food, out of her misfortunes she had beautifully nourished his mind. He did not know this; but she knew it, knew by his look and by his only comment: "You had a perfectly splendid time, didn't you?" She laughed to herself. "Now, then," she said, coming to what had all along been most in her consciousness--"now, then, tell me about _your_ day. Begin at the moment _you_ left _me_." He laid down his napkin,--he could eat no more, and there was nothing more to eat,--and he folded his hands quite like the head of the house at ease after a careless feast, and began his story. Well, he had had a splendid day, too. After he had left her he had gone to the dealer's on the avenue with the unsold papers. Then he had crossed over to the cathedral, and for a while had watched the men at work up in the air. He had walked around to the choir school, but no one was there that morning, not a sound came from the inside. Then he had started down across the park. As he sat down to count his money, a man who had climbed up the hillside stopped and asked him a great many questions: who taught him music and whether any one had ever heard him sing. This stranger also liked music and he also went to the cathedral, so he claimed. From that point the story wound its way onward across the busy hours till nightfall. It was a child's story, not an older person's. Therefore it did not draw the line between pleasant and unpleasant, fair and unfair, right and wrong, which make up for each of us the history of our checkered human day. It separated life as a swimmer separates the sea: there is one water which he parts by his passage. So the child, who is still wholly a child, divides the world. But as she pondered, she discriminated. Out of the long, rambling narrative she laid hold of one overwhelming incident, forgetting the rest: a passing stranger, hearing a few notes of his voice, had stopped to question him about it. To her this was the first outside evidence that her faith in his musical gift was not groundless. When he had ended his story she regarded him across the table with something new in her eyes--something of awe. She had never hinted to him what she believed he would some day be. She might be wrong, and thus might start him on the wrong course; or, being right, she might never have the chance to start him on the right one. In either case she might be bringing to him disappointment, perhaps the failure of his whole life. Now she still hid the emotion his story caused. But the stranger of the park had kindled within her that night what she herself had long tended unlit--the alabaster flame of worship which the mother burns before the altar of a great son. An hour later they were in another small attic-like space next to the supper-room. Here was always the best of their evening. No matter how poor the spot, if there reach it some solitary ray of the great light of the world, let it be called your drawing-room. Where civilization sends its beams through a roof, there be your drawing-room. This part of the garret was theirs. In one corner stood a small table on which were some tantalizing books and the same lamp. Another corner was filled by the littlest, oldest imaginable of six-octave pianos, the mythical piano ancestor; on it were piled some yellowed folios, her music once. Thus two different rays of civilization entered their garret and fell upon the twin mountain-peaks of the night--books and music. Toward these she wished regularly to lead him as darkness descended over the illimitable city and upon its weary grimy battle-fields. She liked him to fall asleep on one or the other of these mountain-tops. When he awoke, it would be as from a mountain that he would see the dawn. From there let him come down to the things that won the day; but at night back again to things that win life. They were in their drawing-room, then, as she had taught him to call it, and she was reading to him. A knock interrupted her. She interrogated the knock doubtfully to herself for a moment. "Ashby," she finally said, turning her eyes toward the door, as a request that he open it. The janitor of the building handed in a card. The name on the card was strange to her, and she knew no reason why a stranger should call. Then a foolish uneasiness attacked her: perhaps this unwelcome visit bore upon her engagement at the studio. They might not wish her to return; that little door to a larger income was to be shut in their faces. Perhaps she had made herself too plain. If only she had done herself a little more justice in her appearance! She addressed the janitor with anxious courtesy: "Will you ask him to come up?" With her hand on the half-open door, she waited. If it should be some tradesman, she would speak with him there. She listened. Up the steps, from flight to flight, she could hear the feet of a man mounting like a deliberate good walker. He reached her floor. He approached her door and she stepped out to confront him. A gentleman stood before her with an unmistakable air of feeling himself happy in his mission. For a moment he forgot to state this mission, startled by the group of the two. His eyes passed from one to the other: the picture they made was an unlooked for revelation of life's harmony, of nature's sacredness. "Is this Mrs. Truesdale?" he asked with appreciative deference. She stepped back. "I am Mrs. Truesdale," she replied in a way to remind him of his intrusion; and not discourteously she partly closed the door and waited for him to withdraw. But he was not of a mind to withdraw; on the contrary, he stood stoutly where he was and explained: "As I crossed the park this morning I happened to hear a few notes of a voice that interested me. I train the voice, Madam. I teach certain kinds of music. I took the liberty of asking the owner of the voice where he lived, and I have taken the further liberty of coming to see whether I may speak with you on that subject--about his voice." This, then, was the stranger of the park whom she believed to have gone his way after unknowingly leaving glorious words of destiny for her. Instead of vanishing, he had reappeared, following up his discovery into her very presence. She did not desire him to follow up his discovery. She put out one hand and pressed her son back into the room and was about to close the door. "I should first have stated, of course," said the visitor, smiling quietly as with awkward self-recovery, "that I am the choir-master of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine." Stillness followed, the stillness in which painful misunderstandings dissolve. The scene slowly changed, as when on the dark stage of a theater an invisible light is gradually turned, showing everything in its actual relation to everything else. In truth a shaft as of celestial light suddenly fell upon her doorway; a far-sent radiance rested on the head of her son; in her ears began to sound old words spoken ages ago to another mother on account of him she had borne. To her it was an annunciation. Her first act was to place her hand on the head of the lad and bend it back until his eyes looked up into hers; his mother must be the first to congratulate him and to catch from his eyes their flash of delight as he realized all that this might mean: the fulfilment of life's dream for him. Then she threw open the door. "Will you come in?" It was a marvelous welcome, a splendor of spiritual hospitality. The musician took up straightway the purpose of his visit and stated it. "Will you, then, send him to-morrow and let me try his voice?" "Yes," she said as one who now must direct with firm responsible hand the helm of wayward genius, "I will send him." "And if his voice should prove to be what is wanted," continued the music-master, though with delicate hesitancy, "would he be--free? Is there any other person whose consent--" She could not reply at once. The question brought up so much of the past, such tragedy! She spoke with composure at last: "He can come. He is free. He is mine--wholly mine." The choir-master looked across the small room at his pupil, who, upon the discovery of the visitor's identity, had withdrawn as far as possible from him. "And you are willing to come?" he asked, wishing to make the first advance toward possible acquaintanceship on the new footing. No reply came. The mother smiled at her awe-stricken son and hastened to his rescue. "He is overwhelmed," she said, her own faith in him being merely strengthened by this revelation of his fright. "He is overwhelmed. This means so much more to him than you can understand." "But you will come?" the choir-master persisted in asking. "You _will_ come?" The lad stirred uneasily on his chair. "Yes, sir," he said all but inaudibly. His inquisitive, interesting friend of the park path, then, was himself choir-master of St. John's! And he had asked him whether _he_ knew anything about the cathedral! Whether _he_ liked music! Whether _he_ knew how boys got into the school! He had betrayed his habit of idly hanging about the old building where the choir practised and of singing with them to show what he could do and would do if he had the chance; and because he could not keep from singing. He had called one of the Apostles Jim! And another Apostle Pete! He had rejoiced that Gabriel had not been strong enough to stand up in a high wind! Thus with mortification he remembered the day. Then his thoughts were swept on to what now opened before him: he was to be taken into the choir, he was to sing in the cathedral. The high, blinding, stately magnificence of its scenes and processions lay before him. More than this. The thing which had long been such a torture of desire to him, the hope that had grown within him until it began to burst open, had come true; his dream was a reality: he was to begin to learn music, he was to go where it was being taught. And the master who was to take him by the hand and lead him into that world of song sat there quietly talking with his mother about the matter and looking across at him, studying him closely. No; none of this was true yet. It might never be true. First, he must be put to the test. The man smiling there was sternly going to draw out of him what was in him. He was going to examine him and see what he amounted to. And if he amounted to nothing, then what? He sat there shy, silent, afraid, all the hardy boldness and business preparedness and fighting capacity of the streets gone out of his mind and heart. He looked across at his mother; not even she could help him. So there settled upon him that terror of uncertainty about their gift and their fate which is known only to the children of genius. For throughout the region of art, as in the world of the physical, nature brings forth all things from the seat of sensitiveness and the young of both worlds appear on the rough earth unready. "You _do_ wish to come?" the choir-master persisted in asking. "Yes, sir," he replied barely, as though the words sealed his fate. The visitor was gone, and they had talked everything over, and the evening had ended, and it was long past his bedtime, and she waited for him to come from the bedroom and say good night. Presently he ran in, climbed into her lap, threw his arms around her neck and pressed his cheek against hers. "Now on this side," he said, holding her tightly, "and now on the other side, and now on both sides and all around." She, with jealous pangs at this goodnight hour, often thought already of what a lover he would be when the time came--the time for her to be pushed aside, to drop out. These last moments of every night were for love; nothing lived in him but love. She said to herself that he was the born lover. As he now withdrew his arms, he sat looking into her eyes with his face close to hers. Then leaning over, he began to measure his face upon her face, starting with the forehead, and being very particular when he got to the long eyelashes, then coming down past the nose. They were very silly and merry about the measuring of the noses. The noses would not fit the one upon the other, not being flat enough. He began to indulge his mischievous, teasing mood: "Suppose he doesn't like my voice!" She laughed the idea to scorn. "Suppose he wouldn't take me!" "Ah, but he _will_ take you." "If he wouldn't have me, you'd never want to see me any more, would you?" She strained him to her heart and rocked to and fro over him. "This is what I could most have wished in all the world," she said, holding him at arm's-length with idolatry. "Not more than a fine house and servants and a greenhouse and a carriage and horses and a _new_ piano--not more than everything you used to have!" "More than anything! More than anything in this world!" He returned to the teasing. "If he doesn't take me, I'm going to run away. You won't want ever to see me any more. And then nobody will ever know what becomes of me because I couldn't sing." She strained him again to herself and murmured over him: "My chorister! My minstrel! My life!" "Good night and pleasant dreams!" he said, with his arms around her neck finally. "Good night and sweet sleep!" * * * * * Everything was quiet. She had tipped to his bedside and stood looking at him after slumber had carried him away from her, a little distance away. "My heavenly guest!" she murmured. "My guest from the singing stars of God!" Though worn out with the strain and excitements of the day, she was not yet ready for sleep. She must have the luxuries of consciousness; she must tread the roomy spaces of reflection and be soothed in their largeness. And so she had gone to her windows and had remained there for a long time looking out upon the night. The street beneath was dimly lighted. Traffic had almost ceased. Now and then a car sped past. The thoroughfare along here is level and broad and smooth, and being skirted on one side by the park, it offers to speeding vehicles the illusive freedom of a country road. Across the street at the foot of the park a few lights gleamed scant amid the April foliage. She began at the foot of the hill and followed the line of them upward, upward over the face of the rock, leading this way and that way, but always upward. There on the height in the darkness loomed the cathedral. Often during the trouble and discouragement of years it had seemed to her that her own life and every other life would have had more meaning if only there had been, away off somewhere in the universe, a higher evil intelligence to look on and laugh, to laugh pitilessly at every human thing. She had held on to her faith because she must hold on to something, and she had nothing else. Now as she stood there, following the winding night road over the rock, her thoughts went back and searched once more along the wandering pathway of her years; and she said that a Power greater than any earthly had led her with her son to the hidden goal of them both, the cathedral. The next day brought no disappointment: he had rushed home and thrown himself into her arms and told her that he was accepted. He was to sing in the choir. The hope had become an actuality. Later that day the choir-master himself had called again to speak to her when the pupil was not present. He was guarded in his words but could not conceal the enthusiasm of his mood. "I do not know what it may develop into," he said,--"that is something we cannot foretell,--but I believe it will be a great voice in the world. I do know that it will be a wonderful voice for the choir." She stood before him mute with emotion. She was as dry sand drinking a shower. "You have made no mistake," she said. "It is a great voice and he will have a great career." The choir-master was impatient to have the lessons begin. She asked for a few days to get him in readiness. She reflected that he could not make his first appearance at the choir school in white linen knickerbockers. These were the only suitable clothes he had. This school would be his first, for she had taught him at home, haunted by a sense of responsibility that he must be specially guarded. Now just as the unsafe years came on for him, he would be safe in that fold. When natural changes followed as follow they must and his voice broke later on, and then came again or never came again, whatever afterward befell, behind would be the memories of his childhood. And when he had grown to full manhood, when he was an old man and she no longer with him, wherever on the earth he might work or might wander, always he would be going back to those years in the cathedral: they would be his safeguard, his consecration to the end. * * * * * Now a few days later she stood in the same favorite spot, at her windows; and it was her favorite hour to be there, the coming on of twilight. All day until nearly sundown a cold April rain had fallen. These contradictory spring days of young green and winter cold the pious folk of older lands and ages named the days of the ice saints. They really fall in May, but this had been like one of them. So raw and chill had been the atmosphere of the grateless garret that the window-frames had been fastened down, their rusty catches clamped. At the window she stood looking out and looking up toward a scene of splendor in the heavens. It was sunset, the rain was over, the sky had cleared. She had been tracing the retreating line of sunlight on the hillside opposite. First it crossed the street to the edge of the park, then crossed the wet grass at the foot of the slope; then it passed upward over the bowed dripping shrubbery and lingered on the tree-tops along the crest; and now the western sky was aflame behind the cathedral. It was a gorgeous spectacle. The cathedral seemed not to be situated in the city, not lodged on the rocks of the island, but to be risen out of infinite space and to be based and to abide on the eternity of light. Long she gazed into that sublime vision, full of happiness at last, full of peace, full of prayer. Standing thus at her windows at that hour, she stood on the pinnacle of her life's happiness. From the dark slippery street shrill familiar sounds rose to her ear and drew her attention downward and she smiled. He was down there at play with friends whose parents lived in the houses of the row. She laughed as those victorious cries reached the upper air. Leaning forward, she pressed her face against the window-pane and peered over and watched the group of them. Sometimes she could see them and sometimes not as they struggled from one side of the street to the other. No one, whether younger or older, stronger or weaker, was ever defeated down there; everybody at some time got worsted; no one was ever defeated. All the whipped remained conquerors. Unconquerable childhood! She said to herself that she must learn a lesson from it once more--to have always within herself the will and spirit of victory. With her face still against the glass she caught sight of something approaching carefully up the street. It was the car of a physician who had a patient in one of the houses near by. This was his hour to make his call. He guided the car himself, and the great mass of tons in weight responded to his guidance as if it possessed intelligence, as if it entered into his foresight and caution: it became to her, as she watched it, almost conscious, almost human. She thought of it as being like some great characters in human life which need so little to make them go easily and make them go right. A wise touch, and their enormous influence is sent whither it should be sent by a pressure that would not bruise a leaf. She chid herself once more that in a world where so often the great is the good she had too often been hard and bitter; that many a time she had found pleasure in setting the empty cup of her life out under its clouds and catching the showers of nature as though they were drops of gall. All at once her attention was riveted on an object up the street. Around a bend a few hundred yards away a huge wild devil of a thing swung unsteadily, recklessly, almost striking the curb and lamp-post; and then, righting itself, it came on with a rush--a mindless destroyer. Now on one side of the street, now in the middle, now on the other side; gliding along through the twilight, barely to be seen, creeping nearer and nearer through the shadows, now again on the wrong side of the street where it would not be looked for. A bolt of horror shot through her. She pressed her face quickly against the window-panes as closely as possible, searching for the whereabouts of the lads. As she looked, the playing struggling mass of them went down in the road, the others piled on one. She thought she knew which one,--he was the strongest,--then they were lost from her sight, as they rolled in nearer to the sidewalk. And straight toward them rushed that destroyer in the streets. She tried to throw up the sashes. She tried to lean out and cry down to him, to wave her hands to him with warning as she had often done with joy. She could not raise the sashes. She had not the strength left to turn the rusty bolts. Nor was there time. She looked again; she saw what was going to happen. Then with frenzy she began to beat against the window-sashes and to moan and try to stifle her own moans. And then shrill startled screams and piteous cries came up to her, and crazed now and no longer knowing what she did, she struck the window-panes in her agony until they were shattered and she thrust her arms out through them with a last blind instinct to wave to him, to reach him, to drag him out of the way. For some moments her arms hung there outside the shattered window-glass, and a shower of crimson drops from her fingers splashed on the paving-stones below. She kept on waving her lacerated hands more and more feebly, slowly; and then they were drawn inward after her body which dropped unconscious to the garret floor. IV It was a gay scene over at the art school next morning. Even before the accustomed hour the big barnlike room, with a few prize pictures of former classes scattered about the walls, and with the old academy easels standing about like a caravan of patient camels ever loaded with new burdens but ever traveling the same ancient sands of art--even before nine o'clock the barnlike room presented a scene of eager healthy animal spirits. On the easel of every youthful worker, nearly finished, lay the portrait of the mother. In every case it had been differently done, inadequately done; but in all cases it had been done. Hardly could any observer have failed to recognize what was there depicted. Beyond smearings and daubings of paint, as past the edges of concealing clouds, one caught glimpses of a serene and steadfast human radiance. There one beheld the familiar image of that orb which in dark and pathless hours has through all ages been the guardian light of the world--the mother. The best in them had gone into the painting of this portrait, and the consciousness of our best gives us the sense of our power, and the consciousness of our power yields us our enthusiasm; hence the exhilaration and energy of the studio scene. The interest of the members of the class was not concerned solely with the portrait, however: a larger share went to the model herself. They had become strongly bound to her. All the more perhaps because she held them firmly to the understanding that her life touched theirs only at the point of the stranger in need of a small sum of money. Repulsed and baffled in their wish to know her better, they nevertheless became aware that she was undergoing a wonderful transformation on her own account. The change had begun after the ordeal of the first morning. When she returned for the second sitting, and then at later sittings, they had remarked this change, and had spoken of it to one another--that she was as a person into whose life some joyous, unbelievable event has fallen, brightening the present and the future. Every day some old cloudy care seemed to loose itself from its lurking-place and drift away from her mind, leaving her face less obscured and thus the more beautifully revealed to them. Now, with the end of the sittings not far off, what they looked forward to with most regret was the last sitting, when she, leaving her portrait in their hands, would herself vanish, taking with her both the mystery of her old sorrows and the mystery of this new happiness. Promptly at nine o'clock the teacher of the class entered, greeted them, and glanced around for the model. Not seeing her, he looked at his watch, then without comment crossed to the easels, and studied again the progress made the previous day, correcting, approving, guiding, encouraging. His demeanor showed that he entered into the mounting enthusiasm of his class for this particular piece of work. A few minutes were thus quickly consumed. Then, watch in hand once more, he spoke of the absence of the model: "Something seems to detain the model this morning. But she has sent me no word and she will no doubt be here in a few minutes." He went back to the other end of the studio and sat down, facing them with the impressiveness which belonged to him even without speech. They fixed their eyes on him with the usual expectancy. Whenever as now an unforeseen delay occurred, he was always prompt to take advantage of the interval with a brief talk. To them there were never enough of these brief talks, which invariably drew human life into relationship to the art of portraiture, and set the one reality over against the other reality--the turbulence of a human life and the still image of it on the canvas. They hoped he would thus talk to them now; in truth he had the air of casting about in his mind for a theme best suited to the moment. * * * * * That mother, now absent, when she had blindly found her way to him, asking to pose, had fallen into good hands. He was a great teacher and he was a remarkable man, remarkable even to look at. Massively built, with a big head of black hair, olive complexion, and bluntly pointed, black beard, and with a mold of countenance grave and strong, he looked like a great Rembrandt; like some splendid full-length portrait by Rembrandt painted as that master painted men in the prime of his power. With the Rembrandt shadows on him even in life. Even when the sun beat down upon him outdoors, even when you met him in the blaze of the city streets, he seemed not to have emerged from shadow, to bear on himself the traces of a human night, a living darkness. There was light within him but it did not irradiate him. Once he had been a headlong art student himself, starting out to become a great painter, a great one. After years abroad under the foremost masters and other years of self-trial with every favorable circumstance his, nature had one day pointed her unswerved finger at his latest canvas as at the earlier ones and had judged him to the quick: you will never be a great painter. If you cannot be content to remain less, quit, stop! Thus youth's choice and a man's half a lifetime of effort and ambition ended in abandonment of effort not because he was a failure but because the choice of a profession had been a blunder. A multitude of men topple into this chasm and crawl out nobody. Few of them at middle age in the darkness of that pit of failure can grope within themselves for some second candle and by it once more become illumined through and through. He found _his_ second candle,--it should have been his first,--and he lighted it and it became the light of his later years; but it did not illumine him completely, it never dispelled the shadows of the flame that had burned out. What he did was this: having reached the end of his own career as a painter, he turned and made his way back to the fields of youth, and taking his stand by that ever fresh path, always, as students would rashly pass him, he halted them like a wise monitor, describing the best way to travel, warning of the difficulties of the country ahead, but insisting that the goal was worth the toil and the trouble; searching secretly among his pupils year after year for signs of what he was not, a great painter, and pouring out his sympathies on all those who, like himself, would never be one. Now he sat looking across at his class, the masterful teacher of them. They sat looking responsively at him. Then he took up his favorite theme: "Your work on this portrait is your best work, because the model, as I stated to you at the outset would be the case, has called forth your finer selves; she has caused you to _feel_. And she has been able to do this because her countenance, her whole being, radiates one of the great passions and faiths of our common humanity--the look of reverent motherhood. You recognize that look, that mood; you believe in it; you honor it; you have worked over its living eloquence. Observe, then, the result. Turn to your canvases and see how, though proceeding differently, you have all dipped your brushes as in a common medium; how you have all drawn an identical line around that old-time human landmark. You have in truth copied from her one of the great beacon-lights of expression that has been burning and signaling through ages upon ages of human history--the look of the mother, the angel of self-sacrifice to the earth. "While we wait, we might go a little way into this general matter, since you, in the study of portraiture, will always have to deal with it. This look of hers, which you have caught on your canvases, and all the other great beacon-lights of human expression, stand of course for the inner energies of our lives, the leading forces of our characters. But, as ages pass, human life changes; its chief elements shift their relative places, some forcing their way to the front, others being pushed to the rear; and the prominent beacon-lights change correspondingly. Ancient ones go out, new ones appear; and the art of portraiture, which is the undying historian of the human countenance, is subject to this shifting law of the birth and death of its material. "Perhaps more ancient lights have died out of human faces than modern lights have been kindled to replace them. Do you understand why? The reason is this: throughout an immeasurable time the aim of nature was to make the human countenance as complete an instrument of expression as it could possibly be. Man, except for his gestures and wordless sounds, for ages had nothing else with which to speak; he must speak with his face. And thus the primitive face became the chronicle of what was going on within him as well as of what had taken place without. It was his earliest bulletin-board of intelligence. It was the first parchment to bear tidings; it was the original newspaper; it was the rude, but vivid, primeval book of the woods. The human face was all that. Ages more had to pass before spoken language began, and still other ages before written language began. Thus for an immeasurable time nature developed the face and multiplied its expressions to enable man to make himself understood. At last this development was checked; what we may call the natural occupation of the face culminated. Civilization began, and as soon as civilization began, the decline in natural expressiveness began with it. Gradually civilization supplanted primeval needs; it contrived other means for doing what the face alone had done frankly, marvelously. When you can print news on paper, you may cease to print news on the living countenance. Moreover, the aim of civilization is to develop in us the consciousness not to express, but to suppress. Its aim is not to reveal, but to conceal, thought and emotion; not to make the countenance a beacon-light, but a muffler of the inner candle, whatever that candle for the time may be. All our ruling passions, good or bad, noble or ignoble, we now try publicly to hide. This is civilization. And thus the face, having started out expressionless in nature, tends through civilization to become expressionless again. "How few faces does any one of us know that frankly radiate the great passions and moods of human nature! What little is left of this ancient tremendous drama is the poor pantomime of the stage. Search crowds, search the streets. See everywhere masked faces, telling as little as possible to those around them of what they glory in or what they suffer. Search modern portrait galleries. Do you find portraits of either men or women who radiate the overwhelming passions, the vital moods, of our galled and soaring nature? It is not a long time since the Middle Ages. In the stretch of history centuries shrink to nothing, and the Middle Ages are as the earlier hours of our own historic day. But has there not been a change even within that short time? Did not the medieval portrait-painters portray in their sitters great moods as no painter portrays them now? How many painters of to-day can find great moods in the faces of their sitters? "And so I come again to your model. What makes her so remarkable, so significant, so touching, so exquisite, so human, is the fact that her face seems almost a survival out of a past in which the beacon-lights of humanity did more openly appear on the features. In her case one beacon-light most of all,--the greatest that has ever shone on the faces of women,--the one which seems to be slowly vanishing from the faces of modern women--the look of the mother: that transfiguration of the countenance of the mother who believed that the birth of a child was the divine event in her existence, and the emotions and energies of whose life centered about her offspring. How often does any living painter have his chance to paint that look now! Galleries are well filled with portraits of contemporary women who have borne children: how often among these is to be found the portrait of the mother of old?" He rose. The talk was ended. He looked again at his watch, and said: "It does not seem worth while to wait longer. Evidently your model has been kept away to-day. Let us hope that no ill has befallen her and that she will be here to-morrow. If she is here, we shall go on with the portrait. If she should not be here, I shall have another model ready, and we shall take up another study until she returns. Bring fresh canvases." He left the room. They lingered; looking again at their canvases, understanding their own work as they had not hitherto and more strongly than ever drawn toward their model whom that day they missed. Slowly and with disappointment and with many conjectures as to why she had not come, they separated. V It was Sunday. All round St. Luke's Hospital quiet reigned. The day was very still up there on the heights under the blue curtain of the sky. When he had been hurled against the curb on the dark street, had been rolled over and tossed there and left there with no outcry, no movement, as limp and senseless as a mangled weed, the careless crowd which somewhere in the city every day gathers about such scenes quickly gathered about him. In this throng was the physician whose car stood near by; and he, used to sights of suffering but touched by that tragedy of unconscious child and half-crazed mother, had hurried them in his own car to St. Luke's--to St. Luke's, which is always open, always ready, and always free to those who lack means. Just before they stopped at the entrance she had pleaded in the doctor's ear for a luxury. "To the private ward," he said to those who lifted the lad to the stretcher, speaking as though in response to her entreaty. "One of the best rooms," he said before the operation, speaking as though he shouldered the responsibility of the further expense. "And a room for her near by," he added. "Everything for them! Everything!" * * * * * So there he was now, the lad, or what there was left of him, this quiet Sunday, in a pleasant room opposite the cathedral. The air was like early summer. The windows were open. He lay on his back, not seeing anything. The skin of his forehead had been torn off; there was a bandage over his eyes. And there were bruises on his body and bruises on his face, which was horribly disfigured. The lips were swollen two or three thicknesses; it was agony for him to speak. When he realized what had happened, after the operation, his first mumbled words to her were: "They will never have me now." About the middle of the forenoon of this still Sunday morning, when the doctor left, she followed him into the hall as usual, and questioned him as usual with her eyes. He encouraged her and encouraged himself: "I believe he is going to get well. He has the will to get well, he has the bravery to get well. He is brave about it; he is as brave as he can be." "Of course he is brave," she said scornfully. "Of course he is brave." "The love of such a mother would call him back to life," he added, and he laid one of his hands on her head for a moment. "Don't do that," she said, as though the least tenderness toward herself at such a moment would unnerve her, melt away all her fortitude. Everybody had said he was brave, the head nurse, the day nurse, the night nurse, the woman who brought in the meals, the woman who scrubbed the floor. All this had kept her up. If anybody paid any kind of tribute to him, realized in any way what he was, this was life to her. After the doctor left, as the nurse was with him, she walked up and down the halls, too restless to be quiet. At the end of one hall she could look down on the fragrant leafy park. Yes, summer was nigh. Where a little while before had been only white blossoms, there were fewer white now, more pink, some red, many to match the yellow of the sun. The whole hillside of swaying; boughs seemed to quiver with happiness. Her eyes wandered farther down to the row of houses at the foot of the park. She could see the dreadful spot on the street, the horrible spot. She could see her shattered window-panes up above. The points of broken glass still seemed to slit the flesh of her hands within their bandages. She shrank back and walked to the end of the transverse hall. Across the road was the cathedral. The morning service was just over. People were pouring out through the temporary side doors and the temporary front doors so placidly, so contentedly! Some were evidently strangers; as they reached the outside they turned and studied the cathedral curiously as those who had never before seen it. Others turned and looked at it familiarly, with pride in its unfolding form. Some stopped and looked down at the young grass, stroking it with the toes of their fine shoes; they were saying how fresh and green it was. Some looked up at the sky; they were saying how blue it was. Some looked at one another keenly; they were discussing some agreeable matter, being happy to get back to it now after the service. Not one of them looked across at the hospital. Not a soul of them seemed to be even aware of its existence. Not a soul of them! Particularly her eyes became riveted upon two middle-aged ladies in black who came out through a side door of the cathedral--slow-paced women, bereft, full of pity. As they crossed the yard, a gray squirrel came jumping along in front of them on its way to the park. One stooped and coaxed it and tried to pet it: it became a vital matter with both of them to pour out upon the little creature which had no need of it their pent-up, ungratified affection. With not a glance to the window where she stood, with her mortal need of them, her need of all mothers, of everybody--her mortal need of everybody! Why were they not there at his bedside? Why had they not heard? Why had not all of them heard? Why had anything else been talked of that day? Why were they not all massed around the hospital doors, tearful with their sympathies? How could they hold services in the cathedral--the usual services? Why was it not crowded to the doors with the clergy of all faiths and the laymen of every land, lifting one outcry against such destruction? Why did they not stop building temples to God, to the God of life, to the God who gave little children, until they had stopped the massacre of children, His children in the streets! Yes; everybody had been kind. Even his little rivals who had fought with him over the sale of papers had given up some of their pennies and had bought flowers for him, and one of them had brought their gift to the main hospital entrance. Every day a shy group of them had gathered on the street while one came to inquire how he was. Kindness had rained on her; there was that in the sight of her that unsealed kindness in every heart. She had been too nearly crazed to think of this. Her bitterness and anguish broke through the near cordon of sympathy and went out against the whole brutal and careless world that did not care--to legislatures that did not care, to magistrates that did not care, to juries that did not care, to officials that did not care, to drivers that did not care, to the whole city that did not care about the massacre in the streets. Through the doors of the cathedral the people streamed out unconcerned. Beneath her, along the street, young couples passed, flushed with their climb of the park hillside, and flushed with young love, young health. Sometimes they held each other's hands; they innocently mocked her agony with their careless joy. One last figure issued from the side door of the cathedral hurriedly and looked eagerly across at the hospital--looked straight at her, at the window, and came straight toward the entrance below--the choir-master. She had not sent word to him or to any one about the accident; but he, when his new pupil had failed to report as promised, had come down to find out why. And he, like all the others, had been kind; and he was coming now to inquire what he could do in a case where nothing could be done. She knew only too well that nothing could be done. * * * * * The bright serene hours of the day passed one by one with nature's carelessness about the human tragedy. It was afternoon and near the hour for the choral even-song across the way at the cathedral, the temporary windows of which were open. She had relieved the nurse, and was alone with him. Often during these days he had put out one of his hands and groped about with it to touch her, turning his head a little toward her under his bandaged eyes, and apparently feeling much mystified about her, but saying nothing. She kept her bandaged hands out of his reach but leaned over him in response and talked ever to him, barely stroking him with the tips of her stiffened fingers. The afternoon was so quiet that by and by through the opened windows a deep note sent a thrill into the room--the awakened soul of the organ. And as the two listened to it in silence, soon there floated over to them the voices of the choir as the line moved slowly down the aisle, the blended voices of the chosen band, his school-fellows of the altar. By the bedside she suddenly rocked to and fro, and then she bent over and said with a smile in her tone: "_Do you hear? Do you hear them?_" He made a motion with his lips to speak but they hurt him too much. So he nodded: that he heard them. A moment later he tugged at the bandage over his eyes. She sprang toward him: "O my precious one, you must not tear the bandage off your eyes!" "I want to see you!" he mumbled. "It has been so long since I saw you! What's the matter with you? Where are your hands? Why don't you put your arms around me?" VI The class had been engaged with another model. Their work was forced and listless. As days passed without the mother's return, their thought and their talk concerned itself more and more with her disappearance. Why had she not come back? What had befallen her? What did it all mean? Would they ever know? One day after their luncheon-hour, as they were about to resume work, the teacher of the class entered. He looked shocked; his look shocked them; instant sympathy ran through them. He spoke with difficulty: "She has come back. She is down-stairs. Something had befallen her indeed. She told me as briefly as possible and I tell you all I know. Her son, a little fellow who had just been chosen for the cathedral choir school was run over in the street. A mention of it--the usual story--was in the papers, but who of us reads such things in the papers? They bore us; they are not even news. He was taken to St. Luke's, and she has been at St. Luke's, and the end came at St. Luke's, and all the time we have been here a few yards distant and have known nothing of it. Such is New York! It was to help pay for his education in music that she first came to us, she said. And it was the news that he had been chosen for the choir school that accounts for the new happiness which we saw brighten her day by day. Now she comes again for the same small wage, but with other need, no doubt: the expenses of it all, a rose-bush for his breast. She told me this calmly as though it caused her no grief. It was not my privilege, it is not our privilege, to share her unutterable bereavement. "She has asked to go on with the sittings. I have told her to come to-morrow. But she does not realize all that this involves with the portrait. You will have to bring new canvases, it will have to be a new work. She is in mourning. Her hands will have to be left out, she has hurt them; they are bandaged. The new portrait will be of the head and face only. But the chief reason is the change of expression. The light which was in her face and which you have partly caught upon your canvases, has died out; it was brutally put out. The old look is gone. It is gone, and will never come back--the tender, brooding, reverent happiness and peace of motherhood with the child at her knee--that great earthly beacon-light in women of ages past. It was brutally put out but it did not leave blankness behind it. There has come in its place another light, another ancient beacon-light on the faces of women of old--the look of faith in immortal things. She is not now the mother with the tenderness of this earth but the mother with the expectation of eternity. Her eyes have followed him who has left her arms and gone into a distance. Ever she follows him into that distance. Your portrait, if you can paint it, will be the mother with the look of immortal things in her face." * * * * * When she entered the room next morning, at the sight of her in mourning and so changed in every way, with one impulse they all rose to her. She took no notice,--perhaps it would have been unendurable to notice,--but she stepped forward as usual, and climbed to the platform without faltering, and he posed her for the head and shoulders. Then, to study the effect from different angles, he went behind the easels, passing from one to another. As he returned, with the thought of giving her pleasure, he brought along with him one of the sketches of herself and held it out before her. "Do you recognize it?" he asked. She refused to look at first. Then arousing herself from her indifference she glanced at it. But when she beheld there what she had never seen--how great had been her love of him; when she beheld there the light now gone out and realized that it meant the end of happy days with him, she shut her eyes quickly and jerked her head to one side with a motion for him to take the picture away. But she had been brought too close to her sorrow and suddenly she bent over her hands like a snapped reed and the storm of her grief came upon her. They started up to get to her. They fought one another to get to her. They crowded around the platform, and tried to hide her from one another's eyes, and knelt down, and wound their arms about her, and sobbed with her; and then they lifted her and guided her behind the screens. "Now, if you will allow them," he said, when she came out with them, one of them having lent her a veil, "some of these young friends will go home with you. And whenever you wish, whenever you feel like it, come back to us. We shall be ready. We shall be waiting. We shall all be glad." On the heights the cathedral rises--slowly, as the great houses of man's Christian faith have always risen. Years have drifted by as silently as the winds since the first rock was riven where its foundations were to be laid, and still all day on the clean air sounds the lonely clink of drill and chisel as the blasting and the shaping of the stone goes on. The snows of winters have drifted deep above its rough beginnings; the suns of many a spring have melted the snows away. Well nigh a generation of human lives has already measured its brief span about the cornerstones. Far-brought, many-tongued toilers, toiling on the rising walls, have dropped their work and stretched themselves in their last sleep; others have climbed to their places; the work goes on. Upon the shoulders of the images of the Apostles, which stand about the chancel, generations of pigeons--the doves of the temple whose nests are in the niches--upon the shoulders of the Apostles generations of pigeons born in the niches have descended out of the azure as with the benediction of shimmering wings. Generations of the wind-borne seeds of wild flowers have lodged in low crevices and have sprouted and blossomed, and as seeds again have been blown further on--harbingers of vines and mosses already on their venerable way. A mighty shape begins to answer back to the cathedrals of other lands and ages, bespeaking for itself admittance into the league of the world's august sanctuaries. It begins to send its annunciation onward into ages yet to be, so remote, so strange, that we know not in what sense the men of it will even be our human brothers save as they are children of the same Father. Between this past and this future, the one of which cannot answer because it is too late and the other of which can not answer because it is too soon--between this past and this future the cathedral stands in a present that answers back to it more and more. For a world of living-men and women see kindled there the same ancient flame that has been the light of all earlier stations on that solitary road of faith which runs for a little space between the two eternities--a road strewn with the dust of countless wayfarers bearing each a different cross of burden but with eyes turned toward the same Cross of hope. As on some mountain-top a tall pine-tree casts its lengthened shadow upon the valleys far below, round and round with the circuit of the sun, so the cathedral flings hither and thither across the whole land its spiritual shaft of light. A vast, unnumbered throng begin to hear of it, begin to look toward it, begin to grow familiar with its emerging form. In imagination they see its chapels bathed in the glories of the morning sun; they remember its unfinished dome gilded at the hush of sunsets. Between the roar of the eastern and of the western ocean its organ speaks of a Divine peace above mortal storm. Pilgrims from afar, known only to themselves as pilgrims, being pilgrim-hearted but not pilgrim-clad, reach at its gates the borders of their Gethsemane. Bowed as penitents, they hail its lily of forgiveness and the resurrection. Slowly the cathedral rises, in what unknown years to stand finished! Crowning a city of new people, let it be hoped, of better laws. Finished and standing on its rock for the order of the streets, for order in the land and order throughout the world, for order in the secret places of the soul. Majestical rebuker of the waste of lives, rebuker of a country which invites all lives into it and wastes lives most ruthlessly--lives which it stands there to shelter and to foster and to save. So it speaks to the distant through space and time; but it speaks also to the near. Although not half risen out of the earth, encumbering it rough and shapeless, already it draws into its service many who dwell around. These seek to cast their weaknesses on its strength, to join their brief day to its innumerable years, to fall into the spiritual splendor of it as out in space small darkened wanderers drop into the orbit of a sun. Anguished memories begin to bequeath their jewels to its shrine; dimmed eyes will their tears to its eyes, its windows. Old age with one foot in the grave drags the other resignedly about its crypt. In its choir sound the voices of children herded in from the green hillside of life's April. * * * * * Rachel Truesdale! Her life became one of these near-by lives which it blesses, a darkened wanderer caught into the splendor of a spiritual sun. It gathered her into its service; it found useful work for her to do; and in this new life of hers it drew out of her nature the last thing that is ever born of the mother--faith that she is separated a little while from her children only because they have received the gift of eternal youth. Many a proud happy thought became hers as time went on. She had had her share in its glory, for it had needed him whom she had brought into the world. It had called upon him to help give song to its message and to build that ever-falling rainbow of music over which human Hope walks into the eternal. Always as the line of white-clad choristers passed down the aisle, among them was one who brushed tenderly against her as he walked by, whom no one else saw. Rising above the actual voices and heard by her alone, up to the dome soared a voice dearer, more thrilling, than the rest. Often she was at her window, watching the workmen at their toil as they brought out more and more the great shape on the heights. Often she stood looking across at the park hillside opposite. Whenever spring came back and the slope lived again with young leaves and white blossoms, always she thought of him. Always she saw him playing in an eternal April. When autumn returned and leaves withered and dropped, she thought of herself. Sometimes standing beside his piano. Having always in her face the look of immortal things. * * * * * The cathedral there on its rock for ages saying: "_I am the Resurrection and the Life_." THE END 
22244	----	----------------------------------------------------------------------- MISS PAT AT ARTEMIS LODGE ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE "MISS PAT" SERIES Nine Volumes Miss Pat and Her Sisters Miss Pat at School Miss Pat in the Old World Miss Pat and Company, Limited Miss Pat's Holidays at Greycroft Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge Miss Pat's Problem Miss Pat in Buenos Ayres Miss Pat's Career ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: "TANCREDI SAYS ROSAMOND IS GOING INTO OPERA AS SOON AS SHE IS DONE WITH HER."] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- MISS PAT AT ARTEMIS LODGE By PEMBERTON GINTHER Frontispiece By THE AUTHOR PHILADELPHIA THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY PUBLISHERS ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright, 1917, by The John C. Winston Co. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To Carolyn, a True Friend ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Miss Pat Arrives 9 II. Bruce's Surprise Party 24 III. The Tea-room at Artemis Lodge 40 IV. Tancredi's Two Pupils 57 V. Rosamond Insists 69 VI. Patricia Makes Another Friend 84 VII. A Dinner For Two 102 VIII. Patricia Receives an Invitation 116 IX. Rosamond's Friend 130 X. Miss Pat Plays Nurse 143 XI. The Reward of the Faithful 158 XII. Patricia Moves 172 XIII. The Turning Point 186 XIV. Constance's Other Side 201 XV. Patricia Decides To Make the Best of It 215 XVI. The Door Opens Again 227 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER I MISS PAT ARRIVES "The train's in, Elinor, and she'll be here in a jiffy. Bruce said he'd get a taxi, so as not to lose a minute. Do come and watch that corner while I keep my eyes on this one," said Judith, in a sudden flurry. She was standing with her nose pressed against the cool glass of the studio window, staring eagerly out across the wintry square and scanning the opposite streets with intent gaze, and even when she gestured urgently to her older sister, her eyes never left the busy outdoor scene. "I wish the studio wasn't so high up in the air that we can't possibly see the door," she regretted. "I'd so love to see her as she gets out--Miss Pat always makes me feel sort of thrilly and excited when I see her hopping out of a carriage or coming up the walk. Something nice usually happens when she rushes in, all laughing and sparkly, doesn't it, Elinor?" she ended, cuddling up against the tall, slender figure which had joined her at the deep casement. Elinor smiled and patted her pale hair. "I think, chick, that the best thing that happens when Miss Pat comes in is--just Miss Pat herself." Judith nodded, with her searching eyes on the crowded streets below. "That must be it," she agreed thoughtfully. "I didn't think of it just that way, but I guess you're right. She's so--so--pleasant that she makes the stupid little things that happen seem like big eventful-ish doings. At Greycroft this winter things seemed terribly exciting, and now, when I look back at them, they really weren't so very wonderful." "It's the spirit, my dearest Judy, that puts the sparkle into life," said Elinor absently, with her flexible artist hands straying idly over the pale mass of her little sister's straight heavy locks. "Many girls lead vastly more interesting and exciting lives than our dear Miss Pat, but they have dull spirits, and so we don't notice them; while we're all bursting with enthusiasm over every little thing she happens to be doing. It's her gay, glad spirit that wins our interest, bless her heart." Judith nodded again. "I know," she said conclusively. "When Miriam and she went into the chicken business no one got awfully excited over Miriam's part of it, while they were all trying to help Miss Pat make a success of it. And when we were fixing up the Social House, even old Mr. Peberdy woke up when she scolded him. It's queer, isn't it, how she makes you feel? She----" A rap-a-tap-tap on the knocker sounded sharply and then, before either Judith or Elinor could move, the door was flung open and Patricia, followed by Bruce and Mrs. Spicer, rushed breathlessly in. "Oh, you darlings!" she cried, hugging them both at once. "Oh, how heavenly it is to be here, and how adorable you look! Judy, that's a simply perfect green in that frock, and, Norn, you're lovelier than ever in that queer faded yellow. The studio looks stunning. Oh, I'm so excited that I don't know what I'm doing! To think of actually being here at last!" And she flung down her hat on the long divan and, crumpling her bright hair between both pink palms, she stepped back and faced the group in the middle of the studio with laughing lips and wet eyes. Elinor, Judith and Bruce, with Mrs. Spicer in their midst, smiled back at her, but did not speak, each feeling, somehow, that this was Miss Pat's moment for utterance. On the brink of her new life--that life she had so ardently longed and planned and worked for--she had become for the moment the first figure in the scene. Tomorrow she would be gone into the ranks of that great army which is building up the beautiful world for others less gifted to live in, but today she was the center of her little world. "To think, Judy and Elinor and Bruce and Mrs. Jinny-Nat, that I'm here, _here_, all ready to begin too with my music. One little day and then I'll be a real singing student. Why, it takes my breath away--" And she paused with a catch in her voice that threatened tears. This was too much for the calm and practical Judith. "But you've been simply crazy to be here, Miss Pat," she cried reprovingly. "You've toiled and moiled on chickens and sculpture and candy and boarders and everything just to be able at last to be a real singer. I don't see what there is to be a cry-baby about now." Patricia's merry peal rang out wholesomely and she caught Judith by her slim shoulders and gave her a playful shake. "It takes Ju to show up our little mistakes, doesn't it, Mrs. Nat?" she cried gayly. "Thank you, Judy, for them kind words. I won't be a cry-baby again; I promise you that. Come, Norn, tell us what you and Bruce have been up to while we've been wandering toward the sunny South this last two weeks. Is your stained glass window done, Norn, and has Marty been behaving as well as ever? Oh, there's such a lot to talk about, it's hard to know where to begin." Mrs. Spicer laid aside her wraps and drew a deep chair to the fire. "I move we get thawed out while we gabble," she proposed, with her deep, husky chuckle. "I'm so frozen that it'll take a week of Sundays to shed my icicles. This zero weather isn't particularly inspiring after the balmy breezes of the Gulf Stream." "Oh, do let's stay in for tea and go without any real dinner, Elinor," begged Patricia, impulsively. "Bruce said we were to take dinner at the Ritz as a special treat, but I'd ever so much rather stay home for this one night, if you don't mind." Elinor looked inquiringly at her husband, who nodded and disappeared into the adjoining room, and then she smiled at Mrs. Spicer and nodded reassuringly at Judith, whose rather troubled expression did not escape the quick eyes of her impetuous sister. "Will it disappoint you, Judy?" she asked with slightly dampened ardor. "I never thought of your being set on it----" Judith waved her aside with a gesture of calm benignity. "I should hope," she said magnificently, "that I could do without _food_ as well as any of you." And she seated herself on the stool beside Mrs. Spicer with an air of having settled the matter. Patricia could not resist a ripple of merriment at her imposing manner. "Squelched again," she laughed, trying vainly to look humble and repentant. "Elinor, you really oughtn't to let Judy sacrifice herself like this. She----" Elinor sank into another wide chair at the opposite side of the hearth. "We're only too glad to stay indoors this bitterly cold weather," she replied easily. "Judith was just wishing before you came that we could have a cosy supper here, but we all thought it would be more festive to celebrate in some more lively spot than the old studio. We didn't have any tea for you this afternoon because we wanted you to enjoy the dinner all the more." Patricia still looked rather uncertainly at Judith, whose dignified manner was as impassive as ever. "Sure you don't mind, Ju?" she asked, solicitous as ever for her small sister's happiness. "Mrs. Nat will soon be thawed out, and----" Judith drew herself up with beautiful composure. "Patricia Louise Kendall, you will never be a great artist if your mind is so set on your food," she said severely. "Do stop talking about dinners, and tell us what you've seen down there among the alligators and palm trees." Patricia flung out two protesting palms. "Ask Sinbad, otherwise Mrs. Nathaniel Spicer," she retorted gayly, relieved by Judith's evident sincerity, "I'm no earthly good on descriptive pieces, as you very well know; and she can spin yarns that would make Robinson Crusoe sound like a Cook excursion. I'll roll up here alongside of Elinor and censor her reports when they get too highly colored." Mrs. Spicer chuckled, rubbed her frosty fingers before the leaping blaze and then plunged into the story of their fortnight's journey southward with Miriam Halden, whom they had left with her mother in New Orleans, looking forward, in spite of crutches, to the festivities of her friends' coming-out parties. Elinor and Judith asked a great many questions and Patricia threw in a word or two occasionally, but for the most part she was silent, reveling in the cosy warmth of the big room, with its easels and casts and canvases and all the other familiar delightful implements of the painter's craft. As Mrs. Spicer finished and Patricia was beginning to bubble over with eager questions about friends and acquaintances, Bruce came back into the room, and, lighting a cigar, flung himself into the vacant lounging chair at the other side of the hearth. He was smiling and Patricia knew his expression meant something agreeable. "What is it, Bruce?" she asked eagerly. "I know you've something up your sleeve. Is it a surprise? Does Elinor know? Is anyone coming?" Bruce pretended to be absorbed in his cigar and said not a word. The others looked expectantly at him, and Judith, catching the infection, slipped over to him and taking him gently by the ears, turned his head directly toward them. "You may as well tell us, Mr. Bruce," she urged firmly. "We haven't any time to waste this evening on conundrums, you know." Elinor suddenly seemed enlightened. "Oh, I think I know--" she began, when Bruce interrupted her. "No, you don't know it all," he announced loudly, as if fearful that the news might come from some other source. "You may know that I was going to order dinner served here in the studio, and you might guess that it was to be a very festive one, but you couldn't possibly foresee who was to share the humble board with us, no, not if you guessed a hundred years." "Pooh, I'm sure I could do it in one little hour if I tried," laughed Patricia. "We don't know such a horde of people that it would take long to run over every name we know." "Oh, don't try, please don't!" cried Judith in alarm, lest valuable time be lost. "Tell us, Bruce, do, Mrs. Nat hates to haggle over news." There was a merry outcry at this transparent plea and then Bruce, with a pretense of reluctance, gave in. "We're going to have dinner here in the studio with real waiters, Judy, and a bunch of flowers for each lady--don't interrupt, please, till I've done. A bunch of violets for you and Elinor and Mrs. Spicer and the happy song-bird there, and also for Miss Margaret Howes and Mrs. Hiram Todd." There was such a chorus of questions that Bruce held up his hands in protest. "Give me time, and I'll confess all," he entreated. "Don't be too hard on a poor solitary man-body. Remember, you're four to one, and be easy. I had asked the Todds for a surprise to you all, and today I met Miss Howes on the street--just back in town and honing for a sight of old friends, and I nailed her on the spot. Fortunately I could get them all on the phone and they one and all bubbled with joy at the prospect of a quiet little dinner in the shelter of our roof-tree. Margaret Howes is sick of hotel life and Mrs. Todd isn't quite acclimated to it yet." Mrs. Spicer shook her head. "We didn't even know there was a Mrs. Hiram," she said with a chuckle. "When did it happen?" "The very day after you left," replied Elinor. "They went to Washington--Hiram had some more business there--and Marian had the time of her life. She looks like a different girl, too. She's taken Hiram in hand already, and he is beginning to seem like other people. She told me the day we called on them here that she had given all of Hiram's wedding outfit to the Salvation Army, and she meant to fit him out right here in New York." Patricia puckered her brow. "I thought Hiram was very well as he was," she said doubtfully. "He was the sort that couldn't be much changed, and it seems silly to deck him out----" Bruce interrupted her. "That isn't the idea, my dear Pat," he explained, smiling. "Marian says Hiram has too much brains to look like a scarecrow for ignorant people to look down on, so she's making him fit, merely to enlighten them as to his merit." Patricia was silenced, though not yet convinced. She turned to the subject of Margaret Howes with eager interest, asking all sorts of questions as to her progress in painting and her appearance and her life of the past year, to none of which Bruce would answer a word, even though urged by Elinor. "Wait and find out for yourselves," he said teasingly. "It would take off the bloom if I recounted all." Elinor rose to lead the way to the rooms where they would dress. "I don't believe he knows a single thing," she said emphatically. "Margaret isn't a chatterbox and it was too bitterly cold on the streets today for any lengthy confidences. Come along and get into your festive togs--we don't want to miss a single minute, and dinner is very early tonight." As Patricia followed the others out she bent gratefully over Bruce's chair. Her large gray eyes were shining in the rosy firelight and her face was sweetly serious. "You're awfully good to me, Bruce," she said in a low tone. "I don't deserve it one scrap--but I'll try all the harder to be worth while some day." Bruce looked up with his nicest smile and laid his strong hand over hers on his chair-arm. "You're very much worth while now--to me, Patsy dear," he said with genuine affection. "I'm not looking ahead to those future days. Who knows whether the success, when it comes, will make you nearer to us, or will take you far away----" She broke in eagerly with her hand pressed on her quickly beating heart. "Oh, Bruce," she said with a little tinge of fear in her tone. "I'm sometimes so afraid of that--losing you all in the work and hurry that is coming to me. But you'll help me, won't you? You'll keep me remembering how much we've always despised conceited, stuck-up people? I may be a failure after all, but if I'm not, if I'm the tiniest bit of a success and you see me getting selfish and horrid, you'll try to remind me, won't you?" Bruce smiled reassuringly up at her flushed face. "Rely on me to puncture your balloon if it's needed, Miss Pat," he said in a tone that was very comforting, and, as she dropped a light kiss on his dark, waving hair, he added more soberly, "It's a mighty hard thing for a singer to be unselfish and generous, I warn you, my dear. It's going to be a struggle sometimes, though I don't doubt for an instant that you'll win out with flying colors." Patricia's gayety was surging back in a happy flood, and she straightened up with a little rippling laugh, casting all her shadowy fears behind her. "Just you wait till I sing my first concert, Mr. Bruce Hayden," she challenged, "and then tell me I'm a conceited goose, if you dare. I wagger as Hannah Ann says, I'll be the same stupid, silly thing I am now." And nodding brightly at him, she danced after the others, humming a gay little tune as she went. CHAPTER II BRUCE'S SURPRISE PARTY Although Patricia would have been very well entertained with a quiet tea all to themselves in the studio, since there was so much to be talked over, so many plans to be made and such hopes to be indulged in, nevertheless she was obliged to confess that she had never had a jollier time in her life than at the dinner that night. While they were dressing, the table was laid and some tall palms placed in the corners of the room just where they made the best effect, and when they came into the studio again the whole scene was of the most restive sort. Flowers on the tables and candles twinkling everywhere, the tapestries and screens of the shadowy backgrounds, the gleam of copper and brass, all mingled in a delightful whole which would have been hard to equal by any hotel, however well appointed. Judith gave an exclamation of pleasure as she stood on the threshold. "Why, it's the very nicest place in the world to celebrate in!" she said warmly. "You ought to be an awfully great singer, Miss Pat, when you're starting off with such lovely doings." Patricia screwed up her face into a mocking protest and had opened her lips, when the sound of the elevator made them start eagerly to the door. Margaret Howes knocked before they could fling it open, but they had her inside and were hugging her and shaking hands recklessly ere Bruce could hurry out to see who had knocked. Margaret, in a long cloak and with her dark hair crowned with a simple wreath of ivy leaves, was looking more charming than ever, and although she was fain to linger a moment to take in the beautified studio, they hurried her off to Elinor's room, where Mrs. Spicer was waiting to hook the last reluctant hook in Elinor's filmy gown. There was another shower of excited embraces, questions and comments rained down and it was only the arrival of the Hiram Todd's that saved Margaret from pouring out all her store of information about herself in one reckless flood and thereby wasting half of the entertainment for the dinner table. Mrs. Hiram Todd fully justified Elinor's approbation, for in the incredibly short time since she had left Rockham and gone with the lanky Hiram to the national capital, she had shed the slightly rustic manner of her former days and had become, in appearance at least, a well-dressed, attractive, sensible looking girl such as you may see in the comfortable homes of the large cities. But although Patricia was surprised at the change which Marian had effected in her own manners and garments in the brief fortnight of married life, her astonishment grew as she gazed on Hiram. No one, seeing the happy Hiram for the first time, could have believed that a few short months ago he had been the lank and ungrammatical individual whose gift of a patent rocker struck consternation to the members of the House Committee on that fateful donation night at the Social House when the ninety-nine wooden chairs had been presented by the guests of the evening. The memory of that trying moment, the picture of his later efforts in pursuit of grammar under her own tuition, faded from Patricia's mind as she looked at him. She recalled only the successful geologist, the man of science whose collection had gained him recognition in high places, and she held out her hand with cordial sincerity. "How splendidly you're looking, Hiram," she said, almost with admiration in her tone. "City life must agree with you tremendously----" Bruce's chuckle halted her speech, but Hiram nodded heartily. "That's about the size of it," he said with one of his grins. "But it took a smarter one than me--_I_ to get at it. I was in town a lot since Mr. Hayden got me in touch with the big guns at the capital, and I didn't turn a hair, as far as clothes was concerned. My, my, what a dummy I was. But the minute Marian landed in the dining-room of the hotel, she knew what was what. She's just built me all over on stylish lines, you see," he ended with simple candor that was very pleasant to hear. "And the funny part of it is that I don't feel foolish in them, either. I like this striped white vest a heap better'n the plain ones, and I'm dinged if I ain't amazing comfortable in this stiff, starchy dress shirt." Marian had the good sense to enjoy Hiram's frankness and she smiled on him affectionately. "We're both glad we came to town," she said with a glance at her own fluffy net dress, "but we'll be glad, too, to get back to the folks again. Town's plenty of fun, but it takes one's ambition. Hiram's simply lost without the woods and hills and I'm going to be pretty well satisfied with Rockham, once I get back." Margaret Howes took a great fancy to both of them, and she plied Hiram with many questions as to his geological pursuits, bringing out all the best in him, while Marian, pleased with the respect this pretty, intelligent girl showed to her husband, glowed and beamed on her, growing entirely at ease and even loquacious under the stimulating warmth of Margaret's interest. By the time that dinner was served they were all in the most friendly humor possible and ready to enjoy the least excuse for laughter. Another pleasant surprise came as they were settling themselves at the table. The elevator clanged its downward flight and a moment after the door flung open to admit Patricia's twin Ted, with his chum Tom Hughes, both very much delighted to find such a merry company and fully equipped with appetites to do justice to the feast. Bruce received them with something like contrition in his cheerful face. "Great Scott, I forgot you two!" he gasped, wringing their hands with great cordiality. "Hope you haven't been wandering about in this frosty burg too long?" Tom shook himself out of his overcoat with a silent grin, but Ted was not so considerate. "See here, Elinor," he complained, turning to his sister at the head of the table. "That husband of yours needs a lecture. He made a date with us fellows over a week ago and we've been tracking him in vain for nearly an hour. He never peeped a note about having the dinner here. I thought it was to be at the Ritz and we've been hanging about there for a dog's age. What do you think of it?" Patricia broke in before Bruce or Elinor could reply. "Don't waste time mourning over the dark past, Ted Kendall," she said severely. "Come sit down here between Margaret Howes and me, and let Margaret see how nicely you can behave since you've grown up enough to have evening clothes. She hasn't seen you since you were a little boy at Elinor's wedding, you know." There was a laugh at this, as the ceremony mentioned had taken place in a June not so very long ago, and while Bruce tried hard to trump up excuses for having forgotten to telephone to his young brother-in-law, the two boys settled themselves at the table at the hastily arranged places provided for them, and the dinner began amidst great gayety. When the fish had been disposed of Ted leaned forward to catch Elinor's eye. "Have you broken the news to the future prima donna?" he asked with interest. "I saw Merton today--you know his sister is living at Venusburg now--and he said it was a dandy place. Receptions every week. Tea-room on the premises. Art mongers and singers and a few chaperones that know their business----" Patricia broke in with puzzled wonder: "What are you talking about, Ted?" she demanded. "What has Elinor to do with tea-rooms and the like?" Ted looked surprised in his turn. "Haven't they told you yet?" he inquired doubtfully. "Perhaps I oughtn't to have----" Elinor hastened to reassure him. "It's all right, Ted dear," she said. "We hadn't told Miss Pat because we thought she mightn't like it and we wanted her to have this one evening without a flaw. But she has to know tomorrow, so she may as well hear it now." Patricia's heart sank as Elinor turned to her, and her first words were not encouraging. "I know how you love to be with us all," she said, hesitating for the best words, "but Madame Milano has written that she wants you to agree absolutely to her suggestions as to your studies and----" Patricia flushed suddenly. "Well, if it means that I have to go away all by myself and never have any real family times, like we've just begun to have after all these years," she declared hotly, "I simply won't do it, no matter what comes of it." There was a little pause in the animated talk at the other end of the table where Bruce and Marian Todd were discussing architecture with Tom Hughes, and Bruce bent an anxious glance at his rebellious sister-in-law. "Humph, listen to that, will you?" said Ted, appealing to Margaret. "She isn't a bit grateful--not she. She turns down a real thorough-going opera singer without a spasm. Time was when she groveled--fairly groveled--at Milano's lightest suggestion. At Leeuwarden, for instance----" Patricia had caught the look in Bruce's eye and she flung her petulance from her with her usual energy. "Never mind preaching any more, St. Francis-Edward-David Carson-Kendall, I'll be good," she said lightly. "Tell me the worst, Elinor, so that I may have it over. I always did think I'd like to expire among lights and flowers." It was an effort to put her own feelings to one side, but she had her reward in Bruce's look and in Elinor's sigh of relief, and she instantly determined to put up with whatever Milano decreed with as joyful a spirit as she could summon. "It really isn't so very dreadful. Many girls would love it," explained Elinor. "You are to study with Madame Milano's friend, Madame Tancredi, and to live at the new students' club, Artemis Lodge----" "I thought Ted called it something else," began Patricia puzzled. Ted laughed. "That's the name the fellows have for it," he explained in a hasty aside. Elinor went gently on with the rules. "And you are to come home on Sunday evenings," she said brightly, "and to be very particular about your diet and physical exercises. I think that's all." Patricia, in spite or her good resolves, could not repress a sigh at the program which was so very different from that she had planned for herself. Afternoons at the studio, morning chats with Elinor, music lessons for the aspiring Marty, who was to be put to school as soon as she came from Rockham, and a host of other idle, pleasant doings had been in her catalogue. "I suppose it will be very nice," she said in a half-hearted manner that showed her feelings as clearly as any words could have. "Have you seen the place, Elinor?" Elinor had not, but Margaret Howes had stopped there before settling in her new studio apartment, and she declared it as delightful as one could wish. Ted and Tom added their hopeful prophecy that she'd find a dandy bunch of girls there, and even Judith put in a word for Patricia's future abode by saying in her most conclusive fashion: "I suppose they'll be fearfully nice to you there, since they will all know that Madame Milano made you come there. You're always so very lucky, Miss Pat. Everybody makes things so easy for you." Patricia gave a gurgle of amusement at Judith's grown-up air. Her soaring spirits began to color the picture of Artemis Lodge with brighter hue and she saw that it really was fortunate to have the interest of a prominent and popular opera singer as an introduction to the world of musical endeavor. "That's true enough, Judith-Minerva, my dear," she retorted gayly. "I'll try to live up to the great Milano's recommendation. But if I fail, I'll get my literary sister, the authoress of----" Here Judith, for some reason unknown to Patricia, looked so very hurt and agitated that she dropped her teasing manner and said with genuine satisfaction, "I'm awfully glad that you pointed out what a card Madame Milano's introduction will be, Judy. They'll put up with me for her sake and I'll have a good time, even if it is in borrowed plumage." Judith, however, was not going to allow that her admired Miss Pat needed any other recommendation than her own pleasant self, and she defended Patricia so stoutly against this statement that Ted declared he was green with jealousy and began a counter-charge of neglect of his talents, which moved Judith to swift retort and afforded great diversion to their end of the table. The talk hung on the charms of Artemis Lodge, and then slipped to the changes which had come into each of their lives since their last meeting. Margaret Howes confessed to being at work on a large decorative scheme for a woman's club, although she would not divulge the whereabouts of the club nor the length of her stay in the metropolis. Elinor showed the photograph of her finished cartoon for the stained glass window she had been at work on before and during the holidays, while Bruce promised a view of his partly finished panel for the Historical Society. Hiram Todd sketched lightly the prospects which were opening to him in additional work in Washington. Ted and Tom had little to add to their openly avowed intentions to capture honors in the same course, each declaring that the other stood little show beside himself. Judith was very quiet and, as the youngest, was not pressed for any definite account of her aims and accomplishments, and though Patricia knew well that her silence covered great determinations, the memory of her agitated manner when she had spoken jestingly of her literary ambitions kept her from further open questioning. The intimate hospitality of the studio made a good setting for their gay sociability and the dinner progressed without any more drags on the wheels of its merry-making. Mrs. Nat told funny stories, and the boys gave impromptu imitations of classmates and professors; Margaret Howes sparkled with quaint tales of the remote mountain village where she had been spending the summer. Elinor's gentle wit flashed; and Bruce's ready laughter followed every one of his own clever jokes, while Patricia and Marian made their mark as an appreciative audience, enjoying everything that was meant for humor and applauding even the feeblest joke. Altogether it was a great success as a celebration and a happy augury of the future into which it ushered the expectant Patricia. The guests were slow to leave and if it had not been necessary for Ted and Tom to make a certain train in order to get back to college at the required time, while Hiram was also due at a midnight conference of geologists at his hotel, they might have gone on with the merriment long after the last waiter had disappeared and the violets were fading. "I simply hate to go," confessed Margaret Howes as she stood waiting for her taxi after the rest had departed. "I've had a gorgeous time and I am sorry to leave you. Remember you are to meet me in the tea-room at Artemis Lodge at four-fifteen tomorrow to look over the ground before Miss Pat plunges in. Wait for me in the corner near the door. I'll be on time--if I can." After the elevator had clanged its way down with Bruce and Margaret, Patricia turned with a passionate gesture to the others. "Oh, my dears, to think it has really begun!" she cried as though just realizing the great fact. "Oh, Mrs. Nat, and Judy, and Elinor, you dear, adorable angels, I'm so happy I don't know what to do." Elinor and Judith were blowing out the guttering candles, and Mrs. Nat was hastily rearranging the disordered furniture, but they each stopped to smile sympathetically at her, and Judith reached out an eager hand. "Just think of tomorrow, Miss Pat," she said, shaken out of her composure for once. "Oh, jiminy! Losh keep us all! What fun that's going to be!" CHAPTER III THE TEA-ROOM AT ARTEMIS LODGE Patricia spent the next morning in a whirl of pleasantly conflicting emotions, and, while she was posing in the studio for a rapid sketch by Elinor, her head was humming with a perfect hive of delightful thoughts. Bruce was off for the day on business, Judith was, of course, at school, and so the three, Mrs. Nat, Elinor and Patricia, had the place to themselves. And how they did chatter! Patricia heard over and over again every particular of the interview Elinor and Bruce had with the prima donna on their last flying visit to New York; they discussed the possibilities of getting an attractive room at Artemis Lodge at the very moderate price Patricia could afford; they made plans for the welfare of Marty Sneath, who was to arrive and take up her duties as studio-girl the next day; and, in spite of the fact that it was only two short weeks since the travelers had left the north, Patricia insisted on minute inquiries about everyone she knew. But always, at the end of every other subject, they returned to the great matter in hand--Patricia's enrolment as a singing student under Madame Tancredi and her establishment at Artemis Lodge. "I'm scared stiff at the thought of paying such a fortune for the lessons," Patricia said ruefully. "Think of spending all that money for one little half hour! And three lessons a week, too. Don't you think I might do with less, Norn? I can make it up with practicing, you know." Elinor shook her head and Mrs. Spicer counseled briskly, "Better stick tight to rules, my dear. This Madame knows her business, it seems, and if your operatic friend, says three, it must be as she commands. Thank goodness, she didn't tell you to spend every afternoon there." "Well, then, the only thing for me to do is to get a very cheap room," said Patricia decisively. "For I am just determined not to be sponging on you and Bruce if I can help it." Elinor was about to protest, but Mrs. Spicer with nods and head-shakes signaled her to desist. "That's the way to talk," she said heartily. "You'll enjoy every scrap of progress that you make. We've got to pay for everything in this life one way or another and it saves a lot trouble to begin square." "Oh, I'm so glad you see it," cried Patricia. "I simply couldn't take money for mere _indulgences_, even though I might for real hard study. I can be just as happy in a little room as a big one, and I'll have this lovely place to come to when I'm hankering after space, anyway." It was settled, after a careful consultation of the little book which Patricia called her "Incomings and Outgoings" that, since the lessons took almost every cent of the modest income which Ted generously insisted on sharing with his two younger sisters for the winter months, Patricia was to accept the rent of her room at Artemis Lodge as a gift from Bruce and Elinor and to keep the remnant of her own money for current expenses. "I'll be a perfect miser and that will help me to stay at home and practice all the more," laughed Patricia as she settled down to the posing again. "I do hope Artemis Lodge isn't a very top-lofty place, with lots of maids to tip and a hundred ways of grabbing at my little pile." "You'll find out all its pitfalls _after_ you get there," said Mrs. Nat with a grimness born of experience. "Don't look for too much. It isn't human nature to be perfect. Besides, it ain't religious. If this good old earth of ours was just one little mite better none of us would be hankering so very specially after heaven." Patricia tossed the suggestion of drawbacks to Artemis Lodge behind her with a gay gesture, and if the clock had not struck at that minute would have entered a strong protest. At the signal of release, however, she flung off the drapery in which Elinor had posed her, and flew to the window. "The sun's out again, and it's come to stay!" she cried, peering down at the streets with eager interest. "Oh, isn't it too jolly for words to be really going to get my room and all! I'm so excited I simply can't wait for the time to come." But of course she did wait and with the very best grace in the world. For she helped Elinor pack a box of warm half-worn clothing for the worthless Sneaths in Rockham, and made some necessary repairs in her own slightly travel-worn clothes. "I want to be as fresh as possible, without being too wealthy looking," she said with a smile as she laid out her newest blouse and brushed her hat with great nicety when the hour for getting ready for the tea-party had arrived. Judith had come in and was hurrying through her toilet at an unusual rate of speed, but she paused and critically surveyed her sister with her head first on one side and then on the other. "You may as well give up trying to look like the deserving poor, Miss Pat," she said emphatically. "You'll always be sort of _rich-ish_ looking, not real luxuriant, you know, but--but--" She hesitated for just the right phrase. "Well, anyone would know you used a bath-brush and took care of your hair," she ended lamely. Patricia bubbled with mirth. "What a left-handed compliment, Judy. Is that the best you can do for me? I'm glad I appear clean, anyway." Judith began to fasten her frock, undisturbed. "You know perfectly well, Miss Pat, that you're quite good-looking--not so lovely as Elinor, but heaps prettier than Miriam or--or--me," she ended rather forlornly. Patricia had come to understand the longing after beauty which was in the depths of her small sister's secret heart and was quick to offer balm. "Look at us," she said, pulling Judith to the mirror beside her. "'Fess up now Miss, that you are quite as fascinating as your elderly relative. You forget that you've been growing and changing a lot since I've been away." Judith gazed at the reflection in the glass which showed her as a slender childish figure with a lengthening mop of pale, ashy hair and a face of delicate intensity. She really had not changed at all in Patricia's short absence, but the different surroundings made both girls view her with other eyes, and she seemed to have taken on new height and color. "I'm growing!" cried Judith rapturously, turning from the mirror to rush into Elinor's room with the glorious news. "Oh, Elinor, I'm nearly up to Miss Pat's ear-tip now." Patricia heard Elinor's laughing comments with a smile of satisfaction curving her pink lips. She knew that Judith did not measure a fraction of an inch more than when she left Rockham, but she was glad that the images in the glass had cheered the critical Judith, whose lamentations about her size and coloring were always loudest when she faced a looking-glass. It was only a very little thing, this incident of cheering Judith, but it warmed Patricia's already glowing heart and added the final drop to her cup of happiness, and she started off on their expedition to the Artemis tea-room with such a radiant face that Judith commented on it. "Miss Pat," she whispered with a warning nudge as they fell behind the other two in the crowded pavement, "you ought to take a tuck in your smile. Everybody will be looking at us if you go along grinning like that." But Patricia only smiled the more at this and Judith gave her up in despair of making any impression on her abounding good humor. "She's perfectly dreadful, Mrs. Nat," she confided as she slipped to her old friend's side, leaving Patricia to Elinor for the rest of the walk. "She doesn't care a bit about how she looks. Lots of people turned to stare at us." Mrs. Spicer nodded approval of Patricia's reckless course. "Don't you fret, my dear," she soothed Judith. "Miss Pat is worth looking at any time and folks like to see a real happy person once in a while. Land knows why we're all so afraid to show our joyful side to the world. Let her alone. Good times don't last too long for any of us." Judith meditated on this bit of wisdom and she watched Patricia closely when they reached the street where the house was located. There was no clouding of the bright face, however, at the sight of the substantial graystone building, and Judith drew a sigh of relief that Patricia's happy hour was lengthened by so much. "Isn't it a perfect duck of a place?" said Patricia as they stood at the wide entrance door. "It's just like some of the old houses I saw in Belgium last summer--only fresher and newer, of course." "Margaret said it was modeled after an old French house," said Elinor, reaching for the shiny brass knob at the side of the green door. "The people who planned it wanted to get what they called 'artistic atmosphere' and a suitable setting for the budding geniuses within doors." "And they hit the nail on the head, _smack_," agreed Mrs. Nat as the door swung open and a glimpse of a wide, paved inner courtyard made an interesting background for the respectable, stout elderly woman who, like the concierge abroad, guarded the entrance. They were ushered across the courtyard--Patricia all the while gaping shamelessly about at the four house-walls that formed the square about the courtyard--and went up a red-carpeted, stone stair to the first floor of the house, where they followed their affable guide through a succession of passages, coming at last into a huge room at the door of which she left them. There was a murmur of well-modulated voices, a hum of light chatter, and as they paused on the threshold for a moment, the sound of a couple of notes struck carelessly on a piano made Patricia's cheeks glow. "Isn't it a stunning big room?" she said in an undertone to Elinor, who nodded appreciatively as she led the way into the nearest corner where a comfortable divan and a couple of chairs stood invitingly empty. The room was filled with girls of varying ages, with a scattering of guests, and although it was as yet too early for tea, the place was alive with chatting groups, some of whom had secured little tables against future needs. The tea-table was at one end of the room, and the big brass samovar was already sending out encouraging clouds of steamy vapor. The girl behind the urn attracted Patricia's immediate attention. "Look, Norn," she said in eager interest. "Isn't that Doris Leighton at the tea-table? It's enough like her to be her twin, if it isn't herself." Elinor's surprise was quite as great as Patricia's on recognizing beyond a doubt the fair hair and attractive figure which had so won Patricia's admiration on her first visit to the art school many months ago. Doris it was beyond a doubt, and grown more charming than ever, as they quickly found on making themselves-known to her. "I'm staying here for the winter," she explained to them while her hands were busy with the tea-things. "I get my room free for attending to the tea-table, and I am doing social secretary work in the mornings. I've been intending to hunt you up, ever since I came back to town but I've been so busy I could hardly see." Patricia, in spite of her knowledge of Doris' brave struggle since the loss of their money, could not help contrasting the present capable Doris with the beauty of the class at the Academy whose severest task had been to clean her big palette or wash her soiled paint brushes. "That month at Greycroft while you were abroad set me up completely," Doris went on with an earnestness that was good to see. "I'll never forget your kindness to me and mother, Elinor, and if there is ever anything I can do to show how I feel, you must let me do it." It was on the tip of Patricia's tongue to suggest that she give them some hints of the inner workings of Artemis Lodge, but at that moment Margaret Howes came in, and there was all the exclaiming and wondering over the coincidence of Doris' presence to be gone over again, until the arrival of a maid with a basket of hot buns put an end to their talk with the tea-mistress. Margaret led the way back to their corner. "It's great luck that Doris should be here," she said with an exultant note in her voice. "She can do a lot for you, Miss Pat, by way of avoiding the rocks among the shoals. She'll know more about the real inside workings of these fair damsels than you can find out all at once for yourself. And I advise you to get her opinion of anyone you fancy, before you tie too closely to them." This was considered a good plan by all, and they intended to seek Doris after her duties were over and put some leading questions to her. While the tea was still circulating and they were deep in discussing the various sorts of girls surrounding their corner, Doris came over to them with a word of regret for her early flitting. "It's my short hour today, and I have a lesson in domestic science to give over in Brooklyn. I'm late, too," she said, pulling into her gloves with nervous haste and glancing at the window near their corner. "Send me your address, Elinor, and we'll have a real meeting some day soon. Good-bye, Mrs. Nat. Good-bye, Judy, Don't forget to make Elinor hunt me up, Miss Pat. Mercy, there goes my car now," and she fled precipitately. Margaret Howes looked after her with approval in spite of her own disappointed hopes. "Don't tell me that it isn't good for some people to be poor," she said impressively. "Doris Leighton proves that beyond a doubt. Did she tell you anything about Miss Ardsley, the new directress?" she asked in a changed tone. Elinor shook her head. "We were too much surprised to keep our wits, I am afraid," she confessed. "We really ought to see her now--it's getting late and Mrs. Spicer wants to make that six-ten train." Margaret rose and made her way to another part of the room, where she seemed to be making inquiries, for a girl in a faded green linen dress nodded and then went out, returning quickly. Margaret came back smiling. "Miss Ardsley is in today," she said, "and will see us in a short while." Patricia's color rose and she held her hands together under the cover of her muff. The anxious moment seemed an age to her, and although the green-robed girl had assured Margaret that the lady was on the way to meet them, she was positive that it was at least half an hour until the slim, silk-clad form of the directress of Artemis Lodge stood smiling gently before them. She was of that age between youth and middle age which shows at the same time gray hairs among the dark braids and pink cheeks where the wrinkles are beginning to hide. She wore a sober, well-cut gown and her few ornaments were of the choicest kind. Her hands were soft and long and somewhat faded, though carefully tended and of good shape. Patricia on the first swift glance did not feel particularly drawn to her, but after the introductions had been made by Margaret Howes, and they were seated again, she began to revise her first hasty judgment. Miss Ardsley was graciousness itself, and even the mention of Madame Milano's name did not seem to heighten her original cordiality, but she had disappointment for Patricia's high hopes in her accounts of the popularity of Artemis Lodge. "I assure you, my dear Mrs. Hayden, we have not a single empty room," she said with graceful regret. "Every apartment in the Lodge is filled at present, and unless someone should leave, I do not see how we can hope to have the pleasure of Miss Kendall's being with us." Mrs. Spicer, always practical and to the point, demanded if there were any prospect of a removal. Miss Ardsley feared not, since the Lodge was so deservedly popular. "And with the very best families, I assure you," she said with an earnestness which Patricia wondered at. "We have two young millionairesses with us now, and the social tone of the establishment is higher than ever this year." It was plain that the magic names of Hayden and Milano could do nothing in this case, and Patricia gave up hope, plunging into a dark region of despair from which it took a hard struggle on her part to emerge sufficiently to smile her farewells to Miss Ardsley and make her way out with the others with an appearance at least of cheerful indifference. On the way back she was very silent and neither Elinor nor Judith attempted to comfort her, but when they had reached the station and Mrs. Spicer had bought her ticket and Bruce had appeared in the nick of time with luggage checks and other necessities of travel, her face cleared and she turned to her old friend with more of her usual happy air. "I'm not going to give up just for one little disappointment, Mrs. Nat," she whispered as she clung to her in farewell. "I'll get into Artemis Lodge and I'll have a splendid time there, in spite of everything." Mrs. Nat patted her cheek approvingly. "Certain sure you will, my dear," she responded heartily. "Something's bound to happen, once you make your mind up to it." Patricia watched the train pull out of the big smoky shed, with a real hope growing in her heart. "Something's bound to happen," she repeated determinedly, and she took Judith's arm and skipped a couple of steps along the dim platform, much to that young lady's horror. "It's simply bound to happen, Judy," she said out loud, but to Judith's puzzled questions she would give no answer save a little confident laugh. CHAPTER IV TANCREDI'S TWO PUPILS And something did actually happen. It was in the most unexpected way and it came from a quarter that caused Patricia to believe in modern miracles. She had gone with some quaking to her appointment with Madame Tancredi, and she was waiting alone in the anteroom--Elinor having left her for some necessary shopping until the lesson should be over--when the maid ushered in a girl in sumptuous street clothes, carrying a music roll of extravagant design. Patricia loved pretty clothes and pretty people, and the girl was undeniably pretty in a dark, tropical way. She moved with graceful, gliding steps and her face under the wide drooping velvet hat looked amiable as well as comely. Patricia wanted to speak to her, but was uncertain as to the propriety of the act. The girl solved her difficulty, however, by choosing a chair near Patricia's, and, settling easily in it with an accustomed air of being agreeable, smiled pleasantly and spoke in a most melodious voice. "Are you the new pupil?" she asked, apparently less from curiosity than a desire to break the silence. "I have heard that Madame was expecting someone recommended by Milano, but since she didn't tell me any more than just that much, I may be mistaken." Patricia eagerly assured her that she was indeed the expected student, adding a rather anxious question as to the manner of instructor she was to have in Madame Tancredi. The girl laughed a tinkling laugh which showed her faultless little white teeth and waved her hand in quite the foreign manner. "Tancredi is very well as teachers go," she said with an indifference that seemed superhuman to the quivering Patricia, who immediately set her up in her mind as authority on matters musical. "I've never studied before," she confessed, with a tinge of confusion. "I am afraid Madame will find me awfully stupid." The girl looked at her with a lightening of her amiable, indifferent air. "Are you really so very young as all that?" she asked in some surprise. "You look very childish in this dim light, but I thought you must be old enough to have studied somewhere before this. Tancredi doesn't usually take rank amateurs." Patrica felt very small indeed before this calm criticism, but she confessed bravely, though with flushing cheeks. "I am past seventeen," she said resolutely. "And I've been waiting six months to begin study." And then at the encouraging look on the other's face she rushed into a rather jumbled account of her aspirations, her trials and lastly her disappointment of yesterday in being refused admittance at Artemis Lodge on the score of lack of room. The girl listened closely, and Patricia thought she nodded approval at the names of Bruce Hayden and Greycroft, and showed a keener interest when Milano's visit to Rockham was hastily mentioned. She made few comments, however, and when the gong rang, rose to go into the studio with graceful alacrity. At the threshold she paused to say, "If you are here when I come out, I should like to see you again," and then with a return of her amiable, indifferent air, she passed into the inner sanctum, leaving the impulsive Patricia worshiping at her shrine. Some sounds of liquid melody found their way out through the heavy doors, and helped to make the tedious half hour pass like magic. Patricia was thankful she had made a mistake in the time and had arrived so much too soon, since it gave her the opportunity of having even this small glimpse into the world of music before she ventured into it herself. The girl came out, and her expression was heightened into positive radiance. Evidently her lesson had been a good one and she had been praised. Coming over to where Patricia still sat, she stood for a moment looking down on her. Then she smiled her slow smile and held out her hand. "I am Rosamond Merton," she said, "and I know that you are Patricia Kendall. I am living at the Lodge while I study with Madame. I have three rooms there. Will you come and stay with me for a month?" Patricia gasped. "Why--" she began in some confusion. "Oh, you're awful kind, but--but--you don't know me at all." Rosamond Merton smiled again, but did not withdraw her hand. "Which means that you don't know me," she replied, not at all affronted. "Ask Tancredi who I am, and--if you are still in doubt, come to see me at the Lodge. I like you, Miss Patricia Kendall, and I mean that you shall like me." Patricia was so overcome by these magnanimous words that she shook hands with great heartiness, promising to visit Miss Merton and vowing appreciation of her kindness. "Though I can't come and stay with you, you know," she said as she rose in response to the gong which was now summoning her. "I'm simply crazy to stay at Artemis Lodge, but I couldn't sponge on a perfectly absolutely strange girl." Then fearing that this might sound ungracious, she added hastily, "Though there isn't anyone I'd like to visit better than you." The frank admiration in her tone pleased the girl and she took up her muff and gloves with a gratified air. "I warn you that I am hard to discourage when I've set my mind on a thing," she said lightly as she turned to go. "You will come to see me this afternoon, I am sure." She was gone before Patricia could reply and since the door into the studio was opening softly, there was no other course for Madame Milano's protégé than to walk as calmly as she might straight into the fiery furnace, leaving all thoughts of Rosamond Merton behind her. Tancredi proved a rather good-natured portly woman with a taste for exaggerated garments which suggested the operatic stage. She met Patricia on the threshold, and patted her shoulder kindly as she led her into the large bare apartment. "So, so. You are a very young one," she said with a strong foreign accent, yet with great kindness. "Milano did not prepare me for this. Sit there, little one, while I look thee over." She pushed Patricia to the piano bench, and settled herself on the opposite settee by the music stand, and though her scrutiny was amazingly thorough, Patricia was surprised to find that it did not disconcert her in the least. Madame Tancredi was the exact opposite of her friend Milano in all save the kindly spirit of the true artist. She was stout and heavy, where Milano was swift and graceful; she was frankness itself where Milano was cryptic; and, finally, she was the owner of a very lively curiosity. Patricia feared lest her precious half hour go by in catechism, and was beginning to feel a bit downcast over the length and variety of the questions put to her by the smiling Tancredi, when suddenly, with a jingle of her chatelaines and bangles, she rose and beckoned to a screened corner where, unnoticed by Patricia, a dark-haired young woman had been copying music. "The Heather Song, Marçon," she said briefly. "This young lady requests the Heather Song." As a matter of fact, Patricia had done no more than to confess with reluctance that she had tried it by herself at Greycroft, strumming the accompaniment with careless fingers. She heard, with a sort of dismay, the dashing introduction rendered faultlessly by the competent Marçon, and she stood beside the shining grand piano in no very pleasant frame of mind. Her throat grew dryer with every moment and when it was her time to burst into the rippling, tender song, she heard a trembling little voice, which she could hardly recognize for her own, stumble faintly into the melody. It was too much for her tried nerves. She broke down utterly, turning away from the piano with a sob, and, flinging out her hands in a despairing gesture, cried out that she could not sing, that she never should be able to sing and that she might as well go. Tancredi was too much used to the emotions of the geniuses and near-geniuses, whose temperamental outbreaks she had learned by heart, not to understand what was the matter. Waving the composed Marçon out of her room, she pushed Patricia to the stool with no very gentle hand. "There now, my little one. Sing for me in your own way," she commanded. "Rome was not builded in one day. You are too much excited--and you so young," she ended with a softening of pity in her rich tones. Somehow that accusation of youthfulness was the spur that drove Patricia to victory. Raising her head with a toss of determination, she ran her hands over the keys first lightly and then with growing certainty of herself, while, unseen by her, Tancredi nodded and smiled to herself in high good humor. The song bubbled out in Patricia's best notes, rippling in silver waves through a golden atmosphere of pure melody. She sang it to the end and then sat mutely on the bench, with her anxieties returning slowly as the silence grew. When she could bear it no longer she turned a pale face to where Tancredi sat staring into space. "S--shall I try it again?" she faltered uncertainly. Tancredi shook her head silently. "That will be enough of songs for the present, my treasure," she said, in a strange tone, of which Patricia could make nothing. Presently she rose and walked the length of the apartment with something very like triumph on her heavy face, at which the puzzled Patricia wondered all the more, though she waited docilely enough on her stool in front of the great shining piano. After a few turns, Tancredi came suddenly to her where she sat and took her chin in her warm, soft padded fingers, staring sharply into her face as though to read her whole being at a glance. Decidedly, she was a woman of unusual moods, for she stooped and kissed the anxious, girlish face, first on one cheek and then on the other. "There, my little one, we are friends now," she said, releasing her, "and you shall sometimes sing for me some of those songs when it is needed to cheer your heart. But otherwise you shall not sing--no, not for the king himself should he ask it." Patricia's hopes went down with a flop! Was she being told that she could not study? Had the end come so swiftly? She had a hard time not to cry out with the pain of this horrible fear, and the kind eyes of the experienced Tancredi caught her despairing look. "Ah, no. It is not that you shall not sing at all," she said hurriedly. "It is only that you shall sing the exercises only as yet. We must walk ere we may run. Come, let us see about the breathing now," and she stood erect and vigorous, motioning Patricia to face her and follow her every movement. Patricia came out from that interview so bewildered yet so happy that she forgot completely about questioning the teacher as to Rosamond Merton. Elinor, who was waiting for her in the anteroom, saw her shining face before she spoke, and knew that all had gone well with her. "Dear Miss Pat," she said softly, slipping her arm into Patricia's as they went out of the wide front door. "So it has all come out well, and you are really going to be a singer some day! How glad I am that you have passed this first test." Patricia was still slightly puzzled, though more confident than she had been before Tancredi had begun her instructions. "I've had a mighty lucky day, Norn," she said with real thankfulness. "I've been put down on the books as a regular pupil at Tancredi's, and--oh, I forgot all about it--I've had a sort of a chance to go into Artemis Lodge, though of course I couldn't take it." Elinor agreed with her after hearing the incident. "Though it is certainly very sweet of her to be so generous," she said thoughtfully. "Rosamond Merton, you say her name is. We'll have to ask Doris Leighton about her." But, as it happened, they did not have time to put any questions to Doris Leighton. Rosamond Merton was not the sort of girl who cares to postpone interesting events. Miss Pat had piqued her fancy and she took a very determined course to gain her point. Bruce handed Elinor a note when they reached the studio. "Messenger boy brought it ten minutes ago," he explained. "Said it was urgent, but as I didn't know where to find you, I had to leave it till you came in." CHAPTER V ROSAMOND INSISTS "What is it, Norn?" asked Patricia rather anxiously. She eyed the note with an unspoken fear that it might be a message from her new instructor canceling her enrolment, though Elinor's face did not show any consternation as she swiftly ran her eye over the brief sheet. "Of all things!" she murmured with an amused smile, and then read more carefully, breaking into a ripple of laughter as she finished. "You certainly have charmed this Rosamond Merton, Miss Pat," she said with a fond look at the amazed Patricia. "Listen to this." Patricia's look of amazement grew as Elinor read. Rosamond Merton invited them to tea with her in her rooms that afternoon, very prettily insisting that the small sister whose name she thought was Julia, might make one of the party, since it was to be merely a cosy cup of tea to better acquaintance. "I must say she writes very agreeably," commented Elinor, scanning the lines critically. "That's just what she is--agreeable," declared Patricia, nodding at the word. "She seems as though she would never take the trouble to be cross with anyone. And she's very pretty." "That settles it," laughed Elinor. "No matter what must be set aside for it, I see that we must take tea with Rosamond Merton. We must look her over, Judy, and see if we can let our Miss Pat fall in love with her, as I perceive she is on the brink of doing." Judith's anxious look made Patricia laugh. "Don't be afraid I'll make a silly of myself like I did over Miss Warner and Doris Leighton," she said lightly. "I'm done with that sort of thing ages and ages ago." Elinor was deeply interested in this new adventure, and after a late luncheon and a hasty half hour of breathing practice for Patricia, they got into their afternoon clothes and went to Artemis Lodge again. "How familiar it looks today," said Patricia as they rang the shining brass bell. "Isn't it queer how soon you get used to places? I feel quite like an old inmate already." "That's always the way with me, too," agreed Judith. "I felt as though I'd always lived on that corner near the Dam, just because we spent an half hour there on each of those two mornings we were in Amsterdam." The opening of the door put an end to their chat and they followed the respectable woman through the courtyard again, feeling quite at home with its quaint quadrangle. They did not wind their way through any intricate passages, however, for Rosamond Merton's rooms were near the main entrance at the head of a little flight of winding stairs, very easy of access from the courtyard and quite remote from the various offices and salons. She opened the door immediately on their knock, and there was such a pretty warmth of welcome in her tranquil manner that Elinor was won at once, though Judith, who prided herself on her discrimination, did not completely thaw out until the visit was nearly over. The rooms, three in number, were furnished with a simple elegance that appealed strongly to them all, and the undemonstrative manner with which Rosamond Merton pursued her purpose gave her persistence a charm that robbed it of all crudity. "You see, Mrs. Hayden," she said, after tea had been served and they were chatting comfortably before a small fire in the pleasant sitting room, "I am really quite selfish in wishing your sister to come with me for a while--as long as she will, in fact. I am very much alone here, being the only Tancredi pupil in the house, and I have more room than I need. I can't possibly use more than two of this suite, one for my bedroom and the other for a sitting-room. So the small room there is practically going to waste." "Do you have to keep it?" asked Elinor, "I should think Miss Ardsley would be glad to have it----" "But it belongs with this suite," urged Rosamond quietly. "It has no door except into these other rooms." This was so evident a reason for her being burdened with an unnecessary room that Elinor fell silent for a little space while the others moved to the other side of the room to look over some fine photographs of the old French chateaux. Presently her face cleared and she went over to the table where they were busy with the views. "Why wouldn't you consent to Patricia having the little room until there is a vacancy?" she inquired with a tinge of hesitation. "She could pay you the rent----" Rosamond Merton broke in with such a decided negation that Patricia gave up hope, but Elinor persisted gently. "Really, you know, Miss Pat couldn't possibly come under any other conditions," she said with sweet finality. "We are very anxious for her to be here, of course, since Madame Milano urged it; but if you feel that you can't have her under such circumstances, there's nothing for it but to wait till someone leaves and she can get a room from Miss Ardsley." Rosamond Merton was silent for a long minute, and then she suddenly smiled her slow smile. "Since you speak so very positively," she said with a graceful gesture of resignation, "there is nothing more for me to do than to give in. I will rent the room----" "At the rate which they charge you," Elinor gently insisted. "At the regular Artemis Lodge rates," agreed Rosamond Merton with a little helpless laugh. "She shall have it entirely to herself as long as she wants it, and I promise never to intrude unless I'm asked." This considerate speech so moved Patricia that she burst out with a grateful offer to obliterate herself part of the time so that her generous hostess might not feel the loss of the room; but a nudge from Judith's rather angular elbow curtailed her gratitude, and she allowed Elinor to voice her thanks, while she tried to catch Judith's eye and understand the meaning of the prod. Judith turned to the photographs again and was not to be understood so quickly. It was decided that the furniture should remain in the little room, Patricia merely adding her own desk, and that she should retain it until another room might be secured from Miss Ardsley. Patricia was to move in the next day and, most alluring of all, Rosamond Merton told her that she should have regular hours of use of the fine grand piano which stood in the sitting-room, thereby taking a great load off Patricia's excited mind. "I've been wondering how I was to get a piano in that little scrap of a place," she confessed, "and I didn't see how it could be done, unless I slept on it at nights and practiced by day. A bed and a piano both simply couldn't be crammed in." They parted in great good humor and Patricia felt that she was treading on air as she went down the winding stair to the courtyard. "This certainly is my lucky day," she said exultantly, as the gate closed behind them. "Here I am, a pupil of Tancredi and a member of the illustrious band of inmates of Artemis Lodge--all at one fell swoop. Elinor, you've made me tremendously happy by sticking to the point like you did. I'd never have got the room if it hadn't been for your hanging on so." "I tell you what it is, Miss Pat," said Judith with sudden decision in her tone. "You need somebody to take care of you. If Elinor hadn't insisted on paying, you'd have lost that room, and if I hadn't stopped you after you did get it, you'd have thrown away most of the good of it by making yourself a perfect door-mat." Patricia gazed with astonishment at this amazing young sister of hers. "A door-mat?" she repeated blankly. "A door mat?" "For Miss Merton to walk in upon as often as she liked," retorted Judith with calm finality. "She's a very encroaching sort of person, Miss Pat. I can see that. And you want to be sure you are going to be real friends with her before you let her get too chummy with you." Patricia burst into a merry peal and even Elinor rippled with amusement at this way of looking at the matter. "'Chummy' isn't exactly the word that fits Miss Merton, Ju," she said gayly. "It sounds suspiciously like unimposing me, rather than the elegant young lady of the three-room apartment. The only thing I'm afraid of is that she'll get tired of her bargain before the week is out. I may be an awful nuisance with my scales and strummings." Then Judith was scandalized in earnest. The idea of anyone finding Miss Pat a nuisance was beyond her powers of thought, and she could not even find words to express her scorn of such an impossible state of things. Patricia rippled again at the sniff of disgust which Judith made so prodigious. "Never mind, Judy-pudy, you shall come and look me over every once in a while and see that I am being well treated. Miss Merton may be a perfect monster, after all." Judith was not to be won to speech by any such bald nonsense, and stalked homeward in thoughtful silence, hardly seeming to hear the gay chat of the other two in regard to what Miss Pat should or should not take with her to Artemis Lodge. At the door of their own apartment Patricia stood quite still with a rather blank expression. "We forgot all about asking Doris Leighton," she said. "How perfectly stupid of us." Elinor had her key in the door and she flung it open on an unlighted interior as she spoke. "Very stupid indeed, my dear," she admitted cheerfully, "but it's too late to remedy it now. Besides, I don't see how you'd have got a room in Artemis Lodge in any other way." "And that was the most important thing, after all," agreed Patricia, stumbling over a stool in the dimness. "Mercy! What's that?" The small figure which rose at their approach gave a familiar chuckling laugh and before it could speak, Judith exclaimed, "Marty Sneath, all by herself, too!" And Marty Sneath it proved to be, ahead of her schedule by nearly twenty-four hours and very much pleased with the chance to be installed in her new quarters that much sooner than had been planned. After the lights were turned on and they had all commented encouragingly on the improvement in Marty's dress and appearance, she gave them an enlivening account of all that had happened in the village since their departure, particularly dwelling on the changes in the modest home of the Sneath family since Danny's removal to the far-away school where Mr. Long had sent him. "I tell you it ain't like it used to be," she said with a shake of her elfish head and a twinkle in her brilliant eyes. "Clara's got real well and Pop's swore off, and there ain't no lively times like there used to be. Of course," she prophesied cheerfully, "Pop'll fall off in about a week--he ain't one to stick to water long, you know. Then I bet there'll be some scrimmages. He's dead set on Clara goin' for service and she wants to be a typewriter. And they're both awful set. But it won't be nothin' without Danny. It's awful flat at home now." It was rather hard to sympathize with this peculiar point of view, so they kept to the safer side by asking about Danny, whether he liked the school, how he was getting on, and what Mr. Long said about him now. Marty's reports were very satisfactory. Danny was doing finely and Mr. Long was delighted with his experiment. "He's as braggity about him as if he'd made our Danny up out of his head," she said with a tinge of ruffled family pride. "He better look out, though, 'fore he crows too loud. Our Danny is mighty cute and maybe he's only fooling them teachers. He ain't no lamb, you know," she ended with an earnestness that made Patricia uncomfortable for her former favorite. "He's never had half a chance to want to be good," defended Patricia warmly. "I've always believed he was better than he behaved." This seemed to be too deep for Marty, and she turned the subject by producing a letter from the pocket of her neat blue dress. "Mrs. Spicer sent this," she said, handing it to Patricia. "She gave me a whole dollar, too, to spend just as I liked. My, but I felt grand comin' down on that train with a whole dollar in my purse. I kept holt on it all the way. I've read about pickpockets, and I ain't forgot Danny's ways this soon, neither." Patricia could not deny that Danny must have been a liberal education in that sort of sleight of hand, but the letter saved her the painful confession. While Elinor took Marty to her room and Judith explained the uses of the various conveniences, push buttons and the like, Patricia devoured the scribbled note. "Oh, Norn, listen to this," she cried, following the others into Elinor's room. "Mrs. Nat met a house-party who were going down to Mr. Long's on the train last night and she was telling them about taking tea at Artemis Lodge, and Miss Chapin, the senator's daughter Mr. Long is so devoted to, told her she had a cousin there, who was studying with Tancredi, and she hoped we'd meet and be friends. Her name--think of it--her name is Rosamond Merton!" Elinor looked pleased. "It doesn't really enlighten us much as to her," she said. "But it's rather nice to locate her even in that remote way." Judith tossed her pale mane in quite her old superior manner. "How childish you are, Elinor," she commented. "Cousins aren't much alike. Miss Warner wasn't a scrap like Mr. Bingham. Patricia will have to find out everything for herself--everything that Doris Leighton can't tell her." "Pooh, I shan't bother Doris now," said Patricia easily. "I'm in for a while at least, and it would seem like spying to ask questions. I'm too thankful to be in Artemis Lodge to be so awfully finicky." Judith tossed her head again. "Oh, well, you never are very sensible, Miss Pat," she returned loftily. "You never see beyond a pretty face. It takes others to watch over you." The ripples which greeted this somber speech did not seem to be wholly distasteful to her, though she hid her exact state of mind by taking Marty off to exhibit the studio to her and to explain the mysteries of oil cups and brush pots. Patricia looked lovingly after her. "Judy's up to some of her old tricks, Norn," she hazarded. "I shouldn't be surprised if she set up a regular detective agency around my new friend and made a whole set of new thrilling tales about her." CHAPTER VI PATRICIA MAKES ANOTHER FRIEND "Isn't it really lovely and cozy?" Patricia was seated on the side of her narrow bed and Elinor occupied the one easy chair by the casement window. The little room had been transformed into a perfect bower by Elinor's good taste and Patricia's eager fingers. The small iron bed was hidden by a canopy of frilly lace and a coverlet of transparent, delicate mull with an underslip of blue. The dresser, improvised from a chiffonier, had a quaint mirror from Bruce's studio, with two silver candlesticks, to serve Patricia for all purposes of dressing. A small reliable table held a golden-shaded brass student lamp, a gift from Elinor, who knew how Miss Pat disliked the white, cold light of the electric bulbs. Some magazines, a tiny bookshelf, and a dainty tea-tray peeping from the under shelf of the reliable table, gave an air of great coziness to the whole. Elinor looked about with much satisfaction. "Yes, it's dear," she admitted. "I don't think Miss Merton will be disappointed in her new room-mate when she sees this. It's a pity she isn't here to see it when it's absolutely crisp." "It seems queer that she should have gone out to Rockham with her cousin to stay at Red Top, doesn't it?" said Patricia. "It's awfully nice, though, for we shall have so much more to talk about now. I felt rather stupid with her at first, when I met her at Madame's last week. She seemed so grown-up that I hardly knew how to get along with her--much less live in the same rooms with her." "You didn't show any shyness that I could discover," smiled Elinor. "I'm sure you'll get on famously with her now that you're installed. I wish I didn't have to go," she added, rising reluctantly. "But I promised Bruce to go to the Salimagundi show with him and he'll be waiting for me if I don't fly." Patricia went as far as the green entrance door with her and kissed her warmly. "I begin to feel like a pilgrim and a stranger," she laughed. "To be in town and not be with you and Bruce seems too queer for words." "You'll have splendid times as soon as you get acquainted," said Elinor brightly. "I envy you the fun you're going to have among all these attractive girls. Good-bye once again. Bring Doris over to supper with you on Sunday if she is back by then. Be sure to take good care of yourself and have a good time." Patricia watched her till she turned the corner, and then she closed the door and went slowly across the wide paved courtyard and up the little private stair, smiling to herself. As she closed the door of the sitting-room behind her, she could not resist a prance of joy. "I'm here!" she told herself rapturously. "Oh, how glorious it is to have really started in earnest!" She practiced her breathing exercises and tried a few three-note vocal exercises, and was delighted that her voice seemed clearer than it had ever sounded to her. "It must be because I am so happy," she told herself. "I wish I had a lesson this afternoon. I hate to wait till the morning." After she had sung as long as she dared, she practiced some accompaniments till her fingers tired, and then she took up a magazine and read a couple of stories, becoming so absorbed in the last one that she hardly heard a clock below striking loudly, though some sense of its strident tones made her start from her chair in dismay lest she should have missed the tea-hour. "How stupid of me--" she began, glancing at her plain little wrist-watch. Her face fell as she looked unbelievingly at the hands pointing to three o'clock. "It must be run down," she said, frowning and holding the watch to her ear. "No, it's going. It must be slow." A glance at the big clock in the tower opposite her bedroom window convinced her that her watch was to be taken seriously. There was nearly an hour and a half before she might venture down into the tea-room and make such acquaintances as she could without the aid of Doris Leighton or Rosamond Merton. "I wish I hadn't been so particular about that mending," she thought ruefully. "It was a shameful waste of time to do it at the studio. I was so particular to have everything done up to the last notch that there isn't a single letter to write, or button to sew on, or--or--anything. I simply can't sit down like a tame tabby this first exciting afternoon, when all sorts of wonderful things may be going to happen to me after while." She sighed over the prospect of being bottled up for such an interminable period and regretted that Milano's orders were so strict in regard to her intercourse with her family. "It's a perfect shame that I can't go home every day," she thought suddenly, rather pitying herself for the privations she was suffering. "I am going to miss them terribly and I shouldn't wonder if I'd get rather hard-hearted and self-centered, living this way just for myself." She never thought of seeking Miss Ardsley, although that lady had given her the most cordial invitation to visit her in her own rooms any time that she wished, particularly insisting on her bringing Mrs. Bruce Hayden in to call at any time she might be in the building. Somehow, the atmosphere of Miss Ardsley's luxuriant rooms had rather stifled Patricia on her one admission to them when she went with Elinor and Rosamond Merton to make the necessary arrangements for procuring the little room. "If Doris Leighton hadn't gone off for a week just as we got that first glimpse of her," she mourned, fussing about the trifles on the dainty dresser. "Or if I only knew someone to say a word to. It seems like a week since I heard a human voice. I'd go out and take a walk if----" Rap-a-tap! Someone was using the diminutive knocker on the sitting-room door. Patricia flew to open it, and a dark, medium-sized girl in a shabby bronze velveteen frock stood on the threshold, looking very much surprised indeed. "Is Miss Merton in?" she asked, looking beyond Patricia into the vacant rooms. Patricia was sorry to have to confess that Miss Merton was away for the rest of the week. She hoped the girl might come in notwithstanding, but she turned to go without much ceremony and was half-way across the hall when she suddenly paused and came back to where Patricia lingered on the the sill. "Are you the new girl?" she asked with surprising directness. "Pupil of Tancredi?" Patricia answered eagerly that she was very new and that she had taken two lessons from the noted teacher. The other girl turned and walked into the room, selecting an easy chair and seating herself with every appearance of meaning to stay. Patricia was delighted. "I'm so glad you came," she said with great cordiality, seating herself near the other and beaming on her. "I haven't seen a soul since one o'clock and I was beginning to petrify." "First day?" inquired the girl laconically. On Patricia admitting it was not only her first day, but first afternoon, having parted from her sister only after a light and early lunch in her own room, the newcomer nodded. "H--h'm. It gets you, doesn't it? The first time you're stranded on a lonely shore certainly makes home look good," she said thoughtfully. "Funny thing is, that no matter how dressy the shore happens to be," she threw a glance about the luxuriant room, "it's just as lonely--the first time. Ever been away from home before?" Patricia explained that she had never had a real home till nearly two years ago, but that she had never been entirely separated from both her sisters and friends until now. "Plenty of nice girls here," the girl acknowledged. "But you have to pick out your own sort for yourself. Have you known Merton long?" Patricia recognized the art student in the use of the last name, and she said eagerly, "I hardly know her at all. You aren't studying with Tancredi, are you?" As she expected, the girl laughed a quick negative. "Not me," she returned, ungrammatical and emphatic. "I can't croak a note and my fingers never would make melody if I tried till I were a hundred. I'm doing the other side--paint and the like." "I knew it!" cried Patricia, much pleased by her own perception. "I was sure I smelled paint when you came in. Have you a studio, or are you studying at one of the schools?" "Both," answered the other, briskly. "I have a sort of studio across the hall here, and I am going to night life at the only school in New York. How did you recognize the hall-marks? I thought you were vocal and Tancredi?" Patricia told her that she had spent some months at the Academy in another city, and that both her sister and brother-in-law were artists, and though she had just started in as a music student, she was much more familiar with the fraternity than with the song birds. "I see," said the girl. "You must be worth while, even though you are located in these fluffy apartments with the ultra Merton. I think I shall become better acquainted. What's your name?" Patricia was much diverted by this direct address. "I am Patricia Kendall," she returned with equal candor. "I like your looks, too, and I'm quite willing to be as chummy as you like." "H--h'm," said the girl again. "Don't bank on me. Merton isn't in my class, and if you're her chum, I'll have to decline anything more than mere acquaintance." Patricia began a hasty explanation of her presence in the luxurious rooms, but the girl waved her words aside with abrupt good humor. "You may not know her well," she insisted, smiling a pleasant wide smile. "But you simply must be some sort of a bob or she wouldn't take to you. Merton is not a wasteful child." Patricia understood that the girl was entirely in earnest, and the idea that she was committed to an exclusive and perhaps unpopular set among the democracy of talent at Artemis Lodge rather chilled her. "You are a friend of hers yourself," she accused with a trace of indignation. "You wouldn't be coming in here to see her if you weren't." "Oh, am I, indeed?" grinned the girl. "Don't jump at conclusions at that reckless rate, Miss Patricia Kendall. I'm merely connected with the ultra Merton by means of a piece of canvas and some paint tubes. In other words, I'm at work on a panel of peacocks and goldy sunbeams for her music room at home, and am only tolerated because I can draw little birdies with pretty eyes in their tails better than anyone who happens to be here now." Patricia forgot Miss Merton in her sudden interest. "Oh, are you doing some panels for her?" she asked, leaning forward with shining eyes. "You must be awfully clever. Will you let me see them? I want to tell Bruce all about them, if I may." Her interest seemed to please the girl. She rose abruptly and held out her hand. "Shake on good fellowship," she said heartily, and Patricia accepted the queer invitation with great good will. "Come along over," invited the girl, jerking her head toward the opposite side of the hall. "Everything's in a mess, but you won't mind. You'll have to put up with that sort of things if we're to be friends." "Indeed, I'll love it!" said Patricia enthusiastically. It was very good to be taken into fellowship so informally. "Bruce and Elinor mess up their studios terribly and I used to trail clay all over the place when I had the modeling mania." The girl threw open the door of a large bare, well-lighted room, that somehow managed, in spite of rather poor furniture and much disorder, to look attractive and inviting; and Patricia saw on a huge easel a tall canvas with beautiful, gorgeous peacocks strutting proudly against a background of ruddy gold. "How stunning!" she cried with such conviction that the girl smiled and then grew serious. "How wonderful! How can you do it, when you're so young? Where did you learn to make such lovely things?" "My father was an artist and he taught me when I was a little tad," replied the girl in a subdued tone which made the sympathetic Patricia's heart warm toward her. "Was he--" began Patricia, hesitating. "He was Henry Fellows. He died three years ago," said the girl quietly, and as though closing the subject, she added, "My name is Constance. I am nearly twenty years old, though I look younger." And then in a changed tone she added, "Tell me who this Bruce and Elinor are. I ought to know them if they aren't the rankest newcomers." Patricia was gratified at the expression which Bruce's name brought to the clear hazel eyes. "You're a fortunate piece," commented Constance Fellows, with a familiarity which was not too intimate. "Tancredi and Bruce Hayden and a real family of your own--not to mention being a chum of Rosamond Merton." Patricia thought she caught a flavor of sarcasm in the last name, but instantly decided that it was her own suspicious nature that suggested the thought. She was beginning to like Constance Fellows in a sincere and unaffected way that could not be compared with the ardent admiration she had felt for Miss Merton, and, as she always attributed the best motives to those she liked, she felt quite ashamed of her ungenerous thought. The hall clock sounded again, this time heard clearly through the open door, and Patricia was astonished to find that the tea-hour had arrived without her knowing it. "Am I all right to go down just as I am?" she inquired rather anxiously of her new friend. "Ought I put on a hat or something?" "Put on anything you please. Take a parasol or a pair of galoshes if you feel that your system craves them," replied Constance calmly. "I am going just as I am. We girls who are in the house usually are glad to sneak in without prinking." Patricia giggled. "Lead me down," she commanded briskly. "I'm perfectly crazy to see what's what and who's who. I was going to find out all about the various girls from Doris Leighton, but I'm sure you'll do very well in her place." "I call that a real compliment," declared Constance with evident sincerity. "Leighton is the squarest damsel in the whole troupe and she isn't spoiled by her beauty either." They found the tea-room filled as on the other day, and Patricia, thanks to Constance Fellows' kindness, found herself one of a gay group near the piano, as much at home among the chattering girls as though she had known them for weeks. "I tell you what it is, Avis Coulter," Constance was saying to a very plain, angular girl with large spectacles when the tea was almost over, "we've got to show this budding genius a little friendly attention, or she'll get homesick and mopey before the resplendent Merton returns to coddle her. What are you going to do to liven her dragging days?" The spectacled girl rubbed her nose thoughtfully. "I've tickets for a concert at Carnegie Hall tomorrow afternoon," she hazarded doubtfully. "And I have a perfectly good studio party at my cousin Emily's," said another girl. "And I'm going to have a spread in my room tomorrow night," volunteered a third member of the party. Constance Fellows nodded approval. "That sounds very well to me," she said. "I accept for Miss P. Kendall and myself. Who's to bring the chaperone for these festivities?" Avis Coulter, on the score of the concert being in the afternoon, declared that it was all stuff to think of such a thing, while Marie Jones said that her cousin Emily was chaperone enough for an army of buds, and Ethel Walters sniffed at the idea of a chaperone for a spread in one's very own room, under the roof with Miss Ardsley and the dependable Miss Tatten, the house-keeper, whom Patricia had not yet seen. Constance would have none of their reasoning, however, and insisted that one of the older students at Artemis Lodge be in charge of all the festivities shown Patricia in the interval of Miss Merton's absence. "I am responsible for her," she said firmly, "and I am not going to present her to Merton with the slightest social blot upon her dazzling whiteness. Chaperoned she must and shall be, or she doesn't budge a step." Patricia was very much amused and surprised to see that Constance had her way. Instead of rebelling, as she had expected, the girls gave in at once, showing as much meekness in fulfilling the wishes of this decided young person as though it were she and not they that was granting the favors. Patricia went back to her room cheered and exhilarated, and found the brief time before the dinner hour all too short for the necessary amount of practicing she had portioned off for herself. Dinner in the gay little restaurant with its decorated walls and sociable small tables was a far more enjoyable affair than she had thought it could be when she had looked forward to it in her lonely interval, and after another half hour of chat by the fire-side in the library she went to her room highly delighted with her first day at Artemis Lodge. Stopping at the public telephone in the hall--she decided not to use the one in Miss Merton's sitting-room until the owner was at home again--she called up Elinor and gave her a brief report. "I'm having a perfectly lovely time," she told her. "And as Doris isn't coming back till next week, I am going to bring someone who has been very nice to me home to supper on Sunday, in her place. I know you'll like her, and," here she laughed a little, "tell Judy she isn't at all pretty." CHAPTER VII A DINNER FOR TWO Rosamond Merton came home unexpectedly to find Patricia grown very much at home indeed during the four days of her absence. She opened the door of the sitting-room, after a light tap of the tiny brass knocker, to find Patricia rising from the piano-stool with pleased expectation in her face, an expression which rapidly became one of joyful surprise. Rosamond was so much prettier than Patricia had been picturing her that she fairly beamed as she came to greet her. "How lovely of you to come back so soon," she said with such warmth that Rosamond Merton felt glad that she had been compelled to cut her visit short. "It's lovely to be welcomed home," she returned, beginning to pull off her gloves. "I always dreaded the empty rooms after I had been away. Have you been quite comfortable? I left so hurriedly that I hadn't time to arrange for your arrival." Patricia assured her that she was absolutely in clover, and she showed her the little bedroom as a proof, exhibiting the easy chair, the cosy table and all her other small comforts with a great deal of pride. Rosamond was genuinely interested in all the contrivances which had been installed for Patricia's well-being and she showed so much of what Patricia called "human" feeling that she won the last citadel in that young lady's affections. "Do you know I was dreadfully afraid of you that day at Tancredi's?" she confessed when they were once more in the sitting-room by the fire. Rosamond had laid aside her traveling dress and slipped on a soft fur-trimmed crepe lounging robe with her feet in embroidered satin mules, and the impressionable Patricia was feasting her eyes on her. She was used to beauty--and beauty of a much higher class--in her own sister Elinor, and every day her mirror reflected quite as attractive features as those of her new companion, but the extreme luxury with which Rosamond indulged her fancy in the matter of clothing was a revelation to her. She looked at the shimmering cloudy-blue folds of the robe, at the soft dark edges of fur with their under-ruffles of pink chiffon, at the lace and ribbons of the petticoat which showed where the robe fell away, and she forgot they were merely outer trappings, to be bought from any department store or private shop. They seemed part of a superior charm belonging exclusively to Rosamond Merton, and Patricia sighed as she saw in the mirror over the mantel-shelf the image of a fluffy-haired girl in an unpretentious blouse. "I wonder that she can put up with me," she thought ruefully, smoothing down the folds of her simple corduroy skirt. "She must be very kind-hearted indeed. I wish that I might do something to show how I feel about it." As Rosamond chatted on, telling of her visit to Red Top and describing the house party with a good deal of cleverness, Patricia became so interested that she forgot her grateful intentions in listening to the gossip which her new friend retailed so sparklingly. She laughed over the description of the model poultry farm and chaffed Rosamond quite freely on her lack of technical terms; she smiled a little uneasily over the dinner party at the rectory, feeling a bit guilty that she should find matter for mirth in the precise and dainty entertainment offered impartially by the gentle rector and his ladylike maiden sisters; and she was frankly disturbed by the careless fashion of treating the attack of measles which had disbanded the house party a week earlier than planned. "Of course, you weren't in any danger," she said, more to herself than to Rosamond. "Measles aren't much to be afraid of, anyway, unless one is a perfect Methuselah. I think it was hard on Mr. Long to have his nice party broken up after all his planning, just because a lot of grown-ups got scared about _measles_. If I were the girl he's in love with, I'd stayed and helped nurse Danny, instead of running away from the place." Rosamond laughed her indolent laugh. "And been quarantined for three weeks out there in the desolate country," she mocked. "My cousin isn't that heroic sort, even if she were devoted to a man. She doesn't care two pins for your Mr. Long, and I fancy he knows it by this time." "Not care for him?" cried Patricia in amazement. "Why in the world did she and her mother come to see him then? I thought they were engaged." Rosamond shook her head slowly and emphatically. "Not at all," she said calmly. "She thought she might like him well enough last fall, but he has developed such queer tastes recently--burying himself on that ridiculous chicken-farm and taking up with stupid little boys who develop measles when they run away from school to visit their benefactor, that she really has had quite enough of him without marrying him." Patricia was silent, puckering her brows over the problem of unrewarded virtue, while Rosamond Merton watched her with something like a twinkle in her long eyes. "It seems pretty hard that Mr. Long has to lose his happiness just because he's done right and been kind," she said finally, with a little sigh at the topsy-turvy ways of this wilful world. "He's saving Danny Sneath from growing up a horrid worthless man like his father--that's plain from Danny coming back on the sly to see him--and he's doing splendidly with Red Top, and yet he doesn't get what he wants." "He shouldn't want what he can't get then," smiled Rosamond, indulgent as far as Patricia was concerned. "Don't worry your pretty head about such stupid things--men always get over disappointments like that. He'll probably be in love with the next girl who happens to look at him twice. Tell me how you've been putting in the time since I ran off so unceremoniously. Have you been fearfully homesick?" Patricia abandoned Mr. Long and his deserts reluctantly. "He ought to be happy and I am sure he will," she insisted warmly. "People always get paid back in the same coin they use." A sudden memory of her own debt made her add, more shyly, "You ought to believe in that--after all the kindness you've shown me. And I do want you to know that I'm going to pay you back just a tiny bit some day. I don't know how, but I'm going to do it." Rosamond's slow smile answered her fully, and she plunged into an eager account of the way in which she had been taken into the inner circles of Artemis Lodge and made to feel so entirely at home. "They've been wonderfully nice to me," she said gayly. "I've had a splendid time each day, and my lessons have gone beautifully, too. I haven't had a single dull moment. I'm so grateful to you for taking me in." The little cloud which had slightly dimmed Rosamond's smile faded at these words and left her face serene. "We will have better times yet," she promised as she rose to glance at the clock in the tower across the housetops. "Let's begin by having dinner upstairs here by ourselves. I'll phone down to the office at once. Isn't it stupid to have to call up Tatten every time one wants a tray in one's room? They take great care of us here," and she shrugged her shoulders gracefully. Patricia feared that the expense of such select dining might be too much for her small store of funds and she was determined not to sail under false colors with this luxuriant companion. "It would be jolly enough, but how about the cost?" she asked frankly. "I can't stand many extras, you know. I'm rather poor as far as cash is concerned." Miss Merton paused with her hand on the receiver. "You surely didn't think I was intending you to pay for my treat," she said in such a gently grieved tone that Patricia became most uncomfortable. "It's sweet of you to ask me," she said with a good deal of courage. "And I can't be horrid enough to refuse this first time, but I do want you to understand that I can't spend money like you do. I'm not really stingy, as you may think--I'm only trying to be careful. I'm so afraid of being selfish." Her speech was rather unintelligible to Rosamond, who could not know of Bruce's compact with Patricia, but she smiled pleasantly and took down the receiver. "I don't think you could be stingy or selfish or anything that wasn't sweet," she said and then proceeded to announce to Miss Tatten that Miss Kendall and she were dining in their own rooms that evening, and would she please see that dinner was sent up promptly at six-thirty, adding a list of dishes that seemed to the anxious Patricia recklessly expensive. The dinner was great fun, however, and Patricia felt very pleasantly luxurious as she slipped into her new kimono, a poor affair indeed compared to the fur and crepe robe, and lounged before the fire listening to Rosamond's accounts of the travels and studies which had filled her life. "You must have been almost everywhere," she murmured admiringly. "You have seen such a lot--for a girl. I'm only two years younger, but I've never been to Niagara Falls, nor Hot Springs, nor the Tower of London----" A ripple of laughter broke in on her confession. "What a delicious jumble!" cried Rosamond, springing up to adjust a lock that had fallen. "One can't tell which is the place of confinement and which the playground. For Heaven's sake, though, don't _complain_ that you've never seen Niagara Falls, no self-respecting person nowadays is willing to confess that such a place even exists. It went out of date with the bridal bonnet and the what-not." Patricia laughed, but this troubled her, and later on she recurred to it while they were beginning on their salad. "Why shouldn't one see all the wonderful places and things in the world?" she asked. "I should think Niagara Falls was quite as important as those snippy little falls at that camp in the Adirondacks that you said were so much admired." Rosamond laid down her fork and looked at her very carefully. "Are you actually in earnest?" she inquired with a polite repression of any hint of a smile. "My dear Miss Patricia Kendall, you forget that the most exclusive families have their camps near that snippy falls, while only the cheap tourist makes the pilgrimage to Niagara." Patricia was obstinate. "I don't see what that has to do with it. The falls were there before the exclusive families were thought of, and it's a wonderful, wonderful falls. It seems rather stupid to me to ignore such a big thing in nature," she insisted with flushing cheeks. Rosamond waved the argument away. "Never mind the falls, large or small," she said, with unruffled amiability. "Tell me some more about yourself and your doings." Patricia was won instantly. She was to learn later on in her friendship with Rosamond Merton that this was one of her readiest answers to argument, particularly when she was not faring so well as she would like. As yet, however, she had not learned the skilled defences which Rosamond kept for her protection against better logic than her own, and she responded with her usual impetuous generosity. "I've told you almost everything," she said brightly. "I'd rather hear about you. It's twice as exciting as my humdrum accounts of myself. Tell me about your studio at home. Is it so gorgeous as the peacock panels that Constance Fellows is doing for you?" "It's hardly gorgeous, but it's rather good." Rosamond's interest was plainly forced. "Constance is getting on with them, is she? I must see them in the morning. How do you like her? I suppose you have heard that she is very eccentric. She refused to live in a perfect palace with an aunt of hers, merely because the aunt objected to her going to life class. Fancy her giving up such a life for a mere trifle." "She didn't feel that it was a trifle, I suppose," replied Patricia lightly. She did not sympathize with Rosamond's view of the matter, but she had learned in this short hour to steer her bark away from the shoals. "I think she showed very little judgment," said Rosamond, selecting a bonbon with care. "She should have lived peaceably with her aunt and had her own models in her own studio, and she'd have been comfortable and the aunt would have been happy. There is always a way of doing as one wishes if one will only take the trouble to look it up." Patricia hid her uneasy feelings as best she could, but her face was never hard to read, and Rosamond shook her head at her with the slow smile curving her red lips. "You think me a monster of deceit," she accused. "Your big eyes are quite horrified at such shallow cunning. Don't worry, my dear Miss Kendall. I'm not half so bad as you think me." Patricia flushed. "I know you are far above any such mean doings," she said stoutly, "but I wish you wouldn't talk that way. It makes me feel--but I'm not going to be such a goose as to preach. Do go on about the yachting trip. You were in the middle of it when dinner came in." Rosamond, always graceful, responded readily enough, and the evening sped rapidly. Patricia had enjoyed herself tremendously, as she very truthfully told her hostess when she said good-night and shut herself into her own snug little room, and she looked forward to the morrow with Rosamond Merton with a thrill of pleasure. She could not help wondering, though, as she shook out the kinks and tangles of her bright hair, why she had not told about the Sunday evening supper in the studio, nor the spread in Ethel Walters' room. "I must be getting terribly secret and crafty," she thought with some surprise. "I suppose that's the effect of being thrown with so many strangers all at once." She did not realize that it was Rosamond Merton's slow smile that had held her confidences back and if anyone had told her so, she would have denied it most emphatically. Ethel Walters' spread had consisted of crackers and sardines, with olives and oranges and walnut bars for side dishes. The studio supper, though beautifully correct in most details, had Constance Fellows and a very shabby yet delightfully entertaining friend of hers, as chief guests. And how was anyone to know what Rosamond Merton might think of such swift intimacies? CHAPTER VIII PATRICIA RECEIVES AN INVITATION The next few weeks sped pleasantly for Patricia. Rosamond Merton was an ideal room-mate. She never intruded on Patricia's privacy, nor withdrew unsociably when Patricia felt inclined for chat. She allowed Patricia to make her own hours for use of the fine piano in her sitting-room and was patient under the many changes which the despotic Tancredi inflicted on the submissive Patricia, shifting her own practicing with such delicate tact that her fellow student scarcely realized her sacrifices. "She's perfectly wonderful, Norn," declared Patricia, standing at the studio window one Sunday night about the middle of February. "She never gets cross or fussed like I do, and she is always so beautifully dressed. I am sometimes quite ashamed of my plain self when we are going about together. I do look awfully little-girly and prim in most of my clothes. I wish I were more ornamental," she ended with a tiny apologetic frown. Judith looked at Elinor and nodded. "I knew it," she said. "I knew Miss Pat would be getting spoiled by spending all her time with such a showy person." Patricia laughed a short, annoyed laugh. "Nonsense, Judy. I'm not a bit different. I only wish I didn't have to put all my patrimony into Madame Tancredi's pocket. I hate to go about with Rosamond, looking like her maid. I've worn that same suit to every place we've gone and I believe people think I sleep in it now." Elinor looked slightly troubled. "If you'd only let us get you a new frock----" she began. Patricia cut her short. "Hardly," she said emphatically. "I've told you all along that I wouldn't sponge on any of you. It's bad enough to take so much from dear old Ted. No, I'll go on exactly as I planned, and I won't get a single new thing until spring." This virtuous declaration did not seem to stimulate her as it should have done, for she added, rather dolefully for her, "I wish I were like Constance Fellows or Ethel Walters. They never seem to mind being shabby." "You can scarcely call yourself shabby--and I'm sure Constance loves beautiful things," said Elinor with gentle firmness. "You couldn't look at her work and not realize how she gloried in color and form." Judith wagged her head wisely. "Perhaps she can stand doing without pretty things for herself," she suggested, "because she can put so much of it into her work." This thoughtful sifting for motives was so like Judith that Patricia forgot her grievances in an amused laugh. "Good for you, Judy-pudy," she cried, flinging an arm about her small sister. "There's a hint for me, is it? I'll try to take it, Miss Minerva, and if you hear that my exercises are growing too frilly for Tancredi's taste you'll know the reason why." Judith was not at all discomposed by her light-minded raillery. "I should think it would be a very good thing for you to try, Miss Pat," she said sedately. "Clothes go out of fashion so dreadfully soon nowadays and the singing exercises will last most of your life." Patricia watched her leave the room to arrange the materials for the salad dressing--Bruce always made the dressing on Sunday nights--and she smiled at Elinor in a very tender fashion. "Judy is a wonder," she confessed. "She has a mind of her own. I wonder why she's taken such an aversion to Rosamond lately? She never misses a chance to undermine her. Not openly, you know, but in a quiet way. I've noticed it ever since Doris Leighton came back and we had the spread that evening in her room." "Judith couldn't have gotten it from Doris," said Elinor positively. "I heard all that Doris said about Miss Merton, and it was rather nice. I think you must be over-sensitive, Miss Pat. Judith has been at the Lodge several times since then and she may have been talking with someone who is envious of your Rosamond. She isn't as popular as she might be, you know." "Of course, she isn't," exclaimed Patricia, on the defensive at once. "She doesn't choose to hobnob with everyone, and so they say she's stuck up, and ultra, and exclusive. If she were as much of a snob as they say, she certainly wouldn't have chosen to take me in." Judith had returned, carrying the salad in its green bowl. She held it precisely between her slender, pale hands as she stood still to confute this heresy. "You know perfectly well, Miss Pat, that there isn't a prettier girl in the musical set in Artemis Lodge," she declared with a touch of wrath in her calm tones. "You are related to a famous artist, and you have Madame Milano for a friend. Miss Merton wouldn't look at you, either, if you didn't have nice clothes and good manners, besides being very well-born indeed, as she certainly knows." With this blast delivered, Judith set the salad-bowl carefully down on the table and left the room, her head high and her mane tossing. Patricia, instead of being amused this time, looked annoyed. "Judy's getting spoiled, Elinor," she said, turning away to ramble idly about the room. "She's as conceited a young imp as I know. These stories of hers have about turned her head. I wish you'd tell her for me that she must behave properly to Rosamond, or she'll have to stay away from the Lodge. I won't have her putting on her superior airs and looking mysterious over nothing with me." Elinor sighed over this change in the sunny Patricia, but only said with a regretful glance at the discontented droop of her sister's golden head: "Judith's fancies are sometimes short-lived, my dear. I shouldn't notice this one if I were you." And then to make a diversion she asked how the lessons were coming on. Patricia brightened at once. "I believe I'm doing pretty well," she said hopefully. "Madame hardly says a word to me now, but she nods her head a good deal. And she's letting me take some new exercises already." "That looks promising," began Elinor, pleased to have turned the current toward happier channels. "That is the best news----" Here the door opened and Bruce, who had been out, came in. "Hullo, all alone?" he said, with some surprise. "I thought Constance Fellows was coming tonight. What's up? She's not ill, is she? There's a lot of grippe going about just now, I hear." Elinor explained that so far as they knew Constance was not affected by the impending epidemic. "Miss Pat forgot to ask her in time," she said. "And so she made an engagement with one of the girls, that is all, Bruce. Are you going to make the salad in here? Judith has it all ready for you." "Just as soon as I shed my skin," returned Bruce gayly, throwing his great-coat on the divan, with his hat and gloves. "I tell you, it's fine weather--this. The stars are snapping and the moon-crescent is like silver. It makes one glad to be alive." Patricia, with her disquiet mood still hovering about her, came over to the table to watch him begin operations. She always liked to see Bruce mix the dressing and make the salad, and tonight his strong cheerfulness seemed particularly good to her. "I'm sorry I forgot about Constance, Bruce," she said, as he uncorked the oil bottle. "I had two concerts with Rosamond and the music was so perfectly heavenly that I didn't get back to earth until it was too late to get her for tonight. I'll bring her over next week." "Right-o," said Bruce genially. "We're all strong for Constance, you know. Besides being a paint slinger of promise, she's the straight goods. See as much of her as you can, little sister, for she's the sort that true friends are made of." Patricia really liked Constance immensely and had it not been for the overshadowing Rosamond, would have chosen her for the close intimacy for which Constance had shown she was quite ready and willing. But she had a feeling that in so praising Constance, Bruce was neglecting Rosamond, and she said rather petulantly: "I can't be always looking her up, Bruce. You know she's busy and out of the house most of the time. It would be different if she were studying with Tancredi like Rosamond." Bruce opened his eyes at this unusual peevishness on Patricia's part, but he went on mixing his ingredients without comment, while Elinor, who had been bringing in the rest of the picnic supper, flitted about, straightening the room preparatory to lighting the candles for the feast. As she picked up Bruce's overcoat from the divan, some letters fell out of the pockets, scattering over the floor. She stooped to collect them, and gave an exclamation of surprise. "Bruce Hayden, when did these come?" she asked, sorting the letters rapidly into little piles on the table at his elbow. Bruce regarded the envelopes with undisguised astonishment, and then he broke into a guilty grin. "Oh, thunder, I must have forgotten them!" he cried. "How in creation did you unearth them?" Elinor explained, while Patricia eagerly seized on one addressed to her in Bruce's care and began to tear it open. "It's from Madame Milano!" she cried excitedly. "Oh, Elinor, she's inviting me to her afternoon reception today, and it's hours and hours too late." Bruce looked crestfallen. "But is Milano in town?" he argued. "She isn't singing till Tuesday night, you know----" Patricia thrust the sheet before him. "See for yourself," she said. "It says the seventeenth, doesn't it? Look, Elinor, what a big sprawling hand she writes." Bruce shook his head dolefully over the clearly written date. "It's today, all right," he admitted ruefully. "You've lost a jolly fine chance of seeing opera folk at home, thanks to my block-headedness." Judith joined the group, and when she heard of Patricia's misfortune she put a consoling arm about her sister. "Never mind, Miss Pat dear," she said. "Perhaps when Madame Milano knows how bad you feel about missing her reception she'll do something that's a lot nicer for you." Bruce chuckled and his face cleared. "Wait a minute," he said hastily, and disappeared into the other room. "What in the world--" began Elinor and then she, too, smiled. "He's telephoning to Madame Milano. Listen, Patricia." Patricia heard with rising hopes the deep regret of Bruce's rich tones as he explained to the prima donna the reason Patricia had not availed herself of the gracious invitation. The pauses in which Bruce listened must have been filled to his satisfaction, for after he had hung up the receiver he came back into the studio rubbing his hands gleefully. "Did you hear me put it to her?" he asked, grinning. "I got her hotel and then her apartment and then her maid, and finally the Madame herself. She is sorrier than she was ten minutes ago and she is going to ask you to her Monday 'Hour,' as she calls it, a much more intimate affair, I can assure you." Patricia clasped her hands rapturously. "Oh, you _duck_!" she cried ardently. "You're the cleverest thing in the world to get me another invitation. Am I to go alone? And what time am I to come?" "You're to have your elder sister for a chaperon and your distinguished brother-in-law as attendant," replied Bruce gravely. "I wanted to put in a word for you, Judy, but I was afraid to push her too hard this time." "I couldn't go, thank you," returned Judith composedly. "I have an extra in French tomorrow after school and I've made an engagement to go to the French church with Mademoiselle afterward." Patricia was in the seventh heaven of delight at the prospect of actually taking tea with the noted singer and her intimate friends. She plied Bruce with innumerable questions and grew so Patricia-like and merry over the absurd answers he manufactured to meet her demands that the picnic supper was the gayest family affair they had had since Patricia left them. "I'll be over at three tomorrow, Elinor," she promised as they left her at the green entrance door of Artemis Lodge after having walked home with her through the sparkling night. "Don't let Bruce be late, or she'll never forgive us." Elinor promised to keep an eye on her erring husband and see that everything went smoothly this time. Patricia watched the three figures walking briskly down the street, and she closed the door with a little bang. "Won't Rosamond be surprised?" she smiled to herself, seeing the light in the windows which told that their rooms were occupied. She found Rosamond wrapped in a sumptuous down quilt, sitting over the fire in a drowsy state, and she had to repeat the glorious news twice before her friend responded. Even then she was not as interested as Patricia had hoped. "Yes, it's lovely," she said, slowly, "and I'm sure you'll have a good time. Do you mind getting out my night things? I'm awfully sleepy and I'm going straight to bed." Patricia did as she was asked and then helped the heavy-lidded Rosamond to her rose-and-gold room, saying good-night a little coolly. "She might have tried to wake up for such splendid news," she thought, a little dampened by this casual reception of her glad tidings. The next morning Rosamond was still too sleepy and tired to rise and Patricia was afraid that she might be really ill. But she denied more than a slight cold--a "sleepy headache," as she called it--and asked to be left alone to sleep it out. Patricia left her still in bed when she started to the studio in the afternoon, though she seemed almost herself again. "Come in and tell me all about it the moment you get back," she called as Patricia left her. And Patricia promised blithely. CHAPTER IX ROSAMOND'S FRIEND Patricia kept her promise. She ran upstairs to the pretty rooms in Artemis Lodge with such a radiant face that Rosamond, who was sitting up trying to get interested in a magazine story, laid down the book with a sigh of relief. "You've had a wonderful time, I know," she said expectantly. "Throw your things on the couch and tell me all about it." Patricia complied joyfully. "Do you want to hear every scrap, just as it happened," she asked, "from beginning to end?" "From the very beginning to the very end," nodded Rosamond. "Well, then, I hustled over to the studio," Patricia told her, "and found them waiting for me. Elinor looked as sweet as ever and Bruce, of course, was just as he should be. We took the car to the hotel and just as we were going in, a violet-man pushed his tray right in front of me, and I must have looked at it pretty hard, for Bruce bought me the dearest duck of a bunch with cords and tassels on it. And, of course, that made me feel better still, for my suit isn't terribly gay, you know, having been selected when I was expecting to spend the whole winter in the country." "Was Elinor wearing her gray furs?" asked Rosamond with critical interest. Patricia nodded. "And her amethyst velvet," she said, with appreciation of her friend's fondness for such matters. "She has the sweetest hat to go with it, too, and she looked lovelier than anyone there. Norn is the dearest thing, and I believe she's so pretty because she's so good." This digression was not received with any show of enthusiasm, so she hurried on. "We went into the lobby--it's a stunning place. Awfully select and quiet, you know. And after sending up our names the page took us to her rooms, and we had to wait a moment in an outer room while the maid announced us; then we went right in, and there was Madame Milano, in the midst of a lot of chatting people, looking just as sociable and everyday as you please. She came straight over to us and shook hands as tight as Constance does, and then she introduced us to all the people there. Oh, Rosamond, I was never so excited in my life!" "Was it the musical set, or social?" asked Rosamond. Patricia looked puzzled. "They seemed like both to me," she confessed. "They were beautifully dressed and they had lovely manners, and some of them were singers and others seemed to be just society people, from the way they talked about things. Madame Garti was there, and Sculke, the baritone, and Mrs. Winderly--she was perfectly lovely----" "Social climber," Rosamond ticketed her with a calm that made Patricia wince. "And there was a plain girl with a gorgeous hat, whom Madame called Felice--I didn't catch her other name, but I liked her immensely." Rosamond sat up and bent forward. "Felice Vanding?" she asked, and at Patricia's rather uncertain nod, she said decisively, "That is the most exclusive girl in New York. Was her mother there?" Patricia searched her memory. "Is she sort of stiff and dried-up?" she hazarded. "With a big nose?" "That is Mrs. Vanding!" cried Rosamond with more animation than Patricia had known her to show. "Milano must be quite the proper thing, or the Vandings would never take her up. Tell me some more about her." Patricia felt rather disconcerted. This was not the point of view she could sympathize with. She went on less gayly. "Madame Milano was very kind. She asked all about my lessons, and said she was going to ask Tancredi to lunch with her tomorrow to find out how I had been shirking. She asked about Artemis Lodge, too, and how I like the life here. I told her how jolly it was, and I told her, too, how dear you'd been to me." "Did you indeed?" said Rosamond with a pleased look. "Was she at all interested?" "I should say she was!" cried Patricia, glad to recall the tone and look. "She smiled and said in the nicest possible way, 'I should like to meet your friend, Miss Pat. It is rare to find such good comradeship among rivals.' I told her that we weren't rivals, that we couldn't possibly be, for you had a wonderful voice and were far, far more gifted than plain me." "What did she say at that?" demanded the now eager Rosamond, forgetting to contradict this generous statement. "She laughed and pinched my cheek," Patricia had to confess shamefacedly. "And she said something about violets and I thought she meant my bunch, so I took it off and offered it to her, feeling so glad I had the chance to give her even that tiny gift. She took it and pinned it on her, and told me to be a good child. It was rather puzzling, though, for the other people laughed and I was sure I'd made a mistake of some sort. I felt horridly uncomfortable." "Didn't your sister know what she meant?" inquired Rosamond, sinking back into her cushions again. "No, Elinor and Bruce were both over at the other side of the room, talking to Madame Alda, who had just come in. To tell the truth, I didn't say anything to them about it," Patricia said. "It wasn't much, anyway, for in a little while I was introduced to Felice and we had a good time together behind the palms while the music was going on. She knows lots about music, and I learned a good many things from her." Rosamond approved. "She's worth cultivating," she declared warmly, her long eyes brightening. "But tell me, Miss Pat, was that all that Milano said? Did she know I'd been with Pancri in Rome and Martona in Paris? Did she say that Tancredi had spoken of me?" "I told her every last thing I could possibly think of that would make her realize I had a good angel to watch over me," laughed Patricia. "But, of course, we couldn't keep on talking all the afternoon. There were a good many other people who wanted a word with her." Rosamond subsided into her usual amiable indifference. "You must have had a charming time," she said pleasantly. "Tell me how they were all dressed." Patricia very willingly launched into an enthusiastic account of the beautiful garments worn by the hostess and guests, and the topic was so absorbing that neither girl noticed the speeding hour, until a tap on the door brought them back to the needs of the present. Constance Fellows in her shabbiest frock, paint stains on her hastily washed hands, looked gayly in on them. "May I break my rules and use your phone?" she asked. "I haven't time to chase down across the courtyard to the other phone, and it's very important." They went on talking in subdued tones, but it was impossible not to hear all that Constance said, since the telephone was on the table at Rosamond's elbow; and what she said made Rosamond's long eyes droop in a very peculiar manner. "Tell Auntie," Constance said briskly after having gotten her number, "that I can't possibly have it done in time, unless I stick at it tonight. I'll hold the wire. Be as quick as you can, please. She'll understand." In the interval of waiting for the reply Constance smiled cheerfully at them, receiver at ear, taking meanwhile a lively interest in Patricia's description of Madame Alda's wonderful coat. "Sounds very uppity to me," she said with a humorous glance at her own ancient gown. "Been associating with the song-birds in the upper air, Miss Pat? I thought you'd left town. Haven't seen hide nor hair of you since Friday." Patricia was about to explain that she had been occupied with musical matters under Rosamond's direction, when the answer came to Constance's message. It seemed satisfactory, for she accepted it cheerily and hung up the receiver with an expression of great content. "Thank you so much for allowing me to grab your luxuries," she said with a smile to Rosamond. "Are either of you going down to dinner now? I can't get there, but if you'd tell Christine to bring me some milk and rasp-rolls when she's at liberty, I'd be awfully obliged. I have some dates and peanuts in my room," she added as though to relieve their possible fears that she was denying herself too strictly. "I'm going down, and I'll be glad to do it," said Patricia quickly. She was so afraid that Constance might see the amused look on Rosamond's face that she jumped up at once and took her arm, twirling her around toward the door as she asked, "Is there anything I can order for you, Rosamond?" "I think not, thank you," returned that young lady amiably. "I usually order by phone, you know. One is sure of getting what one wants then." Patricia felt a bit uncomfortable at this untactful speech, but Constance merely laughed and nodded back over her shoulder at the indifferent Rosamond. "That's the difference between us, Lady Rosamond," she smiled. "You are so sure of getting what you want, while I am always trying to make up my mind what it is I want. Sometimes I simply ache for prunes and ice cream cones, and other times I hanker after caviar." Rosamond smiled indulgently, but after Patricia had returned from her dinner and her own dainty tray had been sent down, she said in a slow thoughtful way, "Constance Fellows is an absurd creature at times. I wonder what she meant by caviar?" Patricia was often surprised by the lack of penetration on the part of her admired friend, and she said without hesitation, "Why, I supposed she meant living with her aunt. Shabby frocks and peanuts mean the other side of it." "Do you think so?" insisted Rosamond. "I fancied she was joking about the prunes and cones, but of course there's no accounting for Constance. I'm glad she has my panels finished, for I have a feeling that she isn't too dependable, after all. I wonder what she is phoning to Mrs. Blakely for? I thought they were not on good terms." "Oh, they're quite good friends," said Patricia, as she lighted her gold-shaded lamp. "Constance told me that her aunt often came to see her at the school, though she won't step foot in Artemis Lodge, because she vowed never to countenance Constance in her desire to live like a savage," Patricia giggled with enjoyment. "She seems to think we're a bit too primitive for her here." "Indeed! I'd like Miss Ardsley to hear that," frowned Rosamond. "Mrs. Blakely should remember that though there are some poor art students here, there are quite enough of a better class to give tone to the place." Patricia adjusted the shade and then smiled over it at her perturbed room-mate. "But you can't deny that, according to her estimate, we are Bohemian," she said gayly. "She declares that any place is Bohemian where they give parties in their sitting rooms and wash the dishes in the bathrooms." Rosamond shrugged her shoulders quite impatiently. "Bother Mrs. Blakely," she said in the most downright way she had ever spoken before Patricia. "I'm going to bed." Patricia came into her bedroom to turn out the light for her after she was in bed, and as she had her hand on the button, she gave a little start of remembrance. "Oh, and I forgot to tell you that Bruce has tickets for Tosca tomorrow night for all of us," she said eagerly. "I don't know how I was so stupid as to let it slip my mind. Elinor and Judy and Bruce and I are going, and we want you to go with us." Rosamond turned drowsily on her pillows, pulling the satin coverlet up to her chin. "Awfully kind," she said indifferently. "I had tickets for us two and Miss Ardsley was to chaperone us. It was to surprise you, but we can give our tickets to her and let her take someone else. I fancy she can find some one who will go." She turned over with so definite an air that Patricia snapped off the light and went slowly to her own little room, where she sat down before her table and got out her writing materials. She had a letter to write to Mrs. Spicer, but somehow the bloom seemed to be rubbed off of her wonderful afternoon, and she sat staring at the heading, 'Dear Mrs. Nat,' for a long time before she began to write. Her mind was ranging over the costumes which Rosamond had made her describe so minutely and she was thinking with an earnestness new to her how much she should like to be like Rosamond, with her lovely voice and sumptuous clothes. At last she dipped her dry pen and laid the blotter ready. "I guess Mrs. Nat will be glad to hear all about it," she said with a little self-conscious smile twisting her pink lips. "She hasn't much chance at really splendid doings, and she does love pretty things." She stopped before she had written a sentence to muse again. "I wish she hadn't taken a sort of dislike to Rosamond when she saw her out at Red Top," she said wistfully. "It's so hard to write without putting Rosamond in. She's in almost everything I do now." CHAPTER X MISS PAT PLAYS NURSE Patricia found that Rosamond was still more interwoven into her daily life when she went into her room the next morning, and found her breathing heavily and entirely oblivious of all about her. "Oh, dear, she must be really ill," said Patricia, half aloud, as she bent over the bed and looked at the flushed face anxiously. "I wonder if I ought to call Miss Ardsley or Miss Tatten." She tried to find out just how ill poor Rosamond was, but in spite of her careful attempts to rouse her, Rosamond refused to come back to wakefulness, and Patricia was forced to give up the effort. "I wish I could go to Miss Tatten," she thought, drawing the door softly to behind her and hurrying through the sitting-room. "She's the one in charge, after all. And she doesn't make so much conversation about things as Miss Ardsley does." A picture of the fastidious, affable Directress rose clearly before her and she saw what a contrast to little efficient "Tattie," as the girls called the sturdy little house-keeper behind her back, Miss Ardsley would make at a sick-bed. "I suppose I'll have to go straight down to the office," she said aloud, as she went out into the hall. "Oh, dear, I hope she isn't going to be ill." Constance Fellows was at her door, unseen by Patricia, and she caught the distressed words. As Patricia hurriedly started for the stair she called to her. "Is the fair Rosamond under the weather again?" she asked lightly. Patricia turned, indignant at her levity in the face of trouble. "Rosamond is in a stupor and I can't wake her up. I'm going for Miss Ardsley," she said shortly. Then Constance dropped her bantering tone and, closing her own door, came over to Patricia. "Let me see her before you call out the authorities," she said earnestly. "She may not be seriously ill, and if they once get hold of her they'll keep her in quarantine for weeks after she's all over it." Patricia remembered Rosamond saying something much to this effect, and she agreed eagerly. "I'll go in first and see if she's waked up," she said on the threshold of Rosamond's room. Rosamond was lying in the same position as she had been and was as unresponsive to efforts to rouse her as before. Patricia beckoned Constance into the room. "I'm afraid she's very ill," she whispered, as Constance came to the bedside, and she waited in great suspense for what should come next. Constance felt Rosamond's head and listened to her heart in quite a professional manner. Then she disappeared for a moment and came back with a thermometer and an alcohol bottle. "Get some hot water ready for me," she said in a business-like way that won Patricia's confidence. "I think it's an attack of the grippe, but I'm not sure yet." When Patricia came back with the steaming pitcher, she had finished her investigations. "It's grippe, all right," she said, contentedly. "I know the symptoms without being told a word. I've had it every year since it became the fashion, drat it! We'll have to get the doctor, of course, but I think she can be made more comfortable in the meanwhile." "Shall I tell Miss Ardsley before I phone to the doctor?" Patricia asked anxiously. Constance shook her head. "Tell her just as soon as you are sure he is on the way," she advised. "The Countess is a nuisance about illness. She is scared stiff for fear she'll catch it--whatever it may be. Of course, she has to know--necessary evil--but don't let her in on me till I've freshened up this poor girl." Patricia hurried off to telephone to Rosamond's doctor, whom she was fortunate enough to find in his office. And then she came back to the bedroom. Rosamond had her eyes open. Her face was flushed and miserable looking, but she was allowing Constance to arrange her pillows with something like gratitude in her long eyes. "I've given her an alcohol rub and kept the hot-water bottles to her all the while," said Constance briskly. "She'll be feeling better after a by, won't you, Rosamond?" Rosamond dropped her eyes in a way that meant yes, and Patricia flew to bend over her and whisper her grief at finding her so ill. "Better not take in any more germs than you can help," said Constance in a business-like way. "Clear out, now, young one, and get your breakfast. The restaurant will be closed if you don't hurry." Patricia went off, feeling that she was leaving her friend in competent hands, and after she had finished a hasty meal she went to Miss Ardsley's room to notify her of Rosamond's plight. There was no response to her knock and she was forced to leave without having done her errand. She met Miss Tatten on the way upstairs, however, and she poured out her tale of woe, grateful for the chance of enlisting the sturdy common sense of the house-keeper. "Ah, indeed," was Miss Tatten's only comment. Her arched eyebrows rose with nervous twitches and her deep contralto voice rolled sonorously. "Have you notified Miss Ardsley? Has a physician been called?" Patricia explained why the directress had not been told. "You'll do beautifully in her place, won't you?" she asked with such evident desire for an affirmative answer that Miss Tatten, being only human and liking Patricia exceedingly, showed signs of melting from her official starched dignity, and promised to come at once. They went together into the sick-room and Patricia revised her former opinion of Miss Tatten as a just yet severe automaton when she saw the real kindliness and tender consideration she showed there. The doctor was coming up the stairs as Patricia pinned on her hat and hurried away for her singing lesson, and only the sternness which Tancredi showed toward late-comers kept her from lingering to hear his verdict. In the courtyard she met Miss Ardsley, coming placidly from her milliner's. "At this most unearthly hour, my dear, because the obstinate creature refused to make my new hat for 'Varnishing Day' on Friday unless I gave her a sitting this morning." Patricia was not at any time much interested in Miss Ardsley's hats, but now they grew intolerable. She waited for a period in the gentle flow of criticism on the prevalent modes, and then she boldly broke in. "I'm sorry I have to go," she said apologetically. "I must tell you, though, before I fly, that Rosamond Merton is ill with the grippe and we've sent for the doctor. He's in her room, now, so you'll have to go right up if you want to see him there." Miss Ardsley gasped. "Ill with grippe! How--how very annoying. Really, I was hoping to keep Artemis Lodge free from that taint," she said with a slightly sharp edge to her gentle tones. "Is she suffering much?" she added more sweetly, being recalled perhaps by the incredulous expression in Patricia's very speaking eyes. "She's very miserable indeed," Patricia returned promptly, determined not to spare the Directress. "She was in a stupor when I went in to her this morning, but she's better now. Constance Fellows had been with her and Miss Tatten has just gone up----" "Miss Tatten?" began Miss Ardsley in a somewhat vexed tone, which swiftly changed to a pleased one. "Ah, yes, Miss Tatten. She is most capable and will do all that is necessary. Thank you so much, my dear, for telling me of this sad affair. I shall notify Madame Tancredi at once." And before Patricia could offer to carry the message, she sailed off serenely to her own quarters, leaving Patricia wasting yet more valuable time by standing quite still in the middle of the courtyard staring blankly after her. "Well!" was all she found voice for as she gathered herself together. "Well." Notwithstanding Miss Ardsley's intentions, Patricia told Madame Tancredi of her favorite pupil's illness and was gratified at the warmth of her solicitude. She carried home from her lesson a strong impression that Rosamond must be a very remarkable person indeed to call forth such expressions of regret from her teacher. "I shouldn't wonder if she were going to be a great opera singer like Madame Milano," she thought, somewhat awed by this high fate for Rosamond, and she went to the sick room with more anxiety for the future prima donna than she had felt even for her friend. Constance Fellows was still in charge and tremendously relieved at her appearance. "She's keen enough now," she replied to Patricia's eager questions. "She won't hear to a nurse, and the doctor doesn't insist. I fancy he knows her better than we do. I'd stay longer, but there's something I have on hand--but I'll be back later if you want me." Patricia thought she could manage the rest of the day very well, and as soon as the medicines were explained and the diet understood, Constance hurried off. Rosamond was looking much better when Patricia went to her, and she improved so rapidly that her objection to the nurse was justified. Patricia found her an easy patient, though to her inexperience the hours for medicine came swiftly and the nourishment seemed to be always waiting to be administered. By the time night came she was completely exhausted, but she bore up gallantly, love of her gifted friend giving her strength and courage in the long hours before the happy moment when she felt safe in going to bed. She wakened a great many times in her short night, to sit up and listen or to steal to the door of Rosamond's room and noiselessly peep in to see how she fared; but Rosamond was sleeping heavily each time she listened, and after the dawn came she gave herself up to the deep fatigue which overpowered her. The sun was shining into her room when she awoke to hear someone knocking on the outer door. It was Constance on her way up from breakfast, bringing some flowers from Tancredi and the mail. Flowers from Tancredi! Patricia thought that must rouse any pupil of her's, even from the dead! But no, the gifted Rosamond lifted them to her face as indifferently as if they had been common weeds and sighed as she turned her pale face away from the insistent odor of the jasmine. "How suggestive to send white ones," she murmured with half a smile, and Patricia, who had been half-way to the skies at this condescension on the part of Tancredi, became aware that she was making a mountain out of a very mediocre mole-hill. She took the flowers and laid them in the box while she could fill a vase with water, and when she lifted them again she saw an envelope cuddling under the green paper. It was addressed in Tancredi's hand, and she looked at it reverently despite herself. Rosamond waved her to read it and she had the fun, at any rate, of seeing the actual words. "I have news to cheer the invalid," wrote the good-natured Tancredi after a few phrases of regret. "The Milano was asking about you at luncheon today, and if you are able, I am to bring you to her next 'Hour' when she returns to New York within the fortnight." Patricia beamed. She knew that it was her account of her friend which had brought this honor to Rosamond and she was eager to hear her grateful acknowledgment. She looked expectantly at Rosamond, who was on fire at last. She sat up in her dainty bed and she actually clapped her hands. "Oh, how lucky I got that embroidered crepe!" she cried, out of the fullness of her heart. "Oh, Miss Pat, my dear, I must order the stockings dyed to match! I will surely be well--I'll _have_ to be well. Get the paper and see when she sings again." Not a word about the loving praise which had won her this. Not a single syllable of gratitude for the generous love that had so forgotten self in admiration for another. But Patricia was so happy in what she felt she had helped bring about that she flew for the paper and found the advertisement for the coming operas with as much speed as though she herself were to be the guest. After they found that it would be exactly eleven days till the next opera Milano was appearing in, Rosamond lay back with a sigh of relief. "I'll surely be well by that time," she said positively. "I am feeling so much better this morning, and I always get over things very rapidly." Patricia was bubbling with sympathetic pleasure. "I'll take the sample of the dress and get the stockings this morning," she offered. "Is there anything else you want me to do?" Rosamond pondered for a moment and then replied amiably, "I can't think of anything else just now, but I'll be glad to have you go as soon as you can with the sample. One never knows how long those stupid stores may take. It's awfully good of you, Miss Pat," she ended carelessly. "Oh, I just love to do it!" cried Patricia. "I love to do anything for you--you've been so nice to me. I'll go the very first minute after I've straightened you up and had some breakfast. I'm so glad it isn't my lesson morning." Rosamond's improvement delighted her, and she danced off to attend to her various duties with a light heart. Breakfast over, she did her errand, and after a short walk in the Park she came back to find Rosamond in a flush of fever. The doctor, when he came at her anxious bidding, assured her it meant nothing, that Miss Merton was recovering as rapidly as possible; but Patricia was so disturbed and unhappy over her friend's condition that she sat down and telephoned to Elinor that she could not go to the opera with them and that she had asked Constance Fellows and Marie Graham--the shabby entertaining friend--to go in the place of Rosamond and herself. To Elinor's expostulations and arguments, she had one answer: "She has been too good to me for me to leave her now," and her disappointed sister was forced to be content with that. When, the next morning, she found that Rosamond was fulfilling the doctor's predictions and getting well by leaps, she was not sorry for her self-denial. "I'm glad I could do it for her," she said, nodding at herself in the quaint mirror above her dresser. "I shall always do things for her, because I just _love_ to." CHAPTER XI THE REWARD OF THE FAITHFUL "I think Miss Pat is simply foolish over Miss Merton," said Judith, with an uneasy note in her calm voice. "We haven't seen anything of her for a week, and now she's trying to back out of coming Sunday night, just because her Rosamond is going to sing at Mrs. Filmore's and they've asked Miss Pat to come and worship." Elinor had just come in. Her cheeks were tinted with the crisp air and her eyes were dancing with the brisk walk home through the Park. She tossed her muff on the divan and made a laughing face at her disturbed small sister. "Never mind, Judy, you still have us," she said brightly. "Constance is coming and Doris Leighton too, and we'll have to give Miss Pat up to such a fine opportunity. Rosamond has not been singing 'publicly,' as she calls it, so it will be a great treat, no doubt." "Yes, but she will simply have to miss it," declared Judith firmly. "Tell her, will you, Elinor, when she comes in that she must come tomorrow?" Elinor hesitated, and Judith burst out, "Well, then, if I have to tell! Mrs. Shelly told me that Mrs. Nat was coming in to surprise us, and of course Miss Pat must be here." "What's that about me?" asked Patricia, appearing in the doorway from the bedroom, where she had been sewing a button on her glove while she waited for Elinor to come home. "Who's requesting the pleasure of my society?" "Judith was telling me some very good reasons why you should come to the Sunday spread," answered Elinor quietly. She scanned her sister's face while they talked and her own was none the brighter for what she saw there. Patricia tossed her head impatiently, as though to evade Judith's persistent attacks. "You know I can't come," she said with that petulance which had grown upon her recently. "I have to go with Rosamond. I've been fixing my dress, and everything's ready. Besides," she added, "I promised Madame Milano I would only come home once a week, and as I've been here today, I couldn't very well come tomorrow again." "Been here today?" echoed Judith, shaken out of herself by this unexpected reasoning. "You've barely stopped five minutes, and you haven't taken off your hat!" Patricia looked as nearly sulky as she could ever manage to be. "I can't help it; I simply won't come," she said without concealment. "I'm going to Filmore's and that's an end of it." Judith fired her last gun. "Mrs. Nat is coming as a surprise and we've asked Doris and Constance, too," she said reproachfully. Patricia faltered and then recovered her firm stand. "I'm sorry, but I have accepted," she replied. "But Mrs. Filmore doesn't care a snap whether you come or not," persisted Judith with flaming cheeks. She was making a fight for her old-time sunny Miss Pat against this careless devotee of Rosamond Merton's, but she had not counted on the days of intimate companionship with the alluring Rosamond which had been Miss Pat's in the past fortnight of illness and convalescence. Patricia was silent. "They didn't even ask you to come with your Rosamond," rushed on Judith. "You're only invited with the outsiders, after the dinner is over." Elinor's scrutiny told her it was time to interfere. Patricia was not the forbearing joyful Miss Pat of yore. Since the spell of Rosamond Merton had fallen so strongly upon her, she was growing--of all things for merry Miss Pat--strangely self-centered. The life at Artemis Lodge, with its gay comradeship of restaurant and tea-room, of dim library and cosy salons, seemed to have passed her by, and Rosamond Merton filled her heart and mind. Swiftly, while she was speaking, Elinor determined that some change must be made, yet all she said was in her gentlest tone and with an arm about Patricia's shoulder. "We'll have to give her up this time, Judy dear, though we'll all miss her more than we can say; but we won't let her off next time, I promise you that." Patricia was touched by the fondness in the sweet voice, though she was immensely relieved, too, for she knew that if Elinor vetoed her plan she must give it up. "I might come over after I'm dressed," she suggested gratefully, with a smile at the discomfited Judith. "I wanted to ask if Bruce would walk over with me--it's in one of those old houses across the Square--but Ju was so fierce I was afraid to open my lips." Elinor promised for Bruce and after a little chat Patricia left, feeling that she was making quite a concession to the family tie. "As Rosamond says, I can't give up everything to other people, or I'd lose my personality," she mused as she went briskly along the frosty streets toward the Lodge. "And personality means so much to a singer." She felt rather proud of herself now. It had been difficult for her to come to this point of view and Rosamond had rambled on in her amiable fashion many a time on the subject before she had brought her impressionable room-mate to see it as she did. "If I merely went to the studio and nowhere else, I'd grow one-sided," thought Patricia, cheerfully ignoring the fact that she spent most of her time nowadays between her lessons and practicing either at home with Rosamond or doing errands for that luxuriant young lady. In the weeks she had been in Artemis Lodge she had been absorbing Rosamond, living, breathing and sleeping Rosamond, until she was merely a variation of the older girl's charming self. She did not see that Rosamond was more self-centered than anyone she knew. She forgot how eager she had once been, and how proud, to mingle with the people who were always dropping in to see Bruce and Elinor. In a word, she was, for the time, like the man who points his telescope at the flower by his side and cries out that the world is made of pink petals and yellow stamen. She was no longer Patricia--she was Rosamond Merton's version of Patricia. And the most remarkable part was that she had come to this state of mind through her best impulses and by the way of her generous admirations. The manner of her coming had been so whole-souled and liberal, too, that she deserved to have arrived at more than this. She went to the studio on Sunday evening and showed her pretty simple evening frock, decorated with a wide band of glittering trimming from Rosamond's ample store, and she had the one real quarrel of her life with Elinor because that tender sister made her rip it off before she would consent to her either appearing at the studio spread or going to the musical. Patricia never forgot that evening. The supper, with its merry chat, was gall and wormwood to her. Mrs. Nat's kind eyes seemed probing for something Patricia could not show her. Doris Leighton's quiet pleasantries and Constance's gay quips were dust and ashes in her mouth, and when finally she had walked across the Square to the big brick house and the door had closed on Bruce and the outside world, she was actually ready for tears. "I'll never go anywhere again, if this is the way they are going to fuss about it," she said to herself, as she went slowly upstairs to the dressing-room. "I don't see how they can be so mean." The brilliance of the house and the guests, together with Rosamond's gracious greeting as she met her and led her to be introduced to the hostess, soon worked a cure for her low spirits and she began to enjoy herself at once. "This is real life," she thought joyfully. "Milano was asking me about you," said Rosamond as they threaded their way through the crowded rooms. Patricia nodded. "I know," she returned brightly. "At her tea-party the other day. You told me about it." She was so taken up with the delightful agitation of finding herself in such a large and imposing assembly that she scarcely thought of her words. Rosamond laughed her slow laugh. "No, tonight," she corrected. "She is here, you know. Mrs. Filmore is giving the dinner in her honor." Patricia had room for swift surprise. "Why, you never told me!" she exclaimed impetuously. "How strange!" "I imagine it slipped your mind," suggested Rosamond carelessly. "I am sure I told you. Come, let us speak to her before she sings. Mrs. Filmore has persuaded her to give just one song, and I don't know when she will choose." Patricia demurred, feeling suddenly rather small and insignificant in her girlish white net frock among all the glittering costumes about her. It is sad to confess that her anger at Elinor returned hotly as she thought of the forbidden trimming. That Rosamond had tactfully ignored to speak of its absence made her more angry at Elinor. "I'd rather sit down here and look about for a while," she said, dropping into a tiny divan in a half-deserted corner with such a determined air of gayety that Rosamond, after a rather weak protest, went off by herself to make one of the group about the prima donna. Patricia watched her moving across the crowded room with all the assurance of long experience of such scenes, and admired her more than ever. Her perfect gown and the graceful way she carried her dark head with its jeweled band convinced the impressionable Patricia that this sumptuous creature was far too high above her for criticism, and her cheeks flushed at Judith's presumption. It was delightful to her to see how agreeable everyone was to Rosamond. She was stopped a dozen times in her passage of the wide apartment, and she joined the group about Madam Milano with three attractive men in her wake. Patricia found it very exciting. She thought of the dances at the Tennis Club with something like scorn, and even the parties at the studio last winter seemed to pale before this splendid entertainment. After an hour she began to change her mind, however, and she looked about for any sign of Rosamond in vain. There was no one in the rooms she knew. She could not even see her hostess, whose peculiar head-dress and angular shoulders she was sure she could recognize at any distance. Madame Milano had not sung and there seemed, from the lively hum of conversation that rose above the music of the famous orchestra, little hope of it. She felt suddenly very lonely. These strangers with their indifferent stares made her more uncomfortable than she had ever been in her life. She longed to be able to speak one word to some friendly creature. And then, just as she was actually about to rise and flee to the shelter of the dressing-room, there was a stir, and the soft undertone of the orchestra stopped in the middle of a Hungarian Czarda. Patricia leaned forward. Rosamond was going to sing! Her loneliness dropped from her and her face shone. She drank in the trills and flourishes of the selection which her friend had chosen as though the notes were golden ambrosia. After Rosamond had ended her song and gracefully yet firmly declined an encore Patricia was still glowing. She came to herself, though, when a woman near her, without lowering her voice, said with an amused look, "I'm glad that nice child in the corner is looking happier. It's positively cruel to allow so young a girl to mope about like that." Patricia retained enough of her spirit to look the amused lady calmly in the eyes, while her pretty tipped-up nose assumed a more sprightly angle. That made her feel much better, and after Madame Milano had poured out the liquid jewels of her faultless voice, she felt better still. She waited then in expectancy that now Rosamond would appear to take her to Madame Milano, but no one came, and in a shorter time than it seemed to her she rose, spurred by the amused lady's eyes, and made her way among the chatting throngs straight to the dressing-room, where she ordered her wraps and made her way downstairs with the calm of hope destroyed. She passed the footmen at the door, quite aware of their stares and equally undaunted by them. Through the lane of canvas she gained the pavement and so was out in the night streets--alone for the first time in her sheltered life. Artemis Lodge was only a few squares distant and she almost ran the short blocks, arriving at the green entrance door out of breath and suddenly realizing that the custodian left at eleven o'clock and Rosamond had the night key which Miss Ardsley allowed only to privileged ones. As she hesitated, a couple of figures came toward her, and she was overjoyed to recognize Mary Scull, one of the oldest residents, and little Rita Stanford, whom she had been chaperoning to a concert given by the blind. They were so full of the wonderful work done by these afflicted musicians that they scarcely listened to her limping explanation of her dilemma. They took her in with them and left her at the foot of her own stair, and she could hear them as they went across the courtyard in the quiet starlight, discussing the difficulties of song-reading by the blind. She rushed upstairs and undressed hastily, flinging off her clothes and dropping into bed without brushing her hair, so afraid was she that Rosamond might come in before her light was out. She cried softly in the dark because she could not say her prayers. The tumult in her heart was too loud. CHAPTER XII PATRICIA MOVES She received Rosamond's careless chiding for her unconventional behavior with an uneasy feeling. Her divinity was showing the first flaw. "I don't think I was entirely to blame, even though I did feel shy at first," she defended herself with some hesitation. "Couldn't you have sent for me, even if you didn't want to come yourself? The footmen were going about constantly with those cute little ices." Her sense of justice was not appeased by her friend's evading this very reasonable statement, and Rosamond's laughing indifference to her disappointment in not meeting Madame Milano again stung her to the quick. She was too proud to show her feelings openly, however, and she went to her lesson very miserable indeed, feeling that she had lost both the splendid Rosamond's interest and her dear Elinor's sympathy. That was one of the worst mornings Patricia ever knew. She sang so unevenly that Tancredi scolded her and put her back in her first exercises for punishment. She was longing to ask about Madame Milano, but her lips were sealed by her own fault. She would not trespass on her teacher's indulgence and she left the house so wretched that she hated even the dear music she had so longed for and lived in. "I'll never be a real singer," she thought dolefully, as she walked slowly towards Artemis Lodge. "Tancredi doesn't care a rap about my voice and I don't believe she'd have bothered with me if it hadn't been to please Madame Milano, and Madame Milano only told me to go on because she wanted to please Elinor and Bruce because they are friends of the Van Kelts, who are such chums with her Dutch friend." If she had not been so woebegone she would have laughed at this string of disheartening reasons for her being so falsely encouraged to compete with gifted creatures like Rosamond Merton, but her gloom was too deep and too real to see the funny side of anything just then. The clock in the tower was pointing to twelve as she passed along on the other side of the Square, and she looked wistfully up at the big window of the studio, where she knew that Elinor or Bruce would be just dismissing a model and making ready to clean their brushes and tidy up for the one o'clock luncheon which they always had sent in to them. "I wonder if they'd care if they never saw me again," she thought with what she instantly knew to be shallow sentimentality. "I suppose they would care," she acknowledged, and her sense of justice saved her from any more silly speeches like that. "They think I'm an awful goose, though," she amended, and she knew she was rather safe in this. As she turned the corner toward her own street, she saw a couple of figures come out of the rather imposing entrance of the studio building, and her dejection deepened. She could easily recognize Elinor's blue coat and Doris Leighton's black suit with the white fur collar. They were coming briskly toward her and she hastily turned on a sudden impulse and crossed the Square in the opposite direction. "I simply can't see anyone just now," she told herself miserably. She walked with her head up, though the tears were in her eyes, and she went along very briskly, not caring at all where she went, so that it was away from Artemis Lodge and her troubles. She walked for more than an hour, and found that her troubles would not leave her so readily, so she turned toward the down-town section again and went resolutely back to them. It was one of those days when spring seems to leap suddenly into the sunshine, and Patricia, though very miserable indeed, could not help responding a little to the waking season. "Perhaps I was a bit hard to manage last night," she thought, as she reached the green door, and the fact that the caretaker smiled at her added to her conviction that she had been hasty. She ran up the stairs and with a light tap came into the room where she expected to find Rosamond, but the words of contrition died on her lips, for the room was filled with a litter of lovely gowns, hats and slippers, in the midst of which sat Rosamond criticising and selecting, while a deferential young woman in correct black made notes on a little pad. The name of an exclusive outfitter was on the box-lids and wrappers. Rosamond looked up smiling at Patricia. She seemed to have forgotten that there had been any coolness between them. "Come and help me select some of these things, Miss Pat," she said amiably. And Patricia was instantly ashamed of her resentment. Rosamond, it seemed, had received an unusually large remittance from home, and was employing it in enlarging her wardrobe, which she declared was scandalously shabby. She bought recklessly, while Patricia sighed over the beautiful things and felt that she must have been childish and unreasonable indeed to accuse this friendly, chatting girl of wilful neglect or unkindness. They were pleasantly engaged in this delightful fashion when the knocker tapped and Constance Fellows' bright face appeared in the doorway. "Ods-bodikins! What have we here?" she asked with a twinkle in her clear hazel eyes. "Going to be married, Fair Rosamond, or is it merely preparation for the dance next week?" Rosamond disclaimed either. "I'm just getting a few things to freshen up my old clothes," she said with a tinge of ostentation, which was not lost on Constance. "My word, but you need a lot of freshening," she said gayly, glancing at the array on chairs and divan. "One quarter of this would make me absolutely over. That's what it is to be ambitious." Patricia thought Rosamond seemed vexed at this free speech, but Constance gave her no time for reply. "Your sister is in Miss Ardsley's rooms and they would like to speak to you," she said to Patricia. "They were coming up here, but they saw the dray-load of hats being taken in, and they concluded there would be more breathing room downstairs." Patricia had a sudden misgiving that something might be wrong at the studio--Judith or Bruce ill. Constance saw the thought in her face and shook her hand. "Everything's O.K." she assured her. "Miss Ardsley's got a room for you at last, that's all. They want you to come down and deliver sentence." To Patricia this seemed a veritable finger of destiny. "Shall I bother you if I move out?" she asked Rosamond rather wistfully. If she had hoped for comfort, she got very little. "Why should you go at all?" asked Rosamond, while she held a hat up for inspection, viewing it first on one side and then on the other. "I thought you were very well as you are." "But," faltered Patricia. "I was only to stay till I could get a room." She hoped Rosamond would lay down the hat and look at her with friendly eyes. Rosamond kept on with her scrutiny. "Stay as long as you will. I'm sure we've got on beautifully together," she said with her air of amiable indifference. After that Patricia felt she had no choice. She followed Constance into Miss Ardsley's rooms without knowing how she got there, and even Elinor's gentle words of greeting sounded stiff and formal to her quivering, over-wrought humor. Miss Ardsley's genteel accents grated horribly on her. She was anxious to have the interview over and she readily agreed to take the room at once, without evincing any interest in it or anything else. All that she wanted just then was to get away by herself, so afraid was she that the tears so near her eyelids might pop out at any moment. Elinor very properly put her changed manner down to the incident of the night before, and she did not insist on going up with her to talk it over with Miss Merton, as she would have done if all had been as usual between Patricia and herself. She sighed a little as she kissed her good-bye in the corridor, and wondered sadly at the stony face her dear Miss Pat turned to her at parting. "You'll want me to come over and help you move?" she asked, with a world of tender concern in her tones. Patricia heard only the mere words. She was wild to get away before she disgraced herself before the others. "I'll move in tomorrow. Constance will help me if you're busy," she said, hardly knowing how her words sounded. Elinor went home too hurt to reply and too generous to insist on intruding, while Patricia ran upstairs and shut herself in her room, where she could hear the murmur of Rosamond and the saleswoman going on monotonously. "I won't wait another moment; I'll go straight down and get the key," she said, springing up after a bad quarter of an hour, wherein all her idols had tottered from their pedestals. "I can't stand being cooped up forever like a mummy!" Miss Ardsley gave her the key most willingly, even going so far as the courtyard to point out the windows of the room, which was on the opposite side of the quadrangle, recommending her to call on Martha or Christine if there were anything she needed. Patricia found the room and opened the door with a sense of relief at finding a shelter for her wounded feelings. She liked the queer shape of it, with the two odd windows giving toward the sunset, and the angle where her cosy corner seemed already to have appropriated. "It's perfectly dear, and I'll love it!" she said passionately. "I'll move in this very instant, no matter what Rosamond may say." Rosamond had very little to say, though that little was regretful and apparently sincere. Patricia suspected her now of insincerity, but that was not one of Rosamond Merton's faults. Had she feigned more, Patricia would never have left her. She was sorry for Miss Pat to go, but since she seemed so eager for it, there was nothing else to be done. "We'll see just as much of one another," she said, still absently intent on her purchases. "You'll practice here, of course." Patricia had forgotten the piano, but she was not given to retreat. "There's plenty of room for one of my own over there," she said with a forced smile. "I'll miss hearing you sing, though." She was afraid she was going to break down, but she didn't. "I'll get my things out now, so that you can have the little room for cold storage," and she motioned to the jumble which lay gloriously about. Rosamond made the best of it. "It will be hard to get anyone to help now," she said, rising. "It's just tea-hour and the maids will be busy. I'll see that you have someone at once." Patricia wanted to protest, but the words stuck in her throat and she was forced to accept the sturdy charwoman whom Rosamond's telephone secured. The moving was over sooner than she had thought possible. She was settled in her room, and Rosamond had come over to declare it the cosiest spot in the world, while Constance Fellows and Doris Leighton had been in a couple of times on visits of congratulation before the clock across the housetops spelled out her usual bed hour on its illuminated face. Patricia felt very strange as she put out the light and got into the narrow bed with its transplanted canopy and frills, yet there was a feeling of independence that was perhaps all the sweeter because she would not acknowledge it. "I'm more lonely than I ever was in my life," she told herself as her head sank against her pillow. But she forgot that she had said her prayers very thoroughly tonight, which showed that she had passed the darkest spot of her loneliness, for no one is quite desolate who can talk to God. The next morning she awoke with a start, thinking she heard Rosamond calling her, but all she saw was the bright spring sunshine flooding into her pleasant, queer room, and all she heard was the trilling of the girl across the hall, little Rita Stanford, whose mother had died since Patricia had come to Artemis Lodge. "Poor little brave thing," she thought with a warm rush of feeling, "I'll ask her over to practice as soon as I get my piano." All about her she heard sounds of life that the private stair had shut her away from. Someone was unlocking her door and going whistling down the corridor, and in the room next to her the girl was rushing about in great haste, banging doors and slamming down the windows. Rosamond would have sighed over such intimate contact with the rank and file of student life. It charmed Patricia. She loved democracy, although she had been shunning it ever since she had come to room with Rosamond Merton, and she jumped out of bed with a lighter heart than she could have dreamed possible the night before. Unconsciously she had begun to fulfill Madame Milano's purpose in sending her to Artemis Lodge. CHAPTER XIII THE TURNING POINT It was very hard for Patricia to go over to Rosamond's room after breakfast for her hour at the piano, but she did it so bravely that the self-centered Rosamond never guessed how much it cost her. That was her first unconscious victory over herself. Next she found that the other girls, from whose comradeship Rosamond's constant presence had barred her, now made room for her in the jolly, hail-fellow style which went straight to her bruised heart and soothed her wounded feelings sooner than she knew. She kept her place at the little table in the café with Rosamond, of course, but after the first day she did not go into her room at tea-time, going instead into the big room downstairs where the girls and their guests came every afternoon to consume thin bread and butter, and innumerable cups of tea and packs of petite-beurres. Rosamond had thought her own dainty service with an exclusive friend all that could be desired, but Patricia rejoiced in the atmosphere of the club room with its great grand piano and the groups of interested girls, with a sprinkling of equally interested and clever guests. The steaming, gleaming samovar with Doris Leighton's friendly face behind it brought a warmth to her heart the first afternoon that Constance had insisted on her cutting the hour with Rosamond and going with her to the tea-room below. She found the easy chat and gay banter of the friendly groups the more to her taste, because she had come from a rather trying quarter of an hour in Rosamond's room, where Mary Browne--with an _e_ as she always explained carefully--was being shown the purchases which had seemingly consoled Rosamond for her withdrawal. Mary Browne, a slim, dark-eyed, good-looking girl with a bored manner, was lounging in a chair, looking with reverent yearning at the articles as they were exhibited--Rosamond trying each on and enlarging on its points of excellence. Mary Browne, though of the purest blood, was, as she put it, "rather strapped," and wore her shapely garments longer than even Patricia did. Her soul was in the matter, as anyone could see by the way in which she looked at each article, murmuring tensely through her aristocratic teeth, "It's a stair. It's a _star_." Patricia had just come from a flying visit to little Rita Stanford, whom she had suspected, from certain little sounds coming over her open transom, to be crying, and the contrast to that heroic little person putting aside her fresh grief to try to be entertaining to the newcomer in her hall made Patricia suddenly rather contemptuous of this worshipful attitude toward the mere accessories of life. She had sprung up with relief when Constance's knock gave her the chance to escape, and in spite of Rosamond's rather absent protests, she had gone downstairs with Constance. The tea-room was very full that afternoon and Doris had little time for talk, but she asked Patricia to stay for a chat after the samovar was taken away, and Patricia very willingly promised. The guests left at the proper time, but the girls seemed loath to leave. They lingered, talking about all sorts of glorious futures they were planning and discussing the eager present with great animation. "Tancredi says that Rosamond Merton is going into opera as soon as she is done with her," a girl whose name Patricia did not know leaned across a space to tell her. She knew that Patricia was Rosamond's closest associate and she was following the social impulse to please. Her friendly action brought the color to Patricia's cheeks and her eyes shone. "How splendid!" she said ardently. "How did you hear it? Do you know Tancredi?" The girl shook her head. "My sister knows her," she replied, "and she told her that Carneri, the director of the Cosmopolitan Company, told her she should have a place whenever she was pronounced fit by Tancredi. Pretty great for the Fair Rosamond, isn't it? They say she met him at a luncheon she gave to Milano and her teacher at the Ritz last week. It pays to be rich as well as talented, you see." "Is she really very rich?" asked Patricia, and then was sorry she had spoken. It seemed as though she were prying into Rosamond's private affairs. "Of course. She's old Cedar-tank Merton's only thing," replied the girl rather flippantly, Patricia thought. "She's hordes and gobs of coin, as well as being gifted with a voice and a family tree that makes the California redwoods look like mere bushes. You're with Tancredi, too, aren't you?" Patricia nodded. "I suppose she has a name, though I haven't heard it," the girl said to Constance, who was chatting with someone at an opposite table. Constance did not hear her, but Patricia readily supplied the deficiency. "I'm Patricia Kendall," she said, feeling rather apologetic for herself, though she did not know quite why. "I'm Louise Woods," replied the other. "I'll look you up some time after I've spotted you and tell you what Tancredi says about _you_." "Oh, it couldn't be much," cried Patricia in dismay. "I've just begun to study and Tancredi only bothers with me because a friend of hers asked her to." The girl seemed not much impressed. "You've got something up your sleeve, I think," she smiled as she rose. "Tancredi doesn't cast her pearls before swine that way." Patricia watched her making her sociable way out of the room, and she decided that she liked her. "I wonder why I never met her before?" she thought, and then realized how completely Rosamond had blocked her view of all the other girls. "I guess I'll not be half so lonely as I thought. They all seem so kind." She felt still better content when, as the twilight gathered and Doris came to make one of their group, one of the girls went to the big piano and illustrated her idea of the Swan Song in Lohengrin, striking passionate chords with her finger-tips and throwing her full-toned contralto into the dimness with an effect that was thrilling to Patricia. Then another girl pushed her from the seat and, interrupting herself from time to time with explanations of the method, sang part of the scene where Louise leaves her home. The magic of the dim hour was on them and they gave themselves to the music entire. The great winged Victory above the bookshelf showed back of the singer's dark head. The real everyday world dropped away and a more real and vital world took its place. One after another, the music students took their place eagerly on the seat, and sang or played the melody that was surging within them, to which the magic moment had given utterance. Patricia never knew how it ended or if it were herself that was back in the everyday world of the café, eating dinner with Rosamond as usual, or whether she was still in that twilit world of melody listening to the voices, until Rosamond said rather sharply for her: "Are you ill, Miss Pat, that you look so strange?" Then Patricia drew herself together and managed to appear as normal as she could, but her one desire was to get away by herself to gloat over the riches that had been flung in her lap. "I'd never, never known how splendid it was if I hadn't left Rosamond," she marveled. "Oh, how much I've been missing all this time!" She was so taken out of herself by the beautiful experience that she hurried to her room and sat down to write a note to Elinor, begging her to forgive her silly conduct and her rank ingratitude for all their care. She made it as strong as that, and when she had sealed it she went down and put it in the mail-box herself, so eager was she that it should speed on its way. She went to her room with a lighter heart and the day ended triumphantly with her. She counted the good things that had come to her on her fingers. First, she had cheered Rita Stanford--that she was sure of. Next, she had not shown any ill feeling towards Rosamond--her visits in morning and afternoon proved that. And third, she had been received into the fellowship of the musical set in a way that set her dreaming of the hour when she, too, might take her place on the seat of the grand piano in the twilight and sing out what was in her heart. Then, she had conquered her reluctance to make the first overtures to Elinor, and she had discovered that the girls in the next room were going to be worth while. That finished off one hand and she paused as she began on the other. What was it the Woods girl had said about Rosamond entertaining Madame Milano at luncheon last week? Patricia would have thought it a mistake a week ago, but now she believed Rosamond capable of forgetting to tell her such a momentous fact. "She doesn't care for me at all any more," she thought, with a sort of slow contempt rising through the sadness that the memory had brought back to her. "I don't believe she ever did care for me," she said, a few minutes later. "I think she only tolerated me because she thought that I must be going to have a wonderful voice since Milano recommended, but when she found that I was only a stupid beginner, and not worth bothering with, she forgot I was in existence except when I was in sight." She had so loved and admired the sumptuous Rosamond and in spite of the break had felt so little resentment that her feelings were now a surprise to her. "I'm getting dreadfully cross-grained, I suppose," she said sadly, as she sat down again to write to Mrs. Spicer. "I quarreled with Elinor--of all people--and I've broken off with Rosamond. I must be growing horrid." This dismal idea took full possession of her and she sat staring at the papers strewn on her table, seeing a tragic picture of herself grown desolate and lone in the long years wherein she lost, one by one, the friends who had once loved her. Mrs. Nat's puzzled face rose vividly before her as it had looked across the studio table, and she shook her head dolefully. It was not often that Patricia had given way to such a mood, and if there had been anyone within reach to talk to, she would have shaken it off before it took full possession of her. But she was alone for the evening and it had free access. She actually believed that she was grown unlovable, and the conviction that her voice was not worth considering haunted her morbidly. She had, without knowing it, a touch of grippe. Not enough to make her feel really ill, but merely sufficient to emphasize her dismal sensations into actual mental misery, and she lay awake half the night wondering mournfully why she had been allowed to leave the country and thrust herself among the talented and fortunate. She was really quite thorough in her distrust of herself. In the morning she found a messenger with two notes, one from Elinor and one in Bruce's strong hand, waiting her as she went down to her late breakfast. Elinor's was very loving, ignoring the disagreeable Sunday night and telling her that they were suddenly called away on business of Bruce's, and that Judith, after spending a few days at Rockham with Mrs. Shelly, was to come to share her room at Artemis for the rest of the time. All had been arranged with Miss Ardsley by telephone while Patricia was yet in bed. Patricia was so excited by this surprising news that she hurried off to Miss Ardsley's rooms with Bruce's unopened letter still in her hand. Miss Ardsley explained that Elinor had called up about eight o'clock and as the Directress had been positive she had seen Patricia cross the courtyard on her way out just before that hour, she had told Elinor that her sister was not in. Patricia had to go away without expressing her indignation at the mistake, and after she had read Bruce's short note in her own room, she was glad to remember that she had not sinned again. "Small Sister Pat," the note ran. "I know it isn't time for the puncture you requested, but would it bother you if I asked when our own Miss Pat is coming back? We're mighty lonesome for her. Elinor is dropping some big tears while she thinks I am not looking, and I know it is because she misses her old chum. Judy is divided between the desire to go to her Mama Shelly's and her wish to find her jolly sister Pat. Do you think you could look her up and tell her we're all sure that she wants to see us as much as we want to see her?" Patricia sat for a long time with the note in her hand, and then she put her golden head down on it and cried heartily. Then she sat up, and her face showed that the mists were beginning to clear from that doleful future which had haunted her since last night. "What a goose I've been, and what a perfect duck Bruce is," she said heartily and then laughed out loud at her zoological titles. "Oh, how I wish I'd had a chance to talk to Elinor. She couldn't have my letter by the time she left, and she must still think me horrid." She rose and stood looking out of the window at the blue expanse above the housetops, with part of the smile still lingering on her pink lips. She knew that she had come back, as Bruce called it, and a delightful sense of relief stole over her. "I'm so glad, glad," she whispered, clasping her hands tight against her breast. "I'll have a chance to show them that I'm really sorry for my silliness. I'll do something, I'll have something ready for them when they come back that will prove I'm done with sentimental nonsense now and for always." She could not think what it should be, but she knew she could find out and she turned from the window with the old sunny expression on her face. "I'll try to be unselfish, even though I am a failure," she said determinedly. "Bruce never guessed that it might be quite as hard for a failure to be unselfish as for a successful person. He's always been successful, thanks to Aunt Louise and his own splendid self." The memory of her unknown aunt's secret disappointment came to her now with a throb of understanding love. The dark, brave face over the desk in the library at Greycroft rose vividly before her, and, as at other moments of need, courage and determination flowed from the serene eyes into Patricia's wistful ones. "I'll bear my troubles, too," she whispered, smiling back at the vision. "I'll remember that I am your namesake." CHAPTER XIV CONSTANCE'S OTHER SIDE Whatever Patricia did, she did thoroughly. She had almost a week before Elinor's return, and she set about finding something to do that should prove her return to herself, and more even than that, for she wanted tremendously to be better and stronger than she had ever been. The haunting sense of failure was with her, but she would not stop to listen to it. She practiced her exercises with the greatest care, she went to the concerts for which she had cards, and, remembering Madame Milano's song at the Filmore evening, she bought the music and learned the thing by heart. She was afraid this might not be strictly honorable, since Tancredi had forbidden her to sing songs, but she had such a strong conviction that she was already a failure that she hoped she might be pardoned this solace to herself. "You're looking a lot gayer since you got settled," said Constance Fellows one afternoon as she sat in Patricia's room, mending the russet frock. It looked odd to see Constance with a needle, but she was deft with it. "I guess I'm more used to being by myself," replied Patricia, not wishing to go into details. "I'd never been alone, you know, and it was strange at first." Constance nodded, but her clear eyes showed she understood. As she went on with her sewing she said cheerfully: "It _is_ better to rub up against all sorts of people. You don't come to realize what living means till you've seen what the rest of them are up to. Cotton-wool isn't the environment to bring out beauty, after all." Patricia smiled absently. "But all the pretty things are put in nice pink cotton-wool," she said, thinking of the jeweler's boxes in Rosamond's case. "Ah, but that's when the pretty things are finished and done," cried Constance, dropping her work and leaning forward with fire in her eyes. "How about when they are being shaped? There are hammers there then, and fires, too, and they are battered into their beautiful shapes with cruel blows. My word, Patricia Kendall, can't you see it? It takes plenty of hammering and burning before it gets to the cotton-wool stage." Patricia caught her earnestness. "The trees and flowers and skies aren't hammered into shape," she argued, with half a vision of what Constance meant. "They are the result of hammering, perhaps," returned Constance quickly, "but that doesn't matter so much. They're the works of God, and that sort of thing can just grow, like a lovely disposition, but the things of earth have to be made into shape with rough hands. Look at the people you know. How many of the selfish, pampered ones amount to a row of pins? Can you honestly say that you know anyone who hasn't been the better for a little hammering?" Patricia thought swiftly of Doris Leighton, of Mrs. Nat, and she shook her head. "That's all that's the matter with the Fair Rosamond," Constance explained. "She's been in cotton-wool all her life, and it's going to rob her of her chance to give something to the world----" She broke off abruptly, seeming to be much moved, and, rising with a disturbed air, walked up and down for a few minutes while Patricia tried to go on with her own darning as though nothing unusual had happened. Constance dropped into her chair with a low laugh. "Don't mind my preaching, Miss Pat," she said without any suggestion of apology in her candid tone. "I always get so excited when I'm proclaiming human rights." Patricia looked puzzled and she answered quickly: "Human rights--my rights to the bit of hammering that belongs to me. Auntie, you know, advocates cotton-wool so strongly that I suppose I'm a bit daft on my end of the argument." Patricia had been silent, but she spoke slowly and with a light breaking on her face. "I believe it's true, Constance," she said earnestly. "I can see now that it's the only way. I was getting terribly spoiled in cotton-wool, and----" She stopped because she did not want to seem to complain of Rosamond. "I'm glad Miss Ardsley got this dear room for me," she ended brightly, "I've had such fun since I've been here." She saw that Constance was not too much deceived, and to turn the talk she seized the first thing that came into her mind. "Does your aunt still object to your living here?" she asked, and then was annoyed with herself for her own lack of tact, for she recalled that it was not Constance but Rosamond who had told her of the aunt's objections to Artemis Lodge. Constance laughed easily. "She's coming around," she replied as though she were used to discussing her private affairs with Patricia. "She is so pleased with my altar-piece in All Saints that she's ready to forgive me anything. Auntie is really awfully good." Patricia was alight at once. "Your altar-piece, Constance?" she cried. "Oh, how splendid! When did you do it? Why didn't you tell me about it sooner? Where is it now?" Constance laughed, yet she was deeply gratified, for she had been more drawn to Patricia than to any of the others. "It's in All Saints, of course, where it should be. You didn't think it was in the Bandbox or the Comique, did you?" she bantered. "Auntie paid for it, and so she's privileged to criticise, you know." "Do let me see it," begged Patricia. "I haven't a thing to do this afternoon. Let's go and see it." Constance demurred at first and then gave in. "The air will do us good, anyway," she said, "We've been cooped up here for an hour or more." Patricia found the altar-piece a revelation of another side of Constance--a side she had not dreamed of, and she gave it the tribute of silence for a long five minutes. Then she spoke very softly: "I know now why you believe in bearing the everyday toil and trouble of the world. It's because you've been painting that. Why, Constance, it's--it's--_triumphant_." Constance was looking at the painting and she forgot she was not speaking to herself alone. "And why not?" she said in a deep breath. "He didn't fear that poverty and pain would keep anyone out of the kingdom of gladness. It was what He was telling them all the time--those exclusive, rich men who wanted to get the secret of His serene life. It wasn't that He liked pain and poverty, but He wanted everyone to know that it was the fear of them that shut people out of the kingdom of gladness. Why shouldn't He look triumphant when He'd opened the door so wide?" Patricia was too much stirred by this revelation of the depths of Constance's nature to speak, and they soon went out of the dim church into the sunlight of the avenue, with its roar of hungry life and surging energies. "I think I'll run over to Auntie's now that we're so near," said Constance at the next corner. "You don't mind, do you?" Patricia didn't in the least mind. She wanted to go for a walk in the Park and try to catch and put in order the whirling thoughts that pulsed through her. "I'll see you tonight after dinner," she promised. The Park was full of people. The spring was in the air. Patricia felt strange sensations, stirring thoughts which Constance's picture had called into life. "The Kingdom of Gladness," she repeated over and over again, making it a rhythmic march to keep step with. "The Kingdom of Gladness. And I thought Constance Fellows just a nice, clever, funny girl!" She looked at the people on the walks and in the vehicles with a new eye. She wondered if they were putting in their probation for that kingdom and when she saw a pinched face or a shabby coat, she felt like crying out to them, "Oh, don't mind it very much, for it's the best way into the kingdom." She was very much agitated and excited, and she felt she could not go back to the Lodge, where she had given a half promise to spend the five o'clock hour with Rosamond. She walked about for a long time and sat down on benches when her mood ebbed, starting up again with a shining face as her emotions got the better of her again. She was sitting on a bench when she saw Mr. Long coming briskly along the bridle path on a beautiful bay horse. He did not see her, and she jumped up and ran over to the side of the path, holding up an eager hand to attract his attention. He was off his horse in one moment and shaking hands with her the next. "This is very jolly," he said heartily. "I didn't know you were in town or I'd have tried to look you up. Miss Merton told me when we were at the theater with the Filmores last night that your family had left town for a while." Patricia explained, and Mr Long in his turn told her that he was only in for a brief stay. He needed a secretary, a sort of caretaker for his chicken books, he said, laughing, and it must be a female person, since he had determined to bring Danny home from school for good and all, and he felt that a woman-body was a crying necessity. Patricia understood at once. "He wouldn't get on with Mrs. Jonas," she admitted with a smile. "Have you anyone yet?" Mr. Long had not. He had seen dozens of them, but they were all either too young or too old or too stupid or too clever. "It's going to be mighty hard to fit Danny and the hen accounts, too," he confessed. "He's so dead set on pretty people, and most of the pretty ones are stupid or conceited." Patricia had a sudden thought that made her dimple. "Must she be very old?" she asked eagerly. "Mrs. Jonas will chaperone the place as ever," replied Mr. Long. "She's needed mainly for Danny, if the truth must be told. I've got to try the mother act on him now. Poor kid, he's never had anything to look up to in that line." "I know someone," said Patricia guardedly. "I can't tell you about her now, but if you'll come to the dance on Friday I'll show her to you and you can do the rest." Mr. Long thought Friday was too far off, but Patricia was firm, and he ended by saying he'd come. They parted at the next entrance and Patricia hurried off to Artemis Lodge feeling much elated. "I'll ask Doris about it in a roundabout way, so she'll say just what she thinks," she planned, and she was so eager to seek out Doris that she hurried through her dinner before Rosamond had begun on her first mouthful, excusing herself by saying that she had some business on hand that would not wait. She found Doris in her room, trying to make up her accounts, and the process was evidently not very agreeable work, for she flung down the pen at Patricia's knock and slammed the covers of the book with unusual vigor. "I never can bear to face that horrid book," she confessed with a little laugh. "I'm always spending more than I should and it makes me so ashamed of myself, when Mother needs so many things." Patricia was finding it very easy. She had not much trouble in learning that Doris was in search of a more paying position. Her domestic science was only half a day's work and she needed more. Patricia thought it safe to hint at something that might be in sight if she came to the dance on Friday. Doris had not intended going to the dance, since her gowns were rather shabby and she could not think of anything new, but on Patricia's insisting, she said she would go if she could be late. She had a lesson in French at the Settlement House--Patricia almost shook her head at the thought of Doris taking free lessons in anything until she recollected the Kingdom of Gladness--and she could not afford to miss it. "I'll wait for you," Patricia promised. "I haven't any guests--or only someone who won't mind. Come over to my room for me, and we'll go down together." Constance met her on her way to the Red Salon, where the girls often gathered after dinner for chat, the Blue Salon across the way being reserved for reception of visitors. "The dance is going to be quite wonderfully fine," she told her with as eager interest as ever a girl showed in a party. "Auntie's coming and I'm going to have a splendid, gorgeous new dress. I've planned it all out since I made up my mind. I'll get the stuff tomorrow and have it made in a jiffy." Patricia looked at her in some wonder, until she remembered that the kingdom Constance was trying to enter was one of gladness. "Of course you want to have a good time," she said aloud. "What color is it to be?" meaning the dress. "Yellow--goldy yellow," replied Constance deliciously. "And I'm going the whole length, gold slippers and all!" Patricia beamed. "You'll look perfectly stunning," she said, and then she caught her breath. "Who's playing?" she asked, with a look toward the open door. Constance listened. "That must be the little Polish countess," she replied. "No one else does it that way." Patricia had a vision of a fascinating, elegant creature with sorrowful eyes and plenty of furs, and she gave a little cry of expectation. "Come along. She's beginning the 'Papillion'," she cried. "And I simply can't miss it." CHAPTER XV PATRICIA DECIDES TO MAKE THE BEST OF IT "Oh!" said Patricia on the threshold. "S-s-sh!" warned a number of restrained voices. They smiled kindly at her as she stood in the doorway, though they plainly would not tolerate an interruption. Patricia had not meant to interrupt. She was only surprised. The firelight played over the lounging figures of the girls who were grouped about the dim warm-colored room, lighting up a golden head or the gleam of some piece of polished furniture or glass, picking out the faces of some of the intent listeners and flinging a ruddy shadow over others, flickering over the grand piano and the figure seated before it. Patricia had cried out her "Oh" at the sight of this figure. It was so very different from her idea of what a countess--and a Polish one, at that--should be that it gave her quite a shock, and for the tiniest fraction of a second made her forget even the Grieg music. The little woman at the piano was small and rather wrinkled, and was wearing an old-fashioned ulster which fitted her small form rather carelessly. The small sealskin cap on her drab hair did not even pretend to be a stylish one. It was rather worn, even in the kindly firelight, and gave an emphasis to the shabbiness of the whole figure. Patricia sank down beside Rita Stanford and stared under cover of the fire-flicker. How disappointing some countesses were! But she did not stare long. She soon forgot there was a shabby figure at the big piano, because she was seeing the butterfly soaring up and up in the sunshine, with the jewels glowing on his gorgeous wings, wings that were soon to be broken and trailing. She saw the pulsing of the broken wings, and felt the pity that was pulsing through the sunny world at this darkening tragedy. The wings pulsed slower and slower. The butterfly was dead! Patricia found her eyes wet, and she heard the soft applause in a sort of daze--the music that melted her also always intoxicated her--and she sat without a word till the countess began again. It was Shubert's Fantasia Impromptu this time, and there was absolute silence as it ended. The little shabby countess gave them a moment for recovery, and then, whirling about on the stool, she said, with only a trace of accent: "That is my farewell. Tomorrow I leave for the home-land." There was a chorus of questions at this and that ended the music. Patricia enjoyed the humorous chatter of the experienced, happy-go-lucky countess, and she laughed over her accounts of her travels and privations while lecturing in the West and writing books at odd times, but she did not want to rub out the "Papillion" and she soon left the Red Salon and took her way to her own room, thinking of a number of things. "She's had a hard time, too," she thought. "I suppose she'd never have played so if she hadn't known trouble and tragedy, too, perhaps. Oh, dear, it's very comforting when one is rather in low spirits and things have gone wrong, but it doesn't look half so attractive when there's fun ahead." She shook her head and then laughed her rippling laugh at herself. "I'm getting too deep," she warned herself. "I've got to stay where I can touch bottom. Constance may go far ahead, but I've got to go slow or I'll be getting silly again on the other side." She kept to this wise decision and whenever she found herself beginning to pose as a being enlightened through suffering she made a face at herself in the quaint mirror and ran away to do something "plain and practical" for someone. And so the days sped and Judith came back from Rockham full of news and wondering greatly at the change in her dear Miss Pat. "You're awfully meek now, aren't you?" she asked her suddenly, after Judith's little trunk had been unpacked and the things stowed in the most convenient drawers. "You used to be nice, but you didn't give up to younger persons like you do now." Patricia started to say that she had learned a great lesson, but she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and she said instead that she was treating Judith as a guest now, and so she had to be polite. Judith was only half convinced. She had not been studying people's faces and searching for meanings in their expressions all these months for nothing. The tales about Rockham alone would have sharpened her to that extent. "You're different," she said positively. "And I don't know whether I like you better or not. You seem too good to be true, somehow." Patricia's derisive laughter only made her more emphatic. "You aren't half so gay as you were, and you practice as though you were doing a lesson instead of because you couldn't help it, like you used to," she declared. "You're nice to that gorgeous Rosamond Merton and you let her wipe her feet on you every time you go in there. I've seen how meek you are. If it wasn't you," she said with a pucker in her brow, "I'd think you were up to something. Why don't you sing like you used to?" Patricia said that she had been at a song, but it was not to be known, and she made Judith promise not to tell Constance or anyone else at home before she would sit down at the shining piano Bruce had got a musical friend to select for her, and sang the song through to its end. Judith still looked puzzled. "It's lovely, of course. Your voice always is," she said loyally. "But somehow it doesn't _ring_. The glad sound has gone out of it. That's it!" Patricia had been knowing it herself ever since she had realized that Tancredi was only keeping her for friendship's sake, and it had been almost too much to bear alone. Without thinking, she blurted it out. "I can't really sing, after all, Ju," she told her passionately. "Tancredi is only keeping me on for this quarter and then she'll let me down." Judith was aghast, but she kept her head. "When did she tell you?" she demanded sharply. "She hasn't just exactly told me in words," confessed Patricia. "But she's shown me very clearly. And Madame Milano hasn't ever asked to see me again, though I know she's seen Rosamond twice since I went to the 'Hour' at her hotel. If I hadn't been with Bruce and Elinor to hear her in opera every time she sang, I'd never known she was in New York at all." Judith was very white and still. At last she said with conviction, "I think you're making a mistake, Miss Pat. I don't believe it's true that you aren't going to be a success. You know how you tried and tried to make yourself ready and fit for the music, and I don't believe that all that hard work is going to be wasted." Patricia smiled with the new knowledge that had so recently come to her. "Oh, Judy dear, you are too young to understand," she said with serene satisfaction; "but it will not be wasted. One must suffer to grow glad." Judith opened her eyes. "Now I know you're queer," she declared with a wag of her head that made her uneven mane quiver. "You didn't use to talk such stuff." Patricia wanted to tell her it wasn't stuff, but somehow she could not find the right words to explain her feelings, and so she left it go, feeling very old and wise indeed beside the crude, inexperienced Judith. They had a very good time together, nevertheless, and Judith made friends with the girls in a way that pleased and surprised Patricia. "That kid sister of yours is a wonder," said the slangy ones, and the others declared that Judith was a dear. Altogether, Patricia had never enjoyed Judith's company so much. "I'm sorry you can't come to the dance," she told her with regret, but Judith did not care in the least, she said. She was going to spend the night with Rita Stanford, with whom she had struck up a close friendship--the first that Patricia had known her to make. She seemed much absorbed in Rita. She took walks with her while Patricia was at her lesson or otherwise occupied, and she went to afternoon service with her. She was so much with Rita when not with Patricia that it was a surprise to Patricia to see her coming in the afternoon of the dance entirely alone and wearing a rapturous expression. She said she had been doing an errand and Patricia was too much occupied with the finishing touches to her white net--she was putting the dearest bunches of apple blossoms at odd places on the skirt and waist--to be too inquisitive. She noticed that Judith hung about her, seeming to be trying to make up her mind to say something, but she did not stop to ask what it was, as she supposed it merely a trifling comment or criticism on her dress. She sent Judith over to Constance's room to borrow a spool of pink silk and then forgot her in the delightful task of deciding whether the apple blossoms ought to go on the sleeves or not. Judith came back with the spool and a yellow envelope which she had signed for. "That's what made me so long," she explained, but Patricia had hardly missed her. The telegram was from Elinor. They were coming back and would be at the dance. "Coming home tonight. Save a dance for Bruce. Love. Elinor." Patricia was wild with delight. "Oh, Judy, won't it be fine?" she cried with quite her old gay laugh. "I'm so glad they're coming." But before Judith could add her rejoicings the bright look had died into a quieter expression and Patricia said, "I was forgetting that you weren't going to be there. I wish, oh, I wish you could go." "Well, I can't and there's an end of it," said Judith calmly. "And I hear Rita beginning to get things ready. We're going to make fudge, so I'll have to be off." She was at the door before she remembered. "Constance told me she'd stop on her way down for you if you changed your mind about going late," she said briskly. "She wants you to see her dress, anyway, before anything happens to it. She says she's sure to wreck it. She's so used to good tough stuff that she'll walk right through this one." Patricia nodded brightly and Judith hurried off across the hall, where Rita's welcome reached Patricia's ears. "Dear old Ju," she thought fondly. "She's always doing the right thing. She's such a comfort." Then she smiled to herself at Constance's message. "It's good of her to come away over here, when the ball-room is so near her," she said gratefully. "I'll be glad to see her dress. She's been so secret about it." Her face grew wistful as she thought of the dance. "I'll have a good time, I suppose," she said slowly. "Rosamond will sing, and that will make me remember I'm a failure. But Bruce and Elinor and Constance will be there, and I can have the fun of showing Doris to Mr. Long without her knowing it." This brought the light into her eyes again, and she held up her golden head very bravely. "I'll have a good time," she said again, with a nod at the mirror. "I may be a failure as a singer, but I needn't be as a human critter, as Hannah Ann calls us." CHAPTER XVI THE DOOR OPENS AGAIN Patricia had got into her apple-blossom dress and had smiled at herself with a good deal of real satisfaction. "You do look very nice," she said to the girl in the mirror. "If you were only a little bit less addicted to yourself, my child, you'd not be half bad. That's a thing you're going to get over, though, so I won't scold you tonight about it." She shut off the light and sat down by the window to watch the first arrivals. The night was warm, even for spring, and the window was open. "It's just like being at the play," she told herself, smiling into the warm darkness. "I'm glad I had to wait for Doris." The courtyard was light with torches and the entrance was ablaze with torches and the windows across the quadrangle she could see figures moving to and fro, shadows fell on the curtained oblongs and inside the open ones she saw girls who were late in dressing getting frantically ready, others who were putting on their gloves, and still others with their guests even making ready to go down to the ball-room, which was the transformed tea-room not to be seen from Patricia's point of vantage. Maids came and went across the courtyard. The first guests came in a straggling fashion, and then suddenly everyone seemed to be rushing in at once. Patricia laughed as she recognized the tall, lanky figure of Bob Wetherill, whose attachment to Rosamond Merton was the bane of that young lady's life. Then she gave a little cry. She had recognized Bruce and Elinor. She flew down to them for a rapturous greeting and though the courtyard was filled with hurrying people she hugged both of them heartily, dropping some tears of real delight on her own apple blossoms. "I'll be down later," she told them. "I'm waiting for Doris Leighton. Do look after Mr. Long if he comes in before I do, and for goodness sake tell him not to breathe a word about what I was talking to him about in the Park the other day." "Mysteries, and with your late rival in the hen-yard?" cried Bruce with feigned concern. "I'll have to look into this later, Miss Pat, and see what you've been up to behind our backs." "You'll find out later, I hope," laughed Patricia, giving Elinor another squeeze before she ran off laughing at the thought of her conspiracy with Mr. Long coming under Bruce's notice in this unexpected way. "I had to tell him," she thought, as she hurried back to her post. "He might have found it out before it came to anything and then I'd have felt so silly." As she sat down again she thought she heard the door open and she asked, "Is that you, Constance?" It was Judith with her kimono over her nightdress and her bare feet poked into her slippers. She came over and cuddled down beside Patricia. "Don't send me back right away, please. I have something to tell you, Miss Pat," she said earnestly, and Patricia made room for her on the wide seat. "What is it, Judy-pudy?" she asked kindly. "Bad dreams?" Judith gave a little sound that seemed to mean satisfaction with the question. "Oh, no, not bad dreams," she answered happily, cuddling closer. "Not bad dreams. Very pleasant ones. About you, Patricia." Patricia patted her. "Tell me," she said, not because she wanted to hear the dream, but to please Judith. "I dreamed," began Judith, sitting up to look earnestly in Patricia's face in the dim light reflected from the courtyard. "I dreamed that you were unhappy and it was because you thought that you would never be a real singer." Patricia interrupted her with a little laugh. "Sounds perilously like wide-awake news to me, Ju," she said lightly, determined to conquer the idea which possessed her small sister that she was unhappy over her discovery of failure. "We've put that on the shelf long ago, you and I." Judith went on, scanning her face. "I dreamed that you cried about it when no one saw you and that you felt you'd never be happy again. Now don't say 'Stuff,' for it's true. And I couldn't bear it, so I thought and thought and then I went out and walked straight down to Tancredi's and I asked for her, and found her in. She was in the music-room and I went in and said, 'I am Judith Kendall, and I've come to ask about my sister.'" "Good little Ju," said Patricia as she took breath. "I believe you could really have done it." It was rather dim to read expressions, but she thought a strange look flitted across the eager face that was staring so hard at her. "You mustn't take it so seriously, Judy," she said, but Judith went on. "'I've come to see if it's true that she'll never be a great singer and I know you'll tell me,' I said to Madame Tancredi, and she just put her arm about me and kissed me quite hard." "That's what she would have done. How did you guess it?" cried Patricia. "And she said very seriously, 'Your sister, my dear, is going to be the greatest singer I have ever taught, if she keeps on as she has begun, or if some stupid silly one doesn't take her from the only right method.'" Patricia felt a surge of agonizing regret for all the bright hopes that she had lost forever, but she tried to laugh down into Judith's eager face. "That sounds exactly like Tancredi," she declared. "How strange you should dream it so truly." "It sounds true, doesn't it?" persisted Judith. "Should you be very cross with me if it weren't all a dream, Miss Pat?" Patricia's heart stopped beating for a moment and then it leaped to her throat. "What do you mean, Judith?" she called out, clutching her tightly by the shoulders. "What are you trying to tell me?" "Ow! you hurt!" returned Judith, wriggling, and then she responded to the agony of appeal in Patricia's big gray eyes. "It isn't a dream. It's true," she said. "I went this afternoon." Patricia could not take it in for a while. She had to question Judith again and again before she could accept this gift from the dark heavens. "Are you sure?" she asked over and over until Judith became impatient. "I may be only fourteen and a half and very small for my age," she said with withering dignity, "but I surely know what happened just this afternoon. I'm going back to bed now, and you can believe me or not just as you please," and in spite of Patricia's protest, she stalked away and slammed the door behind her--a very unusual thing for Judith. Patricia sat by the window in a trance of delight. The future glowed with all its old alluring colors and new ones were shining out every time she looked ahead. She was to be a singer after all. What did anything else matter? Suddenly she laughed aloud and jumping up she ran to the mirror and snapped on the light to make a radiant face at the girl in the frame. "We'll try to put up with being a failure as a martyr, won't we, my dear?" she said breathlessly. "Oh, how hard we'll try not to grow too pleased with ourselves now! Just remind me about it when I'm getting top-lofty, will you, please? I'm afraid I'll forget to be meek." "What's that you're talking about?" asked Constance's voice, and Patricia turned to see her standing smiling in the doorway. "Oh, oh, you lovely thing!" she cried in instant approval. "Why, I'd never known you in that heavenly rig." "Thanks for the tactful way you pay tribute to my frock," replied Constance smoothly. "It is rather nice, so I forgive you on the spot." "Nice?" exclaimed Patricia with scorn for the word. "Nice! It's splendid, gorgeous, _transcendent_. Nice, indeed! Turn around and let me drink you in." Constance turned. The dress was of dull gold-colored net with great flowers about its hem wrought into the net with gold thread and the bodice was one great gold flower with trailing net for sleeves. Gold bands held down Constance's dark hair, and the simplicity of the whole made it suitable. "I think I shall stay here and look at myself," she said with quaint gravity. "It's been so long since I've had a real whole dress that I fear it has turned my head. I'll be asking everybody what they think of it if I go down." Patricia pushed her out the door. "They'll tell you without asking," she promised. "I wonder what Rosamond will say when she sees you." At that Constance came back into the room and closed the door. "Rosamond won't be here, after all," she said with a little laugh. "She sent word to her father to do the polite thing to Madame Milano when she came to sing in Boston, and her father sent a special car down for Rosamond to take Milano up to the Hub. She's on her way now. That's going some, isn't it?" She evidently wanted to break the news to Patricia before she learned from others, and she seemed surprised at Patricia's easy acceptance of it. "You're getting to be a wise child," she said with an approving nod. "You know that it isn't always the highest flier that gets there the soonest. Keep smiling, my dear, and it won't hurt half so much." Patricia did smile, not so much at the slang as at the friendly spirit which prompted it. "It doesn't hurt at all now," she answered, truthfully, and then she told Constance of Judith's visit. Constance was delighted. "Plucky Judith!" she cried. "Lucky Miss Pat. You're about the happiest girl in the world just now, aren't you?" "Just about," Patricia confessed. "I'm not so wretched either," said Constance with a whirl of her golden draperies. "I've come out of the woods myself. Auntie is so pleased with my altar-piece that she's giving in at last. I'm to go home next week and I can go to night life or anything else I please. She considers me safe since I could paint that picture. Funny, isn't it, that she couldn't have known me for herself?" Patricia congratulated her with great sincerity. "I'll miss you terribly, but I'm glad for your sake," she said warmly. "You really need someone to look after you." Constance pretended to be indignant. "After all the mending I've done in your presence, too!" she cried reproachfully. "I'll not stay to be maligned like that." She stopped at the door to add joyfully, "Do come down soon. I want you to meet Auntie," and she then turned again to go, but again halted. "Hello, here's the Lodge beauty in all her loveliness," she said, welcoming Doris Leighton with a cordial handshake. "Come, Doris, let's grab the future prima donna and tote her to the ball-room. I don't believe she'll ever get there by herself." Doris was lovely, even though her dress was not so radiant as Constance's nor so fresh as Patricia's, and her serene face shone at the news which Constance poured out to her on the way down. She could rejoice in other people's good fortune, Patricia saw and, remembering the Doris Leighton of the Academy days, marveled at her calm unselfishness. "Do come over and say how-do-you-do to Elinor and Bruce," she begged, catching sight of them across the room. "I want you to meet Mr. Long who is with them, Doris." Constance chuckled. "Talk about clothes bringing one into the limelight," she commented. "Here I am all done up beautifully and I'm passed over for a mere beauty. I won't come and meet your snippy Mr. Long, Miss Pat. I know him, anyway, and he engaged a couple of dances with me when I met him in the corridor going over to your room. I'll find Auntie, and wait for you, when you're through with your Longs and such." It was delightful to find herself again in the bright world of her hopes again, and even the dullest place would have seemed radiant to Patricia that night, but the ball-room with its flowers and music, with its pretty girls and agreeable men, remained in her memory as a sort of Olympian festivity, part dream, part reality, long after she had forgotten the names of the men Bruce brought for her to dance with. She had introduced Mr. Long to Doris and left her with him and Elinor as she went off to dance with Bruce. "I think he'll like her," she said, with a backward glance, and when Bruce demanded an explanation she told him all about it. "Do you think it a good plan?" she asked rather anxiously. Bruce's good opinion meant much to her always. "Fine," he replied with such heartiness that she feared he was joking. A glance at his serious face convinced her of her mistake. "It'll be the very place for Doris," he said, "Mrs. Jonas will be quite devoted to her in her way, and Danny will love her at sight. Long, of course, will have to put up with her for the sake of the others," he added with a twinkle. Patricia pretended not to understand, though Rosamond Merton's words about the "next girl" came back to her. "I'm not going to have Doris laughed about," she said warmly. "You know she's the dearest girl we know." "Outside the family, I believe she does stand pretty high," admitted Bruce, with a smile down into his partner's eyes. "Small Sister Pat, may I tell you how glad I am?" he asked in a lower tone. Patricia thought he meant about Tancredi's verdict, and she beamed on him. "It's too splendid, isn't it?" she exulted, and then he stared and had to be told. He carried her back to Elinor and there he scolded her well for ever doubting that they would have allowed her to go on if there had not been definite promise in her. "Tancredi told me herself when I went to see her about you that she would take no one, however recommended, unless they were going to make good," he said sternly. "You unbelieving little wretch, what right had you to make yourself miserable without telling us about it?" Elinor drew her closer as she rose to meet Mr. Long, who had left Doris Leighton with Constance's aunt and was coming to claim her for the next dance. "Never mind, Pat dear," she said with her brightest look of love. "It's all come out splendidly and you've learned how much you really care for it. That's something, you know." Mr. Long nodded at Patricia as he addressed Elinor. "I am sorry to be late for my dance," he said, with significant emphasis; "but I was making plans with my new secretary and the time passed quickly." Elinor did not understand that it was Doris he was speaking of and she smiled her acquiescence and went gracefully out on the floor. Bruce sat down in her vacant chair next to Patricia. "And now your mind is at rest about your friend's future," he said with his nicest smile, "let's talk about your own." Patricia laid an eager hand on his arm. "Oh, Bruce dear, we won't have time," she bubbled. "It's going to be so long till I have a future. I have to study for ages and ages, and, you know, something might, _might_ happen to me. Don't let's plan too far ahead. I'm just looking forward to finishing up the spring here at Artemis Lodge, studying with Tancredi, and then I'll be ready to go out to dear old Greycroft with the rest of you to see the summer through. What's behind that I'd rather not think about just now. I'm so glad, glad, _glad_ to come back to the dear hopes, after I thought I'd lost them!" Bruce smiled again at her flushed face. "You've come back with something in your hands, Miss Pat," he said with kindly gravity. "I think I see unselfishness and courage in them now." And as Patricia's eyes filled with grateful tears, he rose, holding out a hand to her. "Come and see Constance's aunt," he invited. "We've no right to be gossipping here all night." Patricia sprang up with her eyes alight. "It's all come out right after all," she whispered to herself. "Oh, how happy I am, and how hard I'll try to study. I won't mind waiting a long, long time for the future. I am so glad, glad, _glad_ that it's there!" As she followed Bruce across the room her face was glowing with rosy hope. She whispered to herself, "Some day I shall sing in the light, too. And tomorrow I shall sing the little song Milano sang, and Judy shall tell me that the ring has come back to it." 
32835	----	[Illustration: book's cover] GERALDINE FARRAR _THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN SINGER_ [Illustration: _Photo by Victor Georg_ Signature of Geraldine Farrar] GERALDINE FARRAR THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN SINGER BY HERSELF WITH ILLUSTRATIONS [Illustration] BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY MDCCCCXVI COPYRIGHT, 1915 AND 1916, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY GERALDINE FARRAR-TELLEGEN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published March 1916_ A DEDICATION In offering these little sketches of some of the interesting events that have helped shape a career now fairly familiar to the general public, it has not been my intention to weary the indulgent reader with a lengthy dissertation of literary pretension, or tiresome data resulting from the obvious and oft-recurring "I." From out the storehouse of memory, impressions crystallized into form without regard to time or place, and it was more than a passing pleasure to jot them down at haphazard; in the quiet of my library, on the flying train, or again, beneath the witchery of California skies, I scribbled as the mood prompted, as I would converse with an interested and congenial listener. It is not, perhaps, a New England characteristic to expand in affectionate eulogy for the satisfaction of a curious public, but the threads of these recollections are so closely interwoven with maternal love and devotion, that this volume would be incomplete without its rightful dedication to MY MOTHER G. F. CONTENTS I. MY LIFE AS A CHILD 1 II. THE DRAMATIC IMPULSE 8 III. I RESOLVE TO SING "CARMEN" 18 IV. MY FIRST DAYS IN MY DREAM WORLD 28 V. I REFUSE TO SING AT THE METROPOLITAN 36 VI. PARIS 42 VII. GERMANY: THE TURNING-POINT 50 VIII. IMPERIAL ENCOURAGEMENT 59 IX. ON TOUR; MONTE CARLO AND STOCKHOLM 68 X. MY FOURTH SEASON 77 XI. LEAVING BERLIN 84 XII. MY FIRST APPEARANCE IN NEW YORK 89 XIII. MISUNDERSTANDINGS 99 XIV. THE DAYS I NOW ENJOY 108 ILLUSTRATIONS "_Columbia_" (_From a photograph by Ira L. Hill_) _Jacket illustration_ _Geraldine Farrar_ (_From a recent photograph by Victor Georg_) _Frontispiece_ _Miss Farrar as a Little Girl in Melrose_ 2 _Mr. and Mrs. Sydney D. Farrar_ 4 _Miss Farrar and her First Singing Teacher, Mrs. Long_ 8 _A Young Girl with a Phenomenal Soprano Voice_ 12 _Growing up_ 16 _The Goose Girl and her Flock_ 22 _Calvé as "Carmen"_ 24 _Jean de Reszke_ 26 _Emma Thursby_ 28 _Melba as "Marguerite"_ 30 _Miss Farrar and her Mother_ 32 _Dr. Holbrook Curtis_ 36 _Maurice Grau_ 38 _Five Well-known Parts_ 42 _Camille Saint-Saëns_ 46 _"I spent the Summer in Brittany"_ 50 _The Royal Opera House, Berlin_ 52 _The Kaiser_ 54 _"My Third Season opened in 'Traviata'"_ 56 _At Frau von Rath's_ 60 _Lilli Lehmann_ 62 _The Crown Prince of Germany_ 64 _Cécile, Crown Princess of Germany, and her Children_ 66 _Massenet_ 68 _Marconi_ 70 _Caruso_ 72 _King Oscar of Sweden_ 74 _"Sans Gêne"_ 80 _"La Tosca"_ 82 _Wolf-Ferrari_ 84 _Leaving Berlin_ 86 _Mark Twain_ 90 _"Madame Butterfly"_ 92 _David Belasco_ 94 _Sarah Bernhardt_ 96 _"As Pretty a Flock of Birds as one could find"_ 100 _As the Goose Girl in "Königskinder"_ 102 _Kate Douglas Wiggin_ 104 _Miss Farrar and Caruso in "Julian"_ 106 _As "Carmen"_ 108 _Work and play in California_ 110 _Making New Friends in the Movies_ 112 _Miss Farrar and Mr. Tellegen_ (_Photograph Reproduced by courtesy of the International Film Service, inc._) 114 GERALDINE FARRAR THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN SINGER CHAPTER I MY LIFE AS A CHILD I believe that a benevolent Fate has had watch over me. Some have called it luck; some have spoken of the hard work and the many years of study; others have cited my career as an instance of American pluck and perseverance. But deep down in my heart I feel much has been directed by Fate. This God-sent gift of song was bestowed upon me for some purpose, I know not what. It may fail me to-morrow, to-night; at any moment something may mar the delicate instrument, and then all the perseverance, pluck, study, and luck in the world will not restore it to me. If early in life I dimly sensed this insecurity, yet always have I gone onward and onward, eager for that which Fate had in store for me, and accepting gladly those rewards and opportunities which in the course of my career have been popularly referred to as "Farrar's luck." Yet do not think that I waited in idleness to see what Fate would bring. From the days of my earliest recollection I have labored unceasingly to attain the goal which I believed and hope Destiny had marked out for me. My mother tells me that before I was five I had already shown strong musical tendencies. By the time I was ten I had visions of studying abroad. At the age of twelve I had heard the music of almost the entire grand opera repertoire. By the time I was sixteen I was studying in Paris. My earliest memories take me back to my home town, Melrose, Massachusetts, a small but very attractive city not far from Boston. I can recall a large room with an open fireplace and flames flashing from a log fire into which I spent many hours gazing, trying to conjure up strange and fanciful shapes and figures. From the fireplace, so my mother tells me, I would stroll to the great, old-fashioned square piano in the corner, and, standing on tiptoe, would strum upon the keys. I suppose I was two or three years old at the time, yet it seems to me that I was striving to give expression musically to the strange shapes and figures suggested by the fire and by my vivid imagination. [Illustration: A LITTLE GIRL IN MELROSE] Hereditary influences must have helped to shape my musical career. My mother and father both sang in the First Universalist Church of Melrose. Mother's father, Dennis Barnes, of Melrose, had been a musician, and had organized a little orchestra which played on special occasions. He gave violin lessons and composed, and there is a tradition that in his boyhood days he learned to play the violin from an Italian fiddler, and afterward constructed his own instrument, pulling hairs from the tail of an old white horse to make the bow. My father, Sydney D. Farrar, owned a store in Melrose when I was born. In the summer time he played baseball with a local amateur team with such success that, when I was two years old, he was engaged by the Philadelphia National League Baseball Club as first baseman. He was a professional ball-player with the Philadelphia team for several years. Yet during the winters he was always in Melrose, looking after business. Both he and my mother were very fond of music, singing every week in the church quartet and sometimes at concerts. The house in which I was born is still standing, a large, old-fashioned building on Mount Vernon Street, Melrose, which my father rented from the Houghton estate. It is next door to the Blake house, a well-known local landmark. Most of my early life was spent in this house, although subsequently we moved twice to occupy other houses in the neighborhood. My mother says that I was a happy baby, crooning and humming to myself, singing when other babies usually cry. She says that the familiar airs of the barrel organs, which were played in the street every day, were all added to my repertoire in due time, correct as to melody, although I was too young to enunciate properly. My mother did not think it out of the ordinary for her baby to be so musically inclined, young as I was. I was her first and only child. When I was three years old I sang in my first church concert. My childish voice rose up bravely; and my mother distinctly remembers that I had perfect self-possession and never showed the slightest sign of stage fright. When my song was finished, and the kind applause had subsided, I stepped to the edge of the platform and spoke to her down in the front row. "Did I do it well, mamma?" I asked, not at all disconcerted while every one laughed. I cannot remember the time when I did not intend to sing and act. As soon as I was a little older it was decided that I should take piano lessons. [Illustration: MR. AND MRS. SYDNEY D. FARRAR] But at once I made strenuous objection to the necessary restraint, an objection which in after years manifested itself in much that I attempted. I could not force myself to study according to rule or tradition. I wanted to try out things my own way, according to impulse, just when and how the spirit within me moved. I could not drudge at scales, and therefore found the lessons irksome. I preferred to improvise upon the piano, and I had a strange fondness for playing everything upon the black keys. "Why do you use only the black keys?" my mother asked me once. "Because the white keys seem like angels and the black keys like devils, and I like devils best," I replied. It was the soft half-tones of the black keys which fascinated me, and to this day I prefer their sensuous harmony to that of the more brilliant "angels." My mother offered me a tricycle--one of those weird three-wheeled vehicles in vogue at the time--if I would learn my piano lessons according to rule; but I had all too little patience and my father gave me the tricycle anyhow, as well as a pony later. These were some of my few amusements. In fact, I cared little for child's play at any time in my early youth, and nothing for outdoor sports. I spent most of my time with books and music, or playing with animals. Among my animal friends was a large Newfoundland dog. One day my mother came into the back yard and found me trying to make him act as a horse, attached by a rough harness to an improvised plough I had made of wood to dig up the back garden. I loved dogs, and once my mother had me photographed seated on a large painted wooden dog. Another childish amusement was to put fantastic costumes on the cats and pretend that they were actors or actresses. In time there were added to the cats and dog a chameleon, a pair of small alligators, guinea-pigs, rabbits, a bullfinch, and a robin with a broken wing. I was passionately fond of flowers as well, and my own small garden was a source of pride and pleasure. The world of make-believe was becoming very real to me by this time. I dramatized everything. I had the utmost confidence in my choice to become a great singer, for at all times I was busy with music, either alone or with my mother. It did not occur to me that I could possibly fail in achieving my object, and yet I was so sincere and felt so impelled to try to "touch the stars" that I do not believe it could be called conceit. Young as I was, I felt that with my song I could soar to another world and revel in poetry and music. CHAPTER II THE DRAMATIC IMPULSE At five I was sent to school. Among my teachers in the Grove Street School, Melrose, was Miss Alice Swett, who remains a dear, good friend to this day. She was ever kind and sympathetic to me, and I always loved her, although I was often rebellious and unmanageable. My own reckless nature, impatient at restraint, could never endure the order and confinement of the classroom. The dynamic energy, which has suffered little curb in the passing of years, was even then a characteristic to be reckoned with; displays of lively temper were not infrequent, but the method of punishment at an isolated desk in view of the entire class was far too enjoyable to serve as a correction for my ebullient spirits and was abruptly discontinued. Miss Swett was my teacher for several years. While her affection and trust never wavered, I doubt if she ever quite understood the harum-scarum girl in her charge. [Illustration: MISS FARRAR AND MRS. LONG, HER FIRST SINGING TEACHER] Only the other day, visiting me in my New York home and commenting upon some unconventional act of mine, she sighed and said: "Geraldine, where are you going to end?" "Well, I may brush the gallows in the wild flight of my career," I replied laughingly, "but I'll never be really hanged." Those years at the Grove Street School, when I was developing from childhood into young girlhood, were full of excitement, romance, and expectations. But I looked upon them as a trying period which had to be endured before I could devote myself entirely to my ambition. I was full of both temper and temperament, and an unlimited supply of high spirits which manifested themselves in various unusual ways--singing and acting, idealizing myself as many of the heroines whose gracious images intoxicated my imagination. At times I walked on air, and always my head was filled with dreams and hopes of this marvelous career. It was at this time that I wrote a play, "Rapunzel of the Golden Hair," based upon an old fairy story. As usual I wished always to be the heroine, yet Fate had not bestowed the necessary golden locks upon me. My dark hair was worn short, and I must have looked much like an impish boy. Then, my dramatic vision had soulful eyes and an angelic expression. But instead of looking like an angel I was more like a gypsy at the distressing gosling stage, too undeveloped; yet I dreamed of the times when I would appear before immense audiences as the beautiful heroine of my dreams and hold them fascinated by my song and personality. I always had the utmost faith in a certain power of magnetism; it seemed as though from my youngest days I felt that I could influence others, and often I experimented just to see what effects I could produce. The impulse to dramatize everything found an opportunity, when I was about ten years old, in the arrival in town of the brother of a girl friend. This boy, slightly older than I, had been educated in England and had brought back exquisite manners and an English accent that greatly impressed the young ladies of my class. I need hardly mention the fact that these attributes were looked upon with contempt by the masculine element, who had no small measure of derision for the youthful Chesterfield. I had cared little for and never encouraged boy sweethearts, but this youngster's exclusive admiration did arouse my interest. I felt flattered for a short time. But alas! he was unmusical to a degree, and companionship suddenly terminated, on my side, when I found that he was to be neither subjugated by my singing nor thrilled by my acting. One day I rebuffed him when he tried to walk home with me after school, offering to carry my books. Puzzled, he made a formal call on my mother, doubtless with a view to a reconciliation, and asked permission to accompany me as usual. My mother laughed and told him to ask me. "I have asked Miss Geraldine," he said sadly; "but she does not seem to care for my attentions." A few days later he went skating, the ice broke, and he was drowned. Instantly I became a widow. Drama--real drama--had come into my life, and with all the feeling of an instinctive actress I played my rôle. I dressed in black; abandoned all gayeties; went to and from school mopping my eyes with a black-bordered handkerchief; and the other boys and girls stood aside in silence as I passed, leaving me alone with my grief. For six weeks I played the tragedy; and then in the twinkling of an eye the mood, in which I had been genuinely serious, passed away. In life this young boy had meant absolutely nothing to me; in death he became a dramatic possibility which I utilized unconsciously as an outlet for my emotion. I was not pretending; I was terribly in earnest. I actually believed in my grief. Who can say that it was "only acting"? A temper, which I regret to confess time has not very much chastened, came to the front in my school days, to the dismay of my mother. In 1892, when I was ten years old, the city of Melrose held a carnival and celebration to commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America. Floats were planned to represent the thirteen original States. The selection of the school girl to impersonate Massachusetts fell to my class in the Grove Street School, and I was anxious for this honor, not only because of the personal glory and prominence, but because I really believed that I could impersonate Massachusetts better than any other girl in the class! Well, I did appear as Massachusetts, and, with the other "twelve States," was driven through the streets of Melrose, mounted on the float, bearing the flag of the nation. But two girls in the school, who had voted against me in the election, watched me from afar with swollen and blackened eyes; I had struck them in a moment of quick anger because their choice had been against me. [Illustration: A YOUNG GIRL WITH A PHENOMENAL SOPRANO VOICE] The following winter, while many of the boys and girls were skating, a boy of twelve or thirteen, named Clarence, annoyed me exceedingly by trying to trip me with his hockey stick. I warned him three times that he "had better let me alone," but he persisted in his persecution. After the third time, I skated to shore, picked up my umbrella, carefully tore three of the steel ribs from it and, with these as a whip, I thrashed Clarence. Clarence "sat" with discomfort for some days, and I believe his mother seriously contemplated making a police charge against me for beating him. This temper--or temperament--often found expression at home in moods, when for hours, sometimes days, I wouldn't break silence. If any one interfered with or spoke to me during these moments I felt just as though some one were combing my nerves the wrong way with a fine, grating comb. My mother was wise enough to leave me alone in my intense irritability and depression. She appreciated the extremes of my nature, which were somewhat like the well-known little girl of our childhood rhymes: "When she was good she was very, very good, And when she was bad she was horrid." I fear, at times, I was very, very horrid. But I planned a danger signal! One day I came home with a pair of most distinctive black-and-white checked stockings, the most hideous things one can imagine. "Mother," I said, "when I wear these stockings I want to be let alone." Thus it was an understood thing that no one should speak to me or notice me in the least while these horrors adorned me. Perhaps after a few hours, or a day, I would go up the back stairs, change my stockings--and the sun would shine again. It was at this time that I was the victim of an accident which resulted in a neat bit of surgery. My mother and I were spending a summer in the little village of Sandwich, New Hampshire. I was crazy to carve a small horse out of wood, and went down to the woodshed in the rear of the country house where we were staying, armed with a hatchet and followed by an admiring youngster from the village. The hatchet was very sharp. My experience in carving wooden horses was limited. Suddenly the hatchet came down and clipped a tiny bit off the extreme ends of my left thumb and forefinger. I screamed with agony and cried in amazement as the poor little bleeding tips of my fingers fell to the floor, but the country boy, with wonderful presence of mind, picked them up, and keeping them warm in his closed hand, ran with me at full speed to the nearest doctor. Fortunately, he happened to be at home. When the village boy showed him the wounded hand and the tiny bleeding bits of finger, he clamped them instantly on the fingers where they belonged, put on ointments, and bound them tight with bandages. This marvelous surgery, without a stitch being taken, actually was successful; the fingers healed, and now only a slight scar remains. I regret to say that this physician, whose presence of mind thus saved my fingers from being permanently mutilated, is entirely unknown to me now. Some few years ago, in Boston, I told this story in an interview, and a physician wrote me from some other city that he was the man who had saved my fingers for me. I wrote and thanked him for his kindness toward a little girl; but his letter was mislaid and destroyed, so that even now I do not know his name. Wherever he is, however, he will always have my thanks and warmest admiration. Finally, the time came for me to enter the Melrose High School. I objected seriously to the further routine of public schooling, as I wished to study only music. But both my father and mother insisted; so I began the study of languages. I was intensely interested in mythology, history, and literature, but I hated mathematics. I always preferred to count on my fingers rather than to use my brain for such merely mechanical feats as adding or multiplying figures. In the study of languages I soon found that my teachers were excellent grammarians, but I pleaded that I wanted to learn to talk and not merely to conjugate. I took a supplementary course in literature, and well remember the most important incident when I competed for the prize. I was quite sure my essay would win. In fancy I had already rehearsed the pretty speech in which I should thank the committee for the honor conferred on me. But the prize went to some one else. My anger was sudden and hot. Then and there I made up my mind that if ever I could not be first in what I attempted, I would drop it at once. I believed my material was best and deserved the prize, and I was hurt at not conquering before an admiring and enthusiastic audience! [Illustration: GROWING UP] Thus I early learned that maybe I could not always win, could not always be first; that perseverance must aid natural talents; and that it is cowardly to drop a thing when at first you don't succeed. The sting of adverse criticism may often prove the best of tonics! I have since found it so. CHAPTER III I RESOLVE TO SING CARMEN Each spring in Melrose there was a May Carnival. One of the features of the carnival in 1894, when I was twelve years old, was a pageant of famous women impersonated by local talent. I was selected to represent Jenny Lind and was told by the committee that I must sing "Home, Sweet Home," but with characteristic disregard for the expected tradition I decided to sing an aria in Italian first. The prima donna of my dreams would naturally dazzle her hearers with a selection in some foreign tongue, and then graciously respond to the clamorous multitude with a simple ballad. I had this stage effect quite planned in my mind. I didn't know a word of Italian; but studied one song by myself from "Faust"--Siebel's song which Scalchi used to sing in the old days and one seldom heard now. My Italian may have been incomprehensible to a native, certainly it did not disconcert Melrosians; my _aplomb_ was richly rewarded by numerous recalls, just as I had dared to hope, and "Home, Sweet Home" was given with due seriousness. I was happy and excited; I was "arriving" at last! Also I wore my first low-neck dress. Incidentally, this episode in the Melrose Town Hall is made vivid in my memory by two notable happenings. The first is--shades of vanity!--that I wore a new pair of perfectly lovely shoes that were too tight for me (but looked so nice); so, after singing the encore, I was obliged to retire behind a stout lady on the stage and take them off. When the carnival was over, I found to my distress that I could not get them on again, and I walked home in my stocking feet! The second episode of this day really marked a turning point in my career. A friend who heard me sing happened to be a pupil of Mrs. J. H. Long, the best-known singing teacher in Boston at that time, and this friend insisted that I must go into Boston and sing for Mrs. Long. I was tremulous with joy (still in my stocking feet), and my mother and I--breathless--told my father the news that arrangements were to be made for me to sing at last before a real singing teacher! My father eyed us and shook his head thoughtfully, looking at my mother as though to say: "She's encouraging the child in all this tomfoolery." For, while he himself had a splendid natural voice and loved music and was proud of my childish achievements, I doubt if at that time he could foresee the practical side of a musical career. But my mother and I were heart and soul for the idea, and sing I would and must. Finally came the "day of days," and it poured. Alas for the favorable impression I had hoped to create! My hair had been tightly rolled in lead all night to obtain the desired "crimps"; I hadn't closed an eye from the discomfort and nervousness; and here was the fateful hour at hand, with no vestige of a "crimp," my face pale with excitement, though I pinched my cheeks cruelly to make the "roses" come, and my muslin frock out of the question in such weather. I felt like a veritable Cinderella in my plain, dark suit. However, off we started, half an hour's ride on the train. What I suffered in apprehension; how dizzy I felt, and what a queer feeling I had in the pit of my stomach! I could have wept from the tension. Could this drooping young person be the erstwhile very confident embryo prima donna? Mrs. Long, of fond memory, put me at once at my ease with her kindly manner. Her great brown eyes looked into mine and inspired me with such confidence that soon I was warbling as freely as if I were at home alone. I no longer heeded the rain, my appearance, or my surroundings. To my delight I was accepted at once as a pupil, and it is to this excellent and thorough teacher that I can give thanks for proper guidance in my early years. My aversion and distaste for the drudgery of scales and routine manifested itself quickly, but Mrs. Long knew the best arguments for my rebellious little soul, and, as I really did wish to become a great and noble singer, I worked as faithfully at my tasks as I could. Meanwhile I began to sing occasionally in the Congregational Church in Melrose. My mother from this time kept a scrapbook of newspaper notices concerning me, for I was now beginning to become known as a local celebrity. The first clipping in my mother's scrapbook is from the "Melrose Journal" of May 21, 1895, and is as follows:-- Miss Geraldine Farrar, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. S. D. Farrar, has a voice of great power and richness. Many who heard her for the first time, at the Vesper service last Sunday afternoon, were greatly surprised. She is only thirteen years of age, but has a future of great promise, and it is believed that Melrose will some day be proud of her attainments in the world of music. As a result of the church singing and the fact that I was actually studying in Boston under the famous Mrs. Long, I was invited to sing at my first regular concert. The programme, carefully preserved by my mother, shows that it was organized by Miss Eudora F. Parkhurst in aid of the piano fund for the Melrose Highlands Congregational Vestry and that it took place on Wednesday evening, January 15, 1896, in the Town Hall of Melrose. I sang two numbers, "Non conosci il bel suol," from "Mignon" (I note my Italian had improved), and Auguste's "Bird on the Wing." Of this interesting event, my first public appearance in concert, the "Melrose Journal" of the next day said:-- Miss Eudora Parkhurst's concert in aid of the piano fund of the Highland Congregational Church, given in the Town Hall Wednesday evening, attracted a small audience. Miss Parkhurst, who is a very young lady and herself a musician of considerable ability, put a great deal of work into the concert and its details, and it is to be regretted that it could not have been better patronized. Miss Geraldine Farrar was the leading attraction, rendering her two solos with great confidence and ability. For her first number she sang "Non conosci il bel suol," from "Mignon," rendering the difficult music with surprising ease and fidelity, receiving a recall. Her second number, "Bird on the Wing," was also well received. The Alpine Quartet, of Woburn, Miss Cora Cummings, banjo soloist, Miss Welma Cummings and Miss Parkhurst, violinists, and Miss Bessie Adams, reciter, were the other attractions. Mr. Grant Drake presided at the piano as accompanist. [Illustration: THE GOOSE GIRL AND HER FLOCK] I find in my personal notes of comment on this interesting programme that I disliked the banjo as an instrument, though Miss Cummings played well, and that Mr. Drake, the pianist, was "very nice." Even in those days I was given to analysis. My success at this recital led directly to another public appearance--February 5, 1896--in the Y.M.C.A. Hall at Melrose, at a concert given by Miss Jennie Mae Spencer, a Boston contralto, through whose friendship and advice I had gone to study with Mrs. Long. This was the first time my name appeared in large type as one of the principal singers, and I was greatly pleased. This was the first paying professional appearance I ever made; for singing one number and a duet with Miss Spencer I received the magnificent sum of ten dollars. But this concert called me to the attention of the music critics of Boston, and the critic of the "Boston Times" wrote:-- Miss Geraldine Farrar is a young girl who has a phenomenal soprano voice and gives promise of becoming a great singer. My marginal criticism on this concert programme shows that Mr. J. C. Bartlett, the tenor, was "fine"; Miss Bell Temple, reader, was "good"; Mr. Wulf Fries, the 'cellist, was "elegant"; and Mr. Drake, the pianist, was "nice," as usual. These two concerts were followed by further careful study under Mrs. Long, and then at last came the eventful night when I made my real début in Boston at the annual recital given by her pupils. I shall never forget the date, Tuesday evening, May 26, 1896. I was fourteen at the time, having celebrated my birthday in February. The recital took place in Association Hall, and I wore a simple little white dress with green trimmings. On the programme of this memorable event, carefully pasted in a scrapbook by my mother, I find this comment written in my own hand: "This is what I made my début in, very calm and sedate, not the least nervous." Following my critical tendencies at the other concerts, I find the programme of this first recital filled with marginal comments. Most of my remarks were very flattering to my fellow pupils. Concerning Miss Leveroni, who afterward studied abroad and returned to America to sing with Henry Russell's grand opera company, I wrote: "Very nice, gestures natural." Others were "pretty good," "very fine," or "very nervous," and only one pupil was criticized as "Bad, off key." [Illustration: CALVÉ AS CARMEN] The Boston newspapers always gave extended notices to the recitals of Mrs. Long's pupils, and this was no exception. I was mentioned favorably, but it remained for the dear old "Melrose Reporter" to give me a most extraordinary and almost prophetic criticism. I quote from the newspaper clipping so carefully preserved by my mother:-- The Cavatina from "Il Barbiere," sung by Miss Geraldine Farrar, will interest those in Melrose who were not able to attend the recital. For many months musical people have waited the gradual development of this phenomenal voice, a God-given power which the child has sent forth with a freedom, compass, and quality that has demanded the admiration of our best Boston critics. Notwithstanding the florid and extreme difficulties of the Cavatina, the execution and reserved force, absolutely fresh and firm for each attack, was a triumph and a revelation of tone power. She sang without notes, and embraced the beautiful flowers showered upon her, as unconscious of her success as though she had stood among her mates and told a simple story. With hopeful anticipation, her many loving friends will follow her future which seems already unfolding, and as the child glides to womanhood, our little twinkling star may rise by and by from dear Melrose, and become resplendent in the musical firmament, where all the world will love to listen and do her homage. The first flowers sent to me at this recital, carefully dried and pressed, are still one of my dearest souvenirs; and I also treasure carefully the first card of good wishes sent to me on that occasion. It bears the carefully engraved name of "Mr. John E. Pilling," and underneath is written: "May success always attend you." I hope Mr. Pilling, if he ever sees these lines, will accept the long-deferred thanks of the little Melrose girl to whom he sent such an encouraging message. In my last year of study under Mrs. Long I reveled for the first time in the joys of grand opera. That winter in Boston, the Castle Square Opera Company, an excellent organization managed by Henry W. Savage, was presenting grand opera in English at the old Castle Square Theater. The leading singers were J. K. Murray and his wife, Clara Lane. I became a subscriber to this excellent company's performances on Wednesday matinées. To me these matinées were meat and drink; all performances were well supported by music-lovers in the vicinity. It was Clara Lane whom I first heard sing "Carmen," a rôle which has recently figured so successfully in my own repertoire at the Metropolitan in New York. During these enjoyable weeks I heard this company sing most of the grand opera repertoire, in English, and I was thrilled and fascinated. [Illustration: JEAN DE RESZKE] Then came another great and unexpected joy. The Maurice Grau Grand Opera Company, from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, visited Boston for a spring season at Mechanics Hall. My mother decided that I must hear Calvé sing "Carmen." The cast included Jean de Reszke, then at the height of his success; Emma Eames, Saleza, Pol Plançon as the toreador, and of course the wonderful Calvé. I completely lost my head over this remarkable performance. For days and nights I reveled in the memories of that magnificent representation. This, then, was the visualization of all my dreams of years. This triumph I had witnessed was that toward which all my hopes, fears, and prayers had been directed. This wonderful creature was what I hoped--nay, intended--to become. And then and there was born within me a fervent and earnest decision that, come what may, I too must some day sing "Carmen" with the most wonderful cast of grand opera artists in the world, at the Metropolitan in New York. CHAPTER IV MY FIRST DAYS IN MY DREAM WORLD My meeting with Jean de Reszke is stamped vividly in my memory, since he was the first personage from that beautiful dream world of opera that it was my privilege to meet. Music lovers of America need no reminder of his tremendous vogue as a man and his wonderful career as an artist. I had the opportunity to sing for him through Jehangier Cola, a Hindu professor who at the time was interesting Boston society with his Oriental teachings. Just how I met him I cannot recall, but he had personal acquaintance with many of the artists, both here and abroad; and so one rainy morning (dismal weather always seemed to accompany such ventures) my mother and I, escorted by Professor Cola, descended at the Parker House where the de Reszke brothers, Jean and Edouard, were stopping. [Illustration: EMMA THURSBY] I remember that I played my own accompaniment and sang rather indifferently; the inspiring "mood" was not to be commanded. Mr. de Reszke listened politely, probably having been bored often by many such young aspirants, and gave me sensible advice that could apply to the average girl of intelligence and enthusiastic musical ambitions. I recall that I listened attentively and seriously, quite realizing that Mr. de Reszke could hardly glean other than the most superficial of impressions after hearing a stranger for half an hour, and then hardly at her best. Upon his advice to go to New York and consult a teacher of whom he had heard excellent reports, my mother and I made plans for such an immediate change. My father listened in passive amazement, but acquiesced, as he always has, in the belief that whatever emotional tornado should overtake me, my mother's steadying influence would maintain the necessary equilibrium. I shall never forget my excitement and curiosity upon our arrival in New York. The first thing I wanted to see was the Metropolitan Opera House. The great yellow building at the corner of Broadway and Thirty-ninth Street seemed to promise all kinds of wonderful possibilities and the fulfillment of my dreams. Little thrills of hope made my heart sing and my spirits soar as I looked at the billboards and whispered to myself: "Some day I _will_, I _must_, sing there. My name shall adorn those walls and spell enchantment to the passing crowd." I walked on air, absorbed in the rosy future I was planning so confidently for myself. The teacher who had been recommended to me for this visit to New York was dear old Louisa Cappiani, bless her! She who had been the teacher of many of the light-opera singers was greatly pleased at my singing, and wanted me to sign a three years' exclusive contract with her, but my mother decided that I was too young to have my future controlled in any way. The arrival of hot weather drove us to the country; so with great regret I said good-bye to Cappiani, and we started for Greenacre, Maine, and it was there that I met Miss Emma Thursby. She occupied an enviable position in New York musical circles and was recognized as an excellent authority on voice. She was kind enough to say that she would be glad to have me study with her when she returned to New York, and so it happened that the following autumn found us back there, and I commenced my studies with her. [Illustration: MELBA AS MARGUERITE] That winter of 1897-98 was full of excitement and thrills for me. In addition to my studies with Miss Thursby I went to the opera and theaters as often as I could afford it. And what a whirlwind of emotions it was! Melba in "Faust," "Romeo and Juliet," and "Lucia"; Calvé, the peerless "Carmen"; magnificent Lehmann (later to become my revered teacher and dear friend); the incomparable Jean de Reszke; handsome Pol Plançon; sprightly Campanari in the "Barber"--memories crowd in upon me!--not forgetting the versatile Bauermeister of all rôles. I rarely had a seat, but was one of the army of "standees," eager, enthusiastic, oblivious to all save the dream world these wonderful beings unfolded before me. There was one upon whom I lavished all the ardor of my youthful, heroine-worshiping years--our own lovely Nordica, who became my ideal for beauty, accomplishment, and perseverance. Later I was to owe to her friendship and that of her husband, Zoltan Döme, the valuable and timely advice that diverted my path from a provincial theater in Italy to the magnificent Royal Opera in Berlin, and subsequent friendships that have proved so potent as well as so spectacular a feature in my career. Among the plays which I saw that winter were "The Devil's Disciple," with Richard Mansfield in the star rôle; Julia Marlowe in "The Countess Valeska," and Ada Rehan in "The Country Girl" and as Lady Teazle in "The School for Scandal" (how I did love her as Lady Teazle!)--all wonderful plays for a schoolgirl still in her teens. It was at this time also that I first met Melba, who was in New York, and it was Miss Thursby who took me to sing for her. Much of my former nervousness had worn away. I had worked hard and was anxious for Melba's approval, and her impartial judgment as to the advisability of immediate study abroad. That day, too, the sun was radiant, I was in excellent humor, and, all in all, everything pointed toward a happy and favorable meeting. I remember Melba's enthusiasm and generosity with gratitude, though I have not seen her these many years to tell her so. I sang unusually well, to my own accompaniment, and she was so genuinely interested as to propose that I should at once sing for her manager, C. A. Ellis, of Boston, of whose opera company, in association with Walter Damrosch, she was the scintillating luminary. So a few days later my mother and I joined her there at a hotel which was the temporary home of the songbirds. Perhaps you can picture my delight. I floated in fairyland; to lunch and dine in the intoxicating proximity of these wonderful people; to watch them, like gods and goddesses, deign to descend to the earth of ordinary mortals--it was like living in a dream. [Illustration: MISS FARRAR AND HER MOTHER] The eventful day came when I finally sang for Mr. Ellis. It was in the Boston Theater, and Melba, Mr. Damrosch, and many others were present. I was a little anxious at the idea of singing in such a large, empty auditorium, and feared that my voice would not be heard to advantage in such an enormous place; yet, after the ordeal was over, Madame Melba took me in her arms and embraced me with enthusiasm and affection. She predicted such splendid things as even I scarcely dared hope. I was elated and grateful indeed at the general commendation, for Mr. Ellis offered me an engagement, and that night, at the hotel, Melba wished me to sign a contract of several years to place myself under her tutelage and appear later in opera subject to her advice. My dreams were fast becoming realities. But, as usual, my mother's good sense dominated the situation. While thoroughly appreciative of the advantages that Melba could offer me in her generous impulse, my mother felt that I was far too young to restrict my actions and bind my future career in any manner. Besides, with all the excitement of the winter, my intense emotional nature and the interest I had aroused in musical circles, she wisely thought it best for me to be withdrawn for a time from this all-too-stimulating atmosphere, which might later prove unwholesome and detrimental to serious study. In consequence, I was placed in the household and under the guidance of a dear friend, Mrs. Perkins, in Washington, District of Columbia, to continue other studies in addition to my singing, while I was impatiently waiting to "grow up." In the spring of 1898, when the war spirit spread over the country like wildfire, my mother and I were taken to the White House one pleasant afternoon to call upon Mrs. McKinley. The President's wife received us in the Blue Room, while Mr. McKinley was occupied in his private office with engrossing business connected with the war. Suddenly the official news came of Dewey's great victory at Manila. The President, with the official dispatches in his hand, entered the room where his devoted wife was surrounded by a sympathetic group of friends. In turn we were each presented to Mr. McKinley, and then, thrilled by the announcement of the victory, Mrs. McKinley asked me to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner." There was a piano in the room, for Mrs. McKinley was intensely devoted to music. I played my own accompaniment, and, stirred by the glorious news and inspired by the presence of the President and his wife and the compliment of being asked to sing the national anthem in the White House, I sang with all the ardor and intensity of which my nature was capable. I have sung "The Star-Spangled Banner" many times since, but only once under such inspiring circumstances, when, at that dramatic moment after the tragedy of the Lusitania, I called upon the crowded house at the Metropolitan Opera (a benefit performance of "Carmen") to join me in our national hymn. Garbed in Columbia's robes, with two Red Cross nurses at my side, the tableau awoke thunderous applause and the great house joined in the singing with a will! CHAPTER V I REFUSE TO SING AT THE METROPOLITAN Through Miss Thursby I met Dr. Holbrook Curtis, the eminent New York throat specialist, and became his patient; his unfailing, kindly interest and loyal friendship did much for me. One of the amusing events of that early spring of 1898 was a society puppet show which Dr. Curtis staged in New York. There were tableaux and songs and recitations, all for charity, and then came the puppet show itself, in which I appeared as Calvé in a "Carmen" costume. Imagine a long stretch of painted canvas across the stage, with the costumes painted grotesquely beneath openings through which the performers' heads appeared. Dr. Curtis himself assumed the rôle of Maurice Grau, director of the Metropolitan, and his make-up was splendid; various other amateurs impersonated Melba, Jean de Reszke, and other stars. The idea of the skit was to show the trouble Mr. Grau had in managing his company of stars. There was much amusing dialogue, and I remember my complaint, as Calvé, was that I was asked to sing for nothing at all-too-many benefits. [Illustration: DR. HOLBROOK CURTIS] In Dr. Curtis's office I soon afterward met Mrs. Grau, wife of the famous director, and she insisted that I should sing for her husband. It was proposed to stage a big special performance of "Mignon" at the Metropolitan, with Melba as "Philine," and a star cast, for the benefit of the families of the victims of the Maine disaster, and Mrs. Grau thought that should I please her husband he might consider the occasion a propitious one to introduce me in grand opera, as the rôle of "Mignon" was admirably suited to my youth and vocal abilities. I had studied "stage deportment" with Victor Capoul, and knew the opera backward and forward in both French and Italian. I own I was greatly tempted, and eager to make so auspicious a beginning. Such an offer to a sixteen-year-old girl, I think, would be calculated to twist any young woman's head awry. Fortunately, upon reflection, good sense intervened and saved me from what might have been a very unwise step. Granted that I made a successful appearance, at best it could be but the sensation of a few hours; and I had no mind to be a singing Cinderella for one night. When my triumph should come, if it ever did, it must be the beginning of a well-defined career, and I was far too young and ignorant to tread this difficult and dazzling path so soon. Nevertheless, Mrs. Grau made an appointment for me to sing for her husband--privately, as I thought. But when I appeared on the stage of the Metropolitan, I found him surrounded by a great many people, members of the Metropolitan Company, business associates and advisers, and others. What my emotions were when I passed in through the stage door I cannot describe. Curiously enough, this time the empty house did not intimidate, but inspired me. Perhaps I felt the encouraging shadows of the great ones hovering about me; at any rate, I sang as I believe I had never sung before. To every one's amazement I dismissed the accompanist whose laborious efforts were more of a hindrance than an aid to my "audition," and, seating myself at the piano, I continued singing to my own accompaniment, as was invariably my habit. Mr. Grau was exceedingly pleased with the promise I showed and especially predicted a brilliant future in operatic singing; but he seconded my mother's sensibly planned course for me to study more quietly, less in public view, and wait till a few years of hard work and experience had passed over my ambitious little head. As a kind afterthought he added, no doubt to soften the sting of my disappointment: "Would you like to sing in one of our Sunday night concerts?" [Illustration: MAURICE GRAU] "No, thank you, Mr. Grau," I replied. (No tame concert appearances after my imagination had been dazzled by a possible début in opera!) "But it might be valuable to you to have your name on the billboards of the Metropolitan Opera House," he urged good-naturedly. "You will see it there some day," I replied with firm conviction. He laughed, and certainly had no more reason to take me more seriously than dozens of other young "hopefuls" who dreamed of some day storming the Metropolitan doors. Quite without my knowledge or consent, various reports of this and other incidents in regard to my singing reached the newspapers, and I experienced a distinct shock when I read in the New York "Herald" the following amusing yet caustic criticism:-- If half of what Miss Geraldine Farrar's enthusiastic friends say of her vocal and dramatic talents is true, then this sixteen-year-old girl from Boston is the dramatic soprano for whom we have all been waiting these many years. With all due respect to the young lady, a lot of rubbish has been circulated as to her marvelous, not to say miraculous, vocal gifts and accomplishments, and she cannot do better than include, in the nightly prayers which all good girls say, an earnest invocation to Heaven to preserve her from her friends, that she may be saved from the results of overpraise. That Miss Farrar has a wonderful gift of song has been attested by so many discreet judges that it is doubtless true. But when alleged admirers of the young singer tack on all sorts of trimmings, such as that Madame Melba wept with joy upon hearing her, and that Madame Nordica said, "This is the voice of which I have dreamed," and that Miss Emma Thursby refused to be comforted until Miss Farrar consented to come and live with her, it is about time to add, "and then she woke up." Why not confine the stories to simple facts; that she has a remarkable voice, almost phenomenal in one of her age, which is true; that her concert successes have been extraordinary; and that, if youthful evidences hold good, she will some day assume an enviable position in grand opera? Isn't that quite enough praise without subjecting Melba to tears, disturbing Nordica's dreams, or suggesting the impossibility of comforting Miss Thursby? Miss Farrar is a handsome, gifted, and very earnest young girl, and if she has common sense as well as native talent, she will say that little nightly prayer, turn a deaf ear to the adulation of foolish friends, and attend strictly to practicing her scales. Then some day, perhaps very soon, this Boston girl will be electrifying metropolitan audiences as Mlle. Farrarini, the latest operatic comet. I was almost in tears when I read this article, tempered with kindness as it was, for the stories about Melba and Nordica had been the results of the feverish imagination of newspaper reporters who had exaggerated the truth. But the musical critic of the "Herald," who penned this prophetic and caustic comment, really did me a great service--and I thank him--for from that moment I determined upon a policy of seclusion and self-effacement; my pursuit for glory should be conducted along the lines of modesty and restraint. Alas for the miscarriage of such good intentions! Seclusion and self-effacement have hardly been synonymous with my euphonious name! CHAPTER VI PARIS The time was now rapidly approaching which was to be the turning point of my career--a trip to Europe. Up to this time I had accomplished practically all that I could hope for in America. I had studied under the best teachers in Boston and in New York. I knew much of the grand opera repertoire. I had sung in concerts and recitals. I had just turned seventeen. The necessary training for a grand-opera career was then impossible in America, and tradition decreed that foreign singers with a foreign reputation should be engaged for grand opera's holy of holies, the shining exception being our own American Nordica, then in her prime. I decided that Paris must be the next stepping-stone; but how? To study in Paris meant a great deal of money, and my father's business in Melrose, while prosperous enough for our home needs, could not meet the strain of an expensive stay abroad. It was an understood thing that when I did go, my father and mother should accompany me. The financial problem, however, seemed almost an insurmountable one. [Illustration: MANON] [Illustration: AMICA] [Illustration: NEDDA] [Illustration: ELIZABETH] [Illustration: MIMI] But once more the element of luck--or Fate--intervened just at the most critical moment. At one of the receptions given by Miss Thursby, at her home in Gramercy Park, I had met a Mrs. Kimball, of Boston. She heard me sing, and was interested in the story of my ambition to study abroad. I told her, however, that although my father was seriously considering selling his business in Melrose, we feared the proceeds would be insufficient for the course of study that seemed necessary. "I have a friend in Boston," said Mrs. Kimball, "who is interested in music and perhaps she would arrange something if you sang for her. Will you come to Boston and meet her?" Would I? The prospect was too alluring. A very few days afterward I had returned to Boston with my mother in response to a letter making an appointment for me to meet Mrs. Bertram Webb. Mrs. Webb was the widow of a former resident of Salem. She was then stopping at her beautiful home in Boston, and I sang for her. I was fortunate enough to enlist her immediate sympathy and interest, and, as I was a minor, the necessary business formalities were concluded by my parents in my behalf. My father sold his store in Melrose and realized a sum sufficient to reduce materially the amount of the first loan we had from Mrs. Webb. This sum, according to the terms of a written contract drawn up by Mrs. Webb's lawyer and duly signed by my father and mother as my legal guardians, was to be an indefinite amount, advanced as required, and to be repaid at an indefinite date when my voice should be a source of steady income. The only actual security given was that my life was insured in Mrs. Webb's favor, so that in case of my death she would be fully compensated for the risk and loss she might sustain. I am happy and proud to state that, although Mrs. Webb generously advanced, all told, a sum approximating thirty thousand dollars during the first few years of my studies in Europe, every dollar of it was repaid within two years after my return to America. Upon my mother's capable shoulders fell the difficult and not always thankful task of financing and planning for our adventurous expeditions. Thus completely shielded from money worries and material vexations, I abandoned myself to the glory of dreams. I was ready to slave in passionate devotion and enthusiasm to further the career that meant my life--to conquer in song. And so unafraid, and happy with the heart of youth, I set forth to the Old World of my dreams and hopes! We sailed from Boston late in September, 1899, on the old Leyland liner Armenian. She was a cattle boat; the passengers were merely incidental, the beef was vital. It rained the day we sailed, and it rained the day we arrived at Liverpool. London, where I spent a brief ten days, remains only a vague memory of fog and depression. I was happy to leave it behind and continue toward the wonder city of my dreams--Paris. Who can ever forget the first intoxicating impression of this queen of cities? The channel trip, the bustle of arrival at Boulogne, the fussy little foreign train tugging us unwillingly over the lovely meadows--all I retain of that is a blur. But it seems like yesterday that the spruce little conductor poked his merry face into the compartment and gurgled joyfully: "Par-ee!" Every nerve in my body tingles now when I recall the excitement of it all. We drove first to a small family hotel which had been recommended by some of our fellow passengers on the Armenian. I at once took charge of the party, and, in a halting harangue in French, told the landlady what rooms we wanted and how much we wished to pay. "If you will only tell me in English," said the landlady helplessly, speaking my native tongue perfectly, "I can understand you better." After this crushing rebuke to my French, I let my mother arrange all details. We remained but a few days here--only until we could install ourselves in an apartment in the Latin Quarter, very near the lovely gardens of the Luxembourg and close to the omnibus stations. It cost then three sous to ride on top of a bus--"_l'impérial_," as it is called--and six sous to ride inside. By constant patronage of _l'impérial_ during pleasant weather, it was possible to lay aside enough for a drive Sunday in the Bois. In those days there was no taximeter system to disconcert, and if one found an amiable _côcher_ (and there have been many, bless them!), it was quite within the reach of the modest purse of a grand-opera aspirant thus to join the gay throng of smart Parisian turnouts. The first thing of importance was to search for a good teacher. While I had letters to various well-known instructors I never used them, preferring to be judged on my merits. At last one day I called upon Trabadello, the Spaniard who had numbered among his pupils Sybil Sanderson and Emma Eames. I studied with Trabadello from October, 1899, until the spring of 1900; and, to dispose of unauthorized assertions, I may add that Trabadello is the only vocal teacher I had in Paris. [Illustration: PHOTO OF CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS WITH HAND-WRITTEN DEDICATION À MADEMOISELLE GÉRALDINE FARRAR SOUVENIR DE L'ANCÊTRE MONTE-CARLO 1906 C. SAINT-SAËNS] I also had a course of _mise-en-scène_, or preparation for the stage, with an excellent teacher, Madame Martini, an artist of repute and an excellent instructor in the traditional sense of the word. For instance, Madame would say: "After ten bars, lift the right hand; two more, then point it at the villain; walk slowly toward the hero; raise your eyes at the twentieth bar toward heaven; and conclude your aria with a sweeping gesture of denial, sinking gently to the floor." Alas, my progress was not brilliant along such lines. I could not study grimaces in the mirror; I could not walk hours following a silly chalk line, and I refused to repeat one gesture a hundred times at the same phrase or bar of music. Discussion and argument were very frequent--also tears. Nevertheless, I did learn much from so well-grounded a teacher, and often have occasion to think pleasantly of her first lessons with my rather difficult nature. In the spring I heard that Nordica was in Paris with her husband, Mr. Zoltan Döme. I was in a fever of anxiety to see her, and have her hear me sing since studying abroad. But how could I find her? By chance I heard that she drove daily in the Bois; so I persuaded a friend who had a very elegant equipage to invite me of an afternoon to drive, so that by some happy chance I might speak to Nordica. Around my neck I wore a talisman which I had worn for many years--a little silver locket for which I had paid two dollars in Melrose when I was a schoolgirl. At that time my cash allowance for pin money was twenty-five cents a week. One day I saw this locket in a jewelry store window. I said nothing, but saved enough to buy the simple trinket, which I wore as a talisman, with Nordica's picture in it. Naturally, therefore, I wore this in the hope that it would bring me luck in my search for her, and soon to my joy I saw the famous singer approaching in her open carriage, with Mr. Döme. Of course, she did not recognize me, but as she drove by I stood up and threw the precious locket into her lap to attract her attention. Mr. Döme picked it up, and to Nordica's amazement she recognized her own picture. While her carriage turned around, I waited on the path, and soon my idol was actually allowing me to talk with her and renewing once more the interest she had shown while I was in New York. She invited me to come and sing for her in her beautiful home in the Bois, and, when we parted, she handed back my precious talisman. "Don't throw it away again," she said with a smile. "But it has brought me such good luck!" I replied happily. Next day, and many times thereafter, I visited Madame Nordica, and both she and Mr. Döme were genuinely interested in my vocal welfare. The question of my future was discussed, and, contrary to the idea I had of going to Italy and following the usual procedure of enlisting in a provincial theater there for experience, Mr. Döme suggested my studying with a Russian-Italian, Graziani, in Berlin, whose book upon vocal study he had recently received and found unusual and beneficial. I was not at all keen upon abandoning Italy for Germany, but Madame Nordica's advice was paramount, and, armed with some nice letters from her to various friends whom she had learned to know during her triumphs in Bayreuth, we made plans to break up our Paris home. CHAPTER VII GERMANY: THE TURNING-POINT I spent that summer of 1900 uneventfully in Brittany, and in the early autumn off we started for Berlin. This was another turning-point in my career. The German capital was to further as dazzling a future as my heart could have dreamed--and with it were to come Romance, Fame and Wealth under the shadow of the Prussian eagle's wing. One of my letters from Nordica was to Frau von Rath, the charming wife of Herr Adolph von Rath, the leading banker of Berlin. Frau von Rath maintained one of the most beautiful homes in the German capital, and her social functions were attended by leading dignitaries and officials of the Court. It was no small honor, therefore, to have the _entrée_ to her receptions and to have her take an interest in the little American girl who had come to Berlin to study music. [Illustration: "I SPENT THE SUMMER IN BRITTANY"] Graziani proved to be a protégé of Frau von Rath, and through her I met this strange and wonderfully gifted man, whose early death cut short a brilliant career. He proved a remarkable teacher, and I profited by his admirable instruction throughout that first winter in Berlin. One day, in the spring of 1901, Frau von Rath asked me if I could sing in German. "No, unfortunately only in French and Italian," I replied. "I came to Berlin to study, but I never expect to sing in opera here." "Would you like to sing for the Intendant of the Royal Opera?" she asked. The Intendant of the Royal Opera in Berlin is the personal representative of the Kaiser. He has the private ear of the sovereign, and is supposed to carry out his wishes in the conduct of the Royal Opera. To please him, therefore, would be a very great and unusual triumph. Would I like to sing for him? It is easy to imagine my reply. I made my preparations accordingly. With the care which I have always bestowed upon my costumes, I ordered an elaborate blue crêpe-de-Chine evening gown, to be worn with pearls and diamonds. I carefully studied anew the waltz song from "Juliet," the aria from "Traviata," and the bird song from "Pagliacci." Suddenly, to my consternation, Frau von Rath notified me that the audience, which was to be in her ballroom, would have to be held in the afternoon instead of the evening, as some occasion at the Palace necessitated the presence of the Intendant there at night. I was desolate; but I agreed to sing, first begging Frau von Rath to draw the heavy curtains and turn on all the lights, as though for an evening function, so that I could wear my evening gown with the pearls and the diamonds. I can remember now the suppressed murmurs of "The crazy American!" when I appeared, but I obtained the compliment of immediate attention and created the effect I wished. The Intendant of the Royal Opera at that time was Count von Hochberg, a charming, courteous gentleman, who was to show me many favors afterward. He heard me through, attended by a score of Frau von Rath's friends, and then asked me gravely if I had ever sung with an orchestra. I answered truthfully: "No." "Would you like to sing with the orchestra of the Royal Opera?" he inquired. "I should be delighted," was my prompt response. "Do you sing in German?" "I never have--yet," I replied. [Illustration: THE ROYAL OPERA HOUSE, BERLIN] "Could you learn to sing in German in ten days?" he urged. "I can learn something. What shall it be?" "Will you study 'Elsa's Dream'?" "Yes--" "Then in ten days, at the Royal Opera, I will hear you again." He bowed and took his departure. Feverishly I began to study German, aided by my dear friend and teacher, Fräulein Wilcke, to whose guidance these many years I owe as excellent a German diction as any foreign or native artist possesses. When I stepped upon the stage of the great empty Königliches Opernhaus and looked down into the Director's seat, whom should I see but Dr. Karl Muck, now the Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. That was the beginning of a warm friendship which has endured to this day, for Dr. Muck was at all times kind and sympathetic during those early days in Berlin. I sang the waltz from "Romeo and Juliet," in French, the bird song from "Pagliacci," in Italian, and "Elsa's Dream," in German. I finished in absolute silence, as Count von Hochberg was almost alone in the darkened auditorium. Soon he came back to me and said:-- "In my office I have a contract with you for three years. Do you care to sign it?" "But I had no idea of singing in Berlin," I protested. "I want to sing Italian." "If I let you sing here in Italian, will you sign it?" "Here--in Berlin--sing in Italian?" I gasped. "It will be a novelty," replied Count von Hochberg. "But the people here want one. You are very much of a novelty, quite different from the stout ladies who waddle about protesting their operatic fate to spectators who find it difficult to believe in their cruel lot and youthful innocence. In you I have discovered a happy combination of voice, figure, personality, and--eyes." He was something of a cavalier, that nice Count von Hochberg, as you will see. "To secure you for my patrons I will let you sing in Italian." What could I say? It was the greatest compliment yet paid me. I glanced around the Opernhaus, hesitating. Then--I consented. The legal contract for three years was signed by my mother and father for me, as I was still under age. It was agreed that I was to sing "Faust," "Traviata," and "Pagliacci," three rôles, in Italian, but I was not to be required to sing in German until I should perfect myself in the language. [Illustration: SIGNED PHOTO OF WILHELM II OF GERMANY WITH A CHILD] Then ensued a spring and summer of great preparations, for my contract did not begin until the following autumn. We went to Lake Constance, Switzerland, to study with Graziani. I was as thin as a young girl could well afford to be, yet I worked to the full limit of my strength, for I realized that my wonderful opportunity had at last arrived. I literally floated on air that summer. Then, too, I had planned a surprise that would especially please the women: the matter of dress. There lives in Paris an artist to her finger-tips in the matter of creating stage frocks, and that wonderful woman has made every costume from head to feet that I have ever put on in the theater. She had already "combined me" such lovely things as made my heart thrill to appear in them! The night of October 15, 1901, was my début at the Royal Opera, Berlin. There was no advance notice, no presswork. The bill bore the usual three asterisks in this wise, as I was a "guest" and not a member of the company:-- MARGUERITE........... *** At the bottom of the programme, in small type, the three asterisks were repeated, and the line:-- *** MISS GERALDINE FARRAR AUS NEW YORK In the simplest of dainty blue crêpe-de-Chine frocks, with a lace bonnet over blond curls, "Marguerite" Farrar tripped engagingly down to the footlights with a shy glance of inquiry to the ardent "Faust" who commenced so successful a wooing with "May I give you my arm?"--and everybody felt at that moment how regretful "Marguerite" Farrar was, that the exigencies of the opera did not permit a courteous acceptance of so charming a support to her gateway. I remember that Dr. Muck conducted divinely; that I was very happy and self-possessed, and my mother said I looked like an angel. I had at last made my début. The following morning the criticisms were so splendid that I told my mother I would never get any more to equal them--and I did not for a long time. Instantly after my success the hammers came out. The idea of letting an American girl sing in Italian in the sacred Royal Opera House--it was preposterous! Count von Hochberg was mildly censured by the press for permitting such proceedings. Nevertheless, the fact remained that I had scored a success on my début; the audience had received favorably a "Marguerite" who was neither fat nor forty, and the newspaper critics had united in giving me a most enthusiastic verdict of approval. [Illustration: "MY THIRD SEASON OPENED IN TRAVIATA"] Naturally after such a success I expected to be called upon again very soon, but many weeks passed and still my name was not included in the published casts given out from week to week. Finally I determined to find out the reason for this neglect, so I called on Count von Hochberg in his private office at the opera. "Good-evening, Your Excellency," I remarked pleasantly. "I have just looked over the billboards and I don't see my name included in next week's repertoire." There was a moment of embarrassment, then I continued:-- "I merely wondered why I don't sing," adding, "Of course, if Berlin doesn't want me I should like to know it." Count von Hochberg murmured something about giving me an answer the next day, but I insisted I must know that night. "Very well, then, Fräulein," replied Count von Hochberg positively. "Within ten days you will sing here." Fate was ever watchful over me, and soon I was notified that "Traviata" was to be revived for me. What fun I had in composing the adorable rôle of Camille. And then, too, I was all afire with memories of the great Sarah as Marguerite Gauthier. I had _heard_ famous prima donnas in "Traviata," but few, other than the emotional Bellincioni, had ever successfully _acted_ the operatic heroine. I was allowed to eliminate much of the stilted traditional settings, and, with modern scenery and sumptuous dressing, I played this rôle so that it immediately became one of my most popular successes. In the romantic and handsome Franz Naval I had an inspiring partner. Our artistic connection was to endure many years, and we have left behind us, I can truthfully say, very beautiful memories in the hearts of our loyal German public. I particularly recall our joint successes in "Romeo," "Mignon," "Manon," "Faust," "The Black Domino," and such poetic operas. By this time rumors of the "crazy American" had spread over Berlin, together with reports that she was young, slender and, some said, beautiful. And then there were--eyes! The result was a notable increase in attendance of smart young officers and Court society. The Intendant arranged matters so that I sang quite frequently during the rest of my first season. CHAPTER VIII IMPERIAL ENCOURAGEMENT It was not until my second season at the Royal Opera that I saw or met the Kaiser. The Court had been in half-mourning during my first season, and members of the royal family had not visited the opera house. In January, 1903, the middle of my second season, a Hofmarshal from the Palace presented himself at our apartment and officially "commanded" my presence at the Palace that night. I was notified that I must wear the prescribed Court dress, either lavender or black, with gloves and no jewelry. The Hofmarshal, having delivered his message, was about to depart when I called him back. "I am very sorry," I said meekly, "but I never wear black and I never wear lavender. Neither color is becoming to me." "But it is the custom of the Court--" he began. "It is my custom," I replied firmly, "to wear what I choose when I sing, and according to my mood; and I choose to wear white. Furthermore I never wear gloves while singing." The Hofmarshal was greatly disturbed. He was afraid it would be impossible for me to be received at the Palace unless I conformed to the usual requirements. However, he would see; I would be notified. And later that afternoon came the message that "Miss Farrar could wear whatever she desired, but she must come." I wore white. My mother and I drove to the Palace together; we were formally received by various flunkies and under-attachés, and finally escorted up the magnificent staircase to the reception room just off the White Hall, where the Kaiser and the Kaiserin were with the Diplomatic Corps after dinner. At the proper moment I was announced. After I had sung, and had responded to an encore, the Kaiser arose from his place and congratulated me. He then turned and shook hands with my mother, after which we were led to the Kaiserin and formally presented to her. In turn we were made acquainted with the various notables present. [Illustration: MISS FARRAR AT FRAU VON RATH'S] That meeting was the forerunner of many pleasant social gatherings at the Palace, when mother and I were honored guests. His Majesty was exceedingly kind to us, and seemed to like to hear me sing. It was on the occasion of one of these visits to the Palace that I met the Crown Prince for the first time. He had been away at school at Bonn, and came in one evening with several of his brothers. I was naturally interested in the personality of the heir to the throne, and spoke to him at some length. I liked him at once, and found him very gay and sympathetic. One night at the opera he sat in the royal box, and between the acts, so I was told, wished to come behind the scenes to speak to me. The rule against visitors is rigidly enforced at the Royal Opera, and His Highness was so informed. He thereupon returned to the royal box. After the performance he again made an effort to call behind the scenes, but was not permitted. However, later that same evening, he sent me a hastily scribbled message written upon a card showing the Palace gardens, reading: You played very well to-night.--WILHELM. I still have the card. About this time I first met Madame Lilli Lehmann, to whose far-reaching influence I attribute much of the success which has come to me. I felt the need of the careful instruction of a master. Of course, the idol of music-loving Germany was then, as now, Lilli Lehmann. I wrote to her, asking if I could sing for her with the idea of becoming her pupil. There was no answer. Lilli, with her extensive correspondence and active life, was probably too busy to consider such a matter as a new pupil. Then my mother wrote. In reply came a very concise and businesslike communication. Yes, Lilli had received the letter from me, but, owing to my eccentric handwriting, had been unable to decipher it. My mother's penmanship was clearer, and so Lilli wrote that she would be willing to hear me sing, without promising to accept me as her pupil, however. An appointment was made for us to call at half-past nine o'clock in the morning at her home in Grunewald, half an hour's ride from Berlin, and, though the day was cold and wintry, my mother and I were there promptly on time. Beautiful Lilli Lehmann--stately and serene as a queen; with a wonderful personality which seemed naturally to dominate every presence in the room; past the meridian of life yet with an unbroken record of world achievement behind her; greatest living exponent of Mozart, of Brahms, of Liszt, of Wagner--what more can I say of her than that I approached her with the deference and respect which were her due? I was an eager and humble beginner; she of another generation. My desire to secure her as my instructor seemed almost presumptuous; yet, after hearing me sing, Lilli kindly consented to take me, and I am happy and proud to state that I have been her pupil at all times since that first meeting. [Illustration: "BEAUTIFUL LILLI LEHMANN, STATELY AND SERENE" SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH: To my dearest child Geraldine Farrar with all my love Lilli Lehmann.] Lilli insisted that I should essay one Wagnerian rôle. Under her direction I studied Elizabeth in "Tannhäuser," and the night I made my first appearance in this rôle in Berlin was a memorable occasion for both of us. The entire royal family was present, and Lilli sat in a loge with my mother. I should explain that Lilli, who had been a notable member of the Royal Opera for many years prior to her American successes, had had differences with the direction of the Royal Opera during the years of her tremendous popularity in America, and had followed her own sweet will by remaining here several seasons without receiving the necessary permission from the Intendant to do so. As a result, upon her return to Germany she had not been summoned to resume her rôles at the Royal Opera. This condition of affairs, I believe, had existed for some time, Lilli, with the pride and independence of a great artist, scorning to make the first advances leading to her return. On the night of my appearance as Elizabeth, after I had scored a really great success, the Kaiser summoned me to the royal box to congratulate me. He knew that I had studied the rôle under Lilli's direction. He therefore summoned Lilli as well, complimented her upon her pupil's achievement and then and there requested her to sing as guest artist at the Royal Opera, which she did a few weeks later. It was a great and happy night for me, and I believe for Lilli also. Dimly connected with this period I remember various young gentlemen showing me attentions. There was a baron who mysteriously sent gifts concealed in flowers, with very charming poems written about the difficult rôles I was playing. It was some time before I found out who he was and could return his trinkets, with the request that he cease sending presents to me. However, he continued to write me pathetic letters for several years afterward. But I was thrilled and enthusiastic over my career, and had no serious thoughts for love-making or matrimony. I wished to devote all my time and energy to my work. [Illustration: THE CROWN PRINCE OF GERMANY SIGNED, 'Tally Ho--!' 1914 WITH THE IMPERIAL SEAL BELOW] But no artist can hope to escape permanently the evil tongue and jealousy of those who envy her the success she has won. Thus it happened that the sudden interest in grand opera manifested by the Crown Prince was made the baseless pretext of a wild rumor of the romantic attachment of the youthful heir for a certain American prima donna singing at the Royal Opera. As I happened to be the only prima donna to conform to the description, I was the unconscious victim of many canards. The truth of the matter is that the Crown Prince, just out of college, fond of music at all times, was enjoying his first season of opera. That I happened to be the only young prima donna at the opera house may be one reason why he attended every time I sang, and ignored other performances. At any rate, it annoyed the other singers greatly, but it created no end of interest in my performances and in no way disturbed my equanimity. I felt it was all part of the career. I was young, triumphant, happy in my singing, and making rapid strides toward an international reputation, and at the back of my brain was written, with determination, the ultimate goal: the Metropolitan Opera House at New York. So I pursued my studies with zest and unabated enthusiasm. Soon afterward I realized from vague storm-clouds and distant mutterings that trouble was brewing. Certain minor officials of the Royal Opera put their heads together with certain singers; rumors that too much attention was paid to the American singer by royalty were printed in one of the papers; whereupon my father (remember he was once a ball-player and is still a great athlete) retaliated by a physical reminder to one editor that such slanders are not circulated with impunity about young American women. The press caught the romance of the situation, and highly colored stories were the result. The climax of a series of petty annoyances came one night when my mother was denied permission to accompany me behind the scenes, as she had been doing at every performance for almost two years. In my anger at these sensational reports, and at the sudden discourtesy to my mother at the opera house, I determined to write to the Kaiser a personal letter of explanation. This letter was entrusted to my devoted friend, Herr von Rath, to be delivered by him personally to the Hofmarshal, who would see that it reached the Kaiser. [Illustration: THE CROWN PRINCESS OF GERMANY WITH TWO CHILDREN SEATED ON HER LAP SIGNED, CÉCILE] Those well-wishers who had been freely predicting that I would soon be requested to resign and "go over the border" because of the rumors regarding the Crown Prince (one newspaper even asserted that he wished to relinquish his right to the succession to the throne in order to marry the American singer!) were soon thrown into consternation when one of the royal carriages stopped in front of my door, to bring official notification from the Kaiser that he had ordered restored to my mother the privilege of accompanying me at any time behind the scenes at the Royal Opera. The envious tongues stopped wagging. Official Berlin society took its cue. It was understood that I was _not_ to leave Germany. I determined that since Berlin had been the city first to take me to its heart, Berlin should be my parent house. From there I might try to reach out for other worlds to conquer, but Berlin should be my base for an international career. And so firmly did I adhere to this decision that, when my first contract with the Royal Opera expired, I renewed it again and again, with special permission from His Majesty for my European and subsequent American arrangements. CHAPTER IX ON TOUR: MONTE CARLO AND STOCKHOLM In discussing the plans for my third season at the Berlin Opera, it had been decided that I should create Massenet's "Manon." I determined to meet Massenet, if possible, in order to get all possible suggestions for the rôle. This was accomplished through the Baroness de Hegermann-Lindencrone, formerly Lillie Greenough, of Boston, who was the wife of the Danish Ambassador to Berlin. I went to Paris, and on May 26, 1903, I called on the composer at his suburban home near the French capital, where I found him in tears. It was the day after the funeral of Sybil Sanderson, the American singer who had won such success abroad, and Massenet wept at the loss of such a delightful artist and friend, who had created so many of his rôles. Several days later, when he was more composed, I saw him again. He was kind and sympathetic, and I studied with him with enthusiasm. He was most interested in the Berlin production, and quite amused at the German translation of the French text which Lilli and I had revised. [Illustration: "I STUDIED WITH HIM WITH ENTHUSIASM" PHOTO OF MASSENET, signed: Je pense à l'admirable Géraldine Farrar à ses triomphes, "Manon"!.. Massenet] During this visit to Paris it was arranged that I should sing for Gailhard, the Director of the Paris Opera, and at this audience were three other notable directors who were destined to figure in my career. There was Maurice Grau, already relinquishing the reins of management in New York, but still hoping, he said, to take me back to America as an operatic star in the near future; there was Heinrich Conried, his successor, whom I then met for the first time; and there was Raoul Gunsberg, the Director of the Opera at Monte Carlo. Gailhard offered me a flattering engagement at the Paris Opera, but I explained that I was under contract for at least one more year in Berlin. Gunsberg was very enthusiastic in his praise; Conried was quiet and formal. If I made any impression on him, he gave no indication of it. My third season in Berlin opened November 14, 1905, in "Traviata," when I had my usual charming partner in Franz Naval. I now sang all of my rôles in German save "Traviata," and, in deference to me, all the company sang "Traviata" in Italian, which I thought a pretty compliment. The Berlin _première_ of "Manon" took place on December 1, 1903, and was a wild riot of enthusiasm, but my best reward was a large photo of Lilli with half a yard of dedication written underneath. By this time--the middle of my third season in Berlin--I had become quite well known in certain operatic circles; I had sung in Paris for four big directors; I had won the real affection and regard of the opera-goers of Berlin; I was now _Die Farrar aus Berlin_, and the Berlin public owned me. Herr Gunsberg, at Monte Carlo, always on the lookout for novelty, decided he must have the American prima donna who was attracting so much attention in Berlin. One morning in midwinter I received this characteristic telegram from him:-- Offer you début Bohème or Pagliacci. If you accept this telegram serves as contract. Four thousand francs a night. Eight hundred dollars a night! It was indeed a fine offer. I replied at once:-- Bohème. When shall I come? I had visions already of international triumphs. Monte Carlo, the show-place of the world! From there it was only a step to the leading capitals of Europe. Yet I had no wish to leave my beloved Berlin permanently. Therefore, in renewing my contract with the Intendant of the Berlin Opera (a contract, by the way, which is still in force), it was stipulated that I was to sing so many performances each season in Berlin unless excused by special arrangement; that I should have leave of absence whenever requested under certain conditions; but that at all times I should be subject to the rules and regulations of the Royal Opera in Berlin. [Illustration: SIGNED PHOTO OF GUGLIELMO MARCONI Alla Signorina Geraldina Farrar Con devota amicizia e sincera ammirazione Guglielmo Marconi 6 maggio 1912] I remember discussing the subject with His Majesty on one occasion when we were entertained at the Palace prior to my departure. I had asked (and received) permission for rather an unusual amount of leave of absence, and the Intendant, who usually conveyed such a request to His Majesty on my behalf, said this time he really did not have the courage to ask again so soon. "Very well," said I laughingly, "I will ask him myself, to spare you the embarrassment." "But why should you wish to leave Berlin?" inquired the Kaiser. "We are glad to have you with us; we admire you; we love you. What more can you gain elsewhere?" "Pardon me, Your Majesty," I replied gayly. "Already I have become accustomed as a spoiled prima donna of luxurious habits to ride in automobiles, and I don't wish to have to walk when I am an old lady and when this" (touching my throat significantly) "has ceased to interest the public. In the words of the great Napoleon, Your Majesty, 'Beyond the Alps lies Italy.' Yes, and there is a white château by the sea where the golden shower is just waiting to be coaxed into my pockets. May I not then go and sing a little among the palms and the flowers?" I went. * * * * * Ah, that first rehearsal of "Bohème" in Monte Carlo, in March, 1904! I was introduced for the first time to a tenor of whom I had never heard before. He was somewhat stout, not over-tall, but with a wonderful voice and a winning smile. His name was Enrico Caruso. It was his début in Monte Carlo. He had sung in Milan, in South America, and the preceding winter in New York. But he had not then attained even a small part of his present great fame. At this first rehearsal in Monte Carlo an interested listener was Jean de Reszke, who was kind enough to say that he remembered me as the little Boston girl who had sung for him some years previously, and that he was delighted to see that I was meeting with the success he had predicted. [Illustration: ENRICO CARUSO] My Monte Carlo début occurred on the night of March 10, 1904. Although I had rehearsed with Caruso, the tenor had never used his voice fully at the rehearsals, and on the night of the actual performance, when I heard those rich and glorious tones rise above the orchestra, I was literally stricken dumb with amazement and admiration. I forgot that I, too, was making a début, that I was on the stage of the Opera House, until the conductor, Vigna, rapped sharply with his baton to bring me back to my senses. Then I put forth every ounce of strength to match if possible that marvelous voice singing opposite to me. I copy the following extract _verbatim_ from my diary of that night:-- Tremendous reception on my début. After the third act, and in full view of the audience, Caruso lifted me bodily and carried me to my dressing-room in the general wave of enthusiasm. The Monte Carlo engagement was limited, and on March 28, I reappeared in Berlin, being received so cordially that I then and there made up my mind that I would never leave Berlin for good. The reports of the Monte Carlo engagement led directly to a most flattering offer from Stockholm, and on May 6 I arrived in the Swedish capital. My mother, of course, was with me on all my travels. My début, which took place on the evening of May 9, was as Marguerite in "Faust." It was an enthusiastic, sympathetic audience headed by the venerable and adorable King Oscar. An incident of the performance worth recording is that I sang opposite to Herr Ödman, the tenor, who had sung as a young man with Jenny Lind and Christine Nilsson. He was then almost sixty years old, but he gave a most interesting performance and was extremely vain of his figure in "Romeo" and "Faust." I must say he would put many a younger man to shame in the costume of this romantic period, withal being a sweet singer and excellent artist. Two days after my début the Royal Intendant of the Opera called to notify me that the King would be glad to receive me at a special audience. The royal carriage was sent to the hotel for us; my mother and I drove first to the Palace in Stockholm, and then, after we had been cordially received by His Majesty, the King invited us to go with him and inspect a beautiful suburban castle just outside of Stockholm, which is one of the show-places of the world. His Majesty had known and admired Lilli Lehmann, and one reason for the personal interest he took in me was because he knew I was Lilli's pupil. [Illustration: "THE VENERABLE AND ADORABLE KING OSCAR" PHOTO SIGNED, OSCAR.] On the last night of the Stockholm season I sang "Traviata" before a packed and enthusiastic house. His Majesty was present as usual. He never missed a performance while I sang in Stockholm. During the performance the Intendant notified me that His Majesty desired to receive me at the Palace after the performance at a special audience. Wondering and surprised, my mother and I drove to the Palace in obedience to the royal command. We were ushered into a small audience chamber, where perhaps two dozen members of the Court were already in waiting. Presently His Majesty entered and, with a few words, decorated me with the gold cross of the Order of Merit, which he personally pinned upon my gown. He explained at the time that only two other singers had previously received this honor--Melba and Nilsson. After that there was a real Swedish celebration of farewell which lasted until long past midnight--only, as the nights were almost as bright as day in that far northern country, it was difficult to tell the time. I remember that after supper I suddenly recalled that Caruso had written, asking me to secure him a complete set of Swedish stamps, as he was a postage-stamp fiend. When I told His Majesty of this, the King sent out and secured a complete set of stamps, which I forwarded to Enrico with the compliments of the King of Sweden. As I was leaving and saying farewell, for we were to go on the morrow, His Majesty said: "Next year, Mademoiselle Farrar, you must sing again in Stockholm." "I shall be delighted, Your Majesty," I replied. "Meanwhile, you sing only in Berlin?" "Oh, no," I answered, "I have been offered a reëngagement for Monte Carlo next March." "Monte Carlo, eh?" And His Majesty laughed. "My dear Mademoiselle Farrar, my physician has been urging me to visit Monte Carlo. I shall time my trip so that I shall be sure to hear you sing there." What a perfect darling old King Oscar was! CHAPTER X MY FOURTH SEASON The month of June found me in Paris, where I sang at a charity concert, and in August I went to Bayreuth for the first time and was greatly moved by "Parsifal." On August 12 my diary says: "To-day I placed a laurel wreath on the grave of Liszt." In October, 1904, before the opening of the regular season in Berlin, I went to fulfill a special engagement in Warsaw. An incident characteristic of the impetuous Poles occurred on the train, which resulted in more than a year's annoyance of rather an amusing character. My mother and I were traveling in a private compartment, with the door open on the main corridor of the train. A tall, handsome, bearded gentleman had passed that door no less than a dozen times. Finally he passed just at the moment when my mother wished the train porter to change German gold into Russian money. The porter did not have the change. Here was the chance of the bearded man's lifetime. He projected himself into the compartment, he made the change, he introduced himself gracefully, and calmly announced that he knew me all the time as "_Die Farrar aus Berlin_," the singer, and he wished to do everything in his power to make us comfortable during our stay in Warsaw. He turned out to be Count Ischki P----, a very wealthy nobleman with a most romantic temperament and also with the persistence of fly-paper. We could not disengage ourselves from his courtesy on the train, and he became doubly irksome when he bombarded my apartments in the Hotel Bristol,--the magnificent hostelry, by the way, which Paderewski built and owns in Warsaw,--sending me flowers, sweetmeats, candies, and even attempting to send me jewelry. The poor Count Ischki wanted me to look with favor upon his suit. Never, outside the pages of a novel, have I met any one quite so ardent, in so many languages. The climax came one afternoon when I was reading in my apartment. There was a knock at the door; it opened instantly, and in came a procession of bell-boys--each carrying flowers, enormous boxes of candy or tributes of some kind. All these were carefully deposited at my feet without a word. Then, as the boys withdrew, the Count Ischki himself, faultlessly dressed, entered and threw himself upon his knees before me in the midst of his offerings. It was a perfect setting for the stage. I had all I could do to keep serious as the Polish count poured out the story of his mad love, and declared that, unless I would marry him, he would quickly die the death of a madman. Gently I motioned for him to arise and depart. "I fear I am only a cold, heartless, American girl," I replied. "I love only my art, and I shall never marry anybody." The night I left Warsaw the poor Count Ischki was at the station to see me off, and, though I felt sorry for him, I was happy at escaping from so trying an emotional character. For almost a year, however, he followed me over Europe, popping up most unexpectedly at different places, always with a renewed declaration of his love. His attentions at Monte Carlo finally became so embarrassing that I threatened to appeal to the police. Then he ultimately accepted his _congé_, and I was relieved of this all-too-ardent nobleman. The season of 1904-05 in Berlin (my fourth season) was made notable by the first appearance there of Caruso, who made his début in "Rigoletto." His coming created a great sensation. I was delighted to sing opposite him again, but there was a complication of which the public knew nothing. With the "king of tenors" singing on the stage with me, I knew there was another--Franz Naval--who had sung opposite me for three seasons, sitting in a box in the background. However, I compromised with the two by usually having tea with Franz and dinner with Enrico during his stay in Berlin, and the artistic world rolled smoothly on. Many interesting things happened during my fourth season in Berlin. For one thing the marriage of the Crown Prince to the Grand Duchess Cécile took place, thereby permanently putting an end to the little annoyances to which his kindly admiration of me as an artist had subjected me. I am proud and happy to state that soon after the return of the royal couple to the Palace at Potsdam, I was invited to sing for the Crown Princess and, as a result of this meeting, a cordial and friendly intimacy sprang up between us, which often led to informal musicales at the Palace when the Crown Princess played the piano, the Crown Prince the violin, and I sang. [Illustration: "THE AMUSING MADAME SANS GÊNE"] The spring of 1905 found me once more in Monte Carlo, where a notable performance was the _première_ of Saint-Saëns' "L'Ancêtre," in which I created the rôle of Margarita. During this spring engagement I created another rôle, the title part in Mascagni's "Amica." Preparations for the opera had been well under way for some time, Calvé having been engaged for Amica. Five days before the _première_ she withdrew for reasons which were never explained to me. Gunsberg appealed to me as a favor to help him out, if possible, and create this very difficult rôle. I agreed, and, by working day and night, I succeeded in preparing it in time for the performance. At this special performance Gatti-Casazza, who was then Director of La Scala at Milan, heard me sing for the first time, but all he recalls, he says, were a pair of eyes and a very tempestuous young person. One night during this spring season in Monte Carlo I caught sight of a familiar face in the recesses of a stage box and, for the curtain call, I made the royal salute to this box. After the curtain fell, every one started to make fun of me. "We have no royalty in Monte Carlo," one said. "Pardon me," I replied, "but I shall always give the royal salute when King Oscar of Sweden is in the audience." It was, indeed, His Majesty, who had timed his visit to Monte Carlo so that he could hear me sing, as he said he would. The next morning I read in the newspapers that the King of Sweden, traveling incognito as Count Haga, was visiting Monte Carlo as the guest of the Prince of Monaco. In Monte Carlo even royalty mingles with the crowd, and so it happened that later in the day I encountered His Majesty strolling along in a smart gray suit, with an Alpine hat and stick, looking for all the world like some prosperous American banker seeing Europe on a vacation. His Majesty was kind enough to entertain both my mother and me at dinner several times during this engagement in Monte Carlo. The fact that I created the title rôle in "Amica" in five days was duly telegraphed to Paris and other cities, and led directly to a most spectacular engagement in the French capital, which must be recorded as my Parisian début. A certain Count Camondo, a wealthy patron of the arts who made Paris his home, had written the music to an operatic libretto by Victor Capoul, entitled "The Clown." Count Camondo came to Monte Carlo, engaged the entire Monte Carlo Opera Company--including me, as I had special leave of absence from the Kaiser for the occasion--at an exorbitant figure to sing three performances of the new opera in Paris, all proceeds to go to charity. Count Camondo paid all expenses, staged the opera lavishly, and we sang the three performances to crowded houses, at the Théâtre Réjane, Paris. At last I had sung in grand opera in Paris, even if only for charity! [Illustration: LA TOSCA] CHAPTER XI LEAVING BERLIN After a short season in Stockholm, where once more I had the pleasure of singing before dear old King Oscar, I found myself in Berlin. One morning my maid brought me this telephone message:-- Heinrich Conried of New York is at the Hotel Bristol. Will Miss Farrar please come down and sing for him? I promptly had the maid telephone carefully as follows:-- Miss Farrar is at her home, and, if Herr Conried wishes to call, she will be glad to see him. Later that same day Herr Conried called. He was scouting Europe for artists for the Metropolitan, and he had been advised by Maurice Grau to keep a watchful eye upon my career. [Illustration: WOLF-FERRARI SIGNED photo: Alla stupenda "Rosaura" Geraldine Farrar con animo grato Wolf-Ferrari 1912 Venezia.] We talked of his plans for New York, and Herr Conried expressed a wish to have me return to my native land. Of course, from the day I had first dreamed of singing in grand opera, the Metropolitan had been my ultimate goal, but now that the moment for considering so important a step had come I was very wary. Knowing that New York was loyal to some of the older artists still under contract, I wanted to protect my interests as best I could while working up my career in America. I do not believe that Mr. Conried was then very anxious to have me come; certainly he was much taken aback when I stated my ideas of the contract. They were so entirely at divergence with his that the interview came to nothing, and he departed. I was neither glad nor sorry. I telegraphed Maurice Grau the result, to which he laconically replied:-- Don't worry, he'll be back. Having been many years in that same position, _vis-à-vis_ prima donnas, Maurice Grau well knew whereof he spoke, for indeed Mr. Conried did "come back," finding me on my vacation in Franzensbad, where I had been very busily concerned looking up all manner of contracts for America. After much obstinacy on my part and reiteration on his, we managed to close the contract. Besides my guaranteed operatic performances I was to sing in no private houses unless agreeable to me and only for special compensation; and I incorporated every possible clause imaginable about dressing-rooms, drawing-rooms on trains, carriages, railroad fares for my mother and my maids on tour, and in fact every conceivable concession which the most arrogant prima donna might demand. Not that I really cared about such items of expense, but I was determined to enter the Metropolitan _en dignité_, and I did. The contract was not to take effect until a year later, in November, 1906. Meanwhile, I was to conclude another season in Berlin, fulfill all European contracts in the spring, and then secure leave of absence from the Kaiser for three years. It was arranged, however, that I should always be subject to the demands of the Royal Opera, and one of the clauses of the Conried contract was that, if at any time I was called back to appear in Berlin, my contract would be indefinitely postponed until such time as I could fulfill it without conflicting with my Berlin contract. [Illustration: LEAVING BERLIN] That concluding season in Berlin was a constant series of farewells. The news had been made public that I was to sing in America, and that I would be absent for at least a year. One of the pleasant memories of that season is a farewell concert at the Marmor Palace at Potsdam for the Crown Prince and Princess, when they presented to me a diamond pendant made up of the letters "W-C" interwoven--Wilhelm and Cécile. The Crown Princess Cécile, gracious, charming, young, adored in Berlin and throughout Germany, was greatly interested in charities, and during my last season in Berlin I assisted her in organizing the programmes for many charity concerts. At last came the eventful day when I was to leave the country of my adoption for the land of my nativity. I had announced an "Abschied," or "Farewell Concert," in Philharmonic Hall, Berlin, the first week in October, 1906. We charged five dollars a seat, and could have sold the house twice over. One half the gross receipts went to a hospital kitchen founded by my dear Frau von Rath, who had been so kind to me; and the other half went to the fund of the Crown Princess's pet charity for crippled children. It was a wonderful and representative audience, in which royalty was conspicuously present. Next day we drove through crowds in the streets of Berlin, _en route_ to the station for Bremerhaven, from which we sailed on the Kaiser Wilhelm II, my mother, father, and I. Quite a contrast to our last voyage together on the cattle ship from Boston! But now we were homeward bound. I was returning to the land of my birth after an absence of nearly seven years, to sing in the greatest temple of music in the western world. It represented the near approach of the greatest of my dreams. But, could I have foreseen all the difficulties that were to come to me, I wonder if I would have been so buoyant and care-free as the great ship pounded her way westward through the October seas! CHAPTER XII MY FIRST APPEARANCE IN NEW YORK The air was crisp and cold that brilliant November morning when the Kaiser Wilhelm II nosed her way into New York Harbor. How proud and alert I felt as I looked up at the mass of towering buildings, their pinnacles sharply tilted against the dazzling blue of the sky. The harbor swarmed with seagoing craft; all was excitement and interest, particularly so when the revenue cutter and the mail boat were shortly made fast alongside the big liner. The kindly purser was soon pouring hundreds of letters and telegrams into my eager hands, sweet and welcoming messages--happy augury! All the world seemed to smile on me that day. Not even the persistent reporters could curb my enthusiasm or spoil my high spirits. How we laughed and chatted, Mr. Conried an amused spectator at my side. An avalanche of questions, almost all pointedly personal, were hurled at me, everybody talking at once. The rôle of the modest violet was not to be mine, I could see from the outset.... Yes, I loved Berlin.... Yes, I had sung for the Emperor.... Yes, the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess were a charming couple.... Yes, I hoped to duplicate my European successes in my own country.... No, I was not engaged.... Nor secretly married.... Why?... Well, because I just wasn't. And so on--endlessly, it seemed. Pencils scribbled unceasingly and cameras clicked at all possible angles. I did not care for that, since I wore a most fetching little turban and some beautiful furs (the pictures wouldn't be unattractive). I was hardly settled at my hotel when the editions of the papers were being sold, and their readers learned from the notices, profusely illustrated (the turban really did come out well!), that "Geraldine Farrar had arrived." Dazed and tired by the excitement of arrival and the thousand-and-one greetings of welcoming friends, I could think of but one thing, my début. It pursued me by day and haunted my sleepless nights. No one can imagine what anguish I endured once I was alone, and how difficult it was to discuss the event with an airy indifference to outsiders. I told myself there was nothing to fear; that my home people would love and support me as had my loyal Berliners. If only the trying ordeal were over! [Illustration: PHOTO OF MARK TWAIN, SIGNED TO MISS FARRAR, WITH THE KINDEST REGARDS OF MARK TWAIN JAN. 1908] To my disappointment "Romeo and Juliet" had been chosen, not only for my début, but for the opening performance of the season as well. In vain I pleaded that, under such a strain I should acquit myself much better in Elizabeth ("Tannhäuser"), which I had just sung in Berlin and Munich with great success. Mr. Conried was obdurate, however; he said I must be presented in a spectacular production, and so I had to give in. I shall always remember my first rehearsal in the dimly-lighted ladies' parlor. The suave and elegant Pol Plançon (the Friar) and my friend, Josephine Jacoby, greeted me, and then Rousselière, of Monte Carlo days, who was making his début as well, as my "Romeo." We were both frightfully nervous and longed for the day to be over. November 26, 1906, however, did finally arrive. I drove to the opera and slipped into my gown--not the usual conventional robe of stiff white satin, but a heavenly concoction that my clever wizard of a dressmaker had faithfully and beautifully modeled after a Botticelli painting. A misty veiling of rose delicately traced with silken flowers and sprinkled with tiny diamonds sheathed my figure of fortunate slenderness (thanks be!), while a jeweled fillet of gold rested on my own dark hair, and a tiny curling feather waved alertly on my forehead. And so "La Bella Simonetta" came to life, along the Capulet halls, transported for the nonce to the twentieth century and Broadway. A rain of welcoming applause greeted me and told me that so far all was well! I cannot remember distinctly all that occurred that auspicious evening. There seemed to be cart-loads of flowers; and again and again I smiled out from the great yellow curtains. Mr. Conried congratulated me, and the great evening was over! I was at home. Now I was to drag out some uninspiring weeks in such operas as "La Damnation de Faust," "Faust," and "Juliette," all of no particular interest to me. The real bright spot in the season was the first production of "Madame Butterfly" on the 11th of February, 1907. This charming opera was to endear me later to all my audiences and firmly establish me in the favor of the whole country. However, at the time no such encouraging and pleasing vision was vouchsafed me. [Illustration: "ADORABLE, UNFORGETTABLE BLOSSOM OF JAPAN"] I slaved with ardor and enthusiasm, studying Oriental characteristics and gestures with a clever little Japanese actress, Fu-ji-Ko, and incorporating as much as was possible of her counsels in my portrayal of the hapless "Cio-cio-San." _Maestros_ came and went, as did Mr. Ricordi, the publisher, and Mr. Puccini. Everybody had a hand in the pie, till I was nearly out of my mind with all the many advisers. But I left nothing undone (that I could imagine!) to make my rôle as perfect as possible. Caruso and Scotti had already shared with Destinn the success of the London production, so it remained for Louise Homer and myself to make the most of that charming second act, which is so poignant a scene between the two women. "Madame Butterfly" was a triumph for us all, and for me in particular. There were flowers, laurel wreaths (one with a darling little flag of Nippon tucked away in the green leaves), thanks from author, directors, and so on, embraces, applause, excitement--all the usual hubbub of a successful _première_. Somehow I got home and sobbed myself to sleep on my mother's shoulder, utterly worn out by the nervous strain and cruel fatigue of the previous weeks. Ah! Adorable, unforgettable blossom of Japan! Thanks to your gentle ways, that night I placed my foot on the rung of the ladder that leads to the firmament of stars! When I don your silken draperies and voice your sweet faith in the haunting melodies that envelop you, then are all eyes dim and hearts atune to your every appeal for sympathy! "Butterfly" brought me in touch as well with that past master of stagecraft, David Belasco. To my great delight he was enthusiastic over my portrayal of this little heroine who was the child of his heart and brain in the drama. I may own that every time we meet and he says, half laughingly, half quizzically, "Well, when are you going to forsake opera and come into the drama?" I am almost tempted to make an experiment of such interest, for the theater has always made a strong appeal to my dramatic instincts. Who knows? Some day may see me a candidate for such honors if I take his invitation seriously! Meanwhile, I was wondering just how my artistic status was going to grow under conditions prevailing in our opera house. My repertoire was extensive in my contract, but limited on the actual billboards, owing to a predominance of prima donnas. Patience, with a big P, did not seem to help my ambitions much. [Illustration: BELASCO, "THAT PAST MASTER OF STAGECRAFT" SIGNED PHOTO: To Gerladine Farrar Our American born song bird in whose art I glory. Faithfully, David Belasco.] Finally the company went on the annual spring tour, and I have a confused remembrance of much traveling, new audiences and hard work. I loved Chicago from the first, and its enthusiastic support is always reliable, whether I visit there in opera or in concert. During the winter Gailhard had negotiated and secured my services for a special spring season, so that after the Metropolitan season I was to realize another cherished ambition and appear in the regular repertoire of the Paris Opera. With these plans for the spring, Berlin in the autumn, and New York all winter, I was running perilously near the danger line of overwork. My physician advised caution, less work and more absolute rest, not to take my career so strenuously, as even my exuberant spirits would not indefinitely respond to my madly driven energy. But I could not then call a halt. My star was waxing. I must go on. I would pay the penalty later--and I did! My Paris début was effected under difficulties. The steamer was delayed; my trunks went astray; and, to add to my distress, three polite gentlemen took the trouble to meet me at Cherbourg, to tell me I had a day to arrive in, one day to rehearse, and the third day in which to persuade "La Ville Lumière" of my artistic worth. But the occasion was like a whip to a race-horse. It never occurred to me to refuse, despite my consternation. Fortunately that shrewd dressmaker of mine, with admirable foresight (and second-sight as well, perhaps!) had "completed a whole 'Juliet' outfit for immediate use--don't worry," read the telegram. I could have hugged her! I hummed a few scales on the dock, and, with a sigh of relief that all was in order (for I had constant nightmares that I should lose my voice some day unexpectedly), I clambered into the overcrowded express and slumbered peacefully till our early morning arrival. That day I went gayly to the rehearsal, and the following evening (not without much nervous anguish) was greeted with the greatest enthusiasm by a representative audience. An interested listener was Gounod's son, who afterward paid me such delicate and charming compliments as made my ears burn. I had become a Parisian personage, and I allowed myself to enjoy childishly the adulation and pretty attentions that were showered on me. My woman's vanity was pleased enough at the lovely chiffons and bonnets these ingenious people of the rue de la Paix evolved for my special pleasure. What with fashionable soirées at which I was petted and spoiled, and the parties and teas where my presence seemed to evoke whispers of admiration and envy, I might well have had my youthful head turned to a dizzy angle. [Illustration: PHOTO OF SARAH BERNHARDT Signed, À la charmante Farrar souvenir d'une grande amitié Sarah Bernhardt, 1915] But I had my New England "thinking-cap" firmly set on my shoulders. A little of this charming frivolity was enough, and one fine day I disappeared--back to the simple life of study and quiet with the great Lehmann; I shed the iridescence of my butterfly wings and became, for the nonce, a hard-working grub! My stay in Paris was memorable to me as well by reason of the meeting with Sarah Bernhardt. My admiration for this wonderful woman had ever been of the most fervent heroine worship, and when Madame Grau said: "Sarah wants to know you; when will you lunch with her?" I set the following day, for fear she might change her mind and I might thereby lose this privilege. I see her still, standing slim and white in her long curling draperies at the entrance to her home, her keen eyes appraising me, her voice raised in cordial greeting. How we chattered! What things she had to say, and with what joy I listened! She knew all about "Juliet"--much to my surprise--even to details, such as dress, innovations in _mise-en-scène_, and how I tried to infuse the modern dramatic spirit into the measures of the opera. Then the conversation wandered to personalities; among the most cherished, our mutual great-hearted friend Coquelin, now, alas! gone to his last sleep these many years; books, and her obstreperous dogs, most conspicuous by their noisy presence. I was to enjoy her friendship from that day on. As I write, a recent photograph stands before me, bearing a tender inscription. A smile plays upon her face, despite her recent tragic affliction. She is in truth an element, ageless, fearless, dauntless! It was good to be back for a short season in the autumn in Berlin, previous to my second departure for New York. The demonstration of the loyal Berliners at my return was beautiful, despite successes elsewhere. I was always to them "_unsere Farrar_." CHAPTER XIII MISUNDERSTANDINGS My second Metropolitan season opened pleasantly with a neat little success in the comparatively small rôle of Marguerite in "Mefistofele," which was produced for the benefit of Chaliapine, the great Russian basso. Unfortunately, owing to his dissatisfaction and disappointment at musical matters in general, nothing would induce him to return to America, and we thereby lost an artist unique in all he attempted and unparalleled in some of his typical Russian creations, such as "Boris" and "Ivan the Terrible." January, 1908, saw me on my native heath in Boston. I sang four performances in six days--"Faust," "Madame Butterfly," "Elizabeth," "Pagliacci"--and the reception was a tornado of enthusiasm, to which the historic walls of the old Boston Theater resounded. The conservative Hub did not deserve such an appellation in the case of my welcome. I was filled with pride and gratitude. My own home town also wanted to share in the festivities; whereupon a concert was arranged, and I returned to sing in the brick town hall that had first sheltered my early efforts. At the close of the programme I shook hands with every man, woman, and child who desired a close scrutiny and personal greeting--and you may be sure I was not allowed to abandon my place on the stage till all had availed themselves of this invitation. The following morning the Mayor and several prominent townspeople called for me, and we visited the pupils of my former schools. They were all ready, in line, to greet me, flags in their hands. When an address was suggested, I arose with alacrity--and introduced my friend Kate Douglas Wiggin, as speaker. Despite her surprise she rose gracefully to the occasion in a most flattering little speech, to the delight of her youthful hearers. I was, indeed, most fortunate to have had a Mistress of Ceremonies of such tact and charm. Meanwhile Mr. Conried's failing health was necessitating a change of management at the Metropolitan, and the choice fell upon Mr. Gatti-Casazza, of La Scala, Milan, in conjunction with Andreas Dippel, the latter a member of our company and very popular with New York audiences. With contracts for Berlin, Paris, and New York, the old cry of "overwork" was dinned into my ears, but less than ever was the moment for immediate rest possible. I was about to make a new contract with the Metropolitan under a different management, new artists were engaged who might reasonably be supposed to share some of the repertoire which I had not yet sung. [Illustration: "AS PRETTY A FLOCK OF BIRDS AS ONE COULD FIND ON ANY FARM"] It behooved me to keep well within the public eye and to make my position as advantageous as I could under the new régime. Not having acquaintance with Mr. Gatti-Casazza, I preferred signing my engagement with Mr. Dippel; but all our arguments came to naught when he found I was firm in my proposals to improve upon the old contract, and I sailed away in May with no more definite answer than "_Au revoir_ in Paris" to him. While singing there at the Opéra Comique, we again went over the same ground--futilely; and it was not till the following July in Berlin that I was able to arrange a several years' engagement which, in the light of the last years, I may reasonably conclude has been to nobody's dissatisfaction. My third Metropolitan season started unhappily. I arrived ill and fagged; lamentable altercations took place between the new conductor, Mr. Toscanini, and myself, each having quite opposite ideas as to the merits of conductor and prima donna, respectively. The estrangement was complete after the opening performance of "Madame Butterfly," when we both lost our manners and our tempers in high-handed fashion. Outside influences fanned resentment to a white heat, at least on my part; I was in a fury. The papers gave space to stupid fabrications and stories purporting to emanate from those speaking with authority, whose names, however, one could never discover. Ill in mind and health, I was vexed enough to offer to buy my release from such bondage as I now lived in artistically. I was far from happy, and when I am not happy I cannot sing well. My one idea was to escape from all this turbulence and what seemed to me to be a hotbed of intrigue. I was a rebel, yes; but I was no dissembler, and I hated to come into contact with those in authority under present conditions. Every performance was an occasion of dread; things looked very dark for my peace of mind. [Illustration: THE GOOSE GIRL IN "KÖNIGSKINDER"] Needless to say, I was not granted a release, but must struggle on during the closing weeks of the spring. I resigned myself to finish the season as best I could, but I was quite decided that when the roll call came the following autumn I would spend my winter quietly in Berlin. That was all to be changed, however, by the very unexpected and friendly overtures which Mr. Toscanini, to my great surprise, made one memorable evening of "Madame Butterfly" in Chicago. When two ardent and honest workers are desirous of eliminating misunderstandings it is not difficult to arrive at a solution. The various phases of the seething disquiet that had prevailed between us were discussed with commendable frankness on both sides. I need not add that the result was a happy one, and I thereby gained a firm friend and an invaluable ally in my work. We sealed our differences in a joint curtain call, that same evening, before a jammed house that was fully aware of the significance of our unusual appearance together, and gave way to tumultuous and approving applause. It would be difficult to estimate justly the influence Mr. Toscanini has had in the musical development of our opera, the artistic direction of which he rightly controls. Personally I am, as in the case of Lilli Lehmann, far more indebted to him than I can properly place in words, certainly more than he, with a morbid dislike for any public attention to himself, would perhaps allow me to admit. Lehmann--Bernhardt--Toscanini! These are names to conjure with in the career of a young artist! * * * * * Events in the operatic aviary were now destined to proceed more or less smoothly for me--for a while at least. In the spring of 1909 I was urged to give some special performances of "La Tosca" at the Opéra Comique in Paris, with Antonio Scotti in his admirable characterization of Scarpia. The success of the opera was most gratifying, and was in no wise overshadowed by the presence of the Metropolitan Company, which had come from the United States to sing in Paris at the same time. That same spring, before sailing, Toscanini had asked me to sing Puccini's "Manon" with the Metropolitan Company during its Paris season. But the rôle was unfamiliar to me, and as I had monopolized the more popular Massenet's "Manon," I felt I could not undertake its preparation in six days of ocean travel, together with my promised performances of Tosca at another theater. Toscanini quite understood this, made no further insistence, and the charming Lucretia Bori was introduced to the Parisian public and later came to delight her New York admirers. [Illustration: KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN] What transpired to offend Puccini I never knew, but the trivial question of my not singing his "Manon" provoked our first argument relative to "The Girl of the Golden West." The production of this long-awaited opera from the popular composer was the one topic of discussion and speculation in musical circles, its _première_ being scheduled for the following autumn in New York. While I had never had the promise of the rôle, the very subject and its appeal to the American public would seem to have indicated the choice of a native prima donna. Not only I, but a large majority of an interested public expected it. However, Puccini himself dispelled any such illusion by opening an argument, while I was singing in a drawing-room, to the effect that I had refused to sing his "Manon" because I had not been asked to create "The Girl." This was really a little too much, and I retorted that such was not the case, but that it might be well for him to consider the eventual popularity of his work with an American singer as the heroine, and that I was not aware he had changed his usual suave style of composition to such an extent that the most popular "Madame Butterfly" could not cope with its difficulties. With this I sailed out of the room. Possibly the crowded aspect of the house at some performances at which I sang the following autumn, and which he attended, modified his opinion, for he was effusive in compliments and photographs, and the slight cloud blew over without further parley. Afterward I was to be consoled by as gratifying a success as my heart could wish as the "Goose Girl." December 28, 1910, saw the _première_ of the charming "Königskinder," which enchanted the audience by reason of its lovely simplicity and the introduction of live geese--no less! [Illustration: MISS FARRAR AND CARUSO IN "JULIAN"] Professor Humperdinck was not a little taken aback when I first mentioned that I intended having these live geese which were, according to my plan, to move naturally and unconfined about the stage. Mr. Hertz, the conductor, was much perturbed and objected to the noise and confusion they might create; but Mr. Gatti was resigned to my whim and gave assent. So with the help of our technical director and the "boys" behind the stage I had as pretty a flock of birds as one could find on any farm. When the curtain rose upon that idyllic forest scene, with the goose girl in the grass, the geese unconcernedly picking their way about, now and again spreading snowy wings, unafraid, the house was simply delighted and applauded long and vigorously. Not to be overlooked was the sympathetic appeal of the children's beloved Fiddler, in the person of Goritz. This operatic fairy-tale held an enviable place in the regular repertoire for three years, and was one of my happiest successes. Following this I was to create a work of a type quite different from any other I had ever essayed. Had it not been for Toscanini's urging I should hardly have chosen "Ariane et Barbe Bleue" as a medium for my ambitions. While the production was highly interesting, I cannot say that I am much in sympathy with the vague outlines of the modern French lyric heroines; "Mélisande" and "Ariane" I think can be better entrusted to artists of a less positive type. CHAPTER XIV THE DAYS I NOW ENJOY The season of 1913-14 came very near proving disastrous for me. After repeated danger signals, at last overtaxed Nature took her revenge. I was unable to cope successfully with a bad attack of bronchitis, which made me lose the opening night. Some days afterward, still ill, I was obstinate enough to insist on a "Madame Butterfly" performance, and I collapsed completely in a "Faust" performance later that same week. I shall never forget my state of mind. Despair overcame me. The awful nightmare had come to pass. I should probably never sing again! Then there flashed through my mind: How should I endure this enforced inactivity? Daily, hourly, I waited, and watched, and coaxed a betterment of my physical condition, which, after all, was at the bottom of my minor vocal troubles. Outside, a generous and affectionate public had not forgotten me, while Mr. Gatti was most kind and patient with this fretful songbird. [Illustration: "CARMEN"] One day I judged myself at last ready to venture a performance. Upon my appearance I was greeted with such welcoming applause as threatened to interfere with my continuance of the opera. My heart was full of gratitude as I bowed and bowed my thanks. By dint of care and caution I was able to finish the season with credit, even taking the fatiguing trip to Atlanta, Georgia, prior to sailing, in order not to disappoint that loyal and enthusiastic public. That year, too, was the American _première_ of the long-awaited sequel to "Louise"--"Julian," a hodge-podge of operatic efforts that brought little satisfaction to anybody concerned in it. To my surprise the repellent characterization of the gutter-girl in its last act moved some critical craniums to speculate favorably on the ultimate success of "Carmen," should I ever attempt this rôle. My summer was a long one of quiet and absolute rest. When I was ready to sail home Europe was beginning to seethe in her terrible conflict. I raced from Munich to Amsterdam to get an available neutral steamer; but the prevailing confusion and panic occasioned by the fall of Antwerp and mine disasters in the northern waters made it advisable for me to follow Mr. Gatti's insistent message to join him and the company immediately at Naples. Ah, that journey to the end of Italy! Shall I ever forget it? Fortunately, Mr. Gatti had been able to assemble all his songsters--with the exception of Gilly, our French barytone, a prisoner of war in Austria--and we were to enjoy an agreeable and uneventful ocean trip home. It was while on shipboard, discussing the repertoire, that Toscanini suggested the immediate preparation of "Carmen" for my first appearance of the season. I jumped at the idea, the more so since I should have a rôle I had always longed to sing and which favored me as I had rarely been favored. Here was indeed an occasion to refute many an unkind rumor that I had lost my voice and would never sing again. And as for the acting, and looking--well, I smiled into the miserable little glass in my stateroom that did duty as a mirror, and blew myself a kiss of congratulation! Daily rehearsals were called, and I worked like a slave in the little stuffy dining-room of the ship to the accompaniment of a piano no better than it should be. Many a gypsy had come and gone, leaving New York mildly indifferent. There had been but one fascinating, unforgettable creature within our memory, the incomparable Calvé! Not one leaf of her coronet of laurel had so much as quivered! [Illustration: WORK AND PLAY IN CALIFORNIA] The eventful evening came at last, and I need not dwell upon the wonderful success that attended the brilliant revival of this well-loved opera under Toscanini's splendid direction. Later in the same season was to come the amusing "Madame Sans Gêne," chiefly interesting for its novelty and touches of comedy. Added to the fortunate operatic successes, I had made several concert _tournées_, my contract with the record-makers had been rigidly kept, and to succeed in all these artistic directions, the well-being of the voice had ever primarily to be considered. When the fateful time came that I paid the toll of overwork and my throat was temporarily crippled, my mind was doubly alive and in acute anguish. Inactivity to me has always been something not to be borne. I must have a vital interest with which to stimulate my energies and fancies. It was during those discouraging days that I bethought me of the very ardent advances that had been made to me relative to the moving pictures. Perhaps there was another field of expression, not to mention the very flattering financial considerations that were to accompany the offer, did I allow myself to be persuaded. No small amount of half-hearted condemnation and significant shoulder shrugging accompanied the announcement that I might seriously consider such a proposal. "Oh, Geraldine! How can you?" I heard on every hand. But why shouldn't I? I have never been the overcautious prima donna, swathed in cotton, silent, save for singing, for fear of undue fatigue upon the voice--the human vocalizer! No. I like the novel and the unusual always, and I _adore_ to act! My friendship with the family of David Belasco, and his son-in-law, Mr. Gest, having large interests in the moving pictures, led me finally to accede to their request; and I signed a contract which promised to be (and fulfilled happily!) as successful a venture as any I have ever undertaken. My arrival in Los Angeles, the beautifully appointed house there, the special studio built for my privacy and convenience are of too recent an interest to reiterate here. The experience itself was novel and refreshing, with its own unusual dramatic procedure. I sang and declaimed my rôle in French or Italian as I chose. There was no curtain to go up! The director-general replaced the harassed stage manager and gave the signal: "Camera! Go!" No fiery leader overwhelmed me with the feverish tempest of his orchestra; just a watchful operator warily turning the crank of his machine while I evolved my "scenes" as I wished. [Illustration: MAKING NEW FRIENDS IN THE "MOVIES"] My "Carmen" has made her screen début, and many of you have doubtless seen it. I have been delighted at its success, and feel that its artistic excellence and the enthusiastic approbation it has met speak loudly enough in favor of my departure from the usual routine of the prima donna. I have been asked, in summing up these experiences of my artistic career, so far, if it has all been worth while? From my point of view, yes. That is, what you believe to be the most complete fulfillment of yourself and the gratification of your ambitions is always worth while. Fortunately for me the adventurous and inquiring turn of my mind does not allow my ambitions to become narrowed or stationary, and that may possibly account for the unusual phases in my musical career. It is, however, distinctly _not_ worth while, to my mind, unless Fortune smiles upon you in abundance, for art is not the medium stratum of life, but its flowered inspiration and emotional poetry: it demands and obtains its sacrifices and sorrows which modify and chasten its glory, and your own soul best knows the toll you pay. Personally I would not encourage the graduate of the church choir, or the youthful miss with the pretty voice and smug mind, to embark upon a grand-opera career, such as I have come to understand it. By that, I mean the exceptional career that demands the big outlook and risk in all one attempts--the sacrifices, the unceasing toil, an iron constitution, invulnerable nerves, to say nothing of the financial security involved, according to the magnitude of the undertaking. With the many who earn a comfortable livelihood by their agreeable song I have no question, being, as I said before, solely concerned with the exceptional gift that will not be denied, that brushes aside all obstacles, to proceed on the path of wide appeal in any branch of art or occupation. When intelligent people will begin to open their minds and refuse to be cajoled by flattery and hypocrisy as to what constitutes "an artistic career," it may be better for American art in general and easier for the girl who cherishes high ambitions. How many aimless letters fill the musical columns with admirable advice on a profession of which the writers betray their naïve ignorance by the general vacuity of their remarks, when presuming to measure an artist's impulses and inspirations by their own personal standards and emotions! Let the artist develop in his own orbit, according to his light, nor criticize the method of the fruition of those gifts he so generously flings to his hearers. [Illustration: MISS FARRAR AND MR. LOU TELLEGEN] And now, in closing, I have purposely left till the last, my affectionate tribute of gratitude and remembrance toward that vital factor in these later years of my career, whose esteem constantly spurs me on to my best efforts and whose support I trust I may enjoy for many years to come: the discerning, generous and appreciative American public! NOTE: Soon after writing the last pages of this book Miss Farrar announced her engagement to Mr. Lou Tellegen, a talented young actor well known to Americans since he first came here five or six years ago as leading man with Madame Sarah Bernhardt. The picture on the preceding page was taken at the City Hall, New York, just after Miss Farrar and Mr. Tellegen had secured their marriage license. They were married at Miss Farrar's home February 8. The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE--MASSACHUSETTS U. S. A 
15446	----	[Illustration: To Miss Harriette Brower Very Sincerely Enrico Caruso N.Y. 1919] VOCAL MASTERY TALKS WITH MASTER SINGERS AND TEACHERS COMPRISING INTERVIEWS WITH CARUSO, FARRAR, MAUREL, LEHMANN, AND OTHERS BY HARRIETTE BROWER Author of "Piano Mastery, First and Second Series," "Home-Help in Music Study," "Self-Help in Piano Study" WITH TWENTY PORTRAITS NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS 1917, by OLIVER DITSON COMPANY 1918, 1919, by THE MUSICAL OBSERVER COMPANY 1920, by FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY FOREWORD It has long been a cherished desire to prepare a series of Talks with famous Singers, which should have an equal aim with Talks with Master Pianists, namely, to obtain from the artists their personal ideas concerning their art and its mastery, and, when possible, some inkling as to the methods by which they themselves have arrived at the goal. There have been unexpected and untold difficulties in the way of such an undertaking. The greater the artist the more numerous the body-guard which surrounds him--or her; the more stringent the watch over the artist's time and movements. If one is able to penetrate this barrier and is permitted to see the artist, one finds usually an affable gentleman, a charming woman, with simple manners and kindly intentions. However, when one is fortunate enough to come in touch with great singers, one finds it difficult to draw from them a definite idea of the process by which they have achieved victory. A pianist can describe his manner of tone production, methods of touch, fingering, pedaling; the violinist can discourse on the bow arm, use of left hand, on staccato and pizzicati; but the singer is loath to describe his own instrument. And even if singers could analyze, the description might not fit any case but their own. For the art of singing is an individual art, the perfecting an instrument hidden from sight. Each artist must achieve mastery by overcoming difficulties which beset his own personal path. Despite these obstacles, every effort has been put forth to induce artists to speak from an educational standpoint. It is hoped the various hints and precepts they have given, may prove of benefit to singers and teachers. Limitations of space prevent the inclusion of many other artists and teachers. HARRIETTE BROWER. 150 West 80 Street, New York City. CONTENTS FOREWORD ENRICO CARUSO ... The Value of Work GERALDINE FARRAR ... The Will to Succeed a Compelling Force VICTOR MAUREL ... Mind Is Everything A VISIT TO MME. LILLI LEHMANN AMELITA GALLI-CURCI ... Self-teaching the Great Essential GIUSEPPE DE LUCA ... Ceaseless Effort Necessary for Artistic Perfection LUISA TETRAZZINI ... The Coloratura Voice ANTONIO SCOTTI ... Training American Singers for Opera ROSA RAISA ... Patience and Perseverance Win Results LOUISE HOMER ... The Requirements of a Musical Career GIOVANNI MARTINELLI ... "Let Us Have Plenty of Opera in America" ANNA CASE ... Inspired Interpretation FLORENCE EASTON ... Problems Confronting the Young Singer MARGUERITE D'ALVAREZ ... The Message of the Singer MARIA BARRIENTOS ... Be Your Own Critic CLAUDIA MUZIO ... A Child of the Opera EDWARD JOHNSON (EDOUARDO DI GIOVANNI) ... The Evolution of an Opera Star REINALD WERRENRATH ... Achieving Success on the Concert Stage SOPHIE BRASLAU ... Making a Career in America MORGAN KINGSTON ... The Spiritual Side of the Singer's Art FRIEDA HEMPEL ... A Lesson with a Prima Donna WITH THE MASTER TEACHERS DAVID BISPHAM ... The Making of Artist Singers OSCAR SAENGER ... Use of Records in Vocal Study HERBERT WITHERSPOON ... Memory, Imagination, Analysis YEATMAN GRIFFITH ... Causation J.H. DUVAL ... Some Secrets of Beautiful Singing THE CODA ... A Resumé ILLUSTRATIONS Enrico Caruso _Frontispiece_ Geraldine Farrar Victor Maurel Amelita Galli-Curci Giuseppe de Luca Luisa Tetrazzini Antonio Scotti Rosa Raisa Louise Homer Giovanni Martinelli Anna Case Florence Easton Marguerite d'Alvarez Maria Barrientos Claudia Muzio Edward Johnson Reinald Werrenrath Sophie Braslau Morgan Kingston Frieda Hempel VOCAL MASTERY I =ENRICO CARUSO= THE VALUE OF WORK Enrico Caruso! The very name itself calls up visions of the greatest operatic tenor of the present generation, to those who have both heard and seen him in some of his many rôles. Or, to those who have only listened to his records, again visions of the wonderful voice, with its penetrating, vibrant, ringing quality, the impassioned delivery, which stamps every note he sings with the hall mark of genius, the tremendous, unforgettable climaxes. Not to have heard Caruso sing is to have missed something out of life; not to have seen him act in some of his best parts is to have missed the inspiration of great acting. As Mr. Huneker once wrote: "The artistic career of Caruso is as well known as that of any great general or statesman; he is a national figure. He is a great artist, and, what is rarer, a genuine man." And how we have seen his art grow and ripen, since he first began to sing for us. The date of his first appearance at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, was November 23rd, 1903. Then the voice was marvelous in its freshness and beauty, but histrionic development lagged far behind. The singer seemed unable to make us visualize the characters he endeavored to portray. It was always Caruso who sang a certain part; we could never forget that. But constant study and experience have eliminated even this defect, so that to-day the singer and actor are justly balanced; both are superlatively great. Can any one who hears and sees Caruso in the rôle of Samson, listen unmoved to the throbbing wail of that glorious voice and the unutterable woe of the blind man's poignant impersonation? IN EARLY DAYS Enrico Caruso was born in Naples, the youngest of nineteen children. His father was an engineer and the boy was taught the trade in his father's shop, and was expected to follow in his father's footsteps. But destiny decreed otherwise. As he himself said, to one listener: "I had always sung as far back as I can remember, for the pure love of it. My voice was contralto, and I sang in a church in Naples from fourteen till I was eighteen. Then I had to go into the army for awhile. I had never learned how to sing, for I had never been taught. One day a young officer of my company said to me: 'You will spoil your voice if you keep on singing like that'--for I suppose I was fond of shouting in those days. 'You should learn _how_ to sing,' he said to me; 'you must study.' He introduced me to a young man who at once took an interest in me and brought me to a singing master named Vergine. I sang for him, but he was very discouraging. His verdict was it would be hopeless to try to make a singer out of me. As it was, I might possibly earn a few lire a night with my voice, but according to his idea I had far better stick to my father's trade, in which I could at least earn forty cents a day. "But my young friend would not give up so easily. He begged Vergine to hear me again. Things went a little better with me the second time and Vergine consented to teach me. RIGID DISCIPLINE "And now began a period of rigid discipline. In Vergine's idea I had been singing too loud; I must reverse this and sing everything softly. I felt as though in a strait-jacket; all my efforts at expression were most carefully repressed; I was never allowed to let out my voice. At last came a chance to try my wings in opera, at ten lire a night ($2.00). In spite of the régime of repression to which I had been subjected for the past three years, there were still a few traces of my natural feeling left. The people were kind to me and I got a few engagements. Vergine had so long trained me to sing softly, never permitting me to sing out, that people began to call me the Broken Tenor. THE FIRST REAL CHANCE "A better chance came before long. In 1896 the Opera House in Salerno decided to produce _I Puritani_. At the last moment the tenor they had engaged to sing the leading rôle became ill, and there was no one to sing the part. Lombardi, conductor of the orchestra, told the directors there was a young singer in Naples, about eighteen miles away, who he knew could help them out and sing the part. When they heard the name Caruso, they laughed scornfully. 'What, the Broken Tenor?' they asked. But Lombardi pressed my claim, assured them I could be engaged, and no doubt would be glad to sing for nothing. "So I was sent for. Lombardi talked with me awhile first. He explained by means of several illustrations, that I must not stand cold and stiff in the middle of the stage, while I sang nice, sweet tones. No, I must let out my voice, I must throw myself into the part, I must be alive to it--must live it and in it. In short, I must act as well as sing. A REVELATION "It was all like a revelation to me. I had never realized before how absolutely necessary it was to act out the character I attempted. So I sang _I Puritani_, with as much success as could have been expected of a young singer with so little experience. Something awoke in me at that moment. From that night I was never called a 'Broken Tenor' again. I made a regular engagement at two thousand lire a month. Out of this I paid regularly to Vergine the twenty-five per cent which he always demanded. He was somewhat reconciled to me when he saw that I had a real engagement and was making a substantial sum, though he still insisted that I would lose my voice in a few years. But time passes and I am still singing. RESULTS OF THE REVELATION "The fact that I could secure an opera engagement made me realize I had within me the making of an artist, if I would really labor for such an end. When I became thoroughly convinced of this, I was transformed from an amateur into a professional in a single day. I now began to take care of myself, learn good habits, and endeavored to cultivate my mind as well as my voice. The conviction gradually grew upon me that if I studied and worked, I would be able one day to sing in such a way as to satisfy myself." THE VALUE OF WORK TO THE SINGER Caruso believes in the necessity for work, and sends this message to all ambitious students: "To become a singer requires work, work, and again work! It need not be in any special corner of the earth; there is no one spot that will do more for you than other places. It doesn't matter so much where you are, if you have intelligence and a good ear. Listen to yourself; your ear will tell you what kind of tones you are making. If you will only use your own intelligence you can correct your own faults." CEASELESS STUDY This is no idle speech, voiced to impress the reader. Caruso practices what he preaches, for he is an incessant worker. Two or three hours in the forenoon, and several more later in the day, whenever possible. He does not neglect daily vocal technic, scales and exercises. There are always many rôles to keep in rehearsal with the accompanist. He has a repertoire of seventy rôles, some of them learned in two languages. Among the parts he has prepared but has never sung are: _Othello, Fra Diavolo, Eugen Onegin, Pique Dame, Falstaff_ and _Jewels of the Madonna_. Besides the daily review of opera rôles, Caruso examines many new songs; every day brings a generous supply. Naturally some of these find their way into the waste basket; some are preserved for reference, while the favored ones which are accepted must be studied for use in recital. I had the privilege, recently, of spending a good part of one forenoon in Mr. Caruso's private quarters at his New York Hotel, examining a whole book full of mementos of the Jubilee celebration of March, 1919, on the occasion when the great tenor completed twenty-five years of activity on the operatic stage. Here were gathered telegrams and cablegrams from all over the world. Many letters and cards of greeting and congratulation are preserved in this portly volume. Among them one noticed messages from Mme. Schumann-Heink, the Flonzaley Quartet, Cleofonte Campanini and hosts of others. Here, too, is preserved the Jubilee Programme booklet, also the libretto used on that gala occasion. Music lovers all over the world will echo the hope that this wonderful voice may be preserved for many years to come! A LAST WORD The above article was shown to Mr. Caruso, at his request, and I was asked a few days later to come to him. There had been the usual rehearsal at the Opera House that day. "Ah, those rehearsals," exclaimed the secretary, stopping his typewriter for an instant; "no one who has never been through it has any idea of what a rehearsal means." And he lifted hands and eyes expressively. "Mr. Caruso rose at eight, went to rehearsal at ten and did not finish till after three. He is now resting, but will see you in a moment." Presently the great tenor opened the door and entered. He wore a lounging coat of oriental silk, red bordered, and on the left hand gleamed a wonderful ring, a broad band of dull gold, set with diamonds, rubies and sapphires. He shook hands, said he had read my story, that it was quite correct and had his entire approval. "And have you a final message to the young singers who are struggling and longing to sing some day as wonderfully as you do?" "Tell them to study, to work always,--and--to sacrifice!" His eyes had a strange, inscrutable light in them, as he doubtless recalled his own early struggles, and life of constant effort. And so take his message to heart: "Work, work--and--sacrifice!" II =GERALDINE FARRAR= THE WILL TO SUCCEED A COMPELLING FORCE "To measure the importance of Geraldine Farrar (at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York) one has only to think of the void there would have been during the last decade, and more, if she had not been there. Try to picture the period between 1906 and 1920 without Farrar--it is inconceivable! Farrar, more than any other singer, has been the triumphant living symbol of the new day for the American artist at the Metropolitan. She paved the way. Since that night, in 1906, when her Juliette stirred the staid old house, American singers have been added year by year to the personnel. Among these younger singers there are those who will admit at once that it was the success of Geraldine Farrar which gave them the impetus to work hard for a like success." [Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR] These thoughts have been voiced by a recent reviewer, and will find a quick response from young singers all over the country, who have been inspired by the career of this representative artist, and by the thousands who have enjoyed her singing and her many characterizations. I was present on the occasion of Miss Farrar's début at the greatest opera house of her home land. I, too, was thrilled by the fresh young voice in the girlish and charming impersonation of Juliette. It is a matter of history that from the moment of her auspicious return to America she has been constantly before the public, from the beginning to end of each operatic season. Other singers often come for part of the season, step out and make room for others. But Miss Farrar, as well as Mr. Caruso, can be depended on to remain. Any one who gives the question a moment's thought, knows that such a career, carried through a score of years, means constant, unremitting labor. There must be daily work on vocal technic; repertoire must be kept up to opera pitch, and last and perhaps most important of all, new works must be sought, studied and assimilated. The singer who can accomplish these tasks will have little or no time for society and the gay world, inasmuch as her strength must be devoted to the service of her art. She must keep healthy hours, be always ready to appear, and never disappoint her audiences. And such, according to Miss Farrar's own words is her record in the service of art. While zealously guarding her time from interruption from the merely curious, Miss Farrar does not entrench herself behind insurmountable barriers, as many singers seem to do, so that no honest seeker for her views of study and achievement can find her. While making a rule not to try voices of the throng of young singers who would like to have her verdict on their ability and prospects, Miss Farrar is very gracious to those who really need to see her. Again--unlike others--she will make an appointment a couple of weeks in advance, and one can rest assured she will keep that appointment to the day and hour, in spite of many pressing calls on her attention. To meet and talk for an hour with an artist who has so often charmed you from the other side of the footlights, is a most interesting experience. In the present instance it began with my being taken up to Miss Farrar's private sanctum, at the top of her New York residence. Though this is her den, where she studies and works, it is a spacious parlor, where all is light, color, warmth and above all, _quiet_. A thick crimson carpet hushes the footfall. A luxurious couch piled with silken cushions, and comfortable arm chairs are all in the same warm tint; over the grand piano is thrown a cover of red velvet, gold embroidered. Portraits of artists and many costly trifles are scattered here and there. The young lady who acts as secretary happened to be in the room and spoke with enthusiasm of the singer's absorption in her work, her delight in it, her never failing energy and good spirits. "From the day I heard Miss Farrar sing I felt drawn to her and hoped the time would come when I could serve her in some way. I did not know then that it would be in this way. Her example is an inspiration to all who come in touch with her." In a few moments Miss Farrar herself appeared, and the young girl withdrew. And was this Farrar who stood before me, in the flush of vigorous womanhood, and who welcomed me so graciously? The first impression was one of friendliness and sincerity, which caused the artist for the moment to be forgotten in the unaffected simplicity of the woman. Miss Farrar settled herself comfortably among the red silk cushions and was ready for our talk. The simplicity of manner was reflected in her words. She did not imply--there is only one right way, and I have found it. "These things seem best for my voice, and this is the way I work. But, since each voice is different, they might not fit any one else. I have no desire to lay down rules for others; I can only speak of my own experience." THE QUESTION OF HEALTH "And you would first know how I keep strong and well and always ready? Perhaps the answer is, I keep regular hours and habits, and love my work. I have always loved to sing, as far back as I can remember. Music means everything to me--it is my life. As a child and young girl, I was the despair of my playmates because I would not join their games; I did not care to skate, play croquet or tennis, or such things. I never wanted to exercise violently, and, to me, unnecessarily, because it interfered with my singing; took energy which I thought might be better applied. As I grew older I did not care to keep late hours and be in an atmosphere where people smoked and perhaps drank, for these things were bad for my voice and I could not do my work next day. My time is always regularly laid out. I rise at half past seven, and am ready to work at nine. I do not care to sit up late at night, either, for I think late hours react on the voice. Occasionally, if we have a few guests for dinner, I ask them, when ten thirty arrives, to stay as long as they wish and enjoy themselves, but I retire. TECHNICAL STUDY "There are gifted people who may be called natural born singers. Melba is one of these. Such singers do not require much technical practice, or if they need a little of it, half an hour a day is sufficient. I am not one of those who do not need to practice. I give between one and two hours daily to vocalizes, scales and tone study. But I love it! A scale is beautiful to me, if it is rightly sung. In fact it is not merely a succession of notes; it represents color. I always translate sound into color. It is a fascinating study to make different qualities of tonal color in the voice. Certain rôles require an entirely different range of colors from others. One night I must sing a part with thick, heavy, rich tones; the next night my tones must be thinned out in quite another timbre of the voice, to fit an opposite character." Asked if she can hear herself, Miss Farrar answered: "No, I do not actually hear my voice, except in a general way; but we learn to know the sensations produced in muscles of throat, head, face, lips and other parts of the anatomy, which vibrate in a certain manner to correct tone production. We learn the _feeling_ of the tone. Therefore every one, no matter how advanced, requires expert advice as to the results. WITH LEHMANN "I have studied for a long time with Lilli Lehmann in Berlin; in fact I might say she is almost my only teacher, though I did have some instruction before going to her, both in America and Paris. You see, I always sang, even as a very little girl. My mother has excellent taste and knowledge in music, and finding I was in danger of straining my voice through singing with those older than myself, she placed me with a vocal teacher when I was twelve, as a means of preservation. "Lehmann is a wonderful teacher and an extraordinary woman as well. What art is there--what knowledge and understanding! What intensity there is in everything she does. She used to say: 'Remember, these four walls which inclose you, make a very different space to fill compared to an opera house; you must take this fact into consideration and study accordingly.' No one ever said a truer word. If one only studies or sings in a room or studio, one has no idea of what it means to fill a theater. It is a distinct branch of one's work to gain power and control and to adapt one's self to large spaces. One can only learn this by doing it. "It is sometimes remarked by listeners at the opera, that we sing too loud, or that we scream. They surely never think of the great size of the stage, of the distance from the proscenium arch to the footlights, or from the arch to the first set of wings. They do not consider that within recent years the size of the orchestra has been largely increased, so that we are obliged to sing against this great number of instruments, which are making every possible kind of a noise except that of a siren. It is no wonder that we must make much effort to be heard: sometimes the effort may seem injudicious. The point we must consider is to make the greatest possible effect with the least possible exertion. "Lehmann is the most painstaking, devoted teacher a young singer can have. It is proof of her excellent method and her perfect understanding of vocal mastery, that she is still able to sing in public, if not with her old-time power, yet with good tone quality. It shows what an artist she really is. I always went over to her every summer, until the war came. We would work together at her villa in Gruenewald, which you yourself know. Or we would go for a holiday down nearer Salzburg, and would work there. We always worked wherever we were. MEMORIZING "How do I memorize? I play the song or rôle through a number of times, concentrating on both words and music at once. I am a pianist anyway; and committing to memory is very easy for me. I was trained to learn by heart from the very start. When I sang my little songs at six years old, mother would never let me have any music before me: I must know my songs by heart. And so I learned them quite naturally. To me singing was like talking to people. CONTRASTING COLORATURA AND DRAMATIC SINGING "You ask me to explain the difference between the coloratura and the dramatic organ. I should say it is a difference of timbre. The coloratura voice is bright and brilliant in its higher portion, but becomes weaker and thinner as it descends; whereas the dramatic voice has a thicker, richer quality all through, especially in its lower register. The coloratura voice will sing upper C, and it will sound very high indeed. I might sing the same tone, but it would sound like A flat, because the tone would be of such totally different timbre. TO THE YOUNG SINGER "If I have any message to the young singer, it would be: Stick to your work and study systematically, whole-heartedly. If you do not love your work enough to give it your best thought, to make sacrifices for it, there is something wrong with you. Then choose some other line of work, to which you can give undivided attention and devotion. For music requires this. As for sacrifices, they really do not exist, if they promote the thing you honestly love most. "Do not fancy you can properly prepare yourself in a short time to undertake a musical career, for the path is a long and arduous one. You must never stop studying, for there is always so much to learn. If I have sung a rôle a hundred times, I always find places that can be improved; indeed I never sing a rôle twice exactly in the same way. So, from whatever side you consider the singer's work and career, both are of absorbing interest. "Another thing; do not worry, for that is bad for your voice. If you have not made this tone correctly, or sung that phrase to suit yourself, pass it over for the moment with a wave of the hand or a smile; but don't become discouraged. Go right on! I knew a beautiful American in Paris who possessed a lovely voice. But she had a very sensitive nature, which could not endure hard knocks. She began to worry over little failures and disappointments, with the result that in three years her voice was quite gone. We must not give way to disappointments, but conquer them, and keep right along the path we have started on. MODERN MUSIC "Modern music requires quite a different handling of the voice and makes entirely different demands upon it than does the older music. The old Italian operas required little or no action, only beautiful singing. The opera houses were smaller and so were the orchestras. The singer could stand still in the middle of the stage and pour out beautiful tones, with few movements of body to mar his serenity. But we, in these days, demand action as well as song. We need singing actors and actresses. The music is declamatory; the singer must throw his whole soul into his part, must act as well as sing. Things are all on a larger scale. It is a far greater strain on the voice to interpret one of the modern Italian operas than to sing one of those quietly beautiful works of the old school. "America's growth in music has been marvelous on the appreciative and interpretive side. With such a musical awakening, we can look forward to the appearance of great creative genius right here in this country, perhaps in the near future. Why should we not expect it? We have not yet produced a composer who can write enduring operas or symphonies. MacDowell is our highest type as yet; but others will come who will carry the standard higher. VOICE LIMITATIONS "The singer must be willing to admit limitations of voice and style and not attempt parts which do not come within the compass of her attainments. Neither is it wise to force the voice up or down when it seems a great effort to do so. We can all think of singers whose natural quality is mezzo--let us say--who try to force the voice up into a higher register. There is one artist of great dramatic gifts, who not content with the rich quality of her natural organ, tried to add several high notes to the upper portion. The result was disastrous. Again, some of our young singers who possess beautiful, sweet voices, should not force them to the utmost limit of power, simply to fill, or try to fill a great space. The life of the voice will be impaired by such injurious practice. VOCAL MASTERY "What do I understand by vocal mastery? It is something very difficult to define. For a thing that is mastered must be really perfect. To master vocal art, the singer must have so developed his voice that it is under complete control; then he can do with it whatsoever he wishes. He must be able to produce all he desires of power, pianissimo, accent, shading, delicacy and variety of color. Who is equal to the task?" Miss Farrar was silent a moment; then she said, answering her own question: "I can think of but two people who honestly can be said to possess vocal mastery: they are Caruso and McCormack. Those who have only heard the latter do little Irish tunes, have no idea of what he is capable. I have heard him sing Mozart as no one else I know of can. These two artists have, through ceaseless application, won vocal mastery. It is something we are all striving for!" III =VICTOR MAUREL= MIND IS EVERYTHING Mr. James Huneker, in one of his series of articles entitled "With the Immortals," in the New York _World_, thus, in his inimitable way characterizes Victor Maurel: "I don't suppose there is to be found in musical annals such diversity of aptitudes as that displayed by this French baritone. Is there an actor on any stage to-day who can portray both the grossness of Falstaff and the subtlety of Iago? Making allowance for the different art medium that the singing actor must work in, and despite the larger curves of operatic pose and gesture, Maurel kept astonishingly near to the characters he assumed. He was Shakespearian; his Falstaff was the most wonderful I ever saw." [Illustration: VICTOR MAUREL] And then Iago: "In the Maurel conception, Othello's Ancient was not painted black in black--the heart of darkness, but with many nuances, many gradations. He was economical of gesture, playing on the jealous Moor as plays a skillfully handled bow upon a finely attuned violin. His was truly an objective characterization. His Don Giovanni was broadly designed. He was the aristocrat to the life, courtly, brave, amorous, intriguing, cruel, superstitious and quick to take offense. In his best estate, the drinking song was sheer virtuosity. Suffice to add that Verdi intrusted to him the task of "originating" two such widely sundered rôles as Iago and Falstaff. An extraordinary artist!" One evening we were discussing the merits of various famous singers of the past and present. My friend is an authority whose opinion I greatly respect. He is not only a singer himself but is rapidly becoming a singing master of renown. After we had conferred for a long time, my friend summed it all up with the remark: "You know who, in my opinion, is the greatest, the dean of them all, a past master of the art of song--Victor Maurel." Did I not know! In times gone by had we not discussed by the hour every phase of Maurel's mastery of voice and action? Did we not together listen to that voice and watch with breathless interest his investiture of Don Giovanni, in the golden days when Lilli Lehmann and the De Reszkes took the other parts. Was there ever a more elegant courtly Don, a greater Falstaff, a more intriguing Iago? In those youthful days, my friend's greatest ambition was to be able to sing and act like Maurel. To this end he labored unceasingly. Second only to this aim was another--to know the great baritone personally, to become his friend, to discuss the finest issues of art with him, to consult him and have the benefit of his experience. The consummation of this desire has been delayed for years, but it is one of the "all things" which will surely come to him who waits. Maurel is now once more on American soil, and doubtless intends remaining for a considerable period. My friend is also established in the metropolis. The two have met, not only once but many times--indeed they have become fast friends. "I will take you to him," promised friend Jacque,--knowing my desire to meet the "grand old man"; "but don't ask for too many of his opinions about singers, as he does not care to be quoted." Late one afternoon we arrived at his residence. At the moment he was in his music room, where, for the last hour he had been singing _Falstaff_! If we could only have been hidden away in some quiet corner to listen! He came running down the stairway with almost the agility of a boy, coming to meet us with simple dignity and courtesy. After the first greetings were over we begged permission to examine the many paintings which met the eye everywhere. There was a large panel facing us, representing a tall transparent vase, holding a careless bunch of summer flowers, very artistically handled. Near it hung an out-of-door sketch, a garden path leading into the green. Other bits of landscape still-life and portraits made up the collection. They had all been painted by the same artist--none other than Maurel himself. As we examined the flower panel, he came and stood by us. "Painting is a great art," he said; "an art which requires profound study. I have been a close student of this art for many years and love it more and more." "M. Maurel aims now to express himself through the art of color and form, as he has always done through voice and gesture," remarked my friend. "Art is the highest means of expression," went on the master, "whether through music, painting, sculpture, architecture or the theater. The effort to express myself through another art-medium, painting, has long been a joy to me. I have studied with no teacher but myself, but I have learned from all the great masters; they have taught me everything." He then led the way to his music room on the floor above. Here were more paintings, many rare pieces of furniture and his piano. A fine portrait of Verdi, with an affectionate autograph, stood on a table; one of Ambroise Thomas, likewise inscribed, hung near. "A serious man, almost austere," said Maurel, regarding the portrait of Verdi thoughtfully, "but one of the greatest masters of all time." Praying us to be seated, he placed himself on an ottoman before us. The talk easily drifted into the subject of the modern operatic stage, and modern operas of the Italian school, in which one is so often tempted to shout rather than sing. The hero of Mozart's Don Giovanni, who could sing his music as perhaps no one else has ever done, would not be likely to have much patience with the modern style of explosive vocal utterance. "How do you preserve your voice and your repertoire?" I questioned. M. Maurel gazed before him thoughtfully. "It is entirely through the mind that I keep both. I know so exactly how to produce tone qualities, that if I recall those sensations which accompany tone production, I can induce them at will. How do we make tones, sing an aria, impersonate a rôle? Is not all done with the mind, with thought? I must think the tone before I produce it--before I sing it; I must mentally visualize the character and determine how I will represent it, before I attempt it. I must identify myself with the character I am to portray before I can make it _live_. Does not then all come from thinking--from thought? "Again: I can think out the character and make a mental picture of it for myself, but how shall I project it for others to see? I have to convince myself first that I am that character--I must identify myself with it; then I must convince those who hear me that I am really that character." Maurel rose and moved to the center of the room. "I am to represent some character--Amonasro, let us say. I must present the captive King, bound with chains and brought before his captors. I must feel with him, if I am really going to represent him. I must believe myself bound and a prisoner; then I must, through pose and action, through expression of face, gesture, voice, everything--I must make this character real to the audience." And as we looked, he assumed the pose of the man in chains, his hands seemed tied, his body bent, his expression one in which anger and revenge mingled; in effect, he was for the moment Amonasro. "I have only made you see my mental concept of Amonasro. If I have once thoroughly worked out a conception, made it my own, then it is mine. I can create it at any moment. If I feel well and strong I can sing the part now in the same way as I have always sung it, because my thought is the same and thought produces. Whether I have a little more voice, or less voice, what does it matter? I can never lose my conception of a character, for it is in my mind, and mind projects it. So there is no reason to lose the voice, for that also is in mind and can be thought out at will. "Suppose I have an opposite character to portray,--the elegant Don Giovanni, for example"; and drawing himself up and wrapping an imaginary cloak about him, with the old well-remembered courtly gesture, his face and manner were instantly transformed at the thought of his favorite character. He turned and smiled on us, his strong features lighted, and his whole appearance expressed the embodiment of Mozart's hero. "You see I must have lived, so to say, in these characters and made them my own, or I could not recall them at a moment's notice. All impersonation, to be artistic, to be vital, must be a part of one's self; one must get into the character. When I sing Iago I am no longer myself--I am another person altogether; self is quite forgotten; I am Iago, for the time being. "In Paris, at the Sorbonne, I gave a series of lectures; the first was on this very subject, the identification of one's self with the character to be portrayed. The large audience of about fifteen hundred, contained some of the most famous among artists and men of letters"; and Maurel, with hands clasped about his knee, gazed before him into space, and we knew he was picturing in mental vision, the scene at the Sorbonne, which he had just recalled. After a moment, he resumed. "The singer, though trying to act out the character he assumes, must not forget to _sing_. The combination of fine singing and fine acting is rare. Nowadays people think if they can act, that atones for inartistic singing; then they yield to the temptation to shout, to make harsh tones, simply for effect." And the famous baritone caricatured some of the sounds he had recently heard at an operatic performance with such gusto, that a member of the household came running in from an adjoining room, thinking there must have been an accident and the master of the house was calling for help. He hastily assured her all was well--no one was hurt; then we all had a hearty laugh over the little incident. And now we begged to be allowed to visit the atelier, where the versatile artist worked out his pictures. He protested that it was in disorder, that he would not dare to take us up, and so on. After a little he yielded to persuasion, saying, however, he would go up first and arrange the room a little. As soon as he had left us my friend turned to me: "What a remarkable man! So strong and vigorous, in spite of his advanced age. No doubt he travels those stairs twenty times a day. He is as alert as a young man; doubtless he still has his voice, as he says. And what a career he has had. You know he was a friend of Edward the Seventh; they once lived together. Then he and Verdi were close friends; he helped coach singers for Verdi's operas. He says it was a wonderful experience, when the composer sat down at the piano, put his hands on the keys and showed the singers how he wanted his music sung! "Early in his career Maurel sang in Verdi's opera, _Simone Boccanegra_, which one never hears now, but it has a fine baritone part, and a couple of very dramatic scenes, especially the final scene at the close. This is the death scene. Maurel had sung and acted so wonderfully on a certain occasion that all the singers about him were in tears. Verdi was present at this performance and was deeply moved by Maurel's singing and acting. He came upon the stage when all was over, and exclaimed, in a voice trembling with emotion: 'You have created the rôle just as I would have it; I shall write an opera especially _for you_!' This he did; it was _Othello_, and the Iago was composed for Maurel. In his later years, when he seldom left his home, the aged composer several times expressed the wish that he might go to Paris, just to hear Maurel sing once more. "It is very interesting that he was led to speak to us as he did just now, about mental control, and the part played by mind in the singer's study, equipment and career. It is a side of the question which every young singer must seriously consider, first, last and always. But here he comes." Again protesting about the appearance of his simple studio, the master led the way up the stairways till we reached the top of the house, where a north-lighted room had been turned into a painter's atelier. With mingled feelings we stepped within this modest den of a great artist, which held his treasures. These were never shown to the casual observer, nor to the merely curious; they were reserved for the trusted few. The walls were lined with sketches; heads, still life, landscapes, all subjects alike interested the painter. A rugged bust of Verdi, over life size, modeled in plaster, stood in one corner. On an easel rested a spirited portrait of Maurel, done by himself. "My friends tell me I should have a larger studio, with better light; but I am content with this, for here is quiet and here I can be alone, free to commune with myself. Here I can study my art undisturbed,--for Art is my religion. If people ask if I go to church, I say No, but I worship the immortality which is within, which I feel in my soul, the reflection of the Almighty!" In quiet mood a little later we descended the white stairway and passed along the corridors of this house, which looks so foreign to American eyes, and has the atmosphere of a Paris home. The artist accompanied us to the street door and bade us farewell, in his kindly dignified manner. As the door closed and we were in the street, my friend said: "A wonderful man and a rare artist. Where shall we find his like to-day?" IV A VISIT TO MME. LILLI LEHMANN A number of years before the great war, a party of us were spending a few weeks in Berlin. It was midsummer; the city, filled as it was for one of us at least, with dear memories of student days, was in most alluring mood. Flowers bloomed along every balcony, vines festooned themselves from windows and doorways, as well as from many unexpected corners. The parks, large and small, which are the delight of a great city, were at their best and greenest--gay with color. Many profitable hours were spent wandering through the galleries and museums, hearing concerts and opera, and visiting the old quarters of the city, so picturesque and full of memories. Two of us, who were musicians, were anxious to meet the famous dramatic soprano, Lilli Lehmann, who was living quietly in one of the suburbs of the city. Notes were exchanged, and on a certain day we were bidden to come, out of the regular hours for visitors, by "special exception." How well I remember the drive through the newer residential section of Berlin. The path before long led us through country estates, past beautifully kept gardens and orchards. Our destination was the little suburb of Gruenewald, itself like a big garden, with villas nestling close to each other, usually set back from the quiet, shaded streets. Some of the villas had iron gratings along the pathway, through which one saw gay flowers and garden walks, often statuary and fountains. Other homes were secluded from the street by high brick walls, frequently decorated on top by urns holding flowers and drooping vines. Behind such a picturesque barrier, we found the gateway which led to Mme. Lehmann's cottage. We rang and soon a trim maid came to undo the iron gate. The few steps leading to the house door did not face us as we entered the inclosure, but led up from the side. We wanted to linger and admire the shrubs and flowering plants, but the maid hastened before us so we had to follow. From the wide entrance hall doors led into rooms on either hand. We were shown into a salon on the left, and bidden to await Madame's coming. In the few moments of restful quiet before she entered, we had time to glance over this sanctum of a great artist. To say it was filled with mementos and _objets d'art_ hardly expresses the sense of repleteness. Every square foot was occupied by some treasure. Let the eye travel around the room. At the left, as one entered the doorway, stood a fine bust of the artist, chiseled in pure white marble, supported on a pedestal of black marble. Then came three long, French windows, opening into a green garden. Across the farther window stood a grand piano, loaded with music. At the further end of the room, if memory serves, hung a large, full length portrait of the artist herself. A writing desk, laden with souvenirs, stood near. On the opposite side a divan covered with rich brocade; more paintings on the walls, one very large landscape by a celebrated German painter. Before we could note further details, Mme. Lehmann stood in the doorway, then came forward and greeted us cordially. How often I had seen her impersonate her great rôles, both in Germany and America. They were always of some queenly character. Could it be possible this was the famous Lehmann, this simple housewife, in black skirt and white blouse, with a little apron as badge of home keeping. But there was the stately tread, the grand manner, the graceful movement. What mattered if the silver hair were drawn back severely from the face; there was the dignity of expression, classic features, penetrating glance and mobile mouth I remembered. After chatting a short time and asking many questions about America, where her experiences had been so pleasant, our talk was interrupted, for a little, by a voice trial, which Madame had agreed to give. Many young singers, from everywhere, were anxious to have expert judgment on their progress or attainments, so Lehmann was often appealed to and gave frequent auditions of this kind. The fee was considerable, but she never kept a penny of it for herself; it all went to one of her favorite charities. The young girl who on this day presented herself for the ordeal was an American, who, it seemed, had not carried her studies very far. EXAMINING A PUPIL Mme. Lehmann seated herself at the piano and asked for scales and vocalizes. The young girl, either from fright or poor training, did not make a very fortunate impression. She could not seem to bring out a single pure steady tone, much less sing scales acceptably. Madame with a resigned look finally asked for a song, which was given. It was a little song of Franz, I remember. Then Lehmann wheeled around on the stool and said to us, in German: "The girl cannot sing--she has little or no voice to begin with, and has not been rightly trained." Then to the young girl she said, kindly, in English: "My dear young lady, you have almost everything to learn about singing, for as yet you cannot even sing one tone correctly; you cannot even speak correctly. First of all you need physical development; you must broaden your chest through breathing exercises; you are too thin chested. You must become physically stronger if you ever hope to sing acceptably. Then you must study diction and languages. This is absolutely necessary for the singer. Above all you must know how to pronounce and sing in your own language. So many do not think it necessary to study their own language; they think they know that already; but one's mother tongue requires study as well as any other language. "The trouble with American girls is they are always in a hurry. They are not content to sit down quietly and study till they have developed themselves into something before they ever think of coming to Europe. They think if they can just come over here and sing for an artist, that fact alone will give them prestige in America. But that gives them quite the opposite reputation over here. American girls are too often looked upon as superficial, because they come over here quite unprepared. I say to all of them, as I say to you: Go home and study; there are plenty of good teachers of voice and piano in your own land. Then, when you can _sing_, come over here, if you wish; but do not come until you are prepared." After this little episode, we continued our talk for a while longer. Then, fearing to trespass on her time, we rose to leave. She came to the door with us, followed us down the steps into the front garden, and held the gate open for us, when we finally left. We had already expressed the hope that she might be able to return to America, at no very distant day, and repeat her former triumphs there. Her fine face lighted at the thought, and her last words to us were, as she held open the little iron wicket. "I have a great desire to go to your country again; perhaps, in a year or two--who knows--I may be able to do it." She stood there, a noble, commanding figure, framed in the green of her garden, and waved her handkerchief, till our cab turned a corner, and she was lost to our view. THE MOZART FESTIVAL Several years later, a year before the world war started, to be exact, we had the pleasure of meeting the artist again, and this time, of hearing her sing. It was the occasion of the Mozart Festival in Salzburg. It is well known that Lehmann, devoted as she has always been to the genius of Mozart, and one of the greatest interpreters of his music, had thrown her whole energy into the founding of a suitable memorial to the master in his native city. This memorial was to consist of a large music school, a concert hall and home for opera. The Mozarteum was not yet completed, but a Festival was held each year in Salzburg, to aid the project. Madame Lehmann was always present and sang on these occasions. We timed our visit to Mozart's birthplace, so that we should be able to attend the Festival, which lasted as usual five days. The concerts were held in the Aula Academica, a fine Saal in the old picturesque quarter of the city. At the opening concert, Lehmann sang a long, difficult Concert Aria of Mozart. We could not help wondering, before she began, how time had treated this great organ; whether we should be able to recognize the famous Lehmann who had formerly taken such high rank as singer and interpreter in America. We need not have feared that the voice had become impaired. Or, if it had been, it had become rejuvenated on this occasion. Mme. Lehmann sang with all her well-remembered power and fervor, all her exaltation of spirit, and of course she had a great ovation at the close. She looked like a queen in ivory satin and rare old lace, with jewels on neck, arms and in her silver hair. In the auditorium, three arm chairs had been placed in front of the platform. The Arch-duke, Prince Eugen, the royal patron of the Festival, occupied one. When Madame Lehmann had finished her Aria, she stepped down from the platform. The Prince rose at once and went to meet her. She gave him her hand with a graceful curtesy and he led her to the armchair next his own, which had evidently been placed in position for her special use. At the close of the concert we had a brief chat with her. The next day she was present at the morning concert. This time she was gowned in black, with an ermine cape thrown over her shoulders. The Arch-duke sat beside her in the arm chair, as he had done the evening before. We had a bow and smile as she passed down the aisle. We trust the Mozarteum in Salzburg, for which Mme. Lehmann has labored with such devotion, will one day fulfill its noble mission. LEHMANN THE TEACHER As a teacher of the art of singing Madame Lehmann has long been a recognized authority, and many artists now actively before the public, have come from under her capable hands. Her book, "How to Sing,"--rendered in English by Richard Aldrich--(Macmillan) has illumined the path, for many a serious student who seeks light on that strange, wonderful, hidden instrument--the voice. Madame Lehmann, by means of many explanations and numerous plates, endeavors to make clear to the young student how to begin and how to proceed in her vocal studies. BREATHING On the important subject of breathing she says: "No one can sing without preparing for it mentally and physically. It is not enough to sing well, one must know how one does it. I practice many breathing exercises without using tone. Breath becomes voice through effort of will and by use of vocal organs. When singing emit the smallest quantity of breath. Vocal chords are breath regulators; relieve them of all overwork. "At the start a young voice should be taught to begin in the middle and work both ways--that is, up and down. A tone should never be forced. Begin piano, make a long crescendo and return to piano. Another exercise employs two connecting half tones, using one or two vowels. During practice stand before a mirror, that one may see what one is doing. Practice about one hour daily. Better that amount each day than ten hours one day and none the next. The test will be; do you feel rested and ready for work each morning? If not you have done too much the day before." REGISTERS In regard to registers Madame Lehmann has this to say: "In the formation of the voice no registers should exist or be created. As long as the word is kept in use, registers will not disappear." PHYSIOLOGY In spite of the fact there are many drawings and plates illustrating the various organs of head and throat which are used in singing, Madame Lehmann says: "The singer is often worried about questions of physiology, whereas she need--must--know little about it. THE NASAL QUALITY "The singer must have some nasal quality, otherwise the voice sounds colorless and expressionless. We must sing toward the nose: (not necessarily through the nose). "For many ills of the voice and tone production, I use long, slow scales. They are an infallible cure. USE OF THE LIPS "The lips play a large part in producing variety of tone quality. Each vowel, every word can be colored, as by magic, by well controlled play of the lips. When lips are stiff and unresponsive, the singing is colorless. Lips are final resonators, through which tones must pass, and lip movements can be varied in every conceivable manner." POWER AND VELOCITY She humorously writes: "Singers without power and velocity are like horses without tails. For velocity, practice figures of five, six, seven and eight notes, first slowly, then faster and faster, up and down." V =AMELITA GALLI-CURCI= SELF-TEACHING THE GREAT ESSENTIAL No singer can rise to any distinction without the severest kind of self-discipline and hard work. This is the testimony of all the great vocalists of our time--of any time. This is the message they send back from the mountain top of victory to the younger ones who are striving to acquire the mastery they have achieved. Work, work and again--work! And if you have gained even a slight foothold on the hill of fame, then work to keep your place. Above all, be not satisfied with your present progress,--strive for more perfection. There are heights you have not gained--higher up! There are joys for you--higher up, if you will but labor to reach them. [Illustration: _Photo by De Strelecki, N.Y._ AMELITA GALLI-CURCI] Perhaps there is no singer who more thoroughly believes in the gospel of work, and surely not one who more consistently practices what she preaches, than Amelita Galli-Curci. She knows the value of work, and she loves it for its own sake. There is no long cessation for her, during summer months, "to rest her voice." There is no half-day seclusion after a performance, to recover from the fatigue of singing a rôle the night before. No, for her this event does not spell exhaustion but happiness, exhilaration. It is a pleasure to sing because it is not wearisome--it is a part of herself. And she enjoys the doing! Thus it happens that the morning after a performance, she is up and abroad betimes, ready to attend personally to the many calls upon her time and attention. She can use her speaking voice without fear, because she has never done anything to strain it; she is usually strong and well, buoyant and bright. Those soft, dark eyes are wells of intelligent thinking; the mouth smiles engagingly as she speaks; the slight figure is full of life and energy. Yet there is a deep sense of calm in her presence. A brave, bright spirit; a great, wonderful artist! These thoughts faintly glimpse my first impression of Mme. Galli-Curci, as she entered her big, sunny parlor, where I was waiting to see her. Her delicate, oval face was aglow with the flush of healthful exercise, for she had just come in from a shopping expedition and the wintry air was keen. "I love to go shopping," she explained, "so I always do it myself." She bade me sit beside her on a comfortable divan, and at once began to speak of the things I most wished to hear. "I am often asked," she began, "to describe how I create this or that effect, how I produce such and such tones, how I make the voice float to the farthest corner, and so on. I answer, that is my secret. In reality it is no secret at all, at least not to any one who has solved the problem. Any one possessing a voice and intelligence, can acquire these things, who knows how to go to work to get them. But if one has no notion of the process, no amount of mere talking will make it plain. Singing an opera rôle seems such an easy thing from the other side of the footlights. People seem to think, if you only know how to sing, it is perfectly natural and easy for you to impersonate a great lyric rôle. And the more mastery you have, the easier they think it is to do it. The real truth of the matter is that it requires years and years of study--constant study, to learn how to sing, before attempting a big part in opera. "There are so many organs of the body that are concerned in the process of breathing and tone production; and most of these organs must be, if not always, yet much of the time, relaxed and in an easy pliable condition when you sing. There is the diaphragm--then the throat, larynx, the lungs, nose, lips--all of them help to make the tone. Perhaps I might say the larynx is the most important factor of all. If you can manage that, you have the secret. But no human being can tell you exactly how to do it. Some singers before the public to-day have no notion of how to manage this portion of their anatomy. Others may do so occasionally, but it may only be by accident. They sometimes stumble upon the principle, but not understanding how they did so, they cannot reproduce the desired effects at will. The singer who understands her business must know just how she produces tones and vocal effects. She can then do them at all times, under adverse circumstances, even when nervous, or not in the mood, or indisposed. SELF-STUDY "How did I learn to know these things? By constant study, by constant listening--for I have very keen ears--by learning the sensations produced in throat and larynx when I made tones that were correctly placed, were pleasing and at the same time made the effects I was seeking. "Milan is my home city--beautiful Milano under the blue Italian skies, the bluest in the world. As a young girl, the daughter of well-to-do parents, I studied piano at the Royal Conservatory there, and also musical theory and counterpoint. I shall ever be grateful I started in this way, with a thorough musical foundation, for it has always been of great advantage to me in further study. When my father met with reverses, I made good use of my pianistic training by giving piano lessons and making a very fair income for a young girl. "But I longed to sing! Is it not the birthright of every Italian to have a voice? I began to realize I had a voice which might be cultivated. I had always sung a little--every one does; song is the natural, spontaneous expression of our people. But I wished to do more--to express myself in song. So I began to teach myself by singing scales and vocalizes between my piano lessons. Meanwhile I studied all the books on singing I could lay hands on, and then tried to put the principles I learned in this way in practice. In trying to do this I had to find out everything for myself. And that is why I know them! I know exactly what I am about when I sing, I know what muscles are being used, and in what condition they ought to be; what parts of the anatomy are called into action and why. Nature has given me two great gifts, a voice and good health; for both these gifts I am deeply grateful. The first I have developed through arduous toil; the second I endeavor to preserve through careful living, regular hours and plenty of exercise in the fresh air. I have developed the voice and trained it in the way that seemed to me best for it. There are as many kinds of voices as there are persons; it seems to me each voice should be treated in the way best suited to its possessor. How can any other person tell you how that should be done?" And the singer gave me a bright look, and made a pretty deprecating gesture. "You yourself must have the intelligence to understand your own case and learn how to treat it. NEVER STRAIN THE VOICE "A singer who would keep her voice in the best condition, should constantly and reasonably exercise it. I always do a half hour or so of exercises, vocalizes and scales every morning; these are never neglected. But I never do anything to strain the voice in any way. We are told many fallacies by vocal teachers. One is that the diaphragm must be held firmly in order to give support to the tone. It seems to me this is a serious mistake. I keep the diaphragm relaxed. Thus tone production, in my case, is made at all times with ease; there is never any strain. You ask if it is not very fatiguing to sing against a large orchestra, as we have to, and with a temperamental conductor, like Marinuzzi, for instance, I do not find it so; there is a pure, clear tone, which by its quality, placement and ease of production, will carry farther than mere power ever can. It can be heard above a great orchestra, and it _gets over_. USE OF THE VOWELS "Young singers ask me what vowels to use in vocal practice. In my own study I use them all. Of course some are more valuable than others. The O is good, the E needs great care; the Ah is the most difficult of all. I am aware this is contrary to the general idea. But I maintain that the Ah is most difficult; for if you overdo it and the lips are too wide apart, the result is a white tone. And on the other hand, if the lips are nearer--or too near together, or are not managed rightly, stiffness or a throaty quality is apt to result; then the tone cannot 'float.' I have found the best way is to use the mixed vowels, one melting into the other. The tone can be started with each vowel in turn, and then mingled with the rest of the vowels. Do you know, the feathered songster I love best--the nightingale--uses the mixed vowels too. Ah, how much I have learned from him and from other birds also! Some of them have harsh tones--real quacks--because they open their bills too far, or in a special way. But the nightingale has such a lovely dark tone, a 'covered tone,' which goes to the heart. It has the most exquisite quality in the world. I have learned much from the birds, about what not to do and what to do. MEMORIZING "In taking up a new rôle I begin with the story, the libretto, so I may first learn what it is about, its meaning and psychology. I take it to bed with me, or have it by me if lying down, because I understand musical composition and can get a clear idea of the composer's meaning without going to the instrument. After a short time I begin to work it out at the piano, in detail, words and music together. For a great rôle like the _Somnambula_ or _Traviata_, I must spend three or four years, perhaps more, in preparation, before bringing it to public performance. It takes a long time to master thoroughly an operatic rôle, to work it out from all sides, the singing, the acting, the characterization. To the lay mind, if you can sing, you can easily act a part and also memorize it. They little know the labor which must be bestowed on that same rôle before it can be presented in such a shape as to be adequate, in a way that will get it across. It does not go in a few weeks or even months; it is the work of years. And even then it is never really finished, for it can always be improved with more study, with more care and thought. THE NECESSITY FOR LANGUAGES "We hear much about need for study of languages by the singer, and indeed too much stress cannot be placed on this branch of the work. I realize that in America it is perhaps more difficult to impress people with this necessity, as they have not the same need to use other languages in every day life. The singer can always be considered fortunate who has been brought up from earliest years to more than one language. My mother was Spanish, my father Italian, so this gave me both languages at home. Then in school I learned French, German and English, not only a little smattering of each, but how to write and speak them." "You certainly have mastered English remarkably well," I could not help remarking, for she was speaking with great fluency, and with hardly any accent. This seemed to please her, for she gave me one of those flashing smiles. COLORATURA AND DRAMATIC "Would you be pleased," I asked, "if later on your voice should develop into a dramatic soprano?" Mme. Galli-Curci thought an instant. "No," she said, "I think I would rather keep the voice I have. I heartily admire the dramatic voice and the rôles it can sing. Raisa's voice is for me the most beautiful I know. But after all I think, for myself, I prefer the lyric and coloratura parts, they are so beautiful. The old Italian composers knew well how to write for the voice. Their music has beauty, it has melody, and melodic beauty will always make its appeal. And the older Italian music is built up not only of melody and fioriture, but is also dramatic. For these qualities can combine, and do so in the last act of _Traviata_, which is so full of deep feeling and pathos. BREATH CONTROL "Perhaps, in Vocal Mastery, the greatest factor of all is the breathing. To control the breath is what each student is striving to learn, what every singer endeavors to perfect, what every artist should master. It is an almost endless study and an individual one, because each organism and mentality is different. Here, as in everything else, perfect ease and naturalness are to be maintained, if the divine song which is the singer's concept of beauty, is to be 'floated on the breath,' and its merest whisper heard to the farthest corner of the gallery. THE MATTER IN A NUTSHELL "To sum up then, the three requirements of vocal mastery are: a, Management of the Larynx; b, Relaxation of the Diaphragm; c, Control of the Breath. To these might be added a fourth; Mixed Vowels. "But when all these are mastered, what then? Ah, so much more it can never be put into words. It is self-expression through the medium of tone, for tone must always be a vital part of the singer's individuality, colored by feeling and emotion. Tone is the outlet, the expression of all one has felt, suffered and enjoyed. To perfect one's own instrument, one's medium of expression, must always be the singer's joy and satisfaction." "And you will surely rest when the arduous season is over?" "Yes, I will rest when the summer comes, and will return to Italy this year. But even though I seem to rest, I never neglect my vocal practice; that duty and pleasure is always performed." And with a charming smile and clasp of the hand, she said adieu. VI =GIUSEPPE DE LUCA= CEASELESS EFFORT NECESSARY FOR ARTISTIC PERFECTION "A Roman of Rome" is what Mr. Giuseppe De Luca has been named. The very words themselves call up all kinds of enchanting pictures. Sunny Italy is the natural home of beautiful voices: they are her birthright. Her blue sky, flowers and olive trees--her old palaces, hoary with age and romantic story, her fountains and marbles, her wonderful treasures of art, set her in a world apart, in the popular mind. Everything coming from Italy has the right to be romantic and artistic. If it happens to be a voice, it should of necessity be beautiful in quality, rich, smooth, and well trained. [Illustration: To Mrs. Harriette Brower cordially Giuseppe De Luca] While all singers who come from the sunny land cannot boast all these qualifications, Mr. De Luca, baritone of the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, can do so. Gifted with a naturally fine organ, he has cultivated it arduously and to excellent purpose. He began to study in early youth, became a student of Saint Cecilia in Rome when fifteen years of age, and made his début at about twenty. He has sung in opera ever since. In 1915,--November 25th to be exact--De Luca came to the Metropolitan, and won instant recognition from critics and public alike. It is said of him that he earned "this success by earnest and intelligent work. Painstaking to a degree, there is no detail of his art that he neglects or slights--so that one hesitates to decide whether he is greater as a singer or as an actor." Perhaps, however, his most important quality is his mastery of "_bel canto_"--pure singing--that art which seems to become constantly rarer on the operatic and concert stage. "De Luca does such beautiful, finished work; every detail is carefully thought out until it is as perfect as can be." So remarked a member of the Metropolitan, and a fellow artist. Those who have listened to the Roman baritone in the various rôles he has assumed, have enjoyed his fine voice, his true _bel canto_ style, and his versatile dramatic skill. He has never disappointed his public, and more than this, is ever ready to step into the breach should necessity arise. A man who has at least a hundred and twenty operas at his tongue's end, who has been singing in the greatest opera houses of the world for more than twenty years, will surely have much to tell which can help those who are farther down the line. If he is willing to do so, can speak the vernacular, and can spare a brief hour from the rush of constant study and engagement, a conference will be possible. It was possible, for time was made for it. THE MUSICAL GIFT Mr. De Luca, who speaks the English language remarkably well, greeted the writer with easy courtesy. His genial manner makes one feel at home immediately. Although he had just come from the Opera House, where he had sung an important rôle, he seemed as fresh and rested as though nothing had happened. "I think the ability to act, and also, in a measure, to sing, is a gift," began the artist. "I remember, even as a little child, I was always acting out in pantomime or mimicry what I had seen and felt. If I was taken to the theater, I would come home, place a chair for audience, and act out the whole story I had just seen before it. From my youngest years I always wanted to sing and act. A REMARKABLE TEACHER "As early as I could, at about the age of fifteen, I began to study singing, with a most excellent teacher; who was none other than Signor Wenceslao Persischini, who is now no longer living. He trained no fewer than seventy-four artists, of which I was the last. Battestini, that wonderful singer, whose voice to-day, at the age of sixty-five, is as remarkable as ever, is one of his pupils. We know that if a vocal teacher sings himself, and has faults, his pupils are bound to copy those faults instinctively and unconsciously. With Persischini this could not be the case; for, owing to some throat trouble, he was not able to sing at all. He could only whisper the tones he wanted, accompanying them with signs and facial grimaces." And Mr. De Luca illustrated these points in most amusing fashion. Then he continued: "But he had unerring judgment, together with the finest ear. He knew perfectly how the tone should be sung and the student was obliged to do it exactly right and must keep at it till it was right. He would let nothing faulty pass without correction. I also had lessons in acting from Madame Marini, a very good teacher of the art. THE ARTIST LIFE "After five years of hard study I made my début at Piacenza, as Valentine, in _Faust_, November 6th, 1897. Then, you may remember, I came to the Metropolitan in the season of 1915-1916, where I have been singing continually ever since. "The artist should have good health, that he may be always able to sing. He owes this to his public, to be always ready, never to disappoint. I think I have never disappointed an audience and have always been in good voice. It seems to me when one is no longer able to do one's best it is time to stop singing." "It is because you study constantly and systematically that you are always in good voice." "Yes, I am always at work. I rise at eight in the morning, not later. Vocalizes are never neglected. I often sing them as I take my bath. Some singers do not see the necessity of doing exercises every day; I am not one of those. I always sing my scales, first with full power, then taking each tone softly, swelling to full strength, then dying away--in mezza voce. I use many other exercises also--employing full power. English is also one of the daily studies, with lessons three times a week. CONSTANTLY ON THE WATCH "When singing a rôle, I am always listening--watching--to be conscious of just what I am doing. I am always criticizing myself. If a tone or a phrase does not sound quite correct to me as to placement, or production, I try to correct the fault at once. I can tell just how I am singing a tone or phrase by the feeling and sensation. Of course I cannot hear the full effect; no singer ever can actually hear the effect of his work, except on the records. There he can learn, for the first time, just how his voice sounds. LEARNING A NEW RÔLE "How do I begin a new part? I first read over the words and try to get a general idea of their meaning, and how I would express the ideas. I try over the arias and get an idea of those. Then comes the real work--the memorizing and working out the conception. I first commit the words, and know them so well I can write them out. Next I join them to the music. So far I have worked by myself. After this much has been done, I call in the accompanist, as I do not play the piano very well; that is to say, my right hand will go but the left lags behind! ALWAYS BEING SURE OF THE WORDS "Yes, as you say, it requires constant study to keep the various rôles in review, especially at the Metropolitan, where the operas are changed from day to day. Of course at performance the prompter is always there to give the cue--yet the words must always be in mind. I have never yet forgotten a word or phrase. On one occasion--it was in the _Damnation of Faust_, a part I had already sung a number of times--I thought of a word that was coming, and seemed utterly unable to remember it. I grew quite cold with fear--I am inclined to be a little nervous anyway--but it was quite impossible to think of the word. Luckily at the moment when I needed the word I was so fearful about, it suddenly came to me. NATURAL ANXIETY "Of course there is always anxiety for the artist with every public appearance. There is so much responsibility--one must always be at one's best; and the responsibility increases as one advances, and begins to realize more and more keenly how much is expected and what depends on one's efforts. I can assure you we all feel this, from the least to the greatest. The most famous singers perhaps suffer most keenly. "I have always sung in Italian opera, in which the language is easy for me. Latterly I have added French operas to my list. _Samson and Delilah_, which I had always done in Italian, I had to relearn in French; this for me was very difficult. I worked a long time on it, but mastered it at last. "This is my twenty-second season in opera. I have a repertoire of about one hundred and twenty rôles, in most of which I have sung many times in Italy. Some I wish might be brought out at the Metropolitan. Verdi's _Don Carlos_, for instance, has a beautiful baritone part; it is really one of the fine operas, though it might be considered a bit old-fashioned to-day. Still I think it would be a success here. I am preparing several new parts for this season; one of them is the Tschaikowsky work--_Eugene Onegin_. So you see I am constantly at work. "My favorite operas? I think they are these"; and Mr. De Luca hastily jotted down the following: _Don Carlos, Don Giovanni, Hamlet, Rigoletto, Barbier, Damnation of Faust_, and last, but not least, _Tannhauser_. GROWTH OF MUSICAL APPRECIATION IN AMERICA Asked if he considered appreciation for music had advanced during his residence in America, his answer was emphatically in the affirmative. "The other evening I attended a reception of representative American society, among whom were many frequenters of the Metropolitan. Many of them spoke to me of the opera _Marouf_. I was surprised, for this modern French opera belongs to the new idiom, and is difficult to understand. 'Do you really like the music of _Marouf_?' I asked. 'Oh, yes indeed,' every one said. It is one of my longest parts, but not one of my special favorites. "In the summer! Ah, I go back to my beloved Italy almost as soon as the Metropolitan season closes. I could sing in Buenos Aires, as the season there follows the one here. But I prefer to rest the whole time until I return. I feel the singer needs a period of rest each year. To show you how necessary it is for the singer to do daily work on the voice, I almost feel I cannot sing at all during the summer, as I do no practicing, and without vocalizes one cannot keep in trim. If I am asked to sing during vacation, I generally refuse. I tell them I cannot sing, for I do not practice. It takes me a little while after I return, to get the vocal apparatus in shape again. "Thus it means constant study, eternal vigilance to attain the goal, then to hold what you have attained and advance beyond it if possible." VII =LUISA TETRAZZINI= THE COLORATURA VOICE Luisa Tetrazzini has been called the greatest exponent of coloratura singing that we have at the present time. Her phenomenal successes in various quarters of the globe, where she has been heard in both opera and concert, are well known, and form pages of musical history, full of interest. This remarkable voice, of exquisite quality and development, is another proof that we have as beautiful voices to-day, if we will but realize the fact, as were ever known or heard of in the days of famous Italian songsters. [Illustration: LOUISA TETRAZZINI] Portraits often belie the artist, by accentuating, unduly, some individuality of face or figure, and Tetrazzini is no exception. From her pictures one would expect to find one of the imperious, dominating order of prima donnas of the old school. When I met the diva, I was at once struck by the simplicity of her appearance and attire. There was nothing pompous about her; she did not carry herself with the air of one conscious of possessing something admired and sought after by all the world, something which set her on a high pedestal apart from other singers. Not at all. I saw a little lady of plump, comfortable figure, a face which beamed with kindliness and good humor, a mouth wreathed with smiles. Her manner and speech were equally simple and cordial, so that the visitor was put at ease at once, and felt she had known the great singer for years. Before the conference could begin a pretty episode happened, which showed the human side of the singer's character, and gave a glimpse into her every day life. Mme. Tetrazzini was a little late for her appointment, as she had been out on a shopping expedition, an occupation which she greatly enjoys. Awaiting her return was a group of photographers, who had arranged their apparatus, mirrors and flash-light screen, even to the piano stool on which the singer was to be placed. She took in the situation at a glance, as she entered, and obediently gave herself into the hands of the picture makers. "Ah, you wish to make me beautiful," she exclaimed, with her pretty accent; "I am not beautiful, but you may try to make me look so." With patience she assumed the required poses, put her head on this side or that, drew her furs closer about her or allowed them to fall away from the white throat, with its single string of pearls. The onlooker suggested she be snapped with a little black "Pom," who had found his way into the room and was now an interested spectator, on his vantage ground, a big sofa. So little "Joy" was gathered up and held in affectionate, motherly arms, close against his mistress' face. It was all very human and natural, and gave another side to the singer's character from the side she shows to the public. At last the ordeal was over, and Madame was free to leave her post and sit in one of the arm chairs, where she could be a little more comfortable. The secretary was also near, to be appealed to when she could not make herself intelligible in English. "My English is very bad," she protested; "I have not the time now to learn it properly; that is why I speak it so very bad. In the summer, or next year, I will really learn it. Now, what is it I can tell you? I am ready." FOR THE DÉBUTANTE To ask such a natural born singer how she studies and works, is like asking the fish swimming about in the ocean, to tell you where is the sea! She could not tell you how she does it. Singing is as the breath of life to Tetrazzini--as natural as the air she breathes. Realizing this, I began at the other end. "What message have you, Madame, for the young singer, who desires to make a career?" "Ah, yes, the débutante. Tell her she must practice much--very much--" and Madame spread out her hands to indicate it was a large subject; "she must practice several hours every day. I had to practice very much when I began my study--when I was sixteen; but now I do not have to spend much time on scales and exercises; they pretty well go of themselves"; and she smiled sweetly. "You say," she continued, "the débutante--the young singer--does not know--in America--how much she needs the foreign languages. But she should learn them. She should study French, Italian and Spanish, and know how to speak them. Because, if she should travel to those countries, she must make herself understood, and she must be able to sing in those languages, too. "Besides the languages, it is very good for her to study piano also; she need not know it so well as if she would be a pianist, but she should know it a little; yet it is better to know more of the piano--it will make her a better musician." THE COLORATURA VOICE "You love the coloratura music, do you not, Madame?" "Ah, yes, I love the coloratura,--it suits me; I have always studied for that--I know all the old Italian operas. For the coloratura music you must make the voice sound high and sweet--like a bird--singing and soaring. You think my voice sounds something like Patti's? Maybe. She said so herself. Ah, Patti was my dear friend--my very dear friend--I loved her dearly. She only sang the coloratura music, though she loved Wagner and dramatic music. Not long before she died she said to me: 'Luisa, always keep to the coloratura music, and the beautiful _bel canto_ singing; do nothing to strain your voice; preserve its velvety quality.' Patti's voice went to C sharp, in later years; mine has several tones higher. In the great aria in Lucia, she used to substitute a trill at the end instead of the top notes; but she said to me--'Luisa, _you_ can sing the high notes!'" "Then the breathing, Madame, what would you say of that?" "Ah, the breathing, that is very important indeed. You must breathe from here, you know--what you call it--from the diaphragm, and from both sides; it is like a bellows, going in and out," and she touched the portions referred to. "One does not sing from the chest,--that would make queer, harsh tones." She sang a few tones just to show how harsh they would be. "You have shown such wonderful breath control in the way you sustain high tones, beginning them softly, swelling then diminishing them." "Ah, yes, the coloratura voice must always be able to do those things," was the answer. "Should you ever care to become a dramatic singer?" she was asked. Tetrazzini grew thoughtful; "No, I do not think so," she said, after a pause; "I love my coloratura music, and I think my audience likes it too; it goes to the heart--it is all melody, and that is what people like. I sing lyric music also--I am fond of that." "Yes, and you sing songs in English, with such good diction, that we can all understand you--almost every word." Madame beamed. "I promise you I will learn English better next year; for I shall come back to my friends in America next autumn. I shall be in Italy in the summer. I have two homes over there, one in Italy and one in Switzerland. "Do I prefer to sing in opera or concert, you ask? I believe I like concert much better, for many reasons. I get nearer to the audience; I am freer--much freer, and can be myself and not some other person. There is no change of costume, either; I wear one gown, so it is easier; yes, I like it much more. "In traveling over your big country--you see I have just been out to California and back--I find your people have advanced so very much in appreciation of music; you know so much more than when I was here before; that was indeed a long time ago--about twelve years,--" and Madame made a pretty little gesture. "But in one way your great big country has scarcely advanced any if at all; you have not advanced in providing opera for your music lovers. You need permanent opera companies in all the larger cities. The opera companies of New York and Chicago are fine, oh yes,--but they cannot give opera to the whole country. There are a few traveling companies too, which are good. But what are they in your big country? You should have opera stock companies all over, which would give opera for the people. Then your fine American girls would have the chance to gain operatic experience in their own country, which they cannot get now. That is why the foreign singer has such a chance here, and that is why the native singer can hardly get a chance. All the American girls' eyes turn with longing to the Metropolitan Opera House; and with the best intentions in the world the Director can only engage a small number of those he would like to have, because he has no room for them. He can not help it. So I say, that while your people have grown so much in the liking and in the understanding of music, you do not grow on this side, because your young singers are obliged to travel to a foreign land to get the practice in opera they are unable to get at home. You need to do more for the permanent establishing of opera in the large and small cities of your country." Madame did not express her thoughts quite as consecutively as I have set them down, but I am sure she will approve, as these are her ideas of the musical situation in this country. As I listened to the words of this "second Patti," as she is called, and learned of her kindly deeds, I was as much impressed by her kindness of heart as I had been by her beautiful art of song. She does much to relieve poverty and suffering wherever she finds it. As a result of her "vocal mastery," she has been able to found a hospital in Italy for victims of tuberculosis, which accommodates between three and four hundred patients. The whole institution is maintained from her own private income. During the war she generously gave of her time and art to sing for the soldiers and aided the cause of the Allies and the Red Cross whenever possible. For her labors of love in this direction, she has the distinction of being decorated by a special gold medal of honor, by both the French and Italian Governments; a distinction only conferred on two others beside herself. After our conference, I thanked her for giving me an hour from her crowded day. She took my hand and pressed it warmly in both hers. "Please do not quite forget me, Madame." "Indeed not, will you forget me?" "No, I shall always remember this delightful hour." "Then, you see, I cannot forget you!" and she gave my hand a parting squeeze. VIII =ANTONIO SCOTTI= TRAINING AMERICAN SINGERS FOR OPERA A singer of finished art and ripe experience is Antonio Scotti. His operatic career has been rich in development, and he stands to-day at the top of the ladder, as one of the most admired dramatic baritones of our time. One of Naples' sons, he made a first appearance on the stage at Malta, in 1889. Successful engagements in Milan, Rome, Madrid, Russia and Buenos Aires followed. In 1899 he came to London, singing _Don Giovanni_ at Covent Garden. A few months thereafter, he came to New York and began his first season at the Metropolitan. His vocal and histrionic gifts won instant recognition here and for the past twenty years he has been one of the most dependable artists of each regular season. CHARACTERIZATION [Illustration: [handwritten note] To Miss Harriette Brower Cordially A Scotti New York 1920] With all his varied endowments, it seldom or never falls to the lot of a baritone to impersonate the lover; on the contrary it seems to be his métier to portray the villain. Scotti has been forced to hide his true personality behind the mask of a Scarpia, a Tonio, an Iago, and last but not least, the most repulsive yet subtle of all his villains--Chim-Fang, in _L'Oracolo_. Perhaps the most famous of them all is Scarpia. But what a Scarpia, the quintessence of the polished, elegant knave! The refinement of Mr. Scotti's art gives to each rôle distinct characteristics which separate it from all the others. OPPORTUNITY FOR THE AMERICAN SINGER Mr. Scotti has done and is doing much for the young American singer, by not only drilling the inexperienced ones, but also by giving them opportunity to appear in opera on tour. To begin this enterprise, the great baritone turned impresario, engaged a company of young singers, most of them Americans, and, when his season at the Metropolitan was at an end, took this company, at his own expense, on a southern trip, giving opera in many cities. Discussing his venture on one occasion, Mr. Scotti said: "It was an experiment in several ways. First, I had an all-American company, which was indeed an experiment. I had some fine artists in the principal rôles, with lesser known ones in smaller parts. With these I worked personally, teaching them how to act, thus preparing them for further career in the field of opera. I like to work with the younger and less experienced ones, for it gives me real pleasure to watch how they improve, when they have the opportunity. "Of course I am obliged to choose my material carefully, for many more apply for places than I can ever accept. ITALIAN OPERA IN AMERICA "So closely is Italy identified with all that pertains to opera," he continued, "that the question of the future of Italian opera in America interests me immensely. It has been my privilege to devote some of the best years of my life to singing in Italian opera in this wonderful country of yours. One is continually impressed with the great advance America has made and is making along all musical lines. It is marvelous, though you who live here may not be awake to the fact. Musicians in Europe and other parts of the world, who have never been here, can form no conception of the musical activities here. "It is very gratifying to me, as an Italian, to realize that the operatic compositions of my country must play an important part in the future of American musical art. It seems to me there is more intrinsic value--more variety in the works of modern Italian composers than in those of other nations. We know the operas of Mozart are largely founded on Italian models. "Of the great modern Italian composers, I feel that Puccini is the most important, because he has a more intimate appreciation of theatrical values. He seems to know just what kind of music will fit a series of words or a scene, which will best bring out the dramatic sense. Montemezzi is also very great in this respect. This in no way detracts from what Mascagni, Leoncavallo and others have accomplished. It is only my personal estimate of Puccini as a composer. The two most popular operas to-day are _Aïda_ and _Madame Butterfly_, and they will always draw large audiences, although American people are prone to attend the opera for the purpose of hearing some particular singer and not for the sake of the work of the composer. In other countries this is not so often the case. We must hope this condition will be overcome in due time, for the reason that it now often happens that good performances are missed by the public who are only attracted when some much heralded celebrity sings." AMERICAN COMPOSERS Asked for his views regarding American operatic composers, Mr. Scotti said: "American composers often spoil their chances of success by selecting uninteresting and uninspired stories, which either describe some doleful historic incident or illustrate some Indian legend, in which no one of to-day is interested, and which is so far removed from actual life that it becomes at once artificial, academic and preposterous. Puccini spends years searching for suitable librettos, as great composers have always done. When he finds a story that is worthy he turns it into an opera. But he will wait till he discovers the right kind of a plot. No wonder he has success. In writing modern music dramas, as all young Americans endeavor to do, they will never be successful unless they are careful to pick out really dramatic stories to set to music." OPERATIC TRAINING On a certain occasion I had an opportunity to confer with this popular baritone, and learn more in regard to his experiences as impresario. This meeting was held in the little back office of the Metropolitan, a tiny spot, which should be--and doubtless is--dear to every member of the company. Those four walls, if they would speak, could tell many interesting stories of singers and musicians, famed in the world of art and letters, who daily pass through its doors, or sit chatting on its worn leather-covered benches, exchanging views on this performance or that, or on the desirability or difficulty of certain rôles. Even while we were in earnest conference, Director Gatti-Casazza passed through the room, stopping long enough to say a pleasant word and offer a clasp of the hand. Mr. Guard, too, flitted by in haste, but had time to give a friendly greeting. Mr. Scotti was in genial mood and spoke with enthusiasm of his activities with a favorite project--his own opera company. To the question as to whether he found young American singers in too great haste to come before the public, before they were sufficiently prepared, thus proving they were superficial in their studies, he replied: "No, I do not find this to be the case. As a general rule, young American singers have a good foundation to build upon. They have good voices to start with; they are eager to learn and they study carefully. What they lack most--those who go in for opera I mean--is stage routine and a knowledge of acting. This, as I have said before, I try to give them. I do not give lessons in singing to these young aspirants, as I might in this way gain the enmity of vocal teachers; but I help the untried singers to act their parts. Of course all depends on the mentality--how long a process of training the singer needs. The coloratura requires more time to perfect this manner of singing than others need; but some are much quicker at it than others. "It is well I am blessed with good health, as my task is extremely arduous. When on tour, I sing every night, besides constantly rehearsing my company. We are ninety in all, including our orchestra. It is indeed a great undertaking. I do not do it for money, for I make nothing personally out of it, and you can imagine how heavy the expenses are; four thousand dollars a week, merely for transportation. But I do it for the sake of art, and to spread the love of modern Italian opera over this great, wonderful country, the greatest country for music that exists to-day. And the plan succeeds far beyond my hopes; for where we gave one performance in a place, we now, on our second visit, can give three--four. Next year we shall go to California. "So we are doing our part, both to aid the young singer who sorely needs experience and to educate the masses and general public to love what is best in modern Italian opera!" IX =ROSA RAISA= PATIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE WIN RESULTS To the present day opera goers the name of Rosa Raisa stands for a compelling force. In whatever rôle she appears, she is always a commanding figure, both physically, dramatically and musically. Her feeling for dramatic climax, the intensity with which she projects each character assumed, the sincerity and self forgetfulness of her naturalistic interpretation, make every rôle notable. Her voice is a rich, powerful soprano, vibrantly sweet when at its softest--like a rushing torrent of passion in intense moments. At such moments the listener is impressed with the belief that power and depth of tone are limitless; that the singer can never come to the end of her resources, no matter how deeply she may draw on them. There are such moments of tragic intensity, in her impersonation of the heroine in _Jewels of the Madonna_, in _Sister Angelica_, in _Norma_, as the avenging priestess, in which rôle she has recently created such a remarkable impression. [Illustration: Rosa Raisa] A PRIMA DONNA AT HOME If one has pictured to one's self that because the Russian prima donna can show herself a whirlwind of dynamic passion on the stage, therefore she must show some of these qualities in private life, one would quickly become disabused of such an impression when face to face with the artist. One would then meet a slender, graceful young woman, of gentle presence and with the simplest manners in the world. The dark, liquid eyes look at one with frankness and sincerity; the wide, low brow, from which the dark hair is softly drawn away, is the brow of a madonna. In repose the features might easily belong to one of Raphael's saints. However, they light up genially when their owner speaks. Mme. Raisa stood in the doorway of her New York apartment, ready to greet us as we were shown the way to her. Her figure, clad in close-fitting black velvet, looked especially slender; her manner was kind and gracious, and we were soon seated in her large, comfortable salon, deep in conference. Before we had really begun, the singer's pet dog came bounding to greet us from another room. The tiny creature, a Mexican terrier, was most affectionate, yet very gentle withal, and content to quietly cuddle down and listen to the conversation. "I will speak somewhat softly," began Mme. Raisa, "since speaking seems to tire me much more than singing, for what reason I do not know. We singers must think a little of our physical well being, you see. This means keeping regular hours, living very simply and taking a moderate amount of exercise. "Yes, I always loved to sing; even as a little child I was constantly singing. And so I began to have singing lessons when I was eight years old. Later on I went to Italy and lived there for a number of years, until I began to travel. I now make my home in Naples. My teacher there was Madame Marchesio, who was a remarkable singer, musician and teacher--all three. Even when she reached the advanced age of eighty, she could still sing wonderfully well. She had the real _bel canto_, understood the voice, how to use it and the best way to preserve it. I owe so much to her careful, artistic training; almost everything, I may say. THE SINGER'S LIFE "One cannot expect to succeed in the profession of music without giving one's best time and thought to the work of vocal training and all the other subjects that go with it. A man in business gives his day, or the most of it, to his office. My time is devoted to my art, and indeed I have not any too much time to study all the necessary sides of it. "During the season, I do regular vocal practice each day and keep the various rôles in review. During the summer I study new parts, for then I have the time and the quiet. That is what the singer needs--quiet. I always return to Naples for the vacation, unless I go to South America and sing there. Then I must have a little rest too, that I may be ready for the labors of the following season. VOCAL TRAINING "Even during the busiest days technic practice is never neglected. Vocalizes, scales, terzetta--what you call them--broken thirds, yes, and long, slow tones in _mezza di voce_, that is, beginning softly, swelling to loud then gradually diminishing to soft, are part of the daily régime. One cannot omit these things if one would always keep in condition and readiness. When at work in daily study, I sing softly, or with medium tone quality; I do not use full voice except occasionally, when I am going through a part and wish to try out certain effects. "ONE VOICE" "I was trained first as a coloratura and taught to do all the old Italian operas of Bellini, Rosini, Donizetti and the rest of the florid Italian school. This gives the singer a thorough, solid training--the sort of training that requires eight or ten years to accomplish. But this is not too much time to give, if one wishes to be thoroughly prepared to sing all styles of music. In former days, when singers realized the necessity of being prepared in this way, there existed I might say--_one voice;_ for the soprano voice was trained to sing both florid and dramatic music. But in these days sopranos are divided into High, Lyric, Coloratura and Dramatic; singers choose which of these lines seems to suit best their voice and temperament. COLORATURA AND DRAMATIC "It is of advantage to the singer to be trained in both these arts. In the smaller opera houses of Italy, a soprano, if thus trained, can sing _Lucia_ one night and _Norma_ the next; _Traviata_ one night and _Trovatore_ the next. "Modern Italian opera calls for the dramatic soprano. She must be an actress just as well as a singer. She must be able to express in both voice and gesture intense passion and emotion. It is the period of storm and stress. Coloratura voices have not so much opportunity at the present time, unless they are quite out of the ordinary. And yet, for me, a singer who has mastery of the beautiful art of _bel canto,_ is a great joy. Galli-Curci's art is the highest I know of. For me she is the greatest singer. Melba also is wonderful. I have heard her often--she has been very kind to me. When I hear her sing an old Italian air, with those pure, bell-like tones of hers, I am lifted far up; I feel myself above the sky. DO NOT YIELD TO DISCOURAGEMENT "The younger singer need not yield to discouragement, for she must know from the start, that the mastery of a great art like singing is a long and arduous task. If the work seems too difficult at times, do not give up or say 'I cannot.' If I had done that, I should have really given up many times. Instead I say; 'I can do it, and not only I can but I will!' MUSICIANSHIP "There are so many sides to the singer's equipment, besides singing itself"; and Mme. Raisa lifted dark eyes and spread out her graceful hands as though to indicate the bigness of the subject. "Yes, there is the piano, for instance; the singer is much handicapped without a knowledge of that instrument, for it not only provides accompaniment but cultivates the musical sense. Of course I have learned the piano and I consider it necessary for the singer. "Then there are languages. Be not content with your own, though that language must be perfectly learned and expressed, but learn others." "You of course speak several languages?" questioned the listener. "Yes, I speak eight," she answered modestly. "Russian, of course, for I am Russian; then French, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, Roumanian and English. Besides these I am familiar with a few dialects. HAVE PATIENCE "So many young singers are so impatient; they want to prepare themselves in three or four years for a career," and Madame frowned her disapproval. "Perhaps they may come before the public after that length of time spent in study; but they will only know a part--a little of all they ought to know. With a longer time, conscientiously used, they would be far better equipped. The singer who spends nine or ten years in preparation, who is trained to sing florid parts as well as those which are dramatic--she indeed can sing anything, the music of the old school as well as of the new. In Rome I gave a recital of old music, assisted by members of the Sistine Chapel choir. We gave much old music, some of it dating from the sixth century. "Do I always feel the emotions I express when singing a rôle? Yes, I can say that I endeavor to throw myself absolutely into the part I am portraying; but that I always do so with equal success cannot be expected. So many unforeseen occurrences may interfere, which the audience can never know or consider. One may not be exactly in the mood, or in the best of voice; the house may not be a congenial space, or the audience is unsympathetic. But if all is propitious and the audience with you--then you are lifted up and carry every one with you. Then you are inspired and petty annoyances are quite forgotten. VOCAL MASTERY "You ask a very difficult question when you ask of what vocal mastery consists. If I have developed perfect control throughout the two and a half octaves of my voice, can make each tone with pure quality and perfect evenness in the different degrees of loud and soft, and if I have perfect breath control as well, I then have an equipment that may serve all purposes of interpretation. "Together with vocal mastery must go the art of interpretation, in which all the mastery of the vocal equipment may find expression. In order to interpret adequately one ought to possess a perfect instrument, perfectly trained. When this is the case one can forget mechanism, because confident of the ability to express whatever emotion is desired." "Have you a message which may be carried to the young singers?" she was asked. "Tell them to have patience--patience to work and patience to wait for results. Vocal mastery is not a thing that can be quickly accomplished; it is not the work of weeks and months, but of years of consistent, constant effort. It cannot be hurried, but must grow with one's growth, both mentally and physically. But the reward of earnest effort is sure to come!" X =LOUISE HOMER= THE REQUIREMENTS OF A MUSICAL CAREER Madame Louise Homer is a native artist to whom every loyal American can point with pardonable pride. Her career has been a constant, steady ascent, from the start; it is a career so well known in America that there is hardly any need to review it, except as she herself refers to it on the rare occasions when she is induced to speak of herself. For Mme. Homer is one of the most modest artists in the world; nothing is more distasteful to her than to seek for publicity through ordinary channels. So averse is she to any self-seeking that it was with considerable hesitation that she consented to express her views to the writer, on the singer's art. As Mr. Sidney Homer, the well known composer and husband of Mme. Homer, remarked, the writer should prize this intimate talk, as it was the first Mme. Homer had granted in a very long time. [Illustration: LOUISE HOMER] The artist had lately returned from a long trip, crowded with many concerts, when I called at the New York residence of this ideal musical pair and their charming family. Mme. Homer was at home and sent down word she would see me shortly. In the few moments of waiting, I seemed to feel the genial atmosphere of this home, its quiet and cheer. A distant tinkle of girlish laughter was borne to me once or twice; then a phrase or two sung by a rich, vibrant voice above; then in a moment after, the artist herself descended and greeted me cordially. "We will have a cup of tea before we start in to talk," she said, and, as if by magic, the tea tray and dainty muffins appeared. How wholesome and fresh she looked, with the ruddy color in her cheeks and the firm whiteness of neck and arms. The Japanese robe of "midnight blue," embroidered in yellows, heightened the impression of vigorous health by its becomingness. FOR THE GIRL WHO WANTS TO MAKE A CAREER "There is so much to consider for the girl who desires to enter the profession," began Mme. Homer, in response to my first query. "First, she must have a voice, there is no use attempting a career without the voice; there must be something to develop, something worth while to build upon. And if she has the voice and the means to study, she must make up her mind to devote herself exclusively to her art; there is no other way to succeed. She cannot enter society, go to luncheons, dinners and out in the evening, and at the same time accomplish much in the way of musical development. Many girls think, if they attend two or three voice lessons a week and learn some songs and a few operatic arias, that is all there is to it. But there is far more. They must know many other things. The vocal student should study piano and languages; these are really essential. Not that she should strive to become a pianist; that would not be possible if she is destined to become a singer; but the more she knows of the piano and its literature, the more this will cultivate her musical sense and develop her taste. HOW AN ARTIST WORKS "I am always studying, always striving to improve what I have already learned and trying to acquire the things I find difficult, or that I have not yet attained to. I do vocal technic every day; this is absolutely essential, while one is in the harness. It is during the winter that I work so industriously, both on technic and repertoire, between tours. This is when I study. I believe in resting the voice part of the year, and I take this rest in the summer. Then, for a time, I do not sing at all. I try to forget there is such a thing as music in the world, so far as studying it is concerned. Of course I try over Mr. Homer's new songs, when they are finished, for summer is his time for composition. "Since the voice is such an intangible instrument, the singer needs regular guidance and criticism, no matter how advanced she may be. As you say, it is difficult for the singer to determine the full effect of her work; she often thinks it much better than it really is. That is human nature, isn't it?" she added with one of her charming smiles. THE START IN OPERA "How did you start upon an operatic career?" the singer was asked. Just here Mr. Homer entered and joined in the conference. "I do not desire to go into my life-history, as that would take too long. In a few words, this is how it happened--years ago. "We were living in Boston; I had a church position, so we were each busy with our musical work. My voice was said to be 'glorious,' but it was a cumbersome, unwieldy organ. I could only sing up to F; there were so many things I wanted to do with my voice that seemed impossible, that I realized I needed more training. I could have remained where I was; the church people were quite satisfied, and I sang in concert whenever opportunity offered. But something within urged me on. We decided to take a year off and spend it in study abroad. Paris was then the Mecca for singers and to Paris we went. I plunged at once into absorbing study; daily lessons in voice training and repertoire; languages, and French diction, several times a week, and soon acting was added, for every one said my voice was for the theater. I had no idea, when I started out, that I should go into opera. I had always loved to sing, as far back as I can remember. My father was a Presbyterian clergyman, and when we needed new hymn books for church or Sunday School, they used to come to our house. I would get hold of every hymn book I could find and learn the music. So I was always singing; but an operatic career never entered my thought, until the prospect seemed to unfold before me, as a result of my arduous study in Paris. Of course I began to learn important arias from the operas. Every contralto aspires to sing the grand air from the last act of _Le Prophete;_ you know it of course. I told my teacher I could never do it, as it demanded higher tones than I had acquired, going up to C. He assured me it would be perfectly easy in a little while, if I would spend a few moments daily on those high notes. His prediction was correct, for in a few months I had no trouble with the top notes. "I studied stage deportment and acting from one of the greatest singing actors of the French stage, Paul Lherie. What an artist he was! So subtle, so penetrating, so comprehensive. The principles he taught are a constant help to me now, and his remarks often come back to me as I study a new rôle. "As I say, I studied this line of work, not knowing what would grow out of it; I did it on faith, hoping that it might prove useful." "It seems to me," remarked the composer, "that young singers would do well to make a study of acting, along with languages and piano. Then, if the voice developed and an operatic career opened to them, they would be so much better prepared; they would have made a start in the right direction; there would not be so much to learn all at once, later on." "If the girl could only be sure she was destined for a stage career," said Mme. Homer, thoughtfully, "she might do many things from the start that she doesn't think of doing before she knows. "To go on with my Paris story. I kept faithfully at work for a year, preparing myself for I knew not just what; I could not guess what was in store. Then I got my first opera engagement, quite unexpectedly. I was singing for some professional friends in a large _saale_. I noticed a man standing with his back to me, looking out of one of the long windows. When I finished, he came forward and offered me an engagement at Vichy, for the summer season. The name Vichy only suggested to my mind a kind of beverage. Now I learned the town had a flourishing Opera House, and I was expected to sing eight rôles. Thus my stage career began." WHAT ARE THE ASSETS FOR A CAREER? "And what must the girl possess, who wishes to make a success with her singing?" was asked. "First of all, as I have already said, she must have a voice; she can never expect to get very far without that. Voice is a necessity for a singer, but it rests with her what she will do with it, how she will develop it. "The next asset is intelligence; that is as great a necessity as a voice. For through the voice we express what we feel, what we are; intelligence controls, directs, shines through and illumines everything. Indeed what can be done without intelligence? I could mention a young singer with a good natural voice, who takes her tones correctly, who studies well; indeed one can find no fault with the technical side of her work; but her singing has no meaning--it says absolutely nothing; it only represents just so many notes." "That is because she has not a musical nature," put in Mr. Homer. "To my mind that is the greatest asset any one can have who wishes to become a musician in any branch of the art. What can be done without a musical nature? Of course I speak of the young singer who wishes to make a career. There are many young people who take up singing for their own pleasure, never expecting to do much with it. And it is a good thing to do so. It gives pleasure to their family and friends--is a healthful exercise, and last but not least, is financially good for the teacher they employ. "But the trouble comes when these superficial students aspire to become opera singers, after a couple of seasons' study. Of course they all cast eyes at the Metropolitan, as the end and aim of all striving. "Just as if, when a young man enters a law office, it is going to lead him to the White House, or that he expects it will," said Mr. Homer. "Then," resumed the artist, "we have already three requirements for a vocal career; Voice, Intelligence and a Musical Nature. I think the Fourth should be a Capacity for Work. Without application, the gifts of voice, intelligence and a musical nature will not make an artist. To accomplish this task requires ceaseless labor, without yielding to discouragement. Perhaps the Fifth asset would be a cheerful optimism as proof against discouragement. "That is the last thing the student should yield to--discouragement, for this has stunted or impaired the growth of many singers possessed of natural talent. The young singer must never be down-hearted. Suppose things do not go as she would like to have them; she must learn to overcome obstacles, not be overcome by them. She must have backbone enough to stand up under disappointments; they are the test of her mettle, of her worthiness to enter the circle with those who have overcome. For she can be sure that none of us have risen to a place in art without the hardest kind of work, struggle and the conquering of all sorts of difficulties. "The sixth asset ought to be Patience, for she will need that in large measure. It is only with patient striving, doing the daily vocal task, and trying to do it each day a little better than the day before, that anything worth while is accomplished. It is a work that cannot be hurried. I repeat it; the student must have unlimited patience to labor and wait for results. COLORATURA AND DRAMATIC "I would advise every student to study coloratura first. Then, as the voice broadens, deepens and takes on a richer timbre, it will turn naturally to the more dramatic expression. The voice needs this background, or foundation in the old Italian music, in order to acquire flexibility and freedom. I was not trained to follow this plan myself, but my daughter Louise, who is just starting out in her public career, has been brought up to this idea, which seems to me the best. MEMORIZING "I memorize very easily, learning both words and music at the same time. In taking up a new rôle, my accompanist plays it for me and we go over it carefully noting all there is in language and notes. When I can take it to bed with me, and go over it mentally; when I can go through it as I walk along the street, then it has become a part of me; then I can feel I know it." "Mme. Homer holds the banner at the Metropolitan, for rapid memorizing," said her husband. "On one occasion, when _Das Rheingold_ was announced for an evening performance, the Fricka was suddenly indisposed and unable to appear. Early in the afternoon, the Director came to Mme. Homer, begging her to do the part, as otherwise he would be forced to close the house that night. A singer had tried all forenoon to learn the rôle, but had now given it up as impossible. Mme. Homer consented. She started in at three o'clock and worked till six, went on in the evening, sang the part without rehearsal, and acquitted herself with credit. This record has never been surpassed at the Metropolitan." "I knew the other Frickas of the Ring," said Madame, "but had never learned the one in the _Rheingold_; it is full of short phrases and difficult to remember, but I came through all right. I may add, as you ask, that perhaps _Orfeo_ is my favorite rôle, one of the most beautiful works we have." VOCAL MASTERY "What do I understand by Vocal Mastery? The words explain themselves. The singer must master all difficulties of technic, of tone production, so as to be able to express the thought of the composer, and the meaning of the music." "Don't forget that the singer must have a musical nature," added Mr. Homer, "for without this true vocal mastery is impossible." XI =GIOVANNI MARTINELLI= "LET US HAVE PLENTY OF OPERA IN AMERICA" Said the Professor: "How well I remember the first time I heard Martinelli. We were traveling in Italy that summer, and had arrived in Verona rather late in the afternoon. The city seemed full of people, with many strangers, and we could not at first secure accommodations at the hotel. Inquiring the cause, the answer was: 'Does not the signer know that to-day is one holiday, and to-night, in the Amphitheater, _Aïda_ will be sung, under the stars.' We finally secured rooms, and of course heard the opera that night. Young Martinelli was the Rhadames, and I shall never forget how splendidly his voice rang out over those vast spaces of the Arena. It was a most unusual experience to hear that music sung in the open--'under the stars,' and it was unforgettable." [Illustration: GIOVANNI MARTINELLI] Giovanni Martinelli, who has been for several years one of the leading tenors at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, has warmly entrenched himself in the hearts of music lovers in America. To be a great singer, as some one has said, requires, first, voice; second, voice; third, voice. However, at the present hour a great singer must have more than voice; we demand histrionic ability also. We want singing actors as well as great singers. Mr. Martinelli is the possessor of a beautiful voice and, moreover, is a fine actor and an excellent musician. He was, first of all, a clarinetist before he became a singer, and so well did he play his chosen instrument that his services were in great demand in his home town in Italy. Then it was discovered he had a voice and he was told he could make a far greater success with that voice than he ever could playing the clarinet. He set to work at once to cultivate the voice in serious earnest and under good instruction. After a considerable time devoted to study, he made his début in Milan, in Verdi's _Ernani_. His success won an engagement at Covent Garden and for Monte Carlo. A visit to the singer's New York home is a most interesting experience. He has chosen apartments perched high above the great artery of the city's life--Broadway. From the many sun-flooded windows magnificent views of avenue, river and sky are visible, while at night the electrical glamour that meets the eye is fairy-like. It is a sightly spot and must remind the singer of his own sun lighted atmosphere at home. The visitor was welcomed with simple courtesy by a kindly, unaffected gentleman, who insists he cannot speak "your English," but who, in spite of this assertion, succeeds in making himself excellently well understood. One feels his is a mentality that will labor for an object and will attain it through force of effort. There is determination in the firm mouth, which smiles so pleasantly when speaking; the thoughtful brow and serious eyes add their share to the forceful personality. The Titian-tinted hair indicates, it is said, a birthplace in northern Italy. This is quite true in the case of Mr. Martinelli, as he comes from a village not far from Padua and but fifty miles from Venice--the little town of Montagnana. DAILY STUDY "You ask about my daily routine of study. In the morning I practice exercises and vocalizes for one hour. These put the voice in good condition, tune up the vocal chords and oil up the mechanism, so to speak. After this I work on repertoire for another hour. I always practice with full voice, as with half voice I would not derive the benefit I need. At rehearsals I use half voice, but not when I study. In the afternoon I work another hour, this time with my accompanist; for I do not play the piano myself, only just enough to assist the voice with a few chords. This régime gives me three hours' regular study, which seems to me quite sufficient. The voice is not like the fingers of a pianist, for they can be used without limit. If we would keep the voice at its best, we must take care not to overwork it. TREATMENT OF THE VOICE "In regard to the treatment of the voice, each singer must work out his own salvation. A great teacher--one who understands his own voice and can sing as well as teach--may tell how he does things, may explain how he treats the voice, may demonstrate to the student his manner of executing a certain phrase or passage, or of interpreting a song. But when this is done he can do little more for the student, for each person has a different mentality and a different quality of voice--indeed there are as many qualities of voice as there are people. After general principles are thoroughly understood, a singer must work them out according to his own ability. This does not mean that he cannot be guided and helped by the greater experience of a master higher up, who can always criticize the _result_ of what the student is trying to do. The voice is a hidden instrument, and eventually its fate must rest with its possessor. A NEW RÔLE "When I take up a new part I read the book very carefully to get a thorough idea of the story, the plot and the characters. Then comes the study of my own part, of which I memorize the words first of all. As soon as the words are committed I begin on the music. When these are both well in hand, work with the accompanist follows. "I have many tenor rôles in my repertoire and am working on others. If you ask for my favorite opera, or operas, I would answer, as most Italians would do, that I enjoy singing the music of Verdi more than that of any composer. I love his _Aïda_ perhaps best of all. _Ernani_ is a beautiful opera, but maybe would be thought too old-fashioned for New York. I sing various rôles in French as well as Italian--_Faust, Sans Gene_, and many more. In Italy we know Wagner very well--_Lohengrin, Tannhauser, Tristan_ and _Meistersinger_,--but of course they are always sung in Italian. OPERA IN EVERY CITY "The Metropolitan is one of the greatest opera houses in the world--but it is only _one_. You have a wonderful country, yet most of its cities must do without opera. Do not forget that in Italy every city and town has its opera house and its season of opera, lasting ten weeks or more. Of course the works are not elaborately produced, the singers may not be so great or high-salaried, but the people are being educated to know and love the best opera music. Performances are given Wednesdays and Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays; the singers resting the days between. They need to as they are obliged to sing at every performance. "Ah, if you would follow some such plan in America! It would create a great love for good music in the smaller cities and towns where people hear so little, and so seldom this kind of music. You do so much for music in every other style, but not for opera. Of course I must except the half dozen cities large enough and rich enough to be favored with a season of extended operatic performances; these are the real music centers of your country. "I will show you what we do for opera in Italy. Here is an Italian musical journal, which I have just received." Mr. Martinelli took up a single-sheet newspaper which lay upon his desk. "You will find all the large cities and most of the small ones reported here. Accordingly, accounts are given of what works are being performed, what artists are singing and where, and how long each season will last. Thus we can glance over the whole field and keep in touch with every singer. Naturally, the time and length of the seasons of performance differ widely in the different places. Thus a singer of reputation can make engagements in various places, then go from one town to another in a complete tour, without conflicting. "I have had the pleasure of singing a number of seasons at the Metropolitan. During the summer I do not always go back to Italy when the season is over here; last year I sang in Buenos Aires. This keeps me at work the whole year. Buenos Aires is a beautiful city, and reminds one of Milan. Yes, I like New York. It is more commercial, of course, but I have grown accustomed to that side of it." As the visitor was leaving, courteously conducted through the corridor by Mr. Martinelli, a small chariot was encountered, crammed with dolls and toys, the whole belonging to little Miss Martinelli, aged eleven months. "Shall you make a singer of the little lady?" the artist was asked. "Ah, no; one singer in a family is enough," was the quick response. "But who can tell? It may so happen, after all." XII =ANNA CASE= INSPIRED INTERPRETATION Anna Case, known from one end of our land to the other, in song recital, is surely one hundred per cent. American. She was born in the little State of New Jersey, and received her entire vocal training right here in New York City, of a single teacher. No running about from one instructor to another, "getting points" from each, for this singer. She knew from the first moment that she had found the right teacher, one who understood her, what she wanted to do, and could bring her to the goal. And when one has discovered just the right person to develop talent, one should have the good sense and loyalty to stick to that person. This is exactly what Miss Case has done, for along with other gifts she has the best gift of all--common sense. "Mme. Ostrom-Renard has been my only teacher," she says; "whatever I am or have accomplished I owe entirely to her. She has done everything for me; I feel she is the most wonderful teacher in the world." [Illustration: ANNA CASE] A life of constant travel and almost daily concerts and recitals, lies before Miss Case from early in the Autumn to the end of Spring, with but a few breathing places here and there, between the tours, when she returns home to rest up. During one of these oases it was a pleasant experience to meet and talk with the charming young singer, in her cozy New York apartment. She had just come in from a six weeks' trip, which had included concerts in Texas and Mexico, where the usual success had attended her everywhere. It must surely give a sense of relief to know that the quiet home is awaiting one's return; that there are to be found one's favorite books, music, piano, the silken divan, soft lights, pictures,--all the familiar comforts one is deprived of on the road. The visitor, coming in from the biting winds without, was impressed with the comfort and warmth of the small salon, as the mistress of it entered. Clad in soft draperies of dull blue, which but thinly veiled the white arms and fell away from the rounded throat, Miss Case was just as beautiful to look upon as when she stands in bewildering evening gown before a rapt audience. And, what is much more to the point, she is a thoroughly sensible, sincere American girl, with no frills and no nonsense about her. After greetings were over, the singer settled herself among the silken cushions of her divan ready for our talk. "I believe I always wanted to sing, rather than do anything else in the way of music. I studied the piano a little at first, but that did not exactly appeal to me. I also began the violin, because my father is fond of that instrument and wanted me to play it. But the violin was not just what I wanted either, for all the time I longed to sing. Singing is such a part of one's very self; I wanted to express myself through it. I had no idea, when I started, that I should ever make a specialty of it, or that, in a comparatively few years I should be singing all over the country. I did not know what was before me, I only wanted to learn to sing. "Now I cannot tell just how I do the different things one must do to sing correctly. I know that, if I have to master some subject, I just sit down and work at that thing till I can do it--till it is done. My teacher knows every organ in the anatomy, and can describe the muscles, bones and ligaments found in the head, face and throat. She can make a diagram of the whole or any part. Not that such knowledge is going to make a singer, but it may help in directing one's efforts." TONE PLACEMENT "Can you describe tone placement?" she was asked. "For the deeper tones--as one makes them--they seem to come from lower down: for the middle and higher tones, you feel the vibrations in facial muscles and about the eyes, always focused forward, just at the base of the forehead, between the eyes. It is something very difficult to put into words; the sensations have to be experienced, when making the tones. The singer must judge so much from sensation, for she cannot very well hear herself. I do not really hear myself; I mean by this I cannot tell the full effect of what I am doing." WHEN TO PRACTICE "No doubt you do much practice--or is that now necessary?" Miss Case considered this thoughtfully. "I never practice when I am tired, for then it does more harm than good. It is much better for the voice to rest and not use it at all, than to sing when not physically fit. One must be in good condition to make good tones; they will not be clear and perfect if one is not strong and in good health. I can really study, yet not sing at all. For the whole work is mental anyway. USING FULL VOICE "When I work on the interpretation of a song, in the quiet of my music room here, I try to sing it just as I would before an audience; I have not two ways of doing it, one way for a small room and another for a large one. If your tone placement is correct, and you are making the right effects, they will carry equally in a large space. At least this is my experience. But," she added, smiling, "you may find other artists who would not agree to this, who would think quite differently. Each one must see things her own way; and singing is such an individual thing after all. THE SUBJECT OF INTERPRETATION "The interpretation of a rôle, or song, is everything--of course. What are mere notes and signs compared to the thoughts expressed through them? Yet it is evident there are people who don't agree to this, for one hears many singers who never seem to look deeper than the printed page. They stand up and go through their songs, but the audiences remain cold; they are not touched. The audiences are blamed for their apathy or indifference, but how can they be warmed when the singer does not kindle them into life? "To me there is a wonderful bond of sympathy between the audience and myself. I feel the people, in a sense, belong to me--are part of my family. To them I pour out all my feelings--my whole soul. All the sorrow of the sad songs, all the joy of the gay ones, they share with me. In this spirit I come before them; they feel this, I am sure. It awakens a response at once, and this always inspires me. I put myself in a receptive mood; it has the desired effect; my interpretation becomes inspired through their sympathy and my desire to give out to them. THE WORDS OF A SONG PARAMOUNT "I feel the greatest thing about a song is the words. They inspired the music, they were the cause of its being. I cannot imagine, when once words have been joined to music, how other words can be put to the same music, without destroying the whole idea. The words must be made plain to the audience. Every syllable should be intelligible, and understood by the listener. I feel diction is so absolutely essential. How can a singer expect the audience will take an interest in what she is doing, if they have no idea what it is all about? And this applies not only to English songs but to those in French as well. In an audience there will be many who understand French. Shall the singer imagine she can pronounce a foreign tongue in any old way, and it will go--in these days? No, she must be equally careful about all diction and see that it is as nearly perfect as she can make it; that it is so correct that anybody can understand every word. When she can do this, she has gone a long way toward carrying her audience with her when she sings. "When the diction is satisfactory, there is yet something much deeper; it is the giving out of one's best thought, one's best self, which must animate the song and carry it home to the listener. It touches the heart, because it comes from one's very inmost being. I am a creature of mood. I cannot sing unless I feel like it. I must be inspired in order to give an interpretation that shall be worth anything. GROWTH OF APPRECIATION "In traveling over the country, I have found such wonderful musical growth, and it seems to increase each year. Even in little places the people show such appreciation for what is good. And I only give them good music--the best songs, both classical and modern. Nothing but the best would interest me. In my recent trip, down in Mexico and Oklahoma, there are everywhere large halls, and people come from all the country round to attend a concert. Men who look as though they had driven a grocery wagon, or like occupation, sit and listen so attentively and with such evident enjoyment. I am sure the circulation of the phonograph records has much to do with America's present wonderful advancement in musical understanding." Just here a large cat slipped through the doorway; such a beautiful creature, with long gray and white fur and big blue eyes. "It is a real chinchilla, of high degree," said Miss Case, caressing her pet. "I call her Fochette. I am so fond of all animals, especially dogs and cats." "You must know the country well, having been over it so much." "Yes, but oh, the long distances! It often takes so many hours to go from one place to another. I think there is a reason why foreign singers are apt to be rather stout; they are not worn out by traveling great distances, as cities are so much nearer together than over here!" And Miss Case smiled in amusement. "But, in spite of all discomforts of transportation and so on, the joy of bringing a message to a waiting audience is worth all it costs. I often think, if one could just fly to Chicago or Philadelphia, for instance, sing one's program and return just as quickly, without all these hours of surface travel, how delightful it would be! I had a wonderful experience in an airplane last summer. Flying has the most salutary effect on the voice. After sailing through the air for awhile, you feel as though you could sing anything and everything, the exhilaration is so great. One takes in such a quantity of pure air that the lungs feel perfectly clear and free. One can learn a lesson about breathing from such an experience." Before parting a final question was asked: "What, in your opinion, are the vital requisites necessary to become a singer?" Almost instantly came the reply: "Brains, Personality, Voice." With this cryptic answer we took leave of the fair artist. XIII =FLORENCE EASTON= PROBLEMS CONFRONTING THE YOUNG SINGER English by birth, American by marriage, beloved in every country where her art is known, Florence Easton, after ten years of activity in the music centers of Europe, is now making her home in America. Mme. Easton is a singer whose attitude towards music is one of deepest sincerity. No one could witness her beautiful, sympathetic investiture of the Saint Elizabeth, of Liszt, or some of her other important rôles, without being impressed with this complete, earnest sincerity. It shines out of her earnest eyes and frank smile, as she greets the visitor; it vibrates in the tones of her voice as she speaks. What can even a whole hour's talk reveal of the deep undercurrents of an artist's thought? Yet in sixty minutes many helpful things may be said, and Mme. Easton, always serious in every artistic thing she undertakes, will wish the educational side of our talk to be uppermost. THE YOUNG SINGER "I have a deep sympathy for the American girl who honestly wishes to cultivate her voice. Of course, in the first place, she must have a voice to start with; there is no use trying to train something which doesn't exist. Given the voice and a love for music, it is still difficult to tell another how to begin. Each singer who has risen, who has found herself, knows by what path she climbed, but the path she found might not do for another. "There are quantities of girls in America with good voices, good looks and a love for music. And there are plenty of good vocal teachers, too, not only in New York, but in other large cities of this great country. There is always the problem, however, of securing just the right kind of a teacher. For a teacher may be excellent for one voice but not for another. THE STUDIO VERSUS THE CONCERT ROOM [Illustration: FLORENCE EASTON] "The American girl, trained in the studio, has little idea of what it means to sing in a large hall or opera house. In the small room her voice sounds very pretty, and she can make a number of nice effects; she may also have a delicate pianissimo. These things are mostly lost when she tries them in a large space. It is like beginning all over again. She has never been taught any other way but the studio way. If young singers could only have a chance to try their wings frequently in large halls, it would be of the greatest benefit. If they could sing to a public who only paid a nominal sum and did not expect great things; a public who would come for the sake of the music they were to hear, because they wanted the enjoyment and refreshment of it, not for the sake of some singers with big names, they would judge the young aspirant impersonally, which would be one of the best things for her. VALUE OF HONEST CRITICISM "Frequently the trouble with the young singer is that her friends too often tell her how wonderful she is. This is a hindrance instead of a help. She should always have some one who will criticize her honestly. The singer cannot really hear herself, that is, not until she is well advanced in her work. Therefore she should always have the guidance of a teacher. I never think of giving a program without going through it for criticism. The office of critic is a very difficult one, especially if you are to criticize some one you are fond of. Mr. Maclennan and I try to do it for each other. I assure you it is no easy task to sing a program knowing some one is listening who will not spare you, and will tell you all your faults. I know this is all very salutary, but it is human nature to wish to hear one's good points rather than the poor ones. I sometimes say: 'Do tell me the good things I did.' But he says he does not need to speak of those; I only need to know my faults in order that they may be corrected. "It is so easy to overdo a little, one way or the other. For instance, you make a certain effect,--it goes well. You think you will make it a little more pronounced next time. And so it goes on, until before you know it you have acquired a definite habit, which the critics will call a mannerism and advise you to get rid of. So the artist has to be constantly on the watch, to guard against these incipient faults." BREATHING EXERCISES Asked what kind of breathing exercises she used, Mme. Easton continued: "No doubt each one has her own exercises for the practice and teaching of breath control. For myself, I stand at the open window, for one should always breathe pure air, and I inhale and exhale slowly, a number of times, till I feel my lungs are thoroughly clear and filled with fresh air. Then I frequently sing tones directly after these long inhalations. A one-octave scale, sung slowly in one breath, or at most in two, is an excellent exercise. You remember Lilli Lehmann's talks about the 'long scale'? But the way in which she uses it perhaps no one but a Lehmann could imitate. What a wonderful woman she was--and is! She has such a remarkable physique, and can endure any amount of effort and fatigue. Every singer who hopes to make a success in any branch of the musical profession, should look after the physical side, and see that it is cared for and developed. "STUDY THE PIANO!" "If a girl is fond of music, let her first of all study the piano, for a knowledge of the piano and its music is really at the bottom of everything. If I have a word of advice to mothers, it should be: 'Let your child study the piano.' All children should have this opportunity, whether they greatly desire it or not. The child who early begins to study the piano, will often--almost unconsciously--follow the melody she plays with her voice. Thus the love of song is awakened in her, and a little later it is discovered she has a voice that is worth cultivating. How many of our great singers began their musical studies first at the piano. "On the other hand, the girl with a voice, who has never worked at the piano, is greatly handicapped from the start, when she begins her vocal studies. As she knows nothing of the piano, everything has to be played for her,--she can never be independent of the accompanist; she loses half the pleasure of knowing and doing things herself." FULL OR HALF VOICE Asked if she used full or half voice for practice, Mme. Easton replied: "I do not, as a rule, use full voice when at work. But this admission, if followed, might prove injurious to the young singer. In the earlier stages of study, one should use full voice, for half voice might result in very faulty tone production. The advanced singer, who has passed the experimental stage can do many things the novice may not attempt, and this is one of them. IN REGARD TO MEMORIZING "Here again my particular method of work can hardly be of value to others, as I memorize with great rapidity. It is no effort for me; I seem to be able to visualize the whole part. Music has always been very easy to remember and with sufficient concentration I can soon make the words my own. I always concentrate deeply on what I am doing. Lately I was asked to prepare a leading rôle in one of the season's new operas, to replace a singer at short notice, should this be necessary. I did so and accomplished the task in four days. Mr. Caruso laughingly remarked I must have a camera in my head. I know my own parts, both voice and accompaniment. In learning a song, I commit both voice and words at the same time. FEELING DEEPLY DURING PERFORMANCE "I feel the meaning of the music, the tragedy or comedy, the sadness or gayety of it each time I perform it, but not, as a rule, to the extent of being entirely worn out with emotion. It depends, however, on the occasion. If you are singing in a foreign language, which the audience does not understand, you make every effort to 'put it over,' to make them see what you are trying to tell them. You strive to make the song intelligible in some way. You may add facial expression and gesture, more than you would otherwise do. All this is more wearing because of the effort involved. LANGUAGE "This brings us to another point, the study of languages. The Italian sings nearly all his rôles in his own tongue, with a few learned in French. With the Frenchman, it is the same: he sings in his own tongue and learns some parts in Italian. But we poor Americans are forced to learn our parts in all three languages. This, of itself, greatly adds to our difficulties. We complain that the American sings his own language so carelessly. An Italian, singing his own language for his own people, may not be any more careful than we are, but he will make English, if he attempts it, more intelligible than we do, because he takes extra care to do so. The duty is laid upon Americans to study other languages, if they expect to sing. I know how often this study is neglected by the student. It is another phase of that haste to make one's way which is characteristic of the young student and singer. "Take, for example, the girl in the small town, who is trying to do something with her voice. She believes if she can get to New York, or some other music center, and have six months' lessons with some well known teacher, she will emerge a singer. She comes and finds living expenses so great that only one lesson a week with the professor is possible. There is no chance for language or diction study, or piano lessons; yet all these she ought to have. And one vocal lesson a week is entirely inadequate. The old way of having daily lessons was far more successful. The present way vocal teachers give lessons is not conducive to the best development. The pupils come in a hurry, one after another, to get their fifteen or twenty minutes of instruction. Yet one cannot blame the teacher for he must live. THE IDEAL WAY "The ideal way is to have several lessons a week, and not to take them in such haste. If the pupil arrives, and finds, on first essay, that her voice is not in the best of trim, how much better to be able to wait a bit, and try again; it might then be all right. But, as I said, under modern conditions, this course seems not to be possible, for the teacher must live. If only vocal lessons could be free, at least to the talented ones! It seems sad that a gifted girl must pay to learn to sing, when it is a very part of her, as much as the song of the bird. Ah, if I had plenty of money, I would see that many of them should have this privilege, without always looking at the money end of it. AMOUNT OF DAILY PRACTICE "It seems to me the young singer should not practice more than two periods of fifteen or twenty minutes each. At most one should not use the voice more than an hour a day. We hear of people practicing hours and hours daily, but that is probably in books. The voice cannot be treated as the pianist or violinist does his fingers. One must handle the voice with much more care. OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE YOUNG SINGER IN AMERICA "The chances for the American singer to make a career in concert and recital are abundant. In no other country in the world do such opportunities exist. If she can meet the requirements, she can win both fame and fortune on the concert stage. "In opera, on the other hand, opportunities are few and the outlook anything but hopeful. Every young singer casts longing eyes at the Metropolitan, or Chicago Opera, as the goal of all ambition. But that is the most hopeless notion of all. No matter how beautiful the voice, it is drill, routine, experience one needs. Without these, plus musical reputation, how is one to succeed in one of the two opera houses of the land? And even if one is accepted 'for small parts,' what hope is there of rising, when some of the greatest artists of the world hold the leading rôles? What the American singer needs is opportunity to gain experience and reputation in smaller places. Several years' drill and routine would fit the aspirant for a much broader field. This would give her command over her resources and herself, and perfect her voice and impersonations, if she has the gifts and constantly studies to improve them. Even England, so small compared to America, has seven opera companies that travel up and down the land, giving opera; they have done this during all the years of the war. "This question of providing opportunity for operatic experience in America, is one which has long been discussed and many experiments have been tried, without arriving at satisfactory results. What is needed is to awaken interest in opera in small places--just little out-of-the-way towns. My idea would be to have a regular stock local opera company, and have the standard operas studied. Have a little orchestra of about twenty and a small chorus. The small parts to be learned by the most competent singers in the place. Then have the few principal rôles taken by 'guest artists,' who might make these engagements in regular route and succession. It seems to me such a plan could be carried out, and what a joy it would be to any small community! But people must gradually awake to this need: it will take time." XIV =MARGUERITE D'ALVAREZ= THE MESSAGE OF THE SINGER A great podium backed with green, reminding one of a forest of palms; dim lights through the vast auditorium; a majestic, black-robed figure standing alone among the palms, pouring out her voice in song; a voice at once vibrant, appealing, powerful, filled now with sweeping passion, again with melting tenderness; such was the stage setting for my first impression of Mme. Marguerite d'Alvarez, and such were some of the emotions she conveyed. Soon after this experience, I asked if I might have a personal talk with the artist whose singing had made such a deep impression upon me. It was most graciously granted, and at the appointed hour I found myself in a charmingly appointed yet very home-like salon, chatting with this Spanish lady from Peru, who speaks such beautiful English and is courtesy itself. This time it was not a somber, black-robed figure who came forward so graciously to greet me, for above a black satin walking skirt, Madame had added a blouse of soft creamy lace, which revealed the rounded curves of neck and arms; the only ornament being a string of pearls about the full throat. Later in our talk I ventured to express my preference for creamy draperies instead of black, for the concert room; but the singer thought otherwise. "No," she said; "my gown must be absolutely unobtrusive--negative. I must not use it to heighten effect, or to attract the audience to me personally. People must be drawn to me by what I express, by my art, by what I have to give them." But to begin at the beginning. In answer to my first question, "What must one do to become a singer?" Madame said: [Illustration: MARGUERITE D'ALVAREZ] "To become a singer, one must have a voice; that is of the first importance. In handling and training that voice, breathing is perhaps the most vital thing to be considered. To some breath control seems to be second nature; others must toil for it. With me it is intuition; it has always been natural. Breathing is such an individual thing. With each person it is different, for no two people breathe in just the same way, whether natural or acquired. Just as one pianist touches the keys of the instrument in his own peculiar way, unlike the ways of all other pianists. For instance, no two singers will deliver the opening phrase of 'My heart at thy sweet voice,' from _Samson_, in exactly the same way. One will expend a little more breath on some tones than on others; one may sing it softer, another louder. Indeed how can two people ever give out a phrase in the same way, when they each feel it differently? The great thing is to control the management of the breath through intelligent study. But alas,"--with a pretty little deprecating gesture,--"many singers do not seem to use their intelligence in the right way. They need to study so many things besides vocalizes and a few songs. They ought to broaden themselves in every way. They should know books, pictures, sculpture, acting, architecture,--in short everything possible in the line of art, and of life. For all these things will help them to sing more intelligently. They should cultivate all these means of self-expression. For myself, I have had a liberal education in music--piano, harmony, theory, composition and kindred subjects. And then I love and study art in all its forms and manifestations." "Your first recital in New York was a rich and varied feast," I remarked. "Indeed I feel I gave the audience too much; there was such a weight of meaning to each song, and so many! I cannot sing indifferent or superficial songs. I must sing those which mean much, either of sadness or mirth, passion or exaltation. No one knows (who has not been through it) what it means to face a great audience of strangers, knowing that something in you must awake those people and draw them toward you: you must bare your very soul to them and bring theirs to you, in answering response, just by your voice. It is a wonderful thing, to bring to masses of people a message in this way. I feel this strongly, whenever I stand before a large audience, that with every note I sing I am delivering something of the God-given gift which has been granted to me--that I can do some good to each one who hears. If they do not care for me, or if they misunderstand my message, they may hate me--at first. When they do understand, then they adore me. SENTIMENT VERSUS TEMPERAMENT "You can well believe it is far more difficult to sing a recital program than to do an operatic rôle. In the recital you are absolutely alone, and entirely responsible for your effect on the audience. You must be able to express every variety of emotion and feeling, must make them realize the difference between sorrow and happiness, revenge or disdain; in short, make them, for the moment, experience these things. The artist who can best vivify these varying emotions must have temperament. On the piano, you may hear players who express sentiment, feeling, fine discrimination in tone color and shading; but comparatively few possess real temperament. There is great difference between that quality and sentiment. The one can be learned, to a certain extent; but temperament is one's very life and soul, and is bound to sweep everything before it. Of this one thing I am very sure; the singer cannot express all these emotions without feeling them to the full during performance. I always feel every phrase I sing--live it. That is why, after a long and exhausting program, I am perfectly limp and spent. For I have given all that was in me. Friends of Sara Bernhardt say that after a performance, they would find her stretched prone on a couch in her dressing room, scarcely able to move or speak. The strain of a public appearance, when one gives one's heart's blood, is beyond words"; and Madame's upturned face and expressive gesture denoted how keenly alive she was to this experience. After a little pause, I said: "Let us come down to earth, while you tell me just how you study. No doubt you do some daily technical practice." MASSAGE THE VOICE "Oh, yes, technic is most important; one can do nothing without it. When I begin to study in the morning, I give the voice what I call a massage. One's voice cannot be driven, it must be coaxed, enticed. This massage consists of humming exercises, with closed lips. Humming is the sunshine of the voice." The singer illustrated the idea with a short musical figure, consisting of three consecutive tones of the diatonic scale, ascending and descending several times; on each repetition the phrase began on the next higher note of the scale. "You see," she continued, "this little exercise brings the tone fully forward. As you feel the vibration, it should be directly between the eyes. "Now, after you have coaxed the voice forward in this way, and then opened your lips to sing a full tone, this tone should, indeed must, be right in the same place where the humming tones were,--it cannot be anywhere else." Madame illustrated again, first humming on one tone, then letting it out with full resonance, using the vowel Ah, which melted into O, and later changed into U, as the tone died away. "This vibration in the voice should not be confounded with a tremolo, which is, of course, very undesirable. A voice without vibrato, would be cold and dead, expressionless. There must be this pulsing quality in the tone, which carries waves of feeling on it. "Thus the singer entices the voice to come forward and out, never treating it roughly or harshly, never forcing or straining it. Take pleasure in every tone you make; with patience and pleasure much is accomplished. I could not give you a more useful tip than this." "Will you tell me how you learn a song?" she was asked. "I first read over the text and get a good idea of its meaning. When I begin to study the song, I never separate the music from the words, but learn both together. I play the piano of course, and thus can get a good idea of the accompaniment, and of the whole _ensemble_. "I feel so strongly that real art, the highest art, is for those who truly understand it and its mission. A dream of mine is one day to found a school of true art. Everything in this school shall be on a high plane of thought. The instructors shall be gifted themselves and have only lofty ideals. And it will be such a happiness to watch the development of talent which may blossom into genius through having the right nurture. I shall watch this work from a distance, for I might be too anxious if I allowed myself to be in the midst of the work. But this is my dream, and I hope it will one day come true." XV =MARIA BARRIENTOS= BE YOUR OWN CRITIC It is often remarked that the world has grown far away from coloratura singing; that what we want to-day is the singing actor, the dramatic singer, who can portray passion--tear it to tatters if need be--but at least throw into voice gesture and action all the conflicting emotions which arise when depicting a modern dramatic character. It is said, with much truth, composers do not write coloratura parts in these days, since audiences do not care to listen to singers who stand in the middle of the stage, merely to sing beautiful arias and tonal embroideries. Therefore there are very few coloratura singers at present, since their opportunities are so limited. To the last objection it can be answered that audiences do still flock to hear a great coloratura artist, for they know they will hear pure, beautiful melodies when they listen to the old Italian operas. And melody proves to be a magnet every time; it always touches the heart. Again, the coloratura singer is not obliged to stand in the middle of the stage, while she warbles beautiful tones, with seemingly little regard for the rôle she is enacting. The coloratura singer, who is an artist, can act as well as sing. Tetrazzini, as she moves about the room, greeting her guests, as she does in _Traviata_ or _Lucia_, can at the same time keep right on with her florid song, proving she can think of both arts at once. It is quite true there are not many coloratura singers of the first rank to-day. When you have mentioned Galli-Curci, Tetrazzini, Barrientos, and Frieda Hempel--the last is both lyric and coloratura--you have named all the great ones who are known to us here in America. There are a couple of younger artists, Garrison and Macbeth, who are rapidly gaining the experience which will one day place them in the charmed circle. [Illustration: MARIA BARRIENTOS] Consider for an instant the three first named singers. They stand at the very top of their profession; they are each and all great in their chosen line, to which they are fitted by reason of their special vocal gifts. Yet how absolutely different is each from the other! They cannot even be compared. They all sing the great florid arias, but each with her own peculiar timbre of voice, her individual nuance and manner of expression. And it is well this should be so. We would not have all coloratura singing of the same pattern of sameness or quality, for we find uniformity is monotonous. There is one peculiar mode of mastery for Galli-Curci, another for Tetrazzini, still another for Barrientos; each in her particular _genre_ is unique, apart. Perhaps this is especially the case with the Spanish prima donna, Barrientos, who has for several years past come to the Metropolitan for part of the season. She lives very quietly--almost in seclusion--in the great city, keeping very much to herself, with her mother and the members of her household, and does not care to have the simple routine she plans for herself interrupted by any outside demands on her crowded days. Thus it happens that very few come face to face with the Spanish artist except her personal friends. But once in a while she breaks the strict rule, and will consent to speak with a serious questioner about her manner of study, how she happened to take up a musical career, also some of the characteristics of her country, its people and its musical art. As her own art of song is most delicate and pure, as her instrument is the most fragile and ethereal of any of the voices of her class, so the singer herself is of slight and delicate physique. Her oval face, with its large luminous eyes, has a charm more pronounced than when seen on the other side of the footlights. Her manner is simple and sincere, in common with that of all great artists. "Although I always loved singing, I never expected to become a singer," began Mme. Barrientos, as we were seated on a comfortable divan in her artistic music room. "As a very young girl, hardly more than a child, my health became delicate. I had been working very hard at the Royal Conservatory of Music, in Barcelona, my native city, studying piano, violin and theory, also composition. I was always a delicate child, and the close application required for these studies was too much for me. Singing was prescribed in order to develop my chest and physique; I took it up as a means of health and personal pleasure, without the slightest idea to what it might lead. "You speak of the responsibility of choosing a good and reliable vocal instructor. This is indeed a difficult task, because each teacher is fully persuaded that his method is the only correct one. But there are so _many teachers_, and some of them do not even sing themselves at all. Can you imagine a vocal teacher who cannot sing himself, who is so to say voiceless, unable to demonstrate what he teaches? A piano or violin teacher must play his instrument, or he will not be able to show the pupils how it ought to be done. But the vocal teacher thinks to instruct without demonstrating what he is trying to impart. BEGINNING VOCAL STUDY WITH OPERA "So I did not begin my studies with a regular vocal teacher, but with a dilettante--I do not know just how you say that in English. This gentleman was not a professional; he was a business man who at the same time was a good musician. Instead of starting me with a lot of scales and exercises, we began at once with the operas. I was twelve years old when I began, and after one year of this kind of study, made my début in the rôle of Inez, in _L'Africaine_. About this time I lost my kind instructor, who passed away. I then worked by myself until I was sixteen, when I began to study technic systematically. As you see, then, I am practically self-taught. It seems to me, if one has voice and intelligence, one can and should be one's own teacher. No one else can do as much for you as you can do for yourself. You can tell what the sensations are, what parts are relaxed and what parts are firm, better than any one else. You can listen and work on tone quality until it reaches the effect you desire. I do not neglect vocal technic now, for I know its value. I do about three quarters of an hour technical practice every day--scales and exercises. MEMORIZING "I memorize very easily; it only takes a few weeks to learn an operatic rôle. I spent three weeks on _Coq d'Or_, and that is a difficult part, so many half tones and accidentals. But I love that music, it is so beautiful; it is one of my favorite rôles. Some parts are longer and more difficult than others. Of course I know most of the Italian operas and many French ones. I should like to sing _Mireille_ and _Lakmé_ here, but the Director may wish to put on other works instead. SPANISH OPERA "Yes, we have native opera in Spain, but the works of our operatic composers are little known in other lands. The Spanish people are clannish, you see, and seem to lack the ambition to travel abroad to make their art known to others; they are satisfied to make it known to their own people. Casals and I--we are perhaps the ones who regularly visit you, though you have several Spanish singers in the opera who reside here permanently. "As for Spanish composers of instrumental music, you are here somewhat familiar with the names of Grovelez and Albeniz; Granados you know also, both his opera, _Goyescas_, which was performed at the Metropolitan, and his personality. He came to America to witness the premier of his opera, and while here proved he was a most excellent pianist as well as a composer of high merit, which fact was revealed in his piano and vocal compositions. The American people were most kind and appreciative to him. When the disaster came and he was lost at sea, the testimonial they sent his orphaned children was a goodly sum, though I hardly think the children appreciated your goodness. "Among the composers in Spain who have turned their gifts toward operatic channels I can mention Pedrell, Morea, Falla, Vives and Breton. Vives is now writing an opera for me, entitled _Abanico_. Gradually, no doubt, the music of our country, especially its opera, will find its way to other lands. Even in England, I am told, Spanish music is very little known; our many distinguished modern musicians are hardly even names. Of course the world knows our Toreador songs, our castanet dances, and the like; perhaps they think we have little or no serious music, because it is still unknown. Spanish music is peculiar to the country; it is permeated with the national spirit and feeling." Asked if she would sing in South America during the vacation, the singer answered: "I have sung there with great success. But I shall not be able to go there this summer. My little boy has been placed in a school in France; it is the first time we have been separated, and it has been very hard for me to have the ocean between us. I shall sing at Atlanta, the first week of May, and then sail the middle of the month for France. Yes, indeed, I hope to return to America next season. "I trust you have been able to understand my poor English," she said smiling, as she parted with her visitor; "we speak several languages here in my home--Spanish with my mother and friends, French and Italian with others in the household. But there seems little necessity for using English, even though I am living in the heart of the metropolis. Perhaps next year, I shall master your language better." And the picture of her, as she stood in her artistic, home-like salon, with its lights, its pictures and flowers, is even more lasting than any to be remembered on the operatic stage. XVI =CLAUDIA MUZIO= A CHILD OF THE OPERA [Illustration: CLAUDIA MUZIO] In tales of romance one reads sometimes of a gifted girl who lives in a musical atmosphere all her life, imbibing artistic influences as naturally and almost as unconsciously as the air she breathes. At the right moment, she suddenly comes out into the light and blossoms into a full fledged singer, to the surprise and wonder of all her friends. Or she is brought up behind the scenes in some great Opera House of the world, where, all unnoticed by her elders, she lives in a dream world of her own, peopled by the various characters in the operas to which she daily listens. She watches the stage so closely and constantly that she unconsciously commits the rôles of the heroines she most admires, to memory. She knows what they sing, how they act the various parts, how they impersonate the characters. Again, at the right moment, the leading prima donna is indisposed, there is no one to take her place; manager is in despair, when the slip of a girl, who is known to have a voice, but has never sung in opera, offers to go on in place of the absent one. She is finally permitted to do so; result, a popular success. Some pages of Claudia Muzio's musical story read like the romantic experiences of a novel-heroine. She, too, was brought up in great opera houses, and it seemed natural, that in due course of time, she should come into her own, in the greatest lyric theater of the land of her adoption. When she returned to America, a couple of years ago, after gaining experience in Europe, she arrived toward the end of the season preceding her scheduled début here, to prepare herself more fully for the coming appearance awaiting her. I was asked to meet and talk with the young singer, to ascertain her manner of study, and some of her ideas regarding the work which lay before her. * * * * * "It was always my dream to sing at the Metropolitan, and my dream has come true." Claudia Muzio said the words with her brilliant smile, as her great soft dark eyes gazed luminously at the visitor. The day was cold and dreary without, but the singer's apartment was of tropical warmth. A great bowl of violets on the piano exhaled delicious fragrance; the young Italian in the bloom of her oriental beauty, seemed like some luxuriant tropical blossom herself. Claudia Muzio, who was just about to take her place among the personnel of the Metropolitan, is truly to the manner born,--a real child of the opera. She has lived in opera all her life, has imbibed the operatic atmosphere from her earliest remembrance. It must be as necessary for a singer who aspires to fill a high place in this field of artistic endeavor, to live amid congenial surroundings, as for a pianist, violinist or composer to be environed by musical influences. "Yes, I am an Italian," she began, "for I was born in Italy; but when I was two years old I was taken to London, and my childhood was passed in that great city. My father was stage manager at Covent Garden, and has also held the same post at the Manhattan and Metropolitan Opera Houses in New York. So I have grown up in the theater. I have always listened to opera--daily, and my childish imagination was fired by seeing the art of the great singers. I always hoped I should one day become a singer, so I always watched the artists in action, noting how they did everything. As a result, I do not now have to study acting as a separate branch of the work, for acting comes to me naturally. I am very temperamental; I feel intuitively how the rôle should be enacted. "All tiny children learn to sing little songs, and I was no exception. I acquired quite a number, and at the age of six, exhibited my accomplishments at a little recital. But I never had singing lessons until I began to study seriously at about the age of sixteen. Although I did not study the voice till I reached that age, I was always occupied with music, for I learned as a little girl to play both harp and piano. "We lived in London, of which city I am very fond, from the time I was two, till I was fourteen, then we came to America. After residing here a couple of years, it was decided I should make a career, and we went to Italy. I was taken to Madame Anna Casaloni at Turino. She was quite elderly at that time, but she had been a great singer. When she tried my voice, she told me it was quite properly placed--so I had none of that drudgery to go through. "At first my voice was a very light soprano, hardly yet a coloratura. It became so a little later, however, and then gradually developed into a dramatic soprano. I am very happy about this fact, for I love to portray tears as well as laughter--sorrow and tragedy as well as lightness and gayety. The coloratura manner of singing is all delicacy and lightness, and one cannot express deep emotion in this way. "We subsequently went to Milano, where I studied with Madame Viviani, a soprano who had enjoyed great success on the operatic stage. "After several years of serious study I was ready to begin my career. So I sang in Milan and other Italian cities, then at Covent Garden, and now I am in the Metropolitan. In Italy I created the rôle of Fiora in _Amore del tre Re_, and sang with Ferrari-Fontana. I also created Francesca in _Francesca da Rimini_, under its composer, Zandonai. I have a repertoire of about thirty operas, and am of course adding to it constantly, as one must know many more than thirty rôles. Since coming to New York, I have learned _Aïda_, which I did not know before, and have already appeared in it. It was learned thoroughly in eight days. Now I am at work on _Madame Butterfly_. TECHNICAL PRACTICE "I work regularly every morning on vocal technic. Not necessarily a whole hour at a stretch, as some do; but as much time as I feel I need. I give practically my whole day to study, so that I can make frequent short pauses in technical practice. If technic is studied with complete concentration and vigor, as it always should be, it is much more fatiguing than singing an opera rôle. "You ask about the special forms of exercises I use. I sing all the scales, one octave each--once slow and once fast--all in one breath. Then I sing triplets on each tone, as many as I can in one breath. I can sing about fifteen now, but I shall doubtless increase the number. For all these I use full power of tone. Another form of exercise is to take one tone softly, then go to the octave above, which tone is also sung softly, but there is a large crescendo made between the two soft tones. My compass is three octaves--from C below middle C, to two octaves above that point. I also have C sharp, but I do not practice it, for I know I can reach it if I need it, and I save my voice. Neither do I work on the final tones of the lowest octave, for the same reason--to preserve the voice. BREATH CONTROL "Every singer knows how important is the management of the breath. I always hold the chest up, taking as long breaths as I can conveniently do. The power to hold the breath, and sing more and more tones with one breath, grows with careful, intelligent practice. There are no rules about the number of phrases you can sing with a single breath. A teacher will tell you; if you can sing two phrases with one breath, do so; if not, take breath between. It all rests with the singer. MEMORIZING "I learn words and music of a rôle at the same time, for one helps the other. When I have mastered a rôle, I know it absolutely, words, music and accompaniment. I can always play my accompaniments, for I understand the piano. I am always at work on repertoire, even at night. I don't seem to need very much sleep, I think, and I often memorize during the night; that is such a good time to work, for all is so quiet and still. I lie awake thinking of the music, and in this way I learn it. Or, perhaps it learns itself. For when I retire the music is not yet mastered, not yet my own, but when morning comes I really know it. "Of course I must know the words with great exactness, especially in songs. I shall do English songs in my coming song recital work, and the words and diction must be perfect, or people will criticize my English. I always write out the words of my rôles, so as to be sure I understand them and have them correctly memorized. KEEPING UP REPERTOIRE "Most singers, I believe, need a couple of days--sometimes longer--in which to review a rôle. I never use the notes or score when going over a part in which I have appeared, for I know them absolutely, so there is no occasion to use the notes. Other singers appear frequently at rehearsal with their books, but I never take mine. My intimate knowledge of score, when I assisted my father in taking charge of operatic scores, is always a great help to me. I used to take charge of all the scores for him, and knew all the cuts, changes and just how they were to be used. The singers themselves often came to me for stage directions about their parts, knowing I had this experience. "Yes, as you suggest, I could sing here in winter, then in South America in summer." (Miss Muzio accomplished this recently, with distinguished success and had many thrilling adventures incident to travel.) "This would mean I would have no summer at all, for that season with them is colder than we have it here. No, I want my summer for rest and study. During the season at the Metropolitan I give up everything for my art. I refuse all society and the many invitations I receive to be guest of honor here and there. I remain quietly at home, steadfastly at work. My art means everything to me, and I must keep myself in the best condition possible, to be ready when the call comes to sing. One cannot do both, you know; art and society do not mix well. I have never disappointed an audience; it would be a great calamity to be obliged to do so." XVII =EDWARD JOHNSON= (=EDOUARDO DI GIOVANNI=) THE EVOLUTON OF AN OPERA STAR The story of Edward Johnson's musical development should prove an incentive, nay more, a beacon light along the path of consistent progress toward the goal of vocal and operatic achievement. Indeed as a tiny child he must have had the desire to become a singer. A friend speaks of musical proclivities which began to show themselves at an early age, and describes visits of the child to their home, where, in a little Lord Fauntleroy suit, he would stand up before them all and sing a whole recital of little songs, to the delight of all his relatives. The singer's progress, from the musical child on and up to that of an operatic artist, has been rational and healthy, with nothing hectic or overwrought about it; a constant, gradual ascent of the mountain. And while an enviable vantage ground has been reached, such an artist must feel there are yet other heights to conquer. For even excellence, already achieved, requires constant effort to be held at high water mark. And the desire for greater perfection, which every true artist must feel, is a never-ending urge to continued struggle. In a recent conversation with the tenor, Mr. Johnson spoke of early days, when he desired above everything else to become a musician and follow a musical career, though his family expected him to enter the business world. He came to New York to look the ground over, hoping there might be opportunity to continue his studies and make his way at the same time. He was fortunate enough to secure a church position, and sang subsequently in some of the best New York and Brooklyn churches. After this period he did much concert work, touring through the Middle West with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and singing in many Music Festivals throughout the country. [Illustration: Edward Johnson] But church and concert singing did not entirely satisfy; he longed to try his hand at opera,--in short to make an operatic career. He was well aware that he would not find this field nor gain the necessary experience in America; he must go to Italy, the land of song, to gain the required training and experience. He was also fully aware of the fact that there was plenty of hard work, and probably many disappointments before him, but he did not shrink from either. "Fortunately, I have a fund of humor," he said, and there was a twinkle in his eye as he spoke. "It is a saving grace, as you say; without it I believe I should have many times given up in sheer despair." Mr. Johnson went to Italy in 1909, beginning at once his studies with Lombardi, in Florence. In the ten years of his absence from his home land he has built up a reputation and made a career in the great operatic centers of Italy, Spain and South America. After his début in Padua, he became leading tenor at La Scala, Milan, for five consecutive seasons. In Rome he spent four seasons at the Costanzi Theater, in the meantime making two visits to the Colon Theater, Buenos Aires, and filling engagements in Madrid, Bologna, Florence and Genoa. "How could I stay away from America for such a length of time? you ask. For various reasons. I was getting what I had come to Italy for, experience and reputation. I was comfortable and happy in my work. I loved the beautiful country, and the life suited me. The people were kind. I had my own home in Florence, which is still there and to which I can return when my season is over here. Best of all I had the opportunity of creating all the new tenor rôles in the recent operas of Puccini, Montemezzi, Pizzetti and Gratico. I also created the rôle of _Parsifal_ in Italian, and the first season at La Scala, it was performed twenty-seven times." "With your permission let us go a little into detail in regard to the needs of the young singer and his method of study, so that he may acquire vocal mastery. What do you consider the most important and necessary subject for the young singer, or any one who wishes to enter the profession, to consider?" "A musical education," was the prompt, unhesitating reply. "So many think if they have a good natural voice and take singing lessons, that is quite sufficient; they will soon become singers. But a singer should also be a musician. He should learn the piano by all means and have some knowledge of theory and harmony. These subjects will be of the greatest benefit in developing his musicianship; indeed he cannot well get on without them. A beautiful voice with little musical education, is not of as much value to its possessor as one not so beautiful, which has been well trained and is coupled with solid musical attainments. A MUSICAL CAREER "If one goes in for a musical career, one should realize at the start, something of what it means, what is involved, and what must go with it. Singing itself is only a part, perhaps even the smaller part, of one's equipment. If opera be the goal, there are languages, acting, make up, impersonation, interpretation, how to walk, how to carry oneself, all to be added to the piano and harmony we have already spoken of. The art of the singer is a profession--yes, and a business too. You prepare yourself to fill a public demand; you must prove yourself worthy, you must come up to the standard, or there will not be a demand for what you have to offer. And it is right this should be so. We should be willing to look the situation fairly in the eye, divesting it of all those rose colored dreams and fancies; then we should get right down to work. NOT MANY RULES "If you get right down to the bottom, there are in reality not so many singing rules to learn. You sing on the five vowels, and when you can do them loudly, softly, and with mezzo voce, you have a foundation upon which to build vocal mastery. And yet some people study eight, ten years without really laying the foundation. Why should it take the singer such a long time to master the material of his equipment? A lawyer or doctor, after leaving college, devotes three or four years only to preparing himself for his profession, receives his diploma, then sets up in business. It ought not to be so much more difficult to learn to sing than to learn these other professions. THE EAR "Of course the ear is the most important factor, our greatest ally. It helps us imitate. Imitation forms a large part of our study. We hear a beautiful tone; we try to imitate it; we try in various ways, with various placements, until we succeed in producing the sound we have been seeking. Then we endeavor to remember the sensations experienced in order that we may repeat the tone at will. So you see Listening, Imitation and Memory are very important factors in the student's development. BEL CANTO "I have just spoken of a beautiful tone. The old Italian operas cultivate the _bel canto_, that is--beautiful singing. Of course it is well for the singer to cultivate this first of all, for it is excellent, and necessary for the voice. But modern Italian opera portrays the real men and women of to-day, who live, enjoy, suffer, are angry and repentant. _Bel canto_ will not express these emotions. When a man is jealous or in a rage, he will not stand quietly in the middle of the stage and sing beautiful tones. He does not think of beautiful tones at all. Hatred and jealousy should be expressed in the voice as well as in action and gesture; they are far from lovely in themselves, and to be natural and true to life, they will not make lovely tones in the voice. We want singing actors to-day, men and women who can adequately portray the characters they impersonate through both voice and action. LEARNING A RÔLE "In taking up a new part I vocalize the theme first, to get an idea of the music; then I learn the words. After this I work with the accompanist who comes to me every morning. Of course, besides this, I do daily vocalizes and vocal exercises; one must always keep up one's vocal technic. "But learning words and music is only a part of the work to be done on a rôle. It must then be interpreted; more than this it must be visualized. This part of the work rests largely with the singer, and gives opportunity for his individuality to assert itself. Of course the general idea of the characterization is given us, the make-up, posturing and so on. To work out these ideas, to make the part our own, to feel at home in it, so that it shall not seem like acting, but appear perfectly natural--all this takes a great deal of thought, time and study. It is all a mental process, as every one knows; we must project our thought out to the audience, we must 'get it over,' or it will never strike fire!" INTERPRETATION On the subject of individuality in interpretation, Mr. Johnson was convincing. "I feel that if I have worked out a characterization, I must stick to my idea, in spite of what others say. It is my own conception, and I must either stand or fall by it. At times I have tried to follow the suggestions of this or that critic and have changed my interpretation to suit their taste. But it always rendered me self conscious, made my work unnatural and caused me speedily to return to my own conception. LEARNING BY DOING "The singer finds the stage a great teacher. Before the footlights he has constant opportunity to try out this or that effect, to note which placement of the voice best fits the tones he wishes to produce. Then, too, he soon learns to feel whether he has made the impression he had hoped, whether he has the audience with him. If he cannot win the audience, he takes careful thought to see why. In order to win his hearers, to get his work across the footlights, there are certain things he must have, virtues he must possess. For instance,"--and the artist counted them off on his finger tips,--"he must have Accent, Diction, Characterization, and above all, Sincerity. No matter what other good qualities he may possess, he must be sincere before anything else. If he lack this the audience soon finds it out. There's nothing that wins its way like the grace of sincerity. You see I give prominent place to accent and diction. Whatever fault the critics found with me, they have always conceded to me both these virtues. "But time passes and soon the work of the night will begin. I trust that our informal conference may contain a few points of personal experience which may be helpful to those who are striving to enter the field of opera." And with his pleasant smile and genial greeting, Mr. Johnson closed the conference. XVIII =REINALD WERRENRATH= ACHIEVING SUCCESS ON THE CONCERT STAGE At the close of a recital by Reinald Werrenrath, the listener feels he has something to carry away, a tangible impression, a real message. What is the impression--can it be defined? Perhaps it is more the complete effect as a whole that makes the deepest impression. The voice is always agreeable, the diction so clear and distinct that every syllable can be followed from the topmost corner of Carnegie Hall, so there is no need to print a program book for this singer. Different qualities of voice render the picture or mood more vivid, and all is accomplished with perfect ease, in itself a charm. People settle in their seats as if certain that a song recital by Werrenrath is sure to bring enjoyment and satisfaction. And Mr. Werrenrath has proven, through season after season of concert giving in America, that he is filling his own special niche in the scheme of the country's musical life; that he has his own message of the beautiful--the natural--in vocal art to deliver to the people all over the land, and he is accomplishing this with ever increasing ability and success. To go through a season filled with concert tours, such as a popular singer has laid out for him, means so many weeks and months of strenuous toil and travel. There may be a few brief hours or days here and there, when he can be at home among family and friends; but soon he is off again--"on the road." Mr. Werrenrath is the sort of singer who is generally on the wing, or if not exactly that, is so rushed with work, record making and rehearsing for occasional opera appearances, that it is very difficult to get a word with him. I was exceedingly fortunate however, one day recently, to catch a glimpse of him between a Metropolitan rehearsal on the one hand, and some concert business on the other. He entered the room where I waited, tall, vigorous, his fine face lighted by a rapid walk in the fresh air; he seemed the embodiment of mental vigor and alertness. VOCAL CONTROL [Illustration: REINALD WERRENRATH] I plunged at once into the subject I had come for, telling him I wanted to know how he had worked to bring about such results as were noted in his recent recital in Carnegie Hall; in what way he had studied, and what, in his opinion, were the most important factors, from an educational point of view, for the young singer to consider. "That is entirely too difficult a question to be answered briefly, even in a half hour, or in an hour's talk. There are too many angles;" his clear gray eyes looked at me frankly as he spoke. "Voice culture, voice mastery, what is it? It is having control of your instrument to such an extent that you put it out of your thought completely when you sing. The voice is your servant and must do your bidding. This control is arrived at through a variety of means, and can be considered from a thousand angles, any one of which would be interesting to follow up. I have been on the concert stage for nearly a score of years, and ought to know whereof I speak; yet I can say I have not learned it all even now, not by any means. Vocal technic is something on which you are always working, something which is never completed, something which is constantly improving with your mental growth and experience--if you are working along the right lines. People talk of finishing their vocal technic; how can that ever be done? You are always learning how to do better. If you don't make the effect you expected to, in a certain place, when singing in public, you take thought of it afterward, consider what was the matter, _why_ you couldn't put it over--why it had no effect on the audience. Then you work on it, learn how to correct and improve it. EARLY EXPERIENCES "As you may know, my father was a great singer; he was my first teacher. After I lost him I studied for several years with Dr. Carl Duft and later with Arthur Mees. In all this time I had learned a great deal about music from the intellectual and emotional sides, music in the abstract and so on. In fact, I thought I knew about all there was to be learned about the art of song; I settled back on my oars and let the matter go at that. At last, however, I awoke to see that I didn't know it all yet; I discovered I couldn't put the feeling and emotion which surged within me across to others in the way I wanted to--in the way which could move and impress them; I could not make the effects I wanted; I was getting into a rut. This was seven years ago. At that time I went to Percy Rector Stevens, who has done me an immense amount of good, and with whom I constantly keep in touch, in case there should be anything wrong with my instrument anywhere. Mr. Stevens understands the mechanics of the voice perhaps better than any one I know of. If I go to him and say: 'I made some tones last night that didn't sound right to me,' or 'I couldn't seem to put over this or that effect; I want you to tell me what is the matter.' He will say: 'Sing for me, show me the trouble and we'll see what we can do for it.' So I sing and he will say: 'You are tightening your throat at that place,' or 'your diaphragm is not working properly,' or there is some other defect. He can always put his finger directly on the weak spot. He is my vocal doctor. Your whole vocal apparatus must work together in entire harmony. We hear of teachers who seem to specialize on some one part of the anatomy to the exclusion of other parts. They are so particular about the diaphragm, for instance; that must be held with exactly the right firmness to support the tone. That is all very well; but what about the chest, the larynx, the throat, the head and all the rest of the anatomy? The truth is the whole trunk and head of the body are concerned in the act of tone production; they form the complete instrument, so to say. When the singer is well and strong and in good condition, all the parts respond and do their work easily and efficiently. DAILY PRACTICE "I do not go through a routine of scales and exercises daily--at least not in the season, for I have no time. If you are going to take your automobile out for a spin you don't ride it around for half an hour in the yard to see whether it will go. No, you first look after the machinery, to see if all is in working order, and then you start out, knowing it will go. I do a lot of gymnastics each day, to exercise the voice and limber up the anatomy. These act as a massage for the voice; they are in the nature of humming, mingled with grunts, calls, exclamations, shouts, and many kinds of sounds--indeed so many and various they cannot be enumerated. But they put the voice in condition, so there is no need for all these other exercises which most singers find so essential to their vocal well-being. I will say right here that I am working with two masters; the first for the mechanics of the voice, the second who helps me from quite an opposite angle--interpretation and finish. WITH MAUREL "The master from whom I have learned so much that it cannot be estimated is Victor Maurel. He is a most remarkable man, a great thinker and philosopher. If he had turned his attention to any other art or science, or if he had been but a day laborer, he would be a great man anywhere, in any capacity. "I have been with him, whenever possible, for two years now. He has shown me the philosophy, the psychology of singing. He has taught me the science of intense diction. By means of such diction, I can sing _mezza voce_, and put it over with less effort and much more artistic effect than I ever used to do, when I employed much more voice. You hear it said this or that person has a big voice and can sing with great power. A brass band can make a lot of noise. I have stood beside men, who in a smaller space, could make much more noise than I could. But when they got out on the stage you couldn't hear them at the back of the hall. It is the knowing how to use the voice with the least possible effort, coupled with the right kind of diction, that will make the greatest effect. Now I can express myself, and deliver the message I feel I have to give. THE SINGER BEFORE AN AUDIENCE "You ask if I hear myself, when I am singing for an audience. In a general way, yes. Of course I do not get the full effect of what I am doing; a singer never does. It takes the records to tell me that, and I have been making records for a good number of years. But I know the sensations which accompany correct tone production, and if I feel they are different in any place or passage, I try to make a mental note of the fact and the passage, that I may correct it afterwards. But I must emphasize the point that when I sing, I cast away all thought of _how_ I do anything technical; I want to get away from the mechanics of the voice; I must keep my thought clear for the interpretation, for the message I have brought to the audience. To be constantly thinking--how am I doing this or that--would hamper me terribly. I should never get anywhere. I must have my vocal apparatus under such control that it goes of itself. A pianist does not think of technic when playing in public, neither should a singer think of his vocal technic. Of course there may be occasions when adverse circumstances thrust conditions upon me. If I have a slight cold, or tightness of throat, I have to bring all my resources to bear, to rise above the seeming handicap, and sing as well as I can in spite of it. I can say gratefully, without any desire to boast, that during the past eleven years, I have never once missed an engagement or disappointed an audience. Of course I have had to keep engagements when I did not feel in the mood, either physically or mentally. Many singers would have refused under like conditions. But it does not seem fair to the audience to disappoint, or to the manager either; it puts him in a very difficult and unpleasant position. It seems to me the artist should be more considerate of both manager and audience, than to yield to a slight indisposition and so break his engagement. THE SINGER IN HIS STUDIO "It makes such a difference--in quality of tone and in effect--whether you sing in a small or large space. Things you do in the studio and which may sound well there, are quite different or are lost altogether in a large hall. You really cannot tell what the effect will be in a great space, by what you do in your studio. In rehearsing and study, I use half voice, and only occasionally do I use full voice, that is when I wish to get a better idea of the effect." VOCAL MASTERY As we stood at the close of the conference, I asked the supreme question--What do you understand by Vocal Mastery? The artist looked as though I were making an impossible demand in requiring an answer to so comprehensive a subject. He took a few strides and then came back. "I can answer that question with one word--Disregard. Which means, that if you have such control of your anatomy, such command of your vocal resources that they will always do their work, that they can be depended upon to act perfectly, then you can disregard mechanism, and think only of the interpretation--only of your vocal message. Then you have conquered the material--then you have attained Vocal Mastery!" XIX =SOPHIE BRASLAU= MAKING A CAREER IN AMERICA A fact, often overlooked when considering the career of some of our great singers of to-day, is the fact that they started out to become an instrumentalist rather than a singer. In other words they become proficient on some instrument before taking up serious study of the voice. In this connection one thinks of Mme. Sembrich, who was both pianist and violinist before becoming known as a singer. It would be interesting to follow up this idea and enumerate the vocalists who have broadened their musicianship through the study of other instruments than their own voices. But this delightful task must be reserved for future leisure. For the present it can be set down here that Miss Sophie Braslau, probably the youngest star in the constellation of the Metropolitan artists, is an accomplished pianist, and intended to make her career with the aid of that instrument instead of with her voice. But we will let the young artist speak for herself. On the occasion in question, she had just returned from a walk, her arms full of rosebuds. "I never can resist flowers," she remarked, as she had them placed in a big silver vase. Then she carried the visitor off to her own special rooms, whose windows overlooked an inner garden, where one forgot one was in the heart of New York. "Indeed it is not like New York at all, rather like Paris," said Miss Braslau, answering my thought. On a _chaise longue_ in this ivory and rose sanctum, reposed a big, beautiful doll, preserved from childish days. The singer took it up; "I don't play with it now," she said with a smile, "but I used to." She placed it carefully in a chair, then settled herself to talk. [Illustration: SOPHIE BRASLAU] "Yes, I intended to make the piano my instrument and began my studies at the age of six. Before long it was seen that I had something of a voice, but no one gave it much thought, supposing I was to be a pianist; indeed I have the hand of one," holding it up. "I don't think, in those early years, I was so very anxious to become a player. I did not love scales--do not now, and would quite as soon have sat at the piano with a book in my lap, while my fingers mechanically did their stunts. But my mother looked after my practice, and often sat near me. She required a regular amount of time given to music study each day. I am so grateful that she was strict with me, for my knowledge of piano and its literature is the greatest joy to me now. To my thinking all children should have piano lessons; the cost is trifling compared to the benefits they receive. They should be made to study, whether they wish to or not. They are not prepared to judge what is good for them, and if they are given this advantage they will be glad of it later on. "In due time I entered the Institute of Musical Art, taking the full piano course. Arthur Hochmann was my teacher for piano, and I found him an excellent master. He did a great deal for me; in interpretation, in fineness of detail, in artistic finish I owe him very much. Later I studied several years with Alexander Lambert. "While at work with my piano, it grew more apparent that I had a voice that should be cultivated. So I began. Afterwards I worked three years with Signor Buzzi Peccia, who started me on an operatic career and finally brought me to the Metropolitan. "It was a great ordeal for a young singer, almost a beginner, to start at our greatest Opera House! It meant unremitting labor for me. I worked very hard, but I am not afraid of work. Toscanini held sway when I began, and he was a marvelous musician and conductor. Such exactness, such perfection of detail; he required perfection of every one. He did not at first realize how much of a beginner I was, though I had really learned a large number of rôles. He was so strict in every detail that I wept many bitter tears for fear I would not come up to the mark. I knew the music, but had not gained experience through routine. It seems to me every singer should gain this experience in some smaller places before attempting the highest. My advice would be to go and get experience in Europe first. I have never been in Germany, but in Italy and France there are many small opera houses where one may learn routine. "Another thing. There is a mistaken notion that one cannot reach any height in opera without 'pull' and great influence. I am sure this is not true; for while a pull may help, one must be able to deliver the goods. If one cannot, all the backing in the world will not make one a success. The singer must have the ability to 'put it over.' Think of the artists who can do it--Farrar, Gluck, Schumann-Heink. There is never any doubt about them; they always win their audiences. What I have done has been accomplished by hard work, without backing of any kind. Really of what use is backing anyway? The public can judge--or at least it can _feel_. I know very well that when my chance came to sing _Shanewis_, if I had not been able to do it, no amount of influence would have helped the situation. I had it in my own hand to make or mar my career. I often wonder whether audiences really know anything about what you are trying to do; whether they have any conception of what is right in singing, or whether they are merely swayed by the temperament of the singer. "Whether we are, or are not to be a musical nation should be a question of deep interest to all music lovers. If we really become a great musical people, it will be largely due to the work of the records. We certainly have wonderful advantages here, and are doing a tremendous lot for music. "I had an interesting experience recently. It was in a little town in North Carolina, where a song recital had never before been given. Can you fancy a place where there had never even been a concert? The people in this little town were busy producing tobacco and had never turned their thought toward music. In the face of the coming concert what did those people do? They got a program, studied what pieces I had sung on the Victor, got the music of the others; so they had a pretty good idea of what I was going to sing. When I stepped on the platform that night and saw the little upright piano (no other instrument could be secured) and looked into those eager faces, I wondered how they would receive my work. My first number was an aria from _Orfeo_. When I finished, the demonstration was so deafening I had to wait minutes before I could go on. And so it continued all the evening. "How do I work? Very hard, at least six hours a day. Of these I actually sing perhaps three hours. I begin at nine and give the first hour to memory work on repertoire. I give very thorough study to my programs; for I must know every note in them, both for voice and piano. I make it a point to know the accompaniments, for in case I am ever left without an accompanist, I can play for myself, and it has a great effect on audiences. They may not know or care whether you can play Beethoven or Chopin, but the fact that you can play while you sing, greatly impresses them. "In committing a song, I play it over and sing it sufficiently to get a good idea of its construction and meaning; then I work in detail, learning words and music at the same time, usually. Certain things are very difficult for me, things requiring absolute evenness of passage work, or sustained calm. Naturally I have an excess of temperament; I feel things in a vivid, passionate way. So I need to go very slowly at times. To-day I gave several hours to only three lines of an aria by Haendel, and am not yet satisfied with it. Indeed, can we ever rest satisfied, when there is so much to learn, and we can always improve? "The second hour of my day is given to vocalizes. Of course there are certain standard things that one must do; but there are others that need not be done every day. I try to vary the work as much as I can. "The rest of the day is given to study on repertoire and all the things that belong to it. There is so much more to a singer's art than merely to sing. And it is a sad thing to find that so many singers lack musicianship. They seem to think if they can sing some songs, or even a few operas, that is all there is to it. But one who would become an artist must work most of the time. I am sure Charles Hackett knows the value of work; so does Mabel Garrison and many other Americans. And when you think of it, there are really a brave number of our own singers who are not only making good, but making big names for themselves and winning the success that comes from a union of talent and industry." XX =MORGAN KINGSTON= THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF THE SINGER'S ART "A man who has risen to his present eminence through determined effort and hard work, who has done it all in America, is a unique figure in the world of art. He can surely give much valuable information to students, for he has been through so much himself." Thus I was informed by one who was in a position to understand how Morgan Kingston had achieved success. The well known tenor was most kind in granting an audience to one seeking light on his ideas and experiences. He welcomed the visitor with simple, sincere courtesy, and discussed for an hour and a half various aspects of the singer's art. "In what way may I be of service to you?" began Mr. Kingston, after the first greetings had been exchanged. "There are many questions to ask," was the answer; "perhaps it were best to propound the most difficult one first, instead of reserving it till the last. What, in your opinion, goes into the acquiring of Vocal Mastery?" "That is certainly a difficult subject to take up, for vocal mastery includes so many things. First and foremost it includes vocal technic. One must have an excellent technic before one can hope to sing even moderately well. The singer can do nothing without technic, though of course there are many people who try to sing without it. They, however, never get anywhere when hampered by such a lack of equipment. Technic furnishes the tools with which the singer creates his vocal art work; just as the painter's brushes enable him to paint his picture. RULES OF TECHNIC [Illustration: MORGAN KINGSTON] "I said the singer should have a finished technic in order to express the musical idea aright, in order to be an artist. But technic is never finished; it goes on developing and broadening as we ourselves grow and develop. We learn by degrees what to add on and what to take away, in our effort to perfect technic. Students, especially in America, are too apt to depend on rules merely. They think if they absolutely follow the rules, they must necessarily become singers; if they find that you deviate from rule they tell you of it, and hold you up to the letter of the law, rather than its meaning and spirit. I answer, rules should be guides, not tyrants. Rules are necessary in the beginning; later we get beyond them,--or rather we work out their spirit and are not hide-bound by the letter. EARLY STRUGGLES "As you may know, I was born in Nottinghamshire, England. I always sang, as a small boy, just for the love of it, never dreaming I would one day make it my profession. In those early days I sang in the little church where Lord Byron is buried. How many times I have walked over the slab which lies above his vault. When I was old enough I went to work in the mines, so you see I know what hardships the miners endure; I know what it means to be shut away from the sun for so many hours every day. And I would lighten their hardships in every way possible. I am sure, if it rested with me, to choose between having no coal unless I mined it myself, I would never dig a single particle. But this is aside from the subject in hand. "I always sang for the love of singing, and I had the hope that some day I could do some good with the gift which the good God had bestowed on me. Then, one day, the opportunity came for me to sing in a concert in London. Up to that time I had never had a vocal lesson in my life; my singing was purely a natural product. On this occasion I sang, evidently with some little success, for it was decided that very night that I should become a singer. Means were provided for both lessons and living, and I now gave my whole time and attention toward fitting myself for my new calling. The lady who played my accompaniments at that concert became my teacher. And I can say, with gratitude to a kind Providence, that I have never had, nor wished to have any other. When I hear young singers in America saying they have been to Mr. S. to get his points, then they will go to Mr. W. to learn his point of view, I realize afresh that my experience has been quite different and indeed unique; I am devoutly thankful it has been so. WHAT THE TEACHER SHOULD DO FOR THE STUDENT "My teacher made a study of me, of my characteristics, mentality and temperament. That should be the business of every real teacher, since each individual has different characteristics from every other. "It is now ten years since I began to study the art of singing. I came to America soon after the eventful night which changed my whole career; my teacher also came to this country. I had everything to learn; I could not even speak my own language; my speech was a dialect heard in that part of the country where I was brought up. I have had to cultivate and refine myself. I had to study other languages, Italian, French and German. I learned them all in America. So you see there is no need for an American to go out of his own country for vocal instruction or languages; all can be learned right here at home. I am a living proof of this. What I have done others can do. THE TECHNICAL SIDE "As for technical material, I have never used a great quantity. Of course I do scales and vocalizes for a short time each day; such things are always kept up. Then I make daily use of about a dozen exercises by Rubini. Beyond these I make technical studies out of the pieces. But, after one has made a certain amount of progress on the technical side, one must work for one's self--I mean one must work on one's moral nature. THE MORAL SIDE "I believe strongly that a singer cannot adequately express the beautiful and pure in music while cherishing at the same time, a bad heart and a mean nature behind it. Singing is such a personal thing, that one's mentality, one's inner nature, is bound to reveal itself. Each one of us has evil tendencies to grapple with, envy, jealousy, hatred, sensuality and all the rest of the evils we are apt to harbor. If we make no effort to control these natural tendencies, they will permanently injure us, as well as impair the voice, and vitiate the good we might do. I say it in all humility, but I am earnestly trying to conquer the errors in myself, so that I may be able to do some good with my voice. I have discovered people go to hear music when they want to be soothed and uplifted. If they desire to be amused and enjoy a good laugh, they go to light opera or vaudeville; if they want a soothing, quieting mental refreshment, they attend a concert, opera or oratorio. Therefore I want to give them, when I sing, what they are in need of, what they are longing for. I want to have such control of myself that I shall be fitted to help and benefit every person in the audience who listens to me. Until I have thus prepared myself, I am not doing my whole duty to myself, to my art or to my neighbor. "We hear about the petty envy and jealousy in the profession, and it is true they seem to be very real at times. Picture two young women singing at a concert; one receives much attention and beautiful flowers, the other--none of these things. No doubt it is human nature, so-called, for the neglected one to feel horribly jealous of the favored one. Now this feeling ought to be conquered, for I believe, if it is not, it will prevent the singer making beautiful, correct tones, or from voicing the beauty and exaltation of the music. We know that evil thoughts react on the body and result in diseases, which prevent the singer from reaching a high point of excellence. We must think right thoughts for these are the worth while things of life. Singing teachers utterly fail to take the moral or metaphysical side into consideration in their teaching. They should do this and doubtless would, did they but realize what a large place right thinking occupies in the development of the singer. "One could name various artists who only consider their own self-aggrandizement; one is compelled to realize that, with such low aims, the artist is bound to fall short of highest achievement. It is our right attitude towards the best in life and the future, that is of real value to us. How often people greet you with the words: 'Well, how is the world treating you to-day?' Does any one ever say to you--'How are you treating the world to-day?' That is the real thing to consider. "As I said a few moments ago, I have studied ten years on vocal technic and repertoire. I have not ventured to say so before, but I say it to-night--I can sing! Of course most of the operatic tenor rôles are in my repertoire. This season I am engaged for fourteen rôles at the Metropolitan. These must be ready to sing on demand, that is at a moment's notice,--or say two hours' notice. That means some memory work as well as constant practice. "Would I rather appear in opera, recital or oratorio? I like them all. A recital program must contain at least a dozen songs, which makes it as long as a leading operatic rôle. "The ten years just passed, filled as they have been with close study and public work, I consider in the light of preparation. The following ten years I hope to devote to becoming more widely known in various countries. And then--" a pleasant smile flitted over the fine, clean-cut features,--"then another ten years to make my fortune. But I hasten to assure you the monetary side is quite secondary to the great desire I have to do some good with the talent which has been given me. I realize more and more each day, that to develop the spiritual nature will mean happiness and success in this and in a future existence, and this is worth all the effort and striving it costs." XXI =FRIEDA HEMPEL= A LESSON WITH A PRIMA DONNA There is no need to say that Frieda Hempel is one of the most admired artists on the opera and concert stage to-day. Every one knows the fact. Miss Hempel has endeared herself to all through her lovely voice, her use of it, her charm of manner and the sincerity of her art. [Illustration: _Photo by Alfred Chancy Johnston_ FRIEDA HEMPEL] It is seven years since Miss Hempel first came to sing at the Metropolitan. America has advanced very greatly in musical appreciation during this period. Miss Hempel herself has grown in artistic stature with each new character she has assumed. This season she has exchanged the opera field for that of the concert room, to the regret of opera patrons and all music lovers, who desired to see her at the Metropolitan. Being so constantly on the wing, it has been extremely difficult to secure a word with the admired artist. Late one afternoon, however, toward the end of her very successful concert season, she was able to devote an hour to a conference with the writer on the principles of vocal art. How fair, slender and girlish she looked, ensconced among the cushions of a comfortable divan in her music room, with a favorite pet dog nestling at her side. "And you ask how to master the voice; it seems then, I am to give a vocal lesson," she began, with an arch smile, as she caressed the little creature beside her. BREATHING "The very first thing for the singer to consider is breath control; always the breathing--the breathing. She thinks of it morning, noon and night. Even before rising in the morning, she has it on her mind, and may do a few little stunts while still reclining. Then, before beginning her vocal technic in the morning, she goes through a series of breathing exercises. Just what they are is unnecessary to indicate, as each teacher may have his own, or the singer has learned for herself what forms are most beneficial. VOCAL TECHNIC "The pianist before the public, or the player who hopes to master the instrument in the future, never thinks of omitting the daily task of scales and exercises; he knows that his chances for success would soon be impaired, even ruined, if he should neglect this important and necessary branch of study. "It is exactly the same thing with the singer. She cannot afford to do without scales and exercises. If she should, the public would soon find it out. She must be in constant practice in order to produce her tones with smoothness and purity; she must also think whether she is producing them with ease. There should never be any strain, no evidence of effort. Voice production must always seem to be the easiest thing in the world. No audience likes to see painful effort in a singer's face or throat. VOCAL PRACTICE "The young singer should always practice with a mirror--do not forget that; she must look pleasant under all circumstances. No one cares to look at a singer who makes faces and grimaces, or scowls when she sings. This applies to any one, young or older. Singing must always seem easy, pleasant, graceful, attractive, winning. This must be the mental concept, and, acted upon, the singer will thus win her audience. I do not mean that one should cultivate a grin when singing; that would be going to the other extreme. "Let the singer also use a watch when she practices, in order not to overdo. I approve of a good deal of technical study, taken in small doses of ten to fifteen minutes at a time. I myself do about two hours or more, though not all technic; but I make these pauses for rest, so that I am not fatigued. After all, while we must have technic, there is so much more to singing than its technic. Technic is indeed a means to an end, more in the art of song than in almost any other form of art. Technic is the background for expressive singing, and to sing expressively is what every one should be striving for. WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A SINGER "A beautiful voice is a gift from heaven, but the cultivation of it rests with its possessor. Here in America, girls do not realize the amount of labor and sacrifice involved, or they might not be so eager to enter upon a career. They are too much taken up with teas, parties and social functions to have sufficient time to devote to vocal study and all that goes with it. There are many other things to study; some piano if possible, languages of course, physical culture and acting, to make the body supple and graceful. I say some piano should be included, at least enough to play accompaniments at sight. But when she has mastered her song or rôle, she needs an accompanist, for she can never play the music as it should be played while she endeavors to interpret the song as that should be sung. One cannot do complete justice to both at the same time. "In order to study all the subjects required, the girl with a voice must be willing to give most of her day to the work. This means sacrificing the social side and being willing to throw herself heart and soul into the business of adequately preparing for her career. AMERICAN VOICES "I find there are quantities of lovely voices here in America. The quality of the American female voice is beautiful; in no country is it finer, not even in Italy. You have good teachers here, too. Then why are there so few American singers who are properly prepared for a career? Why do we hear of so few who make good and amount to something? If the girl has means and good social connections, she is often not ready to sacrifice social gayeties for the austere life of the student. If she is a poor girl, she frequently cannot afford to take up the subjects necessary for her higher development. Instruction is expensive here, and training for opera almost impossible. The operatic coach requires a goodly fee for his services. And when the girl has prepared several rôles where shall she find the opportunity to try them out? Inexperienced singers cannot be accepted at the Metropolitan; that is not the place for them. At the prices charged for seats the management cannot afford to engage any but the very best artists. Until there are more opera houses throughout the country, the American girl will still be obliged to go to Europe for experience and routine. In Europe it is all so much easier. Every little city and town has its own opera house, where regular performances are given and where young singers can try their wings and gain experience. The conductor will often help and coach the singer and never expect a fee for it. THE YOUNG SINGER BEFORE AN AUDIENCE "The singer who wishes to make a career in concert, should constantly study to do things easily and gracefully. She is gracious in manner, and sings to the people as though it gave her personal pleasure to stand before them. She has a happy expression of countenance; she is simple, unaffected and sincere. More than all this her singing must be filled with sentiment and soul; it must be deeply felt or it will not touch others. Of what use will be the most elaborate technic in the world if there is no soul back of it. So the young singer cultivates this power of expression, which grows with constant effort. The artist has learned to share her gift of song with her audience, and sings straight across into the hearts of her listeners. The less experienced singer profits by her example. "Shall the singer carry her music in a song recital, is a much discussed question. Many come on with nothing in hand. What then happens? The hands are clasped in supplication, as though praying for help. This attitude becomes somewhat harrowing when held for a whole program. Other singers toy with chain or fan, movements which may be very inappropriate to the sentiment of the song they are singing. For myself I prefer to hold in hand a small book containing the words of my songs, for it seems to be more graceful and Jess obtrusive than the other ways I have mentioned. I never refer to this little book, as I know the words of my songs backward; I could rise in the middle of the night and go through the program without a glance at words or music, so thoroughly do I know what I am singing. Therefore I do not need the book of words, but I shall always carry it, no matter what the critics may say. And why should not the executive artist reassure himself by having his music with him? It seems to me a pianist would feel so much more certain of himself if he had the notes before him; he of course need not look at them, but their presence would take away the fear that is often an obsession. With the notes at hand he could let himself go, give free reign to fancy, without the terrible anxiety he must often feel. OPERA OR CONCERT "People often ask whether I prefer to sing in opera or concert. I always answer, I love both. I enjoy opera for many reasons; I love the concert work, and I am also very fond of oratorio. Of course in the opera I am necessarily restrained; I can never be Frieda Hempel, I must always be some one else; I must always think of the others who are playing with me. In concert I can be myself and express myself. I get near the people; they are my friends and I am theirs. I am much in spirit with oratorio also. COLORATURA OR DRAMATIC "Do I think the coloratura voice will ever become dramatic? It depends on the quality of the voice. I think every dramatic singer should cultivate coloratura to some extent--should study smooth legato scales and passages. To listen to some of the dramatic rôles of to-day, one would think that smooth legato singing was a lost art. Nothing can take its place, however, and singers should realize this fact." Miss Hempel believes that every singer, no matter how great, should realize the advantage of constant advice from a capable teacher, in order to prevent the forming of undesirable habits. She also considers Vocal Mastery implies the perfection of everything connected with singing; that is to say, perfect breath control, perfect placement of the voice, perfect tone production, together with all requisite grace, feeling and expressiveness. WITH THE MASTER TEACHERS XXII =DAVID BISPHAM= THE MAKING OF ARTIST SINGERS If we were asked to name one of the best known, and best loved of American singers, the choice would surely fall on David Bispham. This artist, through his vocal, linguistic and histrionic gifts, his serious aims and high ideals, has endeared himself to musicians and music lovers alike. We are all proud of him as an American, and take a sort of personal pride in his achievements. Mr. Bispham has been before the public as actor-singer for many years. There is no other artist in the English-speaking world who has had greater experience in all kinds of vocal work than this "Quaker Singer," as he calls himself, for he comes from Philadelphia, and is of old English, Quaker, Colonial stock. His professional début was made in London, in 1891, with the Royal English Opera Company, as the Duc De Longueville, in the beautiful Opera Comique, _The Basoche_, by Messager. The following year he appeared in Wagnerian Music Drama at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, performing the part of Kurwenal, in _Tristan and Isolde_, without rehearsal. His adaptability to music in English, French, Italian and German, caused him to be at once accepted as a member of that distinguished company. In 1896, Mr. Bispham joined the forces of the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, and remained there for a number of years, singing each season alternately on both sides of the ocean. Of recent years he has devoted most of his time to concerts, though he is one of the founders and officers of the Society of American Singers, with which artistic body he frequently appears in the classic operas of Mozart, Pergolesi, Donizetti and others. My first conference with Mr. Bispham was held in his New York studio. Here, in this artistic retreat where absolute quiet reigns, though located in the heart of the great city's busy life, the noted singer teaches and works out his programs and various characterizations. THE PROBLEM OF BREATH CONTROL "The singer should breathe as easily and naturally as animals and people do when they sleep," he began. "But we are awake when we sing; correct breath control, therefore, must be carefully studied, and is the result of understanding and experience. The best art conceals art. The aim is to produce tones with the utmost ease and naturalness, though these must be gained with patient toil. A child patting the keyboard with his tiny hands, is _unconsciously_ natural and at ease, though he does not know what he is doing; the great pianist is _consciously_ at ease because he understands principles of ease and relaxation, and has acquired the necessary control through years of training. "The singer acquires management of the breath through correct position and action of his anatomy. The body is held erect, chest active; the network of abdominal muscles constantly gain strength as they learn to push, push, push the air up through the lungs to the windpipe, then through the mouth and nasal cavities." Mr. Bispham illustrated each point in his own person as he described it. "When the manner of taking breath, and the way to develop the diaphragm and abdominal muscles, is understood, that is only a beginning. Management of the breath is an art in itself. The singer must know what to do with the breath once he has taken it in, or he may let it out in quarts the moment he opens his mouth. He has to learn how much he needs for each phrase. He learns how to conserve the breath; and while it is not desirable to hold one tone to attenuation, that the gallery may gasp with astonishment, as some singers do, yet it is well to learn to do all one conveniently can with one inhalation, provided the phrase permits it. TECHNICAL MATERIAL "I give many vocalizes and exercises, which I invent to fit the needs of each pupil. I do not require them to be written down, simply remembered. At the next lesson quite a different set of exercises may be recommended. I also make exercises out of familiar tunes or themes from operatic airs. It will be found that technical material in the various manuals is often chosen from such sources, so why not use them in their original form. Thus while the student is studying technic he is also acquiring much beautiful material, which will be of great value to him later on. THE STUDY OF REPERTOIRE "Repertoire is a wide subject and offers a fascinating study to the vocal student. He must have both imagination and sentiment, also the ability to portray, through movement and facial expression, the various moods and states of feeling indicated by words and music. "In taking up a new rôle, I read the story to get at the kernel or plot, and see what it means. The composer first saw the words of poem or libretto, and these suggested to him suitable music. So the singer begins his work by carefully reading the words. "I then have the music of the whole work played for me on the piano, so as to discover its trend and meaning--its content. If the composer is available I ask him to do this. I next begin to study my own part in detail, not only the important sections but the little bits, which seem so small, but are often so difficult to remember." CHARACTERIZATION Under this head the singer spoke at length of the difficulty some singers encounter when they endeavor to portray character, or differentiate emotions. There is endless scope in this line, to exercise intelligence and imagination. "Some singers," continued the artist, "seem incapable of characterizing a rôle or song. They can do what I call 'flat work,' but cannot individualize a rôle. A singer may have a beautiful voice yet not be temperamental; he may have no gift for acting, nor be able to do character work. "At the present moment I am preparing several new rôles, three of them are of old men. It rests with me to externalize these three in such a way that they shall all be different, yet consistent with the characters as I understand them. Each make-up must be distinctive, and my work is to portray the parts as I see and feel them. I must get into the skin of each character, so to say, then act as I conceive that particular person would behave under like circumstances. Many singers cannot act, and most actors cannot sing. When the two are combined we have a singing actor, or an actor-singer. Once there was a popular belief that it was not necessary for the singer to know much about acting--if he only had a voice and could sing. The present is changing all that. Many of us realize how very much study is required to perfect this side of our art. "In this connection I am reminded of my London début. I was to make it with the Royal English Opera Company. They heard me three times before deciding to take me on. With this formality over, rehearsals began. I soon found that my ideas of how my rôle--an important one--was to be acted, did not always coincide with the views of the stage director, and there were ructions. The manager saw how things were going, and advised me to accept seemingly the ideas of the stage director during rehearsals, but to study acting with the highest authorities and then work out the conception after my own ideas. Accordingly, I spent an hour daily, before the morning rehearsal, with one of the finest actors of comedy to be found in London. Later in the day, after rehearsal, I spent another hour with a great tragic actor. Thus I worked in both lines, as my part was a mixture of the tragic and the comic. I put in several weeks of very hard work in this way, and felt I had gained greatly. Of course this was entirely on the histrionic side, but it gives an idea of the preparation one needs. "When the day of the dress rehearsal arrived, I appeared on the scene in full regalia, clean shaven (I had been wearing a beard until then), and performed my rôle as I had conceived it, regardless of the peculiar ideas of the stage director. At the first performance I made a hit, and a little later was engaged for grand opera at Covent Garden, where I remained for ten years. KNOWLEDGE OF ANATOMY "While I believe in understanding one's anatomy sufficiently for proper tone production, and all that goes with it, there are many peculiar and unnecessary fads and tricks resorted to by those who call themselves teachers of singing. The more fantastic the theories inculcated by these people, the more the unwary students seem to believe in them. People like to be deluded, you know. But I am not able to gratify their desires in this direction; for I can't lie about music! "I was present at a vocal lesson given by one of these so-called instructors. 'You must sing in such a way that the tone will seem to come out of the back of your head,' he told the pupil, and he waved his arms about his head as though he were drawing the tone out visibly. Another pupil was placed flat on his back, then told to breathe as though he were asleep, and then had to sing in that position. Another teacher I know of makes pupils eject spit-balls of tissue paper at the ceiling, to learn the alleged proper control of the breath. What criminal nonsense this is! "As I have said, I believe in knowing what is necessary about anatomy, but not in too great measure. A new book will soon be issued, I am told, which actually dissects the human body, showing every bone and muscle in any way connected with breath or voice. All this may be of interest as a matter of research, but must one go into such minutiae in order to teach singing? I think the answer must ever be in the negative. You might as well talk to a gold-fish in a bowl-and say: 'If you desire to proceed laterally to the right, kindly oscillate gently your sinister dorsal fin, and you will achieve the desired result.' Oh, Art, what sins are committed in thy name!" IN THE STUDIO It is often affirmed that an artist finds experience the best teacher. It must be equally true that the artist-teacher of wide experience in both performance and instruction, should be a safe guide, just because of this varied experience. I was impressed with this fact when I recently had the privilege of visiting Mr. Bispham's studio during lesson hours, and listening to his instruction. A most interesting sanctum is this studio, filled as it is with souvenirs and pictures of the artist's long career on the operatic stage. Here hangs a drawing in color of Bispham as Telramund, in shining chain armor; there a life-size portrait as "Beethoven," and again as himself. In the midst of all is the master, seated at a table. In front of him, at the piano, stands the student. It is an English song she is at work on, for Mr. Bispham thoroughly believes in mastering English as well as other languages. How alert he is as he sits there; how keen of eye and ear. Not the slightest fault escapes him. He often sings the phrase himself, then calls for its repetition. "Sing that passage again; there is a tone in it that is not pleasant--not well-sounding; make it beautiful!" "Careful of your consonants there, they are not distinct; let them be clearer, but don't make them over distinct." "Don't scoop up the ends of the phrases; make the tones this way"; and he illustrates repeatedly. "Sing this phrase in one breath if you can, if not, breathe here--" indicating the place. The student now takes up an Italian aria. Of course the master teacher has no need of printed score; he knows the arias by heart. He merely jots down a few remarks on a slip of paper, to be referred to later. The aria goes quite well. At its close the singer goes to her seat and another takes her place. A voice of rich, warm timbre. More English--and it must be most exact, to suit Mr. Bispham's fastidious ear. "Make the word _fire_ in _one_ syllable, not _two_. Do not open the mouth quite so wide on the word _desire_, for, by doing so you lose the balance and the tone is not so good." VOCALIZES Another student--with a fine tenor--was asked to vocalize for a number of minutes. He sang ascending and descending tone-figures, sometimes doing them in one breath, at others taking a fresh breath at top. Some of the syllables used were: la, ma, may, and mi. He then sang single tones, swelling and diminishing each. It was found that passing from _forte_ to _piano_ was much more difficult than swelling from soft to loud. The aria "Be not afraid," was now taken up; it was pronounced one of the most difficult solos ever written, and a very valuable composition for vocal training. "You sing that phrase too loud," cautioned the instructor. "This is not a human being who is speaking, rather it is a heavenly voice. That high note of the phrase should be made softer, more ethereal. Make it a _young tone_--put the quality of Spring into it. The whole thing should be more spiritual or spiritualized. Now go through it again from beginning to end." When this was finished a halt was called; there had been enough work done for that day. Soon the class was dismissed. The young singers--some if not all of them known upon the concert stage--filed out. One young woman remained; she was to have a drama lesson. The master of singing showed himself equally efficient as master of English diction for the spoken drama. And here, for a time, we must leave him at his work. XXIII OSCAR SAENGER USE OF RECORDS IN VOCAL STUDY Mr. Oscar Saenger has been termed "maker of artists," since a number of our great singers have come from under his capable hands. He has a rare gift for imparting instruction in a way that is concise and convincing. A man of wide experience, profound knowledge of his subject, commanding personality and winning courtesy, he impresses all who come within his radius that he knows whereof he speaks. A man who "knows what he knows" is one to be followed. Mr. Saenger had just returned from a season of travel over America as far as the Coast. A most profitable trip he called it, filled with many interesting and unique experiences. He had been lecturing also, in a number of cities, on his new method of vocal study with the aid of the Victor Talking Machine. When he learned I had come expressly to ask for his ideas on vocal technic and study, he said: "I think you will be interested to hear about my latest hobby, the study of singing with the aid of records." Then he plunged at once into the most absorbingly interesting account of his ideas and achievements in this line I had ever listened to. TEACHER, ARTIST AND ACCOMPANIST IN ONE "This is my own idea, of combining the teacher, artist and accompanist in one trinity," he began. "And, by the way, my idea is now patented in Washington. It is the result of nine years' thought and labor, before the idea could be brought out in its finished form. The design has been to make the method and its elucidation so simple that the girl from a small town can understand it. "The method consists of twenty lessons for each of the five kinds of voices: Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Tenor, Baritone and Bass. Each portfolio holds twenty records, together with a book containing minute directions for studying and using the records. I believe that any one, with good intelligence, who wishes to learn to sing, can take the book and records and begin his studies, even though he has never sung before. He can thus prepare himself for future lessons. For you must understand this method is not meant to replace the teacher, but to aid the teacher. I can assure you it aids him in ways without number. It gives him a perfect exemplar to illustrate his principles. If he be fatigued, or unable to sing the passage in question, here is an artist who is never wearied, who is always ready to do it for him. I myself constantly use the records in my lessons. If I have taught a number of consecutive hours, it is a relief to turn to the artist's record and save my own voice. SIMPLICITY "As I have said, the design has been to make everything plain and simple. I wrote the book and sent it to the Victor people. They returned it, saying I had written an excellent book, but it was not simple enough. They proposed sending a man to me who was neither a musician nor a singer. If I could make my meaning clear enough for him to understand, it was likely the girl from a little Western town could grasp it. "So this man came and we worked together. If I talked about head tones, he wanted to know what I meant; if about throaty tones, I had to make these clear to him. When he understood, I was sure any one could understand. "Thus the books as they stand came into being. The records themselves represent an immense amount of care and effort. Will you believe we had to make over two thousand in order to secure the one hundred needed for the present series? The slightest imperfection is enough to render an otherwise perfect record useless. Even the artists themselves would sometimes become discouraged at the enormous difficulties. It is nerve-racking work, for one must be on tension all the time. IMITATION A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE "If you are interested, I will go a little more into detail. The main idea of this unique method of study, is imitation. Every human being likes to imitate--from the tiny child to the adult. Acting upon this idea, we take the artist as model. Everything the model does, the student strives to imitate. By means of the record, it is possible for the student to do this over and over again, until he has learned to copy it as accurately as it is possible. And here is where the knowledge and experience of the teacher come in. During the lesson he tests each tone, each phrase, advising the pupil how nearly he approaches the perfect model, or showing him his faults and why he does not succeed in imitating the model more correctly." FOR BEGINNERS "Do you mean to say, Mr. Saenger, that this method of vocal study can be taken up by one who knows really nothing of the voice, or singing, and can be used with success; that such a person can become a singer through self-study?" "It is indeed possible," was the answer; "and it is being done every day. If the student has much intelligence, determination and concentration, she can learn to sing from these directions and these records. They are a great boon to young aspirants in small towns, where there are really no good teachers. In such places local teachers can study and teach from these records. "Again, you often find people too shy, or too ashamed to go to a teacher for a voice trial or lessons. They want to sing--every one would like to do that; but they don't know how to go at it. With these records they can begin to study, and thus get ready for later lessons. With these records those who are far from a music center can have the benefit of expert instruction at small cost. I might work with a pupil for several months in the ordinary way--without the records--and not be able to teach him even with half the accuracy and quickness obtainable by the new method. THE ACCOMPANIST "All singers know how important, how necessary it is to have services of an expert accompanist. The student of this method has one at hand every hour of the day; a tireless accompanist, who is willing to repeat without complaint, as often as necessary. THE SPEAKING VOICE "A very important branch of the work, for the would-be singer, is to cultivate the speaking voice. Tones in speaking should always be made beautiful and resonant. Even in children a pleasant quality of voice in speaking can be acquired. Mothers and teachers can be trained to know and produce beautiful tones. The ear must be cultivated to know a pure, beautiful tone and to love it. BREATHING EXERCISES "The management of the breath is a most important factor, as the life of the tone depends on the continuance of the breath. The student must cultivate the power of quickly inhaling a full breath and of exhaling it so gradually that she can sing a phrase lasting from ten to twenty seconds. This needs months of arduous practice. In all breathing, inhale through the nose. The lower jaw during singing should be entirely relaxed. "The tone should be focused just back of the upper front teeth. The way to place the tone forward is to _think_ it forward. The student must think the tone into place. "To 'attack' a tone is to sing it at once, without any scooping, and with free open throat. When the throat is tightened the student loses power to attack her tones in the right way. PHRASING "Phrasing, in a limited sense, is simply musical punctuation. In its broader sense it is almost synonymous with interpretation. For it has to do not only with musical punctuation but with the grouping of tones and words in such a way that the composition is rendered intelligible as a whole, so as to express the ideas of the composer. This is where the intellectual and musical qualities of the singer are brought into requisition. She must grasp the content, whether it be song or aria, in order to effect this grouping intelligently. _Accent, crescendo_ and _diminuendo_ are the most important factors in phrasing. From the very beginning the student should be careful how and where she takes breath and gives accent; there must always be a reason, and thought will generally make the reason clear. TONE PRODUCTION "The first thing to be considered is the position of the body; for beauty of tone cannot be obtained unless all efforts harmonize to produce the desired result. An easy, graceful, buoyant position is essential; it can be cultivated in front of a mirror, from the first lesson. "Tone production is the result of thought. Picture to yourself a beautiful tone; sing it on the vowel Ah. If you stood in rapture before an entrancing scene you would exclaim, Ah, how beautiful. Producing a beautiful tone rests on certain conditions. First, breath control; Second, Freedom of throat; Third, Correct focus of tone. "We know that a stiff jaw and tongue are the greatest hindrances to the emission of good tone. Muscles of chin and tongue must be trained to become relaxed and flexible. Do not stiffen the jaw or protrude the chin, else your appearance will be painful and your tones faulty. "To think the tone forward is quite as important as to sing it forward. Without the mental impression of correct placing, the reality cannot exist. It is much better to think the tone forward for five minutes and sing one minute, than to practice the reverse. One should practice in fifteen-minute periods and rest at least ten minutes between. The student should never sing more than two hours a day--one in the morning and one in the afternoon. As most singers love their work, many are inclined to overdo. "Do not tamper with the two or three extreme upper or lower tones of your voice lest you strain and ruin it permanently. Never practice when suffering from a cold. "Ideal attack is the tone which starts without any scooping, breathiness or explosiveness. Breathe noiselessly, the secret of which is to breathe from down, up. Faulty emissions of tone are: nasal, guttural, throaty and tremulous. I will give you examples of all these from the record No. 33, which will show you first the fault and then the perfect example. If the pupil studies these perfect emissions of tone and tries to imitate them, there is no need for her to have the common faults mentioned. SUSTAINED TONES "The next step is to study sustained tones. As you see the artist begins in the middle of her voice--always the best way--and sings a whole tone on A, with the syllable Ah, always waiting a whole measure for the pupil to imitate the tone. Next she sings A flat and so on down to lower A, the pupil imitating each tone. She now returns to middle A and ascends by half steps to E natural, the pupil copying each tone after it is sung by the artist. "The tone should be free, round and full, but not loud, and the aim be to preserve the same quality throughout. Do not throw or push the tone, _but spin it_. UNITING SEVERAL TONES "We first begin by uniting two tones, smoothly and evenly, then three in the same way. After each pair or group of tones, the accompaniment is repeated and the pupil imitates what the artist has just sung. Now comes the uniting of five tones, up and down; after this the scale of one octave. The scale should be sung easily with moderate tone quality. A slight accent can be given to the first and last tones of the scale. We all realize the scale is one of the most important exercises for the building of the voice; the preceding exercises have prepared for it. ARPEGGIOS "For imparting flexibility to the voice, nothing can exceed the Arpeggio, but like all vocal exercises, it must be produced with precision of tone, singing each interval clearly, with careful intonation, always striving for beauty of tone. "There are various forms of arpeggios to be used. The second form is carried a third above the octave; the third form a fifth above. This makes an exercise which employs every tone in the scale save one, and gives practice in rapid breathing. Remember, that the note before, taking breath is slightly shortened, in order to give time for taking breath, without disturbing the rhythm. THE TRILL "The trill is perhaps the most difficult of all vocal exercises, unless the singer is blessed with a natural trill, which is a rare gift. We begin with quarter notes, then add eighths and sixteenths. This exercise, if practiced daily, will produce the desired result. It is taken on each tone of the voice--trilling in major seconds. VOCALIZES "The purpose of vocalizes is to place and fix the voice accurately and to develop taste, while singing rhythmically and elegantly. The records give some Concone exercises, ably interpreted by one of our best known voices. You hear how even and beautiful are the tones sung, and you note the pauses of four measures between each phrase, to allow the student to repeat the phrase, as before. "I firmly believe this method of study is bound to revolutionize vocal study and teaching. You see it goes to the very foundation, and trains the student to imitate the best models. It even goes farther back, to the children, teaching them how to speak and sing correctly, always making beautiful tones, without harshness or shouting. Young children can learn to sing tones and phrases from the records. Furthermore, I believe the time is coming when the _technic and interpretation of every instrument will be taught in this way_. "It is my intention to follow up this set of foundational records by others which will demonstrate the interpretation of songs and arias as they are sung by our greatest artists. The outlook is almost limitless. "And now, do you think I have answered your questions about tone production, breath control and the rest? Perhaps I have, as convincingly as an hour's talk can do." XXIV =HERBERT WITHERSPOON= MEMORY, IMAGINATION, ANALYSIS No doubt the serious teacher, who may be occupied in any branch of musical activity, has often pictured to himself what an ideal institution of musical art might be like, if all students assembled should study thoroughly their particular instrument, together with all that pertained to it. They should by all means possess talent, intelligence, industry, and be far removed from a superficial attitude toward their chosen field. The studio used for instruction in this imagined institution, should also be ideal, quiet, airy, home-like, artistic. Some such vision perhaps floats before the minds of some of us teachers, when we are in the mood to dream of ideal conditions under which we would like to see our art work conducted. It has been possible for Mr. Herbert Witherspoon, the distinguished basso and teacher, to make such a dream-picture come true. For he has established an institution of vocal art--in effect if not in name--where all the subjects connected with singing, are considered and taught in the order of their significance. Not less ideal is the building which contains these studios, for Mr. Witherspoon has fitted up his private home as a true abiding place for the muse. At the close of a busy day, marked like all the rest with a full complement of lessons, the master teacher was willing to relax a little and speak of the work in which he is so deeply absorbed. He apologized for having run over the time of the last lesson, saying he never could teach by the clock. "I do not like to call this a school," he began, "although it amounts to one in reality, but only in so far as we take up the various subjects connected with vocal study. I consider languages of the highest importance; we have them taught here. There are classes in analysis, in pedagogy--teaching teachers how to instruct others. We have an excellent master for acting and for stage deportment: I advise that students know something of acting, even if they do not expect to go in for opera; they learn how to carry themselves and are more graceful and self-possessed before an audience. "The work has developed far beyond my expectations. There are over two hundred students, and I have eight assistants, who have been trained by me and know my ways and methods. Some of these give practice lessons to students, who alternate them with the lessons given by me. These lessons are quite reasonable, and in combination with my work, give the student daily attention. "My plan is not to accept every applicant who comes, but to select the most promising. The applicants must measure up to a certain standard before they can enter. To this one fact is due much of our success." "And what are these requirements?" "Voice, to begin with; youth (unless the idea is to teach), good looks, musical intelligence, application. If the candidate possesses these requisites, we begin to work. In three months' time it can be seen whether the student is making sufficient progress to come up to our standard. Those who do not are weeded out. You can readily see that as a result of this weeding process, we have some very good material and fine voices to work with. "We have many musicals and recitals, both public and private, where young singers have an opportunity to try their wings. There is a most generous, unselfish spirit among the students; they rejoice in each others' success, with never a hint of jealousy. We have had a number of recitals in both Aeolian and Carnegie Halls, given by the artist students this season. On these occasions the other students always attend and take as much interest as though they were giving the recital themselves." BEL CANTO "You have remarked lately that 'singers are realizing that the lost art of _bel canto_ is the thing to strive for and they are now searching for it.' Can you give a little more light on this point?" "I hardly meant to say that in any sense the art of bel canto was lost; how could it be? Many singers seem to attach some uncanny significance to the term. Bel canto means simply _beautiful singing_. When you have perfect breath control, and distinct, artistic enunciation, you will possess bel canto, because you will produce your tones and your words beautifully. "Because these magic words are in the Italian tongue does not mean that they apply to something only possessed by Italians. Not at all. Any one can sing beautifully who does so with ease and naturalness, the American just as well as those of any other countries. In fact I consider American voices, in general, better trained than those of Italy, Germany or France. The Italian, in particular, has very little knowledge of the scientific side; he usually sings by intuition. "We ought to have our own standards in judging American voices; until we do so, we will be constantly comparing them with the voices of foreign singers. The quality of the American voice is different from the quality found in the voices of other countries. To my mind the best women's voices are found right here in our midst. MEMORY "I have also said that there are three great factors which should form the foundation stones upon which the singer should rear his structure of musical achievement. These factors are Memory, Imagination, Analysis. I have put memory first because it is the whole thing, so to say. The singer without memory--a cultivated memory--does not get far. Memory lies at the very foundation of his work, and must continue with it the whole journey through, from the bottom to the top. In the beginning you think a beautiful tone, you try to reproduce it. When you come to it again you must remember just how you did it before. Each time you repeat the tone this effort of memory comes in, until at last it has become second nature to remember and produce the result; you now begin to do so automatically. "As you advance there are words to remember as well as notes and tones. Memory, of course, is just as necessary for the pianist. He must be able to commit large numbers of notes, phrases and passages. In his case there are a number of keys to grasp at once, but the singer can sing but one tone at a time. Both notes and words should be memorized, so the singer can come before the audience without being confined to the printed page. When acting is added there is still more to remember. Back of memory study lies concentration; without concentration little can be accomplished in any branch of art. IMAGINATION "The central factor is imagination; what can be done without it! Can you think of a musician, especially a singer, without imagination? He may acquire the letter--that is, execute the notes correctly, but the performance is dead, without life or soul. With imagination he comprehends what is the inner meaning of the text, the scene; also what the composer had in mind when he wrote. Then he learns to express these emotions in his own voice and action, through the imaginative power, which will color his tones, influence his action, render his portrayal instinct with life. Imagination in some form is generally inherent in all of us. If it lies dormant, it can be cultivated and brought to bear upon the singer's work. This is absolutely essential. ANALYSIS "I have put analysis last because it is the crowning virtue, the prime necessity. We study analysis here in the studios, learning how to separate music into its component parts, together with simple chord formations, general form and structure of the pieces, and so on. Can you comprehend the dense ignorance of many music students on these subjects? They will come here to me, never having analyzed a bit of music in their lives, having not an inkling of what chord structure and form in music mean. If they played piano even a little, they could hardly escape getting a small notion of chord formation. But frequently vocal students know nothing of the piano. They are too apt to be superficial. It is an age of superficiality--and cramming: we see these evils all the way from the college man down. I am a Yale man and don't like to say anything about college government, yet I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that men may spend four years going through college and yet not be educated when they come out. Most of us are in too much of a hurry, and so fail to take time enough to learn things thoroughly; above all we never stop to analyze. "Analysis should begin at the very outset of our vocal or instrumental study. We analyze the notes of the music we are singing, and a little later its form. We analyze the ideas of the composer and also our own thoughts and ideas, to try and bring them in harmony with his. After analyzing the passage before us, we may see it in a totally different light, and so phrase and deliver it with an entirely different idea from what we might have done without this intelligent study." CONSCIOUS OR UNCONSCIOUS CONTROL "Do you advise conscious action of the parts comprising the vocal instrument, or do you prefer unconscious control of the instrument, with thought directed to the ideal quality in tone production and delivery?" was asked. "By all means unconscious control," was the emphatic answer. "We wish to produce beautiful sounds; if the throat is open, the breathing correct, and we have a mental concept of that beautiful sound, we are bound to produce it. It might be almost impossible to produce correct tones if we thought constantly about every muscle in action. There is a great deal of nonsense talked and written about the diaphragm, vocal chords and other parts of the anatomy. It is all right for the teacher who wishes to be thoroughly trained, to know everything there is to know about the various organs and muscles; I would not discourage this. But for the young singer I consider it unnecessary. Think supremely of the beautiful tones you desire to produce; listen for them with the outer ear--and the inner ear--that is to say--mentally--and you will hear them. Meanwhile, control is becoming more and more habitual, until it approaches perfection and at last becomes automatic. When that point is reached, your sound producing instrument does the deed, while your whole attention is fixed on the interpretation of a master work, the performance of which requires your undivided application. If there is action, you control that in the same way until it also becomes automatic; then both singing and acting are spontaneous." DOES THE SINGER HEAR HIMSELF? This question was put to Mr. Witherspoon, who answered: "The singer of course hears himself, and with study learns to hear himself better. In fact I believe the lack of this part of vocal training is one of the greatest faults of the day, and that the singer should depend more upon hearing the sound he makes than upon feeling the sound. In other words, train the _ear_, the court of ultimate resort, and the only judge--and forget sensation as much as possible, for the latter leads to a million confusions. "Undoubtedly a singer hears in his own voice what his auditors do not hear, for he also hears with his inner ear, but the singer must learn to hear his own voice as others hear it, which he can do perfectly well. Here we come to analysis again. "The phonograph records teach us much in this respect, although I never have considered that the phonograph reproduces the human voice. It comes near it in some cases, utterly fails in others, and the best singers do not always make the best or most faithful reproductions." XXV =YEATMAN GRIFFITH= CAUSATION "The causation of beautiful singing can only be found through a pure and velvety production of the voice, and this is acquired in no other way than by a thorough understanding of what constitutes a perfect beginning--that is the attack or start of the tone. If the tone has a perfect beginning it must surely have a perfect ending." Thus Mr. Yeatman Griffith began a conference on the subject of vocal technic and the art of song. He had had a day crowded to the brim with work--although all days were usually alike filled--yet he seemed as fresh and unwearied as though the day had only just begun. One felt that here was a man who takes true satisfaction in his work of imparting to others; his work is evidently not a tiresome task but a real joy. Mrs. Griffith shares this joy of work with her husband. "It is most ideal," she says; "we have so grown into it together; we love it." As is well known, this artist pair returned to their home land at the outbreak of the war, after having resided and taught for five years in London, and previous to that for one year in Florence, Italy. Of course they were both singers, giving recitals together, like the Henschels, and appearing in concert and oratorio. But constant public activity is incompatible with a large teaching practice. One or the other has to suffer. "We chose to do the teaching and sacrifice our public career," said Mr. Griffith. During the five years in which these artists have resided in New York, they have accomplished much; their influence has been an artistic impulse toward the ideals of beautiful singing. Among their many artist pupils who are making names for themselves, it may be mentioned that Florence Macbeth, a charming coloratura soprano, owes much of her success to their careful guidance. "Michael Angelo has said," continued Mr. Griffith, "that 'a perfect start is our first and greatest assurance of a perfect finish.' And nowhere is this precept more truly exemplified than in vocal tone production. The tone must have the right beginning, then it will be right all through. A faulty beginning is to blame for most of the vocal faults and sins of singers. Our country is full of beautiful natural voices; through lack of understanding many of them, even when devoting time and money to study, never become more than mediocre, when they might have developed into really glorious voices if they had only had the right kind of treatment. TONE PLACEMENT "We hear a great deal about tone placement in these days; the world seems to have gone mad over the idea. But it is an erroneous idea. How futile to attempt to place the tone in any particular spot in the anatomy. You can focus the tone, but you cannot place it. There is but one place for it to come from and no other place. It is either emitted with artistic effect or it is not. If not, then there is stiffness and contraction, and the trouble ought to be remedied at once. "Every one agrees that if the vocal instrument were something we could see, our task would be comparatively easy. It is because the instrument is hidden that so many false theories about it have sprung up. One teacher advocates a high, active chest; therefore the chest is held high and rigid, while the abdominal muscles are deprived of the strength they should have. Another advises throwing the abdomen forward; still another squares the shoulders and stiffens the neck. These things do not aid in breath control in the least; on the contrary they induce rigidity which is fatal to easy, natural tone emission. IN THE BEGINNING "When the pupil comes to me, we at once establish natural, easy conditions of body and an understanding of the causes which produce good tone. We then begin to work on the vowels. They are the backbone of good singing. When they become controlled, they are then preceded by consonants. Take the first vowel, A; it can be preceded by all the consonants of the alphabet one after another, then each vowel in turn can be treated in the same way. We now have syllables; the next step is to use words. Here is where difficulties sometimes arise for the student. The word becomes perfectly easy to sing if vowels and consonants are properly produced. When they are not, words become obstacles. Correct understanding will quickly obviate this. BREATH CONTROL "Breath control is indeed a vital need, but it should not be made a bugbear to be greatly feared. The young student imagines he must inflate the lungs almost to bursting, in order that he may take a breath long enough to sing a phrase. Then, as soon as he opens his lips, he allows half the air he has taken in to escape, before he has uttered a sound. With such a beginning he can only gasp a few notes of the phrase. Or he distends the muscles at the waist to the fullest extent and fancies this is the secret of deep breathing. In short, most students make the breathing and breath control a very difficult matter indeed, when it is, or should be an act most easy and natural. They do not need the large quantity of breath they imagine they do; for a much smaller amount will suffice to do the work. I tell them, 'Inhale simply and naturally, as though you inhaled the fragrance of a flower. And when you open your lips after this full natural breath, do not let the breath escape; the vocal chords will make the tone, if you understand how to make a perfect start. If the action is correct, the vocal chords will meet; they will not be held apart nor will they crowd each other. Allow the diaphragm and respiratory muscles to do their work, never forcing them; then you will soon learn what breath control in singing means. Remember again, not a particle of breath should be allowed to escape. Every other part of the apparatus must be permitted to do its work, otherwise there will be interference somewhere.' CAUSATION "Everything pertaining to the study of vocal technic and the art of singing may be summed up in the one word--Causation. A cause underlies every effect. If you do not secure the quality of tone you desire, there must be a reason for it. You evidently do not understand the cause which will produce the effect. That is the reason why singers possessing really beautiful voices produce uneven effects and variable results. They may sing a phrase quite perfectly at one moment. A short time after they may repeat the same phrase in quite a different way and not at all perfectly. One night they will sing very beautifully; the next night you might hardly recognize the voice, so changed would be its quality. This would not be the case if they understood causation. A student, rightly taught, should know the cause for everything he does, how he does thus and so and why he does it. A singer should be able to produce the voice correctly, no matter in what position the rôle he may be singing may require the head or body to be in. In opera the head or body may be placed in difficult unnatural positions, but these should not interfere with good tone production. REGISTERS "I am asked sometimes if I teach registers of the voice. I can say decidedly no, I do not teach registers. The voice should be one and entire, from top to bottom, and should be produced as such, no matter in what part of the voice you sing. Throughout the voice the same instrument is doing the work. So, too, with voices of different caliber, the coloratura, lyric and dramatic. Each and all of these may feel the dramatic spirit of the part, but the lighter quality of the voice may prevent the coloratura from expressing it. The world recognizes the dramatic singer in the size of the voice and of the person. From an artistic point of view, however, there are two ways of looking at the question, since the lyric voice may have vivid dramatic instincts, and may be able to bring them out with equal or even greater intensity than the purely dramatic organ. VOCAL MASTERY "Vocal Mastery is acquired through correct understanding of what constitutes pure vowel sounds, and such control of the breath as will enable one to convert every atom of breath into singing tone. This establishes correct action of the vocal chords and puts the singer in possession of the various tints of the voice. "When the diaphragm and respiratory muscles support the breath sufficiently and the vocal chords are permitted to do their work, you produce pure tone. Many singers do not understand these two vital principles. They either sing with too much relaxation of the diaphragm and respiratory muscles, or too much rigidity. Consequently the effort becomes local instead of constitutional, which renders the tone hard and strident and variable to pitch. Again the vocal chords are either forced apart or pinched together, with detriment to tone production. "The real value of control is lost when we attempt to control the singing instrument and the breath by seeking a place for the tone the singing instrument produces. When the vocal chords are allowed to produce pure vowels, correct action is the result and with proper breath support, Vocal Mastery can be assured." XXVI =J.H. DUVAL= SOME SECRETS OF BEAUTIFUL SINGING A young French girl had just sung a group of songs in her own language and had won acclaim from the distinguished company present. They admired the rich quality of her voice, her easy, spontaneous tone production and clear diction. A brilliant future was predicted for the young singer. One critic of renown remarked: "It is a long time since I have heard a voice so well placed and trained." "And who is your teacher?" she was asked. "It is Mr. Duval; I owe everything to him. He has really made my voice; I have never had another teacher and all my success will be due to him," she answered. We at once expressed a desire to meet Mr. Duval and hear from his own lips how such results were attained. A meeting was easily arranged and we arrived at the appointed hour, just in time to hear one of the brilliant students of this American-French singing master. Mr. Duval is young, slim and lithe of figure, with sensitive, refined features, which grow very animated as he speaks. He has a rich fund of humor and an intensity of utterance that at once arrests the listener. He came forward to greet the visitor with simple cordiality, saying he was pleased we could hear one of his latest "finds." The young tenor was at work on an air from _Tosca_. His rich, vibrant voice, of large power and range and of real Caruso-like quality, poured forth with free and natural emission. With what painstaking care this wise teacher aided him to mold each tone, each phrase, till it attained the desired effect. Being a singer himself, Mr. Duval is able to show and demonstrate as well as explain. He does both with the utmost clearness and with unfailing interest and enthusiasm. Indeed his interest in each pupil in his charge is unstinted. The lesson over, Mr. Duval came over to us. "There is a singer I shall be proud of," he said. "Several years ago I taught him for a few months, giving him the principles of voice placement and tone production. This was in Europe. I had not seen him since then till recently, when circumstances led him to New York. He never forgot what he had previously learned with me. He now has a lesson every day and is a most industrious worker. I believe he has a fortune in that voice. Next season will see him launched, and he will surely make a sensation." "Will you give some idea of the means by which you accomplish such results?" "The means are very simple and natural. So many students are set on the wrong track by being told to do a multitude of things that are unnecessary, even positively harmful. For instance, they are required to sing scales on the vowels, A, E, I, O, U. I only use the vowel Ah, for exercises, finding the others are not needed, especially excluding E and U as injurious. Indeed one of the worst things a young voice can do is to sing scales on E and U, for these contract the muscles of the lips. Another injurious custom is to sing long, sustained tones in the beginning. This I do not permit. "After telling you the things I forbid, I must enlighten you as to our plan of study. "The secret of correct tone emission is entire relaxation of the lips. I tell the pupil, the beginner, at the first lesson, to sing the vowel Ah as loudly and as deeply as possible, thinking constantly of relaxed lips and loose lower jaw. Ah is the most natural vowel and was used exclusively in the old Italian school of Bel Canto. Long sustained tones are too difficult. One should sing medium fast scales at first. If we begin with the long sustained tone, the young singer is sure to hold the voice in his throat, or if he lets go, a tremolo will result. Either a throaty, stiff tone or a tremolo will result from practicing the single sustained tone. "Singing pianissimo in the beginning is another fallacy. This is one of the most difficult accomplishments and should be reserved for a later period of development. "The young singer adds to scales various intervals, sung twice in a breath, beginning, not at the extreme of the lower voice, but carried up as high as he can comfortably reach. I believe in teaching high tones early, and in showing the pupil how to produce the head voice. Not that I am a high tone specialist," he added smiling, "for I do not sacrifice any part of the voice to secure the upper notes. But after all it is the high portion of the voice that requires the most study, and that is where so many singers fail. "The young student practices these first exercises, and others, two half hours daily, at least two hours after eating, and comes to me three times a week. I suggest she rest one day in each week, during which she need not sing at all, but studies other subjects connected with her art. As the weeks go by, the voice, through relaxed lips and throat and careful training, grows richer and more plentiful. One can almost note its development from day to day. WORDS IN THE VOICE "When the time comes to use words, the important thing is to put _the words in the voice, not the voice in the words_, to quote Juliani, the great teacher, with whom I was associated in Paris. More voices have been ruined by the stiff, exaggerated use of the lips in pronouncing, than in any other way. When we put the words in the voice, in an easy, natural way, we have bel canto. "Another thing absolutely necessary is breath support. Hold up the breath high in the body, for high tones, though always with the throat relaxed. This point is not nearly enough insisted upon by teachers of singing. "The points I have mentioned already prove that a vocal teacher who desires the best results in his work with others, must know how to sing himself; he should have had wide experience in concert and opera before attempting to lead others along these difficult paths. Because a man can play the organ and piano and has accompanied singers is not the slightest cause for thinking he can train voices in the art of song. I have no wish to speak against so-called teachers of singing, but say this in the interests of unsuspecting students. "It is impossible," continued Mr. Duval, "to put the whole method of vocal training into a few sentences. The student advances gradually and naturally, but surely, from the beginnings I have indicated, to the trill, the pizzicati, to more rapid scales, to learning the attack, and so on. Of course diction plays a large part in the singer's development. With the first song the student learns to put other vowels in the same voice with which the exercises on Ah have been sung, and to have them all of the same size, easily and loosely pronounced. Never permit the pronunciation to be too broad for the voice. The pronunciation should never be mouthed, but should flow into the stream of the breath without causing a ripple. This is bel canto! "In teaching I advise two pupils sharing the hour, for while one is singing the other can rest the voice and observe what is being taught. It is too fatiguing to a young voice to expect it to work a full half hour without rest. "I was teaching in my Paris studio for a number of months after the war started, before coming to America. It is my intention, in future, to divide my time between New York and Paris. I like teaching in the French capital for the reason I can bring out my pupils in opera there. I am also pleased to teach in my own land, for the pleasant connections I have made here, and for the fresh, young American voices which come to me to be trained." VOCAL MASTERY "What is Vocal Mastery? There are so many kinds! Every great artist has his own peculiar manner of accomplishing results--his own vocal mastery. Patti had one kind, Maurel another, Lehmann still another. Caruso also may be considered to have his own vocal mastery, inasmuch as he commands a vocal technic which enables him to interpret any rôle that lies within his power and range. The greatest singer of to-day, Shalyapin, has also his individual vocal mastery, closely resembling the sort that enabled Maurel to run such a gamut of emotions with such astonishing command and resource. "In fine, as every great artist is different from his compeers, there can be no fixed and fast standard of vocal mastery, except the mastery of doing a great thing convincingly." XXVII =THE CODA= A RESUMÉ The student, seeking light on the many problems of vocal technic, the training for concert and opera, how to get started in the profession, and kindred subjects of vital importance, has doubtless found, in the foregoing talks a rich fund of help and suggestion. It is from such high sources that a few words of personal experience and advice, have often proved to be to the young singer a beacon light, showing what to avoid and what to follow. It were well to gather up these strands of suggestion from great artists and weave them into a strong bulwark of precept and example, so that the student may be kept within the narrow path of sound doctrine and high endeavor. At the very outset, two points must be borne in mind: 1. Each and every voice and mentality is individual. 2. The artist has become a law unto himself; it is not possible for him to make rules for others. First, as to difference in voices. When it is considered that the human instrument, unlike any fabricated by the hand of man, is a purely personal instrument, subject to endless variation through variety in formation of mouth and throat cavities, also physical conditions of the anatomy, it is no cause for wonder that the human instrument should differ in each individual. Then think of all sorts and conditions of mentality, environment, ambitions and ideals. It is a self evident fact that the vocal instrument must be a part of each person, of whom there are "no two alike." Artists in general have strongly expressed themselves on this point: most of them agree with Galli-Curci, when she says: "There are as many kinds of voices as there are persons; therefore it seems to me each voice should be treated in the manner best suited to its possessor." "Singing is such an individual thing, after all," says Anna Case; "it is a part of one's very self." "Each person has a different mentality and a different kind of voice," says Martinelli; "indeed there are as many qualities of voice as there are people." Granting, then, that there are no two voices and personalities in the world, exactly alike, it follows, as a natural conclusion, that the renowned vocalist, who has won his or her way from the beginning up to fame and fortune, realizes that her instrument and her manner of training and handling it are peculiarly personal. As she has won success through certain means and methods, she considers those means belong to her, in the sense that they especially suit her particular instrument. She is then a law unto herself and is unwilling to lay down any laws for others. Geraldine Farrar does not imply there is only one right way to train the voice, and she has found that way. In speaking of her method of study, she says: "These things seem best for my voice, and this is the way I work. But, since each voice is different, my ways might not suit any one else. I have no desire to lay down rules for others; I can only speak of my own experience." Galli-Curci says: "The singer who understands her business must know just how she produces tones and vocal effects. She can then do them at all times, even under adverse circumstances, when nervous or not in the mood. I have developed the voice and trained it in the way that seemed to me best for it. How can any other person tell you how that is to be done?" "It rests with the singer what she will do with her voice--how she will develop it," remarks Mme. Homer. Martinelli says: "The voice is a hidden instrument and eventually its fate must rest with its possessor. After general principles are understood, a singer must work them out according to his ability." Florence Easton remarks: "Each singer who has risen, who has found herself, knows by what path she climbed, but the path she found might not do for another." Instead of considering this reticence on the part of the successful singer, to explain the ways and means which enabled him to reach success, in the light of a selfish withholding of advice which would benefit the young student, we rather look upon it as a worthy and conscientious desire not to lead any one into paths which might not be best for his or her instrument. In the beginning the student needs advice from an expert master, and is greatly benefited by knowing how the great singers have achieved. Later on, when principles have become thoroughly understood, the young singers learn what is best for their own voices; they, too, become a law unto themselves, capable of continuing the development of their own voices in the manner best suited to this most individual of all instruments. AMERICAN VOICES We often hear slighting things said of the quality of American voices, especially the speaking voice. They are frequently compared to the beauty of European voices, to the disparagement of those of our own country. Remembering the obloquy cast upon the American voice, it is a pleasure to record the views of some of the great singers on this point. "There are quantities of girls in America with good voices, good looks and a love for music," asserts Mme. Easton. Mme. Hempel says: "I find there are quantities of lovely voices here in America. The quality of the American female voice is beautiful; in no country is it finer, not even in Italy." Herbert Witherspoon, who has such wonderful experience in training voices, states: "We ought to have our own standards in judging American voices; until we do so, we will be constantly comparing them with the voices of foreign singers. The quality of the American voice is different from the quality found in the voices of other countries. To my mind, the best women's voices are found right here in our midst." And he adds: "Any one can sing beautifully who does so with ease and naturalness, the American just as well as those of any other country. In fact I consider American voices, in general, better trained than those of Italy, Germany or France. The Italian, in particular, has very little knowledge of the scientific side; he usually sings by intuition." AMERICAN VOICE TEACHERS If this be accepted, that American voices are better trained than those of other countries, and there is no reason to doubt the statement of masters of such standing, it follows there must be competent instructors in the art of song right in our own land. Mme. Easton agrees with this. "There are plenty of good vocal teachers in America," she says, "not only in New York City, but in other large cities of this great country. There is always the problem, however, of securing just the right kind of a teacher. For a teacher may be excellent for one voice but not for another." Morgan Kingston asserts: "There is no need for an American to go out of his own country for vocal instruction or languages; all can be learned right here at home. I am a living proof of this. What I have done others can do." "You have excellent vocal teachers right here in America," says Mme. Hempel. Then she marvels, that with all these advantages at her door, there are not more American girls who make good. She lays it to the fact that our girls try to combine a social life with their musical studies, to the great detriment of the latter. ARE AMERICAN VOCAL STUDENTS SUPERFICIAL? It is doubtless a great temptation to the American girl who possesses a voice and good looks, who is a favorite socially, to neglect her studies at times, for social gaiety. She is in such haste to make something of herself, to get where she can earn a little with her voice; yet by yielding to other calls she defeats the very purpose for which she is striving by a lowered ideal of her art. Let us see how the artists and teachers view this state of things. Lehmann says: "The trouble with American girls is they are always in a hurry. They are not content to sit down quietly and study till they have developed themselves into something before they ever think of coming to Europe. They think if they can only come over here and sing for an artist, that fact alone will give them prestige in America. With us American girls are too often looked upon as superficial because they come over here quite unprepared. I say to them: Go home and study; there are plenty of good teachers of voice and piano in your own land. Then, when you can _sing_, come here if you wish." Frieda Hempel speaks from close observation when she says: "Here in America, girls do not realize the amount of labor and sacrifice involved, or they might not be so eager to enter upon a musical career. They are too much taken up with teas, parties, and social functions to have sufficient time to devote to vocal study and to all that goes with it. In order to study all the subjects required, the girl with a voice must be willing to give most of her day to work. This means sacrificing the social side, and being willing to throw herself heart and soul into the business of adequately preparing herself for her career." THE VOCAL STUDENT MUST NOT BE AFRAID TO WORK In the words of Caruso's message to vocal students, they must be willing "to work--to work always--and to sacrifice." But Geraldine Farrar does not consider this in the light of sacrifice. Her message to the young singer is: "Stick to your work and study systematically, whole-heartedly. If you do not love your work enough to give it your best thought, to make sacrifices for it, then there is something wrong with you. Better choose some other line of work, to which you can give undivided attention and devotion. For music requires both. As for sacrifices, they really do not exist, if they promote the thing you honestly love most. You must never stop studying, for there is always so much to learn." "I have developed my voice through arduous toil," to quote Mme. Galli-Curci. Raisa says: "One cannot expect to succeed in the profession of music without giving one's best time and thought to the work of vocal training and all the other subjects that go with it. A man in business gives his day, or the most of it, to his office. My time is devoted to my art, and indeed I have not any too much time to study all the necessary sides of it." "I am always studying, always striving to improve what I have already learned and trying to acquire the things I find difficult, or have not yet attained to," testifies Mme. Homer. THE REQUIREMENTS FOR A VOCAL CAREER Those who have been through the necessary drudgery and struggle and have won out, should be able to give an authoritative answer to this all important question. They know what they started with, what any singer must possess at the beginning, and what she must acquire. Naturally the singer must have a voice, for there is no use trying to cultivate something which does not exist. All artists subscribe to this. They also affirm she should have good looks, a love for music and a musical nature. Let us hear from Mme. Homer on this subject. "1. Voice, first of all. 2. Intelligence; for intelligence controls, directs, shines through and illumines everything. What can be done without it? 3. Musical nature. 4. Capacity for Work. Without application, the gifts of voice, intelligence and a musical nature will not make an artist. 5. A cheerful optimism, which refuses to yield to discouragement. 6. Patience. It is only with patient striving, doing the daily vocal task, and trying to do it each day a little better than the day before, that anything worth while is accomplished. The student must have unlimited patience to labor and wait for results." Mr. Witherspoon states, that students coming to him must possess "Voice, to begin with; youth, good looks, musical intelligence and application. If the candidate possess these requisites, we begin to work." Anna Case answers the question as to the vital requisites necessary to become a singer: "Brains, Personality, Voice." Quotations could be multiplied to prove that all artists fully concur with those already mentioned. There must be a promising voice to cultivate, youth, good looks, (for a public career) and the utmost devotion to work. WHAT BRANCHES OF STUDY MUST BE TAKEN UP? All agree there are many other subjects to study besides singing; that alone is far from sufficient. Edward Johnson says: "Singing itself is only a part, perhaps the smaller part of one's equipment. If opera be the goal, there are languages, acting, make up, impersonation, interpretation, how to walk, all to be added to piano, harmony and languages. The most important of all is a musical education." Most of the great singers have emphatically expressed themselves in favor of piano study. Indeed, many were pianists in the beginning, before they began to develop the voice. Among those who had this training are: Galli-Curci, Lehmann, Raisa, D'Alvarez, Barrientos, Braslau, Case. Miss Braslau says: "I am so grateful for my knowledge of the piano and its literature; it is the greatest help to me now. To my thinking all children should have piano lessons; the cost is trifling compared with the benefits they receive. They should be made to study, whether they wish it or not, for they do not know what is best for them." Mme. Raisa says: "There are so many sides to the singer's equipment besides singing itself. The piano is a necessity; the singer is greatly handicapped without a knowledge of that instrument, for it not only provides accompaniment but cultivates musical sense." "The vocal student should study piano as well as languages," asserts Mme. Homer; "both are the essentials. Not that she need strive to become a pianist; that would not be possible if she is destined to be a singer. But the more she knows of the piano and its literature, the more this will cultivate her musical sense and develop her taste." Florence Easton is even more emphatic. "If a girl is fond of music, let her first study the piano, for a knowledge of the piano and its music is at the bottom of everything. All children should have this opportunity, whether they desire it or not. The child who early begins to study piano, will often unconsciously follow the melody with her voice. Thus the love of song is awakened in her, and a little later it is discovered she has a voice worth cultivating." On the subject of languages, artists are equally specific. Languages are an absolute necessity, beginning with one's mother tongue. The student should not imagine that because he is born to the English language, it does not require careful study. Galli-Curci remarks: "The singer can always be considered fortunate who has been brought up to more than one language. I learned Spanish and Italian at home. In school I learned French, German and English, not only a little smattering of each, but how to write and speak them." Rosa Raisa speaks eight languages, according to her personal statement. Russian, of course, as she is Russian, then French, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, Roumanian and English. "The duty is laid upon Americans to study other languages, if they expect to sing," says Florence Easton. "I know how often this study is neglected by the student. It is only another phase of that haste which is characteristic of the young student and singer." BREATH CONTROL Following the subject of requirements for a vocal career, let us get right down to the technical side, and review the ideas of artists on Breath Control, How to Practice, What are the Necessary Exercises, What Vowels Should be Used, and so on. All admit that the subject of Breath Control is perhaps the most important of all. Lehmann says: "I practice many breathing exercises without using tone. Breath becomes voice through effort of will and by use of vocal organs. When singing, emit the smallest quantity of breath. Vocal chords are breath regulators; relieve them of all overwork." Mme. Galli-Curci remarks: "Perhaps, in vocal mastery, the greatest factor of all is the breathing. To control the breath is what each student is striving to learn, what every singer endeavors to perfect, what every artist should master. It is an almost endless study and an individual one, because each organism and mentality is different." Marguerite d'Alvarez: "In handling and training the voice, breathing is perhaps the most vital thing to be considered. To some breath control seems second nature; others must toil for it. With me it is intuition. Breathing is such an individual thing. With each person it is different, for no two people breathe in just the same way." Claudia Muzio: "Every singer knows how important is the management of breath. I always hold up the chest, taking as deep breaths as I can conveniently. The power to hold the breath and sing more and more tones with one breath, grows with careful, intelligent practice." Frieda Hempel: "The very first thing for a singer to consider is breath control--always the breathing, the breathing. She thinks of it morning, noon and night. Even before rising in the morning she has it on her mind, and may do a few little stunts while still reclining. Then, before beginning vocal technic in the morning, she goes through a series of breathing exercises." David Bispham: "Correct breath control must be carefully studied and is the result of understanding and experience. When the manner of taking breath and the way to develop the diaphragm and abdominal muscles, is understood, that is only a beginning. Management of the breath is an art in itself. The singer must know what to do with the breath once he has taken it in, or he may let it out in quarts when he opens his mouth. He learns how much he needs for each phrase; he learns how to conserve the breath." Oscar Saenger: "The management of the breath is a most important factor, as the life of the tone depends on a continuance of the breath. The student must cultivate the power of quickly inhaling a full breath, and exhaling it so gradually that she can sing a phrase lasting from ten to twenty seconds. This needs months of arduous practice. In all breathing, inhale through the nose." Yeatman Griffith: "Breath control is indeed a vital need, but should not be made a bugbear to be greatly feared. Most students make breathing and breath control a difficult matter, when it should be a natural and easy act. They do not need the large amount of breath they imagine they do, for a much smaller quantity will suffice. When you open the lips after a full, natural breath, do not let the breath escape; the vocal chords will make the tone, if you understand how to make a perfect start." SPECIFIC EXERCISES Great singers are chary of giving out vocal exercises which they have discovered, evolved, or have used so constantly as to consider them a part of their own personal equipment, for reasons stated earlier in this chapter. However, a few artists have indicated certain forms which they use. Mme. d'Alvarez remarks: "When I begin to study in the morning, I give the voice what I call a massage. This consists of humming exercises, with closed lips. Humming is the sunshine of the voice. One exercise is a short figure of four consecutive notes of the diatonic scale, ascending and descending several times; on each repetition of the group of phrases, the new set begins on the next higher note of the scale. This exercise brings the tone fully forward." Lehmann counsels the young voice to begin in the middle and work both ways. Begin single tones piano, make a long crescendo and return to piano. Another exercise employs two connecting half tones, using one or two vowels. During practice stand before a mirror. Raisa assures us she works at technic every day. "Vocalizes, scales, broken thirds, long, slow tones in mezza di voce--that is beginning softly, swelling to loud, then diminuendo to soft, are part of the daily régime." Farrar works on scales and single tones daily. Muzio says: "I sing all the scales, one octave each, once slow and once fast--all in one breath. Then I sing triplets on each tone, as many as I can in one breath. Another exercise is to take one tone softly, then go to the octave above; this tone is always sung softly, but there is a large crescendo between the two soft tones." Kingston says: "As for technical material, I have never used a great quantity. I do scales and vocalizes each day. I also make daily use of about a dozen exercises by Rubini. Beyond these I make technical exercises out of the pieces." De Luca sings scales in full power, then each tone alone, softly, then swelling to full strength and dying away. Bispham: "I give many vocalizes and exercises, which I invent to fit the need of each student. They are not written down, simply remembered. I also make exercises out of familiar tunes or themes from opera. Thus, while the student is studying technic, he is acquiring much beautiful material." Oscar Saenger: "We begin by uniting two tones smoothly and evenly, then three in the same way; afterwards four and five. Then the scale of one octave. Arpeggios are also most important. The trill is the most difficult of all vocal exercises. We begin with quarter notes, then eighths and sixteenths. The trill is taken on each tone of the voice, in major seconds." Werrenrath: "I do a lot of gymnastics each day, to exercise the voice and limber up the anatomy. These act as a massage for the voice; they are in the nature of humming, mingled with grunts, calls, exclamations, shouts, and many kinds of sounds. They put the voice in condition, so there is no need for all these other exercises which most singers find so essential to their vocal well being." Duval asserts: "Long, sustained tones are too difficult for the young voice. One should sing medium fast scales at first." LENGTH OF TIME FOR DAILY PRACTICE It may be helpful to know about how much time the artists devote to daily study, especially to technical practice. It is understood all great singers work on vocalizes and technical material daily. Caruso is a constant worker. Two or three hours in the forenoon, and several more later in the day, whenever possible. Farrar devotes between one and two hours daily to vocalizes, scales and tone study, Lehmann counsels one hour daily on technic. Galli-Curci gives a half hour or so to vocalizes and scales every morning. Martinelli practices exercises and vocalizes one hour each morning; then another hour on repertoire. In the afternoon an hour more--three hours daily. Easton says: "It seems to me a young singer should not practice more than an hour a day, at most, beginning with two periods of fifteen or twenty minutes each." Anna Case says: "I never practice when I am tired, for then it does more harm than good. One must be in good condition to make good tones. I can study and not sing at all, for the work is all mental anyway." Muzio states she gives practically her whole day to study, dividing it into short periods, with rest between. Frieda Hempel says: "I do about two hours or more, though not all of this for technic. I approve of a good deal of technical study, taken in small doses of ten to fifteen minutes at a time. Technic is a means to an end, more in the art of song than in almost any other form of art. Technic is the background of expressive singing." Sophie Braslau is an incessant worker,--"at least six hours a day. Of these I actually sing three hours. The first hour to memory work on repertoire. The second hour to vocalizes. The rest of the time is given to repertoire and the things that belong to it." Barrientos states she gives about three-quarters of an hour to vocal technic--scales and exercises--each day. Duval advises the young student to practice two half hours daily, two hours after eating, and rest the voice one day each week, during which she studies other subjects connected with her art. Oscar Saenger says: "One should practice in fifteen-minute periods, and rest at least ten minutes between. Sing only two hours a day, one in the morning and one in afternoon." WHAT VOWELS TO USE There seems a divergence of opinion as to what vowels are most beneficial in technical practice and study. Galli-Curci says: "In my own study I use them all, though some are more valuable than others. The Ah is the most difficult of all. The O is good; E needs great care. I have found the best way is to use mixed vowels, one melting into the other. The tone can be started with each vowel in turn, then mingled with the rest of the vowels." Mme. d'Alvarez often starts the tone with Ah, which melts into O and later changes to U, as the tone dies away. Bispham has the student use various vowel syllables, as: Lah, Mah, May, and Mi. With Oscar Saenger the pupil in early stages at least, uses Ah for vocalizes. Duval requires students to use the vowel Ah, for exercises and scales, finding the others are not needed, especially excluding E and U as injurious. Griffith uses each vowel in turn, preceded by all the consonants of the alphabet, one after another. HALF OR FULL VOICE? Shall the young singer practice with half or full voice seems a matter depending on one's individual attainments. De Luca uses full power during practice, while Raisa sings softly, or with medium, tone, during study hours, except occasionally when she wishes to try out certain effects. Martinelli states he always practices with full voice, as with half voice he would not derive the needed benefit. Mme. Easton admits she does not, as a rule, use full voice when at work; but adds, this admission might prove injurious to the young singer, for half voice might result in faulty tone production. Anna Case says when at work on a song in her music room, she sings it with the same power as she would before an audience. She has not two ways of doing it, one for a small room and another for a large one. Mr. Duval advises the young pupil to sing tones as loudly and deeply as possible. Singing pianissimo is another fallacy for a young voice. This is one of the most difficult accomplishments, and should be reserved for a later period. Oscar Saenger: "The tone should be free, round and full, but not loud." HEARING YOURSELF Does the singer really hear himself is a question which has been put to nearly every artist. Many answered in a comparative negative, though with qualifications. Miss Farrar said: "No, I do not actually hear my voice, except in a general way, but we learn to know the sensations produced in throat, head, face, lips and other parts of the anatomy, which vibrate in a certain manner to correct tone production. We learn the _feeling_ of the tone." "I can tell just how I am singing a tone or phrase," says De Luca, "by the feeling and sensation; for of course I cannot hear the full effect; no singer can really hear the effect of his work, except on the records." "The singer must judge so much from sensation, for she cannot very well hear herself, that is, she cannot tell the full effect of what she is doing," says Anna Case. Mr. Witherspoon says: "The singer of course hears himself and with study learns to hear himself better. The singer should depend more on hearing the sound he makes than on feeling the sound. In other words, train the _ear_, the court of ultimate resort, and the only judge, and forget sensation as much as possible, for the latter leads to a million confusions." VOCAL MASTERY, FROM THE ARTISTS' VIEWPOINT Farrar: "A thing that is mastered must be really perfect. To master vocal art, the singer must have so developed his voice that it is under complete control; then he can do with it what he wishes. He must be able to produce all he desires of power, pianissimo, accent, shading, delicacy and variety of color." Galli-Curci: "To sum up: the three requirements of vocal mastery are: Management of the Larynx; Relaxation of the Diaphragm; Control of the Breath. To these might be added a fourth: Mixed Vowels. But when these are mastered, what then? Ah, so much more it can never be put into words. It is self-expression through the medium of tone, for tone must always be a vital part of the singer's individuality, colored by feeling and emotion. To perfect one's own instrument, must always be the singer's joy and satisfaction." Raisa: "If I have developed perfect control throughout the two and a half octaves of my voice, can make each tone with pure quality and perfect evenness in the different degrees of loud and soft, and if I have perfect breath control as well, I then have an equipment that may serve all purposes of interpretation. For together with vocal mastery must go the art of interpretation, in which all the mastery of the vocal equipment may find expression. In order to interpret adequately one ought to possess a perfect instrument, perfectly trained. When this is the case one can forget mechanism, because confident of the ability to express any desired emotion." Homer: "The singer must master all difficulties of technic, of tone production in order to be able to express the thought of the composer, and the meaning of the music." Werrenrath: "I can answer the question in one word--Disregard. For if you have complete control of your anatomy and such command of your vocal resources that they will always do their work; that they can be depended on to act perfectly, then you can disregard mechanism and think only of the interpretation--only of your vocal message. Then you have conquered the material and have attained Vocal Mastery." Kingston: "Vocal Mastery includes so many things. First and foremost, vocal technic. One must have an excellent technic before one can hope to sing even moderately well. Technic furnishes the tool with which the singer creates his vocal art work. Then the singer must work on his moral nature so that he shall express the beautiful and pure in music. Until I have thus prepared myself, I am not doing my whole duty to myself, my art or to my neighbor." Griffith: "Vocal Mastery is acquired through correct understanding of what constitutes pure vowel sounds, and such control of the breath as will enable one to convert every atom of breath into singing tone. This establishes correct action of the vocal chords and puts the singer in possession of the various tints of the voice. "When the vocal chords are allowed to produce pure vowels, correct action is the result, and with proper breath support, Vocal Mastery can be assured." Duval: "What is Vocal Mastery? Every great artist has his own peculiar manner of accomplishing results--has his own vocal mastery. Patti had one kind, Maurel another, Lehmann still another. Caruso may also be said to have his own vocal mastery. "In fine, as every great artist is different from his compeers, there can be no fixed and fast standard of vocal mastery, except the mastery of doing a great thing greatly and convincingly." THE END 
16427	----	THE SPLENDID FOLLY by MARGARET PEDLER Author of the Hermit of Far End, etc. New York Grosset & Dunlap Publishers 1921 TO MY HUSBAND W. G. Q. PEDLER CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE VERDICT II FELLOW-TRAVELLERS III AN ENCOUNTER WITH DEATH IV CRAILING RECTORY V THE SECOND MEETING VI THE AFTERMATH OF AN ADVENTURE VII DIANA SINGS VIII MRS. LAWRENCE'S HOSPITALITY IX A CONTEST OF WILLS X MISS LERMONTOF'S ADVICE XI THE YEAR'S FRUIT XII MAX ERRINGTON'S RETURN XIII THE FRIEND WHO STOOD BY XIV THE FLAME OF LOVE XV DIANA'S DECISION XVI BARONI'S OPINION OF MATRIMONY XVII "WHOM GOD HATH JOINED TOGETHER" XVIII THE APPROACHING SHADOW XIX THE "FIRST NIGHT" PERFORMANCE XX THE SHADOW FALLS XXI THE OTHER WOMAN XXII THE PARTING OF THE WAYS XXIII PAIN XXIV THE VISION OF LOVE XXV BREAKING-POINT XXVI THE REAPING XXVII CARLO BARONI EXPLAINS XXVIII THE AWAKENING XXIX SACRIFICE THE HAVEN OF MEMORY Do you remember Our great love's pure unfolding, The troth you gave, And prayed for God's upholding, Long and long ago? Out of the past A dream--and then the waking-- Comes back to me, Of love and love's forsaking, Ere the summer waned. Ah! Let me dream That still a little kindness Dwelt in the smile That chid my foolish blindness, When you said good-bye. Let me remember, When I am very lonely, How once your love But crowned and blessed me only, Long and long ago! MARGARET PEDLER. NOTE:--Musical setting by Isador Epstein. Published by G. Ricordi & Co.; 14 East 43rd Street, New York. THE SPLENDID FOLLY CHAPTER I THE VERDICT The March wind swirled boisterously down Grellingham Place, catching up particles of grit and scraps of paper on his way and making them a torment to the passers-by, just as though the latter were not already amply occupied in trying to keep their hats on their heads. But the blustering fellow cared nothing at all about that as he drove rudely against them, slapping their faces and blinding their eyes with eddies of dust; on the contrary, after he had swept forwards like a tornado for a matter of fifty yards or so he paused, as if in search of some fresh devilment, and espied a girl beating her way up the street and carrying a roll of music rather loosely in the crook of her arm. In an instant he had snatched the roll away and sent the sheets spread-eagling up the street, looking like so many big white butterflies as they flapped and whirled deliriously hither and thither. The girl made an ineffectual grab at them and then dashed in pursuit, while a small greengrocer's boy, whose time was his master's (ergo, his own), joined in the chase with enthusiasm. Given a high wind, and half-a-dozen loose sheets of music, the elusive quality of the latter seems to be something almost supernatural, not to say diabolical, and the pursuit would probably have been a lengthy one but for the fact that a tall man, who was rapidly advancing from the opposite direction, seeing the girl's predicament, came to her help and headed off the truant sheets. Within a few moments the combined efforts of the girl, the man, and the greengrocer's boy were successful in gathering them together once more, and having tipped the boy, who had entered thoroughly into the spirit of the thing and who was grinning broadly, she turned, laughing and rather breathless, to thank the man. But the laughter died suddenly away from her lips as she encountered the absolute lack of response in his face. It remained quite grave and unsmiling, exactly as though its owner had not been engaged, only two minutes before, in a wild and undignified chase after half-a-dozen sheets of paper which persisted in pirouetting maddeningly just out of reach. The face was that of a man of about thirty-five, clean-shaven and fair-skinned, with arresting blue eyes of that peculiar piercing quality which seems to read right into the secret places of one's mind. The features were clear-cut--straight nose, square chin, the mouth rather sternly set, yet with a delicate uplift at its corners that gave it a singularly sweet expression. The girl faltered. "Thank you so much," she murmured at last. The man's deep-set blue eyes swept her from head to foot in a single comprehensive glance. "I am very glad to have been of service," he said briefly. With a slight bow he raised his hat and passed on, moving swiftly down the street, leaving her staring surprisedly after him and vaguely feeling that she had been snubbed. To Diana Quentin this sensation was something of a novelty. As a rule, the men who were brought into contact with her quite obviously acknowledged her distinctly charming personality, but this one had marched away with uncompromising haste and as unconcernedly as though she had been merely the greengrocer's boy, and he had been assisting him in the recovery of some errant Brussels sprouts. For a moment an amused smile hovered about her lips; then the recollection of her business in Grellingham Place came back to her with a suddenly sobering effect and she hastened on her way up the street, pausing at last at No. 57. She mounted the steps reluctantly, and with a nervous, spasmodic intake of the breath pressed the bell-button. No one came to answer the door--for the good and sufficient reason that Diana's timid pressure had failed to elicit even the faintest sound--and its four blank brown panels seemed to stare at her forbiddingly. She stared back at them, her heart sinking ever lower and lower the while, for behind those repellent portals dwelt the great man whose "Yea" or "Nay" meant so much to her--Carlo Baroni, the famous teacher of singing, whose verdict upon any voice was one from which there could be no appeal. Diana wondered how many other aspirants to fame had lingered like herself upon that doorstep, their hearts beating high with hope, only to descend the white-washed steps a brief hour later with the knowledge that from the standpoint of the musical profession their voices were useless for all practical purposes, and with their pockets lighter by two guineas, the _maestro's_ fee for an opinion. The wind swept up the street again and Diana shivered, her teeth chattering partly with cold but even more with nervousness. This was a bad preparation for the coming interview, and with an irritation born of despair she pressed the bell-button to such good purpose that she could hear footsteps approaching, almost before the trill of the bell had vibrated into silence. An irreproachable man-servant, with the face of a sphinx, opened the door. Diana tried to speak, failed, then, moistening her lips, jerked out the words:-- "Signor Baroni?" "Have you an appointment?" came the relentless inquiry, and Diana could well imagine how inexorably the greatly daring who had come on chance would be turned away. "Yes--oh, yes," she stammered. "For three o'clock--Miss Diana Quentin." "Come this way, please." The man stood aside for her to enter, and a minute later she found herself following him through a narrow hall to the door of a room whence issued the sound of a softly-played pianoforte accompaniment. The sphinx-like one threw open the door and announced her name, and with quaking knees she entered. The room was a large one. At its further end stood a grand piano, so placed that whoever was playing commanded a full view of the remainder of the room, and at this moment the piano-stool was occupied by Signor Baroni himself, evidently in the midst of giving a lesson to a young man who was standing at his elbow. He was by no means typically Italian in appearance; indeed, his big frame and finely-shaped head with its massive, Beethoven brow reminded one forcibly of the fact that his mother had been of German origin. But the heavy-lidded, prominent eyes, neither brown nor hazel but a mixture of the two, and the sallow skin and long, mobile lips--these were unmistakably Italian. The nose was slightly Jewish in its dominating quality, and the hair that was tossed back over his head and descended to the edge of his collar with true musicianly luxuriance was grizzled by sixty years of strenuous life. It would seem that God had taken an Italian, a German, and a Jew, and out of them welded a surpassing genius. Baroni nodded casually towards Diana, and, still continuing to play with one hand, gestured towards an easy-chair with the other. "How do you do? Will you sit down, please," he said, speaking with a strong, foreign accent, and then apparently forgot all about her. "Now"--he turned to the young man whose lesson her entry had interrupted--"we will haf this through once more. Bee-gin, please: '_In all humility I worship thee_.'" Obediently the young man opened his mouth, and in a magnificent baritone voice declaimed that reverently, and from a great way off, he ventured to worship at his beloved's shrine, while Diana listened spell-bound. If this were the only sort of voice Baroni condescended to train, what chance had she? And the young man's singing seemed so finished, the fervour of his passion was so vehemently rendered, that she humbly wondered that there still remained anything for him to learn. It was almost like listening to a professional. Quite suddenly Baroni dropped his hands from the piano and surveyed the singer with such an eloquent mixture of disgust and bitter contempt in his extraordinarily expressive eyes that Diana positively jumped. "Ach! So that is your idea of a humble suitor, is it?" he said, and though he never raised his voice above the rather husky, whispering tones that seemed habitual to him, it cut like a lash. Later, Diana was to learn that Baroni's most scathing criticisms and most furious reproofs were always delivered in a low, half-whispering tone that fairly seared the victim. "That is your idea, then--to shout, and yell, and bellow your love like a caged bull? When will you learn that music is not noise, and that love--love"--and the odd, husky voice thrilled suddenly to a note as soft and tender as the cooing of a wood-pigeon--"can be expressed _piano_--ah, but _pianissimo_--as well as by blowing great blasts of sound from those leathern bellows which you call your lungs?" The too-forceful baritone stood abashed, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. With a swift motion Baroni swept up the music from the piano and shovelled it pell-mell into the young man's arms. "Oh, go away, go away!" he said impatiently. "You are a voice--just a voice--and nothing more. You will _nevaire_ be an artist!" And he turned his back on him. Very dejectedly the young man made his way towards the door, whilst Diana, overcome with sympathy and horror at his abrupt dismissal, could hardly refrain from rushing forward to intercede for him. And then, to her intense amazement, Baroni whisked suddenly round, and following the young man to the door, laid his hand on his shoulder. "_Au revoir, mon brave_," he said, with the utmost bonhomie. "Bring the song next time and we will go through it again. But do not be discouraged--no, for there is no need. It will come--it will come. But remember, _piano--piano--pianissimo_!" And with a reassuring pat on the shoulder he pushed the young man affectionately through the doorway and closed the door behind him. So he had not been dismissed in disgrace after all! Diana breathed a sigh of relief, and, looking up, found Signor Baroni regarding her with a large and benevolent smile. "You theenk I was too severe with him?" he said placidly. "But no. He is like iron, that young man; he wants hammer-blows." "I think he got them," replied Diana crisply, and then stopped, aghast at her own temerity. She glanced anxiously at Baroni to see if he had resented her remark, only to find him surveying her with a radiant smile and looking exactly like a large, pleased child. "We shall get on, the one with the other," he observed contentedly. "Yes, we shall get on. And now--who are you? I do not remember names"--with a terrific roll of his R's--"but you haf a very pree-ty face--and I never forget a pree-ty face." "I'm--I'm Diana Quentin," she blurted out, nervousness once more overpowering her as she realised that the moment of her ordeal was approaching. "I've come to have my voice tried." Baroni picked up a memorandum book from his table, turning over the pages till he came to her name. "Ach! I remember now. Miss Waghorne--my old pupil sent you. She has been teaching you, isn't it so?" Diana nodded. "Yes, I've had a few lessons from her, and she hoped that possibly you would take me as a pupil." It was out at last--the proposal which now, in the actual presence of the great man himself, seemed nothing less than a piece of stupendous presumption. Signor Baroni's eyes roamed inquiringly over the face and figure of the girl before him--quite possibly querying as to whether or no she possessed the requisite physique for a singer. Nevertheless, the great master was by no means proof against the argument of a pretty face. There was a story told of him that, on one occasion, a girl with an exceptionally fine voice had been brought to him, some wealthy patroness having promised to defray the expenses of her training if Baroni would accept her as a pupil. Unfortunately, the girl was distinctly plain, with a quite uninteresting plainness of the pasty, podgy description, and after he had heard her sing, the _maestro_, first dismissing her from the room, had turned to the lady who was prepared to stand sponsor for her, and had said, with an inimitable shrug of his massive shoulders:-- "The voice--it is all right. But the girl--heavens, madame, she is of an ugliness! And I cannot teach ugly people. She has the face of a peeg--please take her away." But there was little fear that a similar fate would befall Diana. Her figure, though slight with the slenderness of immaturity, was built on the right lines, and her young, eager face, in its frame of raven hair, was as vivid as a flower--its clear pallor serving but to emphasise the beauty of the straight, dark brows and of the scarlet mouth with its ridiculously short upper-lip. Her eyes were of that peculiarly light grey which, when accompanied, as hers were, by thick black lashes, gives an almost startling impression each time the lids are lifted, an odd suggestion of inner radiance that was vividly arresting. An intense vitality, a curious shy charm, the sensitiveness inseparable from the artist nature--all these, and more, Baroni's experienced eye read in Diana's upturned face, but it yet remained for him to test the quality of her vocal organs. "Well, we shall see," he said non-committally. "I do not take many pupils." Diana's heart sank yet a little lower, and she felt almost tempted to seek refuge in immediate flight rather than remain to face the inevitable dismissal that she guessed would be her portion. Baroni, however, put a summary stop to any such wild notions by turning on her with the lightning-like change of mood which she came afterwards to know as characteristic of him. "You haf brought some songs?" He held out his hand. "Good. Let me see them." He glanced swiftly through the roll of music which she tendered. "This one--we will try this. Now"--seating himself at the piano--"open your mouth, little nightingale, and sing." Softly he played the opening bars of the prelude to the song, and Diana watched fascinatedly while he made the notes speak, and sing, and melt into each other with his short stumpy fingers that looked as though they and music would have little enough in common. "Now then. Bee-gin." And Diana began. But she was so nervous that she felt as though her throat had suddenly closed up, and only a faint, quavering note issued from her lips, breaking off abruptly in a hoarse croak. Baroni stopped playing. "Tchut! she is frightened," he said, and laid an encouraging hand on her shoulder. "But do not be frightened, my dear. You haf a pree-ty face; if your voice is as pree-ty as your face you need not haf fear." Diana was furious with herself for failing at the critical moment, and even more angry at Baroni's speech, in which she sensed a suggestion of the tolerance extended to the average drawing-room singer of mediocre powers. "I don't want to have a _pretty_ voice!" she broke out, passionately. "I wouldn't say thank you for it." And anger having swallowed up her nervousness, she opened her mouth--and her throat with it this time?--and let out the full powers that were hidden within her nice big larynx. When she ceased, Baroni closed the open pages of the song, and turning on his stool, regarded her for a moment in silence. "No," he said at last, dispassionately. "It is certainly not a pree-ty voice." To Diana's ears there was such a tone of indifference, such an air of utter finality about the brief speech, that she felt she would have been eternally grateful now could she only have passed the low standard demanded by the possession of even a merely "pretty" voice. "So this is the voice you bring me to cultivate?" continued the _maestro_. "This that sounds like the rumblings of a subterranean earthquake? Boom! boo-o-om! Like that, _nicht wahr_?" Diana crimsoned, and, feeling her knees giving way beneath her, sank into the nearest chair, while Baroni continued to stare at her. "Then--then you cannot take me as a pupil?" she said faintly. Apparently he did not hear her, for he asked abruptly:-- "Are you prepared to give up everything--everything in the world for art? She is no easy task-mistress, remember! She will want a great deal of your time, and she will rob you of your pleasures, and for her sake you will haf to take care of your body--to guard your physical health--as though it were the most precious thing on earth. To become a great singer, a great artiste, means a life of self-denial. Are you prepared for this?" "But--but--" stammered Diana in astonishment. "If my voice is not even pretty--if it is no good--" "_No good_?" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet with a rapidity of movement little short of marvellous in a man of his size and bulk. "_Gran Dio_! No good, did you say? But, my child, you haf a voice of gold--pure gold. In three years of my training it will become the voice of the century. Tchut! No good!" He pranced nimbly to the door and flung it open. "Giulia! Giulia!" he shouted, and a minute later a fat, amiable-looking woman, whose likeness to Baroni proclaimed them brother and sister, came hurrying downstairs in answer to his call. "Signora Evanci, my sister," he said, nodding to Diana. "This, Giulia, is a new pupil, and I would haf you hear her voice. It is magnificent--_épatant_! Open your mouth, little singing-bird, once more. This time we will haf some scales." Bewildered and excited, Diana sang again, Baroni testing the full compass of her voice until quite suddenly he shut down the lid of the piano. "It is enough," he said solemnly, and then, turning to Signora Evanci, began talking to her in an excited jumble of English and Italian. Diana caught broken phrases here and there. "Of a quality superb! . . . And a beeg compass which will grow beeger yet. . . . The contralto of the century, Giulia." And Signora Evanci smiled and nodded agreement, patting Diana's hand, and reminded Baroni that it was time for his afternoon cup of consommé. She was a comfortable feather-bed of a woman, whose mission in life it seemed to be to fend off from her brother all sharp corners, and to see that he took his food at the proper intervals and changed into the thick underclothing necessitated by the horrible English climate. "But it will want much training, your voice," continued Baroni, turning once more to Diana. "It is so beeg that it is all over the place--it sounds like a clap of thunder that has lost his way in a back garden." And he smiled indulgently. "To bee-gin with, you will put away all your songs--every one. There will be nothing but exercises for months yet. And you will come for your first lesson on Thursday. Mondays and Thursdays I will teach you, but you must come other days, also, and listen at my lessons. There is much--very much--learned by listening, if one listens with the brain as well as with the ear. Now, little singing-bird, good-bye. I will go with you myself to the door." The whole thing seemed too impossibly good to be true. Diana felt as if she were in the middle of a beautiful dream from which she might at any moment waken to the disappointing reality of things. Hardly able to believe the evidence of her senses, she found herself once again in the narrow hall, shepherded by the maestro's portly form. As he held the door open for her to pass out into the street, some one ran quickly up the steps, pausing on the topmost. "Ha, Olga!" exclaimed Baroni, beaming. "You haf returned just too late to hear Mees Quentin. But you will play for her--many times yet." Then, turning to Diana, he added by way of introduction: "This is my accompanist, Mees Lermontof." Diana received the impression of a thin, satirical face, its unusual pallor picked out by the black brows and hair, of a bitter-looking mouth that hardly troubled itself to smile in salutation, and, above all, of a pair of queer green eyes, which, as the heavy, opaque white lids above them lifted, seemed slowly--and rather contemptuously--to take her in from head to foot. She bowed, and as Miss Lermontof inclined her head slightly in response, there was a kind of cold aloofness in her bearing--a something defiantly repellent--which filled Diana with a sudden sense of dislike, almost of fear. It was as though the sun had all at once gone behind a cloud. The Baroni's voice fell on her ears, and the disagreeable tension snapped. "_A rivederci_, little singing-bird. On Thursday we will bee-gin." The door closed on the _maestro's_ benevolently smiling face, and on that other--the dark, satirical face of Olga Lermontof--and Diana found herself once again breasting the March wind as it came roystering up through Grellingham Place. CHAPTER II FELLOW-TRAVELLERS "Look sharp, miss, jump in! Luggage in the rear van." The porter hoisted her almost bodily up the steps of the railway carriage, slamming the door behind her, the guard's whistle shrieked, and an instant later the train started with a jerk that sent Diana staggering against the seat of the compartment, upon which she finally subsided, breathless but triumphant. She had very nearly missed the train. An organised procession of some kind had been passing through the streets just as she was driving to the station, and her taxi had been held up for the full ten minutes' grace which she had allowed herself, the metre fairly ticking its heart out in impotent rage behind the policeman's uplifted hand. So it was with a sigh of relief that she found herself at last comfortably installed in a corner seat of a first-class carriage. She glanced about her to make sure that she had not mislaid any of her hand baggage in her frantic haste, and this point being settled to her satisfaction, she proceeded to take stock of her fellow-traveller, for there was one other person in the compartment besides herself. He was sitting in the corner furthest away, his back to the engine, apparently entirely oblivious of her presence. On his knee rested a quarto writing-pad, and he appeared so much absorbed in what he was writing that Diana doubted whether he had even heard the commotion, occasioned by her sudden entry. But she was mistaken. As the porter had bundled her into the carriage, the man in the corner had raised a pair of deep-set blue eyes, looked at her for a moment with a half-startled glance, and then, with the barest flicker of a smile, had let his eyes drop once more upon his writing-pad. Then he crossed out the word "Kismet," which he had inadvertently written. Diana regarded him with interest. He was probably an author, she decided, and since a year's training as a professional singer had brought her into contact with all kinds of people who earned their livings by their brains, as she herself hoped to do some day, she instantly felt a friendly interest in him. She liked, too, the shape of the hand that held the fountain-pen; it was a slender, sensitive-looking member with well-kept nails, and Diana always appreciated nice hands. The man's head was bent over his work, so that she could only obtain a foreshortened glimpse of his face, but he possessed a supple length of limb that even the heavy travelling-rug tucked around his knees failed to disguise, and there was a certain _soigné_ air of rightness about the way he wore his clothes which pleased her. Suddenly becoming conscious that she was staring rather openly, she turned her eyes away and looked out of the window, and immediately encountered a big broad label, pasted on to the glass, with the word "_Reserved_" printed on it in capital letters. The letters, of course, appeared reversed to any one inside the carriage, but they were so big and black and hectoring that they were quite easily deciphered. Evidently, in his violent haste to get her on board the train, the porter had thrust her into the privacy of some one's reserved compartment that some one being the man opposite. What a horrible predicament! Diana felt hot all over with embarrassment, and, starting to her feet, stammered out a confused apology. The man in the corner raised his head. "It does not matter in the least," he assured her indifferently. "Please do not distress yourself. I believe the train is very crowded; you had better sit down again." The chilly lack of interest in his tones struck Diana with an odd sense of familiarity, but she was too preoccupied to dwell on it, and began hastily to collect together her dressing-case and other odds and ends. "I'll find another seat," she said stiffly, and made her way out into the corridor of the rocking train. Her search, however, proved quite futile; every compartment was packed with people hurrying out of town for Easter, and in a few moments she returned. "I'm sorry," she said, rather shyly. "Every seat is taken. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with me." Just then the carriage gave a violent lurch, as the express swung around a bend, and Diana, dropping everything she held, made a frantic clutch at the rack above her head, while her goods and chattels shot across the floor, her dressing-case sliding gaily along till its wild career was checked against the foot of the man in the corner. With an air of resignation he rose and retrieved her belongings, placing them on the seat opposite her. "It would have been better if you had taken my advice," he observed, with a sort of weary patience. Diana felt unreasonably angry with him. "Why don't you say 'I told you so' at once?" she said tartly. A whimsical smile crossed his face. "Well, I did, didn't I?" He stood for a moment looking down at her, steadying himself with one hand against the doorway, and her ill-humour vanishing as quickly as it had arisen, she returned the smile. "Yes, you did. And you were quite right, too," she acknowledged frankly. He laughed outright. "Well done!" he cried. "Not one woman in twenty will own herself in the wrong as a rule." Diana frowned. "I don't agree with you at all," she bristled. "Men have a ridiculous way of lumping all women together and then generalising about them." "Let's discuss the question," he said gaily. "May I?" And scarcely waiting for her permission, he deliberately moved aside her things and seated himself opposite her. "But you were busy writing," she protested. He threw an indifferent glance in the direction of his writing-pad, where it lay on the seat in the corner. "Was I?" he answered calmly. "Sometimes there are better things to do than scribbling--pleasanter ones, anyway." Diana flushed. It certainly was an unusual thing to do, to get into conversation with an unknown man with whom one chanced to be travelling, and she had never before committed such a breach of the conventions--would have been shocked at the bare idea of it--but there was something rather irresistible about this man's cool self-possession. He seemed to assume that a thing must of necessity be right, since he chose to do it. She looked up and met his eyes watching her with a glint of amusement in their depths. "No, it isn't quite proper," he agreed, answering her unspoken thought. "But I've never bothered about that if I really wanted to do a thing. And don't you think"--still with that flicker of laughter in his eyes--"that it's rather ridiculous, when two human beings are shut up in a box together for several hours, for each of them to behave as though the other weren't there?" He spoke half-mockingly, and Diana, felt that within himself he was ridiculing her prim little notions of conventionality. She flushed uncomfortably. "Yes, I--I suppose so," she faltered. He seemed to understand. "Forgive me," he said, with a sudden gentleness. "I wasn't laughing at you, but only at all the absurd conventions by which we cut ourselves off from many an hour of pleasant intercourse--just as though we had any too many pleasures in life! But if you wish it, I'll go back to my corner." "No, no, don't go," returned Diana hastily. "It--it was silly of me." "Then we may talk? Good. I shall behave quite nicely, I assure you." Again the curiously familiar quality in his voice! She was positive she had heard it before--that crisp, unslurred enunciation, with its keen perception of syllabic values, so unlike the average Englishman's slovenly rendering of his mother-tongue. "Of what are you thinking?" he asked, smiling. And then the swift, hawk-like glance of the blue eyes brought with it a sudden, sure sense of recognition, stinging the slumbering cells of memory into activity. A picture shaped itself in her mind of a blustering March day, and of a girl, a man, and an errand-boy, careering wildly in the roadway of a London street, while some stray sheets of music went whirling hither and thither in the wind. It had all happened a year ago, on that critical day when Baroni had consented to accept her as his pupil, but the recollection of it, and the odd, snubbed feeling she had experienced in regard to the man with the blue eyes, was as clear in her mind as though it had occurred only yesterday. "I believe we have met before, haven't we?" she said. The look of gay good-humour vanished suddenly from his face and an expression of blank inquiry took its place. "I think not," he replied. "Oh, but I'm sure of it. Don't you remember"--brightly--"about a year ago. I was carrying some music, and it all blew away up the street and you helped me to collect it again?" He shook his head. "I think you must be mistaken," he answered regretfully. "No, no," she persisted, but beginning to experience some slight embarrassment. (It is embarrassing to find you have betrayed a keen and vivid recollection of a man who has apparently forgotten that he ever set eyes on you!) "Oh, you must remember--it was in Grellingham Place, and the greengrocer's boy helped as well." She broke off, reading the polite negation in his face. "You must be confusing me with some one else. I should not be likely to--forget--so charming a _rencontre_." There was surely a veiled mockery in his composed tones, irreproachably courteous though they were, and Diana coloured hotly. Somehow, this man possessed the faculty of making her feel awkward and self-conscious and horribly young; he himself was so essentially of the polished type of cosmopolitan that beside him she felt herself to be as raw and crude as any bread-and-butter miss fresh from the schoolroom. Moreover, she had an inward conviction that in reality he recollected the incident in Grellingham Place as clearly as she did herself, although he refused to admit it. She relapsed into an uncomfortable silence, and presently the attendant from the restaurant car came along the corridor and looked in to ask if they were going to have dinner on the train. Both nodded an affirmative. "Table for two?" he queried, evidently taking them to be two friends travelling together. Diana was about to enlighten him when her _vis-à-vis_ leaned forward hastily. "Please," he said persuasively, and as she returned no answer he apparently took her silence for consent, for something passed unobtrusively from his hand to that of the attendant, and the latter touched his hat with a smiling--"Right you are, sir! I'll reserve a table for two." Diana felt that the acquaintance was progressing rather faster than she could have wished, but she hardly knew how to check it. Finally she mustered up courage to say firmly:-- "It must only be if I pay for my own dinner." "But, of course," he answered courteously, with the slightest tinge of surprise in his tones, and once again Diana, felt that she had made a fool of herself and blushed to the tips of her ears. A faint smile trembled for an instant on his lips, and then, without apparently noticing her confusion, he began to talk, passing easily from one subject to another until she had regained her confidence, finally leading her almost imperceptibly into telling him about herself. In the middle of dinner she paused, aghast at her own loquacity. "But what a horrible egotist you must think me!" she exclaimed. "I've been talking about my own affairs all the time." "Not at all. I'm interested. This Signor Baroni who is training your voice--he is the finest teacher in the world. You must have a very beautiful voice for him to have accepted you as a pupil." There was a hint of surprise in his tones. "Oh, no," she hastened to assure him modestly. "I expect it was more that I had the luck to catch him in a good mood that afternoon." "And his moods vary considerably, don't they?" he said, smiling as though at some personal recollection. "Oh, do you know him?" asked Diana eagerly. In an instant his face became a blank mask; it was as though a shutter had descended, blotting out all its vivacious interest. "I have met him," he responded briefly. Then, turning the subject adroitly, he went on: "So now you are on your way home for a well-earned holiday? Your people must be looking forward to seeing you after so long a time--you have been away a year, didn't you say?" "Yes, I spent the other two vacations abroad, in Italy, for the sake of acquiring the language. Signor Baroni"--laughingly--"was horror-stricken at my Italian, so he insisted. But I have no people--not really, you know," she continued. "I live with my guardian and his daughter. Both my parents died when I was quite young." "You are not very old now," he interjected. "I'm eighteen," she answered seriously. "It's a great age," he acknowledged, with equal gravity. Just then a waiter sped forward and with praiseworthy agility deposited their coffee on the table without spilling a drop, despite the swaying of the train, and Diana's fellow-traveller produced his cigarette-case. "Will you smoke?" he asked. She looked at the cigarettes longingly. "Baroni's forbidden me to smoke," she said, hesitating a little. "Do you think--just one--would hurt my voice?" The short black lashes flew up, and the light-grey eyes, like a couple of stars between black clouds, met his in irresistible appeal. "I'm sure it wouldn't," he replied promptly. "After all, this is just an hour's playtime that we have snatched out of life. Let's enjoy every minute of it--we may never meet again." Diana felt her heart contract in a most unexpected fashion. "Oh, I hope we shall!" she exclaimed, with ingenuous warmth. "It is not likely," he returned quietly. He struck a match and held it while she lit her cigarette, and for an instant their fingers touched. His teeth came down hard on his under-lip. "No, we mustn't meet again," he repeated in a low voice. "Oh, well, you never know," insisted Diana, with cheerful optimism. "People run up against each other in the most extraordinary fashion. And I expect we shall, too." "I don't think so," he said. "If I thought that we should--" He broke off abruptly, frowning. "Why, I don't believe you _want_ to meet me again!" exclaimed Diana, with a note in her voice like that of a hurt child. "Oh, for that!" He shrugged his shoulders. "If we could have what we wanted in this world! Though, I mustn't complain--I have had this hour. And I wanted it!" he added, with a sudden intensity. "So much that you propose to make it last you for the remainder of your life?"--smiling. "It will have to," he answered grimly. After dinner they made their way back from the restaurant car to their compartment, and noticing that she looked rather white and tired, he suggested that she should tuck herself up on the seat and go to sleep. "But supposing I didn't wake at the right time?" she objected. "I might be carried past my station and find myself heaven knows where in the small hours of the morning! . . . I _am_ sleepy, though." "Let me be call-boy," he suggested. "Where do you want to get out?" "At Craiford Junction. That's the station for Crailing, where I'm going. Do you know it at all? It's a tiny village in Devonshire; my guardian is the Rector there." "Crailing?" An odd expression crossed his face and he hesitated a moment. At last, apparently coming to a decision of some kind, he said: "Then I must wake you up when I go, as I'm getting out before that." "Can I trust you?" she asked sleepily. "Surely." She had curled herself up on the seat with her feet stretched out in front of her, one narrow foot resting lightly on the instep of the other, and she looked up at him speculatively from between the double fringe of her short black lashes. "Yes, I believe I can," she acquiesced, with a little smile. He tucked his travelling rug deftly round her, and, pulling on his overcoat, went hack to his former corner, where he picked up the neglected writing-pad and began scribbling in a rather desultory fashion. Very soon her even breathing told him that she slept, and he laid aside the pad and sat quietly watching her. She looked very young and childish as she lay there, with the faint shadows of fatigue beneath her closed eyes--there was something appealing about her very helplessness. Presently the rug slipped a little, and he saw her hand groping vaguely for it. Quietly he tiptoed across the compartment and drew it more closely about her. "Thank you--so much," she murmured drowsily, and the man looking down at her caught his breath sharply betwixt his teeth. Then, with an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders, he stepped back and resumed his seat. The express sped on through the night, the little twin globes of light high up in the carriage ceiling jumping and flickering as it swung along the metals. Down the track it flew like a living thing, a red glow marking its passage as it cleft the darkness, its freight of human souls contentedly sleeping, or smoking, or reading, as the fancy took them. And half a mile ahead on the permanent way, Death stood watching--watching and waiting where, by some hideous accident of fate, a faulty coupling-rod had snapped asunder in the process of shunting, leaving a solitary coal-truck to slide slowly back into the shadows of the night, unseen, the while its fellows were safely drawn on to a aiding. CHAPTER III AN ENCOUNTER WITH DEATH One moment the even throbbing of the engine as the train slipped along through the silence of the country-side--the next, and the silence was split by a shattering roar and the shock of riven plates, the clash of iron driven against iron, and of solid woodwork grinding and grating as it splintered into wreckage. Diana, suddenly--horribly--awake, found herself hurled from her seat. Absolute darkness lapped her round; it was as though a thick black curtain had descended, blotting out the whole world, while from behind it, immeasurably hideous in that utter night, uprose an inferno of cries and shrieks--the clamour of panic-stricken humanity. Her hands, stretched stiffly out in front of her to ward off she knew not what impending horror hidden by the dark, came in contact with the framework of the window, and in an instant she was clinging to it, pressing up against it with her body, her fingers gripping and clutching at it as a rat, trapped in a well, claws madly at a projecting bit of stonework. It was at least something solid out of that awful void. "What's happened? What's happened? What's happened?" She was whispering the question over and over again in a queer, whimpering voice without the remotest idea of what she was saying. When a stinging pain shot through her arm, as a jagged point of broken glass bit into the flesh, and with a scream of utter, unreasoning terror she let go her hold. The next moment she felt herself grasped and held by a pair of arms, and a voice spoke to her out of the darkness. "Are you hurt? . . . My God, are you hurt?" With a sob of relief she realised that it was the voice of her fellow-traveller. He was here, close to her, something alive and human in the midst of this nightmare of awful, unspeakable fear, and she clung to him, shuddering. "Speak, can't you?" His utterance sounded hoarse and distorted. "You're hurt--?" And she felt his hands slide searchingly along her limbs, feeling and groping. "No--no." "Thank God!" He spoke under his breath. Then, giving her a shake: "Come, pull yourself together. We must get out of this." He fumbled in his pocket and she heard the rattle of a matchbox, and an instant later a flame spurted out in the gloom as he lit a bundle of matches together. In the brief illumination she could see the floor of the compartment steeply tilted up and at its further end what looked like a huge, black cavity. The whole side of the carriage had been wrenched away. "Come on!" exclaimed the man, catching her by the hand and pulling her forward towards that yawning space. "We must jump for it. It'll be a big drop. I'll catch you." At the edge of the gulf he paused. Below, with eyes grown accustomed to the darkness, she could discern figures running to and fro, and lanterns flashing, while shouts and cries rose piercingly above a continuous low undertone of moaning. "Stand here," he directed her. "I'll let myself down, and when I call to you--jump." She caught at him frantically. "Don't go--don't leave me." He disengaged himself roughly from her clinging hands. "It only wants a moment's pluck," he said, "and then you'll be safe." The next minute he was over the side, hanging by his hands from the edge of the bent and twisted flooring of the carriage, and a second afterwards she heard him drop. Peering out, she could see him standing on the ground below, his arms held out towards her. "Jump!" he called. But she shrank from the drop into the darkness. "I can't!" she sobbed helplessly. "I can't!" He approached a step nearer, and the light from some torch close at hand flashed onto his uplifted face. She could see it clearly, tense and set, the blue eyes blazing. "God in heaven!" he cried furiously. "Do what I tell you. _Jump_!" The fierce, imperative command startled her into action, and she jumped blindly, recklessly, out into the night. There was one endless moment of uncertainty, and then she felt herself caught by arms like steel and set gently upon the ground. "You little fool!" he said thickly. He was breathing heavily as though he had been running; she could feel his chest heave as, for an instant, he held her pressed against him. He released her almost immediately, and taking her by the arm, led her to the embankment, where he stripped off his overcoat and wrapped it about her. But she was hardly conscious of what he was doing, for suddenly everything seemed to be spinning round her. The lights of the torches bobbed up and down in a confused blur of twinkling stars, the sound of voices and the trampling of feet came faintly to her ears as from a great way off, while the grim, black bulk of the piled-up coaches of the train seemed to lean nearer and nearer, until finally it swooped down on top of her and she sank into a sea of impenetrable darkness. The next thing she remembered was finding a flask held to her lips, while a familiar voice commanded her to drink. She shook her head feebly. "Drink it at once," the voice insisted. "Do you hear?" And because her mind held some dim recollection of the futility of gainsaying that peremptory voice, she opened her lips obediently and let the strong spirit trickle down her throat. "Better now?" queried the voice. She nodded, and then, complete consciousness returning, she sat up. "I'm all right now--really," she said. The owner of the voice regarded her critically. "Yes, I think you'll do now," he returned. "Stay where you are. I'm going along to see if I can help, but I'll come back to you again." The darkness swallowed him up, and Diana sat very still on the embankment, vibrantly conscious in every nerve of her of the man's cool, dominating personality. Gradually her thoughts returned to the happenings of the moment, and then the full horror of what had occurred came back to her. She began to cry weakly. But the tears did her good, bringing with them relief from the awful shock which had strained her nerves almost to breaking-point, and with return to a more normal state of mind came the instinctive wish to help--to do something for those who must be suffering so pitiably in the midst of that scarred heap of wreckage on the line. She scrambled to her feet and made her way nearer to the mass of crumpled coaches that reared up black against the shimmer of the starlit sky. No one took any notice of her; all who were unhurt were working to save and help those who had been less fortunate, and every now and then some broken wreck of humanity was carried past her, groaning horribly, or still more horribly silent. Suddenly a woman brushed against her--a young woman of the working classes, her plump face sagging and mottled with terror, her eyes staring, her clothes torn and dishevelled. "My chiel, my li'l chiel!" she kept on muttering. "Wur be 'ee? Wur be 'ee?" Reaching her through the dreadful strangeness of disaster, the soft Devon dialect smote on Diana's ears with a sense of dear familiarity that was almost painful. She laid her hand on the woman's arm. "What is it?" she asked. "Have you lost your child?" The woman looked at her vaguely, bewildered by the surrounding horror. "Iss. Us dunnaw wur er's tu; er's dade, I reckon. Aw, my li'l, li'l chiel!" And she rocked to and fro, clutching her shawl more closely round her. Diana put a few brief questions and elicited that the woman and her child had both been taken unhurt out of a third-class carriage--of the ten souls who had occupied the compartment the only ones to escape injury. "I'll go and look for him," she told her. "I expect he has only strayed away and lost sight of you amongst all these people. Four years old and wearing a little red coat, did you say? I'll find him for you; you sit down here." And she pushed the poor distraught creature down on a pile of shattered woodwork. "Don't be frightened," she added reassuringly. "I feel certain he's quite safe." She disappeared into the throng, and after searching for a while came face to face with her fellow traveller, carrying a chubby, red-coated little boy in his arms. He stopped abruptly. "What in the world are you doing?" he demanded angrily. "You've no business here. Go back--you'll only see some ghastly sights if you come, and you can't help. Why didn't you stay where I told you to?" But Diana paid no heed. "I want that child," she said eagerly, holding out her arms. "The mother's nearly out of her mind--she thinks he's killed, and I told her I'd go and look for him." "Is this the child? . . . All right, then, I'll carry him along for you. Where did you leave his mother?" Diana led the way to where the woman was sitting, still rocking herself to and fro in dumb misery. At the sight of the child she leapt up and clutched him in her arms, half crazy with joy and gratitude, and a few sympathetic tears stole down Diana's cheeks as she and her fellow-helper moved away, leaving the mother and child together. The man beside her drew her arm brusquely within his. "You're not going near that--that hell again. Do you hear?" he said harshly. His face looked white and drawn; it was smeared with dirt, and his clothes were torn and dishevelled. Here and there his coat was stained with dark, wet patches. Diana shuddered a little, guessing what those patches were. "_You've_ been helping!" she burst out passionately. "Did you want me to sit still and do nothing while--while that is going on just below?" And she pointed to where the injured were being borne along on roughly improvised stretchers. A sob climbed to her throat and her voice shook as she continued: "I was safe, you see, thanks to you. And--and I felt I must go and help a little, if I could." "Yes--I suppose you would feel that," he acknowledged, a sort of grudging approval in his tones. "But there's nothing more one can do now. An emergency train is coming soon and then we shall get away--those that are left of us. But what's this?"--he felt her sleeve--"Your arm is all wet." He pushed up the loose coat-sleeve and swung the light of his lantern upon the thin silk of her blouse beneath it. It was caked with blood, while a trickle of red still oozed slowly from under the wristband and ran down over her hand. "You're hurt! Why didn't you tell me?" "It's nothing," she answered. "I cut it against the glass of the carriage window. It doesn't hurt much." "Let me look at it. Here, take the lantern." Diana obeyed, laughing a little nervously, and he turned back her sleeve, exposing a nasty red gash on the slender arm. It was only a surface wound however, and hastily procuring some water he bathed it and tied it up with his handkerchief. "There, I think that'll be all right now," he said, pulling down her sleeve once more and fastening the wristband with deft fingers. "The emergency train will be here directly, so I'm going back to our compartment to pick up your belongings. I can climb in, I fancy. What did you leave behind?" Diana laughed. "What a practical man you are! Fancy thinking of such things as a forgotten coat and a dressing-bag when we've just escaped with our lives!" "Well, you may as well have them," he returned gruffly. "Wait here." And he disappeared into the darkness, returning presently with the various odds and ends which she had left in the carriage. Soon afterwards the emergency train came up, and those who could took their places, whilst the injured were lifted by kindly, careful hands into the ambulance compartment. The train drew slowly away from the scene of the accident, gradually gathering speed, and Diana, worn out with strain and excitement, dozed fitfully to the rhythmic rumbling of the wheels. She woke with a start to find that the train was slowing down and her companion gathering his belongings together preparatory to departure. She sprang up and slipping off the overcoat she was still wearing, handed it back to him. He seemed reluctant to take it from her. "Shall you be warm enough?" he asked doubtfully. "Oh, yes. It's only half-an-hour's run from here to Craiford Junction, and there they'll meet me with plenty of wraps." She hesitated a moment, then went on shyly: "I can't thank you properly for all you've done." "Don't," he said curtly. "It was little enough. But I'm glad I was there." The train came to a standstill, and she held out her hand. "Good-bye," she said, very low. He wrung her hand, and, releasing it abruptly, lifted his hat and disappeared amid the throng of people on the platform. And it was not until the train had steamed out of the station again that she remembered that she did not even know his name. Very slowly she unknotted the handkerchief from about her arm, and laying the blood-stained square of linen on her knee, proceeded to examine each corner carefully. In one of them she found the initials M.E., very finely worked. CHAPTER IV CRAILING RECTORY The early morning mist still lingered in the valleys and clung about the river banks as the Reverend Alan Stair, returning from his matutinal dip in the sea, swung up the lane and pushed open the door giving access from it to the Rectory grounds. The little wooden door, painted green and overhung with ivy, was never bolted. In the primitive Devon village of Crailing such a precaution would have been deemed entirely superfluous; indeed, the locking of the door would probably have been regarded by the villagers as equivalent to a reflection on their honesty, and should the passage of time ultimately bring to the ancient rectory a fresh parson, obsessed by conventional opinion concerning the uses of bolts and bars, it is probable that the inhabitants of Crailing will manifest their disapproval in the simple and direct fashion of the Devon rustic--by placidly boycotting the church of their fathers and betaking themselves to the chapel round the corner. The little green door, innocent of lock and key, stood as a symbol of the close ties that bound the rector and his flock together, and woe betide the iconoclast who should venture to tamper with it. The Rectory itself was a picturesque old house with latticed windows and thatched roof; the climbing roses, which in summer clothed it in a garment of crimson and pink and white, now shrouded its walls with a network of brown stems and twigs tipped with emerald buds. Beneath the warmth of the morning sun the damp was steaming from the weather-stained thatch in a cloud of pearly mist, while the starlings, nesting under the overhanging eaves, broke into a harsh twittering of alarm at the sound of the Rectory footsteps. Alan Stair was a big, loose-limbed son of Anak, with little of the conventional cleric in his appearance as he came striding across the dewy lawn, clad in a disreputable old suit of grey tweeds and with his bathing-towel slung around his shoulders. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets, and since he had characteristically omitted to provide himself with a hat, his abundant brown hair was rumpled and tossed by the wind, giving him an absurdly boyish air. Arrived at the flagged path which ran the whole length of the house he sent up a Jovian shout, loud enough to arouse the most confirmed of sluggards from his slumbers, and one of the upper lattice windows flew open in response. "That you, Dad?" called a fresh young voice. "Sounds like it, doesn't it?" he laughed back. "Come down and give me my breakfast. There's a beautifully assorted smell of coffee and fried bacon wafting out from the dining room, and I can't bear it any longer." An unfeeling giggle from above was the only answer, and the Reverend Alan made his way into the house, pausing to sling his bath-towel picturesquely over one of the pegs of the hat-stand as he passed through the hall. He was incurably disorderly, and only the strenuous efforts of his daughter Joan kept the habit within bounds. Since the death of her mother, nearly ten years ago, she had striven to fill her place and to be to this lovable, grown-up boy who was her father all that his adored young wife had been. And so far as material matters were concerned, she had succeeded. She it was who usually found the MS. of his sermon when, just as the bells were calling to service, he would come leaping up the stairs, three at a time, to inform her tragically that it was lost; she who saw to it that his meals were not forgotten in the exigencies of his parish work, and who supervised his outward man to the last detail--otherwise, in one of his frequent fits of absent-mindedness, he would have been quite capable of presenting himself at church in the identical grey tweeds he was now wearing. Yet notwithstanding the irrepressible note of youth about him, which called forth a species of "mothering" from every woman of his acquaintance, Alan Stair was a man to whom people instinctively turned for counsel. A child in the material things of this world, he was a giant in spiritual development--broad-minded and tolerant, his religion spiced with a sense of humour and deepened by a sympathetic understanding of frail human nature. And it was to him that Ralph Quentin, when on his death-bed, had confided the care of his motherless little daughter, Diana, appointing him her sole guardian and trustee. The two men had been friends from boyhood, and perhaps no one had better understood than Ralph, who had earlier suffered a similar loss, the terrible blank which the death of his wife had occasioned in Stair's life. The fellowship of suffering had drawn the two men together in a way that nothing else could have done, so that when Quentin made known his final wishes concerning his daughter, Alan Stair had gladly accepted the charge laid upon him, and Diana, then a child of ten, had made her permanent home at Crailing Rectory, speedily coming to look upon her guardian as a beloved elder brother, and upon his daughter, who was but two years her senior, as her greatest friend. From the point of view of the Stairs themselves, the arrangement was not without its material advantages. Diana had inherited three hundred a year of her own, and the sum she contributed to "cover the cost of her upkeep," as she laughingly termed it when she was old enough to understand financial matters, was a very welcome addition to the slender resources provided by the value of the living. But even had the circumstances been quite other than they were, so that the fulfilment of Ralph Quentin's last behest, instead of being an assistance to the household exchequer, had proved to be a drain upon it, Alan Stair would have acted in precisely the same way--for the simple reason that there was never any limit to his large conception of the meaning of the word friendship and of its liabilities. Diana had speedily carved for herself a niche of her own in the Rectory household, so that when the exigencies of her musical training, as viewed through Carlo Baroni's eyes, had necessitated her departure from Crailing for a whole year, Stair and his daughter had felt her absence keenly, and they welcomed her back with open arms. The account of the railway accident which had attended her homeward journey had filled them with anxiety lest she should suffer from the effects of shock, and they had insisted that she should breakfast in bed this first morning of her arrival, inclining to treat her rather as though she were a semi-invalid. "Have you been to see Diana?" asked Stair anxiously, as his daughter joined him in the dining-room. She shook her head. "No need. Diana's been in to see me! There's no breakfast in bed about her; she'll be down directly. Even her arm doesn't pain her much." Stair laughed. "What a girl it is!" he exclaimed. "One would have expected her to feel a bit shaken up after her experience yesterday." "I fancy something else must have happened beside the railway accident," observed Joan wisely. "Something interesting enough to have outweighed the shock of the smash-up. She's in quite absurdly good spirits for some unknown reason." The Rector chuckled. "Perhaps a gallant rescuer was added to the experience, eh?" he said. "Perhaps so," replied his daughter, faintly smiling as she proceeded to pour out the coffee. Jean Stair was a typical English country girl, strictly tailor-made in her appearance, with a predisposition towards stiff linen collars and neat ties. In figure she was slight almost to boyishness and she had no pretensions whatever to good looks, but there was nevertheless something frank and wholesome and sweet about her--something of the charm of a nice boy--that counterbalanced her undeniable plainness. As she had once told Diana: "I'm not beautiful, so I'm obliged to be good. You're not compelled, by the same necessity, and I may yet see you sliding down the primrose path, whereas I shall inevitably end my days in the odour of sanctity--probably a parish worker to some celibate vicar!" The Rector and Joan were half-way through their breakfast when a light step sounded in the hall outside, and a minute later the door flew open to admit Diana. "Good morning, dear people," she exclaimed gaily. "Am I late? It looks like it from the devastated appearance of the bacon dish. Pobs, you've eaten all the breakfast!" And, she dropped, a light kiss on the top of the Rector's head. "Ugh! Your hair's all wet with sea-water. Why don't you dry yourself when you take a bath, Pobs dear? I'll come with you to-morrow--not to dry you, I mean, but just to bathe." Stair surveyed her with a twinkle as he retrieved her plate of kidneys and bacon from the hearth where it had been set down to keep hot. "Diana, I regret to observe that your conversation lacks the flavour of respectability demanded by your present circumstances," he remarked. "I fear you'll never be an ornament to any clerical household." "No. _Pas mon métier_. Respectability isn't in the least a _sine qua non_ for a prima donna--far from it!" Stair chuckled. "To hear you talk, no one would imagine that in reality you were the most conventional of prudes," he flung at her. "Oh, but I'm growing out of it," she returned hopefully. "Yesterday, for instance, I palled up with a perfectly strange young man. We conversed together as though we had known each other all our lives, shared the same table for dinner--" "You didn't?" broke in Joan, a trifle shocked. Diana nodded serenely. "Indeed I did. And what was the reward of my misdeeds? Why, there he was at hand to save me when the smash came!" "Who was he?" asked Joan curiously. "Any one from this part of the world?" "I haven't the faintest idea," replied Diana. "I actually never inquired to whom I was indebted for my life and the various other trifles which he rescued for me from the wreck of our compartment. The only clue I have is the handkerchief he bound round my arm. It's very bluggy and it's marked M.E." "M.E.," repeated the Rector. "Well, there must be plenty of M.E.'s in the world. Did he get out at Craiford?" "He didn't," said Diana. "No; at present he is 'wropt in mist'ry,' but I feel sure we shall run up against each other again. I told him so." "Did you, indeed?" Stair laughed. "And was he pleased at the prospect?" "Well, frankly, Pobs, I can't say he seemed enraptured. On the contrary, he appeared to regard it in the light of a highly improbable and quite undesirable contingency." "He must be lacking in appreciation," murmured Stair mockingly, pinching her cheek as he passed her on his way to select a pipe from the array that adorned the chimney-piece. "Are you going 'parishing' this morning?" inquired Diana, as she watched him fill and light his pipe. "Yes, I promised to visit Susan Gurney--she's laid up with rheumatism, poor old soul." "Then I'll drive you, shall I? I suppose you've still got Tommy and the ralli-cart?" "Yes," replied Stair gravely. "Notwithstanding diminishing tithes and increasing taxes, Tommy is still left to us. Apparently he thrives on a penurious diet, for he is fatter than ever." Accordingly, half an hour later, the two set out behind the fat pony on a round of parochial visits. Underneath the seat of the trap reposed the numerous little packages of tea and tobacco with which the Rector, whose hand was always in his pocket, rarely omitted to season his visits to the sick among his parishioners. "And why not?" he would say, when charged with pampering them by some starchy member of his congregation who considered that parochial visitation should be embellished solely by the delivery of appropriate tracts. "And why not pamper them a bit, poor souls? A pipe of baccy goes a long way towards taking your thoughts off a bad leg--as I found out for myself when I was laid up with an attack of the gout my maternal grandfather bequeathed me." Whilst the Rector paid his visits, Diana waited outside the various cottages, driving the pony-trap slowly up and down the road, and stopping every now and again to exchange a few words with one or another of the village folk as they passed. She was frankly delighted to be home again, and was experiencing that peculiar charm of the Devonshire village which lies in the fact that you may go away from it for several years and return to find it almost unchanged. In the wilds of Devon affairs move leisurely, and such changes as do occur creep in so gradually as to be almost imperceptible. No brand-new houses start into existence with lightning-like rapidity, for the all-sufficient reason that in such sparsely populated districts the enterprising builder would stand an excellent chance of having his attractive villa residences left empty on his hands. No; new houses are built to order, if at all. In the same way, it is rare to find a fresh shop spring into being in a small village, and should it happen, in all probability a year or two will see the shutters up and the disgruntled proprietor departing in search of pastures new. For the villagers who have always dealt with the local butcher, baker, and grocer, and whose fathers have probably dealt with their fathers before them, are not easily to be cajoled into transferring their custom--and certainly not to the establishment of any one who has had the misfortune to be born outside the confines of the county, and is therefore to be briefly summed up in the one damning word "vurriner." [1] So that Diana, returning to Crailing for a brief holiday after a year's absence, found the tiny fishing village quite unchanged, and this fact imparted an air almost of unreality to the twelve busy, eventful months which had intervened. She felt as if she had never been away, as though the Diana Quentin who had been living in London and studying singing under the greatest master of the day were some one quite apart from the girl who had passed so many quiet, happy years at Crailing Rectory. The new and unaccustomed student's life, the two golden visits which she had paid to Italy, the introduction into a milieu of clever, gifted people all struggling to make the most of their talents, had been such an immense change from the placid, humdrum existence which had preceded it, that it still held for her an almost dreamlike charm of novelty, and this was intensified at the present moment by her return to Crailing to find everything going on just in the same old way, precisely as though there had been no break at all. As though to convince herself that the student life in London was a substantial reality, and not a mere figment of the imagination, she hummed a few bars of a song, and as she listened to the deep, rich notes of her voice, poised with that sureness which only comes of first-class training, she smiled a little, reflecting that if nothing else had changed, here at least was a palpable outcome of that dreamlike year. "Bravo!" The Rector's cheery tones broke in upon her thoughts as he came out from a neighbouring gateway and swung himself up into the trap beside her. "Di, I've got to hear that voice before long. What does Signor Baroni say about it?" "Oh, I think he's quite pleased," she answered, whipping up the fat pony, who responded reluctantly. "But he's a fearful martinet. He nearly frightens me to death when he gets into one of his royal Italian rages--though he's always particularly sweet afterwards! Pobs, I wonder who my man in the train was?" she added inconsequently. The Rector looked at her narrowly. He had wondered more than a little why the shock of the railway accident had apparently affected her so slightly, and although he had joked with Joan about some possible "gallant rescuer" who might have diverted her thoughts he had really attributed it partly to the youthful resiliency of Diana's nature, and partly to the fact that when one has narrowly escaped a serious injury, or death itself, the sense of relief is so intense as frequently to overpower for the moment every other feeling. But now he was thrown back on the gallant rescuer theory; obviously the man, whoever he was, had impressed himself rather forcibly on Diana's mind, and the Rector acknowledged that this was almost inevitable from the circumstances in which they had been thrown together. "You know," continued the girl, "I'm certain I've seen him before--the day I first went to Baroni to have my voice tested. It was in Grellingham Place, and all my songs blew away up the street, and I'm positive M.E. was the man who rescued them for me." "Rescuing seems to be his hobby," commented the Rector dryly. "Did you remind him that you had met before?" "Yes, and he wouldn't recollect it." "_Wouldn't_?" "No, wouldn't. I have a distinct feeling that he did remember all about it, and did recognise me again, but he wouldn't acknowledge it and politely assured me I must be mistaken." The Rector smiled. "Perhaps he has a prejudice against making the promiscuous acquaintance of beautiful young women in trains." Diana sniffed. "Oh, well, if he didn't think I was good enough to know--" She paused. "He _had_ rather a superior way with him, a sort of independent, lordly manner, as though no one had a right to question anything he chose to do. And he was in a first-class reserved compartment too." "Oh, was he? And did you force your way into his reserved compartment, may I ask?" Diana giggled. "I didn't force my way into it; I was pitchforked in by a porter. The train was packed, and I was late. Of course I offered to go and find another seat, but there wasn't one anywhere." "So the young man yielded to _force majeure_ and allowed you to travel with him?" said the Rector, adding seriously: "I'm very thankful he did. To think of you--alone--in that awful smash! . . . This morning's paper says there were forty people killed." Diana gave a little nervous shiver, and then quite suddenly began to cry. Stair quietly took the reins from her hand, and patted her shoulder, but he made no effort to check her tears. He had felt worried all morning by her curious detachment concerning the accident; it was unnatural, and he feared that later on the shock which she must have received might reveal itself in some abnormal nervousness regarding railway travelling. These tears would bring relief, and he welcomed them, allowing her to cry, comfortably leaning against his shoulder, as the pony meandered up the hilly lane which led to the Rectory. At the gates they both descended from the trap, and Stair was preparing to lead the pony into the stable-yard when Diana suddenly flung her arms round him, kissing him impulsively. "Oh, Pobs, dear," she said half-laughing, half-crying. "You're such a darling--you always understand everything. I feel heaps better now, thank you." [1] Anglice: foreigner. CHAPTER V THE SECOND MEETING Diana threw hack the bedclothes and thrust an extremely pretty but reluctant foot over the edge of the bed. She did not experience in the least that sensation of exhilaration with which the idea of getting up invariably seems to inspire the heroine of a novel, prompting her to spring lightly from her couch and trip across to the window to see what sort of weather the author has provided. On the contrary, she was sorely tempted to snuggle down again amongst the pillows, but the knowledge that it wanted only half an hour to breakfast-time exercised a deterrent influence and she made her way with all haste to the bath-room, somewhat shamefully pleased to reflect that, being Easter Sunday, Pobs would be officiating at the early service, so that she would escape the long trudge down to the sea with him for their usual morning swim. By the time she had bathed and dressed, however, she felt better able to face the day with a cheerful spirit, and the sun, streaming in through the diamond panes of her window, added a last vivifying touch and finally sent her downstairs on the best of terms with herself and the world at large. There was no one about, as Joan had accompanied her father to church, so Diana sauntered out on to the flagged path and paced idly up and down, waiting for their return. The square, grey tower of the church, hardly more than a stone's throw distant from the Rectory, was visible through a gap in the trees where a short cut, known as the "church path" wound its way through the copse that hedged the garden. It was an ancient little church, boasting a very beautiful thirteenth century window, which, in a Philistine past, had been built up and rough-cast outside, and had only been discovered in the course of some repairs that were being made to one of the walls. The inhabitants of Crailing were very proud of that thirteenth century window when it was disinterred; they had a proprietary feeling about it--since, after all, it had really belonged to them for a little matter of seven centuries or so, although they had been unaware of the fact. Below the slope of the Rectory grounds the thatched roofs of the village bobbed into view, some gleaming golden in all the pride of recent thatching, others with their crown of straw mellowed by sun and rain to a deeper colour and patched with clumps of moss, vividly green as an emerald. The village itself straggled down to the edge of the sea in untidy fashion, its cob-walled cottages in some places huddling together as though for company, in others standing far apart, with spaces of waste land between them where you might often see the women sitting mending the fishing nets and gossiping together as they worked. Diana's eyes wandered affectionately over the picturesque little houses; she loved every quaint, thatched roof among them, but more than all she loved the glimpse of the sea that lay beyond them, pierced by the bold headland of red sandstone, Culver Point, which thrust itself into the blue of the water like an arm stretched out to shelter the little village nestling in its curve from the storms of the Atlantic. Presently she heard the distant click of a gate, and very soon the Rector and Joan appeared, Stair with the dreaming, far-away expression in his eyes of one who has been communing with the saints. Diana went to meet them and slipped her arm confidingly through his. "Come back to earth, Pobs, dear," she coaxed gaily. "You look like Moses might have done when he descended from the Mount." The glory faded slowly out of his eyes. "Come back to heaven, Di," he retorted a little sadly, "That's where you came from, you know." Diana shook her head. "You did, I verily believe," she declared affectionately. "But there's only a very small slice of heaven in my composition, I'm afraid." Stair looked down at her thoughtfully, at the clean line of the cheek curving into the pointed, determined little chin, at the sensitive, eager mouth, unconsciously sensuous in the lovely curve of its short upper-lip, at the ardent, glowing eyes--the whole face vital with the passionate demand of youth for the kingdoms of the earth. "We've all got our share of heaven, my dear," he said at last, smiling a little. "But I'm thinking yours may need some hard chiselling of fate to bring it into prominence." Diana wriggled her shoulders. "It doesn't sound nice, Pobs. I don't in the least want to be chiselled into shape, it reminds one too much of the dentist." "The gentleman who chisels out decay? You're exactly carrying out my metaphor to its bitter end," returned Stair composedly. "Oh, Joan, do stop him," exclaimed Diana appealingly. "I'm going to church this morning, and if he lectures me like this I shall have no appetite left for spiritual things." "I didn't know you ever had--much," replied Joan, laughing. "Well, anyway, I've a thoroughly healthy appetite for my breakfast," said Diana, as they went into the dining-room. "I'm feeling particularly cheerful just this moment. I have a presentiment that something very delightful is going to happen to me to-day--though, to be sure, Sunday isn't usually a day when exciting things occur." "Dreams generally go by contraries," observed Joan sagely. "And I rather think the same applies to presentiments. I know that whenever I have felt a comfortable assurance that everything was going smoothly, it has generally been followed by one of the servants giving notice, or the bursting of the kitchen boiler, or something equally disagreeable." Diana gurgled unfeelingly. "Oh, those are merely the commonplaces of existence," she replied. "I was meaning"--waving her hand expansively--"big things." "And when you've got your own house, my dear," retorted Joan, "you'll find those commonplaces of existence assume alarmingly big proportions." Soon after Stair had finished his after-breakfast pipe, the chiming of the bells announced that it was time to prepare for church. The Rectory pew was situated close to the pulpit, at right angles to the body of the church, and Diana and Joan took their places one at either end of it. As the former was wont to remark: "It's such a comfort when there's no competition for the corner seats." The organ had ceased playing, and the words "_Dearly beloved_" had already fallen from the Rector's lips, when the churchdoor opened once again to admit some late arrivals. Instinctively Diana looked up from her prayer-book, and, as her glance fell upon the newcomers, the pupils of her eyes dilated until they looked almost black, while a wave of colour rushed over her face, dyeing it scarlet from brow to throat. Two ladies were coming up the aisle, the one bordering on middle age, the other young and of uncommon beauty, but it was upon neither of these that Diana's startled eyes were fixed. Behind them, and evidently of their party, came a tall, fair man whose supple length of limb and very blue eyes sent a little thrill of recognition through her veins. It was her fellow-traveller of that memorable journey down from town! She closed her eyes a moment. Once again she could hear the horrifying crash as the engine hurled itself against the track that blocked the metals, feel the swift pall of darkness close about her, rife with a thousand terrors, and then, out of that hideous night, the grip of strong arms folded round her, and a voice, harsh with fear, beating against her ears: "Are you hurt? . . . My God, are you hurt?" When she opened her eyes again, the little party of three had taken their places and were composedly following the service. Apparently he had not seen her, and Diana shrank a little closer into the friendly shadow of the pulpit, feeling for the moment an odd, nervous fear of encountering his eyes. But she soon realised that she need not have been alarmed. He was evidently quite unaware of her proximity, for his glance never once strayed in her direction, and, gradually gaining courage as she appreciated this, Diana ventured to let her eyes turn frequently during the service towards the pew where the newcomers were sitting. That they were strangers to the neighbourhood she was sure; she had certainly never seen either of the two women before. The elder of the two was a plump, round-faced little lady, with bright brown eyes, and pretty, crinkly brown hair lightly powdered with grey. She was very fashionably dressed, and the careful detail of her toilet pointed to no lack of means. The younger woman, too, was exquisitely turned out, but there was something so individual about her personality that it dominated everything else, relegating her clothes to a very secondary position. As in the case of an unusually beautiful gem, it was the jewel itself which impressed one, rather than the setting which framed it round. She was very fair, with quantities of pale golden hair rather elaborately dressed, and her eyes were blue--not the keen, brilliant blue of those of the man beside her, but a soft blue-grey, like the sky on a misty summer's morning. Her small, exquisite features were clean-cut as a cameo, and she carried herself with a little touch of hauteur--an air of aloofness, as it were. There was nothing ungracious about it, but it was unmistakably there--a slightly emphasised hint of personal dignity. Diana regarded her with some perplexity; the girl's face was vaguely familiar to her, yet at the same time she felt perfectly certain that she had never seen her before. She wondered whether she were any relation to the man with her, but there was no particular resemblance between the two, except that both were fair and bore themselves with a certain subtle air of distinction that rather singled them out from amongst their fellows. In repose, Diana noticed, the man's face was grave almost to sternness, and there was a slightly worn look about it as of one who had passed through some fiery discipline of experience and had forced himself to meet its demands. The lines around the mouth, and the firm closing of the lips, held a suggestion of suffering, but there was no rebellion in the face, rather a look of inflexible endurance. Diana wondered what lay behind that curiously controlled expression, and the memory of certain words he had let fall during their journey together suddenly recurred to her with a new significance attached to them. . . . "Just as though we had any too many pleasures in life!" he had said. And again: "Oh, for that! If we could have what we wanted in this world! . . ." Uttered in his light, half-bantering tones, the bitter flavour of the words had passed her by, but now, as she studied the rather stern set of his features, they returned to her with fresh meaning and she felt that their mocking philosophy was to a certain extent indicative of the man's attitude towards life. So absorbed was she in her thoughts that the stir and rustle of the congregation issuing from their seats at the conclusion of the service came upon her in the light of a surprise; she had not realised that the service--in which she had been taking a reprehensible perfunctory part--had drawn to its close, and she almost jumped when Joan nudged her unobtrusively and whispered:-- "Come along. I believe you're half asleep." She shook her head, smiling, and gathering up her gloves and prayer-book, she followed Joan down the aisle and out into the churchyard where people were standing about in little groups, exchanging the time of day with that air of a renewal of interest in worldly topics which synchronises with the end of Lent. The Rector had not yet appeared, and as Joan was chatting with Mrs. Mowbray, the local doctor's wife, Diana, who had an intense dislike for Mrs. Mowbray and all her works--there were six of the latter, ranging from a lanky girl of twelve to a fat baby still in the perambulator stage--made her way out of the churchyard and stood waiting by the beautiful old lichgate, which, equally with the thirteenth century window, was a source of pride and satisfaction to the good folk of Crailing. A big limousine had pulled up beside the footpath, and an immaculate footman was standing by its open door, rug in hand. Diana wondered idly whose car it could be, and it occurred to her that very probably it belonged to the strangers who had attended the service that morning. A minute later her assumption was confirmed, as the middle-aged lady, followed by the young, pretty one, came quickly through the lichgate and entered the car. The footman hesitated, still holding the door open, and the elder lady leaned forward to say:-- "It's all right, Baker. Mr. Errington is walking back." Errington! So that was his name--that was what the E. on the handkerchief stood for! Diana thought she could hazard a reasonable guess as to why he had elected to walk home. He must have caught sight of her in church, after all, and it was but natural that, after the experience they had passed through together, he should wish to renew his acquaintance with her. When two people have been as near to death in company as they had been, it can hardly be expected that they will regard each other in the light of total strangers should they chance to meet again. Hidden from his sight by an intervening yew tree, she watched him coming down the church path, conscious of a somewhat pleasurable sense of anticipation, and when he had passed under the lichgate and, turning to the left, came face to face with her, she bowed and smiled, holding out her hand. To her utter amazement he looked at her without the faintest sign of recognition on his face, pausing only for the fraction of a second as a man may when some stranger claims his acquaintance by mistake; then with a murmured "Pardon!" he raised his hat slightly and passed on. Diana's hand dropped slowly to her side. She felt stunned. The thing seemed incredible. Less than a week ago she and this man had travelled companionably together in the train, dined at the same table, and together shared the same dreadful menace which had brought death very close to both of them, and now he passed her by with the cool stare of an utter stranger! If he had knocked her down she would hardly have been more astonished. Moreover, it was not as though her companionship had been forced upon him in the train; he had deliberately sought it. Two people can travel side by side without advancing a single hairsbreadth towards acquaintance if they choose. But he had not so chosen--most assuredly he had not. He had quietly, with a charmingly persuasive insistence, broken through the conventions of custom, and had subsequently proved himself as considerate and as thoughtful for her comfort as any actual friend could have been. More than that, in those moments of tense excitement, immediately after the collision had occurred, she could have sworn that real feeling, genuine concern for her safety, had vibrated in his voice. And now, just as deliberately, just as composedly as he had begun the acquaintance, so he had closed it. Diana's cheeks burned with shame. She felt humiliated. Evidently he had regarded her merely as some one with whom it might he agreeable to idle away the tedium of a journey--but that was all. It was obviously his intention that that should be the beginning and the end of it. In a dream she crossed the road and, opening the gate that admitted to the "church path," made her way home alone. She felt she must have a few minutes to herself before she faced the Rector and Joan at the Rectory mid-day dinner. Fortunately, they were both in ignorance of this amazing, stupefying fact that her fellow-traveller--the "gallant rescuer" about whom Pobs had so joyously chaffed her--had signified in the most unmistakable fashion that he wanted nothing more to do with her, and by the time the dinner-bell sounded, Diana had herself well in hand--so well that she was even able to ask in tones of quite casual interest if any one knew who were the strangers in church that morning? "Yes, Mowbray told me," replied the Rector. "They are the new people who have taken Red Gables--that pretty little place on the Woodway Road. The girl is Adrienne de Gervais, the actress, and the elderly lady is a Mrs. Adams, her chaperon." "Oh, then that's why her face seemed so familiar!" exclaimed Diana, a light breaking in upon her. "I mean Miss de Gervais'--not the chaperon's. Of course I must have seen her picture in the illustrated papers dozens of times." "And the man who was with them is Max Errington, who writes nearly all the plays in which she takes part," chimed in Joan. "He's supposed to be in love with her. That piece of information I acquired from Mrs. Mowbray." "I detest Mrs. Mowbray," said Diana, with sudden viciousness. "She's the sort of person who has nothing whatever to talk about and spends hours doing it." The others laughed. "She's rather a gas-bag, I must admit," acknowledged Stair. "But, you know, a country doctor's wife is usually the emporium for all the local gossip. It's expected of her." "Then I'm sure Mrs. Mowbray will never disappoint any one. She fully comes up to expectations," observed Diana grimly. "I suppose we shall have to call on these new people at Red Gables, Dad?" asked Joan, after a brief interval. Diana bent her head suddenly over her plate to hide the scarlet flush which flew into her cheeks at the suggestion. She would _not_ call upon them--a thousand times no! Max Errington had shown her very distinctly in what estimation he held the honour of her friendship, and he should never have the chance of believing she had tried to thrust it on him. "Well"--the Rector was replying leisurely to Joan's inquiry--"I understand they are only going to be at Red Gables now and then--when Miss de Gervais wants a rest from her professional work, I expect. But still, as they have come to our church and are strangers in the district, it would perhaps be neighbourly to call, wouldn't it?" "Can't you call on them, Pobs?" suggested Diana, "A sort of 'rectorial' visit, you know. That would surely be sufficient." The Sector hesitated. "I don't know about that, Di. Don't you think it would look rather unfriendly on the part of you girls? Rather snubby, eh?" That was precisely what Diana, had thought, and the reflection had afforded her no small satisfaction. She wanted to hit back--and hit hard--and now Pobs' kindly, hospitable nature was unconsciously putting the brake on the wheel of retribution. She shrugged her shoulders with an air of indifference. "Oh, well, you and Joan can call. I don't think actresses, and authors who love them and write plays for them, are much in my line," she replied distantly. It would seem as though Joan's dictum that presentiments, like dreams, go by contraries, had been founded upon the rock of experience, for, in truth, Diana's premonition that something delightful was about to happen to her had been fulfilled in a sorry fashion. CHAPTER VI THE AFTERMATH OF AN ADVENTURE Diana awoke with a start. Before sleep had overtaken her she had been lying on a shallow slope of sand, leaning against a rock, with her elbow resting on its flat surface and her book propped up in front of her. Gradually the rhythmic rise and fall of the waves on the shore had lulled her into slumber--the _plop_ as they broke in eddies of creaming foam, and then the sibilant _hush-sh-sh_--like a long-drawn sigh--as the water receded only to gather itself afresh into a crested billow. Scarcely more than half awake she sat up and stared about her, dreamily wondering how she came to be there. She felt very stiff, and the arm on which she had been leaning ached horribly. She rubbed it a little, dully conscious of the pain, and as the blood began to course through the veins again, the sharp, pricking sensation commonly known as "pins and needles" aroused her effectually, and she recollected that she had walked out to Culver Point and established herself in one of the numerous little bays that fringed the foot of the great red cliff, intending to spend a pleasant afternoon in company with a new novel. And then the Dustman (idling about until his duties proper should commence in the evening) had come by and touched her eyelids and she had fallen fast asleep. But she was thoroughly wide awake now, and she looked round her with a rather startled expression, realising that she must have slept for some considerable time, for the sun, which had been high in the heavens, had already dipped towards the horizon and was shedding a rosy track of light across the surface of the water. The tide, too, had come up a long way since she had dozed off into slumber, and waves were now breaking only a few yards distant from her feet. She cast a hasty glance to right and left, where the arms of the little cove stretched out to meet the sea, strewn with big boulders clothed in shell and seaweed. But there were no rocks to be seen. The grey water was lapping lazily against the surface of the cliff itself and she was cut off on either side. For a minute or so her heart beat unpleasantly fast; then, with a quick sense of relief, she recollected that only at spring tides was the little bay where she stood entirely under water. There was no danger, she reflected, but nevertheless her position was decidedly unenviable. It was not yet high tide, so it would be some hours at least before she would be able to make her way home, and meanwhile the sun was sinking fast, it was growing unpleasantly cold, and she was decidedly hungry. In the course of another hour or two she would probably be hungrier still, but with no nearer prospect of dinner, while the Rector and Joan would be consumed with anxiety as to what had become of her. Anxiously she scanned the sea, hoping she might sight some homing fishing-boat which she could hail, but no welcome red or brown sail broke the monotonous grey waste of water, and in hopes of warming herself a little she began to walk briskly up and down the little beach still keeping a sharp look-out at sea for any passing boat. An interminable hour crawled by. The sun dipped a little lower, flinging long streamers of scarlet and gold across the sea. Far in the blue vault of the sky a single star twinkled into view, while a little sighing breeze arose and whispered of coming night. Diana shivered in her thin blouse. She had brought no coat with her, and, now that the mist was rising, she felt chilled to the bone, and she heartily anathematised her carelessness for getting into such a scrape. And then, all at once, across the water came the welcome sound of a human voice:-- "Ahoy! Ahoy there!" A small brown boat and the figure of the man in it, resting on his oars, showed sharply etched against the background of the sunset sky. Diana waved her handkerchief wildly and the man waved back, promptly setting the boat with her nose towards the chore and sculling with long, rhythmic strokes that speedily lessened the distance between him and the eager figure waiting at the water's edge. As he drew nearer, Diana was struck by something oddly familiar in his appearance, and when he glanced back over his shoulder to gauge his distance from the shore, she recognised with a sudden shocked sense of dismay that the man in the boat was none other than Max Errington! She retreated a few steps hastily, and stood, waiting, tense with misery and discomfort. Had it still been possible she would have signalled to him to go on and leave her; the bare thought of being indebted to him--to this man who had coolly cut her in the street--for escape from her present predicament filled her with helpless rage. But it was too late. Errington gave a final pull, shipped his oars, and, as the boat rode in on the top of a wave, leaped out on the shore and beached her safely. Then he turned and strode towards Diana, his face wearing just that same concerned, half-angry look that it had done when he found her, shortly after the railway collision, trying to help the woman who had lost her child. "What in the name of heaven and earth are you doing here?" he demanded brusquely. Apparently he had entirely forgotten the more recent episode of Easter Sunday and was prepared to scold her roundly, exactly as he had done on that same former occasion. The humour of the situation suddenly caught hold of Diana, and for the moment she, too, forgot that she had reason to be bitterly offended with this man. "Waiting for you to rescue me--as usual," she retorted frivolously. "You seem to be making quite a habit of it." He smiled grimly. "I'm making a virtue of necessity," he flung back at her. "What on earth do your people mean by letting you roam about by yourself like this? You're not fit to be alone! As though a railway accident weren't sufficient excitement for any average woman, you must needs try to drown yourself. Are you so particularly anxious to get quit of this world?" "Drown myself?" she returned scornfully. "How could I--when the sea doesn't come up within a dozen yards of the cliff except at spring tide?" "And I suppose it hadn't occurred to you that this is a spring tide?" he said drily. "In another hour or so there'll be six feet of water where we're standing now." The abrupt realisation that once again she had escaped death by so narrow a margin shook her for a moment, and she swayed a little where she stood, while her face went suddenly very white. In an instant his arm was round her, supporting her. "I oughtn't to have told you," he said hastily. "Forgive me. You're tired--and, merciful heavens! child, you're half-frozen. Your teeth are chattering with cold." He stripped off his coat and made as though to help her on with it. "No--no," she protested. "I shall be quite warm directly. Please put on your coat again." He shook his head, smiling down at her, and taking first one of her arms, and then the other, he thrust them into the empty sleeves, putting the coat on her as one would dress a child. "I'm used to having my own way," he observed coolly, as he proceeded to button it round her. "But you?--" she faltered, looking at the thin silk of his shirt. "I'm not a lady with a beautiful voice that must be taken care of. What would Signor Baroni say to this afternoon's exploit?" "Oh, then you haven't forgotten?" Diana asked curiously. The intensely blue eyes swept over her face. "No," he replied shortly, "I haven't forgotten." In silence he helped her into the boat, and she sat quietly in the stern as he bent to his oars and sent the little skiff speeding homewards towards the harbour. She felt strangely content. The fact that he had deliberately refused to recognise her seemed a matter of very small moment now that he had spoken to her again--scolding her and enforcing her obedience to his wishes in that oddly masterful way of his, which yet had something of a possessive tenderness about it that appealed irresistibly to the woman in her. Arrived at the quay of the little harbour, he helped her up the steps, slimy with weed and worn by the ceaseless lapping of the water, and the firm clasp of his hand on hers conveyed a curious sense of security, extending beyond just the mere safety of the moment. She had a feeling that there was something immutably strong and sure about this man--a calm, steadfast self-reliance to which one could unhesitatingly trust. His voice broke in abruptly on her thoughts. "My car's waiting at the quayside," he said. "I shall drive you back to the Rectory." Diana assented--not, as she thought to herself with a somewhat wry smile, that it would have made the very slightest difference had she refused point-blank. Since he had decided that she was to travel in his car, travel in it she would, willy-nilly. But as a matter of fact, she was so tired that she was only too thankful to sink back on to the soft, luxurious cushions of the big limousine. Errington tucked the rugs carefully round her, substituting one of them for the coat she was wearing, spoke a few words to the chauffeur, and then seated himself opposite her. Diana thought the car seemed to be travelling rather slowly as it began the steep ascent from the harbour to the Rectory. Possibly the chauffeur who had taken his master's instructions might have thrown some light on the subject had he so chosen. "Quite warm now?" queried Errington. Diana snuggled luxuriously into her corner. "Quite, thanks," she replied. "You're rapidly qualifying as a good Samaritan _par excellence_, thanks to the constant opportunities I afford you." He laughed shortly and relapsed into silence, leaning his elbow on the cushioned ledge beside him and shading his face with his hand. Beneath its shelter, the keen blue eyes stared at the girl opposite with an odd, thwarted expression in their depths. Presently Diana spoke again, a tinge of irony in her tones. "And--after this--when next we meet . . . are you going to cut me again? . . . It must have been very tiresome for you, that an unkind fate insisted on your making my closer acquaintance." He dropped his hand suddenly. "Oh, forgive me!" he exclaimed, with a quick gesture of deprecation. "It--it was unpardonable of me . . ." His voice vibrated with some strong emotion, and Diana regarded him curiously. "Then you meant it?" she said slowly. "It was deliberate?" He bent his head affirmatively. "Yes," he replied. "I suppose you think it unforgivable. And yet--and yet it would have been better so." "Better? But why? I'm generally"--dimpling a little--"considered rather nice." "'Rather nice'?" he repeated, in a peculiar tone. "Oh, yes--that does not surprise me." "And some day," she continued gaily, "although I'm nobody just now, I may become a really famous person--and then you might be quite happy to know me!" Her eyes danced with mirth as she rallied him. He looked at her strangely. "No--it can never bring me happiness. . . _Ah, mais jamais_!" he added, with sudden passion. Diana was startled. "It--it was horrid of you to cut me," she said in a troubled voice. "My punishment lies in your hands," he returned. "When I leave you at the Rectory--after to-day--you can end our acquaintance if you choose. And I suppose--you, _will_ choose. It would be contrary to human nature to throw away such an excellent opportunity for retaliation--feminine human nature, anyway." He spoke with a kind of half-savage raillery, and Diana winced under it. His moods changed so rapidly that she was bewildered. At one moment there would be an exquisite gentleness in his manner when he spoke to her, at the next a contemptuous irony that cut like a whip. "Would it be--a punishment?" she asked at last. He checked a sudden movement towards her. "What do you suppose?" he said quietly. "I don't know what to think. If it would be a punishment, why were you so anxious to take it out of my hands? It was you who ended our acquaintance on Sunday, remember." "Yes, I know. Twice I've closed the door between us, and twice fate has seen fit to open it again." "Twice? . . . Then--then it _was_ you--in Grellingham Place that day?" "Yes," he acknowledged simply. Diana bent her head to hide the small, secret smile that carved her lips. At last, after a pause-- "But why--why do you not want to know me?" she asked wonderingly. "Not want to?" he muttered below his breath. "God in heaven! _Not want to_!" His hand moved restlessly. After a minute he answered her, speaking very gently. "Because I think you were born to stand in the sunshine. Some of us stand always in the shadow; it creeps about our feet, following us wherever we go. And I would not darken the sunlit places of your life with the shadow that clings to mine." There was an undercurrent of deep sadness in his tones. "Can't you--can't you banish the shadow?" faltered Diana. A sense of tragedy oppressed her. "Life is surely made for happiness," she added, a little wistfully. "Your life, I hope." He smiled across at her. "So don't let us talk any more about the shadow. Only"--gently--"if I came nearer to you--the shadow might engulf you, too." He paused, then continued more lightly: "But if you'll forgive my barbarous incivility of Sunday, perhaps--perhaps I may be allowed to stand just on the outskirts of your life--watch you pass by on your road to fame, and toss a flower at your feet when all the world and his wife are crowding to hear the new _prima donna_." He had dropped back into the vein of light, ironical mockery which Diana was learning to recognise as characteristic of the man. It was like the rapier play of a skilled duellist, his weapon flashing hither and thither, parrying every thrust of his opponent, and with consummate ease keeping him ever at a distance. "I wonder"--he regarded her with an expression of amused curiosity--"I wonder whether you would stoop to pick up my flower if I threw one? But, no"--he answered his own question hastily, giving her no time to reply--"you would push it contemptuously aside with the point of your little white slipper, and say to your crowd of admirers standing around you: 'That flower is the gift of a man--a rough boor of a man--who was atrociously rude to me once. I don't even value it enough to pick it up.' Whereupon every one--quite rightly, too!--would cry shame on the man who had dared to insult so charming a lady--probably adding that if bad luck befell him it would be no more than he deserved! . . . And I've no doubt he'll get his desserts," he added carelessly. Diana felt the tears very near her eyes and her lip quivered.. This man had the power of hurting her--wounding her to the quick--with his bitter raillery. When she spoke again her voice shook a little. "You are wrong," she said, "quite wrong. I should pick up the flower and"--steadily--"I should keep it, because it was thrown to me by a man who had twice done me the greatest service in his power." Once again he checked, as if by sheer force of will, a sudden eager movement towards her. "Would you?" he said quickly. "Would you do that? But you would be mistaken; I should be gaining your kindness under false pretences. The greatest service in my power would be for me to go away and never see you again. . . . And, I can't do that--now," he added, his voice vibrating oddly. His eyes held her, and at the sound of that sudden note of passion in his tone she felt some new, indefinable emotion stir within her that was half pain, half pleasure. Her eyelids closed, and she stretched out her hands a little gropingly, almost as if she were trying to ward away something that threatened her. There was appeal in the gesture--a pathetic, half-childish appeal, as though the shy, virginal youth of her sensed the distant tumult of awakening passion and would fain delay its coming. She was just a frank, whole-hearted girl, knowing nothing of love and its strange, inevitable claim, but deep within her spoke that instinct, premonition--call it what you will--which seems in some mysterious way to warn every woman when the great miracle of love is drawing near. It is as though Love's shadow fell across her heart and she were afraid to turn and face him--shrinking with the terror of a trapped wild thing from meeting his imperious demand. Errington, watching her, saw the childish gesture, the quiver of her mouth, the soft fall of the shadowed lids, and with a swift, impetuous movement he leaned forward and caught her by the arms, pulling her towards him. Instinctively she resisted, struggling in his grip, her eyes, wide and startled, gazing into his. "_Diana_!" The word seemed wrung from him, and as though something within her answered to its note of urgency, she suddenly yielded, stumbling forward on to her knees. His arms closed round her, holding her as in a vice, and she lay there, helpless in his grasp, her head thrown back a little, her young, slight breast fluttering beneath the thin silk of her blouse. For a moment he held her so, staring down, at her, his breath hard-drawn between his teeth; then swiftly, with a stifled exclamation he stooped his head, kissing her savagely, bruising, crushing her lips beneath his own. She felt her strength going from her--it seemed as though he were drawing her soul out from her body--and then, just as sheer consciousness itself was wavering, he took his mouth from hers, and she could see his face, white and strained, bent above her. She leaned away from him, panting a little, her shoulders against the side of the car. "God!" she heard him mutter. For a space the throb of the motor was the only sound that broke the stillness, but presently, after what seemed an eternity, he raised her from the floor, where she still knelt inertly, and set her on the seat again. She submitted passively. When he had resumed his place, he spoke in dry, level tones. "I suppose I'm damned beyond forgiveness after this?" She made no answer. She was listening with a curious fascination to the throb of her heart and the measured beat of the engine; the two seemed to meet and mingle into one great pulse, thundering against her tired brain. "Diana"--he spoke again, still in the same toneless voice--"am I to be forbidden even the outskirts of your life now?" She moved her head restlessly. "I don't know--oh, I don't know," she whispered. She was utterly spent and exhausted. Unconsciously every nerve in her had responded to the fierce passion of that suffocating kiss, and now that the tense moment was over she felt drained of all vitality. Her head drooped listlessly against the cushions of the car and dark shadows stained her cheeks beneath the wide-opened eyes--eyes that held the startled, frightened expression of one who has heard for the first time the beat of Passion's wings. Gradually, as Errington watched her, the strained look left his face and was replaced by one of infinite solicitude. She looked so young as she lay there, huddled against the cushions--hardly more than a child--and he knew what that mad moment had done for her. It had wakened the woman within her. He cursed himself softly. "Diana," he said, leaning forward. "For God's sake, say you forgive me, child." The deep pain in his voice pierced through her dulled, senses. "Why--why did you do it?" she asked tremulously. "I did it--oh, because for the moment I forgot that I'm a man barred out from all that makes life worth living! . . . I forgot about the shadow, Diana. . . . You--made me forget." He spoke with concentrated bitterness, adding mockingly:-- "After all, there's a great deal to be said in favour of the Turkish yashmak. It at least removes temptation." Diana's hand flew to her lips--they burned still at the memory of those kisses--and he smiled ironically at the instinctive gesture. "I hate you!" she said suddenly. "Quite the most suitable thing you could do," he answered composedly. All the softened feeling of a few moments ago had vanished: he seemed to have relapsed into his usual sardonic humour, putting a barrier between himself and her that set them miles apart. Diana was conscious of a fury of resentment against his calm readjustment of the situation. He was the offender; it was for her to dictate the terms of peace, and he had suddenly cut the ground from under her feet. Her pride rose in arms. If he could so contemptuously sweep aside the memory of the last ten minutes, careless whether his plea for forgiveness were granted or no, she would show him that for her, too, the incident was closed. But she would not forgive him--ever. She opened her campaign at once. "Surely we must be almost at the Rectory by now?" she began in politely conventional tones. A sudden gleam of wicked mirth flashed across his face. "Has the time, then, seemed so long?" he demanded coolly. Diana's lips trembled in the vain effort to repress a smile. The man was impossible! It was also very difficult, she found, to remain righteously angry with such an impossible person. If he saw the smile, he gave no indication of it. Rubbing the window with his hand he peered out. "I think we are just turning in at the Rectory gates," he remarked carelessly. In another minute the motor had throbbed to a standstill and the chauffeur was standing at the open door. "I'm sorry we've been so long coming, sir," he said, touching his hat. "I took a wrong turning--lost me way a bit." Then as Errington and Diana passed into the house, he added thoughtfully, addressing his engine:-- "She's a pretty little bit of skirt and no mistake. I wonder, now, if we was lost long enough, eh, Billy?" CHAPTER VII DIANA SINGS "I feel that we are very much indebted to you, Mr. Errington," said Stair, when he and Joan had listened to an account of the afternoon's proceedings--the major portion of them, that is. Certain details were not included in the veracious history. "You seem to have a happy knack of turning up just at the moment you are most needed," he added pleasantly. "I think I must plead indebtedness to Miss Quentin for allowing me such unique opportunities of playing knight errant," replied Max, smiling. "Such chances are rare in this twentieth century of ours, and Miss Quentin always kindly arranges so that I run no serious risks--to life and limb, at least," he added, his mocking eyes challenging Diana's. She flushed indignantly. Evidently he wished her to understand that that breathless moment in the car counted for nothing--must not be taken seriously. He had only been amusing himself with her--just as he had amused himself by chatting in the train--and again a wave of resentment against him, against the cool, dominating insolence of the man, surged through her. "I hope you'll stay and join us at dinner," the Rector was saying--"unless it's hopelessly spoilt by waiting so long. Is it, Joan?" "Oh, no. I think there'll be some surviving remnants," she assured him. "Then if you'll overlook any discrepancies," pursued Stair, smiling at Errington, "do stay." "Say, rather, if you'll overlook discrepancies," answered Errington, smiling back--there was something infectious about Stair's geniality. "I'm afraid a boiled shirt is out of the question--unless I go home to fetch it!" Diana stared at him. Was he really going to stay--to accept the invitation--after all that had occurred? If he did, she thought scornfully, it was only in keeping with that calm arrogance of his by which he allocated to himself the right to do precisely as he chose, irrespective of convention--or of other people's feelings. Meanwhile Stair was twinkling humorously across at his visitor. "If you can bear to eat your dinner without being encased in the regulation starch," he said, "I don't think I should advise risking what remains of it by any further delay." "Then I accept with pleasure," replied Errington. As he spoke, his eyes sought Diana's once again. It almost seemed as though they pleaded with her for understanding. The half-sad, half-bitter mouth smiled faintly, the smile accentuating that upward curve at the corners of the lips which lent such an unexpected sweetness to its stern lines. Diana looked away quickly, refusing to endorse the Rector's invitation, and, escaping to her own room, she made a hasty toilet, slipping into a simple little black gown open at the throat. Meanwhile, she tortured herself with questioning as to why--if all that had passed meant nothing to him--he had chosen to stay. Once she hid her burning face in her hands as the memory of those kisses rushed over her afresh, sending little, new, delicious thrills coursing through her veins. Then once more the maddening doubt assailed her--were they but a bitter humiliation which she would remember for the rest of her life? When she came downstairs again, Max Errington and Stair were conversing happily together, evidently on the best of terms with themselves and each other. Errington was speaking as she entered the room, but he stopped abruptly, biting his words off short, while his keen eyes swept over the slim, black-gowned figure hesitating in the doorway. "Mr. Stair has been pledging your word during your absence," he said. "He has promised that you'll sing to us after dinner." "I? Oh"--nervously--"I don't think I want to sing this evening." "Why not? Have the"--he made an infinitesimal pause, regarding her the while with quizzical eyes--"events of the afternoon robbed you of your voice?" Diana gave him back his look defiantly. How dared he--oh, how dared he?--she thought indignantly. "My adventures weren't serious enough for that," she replied composedly. The ghost of a smile flickered across his face. "Then you will sing?" he persisted. "Yes, if you like." He nodded contentedly, and as they went in to dinner he whispered:-- "I found the adventure--rather serious." Dinner passed pleasantly enough. Errington and Stair contributed most of the conversation, the former proving himself a charming guest, and it was evident that the two men had taken a great liking to each other. It would have been a difficult subject indeed who did not feel attracted by Alan Stair; he was so unconventionally frank and sincere, brimming over with humour, and he regarded every man as his friend until he had proved him otherwise--and even then he was disposed to think that the fault must lie somewhere in himself. "I'm not surprised that your church was so full on Sunday," Errington told him, "now that I've met you. If the Church of England clergy, as a whole, were as human as you are, you would have fewer offshoots from your Established Church. I always think"--reminiscently--"that that is where the strength of the Roman Catholic _padre_ lies--in his intense _humanness_." The Sector looked up in surprise. "Then you're not a member of our Church?" he asked. For a moment Errington looked embarrassed, as though he had said more than he wished to. "Oh, I was merely comparing the two," he replied evasively. "I have lived abroad a good bit, you know." "Ah! That explains it, then," said Stair. "You've caught some little foreign turns of speech. Several times I've wondered if you were entirely English." Errington's face, as he turned to reply, wore that politely blank expression which Diana had encountered more than once when conversing with him--always should she chance to touch on any subject the natural answer to which might have revealed something of the man's private life. "Oh," he answered the Rector lightly, "I believe there's a dash of foreign blood in my veins, but I've a right to call myself an Englishman." After dinner, while the two men had their smoke, Diana, heedless of Joan's common-sense remonstrance on the score of dew-drenched grass, flung on a cloak and wandered restlessly out into the moonlit garden. She felt that it would be an utter impossibility to sit still, waiting until the men came into the drawing-room, and she paced slowly backwards and forwards across the lawn, a slight, shadowy figure in the patch of silver light. Presently she saw the French window of the dining-room open, and Max Errington step across the threshold and come swiftly over the lawn towards her. "I see you are bent on courting rheumatic fever--to say nothing of a sore throat," he said quietly, "and I've come to take you indoors." Diana was instantly filled with a perverse desire to remain where she was. "I'm not in the least cold, thank you," she replied stiffly, "And--I like it out here." "You may not be cold," he returned composedly. "But I'm quite sure your feet are damp. Come along." He put his arm under hers, impelling her gently in the direction of the house, and, rather to her own surprise, she found herself accompanying him without further opposition. Arrived at the house, he knelt down and, taking up her foot in his hand, deliberately removed the little pointed slipper. "There," he said conclusively, exhibiting its sole, dank with dew. "Go up and put on a pair of dry shoes and then come down and sing to me." And once again she found herself meekly obeying him. By the time she had returned to the drawing-room, Pobs and Errington were choosing the songs they wanted her to sing, while Joan was laughingly protesting that they had selected all those with the most difficult accompaniments. "However, I'll do my best, Di," she added, as she seated herself at the piano. Joan's "best" as a pianist did not amount to very much at any time, and she altogether lacked that intuitive understanding and sympathy which is the _sine qua non_ of a good accompanist. Diana, accustomed to the trained perfection of Olga Lermontof, found herself considerably handicapped, and her rendering of the song in question, Saint-Saens' _Amour, viens aider_, left a good deal to be desired in consequence--a fact of which no one was more conscious than she herself. But the voice! As the full rich notes hung on the air, vibrant with that indescribably thrilling quality which seems the prerogative of the contralto, Errington recognised at once that here was a singer destined to make her mark. The slight surprise which he had evinced on first learning that she was a pupil of the great Baroni vanished instantly. No master could be better fitted to have the handling of such a voice--and certainly, he added mentally, Joan Stair was a ludicrously inadequate accompanist, only to be excused by her frank acknowledgment of the fact. "I'm dreadfully sorry, Di," she said at the conclusion of the song. "But I really can't manage the accompaniment." Errington rose and crossed the room to the piano. "Will you allow me to take your place?" he said pleasantly. "That is, if Miss Quentin permits? It is hard lines to be suddenly called upon to read accompaniments if you are not accustomed to it." "Oh, do you play?" exclaimed Joan, vacating her seat gladly. "Then please do. I feel as if I were committing murder when I stumble through Diana's songs." She joined the Rector at the far end of the room, adding with a smile:-- "I make a much better audience than performer." "What shall it be?" said Errington, turning over the pile of songs. "What you like," returned Diana indifferently. She was rather pale, and her hand shook a little as she fidgeted restlessly with a sheet of music. It almost seemed as though the projected change of accompanist were distasteful to her. Max laid his own hand over hers an instant. "Please let me play for you," he said simply. There was a note of appeal in his voice--rather as if he were seeking to soften her resentment against him, and would regard the permission to accompany her as a token of forgiveness. She met his glance, wavered a moment, then bent her head in silence, and each of them was conscious that in some mysterious way, without the interchange of further words, an armistice had been declared between them. With Errington at the piano the music took on a different aspect. He was an incomparable accompanist, and Diana, feeling herself supported, and upborne, sang with a beauty of interpretation, an intensity of feeling, that had been impossible before. And through it all she was acutely conscious of Max Errington's proximity--knew instinctively that the passion of the song was shaking him equally with herself. It was as though some intangible live wire were stretched between them so that each could sense the emotion of the other--as though the garment with which we so persistently conceal our souls from one another's eyes were suddenly stripped away. There was a tense look in Max's face as the last note trembled into silence, and Diana, meeting his glance, flushed rosily. "I can't sing any more," she said, her voice uneven. "No." He added nothing to the laconic negative, but his eyes held hers remorselessly. Then Pobs' cheerful tones fell on their ears and the taut moment passed. "Di, you amazing child!" he exclaimed delightfully. "Where did you find a voice like that? I realise now that we've been entertaining genius unawares all this time. Joan, my dear, henceforth two commonplace bodies like you and me must resign ourselves to taking a back seat." "I don't mind," returned Joan philosophically. "I think I was born with a humdrum nature; a quiet life was always my idea of bliss." "Sing something else, Di," begged Stair. But Diana shook her head. "I'm too tired, Pobs," she said quietly. Turning abruptly to Errington she continued: "Will you play instead?" Max hesitated a moment, then resumed his place at the piano, and, after a pause, the three grave notes with which Rachmaninoff's wonderful "Prelude" opens, broke the silence. It was speedily evident that Errington was a musician of no mean order; indeed, many a professional reputation has been based on a less solid foundation. The Rachmaninoff was followed by Chopin, Tchaikowsky, Debussy, and others of the modern school, and when finally he dropped his hands from the piano, laughingly declaring that he must be thinking of taking his departure before he played them all to sleep, Joan burst out bluntly:-- "We understood you were a dramatist, Mr. Errington. It seems to me you have missed your vocation." Every one laughed. "Rather a two-edged compliment, I'm afraid, Joan," chuckled Stair delightfully. Joan blushed, overcome with confusion, and remained depressed until Errington, on the point of leaving, reassured her good-humouredly. "Don't brood over your father's unkind references to two-edged compliments, Miss Stair. I entirely decline to see any but one meaning to your speech--and that a very pleasant one." He shook hands with the Rector and Diana, holding the latter's hand an instant longer than was absolutely necessary, to ask, rather low:-- "Is it peace, then?" But the softening spell of the music was broken, and Diana felt her resentment against him rise up anew. Silently she withdrew her hand, refusing him an answer, defying him with a courage born of the near neighbourhood of the Rector and Joan, and a few minutes later the hum of his motor could be heard as it sped away down the drive. Diana lay long awake that night, her thoughts centred round the man who had come so strangely into her life. It was as though he had been forced thither by a resistless fate which there was no eluding--for, on his own confession, he had deliberately sought to avoid meeting her again. His whole attitude was utterly incomprehensible--a study of violently opposing contrasts. Diana felt bruised and shaken by the fierce contradictions of his moods, the temperamental heat and ice which he had meted out to her. It seemed as if he were fighting against the attraction she had for him, prepared to contest every inch of ground--discounting each look and word wrung from him in some moment of emotion by the mocking raillery with which he followed it up. More than once he had hinted at some barrier, spoken of a shadow that dogged his steps, as if complete freedom of action were denied him. Could it be--was it conceivable, that he was already married? And at the thought Diana hid hot cheeks against her pillow, living over again that moment in the car--that moment which had suddenly called into being emotions before whose overmastering possibilities she trembled. At length, mentally and physically weary, she dropped into an uneasy slumber, vaguely wondering what the morrow would bring forth. It brought the unexpected news that the occupants of Red Gables had suddenly left for London by the morning train. CHAPTER VIII MRS. LAWRENCE'S HOSPITALITY "_An Officer's Widow offers hospitality to students and professional women. Excellent cuisine; man-servant; moderate terms. Apply: Mrs. L., 24 Brutton Square, N.W._" So ran the advertisement which Mrs. Lawrence periodically inserted in one of the leading London dailies. She was well-pleased with the wording of it, considering that it combined both veracity and attractiveness--two things which do not invariably run smoothly in conjunction with each other. The opening phrase had reference to the fact that her husband, the defunct major, had been an army doctor, and the word hospitality pleasantly suggested the idea of a home from home, whilst the afterthought conveyed by the moderate terms delicately indicated that the hospitality was not entirely of a gratuitous nature. The man-servant, on closer inspection, resolved himself into a French-Swiss waiter, whose agility and condition were such that he could negotiate the whole ninety stairs of the house, three at a time, without once pausing for breath till he reached the top. Little Miss Bunting, the lady-help, who lived with Mrs. Lawrence on the understanding that she gave "assistance in light household duties in return for hospitality," was not quite so nimble as Henri, the waiter, and often found her heart beating quite uncomfortably fast by the time she had climbed the ninety stairs to the little cupboard of a room which Mrs. Lawrence's conception of hospitality allotted for her use. She did the work of two servants and ate rather less than one, and, seeing that she received no wages and was incurably conscientious, Mrs. Lawrence found the arrangement eminently satisfactory. Possibly Miss Bunting herself regarded the matter with somewhat less enthusiasm, but she was a plucky little person and made no complaint. As she wrote to her invalid mother, shortly after taking up her duties at Brutton Square: "After all, dearest of little mothers, I have a roof over my head and food to eat, and I'm not costing you anything except a few pounds for my clothes. And perhaps when I leave here, if Mrs. Lawrence gives me a good reference, I shall be able to get a situation with a salary attached to it." So Miss Bunting stuck to her guns and spent her days in supplementing the deficiencies of careless servants, smoothing the path of the boarders, and generally enabling Mrs. Lawrence to devote much more time to what she termed her "social life" than would otherwise have been the case. The boarders usually numbered anything from twelve to fifteen--all of the gentler sex--and were composed chiefly of students at one or other of the London schools of art or music, together with a sprinkling of visiting teachers of various kinds, and one or two young professional musicians whose earnings did not yet warrant their launching out into the independence of flat life. This meant that three times a year, when the schools closed for their regular vacations, a general exodus took place from 24 Brutton Square, and Mrs. Lawrence was happily enabled to go away and visit her friends, leaving the conscientious Miss Bunting to look after the reduced establishment and cater for the one or two remaining boarders who were not released by regular holidays. It was an admirable arrangement, profitable without being too exigeant. At the end of each vacation Mrs. Lawrence always summoned Miss Bunting to her presence and ran through the list of boarders for the coming term, noting their various requirements. She was thus occupied one afternoon towards the end of April. The spring sunshine poured in through the windows, lending an added cheerfulness of aspect to the rooms of the tall London house that made them appear worth quite five shillings a week more than was actually charged for them, and Mrs. Lawrence smiled, well satisfied. She was a handsome woman, still in the early forties, and the word "stylish" inevitably leaped to one's mind at the sight of her full, well-corseted figure, fashionable raiment, and carefully coiffured hair. There was nothing whatever of the boarding-house keeper about her; in fact, at first sight, she rather gave the impression of a pleasant, sociable woman who, having a house somewhat larger than she needed for her own requirements, accepted a few paying guests to keep the rooms aired. This was just the impression she wished to convey, and it was usually some considerable time before her boarders grasped the fact that they were dealing with, a thoroughly shrewd, calculating business woman, who was bent on making every penny out of them that she could, compatibly with running the house on such lines as would ensure its answering to the advertised description. "I'm glad it's a sunny day," she remarked to Miss Bunting. "First impressions are everything, and that pupil of Signor Baroni's, Miss Quentin, arrives to-day. I hope her rooms are quite ready?" "Quite, Mrs. Lawrence," replied the lady-help. "I put a few flowers in the vases just to make it look a little home-like." "Very thoughtful of you, Miss Bunting," Mrs. Lawrence returned graciously. "Miss Quentin's is rather a special case. To begin with, she has engaged a private sitting-room, and in addition to that she was recommended to come here by Signor Baroni himself." The good word of a teacher of such standing as Baroni was a matter of the first importance to a lady offering a home from home to musical students, though possibly had Mrs. Lawrence heard the exact form taken by Baroni's recommendation she might have felt less elated. "The Lawrence woman is a bit of a shark, my dear," he had told Diana, when she had explained that, owing to the retirement from business of her former landlady, she would be compelled after Easter to seek fresh rooms. "But she caters specially for musical students, and as she is therefore obliged to keep the schools pleased, she feeds her boarders, on the whole, better than do most of her species. And remember, my dear Mees Quentin, that good food, and plenty of good food, means--voice." So Diana had nodded and written to Mrs. Lawrence to ask if a bed-room and sitting-room opening one into the other could be at her disposal, receiving an affirmative reply. "Regarding coals, Miss Bunting," proceeded Mrs. Lawrence thoughtfully, "I told Miss Quentin that the charge would be sixpence per scuttle." (This was in pre-war times, it must be remembered, and the scuttles were of painfully meagre proportions.) "It might be as well to put that large coal-box in her room--you know the one I mean--and make the charge eightpence." The box in question was certainly of imposing exterior proportions, but its tin lining was of a quite different domestic period and made no pretensions as to fitting. It lay loosely inside its sham mahogany casing like the shrivelled kernel of a nut in its shell. "The big coal-scuttle really doesn't hold twopenny-worth more coal than the others," observed Miss Bunting tentatively. A dull flush mounted to Mrs. Lawrence's cheek. She liked the prospect of screwing an extra twopence out of one of her boarders, but she hated having the fact so clearly pointed out to her. There were times when she found Miss Bunting's conscientiousness something of a trial. "It's a much larger box," she protested sharply. "Yes. I know it is--outside. But the lining only holds two more knobs than the sixpenny ones." Mrs. Lawrence frowned. "Do I understand that you--you actually measured the amount it contains?" she asked, with bitterness. "Yes," retorted Miss Bunting valiantly. "And compared it with the others. It was when you told me to put the eightpenny scuttle in Miss Jenkins' room. She complained at once." "Then you exceeded your duties, Miss Bunting. You should have referred Miss Jenkins to me." Miss Bunting made no reply. She had acted precisely in the way suggested, but Miss Jenkins, a young art-student of independent opinions, had flatly declined to be "referred" to Mrs. Lawrence. "It's not the least use, Bunty dear," she had said. "I'm not going to have half an hour's acrimonious conversation with Mrs. Lawrence on the subject of twopennyworth of coal. At the same time I haven't the remotest intention of paying twopence extra for those two lumps of excess luggage, so to speak. So you can just trot that sarcophagus away, like the darling you are, and bring me back my sixpenny scuttle again." And little Miss Bunting, in her capacity of buffer state between Mrs. Lawrence and her boarders, had obeyed and said nothing more about the matter. "I have to go out now," continued Mrs. Lawrence, after a pause pregnant with rebuke. "You will receive Miss Quentin on her arrival and attend to her comfort. And put the large coal-box in her sitting-room as I directed," she added firmly. So it came about that when, half an hour later, a taxi-cab buzzed up to the door of No. 24, with Diana and a large quantity of luggage on board, the former found herself met in the hall by a cheerful little person with pretty brown eyes and a friendly smile to whom she took an instant liking. Miss Bunting escorted Diana up to her rooms on the second floor, while Henri brought up the rear, staggering manfully beneath the weight of Miss Quentin's trunk. A cheerful fire was blazing in the grate, and that, together with the daffodils that gleamed from a bowl on the table like a splash of gold, gave the room a pleasant and welcoming appearance. "But, surely," said Diana hesitatingly, "you are not Mrs. Lawrence?" Miss Bunting laughed, outright. "Oh, dear no," she answered. "Mrs. Lawrence is out, and she asked me to see that you had everything you wanted. I'm the lady-help, you know." Diana regarded her commiseratingly. She seemed such a jolly, bright little thing to be occupying that anomalous position. "Oh, are you? Then it was you"--with a sudden, inspiration--"who put these lovely daffodils here, wasn't it? . . . Thank you so much for thinking of it--it was kind of you." And she held out her hand with the frank charm of manner which invariably turned Diana's acquaintances into friends inside ten minutes. Little Miss Bunting flushed delightedly, and from that moment onward became one of the new boarder's most devoted adherents. "You'd like some tea, I expect," she said presently. "Will you have it up here--or in the dining-room with the other boarders in half an hour's time?" "Oh, up here, please. I can't possibly wait half an hour." "I ought to tell you," Miss Bunting continued, dimpling a little, "that it will be sixpence extra if you have it up here. '_All meals served in rooms, sixpence extra_,'" she read out, pointing to the printed list of rules and regulations hanging prominently above the chimney-piece. Diana regarded it with amusement. "They ought to be written on tablets of stone like the Ten Commandments," she commented frivolously. "It rather reminds me of being at school again. I've never lived in a boarding-house before, you know; I had rooms in the house of an old servant of ours. Well, here goes!"--twisting the framed set of rules round with its face to the wall. "Now, if I break the laws of the Medes and Persians I can't be blamed, because I haven't read them." Miss Bunting privately thought that the new boarder, recommended by so great a personage as Signor Baroni, stood an excellent chance of being allowed a generous latitude as regards conforming to the rules at No. 24--provided she paid her bills promptly and without too careful a scrutiny of the "extras." Bunty, indeed, retained few illusions concerning her employer, and perhaps this was just as well--for the fewer the illusions by which you're handicapped, the fewer your disappointments before the journey's end. "You haven't told me your name," said Diana, when the lady-help reappeared with a small tea-tray in her hand. "Bunting," came the smiling reply. "But most of the boarders call me Bunty." "I shall, too, may I?--And oh, why haven't you brought two cups? I wanted you to have tea with me--if you've time, that is?" "If I had brought a second cup, '_Tea, for two_' would have been charged to your account," observed Miss Bunting. "What?" Diana's eyes grew round with astonishment. "With the same sized teapot?" The other nodded humorously. "Well, Mrs. Lawrence's logic is beyond me," pursued Diana. "However, we'll obviate the difficulty. I'll have tea out of my tooth-glass"--glancing towards the washstand in the adjoining room where that article, inverted, capped the water-bottle--"and you, being the honoured guest, shall luxuriate in the cup." Bunty modestly protested, but Diana had her own way in the matter, and when finally the little lady-help went downstairs to pour out tea in the dining-room for the rest of the boarders, it was with that pleasantly warm glow about the region of the heart which the experience of an unexpected kindness is prone to produce. Meanwhile Diana busied herself unpacking her clothes and putting them away in the rather limited cupboard accommodation provided, and in fixing up a few pictures, recklessly hammering the requisite nails into the walls in happy disregard of Rule III of the printed list, which emphatically stated that: "_No nails must be driven into the walls without permission_." By the time she had completed these operations a dressing-bell sounded, and quickly exchanging her travelling costume for a filmy little dinner dress of some soft, shimmering material, she sallied downstairs in search of the dining-room. Mrs. Lawrence met her on the threshold, warmly welcoming, and conducting her to her allotted place at the lower end of a long table, around which were seated--as it appeared to Diana in that first dizzy moment of arrival--dozens of young women varying from twenty to thirty years of age. In reality there were but a baker's dozen of them, and they all painstakingly abstained from glancing in her direction lest they might be thought guilty of rudely staring at a newcomer. Diana's _vis-à-vis_ at table was the redoubtable Miss Jenkins of coal-box fame, and her neighbours on either hand two students of one of the musical colleges. Next to Miss Jenkins, Diana observed a vacant place; presumably its owner was dining out. She also noticed that she alone among the boarders had attempted to make any kind of evening toilet. The others had "changed" from their workaday clothes, it is true, but a light silk blouse, worn with a darker skirt, appeared to be generally regarded as a sufficient recognition of the occasion. Diana's near neighbours were at first somewhat tongue-tied with a nervous stiffness common to the Britisher, but they thawed a little as the meal progressed, and when the musical students, Miss Jones and Miss Allen, had elicited that she was actually a pupil of the great Baroni, envy and a certain awed admiration combined to unseal the fountains of their speech. Just as the fish was being removed, the door opened to admit a tall, thin woman, wearing outdoor costume, who passed quickly down the room and took the vacant place at the table, murmuring a curt apology to Mrs. Lawrence on her way. To Diana's astonishment she recognised in the newcomer Olga Lermontof, Baroni's accompanist. "Miss Lermontof!" she exclaimed. "I had no idea that you lived here." Miss Lermontof nodded a brief greeting. "How d'you do? Yes, I've lived here for some time. But I didn't know that you were coming. I thought you had rooms somewhere?" "So I had. But I was obliged to give them up, and Signor Baroni suggested this instead." "Hope you'll like it," returned Miss Lermontof shortly. "At any rate, it has the advantage of being only quarter of an hour's walk from Grellingham Place. I've just come from there." And with that she relapsed into silence. Although Olga Lermontof had frequently accompanied Diana during her lessons with Baroni, the acquaintance between the two had made but small progress. There had been but little opportunity for conversation on those occasions, and Diana, instinctively resenting the accompanist's cool and rather off-hand manner, had never sought to become better acquainted with her. It was generally supposed that she was a Russian, and she was undoubtedly a highly gifted musician, but there was something oddly disagreeable and repellent about her personality. Whenever Diana had thought about her at all, she had mentally likened her to Ishmael, whose hand was against every man and every man's hand against his. And now she found herself involved with this strange woman in the rather close intimacy of daily life consequent upon becoming fellow-boarders in the same house. Seen amidst so many strange faces, the familiarity of Olga Lermontof's clever but rather forbidding visage bred a certain new sense of comradeship, and Diana made several tentative efforts to draw her into conversation. The results were meagre, however, the Russian confining herself to monosyllabic answers until some one--one of the musical students--chanced to mention that she had recently been to the Premier Theatre to see Adrienne de Gervais in a new play, "The Grey Gown," which had just been produced there. It was then that Miss Lermontof apparently awoke to the fact that the English language contains further possibilities than a bare "yes" or "no." "I consider Adrienne de Gervais a most overrated actress," she remarked succinctly. A chorus of disagreement greeted this announcement. "Why, only think how quickly she's got on," argued Miss Jones. "No one three years ago--and to-day Max Errington writes all his plays round her." "Precisely. And it's easy enough to 'create a part' successfully if that part has been previously written specially to suit you," retorted Miss Lermontof unmoved. The discussion of Adrienne de Gervais' merits, or demerits, threatened to develop into a violent disagreement, and Diana was struck by a certain personal acrimony that seemed to flavour Miss Lermontof's criticism of the popular actress. Finally, with the idea of averting a quarrel between the disputants, she mentioned that the actress, accompanied by her chaperon, had been staying in the neighbourhood of her own home. "Mr. Errington was with them also," she added. "He usually is," commented Miss Lermontof disagreeably. "He's a remarkably fine pianist," said Diana. "Do you know him personally at all?" "I've met him," replied Olga. Her green eyes narrowed suddenly, and she regarded Diana with a rather curious expression on her face. "Is he a professional pianist?" pursued Diana. She was conscious of an intense curiosity concerning Errington, quite apart from the personal episodes which had linked them together. The man of mystery invariably exerts a peculiar fascination over the feminine mind. Hence the unmerited popularity not infrequently enjoyed by the dark, saturnine, brooding individual whose conversation savours of the tensely monosyllabic. Olga Lermontof paused a moment before replying to Diana's query. The she said briefly:-- "No. He's a dramatist. I shouldn't allow myself to become too interested in him if I were you." She smiled a trifle grimly at Diana's sudden flush, and her manner indicated that, as far as she was concerned, the subject was closed. Diana felt an inward conviction that Miss Lermontof knew much more concerning Max Errington than she chose to admit, and when she fell asleep that night it was to dream that she and Errington were trying to find each other through the gloom of a thick fog, whilst all the time the dark-browed, sinister face of Olga Lermontof kept appearing and disappearing between them, smiling tauntingly at their efforts. CHAPTER IX A CONTEST OF WILLS Diana was sitting in Baroni's music-room, waiting, with more or less patience, for a singing lesson. The old _maestro_ was in an unmistakable ill-humour this morning, and he had detained the pupil whose lesson preceded her own far beyond the allotted time, storming at the unfortunate young man until Diana marvelled that the latter had sufficient nerve to continue singing at all. In a whirl of fury Baroni informed him that he was exactly suited to be a third-rate music-hall artiste--the young man, be it said, was making a special study of oratorio--and that it was profanation, for any one with so incalculably little idea of the very first principles of art to attempt to interpret the works of the great masters, together with much more of a like explosive character. Finally, he dismissed him abruptly and turned to Diana. "Ah--Mees Quentin." He softened a little. He had a great affection for this promising pupil of his, and welcomed her with a smile. "I am seek of that young man with his voice of an archangel and his brains of a feesh! . . . So! You haf come back from your visit to the country? And how goes it with the voice?" "I expect I'm a bit rusty after my holiday," she replied diplomatically, fondly hoping to pave the way for more lenient treatment than had been accorded to the luckless student of oratorio. Unfortunately, however, it chanced to be one of those sharply chilly days to which May occasionally treats us. Baroni frankly detested cold weather--it upset both his nerves and his temper--and Diana speedily realised that no excuses would avail to smooth her path on this occasion. "Scales," commanded Baroni, and struck a chord. She began to sing obediently, but at the end of the third scale he stopped her. "Bah! It sounds like an elephant coming downstairs! Be-r-r-rump . . . be-r-r-rump . . . be-r-r-rump . . . br-r-rum! Do not, please, sing as an elephant walks." Diana coloured and tried again, but without marked success. She was genuinely out of practice, and the nervousness with which Baroni's obvious ill-humour inspired her did not mend matters. "But what haf you been doing during the holidays?" exclaimed the _maestro_ at last, his odd, husky voice fierce with annoyance. "There is no ease---no flexibility. You are as stiff as a rusty hinge. Ach! But you will haf to work--not play any more." He frowned portentously, then with a swift change to a more reasonable mood, he continued:-- "Let us haf some songs--Saint-Saens' _Amour, viens aider_. Perhaps that will wake you up, _hein_?" Instead, it carried Diana swiftly back to the Rectory at Crailing, to the evening when she had sung this very song to Max Errington, with the unhappy Joan stumbling through the accompaniment. She began to sing, her mind occupied with quite other matters than Delilah's passion of vengeance, and her face expressive of nothing more stirring than a gentle reminiscence. Baroni stopped abruptly and placed a big mirror in front of her. "Please to look at your face, Mees Quentin," he said scathingly. "It is as wooden as your singing." He was a confirmed advocate of the importance of facial expression in a singer, and Diana's vague, abstracted look was rapidly raising his ire. Recalled by the biting scorn in his tones, she made a gallant effort to throw herself more effectually into the song, but the memory of Errington's grave, intent face, as he had sat listening to her that night, kept coming betwixt her and the meaning of the music--and the result was even more unpromising than before. In another moment Baroni was on his feet, literally dancing with rage. "But do you then call yourself an _artiste_?" he broke out furiously. "Why has the good God given you eyes and a mouth? That they may express nothing--nothing at all? Bah! You haf the face of a gootta-per-r-rcha doll!" And snatching up the music from the piano in an uncontrollable burst of fury, he flung it straight at her, and the two of them stood glaring at each other for a few moments in silence. Then Baroni pointed to the song, lying open on the floor between them, and said explosively:-- "Pick that up." Diana regarded him coolly, her small face set like a flint. "No." She fairly threw the negative at him, He stared at her--he was accustomed to more docile pupils--and the two girls who had remained in the room to listen to the lessons following their own huddled together with scared faces. The _maestro_ in a royal rage was ever, in their opinion, to be regarded from much the same viewpoint as a thunderbolt, and that any one of his pupils should dare to defy him was unheard-of. In the same situation as that in which Diana found herself, either of the two girls in question would have meekly picked up the music and, dissolving into tears, made the continuance of the lesson an impossibility, only to be bullied by the _maestro_ even more execrably next time. "Pick that up," repeated Baroni stormily. "I shall do nothing of the kind," retorted Diana promptly. "You threw it there, and you can pick it up. I'm going home." And, turning her back upon him, she marched towards the door. A sudden twinkle showed itself in Baroni's eyes. With unaccustomed celerity he pranced after her. "Come back, little Pepper-pot, come back, then, and we will continue the lesson." Diana turned and stood hesitating. "Who's going to pick up that music?" she demanded unflinchingly. "Why, I will, thou most obstinate child"--suiting the action to the word. "Because it is true that professors should not throw music at their pupils, no matter"--maliciously--"how stupid nor how dull they may be at their lesson." Diana flushed, immediately repentant. "I'm sorry," she acknowledged frankly. "I was being abominably inattentive; I was thinking of something else." The little scene was characteristic of her--unbendingly determined and obstinate when she thought she was wronged and unjustly treated, impulsively ready to ask pardon when she saw herself at fault. Baroni patted her hand affectionately. "See, my dear, I am a cross-grained, ugly old man, am I not?" he said placidly. "Yes, you are," agreed Diana, to the awed amazement of the other two pupils, at the same time bestowing a radiant smile upon him. Baroni beamed back at her benevolently. "So! Thus we agree--we are at one, as master and pupil should be. Is it not so?" Diana nodded, amusement in her eyes. "Then, being agreed, we can continue our lesson. Imagine yourself, please, to be Delilah, brooding on your vengeance, gloating over what you are about to accomplish. Can you not picture her to yourself--beautiful, sinister, like a snake that winds itself about the body"--his voice fell to a penetrating whisper--"and, in her heart, dreaming of the triumph that shall bring Samson at last a captive to destruction?" Something in the tense excitement of his whispering tones struck an answering chord within Diana, and oblivious for the moment of all else except Delilah's passionate thirst for vengeance, she sang with her whole soul, so that when she ceased, Baroni, in a sudden access of artistic fervour, leapt from his seat and embraced her rapturously. "Well done! That is, true art--art and intelligence allied to the voice of gold which the good God has given you." Absorbed in the music, neither master nor pupil had observed that during the course of the song the door had been softly unlatched from outside and held ajar, and now, just as Diana was somewhat blushingly extricating herself from Baroni's fervent clasp, it was thrown open and the unseen listener came into the room. Baroni whirled round and advanced with outstretched hands, his face wreathed in smiles. "_A la bonne heure_! You haf come just at a good moment, Mees de Gervais, to hear this pupil of mine who will some day be one of the world's great singers." Adrienne de Gervais shook hands. "I've been listening, Baroni. She has a marvellous voice. But"--looking at Diana pleasantly--"we are neighbours, surely? I have seen you in Crailing--where we have just taken a house called Red Gables." "Yes, I live at Crailing," replied Diana, a little shyly. "And I saw you, there one day--you were sitting in a pony-trap, waiting outside a cottage, and singing to yourself. I noticed the quality of her voice then," added Miss de Gervais, turning to the _maestro_. "Yes," said Baroni, with placid content. "It is superb." Adrienne turned back to Diana with a delightful smile. "Since we are neighbours in the country, Miss Quentin, we ought to be friends in town. Won't you come and see me one day?" Diana flushed. She was undoubtedly attracted by the actress's charming personality, but beyond this lay the knowledge that it was more than likely that at her house she might again encounter Errington. And though Diana told herself that he was nothing to her--in fact, that she disliked him rather than otherwise--the chance of meeting him once more was not to be foregone--if only for the opportunity it would give her of showing him how much she disliked him! "I should like to come very much," she answered. "Then come and have tea with me to-morrow--no, to-morrow I'm engaged. Shall we say Thursday?" Diana acquiesced, and Miss de Gervais turned to Baroni with a rather mischievous smile, saying something in a foreign tongue which Diana took to be Russian. Baroni replied in the same language, frowningly, and although she could not understand the tenor of his answer, Diana was positive that she caught her own name and that of Max Errington uttered in conjunction with each other. It struck her as an odd coincidence that Baroni should be acquainted both with Miss de Gervais and with Errington, and at her next lesson she ventured to comment on the former's visit. Baroni's answer, however, furnished a perfectly simple explanation of it. "Mees de Gervais? Oh, yes, she sings a song in her new play, 'The Grey Gown,' and I haf always coached her in her songs. She has a pree-ty voice--nothing beeg, but quite pree-ty." Diana set forth on her visit to Adrienne with a certain amount of trepidation. Much as she longed to see Max Errington again, she felt that the first meeting after that last episode of their acquaintance might well partake of the somewhat doubtful pleasure of skating on thin ice. It was therefore not without a feeling of relief that she found the actress and her chaperon the only occupants of the former's pretty drawing-room. They both welcomed her cordially. "I have heard so much about you," said Mrs. Adams, pleasantly, "that I've been longing to meet you, Miss Quentin. Adrienne calls you the 'girl with the golden voice,' and I'm hoping to have the pleasure of hearing you sing." Diana was getting used to having her voice referred to as something rather wonderful; it no longer embarrassed her, so she murmured an appropriate answer and the conversation then drifted naturally to Crailing and to the lucky chance which had brought Errington past Culver Point the day Diana was marooned there, and Diana explained that the Rector and his daughter had intended calling upon the occupants of Red Gables, but had been prevented by their sudden departure. Adrienne laughed. "Yes, I expect every one thought we were quite mad to run away like that so soon after our arrival! It was a sudden idea of Mr. Errington's. He declared he was not satisfied about something in the staging of 'The Grey Gown,' and of course we must needs all rush up to town to see about it. There wasn't the least necessity, as it turned out, but when Max takes an idea into his head there's no stopping him." "No," added Mrs. Adams. "And the sheer cruelty of bustling an elderly person like me from one end of England to the other just to suit his whims doesn't seem to move him in the slightest." She was smiling broadly as she spoke, and, it was evident to Diana that to both these women Max Errington's word was law--a law they obeyed, however, with the utmost cheerfulness. "But, of course, we are coming back again," pursued Miss de Gervais. "I think Crailing is a delightful little place, and I am going to regard Red Gables as a haven of refuge from the storms of professional life. So I hope"--smilingly--"that the Rectory will call on Red Gables when next we are 'in residence.'" The time passed quickly, and when tea was disposed of Adrienne looked out from amongst her songs one or two which were known to Diana, and Mrs. Adams was given the opportunity of hearing the "golden voice." And then, just as Diana was preparing to leave, a maid threw open a door and announced:-- "Mr. Errington." Diana felt her heart contract suddenly, and the sound of his voice, as he greeted Adrienne and Mrs. Adams, sent a thrill through every nerve in her body. "You mustn't go now." She was vaguely conscious that Adrienne was speaking to her. "Max, here is Miss Quentin, whom you gallantly rescued from Culver Point." The actress was dimpling and smiling, a spice of mischief in her soft blue eyes. She and Mrs. Adams had not omitted to chaff Errington about his involuntary knight-errantry, and the former had even laughingly declared it her firm belief that his journey to town the next day partook more of the nature of flight than anything else. To all of which Errington had submitted composedly, declining to add anything further to his bare statement of the incident of Culver Point--mention of which had been entailed by his unexpected absence from Red Gables that evening. He gave a scarcely perceptible start of surprise as his eyes fell upon Diana, but he betrayed no pleasure at seeing her again. His face showed nothing beyond the polite, impersonal interest which any stranger might exhibit. "I have just missed the pleasure of hearing you sing, I'm afraid," he said, shaking hands. "Have you been back in town long, Miss Quentin?" "No, only a few days," she answered. "I had my first lesson with Signor Baroni the other day, and it was then that I met Miss de Gervais." "At Baroni's?" Diana intercepted a swift glance pass between him and Adrienne. "Yes," said the latter quickly. "I went to rehearse my song in 'The Grey Gown' with him. He was rather crochety that day," she added, smiling. Diana smiled in sympathy. "Well, if he was crochety with you, Miss de Gervais," she observed, "you can perhaps imagine what he was like to me!" "Was he so very bad?" asked Adrienne, laughing. "Every one says his temper is diabolical." "It is," replied Diana, with conviction. "Still," broke in Errington's quiet voice, "I should have thought he would have found it somewhat difficult to be very angry with Miss Quentin." Diana fancied she detected the familiar flavour of irony in the cool tones. "On the contrary, he apparently found it perfectly simple," she retorted sharply. "And yet," interposed Adrienne, "from the panegyrics he indulged in upon the subject of your voice after you had gone, I'm sure he thinks the world of you." "Oh, I'm just a voice to him--nothing more," said Diana. "To be 'just a voice' to Baroni means to be the most important thing on earth," observed Errington. "I believe he would imperil his immortal soul to give a supremely beautiful voice to the world." "Nonsense, Max," protested Adrienne. "You talk as if he were perfectly conscienceless." "So he is, except in so far as art is concerned, and then his conscience assumes the form of sheer idolatry. I believe he would sacrifice anything and anybody for the sake of it." "Well, it's to be hoped you're wrong," said Adrienne, smiling, and again Diana thought she detected a glance of mutual understanding pass between the actress and Max Errington. A little uncomfortable sense as of being _de trop_ invaded her. She felt that for some reason Errington would be glad when she had gone. Possibly he had come to see Miss de Gervais about some business matter in connection with the play he had written, and was only awaiting her departure to discuss it. He had not appeared in the least pleased to find her there on his arrival, and from that moment onward the conversation had become distinctly laboured. She wished very much that Miss de Gervais had not pressed her to stay when he came, and at the first opportunity she rose to go. This time, Adrienne made no effort to detain her, although she asked her cordially to come again another day. As Diana drove back in a taxi to Brutton Square she was conscious of a queer sense of disappointment in the outcome of her meeting with Max Errington. It had been so utterly different from anything she had expected--quite commonplace and ordinary, exactly as though they had been no more than the most casual acquaintances. She hardly knew what she had actually anticipated. Certainly, she told herself irritably, she could not have expected him to have treated her with marked warmth of manner in the presence of others, and therefore his behaviour had been just what the circumstances demanded. But, notwithstanding the assurance she gave herself that this was the common-sense view to take of the matter, she had an instinctive feeling that, even had there been no one else to consider, Errington's manner would still have shown no greater cordiality. For some reason he had decided to lock the door on the past, and the polite friendly indifference with which he had treated her was intended to indicate quite clearly the attitude he proposed to adopt. She supposed he repented that brief, vivid moment in the car, and wished her to understand that it held no significance--that it was merely a chance incident in this world where one amuses oneself as occasion offers. Presumably he feared that, not being a woman of the world, she might attach a deeper meaning to it than the circumstances warranted, and was anxious to set her right on that point. Her pride rose in revolt. Olga Lermontof's words returned to her mind with fresh enlightenment: "I shouldn't allow myself to become too interested in him, if I were you." Surely she had intended this as a friendly warning to Diana not to take anything Max Errington might do or say very seriously! Well, there would be no danger of that in the future; she had learned her lesson and would take care to profit by it. CHAPTER X MISS LERMONTOF'S ADVICE As Diana entered the somewhat dingy hall at 34 Brutton Square on her return from visiting Adrienne, the first person she encountered was Olga Lermontof. She still retained her dislike of the accompanist and was preparing to pass by with a casual remark upon the coldness of the weather, when something in the Russian's pale, fatigued face arrested her. "How frightfully tired you look!" she exclaimed, pausing on the staircase as the two made their way up together. "I am, rather," returned Miss Lermontof indifferently. "I've been playing accompaniments all afternoon, and I've had no tea." Diana hesitated an instant, then she said impulsively--"Oh, do come into my room and let me make you a cup." Olga Lermontof regarded her with a faint surprise. "Thanks," she said in her abrupt way. "I will." A cheerful little fire was burning in the grate, and the room presented a very comfortable and home-like appearance, for Diana had added a couple of easy-chairs and several Liberty cushions to its somewhat sparse furniture. A heavy curtain, hung in front of the door to exclude draughts, gave an additional cosy touch, and fresh flowers adorned both chimney-piece and table. Olga Lermontof let her long, lithe figure down into one of the easy-chairs with a sigh of satisfaction, while Diana set the kettle on the fire to boil, and produced from the depths of a cupboard a canister of tea and a tin of attractive-looking biscuits. "I often make my own tea up here," she observed. "I detest having it in that great barrack of a dining-room downstairs. The bread-and-butter is always so thick--like doorsteps!--and the cake is very emphatically of the 'plain, home-made' variety." Olga nodded. "You look very comfortable here," she replied. "If you saw my tiny bandbox of a room on the fourth floor you'd realise what a sybarite you are." Diana wondered a little why Olga Lermontof should need to economise by having such a small room and one so high up. She was invariably well-dressed--Diana had frequently caught glimpses of silken petticoats and expensive shoes--and she had not in the least the air of a woman who is accustomed to small means. Almost as though she had uttered her thought aloud, Miss Lermontof replied to it, smiling rather satirically. "You're thinking I don't look the part? It's true I haven't always been so poor as I am now. But a lot of my money is invested in Ru--abroad, and owing to--to various things"--she stammered a little--"I can't get hold of it just at present, so I'm dependent on what I make. And an accompanist doesn't earn a fortune, you know. But I can't quite forego pretty clothes--I wasn't brought up that way. So I economise over my room." Diana was rather touched by the little confidence; somehow she didn't fancy the other had found it very easy to make, and she liked her all the better for it. "No," she agreed, as she poured out two steaming cups of tea. "I suppose accompanying doesn't pay as well as some other things--the stage, for example. I should think Adrienne de Gervais makes plenty of money." "She has private means, I believe," returned Miss Lermontof. "But, of course, she gets an enormous salary." She was drinking her tea appreciatively, and a little colour had crept into her cheeks, although the shadows still lay heavily beneath her light-green eyes. They were of a curious translucent green, the more noticeable against the contrasting darkness of her hair and brows; they reminded one of the colour of Chinese jade. "I've just been to tea with Miss de Gervais," volunteered Diana, after a pause. A swift look of surprise crossed Olga Lermontof's face. "I didn't know you had met her," she said slowly. "Yes, we met at Signor Baroni's the other day. She came in during my lesson. I believe I told you she had taken a house at Crailing, so that at home we are neighbours, you see." "Miss Lermontof consumed a biscuit in silence. Then she said abruptly:-- "Miss Quentin, I know you don't like me, but--well, I have an odd sort of wish to do you a good turn. You had better have nothing to do with Adrienne de Gervais." Diana stared at her in undisguised amazement, the quick colour rushing into her face as it always did when she was startled or surprised. "But--but why?" she stammered. "I can't tell you why. Only take my advice and leave her alone." "But I thought her delightful," protested Diana. "And"--wistfully--"I haven't many friends in London." "Miss de Gervais isn't quite all she seems. And your art should be your friend--you don't need any other." Diana laughed. "You talk like old Baroni himself! But indeed I do want friends--I haven't nearly reached the stage when art can take the place of nice human people." Miss Lermontof regarded her dispassionately. "That's only because you're young--horribly young and warm-hearted." "You talk as if you yourself were a near relation of Methuselah!"--laughing. "I'm thirty-five," returned Olga, "And that's old enough to know that nine-tenths of your 'nice human people' are self-seeking vampires living on the generosity of the other tenth. Besides, you have only to wait till you come out professionally and you can have as many so-called friends as you choose. You'll scarcely need to lift your little finger and they'll come flocking round you. I don't think"-- looking at her speculatively--"that you've any conception what your voice is going to do for you. You see, it isn't just an ordinary good voice--it's one of the exceptional voices that are only vouchsafed once or twice in a century." "Still, I think I should like to have a few friends--now. _My_ friend, I mean--not just the friends of my voice!"--with a smile. "Well, don't include Miss de Gervais in the number--or Max Errington either." She watched Diana's sudden flush, and shrugging her shoulders, added sardonically:-- "I suppose, however, it's useless to try and stop a marble rolling down hill. . . . Well, later on, remember that I warned you." Diana stared into the fire for a moment in silence. Then she asked with apparent irrelevance:-- "Is Mr. Errington married?" "He is not." Diana's heart suddenly sang within her. "Nor," continued Miss Lermontof keenly, "is there any likelihood of his ever marrying." The song broke off abruptly. "I should have thought," said Diana slowly, "that he was just the kind of man who _would_ marry. He is"--with a little effort--"very delightful." Miss Lermontof got up to go. "You have a saying in England: _All is not gold that glitters_. It is very good sense," she observed. "Do you mean"--Diana's eyes were suddenly apprehensive--"do you mean that he has done anything wrong--dishonourable?" "I think," replied Olga Lermontof incisively, "that it would be very dishonourable of him if he tried to--to make you care for him." She moved towards the door as she spoke, and Diana followed her. "But why--why do you tell me this?" she faltered. The Russian's queer green eyes held an odd expression as she answered:-- "Perhaps it's because I like you very much better than you do me. You're one of the few genuine warm-hearted people I've met--and I don't want you to be unhappy. Good-bye," she added carelessly, "thank you for my tea." The door closed behind her, and Diana, returning to her seat by the fire, sat staring into the flames, puzzling over what she had heard. Miss Lermontof's curious warning had frightened her a little. She apparently possessed some intimate knowledge of the affairs both of Max Errington and Adrienne de Gervais, and what she knew did not appear to be very favourable to either of them. Diana had intuitively felt from the very beginning of her acquaintance with Errington that there was something secret, something hidden, about him, and in a way this had added to her interest in him. It had seized hold of her imagination, kept him vividly before her mind as nothing else could have done, and now Olga Lermontof's strange hints and innuendos gave a fresh fillip to her desire to know in what way Max Errington differed from his fellows. "It would be dishonourable of him to make you care," Miss Lermontof had said. The words seemed to ring in Diana's ears, and side by side with them, as though to add a substance of reality, came the memory of Errington's own bitter exclamation: "I forgot that I'm a man barred out from all that makes life worth living!" She felt as though she had drawn near some invisible web, of which every now and then a single filament brushed against her--almost impalpable, yet touching her with the fleetest and lightest of contacts. During the weeks that followed, Diana became more or less an intimate at Adrienne's house in Somervell Street. The actress seemed to have taken a great fancy to her, and although she was several years Diana's senior, the difference in age formed no appreciable stumbling-block to the growth of the friendship between them. On her part, Diana regarded Adrienne with the enthusiastic devotion which an older woman--more especially if she happens to be very beautiful and occupying a somewhat unique position--frequently inspires in one younger than herself, and Olga Lermontof's grave warning might just as well have been uttered to the empty air. Diana's warm-hearted, spontaneous nature swept it aside with an almost passionate loyalty and belief in her new-found friend. Once Miss Lermontof had referred to it rather disagreeably. "So you've decided to make a friend of Miss de Gervais after all?" she said. "Yes. And I think you've misjudged her utterly," Diana warmly assured her. "Of course," she added, sensitively afraid that the other might misconstrue her meaning, "I know you believed what you were saying, and that you only said it out of kindness to me. But you were mistaken--really you were." "Humph!" The Russian's eyes narrowed until they looked like two slits of green fire. "Humph! I was wrong, was I? Nevertheless, I'm perfectly sure that Adrienne de Gervais' past is a closed book to you--although you call yourself her friend!" Diana turned away without reply. It was true--Olga Lermontof had laid a finger on the weak spot in her friendship with Adrienne. The latter never talked to her of her past life; their mutual attachment was built solely around the present, and if by chance any question of Diana's accidentally probed into the past, it was adroitly parried. Even of Adrienne's nationality she was in ignorance, merely understanding, along with the rest of the world, that she was of French extraction. This assumption had probably been founded in the first instance upon her name, and Adrienne never troubled either to confirm or contradict it. Mrs. Adams, her companion-chaperon, always made Diana especially welcome at the house in Somervell Street. "You must come again soon, my dear," she would say cordially. "Adrienne makes few friends--and your visits are such a relaxation to her. The life she leads is rather a strain, you know." At times Diana noticed a curious aloofness in her friend, as though her professional success occupied a position of relatively small importance in her estimation, and once she had commented on it half jokingly. "You don't seem to value your laurels one bit," she had said, as Adrienne contemptuously tossed aside a newspaper containing a eulogy of her claims to distinction which most actresses would have carefully cut out and pasted into their book of critiques. "Fame?" Adrienne had answered. "What is it? Merely the bubble of a day." "Well," returned Diana, laughing, "it's the aim and object of a good many people's lives. It's the bubble I'm in pursuit of, and if I obtain one half the recognition you have had, I shall be very content." Adrienne regarded her musingly. "You will be famous when the name of Adrienne de Gervais is known no longer," she said at last. Diana stared at her in surprise. "But why? Even if I should succeed, within the next few years, you will still be Adrienne de Gervais, the famous actress." Adrienne smiled across at her. "Ah, I cannot tell you why," she said lightly. "But--I think it will be like that." Her eyes gazed dreamily into space, as though she perceived some vision of the future, but whether that future were of rose and gold or only of a dull grey, Diana could not tell. Of Max Errington she saw very little. It seemed as though he were determined to avoid her, for she frequently saw him leaving Adrienne's house on a day when she was expected there--hurrying away just as she herself was approaching from the opposite end of the street. Only once or twice, when she had chanced to pay an unexpected visit, had he come in and found her there. On these occasions his manner had been studiously cold and indifferent, and any effort on her part towards establishing a more friendly footing had been invariably checked by some cruelly ironical remark, which had brought the blood to her cheeks and, almost, the tears to her eyes. She reflected grimly that Olga Lermontof's warning words had proved decidedly superfluous. Meanwhile, she had struck up a friendship with Errington's private secretary, a young man of the name of Jerry Leigh, who was a frequent visitor at Adrienne's house. Jerry was, in truth, the sort of person with whom it was impossible to be otherwise than friendly. He was of a delightful ugliness, twenty-five years of age, penniless except for the salary he received from Errington, and he possessed a talent for friendship much as other folk possess a talent for music or art or dancing. Diana's first meeting with him had occurred quite by chance. Both Adrienne and Mrs. Adams happened to be out one afternoon when she called, and she was awaiting their return when the door of the drawing-room suddenly opened to admit a remarkably plain young man, who, on seeing her ensconced in one of the big arm-chairs, stood hesitating as though undecided whether to remain or to take refuge in instant flight. Adrienne had talked so much about Jerry--of whom she was exceedingly fond--and had so often described his charming ugliness to Diana that the latter was in no doubt at all as to whom the newcomer might be. She nodded to him reassuringly. "Don't run away," she said calmly, "I don't bite." The young man promptly closed the door and advanced into the room. "Don't you?" he said in relieved tones. "Thank you for telling me. One never knows." "If you've come to see Miss de Gervais, I'm afraid you can't at present, as she's out," pursued Diana. "I'm waiting for her." "Then we can wait together," returned Mr. Leigh, with an engaging smile. "It will be much more amusing than waiting in solitude, won't it?" "That I can't tell you--yet," replied Diana demurely. "I'll ask you again in half an hour," he returned undaunted. "I'm Leigh, you know. Jerry Leigh, Errington's secretary." "I suppose, then, you're a very busy person?" "Well, pretty much so in the mornings and sometimes up till late at night, but Errington's a rattling good 'boss' and very often gives me an 'afternoon out.' That's why I'm here now. I'm off duty and Miss de Gervais told me I might come to tea whenever I'm free. You see"--confidentially--"I've very few friends in London." "Same here," responded Diana shortly. "No, not really?"--with obvious satisfaction. "Then we ought to pal up together, oughtn't we?" "Don't you want my credentials?" asked Diana, smiling, "Lord, no! One has only to look at you." Diana laughed outright. "That's quite the nicest compliment I've ever received, Mr. Leigh," she said. (It was odd that while Errington always made her feel rather small and depressingly young, with Jerry Leigh she felt herself to be quite a woman of the world.) "It isn't a compliment," protested Jerry stoutly. "It's just the plain, unvarnished truth." "I'm afraid your 'boss' wouldn't agree with you." "Oh, nonsense!" "Indeed it isn't. He always treats me as though I were a hot potato, and he were afraid of burning his fingers." Jerry roared. "Well, perhaps he's got good reason." Diana shook; her head smilingly. "Oh, no. It's not that. Mr. Errington doesn't like me." Jerry stared at her reflectively. "That couldn't be true," he said at last, with conviction. "I don't know that I like him--very much--either," pursued Diana. "You would if you really knew him," said the boy eagerly. "He's one of the very best." "He's rather a mysterious person, don't you think?" Jerry regarded her very straightly. "Oh, well," he returned bluntly, "every man's a right to have his own private affairs." Then there _was_ something! Diana felt her heart beat a little faster. She had thrown out the remark as the merest feeler, and now his own secretary, the man who must be nearer to him than any other, had given what was tantamount to an acknowledgment of the fact that Errington's life held some secret. "Anyway"--Jerry was speaking again--"_I've_ got good reason to be grateful to him. I was on my uppers when he happened along--and without any prospect of re-soling. I'd played the fool at Monte Carlo, and, like a brick, he offered me the job of private secretary, and I've been with him ever since. I'd no references, either--he just took me on trust." "That was very kind of him," said Diana slowly. "Kind! There isn't one man in a hundred who'll give a chance like that to a young ass that's played the goat as I did." "No," agreed Diana. "But," she added, rather low, "he isn't always kind." At this moment the door opened, and the subject of their conversation entered the room. He paused on the threshold, and for an instant Diana could have sworn that as his eyes met her own a sudden light of pleasure flashed into their blue depths, only to be immediately replaced by his usual look of cold indifference. He glanced round the room, apparently somewhat surprised to find Diana and his secretary its sole occupants. "We're all here now except our hostess," observed the latter cheerfully, following his thought. "So it seems. I didn't know"--looking across from Jerry to Diana in a puzzled way--"that you two were acquainted with each other." "We aren't--at least, we weren't," replied Jerry. "We met by chance, like two angels that have made a bid for the same cloud." Errington smiled faintly. "And did you persuade your--fellow angel--to sing to you?" he asked drily. "No. Does she sing?" "_Does she sing_? . . . Jerry, my young and ignorant friend, let me introduce you to Miss Diana Quentin, the--" "Good Lord!" broke in Jerry, his face falling. "Are you Miss Quentin--_the_ Miss Quentin? Of course I've heard all about you.--you're going to be the biggest star in the musical firmament--and here have I been gassing away about my little affairs just as though you were an ordinary mortal like myself." Diana was beginning to laugh at the boy's nonsense when Errington cut in quietly. "Then you've been making a great mistake, Jerry," he said. "Miss Quentin doesn't in the least resemble ordinary mortals. She isn't afflicted by like passions with ourselves, and she doesn't understand--or forgive them." The words, uttered as though in jest, held an undercurrent of meaning for Diana that sent the colour flying up under her clear skin. There was a bitter taunt in them that none knew better than she how to interpret. She winced under it, and a fierce resentment flared up within her that he should dare to reproach, her--he, who had been the offender from first to last. Always, now, he seemed to be laughing at her, mocking her. He appeared an entirely different person from the man who had been so careful of her welfare during the eventful journey they had made together. She lifted her head a little defiantly. "No," she said, with significance. "I certainly don't understand--some people." "Perhaps it's just as well," retorted Errington, unmoved. Jerry, sensing electricity in the atmosphere, looked troubled and uncomfortable. He hadn't the faintest idea what they were talking about, but it was perfectly clear to him that everything was not quite as it should be between his beloved Max and this new friend, this jolly little girl with the wonderful eyes--just like a pair of stars, by Jove!--and, if rumour spoke truly, the even more wonderful voice. Bashfully murmuring something about "going down to see if Miss de Gervais had come in yet," he bolted out of the room, leaving Max and Diana alone together. Suddenly she turned and faced him. "Why--why are you always so unkind to me?" she burst out, a little breathlessly. He lifted his brows. "I? . . . My dear Miss Quentin, I have no right to be either kind--or unkind--to you. That is surely the privilege of friends. And you showed me quite clearly, down at Crailing, that you did not intend to admit me to your friendship." "I didn't," she exclaimed, and rushed on desperately. "Was it likely that I should feel anything but gratitude--and liking for any one who had done as much for me as you had?" "You forget," he said quietly. "Afterwards--I transgressed. And you let me see that the transgression had wiped out my meritorious deeds--completely. It was quite the best thing that could happen," he added hastily, as she would have spoken. "I had no right, less right than any man on earth, to do--what I did. I abide by your decision." The last words came slowly, meaningly. He was politely telling her that any overtures of friendship would be rejected. Diana's pride lay in the dust, but she was determined he should not knew it. With her head held high, she said stiffly:-- "I don't think I'll wait any longer for Adrienne. Will you tell her, please, that I've gone back to Brutton Square?" "Brutton Square?" he repeated swiftly. "Do you live there?" "Yes. Have you any objection?" He disregarded her mocking query and continued:-- "A Miss Lermontof lives there. Is she, by any chance, a friend of yours?" There seemed a hint of disapproval in his voice, and Diana countered, with another question. "Why? Do you think I ought not to be friends with her?" "I? Oh, I don't think about it at all"--with a little half-foreign shrug of his shoulders. "Miss Quentin's choice of friends is no concern of mine." Unbidden, tears leaped into Diana's eyes at the cold satirical tones. Surely, surely he had hurt her enough, for one day! Without a word she turned and made her way blindly out of the room and down the stairs. In the hall she almost ran into Jerry's arms. "Oh, are you going?" he asked, in tones of disappointment. "Yea, I'm afraid I mustn't wait any longer for Adrienne. I have some work to do when I get back." Her voice shook a little, and Jerry, giving her a swift glance, could see that her lashes were wet and her eyes misty with tears. "The brute!" he ejaculated mentally. "What's he done to her?" Aloud he merely said:-- "Will you have a taxi?" She nodded, and hailing one that chanced to be passing, he put her carefully into it. "And--and I say," he said anxiously. "You didn't mind my talking to you this afternoon, did you, Miss Quentin? I made 'rather free,' as the servants say." "No, of course I didn't mind," she replied warmly, her spirits rising a little. He was such a nice boy--the sort of boy one could be pals with. "You must come and see me at Brutton Square. Come to tea one day, will you?" "_Won't I_?" he said heartily. "Good-bye." And the taxi swept away down the street. Jerry returned to the drawing-room to find Errington staring moodily out of the window. "I say, Max," he said, affectionately linking his arm in that of the older man. "What had you been saying to upset that dear little person?" "I?" "Yes. She was--crying." Jerry felt the arm against his own twitch, and continued relentlessly:-- "I believe you've been snubbing her. You know, old man, you have a sort of horribly lordly, touch-me-not air about you when you choose. But I don't see why you should choose with Miss Quentin. She's such an awfully good sort." "Yes," agreed Errington. "Miss Quentin is quite charming." "She thinks you don't like her," pursued Jerry, after a moment's pause. "I--not like Miss Quentin? Absurd!" "Well, that's what she thinks, anyway," persisted Jerry. "She told me so, and she seemed really sorry about it. She believes you don't want to be friends with her." "Miss Quentin's friendship would be delightful. But--you don't understand, Jerry--it's one of the delights I must forego." When Errington spoke with such a definite air of finality, his young secretary knew from experience that he might as well drop the subject. He could get nothing further out of Max, once the latter had adopted that tone over any matter. So Jerry, being wise in his generation, held his peace. Suddenly Errington faced round and laid his hands on the boy's shoulder. "Jerry," he said, and his voice shook with some deep emotion. "Thank God--thank Him every day of your life--that you're free and untrammelled. All the world's yours if you choose to take it. Some of us are shackled--our arms tied behind our backs. And oh, my God! How they ache to be free!" The blue eyes were full of a keen anguish, the stern mouth wry with pain. Never before had Jerry seen him thus with the mask off, and he felt as though he were watching a soul's agony unveiled. "Max . . . dear old chap . . ." he stammered. "Can't I help?" With an obvious effort Errington regained his composure, but his face was grey as he answered:-- "Neither you nor any one else, Jerry, boy. I must dree my weird, as the Scotch say. And that's the hard part of it--to be your own judge and jury. A man ought not to be compelled to play the double role of victim and executioner." "And must you? . . . No way out?" "None. Unless"--with a hard laugh--"the executioner throws up the game and--runs away, allowing the victim to escape. And that's impossible! . . . Impossible!" he reiterated vehemently, as though arguing against some inner voice. "Let him rip," suggested Jerry. "Give the accused a chance!" Errington laughed more naturally. He was rapidly regaining his usual self-possession. "Jerry, you're a good pal, but a bad adviser. Get thee behind me." Steps sounded on the stairs outside. Adrienne and Mrs. Adams had come back, and Errington turned composedly to greet them, the veil of reticence, momentarily swept aside by the surge of a sudden emotion, falling once more into its place. CHAPTER XI THE YEAR'S FRUIT Spring had slipped into summer, summer had given place again to winter, and once more April was come, with her soft breath blowing upon the sticky green buds and bidding them open, whilst daffodils and tulips, like slim sentinels, swayed above the brown earth, in a riot of tender colour. There is something very fresh and charming about London in April. The parks are aglow with young green, and the trees nod cheerfully to the little breeze that dances round them, whispering of summer. Even the houses perk up under their spruce new coats of paint, while every window that can afford it puts forth its carefully tended box of flowers. It is as though the old city suddenly awoke from her winter slumber and preened herself like a bird making its toilet; there is an atmosphere of renewal abroad--the very carters and cabmen seem conscious of it, and acknowledge it with good-humoured smiles and a flower worn jauntily in the buttonhole. Diana leaned far out of the open window of her room at Brutton Square, sniffing up the air with its veiled, faint fragrance of spring, and gazing down in satisfaction at the delicate shimmer of green which clothed the trees and shrubs in the square below. The realisation that a year had slipped away since last the trees had worn that tender green amazed her; it seemed almost incredible that twelve whole months had gone by since the day when she had first come to Brutton Square, and she and Bunty had joked together about the ten commandments on the wall. The year had brought both pleasure and pain--as most years do--pleasure in the friends she had gathered round her, Adrienne and Jerry and Bunty--even with Olga Lermontof an odd, rather one-sided friendship had sprung up, born of the circumstances which had knit their paths together--pain in the soreness which still lingered from the hurt that Errington had dealt her. Albeit, her life had been so filled with work and play, her mind so much occupied, that a surface skin, as it were, had formed over the wound, and it was only now and again that a sudden throb reminded her of its existence. Love had brushed her with his wings in passing, but she was hardly yet a fully awakened woman. Nevertheless, the brief episodes of her early acquaintance with Errington had cut deep into a mind which had hitherto reflected nothing beyond the simple happenings of a girlhood passed at a country rectory, and the romantic flair of youth had given their memory a certain sacred niche in her heart. Some day Fate would come along and take them down from that shelf where they were stored, and dust them and present them to her afresh with a new significance. For a brief moment Errington's kiss had roused her dormant womanhood, and then the events of daily life had crowded round and lulled it asleep once more. In swift succession there had followed the vivid interest of increasing musical study, the stirrings of ambition, and a whole world of new people to meet and rub shoulders with. So that the end of her second year in London found Diana still little more than an impetuous, impulsive girl, possessed of a warm, undisciplined nature, and of an unconscious desire to fulfil her being along the most natural and easy lines, while in spirit she leaped forward to the time when she should be plunged into professional life. The whole of her training under Baroni, with the big future that it held, tended to give her a somewhat egotistical outlook, an instinctive feeling that everything must of necessity subordinate itself to her demands--an excellent foundation, no doubt, on which to build up a reputation as a famous singer in a world where people are apt to take you very much at your own valuation, but a poor preparation for the sacrifices and self-immolation that love not infrequently demands. Above all else, this second year of study had brought in fullest measure the development and enriching of her voice. Baroni had schooled it with the utmost care, keeping always in view his purpose that the coming June should witness her debut, and Diana, catching fire from his enthusiasm, had answered to every demand he had made upon her. Her voice was now something to marvel at. It had matured into a rich contralto of amazing compass, and with a peculiar thrilling quality about it which gripped and held you almost as though some one had laid a hand upon your heart. Baroni hugged himself as he realised what a _furore_ in the musical world this voice would create when at last he allowed the silence to be broken. Already there were whispers flying about of the wonderful contralto he was training, of whom it was rumoured that she would have the whole world at her feet from the moment that Baroni produced her. The old _maestro_ had his plans all cut and dried. Early in June, just when the season should be in full swing, there was to be a concert--a recital with only Kirolski, the Polish violinist, and Madame Berthe Louvigny, the famous French pianist, to assist. Those two names alone would inevitably draw a big crowd of all the musical people who mattered, and Diana's golden voice would do the rest. This was to be the solitary concert for the season, but, to whet the appetite of society, Diana was also to appear at a single big reception--"Baroni won't look at anything less than a ducal house with Royalty present," as Jerry banteringly asserted--and then, while the world was still agape with interest and excitement, the singer was to be whisked away to Crailing for three months' holiday, and to accept no more engagements until the winter. By that time, Baroni anticipated, people would be feverishly impatient for her reappearance, and the winter campaign would resolve itself into one long trail of glory. Diana had been better able latterly to devote herself to her work, as Errington had been out of England for a time. So long as there was the likelihood of meeting him at any moment, her nerves had been more or less in a state of tension. There was that between them which made it impossible for her to regard him with the cool, indifferent friendship which he himself seemed so well able to assume. Despite herself, the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand, caused a curious little fluttering within her, like the flicker of a compass needle when it quivers to the north. If he entered the same room as herself, she was instantly aware of it, even though she might not chance to be looking in his direction at the moment. Indeed, her consciousness of him was so acute, so vital, that she sometimes wondered how it was possible that one person could mean so much to another and yet himself feel no reciprocal interest. And that he did feel none, his unvarying indifference of manner had at last convinced her. But, even so, she was unable to banish him from her thoughts. This was the first day of her return to London after the Easter holidays, which she had spent as usual at Crailing Rectory, and already she was wondering rather wistfully whether Errington would be back in England during the summer. She felt that if only she could know why he had changed so completely towards her, why the interest she had so obviously awakened in him upon first meeting had waned and died, she might be able to thrust him completely out of her thoughts, and accept him merely as the casual acquaintance which was all he apparently claimed to be. But the restless, irritable longing to know, to have his incomprehensible behaviour explained, kept him ever in her mind. Only once or twice had his name been mentioned between Olga Lermontof and herself, and on each occasion the former had repeated her caution, admonishing Diana to have nothing to do with him. It almost seemed as though she had some personal feeling of dislike towards him. Indeed Diana had accused her of it, only to be met with a quiet negative. "No," she had replied serenely. "I don't dislike him. But I disapprove of much that he does." "He is rather an attractive person," Diana ventured tentatively. Olga Lermontof shot a keen glance at her. "Well, I advise you not to give him your friendship," she said, "or"--sneeringly--"anything of greater value." A sharp rat-tat at the door of her sitting-room recalled Diana's wandering thoughts to the present. She threw a glance of half-comic dismay at the state of her sitting-room--every available chair and table seemed to be strewn with the contents of the trunks she was unpacking--and then, with a resigned shrug of her shoulders, she crossed to the door and threw it open. Bunty was standing outside. "What is it?" Diana was beginning, when she caught sight of a pleasant, ugly face appearing over little Miss Bunting's shoulder. "Oh, Jerry, is it you?" she exclaimed delightedly. "He insisted on coming up, Miss Quentin," said Bunty, "although I told him you had only just arrived and would be in the middle of unpacking." "I've got an important message to deliver," asserted Jerry, grinning, and shaking both Diana's hands exuberantly. "Oh, never mind the unpacking," cried Diana, beginning to bundle the things off the tables and chairs back into one of the open trunks. "Bunty darling, help me to clear a space, and then go and order tea for two up here--and expense be blowed! Oh, and I'll put a match to the fire--it's quite cold enough. Come in, Jerry, and tell me all the news." "I'll light that fire first," said Jerry, practically. "We can talk when Bunty darling brings our tea." Miss Bunting shook her head at him and tried to frown but as no one ever minded in the least what Jerry said, her effort at propriety was a failure, and she retreated to set about the tea, observing maliciously:-- "I'll send 'Mrs. Lawrence darling' up to talk to you, Mr. Leigh." "Great Jehosaphat!"--Jerry flew after her to the door--"If you do, I'm off. That woman upsets my digestion--she's so beastly effusive. I thought she was going to kiss me last time." Miss Bunting laughed as she disappeared downstairs. "You're safe to-day," she threw back at him. "She's out." Jerry returned to his smouldering fire and proceeded to encourage it with the bellows till, by the time the tea came up, the flames were leaping and crackling cheerfully in the little grate. "And now," said Diana, as they settled themselves for a comfortable yarn over the teacups, "tell me all the news. Oh by the way, what's your important message? I don't believe"--regarding him severely--"that you've got one at all. It was just an excuse." "It wasn't, honour bright. It's from Miss de Gervais--she sent me round to see you expressly. You know, while Errington's away I call at her place for orders like the butcher's boy every morning. The boss asked me to look after her and make myself useful during his absence." "Well," said Diana impatiently. "What's the message?" It did not interest her in the least to hear about the arrangements Max had made for Adrienne's convenience. "Miss de Gervais is having a reception--'Hans Breitmann gif a barty,' you know--" "Of course I know," broke in Diana irritably, "seeing that I'm asked to it." Jerry continued patiently. "And she wants you as a special favour to sing for her. As a matter of fact there are to be one or two bigwigs there whom she thinks it might be useful for you to meet--influence, you know," he added, waving his hand expansively, "push, shove, hacking, wire-pulling--" "Oh, be quiet, Jerry," interrupted Diana, laughing in spite of herself. "It's no good, you know. It's dear of Adrienne to think of it, but Baroni won't let me do it. He hasn't allowed me to sing anywhere this last year." "Doesn't want to take the cream off the milk, I suppose," said Jerry, with a grin. "But, as a matter of fact, he _has_ given permission this time. Miss de Gervais went to see him about it herself, and he's consented. I've got a letter for you from the old chap"--producing it as he spoke. "Adrienne is a marvel," said Diana, as she slit the flap of the envelope. "I'm sure Baroni would have refused any one else, but she seems to be able to twist him round her little finger." "Dear Mis Quentin"--Baroni had written in his funny, cramped handwriting--"You may sing for Miss de Gervais. I have seen the list of guests and it can do no harm--possibly a little good. Yours very sincerely, CARLO BARONI." "Miss de Gervais must have a 'way' with her," said Jerry meditatively. "I observe that even my boss always does her bidding like a lamb." Diana poured herself out a second cup of tea before she asked negligently:-- "When's your 'boss' returning? It seems to me he's allowing you to live the life of the idle rich. Will he be back for Adrienne's reception?" "No. About a week afterwards, I expect." "Where's he been?" "Oh, all over the shop--I've had letters from him from half the capitals in Europe. But he's been in Russia longest of all, I think." "Russia?"--musingly. "I suppose he isn't a Russian by any chance?" "I've never asked him," returned Jerry shortly. "He is certainly not pure English. Look at his high cheek-bones. And his temperament isn't English, either," she added, with a secret smile. Jerry remained silent. "Don't you think it's rather funny that we none of us know anything about him?--I mean beyond the mere fact that his name is Errington and that he's a well-known playwright." "Why do you want to know more?" growled Jerry. "Well, I think there is something behind, something odd about him. Olga Lermontof is always hinting that there is." "Look here, Diana," said Jerry, getting rather red. "Don't let's talk about Errington. You know we always get shirty with each other when we do. I'm not going to pry into his private concerns--and as for Miss Lermontof, she's the type of woman who simply revels in making mischief." "But it _is_ funny Mr. Errington should be so--so reserved about himself," persisted Diana. "Hasn't he ever told you anything?" "No, he has not," replied Jerry curtly. "Nor should I ever ask him to. I'm quite content to take him as I find him." "All the same, I believe Miss Lermontof knows something about him--something not quite to his credit." "I swear she doesn't," burst out Jerry violently. "Just because he doesn't choose to blab out all his private affairs to the world at large, that black-browed female Tartar must needs imagine he has something to conceal. It's damnable! I'd stake my life Errington's as straight as a die--and always has been." "You're a good friend, Jerry," said Diana, rather wistfully. "Yes, I am," he returned stoutly. "And so are you, as a rule. I can't think why you're so beastly unfair to Errington." "You forget," she said swiftly, "he's not my friend. And perhaps--he hasn't always been quite fair to me." "Oh, well, let's drop the subject now"--Jerry wriggled his broad shoulders uncomfortably. "Tell me, how are the Rector and--and Miss Stair?" The previous summer Jerry had spent a week at Red Gables, and had made Joan's acquaintance. Apparently the two had found each other's society somewhat absorbing, for Adrienne had laughingly declared that she didn't quite know whether Jerry were really staying at Red Gables or at the Rectory. "Pobs and Joan sent all sorts of nice messages for you," said Diana, smiling a little. "They're both coming up to town for my recital, you know." "Are they?"--eagerly. "Hurrah! . . . We must go on the bust when it's over. The concert will be in the afternoon, won't it?" Diana nodded. "Then we must have a commemoration dinner in the evening. Oh, why am I not a millionaire? Then I'd stand you all dinner at the 'Carlton.'" He was silent a moment, then went on quickly: "I shall have to make money somehow. A man can't marry on my screw as a secretary, you know." Diana hastily concealed a smile. "I didn't know you were contemplating matrimony," she observed. "I'm not"--reddening a little. "But--well, one day I expect I shall. It's quite the usual sort of thing--done by all the best people. But it can't be managed on two hundred a year! And that's the net amount of my princely income." "But I thought that your people had plenty of money?" "So they have--trucks of it. Coal-trucks!"--with a debonair reference to the fact that Leigh _père_ was a wealthy coal-owner. "But, you see, when I was having my fling, which came to such an abrupt end at Monte, the governor got downright ratty with me--kicked up no end of a shine. Told me not to darken his doors again, and that I might take my own road to the devil for all he cared, and generally played the part of the outraged parent. I must say," he added ingenuously, "that the old boy had paid my debts and set me straight a good many times before he _did_ cut up rusty." "You're the only child, aren't you?" Jerry nodded. "Oh, well then, of course he'll come round in time--they always do. I shouldn't worry a bit if I were you." "Well," said Jerry hesitatingly, "I did think that perhaps if I went to him some day with a certificate of good character and steady work from Errington, it might smooth matters a bit. I'm fond of the governor, you know, in spite of his damn bad temper--and it must be rather rotten for the old chap living all by himself at Abbotsleigh." "Yes, it must. One fine day you'll make it up with him, Jerry, and he'll slay the fatted calf and you'll have no end of a good time." Just then the clock of a neighbouring church chimed the half-hour, and Jerry jumped to his feet in a hurry. "My hat! Half-past six! I must be toddling. What a squanderer of unconsidered hours you are, Diana! . . . Well, by-bye, old girl; it's good to see you back in town. Then I may tell Miss de Gervais that you'll sing for her?" Diana nodded. "Of course I will. It will be a sort of preliminary canter for my recital." "And when that event comes off, you'll sail past the post lengths in front of any one else." And with that Jerry took his departure. A minute later Diana heard the front door bang, and from the window watched him striding along the street. He looked back, just before he turned the corner, and waved his hand cheerily. "Nice boy!" she murmured, and then set about her unpacking in good earnest. CHAPTER XII MAX ERRINGTON'S RETURN It was the evening of Adrienne's reception, and Diana was adding a few last touches to her toilette for the occasion. Bunty had been playing the part of lady's maid, and now they both stood back to observe the result of their labours. "You do look nice!" remarked Miss Bunting, in a tone of satisfaction. Diana glanced half-shyly into the long glass panel of the wardrobe door. There was something vivid and arresting about her to-night, as though she were tremulously aware that she was about to take the first step along her road as a public singer. A touch of excitement had added an unwonted brilliance to her eyes, while a faint flush came and went swiftly in her cheeks. Bunty, without knowing quite what it was that appealed, was suddenly conscious of the sheer physical charm of her. "You are rather wonderful," she said consideringly. A sense of the sharp contrast between them smote Diana almost painfully--she herself, young and radiant, holding in her slender throat a key that would unlock the doors of the whole world, and beside her the little boarding-house help, equally young, and with all youth's big demands pent up within her, yet ahead of her only a drab vista of other boarding-houses--some better, some worse, mayhap--but always eating the bread of servitude, her only possible way of escape by means of matrimony with some little underpaid clerk. And what had Bunty done to deserve so poor a lot? Hers was unquestionably by far the finer character of the two, as Diana frankly admitted to herself. In truth, the apparent injustices of fate made a riddle hard to read. "And you,"--Diana spoke impulsively--"you are the dearest thing imaginable. I wish you were coming with me." "I should like to hear you sing in those big rooms," acknowledged Bunty, a little wistfully. "When I give my recital you shall have a seat in the front row," Diana promised, as she picked up her gloves and music-case. A tap sounded at the door. "Are you ready?" inquired Olga Lermontof a voice from outside. Bunty opened the door. "Oh, come in, Miss Lermontof. Yes, Miss Quentin is quite ready, and I must run away now." Olga came in and stood for a moment looking at Diana. Then she deliberately stepped close to her, so that their reflections showed side by side in the big mirror. "Black and white angels--quite symbolical," she observed, with a short laugh. She was dressed entirely in black, and her sable figure made a startling foil to Diana's slender whiteness. "Nervous?" she asked laconically, noticing the restless tapping of the other's foot. "I believe I am," replied Diana, smiling a little. "You needn't be." "I should be terrified if anyone else were accompanying me. But, somehow, I think you always give me confidence when I'm singing." "Probably because I'm always firmly convinced of your ultimate success." "No, no. It isn't that. It's because you're the most perfect accompanist any one could have." Miss Lermontof swept her a mocking curtsey. "_Mille remercîments_!" Then she laughed rather oddly. "I believe you still have no conception of the glory of your voice, you queer child." "Is it really so good?" asked Diana, with the genuine artist's craving to be reassured. Olga Lermontof looked at her speculatively. "I suppose you can't understand it at present," she said, after a pause. "You will, though, when you've given a few concerts and seen its effect upon the audience. Now, come along; it's time we started." They found Adrienne's rooms fairly full, but not in the least overcrowded. The big double doors between the two drawing-rooms had been thrown open, and the tide of people flowed back and forth from one room to the other. A small platform had been erected at one end, and as Diana and Miss Lermontof entered, a French _diseuse_ was just ascending it preparatory to reciting in her native tongue. The recitation--vivid, accompanied by the direct, expressive gesture for which Mademoiselle de Bonvouloir was so famous--was followed at appropriate intervals by one or two items of instrumental music, and then Diana found herself mounting the little platform, and a hush descended anew upon the throng of people, the last eager chatterers twittering into silence as Olga Lermontof struck the first note of the song's prelude. Diana was conscious of a small sea of faces all turned towards her, most of them unfamiliar. She could just see Adrienne smiling at her from the back of the room, and near the double doors Jerry was standing next a tall man whose back was towards the platform as he bent to move aside a chair that was in the way. The next moment he had straightened himself and turned round, and with a sudden, almost agonising leap of the heart Diana saw that it was Max Errington. He had come back! After that first wild throb her heart seemed, to stand still, the room grew dark around her, and, she swayed a little where she stood. "Nervous!" murmured one man to another, beneath his breath. Olga Lermontof had finished the prelude, and, finding that Diana had failed to come in, composedly recommenced it. Diana was dimly conscious of the repetition, and then the mist gradually cleared away from before her eyes, and this time, when the accompanist played the bar of her entry, the habit of long practice prevailed and she took up the voice part with accurate precision. The hush deepened in the room. Perhaps the very emotion under which Diana was labouring added to the charm of her wonderful voice--gave it an indescribable appeal which held the critical audience, familiar with all the best that the musical world could offer, spell-bound. When she ceased, and the last exquisite note had vibrated into silence, the enthusiasm of the applause that broke out would have done justice to a theatre pit audience rather than to a more or less blasé society crowd. And when the whisper went round that this was to be her only song--that Baroni had laid his veto upon her singing twice--the clapping and demands for an encore were redoubled. Olga Lermontof's eyes, roaming over the room, rested at last upon the face of Max Errington, and with the recollection of Diana's hesitancy at the beginning of the song a brief smile flashed across her face. "What shall I do?" Diana, who had bowed repeatedly without stemming the applause, turned to the accompanist, a little flushed with the thrill of this first public recognition of her gifts. "Sing 'The Haven of Memory,'" whispered Olga. It was a sad little love lyric which Baroni himself had set to music specially for the voice of his favourite pupil, and as Diana's low rich notes took up the plaintive melody, the audience settled itself down with a sigh of satisfaction to listen once more. Do you remember Our great love's pure unfolding, The troth you gave, And prayed for God's upholding, Long and long ago? Out of the past A dream--and then the waking-- Comes back to me, Of love and love's forsaking Ere the summer waned. Ah! let me dream That still a little kindness Dwelt in the smile That chid my foolish blindness, When you said good-bye. Let me remember, When I am very lonely, How once your love But crowned and blessed me only, Long and long ago! [1] The haunting melody ceased, and an infinitesimal pause ensued before the clapping broke out. It was rather subdued this time; more than one pair of eyes were looking at the singer through the grey mist of memory. An old lady with very white hair and a reputation for a witty tongue that had been dipped in vinegar came up to Diana as she descended from the platform. "My dear," she said, and the keen old eyes were suddenly blurred and dim. "I want to thank you. One is apt to forget--when one is very lonely--that we've most of us worn love's crown just once--if only for a few moments of our lives. . . . And it's good to be reminded of it, even though it may hurt a little." "That was the Dowager Duchess of Linfield," murmured Olga, when the old lady had moved away again. "They say she was madly in love with an Italian opera singer in the days of her youth. But, of course, at that time he was quite unknown and altogether ineligible, so she married the late Duke, who was old enough to be her father. By the time he died the opera singer was dead, too." That was Diana's first taste of the power of a beautiful voice to unlock the closed chambers of the heart where lie our hidden memories--the long pain of years, sometimes unveiled to those whose gifts appeal directly to the emotions. It sobered her a little. This, then, she thought, this leaf of rue that seemed to bring the sadness of the world so close, was interwoven with the crown of laurel. "Won't you say how do you do to me, Miss Quentin? I've been deputed by Miss de Gervais to see that you have some supper after breaking all our hearts with your singing." Diana, roused from her thoughts, looked up to see Max Errington regarding her with the old, faintly amused mockery in his eyes. She shook hands. "I don't believe you've got a heart to break," she retorted, smiling. "Oh, mine was broken long before I heard you sing. Otherwise I would not answer for the consequences of that sad little song of yours. What is it called?" "'The Haven of Memory,'" replied Diana, as Errington skilfully piloted her to a small table standing by itself in an alcove of the supper-room. "What a misleading name! Wouldn't 'The _Hell_ of Memory' be more appropriate--more true to life?" "I suppose," answered Diana soberly, "that it might appear differently to different people." "You mean that the garden of memory may have several aspects--like a house? I'm afraid mine faces north. Yours, I expect, is full of spring flowers"--smiling a little quizzically. "With the addition of a few weeds," she answered. "Weeds? Surely not? Who planted them there?" His keen, penetrating eyes were fixed on her face. Diana was silent, her fingers trifling nervously with the salt in one of the little silver cruets, first piling it up into a tiny mound, and then flattening it down again and patterning its surface with criss-cross lines. There was no one near. In the alcove Errington had chosen, the two were completely screened from the rest of the room by a carved oak pillar and velvet curtains. He laid his hand over the restless fingers, holding them in a sure, firm clasp that brought back vividly to her mind the remembrance of that day when he had helped her up the steps of the quayside at Crailing. "Diana"--his voice deepened a little--"am I responsible for any of the weeds in your garden?" Her hand trembled a little under his. After a moment she threw back her head defiantly and met his glance. "Perhaps there's a stinging-nettle or two labelled with your name," she answered lightly. "The Nettlewort Erringtonia," she added, smiling. Diana was growing up rapidly. "I suppose," he said slowly, "you wouldn't believe me if I told you that I'm sorry--that I'd uproot them if I could?" She looked away from him in silence. He could not see her expression, only the pure outline of her cheek and a little pulse that was beating rapidly in her throat. With a sudden, impetuous movement he released her hand, almost flinging it from him. "My application for the post of gardener is refused, I see," he said. "And quite rightly, too. It was great presumption on my part. After all"--with bitter mockery--"what are a handful of nettles in the garden of a _prima donna_? They'll soon be stifled beneath the wreaths of laurel and bouquets that the world will throw you. You'll never even feel their sting." "You are wrong," said Diana, very low, "quite wrong. They _have_ stung me. Mr. Errington"--and as she turned to him he saw that her eyes were brimming with tears--"why can't we be friends? You--you have helped me so many times that I don't understand why you treat me now . . . almost as though I were an enemy?" "An enemy? . . . You!" "Yes," she said steadily. He was silent. "I don't wish to be," she went on, an odd wistfulness in her voice. "Can't we--be friends?" Errington pushed his plate aside abruptly. "You don't know what you're offering me," he said, in hurrying tones. "If I could only take it! . . . But I've no right to make friends--no right. I think I've been singled out by fate to live alone." "Yet you are friends with Miss de Gervais," she said quickly. "I write plays for her," he replied evasively. "So that we are obliged to see a good deal of each other." "And apparently you don't want to be friends with me." "There can be little in common between a mere quill-driver and--a _prima donna_." She turned on him swiftly. "You seem to forget that at present you are a famous dramatist, while I am merely a musical student." "You divested yourself of that title for ever this evening," he returned, "It was no 'student' who sang 'The Haven of Memory.'" "All the same I shall have to study for a long time yet, Baroni tells me,"--smiling a little. "In that sense a great artiste is always a student. But what I meant by saying that a mere writer has no place in a prima donna's life was that, whereas my work is more or less a hobby, and my little bit of 'fame'--as you choose to call it--merely a side-issue, _your_ work will be your whole existence. You will live for it entirely--your art and the world's recognition of it will absorb every thought. There will be no room in your life for the friendship of insignificant people like myself." "Try me," she said demurely. He swung round on her with a sudden fierceness. "By God!" he exclaimed. "If you knew the temptation . . . if you knew how I long to take what you offer!" She smiled at him--a slow, sweet smile that curved her mouth, and climbing to her eyes lit them with a soft radiance. "Well?" she said quietly. "Why not?" He got up abruptly, and going to the window, stood with his back to her, looking out into the night. She watched him consideringly. Intuitively she knew that he was fighting a battle with himself. She had always been conscious of the element of friction in their intercourse. This evening it had suddenly crystallised into a definite realisation that although this man desired to be her friend--Truth, at the bottom of her mental well, whispered perhaps even something more--he was caught back, restrained by the knowledge of some obstacle, some hindrance to their friendship of which she was entirely ignorant. She waited in silence. Presently he turned back to her, and she gathered from his expression that he had come to a decision. In the moment that elapsed before he spoke she had time to be aware of a sudden, almost breathless anxiety, and instinctively she let her lids fall over her eyes lest he should read and understand the apprehension in them. "Diana." His voice came gently and gravely to her ears. With an effort she looked up and found him regarding her with eyes from which all the old ironical mockery had fled. They were very steady and kind--kinder than she had ever believed it possible for them to be. Her throat contracted painfully, and she stretched out her hand quickly, pleadingly, like a child. He took it between both his, holding it with the delicate care one accords a flower, as though fearful of hurting it. "Diana, I'm going to accept--what you offer me. Heaven knows I've little right to! There are . . . worlds between you, and me. . . . But if a man dying of thirst in the desert finds a pool--a pool of crystal water--is he to be blamed if he drinks--if he quenches his thirst for a moment? He knows the pool is not his--never can he his. And when the rightful owner comes along--why, he'll go away, back to the loneliness of the desert again. But he'll always remember that his lips have once drunk from the pool--and been refreshed." Diana spoke very low and wistfully. "He--he must go back to the desert?" Errington bent his head. "He must go back," he answered. "The gods have decreed him outcast from life's pleasant places; he is ordained to wander alone--always." Diana drew her hand suddenly away from his, and the hasty movement knocked over the little silver salt-cellar on the table, scattering the salt on the cloth between them. "Oh!" she cried, flushing with distress. "I've spilled the salt between us--we shall quarrel." The electricity in the atmosphere was gone, and Errington laughed gaily. "I'm not afraid. See,"--he filled their glasses with wine--"let's drink to our compact of friendship." He raised his glass, clinking it gently against hers, and they drank. But as Diana replaced her glass on the table, she looked once more in a troubled way at the little heap of salt that lay on the white cloth. "I wish I hadn't spilled it," she said uncertainly. "It's an ill omen. Some day we shall quarrel." Her eyes were grave and brooding, as though some prescience of evil weighed upon her. Errington lifted his glass, smiling. "Far be the day," he said lightly. But her eyes, meeting his, were still clouded with foreboding. [1] This song, "The Haven of Memory," has been set to music by Isador Epstein: published by G. Ricordi & Co., 265 Regent Street, W. CHAPTER XIII THE FRIEND WHO STOOD BY As the day fixed for her recital approached, Diana became a prey to intermittent attacks of nerves. "Supposing I should fail?" she would sometimes exclaim, in a sudden spasm of despair. Then Baroni would reply quite contentedly:-- "My dear Mees Quentin, you will not fail. God has given you the instrument, and I, Baroni, I haf taught you how to use it. _Gran Dio_! Fail!" This last accompanied by a snort of contempt. Or it might be Olga Lermontof to whom Diana would confide her fears. She, equally with the old _maestro_, derided the possibility of failure, and there was something about her cool assurance of success that always sufficed to steady Diana's nerves, at least for the time being. "As I have you to accompany me," Diana told her one day, when she was ridiculing the idea of failure, "I may perhaps get through all right. I simply _lean_ on you when I'm singing. I feel like a boat floating on deep water--almost as though I couldn't sink." "Well, you can't." Miss Lermontof spoke with conviction. "I shan't break down--I could play everything you sing blindfold!--and your voice is . . . Oh, well"--hastily--"I can't talk about your voice. But I believe I could forgive you anything in the world when you sing." Diana stared at her in surprise. She had no idea that Olga was particularly affected by her singing. "It's rather absurd, isn't it?" continued the Russian, a mocking light in her eyes that somehow reminded Diana of Max Errington. "But there it is. A little triangular box in your throat and a breath of air from your lungs--and immediately you hold one's heart in your hands!" Alan Stair and Joan came up to London the day before that on which the recital was to take place, since Diana had insisted that they must fix their visit so that the major part of it should follow, instead of preceding the concert. "For"--as she told them--"if I fail, it will be nice to have you two dear people to console me, and if I succeed, I shall be just in the right mood to take a holiday and play about with you both. Whereas until my fate is sealed, one way or the other, I shall be like a bear with a sore head." But when the day actually arrived her nervousness completely vanished, and she drove down to the hall composedly as though she were about to appear at her fiftieth concert rather than at her first. Olga Lermontof regarded her with some anxiety. She would have preferred her to show a little natural nervous excitement beforehand; there would be less danger of a sudden attack of stage-fright at the last moment. Baroni was in the artistes' room when they arrived, outwardly cool, but inwardly seething with mingled pride and excitement and vicarious apprehension. He hurried forward to greet them, shaking Diana by both hands and then leading her up to the great French pianist, Madame Berthe Louvigny. The latter was a tall, grave-looking woman, with a pair of the most lustrous brown eyes Diana had ever seen. They seemed to glow with a kind of inward fire under the wide brow revealed beneath the sweep of her dark hair. "So thees ees your wonder-pupil, Signor," she said, her smile radiating kindness and good-humour. "Mademoiselle, I weesh you all the success that I know Signor Baroni hopes for you." She talked very rapidly, with a strong foreign accent, and her gesture was so expressive that one felt it was almost superfluous to add speech to the quick, controlled movement. Hands, face, shoulders--she seemed to speak with her whole body, yet without conveying any impression of restlessness. There was not a single meaningless movement; each added point to the rapid flow of speech, throwing it into vivid relief like the shading of a picture. While she was still chatting to Diana, a slender man with bright hair tossed back over a finely shaped head came into the artistes' room, carrying in his hand a violin-case which he deposited on the table with as much care as though it were a baby. He shook hands with Olga Lermontof, and then Baroni swept him into his net. "Kirolski, let me present you to Miss Quentin. She will one day stand amongst singers where you stand amongst the world's violinists." Kirolski bowed, and glanced smilingly from Baroni to Diana. "I've no doubt Miss Quentin will do more than that," he said. "A friend of mine heard her sing at Miss de Gervais' reception not long ago, and he has talked of nothing else ever since. I am very pleased to meet you, Miss Quentin." And he bowed again. Diana was touched by the simple, unaffected kindness of the two great artistes who were to assist at her recital. It surprised her a little; she had anticipated the disparaging, almost inimical attitude towards a new star so frequently credited to professional musicians, and had steeled herself to meet it with indifference. She forgot that when you are at the top of the tree there is little cause for envy or heart-burning, and graciousness becomes an easy habit. It is in the struggle to reach the top that the ugly passions leap into life. Presently there came sounds of clapping from the body of the hall; some of the audience were growing impatient, and the news that there was a packed house filtered into the artistes' room. Almost as in a dream Diana watched Kirolski lift his violin from its cushiony bed and run his fingers lightly over the strings in a swift arpeggio. Then he tightened his bow and rubbed the resin along its length of hair, while Olga Lermontof looked through a little pile of music for the duet for violin and piano with which the recital was to commence. The outbreaks of clapping from in front grew more persistent, culminating in a veritable roar of welcome as Kirolski led the pianist on to the platform. Then came a breathless, expectant silence, broken at last by the stately melody of the first movement. To Diana it seemed as though the duet were very quickly over, and although the applause and recalls were persistent, no encore was given. Then she saw Olga Lermontof mounting the platform steps preparatory to accompanying Kirolski's solo, and with a sudden violent reaction from her calm composure she realised that the following item on the programme must be the first group of her own songs. For an instant the room swayed round her, then with a little gasp she clutched Baroni's arm. "I can't do it! . . . I can't do it!" Her voice was shaking, and every drop of colour had drained away from her face. Baroni turned instantly, his eyes full of concern. "My dear, but that is nonsense. You _cannot help_ doing it--you know those songs inside out and upside down. You need haf no fear. Do not think about it at all. Trust your voice--it will sing what it knows." But Diana still clung helplessly to his arm, shivering from head to foot, and Madame de Louvigny hurried across the room and joined her assurances to those of the old _maestro_. She also added a liqueur-glass of brandy to her soothing, encouraging little speeches, but Diana refused the former with a gesture of repugnance, and seemed scarcely to hear the latter. She was dazed by sheer nervous terror, and stood there with her hands tightly clasped together, her body rigid and taut with misery. Baroni was nearly demented. If she should fail to regain her nerve the whole concert would he a disastrous fiasco. Possible headlines from the morrow's newspapers danced before his eyes: "NERVOUS COLLAPSE OF MISS DIANA QUENTIN," "SIGNOR BARONI'S NEW PRIMA DONNA FAILS TO MATERIALISE." "_Diavolo_!" he exclaimed distractedly. "But what shall we do? What shall we do?" "What is the matter?" At the sound of the cool, level tones the little agitated group of three in the artistes' room broke asunder, and Baroni hurried towards the newcomer. "Mr. Errington, we are in despair--" And with a gesture towards Diana he briefly explained the predicament. Max nodded, his keen eyes considering the shrinking figure leaning against the wall. "Don't worry, Baroni," he said quietly. "I'll pull her round." Then, as a burst of applause crashed out from the hall, he whispered hastily: "Get Kirolski to give an encore. It will allow her a little more time." Baroni nodded, and a minute or two later the audience was cheering the violinist's reappearance, whilst Errington strode across the room to Diana's side. "How d'you do?" he said, holding out his hand exactly as though nothing in the world were the matter. "I thought you'd allow me to come round and wish you luck, so here I am." He spoke in such perfectly normal, everyday tones that unconsciously Diana's rigid muscles relaxed, and she extended her hand in response. "I'm feeling sick with fright," she replied, giving him a wavering smile. Max laughed easily. "Of course. Otherwise you wouldn't be the artiste that you are. But it will all go the moment you're on the platform." She looked up at him with a faint hope in her eyes. "Do you really think so?" she whispered. "I'm sure. It always does," he lied cheerfully. "I'll tell you who is far more nervous than you are, and that's the Rector. Miss Stair and Jerry were almost forcibly holding him down in his seat when I left them. He's disposed to bolt out of the hall and await results at the hotel." Diana laughed outright. "How like him! Poor Pobs!" "You'd better give him a special smile when you get on the platform to reassure him," continued Max, his blue eyes smiling down at her. The violin solo had drawn to a close--Kirolski had already returned a third time to bow his acknowledgments--and Errington was relieved to see that the look of strain had gone out of her face, although she still appeared rather pale and shaken. One or two friends of the violinist's were coming in at the door of the artistes' room as Olga Lermontof preceded him down the platform steps. There was a little confusion, the sound of a fall, and simultaneously some one inadvertently pushed the door to. The next minute the accompanist was the centre of a small crowd of anxious, questioning people. She had tripped and stumbled to her knees on the threshold of the room, and, as she instinctively stretched out her hand to save herself, the door had swung hack trapping two of her fingers in the hinge. A hubbub of dismay arose. Olga was white with pain, and her hand was so badly squeezed and bruised that it was quite obvious she would be unable to play any more that day. "I'm so sorry, Miss Quentin," she murmured faintly. In her distress about the accident, Diana had for the moment overlooked the fact that it would affect her personally, but now, as Olga's words reminded her that the accompanist on whom she placed such utter reliance would be forced to cede her place to a substitute, her former nervousness returned with redoubled force. It began to look as though she would really be unable to appear, and Baroni wrung his hands in despair. It was a moment for speedy action. The audience were breaking into impatient clapping, and from the back of the hall came an undertone of stamping, and the sound of umbrellas banging on the floor. Errington turned swiftly to Diana. "Will you trust me with the accompaniments?" he said, his blue eyes fixed on hers. "You?" she faltered. "Yes. I swear I won't fail you." His voice dropped to a lower note, but his dominating eyes still held her. "See, you offered me your friendship. Trust me now. Let me 'stand by,' as a friend should." There was an instant's pause, then suddenly Diana bent her head in acquiescence. "Thank heaven! thank heaven!" exclaimed Baroni, wringing Max's hand. "You haf saved the situation, Mr. Errington." A minute later Diana found herself mounting the platform steps, her hand in Max's. His close, firm clasp steadied and reassured her. Again she was aware of that curious sense of well-being, as of leaning on some sure, unfailing strength, which the touch of his hand had before inspired. As he led her on to the platform she met his eyes, full of a kind good-comradeship and confidence. "All right?" he whispered cheerfully. A little comforting warmth crept about her heart. She was not alone, facing all those hundreds of curious, critical eyes in the hall below; there was a friend "standing by." She nodded to him reassuringly, suddenly conscious of complete self-mastery. She no longer feared those ranks of upturned faces, row upon row, receding into shadow at the further end of the hall, and she bowed composedly in response to the applause that greeted her. Then she heard Max strike the opening chord of the song, and a minute later the big concert-hall was thrilling to the matchless beauty of her voice, as it floated out on to the waiting stillness. The five songs of the group followed each other in quick succession, the clapping that broke out between each of them only checking so that the next one might be heard, but when the final number had been given, and the last note had drifted tenderly away into silence, the vast audience rose to its feet almost as one man, shouting and clapping and waving in a tumultuous outburst of enthusiasm. Diana stood quite still, almost frightened by the uproar, until Max touched her arm and escorted her off the platform. In the artistes' room every one crowded round her pouring out congratulations. Baroni seized both her hands and kissed them; then he kissed her cheek, the tears in his eyes. And all the time came the thunder of applause from the auditorium, beating up in steady, rhythmic waves of sound. "Go!--Go back, my child, and bow." Baroni impelled her gently towards the door. "_Gran Dio_! What a success! . . . What a voice of heaven!" Rather nervously, Diana mounted the platform once more, stepping forward a little shyly; her cheeks were flushed, and her wonderful eyes shone like grey stars. A fillet of pale green leaves bound her smoke-black hair, and the slender, girlish figure in its sea-green gown, touched here and there with gold embroidery, reminded one of spring, and the young green and gold of daffodils. Instantly the applause redoubled. People were surging forward towards the platform, pressing round an unfortunate usher who was endeavouring to hand up a sheaf of roses to the singer. Diana bowed, and bowed again. Then she stooped and accepted the roses, and a fresh burst of clapping ensued. A wreath of laurel, and a huge bunch of white heather, for luck, followed the sheaf of roses, and finally, her arms full of flowers, smiling, bowing still, she escaped from the platform. Back again in the artistes' room, she found that a number of her friends in front had come round to offer their congratulations. Alan Stair and Joan, Jerry, and Adrienne de Gervais were amongst them, and Diana at once became the centre of a little excited throng, all laughing and talking and shaking her by the hand. Every one seemed to be speaking at once, and behind it all still rose and fell the cannonade of shouts and clapping from the hall. Four times Diana returned to the platform to acknowledge the tremendous ovation which her singing had called forth, and at length, since Baroni forbade an encore until after her second group of songs, Madame de Louvigny went on to give her solo. "They weel not want to hear me--after you, Mees Quentin," she said laughingly. But the British public is always very faithful to its favourites, and the audience, realising at last that the new singer was not going to bestow an encore, promptly exerted itself to welcome the French pianist in a befitting manner. When Diana reappeared for her second group of song's the excitement was intense. Whilst she was singing a pin could have been heard to fall; it almost seemed as though the huge concourse of people held its breath so that not a single note of the wonderful voice should be missed, and when she ceased there fell a silence--that brief silence, like a sigh of ecstasy, which, is the greatest tribute that any artiste can receive. Then, with a crash like thunder, the applause broke out once more, and presently, reappearing with the sheaf of roses in her hand, Diana sang "The Haven of Memory" as an encore. Let me remember, When I am very lonely, How once your love But crowned and blessed roe only, Long and long ago. The plaintive rhythm died away and the clapping which succeeded it was quieter, less boisterous, than hitherto. Some people were crying openly, and many surreptitiously wiped away a tear or so in the intervals of applauding. The audience was shaken by the tender, sorrowful emotion of the song, its big, sentimental British heart throbbing to the haunting quality of the most beautiful voice in Europe. Diana herself had tears in her eyes. She was experiencing for the first time the passionate exultation born of the knowledge that she could sway the hearts of a multitude by the sheer beauty of her singing--an abiding recompense bestowed for all the sacrifices which art demands from those who learn her secrets. Her fingers, gripping with unconscious intensity the flowers she held, detached a white rose from the sheaf, and it had barely time to reach the floor before a young man from the audience, eager-eyed, his face pale with excitement, sprang forward and snatched it up from beneath her feet. In an instant there was an uproar. Men and women lost their heads and clambered up on to the platform, pressing round the singer, besieging her for a spray of leaves or a flower from the sheaf she carried. Some even tried to secure a bit of the gold embroidery from off her gown by way of memento. "Oh, please . . . please . . ." A crowd that is overwrought, either by anger or enthusiasm, is a difficult thing to handle, and Diana retreated desperately, frightened by the storm she had evoked. One man was kneeling beside her, rapturously kissing the hem of her gown, and the eager, excited faces, the outstretched hands, the vision of the surging throng below, and the tumult and clamour that filled the concert-hall terrified her. Suddenly a strong arm intervened between her and the group of enthusiasts who were flocking round her, and she found that she was being quietly drawn aside into safety. Max Errington's tall form had interposed itself between her and her too eager worshippers. With a little gasp of relief she let him lead her down the steps of the platform and back into the comparative calm of the artistes' room, while two of the ushers hurried forward and dispersed the memento-seekers, shepherding them back into the hall below, so that the concert might continue. The latter part of the programme was heard with attention, but not even the final _duo_ for violin and piano, exquisite though it was, succeeded in rousing the audience to a normal pitch of fervour again. Emotion and enthusiasm were alike exhausted, and now that Diana's share in the recital was over, the big assemblage of people listened to the remaining numbers much as a child, tired with play, may listen to a lullaby--placidly appreciative, but without overwhelming excitement. "Well, what did I tell you?" demanded Jerry, triumphantly, of the little party of friends who gathered together for tea in Diana's sitting-room, when at length the great event of the afternoon was over. "What did I tell you? . . . I said Diana would just romp past the post--all the others nowhere. And behold! It came to pass." "It's a good thing Madame Louvigny and Kirolski can't hear you," observed Joan sagely. "They've probably got quite nice natures, but you'd strain the forbearance of an early Christian martyr, Jerry. Besides, you needn't be so fulsome to Diana; it isn't good for her." Jerry retorted with spirit, and the two drifted into a pleasant little wrangle--the kind of sparring match by which youths and maidens frequently endeavour to convince themselves, and the world at large, of the purely Platonic nature of their sentiments. Bunty, who had rejoiced in her promised seat in the front row at the concert, was hurrying to and fro, a maid-servant in attendance, bringing in tea, while Mrs. Lawrence, who had also been the recipient of a complimentary ticket, looked in for a few minutes to felicitate the heroine of the day. She mentally patted herself on the back for the discernment she had evinced in making certain relaxations of her stringent rules in favour of this particular boarder. It was quite evident that before long Miss Quentin would be distinctly a "personage," shedding a delectable effulgence upon her immediate surroundings, and Mrs. Lawrence was firmly decided that, if any effort of hers could compass it, those surroundings should continue to be No. 34 Brutton Square. Diana herself looked tired but irrepressibly happy. Now that it was all over, and success assured, she realised how intensely she had dreaded the ordeal of this first recital. Olga Lermontof, her injured hand resting in a sling, chaffed her with some amusement. "I suppose, at last, you're beginning to understand that your voice is really something out of the ordinary," she said. "Its effect on the audience this afternoon is a better criterion than all the notices in to-morrow's newspapers put together." Diana laughed. "Well, I hope it won't make a habit of producing that effect!" she said, pulling a little face of disgust at the recollection. "I don't know what would have happened if Mr. Errington hadn't come to my rescue." Max smiled across at her. "You'd have been torn to bits and the pieces distributed amongst the audience--like souvenir programmes--I imagine," he replied. Then, turning towards the accompanist, he continued: "How does your hand feel now, Miss Lermontof?" There was a curious change in his voice as he addressed the Russian, and Diana, glancing quickly towards her, surprised a strangely wistful look in her eyes as they rested upon Errington's face. "Oh, it is much better. I shall be able to play again in a few days. But it was fortunate you were at the concert to-day, and able to take my place." "So you approve of me--for once?" he queried, with a rather twisted little smile. Olga remained silent for a moment, her eyes searching his face. Then she said very deliberately:-- "I am glad you were able to play for Miss Quentin." "But you won't commit yourself so far as to say that I have your approval--even once?" Miss Lermontof leaned forward impetuously. "How can I?" she said, in hurried tones, "It's all wrong--oh! you know that it's all wrong." Errington shrugged his shoulders. "I'm afraid we can never see eye to eye," he answered. "Let us, then, be philosophical over the matter and agree to differ." Olga's green eyes flamed with sudden anger, but she abstained from making any reply, turning away from him abruptly. Diana, whose attention had been claimed by the Rector, had not caught the quickly spoken sentences which had passed between the two, but she was puzzled over the oddly yearning look she had surprised in Olga's eyes. There had been a tenderness, a species of wistful longing in her gaze, as she had turned towards Max Errington, which tallied ill with the bitter incisiveness of the remarks she let fall at times concerning him. "Well, my dear"--the Rector's voice recalled Diana's wandering thoughts--"Joan and I must be getting back to our hotel, if we are to be dressed in time for the dinner Miss de Gervais is giving in your honour to-night." Diana glanced at the clock and nodded. "Indeed you must, Pobs darling. And I will send away these other good people too. As we're all going to meet again at dinner we can bear to be separated for an hour or so--even Jerry and Joan, I suppose?" she added whimsically, in a lower tone. "It's invidious to mention names," murmured Stair, "or I might--" Diana laid her hand lightly across his mouth. "No, you mightn't," she said firmly. "Put on your coat and that nice squashy hat of yours, and trot back to your hotel like a good Pobs." Stair laughed, looking down at her with kind eyes. "Very well, little autocrat." He put his hand under her chin and tilted her face up. "I've not congratulated you yet, my dear. It's a big thing you've done--captured London in a day. But it's a bigger thing you'll have to do." "You mean Paris--Vienna?" He shook his head, still with the kind smile in his eyes. "No. I mean, keep me the little Diana I love--don't let me lose her in the public singer." "Oh, Pobs!"--reproachfully. "As though I should ever change!" "Not deliberately--not willingly, I'm sure. But--success is a difficult sea to swim." He sighed, kissed her upturned face, and then, with twist of his shoulders, pulled on his overcoat and prepared to depart. Success is exhilarating. It goes to the head like wine, and yet, as Diana lay in bed that night, staring with wide eyes into the darkness, the memory that stood out in vivid relief from amongst the crowded events of the day was not the triumph of the afternoon, nor the merry evening which succeeded it, when "the coming _prima donna_" had been toasted amid a fusillade of brilliant little speeches and light-hearted laughter, but the remembrance of a pair of passionate, demanding blue eyes and of a low, tense voice saying:-- "I swear I won't fail you. Let me 'stand by.'" CHAPTER XIV THE FLAME OF LOVE Diana's gaze wandered idly over the blue stretch of water, as it lay beneath the blazing August sun, while the sea-gulls, like streaks of white light, wheeled through the shimmering haze of the atmosphere. Her hands were loosely clasped around her knees, and a little evanescent smile played about her lips. Behind her, the great red cliffs of Culver Point reared up against the sapphire of the sky, and she was thinking dreamily of that day, nearly eighteen months ago, when she had been sitting in the self-same place, leaning against the self-same rock, whilst a grey waste of water crept hungrily up to her very feet, threatening to claim her as its prey. And then Errington had come, and straightway all the danger was passed. Looking back, it seemed as though that had always been the way of things. Some menace had arisen, either by land or sea--or even, as at her recital, out of the very intensity of feeling which her singing had inspired--and immediately Max had intervened and the danger had been averted. She laid her hand caressingly on the sun-warmed surface of the rock. How many things had happened since she had last leaned against its uncomfortable excrescences! She felt quite affectionately towards it, as one who has journeyed far may feel towards some old landmark of his youth which he finds unaltered on his return, from wandering in strange lands. The immutability of _things_, as compared with the constant fluctuation of life and circumstance, struck her poignantly. Here was this rock--cast up from the bowels of the earth thousands of years ago and washed by the waves of a million tides--still unchanged and changeless, while, for her, the face of the whole world had altered in little more than a year! From a young girl-student, one insignificant person among scores of others similarly insignificant, she had become a prominent personality, some one in whom even the great, busy, hurrying world paused to take an interest, and of whom the newspapers wrote eulogistic notices, heralding her as the coming English _prima donna_. She felt rather like a mole which has been working quietly in the dark, tunnelling a passage for itself, unseen and unsuspected, and which has suddenly emerged above the surface of the earth, much to its own--and every one else's--astonishment! Then, too, how utterly changed were her relations with Max Errington! At the beginning of their acquaintance he had held himself deliberately aloof, but since that evening at Adrienne de Gervais' house, when they had formed a compact of friendship, he had, apparently, completely blotted out from his mind the remembrance of the obstacle, whatever it might be, which he had contended must render any friendship between them out of the question. And during these last few months Diana had gradually come to know the lofty strain of idealism which ran through the man's whole nature. Passionate, obstinate, unyielding--he could be each and all in turn, but, side by side with these exterior characteristics, there ran a streak of almost feminine delicacy of perception and ideality of purpose. Diana had once told him, laughingly, that he was of the stuff of which martyrs were made in the old days of persecution, and in this she had haphazard lit upon the fundamental force that shaped his actions. The burden which fate, or his own deeds, might lay upon his shoulders, that he would bear, be it what it might. "Everything's got to be paid for," he had said one day. "It's inevitable. So what's the use of jibing at the price?" Diana wondered whether the price of that mysterious something which lay in his past, and which not even intimate friendship had revealed to her, would mean that this comradeship must always remain only that--and never anything more? A warm flush mounted to her face as the unbidden thought crept into her mind. Errington had been down at Crailing most of the summer, staying at Red Gables, and during the long, lazy days they had spent together, motoring, or sailing, or tramping over Dartmoor with the keen moorland air, like sparkling wine, in their nostrils, it seemed as though a deeper note had sounded than merely that of friendship. And yet he had said nothing, although his eyes had spoken--those vivid blue eyes which sometimes blazed with a white heat of smouldering passion that set her heart racing madly within her. She flinched shyly away from her own thoughts, pulling restlessly at the dried weed which clung about the surface of the rock. A little brown crab ran out from a crevice, and, terrified by the big human hand which he espied meddling with the clump of weed and threatening to interfere with the liberty of the subject, skedaddled sideways into the safety of another cranny. The hurried rush of the little live thing roused Diana from her day-dreams, and looking up, she saw Max coming to her across the sands. She watched the proud, free gait of the tall figure with appreciation in her eyes. There was something very individual and characteristic about Max's walk--a suggestion as of immense vitality held in check, together with a certain air of haughty resolution and command. "I thought I might find you here," he said, when they had shaken hands. "Did you want me?" He looked at her with a curious expression in his eyes. "I always want you, I think," he said simply. "Well, you seem to have a faculty for always turning up when _I_ want _you_," she replied. "I was just thinking how often you had appeared in the very nick of time. Seriously"--her voice took on a graver note--"I feel I can't ever repay you.--you've come to my help so often." "There is a way," he said, very low, and then fell silent. "Tell me," she urged him, smilingly. "I like to pay my debts." He made no answer, and Diana, suddenly nervous and puzzled, continued a little breathlessly:-- "Have I--have I offended you? I--I thought"--her lips quivered--"we had agreed to be friends." Max was silent a moment. Then he said slowly:-- "I can't keep that compact." Diana's heart contracted with a sudden fear. "Can't keep it?" she repeated dully. She could not picture her life--no--robbed of this friendship! "No." His hands hung clenched at his sides, and he stood staring at her from beneath bent brows, his mouth set in a straight line. It was as though he were holding himself under a rigid restraint, against which something within him battled, striving for release. All at once his control snapped. "I love you! . . . God in heaven! Haven't you guessed it?" The words broke from him like a bitter cry--the cry of a heart torn in twain by love and thwarted longing. Diana felt the urgency of its demand thrill through her whole being. "Max . . ." It was the merest whisper, reaching his ears like the touch of a butterfly's wing--hesitantly shy, and honey-sweet with the promise of summer. The next instant his arms were round her and he was holding her as though he would never let her go, passionately kissing the soft mouth, so close beneath his own. He lifted her off her feet, crushing her to him, and Diana, the woman in her definitely, vividly aroused at last, clung to him yielding, but half-terrified by the tempest of emotion she had waked. "My beloved! . . . _My soul_!" His voice was vehement with the love and passion at length unleashed from bondage; his kisses hurt her. There was something torrential, overwhelming, in his imperious wooing. He held her with the fierce, possessive grip of primitive man claiming the chosen woman as his mate. She struggled faintly against him. "Ah! Max--Max . . . . Let me go. You're frightening me." She heard him draw his breath hard, and then slowly, reluctantly, as though by a sheer effort of will, he set her down. He was white to the lips, and his eyes glowed like blue flame in their pallid setting. "Frighten you!" he repeated hoarsely. "You don't know what love means--you English." Diana stared at him. "'You English!' What--what are you saying? Max, aren't you English after all?" He threw back his head with a laugh. "Oh, yes, I'm English. But I'm something else as well. . . . There's warmer blood in my veins, and I can't love like an Englishman. Oh, Diana, heart's beloved, let me teach you what love is!" Impetuously he caught her in his arms again, and once more she felt the storm of his passion sweep over her as he rained fierce kisses on eyes and throat and lips. For a space it seemed as if the whole world were blotted out and there were only they two alone together--shaken to the very foundations of their being by the tremendous force of the whirlwind of love which had engulfed them. When at length he released her, all her reserves were down. "Max . . . Max . . . I love you!" The confession fell from her lips with a timid, exquisite abandon. He was her mate and she recognised it. He had conquered her. Presently he put her from him, very gently, but decisively. "Diana, heart's dearest, there is something more--something I have not told you yet." She looked at him with sudden apprehension in her eyes. "Max! . . . Nothing--nothing that need come between us?" Memories of the past, of all the incomprehensible episodes of their acquaintance--his refusal to recognise her, his reluctance to accept her friendship--came crowding in upon her, threatening the destruction of her new-found happiness. "Not if you can be strong--not if you'll trust me." He looked at her searchingly. "Trust you? But I do trust you. Should I have . . . Oh, Max!" the warm colour dyed her face from chin to brow--"Could I love you if I didn't trust you?" There was a tender, almost compassionate expression in his eyes as he answered, rather sadly:-- "Ah, my dear, we don't know what 'trust' really means until we are called upon to give it. . . . And I want so much from you!" Diana slipped her hand confidently into his. "Tell me," she said, smiling at him. "I don't think I shall fail you." He was silent for a while, wondering if the next words he spoke would set them as far apart as though the previous hour had never been. At last he spoke. "Do you believe that husbands and wives should have no secrets from one another?" he asked abruptly. Diana had never really given the matter consideration--never formulated such a question in her mind. But now, in the light of love's awakening; she instinctively knew the answer to it. Her opinion leaped into life fully formed; she was aware, without the shadow of a doubt, of her own feelings on the subject. "Certainly they shouldn't," she answered promptly. "Why, Max, that would be breaking the very link that binds them together--their _oneness_ each with the other. You think that, too, don't you? Why--why did you ask me?" A premonition of evil assailed her, and her voice trembled a little. "I asked you because--because if you marry me you will have to face the fact that there is a secret in my life which I cannot share with you--something I can't tell you about." Then, as he saw the blank look on her face, he went on rapidly: "It will be the only thing, beloved. There shall be nothing else in life that will not be 'ours,' between us, shared by us both. I swear it! . . . Diana, I must make you understand. It was because of this--this secret--that I kept away from you. You couldn't understand--oh! I saw it in your face sometimes. You were hurt by what I did and said, and it tortured me to hurt you--to see your lip quiver, your eyes suddenly grow misty, and to know it was I who had wounded you, I, who would give the last drop of blood in my body to save you pain." There was a curious stricken expression on the face Diana turned towards him. "So that was it!" "Yes, that was it. I tried to put you out of my life, for I'd no right to ask you into it. And I've failed! I can't do without you"--his voice gathered intensity--"I want you--body and soul I want you. And yet--a secret between husband and wife is a burden no man should ask a woman to bear." When next Diana spoke it was in a curiously cold, collected voice. She felt stunned. A great wall seemed to be rising up betwixt herself and Max; all her golden visions for the future were falling about her in ruins. "You are right," she said slowly. "No man should ask--that--of his wife." Errington's face twisted with pain. "I never meant to let you know I cared," he answered. "I fought down my love for you just because of that. And then--it grew too strong for me. . . . My God! If you knew what it's been like--to be near you, with you, constantly, and yet to feel that you were as far removed from me as the sun itself. Diana--beloved--can't you trust me over this one thing? Isn't your love strong enough for that?" She turned on him passionately. "Oh, you are unfair to me--cruelly unfair! You ask me to trust you! And your very asking implies that you cannot trust _me_!" There was bitter anger in her voice. "I know it looks like that," he said wearily. "And I can't explain. I can only ask you to believe in me and trust me. I thought . . . perhaps . . . you loved me enough to do it." His mouth twitched with a little smile, half sad, half ironical. "My usual presumption, I suppose." She made no answer, but after a moment asked abruptly:-- "Does this--this secret concern only you?" "That I cannot tell you. I can't answer any questions. If--if you come to me, it must be in absolute blind trust." He paused, his eyes entreating her. "Is it . . . too much to ask?" Diana was silent, looking away from him across the water. The sun slipped behind a cloud, and a grey shadow spread like a blight over the summer sea. It lay leaden and dull, tufted with little white crests of foam. The man and woman stood side by side, motionless, unresponsive. It was as though a sword had suddenly descended, cleaving them asunder. Presently she heard him mutter in a low tone of anguish:-- "So this--this, too--must be added to the price!" The pain in his voice pulled at her heart. She stretched out her hands towards him. "Max! Give me time!" He wheeled round, and the tense look of misery in his face hurt her almost physically. "What do you mean?" he asked hoarsely. "I must have time to think. Husband and wife ought to be one. What--what happiness can there be if . . . if we marry . . . like this?" He bent his head. "None--unless you can have faith. There can be no happiness for us without that." He took a sudden step towards her. "Oh, my dear, my dear! I love you so!" Diana began to cry softly--helpless, pathetic, weeping, like a child's. "And--and I thought we were so happy," she sobbed. "Now it's all spoiled and broken. And you've spoilt it!" "Don't!" he said unsteadily. "Don't cry like that. I can't stand it." He made an instinctive movement to take her in his arms, but she slipped aside, turning on him in sudden, passionate reproach. "Why did you try and make me love you when you knew . . . all this? I was quite happy before you came--oh, so happy!"--with a sudden yearning recollection of the days of unawakened girlhood. "If--if you had let me alone, I should have been happy still." The unthinking selfishness of youth rang in her voice, asserting its infinite demand for the joy and pleasure of life. "And I?" he said, very low. "Does my unhappiness count for nothing? I'm paying too. God knows, I wish we had never met." Never to have met! Not to have known all that those months of friendship and a single hour of love had held! The words brought a sudden awakening to Diana--a new, wonderful knowledge that, cost what they might in bitterness and future pain, she would rather bear the cost than know her life emptied of those memories. She had ceased crying. After a few moments she spoke with a gentle, wistful composure. "I was wrong, Max. You're not to blame--you couldn't help it any more than I could." "I might have gone away--kept away from you," he said tonelessly. A faint, wintry little smile curved her lips. "I'm glad you didn't." "Diana!" He sprang forward impetuously. "Do you mean that?" She nodded slowly. "Yes. Even if--if we can't ever marry, we've had . . . to-day." A smouldering fire lit itself in the man's blue eyes. He had spoken but the bare truth when he had said that warmer blood ran in his veins than that of the cold northern peoples. "Yes," he said, his voice tense. "We've had to-day." Diana trembled a little. The memory of that fierce, wild love-making of his rushed over her once more, and the primitive woman in her longed to yield to its mastery. But the cooler characteristics of her nature bade her pause and weigh the full significance of marrying a man whose life was tinged with mystery, and who frankly acknowledged that he bore a secret which must remain hidden, even from his wife. It would be taking a leap in the dark, and Diana shrank from it. "I must have time to think," she repeated. "I can't decide to-day." "No," he said, "you're right. I've known that all the time, only--only"--his voice shook--"the touch of you, the nearness of you, blinded me." He paused. "Don't keep me waiting for your answer longer than you can help, Diana," he added, with a quiet intensity. "You'll go away from Crailing?" she asked nervously. He smiled a little sadly. "Yes, I'll go away. I'll leave you quite free to make your decision," he replied. She breathed a sigh of relief. She knew that if he were to remain at Crailing, if they were to continue seeing each other almost daily, there could be but one end to the matter--her conviction that no happiness could result from such a marriage would go by the board. It could not stand against the breathless impetuosity of Max's love-making--not when her own heart was eager and aching to respond. "Thank you, Max," she said simply, extending her hand. He put it aside, drawing her into his embrace. "Beloved," he said, and now there was no passion, no fierceness of desire in his voice, only unutterable tenderness. "Beloved, please God you will find it in your heart to be good to me. All my thoughts are yours, but for that one thing over which I need your faith. . . . I think no man ever loved a woman so utterly as I love you. And oh! little white English rose of my heart, I'd never ask more than you could give. Love isn't all passion. It's tenderness and shielding and service, dear, as well as fire and flame. A man loves his wife in all the little ways of daily life as well as in the big ways of eternity." He stooped his head, and a shaft of sunlight flickered across his bright hair. Diana watched it with a curious sense of detachment. Very gently he laid her hands against his lips, and the next moment he was swinging away from her across the stretch of yellow sand, leaving her alone once more with the sea and the sky and the wheeling gulls. CHAPTER XV DIANA'S DECISION Max had been gone a week--a week of distress and miserable indecision for Diana, racked as she was between her love and her conviction that marriage under the only circumstances possible would inevitably bring unhappiness. Over and above this fear there was the instinctive recoil she felt from Errington's demand for such blind faith. Her pride rebelled against it. If he loved her and had confidence in her, why couldn't he trust her with his secret? It was treating her like a child, and it would be wrong--all wrong--she argued, to begin their married life with concealment and secrecy for its foundation. One morning she even wrote to him, telling him definitely either that he must trust her altogether, or that they must part irrevocably. But the letter was torn up the same afternoon, and Diana went to bed that night with her decision still untaken. For several nights she had slept but little, and once again she passed long hours tossing feverishly from side to side of the bed or pacing up and down her room, love and pride fighting a stubborn battle within her. Had Max remained at Crailing, love would have gained an easy victory, but, true to his promise, he had gone away, leaving her to make her decision free and untrammelled by his influence. Diana's face was beginning to show signs of the mental struggle through which she was passing. Dark shadows lay beneath her eyes, and her cheeks, even in so short a time, had hollowed a little. She was irritable, too, and unlike herself, and at last Stair, whose watchful eyes had noted all these things, though he had refrained from comment, taxed her with keeping him outside her confidence. "Can't I help, Di?" he asked, laying his hand on her shoulder, and twisting her round so that she faced him. The quick colour flew into her cheeks. For a moment she hesitated, while Stair, releasing his hold of her, dropped into a chair and busied himself filling and lighting his pipe. "Well?" he queried at last, smiling whimsically. "Won't you give me an old friend's right to ask impertinent questions?" Impulsively she yielded. "You needn't, Pobs. I'll tell you all about it." When she had finished, a long silence ensued. Not that Stair was in any doubt as to what form his advice should take--idealist that he was, there did not seem to him to be any question in the matter. He only hesitated as to how he could best word his counsel. At last he spoke, very gently, his eyes lit with that inner radiance which gave such an arresting charm of expression to his face. "My dear," he said, "it seems to me that if you love him you needs _must_ trust him. 'Perfect love casteth out fear.'" Diana shook her head. "Mightn't you reverse that, Pobs, and say that he would trust _me_--if he loves me?" "No, not necessarily." Alan sucked at his pipe. "He knows what his secret is, and whether it is right or wrong for you to share it. You haven't that knowledge. And that's where your trust must come in. You have to believe in him enough to leave it to him to decide whether you ought to be told or not. Have you no confidence in his judgment?" "I don't think husbands and wives should have secrets from one another," protested Diana obstinately. "Does he propose to have any other than this one?" "No." "Then I don't see that you need complain. The present and the future are yours, but you've no right to demand the past as well. And this secret, whatever it may be, belongs to the past." "As far as I can see it will be cropping up in the future as well," said Diana ruefully. "It seems to be a 'continued in our next' kind of mystery." Stair laughed boyishly. "It should add a zest to life if that's the case," he retorted. Diana was silent a moment. Then she said suddenly:-- "Pobs, what am I to do?" Instantly Stair became grave again. "My dear, do you love him?" Diana nodded, her eyes replying. "Then nothing else matters a straw. If you love him enough to trust him with the whole of the rest of your life, you can surely trust him over a twopenny-halfpenny little secret which, after all, has nothing in the world to do with you. If you can't, do you know what it looks like?" She regarded him questioningly. "It looks as though you suspected the secret of being a disgraceful one--something of which Max is ashamed to tell you. Do you"--sharply--"think that?" "Of course I don't!" she burst out indignantly. "Then why trouble? Possibly the matter concerns some one else besides himself, and he may not be at liberty to tell you anything--he might have a dozen different reasons for keeping his own counsel. And the woman who loves him and is ready to be his wife is the first to doubt and, distrust him! Diana, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. If my wife"--his voice shook a little---"had ever doubted me--no matter how black things might have looked against me--I think it would have broken my heart." Diana's head drooped lower and lower as he spoke, and presently her hand stole out, seeking his. In a moment it was taken and held in a close and kindly clasp. "I'll--I'll marry him, Pobs," she whispered. So it came about that when, two days later, Max took his way to 24 Brutton Square, the gods had better gifts in store for him than he had dared to hope. He was pacing restlessly up and down her little sitting-room when she entered it, and she could see that his face bore traces of the last few days' anxiety. There were new lines about his mouth, and his eyes were so darkly shadowed as to seem almost sunken in their sockets. "You have come back!" he said, stepping eagerly towards her. "Diana"--there was a note of strain in his voice--"which is it? Yes--or no?" She held out her hands. "It's--it's 'yes,' Max." A stifled exclamation broke from him, almost like a sob. He folded her in his arms and laid his lips to hers. "My beloved! . . . Oh, Diana, if you could guess the agony--the torture of the last ten days!" And he leaned his cheek against her hair, and stood silently for a little space. Presently fear overcame him again--quick fear lest she should ever regret having given herself to him. "Heart's dearest, have you realised that it will be very hard sometimes? You will ask me to explain things--and I shan't be able to. Is your trust big enough--great enough for this?" Diana raised her head from his shoulder. "I love you," she answered steadily. "Do you forget the shadow? It is there still, dogging my steps. Not even your love can alter that." For a moment Diana rose to the heights of her womanhood. "If there must be a shadow," she said, "we will walk in it together." "But--don't you see?--I shall know what it is. To you it will always be something unknown, hidden, mysterious. Child! Child! I wonder if I am right to let you join your life to mine!" But Diana only repeated:-- "I love you." And at last he flung all thoughts of warning and doubt aside, and secure in that reiterated "I love you!" yielded to the unutterable joy of the moment. CHAPTER XVI BARONI'S OPINION OF MATRIMONY "_Per Dio_! What is this you tell me? That you are to be married? . . . My dear Mees Quentin, please put all such thoughts of foolishness out of your mind. You are consecrated to art. The young man must find another bride." It was thus that Carlo Baroni received the news of Diana's engagement--at first with unmitigated horror, then sweeping it aside as though it were a matter of no consequence whatever. Diana laughed, dimpling with amusement at the _maestro's_ indignation. Now that she had given her faith, refusing to allow anything to stand between her and Max, she was so supremely happy that she felt she could afford to laugh at such relatively small obstacles as would be raised by her old singing-master. "I'm afraid the 'young man' wouldn't agree to that," she returned gaily. "He would say you must find another pupil." Baroni surveyed her with anxiety. "You are not serious?" he queried at last. "Indeed I am. I'm actually engaged--now, at this moment--and we propose to get married before Christmas." "But it is impossible! _Giusto Cielo_! But impossible!" reiterated the old man. "Mees Quentin, you cannot haf understood. Perhaps, in my anxiety that you should strain every nerve to improve, I haf not praised you enough--and so you haf not understood. Leesten, then. You haf a voice than which there is not one so good in the whole of Europe. It is superb--marvellous--the voice of the century. With that voice you will haf the whole world at your feet; before long you will command almost fabulous fees, and more, far more than this, you can interpret the music of the great masters as they themselves would wish to hear it. Me, Baroni, I know it. And you would fling such possibilities, such a career, aside for mere matrimony! It is nonsense, I tell you, sheer nonsense!" He paused for breath, and Diana laid her hand deprecatingly on his arm. "Dear _Maestro_," she said, "it's good of you to tell me all this, and--and you mustn't think for one moment that I ever forget all you've done for me. It's you who've made my voice what it is. But there isn't the least reason why I should give up singing because I'm going to be married. I don't intend to, I assure you." "I haf no doubt you mean well. But I haf heard other young singers say the same thing, and then the husband--the so English husband!--he objects to his wife's appearing in public, and _presto_! . . . Away goes the career! No singer should marry until she is well established in her profession. You are young. Marry in ten years' time and you shall haf my blessing." "I shall want your blessing sooner than that," laughed Diana. "But I'm not marrying a 'so English husband'! He's only partly English, and he's quite willing for me to go on singing." Baroni regarded her seriously. "Is that so? Good! Then I will talk to the young man, so that he may realise that he is not marrying just Mees Diana Quentin, but a voice--a heaven-bestowed voice. What is his name?" "You know him," she answered smilingly. "It's Max Errington." She was utterly unprepared for the effect of her words. Baroni's face darkened like a stormy sky, and his eyes literally blazed at her from beneath their penthouse of shaggy brow. "Max Errington! _Donnerwetter_! But that is the worst of all!" Diana stared, at him in mute amazement, and, despite herself, her heart sank with a sudden desperate apprehension. What did it mean? Why should the mere mention of Max's name have roused the old _maestro_ to such a fever of indignation? Presently Baroni turned to her again, speaking more composedly, although little sparks of anger still flickered in his eyes ready to leap into flame at the slightest provocation. "I haf met Mr. Errington. He is a charming man. But if you marry him, my dear Mees Quentin--good-bye to your career as a world-artiste, good-bye to the most marvellous voice that the good God has ever let me hear." "I don't see why. Max thoroughly understands professional life." "Nevertheless, believe me, there will--there _must_ come a time when Max Errington's wife will not be able to appear before the world as a public singer. I who speak, I know." Diana flashed round upon him suddenly. "_You_--you know his secret?" "I know it." So, then, the secret which must be hidden from his wife was yet known to Carlo Baroni! Diana felt her former resentment surge up anew within her. It was unfair--shamefully unfair for Max to treat her in this way! It was making a mockery of their love. Baroni's keen old eyes read the conflict of emotions in her face, and he laid his finger unerringly upon the sore spot. His one idea was to prevent Diana from marrying, to guard her--as he mentally phrased it--for the art he loved so well, and he was prepared to stick at nothing that might aid his cause. "So he has not told you?" he said slowly. "Do you not think it strange of him?" Diana's breast rose and fell tumultuously. Baroni was turning the knife in the wound with a vengeance. "_Maestro_, tell me,"--her voice came unevenly--"tell me. Is it"--she turned her head away--"is it a . . . shameful . . . secret?" Inwardly she loathed herself for asking such a thing, but the words seemed dragged from her without her own volition. Baroni hesitated. All his hopes and ambitions centred round Diana and her marvellous voice. He had given of his best to train it to its present perfection, and now he saw the fruit of his labour about to be snatched from him. It was more than human nature could endure. Errington meant nothing to him, Diana and her voice everything; and he was prepared to sacrifice no matter whom to secure her career as an artiste. By implication he sacrificed Errington. "It is not possible for me to say more. But be advised, my dear pupil. Out of my great love for you I say it--_let Max Errington go his way_." And with those words--sinister, warning--ringing in her ears, Diana returned to Brutton Square. But Baroni was not content to let matters remain as they stood, trusting that his warning would do its work. He was determined to leave no stone unturned, and he forthwith sought out Errington in his own house and deliberately broached the subject of his engagement to Diana. Max greeted him affectionately. "It's a long while since you honoured me with a visit," he said, shaking hands. "I suppose"--laughingly--"you come to congratulate me?" The old man shook his head. "Far from it. I haf come to ask you to give her up." "To give her up?" repeated Max, in undisguised amazement. "Yes. Mees Quentin is not for marriage. She is dedicated to Art." Max smiled indulgently. "To Art? Yes. But she's for me, too, thank God! Dear old friend, you need not look so anxious and concerned. I've no wish to interfere with Diana's professional work. You shall have her voice"--smiling--"I'll be content to hold her heart." But there was no answering smile on Baroni's lips. "_Does she know--everything_?" he asked sternly. Max shook his head. "No. How could she? . . . _You_ must realise the impossibility of that," he answered slowly. "And you think it right to let her marry you in ignorance?" Max hesitated. Then-- "She trusts me," he said at last. "Pish! For how long? . . . When she sees daily under her eyes things that she cannot explain, unaccountable things, how long will she remain satisfied, I ask you? And then will begin unhappiness." Errington stiffened. "And what has our--supposititious--unhappiness to do with you, Signor Baroni?" he asked haughtily. "_Your_ unhappiness? Nothing. It is the price you must pay--your inheritance. But hers? Everything. Tears, fretting, vexation--and that beautiful voice, that perfect organ, may be impaired. Think! Think what you are doing! Just for your own personal happiness you are risking the voice of the century, the voice that will give pleasure to tens of thousands--to millions. You are committing a crime against Art." Max smiled in spite of himself. "Truly, _Maestro_, I had not thought of it like that," he admitted. "But I think her faith in me will carry us through," he added confidently. "Never! Never! Women are not made like that." "And perhaps, later on, if things go well, I shall be able to tell her all." "And much good that will do! _Diavolo_! When the time comes that things go well--if it ever does come--" "It will. It shall," said Max firmly. "Well, if it does--I ask you, can she then continue her life as an artiste?" Max reflected. "Yes, if I remain in England--which I hope to do. I counted on that when I asked her to marry me. I think I shall be able to arrange it." "If! If! Are you going to hang your wife's happiness upon an 'if'?" Baroni spoke with intense anger. "And 'if' you _cannot_ remain in England, if you haf to go back--_there_? Can your wife still appear as a public singer?" "No," acknowledged Max slowly. "I suppose not." "No! Her career will be ruined. And all this is the price she will haf to pay for her--_trust_! Give it up, give it up--set her free." Max flung himself into a chair, leaning his arms wearily on the table, and stared straight in front of him, his eyes dark with pain. "I can't," he said, in a low voice. "Not now. I meant to--I tried to--but now she has promised and I can't let her go. Good God, _Maestro_!"--a sudden ring of passion in his tones--"Must I give up everything? Am I to have nothing in the world? Always to be a tool and never live an individual man's life of my own?" Baroni's face softened a little. "One cannot escape one's destiny," he said sadly. "_Che sarà sarà_. . . . But you can spare--her. Tell her the truth, and in common fairness let her judge for herself--not rush blindfold into such a web." Max shook his head. "You know I can't do that," he replied quietly. Baroni threw out his arms in despair. "I would tell her the whole truth myself--but for the memory of one who is dead." Sudden tears dimmed the fierce old eyes. "For the sake of that sainted martyr--martyr in life as well as in death--I will hold my peace." A half-sad, half-humorous smile flashed across Errington's face. "We're all of us martyrs--more or less," he observed drily. "And you wish to add Mees Quentin to the list?" retorted Baroni. "Well, I warn you, I shall fight against it. I will do everything in my power to stop this marriage." Max shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sure you will," he said, smiling faintly. "But--forgive me, _Maestro_--I don't think you will succeed." As soon as Baroni had taken his departure, Max called a taxi, and hurried off to see Adrienne de Gervais. He had arranged to talk over with her a certain scene in the play he was now writing for her, and which was to be produced early in the New Year. Adrienne welcomed him good-humouredly. "A little late," she observed, glancing at the clock. "But I suppose one must not expect punctuality when a man's in love." "I know I'm late, but I can assure you"--with a grim smile--"love had little enough to do with it." Adrienne looked up sharply, struck by the bitter note in his voice. "Then what had?" she asked. "What has gone wrong, Max? You look fagged out." "Baroni has been round to see me--to ask me to break off my engagement." He laughed shortly. "He doesn't approve, I suppose?" "That's a mild way of expressing his attitude." Adrienne was silent a moment. Then she spoke, slowly, consideringly. "I don't--approve--either. It isn't right, Max." He bit his lip. "So you--you, too, are against me?" She stretched out her hand impulsively. "Not against you, Max! Never that! How could I be? . . . But I don't think you're being quite fair to Diana. You ought to tell her the truth." He wheeled round. "No one knows better than you how impossible that is." "Don't you trust her then--the woman you're asking to be your wife?" The tinge of irony in her voice brought a sudden light of anger to his eyes. "That's not very just of you, Adrienne," he said coldly. "_I_ would trust her with my life. But I have no right to pledge the trust of others--and that's what I should be doing if I told her. We have our duty--you and I--and all this . . . is part of it." Adrienne hesitated. "Couldn't you--ask the others to release you?" He shook his head. "What right have I to ask them to trust an Englishwoman with their secret--just for my pleasure?" "For your happiness," corrected Adrienne softly. "Or for my happiness? My happiness doesn't count with them one straw." "It does with me. I don't see why she shouldn't be told. Baroni knows, and Olga--you have to trust them." "Baroni will be silent for the sake of the dead, and Olga out of her love--or fear"--with a bitter smile--"of me." "And wouldn't Diana, too, be silent for your sake?" "My dear Adrienne"--a little irritably--"Englishwomen are so frank--so indiscreetly trusting. That's where the difficulty lies, and I dare not risk it. There's too much at stake. But can you imagine any agent they may have put upon our track surprising her knowledge out of Olga?" He laughed contemptuously. "I fancy not! If Olga hadn't been a woman she'd have made her mark in the Diplomatic Service." "Yet what is there to make her keep faith with us?" said Adrienne doubtfully. "She is poor--" "Her own doing, that!" "True, but the fact remains. And those others would pay a fortune for the information she could give. Besides, I believe she frankly hates me." "Possibly. But she would never, I think, allow her personal feelings to override everything else. After all, she was one of us--is still, really, though she would gladly disown the connection." "Well, when you've looked at every side of the matter, we only come back to the same point. I think you're acting wrongly. You're letting Diana pledge herself blindly, when you're not free to give her the confidence a man should give his wife--when you don't even know--yet--how it may all end." Almost Baroni's very words! Max winced. "No. I don't know how it will end, as you say. But surely there _will_ come a time when I shall be free to live my own life?" Adrienne smiled a trifle wistfully. "If your conscience ever lets you," she said. There was a long silence. Presently she resumed:--- "I never thought, when you first told me about your engagement, that the position of affairs need make any difference. I was so pleased to think that you cared for each other! And now--where will it all end? How many lives are going to be darkened by the same shadow? Oh, it's terrible, Max, terrible!" The tears filled her eyes. "Don't!" said Max unsteadily. "Don't! I know it's bad enough. Perhaps you're right--I oughtn't to have spoken to Diana, I hoped things would right themselves eventually, but you and Baroni have put another complexion upon matters. It's all an inextricable tangle, whichever way one looks at it--come good luck or bad! . . . I suppose I was wrong--I ought to have waited. But now . . . now . . . Before God, Adrienne! I can't, give her up--not now!" CHAPTER XVII "WHOM GOD HATH JOINED TOGETHER" Max and Diana were married shortly before the following Christmas. The wedding took place very quietly at Crailing, only a few intimate friends being asked to it. For, as Max pointed out, either their invitations must be limited to a dozen or so, or else Diana must resign herself to a fashionable wedding in town, with all the world and his wife as guests at the subsequent reception. No middle course is possible when a well-known dramatist elects to marry the latest sensation in the musical world! So it was in the tiny grey church overlooking the sea that Max and Diana were made one, with the distant murmur of the waves in their ears, and with Alan Stair to speak the solemn words that joined their lives together, and when the little intimate luncheon which followed the ceremony was over, they drove away in Max's car to the wild, beautiful coast of Cornwall, there to spend the first perfect days of their married life. And they were perfect days! Afterwards, when clouds had dimmed the radiance of the sun, and doubts and ugly questionings were beating up on every side, Diana had always that radiant fortnight by the Cornish sea--she and Max alone together--to look back upon. The woman whose married life holds sorrow, and who has no such golden memory stored away, is bereft indeed! On their return to London, the Erringtons established themselves at Lilac Lodge, a charming old-fashioned house in Hampstead, where the creeper-clad walls and great bushes of lilac reminded Diana pleasantly of the old Rectory at Crailing. Jerry made one of the household--"resident secretary" as he proudly termed himself, and his cheery, good-humoured presence was invaluable whenever difficulties arose. But at first there were few, indeed, of the latter to contend with. Owing to the illness of an important member of the cast, without whose services Adrienne declined to perform, the production of Max's new play, "Mrs. Fleming's Husband," was delayed until the autumn. This postponement left him free to devote much more of his time to his wife than would otherwise have been possible, and for the first few months after their marriage it seemed as though no shadow could ever fall athwart their happiness. In this respect Baroni's prognostications of evil had failed to materialise, but his fears that marriage would interfere with Diana's musical career were better founded. Quite easily and naturally she slipped out of the professional life which had just been opening its doors to her. She felt no inclination to continue singing in public. Max filled her existence, and although she still persevered with her musical training under Baroni, she told him with a frank enjoyment of the situation that she was far too happy and enjoying herself far too much to have any desire at present to take up the arduous work of a public singer! Baroni was immeasurably disappointed, and not all Diana's assurances that in a year, or two at most, she would go back into harness once more sufficed to cheer him. "A year--two years!" he exclaimed. "Two years lost at the critical time--just at the commencement of your career! Ah, my dear Mrs. Errington, you had better haf lost four years later on when you haf established yourself." To Max himself the old _maestro_ was short and to the point when chance gave him the opportunity of a few moments alone with him. "You haf stolen her from me, Max Errington--you haf broken your promise that she should be free to sing." Max responded good-humouredly:-- "She _is_ free, _Maestro_, free to do exactly as she chooses. And she has chosen--to be my wife, to live for a time the pleasant, peaceful life that ordinary, everyday folk may live, who are not rushed hither and thither at the call of a career. Can you honestly say she hasn't chosen the better part?" Baroni was silent. "Don't grudge her a year or two of freedom," pursued Max. "You know, you old slave-driver, you,"--laughing--"that it is only because you want her for your beloved Art--because you want her voice! Otherwise you would rejoice in her happiness." "And you--what is it you want?" retorted Baroni, unappeased. "You want her soul! Whereas I would give her soul wings that she might send it singing forth into an enraptured world." But Baroni's words fell upon stony ground, and Max and Diana went their way, absorbed in one another and in the wonderful happiness which love had brought them. Thus spring slipped away into summer, and the season was in full swing when fate tossed the first pebble into their unruffled pool of joy. It was only a brief paragraph, sandwiched in between the musical notes of a morning paper, to which Olga Lermontof, who came daily to Lilac Lodge to practise with Diana, drew the latter's attention. The paragraph recalled the fact that it was just a year since Miss Quentin had made her debut, and then went on to comment lightly upon the brief and meteoric character of her professional appearances. "Domesticity should not have claimed Miss Quentin"--so ran the actual words. "Hers was a voice the like of which we may not hear again, and the public grudges its withdrawal. _A propos_, we had always thought (until circumstances proved us hopelessly wrong) that the fortunate man, whose gain has been such a loss to the musical world, seemed born to write plays for a certain charming actress--and she to play the part which he assigned her." Diana showed the paragraph to Max, who frowned as he read it, and finally tore the newspaper in which it had appeared across and across, flinging the pieces into the grate. Then he turned and laid his hands on Diana's shoulders, gazing searchingly into her face. "Have you felt--anything of what that paragraph suggests?" he demanded. "Am I taking too much from you, Diana? I love to keep you to myself--not to have to share you with the world, but I won't stand in your light, or hold you back if you wish to go--not even"--with a wry smile--"if it should mean your absence on a tour." "Silly boy!" Diana patted his head reprovingly. "I don't _want_ to sing in public--at least, not now, not yet. Later on, I dare say, I shall like to take it up again. And as for leaving you and going on tour"--laughingly--"the latter half of the paragraph should serve as a warning to me not to think of such a thing!" To her surprise Max did not laugh with her. Instead, he answered coldly:-- "I hope you have more sense than to pay attention to what any damned newspaper may have to say about me--or about Miss de Gervais either." "Why, Max,--Max--" Diana stared at him in dismay, flushing a little. It was the first time he had spoken harshly to her since their marriage. In an instant he had caught her in his arms, passionately repentant. "Dearest, forgive me! It was only--only that you are bound to read such things, and it angered me for a moment. Miss de Gervais and I see too much of each other to escape all comment." Diana withdrew herself slowly from his arms. "And--and must you see so much of her now? Now that we are married?" she asked, rather wistfully. "Why, of course. We have so many professional matters to discuss. You must be prepared for that, Diana. When we begin rehearsing 'Mrs. Fleming's Husband,' I shall be down at the theatre every day." "Oh, yes, at the theatre. But--but you go to see Adrienne rather often now, don't you? And the rehearsals haven't begun yet." Max hesitated a moment. Then he said quietly:-- "Dear, you must learn not to be jealous of my work. There are always--many things--that I have to discuss with Miss de Gervais." And so, for the time being, the subject dropped. But the shadow had flitted for a moment across the face of the sun. A little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, had shown itself upon the horizon. In July the Erringtons left town to spend a brief holiday at Crailing Rectory, and on their return, the preparations for the production of "Mrs. Fleming's Husband" went forward in good earnest. They had not been back in town a week before Diana realised that, as the wife of a dramatist on the eve of the production of a play, she must be prepared to cede her prior right in her husband to the innumerable people who claimed his time on matters relating to the forthcoming production, and, above all, to the actress who was playing the leading part in it. And it was in respect of this latter demand that Diana found the matrimonial shoe begin to pinch. To her, it seemed as though Adrienne were for ever 'phoning Max to come and see her, and invariably he set everything else aside--even Diana herself, if needs be--and obeyed her behest. "I can't see why Adrienne wants to consult you so often," Diana protested one day. "She is perpetually ringing you up to go round to Somervell Street--or if it's not that, then she is writing to you." Max laughed her protest aside. "Well, there's a lot to consult about, you see," he said vaguely. "So it seems. I shall be glad when it is all finished and I have you to myself again. When will the play be on?" "About the middle of October," he replied, fidgeting restlessly with the papers that strewed his desk. They were talking in his own particular den, and Diana's eyes ruefully followed the restless gesture. "I suppose," she said slowly, "you want me to go?" "Well"--apologetically--"I have a lot to attend to this morning. Will you send Jerry to me--do you mind, dearest?" "It wouldn't make much difference if I did," she responded grimly, as she went towards the door. Max looked after her thoughtfully in silence. When she had gone, he leaned his head rather wearily upon his hand. "It's better so," he muttered. "Better she should think it's only the play that binds me to Adrienne." CHAPTER XVIII THE APPROACHING SHADOW Diana gathered up her songs and slowly dropped them into her music-case, while Baroni stared at her with a puzzled, brooding look in his eyes. At last he spoke:-- "You are throwing away the great gift God has given you. First, you will take no more engagements, and now--what is it? Where is your voice?" Diana, conscious of having done herself less than justice at the lesson which was just concluded, shook her head. "I don't know," she said simply. "I don't seem able to sing now, somehow." Baroni shrugged his shoulders. "You are fretting," he declared. "And so the voice suffers." "Fretting? I don't know that I've anything to fret about"--vaguely. "Only I shall be glad when 'Mrs. Fleming's Husband' is actually produced. Just now"--with a rather wistful smile--"I don't seem to have a husband to call my own. Miss de Gervais claims so much of his time." Baroni's brow grew stormy. "Mees de Gervais? Of course! It is inevitable!" he muttered. "I knew it must be like that." Diana regarded him curiously. "But why? Do--do all dramatists have to consult so much with the leading actress in the play?" The old _maestro_ made a sweeping gesture with his arm, as though disavowing any knowledge of the matter. "Do not ask me!" he said bitterly. "Ask Max Errington--ask your husband these questions." At the condemnation in his voice her loyalty asserted itself indignantly. "You are right," she said quickly. "I ought not to have asked you. Good-bye, signor." But Diana's loyalty was hard put to it to fight the newly awakened jealousy that was stirring in her heart, and it seemed as though just now everything and everybody combined to add fuel to the fire, for, only a few days later, when Miss Lermontof came to Lilac Lodge to practise with Diana, she, too, added her quota of disturbing comment. "You're looking very pale," she remarked, at the end of the hour. "And you're shockingly out of voice! What's the matter?" Then, as Diana made no answer, she added teasingly: "Matrimony doesn't seem to have agreed with you too well. Doesn't Max play the devoted husband satisfactorily?" Diana flushed. "You've no right to talk like that, Olga, even in jest," she said, with a little touch of matronly dignity that sat rather quaintly and sweetly upon her. "I know you don't like Max--never have liked him--but please recollect that you're speaking of my husband." "You misunderstand me," replied the Russian, coolly, as she drew on her gloves. "I _don't_ dislike him; but I do think he ought to be perfectly frank with you. As you say, he is your husband"--pointedly. "Perfectly frank with me?" Miss Lermontof nodded. "Yes." "He has been," affirmed Diana. "Has he, indeed? Have you ever asked him"--she paused significantly--"who he is?" "_Who he is_?" Diana felt her heart contract. What new mystery was this at which the other was hinting? "_Who he is_?" she repeated. "Why--why--what do you mean?" The accompanists queer green eyes narrowed between their heavy lids. "Ask him--that's all," she replied shortly. She drew her furs around her shoulders preparatory to departure, but Diana stepped in front of her, laying a detaining hand on her arm. "What do you mean?" she demanded hotly. "Are you implying now that Max is going about under a false name? I hate your hints! Always, always you've tried to insinuate something against Max. . . . No!"--as the Russian endeavoured to free herself from her clasp--"No! You shan't leave this house till you've answered my question. You've made an accusation, and you shall prove it--if I have to bring you face to face with Max himself!" "I've made no accusation--merely a suggestion that you should ask him who he is. And as to bringing me face to face with him--I can assure you"--there was an inflection of ironical amusement in her light tones--"no one would be less anxious for such a _dénouement_ than Max Errington himself. Now, good-bye; think over what I've said. And remember"--mockingly--"Adrienne de Gervais is a bad friend for the man one loves!" She flitted through the doorway, and Diana was left to deal as best she might with the innuendo contained in her speech. "_Adrienne de Gervais is a bad friend for the man one loves._" The phrase seemed to crystallise in words the whole vague trouble that had been knocking at her heart, and she realised suddenly, with a shock of unbearable dismay, that she was _jealous--jealous of Adrienne_! Hitherto, she had not in the least understood the feeling of depression and _malaise_ which had assailed her. She had only known that she felt restless and discontented when Max was out of her sight, irritated at the amount of his time which Miss de Gervais claimed, and she had ascribed these things to the depth of her love for him! But now, with a sudden flash of insight, engendered by the Russian's dexterous suggestion, she realised that it was jealousy, sheer primitive jealousy of another woman that had gripped her, and her young, wholesome, spontaneous nature recoiled in horrified self-contempt at the realisation. Pobs' good counsel came back to her mind: "It seems to me that if you love him, you needs _must_ trust him." Ah! but that was uttered in regard to another matter--the secret which shadowed Max's life--and she _had_ trusted him over that, she told herself. This, this jealousy of another woman, was an altogether different thing, something which had crept insidiously into her heart, and woven its toils about her almost before she was aware of it. And behind it all there loomed a new terror. Olga Lermontof's advice: "_Ask him who he is_," beat at the back of her brain, fraught with fresh mystery, the forerunner of a whole host of new suspicions. Secrecy and concealment of any kind were utterly alien to Diana's nature. Impulsive, warm-hearted, quick-tempered, she was the last woman in the world to have been thrust by an unkind fate into an atmosphere of intrigue and mystery. She was like a pretty, fluttering, summer moth, caught in the gossamer web of a spider--terrified, struggling, battling against something she did not understand, and utterly without the patience and strong determination requisite to free herself. For hours after Olga's departure she fought down the temptation to follow her advice and question her husband. She could not bring herself to hurt him--as it must do if he guessed that she distrusted him. But neither could she conquer the suspicions that had leaped to life within her. At last, for the time being, love obtained the mastery--won the first round of the struggle. "I will trust him," she told herself. "And--and whether I trust him or not," she ended up defiantly, "at least he shall never know, never see it, if--if I can't." So that it was a very sweet and repentant, if rather wan, Diana that greeted her husband when he returned from the afternoon rehearsal at the theatre. Max's keen eyes swept the white, shadowed face. "Has Miss Lermontof been here to-day?" he asked abruptly. "Yes." A burning flush chased away her pallor as she answered his question. "I see." "You see?"--nervously. "What do you see?" A very gentle expression came into Max's eyes. "I see," he said kindly, "that I have a tired wife. You mustn't let Baroni and Miss Lermontof work you too hard between them." "Oh, they don't, Max." "All right, then. Only"--cupping her chin in his hand and turning her face up to his--"I notice I often have a somewhat worried-looking wife after one of Miss Lermontof's visits. I don't think she is too good a friend for you, Diana. Couldn't you get some one else to accompany you?" Diana hesitated. She would have been quite glad to dispense with Olga's services had it been possible. The Russian was for ever hinting at something in connection either with Max or Miss de Gervais; to-day she had but gone a step further than usual. "Well?" queried Max, reading the doubt in Diana's eyes. "I'm afraid I couldn't engage any one else to accompany me," she said at last. "You see, Olga is Baroni's chosen accompanist, and--it might make trouble." A curious expression crossed his face. "Yes," he agreed slowly. "It might--make trouble, as you say. Well, why not ask Joan to stay with you for a time--to counterbalance matters?" "Excellent suggestion!" exclaimed Diana, her spirits going up with a bound. Joan was always so satisfactory and cheerful and commonplace that she felt as though her mere presence in the house would serve to dispel the vague, indefinable atmosphere of suspicion that seemed closing round her. "I'll write to her at once." "Yes, do. If she can come next month, she will be here for the first night of 'Mrs. Fleming's Husband.'" Diana went away to write her letter, while Max remained pacing thoughtfully up and down the room, tapping restlessly with his fingers on his chest as he walked. His face showed signs of fatigue--the hard work in connection with the production of his play was telling on him--and since the brief interview with his wife, a new look of anxiety, an alert, startled expression, had dawned in his eyes. He seemed to be turning something over in his mind as he paced to and fro. At last, apparently, he came to a decision. "I'll do it," he said aloud. "It's a possible chance of silencing her." He made his way downstairs, pausing at the door of the library, where Diana was poring over her letter to Joan. "I find I must go out again," he said. "But I shall be back in time for dinner." Diana looked up in dismay. "But you've had no tea, Max," she protested. "Can't stay for it now, dear." He dropped a light kiss on her hair and was gone, while Diana, flinging down her pen, exclaimed aloud:-- "It's that woman again! I know it is! She's rung him up!" And it never dawned upon her that the fact that she had unthinkingly referred to Adrienne de Gervais as "that woman" marked a turning-point in her attitude towards her. Meanwhile Errington hailed a taxi and directed the chauffeur to drive him to 24 Brutton Square, where he asked to see Miss Lermontof. He was shown into the big and rather gloomy-looking public drawing-room, of which none of Mrs. Lawrence's student-boarders made use except when receiving male visitors, much preferring the cheery comfort of their own bed-sitting-rooms--for Diana had been the only one amongst them whose means had permitted the luxury of a separate sitting-room--and in a few minutes Olga joined him there. There was a curiously hostile look in her face as she greeted him. "This is--an unexpected pleasure, Max," she began mockingly. "To what am I indebted?" Errington hesitated a moment. Then, his keen eyes resting piercingly on hers, he said quietly:-- "I want to know how we stand, Olga. Are you trying to make mischief for me with my wife?" "Then she's asked you?" exclaimed Olga triumphantly. "Diana has asked me nothing. Though I have no doubt that you have been hinting and suggesting things to her that she would ask me about if it weren't for her splendid, loyalty. You have the tongue of an asp, Olga! Always, after your visits, I can see that Diana is worried and unhappy." "How can she ever be happy--as your wife?" Errington winced. "I could make her happy--if you--you and Baroni--would let me. I know I must regard you as an enemy in--that other matter . . . as a 'passive resister,' at least," he amended, with a bitter smile. "But am I to regard you as an enemy to my marriage, too? Or, is it your idea of punishment, perhaps--to wreck my happiness?" Olga shrugged her shoulders, and, walking to the window, stood there silently, staring out into the street. When she turned back again, her eyes were full of tears. "Max," she said earnestly, "you may not believe it, but I want your happiness above everything else in the world. There is no one I love as I love you. Give up--that other affair. Wash your hands of it. Let Adrienne go, and take your happiness with Diana. That's what I'm working for--to make you choose between Diana and that interloper. You won't give her up for me; but perhaps, if Diana--if your wife--insists, you will shake yourself free, break with Adrienne de Gervais at last. Sometimes I'm almost tempted to tell Diana the truth, to force your hand!" Errington's eyes blazed. "If you did that," he said quietly, "I would never see, or speak to you, again." Olga shivered a little. "Your honour is mine," he went on. "Remember that." "It isn't fair," she burst out passionately. "It isn't fair to put it like that. Why should I, and you, and Diana--all of us--be sacrificed for Adrienne?" "Because you and I are--what we are, and because Diana is my wife." Olga looked at him curiously. "Then--if it came to a choice--you would actually sacrifice Diana?" Errington's face whitened. "It will not--it shall not!" he said vehemently. "Diana's faith will pull us through." Olga smiled contemptuously. "Don't be too sure. After all a woman's trust won't stand everything, and you're asking a great deal from Diana--a blind faith, under circumstances which might shake the confidence of any one. Already"--she leaned forward a little--"already she is beginning to be jealous of Adrienne." "And whom have I to thank for that? You--you, from whom, more than from any other, I might have expected loyalty." Olga shook her head. "No, not me. But the fact that no wife worth the name will stand quietly by and see her husband at the beck and call of another woman." "More especially when there is some one who drops poison in her ear day by day," he retorted. "Yes," she acknowledged frankly. "If I can bring matters to a head, force you to a choice between Adrienne and Diana, I shall do it. And then, before God, Max! I believe you'll free yourself from that woman." "No," he answered quietly, "I shall not." "You'll sacrifice Diana?"--incredulously. A smile of confidence lightened his face. "I don't think it will come to that. I'm staking--everything--on Diana's trust in me." "Then you'll lose--lose, I tell you." "No," he said steadily. "I shall win." Olga smote her hands together. "Was there ever such a fool! I tell you, no woman's trust can hold out for ever. And since you can't explain to her--" "It won't be for ever," he broke in quickly. "Everything goes well. Before long all the concealment will be at an end. And I shall be free." Olga turned away. "I can't wish you success," she said bitterly. "The day that brings you success will be the blackest hour of my life." Errington's face softened a little. "Olga, you are unreasonable--" "Unreasonable, am I? Because I grudge paying for the sins of others? . . . If that is unreasonable--yes, then, I _am_ unreasonable! Now, go. Go, and remember, Max, we are on opposite sides of the camp." Errington paused at the door. "So long as you keep your honour--_our_ honour--clean," he said, "do what you like! I have utter, absolute trust in Diana." CHAPTER XIX THE "FIRST NIGHT" PERFORMANCE The curtain fell amidst a roar of applause, and the lights flashed up over the auditorium once more. It was the first night performance of "Mrs. Fleming's Husband," and the house was packed with the usual crowd of first-nighters, critics, and members of "the" profession who were anxious to see Miss de Gervais in the new part Max Errington had created for her. Diana and Joan Stair were in a box, escorted only by Jerry, since Max had firmly refused to come down to the theatre for the first performance. "I can't stand first nights," he had said. "At least, not of my own plays." And not even Diana's persuasions had availed to move him from this decision. Joan was ecstatic in her praise. "Isn't Adrienne simply wonderful?" she exclaimed, as the music of the _entr'acte_ stole out from the hidden orchestra. "'M, yes." Diana's reply lacked enthusiasm. Joan, if she could not boast great powers of intuition, was dowered with a keen observation, and she had not spent a week at Lilac Lodge without putting two and two together and making four of them. She had noticed a great change in Diana. The girl was moody and unusually silent; her gay good spirits had entirely vanished, and more than once Joan had caught her regarding her husband with a curious mixture of resentment and contempt in her eyes. Joan was frankly worried over the state of affairs. "Why this _nil admirari_ attitude?" she asked. "Have you and Adrienne quarrelled?" "Quarrelled?" Diana raised her brows ever so slightly. "What should we quarrel about? As a matter of fact, I really don't see very much of her nowadays." "So I imagined," replied Joan calmly. "When I stayed with you last May, either she came to the Lodge, or you went to Somervell Street, every day of the week. This time, you've not seen each other since I came." "No? I don't think"--lightly--"that Adrienne cares much for members of her own sex. She prefers--their husbands." Joan stared in amazement. The little acid speech was so unlike Diana that she felt convinced it sprang from some new and strong antagonism towards the actress. What could be the cause of it? Diana and Adrienne had been warm friends only a few months ago! Joan's eyes travelled from Diana's small, set face to Jerry's pleasant boyish one. The latter had opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it, and closed it again, reddening uncomfortably, and his dismayed expression was so obvious as to be almost comic. The rise of the curtain for the third and last act put a summary end to any further conversation and Joan bent her attention on the stage once more, though all the time that her eyes and ears were absorbing the shifting scenes and brilliant dialogue of the play a little, persistent inner voice at the back of her brain kept repeating Diana's nonchalant "_I really don't see very much of her nowadays_," and querying irrepressibly, "_Why not_?" Meanwhile, Diana, unconscious of the uneasy curiosity she had awakened in the mind of Joan, was watching the progress of the play intently. How designedly it was written around Adrienne de Gervais--calculated to give every possible opportunity to a fine emotional actress! Her lips closed a little more tightly together as the thought took hold of her. The author must have studied Adrienne, watched her every mood, learned every twist of her temperament, to have portrayed a character so absolutely suited to her as that of Mrs. Fleming. And how could a man know a woman's soul so well unless--unless it were the soul of the woman he loved? That was it; that was the explanation of all those things which had puzzled, and bewildered her for so long. And the author was her husband! Diana, staring down from her box at that exquisite, breathing incarnation of grace on the stage below, felt that she hated Adrienne. She had never hated any one before, and the intensity of her feeling frightened her. Since a few months ago, strange, deep emotions had stirred within her--a passion of love and a passion of hatred such as in the days of her simple girlhood she would not have believed to be possible to any ordinary well-brought-up young Englishwoman. That Max was capable of a fierce heat of passion, she knew. But then, he was not all English; wilder blood ran in his veins. She could imagine his killing a man if driven by the lash of passionate jealousy. But she had never pictured herself obsessed by hate of a like quality. And yet, now, as her eyes followed Adrienne's slender figure, with its curious little air of hauteur that always set her so apart from other women, moving hither and thither on the stage, her hands clenched themselves fiercely, and her grey eyes dilated with the intensity of her hatred. Almost--almost she could understand how men and women killed each other in the grip of a jealous love. . . . The play was ended. Adrienne had bowed repeatedly in response to the wild enthusiasm of the audience, and of a sudden a new cry mingled with the shouts and clapping. "Author! Author!" Adrienne came forward again and bowed, smilingly shaking her head, gesturing a negative with her hands. But still the cry went on, "Author! Author!"--the steady, persistent drone of an audience which does not mean to be denied. Diana experienced a brief thrill of triumph. She felt convinced that Adrienne would have liked to have Max standing beside her at this moment. It would have set the seal on an evening of glorious success, completed it, as it were. And he had refused to come, declined--so Diana put it to herself--to share the evening's triumph with the actress who had so well interpreted his work. At least this would be a pin-prick in the enemy's side! And then--then--a hand pulled aside the heavy folds of the stage curtain, and the next moment Max and Adrienne were standing there together, bowing and smiling, while the audience roared and cheered its enthusiasm. Diana could hardly believe her eyes. Max had told her so emphatically that he would not come. And now, he was here! He had lied to her! The affair had been pre-arranged between him and Adrienne all the time? Only she--the wife!--had been kept in the dark. Probably he had spent the entire evening behind the scenes. . . . In her overwrought condition, no supposition was too wild for credence. Vaguely she heard some one at the back of the house shout "Speech!" and the cry was taken up by a dozen voices, but Max only laughed and shook his head, and once more the heavy curtains fell together, shutting him and Adrienne from her sight. Mechanically Diana gathered up her wraps and prepared to leave the box. "Aren't you coming round behind to congratulate them, Mrs. Errington?" Jerry's astonished tones broke on her ears as she turned down the corridor in the direction of the vestibule. "No," she replied quietly. "I'm going home." * * * * * * "You told me you wouldn't come to the theatre--and you intended going all the time!" Diana's wraps were flung on the chair beside her, and she stood, a slim, pliant figure in her white evening gown, defiantly facing her husband. "No, I'd no intention of going. I detest first nights," he answered. "Then why were you there? Oh, I don't believe it--I don't believe it! You simply wanted to spend the evening with Adrienne; that was why you refused to go with me." "Diana!" Max spoke incredulously. "You can't believe--you can't think that!" "But I do think that!"--imperiously. "What else can I think?" Her long-pent jealousy had broken forth at last, and the words raced from her lips. "You refused to come when I asked you--offered me Jerry as an escort instead. Jerry!"--scornfully--"I'm to be content with my husband's secretary, I suppose, so that my husband himself can dance attendance on Adrienne de Gervais?" Max stood motionless, his eyes like steel. "You are being--rather childish," he said at last, with slow deliberation. His cool, contemptuous tones cut like a whip. She had been rapidly losing her self-command, and, reading the intense anger beneath his outward calm, she made an effort to pull herself together. "Childish?" she retorted. "Yes, I suppose it is childish to mind being deceived. I ought to have been prepared for it--expected it." At the note of suffering in her voice the anger died swiftly out of his eyes. "You don't mean that, Diana," he said, more gently. "Yes, I do. You warned me--didn't you?--that there would be things you couldn't explain. I suppose"--bitterly--"this is one of them!" "No, it is not. I can explain this. I didn't intend coming to-night, as I told you. But Miss de Gervais rang up from the theatre and begged me to come, so, of course, as she wished it--" "'As she wished it!' Are her wishes, then, of so much more importance than mine?" Errington was silent for a moment. At last he replied quietly:-- "You know they are not. But in this case, in the matter of the play, she is entitled to every consideration." Diana's eyes searched his face. Beneath the soft laces of her gown her breast still rose and fell stormily, but she had herself in hand now. "Max, when I married you I took . . . something . . . on trust." She spoke slowly, weighing her words, "But I didn't expect that something to include--Adrienne! What has she to do with you?" Errington's brows came sharply together. He drew a quick, short breath as though bracing himself to meet some unforeseen danger. "I've written a play for her," he answered shortly. "Yes, I know. But is that all that there is between you--this play?" "I can't answer that question," he replied quietly. Diana flung out her hand with a sudden, passionate gesture. "You've answered it, I think," she said scornfully. He took a quick stride towards her, catching her by the arms. "Diana"--his voice vibrated--"won't you trust me?" "Trust you! How can I?" she broke out wildly. "If trusting you means standing by whilst Adrienne-- Oh, I can't bear it. You're asking too much of me, Max. I didn't know . . . when you asked me to trust you . . . that it meant--_this_! . . . And there's something else, too. Who are you? What is your real name? I don't even know"--bitterly--"whom I've married!" He released her suddenly, almost as though she had struck him. "Who has been talking to you?" he demanded, thickly. "_Then it's true_?" Diana's hands fell to her sides and every drop of colour drained away from her face. The question had been lying dormant in her mind ever since the day when Olga Lermontof had first implanted it there. Now it had sprung from her lips, dragged forth by the emotion of the moment. _And he couldn't answer it_! "Then it's true?" she repeated. Errington's face set like a mask. "That is a question you shouldn't have asked," he replied coldly. "And one you cannot answer?" He bent his head. "And one I cannot answer." Very slowly she picked up her wraps. "Thank you," she said unsteadily. "I'll--I'll go now." He laid his hand deliberately on the door-handle. "No," he said. "No, you won't go. I've heard what you have to say; now you'll listen to me. Good God, Diana!" he continued passionately. "Do you think I'm going to stand quietly by and see our happiness wrecked?" "I don't see how you can prevent it," she said dully. "I? No; I can do nothing. But you can. Diana, beloved, have faith in me! I can't explain those things to you--not now. Some day, please God, I shall be able to, but till that day comes--trust me!" There was a depth of supplication and entreaty in his tone, but it left her unmoved. She felt frozen--passionless. "Do you mean--do you mean that Adrienne, your name, everything, is all part of--of what you can't tell me? Part of--the shadow?" He was silent a moment. Then he answered steadily:-- "Yes. That much I may tell you." She put up her hand and pushed back her hair impatiently from her forehead. "I can't understand it . . . I can't understand it," she muttered. "Dear, must one understand--to love? . . . Can't you have faith?" His eyes, those blue eyes of his which could be by turns so fierce, so unrelenting, and--did she not know it to her heart's undoing?--so unutterably tender, besought her. But, for once, they awakened no response. She felt cold--quite cold and indifferent. "No, Max," she answered wearily. "I don't think I can. You ask me to believe that there is need for you to see so much of Adrienne. At first you said it was because of the play. Now you say it has to do with this--this thing I may not know. . . . I'm afraid I can't believe it. I think a man's wife should come first--first of anything. I've tried--oh, I've tried not to mind when you left me so often to go to Adrienne. I used to tell myself that it was only on account of the play. I tried to believe it, because--because I loved you so. But"--with a bitter little smile--"I don't think I ever _really_ believed it--I only cheated myself. . . . There's something else, too--the shadow. Baroni knows what it is--and Olga Lermontof. Only I--your wife--I know nothing." She paused, as though expecting some reply, but Max remained silent, his arms folded across his chest, his head a little bent. "I was only a child when you married me, Max," she went on presently. "I didn't realise what it meant for a husband to have some secret business which he cannot tell his wife. But I know now what it means. It's merely an excuse to be always with another woman--" In a stride Max was beside her, his eyes blazing, his hands gripping her shoulders with a clasp that hurt her. "How dare you?" he exclaimed. "Unsay that--take it back? Do you hear?" She shrank a little, twisting in his grasp, but he held her remorselessly. "No, I won't take it back. . . . Ah! Let me go, Max, you're hurting me!" He released her instantly, and, as his hands fell away from her shoulders, the white flesh reddened into bars where his fingers had gripped her. His eyes rested for a moment on the angry-looking marks, and then, with an inarticulate cry, he caught her to him, pressing his lips against the bruised flesh, against her eyes, her mouth, crushing her in his arms. She lay there passively; but her body stiffened a little, and her lips remained quite still and unresponsive beneath his. "Diana! . . . Beloved! . . ." She thrust her hands against his chest. "Let me go," she whispered breathlessly, "Let me go. I can't bear you to touch me." With a quick, determined movement she freed herself, and stood a little away from him, panting. "Don't ever . . . do that . . . again. I--I can't bear you to touch me . . . not now." She made a wavering step towards the door. He held it open for her, and in silence she passed out and up the stairs. Presently, from the landing above, he heard the lock of her bedroom door click into its socket. . . . CHAPTER XX THE SHADOW FALLS Breakfast, the following morning, was something of an ordeal. Neither Max nor Diana spoke to each other if speech could be avoided, and, when this was impossible, they addressed each other with a frigid politeness that was more painful than the silence. Jerry and Joan, sensing the antagonism in the atmosphere, endeavoured to make conversation, but their efforts received scant encouragement, and both were thankful when the meal came to an end, and they were free to seek refuge in another room, leaving husband and wife alone together. Diana glanced a trifle nervously at her husband as the door closed behind them. There was a coldness, an aloofness about him, that reminded her vividly of the early days of their acquaintanceship, when his cool indifference of manner had set a barrier between them which her impulsive girlhood had been powerless to break through. "Will you spare me a few minutes in my study?" he said. His face was perfectly impassive; only the peculiar brilliancy of his eyes spoke of the white-hot anger he was holding in leash. Diana nodded silently. For a moment, bereft of words, she quailed before the knowledge of that concentrated anger, but by the time they had reached his study she had pulled herself together, and was ready to face him with a high temper almost equal to his own. She had had the night for reflection, and the sense of bitter injustice under which she was labouring had roused in her the same dogged, unbending obstinacy which, in a much smaller way, had evinced itself when Baroni had thrown the music at her and had subsequently bade her pick it up. But now that sense of wild rebellion against injustice, against personal injury, was magnified a thousandfold. For months she had been drifting steadily apart from her husband, acutely conscious of that secret thing in his life, and fiercely resentful of its imperceptible, yet binding influence on all his actions. Again and again she had been perplexed and mystified by certain incomprehensible things which she had observed--for instance, the fact that, as she knew, part of Max's correspondence was conducted in cipher; that at times he seemed quite unaccountably worried and depressed; and, above all, that he was for ever at the beck and call of Adrienne de Gervais. Gradually she had begun to connect the two things--Adrienne, and that secret which dwelt like a shadowy menace at the back of everything. It was clear, too, that they were also linked together in the minds both of Baroni and Olga Lermontof--a dropped sentence here, a hint there, had assured her of that. Then had come Olga's definite suggestion, "Adrienne de Gervais is a bad friend for the man one loves!" And from that point onward Diana had seen new meanings in all that passed between her husband and the actress, and a blind jealousy had taken possession of her. Something out of the past bound her husband and Adrienne together, of that she felt convinced. She believed that the knowledge which Max had chosen to withhold from her--his wife--he shared with Adrienne--and all Diana's fierce young sense of possession rose up in opposition. Last night, the sight of her husband and the actress, standing together on the stage, had seemed to her to epitomise their relative positions--Max and Adrienne, working together, fully in each other's confidence, whilst she herself was the outsider, only the onlooker in the box! "Well?" she said, defiantly turning to her husband. "Well? What is it you wish to say to me?" "I want an explanation of your conduct--last night." "And I," she retorted impetuously, "I want an explanation of your conduct--ever since we've been married!" He swept her demand aside as though it were the irresponsible prattle of a child, ignored it utterly. He was conscious of only one thing--that she had barred herself away from him, humiliated him, dealt their mutual love a blow beneath which it reeled. The bolted door itself counted for nothing. What mattered was that it was she who had closed it, deliberately choosing to shut him outside her life, and cutting every cord of love and trust and belief that bound them together. An Englishman might have stormed or laughed, as the mood took him, and comforted himself with the reflection that she would "get over it." But not so Max. The sensitiveness which he hid from the world at large, but which revealed itself in the lines of that fine-cut mouth of his, winced under the humiliation she had put upon him. Love, in his idea, was a thing so delicate, so rare, that Diana's crude handling of the situation bore for him a far deeper meaning than the impulsive, headlong action of the over-wrought girl had rightly held. To Max, it signified the end--the denial of all the exquisite trust and understanding which love should represent. If she could think for an instant that he would have asked aught from her at a moment when they were so far apart in spirit, then she had not understood the ideal oneness of body and soul which love signified to him, and the knowledge that she had actually sought to protect herself from him had hurt him unbearably. "Last night," he said slowly, "you showed me that you have no trust, no faith in me any longer." And Diana, misunderstanding, thinking of the secret which he would not share with her, and impelled by the jealousy that obsessed her, replied impetuously:-- "Yes, I meant to show you that. You refuse me your confidence, and expect me to believe in you! You set me aside for Adrienne de Gervais, and then you ask me to--_trust_ you? How can I? . . . I'm not a fool, Max." "So it's that? The one thing over which I asked your faith?" The limitless scorn in his voice lashed her. "You had no right to ask it!" she broke out bitterly. "Oh, you knew what it would mean. I, I was too young to realise. I didn't think--I didn't understand what a horrible thing a secret between husband and wife might be. But I can't bear it--I can't bear it any longer! I sometimes wonder," she added slowly, "if you ever loved me?" "If I ever loved you?" he repeated. "There has never been any other woman in the world for me. There never will be." The utter, absolute conviction of his tones knocked at her heart, but fear and jealousy were stronger than love. "Then prove it!" she retorted. "Take me into your confidence; put Adrienne out of your life." "It isn't possible--not yet," he said wearily. "You're asking what I cannot do." She took a step nearer. "Tell me this, then. What did Olga Lermontof mean when she bade me ask your name? Oh!"--with a quick intake of her breath--"you _must_ answer that, Max; you _must_ tell me that. I have a _right_ to know it!" For a moment he was silent, while she waited, eager-eyed, tremulously appealing, for his answer. At last it came. "No," he said inflexibly. "You have no--right--to ask anything I haven't chosen to tell you. When you gave me your love, you gave me your faith, too. I warned you what it might mean--but you gave it. And I"--his voice deepened--"I worshipped you for it! But I see now, I asked too much of you. More"--cynically--"than any woman has to give." "Then--then"--her voice trembled--"you mean you won't tell me anything more?" "I can't." "And--and Adrienne? Everything must go on just the same?" "Just the same"--implacably. She looked at him, curiously. "And you expect me still to feel the same towards you, I suppose? To behave as though nothing had come between us?" For a moment his control gave way. "I expect nothing," he said hoarsely. "I shall never ask you for anything again--neither love nor friendship. As you have decreed, so it shall be!" Slowly, with bent head, Diana turned and left the room. So this was the end! She had made her appeal, risked everything on his love for her--and lost. Adrienne de Gervais was stronger than she! Hereafter, she supposed, they would live as so many other husbands and wives lived--outwardly good friends, but actually with all the beautiful links of love and understanding shattered and broken. * * * * * * "Since the first night of the play they've hardly said a word to each other--only when it's absolutely necessary." Joan spoke dejectedly, her chin cupped in her hand. Jerry nodded. "I know," he agreed. "It's pretty awful." He and Joan were having tea alone together, cosily, by the library fire. Diana had gone out to a singing-lesson, and Errington was shut up in his study attending to certain letters, written in cipher--letters which reached him frequently, bearing a foreign postmark, and the answers to which he never by any chance dictated to his secretary. "Surely they can't have quarrelled, just because he didn't come to the theatre with us that night," pursued Joan. "Do you think Diana could have been offended because he came down afterwards to please Miss Gervais?" "Partly that. But it's a lot of things together, really. I've seen it coming. Diana's been getting restive for some time. There are--Look here! I don't wish to pry into what's not my business, but a fellow can't live in a house without seeing things, and there's something in Errington's life which Di knows nothing about. And it's that--just the not knowing--which is coming between them." "Well, then, why on earth doesn't he tell her about it, whatever it is?" Jerry shrugged his shoulders. "Can't say. _I_ don't know what it is; it's not my business to know. But his wife's another proposition altogether." "I suppose he expects her to trust him over it," said Joan thoughtfully. "That's about the size of it. And Diana isn't taking any." "I should trust him with anything in the world--a man with that face!" observed Joan, after a pause. "There you go!" cried Jerry discontentedly. "There you go, with your unfailing faith in the visible object. A man's got to _look_ a hero before you think twice about him! Mark my words, Jo--many a saint's face has hidden the heart of a devil." Joan surveyed him consideringly. "I've never observed that you have a saint's face, Jerry," she remarked calmly. "Beast! Joan"--he made a dive for her hand, but she eluded him with the skill of frequent practice--"how much longer are you going to keep me on tenterhooks? You know I'm the prodigal son, and that I'm only waiting for you to say 'yes,' to return to the family bosom--" "And you propose to use me as a stepping stone! I know. You think that if you return as an engaged young man--" "With a good reference from my last situation," interpolated Jerry, grinning. "Yes--that too, then your father will forget all your peccadilloes and say, 'Bless you, my children'--" "Limelight on the blushing bur-ride! And they lived happily ever after! Yes, that's it! Jolly good programme, isn't it?" And somehow Jerry's big boyish arm slipped itself round Joan's shoulders--and Joan raised no objections. "But--about Max and Diana?" resumed Miss Stair after a judicious interval. "Well, what about them?" "Can't we--can't we do anything? Talk to them?" "I just see myself talking to Errington!" murmured Jerry. "I'd about as soon discuss its private and internal arrangements with a volcano! My dear kid, it all depends upon Diana and whether she's content to trust her husband or not. _I'd_ trust Max through thick and thin, and no questions asked. If he blew up the Houses of Parliament, I should believe he'd some good reason for doing it. . . . But then, I'm not his wife!" "Well, I shall talk to Diana," said Joan seriously. "I'm sure Dad would, if he were here. And I do think, Jerry, you might screw up courage to speak to Max. He can't eat you! And--and I simply hate to see those two at cross purposes! They were so happy at the beginning." The mention of matrimonial happiness started a new train of thought, and the conversation became of a more personal nature--the kind of conversation wherein every second or third sentence starts with "when we are married," and thence launches out into rose-red visions of the great adventure. Presently the house door clanged, and a minute later Diana came into the room. She threw aside her furs and looked round hastily. "Where's Max?" she asked sharply. "Not concealed beneath the Chesterfield," volunteered Jerry flippantly. Then, as he caught a hostile sparkle of irritation in her grey eyes, he added hastily, "He's in his study." Diana nodded, and, without further remark, went away in search of her husband. "Are you busy, Max?" she asked, pausing on the threshold of the room where he was working. He rose at once, placing a chair for her with the chilly courtesy which he had accorded her since their last interview in this same room. "Not too busy to attend to you," he replied. "Where will you sit? By the fire?" Diana shook her head. She was a little flushed, and her eyes were bright with some suppressed excitement, "No thanks," she replied. "I only came to tell you that I've been having a talk with Baroni about my voice, and--and that I've decided to begin singing again this winter--professionally, I mean. It seems a pity to waste any more time." She spoke rapidly, and with a certain nervousness. For an instant a look of acute pain leaped into Errington's eyes, but it was gone almost at once, and he turned to her composedly. "Is that the only reason, Diana?" he said. "The waste of time?" She was silent a moment, busying herself stripping off her gloves. Presently she looked up, forcing herself to meet his gaze. "No," she said steadily. "It isn't." "May I know the--other reasons?" Her lip curled. "I should have thought they were obvious. Our marriage has been a mistake. It's a failure. And I can't bear this life any longer. . . . I must have something to do." CHAPTER XXI THE OTHER WOMAN Carlo Baroni's joy knew no bounds when he understood that Diana had definitely decided to return to the concert platform. His first action was to order her away for a complete change and rest, so she and Joan obediently packed their trunks and departed to Switzerland, where they forgot for a time the existence of such things as London fogs, either real or figurative, and threw themselves heart and soul into the winter sports that were going forward. The middle of February found them once more in England, and Joan rejoined her father, while Diana went back to Lilac Lodge. She was greatly relieved to discover that the break had simplified several problems and made it much easier for her to meet her husband and begin life again on fresh terms. Max, indeed, seemed to have accepted the new _régime_ with that same mocking philosophy with which he invariably faced the problems of life--and which so successfully cloaked his hurt from prying eyes. He was uniformly kind in his manner to his wife--with that light, half-cynical kindness which he had accorded her in the train on their first memorable journey together, and which effectually set them as far apart from each other as though they stood at the opposite ends of the earth. Unreasonably enough, Diana bitterly resented this attitude. Womanlike, she made more than one attempt to re-open the matter over which they had quarrelled, but each was skilfully turned aside, and the fact that after his one rejected effort at reconciliation, Max had calmly accepted the new order of things, added fuel to the jealous fire that burned within her. She told herself that if he still cared for her, if he were not utterly absorbed in Adrienne de Gervais, he would never have rested until he had restored the old, happy relations between them. Instinctively she sought to dull the pain at her heart by plunging headlong into professional life. Her voice, thanks to the rest and change of her visit to Switzerland, had regained all its former beauty, and her return to the concert platform was received with an outburst of popular enthusiasm. The newspapers devoted half a column apiece to the subject, and several of them prophesied that it was in grand opera that Madame Diana Quentin would eventually find the setting best suited to her gifts. "Mere concert work"--wrote one critic--"will never give her the scope which both her temperament and her marvellous voice demand." And with this opinion Baroni cordially concurred. It was his ultimate ambition for Diana that she should study for grand opera, and she herself, only too thankful to find something that would occupy her thoughts and take her right out of herself, as it were, enabling her to forget the overthrow of her happiness, flung herself into the work with enthusiasm. Gradually, as time passed on, her bitter feelings towards Max softened a little. That light, half-ironical manner he had assumed brought back to her so vividly the Max Errington of the early days of their acquaintance that it recalled, too, a measure of the odd attraction he had held for her in that far-away time. That he still visited Adrienne very frequently she was aware, but often, on his return from Somervell Street, he seemed so much depressed that she began at last to wonder whether those visits were really productive of any actual enjoyment. Possibly she had misjudged them--her husband and her friend--and it might conceivably be really only business matters which bound them together after all. If so--if that were true--how wantonly she had flung away her happiness! Late one afternoon, Max, who had been out since early morning, came in looking thoroughly worn out. His eyes, ringed with fatigue, held an alert look of strain and anxiety for which Diana was at a loss to account. She was at the piano when he entered the room, idly trying over some MS. songs that had been submitted by aspiring composers anxious to secure her interest. "Why, Max," she exclaimed, genuine concern in her voice, as she rose from the piano. "How worried you look! What is the matter?" "Nothing," he returned. "At least, nothing in which you can help," he added hastily. "Unless--" "Unless what? Please . . . let me help . . . if I can." Diana spoke rather nervously. She was suddenly struck by the fact that the last few months had been responsible for a great change in her husband's appearance. He looked much thinner and older than formerly, she thought. There were harassed lines in his face, and its worn contours and shadowed eyes called aloud to the compassionate womanhood within her, to the mother-instinct that involuntarily longs to heal and soothe. "Tell me what I can do, Max?" A smile curved his lips, half whimsical, half sad. "You can do for me what you do for all the rest of the world--I won't ask more of you," he replied. "Sing to me." Diana coloured warmly. The first part of his speech stung her unbearably. "Sing to you?" she repeated. "Yes. I'm very tired, and nothing is more restful than music." Then, as she hesitated, he added, "Unless, of course, I'm asking too much." "You know you are not," she answered swiftly. She resumed her place at the piano, and, while he lay back in his chair with closed eyes, she sang to him--the music of the old masters who loved melody, and into whose songs the bitterness and unrest of the twentieth century had not crept. Presently, she thought, he slept, and very softly her hands strayed into the simple, sorrowful music of "The Haven of Memory," and a note of wistful appeal, not all of art, added a new depth to the exquisite voice. How once your love But crowned and blessed me only, Long and long ago. The refrain died into silence, and Diana, looking up, found Max's piercing blue eyes fixed upon her. He was not asleep, then, after all. He smiled slightly as their glances met. "Do you remember I once told you I thought 'The Hell of Memory' would be a more appropriate title? . . . I was quite right." "Max--" Diana's voice quavered and broke. A sudden eager light sprang into his face. Swiftly he same to her side and stood looking down at her. "Diana," he said tensely, "must it always remain--the hell of memory?" They were very near to each other in that moment; the great wall fashioned of jealousy and distrust was tottering to its foundations. And then, from the street below came the high-pitched, raucous sound of the newsboy's voice:-- "_Attempted Murder of Miss Adrian Jervis! Premier Theatre Besieged._" The words, with their deadly import, cut between husband and wife like a sword. "Good God!" The exclamation burst from Max with a cry of horror. In an instant he was out of the room, down the stairs, and running bareheaded along the street in pursuit of the newsboy, and a few seconds later he was back with a newspaper, damp from the press, in his hands. Diana had remained sitting just as he had left her. She felt numbed. The look of dread and consternation that had leaped into her husband's face, as the news came shrilling up from the street below, had told her, more eloquently than any words could do, how absolutely his life was bound up in that of Adrienne de Gervais. A man whose heart's desire has been suddenly snatched from him might look so; no other. Max, oblivious of everything else, was reading the brief newspaper account at lightning speed. At last-- "I must go!" he said. "I must go round to Somervell Street at once." When he had gone, Diana picked up the newspaper from the floor where he had tossed it, and smoothing out its crumpled sheet, proceeded to read the short paragraph, surmounted by staring head-lines, which had sent her husband hurrying hot-foot to Adrienne's house. "MURDEROUS ATTACK ON MISS ADRIENNE DE GERVAIS. "As Miss Adrienne de Gervais, the popular actress, was leaving the Premier Theatre after the matinee performance to-day, a man rushed out from a side street and fired three shots at her, wounding her severely. Miss de Gervais was carried into the theatre, where a doctor who chanced to be passing rendered first aid. Within a very few minutes the news of the outrage became known and the theatre was besieged by inquirers. The would-be assassin, who made good his escape, was a man of unmistakably foreign appearance." Diana laid the paper down very quietly. This, then, was the news which had power to bring that look of fear and dread to her husband's face--which could instantly wipe out from his mind all thoughts of his wife and of everything that concerned her. Perhaps, she reflected scornfully, it was as well that the revelation had come when it did! Otherwise--otherwise, she had been almost on the verge of forgetting her just cause for jealousy, forgetting all the past months of misery, and believing in her husband once again. The trill of the telephone from below checked her bitter thoughts, and hurrying downstairs into the hall, she lifted the receiver and held it to her ear. "Yes. Who is it?" Possibly something was wrong with the wire, or perhaps it was only that Diana's voice, particularly deep and low-pitched for a woman, misled the speaker at the other end. Whatever it may have been, Adrienne's voice, rather tremulous and shaky, came through the 'phone, and she was obviously under the impression that she was speaking to Diana's husband. "Oh, is that you, Max? Don't be frightened. I'm not badly hurt. I hear it's already in the papers, and as I knew you'd be nearly mad with anxiety, I've made the doctor let me 'phone you myself. Of course you can guess who did it. It was not the man you caught waiting about outside the theatre. It was the taller one of the two we saw at Charing Cross that day. Please come round as soon as you can." Diana's lips set in a straight line. Very deliberately she replaced the receiver and rang off without reply. A small, fine smile curved her lips as she reflected that, within a few minutes, Max's arrival at Somervell Street would enlighten Miss de Gervais as to the fact that she had bean pouring out her reassuring remarks to the wrong person. Half an hour later Diana came slowly downstairs, dressed for dinner. Jerry was waiting for her in the hall. "There's a 'phone message just come through from Max," he said, a trifle awkwardly. (Jerry had not lived through the past few months at Lilac Lodge without realising the terms on which the Erringtons stood with each other.) "He won't be back till late." Diana bestowed her sweetest smile upon him. "Then we shall be dining _tete-à-tete_. How nice! Come along." She took his arm and they went in together. "This is a very serious thing about Miss de Gervais, isn't it?" she said conversationally, as they sat down. "A dastardly business," assented Jerry, with indignation. "I suppose--did Max give you any further particulars?" "The bullet's broken her arm just above the elbow. Of course she won't be able to play for some time to come." "How her understudy must be rejoicing," murmured Diana reflectively. "It seems," pursued Jerry, "that the shot was fired by some shady actor fellow. Down on his luck, you know, and jealous of Miss de Gervais' success. At least, that's what they suspect, and Max has 'phoned me to send a paragraph to all the morning papers to that effect." "That's very curious," commented Diana. "Why? I should think it's a jolly good guess." Diana smiled enigmatically. "Anyhow, it sounds a very natural supposition," she agreed lightly, and then switched the conversation on to other subjects. Jerry, however, seemed rather absent and distrait, and presently, when at last the servants had handed the coffee and withdrawn, he blurted out:-- "It sounds beastly selfish of me, but this affair has upset my own little plans rather badly." "Yours, Jerry?" said Diana kindly. "How's that? Give me a cigarette and tell me what's gone wrong." "What would Baroni say to your smoking?" queried Jerry, as he tendered his case and held a match for her to light her cigarette. "I'm not singing anywhere for a week," laughed Diana. "So this orgy is quite legitimate." And she inhaled luxuriously. "Now, go on, Jerry, what plans of yours have been upset?" "Well"--Jerry reddened--"I wrote to my governor the other day. It--it was to please Joan, you know." Diana nodded, her grey eyes dancing. "Of course," she said gravely, "I quite understand." "And--and here's his answer!" He opened his pocket-book, and extracting a letter from the bundle it contained, handed it to Diana. "You mean you want me to read this?" "Please." Diana unfolded it, and read the following terse communication:-- "Come home and bring the lady. Am fattening the calf.--Your affectionate Father." "Jerry, I should adore your father," said Diana, as she gave him back the letter. "He must he a perfect gem amongst parents." "He's not a bad old chap," acknowledged Jerry, as he replaced the paternal invitation in his pocket-book. "But you see the difficulty? I was going to ask Errington to give me a few days' leave, and I don't like to bother him now that he has all this worry about Miss de Gervais on his hands." Diana flushed hotly at Jerry's tacit acceptance of the fact that Adrienne's affairs were naturally of so much moment to her husband. It was another pin-prick in the wound that had been festering for so long. She ignored it, however, and answered quietly:-- "Yes, I see. Perhaps you had better leave it for a few days. What about Pobs? He'll have to be consulted in the matter, won't he?" "I told him, long ago, that I wanted Joan. Before"--with a grin--"I ever summoned up pluck to tell Joan herself! He was a brick about it, but he thought I ought to make it up with the governor before Joan and I were formally engaged. So I did--and I'm jolly glad of it. And now I want to go down to Crailing, and fetch Joan, and take her with me to Abbotsleigh. So I should want at least a week off." "Well, wait till Max comes back," advised Diana, "We shall know more about the matter then. And--and--Jerry!" She stretched out her hand, which immediately disappeared within Jerry's big, boyish fist. "Good luck, old boy!" * * * * * * Max returned at about ten o'clock, and Diana proceeded to offer polite inquiries about Miss de Gervais' welfare. She wondered if he would remember how near they had been to each other just for an instant before the news of the attempt upon Adrienne's life had reached them. But apparently he had forgotten all about it. His thoughts were entirely concerned with Adrienne, and he was unusually grave and preoccupied. He ordered a servant to bring him some sandwiches and a glass of wine, and when he and Diana were once more alone, be announced abruptly:-- "I shall have to leave home for a few days." "Leave home?" echoed Diana. "Yes. Adrienne must go out of town, and I'm going to run down to some little country place and find rooms for her and Mrs. Adams." "Find rooms?" Diana stared at him amazedly. "But surely--won't they go to Red Gables?" Max shook his head. "No. It wouldn't be safe after this--this affair. The same brute might try to get her again. You see, it's quite well known that she has a house at Crailing." "Who is it that is such an enemy of hers?" Max hesitated a moment. "It might very well be some former actor, some poor devil of a fellow down on his luck, who has brooded over his fancied wrongs till he was half-mad," he said, at length. Diana's eyes flashed. So that item of news intended for the morning papers was also to be handed out for home consumption! "What steps are you taking to trace the man?" Again Max paused before replying. To Diana, his hesitation strengthened her conviction that he was, as usual, withholding something from her. "Well?" she repeated. "What steps are you taking?" "None," he answered at last reluctantly. "Adrienne doesn't wish any fuss made over the matter." And yet, Diana reflected, both her husband and Miss de Gervais knew quite well who the assailant was! "The taller of the two," Adrienne had said through the telephone. Why, then, with that clue in her hands, did she refuse to prosecute? Suddenly, into Diana's mind flashed an answer to the question--to the multitude of questions which had perplexed, her for so long. She felt as a traveller may who has been journeying along an unknown way in the dark, hurt and bruised by stones and pitfalls he could not see, when suddenly a light shines out, revealing all the dangers of the path. The explanation of all those perplexities and suspicions of the past was so simple, so obvious, that she marvelled why it had never occurred to her before. Adrienne de Gervais was neither more or less than an adventuress--one of the vampire type of woman who preys upon mankind, drawing them into her net by her beauty and charm, even as she had drawn Max himself! This, this supplied the key to the whole matter--all that had gone before, and all that was now making such a mockery of her married life. And the "poor devil of a fellow" who had attempted Adrienne's life had probably figured largely in her past, one of her dupes, and now, understanding at last what kind of woman it was for whom he had very likely sacrificed all that made existence worth while, he was obsessed with a crazy desire for vengeance--vengeance at any price. And Adrienne, of course, in her extremity, had turned to her latest captive, Max himself, for protection! Oh! it was all quite clear now! The scattered pieces of the puzzle were fitting together and making a definite picture. Stray remarks of Olga Lermontof's came back to her--those little pointed arrows wherewith the Russian had skilfully found out the joints in her armour--"Miss de Gervais is not quite what she seems." And again, "I'm perfectly sure Adrienne de Gervais' past is a closed book to you." Proof positive that Olga had known all along what Diana had only just this moment perceived to be the truth. Diana's small hands clenched themselves until the nails dug into the soft palms, as she remembered how those same hands had been held out in friendship to this very adventuress--to the woman who had wrecked her happiness, and for whom Max was ready at any time to set her and her wishes upon one side! What a blind, trusting fool she had been! Well, that was all ended now; she knew where she stood. Never again would Max or Adrienne be able to deceive her. The scales had at last fallen from her eyes. "I'm sorry, Diana"--Max's cool, quiet tones broke in on the torment of her thoughts. "I'm sorry, but I shall probably have to be away several days." "Have you forgotten we're giving a big reception here next Wednesday?" "Wednesday, is it? And to-day is Saturday. I shall find rooms somewhere to-morrow, and take Adrienne and Mrs. Adams down to them the next day. . . No, I can't possibly be back for Wednesday." "But you must!"--impetuously. "It's impossible. I shall stay with Adrienne and Mrs. Adams until I'm quite sure that the place is safe for them--that that fellow hasn't traced them and isn't lurking about in the neighbourhood. You mustn't expect me back before Saturday at the earliest. You and Jerry can manage the reception. I hate those big crowds, as you know." For a moment Diana sat in stony silence. So he intended to leave her to entertain half London--that half of London that mattered and would talk about it--while he spent a pleasant week philandering down in the country with Adrienne de Gervais, under the aegis of Mrs. Adams' chaperonage! Very slowly Diana rose to her feet. Her small face was white and set, her little pointed chin thrust out, and her grey eyes were almost black with the intense anger that gripped her. "Do you mean this?" she asked collectedly. "Why, of course. Don't you see that I must, Diana? I can't let Adrienne run a risk like that." "But you can subject your wife to an insult like that without thinking twice about it!"--contemptuously. "It hasn't occurred to you, I suppose, what people will say when they find that I have been left entirely alone to entertain our friends, while my husband passes a pleasant week in the country with Miss de Gervais, and her--chaperon? It's an insult to our guests as well as to me. But I quite understand. I, and my friends, simply _don't count_ when Adrienne de Gervais wants you." "I can't help it," he answered stubbornly, her scorn moving him less than the waves that break in a shower of foam at the foot of a cliff. "You knew you would have to trust me." "_Trust you_?" cried Diana, shaken out of her composure. "Yes! But I never promised to stand trustingly by while you put another woman in my place. This is the end, Max. I've had enough." A sudden look of apprehension dawned in his eyes. "What do you mean?" he asked sharply. "What do I mean?"--bleakly. "Oh, nothing. I never do mean anything, do I? . . . Well, good-bye. I expect you'll have left the house before I come down to-morrow morning. I hope . . . you'll enjoy your visit to the country." She waited a moment, as though expecting some reply; then, as he neither stirred nor spoke, she went quickly out of the room, closing the door behind her. CHAPTER XXII THE PARTING OF THE WAYS "Jerry"--Diana came into her husband's study, where his secretary, who had nothing further to do until his employer's return, was pottering about putting the bookshelves to rights, "Jerry, I'm going to give you a holiday. You can go down to Crailing to-day." Jerry turned round in surprise. "But, I say, Diana, I can't, you know--not while Max is away. I'm supposed to make myself useful to you." "Well, I think you did make yourself--very useful--last night, didn't you?" "Oh, that!" Jerry shrugged his shoulders. Then, surveying her critically, he added: "You look awfully tired this morning, Di!" She did. There were purple shadows beneath her eyes, and her face looked white and drawn. The previous evening had been the occasion of her reception, and she had carried it pluckily through single-handed. Quiet and composed, she had moved about amongst her guests, covering Max's absence with a light touch and pretty apology, her demeanour so natural and unembarrassed that the tongues, which would otherwise have wagged swiftly enough, were inevitably stilled. But the strain had told upon her. This morning she looked haggard and ill, more fit to be in bed than anything else. "Oh, I shall be all right after a night's rest," she answered cheerfully. "And as to making yourself useful there's really nothing I want you to do for me. But I _do_ want you to go and make your peace with your father, and take Joan to him. I'm sure he'll love her! So I'm writing to Max telling him that I've given you leave of absence. He won't be returning till Saturday at the earliest, and probably not then. If he wants you back on Monday, we'll wire." Jerry hesitated. "Are you sure it will be quite all right? I don't really like leaving you." "Quite all right," she assured him. "I _did_ want you for the party last night, and you were the greatest possible help to me. But now, I don't want you a bit for anything. If you're quick, you can catch the two o'clock down express and"--twinkling--"see Joan this evening." "Diana, you're a brick!" And Jerry dashed upstairs to pack his suit-case. Diana heaved a sigh of relief when, a few hours later, a triumphant and joyous Jerry departed in search of a bride. She wanted him out of the house, for that which she had decided to do would be more easily accomplished without the boy's honest, affectionate eyes beseeching her. All her arrangements were completed, and to-morrow--to-morrow she was going to leave Lilac Lodge for ever. Never again would she share the life of the man who had shown her clearly that, although she was his wife, she counted with him so infinitely less than that other--than Adrienne de Gervais. Her pride might break in the leaving, but it would bend to living under the same roof with him no longer. Only one thing still remained--to write a letter to her husband and leave it in his study for him to find upon his return. It savoured a little of the theatrical, she reflected, but there seemed no other way possible. She didn't want Max to come in search of her, so she must make it clear to him that she was leaving him deliberately and with no intention of ever returning. She had told the servants that she was going away on a few days' visit, and after Jerry's departure she gave her maid instructions concerning her packing. She intended to leave the house quite openly the following morning. That was much the easiest method of running away. "Shall you require me with you, madam?" asked her maid respectfully. Diana regarded her thoughtfully. She was an excellent servant and thoroughly understood maiding a professional singer; moreover, she was much attached to her mistress. Probably she would be glad of her services later on. "Oh, if I should make a long stay, I'll send for you, Milling, and you can bring on the rest of my things. I shall want some of my concert gowns the week after next," she told her, in casual tones. As soon as she had dismissed the girl to her work, Diana made her way into her husband's study, and, seating herself at his desk, drew a sheet of notepaper towards her. She began to write impulsively, as she did everything else:-- "This is just to say good-bye,"--her pen flew over the paper--"I can't bear our life together any longer, so I'm going away. Perhaps you will blame me because my faith wasn't equal to the task you set it. But I don't think any woman's would be--not if she cared at all. And I did care, Max. It hurts to care as I did--and I'm so tired of being hurt that I'm running away from it. It will be of no use your asking me to return, because I have made up my mind never to come back to you again. I told you that you must choose between Adrienne and me, and you've chosen--Adrienne. I am going to live with Baroni and his sister, Signora Evanci. It is all arranged. They are glad to have me, and it will be much easier for me as regards my singing. So you needn't worry about me.--But perhaps, you wouldn't have done! "DIANA. "P.S.--Please don't be vexed with Jerry for going away. I gave him leave of absence myself, and I told him I would make it all right with you.--D." She folded the letter with a curious kind of precision, slipped it into an envelope, sealed and addressed it, and propped it up against the inkpot on her husband's desk, so that he could not fail to find it. Then, when it was time to dress for dinner, she went upstairs and let her maid put her into an evening frock, exactly as though nothing out of the ordinary were going on, just as though to-day--the last day she would ever spend in her husband's home--were no different from any other day. She made a pretence of eating dinner, and afterwards sat in her own little sitting-room, with a book in front of her, of which she read not a single line. Presently, when she was quite sure that all the servants had gone to bed, she made a pilgrimage through the house, moving reluctantly from room to room, taking a silent farewell of the place where she had known such happiness--and afterwards, such pain. At last she went to bed, but she felt too restless and keyed up to sleep, so she slipped into a soft, silken wrapper and established herself in a big easy-chair by the fire. The latter had died down into a dull, red glow, but she prodded the embers into a flame, adding fresh coal, and as the pleasant warmth of it lapped her round, a feeling of gentle languor gradually stole over her, and at length she slept. . . . She woke with a start. Some one was trying the handle of the door--very quietly, but yet not at all as though making any attempt to conceal the fact. Something must be amiss, and one of the maids had come to warn her. The possibility that the house was on fire, or that burglars had broken in, flashed through her mind. She sprang to her feet, and switching on the light, called out sharply:-- "Who is it?" She had not fastened the lock overnight, and her heart beat in great suffocating throbs as she watched the handle turn. The next moment some one came quickly into the room and closed the door. It was Max! Diana fell back a step, staring incredulously. "_You_!" she exclaimed, breathlessly. "_You_!" He advanced a few paces into the room. He was very pale, and his face wore a curiously excited expression. His eyes were brilliant--fiercely exultant, yet with an odd gleam of the old, familiar mockery in their depths, as though something in the situation amused him. "Yes," he said. "Are you surprised to see me?" "You--you said you were not returning till Saturday," she stammered. "I found I could get away sooner than I expected, so I caught the last up-train--and here I am." There was a rakish, devil-may-care note in his voice that filled her with a vague apprehension. Summoning up her courage, she faced him, striving to keep her voice steady. "And why--why have you come to me--now?" "I found your note--the note you had left on my desk, so I thought I would like to say good-bye," he answered carelessly. "You could have waited till to-morrow morning," she returned coldly. "You--you"--she stammered a little, and a faint flush tinged her pallor--"you should not have come . . . here." A sudden light gleamed in his eyes, mocking and triumphant. "It is my wife's room. A husband"--slowly--"has certain rights." "Ah-h!" She caught her breath, and her hand flew her throat. "And since," he continued cruelly, never taking his eye from her face, "since those rights are to be rescinded to-morrow for ever--why, then, to-night--" "No! . . . No!" She shrank from him, her hands stretched out as though to ward him off. "You've said 'no' to me for the last six months," he said grimly. "But--that's ended now." Her eyes searched his face wildly, reading only a set determination in it. Slowly, desperately, she backed away from him; then, suddenly, she made a little rush, and, reaching the door, pulled at the handle. But it remained fast shut. "_It's locked_!" she cried, frantically tugging at it. She flashed round upon him. "The key! Where's the key?" The words came sobbingly. He put his fingers in his pocket. "Here," he answered coolly. Despairingly she retreated from the door. There was an expression in his eyes that terrified her--a furnace heat of passion barely held in check. The Englishman within him was in abeyance; the hot, foreign blood was leaping in his veins. "Max!" she faltered appealingly. He crossed swiftly to her side, gripping her soft, bare arms in a hold so fierce that his fingers scored them with red weals. "By God, Diana! What do you think I'm made of?" he burst out violently. "For months you've shut yourself away from me and I've borne it, waiting--waiting always for you to come back to me. Do you think it's been easy?" His limbs were shaking, and his eyes burned into hers. "And now--now you tell me that you've done with me. . . You take everything from me! My love is to count for nothing!" "You never loved me!" she protested, with low, breathless vehemence. "It--it could never have been love." For a moment he was silent, staring at her. Then he laughed. "Very well. Call it desire, passion--what you will!" he exclaimed brutally. "But--you married me, you know!" She cowered away from him, looking to right and left like a trapped animal seeking to escape, but he held her ruthlessly, forcing her to face him. All at once, her nerve gave way, and she began to cry--helpless, despairing weeping that rocked the slight form in his grasp. As she stood thus, the soft silk of her wrapper falling in straight folds about her; her loosened hair shadowing her white face, she looked pathetically small and young, and Errington suddenly relinquished his hold of her and stepped back, his hands slowly clenching in the effort not to take her in his arms. Something tugged at his heart, pulling against the desire that ran riot in his veins--something of the infinite tenderness of love which exists side by side with its passion. "Don't look like that," he said hoarsely. "I'll--I'll go." He crossed the room, reeling a little in his stride, and, unlocking the door, flung it open. She stared at him, incredulous relief in her face, while the tears still slid unchecked down her cheeks. "Max--" she stammered. "Yes," he returned. "You're free of me. I don't suppose you'll believe it, but I love you too much to . . . take . . . what you won't give." A minute later the door closed behind him and she heard his footsteps descending the stairs. With a low moan she sank down beside the bed, her face hidden in her hands, sobbing convulsively. CHAPTER XXIII PAIN Summer had come and gone, and Diana, after a brief visit to Crailing, had returned to town for the winter season. The Crailing visit had not been altogether without its embarrassments. It was true that Red Gables was closed and shuttered, so that she had run no risk of meeting either her husband or Adrienne, but Jerry, in the character of an engaged young man, had been staying at the Rectory, and he had allowed Diana to see plainly that his sympathies lay pre-eminently with Max, and that he utterly condemned her lack of faith in her husband. "Some day, Diana, you'll be sorry that you chucked one of the best chaps in the world," he told her, with a fierce young championship that was rather touching, warring, as it did, with his honest affection for Diana herself. "Oh! It makes me sick! You two ought to have had such a splendid life together." Rather wistfully, Diana asked the Rector if he, too, blamed her entirely for what had occurred. But Alan Stair's wide charity held no room for censure. "My dear," he told her, "I don't think I want to _blame_ either you or Max. The situation was difficult, and you weren't quite strong enough to cope with it. That's all. But"--with one of his rare smiles that flashed out like sunshine after rain--"you haven't reached the end of the chapter yet." Diana shook her head. "I think we have, Pobs. I, for one, shall never reopen the pages. My musical work is going to fill my life in future." Stair's eyes twinkled with a quiet humour. "Sponge cake is filling, my dear, very," he responded. "But it's not satisfying--like bread." Since Diana had left her husband, fate had so willed it that they had never chanced to meet. She had appeared very little in society, excusing herself on the plea that her professional engagements demanded all her energies. And certainly, since the immediate and overwhelming success which she had achieved at Covent Garden, her operatic work had made immense demands both upon her time and physical strength. But, with the advent of autumn, the probabilities of a meeting between husband and wife were increased a hundredfold, since Diana's engagements included a considerable number of private receptions in addition to her concert work, and she never sang at a big society crush without an inward apprehension that she might encounter Max amongst the guests. She shrank from meeting him again as a wounded man shrinks from an accidental touch upon his hurt. It had been easy enough, in the first intolerant passion which had overwhelmed her, to contemplate life apart from him. Indeed, to leave him had seemed the only obvious course to save her from the daily flagellation of her love, the hourly insult to her dignity, that his relations with Adrienne de Gervais and the whole mystery which hung about his actions had engendered. But when once the cord had been cut, and life in its actuality had to be faced apart from him, Diana found that love, hurt and buffeted though it may be, still remains love, a thing of flame and fire, its very essence a desire for the loved one's presence. Every fibre of her being cried aloud for Max, and there were times when the longing for the warm, human touch of his hand, for the sound of his voice, grew almost unbearable. Yet any meeting between them could be but a barren reminder of the past, revitalising the dull ache of longing into a quick and overmastering agony, and, realising this, Diana recoiled from the possibility with a fear almost bordering upon panic. She achieved a certain feeling of security in the fact that she had made her home with Baroni and his sister. Signora Evanci mothered her and petted her and fussed over her, much as she did over Baroni himself, and the old _maestro_, aware of the tangle of Diana's matrimonial affairs, and ambitious for her artistic future, was likely to do his utmost to avert a meeting between husband and wife--since emotional crises are apt to impair the voice. From Baroni's point of view, the happenings of life were chiefly of importance in so far as they tended towards the perfecting of the artiste. "Love is good," he had said on one occasion. "No one can interpret romantic music who has not loved. And a broken heart in the past, and plenty of good food in the present--these may very well make a great artiste. But a heart that _keeps on_ breaking, that is not permitted to heal itself--no, that is not good. _A la fin_, the voice breaks also." Hence he regarded his favourite pupil with considerable anxiety. To his experienced eye it was palpable that the happenings of her married life had tried Diana's strength almost to breaking point, and that the enthusiasm and energy with which, seeking an anodyne to pain, she had flung herself into her work, would act either one way or the other--would either finish the job, so that the frayed nerves gave way, culminating in a serious breakdown of her health, or so fill her horizon that the memories of the past gradually receded into insignificance. The cup of fame, newly held to her lips, could not but prove an intoxicating draught. There was a rushing excitement, an exhilaration about her life as a well-known public singer, which acted as a constant stimulus. The enthusiastic acclamations with which she was everywhere received, the adulation that invariably surrounded her, and the intense joy which, as a genuine artist, she derived from the work itself, all acted as a narcotic to the pain of memory, and out of these she tried to build up a new life for herself, a life in which love should have neither part nor lot, but wherein added fame and recognition was to be the ultimate goal. Her singing had improved; there was a new depth of feeling in her interpretation which her own pain and suffering had taught her, and it was no infrequent thing for part of her audience to be moved to tears, wistfully reminded of some long-dead romance, when she sang "The Haven of Memory"--a song which came to be associated with her name much in the same way that "Home, Sweet Home" was associated with another great singer, whose golden voice gave new meaning to the familiar words. Olga Lermontof still remained her accompanist. For some unfathomed reason she no longer flung out the bitter gibes and thrusts at Errington which had formerly sprung so readily to her lips, and Diana grimly ascribed this forbearance to an odd kind of delicacy--the generosity of the victor who refuses to triumph openly over the vanquished! Once, in a bitter mood, Diana had taxed her with it. "You must feel satisfied now that you have achieved your object," she told her. The Russian, idly improvising on the piano, dropped her hands from the keys, and her eyes held a queer kind of pain in them as she made answer. "And what exactly did you think my object was?" she queried. "Surely it was obvious?" replied Diana lightly. "When Max and I were together, you never ceased to sow discord between us--though why you hated him so, I cannot tell--and now that we have separated, I suppose you are content." "Content?" Olga laughed shortly. "I never wanted you to separate. And"--she hesitated--"I never hated Max Errington." "I don't believe it!" The assertion leaped involuntarily from Diana's lips. "I can understand that," Olga spoke with a curious kind of patience. "But, believe it or not as you will, I was working for quite other ends. And I've failed," she added dispiritedly. With the opening of the autumn season and the ensuing rebirth of musical and theatrical life, London received an unexpected shock. It was announced that Adrienne de Gervais was retiring from her position as leading lady at the Premier Theatre, and for a few days after the launching of this thunderbolt the theatre-going world hummed with the startling news, while a dozen rumours were set on foot to account for what must surely prove little less than a disaster to the management of the Premier. But, as usual, after the first buzz of surprise and excitement had spent itself, people settled down, and reluctantly accepted the official explanation furnished by the newspapers--namely, that the popular actress had suffered considerably in health from the strain of several successive heavy seasons and intended to winter abroad. To Diana the news yielded an odd sense of comfort. Somehow the thought of Adrienne's absence from England seemed to bring Max nearer, to make him more her own again. Even though they were separated, there was a certain consolation in the knowledge that the woman whose close friendship with her husband had helped to make shipwreck of their happiness was going out of his life, though it might be only for a little time. One day, impelled by an irresistible desire to test the truth of the newspaper reports, Diana took her way to Somervell Street, pausing opposite the house that had been Adrienne's. She found it invested with a curious air of unfamiliarity, facing the street with blank and shuttered windows, like blind eyes staring back at her unrecognisingly. So it was true! Adrienne had gone away and the house was empty and closed. Diana retraced her steps homeward, conscious of a queer feeling of satisfaction. Often the thought that Max and Adrienne might be together had tortured her almost beyond endurance, adding a keener edge to the pain of separation. Pain! Life seemed made up of pain these days. Sometimes she wondered how much a single human being was capable of bearing. It was months--an eternity--since she and Max had parted, and still her heart cried out for him, fighting the bitter anger and distrust that had driven her from him. She felt she could have borne it more easily had he died. Then the remembrance of his love would still have been hers to hold and keep, something most precious and unspoilt. But now, each memory of their life together was tarnished with doubt and suspicion and mistrust. She had put him to the test, bade him choose betwixt her and Adrienne, claiming his confidence as her right--and he had chosen Adrienne and declined to trust her with his secret. She told herself that had he loved her, he must have yielded. No man who cared could have refused her, and the scourge of wounded pride drove her into that outer darkness where bitterness and "proper self-respect" defile the face of Love. She had turned desperately to her work for distraction from the ceaseless torture of her thoughts, but not all the work in the world had been able to silence the cry of her heart. For work can do no more than fill the day, and though Diana feverishly crammed each day so full that there was little time to think and remember, the nights remained--the interminable nights, when she was alone with her own soul, and when the memories which the day's work had beaten back came pressing in upon her. Oh, God! The nights--the endless, intolerable nights! . . . CHAPTER XXIV THE VISION OF LOVE A week after her visit to Somervell Street, the thing which Diana had dreaded came to pass. She was attending a reception at the French Embassy, and as she made her way through the crowded rooms, followed by Olga Lermontof--who frequently added to the duties of accompanist those of _dame de compagnie_ to the great _prima donna_--she came suddenly face to face with Max. To many of us the anticipation of an unpleasant happening is far more agonising than the actual thing itself. The mind, brooding apprehensively upon what may conceivably occur, exaggerates the possibilities of the situation, enhancing all the disagreeable details, and oblivious of any mitigating circumstances which may, quite probably, accompany it. There is sound sense and infinite comfort, if you look for it, in the old saying which bids us not to cross our bridges till we come to them. The fear of the unknown, the unexperienced, is a more haunting, insidious fear than any other, and sometimes one positively longs to hasten the advent of an unwelcome ordeal, in order that the worst may be known and the menace of the future be transformed into a memory of the past. So it was with Diana. She had been for so long beset by her fear of the first meeting that she experienced a sensation almost of relief when her eyes fell at last upon the tall figure of her husband. He was deep in conversation with the French Ambassador at the moment, but as Diana approached it was as though some sensitive, invisible live wire had vibrated, apprising him of her nearness, and he looked up suddenly, his blue eyes gazing straight into hers. To Diana, the brief encounter proved amazingly simple and easy in contrast with the shrinking apprehensions she had formed. A slight bow from her, its grave return from him, and the dreaded moment was past. It was only afterwards that she realised, with a sense of sick dismay, how terribly he had altered. She caught at the accompanist's arm with nervous force. "Olga!" she whispered. "Did you see?" The Russian's expression answered her. Her face wore a curious stunned look, and her mouth twitched as she tried to control the sudden trembling of her lips. "Come outside--on to this balcony." Olga spoke with a fierce imperativeness as she saw Diana sway uncertainly and her face whiten. Once outside in the cool shelter of the balcony, dimly lit by swaying Chinese lanterns, Diana sank into a chair, shaken and unnerved. For an instant her eyes strayed back to where, through the open French window, she could see Max still conversing with the Ambassador, but she averted them swiftly. The change in him hurt her like the sudden stab of a knife. His face was worn and lined; there was something ascetic-looking in the hollowed line from cheek-bone to chin and in the stern, austere closing of the lips, while the eyes--the mocking blue eyes with the laughter always lurking at the back of them--held an expression of deep, unalterable sadness. "Olga!" The word broke from Diana's white lips like a cry of appeal, tremulous and uncertain. But Miss Lermontof made no response. She seemed quite unmoved by the distress of the woman sitting huddled in the chair before her, and her light green eyes shone with a curious savage glint like the eyes of a cat. Diana spoke again nervously. "Are you--angry with me?" "Angry!" The Russian almost spat out the word. "Angry! Don't you see what you're doing?" "What I'm doing?" repeated Diana. "What am I doing?" Olga replied with a grim incisiveness. "You're killing Max--that's all. This--this is going to break him--break him utterly." There was a long silence, and the dewy dusk of the night, shaken into pearly mist where the flickering light of the Chinese lanterns illumined it, seemed to close round the two women, like a filmy curtain, shutting them off from the chattering throng in the adjoining room. Presently a cart rattled past in the street below, rasping the tense silence. Diana lifted her head. "I didn't know!" she said helplessly. "I didn't know! . . ." "And yet you professed to love him!" Olga spoke consideringly, an element of contemptuous wonder in her voice. The memory of words that Max had uttered long ago stirred in Diana's mind. "_You don't know what love means!_" Limned against the darkness she could see once more the sun-warmed beach at Culver Point, the blue, sparkling sea with the white gulls wheeling above it, and Max--Max standing tall and straight beside her, with a shaft of sunlight flickering across his hair, and love illimitable in his eyes. "You don't know what love means!" The words penetrated to her innermost consciousness, cleaving their way sheer through the fog of doubt and mistrust and pride as the sharp blade of the surgeon's knife cuts deep into a festering wound. And before their clarifying, essential truth, Diana's soul recoiled in dumb dismay. No, she hadn't known what love meant--love, which, with an exquisite unreasonableness, believes when there is ground for doubt--hadn't understood it as even this cynical, bitter-tongued Russian understood it. And she recognised the scorn on Olga's white, contemptuous face as the unlovely sheath of an ideal of love immeasurably beyond her own achieving. The vision of Culver Point faded away, and an impalpable wall of darkness seemed to close about her. Dimly, as though it were some one else's voice speaking, she heard herself say slowly:-- "I thought I loved him." Then, after a pause, "Will you go? Please go. I should like to be . . . quiet . . . a little while." For a moment Olga gazed down at her, eagerly, almost hungrily, as though silently beseeching her. Then, still silently, she went away. Diana sat very still. Above her, the gay-coloured Chinese lanterns swayed to and fro in the little breeze that drifted up the street, and above again, far off in the sombre sky, the stars looked down--pitiless, unmoved, as they have looked down through all the ages upon the pigmy joys and sufferings of humanity. For the first time Diana was awake to the limitations she had set to love. The meeting with her husband had shaken her to the very foundations of her being, the shock of his changed appearance sweeping away at a single blow the whole fabric of artificial happiness that she had been trying to build up. She had thought that the wound in her heart would heal, that she could teach herself to forget the past. And lo! At the first sight of his face the old love and longing had reawakened with a strength she was powerless to withstand. The old love, but changed into something immeasurably more than it had ever been before, and holding in its depths a finer understanding. And with this clearer vision came a sudden new knowledge--a knowledge fraught with pain and yet bearing deep within it an unutterable sense of joy. Max had cared all the time--cared still! It was written in the lines of suffering on his face, in the quiet endurance of the close-shut mouth. Despite the bitter, pitiful misunderstandings of their married life, despite his inexplicable friendship for Adrienne, despite all that had gone before, Diana was sure, in the light of this larger understanding which had come to her, that through it all he had loved her. With an absolute certainty of conviction, she knew that it was her hand which had graved those fresh lines about his mouth, brought that look of calm sadness to his eyes, and the realisation held a strange mingling of exquisite joy and keen anguish. She hid her face in her hands, hid it from the stars and the shrouding dark, tremulously abashed at the wonderful significance of love. She almost laughed to think how she had allowed so small a thing as the secret which Max could not tell her to corrode and eat into the heart of happiness. Looking back from the standpoint she had now gained, it seemed so pitifully mean and paltry, a profanation of the whole inner, hidden meaning of love. So long as she and Max cared for each other, nothing else mattered, nothing in the whole world. And the long battle between love and pride--between love, that had turned her days and nights into one endless ache of longing to return to Max, and pride, that had barred the way inflexibly--was over, done with. Love had won, hands down. She would go back to Max, and all thought that it might be weak-minded of her, humiliating to her self-respect, was swept aside. Love, the great teacher, had brought her through the dark places where the lesser gods hold sway, out into the light of day, and she knew that to return to Max, to give herself afresh to him, would be the veritable triumph, of love itself. She would go back, back to the shelter of his love which had been waiting for her all the time, unswerving and unreproaching. She had read it in his eyes when they had met her own an hour ago. "I want you---body and soul I want you!" he had told her there by the cliffs at Culver. And she had not given him all her soul. She had kept back that supreme belief in the beloved which is an integral part of love. But now, now she would go to him and give with both hands royally--faith and trust, blindly, as love demanded. She smiled a little. Happiness and the haven of Max's arms seemed very near her just then. She was very silent as she and Olga Lermontof drove home together from the Embassy, but just at the last, when the limousine stopped at Baroni's house, she leaned closer to Olga in the semi-darkness, and whispered a little breathlessly:-- "I'm going back to him, Olga." Somehow the mere putting of it into words seemed to give it substance, convert it into an actual fact that could be talked about, just like the weather, or one's favourite play, or any other commonplace matter which can be spoken of because it has a knowledgeable existence. And the Russian's quick "Thank God!" set the seal of assuredness upon it. "Yes--thank God," answered Diana simply. The car, which was to take the accompanist on to Brutton Square, slipped away down the lamp-lit street, and Diana fled upstairs to her room. She must be alone--alone with her thoughts. She no longer dreaded the night and its quiet solitude. It was a solitude pervaded by a deep, abiding peace, the anteroom of happiness. To-morrow she would go to Max, and tell him that love had taught her belief and faith--all that he had asked of her and that she had so failed to give. She lay long awake, gazing into the dark, dreamily conscious of utter peace and calm. To-morrow . . . to-morrow . . . Freely her eyes closed and she slept. Once she stirred and smiled a little in her sleep while the word "Max" fluttered from between her lips, almost as though it had been a prayer. CHAPTER XXV BREAKING-POINT When Diana woke the following morning it was to a drowsy sense of utter peace and content. She wondered vaguely what had given rise to it. Usually, when she came back to the waking world, it was with a shrinking almost akin to terror that a new day had begun and must be lived through--twelve empty, meaningless hours of it. As full consciousness returned, the remembrance of yesterday's meeting with Max, and of all that had succeeded it, flashed into her mind like a sudden ray of sunlight, and she realised that what had tinged her thoughts with rose-colour was the quiet happiness, bred of her determination to return to her husband, which had lain stored at the back of her brain during the hours of unconsciousness. She sat up in bed, vividly, joyously awake, just as her maid came in with her breakfast tray. "Make haste, Milling," she exclaimed, a thrill of eager excitement in her voice. "It's a lovely morning, and there's so much going to happen to-day that I can't waste any time over breakfast." It was the old, impetuous Diana who spoke, impulsively carried away by the emotion of the moment. "Is there, madam?" Milling, arranging the breakfast things on a little table beside the bed, regarded her mistress affectionately. It was long, very long, since she had seen her with that look of happy anticipation in her face--never since the good days at Lilac Lodge, before she had quarrelled so irrevocably with her husband--and the maid wondered whether it foretokened a reconciliation. "Is there, madam? Then I'm glad it's a fine day. It's a good omen." Diana smiled at her. "Yes," she repeated contentedly. "It's a good omen." Milling paused on her way out of the room. "If you please, madam, Signor Baroni would like to know at what time you will be ready to rehearse your songs for to-night, so that he can telephone through to Miss Lermontof?" To rehearse! Diana's face clouded suddenly. She had entirely forgotten that she had promised to give her services that night at a reception, organised in aid of some charity by the Duchess of Linfield--the shrewish old woman who had paid Diana her first tribute of tears--and the recollection of it sounded the knell to her hopes of seeing Max that day. The morning must perforce be devoted to practising, the afternoon to the necessary rest which Baroni insisted upon, and after that there would be only time to dress and partake of a light meal before she drove to the Duchess's house. It would not be possible to see Max! Even had there been time she dared not risk the probable consequences to her voice which the strain and emotion of such an interview must necessarily carry in their train. For a moment she felt tempted to break her engagement, to throw it over at the last instant and telephone to the Duchess to find a substitute. And then her sense of duty to her public--to the big, warm-hearted public who had always welcomed and supported her--pushed itself to the fore, forbidding her to take this way out of the difficulty. How could she, who had never yet broken a contract when her appearance involved a big fee, fail now, on an occasion when she had consented to give her services, and when it was her name alone on the programme which had charmed so much money from the pockets of the wealthy, that not a single seat of all that could be crowded into the Duchess's rooms remained unsold? Oh, it was impossible! Had it meant the renouncing of the biggest fee ever offered her, Diana, would have impetuously sacrificed it and flung her patrons overboard. But it meant something more than that. It was a debt of honour, her professional honour. After all, the fulfilment of her promise to sing would only mean setting her own affairs aside for twenty-four hours, and somehow she felt that Max would understand and approve. He would never wish to snatch a few earlier hours of happiness if they must needs be purchased at the price of a broken promise. But her heart sank as she faced the only alternative. She turned to Milling, the happy exultation that had lit her eyes suddenly quenched. "Ask the _Maestro_ kindly to 'phone Miss Lermontof that I shall be ready at eleven," she said quietly. In some curious way this unlooked-for upset to her plans seemed to have cast a shadow across her path. The warm surety of coming happiness which had lapped her round receded, and a vague, indefinable apprehension invaded her consciousness. It was as though she sensed something sinister that lay in wait for her round the next corner, and all her efforts to recapture the radiant exultation of her mood of yestereve, to shake off the nervous dread that had laid hold of her, failed miserably. Her breakfast was standing untouched on the table beside her bed. She regarded it distastefully. Then, recalling with a wry smile Baroni's dictum that "good food, and plenty of good food, means voice," she reluctantly began to eat, idly turning over the while the pages of one of the newspapers which Milling had placed beside the breakfast tray. It was an illustrated weekly, and numbered amongst its staff an enterprising young journalist, possessed of an absolute genius for nosing out such matters as the principal people concerned in them particularly desired kept secret. Those the enterprising young journalist's paper served up piping-hot in their _Tattle of the Town_ column--a column denounced by the pilloried few and devoured with eager interest by the rest of the world. Diana, sipping her coffee, turned to it half-heartedly, hoping to find some odd bit of news that might serve to distract her thoughts. There were the usual sly hits at several well-known society women whose public charities covered a multitude of private sins, followed by a very inadequately veiled reference to the chief actors in a recent divorce case, and then-- Diana's eyes glued themselves to the printed page before her. Very deliberately she set down her cup on the tray beside her, and taking up the paper again, re-read the paragraph which had so suddenly riveted her attention. It ran as follows:-- "Is it true that the _nom de plume_ of a dramatist, well-known in London circles, masks the identity of the son of a certain romantic royal duke who contracted a morganatic marriage with one of the most beautiful Englishwomen of the seventies? "It would be curious if there proved to be a connecting link between this whisper and the recent disappearance from the stage of the popular actress who has been so closely associated with the plays emanating from the gifted pen of that same dramatist. "Interested readers should carefully watch forthcoming events in the little state of Ruvania." Diana stared at the newspaper incredulously, and a half-stifled exclamation broke from her. There was--there _could_ be--no possible doubt to whom the paragraph bore reference. "_A well-known dramatist and the popular actress so closely associated with his works_"--why, to any one with the most superficial knowledge of plays and players of the moment, it was as obvious as though the names had been written in capitals. Max and Adrienne! Their identities linked together and woven into a fresh tissue of mystery and innuendo! Diana smiled a little at the suggestion that Max might be the son of a royal duke. It was so very far-fetched--fantastic in the extreme. And then, all at once, she remembered Olga's significant query of long ago: "_Have you ever asked him who he is?_" and Max's stern refusal to answer the question when she had put it to him. At the time it had only given an additional twist to the threads of the intolerable web of mystery which had enmeshed her married life. But now it suddenly blazed out like a beacon illumining the dark places. Supposing it were true--supposing Max _had_ been masquerading under another name all the time--then this suggestive little paragraph contained a clue from which she might perhaps unravel the whole hateful mystery. Her brows drew together as she puzzled over the matter. This history of a morganatic marriage--it held a faint ring of familiarity. Vaguely she recollected having heard the story of some royal duke who had married an Englishwoman many years ago. For a few minutes she racked her brain, unable to place the incident. Then, her eyes falling absently upon the newspaper once more, the last word of the paragraph suddenly unlocked the rusty door of memory. _Ruvania_! She remembered the story now! There had once been a younger brother and heir of a reigning grand-duke of Ruvania who had fallen so headlong in love with a beautiful Englishwoman that he had renounced his royal state and his claims to the grand ducal throne, and had married the lady of his choice, thereafter living the life of a simple country gentleman. The affair had taken place a good many years prior to Diana's entry into life, but at the time it had made such a romantic appeal to the sentimental heart of the world at large that it had never been quite forgotten, and had been retold in Diana's hearing on more than one occasion. Indeed, she recollected having once seen a newspaper containing an early portrait of a family group composed of Duke Boris and his morganatic wife and children. There had been two of the latter, a boy and a girl, and Diana suddenly realised, with an irrepressible little flutter of tender excitement, that if the fantastic story hinted at in _Tattle of the Town_, were true, then the boy whom, years ago, she had seen pictured in the photograph must have been actually Max himself. And--again if it were true--how naturally and easily it explained that little unconscious air of hauteur and authority that she had so often observed in him--the "lordly" air upon which she had laughingly remarked to Pobs, when describing the man who had been her companion on that memorable railway journey, when death had drawn very near them both and then had passed them by. Her thoughts raced onward, envisaging the possibilities involved. There were no dukes of Ruvania now; that she knew. The little State, close on the borders of Russia, had been--like so many of the smaller Eastern States--convulsed by a revolution, some ten years ago, and since then had been governed by a republic. Was the explanation of all that had so mystified her to be found in the fact that Max was a political exile? The _Tattle of the Town_ paragraph practically suggested, that the affairs of the "well-known dramatist" were in some way bound up with the destiny of Ruvania. That was indicated plainly enough in the reference to "forthcoming events." Diana's head whirled with the throng of confused ideas that poured in upon her. And Adrienne de Gervais? What part did she play in this strange medley? _Tattle of the Town_ assigned her one. Max and Adrienne and Ruvania were all inextricably tangled up together in the thought-provoking paragraph. Suddenly, Diana's heart gave a great leap as a possible explanation of the whole matter sprang into her mind. There had been two children of the morganatic marriage, a son and a daughter. Was it conceivable that Adrienne de Gervais was the daughter? Adrienne, Max's sister! That would account for his inexplicably close friendship with her, his devotion to her welfare, and--if she, like himself, were exiled--the secrecy which he had maintained. Slowly the conviction that this was the true explanation of all that had caused her such bitter heartburning in the unhappy past grew and deepened in Diana's mind. A chill feeling of dismay crept about her heart. If it were true, then how hideously--how _unforgivably_--she had misjudged her husband! She drew a sharp, agonised breath, her shaking fingers gripping the bedclothes like a frightened child's. "Oh, not that! Don't let it be that!" she whispered piteously. She looked round the room with scared eyes. Who could help her--tell her the truth--set at rest this new fear which had assailed her? There must be some one . . . some one. . . . Yes, there was Olga! _She_ knew--had known Max's secret all along. But would she speak? Would she reveal the truth? Something--heaven knew what!--had kept her silent hitherto, save for the utterance of those maddening taunts and innuendoes which had so often lodged in Diana's heart and festered there. Feverishly Diana sprang out of bed and began to dress, flinging on her clothes in a very frenzy of haste. She would see Olga, and beg, pray, beseech her, if necessary, to tell her all she knew. If she failed, if the Russian woman obstinately denied her, she would know no peace of mind--no rest. She felt she had reached breaking-point--she could endure no more. But she would not fail. When Olga came--and she would be here soon, very soon now--she would play up the knowledge she had gleaned from the newspaper for all it was worth, and she would force the truth from her, willing or unwilling. Whether that truth spelt heaven, or the utter, final wrecking of all her life, she must know it. CHAPTER XXVI THE REAPING Half an hour later Diana descended to the big music-room, where she usually rehearsed, to find Olga Lermontof already awaiting her there. By a sheer effort of will she had fought down the storm of emotion which had threatened to overwhelm her, and now, as she greeted her accompanist, she was quite cool and composed, though rather pale and with tired shadows beneath her eyes. There was something almost unnatural in her calm, and the shrewd Russian eyed her with a sudden apprehension. This was not the same woman whom she had left last night, thrilling and softly tremulous with love. She began speaking quickly, an undercurrent of suppressed excitement in her tones. "There's some mistake, isn't there? You don't want me--this morning?" Diana regarded her composedly. "Certainly I want you--to rehearse for to-night." "To rehearse? Rehearse?" Olga's voice rose in a sharp crescendo of amazement. "Surely"--bending forward to peer into Diana's face--"surely you are not going to keep Max waiting while you--_rehearse_?" "It's impossible for us to meet to-day," replied Diana steadily. "I had--forgotten--the Duchess's reception." Olga made a gesture of impatience. "But you must meet to-day," she said imperiously. "You _must_! To-morrow it will be too late." "Too late? How too late?" Miss Lermontof hesitated a moment. Then she said quietly:-- "I happen to know that Max is leaving England to-night." Diana shrugged her shoulders. "Well, he will come back, I suppose." The other looked at her curiously. "Diana, what has come to you? You are so--changed--since last night." "We're told that 'night unto night showeth knowledge,'" retorted Diana bitterly. "Perhaps _my_ knowledge has increased since--last night." She watched the puzzled expression deepen on Olga's face. Then she added: "So I can afford to wait a little longer to see Max." Again Miss Lermontof hesitated. Then, as though impelled to speak despite her better judgment, she burst out impetuously:-- "But you can't! You can't wait. He isn't coming back again." There was a queer tense note in Diana's voice as she played her first big card. "Then I suppose I shall have to follow him to--Ruvania," she said very quietly. "To Ruvania?" Olga repeated, and by the sudden narrowing of her eyes, as though she were all at once "on guard," Diana knew that her shot in the dark had gone home. "What do you mean? Why--Ruvania?" Diana faced her squarely. Despite her feverish desire to wring the truth from the other woman, she had herself well in hand, and when she spoke it was with a certain dignity. "Don't you think that the time for pretence and hypocrisy has gone by? _You_ know--all that I ought to know. Now that even the newspapers are aware of Max's--and Adrienne's--connection with Ruvania, do you still think it necessary that I, his wife, should be kept in the dark?" "The newspapers?" Olga spoke with sudden excitement. "How much do they know? What do they say? . . . After all, though," she added more quietly, "it doesn't much matter--now. Everything is settled--for good or ill. But if the papers had got hold of it sooner--" "Well?" queried Diana coolly, intent on driving her into giving up her knowledge. "What if they had?" Olga surveyed her ironically. "What if they had? Only that, if they had, probably you wouldn't have possessed a husband a few hours later. A knife in the back is a quick road out of life, you know." Diana caught her breath, and her self-command gave way suddenly. "For God's sake, what do you mean? Tell me--you must tell me--everything, everything! I can't bear it any longer. I know too much--" She broke off with a dry, choking sob. Olga's face softened. "You poor child!" she muttered to herself. Then, aloud, she said gently: "Tell me--how much do you know?" With an effort Diana mastered herself again. "I know Max's parentage," she began steadily. "You know that?"--with quick surprise. "Yes. And that he has a sister." Olga nodded, smiling rather oddly. "Yes. He has a sister," she admitted. "And that he is involved in Ruvanian politics. Something is going to happen there, in Ruvania--" "Yes to that also. Something is going to happen there. The republic is down and out, and the last of the Mazaroffs is going to receive back the ducal crown." There was a tinge of mockery in Miss Lermontof's curt tones. Diana gave a cry of dismay. "Not--not Max?" she stammered. All at once, he seemed to have receded very far away from her, to have been snatched into a world whither she would never be able to follow him. "Max?" Olga's face darkened. "No--not Max, but Nadine Mazaroff." "Nadine Mazaroff?" repeated Diana uncomprehendingly. "Who is Nadine Mazaroff?" "She is the woman you knew as Adrienne de Gervais." "Adrienne? Is that her name--Nadine Mazaroff? Then--then"--Diana's breath came unevenly--"she's not Max's sister?" "No"--shortly. "She is--or will be within a week--the Grand Duchess of Ruvania." "Go on," urged Diana, as the other paused. "Go on. Tell me everything. I know so much already that it can't be breaking faith with any one for you to tell me the whole truth now." Olga looked at her consideringly. "No. I suppose, since the journalists have ferreted it out, it won't be a secret much longer," she conceded grimly. "And, in any case, it doesn't matter now. It's all settled." She sighed. "Besides"--with a faint smile--"if I tell you, it will save Max a long story when you meet." "Yes," replied Diana, an odd expression flitting across her face. "It will save Max a long story--when we meet. Tell me," she continued, with an effort, "tell me about--Nadine Mazaroff." "Nadine?" cried Olga, with sudden violence. "Nadine Mazaroff is the woman I hate more than any other on this earth!" Her eyes gleamed malevolently. "She stands where Max should stand. If it were not for her the Ruvanian people would have accepted him as their ruler--and overlooked his English mother. But Nadine is the legitimate heir, the child of the late Grand Duke--and Max is thrust out of the succession, because our father's marriage was a morganatic one." "_Your_ father?" "Yes"--with a brief smile--"I am the sister whose existence you discovered." For a moment Diana was silent. It had never occurred to her to connect Max and Olga in any way; the latter had always seemed to her to be more or less at open enmity with him. Immediately her heart contracted with the old haunting fear. What, then, was Adrienne to Max? "Go on," she whispered at last, under her breath. "Go on." "I've never forgiven my father"--Olga spoke with increasing passion. "For his happiness with his English wife, Max and I have paid every day of our lives! . . . As soon as I was of age, I refused the State allowance granted me as a daughter of Boris Mazaroff, and left the Ruvanian Court. Since then I've lived in England as plain Miss Lermontof, and earned my own living. Not one penny of their tainted money will I touch!"--fiercely. "But Max--Max!" broke in Diana. "Tell me about Max!" Olga's personal quarrel with her country held no interest for a woman on the rack. "Max?" Olga shrugged her shoulders. "Max is either a saint or a fool--God knows which! For his loyalty to the House that branded him with a stigma, and to the woman who robbed him of his heritage, has never failed." "You mean--Adrienne?" whispered Diana, as Olga paused an instant, shaken by emotion. "Yes, I mean Adrienne--Nadine Mazaroff. Her parents were killed in the Ruvanian revolution--butchered by the mob on the very steps of the palace. But she herself was saved by my brother. At the time the revolt broke out, he was living in Borovnitz, the capital, and he rushed off to the palace and contrived to rescue Nadine and get her away to England. Since then, while the Royalist party have been working day and night for the restoration of the Mazaroffs, Max has watched over her safety." She paused, resuming with an accent of jealous resentment: "And it has been no easy task. German money backed the revolution, in the hope that when Ruvania grew tired of her penny-farthing republic--as she was bound to do--Germany might step in again and convert Ruvania into a little dependent State under Prussia. There's always a German princeling handy for any vacant throne!"--contemptuously--"and in the event of a big European War, Ruvania in German hands would provide an easy entrance into Russia. So you see, Nadine, alive and in safety, was a perpetual menace to the German plans. For some years she was hidden in a convent down in the West Country, not very far from Crailing, and after a while people came to believe that she, too, had perished in the revolution. It was only then that Max allowed her to emerge from the convent, and by that time she had grown from a young, unformed girl into a woman, so that there was little danger of her being recognised by any casual observer--or even by the agents of the anti-royalist party." "Max seems to have done--a great deal--for her," said Diana, speaking slowly and rather painfully. Olga flashed her a brief look of understanding. "Yes," she said quietly. "He has done everything that patriotism demanded of him--even"--meaningly--"to the sacrificing of his own personal happiness. . . . It was entirely his idea that Nadine should pass as an actress. She always had dramatic talent, and when she came out of the convent he arranged that she should study for the stage. He believed that there was no safer way of concealing her identity than by providing her with an entirely different one--and a very obvious one at that. And events have proved him right. After all, people only become suspicious when they see signs of secrecy, and there is no one more constantly in the public eye than an actress. The last place you would look for a missing grand duchess is on the English stage! The very daring and publicity of the thing made it a success. No one guessed who she was, and only I, I and Carlo Baroni, knew. Oh, yes, I was sworn to secrecy"--as she read the question in Diana's eye--"and when I saw you and Max drifting apart, and knew that a word from me could set things right, I've been tempted again and again to break my oath. Thank God!"--passionately--"Oh, thank God! I can speak now!" She twisted her shoulders as though freed from some heavy burden. "Yon thank God? _You_?" Diana spoke with bitter unbelief. "Why, it was you who made things a thousand times worse between us--you who goaded me into fresh suspicions. You never helped me to believe in him--although you knew the truth! You tried to part us!" "I know. I did try," acknowledged Olga frankly. "I'd borne it all for years--watched my brother sheltering Nadine, working for her, using his genius to write plays for her--spilling all his happiness at her feet--and I couldn't endure it any longer. I thought--oh! I _prayed_ that when it came to a choice between you and Nadine he would give way--let Nadine fend for herself. And that was why I tried to anger you against him--to drive you into forcing his hand." She paused, her breast heaving tumultuously. "But the plan failed. Max remained staunch, and only his happiness came crashing down about his ears instead. There is"--bleakly--"no saving saints and martyrs against their will." A silence fell between them, and Diana made a few wavering steps towards a chair and sat down. She felt as though her legs would no longer support her. In a mad moment, half-crazed by the new fear which the newspaper paragraph had inspired in her, she had closed the only road which might have led her back to Max. Yesterday, still unwitting of how infinitely she had wronged him, passionately, humbly ready to give him the trust he had demanded, she might have gone to him. But to-day, her knowledge of the truth had taken from her the power to make atonement, and had raised a barrier between herself and Max which nothing in the world could ever break down. She had failed her man in the hour of his need, and henceforth she must walk outcast in desert places. There were still many gaps in the story to be filled in. But one thing stood out clearly from amidst the chaos which enveloped her, and that was, that she had misjudged her husband--terribly, unforgivably misjudged him. It was loyalty, not love, that he had given Adrienne, and he had been right--a thousand times right--in refusing to reveal, even to his wife, the secret which was not his alone, and upon which hung issues of life and death and the ultimate destiny of a country--perhaps, even, of Europe itself! It was to save his country from the Prussian claw that Max had sacrificed himself with the pure fervour of a patriot, at no matter what cost! And she, Diana, by her lack of faith, her petty jealousy, had sent him from her, had seen to it that that cost included even his happiness! She had failed him every way--trailing the glory of love's golden raiment in the dust of the highway. If she had but fulfilled her womanhood, what might not her unshaken faith have meant to a man fighting a battle against such bitter odds? No matter how worn with the stress of incessant watchfulness, or wearied by the strain of constant planning and the need to forestall each move of the enemy, he would have found, always waiting for him, a refuge, a quiet haven where love dwelt and where he might forget for a space and be at rest. All this, which had been hers to give, she had withheld. The silence deepened in the room. The brilliant sunshine, slanting in through the slats of the Venetian blinds, seemed out of place in what had suddenly become a temple of pain. Somewhere outside a robin chirruped, the cheery little sound holding, for one of the two women sitting there, a note of hitter mockery. Suddenly Diana dropped her head on her hands with a shudder. "Oh, God!" she whispered. "Oh, God!" Olga leaned forward and laid a hand on her knee. "You can go back to him now, and give him all the happiness that he has missed," she said steadily. "Go back to him?" Diana lifted her head and stared at her with dull eyes. "Oh, no. I shan't do that." "You won't go back?" Olga spoke slowly, as though she doubted her own hearing. A faint, derisive smile flickered across Diana's lips. "How could I? Do you suppose that--that having failed him when he asked me to believe in him, I could go back to him now--now that I know everything? . . . Oh, no, I couldn't do that. I've nothing to offer him--now--nothing to give--neither faith nor trust, because I know the whole truth." She spoke with the quiet finality of one who can see no hope, no possibility of better things, anywhere. The words "Too late!" beat in her brain like the pendulum of a clock, maddeningly insistent. "If only I had been content to go to him without knowing!" she went on tonelessly. "But that paragraph in the paper--it frightened me. I felt that I _must know_ if--if I had been wronging him all the time. And I had!" she ended wearily. "I had." Then, after a moment: "So you see, I can't go back to him." "You--can't--go--back?" The words fell slowly, one by one, from Olga's lips. "Do you mean that you won't go back now--now that you know he has never failed you as you thought he had? . . . Oh!"--rapidly--"you can't mean that. You won't--you can't refuse to go back now." Diana lifted a grey, drawn face. "Don't you see," she said monotonously, "it's just because of that--because he hasn't failed me while I've failed him so utterly--that I can't go back?" Olga turned on her swiftly, her green eyes blazing dangerously. "It's your pride!" she cried fiercely. "It's your damnable pride that's standing in the way! Merciful heavens! Did you ever love him, I wonder, that you're too proud to ask his forgiveness now--now when you know what you've done?" Diana's lips moved in a pitiful attempt at a smile. "Oh, no," she said, shaking her head. "It's not that. I've . . . no pride . . . left, I think. But I can't be mean--_mean_ enough to crawl back now." She paused, then went on with an inflection of irony in her low, broken voice. "'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.' . . . Well, I'm reaping--that's all." Like the keen thrust of a knife came Olga's answer. "And must he, too, reap your sowing? For that's what it amounts to--that Max must suffer for your sin. Oh! He's paid enough for others! . . . Diana"--imploringly--"Max is leaving England to-night. Go back to him now--don't wait until it's too late," "No." Diana spoke in dead, flat tones. "Can't you understand?"--moving her head restlessly. "Do you suppose--even if he forgave me--that he could ever believe in me again? He would never be certain that I really trusted him. He would always feel unsure of me." "If you can think that, then you haven't understood Max--or his love for you," retorted Olga vehemently. "Oh! How can I make you see it? You keep on balancing this against that--what you can give, what Max can believe--weighing out love as though it were sold by the ounce! Max loves you--_loves you_! And there _aren't_ any limitations to love!" She broke off abruptly, her voice shaking. "Can't you believe it?" she added helplessly, after a minute. Diana shook her head. "I think you mean to be kind," she said patiently. "But love is a giving. And I--have nothing to give." "And you're too proud to take." "Yes . . . if you call that pride. I can't take--when I've nothing to give." "Then you don't love! You don't know what it means to love! Diana"--Olga's voice rose in passionate entreaty--"for God's sake go to him! He's suffered so much. Forget what people may think--what even he may think! Throw your pride overboard and remember only that he loves you and has need of you. _Go to him_!" She ceased, and her eyes implored Diana's. No matter what may have been her shortcomings--and they were many, for she was a hard, embittered woman--at least, in her devotion to her brother, Olga Lermontof approached very nearly to the heroic. There was a long silence. At last Diana spoke in low, shaken tones, her head bowed. "I can't!" she whispered. "I shall never forgive myself. And I can't ask Max to--forgive me. . . . He couldn't." The last words were hardly audible. For a moment Olga stood quite still, gazing with hard eyes at the slight figure hunched into drooping lines of utter weariness. Once her lips moved, but no sound came. Then she turned away, walking with lagging footsteps, and a minute later the door opened and closed quietly again behind her. CHAPTER XXVII CARLO BARONI EXPLAINS Diana sat on, very still, very silent, staring straight in front of her with wide, tearless eyes. Only now and again a long, shuddering sigh escaped her, like the caught breath of a child that has cried till it is utterly exhausted and can cry no more. She felt that she had come to an end of things. Nothing could undo the past, and ahead of her stretched the future, empty and void of promise. Presently the creak of the door reopening roused her, and she turned, instantly on the defensive, anticipating that Olga had come back to renew the struggle. But it was only Baroni, who approached her with a look of infinite concern on his kind old face. "My child!" he began. "My child! . . . So, then! You know all that there is to know." Diana looked up wearily. "Yes," she replied. "I know it all." The old _maestro's_ eyes softened as they rested upon her, and when he spoke again, his queer husky voice was toned to a note of extraordinary sweetness. "My dear pupil, if it had been possible, I would haf spared you this knowledge. It was wrong of Olga to tell you--above all"--his face creasing with anxiety as the ruling passion asserted itself irrepressibly--"to tell you on a day when you haf to sing!" "I made her," answered Diana listlessly. She passed her hand wearily across her forehead. "Don't worry, _Maestro_, I shall be able to sing to-night." "_Tiens_! But you are all to pieces, my child! You will drink a glass of champagne--now, at once," he insisted, adding persuasively as she shook her head, "To please me, is it not so?" Diana's lips curved in a tired smile. "Is champagne the cure for a heartache, then, _Maestro_?" Baroni's eyes grew suddenly sad. "Ah, my dear, only death--or a great love--can heal the wound that lies in the heart," he answered gently. He paused, then resumed crisply: "But, meanwhile, we haf to live--and _prima donnas_ haf to sing. So . . . the little glass of wine in my room, is it not?" He tucked her arm within his, patting her hand paternally, and led her into his own sanctum, where he settled her comfortably in a big easy-chair beside the fire, and poured her out a glass of wine, watching her sip it with a glow of satisfaction in his eyes. "That goes better, _hein_? This Olga--she had not reflected sufficiently. It was too late for the truth to do good; it could only pain and grieve you." "Yes," said Diana. "It is too late now. . . . I've paid for my ignorance with my happiness--and Max's," she added in a lower tone. She looked across at Baroni with sudden resentment. "And you--_you knew_!" she continued. "Why didn't you tell me? . . . Oh, but I can guess!"--scornfully. "It suited your purpose for me to quarrel with my husband; it brought me back to the concert platform. My happiness counted for nothing--against that!" Baroni regarded her patiently. "And do you regret it? Would you be willing, now, to give up your career as a _prima donna_--and all that it means?" A vision rose up before Diana of what life would be denuded of the glamour and excitement, the perpetual triumphs, the thrilling sense of power her singing gave her--the dull, flat monotony of it, and she caught her breath sharply in instinctive recoil. "No," she admitted slowly. "I couldn't give it up--now." An odd look of satisfaction overspread Baroni's face. "Then do not blame me, my child. For haf I not given you a consolation for the troubles of life." "I need never have had those troubles to bear if you had been frank with me!" she flashed back. "_You--you_ were not bound by any oath of secrecy. Oh! It was cruel of you, _Maestro_!" Her eyes, bitterly accusing, searched his face. "Tchut! Tchut! But you are too quick to think evil of your old _maestro_." He hesitated, then went on slowly: "It is a long story, my dear--and sometimes a very sad story. I did not think it would pass my lips again in this world. But for you, who are so dear to me, I will break the silence of years. . . . Listen, then. When you, my little Pepperpot, had not yet come to earth to torment your parents, but were still just a tiny thought in the corner of God's mind, I--your old Baroni--I was in Ruvania." "You--in Ruvania?" He nodded. "Yes. I went there first as a professor of singing at the Borovnitz Conservatoire--_per Bacco_! But they haf the very soul of music, those Ruvanians! And I was appointed to attend also at the palace to give lessons to the Grand Duchess. Her voice was only a little less beautiful than your own." He hesitated, as though he found it difficult to continue. At last he said almost shyly: "Thou, my child, thou hast known love. . . . To me, too, at the palace, came that best gift of the good God." He paused, and Diana whispered stammeringly: "Not--not the Grand Duchess?" "Yes--Sonia." The old _maestro's_ eyes kindled with a soft luminance as his whispering voice caressed the little flame. "Hers, of course, had been merely a marriage dictated by reasons of State, and from the time of our first meeting, our hearts were in each other's keeping. But she never failed in duty or in loyalty. Only once, when I was leaving Ruvania, never to return, did she give me her lips at parting." Again he fell silent, his thoughts straying back across the years between to that day when he had taken farewell of the woman who had held his very soul between her hands. Presently, with an effort, he resumed his story. "I stayed at the Ruvanian Court many years--there was a post of Court musician which I filled--and for both of us those years held much of sadness. The Grand Duke Anton was a domineering man, hated by every one, and his wife's happiness counted for nothing with him. She had failed to give him a son, and for that he never pardoned her. I think my presence comforted her a little. That--and the child--the little Nadine. . . . As much as Anton was disliked, so much was his brother Boris beloved of the people. His story you know. Of this I am sure--that he lived and died without once regretting the step he had taken in marrying an Englishwoman. They were lovers to the end, those two." Listening to the little history of those two tender love tales that had run their course side by side, Diana almost forgot for a moment how the ripples of their influence, flowing out in ever-widening circles, had touched, at last, even her own life, and had engulfed her happiness. But, as Baroni ceased, the recollection of her own bitter share in the matter returned with overwhelming force, and once more she arraigned him for his silence. "I still see no reason why you should not have told me the truth about Adrienne--about Nadine Mazaroff. Max couldn't--I see that; nor Olga. But _you_ were bound by no oath." "My child, I was bound by something stronger than an oath." The old man crossed the room to where there stood on a shelf a little ebony cabinet, clamped with dull silver of foreign workmanship. He unlocked it, and withdrew from it a letter, the paper faintly yellowed and brittle with the passage of time. He held it out to Diana. "No eyes but mine haf ever rested on it since it was given into my hand after her death," he said very gently. "But you, my child, you shall read it; you are hurt and unhappy, battering against fate, and believing that those who love you haf served you ill. But we were all bound in different ways. . . . Read the letter, little one, and thou wilt see that I, too, was not free." Hesitatingly Diana unfolded the thin sheet and read the few faded lines it contained. "CARLO MIO, "I think the end is coming for Anton and for me. The revolt of the people is beyond all quelling. My only fear is for Nadine; my only hope for her ultimate safety lies in Max. If ever, in the time to come, your silence or your speech can do aught for my child--in the name of the love you gave me, I beg it of you. In serving her, you will be serving me. "SONIA." Very slowly Diana handed the letter back to Baroni. "So--that was why," she whispered. Baroni bent his head. "That was why. I could not speak. But I did all that lay in my power to prevent this marriage of yours." "You did." A wan little smile tilted the corners of her mouth at the remembrance. "Afterwards--your happiness was on the knees of the gods!" "No," said Diana suddenly. "No. It was in my own hands. Had I believed in Max we should have been happy still. . . . But I failed him." A long silence followed. At last she rose, holding out her hands. "Thank you," she said simply. "Thank you for showing me the letter." Baroni stooped his head and carried her hands to his lips. "My dear, we make our mistakes and then we pay. It is always so in life. Love"--and the odd, clouded voice shook a little--"Love brings--great happiness--and great pain. Yet we would not be without it." CHAPTER XXVIII THE AWAKENING Somehow the interminable hours of the day had at last worn to evening, and Diana found herself standing in front of a big mirror, listlessly watching Milling as she bustled round her, putting the last touches to her dress for the Duchess of Linfield's reception. The same thing had to be gone through every concert night--the same patient waiting while the exquisite toilette, appropriate to a _prima donna_, was consummated by Milling's clever fingers. Only, this evening, every nerve in Diana's body was quivering in rebellion. What was it Olga had said? "_Max is leaving England to-night._" So, while she was being dressed like a doll for the pleasuring of the people who had paid to hear her sing, Max was being borne away out of her ken, out of her existence for ever. What a farce it all seemed! In a little while she would be singing as perfectly as usual, bowing and smiling as usual, and not one amongst the crowded audience would know that in reality it was only the husk of a woman who stood there before them--the mere outer shell. All that mattered, the heart and soul of her, was dead. She knew that quite well. Probably she would feel glad about it in time, she thought, because when one was dead things didn't hurt any more. It was dying that hurt. . . . "Your train, madam." She started at the sound of Milling's respectful voice. What a lop-sided thing a civilised sense of values seemed to be! Even when you had dragged the white robes of your spirit deep in the mire, you must still be scrupulously careful not to soil the hem of the white satin that clothed your body. She almost laughed aloud, then bit the laugh back, picturing Milling's astonished face. The girl would think she was mad. Perhaps she was. It didn't matter much, anyway. Mechanically she held out her arm for Milling to throw the train of her gown across it, and, picking up her gloves, went slowly downstairs. Baroni, his face wearing an expression of acute anxiety, was waiting for her in the hall, restlessly pacing to and fro. "Ah--h!" His face cleared as by magic when the slender, white-clad figure appeared round the last bend of the stairway. He had half feared that at the last moment the strain of the day's emotion might exact its penalty, and Diana prove unequal to the evening's demands. To hide his obvious relief, he turned sharply to the maid, who had followed her mistress downstairs, carrying her opera coat and furs. "Madame's cloak--make haste!" he commanded curtly. And when Diana had entered the car, he waved aside the manservant and himself tucked the big fur rug carefully round her. There was something rather pathetic, almost maternal, in the old man's care of her, and Diana's lips quivered. "Thank you, dear _Maestro_," she said, gently pressing his arm with her hand. The Duchess's house was packed with a complacent crowd of people, congratulating themselves upon being able, for once, to combine duty and pleasure, since the purchase-money of their tickets for the evening's entertainment contributed to a well-known charity, and at the same time procured them the privilege of bearing once more their favourite singer. Some there were who had grounds for additional satisfaction in the fact that, under the wide cloak of charity, they had managed to squeeze through the exclusive portals of Linfield House for the first--and probably the last--time in their lives. As the singer made her way through the thronged hall, those who knew her personally bowed and smiled effusively, whilst those who didn't looked on from afar and wished they did. It was not unlike a royal progress, and Diana heaved a quick sigh of relief when at last she found herself in the quiet of the little apartment set aside as an artistes' room. Olga Lermontof was already there, and Diana greeted her rather nervously. She felt horribly uncertain what attitude Miss Lermontof might be expected to adopt in the circumstances. But she need have had no anxiety on that score. Olga seemed to be just her usual self--grave and self-contained, her thin, dark-browed face wearing its habitual half-mocking expression. Apparently she had wiped out the day's happenings from her mind, and had become once more merely the quiet, competent accompanist to a well-known singer. There was no one else in the artistes' room. The other performers were mingling with the guests, only withdrawing from the chattering crowd when claimed by their part in the evening's entertainment. "How far on are they?" asked Diana, picking up the programme and running her eye down it. "Your songs are the next item but one," replied Miss Lermontof. A violin solo preceded the two songs which, bracketed together in the middle of the programme as its culminating point, made the sum total of Diana's part in it, and she waited quietly in the little anteroom while the violinist played, was encored and played again, and throughout the brief interval that followed. She felt that to-night she could not face the cheap, everyday flow of talk and compliment. She would sing because she had promised, that she would, but as soon as her part was done she would slip away and go home--home, where she could sit alone by the dead embers of her happiness. A little flutter of excitement rippled through the big rooms when at last she mounted the platform. People who had hitherto been content to remain, in the hall, regarding the music as a pleasant accompaniment to the interchange of the day's news and gossip, now came flocking in through the doorways, hoping to find seats, and mostly having to content themselves with standing-room. Almost as in a dream, Diana waited for the applause to subside, her eyes roaming halt-unconsciously over the big assembly. It was all so stalely familiar--the little rustle of excitement, the preliminary clapping, the settling down to listen, and then the sea of upturned faces spread out beneath her. The memory of the first time that she had sung in public, at Adrienne's house in Somervell Street, came back to her. It had been just such an occasion as this. . . . (Olga was playing the introductory bars of accompaniment to her song, and, still as in a dream, she began to sing, the exquisite voice thrilling out into the vast room, golden and perfect.) . . . Adrienne had smiled at her encouragingly from across the room, and Jerry Leigh had been standing at the far end near some big double doors. There were double doors to this room, too, flung wide open. (It was odd how clearly she could recall it all; her mind seemed to be working quite independently of what was going on around her.) And Max had been there. She remembered how she had believed him to be still abroad, and then, how she had looked up and suddenly met his gaze across those rows and rows of unfamiliar faces. He had come back. Instinctively she glanced towards the far end of the room, where, on that other night and in that other room, he had been standing, and then . . . then . . . was it still only the dream, the memory of long ago? . . . Or had God worked a miracle? . . . Over the heads of the people, Max's eyes, grave and tender, but unspeakably sad, looked into hers! A hand seemed to grip her heart, squeezing it so that she could not draw her breath. Everything grew blurred and dim about her, but through the blur she could still see Max, standing with his head thrown back against the panelling of the door, his arms folded across his chest, and his eyes--those grave, questioning eyes--fixed on her face. Presently the darkness cleared away and she found that she was still singing--mechanically her voice had answered to the long training of years. But the audience had heard the great _prima donna_ catch her breath and falter in her song. For an instant it had seemed almost as though she might break down. Then the tension passed, and the lovely voice, upborne by a limitless technique, had floated out again, golden and perfect as before. It was only the habit of surpassing art which had enabled Diana to finish her song. Since last night, when she had seen Max for that brief moment at the Embassy, she had passed through the whole gamut of emotion, glimpsed the vision of coming happiness, only to believe that with her own hands she had pushed it aside. And now she was conscious of nothing but that Max--Max, the man she loved--was here, close to her once again, and that her heart was crying out for him. He was hers, her mate out of the whole world, and in a sudden blinding flash of self-revelation, she recognised in her refusal to return to him a sheer denial of the divine altruism of love. The blank, bewildering chaos of the last twelve hours, with its turmoil of conflicting passions, took on a new aspect, and all at once that which had been dark was become light. From the moment she had learned the truth about her husband, her thoughts had centred solely round herself, dwelling--in, all humility, it is true--but still dwelling none the less egotistically upon her personal failure, her own irreparable mistake, her self-wrought bankruptcy of all the faith and absolute belief a woman loves to give her lover. She had thrust these things before his happiness, whereas the stern and simple creed of love places the loved one first and everything else immeasurably second. But now, in this quickened moment of revelation, Diana knew that she loved Max utterly and entirely, that his happiness was her supreme need, and that if she let him go from her again, life would be henceforth a poor, maimed thing, shorn of all meaning. It no longer mattered that she had sinned against him, that she had nothing to bring, that she must go to him a beggar. The scales had fallen from her eyes, and she realised that in love there is no reckoning--no pitiful making-up of accounts. The pride that cannot take has no place there; where love is, giving and taking are one and indivisible. Nothing mattered any longer--nothing except that Max was here--here, within reach of the great love in her heart that was stretching out its arms to him . . . calling him back. The audience, ardently applauding her first song, saw her turn and give some brief instruction to her accompanist, who nodded, laying aside the song which she had just placed upon the music-desk. A little whisper ran through the assembly as people asked each other what song was about to be substituted for the one on the programme, and when the sad, appealing music of "The Haven of Memory," stole out into the room, they smiled and nodded to one another, pleased that the great singer was giving them the song in which they loved best to hear her. Do you remember Our great love's pure unfolding, The troth you gave, And prayed, for God's upholding, Long and long ago? Out of the past A dream--and then the waking-- Comes back to me Of love, and love's forsaking, Ere the summer waned. Ah! Let me dream That still a little kindness Dwelt in the smile That chid my foolish blindness, When you said good-bye. Let me remember When I am very lonely, How once your love But crowned and blessed me only, Long and long ago. There was no faltering now. The beautiful voice had never been more touching in its exquisite appeal. All the unutterable sweetness and humility and faith, the wistful memories, the passion and surrender that love holds, dwelt in the throbbing notes. To Max, standing a little apart, the width of the room betwixt him and the woman singing, it seemed as though she were entreating him . . . calling to him. . . . The sad, tender words, poignant with regret and infinite beseeching, clamoured against his heart, and as the last note trembled into silence, he turned and made his way blindly out of the room. CHAPTER XXIX SACRIFICE "_Did you mean it?_" Errington's voice broke harshly through the silence of the little anteroom where Diana waited alone. It had a curious, cracked sound, and his breath laboured like that of a man who has run himself out. For a moment she kept her face hidden, trying to steady herself, but at last she turned towards him, and in her eyes was a soft shining--a strange, sweet fire. "Max!" The whispered name was hardly audible; tremulous and wistful it seemed to creep across the room. But he heard it. In a moment his arms were round her, and he had gathered her close against his heart. And so they remained for a space, neither speaking. Presently Diana lifted her head. "Max, it was because I loved you so that I was so hard and bitter--only because I loved you so." "I know," was all he said. And he kissed her hair. "Do you?"--wistfully. "I wonder if--if a man can understand how a woman can be so cruel to what she loves?" And as he had no answer to this (since, after all, a man cannot be expected to understand all--or even very much--that a woman does), he kissed her lips. She crept a little nearer to him. "Max! Do you still care for me--like that?" There was wonder and thanksgiving in her voice. "Oh, my dear, I'm down in the dust at your feet--I've failed you utterly, wronged you every way. Even if you forgive me, I shall never forgive myself. But I'm--all yours, Max." With a sudden jealous movement he folded her more closely in his arms. "Let me have a few moments of this," he muttered, a little breathlessly. "A few moments of thinking you have come back to me." "But I _have_ come back to you!" Her eyes grew wide and startled with a sudden, desperate apprehension. "You won't send me away again--not now?" His face twisted with pain. "Beloved, I must! God knows how hard it will be--but there is no other way." "No other way?" She broke from his arms, searching his face with her frightened eyes. "What do you mean? . . . _What do you mean_? Don't you--care--any longer?" He smiled, as a man may who is asked whether the sun will rise to-morrow. "Not that, beloved. Never that. I've always cared, and I shall go on caring through this world and into the next--even though, after to-night, we may never be together again." "Never--together again?" She clung to him. "Oh, why do you say such things? I can't--I can't live without you now. Max, I'm sorry--_sorry_! I've been punished enough--don't punish me any more by sending me away from you." "Punish you! Heart's dearest, there has never been any thought of punishment in my mind. Heaven knows, I've reproached myself bitterly enough for all the misery I've brought on you." "Then why--why do you talk of sending me away?" "I'm not going to send you away. It is I who have to go. Oh, beloved! I ought never to have come here this evening. But I thought if I might see you--just once again--before I went out into the night, I should at least have that to remember. . . . And then you sang, and it seemed as though you were calling me. . . ." "Yes," she said very softly. "I called you. I wanted you so." Then, after a moment, with sudden, womanish curiosity: "How did you know I was singing here to-night?" "Olga told me. She's bitterly opposed to all that I've been doing, but"--smiling faintly--"she has occasional spasms of compassion, when she remembers that, after all, I'm a poor devil who's being thrust out of paradise." "She loves you," Diana answered simply. "I think she has loved you--better--than I did, Max. But not more!" she added jealously. "No one could love you more, dear." After a pause, she asked: "I suppose Olga told you that I know--everything?" "Yes. I'm glad you know"--quietly. "It makes it easier for me to tell you why I must go away--out of your life." She leaned nearer to him, her hands on his shoulders. "Don't go!" she whispered. "Ah, don't go!" "I must," he said hoarsely. "Listen, beloved, and then you will see that there is no other way. . . . I married you, believing that when Nadine would be safely settled on the throne, I should be free to live my own life, free to come back to England--and you. If I had not believed that, I shouldn't have told you that I cared; I should have gone away and never seen you again. But now--now I know that I shall _never_ be free, never able to live in England." He paused, gathering her a little closer into his arms. "Everything is settled. Russia has helped, and Ruvania is ready to welcome Nadine's return. . . . She is in Paris, now, waiting for me to take her there. . . . It has been a long and difficult matter, and the responsibility of Nadine's well-being in England has been immense. A year ago, the truth as to her identity leaked out somehow--reached our enemies' ears, and since then I've never really known an instant's peace concerning her safety. You remember the attack which was made on her outside the theatre?" Diana nodded, shame-faced, remembering its ultimate outcome. "Well, the man who shot at her was in the pay of the Republic--German pay, actually. That yarn about the actor down on his luck was cooked up for the papers, just to throw dust in the eyes of the public. . . . To watch over Nadine's safety has been my work. Now the time has come when she can go back and take her place as Grand Duchess of Ruvania. _And I must go with her_." "No, no. Why need you go? You'll have done your work, set her securely on the throne. Ah, Max! don't speak of going, dear." Her voice shook incontrollably. "There is other work still to be done, beloved--harder work, man's work. And I can't turn away and take my shoulder from the wheel. It needs no great foresight to tell that there is trouble brewing on the Continent; a very little thing would set the whole of Europe in a blaze. And when that time arrives, if Ruvania is to come out of the struggle with her independence unimpaired, it will only be by the utmost effort of all her sons. Nadine cannot stand alone. What can a woman do unaided when the nations are fighting for supremacy? The country will need a man at the helm, and I must stand by Nadine." "But why you? Why not another?" "No other is under the same compulsion as I. As you know, my father put his wife first and his country second. It is difficult to blame him . . . she was very beautiful, my mother. But no man has the right to turn away from his allotted task. And because my father did that, the call to me to serve my country is doubly strong. I have to pay back that of which he robbed her." "And have I no claim? Max! Max! Doesn't your love count at all?" The sad, grieving words wrung his heart. "Why, yes," he said unsteadily. "That's the biggest thing in the world--our love--isn't it? But this other is a debt of honour, and you wouldn't want me to shirk that, would you, sweet? I must pay--even if it costs me my happiness. . . . It may seem to you as though I'd set your happiness, too, aside. God knows, it hasn't been easy! But what could I do? I conceive that a man's honour stands before everything. That was why I let you believe--what you did. My word was given. I couldn't clear myself. . . . So you see, now, beloved, why we must part." "No," she said quietly. "I don't see. Why can't I come to Ruvania with you?" A sudden light leaped into his eyes, but it died away almost instantly. He shook his head. "No, you can't come with me. Because--don't you see, dear?"--very gently and pitifully. "As my wife, as cousin of the Grand Duchess herself, you couldn't still be--a professional singer." There was a long silence. Slowly Diana drew away from her husband, staring at him with dilated eyes. "Then that--that was what Baroni meant when, he told me a time would come when your wife could no longer sing in public?" Max bent his head. "Yes. That was what he meant." Diana stood silently clasping and unclasping her hands. Presently she spoke again, and there was a new note in her voice--a note of quiet gravity and steadfast decision. "Dear, I am coming with you. The singing"--smiling a little tremulously--"doesn't count--against love." Max made a sudden movement as though to take her in his arms, then checked himself as suddenly. "No," he said quietly. "You can't come with me. It would be impossible--out of the question. You haven't realised all it would entail. After being a famous singer--to become merely a private gentlewoman--a lady of a little unimportant Court! The very idea is absurd. Always you would miss the splendour of your life, the triumphs, the being fêted and made much of--everything that your singing has brought you. It would be inevitable. And I couldn't endure to see the regret growing in your eyes day by day. Oh, my dear, don't think I don't realise the generosity of the thought--and bless you for it a thousand times! But I won't let you pay with the rest of your life for a heaven-kind impulse of the moment." His words fell on Diana's consciousness, each one weighted with a world of significance, for she knew, even as she listened, that he spoke but the bare truth. Very quietly she moved away from him and stood by the chimney-piece, staring down into the grate where the embers lay dying. It seemed to typify what her life would be, shorn of the glamour with which her glorious voice had decked it. It would be as though one had plucked out the glowing heart of a fire, leaving only ashes--dead ashes of remembrance. And in exchange for the joyous freedom of Bohemia, the happy brotherhood of artistes, there would be the deadly, daily ceremonial of a court, the petty jealousies and intrigues of a palace! Very clearly Diana saw what the choice involved, and with that clear vision came the realisation that here was a sacrifice which she, who had so profaned love's temple, could yet make at the foot of the altar. And within her grew and deepened the certainty that no sacrifice in the world is too great to make for the sake of love, except the sacrifice of honour. Here at last was something she could give to the man she loved. She need not go to him with empty hands. . . . She turned again to her husband, and her eyes were radiant with the same soft shining that had lit them when he had first come to her in answer to her singing. "Dear," she said, and her voice broke softly. "Take me with you. Oh, but you must think me very slow and stupid not to have learned--yet--what love means! . . . Ah, Max! Max! What am I to do, dear, if you won't let me go with you? What shall I do with all the love that is in my heart--if you won't take it?" For a moment she stood there tremulously smiling, while he stared at her, in his eyes a kind of bewilderment and unbelief fighting the dawn of an unutterable joy. Then at last he understood, and his arms went round her. "If I won't take it!" he cried, his voice all shaken with the wonder of it. "Oh, my sweet! I'll take it as a beggar takes a gift, as a blind man sight--on my knees, thanking God for it--and for you." And so Diana came again into her kingdom, whence she had wandered outcast so many bitter months. Presently she drew him down beside her on to a big, cushioned divan. "Max, what a lot of time we've wasted!" "So much, sweet, that all the rest of life we'll be making up for it." And he kissed her on the mouth by way of a beginning. "What will Baroni say?" she whispered, with a covert smile. "He'll wish he was young, as we are, so that he could love--as we do," he replied triumphantly. Diana laughed at him for an arrogant lover, then sighed at a memory she knew of. "I think he _has_ loved--as we do," she chided gently. Max's arm tightened round her. "Then he's in need of envy, beloved, for love like ours is the most wonderful thing life has to give." They were silent a moment, and then the quick instinct of lovers told them they were no longer alone. Baroni stood on the threshold of the room, frowning heavily. "So!" he exclaimed, grimly addressing Max. "This, then, is how you travel in haste to Paris?" Startled, Diana sprang to her feet, and would have drawn herself away, but Max laughed joyously, and still keeping her hand in his, led her towards Baroni. "_We_ travel to Paris to-morrow," he said. "Won't you--wish us luck, Baroni?" But luck was the last thing which the old _maestro_ was by way of wishing them. For long he argued and expostulated upon the madness, as he termed it, of Diana's renouncing her career, trying his utmost to dissuade her. "You haf not counted the cost!" he fumed at her. "You cannot haf counted the cost!" But Diana only smiled at him. "Yes, I have. And I'm glad it's going to cost me something--a good deal, in fact--to go back to Max. Don't you see, _Maestro_, it kind of squares things the tiniest bit?" She paused, adding, after a moment: "And it's such a little price to pay--for love." Baroni, who, after all, knew a good deal about love as well as music, regarded her a moment in silence. Then, with a characteristic shrug of his massive shoulders, he yielded. "So, then, the most marvellous voice of the century is to be wasted reading aloud to a Grand Duchess! Ah! Dearest of all my pupils, there is no folly in all the world at once so foolish and so splendid as the folly of love." 
17465	----	GREAT SINGERS MALIBRAN TO TITIENS SECOND SERIES BY GEORGE T. FERRIS NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1891 Copyright, 1881, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. NOTE. In the preparation of this companion volume of "Great Singers," the same limitations of purpose have guided the author as in the case of the earlier book, which sketched the lives of the greatest lyric artists from Faustina Bordoni to Henrietta Sontag. It has been impossible to include any but those who stand incontestably in the front rank of the operatic profession, except so far as some account of the lesser lights is essential to the study of those artistic lives whose names make the captions of these sketches. So, too, it has been attempted to embody, in several of the articles, intelligent, if not fully adequate, notice of a few of the greatest men singers, who, if they have not aroused as deep an enthusiasm as have those of the other sex, are perhaps justly entitled to as much consideration on art grounds. It will be observed that the great living vocalists have been excluded from this book, except those who, having definitely retired from the stage, may be considered as dead to their art. This plan has been pursued, not from any undervaluation of the Pattis, the Nilssons, and the Luccas of the present musical stage, but because, in obeying that necessity imposed by limitation of space, it has seemed more desirable to exclude those whose place in art is not yet finally settled, rather than those whose names belong to history, and who may be seen in full perspective. The material from which this little book is compiled has been drawn from a variety of sources, among which may be mentioned the three works of Henry F. Chorley, "Music and Manners in France and Germany," "Modern German Music," and "Thirty Years' Musical Kecollections"; Sutherland Edwards's "History of the Opera"; Fetis's "Biographie des Musiciens"; Ebers's "Seven Years of the King's Theatre"; Lumley's "Reminiscences"; Charles Hervey's "Theatres of Paris"; Arsène Houssaye's "Galerie de Portraits"; Countess de Merlin's "Mémoires de Madame Malibran"; Ox-berry's "Dramatic Biography and Histrionic Anecdotes"; Crowest's "Musical Anecdotes" and Mrs. Clayton's "Queens of Song." CONTENTS. MARIA FELICIA MALIBRAN. The Childhood of Maria Garcia.--Her Father's Sternness and Severe Discipline.--Her First Appearance as an Artist on the Operatic Stage.--Her Genius and Power evident from the Beginning.--Anecdotes of her Early Career.--Manuel Garcia's Operatic Enterprise in New York.--Maria Garcia is inveigled into marrying M. Malibran.--Failure of the Garcia Opera, and Maria's Separation from her Husband.--She makes her _Début_ in Paris with Great Success.--Madame Malibran's Characteristics as a Singer, a Genius, and a Woman.--Anecdotes of her Generosity and Kindness.--She sings in a Great London Engagement.--Her Eccentric and Daring Methods excite Severe Criticism.--Her Reckless Expenditure of Strength in the Pursuit of her Profession or Pleasures.--Madame Malibran's Attachment to De Bériot.--Anecdotes of her Public and Private Career.--Malibran in Italy, where she becomes the Popular Idol.--Her Last London Engagement.--Her Death at Manchester during the Great Musical Festival WILHELMINA SCHRÖDER-DEVRIENT. Mme. Schröder-Devrient the Daughter of a Woman of Genius.--Her Early Appearance on the Dramatic Stage in Connection with her Mother.--She studies Music and devotes herself to the Lyric Stage.--Her Operatic _Début_ in Mozart's "Zauberflote."--Her Appearance and Voice.--Mlle. Schröder makes her _Début_ in her most Celebrated Character, _Fidelio_.--Her own Description of the First Performance.--A Wonderful Dramatic Conception.--Henry Chorley's Judgment of her as a Singer and Actress.--She marries Carl Devrient at Dresden.--Mme. Schröder-Devrient makes herself celebrated as a Representative of Weber's Romantic Heroines.--Dissolution of her Marriage.--She makes Successful Appearances in Paris and London in both Italian and German Opera.--English Opinions of the German Artist.--Anecdotes of her London Engagement.--An Italian Tour and Reëngagements for the Paris and London Stage.--Different Criticisms of her Artistic Style.--Retirement from the Stage, and Second Marriage.--Her Death in 1860, and the Honors paid to the Memory of her Genius GIULIA GRISI. The Childhood of a Great Artist.--Giulietta Grisi's Early Musical Training.--Giuditta Grisi's Pride in the Talents of her Young Sister.--Her Italian _Début_ and Success.--She escapes from a Managerial Taskmaster and takes Refuge in Paris.--Impression made on French Audiences.--Production of Bellini's "Puritani."--Appearance before the London Public.--Character of Grisi's Singing and Acting.--Anecdotes of the Prima Donna.--Marriage of Mlle. Grisi.--Her Connection with Other Distinguished Singers.--Kubini, his Character as an Artist, and Incidents of his Life.--Tamburini, another Member of the First Great "Puritani" Quartet.--Lablache, the King of Operatic Bassos.--His Career as an Artist.--His Wonderful Genius as Singer and Actor.--Advent of Mario on the Stage.--His Intimate Association with Mme. Grisi as Woman and Artist.--Incidents of Mario's Life and Character as an Artist.--Grisi's Long Hold on the Stage for more than a Quarter-century.--Her American Tour.--Final Retirement from her Profession.--The Elements of her Greatness as a Goddess of Song PAULINE VIARDOT. Vicissitudes of the Garcia Family.--Pauline Viardot's Early Training.--Indications of her Musical Genius.--She becomes a Pupil of Liszt on the Piano.--Pauline Garcia practically self-trained as a Vocalist.--Her Remarkable Accomplishments.--Her First Appearance before the Public with De Bériot in Concert.--She makes her _Début_ in London as _Desdemona_.--Contemporary Opinions of her Powers.--Description of Pauline Garcia's Voice and the Character of her Art.--The Originality of her Genius.--Pauline Garcia marries M. Viardot, a Well-known _Litterateur_.--A Tour through Southern Europe.--She creates a Distinct Place for herself in the Musical Art.--Great Enthusiasm in Germany over her Singing.--The Richness of her Art Resources.--Sketches of the Tenors, Nourrit and Duprez, and of the Great Barytone, Ronconi.--Mme. Viardot and the Music of Meyerbeer.--Her Creation of the Part of _Fides_ in "Le Prophète," the Crowning Work of a Great Career.--Retirement from the Stage.--High Position in Private Life.--Connection with the French Conservatoire FANNY PERSIANI. The Tenor Singer Tacchinardi.--An Exquisite Voice and Deformed Physique.--Early Talent shown by his Daughter Fanny.--His Aversion to her entering on the Stage Life.--Her Marriage to M. Persiani.--The Incident which launched Fanny Persiani on the Stage.--Rapid Success as a Singer.--Donizetti writes one of his Great Operas for her.--_Personnel_, Voice, and Artistic Style of Mme. Persiani.--One of the Greatest Executants who ever lived.--Anecdotes of her Italian Tours.--First Appearance in Paris and London.--A Tour through Belgium with Ru-bini.--Anecdote of Prince Metternich.--Further Studies of Persiani's Characteristics as a Singer.--Donizetti composes Another Opera for her.--Her Prosperous Career and retirement from the Stage.--Last Appearance in Paris for Mario's Benefit MARIETTA ALBONI. The Greatest of Contraltos.--Marietta Alboni's Early Surroundings.--Rossini's Interest in her Career.--First Appearance on the Operatic Stage.--Excitement produced in Germany by her Singing.--Her Independence of Character.--Her Great Success in London.--Description of her Voice and Person.--Concerts in Paris.--The Verdicts of the Great French Critics.--Hector Berlioz on Alboni's Singing.--She appears in Opera in Paris.--Strange Indifference of the Audience quickly turned to Enthusiasm.--She competes favorably in London with Grisi, Persiani, and Viardot.--Takes the Place of Jenny Lind as Prima Donna at Her Majesty's.--She extends her Voice into the Soprano Register.--Performs "Fides" in "Le Prophète."--Visit to America.--Retires from the Stage JENNY LIND. The Childhood of the "Swedish Nightingale."--Her First Musical Instruction.--The Loss and Return of her Voice.--Jenny Lind's Pupilage in Paris under Manuel Garcia.--She makes the Acquaintance of Meyerbeer.--Great Sue-cess in Stockholm in "Robert le Diable."--Fredrika Bremer and Hans Christian Andersen on the Young Singer.--Her _Début_ in Berlin.--Becomes Prima Donna at the Royal Theatre.--Beginning of the Lind Enthusiasm that overran Europe.--She appears in Dresden in Meyerbeer's New Opera, "Feldlager in Schliesen."--Offers throng in from all the Leading Theatres of Europe.--The Grand _Furore_ in Every Part of Germany.--Description of Scenes in her Musical Progresses.--She makes her _Début_ in London.--Extraordinary Excitement of the English Public, such as had never before been known.--Descriptions of her Singing by Contemporary Critics.--Her Quality as an Actress.--Jenny Lind's _Personnel_.--Scenes and Incidents of the "Lind" Mania.--Her Second London Season.--Her Place and Character as a Lyric Artist.--Mlle. Lind's American Tour.--Extraordinary Enthusiasm in America.--Her Lavish Generosity.--She marries Herr Otto Goldschmidt.--Present Life of Retirement in London.--Jenny Lind as a Public Benefactor SOPHIE CRUVELLI. The Daughter of an Obscure German Pastor.--She studies Music in Paris.--Failure of her Voice.--Makes her _Début_ at La Fenice.--She appears in London during the Lind Excitement.--Description of her Voice and Person.--A Great Excitement over her Second Appearance in Italy.--_Début_ in Paris.--Her Grand Impersonation in "Fidelio."--Critical Estimates of her Genius.--Sophie Cruvelli's Eccentricities.--Excitement in Paris over her _Valentine_ in "Les Huguenots."--Different Performances in London and Paris.--She retires from the Stage and marries Baron Vigier.--Her Professional Status.--One of the Most Gifted Women of any Age THERESA TITIENS. Born at Hamburg of an Hungarian Family.--Her Early Musical Training.--First Appearance in Opera in "Lucrezia Borgia."--Romance of her Youth.--Rapid Extension of her Fame.--Receives a _Congé_ from Vienna to sing in England.--Description of Mlle. Titiens, her Voice, and Artistic Style.--The Characters in which she was specially eminent.--Opinions of the Critics.--Her Relative Standing in the Operatic Profession.--Her Performances of _Semi-ramide_ and _Medea_.--Latter Years of her Career.--Her Artistic Tour in America.--Her Death, and Estimate placed on her Genius GREAT SINGERS, SECOND SERIES, MALIBRAN TO TITIENS. MARIA FELICIA MALIBRAN. The Childhood of Maria Garcia.--Her Father's Sternness and Severe Discipline.--Her First Appearance as an Artist on the Operatic Stage.--Her Genius and Power evident from the Beginning.--Anecdotes of her Early Career.--Manuel Garcia's Operatic Enterprise in New York.--Maria Garcia is inveigled into marrying M. Malibran.--Failure of the Garcia Opera, and Maria's Separation from her Husband.--She makes her _Début_ in Paris with Great Success.--Madame Malibran's Characteristics as a Singer, a Genius, and a Woman.--Anecdotes of her Generosity and Kindness.--She sings in a Great London Engagement.--Her Eccentric and Daring Methods excite Severe Criticism.--Her Reckless Expenditure of Strength in the Pursuit of her Profession or Pleasures.--Madame Malibran's Attachment to De Bériot.--Anecdotes of her Public and Private Career.--Malibran in Italy, where she becomes the Popular Idol.--Her Last London Engagement.--Her Death at Manchester during the Great Musical Festival. I. With the name of Malibran there is associated an interest, alike personal and artistic, rarely equaled and certainly unsurpassed among the traditions which make the records of the lyric stage so fascinating. Daring originality stamped her life as a woman, her career as an artist, and the brightness with which her star shone through a brief and stormy history had something akin in it to the dazzling but capricious passage of a meteor. If Pasta was the Siddons of the lyric drama, unapproachable in its more severe and tragic phases, Malibran represented its Garrick. Brilliant, creative, and versatile, she sang equally well in all styles of music, and no strain on her resources seemed to overtax the power of an artistic imagination which delighted in vanquishing obstacles and transforming native defects into new beauties, an attribute of genius which she shared in equal degree with Pasta, though it took on a different manifestation. This great singer belonged to a Spanish family of musicians, who have been well characterized as "representative artists, whose power, genius, and originality have impressed a permanent trace on the record of the methods of vocal execution and ornament." Her father, Manuel Vicente Garcia, at the age of seventeen, was already well known as composer, singer, actor, and conductor. His pieces, short comic operas, had a great popularity in Spain, and were not only bright and inventive, but marked by thorough musical workmanship. A month after he made his _début_ in Paris, in 1811, he had become the chief singer, and sang for three years under the operatic _regime_ which shared the general splendor of Napoleon's court. He was afterward appointed first tenor at Naples by King Joachim Munit, and there produced his opera of "Califo di Bagdad," which met with great success. It was here that the child Maria, then only five years old, made her first public appearance in one of Paer's operas, and here that she received her first lessons in music from M. Panseron and the composer Hérold. When Garcia quitted Italy in 1816, he sang with Catalani in Paris, but, as that jealous artist admitted no bright star near her own, Garcia soon left the troupe, and went to London in the spring of 1818. He oscillated between the two countries for several years, and was the first brilliant exponent of the Rossinian music in two great capitals, as his training and method were peculiarly fitted to this school. The indomitable energy and ambition which he transmitted to his daughters, who were to become such distinguished ornaments of the stage, were not contented with making their possessor a great executant, for he continued to produce operas, several of which were put on the stage in Paris with notable success. Garcia's name as a teacher commenced about the year 1823 to overshadow his reputation as a singer. In the one he had rivals, in the other he was peerless. His school of singing quickly became famous, though he continued to appear on the stage, and to pour forth operas of more than average merit. The education of his daughter Maria, born at Paris, March 24, 1808, had always been a matter of paternal solicitude. A delicate, sensitive, and willful child, she had been so humored and petted at the convent-school of Hammersmith, where she was first placed, that she developed a caprice and a recklessness which made her return to the house of her stern and imperious father doubly painful, lier experience was a severe one, and Manuel Garcia was more pitiless to his daughter than to other pupils. Already at this period Maria spoke with ease Spanish, Italian, French, and English, to which she afterward added German. The Garcia household was a strange one. The Spanish musician was a tyrant in his home, and a savage temper, which had but few streaks of tenderness, frequently vented itself in blows and brutality, in spite of the remarkable musical facility with which Maria appropriated teaching, and the brilliant gifts which would have flattered the pride and softened the sympathies of a more gentle and complacent parent. The young girl, in spite of her prodigious instinct for art and her splendid intelligence, had a peculiarly intractable organ. The lower notes of the voice were very imperfect, the upper tones thin, disagreeable, and hard, the middle veiled, and her intonation so doubtful that it almost indicated an imperfect ear. She would sometimes sing so badly that her father would quit the piano precipitately and retreat to the farthest corner of the house with his fingers thrust into his ears. But Garcia was resolved that his daughter should become what Nature seemingly had resolved she should not be, a great vocalist, and he bent all the energies of his harsh and imperious temper to further this result. "One evening I studied a duet with Maria," says the Countess Merlin, "in which Garcia had written a passage, and he desired her to execute it. She tried, but became discouraged, and said, 'I can not.' In an instant the Andalu-sian blood of her father rose. He fixed his flashing eyes upon her: 'What did you say?' Maria looked at him, trembled, and, clasping her hands, murmured in a stifled voice, 'I will do it, papa;' and she executed the passage perfectly. She told me afterward that she could not conceive how she did it. 'Papa's glance,' added she, 'has such an influence upon me that I am sure it would make me fling myself from the roof into the street without doing myself any harm.'" Maria Felicia Garcia was a wayward and willful child, but so generous and placable that her fierce outbursts of rage were followed by the most fascinating and winning contrition. Irresistibly charming, frank, fearless, and original, she gave promise, even in her early youth, of the remarkable qualities which afterward bestowed such a unique and brilliant _cachet_ on her genius as an artist and her character as a woman. Her father, with all his harshness, understood her truly, for she inherited both her faults and her gifts from himself. "Her proud and stubborn spirit requires an iron hand to control it," he said; "Maria can never become great except at the price of much suffering." By the time she had reached the age of fifteen her voice had greatly improved. Her chest-notes had gained greatly in power, richness, and depth, though the higher register of the vocal organ still remained crude and veiled. Fetis says that it was on account of the sudden indisposition of Madame Pasta that the first public appearance of Maria in opera was unexpectedly made, but Lord Mount Edgcumbe and the impressario Ebers both tell a different story. The former relates in his "Reminiscences" that, shortly after the repair of the King's Theatre, "the great favorite Pasta arrived for a limited number of nights. About the same time Konzi fell ill and totally lost her voice, so that she was obliged to throw up her engagement and return to Italy. Mme. Vestris having seceded, and Caradori being for some time unable to perform, it became necessary to engage a young singer, the daughter of the tenor Garcia, who had sung here for several seasons.... Her extreme youth, her prettiness, her pleasing voice, and sprightly, easy action as _Rosina_ in 'Il Barbiere,' in which part she made her _début_, gained her general favor." Chor-ley recalls the impression she made on him at this time in more precise and emphatic terms: "From the first hour when Maria Garcia appeared on the stage, first in 'Il Barbiere' and subsequently in 'Il Crociato,' it was evident that a new artist, as original as extraordinary, was come--one by nature fairly endowed, not merely with physical powers, but also with that inventive, energetic, rapid genius, before which obstacles become as nothing, and by the aid of which the sharpest contradictions become reconciled." She made her _début_ on June 7, 1825, and was immediately engaged for the remaining six weeks of the season at five hundred pounds. Her first success was followed by a second in Meyerber's 'Il Crociato,' in which she sang with Velluti, the last of that extraordinary _genre_ of artists, the male sopranos. Garcia wrote several arias for her voice, which were interpolated in the opera, much to Manager Ayrton's disgust, but much also to the young singer's advantage, for the father knew every defect and every beauty of his daughter's voice. If her father was ambitious and daring, Maria was so likewise. She had to sing with Velluti a duet in Zingarelli's "Romeo e Giulietta," and in the morning they rehearsed it together, Velluti reserving his fioriture for the evening, lest the young _débutante_ should endeavor to imitate his ornaments. In the evening he sang his solo part, embroidering it with the most florid decorations, and finishing with a new and beautiful cadenza, which astonished and charmed the audience; Maria seized the phrases, to which she imparted an additional grace, and crowned her triumph with an audacious and superb improvisation. Thunders of applause greeted her, and while trembling with excitement she felt her arm grasped by a hand of iron. "Briccona!" hissed a voice in her ear, as Velluti glared on her, gnashing his teeth with rage. After performing in London, she appeared in the autumn with her father at the Manchester, York, and Liverpool Festivals, where she sang some of the most difficult pieces from the "Messiah" and the "Creation." Some said that she failed, others that she sang with a degree of mingled brilliancy, delicacy, and sweetness that drew down a storm of applause. II. Garcia now conceived a project for establishing Italian opera in the United States, and with characteristic daring he set sail for America with a miserable company, of which the only talent consisted of his own family, comprising himself, his son, daughter, and wife, Mme. Garcia having been a fairly good artist in her youth. The first opera produced was "Il Barbiere," on November 29, 1825, and this was speedily followed by "Tancredi," "Otello," "Il Turco in Italia," "Don Giovanni," "Cenerentola," and two operas composed by Garcia himself--"L'Amante Astuto," and "La Figlia dell' Aria," The young singer's success was of extraordinary character, and New York, unaccustomed to Italian opera, went into an ecstasy of admiration. Maria's charming voice and personal fascination held the public spellbound, and her good nature in the introduction of English songs, whenever called on by her admirers, raised the delight of the opera-goers of the day to a wild enthusiasm. The occurrence of the most unfortunate episode of her life at this time was the fruitful source of much of the misery and eccentricity of her after-career. M. François Eugène Malibran, a French merchant, engaged in business in New York, fell passionately in love with the young singer, and speedily laid his heart and fortune, which was supposed to be great, at her feet. In spite of the fact that the suitor was fifty, and Maria only seventeen, she was disposed to accept the offer, for she was sick of her father's brutality, and the straits to which she was constantly put by the exigencies of her dependent situation. Her heart had never yet awakened to the sweetness of love, and the supposed great fortune and lavish promises of M. Malibran dazzled her young imagination. Garcia sternly refused his consent, and there were many violent scenes between father and daughter. Such was the hostility of feeling between the two, that Maria almost feared for her life. The following incident is an expressive comment on the condition of her mind at this time: One evening she was playing _Des-demona_ to her father's _Othello_, in Rossini's opera. At the moment when _Othello_ approaches, his eyes sparkling with rage, to stab _Desdemona_, Maria perceived that her father's dagger was not a stage sham, but a genuine weapon. Frantic with terror, she screamed "Papa, papa, for the love of God, do not kill me!" Her terrors were groundless, for the substitution of the real for a theatrical dagger was a mere accident. The audience knew no difference, as they supposed Maria's Spanish exclamation to be good operatic Italian, and they applauded at the fine dramatic point made by the young artist! At last the importunate suitor overcame Gar-cia's opposition by agreeing to give him a hundred thousand francs in payment for the loss of his daughter's services, and the sacrifice of the young and beautiful singer was consummated on March 23, 1826. A few weeks later Malibran was a bankrupt and imprisoned for debt, and his bride discovered how she had been cheated and outraged by a cunning scoundrel, who had calculated on saving himself from poverty by dependence on the stage-earnings of a brilliant wife. The enraged Garcia, always a man of unbridled temper, was only prevented from transforming one of those scenes of mimic tragedy with which he was so familiar, into a criminal reality by assassinating Malibran, through the resolute expostulations of his friends. Mme. Malibran instantly resigned for the benefit of her husband's creditors any claims which she might have made on the remnants of his estate, and her New York admirers had as much occasion to applaud the rectitude and honor of the woman as they had had the genius of the artist. Garcia himself, hampered by pecuniary difficulties, set sail for Mexico with his son and younger daughter, to retrieve his fortunes, while Maria remained in New York, tied to a wretch whom she despised, and who looked on her musical talents as the means of supplying him with the luxuries of life. Mme. Malibran's energy soon found a vent in English opera, and she made herself as popular on the vernacular as she had on the Italian stage. But she soon wearied of her hard fate, which compelled her to toil without ceasing for the support of the man who had deceived her vilely, and for whom not one spark of love operated to condone his faults. Five months utterly snapped her patience, and she determined to return to Paris. She arrived there in September, 1826, and took up her abode with M. Malibran's sister. Although she had become isolated from all her old friends, she found in one of the companions of her days of pupilage, the Countess Merlin, a most affectionate help and counselor, who spared no effort to make her talents known to the musical world of Paris, Mme. de Merlin sounded the praises of her friend so successfully that she soon succeeded in evoking a great degree of public curiosity, which finally resulted in an engagement. Malibran's first appearance in the Grand Opéra at Paris was for the benefit of Mme. Galli, in "Semiramide." It was a terrible ordeal, for she had such great stars as Pasta and Sontag to compete with, and she was treading a classic stage, with which the memories of all the great names in the lyric art were connected. She felt that on the result of that night all the future success of her life depended. Though her heart was struck with such a chill that her knees quaked as she stepped on the stage, her indomitable energy and courage came to her assistance, and she produced an indescribable sensation. Her youth, beauty, and noble air won the hearts of all. One difficult phrase proved such a stumbling-block that, in the agitation of a first appearance, she failed to surmount it, and there was an apprehension that the lovely singer was about to fail. But in the grand aria, "Bel Raggio," she indicated such resources of execution and daring of improvisation, and displayed such a full and beautiful voice, that the house resounded with the most furious applause. Mme. Malibran, encouraged by this warm reception, redoubled the difficulties of her execution, and poured forth lavishness of fioriture and brilliant cadenzas such as fairly dazzled her hearers. Paris was conquered, and Mme. Malibran became the idol of the city, for the novelty and richness of her style of execution set her apart from all other singers as a woman of splendid inventive genius. She could now make her own terms with the managers, and she finally gave the preference to the Italiens over the Grand Opéra, at terms of eight hundred francs per night, and a full benefit. In voice, genius, and character Mme. Mali-bran was alike original. Her organ was not naturally of first-rate quality. The voice was a mezzo-soprano, naturally full of defects, especially in the middle tones, which were hard and uneven, and to the very last she was obliged to go through her exercises every day to keep it flexible. By the tremendously severe discipline to which she had been subjected by her father's teaching and method, the range of voice had been extended up and down so that it finally reached a compass of three octaves from D in alt to D on the third line in the base. Her high notes had an indescribable sparkle and brilliancy, and her low tones were so soft, sweet, and heart-searching that they thrilled with every varying phase of her sensibilities. Her daring in the choice of ornaments was so great that it was only justified by the success which invariably crowned her flights of inventive fancy: To the facility and cultivation of voice, which came from her father's training, she added a fertility of musical inspiration which came from nature. A French critic wrote of her: "Her passages were not only remarkable for extent, rapidity, and complication, but were invariably marked by the most intense feeling and sentiment. Her soul appeared in everything she did." Her extraordinary flexibility enabled her to run with ease over passages of the most difficult character. "In the tones of Malibran," says one of her English admirers, "there would at times be developed a deep and trembling pathos, that, rushing from the fountain of the heart, thrilled instantly upon a responsive chord in the bosoms of all." She was the pupil of nature. Her acting was full of genius, passion, and tenderness. She was equally grand as _Semiramide_ and as _Arsace_, and sang the music of both parts superbly. Touching, profoundly melancholy as _Desdemona_, she was gay and graceful in _Rosina_; she drew tears as _Ninetta_, and, throwing off the coquette, could produce roars of laughter as _Fidalma_. She had never taken lessons in poses or in declamation, yet she was essentially, innately graceful. Mme. Malibran was in person about the middle height, and the contour of her figure was rounded to an enchanting _embonpoint_, which yet preserved its youthful grace. Her carriage was exceedingly noble, and the face more expressive than handsome; her hair was black and glossy, and always worn in a simple style. The eyes were dark and luminous, the teeth white and regular, and the countenance, habitually pensive in expression, was mutable in the extreme, and responsive to every emotion and feeling of the heart. To quote from Mr. Chorley: "She may not have been beautiful, but she was better than beautiful, insomuch as a speaking Spanish human countenance is ten times more fascinating than many a faultless angel-face such as Guido could paint. There was health of tint, with but a slight touch of the yellow rose in her complexion; great mobility of expression in her features; an honest, direct brightness of eye; a refinement in the form of her head, and the set of it on her shoulders." When she was reproached by Fetis for using _ad captandum_ effects too lavishly in the admonition: "With the degree of elevation to which you have attained, you should impose your opinion on the public, not submit to theirs," she answered, with a laugh and a shrug of her charming shoulders: "_Mon cher grognon_, there may perhaps be two or three connoisseurs in the theatre, but it is not they who give success. When I sing for you, I will sing very differently." Mme. Malibran, buoyed up on the passionate enthusiasm of the French public, essayed the most wonderful and daring flights in her song. She appeared as _Desdemona, Rosina_, and as _Romeo_ in Zingarelli's opera--characters, of the most opposing kind and two of them, indeed, among Pasta's masterpieces. It was said that, "if Malibran must yield the palm to Pasta in point of acting, yet she possessed a decided superiority in respect of song"; and, even in acting, Malibran's grace, originality, vivacity, piquancy, spontaneity, feeling, and tenderness, won the heart of all spectators. Such was her versatility, that the _Semi-ramide_ of one evening was the _Cinderella_ of the next, the _Zerlina_ of another, and the _Desdemona_ of its successor; and in each the individuality of conception was admirably preserved. On being asked by a friend which was her favorite rôle, she answered, "The character I happen to be acting, whichever it may be." In spite, however, of the general testimony to her great dramatic ability, so clever and capable a judge as Henry Chorley rated her musical genius as far higher than that of dramatic conception. He says: "Though creative as an executant, Malibran was not creative as a dramatic artist. Though the fertility and audacity of her musical invention had no limits, though she had the power and science of a composer, she did not establish one new opera or character on the stage, hardly even one first-class song in a concert-room." This criticism, when closely examined, may perhaps indicate a high order of praise. Mme. Malibran, as an artist, was so unique and original in her methods, so incomparable in the invention and skill which required no master to prompt or regulate her cadences, so complex in the ingenuity which blended the resources of singing and acting, that other singers simply despaired of imitating her effects, and what she did perished with her, except as a brilliant tradition. In other words, her utter superiority to the conventional made her artistic work phenomenal, and of a style not to be perpetuated on the stage. The weight of testimony appears to be that Mme. Malibran was, beyond all of her competitors, a singer of most versatile and brilliant genius, in whom dramatic instincts reigned with as dominant force as ability of musical expression. The fact, however, that Mme. Malibran, with a voice weak and faulty in the extreme in one whole octave of its range, and that the most important (between F and F), was able by her matchless skill and audacity in the forms of execution, modification, and ornament, to achieve the most brilliant results, might well blind even a keen connoisseur by kindling his admiration of her musical invention, at the expense of his recognition of dramatic faculty. It was characteristic of Mme. Malibran that she fired all her fellow-artists with the ardor of her genius. Her resources and knowledge were such that she could sing in any school and any language. The music of Mozart and Cimarosa, Boïeldieu and Eossini, Cherubini and Bellini, Donizetti and Meyerbeer, furnished in equal measure the mold into which her great powers poured themselves with a sort of inspired fury, like that of a Greek Pythoness. She had an artistic individuality powerful to create types of its own, which were the despair of other singers, for they were incapable of reproduction, inasmuch as they were partly forged from her own defects, transformed by genius into beauties. In all those accomplishments which have their root in the art temperament, she was a sort of Admirable Crichton. She played the piano-forte with great skill, and, with no special knowledge of drawing, possessed marked talent in sketching caricatures, portraits, and scenes from nature. She composed both the music and words of songs and romances with a felicitous ease. She excelled in feminine works, such as embroidery, tapestry, and dressmaking, and always modeled her own costumes. It was a saying with her friends that she was as much the artist with her needle as with her voice. She wrote and spoke five languages, and often used them with different interlocutors with such readiness and accuracy that she rarely confused them. Her wit and vivacity as a conversationalist were celebrated, and her _mots_ had the point as well as the flash of the diamond. Her retorts and sarcasms often wounded, but she was quick to heal the stroke by a sweet and childlike contrition that made her doubly fascinating. Impassioned, ardent, the prey of an endless excitement, her restless nature would quickly return from its flights to the every-day duties and responsibilities of life, and her instincts were so strong and noble that she was eager to repair any errors into which she might be betrayed. Lavish in her generosity to others, she was personally frugal, even penurious. A certain brusque and original frankness, and the ingenuousness with which she betrayed every impression, often involved her in compromising positions, which would have been fatal to a woman in her position less pure and upright in her essential nature. Fond of dolls, toys, and trifles, she was also devoted to athletic sports and pastimes, riding, swimming, skating, shooting, and fencing. Sometimes her return from a fatiguing night at the opera would be marked by an exuberance of animal spirits, which would lead her to jump over chairs and tables like a schoolboy. She was wont to say, "When I try to restrain my flow of spirits, I feel as if I should be suffocated." Her reckless gayety and unconventional manners led to strange rumors. She would wander over the country attired in boy's clothes, and without an escort, and a great variety of innocent escapades led a carping world to believe that she indulged excessively in stimulants, but the truth was that she never drank anything but a little wine-and-water. Maria could not long endure the frowning tutelage of M. Malibran's sister, whom she at first selected as her chaperon, and so one day she decamped without warning, in a coach, and established her "household gods" with Mme. Naldi, an old friend of her father, and a woman of austere manners, whom she obeyed like a child. Her protector had charge of all her money, and opened all her letters before Maria saw them. When her fortune was at his height, Mme. Mali-bran showed her friend and biographer, Countess do Merlin, a much-worn Cashmere shawl, saying: "I use this in preference to any that I have. It was the first Cashmere shawl I ever owned, and I have pleasure in remembering how hard I found it to coax Mme. Naldi to let me buy it." In 1828 the principal members of the operatic company at the Italiens were Malibran, Sontag, Donzelli, Zuchelli, and Graziani. Malibran sang in "Otello," "Matilda di Shabran," "La Cenerentola," and "La Gazza Ladra." Jealous as she was by temperament, she always wept when Madamoiselle Sontag achieved a great success, saying, naively, "Why does she sing so divinely?" The coldness between the two great singers was fomented by the malice of others, but at last a touching reconciliation occurred, and the two rivals remained ever afterward sincere friends and admirers of each other's talents. There are many charming anecdotes of Madame Malibran's generosity and quick sympathy. At the house of one of her friends she often met an aged widow, poor and unhappy, and strongly desired to assist her; but the position and character of the lady required delicate management. "Madame," she said at last, "I know that your son makes very pretty verses." "Yes, madame, he sometimes amuses himself in that way. But he is so young!" "No matter. Do you know that I could propose a little partnership affair? Troupenas [the music publisher] has asked me for a new set of romances. I have no words ready. If your son will give them to me, we could share the profits." Mme. Malibran received the verses, and gave in exchange six hundred francs. The romances were never finished. She performed all such acts of charity with so much refined delicacy, such true generosity, that the kindness was doubled. Thus, at the end of this season, a young female chorister, engaged for the opening of the King's Theatre, found herself unable to quit Paris for want of funds. Mme. Malibran promised to sing at a concert which some of the leading vocalists gave for her benefit. The name of Malibran of course drew a crowd, and the room was filled; but she did not appear, and at last they were obliged to commence the concert. The entertainment was half over when she came, and approached the young girl, saying to her in a low voice: "I am a little late, my dear, but the public will lose nothing, for I will sing all the pieces announced. In addition, as I promised you all my evening, I will keep my word. I went to sing in a concert at the house of the Duc d'Orléans, where I received three hundred francs. They belong to you. Take them." III. In April of the same year during which Mme. Malibran had established herself so firmly in the admiration of the Parisian world, she accepted an engagement for the summer months with La-porte of the King's Theatre in London. She made her _début_ in the character of _Desdemona_, a part which had already been firmly fixed in the notions of the musical public by the two differing conceptions of Pasta and Sontag. The opera had been originally written for Mme. Colbran, Rossini's wife, and when it was revived for Pasta that great lyric tragedienne had embodied in it a grand, stormy, passionate style, suited to the _genre_ of her genius. Mme. Sontag, on the other hand, fashioned her impersonation from the side of delicate sentiment and tenderness, and Malibran had a difficult task in shaping the conception after an ideal which should escape the reproach of imitation. Her version was full of electric touches and rapid alternations of feeling, but at times it bordered on the sensational and extravagant. Her fiery vehemence was often felt to be inconsistent with the tenderness of the heroine. The critics, while admitting the varied and original beauties of her reading, were yet severe in their condemnation of some of its features. Mme. Malibran, however, urged that her action was what she would have manifested in the actual situations. "I remember once," says the Countess De Merlin, "a friend advised her not to make _Otello_ pursue her so long when he was about to kill her. Her answer was: 'You are right; it is not elegant, I admit; but, when once I fairly enter into my character, I never think of effects, but imagine myself actually the person I represent. I can assure you that in the last scene of Desdemona I often feel as if I were really about to be murdered, and act accordingly.' Donzelli used to be much annoyed by Mme. Malibran not determining beforehand how he was to seize her; she often gave him a regular chase. Though he was one of the best-tempered men in the world, I recollect him one evening being seriously angry. Desdemona had, according to custom, repeatedly escaped from his grasp; in pursuing her, he stumbled, and slightly wounded himself with the dagger he brandished. It was the only time I ever saw him in a passion." She next appeared successively as _Rosina, Ni-netta, and Tancredi_, winning fresh laurels in them all, not only by her superb skill in vocalizing, but by her versatility of dramatic conception and the ease with which she entered into the most opposite phases of feeling and motive. She covered Rossini's elaborate fioriture with a fresh profusion of ornament, but always with a dexterity which saved it from the reproach of being overladen. She performed _Semiramide_ with Mme. Pisaroni, and played Zerlina to Sontag's _Donna Anna_. Her habit of treating such dramatic parts as _Ninetta, Zerlina_, and _Amina_ was the occasion of keen controversy among the critics of the time. Entirely averse to the conventional method of idealizing the character of the country girl out of all semblance to nature, Malibran was essentially realistic in preserving the rusticity, awkwardness, and _naivete_ of peasant-life. One critic argued: "It is by no means rare to discover in the humblest walk of life an inborn grace and delicacy of Nature's own implanting; and such assuredly is the model from which characters like _Ninetta_ and _Zerlina_ ought to be copied." But there were others who saw in the vigor, breadth, and verisimilitude of Mme. Malibran's stage portraits of the peasant wench the truest and finest dramatic justice. A great singer of our own age, Mme. Pauline Lucca, seems to have modeled her performances of the operatic rustic after the same method. In such characters as __Susanna in the "Nozze di Figaro," and _Fidalma_ in Cimarosa's "Il Matrimonio Segreto," her talent for lyric comedy impressed the _cognoscenti_ of London with irresistible power. She was fascinated by the ludicrous, and was wont to say that she was anxious to play the _Duenna_ in "Il Barbiere" for the sake of the grotesque costume. In playing _Fidalma_ the drollery of her tone and manner, the richness and originality of her comic humor, were incomparable. Her daring, however, prompted her to do strange things, which would have been condemned in any other singer. For example, while _Fidalma_ is in the midst of the most ludicrous drollery of the part, Malibran suddenly took up one word and gave an extended series of the most brilliant and difficult roulades of her own improvisation, through the whole range of her voice. Her hearers were transported at this musical feat, but it entirely interrupted the continuity of the humor. On Mme. Malibran's return to Paris, she found her father, who had unexpectedly returned from his Mexican tour, thoroughly bankrupted in purse, and more embittered than ever by his train of misfortunes. He announced his intention of giving some representations at the Theatre Italien. This resolution caused much vexation to his daughter, but she did not oppose it. Garcia had lost a part of his voice; his tenor had become a barytone, and he could no longer reach the notes which had in former times been written for him. She knew how much her father's voice had become injured, and knowing equally well his intrepid courage, feared, not without reason, that he would tarnish his brilliant reputation. Garcia displayed even more than ever the great artist. A hoarseness seized him at the moment of appearing on the stage. "This is nothing," said he: "I shall do very well"; and, by sheer strength of talent and of will, he arranged the music of his part (_Almaviva_) to suit the condition of his voice, changing the passages, transposing them an octave lower, and taking up notes adroitly where he found his voice available; and all this instantly, with an admirable confidence. Malibran's second season in Paris confirmed the estimate which had been placed on her genius, but the incessant labors of her professional life and the ardor with which she pursued the social enjoyments of life were commencing to undermine her health. She never hesitated to sacrifice herself and her time for the benefit of her friends, in spite of her own physical debility. One night she had promised to sing at the house of her friend, Mme. Merlin, and was amazed at the refusal of her manager to permit her absence from the theatre on a benefit-night. She said to him: "It does not signify; I sing at the theatre because it is my duty, but afterward I sing at Mme. Merlin's because it is my pleasure." And so after one o'clock in the morning, wearied from the arduous performance of "Semiramide," she appeared at her friend's and sang, supped, and waltzed till daybreak. This excess in living every moment of her life and utter indifference to the requirements of health were characteristic of her whole career. One night she fainted in her dressing-room before going on the stage. In the hurry of applying restoratives, a _vinaigrette_ containing some caustic acid was emptied over her lips, and her mouth was covered with blisters. The manager was in despair; but Mme. Malibran, quietly stepping to the mirror, cut off the blisters with a pair of scissors, and sang as usual. Such was the indomitable courage of the woman that she was always faithful to her obligations, come what might; a conscientiousness which was afterward the immediate cause of her death. IV. It was in Paris, in 1830, that Mme. Malibran's romantic attachment to M. Charles de Bériot, the famous Belgian violinist, had its beginning. M. de Bériot had been warmly and hopelessly enamored of Malibran's rival, Mdlle. Sontag, in spite of the fact that the latter lady was known to be the _fiancée_ of Count Rossi. The sympathies of Malibran's warm and affectionate heart were called out by her friend's disappointment, for gossip in the musical circles of Paris discussed De Bériot's unfortunate love-affair very freely. With her usual impulsive candor she expressed her interest in the brilliant young violinist without reserve, and it was not long before De Bériot made Malibran his confidante, and found consolation for his troubles in her soothing companionship. The result was what might have been expected. Malibran's beauty, tenderness, and genius speedily displaced the former idol in the heart of the Belgian artist, while she learned that it was but a short step between pity and love. This mutual affection was the cause of a dispute between Maria and her friend Mme. Naldi, whose austere morality disapproved the intimacy, and there was a separation, our singer moving into lodgings of her own. It was during her London engagement of the same year that Mme. Malibran became acquainted with the greatest of bassos, Lablache, who made his _début_ before an English public in the rôle of _Geronimo_, in "Il Matrimonio Segreto." The friendship between these two distinguished artists became a very warm one, that only terminated with Malibran's death. Lablache, who had sung with all the greatest artists of the age, lamented her early taking off as one of the greatest misfortunes of the lyric stage. One strong tie between them was their mutual benevolence. On one occasion an unfortunate Italian importuned Lablache for assistance to return to his native land. The next day, when all the company were assembled for rehearsal, Lablache requested them to join in succoring their unhappy compatriot; all responded to the call, Mme. Lalande and Donzelli each contributing fifty francs. Malibran gave the same as the others; but, the following day, seizing the opportunity of being alone with Lablache, she desired him to add to her subscription of fifty francs two hundred and fifty more; she had not liked to appear to bestow more than her friends, so she had remained silent the preceding day. Lablache hastened to seek his _protégé_, who, however, profiting by the help afforded him, had already embarked; but, not discouraged, Lablache hurried after him, and arrived just as the steamer was leaving the Thames. Entering a boat, however, he reached the vessel, went on board, and gave the money to the _émigré_, whose expressions of gratitude amply repaid the trouble of the kind-hearted basso. Another time Malibran aided a poor Italian who was destitute, telling him to say nothing about it. "Ah, madame," he cried, "you have saved me for ever!" "Hush!" she interrupted; "do not say that; only the Almighty could do so. Pray to him." The feverish activity of Mme. Malibran was shown at this time in a profusion of labors and an ardor in amusement which alarmed all her friends. When not engaged in opera, she was incessant in concert-giving, for which her terms were eighty guineas per night. She would fly to Calais and sing there, hurry back to England, thence hasten to Brussels, where she would give a concert, and then cross the Channel again, giving herself no rest. Night after night she would dance and sing at private parties till dawn, and thus waste the precious candle of her life at both ends. She was haunted by a fancy that, when she ceased to live thus, she would suddenly die, for she was full of the superstition of her Spanish race. Mme. Malibran about this time essayed the same experiment which Pasta had tried, that of singing the rôle of the Moor in "Otello." It was not very successful, though she sang the music and acted the part with fire. The delicate figure of a woman was not fitted for the strong and masculine personality of the Moorish warrior, and the charm of her expression was completely veiled by the swarthy mask of paint. Her versatility was so daring that she wished even to out-leap the limits of nature. The great _diva's_ horizon (since Sontag's retirement from the stage she had been acknowledged the leading singer of the age) was now destined to be clouded by a portentous event. M. Malibran arrived in Paris. He had heard of his wife's brilliant success, and had come to assert his rights over her. Maria declined to see him, and no persuasions of her friends could induce her to grant the _soi-disant_ husband, for whose memory she had nothing but rooted aversion, even an interview. Though she finally arrived at a compromise with him (for his sole interest in resuming relationship with his wife seemed to be the desire of sharing in the emoluments of her profession), she determined not to sing again in the French capital while M. Malibran remained there, and accordingly retired to a chateau near Brussels. The whole musical world was interested in settling this imbroglio, and there was a final settlement, by the terms of which the singer was not to be troubled or interfered with by her husband as long as he was paid a fixed stipend. She returned to Paris, and reappeared at the Italiens as _Ninetta_, the great Rubini being in the same cast. The two singers vied with each other "till," observed a French critic, "it seemed as if talent, feeling, and enthusiasm could go no further." This engagement, however, was cut short by her frequent and alarming illnesses, and Mme. Malibran, though reckless and short-sighted in regard to her own health, became seriously alarmed. She suddenly departed from the city, leaving a letter for the director, Severini, avowing a determination not to return, at least till her health was fully reestablished. This threatened the ruin of the administration, for Malibran was the all-powerful attraction. M. Viardot, a friend who had her entire confidence (Mlle. Pauline Garcia afterward became Mme. Viardot), was sent to Brussels as ambassador, and he represented the ruin she would entail on the operatic season of the Italiens. This plea appealed to her generosity, and she returned to fulfill her engagement. Constant attacks of illness, however, continued to disturb her performances, and the Parisian public chose to attribute this interruption of their pleasures to the caprice of the _diva_. She so resented this injustice that she determined, at the close of the engagement, that she would never again sing in Paris. Her last appearance, on January 8,1832, was as _Desdemona_, and the fervency of her singing and acting made it a memorable night, as the rumor had crept out that Mme. Malibran was then taking a lasting leave of them as an artist, and the audience sought to repair their former injustice by redoubled expressions of enthusiasm and pleasure. An amusing instance of her eccentric and impulsive resolution was her hasty tour with La-blache to Italy which occurred a few months afterward. The great basso, passing through Brussels _en route_ to Naples, called at her villa to pay his respects. Malibran declared her intention, in spite of his laughing incredulity, of going with him. Though he was to leave at dawn the next morning, she was waiting at the door of his hotel when he came down the stairs. As she had no passport, she was detained on the Lombardy frontier till Lablache obtained the needed document. At Milan she only sang in private concerts, and pressed on to Rome, where she engaged for a short season at the Teatro Valle, and succeeded in offending the _amour propre_ of the Romans by singing French romances of her own composition in the lesson-scene of "Il Barbiere." She learned of the death of her father while in Rome, news which plunged her in the deepest despondency, for the memory of his sternness and cruelty had long been effaced by her appreciation of the inestimable value his training had been to her. She had often remarked to her friend, Mme. Merlin, that without just such a severe system her voice would never have attained its possibilities. From Rome she went to Naples to fulfill a _scrittura_ with Barbaja, the celebrated _impressario_ of that city, to give twelve performances at one thousand francs a night. An immense audience greeted her on the opening night at the Fondo Theatre, August 6, 1832, at first with a cold and critical indifference--a feeling, however, which quickly flamed into all the unrestrained volcanic ardor of the Neapolitan temperament. Thenceforward she sang at double prices, "notwithstanding the subscribers' privileges were on most of these occasions suspended, and although 'Otello,' 'La Gazza Ladra,' and operas of that description were the only ones offered to a public long since tired even of the beauties of Rossini, and proverbial for their love of novelty." Her great triumph, however, was on the night when she took her leave, in the character of _Ninetta_. "Nothing can be imagined finer than the spectacle afforded by the immense Theatre of San Carlo, crowded to the very ceiling, and ringing with acclamations," says a correspondent of one of the English papers at the time. "Six times after the fall of the curtain Mme. Mali-bran was called forward to receive the reiterated plaudits and adieux of the assembled multitude, and indicate by graceful and expressive gestures the degree to which she was overpowered by fatigue and emotion. The scene did not end within the walls of the theatre; for a crowd of the most enthusiastic rushed from all parts of the house to the stage-door, and, as soon as her sedan came out, escorted it with loud acclamations to the Palazzo Barbaja, and renewed their salutations as the charming vocalist ascended the steps." Mme. Malibran had now learned to dearly love Italy and its impulsive, warm-hearted people, so congenial to her own nature. She sang in different Italian cities, receiving everywhere the most enthusiastic receptions. In Bologna they placed a bust of their adored songstress in the peristyle of the theatre. Each city vied with its neighbor in lavishing princely gifts on her. She had not long been in London, where she returned to meet her spring engagement at the King's Theatre in 1833, when she concluded a contract with the Duke Visconti of Milan for one hundred and eighty-five performances, seventy-five in the autumn and carnival season of 1835-'36, seventy-five in the corresponding season of 1836-'37, and thirty-five in the autumn of 1836, at a salary of eighteen thousand pounds. These were the highest terms which had then ever been offered to a public singer, or in fact to any stage performer since the days of imperial Rome. V. Mme. Malibran's Italian experiences were in the highest sense gratifying alike to her pride as a great artist and to her love of admiration as a woman. Her popularity became a mania which infected all classes, and her appearance on the streets was the signal for the most fervid shouts of enthusiasm from the populace. For two years she alternated between London and the sunny lands where she had become such an idol. She had to struggle in Milan against the indelible impress made by Mme. Pasta, whose admirers entertained an almost fanatical regard for her memory as the greatest of lyric artists; but when Malibran appeared as _Norma_, a part written by Bellini expressly for Pasta, she was proclaimed _la cantante per eccelenza_. A medal, executed by the distinguished sculptor Valerio Nesti, was struck in her honor. Her generosity of nature was signally instanced during these golden Italian days in many acts of beneficence, of which the following are instances: During her stay at Sinigaglia in the summer of 1834, she heard an exquisite voice singing beneath the windows of her hotel. On looking out she saw a wan beggar-girl dressed in rags. Discovering by investigation that it was a case of genuine want, she placed the girl in a position where she could receive an excellent musical education and have all her needs amply supplied. On the eve of her departure from Naples, the last engagement she ever sang in that city, Gallo, proprietor of the Teatro Emeronnitio, came to entreat her to sing once at his establishment. He had a wife and several children, and was a very worthy man, on the verge of bankruptcy. "I will sing," answered she, "on one condition--that not a word is said about remuneration." She chose the part of _Amina_; the house was crammed, and the poor man was saved from ruin. A vast multitude followed her home, with an enthusiasm which amounted almost to a frenzy, and the grateful manager named his theatre the Teatro Garcia. On Ash-Wednesday, March 13, 1835, Mme. Malibran bade the Neapolitans adieu--an eternal adieu. Radiant with glory, and crowned with flowers, she was conducted by the Neapolitans to the faubourgs amid the _éclat_ of _vivats_ and acclamations. The Neapolitans adored Malibran, and she loved to sing to these susceptible lovers of the divine art. On one occasion when she was suffering from a severe accident, she appeared with her arm in a sling rather then disappoint her audience. During all her Italian seasons, especially in Naples, where perfection of climate and delightful scenery combine to stimulate the animal spirits, she pursued the same wild and reckless course which had so often threatened to cut off her frail tenure of life. A daring horsewoman and swimmer, she alternated these exercises with fatiguing studies and incessant social pleasures. She practiced music five or six hours a day, spent several hours in violent exercise, and in the evenings not engaged at the theatre would go to parties, where she amused herself and her friends in a thousand different ways--making caricatures, doggerel verses, riddles, conundrums, _bouts-rimes_, dancing, jesting, laughing, and singing. Full of exhaustless vivacity, she seemed more and more to disdain rest as her physical powers grew weaker. The enthusiasm with which she was received and followed everywhere was in itself a dangerous draught on her nervous energies, which should have been husbanded, not lavishly wasted. One night at Milan she was deluged with bouquets of which the leaves were of gold and silver, and recalled by the frantic acclamations of her hearers twenty times, at the close of which she fainted on the stage. It was during this engagement at Milan that she heard of the death of the young composer, Vincentio Bellini, on September 23, 1835, and she set on foot a subscription for a tribute to his memory, leading the list with four-hundred francs. It was a premonition of her own departure from the world of art which she had so splendidly adorned, for exactly a year from that day she breathed her last sigh. Her arrival in Venice during this last triumphant tour of her life was the occasion for an ovation not less flattering than those she had received elsewhere. As her gondola entered the Grand Canal, she was welcomed with a deafening _fanfare_ of trumpets, the crash of musical bands, and the shouts of a vast multitude. It was as if some great general had just returned from victories in the field, which had saved a state. Mali-bran was frightened at this enthusiasm, and took refuge in a church, which speedily became choke-full of people, and a passage had to be opened for her exit to her hotel. Whenever she appeared, the multitude so embarrassed her that a way had to be made by the gendarmes, and her gondola was always pursued by a _cortege_ of other gondolas, that crowded in her wake. When she departed, the city presented her with a magnificent diamond and ruby diadem. In March, 1835, the divorce which she had long been seeking was granted by a French tribunal, and ten months later, at the expiration of the limit fixed by French law, she married M. De Bériot, March 29, 1836, thus legalizing the birth of their son, Wilfred de Bériot, who, with one daughter, that did not live, had been the fruit of their passionate attachment. On the day of her marriage she distributed a thousand francs among the poor, and her friends showered costly gifts on her, among them being an agraffe of pearls from the Queen of France. During the season of 1835 Mme. Malibran appeared for Mr. Bunn at Drury Lane and Covent Garden in twenty-six performances, for which she received £3,463. Among other operas she appeared in Balfe's new work, "The Maid of Artois," which, in spite of its beautiful melody, has never kept its hold on the stage. Her _Leonora_ in Beethoven's "Fidelio" was considered by many the peer of Mme. Schrôder-Devrient's grand performance. Her labors during this season were gigantic. She would rise at 5 a.m., and practice for several hours, rehearsing before a mirror and inventing attitudes. It was in this way that she conceived the "stage-business" which produced such an electric impression in "Gli Orazi," when the news of her lover's death is announced to the heroine. "While the rehearsals of 'The Maid of Artois' were going on from day to day--and Mme. Malibran's rehearsals were not so many hours of sauntering indifference--she would, immediately after they were finished, dart to one or two concerts, and perhaps conclude the day by singing at an evening party. She pursued the same course during her performance of that arduous character," thus wrote one of the critics of the time, for the interest which Malibran excited was so great that the public loved to hear of all the details of her remarkable career. Shortly after her marriage in the spring of 1836, Mme. de Bériot was thrown from her horse while attending a hunting-party in England, and sustained serious internal injury, which she neglected to provide against by medical treatment, concealing it even from her husband. Indeed, she sang on the same evening, and her prodigious facility in _tours de force_ was the subject of special comment, for she seemed spurred to outdo herself from consciousness of physical weakness. When she returned to England again in the following September, her failing health was painfully apparent to all. Yet her unconquerable energy struggled against her sufferings, and she would permit herself no relaxation. In vain her husband and her good friend Lablachc remonstrated. A hectic, feverish excitement pervaded all her actions. She was engaged to sing at the Manchester Musical Festival, and at the rehearsals she would laugh and cry hysterically by turns. At the first performance of the festival in the morning, she was carried out of her dressing-room in a swoon, but the dying singer was bent on doing what she considered her duty. She returned and delivered the air of _Abraham_ by Cimarosa. Her thrilling tones and profound dejection made a deep impression on the audience. The next day she rallied from her sick-bed and insisted on being carried to the festival building, where she was to sing a duet with Mme. Caradori-Allen. This was the dying song of the swan, and it is recorded that her last effort was one of the finest of her life. The assembly, entranced by the genius and skill of the singer, forgot her precarious condition and demanded a repetition. Malibran again sang with all the passionate fire of her nature, and her wonderful voice died away in a prolonged shake on her very topmost note. It was her last note on earth, for she was carried thence to her deathbed. Her sufferings were terrible. Convulsions and fainting-fits followed each other in swift succession, and it was evident that her end was near. The news of her fatal illness excited the deepest sympathy and sorrow throughout England and France, and bulletins of her condition were issued every day. Pending the arrival of her own physician, Dr. Belluomini, from London, she had been bled while in a fainting-fit by two local practitioners. When she recovered her senses, she said, "I am a slain woman, for they have bled me!" She died on September 23, 1836, and De Bériot's name was the last word that parted her pallid lips. The death of this great and idolized singer produced a painful shock throughout Europe, and was regarded as a public calamity, for she had been as much admired and beloved as a woman as she was worshiped as an artist. Her remains, first interred in Manchester, were afterward removed by her husband to Brussels, where he raised a circular memorial chapel to her memory at Lacken. Her statue, chiseled in white marble by Geefs, represents her as _Norma_, and stands in the center, faintly lit by a single sunbeam admitted from a dome, and surrounded by masses of shadow. "It appears," says the Countess de Merlin, "like a fantastic thought, the dream of a poet." Maria Malibran was unquestionably one of the most gifted and remarkable women who ever adorned the lyric stage. The charm of her singing consisted in the peculiarity of the timbre and the remarkable range of her voice, in her excitable temperament, which prompted her to execute the most audacious improvisations, and in her strong musical feeling, which kept her improvisations within the laws of good taste. Her voice, a mezzo-soprano, with a high soprano range superadded by incessant work and training, was in its middle register very defective, a fault which she concealed by her profound musical knowledge and technical skill. It was her mind that helped to enslave her hearers; for without mental originality and a distinct sort of creative force her defective voice would have failed to charm, where in fact it did provoke raptures. She was, in the exact sense of a much-abused adjective, a phenomenal singer, and it is the misfortune of the present generation that she died too young for them to hear. WILHELMINA SCHRÖDER-DEVRIENT. Mme. Schröder-Devrient the Daughter of a Woman of Genius.--Her Early Appearance on the Dramatic Stage in Connection with her Mother.--She studies Music and devotes herself to the Lyric Stage.--Her Operatic _Début_ in Mozart's "Zauberflôte."--Her Appearance and Voice.--Mlle. Schröder makes her _Début_ in her most Celebrated Character, _Fidelio_.--Her own Description of the First Performance.--A Wonderful Dramatic Conception.--Henry Chorley's Judgment of her as a Singer and Actress.--She marries Carl Devrient at Dresden.--Mme. Schröder-Devrient makes herself celebrated as a Representative of Weber's Romantic Heroines.--Dissolution of her Marriage.--She makes Successful Appearances in Paris and London in both Italian and German Opera.--English Opinions of the German Artist.--Anecdotes of her London Engagement.--An Italian Tour and Reëngagements for the Paris and London Stage.--Different Criticisms of her Artistic Style.--Retirement from the Stage, and Second Marriage.--Her Death in 1860, and the Honors paid to the Memory of her Genius. I. In the year 1832 German opera in its original form was introduced into England for the first time, and London learned to recognize the grandeur of Beethoven in opera, as it had already done in symphony and sonata. "Fidelio" had been already presented in its Italian dress, without making very much impression, for the score had been much mutilated, and the departure from the spirit of the composer flagrant. The opera, as given by artists "to the manner born," was a revelation to English audiences. The intense musical vigor of Beethoven's great work was felt to be a startling variety, wrought out as it was in its principal part by the genius of a great lyric vocalist. This was Mme. Schröder-Devrient, who, as an operatic tragedienne, stands foremost in the annals of the German musical stage, though others have surpassed her in merely vocal resources, and who never has been rivaled except by Pasta. She was the daughter of Sophia Schröder, the Siddons of Germany. This distinguished actress for a long time reigned supreme in her art. Her deep sensibilities and dramatic instincts, her noble elocution and stately beauty, fitted her admirably for tragedy. In such parts as _Phèdre, Medea, Lady Macbeth, Mérope, Sappho, Jeanne de Montfaucon, and Isabella_ in "The Bride of Messina," she had no pere. Wilhelmina Schröder was born in Hamburg, October 6, 1805, and was destined by her mother for a stage career. In pursuance of this, the child appeared at the age of five years as a little Cupid, and at ten danced in the ballet at the Imperial Theatre of Vienna. With the gradual development of the young girl's character came the ambition for a higher grade of artistic work. So, when she arrived at the age of fifteen, her mother, who wished her to appear in tragedy, secured for her a position at the Burgtheater of Vienna, where she played in such parts as _Aricie_ in "Phèdre," and _Ophelia_ in "Hamlet." The impression she made was that of a great nascent actress, who would one day worthily fill the place of her mother. But the true scope of her genius was not yet defined, for she had not studied music. At last she was able to study under an Italian master of great repute, named Mazzatti, who resided in the Austrian capital. Her first appearance was as _Pamina_ in Mozart's "Zauberflote," at the Vienna theatre, January 20, 1821. The _débutante_ was warmly welcomed by an appreciative audience, and the terrors of the young girl of seventeen were quickly assuaged by the generous recognition she received. The beauty of her voice, her striking figure and port, and her dramatic genius, combined to make her instantly successful. Wilhelmina Schröder was tall and nobly molded, and her face, though not beautiful, was sweet, frank, and fascinating--a face which became transfigured with fire and passion under the influence of strong emotion. Her vocal organ was a mellow soprano, which, though not specially flexible, united softness with volume and compass. In intonation and phrasing, her art, in spite of her youth and inexperience, showed itself to be singularly perfect. Though she rapidly became a favorite, her highest triumph was not achieved till she appeared as _Leonora_ in the "Fidelio." In this she eclipsed all who had preceded her, and Germany soon rang with her name as that of an artist of the highest genius. Her own account of her first representation of this rôle is of much interest: "When I was studying the character of _Leonora_ at Vienna, I could not attain that which appeared to me the desired and natural expression at the moment when _Leonora_, throwing herself before her husband, holds out a pistol to the Governor, with the words, 'Kill first his wife!' I studied and studied in vain, though I did all in my power to place myself mentally in the situation of _Leonora_. I had pictured to myself the situation, but I felt that it was incomplete, without knowing why or wherefore. Well, the evening arrived; the audience knows not with what feelings an artist, who enters seriously into a part, dresses for the representation. The nearer the moment approached, the greater was my alarm. When it did arrive, and as I ought to have sung the ominous words and pointed the pistol at the Governor, I fell into such an utter tremor at the thought of not being perfect in my character, that my whole frame trembled, and I thought I should have fallen. Now only fancy how I felt when the whole house broke forth with enthusiastic shouts of applause, and what I thought when, after the curtain fell, I was told that this moment was the most effective and powerful of my whole representation! So, that which I could not attain with every effort of mind and imagination, was produced at this decisive moment by my unaffected terror and anxiety. This result and the effect it had upon the public taught me how to seize and comprehend the incident, so, that which at the first representation I had hit upon unconsciously, I adopted in full consciousness ever afterward in this part." Not even Malibran could equal her in the impersonation of this character. Never was dramatic performance more completely, more intensely affecting, more deeply pathetic, truthful, tender, and powerful. Some critics regarded her as far more of the tragedian than the singer. "Her voice, since I have known it," observes Mr. Chorley, in his "Modern German Music," "was capable of conveying poignant or tender expression, but it was harsh and torn--not so inflexible as incorrect. Mme. Schröder-Devrient resolved to be _par excellence_ 'the German dramatic singer.' Earnest and intense as was her assumption of the parts she attempted, her desire of presenting herself first was little less vehement: there is no possibility of an opera being performed by a company, each of whom should be as resolute as she was never to rest, never for an instant to allow the spectator to forget his presence. She cared not whether she broke the flow of the composition by some cry heard on any note or in any scale--by even speaking some word, for which she would not trouble herself to study a right musical emphasis or inflection--provided, only, she succeeded in continuing to arrest the attention. Hence, in part, arose her extraordinary success in "Fidelio." That opera contains, virtually, only one acting character, and with her it rests to intimate the thrilling secret of the whole story, to develop this link by link, in presence of the public, and to give the drama the importance of terror, suspense, and rapture. When the spell is broken by exhibiting the agony and the struggle of which she is the innocent victim, if the devotion, the disguise, and the hope of Leonora, the wife, were not for ever before us, the interest of the prison-opera would flag and wane into a cheerless and incurable melancholy. This Mme. Schröder-Devrient took care that it should never do. From her first entry upon the stage, it might be seen that there was a purpose at her heart, which could make the weak strong and the timid brave; quickening every sense, nerving every fiber, arming its possessor with disguise against curiosity, with persuasion more powerful than any obstacle, with expedients equal to every emergency.... What Pasta would be in spite of her uneven, rebellious voice, a most magnificent singer, Mme. Schröder-Devrient did not care to be, though nature, as I have heard from those who heard her sing as a girl, had blessed her with a fresh, delicious soprano voice." II. Her fame so increased that the Fräulein Schröder soon made an art-tour through Germany. Her appearances at Cassel in the spring of 1823, in such characters as _Pamina_ and _Agathe_, produced a great sensation. At Dresden she also evoked a large share of popular enthusiasm, and her name was favorably compared with the greatest lights of the German lyric stage. While singing at this capital she met Carl Devrient, one of the principal dramatic tenors of Germany, and, an attachment springing up between the pair, they were married. The union did not prove a happy one, and Mme. Schröder-Devrient had bitter occasion to regret that she had tied her fortunes to a man utterly unworthy of love and respect. She remained for several years at Dresden, and among other operas she appeared in Weber's "_Euryanthe_," with Mme. Funk, Herr Berg-mann, and Herr Meyer. She also made a powerful impression on the attention of both the critics and the public in Cherubini's "Faniska," and Spohr's "Jessonda," both of which operas are not much known out of Germany, though "Faniska" was first produced at the Théâtre Feydeau, in Paris, and contributed largely to the fame of its illustrious composer. The austere, noble music is not of a character to please the multitude who love what is sensational and easily understood. When "Faniska" was first produced at the Austrian capital in the winter of 1805, both Haydn and Beethoven were present. The former embraced Cherubini, and said to him, "You are my son, worthy of my love"; while Beethoven cordially hailed him as "the first dramatic composer of the age." The opera of "Faniska" is based on a Polish legend of great dramatic beauty, and the unity of idea and musical color between it and Beethoven's "Fidelio" has often excited the attention of critics. It is perhaps owing to this dramatic similarity that Mme. Schröder-De vrient made as much reputation by her performance of it as she had already acquired in Beethoven's lyric masterpiece. In 1828 she went to Prague, and thence to Berlin, where her marriage was judicially dissolved, she retaining her guardianship of her son, then four years old. Spontini, who was then the musical autocrat of Berlin, conceived a violent dislike to her, and his bitter nature expressed itself in severe and ungenerous sarcasms. But the genius of the singer was proof against the hostility of the Franco-Italian composer, and the immense audiences which gathered to hear her interpret the chef-d'ouvres of Weber, whose fame as the great national composer of Germany was then at its zenith, proved her strong hold on the hearts of the German people. Spontini's prejudice was generally attributed to Mme. Devrient's dislike of his music and her artistic identification with the heroines of Weber, for whose memory Spontini entertained much the same envious hate as Salieri felt for Mozart in Vienna at an earlier date. Our singer's ambition sighed to conquer new worlds, and in 1830 she went to Paris with a troupe of German singers, headed by Mme. Fischer, a tall blonde beauty, with a fresh, charming voice, but utterly Mme. Schrôder-Devrient's inferior in all the requirements of the great artist. She made her _début_ in May at the Theatre Louvois, as _Agathe_ in "Der Freischutz," and, though excessively agitated, was so impressive and powerful in the impersonation as to create a great _éclat_. The critics were highly pleased with the beauty and finish of her style. She produced the principal parts of her _répertoire_ in "Fidelio," "Don Giovanni," Weber's "Oberon" and "Euryanthe," and Mozart's "Serail." It was in "Fidelio," however, that she raised the enthusiasm of her audiences to the highest pitch. On returning again to Germany she appeared in opera with Scheckner and Sontag, in Berlin, winning laurels even at the expense of Mme. Sontag, who was then just on the eve of retiring from the stage, and who was inspired to her finest efforts as she was departing from the field of her triumphs. Two years later Mme. Schröder-Devrient accepted a proposition made to her by the manager of the Théâtre Italiens to sing in a language and a school for which she was not fully qualified. The season opened with such a dazzling constellation of genius as has rarely, if ever, been gathered on any one stage--Pasta, Malibran, Schröder-Devrient, Rubini, Bordogni, and Lablache. Mme. Pasta's illness caused the substitution of Schröder-Devrient in her place in the opera of "Anna Bolena," and the result was disastrous to the German singer. But she retrieved herself in the same composer's "Pirata," and her splendid performance cooperated with that of Rubini to produce a sensation. It was observed that she quickly accommodated herself to the usages and style of the Italian stage, and soon appeared as if one "to the manner born." Toward the close of the engagement Mme. Devrient appeared for Malibran's benefit as _Desdemona_, Rubini being the Moor. Though the Rossinian music is a _genre_ by itself, and peculiarly dangerous to a singer not trained in its atmosphere and method, the German artist sang it with great skill and finish, and showed certain moments of inspiration in its performance which electrified her hearers. Mme. Schrëder-Devrient's first appearance in England was under the management of Mr. Monck Mason, who had leased the King's Theatre in pursuance of a somewhat daring enterprise. A musical and theatrical enthusiast, and himself a composer, though without any experience in the practical knowledge of management, he projected novel and daring improvements, and aspired to produce opera on the most extensive and complete scale. He engaged an enormous company--not only of Italian and German, but of French singers--and gave performances in all three languages. Schröder-Devrient sang in all her favorite operas, and also _Desdemona_, in Italian. Donzelli was the _Otello_, and the performance made a strong impression on the critics, if not on the public. "We know not," wrote one, "how to say enough of Mme. Schrëder-Devrient without appearing extravagant, and yet the most extravagant eulogy we could pen would not come up to our idea of her excellence. She is a woman of first-rate genius; her acting skillful, various, impassioned, her singing pure, scientific, and enthusiastic. Her whole soul is wrapped in her subject, yet she never for a moment oversteps the modesty of nature." It was during this season that Mr. Chorley first heard her. He writes in his "Musical Recollections" a vivid description of her appearance in "Fidelio": "She was a pale woman. Her face, a thoroughly German one, though plain, was pleasing from the intensity of expression which her large features and deep, tender eyes conveyed. She had profuse fair hair, the value of which she thoroughly understood, delighting in moments of great emotion to fling it loose with the wild vehemence of a Mænad. Her figure was superb, though full, and she rejoiced in its display." He also speaks of "the inherent expressiveness of her voice which made it more attractive on the stage than a more faultless organ." Mme. Schröder-Devrient met a warm social welcome in London from the family of the great pianist, Moscheles, to whom she was known of old. Mme. Moscheles writes in her diary: "Our interesting guests at dinner were the Haizingers, he the admirable tenor singer of whom the German opera company here may well be proud, she pretty and agreeable as ever; we had, too, our great Schröder and our greater Mendelssohn. The conversation, of course, was animated, and the two ladies were in such spirits that they not only told anecdotes, but accompanied them with dramatic gestures; Schröder, when telling us how he (the hero of her anecdote) drew his sword, flourished her knife in a threatening manner toward Haizinger, and Mendelssohn whispered to me, 'I wonder what John [the footman] thinks of such an English vivacity? To see the brandishing of knives, and not know what it is all about! Only think!'" A comic episode which occurred during the first performance of "Fidelio" is also related by the same authority: "In that deeply tragic scene where Mme. Schröder (_Fidelio_) has to give Haizinger (_Florestan_) a piece of bread which she has kept hidden for him three days in the folds of her dress, he does not respond to the action. She whispers to him with a rather coarse epithet: 'Why don't you take it? Do you want it buttered?' All this time, the audience, ignorant of the by-play, was solely intent on the pathetic situation." This is but one of many instances which could be adduced from the annals of the stage showing how the exhibition of the greatest dramatic passion is consistent with the existence of a jocose, almost cynical, humor on the part of the actors. III. In the following year (1833), Mme. Schröder-Devrient sang under Mr. Bunn at the Covent Garden Theatre, appearing in several of Weber's and Mozart's masterpieces. She was becoming more and more of a favorite with the English public. The next season she devoted herself again to the stage of Germany, where she was on the whole best understood and appreciated, her faults more uniformly ignored. She appeared in twelve operas by native composers in Berlin, and thence went to Vienna and St. Petersburg. She proceeded to Italy in 1835, where she sang for eighteen months in the principal cities and theatres of that country, and succeeded in evoking from the critical Italians as warm a welcome as she had commanded elsewhere. In one city the people were so enthusiastic that they unharnessed her horses, and drew her carriage home from the theatre after her closing performance. Although she never entirely mastered the Italian school, she yet displayed so much intelligence, knowledge, and faculty in her art-work, that all catholic lovers of music recognized her great talents. She appeared again in Vienna in 1836, with Mme. Tadolini, Genaro, and Galli, singing in "L'Elisir d'Amore," and works of a similar cast, operas unsuited, one would think, to the peculiar _cachet_ of her genius, but her ability in comic and romantic operas, though never so striking as in grand tragedy, seemed to develop with practice. Her last English engagement was in 1837, opening the season with a performance of "Fidelio" in English. The whole performance was lamentably inferior to that at the Opera-House in 1832. "Norma" was produced, Schröder-Devrient being seconded by Wilson, Giubilei, and Miss Betts. She was either very ill advised or overconfident, for her "massy" style of singing was totally at variance with the light beauty of Bellini's music. Her conception of the character, however, was in the grandest style of histrionic art. "The sibyls of Michael Angelo are not more grand," exclaimed one critic; "but the vocalization of Pasta and Grisi is wholly foreign to her." During this engagement, Mme. Schröder-Devrient was often unable to perform, from serious illness. From England she went to the Lower Rhine. In 1839 she was at Dresden with Herr Tichatschek, one of the first tenors of Germany, a handsome man, with a powerful, sweet, and extensive voice. In June, 1841, she gave a performance at Berlin, to assist the Parisian subscription for a monument to Cherubini. The opera was "Les Deux Journées," in which she took her favorite part of _Constance_. The same year she sang at Dresden with the utmost success, in a new _rôle_ in Goethe's "Tasso," in which she was said to surpass her _Fidelio_. For several years Mme. Schröder-Devrient resided in perfect seclusion in the little town of Rochlitz, and appeared to have forgotten all her stage ambition. Suddenly, however, she made her reappearance at Dresden in the _rôle_ of _Romeo_ in Bellini's "I Montecchi ed i Capuletti." She had lost a good deal of her vocal power and skill, yet her audiences seemed to be moved by the same magic glamour as of old, in consequence of her magnificent acting. Among other works in which she performed during this closing operatic season of her life was Gluck's "Iphigenie en Aulis," which was especially revived for her. Johanna Wagner, the sister of the great composer, was also in the cast, and a great enthusiasm was created by a general stage presentation of almost unparalleled completeness for that time. Mme. Devrient retired permanently from the stage in the year 1849, having amassed a considerable fortune by her professional efforts. She made a second matrimonial venture with a rich Livonian proprietor named Bock, with whom she retired to his estate. Her retirement occasioned profound regret throughout Germany, where she was justly looked on as one of the very greatest artists, if, indeed, even this reservation could be made, who had ever shone on their lyric stage. The Emperor Francis I. paid Mme. Schröder a compliment which had never before been paid to a German singer. He ordered her portrait to be painted in all her principal characters, and placed in the collection of the Imperial Museum. Six years after her farewell from the stage, an Italian critic, Scudo, heard her sing in a private house in Paris, and speaks very disparagingly of her delivery of the melodies of Schubert in a weak, thin voice. She, like Malibran, possessed one of those voices which needed incessant work and practice to keep it in good order, though she did not possess the consummate musical knowledge and skill of Malibran. She was a woman of great intelligence and keen observation; an artist of the most passionate ardor and impetuosity, always restrained, however, by a well-studied control and reserve; in a word, a great lyric tragedienne rather than a great singer in the exact sense of that word. She must be classed with that group of dramatic singers who were the interpreters of the school of music which arose in Germany after the death of Mozart, and which found its most characteristic type in Carl Maria von Weber, for Beethoven, who on one side belongs to this school, rather belonged to the world, like Shakespeare in the drama, than to a single nationality. Mme. Schröder-De-vrient died February 9, 1860, at Cologne, and the following year her marble bust was placed in the Opera-House at Berlin. GIULIA GRISI. The Childhood of a Great Artist.--Giulietta Grisi's Early Musical Training.--Giuditta Grisi's Pride in the Talents of her Young Sister.--Her Italian _Début_ and Success.--She escapes from a Managerial Taskmaster and takes Refuge in Paris.--Impression made on French Audiences.--Production of Bellini's "Puritani."--Appearance before the London Public.--Character of Grisi's Singing and Acting.--Anecdotes of the Prima Donna.--Marriage of Mlle. Grisi.--Her Connection with Other Distinguished Singers.--Rubini, his Character as an Artist, and Incidents of his Life.--Tamburini, another Member of the First Great "Puritani" Quartet.--Lablache, the King of Operatic Bassos.--His Career as an Artist.--His Wonderful Genius as Singer and Actor.--Advent of Mario on the Stage.--His Intimate Association with Mme. Grisi as Woman and Artist.--Incidents of Mario's Life and Character as an Artist.--Grisi's Long Hold on the Stage for more than a Quarter Century.--Her American Tour.--Final Retirement from her Profession.--The Elements of her Greatness as a Goddess of Song. I. A quarter of a century is a long reign for any queen, a brilliant one for an opera queen in these modern days, when the "wear and tear" of stage-life is so exacting. For so long a time lasted the supremacy of Mme. Grisi, and it was justified by a remarkable combination of qualities, great physical loveliness, a noble voice, and dramatic impulse, which, if not precisely inventive, was yet large and sympathetic. A celebrated English critic sums up her great qualities and her defects thus: "As an artist calculated to engage, and retain the average public, without trick or affectation, and to satisfy by her balance of charming attributes--by the assurance, moreover, that she was giving the best she knew how to give--she satisfied even those who had received much deeper pleasure and had been impressed with much deeper emotion in the performances of others. I have never tired of Mme. Grisi during five-and-twenty years; but I have never been in her case under one of those spells of intense enjoyment and sensation which make an epoch in life, and which leave a print on memory never to be effaced by any later attraction, never to be forgotten so long as life and power to receive shall endure." Giulietta Grisi was the younger daughter of M. Gaetano Grisi, an Italian officer of engineers, in the service of Napoleon, and was born at Milan, July 2, 1812. Her mother's sister was the once celebrated Grassini, who, as the contemporary of Mrs. Billington and Mme. Mara, had shared the admiration of Europe with these great singers. Thence probably she and her sister Giuditta, ten years her elder, inherited their gift of song. Giuditta was for a good while regarded as a prodigy by her friends, and acquired an excellent rank on the concert and operatic stage, but she was so far outshone by her more gifted sister, that her name is now only one of the traditions of that throng of talented and hard-working artists who have contributed much to the stability of the lyric stage, without adding to it any resplendent luster. Delicate health prevented the little Giulia from receiving any early musical training, but her own secret ambition caused her to learn the piano-forte, by her own efforts; and her enthusiastic attention, and attempt to imitate, while her sister was practicing _solfeggi_, clearly indicated the bent of her tastes. She soon astonished her family by the fluency and correctness with which she repeated the most difficult passages; and Giuditta, who appreciated these evidences of vocal and mimetic talent, would listen with delight to the lively efforts of her young sister, and then, clasping her fondly in her arms, prophesy that she would be "the glory of her race." "Thou shalt be more than thy sister, my Giuliettina," she would exclaim. "Thou shalt be more than thy aunt! It is Giuditta tells thee so--believe it." The only defect in Giulia's voice--certainly a serious one--was a chronic hoarseness, which seemed a bar to her advancement as a vocalist. Her parents resolved that Giulia should have regular lessons in singing; and she entered the Conservatory of her native town, where her sister had also obtained her musical training. The early talent she developed, under the direction of the composer Marliani, was remarkable. That she might continue her studies uninterruptedly, she was sent to Bologna, to her uncle, Colonel Ragani, husband of Grassini, by whom she was put under the care of the learned Giacomo Guglielmi, son of the celebrated composer, who during three years devoted himself entirely to her musical education. Gradually the lovely quality of her voice began to be manifest, and its original blemishes disappeared, her tones acquiring depth, power, and richness. Giuditta was deeply interested in her young sister's budding talents, and finally took her from the Conservatory, and placed her under the tuition of Fillippo Celli, where she remained for three months, till the _maestro_ was obliged to go to Rome to produce a new opera. Giulia Grisi was remarkably apt and receptive, and gifted with great musical intelligence, and she profited by her masters in an exceptional degree. Industry cooperated with talent to so advance her attainments that her sister Giuditta succeeded in the year 1828 in securing her _début_ in Rossini's "Elmira," at Bologna. The part was a small one, but the youth, loveliness, and freshness of voice displayed by the young singer secured for her a decided triumph. Rossini, who was then at Bologna, was delighted with Giulia Grisi, and predicted a great career for her, and Giuditta shed tears of joy over her beloved _protégée_. The director of the theatre engaged her immediately for the carnival season, and in 1829 she appeared as prima donna in many operas, among which were "Il Barbiere," "Towaldo e Dorliska," and "La Sposa di Provincia," the latter of which was expressly written for her by Millotatti. Our young singer, like many another brilliant cantatrice, in the very dawn of her great career fell into the nets of a shrewd and unprincipled operatic speculator. Signor Lanari, an _impressario_ of Florence, recognized the future success of the inexperienced young girl, and decoyed her into an engagement for six years on terms shamefully low, for Giulia's modesty did not appreciate her own remarkable powers. Alone and without competent advisers, she fell an easy prey to the sharp-witted farmer of other people's genius. Among the operas which she sung in at this early period under Lanari's management were Bellini's "I Montecchi ed i Capuletti," which the composer had just written for her sister Giuditta at Venice; "Il Barbiere," and "Giulietta e Romeo," written by Vaccai. She was pronounced by the Italians the most fascinating _Juliet_ ever seen on the stage. At Bologna her triumph was no less great, and she became the general topic of discussion and admiration. Lanari was so profiting by his stroke of sharp business that he was making a little fortune, and he now transferred his musical property for a large consideration to Signor Crevelli, the director of La Scala at Milan. Here Julia Grisi met Pasta, whom she worshiped as a model of all that was grand and noble in the lyric art. Pasta declared, "I can honestly return to you the compliments paid me by your aunt, and say that I believe you are worthy to succeed us." Here she enjoyed the advantage of studying the great lyric tragedienne, with whom she occasionally performed: not a look, a tone, a gesture of her great model escaped her. She was given the part of _Jane Seymour_ in Donizetti's "Anna Bolena," which she looked and acted to perfection, Pasta personating the unfortunate Queen. Madame Pasta, struck with the genius displayed by her young rival, exclaimed: "_Tu iras loin! tu prendras ma place! tu seras Pasta!_" Bellini, who was then in Milan, engaged in the composition of his "Norma," overwhelmed her with applause and congratulations, intermingled with allusions to the part he had in contemplation for her--that of _Adalgiza_. In November, 1831, there was a strenuous rivalry between the two theatres of Milan, La Scala and the Carcano. The vocal company at the latter comprised Pasta, Lina Koser (now Mme. Balfe), Elisa Orlandi, Eugénie Martinet, and other ladies; Kubini, Mariani, and Galli being the leading male singers. The composers were Bellini, Donizetti, and Majocchi. At the Scala, which was still under the direction of Crivelli, then a very old man, were Giulietta Grisi, Amalia Schütz, and Pisaroni, with Mari, Bonfigli, Pocchini, Anbaldi, etc. To this company Giuditta Grisi was added, and a new opera by Coccia, entitled "Enrico di Montfort," was produced, in which both the sisters appeared. The company at the Scala received an accession from the rival theatre, the great Pasta, and soon afterward Donzelli, who ranked among the foremost tenors of the age. Bellini had just completed "Norma," and it was to be produced at the Scala. The part of the Druid priestess had been expressly written for Pasta. This Bellini considered his masterpiece. It is related that a beautiful Parisienne attempted to extract from his reluctant lips his preference among his own works. The persistent fair one finally overcame his evasions by asking, "But if you were out at sea, and should be shipwrecked--" "Ah!" said the composer, impulsively, "I would leave all the rest and save 'Norma'"! With Pasta were associated Giulia Grisi in the _rôle_ of _Adalgiza_, and Donzelli in _Pollio_. The singers rehearsed their parts _con amore_, and displayed so much intelligence and enthusiasm that Bellini was quite delighted. The first performance just escaped being a failure in spite of the anxious efforts of the singers. Donzelli's suave and charming execution, even "Casta Diva," delivered by Pasta in her most magnificent style, failed to move the cold audience. Pasta, at the end of the first act, declared the new opera _a fiasco_. The second act was also coldly received till the great duet between _Norma_ and _Adalgiza_, which was heartily applauded. This unsealed the pent-up appreciation of the audience, and thenceforward "Norma" was received with thunders of applause for forty nights. Encouraged by Pasta, Giulia Grisi declared that she, too, would become a great tragedienne. "How I should love to play _Norma!_" she exclaimed to Bellini one night behind the scenes. "Wait twenty years, and we shall see." "I will play _Norma_ in spite of you, and in less than twenty years!" she retorted. The young man smiled incredulously, and muttered, "_A poco! a poco!_" But Grisi kept her word. Her genius was now fully appreciated, and she had obtained one of those triumphs which form the basis of a great renown. With astonishing ease she passed from _Semiramide_ to _Anna Bolena_, then to _Desdemona_, to _Donna Anna_, to _Elena_ in the "Donna del Lago." The young artiste had learned her true value, and was aware of the injury she was suffering from remaining in the service to which she had foolishly bound herself: she was now twenty-four, and time was passing away. Her father's repeated endeavors to obtain more reasonable terms for his daughter from Lanari proved fruitless. He urged that his daughter, having entered into the contract without his knowledge, and while she was a minor, it was illegal. "Then, if you knew absolutely nothing of the matter, and it was altogether without your cognizance," retorted Lanari, imperturbably, "how did it happen that her salary was always paid to you?" But the high-spirited Giulietta had now become too conscious of her own value to remain hampered by a contract which in its essence was fraudulent. She determined to break her bonds by flight to Paris, where her sister Giuditta and her aunt Mme. Grassini-Ragani were then domiciled. She confided her proposed escapade to her father and her old teacher Marliani, who assisted her to procure passports for herself and maid. Her journey was long and tedious, but, spurred by fear and eagerness, she disdained fatigue for seven days of post-riding over bad roads and through mountain-gorges choked with snow, till she threw herself into the arms of her loving friends in the French capital. II. An engagement was procured for her without difficulty at the Opéra, which was then controlled by the triumvirate, Rossini, Robert, and Severini. Rossini remembered the beautiful _débutante_ for whom he had predicted a splendid future, and secured a definite engagement for her at the Favart to replace Mme. Malibran. That this young and comparatively inexperienced girl, with a reputation hardly known out of Italy, should have been chosen to take the place of the great Malibran, was alike flattering testimony to her own rising genius and Rossini's penetration. She appeared first before a French audience in "_Semiramide_," and at once became a favorite. During the season of six months she succeeded in establishing her place as one of the most brilliant singers of the age. She sang in cooperation with many of the foremost artists whose names are among the great traditions of the art. In "Don Giovanni," Rubini and Tamburini appeared with her; in "Anna Bolena," Mme. Tadolini, Santini, and Rubini. Even in Pasta's own great characters, where Mlle. Grisi was measured against the greatest lyric tragedienne of the age, the critics, keen to probe the weak spot of new aspirants, found points of favorable comparison in Grisi's favor. During this year, 1832, both Giuditta and Giulia Grisi retired from the stage, the former to marry an Italian gentleman of wealth, and the latter to devote a period to rest and study. When Giulia reappeared on the French stage the following year, a wonderful improvement in the breadth and finish of her art was noticed. She had so improved her leisure that she had eradicated certain minor faults of vocal delivery, and stood confessed a symmetrical and splendidly equipped artist. Her performances during the year 1833 in Paris embraced a great variety of characters, and in different styles of music, in all of which she was the recipient of the most cordial admiration. The production of Bellini's last opera, "I Puritani," in 1834, was one of the great musical events of the age, not solely in virtue of the beauty of the work, but on account of the very remarkable quartet which embodied the principal characters--Grisi, Rubini, Tamburini, and La-blache. This quartet continued in its perfection for many years, with the after-substitution of Mario for Rubini, and was one of the most notable and interesting facts in the history of operatic music. Bellini's extraordinary skill in writing music for the voice was never more noticeably shown than in this opera. In conducting the rehearsals, he compelled the singers to execute after his style. It is recorded that, while Rubini was rehearsing the tenor part, the composer cried out in a rage: "You put no life into the music. Show some feeling. Don't you know what love is?" Then, changing his voice: "Don't you know your voice is a gold-mine that has never been explored? You are an excellent artist, but that is not enough. You must forget yourself and try to represent _Gualtiero_. Let's try again." Rubini, stung by the reproach, then sang magnificently. "I Puritan!" made a great _furore_ in Paris, and the composer received the Cross of the Legion of Honor, an honor then less rarely bestowed than it was in after-years. He did not live long to enjoy the fruits of his widening reputation, but died while composing a new opera for the San Carlo, Naples. In the delirium of his death-bed, he fancied he was at the Favart, conducting a performance of "I Puritani." Mlle. Grisi's first appearance before the London public occurred during the spring of the same year, and her great personal loveliness and magnificent voice as _Ninetta_, in "La Gazza Ladra," instantly enslaved the English operatic world, a worship which lasted unbroken for many years. Her _Desdemona_ in "Otello," which shortly followed her first opera, was supported by Rubini as _Otello_, Tamburini as _Iago_, and Ivanhoff as _Rodriguez_. It may be doubted whether any singer ever leaped into such instant and exalted favor in London, where the audiences are habitually cold. Her appearance as _Norma_ in December, 1834, stamped this henceforth as her greatest performance. "In this character, Grisi," says a writer in the "Musical World," "is not to be approached, for all those attributes which have given her her best distinction are displayed therein in their fullest splendor. Her singing may be rivaled, but hardly her embodiment of ungovernable and vindictive emotion. There are certain parts in the lyric drama of Italy this fine artiste has made her own: this is one of the most striking, and we have a faith in its unreachable superiority--in its completeness as a whole--that is not to be disturbed. Her delivery of 'Casta Diva' is a transcendent effort of vocalization. In the scene where she discovers the treachery of _Pollio_, and discharges upon his guilty head a torrent of withering and indignant reproof, she exhibits a power, bordering on the sublime, which belongs exclusively to her, giving to the character of the insulted priestess a dramatic importance which would be remarkable even if entirely separated from the vocal preeminence with which it is allied. But, in all its aspects, the performance is as near perfection as rare and exalted genius can make it, and the singing of the actress and the acting of the singer are alike conspicuous for excellence and power. Whether in depicting the quiet repose of love, the agony of abused confidence, the infuriate resentment of jealousy, or the influence of feminine piety, there is always the best reason for admiration, accompanied in the more tragic moments with that sentiment of awe which greatness of conception and vigor of execution could alone suggest." Mr. Chorley writes, in his "Musical Reminiscences": "Though naturally enough in some respects inexperienced on her first appearance in England, Giulia Grisi was not incomplete. And what a soprano voice was hers! rich, sweet; equal throughout its compass of two octaves (from C to C), without a break or a note which had to be managed. Her voice subdued the audience ere 'Dipiacer' was done.... In 1834 she commanded an exactness of execution not always kept up by her during the after-years of her reign. Her shake was clear and rapid; her scales were certain; every interval was taken without hesitation by her. Nor has any woman ever more thoroughly commanded every gradation of force than she--in those early days especially; not using the contrast of loud and soft too violently, but capable of any required violence, of any advisable delicacy. In the singing of certain slow movements pianissimo, such as the girl's prayer on the road to execution, in 'La Gazza,' or as the cantabile in the last scene of 'Anna Bolena' (which we know as 'Home, Sweet Home'), the clear, penetrating beauty of her reduced tones (different in quality from the whispering semi-ventriloquism which was one of Mlle. Lind's most favorite effects) was so unique as to reconcile the ear to a certain shallowness of expression in her rendering of the words and the situation. "At that time the beauty of sound was more remarkable (in such passages as I have just spoken of) than the depth of feeling. When the passion of the actress was roused--as in 'La Gazza,' during the scene with her deserter father--with the villainous magistrate, or in the prison with her lover, or on her trial before sentence was passed--her glorious notes, produced without difficulty or stint, rang through the house like a clarion, and were truer in their vehemence to the emotion of the scene than were those wonderfully subdued sounds, in the penetrating tenuity of which there might be more or less artifice. From the first, the vigor always went more closely home to the heart than the tenderness in her singing; and her acting and her vocal delivery--though the beauty of her face and voice, the mouth that never distorted itself, the sounds that never wavered, might well mislead an audience--were to be resisted by none." Henceforward, Mlle. Grisi alternated between London and Paris for many years, her great fame growing with the ripening years. Of course, she, like other beautiful singers, was the object of passionate addresses, and the ardent letters sent to her hotel and dressing-room at the theatre occasioned her much annoyance. Many unpleasant episodes occurred, of which the following is an illustration, as showing the persecution to which stage celebrities are often subjected: While she was in her stage-box at the Paris Opera one night, in the winter of 1836, she observed an unfortunate admirer, who had pursued her for months, lying in ambuscade near the door, as if awaiting her exit. M. Robert, one of the managers, requested the intruder to retire, and, as the admonition was unheeded, Colonel Ragani, Grisi's uncle, somewhat sternly remonstrated with him. The reckless lover drew a sword from a cane, and would have run Colonel Ragani through, had it not been for the coolness of a gentleman passing in the lobby, who seized and disarmed the amorous maniac, who was a young author of some repute, named Dupuzet. Anecdotes of a similar kind might be enumerated, for Grisi's womanly fascinations made havoc among that large class who become easily enamored of the goddesses of the theatre. Like all the greatest singers, Grisi was lavishly generous. She had often been known to sing in five concerts in one day for charitable purposes. At one of the great York festivals in England, she refused, as a matter of professional pride, to sing for less than had been given to Malibran, but, to show that there was nothing ignoble in her persistence, she donated all the money received to the poor. She rendered so many services to the Westminster Hospital that she was made an honorary governor of that institution, and in manifold ways proved that the goodness of her heart was no whit less than the splendor of her artistic genius. The marriage of Mlle. Grisi, in the spring of 1830, to M. Auguste Gérard de Melcy, a French gentleman of fortune, did not deprive the stage of one of its greatest ornaments, for after a short retirement at the beautiful château of Vaucresson, which she had recently purchased, she again resumed the operatic career which had so many fascinations for one of her temperament, as well as substantial rewards. Her first appearance in London after her marriage was with Rubini and Tamburini in the opera of "Semiramide," speedily followed by a performance of _Donna Anna_, in "Don Giovanni." The excitement of the public in its eager anticipation of the latter opera was wrought to the highest pitch. A great throng pressed against both entrances of the theatre for hours before the opening of the doors, and many ladies were severely bruised or fainted in the crush. It was estimated that more than four thousand persons were present on this occasion. The cast was a magnificent one. Mme. Grisi was supported by Mmes. Persiani and Albertazzi, and Tamburini, Lablache, and Rubini. This was hailed as one of the great gala nights in the musical records of London, and it is said that only a few years ago old connoisseurs still talked of it as something incomparable, in spite of the gifted singers who had since illustrated the lyric art. Mme. Pasta, who occupied a stage box, led the applause whenever her beautiful young rival appeared, and Grisi, her eyes glowing with happy tears, went to Pasta's box to thank the queen of lyric tragedy for her cordial homage. "Don Giovanni" was performed with the same cast in January, 1838, at the Théâtre Italiens. About an hour after the close of the performance the building was discovered to be on fire, and it was soon reduced to a heap of glowing ashes. Severini, one of the directors, leaped from an upper story, and was instantly dashed to pieces, and Robert narrowly saved himself by aid of a rope ladder. Rossini, who had an apartment in the opera-house, was absent, but the whole of his musical library, valued at two hundred thousand francs, was destroyed, with many rare manuscripts, which no effort or expense could replace. III. Mme. Grisi, more than any other prima donna who ever lived, was habitually associated in her professional life with the greatest singers of the other sex. Among those names which are inseparable from hers, are those of Rubini, Tamburini, Lablache, and, _par excellence_, that of Mario. Any satisfactory sketch of her life and artistic surroundings would be incomplete without something more than a passing notice of these shining lights of the lyric art. Giambattista Rubini, without a shred of dramatic genius, raised himself to the very first place in contemporary estimation by sheer genius as a singer, for his musical skill was something more than the outcome of mere knowledge and experience, and in this respect he bears a close analogy to Malibran. Rubini's countenance was mean, his figure awkward, and lacking in all dignity of carriage; he had no conception of taste, character, or picturesque effect. As stolid as a wooden block in all that appertains to impersonation of character, his vocal organ was so incomparable in range and quality, his musical equipment and skill so great, that his memory is one of the greatest traditions of the lyric art. Rubini, born at Bergamo in the year 1795, made his _début_ in one of the theatres of his native town, at the age of twelve, in a woman's part. This curious prima donna afterward sat at the door of the theatre, between two candles, holding a plate, in which the admiring public deposited their offerings to the fair _bénéficiaire_. His next step was playing on the violin in the orchestra between the acts of comedies, and singing in the chorus during the operatic season. He seems to have been unnoticed, except as one of the _hoi polloi_ of the musical rabble, till an accident attracted attention to his talent. A drama was to be produced in which a very difficult cavatina was introduced. The manager was at a loss for any one to sing it till Rubini proffered his services. The fee was a trifling one, but it paved the way for an engagement in the minor parts of opera. The details of Rubini's early life seem to be involved in some obscurity. He was engaged in several wandering companies as second tenor, and in 1814, Rubini then being nineteen years of age, we find him singing at Pavia for thirty-six shillings a month. In the latter part of his career he was paid twenty thousand pounds sterling a year for his services at the St. Petersburg Imperial Opera. This singer acquired his vocal style, which his contemporaries pronounced to be matchless, in the operas of Rossini, and was indebted to no special technical training, except that which he received through his own efforts, and the incessant practice of the lyric art in provincial companies. A splendid musical intelligence, however, repaired the lack of early teaching, though, perhaps, a voice less perfect in itself would have fared badly through such desultory experiences. Like so many of the great singers of the modern school, Rubini first gained his reputation in the operas of Bellini and Donizetti, and many of the tenor parts of these works were expressly composed for him. Rubini was singing at the Scala, Milan, when Barbaja, the _impressario_, who had heard Bellini's opera of "Bianca e Fernando," at Naples, commissioned the young composer, then only twenty years old, to produce a new opera for his theatre in the Tuscan capital. He gave him the libretto of "Il Pirata," and Bellini, in company with Rubini (for they had become intimate friends), retired to the country. Here the singer studied, as they were produced, the simple, touching airs which he afterward delivered on the stage with such admirable expression. With this friendship began Rubini's art connection with the Italian composer, which lasted till the latter's too early death. Rubini was such a great singer, and possessed such admirable powers of expression, especially in pathetic airs (for it was well said of him, "_qu'il avait des larmes dans la voix_"), that he is to be regarded as the creator of that style of singing which succeeded that of the Rossinian period. The florid school of vocalization had been carried to an absurd excess, when Rubini showed by his example what effect he could produce by singing melodies of a simple emotional nature, without depending at all on mere vocalization. It is remarkable that it was largely owing to Rubini's suggestions and singing that Bellini made his first great success, and that Donizetti's "Anna Bolena," also the work which laid the foundation of this composer's greatness, should have been written and produced under similar conditions. The immense power, purity, and sweetness of his voice probably have never been surpassed. The same praise may be awarded to his method of producing his tones, and all that varied and complicated skill which comes under the head of vocalization. Rubini had a chest of uncommon bigness, and the strength of his lungs was so prodigious that on one occasion he broke his clavicle in singing a B flat. The circumstances were as follows: He was singing at La Scala, Milan, in Pacini's "Talismano." In the recitative which accompanies the entrance of the tenor in this opera, the singer has to attack B flat without preparation, and hold it for a long time. Since Farinelli's celebrated trumpet-song, no feat had ever attained such a success as this wonderful note of Rubini's. It was received nightly with tremendous enthusiasm. One night the tenor planted himself in his usual attitude, inflated his chest, opened his mouth; but the note would not come. _Os liabet, sed non clambit_. He made a second effort, and brought all the force of his lungs into play. The note pealed out with tremendous power, but the victorious tenor felt that some of the voice-making mechanism had given way. He sang as usual through the opera, but discovered on examination afterward that the clavicle was fractured. Rubini had so distended his lungs that they had broken one of their natural barriers. Rubini's voice was an organ of prodigious range by nature, to which his own skill had added several highly effective notes. His chest range, it is asserted by Fetis, covered two octaves from C to C, which was carried up to F in the _voce di testa_. With such consummate skill was the transition to the falsetto managed that the most delicate and alert ear could not detect the change in the vocal method. The secret of this is believed to have begun and died with Rubini. Perhaps, indeed, it was incommunicable, the result of some peculiarity of vocal machinery. From what has been said of Rubini's lack of dramatic talent, it may be rightfully inferred, as was the fact, that he had but little power in musical declamation. Rubini was always remembered by his songs, and though the extravagance of embroidery, the roulades and cadenzas with which he ornamented them, oftentimes raised a question as to his taste, the exquisite pathos and simplicity with which he could sing when he elected were incomparable. This artist was often tempted by his own transcendant powers of execution to do things which true criticism would condemn, but the ease with which he overcame the greatest vocal difficulties excused for his admirers the superabundance of these displays. In addition to the great finish of his art, his geniality of expression was not to be resisted. He so thoroughly and intensely enjoyed his own singing that he communicated this persuasion to his audiences. Rubini would merely walk through a large portion of an opera with indifference, but, when his chosen moment arrived, there were such passion, fervor, and putting forth of consummate vocal art and emotion that his hearers hung breathless on the notes of his voice. As the singer of a song in opera, no one, according to his contemporaries, ever equaled him. According to Chorley, his "songs did not so much create a success for him as an ecstasy of delight in those that heard him. The mixture of musical finish with excitement which they displayed has never been equaled within such limits or on such conditions as the career of Rubini afforded. He ruled the stage by the mere art of singing more completely than any one--man or woman--has been able to do in my time." Rubini died in 1852, and left behind him one of the largest fortunes ever amassed on the stage. Another member of the celebrated "Puritani" quartet was Signor Tamburini. His voice was a bass in quality, with a barytone range of two octaves, from F to F, rich, sweet, extensive, and even. His powers of execution were great, and the flexibility with which he used his voice could only be likened to the facility of a skillful 'cello performer. He combined largeness of style, truth of accent, florid embellishment, and solidity. His acting, alike in tragedy and comedy, was spirited and judicious, though it lacked the irresistible strokes of spontaneous genius, the flashes of passion, or rich drollery which made Lablache so grand an actor, or, in a later time, redeemed the vocal imperfections of Ronconi. An amusing instance of Taniburini's vocal skill and wealth of artistic resources, displayed in his youth, was highly characteristic of the man. He was engaged at Palermo during the Carnival season of 1822, and on the last night the audience attended the theatre, inspired by the most riotous spirit of carnivalesque revelry. Large numbers of them came armed with drums, trumpets, shovels, tin pans, and other charivari instruments. Tamburini, finding himself utterly unable to make his ordinary _basso cantante_ tones heard amid this Saturnalian din, determined to sing his music in the falsetto, and so he commenced in the voice of a _soprano sfogato_. The audience were so amazed that they laid aside their implements of musical torture, and began to listen with amazement, which quickly changed to delight. Taniburini's falsetto was of such purity, so flexible and precise in florid execution, that he was soon applauded enthusiastically. The cream of the joke, though, was yet to come. The poor prima donna was so enraged and disgusted by the horse-play of the audience that she fled from the theatre, and the poor manager was at his wit's end, for the humor of the people was such that it was but a short step between rude humor and destructive rage. Tamburini solved the problem ingeniously, for he donned the fugitive's satin dress, clapped her bonnet over his wig, and appeared on the stage with a mincing step, just as the rioters, impatient at the delay, were about to carry the orchestral barricade by storm. Never was seen so unique a soprano, such enormous hands and feet. He courtesied, one hand on his heart, and pretended to wipe away tears of gratitude with the other at the clamorous reception he got. He sang the soprano score admirably, burlesquing it, of course, but with marvelous expression and far greater powers of execution than the prima donna herself could have shown. The difficult problem to solve, however, was the duet singing. But this Tamburini, too, accomplished, singing the part of _Elisa_ in falsetto, and that of the _Count_ in his own natural tones. This wonderful exhibition of artistic resources carried the opera to a triumphant close, amid the wild cheers of the audience, and probably saved the manager the loss of no little property. But, greatest of all, perhaps the most wonderful artist among men that ever appeared in opera, was Lablache. Position and training did much for him, but an all-bounteous Nature had done more, for never in her most lavish moods did she more richly endow an artistic organization. Luigi Lablache was born at Naples, December 6, 1794, of mixed Irish and French parentage, and probably this strain of Hibernian blood was partly responsible for the rich drollery of his comic humor. Young Lablache was placed betimes in the Conservatorio della San Sebastiano, and studied the elements of music thoroughly, as his instruction covered not merely singing, but the piano, the violin, and violoncello. It is believed that, had his vocal endowments not been so great, he could have become a leading _virtuoso_ on any instrument he might have selected. Having at length completed his musical education, he was engaged at the age of eighteen as _buffo_ at the San Carlino theatre at Naples. Shortly after his _début_, Lablache married Teresa Pinotti, the daughter of an eminent actor, and found in this auspicious union the most wholesome and powerful influence of his life. The young wife recognized the great genius of her husband, and speedily persuaded him to retire from such a narrow sphere. Lablache devoted a year to the serious study of singing, and to emancipating himself from the Neapolitan patois which up to this time had clung to him, after which he became primo basso at the Palermitan opera. He was now twenty, and his voice had become developed into that suave and richly toned organ, such as was never bestowed on another man, ranging two octaves from E flat below to E flat above the bass stave. An offer from the manager of La Scala, Milan, gratified his ambition, and he made his _début_ in 1817 as Dandini in "La Cenerentola." His splendid singing and acting made him brilliantly successful; but Lablache was not content with this. His industry and attempts at improvement were incessant. In fact this singer was remarkable through life, not merely for his professional ambition, but the zeal with which he sought to enlarge his general stores of knowledge and culture. M. Scudo, in his agreeable recollections of Italian singers, informs us that at Naples Lablache had enjoyed the friendship and teaching of Mme. Mericoffre (a rich banker's wife), known in Italy as La Cottellini, one of the finest artists of the golden age of Italian singing. Mme. Lablache, too, was a woman of genius in her way, and her husband owed much to her intelligent and watchful criticism. The fume of Lablache speedily spread through Europe. He sang in all the leading Italian cities with equal success, and at Vienna, whither he went in 1824, his admirers presented him with a magnificent gold medal with a most flattering inscription. He returned again to Naples after an absence of twelve years, and created a grand sensation at the San Carlo by his singing of _Assur_, in "Semiramide." The Neapolitans loaded him with honors, and sought to retain him in his native city, but this "pent-up Utica" could not hold a man to whom the most splendid rewards of his profession were offering themselves. Lablache made his first appearance in London, in 1830, in "Il Matrimonio Segreto," and almost from his first note and first step he took an irresistible hold on the English public, which lasted for nearly a quarter of a century. It perplexed his admirers whether he was greater as a singer or as an actor. We are told that he "was gifted with personal beauty to a rare degree. A grander head was never more grandly set on human shoulders; and in his case time and the extraordinary and unwieldy corpulence which came with time seemed only to improve the Jupiter features, and to enhance their expression of majesty, or sweetness, or sorrow, or humor as the scene demanded." His very tall figure prevented his bulk from appearing too great. One of his boots would have made a small portmanteau, and one could have clad a child in one of his gloves. So great was his strength that as _Leporello_ he sometimes carried off under one arm a singer of large stature representing _Masetto_, and in rehearsal would often for exercise hold a double bass out at arm's length. The force of his voice was so prodigious that he could make himself heard above any orchestral thunders or chorus, however gigantic. This power was rarely put forth, but at the right time and place it was made to peal out with a resistless volume, and his portentous notes rang through the house like the boom of a great bell. It was said that his wife was sometimes aroused at night by what appeared to be the fire tocsin, only to discover that it was her recumbent husband producing these bell-like sounds in his sleep. The vibratory power of his full voice was so great that it was dangerous for him to sing in a greenhouse. Like so many of the foremost artists, Lablachc shone alike in comic and tragic parts. Though he sang successfully in all styles of music and covered a great dramatic versatility, the parts in which he was peculiarly great were _Leporello_ in "Don Giovanni"; the _Podesta_ in "La Gazza Ladra"; _Geronimo_ in "Il Matrimonio Segreto"; _Caliban_ in Halévy's "Tempest"; _Gritzonko_ in "L'Etoile du Nord"; _Henry VIII_ in "Anna Bolena"; the _Doge_ in "Marino Faliero"; _Oroveso_ in "Norma"; and _Assur_ in "Semiramide." In thus selecting certain characters as those in which Lablache was unapproachably great, it must be understood that he "touched nothing which he did not adorn." It has been frankly conceded even among the members of his own profession, where envy, calumny, and invidious sneers so often belittle the judgment, that Lablache never performed a character which he did not make more difficult for those that came after him, by elevating its ideal and grasping new possibilities in its conception. Lablache sang in London and Paris for many years successively, and his fame grew to colonial proportions. In 1828 his terms were forty thousand francs and a benefit, for four months. A few years later, Laporte, of London, paid Robert, of Paris, as much money for the mere cession of his services for a short season. In 1852 when Lablachc had reached an age when most singers grow dull and mechanical, he created two new types, _Caliban_, in Halévy's opera of "The Tempest," and _Gritzonko_, in "L'Etoile du Nord," with a vivacity, a stage knowledge, and a brilliancy of conception as rare as they were strongly marked. He was one of the thirty-two torch-bearers who followed Beethoven's body to its interment, and he sung the solo part in "Mozart's Requiem" at the funeral, as he had when a child sung the contralto part in the same mass at Hadyn's obsequies. He was the recipient of orders and medals from nearly every sovereign in Europe. When he was thus honored by the Emperor of Russia in 1856, he used the prophetic words, "These will do to ornament my coffin." Two years afterward he died at Naples, January 23, 1858, whither he had gone to try the effects of the balmy climate of his native city on his failing health. His only daughter married Thalberg, the pianist. He was the singing master of Queen Victoria, and he is frequently mentioned in her published diaries and letters in terms of the strongest esteem and admiration. His death drew out expressions of profound sorrow from all parts of Europe, for it was felt that, in Lablache, the world of song had lost one of the greatest lights which had starred its brilliant record. IV. But of all the great men-singers with whom the Grisi was associated no one was so intimately connected with her career as the tenor Mario. Their art partnership was in later years followed by marriage, but it was well known that a passionate and romantic attachment sprang up between these two gifted singers long before a dissolution of Grisi's earlier union permitted their affection to be consecrated by the Church. Mario, Conte di Candia, the scion of a noble family, was born at Genoa in 1812. His father had been a general in the army at Piedmont, and he himself at the time of his first visit to Paris in 1836 carried his sovereign's commission. The fascinating young Italian officer was welcomed in the highest circles, for his splendid physical beauty, and his art-talents as an amateur in music, painting, and sculpture, separated him from all others, even in a throng of brilliant and accomplished men. He had often been told that he had a fortune in his voice, but his pride of birth had always restrained him from a career to which his own secret tastes inclined him, in spite of the fact that expensive tastes cooperated with a meager allowance from his father to plunge him deeply in debt. At last the moment of successful temptation came. Duponchel, the director of the Opera, made him a tempting offer, for good tenors were very difficult to secure then as in the later days of the stage. The young Count Candia hesitated to sign his father's name to a contract, but he finally compromised the matter at the house of the Comtesse de Merlin, where he was dining one night in company with Prince Belgiojoso and other musical amateurs, by signing only the Christian name, under which he afterward became famous, Mario. He spent a short season in studying under Michelet, Pouchard, and the great singing master, Bordogni, but there is no doubt that his singing was very imperfect when he made his _début_, November 30, 1838, in the part of _Robert le Diable_. His princely beauty and delicious fresh voice, however, took the musical public by storm, and the common cry was that he would replace Kubini. For a year he remained at the Académie, but in 1840 passed to the Italian Opera, for which his qualities more specially fitted him. In the mean time he had made his first appearance before that public of which he continued to be a favorite for so many years. London first saw the new tenor in "Lucrezia Borgia," and was as cordial in its appreciation as Paris had been. A critic of the period, writing of him in later years, said: "The vocal command which he afterward gained was unthought of; his acting then did not get beyond that of a southern man with a strong feeling for the stage. But physical beauty and geniality, such as have been bestowed on few, a certain artistic taste, a certain distinction, not exclusively belonging to gentle birth, but sometimes associated with it, made it clear from the first hour of Signor Mario's stage life that a course of no common order of fascination had begun." Mario sung after this each season in London and Paris for several years, without its falling to his lot to create any new important stage characters. When Donizetti produced "Don Pasquale" at the Theatre Italiens in 1843, Mario had the slight part of the lover. The reception at rehearsal was ominous, and, in spite of the beauty of the music, everybody prophesied a failure. The two directors trembled with dread of a financial disaster. The composer shrugged his shoulders, and taking the arm of his friend, M. Dermoy, the music publisher, left the theatre. "They know nothing about the matter," he laughingly said; "I know what 'Don Pasquale' needs. Come with me." On reaching his library at home, Donizetti unearthed from a pile of dusty manuscript tumbled under the piano what appeared to be a song. "Take that," he said to his friend, "to Mario at once that he may learn it without delay." This song was the far-famed "Com e gentil." The serenade was sung with a tambourine accompaniment played by Lablache himself, concealed from the audience. The opera was a great success, no little of which was due to the neglected song which Donizetti had almost forgotten. It was not till 1846 that Mario took the really exalted place by which he is remembered in his art, and which even the decadence of his vocal powers did not for a long time deprive him of. He never lost something amateurish, but this gave him a certain distinction and fine breeding of style, as of a gentleman who deigned to practice an art as a delightful accomplishment. Personal charm and grace, borne out by a voice of honeyed sweetness, fascinated the stern as well as the sentimental critic into forgetting all his deficiencies, and no one was disposed to reckon sharply with one so genially endowed with so much of the nobleman in bearing, so much of the poet and painter in composition. To those who for the first time saw Mario play such parts as _Almaviva, Gennaro_, and _Raoul_, it was a new revelation, full of poetic feeling and sentiment. Here his unique supremacy was manifest. He will live in the world's memory as the best opera lover ever seen, one who out of the insipidities and fustian of the average lyric drama could conjure up a conception steeped in the richest colors of youth, passion, and tenderness, and strengthened by the atmosphere of stage verity. In such scenes as the fourth act of "Les Huguenots" and the last act of the "Favorita" Signor Mario's singing and acting were never to be forgotten by those that witnessed them. Intense passion and highly finished vocal delicacy combined to make these pictures of melodious suffering indelible. As a singer of romances Mario has never been equaled. He could not execute those splendid songs of the Rossinian school, in which the feeling of the theme is expressed in a dazzling parade of roulades and fioriture, the songs in which Rubini was matchless. But in those songs where music tells the story of passion in broad, intelligible, ardent phrases, and presents itself primarily as the vehicle of vehement emotion, Mario stood ahead of all others of his age, it may be said, indeed, of all within the memory of his age. It was for this reason that he attained such a supremacy also on the concert stage. The choicest songs of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Gordigiano, and Meyerbeer were interpreted by his art with an intelligence and poetry which gave them a new and more vivid meaning. The refinements of his accent and pronunciation created the finest possible effects, and were perhaps partly due to the fact that before Mario became a public artist he was a gentleman and a noble, permeated by the best asthetic and social culture of his times. Mario's power illustrated the value of tastes and pursuits collateral to those of his profession. The painter's eye for color, the sculptor's sense of form, as well as the lover's honeyed tenderness, entered into the success of this charming tenor. His stage pictures looked as if they had stepped out of the canvases of Titian, Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese. In no way was the artistic completeness of his temperament more happily shown than in the harmonious and beautiful figure he presented in his various characters; for there was a touch of poetry and proportion in them far beyond the possibilities of the stage costumer's craft. Other singers had to sing for years, and overcome native defects by assiduous labor, before reaching the goal of public favor, but "Signor Mario was a Hyperian born, who had only to be seen and heard, and the enchantment was complete." For a quarter of a century Mario remained before the public of Paris, London, and St. Petersburg, constantly associated with Mme. Grisi. V. To return once more to the consideration of Grisi's splendid career. The London season of 1839 was remarkable for the production of "Lucrezia Borgia." The character of the "Borgia woman" afforded a sphere in which our prima donna's talents shone with peculiar luster. The impassioned tenderness of her _Desdemona_, the soft sweetness of "love in its melancholy and in its regrets" of _Anna Bolena_, the fiery ardor and vehemence of _Norma_, had been powerfully expressed by her, but the mixture of savage cruelty and maternal intensity characteristic of _Lucretia_ was embodied with a splendor of color and a subtilty of ideal which deservedly raised her estimate as a tragedienne higher than before. Without passing into unnecessary detail, it is enough to state that Mme. Grisi was constantly before the publics of London and Paris in her well-established characters for successive years, with an ever-growing reputation. In 1847 the memorable operatic schism occurred which led to the formation of the Royal Italian Opera at Convent Garden. The principal members of the company who seceded from Her Majesty's Theatre were Mmes. Grisi and Persiani, Signor Mario, and Signor Tamburini. The new establishment was also strengthened by the accession of several new performers, among whom was Mlle. Alboni, the great contralto. "Her Majesty's" secured the possession of Jenny Lind, who became the great support of the old house, as Grisi was of the new one. The appearance of Mme. Grisi as the Assyrian Queen and Alboni as _Arsace_ thronged the vast theatre to the very doors, and produced a great excitement on the opening night. The subject of our sketch remained faithful to this theatre to the very last, and was on its boards when she took her farewell of the English public. The change broke up the celebrated quartet. It struggled on in the shape of a trio for some time without Lablache, and was finally diminished to Grisi and Mario, who continued to sing the _duo concertante_ in "Don Pasquale," as none others could. They were still the "rose and nightingale" whom Heine immortalizes in his "Lutetia," "the rose the nightingale among flowers, the nightingale the rose among birds." That airy dilettante, N. P. Willis, in his "Pencilings by the Way," passes Grisi by with faint praise, but the ardent admiration of Heine could well compensate her wounded vanity, if, indeed, she felt the blunt arrow-point of the American traveler. A visit to St. Petersburg in 1851, in company with Mario, was the occasion of a vast amount of enthusiasm among the music-loving Russians. During her performance in "Lucrezia Borgia," on her benefit night, she was recalled twenty times, and presented by the Czar with a magnificent Cashmere shawl worth four thousand rubles, a tiara of diamonds and pearls, and a ring of great value. From the year 1834, when she first appeared in London, till 1861, when she finally retired, Grisi missed but one season in London, and but three in Paris. Her splendid physique enabled her to endure the exhaustive wear and friction of an operatic life with but little deterioration of her powers. When she made her artistic tour through the United States with Mario in 1854, her voice had perhaps begun to show some slight indication of decadence, but her powers were of still mature and mellow splendor. Prior to crossing the ocean a series of "farewell performances" was given. The operas in which she appeared included "Norma," "Lucrezia Borgia," "Don Pasquale," "Gli Ugonotti," "La Favorita." The first was "Norma," Mme. Grisi performing _Norma_; Mlle. Maria, _Adalgiza_; Tamberlik, _Pollio_; and La-blache, _Oroveso_; the last performance consisted of the first act of "Norma," and the three first acts of "Gli Ugonotti," in which Mario sustained the principal tenor part. "Rarely, in her best days," said one critic, "had Grisi been heard with greater effect, and never were her talents as an actress more conspicuously displayed." At the conclusion of the performance the departing singer received an ovation. Bouquets were flung in profusion, vociferous applause rang through the theatre, and when she reappeared the whole house rose. The emotion which was evinced by her admirers was evidently shared by herself. The American engagement of Grisi and Mario under Mr. Hackett was very successful, the first appearance occurring at Castle Garden, August 18, 1854. The seventy performances given throughout the leading cities are still a delightful reminiscence among old amateurs, in spite of the great singers who have since visited this country and the more stable footing of Italian opera in later times. Mr. Hackett paid the two artists eighty-five thousand dollars for a six months' tour, and declared, at a public banquet he gave them at the close of the season, that his own profits had been sixty thousand dollars. Mme. Grisi had intended to retire permanently when she was still in the full strength of her great powers, but she was persuaded to reappear before the London public on her return from New York. It became evident that her voice was beginning to fail rapidly, and that she supplied her vocal shortcomings by dramatic energy. She continued to sing in opera in various parts of Europe, but the public applause was evidently rather a struggle on the part of her audiences to pay tribute to a great name than a spontaneous expression of pleasure, and at Madrid she was even hissed in the presence of the royal court, which gave a special significance to the occasion. Mr. Gye, of the Royal Italian Opera in London, in 1861 made a contract with her not to appear on the stage again for five years, evidently assuming that five years were as good as fifty. But it was hard for the great singer, who had been the idol of the public for more than a quarter of a century, to quit the scene of her splendid triumphs. So in 1866 she again essayed to tread the stage as a lyric queen, in the _rôle_ of _Lucrezia_, but the result was a failure. It is not pleasant to record these spasmodic struggles of a failing artist, tenacious of that past which had now shut its gates on her for ever and a day. Her career was ended, but she had left behind a name of imperishable luster in the annals of her art. She died of inflammation of the lungs during a visit to Berlin, November 25, 1869. Her husband, Mario, retired from the stage in 1867, and suffered, it is said, at the last from pecuniary reverses, in spite of the fact that he had earned such enormous sums during his operatic career. His concert tour in the United States, under the management of Max Strakosch, in 1871-'72. is remembered only with a feeling of pain. It was the exhibition of a magnificent wreck. The touch of the great artist was everywhere visible, but the voice was utterly lost. Signor Mario is still living at Rome, and has resumed the rank which he laid aside to enter a stage career. Grisi united much of the nobleness and tragic inspiration of Pasta with something of the fire and energy of Malibran, but in the minds of the most capable judges she lacked the creative originality which stamped each of the former two artists. She was remarkable for the cleverness with which she adopted the effects and ideas of those more thoughtful and inventive than herself. Her _Norma_ was ostentatiously modeled on that of Pasta. Her acting showed less the exercise of reflection and study than the rich, uncultivated, imperious nature of a most beautiful and adroit southern woman. But her dramatic instincts were so strong and vehement that they lent something of her own personality to the copy of another's creation. When to this engrossing energy were added the most dazzling personal charms and a voice which as nearly reached perfection as any ever bestowed on a singer, it is no marvel that a continual succession of brilliant rivals was unable to dispute her long reign over the public heart. PAULINE VIARDOT. Vicissitudes of the Garcia Family.--Pauline Viardot's Early Training.--Indications of her Musical Genius.--She becomes a Pupil of Liszt on the Piano.--Pauline Garcia practically self-trained as a Vocalist.--Her Remarkable Accomplishments.--Her First Appearance before the Public with De Beriot in Concert.--She makes her _Début_ in London as _Desdemona_.--Contemporary Opinions of her Powers.--Description of Pauline Garcia's Voice and the Character of her Art.--The Originality of her Genius.--Pauline Garcia marries M. Viardot, a Well-known _Litterateur_.--A Tour through Southern Europe.--She creates a Distinct Place for herself in the Musical Art.--Great Enthusiasm in Germany over her Singing.--The Richness of her Art Resources.--Sketches of the Tenors, Nourrit and Duprez, and of the Great Barytone, Ronconi.--Mine. Viardot and the Music of Meyerbeer.--Her Creation of the Part of _Fides_ in "Le Prophète," the Crowning Work of a Great Career.--Retirement from the Stage.--High Position in Private Life.--Connection with the French Conservatoire. I. The genius of the Garcia family flowered not less in Mme. Malibran's younger sister than in her own brilliant and admired self. Pauline, the second daughter of Manuel Garcia, was thirteen years the junior of her sister, and born at Paris, July 18, 1821. The child had for sponsors at baptism the celebrated Ferdinand Paer, the composer, and the Princess Pauline Prascovie Galitzin, a distinguished Russian lady, noted for her musical amateurship, and the full name given was Michelle Ferdinandie Pauline. The little girl was only three years old when her sister Maria made her _début_ in London, and even then she lisped the airs she heard sung by her sister and her father with something like musical intelligence, and showed that the hereditary gift was deeply rooted in her own organization. Manuel Garcia's project for establishing Italian opera in America and the disastrous crash in which it ended have already been described in an earlier chapter. Maria, who had become Mme. Malibran, was left in New York, while the rest of the Garcia family sailed for Mexico, to give a series of operatic performances in that ancient city. The precocious genius of Pauline developed rapidly. She learned in Mexico to play on the organ and piano as if by instinct, with so much ease did she master the difficulties of these instruments, and it was her father's proud boast that never, except in the cases of a few of the greatest composers, had aptitude for the musical art been so convincingly displayed at her early years. At the age of six Pauline Garcia could speak four languages, French, Spanish, Italian, and English, with facility, and to these she afterward added German. Her passion for acquirement was ardent and never lost its force, for she was not only an indefatigable student in music, but extended her researches and attainments in directions alien to the ordinary tastes of even brilliant women. It is said that before she had reached the age of eight-and-twenty, she had learned to read Latin and Greek with facility, and made herself more than passably acquainted with various arts and sciences. To the indomitable will and perseverance of her sister Maria, she added a docility and gentleness to which the elder daughter of Garcia had been a stranger. Pauline was a favorite of her father, who had used pitiless severity in training the brilliant and willful Maria. "Pauline can be guided by a thread of silk," he would say, "but Maria needs a hand of iron." Garcia's operatic performances in Mexico were very successful up to the breaking out of the civil war consequent on revolt from Spain. Society was so utterly disturbed by this catastrophe that residence in Mexico became alike unsafe and profitless, and the Spanish musician resolved to return to Europe. He turned his money into ingots of gold and silver, and started, with his little family, across the mountains interposing between the capital and the seaport of Vera Cruz, a region at that period terribly infested with brigands. Garcia was not lucky enough to escape these outlaws. They pounced on the little cavalcade, and the hard-earned wealth of the singer, amounting to nearly a hundred thousand dollars, passed out of his possession in a twinkling. The cruel humor of the chief of the banditti bound Garcia to a tree, after he had been stripped naked, and as it was known that he was a singer he was commanded to display his art for the pleasure of these strange auditors. For a while the despoiled man sternly refused, though threatened with immediate death. At last he began an aria, but his voice was so choked by his rage and agitation that he broke down, at which the robber connoisseurs hissed. This stung Garcia's pride, and he began again with a haughty gesture, breaking forth into a magnificent flight of song, which delighted his hearers, and they shouted "_Bravissimo!_" with all the _abandon_ of an enthusiastic Italian audience. A flash of chivalry animated the rude hearts of the brigands, for they restored to Garcia all his personal effects, and a liberal share of the wealth which they had confiscated, and gave him an escort to the coast as a protection against other knights of the road. The reader will hardly fail to recall a similar adventure which befell Salvator Rosa, the great painter, who not only earned immunity, but gained the enthusiastic admiration of a band of brigands, by whom he had been captured, through a display of his art. The talent of Pauline Garcia for the piano was so remarkable that it was for some time the purpose of her father to devote her to this musical specialty. She was barely more than seven on the return of the Garcias to Europe, and she was placed, without delay, under the care of a celebrated teacher, Meysenberg of Paris. Three years later she was transferred to the instruction of Franz Liszt, of whom she became one of the most distinguished pupils. Liszt believed that his young scholar had the ability to become one of the greatest pianists of the age, and was urgent that she should devote herself to this branch of the musical art. Her health, however, was not equal to the unremitting sedentary confinement of piano practice, though she attained a degree of skill which enabled her to play with much success as a solo performer at the concerts of her sister Maria. Her voice had also developed remarkable quality during the time when she was devoting her energies in another direction, and her proud father was wont to say, whenever a buzz of ecstatic pleasure over the singing of Mme. Malibran met his ear, "There is a younger sister who is a greater genius than she." It is more than probable that Pauline Garcia, as a singer, owed an inestimable debt to Pauline Garcia as a player, and that her accuracy and brilliancy of musical method were, in large measure, the outcome of her training under the king of modern pianists. Manuel Garcia died when Pauline was but eleven years old, and the question of her daughter's further musical education was left to Mme. Garcia. The celebrated tenor singer, Adolphe Nourrit, one of the famous lights of the French stage, who had been a favorite pupil of Garcia, showed great kindness to the widow and her daughter. Anxious to promote the interests of the young girl, he proposed that she should take lessons from Eossini, and that great _maestro_ consented. Nourrit's delight at this piece of good luck, however, was quickly checked. Mme. Garcia firmly declined, and said that if her son Manuel could not come to her from Rome for the purpose of training Pauline's voice, she herself was equal to the task, knowing the principles on which the Garcia school of the voice was founded. The systems of Rossini and Garcia were radically different, the one stopping at florid grace of vocalization, while the other aimed at a radical and profound culture of all the resources of the voice. It may be said, however, that Pauline Garcia was self-educated as a vocalist. Her mother's removal to Brussels, her brother's absence in Italy, and the wandering life of Mme. Malibran practically threw her on her own resources. She was admirably fitted for self-culture. Ardent, resolute, industrious, thoroughly grounded in the soundest of art methods, and marvelously gifted in musical intelligence, she applied herself to her vocal studies with abounding enthusiasm, without instruction other than the judicious counsels of her mother. She had her eyes fixed on a great goal, and this she pursued without rest or turning from her path. She exhausted the _solfeggi_ which her father had written out for her sister Maria, and when this laborious discipline was done she determined to compose others for herself. She had already learned harmony and counterpoint from Reicha at the Paris Conservatoire, and these she now found occasion to put in practice. She copied all the melodies of Schubert, of whom she was a passionate admirer, and thought no toil too great which promoted her musical growth. Her labor was a labor of love, and all the ardor of her nature was poured into it. Music was not the sole accomplishment in which she became skilled. Unassisted by teaching, she, like Malibran, learned to sketch and paint in oil and water-colors, and found many spare moments in the midst of an incessant art-training, which looked to the lyric stage, to devote to literature. All this denotes a remarkable nature, fit to overcome every difficulty and rise to the topmost shining peaks of artistic greatness. What she did our sketch will further relate. II. Pauline Garcia was just sixteen when, panting with an irrepressible sense of her own powers, she exclaimed, "_Ed io anclû son cantatrice_." Her first public appearance was worthy of the great name she afterward won. It was at a concert given in Brussels, on December 15, 1837, for the benefit of a charity, and De Bériot made his first appearance on this occasion after the death of Mme. Malibran. The court and most distinguished people of Belgium were present on this occasion, and so great was the impression made on musicians that the Philharmonic Society caused two medals to be struck for De Bériot and Mlle. Garcia, the mold of which was broken immediately. Pauline Garcia, in company with De Bériot, gave a series of concerts through Belgium and Germany, and it soon became evident that a new star of the first magnitude was rising in the musical firmament. In Germany many splendid gifts were showered on her. The Queen of Prussia sent her a superb suite of emeralds, and Mme. Sontag, with whom she sang at Frankfort, gave the young cantatrice a valuable testimonial, which was alike an expression of her admiration of Pauline Garcia and a memento of her regard for the name of the great Malibran, whose passionate strains had hardly ceased lingering in the ears of Europe. Paris first gathered its musical forces to hear the new singer at the Théâtre de la Renaissance, December 15, 1838, eager to compare her with Malibran. Among other numbers on the concert programme, she gave a very difficult air by Costa, which had been a favorite song of her sister's, an _aria bravura_ by De Bériot, and the "Cadence du Diable," imitated from "Tartini's Dream," which she accompanied with marvelous skill and delicacy. She shortly appeared again, and she was supported by Rubini, Lablache, and Ivanhoff. The Parisian critics recognized the precision, boldness, and brilliancy of her musical style in the most unstinted expressions of praise. But England was the country selected by her for the theatrical _début_ toward which her ambition burned--England, which dearly loved the name of Garcia, so resplendent in the art-career of Mme. Malibran. Her appearance in the London world was under peculiar conditions, which, while they would enhance the greatness of success, would be almost certainly fatal to anything short of the highest order of ability. The meteoric luster of Mali-bran's dazzling career was still fresh in the eyes of the public. The Italian stage was filled by Mme. Grisi, who, in personal beauty and voice, was held nearly matchless, and had an established hold on the public favor. Another great singer, Mme. Persiani, reigned through the incomparable finish of her vocalization, and the musical world of London was full of distinguished artists, whose names have stood firm as landmarks in the art. The new Garcia, who dashed so boldly into the lists, was a young, untried, inexperienced girl, who had never yet appeared in opera. One can fancy the excitement and curiosity when Pauline stepped before the footlights of the King's Theatre, May 9, 1839, as _Desdemona_ in "Otello," which had been the vehicle of Malibran's first introduction to the English public. The reminiscence of an eminent critic, who was present, will be interesting. "Nothing stranger, more incomplete in its completeness, more unspeakably indicating a new and masterful artist can be recorded than that first appearance. She looked older than her years; her frame (then a mere reed) quivered this way and that; her character dress seemed to puzzle her, and the motion of her hands as much. Her voice was hardly settled even within its own after conditions; and yet, juaradoxical as it may seem, she was at ease on the stage; because she brought thither instinct for acting, experience of music, knowledge how to sing, and consummate intelligence. There could be no doubt, with any one who saw that _Desdemona_ on that night, that another great career was begun.... All the Malibran fire, courage, and accomplishment were in it, and (some of us fancied) something more beside." Pauline Garcia's voice was a rebel which she had had to subdue, not a vassal to command, like the glorious organ of Mme. Grisi, but her harsh and unmanageable notes had been tutored by a despotic drill into great beauty and pliancy. Like that of her sister in quality, it combined the two registers of contralto and soprano from low F to C above the lines, but the upper part of an originally limited mezzo-soprano had been literally fabricated by an iron discipline, conducted by the girl herself with all the science of a master. Like Malibran, too, she had in her voice the soul-stirring tone, the sympathetic and touching character by which the heart is thrilled. Her singing was expressive, descriptive, thrilling, full, equal and just, brilliant and vibrating, especially in the medium and in the lower chords. Capable of every style of art, it was adapted to all the feelings of nature, but particularly to outbursts of grief, joy, or despair. "The dramatic coloring which her voice imparts to the slightest shades of feeling and passion is a real phenomenon of vocalization which can not be analyzed," says Escudier. "No singer we ever heard, with the exception of Malibran," says another critic, "could produce the same effect by means of a few simple notes. It is neither by the peculiar power, the peculiar depth, nor the peculiar sweetness of these tones that the sensation is created, but by something indescribable in the quality which moves you to tears in the very hearing." Something of this impression moved the general mind of connoisseurs on her first dramatic appearance. Her style, execution, voice, expression, and manner so irresistibly reminded her fellow-performers of the lamented Malibran, that tears rolled down their cheeks, yet there was something radically different withal peculiar to the singer. This singular resemblance led to a curious incident afterward in Paris. A young lady was taking a music-lesson from Lablache, who had lodgings in the same house with Mlle. Garcia. The basso was explaining the manner in which Malibran gave the air they were practicing. Just then a voice was heard in the adjoining room singing the cavatina--the voice of Mdlle. Garcia. The young girl was struck with a fit of superstitious terror as if she had seen a phantom, and fainted away on her seat. Yet in person there was but a slight resemblance between the two sisters. Pauline had a tall, slender figure in her youth, and her physiognomy, Jewish in its cast, though noble and expressive, was so far from being handsome that when at rest the features were almost harsh in their irregularity. But, as in the case of many plain women, emotion and sensibility would quickly transfigure her face into a marvelous beauty and fascination, far beyond the loveliness of line and tint. Her forehead was broad and intellectual, the hair jet-black, the complexion pale, the large, black eyes ardent and full of fire. Her carriage was singularly majestic and easy, and a conscious nobility gave her bearing a loftiness which impressed all beholders. Her singing and acting in _Desdemona_ made a marked sensation. Though her powers were still immature, she flooded the house with a stream of clear, sweet, rich melody, with the apparent ease of a bird. Undismayed by the traditions of Mali-bran, Pasta, and Sontag in this character, she gave the part a new reading, in which she put something of her own intense individuality. "By the firmness of her step, and the general confidence of her deportment," said a contemporary writer, "we were at first induced to believe that she was not nervous; but the improvement of every succeeding song, and the warmth with which she gave the latter part of the opera, convinced us that her power must have been confined by something like apprehension." Kubini was the _Otello_, Tamburini, _Iago_, and Lablache, _Elmiro_. Her performance in "La Cenerentola" confirmed the good opinion of the public. Her pure taste and perfect facility of execution were splendidly exhibited. "She has," said a critic, "more feeling than Mme. Cinti Da-moreau in the part in which the greater portion of Europe has assigned to her the preeminence, and execution even now in nearly equal perfection." M. Viardot, a well-known French _littérateur_, was then director of the Italian Opera in Paris, and he came to London to hear the new singer--in whom he naturally felt a warm interest, as he had been an intimate personal friend of Mme. Malibran. He was so delighted that he offered her the position of prima donna for the approaching season, but the timidity of the young girl of eighteen shrank from such a responsibility, and she would only bind herself to appear for a few nights. The French public felt a strong curiosity to hear the sister of Mali-bran, and it was richly rewarded, for the magnificent style in which she sang her parts in "Otello," "La Cenerentola," and "Il Barbiere" stamped her position as that not only of a great singer, but a woman of genius. The audacity and wealth of resource which she displayed on the first representation of the latter-named opera wore worthy of the daughter of Garcia and the sister of Malibran, Very imperfectly acquainted with the music, she forgot an important part of the score. Without any embarrassment, she instantly improvised not merely the ornament, but the melody, pouring out a flood of dazzling vocalization which elicited noisy enthusiasm. It was not Rossini's "Il Barbiere," but it was successful in arousing a most flattering approbation. It may be fancied, however, that, when she sang the _rôle_ of _Rosina_ a second time, she knew the music as Rossini wrote it. III. Mlle. Garcia was now fairly embarked on the hereditary profession of her family, and with every prospect of a brilliant career, for never had a singer at the very outset so signally impressed herself on the public judgment, not only as a thoroughly equipped artist, but as a woman of original genius. But she temporarily retired from the stage in consequence of her marriage with M. Viardot, who had fallen deeply in love with the fascinating cantatrice, shortly after his introduction to her. The bridegroom resigned his position as manager of the Opera, and the newly married couple, shortly after their nuptials in the spring of 1840, proceeded to Italy, M. Viardot being intrusted with an important mission relative to the fine arts. Mme. Viardot did not return to the stage till the spring of the following year. After a short season in London, in which she made a deep and abiding impression, in the part of _Orazia_ ("Gli Orazi ed i Curiazi"), and justified her right to wear the crown of Pasta and Malibran, she was obliged by considerations of health to return to the balmier climate of Southern Europe. While traveling in Spain, the native land of her parents, she was induced to sing in Madrid, where she was welcomed with all the warmth of Spanish enthusiasm. Her amiability was displayed during her performance of _Desdemona_, the second opera presented. Pleased with the unrestrained expressions of delight by the audience, she voluntarily sang the _rondo finale_ from "Cenerentola." There was such a magic spell on the audience that they could not be prevailed upon to leave, though Mme. Viardot sang again and again for them. At last the curtain fell and the orchestra departed, but the crowd would not leave the theatre. The obliging cantatrice, though fatigued, directed a piano-forte to be wheeled to the front of the stage, and sang, to her own accompaniment, two Spanish airs and a French romance, a crowning act of grace which made her audience wild with admiration and pleasure. An immense throng escorted her carriage from the theatre to the hotel, with a tumult of _vivas_. During this Spanish tour she appeared in opera in several towns outside of the capital, in the important pieces of her répertoire, including "Il Barbiere" and "Norma," operas entirely opposed to each other in style, but in both of which she was favorably judged in comparison with the greatest representatives of these characters. When this singer first appeared, every throne on the lyric stage seemed to be filled by those who sat firm, and wore their crowns right regally by the grace of divine gifts, as well as by the election of the people. There seemed to be no manifest place for a new aspirant, no niche unoccupied. But within three years' time Mme. Viardot's exalted rank among the great singers of the age was no less assured than if she had queened it over the public heart for a score of seasons, and in her endowment as an artist was recognized a bounteous wealth of gifts to which none of her rivals could aspire. Her resources appeared to be without limit; she knew every language to which music is sung, every style in which music can be written with equal fluency. All schools, whether ancient or modern, severe or florid, sacred or profane, severely composed or gayly fantastic, were easily within her grasp. Like Malibran, she was a profoundly scientific musician, and possessed creative genius. Several volumes of songs attest her inventive skill in composition, and the instances of her musical improvisation on the stage are alike curious and interesting. Such unique and lavish qualities as these placed the younger daughter of Garcia apart from all others, even as the other daughter had achieved a peculiarly original place in her time. Like Lablache, in his basso _rôles_, Mme. Viardot, by her genius completely revolutionized, both in dramatic conception and musical rendering, many parts which had almost become stage traditions in passing through the hands of a series of fine artists. But the fresher insight of a vital originating imagination breathed a more robust and subtile life into old forms, and the models thus set appear to be imperishable. It has been more than hinted by friends of the composer Meyerbeer, that, when his life is read between the lines, it will be known that he owes a great debt to Pauline Viardot for suggestions and criticism in one of his greatest operas, as it is well known that he does to the tenor, Adolphe Nourrit, for some of the finest features of "Robert le Diable" and "Les Huguenots." In October, 1842, Mme. Viardot made her reappearance on the French stage at the Théâtre Italien as _Arsace_ in "Semiramide," supported by Mme. Grisi and Tamburini. There was at this time such a trio of singers as is rarely found at any one theatre, Pauline Viardot, Giulia Grisi, and Fanny Persiani, each one possessing voice and talent of the highest character in her own peculiar sphere. Not the smallest share of the honors gathered by these artists came to Mme. Viardot who had for intelligent and thoughtful connoisseurs a charm more subtile and binding than that exercised by any of her rivals. At the close of the Paris season she proceeded to Vienna, where her artistic gifts were highly appreciated, and thence to Berlin, where Meyerbeer was then engaged in composing his "Prophète." The dramatic conception of _Fides_, it may be said in passing, was expressly designed for Pauline Viardot by the composer, who had the most exalted esteem for her genius, both as a musician and tragedienne. She was always a great favorite in Germany, and Berlin and Vienna vied with each other in their admiration of this gifted woman. In 1844 she stirred the greatest enthusiasm by singing at Vienna with Ilonconi, a singer afterward frequently associated with her. Perhaps at no period of her life, though, did Mme. Viardot create a stronger feeling than when she appeared in Berlin in the spring of 1847 as _Rachel_ in Halévy's "La Juive." It was a German version, but the singer was perfect mistress of the language, and though the music of the opera was by no means well suited to the character of her voice, its power as a dramatic performance and the passion of the singing established a complete supremacy over all classes of hearers. The exhibition on the part of this staid and phlegmatic German community was such as might only be predicated of the volcanic temperament of Rome or Naples. The roar of the multitude in front of her lodgings continued all night, and it was dawn before she was able to retire to rest. The versatility and kind heart of Mme. Viardot were illustrated in an occurrence during this Berlin engagement. She had been announced as _Alice_ in "Robert le Diable," when the _Isabella_ of the evening, Mlle. Tuezck, was taken ill. The _impressario_ tore his hair in despair, for there was no singer who could be substituted, and a change of opera seemed to be the only option. Mme. Viardot changed the gloom of the manager to joy. Rather than disappoint the audience, she would sing both characters. This she did, changing her costume with each change of scene, and representing in one opera the opposite _rôles_ of princess and peasant. One can imagine the effect of this great feat on that crowded Berlin audience, who had already so warmly taken Pauline Viardot to their hearts. Berlin, Vienna, Hamburg, Dresden, Frankfort, Leipsic, and other German cities were the scenes of a series of triumphs, and everywhere there was but one voice as to her greatness as an artist, an excellence not only great, but unique of its kind. Her répertoire at this time consisted of _Desdemona, Cenerentola, Rosina, Camilla (in "Gli Orazi"), Arsace, Norma, Ninetta, Amina, Romeo, Lucia, Maria di Rohan, Leonora ("La Favorita" ), Zerlina, Donna Anna, Iphigénie (Gluck), the Rachel of Halévy, and the Alice and Valentine of Meyerbeer_. IV. Mme. Viardot's high position on the operatic stage of course brought her into intimate association with the leading singers of her age, some of whom have been mentioned in previous sketches. But there was one great tenor of the French stage, Nourrit, who, though he died shortly after Mme. Viardot's entrance on her lyric career, yet bore such relation to the Garcia family as to make a brief account of this gifted artist appropriate under this caption. Adolphe Nourrit, of whom the French stage is deservedly proud, was the pupil of Manuel Garcia, the intimate friend of Maria Malibran, and the judicious adviser of Pauline Viardot in her earlier years. The son of a tenor singer, who united the business of a diamond broker with the profession of music, young Nourrit received a good classical education, and was then placed in the Conservatoire, where he received a most thorough training in the science of music, as well as in the art of singing. It was said of him in after-years that he was able to write a libretto, compose the music to it, lead the orchestra, and sing the tenor rôle in it, with equal facility. His first appearance was in Gluck's "Iphigenie en Tauride," in 1821, his age then being nineteen. Gifted with remarkable intelligence and ambition, he worked indefatigably to overcome his defects of voice, and perfect his equipment as an artist. Manuel Garcia, the most scientific and exacting of singing teachers, was the _maestro_ under whom Nourrit acquired that large and noble style for which he became eminent. He soon became principal tenor at the Académie, and created all of the leading tenor rôles of the operas produced in France for ten years. Among these may be mentioned _Néoclès_ in "La Siège de Corinthe," _Masaniello_ in "La Muette de Portici,"_Arnold_ in "Guillaume Tell," _Leonardo da Vinci_ in Ginestell's "François I," _Un Lnconnu_ in "Le Dieu et la Bayadere," _Robert le Diable, Edmond_ in "La Serment," _Nadir_ in Cherubini's "Ali Baba," _Eleazar_ in "La Juive," _Raoul_ in "Les Huguenots," _Phobus_ in Bertini's "La Esmeralda," and _Stradella_ in Niedermeyer's opera. Nourrit gave a distinct stamp and a flavor to all the parts he created, and his comedy was no less refined and pleasing than his tragedy was pathetic and commanding. He was idolized by the public, and his influence with them and with his brother artists was great. He was consulted by managers, composers, and authors. He wrote the words for Eleazar's fine air in "La Juive," and furnished the suggestions on which Meyerbeer remodeled the second and third acts of "Robert le Diable" and the last act of "Les Huguenots." The libretti for the ballets of "La Sylphide," "La Tempête," "L'île des Pirates," "Le Diable Boiteux," etc., as danced by Taglioni and Fanny Elssler, were written by this versatile man, and he composed many charming songs, which are still favorites in French drawing-rooms. It was Nourrit who popularized the songs of Schubert, and otherwise softened the French prejudice against modern German music. In private life this great artist was so witty, genial, and refined, that he was a favorite guest in the most distinguished and exclusive _salons_. When Duprez was engaged at the opera it severely mortified Nourrit, and, rather than divide the honors with a new singer, he resigned his position as first tenor at the Académie, where he so long had been a brilliant light. His farewell to the French public, April 1, 1837, was the most flattering and enthusiastic ovation ever accorded to a French artist, but he could not be induced to reconsider his purpose. He was professor of lyric declamation at the Conservatoire, but this position, too, he resigned, and went away with the design of making a musical tour through France, Germany, and Italy. Nourrit, who was subject to alternate fits of excitement and depression, was maddened to such a degree by a series of articles praising Duprez at his expense, that his friends feared for his sanity, a dread which was ominously realized in Italy two years afterward, where Nourrit was then singing. Though he was very warmly welcomed by the Italians, his morbid sensibility took offense at Naples at what he fancied was an unfavorable opinion of his _Pollio_ in "Norma." His excitement resulted in delirium, and he threw himself from his bedroom window on the paved court-yard below, which resulted in instant death. Nourrit was the intimate friend of many of the most distinguished men of the age in music, literature, and art, and his sad death caused sincere national grief. As a singer and actor, Nourrit had one of the most creative and originating minds of his age. He himself never visited the United States, but his younger brother, Auguste, was a favorite tenor in New York thirty years ago. The part of _John of Leyden_ in "Le Prophète," whose gestation covered many years of growth and change, was originally written for and in consultation with Nourrit, just as that of Fides in the same opera was remolded for and by suggestion of Pauline Viardot. Yet the opera did not see the light until Nourrit's successor, Duprez, had vanished from the stage, and his successor again, Roger, who, though a brilliant singer, was far inferior to the other two in creative intellectuality, appeared on the scene. Chorley asserts that Du-prez was the only artist he had ever seen and heard whose peculiar qualities and excellences would have enabled him to do entire musical and dramatic justice to the arduous part of _John of Leyden_.... "I have never seen anything like a complete conception of the character, so wide in its range of emotions; and might have doubted its possibility, had I not remembered the admirable, subtile, and riveting dramatic treatment of _Eleazar_ in 'La Juive' (the _Shyloch_ of opera) by M. Duprez." This artist may be also included as belonging largely to the sphere of Pauline Viardot's art-life. Albert Duprez, the son of a French performer, was born in 1806, and, like his predecessor Nourrit, was a student at the Conservatoire. At first he did not succeed in operatic singing, but, recognizing his own faults and studying the great models of the day, among them Nourrit, whom he was destined to supplant, he finally impressed himself on the public as the leading dramatic singer of France. According to Fetis and Castil-Blaze, he never had a superior in stage declamation, and the finest actors of the Comédie Française might well have taken a lesson from him. His first great success, which caused his engagement in grand opera, was the creation of _Edgardo_ in "Lucia di Lammermoor" at Naples in 1835. Two years later he made his _début_ at the Académie in "Guillaume Tell," and his novel and striking reading of his part on this occasion contributed largely to his fame. He was a leading figure at this theatre for twelve years, and was the first representative of many important tenor rôles, among which may be mentioned those of "Benvenuto Cellini," "Les Martyrs," "La Favorita," "Dom Sebastien," "Otello," and "Lucia." Duprez was insignificant, even repellent in his appearance, but, in spite of these defects, his tragic passion and the splendid intelligence displayed in his vocal art gave him a deserved prominence. Duprez composed many songs and romances, chamber-music, two masses, and eight operas, and was the author of a highly esteemed musical method, which is still used at the Conservatoire, where he was a professor of singing. Another name linked with not a few of Mme. Viardot's triumphs is that of Ronconi, a name full of pleasant recollections, too, for many of the opera-goers of the last generation in the United States. There have been only a few lyric actors more versatile and gifted than he, or who have achieved their rank in the teeth of so many difficulties and disadvantages. His voice was limited in compass, inferior in quality, and habitually out of tune, his power of musical execution mediocre, his physical appearance entirely without grace, picturesqueness, or dignity. Yet Ronconi, by sheer force of a versatile dramatic genius, delighted audiences in characters which had been made familiar to the public through the splendid personalities of Tamburini and Lablache, personalities which united all the attributes of success on the lyric stage--noble physique, grand voice, the highest finish of musical execution, and the actor's faculty. What more unique triumph can be fancied than such a one violating all the laws of probability? Ronconi's low stature and commonplace features could express a tragic passion which could not be exceeded, or an exuberance of the wildest, quaintest, most spontaneous comedy ever born of mirth's most airy and tameless humor. Those who saw Ronconi's acting in this country saw the great artist as a broken man, his powers partly wrecked by the habitual dejection which came of domestic suffering and professional reverses, but spasmodic gleams of his old energy still lent a deep interest to the work of the artist, great even in his decadence. In giving some idea of the impression made by Ronconi at his best, we can not do better than quote the words of an able critic: "There have been few such examples of terrible courtly tragedy in Italian opera as Signor Ronconi's _Chevreuse_, the polished demeanor of his earlier scenes giving a fearful force of contrast to the latter ones when the torrent of pent-up passion nears the precipice. In spite of the discrepancy between all our ideas of serious and sentimental music and the old French dresses, which we are accustomed to associate with the _Dorantes_ and _Alcestes_ of Molière's dramas, the terror of the last scene when (between his teeth almost) the great artist uttered the line--'_Suir uscio tremendo lo sguardo figgiamo_'--clutching the while the weak and guilty woman by the wrist, as he dragged her to the door behind which her falsity was screened, was something fearful, a sound to chill the blood, a sight to stop the breath." This writer, in describing his performance of the part of the _Doge_ in Verdi's "I Due Foscari," thus characterizes the last act when the Venetian chief refuses to pardon his own son for the crime of treason, faithful to Venice against his agonized affections as a father: "He looked sad, weak, weary, leaned back as if himself ready to give up the ghost, but, when the woman after the allotted bars of noise began again her second-time agony, it was wondrous to see how the old sovereign turned in his chair, with the regal endurance of one who says 'I must endure to the end,' and again gathered his own misery into his old father's heart, and shut it up close till the woman ended. Unable to grant her petition, unable to free his son, the old man when left alone could only rave till his heart broke. Signor Ronconi's _Doge_ is not to be forgotten by those who do not regard art as a toy, or the singer's art as something entirely distinct from dramatic truth." His performance of the quack doctor _Dulcamara_, in "L'Elisir d'Amore," was no less amazing as a piece of humorous acting, a creation matched by that of the haggard, starveling poet in "Matilda di Shabran" and _Papageno_ in Mozart's "Zauberflote." Anything more ridiculous and mirthful than these comedy _chef-d'ouvres_ could hardly be fancied. The same critic quoted above says: "One could write a page on his _Barber_ in Rossini's master-work; a paragraph on his _Duke_ in 'Lucrezia Borgia,' an exhibition of dangerous, suspicious, sinister malice such as the stage has rarely shown; another on his _Podesta_ in 'La Gazza Ladra' (in these two characters bringing him into close rivalry with Lablache, a rivalry from which he issued unharmed); and last, and almost best of his creations, his _Masetto_." Ronconi is, we believe, still living, though no longer on the stage; but his memory will remain one of the great traditions of the lyric drama, so long as consummate histrionic ability is regarded as worthy of respect by devotees of the opera. V. Mme. Viardot's name is, perhaps, more closely associated with the music of Meyerbeer than that of any other composer. Her _Alice_ in "Robert le Diable," her _Valentine_ in "Les Huguenots," added fresh luster to her fame. In the latter character no representative of opera, in spite of the long bead-roll of eminent names interwoven with the record of this musical work, is worthy to be compared with her. This part was for years regarded as standing to her what _Medea_ was to Pasta, _Norma_ to Grisi, _Fidelio_ to Malibran and Schröder-Devrient, and it was only when she herself made a loftier flight as _Fides_ in "Le Prophète" that this special connection of the part with the _artist_ ceased. Her genius always found a more ardent sympathy with the higher forms of music. "The florid graces and embellishments of the modern Italian school," says a capable judge, "though mastered by her with perfect ease, do not appear to be consonant with her genius. So great an artist must necessarily be a perfect mistress of all styles of singing, but her intellect evidently inclines her to the severer and loftier school." She was admitted to be a "woman of genius, peculiar, inasmuch as it is universal." Her English engagement at the Royal Italian Opera, in 1848, began with the performance of _Amina_ in "La Sonnambula," and created a great sensation, for she was about to contest the suffrages of the public with a group of the foremost singers of the world, among whom were Grisi, Alboni, and Persiani. Mme. Viardot's nervousness was apparent to all. "She proved herself equal to Malibran," says a writer in the "Musical World," speaking of this performance; "there was the same passionate fervor, the same absorbing depth of feeling; we heard the same tones whose naturalness and pathos stole into our very heart of hearts; we saw the same abstraction, the same abandonment, the same rapturous awakening to joy, to love, and to devotion. Such novel and extraordinary passages, such daring nights into the region of fioriture, together with chromatic runs ascending and descending, embracing the three registers of the soprano, mezzo-soprano, and contralto, we have not heard since the days of Malibran." Another critic made an accurate gauge of her peculiar greatness in saying: "Mme. Viardot's voice grows unconsciously upon you, until at last you are blind to its imperfections. The voice penetrates to the heart by its sympathetic tones, and you forget everything in it but its touching and affecting quality. You care little or nothing for the mechanism, or rather, for the weakness of the organ. You are no longer a critic, but spellbound by the hand of genius, moved by the sway of enthusiasm that comes from the soul, abashed in the presence of intellect." The most memorable event of this distinguished artist's life was her performance, in 1849, of the character of _Fides_ in "Le Prophète." No operatic creation ever made a greater sensation in Paris. Meyerbeer had kept it in his portfolio for years, awaiting the time when Mme. Viardot should be ready to interpret it, and many changes had been made from time to time at the suggestion of the great singer, who united to her executive skill an intellect of the first rank, and a musical knowledge second to that of few composers. At the very last moment it is said that one or more of the acts were entirely reconstructed, at the wish of the representative of _Fides_, whose dramatic instincts were as unerring as her musical judgment. No performance since that of Viardot, though the most eminent singers have essayed the part, has equaled the first ideal set by her creation from its possibilities. In this opera the principal interest pivots on the _mother_. The sensuous, sentimental, or malignant phases of love are replaced by the purest maternal devotion. It was left for Mme. Viardot to add an absolutely new type to the gallery of portraits on the lyric stage. We are told by a competent critic, whose enthusiasm in the study of this great impersonation did not yet quite run away with his judicial faculty: "Her remarkable power of self-identification with the character set before her was, in this case, aided by person and voice. The mature burgher woman in her quaint costume; the pale, tear-worn devotee, searching from city to city for traces of the lost one, and struck with a pious horror at finding him a tool in the hands of hypocritical blasphemy, was till then a being entirely beyond the pale of the ordinary prima donna's comprehension--one to the presentation of which there must go as much simplicity as subtile art, as much of tenderness as of force, as much renunciation of woman's ordinary coquetries as of skill to impress all hearts by the picture of homely love, desolate grief, and religious enthusiasm." M. Roger sang with Mme. Viardot in Paris, but, when the opera was shortly afterward reproduced in London, he was replaced by Signor Mario, "whose appearance in his coronation robes reminded one of some bishop-saint in a picture by Van Ryek or Durer, and who could bring to bear a play of feature without grimace, into scenes of false fascination, far beyond the reach of the clever French artist, M. Roger." The production of "Le Prophète" saved the fortunes of the struggling new Italian Opera House, which had been floundering in pecuniary embarrassments. The last season of Mme. Viardot in England was in 1858, during which she sang to enthusiastic audiences in many of her principal characters, and also contributed to the public pleasure in concert and the great provincial festivals. The tour in Poland, Germany, and Russia which followed was marked by a series of splendid ovations and the eagerness with which her society was sought by the most patrician circles in Europe. Her last public appearance in Paris was in 1862, and since that time Mme. Viardot has occupied a professional chair at the Conservatoire. In private life this great artist has always been loved and admired for her brilliant mental accomplishments, her amiability, the suavity of her manners, and her high principles, no less than she has been idolized by the public for the splendor of her powers as musician and tragedienne. FANNY PERSIANI. The Tenor Singer Tacchinardi.--An Exquisite Voice and Deformed Physique.--Early Talent shown by his Daughter Fanny.--His Aversion to her entering on the Stage Life.--Her Marriage to M. Persiani.--The Incident which launched Fanny Persiani on the Stage.--Rapid Success as a Singer.--Donizetti writes one of his Great Operas for her.--_Personnel_, Voice, and Artistic Style of Mme. Persiani.--One of the Greatest Executants who ever lived.--Anecdotes of her Italian Tours.-- First Appearance in Paris and London.--A Tour through Belgium with Rubini.--Anecdote of Prince Metternich.--Further Studies of Persiani's Characteristics as a Singer.--Donizetti composes Another Opera for her.--Her Prosperous Career and Retirement from the Stage.--Last Appearance in Paris for Mario's Benefit. I. Under the Napoleonic _régime_ the Odéon was the leading lyric theatre, and the great star of that company was Nicholas Tacchinardi, a tenor in whom nature had combined the most opposing characteristics. The figure of a dwarf, a head sunk beneath the shoulders, hunchbacked, and repulsive, he was hardly a man fitted by nature for a stage hero. Yet his exquisite voice and irreproachable taste as a musician gave him a long reign in the very front rank of his profession. He was so morbidly conscious of his own stage defects that he would beg composers to write for him with a view to his singing at the side scenes before entering on the stage, that the public might form an impression of him by hearing before his grotesque ugliness could be seen. Another expedient for concealing some portion of his unfortunate figure was often practiced by this musical Caliban, that of coming on the stage standing in a triumphal car. But this only excited the further risibilities of his hearers, and he was forced to be content with the chance of making his vocal fascination condone the impression made by his ugliness. At his first appearance on the boards of the Odéon, he was saluted with the most insulting outbursts of laughter and smothered ejaculations of "Why, he's a hunchback!" Being accustomed to this kind of greeting, Tacchinardi tranquilly walked to the footlights and bowed. "Gentlemen," he said, addressing the pit, "I am not here to exhibit my person, but to sing. Have the goodness to hear me." They did hear him, and when he ceased the theatre rang with plaudits: there was no more laughter. His personal disadvantages were redeemed by one of the finest and purest tenor voices ever given by nature and refined by art, by his extraordinary intelligence, by an admirable method of singing, an exquisite taste in fioriture, and facility of execution. Fanny Tacchinardi was the second daughter of the deformed tenor, born at Rome, October 4, 1818, three years after Tacchinardi had returned again to his native land. Fanny's passion for music betrayed itself in her earliest lisps, and it was not ignored by Tacchinardi, who gave her lessons on the piano and in singing. At nine she could play with considerable intelligence and precision, and sing with grace her father's ariettas and _duettini_ with her sister Elisa, who was not only an excellent pianist, but a good general musician and composer. The girl grew apace in her art feeling and capacity, for at eleven she took part in an opera as prima donna at a little theatre which her father had built near his country place, just out of Florence. Tacchinardi was, however, very averse to a professional career for his daughter, in spite of the powerful bent of her tastes and the girl's pleadings. He had been _chanteur de chambre_ since 1822 for the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and in the many concerts and other public performances over which he was director his daughter frequently appeared, to the great delight of amateurs. Fanny even at this early age had a voice of immense compass, though somewhat lacking in sweetness and flexibility, defects which she subsequently overcame by study and practice. As the best antidote to the sweet stage poison which already began to run riot in her veins, her father brought about an early marriage for the immature girl, and in 1830 she was united to Joseph Persiani, an operatic composer of some merit, though not of much note. She resided with her husband in her father's house for several years, carefully secluded as far as possible from musical influences, but the hereditary passion and gifts could not be altogether suppressed, and the youthful wife quietly pursued her studies with unbroken perseverance. The incident which irretrievably committed her energies and fortunes to the stage was a singular one, yet it is not unreasonable to assume that, had not this occurred, her ardent predilections would have found some other outlet to the result to which she aspired. M. Fournier, a rich French merchant, settled at Leghorn, was an excellent musician, and carried this recreation of his leisure hours so far as to compose an opera, "Francesca di Rimini," the subject drawn from the romance of "Silvio Pellico." The wealthy merchant could find no manager who would venture to produce the work of an amateur. But he was willing and able to become his own _impressario_, and accordingly he set about forming an operatic troupe and preparing the scenery for a public representation of his dearly beloved musical labor. The first vocalists of Italy, Mmes. Pisaroni and Rasallima Caradori, contralto and soprano, were engaged at lavish salaries, and on the appointed day of the first rehearsal they all appeared except Caradori, whose Florentine manager positively forbade her singing as a violation of his contract. M. Fournier was in despair, but at last some one remembered Mme. Persiani, who was known as a charming dilettante. Her residence was not many miles away from Leghorn, and it was determined to have recourse to this last resort, for it was otherwise almost impossible to secure a vocalist of talent at short notice. A deputation of M. Fournier's friends, among whom were those well acquainted with the Tacchinardi family, formed an embassy to represent the urgent need of the composer and implore the aid of Mme. Persiani. With some difficulty the consent of husband and father was obtained, and the young singer made her _début_ in the opera of the merchant-musician. Mme. Persiani said in after-years that, had her attempt been a successful one, it was very doubtful if she ever would have pursued the profession of the stage. But her performance came very near to being a failure. Her pride was so stung and her vanity humiliated that she would not listen to the commands of husband and father. She would become a great lyric artist, or else satisfy herself that she _could_ not become one. The turning-point of her life had come. She found an engagement at the La Scala, Milan, and she speedily laid a good foundation for her future renown. She sang at Florence with Duprez, and Donizetti, who was then in the city, composed his "Rosmonda d'Inghilterra" for these artists. For two years there was nothing of specially important note in Mme. Persiani's life except a swift and steady progress. An engagement at Vienna made her the pet of that city, which is fanatical in its musical enthusiasm, and we next find her back again in Italy, singing greatly to the satisfaction of the public in such operas as "Romeo e Giulietta," "Il Pirata," "La Gazza Ladra," and "L'Elisir d'Amore." Mme. Pasta was singing in Venice when Persiani visited that city, and the latter did not hesitate to enter into competition with her illustrious rival. Indeed, the complimentary Venetians called her "la petite Pasta," though the character of her talent was entirely alien to that of the great tragedienne of music. Milan and Rome reechoed the voice of other cities, and during her stay in Rome she appeared in two new operas, "Misantropia e Pentimento" and "I Promessi Sposi." Among the artists associated with her during the Roman engagement was Ronconi, who was then just beginning to establish his great reputation. One of the most important events of her early career was her association, in 1834, at the San Carlo, Naples, with Duprez, Caselli, and La-blache. The composer Donizetti had always been charmed with her voice as suiting the peculiar style of music in which he excelled, and he determined to compose an opera for her. His marvelous facility of composition was happily illustrated in this case. The novel of "The Bride of Lammermoor" was turned into a libretto for him by a Neapolitan poet, Donizetti himself, it is said, having written the last act in his eagerness to save time and get it completed that he might enter on the musical composition. The opera of "Lucia di Lammermoor," one of the most beautiful of the composer's works, was finished in little more than five weeks. The music of _Edgardo_ was designed for the voice of M. Duprez, that of _Lucia_ for Mme. Persiani, and the result was brilliantly successful, not only as suiting the styles of those singers, but in making a powerful impression on the public mind. Mme. Persiani never entered into any rivalry with those singers who were celebrated for their dramatic power, for this talent did not peculiarly stamp her art-work. But her impersonation of _Lucia_ in Donizetti's opera was sentimental, impassioned, and pathetic to a degree which saved her from the reproach which was sometimes directed against her other performances--lack of unction and abandon. II. The _personnel_ of Mme. Persiani could not be considered highly attractive. She was small, thin, with a long, colorless face, and looked older than her years. Her eyes were, however, soft and dreamy, her smile piquant, her hair like gold-colored silk, and exquisitely long. Her manner and carriage both on and off the stage were so refined and charming, that of all the singers of the day she best expressed that thorough-bred look which is independent of all beauty and physical grace. "Never was there woman less vulgar, in physiognomy or in manner, than she," says Mr. Chorley, describing Mme. Persiani; "but never was there one whose appearance on the stage was less distinguished. She was not precisely insignificant to see, so much as pale, plain, and anxious. She gave the impression of one who had left sorrow or sickness at home, and who therefore (unlike those wonderful deluders, the French actresses, who, because they will not be ugly, rarely _look_ so) had resigned every question of personal attraction as a hopeless one. She was singularly tasteless in her dress. Her one good point was her hair, which was splendidly profuse, and of an agreeable color." As a vocalist, it was agreed that her singing had the volubility, ease, and musical sweetness of a bird: her execution was remarkable for velocity. Her voice was rather thin, but its tones were clear as a silver bell, brilliant and sparkling as a diamond; it embraced a range of two octaves and a half (or about eighteen notes, from B to F in alt), the highest and lowest notes of which she touched with equal ease and sweetness. She had thus an organ of the most extensive compass known in the register of the true soprano. Her facility was extraordinary; her voice was implicitly under her command, and capable not only of executing the greatest difficulties, but also of obeying the most daring caprices--scales, shakes, trills, divisions, fioriture the most dazzling and inconceivable. She only acquired this command by indefatigable labor. Study had enabled her to execute with fluency and correctness the chromatic scales, ascending and descending, and it was by sheer hard practice that she learned to swell and diminish her accents; to emit tones full, large, and free from nasal or guttural sounds, to manage her respiration skillfully, and to seize the delicate shades of vocalization. In fioriture and vocal effects her taste was faultless, and she had an agreeable manner of uniting her tones by the happiest transitions, and diminishing with insensible gradations. She excelled in the effects of vocal embroidery, and her passion for ornamentation tempted her to disregard the dramatic situation in order to give way to a torrent of splendid fioriture, which dazzled the audience without always satisfying them. The characters expressing placidity, softness, and feminine grace, like _Lucia, Amina,_ and _Zerli-na_, involving the sentimental rather than the passionate, were best fitted to Mme. Persiani's powers as artist. She belonged to the same school as Sontag, not only in character of voice, but in all her sympathies and affinities; yet she was not incapable of a high order of tragic emotion, as her performance of the mad scene of "Lucia di Lammermoor" gave ample proof, but this form of artistic expression was not spontaneous and unforced. It was only well accomplished under high pressure. Escudin said of her, "It is not only the nature of her voice which limits her--it is also the expression of her acting, we had almost said the ensemble of her physical organization. She knows her own powers perfectly. She is not ambitious, she knows exactly what will suit her, and is aware precisely of the nature of her talent." Although she attained a high reputation in some of Mozart's characters, as, for example, _Zerlina_, the Mozart music was not well fitted to her voice and tastes. The brilliancy and flexibility of her organ and her airy style were far more suited to the modern Italian than to the severe German school. A charming compliment was paid by Malibran, who knew how to do such things with infinite taste and delicacy, to Persiani, when the latter lady was singing at Naples in 1835: while the representative of _Lucia_ was changing her costume between the acts, a lady entered her dressing-room, and complimented her in warmest terms on the excellence of her singing. The visitor then took the long golden tresses floating over Persiani's shoulders, and asked, "Is it all your own?" On being laughingly answered in the affirmative, Malibran, for it was she, said, "Allow me, signora, since I have no wreath of flowers to offer you, to twine you one with your own beautiful hair." Mme. Persiani's artistic tour through Italy, in 1835, culminated in Florence with one of those exhibitions of popular tyranny and exaction which so often alternate with enthusiasm in the case of audiences naturally ardent and impressible, and consequently capricious. When the singer arrived at the Tuscan capital, she was in such a weak and exhausted state that she did not deem it prudent to sing. Her manager was, however, unbending, and insisted on the exact fulfillment of her contract. After vain remonstrances she yielded to her taskmaster, and appeared in "I Puritani," trusting to the forbearance and kindness of her audience. But a few notes had escaped her pale and quivering lips when the angry audience broke out into loud hisses, marks of disapprobation which were kept up during the performance. Mme. Persiani could not forgive this, and, when she completely recovered her voice and energy a few weeks after, she treated the lavish demonstrations of the public with the most cutting disdain and indifference. At the close of her engagement, she publicly announced her determination never again to sing in Florence, on account of the selfish cruelty to which she had been subjected both by the manager and the public. Persiani's fame grew rapidly in every part of Europe. At Vienna, she was named chamber singer to the Austrian sovereign, and splendid gifts were lavished on her by the imperial family, and in the leading cities of Germany, as in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the highest recognition of her talents was shown alike by court and people. It was not till 1837 that Mme. Persiani ventured to make her first appearance in Paris, a step which she took with much apprehension, for she had an exaggerated notion of the captious-ness and coldness of the French public. When she stepped on the stage, November 7th, the night of her _début_ in "Sonnambula," she was so violently shaken by her emotions that she could scarcely stand. The other singers were Rubini, Tamburini, and Mlle. Allessandri, and the audience was of the utmost distinction, including the foremost people in the art, literary, and social circles of Paris. The _debutante_ was well received, but it was not until she appeared in Cimarosa's "Il Matrimonio Segreto" that she was fully appreciated. Rubini and Tamburini were with her in the cast, and the same great artists participated also with her in the performance of "Lucia," which set the final seal of her artistic won h in the public estimate. She also appeared in London in the following year in "Sonnambula." "It is no small risk to any vocalist to follow Malibran and Grisi in a part which they both played so well," was the observation of one critic, "and it is no small compliment to Persiani to say that she succeeded in it." She had completely established herself as a favorite with the London public before the end of the season, and thereafter she continued to sing alternately in London and Paris for a succession of years, sharing the applause of audiences with such artists as Grisi, Viardot, Lablache, Tamburini, Rubini, and Mario. A tour through Belgium and the Rhenish provinces, partly operatic, partly concertizing, which she took with Rubini in the summer and fall of 1841, was highly successful from the artistic point of view, and replete with pleasant incidents, among which may be mentioned their meeting at Wiesbaden with Prince Metternich, who had come with a crowd of princes, ministers, and diplomats from the château of Johannisberg to be present at the concert. At the conclusion of the performance, the Prince took Rubini by the arm, and walked up and down the salon with him for some time. They had become acquainted at Vienna. "My dear Rubini," said Metternich, "it is impossible that you can come so near Johannisberg without paying me a visit there. I hope you and your friends will come and dine with me to-morrow." The following day, therefore, Rubini, Mme. Persiani, etc., went to the château, so celebrated for the produce of its vineyards, where M. Metternich and his princess did the honors with the utmost affability and cordiality. After dinner, Rubini, unasked, sang two of his most admired airs; and the Prince, to testify his gratification, offered him a basket of Johannisberg, "to drink my health," he laughingly said, "when you reach your château of Bergamo." Rubini accepted the friendly offering, and begged permission to bring Mme. Rubini, before quitting the north of Europe, to visit the fine château. Metternich immediately summoned his major-domo, and said to him, "Remember that, if ever M. Rubini visits Johannisberg during my absence, he is to be received as if he were its master. You will place the whole of the château at his disposal so long as he may please to remain." "And the cellar, also?" asked Rubini. "The cellar, also," added the Prince, smiling: "the cellar at discretion." III. The characteristics of Mme. Persiani's voice and art have already been generally described sufficiently to convey some distinct impression of her personality as a singer, but it is worth while to enter into some more detailed account of the peculiar qualities which for many years gave her so great a place on the operatic stage. Her acute soprano, mounting to E flat _altissimo_, had in it many acrid and piercing notes, and was utterly without the caressing, honeyed sweetness which, for example, gave such a sensuous charm to the voice of Mme. Grisi. But she was an incomparable mistress over the difficulties of vocalization. From her father, Tacchinardi, who knew every secret of his art, she received a full bequest of his knowledge. Her voice was developed to its utmost capacity, and it was said of her that every fiber in her frame seemed to have a part in her singing; there was nothing left out, nothing kept back, nothing careless, nothing unfinished. So sedulous was she in the employment of her vast and varied resources that she frequently rose to an animation which, if not sympathetic, as warmth kindling warmth, amounted to that display of conscious power which is resistless. The perfection with which she wrought up certain scenes, such as the "Sonnambula" _finale_ and the mad scene in "Lucia," judged from the standard of musical style, was not surpassed in any of the dazzling displays of the stage. She had the finest possible sense of accent, which enabled her to give every phrase its fullest measure. Groups of notes were divided and expressed by her with all the precision which the best violinists put into their bowing. The bird-like case with which she executed the most florid, rapid, and difficult music was so securely easy and unfailing as to excite something of the same kind of wonder with which one would watch some matchless display of legerdemain. Another great musical quality in which she surpassed her contemporaries was her taste and extraordinary facility in ornament. Always refined and true in style, she showed a variety and brilliancy in her changes and cadenzas which made her the envy of other singers. In this form of accomplishment she was first among Italians, who, again, are first among the singers of the world. Every passage was finished to perfection; and, though there were other singers not inferior to her in the use of the shake or the trill, yet in the attack of intervals distant from each other, in the climbing up a series of groups of notes, ascending to the highest in the scale, there was no singer of her own time or since who could compete with her. Mr. Chorley tells us how convincingly these rare and remarkable merits impressed themselves on him, "when, after a few years' absence from our stage, Mme. Persiani reappeared in London, how, in comparison with her, her younger successors sounded like so many immature scholars of the second class." On her gala nights the spirit and splendor of her execution were daring, triumphant, and irresistible, if we can trust those who heard her in her days of greatness. Moschcles, in his diary, speaks of the incredible difficulties which she overcame, and compares her performance with that of a violinist, while Mendelssohn, who did not love Italian music or the Italian vocalization, said: "Well, I do like Mme. Persiani dearly. She is such a thorough artist, and she sings so earnestly, and there is such a pleasant _bitter_ tone in her voice." Donizetti met Mme. Persiani again in Vienna in 1842, and composed for her his charming opera, "Linda di Chamouni," which, with the exception of the "Favorita" and "Lucia," is generally admitted to be his best. In this opera our singer made an impression nearly equal to that in "Lucia," and it remained afterward a great favorite with her, and one in which she was highly esteemed by the European public. The transformation of Covent Garden Theatre into a spacious and noble opera-house in 1847, and the secession of the principal artists from Her Majesty's Theatre, were the principal themes of musical gossip in the English capital at that time. The artists who went over to the Royal Italian Opera were Mines, Grisi and Persiani, Mlle. Alboni (then a novelty on the English stage), and Signors Mario, Tamburini, Salvi, Ronconi, Hovere, and Marini. M. Persiani was the director, and Signor Costa the _chef d'orchestre_. Although the company of singers was a magnificent combination of musical talent, and the presentation of opera in every way admirable, the enterprise had a sickly existence for a time, and it was not until it had passed through various vicissitudes, and came finally into the hands of the astute Lumley, that the enterprise was settled on a stable foundation. From 1850 to 1858 Mme. Persiani sang with her usual brilliant success in all the principal cities of Europe, receiving, for special performances in which she was a great favorite, the then remarkable sum of two hundred pounds per night. Her last appearance in England was in the spring of 1858, when she performed in "I Puritani," "Don Pasquale," "Linda di Chamouni," and "Don Giovanni." In the following winter she established her residence in Paris, with the view of training pupils for the stage. Only once did she depart from her resolution of not singing again in opera. This was when Signor Mario was about to take his benefit in the spring of 1859. The director of the Theatre Italiens entreated Persiani to sing _Zerlina_ to the _Don Giovanni_ of Mario, to which she at last consented. "My career," she said, "began almost in lisping the divine music of 'Don Giovanni'; it will be appropriately closed by the interpretation of this _chef-d'ouvre_ of the master of masters, the immortal Mozart." Mme. Persiani died in June, 1867, and her funeral was attended by a host of operatic celebrities, who contributed to the musical exercises of a most impressive funeral. Mme. Persiani, aside from her having possessed a wonderful executive art in what may be called the technique of singing, will long be remembered by students of musical history as having, perhaps, contributed more than any other singer to making the music of Donizetti popular throughout Europe. MARIETTA ALBONI. The Greatest of Contraltos.--Marietta Alboni's Early Surroundings.--Rossini's Interest in her Career.--First Appearance on the Operatic Stage.--Excitement produced in Germany by her Singing.--Her Independence of Character.--Her Great Success in London.--Description of her Voice and Person.--Concerts in Taris.--The Verdicts of the Great French Critics.--Hector Berlioz on Alboni's Singing.--She appears in Opera in Paris.--Strange Indifference of the Audience quickly turned to Enthusiasm.--She competes favorably in London with Grisi, Persiani, and Viardot.--Takes the Place of Jenny Lind as Prima Donna at Her Majesty's.--She extends her Voice into the Soprano Register.--Performs _Fides_ in "Le Prophète."--Visit to America.--Retires from the Stage. I. There was a time early in the century when the voice of Rosamunda Pisaroni was believed to be the most perfect and delightful, not only of all contraltos of the age, but to have reached the absolute ideal of what this voice should be. She even for a time disputed the supremacy of Henrietta Sontag as the idol of the Paris public, though the latter great singer possessed the purest of soprano voices, and won no less by her personal loveliness than by the charm of her singing. Pisaroni excelled as much in her dramatic power as in the beauty of her voice, and up to the advent of Marietta Alboni on the stage was unquestionably without a rival in the estimate of critics as the artist who surpassed all the traditions of the operatic stage in this peculiar line of singing. But her memory was dethroned from its pedestal when the gorgeous Alboni became known to the European public. Thomas Noon Talfourd applied to a well-known actress of half a century since the expression that she had "corn, wine, and oil" in her looks. A similar characterization would well apply both to the appearance and voice of Mlle. Alboni, when she burst on the European world in the splendid heyday of her youth and charms--the face, with its broad, sunny Italian beauty, incapable of frown; the figure, wrought in lines of voluptuous symmetry, though the _embonpoint_ became finally too pronounced; the voice, a rich, deep, genuine contralto of more than two octaves, as sweet as honey, and "with that tremulous quality which reminds fanciful spectators of the quiver in the air of the calm, blazing summer's noon"; a voice luscious beyond description. To this singer has been accorded without dissent the title of the "greatest contralto of the nineteenth century." The father of Marietta Alboni was an officer of the customs, who lived at Casena in the Romagna, and possessed enough income to bestow an excellent education on all his family. Marietta, born March 10, 1822, evinced an early passion for music, and a great facility in learning languages. She was accordingly placed with Signor Bagioli, a local music-teacher, under whom she so prospered that at eleven she could read music at sight, and vocalize with considerable fluency. Having studied her solfeggi with Bagioli, she was transferred to the tuition of Mme. Bertoletti, at Bologna. Here she had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of Rossini, in whom she excited interest. Rossini gave her some lessons, and expressed a high opinion of her prospects. "At present," he said to some one inquiring about the young girl's talents, "her voice is like that of an itinerant ballad singer, but the town will be at her feet before she is a year older." It was chiefly through Rossini's cordial admiration of her voice that Morelli, one of the great _entrepreneurs_ of Italy, engaged her for the Teatro Communale of Bologna. Here she made her first appearance as _Maffeo Orsini_, in "Lucrezia Borgia," in 1842, Marietta then having reached the age of twenty. She was then transferred to the La Scala, at Milan, where she performed with marked success in "La Favorita." Rossini himself signed her contract, saying, "I am the subscribing witness to your union with renown. May success and happiness attend the union!" Her engagement was renewed at the La Scala for four successive seasons. A tempting offer from Vienna carried her to that musical capital, and during the three years she remained there she won brilliant laurels and a fame which had swiftly coursed through Europe; for musical connoisseurs visiting Vienna carried away with them the most glowing accounts of the new contralto. Her triumphs were renewed in Russia, Belgium, Holland, and Prussia, where her glorious voice created a genuine _furore_, not less flattering to her pride than the excitement produced at an earlier date by Pasta, Sontag, and Malibran. An interesting proof of her independence and dignity of character occurred on her first arrival in Berlin, before she had made her _début_ in that city. She was asked by an officious friend "if she had waited on M------." "No! who is this M------," was the reply. "Oh!" answered her inquisitor, "he is the most influential journalist in Prussia." "Well, how does this concern me?" "Why," rejoined the other, "if you do not contrive to insure his favorable report, you are ruined." The young Italian drew herself up disdainfully. "Indeed!" she said, coldly; "well, let it be as Heaven directs; but I wish it to be understood that in _my_ breast the woman is superior to the artist, and, though failure were the result, I would never degrade myself by purchasing success at so humiliating a price." The anecdote was repeated in the fashionable saloons of Berlin, and, so far from injuring her, the noble sentiment of the young _debutante_ was appreciated. The king invited her to sing at his court, where she received the well-merited applause of an admiring audience; and afterward his Majesty bestowed more tangible evidences of his approbation. It was not till 1847 that Marietta Alboni appeared in England. Mr. Beale, the manager of the Royal Italian Opera, the new enterprise which had just been organized in the revolutionized Covent Garden Theatre, heard her at Milan and was charmed with her voice. Rumors had reached England, of course, concerning the beauty of the new singer's voice, but there was little interest felt when her engagement was announced. The "Jenny Lind" mania was at its height, and in the company in which Alboni herself was to sing there were two brilliant stars of the first luster, Grisi and Persiani. So, when she made her bow to the London public as _Arsace_, in "Semiramide," the audience gazed at her with a sort of languid and unexpectant curiosity. But Alboni found herself the next morning a famous woman. People were astounded by this wonderful voice, combining luscious sweetness with great volume and capacity. It was no timid _débutante_, but a finished singer whose voice rolled out in a swelling flood of melody such as no English opera-house had heard since the palmiest days of Pisaroni. Musical London was electrified, and Grisi, who sang in "Semiramide," sulked, because in the great duet, "Giorno d'orrore," the thunders of applause evidently concerned themselves with her young rival rather than with herself. Another convincing proof of her power was that she dared to restore the beautiful aria "In si barbara," which had been hitherto suppressed for lack of a contralto of sufficient greatness to give it full effect. In one night she had established herself as a trump card in the manager's hand against the rival house, an accession which he so appreciated that, unsolicited, he raised her salary from five hundred to two thousand pounds. Mlle. Alboni's voice covered nearly three octaves, from E flat to C sharp, with tones uniformly rich, full, mellow, and liquid. The quality of the voice was perfectly pure and sympathetic, the articulation so clear and fluent, even in the most difficult and rapid passages, that it was like a performance on a well-played instrument. The rapidity and certainty of her execution could only be compared to the dazzling character of Mme. Persiani's vocalization. Her style and method were considered models. Although her facility and taste in ornamentation were of the highest order, Alboni had so much reverence for the intentions of the composer, that she would rarely add anything to the music which she interpreted, and even in the operas of Rossini, where most singers take such extraordinary liberties with the score, it was Alboni's pride neither to add nor omit a note. Perhaps her audiences most wondered at her singular ease. An enchanting smile lit up her face as she ran the most difficult scales, and the extreme feats of musical execution gave the idea of being spontaneous, not the fruit of art or labor. Her whole appearance, when she was singing, as was said by one enthusiastic amateur, conveyed the impression of exquisite music even when the sense of hearing was stopped. Alboni's figure, although large, was perfect in symmetry, graceful and commanding, and her features regularly beautiful, though better fitted for the expression of comedy than of tragedy. The expression of her countenance was singularly genial, vivacious, and kindly, and her eyes, when animated in conversation or in singing, flashed with great brilliancy. Her smile was bewitching, and her laugh so infectious that no one could resist its influence. Fresh triumphs marked Mlle. Alboni's London season to its close. In "La Donna del Lago," "Lucrezia Borgia," "Maria de Rohan," and "La Gazza Ladra" she was pronounced inimitable by the London critics. Mme. Persiani's part in "Il Barbiere" was assumed without rehearsal and at a moment's notice, and given in a way which satisfied the most exacting judges. It sparkled from the first to the last note with enchanting gayety and humor. II. M. Duponchel, the manager of the Opéra in Paris, hastened to London to hear Alboni sing, and immediately offered her an engagement. In October, 1847, she made her Parisian _début_. Her first appearance in concert was with Alizard and Barroilhet. "Many persons, artists and amateurs," said Fiorentino, "absolutely asked on the morning of her _début_, Who is this Alboni? Whence does she come? What can she do?" And their interrogatories were answered by some fragments of those trifling and illusory biographies which always accompany young vocalists. There was, however, intense curiosity to hear and see this redoubtable singer who had held the citadel of the Royal Italian Opera against the attraction of Jenny Lind, and the theatre was crowded to suffocation by rank, fashion, beauty, and notabilities on the night of her first concert, October 9th. When she stepped quietly on the stage, dressed in black velvet, a brooch of brilliants on her bosom, and her hair cut _à la Titus_, with a music-paper in her hand, there was just one thunder-clap of applause, followed by a silence of some seconds. She had not one acknowledged advocate in the house; but, when Arsace's cavatina, "Ah! quel giorno," gushed from her lips in a rich stream of melodious sound, the entire audience was at her feet, and the critics could not command language sufficiently glowing to express their admiration. "What exquisite quality of sound, what purity of intonation, what precision in the scales!" wrote the critic of the "Revue et Gazette Musicale." "What _finesse_ in the manner of the breaks of the voice! What amplitude and mastery of voice she exhibits in the 'Brindisi'; what incomparable clearness and accuracy in the air from 'L'ltaliana' and the duo from 'Il Barbiere!' There is no instrument capable of rendering with more certain and more faultless intonation the groups of rapid notes which Rossini wrote, and which Alboni sings with the same facility and same celerity. The only fault the critic has in his power to charge the wondrous artist with is, that, when she repeats a morceau, we hear exactly the same traits, the same turns, the same fioriture, which was never the case with Malibran or Cinti-Damoreau." "This vocal scale," says Scudo, speaking of her voice, "is divided into three parts or registers, which follow in complete order. The first register commences at F in the base, and reaches F in the _medium_. This is the true body of the voice, whose admirable timbre characterizes and colors all the rest. The second extends from G in the _medium_ to F on the fifth line; and the upper part, which forms the third register, is no more than an elegant superfluity of Nature. It is necessary next to understand with what incredible skill the artist manages this instrument; it is the pearly, light, and florid vocalization of Persiani joined to the resonance, pomp, and amplitude of Pisaroni. No words can convey an idea of the exquisite purity of this voice, always mellow, always equable, which vibrates without effort, and each note of which expands itself like the bud of a rose--sheds a balm on the ear, as some exquisite fruit perfumes the palate. No scream, no affected dramatic contortion of sound, attacks the sense of hearing, under the pretense of softening the feelings." "But that which we admire above all in the artist," observes Fiorentino, "is the pervading soul, the sentiment, the perfect taste, the inimitable method. Then, what body in the voice! What largeness! What simplicity of style! What facility of vocalization! What genius in the contrasts! What color in the phrases! What charm! What expression! Mlle. Alboni sings as she smiles--without effort, without fatigue, without audible and broken respiration. Here is art in its fidelity! here is the model and example which every one who would become an artist should copy." "It is such a pleasure to hear real singing," wrote Hector Berlioz. "It is so rare; and voices at once beautiful, natural, expressive, flexible, and _in time_, are so very uncommon! The voice of Mlle. Alboni possesses these excellent qualities in the highest degree of perfection. It is a magnificent contralto of immense range (two octaves and six notes, nearly three octaves, from low E to C in alt), the quality perfect throughout, even in the lowest notes of the lowest register, which are generally so disastrous to the majority of singers, who fancy they possess a contralto, and the emission of which resembles nearly always a rattle, hideous in such cases and revolting to the ear. Mlle. Alboni's vocalization is wonderfully easy, and few sopranos possess such facility. The registers of her voice are so perfectly united, that in her scales you do not feel sensible of the passage from one to another; the tone is unctuous, caressing, velvety, melancholy, like that of all pure sopranos, though less somber than that of Pisaroni, and incomparably more pure and limpid. As the notes are produced without effort, the voice yields itself to every shade of intensity, and thus Mlle. Alboni can sing from the most mysterious piano to the most brilliant forte. And this alone is what I call singing humanly, that is to say, in a fashion which declares the presence of a human heart, a human soul, a human intelligence. Singers not possessed of these indispensable qualities should in my judgment be ranked in the category of mechanical instruments. Mlle. Alboni is an artist entirely devoted to her art, and has not up to this moment been tempted to make a trade of it; she has never heretofore given a thought to what her delicious notes--precious pearls, which she lavishes with such happy bounty--might bring her in per annum. Different from the majority of contemporary singers, money questions are the last with which she occupies herself; her demands have hitherto been extremely modest. Added to this, the sincerity and trustworthiness of her character, which amounts almost to singularity, are acknowledged by all who have any dealings with her." After the greatness of the artist had fairly-been made known to the public, the excitement in Paris was extraordinary. At some of the later concerts more than a thousand applications for admission had to be refused, and it was said that two theatres might have been thronged. Alboni was nearly smothered night after night with roses and camellias, and the stage was literally transformed into a huge bed of flowers, over which the prima donna was obliged to walk in making her exits. An amusing example of the _naïveté_ and simplicity of her character is narrated. On the morning after her second performance, she was seated in her hotel on the Boulevard des Italiens, reading the _feuilletons_ of Berlioz and Fiorentino with a kind of childish pleasure, unconscious that she was the absorbing theme of Paris talk. A friend came in, when she asked with unaffected sincerity whether she had really sung "_assez bien_" on Monday night, and broke into a fit of the merriest laughter when she received the answer, "_Très bien pour une petite fille_." "Alboni," writes this friend, "is assuredly for a great artist the most unpretending and simple creature in the world. She hasn't the slightest notion of her position in her art in the eyes of the public and musical world." III. Mme. Alboni's great success, it is said, made M. Vatel, the manager of the Italiens, almost frantic with disappointment, for, acting on the advice of Lablache, he had refused to engage her when he could have done so at a merely nominal sum, and had thus left the grand prize open to his rival. Her concert engagement being terminated, our prima donna made a short tour through Austria, and returned to Paris again to make her _début_ in opera on December 2d, in "Semiramide," with Mme. Grisi, Coletti, Cellini, and Tagliafico, in the cast. The caprice of audiences was never more significantly shown than on this occasion. Alboni, on the concert stage, had recently achieved an unmistakable and brilliant recognition as a great vocalist, and on the night of her first lyric appearance before a French audience a great throng had assembled. All the celebrities of the fashionable, artistic, and literary world, princes, Government officials, foreign ministers, dilettanti, poets, critics, women of wit and fashion, swelled the gathering of intent listeners, through whom there ran a subdued murmur, a low buzz of whispering, betraying the lively interest felt. Grisi came on after the rising of the curtain and received a most cordial burst of applause. At length the great audience was hushed to silence, and the orchestra played the symphonic prelude which introduces the contralto air "Eccomi alfin in Babilonia." Alboni glided from the side and walked slowly to the footlights. Let an eye-witness complete the story: "There was a sudden pause," says one who was present; "a feather might almost have been heard to move. The orchestra, the symphony finished, refrained from proceeding, as though to give time for the enthusiastic reception which was Alboni's right, and which it was natural to suppose Alboni would receive. But you may imagine my surprise and the feelings of the renowned contralto when not a hand or a voice was raised to acknowledge her! I could see Alboni tremble, but it was only for an instant. What was the reason of this unanimous disdain or this unanimous doubt? call it what you will. She might perhaps guess, but she did not suffer it to perplex her for more than a few moments. Throwing aside the extreme diffidence that marked her _entrée_, and the perturbation that resulted from the frigidity of the spectators, she wound herself up to the condition of fearless independence for which she is constitutionally and morally remarkable, and with a look of superb indifference and conscious power she commenced the opening of her aria. In one minute the crowd, that but an instant before seemed to disdain her, was at her feet! The effect of those luscious tones had never yet failed to touch the heart and rouse the ardor of an audience, educated or uneducated." Alboni's triumph was instantaneous and complete; it was the greater from the moment of anxious uncertainty that preceded it, and made the certainty which succeeded more welcome and delightful. From this instant to the end of the opera, Alboni's success grew into a triumph. During the first act she was twice recalled; during the second act, thrice; and she was encored in the air "In si barbara," which she delivered with pathos, and in the cabaletta of the second duet with _Semiramide_. She followed in "La Cenerentola," and it may easily he fancied that her hearers compensated in boisterous warmth of reception for the phlegmatic indifference shown on the first night. The English engagement of Mlle. Alboni the following year at Covent Garden was at a salary of four thousand pounds, and the popularity she had accomplished in England made her one of the most attractive features of the operatic season. Her delicious singing and utter freedom from aught that savored of mannerism or affectation made her power of captivation complete in spite of her lack of dramatic energy. She sang in the same company with Grisi, Persiani, and Viardot, while Mario and Tamburini added their magnificent voices to this fine constellation of lyric stars. When she returned to London in 1849, Jenny Lind had retired from the stage where she had so thoroughly bewitched the public, and Mlle. Alboni became the leading attraction of Her Majesty's Theatre, thus arraying herself against the opera organization with which she had been previously identified. Among the other members of the company were Lablache and Ronconi. Mlle. Alboni seemed to be stung by a feverish ambition at this time to depart from her own musical genre, and shine in such parts as _Rosina, Ninetta, Zerlina_ ("Don Giovanni ") and _Norina_ ("Don Pasquale"). The general public applauded her as vehemently as ever, but the judicious grieved that the greatest of contraltos should forsake a realm in which she blazed with such undivided luster. It is difficult to fancy why Alboni should have ventured on so dangerous an experiment. It may be that she feared the public would tire of her luscious voice, unperturbed as it was by the resistless passion and sentiment which in such singers as Malibran, Pasta, and Viardot, had overcome all defects of voice, and given an infinite freshness and variety to their tones. It may be that the higher value of a soprano voice in the music market stirred a feeling in Alboni which had been singularly lacking to her earlier career. Whatever the reason might have been, it is a notorious fact that Mlle. Alboni deliberately forced the register upward, and in doing so injured the texture of her voice, and lost something both of luscious tone and power. In later years she repented this artistic sin, and recovered the matchless tones of her youth in great measure, but, as long as she persevered in her ambition to be a _soprano_, the result was felt by her most judicious friends to be an unfortunate one. A pleasant incident, illustrating Alboni's kindness of heart, occurred on the eve of her departure for Italy, whither she was called by family reasons. Her leave-taking was so abrupt that she had almost forgotten her promise to sing in Paris on a certain date for the annual benefit of Filippo Galli, a superannuated musician. The suspense and anxiety of the unfortunate Filippo were to be more easily imagined than described when, asked if Alboni would sing, he could not answer definitively--"Perhaps yes, perhaps no." He sold very few tickets, and the rooms (in the Salle Hera) were thinly occupied. She, however, had not forgotten her promise; at the very moment when the matinée was commencing she arrived, in time to redeem her word and reward those who had attended, but too late to be of any service to the veteran. Galli was in despair, and was buried in reflections neither exhilarating nor profitable, when, some minutes after the concert, the comely face and portly figure of Alboni appeared at the door of his room. "How much are the expenses of your concert?" she kindly inquired. "_Mia cara_," dolorously responded the bénéficiaire, "_cinque centifranci_ [five hundred francs]." "Well, then, to repair the loss that I may have caused you," said the generous cantatrice, "here is a banknote for a thousand francs. Do me the favor to accept it." This was only one of the many kind actions she performed. Mlle. Alboni's Paris engagement, in the spring of 1850, was marked by a daring step on her part, which excited much curiosity at the time, and might easily have ended in a most humiliating reverse, though its outcome proved fortunate, that undertaking being the _rôle_ of _Fides_ in "Le Prophète," which had become so completely identified with the name of Viardot. It was owing as much, perhaps, to the insistance of the managers of the Grand Opéra as to the deliberate choice of the singer that this experiment was attempted. Meyerbeer perhaps smiled in his sleeve at the project, but he interposed no objection, and indeed went behind the scenes to congratulate her on her success during the night of the first performance. Alboni's achievement was gratifying to her pride, but it need not be said that her interpretation of _Fides_ was radically different from that of Mme. Viardot, which was a grand tragic conception, akin to those created by the genius of Pasta and Schröder-Devrient. The music of "Le Prophète" had never been well fitted to Viardot's voice, and it was in this better adaptation of Alboni to the vocal score that it may be fancied her success, such as it was, found its root. It was significant that the critics refrained from enlarging on the dramatic quality of the performance. Mlle. Alboni continued her grasp of this varied range of lyric character during her seasons in France, Spain, and England for several years, now assuming _Fides_, now _Amino_, in "Sonnambula," now _Leonora_ in "Favorita," and never failing, however the critics might murmur, in pleasing the ultimate, and, on the whole, more satisfactory bench of judges, the public. It was no new thing to have proved that the mass of theatre-goers, however eccentric and unjustifiable the vagaries of a favorite might be, are inclined to be swayed by the cumulative force of long years of approval. In the spring of 1851, Mlle. Alboni, among several of her well-established personations, was enabled to appear in a new opera by Auber, "Corbeille d'Oranges," a work which attained only a brief success. It became painfully apparent about this time that the greatest of contralto singers was losing the delicious quality of her voice, and that her method was becoming more and more conventional. Her ornaments and fioriture never varied, and this monotony, owing to the indolence and _insouciance_ of the singer, was never inspired by that resistless fire and geniality which made the same cadenzas, repeated night after night by such a singer as Pasta, appear fresh to the audience. Mlle. Alboni's visit to the United States in 1852 was the occasion of a cordial and enthusiastic welcome, which, though lacking in the fury and excitement of the "Jenny Lind" mania, was yet highly gratifying to the singer's _amour propre_. There was a universal feeling of regret that her tour was necessarily a short one. Her final concert was given at Metropolitan Hall, New York, on May 2, 1852, the special occasion being the benefit of Signor Arditi, who had been the conductor of her performances in America. The audience was immense, the applause vehement. The marriage of Alboni to the Compte de Pepoli in 1853 caused a rumor that she was about to retire from the stage. But, though she gave herself a furlough from her arduous operatic duties for nearly a year, she appeared again in Paris in 1854 in "La Donna del Lago" and other of the Rossinian operas. Her London admirers, too, recognized in the newly married prima donna all the charm of her youth. In July, 1855, she was at the Grand Opéra, in Paris, performing in "Le Prophète," etc., with Roger, having contracted an engagement for three years. In 1856 she was at Her Majesty's Theatre with Piccolomini, and made her first appearance in the character of _Azucena_ in "Il Trovatore." Her performances were not confined to the opera-house; she sang at the Crystal Palace and in the Surrey Music Hall. In October she was again at the Italiens, commencing with "La Cenerentola." She then, in conjunction with Mario, Graziani, and Mme. Frezzolini, began performing in the works of Verdi. "Il Trovatore" was performed in January, 1857, and was followed by "Rigoletto," which was produced in defiance of the protestations of Victor Hugo, from whose play, "Le Roi s'amuse," the libretto had been taken. Victor Hugo declared that the representation of the opera was an infringement of his rights, as being simply a piracy of his drama, and he claimed that the Theatre Italiens should be restrained from performing it. The decision of the court was, however, against the irascible poet, and he had to pay the costs of the action. But why should the reader be interested in a yearly record of the engagements of a great singer, after the narrative of the early struggles by which success is reached and the means by which success is perpetuated has come to an end? The significance of such a recital is that of ardent endeavor, persistent self-culture, and unflagging resolution. Mme. Alboni continued to sing in the principal musical centers of Western Europe till 1864, when she definitely retired from the stage, and settled at her fine residence in Paris, midst the ease and luxury which the large fortune she had acquired by professional exertion enabled her to maintain. She occasionally appeared in opera and concert to the great delight of her old admirers, who declared that the youthful beauty and freshness of her voice had returned to her. Since the death of her husband she has only sung in public once, and then in Rossini's Mass, in London in 1871. Both the husband and the brothers of Alboni were gallant soldiers in the Italian war of independence, and received medals and other distinctions from Victor Emanuel. Mme. Alboni in private life is said to be one of the most amiable, warm-hearted, and fascinating of women, and to take the deepest interest in helping the careers of young singers by advice, influence, and pecuniary aid. In social life she is quite as much the idol of her friends as she was for so many years of an admiring public. JENNY LIND. The Childhood of the "Swedish Nightingale."--Her First Musical Instruction.--The Loss and Return of her Voice.--Jenny Lind's Pupilage in Paris under Manuel Garcia.--She makes the Acquaintance of Meyerbeer.--Great Success in Stockholm in "Robert le Diable."--Fredrika Bremer and Hans Christian Andersen on the Young Singer.--Her _Début_ in Berlin.--Becomes Prima Donna at the Royal Theatre.--Beginning of the Lind Enthusiasm that overran Europe.--She appears in Dresden in Meyerbeer's New Opera, "Feldlager in Schliesen."--Offers throng in from all the Leading Theatres of Europe.--The Grand _Furore_ in Every Part of Germany.--Description of Scenes in her Musical Progresses.--She makes her _Début_ in London.--Extraordinary Excitement of the English Public, such as had never before been known.--Descriptions of her Singing by Contemporary Critics.--Her Quality as an Actress.--Jenny Lind's _Personnel_.--Scenes and Incidents of the "Lind" Mania.--Her Second London Season.--Her Place and Character as a Lyric Artist.--Mlle. Lind's American Tour.--Extraordinary Enthusiasm in America.--Her Lavish Generosity.--She marries Herr Otto Goldschmidt.--Present Life of Retirement in London.--Jenny Lind as a Public Benefactor. I. The name of Jenny Lind shines among the very brightest in the Golden Book of Singers, and her career has been one of the most interesting among the many striking personal chapters in the history of lyric music. It was not that the "Swedish Nightingale" was supremely great in any chief quality of the lyric artist. Others have surpassed her in natural gifts of voice, in dramatic fervor, in versatility, in perfect vocal finish. But to Jenny Lind were granted all these factors of power in sufficiently large measure, and that power of balance and coordination by which such powers are made to yield their highest results. An exquisitely serene and cheerful temperament, a high ambition, great energy and industry, and such a sense of loyalty to her engagements that she always gave her audience the very best there was in her--these were some of the moral phases of the art-nature which in her case proved of immense service in achieving her great place as a singer, and in holding that place secure against competition for so many years. The parents of Jenny Lind were poor, struggling folk in the city of Stockholm, who lived precariously by school-teaching. Jenny, born October 6, 1821, was a sickly child, whose only delight in her long, lonely hours was singing, the faculty for which was so strong that at the age of three years she could repeat with unfailing accuracy any song she once heard. Jenny shot up into an awkward, plain-featured girl, with but little prospect of lifting herself above her humble station, till she happened, when she was about nine years old, to attract the attention of Frau Lundburg, a well-known actress, who was delighted with the silvery sweetness of her tones. It was with some difficulty that the prejudices of the Linds could be overcome, but at last they reluctantly consented that she should be educated with a view to the stage. The little Jenny was placed by her kind patroness under the care of Croelius, a well-known music-master of Stockholm, and her abilities were not long in making their mark. The old master was proud of his pupil, and took her to see the manager of the Court theatre, Count Pücke, hoping that this stage potentate's favor would help to push the fortune of his _protégée_. The Count, a rough, imperious man, who mayhap had been irritated by numerous other appeals of the same kind, looked coldly on the plainly clad, insignificant-looking girl, and said: "What shall we do with such an ugly creature? See what feet she has! and then her face! She will never be presentable. Certainly, we can't take such a scarecrow." The effect of such a salutation on a timid, shrinking child may be imagined. Croelius replied, with honest indignation, "If you will not take her, I, poor as I am, will myself have her educated for the stage." Count Pücke, who under a rough husk had some kindness of heart, then directed Jenny to sing, and he was so pleased with the quality and sentiment of her simple song that he admitted her into the theatrical school, and put her under the special tuition of Herr Albert Berg, the director of the operatic class, who was assisted by the well-known Swedish composer, Lindblad. In two years' time the young Jenny Lind had created for herself the reputation of being a prodigy. It was not only that she possessed an exquisite voice, but a precocious conception and originality of style. Her dramatic talent also showed promising glimpses of what was to come, and everything appeared to point to a shining stage career, when there came a crushing calamity. She lost her voice. She was now twelve years old, and in her childish perspective of life this disaster seemed irretrievable, the sunshine of happiness for ever clouded. To become a singer in grand opera had been the great aspiration of her heart. Her voice gone, she was soon forgotten by the fickle public who had looked on this young girl as a chrysalis soon to burst into the glory of a fuller life. It showed the resolute stuff which nature had put into this young girl, that, in spite of this crushing downfall of her ambition, she continued her instrumental and theoretical studies with unremitting zeal for nearly four years. At the end of this period the recovery of her voice occurred as abruptly as her loss of it had done. A grand concert was to be given at the Court theatre, in which the fourth act of "Robert le Diable" was to be a principal feature. No one of the singers cared for the part of _Alice_, as it had but one solo, and in the emergency Herr Berg thought of his unlucky young _élève_, Jenny Lind, who might be trusted with such a minor responsibility. The girl meekly consented, though, when she appeared on the stage, she shook with such evident trepidation and nervousness that her little remaining power of voice threatened to be destroyed. Perhaps the passion and anxiety under which she was laboring wrought the miracle. She sang the aria allotted her with such power and precision, and the notes of her voice burst forth with such beauty and fullness of tone, that the audience were carried away with admiration. The recently despised young vocalist became the heroine of the evening. Berg, the director of the music, was amazed, and on the next day acquainted Jenny Lind that he had selected her to undertake the _rôle_ of _Agatha_ in Weber's "Der Freischutz." This was the first character which had awakened our young singer's artistic sympathies, and toward it her secret ambition had long set. She studied with the labor of love, and all the Maytide of her young enthusiasm poured itself into her impersonation of Weber's beautiful creation. At the last rehearsal before performance, she sang with such intense ardor and feeling that the members of the orchestra laid aside their instruments and broke into the most cordial applause. "I saw her at the evening representation," says Fredrika Bremer. "She was then in the spring of life--fresh, bright, and serene as a morning in May; perfect in form; her hands and her arms peculiarly graceful, and lovely in her whole appearance. She seemed to move, speak, and sing without effort or art. All was nature and harmony. Her singing was distinguished especially by its purity and the power of soul which seemed to swell in her tones. Her 'mezzo voice' was delightful. In the night-scene where _Agatha_, seeing her lover coming, breathes out her joy in rapturous song, our young singer, on turning from the window at the back of the stage to the spectators again, was pale for joy; and in that pale joyousness she sang with a burst of outflowing love and life that called forth not the mirth, but the tears of the auditors." Jenny Lind has always regarded the character of _Agatha_ as the keystone of her fame. From the night of this performance she was the declared favorite of the Swedish public, and continued for a year and a half the star of the opera of Stockholm, performing in "Euryanthe," "Robert le Diable," "La Vestale," of Spontini, and other operas. She labored meanwhile with indefatigable industry to remedy certain natural deficiencies in her voice. Always pure and melodious in tone, it was originally wanting in elasticity. She could neither hold her notes to any considerable extent, nor increase nor diminish their volume with sufficient effect; and she could scarcely utter the slightest cadence. But, undaunted by difficulties, she persevered, and ultimately achieved that brilliant and facile execution which, it is difficult to believe, was partially denied her by nature. Jenny Lind's tribulations, however, were not yet over. She had overstrained an organ which had not gained its full strength, and it was discovered that her tones were losing their freshness. The public began to lose its interest, and the opera was nearly deserted, for Jenny Lind had been the singer on whom main dependence was placed. She felt a deep conviction that she had need of further teaching, and that of a quality and method not to be attained in her native city. Manuel Garcia had formed more famous prima donnas than any other master, and it was Jenny Lind's dream by night and day to go to this magician of the schools, whose genius and knowledge had been successfully imparted to so many great singers. But to do this required no small amount of funds, and to raise a sufficient sum was a grave problem. There were not in Stockholm a large number of wealthy and generous connoisseurs, such as have been found in richer capitals, eager to discover genius and lavish in supplying the means of its cultivation. No! she must earn the wherewithal herself. So, during the operatic recess, the plucky maiden started out under the guardianship of her father, and gave concerts in the principal towns of Sweden and Norway, through which she managed to amass a considerable sum. She then bade farewell to her parents and started for Paris, her heart again all aflame with hope and confidence. II. Manuel Garcia received Jenny Lind kindly, who was fluttered with anxiety. The master's verdict was not very encouraging. When he had heard her sing, "My good girl," he said, "you have no voice; or, I should rather say, you had a voice, but are now on the verge of losing it. Your organ is strained and worn out, and the only advice I can offer you is to recommend you not to sing a note for three months. At the end of that time come to me, and I'll see what I can do for you." This was heart-breaking, but there was no appeal, and so, at the end of three wearisome months, Jenny Lind returned to Garcia. He pronounced her voice greatly strengthened by its rest. Under the Garcia method the young Swedish singer's voice improved immensely, and, what is more, her conception and grasp of musical method. The cadences and ornaments composed by Jenny were in many cases considered worthy by the master of being copied, and her progress in every way pleased Garcia, though he never fancied she would achieve any great musical distinction. Another pupil of Garcia's was a Mlle. Nissen, who, without much intellectuality, had a robust, full-toned voice. Jenny Lind often said that it reduced her to despair at times to hear the master hold up this lady as an example, all the while she felt her own great superiority, the more lofty quality of her ambition. Garcia would say: "If Jenny Lind had the voice of Nissen, or the latter Lind's brains, one of them would become the greatest singer in Europe. If Lind had more voice at her disposal, nothing would prevent her from becoming the greatest of modern singers; but, as it is, she must be content with singing second to many who will not have half her genius." It is quite amusing to note how quickly this dogmatic prophecy of the great maestro disproved itself. After nearly a year under Garcia's tuition she was summoned home. The Swedish musician who brought her the order to return to her duties at the Stockholm Court Theatre, from which she had been absent by permission, was a friend of Meyerbeer, and through him Jenny Lind was introduced to the composer. Meyerbeer, unlike Garcia, promptly recognized in her voice "one of the finest pearls in the world's chaplet of song," and was determined to hear her under conditions which would fully test the power and quality of so delicious an organ. He arranged a full orchestral rehearsal, and Jenny Lind sang in the _salon_ of the Grand Opéra the three great scenes from "Robert le Diable," "Norma," and "Der Freischutz." The experiment vindicated Meyerbeer's judgment, and Jenny Lind could then and there have signed a contract with the manager, whom Meyerbeer had taken care to have present, had it not been for the spiteful opposition of a distinguished prima donna, who had an undue influence over the managerial mind. The young singer returned to Stockholm a new being, assured of her powers, self-centered in her ambition, and with a right to expect a successful career for herself. Her preparation had been accompanied with much travail of spirit, disappointment, and suffering, but the harvest was now ripening for the reaper. The people of Stockholm, though they had let her depart with indifference, received her back right cordially, and, when she made her first reappearance as _Alice_, in "Robert le Diable," the welcome had all the fury of a great popular excitement. Her voice had gained remarkable flexibility and power, the quality of it was of a bell-like richness, purity, and clearness; her execution was admirable, and her dramatic power excellent. The good people of Stockholm discovered that they had been entertaining an angel unawares. Though Jenny Lind was but little known out of Sweden, she soon received an offer from the Copenhagen opera, but she dreaded to accept the offer of the Danish manager. "I have never made my appearance out of Sweden," she observed; "everybody in mv native land is so affectionate and kind to me, and if I made my appearance in Copenhagen and should be hissed! I dare not venture on it!" However, the temptations held out to her, and the entreaties of Burnonville, the ballet-master of Copenhagen, who had married a Swedish friend of Jenny Lind's, at last prevailed over the nervous apprehensions of the young singer, and Jenny made her first appearance in Copenhagen as _Alice_, in "Robert le Diable." "It was like a new revelation in the realms of art," says Andersen ("Story of my Life"); "the youthful, fresh voice forced itself into every heart; here reigned truth and nature, and everything was full of meaning and intelligence. At one concert she sang her Swedish songs. There was something so peculiar in this, so bewitching, people thought nothing about the concert-room; the popular melodies uttered by a being so purely feminine, and bearing the universal stamp of genius, exercised the omnipotent sway--the whole of Copenhagen was in a rapture." Jenny Lind was the first singer to whom the Danish students gave a serenade; torches blazed around the hospitable villa where the serenade was given, and she expressed her thanks by again singing some Swedish airs impromptu. "I saw her hasten into a dark corner and weep for emotion," says Andersen. "'Yes, yes! said she, 'I will exert myself; I will endeavor; I will be better qualified than I now am when I again come to Copenhagen.'" "On the stage," adds Andersen, "she was the great artist who rose above all those around her; at home, in her own chamber, a sensitive young girl with all the humility and piety of a child. Her appearance in Copenhagen made an epoch in the history of our opera; it showed me art in its sanctity: I had beheld one of its vestals." Jenny Lind was one of the few who regard art as a sacred vocation. "Speak to her of her art," says Frederika Bremer, "and you will wonder at the expansion of her mind, and will see her countenance beaming with inspiration. Converse then with her of God, and of the holiness of religion, and you will see tears in those innocent eyes: she is great as an artist, but she is still greater in her pure human existence!" "She loves art with her whole soul," observes Andersen, "and feels her vocation in it. A noble, pious disposition like hers can not be spoiled by homage. On one occasion only did I hear her express her joy in her talent and her self-consciousness. It was during her last residence in Copenhagen. Almost every evening she appeared either in the opera or at concerts; every hour was in requisition. She heard of a society, the object of which was to assist unfortunate children, and to take them out of the hands of their parents, by whom they were misused and compelled either to beg or steal, and to place them in other and better circumstances. Benevolent people subscribed annually a small sum each for their support; nevertheless, the means for this excellent purpose were very limited. 'But have I not still a disengaged evening?' said she; 'let me give a night's performance for the benefit of those poor children; but we will have double prices!' Such a performance was given, and returned large proceeds. When she was informed of this, and that by this means a number of poor people would be benefited for several years, her countenance beamed, and the tears filled her eyes. 'It is, however, beautiful,' she said, 'that I can sing so.'" Every effort was made by Jenny Lind's friends and admirers to keep her in Sweden, but her genius spoke to her with too clamorous and exacting a voice to be pent up in such a provincial field. There had been some correspondence with Meyerbeer on the subject of her securing a Berlin engagement, and the composer showed his deep interest in the singer by exerting his powerful influence with such good effect that she was soon offered the position of second singer of the Royal Theatre. Her departure from Stockholm was a most flattering and touching display of the public admiration, for the streets were thronged with thousands of people to bid her godspeed and a quick return. The prima donna of the Berlin opera was Mlle. Nissen, who had been with herself under Garcia's instruction, and it was a little humiliating that she should be obliged to sing second to one whom she knew to be her inferior. But she could be patient, and bide her time. In the mean while the sapient critics regarded her with good-natured indifference, and threw her a few crumbs of praise from time to time to appease her hunger. At last she had her revenge. One night at a charity concert, the fourth act of "Robert le Diable" was given, and the solo of _Alice_ assigned to Jenny Lind. She had barely sung the first few bars when the audience were electrified. The passion, fervor, novelty of treatment, and glorious breadth of voice and style completely enthralled them. They broke into a tempest of applause, and that was the beginning of the "Lind madness," which, commencing in Berlin, ran through Europe with such infectious enthusiasm. During the remaining three months of the Berlin season, she was the musical idol of the Berlinese, and poor Mlle. Nissen found herself hurled irretrievably from her throne. It was about this time, near the close of 1843, that Mlle. Lind received her first offer of an English engagement from Mr. Lumley, who had sent an agent to Berlin to hear her sing, and make a report to him on this new prodigy. No contract, however, was then entered into, Jenny Lind going to Dresden instead, where her friend Meyerbeer was engaged in composing his "Feldlager in Schliesen," the first part of which, _Vielka_, was offered to her and accepted. She acquired the German language sufficiently well in two months to sing in it, but it is rather a strange fact that, though Mlle. Lind during her life learned not less than five languages besides her own, she never spoke any of them with precision and purity, not even Italian. III. After an operatic campaign in Dresden, in the highest degree pleasant to herself and satisfactory to the public, in which she sang, in addition to _Vielka_, the parts of _Norma, Amina_, and _Maria_ in "La Figlia del Reggimento," Jenny Lind returned to Stockholm to take part in the coronation of the King of Sweden. Her fame spread throughout the musical world with signal swiftness, and offers came pouring in on her from London, Paris, Florence, Milan, and Naples. This northern songstress was becoming a world's wonder, not because people had heard, but because the few carried far and wide such wonderful reports of her genius. Her tour in the summer of 1844 through the cities of Scandinavia and Germany was almost like the progress of a royal personage, to which events had attached some special splendor. Costly gifts were lavished on her, her journeys through the streets were besieged by thousands of admiring followers, her society was sought by the most distinguished people in the land. The Countess of Rossi (Henrietta Sontag) paid her the tribute of calling her "the first singer of the world." After a five months' engagement in Berlin, the Swedish singer made her _début_ in "Norma," at Vienna, on April 22, 1845. The Lind enthusiasm had been rising to fever heat from the first announcement of her coming, and the prices of admission had been doubled, much to the discomfort of poor Jenny Lind, who feared that the over-wrought anticipation of the public would be disappointed. But when she ascended the steps of the Druid altar and began to sing, then the storm of applause which interrupted the opera for several minutes decided the question unmistakably. After a brief return to her native city, she reappeared in Berlin, which had a special claim on her regard, for it was there that her genius had been first fully recognized and trumpeted forth in tones which rang through the civilized world. She again received a liberal offer from England, this time from Mr. Bunn, of the Drury Lane Theatre, and an agreement was signed, with the names of Lord Westmoreland, the British minister, and Meyerbeer as witnesses. The singer, however, was not altogether satisfied with the contract, a feeling which increased when she again was approached by Mr. Lumley's agent. There were many strong personal and professional reasons why she preferred to sing under Mr. Lumley's management, and the result was that she wrote to Mr. Bunn, asking to break the contract, and offering to pay two thousand pounds forfeit. This was refused, and the matter went into the courts afterward, resulting in twenty-five hundred pounds damages awarded to the disappointed manager. Berlin enthusiasm ran so high that the manager was compelled to reengage her at the rate of four thousand pounds per year, with two months' _congé_. The difficulty of gaining admission into the theatre, even when she had appeared upward of a hundred nights, was so great, that it was found necessary, in order to prevent the practice of jobbing in tickets, which was becoming very prevalent, to issue them according to the following directions, which were put forth by the manager: "Tickets must be applied for on the day preceding that for which they are required, by letter, signed with the applicant's proper and Christian name, profession, and place of abode, and sealed with wax, bearing the writer's initials with his arms. No more than one ticket can be granted to the same person; and no person is entitled to apply for two consecutive nights of the enchantress's performance." Her reputation and the public admiration swelled month by month. Mendelssohn engaged her for the musical festival at Aix-La-Chapelle, where he was the conductor, and was so delighted with her singing that he said, "There will not be born in a whole century another being so largely gifted as Jenny Lind." The Emperor of Russia offered her fifty-six thousand francs a month for five months (fifty-six thousand dollars), a sum then rarely equaled in musical annals. The correspondent of the "London Athenaeum" gave an interesting sketch of the feeling she created in Frankfort: "Dine where you would, you heard of Jenny Lind, when she was coming, what she would sing, how much she was to be paid, who had got places, and the like; so that, what with the _exigeant_ English dilettanti flying at puzzled German landlords with all manner of Babylonish protestations of disappointment and uncertainty, and native High Ponderosities ready to trot in the train of the enchantress where she might please to lead, with here and there a dark-browed Italian prima donna lowering, Medea-like, in the background, and looking daggers whenever the name of 'Questa Linda!' was uttered--nothing, I repeat, can be compared to the universal excitement, save certain passages ('green spots' in the memory of many a dowager Berliner) when enthusiasts rushed to drink Champagne out of Sontag's shoe.... In 'La Figlia del Reggimento,' compared with the exhibitions of her sister songstresses now on the German stage, Mlle. Lind's personation was like a piece of porcelain beside tawdry daubings on crockery." Jenny Lind's last appearance in Vienna before departing for England was again a lighted match set to a mass of tinder, it raised such a commotion in that music-loving city. The imperial family paid her the most marked attention, and the people were inclined to go to any extravagances to show their admiration. During these performances, the stalls, which were ordinarily two florins, rose to fifty, and sometimes there would be thousands of people unable to secure admission. On the last night, after such a scene as had rarely been witnessed in any opera-house, the audience joined the immense throng which escorted her carriage home. Thirty times they summoned her to the window with cries which would not be ignored, shouting, "Jenny Lind, say you will come back again to us!" The tender heart of the Swedish singer was so affected that she stood sobbing like a child at the window, and threw flowers from the mass of bouquets piled on her table to her frenzied admirers, who eagerly snatched them and carried them home as treasures. On her departure from Stockholm for London, the demonstration was most affecting, and showed how deep the love of their great singer was rooted in the hearts of the Swedes. Twenty thousand people assembled on the quay, military bands had been stationed at intervals on the route, and her progress through the streets was like that of a queen. She embarked amid cheers, music, and tears, and, as she sailed out of the harbor, the rigging of the vessels was decorated with flags, and manned, while the artillery from the war vessels thundered salutes. All this sounds like exaggeration to us now, but those who remember the enthusiasm kindled by Jenny Lind in America can well believe the accounts of the feeling called out by the "Swedish Nightingale" everywhere she went in Europe. When Mlle. Lind arrived in London, she was received by her friend Mrs. Grote, wife of the great historian, and for several weeks was her guest, the most distinguished men and women calling to pay their respects to the gifted singer. She secluded herself, however, as much as possible from general society, and it may be said, during the larger part of her London engagement, lived in seclusion, much to the disgust of the social celebrities who were eager to lionize her. Lablache, the basso, was one of the first to hear Jenny sing. His pleasant criticism, "Every note was like a perfect pearl," got to her ears. The _naïve_ and charming jest by which she made her acknowledgment is quite worth the repeating. Stepping to the side of Lablache one morning at rehearsal, she made a courtesy, and borrowed his hat from the smiling basso. She then placed her lips to the edge and sang into its capacious depths a beautiful French romance. At the conclusion of the song, she ordered Lablache, who was bewildered by this fantastic performance, to kneel before her, as she had a valuable present for him, declaring that on his own showing she was giving him a hatful of "pearls." Lablache was so delighted by this simple and innocent gayety that he avowed he could not be more pleased if she had given him a hatful of diamonds. IV. Mr. Lumley had prepared the English public for the coming of Mlle. Lind with consummate skill. The game of suspense was artfully managed to stir curiosity to the uttermost. The provocations of doubt and disappointment had been made to stimulate the musical appetite. There was a powerful opposition to Lumley at the other theatre--Grisi, Persiani, Alboni, Mario, and Tamburini--and the shrewd _impressario_ played all the cards in his hand for their full value. It had been asserted that Mlle. Lind would not come to England, and that no argument could prevail on her to change her resolution, and this, too, after the contract was signed, sealed, and delivered. The opera world was kept fevered by such artifices as stories of broken pledges, long diplomatic _pour parlera_, special messengers, hesitation, and vacillation, kept up during many months. Lumley in his "Reminiscences" has described how no stone was left unturned, not a trait of the young singer's character, public or private, left un-_exploité_, by which sympathy and admiration could be aroused. After appearing as the heroine of one of Miss Bremer's novels, "The Home," the splendors of her succeeding career were glowingly set forth. The panegyrics of the two great German composers, Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, were swollen into the most flowing language. All the secrets of Jenny Land's life were made the subjects of innumerable puffs by the paragraph makers, and her numerous deeds of charity were trumpeted in clarion tones, as if she, a member of a profession famous for its deeds of unostentatious kindness, were the only one who had the right to wear the lovely crown of mercy and beneficence. All this machinery of advertisement, though wofully opposed to all the instincts of Jenny Lind's modest and timid nature, had the effect of fixing the popular belief into a firm faith that what had cost so much trouble to secure must indeed be unspeakably precious. The interest and curiosity of the public were, therefore, wrought up to an extraordinary pitch. Her first appearance was on May 4, 1847, as _Alice_, in "Robert le Diable," a part so signally identified with her great successes. "The curtain went up, the opera began, the cheers resounded, deep silence followed," wrote the critic of the "Musical World," "and the cause of all the excitement was before us. It opened its mouth and emitted sound. The sounds it emitted were right pleasing, honey-sweet, and silver-toned. With all this, there was, besides, a quietude that we had not marked before, and a something that hovered about the object, as an unseen grace that was attired in a robe of innocence, transparent as the thin surface of a bubble, disclosing all, and making itself rather felt than seen." Chorley tells us that Mendelssohn, who was sitting by him, and whose attachment to Jenny Lind's genius was unbounded, turned round, watched the audience as the notes of the singer swelled and filled the house, and smiled with delight as he saw how completely every one in the audience was magnetized. The delicious sustained notes which began the first cavatina died away into a faint whisper, and thunders of applause went up as with one breath, the stentorian voice of Lablache, who was sitting in his box, booming like a great bell amid the din. The excitement of the audience at the close of the opera almost baffles description. Lumley's hopes were not in vain. Jenny Lind was securely throned as the operatic goddess of the town, and no rivalry had power to shake her from her place. The judgment of the musical critics, though not intemperate in praise, had something more than a touch of the public enthusiasm. "It is wanting in that roundness and mellowness which belongs to organs of the South," observed a very able musical connoisseur. "When forced, it has by no means an agreeable sound, and falls hard and grating on the ears. It is evident that, in the greater part of its range, acquired by much perseverance and study, nature has not been bountiful to the Swedish Nightingale in an extraordinary degree. But art and energy have supplied the defects of nature. Perhaps no artist, if we except Pasta, ever deserved more praise than Jenny Lind for what she has worked out of bad materials. From an organ neither naturally sweet nor powerful, she has elaborated a voice capable of producing the most vivid sensations. In her mezzo-voce singing, scarcely any vocalist we ever heard can be compared to her. The most delicate notes, given with the most perfect intonation, captivate the hearers, and throw them into ecstasies of delight. This is undoubtedly the great charm of Jenny Lind's singing, and in this respect we subscribe ourselves among her most enthusiastic admirers.... She sustains a C or D in alt with unerring intonation and surprising power. These are attained without an effort, and constitute another charm of the Nightingale's singing. "In pathetic music Jenny Lind's voice is heard to much advantage. Indeed, her vocal powers seem best adapted to demonstrate the more gentle and touching emotions. For this reason her solo singing is almost that alone in which she makes any extraordinary impression. In ensemble singing, excepting in the piano, her voice, being forced beyond its natural powers, loses all its beauty and peculiar charm, and becomes, in short, often disagreeable.... Her voice, with all its charm, is of a special quality, and in its best essays is restricted to a particular class of lyrical compositions.... As a vocalist, Jenny Lind is entitled to a very high, if not the highest, commendation. Her perseverance and indomitable energy, joined to her musical ability, have tended to render her voice as capable and flexible as a violin. Although she never indulges in the brilliant flights of fancy of Persiani, nor soars into the loftiest regions of fioriture with that most wonderful of all singers, her powers of execution are very great, and the delicate taste with which the most florid passages are given, the perfect intonation of the voice, and its general charm, have already produced a most decided impression on the public mind. By the musician, Persiani will be always more admired, but Jenny Lind will strike the general hearer more." Another contemporaneous judgment of Jenny Lind's voice will be of interest to our readers: "Her voice is a pure soprano, of the fullest compass belonging to voices of this class, and of such evenness of tone that the nicest ear can discover no difference of quality from the bottom to the summit of the scale. In the great extent between A below the lines and D in alt, she executes every description of passage, whether consisting of notes 'in linked sweetness long drawn out,' or of the most rapid flights and fioriture, with equal facility and perfection. Her lowest notes come out as clear and ringing as the highest, and her highest are as soft and sweet as the lowest. Her tones are never muffled or indistinct, nor do they ever offend the ear by the slightest tinge of shrillness; mellow roundness distinguishes every sound she utters. As she never strains her voice, it never seems to be loud; and hence some one who busied himself in anticipatory depreciation said that it would be found to fail in power, a mistake of which everybody was convinced who observed how it filled the ear, and how distinctly every inflection was heard through the fullest harmony of the orchestra. The same clearness was observable in her pianissimo. When, in lier beautiful closes, she prolonged a tone, attenuated it by degrees, and falling gently upon the final note, the sound, though as ethereal as the sighing of a breeze, reached, like Mrs. Siddons's whisper in Lady Macbeth, every part of the immense theatre. Much of the effect of this unrivaled voice is derived from the physical beauty of its sound, but still more from the exquisite skill and taste with which it is used, and the intelligence and sensibility of which it is the organ. Mlle. Lind's execution is that of a complete musician. Every passage is as highly finished, as perfect in tone, tune, and articulation, as if it proceeded from the violin of a Paganini or a Sivori, with the additional charm which lies in the human _voice_ divine. Her embellishments show the richest fancy and boundless facility, but they show still more remarkably a well-regulated judgment and taste." Mlle. Lind could never have been a great actress, and risen into that stormy world of dramatic power, where the passion and imagination of Pasta, Schröder-Devrient, Malibran, Viardot, or even Grisi, wrought such effects, but, within the sphere of her temperament, she was easy, natural, and original. One of her eulogists remarked: "Following her own bland conceptions, she rises to regions whence, like Schiller's maid, she descends to refresh the heart and soul of her audience with gifts beautiful and wondrous"; but, as she never attempted the delineation of the more stormy and vehement passions, it is probable that she was more cognizant of her own limitations, than were her critics. She was not handsome, but of pleasing aspect. A face of placid sweetness, expressive features, soft, dove-like-blue eyes, and very abundant, wavy, flaxen hair, made up a highly agreeable _ensemble_, while the slender figure was full of grace. There was an air of virginal simplicity and modesty in every movement which set her apart among her stage sisters. To this her character answered in every line; for, moving in the midst of a world which had watched every action, not the faintest breath of scandal ever shaded the fair fame of this Northern lily. The struggle for admission after the first night made the attempt to get a seat except by long préarrangement an experience of purgatory. Twenty-five pounds were paid for single boxes, while four or five guineas were gladly given for common stalls. Hours were spent before the doors of the opera-house on the chance of a place in the pit. It is said that three gentlemen came up from Liverpool with the express purpose of hearing the new _diva_ sing, spent a week in trying to obtain seats, and returned without success. No such mania for a singer had ever fired the phlegmatic blood of the English public. Articles of furniture and dress were called by her name; portraits and memoirs innumerable of her were published. During the season she appeared in "Robert le Diable," "Sonnambula," "Lucia" "La Figlia del Reggimento," and "Norma," as well as in a new opera by Verdi, "I Masnadieri," which even Jenny Lind's genius and popularity could not keep on the surface. At the close of the season, her manager, Lumley, presented her a magnificent testimonial of pure silver, three feet in height, representing a pillar wreathed with laurel, at the feet of which wore seated three draped figures, Tragedy, Comedy, and Music. Her tour through the provinces repeated the sensation and excitement of London. Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, and Dundee vied with the great capital in the most extravagant excesses of admiration, and fifteen guineas were not infrequently paid for the privilege of hearing her. For two concerts in Edinburgh Mlle. Lind received one thousand pounds for her services, and the management made twelve hundred pounds. Such figures are referred to simply as affording the most tangible estimate of the extent and violence of the Lind fever. V. Yet with all this flattery and admiration, which would have fed the conceit of a weaker woman to madness, Jenny Lind remained the same quiet, simple-hearted, almost diffident woman as of yore. The great pianist and composer Moscheles writes: "What shall I say of Jenny Lind? I can find no words adequate to give you any idea of the impression she has made.... This is no short-lived fit of public enthusiasm. I wanted to know her off the stage as well as on; but, as she lives at some distance from me, I asked her in a letter to fix upon an hour for me to call. Simple and unceremonious as she is, she came the next day herself, bringing the answer verbally. So much modesty and so much greatness united are seldom if ever to be met with; and, although her intimate friend Mendelssohn had given me an insight into the noble qualities of her character, I was surprised to find them so apparent." From a variety of accounts we are justified in concluding that never had there been such a musical enthusiasm in London. Since the days when the world fought for hours at the pit-door to see the seventh farewell of Siddons, nothing had been seen in the least approaching the scenes at the entrance of the theatre on the "Lind" nights. Of her various impersonations during the season of 1847, her _Amina_ in "Sonnambula" made the deepest impression on the town, as it was marked by several original features, both in the acting and singing, which were remarkably effective. Her performance of _Norma_ was afterward held by judicious critics to be far inferior to that of Grisi in its dramatic aspect; but, when the mania was at its height, those who dared to impeach the ideal perfection of everything done by the idol of the hour were consigned to perdition as idiotic slanderers. Chorley wrote with satirical bitterness, though himself a warm admirer of the "Swedish Nightingale": "It was a curious experience to sit and to wait for what should come next, and to wonder whether it really was the case that music never had been heard till the year 1847." Mlle. Lind passed the winter at Stockholm, and it is needless to speak of the pride and delight of her townspeople in the singer who had created such an unprecedented sensation in the musical world. All the places at the theatre when she sang fetched immense premiums, especially as it was known that the professional gains of Jenny Lind during this engagement were to be devoted to the endowment of an asylum for the support of decayed artists, and a school for young girls studying music. When she left Stockholm again for London, the scene was even more brilliant and impressive than that which had marked her previous departure for England. The "Lind" mania in the English capital during the spring of 1848 raged without diminution. The anecdotes of her munificent charity, piety, and goodness filled the public prints and fed the popular idolatry. She added to her repertoire this season the _rôles_ of _Susanna_ in Mozart's great comic opera, _Elvira_ in "Puritani," _Adina_ in "L'Elisir d'Amore," and _Giulia_ in Spontini's "Vestale." As _Giulia_ she reached her high-water mark in tragedy, and as _Adina_ in "L'Elisir" she was deliciously arch and fascinating. After the opera had closed, she remained in England during the summer and winter, owing to the disturbed state of the Continent, and gave extended concert tours in the provinces, for which she received immense sums of money. Many concerts she also devoted to charitable purposes, and splendid acknowledgments were made as gifts to her by corporations and private individuals in recognition of her lavish benevolence. Jenny Lind had now determined to take leave of the lyric stage, and in the April season of 1849 she gave a limited season of farewell performances at Her Majesty's Theatre. The last appearance was on May 10th in her original character of _Alice_. The opera-house presented on that night of final adieu one of those striking scenes which words can hardly depict without seeming to be extravagant. The crowd was dense in every nook and corner of the house, including all the great personages of the realm. The whole royal family were present, the Houses of Parliament had emptied themselves to swell the throng, and everybody distinguished in art, letters, science, or fashion contributed to the splendor of the audience. When the curtain fell, and the deafening roar of applause, renewed again and again, had ceased, Jenny Lind came forward, led by the tenor Gardoni. She retired, but was called again in front of the curtain, and bowed her acknowledgments. A third time she was summoned, and this time she stood, her eyes streaming with tears, while the audience shouted themselves hoarse, so prolonged and irrepressible was the enthusiasm. Now that the "Lind" fever is a thing of the past, it is possible to survey her genius as a lyric artist in the right perspective. Her voice was of bright, thrilling, and sympathetic quality, with greater strength and purity in the upper register, but somewhat defective in the other. These two portions of her voice she united, however, with great artistic dexterity, so that the power of the upper notes was not allowed to outshine the lower. Her execution was great, though inferior to that of Persiani and the older and still greater singer, Catalani. It appeared, perhaps, still greater than it was, on account of the natural reluctance of the voice. Her taste in ornamentation was original and brilliant, but always judicious, a moderation not often found among great executive singers. She composed all her own cadenzas, and many of them were of a character and performance such as to have evoked the strongest admiration of such musical authorities as Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, and Moscheles for their creative science. Her pianissimo tones were so fined down that they had almost the effect of ventriloquism, so exquisitely were they attenuated; and yet they never lost their peculiarly musical quality. As an actress Jenny Lind had no very startling power, and but little versatility, as her very limited opera repertory proved; but into what she did she infused a grace, sympathy, and tenderness, which, combined with the greatness of her singing and some indescribable quality in the voice itself, produced an effect on audiences with but few parallels in the annals of the opera. It is a little strange that Jenny Lind would never sing in Paris, but obstinately refused the most tempting offers. Perhaps she never forgot the circumstances of her first experience with a Parisian _impressario_. It was at Lubeck, Germany, where she was singing in concert in 1849, that she concluded a treaty with Mr. Barnum for a series of one hundred and fifty concerts in America under his auspices. The terms were one thousand dollars per night for each of the performances, and the expenses of the whole troupe, which consisted of Sig. Belletti and Julius Benedict (since Sir Julius Benedict). The period intervening before her American tour was occupied in concert-giving on the continent and in England. The proceeds of these entertainments were given to charity, and the demonstrations of the public everywhere proved how firmly fixed in the heart of the music-loving public the great Swedish singer remained. Her last appearance before crossing the ocean was at Liverpool, before an audience of more than three thousand people, when the English people gave their idol a most affecting display of their admiration. VI. Mr. Barnum, no mean adept himself in the science of advertising, took a lesson from the ingenious trickery of Mr. Lumley in whetting the appetite of the American public for the coming of the Swedish _diva_. He took good care that the newspapers should be flooded with the most exaggerated and sensational anecdotes of her life and career, and day after day the people were kept on the alert by columns of fulsome praise and exciting gossip. On her arrival in New York, in September, 1850, both the wharf and adjacent streets were packed with people eager to catch a glimpse of the great singer. Her hotel, the Irving House, was surrounded at midnight by not less than thirty thousand people, and she was serenaded by a band of one hundred and thirty musicians, who had marched up, led by several hundreds of red-shirted firemen. The American furore instantly took on the proportions of that which had crazed the English public. The newspapers published the names of those who had bought tickets, and printed a fac-simile of the card which admitted the owner to the concert building. The anxiety to see Mlle. Lind, when she was driving, was a serious embarrassment to her, and at the "public reception" days, arranged for her, throngs of ladies filled her drawing-rooms. Costly presents were sent to her anonymously, and in every way the public displayed similar extravagance. On the day of the first concert, in spite of the fierce downpour of rain, there were five thousand persons buying tickets; and the price paid for the first ticket to the first concert, six hundred dollars, constitutes the sole title to remembrance of the enterprising tradesman who thus sought to advertise his wares. Nothing was talked of except Jenny Lind, and on the night of the first appearance, September 11th, seven thousand throats burst forth in frantic shouts of applause and welcome, as the Swedish Nightingale stepped on the Castle Garden stage in a simple dress of white, and as pallid with agitation as the gown she wore. She sang "Casta Diva," a duo with Belletti, from Rossini's "Il Turco in Italia," and the Trio Concertante, with two flutes, from Meyerbeer's "Feldlager in Schliesen," of which Moscheles had said that "it was, perhaps, the most astonishing piece of bravura singing which could possibly be heard." These pieces, with two Swedish national songs, were received with the loudest salvos of applause. The proceeds of this first concert were twenty-six thousand dollars, of which Jenny Lind gave her share to the charitable institutions of New York, and, on learning that some of the members of the New York orchestra were in indigent circumstances, she generously made them a substantial gift. Her beneficent actions during her entire stay in America are too numerous to detail. Frequently would she flit away from her house quietly, as if about to pay a visit, and then she might be seen disappearing down back lanes or into the cottages of the poor. She was warned to avoid so much liberality, as many unworthy persons took unfair advantage of her bounty; but she invariably replied, "Never mind; if I relieve ten, and one is worthy, I am satisfied." She had distributed thirty thousand florins in Germany; she gave away in England nearly sixty thousand pounds; and in America she scattered in charity no less than fifty thousand dollars. To record the experiences of the Swedish Nightingale in the different cities of America would be to repeat the story of boundless enthusiasm on the part of the public, and lavish munificence on the part of the singer, which makes her record nobly monotonous. There seemed to be no bounds to the popular appreciation and interest, as was instanced one night in Baltimore. While standing on the balcony of her hotel bowing to the shouting multitude, her shawl dropped among them, and instantly it was torn into a thousand strips, to be preserved as precious souvenirs. Jenny Lind did not remain under Mr. Barnum's management during the whole of the season. A difficulty having risen, she availed herself of a clause in the contract, and by paying thirty thousand dollars broke the engagement. The last sixty nights of the concert series she gave under her own management. In Boston, February 5, 1852, the charming singer married Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, the pianist, who had latterly been connected with her concert company. The son of a wealthy Hamburg merchant, Mr. Goldschmidt had taken an excellent rank as a pianist, and made some reputation as a minor composer. Mme. Goldschmidt and her husband returned to Europe in 1852, this great artist having made about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in her American tour, aside from the large sums lavished in charity. After several years spent in Germany, M. and Mme. Goldschmidt settled permanently in London, where they are still residing. She has frequently appeared in concert and oratorio till within a year or two, and, as the mother of an interesting family and a woman of the most charming personal character, is warmly welcomed in the best London society. It must be recorded that the whole of her American earnings was devoted to founding and endowing art scholarships and other charities in her native Sweden; while in England, the country of her adoption, among other charities, she has given a whole hospital to Liverpool, and a wing of another to London. The scholarship founded by her friend Felix Mendelssohn has largely benefited by her help, and it may be truly said that her sympathy has never been appealed to in vain, by those who have any reasonable claim. Competent judges have estimated that the total amount given away by Jenny Lind in charity and to benevolent institutions will reach at least half a million of dollars. SOPHIE CRUVELLI. The Daughter of an Obscure German Pastor.--She studies Music in Paris.--Failure of her Voice.--Makes her _Début_ at La Fenice.--She appears in London during the Lind Excitement.--Description of her Voice and Person.--A Great Excitement over her Second Appearance in Italy.--_Début_ in Paris.--Her Grand Impersonation in "Fidelio."--Critical Estimates of her Genius.--Sophie Cruvelli's Eccentricities.--Excitement in Paris over her _Valentine_ in "Les Huguenots."--Different Performances in London and Paris.--She retires from the Stage and marries Baron Vigier.--Her Professional Status.--One of the Most Gifted Women of any Age. I. The great cantatrice of whom we shall now give a sketch attained a European reputation hardly inferior to the greatest, though she retired from the stage when in the very golden prime of her powers. Like Catalani, Persiani, and other distinguished singers, she was severely criticised toward the last of her operatic career for sacrificing good taste and dramatic truth to the technique of vocalization, but this is an extravagance so tempting that but few singers have been entirely exempt from it. Perhaps, in these examples of artistic austerity, one may find the cause as much in vocal limitations as in deliberate self-restraint. Sophie Cruvelli was the daughter of a Protestant clergyman named Cruwell, and was born at Bielefeld, in Prussia, in the year 1830. She displayed noticeable aptitude for music at an early age, and a moderate independence with which the family was endowed enabled Mme. Cruwell to take Sophie, at the age of fourteen, to Paris that she might obtain finishing lessons. Permarini and Bordogni were the masters selected, and the latter, who perceived the latent greatness of his pupil, spared no efforts, nor did he spare Sophie, for he was a somewhat stern, austere teacher. For two years he would permit her to sing nothing but vocal scales, and composed for her the most difficult _solfeggi_. Mme. Cruwell then returned to Paris, and insisted that her daughter had made sufficient progress in the study of French and music, and might very well return home. Bordogni indignantly replied that it would be criminal to rob the musical world of such a treasure as the Fraulein Cruwell would prove after a few years of study. The mother yielded, saying: "If my daughter devotes herself to the stage and fully embraces an artistic career, we may endeavor to submit to further sacrifices; but, if merely destined to bring up a family, she has learned quite enough of _solfeggi_; her little fortune will all be swallowed up by her music lessons." It was thus settled that Sophie should become a singer, and, in accordance with Bordogni's advice, she proceeded to Milan, Italy, to complete her musical studies. But a dreadful discovery threw her into despair when she arrived at her new quarters--she had lost her voice. Not a sound could be forced from her throat. Sophie was in despair, for this was, indeed, annihilation to her hopes, and there seemed nothing in fate for her but to settle down to the average life of the German housewife, "to suckle fools and chronicle small beer," when, on the eve of departure for Bielefeld, Signor Lamperti, the famous teacher, announced himself. The experienced maestro advised them to wait, reasoning that the loss of voice was rather the result of fatigue and nervousness than of any more radical defect. It was true, for a few days only had passed when Sophie's voice returned again in all its power. Lamperti devoted himself assiduously to preparing the young German singer for her _début_, and at the end of 1847 she was enabled to appear at La Fenice, under the Italianized name of Cruvelli, in the part of _Dona Sol_ in "Ernani." This was followed by a performance of _Norma_, and in both she made a strong impression of great powers, which only needed experience to shine with brilliant luster. The fact that her instructor permitted her to appear, handicapped as she was by inexperience and stage ignorance, in _rôles_ not only marked by great musical difficulty, but full of dramatic energy, indicates what a high estimate was placed on her powers. Mr. Lumley, the English _impressario_, was at this time scouring Italy for fresh voices, and, hearing Mlle. Cru veil i, secured her for his company, which when completed consisted of Mmes. Persiani and Viardot, Miles. Alboni and Cruvelli, Signori Cuzzani, Belletti, Gardoni, and Polonini. Mlle. Cruvelli was now eighteen, and in spite of the Lind mania, which was raging at white heat, the young German cantatrice made a strong impression on the London public. Her first appearance was in "Ernani," on February 19, 1848. The performance was full of enthusiasm and fire, though disfigured by certain crudities and the violence of unrestrained passion. Her voice, in compass from F to F, was a clear, silvery soprano, and possessed in its low notes something of the delicious quality of the contralto, that bell-like freshness and sonority which is one of the most delightful characteristics of the human voice. Her appearance was highly attractive, for she possessed a finely molded figure of middle height, and a face expressive, winning, and strongly marked. She further appeared as _Odabella_ in "Attila," and as _Lucrezia_ in "I Due Foscari," both of which performances were very warmly received. During the season she also sang in "Nino," "Lucrezia Borgia," "Il Barbiere," and "Nozze di Figaro." Her _Rosina_ in Rossini's great comic opera was a piquant and attractive performance. II. The prevalence of the Lind fever, which seemed to know no abatement, however, made a London engagement at this period not highly flattering to other singers, and Mlle. Cruvelli beat a retreat to Germany, where she made a musical tour. She was compelled to leave Berlin by the breaking out of the Revolution, and she made, an engagement for the Carnival season at Trieste, during which time she gave performances in "Attila," "Norma," "Don Pasquale," and "Macbeth," and other operas of minor importance, covering a wide field of characters, serious and comic. In 1850 we hear of Mlle. Cruvelli creating a very great sensation at Milan at La Scala. Genoa was no less enthusiastic in its welcome of the young singer, who had left Italy only two years before, and returned a great artist. No stall could be obtained without an order at least a week in advance. In April, 1850, she made her first Parisian appearance at the Théâtre Italien in Paris, under Mr. Lumley's management, as _Elvira_ to Mr. Sims Reeves's _Ernani_, and the French critics were highly eulogistic over this fresh candidate for lyric honors. She did not highly strike the perfect key-note of her genius till she appeared as _Leonora_ in "Fidelio," at Her Majesty's Theatre, in London, on May 20, 1851, Sims Reeves being the _Florestan_. Her improvement since her first London engagement had been marvelous. Though scarcely twenty, Mlle. Cruvelli had become a great actress, and her physical beauty had flowered into striking loveliness, though of a lofty and antique type. Her sculpturesque face and figure, her great dramatic passion, and the brilliancy of her voice produced a profound sensation in London. Her _Leonora_ was a symmetrical and noble performance, raised to tragic heights by dramatic genius, and elaborated with a vocal excellence which would bear comparison with the most notable representations of that great _rôle_: "From the shuddering expression given to the words, 'How cold it is in this subterranean vault!' spoken on entering _Florestan's_ dungeon," said one critic, "to the joyous and energetic duet, in which the reunited pair gave vent to their rapturous feelings, all was inimitable. Each transition of feeling was faithfully conveyed, and the suspicion, growing by degrees into certainty, that the wretched prisoner is _Florestan_, was depicted with heart-searching truth. The internal struggle was perfectly expressed." "With Mlle. Cruvelli," says this writer, "_Fidelio_ is governed throughout by one purpose, to which everything is rendered subservient. Determination to discover and liberate her husband is the mainspring not only of all her actions, and the theme of all her soliloquies, but, even when others likely to annunce her design in any way are acting or speaking, we read in the anxious gaze, the breathless anxiety, the head bent to catch the slightest word, a continuation of the same train of thought and an ever-living ardor in the pursuit of the one cherished object. In such positions as these, where one gifted artist follows nature with so delicate an appreciation of its most subtile truths, it is not easy for a character occupying the background of the stage picture to maintain (although by gesture only) a constant commentary upon the words of others without becoming intrusive or attracting an undue share of attention. Yet Cruvelli does this throughout the first scene (especially during the duet betwixt _Rocco_ and _Pizarro_, in which _Fidelio_ overhears the plan to assassinate her husband) with a perfection akin to that realized by Rachel in the last scene of 'Les Horaces,' where Camille listens to the recital of her brother's victory over her lover; and the result, like that of the chorus in a Greek drama, is to heighten rather than lessen the effect. These may be considered minor points, but, as necessary parts of a great conception, they are as important, and afford as much evidence of the master mind, as the artist's delivery of the grandest speeches or scenes." "Mlle. Cruvelli," observes another critic, "has the power of expressing joy and despair, hope and anxiety, hatred and love, fear and resolution, with equal facility. She has voice and execution sufficient to master with ease all the trying difficulties of the most trying and difficult of parts." _Norma_ was Sophie's second performance. "Before the first act was over, Sophie Cruvelli demonstrated that she was as profound a mistress of the grand as of the romantic school of acting, as perfect an interpreter of the brilliant as of the classical school of music." She represented _Fidelio_ five times and _Norma_ thrice. Her features were most expressive, and well adapted to the lyric stage; her manner also was dramatic and energetic. She was highly original, and always thought for herself. Possessing a profound insight into character, her conception was always true and just, while her execution continually varied. "The one proceeds from a judgment that never errs, the other from impulse, which may possibly lead her astray. Thus, while her _Fidelio_ and her _Norma_ are never precisely the same on two consecutive evenings, they are, nevertheless, always _Fidelio_ and _Norma_.... She does not calculate. She sings and acts on the impulse of the moment; but her performance must always be impressive, because it is always true to one idea, always bearing upon one object--the vivid realization of the character she impersonates to the apprehension of her audience." So much was she the creature of impulse that, even when she would spend a day, a week, a month, in elaborating a certain passage--a certain dramatic effect--perhaps on the night of performance she would improvise something perfectly different from her preconceived idea. Her sister Marie made her _début_ in Thalberg's _Florinda_, in July, with Sophie. She was a graceful and charming contralto; but her timidity and an over-delicacy of expression did not permit her then to display her talents to the greatest advantage. The brother of the sisters Cruvelli was a fine barytone. III. At the close of 1851 Sophie went again to the Théâtre Italien, and the following year she again returned to London to sing with Lablache and Gardoni. During this season she performed in "La Sonnambula," "Il Barbiere," and other operas of the florid Italian school, charming the public by her lyric comedy, as she had inspired them by her tragic impersonations. Cruvelli had always been remarkable for impulsive and eccentric ways, and no engagement ever operated as a check on these caprices. One of these whims seized the young lady in the very height of a brilliantly successful engagement, and one day she took French leave without a word of warning. The next that was heard of Sophie Cruvelli was that she was singing at Wiesbaden, and then that she had appeared as _Fides_ in "Le Prophète" at Aix-La-Chapelle. Cruel rumors were circulated at her expense; but she showed herself as independent of scandal as she had been of professional loyalty to a contract. Sophie Cruvelli's engagement at the Grand Opéra in Paris in January, 1854, filled Paris with the deepest excitement, for she was to make her appearance in the part of _Valentine_ in "Les Huguenots." The terms given were one hundred thousand francs for six months. Meyerbeer, who entertained a great admiration for Sophie's talents, set to work on "L'Africaine" with redoubled zeal, for he destined the _rôle_ of _Selika_ for her. A fortnight ahead orchestra stalls were sold for two hundred francs, and boxes could not be obtained. The house was crowded to the ceiling, and the Emperor and Empress arrived some time before the hour of beginning on the night of "Les Huguenots." Everywhere the lorgnette was turned could be seen the faces of notabilities like Meyerbeer, Auber, Benedict, Berlioz, Alboni, Mme. Viardot, Mario, Tamburini, Vivire, Théophile Gautier, Fiorentino, and others. The verdict was that Cruvelli was one of the greatest of _Valentines_, and Meyerbeer, who was morbidly sensitive over the performance of his own works, expressed his admiration of the great singer in the most enthusiastic words. Soon after this, she appeared as _Julia_ in Spontini's "Vestale," and, as a long time had elapsed since its production, there was aroused the most alert curiosity to hear Cruvelli in a great part, in which but few singers had been able to make a distinguished impression. She acted the _rôle_ with a vehement passion which aroused the deepest feeling in the Parisian mind, for it was a long time since they had heard an artist who was alike so great an actress and so brilliant a vocalist. One writer said, "She is the only cantatrice who acts as well as sings"; said one critic, "She would have made a grand tragedienne." Fickle Paris had forgotten Pasta, Malibran, and even Mme. Viardot, who was then in the very flush of her splendid powers. IV. From Paris Mlle. Cruvelli went to London, where she sang an engagement at the Royal Italian Opera, making her opening appearance as _Desdemona_, in the same cast with Tamburini and Ronconi. Her terms during the season were two hundred and fifty pounds a night. Her other parts were _Leonora_ ("Fidelio"), and _Donna Anna_ ("Don Giovanni"), and the performances were estimated by the most competent judges to be on a plan of artistic excellence not surpassed, and rarely equaled, in operatic annals. Mlle. Cruvelli revived the Parisian excitement of the previous season by her appearance at the Grand Opéra, as _Alice_ in "Robert le Diable." The audience was a most brilliant one, and their reception of the artist was one of the most prolonged and enthusiastic applause. She continued to sing in Paris during the summer months and early autumn, and was the reigning goddess of the stage. All Paris was looking forward to the production of "Les Huguenots" in October with a great flutter of expectation, when Sophie suddenly disappeared from the public view and knowledge. The expected night of the production of "Les Huguenots" on a scale of almost unequaled magnificence arrived, and still the representative of _Valentine_ could not be found. Sophie had treated the public in a similar fashion more than once before, and it may be fancied that the Parisians were in a state of furious indignation. Great surprise was felt that she should have forfeited so profitable an engagement--four thousand pounds for the season, with the obligation of singing only two nights a week. She had abandoned everything, injured her manager, M. Fould, and insulted the public for the gratification of a whim. No adequate reason could be guessed at for such eccentricity, not even the excuse of an _affaire de coeur_, which would go further in the minds of Frenchmen than any other justification of capricious courses. Her furniture and the money at her banker's were seized as security for the forfeit of four thousand pounds stipulated by her contract in case of breach of engagement, and her private papers and letters were opened and read. About a month after her sudden flight, M. Fould received a letter from the errant _diva_, in which she demanded permission to return and fill her contract. M. Fould consented, and accepted her plea of "a misunderstanding," but the public were not so easily placated, and when she appeared on the stage as _Valentine_ the audience hissed her violently. Sophie was not a whit daunted, but, confident in her power to charm, put all the fullness of her powers into her performance, and she soon had the satisfaction of learning by the enthusiasm of the plaudits that the Parisians had forgiven their favorite. Sophie Cruvelli continued on the stage till 1855, and, although her faults of violence and exaggeration continued to call out severe criticism, she disarmed even the attacks of her enemies by the unquestionable vigor of her genius as well as by the magnificence of a voice which had never been surpassed in native excellence, though many had been far greater in the art of vocalization. Her last performance, and perhaps one of the grandest efforts of her life, was the character of _Helene_ in Verdi's "Les Vêpres Siciliennes," the active principal parts having been taken by Bonnehée, Gueymard, and Obin. The production of the work was on a splendid scale, and the opera a great success. "The audience was electrified by the tones of her magnificent voice, which realized with equal effect those high inspirations that demand passion, force, and impulse, and those tender passages that require delicacy, taste, and a thorough knowledge of the art of singing. No one could reproach Mlle. Cruvelli with exaggeration, so well did she know how to restrain her ardent nature." "Cruvelli is the Rachel of the Grand Opéra!" exclaimed a French critic. From these estimates it may be supposed that, just as she was on the eve of passing out of the profession in which she had already achieved such a splendid place at the age of twenty-five, a great future, to which hardly any limits could be set, was opening the most fascinating inducements to her. The faults which had marred the full blaze of her genius had begun to be mellowed and softened by experience, and there was scarcely any pitch of artistic greatness to which she might not aspire. Rumors of her approaching marriage had already begun to circulate, and it soon became known that Sophie Cruvelli was about to quit the stage. On January 5, 1856, she married Baron Vigier, a wealthy young Parisian, the son of Count Vigier, whose father had endowed the city of Paris with the immense bathing establishments on the Seine which bear his name, and who, in the time of the Citizen King, was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, and afterward a peer of France. Mme. Vigier resides with her husband in their splendid mansion at Nice, and, though she has sung on many occasions in the salons of the fashionable world and for charity, she has been steadfast in her retirement from professional life. She has composed many songs, and even some piano-forte works, though her compositions are as unique and defiant of rules as was her eccentric life. Sophie Cruvelli was only eight years on the operatic stage, but during that period she impressed herself on the world as one of the great singers not only of her own age, but of any age; yet far greater in her possibilities than in her attainment. She had by no means reached the zenith of her professional ability when she suddenly retired into private life. There have been many singers who have filled a more active and varied place in the operatic world; never one who was more munificently endowed with the diverse gifts which enter into the highest power for lyric drama. She had queenly beauty of face and form, the most vehement dramatic passion, a voice alike powerful, sweet, and flexible, and an energy of temperament which scorned difficulties. Had her operatic career extended itself to the time, surely foreshadowed in her last performances, when a finer art should have subdued her grand gifts into that symmetry and correlation so essential to the best attainment, it can hardly be questioned that her name would not have been surpassed, perhaps not equaled, in lyric annals. A star of the first magnitude was quenched when the passion of love subdued her professional ambition. Sophie Cruvelli, though her artistic life was far briefer than those of other great singers, has been deemed worthy of a place among these sketches, as an example of what may be called the supreme endowment of nature in the gifts of dramatic song. THERESA TITIENS. Born at Hamburg of an Hungarian Family.--Her Early Musical Training.--First Appearance in Opera in "Lucrezia Borgia."--Romance of her Youth.--Rapid Extension of her Fame.--Receives a _Congé_ from Vienna to sing in England.--Description of Mlle. Titiens, her Voice, and Artistic Style.--The Characters in which she was specially eminent.--Opinions of the Critics.--Her Relative Standing in the Operatic Profession.--Her Performances of _Semiramide_ and _Medea_--Latter Years of her Career.--Her Artistic Tour in America.--Her Death, and Estimate placed on her Genius. I. Theresa Titiens was the offshoot of an ancient and noble Hungarian family, who emigrated to Hamburg, Germany, on account of political difficulties. Born in June, 1834, she displayed, like other distinguished singers, an unmistakable talent for music at an early period, and her parents lost no time in obtaining the best instruction for her by placing her under the charge of an eminent master, when she was only twelve years of age. At the age of fourteen, her voice had developed into an organ of great power and sweetness. It was a high soprano of extensive register, ranging from C below the line to D in alt, and of admirable quality, clear, resonant, and perfectly pure. The young girl possessed powers which only needed culture to lift her to a high artistic place, and every one who heard her predicted a commanding career. She was sent to Vienna to study under the best German masters, and she devoted herself to preparation for her life-work with an ardor and enthusiasm which were the best earnest of her future success. On returning to Hamburg in 1849, she easily obtained an engagement, and with the daring confidence of genius she selected the splendid _rôle_ of _Lucrezia Borgia_ as the vehicle of her _début_. Mme. Grisi had fixed the ideal of this personation by investing it with an Oriental passion and luxury of style; but this did not stay the ambition of the _débutante_ of fifteen years. Theresa at this time was very girlish in aspect, though tall and commanding in figure, and it may be fancied did not suit the ripe and voluptuous beauty, the sinister fascination of the Borgia woman, whose name has become traditional for all that is physically lovely and morally depraved. If the immature Titiens did not adequately reach the ideal of the character, she was so far from failing that she was warmly applauded by a critical audience. She appeared in the same part for a succession of nights, and her success became more strongly assured as she more and more mastered the difficulties of her work. To perform such a great lyric character at the age of fifteen, with even a fair share of ability, was a glowing augury. This early introduction to her profession was stamped by circumstances of considerable romantic interest. A rich young gentleman, a scion of one of the best Hamburg families, became passionately enamored of the young cantatrice. After a brief but energetic courtship, he offered her his hand, which Theresa, whose young heart had been touched by his devotion, was not unwilling to accept, but the stumbling-block in the way was that the family of the enamored youth were unwilling that his future wife should remain on the stage. At last it was arranged that Theresa should retire from the stage for a while, the understanding being that, if at the end of nine months her inclination for the stage should remain as strong, she should return to the profession. It was tacitly a choice between marriage and a continuance of her professional ambition. When the probation was over, the young cantatrice again appeared before the footlights, and the unfortunate lover disappeared. The director of opera at Frankfort-on-the-Main, having heard Mlle. Titiens at Hamburg was so pleased that he made her an offer, and in pursuance of this she appeared in Frankfort early in 1850, where she made a most brilliant and decided success. Her reputation was now growing fast, and offers of engagement poured in on her from various European capitals. The director of the Imperial Opera at Vienna traveled to Frankfort especially to hear her, and as her old contract with the Frankfort _impressario_ was on the eve of expiration, and Mlle. Titiens was free to accept a new offer, she gladly availed herself of the chance to accept the opportunity of singing before one of the most brilliant and critical publics of Europe. She made her _début_ at Vienna in 1856, and was received with the most flattering and cordial approbation. She appeared in the _rôle_ of _Donna Anna_ ("Don Giovanni"), and at the close of the opera had numerous recalls. Her success was so great that she continued to sing in Vienna for three consecutive seasons, and became the leading favorite of the public. The operas in which she made the most vivid impression were "Norma," "Les Huguenots," "Lucrezia Borgia," "Le Nozze di Figaro," "Fidelio," and "Trovatore"; and her versatility was displayed in the fact that when she was called on, through the illness of another singer, to assume a comic part, she won golden opinions from the public for the sparkle and grace of her style. II. The English manager, Mr. Lumley, had heard of Mlle. Titiens and the sensation she had made in Germany. So he hastened to Vienna, and made the most lavish propositions to the young singer that she should appear in his company before the London public. She was unable to accept his proposition, for her contract in Vienna had yet a year to run; but, after some negotiations, an arrangement was made which permitted Mlle. Titiens to sing in London for three months, with the express understanding that she should not surpass that limit. She made her first bow before an English audience on April 13, 1858, as _Valentine_ in Meyerbeer's _chef d'oeuvre_, Giuglini singing the part of _Raoul_ for the first time. She did not understand Italian, but, under the guidance of a competent master, she memorized the unknown words, pronunciation and all, so perfectly that no one suspected but that she was perfectly conversant with the liquid accents of that "soft bastard Latin" of the South. Success alone justified so dangerous an experiment. The audience was most fashionable and critical, and the reception of the new singer was of the most assuring kind. The voice of Mlle. Titiens was a pure soprano, fresh, penetrating, even, powerful, unusually rich in quality, extensive in compass, and of great flexibility. It had a bell-like resonance, and was capable of expressing all the passionate and tender accents of lyric tragedy. Theresa Titiens was, in the truest, fullest sense of the word, a lyric artist, and she possessed every requisite needed by a cantatrice of the highest order--personal beauty, physical strength, originality of conception, a superb voice, and inexhaustible spirit and energy. Like most German singers, Mlle. Titiens regarded ornamentation as merely an agreeable adjunct in vocalization; and in the music of _Valentine_ she sang only what the composer had set down--neither more nor less--but that was accomplished to perfection. As an actress, her tall, stately, elegant figure was admirably calculated to personate the tragic heroines of opera. Her face at this time was beautiful, her large eyes flashed with intellect, and her classical features were radiant with expression; her grandeur of conception, her tragic dignity, her glowing warmth and _abandon_ rendered her worthy of the finest days of lyric tragedy. She was thoroughly dramatic; her movements and gestures were singularly noble, and her attitudes on the stage had classical breadth and largeness, without the least constraint. As _Leonora_, in "Trovatore," she was peculiarly successful, and her _Donna Anna_ literally took the audience by storm, through the magnificence of both the singing and acting. In June she made her appearance as _Lucrezia Borgia_. The qualities which this part demands are precisely those with which Mlle. Titiens was endowed--tragic power, intensity, impulsiveness. Her commanding figure and graceful bearing gave weight to her acting, while in the more tender scenes she was exquisitely pathetic, and displayed great depth of feeling. "Com' è bello" was rendered with thrilling tenderness, and the allegro which followed it created a _furore_; it was one of the most brilliant _morceaux_ of florid decorative vocalism heard for years, the upper C in the cadenza being quite electrical. At the end of the first and second acts, the heartrending accents of a mother's agony, wrung from the depths of her soul, and the scornful courage tempered with malignant passion, were contrasted with consummate power. It was conceded that Grisi herself never rose to a greater pitch of dramatic truth and power. Mlle. Titiens was unable to get an extension of her _congé_, and, much to the regret of her manager and the public, returned to Vienna early in the autumn. Instantly that she could free herself from professional obligation, she proceeded to Italy to acquire the Italian language, a feat which she accomplished in a few months. Here she met Mr. Smith, the manager of the Drury Lane Theatre, and effected an arrangement with him, in consequence of which she inaugurated her second London season on May 3, 1859, with the performance of _Lucrezia Borgia_. Mlle. Titiens sang successively in the characters which she had interpreted during her previous visit to London, adding to them the magnificent _rôle_ of _Norma_, whose breadth and grandeur of passion made it peculiarly favorable for the display of her genius. Near the close of the season she appeared in Verdi's "Vêpres Siciliennes," in which, we are told, "she sang magnificently and acted with extraordinary passion and vigor. At the close of the fourth act, when _Helen_ and _Procida_ are led to the scaffold, the conflicting emotions that agitate the bosom of the heroine were pictured with wonderful truth and intensity by Mlle. Titiens." From London the singer made a tour of the provinces, where she repeated the remarkable successes of the capital. At the various musical festivals, she created an almost unprecedented reputation in oratorio. The largeness and dignity of her musical style, the perfection of a voice which responded to every intention of the singer, her splendor of declamation, stamped her as _par excellence_ the best interpreter of this class of music whom England had heard in the more recent years of her generation. Her fame increased every year, with the development of her genius and artistic knowledge, and it may be asserted that no singer, with the exception of Grisi, ever held such a place for a long period of years in the estimate of the English public. III. During the season of 1860 she added fresh laurels to those which she had already attained, and sang several new parts, among which maybe mentioned Flotow's pretty ballad opera of "Martha" and Rossini's "Semiramide." Her performance in the latter work created an almost indescribable sensation, so great was her singing, so strong and picturesque the dramatic effects which she produced. One of the sensations of the season was Titiens's rendering of "Casta Diva," in "Norma." Though many great vocalists had thrilled the public by their rendering of this celebrated aria, no one had ever yet given it the power so to excite the enthusiasm of the public. Mlle. Titiens performed also in the opera of "Oberon" for the first time, with great success. But the _pièce de resistance_ of the season was Rossini's great tragic opera. "In Titiens's _Semiramide_," said a critic of the time, "her intellectuality shines most, from its contrasting with the part she impersonates--a part which in no wise assists her; but, as in a picture, shadow renders a light more striking. In the splendid aria, 'Bel Raggio,' the _solfeggi_ and fioriture that she lavishes on the audience were executed with such marvelous tone and precision that she electrified the house. The grand duet with Alboni, 'Giorno d'orrore,' was exquisitely and nobly impressive from their dramatic interpretation of the scene." In 1861 Mlle. Titiens made an engagement with Mr. Mapleson, under whose control she remained till her career was cut short by death. Associated with her under this first season of the Mapleson _régime_ were Mme. Alboni, the contralto, and Signor Giuglini, the tenor. Her performance in the "Trovatore" drew forth more applause than ever. "Titiens is the most superb _Leonora_ without a single exception that the Anglo-Italian stage has ever witnessed," wrote an admiring critic. Among other brilliant successes of the season was her performance for the first time of _Amelia_ in Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera," which was a masterpiece of vocalization and dramatic fire. The great German cantatrice was now accepted as the legitimate successor of Pasta, Malibran, and Grisi, and numerous comparisons were made between her and the last-named great singer. No artists could be more unlike in some respects. Titiens lacked the adroitness, the fluent melting grace, the suavity, of the other. "But," one critic justly remarks, "in passionate feeling, energy, power of voice, and grandeur of style, a comparison may be established. In certain characters Grisi has left no one to fill her place. These will be found mostly in Rossini's operas, such as _Semiramide, Ninetta, Desdemona, Pamira_ ('L'Assedio di Corinto'), _Elene_, etc., to which we may add _Elvira_ in 'I Puritani,' written expressly for her. In not one of these parts has anybody created an impression since she sang them. They all belong to the repertoire of pure Italian song, of which Giulietta Grisi was undoubtedly the greatest mistress since Pasta. That Mlle. Titiens could not contend with her on her own Ausonian soil no one will deny. Her means, her compass, her instincts, all forbade. There is, however, one exception--_Norma_, in which the German singer may challenge comparison with the Italian, and in which she occasionally surpasses her. In the French and German repertoire the younger artist has a decided advantage over the elder, in possessing a voice of such extent as to be enabled to execute the music of the composers without alteration of any kind. Everybody knows that Mlle. Titiens has not only one of the most magnificent and powerful voices ever heard, but also one of the most extraordinary in compass. To sing the music of _Donna Anna, Fidelio, Valentine_, etc., without transposition or change, and to sing it with power and effect, is granted to few artists. Mlle. Titiens is one of these great rarities, and, therefore, without any great stretch of compliment, we may assert that, putting aside the Rossinian repertoire, she is destined to wear the mantle of Grisi." In no previous season was Mlle. Titiens so popular or so much admired as during the season of 1862. Her most remarkable performance was the character of _Alice_, in Meyerbeer's "Robert le Diable." "Mlle. Titiens's admirable personation of _Alice_," observes the critic of a leading daily paper, "must raise her to a still higher rank in public estimation than that she has hitherto so long sustained. Each of the three acts in which the German soprano was engaged won a separate triumph for her. We are tired of perpetually expatiating on the splendid brightness, purity, and clearness of her glorious voice, and on the absolute certainty of her intonation; but these mere physical requisites of a great singer are in themselves most uncommon. Irrespectively of the lady's clever vocalization, and of the strong dramatic impulse which she evinces, there is an actual sensual gratification in listening to her superb voice, singing with immovable certainty in perfect tune. Her German education, combined with long practice in Italian opera, peculiarly fit Mlle. Titiens for interpreting the music of Meyerbeer, who is equally a disciple of both schools." IV. Mlle. Titiens was such a firmly established favorite of the English public that, in the line of great tragic characters, no one was held her equal. The most brilliant favorites who have arisen since her star ascended to the zenith have been utterly unable to dispute her preeminence in those parts where height of tragic inspiration is united with great demands of vocalization. Cherubini's opera of "Medea," a work which, had never been produced in England, because no soprano could be found equal to the colossal task of singing a score of almost unprecedented difficulty in conjunction with the needs of dramatic passion no less _exigeant_, was brought out expressly to display her genius. Though this classic masterpiece was not repeated often, and did not become a favorite with the English public on account of the old-fashioned austerity of its musical style, Titiens achieved one of the principal triumphs of her life in embodying the character of the Colchian sorceress as expressed in song. Pasta's _Medea_, created by herself musically and dramatically out of the faded and correct commonplace of Simon Mayer's opera, was fitted with consummate skill to that eminent artist's idiosyncrasies, and will ever remain one of the grand traditions of the musical world. To perform such a work as that of Cherubini required Pasta's tragic genius united with the voice of a Catalani, made, as it were, of adamant and gold. To such an ideal equipment of powers, Titiens approached more nearly than any other singer who had ever assayed the _rôle_ in more recent times. One of the noblest operas ever written, it has been relegated to the musical lumber-room on account of the almost unparalleled difficulties which it presents. It is not desirable to catalogue the continued achievements of Mlle. Titiens season by season in England, which country she had adopted as her permanent home. She had achieved her place and settled the character of her fame. Year after year she shone before the musical world of London, to which all the greatest singers of the world resort to obtain their final and greatest laurels, without finding her equal in the highest walks of the lyric stage. As her voice through incessant work lost something of its primal bloom, Mlle. Titiens confined her repertory to a few operas such as "Trovatore," "Norma," "Don Giovanni," "Semiramide," etc., where dramatic greatness is even more essential than those dulcet tones so apt to vanish with the passage of youth. As an oratorio singer, she held a place to the last unequaled in musical annals. In 1875 Mlle. Titiens visited America, on a concert and operatic tour which embraced the principal cities of the country. She was well received, but failed, through the very conditions and peculiarities of her genius, to make that marked impression on the public mind which had sometimes, perhaps, been achieved by artists of more shallow and meretricious graces. The voice of Mlle. Titiens had begun to show the friction of years, and though her wonderful skill as a vocalist covered up such defects in large measure, it was very evident that the greatest of recent German singers had passed the zenith of her fascination as a vocalist. But the grand style, the consummate breadth and skill in phrasing, that gradation of effects by which the intention of a composer is fully manifested, the truth and nobility of declamation, that repose and dignity of action by which dramatic purpose reaches its goal without a taint of violence or extravagance--in a word, all those great qualities where the artist separates from the mere vocalist were so finely manifested as to gain the deepest admiration of the _cognoscenti_, and justify in the American mind the great reputation associated with the name of Mlle. Titiens. On her return to Europe, she continued to sing with unimpaired favor in opera, concert, and oratorio, until she was seized with the fatal illness which carried her off in 1879. Her death was the cause of deep regret among musical circles in England and on the Continent, for she left no successor in the line of her greatness. So far as any survey of the field could justify a judgment, liable at any time to be upset by the sudden apparition of genius hitherto hampered by unfavorable conditions, Mlle. Titiens was the last of that race of grand dramatic singers made splendid by such beacon lights as Pasta, Malibran, Schröder-Devrient, Grisi, and Viardot-Garcia. THE END. 
17464	----	GREAT SINGERS FAUSTINA BORDONI TO HENRIETTA SONTAG FIRST SERIES BY GEORGE T. FERRIS 1891 Copyright, 1879, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. NOTE. In compiling and arranging the material which enters into the following sketches of distinguished singers, it is only honest to disclaim any originality except such as may be involved in a picturesque presentation of facts. The compiler has drawn freely from a great variety of sources, and has been simply guided by the desire to give the reading public such a digest of the more important incidents in the careers of the celebrities treated of as should be at once compact, racy, and accurate. To serve this purpose the opinions and descriptions of writers and critics contemporary with the subjects have been used at length, and no means overlooked to give the sketches that atmosphere of freshness which is the outcome of personal observation. All that a compilation of this kind can hope to effect is best gained in preserving this kind of vividness, instead of revamping impressions and opinions into second-hand forms. Pains have been taken to verify dates and facts, and it is believed they will be found trustworthy. It will be observed that many well-known singers have been omitted, or treated only incidentally: among the earlier singers, such as Anas-tasia Robinson, Mingotti, Anna Maria Crouch, and Anna Selina Storace; among more recent ones, such as Mmes. Fodor, Cinti-Damoreau, Camperese, Pisaroni, Miss Catherine Stephens, Mrs. Paton-Wood, Mme. Dorus-Gras, and Cornelie Falcon. This omission has been indispensable in a work whose purpose has been to cover only the lives of the very great names in operatic art, as the question of limit has been inflexible. A supplementary volume will give similar sketches of later celebrities. The works from which material has been most freely drawn are as follows: Bernard's "Retrospection of the Stage"; Dr. Burney's various histories of music; Chorley's "Thirty Years' Musical Recollections"; Dibdin's "Complete History of the English Stage"; Ebers's "Seven Years of the King's Theatre"; Fétis's "Biographie des Musiciens"; Hogarth's "Musical Drama"; Sutherland Edwards's "History of the Opera"; Arsène Houssaye's "Galerie des Portraits"; Michael Kelly's "Reminiscences"; Lord Mount Edgcumbe's "Musical Reminiscences"; Oxberry's "Dramatic Biography and Histrionic Anecdotes"; Mrs. Clayton's "Queens of Song"; Arthur Simpson's "Memoirs of Catalani"; and Grove's "Dictionary of Music and Musicians." CONTENTS. FAUSTINA BORDONI. The Art-Battles of Handel's Time.--The Feud between Cuzzoni and Faustina.--The Character of the Two Rivals as Women and Artists.--Faustina's Career.--Her Marriage with Adolph Hasse, and something about the Composer's Music.--Their Dresden Life.--Cuzzoni's Latter Years.--Sketch of the Great Singer Farinelli.--The Old Age of Hasse and Faustina CATARINA GABRIELLI. The Cardinal and the Daughter of the Cook.--The Young Prima Donna's _Début_ in Lucca.--Dr. Burney's Description of Gabrielli.--Her Caprices, Extravagances, and Meeting with Metastasio.--Her Adventures in Vienna.--Bry-done on Gabrielli.--Episodes of her Career in Sicily and Parma.--She sings at the Court of Catharine of Russia.--Sketches ol Caffarelli and Pacchierotti.--Gabrielli in London, and her Final Retirement from Art SOPHIE ARNOULD. The French Stage as seen by Rousseau.--Intellectual Ferment of the Period.--Sophie Arnould, the Queen of the most Brilliant of Paris Salons.--Her Early Life and Connection with Comte de Lauraguais.--Her Reputation as the Wittiest Woman of the Age.--Art Association with the Great German Composer, Gluck.--The Rivalries and Dissensions of the Period.--Sophie's Rivals and Contemporaries, Madame St. Huberty, the Vestrises Father and Son, Madelaine Guimard.--Opera during the Revolution.--The Closing Days of Sophie Arnould's Life.--Lord Mount Edgcumbe's Opinion of her as an Artist ELIZABETH BILLINGTON AND HER CONTEMPORARIES. Elizabeth Weichsel's Runaway Marriage.--__Début__ at Covent Garden.--Lord Mount Edgcumbe's Opinion of her Singing.--Her Rivalry with Mme. Mara.--Mrs. Billington's Greatness in English Opera.--She sings in Italy in 1794-'99.--Her Great Power on the Italian Stage.--Marriage with Felican.--Reappearance in London in Italian and English Opera.--Sketch of Mme. Mara's Early Life.--Her Great Triumphs on the English Stage.--Anecdotes of her Career and her Retirement from England.--Grassini and Napoleon.--The Italian Prima Donna disputes Sovereignty with Mrs. Billington.--Her Qualities as an Artist.--Mrs. Billington's Retirement from the Stage and Declining Years ANGELICA CATALANI. The Girlhood of Catalani.--She makes her __Début__ in Florence. --Description of her Marvelous Vocalism.--The Romance of Love and Marriage.--Her Preference for the Concert Stage.--She meets Napoleon in Paris.--Her Escape from France and Appearance in London.--Opinions of Lord Mount Edgcumbe and other Critics.--Anecdotes of herself and Husband.--The Great Prima Donna's Character.--Her Gradual Divergence from Good Taste in singing.--_Bon Mots_ of the Wits of the Day.--The Opera-house Riot.--Her Husband's Avarice.--Grand Concert Tour through Europe.--She meets Goethe.--Her Return to England and Brilliant Reception.--She sings with the Tenor Braham.--John Braham's Artistic Career.--The Davides.--Catalani's Last English Appearance, and the Opinion of Critics.--Her Retirement and Death GIUDITTA PASTA. Greatness of Genius overcoming Disqualification.--The Characteristic Lesson of Pasta's Life.--Her First Appearance and Failure.--Pasta returns to Italy and devotes herself to Study.--Her First Great Successes in 1819.--Characteristics of her Voice and Singing.--Chorley's Review of the Impressions made on him by Pasta.--She makes her Triumphal _Début_ in Paris.--Talma on Pasta's Acting.--Her Performances of "Giulietta" and "Tancredi."--Medea, Pasta's Grandest Impersonation, is given to the World.--Description of the Performance.--Enthusiasm of the Critics and the Public.--Introduction of Pasta to the English Public in Rossini's "Otello."--The Impression made in England.--Recognized as the Greatest Dramatic Prima Donna in the World.--Glances at the Salient Facts of her English Career.--The Performance of "Il Crociato in Egitto."--She plays the Male _Rôle_ "Otello."--Rivalry with Malibran and Sontag.--The Founder of a New School of Singing.--Pasta creates the Leading _Rôles_ in Bellini's "Sonnambula" and "Norma" and Donizetti's "Anna Bolena."--Decadence and Retirement HENRIETTA SONTAG. The Greatest German Singer of the Century.--Her Characteristics as an Artist.--Her Childhood and Early Training.--Her Early Appearances in Weimar, Berlin, and Leipsic.--She becomes the Idol of the Public.--Her Charms as a Woman and Romantic Incidents of her Youth.--Becomes affianced to Count Rossi.--Prejudice against her in Paris, and her Victory over the Public Hostility.--She becomes the Pet of Aristocratic _Salons_.--Rivalry with Malibran.--Her _Début_ in London, where she is welcomed with Great Enthusiasm.--Returns to Paris.--Anecdotes of her Career in the French Capital.--She becomes reconciled with Malibran in London.--Her Secret Marriage with Count Rossi.--She retires from the Stage as the Wife of an Ambassador.--Return to her Profession after Eighteen Years of Absence.--The Wonderful Success of her Youth renewed.--Her American Tour.--Attacked with Cholera in Mexico and dies. GREAT SINGERS, FROM FAUSTINA BORDONI TO HENRIETTA SONTAG. FAUSTINA BORDONI. The Art-Battles of Handel's Time.--The Feud between Cuzzoni and Faustina.--The Character of the Two Rivals as Women and Artists.--Faustina's Career.--Her Marriage with Adolph Hasse, and something about the Composer's Music.--Their Dresden Life.--Cuzzoni's Latter Years.--Sketch of the Great Singer Farinelli.--The Old Age of hasse and Faustina. I. During the early portion of the eighteenth century the art of the stage excited the interests and passions of the English public to a degree never equaled since. Politics and religion hardly surpassed it in the power of creating cabals and sects and in stirring up animosities. This was specially marked in music. The great Handel, who had not then found his true vocation as an oratorio composer, was in the culmination of his power as manager of the opera, though he was irritated by hostile factions. The musical quarrels of the time were almost as interesting as the Gluck-Piccini war in Paris in the latter part of the same century, and the _literati_ took part in it with a zest and wit not less piquant and noticeable. Handel, serenely grand in his musical conceptions, was personally passionate and fretful; and the contest of satire, scandal, and witticism raged without intermission between him and his rivals, supported on each hand by princes and nobles, and also by the great dignitaries of the republic of letters. In this tumult the singers (always a _genus irritabile_, like the race of poets) who belonged to the opera companies took an active part. Not the least noteworthy episode of this conflict was the feud between two foremost sirens of the lyric stage, Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni. When the brilliant Faustina appeared in London, as a fresh importation of Handel, who was as indefatigable in purveying novelties as any modern Mapleson or Strakosch, Cuzzoni was the idol of the public, having succeeded to that honor after Anastasia Robinson retired from the stage as Countess of Peterborough. Handel some years before had introduced Cuzzoni to the English stage, and, though kept in constant turmoil by her insolence and caprice, had taken great pains to display her fine voice by the composition of airs specially suited to her. It is recorded that one morning, after she had refused at rehearsal to sing a song written for her by the master, such rage took possession of Handel that he seized her fiercely, and threatened to hurl her from the window unless she succumbed. One of the arias composed for this singer extorted from Main-waring, a musician bitterly at odds with Handel, the remark, "The great bear was certainly inspired when he wrote that song." Cuzzoni's popularity with the public had so augmented her native conceit and insolence as to make a rival unbearable. Though she was ugly and ill made, of a turbulent and obstinate temper, ungrateful and capricious, she deported herself as if she possessed all the graces of beauty, art, and genius, and regarded the allegiance of the public as her native right. London had indeed given her some claim to this arrogance, as from the first it had treated her with brilliant distinction, so that fashionable ladies had adopted the style of her stage dresses, and duels were fought by the young "bucks" and "swells" of the time over the right to escort her to her carriage. The bitterness with which Cuzzoni hated Faustina was aggravated by the fact that the latter, in addition to her great ability as a singer, was younger, far more beautiful, and of most fascinating and amiable manner. Handel and the directors of the King's theatre were in ecstasies that they had secured two such exquisite singers; but their joy was destined to receive a sudden check in the bitter squabbles which speedily arose. Indeed, the two singers did not meet in battle for the first time, for seven years before they had been rival candidates for favor in Italy. Faustina Bordoni possessed remarkable beauty of figure and face, an expression full of fire and intelligence, to which she united tact, amiability, and prudence. As singers the rivals were nearly equal; for Faustina, while surpassing the Cuzzoni in power of execution, had not the command of expression which made the latter's art so pathetic and touching. Dr. Barney, the musical historian, and father of Madame d'Arblay, describes Cuzzoni in these words: "A native warble enabled her to execute divisions with such facility as to conceal every appearance of difficulty; and so soft and touching was the natural tone of her voice, that she rendered pathetic whatever she sang, in which she had leisure to unfold its whole volume. The art of conducting, sustaining, increasing, and diminishing her tones by minute degrees, acquired for her among professors the title of complete mistress of her art. In a canta-bile air, though the notes she added were few, she never lost a favorable opportunity of enriching the cantilena with all the refinements and embellishments of the time. Her shake was perfect; she had a creative fancy, and the power of occasionally accelerating and retarding the measure in the most artificial manner by what the Italians call _tempo rubato_. Her high notes were unrivaled in clearness and sweetness, and her intonations were so just and fixed that it seemed as if it were not in her power to sing out of tune." The celebrated flute-player Quantz, instructor of Frederick II., also gave Dr. Burney the following account of Faustina's artistic qualities: "Faustina had a mezzo-soprano voice, that was less clear than penetrating. Her compass now was only from B flat to G in alt; but after this time she extended its limits downward. She possessed what the Italians call _un cantar granito_; her execution was articulate and brilliant. She had a fluent tongue for pronouncing words rapidly and distinctly, and a flexible throat for divisions, with so beautiful a shake that she put it in motion upon short notice, just when she would. The passages might be smooth, or by leaps, or consisting of iterations of the same note; their execution was equally easy to her as to any instrument whatever. She was, doubtless, the first who introduced with success a swift repetition of the same note. She sang adagios with great passion and expression, but was not equally successful if such deep sorrow were to be impressed on the hearer as might require dragging, sliding, or notes of syncopation and _tempo rubato_. She had a very happy memory in arbitrary changes and embellishments, and a clear and quick judgment in giving to words their full value and expression. In her action she was very happy; and as her performance possessed that flexibility of muscles and face-play which constitute expression, she succeeded equally well in furious, tender, and amorous parts. In short, she was born for singing and acting." Faustina's amiability would have kept her on good terms with a rival; but Cuzzoni's malice and envy ignored the fact that their respective qualities were rather adapted to complement than to vie with each other. Handel, who had a world of trouble with his singers, strove to keep them on amicable terms, but without success. The town was divided into two parties: the Cuzzoni faction was headed by the Countess of Pembroke, and that of Faustina by the Countess of Burlington and Lady Delawar, while the men most loudly declared for the Venetian beauty. At last the feud came to a climax. On the 20th of June, 1727, a brilliant gathering of rank and fashion filled the opera-house to hear the two _prime donne_, who were to sing together. On their appearance they were received with a storm of mingled hissing and clapping of hands, which soon augmented into a hurricane of catcalls, shrieking, and stamping. Even the presence of royalty could not restrain the wild uproar, and accomplished women of the world took part in these discordant sounds. Dr. Arbuthnot, in alluding to the disgraceful scene, wrote in the "London Journal" this stinging rebuke: "Æsop's story of the cat, who, at the petition of her lover, was changed into a fine woman, is pretty well known; notwithstanding which alteration, we find that upon the appearance of a mouse she could not resist the temptation of springing out of his arms, though it was on the very wedding night. Our English audience have been for some time returning to their cattish nature, of which some particular sounds from the gallery have given us sufficient warning. And since they have so openly declared themselves, I must only desire that they must not think they can put on the fine woman again just when they please, but content themselves with their skill in caterwauling." The following epigram was called out by the proceedings of the evening, which were mostly stimulated by the Pembroke party, who supported Cuzzoni: "Old poets sing that beasts did dance Whenever Orpheus played: So to Faustina's charming voice Wise Pembroke's asses brayed." The two fair cantatrices even forgot themselves so far as to come to blows on several occasions, and the scandalous chronicle of the times was enlivened with epigrams, lampoons, libels, and duels in rapid succession. This amusing but disgraceful feud was burlesqued in a farce called "Contretemps, or The Rival Queens," which was performed at Heidigger's theatre. Faustina as the _Queen of Bologna_ and Cuzzoni as _Princess of Modena_ were made to seize each other by the hair, and lacerate each other's faces. Handel looks on with cynical attention, and calmly orders that the antagonists be "left to fight it out, inasmuch as the only way to calm their fury is to let them satisfy it." The directors of the opera finally solved the difficulty in the following manner: Cuzzoni had solemnly sworn never to accept a guinea less than her rival. As Faustina was far more attractive and manageable, she was offered just one guinea more than Cuzzoni, who learning the fact broke her contract in a fury of indignation, and accepted a Viennese engagement. The well-known Ambrose Philips addressed the following farewell lines to the wrathful singer: "Little siren of the stage, Charmer of an idle age, Empty warbler, breathing lyre, Wanton gale of fond desire; Bane of every manly art, Sweet enfeebler of the heart; Oh! too pleasing is thy strain. Hence to southern climes again, Tuneful mischief, vocal spell; To this island bid farewell: Leave us as we ought to be-- Leave the Britons rough and free." II. Faustina Bordoni, who from the time of her radiant _début_ was known as the "New Siren," was the daughter of a noble Venetian family, formerly one of the governing families of the republic. Born in the year 1700, she began to study her art at an early age under Gasparoni, who developed a beautiful and flexible voice to the greatest advantage. She made her first appearance at the age of sixteen in Pollarolo's "Ariodante," and her beauty, which was ravishing, her exquisite voice, dramatic power, and artistic skill, gave her an immediate place as one of the greatest ornaments of the lyric stage. She came into rivalry with Cuzzoni even at this early period, but carried off the palm of victory as she did in after-years. Venice, Naples, Florence, and Vienna were successively the scenes of her triumphant reign as an artist, and she became acknowledged as the most brilliant singer in Europe. At Vienna she was appointed court singer at a salary of fifteen thousand thalers. Here she was found by Handel, who carried her to London, where she made her _début_ May 5,1726, in that great composer's "Alessandro," very appropriately singing _Statira_ to the _Roxana_ of Cuzzoni. Faustina's amiable and unobtrusive character seems to have made her an unwilling participant in the quarrels into which circumstances forced her, and to have always deserved the eulogium pronounced by Apostolo Zeno on her departure from Vienna: "But whatever good fortune she meets with, she merits it all by her courteous and polite manners, as well as talents, with which she has enchanted and gained the esteem and affection of the whole court." Throughout life a sweet temper and unspotted purity of character made her the idol of her friends as well as of the general public. Faustina seems to have left London gladly, though her short career of two years there was a brilliant artistic success. The scandalous bickerings and feuds through which she passed made her departure more of a pleasure to herself than to the lovers of music in turbulent London. She returned to Venice in 1728, where she met Adolph Hasse, who was leader of the orchestra at the theatre in which she was engaged. Faustina, in the full bloom of her loveliness, was more than ever the object of popular adulation; and many of the wealthy young nobles of Venice laid their names and fortunes at her feet. But the charming singer had found her fate. She and Hasse had fallen in love with each other at first sight, and Faustina was proof against the blandishments of the gilded youth of Italy. Hasse was the most popular dramatic composer of the age, and had so endeared himself to the Italian public that he was known as "_il caro Sassone_," a title which had also been previously given to Handel. Hasse had commenced life as a tenor singer, but his talent for composition soon lifted him into a higher field of effort. His first opera was produced at Brunswick, but its reception showed that he must yet master more of the heights and depths of musical science before attaining any deserved success. So he proceeded to Italy, and studied under Porpora and Alessandro Scarlatti. In a few years he became a celebrity, and the opera-houses of Italy eagerly vied with each other in procuring new works from his fecund talent. Faustina, then at the zenith of her powers and charms, and Hasse, the most admired composer of the day, were congenial mates, and their marriage was not long delayed. Of this composer a few passing words of summary may be interesting. His career was one long success, and he wrote more than a hundred operas, besides a host of other compositions. Few composers have had during their lifetime such world-wide celebrity, and of these few none are so completely forgotten now. The facile powers of Hasse seem to have reflected the most genial though not the deepest influences of his time. He had nothing in common with the grand German school then rising into notice, or with the simple majesty of the early Italian writers. Himself originally a singer, and living in an age of brilliant singers, he was one of the first representatives of that school of Italian opera which was called into being by the worship of vocal art for its own sake. He had an inexhaustible flow of tunefulness, and the few charming songs of his now extant show great elegance of melodic structure, and such sympathy with the needs of the voice as make them the most perfect vehicle for expression and display on the part of the singer. For ten years, that most wonderful of male singers, as musical historians unite in calling Farinelli, charmed away the melancholy of Philip V. of Spain by singing to him every evening the same two melodies of Hasse, taken from the opera of "Artaserse." In 1731 the celebrated couple accepted an offer from the brilliant Court of Dresden, presided over by Augustus II., as great a lover of art and literature as Goethe's Duke of Saxe-Weimar, or as the present Louis of Bavaria. This aesthetic monarch squandered great sums on pictures and music, and gave Hasse unlimited power and resources to place the Dresden opera on such a footing as to make it foremost in Europe. His first opera produced in Dresden was the masterpiece of his life, "Alessandro dell' Indie," and its great success was perhaps owing in part to the splendid singing and acting of Faustina, for whom indeed the music had been carefully designed. As the husband of the most fascinating prima donna of her age, Hasse had no easy time. His life was still further embittered by the presence and intrigues of Porpora, his old master and now rival, and jealousy of Porpora's pupil, Mingotti, who threatened to dispute the sway of his wife. Hasse's musical spite was amusingly shown in writing an air for Mingotti in his "Demofoonte." He composed the music for what he thought was the defective part of her voice, while the accompaniment was contrived to destroy all effect. Mingotti was nothing daunted, but by hard study and ingenious adaptation so conquered the difficulties of the air, that it became one of her greatest show-pieces. A combination of various causes so dissatisfied the composer with Dresden, that he divided his time between that city, Venice, Milan, Naples, and London, though the Saxon capital remained his professed home. One of his diversions was the establishment of opera in London in opposition to Handel; but he became so ardent an admirer of that great man's genius, that he refused to be a tool in the hands of the latter's enemies, though several of his operas met with brilliant success in the English capital. Dresden life at last flowed more easily with Hasse and Faustina on the advent of Augustus III., who possessed his father's connoisseurship without his crotchets and favoritism. Here he remained, with the exception of a short Venetian sojourn, till late in life. On the evening of Frederick the Great's entrance into Dresden in 1745, after the battle of Kesselsdorf, Hasse's opera of "Arminio" was performed by command of the conqueror, who was so charmed with the work and Faustina's singing that he invited the composer and wife to Berlin. During the Prussian King's occupation he made Faustina many magnificent gifts, an exceptional generosity in one who was one of the most penurious of monarchs as well as one of the greatest of soldiers. Faustina continued to sing for eight years longer, when, at the age of fifty-two, she retired from the long art reign which she had enjoyed, having held her position with unchanged success against all comers for nearly forty years. III. In notable contrast to the career of Faustina was that of her old-time rival, Cuzzoni. After the Venetian singer retired from London, Cuzzoni again returned to fill an engagement with the opposition company formed by Handel's opponents. With her sang Farinelli and Senesino, the former of whom was the great tenor singer of the age--perhaps the greatest who ever lived, if we take the judgment of the majority of the musical historians. Cuzzoni was again overshadowed by the splendid singing of Farinelli, who produced an enthusiasm in London almost without parallel. Her haughty and arrogant temper could not brook such inferiority, and she took the first opportunity to desert what she considered to be an ungrateful public. We hear of her again as singing in different parts of Europe, but always with declining prestige. In the London "Daily Post" of September 7, 1741, appeared a paragraph which startled her old admirers: "We hear from Italy that the famous singer, Mrs. C-z-ni, is under sentence of death, to be beheaded for poisoning her husband." If this was so, the sentence was never carried into execution, for she sang seven years afterward in London at a benefit concert. She issued a preliminary advertisement, avouching her "pressing debts" and her "desire to pay them" as the reason for her asking the benefit, which, she declared, should be the last she would ever trouble the public with. Old, poor, and almost deprived of her voice by her infirmities, her attempt to revive the interest of the public in her favor was a miserable failure; her star was set for ever, and she was obliged to return to Holland more wretched than she came. She had scarcely reappeared there when she was again thrown into prison for debt; but, by entering into an agreement to sing at the theatre every night, under surveillance, she was enabled to obtain her release. Her recklessness and improvidence had brought her to a pitiable condition; and in her latter days, after a career of splendor, caprice, and extravagance, she was obliged to subsist, it is said, by button-making. She died in frightful indigence, the recipient of charity, at a hospital in Bologna, in 1770. IV. Associated with the life and times of Faustina Bordoni, and the most brilliant exponent of the music of her husband, Hasse, Carlo Broschi, better known as Farinelli, stands out as one of the most remarkable musical figures of his age. This great artist, born in Naples in 1705, was the nephew of the composer Farinelli, whose name he adopted. He was instructed by the celebrated singing-master Porpora, who trained nearly all the great voices of Europe for over half a century; and at his first appearance in Rome, in 1722, common report had already made him famous. So wonderful was his execution, even at this early age, that he was able to vie with a trumpet-player, then the admiration of Rome for his remarkable powers. Porpora had written an obligato part to a song, in which his pupil rivaled the instrument in holding and swelling a note of extraordinary purity and volume. The virtuoso's execution was masterly, but the young singer so surpassed him as to carry the enthusiasm of the audience to the wildest pitch by the brilliance of his singing and the difficult variations which he introduced. Farinelli left the guidance of Porpora in 1724, and appeared in different European cities with a success which made him in three years a European celebrity. In 1727, while singing in Bologna, he met Bernacchi, at that time known as the "king of singers." The rivals were matched against each other one night in a grand duo, and Farinelli, freely admitting that the veteran artist had vanquished him, begged some lessons from him. Bernacchi generously accorded these, and took great pains with his young rival. Thus was perfected the talent of Farinelli, who, to use the words of a modern critic, was as "superior to the great singers of his own period as they were to those of more recent times." After brilliant triumphs at Vienna, Rome, Naples, and Parma, where he surpassed the most formidable rivals and was heaped with riches and honors, he appeared before the Emperor Charles VI. of Germany, a momentous occasion in his art-career. "You have hitherto excited only astonishment and admiration," said the imperial connoisseur, "but you have never touched the heart. It would be easy for you to create emotion, if you would but be more simple and natural." The singer adopted this counsel, and became the most pathetic as he continued to be the most brilliant of singers. The interest of Farinelli's London career will be augmented for the lovers of music by its connection with the contests carried on between Handel and his rivals, with which we have seen Faustina and Cuzzoni also to have been intimately associated. When Handel went on the Continent to secure artists for the year 1734, some prejudice operated against his negotiation with Farinelli, and the latter took service with Porpora, who had been secured by the Pembroke faction to lead the rival opera. Farinelli's singing turned the scale in favor of Handel's enemies, who had previously hardly been able to keep the enterprise on its feet, and had run in debt nineteen thousand pounds. He made his first appearance at the Lincoln's Inn Opera in "Artaserse," one of Hasse's operas. Several of the songs, however, were composed by Riccardo Broschi, the singer's brother, especially for him, and these interpolations illustrated the powers of Farinelli in the most effective manner. In one of these the first note was taken with such delicacy, swelled by minute degrees to such an amazing volume, and afterward diminished in the same manner to a mere point, that it was applauded for full five minutes. Afterward he set off with such brilliance and rapidity of execution that the violins could not keep pace with him. An incident commemorated in Hogarth's "Rake's Progress" occurred at this time, A lady of rank, carried beyond herself by admiration of the great singer, leaned out of her box and exclaimed, "One God and one Farinelli!" The great power of this singer's art is also happily set forth in the following anecdote: He was to appear for the first time with Senesino, another great singer, who of course was jealous of Farinelli's unequaled renown. The former had the part of a fierce tyrant, and Farinelli that of a hero in chains. But in the course of the first song by his rival, Senesino forgot his assumed part altogether. He was so moved and delighted that, in front of an immense audience, he rushed forward, clasped Farinelli in his arms, and burst into tears. Never had there been such a ferment among English patrons of opera as was made by Farinelli's singing. The Prince of Wales gave him a gold snuff-box set with diamonds and rubies, in which were inclosed diamond knee-buckles, and a purse of one hundred guineas. The courtiers and nobles followed in the wake of the Prince, and the costliest offerings were lavished on this spoiled favorite of art. His income during three years in London was five thousand pounds a year, to which must be added quite as much more in gratuities and presents of different kinds. On his return to Italy he built a splendid mansion, which he christened the "English Folly." Farinelli's Spanish life was the most important episode in his career, if twenty-five years of experience may be called an episode. His purpose in visiting Madrid in 1736 was to spend but a few months; but he arrived in the Spanish capital at a critical moment, and Fate decreed that he should take up a long residence here--a residence marked by circumstances and honors without parallel in the life of any other singer. Philip V. at this time was such a prey to depression that he neglected all the affairs of his kingdom. "When Farinelli arrived, the Queen arranged a concert at which the monarch could hear the great singer without being seen. The effect was remarkable, and Farinelli gained the respect, admiration, and favor of the whole court. When he was asked by the grateful monarch to name his own reward, he answered that his best recompense would be to know that the King was again reconciled to performing the active duties of his state. Philip considered that he owed his cure to the powers of Farinelli. The final result was that the singer separated himself from the world of art for ever, and accepted a salary of fifty thousand francs to sing for the King, as David harped for the mad King Saul. Farinelli told Dr. Burney that during ten years he sang four songs to the King every night without any change." When Ferdinand VI., who was also a victim to his father's malady, succeeded to the throne, the singer continued to perform his minstrel cure, and acquired such enormous power and influence that all court favor and office depended on his breath. Though never prime minister, Farinelli's political advice had such weight with Ferdinand, that generals, secretaries, ambassadors, and other high officials consulted with him, and attended his levee, as being the power behind the throne. Farinelli acquired great wealth, but no malicious pen has ever ascribed to him any of the corrupt arts by which royal favorites are wont to accumulate the spoils of office. In his prosperity he never forgot prudence, modesty, and moderation. Hearing one day an old veteran officer complain that the King ignored his thirty years of service while he enriched "a miserable actor," Farinelli secured promotion for the grumbler, and, giving the commission to the abashed soldier, mildly taxed him for calling the King ungrateful. According to another anecdote, he requested an embassy for one of the courtiers. "Do you not know," said the King, "that this grandee is your deadly enemy?" "True," replied Farinelli; "and this is the way I propose to get revenge." Dr. Burney also relates the following anecdote: A tailor, who brought him a splendid court costume, refused any pay but a single song. After long refusal Farinelli's good nature yielded, and he sang to the enraptured man of the needle and shears, not one, but several songs. After concluding he said: "I, too, am proud, and that is the reason perhaps of my advantage over other singers. I have yielded to you; it is but just that you should yield to me." Thereupon he forced on the tailor more than double the price of the clothes. Farinelli's influence as a politician was always cast on the side of national honor and territorial integrity. When the new King, Charles III., ascended the throne, being even then committed to the Franco-Neapolitan imbroglio, which was such a dark spot in the Spanish history of that time, Farinelli left Spain at the royal suggestion, which amounted to a command. The remaining twenty years of his life he resided in a splendid palace near Bologna, where he devoted his time and attention to patronage of learning and the arts. He collected a noble gallery of paintings from the hands of the principal Italian and Spanish masters. Among them was one representing himself in a group with Metastasio and Faustina Bordoni, for whose greatness as an artist and beauty of character he always expressed the warmest admiration. Though Farinelli was all his life an idol with the women, his appearance was not prepossessing. Dibdin, speaking of him at the age of thirty, says he "was tall as a giant and as thin as a shadow; therefore, if he had grace, it could only be of a sort to be envied by a penguin or a spider." To his supreme merit as an artist we have, however, overwhelming testimony. Out of the many enthusiastic descriptions of his singing, that of Mancini, after Porpora the greatest singing-master of the age, and the fellow pupil with Farinelli under Bernacchi, will serve: "His voice was thought a marvel because it was so perfect, so powerful, so sonorous, and so rich in its extent, both in the high and low parts of the register, that its equal has never been heard. He was, moreover, endowed with a creative genius which inspired him with embellishments so new and so astonishing that no one was able to imitate them. The art of taking and keeping the breath so softly and easily that no one could perceive it, began and died with him. The qualities in which he excelled were the evenness of his voice, the art of swelling its sound, the portamento, the union of the registers, a surprising agility, a graceful and pathetic style, and a shake as admirable as it was rare. There was no branch of the art which he did not carry to the highest pitch of perfection.... The successes of his youth did not prevent him from continuing to study, and this great artist applied himself with so much perseverance that he contrived to change in some measure his style, and to acquire another and superior method, when his name was already famous and his fortune brilliant." V. Let us return from the consideration of Faustina's most brilliant contemporary to Hasse and his wife. We have already seen that this great prima donna retired from the stage in 1753, at the age of fifty-two. The life of the distinguished couple during this period is described with much pictorial vividness in a musical novel, published several years since, under the name of "Alcestis," which also gives an excellent idea of German art and music generally. In 1760 Hasse suffered greatly from the bombardment of Dresden by the Prussians, losing among other property all his manuscripts in the destruction of the opera-house--a fact which may partly account for the oblivion into which this once admired composer has passed. The loss was peculiarly unfortunate, for the publication of Hasse's works was then about to commence at the expense of the King. He and his wife removed to Vienna, where they remained till 1775, when they retired to Venice, Faustina's birthplace. Two years before this Dr. Burney visited them at their handsome house in the Landstrasse in Berlin, and found them a humdrum couple--Hasse groaning with the gout, and the once lovely Faustina transformed into a jolly old woman of seventy-two, with two charming daughters. As he approached the house with the Abate Taruffi, Faustina, seeing them, came down to meet them. Says the Doctor: "I was presented to her by my conductor, and found her a short, brown, sensible, lively old lady, who expressed herself much pleased to meet a _cavalière Inglesi_, as she had been honored with great marks of favor in England. Signor Hasse soon entered the room. He is tall and rather large in size, but it is easy to imagine that in his younger days he must have been a robust and fine figure; great gentleness and goodness appear in his countenance and manners." Going to see them a second time, the Doctor was received by the whole family with much cordiality. He says Faustina was very intelligent, animated, and curious concerning what was going on in the world. She had a wonderful store of musical reminiscences, and showed remains of the splendid beauty for which her youth was celebrated. But her voice was all gone. Dr. Burney asked her to sing. "Ah! Non posso; ho perduto tutte le mie facoltà." ("Alas! I am no longer able; I have lost all my faculty.") "I was extremely fascinated," said the Doctor, "with the conversation of Signor Hasse. He was easy, communicative, and rational, equally free from pedantry, pride, and prejudice. He spoke ill of no one, but on the contrary did justice to the talents of several composers, among them Porpora, who, though he was his first master, was afterward his greatest rival." Though his fingers were gouty, he played on the piano for his visitor, and his beautiful daughters sang. One was a "sweet soprano," the other a "rich and powerful contralto, fit for any church or theatre in Europe "; both girls "having good shakes," and "such an expression, taste, and steadiness as it is natural to expect in the daughters and scholars of Signor Hasse and Signora Faustina." There are two pictures of Faustina Bordoni in existence. One is in Hawkins's "History," showing her in youth. Brilliant large black eyes, splendid hair, regular features, and a fascinating sweetness of expression, attest how lovely she must have been in the heyday of her charms. The other represents her as an elderly person, handsomely dressed, with an animated, intelligent countenance. Faustina died in 1793, at the age of ninety-two, and Hasse not long after, at the age of ninety-four. CATARINA GABRIELLI. The Cardinal and the Daughter of the Cook.--The Young Prima Donna's _Début_ in Lucca.--Dr. Barney's Description of Gabrielli.--Her Caprices, Extravagances, and Meeting with Metastasio.--Her Adventures in Vienna.-- Brydone on Gabrielli.--Episodes of her Career in Sicily and Parma.--She sings at the Court of Catharine of Russia.--Sketches of Caffarelli and Paochicrotti.--Gabrielli in London, and her Final Retirement from Art. I. One of the great dignitaries of the Papal Court during the middle of the eighteenth century was the celebrated Cardinal Gabrielli. He was one day walking in his garden, when a flood of delicious, untutored notes burst on his ear, resolving itself finally into a brilliant _arietta_ by Ga-luppi. The pretty little nymph who had poured out these wild-wood notes proved to be the daughter of his favorite cook. Catarina's beauty of person and voice had already excited the hopes of her father, and he frequently took her to the Argentina Theatre, where her quick ear caught all the tunes she heard; but the humble cook could not put the child in the way of further instruction and training. When Cardinal Gabrielli heard that enchanting but uncultivated voice, he called the little Catarina and made her sing her whole stock of arias, a mandate she willingly obeyed. He was delighted with her talent, and took on himself the care of her musical education. She was first placed under the charge of Garcia (Lo Spagnoletto), and afterward of Porpora. The Cardinal kept a keen oversight of her instruction, and frequently organized concerts, where her growing talents were shown, to the great delight of the brilliant Roman society. Catarina's training was completed in the conservatory of L'Ospidaletto at Venice, while it was under the direction of Sacchini, who succeeded Galuppi. "La Cuochettina," as she was called from her father's profession, made her first appearance in Galuppi's "Sofonisba" in Lucca, after five years of severe training. She was beautiful, intelligent, witty, full of liveliness and grace, with an expression full of coquettish charm and _espieglerie_. Her acting was excellent, and her singing already that of a brilliant and finished vocalist. It is not a marvel that the excitable Italian audience received her with the most passionate plaudits of admiration. Her stature was low, but Dr. Burney describes her in the following terms: "There was such grace and dignity in her gestures and deportment as caught every unprejudiced eye; indeed, she filled the stage, and occupied the attention of the spectators so much, that they could look at nothing else while she was in view." No indication of her mean origin betrayed itself in her face or figure, for she carried herself with all the haughty grandeur of a Roman matron. Her voice, though not powerful, was of exquisite quality and wonderful extent, its compass being nearly two octaves and a half, and perfectly equable throughout. Her facility in vocalization was extraordinary, and her execution is described by Dr. Burney as rapid, but never so excessive as to cease to be agreeable; but in slow movements her pathetic tones, as is often the case with performers renowned for "dexterity," were not sufficiently touching. The young chevaliers of Lucca were wild over the new operatic star; for her talent, beauty, and fascination made her a paragon of attraction, and her capricious whims and coquetries riveted the chains in which she held her admirers. Catarina, however she may have felt pleased at lordly tributes of devotion, and willing to accept substantial proofs of their sincerity, lavished her friendship for the most part on her own comrades, and became specially devoted to the singer Guardagni, whose rare artistic excellence made him a valuable mentor to the young prima donna. Three years after her _début_ her reputation had become national, and we find her singing at Naples in the San Carlo. The aged poet Metastasio, a name so imperishably connected with the development of the Italian opera, became one of her bond slaves. Gabrielli was wont to use her admirers for artistic advantage, and she learned certain invaluable lessons in the delivery of recitative and the higher graces of her art from one whose experience and knowledge were infinitely higher and more suggestive than those of a mere singing-master. The courtly poet, the pet of rank and beauty for nearly fifty years, sighed in vain at the feet of this inexorable coquette, and shared his disappointment with a host of other distinguished suitors, who showered costly gifts at the shrine of beauty, and were compelled to content themselves with kissing her hand as a reward. Metastasio's interest, unchecked by the disdain of the capricious beauty, succeeded in obtaining for her the position of court singer at Vienna, where the Emperor, Francis I., was one of her admirers. She soon created as great a furor among the gallants of the Austrian capital as she had in Italy. Swords were drawn freely in the quarrels which she delighted to foster, and dueling became a mania with those who aspired to her favor. The passions she instigated sometimes took eccentric courses. The French Ambassador, who loved her madly, suspected the Portuguese Minister of being more successful than himself with the lovely Gabrielli. His suspicions being confirmed at one of his visits, he drew his sword in a transport of rage, and all that saved the operatic stage one of its most brilliant lights was the whalebone bodice, which broke the point of the furious Frenchman's rapier. The sight of the bleeding beauty--for she received a slight scratch--brought the diplomat to his senses. Falling on his knees, he poured forth his remorse in passionate self-reproaches, but only received his pardon on the most humiliating terms, namely, that he should present her with the weapon which had so nearly pierced her heart, on which was to be inscribed this memento of the jealous madness of its owner: "_Epée de M------, qui osa frapper La Gabrielli_." Only Metastasio's persuasions (for Gabrielli prized his friendship and advice as much as she trifled with him in a different _rôle_) persuaded her to spare the Frenchman the insufferable ridicule which her retention of the telltale sword would have imposed on one whose rank and station could ill afford to be made the laughing-stock of his times. The siren's infinite caprices furnished the most interesting _chronique scandaleuse_ of Vienna. Brydone in his "Tour" tells us that it was fortunate for humanity that the fair cantatrice had so many faults; for, had she been more perfect, "she must have made dreadful havoc in the world; though, with all her deficiencies," he says, "she was supposed to have achieved more conquests than any one woman breathing." Her caprice was so stubborn, that neither interest, nor threats, nor punishment had the least power over it; she herself declared that she could not command it, but that it for the most part commanded her. The best expedient to induce her to sing when she was in a bad humor was to prevail upon her favorite lover to place himself in the principal seat of the pit, or the front of a box, and, if they were on good terms--which was seldom the case, however--she should address her tender airs to him, and exert herself to the utmost. When Brydone was in Sicily, her lover promised to give him an example of his power over her. "He took his seat accordingly; but Gabrielli, probably suspecting the connivance, would take no notice of him; so even this expedient does not always succeed." II. When Gabrielli left Vienna for Sicily in 1765, she was laden with riches, for her manifold extravagances were generally incurred at the expense of somebody else; and she continued at Palermo the same eccentric, capricious, and flighty conduct which had made her name synonymous with everything reckless and daring in contravening propriety. She treated the highest dignitaries with the same insolence which she displayed toward operatic managers. Even the Viceroy of Sicily, standing in the very place of royalty, was made the victim of wanton impertinence. The Viceroy gave a dinner in honor of La Gabrielli, to which were invited the proudest nobles of the court; and, as she did not appear at the appointed hour, a servant was sent to her apartments. She was found _en déshabillé_ dawdling over a book, and affected to have forgotten the viceregal invitation--a studied insult, hardly to be endured. This insolence, however, was overlooked by the representative of royal authority, and it was not till the proud beauty's caprices caused her to seriously neglect her artistic duties that she felt the weight of his displeasure. When he sent a remonstrance against her singing _sotto voce_ on the stage, she said she might be forced to _cry_, but not to _sing_. The exasperated ruler ordered her to prison for twelve days. Her caprice was here shown by giving the costliest entertainments to her fellow prisoners, who were of all classes from debtors to bandits, paying their debts, distributing great sums among the indigent, and singing her most beautiful songs in an enchanting manner. When she was released she was followed by the grateful tears and blessings of those she had so lavishly benefited in jail. This fascinating creature seems all through life to have been good on impulse and bad on principle. Three years after this Gabrielli was singing in Parma, where she made a speedy conquest of the Infante, Don Ferdinand. His boundless wealth condoned the ugliness of his person in the eyes of the singer, and the lavish income he placed at her disposal gratified her boundless extravagances, while it did not prevent her from being gracious to the Infante's many rivals and would-be successors. Bitter quarrels and recriminations ensued, and the jealous ravings of Catarina's princely admirer were more than matched by the fierce sarcasms and shrill clamor of the beautiful virago. One day Don Ferdinand, justly suspecting her of gross unfaithfulness, assailed her with unusual fury, to which she replied by terming him a _gobbo maladetto_ (accursed hunchback). On this the Prince, carried beyond all control, had her imprisoned on some legal pretext, though Gabrielli found proofs of love struggling with his anger in the magnificence of the apartment and luxuriance of the service bestowed on her. But he strove in vain to make his peace. The offended coquette was implacable, and disdained alike his excuses and protestations of devotion. One night she escaped from her prison, scaled the garden-wall, and fled, leaving her weak and disconsolate lover to cool his sighs in tears of unavailing regret. The court of the Semiramis of the North, Catharine II. of Russia, who strove to expunge the contempt felt for her as a woman by Europe through the imperial munificence with which she played at patronizing art and literature, was the next scene of the fair Italian's triumph. Gabrielli was received with lavish favor, but the Empress frowned when she heard the pecuniary demands of the singer. "Five thousand ducats!" she said, in amazement. "Why, I don't give more than that to one of my field-marshals." "Very well," replied the audacious Gabrielli; "your Majesty may get your field-marshals to sing for you, then." Catharine, who, however cruel and unscrupulous when need be, was in the main good-natured, laughed at the impertinence, and instead of sending Gabrielli to Siberia consented to her demands, adding special gratuities to the nominal salary. Two countrymen of the beautiful cantatrice, Pai-siello and Cimarosa, were afterward treated with equal honor and consideration by the imperial _dilettante_. Catharine's favor lasted unimpaired for several years, and it only abated when Gabrielli's lust for conquest and the honor of rivalry with a sovereign tempted her to coquet with Prince Po-temkin. An intimation from the court chamberlain that St. Petersburg was too hot for one of her warm southern blood, and that Siberia or some other place at her will would better suit her temperament, sufficed when backed by an imperial endorsement. La Gabrielli returned from Russia, loaded with, diamonds and wealth, for Catharine did not dismiss her without substantial proofs of her magnificence and generosity. At this period Gabrielli was invited to England; and after considerable haggling with the London manager, and compelling him to employ her favorite of the hour, Signor Manzoletto, as principal tenor, the negotiation was consummated. Gabrielli still preserved all her excellence of voice and charm of execution; but her rare beauty, which had been as great a factor in her success as artistic skill, was on the wane. The English engagement had been made with some reluctance; for the stern and uncompromising temper of the island nation had been widely recognized with exaggerations in Continental Europe. "I should not be mistress of my own will," she said, "and whenever I might have a fancy not to sing, the people would insult, perhaps misuse me. It is better to remain unmolested, were it even in prison." She, however, changed her mind, and her experiences in London were such as to make her regret that she had not stood firm to her first resolution. III. Among the remarkable male singers of Gabrielli's time was Caffarelli, whom his friends indeed declared to be no less great than Farinelli. Though never closely associated with La Cuochet-tina in her stage triumphs (a fact perhaps fortunate for the cantatrice), he must be regarded as one of the representative artists of the period when she was in the full-blown and insolent prime of her beauty and reputation. Born in 1703, of humble Neapolitan parentage, he became a pupil of Porpora at an early age. The great singing-master is said to have taught him in a peculiar fashion. For five years he permitted him to sing nothing but scales and exercises. In the sixth year Porpora instructed him in declamation, pronunciation, and articulation. Caffarelli, at the end of the sixth year, supposing he had just mastered the rudiments, began to murmur, when he was amazed by Porpora's answer: "Young man, you may now leave me; you are the greatest singer in the world, and you have nothing more to learn from me." Hogarth discredits this story, on the ground that "none but a plodding drudge without a spark of genius could have submitted to a process which would have been too much for the patient endurance even of a Russian serf; or if a single spark had existed at first, it must have been extinguished by so barbarous a treatment." Caffarelli did not rise to the height of his fame rapidly, and, when he went to London to supply the place of Farinelli in 1738, he entirely failed to please the English public, who had gone wild with enthusiasm over his predecessor. Farinelli's retirement from the artistic world about this period removed from Caffarelli's way the only rival who could have snatched from him the laurels he soon acquired as the leading male singer of the age. After Caffarelli's return from England, his engagements in Turin, Genoa, Milan, and Florence were a triumphal progress. At Turin he sang before the Prince and Princess of Sardinia, the latter of whom had been a pupil of Farinelli, as she was a Spanish princess. Caffarelli, on being told that the royal lady had a prejudice in favor of her old master, said haughtily, "To-night she shall hear two Farinellis in one," and exerted his faculties so successfully as to produce acclamations of delight and astonishment. He always seems to have had great jealousy of the fame of Farinelli, and the latter entertained much curiosity about his successor in public esteem. Metas-tasio, the friend of the retired artist, wrote to him in 1749 from Vienna about Caffarelli's reception: "You will be curious to know how Caffarelli has been received. The wonders related of him by his adherents had excited expectations of something above humanity." After summing up the judgments of the critics who were severe on Caffarelli's faults, that his voice was "false, screaming, and disobedient," that his singing was full of "antique and stale flourishes," that "in his recitative he was an old nun," and that in all that he sang there was "a whimsical tone of lamentation sufficient to sour the gayest allegro," Metastasio says that in his happy moments he could please excessively, but the caprices of his voice and temper made these happy moments very uncertain. Caffarelli's arrogant, vain, and turbulent nature seems to have been the principal cause of his troubles. The numerous anecdotes current of him turned mainly on this characteristic, so different from the modesty and reticence of Fari-nelli. Metastasio, in a lively letter to the Princess di Belmonte, describes an amusing fracas at the Viennese Opera-House. The poet of the house, Migliavacca, who was also director of rehearsals, became engaged in altercation with the singer, because the latter neglected attendance. He rehearsed to Caffarelli in bitter language the various terms of reproach and contempt which his enemies throughout Europe had lavished on him. "But the hero of the panegyric, cutting the thread of his own praise, called out to his eulogist, 'Follow me if thou hast courage to a place where there is none to assist thee,' and, moving toward the door, beckoned him to come out. The poet hesitated a moment, then said with a smile: 'Truly, such an antagonist makes me blush; but come along, since it is a Christian act to chastise a madman or a fool,' and advanced to take the field." Suddenly the belligerents drew blades on the very stage itself, and, while the bystanders were expecting to see poetical or vocal blood besprinkle the harpsichords and double basses, the Signora Tesi advanced toward the duelists. "Oh, sovereign power of beauty!" writes Metastasio with sly sarcasm; "the frantic Caffarelli, even in the fiercest paroxysms of his wrath, captivated and appeased by this unexpected tenderness, runs with rapture to meet her, lays his sword at her feet, begs pardon for his errors, and, generously sacrificing to her his vengeance, seals, with a thousand kisses on her hand, his protestations of obedience, respect, and humility. The nymph signifies her forgiveness with a nod, the poet sheathes his sword, the spectators begin to breathe again, and the tumultuous assembly breaks up amid sounds of laughter. In collecting the numbers of the wounded and slain, none was found but the poor copyist, who, in trying to part the combatants, had received a small contusion in the clavicula of the foot from an involuntary kick of the poet's Pegasus." Once, while Caffarelli was singing at Naples, he was told of the arrival of Gizzielo, a possible rival, at Rome. Unable to check his anxiety, he threw himself into a post-chaise and hastened to Rome, arriving in time to hear his young rival sing the _aria d'entrata_. Delighted with Gizzielo's singing, and giving vent to his emotion, he cried in a loud voice: "_Bravo, bravissimo, Gizzielo! E Caffarelli che te lo dice_." So saying, he rushed out and posted back to Naples, arriving barely in time to dress for the opera. By invitation of the Dauphin, he went to Paris in 1750, and sang at several concerts, where he pleased and astonished the court by his splendid vocalism. Louis XV. sent him a snuff-box; but Caffarelli, observing its plainness, said disdainfully, showing a drawerful of splendid boxes, that the worst was finer than the French King's present. "If he had only sent me his portrait in it," said the vain' artist. "That is only given to ambassadors and princes," was the reply of the King's gentleman. "Well," was the reply, "all the ambassadors and princes in the world would not make one Caffarelli." The King laughed heartily at this, but the Dauphin sent for the singer and presented him with a passport, saying, "It is signed by the King himself--for you a great honor; but lose no time in using it, for it is only good for ten days." Caffarelli left in high dudgeon, saying he had not made his expenses in France. Mr. Garrick, the great actor, heard Caffarelli in Naples in 1764, when he was turned of sixty, and thus writes to Dr. Burney: "Yesterday we attended the ceremony of making a nun; she was the daughter of a duke, and everything was conducted with great splendor and magnificence. The consecration was performed with great solemnity, and I was very much affected; and, to crown the whole, the principal part was sung by the famous Caffarelli, who, though old, has pleased me more than all the singers I ever heard. He _touched_ me, and it is the first time I have been touched since I came to Italy." At this time Caffarelli had accumulated a great fortune, purchased a dukedom, and built a splendid palace at San Dorato, from which he derived his ducal title. Over the gate he inscribed, with characteristic modesty, this inscription: "_Amphion Thebas, ego domum._" * A wit of the period added, "_Ille cum, sine tu_." ** Caffarelli died in 1783, leaving his title and wealth to his nephew, some of whose descendants are still living in enjoyment of the rank earned by the genius of the singer. By some of the critics of his time Caffarelli was judged to be the superior of Farinelli, though the suffrages were generally on the other side. He excelled in slow and pathetic airs as well as in the bravura style; and was unrivaled in the beauty of his voice, and in the perfection of his shake and his chromatic scales, which latter embellishment in quick movements he was the first to introduce. * "Amphion built Thebes, I a palace." ** "He with good reason, you without." IV. When Gabrielli was on her way to England in 1765, she sang for a few nights in Venice with the celebrated Pacchierotti, a male soprano singer who took the place of Caffarelli, even as the latter filled that vacated by Farinelli. Gabrielli was inspired by the association to do her utmost, and when she sang her first _aria di bravura_, Pacchierotti gave himself up for lost. The astonishing swiftness, grace, and flexibility of her execution seemed to him beyond comparison; and, tearing his hair in his impetuous Italian way, he cried in despair, "_Povero me, povero me! Vuesto e un portento!_" ("Unfortunate man that I am, here indeed is a prodigy!") It was some time before he could be persuaded to sing; but, when he did, he excited as much admiration in Gabrielli's breast as that fair cantatrice had done in his own. Pac-chierotti is the third in the great triad of the male soprano singers of the eighteenth century, and the luster of his reputation does not shine dimly as compared with the other two. He commenced his musical career at Palermo in 1770, at the age of twenty, and when he went to England in 1778 expectations were raised to the highest pitch by the accounts given of him by Brydone in his "Tour through Sicily and Malta." His first English season was very successful, and he returned again in 1780, to remain for four years and become one of the greatest favorites the London public had ever known, his last appearance being at the great Handel commemoration. The details of Pacchierotti's life are rather scanty, for he was singularly modest and retiring, and shrank from rather than courted public notice. We know more of him from his various critics as an artist than as a man. "Pacchierotti's voice," says Lord Mount Edgcumbe, who contributed so richly to the literature of music, "was an extensive soprano, full and sweet in the highest degree; his powers of execution were great, but he had far too good taste and good sense to make a display of them where it would have been misapplied, confining it to one bravura song in each opera, conscious that the chief delight of singing and his own supreme excellence lay in touching expression and exquisite pathos. Yet he was so thorough a musician that nothing came amiss to him; every style was to him equally easy, and he could sing at first sight all songs of the most opposite characters, not merely with the facility and correctness which a complete knowledge of music must give, but entering at once into the views of the composer and giving them all the spirit and expression he had designed. Such was his genius in his embellishments and cadences that their variety was inexhaustible.... As an actor, with many disadvantages of person--for he was tall and awkward in his figure, and his features were plain--he was nevertheless forcible and impressive; for he felt warmly, had excellent judgment, and was an enthusiast in his profession. His recitative was inimitably fine, so that even those who did not understand the language could not fail to comprehend from his countenance, voice, and action every sentiment he expressed." An anecdote illustrating Pacchierotti's pathos is given by the best-informed musical authorities. When Metastasio's "Artaserse" was given at Rome with the music of Bertoni, Pacchierotti performed the part of Arbaces. In one place a touching song is followed by a short instrumental symphony. When Pacchierotti had finished the air, he turned to the orchestra, which remained silent, saying, "What are you about?" The leader, awakened from a trance, answered with much simplicity in a sobbing voice, "We are all crying." Not one of the band had thought of the symphony, but sat with eyes full of tears, gazing at the great singer. V. Gabrielli's career, which will now be resumed, had been full of romantic adventures, _affairés d'amour_, and curious episodes, and her vanity looked forward to the continuance in England of similar social excitements. She had accepted the London engagement with some scruple and hesitation, but her anticipation of brilliant conquests among the _jeunesse dorée_ of Britain overcame her fear that she would find audiences less tolerant than those to which she had been accustomed in her imperious course through Europe. But the beautiful Gabrielli was then a little on the wane both in personal loveliness and charm of voice; and, though her fame as a coquette and an artist had preceded her, she met with an indifference that was almost languor. The young Englishmen of the period, though quick to draw blade as any gallants in Europe, did not feel inspired to fight for her smiles, as had been the case with their compeers in the Continental cities, which rang with the scandals, controversies, and duels engendered by her numerous conquests. This sort of social stimulus had become necessary from long use as an ally of professional effort; and, lacking it, Gabrielli became insufferably indolent and careless. She would not take the least trouble to please fastidious London audiences, then as now the most exacting in Europe. She chose to remain sick on occasions which should have drawn forth her finest efforts, and frequently sent her sister Francesca to fill her great parts. One night her manager, mistrusting her excuses of illness, proceeded to her apartments, and found them ablaze with light and filled with a large company of gay and riotous revelers. Of course this condition of affairs could not long be endured. Stung by the slight appreciation of her talents in England, and not choosing to endure the want of patience which made the public grumble when she chose to sing badly or not at all, she quitted England after a very brief stay. Lord Mount Edgcumbe saw her in the opera of "Didone," and avows bluntly that he could see nothing more of her acting than that she took the greatest possible care of her enormous hoop when she sidled out of the flames of Carthage. Dr. Burney, on the other hand, is a more chivalrous critic, or else he was unduly impressed with the lady's charms; for she appeared to him "the most intelligent and best-bred _virtuoso_ with whom he had ever conversed, not only on the subject of music, but on every subject concerning which a well-educated female, who had seen the world, might be expected to have information." Furthermore, he extols the precision and accuracy of her execution and intonation, and the thrilling quality of her voice. Brydone, who appears to have been fascinated with this siren, has an amusing apology for her carelessness of her duties in England, which he insists was not caprice, but inability to sing. He says: "And this I can readily believe, for that wonderful flexibility of voice, that runs with such rapidity and neatness through the most minute divisions, and produces almost instantaneously so great a variety of modulation, must surely depend on the very nicest tones of the fibers; and if these are in the smallest degree relaxed, or their elasticity diminished, how is it possible that their contractions and expansions can so readily obey the will as to produce these effects? The opening of the glottis which forms the voice is so extremely small, and in every variety of tone its diameter must suffer a sensible change; for the same diameter must ever produce the same tone. So _wonderfully_ minute are its contractions and dilatations, that Dr. Kiel, I think, computed that in some voices its opening, not more than the tenth of an inch, is divided into upward of twelve hundred parts, the different sound of every one of which is perceptible to the exact ear. Now, what a nice tension of fibers must this require! I should imagine even the most minute change in the air causes a sensible difference, and that in our foggy climate fibers would be in danger of losing this wonderful sensibility, or, at least, that they would very often be put out of tune. It is not the same case with an ordinary voice, where the variety of divisions run through and the volubility with which they are executed bear no proportion to that of a Gabrielli." Gabrielli sang in various cities of Italy for several years more, still retaining her hold on the hearts of her countrymen. In 1780 she finally retired from the stage and began to live a regular and orderly life, though still extravagant and lavish in her indulgence both of freaks of luxury and generosity. During her residence at Rome the noblesse of that city held her in high esteem, and her concerts gathered the most distinguished and wealthy people. Her prodigality had considerably reduced her income, and when she retired from her profession it amounted to little more than twenty thousand francs. The state in which Gabrielli had lived suited a princess of the blood rather than an operatic singer. Her traveling retinue included a little army of servants and couriers, and, both at home and at the theatre, she exacted the respect which was rather the due of some royal personage. A Florentine nobleman paid her a visit one day, and tore one of his ruffles by catching in some part of her dress. Gabrielli the next day, to make amends, sent him six bottles of Spanish wine, with the costliest rolls of Flanders lace stuffed into the mouths of the bottles instead of corks. But, if she was extravagant and luxurious, she was also generous; and, in spite of the cruel caprices which had marked her life, she always gave tokens of a naturally kind heart. She gave largely to charity, and provided liberally for her parents, as also for her brother's education. Of this brother, who appeared at the Teatro Argentina in Rome as a tenor, but who sang as wretchedly as his sister did exquisitely, an amusing anecdote is narrated. The audience began to hoot and hiss, and yells of "Get out, you raven!" sounded through the house. With great _sang-froid_ the unlucky singer said: "You fancy you are mortifying me by hooting me; you are grossly deceived; on the contrary, I applaud your judgment, for I solemnly declare that I never appear on any stage without receiving the same treatment, and sometimes worse." Gabrielli's closing years were spent at Bologna, where she won the esteem and admiration of all by her charities and steadiness of life, a notable contrast to the license and extravagance of her earlier career. She died in 1796, at the age of sixty-six. SOPHIE ARNOULD. The French Stage as seen by Rousseau.--Intellectual Ferment of the Period.--Sophie Arnould, the Queen of the most Brilliant of Paris Salons.--Her Early Life and Connection with Comte de Lauraguais.--Her Reputation as the Wittiest Woman of the Age.--Art Association with the Great German Composer, Gluck.--The Rivalries and Dissensions of the Period.--Sophie's Rivals and Contemporaries, Madame St. Huberty, the Vestrises Father and Son, Madelaine Guimard.--Opera during the Revolution.--The Closing Days of Sophie Arnould's Life.--Lord Mount Edgcumbe's Opinion of her as an Artist. I. Rousseau, a man of decidedly musical organization, and who wrote so brilliantly on the subject of the art he loved (but who cared more for music than he did for truth and honor, as he showed by stealing the music of two operas, "Pygmalion" and "Le Devin du Village," and passing it off for his own), has given us some very racy descriptions of French opera in the latter part of the eighteenth century in his "Dictionnaire Musicale," in his "Lettre sur la Musique Française," and, above all, in the "Nouvelle Héloïse." In the mouth of Saint Preux, the hero of the latter novel, he puts some very animated sketches: "The opera at Paris passes for the most pompous, the most voluptuous, the most admirable spectacle that human art has ever invented. It is, say its admirers, the most superb monument of the magnificence of Louis XIV. Here you may dispute about anything except music and the opera; on these topics alone it is dangerous not to dissemble. French music, too, is defended by a very vigorous inquisition, and the first thing indicated is a warning to strangers who visit this country that all foreigners admit there is nothing so fine as the grand opera at Paris. The fact is, discreet people hold their tongues and laugh in their sleeves. It must, however, be conceded that not only all the marvels of nature, but many other marvels much greater, which no one has ever seen, are represented at great cost at this theatre; and certainly Pope must have alluded to it when he describes a stage on which were seen gods, hobgoblins, monsters, kings, shepherds, fairies, fury, joy, fire, a jig, a battle, and a ball.*... * Addison gives some such description of the French opera in No. 29 of the "Spectator." Having told you what others say of this brilliant spectacle, I will now tell you what I have seen myself. Imagine an inclosure fifteen feet broad and long in proportion; this inclosure is the theatre. On its two sides are placed at intervals screens, on which are grossly painted the objects which the scene is about to represent. At the back of the inclosure hangs a great curtain painted in like manner, and nearly always pierced and torn, that it may represent at a little distance gulfs on the earth or holes in the sky. Every one who passes behind this stage or touches the curtain produces a sort of earthquake, which has a double effect. The sky is made from certain bluish rags suspended from poles or from cords, as linen may be seen hung out to dry in any washerwoman's yard. The sun (for it is seen here sometimes) is a lighted torch in a lantern. The cars of the gods and goddesses are composed of four rafters, squared and hung on a thick rope in the form of a swing or seesaw; between the rafters is a cross-plank on which the god sits down, and in front hangs a piece of coarse cloth well dirtied, which acts the part of clouds for the magnificent car. One may see toward the bottom of the machine two or three stinking candles, badly snuffed, which, while the great personage dementedly presents himself, swinging in his seesaw, fumigate him with an incense worthy of his dignity. The agitated sea is composed of long lanterns of cloth and blue pasteboard, strung on parallel spits which are turned by little blackguard boys. The thunder is a heavy cart, rolled over an arch, and is not the least agreeable instrument one hears. The flashes of lightning are made of pinches of rosin thrown on a flame, and the thunder is a cracker at the end of a fusee. The theatre is furnished, moreover, with little square trap-doors, through which the demons issue from their cave. When they have to rise into the air, little devils of stuffed brown cloth are substituted, or perhaps live chimney-sweeps, who swing suspended and smothered in rags. The accidents which happen are sometimes tragical, sometimes farcical. When the ropes break, then infernal spirits and immortal deities fall together, laming and sometimes killing each other. Add to all this the monsters which render some scenes very pathetic, such as dragons, lizards, tortoises, and large toads, which promenade the theatre with a menacing air, and display at the opera all the temptations of St. Anthony. Each of these figures is animated by a lout of a Savoyard, who has not even intelligence enough to play the beast." Saint Preux is also made to say of the singers: "One sees actresses nearly in convulsions, tearing yelps and howls violently out of their lungs, closed hands pressed on their breasts, heads thrown back, faces inflamed, veins swollen, and stomach panting. I know not which of the two, eye or ear, is more agreeably affected by this display.... For my part, I am certain that people applaud the outcries of an actress at the opera as they would the feats of a tumbler or rope-dancer at a fair.... Imagine this style of singing employed to express the delicate gallantry and tenderness of Quinault. Imagine the Muses, the Graces, the Loves, Venus herself, expressing themselves this way, and judge the effect. As for devils, it might pass, for this music has something infernal in it, and is not ill adapted to such beings." From this and similar accounts it will be seen that opera in France during the latter part of the eighteenth century had, notwithstanding Jean Jacques's garrulous sarcasms, advanced a considerable way toward that artificial perfection which characterizes it now. Music was a topic of discussion, which absorbed the interest of the polite world far more than the mutterings in the politi-cal horizon, which portended so fierce a convulsion of the social _régime_. Wits, philosophers, courtiers, and fine ladies joined in the acrimonious controversy, first between the adherents of Lulli and Rameau, then between those of Gluck and Piccini. The young gallants of the day were wont to occupy part of the stage itself and criticise the performance of the opera; and often they adjourned from the theatre to the dueling-ground to settle a difficulty too hard for their wits to unravel. The intense interest appertaining to all things connected with music and the theatre noticeable in the French of to-day, was tenfold as eager a century ago. Passionate curiosity, even extending to enthusiasm, with which that worn-out and utterly corrupt society, by some subtile contradiction, threw itself into all questions concerning philosophy, science, literature, and art, found its most characteristic expression in its relation to the music of the stage. It was at this strange and picturesque period, when everything in politics, society, literature, and art was fermenting for the terrible Hecate's brew which the French world was soon to drink to the dregs, that there appeared on the stage one of the most remarkable figures in its history, a woman of great beauty and brilliancy, as well as an artist of unique genius--Sophie Arnould. Her name is lustrous in French memoirs for the splendor of her wit and conversational talent; and Arsène Houssaye has thought it worthy to preserve her _bon-mots_ in a volume of table-talk, called "Arnouldiana," which will compare with anything of its kind in the French language. For a dozen years prior to the Revolution Sophie Arnould was a queen of society as well as of art; and in her elegant _salon_, which was a museum of art _curios_ and bric-à-brac, she held a brilliant court, where men of the highest distinction, both native and foreign, were proud to pay their homage at the shrine of beauty and genius. There might be seen D'Alembert, the learned and scholarly, rough and independent in manner, who deserted the drawing-rooms of the great for saloons where he could move at his ease. There, also, Diderot would often delight his circle of admirers by the fluency and richness of his conversation, his friends extolling his disinterestedness and honesty, his enemies whispering about his cunning and selfishness. The novelist Duclos, with his keen power of penetrating human character, would move leisurely through the throng, picking up material for his romances; and Mably would talk politics and drop ill-natured remarks. The learned metaphysician Helvetius, too, was often there, seeking for compliments, his appetite for applause being voracious; so insatiable, indeed, that he even danced one night at the opera. It was said that he was led to study mathematics by seeing a circle of beautiful ladies surrounding the ugly geometrician Maupertuis in the gardens of the Tuileries. Dorât, who wasted his time in writing bad tragedies, and his property in publishing them; the gay, good-hearted Marmontel; Bernard--called by Voltaire _le gentil_--who wrote the libretto of "Castor et Pollux," esteemed for years a masterpiece of lyric poetry; Rameau, the popular composer, in whose pieces Sophie always appeared; and Francoeur, the leader of the orchestra, were also among her guests. J. J. Rousseau was the great lion, courted and petted by all. When Benjamin Franklin arrived in Paris, where he was received with unbounded hospitality by the most distinguished of French society, he confessed that nowhere did he find such pleasure, such wit, such brilliancy, as in the _salon_ of Mile. Arnould. M. André de Murville was one of the more noteworthy men of wit who attended her _soirées_, and he became so madly in love with her that he offered her his hand; but she cared very little about him. One day he told her that if he were not in the Académie within thirty years, he would blow out his brains. She looked steadily at him, and then, smiling sarcastically, said, "I thought you had done that long ago." Poets sang her praises; painters eagerly desired to transfer her exquisite lineaments to canvas. All this flattery intoxicated her. She wished to be classed with Ninon, Lais, and Aspasia, and was proud to be the subject of the verses of Dorat, Bernard, Rulhière, Marmontel, and Favart. Sophie's wit never hesitated to break a lance even on those she liked. "What are you thinking of?" she said to Bernard, in one of his abstracted moods. "I was talking to myself," he replied. "Be careful," she said archly; "you gossip with a flatterer." To a physician, whom she met with a gun under his arm, she laughed aloud, "Ah, doctor, you are afraid of your professional resources failing." Her racy repartees were in every mouth from Paris to Versailles, and she was in all respects a brilliant personage among the intellectual lights of the age. In the Rue de Béthisy, Paris, stood a house, the Hôtel de Châtillon, from the window of one of whose rooms assassins flung the gory head of the great Admiral de Coligni down to the Duke de Guise on the night of Saint Bartholomew, 1572. In that same room was born, February 14, 1744, Sophie Arnould, the daughter of the proprietor, who had transformed the historic dwelling into a hostelry. She grew up a bright, lively, and beautiful child, and was conscious from an early age of the value of her talents. Anne, as she was then called (for the change to Sophie was made afterward), would say with exultation: "We shall be as rich as princes. A good fairy has given me a talisman to transform everything into gold and diamonds at the sound of my voice." Accident brought her talent to light. It was then the fashion for ladies, after confessing their sins in Passion Week, to retire for some days to a religious house, there to expiate by fasting the faults and misdemeanors committed during the gayeties of the Carnival. It chanced that when Anne was about twelve years old the Princess of Modena retired to the convent of Val-de-Grace, and in attending vespers heard one voice which, for power and purity, she thought had never been surpassed. Fine voices were at a premium then in France, and the Princess at once decided that she had discovered a treasure. She inquired who was the owner of this exquisite organ, and was informed that it was little Anne Arnould. The Princess sent for the child, who came readily, and was not in the least abashed by the presence of the great lady, but sang like a nightingale and chattered like a magpie. The wit and beauty of the girl charmed the Princess, and she threw a costly necklace about her throat. "Come, my lovely child," said she; "you sing like an angel, and you have more wit than an angel. Your fortune is made." As a result of the praises so loudly chanted by the Princess of Modena, the child was sent for to sing in the King's Chapel, and, in spite of the aversion of Anne's pious mother, who was afraid with good reason of the influences of the dissipated court, she was placed thus in contact with power and royalty. The beautiful Pompadour heard her charming voice, and remarked, with that effusion of sentiment which veneered her cruel selfishness, "Ah! with such a talent, she might become a princess." This opinion of the imperious and all-powerful favorite decided the girl's fate; for it was equivalent to a mandate for her _début_. The precocious child knew the danger of the path opened for her. To the remonstrances of her mother she said with a shrug of her pretty shoulders: "To go to the opera is to go to the devil. But what matters it? It is my destiny." Poor Mme. Arnould scolded, shuddered, and prayed, and ended it, as she thought, by shutting the girl up in a convent. But Louis XV. got wind of this threatened checkmate, and a royal mandate took her out of the convent walls which had threatened to immure her for life. Anne was placed with Clairon, the great tragedienne, to learn acting, and with Mlle. Fel to learn singing. As a consequence, while she had some rivals in the beauty of her voice, her acting surpassed anything on the operatic stage of that era. II. When Anne Arnould made her first appearance, she assumed the name of Sophie on account of the softer sound of its syllables. Her _début_, September 15, 1757, was one of most brilliant success, and in a night Paris was at her feet. Her genius, her beauty, her voice, her magnificent eyes, her incomparable grace and fascinating witchery of manner, were the talk of the city; and the opera was besieged every night she sang. Fréron, in speaking of the waiting crowds, said, "I doubt if they would take such trouble to get into paradise." The young and lovely _débutante_ accepted the homage of the time, which then as now expressed itself in bouquets, letters, and jewels, without number, with as much nonchalance as if she had been a stage goddess of twenty years' standing. Hosts of admirers fluttered around this new and brilliant light. Mme. Arnould fretted and scolded, and watched her precious charge as well as she could; for when the opera received a singer, neither father nor mother could longer claim her. One of the besieging _roués_ said that Sophie walked on roses. "Yes," was the mother's keen retort, "but see to it that you do not plant thorns amid the roses." Sophie's fascinations were the theme of universal talk among the gay and licentious idlers of the court, and heavy bets were made as to who should be the victor in his suit. Among the most distinguished of the court rufflers of the period was the Comte de Lauraguais, noted for his personal beauty, wit, and daring, and for having written some very bad plays, which were instantly damned by the audience. He had run through a great fortune, and the good-humored gayety with which he won money from his friends was only equaled by the nonchalance with which he had squandered his own. He was a member of the Academy of Sciences, and enjoyed lounging in fashionable saloons and behind the scenes at the opera. Lauraguais had the temerity to attempt to carry off the young beauty, but, the enterprise failing, he had recourse to another expedient. One evening, supping with some friends, the conversation turned naturally on the star which had just risen, and there was much jesting over the maternal anxiety of Arnould _mère_. Lauraguais, laughing, instantly offered to lay an immense wager that within fifteen days Mme. Arnould would no longer attend Sophie to the opera. The bet was taken, and the next day a handsome but modest-looking young man, professing to be from the country, applied at the Hôtel de Châtillon for lodgings. The fascinating tongue of young Duval (for he represented that he was a poet of that name, who hoped to get a play taken by the managers) soon beguiled both mother and daughter, and he began to make love to Sophie under the very maternal eyes. The romantic girl listened with delight to the protestations and vows of the young provincial poet, though she had disdained the flatteries of the troops of court gallants who besieged the opera-house stage when she sang. The _finale_ of this pretty pastoral was a moonlight flitting one night. The couple eloped, and the Comte de Lauraguais won his wager that Mme. Arnould would not longer accompany her daughter to the opera, and with the wager the most beautiful and fascinating woman of the time. Sophie, finding herself freed from all conventional shackles, gave full play to her tastes, both for luxury and intellectual society. Her house, the Hôtel Rambouillet, was transformed into a palace, and both at home and in the green-room of the opera she was surrounded by a throng of noblemen, diplomats, soldiers, poets, artists--in a word, all the most brilliant men of Paris, who crowded her receptions and besieged her footsteps. The attentions paid the brilliant Sophie caused terrible fits of jealousy on the part of Lauraguais, and their life for several years, though there appears to have been sincere attachment on both sides, was embittered by quarrels and recriminations. Sophie seems to have been faithful to her relation with Lauraguais, though she never took pains to deprecate his anger or avert his suspicions. Discovering that he was intriguing with an operatic fair one, she contrived that Lauraguais should come on her _tête-a-tête_ with a Knight of Malta. To his reproaches she answered, "This gentleman is only fulfilling his vows as Knight of Malta in waging war upon an infidel" (infidèle). At last she tired of leading such a fretful existence, and took the occasion of the Count's absence to break the bond. She filled her carriage with all of his valuable gifts to herself--jewelry, laces, and two children--and sent them to his hotel. The message was received by the Countess, who gladly accepted the charge of the little ones, but returned the carriage and its other contents. On Lauraguais's return he was thrown into the deepest misery by Sophie's resolve; but, although she was touched by his pleading and reproaches, she remained inflexible. She accepted, however, a pension of two thousand crowns which his generosity settled on her. We are told that the sentimental Countess joined with her husband in urging Sophie, who at first refused to receive Lauraguais's bounty, to yield, saying that her admiration of the lovely singer made her excuse his fault in being unfaithful to herself, and that the children should be always treated as her own. Such a scene as this would be impossible out of the France of the eighteenth century. The number of Sophie Arnould's _bon-mots_ is almost legion, and her good nature could rarely resist the temptation of uttering a brilliant epigram or a pungent repartee. Some one showed her a snuff-box, on which were portraits of Sully and the Duke de Choiseul. She said with a wicked smile, "Debit and credit." A Capuchin monk was reported to have been eaten by wolves. "Poor beasts! hunger must be a dreadful thing," ejaculated she. A beautiful but silly woman complained to her of the persistency of her lovers. "You have only to open your mouth and speak, to get rid of their importunities," was the pungent answer. She effectually silenced a coxcomb, who aimed to annoy her by saying, "Oh! wit runs in the street nowadays," by the retort, "Too fast for fools to catch it, however." Of Madeleine Guimard, the fascinating dancer, who was exceedingly thin, Sophie said one night, after she had seen her dance a _pas de trois_ in which she represented a nymph being contended for by two satyrs, "It made her think of two dogs fighting for a bone."* * This _mot_ the Paris wits have revived at the expense of Mlle. Sara Bernhardt. One day Voltaire said to her, "Ah! mademoiselle, I am eighty-four years old, and I have committed eighty-four follies" (_sottises_). "A mere trifle," responded Sophie; "I am not yet forty, and I have committed more than a thousand." For a time Mile. Arnould suffered under a loss of court favor, owing to her having made Mme. Du Barry the butt of her pointed sarcasms. A _lettre de cachet_ would have been the fate of another, but Sophie was too much of a popular idol to be so summarily treated. She, however, retired for a time from the theatre with a pension of two thousand francs, having already accumulated a splendid fortune. Instantly that it was known she was under a cloud, there were plenty to urge that she never had any voice, and that her only good points were beauty and fine acting. Abbé Galiani, a court parasite, remarked one night, "It's the finest asthma I ever heard." In 1774 the great composer Gluck, whose genius was destined to have such a profound influence on French music, came to Paris with his "Iphigenie en Aulide," by invitation of the Dauphiness Marie Antoinette, who had formerly been his musical pupil. The stiff and stilted works of Sully and Rameau had thus far ruled the French stage without any competition, except from the Italian operettas performed by the company of Les Bouffons, and the new school of French operatic comedy developed into form by the lively genius of Grétry. When Gluck's magnificent opera, constructed on new art principles, was given to the Paris public, April 19, 1774, it created a deep excitement, and divided critics and connoisseurs into opposing and embittered camps, in which the most distinguished wits, poets, and philosophers ranged themselves, and pelted each other with lampoons, pamphlets, and epigrams, which often left wounds that had to be healed afterward by an application of cold steel. In this contest Sophie Arnould, who had speedily emerged from her retirement, took an active part, for Gluck had selected her to act the part of his heroines. The dramatic intensity and breadth of the German composer's conceptions admirably suited Sophie, whose genius for acting was more marked than her skill in singing. The success of Gluck's "Iphigenie" gave the finishing stroke to the antiquated operas of Rameau, in which the singer had made her reputation, and offered her a nobler vehicle for art-expression. On her association with Gluck's music Sophie Arnould's fame in the history of art now chiefly rests. Gluck, like all others, yielded to the magic charm of the beautiful and witty singer, and went so far as to permit rehearsals to be held at her own house. On one occasion the Prince de Hennin, one of the haughtiest of the grand seigneurs of the period, intruded himself, and, finding himself unnoticed, interrupted the rehearsal with the remark, "I believe it is the custom in France to rise when any one enters the room, especially if it be a person of some consideration." Gluck's eyes flashed with rage, as he sprang threateningly to his feet. "The custom in Germany, sir, is to rise only for those whom we esteem!" he said; then turning to Sophie, who had been stopped in the middle of an air, "I perceive, madame, that you are not mistress in your own house. I leave you, and shall never set foot here again." Sophie is credited with having commented on this scene with the remark that it was the only case where she had ever witnessed a personal illustration of Æsop's fable of the lion put to flight by an ass.* * An English wit some years afterward perpetrated the same witticism on the occasion of Edmund Burke's leaving the House of Commons in a rage, because he was interrupted in one of his great speeches by a thick-witted country member. It is pleasant to know that the Prince de Hennin was obliged to make a humble apology to Gluck, by order of Marie Antoinette. Sophie Arnould appeared with no less success in Gluck's operas of "Orphée" and "Alceste" than in the first, and rose again to the topmost wave of court favor. When "Orphée" was at rehearsal at the opera-house, it became the fashion of the great court dignitaries and the young chevaliers of the period to attend. Gluck instantly, when he entered the theatre, threw off his coat and wig, and conducted in shirt-sleeves and cotton nightcap. When the rehearsal was over, prince and marquis contended as to who should act the part of _valet de chambre_. The composer at this time was the subject of almost idolatrous admiration, for it was at a later period that the old quarrels were resumed again with even more acrid personalities, and Piccini was imported from Italy by the Du Barry faction to be pitted against the German. Gluck returned from Germany, whither he had gone on a visit, to find the opposition cabal in full force, and the merits of the Italian composer lauded to the skies by the fickle public of Paris. But the former's greatest opera, "Iphigénie en Tauride," was produced, and gave a fatal blow to Piccini's ascendancy, though his own opera on the same subject was afterward given with great care. On the latter occasion Mile. Laguerre, the principal singer, appeared on the stage intoxicated, and was unable to get through the music successfully. "This is not 'Iphigenia in Tauris,'" said witty Sophie Arnould, "but Iphigenia in Champagne." Through some intrigue Gluck was persuaded to substitute Mile. Levasseur for Mile. Arnould in the interpretation of his last great operas; so Sophie, enraged and disheartened, but to the gratification of the myriads of people whom she had offended by her cutting witticisms, which had been showered alike on friends and enemies, retired to private life, and thenceforward rarely appeared on the stage. III. Interest will be felt in some of Sophie Arnould's more distinguished art contemporaries. Among these, the highest place must be given to Mme. Antoinette Cécile Saint Huberty, _née_ Gavel. Born in Germany of French descent, she made her first appearance in Paris in a small part in Gluck's "Armide." Small, thin, and unprepossessing in person, her power of expression and artistic vocal-ism won more and more on the public, till the retirement of Sophie Arnould and Mile. Levasseur, and the death of Laguerre, left her in undisputed possession of the stage. When Piccini's "Didon," his greatest opera,* was produced, she sang the part of the _Queen of Carthage_. * "Didon," differing widely from the other operas of Piccini, was modeled after the new operatic principles of Gluck, and was a magnificent homage on the part of his old rival to the genius of the German. Indeed, although the adherents of the two musicians waged so fierce a conflict, they themselves were full of respect and admiration for each other. Gluck always warmly expressed his appreciation of Piccini's "felicitous and charming melodies, the clearness of his style, the elegance and truth of his expression." What Piccini's opinion of Gluck was is best shown in his proposition after Gluck's death to raise a subscription, not for the erection of a statue, but for the establishment of an annual concert to take place on the anniversary of Gluck's death, to consist entirely of his compositions--"in order to transmit to posterity the spirit and character of his magnificent works, that they may serve as a model to future artists of the true style of dramatic music." Marmontel, the poet of the opera, had already said at rehearsal, "She expressed it so well that I imagined myself at the theatre," and Piccini congratulated her on having been largely instrumental in its success. As _Didon_ she made one of her greatest successes. "Never," says Grimm, "has there been united acting more captivating, a sensibility more perfect, singing more exquisite, happier by-play, and more noble _abandon_." She was crowned on the stage--an honor hitherto unknown, and since so much abused. The secret of her marvelous gift lay in her extreme sensibility. Others might sing an air better, but no one could give to either airs or recitatives accentuation more pure or more impassioned, action more dramatic, and by-play more eloquent. Some one complimenting her on the vivid truth with which she embodied her part, "I really experience it," she said; "in a death-scene I actually feel as if I were dead." It has been said that Talma was the first to discard the absurd costumes of the theatre, but this credit really belongs to Mme. Saint Huberty. She studied the Greek and Roman statues, and wore robes in keeping with the antique characters, especially suppressing hoops and powder. This singer remained queen of the French stage until 1790, when she retired. During the time of her art reign she appeared in many of the principal operas of Piccini, Salieri, Sacchini, and Grétry, showing but little less talent for comedy than for tragedy. She retired from public life to become the wife of the Count d'Entraignes. Her tragic fate many years afterward is one of the celebrated political assassinations of the age. Count d'Entraignes at this time was residing at Barnes, England, having recently left the diplomatic service of Russia, in which he had shown himself one of the most dangerous enemies of the Napoleonic government in France. The Count's Piedmontese valet had been bribed by a spy of Fouché, the French Minister of Police, to purloin certain papers. The valet was discovered by his master, and instantly stabbed him, and, as the Countess entered the room a moment afterward, he also pierced her heart with the stiletto recking with her husband's blood, finishing the shocking tragedy by blowing out his own brains. Thus died, in 1812, one who had been among the most brilliant ornaments of the French stage. No record of Sophie Arnould's artistic associates is complete without some allusion to the celebrated dancers Gaëtan Vestris * and Auguste, his son. Gaétan was accustomed to say that there were three great men in Europe--Voltaire, Frederick the Great, and himself. In his old age he preserved all his skill, and M. Castel Blaze, who saw him at the Académie fifty years after his _début_ in 1748, declares that he still danced with inimitable grace. * Mme. Vestris, the last of the family, and the first wife of the English comedian Charles Mathews, was the granddaughter of Gaëtan. It is of Gaëtan that the story is told in connection with Gluck, when the opera of "Orphée" was put in rehearsal. The dancer wished for a ballet in the opera. "Write me the music of a chacone, Monsieur Gluck," said the god of dancing. "A chacone!" ejaculated the astonished composer; "do you think the Greeks, whose manners we are endeavoring to depict, knew what a chacone was?" "Did they not?" said Vestris, amazed at the information; then, in a tone of compassion, "How much they are to be pitied!" Gaëtan retired from the stage at the successful _début_ of Auguste, but appeared again from time to time to show his invulnerability to time. On the occasion of his son's first appearance, the veteran, in full court dress, sword, and ruffles, and hat in hand, stepped to the front by the side of the _débutante_. After a short address to the public on the importance of the choreographic art and his hopes of his son, he turned to Auguste and said: "Now, my son, exhibit your talent. Your father is looking at you." He was accustomed to say: "Auguste is a better dancer than I am; he had Gaëtan Vestris for a father, an advantage which nature refused me." "If," said Gaëtan, on another occasion, "le dieu de la danse" (a title which he had given himself) "touches the ground from time to time, he does so in order not to humiliate his comrades." * This boast of Gaëtan Vestris seems to have inspired the lines which Moore afterward addressed to a celebrated _danseuse_: ".... You'd swear, When her delicate feet in the dance twinkle round, That her steps are of light, that her home is the air, And she only _par complaisance_ touches the ground." The son inherited the paternal arrogance. To the director of the opera, De Vismes, who, enraged at some want of respect, said to him, "Do you know who I am?" he drawled, "Yes! you are the farmer of my talent." On one occasion Auguste refused to obey the royal mandate, and Gaétan said to him with some reproof in his tones: "What! the Queen of France does her duty by requesting you to dance before the King of Sweden, and you do not do yours! You shall no longer bear my name. I will have no misunderstanding between the house of Vestris and the house of Bourbon; they have hitherto always lived on good terms." It nearly broke Auguste's heart when one day during the French Revolution he was seized by a howling band of _sans culottes_ and made to exhibit his finest skill on the top of a barrel before this ragged mob of liberty-loving citizens! The fascinating sylph, Madeleine Guimard, broke almost as many hearts and inspired as many duels as the charming Sophie Arnould herself. Plain even to ugliness, and excessively thin, her exquisite dancing and splendid eyes made great havoc among her numerous admirers. Lord Byron said that thin women when young reminded him of dried butterflies, when old of spiders. The stage associates of Mile. Guimard called her "L'araignée," and Sophie Arnould christened her "the little silkworm," for the sake of the joke about "la feuille." But such spiteful raillery did not prevent her charming men to her feet whom greater beauties had failed to captivate. Houdon the sculptor molded her foot, and the great painters vied for the privilege of decorating the walls of her hotel. When she broke her arm, mass was said in church for her recovery, and she was one of the reigning toasts of Paris. Among the numerous _liaisons_ of Mile. Guimard, that with the Prince de Soubise is most noted. After this she eloped with a German prince, and the Prince de Soubise pursued them, wounded his rival, killed three of his servants, and brought her back to Paris in triumph. After a great variety of adventures of this nature, she married in 1787 a humble professor of dancing named Despriaux. Lord Mount Edgcumbe saw her in 1789 at the King's Theatre in London. "Among them," he writes, referring to a troupe of new performers, "came the famous Mile. Guimard, then nearly sixty years old, but still full of grace and gentility, and she had never possessed more." IV. When Sophie Arnould retired from the stage, she took a house near the Palais Royal, and extended as brilliant a hospitality as ever. She was as celebrated for her practical jokes as for her witticisms, of which the following freak is a good example: One evening in 1780 she gave a grand supper, to which, among others, she invited M. Barthe, author of "Les Fausses Infidélités," and many similar pieces. He was inflated with vanity, though he was totally ignorant of everything away from the theatre, and was, in fact, one of those individuals who actually seem to court mystification and practical jokes. Mlle. Arnould instructed her servant Jeannot, and had him announced pompously under the title of the Chevalier de Médicis, giving M. Barthe to understand that the young man was an illegitimate son of the house of Medici. The pretended nobleman appeared to be treated with respect and distinction by the company, and he spoke to the poet with much affability, professing great admiration for his works. M. Barthe was enchanted. He was in a flutter of gratified vanity, and, to show his delight at the condescension of the chevalier, he proposed to write an epic poem in honor of his house. This farce lasted during the evening. The assembled company were in convulsions of suppressed laughter, which broke out when, at the moment of M. Barthe's most ecstatic admiration and respect for his new patron, Sophie Arnould lifted her glass, and, looking at the chevalier, said, in a clear voice, "Your health, Jeannot!" The sensations of poor M. Barthe may readily be imagined. The incident became the story of the day in all circles, and the unlucky poet could not go anywhere for fear of being tormented about "Jeannot." At length she withdrew completely from the follies, passions, and cares of the world, and bought an ancient monastic building, formerly belonging to the monks of St. Francis, near Luzarches, eighteen or twenty miles from Paris. This grim residence she decorated luxuriously in its interior, and over the door inscribed the ecclesiastical motto, "Ite missa est." Here she remained during the earlier storms of the Revolution, though she occasionally went to Paris at the risk of her head to gratify her curiosity about the republican management of opera, which presented some very unique features. The reader will be interested in some brief pictures of the revolutionary opera. It was directed by four distinguished _sans culottes_--Henriot, Chaumette, Le Rouxand, and Hébert. The nominal director, however, was Francoeur, the same who first brought out Sophie Arnould in Louis XV.'s time. Henriot, Danton, Hébert, and other chiefs of the Revolution would hardly take a turn in the _coulisses_ or _foyer_ before they would say to some actor or actress: "We are going to your room; see that we are received properly." This of course meant a superb collation; and, after emptying many bottles of the costliest wines, the virtuous republicans would retire without troubling themselves on the score of expense. As this was a nightly occurrence, and the poor actors had no money, the expense fell on the restaurateur, who was compelled to console himself by the reflection that it was in the cause of liberty. Oftentimes the executioner, the dreaded Sanson, who as public official had the right of entree, would stroll in and in a jocular tone emphasize his abilities as a critic by saying to the singers that his opinion on the _execution_ of the music ought to be respected.* * So, too, the London hangman one night went into the pit of her Majesty's Theatre to hear Jenny Lind sing, and remarked with a sigh of professional longing, "Ah, what a throat to scrag!" Operatic kings and queens were suppressed, and the titles of royalty were prohibited both on the stage and in the greenroom. It was necessary, indeed, to use the old monarchical répertoire; but kings were transformed into chiefs; princes and dukes became members of the Convention or representatives of the people; seigneurs became mayors, and substitutes were found for words like "crown," "scepter," "throne," etc. There was one great difficulty to overcome. This was met by placing the scenes of the new operas in Italy, Portugal, etc.--anywhere but in France, where it was indispensable from a political point of view, but impossible from the poetic and musical, to make lovers address each other as _citoyen, citoyenne_. Hébert would frequently display proscriptive lists in the green-room, including the names of many of the actors and other operatic employees, and say, "I shall have to send you all to the guillotine some day, but I have been prevented hitherto by the fact that you have conduced to my amusement." The stratagem which saved them was to get the ferocious Hébert drunk, for he loved wine as well as blood, and steal the fatal document. However, this operatic _dilettante_ always appeared with a fresh one next day. One bloodthirsty republican, Lefebvre, who was ambitious for musical fame, insisted on singing first characters. He appeared as _primo tenore_, and was hissed; he then tried his luck as first bass, and was again hissed by his friends the _sans culottes_. Enraged by the _fiasco_, he attributed it to the machinations of a counter-revolution, and nearly persuaded Robespierre to give him a platoon of musketeers to fire on the infamous emissaries of "Pitt and Coburg." Yet, though the Reign of Terror was a fearful time for art and artists, there were sixty-three theatres open, and they were always crowded in spite of war, famine, and the guillotine. It was fortunate for Sophie Arnould that her connection with the opera had closed prior to this dreadful period. As stated previously, she remained undisturbed during the early years of the Revolution. Only once a band of _sans culottes_ invaded her retreat. To their suspicious questions she answered by assurances of loving the republic devotedly. Her unconsciously satirical smile aroused distrust, and they were about hurrying her off to prison, when she pointed out a bust of Gluck, and inquired if she would keep a bust of Marat if she were not loyal to the republic. This satisfied her intelligent inquisitors, and they retreated, saying, "She is a good _citoyenne_, after all," as they saluted the marble. During this time she was still rich, having thirty thousand livres a year. But misfortunes thickened, and in two years she had lost nearly every franc. Obliged to go to Paris to try to save the wreck of her estate, she found her hosts of friends dissipated like the dew, all guillotined, shot, exiled, or imprisoned. A gleam of sunshine came, however, in the kindness of Fouché, the Minister of Police, an old lover. One morning the Minister received the message of an unknown lady visitor. On receiving her he instantly recognized the still beautiful and sparkling lineaments of the woman he had once adored. Fouché, touched, heard her story, and by his powerful intercession secured for her a pension of twenty-four hundred livres and handsome apartments in the Hôtel D'Angevil-liers. Here she speedily drew around her again the philosophers and fashionables, the poets and the artists of the age; and the Sophie Arnould of the golden days of old seemed resurrected in the vivacity and brilliancy of the talk from which time and misfortune had taken nothing of its pungent salt. In 1803 she died obscurely; and the same year there also passed out of the world two other celebrated women, the great actress Clairon and the singer De Beaumesnil, once Sophie's rival. Lord Mount Edgcumbe, in his "Musical Reminiscences," speaks of Sophie Arnould, whom he heard in ante-revolutionary days, as a woman of entrancing beauty and very great dramatic genius. This connoisseur tells us too that her voice, though limited in range and not very flexible, was singularly rich, strong, and sweet, fitting her exceptionally for the performance of the simple and noble arias of Gluck, which were rather characterized by elevation and dramatic warmth than florid ornamentation. Her place in art is, therefore, as the finest contemporary interpreter of Wagner's greater predecessor. ELIZABETH BILLINGTON AND HER CONTEMPORARIES. Elizabeth Weichsel's Runaway Marriage.--_Début_ at Covent Garden.--Lord Mount Edgcumbe's Opinion of her Singing.--Her Rivalry with Mme. Mara.--Mrs. Billington's Greatness in English Opera.--She sings in Italy in 1794-'99.--Her Great Power on the Italian Stage.--Marriage with Felican.--Reappearance in London in Italian and English Opera.--Sketch of Mme. Mara's Early Lite.--Her Great Triumphs on the English Stage.--Anecdotes of her Career and her Retirement from England.--Grassini and Napoleon.--The Italian Prima Donna disputes Sovereignty with Mrs. Billington.--Her Qualities as an Artist.--Mrs. Billington's Retirement from the Stage and Declining Years. I. Among the comparatively few great vocalists born in England, the traditions of Mrs. Elizabeth Billington's singing rank her as by far the greatest. Brought into competition with many brilliant artists from other countries, she held her position unshaken by their rivalry. She came of musical stock. Her father, Charles Weichsel, was Saxon by birth, but spent most of his life as an orchestral player in London; and her mother was a charming vocalist of considerable repute. Born in 1770 in the English capital, she was most carefully trained in music from an early age, and her gifts displayed themselves so manifestly as to give assurance of that brilliant future which made her the admiration of her times. Both she and her brother Charles were regarded as prodigies of youthful talent, the latter having attained some distinction on the violin at the age of six, though he failed in after-years, unlike his brilliant sister, to fulfill his juvenile promise. Elizabeth Weichsel when only eleven composed original pieces for the piano, and at the age of fourteen appeared in concert at Oxford. Her career was so long and eventful that we must hurry over its youthful stages. The young cantatrice at the age of fifteen was sought in marriage by Mr. Thomas Billington, who had been her music-master, and, as her father was bitterly opposed to the connection, the enamored couple eloped, and were married at Lambeth Church with great secrecy. They soon found themselves at their wits' end. With no money, and without the established reputation which commands the attention of managers, Mrs. Billington found that in taking a husband she had assumed a fresh responsibility. Finally she secured an engagement at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin, when she appeared in Gluck's opera of "Orpheus and Eurydice," with the well-known tenor Tenducci, whose exquisite singing of the air, "Water parted from the Sea," in the opera of "Artaxerxes," had chiefly contributed to his celebrity. It was _à propos_ of this that the well-known Irish street-song of the day was composed: "Tenducci was a piper's son, And he was in love when he was young; And all the tunes that he could play Was 'Water parted from the Say.'" For about a year the young singer played provincial engagements, but it was good training for her. Her powers were becoming matured, and she was learning self-reliance in the bitter school of experience, which more and more assured her of coming triumph. At last she persuaded Lewis, the manager of Covent Garden, to give her a metropolitan hearing. Though her voice at this time had not attained the volume and power of after-years, its qualities were exceptional. Its compass was in the upper notes extraordinary, though in the lower register rather limited. She was well aware of this defect, and tried to remedy it by substituting one octave for another; a license which passed unnoticed by the undiscriminating multitude, while it was easily excused by cultivated ears, being, as one connoisseur remarked, "like the wild luxuriance of poetical imagery, which, though against the cold rules of the critic, constitutes the true value of poetry." She had not the full tones of Banti, but rather resembled those of Allegranti, whom she closely imitated. Her voice, in its very high tones, was something of the quality of a flute or flageolet, or resembled a commixture of the finest sounds of the flute and violin, if such could be imagined. It was then "wild and wandering," but of singular sweetness. "Its agility," says Mount Edgcumbe, "was very great, and everything she sang was executed in the neatest manner and with the utmost precision. Her knowledge of music enabled her to give great variety to her embellishments, which, as her taste was always good, were always judicious." In her cadenzas, however, she was obliged to trust to her memory, for she never could improvise an ornament. Her ear was so delicate that she could instantly detect any instrument out of tune in a large orchestra; and her intonation was perfect. In manner she was "peculiarly bewitching," and her attitudes generally were good, with the exception of an ugly habit of pressing her hands against her bosom when executing difficult passages. Her face and figure were beautiful, and her countenance was full of good humor, though not susceptible of varied expression; indeed, as an actress, she had comparatively little talent, depending chiefly on her voice for producing effect on the stage. Mrs. Billington's __début__ in London was on February 13, 1786, in the presence of royalty and a great throng of nobility and fashion, in the character of _Rosetta_ in "Love in a Village." Her success was beyond the most sanguine hopes, and her brilliant style, then an innovation in English singing, bewildered the pit and delighted the musical connoisseurs. The leader of the orchestra was so much absorbed in one of her beautiful cadenzas that he forgot to give the chord at its close. So much science, taste, birdlike sweetness, and brilliancy had never before been united in an English singer. So Mrs. Billington assumed undisputed sovereignty in the realm of song, for one night made her famous. The managers, who had haggled over the terms of thirteen pounds a week for her first brief engagement of twelve nights, were glad to give her a thousand pounds for the rest of the season. For her second part she chose _Polly Peachum_ in "The Beggars' Opera," to show her detractors that she could sing simple English ballad-music with no less taste and effect than the brilliant and ornate style with which she first took the town by storm. Mara, the great German singer, who until then had no rival, was distracted with rage and jealousy, which the sweet-tempered Billington treated with a careless smile. Though her success had been so brilliant, she relaxed no effort in self-improvement, and studied assiduously both vocalism and the piano. Indeed, Salomon, Haydn's impressario, said of her with enthusiasm, "Sar, she sing equally well wid her troat and her fingers." At the close of this season, which was the opening of a great career, Mrs. Billington visited Paris, where she placed herself under the instruction of the composer Sacchini, who greatly aided her by his happy suggestions. To him she confesses herself to have been most indebted for what one of her admirers called "that pointed expression, neatness of execution, and nameless grace by which her performance was so happily distinguished." Kelly, the Irish actor and singer, who made her acquaintance about this time, said he thought her an angel of beauty and the St. Cecilia of song. Her loveliness enchanted even more by the sweetness and amiability of its expression than by symmetry of feature, and everywhere she was the idol of an adoring public. Even her rivals, embittered by professional jealousy, soon melted in the sunshine of her sweet temper. An amusing example of professional rivalry is related by John Bernard in his "Reminiscences," where Miss George, afterward Lady Oldmixon, managed to cloud the favorite's success by a cunning musical trick. "Mrs. Billington, who was engaged on very high terms for a limited number of nights, made her first appearance on the Dublin stage in the character of _Polly_ in 'The Beggars' Opera,' surrounded by her halo of popularity. She was received with acclamations, and sang her songs delightfully; particularly 'Cease your Funning,' which was tumultuously encored. Miss George, who performed the part of _Lucy_ (an up-hill singing part), perceiving that she had little chance of dividing the applause with the great magnet of the night, had recourse to the following stratagem: When the dialogue duet in the second act, 'Why, how now, Madam Flirt?' came on, Mrs. Billing-ton having given her verse with exquisite sweetness, Miss George, setting propriety at defiance, sang the whole of her verse an octave higher, her tones having the effect of the high notes of a sweet and brilliant flute. The audience, taken by surprise, bestowed on her such loud applause as almost shook the walls of the theatre, and a unanimous encore was the result." Haydn gave this opinion on her in his "Diary" in 1791: "On the 10th of December I went to see the opera of 'The Woodman' (by Shield). It was on the day when the provoking memoir of Mrs. Billington was published. She sang rather timidly, but yet well. She is a great genius. The tenor was Incledon. The common people in the gallery are very troublesome in every theatre, and take lead in uproar. The audience in the pit and boxes have often to clap a long time before they can get a fine part repeated. It was so this evening with the beautiful duet in the third act: nearly a quarter of an hour was spent in contention, but at length the pit and boxes gained the victory, and the duet was repeated. The two actors stood anxiously on the stage all the while." The great composer paid her one of the prettiest compliments she ever received. Reynolds was painting her portrait in the character of St. Cecilia, and one day Haydn called just as it was being finished. Haydn contemplated the picture very attentively, then said suddenly, "But you have made a great mistake." The painter started up aghast. "How! what?" "Why," said Haydn, "you have represented Mrs. Billington listening to the angels; you should have made the angels listening to her!" Mrs. Billington blushed with pleasure. "Oh, you dear man!" cried she, throwing her arms round his neck and kissing him. II. Mrs. Billington seems to have entertained the notion in 1794 of quitting the stage, and went abroad to free herself from the protests and reproaches which she knew the announcement of her purpose would call forth if she remained in England. Accompanied by her husband and brother, she sauntered leisurely through Europe, for her professional exertions had already brought her a comfortable fortune. A trivial accident set her feet again in the path which she had designed to forsake, and which she was destined to adorn with a more brilliant distinction. The party had traveled _incognito_, but on arriving in Naples a babbling servant revealed the identity of the great singer, which speedily became known to Lady Hamilton, Lord Nelson's friend, then domiciled in Naples as the favorite of the royal family. Lady Hamilton insisted on presenting Mrs. Billington to the Queen, and she was persuaded to sing in a private concert before their Majesties, which was swiftly succeeded by an invitation, so urgent as to take the color of command, to sing at the San Carlo. So the English prima donna made her _début_ before the Neapolitans in "Inez di Castro," which had been specially arranged for her by Francesco Bianchi. The fervid Naples audience received her with passionate acclamations, to which she had never been accustomed from the more impassive English. Hitherto her reputation had been mostly identified with English opera; thenceforward she was to be known chiefly as a brilliant exponent of the Italian school of music. Paesiello's "Didone," Paer's "Ero e Leandro," and Guglielmi's "Deborah e Sisera" rapidly succeeded, each one confirming afresh the admiration of her hearers, who were all _cognoscenti_, as Italian audiences generally are. It became the vogue to patronize the beautiful cantatrice, and the large English colony, who were led by some of the noblest gentlewomen of England, such as Lady Templeton, Lady Palmerston, Lady Gertrude Villiers, Lady Grandison, and others, made it a matter of national pride to give the singer an enthusiastic support. English influence was all-paramount at the court of Naples, from important political exigencies, and this cooperated with Mrs. Billington's extraordinary merits to raise her to a degree of consideration which had been rarely attained by any singer in that beautiful Italian capital, prone as its people are to indulge in exaggerated admiration of musical celebrities. She sang for nearly two years at the San Carlo, and in 1796 we find her at Bologna before French military audiences, whom Napoleon's Italian victories had brought across the Alps. The conqueror confessed himself vanquished by the lovely Billington, and made her the guest of himself and Josephine, who admired the art no less than she dreaded the beauty of a possible rival. The English singer passed from city to city of Italy, everywhere arousing the liveliest admiration. Her _début_ in Venice was to be in "Semiramide," written expressly for her by Nasolini, a young composer of great promise. Illness, however, confined her to her bed for six months, in spite of which the impressario paid her salary in full. She recovered, and showed her gratitude by singing without recompense during the fair of the Ascension, when immense throngs flocked to Venice. The _corps diplomatique_ presented her on the first night with a jeweled necklace of immense value, as a testimonial of their esteem and pleasure at her recovery. A singular evidence of the superstition of the Neapolitans was shown on her return to their city, which was then threatened by an eruption of Vesuvius and a dreadful earthquake, the cause of considerable damage. The populace believed that it was a visitation of God in punishment for the permission granted to a heretic Englishwoman to sing at San Carlo. Mrs. Billington's safety was for a time threatened, but her talents and popularity at last triumphed, and she rose higher in public regard than before. Her Neapolitan engagement was terminated very suddenly by the death of her husband, as he was in the act one evening of cloaking her prior to her stepping into her carriage to go to the theatre. A single gasp and a convulsion, and Thomas Billington was dead at his wife's feet. The consternation at this event was mixed with much scandal, and many whispered that he had died from poison or the dagger. It was known that the Neapolitan nobles had paid Mrs. Billington warm attention, and hints of assassination were industriously circulated by those gossip-mongers who are always in quest of a fresh social sensation. Mrs. Billington, after remaining for some time in retirement, fled from a scene which was fraught with painful memories, though there is no reason to believe that she deeply lamented the loss of a husband whose only attraction to this brilliant woman was the reflected light of her youth, which invested him with the association of her first girlish love. At all events, the widow succeeded in becoming desperately enamored in Milan, a short six months after, with an officer of the French commissariat, M. Felican. He was a remarkably handsome man, and his strong siege of the lovely Billington soon caused her to surrender at discretion. She declared "she was in love for the first time in her life," and her marriage took place in 1799 without delay. Her raptures, however, came to a swift conclusion; for among M. Felican's favorite methods of displaying marital devotion were beating her, and hurling dishes or other convenient movables at her head when in the least irritated. The novel character of her honeymoon soon became known to a curious and possibly envious public, and the brutal Felican was publicly flogged at the drum-head by order of General Serrurier, within two months of her marriage, for whipping her so cruelly that she could not appear in the opera of the evening. The tenor, Braham, sang with Mrs. Billington at Milan during this period, in the opera "Il Trionfo de Claria," by Nasolini, and an amusing incident occurred in the rivalry of the two, each to surpass the other in popular estimation. The applause which Braham received at rehearsal enraged Felican, who intrigued till he persuaded the leader to omit the grand aria for the tenor voice, in which Braham's powers were advantageously displayed. This piece of spite and jealousy being noised about, the public openly testified their displeasure, and the next day it was announced by Gherardi, the manager, in the bills, that Braham's scena should be performed; and on the second night of the opera it was received with tumultuous applause. Braham, justly indignant, avenged himself in an ingenious manner, but his wrath descended on an innocent head. Mrs. Billington's embellishments were always elaborately studied, and, when once fixed on, seldom changed. The angry tenor, knowing this, caught her roulades, and on the first opportunity, his air coming first, he coolly appropriated all her fioriture. Poor Mrs. Billington listened in dismay at the wings. She could not improvise ornaments and graces; and, when she came on, the unusual meagerness of her style astonished the audience. She refused, in the next opera, to sing a duet with Braham; but, as she was good-natured, she forgave him, and they always remained excellent friends. With that perverse devotion which characterizes the love of so many women, Mrs. Billington clung to her brutal husband in spite of his cruelty and callousness, and she did not separate from him till she feared for her life. Many times he threatened to kill her, and extorted from her by fear all the valuable jewels in her possession, as well as the larger share of the money received from professional exertion. Despairing at last of any change, she fled with great secrecy to England, where she arrived in 1801, after an absence of seven years, during which time her name had become one of the most popular in Europe. There was instantly a battle between Harris and Sheridan, the rival managers, as to which should secure this peerless attraction. She finally signed a contract with her old friend Harris, for three thousand guineas the season from October to April, and the guarantee of a free benefit of five hundred guineas. It was likewise arranged that she should sing for Sheridan at similar terms on alternate nights, as there was a bitter dispute between the managers over the priority of the offer accepted by the prima donna. Her reappearance before an English audience was made in Dr. Arne's "Artaxerxes," which the critics of the day praised as possessing "the beautiful melody of Hasse, the mellifluous richness of Pergolese, the easy flow of Piccini, and the finished cantabile of Sacchini, with his own true and native simplicity." It is not only the criticism of to-day which has concealed the real form and quality of works of merely temporary interest under flowery phrases, that mean nothing. It was speedily observed how greatly Mrs. Billington's style had improved in her absence. Lord Mount Edgcumbe says she resembled Mara so much that the same observations would apply to both equally well. "Both were excellent musicians, thoroughly skilled in their profession; both had voices of uncommon sweetness and agility, particularly suited to the bravura style, and executed to perfection and with good taste everything they sang. But neither was Italian, and consequently both were deficient in recitative. Neither had much feeling, both were deficient in theatrical talents, and they were absolutely null as actresses; therefore they were more calculated to give pleasure in the concert-room than on the stage." It was noticed that her pronunciation of the English language was not quite free from impurities, arising principally from the introduction of vowels before consonants, a habit probably acquired from the Italian custom. "Her whole style of elocution," observes one writer, "may be described as sweet and persuasive rather than powerful and commanding. It naturally assumed the character of her mind and voice." She was considered the most accomplished singer that had ever been born in England. Mrs. Billington displayed her talents in a variety of operatic characters, which taxed her versatility, but did not prove beyond her powers. Both English and Italian operas, serious and comic _rôles_, seemed entirely within her scope; and those who admired her as _Mandane_ were not less fascinated by her _Rosetta_, when Ineledon shared the honors of the evening with herself. In spite of Lord Mount Edgcumbe's somewhat severe judgment as given above, she appears to have pleased by her acting as well as singing, if we can judge from the wide diversity of characters in which she appeared so successfully. We are justified in this, especially from the character of the English opera, of which Mrs. Billington was so brilliant an exponent; for this was rather musical drama than opera, and made strong demands on histrionic faculty. As _Rosetta_, in "Love in a Village," a performance in which Mrs. Billington was peculiarly charming, she drew such throngs that the price of admission was raised for the nights on which it was offered. The witticism of Jekyl, the great barrister, made the town laugh on one of these occasions. Being present with a country friend in the pit, the latter asked him, as Mrs. Billington appeared in the garden-scene, "Is that Rosetta?" The singer's portly form, which had increased largely in bulk during her Italian absence, made the answer peculiarly appropriate: "No, sir, it is not Rosetta, it is Grand Cairo." Life was running smoothly for Mrs. Billington; never had her popularity reached so high a pitch; never had Fortune favored her with such lavish returns for her professional abilities. One night she was horrified with fear and disgust on returning home to see her brutal husband, Felican, lolling on the sofa. He had been heart-broken at separation from his beloved wife, and could endure it no longer. It was only left for her to bribe him to depart with a large sum of money, which she fortunately could afford. "I never," says Kelly, "saw a woman so much in awe of a man as poor Mrs. Billington was of him whom she had married for love." On the 3d of July, 1802, she sang with Mme. Mara at the farewell benefit of that distinguished singer. Both rose to the utmost pitch of their skill, and, in their attempts to surpass each other, the theatre rang with thunders of applause. In our sketches of some of Mrs. Billington's rivals and contemporaries, Mme. Mara demands precedence. III. Frederick the Great loved war and music with equal fervor, and possessed talents for the one little inferior to his genius for the other. He played with remarkable skill on the flute, of which instrument he possessed a large collection, and composed original music with both science and facility. This royal connoisseur carried his despotism into his love of art, and ruled with an iron hand over those who catered for the amusement of himself and the good people of Berlin. Though the creator of that policy which, in the hands of Bismarck and the modern German nationalists, has wrought such wonderful results, and which has extended itself even to matters of aesthetic culture as a gospel of patriotic bigotry, the great Fritz thoroughly despised everything German except in matters of state, and was completely wedded to the literature of France and the art of Italy. When the talents of a young German vocalist, Mlle. Schmäling, were recommended to him, it was enough for him to hear the report, "She sings like a German," to make him sniff with disdain. "A German singer!" he said; "I should as soon expect to get pleasure from the neighing of my horse." Curiosity, however, at last so far overcame prejudice as to make him send for Mlle. Schmäling, who was enthusiastically praised by many of those whose opinions the King could not ignore, to come to Potsdam and sing for him. Her pride, which was high, had been wounded by the royal criticism, and she carried herself with as much _hauteur_ as could go with respect. The King regarded her with a cool stare, without any gesture of salutation, and Mile. Schmäling amused herself with looking at the pictures. "So you are going to sing me something?" at last said royalty with military abruptness. The figure of the Prussian King as he sat by the piano was anything but prepossessing. A little, crabbed, spare old man, attired with Spartan simplicity, in a faded blue coat, whose red facings were smudged brown with the Spanish snuff he so liberally took; thin lips, prominent jaws, receding forehead, and eyes of supernatural keenness glaring from under shaggy brows; a battered cocked hat, and a thick cane, which he used as a whip to belabor his horse, his courtiers, or his soldiers as occasion needed, on the table before him--all these made a grim picture. Mlle. Schmäling answered his curt words with "As your Majesty pleases," and instantly sat down at the piano. As she sang, Frederick's face relaxed, and taking a huge pinch of snuff, he said, "Ha! can you sing at sight?" (then an extraordinary accomplishment). Picking out the most difficult bravura in his collection, he bade her try it, with the remark, "This, to be sure, is but poor stuff, but when well executed sounds pretty enough." The result of the royal examination convinced the King that Mlle. Schmäling had not only a magnificent voice, but was a thorough artist. So the daughter of the poor musician of Cassel, after many years of hard struggle and ill success (for she had sung in almost every German capital), was made Frederick's chief court singer at the age of twenty-two, and the road to fortune was fairly open to her. At the age of four years she had showed such aptitude for music that she quickly learned the violin, though her baby fingers could hardly span the strings. She always retained her predilection for this instrument, and maintained that it was the best guide in learning to sing. "For," said she, "how can you best convey a just notion of slight vibrations in the pitch of a note? By a fixed instrument? No! By the voice? No! But, by sliding the finger on the string, you instantly make the most minute variation visibly as well as audibly perceptible." She owed her success entirely to the charm of her art. Elizabeth Schmäling's personal appearance was far from striking. She was by no means handsome, being short and insignificant, with a rather agreeable, good-natured countenance, the leading feature of which was--terrible defect in a singer--a set of irregular teeth, which projected, in defiance of order, out of their proper places. Her manner, however, was prepossessing, though she was an indifferent actress. But her voice atoned for everything: its compass was from G to E in altissimo, which she ran with the greatest ease and force, the tones being at once powerful and sweet. Both her _portamento di voce_ and her volubility were declared to be unrivaled. It was remarked that she seemed to take difficult music from choice, and she could sing fluently at sight--rather a rare accomplishment among vocalists of that day. Nothing taxed her powers. Her execution was easy and neat; her shake was true, open, and liquid; and though she preferred brilliant, effective pieces, her refined taste was well known. "Her voice, clear, sweet, and distinct, was sufficiently powerful," remarked Lord Mount Edgcumbe afterward, "though rather thin, and its agility and flexibility rendered her a most excellent bravura singer, in which style she was unrivaled." "Mara's divisions," observes another critic, "always seemed to convey a meaning; they were vocal, not instrumental; they had light and shade, and variety of tone." Frederick was highly pleased with his musical acquisition, but a more potent monarch than himself soon appeared to disturb his royal complacency. Mlle. Schmäling, placed in a new position of ease and luxury, found time to indulge her natural bent as a woman, and fell in love with a handsome violoncellist, Jean Mara, who was in the service of the King's brother. Mara was a showy, shallow, selfish man, and pushed his suit with vigor, for success meant fortune and a life of luxurious ease. The King forbade the match, so the enamored couple eloped, and, being arrested by the King's guards, they were punished by Fritz with solitary confinement for disobedience. At last the King relented, and sanctioned the marriage which he suspected opposition would only delay, probably fully aware that the lady would soon repent her infatuation. Jean Mara did all in his power to effect this result, for the honeymoon had hardly ended before he began to beat his bride at small provocation with all the energy of a sturdy arm. Poor Mme. Mara had a hard life of it thenceforward, but she never ceased to love Mara to the last; and many years afterward, when a friend was severely reprobating his brutality, she said, with a sigh of loving regret, "Ah! but you must confess he was the handsomest man you ever saw." The King frequently interposed to punish Mara for his harshness. On one occasion he gave him a public caning and on another he sent him to a field regiment, noted for the rigid severity of its discipline, to be enrolled as a drummer for three months, accompanying the order with the _mot_, "His propensity for beating shall have the fullest exercise on the drum." A ludicrous sentence of the royal despot was that which consigned him to the tender mercies of the body-guard, with strict orders for his correction. No particular mode of punishment was prescribed, so each soldier inflicted such chastisement as he considered most fitting. They began by rigging him out in an old uniform and a large pair of whiskers, loading him with the heaviest firelock they could find, and forced him to go through the manual exercise for two hours, accompanying their drill with the usual discipline of the cane. They then made him dance and sing for two hours longer, and ended this persecution by compelling the surgeon to take from him a large quantity of blood. In a miserable condition they restored him to his disconsolate wife, who had been essaying all her arts to persuade the officer of the guard to mitigate the poor wretch's punishment. The King's method of carrying on the opera was characteristic. Performances were free, and commenced precisely at 6 p.m., when, prompt to the minute, the King appeared and took his seat just behind the conductor, where he could see the score, and notice every mistake, either instrumental or vocal. A royal caning often repaid any unlucky artist who made a blunder, much to the gratification of the audience. Such a patron as this, however generous, could not be considered highly desirable; and Mme. Mara, whose reputation had become world-wide, longed more and more to accept some of the brilliant offers which came to her from the great capitals of Europe. But Frederick would not let his favorite prima donna go, and the royal passport was necessary for getting beyond the limits of the kingdom. An example of Frederick's method of dealing with his subjects and servants is found in the following incident: The Grand Duke Paul of Russia was visiting Berlin, and on a gala night a grand performance of opera was to be given. Mme. Mara had sent an excuse that she was sick, but a laconic notice from her royal patron insisted that she was to get well and sing her best. So the prima donna took to her bed and grew worse and worse. Two hours before the opera commenced, a carriage escorted by eight soldiers drew up in front of the house, and the captain of the guard, unceremoniously entering her room, intimated that she must go to the theatre dead or alive. "You can not take me," she said with tears of rage; "you see I am in bed." "That's of little consequence," was the imperturbable response; "we'll take you bed and all." Madame's eyes flashed fire, and she stormed with fury; but the obdurate captain could not be moved, and, to avoid the disgrace of being taken by force, she accepted an armistice. "I will go to the theatre," she said, mentally resolving to sing as badly as, with a magnificent voice and irreproachable taste, she could possibly manage. Resolutely she kept to this idea till the curtain was about to descend on the first act, when a thought suddenly seized her. Might she not be ruining herself in giving the Grand Duke of Russia a bad opinion of her powers? In a bravura she burst forth with all her power, distinguishing herself especially by a marvelous shake, which she executed with such wonderful art as to call down thunders of applause. At last the Maras succeeded in effecting their escape by stratagem. In passing through one city they were stopped by an officer of _gens d'armes_, who demanded the requisite papers. Faltering with dread, yet with quick self-possession, Mme. Mara handed him a letter in the royal handwriting. The signature was enough, and the officer did not stop to read the body of the letter, but turned out the guard to honor travelers possessing such signal proofs of the King's favor. They had just gained the gates of Dresden when they found that the Prussian _chargé d'affaires_ resided in the city. "No one can conceive my agitation and alarm," said Mme. Mara, "when, in one of the first streets we entered, we encountered the said _charge d'affaires_, who rode directly up to us. He had been apprised of our arrival, and the chaise was instantly stopped. As to what took place between him and my good man, and how the latter contrived to get out of the scrape, I was totally unconscious. I had fallen into a swoon, from which I did not recover till we had reached our inn." At length they reached the confines of Bohemia, and, for the first time, supped in freedom and security. The Austrian Empress, Maria Theresa, would have found enough motive in patronizing Mara in the fact that her great Prussian rival had persecuted her; but love of art was a further inducement which drew out her kindliest feelings. The singer remained at the Viennese court for two years, and left it for Paris, with autograph letters to the ill-fated Marie Antoinette. She was most cordially welcomed both by court and public, and soon became such a rival to the distinguished Portuguese prima donna, Todi, then in the zenith of her fame, that the devotees of music divided themselves into fierce factions respectively named after the rival queens of song. Mara was honored with the title of _première cantatrice de la reine_, and left Paris with regret, to begin her English career under singularly favorable auspices, as she was invited to share a partnership with Linley and Dr. Arnold for the production of oratorios at Drury Lane. She was fortunate in making her first appearance in the grand Handel commemoration at Westminster Abbey, given under the patronage of George III., who loved the memory of the great composer. Even in this day of magnificent musical festivals, that Westminster assemblage of musicians would have been a remarkable occasion. The following is an account of it from a contemporary source: "The orchestra was led by the Cramers; the conductors were Joah Bates, Dr. Arnold, and Dupuis. The band consisted of several hundreds of performers. The singers were, in addition to Mine. Mara, Signora Storace, Miss Abrams, Miss Poole (afterward Mrs. Dickons), Rubinelli, Harrison, Bartleman, Sale, Parry, Nor-ris, Kelly, etc.; and the chorus, collected from all parts of the kingdom, amounted to hundreds of voices. The Abbey was arranged for the accommodation of the public in a superb and commodious manner, and the tickets of admission were one guinea each. The first performance took place on May 20, 1784; and such was the anxiety to be in time, that ladies and gentlemen had their hair dressed over night, and slept in arm-chairs. The weather being very fine, eager crowds presented themselves at the several doors of the Abbey at nine o'clock, although the door-keepers were not at their posts, and the orchestra was not finished. At ten o'clock the scene became almost terrifying to the visitors, who, being in full dress, were every moment more incommoded and alarmed by the violence of the crowds pressing forward to get near the doors. Several of the ladies screamed; others fainted; and the general dismay increased to such an extent that fatal consequences were anticipated. Some of the more irascible among the gentlemen threatened to burst open the doors; 'a measure,' says Dr. Burney, 'which, if adopted, would probably have cost many of the more feeble and helpless their lives, as they must, in falling, have been thrown down and trampled on by the robust and impatient part of the crowd.' However, except that some went in with 'disheveled hair and torn garments,' no real mischief seems to have been done. The spectacle was gorgeous. The King, Queen, and all the royal family, were ushered to a superb box, opposite the orchestra, by the directors, wearing full court suits, the medal of Handel struck for the occasion, suspended by white-satin rosettes to their breasts, and having white wands in their hands. The body of the cathedral, the galleries, and every corner were crowded with beauty, rank, and fashion, listening with almost devout silence to the grand creations of the great composer, not the faintest token of applause disturbing the impressive ceremony." The splendid and solemn tones of Mara's voice enraptured every heart, and her style was the theme of universal admiration. A few, however, resisted the charm of her singing. Miss Seward was breakfasting one morning with Mr. Joah Bates, one of the conductors, and delicately flattered his wife's singing of the Handelian music by saying that Mara put too much gold and fringe upon that solemn robe of melody, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." "Do not say gold, ma-dame," answered the tart musician; "it was despicable tinsel." At one of these Westminster Abbey performances a striking coincidence occurred. The morning had been threatening a storm; but instantly the grand chorus "Let there be light, and light was over all" commenced, the sun burst forth and gilded every dark nook of the solemn old Abbey with a flood of splendor. On another occasion, while a chorus descriptive of a storm was being sung, a hurricane burst over the Abbey, and the fierce rattling of hailstones, accompanied by peals of thunder, kept time to the grand music of Handel. During the performance of the chorus "The Lord God Omnipotent Reigneth," the audience was so moved that King, Queen, royal family, and all present, rose by a common impulse to their feet--a practice which has been preserved in English audiences to this day during the singing of this mightiest of all musical choruses. Mme. Mara gave great offense by remaining seated. Shortly afterward she sang at a musical festival of Oxford University, whither the report of her supposed bad temper and intractability had preceded her. The gownsmen were as riotous then as now; and as one or two things happened to irritate their lively temper, a row soon became imminent. Mara got angry and flung a book at the head of one of the orchestra, when Dr. Chapman, the Vice-Chancellor, arose and said that Mme. Mara had conducted herself too ill to be allowed to sing before such an audience. Instantly a wicked wag cried out, "A riot, by permission of the Vice-Chancellor!" A scene of the utmost confusion ensued, and the agitated cantatrice quitted the theatre, amid hisses and yells, in high dudgeon. A deputation of gentlemen waited upon her, and promised that she should do exactly as she pleased if she would only return. She did return, and sang the airs allotted to her, but remained seated as usual while the choruses were being sung. A cry arose of "Turn Mara out!" Not comprehending, she smiled, which provoked the audience still more; upon which the Vice-Chancellor said that it was always the rule for every vocalist to join in the choruses. Miss George, one of the singers, explained this to the prima donna, who, staring in bewilderment and vexation, exclaimed, "Oh! me does not know his rules; me vill go home"; which resolution she immediately carried into effect. This great singer's numerous quarrels and controversies in England were very amusing. Yet, in spite of the personal bitterness growing out of her own irritable temper and professional rivalry, she remained a great artistic favorite with the public. Underneath the asperity and obstinacy of her character there was a vein of deep tenderness and generosity, which she showed in various cases, especially in forwarding the interests of struggling artists. Michael Kelly, the Irish composer, in his "Reminiscences," gives the following instance. He himself, then a young man, had aroused Mara's dislike by some inadvertent praise of a rival. Watching his opportunity, he brought into the greenroom one night, when she came off the stage fatigued and panting with her efforts, a pot of foaming porter, which she drank with a sigh of deepest pleasure. Touched by the young Irishman's thoughtfulness, she pledged herself to help him whenever the opportunity came, and soon after sang at his benefit. Mara had resolved not to sing again on the lyric stage, and her condescension was a godsend to Kelly, who was then very much out at elbows. Speaking of her proffer, he says: "I was thunderstruck at her kindness and liberality, and thankfully accepted. She fixed on _Mandane_ in 'Artaxerxes,' and brought the greatest receipts ever known at that house, as the whole pit, with the exception of two benches, was railed into boxes. So much," he adds sententiously, "for a little German proficiency, a little common civility, and a pot of porter." IV. Mme. Mara made such a brilliant hit in opera that the public clamor for her continuance on the stage overcame her old resolutions. The opera-house was reopened, and Sir John Gallini, with this popular favorite at the head of his enterprise, had a most prosperous season. Both as a lyric cantatrice and as the matchless singer of oratorio, she was the delight of the public for two years. In 1788 she went to Turin to sing at the Carnival, where it was the custom to open the gala season with a fresh artist, who supplied the place of the departing vocalist, whether a soprano or tenor. Her predecessor, a tenor, was piqued at his dismissal, and tried to prejudice the public against her by representing her as alike-ugly in person and faulty in art. Mara's shrewdness of resource turned the tables on the Italian. On her first appearance her manner was purposely full of _gaucherie_, her costume badly considered and all awry, her singing careless and out of time. The maligner was triumphant, and said to all, "Didn't I say so? See how ugly she is; and as for singing--did you ever hear such a vile jargon of sounds?" On the second night Mara appeared most charmingly dressed, and she sang like an angel--a surprise to the audience which drove the excitable Italians into the most passionate uproar of applause and delight. Mara was crowned on the stage, and was received by the King and Queen with the heartiest kindness and a profusion of costly gifts. A similar reception at Venice tempted her to prolong her Italian tour, but she preferred to return to London, where she sang under Wyatt at the Pantheon, which was transformed into a temporary opera-house. She now sang with Pacchierotti, the successor of Farinelli and Caffarelli, and the last inheritor of their grand large style. "His duettos with Mara were the most perfect pieces of execution I ever heard," said Lord Mount Edgcumbe. One of the most pathetic experiences of Mara's life was her passage through Paris in 1792 on her way to Germany, when she saw her former patroness Marie Antoinette, whom she remembered in all the glory of her youth, popularity, and loveliness, seated in an open chariot, pale, wan, and grief-stricken, surrounded by a guard of troopers with drawn swords and hooted at by a mob of howling _sans-culottes_. Better far to be a mimic queen than to be hurled from the most radiant and splendid place in European royalty, to be the scorn and plaything of the ragged ruffians of Paris, and to finish with the guillotine in the Place de la Grève! About this time she was freed from the _bête noire_ of her life, her drunken worthless husband, who agreed to trouble her no more if she would settle an annuity on him. Thenceforward they never met, though she always spoke of him with affection. Harris, of the Theatre Royal of Dublin, engaged Mara to sing in English opera in 1797. Despite the fact that her English was so faulty, that her person was unprepossessing, and that the part was associated with some of the most beautiful and accomplished singers on the stage, her performance of _Polly Peachum_ in the "Beggars' Opera" was a masterpiece of delicious simplicity and archness. The perfection of her art vanquished all obstacles, and she was acknowledged the equal of Mrs. Crouch, and even of the resplendent Billington, in the part. Dr. Arnold records that, in spite of the dancing and violent action of the _rôle_, her tones were as free, smooth, and perfect as if she had been standing in the orchestra. Mrs. Billington, who was just to her professional rivals, said she regarded Mara's execution as superior to her own in genuine effect, though not in compass and complication. If the rapid vocalization of a singer was praised, Mara would significantly ask, "Can she sing six plain notes?" As time passed, Mme. Mara's voice began to decline, and in 1802 she took advantage of an annoying controversy to bid farewell to the English public; for the artist who could sing solemn music with such thrilling effect had the temper of a shrew, though it was easily placated. Mrs. Billington generously offered her services to assist at her farewell concert; and Mara, bursting into tears, threw her arms about the neck of the greatest of her professional rivals. She did not sing again in England till 1820. Speaking of this event, Kelly says, "It was truly grievous to see such transcendent talents as she once possessed so sunk, so fallen. I used every effort in my power to prevent her committing herself, but in vain." "When the incomparable Mme. Mara took leave of me on her return to the Continent," says Dr. Kitchener, "I could not help expressing my regret that she had not taken my advice to publish those songs of Handel (her matchless performance of which gained her that undisputed preeminence which she enjoyed), with the embellishments, etc., with which she enriched them. This inimitable singer replied, 'Indeed, my good friend, you attribute my success to a very different source than the real one. It was not what I did, but the manner in which I did it. I could sing six simple notes and produce every effect I could wish; another singer may sing those very same notes with very different effect. I am sure it was to my expression of the words that I owe everything. People have often said to me, "Madame Mara, why do you not introduce more pretty things, and passages, and graces in your singing?" I say, "These pretty things are very pretty, to be sure, but the proper expression of the words and the music is a great deal better."' This and her extraordinary industry were the secrets of her undisputed sovereignty. She told me that when she was encored in a song, which she very often was, on her return home she seldom retired to rest without first inventing a new cadence for the next performance of it. Here is an example for young singers!" Mme. Mara continued to sing for many years in different cities of Europe, though the recollections and traditions of her marvelous prime were more attractive than the then active powers of her voice. But her consummate art never deserted her, in spite of the fact that her voice became more and more a wreck. She appeared in public occasionally till her seventy-second year, when she retired to Cassel, her birthplace, where she died in 1833, at the age of eighty. V. Another of Mrs. Billington's most brilliant rivals and contemporaries was the lovely Giuseppa Grassini, a wayward, indolent, fascinating beauty, who had taken France and Italy by storm before she attempted to subdue the more obdurate and phlegmatic Britons. The daughter of a small farmer in Lombardy, the charm of her voice and appearance induced General Belgioso to pay the cost of her musical training, and at the age of nineteen she sprang into popularity at a bound with her _début_ at La Scala in 1794. In spite of the fact that she was associated with two of the greatest Italian singers of the time--Crescentini, one of the last of the male sopranos, and Marchesi--she became the cynosure of public admiration. She was surrounded by homage and flattery sufficient to have turned a more sedate temperament and wiser head than her own, and her name became mixed with some of the most piquant scandals of the period. In spite of ignorance, indolence, and a caprice which she never attempted to control, Grassini was an exquisite artist; and, though dull and shallow intellectually in all matters apart from her profession, she was a most beautiful and fascinating woman. She mastered all the graces of her art, but could never give an intelligent reason for what she did. Her voice, originally a soprano, became under training a contralto of delicious quality, as well as of great volume and power, though not remarkable for extent. She excelled in the _cantabile_ style, and rarely attempted ornament, though what she did was always in perfect taste and proportion. Her dramatic instincts were remarkable, and as an interpreter of both heroic and the softer passions she speedily acquired a European reputation. Her figure was tall and commanding, her head noble, her hair and eyes of the deepest black, and her whole appearance a singular union of grace and majesty. After the battle of Marengo, the presence of the youthful conqueror of Italy at Milan inspired that capital with a spasm of extraordinary gayety. The finest singers in Italy gathered to do honor to the rising sun of Napoleon's greatness. The French general was fascinated by the irresistible attractions of the prima donna, and asked for an introduction. Grassini's coquetry did not let the occasion slip. Las Cases has given a sketch of the interview, in which he tells us she reminded Napoleon that she "had made her _début_ precisely during the early achievements of the General of the Army of Italy." "I was then," said she, "in the full luster of my beauty and talent. I fascinated every eye and inflamed every heart. The young general alone was insensible to my charms, and yet he alone was the object of my wishes. What caprice--what singularity! When I possessed some value, when all Italy was at my feet, and I heroically disdained its admiration for one glance from you, I was unable to obtain it; and now, how strange an alteration! You condescend to notice me now when I am not worth the trouble, and am no longer worthy of you." Las Cases has not proved himself the most veracious of chroniclers in more important matters, and we may be permitted to doubt the truth of this speech as coming from the mouth of a woman extraordinarily beautiful and not less vain. But at all events Grassini accompanied the French general to Paris, ambitious to play the _rôle_ of Cleopatra to this modern Cæsar. Josephine's jealousy and dislike proved an obstacle difficult to meet, and this, in connection with the fact that the French opera did not prove suited to her style, made her first residence in Paris a short one, in spite of the brilliant success of her concerts. One of these was the crowning feature of the grand _fête_ given at the Invalides Church in honor of the battle of Marengo; and as Grassini sang before the bronzed veterans of the Italian campaign she seemed inspired. Circumstances, however, obliged her to leave France, laden with magnificent presents from Napoleon. In November, 1801, the Italian prima donna was in Berlin, where she announced concerts which seem never to have taken place. In 1802 she returned to France, and Napoleon made her directress of the Opera in 1804. At first Josephine had permitted her to appear at her private concerts at the Tuileries, but she did not detest the beautiful singer less cordially than heretofore. It was whispered that the cantatrice did in reality seek to attract the attention of Napoleon, and that she turned her eyes fixedly toward the throne of the Dictator. "I hear, madame, that our Grassini is a favorite with the great Napoleon," said Count Sommaglia to Josephine one morning. "Yes," answered the irate wife of the First Consul, hardly-able to disguise her spite, "the ridiculous vanity of the creature amuses us amazingly. Since she has been made directress of the Italian Opera, there is more intriguing going on among these gentry than there is with the diplomats: in the midst of a serious conversation, she will break out into a horse-laugh, throw herself on a sofa, and, fancying herself Semiramis on the throne of Nineveh, burst forth in a great style with 'Son Regina, e son amata!'" ("I am a queen, and I am beloved!") "One day," says Fouché, "Bonaparte observed that, considering my acknowledged ability, he was astonished I did not perform my functions better--that there were several things of which I was ignorant. 'Yes,' replied I, 'there certainly are things of which I was ignorant, but which I now know well enough. For instance, a little man, muffled in a gray cloak, and accompanied by a single servant, often steals out on a dark evening from a secret door of the Tuileries, enters a closed carriage, and drives off to Signora G------. This little man is yourself, and yet this fanciful songstress jilts you continually for Rode the fiddler.' The Consul answered not a word; he turned his back, rang, and immediately withdrew." In 1804 Grassini was engaged to sing in London alternately with Mrs. Billington. At her first benefit she sang in conjunction with the English _diva_ in Winter's new opera, "Il Ratto di Proserpina," Billington as _Ceres_, and Grassini as _Proserpina_. The respective voices of the two singers were admirably fitted for the music of the _rôles_, each exquisite of its sort and inspired by the ambition of rivalry. The deep tones of the one combined with the bird-like notes of the other to produce a most thrilling effect. Lord Mount Edgcumbe, who had a prejudice for _bravura_ singing, said: "No doubt the deaf would have been charmed with Grassini, but the blind must have been delighted with Mrs. Billington": a malicious comment on the Italian singer, which this distinguished amateur, when in a less cynical mood, revoked by cordial admiration of Grassini's remarkable gifts both as vocalist and actress. Many interesting anecdotes are told of this singer while in London, one of which, related by Kelly, then stage-manager, illustrates the difficulties of operatic management. Mrs. Billington was too sick to sing on one of her own nights, and Grassini was implored to take her place. But she obstinately refused to make the change, until the cunning Irishman resorted to a trick. He called on her in the morning, and began talking carelessly on the subject. "My dear Grassini," said he, in an off-hand way, "as manager I ought to prevail upon you to perform; but as a performer myself, I enter entirely into your feelings, and think you perfectly right not to sing out of your turn. The Saturday is yours; but what I say to you I trust you will not repeat to Mr. Goold, as it might be of serious injury to me." "Depend upon it, my dear Kelly," answered Grassini, "I will not; I look upon you, by what you have just said, to be my sincere friend." As he was leaving the room, he turned, as with a sudden thought. "To be sure, it is rather unlucky you do not sing to-night, for this morning a message came from the Lord Chamberlain's office to announce the Queen's intention to come _incognita_, accompanied by the princesses, purposely to see you perform; and a large _grillée_ is actually ordered to be prepared for them, where they can perfectly see and hear without being seen by the audience; but I'll step myself to the Lord Chamberlain's office, say that you are confined to your bed, and express your mortification at disappointing the royal party." "Stop, Kelly," cried the cantatrice, all in a flutter; "what you now say alters the case. If her Majesty Queen Charlotte wishes to see 'La Vergine del Sole,' and to hear me, I am bound to obey her Majesty's commands. Go to Goold and say I _will_ sing." "When I went into her dressing-room after the first act," says Kelly, "her Majesty not having arrived, Grassini, suspicious that I had made up a trick to cajole her, taxed me with it; and when I confessed, she took it good-naturedly and laughed at her own credulity." The popularity of Grassini in London remained unabated during several seasons; and when she reengaged for the French opera, in 1808, it was to the great regret of musical London. Talma was a warm admirer of her dramatic genius, and he used to say that no other actress, not even Mars, Darval, or Duchesnois, possessed so expressive and mutable a face. The Grecian outline of her face, her beautiful forehead, rich black hair and eyebrows, superb dark eyes, "now flashing with tragedy's fiery passions, then softly languishing with love," and finally "that astonishing _ensemble_ of perfections which Nature had collected in her as if to review all her gifts in one woman--all these qualities together exercised on the spectator such a charm as none could resist. Pasta herself might have looked on and learned, when Grassini had to portray either indignation, grief, anger, or despair." Her performance in "Romeo e Giulietta" was so fine that Napoleon sprang to his feet, forgetting his marble coldness, and shouted like a school-boy, while Talma's eyes streamed with tears; for, as the latter afterward confessed, he had never before been so deeply touched. Napoleon sent her a check for twenty thousand francs as a testimonial of his admiration, and to Crescentini he sent the order of the Iron Cross. Many years after, in St. Helena, the dethroned Cæsar alluded to this as an illustration of his policy. "In conformity with my system," observed he, "of amalgamating all kinds of merit, and of rendering one and the same reward universal, I had an idea of presenting the Cross of the Legion of Honor to Talma; but I refrained from doing this, in consideration of our capricious manners and absurd prejudices. I wished to make a first experiment in an affair that was out of date and unimportant, and I accordingly gave the Iron Crown to Crescentini. The decoration was foreign, and so was the individual on whom it was conferred. This circumstance was less likely to attract public notice or to render my conduct the subject of discussion; at worst, it could only give rise to a few malicious jokes. Such," continued the Emperor, "is the influence of public opinion. I distributed scepters at will, and thousands readily bowed beneath their sway; and yet I could not give away a ribbon without the chance of incurring disapprobation, for I believe my experiment with regard to Crescentini proved unsuccessful." "It did, sire," observed some one present. "The circumstance occasioned a great outcry in Paris; it drew forth a general anathema in all the drawing-rooms of the metropolis, and afforded full scope for the expression of malignant feeling. However, at one of the evening parties of the Faubourg St. Germain, a _bon mot_ had the effect of completely stemming the current of indignation. A pompous orator was holding forth in an eloquent strain on the subject of the honor that had been conferred on Crescentini. He declared it to be a disgrace, a horror, a perfect profanation, and inquired by what right Crescentini was entitled to such a distinction. Mme. Grassini, who was present, rose majestically from her chair, with a theatrical tone and gesture exclaiming, 'Et sa blessure, monsieur?' This produced a general burst of laughter, amid which Grassini sat down, embarrassed by her own success." Mme. Grassini remained on the stage till about 1823 when, having lost the beauty of her voice, she retired to private life with a comfortable fortune, spending her last years in Paris. She died in 1850, in her eighty-fifth year, preserving her beauty and freshness in a marvelous degree. The effect of Grassini's singing on people of refined taste was even greater than the impression made on regular musicians. Thomas De Quincey speaks of her in his "Autobiographical Sketches" as having a voice delightful beyond all that he had ever heard. Sir Charles Bell thought it was "only Grassini who conveyed the idea of the united power of music and action. She did not act only without being ridiculous, but with an effect equal to Mrs. Siddons. The 'O Dio' of Mrs. Billington was a bar of music, but in the strange, almost unnatural voice of Grassini, it went to the soul." Elsewhere he speaks of "her dignity, truth, and affecting simplicity." VI. About the time of Mara's departure from England Mrs. Billington was wonderfully popular. No fashionable concert was complete without her, and the constant demand for her services enabled her to fix her own price. Her income averaged fifteen thousand pounds a year, and at one time she was reckoned as worth nearly one hundred thousand pounds. She spent her large means with a judicious liberality, and the greatest people in the land were glad to be her guests. She settled a liberal annuity on her father. Having no children, she adopted two, one the daughter of an old friend named Madocks, who afterward became her principal legatee. Her hospitality crowded her house with the most brilliant men in art, literature, and politics; and it was said that the stranger who would see all the great people of the London world brought together should get a card to one of Billington's receptions. Her affability and kindness sometimes got her into scrapes. An eminent barrister who was at her house one night gave her some advice on a legal matter, and sent in a bill for services amounting to three hundred pounds. Mrs. Billington paid it promptly, but the lawyer ceased to be her guest. As a hostess she was said to have been irresistibly charming, alike from her personal beauty and the witchery of her manners. Her kindness and good nature in dealing with her sister artists Avere proverbial. When Grassini, who at first was unpopular in England, was in despair as to how she should make an impression, Mrs. Billington proposed to sing with her in Winter's opera of "Il Ratto di Proserpina," from which time dated the success of the Italian singer. Toward Mara she had exerted similar good will, ignoring all professional jealousies. Miss Parke, a concert-singer, was once angry because Billington's name was in bigger type. The latter ordered her name to be printed in the smallest letters used; "and much Miss Parke gained by her corpulent type," says the narrator. Lord Mount Edgcumbe tells us that the operas in which she specially excelled were "La Clemenza di Scipione," composed for her by John Christian Bach; Paesiello's "Elfrida"; "Armida," "Castore e Polluce," and others by Winter; and Mozart's "Clemenza di Tito." For her farewell benefit, when she quitted the stage, March 30, 1806, she selected the last-named opera, which had never been given in England, and existed only in manuscript form. The Prince of Wales had the only copy, and she played through the whole score on the pianoforte at rehearsal, to give the orchestra an idea of the music. The final performance was immensely successful, and the departing _diva_ sang so splendidly as to prove that it was not on account of failing powers that she withdrew from professional life. It is true that Mrs. Billington continued to appear frequently in concert for three years longer, but her dramatic career was ended. A curious instance of woman's infatuation was Mrs. Billington's longing to be reunited to her brutal husband; and so in 1817 she invited him to join her in England. Felican was too glad to gain fresh control over the victim of his conjugal tyranny, and persuaded her to leave England for a permanent residence in Italy. Mrs. Billington realized all her property, and with her jewels and plate, of which she possessed a great quantity, departed for the land of song, taking with her Miss Madocks. She paid a bitter penalty for her revived tenderness toward Felican, for the ruffian subjected her to such treatment that she died from the effects of it, August 25, 1818. In such an ignoble fashion one of the most brilliant and beautiful women in the history of song departed from this life. ANGELICA CATALANI. The Girlhood of Catalani.--She makes her _Début_ in Florence.--Description of her Marvelous Vocalism.--The Romance of Love and Marriage.--Her Preference for the Concert Stage.--She meets Napoleon in Paris.--Her Escape from France and Appearance in London.--Opinions of Lord Mount Edgcumbe and other Critics.--Anecdotes of herself and Husband.--The Great Prima Donna's Character.--Her Gradual Divergence from Good Taste in singing.--_Bon Mots_ of the Wits of the Day.--The Opera-house Riot.--Her Husband's Avarice.--Grand Concert Tour through Europe.--She meets Goethe.--Her Return to England and Brilliant Reception.--She sings with the Tenor Braham.--John Braham' s Artistic Career.--The Davides.--Catalani's Last English Appearance, and the Opinions of Critics.--Her Retirement and Death. About the year 1790 the convent of Santa Lucia at Gubbio, in the duchy of Urbino, was the subject of a queer kind of scandal. Complaint was made to the bishop that one of the novices sang with such extraordinary brilliancy and beauty of voice that throngs gathered to the chapel from miles around, and that the religious services were transformed into a sort of theatrical entertainment» so entranced were all hearers by the charm of the singing, and so forgetful of the religious purport of these occasions in the fascination of the music. His Reverence ordered the lady abbess to abate the scandal; so the young Angelica Catalani was no longer permitted to sing alone, but only in concert with the other novices. Her voice at the age of twelve, when she began to sing, already possessed a volume, compass, and sweetness which made her a phenomenon. The young girl, who had been destined for conventual life, studied so hard that she became ill, and her father, a magistrate of Sinigaglia, was obliged to take her home. Signor Catalani was a man of bigoted piety, and it was with great difficulty that he could be induced to forego the plan which he had arranged for Angelica's future. The idea of her going on the stage was repulsive to him, and only his straitened circumstances wrung from him a reluctant consent that she should abandon the thought of the convent and become a singer. From a teacher and composer of some reputation the young girl received preliminary instruction for two years, and from the hands of this master passed into those of the celebrated Marchesi, who had succeeded Porpora as chief of the teaching _maestri_. This virtuoso had himself been a distinguished singer, and his finishing lessons placed Angelica in a position to rank with the most brilliant vocalists of the age. It was somewhat unfortunate that she did not learn under Marchesi, who taught her when her voice was in the most plastic condition, to control that profuse luxuriance of vocalization which was alike the greatest glory and greatest defect in her art. While studying, Angelica went to hear a celebrated cantatrice of the day, and wept at the vanishing strains. "Alas!" she said with sorrowing _naivete_. "I shall never be able to sing like that." The kind prima donna heard the lamentation and asked her to sing; whereupon she said, "Be reassured, my child; in a few years you will surpass me, and I shall weep at your superiority." At the age of sixteen she succeeded in getting an engagement at La Fenice in Venice to sing in Mayer's opera of "Lodoiska" during the Carnival season. Carus, the director, accepted her in despair at the very last moment on account of the sudden death of his prima donna. What were his surprise and delight in finding that the _debutante_ was the loveliest who had come forward for years, and the possessor of an almost unparalleled voice. Of tall and majestic presence, a dazzling complexion, large beautiful blue eyes, and features of ideal symmetry, she was one to entrance the eye as well as the ear. Her face was so flexible as to express each shade of feeling from grave to gay with equal facility; and indeed all the personal characteristics of this extraordinary woman were such as Nature could only have bestowed in her most lavish mood. Her voice was a soprano of the purest quality, embracing a compass of nearly three octaves, from G to F, and so powerful that no band could overwhelm its tones, which thrilled through every fiber of the hearer. Full, rich, and magnificent beyond any other voice ever heard, "it bore no resemblance," said one writer, "to any instrument, except we could imagine the tone of musical glasses to be magnified in volume to the same gradation of power." She could ascend at will--though she was ignorant of the rules of art--from the smallest perceptible sound to the loudest and most magnificent crescendo, exactly as she pleased. One of her favorite caprices of ornament was to imitate the swell and fall of a bell, making her tones sweep through the air with the most delicious undulation, and, using her voice at pleasure, she would shower her graces in an absolutely wasteful profusion. Her greatest defect was that, while the ear was bewildered with the beauty and tremendous power of her voice, the feelings were untouched: she never touched the heart. She could not, like Mara, thrill, nor, like Billington, captivate her hearers by a birdlike softness and brilliancy; she simply astonished. "She was a florid singer, and nothing but a florid singer, whether grave or airy, in the church, orchestra, or upon the stage." With a prodigious volume and richness of tone, and a marvelous rapidity of vocalization, she could execute brilliantly the most florid notation, leaving her audience in breathless amazement; but her intonation was very uncertain. However, this did not trouble her much. In the season of 1798 she sang at Leghorn with Crivelli, Marchesi, and Mrs. Billington, and thence she made a triumphal tour through Italy. From the first she had met with an unequaled success. Her full, powerful, clear tones, her delivery so pure and true, her instinctive execution of the most difficult music, carried all before her. Without much art or method, that superb voice, capable by nature of all the things which the most of even gifted singers are obliged to learn by hard work and long experience, was sufficient for the most daring feats. The Prince Regent of Portugal, attracted by her fame, engaged her, with Crescentini and Mme. Gafforini, for the Italian opera at Lisbon, where she arrived in the year 1804. The romance of Catalani's life connects itself, not with those escapades which furnish the most piquant tidbits for the gossip-monger, but with her marriage, which occurred at Lisbon. Throughout her long career no breath of scandal touched the character of this extraordinary artist. Her private and domestic life was as exemplary as her public career was dazzling. One night, as Angelica was singing on the stage, her eyes met those of a handsome man in full French uniform, and especially distinguished by the diamond aigrette in his cap, who sat in full sight in one of the boxes. When she went off the stage she found the military stranger in the greenroom, waiting for an introduction. This was M. de Vallebrègue, captain in the Eighth Hussars and _attache_ of the French embassy, who in after years received his highest recognition of distinction as the husband of the chief of living singers. They were both in the full flush of youth and beauty, and they fell passionately in love with each other at first sight. When the lover asked Signor Catalani's consent, the latter frowned on the scheme, for the golden harvest was too rich to be yielded up lightly for the asking. He coldly refused, and bade the suitor think of his love as hopeless, though he found no objection to M. Vallebrègue personally. Poor Angelica was thoroughly wretched, and day after day pined for her young soldier-lover, who had been forbidden the house by the father. For several days she was in such dejection that she could not sing, and the romance became the talk of Lisbon. One day an anonymous letter was received by Papa Catalani charging M. Vallebrègue with being a proscribed man, who had committed some mysterious crime vaguely hinted at. Armed with this, her father sought to reason Angelica out of her passion; but she clung to her lover with more eagerness, and was rewarded, to her great joy, by learning that the crime was only having fought a duel with and severely wounded his superior officer--an offense against discipline, which had been punished by temporary relief from military duty and a pleasant exile to Lisbon. The young beauty wept, sighed, pouted, and could be persuaded to sing only with much difficulty. All day long she said with deep mournfulness, "_Ma che bel uffiziale_" and pined with genuine heart-sickness. At last Vallebrègue smuggled a letter to his discouraged mistress, in which he said in ardent words that no one had a right to separate them, and urged her to lend all her energies to her professional work, so that, being a favorite at court, she might induce the Prince to intercede in the matter. Angelica tried in vain to get an interview with the Prince, and found that he was at his country villa twenty miles away. Her accustomed energy was equal to the difficult. Calling a coach, she drove out to the royal villa. Trembling with emotion and fatigue, she threw herself at the feet of the good-natured Prince, whom she found in the garden, and told her story as soon as her timidity could find words. He could hardly resist the temptation to badinage which the lively Angelica had hitherto been so ready to meet with brilliant repartee, but the anxious girl could only weep and plead. It was such a genuine love romance that the Prince's heart was touched, and, after some argument and advice to return to her father, he yielded and gave his sanction to the match. He accompanied the now radiant Angelica back to Lisbon, and in an hour's time a ceremony in the court chapel made her Madame de Vallebrègue, in presence of General Lannes, the French envoy, and himself. Signor Catalani was enraged at the turn which things had taken, but he could only acquiesce in the inevitable, especially as his daughter and her husband settled on him a country estate in Italy and a comfortable annuity for life. Mme. Catalani returned to Italy with a reputation which made her name the first in everybody's mouth. Yet at this time her appearance on the dramatic stage always occasioned a feeling of pain, her excessive timidity and nervousness made her action spasmodic, and deprived her of that easy dignity which must be united with passion and sentiment to produce a good artistic personation. It was in concert that her grand voice at this period shone at its best. Her intimate friends were wont to say that it was as disagreeable and agitating for her to sing in opera, as it was delightful in the concert-room; for here she poured forth her notes with such a genuine ecstasy in her own performance as that which seems to thrill the skylark or the nightingale. Though the circumstances of her marriage were of such a romantic kind, and she seems to have been deeply attached to her husband through life, M. Valle-brègue appears to have been a stupid, ignorant soldier, and, as is common with those who make similar matrimonial speculations, to have had no eyes beyond helping his talented wife to make all the money possible and spend it with the utmost freedom afterward. Mme. Catalani made a brief visit to Paris in the spring of 1806, sang twice at St. Cloud, and gave three public concerts, each of which produced twenty-four thousand francs, the price being doubled for these occasions. Napoleon was always anxious to make Paris the center of European art, and to assemble within its borders all the attractions of the civilized world. He spared no temptation to induce the Italian cantatrice to remain. When she attended his commands at the Tuileries she trembled like a leaf before the stern tyrant, under whose gracious demeanor she detected the workings of an unbending purpose. "Où allez vous, madame?" said he, smilingly. "To London, sire," was the reply. "Remain in Paris. I will pay you well, and your talents will be appreciated. You shall receive a hundred thousand francs per annum, and two months for _congé_. So that is settled. Adieu, madame." Such was the brusque and imperious interview, which seemed to fix the fate of the artist. But Mme. Catalani, anxious to get to London, to which she looked as a rich harvest-field, and regarding the grim Napoleon as the foe of the legitimate King, was determined not to stay. "When at Paris I was denied a passport," she afterward said; "however, I got introduced to Talleyrand, and, by the aid of a handful of gold, I was put into a government boat, and ordered to lie down to avoid being shot; and wonderful to relate, I got over in safety, with my little boy seven months old." II. Catalani had already signed a contract with Goold and Taylor, the managers of the King's Theatre, Haymarket, at a salary of two thousand pounds a month and her expenses, besides various other emoluments. At the time of her arrival there was no competitor for the public favor, Grassini and Mrs. Billington having both retired from the stage a short time previously. Lord Mount Edgcumbe tells us: "The great and far-famed Catalani supplied the place of both, and for many years reigned alone; for she would bear no rival, nor any singer sufficiently good to divide the applause. It is well known," he says, "that her voice is of a most uncommon quality; and capable of bearing exertions almost superhuman. Her throat seems endowed (as is remarked by medical men) with a power of expansion and muscular motion by no means usual; and when she throws out all her voice to the utmost, it has a volume and strength quite surprising; while its agility in divisions running up and down the scale in semi-tones, and its compass in jumping over two octaves at once, are equally astonishing. It were to be wished that she was less lavish in the display of these wonderful powers, and sought to please more than to surprise; but her taste is vicious, her excessive love of ornament spoiling every simple air, and her greatest delight being in songs of a bold and spirited character, where much is left to her discretion or indiscretion, without being confined by the accompaniment, but in which she can indulge in _ad libitum_ passages with a luxuriance and redundance no other singer ever possessed, or if possessing ever practiced, and which she carries to a fantastical excess." Her London _début_ was on the 15th of December, 1806, in Portogallo's opera of "La Semi-ramide," composed for the occasion. The music of this work was of the most ephemeral nature, but Catalani's magnificent singing and acting gave it a heroic dignity. She lavished all the resources of her art on it. In one passage she dropped a double octave, and finally sealed her reputation "by running up and down the chromatic scale for the first time in the recollection of opera-goers.... It was then new, although it has since been repeated to satiety, and even noted down as an _obbligato_ division by Rossini, Meyerbeer, and others. Rounds of applause rewarded this daring exhibition of bad taste." She had one peculiar effect, which it is said has never been equaled. This was an undulating tone like that of a musical glass, the vibrating note being higher than the highest note on the pianoforte. "She appeared to make a sort of preparation previous to its utterance, and never approached it by the regular scale. It began with an inconceivably fine tone, which gradually swelled both in volume and power, till it made the ears vibrate and the heart thrill. It particularly resembled the highest note of the nightingale, that is reiterated each time more intensely, and which with a sort of ventriloquism seems scarcely to proceed from the same bird that a moment before poured his delicate warblings at an interval so disjointed." There are many racy anecdotes related of Catalani's London career, to which the stupid, avaricious, but good-natured character of M. Vallebrègue lent much of their flavor. Speaking of Mrs. Salmon's singing, he said with vehemence, "Mrs. Salmon, sare, she is as that," extending the little finger of his left hand and placing his thumb at the root of it; "but ma femme! Voilà! she is that"--stretching out his whole arm at full length and touching the shoulder-joint with the other. His stupidity extended to an utter ignorance of music, which he only prized as the means of gaining the large sums which his extravagance craved. His wife once complained of the piano, saying, "I can not possibly sing to that piano; I shall crack my voice: the piano is absurdly high." "Do not fret, my dear," interposed the husband, soothingly; "it shall be lowered before evening: I will attend to it myself." Evening came, and the house was crowded; but, to the consternation of the cantatrice, the pianoforte was as high as ever. She sang, but the strain was excessive and painful; and she went behind the scenes in a very bad humor. "Really, my dear," said her lord, "I can not conceive of the piano being too high; I had the carpenter in with his saw, and made him take six inches off each leg in my presence!" When she made her engagement for the second season, M. Vallebrogue demanded such exorbitant terms that the manager tore his hair with vexation, saying that such a salary to one singer would actually disable him from employing any other artists of talent. "Talent!" repeated the husband; "have you not Mme. Cata-lani? What would you have? If you want an opera company, my wife with four or five puppets is quite sufficient." So, during the season of 1808, Catalani actually was the whole company, the other performers being literally puppets. She appeared chiefly in operas composed expressly for her, in which the part for the prima donna was carefully adapted to the display of her various powers. In "Semiramide" particularly she made an extraordinary impression, as it afforded room for the finest tragic action; and the music, trivial as it was, gave full scope for the extraordinary perfection of her voice. She also appeared in comic operas, and in Paesiello's "La Frascatana" particularly delighted the public by the graceful lightness and gayety of her comedy. But in them as in tragedies she stood alone and furnished the sole attraction. Her astonishing dexterity seemed rather the result of the natural aptitude of genius than of study and labor, and her most brilliant ornaments more the fanciful improvisations of the moment than the roulades of the composer. Of her elocution in singing it is said: "She was articulate, forcible, and powerful; occasionally light, pleasing, and playful, but never awfully grand or tenderly touching to the degree that the art may be carried." Her marvelous strains seemed to distant auditors poured forth with the fluent ease of a bird; but those who were near saw that her efforts were so great as to "call into full and violent action the muscular powers of the head, throat, and chest." In the execution of rapid passages the under jaw was in a continual state of agitation, "in a manner, too, generally thought incompatible with the production of pure tone from the chest, and inconsistent with a legitimate execution. This extreme motion was also visible during the shake, which Catalani used sparingly, however, and with little effect." In spite of the reputation for rapacity which the avarice and arrogance of her husband helped to create, Catalani won golden opinions by her sweet temper, liberality, and benevolence. Her purse-strings were always opened to relieve want or encourage struggling merit. Her gayety and light-heartedness were proverbial. It is recorded that at Bangor once she heard for the first time the strains of a Welsh harp, the player being a poor blind itinerant. The music sounding in the kitchen of the inn filled the world-renowned singer with an almost infantile glee, and, rushing in among the pots and pans, she danced as madly as if she had been bitten by the tarantula, till, all panting and breathless, she threw the harper two guineas, and said she had never heard anything which gave her more delight. The claims on her purse kept pace with the enormous gains which seemed to increase from year to year. To her large charities and her extravagant habits of living, her husband added the heavy losses to which his passion for the gaming table led him. It was said in after years that Mme. Catalani should have been worth not less than half a million sterling, so immense had been her gains. Mr. Waters, in a pamphlet published in 1807, says that her receipts from all sources for that year had been nearly seventeen thousand pounds. She frequently was paid two hundred pounds for singing "Rule Britannia," a song in which she became celebrated; and one thousand pounds was the usual _honorarium_ given for her services at a festival. Mme. Catalani, in addition to her operatic performances, frequently sang at the Ancient Concerts and in oratorio; but she lacked the devotional pathos and tenderness which had given Mara and Mrs. Billington their power in sacred music. Yet she possessed strong religious sentiments, and always prayed before entering a theatre. Her somewhat ostentatious piety provoked the following scandalous anecdote: She was observed reading a prayer from her missal prior to going before the audience one night, and some one, taking the book from the attendant, found it to be a copy of Metastasio. This story is probably apocryphal, however, like many of the most amusing incidents related of artists and authors. Certain it is that Catalani never shone in oratorio, or even in the rendering of dramatic pathos; but in bold and brilliant music the world has probably never seen her peer. To some the immense volume of her voice was not pleasant. Queen Charlotte criticised it by wishing for a little cotton to put in her ears. Some wit, being asked if he would go to York to hear her, replied he could hear better where he was. "Whenever I hear such an outrageous display of execution," said Lord Mount Edgcumbe, in his "Musical Reminiscences," "I never fail to recollect and cordially join in the opinion of a late noble statesman, more famous for his wit than for his love of music, who, hearing a remark on the extreme difficulty of some performance, observed that he wished it was impossible." It was this same nobleman, Lord North, who perpetrated the following _mot_: Being asked why he did not subscribe to the Ancient Concerts, and reminded that his brother, the Bishop of Winchester, had done so, he said, "Oh, if I was as deaf as the good Bishop, I would subscribe too." During the period of her operatic career in England, Catalani illustrated the works of a wide variety of composers, both serious and comic; for her dramatic talents were equal to both, and there was no music which she did not master as if by inspiration, though she was such a bad reader that to learn a part perfectly she was obliged to hear it played on the piano. It was with great unwillingness that she essayed the music of Mozart, however, who had just become a great favorite in England. The strict time, the severe form, and the importance of the accompaniments were not suited to her splendid and luxuriant style, which disdained all trammels and rules. Yet she was the first singer who introduced "Le Nozze di Figaro" to the English stage. Besides _Susanna_ in "Le Nozze," she appeared as _Vitellia_ in "La Clemenza di Tito," a serious _rôle_; and both in acting and singing these interpretations were praised by the most intelligent connoisseurs--who had previously attacked the vicious redundancy of her style severely--as nearly matchless. Arch and piquant as the waiting-woman, lofty, impassioned, and haughty as the patrician dame of old Rome, she rendered each as if her sole talent were in the one direction. Tremmazani, a delightful tenor, who had just arrived in England, and possessed a voice of that rich, touching Cremona tone so rare even in Italy, it may be remarked in passing, refused the part of Count Almaviva as lacking sufficient importance, and because he regarded it as beneath his dignity to appear in comic opera. III. The year 1813 was the last season of Catalani's regular engagement on the operatic stage. She continued to sing in "Tito" and "Figaro," but her principal pleasure was in the most extravagant and bizarre show-pieces, such, for example, as variations composed for the violin on popular airs like "God save the King," "Rule Britannia," "Cease your Funning." She carried her departure from the true limits of art to such an outrageous degree as to draw on her head the severest reprobation of all good judges, though the public listened to her wonderful execution with unbounded delight and astonishment. Toward the latter part of the season an extraordinary riot took place in consequence of Catalani's failure to appear two successive evenings. The managers were in arrears, and the _diva_ by the advice of her husband adopted this plan to force payment. There were mutterings of the thunder on the first non-appearance; but when on the following night Catalani was still absent, the storm broke. The opera which had been substituted was half finished when the clamor drowned all the artistic noise behind the footlights. A military guard who had been called in to protect the stage from invasion were overpowered by a throng of gentlemen who leaped on from the auditorium, many of them men of high rank, and the guns and bayonets wrested from the soldiers' hands. Bloodshed seemed imminent; and had it not been for the moderation of the soldiers, who permitted themselves to be disarmed rather than fire, the result would have been very serious. The chandeliers and mirrors were all broken into a thousand pieces, and the musical instruments hurled around in the wildest confusion. Fiddles, flutes, horns, drums, swords, bayonets, muskets, operatic costumes, and stage properties generally were hurled in a heap on the stage. The gentlemen Mohocks, who signalized themselves on this occasion, did damage to the amount of nearly one thousand pounds, though it is said they made it up to the manager afterward by subscription. The theatre was closed for a week; and when it reopened, so great was the magnificent Italian's power over the audience that, though they came prepared to condemn, they received her with the loudest demonstration of applause. But still such conduct toward audiences, if followed up, could not but beget dissatisfaction and wrangling, and the growing impatience of her managers as well as the more judicious public could not be mistaken. In spite of the fact that several brilliant singers were in England, and of the desire of the public that the splendid talents of Catalani should be appropriately supported, her jealousy and her exorbitant claims prevented such a desirable combination. She offered to buy the theatre and thus become sole proprietor, sole manager, and sole performer; but, of course, the proposition was refused, luckily for the enraged cantatrice, who would certainly have paid dearly for her experiment. Catalani on closing her English engagement proceeded to Paris. She had been known as an ardent friend of the Bourbon exiles, and so, during the occupation of Paris by the Allies in 1814, she found herself in great favor. After the Hundred Days had passed and the royal house seemed to be firmly seated, she received a government subvention of one hundred and sixty thousand francs and the privilege of the Opera. Catalani's passion for absorbing everything within the radius of her own vanity and her jealousy of rivals operated against her success in Paris, as they had injured her in London; and she was obliged to yield up her privilege in the course of three years, with the additional loss of five hundred thousand francs of her own private fortune, and the loss of good will on the part of the Paris public. Her grand concert tour through Europe, undertaken with the purpose of repairing her losses, was one of the most interesting portions of her life. Everywhere she was received with abounding enthusiasm, and the concerts were so thronged that there was rarely ever standing-room. She sang in nearly every important city on the Continent, was the object of the most flattering attention everywhere, and was loaded down with the costliest presents, jewels, medals, and testimonials, everywhere. Sovereigns vied with each other in showing their admiration by gorgeous offerings, and her arrival in a city was looked on as a gala-day. In the midst, however, of these the most trying circumstances in which a beautiful and captivating woman could be placed, surrounded by temptation and flattery, her course was marked by undeviating propriety, and not the faintest breath tarnished her fair fame. Such an idol of popular admiration would be sure to exhibit an overweening vanity. When in Hamburg in 1819, M. Schevenke, a great musician, criticised her vocal feats with severity. Mme. Catalani shrugged her beautiful shoulders and called him "an impious man." "For," said she, "when God has given to a mortal so extraordinary a talent as I possess, people ought to applaud and honor it as a miracle; it is profane to depreciate the gifts of Heaven." It was during this tour that she met the poet Goethe at the court of Weimar, where she was made an honored guest, as she had been treated everywhere in royal and princely circles. At a court dinner-party where she was present, the great German poet was as usual the cynosure of the company. His imperial and splendid presence and world-wide fame marked him out from all others. Catalani was struck by the appearance of this modern Olympian god, and asked who he was. To a mind innocent of all culture except such as touched her art merely, the name "Goethe" conveyed but little significance. "Pray, on what instrument does he play?" "He is no performer, madame--he is the renowned author of 'Werter.'" "Oh yes, yes, I remember," she said; then turning to the venerable poet, she addressed him in her vivacious manner. "Ah! sir, what an admirer I am of 'Werter!'" Flattered by her evident sincerity and ardor, the poet bowed profoundly. "I never," continued she, in the same lively strain, "I never read anything half so laughable in all my life. What a capital farce it is, sir!" The poet, astounded, could scarcely believe the evidence of his ears. "'The Sorrows of Werter' a farce!" he murmured faintly. "Oh yes, never was anything so exquisitely ridiculous," rejoined Catalani, with a ringing burst of laughter. It turned out that she had been talking all the while of a ridiculous parody of "Werter" which had been performed at one of the vaudeville theatres of Paris, in which the sentimentality of Goethe's tale had been most savagely ridiculed. We can fancy what Goethe's mortification was, and how the fair _diva's_ credit was impaired at the court of Weimar by her ignorance of the illustrious poet and of the novel whose fame had rung through all Europe. Mme. Catalani returned to England in 1821, and found herself the subject of an enthusiasm little less than that which had greeted her in her earlier prime. Her concert tour extended through all the cities of the British kingdom. In this tour she was supported by the great tenor Braham, as remarkable a singer in some respects as Catalani herself, and probably the most finished artist of English birth who ever ornamented the lyric stage. Braham had been brilliantly associated with the lyric triumphs of Mara, Billington, and Grassini, and had been welcomed in Italy itself as one of the finest singers in the world. When Catalani's dramatic career in England commenced Braham had supported her, though her jealousy soon rid her of so brilliant a competitor for the public plaudits. Braham's part in Catalani's English concert tour was a very important one, and some cynical wags professed to believe that as many went to hear the great tenor as to listen to Catalani. The electrical effect of her singing was very well shown at one of these concerts. She introduced a song, "Delia Superba Roma," declamatory in its nature, written for her by Marquis Sampieri. The younger Linley, brother-in-law of Sheridan, who was playing in the orchestra, was so moved that he forgot his own part, and on receiving a severe whispered rebuke from the singer fainted away in his place. Mme. Catalani returned again on finishing her English engagement to Russia, where she realized fifteen thousand guineas in four months. Concert-rooms were too small to hold her audiences, and she was obliged to use the great hall of the Public Exchange, which would hold more than four thousand people. At her last concert the Emperor and Empress loaded her with costly gifts, among them being a girdle of magnificent diamonds. IV. The career of John Braham must always be of interest to those who love the traditions of English music. The associate and contemporary of a host of distinguished singers, and himself not least, his connection with the musical life of Cata-lani would seem to make some brief sketch of the greatest of English tenor-singers singularly fitting in this place. He was born in London in 1773, of Jewish parentage, his real name being Abrams, and was so wretchedly poor that he sold pencils on the street to get a scanty living. Leoni, an Italian teacher of repute, discovered by accident that he had a fine voice, and took the friendless lad under his tutelage. He appeared at the age of thirteen at the Covent Garden Theatre, the song "The Soldier tired of War's Alarms" being the first he sang in public. One of the papers spoke of him as a youthful prodigy, saying, "He promises fair to attain every perfection, possessing every requisite necessary to form a good singer." Braham at one time lost his voice utterly, and his prospect seemed a gloomy one, as his master Leoni also died about the same time. He now found a generous patron in Abraham Goldsmith, however, and became a professor of the piano, for which instrument he developed remarkable talent. An Italian master named Rauzzini seems to have been of great service to Braham when he was about twenty years of age, and under him he fitted himself for the Italian stage, and secured an opening under Storace, father of the brilliant Nancy Storace, at Drury Lane. His success was so marked that the following season found him reengaged and his professional life well opened to him. Braham's ambition, however, would not permit him to rest on his laurels, or rest contented with the artistic fitness already acquired. He determined to find in Italy that finishing culture which then as now made that country the Mecca of artists anxious to perfect their education. He visited Florence, Genoa, Milan, Naples, and Rome, studying under the most famous masters. Not content with his training in executive music, Braham studied composition and counterpoint under Isola, and laid the foundation for the knowledge which afterward gave him a place among notable English composers as well as singers. While in England Braham had shown proof s of a transcendent talent. His singing both in oratorio and opera was of such a stamp as to place him in the van with the most accomplished Italian singers. With the added finish of method which he gained by his Italian studies, he made a most favorable impression in the various cities when he sang in Italy, and his name was freely quoted as being one of the very greatest living singers. The elder Davide, whose reputation at that time had no equal, even Crescentini being placed second to him, said on hearing him sing, "There are only two singers in the world, I and the Englishman." Braham had one great advantage over his rivals in this, that his knowledge of the science of music in all its most abstruse difficulties was thorough. Skillful adept as he was in all the refinements of executive technique, his profound musical grasp and insight made all difficulties of interpretation perfect child's-play. Our readers will recall an illustration of Braham's readiness and quickness of resource in the anecdote of him told in connection with Mrs. Billington's life. Refusing the most flattering offers from Italian impressarii, who were eager to retain him for a while in Italy, Braham returned to England in 1801, and for the most part during a number of years devoted himself to English opera. Though he had approved himself a brilliant master in the Italian school, his taste and talents also peculiarly fitted him--like Sims Reeves, who seems to have taken Braham for a model--for the simple and affecting ballad-music with which English opera is so characteristically marked. His only appearances in Italian opera in England after his return were in the seasons of 1804, 1805,1800, and 1816. These seasons were marked by the performance of the fine operas of Winter, of some of the masterpieces of Cimarosa, and by the first introduction into England of the music of Mozart, the "Clemenza di Tito," in which Mrs. Billington and Braham appeared, having been the earliest acquaintance of the English public with the greatest of the German operatic composers. The production of this opera was at the suggestion of George IV., then Prince of Wales, who had a manuscript score of the work, with instrumental parts, sent to him as a gift by the great Haydn several years before, as a memorial of the kindness shown by the Prince to the composer of the "Creation," when in London conducting the celebrated Salaman symphonic concerts. The characters of _Vittellia_ and _Cesto_ were splendidly performed by the two singers; but the Italian part of the company did not perform the difficult and exacting music _con amore_, neither were the audiences of that day trained up to the appreciation of the glorious music of Mozart which has obtained since that time. Braham's career as a singer of English opera is that with which his glory in art is chiefly associated. His first appearance was in a somewhat feeble work called the "Chains of the Heart," and this was succeeded by the "Cabinet," a production in which Braham composed all the music of his own part, both solo and the concerted portions in which he had to appear--a custom which he continued for a number of years. Seldom has music been more popular than that in which Braham appeared, for he knew how to suit all the subtile qualities of his own voice. Among the more celebrated operas in which he appeared, now unknown except by tradition, may be mentioned "Family Quarrels," "Thirty Thousand," "English Fleet," "Out of Place," "False Alarms," "Kars, or Love in a Desert," and "Devil's Bridge." As Braham grew older he attained a prodigious reputation, never before equaled in England. In theatre, concert-room, and church he had scarcely a rival; and whether in singing a simple ballad, in oratorio, or in the grandest dramatic music, the largeness and nobility of his style were matched by a voice which in its prime was almost peerless. His compass extended over nineteen notes, and his falsetto from D to A was so perfect that it was difficult to tell where the natural voice ended. When Weber composed his opera "Oberon" for the English stage in 1826, Braham was the original _Sir Huon_. Braham had made a large fortune by his genius and industry, the copyright on the many beautiful ballads and songs which he contributed to the musical treasures of the language amounting alone to a handsome competence. But, following the example of so many great artists, he aspired to be manager also. In conjunction with Yates, in 1831 he purchased the Colosseum in Regent's Park for forty thousand pounds, and five years afterward he spent twenty-six thousand pounds in building the St. James's theatre. These speculations were unfortunate, and Braham found himself compelled to renew his professional exertions at a period when musical artists generally think of retiring from the stage. He made a concert and operatic tour in America in 1840, and it was while playing with him in "Guy Manner-ing" that Charlotte Cushman, who then performed singing parts, conceived the remarkable _rôle_ of _Meg Merrlies_, which she made one of the most picturesque and vivid memories of the stage. Francis Wemyss, in his "Theatrical Biography," refers to Braham's appearance at the National Theatre, Philadelphia: "Who that heard 'Jephthall's Rash Vow' could ever forget the volume of voice which issued from that diminutive frame, or the ecstasy with which 'Waft her, angels, through the skies' thrilled every nerve of the attentive listener? He ought to have visited the United States twenty years sooner, or not have risked his reputation by coming at all. Like Incledon, he was only heard by Americans when his powers of voice were so impaired as to leave them to conjecture what he had been, and mourn the wreck that all had once admired." Such an impression as this seems to have been common with the American public--an experience afterward in recent years repeated in the last visit of the once great Mario. In private life Braham was much admired, and was always received in the most conservative and fastidious circles. As a man of culture, a humorist, and a raconteur, he was the life of society; and he will be remembered as the composer who has left more popular songs, duets, etc., than almost any other English musician. He died in 1856, after living to see his daughter Lady Walde-grave, and one of the most brilliant leaders of London high life. The Davides, father and son, also belonged to the Catalani period, the elder having sung with her in Italy, and the younger in after years both in opera and concert. Giacomo Davide, the elder, whose prime was between 1770 and 1800, was pronounced by Lord Mount Edgecumbe the first tenor of his time, possessing a powerful and well-toned voice, great execution as well as knowledge of music, and an excellent style of singing. His son Giovanni, who became better known than himself, was his pupil. Though singing with a faulty method, Giovanni Davide had a voice of such magnificent compass and quality as to produce with it the most electrical effects. M. Edouard Bertin gives an interesting account of him in a letter from Venice dated 1823: "Davide excites among the dilletanti of this town an enthusiasm and delight which can hardly be conceived without having been witnessed. He is a singer of the new school, full of mannerism, affectation, and display, abusing like Martin his magnificent voice with its prodigious compass (three octaves comprised between four B flats). He crushes the principal motive of an air beneath the luxuriance of his ornamentation, which has no other merit than that of a difficulty conquered. But he is also a singer full of warmth, _verve_, expression, energy, and musical sentiment. Alone he can fill up and give life to a scene: it is impossible for another singer to carry away an audience as he does, and when he will only be simple he is admirable. He is the Rossini of song. He is the greatest singer I ever heard. Doubtless the way in which Garcia* plays and sings the part of _Otello_ is preferable, taking it all together, to that of Davide; it is pure, more severe, more constantly dramatic; but with all his faults Davide produces more effect, a great deal more effect. There is something in him, I can not say what, which, even when he is ridiculous, entrances attention. He never leaves you cold, and when he does not move he astonishes you. In a word, before hearing him, I did not know what the power of singing really was. The enthusiasm he excites is without limit." * The father of Mlle. Mulibran and Viardot-Garcia. This remarkable singer died in St. Petersburg in 1851, being then manager of an Imperial Opera in that city of enthusiastic music-lovers. V. In 1824 Mme. Catalani again filled an engagement in England, making her reappearance in Mayer's comic _pasticcio_, "Il Fanatico per la Mu-sica," the airs of which had been expressly selected for the display of her vocal _tours de force_. Crowded audiences again welcomed her whom absence had made an idol dearer than ever, and her transcendent power as a singer seemed to have rise even beyond the old pitch in her electrical _bravura_ style of execution. Yet some critics thought they detected tokens of the destroying hand of time. One critic spoke of the "fragrance" of her tone as having evaporated. Another compared her voice to a pianoforte the hammers of which had grown hard by use. In her appearance she had become even more beautiful than ever, with some slight accession of _embonpoint_, and was conceded to be the handsomest woman in Europe. For a while her popularity was unbounded among all classes, and probably no singer that ever lived rode on a higher wave of public adoration. But the critics began to be very much dissatisfied with the vicious uses to which she put her magnificent voice. In Paris the wags had called her _l'instrument Catalani_. In London they said her style had become a caricature of its former grandeur, so exaggerated and affected had it grown. "When she begins one of the interminable roulades up the scale," says a writer in "Knight's Quarterly Magazine," "she gradually raises her body, which she had before stooped to almost a level with the ground, until, having won her way with a quivering lip and chattering chin to the very topmost note, she tosses back her head and all its nodding feathers with an air of triumph; then suddenly falls to a note two octaves and a half lower with incredible aplomb, and smiles like a victorious Amazon over a conquered enemy." A throng of flatterers joined in encouraging her in all her defects. "No sooner does Catalani quit the orchestra," says the same writer, "than she is beset by a host of foreign sycophants, who load her with exaggerated praise. I was present at a scene of this kind in the refreshment-room at Bath, and heard reiterated on all sides, 'Ah! madame, la dernière fois toujours la meilleure!' Thus is poor Mme. Catalani led to strive to excel herself every time she sings, until she exposes herself to the ridicule most probably of those very flatterers; for I have heard that on the Continent she is mimicked by a man dressed in female attire, who represents, by extravagant terms and gestures, Mme. Catalani _surpassing_ herself." Occasionally, however, she showed that her genius had not forsaken her. Her singing of Luther's Hymn is thus described by an appreciative listener: "She admits in this grandly simple composition no ornament whatever but a pure shake at the conclusion. The majesty of her sustained tones, so rich, so ample as not only to fill but overflow the cathedral where I heard her, the solemnity of her manner, and the St. Cecilia-like expression of her raised eyes and rapt countenance, produced a thrilling effect through the united medium of sight and hearing. Whoever has heard Catalani sing this, accompanied by Schmidt on the trumpet, has heard the utmost that music can do. Then in the succeeding chorus, when the same awful words, 'The trumpet sounds; the graves restore the dead which they contained before,' are repeated by the whole choral strength, her voice, piercing through the clang of instruments and the burst of other voices, is heard as distinctly as if it were alone! During the encore I found my way to the top of a tower on the outside of the cathedral, and could still distinguish her wonderful voice." A charming incident is told of Mme. Catalani while in Brighton. Captain Montague, cruising off that port, invited her and some other ladies to a _fête_ on his ship, and the ladies were escorted on board by the Captain in a boat manned by twenty men. The prima donna suddenly burst forth with her pet song, "Rule Britannia," singing with electrical fire and the full power of her magnificent voice. The tars dropped their oars, and tears rolled down their weatherbeaten cheeks, while the Captain said: "You see, madame, the effect this favorite air has on these brave men when sung by the finest voice in the world. I have been in many victorious battles, but never felt an excitement equal to this." Mme. Catalani retired from the stage in 1831. Young and brilliant rivals, such as Pasta and Son-tag, were rising to contest her sovereignty, and for several years the critics had been dropping pretty plain hints that it would be the most judicious and dignified course. She settled on a magnificent estate near Lake Como, where she lived with her two eldest children--a son and daughter--the younger son being absent on military duty in the French army. This latter afterward became an equerry to Napoleon III., and the other children occupied positions of rank and honor. Mme. Catalani founded a school of gratuitous instruction for young girls near her beautiful villa, and exacted that all who graduated from this school should adopt her own name. One, Signora Masilli-Catalani, became quite an eminent singer. Mrs. Trollope tells us something of Catalani's latter days as she visited her in Italy: "Nothing could be more amiable than the reception she gave us." She expressed a great admiration and love for the English. Her beauty was little injured. "Her eyes and teeth are still magnificent," says Mrs. Trollope, "and I am told that, when seen in evening full dress by candlelight, no stranger can see her for the first time without inquiring who that charming-looking woman is." Mrs. Trollope hinted to Mlle, de Valle-brèque that she would like to hear her mother sing; and in a moment Mme. Catalani was at the piano, smiling at the whispered request from her daughter. "I know not what it was she sang, but scarcely had she permitted her voice to swell into one of those bravura passages, of which her execution was so very peculiar and so perfectly unequaled, than I felt as if some magic process was being performed upon me, which took me back again to something--I know not what to call it--which I had neither heard nor felt for nearly twenty years. Involuntarily, unconsciously, my eyes filled with tears, and I felt as much embarrassed as a young lady of fifteen might be who suddenly found herself in the act of betraying emotions which she was far indeed from wishing to display." William Gardiner visited Mme. Catalani in 1846. "I was surprised at the vigor of Mme. Catalani," he says, "and how little she was altered since I saw her at Derby in 1828. I paid her a compliment upon her good looks. 'Ah!' said she, 'I am growing old and ugly.' I would not allow it. 'Why, man,' she said, 'I'm sixty-six!' She has lost none of that commanding expression which gave her such dignity on the stage. She is without a wrinkle, and appears to be no more than forty. Her breadth of chest is still remarkable; it was this which endowed her with the finest voice that ever sang. Her speaking voice and dramatic air are still charming, and not in the least impaired." About the year 1848 Catalani and her family left Italy for fear of the cholera, which was then raging, and sought refuge in Paris. While residing there she heard Jenny Lind. One morning, a few days after, the servant announced a strange visitor, who would not give her name. On being ushered in, the timid stranger, who showed a plain but pleasant face, knelt at her feet and said falteringly, "I am Jenny Lind, madame--I am come to ask your blessing." A few days afterward Catalani was stricken with the cholera, which she so much dreaded, and died on June 12th, at the age of sixty-nine. It is not a marvel that the public was captivated with Catalani. She had every splendid gift that Nature could lavish--surpassing physical beauty, a matchless voice, energy of spirit, sweetness of temper, and warm affections. Her whole private life was marked by the utmost purity and propriety, and she was the soul of generosity and unselfishness. The many business troubles in which she was involved were caused by her husband's rapacity and narrowness of judgment, and not by her own disposition to take advantage of the necessities of her managers--a charge her enemies at one time brought against her. Her unrivaled endowments (for that taken all in all they were unrivaled is now pretty well acknowledged) ought to have raised her much higher in rank as an artist. Her education even as a singer was extremely superficial, and she became an object of universal admiration without ever knowing anything about music. As she advanced in her career, her whole ambition seemed to be narrowed down to surprising the world by displays of vocal power. As long as these displays would dazzle and astonish, it made little difference how absurd and unmeaning they were. Had she assiduously cultivated the dramatic part of her profession, such were the powers of her voice, her sense of the beautiful, her histrionic passion and energy, her charms of person, that she might have been the greatest lyric artist that ever lived. Many of the songs she selected as vehicles of display were unsuitable to a female voice. For instance, she would take the martial song for a bass voice, "Non piu Andrai," in "Figaro," and overpower by the force and volume of her organ all the brass instruments of the orchestra. A craving for such sort of admiration from unthinking crowds turned her aside from the true path of her art, where she might have reached the top peak of greatness, and has handed down her memory a shining beacon rather than as a model to her successors. GIUDITTA PASTA. Greatness of Genius overcoming Disqualification.--The Characteristic Lesson of Pasta's Life.--Her First Appearance and Failure.--Pasta returns to Italy and devotes herself to Study.--Her First Great Successes in 1819.--Characteristics of her Voice and Singing.--Chorley's Review of the Impressions made on him by Pasta.--She makes her Triumphal _Début_ in Paris.--Talma on Pasta's Acting.--Her Performances of "Giulietta" and "Tancredi."--Medea, Pasta's Grandest Impersonation, is given to the World.--Description of the Performance.--Enthusiasm of the Critics and the Public.--Introduction of Pasta to the English Public in Rossini's "Otello."--The Impression made in England.--Recognized as the Greatest Dramatic Prima Donna in the World.--Glances at the Salient Facts of her English Career.--The Performance of "Il Crociato in Egitto."--She plays the Male _Rôle_ in "Otello."--Rivalry with Malibran and Sontag.--The Founder of a New School of Singing.--Pasta creates the Leading _Rôles_ in Bellini's "Sonnambula" and "Norma" and Donizetti's "Anna Bolena."--Decadence and Retirement. I. As an artist who could transform natural faults into the rarest beauties, who could make the world forgive the presence of other deficiencies which could not thus be glorified by the presence of genius, thought, and truth--as one who engraved deeper impressions on the memory of her hearers than any other even in an age of great singers--Mme. Pasta must be placed in the very front rank of art. The way by which this gifted woman arrived at her throne was long and toilsome. Nature had denied her the ninety-nine requisites of the singer (according to the old Italian adage). Her voice at the origin was limited, husky, and weak, without charm, without flexibility. Though her countenance _spoke_, its features were cast in a coarse mold. Her figure was ungraceful, her movements were awkward. No candidate for musical sovereignty ever presented herself with what must have appeared a more meager catalogue of pretensions at the outset of her career. What she became let our sketch reveal. She was the daughter of a Jewish family named Negri, born at Saronno, near Milan, in the year 1798. The records of her childhood are slight, and beyond the fact that she received her first musical lessons at the Cathedral of Como and her latter training at the Milan Conservatory, and that she essayed her feeble wings at second-rate Italian theatres in subordinate parts for the first year, there is but little of significance to relate. In 1816 she sang in the train of the haughty and peerless Catalani at the Favart in Paris, but did not succeed in attracting attention. But it happened that Ayrton, of the King's Theatre, London, heard her sing at the house of Paer, the composer, and liked her well enough to engage herself and husband at a moderate salary. When Pasta's glimmering little light first shone in London, Fodor and Camporese were in the full blaze of their reputation--both brilliant singers, but destined to pale into insignificance afterward before the intense splendor of Pasta's perfected genius. One of the notices of the opening performance at the King's Theatre, when Mme. Camporese sang the leading _rôle_ of Cimarosa's "Penelope," followed up a lavish eulogium on the prima donna with the contemptuous remark, "Two subordinate singers named Pasta and Mari came forward in the characters of _Telamuco_ and _Arsi-noë_, but their musical talent does not require minute delineation." There is every reason to believe that Pasta was openly flouted both by the critics and the members of her own profession during her first London experience, but a magnificent revenge was in store for her. Among the parts she sang at this chrysalis period were _Cherubino_ in the "Nozze di Figaro," _Servilia_ in "La Clemenza di Tito," and the _rôle_ of the pretended shrew in Ferrari's "Il Shaglio Fortunato." Mme. Pasta found herself at the end of the season a dire failure. But she had the searching self-insight which stamps the highest forms of genius, and she determined to correct her faults, and develop her great but latent powers. Suddenly she disappeared from the view of the operatic world, and buried herself in a retired Italian city, where she studied with intelligent and tireless zeal under M. Scappa, a _maestro_ noted for his power of kindling the material of genius. Occasionally she tested herself in public. An English nobleman who heard her casually at this time said: "Other singers find themselves endowed with a voice and leave everything to chance. This woman leaves nothing to chance, and her success is therefore certain." She subjected herself to a course of severe and incessant study to subdue her voice. To equalize it was impossible. There was a portion of the scale which differed from the rest in quality, and remained to the last "under a veil," to use the Italian term. Some of her notes were always out of time, especially at the beginning of a performance, until the vocalizing machinery became warmed and mellowed by passion and excitement. Out of these uncouth and rebellious materials she had to compose her instrument, and then to give it flexibility. Chor-ley, in speaking of these difficulties, says: "The volubility and brilliancy, when acquired, gained a character of their own from the resisting peculiarities of her organ. There were a breadth, an expressiveness in her _roulades_, an evenness and solidity in her shake, which imparted to every passage a significance beyond the reach of more spontaneous singers." But, after all, the true secret of her greatness was in the intellect and imagination which lay behind the voice, and made every tone quiver with dramatic sensibility. The lyric Siddons of her age was now on the verge of making her real _début_. When she reappeared in Venice, in 1819, she made a great impression, which was strengthened by her subsequent performances in Rome, Milan, and Trieste, during that and the following year. The fastidious Parisians recognized her power in the autumn of 1821, when she sang at the Théâtre Italien; and at Verona, during the Congress of 1822, she was received with tremendous enthusiasm. She returned to Paris the same year, and in the opera of "Romeo e Giulietta" she exhibited such power, both in singing and acting, as to call from the French critics the most extravagant terms of praise. Mme. Pasta was then laying the foundation of one of the most dazzling reputations ever gained by prima donna. By sheer industry she had extended the range of her voice to two octaves and a half--from A above the bass clef note to C flat, and even to D in alt. Her tones had become rich and sweet, except when she attempted to force them beyond their limits; her intonation was, however, never quite perfect, being occasionally a little flat. Her singing was pure and totally divested of all spurious finery; she added little to what was set down by the composer, and that little was not only in good taste, but had a great deal of originality to recommend it. She possessed deep feeling and correct judgment. Her shake was most beautiful; Signor Pacini's well-known cavatina, "Il soave e bel contento"--the peculiar feature of which consisted in the solidity and power of a sudden shake, contrasted with the detached staccato of the first bar--was written for Mme. Pasta. Some of her notes were sharp almost to harshness, but this defect with the greatness of genius she overcame, and even converted into a beauty; for in passages of profound passion her guttural tones were thrilling. The irregularity of her lower notes, governed thus by a perfect taste and musical tact, aided to a great extent in giving that depth of expression which was one of the principal charms of her singing; indeed, these lower tones were peculiarly suited for the utterance of vehement passion, producing an extraordinary effect by the splendid and unexpected contrast which they enabled her to give to the sweetness of the upper tones, causing a kind of musical discordance indescribably pathetic and melancholy. Her accents were so plaintive, so penetrating, so profoundly tragical, that no one could resist their influence. Her genius as a tragedienne surpassed her talent as a singer. When on the stage she was no longer Pasta, but Tancredi, Romeo, Desdemona, Medea, or Semiramide. Ebers tells us in his "Seven Years of the King's Theatre": "Nothing could have been more free from trick or affectation than Pasta's performance. There is no perceptible effort to resemble a character she plays; on the contrary, she enters the stage the character itself; transposed into the situation, excited by the hopes and fears, breathing the life and spirit of the being she represents." Mme. Pasta was a slow reader, but she had in perfection the sense for the measurement and proportion of time, a most essential musical quality. This gave her an instinctive feeling for propriety, which no lessons could teach; that due recognition of accent and phrase, that absence of flurry and exaggeration, such as makes the discourse and behavior of some people memorable, apart from the value of matter and occasion; that intelligent composure, without coldness, which impresses and reassures those who see and hear. A quotation from a distinguished critic already cited gives a vivid idea of Pasta's influence on the most cold and fastidious judges: "The greatest grace of all, depth and reality of expression, was possessed by this remarkable artist as few (I suspect) before her--as none whom I have since admired--have possessed it. The best of her audience were held in thrall, without being able to analyze what made up the spell, what produced the effect, so soon as she opened her lips. Her recitative, from the moment she entered, was riveting by its truth. People accustomed to object to the conventionalities of opera (just as loudly as if all drama was not conventional too), forgave the singing and the strange language for the sake of the direct and dignified appeal made by her declamation. Mme. Pasta never changed her readings, her effects, her ornaments. What was to her true, when once arrived at, remained true for ever. To arrive at what stood with her for truth, she labored, made experiments, rejected with an elaborate care, the result of which, in one meaner or more meager, must have been monotony. But the impression made on me was that of being always subdued and surprised for the first time. Though I knew what was coming, when the passion broke out, or when the phrase was sung, it seemed as if they were something new, electrical, immediate. The effect to me is at present, in the moment of writing, as the impression made by the first sight of the sea, by the first snow mountain, by any of those first emotions which never entirely pass away. These things are utterly different from the fanaticism of a _laudator temporis acti_." When Talma heard her declaim, at the time of her earliest celebrity in Paris, he said: "Here is a woman of whom I can still learn. One turn of her beautiful head, one glance of her eye, one light motion of her hand, is, with her, sufficient to express a passion. She can raise the soul of the spectator to the highest pitch of astonishment and delight by one tone of her voice. 'O Dio!' as it comes from her breast, swelling over her lips, is of indescribable effect." Poetical and enthusiastic by temperament, the crowning excellence of her art was a grand simplicity. There was a sublimity in her expressions of vehement passion which was the result of measured force, energy which was never wasted, exalted pathos that never overshot the limits of art. Vigorous without violence, graceful without artifice, she was always greatest when the greatest emergency taxed her powers. Pasta's second great part at the Theatre Italien was in Rossini's "Tancredi," an impersonation which was one of the most enchanting and finished of her lighter _rôles_. "She looked resplendent in the casque and cuirass of the Red Cross Knight. No one could ever sing the part of _Tancredi_ like Mine. Pasta: her pure taste enabled her to add grace to the original composition by elegant and irreproachable ornaments. 'Di tanti palpiti' had been first presented to the Parisians by Mme. Fodor, who covered it with rich and brilliant embroidery, and gave it what an English critic, Lord Mount Edgcumbe, afterward termed its country-dance-like character. Mine. Pasta, on the contrary, infused into this air its true color and expression, and the effect was ravishing." "Tancredi" was quickly followed by "Otello," and the impassioned spirit, energy, delicacy, and tenderness with which Pasta infused the character of _Desdemona_ furnished the theme for the most lavish praises on the part of the critics. It was especially in the last act that her acting electrified her audiences. Her transition from hope to terror, from supplication to scorn, culminating in the vehement outburst "_sono innocente_," her last frenzied looks, when, blinded by her disheveled hair and bewildered with her conflicting emotions, she seems to seek fruitlessly the means of flight, were awful. The varied resources of the great art of tragedy were consummately drawn forth by her _Desdemona_, in this opera, though she was yet to astonish the world with that impersonation imperishably linked with her name in the history of art. "Elisabetta" and "Mosè in Egitto" were also revived for her, and she filled the leading characters in both with _éclat_. II. In January, 1824, Mme. Pasta gave to the world what by all concurrent accounts must have been the grandest lyric impersonation in the records of art, the character of _Medea_ in Simon May-er's opera. This masterpiece was composed musically and dramatically by the artist herself on the weak foundation of a wretched play and correct but commonplace music. In a more literal and truthful sense than that in which the term is so often travestied by operatic singers, the part was _created_ by Pasta, reconstructed in form and meaning, as well as inspired by a matchless executive genius. In the language of one writer, whose enthusiasm seems not to have been excessive: "It was a triumph of histrionic art, and afforded every opportunity for the display of all the resources of her genius--the varied powers which had been called forth and combined in _Medea_, the passionate tenderness of _Romeo_, the spirit and animation of _Tancredi_, the majesty of _Semi-ramide_, the mournful beauty of _Nina_, the dignity and sweetness of _Desdemona_. It is difficult to conceive a character more highly dramatic or more intensely impassioned than that of _Medea_; and in the successive scenes Pasta appeared as if torn by the conflict of contending passions, until at last her anguish rose to sublimity. The conflict of human affection and supernatural power, the tenderness of the wife, the agonies of the mother, and the rage of the woman scorned, were portrayed with a truth, a power, a grandeur of effect unequaled before or since by any actress or singer. Every attitude, each movement and look, became a study for a painter; for in the storm of furious passion the grace and beauty of her gestures were never marred by extravagance. Indeed, her impersonation of _Medea_ was one of the finest illustrations of classic grandeur the stage has ever presented. In the scene where _Medea_ murders her children, the acting of Pasta rose to the sublime. Her self-abandonment, her horror at the contemplation of the deed she is about to perpetrate, the irrepressible affection which comes welling up in her breast, were pictured with a magnificent power, yet with such natural pathos, that the agony of the distracted mother was never lost sight of in the fury of the priestess. Folding her arms across her bosom, she contracted her form, as, cowering, she shrunk from the approach of her children; then grief, love, despair, rage, madness, alternately wrung her heart, until at last her soul seemed appalled at the crime she contemplated. Starting forward, she pursued the innocent creatures, while the audience involuntarily closed their eyes and recoiled before the harrowing spectacle, which almost elicited a stifled cry of horror. But her fine genius invested the character with that classic dignity and beauty which, as in the Niobe group, veils the excess of human agony in the drapery of ideal art." Chorley, whose warmth of admiration is always tempered by accurate art-knowledge and the keenest insight, recurs in later years to Pas-ta's _Medea_ in these eloquent words: "The air of quiet concentrated vengeance, seeming to fill every fiber of her frame--as though deadly poison were flowing through her veins--with which she stood alone wrapped in her scarlet mantle, as the bridal procession of _Jason_ and _Creusa_ swept by, is never to be forgotten. It must have been hard for those on the stage with her to pass that draped statue with folded arms--that countenance lit up with awful fire, but as still as death and inexorable as doom. Where again has ever been seen an exhibition of art grander than her _Medea's_ struggle with herself ere she consents to murder her children?--than her hiding the dagger with its fell purpose in her bosom under the strings of her distracted hair?--than of her steps to and fro as of one drunken with frenzy--torn with the agonies of natural pity, yet still resolved on her awful triumph? These memories are so many possessions to those who have seen them so long as reason shall last; and their reality is all the more assured to me because I have not yet fallen into the old man's habit of denying or doubting new sensations." The Paris public, it need not be said, even more susceptible to the charm of great acting than that of great singing, were in a frenzy of admiration over this wonderful new picture added to the portrait-gallery of art. In this performance Pasta had the advantage of absorbing the whole interest of the opera; in her other great Parisian successes she was obliged to share the admiration of the public with the tenor Garcia (Malibran's father), the barytone Bordogni, and Levasseur the basso, next to Lablache the greatest of his artistic kind. A story is told of a distinguished critic that he persuaded himself that, with such power of portraying _Medea's_ emotions, Pasta must possess Medea's features. Having been told that the features of the Colchian sorceress had been found in the ruins of Herculaneum cut on an antique gem, his fantastic enthusiasm so overcame his judgment that he took a journey to Italy expressly to inspect this visionary cameo, which, it need not be said, existed only in the imagination of a practical joker. In 1824 Pasta made her first English appearance at the King's Theatre, at which was engaged an extraordinary assemblage of talent, Mesdames Colbran-Rossini, Catalani, Konzi di Begnis, "Vestris, Caradori, and Pasta. The great tragedienne made her first appearance in _Desdemona_, and, as all Europe was ringing with her fame, the curiosity to see and hear her was almost unparalleled. Long before the beginning of the opera the house was packed with an intensely expectant throng. For an English audience, idolizing the memory of Shakespeare, even Rossini's fine music, conducted by that great composer himself, could hardly under ordinary circumstances condone the insult offered to a species of literary religion by the wretched stuff pitchforked together and called a libretto. But the genius of Pasta made them forget even this, and London bowed at her feet with as devout a recognition as that offered by the more fickle Parisians. Her chaste and noble style, untortured by meretricious ornament, excited the deepest admiration. Count Stendhal, the biographer of Rossini, seems to have heard her for the first time at London, and writes of her in the following fashion: "Moderate in the use of embellishments, Mme. Pasta never employs them but to heighten the force of the expression; and, what is more, her embellishments last only just so long as they are found to be useful." In this respect her manner formed a very strong contrast with that of the generality of Italian singers at the time, who were more desirous of creating astonishment than of giving pleasure. It was not from any lack of technical knowledge and vocal skill that Mme. Pasta avoided extravagant ornamentation, for in many of the concerted pieces--in which she chiefly shone--her execution united clearness and rapidity. "Mme. Pasta is certainly less exuberant in point of ornament, and more expressive in point of majesty and simplicity," observed one critic, "than any of the first-class singers who have visited England for a long period.... She is also a mistress of art," continues the same writer, "and, being limited by nature, she makes no extravagant use of her powers, but employs them with the tact and judgment that can proceed only from an extraordinary mind. This constitutes her highest praise; for never did intellect and industry become such perfect substitutes for organic superiority. Notwithstanding her fine vein of imagination and the beauty of her execution, she cultivates high and deep passions, and is never so great as in the adaptation of art to the purest purposes of expression." The production of "Tancredi" and of Zingarelli's "Romeo e Giulietta" followed as the vehicles of Pasta's genius for the pleasure of the English public, and the season was closed with "Semiramide," in which her regal majesty seemed to embody the ideal conception of the Assyrian queen. The scene in the first act where the specter of her murdered consort appears she made so thrilling and impressive that some of the older opera-goers compared it to the wonderful acting of Garrick in the "ghost-scene" of "Hamlet"; and those when she learns that _Arsace_ is her son, and when she falls by his hand before the tomb of _Ninus_, were recounted in after-years as among the most startling memories of a lifetime. During her London season Mme. Pasta went much into society, and her exalted fame, united with her amiable manners, made her everywhere sought after. Immense sums were paid her at private concerts, and her subscription concerts at Almack's were the rage of the town. Her operatic salary of £14,000 was nearly doubled by her income from other sources. III. The following year the management of the King's Theatre again endeavored to secure Pasta, who had returned to Paris. Before she would finally consent she stipulated that the new manager should pay her all the arrears of salary left unsettled by his predecessor, for, in spite of its artistic excellence, the late season had not proved a pecuniary success. After much negotiation the difficulty was arranged, and Mme. Pasta, binding herself to fill her Parisian engagements at the close of her leave of absence, received her _congé_ for England. Her reappearance in "Otello" was greeted with fervid applause, and it was decided that her singing had gained in finish and beauty, while her acting was as powerful as before. It was during this season that Pasta first sang with Malibran. Ronzi di Begnis had lost her voice, Caradori had seceded in a pet, and the manager in despair tried the trembling and inexperienced daughter of the great Spanish tenor to fill up the gap. She was a failure, as Pasta had been at first in England, but time was to bring her a glorious recompense, as it had done to her elder rival. For the next two years Pasta sang alternately in London and Paris, and her popularity on the lyric stage exceeded that of any of the contemporary singers, for Catalini, whose genius turned in another direction, seemed to care only for the concert room. But some disagreement with Rossini caused her to leave Paris and spend a year in Italy. During this time her English reputation stood at its highest point. No one had ever appeared on the English stage who commanded such exalted artistic respect and admiration. Ebers tells us, speaking of her last engagement before going to Italy: "At no period of Pasta's career had she been more fashionable. She had literally worked her way up to eminence, and, having attained the height, she stood on it firm and secure; no performer has owed less to caprice or fashion; her reputation has been earned, and, what is more, deserved." On her reappearance in London in 1827 Pasta was engaged for twenty-three nights at a salary of 3,000 guineas, with a free benefit, which yielded her 1,500 guineas more. Her opening performance was that of _Desdemona_, in which Mme. Malibran also appeared during the same season, thus affording the critics an opportunity for comparison. It was admitted that the younger diva had the advantage in vocalization and execution, but that Pasta's conception was incontestably superior, and her reading of the part characterized by far greater nobility and grandeur. The novelty of the season was Signor Coccia's opera of "Maria Stuarda," in which Pasta created the part of the beautiful Scottish queen. Her interpretation possessed an "impassioned dignity, with an eloquence of voice, of look, and of action which defies description and challenges the severest criticism." It was a piece of acting which great natural genius, extensive powers of observation, peculiar sensibility of feeling, and those acquirements of art which are the results of sedulous study, combined to make perfect. It is said that Mme. Pasta felt this part so intensely that, when summoned before the audience at the close, tears could be seen rolling down her cheeks, and her form to tremble with the scarcely-subsiding swell of agitation. During a short Dublin engagement the same year the following incident occurred, showing how passionate were her sensibilities in real life as well as on the stage: One day, while walking with some friends, a ragged child about three years of age approached and asked charity for her blind mother in such artless and touching accents that the prima donna burst into tears and put into the child's hands all the money she had. Her friends began extolling her charity and the goodness of her heart. "I will not accept your compliments," said she, wiping the tears from her eyes. "This child demanded charity in a sublime manner. I have seen, at one glance, all the miseries of the mother, the wretchedness of their home, the want of clothing, the cold which they suffer. I should indeed be a great actress if at any time I could find a gesture expressing profound misery with such truth." Pasta's next remarkable impersonation was that of _Armando_ in "Il Crociato in Egitto," written by Meyerbeer for Signor Velluti, the last of the race of male sopranos. She had already performed it in Paris, and been overwhelmed with abuse by Velluti's partisans, who were enraged to see their favorite's strong part taken from him by one so much superior in genius, however inferior in mere executive vocalism. Velluti had disfigured his performance by introducing a perfect cascade of roulades and _fiorituri_, but Pasta's delivery of the music, while inspired by her great tragic sensibility, was marked by such breadth and fidelity that many thought they heard the music for the first time. A ludicrous story is told of the first performance in London. Pasta had flown to her dressing-room at the end of one of the scenes to change her costume, but the audience demanding a repetition of the trio with Mme. Caradori and Mile. Brambilla, Pasta was obliged to appear, amid shouts of laughter, half Crusader, half Mameluke. On the occasion of her benefit the same season, the opera being "Otello," Mme. Pasta essayed the daring experiment of singing and playing the _rôle_ of the Moor, Mile. Sontag singing _Desdemona_. Though the transposition of the music from a tenor to a mezzo-soprano voice injured the effect of the concerted pieces, the passionate acting redeemed the innovation. In the last act, where she, as _Otello_, seized _Desdemona_ and dragged her by the hair to the bed that she might stab her, the effect was one of such tragic horror that many left the theatre. She thus united the most cultivated vocal excellence with dramatic genius of unequaled power. "Mme. Pasta," said a clever writer, "is in fact the founder of a new school, and after her the possession of vocal talent alone is insufficient to secure high favor, or to excite the same degree of interest for any length of time. Even in Italy, where the mixture of dramatic with musical science was long neglected, and not appreciated for want of persons equally gifted with both attainments, Mme. Pasta has exhibited to her countrymen the beauty of a school too long neglected, in such a manner that they will no longer admit the notion of lyric tragedy being properly spoken without dramatic as well as vocal qualifications in its representative." The presence of Malibran and Sontag during this season inspired Pasta to almost superhuman efforts to maintain her threatened supremacy. In her efforts to surpass these brilliant young rivals in all respects, she laid herself open to criticism by departing somewhat from the severe and classic school of delivery which had always distinguished her, and overloading her singing with ornament. Honors were showered on Pasta in different parts of Europe. She was made first court singer in 1829 by the Emperor of Austria, and presented by him with a superb diadem of rubies and diamonds. At Bologna, where she performed in twelve of the Rossinian operas under the _bâton_ of the composer himself, a medal was struck in her honor by the Società del Casino, and all the different cities of her native land vied in doing honor to the greatest of lyric tragediennes. At Milan in 1830 she sang with Rubini, Galli, Mme. Pisaroni, Lablache, and David. Donizetti at this time wrote the opera of "Anna Bolena," with the special view of suiting the dominant qualities of Pasta, Rubini, and Galli. The following season Pasta sang at Milan, at a salary of 40,000 francs for twenty representations, and was obliged to divide the admiration of the public with Mali-bran, who was rapidly rising to the brilliant rank which she afterward held against all comers. Vincenzo Bellini now wrote for Pasta his charming opera of "La Sonnambula," and it was produced with Rubini, Mariano, and Mme. Taccani in the cast. Pasta and Rubini surpassed themselves in the splendor of their performance. "Emulating each other in wishing to display the merits of the opera, they were both equally successful," said a critic of the day, "and those who participated in the delight of hearing them will never forget the magic effect of their execution. But exquisite as were, undoubtedly, Mme. Pasta's vocal exertions, her histrionic powers, if possible, surpassed them. It would be difficult for those who have seen her represent, in Donizetti's excellent opera, the unfortunate _Amina_, with a grandeur and a dignity above all praise, to conceive that she could so change (if the expression may be allowed) her nature as to enact the part of a simple country girl. But she has proved her powers to be unrivaled; she personates a simple rustic as easily as she identifies herself with _Medea, Semiramide, Tancredi, and Anna Bolena_." IV. After an absence of three years Mme. Pasta returned to England, and her opening performance of Medea was aided by the talents of Rubini, Lablache, and Fanny Ayton. Rubini performed the character of _Egeus_, and the duets between the king of tenors and Pasta were so remarkable in a musical sense as to rival the dramatic impression made by her great acting. She was no exception to the rule that very great tragic actors are rarely devoid of a strong comic individuality. In Erreco's "Prova d'un Opera Seria," an opera caricaturing the rehearsals of a serious opera at the house of the prima donna and at the theatre, her performance was so arch, whimsical, playful, and capricious, that its drollery kept the audience in a roar of laughter, while Lablache, as "the composer," seconded her humor by that talent for comedy which Ronconi alone has ever approached. Lablache also appeared with Pasta in "Anna Bolena," and the great basso, mighty in bulk, mighty in voice, and mighty in genius, fairly startled the public by his extraordinary resemblance to Holbein's portrait of Henry VIII. After singing a farewell engagement in Paris, Mme. Pasta went to Milan to enjoy the last great triumph of her life in 1832 at La Scala. She was supported by an admirable company, among whom were Donizetti the tenor and Giulia Grisi, then youthful and inexperienced, but giving promise of what she became in her splendid prime of beauty and genius. Bellini had written for these artists the opera of "Norma," and the first performance was directed by the composer himself. Pasta's singing and acting alone made the work successful, for at the outset it was not warmly liked by the public. Several years afterward in London she also saved the work from becoming a _fiasco_, the singular fact being that "Norma," now one of the great standard works of the lyric stage, took a number of years to establish itself firmly in critical and popular estimation. We have now reached a period of Pasta's life where its chronicle becomes painful. It is never pleasant to watch the details of the decadence which comes to almost all art-careers. Her warmest admirers could not deny that Pasta was losing her voice. Her consummate art shone undimmed, but her vocal powers, especially in respect of intonation, displayed the signs of wear. For several years, indeed, she sang in Paris, Italy, and London with great _eclat_, but the indescribable luster of her singing had lost its bloom and freshness. She continued to receive Continental honors, and in 1840, after a splendid season in St. Petersburg, she was dismissed by the Czar with magnificent presents. In Berlin, about this time, she was received with the deepest interest and commiseration, for she lost nearly all her entire fortune by the failure of Engmuller, a banker of Vienna. She filled a long engagement in Berlin, which was generously patronized by the public, not merely out of admiration of the talents of the artist, but with the wish of repairing in some small measure her great losses. After 1841 Pasta retired from the stage, spending her winters at Milan, her summers at Lake Como, and devoting herself to training pupils in the higher walks of the lyric art. We can not better close this sketch than by giving an account of one of the very last public appearances of her life, when she allowed herself to be seduced into giving a concert in London for the benefit of the Italian cause. Mme. Pasta had long since dismissed all the belongings of the stage, and her voice, which at its best had required ceaseless watching and study, had been given up by her. Even her person had lost all that stately dignity and queenlfness which had made her stage appearance so remarkable. It was altogether a painful and disastrous occasion. There were artists present who then for the first time were to get their impression of a great singer, prepared of course to believe that that reputation had been exaggerated. Among these was Rachel, who sat enjoying the humiliation of decayed grandeur with a cynical and bitter sneer on her face, drawing the attention of the theatre by her exhibition of satirical malevolence. Malibran's great sister, Mme. Pauline Viardot, was also present, watching with the quick, sympathetic response of a noble heart every turn of the singer's voice and action. Hoarse, broken, and destroyed as was the voice, her grand style spoke to the sensibilities of the great artist. The opera was "Anna Bolena," and from time to time the old spirit and fire burned in her tones and gestures. In the final mad scene Pasta rallied into something like her former grandeur of acting; and in the last song with its roulades and its scales of shakes ascending by a semitone, this consummate vocalist and tragedienne, able to combine form with meaning--dramatic grasp and insight with such musical display as enter into the lyric art--was indicated at least to the apprehension of the younger artist. "You are right!" was Mme. Viardot's quick and heartfelt response to a friend by her side, while her eyes streamed with tears--"you are right. It is like the 'Cenacolo' of Leonardo da Vinci at Milan, a wreck of a picture, but the picture is the greatest picture in the world." HENRIETTA SONTAG. The Greatest German Singer of the Century.--Her Characteristics as an Artist.--Her Childhood and Early Training.--Her Early Appearances in Weimar, Berlin, and Leipsic,--She becomes the Idol of the Public.--Her Charms as a Woman and Romantic Incidents of her Youth.--Becomes affianced to Count Rossi.--Prejudice against her in Paris, and her Victory over the Public Hostility.--She becomes the Pet of Aristocratic _Salons_.--Rivalry with Malibran.--Her _Début_ in London, where she is welcomed with Great Enthusiasm.--Returns to Paris.--Anecdotes of her Career in the French Capital.--She becomes reconciled with Malibran in London.--Her Secret Marriage with Count Rossi.--She retires from the Stage as the Wife of an Ambassador.--Return to her Profession after Eighteen Years of Absence.--The Wonderful Success of her Youth renewed.--Her American Tour,--Attacked with Cholera in Mexico and dies. I. The career of Henrietta Sontag, born at Cob-lenz on the Rhine in 1805, the child of actors, was so picturesque in its chances and changes that had she not been a beautiful and fascinating woman and the greatest German singer of the century, the vicissitudes of her life would have furnished rich material for a romance. Nature gave her a pure soprano voice of rare and delicate quality united with incomparable sweetness. Essentially a singer and not a declamatory artist, the sentiment of grace was carried to such a height in her art, that it became equivalent to the more robust passion and force which distinguished some of her great contemporaries. As years perfected her excellence into its mellow prime, emotion and warmth animated her art work. But at the outset Mile. Sontag did little more than look lovely and pour forth such a flood of silvery and delicious notes, that the Italians called her the "nightingale of the North." The fanatical enthusiasm of the German youth ran into wild excesses, and we hear of a party of university students drinking her health at a joyous supper in champagne out of one of her satin shoes stolen for the purpose. When Mile. Sontag commenced her brilliant career the taste of operatic amateurs was excessively fastidious. Nearly all outside of Germany shared Frederick the Great's prejudice against German singers. Yet when she appeared in Paris, in spite of hostile anticipation, in spite of her reserve, timidity, and coldness on the histrionic side of her art, she soon made good her place by the side of such remarkable artists as Mme. Pasta and Maria Malibran. She never transformed herself into an impassioned tragedienne, but through the spell of great personal attraction, of an exquisite voice, and of exceptional sensibility, taste, and propriety in her art methods, she advanced herself to a high place in public favor. Her parents designed Henrietta for their own profession, and in her eighth year her voice had acquired such steadiness that she sang minor parts at the theatre. A distinguished traveler relates having heard her sing the grand aria of the _Queen of the Night_ in the "Zauberflote" at this age, "her arms hanging beside her and her eye following the flight of a butterfly, while her voice, pure, penetrating, and of angelic tone, flowed as unconsciously as a limpid rill from the mountain-side." The year after this Henrietta lost her father, and she went to Prague with her mother, where she played children's parts under Weber, then _chef d'orchestre_. When she had attained the proper age she was admitted to the Prague Conservatory, and spent four years studying vocalization, the piano, and the elements of harmony. An accident gave the young singer the chance for a _début_ in the sudden illness of the prima donna, who was cast to sing the part of the _Princesse de Navarre_ in Boïeldieu's "Jean de Paris." The little vocalist of fifteen had to wear heels four inches high, but she sang none the less well, and the audience seemed to feel that they had heard a prodigy. She also took the part of the heroine in Paer's opera of "Sargino," and her brilliant success decided her career, as she was invited to take a position in the Viennese Opera. Here she met the brilliant Mme. Fodor, then singing an engagement in the Austrian capital. So great was this distinguished singer's admiration of the young girl's talents that she said, "Had I her voice I should hold the whole world at my feet." Mlle. Sontag had the advantage at this period of singing with great artists who took much interest in her career and gave her valuable hints and help. Singing alternately in German and English opera, and always an ardent student of music, she learned to unite all the brilliancy of the Italian style and method to the solidity of the German school. The beautiful young cantatrice was beset with ardent admirers, not the least important being the English Ambassador Earl Clan William. He followed her to theatre, to convents, church, and seemed like her shadow. Sontag in German means Sunday; so the Viennese wits, then as now as wicked and satirical as those of Paris, nicknamed the nobleman Earl Montag, as Monday always follows Sunday. It was during this Vienna engagement that Weber wrote the opera of "Euryanthe," and designed the principal part for Sontag. But the public failed to fancy it, and called it "L'Ennuyante." The serious part of her art life commenced at Leipsic in 1824, where she interpreted the "Freischutz" and "Euryanthe," then in the flush of newness, and made a reputation that passed the bounds of Germany, though foreign critics discredited the reports of her excellence till they heard her. "Henrietta's voice was a pure soprano, reaching perhaps from A or B to D in alt, and, though uniform in its quality, it was a little reedy in the lower notes, but its flexibility was marvelous: in the high octave, from F to C in alt, her notes rang out like the tones of a silver bell. The clearness of her notes, the precision of her intonation, the fertility of her invention, and the facility of her execution, were displayed in brilliant flights and lavish fioriture; her rare flexibility being a natural gift, cultivated by taste and incessant study. It was to the example of Mme. Fodor that Mile. Sontag was indebted for the blooming of those dormant qualities which had till then remained undeveloped. The ease with which she sang was perfectly captivating; and the neatness and elegance of her enunciation combined with the sweetness and brilliancy of her voice and her perfect intonation to render her execution faultless, and its effect ravishing. She appeared to sing with the volubility of a bird, and to experience the pleasure she imparted." To use the language of a critic of that day: "All passages are alike to her, but she has appropriated some that were hitherto believed to belong to instruments--to the piano-forte and the violin, for instance. Arpeggios and chromatic scales, passages ascending and descending, she executed in the same manner that the ablest performers on these instruments execute them. There were the firmness and the neatness that appertain to the piano-forte, while she would go through a scale _staccato_ with the precision of the bow. Her great art, however, lay in rendering whatever she did pleasing. The ear was never disturbed by a harsh note. The velocity of her passages was sometimes uncontrollable, for it has been observed that in a division, say, of four groups of quadruplets, she would execute the first in exact time, the second and third would increase in rapidity so much that in the fourth she was compelled to decrease the speed perceptibly, in order to give the band the means of recovering the time she had gained." Mile. Sontag was of middle height, beautifully formed, and had a face beaming with sensibility, delicacy, and modesty. Beautiful light-brown hair, large blue eyes, finely molded mouth, and perfect teeth completed an _ensemble_ little short of bewitching. Her elegant figure and the delicacy of her features were matched by hands and feet of such exquisite proportions that sculptors besought the privilege of modeling them, and poets raved about them in their verses. Artlessness and _naivete_ were joined with such fine breeding of manner that it seemed as if the blue blood of centuries must have coursed in her veins instead of the blood of obscure actors, whose only honor was to have given to the world one of the paragons of song. Sontag never aspired to the higher walks of lyric tragedy, as she knew her own limitation, but in light and elegant comedy, the _Mosinas_ and _Susannas_, she has never been excelled, whether as actress or singer. It was said of her that she could render with equal skill the works of Rossini, Mozart, Weber, and Spohr, uniting the originality of her own people with the artistic method and facility of the French and Italian schools. From Leipsic Mile. Sontag went to Berlin, where the demonstrations of delight which greeted her singing rose to fever-heat as the performances continued. Expressions of rapture greeted heron the streets; even the rigid etiquette of the Prussian court gave way to receive the low-born singer as a royal guest, an honor which all the aristocratic houses were prompt to emulate. It was at Berlin that Sontag made the acquaintance of Count Rossi, a Piedmontese nobleman attached to the Sardinian Legation. An ardent attachment sprang up between them, and they became affianced. Not content with her supremacy at home, she sighed for other worlds to conquer, and after two years at Berlin she obtained leave of absence with great difficulty, and went to Paris. French connoisseurs laughed at the idea of this German barbarian--for some of the critics were rude enough to use this harsh term--becoming the rival of Pasta, Cinti, and Fodor, and the idea of her singing Rossini's music seemed purely preposterous. On the 15th of June, 1826, she made her bow to the French public. The victory was partly won by the shy, blushing beauty of the young German, who seemed the very incarnation of maidenly modesty and innocence, and when she had finished her first song thunders of applause shook the house. Her execution of Rode's variations surpassed even that of Catalani, and "La Petite Allemande" became an instant favorite. Twenty-three succeeding concerts made Henrietta Sontag an idol of the Paris public, which she continued to be during her art career. She also appeared with brilliant distinction in opera, the principal ones being "Il Barbiere," "La Donna del Lago," and "L'Italiani in Alghieri." Her benefit-night was marked by a demonstration on the part of her admirers, and she was crowned on the stage. II. The beautiful singer became a great pet of the Parisian aristocracy, and was welcomed in the highest circles, not simply as an artist, but as a woman. She was honored with a state dinner at the Prussian Ambassador's, and the most distinguished people were eager to be presented to her. At the house of Talleyrand, having been introduced to the Duchess von Lothringen, that haughty dame said, "I would not desire that my daughter were other than you." It was almost unheard of that a German cantatrice without social antecedents should be sedulously courted by the most brilliant women of rank and fashion, and her presence sought as an ornament at the most exclusive _salons_. It was at this time that Catalani met her and declared, "_Elle est la première de son genre, mais son genre n'est pas le premier_," and a celebrated flute-player on her being introduced to him by a musical professor was accosted with the words, "_Ecco il tuo rivale_." In Paris, as was the case afterward in London, the most romantic stories were in circulation about the adoration lavished on her by princes and bankers, artists and musicians. The most exalted personages were supposed to be sighing for her love, and it was reported that no singer had ever had so many offers of marriage from people of high rank and consideration. Indeed, it was well known that about the same time Charles de Beriot, the great violinist, and a nobleman of almost princely birth, laid their hearts and hands at her feet. Mile. Sontag, it need not be said, was true to her promise to Count Rossi, and refused all the flattering overtures made her by her admirers. A singular link connects the careers of Sontag and Malibran personally as well as musically. It was during the early melancholy and suffering of De Beriot at Sontag's rejection of his love that he first met Malibran. His profound dejection aroused her sympathy, and she exerted herself to soothe him and rouse him from his state of languor and lassitude. The result can easily be fancied. De Beriot's heart recovered from the shock, and was kindled into a fresh flame by the consolations of the beautiful and gifted Spanish singer, whence ensued a connection which was consummated in marriage as soon as Malibran was able to break the unfortunate tie into which she had been inveigled in America. The Parisian managers offered the most extravagant terms to keep the new favorite of the public, but her heart and duty alike prompted her to return to Berlin. On the route, at the different towns where she sang, she was received with brilliant demonstrations of admiration and respect, and it was said at the time that her return journey on this occasion was such a triumphal march as has rarely been vouchsafed to an artist, touching in the spontaneity of its enthusiasm as it was brilliant and impressive in its forms. Berlin welcomed her with great warmth, and, though Cata-lani herself was among the singers at the theatre, Sontag fully shared her glory in the German estimation. The King made her first singer at his chapel, at a yearly salary of twenty-four thousand francs, and rich gifts were showered on her by her hosts of wealthy and ardent admirers. She sang again in Paris in 1828, appearing in "La Cenerentola" as a novelty, though the music had to be transposed for her. Malibran was singing the same season, and a bitter rivalry sprang up between the blonde and serene German beauty and the brilliant Spanish brunette. It was whispered afterward, by those who knew Malibran well, that she never forgave Henrietta Sontag for having been the first to be beloved by De Beriot. The voices of the two singers differed as much as their persons. The one was distinguished for exquisite sweetness and quality of tone, and perfection of execution, for a polished and graceful correctness which never did anything alien to good taste and made finish of form compensate for lack of fire. The other's splendid voice was marred by irregularity and unevenness, but possessed a passionate warmth in its notes which stirred the hearts of the hearers. Full of extraordinary expedients, an audience was always dazzled by some unexpected beauties of Malibran's performance, and her original and daring conceptions gave her work a unique character which set her apart from her contemporaries. The Parisian public took pleasure in fomenting the dispute between the rival queens of song, and each one was spurred to the utmost by the hot discord which raged between them. On April 16th of the same year Mile. Sontag made her first appearance before the London public in the character of _Mosina_ in Rossini's "Il Barbiere," a part peculiarly suited to the grace of her style and the _timbre_ of her voice. One of her biographers thus sketches the expectations and impressions of the London public: "Since Mrs. Billington, never had such high promise been made, or so much expectation excited: her talents had been exaggerated by report, and her beauty and charms extolled as matchless; she was declared to possess all the qualities of every singer in perfection, and as an actress to be the very personification of grace and power. Stories of the romantic attachments of foreign princes and English lords were afloat in all directions; she was going to be married to a personage of the loftiest rank--to a German prince--to an ambassador; she was pursued by the ardent love of men of fashion. Among other stories in circulation was one of a duel between two imaginary rival candidates for a ticket of admission to her performance; but the most affecting and trustworthy story was that of an early attachment between the beautiful Henrietta and a young student of good family, which was broken off in consequence of his passion for gambling. "Mile. Sontag, before she appeared at the opera, sang at the houses of Prince Esterhazy and the Duke of Devonshire. An immense crowd assembled in front of the theatre on the evening of her _début_ at the opera. The crush was dreadful; and when at length the half-stifled crowd managed to find seats, 'shoes were held up in all directions to be owned.' The audience waited in breathless suspense for the rising of the curtain; and when the fair cantatrice appeared, the excited throng could scarcely realize that the simple English-looking girl before them was the celebrated Sontag. On recovering from their astonishment, they applauded her warmly, and her lightness, brilliancy, volubility, and graceful manner made her at once popular. Her style was more florid than that of any other singer in Europe, not even excepting Catalani, whom she excelled in fluency, though not in volume; and it was decided that she resembled Fodor more than any other singer--which was natural, as she had in early life imitated that cantatrice. Her taste was so cultivated that the redundancy of ornament, especially the obligato passages which the part of _Rosina_ presents, never, in her hands, appeared overcharged; and she sang the cavatina 'Una voce poco fà' in a style as new as it was exquisitely tasteful. 'Two passages, introduced by her in this air, executed in a _staccato_ manner, could not have been surpassed in perfection by the spirited bow of the finest violin-player.' In the lesson-scene she gave Rode's variations, and her execution of the second variation in arpeggios was pronounced infinitely superior to Catalani's. "At first the _cognoscenti_ were haunted by a fear that Sontag would permit herself to degenerate, like Catalani, into a mere imitator of instrumental performers, and endeavor to astonish instead of pleasing the public by executing such things as Rode's variations. But it was soon observed that, while indulging in almost unlimited, luxuriance of embellishment in singing Rossini's music, she showed herself a good musician, and never fell into the fault, common with florid singers, of introducing ornaments at variance with the spirit of the air or the harmony of the accomplishments. In singing the music of Mozart or Weber, she paid the utmost deference to the text, restraining the exuberance of her fancy, and confining herself within the limits set by the composer. Her success was tested by a most substantial proof of her popularity--her benefit produced the enormous sum of three thousand pounds." Laurent, the manager of the Theatre Italien, succeeded in making a contract by which Sontag was to sing in Paris for fifty thousand francs a year, with a _congé_ of three months. It was at this period that she commenced seriously to study tragic characters, and, though she at first failed in making a strong impression on her audiences, her assiduous attention to sentiment and passion wrought such fruits as to prove how far study and good taste may create the effect of something like inspiration, even on the part of an artist so cool and placid as the great German cantatrice. Her efforts were stimulated by the rivalry of Mali-bran, and this contest was the absorbing theme of discussion in the Paris salons and journals. It reached such a height that the two singers refused to meet each other socially, and on the stage when they sang together their jealousy and dislike showed itself in the most undisguised fashion. Among the incidents related of this interesting operatic episode, the following are specially worthy of mention: An Italian connoisseur, who had never heard Sontag, and who firmly believed that no German could sing, was induced to go one night by a friend to a performance in which she appeared. After listening five minutes he started up hastily in act to go. "Stay," urged his friend; "you will be convinced presently." "I know it," replied the Italian, "and therefore I go." One evening, at the termination of the performance, the two rivals were called out, and a number of wreaths and bouquets were flung on the stage. Malibran stooped and picked up one of the coronals, supposing it designed for her, when a stern voice cried out: "Rendez-la; ce n'est pas pour vous!" "I would not deprive Mlle. Sontag of a single wreath," said the haughty Spaniard in a loud voice which could be heard everywhere through the listening house. "I would sooner bestow one on her!" This quarrel was afterward made up between them when they were engaged together in London the following year, 1828. This reconciliation was brought about by M. Fetis, who had accompanied them from Paris. He proposed to them that they should sing for one of the pieces at a concert in which they were both engaged, the _duo_ of _Semiramide_ and _Arsace_, in Rossini's opera. For the first time in London their voices were heard together. Each outdid herself in the desire to excel, and the exquisite fusion of the two voices, so different in tone and character, was so fine that the hearts of the rivals melted toward each other, and they professed mutual friendship. The London public got the benefit of this amity, for the manager of the King's Theatre was able to produce operas in which they sang together, among them being "Semiramide," "Don Giovanni," "Nozze di Figaro," and "Romeo e Giulietta"--Malibran playing the hero in the latter opera. The following year Sontag also sang with Malibran in London, her greatest success being in _Carolina_, the principal character of Cimarosa's "Il Matrimonio Segreto." Mile. Sontag was now for the first time assailed by the voice of calumny. Her union with Count Rossi, consummated more than a year before, had been kept secret on account of the dislike of his family to the match. Born in Corsica, Count Rossi was a near relative of the family of Napoleon Bonaparte, and his sister was the Princess de Salm. His relations were opposed to his marriage with one whom they considered a plebeian, though she had been ennobled by the Prussian King, under the name of Von Lauenstein, with a full patent and all the formalities observed on such occasions. Mile. Sontag determined to make a farewell tour through Europe, and retire from the stage. She paid her adieux to her public in the different great cities of Europe--London, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, Leipsic, etc.--with incredible success, and the sums she realized are said to have been enormous. On returning from Russia she gave a concert at Hamburg; and it was here that she took the occasion at a great banquet given her by a wealthy merchant to make the public and formal announcement of her marriage to Count Rossi. It was remarked that during this farewell concert tour her powers, far from having declined, seemed to have gained in compass, brilliancy, and expression. Countess Rossi first lived at the Hague, and then for a short time at Frankfort. Here she took precedence of all the ladies of the diplomatic corps, her husband being Minister Plenipotentiary to the Germanic Diet. In Berlin she was a familiar guest of the royal family, and sang duets and trios with the princes and princesses. She devoted her leisure hours to the study of composition, and at the houses of Prince Esterhazy and Prince Metternich, in 1841, at Vienna, she executed a cantata of her own for soprano and chorus with most brilliant success. The Empress herself invited the Countess to repeat it at her own palace with all the imperial family for listeners. Thus courted and flattered, possessed of ample wealth and rank, idolized by her friends and respected by the great world, Henrietta Sontag passed nearly twenty swift, happy years at the different European capitals to which her husband was successively accredited. III. Countess Rossi was never entirely forgotten in her brilliant retirement. Her story, gossips said, was intended to be shadowed forth "with a difference" in "L'Ambassadrice" of Scribe and Auber, written for Mme. Cinti Damoreau, whose voice resembled that of Sontag. Travelers, who got glimpses of the august life wherein she lived, brought home tales of her popularity, of her beauty not faded but only mellowed by time, and of her lovely voice, which she had watched and cultivated in her titled leisure. It can be fancied, then, what a thrill of interest and surprise ran through the London public when it was announced in 1848 that the Countess Rossi, owing to family circumstances, was about to resume her profession. A small, luxuriantly bound book in green and gold, devoted to her former and more recent history, was put on sale in London, and circulated like wildfire. The situation in London was peculiar. Jenny Lind had created a furor in that city almost unparalleled in its musical history, and to announce that the "Swedish nightingale" was not the greatest singer that ever lived or ever could live, before a company of her admirers, was sufficient to invite personal assault. Mlle. Lind had just departed for America. It was an adventure little short of desperate for a singer to emerge from a retirement of a score of years and measure her musical and dramatic accomplishments against those of a predecessor whose tantalizing disappearance from the stage had rendered her on so many grounds more than ever the object of fanatical worship. The political storm of 1848 had swept away the fortune of Countess Rossi, and when she announced her intention of returning to the stage, the director of Her Majesty's Theatre was prompt to make her an offer of seventeen thousand pounds for the season. She had not been idle or careless during the time when the Grisis, the Persianis, and the Linds were delighting the world with the magic of their art. She had assiduously kept up the culture of her delicious voice, and stepped again before the foot-lights with all the ease, steadiness, and _aplomb_ of one who had never suffered an interregnum in her lyric reign. She came back to the stage under new and trying musical conditions, to an orchestra far stronger than that to which her youth had been accustomed, to a new world of operas. The intrepidity and industry with which she met these difficulties are deserving of the greatest respect. Not merely did she go through the entire range of her old parts, _Susanna, Moslna, Desdemona, Donna Anna_, etc., but she presented herself in a number of new works which did not exist at her farewell to the stage--Bellini's "Sonnambula," Donizetti's "Linda," "La Figlia del Reggimento," "Don Pasquale," "Le Tre Nozze" of Alary, and Ilalévy's "La Tempesta"; indeed, in the latter two creating the principal _rôles_. Her former companions had disappeared. Malibran had been dead for thirteen years, Mme. Pisaroni had also departed from the earthly scene, and a galaxy of new stars were glittering in the musical horizon. Giulia Grisi, Clara Novello, Pauline Viardot, Fanny Per-siani, Jenny Lind, Maretta Alboni, Nantier Didier, Sophie Cruvelli, Catherine Hayes, Louisa Pyne, Duprez, Mario, Ronconi, and others--all these had arisen since the day she had left the art world as Countess Rossi. Only the joyous and warmhearted Lablache was left of her old comrades to welcome her back to the scene of her old triumphs. Her reappearance as _Linda_, on July 7, 1849, was the occasion of a cordial and sympathetic reception on the part of a very brilliant and distinguished audience. The first notes of the "polacca" were sufficient to show that the great artist was in her true place again, and that the mature woman had lost but little of the artistic fascinations of the gifted girl. Of course, time had robbed her of one or two upper notes, but the skill, grace, and precision with which she utilized every atom of her power, the incomparable steadiness and finish with which she wrought out the composer's intentions, the marvelous flexibility of her execution, she retained in all their pristine excellence. The loss of youthful freshness was atoned for by the deeper passion and feeling which in an indefinable way permeated all her efforts, and gave them a dramatic glow lacking in earlier days. She was rapturously greeted as a dear friend come back in the later sunny days. In "La Figlia del Reggimento," which Jenny Lind had brought to England and made her own peculiar property, Mme. Sontag was adjudged to be by far the greater, both vocally and dramatically. As a singer of Mozart's music she was incomparably superior to all. Her taste, steadiness, suavity, and solid knowledge suited a style very difficult for a southern singer to acquire. Chorley repeated the musical opinion of his time in saying: "The easy, equable flow demanded by Mozart's compositions, so melodious, so wondrously sustained, so sentimental (dare I say so rarely impassioned?); that assertion of individuality which distinguishes a singer from a machine when dealing with singers' music; that charm which belongs to a keen appreciation of elegance, but which can only be perfected when Nature has been genial, have never been so perfectly combined (in my experience) as in her." If Sontag did not possess the highest genius of the lyric artist, she had un-equaled grace and sense of artistic propriety, and with that grace an untiring desire and energy in giving her very best to the public on all occasions when she appeared. Her constancy and loyalty to her audience were moral qualities which wonderfully enhanced her value and charm as a singer. During this season Mme. Sontag appeared in her favorite character of _Rosina_, with Lablache and Gardoni; she also performed _Amina_ and _Desdemona_. Had it not been that the attention of the public was absorbed by "the Swedish Nightingale" and the "glorious Alboni," Mme. Sontag would have renewed the triumphs of 1828. The next season she sang again at Her Majesty's Theatre as _Norina, Elvira_ ("I Puritani"), _Zerlina_, and _Maria_ (in "La Figlia del Reggimento"). The chief novelty was "La Tempestà," written by Scribe, and composed by Halévy expressly for Her Majesty's Theatre, the drama having been translated into Italian from the French original. It was got up with extraordinary splendor, and had a considerable run. Mme. Sontag sang charmingly in the character of _Miranda_; but the greatest effect was created by Lablache's magnificent impersonation of _Caliban_. No small share of the success of the piece was due to the famous danseuse Carlotta Grisi, who seemed to take the most appropriate part ever designed for ballerina when she undertook to represent _Ariel_. At the close of the season of 1850 Mme. Sontag went to Paris with Mr. Lumley, who took the Théâtre Italien, and she was warmly welcomed by her French audiences. "Even amid the loud applause with which the crowd greeted her appearance on the stage," says a French writer, "it was easy to distinguish the respect which was entertained for the virtuous lady, the devoted wife and mother." Before her acceptance of the offer to go to America, in 1852, she appeared in successive engagements at London, Vienna, and Berlin, where her reception was of the most satisfying nature both to the artist and the woman. On her arrival in New York, on September 19th, she commenced a series of concerts with Salvi and Signo-ra Blangini. At New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and the larger cities of the South, she quickly established herself as one of the greatest favorites who had ever sung in this country, in spite of the fact that people had hardly recovered from the Lind mania which had swept the country like wildfire, a fact apt to provoke petulant comparisons. Her pecuniary returns from her American tour were very great, and she was enabled to buy a château and domain in Germany, a home which she was unfortunately destined never to enjoy. In New Orleans, in 1854, she entered into an engagement with M. Masson, director of opera in the city of Mexico, to sing for a fixed period of two months, with the privilege of three months longer. This was the closing appearance in opera, as she contemplated, for the task of reinstating her family fortunes was almost done. Fate fulfilled her expectations with a malign sarcasm; for while her agent, M. Ullman, was absent in Europe gathering a company, Mme. Sontag was seized with cholera and died in a few hours, on June 17, 1854. Such was the lamentable end of one of the noblest women that ever adorned the lyric stage. Her funeral was a magnificent one, in presence of a great concourse of people, including the diplomatic corps. The service was celebrated by the orchestras of the two Italian theatres; the nuns of St. Francis sang the cantata; the prayer to the Virgin was intoned by the German Philharmonic Society, who also sang Lindpainter's chorus, "Ne m'oubliez pa "; and the leading Mexican poet, M. Pantaleon Tovar, declaimed a beautiful tribute in sonorous Spanish verse. The body was taken to Germany and buried in the abbey of Makenstern, in Lausitz. THE END. 
32979	----	produced from scanned images at The Internet Archive.) INTERPRETERS by CARL VAN VECHTEN _BOOKS BY CARL VAN VECHTEN_ INTERPRETERS IN THE GARRET THE MUSIC OF SPAIN THE MERRY-GO-ROUND MUSIC AND BAD MANNERS THE TIGER IN THE HOUSE MUSIC AFTER THE GREAT WAR [Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS CHÉRUBIN (1905)] Interpreters _Carl Van Vechten_ _A new edition, revised, with sixteen illustrations and an epilogue_ [Illustration] New York Alfred A Knopf MCMXX COPYRIGHT, 1917, 1920, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA _To the unforgettable interpreter of Ariel, Zelima, Louka, Wendla, and Columbine, Fania Marinoff, my wife_ CONTENTS Olive Fremstad 11 Geraldine Farrar 39 Mary Garden 59 Feodor Chaliapine 97 Mariette Mazarin 117 Yvette Guilbert 135 Waslav Nijinsky 149 Epilogue 177 ILLUSTRATIONS Mary Garden as Chérubin _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE Olive Fremstad as Elsa 18 Olive Fremstad as Sieglinde 20 Olive Fremstad as Kundry 24 Geraldine Farrar as Elisabeth 40 Geraldine Farrar as Violetta 46 Geraldine Farrar as Louise in _Julien_ 52 Mary Garden as Chrysis 72 Mary Garden as Mélisande 76 Mary Garden as Fanny Legrand 90 Feodor Chaliapine as Mefistofele 112 Mariette Mazarin as Elektra 128 Yvette Guilbert 140 Waslav Nijinsky in Debussy's _Jeux_ 168 Geraldine Farrar as Zaza 190 Mary Garden as Cléopâtre 196 Olive Fremstad _"C'est que le Beau est la seule chose qui soit immortelle, et qu'aussi longtemps qu'il reste un vestige de sa manifestation matérielle, son immortalité subsiste. Le Beau est répandu partout, il s'étend même jusque sur la mort. Mais il ne rayonne nulle part avec autant d'intensité que dans l'individualité humaine; c'est là qu'il parle le plus à l'intelligence, et c'est pour cela que, pour ma part, je préférerai toujours une grande puissance musicale servie par une voix défectueuse, à une voix belle et bête, une voix dont la beauté n'est que matérielle._" Ivan Turgeniev to Mme. Viardot. The career of Olive Fremstad has entailed continuous struggle: a struggle in the beginning with poverty, a struggle with a refractory voice, and a struggle with her own overpowering and dominating temperament. Ambition has steered her course. After she had made a notable name for herself through her interpretations of contralto rôles, she determined to sing soprano parts, and did so, largely by an effort of will. She is always dissatisfied with her characterizations; she is always studying ways and means of improving them. It is not easy for her to mould a figure; it is, on the contrary, very difficult. One would suppose that her magnetism and force would carry her through an opera without any great amount of preparation. Such is not the case. There is no other singer before the public so little at her ease in any impromptu performance. Recently, when she returned to the New York stage with an itinerant opera company to sing in an ill-rehearsed performance of _Tosca_, she all but lost her grip. She was not herself and she did not convince. New costumes, which hindered her movements, and a Scarpia with whom she was unfamiliar, were responsible in a measure for her failure to assume her customary authority. If you have seen and heard Olive Fremstad in the scene of the spear in _Götterdämmerung_, you will find it difficult to believe that what I say is true, that work and not plenary inspiration is responsible for the effect. To be sure, the inspiration has its place in the final result. Once she is certain of her ground, words, music, tone-colour, gesture, and action, she inflames the whole magnificently with her magnetism. This magnetism is instinctive, a part of herself; the rest is not. She brings about the detail with diligent drudgery, and without that her performances would go for nought. The singer pays for this intense concentration. In "Tower of Ivory" Mrs. Atherton says that all Wagnerian singers must pay heavily. Probably all good ones must. Charles Henry Melzer has related somewhere that he first saw Mme. Fremstad on the stage at Covent Garden, where between her scenes in some Wagner music drama, lost in her rôle, utterly oblivious of stage hands or fellow-artists, she paced up and down in the wings. At the moment he decided that she was a great interpretative artist, and he had never heard her sing. When she is singing a rôle she will not allow herself to be interrupted; she holds no receptions between scenes. "Come back after the opera," she says to her friends, and frequently then she is too tired to see any one. She often drives home alone, a prey to quivering nerves which keep her eyeballs rolling in ceaseless torture--sleepless. Nothing about the preparation of an opera is easy for Olive Fremstad; the thought, the idea, does not register immediately in her brain. But once she has achieved complete understanding of a rôle and thoroughly mastered its music, the fire of her personality enables her easily to set a standard. Is there another singer who can stand on the same heights with Mme. Fremstad as Isolde, Venus, Elsa, Sieglinde, Kundry, Armide, Brünnhilde in _Götterdämmerung_, or Salome? And are not these the most difficult and trying rôles in the répertoire of the lyric stage to-day? In one of her impatient moods--and they occur frequently--the singer once complained of this fact. "How easy it is," she said, "for those who make their successes as Marguerite and Mimi.... I should like to sing those rôles...." But the remark was made under a misconception of her own personality. Mme. Fremstad would find Mimi and Marguerite much more difficult to compass than Isolde and Kundry. She is by nature Northern and heroic, and her physique is suited to the goddesses and heroines of the Norse myths (it is a significant fact that she has never attempted to sing Eva or Senta). Occasionally, as in Salome, she has been able to exploit successfully another side of her talent, but in the rendering of the grand, the noble, and the heroic, she has no equal on our stage. Yet her Tosca always lacked nobility. There was something in the music which never brought the quality out. In such a part as Selika she seemed lost (wasted, too, it may be added), although the entrance of the proud African girl was made with some effect, and the death scene was carried through with beauty of purpose. But has any one ever characterized Selika? Her Santuzza, one of the two rôles which she has sung in Paris, must be considered a failure when judged by the side of such a performance as that given by Emma Calvé--and who would judge Olive Fremstad by any but the highest standards? The Swedish singer's Santuzza was as elemental, in its way, as that of the Frenchwoman, but its implications were too tragic, too massive in their noble beauty, for the correct interpretation of a sordid melodrama. It was as though some one had engaged the Victory of Samothrace to enact the part. Munich adored the Fremstad Carmen (was it not her characterization of the Bizet heroine which caused Heinrich Conried to engage her for America?) and Franz von Stuck painted her twice in the rôle. Even in New York she was appreciated in the part. The critics awarded her fervent adulation, but she never stirred the public pulse. The principal fault of this very Northern Carmen was her lack of humour, a quality the singer herself is deficient in. For a season or two in America Mme. Fremstad appeared in the rôle, singing it, indeed, in San Francisco the night of the memorable earthquake, and then it disappeared from her répertoire. Maria Gay was the next Metropolitan Carmen, but it was Geraldine Farrar who made the opera again as popular as it had been in Emma Calvé's day. Mme. Fremstad is one of those rare singers on the lyric stage who is able to suggest the meaning of the dramatic situation through the colour of her voice. This tone-colour she achieves stroke by stroke, devoting many days to the study of important phrases. To go over in detail the instances in which she has developed effects through the use of tone-colour would make it necessary to review, note by note, the operas in which she has appeared. I have no such intention. It may be sufficient to recall to the reader--who, in remembering, may recapture the thrill--the effect she produces with the poignant lines beginning _Amour, puissant amour_ at the close of the third act of _Armide_, the dull, spent quality of the voice emitted over the words _Ich habe deinen Mund geküsst_ from the final scene of _Salome_, and the subtle, dreamy rapture of the _Liebestod_ in _Tristan und Isolde_. Has any one else achieved this effect? She once told me that Titian's Assumption of the Virgin was her inspiration for her conception of this scene. Luscious in quality, Mme. Fremstad's voice is not altogether a tractable organ, but she has forced it to do her bidding. A critic long ago pointed out that another singer would not be likely to emerge with credit through the use of Mme. Fremstad's vocal method. It is full of expediences. Oftener than most singers, too, she has been in "bad voice." And her difficulties have been increased by her determination to become a soprano, difficulties she has surmounted brilliantly. In other periods we learn that singers did not limit their ranges by the quality of their voices. In our day singers have specialized in high or low rôles. Many contraltos, however, have chafed under the restrictions which composers have compelled them to accept. Almost all of them have attempted now and again to sing soprano rôles. Only in the case of Edyth Walker, however, do we find an analogy to the case of Olive Fremstad. Both of these singers have attained high artistic ideals in both ranges. Magnificent as Brangaene, Amneris, and Ortrud, the Swedish singer later presented unrivalled characterizations of Isolde, Armide, and Brünnhilde. The high tessitura of the music allotted to the _Siegfried_ Brünnhilde is a strain for most singers. Mme. Nordica once declared that this Brünnhilde was the most difficult of the three. Without having sung a note in the early evening, she must awake in the third act, about ten-thirty or eleven, to begin almost immediately the melismatic duet which concludes the music drama. Mme. Fremstad, by the use of many expediences, such as pronouncing Siegfried as if it were spelled Seigfried when the first syllable fell on a high note, was able to get through with this part without projecting a sense of effort, unless it was on the high C at the conclusion, a note of which she frequently allowed the tenor to remain in undisputed possession. But the fierce joy and spirited abandon she put into the acting of the rôle, the passion with which she infused her singing, carried her victoriously past the dangerous places, often more victoriously than some other singer, who could produce high notes more easily, but whose stage resources were more limited. I do not think Mme. Fremstad has trained her voice to any high degree of agility. She can sing the drinking song from _Lucrezia Borgia_ and Delibes's _Les Filles de Cadix_ with irresistible effect, a good part of which, however, is produced by her personality and manner, qualities which carry her far on the concert stage, although for some esoteric reason they have never inveigled the general public into an enthusiastic surrender to her charm. I have often heard her sing Swedish songs in her native tongue (sometimes to her own accompaniment) so enchantingly, with such appeal in her manner, and such velvet tones in her voice, that those who heard her with me not only burst into applause but also into exclamations of surprise and delight. Nevertheless, in her concerts, or in opera, although her admirers are perhaps stronger in their loyalty than those of any other singer, she has never possessed the greatest drawing power. This is one of the secrets of the stage; it cannot be solved. It would seem that the art of Mme. Fremstad was more homely, more human in song, grander and more noble in opera, than that of Mme. Tetrazzini, but the public as a whole prefers to hear the latter, just as it has gone in larger numbers to see the acting of Miss Garden or Mme. Farrar. Why this is so I cannot pretend to explain. [Illustration: OLIVE FREMSTAD AS ELSA _from a photograph by Mishkin (1913)_] Mme. Fremstad has appeared in pretty nearly all of the important, and many of the lesser, Wagner rôles. She has never sung Senta, and she once told me that she had no desire to do so, nor has she been heard as Freia or Eva. But she has sung Ortrud and Elsa, Venus and Elisabeth, Adriano in _Rienzi_, Kundry, Isolde and Brangaene, Fricka, Erda, Waltraute, Sieglinde, one of the Rhine maidens (perhaps two), and all three Brünnhildes. In most of these characterizations she has succeeded in making a deep impression. I have never seen her Ortrud, but I have been informed that it was a truly remarkable impersonation. Her Elsa was the finest I have ever seen. To Ternina's poetic interpretation she added her own greater grace and charm, and a lovelier quality of voice. If, on occasion, the music of the second act proved too high for her, who could sing the music of the dream with such poetic expression?--or the love music in the last act?--as beautiful an impersonation, and of the same kind, as Mary Garden's Mélisande. Her Venus was another story. She yearned for years to sing Elisabeth, and when she had satisfied this ambition, she could be persuaded only with difficulty to appear as the goddess. She told me once that she would like to sing both rôles in a single evening--a possible feat, as the two characters never appear together; Rita Fornia, I believe, accomplished the dual impersonation on one occasion at the behest of Colonel Savage. She had in mind a heroine with a dual nature, sacred and profane love so to speak, and Tannhäuser at the mercy of this gemini-born wight. She never was permitted to try this experiment at the Metropolitan, but during her last season there she appeared as Elisabeth. Montreal, and perhaps Brooklyn, had seen this impersonation before it was vouchsafed New York. Mme. Fremstad never succeeded in being very convincing in this rôle. I do not exactly understand why, as its possibilities seem to lie within her limitations. Nor did she sing the music well. On the other hand, her abundantly beautiful and voluptuous Venus, a splendid, towering, blonde figure, shimmering in flesh-coloured garments, was one of her astoundingly accurate characterizations. At the opposite pole to her Sieglinde it was equally a masterpiece of interpretative art, like Duse's Camille "positively enthralling as an exhibition of the gymnastics of perfect suppleness and grace." In both these instances she was inspired perhaps to realize something a little more wonderful than the composer himself had dreamed of. The depth and subtlety and refinement of intense passion were in this Venus--there was no suggestion here of what Sidney Homer once referred to as Mme. Homer's platonic Venus! [Illustration: OLIVE FREMSTAD AS SIEGLINDE _from a photograph by Aimé Dupont_] Her Sieglinde is firmly intrenched in many of our memories, the best loved of her Wagnerian women and enchantresses. Will there rise another singing actress in our generation to make us forget it? I do not think so. Her melting womanliness in the first act, ending with her complete surrender to Siegmund, her pathetic fatigue in the second act (do you not still see the harassed, shuddering figure stumbling into view and falling voiceless to sleep at the knees of her brother-lover?) remain in the memory like pictures in the great galleries. And how easily in the last act, in her single phrase, by her passionate suggestion of the realization of motherhood, did she wrest the scene from her fellow-artists, no matter who they might be, making such an effect before she fled into the forest depths, that what followed often seemed but anticlimax. Mme. Fremstad never sang the three Brünnhildes in sequence at the Metropolitan Opera House (of late years no soprano has done so), but she was called upon at various times to sing them all separately. Undoubtedly it was as the Brünnhilde in _Götterdämmerung_ that she made the most lasting impression. The scene of the oath on the spear she carried into the realms of Greek tragedy. Did Rachel touch greater heights? Was the French Jewess more electric? The whole performance displayed magnificent proportions, attaining a superb stature in the immolation scene. In scenes of this nature, scenes hovering between life and death, the eloquent grandeur of Mme. Fremstad's style might be observed in its complete flowering. Isolde over the body of Tristan, Brünnhilde over the body of Siegfried, exhibited no mincing pathos; the mood established was one of lofty calm. Great artists realize that this is the true expression of overwhelming emotion. In this connection it seems pertinent and interesting to recall a notable passage in a letter from Ivan Turgeniev to Pauline Viardot:-- "You speak to me also about _Romeo_, the third act; you have the goodness to ask me for some remarks on Romeo. What could I tell you that you have not already known and felt in advance? The more I reflect on the scene of the third act the more it seems to me that there is only one manner of interpreting it--yours. One can imagine nothing more horrible than finding oneself before the corpse of all that one loves; but the despair that seizes you then ought to be so terrible that, if it is not held and _frozen_ by the resolution of suicide, or by another _grand_ sentiment, art can no longer render it. Broken cries, sobs, fainting fits, these are nature, but they are not art. The spectator himself will not be moved by that poignant and profound emotion which you stir so easily. Whereas by the manner in which you wish to do Romeo (as I understand what you have written me) you will produce on your auditor an ineffaceable effect. I remember the fine and just observation that you once made on the agitated and restrained little gestures that Rachel made, at the same time maintaining an attitude of calm nobility; with her, perhaps, that was only technique; but in general it is the calm _arising from a strong conviction or from a profound emotion_, that is to say the calm which envelopes the desperate transports of passion from all sides, which communicates to them that purity of line, that ideal and real beauty, the true, the only beauty of art. And, what proves the truth of this remark, is that life itself--on rare occasions, it is true, at those times when it disengages itself from all that is accidental or commonplace--raises itself to the same kind of beauty. The greatest griefs, as you have said in your letter, are the calmest; and, one could add, the calmest are the most beautiful. But it is necessary to know how to unite the two extremes, unless one would appear cold. It is easier not to attain perfection, easier to rest in the middle of one's journey, the more so because the greater number of spectators demand nothing else, or rather are not accustomed to anything else, but you are what you are only because of this noble ambition to do your best...." In the complex rôle of Kundry Mme. Fremstad has had no rival. The wild witch of the first act, the enchantress of the second, the repentant Magdalene of the third, all were imaginatively impersonated by this wonderful woman. Certain actors drop their characterizations as soon as the dialogue passes on to another; such as these fail in _Parsifal_, for Kundry, on the stage for the entire third act, has only one word to sing; in the first act she has but few more. Colossally alluring in the second act, in which she symbolized the essence of the "eternal feminine," Mme. Fremstad projected the first and third act Kundry into the minds and hearts of her audience. [Illustration: OLIVE FREMSTAD AS KUNDRY, ACT I _from a photograph by Mishkin (1913)_] Well-trained in Bayreuth tradition, this singer was no believer in it; she saw no reason for clinging to outworn ideals simply because they prevailed at the Master's own theatre. However, she did not see how an individual could break with tradition in these works without destroying their effect. The break must come from the stage director. "If Wagner were alive to-day," she once said to me, "I don't believe that he would sanction a lot of the silly 'business' that is insisted upon everywhere because it is the law at Bayreuth. Wagner was constantly changing everything. When he produced his music dramas they were so entirely new in conception and in staging that they demanded experimentation in many directions. Doubtless certain traditions were founded on the interpretations of certain singers--who probably could not have followed other lines of action, which Wagner might have preferred, so successfully. "The two scenes which I have particularly in mind are those of the first act of _Tannhäuser_ and the second act of _Parsifal_. Both of these scenes, it seems to me, should be arranged with the most undreamed of beauty in colour and effect. Venus should not pose for a long time in a stiff attitude on an uncomfortable couch. I don't object to the couch, but it should be made more alluring. "The same objection holds in the second act of _Parsifal_, where Kundry is required to fascinate Parsifal, although she is not given an opportunity of moving from one position for nearly twenty minutes. When Klingsor calls Kundry from below in the first scene of that act, she comes against her will, and I think she should arise gasping and shuddering. I try to give that effect in my voice when I sing the music, but, following Bayreuth, I am standing, motionless, with a veil over my head, so that my face cannot be seen for some time before I sing. "One singer can do nothing against the mass of tradition. If I changed and the others did not, the effect would be inartistic. But if some stage manager would have the daring to break away, to strive for something better in these matters, how I would love to work with that man!" Departing from the Wagnerian répertoire, Mme. Fremstad has made notable successes in two rôles, Salome and Armide. That she should be able to do justice to the latter is more astonishing than that she should emerge triumphant from the Wilde-Strauss collaboration. _Armide_, almost the oldest opera to hold the stage to-day, is still the French classic model, and it demands in performance adherence to the French grand style, a style implying devotion to the highest artistic ideals. Mme. Fremstad's artistic ideals are perhaps on a higher plane than those of the Paris Conservatoire or the Comédie Française, but it does not follow that she would succeed in moulding them to fit a school of opera with which, to this point, she had been totally unfamiliar. So far as I know, the only other opera Mme. Fremstad had ever sung in French was _Carmen_, an experience which could not be considered as the training for a suitable delineation of the heroine of Gluck's beautiful lyric drama. Still Mme. Fremstad compassed the breach. How, I cannot pretend to say. No less an authority than Victor Maurel pronounced it a triumph of the French classic style. The moods of Quinault's heroine, of course, suit this singing actress, and she brought to them all her most effectual enchantments, including a series of truly seducing costumes. The imperious unrest of the first act, the triumph of love over hate in the second, the invocation to La Haine in the third, and the final scene of despair in the fifth, all were depicted with poignant and moving power, and always with fidelity to the style of the piece. She set her own pace in the finale of the first act. The wounded warrior returns to tell how a single combatant has delivered all his prisoners. Armide's half-spoken guess, _O ciel! c'est Renaud!_ which she would like to have denied, was uttered in a tone which definitely stimulated the spectator to prepare for the conflict which followed, the conflict in Armide's own breast, between her love for Renaud as a man, and her hatred of him as an enemy. I do not remember to have seen anything on the stage more profound in its implied psychology than her acting of the scene beginning _Enfin il est en ma puissance_, in which she stays her hand with dagger uplifted to kill the enemy-hero, and finally completely conquered by the darts of Love, transports him with her through the air to her own fair gardens. The singer told me that she went to work on this opera with fear in her heart. "I don't know how I dared do it. I suppose it is because I had the simplicity to believe, with the Germans, that Kundry is the top of everything, and I had sung Kundry. As a matter of fact my leaning toward the classic school dates very far back. My father was a strange man, of evangelical tendencies. He wrote a hymn-book, which is still in use in Scandinavia, and he had a beautiful natural voice. People often came for miles--simple country people, understand--to hear him sing. My father knew the classic composers and he taught me their songs. "This training came back to me when I took up the study of _Armide_. It was in May that Mr. Gatti-Casazza asked me if I would sing the work, which, till then, I had never heard. I took the book with me to the mountains and studied--not a note of the music at first, for music is very easy for me anyway; I can always learn that in a short time--but the text. For six weeks I read and re-read the text, always the difficult part for me in learning a new opera, without looking at the music. I found the text of _Armide_ particularly difficult because it was in old French, and because it was in verse. "I worked over it for six weeks, as I tell you, until I had mastered its beauties as well as I could, and then I opened the music score. Here I encountered a dreadful obstacle. Accustomed to Wagner's harmonies, I was puzzled by the French style. I did not see how the music could be sung to the text with dramatic effect. I attended several performances of the work at the Paris Opéra, but the interpretation there did not assist me in solving the problem. I tried every phrase in fifty different ways in an attempt to arrive at my end, and suddenly, and unexpectedly, I found myself in complete understanding; the exquisite refinement and nobility of the music, the repression, the classic line, all suggested to me the superb, eternal beauty of a Greek temple. Surely this is music that will outlive Wagner! "Once I understood, it was easy to put my conception on the stage. There is no such thing as genius in singing; at least one cannot depend on genius alone to carry one through an opera. I must know exactly how I am going to sing each phrase before I go upon the stage. Nothing must be left to chance. In studying _Armide_ I had sketches sent to me of every scene, and with these I worked until I knew every movement I should make, where I should stand, and when I should walk. Look at my score--at all these minute diagrams and directions...." _Armide_ was not a popular success in New York, and after one or two performances in its second season at the Metropolitan Opera House it was withdrawn. With the reasons for the failure of this opera to interest the general public Mme. Fremstad, it may well be imagined, had nothing to do. Her part in it, on the contrary, contributed to what success the work had. New York opera-goers have never manifested any particular regard for classic opera in any tongue; _Fidelio_ or _Don Giovanni_ have never been popular here. Then, although Caruso sang the music of Renaud with a style and beauty of phrasing unusual even for him, his appearance in the part was unfortunate. It was impossible to visualize the chevalier of the romantic story. The second tenor rôle, which is very important, was intrusted to an incompetent singer, and the charming rôle of the Naiad was very inadequately rendered; but the principal fault of the interpretation was due to a misconception regarding the relative importance of the ballet. There are dances in every act of _Armide_; there is no lovelier music of its kind extant than that which Gluck has devoted to his dancers in this opera. Appreciating this fact, Mr. Toscanini refused to part with a note of it, and his delivery of the delightful tunes would have made up a pleasant half-hour in a concert-room. Unfortunately the management did not supplement his efforts by providing a suitable group of dancers. This failure was all but incomprehensible considering the fact that Anna Pavlowa was a member of the Metropolitan company that season. Had she appeared in _Armide_, its fate in New York, where it was performed for the first time one hundred and thirty-three years after its original production in Paris, might have been far different. It may have been impossible for Mr. Gatti-Casazza to obtain the co-operation of the dancer. Times change. In 1833 Taglioni, then at the height of her powers, danced in London the comparatively insignificant parts of the Swiss peasant in _Guillaume Tell_ and the ghostly abbess in _Robert le Diable_. This was the season in which she introduced _La Sylphide_ to English theatre-goers. The history of Richard Strauss's _Salome_ in New York has been told so often that it seems quite unnecessary to repeat it here. There must be few indeed of those who will read these lines who do not know how the music drama received only one public performance at the Metropolitan Opera House before it was withdrawn at the request of certain directors. At that one performance Olive Fremstad sang the rôle of Salome. She was also heard at the private dress rehearsal--before an auditorium completely filled with invited guests--and she has sung the part three times in Paris. The singer threw herself into its preparation with her usual energy, and developed an extraordinary characterization. There was but one flaw, the substitution of a professional dancer for the Dance of the Seven Veils. At this time it had occurred to nobody that the singer who impersonated Salome could dance. How could any one sing the music of the tremendous finale after getting thoroughly out of breath in the terpsichorean exhibition before Herod? The expedient of a substitute was resorted to at the original performance in Dresden, and Olive Fremstad did not disturb this tradition. She allowed Bianca Froehlich to take off the seven veils, a feat which was accomplished much more delicately at the performance than it had been at the dress rehearsal. In Paris a farce resulted from the custom when Mme. Trouhanova not only insisted on wearing a different costume from the Salome whose image she was supposed to be, but also took curtain calls. I think it was Gemma Belincioni, the Italian, who first conceived the idea of Salome dancing her own dance. She was followed by Mary Garden, who discovered what every one should have noticed in the beginning, that the composer has given the singer a long rest after the pantomimic episode. Aside from this disturbance to the symmetry of the performance, Olive Fremstad was magnificent. Her entrance was that of a splendid leopard, standing poised on velvet paws on the terrace, and then creeping slowly down the staircase. Her scene with Jochanaan was in truth like the storming of a fortress, and the scene with the Tetrarch was clearly realized. But it was in the closing scene of the drama that Mme. Fremstad, like the poet and the composer, achieved her most effective results. I cannot yet recall her as she crept from side to side of the well in which Jochanaan was confined, waiting for the slave to ascend with the severed head, without that shudder of fascination caused by the glimmering eyes of a monster serpent, or the sleek terribleness of a Bengal tiger. And at the end she suggested, as perhaps it has never before been suggested on the stage, the dregs of love, the refuse of gorged passion. Singers who "create" parts in great lyric dramas have a great advantage over those who succeed them. Mary Shaw once pointed out to me the probability that Janet Achurch and Elizabeth Robins only won enthusiastic commendation from Bernard Shaw because they were appearing in the Ibsen plays which he was seeing for the first time. He attributed a good part of his pleasure to the interpretations of these ladies. However, he was never satisfied with their performances in plays with which he was more familiar and he never again found anyone entirely to suit him in the Ibsen dramas. Albert Niemann was one of the first tenors to sing Wagner rôles and there are those alive who will tell you that he was one of the great artists, but it is perhaps because they heard him _first_ in lyric dramas of such vitality that they confused singer and rôle. Beatty-Kingston, who heard him in 1866, said (in "Music and Manners") that he had torn his voice "to tatters by persistent shoutings at the top of its upper register, and undermined it by excessive worship at the shrines of Bacchus and the Paphian goddess.... His 'production' was characterized by a huskiness and scratchiness infinitely distressing to listen to...." No allowances of this sort need be made for the deep impression made by Olive Fremstad. At the Metropolitan Opera House she followed a line of well-beloved and regal interpreters of the Wagner rôles. Both Lilli Lehmann and Milka Ternina had honoured this stage and Lillian Nordica preceded Mme. Fremstad as Kundry there. In her career at the Metropolitan, indeed, Mme. Fremstad sang only three operas at their first performances there, _Salome_, _Les Contes d'Hoffmann_, and _Armide_. In her other rôles she was forced to stand comparison with a number of great artists. That she won admiration in them under the circumstances is the more fine an achievement. I like to think, sometimes, that Olive Fremstad is the reincarnation of Guiditta Pasta, that celebrated Italian singer of the early nineteenth century, who paced triumphantly through the humbler tragedies of _Norma_ and _Semiramide_. She too worked hard to gain her ends, and she gained them for a time magnificently. Henry Fothergill Chorley celebrates her art with an enthusiasm that is rare in his pages, and I like to think that he would write similar lines of eulogy about Olive Fremstad could he be called from the grave to do so. There is something of the mystic in all great singers, something incomprehensible, inexplicable, but in the truly great, the Mme. Pastas and the Mme. Fremstads, this quality outstrips all others. It is predominant. And just in proportion as this mysticism triumphs, so too their art becomes triumphant, and flames on the ramparts, a living witness before mankind to the power of the unseen. _August 17, 1916._ Geraldine Farrar [Illustration: Mme. Farrar's insigne.] The autobiography of Geraldine Farrar is a most disappointing document; it explains nothing, it offers the reader no new insights. Given the brains of the writer and the inexhaustibility of the subject, the result is unaccountable. Any opera-goer who has followed the career of this singer with even indifferent attention will find it difficult to discover any revelation of personality or artistry in the book. Geraldine Farrar has always been a self-willed young woman with a plangent ambition and a belief in her own future which has been proved justifiable by the chronological unfolding of her stage career. These qualities are displayed over and over again in the book, together with a certain number of facts about her early life, teachers, and so on. Of that part of her personal experience which would really interest the public she gives a singularly glossed account. Very little attention is paid to composers; none at all to operas, if one may except such meagre descriptions as that accorded to _Julien_, "a hodge-podge of operatic efforts that brought little satisfaction to anybody concerned in it." There are few illuminating anecdotes; no space is devoted to an account of how Mme. Farrar composes her rôles. She likes this one; she is indifferent to that; she detests a third; but reasons for these prejudices are rarely given. There is little manifestation of that analytic mind with which Mme. Farrar credits herself. There are sketchy references to other singers, usually highly eulogistic, but where did Mme. Farrar hear that remarkable performance of _Carmen_ in which both Saleza and Jean de Reszke appeared? For my part, the most interesting lines in the book are those which close the thirteenth chapter: "I cannot say that I am much in sympathy with the vague outlines of the modern French lyric heroines; Mélisande and Ariane, I think, can be better intrusted to artists of a less positive type." Notwithstanding the fact that she has written a rather dull book, Geraldine Farrar is one of the few really vivid personalities of the contemporary lyric stage. To a great slice of the public she is an idol in the sense that Rachel and Jenny Lind were idols. She has frequently extracted warm praise even from the cold-water taps of discriminating and ordinarily unsympathetic critics. Acting in opera she considers of greater importance than singing. She once told me that she ruthlessly sacrificed tone whenever it seemed to interfere with dramatic effect. As an actress she has suffered from an excess of zeal, and an impatience of discipline. She composes her parts with some care, but frequently overlays her original conception with extravagant detail, added spontaneously at a performance, if her feelings so dictate. [Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR AS ELISABETH _from a photograph by Reutlinger_] This lawlessness sometimes leads her astray. It is an unsafe method to follow. Actors who feel the most themselves, unless the feeling is expressed in support of carefully thought-out effects, often leave their auditors cold. It is interesting to recall that Mme. Malibran, who may have excelled Mme. Farrar as a singer, had a similar passion for impromptu stage "business." She refused to give her fellow-artists any idea of how she would carry a part through, and as she allowed her feelings full sway in the matter misunderstandings frequently arose. In acting Desdemona to the Otello of the tenor, Donzelli, for example, she would not determine beforehand the exact point at which he was to seize her. Frequently she gave him a long chase and on one occasion in his pursuit he stumbled and cut himself on his unsheathed dagger. Often it has seemed that Mme. Farrar deliberately chose certain stage "business" with an eye to astounding, and not with any particular care for the general roundness of her operatic performance. It must also be taken into consideration that no two of Mme. Farrar's impersonations of any one rôle are exactly similar, and that he who may have seen her give a magnificent performance is not too safe in recommending his meticulous neighbour to go to the next. Sometimes she is "modern" and "American" in the deprecatory sense of these words; in some of her parts she exudes no atmospheric suggestion. There are no overtones. The spectator sees exactly what is before his eyes on these occasions; there is no stimulation for the imagination to proceed further. At other times, as in her characterization of the Goosegirl in _Königskinder_, it would seem that she had extracted the last poetic meaning out of the words and music, and had succeeded in making her audience feel, not merely everything that the composer and librettist intended, but a great deal more. At times she is a very good singer. Curiously enough, it is classic music that she usually sings best. I have heard her sing Zerlina in _Don Giovanni_ in a manner almost worthy of her teacher, Lilli Lehmann. There is no mention of this rôle in her book; nor of another in which she was equally successful, Rosaura in _Le Donne Curiose_, beautifully sung from beginning to end. Mme. Farrar is musical (some singers are not; Mme. Nordica was not, for example), and I have witnessed two manifestations of this quality. On one occasion she played for me on the piano a good portion of the first act of _Ariane et Barbe-Bleue_, and played it brilliantly, no mean achievement. Another time I stood talking with her and her good friend, Josephine Jacoby, in the wings during the last act of a performance of _Madama Butterfly_ at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. There was no air of preoccupation on her part, no sense on ours that she was following the orchestra. I became so interested in our conversation, for Mme. Farrar invariably talks well, that I did not even hear the orchestra. But her mind was quite capable of taking care of two things at once. She interrupted a sentence to sing her phrase off stage, and then smilingly continued the conversation. I shall never forget this moment. To me it signified in an instant what Mme. Farrar has taken the pains to explain in pages of her autobiography and which is all summed up in her own comment, written at the time on the programme of the concert of her Boston début, May 26, 1896: "This is what I made my début in, very calm and sedate, not the least nervous." But Mme. Farrar's vocal method is not God-given, although her voice and her assurance may be, and she sometimes has trouble in producing her upper tones. Instead of opening like a fan, her high voice is frequently pinched, and she has difficulty in singing above the staff. I have never heard her sing Butterfly's entrance with correct intonation, although I have heard her in the part many times. Her Carmen, on the whole, is a most successful performance vocally, and so is (or was) her Elisabeth, especially in the second act. The tessitura of Butterfly is very high, and the rôle is a strain for her. She has frequently said that she finds it easier to sing any two other rôles in her répertoire, and refuses to appear for two days before or after a performance of this Puccini opera. Mme. Farrar is a fine linguist. She speaks and sings French like a Frenchwoman (I have expert testimony on this point), German like a German, and Italian like an Italian; her enunciation of English is also very clear (she has never sung in opera in English, but has often sung English songs in concert). Her enunciation of Maeterlinck's text in _Ariane et Barbe-Bleue_ was a joy, about the only one she contributed to this performance. And in _Königskinder_ and _Le Donne Curiose_ she was equally distinct. In fact there is never any difficulty about following the text of an opera when Geraldine Farrar is singing. The rôles in which Mme. Farrar achieves her best results, according to my taste, are Manon, the Goosegirl, Margherita (in _Mefistofele_), Elisabeth, Rosaura, Suzanna, and Violetta. Cio-Cio-San, of course, is her most popular creation, and it deserves to some extent the applause of the populace, although I do not think it should be put in the above list. It is certainly not to be considered on the same plane vocally. Other rôles in which she is partially successful are Juliette and Marguerite (in Gounod's _Faust_). I think her Ariane is commonly adjudged a failure. In _Madame Sans-Gêne_ she is often comic, but she does not suggest a _bourgeoise_ Frenchwoman; in the court scenes she is more like a graceful woman trying to be awkward than an awkward woman trying to be graceful. Her Tosca is lacking in dignity; it is too petulant a performance, too small in conception. In failing to find adequate pleasure in her Carmen I am not echoing popular opinion. I do not think Mme. Farrar has appeared in _La Traviata_ more than two or three times at the Metropolitan Opera House, although she has probably sung Violetta often in Berlin. On the occasion of Mme. Sembrich's farewell to the American opera stage she appeared as Flora Bervoise as a compliment to the older singer. In her biography she says that Sarah Bernhardt gave her the inspiration for the composition of the heroine of Verdi's opera. It would be interesting to have more details on this point; they are not forthcoming. Of course there have been many Violettas who have sung the music of the first act more brilliantly than Mme. Farrar; in the later acts she often sang beautifully, and her acting was highly expressive and unconventional. She considered the rôle from the point of view of make-up. Has any one else done this? Violetta was a popular _cocotte_; consequently, she must have been beautiful. But she was a consumptive; consequently, she must have been pale. In the third act Mme. Farrar achieved a very fine dramatic effect with her costume and make-up. Her face was painted a ghastly white, a fact emphasized by her carmined lips and her black hair. She wore pale yellow and carried an enormous black fan, behind which she pathetically hid her face to cough. She introduced novelty into the part at the very beginning of the opera. Unlike most Violettas, she did not make an entrance, but sat with her back to the audience, receiving her guests, when the curtain rose. [Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR AS VIOLETTA _from a photograph by Aimé Dupont (1907)_] It has seemed strange to me that the professional reviewers should have attributed the added notes of realism in Mme. Farrar's second edition of Carmen to her appearances in the moving-picture drama. The tendencies displayed in her second year in the part were in no wise, to my mind, a result of her cinema experiences. In fact, the New York critics should have remembered that when Mme. Farrar made her début at the Metropolitan Opera House in the rôle of Juliette, they had rebuked her for these very qualities. She had indulged in a little extra realism in the bedroom and balcony scenes of Gounod's opera, of the sort with which Miss Nethersole created ten-minute furores in her performances of Carmen and Sapho. Again, as Marguerite in _Faust_ (her Margherita in _Mefistofele_ was a particularly repressed and dreamy representation of the German maiden, one instinct with the highest dramatic and vocal values in the prison scene), she devised "business" calculated to startle, dancing the jewel song, and singing the first stanza of the _Roi de Thulé_ air from the cottage, whither she had repaired to fetch her spindle of flax--this last detail seemed to me a very good one. In early representations of _Madama Butterfly_ and _La Bohème_ her death scenes were fraught with an intense realism which fitted ill with the spirit of the music. I remember one occasion on which Cio-Cio-San knocked over the rocking-chair in her death struggles, which often embraced the range of the Metropolitan stage. These points have all been urged against her at the proper times, and there seemed small occasion for attributing her extra activities in the first act of Bizet's opera, in which the cigarette girl engaged in a prolonged scuffle with her rival in the factory, or her more recent whistling of the seguidilla, to her moving-picture experiences. No, Mme. Farrar is overzealous with her public. She once told me that at every performance she cut herself open with a knife and gave herself to the audience. This intensity, taken together with her obviously unusual talent and her personal attractiveness, is what has made her a more than ordinary success on our stage. It is at once her greatest virtue and her greatest fault, artistically speaking. Properly manacled, this quality would make her one of the finest, instead of merely one of the most popular, artists now before the public. But I cannot see how the cinema can be blamed. When I first saw the Carmen of Mme. Farrar, her second or third appearance in the part, I was perplexed to find an excuse for its almost unanimous acclamation, and I sought in my mind for extraneous reasons. There was, for example, the conducting of the score by Mr. Toscanini, but that, like Mme. Farrar's interpretation of the Spanish gypsy, never found exceptional favour in my ears. Mr. Caruso's appearance in the opera could not be taken into consideration, because he had frequently sung in it before at the Metropolitan Opera House without awakening any great amount of enthusiasm. In fact, except as Des Grieux, this Italian tenor has never been popularly accepted in French opera in New York. But _Carmen_ had long been out of the répertoire, and _Carmen_ is an opera people like to hear. The magic of the names of Caruso, Farrar, and Toscanini may have lured auditors and critics into imagining they had heard a more effective performance than was vouchsafed them. Personally I could not compare the revival favourably with the wonderful Manhattan Opera House _Carmen_, which at its best enlisted the services of Mme. Bressler-Gianoli, the best Carmen save one that I have ever heard, Charles Dalmores, Maurice Renaud, Pauline Donalda, Charles Gilibert, Emma Trentini, and Daddi; Cleofonte Campanini conducting. At first, to be sure, there was no offensive over-laying of detail in Mme. Farrar's interpretation. It was not cautiously traditional, but there was no evidence that the singer was striving to stray from the sure paths. The music lies well in Mme. Farrar's voice, better than that of any other part I have heard her sing, unless it be Charlotte in _Werther_, and the music, all of it, went well, including the habanera, the seguidilla, the quintet, and the marvellous _Oui, je t'aime, Escamillo_ of the last act. Her well-planned, lively dance after the gypsy song at the beginning of the second act drew a burst of applause for music usually permitted to go unrewarded. Her exit in the first act was effective, and her scene with Jose in the second act was excellently carried through. The card scene, as she acted it, meant very little. No strain was put upon the nerves. There was little suggestion here. The entrance of Escamillo and Carmen in an old victoria in the last act was a stroke of genius on somebody's part. I wonder if this was Mme. Farrar's idea. But somehow, during this performance, one didn't feel there. It was no more the banks of the Guadalquivir than it was the banks of the Hudson. _Carmen_ as transcribed by Bizet and Meilhac and Halévy becomes indisputably French in certain particulars; to say that the heroine should be Spanish is not to understand the truth; Maria Gay's interpretation has taught us that, if nothing else has. But atmosphere is demanded, and that Mme. Farrar did not give us, at least she did not give it to me. In the beginning the interpretation made on me the effect of routine,--the sort of performance one can see in any first-rate European opera house,--and later, when the realistic bits were added, the distortion offended me, for French opera always demands a certain elegance of its interpreters; a quality which Mme. Farrar has exposed to us in two other French rôles. Her Manon is really an adorable creature. I have never seen Mary Garden in this part, but I have seen many French singers, and to me Mme. Farrar transcends them all. A very beautiful and moving performance she gives, quite in keeping with the atmosphere of the opera. Her adieu to the little table and her farewell to Des Grieux in the desert always start a lump in my throat. Her Charlotte (a rôle, I believe, cordially detested by Mme. Farrar, and one which she refuses to sing) is to me an even more moving conception. This sentimental opera of Massenet's has never been appreciated in America at its true value, although it is one of the most frequently represented works at the Paris Opéra-Comique. When it was first introduced here by Emma Eames and Jean de Rezske, it found little favour, and later Mme. Farrar and Edmond Clément were unable to arouse interest in it (it was in _Werther_, at the New Theatre, that Alma Gluck made her operatic début, in the rôle of Sophie). But Geraldine Farrar as the hesitating heroine of the tragic and sentimental romance made the part very real, as real in its way as Henry James's "Portrait of a Lady," and as moving. The whole third act she carried through in an amazingly pathetic key, and she always sang _Les Larmes_ as if her heart were really breaking. What a charming figure she was in Wolf-Ferrari's pretty operas, _Le Donne Curiose_ and _Suzannen's Geheimness_! And she sang the lovely measures with the Mozartean purity which at her best she had learned from Lilli Lehmann. Her Zerlina and her Cherubino were delightful impersonations, invested with vast roguery, although in both parts she was a trifle self-conscious, especially in her assumption of awkwardness. Her Elisabeth, sung in New York but seldom, though she has recently appeared in this rôle with the Chicago Opera Company, was noble in conception and execution, and her Goosegirl one of the most fascinating pictures in the operatic gallery of our generation. Her Mignon was successful in a measure, perhaps not an entirely credible figure. Her Nedda was very good. [Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR AS LOUISE IN _JULIEN_ _from a photograph by White (1914)_] Her Louise in _Julien_ was so fine dramatically, especially in the Montmartre episode, as to make one wish that she could sing the real Louise in the opera of that name. Once, however, at a performance of Charpentier's earlier work at the Manhattan Opera House, she told me that she would never, never do so. She has been known to change her mind. Her Ariane, I think, was her most complete failure. It is a part which requires plasticity and nobility of gesture and interpretation of a kind with which her style is utterly at variance. And yet I doubt if Mme. Farrar had ever sung a part to which she had given more consideration. It was for this opera, in fact, that she worked out a special method of vocal speech, half-sung, half-spoken, which enabled her to deliver the text more clearly. Whether Mme. Farrar will undergo further artistic development I very much doubt. She tells us in her autobiography that she can study nothing in any systematic way, and it is only through very sincere study and submission to well-intended restraint that she might develop still further into the artist who might conceivably leave a more considerable imprint on the music drama of her time. It is to be doubted if Mme. Farrar cares for these supreme laurels; her success with her public--which is pretty much all the public--is so complete in its way that she may be entirely satisfied with that by no means to be despised triumph. Once (in 1910) she gave an indication to me that this might be so, in the following words: "Emma Calvé was frequently harshly criticized, but when she sang the opera house was crowded. It was because she gave her personality to the public. Very frequently there are singers who give most excellent interpretations, who are highly praised, and whom nobody goes to see. Now in the last analysis there are two things which I do. I try to be true to myself and my own conception of the dramatic fitness of things on the stage, and I try to please my audiences. To do that you must mercilessly reveal your personality. There is no other way. In my humble way I am an actress who happens to be appearing in opera. I sacrifice tonal beauty to dramatic fitness every time I think it is necessary for an effect, and I shall continue to do it. I leave mere singing to the warblers. I am more interested in acting myself." There is much that is sound sense in these remarks, but it is a pity that Mme. Farrar carries her theories out literally. To me, and to many another, there is something a little sad in the acceptance of easily won victory. If she would, Mme. Farrar might improve her singing and acting in certain rôles in which she has already appeared, and she might enlarge her répertoire to include more of the rôles which have a deeper significance in operatic and musical history. At present her activity is too consistent to allow time for much reflection. It would afford me the greatest pleasure to learn that this singer had decided to retire for a few months to devote herself to study and introspection, so that she might return to the stage with a new and brighter fire and a more lasting message. _Farrar fara--forse._ _July 14, 1916._ Mary Garden "_Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose._" Gertrude Stein. The influence of Ibsen on our stage has been most subtle. The dramas of the sly Norwegian are infrequently performed, but almost all the plays of the epoch bear his mark. And he has done away with the actor, for nowadays emotions are considered rude on the stage. Our best playwrights have striven for an intellectual monotone. So it happens that for the Henry Irvings, the Sarah Bernhardts, and the Edwin Booths of a younger generation we must turn to the operatic stage, and there we find them: Maurice Renaud, Olive Fremstad--and Mary Garden. There is nothing casual about the art of Mary Garden. Her achievements on the lyric stage are not the result of happy accident. Each detail of her impersonations, indeed, is a carefully studied and selected effect, chosen after a review of possible alternatives. Occasionally, after a trial, Miss Garden even rejects the instinctive. This does not mean that there is no feeling behind her performances. The deep burning flame of poetic imagination illuminates and warms into life the conception wrought in the study chamber. Nothing is left to chance, and it is seldom, and always for some good reason, that this artist permits herself to alter particulars of a characterization during the course of a representation. I have watched her many times in the same rôle without detecting any great variance in the arrangement of details, and almost as many times I have been blinded by the force of her magnetic imaginative power, without which no interpreter can hope to become an artist. This, it seems to me, is the highest form of stage art; certainly it is the form which on the whole is the most successful in exposing the intention of author and composer, although occasionally a Geraldine Farrar or a Salvini will make it apparent that the inspiration of the moment also has its value. However, I cannot believe that the true artist often experiments in public. He conceives in seclusion and exposes his conception, completely realized, breathed into, so to speak, on the stage. When he first studies a character it is his duty to feel the emotions of that character, and later he must project these across the footlights into the hearts of his audience; but he cannot be expected to feel these emotions every night. He must _remember_ how he felt them before. And sometimes even this ideal interpreter makes mistakes. Neither instinct nor intelligence--not even genius--can compass every range. Miss Garden's career has been closely identified with the French lyric stage and, in at least two operas, she has been the principal interpreter--and a material factor in their success--of works which have left their mark on the epoch, stepping-stones in the musical brook. The rôles in which she has most nearly approached the ideal are perhaps Mélisande, Jean (_Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_), Sapho, Thais, Louise, Marguerite (in Gounod's _Faust_), Chrysis (in _Aphrodite_), and Monna Vanna. I cannot speak personally of her Tosca, her Orlanda, her Manon, her Violetta, or her Chérubin (in Massenet's opera of the same name). I do not care for her Carmen as a whole, and to my mind her interpretation of Salome lacks the inevitable quality which stamped Olive Fremstad's performance. In certain respects she realizes the characters and sings the music of Juliet and Ophélie, but this is _vieux jeu_ for her, and I do not think she has effaced the memory of Emma Eames in the one and Emma Calvé in the other of these rôles. She was somewhat vague and not altogether satisfactory (this may be ascribed to the paltriness of the parts) as Prince Charmant in _Cendrillon, la belle_ Dulcinée in _Don Quichotte_, and Grisélidis. On the other hand, in _Natoma_--her only appearance thus far in opera in English--she made a much more important contribution to the lyric stage than either author or composer. Mary Garden was born in Scotland, but her family came to this country when she was very young, and she grew up in the vicinity of Chicago. She may therefore be adjudged at least as much an American singer as Olive Fremstad. She studied in France, however, and this fortuitous circumstance accounts for the fact that all her great rôles are French, and for the most part modern French. Her two Italian rôles, Violetta and Tosca, she sings in French, although I believe she has made attempts to sing Puccini's opera in the original tongue. Her other ventures afield have included Salome, sung in French, and Natoma, sung in English. Her pronunciation of French on the stage has always aroused comment, some of it jocular. Her accent is strongly American, a matter which her very clear enunciation does not leave in doubt. However, it is a question in my mind if Miss Garden did not weigh well the charm of this accent and its probable effect on French auditors. You will remember that Helena Modjeska spoke English with a decided accent, as do Fritzi Scheff, Alia Nazimova, and Mitzi Hajos in our own day; you may also realize that to the public, which includes yourself, this is no inconsiderable part of their charm. Parisians do not take pleasure in hearing their language spoken by a German, but they have never had any objection--quite the contrary--to an English or American accent on their stage, although I do not believe this general preference has ever been allowed to affect performances at the Comédie Française, except when _l'Anglais tel qu'on le parle_ is on the _affiches_. At least it is certain that Miss Garden speaks French quite as easily as--perhaps more easily than--she does English, and many of the eccentricities of her stage speech are not noticeable in private life. Many of the great artists of the theatre have owed their first opportunity to an accident; it was so with Mary Garden. She once told me the story herself and I may be allowed to repeat it in her own words, as I put them down shortly after: "I became friends with Sybil Sanderson, who was singing in Paris then, and one day when I was at her house Albert Carré, the director of the Opéra-Comique, came to call. I was sitting by the window as he entered, and he said to Sybil, 'That woman has a profile; she would make a charming Louise.' Charpentier's opera, I should explain, had not yet been produced. 'She has a voice, too,' Sybil added. Well, M. Carré took me to the theatre and listened while I sang airs from _Traviata_ and _Manon_. Then he gave me the partition of _Louise_ and told me to go home and study it. I had the rôle in my head in fifteen days. This was in March, and M. Carré engaged me to sing at his theatre beginning in October.... One spring day, however, when I was feeling particularly depressed over the death of a dog that had been run over by an omnibus, M. Carré came to me in great excitement; Mme. Rioton, the singer cast for the part, was ill, and he asked me if I thought I could sing Louise. I said 'Certainly,' in the same tone with which I would have accepted an invitation to dinner. It was only bluff; I had never rehearsed the part with orchestra, but it was my chance, and I was determined to take advantage of it. Besides, I had studied the music so carefully that I could have sung it note for note if the orchestra had played _The Star-Spangled Banner_ simultaneously. "Evening came and found me in the theatre. Mme. Rioton had recovered sufficiently to sing; she appeared during the first two acts, and then succumbed immediately before the air, _Depuis le Jour_, which opens the third act. I was in my dressing-room when M. Carré sent for me. He told me that an announcement had been made before the curtain that I would be substituted for Mme. Rioton. I learned afterwards that André Messager, who was directing the orchestra, had strongly advised against taking this step; he thought the experiment was too dangerous, and urged that the people in the house should be given their money back. The audience, you may be sure, was none too pleased at the prospect of having to listen to a Mlle. Garden of whom they had never heard. Will you believe me when I tell you that I was never less nervous?... I must have succeeded, for I sang Louise over two hundred times at the Opéra-Comique after that. The year was 1900, and I had made my début on Friday, April 13!" I have no contemporary criticisms of this event at hand, but one of my most valued souvenirs is a photograph of the charming interpreter as she appeared in the rôle of Louise at the beginning of her career. However, in one of Gauthier-Villars's compilations of his musical criticisms, which he signed "L'Ouvreuse" ("La Ronde des Blanches"), I discovered the following, dated February 21, 1901, a detail of a review of Gabriel Pierné's opera, _La Fille de Tabarin_: "Mlle. Garden a une aimable figure, une voix aimable, et un petit reste d'accent exotique, aimable aussi." Of the composer of _Louise_ Miss Garden had many interesting things to say in after years: "The opera is an expression of Charpentier's own life," she told me one day. "It is the opera of Montmartre, and he was the King of Montmartre, a real bohemian, to whom money and fame meant nothing. He was satisfied if he had enough to pay _consommations_ for himself and his friends at the Rat Mort. He had won the _Prix de Rome_ before _Louise_ was produced, but he remained poor. He lived in a dirty little garret up on the _butte_, and while he was writing this realistic picture of his own life he was slowly starving to death. André Messager knew him and tried to give him money, but he wouldn't accept it. He was very proud. Messager was obliged to carry up milk in bottles, with a loaf of bread, and say that he wanted to lunch with him, in order to get Charpentier to take nourishment. "Meanwhile, little by little, _Louise_ was being slowly written.... Part of it he wrote in the Rat Mort, part in his own little room, and part of it in the Moulin de la Galette, one of the gayest of the Montmartre dance halls. High up on the _butte_ the gaunt windmill sign waves its arms; from the garden you can see all Paris. It is the view that you get in the third act of _Louise_.... The production of his opera brought Charpentier nearly half a million francs, but he spent it all on the working-girls of Montmartre. He even established a conservatory, so that those with talent might study without paying. And his mother, whom he adored, had everything she wanted until she died.... He always wore the artist costume, corduroy trousers, blouse, and flowing tie, even when he came to the Opéra-Comique in the evening. Money did not change his habits. His kingdom extended over all Paris after the production of _Louise_, but he still preferred his old friends in Montmartre to the new ones his success had made for him, and he dissipated his strength and talent. He was an adorable man; he would give his last sou to any one who asked for it! "To celebrate the fiftieth performance of _Louise_, M. Carré gave a dinner in July, 1900. Most appropriately he did not choose the Café Anglais or the Café de Paris for this occasion, but Charpentier's own beloved Moulin de la Galette. It was at this dinner that the composer gave the first sign of his physical decline. He had scarcely seated himself at the table, surrounded by the great men and women of Paris, before he fainted...." The subsequent history of this composer of the lower world we all know too well; how he journeyed south and lived in obscurity for years, years which were embellished with sundry rumours relating to future works, rumours which were finally crowned by the production of _Julien_ at the Opéra-Comique--and subsequently at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. The failure of this opera was abysmal. Louise is a rôle which Miss Garden has sung very frequently in America, and, as she may be said to have contributed to Charpentier's fame and popularity in Paris, she did as much for him here. This was the second part in which she appeared in New York. The dynamics of the rôle are finely wrought out, deeply felt; the characterization is extraordinarily keen, although after the first act it never touches the heart. The singing-actress conceives the character of the sewing-girl as hard and brittle, and she does not play it for sympathy. She acts the final scene with the father with the brilliant polish of a diamond cut in Amsterdam, and with heartless brutality. Stroke after stroke she devotes to a ruthless exposure of what she evidently considers to be the nature of this futile drab. It is the scene in the play which evidently interests her most, and it is the scene to which she has given her most careful attention. In the first act, to be sure, she is _gamine_ and adorable in her scenes with her father, and touchingly poignant in the despairing cry which closes the act, _Paris_! In the next two acts she wisely submerges herself in the general effect. She allows the sewing-girls to make the most of their scene, and, after she has sung _Depuis le Jour_, she gives the third act wholly into the keeping of the ballet, and the interpreters of Julien and the mother. There are other ways of singing and acting this rôle. Others have sung and acted it, others will sing and act it, effectively. The abandoned (almost aggressive) perversity of Miss Garden's performance has perhaps not been equalled, but this rôle does not belong to her as completely as do Thais and Mélisande; no other interpreters will satisfy any one who has seen her in these two parts. Miss Garden made her American début in Massenet's opera, _Thais_, written, by the way, for Sybil Sanderson. The date was November 25, 1907. Previous to this time Miss Garden had never sung this opera in Paris, but she had appeared in it during a summer season at one of the French watering places. Since that night, nearly ten years ago, however, it has become the most stable feature of her répertoire. She has sung it frequently in Paris, and during the long tours undertaken by the Chicago Opera Company this sentimental tale of the Alexandrian courtesan and the hermit of the desert has startled the inhabitants of hamlets in Iowa and California. It is a very brilliant scenic show, and is utterly successful as a vehicle for the exploitation of the charms of a fragrant personality. Miss Garden has found the part grateful; her very lovely figure is particularly well suited to the allurements of Grecian drapery, and the unwinding of her charms at the close of the first act is an event calculated to stir the sluggish blood of a hardened theatre-goer, let alone that of a Nebraska farmer. The play becomes the more vivid as it is obvious that the retiary meshes with which she ensnares Athanaël are strong enough to entangle any of us. Thais-become-nun--Evelyn Innes should have sung this character before she became Sister Teresa--is in violent contrast to these opening scenes, but the acts in the desert, as the Alexandrian strumpet wilts before the aroused passion of the monk, are carried through with equal skill by this artist who is an adept in her means of expression and expressiveness. The opera is sentimental, theatrical, and over its falsely constructed drama--a perversion of Anatole France's psychological tale--Massenet has overlaid as banal a coverlet of music as could well be devised by an eminent composer. "The bad fairies have given him [Massenet] only one gift," writes Pierre Lalo, "...the desire to please." It cannot be said that Miss Garden allows the music to affect her interpretation. She sings some of it, particularly her part in the duet in the desert, with considerable charm and warmth of tone. I have never cared very much for her singing of the mirror air, although she is dramatically admirable at this point; on the other hand, I have found her rendering of the farewell to Eros most pathetic in its tenderness. At times she has attacked the high notes, which fall in unison with the exposure of her attractions, with brilliancy; at other times she has avoided them altogether (it must be remembered that Miss Sanderson, for whom this opera was written, had a voice like the Tour Eiffel; she sang to G above the staff). But the general tone of her interpretation has not been weakened by the weakness of the music or by her inability to sing a good deal of it. Quite the contrary. I am sure she sings the part with more steadiness of tone than Milka Ternina ever commanded for Tosca, and her performance is equally unforgettable. After the production of _Louise_, Miss Garden's name became almost legendary in Paris, and many are the histories of her subsequent career there. Parisians and foreign visitors alike flocked to the Opéra-Comique to see her in the series of delightful rôles which she assumed--Orlanda, Manon, Chrysis, Violetta ... and Mélisande. It was during the summer of 1907 that I first heard her there in two of the parts most closely identified with her name, Chrysis and Mélisande. Camille Erlanger's _Aphrodite_, considered as a work of art, is fairly meretricious. As a theatrical entertainment it offers many elements of enjoyment. Based on the very popular novel of Pierre Louÿs--at one time forbidden circulation in America by Anthony Comstock--it winds its pernicious way through a tale of prostitution, murder, theft, sexual inversion, drunkenness, sacrilege, and crucifixion, and concludes, quite simply, in a cemetery. The music is appallingly banal, and has never succeeded in doing anything else but annoy me when I have thought of it at all. It never assists in creating an atmosphere; it bears no relation to stage picture, characters, or situation. Both gesture and colour are more important factors in the consideration of the pleasurable elements of this piece than the weak trickle of its sickly melodic flow. [Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS CHRYSIS (1906)] For the most part, at a performance, one does not listen to the music. Nevertheless, _Aphrodite_ calls one again and again. Its success in Paris was simply phenomenal, and the opera is still in the répertoire of the Opéra-Comique. This success was due in a measure to the undoubted "punch" of the story, in a measure to the orgy which M. Carré had contrived to embellish the third act, culminating in the really imaginative dancing of the beautiful Regina Badet and the horrible scene of the crucifixion of the negro slave; but, more than anything else, it was due to the rarely compelling performance of Mary Garden as the courtesan who consented to exchange her body for the privilege of seeing her lover commit theft, sacrilege, and murder. In her bold entrance, flaunting her long lemon scarf, wound round her body like a Nautch girl's säri, which illy concealed her fine movements, she at once gave the picture, not alone of the _cocotte_ of the period but of a whole life, a whole atmosphere, and this she maintained throughout the disclosure of the tableaux. In the prison scene she attained heights of tragic acting which I do not think even she has surpassed elsewhere. The pathos of her farewell to her two little Lesbian friends, and the gesture with which she drained the poison cup, linger in the memory, refusing to give up their places to less potent details. I first heard Debussy's lyric drama, _Pelléas et Mélisande_, at the Opéra-Comique, with Miss Garden as the principal interpreter. It is generally considered the greatest achievement of her mimic art. Somehow by those means at the command of a fine artist, she subdued her very definite personality and moulded it into the vague and subtle personage created by Maurice Maeterlinck. Even great artists grasp at straws for assistance, and it is interesting to know that to Miss Garden a wig is the all important thing. "Once I have donned the wig of a character, I am that character," she told me once. "It would be difficult for me to go on the stage in my own hair." Nevertheless, I believe she has occasionally inconsistently done so as Louise. In Miss Garden's score of _Pelléas_ Debussy has written, "In the future, others may sing Mélisande, but you alone will remain the woman and the artist I had hardly dared hope for." It must be remembered, however, that composers are notoriously fickle; that they prefer having their operas given in any form rather than not at all; that ink is cheap and musicians prolific in sentiments. In how many _Manon_ scores did Massenet write his tender eternal finalities? Perhaps little Maggie Teyte, who imitated Mary Garden's Mélisande as Elsie Janis imitates Sarah Bernhardt, cherishes a dedicated score now. Memory tells me I have seen such a score, but memory is sometimes a false jade. In her faded mediæval gowns, with her long plaits of golden hair,--in the first scene she wore it loose,--Mary Garden became at once in the spectator's mind the princess of enchanted castles, the cymophanous heroine of a _féerie_, the dream of a poet's tale. In gesture and in musical speech, in tone-colour, she was faithful to the first wonderful impression of the eye. There has been in our day no more perfect example of characterization offered on the lyric stage than Mary Garden's lovely Mélisande.... _Ne me touchez pas!_ became the cry of a terrified child, a real protestation of innocence. _Je ne suis pas heureuse ici_, was uttered with a pathos of expression which drove its helplessness into our hearts. The scene at the fountain with Pelléas, in which Mélisande loses her ring, was played with such delicate shading, such poetic imagination, that one could almost crown the interpreter as the creator, and the death scene was permeated with a fragile, simple beauty as compelling as that which Carpaccio put into his picture of _Santa Ursula_, a picture indeed which Miss Garden's performance brought to mind more than once. If she sought inspiration from the art of the painter for her delineation, it was not to Rossetti and Burne-Jones that she went. Rather did she gather some of the soft bloom from the paintings of Bellini, Carpaccio, Giotto, Cimabue ... especially Botticelli; had not the spirit and the mood of the two frescos from the Villa Lemmi in the Louvre come to life in this gentle representation? Before she appeared as Mélisande in New York, Miss Garden was a little doubtful of the probable reception of the play here. She was surprised and delighted with the result, for the drama was presented in the late season of 1907-08 at the Manhattan Opera House no less than seven times to very large audiences. The singer talked to me before the event: "It took us four years to establish _Pelléas et Mélisande_ in the répertoire of the Opéra-Comique. At first the public listened with disfavour or indecision, and performances could only be given once in two weeks. As a contrast I might mention the immediate success of _Aphrodite_, which I sang three or four times a week until fifty representations had been achieved, without appearing in another rôle. _Pelléas_ was a different matter. The mystic beauty of the poet's mood and the revolutionary procedures of the musician were not calculated to touch the great public at once. Indeed, we had to teach our audiences to enjoy it. Americans who, I am told, are fond of Maeterlinck, may appreciate its very manifest beauty at first hearing, but they didn't in Paris. At the early representations, individuals whistled and made cat-calls. One night three young men in the first row of the orchestra whistled through an entire scene. I don't believe those young men will ever forget the way I looked at them.... But after each performance it was the same: the applause drowned out the hisses. The balconies and galleries were the first to catch the spirit of the piece, and gradually it grew in public favour, and became a success, that is, comparatively speaking. _Pelléas et Mélisande_, like many another work of true beauty, appeals to a special public and, consequently, the number of performances has always been limited, and perhaps always will be. I do not anticipate that it will crowd from popular favour such operas as _Werther_, _La Vie de Bohème_ and _Carmen_, each of which is included in practically every week's répertoire at the Opéra-Comique. [Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS MÉLISANDE _from a photograph by Davis and Eickemeyer (1908)_] "We interpreters of Debussy's lyric drama were naturally very proud, because we felt that we were assisting in the making of musical history. Maeterlinck, by the way, has never seen the opera. He wished his wife, Georgette Leblanc, to 'create' the rôle of Mélisande, but Debussy and Carré had chosen me, and the poet did not have his way. He wrote an open letter to the newspapers of Paris in which he frankly expressed his hope that the work would fail. Later, when composers approached him in regard to setting his dramas to music, he made it a condition that his wife should sing them. She did appear as Ariane, you will remember, but Lucienne Bréval first sang Monna Vanna, and Maeterlinck's wrath again vented itself in pronunciamentos." Miss Garden spoke of the settings. "The _décor_ should be dark and sombre. Mrs. Campbell set the play in the Renaissance period, an epoch flooded with light and charm. I think she was wrong. Absolute latitude is permitted the stage director, as Maeterlinck has made no restrictions in the book. The director of the Opéra at Brussels followed Mrs. Campbell's example, and when I appeared in the work there I felt that I was singing a different drama." One afternoon in the autumn of 1908, when I was Paris correspondent of the "New York Times," I received the following telegram from Miss Garden: "Venez ce soir à 5-1/2 chez Mlle. Chasles 112 Boulevard Malesherbes me voir en Salome." It was late in the day when the message came to me, and I had made other plans, but you may be sure I put them all aside. A _petit-bleu_ or two disposed of my engagements, and I took a fiacre in the blue twilight of the Paris afternoon for the _salle de danse_ of Mlle. Chasles. On my way I recollected how some time previously Miss Garden had informed me of her intention of interpreting the Dance of the Seven Veils herself, and how she had attempted to gain the co-operation of Maraquita, the ballet mistress of the Opéra-Comique, a plan which she was forced to abandon, owing to some rapidly revolving wheels of operatic intrigue. So the new Salome went to Mlle. Chasles, who sixteen years ago was delighting the patrons of the Opéra-Comique with her charming dancing. She it was who, materially assisted by Miss Garden herself, arranged the dance, dramatically significant in gesture and step, which the singer performed at the climax of Richard Strauss's music drama. Mlle. Chasles's _salle de danse_ I discovered to be a large square room; the floor had a rake like that of the Opéra stage in Paris. There were footlights, and seats in front of them for spectators. The walls were hung with curious old prints and engravings of famous dancers, Mlle. Sallé, La Camargo, Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi, and Cerito. This final rehearsal--before the rehearsals in New York which preceded her first appearance in the part anywhere at the Manhattan Opera House--was witnessed by André Messager, who intended to mount _Salome_ at the Paris Opéra the following season, Mlle. Chasles, an accompanist, a maid, a hair-dresser, and myself. I noted that Miss Garden's costume differed in a marked degree from those her predecessors had worn. For the entrance of Salome she had provided a mantle of bright orange shimmering stuff, embroidered with startling azure and emerald flowers and sparkling with spangles. Under this she wore a close-fitting garment of netted gold, with designs in rubies and rhinestones, which fell from somewhere above the waistline to her ankles. This garment was also removed for the dance, and Miss Garden emerged in a narrow strip of flesh-coloured tulle. Her arms, shoulders, and legs were bare. She wore a red wig, the hair falling nearly to her waist (later she changed this detail and wore the cropped wig which became identified with her impersonation of the part). Two jewels, an emerald on one little finger, a ruby on the other, completed her decoration. The seven veils were of soft, clinging tulle. Swathed in these veils, she began the dance at the back of the small stage. Only her eyes were visible. Terrible, slow ... she undulated forward, swaying gracefully, and dropped the first veil. What followed was supposed to be the undoing of the jaded Herod. I was moved by this spectacle at the time, and subsequently this pantomimic dance was generally referred to as the culminating moment in her impersonation of Salome. On this occasion, I remember, she proved to us that the exertion had not fatigued her, by singing the final scene of the music drama, while André Messager played the accompaniment on the piano. I did not see Mary Garden's impetuous and highly curious interpretation of the strange eastern princess until a full year later, as I remained in Paris during the extent of the New York opera season. The following autumn, however, I heard _Salome_ in its second season at the Manhattan Opera House--and I was disappointed. Nervous curiosity seemed to be the consistent note of this hectic interpretation. The singer was never still; her use of gesture was untiring. To any one who had not seen her in other parts, the actress must have seemed utterly lacking in repose. This was simply her means, however, of suggesting the intense nervous perversity of Salome. Mary Garden could not have seen Nijinsky in _Scheherazade_ at this period, and yet the performances were astonishingly similar in intention. But the Strauss music and the Wilde drama demand a more voluptuous and sensual treatment, it would seem to me, than the suggestion of monkey-love which absolutely suited Nijinsky's part. However, the general opinion (as often happens) ran counter to mine, and, aside from the reservation that Miss Garden's voice was unable to cope with the music, the critics, on the whole, gave her credit for an interesting performance. Indeed, in this music drama she made one of the great popular successes of her career, a career which has been singularly full of appreciated achievements. Chicago saw Mary Garden in _Salome_ a year later, and Chicago gasped, as New York had gasped when the drama was performed at the Metropolitan Opera House. The police--no less an authority--put a ban on future performances at the Auditorium. Miss Garden was not pleased, and she expressed her displeasure in the frankest terms. I received at that time a series of characteristic telegrams. One of them read: "My art is going through the torture of slow death. Oh Paris, splendeur de mes desirs!" It was with the (then) Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Company that Miss Garden made her first experiment with opera in English, earning thereby the everlasting gratitude and admiration--which she already possessed in no small measure--of Charles Henry Meltzer. She was not sanguine before the event. In January, 1911, she said to me: "No, malgré Tito Ricordi, NO! I don't believe in opera in English, I never have believed in it, and I don't think I ever shall believe in it. Of course I'm willing to be convinced. You see, in the first place, I think all music dramas should be sung in the languages in which they are written; well, that makes it impossible to sing anything in the current répertoire in English, doesn't it? The only hope for opera in English, so far as I can see it, lies in America or England producing a race of composers, and they haven't it in them. It isn't in the blood. Composition needs Latin blood, or something akin to it; the Anglo-Saxon or the American can't write music, great music, at least not yet.... I doubt if any of us alive to-day will live to hear a great work written to a libretto in our own language. "Now I am going to sing Victor Herbert's _Natoma_, in spite of what I have just told you, because I don't want to have it said that I have done anything to hinder what is now generally known as 'the cause.' For the first time a work by a composer who may be regarded as American is to be given a chance with the best singers, with a great orchestra, and a great conductor, in the leading opera house in America--perhaps the leading opera house anywhere. It seems to me that every one who can should put his shoulder to this kind of wheel and set it moving. I shall be better pleased than anybody else if _Natoma_ proves a success and paves the way for the successful production of other American lyric dramas. Of course _Natoma_ cannot be regarded as 'grand opera.' It is not music, like _Tristan_, for instance. It is more in the style of the lighter operas which are given in Paris, but it possesses much melodic charm and it may please the public. I shall sing it and I shall try to do it just as well as I have tried to do Salome and Thais and Mélisande." She kept her word, and out of the hodge-podge of an opera book which stands unrivalled for its stiltedness of speech, she succeeded in creating one of her most notable characters. She threw vanity aside in making up for the rôle, painting her face and body a dark brown; she wore two long straight braids of hair, depending on either side from the part in the middle of her forehead. Her garment was of buckskin, and moccasins covered her feet. She crept rather than walked. The story, as might be imagined, was one of love and self-sacrifice, touching here and there on the preserves of _L'Africaine_ and _Lakmé_, the whole concluding with the voluntary immersion of Natoma in a convent. Fortunately, the writer of the book remembered that Miss Garden had danced in _Salome_ and he introduced a similar pantomimic episode in _Natoma_, a dagger dance, which was one of the interesting points in the action. The music suited her voice; she delivered a good deal of it almost _parlando_, and the vapid speeches of Mr. Redding tripped so audibly off her tongue that their banality became painfully apparent. The story has often been related how Massenet, piqued by the frequently repeated assertion that his muse was only at his command when he depicted female frailty, determined to write an opera in which only one woman was to appear, and she was to be both mute and a virgin! _Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_, perhaps the most poetically conceived of Massenet's lyric dramas, was the result of this decision. Until Mr. Hammerstein made up his mind to produce the opera, the rôle of Jean had invariably been sung by a man. Mr. Hammerstein thought that Americans would prefer a woman in the part. He easily enlisted the interest of Miss Garden in this scheme, and Massenet, it is said, consented to make certain changes in the score. The taste of the experiment was doubtful, but it was one for which there had been much precedent. Nor is it necessary to linger on Sarah Bernhardt's assumption of the rôles of Hamlet, Shylock, and the Duc de Reichstadt. In the "golden period of song," Orfeo was not the only man's part sung by a woman. Mme. Pasta frequently appeared as Romeo in Zingarelli's opera and as Tancredi, and she also sang Otello on one occasion when Henrietta Sontag was the Desdemona. The rôle of Orfeo, I believe, was written originally for a _castrato_, and later, when the work was refurbished for production at what was then the Paris Opéra, Gluck allotted the rôle to a tenor. Now it is sung by a woman as invariably as are Stephano in _Roméo et Juliette_ and Siebel in _Faust_. There is really more excuse for the masquerade of sex in Massenet's opera. The timid, pathetic little juggler, ridiculous in his inefficiency, is a part for which tenors, as they exist to-day, seem manifestly unsuited. And certainly no tenor could hope to make the appeal in the part that Mary Garden did. In the second act she found it difficult to entirely conceal the suggestion of her sex under the monk's robe, but the sad little figure of the first act and the adorable juggler of the last, performing his imbecile tricks before Our Lady's altar, were triumphant details of an artistic impersonation; on the whole, one of Miss Garden's most moving performances. Miss Garden has sung _Faust_ many times. Are there many sopranos who have not, whatever the general nature of their répertoires? She is very lovely in the rôle of Marguerite. I have indicated elsewhere her skill in endowing the part with poetry and imaginative force without making ducks and drakes of the traditions. In the garden scene she gave an exhibition of her power to paint a fanciful fresco on a wall already surcharged with colour, a charming, wistful picture. I have never seen any one else so effective in the church and prison scenes; no one else, it seems to me, has so tenderly conceived the plight of the simple German girl. The opera of _Roméo et Juliette_ does not admit of such serious dramatic treatment, and Thomas's _Hamlet_, as a play, is absolutely ridiculous. After the mad scene, for example, the stage directions read that the ballet "waltzes sadly away." I saw Mary Garden play Ophélie once at the Paris Opéra, and I must admit that I was amused; I think she was amused too! I was equally amused some years later when I heard Titta Ruffo sing the opera. I am afraid I cannot take _Hamlet_ as a lyric drama seriously. In Paris, Violetta is one of Miss Garden's popular rôles. When she came to America she fancied she might sing the part here. "Did you ever see a thin Violetta?" she asked the reporters. But so far she has not appeared in _La Traviata_ on this side of the Atlantic, although Robert Hichens wrote me that he had recently heard her in this opera at the Paris Opéra-Comique. He added that her impersonation was most interesting. To me one of the most truly fascinating of Miss Garden's characterizations was her Fanny Legrand in Daudet's play, made into an opera by Massenet. _Sapho_, as a lyric drama, did not have a success in New York. I think only three performances were given at the Manhattan Opera House. The professional writers, with one exception, found nothing to praise in Miss Garden's remarkable impersonation of Fanny. And yet, as I have said, it seemed to me one of the most moving of her interpretations. In the opening scenes she was the trollop, no less, that Fanny was. The pregnant line of the first act: _Artiste?.... Non.... Tant mieux. J'ai contre tout artiste une haine implacable!_ was spoken in a manner which bared the woman's heart to the sophisticated. The scene in which she sang the song of the _Magali_ (the Provençal melody which Mistral immortalized in a poem, which Gounod introduced into _Mireille_, and which found its way, inexplicably, into the ballet of Berlioz's _Les Troyens à Carthage_), playing her own accompaniment, to Jean, was really too wonderful a caricature of the harlot. Abel Faivre and Paul Guillaume have done no better. The scene in which Fanny reviles her former associates for telling Jean the truth about her past life was revolting in its realism. If Miss Garden spared no details in making us acquainted with Fanny's vulgarity, she was equally fair to her in other respects. She seemed to be continually guiding the spectator with comment something like this: "See how this woman can suffer, and she is a woman, like any other woman." How small the means, the effect considered, by which she produced the pathos of the last scene. At the one performance I saw half the people in the audience were in tears. There was a dismaying display of handkerchiefs. Sapho sat in the window, smoking a cigarette, surveying the room in which she had been happy with Jean, and preparing to say good-by. In the earlier scenes her cigarette had aided her in making vulgar gestures. Now she relied on it to tell the pitiful tale of the woman's loneliness. How she clung to that cigarette, how she sipped comfort from it, and how tiny it was! Mary Garden's Sapho, which may never be seen on the stage again (Massenet's music is perhaps his weakest effort), was an extraordinary piece of stage art. That alone would have proclaimed her an interpreter of genius. [Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS FANNY LEGRAND _from a photograph by Mishkin (1909)_] George Moore, somewhere, evolves a fantastic theory that a writer's name may have determined his talent: "Dickens--a mean name, a name without atmosphere, a black out-of-elbows, back-stairs name, a name good enough for loud comedy and louder pathos. John Milton--a splendid name for a Puritan poet. Algernon Charles Swinburne--only a name for a reed through which every wind blows music.... Now it is a fact that we find no fine names among novelists. We find only colourless names, dry-as-dust names, or vulgar names, round names like pot-hats, those names like mackintoshes, names that are squashy as goloshes. We have charged Scott with a lack of personal passion, but could personal passion dwell in such a jog-trot name--a round-faced name, a snub-nosed, spectacled, pot-bellied name, a placid, beneficent, worthy old bachelor name, a name that evokes all conventional ideas and formulas, a Grub Street name, a nerveless name, an arm-chair name, an old oak and Abbotsford name? And Thackeray's name is a poor one--the syllables clatter like plates. 'We shall want the carriage at half-past two, Thackeray.' Dickens is surely a name for a page boy. George Eliot's real name, Marian Evans, is a chaw-bacon, thick-loined name." So far as I know Mr. Moore has not expanded his theory to include a discussion of acrobats, revivalists, necromancers, free versifiers, camel drivers, paying tellers, painters, pugilists, architects, and opera singers. Many of the latter have taken no chances with their own names. Both Pauline and Maria Garcia adopted the names of their husbands. Garcia possibly suggests a warrior, but do Malibran and Viardot make us think of music? Nellie Melba's name evokes an image of a cold marble slab but if she had retained her original name of Mitchell it would have been no better ... Marcella Sembrich, a name made famous by the genius and indefatigable labour of its bearer, surely not a good name for an operatic soprano. Her own name, Kochanska, sounds Polish and patriotic ... Luisa Tetrazzini, a silly, fussy name ... Emma Calvé.... Since _Madame Bovary_ the name Emma suggests a solid _bourgeois_ foundation, a country family.... Emma Eames, a chilly name ... a wind from the East! Was it Philip Hale who remarked that she sang _Who is Sylvia?_ as if the woman were not on her calling list?... Lillian Nordica, an evasion. Lillian Norton is a sturdy work-a-day name, suggesting a premonition of a thousand piano rehearsals for Isolde ... Johanna Gadski, a coughing raucous name ... Geraldine Farrar, tomboyish and impertinent, Melrose with a French sauce ... Edyth Walker, a militant suffragette name.... Surely Lucrezia Bori and Maria Barrientos are ill-made names for singers ... Adelina Patti--a patty-cake, patty-cake, baker's man, sort of a name ... Alboni, strong-hearted ... Scalchi ... ugh! Further evidence could be brought forward to prove that singers succeed in spite of their names rather than because of them ... until we reach the name of Mary Garden.... The subtle fragrance of this name has found its way into many hearts. Since Nell Gwyn no such scented cognomen, redolent of cuckoo's boots, London pride, blood-red poppies, purple fox-gloves, lemon stocks, and vermillion zinnias, has blown its delicate odour across our scene.... Delightful and adorable Mary Garden, the fragile Thais, pathetic Jean ... unforgettable Mélisande.... _October 10, 1916._ Feodor Chaliapine "_Do I contradict myself?_ _Very well, then, I contradict myself;_" Walt Whitman. Feodor Chaliapine, the Russian bass singer, appeared in New York at the Metropolitan Opera House, then under the direction of Heinrich Conried, during the season of 1907-08. He made his American début on Wednesday evening, November 20, 1907, when he impersonated the title part of Boito's opera, _Mefistofele_. He was heard here altogether seven times in this rôle; six times as Basilio in _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_; three times as Méphistophélès in Gounod's _Faust_; three times as Leporello in _Don Giovanni_; and at several Sunday night concerts. He also appeared with the Metropolitan Opera Company in Philadelphia, and possibly elsewhere. I first met this remarkable artist in the dining-room of the Hotel Savoy on a rainy Sunday afternoon, soon after his arrival in America. His personality made a profound impression on me, as may be gathered from some lines from an article I wrote which appeared the next morning in the "New York Times": "The newest operatic acquisition to arrive in New York is neither a prima donna soprano, nor an Italian tenor with a high C, but a big, broad-shouldered boy, with a kindly smile and a deep bass voice, ... thirty-four years old.... 'I spik English,' were his first words. 'How do you do? et puis good-by, et puis I drrrink, you drrink, he drrrrinks, et puis I love you!' ... Mr. Chaliapine looked like a great big boy, a sophomore in college, who played football." (Pitts Sanborn soon afterwards felicitously referred to him as _ce doux géant_, a name often applied to Turgeniev.) I have given the extent of the Russian's English vocabulary at this time, and I soon discovered that it was not accident which had caused him first to learn to conjugate the verb "to drink"; another English verb he learned very quickly was "to eat." Some time later, after his New York début, I sought him out again to urge him to give a synopsis of his original conception for a performance of Gounod's _Faust_. The interview which ensued was the longest I have ever had with any one. It began at eleven o'clock in the morning and lasted until a like hour in the evening,--it might have lasted much longer,--and during this whole time we sat at table in Mr. Chaliapine's own chamber at the Brevoort, whither he had repaired to escape steam heat, while he consumed vast quantities of food and drink. I remember a detail of six plates of onion soup. I have never seen any one else eat so much or so continuously, or with so little lethargic effect. Indeed, intemperance seemed only to make him more light-hearted, ebullient, and Brobdingnagian. Late in the afternoon he placed his own record of the _Marseillaise_ in the victrola, and then amused himself (and me) by singing the song in unison with the record, in an attempt to drown out the mechanical sound. He succeeded. The effect in this moderately small hotel room can only be faintly conceived. Exuberant is the word which best describes Chaliapine off the stage. I remember another occasion a year later when I met him, just returned from South America, on the Boulevard in Paris. He grasped my hand warmly and begged me to come to see his zoo. He had, in fact, transformed the _salle de bain_ in his suite at the Grand Hotel into a menagerie. There were two monkeys, a cockatoo, and many other birds of brilliant plumage, while two large alligators dozed in the tub. My second interview with this singer took place a day or so before he returned to Europe. He had been roughly handled by the New York critics, treatment, it is said, which met with the approval of Heinrich Conried, who had no desire to retain in his company a bass who demanded sixteen hundred dollars a night, a high salary for a soprano or a tenor. Stung by this defeat--entirely imaginary, by the way, as his audiences here were as large and enthusiastic as they are anywhere--the only one, in fact, which he has suffered in his career up to date, Chaliapine was extremely frank in his attitude. My interview, published on the first page of the "New York Times," created a small sensation in operatic circles. The meat of it follows. Chaliapine is speaking: "Criticism in New York is not profound. It is the most difficult thing in the world to be a good critical writer. I am a singer, but the critic has no right to regard me merely as a singer. He must observe my acting, my make-up, everything. And he must understand and know about these things. "Opera is not a fixed art. It is not like music, poetry, sculpture, painting, or architecture, but a combination of all of these. And the critic who goes to the opera should have studied all these arts. While a study of these arts is essential, there is something else that the critic cannot get by study, and that is the soul to understand. That he must be born with. "I am not a professional critic, but I could be. I have associated with musicians, painters, and writers, and I know something of all these arts. As a consequence when I read a criticism, I see immediately what is true and what is false. Very often I think a man's tongue is his worst enemy. However, sometimes a man keeps quiet to conceal his mental weakness. We have a Russian proverb which says, 'Keep quiet; don't tease the geese.' You can't judge of a man's intelligence until he begins to talk or write. "I have been sometimes adversely criticized during the course of my artistic life. The most profound of these criticisms have taught me to correct my faults. But I have learned nothing from the criticisms I have received in New York. After searching my inner consciousness, I find they are not based on a true understanding of my artistic purposes. For instance, the critics found my Don Basilio a dirty, repulsive creature. One man even said that I was offensive to another singer on the stage! Don Basilio is a Spanish priest; it is a type I know well. He is not like the modern American priest, clean and well-groomed; he is dirty and unkempt; he is a beast, and that is what I make him, a comic beast, but the critics would prefer a softer version.... It is unfair, indeed, to judge me at all on the parts I have sung here, outside of Mefistofele, for most of my best rôles are in Russian operas, which are not in the répertoire of the Metropolitan Opera House. "The contemporary direction of this theatre believes in tradition. It is afraid of anything new. There is no movement. It has not the courage to produce novelties, and the artists are prevented from giving original conceptions of old rôles. "New York is a vast seething inferno of business. Nothing but business! The men are so tired when they get through work that they want recreation and sleep. They don't want to study. They don't want to be thrilled or aroused. They are content to listen forever to _Faust_ and _Lucia_. "In Europe it is different. There you will find the desire for novelty in the theatre. There is a keen interest in the production of a new work. It is all right to enjoy the old things, but one should see life. The audience at the Metropolitan Opera House reminds me of a family that lives in the country and won't travel. It is satisfied with the same view of the same garden forever...." Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapine was born February 13 (February 1, old style), 1873, in Kazan; he is of peasant descent. It is said that he is almost entirely self-educated, both musically and intellectually. He worked for a time in a shoemaker's shop, sang in the archbishop's choir and, at the age of seventeen, joined a local operetta company. He seems to have had difficulty in collecting a salary from this latter organization, and often worked as a railway porter in order to keep alive. Later he joined a travelling theatrical troupe, which visited the Caucasus. In 1892, Oussatov, a singer, heard Chaliapine in Tiflis, gave him some lessons, and got him an engagement. He made his début in opera in Glinka's _A Life for the Czar_ (according to Mrs. Newmarch; my notes tell me that it was Gounod's _Faust_). He sang at the Summer and Panaevsky theatres in Petrograd in 1894; and the following year he was engaged at the Maryinsky Theatre, but the directors did not seem to realize that they had captured one of the great figures of the contemporary lyric stage, and he was not permitted to sing very often. In 1896, Mamantov, lawyer and millionaire, paid the fine which released the bass from the Imperial Opera House, and invited him to join the Private Opera Company in Moscow, where Chaliapine immediately proved his worth. He became the idol of the public, and it was not unusual for those who admired striking impersonations on the stage to journey from Petrograd to see and hear him. In 1899 he was engaged to sing at the Imperial Opera in Moscow at sixty thousand roubles a year. Since then he has appeared in various European capitals, and in North and South America. He has sung in Milan, Paris, London, Monte Carlo, and Buenos Aires. During a visit to Milan he married, and at the time of his New York engagement his family included five children. The number may have increased. Chaliapine's répertoire is extensive but, on the whole, it is a strange répertoire to western Europe and America, consisting, as it does, almost entirely of Russian operas. In Milan, New York, and Monte Carlo, where he has appeared with Italian and French companies, his most famous rôle is Mefistofele. Leporello he sang for the first time in New York. Basilio and Méphistophélès in _Faust_ he has probably enacted as often in Russia as elsewhere. He "created" the title part of Massenet's _Don Quichotte_ at Monte Carlo (Vanni Marcoux sang the rôle later in Paris). With the Russian Opera Company, organized in connection with the Russian Ballet by Serge de Diaghilew, Chaliapine has sung in London, Paris, and other European capitals in Moussorgsky's _Boris Godunow_ and _Khovanchina_, Rimsky-Korsakow's _Ivan the Terrible_ (originally called _The Maid of Pskov_), and Borodine's _Prince Igor_, in which he appeared both as Prince Galitzky and as the Tartar Chieftain. His répertoire further includes Rubinstein's _Demon_, Rimsky-Korsakow's _Mozart and Salieri_ (the rôle of Salieri), Glinka's _A Life for the Czar_, Dargomijsky's _The Roussalka_, Rachmaninow's _Aleko_, and Gretchaninow's _Dobrynia Nikitich_. This list is by no means complete. I first saw Chaliapine on the stage in New York, where his original ideas and tremendously vital personality ran counter to every tradition of the Metropolitan Opera House. The professional writers about the opera, as a whole, would have none of him. Even his magnificently pictorial Mefistofele was condemned, and I think Pitts Sanborn was the only man in a critic's chair--I was a reporter at this period and had no opportunity for expressing my opinions in print--who appreciated his Basilio at its true value, and _Il Barbiere_ is Sanborn's favourite opera. His account of the proceedings makes good reading at this date. I quote from the "New York Globe," December 13, 1907: "The performance that was in open defiance of traditions, that was glaringly and recklessly unorthodox, that set at naught the accepted canons of good taste, but which justified itself by its overwhelming and all-conquering good humour, was the Basilio of Mr. Chaliapine. With his great natural stature increased by art to Brobdingnagian proportions, a face that had gazed on the vodka at its blackest, and a cassock that may be seen but not described, he presented a figure that might have been imagined by the English Swift or the French Rabelais. It was no voice or singing that made the audience re-demand the 'Calumny Song.' It was the compelling drollery of those comedy hands. You may be assured, persuaded, convinced that you want your Rossini straight or not at all. But when you see the Chaliapine Basilio you'll do as the rest do--roar. It is as sensational in its way as the Chaliapine Mephisto." It was hard to reconcile Chaliapine's conception of Méphistophélès with the Gounod music, and I do not think the Russian himself had any illusions about his performance of _Leporello_. It was not his type of part, and he was as good in it, probably, as Olive Fremstad would be as Nedda. Even great artists have their limitations, perhaps more of them than the lesser people. But his Mefistofele, to my way of thinking,--and the anxious reader who has not seen this impersonation may be assured that I am far from being alone in it,--was and is a masterpiece of stage-craft. However, opinions differ. Under the alluring title, "Devils Polite and Rude," W. J. Henderson, in the "New York Sun," Sunday, November 24, 1907, after Chaliapine's first appearance here in Boito's opera, took his fling at the Russian bass (was it Mr. Henderson or another who later referred to Chaliapine as "a cossack with a cold"?): "He makes of the fiend a demoniac personage, a seething cauldron of rabid passions. He is continually snarling and barking. He poses in writhing attitudes of agonized impotence. He strides and gestures, grimaces and roars. All this appears to superficial observers to be tremendously dramatic. And it is, as noted, not without its significance. Perhaps it may be only a personal fancy, yet the present writer much prefers a devil who is a gentleman.... But one thing more remains to be said about the first display of Mr. Chaliapine's powers. How long did he study the art of singing? Surely not many years. Such an uneven and uncertain emission of tone is seldom heard even on the Metropolitan Opera House stage, where there is a wondrous quantity of poorly grounded singing. The splendid song, _Son lo Spirito Che Nega_, was not sung at all in the strict interpretation of the word. It was delivered, to be sure, but in a rough and barbaric style. Some of the tones disappeared somewhere in the rear spaces of the basso's capacious throat, while others were projected into the auditorium like stones from a catapult. There was much strenuosity and little art in the performance. And it was much the same with the rest of the singing of the rôle." Chaliapine calls himself "the enemy of tradition." When he was singing at the Opera in Petrograd in 1896 he found that every detail of every characterization was prescribed. He was directed to make his entrances in a certain way; he was ordered to stand in a certain place on the stage. Whenever he attempted an innovation the stage director said, "Don't do that." Young singer though he was, he rebelled and asked, "Why not?" And the reply always came, "You must follow the tradition of the part. Monsieur Chose and Signor Cosi have always done thus and so, and you must do likewise." "But I feel differently about the rôle," protested the bass. However, it was not until he went to Moscow that he was permitted to break with tradition. From that time on he began to elaborate his characterizations, assisted, he admits, by Russian painters who gave him his first ideas about costumes and make-up. He once told me that his interpretation of a part was never twice the same. He does not study his rôles in solitude, poring over a score, as many artists do. Rather, ideas come to him when he eats or drinks, or even when he is on the stage. He depends to an unsafe degree--unsafe for other singers who may be misled by his success--on inspiration to carry him through, once he begins to sing. "When I sing a character I am that character; I am no longer Chaliapine. So whatever I do must be in keeping with what the character would do." This is true to so great an extent that you may take it for granted, when you see Chaliapine in a new rôle, that he will envelop the character with atmosphere from his first entrance, perhaps even without the aid of a single gesture. His entrance on horseback in _Ivan the Terrible_ is a case in point. Before he has sung a note he has projected the personality of the cruel czar into the auditorium. "As an actor," writes Mrs. Newmarch in "The Russian Opera," "his greatest quality appears to me to be his extraordinary gift of identification with the character he is representing. Shaliapin (so does Mrs. Newmarch phonetically transpose his name into Roman letters) does not merely throw himself into the part, to use a phrase commonly applied to the histrionic art. He seems to disappear, to empty himself of all personality, that Boris Godunov or Ivan the Terrible may be reincarnated for us. While working out his own conception of a part, unmoved by convention or opinion, Shaliapin neglects no accessory study that can heighten the realism of his interpretation. It is impossible to see him as Ivan the Terrible, or Boris, without realizing that he is steeped in the history of those periods, which live again at his will. In the same way he has studied the masterpieces of Russian art to good purpose, as all must agree who have compared the scene of Ivan's frenzied grief over the corpse of Olga, in the last scene of Rimsky-Korsakow's opera, with Repin's terrible picture of the Tsar, clasping in his arms the body of the son whom he has just killed in a fit of insane anger. The agonizing remorse and piteous senile grief have been transformed from Repin's canvas to Shaliapin's living picture, without the revolting suggestion of the shambles which mars the painter's work. Sometimes, too, Shaliapin will take a hint from the living model. His dignified make-up as the Old Believer Dositheus, in Moussorgsky's _Khovanstchina_, owes not a little to the personality of Vladimir Stassov." Chaliapine, it seems to me, has realized more completely than any other contemporary singer the opportunities afforded for the presentation of character on the lyric stage. In costume, make-up, gesture, the simulation of emotion, he is a consummate and painstaking artist. As I have suggested, he has limitations. Who, indeed, has not? Grandeur, nobility, impressiveness, and, by inversion, sordidness, bestiality, and awkward ugliness fall easily within his ken. The murder-haunted Boris Godunow is perhaps his most overpowering creation. From first to last it is a masterpiece of scenic art; those who have seen him in this part will not be satisfied with substitutes. His Ivan is almost equally great. His Dositheus, head of the Old Believers in _Khovanchina_, is a sincere and effective characterization along entirely different lines. Although this character, in a sense, dominates Moussorgsky's great opera, there is little opportunity for the display of histrionism which Boris presents to the singing actor. By almost insignificant details of make-up and gesture the bass creates before your eyes a living, breathing man, a man of fire and faith. No one would recognize in this kind old creature, terrible, to be sure, in his stern piety, the nude Mefistofele surveying the pranks of the motley rabble in the Brocken scene of Boito's opera, a flamboyant exposure of personality to be compared with Mary Garden's Thais, Act I. As the Tartar chieftain in _Prince Igor_, he has but few lines to sing, but his gestures during the performance of the ballet, which he has arranged for his guest, in fact his actions throughout the single act in which this character appears, are stamped on the memory as definitely as a figure in a Persian miniature. And the noble scorn with which, as Prince Galitzky, he bows to the stirrup of Prince Igor at the close of the prologue to this opera, still remains a fixed picture in my mind. There is also the pathetic Don Quichotte of Massenet's poorest opera. All great portraits these, to which I must add the funny, dirty, expectorating Spanish priest of _Il Barbiere_. [Illustration: FEODOR CHALIAPINE AS MEFISTOFELE] Chaliapine is the possessor of a noble voice which sometimes he uses by main strength. He has never learned to sing, in the conventional meaning of the phrase. He must have been singing for some time before he studied at all, and at Tiflis he does not seem to have spent many months on his voice. In the circumstances it is an extremely tractable organ, at least always capable of doing his bidding, dramatically speaking. Indeed, there are many who consider him a great artist in his manipulation of it. Mrs. Newmarch quotes Herbert Heyner on this point: "His diction floats on a beautiful cantilena, particularly in his _mezzo-voce_ singing, which--though one would hardly expect it from a singer endowed with such a noble bass voice--is one of the most telling features of his performance. There is never any striving after vocal effects, and his voice is always subservient to the words.... The atmosphere and tone-colour which Shaliapin imparts to his singing are of such remarkable quality that one feels his interpretation of Schubert's _Doppelgänger_ must of necessity be a thing of genius, unapproachable by other contemporary singers ... his method is based upon a thoroughly sound breath control, which produces such splendid _cantabile_ results. Every student should listen to this great singer, and profit by his art." My intention in placing before the eyes of my readers such contradictory accounts as may be found in this article has not been altogether ingenuous. The fact of the matter is that opinions differ on every matter of art, and on no point are they so various as on that which refers to interpretation. It may further be urged that the personality of Chaliapine is so marked and his method so direct that the variations of opinion are naturally expressed in somewhat violent language. For those, accustomed to the occidental operatic répertoire, who find it hard to understand how a bass could acquire such prominence, it may be explained that deep voices are both common and very popular in Russia. They may be heard in any Greek church, sustaining organ points a full octave below the notes to which our basses descend with trepidation. As a consequence, many of the Russian operas contain bass rôles of the first importance. In both of Moussorgsky's familiar operas, for example, the leading part is destined for a bass voice. _July 18, 1916._ Mariette Mazarin Sometimes the cause of an intense impression in the theatre apparently disappears, leaving "not a rack behind," beyond the trenchant memory of a few precious moments, inclining one to the belief that the whole adventure has been a dream, a particularly vivid dream, and that the characters therein have returned to such places in space as are assigned to dream personages by the makers of men. This reflection comes to me as, sitting before my typewriter, I attempt to recapture the spirit of the performances of Richard Strauss's music drama _Elektra_ at Oscar Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera House in New York. The work remains, if not in the répertoire of any opera house in my vicinity, at least deeply imbedded in my eardrum and, if need be, at any time I can pore again over the score, which is always near at hand. But of the whereabouts of Mariette Mazarin, the remarkable artist who contributed her genius to the interpretation of the crazed Greek princess, I know nothing. As she came to us unheralded, so she went away, after we who had seen her had enshrined her, tardily to be sure, in that small, slow-growing circle of those who have achieved eminence on the lyric stage. Before the beginning of the opera season of 1909-10, Marietta Mazarin was not even a name in New York. Even during a good part of that season she was recognized only as an able routine singer. She made her début here in _Aida_ and she sang Carmen and Louise without creating a furore, almost, indeed, without arousing attention of any kind, good or bad criticism. Had there been no production of _Elektra_ she would have passed into that long list of forgotten singers who appear here in leading rôles for a few months or a few years and who, when their time is up, vanish, never to be regretted, extolled, or recalled in the memory again. For the disclosure of Mme. Mazarin's true powers an unusual vehicle was required. _Elektra_ gave her her opportunity, and proved her one of the exceptional artists of the stage. I do not know many of the facts of Mariette Mazarin's career. She studied at the Paris Conservatoire; Leloir, of the Comédie Française, was her professor of acting. She made her début at the Paris Opéra as Aida; later she sang Louise and Carmen at the Opéra-Comique. After that she seems to have been a leading figure at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, where she appeared in _Alceste_, _Armide_, _Iphigénie en Tauride_ and _Iphigénie en Aulide_, even _Orphée_, the great Gluck répertoire. She has also sung Salome, the three Brünnhildes, Elsa in _Lohengrin_, Elisabeth in _Tannhäuser_, in Berlioz's _Prise de Troie_, _La Damnation de Faust_, _Les Huguenots_, _Grisélidis_, _Thais_, _Il Trovatore_, _Tosca_, _Manon Lescaut_, _Cavalleria Rusticana_, _Hérodiade_, _Le Cid_, and _Salammbô_. She has been heard at Nice, and probably on many another provincial French stage. At one time she was the wife of Léon Rothier, the French bass, who has been a member of the Metropolitan Opera Company for several seasons. Away from the theatre I remember her as a tall woman, rather awkward, but quick in gesture. Her hair was dark, and her eyes were dark and piercing. Her face was all angles; her features were sharp, and when conversing with her one could not but be struck with a certain eerie quality which seemed to give mystic colour to her expression. She was badly dressed, both from an æsthetic and a fashionable point of view. In a group of women you would pick her out to be a doctor, a lawyer, an _intellectuelle_. When I talked with her, impression followed impression--always I felt her intelligence, the play of her intellect upon the surfaces of her art, but always, too, I felt how narrow a chance had cast her lot upon the stage, how she easily might have been something else than a singing actress, how magnificently accidental her career was! She was, it would seem, an unusually gifted musician--at least for a singer,--with a physique and a nervous energy which enabled her to perform miracles. For instance, on one occasion she astonished even Oscar Hammerstein by replacing Lina Cavalieri as Salomé in _Hérodiade_, a rôle she had not previously sung for five years, at an hour's notice on the evening of an afternoon on which she had appeared as Elektra. On another occasion, when Mary Garden was ill she sang Louise with only a short forewarning. She told me that she had learned the music of Elektra between January 1, 1910, and the night of the first performance, January 31. She also told me that without any special effort on her part she had assimilated the music of the other two important feminine rôles in the opera, Chrysothemis and Klytæmnestra, and was quite prepared to sing them. Mme. Mazarin's vocal organ, it must be admitted, was not of a very pleasant quality at all times, although she employed it with variety and usually with taste. There was a good deal of subtle charm in her middle voice, but her upper voice was shrill and sometimes, when emitted forcefully, became in effect a shriek. Faulty intonation often played havoc with her musical interpretation, but do we not read that the great Mme. Pasta seldom sang an opera through without many similar slips from the pitch? _Aida_, of course, displayed the worst side of her talents. Her Carmen, it seemed to me, was in some ways a very remarkable performance; she appeared, in this rôle, to be possessed by a certain _diablerie_, a power of evil, which distinguished her from other Carmens, but this characterization created little comment or interest in New York. In _Louise_, especially in the third act, she betrayed an enmity for the pitch, but in the last act she was magnificent as an actress. In Santuzza she exploited her capacity for unreined intensity of expression. I have never seen her as Salome (in Richard Strauss's opera; her Massenetic Salomé was disclosed to us in New York), but I have a photograph of her in the rôle which might serve as an illustration for the "Méphistophéla" of Catulle Mendès. I can imagine no more sinister and depraved an expression, combined with such potent sexual attraction. It is a remarkable photograph, evoking as it does a succession of lustful ladies, and it is quite unpublishable. If she carried these qualities into her performance of the work, and there is every reason to believe that she did, the evenings on which she sang Salome must have been very terrible for her auditors, hours in which the Aristotle theory of Katharsis must have been amply proven. _Elektra_ was well advertised in New York. Oscar Hammerstein is as able a showman as the late P. T. Barnum, and he has devoted his talents to higher aims. Without his co-operation, I think it is likely that America would now be a trifle above Australia in its operatic experience. It is from Oscar Hammerstein that New York learned that all the great singers of the world were not singing at the Metropolitan Opera House, a matter which had been considered axiomatic before the redoubtable Oscar introduced us to Alessandro Bonci, Maurice Renaud, Charles Dalmores, Mary Garden, Luisa Tetrazzini, and others. With his productions of _Pelléas et Mélisande_, _Louise_, _Thais_, and other works new to us, he spurred the rival house to an activity which has been maintained ever since to a greater or less degree. New operas are now the order of the day--even with the Chicago and the Boston companies--rather than the exception. And without this impresario's courage and determination I do not think New York would have heard _Elektra_, at least not before its uncorked essence had quite disappeared. Lover of opera that he indubitably is, Oscar Hammerstein is by nature a showman, and he understands the psychology of the mob. Looking about for a sensation to stir the slow pulse of the New York opera-goer, he saw nothing on the horizon more likely to effect his purpose than _Elektra_. _Salome_, spurned by the Metropolitan Opera Company, had been taken to his heart the year before and, with Mary Garden's valuable assistance, he had found the biblical jade extremely efficacious in drawing shekels to his doors. He hoped to accomplish similar results with _Elektra_.... One of the penalties an inventor of harmonies pays is that his inventions become shopworn. A certain terrible atmosphere, a suggestion of vague dread, of horror, of rank incest, of vile murder, of sordid shame, was conveyed in _Elektra_ by Richard Strauss through the adroit use of what we call discords, for want of a better name. Discord at one time was defined as a combination of sounds that would eternally affront the musical ear. We know better now. Discord is simply the word to describe a never-before or seldom-used chord. Such a juxtaposition of notes naturally startles when it is first heard, but it is a mistake to presume that the effect is unpleasant, even in the beginning. Now it was by the use of sounds cunningly contrived to displease the ear that Strauss built up his atmosphere of ugliness in _Elektra_. When it was first performed, the scenes in which the half-mad Greek girl stalked the palace courtyard, and the queen with the blood-stained hands related her dreams, literally reeked with musical frightfulness. I have never seen or heard another music drama which so completely bowled over its first audiences, whether they were street-car conductors or musical pedants. These scenes even inspired a famous passage in "Jean-Christophe" (I quote from the translation of Gilbert Cannon): "Agamemnon was neurasthenic and Achilles impotent; they lamented their condition at length and, naturally, their outcries produced no change. The energy of the drama was concentrated in the rôle of Iphigenia--a nervous, hysterical, and pedantic Iphigenia, who lectured the hero, declaimed furiously, laid bare for the audience her Nietzschian pessimism and, glutted with death, cut her throat, shrieking with laughter." But will _Elektra_ have the same effect on future audiences? I do not think so. Its terror has, in a measure, been dissipated. Schoenberg, Strawinsky, and Ornstein have employed its discords--and many newer ones--for pleasanter purposes, and our ears are becoming accustomed to these assaults on the casual harmony of our forefathers. _Elektra_ will retain its place as a forerunner, and inevitably it will eventually be considered the most important of Strauss's operatic works, but it can never be listened to again in that same spirit of horror and repentance, with that feeling of utter repugnance, which it found easy to awaken in 1910. Perhaps all of us were a little better for the experience. An attendant at the opening ceremonies in New York can scarcely forget them. Cast under the spell by the early entrance of Elektra, wild-eyed and menacing, across the terrace of the courtyard of Agamemnon's palace, he must have remained with staring eyes and wide-flung ears, straining for the remainder of the evening to catch the message of this tale of triumphant and utterly holy revenge. The key of von Hofmannsthal's fine play was lost to some reviewers, as it was to Romain Rolland in the passage quoted above, who only saw in the drama a perversion of the Greek idea of Nemesis. That there was something very much finer in the theme, it was left for Bernard Shaw to discover. To him _Elektra_ expressed the regeneration of a race, the destruction of vice, ignorance, and poverty. The play was replete in his mind with sociological and political implications, and, as his views in the matter exactly coincide with my own, I cannot do better than to quote a few lines from them, including, as they do, his interesting prophecies regarding the possibility of war between England and Germany, unfortunately unfulfilled. Strauss could not quite prevent the war with his _Elektra_. Here is the passage: "What Hofmannsthal and Strauss have done is to take Klytæmnestra and Ægisthus, and by identifying them with everything evil and cruel, with all that needs must hate the highest when it sees it, with hideous domination and coercion of the higher by the baser, with the murderous rage in which the lust for a lifetime of orgiastic pleasure turns on its slaves in the torture of its disappointment, and the sleepless horror and misery of its neurasthenia, to so rouse in us an overwhelming flood of wrath against it and a ruthless resolution to destroy it that Elektra's vengeance becomes holy to us, and we come to understand how even the gentlest of us could wield the ax of Orestes or twist our firm fingers in the black hair of Klytæmnestra to drag back her head and leave her throat open to the stroke. "This was a task hardly possible to an ancient Greek, and not easy even for us, who are face to face with the America of the Thaw case and the European plutocracy of which that case was only a trifling symptom, and that is the task that Hofmannsthal and Strauss have achieved. Not even in the third scene of _Das Rheingold_ or in the Klingsor scene in _Parsifal_ is there such an atmosphere of malignant, cancerous evil as we get here and that the power with which it is done is not the power of the evil itself, but of the passion that detests and must and finally can destroy that evil is what makes the work great and makes us rejoice in its horror. "Whoever understands this, however vaguely, will understand Strauss's music. I have often said, when asked to state the case against the fools and the money changers who are trying to drive us into a war with Germany, that the case consists of the single word 'Beethoven.' To-day I should say with equal confidence 'Strauss.' In this music drama Strauss has done for us with utterly satisfying force what all the noblest powers of life within us are clamouring to have said in protest against and defiance of the omnipresent villainies of our civilization, and this is the highest achievement of the highest art." Mme. Mazarin was the torch-bearer in New York of this magnificent creation. She is, indeed, the only singer who has ever appeared in the rôle in America, and I have never heard _Elektra_ in Europe. However, those who have seen other interpreters of the rôle assure me that Mme. Mazarin so far outdistanced them as to make comparison impossible. This, in spite of the fact that _Elektra_ in French necessarily lost something of its crude force, and through its mild-mannered conductor at the Manhattan Opera House, who seemed afraid to make a noise, a great deal more. I did not make any notes about this performance at the time, but now, seven years later, it is very vivid to me, an unforgettable impression. Of how many nights in the theatre can I say as much? Diabolical ecstasy was the keynote of Mme. Mazarin's interpretation, gradually developing into utter frenzy. She afterwards assured me that a visit to a madhouse had given her the inspiration for the gestures and steps of Elektra in the terrible dance in which she celebrates Orestes's bloody but righteous deed. The plane of hysteria upon which this singer carried her heroine by her pure nervous force, indeed reduced many of us in the audience to a similar state. The conventional operatic mode was abandoned; even the grand manner of the theatre was flung aside; with a wide sweep of the imagination, the singer cast the memory of all such baggage from her, and proceeded along vividly direct lines to make her impression. [Illustration: MARIETTE MAZARIN AS ELEKTRA _From a photograph by Mishkin (1910)_] The first glimpse of the half-mad princess, creeping dirty and ragged, to the accompaniment of cracking whips, across the terraced courtyard of the palace, was indeed not calculated to stir tears in the eyes. The picture was vile and repugnant; so perhaps was the appeal to the sister whose only wish was to bear a child, but Mme. Mazarin had her design; her measurements were well taken. In the wild cry to Agamemnon, the dignity and pathos of the character were established, and these qualities were later emphasized in the scene of her meeting with Orestes, beautiful pages in von Hofmannsthal's play and Strauss's score. And in the dance of the poor demented creature at the close the full beauty and power and meaning of the drama were disclosed in a few incisive strokes. Elektra's mind had indeed given way under the strain of her sufferings, brought about by her long waiting for vengeance, but it had given way under the light of holy triumph. Such indeed were the fundamentals of this tremendously moving characterization, a characterization which one must place, perforce, in that great memory gallery where hang the Mélisande of Mary Garden, the Isolde of Olive Fremstad, and the Boris Godunow of Feodor Chaliapine. It was not alone in her acting that Mme. Mazarin walked on the heights. I know of no other singer with the force or vocal equipment for this difficult rôle. At the time this music drama was produced its intervals were considered in the guise of unrelated notes. It was the cry that the voice parts were written without reference to the orchestral score, and that these wandered up and down without regard for the limitations of a singer. Since _Elektra_ was first performed we have travelled far, and now that we have heard _The Nightingale_ of Strawinsky, for instance, perusal of Strauss's score shows us a perfectly ordered and understandable series of notes. Even now, however, there are few of our singers who could cope with the music of _Elektra_ without devoting a good many months to its study, and more time to the physical exercise needful to equip one with the force necessary to carry through the undertaking. Mme. Mazarin never faltered. She sang the notes with astonishing accuracy; nay, more, with potent vocal colour. Never did the orchestral flood o'er-top her flow of sound. With consummate skill she realized the composer's intentions as completely as she had those of the poet. Those who were present at the first American performance of this work will long bear the occasion in mind. The outburst of applause which followed the close of the play was almost hysterical in quality, and after a number of recalls Mme. Mazarin fainted before the curtain. Many in the audience remained long enough to receive the reassuring news that she had recovered. As a reporter of musical doings on the "New York Times," I sought information as to her condition at the dressing-room of the artist. Somewhere between the auditorium and the stage, in a passageway, I encountered Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who, a short time before, had appeared at the Garden Theatre in Arthur Symons's translation of von Hofmannsthal's drama. Although we had never met before, in the excitement of the moment we became engaged in conversation, and I volunteered to escort her to Mme. Mazarin's room, where she attempted to express her enthusiasm. Then I asked her if she would like to meet Mr. Hammerstein, and she replied that it was her great desire at this moment to meet the impresario and to thank him for the indelible impression this evening in the theatre had given her. I led her to the corner of the stage where he sat, in his high hat, smoking his cigar, and I presented her to him. "But Mrs. Campbell was introduced to me only three minutes ago," he said. She stammered her acknowledgment of the fact. "It's true," she said. "I have been so completely carried out of myself that I had forgotten!" _August 22, 1916._ Yvette Guilbert "_She sings of life, and mirth and all that moves_ _Man's fancy in the carnival of loves;_ _And a chill shiver takes me as she sings_ _The pity of unpitied human things._" Arthur Symons. The natural evolution of Gordon Craig's theory of the stage finally brought him to the point where he would dispense altogether with the play and the actor. The artist-producer would stand alone. Yvette Guilbert has accomplished this very feat, and accomplished it without the aid of super-marionettes. She still uses songs as her medium, but she has very largely discarded the authors and composers of these songs, recreating them with her own charm and wit and personality and brain. A song as Yvette Guilbert sings it exists only for a brief moment. It does not exist on paper, as you will discover if you seek out the printed version, and it certainly does not exist in the performance of any one else. Not that most of her songs are not worthy material, chosen as they are from the store-houses of a nation's treasures, but that her interpretations are so individual, so charged with deep personal feeling, so emended, so added to, so embellished with grunts, shrieks, squeaks, trills, spoken words, extra bars, or even added lines to the text; so performed that their performance itself constitutes a veritable (and, unfortunately, an extremely perishable) work of art. Sometimes, indeed, it has seemed to me that the genius of this remarkable Frenchwoman could express itself directly, without depending upon songs. She could have given no more complete demonstration of the inimitability of this genius than by her recent determination to lecture on the art of interpreting songs. Never has Yvette been more fascinating, never more authoritative than during those three afternoons at Maxine Elliott's Theatre, devoted ostensibly to the dissection of her method, but before she had unpacked a single instrument it must have been perfectly obvious to every auditor in the hall that she was taking great pains to explain just how impossible it would be for any one to follow in her footsteps, for any one to imitate her astonishing career. With evident candour and a multiplicity of detail she told the story of how she had built up her art. She told how she studied the words of her songs, how she planned them, what a large part the plasticity of her body played in their interpretation, and when she was done all she had said only went to prove that there is but one Yvette Guilbert. She stripped all pretence from her vocal method, explained how she sang now in her throat, now falsetto. "When I wish to make a certain sound for a certain effect I practise by myself until I succeed in making it. That is my vocal method. I never had a teacher. I would not trust my voice to a teacher!" Her method of learning to breathe was a practical one. She took the refrain of a little French song to work upon. She made herself learn to sing the separate phrases of this song without breathing; then two phrases together, etc., until she could sing the refrain straight through without taking a breath. Ratan Devi has told me that Indian singers, who never study vocalization in the sense that we do, are adepts in the art of breathing. "They breathe naturally and with no difficulty because it never occurs to them to distort a phrase by interrupting it for breath. They have respect for the phrase and sing it through. When you study with an occidental music teacher you will find that he will mark little Vs on the page indicating where the pupil may take breath until he can capture the length of the phrase. This method would be incomprehensible to a Hindu or to any other oriental." The wonderful breath control of Hebrew cantors who sing long and florid phrases without interruption is another case of the same kind. Mme. Guilbert finds her effects everywhere, in nature, in art, in literature. When she was composing her interpretation of _La Soularde_ she searched in vain for the cry of the thoughtless children as they stone the poor drunken hag, until she discovered it, quite by accident one evening at the Comédie Française, in the shriek of Mounet-Sully in _Oedipe-Roi_. In studying the _Voyage à Bethléem_, one of the most popular songs of her répertoire, she felt the need of breaking the monotony of the stanzas. It was her own idea to interpolate the watchman's cry of the hours, and to add the jubilant coda, _Il est né, le divin enfant_, extracted from another song of the same period. With Guilbert nothing is left to chance. Do you remember one of her most celebrated chansons, _Notre Petite Compagne_ of Jules Laforgue, which she sings so strikingly to a Waldteufel waltz, _Je suis la femme,_ _On me connaît._ Her interpretation belies the lines. She has contrived to put all the mystery of the sphinx into her rendering of them. How has she done this? By means of the cigarette which she smokes throughout the song. She has confessed as much. Always on the lookout for material which will assist her in perfecting her art she has observed that when a woman smokes a cigarette her expression becomes inscrutable. Her effects are cumulative, built up out of an inexhaustible fund of detail. In those songs in which she professes to do the least she is really doing the most. Have you heard her sing _Le Lien Serré_ and witnessed the impression she produces by sewing, a piece of action not indicated in the text of the song? Have you heard her sing _L'Hotel Numero 3_, one of the répertoire of the _gants noirs_ and the old days of the Divan Japonais? In this song she does not move her body; she scarcely makes a gesture, and yet her crisp manner of utterance, her subtle emphasis, her angular pose, are all that are needed to expose the humour of the ditty. Much the same comment could be made in regard to her interpretation of _Le Jeune Homme Triste_. The _apache_ songs, on the contrary, are replete with gesture. Do you remember the splendid _apache_ saluting his head before he goes to the guillotine? Again Yvette has given away her secret: "Naturally I have deep feelings. To be an artist one must feel intensely, but I find that it is sometimes well to give these feelings a spur. In this instance I have sewn weights into the lining of the cap of the _apache_. When I drop the cap it falls with a thud and I am reminded instinctively of the fall of the knife of the guillotine. This trick always furnishes me with the thrill I need and I can never sing the last lines without tears in my eyes and voice." It seems ungracious to speak of Yvette Guilbert as a great artist. She is so much less than that and so much more. She has dedicated her autobiography to God and it is certain that she believes her genius to be a holy thing. No one else on the stage to-day has worked so faithfully, or so long, no one else has so completely fulfilled her obligations to her art, and certainly no one else is so nearly human. She compasses the chasm between the artist and the public with ease. She is even able to do this in America, speaking a foreign tongue, for it has only been recently that she has learned to speak English freely and she rarely sings in our language. Her versatility, it seems to me, is limitless; she expresses the whole world in terms of her own personality. She never lacks for a method of expression for the effect she desires to give, and she gives all, heart and brains alike. Now she is raucous, now tender; have you ever seen so sweet a smile; have you ever observed so coarse a mien? She can run the gamut from a sleek priest to a child (as in _C'est le Mai_), from a jealous husband to a guilty wife (_Le Jaloux et la Menteuse_), from an apache (_Ma Tête_) to a charming old lady (_Lisette_). [Illustration: YVETTE GUILBERT _from a photograph by Alice Boughton_] It is easy to liken the art of this marvellous woman to something concrete, to the drawings of Toulouse-Lautrec or Steinlen, the posters of Chéret ... and there is indeed a suggestion of these men in the work of Yvette Guilbert. The same broad lines are there, the same ample style, the same complete effect, but there is more. In certain phases of her talent, the _gamine_, the _apache_, the _gavroche_, she reflects the spirit of the inspiration which kindled these painters into creation, but in other phases, of which _Lisette_, _Les Cloches de Nantes_, _La Passion_, or _Le Cycle du Vin_ are the expression, you may more readily compare her style with that of Watteau, Eugene Carrière, Félicien Rops, or Boucher.... She takes us by the hand through the centuries, offering us the results of a vast amount of study, a vast amount of erudition, and a vast amount of work. In so many fine strokes she evokes an epoch. She has studied the distinction between a curtsey which precedes the recital of a fable of La Fontaine and a poem of Francis Jammes. She has closely scrutinized pictures in neglected corridors of the Louvre to learn the manner in which a cavalier lifts his hat in various periods. There are those who complain that she emphasizes the dramatic side of the old French songs, which possibly survive more clearly under more naïve treatment. Her justification in this instance is the complete success of her method. The songs serve her purpose, even supposing she does not serve theirs. But a more valid cause for grievance can be urged against her. Unfortunately and ill-advisedly she has occasionally carried something of the scientific into an otherwise delightful matinée, importing a lecturer, like Jean Beck of Bryn Mawr, to analyze and describe the music of the middle ages, or even becoming pedantic and professorial herself; sometimes Yvette preaches or, still worse, permits some one else, dancer, violinist, or singer to usurp her place on the platform. These interruptions are sorry moments indeed but such lapses are forgiven with an almost divine graciousness when Yvette interprets another song. Then the dull or scholarly interpolations are forgotten. I cannot, indeed, know where to begin to praise her or where to stop. My feelings for her performances (which I have seen and heard whenever I have been able during the past twelve years in Chicago, New York, London, and Paris) are unequivocal. There are moments when I am certain that her rendering of _La Passion_ is her supreme achievement and there are moments when I prefer to see her as the unrestrained purveyor of the art of the _chansonniers_ of Montmartre--unrestrained, I say, and yet it is evident to me that she has refined her interpretations of these songs, revived twenty-five years after she first sang them, bestowed on them a spirit which originally she could not give them. From the beginning _Ma Tête_, _La Soularde_, _La Glu_, _La Pierreuse_, and the others were drawn as graphically as the pictures of Steinlen, but age has softened her interpretation of them. What formerly was striking has now become beautiful, what was always astonishing has become a masterpiece of artistic expression. Once, indeed, these pictures were sharply etched, but latterly they have been lithographed, drawn softly on stone.... I have said that I do not know in what song, in what mood, I prefer Yvette Guilbert. I can never be certain but if I were asked to choose a programme I think I should include in it _C'est le Mai_, _La Légende de St. Nicolas_, _Le Roi a Fait Battre Tambour_, _Les Cloches de Nantes_, _Le Cycle du Vin_, _Le Lien Serré_, _La Glu_, _Lisette_, _La Femme_, _Que l'Amour Cause de Peine_, and Oh, how many others! All art must be beautiful, says Mme. Guilbert, and she has realized the meaning of what might have been merely a phrase; no matter how sordid or trivial her subject she has contrived to make of it something beautiful. She is not, therefore, a realist in any literal signification of the word (although I doubt if any actress on the stage can evoke more sense of character than she) because she always smiles and laughs and weeps with the women she represents; she sympathizes with them, she humanizes them, where another interpreter would coldly present them for an audience to take or to leave, exposing them to cruel inspection. Even in her interpretation of heartless women it is always to our sense of humour that she appeals, while in her rendering of _Ma Tête_ and _La Pierreuse_ she strikes directly at our hearts. Zola once told Mme. Guilbert that the _apaches_ were the logical descendants of the old chevaliers of France. "They are the only men we have now who will fight over a woman!" he said. When you hear Mme. Guilbert call "_Pi-ouit!_" you will readily perceive that she understands what Zola meant. Wonderful Yvette, who has embodied so many pleasant images in the theatre, who has expressed to the world so much of the soul of France, so much of the soul of art itself, but, above all, so much of the soul of humanity. It is not alone General Booth who has made friends of "drabs from the alley-ways and drug fiends pale--Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powers frail! Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath, unwashed legions with the ways of death": these are all friends of Yvette Guilbert too. And when Balzac wrote the concluding paragraph of "Massimila Doni" he may have foreseen the later application of the lines.... Surely "the peris, nymphs, fairies, sylphs of the olden time, the muses of Greece, the marble Virgins of the Certosa of Pavia, the Day and Night of Michael Angelo, the little angels that Bellini first drew at the foot of church paintings, and to whom Raphael gave such divine form at the foot of the Vierge au donataire, and of the Madonna freezing at Dresden; Orcagna's captivating maidens in the Church of Or San Michele at Florence, the heavenly choirs on the tombs of St. Sebald at Nuremberg, several Virgins in the Duomo at Milan, the hordes of a hundred Gothic cathedrals, the whole nation of figures who break their forms to come to you, O all-embracing artists--" surely, surely, all these hover over Yvette Guilbert. _April 16, 1917._ Waslav Nijinsky "_A thing of beauty is a boy forever._" Allen Norton. Serge de Diaghilew brought the dregs of the Russian Ballet to New York and, after a first greedy gulp, inspired by curiosity to get a taste of this highly advertised beverage, the public drank none too greedily. The scenery and the costumes, designed by Bakst, Roerich, Benois, and Larionow, and the music of Rimsky-Korsakow, Tcherepnine, Schumann, Borodine, Balakirew, and Strawinsky--especially Strawinsky--arrived. It was to be deplored, however, that Bakst had seen fit to replace the original _décor_ of _Scheherazade_ by a new setting in rawer colours, in which the flaming orange fairly burned into the ultramarine and green (readers of "A Rebours" will remember that des Esseintes designed a room something like this). A few of the dancers came, but of the best not a single one. Nor was Fokine, the dancer-producer, who devised the choregraphy for _The Firebird_, _Cléopâtre_, and _Petrouchka_, among the number, although his presence had been announced and expected. To those enthusiasts, and they included practically every one who had seen the Ballet in its greater glory, who had prepared their friends for an overwhelmingly brilliant spectacle, over-using the phrase, "a perfect union of the arts," the early performances in January, 1916, at the Century Theatre were a great disappointment. Often had we urged that the individual played but a small part in this new and gorgeous entertainment, but now we were forced to admit that the ultimate glamour was lacking in the ensemble, which was obviously no longer the glad, gay entity it once had been. The picture was still there, the music (not always too well played) but the interpretation was mediocre. The agile Miassine could scarcely be called either a great dancer or a great mime. He had been chosen by Diaghilew for the rôle of Joseph in Richard Strauss's version of the Potiphar legend but, during the course of a London season carried through without the co-operation of Nijinsky, this was the only part allotted to him. In New York he interpreted, not without humour and with some technical skill, the incidental divertissement from Rimsky-Korsakow's opera, _The Snow-Maiden_, against a vivid background by Larionow. The uninspired choregraphy of this ballet was also ascribed to Miassine by the programme, although probably in no comminatory spirit. In the small rôle of Eusebius in _Carneval_ and in the negligible part of the Prince in _The Firebird_ he was entirely satisfactory, but it was impertinent of the direction to assume that he would prove an adequate substitute for Nijinsky in rôles to which that dancer had formerly applied his extremely finished art. Adolf Bolm contributed his portraits of the Moor in _Petrouchka_, of Pierrot in _Carneval_, and of the Chief Warrior in the dances from _Prince Igor_. These three rôles completely express the possibilities of Bolm as a dancer or an actor, and sharply define his limitations. His other parts, Dakon in _Daphnis et Chloë_--Sadko, the Prince in _Thamar_, Amoun in _Cléopâtre_, the Slave in _Scheherazade_, and Pierrot in _Papillons_, are only variations on the three afore-mentioned themes. His friends often confuse his vitality and abundant energy with a sense of characterization and a skill as a dancer which he does not possess. For the most part he is content to express himself by stamping his heels and gnashing his teeth, and when, as in _Cléopâtre_, he attempts to convey a more subtle meaning to his general gesture, he is not very successful. Bolm is an interesting and useful member of the organization, but he could not make or unmake a season; nor could Gavrilow, who is really a fine dancer in his limited way, although he is unfortunately lacking in magnetism and any power of characterization. But it was on the distaff side of the cast that the Ballet seemed pitifully undistinguished, even to those who did not remember the early Paris seasons when the roster included the names of Anna Pavlowa, Tamara Karsavina, Caterina Gheltzer, and Ida Rubinstein. The leading feminine dancer of the troupe when it gave its first exhibitions in New York was Xenia Maclezova, who had not, so far as my memory serves, danced in any London or Paris season of the Ballet (except for one gala performance at the Paris Opéra which preceded the American tour), unless in some very menial capacity. This dancer, like so many others, had the technique of her art at her toes' ends. Sarah Bernhardt once told a reporter that the acquirement of technique never did any harm to an artist, and if one were not an artist it was not a bad thing to have. I have forgotten how many times Mlle. Maclezova could pirouette without touching the toe in the air to the floor, but it was some prodigious number. She was past-mistress of the _entrechat_ and other mysteries of the ballet academy. Here, however, her knowledge of her art seemed to end, in the subjugation of its very mechanism. She was very nearly lacking in those qualities of grace, poetry, and imagination with which great artists are freely endowed, and although she could not actually have been a woman of more than average weight, she often conveyed to the spectator an impression of heaviness. In such a work as _The Firebird_ she really offended the eye. Far from interpreting the ballet, she gave you an idea of how it should not be done. Her season with the Russians was terminated in very short order, and Lydia Lopoukova, who happened to be in America, and who, indeed, had already been engaged for certain rôles, was rushed into her vacant slippers. Now Mme. Lopoukova had charm as a dancer, whatever her deficiencies in technique. In certain parts, notably as Colombine in _Carneval,_ she assumed a roguish demeanor which was very fetching. As La Ballerine in _Petrouchka,_ too, she met all the requirements of the action. But in _Le Spectre de la Rose_, _Les Sylphides_, _The Firebird_, and _La Princesse Enchantée_, she floundered hopelessly out of her element. Tchernicheva, one of the lesser but more steadfast luminaries of the Ballet, in the rôles for which she was cast, the principal Nymph in _L'Après-midi d'un Faune_, Echo in _Narcisse_, and the Princess in _The Firebird_, more than fulfilled her obligations to the ensemble, but her opportunities in these mimic plays were not of sufficient importance to enable her to carry the brunt of the performances on her lovely shoulders. Flore Revalles was drafted, I understand, from a French opera company. I have been told that she sings--Tosca is one of her rôles--as well as she dances. That may very well be. To impressionable spectators she seemed a real _femme fatale_. Her Cléopâtre suggested to me a Parisian _cocotte_ much more than an Egyptian queen. It would be blasphemy to compare her with Ida Rubinstein in this rôle--Ida Rubinstein, who was true Aubrey Beardsley! In Thamar and Zobeide, both to a great extent dancing rôles, Mlle. Revalles, both as dancer and actress, was but a frail substitute for Karsavina. The remainder of the company was adequate, but not large, and the ensemble was by no means as brilliant as those who had seen the Ballet in London or Paris might have expected. Nor in the absence of Fokine, that master of detail, were performances sufficiently rehearsed. There was, of course, explanation in plenty for this disintegration. Gradually, indeed, the Ballet as it had existed in Europe had suffered a change. Only a miracle and a fortune combined would have sufficed to hold the original company intact. It was not held intact, and the war made further inroads on its integrity. Then, for the trip to America many of the dancers probably were inclined to demand double pay. Undoubtedly, Serge de Diaghilew had many more troubles than those which were celebrated in the public prints, and it must be admitted that, even with his weaker company, he gave us finer exhibitions of stage art than had previously been even the exception here. In the circumstances, however, certain pieces, which were originally produced when the company was in the flush of its first glory, should never have been presented here at all. It was not the part of reason, for example, to pitchfork on the Century stage an indifferent performance of _Le Pavilion d'Armide_, in which Nijinsky once disported himself as the favourite slave, and which, as a matter of fact, requires a company of _virtuosi_ to make it a passable diversion. _Cléopâtre_, in its original form with Nijinsky, Fokine, Pavlowa, Ida Rubinstein, and others, hit all who saw it square between the eyes. The absurdly expurgated edition, with its inadequate cast, offered to New York, was but the palest shadow of the sensuous entertainment that had aroused all Paris, from the Batignolles to the Bastille. The music, the setting, the costumes--what else was left to celebrate? The altered choregraphy, the deplorable interpretation, drew tears of rage from at least one pair of eyes. It was quite incomprehensible also why _The Firebird_, which depends on the grace and poetical imagination of the filmiest and most fairy-like actress-dancer, should have found a place in the répertoire. It is the dancing equivalent of a coloratura soprano rôle in opera. Thankful, however, for the great joy of having re-heard Strawinsky's wonderful score, I am willing to overlook this tactical error. All things considered, it is small wonder that a large slice of the paying population of New York tired of the Ballet in short order. One reason for this cessation of interest was the constant repetition of ballets. In London and Paris the seasons as a rule have been shorter, and on certain evenings of the week opera has taken the place of the dance. It has been rare indeed that a single work has been repeated more than three or four times during an engagement. I have not found it stupid to listen to and look at perhaps fifteen performances of varying degrees of merit of _Petrouchka_, _Scheherazade_, _Carneval_, and the dances from _Prince Igor_; I would rather see the Russian Ballet repeatedly, even as it existed in America, than four thousand five hundred and six Broadway plays or seventy-three operas at the Metropolitan once, but I dare say I may look upon myself as an exception. At any rate, when the company entered upon a four weeks' engagement at the Metropolitan Opera House, included in the regular subscription season of opera, the subscribers groaned; many of them groaned aloud, and wrote letters to the management and to the newspapers. To be sure, during the tour which had followed the engagement at the Century the répertoire had been increased, but the company remained the same--until the coming of Waslav Nijinsky. When America was first notified of the impending visit of the Russian Ballet it was also promised that Waslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina would head the organization. It was no fault of the American direction or of Serge de Diaghilew that they did not do so. Various excuses were advanced for the failure of Karsavina to forsake her family in Russia and to undertake the journey to the United States but, whatever the cause, there seems to remain no doubt that she refused to come. As for Nijinsky, he, with his wife, had been a prisoner in an Austrian detention camp since the beginning of the war. Wheels were set grinding but wheels grind slowly in an epoch of international bloodshed, and it was not until March, 1916, that the Austrian ambassador at Washington was able to announce that Nijinsky had been set free. I do not believe the coming to this country of any other celebrated person had been more widely advertised, although P. T. Barnum may have gone further in describing the charitable and vocal qualities of Jenny Lind. Nijinsky had been extravagantly praised, not only by the official press representatives but also by eminent critics and private persons, in adjectives which seemed to preclude any possibility of his living up to them. I myself had been among the pæan singers. I had thrust "half-man, half-god" into print. "A flame!" cried some one. Another, "A jet of water from a fountain!" Such men in the street as had taken the trouble to consider the subject at all very likely expected the arrival of some stupendous and immortal monstrosity, a gravity-defying being with sixteen feet (at least), who bounded like a rubber ball, never touching the solid stage except at the beginning and end of the evening's performance. Nijinsky arrived in April. Almost immediately he gave vent to one of those expressions of temperament often associated with interpretative genius, the kind of thing I have described at some length in "Music and Bad Manners." He was not at all pleased with the Ballet as he found it. Interviewed, he expressed his displeasure in the newspapers. The managers of the organization wisely remained silent, and a controversy was avoided, but the public had received a suggestion of petulance which could not contribute to the popularity of the new dancer. Nijinsky danced for the first time in New York on the afternoon of April 12, at the Metropolitan Opera House. The pieces in which he appeared on that day were _Le Spectre de la Rose_ and _Petrouchka_. Some of us feared that eighteen months in a detention camp would have stamped their mark on the dancer. As a matter of fact his connection with the Russian Ballet had been severed in 1913, a year before the war began. I can say for myself that I was probably a good deal more nervous than Nijinsky on the occasion of his first appearance in America. It would have been a cruel disappointment to me to have discovered that his art had perished during the intervening three years since I had last seen him. My fears were soon dissipated. A few seconds after he as the Rose Ghost had bounded through the window, it was evident that he was in possession of all his powers; nay, more, that he had added to the refinement and polish of his style. I had called Nijinsky's dancing perfection in years gone by, because it so far surpassed that of his nearest rival; now he had surpassed himself. True artists, indeed, have a habit of accomplishing this feat. I may call to your attention the careers of Olive Fremstad, Yvette Guilbert, and Marie Tempest. Later I learned that this first impression might be relied on. Nijinsky, in sooth, has now no rivals upon the stage. One can only compare him with himself! The Weber-Gautier dance-poem, from the very beginning until the end, when he leaps out of the window of the girl's chamber into the night, affords this great actor-dancer one of his most grateful opportunities. It is in this very part, perhaps, which requires almost unceasing exertion for nearly twelve minutes, that Nijinsky's powers of co-ordination, mental, imaginative, muscular, are best displayed. His dancing is accomplished in that flowing line, without a break between poses and gestures, which is the despair of all novices and almost all other _virtuosi_. After a particularly difficult leap or toss of the legs or arms, it is a marvel to observe how, without an instant's pause to regain his poise, he rhythmically glides into the succeeding gesture. His dancing has the unbroken quality of music, the balance of great painting, the meaning of fine literature, and the emotion inherent in all these arts. There is something of transmutation in his performances; he becomes an alembic, transforming movement into a finely wrought and beautiful work of art. The dancing of Nijinsky is first an imaginative triumph, and the spectator, perhaps, should not be interested in further dissection of it, but a more intimate observer must realize that behind this the effect produced depends on his supreme command of his muscles. It is not alone the final informing and magnetized imaginative quality that most other dancers lack; it is also just this muscular co-ordination. Observe Gavrilow in the piece under discussion, in which he gives a good imitation of Nijinsky's general style, and you will see that he is unable to maintain this rhythmic continuity. Nijinsky's achievements become all the more remarkable when one remembers that he is working with an imperfect physical medium. Away from the scene he is an insignificant figure, short and ineffective in appearance. Aside from the pert expression of his eyes, he is like a dozen other young Russians. Put him unintroduced into a drawing-room with Jacques Copeau, Orchidée, Doris Keane, Bill Haywood, Edna Kenton, the Baroness de Meyer, Paulet Thevenaz, the Marchesa Casati, Marcel Duchamp, Cathleen Nesbitt, H. G. Wells, Anna Pavlowa, Rudyard Chennevière, Vladimir Rebikow, Henrie Waste, and Isadora Duncan, and he probably would pass entirely unnoticed. On the stage it may be observed that the muscles of his legs are overdeveloped and his ankles are too large; that is, if you are in the mood for picking flaws, which most of us are not in the presence of Nijinsky in action. Here, however, stricture halts confounded; his head is set on his shoulders in a manner to give satisfaction to a great sculptor, and his torso, with its slender waist line, is quite beautiful. On the stage, Nijinsky makes of himself what he will. He can look tall or short, magnificent or ugly, fascinating or repulsive. Like so many interpretative artists, he remoulds himself for his public appearances. It is under the electric light in front of the painted canvas that he becomes a personality, and that personality is governed only by the scenario of the ballet he is representing. From the day of Nijinsky's arrival, the ensemble of the Ballet improved; somewhat of the spontaneity of the European performances was regained; a good deal of the glamour was recaptured; the loose lines were gathered taut, and the choregraphy of Fokine (Nijinsky is a director as well as a dancer) was restored to some of its former power. He has appeared in nine rôles in New York during the two short seasons in which he has been seen with the Russian Ballet here: the Slave in _Scheherazade_, Petrouchka, the Rose Ghost, the Faun, the Harlequin in _Carneval_, Narcisse, Till Eulenspiegel, and the principal male rôles of _La Princesse Enchantée_ and _Les Sylphides_. To enjoy the art of Nijinsky completely, to fully appreciate his genius, it is necessary not only to see him in a variety of parts, but also to see him in the same rôle many times. Study the detail of his performance in _Scheherazade_, for example. Its precision alone is noteworthy. Indeed, precision is a quality we see exposed so seldom in the theatre that when we find it we are almost inclined to hail it as genius. The rôle of the Slave in this ballet is perhaps Nijinsky's scenic masterpiece--exotic eroticism expressed in so high a key that its very existence seems incredible on our puritanic stage, and yet with such great art (the artist always expresses himself with beauty) that the intention is softened by the execution. Before the arrival of this dancer, _Scheherazade_ had become a police court scandal. There had been talk of a "Jim Crow" performance in which the blacks were to be separated from the whites in the harem, and I am told that our provincial police magistrates even wanted to replace the "mattresses"--so were the divans of the sultanas described in court--by rocking chairs! But to the considerably more vivid _Scheherazade_ of Nijinsky no exception was taken. This strange, curious, head-wagging, simian creature, scarce human, wriggled through the play, leaving a long streak of lust and terror in his wake. Never did Nijinsky as the Negro Slave touch the Sultana, but his subtle and sensuous fingers fluttered close to her flesh, clinging once or twice questioningly to a depending tassel. Pierced by the javelins of the Sultan's men, the Slave's death struggle might have been revolting and gruesome. Instead, Nijinsky carried the eye rapidly upward with his tapering feet as they balanced for the briefest part of a second straight high in the air, only to fall inert with so brilliantly quick a movement that the æsthetic effect grappled successfully with the feeling of disgust which might have been aroused. This was acting, this was characterization, so completely merged in rhythm that the result became a perfect whole, and not a combination of several intentions, as so often results from the work of an actor-dancer. The heart-breaking Petrouchka, the roguish Harlequin, the Chopiniac of _Les Sylphides_,--all were offered to our view; and _Narcisse_, in which Nijinsky not only did some very beautiful dancing, but posed (as the Greek youth admired himself in the mirror of the pool) with such utter and arresting grace that even here he awakened a definite thrill. In _La Princesse Enchantée_ he merely danced, but how he danced! Do you who saw him still remember those flickering fingers and toes? "He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers," is written in the Book of Proverbs, and the writer might have had in mind Nijinsky in _La Princesse Enchantée_. All these parts were differentiated, all completely realized, in the threefold intricacy of this baffling art, which perhaps is not an art at all until it is so realized, when its plastic, rhythmic, and histrionic elements become an entity. After a summer in Spain and Switzerland, without Nijinsky, the Russian Ballet returned to America for a second season, opening at the Manhattan Opera House October 16, 1916. It is always a delight to hear and see performances in this theatre, and it was found that the brilliance of the Ballet was much enhanced by its new frame. The season, however, opened with a disappointment. It had been announced that Nijinsky would dance on the first night his choregraphic version of Richard Strauss's tone-poem, _Till Eulenspiegel_. It is not the first time that a press agent has made a false prophecy. While rehearsing the new work, Nijinsky twisted his ankle, and during the first week of the engagement he did not appear at all. This was doubly unfortunate, because the company was weaker than it had been the previous season, lacking both Miassine and Tchernicheva. The only novelty (for America) produced during the first week was an arrangement of the divertissement from Rimsky-Korsakow's opera, _Sadko_, which had already been given a few times in Paris and London by the Ballet, never with conspicuous success. The second week of the season, Nijinsky returned to appear in three rôles, the Faun, Till Eulenspiegel, and the Slave in _Scheherazade_. Of his performance to Debussy's lovely music I have written elsewhere; nor did this new vision cause me to revise my opinions. _Till Eulenspiegel_ is the only new ballet the Russians have produced in America. (_Soleil de Nuit_ was prepared in Europe, and performed once at the Paris Opéra before it was seen in New York. Besides, it was an arrangement of dances from an opera which is frequently given in Russia and which has been presented at the Opéra-Comique in Paris.) The _chef d'orchestre_, Pierre Monteux, refused to direct performances of this work, on the ground that the composer was not only a German, but a very much alive and active German patriot. On the occasions, therefore, that _Till_ was performed in New York, the orchestra struggled along under the baton of Dr. Anselm Goetzl. In selecting this work and in his arrangement of the action Nijinsky was moved, no doubt, by consideration for the limitations of the company as it existed,--from which he was able to secure the effects he desired. The scenery and costumes by Robert E. Jones, of New York, were decidedly diverting--the best work this talented young man has done, I think. Over a deep, spreading background of ultramarine, the crazy turrets of mediæval castles leaned dizzily to and fro. The costumes were exaggerations of the exaggerated fashions of the Middle Ages. Mr. Jones added feet of stature to the already elongated peaked headdresses of the period. The trains of the velvet robes, which might have extended three yards, were allowed to trail the full depth of the Manhattan Opera House stage. The colours were oranges, reds, greens, and blues, those indeed of Bakst's _Scheherazade_, but so differently disposed that they made an entirely dissimilar impression. The effect reminded one spectator of a Spanish omelet. In arranging the scenario, Nijinsky followed in almost every detail Wilhelm Klatte's description of the meaning of the music, which is printed in programme books whenever the tone-poem is performed, without Strauss's authority, but sometimes with his sanction. Nijinsky was quite justified in altering the end of the work, which hangs the rogue-hero, into another practical joke. His version of this episode fits the music and, in the original _Till Eulenspiegel_ stories, Till is not hanged, but dies in bed. The keynote of Nijinsky's interpretation was gaiety. He was as utterly picaresque as the work itself; he reincarnated the spirit of Gil Blas; indeed, a new quality crept into stage expression through this characterization. Margaret Wycherly, one of the most active admirers of the dancer, told me after the first performance that she felt that he had for the first time leaped into the hearts of the great American public, whose appreciation of his subtler art as expressed in _Narcisse_, _Petrouchka_, and even _Scheherazade_, had been more moderate. There were those who protested that this was not the Till of the German legends, but any actor who attempts to give form to a folk or historical character, or even a character derived from fiction, is forced to run counter to many an observer's preconceived ideas. [Illustration: WASLAV NIJINSKY IN DEBUSSY'S _JEUX_ (1913)] "It is an error to believe that pantomime is merely a way of doing without words," writes Arthur Symons," that it is merely the equivalent of words. Pantomime is thinking overheard. It begins and ends before words have formed themselves, in a deeper consciousness than that of speech. And it addresses itself, by the artful limitations of its craft, to universal human experience, knowing that the moment it departs from those broad lines it will become unintelligible. It risks existence on its own perfection, as the rope-dancer does, to whom a false step means a down-fall. And it appeals democratically to people of all nations.... And pantomime has that mystery which is one of the requirements of true art. To watch it is like dreaming. How silently, in dreams, one gathers the unheard sounds of words from the lips that do but make pretence of saying them! And does not every one know that terrifying impossibility of speaking which fastens one to the ground for the eternity of a second, in what is the new, perhaps truer, computation of time in dreams? Something like that sense of suspense seems to hang over the silent actors in pantomime, giving them a nervous exaltation, which has its subtle, immediate effect upon us, in tragic and comic situation. The silence becomes an atmosphere, and with a very curious power of giving distinction to form and motion. I do not see why people should ever break silence on the stage except to speak poetry. Here, in pantomime, you have a gracious, expressive silence, beauty of gesture, a perfectly discreet appeal to the emotions, a transposition of the world into an elegant accepted convention." Arthur Symons wrote these words before he had seen the Russian Ballet, before the Russian Ballet, as we know it, existed, indeed, before Nijinsky had begun to dance in public, and he felt that the addition of poetry and music to pantomime--the Wagner music-drama in other words--brought about a perfect combination of the arts. Nevertheless, there is an obvious application of his remarks to the present instance. There is, indeed, the quality of a dream about the characters Nijinsky presents to us. I remember once, at a performance of the Russian Ballet, I sat in a box next to a most intelligent man, a writer himself; I was meeting him for the first time, and he was seeing the Ballet for the first time. Before the curtain rose he had told me that dancing and pantomime were very pretty to look at, but that he found no stimulation in watching them, no mental and spiritual exaltation, such as might follow a performance of _Hamlet_. Having seen Nijinsky, I could not agree with him--and this indifferent observer became that evening himself a fervent disciple of the Ballet. For Nijinsky gave him, he found, just what his ideal performance of Shakespeare's play might have given him, a basis for dreams, for thinking, for poetry. The ennobling effect of all great and perfect art, after the primary emotion, seems to be to set our minds wandering in a thousand channels, to suggest new outlets. Pater's experience before the _Monna Lisa_ is only unique in its intense and direct expression. No writer, no musician, no painter, can feel deep emotion before a work of art without expressing it in some way, although the expression may be a thousand leagues removed from the inspiration. And how few of us can view the art of Nijinsky without emotion! To the painter he gives a new sense of proportion, to the musician a new sense of rhythm, while to the writer he must perforce immediately suggest new words; better still, new meanings for old words. Dance, pantomime, acting, harmony, all these divest themselves of their worn-out accoutrements and appear, as if clothed by magic, in garments of unheard-of novelty; hue, texture, cut, and workmanship are all a surprise to us. We look enraptured, we go away enthralled, and perhaps even unconsciously a new quality creeps into our own work. It is the same glamour cast over us by contemplation of the Campo Santo at Pisa, or the Roman Theatre at Orange, or the Cathedral at Chartres,--the inspiration for one of the most word-jewelled books in any language--or the New York sky line at twilight as one sails away into the harbour, or a great iron crane which lifts tons of alien matter in its gaping jaw. Great music can give us this feeling, the symphonies of Beethoven, Mozart's _Don Giovanni_, Schubert's _C Major Symphony_, or César Franck's _D Minor_, _The Sacrifice to the Spring_ of Strawinsky, _L'Après-midi d'un Faune_ of Debussy, Chabrier's Rhapsody, _España_; great interpretative musicians can give it to us, Ysaye at his best, Paderewski, Marcella Sembrich in song recital; but how few artists on the stage suggest even as much as the often paltry lines of the author, the often banal music of the composer! There is an _au delà_ to all great interpretative art, something that remains after story, words, picture, and gesture have faded vaguely into that storeroom in our memories where are concealed these lovely ghosts of ephemeral beauty, and the artist who is able to give us this is blessed even beyond his knowledge, for to him has been vouchsafed the sacred kiss of the gods. This quality cannot be acquired, it cannot even be described, but it can be felt. With its beneficent aid the interpreter not only contributes to our pleasure, he broadens our horizon, adds to our knowledge and capacity for feeling. As I read over these notes I realize that I have not been able to discover flaws in the art of this young man. It seems to me that in his chosen medium he approaches perfection. What he attempts to do, he always does perfectly. Can one say as much for any other interpreter? But it is a difficult matter to give the spirit of Nijinsky, to describe his art on paper, to capture the abundant grace, the measureless poetry, the infinite illusion of his captivating motion in ink. Who can hope to do it? Future generations must take our word for his greatness. We can do little more than call it that. I shall have served my purpose if I have succeeded in this humble article in bringing back to those who have seen him a flashing glimpse of the imaginative actuality. _January 16, 1917._ Epilogue _as a substitute for a preface to the new edition_. I It was formerly the custom, in England at any rate, to publish one book in two or three volumes. Judge, therefore, of my dismay and delight on discovering, shortly after the first appearance of "Interpreters and Interpretations," in 1917, that I, abetted by my always delightfully agreeable publisher, had issued two books in one volume! Even the title itself fell apart. This practical detail has made it a comparatively simple matter to exhibit these twins separately in the future, and such is my intention. This volume, then, contains the first half of the longer book. I have been asked occasionally why I devote so much attention in my writing to interpreters. The answer is, of course, that I devote very little attention to them, not enough, I sometimes think. This book, indeed, says nearly all that I have said up to date on the subject. But I am not at all in sympathy with those critics of music and the drama who lay stress on the relative unimportance of interpreters. Sometimes I am inclined to believe that interpreters, who mould their own personalities rather than clay or words, are greater than creators. I think we might have a more ideal theatre if interpreters could be their own creators, like the mediæval troubadours or the gipsies of Spain. For there are many disadvantages about creative art. One of them is its persistence. Beethoven and Dante wrote notes and letters down on paper and there they remain, apparently forever. It is very annoying. Legends hover round the names of these artists, and for centuries after their deaths all the stupid creators in the world try to do something similar to the work these men have done, and all the really inspired artists have to pass a period of probation during which they strive to forget the work these men have done. "You will find," remarks sagaciously one Henry C. Lunn, "that people will often praise a bad fugue because Bach has produced so many good ones." It would be much better for everybody if a law were passed consigning all creative work to the flames ten years after it saw the light. Then we would have novelty. If Beethoven recurred again, at least nobody would know it. Any knowledge about books or pictures or music of the past would have to be carried in the memory and in a few decades all memory of anything that was not essential would have disappeared. It must have been a thrilling experience to have lived in Alexandria at the time the library was burned. Just think, twenty years after that event, philosophers and professors probably could be found in Alexandria who did not go round with long faces telling you what had been done and what should be done. No references to the early Assyrians and the Greeks until the papyruses were replaced. The Renaissance and the Revival of Learning, on the other hand, doubtless pleasant enough at the time, smeared a terrible blot on the future of art. Now interpretative art is different. It depends upon the contemporary individual, and some of its most thrilling effects may be entirely accidental. Any traditions which persist in interpretative art must be carried in the memory. In exceptional cases, of course, a singer, a dancer, or an actor is able to so stamp his or her personal achievement into the flowing rhythm of artistic space that a _style_ does persist. We have a very good example before us in the case of Isadora Duncan, who has been followed by a long train of animated Grecian urns. The deleterious effect of this persistence of an interpretative tradition must be apparent to any one. For the imitator of an interpreter is a thousand times more futile than the imitator of a creator. Fortunately, on the whole, styles in acting, in singing, and in dancing frequently change. The Catalani-Jenny Lind-Patti tradition, which God knows has hung on long enough, is nearly exhausted. We live in the age of the Mary Garden tradition. There is another and even better reason why I find it pleasant to write about interpreters. In looking over the books on music written in the past I find that the books about singers are infinitely more fascinating than the books about composers. I am enthralled by what H. F. Chorley has to say about Pauline Viardot and Henrietta Sontag; I am delighted with the Goncourt's books about Guimard, Clairon, and Sophie Arnould. Auguste Ehrhard's "Fanny Elssler" is an extraordinary document and one cannot afford to miss P. T. Barnum on Jenny Lind and Mapleson on Patti. But I find that the old scribes on Mozart and Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Schubert, quite bore me, and it is impossible to say anything new about these men. Books about Beethoven are still appearing but I advise nobody to read them. The authors have arrived at that fine point where they can only compare authorities and quibble about details. Was Beethoven in a cold sweat when he composed the _Ninth Symphony_ or was he merely angry? The ink on the manuscript of such and such a work being blotted on a certain page, interest naturally arises as to whether the fifth note in the sixteenth bar is F sharp or G flat. Did Haydn or Prince H---- conduct the first performance of the _Symphony in X major_? Did Weber arrive in England on Thursday or Friday? And so on. It is all very tiresome. Sometimes I believe that it is the whole duty of a critic to write about interpreters, about the interpretative arts. Less is understood about acting, singing, and dancing than about anything else in the field of æsthetic discussion, the more that is written about them, therefore, the better. Besides creative artists speak for themselves. Anybody can read a book; anybody can see a picture, or a reproduction of it. As for posterity it rejects all contemporary criticism of creative work; it has no use for it. It goes back to the work itself. So the critic of creative work entirely disappears in the course of a few years. After his short day nobody will read him any more. Now an actor, a singer, or a dancer, can appear in comparatively few places for a comparatively short time. The number of people who can see or hear these interpreters is relatively small; consequently they like to read about them. As for posterity it is absolutely dependent upon books for its knowledge of the interpreters of a bygone day. That is the only way it can see the actors of the past. For that reason I am perfectly sure in my own mind that of such of my books as are devoted to criticism this is the one most likely to please posterity. All criticism may not be creative writing, but certainly all good criticism is. For all good writing should be self-expression and the subject treated and the form into which it is cast are mere matters of convenience. There is no essential difference between poetry, fiction, drama, and essay. An essay may be as creative as a work of fiction, often it is more so. You will find criticism elsewhere than in the work of acknowledged critics. Dostoevsky's "The House of the Dead" is certainly a critical work, but the author chooses to criticize the conditions under which human beings are compelled to live rather than the works of Pushkin. Turgeniev once wrote to Flaubert, "There is no longer any artist of the present time who is not also a critic." He might have added that while all artists are assuredly critics, all critics are not artists. On the other hand Walter Pater's famous passage about the _Monna Lisa_ is certainly creative; it might almost be held responsible for the vogue of the picture. Before the war, nearly any day you might find frail American ladies from the Middle West standing in front of Leonardo's canvas and repeating the lines like so much doggerel. All artists express themselves as they may but they are not artists unless they express _themselves_. Only thus may they establish a current between themselves and their readers; only thus may they arouse emotion. And if they succeed in arousing emotion we may disregard the form in which their work is cast and bathe in the essence of spirit and idea. Whether you agree with this theory or not you must be compelled to admit that criticism of interpreters, if it is anything at all, is bound to be creative. For the art of the interpreter exists in time and space only for the moment in an arbitrary place. Therefore he who writes about an interpreter is using him to express certain ideas as a painter uses his model. It is a well-established fact that singers and actors in general only approve of the critics who praise them, but it will readily be apparent that there is a good instinctive reason back of this peculiarity. Their work only lives as it exists in criticism and people who dwell in places where these actors are not to be seen or in times after they are dead must perforce depend upon the critic for their impressions of these interpreters. The case of creative work is entirely different. The creator of genius should never be disturbed by a bad criticism. If his work is good it will far outlast the criticism. Indeed a bad notice helps a fine book to find its public sooner than a good notice, because it attracts attention and stimulates discussion. I think it is likely, for instance, that the striking collection of bad notices of his previous books, which James Branch Cabell inserted in the end pages of "The Cream of the Jest," did as much to advertise that author as the subsequent publication of "Jurgen." II Somewhere in Agnes G. Murphy's vivid but somewhat hysterical account of the life and adventures of Madame Melba, the diva's Boswell declares that the singer never permitted herself the pleasure of meeting newspaper critics lest, it is to be assumed, they should be prejudiced in her favour through the acquaintanceship. I can assure Madame Melba that this decision, if strictly adhered to, has cost her many pleasant hours, for I number certain music critics among my most diverting friends. I can further assure these colleagues of mine that they have missed knowing a very amusing woman, for once, not being considered at the time anything so formidable as a critic, I was permitted to sit next to the Australian canary while she toyed with her grapefruit and tasted her _oeuf bénédictine_. Madame Melba's point of view is not held exclusively by her. There are many singers who believe that a series of dinner invitations will buy a critic's pen; a few do not hesitate to offer emerald stick-pins and even substantial cheques. These methods are often entirely successful. On the other hand there are critics who will rush across the street, though the mud be ankle deep, to avoid an introduction to an artist. I have been frequently asked where I stood in the matter, as if it were necessary to take a stand and defend it. I may say that if my profession kept me from knowing anybody I really wanted to know I should relinquish that profession without hesitation. It is absurd to feel that you cannot dine with a singer without praising her performances. Many days in each month I dine with authors whose works I abhor. I find their companionship delightful. Should I be deprived of their society because I happen to be a critic? I suppose I have a price--almost everybody has--but I should like to state right here and now that it is not a dinner, or a series of dinners, or even an emerald scarf-pin. I should be inclined, however, I admit frankly, to say at least gentle things about a lady who made me a present of a blooded silver cat. But the crux of the matter lies deeper than this. No mere music critic can hope to write about singing, violin playing, or piano playing without knowing singers, violinists, and pianists. He can learn much from books, from the reviews of other critics, from hearing performances, but the great critics are those who study from the lips of the interpreters themselves. The valuable hints, suggestions, and inspiration that a critic with an open mind can gather from an interpreter are priceless, and not to be found elsewhere. Not that an interpreter will always tell the truth, not that he always knows what the truth is in his particular case. Nevertheless any _virtuoso_ will always have something of interest to say. It stands to reason that any man or woman who has devoted his life to his profession will know more about its difficulties, limitations, and tricks, than a mere critic can hope to learn in any way except through social intercourse with the interpreter. A young critic may learn much through reading Chorley, Burney, Schumann, Ernest Newman, and James Huneker. He can further prepare himself for his trade by listening with open ears to concerts and operas (although, in passing, it may be stated categorically that no critic learns immediately the value of opening his ears, so steeped is he in the false tradition of his craft), by burying his nose in the scores of the masters, and by reading all that the composers themselves may have said about the performances of their works. But he can learn more in a five-minute conversation with a great orchestral conductor, a great singer, or a great instrumentalist than he can in all the other ways combined. Arturo Toscanini, Mary Garden, Ysaye, Marcella Sembrich, Yvette Guilbert, Pablo Casals, Fritz Kreisler, Waslav Nijinsky, Marguerite d'Alvarez, or Leo Ornstein can give any reviewer, young or old, invaluable lessons. Such as these are their own severest critics and they teach the writer-critic to be severe--and just. One piece of advice, however, I would give to prospective critics. Become acquainted with artist-interpreters by all means, but other things being equal, it is perhaps better to meet good artists than bad ones! III Chaliapine, Nijinsky, Mazarin, and Fremstad[A] have not appeared on the New York stage since I painted their portraits; nor have I seen them elsewhere. Consequently any revision I might make in these pictures would be revision of what I felt then in terms of what I feel now. Nothing could be more ridiculous. So I let them stand as they are. With Yvette Guilbert the case is somewhat different. She has been before the American public almost consistently since the original publication of this book. Her work at her own recitals is still the fine thing it was and probably will remain so for a great many years to come. Madame Guilbert, however, has seen fit to appear in a play at the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York, a fourteenth century French miracle play called _Guibour_. It is often said of an actress that she is too great to fail even when a part does not suit her. But this is an utterly fallacious theory. Only _great_ actresses _can_ fail. A really bad actress always fails and consequently cannot be considered at all. A mediocre or conventional actress is neither very good nor very bad in any rôle, but a great actress, when she fails, fails magnificently, because she plays with such precision and authority that she is worse than a lesser person possibly could be. Certainly Yvette Guilbert failed magnificently in _Guibour_. I have been told that her infrequent performances in comedy in Paris have been equally unsuccessful. When Guilbert sings a song she is forced by the very nature of her method to make much of little; without setting, frequently without costume, without the aid of other actors, she is obliged in a period of three or four minutes to give her public an atmosphere, several characters, and a miniature drama. Now, taking into consideration the average low rate of intelligence and the almost entire lack of imagination of the ordinary theatre audience, she is compelled to chuck in as much detail as the thing will hold. The result is generally admirable. In a play, however, this method becomes monotonous, tiresome, picayune, fussy, overelaborate. One does not want the lift of an eyelash, a gesture with every line; one does not want emphasis on every word. The great actors employ broader methods. It was here that Madame Guilbert failed, by applying the extremely efficacious technique of her own perfect craft to another craft which calls for another technique. [Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR AS ZAZA _from a photograph by Geisler and Andrews (1920)_] Geraldine Farrar has been seen and heard in a number of impersonations at the Metropolitan Opera House (she has also enlarged her cinema répertoire), since I wrote my paper about her, Orlanda in _La Reine Fiamette_, Lodoletta, Thais, Suor Angelica, and Zaza, but I can add very little to what I have said. Orlanda, Lodoletta, and, naturally enough, Thais, she has permanently dropped, I think, after a short period of experimentation. In Zaza, however, it seems possible, although it is too early to predict with certainty, as I am writing these lines a month after her assumption of the part, that she has found a rôle in which she will meet popular satisfaction for some years to come. On the whole, however, I must leave the case as I pleaded it originally, withal it is probably a trifle rosier than I would plead it now. Nevertheless I must state in fairness that Madame Farrar has probably never sung so well before as she is singing this winter (1919-20) and that she retains the admiration of opera-goers in general. It seems apparent to me now that in exploiting herself as a "character" actress she has perhaps made a mistake. Her best work has not been done in operas like _Thais_, _Carmen_, and _Zaza_, but as Elisabeth in _Tannhäuser_, as the Goosegirl in _Königskinder_, and as Rosaura in _Le Donne Curiose_. Usually, indeed, she is charming in what are called "ingenue" rôles. It may therefore be considered unfortunate that these are the rôles in her repertoire to which she is most indifferent. However it must be admitted that it seems impertinent and even stupid to storm and fret about a career which has been so evenly successful. The public must admire Madame Farrar or it would not go to see her, and at the Metropolitan Opera House it is a recognized fact that she is one of two singers in the company who is always sure of drawing a full house. IV We come to Mary Garden. I never can resist the temptation to write about Mary Garden. I never even try to. Other subjects intrigue me for a time, but I usually pass them by in the end and go on to something new, new to me, at least. But I always feel that I have left something unsaid about this singing actress. It is probable that I always will feel this way for Miss Garden in her performances constantly suggests some new idea or awakens some dormant emotion. As a result, although I may write about coleoptera, the influence of cobalt on the human mind, or a history of Persian miniatures, I shall probably always find occasion to insert a few remarks about this incomparable artist. The paper devoted to her in this book seems to me at present pitifully weak, absurdly inadequate. I have gone farther in "The New Art of the Singer," which you will find in "The Merry-Go-Round" (1918), and in my study of _Carmen_ in "The Music of Spain" (1918). This seems a good place to state, however, that Miss Garden's Carmen was only seen to its best advantage when she appeared with Muratore. The nature of her interpretation of this rôle is such that it depends to a great extent on satisfactory assistance from her fellow singers. Her Carmen is a study of a cold, brutal, mysterious gipsy, who does not seek lovers, they come to her. When, as at some recent performances, the tenors and baritones do not come (it is obvious that some of them might take lessons to advantage in crossing the stage) her interpretation loses a good deal of its intention. I offer this explanation to any one who feels that my enthusiasm for her in this rôle is exaggerated. To fully understand the greatness of Miss Garden's Carmen one must have observed it in fitting surroundings. I hope this environment may soon be provided again. On the whole I feel that the most enthusiastic of Miss Garden's admirers have so far done the woman scant justice. Most of us are beginning to realize that she is the greatest of living lyric artists, that she has done more to revive the original intention of the Florentines in inventing the opera to recapture the theatre of the Greeks, than any one else. She has made opera, indeed, sublimated speech. And she is certainly the contemporary queen of lyric sigaldry. It is said by some who do not stop to think, or who do not know what singing is, that Mary Garden is a great actress but that she cannot sing.[B] These misguided bigots, who try to make it their business to misunderstand anything that approaches perfection, remind me of the incident of Lady Astor and the American sailor. She met the youth just outside the Houses of Parliament and asked him if he would like to go in. "I _would_ not," were the words he flung into her astonished face. "My mother told me to avoid women like you." Some day a few of the most intelligent of these sacculi may realize that Mary Garden is probably the greatest living singer. It is, indeed, with her voice, and with her _singing_ voice that she does her most consummate acting. Indeed her capacity for colouring her voice to suit the emergencies not only of a phrase but of an entire rôle, might give a hint to future interpreters, were there any capable of taking advantage of such a valuable hint. But, good God, in such matters as phrasing, _portamento_, _messa di voce_, and other paraphernalia of the singing teacher's laboratory, she is past-mistress, and if any one has any complaints to make about the quality and quantity of tone she used in the second act of _l'Amore dei Tre Re_ I feel that he did not listen with unprejudiced ears. There is, perhaps, nothing that need be added at present to what I have already said of her Sapho, Marguerite, Mélisande,[C] Chrysis, Jean, Louise, and Thais, except that such of these impersonations as still remain in her répertoire are as clean-cut, as finely chiselled as ever; probably each is a little improved on each subsequent occasion on which it is performed. Some day I shall have more to say about her marvellous Monna Vanna. I am sure I would understand her Salome better now. When I first saw her in Richard Strauss's music drama I was still under the spell of Olive Fremstad's impersonation, and was astonished, and perhaps a little indignant at Miss Garden's divagations. But now I know what I did not know so well then, that an interpreter must mould a part to suit his own personality. It is probable that if Mary Garden should vouchsafe us another view of her nervous, unleashed tiger-woman I would be completely bowled over. It seems necessary to speak of the portraits she has added to her gallery since the fall of 1917. Since then she has been seen in Février's _Gismonda_, Massenet's _Cléopâtre_, and Montemezzi's _l'Amore dei Tre Re_. The first of these is a very bad opera; it is not even one of Sardou's best plays. The part afforded Miss Garden an opportunity for the display of pride, dignity, and authority. Her gowns were very beautiful--I remember particularly the lovely Grecian drapery of the convent scene, which she has since developed into a first-act costume for Fiora; she made a handsome figure of the woman, but the thing itself was pasteboard and will soon be forgotten. The posthumous _Cléopâtre_ was nearly as bad, but in the scene in which the queen, disguised as a boy, visits an Egyptian brothel and makes love to another boy, Mary was very startling, and the death scene, in which, after burying the asp in her bosom, she tosses it away with a shudder, sinks to the ground, then crawls to Antony's side and expires below his couch, one arm waving futilely in the air in an attempt to touch her lover, was one of her most touching and finest bits of acting. Her pale face, her green eyelids combined to create a sinister make-up. But, on the whole, a dull opera, and not likely to be heard again. [Illustration: MARY GARDEN AS CLÉOPÂTRE _from a photograph by Moffett (1919)_] But Fiora! What a triumph! What a volcano! I have never been able to find any pleasure in listening to the music of Montemezzi's _l'Amore dei Tre Re_, although it has a certain pulse, a rhythmic beat, especially in the second act, which gives it a factitious air of being better than it really is. The play, however, is interesting, and subtle enough to furnish material for quibble and discussion not only among critics, but among interpreters themselves. Miss Bori, who originally sang Fiora in New York, was a pathetic flower, torn and twisted by the winds of fate, blown hither and thither without effort or resistance on her part. It was probably a possible interpretation, and it found admirers. Miss Muzio, the next local incumbent of the rôle, fortified with a letter from Sem Benelli, or at least his spoken wishes, found it convenient to alter this impersonation in most particulars, but she was not, is not, very convincing. Her intentions are undoubtedly good but she is no instrument for the mystic gods to play upon. But Miss Garden's Fiora burned through the play like a flame. She visualized a strong-minded mediæval woman, torn by the conflicting emotions of pity and love, but once she had abandoned herself to her passion she became a living altar consecrated to the worship of Aphrodite and Eros. Such a hurricane of fiery, tempestuous love has seldom if ever before swept the stage. Miss Garden herself has never equalled this performance, save in Mélisande and Monna Vanna, which would lead one to the conclusion that she is at her best in parts of the middle ages, until one reflects that in early Greek courtesans, in French cocottes of several periods, in American Indians, and Spanish gipsies she is equally atmospheric. Other Fioras have been content to allow the hand of death to smite them without a struggle. Not this one. When Archibaldo attempts to strangle her she tries to escape; her efforts are horrible and pathetic because they are fruitless. And the final clutch of the fingers behind his back leave the most horrible blood-stains of tragic beauty in the memory. V What is to become of Mary Garden? What can she do now? What is there left for her to do? Those who complain of some of the dross in her répertoire can scarcely have considered the material available to her. In _Pelléas et Mélisande_, _Louise_, and _Salome_ she has given much to the best the contemporary lyric stage has to offer. On other occasions she has succeeded in transfiguring indifferent material with her genius. _Monna Vanna_ is not a great opera, but she makes it seem so. But where is there anything better? Can she turn to Puccini, whose later operas seem bereft of merit, to Mascagni, to Strauss, to any other of the living opera composers? Ravel's one opera is not particularly suited to her, but why, I might ask, does not Ravel write something for her? Why not Strawinsky? Why not Leo Ornstein? Why not John Carpenter? The talented composer of _The Birthday of the Infanta_ might very well write an opera, in which her genius for vocal experimentation might have still further play. In the meantime I can make one or two suggestions. I have already begged for Isolde and Isolde I think we shall get in time. But has it occurred to any one that the Queen in _The Golden Cockerel_ is a part absolutely suited to the Garden genius? Not, of course, _The Golden Cockerel_ as at present performed, with a double cast of singers and pantomimists but as an opera, in the form in which Rimsky-Korsakow conceived it. And I hope some day that she will attempt Gluck's _Armide_, perhaps one of the Iphigénies, and Donna Anna. Why not? Of all living singers Miss Garden is the only one who could give us the complete fulfilment of Mozart's tragic heroine. Oscar Hammerstein, whose vision was acute, once considered a performance of _Don Giovanni_ with Maurice Renaud in the title part, Luisa Tetrazzini as Zerlina, Lina Cavalieri as Elvira, and Mary Garden as Anna. It was never given. But I hope at the next revival of the work at the Opéra-Comique Miss Garden will undertake the part, and I see no reason why the opera should not be added to the already extensive répertoire of the Chicago Opera Company. Her stride, her lithe carriage, her plastic use of her arms and her body, give Mary Garden a considerable advantage over a sculptor, who can in the course of a lifetime only capture perhaps ten perfect examples of arrested motion, while in any one performance she makes her body a hundred different works of art. Of course, some of us, fascinated by the mere beauty of the Garden line, more slender now than it was even in her most youthful past, delighted with her irreproachable taste in dress, would rest content to watch her walk across the scene or form exquisite pictures in any part, in any opera. But unless one of the best of the moderns writes a great rôle for her, it would be a great satisfaction to see her in one of the noble classic parts of the past, and that satisfaction, I hope, will be vouchsafed us. _March 18, 1920._ _New York._ On the following pages you will find descriptions of two other interesting books by Mr. Van Vechten. THE MERRY-GO-ROUND (12mo., 343 pages, $2.00 _net._) CONTENTS: In defence of bad taste; Music and supermusic; Edgar Saltus; The new art of the singer; Au bal musette; Music and cooking; An interrupted conversation; The authoritative work on American music; Old days and new; Two young American playwrights; De senectute cantorum; The Land of Joy; The new Isadora; Margaret Anglin produces As You Like It; The modern composers at a glance. "Carl Van Vechten has the jauntiest pen that ever graced the ear of a literary gentleman. He uses it as D'Artagnan used his sword, with sheer joy in the wielding of it, a sharp accuracy of aim, and a fine musketeering courage back of it. His pen is a pen of the world, a cosmopolitan pen which is at home in the marts of Irving Berlin, as well as in the rarefied heights of Igor Strawinsky. It knows how to turn a phrase or a reputation. In The Merry-Go-Round his pen has the time of its life. So will you when you flip a ride on the whirligig."--Fanny Butcher in _The Chicago Tribune_. ALFRED A. KNOPF, PUBLISHER, NEW YORK IN THE GARRET (12mo., 347 pages, $2.00 _net._) CONTENTS: Variations on a theme by Havelock Ellis; A note on Philip Thicknesse; The folk-songs of Iowa; Isaac Albeniz; The holy jumpers; On the relative difficulties of depicting heaven and hell in music; Sir Arthur Sullivan; On the rewriting of masterpieces; Oscar Hammerstein; La Tigresse; Mimi Aguglia as Salome; Farfariello; The Negro Theatre; The Yiddish Theatre; The Spanish Theatre. "When he surveys the American scene we go all the way with Mr. Van Vechten. He celebrates his attachment to New York as ecstatically as Charles Lamb's his to London, in a chapter called La Tigresse. This is the best thing in the book. And Mr. Thomas Burke, in England, alone has caught this peculiar gusto."--_The London Times._ ALFRED A. KNOPF, PUBLISHER, NEW YORK FOOTNOTES: [A] Madame Fremstad has appeared in concert in New York but not in opera. [B] The fault is really typical of that school of criticism which is always comparing, instead of searching out an artist's intention and judging whether or not he has realized it. [C] Maurice Maeterlinck broke a promise to Georgette Leblanc of seventeen years' standing to witness a performance of Debussy's lyric drama on January 27, 1920, when, with the new Madame Maeterlinck, he sat in a box, remaining till the final curtain, at the Lexington Theatre in New York. After the fourth act, responding to Miss Garden's urge and the applause of the audience, he rose to bow. Typographical error note of transcriber of this etext: choregraphy has not been corrected overwhemingly=>overwhelmingly 
17495	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 17495-h.htm or 17495-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/4/9/17495/17495-h/17495-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/7/4/9/17495/17495-h.zip) THE STOLEN SINGER by MARTHA BELLINGER With Illustrations by Arthur William Brown [Frontispiece: Miss Redmond detected a passage of glances between them.] Indianapolis The Bobbs-Merrill Company Publishers Copyright 1911 The Bobbs-Merrill Company TO MY HUSBAND CONTENTS CHAPTER I TWILIGHT IN THE PARK II HAMBLETON OF LYNN III MIDSUMMER MADNESS IV MR. VAN CAMP MAKES A CALL V MELANIE'S DREAMS VI ON BOARD THE JEANNE D'ARC VII THE ROPE LADDER VIII ON THE BREAST OF THE SEA IX THE CAMP ON THE BEACH X THE HEART OF YOUTH XI THE HOME PORT XII SEEING THE RAINBOW XIII ALECK SEES A GHOST XIV SUSAN STODDARD'S PRAYER XV ECHOES FROM THE CITY XVI A FIGHTING CHANCE XVII THE TURN OF THE TIDE XVIII THE SPIRIT OF THE ANCIENT WOOD XIX MR. CHAMBERLAIN, SLEUTH XX MONSIEUR CHATELARD TAKES THE WHEEL XXI JIMMY REDIVIVUS XXII A MAN OF NO PRINCIPLE XXIII JIMMY MUFFS THE BALL XXIV AFTER YOU, MONSIEUR! EPILOGUE ILLUSTRATIONS Miss Redmond detected a passage of glances between them . . . . . . (Frontispiece) "That depends upon whether you are going to marry me." "It _does_ make one feel queer, you know." She stood over him looking down tenderly. "You shall not turn me down like this." THE STOLEN SINGER CHAPTER I TWILIGHT IN THE PARK "You may wait, Renaud." The voice was firm, but the lady herself hesitated as she stepped from the tonneau. There was no answer. Holding the flapping ends of her veil away from her face, she turned and looked fairly at the driver of the machine. He seemed a businesslike, capable man, though certain minor details of his chauffeur's rig were a bit unusual, and now that he had been obliged, by some discomfort, to remove his goggles, his face appeared pleasant and quite untanned. His passenger noted these things, remarking: "Oh, it isn't Renaud!" "No, Mademoiselle; Renaud hadn't showed up at the office when you telephoned, so they put me on in his place." "Ah, I see." Accent seemed to imply, however, that she was not quite pleased. "The manager sent you. And your name is--?" "My name--rather odd name--Hand." The face half hidden behind the veil remained impassive. A moment's hesitation, and then the lady turned away with a short, "You will wait?" "As mademoiselle wishes. Or shall I perhaps follow slowly along the drive?" "No, wait here. I shall return--soon." The young woman walked away, erect, well-poised, lifting skirts skilfully as she paused a moment at the top of the stone steps leading down into the tiny park. The driver of the machine, free from observation, allowed a perplexed look to occupy his countenance. "What the devil is to pay if she doesn't return--_soon_!" The avenue lifts a camel's hump toward the sky in the space of fifteen blocks, and on the top, secure as the howdah of a chieftain, stands the noble portico of the old college. To the westward, as every one knows, lie the river and the more pretentious park; on the east an abrupt descent offers space for a small grassy playground for children, who may be seen, during the sunny hours of the day, romping over the slope. As the gaze of the woman swept over the charming little pleasance, and beyond, over the miles of sign-boards, roofs, chimneys, and intersecting streets, the serious look disappeared from her face. Summer haze and distance shed a gentle beauty over what she knew to be a clamoring city--New York. Angles were softened, noises subdued, sensational scenes lost in the dimmed perspective. To a chance observer, the prospect would have been deeply suggestive; in the woman it stirred many memories. She put back her veil; her face glowed; a long sigh escaped her lips. Slowly she walked down the steps, along the sloping path to a turn, where she sank down on a bench. A rosy, tired child, rather the worse for mud-pies, and hanging reluctantly at the hand of its nonchalant nurse, brought a bit of the woman's emotion to the surface. She smiled radiantly at the lagging infant. The face revealed by the uplifted veil was of a type to accompany the youthful but womanly figure and the spirited tread. Beautiful she would be counted, without doubt, by many an observer; those who loved her would call her beautiful without stint. But more appealing than her beauty was the fine spirit--a strong, free spirit, loving honesty and courage--which glowed like a flame behind her beauty. Best of all, perhaps, was a touch of quaintness, a slightly comic twist to her lips, an imperceptible alertness of manner, which revealed to the initiated that she had a sense of humor in excellent running order. It was evident that the little excursion was of the nature of a pilgrimage. The idle hour, the bit of holiday, became a memorial, as recollection brought back to her the days of childhood spent down yonder, a few squares away, in this very city. They seemed bright in retrospect, like the pleasant paths of a quiet garden, but they had ended abruptly, and had been followed by years of activity and colorful experience in another country. Through it all what anticipations had been lodged in her return to Home! Something there would complete the story--the story with its secret ecstasies and aspirations--the story of the ardent springs of youth. Withdrawing her gaze from the scene below, though with apparent reluctance, she took from the pocket of her coat an opened envelope which she regarded a moment with thoughtfulness, before drawing forth the enclosures. There were two letters, one of which was brief and written in bad script on a single sheet of paper bearing a legal head. It was dated at Charlesport, Maine, and stated that the writer, in conformity with the last wish of his friend and client, Hercules Thayer, was ready to transfer certain deeds and papers to the late Mr. Thayer's designated heir, Agatha Redmond; also that the writer requested an interview at Miss Redmond's earliest convenience. Holding the half-opened sheets in her hand, the lady closed her eyes and sat motionless, as if in the grasp of an absorbing thought. With the disappearing child, the signs of life on the hillside had diminished. The traffic of the street passed far below, the sharp click-click of a pedestrian now and then sounded above, but no one passed her way. The hum of the city made a blurred wash of sound, like the varying yet steady wash of the sea. As she opened her eyes again, she saw that the twilight had perceptibly deepened. Far away, lights began to flash out in the city, as if a million fireflies, by twos and threes and dozens, were waking to their nocturnal revelry. On the hill the light was still good, and the lady turned again to her reading. The other letter was written on single sheets of thin paper in an old-fashioned, beautiful hand. Wherever a double-s occurred, the first was written long, in the style of sixty years ago; and the whole letter was as easily legible as print. Across the top was written: "To Agatha Redmond, daughter of my ward and dear friend, Agatha Shaw Redmond"; and below that, in the lawyer's choppy handwriting, was a date of nearly a year previous. As Agatha Redmond read the second letter, a smile, half of sadness, half of pleasure, overspread her countenance. It ran as follows: "ILION, MAINE. "MY DEAR AGATHA: "I take my pen in hand to address you, the daughter of the dearest friend of my life, for the first time in the twenty-odd years of your existence. Once as a child you saw me, and you have doubtless heard my name from your mother's people from time to time; but I can scarcely hope that any knowledge of my private life has come to you. It will be easy, then, for you to pardon an old man for giving you, in this fashion, the confidence he has never been able to bestow in the flesh. "When you read this epistle, my dear Agatha, I shall have stepped into that next mystery, which is Death. Indeed, the duty which I am now discharging serves as partial preparation for that very event. This duty is to make you heir to my house and estate and to certain accessory funds which will enable you to keep up the place. "You may regard this act, possibly, as the idiosyncrasy of an unbalanced mind; it is certain that some of my kinsfolk will do so. But while I have been able to bear up under _their_ greater or less displeasure for many years, I find myself shrinking before the possibility of dying absolutely unknown and forgotten by you. Your mother, Agatha Shaw, of blessed memory now for many years, was my ward and pupil after the death of your grandfather. I think I may say without undue self-congratulation that few women of their time have enjoyed as sound a scheme of education as your mother. She had a knowledge of mathematics, could construe both in Latin and Greek, and had acquired a fair mastery of the historic civilization of the Greeks, Egyptians and ancient Babylonians. While these attainments would naturally be insufficient for a man's work in life, yet for a woman they were of an exceptional order. "Sufficient to say that in your mother's character these noteworthy abilities were supplemented by gracious, womanly arts; and when she arrived at maturity, I offered her the honor of marriage. "It is painful for me to recall the scene and the consequences of your mother's refusal of my hand, even after these years of philosophical reflection. It were idle for a man of parts to allow a mere preference in regard to his domestic situation to influence his course of action in any essential matter, and I have never permitted my career to be shaped by such details. But from that time, however, the course of my life was changed. From the impassioned orator and preacher I was transformed into the man of books and the study, and since then I have lived far from the larger concourses of men. My weekly sermon, for twenty years, has been the essence of my weekly toil in establishing the authenticity, first, of the entire second gospel, and second, of the ten doubtful verses in the fifteenth chapter. My work is now accomplished--for all time, I believe. "From the inception of what I considered my life mission, I made the resolve to bequeath to Agatha Shaw whatever manuscripts or other material of value my work should lead me to accumulate, together with this house, in which I have spent all the later years of my life. You are Agatha Shaw's only child, therefore to me a foster-child. "Another reason, four years ago, led me to confirm my former testament. From time to time I have informed myself concerning your movements and fortunes. The work you have chosen, my dear Agatha, I can but believe to be fraught with unusual dangers to a young woman. Therefore I hope that this home, modest as it is, may tempt you to an early retirement from the stage, and lead you to a more private and womanly career. This I make only as a request, not as a condition. I bid you farewell, and give you my blessing. "Faithfully yours, "HERCULES THAYER." Agatha Redmond folded the thin sheets carefully. There was a mist in her gaze as she looked off toward the distant city lights. "Dear old gentleman! His whole love-story, and my mother's, too, perhaps!" Her quickened memory recalled childish impressions of a visit to a large country house and of a solemn old man--he seemed incredibly ancient to her--and of feeling that in some way she and her mother were in a special relationship to the house. It was called "the old red house," and was full of fascinating things. The ancient man had bidden her go about and play as if it were her home, and then had called her to him and laid open a book, leading her mind to regard its mysteries. Greek! It seemed to her as if she had begun it there and then. Later the mother became the teacher. She was nursed, as it were, within sight of the windy plains of Troy and to the sound of the Homeric hymns--and all by reason of this ancient scholar. There was a vivid picture in her mind, gathered at some later visit, of a soft hillside, a small white church standing under its balm-of-gilead tree, and herself sitting by a stone in the old churchyard, listening to the strains of a hymn which floated out from the high, narrow windows. She remembered how, from without, she had joined in the hymn, singing with all her small might; and suddenly the association brought back to her a more recent event and a more beautiful strain of music. Half in reverie, half in conscious pleasure in the exercise of a facile organ, she began to sing: "Free of my pain, free of my burden of sorrow, At last I shall see thee--" The song floated in a zone of silence that lay above the deep-murmuring city. The voice was no more than the half-voice of a flute, sweet, gentle, beguiling. It told, as so many songs tell, of little earthly Love in the grasp of mighty Fate. Still she sang on, softly, as if loving the entrancing melody. Suddenly the song ceased, and the reminiscent smile gave place to an expression of surprise, as the singer became conscious of a deeper shadow falling directly in front of her. She glanced up quickly, and found herself looking into the face of a man whose gimlet-like gaze was directed upon herself. Quickly as she rose, she could not turn into the path before the gentleman, hat in hand, with a deep bow and clearly enunciated words, arrested her impulse to flight. "Pardon, Mademoiselle, I am a stranger in the city. I was directed this way to Van Cortlandt Hall, but I find I am in error, intrigued--in confusion. Would mademoiselle be so good as to direct me?" The tones had a foreign accent. There was something, also, in their bland impertinence which put Miss Redmond on her guard. He was a good-sized, blond person, carefully dressed, and at least appeared like a gentleman. Miss Redmond looked into the smooth, neat countenance, upon which no record either of experience or of thought was engraved, and decided fleetingly that he was lying. She judged him capable of picking up acquaintances on the street, but thought that more originality might be expected of him. Suddenly she wished that she had returned sooner to her car, for though she was of an adventurous nature, her bravery was not of the physical order; and she disliked to have the appearance of unconventionality. After the first minute she was not so much afraid as annoyed. Her voice became frigid, though her dignity was somewhat damaged by the fact that she bungled in giving the desired information. "I think monsieur will find Van Cortlandt Hall in the College grounds two blocks south--no, north--of the gateway yonder, at the upper end of this walk." "Ah, mademoiselle is but too kind!" He bowed deeply again, hat still in hand. "I thank you profoundly. And may I say, also, that this wonderful picture--" here he spread eloquent hands toward the half-quiescent city whose thousand eyes glimmered over the lower distance--"this panorama of occidental life, makes a peculiar appeal to the imagination?" The springs of emotion, touched potently as they had been by the surging recollections of the last half-hour, were faintly stirred again in Miss Redmond's heart by the stranger's grandiloquent words. Unconsciously her features relaxed, though she did not reply. "Again I pray mademoiselle to pardon me, but only a moment past I heard the song--the song that might be the sigh of all the daughters of Italy. Ah, Mademoiselle, it is wonderful! But here in this so fresh country, this youthful, boisterous, too prosperous country, that song is like--like--like Arabian spices in a kitchen. Is it not so?" Miss Redmond was moving up the steps toward the entrance, hesitating between the desire to snub her interlocutor and to avoid the appearance of fright. The man, meanwhile, moved easily beside her, courteously distant, discourteously insistent in his prattle. But the motor-car was now not far away. The stranger looked appealingly at her, seemingly sure of a humorous answering look to his pleasantry. It was not wholly denied. She yielded to a touch of amusement with a cool smile, and hastened her steps. The man kept pace without effort. Luckily, the car stood only a few feet away, with Renaud, or rather Hand, at the curb, holding open the door. A vague bow and a lifting of the hat, and apparently the stranger went the other way. She felt a foolish relief, and at the same instant noted with surprise that the cover of her car had been raised. "Why did you raise the top?" "It appeared to me, Mademoiselle, that it was likely to rain." "Put it down again. It will not rain," Miss Redmond was saying, when, from sidelong eyes, she saw that the stranger had not turned in the other direction, after all, but was almost in her tracks, as though he were stalking game. With foot on the step she said sharply, but in a low voice, "To the Plaza quickly," then immediately added, with a characteristic practical turn: "But don't get yourself arrested for speeding." "No, Mademoiselle, with this car I can make--" Even as the chauffeur replied, Miss Redmond's sharpened senses detected a passage of glances between him and the stranger, now close behind her. She sprang into the tonneau and seized the door, but not before the man had caught at it with a stronger hold, and stepped in close after her. The chauffeur was in his seat, the car was moving slowly, now faster and faster. Suddenly the bland countenance slid very near her own, while firm hands against her shoulders crowded her into the farther corner of the tonneau. "O Renaud--Hand!" she cried, but the driver made no sign. "Help, help!" she shrieked, but the cry was instantly choked into a feeble protest. A mass of something, pressed to her mouth and nostrils, incited her to superhuman efforts. She struggled frantically, fumbled at the door, tore at the curtain, and succeeded in getting her head for an instant at the opening, while she clutched her assailant and held him helpless. But only for a moment. The firm large hands quickly overpowered even the strength induced by frenzy, and in another minute she was lying unresisting on the soft cushions of the tonneau. The car careened through the streets, the figure of the unresponsive Hand mocked her cries for help, the neat hard face of the stranger continued to bend over her. Then everything swam in a maelstrom of duller and duller sense, the world grew darker and fainter, till finally it was lost in silence. CHAPTER II HAMBLETON OF LYNN The Hambletons of Lynn had not distinguished themselves, in late generations at least, by remarkable deeds, though their deportment was such as to imply that they could if they would. They frankly regarded themselves as the elect of earth, if not of Heaven, always, however, with a becoming modesty. Since 1636 the family had pieced out its existence in the New World, tenaciously clinging to many of its old-country habits. It had kept the _b_ in the family name, for instance; it had kept the name itself out of trade, and it had indulged its love of country life at the expense of more than one Hambleton fortune. A daughter-in-law was once reported as saying that it would have been a good thing if some Hambleton had embarked in trade, since in that case they might have been saved from devoting themselves exclusively to an illustration of polite poverty. She was never forgiven, and died without being reconciled to the family. As to the spelling of the name, the family claimed ancestral authority as far back as King Fergus the First. Mrs. Van Camp, a relative by marriage--a woman considered by the best Hambletons as far too frank and worldly-minded--informed the family that King Fergus was as much a myth as Dido, and innocently brought forth printed facts to corroborate her statement. One of the ladies Hambleton crushed Mrs. Van Camp by stating, in a tone of deep personal conviction, with her cap awry, "So much the worse for Dido!" A salient strength persisted in the Hambletons--a strength which retained its character in spite of cross-currents. The Hambleton tone and the Hambleton ideas retained their family color, and became, whether worthily or not, a part of the Hambleton pride. More than one son had lost his health or entire fortune, which was apt not to be large, in attempts to carry on a country place. "A Hambleton trait!" they chuckled, with as much satisfaction as they considered it good form to exhibit. In Lynn, where family pride did not bring in large returns, this phrase became almost synonymous with genteel foolishness. The Van Camp fortune, which came near but never actually into the family, was generally understood to have been made in shoes, though in reality it was drugs. "People say 'shoes' the minute they hear the word Lynn, and I'm tired of explaining," Mrs. Van Camp put it. She was third in line from the successful druggist, and could afford, if anybody could, to be supercilious toward trade. But she wasn't, even after twenty years of somewhat restless submission to the Hambleton yoke. And it was she who, during her last visit to the family stronghold, held up before the young James the advantages of a commercial career. "You're a nice boy, Jimsy, and I can't see you turned into a poor lawyer. You're not hard-headed enough to be a good one. As for being a minister, well--no. Go into business, dear boy, something substantial, and you'll live to thank your stars." Jimsy received this advice at the time with small enthusiasm, and a reservation of criticism that was a credit to his manners, at least. But the time came when he leaned on it. Her own child, however, Mrs. Van Camp encouraged to a profession from the first. "Aleck isn't smart enough for business, but he may do something as a student," was Mrs. Van Camp's somewhat trying explanation; and Aleck did do something as a student. Extremely impatient with any exhibition of laziness, the mother demanded a good accounting of her son's time. Aleck and Jim, who were born in the same year, ran more or less side by side until the end of college. They struggled together in sports and in arguments, "rushed" the same girl in turn or simultaneously, and spent their long vacations cruising up and down the Maine coast in a thirty-foot sail-boat. Once they made a more ambitious journey all the way to Yarmouth and the Bay of Fundy in a good-sized fishing-smack. But when college was done, their ways separated. Mrs. Van Camp, in the prime of her unusual faculties, died, having decorated the Hambleton 'scutcheon like a gay cockade stuck airily up into the breeze. She had no part nor lot in the family pride, but understood it, perhaps, better than the Hambletons themselves. Her crime was that she played with it. Aleck, a full-fledged biologist, went to the Little Hebrides to work out his fresh and salad theory concerning the nerve system of the clam. James, third son of John and Edith Hambleton of Lynn, had his eyes thoroughly opened in the three months after Commencement by a consideration of the family situation. It seemed to him that from babyhood he had been burningly conscious of the pinching and skimping necessary to maintain the family pride. The two older brothers were exempt from the scorching process, the eldest being the family darling and the second a genius. Neither one could rationally be expected, "just at present," to take up the family accounts and make the income square up with even a decently generous outgo. And there were the girls yet to be educated. Jim had no special talent to bless himself with, either in art or science. He was inordinately fond of the sea, but that did not help him in choosing a career. He had good taste in books and some little skill in music. He was, indeed, thrall to the human voice, especially to the low voice in woman, and he was that best of all critics, a good listener. His greatest riches, as well as his greatest charm, lay in a spirit of invincible youth; but he was no genius, no one perceived that more clearly than himself. So he remembered Clara Van Camp's advice, wrote the whole story to Aleck, and cast about for the one successful business chance in the four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine bad ones--as the statistics have it. He actually found it in shoes. Foot-ball muscle and grit went into the job of putting a superior shoe on an inferior foot, if necessary--at least on some foot. He got a chance to try his powers in the home branch of a manufacturing house, and made good. When he came to fill a position where there was opportunity to try new ideas, he tried them. He inspected tanneries and stockyards, he got composite measurements of all the feet in all the women's colleges in the year ninety-seven, he drilled salesmen and opened a night school for the buttonhole-makers, he made a scientific study of heels, and he invented an aristocratic arch and put it on the market. The family joked about his doings as the harmless experiments of a lively boy, but presently they began to enjoy his income. Through it all they were affectionate and kind, with the matter-of-course fondness which a family gives to the member that takes the part of useful drudge. John, the pet of the parents, married, and had his own eyes opened, it is to be supposed. Donald, the genius, had just arrived, after a dozen years or so, at the stage where he was mentioned now and then in the literary journals. But Jim stuck to shoes and kept the family on a fair tide of modest prosperity. Once, in the years of Jim's apprenticeship to life, there came over him a fit of soul-sickness that nearly proved his ruin. "I can't stand this," he wrote Aleck Van Camp; "It's too hard and dry and sordid for any man that's got a soul. It isn't the grind I mind, though that is bad enough; it is the 'Commercial Idea' that eats into a man's innards. He forgets there are things that money can't buy, and in his heart he grows contemptuous of anything to be had 'without money and without price.' He can't help it. If he is thinking of trade nine-tenths of the time, his mind gets set that way. I'm ready any minute to jump the fence, like father's old colt up on the farm. I'm not a snob, but I recognize now that there was some reason for all our old Hambleton ancestors being so finicky about trade. "Do you remember how we used to talk, when we were kiddies, about keeping our ideals? Well, I believe I'm bankrupt, Aleck, in my account with ideals. I don't want to howl, and these remarks don't go with anybody else, but I can say, to you, I want them back again." Aleck did as a kiddie should do, writing much advice on long sheets of paper, and illustrating his points richly, like a good Scotchman, with scientific instances. A month or two later he contrived to have work to do in Boston, so that he could go out to Lynn and look up Jimmy's case. He even devised a cure by creating, in his mind, an office in the biological world which was to be offered to James on the ground that science needed just his abilities and training. But when Aleck arrived in Lynn he found that Jim, in some fashion or other, had found a cure for himself. He was deeper than ever in the business, and yet, in some spiritual sense, he had found himself. He had captured his ideal again and yoked it to duty--which is a great feat. After twelve years of ferocious labor, with no vacations to speak of, James's mind took a turn for the worse. Physically he was as sound as a bell, though of a lath-like thinness; but an effervescing in his blood lured his mind away from the study of lasts and accounts and Parisian models and sent it careering, like Satan, up and down the earth. Romance, which had been drugged during the transition from youth to manhood, awoke and coaxed for its rights, and whispered temptingly in an ear not yet dulled to its voice. Freedom, open spaces, laughter, the fresh sweep of the wind, the high bucaneering piracy of life and joy--these things beglamoured his senses. So one day he locked his desk with a final click. The business was in good shape. It is but justice to say that if it had not been, Romance had dangled her luring wisp o' light in vain. Several of his new schemes had worked out well, his subordinates were of one mind with him, trade was flourishing. He felt he could afford a little spin. Jimsy's radiating fancies focussed themselves, at last, on the vision of a trig little sail-boat, "a jug of wine, a loaf of bread" in the cabin, with possibly the book of verses underneath the bow, or more suitably, in the shadow of the sail; and Aleck Van Camp and himself astir in the rigging or plunging together from the gunwale for an early swim. "And before I get off, I'll hear a singer that can sing," he declared. He telegraphed Aleck, who was by this time running down the eyelid of the squid, to meet him at his club in New York. Then he made short work with the family. Experience had taught him that an attack from ambush was most successful. "Look here, Edith,"--this was at the breakfast-table the very morning of his departure. Edith was sixteen, the tallest girl in the academy, almost ready for college and reckoned quite a queen in her world--"You be good and do my chores for me while I'm away, and I'll bring you home a duke. Take care of mother's bronchitis, and keep the house straight. I'm going on a cruise." "All right, Jim"--Edith could always be counted on to catch the ball--"go ahead and have a bully time and don't drown yourself. I'll drive the team straight to water, mother and dad and the whole outfit, trust me!" Considering the occasion and the correctness of the sentiments, Jim forbore, for once, from making the daily suggestion that she chasten her language. By the time the family appeared, Jim had laid out a rigid course of action for Miss Edith, who rose to the occasion like a soldier. "Mother'll miss you, of course, but Jack and Harold"--two of Edith's admirers--"Jack and Harold can come around every day--stout arm to lean upon, that sort of thing. You know mother can't be a bit jolly without plenty of men about, and since Sue became engaged she really doesn't count. The boys will think _they_ are running things, of course, but they'll see my iron hand in the velvet glove--you can throw a blue chip on that, Jimsy. And don't kiss me, Jim, for Dorothy Snell and I vowed, when we wished each other's rings on--Oh, well, brothers don't count." And so, amid the farewells of a tender, protesting family, he got off, leaving Edith in the midst of one of her monologues. There was a telegram in New York saying that Aleck Van Camp would join him in three days, at the latest. Hambleton disliked the club and left it, although his first intention had been to put up there. He picked out a modest, up-town hotel, new to him, for no other reason than that it had a pretty name, The Larue. Then he began to consider details. The day after his arrival was occupied in making arrangements for his boat. He put into this matter the same painstaking buoyancy that he had put into a dull business for twelve years. He changed his plans half a dozen times, and exceeded them wholly in the size and equipment of the little vessel, and in the consequent expense; but he justified himself, as men will, by a dozen good reasons. The trig little sail-boat turned out to be a respectable yacht, steam, at that. She was called the _Sea Gull_. Neat in the beam, stanch in the bows, rigged for coasting and provided with a decent living outfit, she was "good enough for any gentleman," in the opinion of the agent who rented her. Jim was half ashamed at giving up the more robust scheme of sailing his own boat, with Aleck; but some vague and expansive spirit moved him "to see," as he said, "what it would be like to go as far and as fast as we please." While they were about it, they would call on some cousins at Bar Harbor and get good fun out of it. The idea of his holiday grew as he played with it. As his spin took on a more complicated character, his zest rose. He went forth on Sunday feeling as if some vital change was impending. His little cruise loomed up large, important, epochal. He laughed at himself and thought, with his customary optimism, that a vacation was worth waiting twelve years for, if waiting endowed it with such a flavor. Jim knew that Aleck would relish the spin, too. Aleck's nature was that of a grind tempered with sportiness. Jim sat down Sunday morning and wrote out the whole program for Aleck's endorsement, sent the letter by special delivery and went out to reconnoiter. The era of Sunday orchestral concerts had begun, but that day, to Jim's regret, the singer was not a contralto. "Dramatic Soprano" was on the program; a new name, quite unknown to Jim. His interest in the soloist waned, but the orchestra was enough. He thanked Heaven that he was past the primitive stage of thinking any single voice more interesting than the assemblage of instruments known as orchestra. Hambleton found a place in the dim vastness of the hall, and sank into his seat in a mood of vivid anticipation. The instruments twanged, the audience gathered, and at last the music began. Its first effect was to rouse Hambleton to a sharp attention to details--the director, the people in the orchestra, the people in the boxes; and then he settled down, thinking his thoughts. The past, the future, life and its meaning, love and its power, the long, long thoughts of youth and ambition and desire came flocking to his brain. The noble confluence of sound that is music worked upon him its immemorial miracle; his heart softened, his imagination glowed, his spirit stirred. Time was lost to him--and earth. The orchestra ceased, but Hambleton did not heed the commotion about him. The pause and the fresh beginning of the strings scarcely disturbed his ecstatic reverie. A deep hush lay upon the vast assemblage, broken only by the voices of the violins. And then, in the zone of silence that lay over the listening people--silence that vibrated to the memory of the strings--there rose a little song. To Hambleton, sitting absorbed, it was as if the circuit which galvanized him into life had suddenly been completed. He sat up. The singer's lips were slightly parted, and her voice at first was no more than the half-voice of a flute, sweet, gentle, beguiling. It was borne upward on the crest of the melody, fuller and fuller, as on a flooding tide. "Free of my pain, free of my burden of sorrow, At last I shall see thee--" There was freedom in the voice, and the sense of space, of wind on the waters, of life and the love of life. Jimsy was a soft-hearted fellow. He never knew what happened to him; but after uncounted minutes he seemed to be choking, while the orchestra and the people in boxes and the singer herself swam in a hazy distance. He shook himself, called somebody he knew very well an idiot, and laughed aloud in his joy; but his laugh did not matter, for it was drowned in the roar of applause that reached the roof. Jim did not applaud. He went outdoors to think about it; and after a time he found, to his surprise, that he could recall not only the song, but the singer, quite distinctly. It was a tall, womanly figure, and a fair, bright face framed abundantly with dark hair, and the least little humorous twitch to her lips. And her name was Agatha Redmond. "Of course, she can sing; but it isn't like having the real thing--'tisn't an alto," said Jimsy ungratefully and just from habit. The day's experience filled his thoughts and quieted his restlessness. He awaited Aleck with entire patience. Monday morning he spent in small necessary business affairs, securing, among other things, several hundred dollars, which he put in his money-belt. About the middle of the afternoon he left his hotel, engaged a taxicab and started for Riverside. The late summer day was fine, with the afternoon haze settling over river and town. He watched the procession of carriages, the horse-back riders, the people afoot, the children playing on the grass, with a feeling of comradeship. Was he not also tasting freedom--a lord of the earth? His gaze traveled out to the river, with the glimmer here and there of a tug-boat, a little steamer, or the white sail of a pleasure craft. The blood of some seagoing ancestor stirred in his veins, and he thrilled at the thought of the days to come when his prow should be headed offshore. The taxicab had its limitations, and Hambleton suddenly became impatient of its monotonous slithering along the firm road. Telling the driver to follow him, he descended and crossed to where Cathedral Parkway switches off. He walked briskly, feeling the tonic of the sea air, and circled the cathedral, where workmen were lounging away after their day's toil. The unfinished edifice loomed up like a giant skeleton of some prehistoric era, and through its mighty open arches and buttresses Jim saw fleecy clouds scudding across the western sky, A stone saint, muffled in burlap, had just been swung up into his windy niche, but had not yet discarded his robes of the world. Hambleton was regarding the shapeless figure with mild interest, wondering which saint of the calendar could look so grotesque, when a sound drew his attention sharply to earth. It was a small sound, but there was something strange about it. It was startling as a flash in a summer sky. Besides the workmen, there was no living thing in sight on the hillside except his own taxicab, swinging slowly into the avenue at that moment, and a covered motor-car getting up speed a square away. Even as the car approached, Hambleton decided that the strange sound had proceeded from its ambushed tonneau; and it was, surely, a human voice of distress. He stepped forward to the curb. The car was upon him, then lumbered heavily and swiftly past. But on the instant of its passing there appeared, beneath the lifted curtain and quite near his own face, the face of the singer of yesterday; and from pale, agonized lips, as if with, dying breath, she cried, "Help, help!" Hambleton knew her instantly, although the dark abundance of her hair was almost lost beneath hat and flowing veil, and the bright, humorous expression was blotted out by fear. He stood for a moment rooted to the curb, watching the dark mass of the car as it swayed down the hill. Then he beckoned sharply to his driver, met the taxicab half way, and pointed to the disappearing machine. "Quick! Can you overtake it?" "I'd like nothing better than to run down one o' them Dook machines!" said the driver. CHAPTER III MIDSUMMER MADNESS The driver of the taxicab proved to be a sound sport. Five minutes of luck, aided by nerve, brought the two machines somewhat nearer together. The motor-car gained in the open spaces, the taxicab caught up when it came to weaving its way in and out and dodging the trolleys. At the frequent moments when he appeared to be losing the car, Hambleton reflected that he had its number, which might lead to something. At the Waldorf the car slowed up, and the cab came within a few yards. Hambleton made up his mind at that instant that he had been mistaken in his supposition of trouble threatening the lady, and looked momently to see her step from the car into the custody of those starched and lacquered menials who guard the portals of fashionable hotels. But it was not so. A signal was interchanged between the occupants of the car and some watcher in the doorway, and the car sped on. Hambleton, watching steadily, wondered! "If she is being kidnapped, why doesn't she make somebody hear? Plenty of chance. They couldn't have killed her--that isn't done." And yet his heart smote him as he remembered the terror and distress written on that countenance and the cry for help. "Something was the matter," memory insisted. "There they go west; west Tenth, Alexander Street, Tenth Avenue--" The car lumbered on, the cab half a block, often more, in the rear, through endless regions of small shops and offices huddled together above narrow sidewalks, through narrow and winding streets paved with cobblestones and jammed with cars and trucks, squeezing past curbs where dirty children sat playing within a few inches of death-dealing wheels. Hambleton wondered what kept them from being killed by hundreds daily, but the wonder was immediately forgotten in a new subject for thought. The cab had stopped, although several yards of clear road lay ahead of it. The driver was climbing down. The motor-car was nosing its way along nearly a block ahead. Hambleton leaped out. "Of course, we've broken down?" he mildly inquired. Deep in his heart he was superstitiously thinking that he would let fate determine his next move; if there were obstacles in the way of his further quest, well and good; he would follow the Face no longer. "If you'll wait just a minute--" the driver was saying, "until I get my kit out--" But Hambleton, looking ahead, saw that the car had disappeared, and his mind suddenly veered. "Not this time," he announced. "Here, the meter says four-twenty--you take this, I'm off." He put a five-dollar bill into the hand of the driver and started on an easy run toward the west. He had caught sight of smoke-stacks and masts in the near distance, telling him that the motor-car had almost, if not quite, reached the river. Such a vehicle could not disappear and leave no trace; it ought to be easy to find. Ahead of him flaring lights alternated with the steady, piercing brilliance of the incandescents, and both struggled against the lingering daylight. A heavy policeman at the corner had seen the car. He pointed west into the cavernous darkness of the wharves. "If she ain't down at the Imperial docks she's gone plump into the river, for that's the way she went," he insisted. The policeman had the bearing of a major-general and the accent of the city of Cork. Hambleton went on past the curving street-car tracks, dodged a loaded dray emerging from the dock, and threaded his way under the shed. He passed piles of trunks, and a couple of truckmen dumping assorted freight from an ocean liner. No motor-car or veiled lady, nor sound of anything like a woman's voice. Hambleton came out into the street again, looked about for another probable avenue of escape for the car and was at the point of bafflement, when the major-general pounded slowly along his way. "In there, my son, and no nice place either!" pointing to a smaller entrance alongside the Imperial docks, almost concealed by swinging signs. It was plainly a forbidden way, and at first sight appeared too narrow for the passage of any vehicle whatsoever. But examination showed that it was not too narrow; moreover, it opened on a level with the street. "If you really want her, she's in there, though what'll be to pay if you go in there without a permit, I don't know. I'd hate to have to arrest you." "It might be the best thing for me if you did, but I'm going in. You might wait here a minute. Captain, if you will." "I will that; more especially as that car was a stunner for speed and I already had my eye on her. I'd like to see you fish her out of that hole." But Hambleton was out of earshot and out of sight. An empty passage smelling of bilge-water and pent-up gases opened suddenly on to the larger dock. Damp flooring with wide cracks stretched off to the left; on the right the solid planking terminated suddenly in huge piles, against which the water, capped with scum and weeds, splashed fitfully. The river bank, lined with docks, seemed lulled into temporary quietness. Ferry-boats steamed at their labors farther up and down the river, but the currents of travel left here and there a peaceful quarter such as this. Hambleton's gaze searched the dock and the river in a rapid survey. The dock itself was dim and vast, with a few workmen looking like ants in the distance. It offered nothing of encouragement; but on the river, fifty yards away, and getting farther away every minute, was a yacht's tender. The figures of the two rowers were quite distinct, their oars making rhythmical flashes over the water, but it was impossible to say exactly what freight, human or otherwise, it carried. It was evident that there were people aboard, possibly several. Even as Hambleton strained his eyes to see, the outlines of the rowboat merged into the dimness. It was pointed like a gun toward a large yacht lying at anchor farther out in the stream. The vessel swayed prettily to the current, and slowly swung its dim light from the masthead. "They've got her--out in that boat," said Hambleton to himself, feeling, while the words were on his lips, that he was drawing conclusions unwarranted by the evidence. Thus he stood, one foot on the slippery log siding of the dock, watching while the little drama played itself out, so far as his present knowledge could go. His judgment still hung in suspense, but his senses quickened themselves to detect, if possible, what the outcome might be. He saw the tender approach the boat, lie alongside; saw one sailor after another descend the rope ladder, saw a limp, inert mass lifted from the rowboat and carried up, as if it had been merchandise, to the deck of the yacht; saw two men follow the limp bundle over the gunwale; and finally saw the boat herself drawn up and placed in her davits. Hambleton's mind at last slid to its conclusion, like a bolt into its socket. "They're kidnapping her, without a doubt," he said slowly. For a moment he was like one struck stupid. Slowly he turned to the dock, looking up and down its orderly but unprepossessing clutter. Dim lights shone here and there, and a few hands were at work at the farther end. The dull silence, the unresponsive preoccupation of whatever life was in sight, made it all seem as remote from him and from this tragedy as from the stars. In fact, it was impersonal and remote to such a degree that Hambleton's practical mind, halted yet an instant, in doubt whether there were not some plausible explanation. The thought came back to him suddenly that the motor-car must be somewhere in the neighborhood if his conclusion were correct. On the instant his brain became active again. It did not take long, as a matter of fact, to find the car; though when he stumbled on it, turned about and neatly stowed away close beside the partitioning wall, he gave a start. It was such a tangible evidence of what had threatened to grow vague and unreal on his hands. He squeezed himself into the narrow space between it and the wall, finally thrusting his head under the curtains of the tonneau. It was high and dry, empty as last year's cockleshell. Not a sign of life, not a loose object of any kind except a filmy thing which Hambleton found himself observing thoughtfully. At last he picked it up--a long, mist-like veil. He spread it out, held it gingerly between a thumb and finger of each hand, and continued to look at it abstractedly. Part of it was clean and whole, dainty as only a bit of woman's finery can be; but one end of it was torn and twisted and stretched out of all semblance to itself. Moreover, it was dirty, as if it had been ground under a muddy heel. It was, in its way, a shrieking evidence of violence, of unrighteous struggle. Hambleton folded the scarf carefully, with its edges together, and put it in his pocket. Jimmy's actions from this time on had an incentive and a spirit that had before been lacking. He noted again the number of the car, and returned to the edge of the dock to observe the yacht. She had steamed up river a little way for some reason known only to herself, and was now turning very slowly. She was but faintly lighted, and would pass for some pleasure craft just coming home. But Jim knew better. He could, at last, put two and two together. He would follow the Face--indeed, he could not help following it. In him had begun that divine experience of youth--of youth essentially, whether it come in early years or late--of being carried off his feet by a spirit not himself. He ran like a young athlete down the dock to the nearest workman, evolving schemes as he went. The dock-hand apathetically trundled a small keg from one pile of freight to another, wiped his hands on his trousers, took a dry pipe out of his pocket, and looked vacantly up the river before he replied to Hambleton's question. "Queer name--_Jene Dark_ they call her." It was like pulling teeth to get information out of him, but Jim applied the forceps. The yacht had been lying out in the river for two weeks or more, possibly less; belonged to foreign parts; no one thereabouts knew who its owner was; nor its captain; nor its purpose in the harbor of New York. At last, quite gratuitously, the man volunteered a personal opinion. "Slippery boat in a gale--wouldn't trust her." Hambleton walked smartly back, taking a look both at the yacht and the motor-car as he went. The yacht's nose pointed toward the Jersey shore; the car was creeping out of the dock. As he overtook the machine, he saw that it was in the hands of a mechanic in overalls and jumper. In answer to Hambleton's question as, to the owner of the car, the mechanic told him pleasantly to go to the devil, and for once the sight of a coin failed to produce any perceptible effect. But the major-general, waiting half a block away, was still in the humor of giving fatherly advice. He welcomed Jim heartily. "That's a hole I ain't got no use for. 'Ow'd you make out?" "Well enough, for all present purposes. Can you undertake to do a job for me?" "If it ain't nothing I'd have to arrest you for, I might consider it," he chuckled. "I want you to go to the Laramie Club and tell Aleck Van Camp--got the name?--that Hambleton has gone off on the _Jeanne D'Arc_ and may not be back for some time; and he is to look after the _Sea Gull_." "Hold on, young man; you're not going to do anything out of reason, as one might say?" "Oh, no, not at all; most reasonable thing in the world. You take this money and be sure to get the message to Mr. Van Camp, will you? All right. Now tell me where I can find a tug-boat or a steam launch, quick." "O'Leary, down at pier X--2--O has launches and everything else. All right, my son, Aleck Van Camp, at the Laramie. But you be good and don't drown yourself." This last injunction, word for word in the manner of the pert Edith, touched Jimmy's humor. He laughed ringingly. His spirit was like a chime of bells on a week-day. The hour which followed was one that James Hambleton found it difficult to recall afterward, with any degree of coherence; but at the time his movements were mathematically accurate, swift, effective. He got aboard a little steam tug and followed the yacht down the river and into the harbor. As she stood out into the roads and began to increase her speed, he directed the captain of the tug to steam forward and make as if to cross her bows. This would make the pilot of the yacht angry, but he would be forced to slow down a trifle. Jim watched long enough to see the success of his manoeuver, then went down into the cuddy which served as a cabin, took off most of his clothes, and looked to the fastenings of his money belt. Then he watched his chance, and when the tug was pretty nearly in the path of the yacht, he crept to the stern and dropped overboard. CHAPTER IV MR. VAN CAMP MAKES A CALL Aleck Van Camp turned from the clerk's desk, rather relieved to find that Hambleton had not yet made his appearance. Aleck had an errand on his mind, and he reflected that Jim was apt to be impetuous and reluctant to await another man's convenience; at least, Jim wouldn't perceive that another man's convenience needed to be waited for; and Aleck had no mind to announce this errand from the housetops. It was not a business that pertained, directly, either to the _Sea Gull_ or to the coming cruise. He made an uncommonly careful toilet, discarding two neckties before the operation was finished. When all was done the cravat presented a stuffed and warped appearance which was not at all satisfying, even to Aleck's uncritical eye; but the tie was the last of his supply and was, perhaps, slightly better than none at all. Dinner at the club was usually a dull affair, and to Mr. Van Camp, on this Monday night, it seemed more stupid than ever. The club had been organized in the spirit of English clubs, with the unwritten by-law of absolute and inviolable privacy for the individual. No wild or woolly manners ever entered those decorous precincts. No slapping on the shoulder, no hail-fellow greetings, no chance dinner companionship ever dispelled the awful penumbra of privacy that surrounded even the humblest member. A man's eating and drinking, his coming or going, his living or dying, were matters only for club statistics, not for personal inquiry or notice. The result of this habitual attitude on the part of the members of the club and its servants was an atmosphere in which a cataleptic fit would scarcely warrant unofficial interference; much less would merely mawkish or absent-minded behavior attract attention. That was the function of the club--to provide sanctuary for personal whims and idiosyncrasies; of course, always within the boundaries of the code. On the evening in question Mr. Van Camp did not actually become silly, but his manner lacked the poise and seriousness which sophisticated men are wont to bring to the important event of the day. He was as near being nervous as a Scotch-American Van Camp could be; and at the same time he felt an unwonted flow of life and warmth in his cool veins. He went so far as to make a remark to the waiter which he meant for an affable joke, and then wanted to kick the fellow for taking it so solemnly. "You mind yourself, George, or they'll make you abbot of this monastery yet!" said Aleck, as George helped him on with his evening coat. "Yes, sir, thank you, sir," said George. He left word at the office that in case any one called he was to be informed that Mr. Van Camp would return to the club for the night; then, in his silk hat and generally shining togs, he set forth to make a call. He was no stranger to New York, and usually he took his cities as they came, with a matter-of-fact nonchalance. He would be as much at home on his second day in London as he had ever been in Lynn; or he would go from a friend's week-end house-party, where the habits of a Sybarite were forced on him, to a camp in the woods and pilot-bread fare, with an equal smoothness of temper and enjoyment. Since luxury made no impression on him, and hardship never blunted his own ideals of politeness or pleasure, no one ever knew which life he preferred. Choosing to walk the fifteen or twenty squares to the Archangel apartment house, his destination, Van Camp looked about him, on this night of his arrival, with slightly quickened perceptions. He cast a mildly appreciative eye toward the picture disclosed here and there by the glancing lights, the chiaroscuro of the intersecting streets, the constantly changing vistas. For an unimpressionable man, he was rather wrought upon. Nevertheless, he entered the charming apartment whither he was bound with the detached and composed manner which society regards as becoming. A maid with a foreign accent greeted him. Yes, Mademoiselle Reynier was at home; Mr. Van Camp would find her in the drawing-room. The stiff and unrelaxed manner with which Mr. Van Camp bowed to Miss Reynier a moment later was not at all indicative of the fairly respectable fever within his Scotch breast. Miss Reynier herself was pretty enough to cause quickened pulses. She was of noble height, evidently a woman of the world. She gave Mr. Van Camp her hand in a greeting mingled of European daintiness and American frankness. Her vitality and abounding interest in life were manifest. "Ah, but you are very late. This is how you become smart all at once in your New York atmosphere! But pray be seated; and here are cigarettes, if you will. No? Very well; but tell me; has that amorphous gill-slit--oh, no, the _branchial lamella_--has it behaved itself and proved to be the avenue which shall lead you to fame?" Mr. Van Camp stood silent through this flippant badinage, and calmly waited until Miss Reynier had settled herself. Then he thoughtfully turned the chair offered him so as to command a slightly better view of the corner where she sat, leaning against the old-rose cushions. Finally, taking his own time, he touched off her greeting with his precise drawl. "I'm not smart, as you call it, even in New York, though I try to be." His eyes twinkled and his teeth gleamed in his wide smile. "If I were smart, I'd pass by your error in scientific nomenclature, but really I ought not to do it. If one can not be exact--" "That's just what I say. If one can not be exact, why talk at all?" Miss Reynier caught it up with high glee. She had a foreign accent, and an occasional twist of words which proved her to be neither American nor Englishwoman. "That's my principle," she insisted. "Leave other people in undisturbed possession of their hobbies, especially in conversation, and don't say anything if you can't say what you mean. But then, _you_ won't talk about your hobby; and if I have no one to inform me, how can I be exact? But I'm the meekest person alive; I'm so ready to learn." Mr. Van Camp surveyed first the bantering, alluring eyes, then turned his gaze upon the soft luxuries about them. "Are you ready to turn this bijou dream into a laboratory smelling of alcohol and fish? Are you ready to spend hours wading in mudbanks after specimens, or scratching in the sand under the broiling sun? Science does not consult comfort." Miss Reynier's expression of quizzical teasing changed to one of rather thoughtful inquiry, as if she were estimating the man behind the scientist. Van Camp was of the lean, angular type, like Jim Hambleton. He was also very manly and wholesome, but even in his conventional evening clothes there was something about him that was unconventional--a protesting, untamed element of character that resisted all rules except those prescribed by itself. He puzzled her now, as he had often puzzled her before; but if she made fun of his hobbies, she had no mind to make fun of the man himself. A cheerful, intelligent smile finally ended her contemplating moment. "Oh, no; no digging in the sand for me. I'll take what science I get in another way--put up in predigested packages or bottled--any way but the fishy way. But please don't give me up. You shed a good deal of light on my mental darkness last winter in Egypt, and maybe I can improve still more." She suddenly turned with friendly, confidential manner toward Aleck, not waiting for replies to her remarks. "It's good to see you again! And I like it here better than in Egypt, don't you? Don't you think this apartment jolly?" The shaded lamps made a pretty light over Miss Reynier's cream-colored silk flounces, over the delicate lace on her waist, over her glossy dark hair and spirited face. As Aleck contemplated that face, with its eager yet modest and womanly gaze, and the noble outline of her figure, he thought, with an unwonted flowering of imagination, that she was not unlike the Diana of classic days. "A domestic Diana," he added in his mind. "She may love the woods and freedom, but she will always return to the hearth." Aloud he said: "If you will permit me, Miss Reynier, I would like to inform you at once of the immediate object of my visit here. You must be well aware--" At this point Mr. Van Camp, who, true to his nature, was looking squarely in the face of his companion, of necessity allowed himself to be interrupted by Miss Reynier's lifted hand. She was looking beyond her visitor through the drawing-room door. "Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Lloyd-Jones," announced the servant. As Miss Reynier swept forward with outstretched hand to greet the new-comers, Van Camp fixed his eyes on his hostess with a mingled expression of masculine rage and submission. Whether he thought her too cordial toward the other men or too cool toward himself, was not apparent. Presently he, too, was shaking hands with the visitors, who were evidently old friends of the house. Madame Reynier, the aunt of mademoiselle, was summoned, and Van Camp was marooned on a sofa with Lloyd-Jones, who was just in from the West. Aleck found himself listening to an interminable talk about copper veins and silver veins, a new kind of assaying instrument, and the good luck attendant upon the opening of Lloyd-Jones' new mine, the Liza Lu. Aleck was the essence of courtesy to everything except sham, and was able to indicate a mild interest in Mr. Lloyd-Jones' mining affairs. It was sufficient. Lloyd-Jones turned sidewise on his end of the sofa, spread out plump, gesticulating hands, and poured upon him an eloquent torrent of fact, speculation and high-spirited enthusiasm concerning Idaho in general and the future of the Liza Lu in particular. More than that, by and by his cheerful, half-impudent manner threatened to turn poetic. "It's great, living in the open out there," he went on, by this time including the whole company in his exordium. "You ride, or tramp, or dig rock all day; and at night you lie down under the clear stars, thankful for your blanket and your rock-bed and your camp-fire; and more than thankful if there's a bit of running water near by. It's a great life!" Miss Reynier listened to him with eyes that were alternately puzzled and appreciative. It was a discourse that would have seemed to her much more natural coming from Aleck Van Camp; but then, Mr. Van Camp really did the thing--that sort of thing--and he rarely talked about it. It had probably been Mr. Lloyd-Jones' first essay in the world out of reach of his valet and a club cocktail; and he was consequently impressed with his achievement. It was evident that Miss Reynier and the amateur miner were on friendly terms, though Aleck had not seen or heard of him before. He had hob-nobbed with Mr. Chamberlain in London and on more than one scientific jaunt. The slightest flicker of jealous resentment gleamed in Aleck's eyes, but his speech was as slow and precise as ever. "I was just trying to convince Miss Reynier that outdoor life has its peculiar joys," he said. "I was even now suggesting that she should dig, though not for silver. Does Mr. Lloyd-Jones' lucre seem more alluring than my little wriggly beasts, Miss Reynier?" If Aleck meant this speech for a trap to force the young woman to indicate a preference, the trick failed, as it deserved to fail. Miss Reynier was able to play a waiting game. "I couldn't endure either your mines or your mud-puddles. You are both absurd, and I don't understand how you ever get recruits for your hobbies. But come over and see this new engraving, Mr. Jones; it's an old-fashioned picture of your beloved Rhine." Aleck, thus liberated from Mr. Lloyd-Jones and his mines, made his way across the room to Madame Reynier. The cunning of old Adam, was in his eye, but otherwise he was the picture of deferential innocence. Madame Reynier liked Aleck, with his inoffensive Americanisms and unfailing kindliness; and with her friends she was frankness itself. With two men on Miss Reynier's hands for entertainment, it seemed to Aleck unlikely that either one could make any alarming progress. Besides, he was glad of a tête-à-tête with the chaperone. Madame Reynier was a tall, straight woman, elderly, dressed entirely in black, with gaunt, aristocratic features and great directness of speech. She had the fine kind of hauteur which forbids persons of this type ever to speak of money, of disease, of scandal, or of too intimate personalities; in Madame Reynier's case it also restrained her from every sort of exaggerated speech. She spoke English with some difficulty and preferred French. Van Camp seated himself on a spindle-legged, gilt chair by Madame Reynier's side, and begged to know how they were enduring the New York climate, which had formerly proved intolerable to Madame Reynier. As he seated himself she stretched out saving hands. "I can endure the climate, thank you; but I can't endure to see your life endangered on that silly chair, my dear Mr. Van Camp. There--thank you." And when he was seated in a solid mahogany, he was rewarded with Madame Reynier's confidential chat. They had returned to their New York apartment in the midst of the summer season, she said, "for professional advice." She and her niece liked the city and never minded the heat. Mélanie, her aunt explained, had been enabled to see several old friends, and, for her own part, she liked home at any time of the year better than the most comfortable of hotels. "This is quite like home," she added, "even though we are really exiles." Aleck ventured to hope that the "professional advice" had not meant serious trouble of any sort. "A slight indisposition only." "And are you much better now?" Aleck inquired solicitously. "Oh, it wasn't I; it was Mélanie," Madame smiled. "I became my own physician many years ago, and now I never see a doctor except when we ask one to dine. But youth has no such advantage." Madame fairly beamed with benevolence while explaining one of her pet idiosyncrasies. Before Aleck could make any headway in gleaning information concerning her own and Mélanie's movements, as he was shamelessly trying to do, Lloyd-Jones had persuaded Miss Reynier to sing. "Some of those quaint old things, please," he was saying; and Aleck wondered if he never would hang himself with his own rope. But Lloyd-Jones' cheerful voice went on: "Some of those Hungarian things are jolly and funny, even though you can't understand the words. Makes you want to dance or sing yourself." Aleck groaned, but Mélanie began to sing, with Jones hovering around the piano. By the time Mélanie had sung everybody's favorites, excluding Aleck's, Mr. Chamberlain rose to depart. He was an Englishman, a serious, heavy gentleman, very loyal to old friends and very slow in making new ones. He made an engagement to dine with Aleck on the following evening, and, as he went out, threw back to the remaining gentlemen an offer of seats in his machine. "I ought to go," said Jones; "but if Van Camp will stay, I will. That is," he added with belated punctiliousness, "if the ladies will permit?" "Thank you, Chamberlain, I'm walking," drawled Aleck; then turning to the company with his cheerful grin he stated quite impersonally: "I was thinking of staying long enough to put one question--er, a matter of some little importance--to Miss Reynier. When she gives me the desired information, I shall go." "Me, too," chirped Mr. Lloyd-Jones. "I came expressly to talk over that plan of building up friendly adjoining estates out in Idaho; sort of private shooting and hunting park, you know. And I haven't had a minute to say a word." Jones suddenly began to feel himself aggrieved. As the door closed after Chamberlain, Mélanie motioned them back to their seats. "It's not so very late," she said easily. "Come back and make yourselves comfortable, and I'll listen to both of you," she said with a demure little devil in her eye. "I haven't seen you for ages, and I don't know when the good moment will come again." She included the two men in a friendly smile, waved a hand toward the waiting chairs, and adjusted a light shawl over the shoulders of Madame Reynier. But Aleck by this time had the bit in his teeth and would not be coaxed. His ordinarily cool eye rested wrathfully on the broad shoulders of Mr. Lloyd-Jones, who was lighting a cigarette, and he turned abruptly to Miss Reynier. His voice was as serious as if Parliament, at least, had been hanging on his words. "May I call to-morrow, Miss Reynier, at about twelve?" "Oh, I say," put in Jones, "all of you come to luncheon with me at the Little Gray Fox--will you? Capital place and all sorts of nice people. Do come. About one." Van Camp could have slain him. "I think my proposition a prior one," he remarked with dogged precision; "but, of course, Miss Reynier must decide." He recovered his temper enough to add, quite pleasantly, considering the circumstances, "Unless Madame Reynier will take my part?" turning to the older woman. "Oh, no, not fair," shouted Jones. "Madame Reynier's always on my side. Aren't you, Madame?" Madame Reynier smiled inscrutably. "I'm always on the side of virtue in distress," she said. "That's me, then, isn't it? The way you're abusing me, Mademoiselle, listening here to Van Camp all the evening!" But Mélanie, tired, perhaps, of being patiently tactful, settled the matter. "I can't go to luncheon with anybody, to-morrow," she protested. "I've had a touch of that arch-enemy, indigestion, you see; and I can't do anything but my prescribed exercises, nor drink anything but distilled water--" "Nor eat anything but food! We know," cried the irrepressible Jones. "But the Little Gray Fox has a special diet for just such cases as yours. Do come!" "Heavens! Then I don't want to go there!" groaned Aleck. Mélanie gave Jones her hand, half in thanks and half in farewell. "No, thank you, not to-morrow, but sometime soon; perhaps Thursday. Will that do?" she smiled. Then, as Jones was discontentedly lounging about the door, she did a pretty thing. Turning from the door, she stood with face averted from everybody except Van Camp, and for an instant her eyes met his in a friendly, half-humorous but wholly non-committal glance. His eyes held hers in a look that was like an embrace. "I will see you soon," she said quietly. Van Camp said good night to Jones at the corner, after they had walked together in silence for half a block. "Good night, Van Camp," said Jones; then he added cordially: "By the way, I'm going back next week in my private car to watch the opening of the Liza Lu, and I'd be mighty glad if you'd go along. Anything else to do?" "Thanks--extremely; but I'm going on a cruise." As Aleck entered the piously exclusive hall of the club his good nature came to his aid. He wondered whether he hadn't scored something, after all. CHAPTER V. MELANIE'S DREAMS Midnight and the relaxation of slumber could subtract nothing from the high-browed dignity of the club officials, and the message that was waiting for Mr. Van Camp was delivered in the most correct manner. "Mr. Hambleton sends word to Mr. Van Camp that he has gone away on the _Jeanne D'Arc_. Mr. Hambleton may not be back for some time, and requests Mr. Van Camp to look after the _Sea Gull_." "Very well, thank you," replied Aleck, rather absent-mindedly. He was unable to see, immediately, just what change in his own plans this sudden turn of Jim's would cause; and he was for the moment too deeply preoccupied with his own personal affairs to speculate much about it. His thoughts went back to the events of the evening, recalled the picture of his Diana and her teasing ways, and dwelt especially upon the honest, friendly, wholly bewitching look that had flown to him at the end of the evening. Absurd as his own attempt at a declaration had been, he somehow felt that he himself was not absurd in Mélanie's eyes, though he was far from certain whether she was inclined to marry him. Aleck, on his part, had not come to his decision suddenly or impulsively; nor, having arrived there, was he to be turned from it easily. True as it was that he sincerely and affectionately desired Mélanie Reynier for a wife, yet on the whole he was a very cool Romeo. He was manly, but he was calculating; he was honorably disposed toward matrimony, but he was not reborn with love. And so, in the sober bedroom of the club, he quickly fell into the good sleep induced by fatigue and healthy nerves. Morning brought counsel and a disposition to renew operations. A note was despatched to his Diana by a private messenger, and the boy was bidden to wait for an answer. It came presently: "Come at twelve, if you wish. "MELANIE REYNIER." Aleck smiled with satisfaction. Here was a wise venture going through happily, he hoped. He was pleased that she had named the very hour he had asked for the night before. That was like her good, frank way of meeting a situation, and it augured well for the unknown emergencies of their future life. He had little patience with timidity and traditional coyness in women, and great admiration for an open and fearless spirit. Mélanie's note almost set his heart thumping. But not quite; and no one understood the cool nature of that organ better than Mélanie herself. The ladies in the apartment at the Archangel had lingered at their breakfast, the austerity of which had been mitigated by a center decoration of orchids and fern, fresh-touched with dew; or so Madame Reynier had described them to Mélanie, as she brought them to her with the card of Mr. Lloyd-Jones. Miss Reynier smiled faintly, admired the blossoms and turned away. The ladies usually spoke French with each other, though occasionally Madame Reynier dropped into the harsher speech of her native country. On this morning she did this, telling Mélanie, for the tenth time in as many days, that in her opinion they ought to be going home. Madame considered this her duty, and felt no real responsibility after the statement was made. Nevertheless, she was glad to find Mélanie disposed to discuss the matter a little further. "Do you wish to go home, Auntie, or is it that you think I ought to go?" "I don't wish to go without you, child, you know that; and I am very comfortable here. But his Highness, your cousin, is very impatient; I see that in every letter from Krolvetz. You offended him deeply by putting off your marriage to Count Lorenzo, and every day now deepens his indignation against you. I don't like to discuss these things, Mélanie, but I suspect that your action deprives him of a very necessary revenue; and I understand, better than you do, to what lengths your cousin is capable of going when he is displeased. You are, by the law of your country, his ward until you marry. Would it not be better to submit to him in friendship, rather than to incur his enmity? After all, he is your next of kin, the head of your family, and a very powerful man. If we are going home at all, we ought to go now." "But suppose we should decide not to go home at all?" "You will have to go some time, dear child. You are all alone, except for me, and in the nature of things you can't have me always. Now that you are young, you think it an easy thing to break away from the ties of blood and birth; but believe me, it isn't easy. You, with your nature, could never do it. The call of the land is strong, and the time will come when you will long to go home, long to go back to the land where your father led his soldiers, and where your mother was admired and loved." Madame Reynier paused and watched her niece, who, with eyes cast down, was toying with her spoon. Suddenly a crimson flush rose and spread over Mélanie's cheeks and forehead and neck, and when she looked up into Madame Reynier's face, she was gazing through unshed tears. She rose quickly, came round to the older woman's chair and kissed her cheek affectionately. "Dear Auntie, you are very good to me, and patient, too. It's all true, I suppose; but the prospect of home and Count Lorenzo together--ah, well!" she smiled reassuringly and again caressed Madame Reynier's gaunt old face. "I'll think it all over, Auntie dear." Madame Reynier followed Mélanie into her sitting-room, bringing the precious orchids in her two hands, fearful lest the fragile vase should fall. Mélanie regarded them a moment, and then said she thought they would do better in the drawing-room. "I sometimes think the little garden pink quite as pretty as an orchid." "They aren't so much in Mr. Lloyd-Jones' style as these," replied Madame Reynier. She had a faculty of commenting pleasantly without the least hint of criticism. This remark delighted Mélanie. "No; I should never picture Mr. Lloyd-Jones as a garden pink. But then, Auntie, you remember how eloquent he was about the hills and the stars. That speech did not at all indicate a hothouse nature." "Nevertheless, I think his sentiments have been cultivated, like his orchids." "Not a bad achievement," said Mélanie. There was an interval of silence, while the younger woman stood looking out of the window and Madame Reynier cut the leaves of a French journal. She did not read, however, and presently she broke the silence. "I don't remember that Mr. Van Camp ever sent orchids to you." "Mr. Van Camp never gave me any kind of flower. He thinks flowers are the most intimate of all gifts, and should only be exchanged between sweethearts. At least, I heard him expound some such theory years ago, when we first knew him." Madame smiled--a significant smile, if any one had been looking. Nothing further was said until Mélanie unexpectedly shot straight to the mark with: "How do you think he would do, Auntie, in place of Count Lorenzo?" Madame Reynier showed no surprise. "He is a sterling man; but your cousin would never consent to it." "And if I should not consult my cousin?" "My dear Mélanie, that would entail many embarrassing consequences; and embarrassments are worse than crimes." Mélanie could laugh at that, and did. "I've already answered a note from Mr. Van Camp this morning; Auntie. No, don't worry," she playfully answered a sudden anxious look that came upon her aunt's countenance, "I've not said 'yes' to him. But he's coming to see me at twelve. If I don't give him a chance to say what he has to say, he'll take one anywhere. He's capable of proposing on the street-cars. Besides, I have something also to say to him." "Well, my dear, you know best; certainly I think you know best," was Madame Reynier's last word. Mr. Van Camp arrived on the stroke of twelve, an expression of happiness on his lean, quizzical face. "I'm supposed to be starting on a cruise," he told Mélanie, "but luck is with me. My cousin hasn't turned up--or rather he turned up only to disappear instantly. Otherwise he would have dragged me off to catch the first ebb-tide, with me hanging back like an anchor-chain." "Is your cousin, then, such a tyrant?" "Oh, yes; he's a masterful man, is Jimmy." "And how did he 'disappear instantly?' It sounds mysterious." "It is mysterious, but Jim can take care of himself; at least, I hope he can. The message said he had sailed on the _Jeanne D'Arc_, whatever that is, and that I was to look after our hired yacht, the _Sea Gull_." Mélanie looked up, startled. "The _Jeanne D'Arc_, was it?" she cried. "Are you sure? But, of course--there must be many boats by that name, are there not? But did he say nothing more--where he was going, and why he changed his plans?" "No, not a word more than that. Why? Do you know of a boat named the _Jeanne D'Arc_?" "Yes, very well; but it can not matter. It must be another vessel, surely. Meanwhile, what are you going to do without your companion?" Aleck rose from the slender gilt chair where, as usual, he had perched himself, walked to the window and thrust his hands into his pockets for a contemplative moment, then he turned and came to a stand squarely before Mélanie, looking down on her with his quizzical, honest eyes. "That depends, Mélanie," he said slowly, "upon whether you are going to marry me or not." [Illustration: "That depends upon whether you are going to marry me."] For a second or two Mélanie's eyes refused to lift; but Aleck's firm-planted figure, his steady gaze, above all, his dominating will, forced her to look up. There he was, smiling, strong, big, kindly. Mélanie started to smile, but for the second time that morning her eyes unexpectedly filled with tears. "I can't talk to you towering over me like that," she said at last softly, her smile winning against the tears. Aleck did not move. "I don't want you to 'talk to' me about it; all I want is for you to say 'yes.'" "But I'm not going to say 'yes;' at least, I don't think I am. Do sit down." Aleck started straight for the gilt chair. "Oh, no; not that! You are four times too big for that chair. Besides, it's quite valuable; it's a Louis Quinze." Aleck indulged in a vicious kick at the ridiculous thing, picked up an enormous leather-bottomed chair made apparently of lead, and placed it jauntily almost beside Miss Reynier's chair, but facing the other way. "This is much better, thank you," he said. "Now tell me why you think you are not going to say 'yes' to me." Mélanie's mood of softness had not left her; but sitting there, face to face with this man, face to face with his seriousness, his masculine will and strength, she felt that she had something yet to struggle for, some deep personal right to be acknowledged. It was with a dignity, an aloofness, that was quite real, yet very sweet, that she met this American lover. He had her hand in his firm grasp, but he was waiting for her to speak. He was giving her the hearing that was, in his opinion, her right. "In the first place," Mélanie began, "you ought to know more about me--who I am, and all that sort of thing. I am, in one sense, not at all what I seem to be; and that, in the case of marriage, is a dangerous thing." "It is an important thing, at least. But I do know who you are; I knew long ago. Since you never referred to the matter, of course I never did. You are the Princess Auguste Stephanie of Krolvetz, cousin of the present Duke Stephen, called King of Krolvetz. You are even in line for the throne, though there are two or three lives between. You have incurred the displeasure of Duke Stephen and are practically an exile from your country." "A voluntary exile," Mélanie corrected. "Voluntary only in the sense that you prefer exile to absolute submission to the duke. There is no alternative, if you return." Mélanie was silent. Aleck lifted the hand which he held, touched it gently with his lips and laid it back beside its fellow on Mélanie's lap. Then he rose and lifted both hands before her, half in fun and half in earnestness, as if he were a courtier doing reverence to his queen. "See, your Highness, how ready I am to do you homage! Only smile on the most devoted of your servants." Mélanie could not resist his gentle gaiety. It was as if they were two children playing at a story. Aleck, in such a mood as this, was as much fun as a dancing bear, and in five minutes more he had won peals of laughter from Mélanie. It was what he wanted--to brighten her spirits. So presently he came back to the big chair, though he did not again take her hand. "I knew you were titled and important, Mélanie, and at first I thought that sealed my case entirely. But you seemed to forget your state, seemed not to care so very much about it; and perhaps that made me think it was possible for us both to forget it, or at least to ignore it. I haven't a gold throne to give you; but you're the only woman I've ever wanted to marry, and I wasn't going to give up the chance until you said so." "Do you know also that if I marry out of my rank and without the consent of Duke Stephen, I shall forfeit all my fortune?" "'Cut off without a cent!'" Aleck laughed, but presently paused, embarrassed for the first time since he had begun his plea. "I, you know, haven't millions, but there's a decent income, even for two. And then I can always go to work and earn something," he smiled at her, "giving information to a thirsty world about the gill-slit, as you call it. It would be fun, earning money for you; I'd like to do it." Mélanie smiled back at him, but left her chair and wandered uneasily about the room, as if turning a difficult matter over in her mind. Aleck stood by, watching. Presently she returned to her chair, pushed him gently back into his seat and dropped down beside him. Before she spoke, she touched her fingers lightly, almost lovingly, along the blue veins of his big hand lying on the arm of the chair. The hand turned, like a magnet spring, and imprisoned hers. "No, dear friend, not yet," said Mélanie, drawing away her hand, yet not very quickly after all. "There is much yet to say to you, and I have been wondering how to say it, but I shall do it now. Like the heroes in the novels," she smiled again, "I am going to tell you the story of my life." "Good!" said Aleck. "All ready for chapter one. But your maid wants you at the door." "Go away, Sophie," said Mélanie. "Serve luncheon to Madame Reynier alone. I shall wait; and you'll have to wait, too, poor man!" She looked scrutinizingly at Aleck. "Or are you, perhaps, hungry? I'm not going to talk to a hungry man," she announced. "Not a bite till I've heard chapter thirty-nine!" said Aleck. In a moment she became serious again. "I have lived in England and here in America," she began, "long enough to understand that the differences between your people and mine are more than the differences of language and climate; they are ingrained in our habits of thought, our education, our judgments of life and of people. My childhood and youth were wholly different from yours, or from what an American girl's could be; and yet I think I understand your American women, though I suppose I am not in the least like them. "But I, on the other hand, have seen the dark side of life, and particularly of marriage. When I was a child I was more important in my own country than I am now, since it seemed then that my father would succeed to the throne. I was brought up to feel that I was not a woman, but a pawn in the game of politics. When I had been out of the convent for a year or more, I loved a youth, and was loved in return, but our marriage was laughed at, put aside, declared impossible, because he was of a rank inferior to my own. My lover disappeared, I know not where or how. Then affairs changed. My father died, and it transpired that I had been officially betrothed since childhood to Duke Stephen's brother, the Count Lorenzo. The duke was my guardian, and there was no one else to whom I could appeal; but the very week set for the wedding I faced the duke and declared I would never marry the count. His Highness raged and stormed, but I told him a few things I knew about his brother, and I made him see that I was in earnest. The next day I left Krolvetz, and the duke gave out that I was ill and had gone to a health resort; that the wedding was postponed. I went to France and hid myself with my aunt, took one of my own middle names and her surname, and have been known for some time, as you know, as Mélanie Reynier." "I know you wish to tell me all these things, Mélanie, but I do not want you to recall painful matters of the past now," said Aleck gently. "You shall tell me of them at another time." The color brightened in Mélanie's face, her eyes glowed. "No, not another time; you must understand now, especially because all this preface leads me to what I really want to say to you. It is this: I do not now care for the man I loved at nineteen, nor for any of the other men of my country who have been pleased to honor me with their regard. But ever since those early days I have had a dream of a home--a place different from Duke Stephen's home, different from the homes of many people of my rank. My dream has a husband in it who is a companion, a friend, my equal in love, my superior in strength." Mélanie's eyes lifted to meet Aleck's, and they were full of an almost tragic passion; but it was a passion for comprehension and love, not primarily for the man sitting before her. She added simply: "And for my dream I'd give all the wealth, all the love, I have." The room was very still. Aleck Van Camp sat quiet and grave, his forehead resting on his hand. He looked up, finally, at Mélanie, who was beside him, pale and quite worn. "Poor child! You needed me more than I thought!" was what he said. But Mélanie had not quite finished. "No, that is not enough, that I should need you. You must also need me, want what I alone can give you, match my love with yours. And this, I think, you do not do. You calculate, you remain cool, you plan your life like a campaign, and I am part of your equipment. You are a thousand times better than Count Lorenzo, but I think your principles of reasoning are the same. You do not love me enough, and that is why I can not say yes." Aleck had taken this last blow standing. He walked slowly around and stood before Mélanie, much as he had stood before her when he first asked her to marry him; and this time, as he looked down on her fairness, there was infinite gentleness and patience and love in his eyes. He bent over, lifted Mélanie's two hands, and drew her bodily out of her seat. She was impassive. Her quick alertness, her vitality, her passionate seriousness, had slipped away. Aleck put his arms around her very tenderly, and kissed her lips; not a lover's kiss exactly, and yet nothing else. Then he looked into her face. "I shall not do this again, Mélanie dear, till you give me leave. But I have no mind to let you go, either. You and Madame Reynier are going on a cruise with me; will you? Get your maid to pack your grip. It will be better for you than the 'professional advice' which you came to New York for." Aleck stopped suddenly, his practical sense coming to the surface. "Heavens! You haven't had any lunch, and it's all times of the day!" He rang the bell, begged the maid to fetch bread and butter and tea and to ask Madame Reynier to come to the drawing-room. When she appeared, he met her with a grave, but in no wise a cowed, spirit. "Madame Reynier, your niece refuses, for the present, to consider herself engaged to me; I, however, am unequivocally betrothed to her. And I shall be endlessly grateful if you and Miss Reynier will be my guests on the _Sea Gull_ for as long a time as you find it diverting. We shall cruise along the coast and put into harbor at night, if it seems best; and I'll try to make you comfortable. Will you come?" Madame Reynier was willing if Mélanie was; and Mélanie had no strength, if she had the will, to combat Aleck's masterful ways. It was soon settled. Aleck swung off down the street, re-reading Jim's letter, intent only on the _Sea Gull_ and the preparations for his guests. But at the back of his mind he was thinking, "Poor girl! She needs me more than I thought!" CHAPTER VI ON BOARD THE JEANNE D'ARC If hard usage and obstacles could cure a knight-errant of his sentiment, then Jimmy Hambleton had been free of his passion for the Face. His plunge overboard had been followed by a joyous swim, a lusty call to the yacht for "Help," and a growing amazement when he realized that it was the yacht's intention to pass him by. He had swum valiantly, determined to get picked up by that particular craft, when suddenly his strength failed. He remembered thinking that it was all up with him, and then he lost consciousness. When he awoke he was on a hard bunk in a dim place, and a sailor was jerking him about. His throat burned with a fiery liquid. Then he felt the plunging and rising of the boat, and came to life sufficiently to utter the stereotyped words, "Where am I?" In Jim's case the question did not imply the confused groping back to sense that it usually indicates, but rather an actual desire to know whether or not he was on board the _Jeanne D'Arc_. Plainly his wits had not been badly shattered by his experience overboard. But the sailor who was attending him with such ministrations as he understood, answered him with a sample of French which Jim had never met with in his school-books, and he was not enlightened for some hours. It turned out, indeed, to be the _Jeanne D'Arc_, as Jim proved for himself the next day, and he was lying in the seamen's quarters in the fo'cas'le. By morning he felt much better, hungry, and prepared in his mind for striking a bargain with one of the sailors for clothes. He could make out their lingo soon, he guessed, and then he would get a suit of clothes and fare on deck. Suddenly he grasped his waist, struck with an unpleasant thought; his money-belt was gone! He was wearing a sailor's blue flannel shirt and nothing else. He turned over on his hard bunk, thinking that he would have to wait a while before making his entrance on the public stage of the _Jeanne D'Arc_. And wait he did. Not a rag of clothing was in sight, and no cajolery or promise of reward could persuade the ship's men into supplying his need. He received consignments of food; short rations they would be, he judged, for an able-bodied seaman. But inactivity and confinement to the fo'cas'le soon worked havoc with his physique, so that appetite, and even desire of life itself, temporarily disappeared in the gloom of seasickness. In spite of difficulties, Jim tried to find out something about the boat. The seamen were none too friendly; but by patching up his almost forgotten French and by signs, he learned something. His sudden failure of strength in the water had been due to a blow from a floating spar, as a bruise on his forehead testified; "the old man," whom Jim supposed to be the captain, was a hard master; Monsieur Chatelard was owner, or at least temporary proprietor, of the yacht; and the present voyage was an unlucky one by all the signs and omens known to the seamen's horoscope. The sullenness of the men was apparent, and was not caused by the enforced presence of a stranger among them. In fact, their bad temper became so conspicuous that Jim began to believe that it might have something to do with the mysterious actions of the man on shore. He pondered the situation deeply; he evolved many foolish schemes to compass his own enlightenment, and dismissed them one by one. He grimly reflected that a man without clothes can scarcely be a hero, whatever his spirit. Not since the days of Olympus was there any record of man or god being received into any society whatever without his sartorial shell, thought Jimmy. But in spite of his discomfort, he was glad he was there. The intuition that had led him since that memorable Sunday afternoon was strong within him still, and he never questioned its authority. He believed his turn would come, even though he were a prisoner in the fo'cas'le of the _Jeanne D'Arc_. As the violence of his sickness passed, Jim began to cast about for some means of helping himself. Gradually he was able to dive into the forgotten shallows of his French learning. By much wrinkling of brows he evolved a sentence, though he had to wait some hours before there was a favorable chance to put it to use. At last his time came, with the arrival of his former friend, the sailor. "Oo avay-voo cashay mon money-belt?" he inquired with much confidence, and with pure Yankee accent. The sailor answered with a shrug and a spreading of empty hands. "Pas de money-belt, pas de pantalon, pas de tous! Dam queer Amayricain!" Jim was not convinced of the sailor's innocence, but perceived that he must give him the benefit of the doubt. As the sailor intimated, Jim, himself, was open to suspicion, and couldn't afford to be too zealous in calumniating others. He fell to thinking again, and attacked the next Frenchman that came into the fo'cas'le with the following: "Kond j'aytay malade don ma tate, kee a pree mon money-belt?" It was the ship's cook this time, and he turned and stared at Jimmy as though he had seen a ghost. When he found tongue he uttered a volume of opinion and abuse which Jimmy knew by instinct was not fit to be translated, and then he fled up the ladder. On the fourth day, toward evening, James had a visitor. All day the yacht had been pitching and rolling, and by afternoon she was laboring in the violence of a storm and was listing badly. James was a fearless seaman, but it crossed his mind more than once that if he were captain, and if there were a port within reach, he would put into it before midnight. But he could tell nothing of the ship's course. He turned the subject over in his mind as he lay on his bunk in that peculiar state half-way between sickness and health, when the body is relaxed by a purely accidental illness and the mind is abnormally alert. He wished intensely for a bath, a shave, and a fair complement of clothes. He longed also to go up the hatchway for a breath of air, and was considering the possibility of doing this later, with a blanket and darkness for a shield, when he became conscious of a pair of neatly trousered legs descending the ladder. It was quite a different performance from the catlike climbing up and down of the sailors. Jimmy watched in the dim light until the whole figure was complete, fantastically supplying, in his imagination, the coat, the shirt, the collar and the tie to go with the trousers--all the things which he himself lacked. Was there also a hat? Jimmy couldn't make out, and so he asked. "Have you got on a hat?" A frigid voice answered, "I beg your pardon!" "I said, are you wearing a hat? I couldn't see, you know." "Monsieur takes the liberty of being impertinent." "Oh, excuse me--I beg your pardon. But it's so beastly hot and dark in here, you know, and I've never been seasick before." "No? Monsieur is fortunate." The visitor advanced a little, drew from a recess a shoe-blacking outfit, pulled over it one of the stiff blankets from a neighboring bunk, and sat down rather cautiously. Little by little James made out more of the look of the man. He was large and rather blond, well-dressed, clean-shaven. He spoke English easily, but with a foreign accent. "I wish to inquire to what unfortunate circumstances we are indebted for your company on board the _Jeanne D'Arc_." The voice was cool, and sharp as a meat-ax. "Why, to your own kind-heartedness. I was a derelict and you took me in--saved my life, in fact; for which I am profoundly grateful. And I hope my presence here is not too great a burden?" "I am obliged to say that your presence here is most unwelcome. Moreover, I am aware that your previous actions are open to suspicion, to express it mildly. You threw yourself off the tug; and as this as not a pleasure yacht, but the vessel of a high official speeding on a most important business matter, I said to the captain, 'Let him swim! Or, if he wishes to die, why should we thwart him?' But the captain referred to the 'etiquette of the line,' as he calls it, and picked you up. So you have not me to thank for not being among the fishes this minute." Jimmy pulled his blanket about and sat up on his bunk. The sarcastic voice stirred his bile, and suddenly there boomed in his memory a woman's call for help. The hooded motor-car, the muffled cry of terror, the inert figure being lifted over the side of the yacht--these things crowded on his brain and fired him to a sudden, unreasoning fury. He leaned over, looking sharply into the other's face. "You damned scoundrel!" he said, choking with his anger. The blood surged into his face and eyes; he was, for an instant, a primitive savage. He could have laid violent hands on the other man and done him to death, in the fashion of the half-gods who lived in the twilight of history. The visitor in the fo'cas'le exhibited a neat row of teeth and no resentment whatever at Jim's remark, But a sharp glitter shot from his eyes as he replied suavely: "Monsieur has doubtless mistaken this ship, and probably its master also, for some other less worthy adventurer on the sea. For that very reason I have come to set you right. It may be that I have my quixotic moments. At any rate, I have a fancy to give you a gentleman's chance. Monsieur, I regret the necessity of being inhospitable, but I am forced to say that you must quit the shelter of this yacht within twenty-four hours." The thin, sarcastic voice and clean-cut syllables fanned the flame of Jimmy's rage. He felt impotent, moreover, which never serves as a poultice to anger. But he got himself in hand, though imitation courtesy was not much in his line. He tuned his big hearty voice to a pitch with the Frenchman's nasal pipe, and clipped off his words in mimicry. "And to whom, pray, shall I have the honor to say farewell, at the auspicious moment when I jump overboard?" "Gently, you American, gently!" said the other. "My friends, and some of my enemies, know me as Monsieur Chatelard." As he paused for an impressive instant, Jim, grabbing his blanket, stood up in derision and executed an elaborate bow in as foreign a manner as he could command. Monsieur Chatelard politely waved him down and continued: "But pray do not trouble to give me your card! I had rather say adieu to Monsieur the Unknown, whose daring and temper I so much admire. But I certainly misunderstood your violent remark a moment ago, did I not? You can not possibly have any ground of quarrel with me." "I thought you stole my money-belt." Monsieur smiled and waved a deprecatory hand. "You have already dismissed that idea, I am certain. A money-belt, between gentlemen! Moreover, you should thank me for so much as recognizing the gentleman in you, since you are without the customary trappings of our class." "Oh, I don't know," said Jim. But Monsieur Chatelard was now imperturbable. He continued blandly: "Since you are fond of sea-baths, you will no doubt enjoy a plunge--to-night possibly. As we have made rather slow progress, we are really not so far from shore. Yes, on second thought, I would by all means advise you to take your departure tonight. Swim back to shore the way you came. In any case, your absence is desired. There will be no room or provision or water for you on board the _Jeanne D'Arc_ after to-night. Is my meaning clear?" Jim was watching, as well as he could, the immobile, expressionless face, and did not immediately note that Monsieur Chatelard had drawn a small, shiny object from his hip pocket and was holding it carelessly in his lap. As his gaze focussed on the revolver, however, he did the one thing, perhaps, which at that moment could have put the Frenchman off his guard. He threw his head back and laughed aloud. But before his laugh had time to echo in the narrow fo'cas'le, Jim leaped from his bunk upon his tormentor, like a cat upon a mouse, seized his right hand in a paralyzing grip, and was himself thrown violently to the floor. The struggle was brief, for the Frenchman was no match for Jim in strength and scarcely superior to him in skill; but it took one of Jim's old wrestling feints to get the better of his opponent. He came out, in five seconds, with the pistol in his hand. Monsieur Chatelard, a bit breathless, but not greatly discomposed, peered out at him from the edge of the opposite bunk, where he sat uncomfortably. His cynical voice capped the struggle like a streak of pitch. "Pray keep the weapon. You are welcome, though your methods are somewhat surprising. Had I known them earlier, I might have offered you my little toy." "Oh, don't mention it," said Jimmy. "I thought you might not be used to firearms, that's all." The varnished surface of Monsieur Chatelard's countenance gave no evidence of his having heard Jim's remark. "Don't fancy that your abrupt movements, have deprived me of what authority I may happen to possess on this vessel. My request as to your future action still stands, unless you had rather one of my faithful men should assist you in carrying out my purpose." Hambleton stood with legs wide apart to keep his balance, regarding the weapon in his hand, from which his gaze traveled to the man on the bunk. When it came to dialogue, he was no match for this sarcastic purveyor of words. He wondered whether Monsieur Chatelard was actually as cool as he appeared. As he stood there, the _Jeanne D'Arc_ pitched forward until it seemed that she could never right herself, then slowly and laboriously she rode the waves again. "You are a more picturesque villain than I thought," remarked James. "You have all the tricks of the stage hero--secret passages, fancy weapons, and--crowning glory--a fatal gift of gab!" Monsieur Chatelard arose, making his way toward the hatch. "Many thanks. I can not return the compliment in such a happy choice of English," he scoffed, "but I can truthfully say that I have rarely seen so striking and unique a figure as I now behold; certainly never on the stage, to which you so politely refer." But James was too deeply intent on his next move to be embarrassed by his lack of clothes. Not in vain had his gorge risen almost at first sight of this man. He stepped quickly in front of Monsieur Chatelard, blocking his exit up the ladder, while the revolver in his hand looked straight between the Frenchman's eyes. Whatever Chatelard's crimes were, he was not a coward. He did not flinch, but his eyes gleamed like cold steel as Jim cornered him. "Now," said Jim, "I have my turn." Wrath burned in his heart. "Captain Paquin! Antoine, Antoine!" called Chatelard. No one answered the call of the master of the ship, but even as the two men measured their force one against the other, they were arrested by a commotion above. Voices were heard shouting, trampling feet were running back and forth over the deck, and a moment later the ship's cook came tumbling down the hatchway, screaming in terror. He glared unheeding at the two men, and his teeth chattered. Fear had possession of him. Jim lifted his revolver well out of reach, and backed off from Chatelard. For the first time during the interview between the American and the Frenchman, the two now faced each other as man to man, with the mask of their suspicions, their vanities and their hate cast aside. "What is the matter? What is this fool saying?" Jim asked in loathing. At last Monsieur Chatelard looked at Jim with eyes of fear. His face became so pale and drawn that it resembled a sponge from which the last drop of water had been pressed. "He says the yacht is half full of water--that she is sinking," the Frenchman said. "Sinking!" echoed Jim, bearing down again, with lowered revolver, on his enemy. "Well and good! You're going to be drowned, not shot, after all! And now you shall speak, you scamp! Your game's up, whatever happens. Get up and lead the way, quick, and show me in what part of this infernal boat you are hiding Agatha Redmond." Chatelard started toward the hatchway, followed sharply by Jim's revolver, but at the foot of the ladder he turned his contemptuous, sneering face toward Jim, with the remark: "Your words are the words of a fool, you pig of an American! There is no lady aboard this yacht, and I never so much as heard of your Agatha Redmond. Otherwise, I'd be pleased to play Mercury to your Venus." To Jim's ears, every syllable the Frenchman spoke was an insult, and the last words rekindled the fire in his blood. "You shall pay for that speech here and now!" he yelled; and, discarding his revolver, he dealt the Frenchman a short-arm blow. Chatelard, trying to dodge, tripped over the base of the ladder and went down heavily on the floor of the fo'cas'le. He had apparently lost consciousness. As Jim saw his victim stretched on the floor, he turned away with loathing. He picked up his revolver and went up the ladder. It was already dark, and confusion reigned on deck. But through the clamor, Jim made out something near the truth: the _Jeanne D'Arc_ was leaking badly, and no time was to be lost if she, with her passengers and crew, were to be saved. CHAPTER VII THE ROPE LADDER The near prospect of a conclusive struggle for life is a sharp tonic to the adventurous soul. The actual final summons to that Other Room is met variously. There is Earthly Dignity, who answers even this last tap at the door with a fitting and quotable rejoinder; there is Deathbed Repentance, whose unction _in momento mortis_ is doubtless a comfort to pious relatives; and there are Chivalry and Valor, twin youths who go to the unknown banquet singing and bearing their garlands of joy. But with the chance of a fight for life, there is a sharp-sweet tang that sends some spirits galloping to the contest. "Dauntless the slughorn to his lips he set--" making ready for the last good run. When Jim descended the hatchway after reconnoitering on deck, Chatelard was gone. The ship's cook was rummaging in a sailor's kit that he had drawn from a locker. Jim mentally considered the situation. The seamen had no doubt exaggerated the calamity, but without question there was serious trouble. Were the pumps working? How far were they from shore? If hopelessly distant from shore, were they in the course of passing steamers? Would any one look after Miss Redmond's safety? Monsieur Chatelard had said that she was not on board, but James did not believe it. While these thoughts new through his mind, James had been absently watching while the cook turned his treasures out upon his bunk, and pawed them over with trembling hands. There were innumerable little things, besides a stiff white shirt, a cheap shiny Bible, a stuffed parrot and several wads of clothes. And among the mess Jim caught sight of a piece of stitched canvas that looked familiar. "Hi, you there! That's my money-belt!" he cried, and jumped forward to claim his own. But in his movement he failed to calculate with the waves. The yacht gave another of her deep-sea plunges, and Jimmy, thrown against his bunk, saw the cook grab his kit and make for the ladder. He regained his feet only in time to follow at arm's length up the hatchway. At the top he threw himself down, like a baseball runner making his base, after the seaman's legs; but instead of a foot, he found himself clutching one of the wads of clothes that trailed after the cook's bundle. He caught it firmly and kept it, but the ship's cook and the rest of his booty disappeared like a rabbit into its burrow. Jim sat down at the top of the ladder and examined his haul. It was a pair of woolen trousers, and they were of generous size. He spread them out on the deck. Round him were unmistakable signs of demoralization. The second officer was ordering the men to the pumps in stern tones; the yacht was pitching wildly and growing darkness was settling on the face of the turbulent waters. But in spite of it all, Jimmy's spirit leaped forth in laughter as he thought of his brief, frantic chase, and its result in this capture of the characteristic vestiture of man. "What's money for, anyway!" he laughed, as he got up and clothed himself once more. There followed hours of superhuman struggle to save the _Jeanne D'Arc_. Her crew, sufficient in ordinary weather, was too small to cope with the storm and the leaking ship. Ballast had to be shifted or flung overboard. Repairs had to be attempted in the hold; the pumps had to be worked incessantly, It transpired that the yacht had gone far out of her course during the fog the night before, and had tried to turn inshore, even before the leak was discovered. No one knew what waters they were that lashed so furiously about the disabled craft. The storm overhead had abated, but the rage of the sea was unquelled. Before long the engine was stopped by the rising water, and then the hand pumps were used. There was some hope that the leak had been discovered and at least partly repaired. The captain thought that, if carefully managed, the yacht might hold till daylight. Jimmy joined the gang and worked like a Trojan, helping wherever a man was needed, shifting ballast, untackling the boats, handling the pump. It was at the pump that he found himself, some time during the night, working endlessly, it seemed. Not once had he lost sight of the real purpose of his presence on the yacht. If Agatha Redmond were aboard the unlucky vessel--and he had moments of curious perplexity about it--he was there to watch for her safety. He pictured her sitting somewhere in the endangered vessel. She could not but be terrified at her predicament. Whether shipwreck or abduction threatened her, she must feel that she had indeed fallen into the hands of her enemies. He worked his turn at the pump, then made up his mind to risk no further delay, but to search the ship's cabins. She was in one of them, he believed; frightened she must be, possibly ill. He had done all that the furthest stretch of duty could demand in assistance to the ship. He would find Agatha Redmond at any cost, if she were aboard the _Jeanne D'Arc_. Again he thought to himself that he was glad he was there. Whatever purpose her enemies had, he alone was on her side, he alone could do something to save her. It was now long past midnight, but not pitch dark either on deck or on the sea. The electric lights had gone out long before, but lanterns had been swung here and there from the deck fixtures. As Jimmy came up, he thought the men were preparing to lower the boats, but when he asked about it in his difficult French, the sailor shook his head. There were more people about than he supposed the yacht carried: several seamen, three or four other men, and a fat woman sitting apathetically on a pile of rope. He went from group to group, and from end to end of the yacht, looking for one woman's face and figure. He saw Monsieur Chatelard, examining one of the boats. He ran down the saloon stairway, determined to search the cabins before he gave up his quest. One moment he prayed that the words of Chatelard might be true, and that she had never been aboard the yacht; the next moment he prayed he might find her behind the next closed door. As James searched below deck, a house palatial disclosed itself, even in the dim light of the little lanterns. Cabins roomy and comfortable, furnishings of exquisite taste, all the paraphernalia of the cultured and the rich were there. Some of the cabin doors were standing open, and none was locked. Jimmy beat on them, called from room to room, finding nothing. Every human occupant was gone. Sick at heart, he again rushed on deck. Was he mistaken, after all? Or had they hidden her in some secret part of the ship where he could not find her? When Jimmy got back to the deck he saw that the groups had gathered on the port side. Sharp orders were being given. He crowded to the railing, straining his eyes to see, and found that they were transferring the ship's company to the boats, A rope ladder swung from the deck to a boat beneath, which bobbed like a cork beside, the big, plunging yacht. Two people were in the boat, a sailor standing at the bow, and a large muffled figure of a woman sitting in the stern. Jimmy at once knew her to be the apathetic fat woman he had seen a few minutes before on deck. His eye searched the company crowded about the top of the rope ladder, and suddenly his heart leaped. There she was, at the edge of the deck, waiting for the captain to give the word for her to descend to the boat below. As Jimmy's eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw her more and more plainly: a pale face framed in a dark hood, a tall, cloaked figure waiting calmly to obey the word from the superior officer. It was the third time Jimmy had seen her, but he felt as if he had found one dearer than himself. His eyes dwelt on her. She was not terrified; her nerves were not shaken. "I am ready," she said, turning to the captain. It was the same fine, free voice, suggesting--Oh, what did it not suggest! Never this dark, wild night of danger! Jimmy thrilled to it again as he had thrilled to it once before. He waved jubilant hands. "Agatha Redmond!" he called, across the space and heads that divided them. Whether she heard his call he did not know. At that moment the word was given, and she turned an almost smiling face to the captain in reply. She knelt to the deck and got footing on the slippery rope. Men above held it and helped as best they could, while the sailor below waited to receive her into the little boat. She was steady and quick as a woman in such a perilous position could be. As she descended, the rowboat, insecurely held to the _Jeanne D'Arc_, slid sternward a few feet; and while she waited in midair for the boat to be brought up again, the _Jeanne D'Arc_ gave a mighty plunge. The captain shouted from the deck, a sailor yelled, then another; the dipping sea tossed the yacht so that for an instant the boat below and the woman on the ladder were hidden from Jim's view. He climbed over the rail and edged along the narrow margin of the deck until he was a few feet nearer the rope, his heart thumping with fear of calamity. And even as the thought came, the thing happened. The wrenching of the ropes, the insecurity of their fastenings, some blunder on the part of the seamen--whatever it was, the rope loosened like a filament of gauze, and, with its precious burden, dropped into the angry water. Before a breath could be drawn, the black waves churned over her head. As, for the second time, Jim saw disaster engulf the Vision that had such power over him, he was seized by a cold numbness. "Oh, you brutes!" he groaned aloud; but his groan had scarcely escaped him when he heard loud altercation among the men, and in a moment the nasal tones of Monsieur Chatelard commanding: "Never mind! Quick with the boat on the other side!" The seamen rushed to the opposite side, now impatient to make the boats. In the fear that was growing momently upon the men, there was no one to give a thought to the vanished woman. Jimmy clung to the rail for a second, peering over the water. With a cry of gladness he saw her pale face rise to the surface of the water several feet away and toward the bow. "Keep up a second! It's all right!" he shouted. Quick as thought he snatched a life preserver from its place on the rail, and ran forward. He called thrice, "Keep up, I'm coming!" then threw the cork swiftly and accurately to the very spot where she floated. A second longer he watched, to see if she gained it. It seemed that she did, and yet something was wrong. She was not able to right herself immediately in the water, but floundered helplessly. Jimmy knew that her clothes were hampering her, or else that the rope ladder had entangled her feet. He turned and got his balance on the narrow ledge, pointed his hands high above his head, and took a good breath. Then he dove toward the floating face. When he came to the surface she was there, not ten strokes away. He swam to her, placed firm hands under her arms, and steadied her while she cleared her feet from the entangling rope. "Thank God!" he breathed. "I'll save you yet!" CHAPTER VIII ON THE BREAST OF THE SEA "Can you keep afloat in this roughness?" "I think so, now that I have the life preserver. But the rope scared me for a minute. It got wound about my feet." "I thought so. But we are drifting away from the boats, and should swim back as fast as we can. Can you swim?" "Yes; better when I get rid of this cloak. Which way is the yacht? I've lost my bearings." "Behind us over there. Put your hand on my shoulder and I'll take you along until you get your breath. So!" The girl obeyed implicitly, "as if she were a good, biddable child," thought Jim. There was none of the terrified clutching at a rescuer which sometimes causes disaster to two instead of one. Miss Redmond was badly shocked, it may be; but she was far from being in a panic. "Now for the boat. Can you swim a little faster? They'll surely come back to pick us up," said Jim, with an assumption of confidence that he did not feel. They could hear voices from the yacht, and could follow, partially, what was going on. Miss Redmond cast loose her cloak, put a hand on Jim's shoulder, and together they swam nearer. "Ahoy!" shouted Jim. "Give us a hand!" But the boat with the large woman in it had put about to the other side of the yacht. "Ahoy! This way!" shouted Jim. "Throw us a rope!" he cried; but if any of the seamen of the _Jeanne D'Arc_ heard, they paid no heed. "Come this way," said James to his companion. "We'll catch them on the other side of the yacht." "I can't swim much in all these clothes," said Agatha. "Never mind, then. Hold on to the life preserver and to me, and we'll make it all right." On the crests of the swelling waves they swam round the dark bulk of the vessel, and heard plainly the clamor of the men as they embarked in the small boats. Two of them seemed to be fastened together, raft-like, on the starboard side of the yacht, and were quickly filled with men. Prayers and curses were audible, with the loose, wild inflexion of the man who is in the clutch of an overmastering fear. As long as there had been work for them to do on the ship, they had done it, though sullenly; they had even controlled themselves until the attempt was made to place the two women in safety. But after that their self-restraint vanished. The orders of the officers were unheeded; the men leaped and scrambled and slid into the boats, and in a minute more they had cut loose from the _Jeanne D'Arc_. James dimly perceived that the boats were moving away from them into the darkness. Then he called, and called again, redoubling his speed in swimming; but only the beat of the oars came back to him over the water. The heart in him stood still with an unacknowledged fear. Was it possible they were absolutely leaving them behind? Surely there were other boats. He raised his voice and called again and again. At last one voice, careless and brutal, called back something in reply. Jim turned questioning eyes to the girl beside him, whose pale face was clearly discernible on the dark water. "He says the boats are all full." "Then we must hurry and make for the yacht. Where is she?" The _Jeanne D'Arc_ had slipped away from them into the darkness. "She was this way, I thought. Yes, I am sure," said Agatha, pointing into the night. But though they swam that way, they did not come upon her. They turned a little, and then turned again, and presently they lost every sense of direction. In all his life Jim was never again destined to go through so black an hour as that which followed the abandonment of the _Jeanne D'Arc_. His courage left him, and his spirit sank to that leaden, choking abyss where light did not exist. Since the immediate object of saving the ship, for which he had worked as hard as any other, had been given up, the next in importance was to save the woman who, for some mysterious reason, had been aboard. It was beyond his power of imagination to suppose that any other motive of action could possibly prevail, even among her enemies. That they should leave her to drown, while they themselves fled to comparative safety in a boat, was more than he could believe. "Surely they do not mean it; they must return, for you, at least." The girl beside him knew better, but she was conscious of the paralyzing despair in her companion's heart, and made a show of being cheerful. "When they find they are safe they may think of us," she said. "But the men were already crazed with fear, even before the leak was discovered. One of their mates on the voyage over was a fortune-teller, and he prophesied danger to them all on their next trip. After they had come into port, the fortune-teller himself died. And who can blame them for their fear? They are all superstitious; and as no one ever regarded their fears, now they have no regard for anybody's feelings but their own." "But we are in the middle of the Atlantic, no one knows where. We may drift for days--we may starve--the Lord only knows what will happen to us!" Agatha, who had been floating, swam a little nearer and laid her hand on Jim's shoulder, until he looked into her face. It was full of strength and brightness. "'The sea is His also,'" she quoted gently. "Besides, we may get picked up," she went on. "I'm very well off, for my part, as you see. Can swim or rest floating, thanks to this blessed cork thing, and not at all hurt by the fall from the rope. But I must get rid of my shoes and some of my clothes, if I have to swim." It is awkward to kick off one's shoes and divest oneself of unnecessary clothing in the water, and Agatha laughed at herself as she did it. "Not exactly a bathing suit, but this one black skirt will have to do. The others must go. It was my skirts that caused the mischief with the rope at first. And I was scared!" "You had a right to be." Jim helped her keep afloat, and presently he saw that, freed from the entanglement of so many clothes, she was as much at home in the water as he. Suddenly she turned to him, caught by some recollection that almost eluded her. "I don't think we are anywhere near the middle of the Atlantic," she said thoughtfully. James was silent, eating the bitter bread of despair, in spite of the woman's brave wish to comfort him. They were swimming slowly as they talked, still hoping to reach the yacht. They rose on the breast of the waves, paused now and then till a quieter moment came, and always kept near each other in the pale blue darkness. "Old Sophie said something--that some one had tampered with the wheel, I think. At any rate, she said we'd never get far from shore with this crew." James considered the case. "But even suppose we are within a mile or two, say, of the shore, could you ever swim two miles in this heavy sea?" "It is growing calmer every minute. See, I can do very well, even swimming alone. It must be near morning, too, and that's always, a good thing." There was the shadow of a laugh in her voice. "Morning? That depends," growled Jim. He was being soothed in spite of himself, and in spite of the direfulness of their situation. But bad as the situation was, and would be in any case, he could not deny the proposition that morning and daylight would make it better. "But aren't you tired already? You must be." James turned closer to her, trying to read her face. "It was a long night of anxiety, even before we left the boat. Weren't you frightened?" "Yes, of course; but I've been getting used to frights of late, if one _can_ get used to them." Again there was the laugh in her voice, under all its seriousness, even when she added: "I'm not sure that this isn't safer than being on board the _Jeanne D'Arc_, after all!" It was characteristic of James that he forebore to take advantage of the opening this speech offered. The possible reason of her abduction, her treatment on board the yacht, her relation to Monsieur Chatelard--it was all a mystery, but he could not, at that moment, seek to solve it. Her remark remained unanswered for a little time; at last he said: "Then the _Jeanne D'Arc_ must have been pretty bad." "It was," she said simply. Jim wondered whether she knew more about the crime of which she was the victim than he knew, or if she had discovered aught concerning it while she was a prisoner on the yacht. Granting that her person was so valuable that a man of Monsieur Chatelard's caliber would commit a crime to get possession of it, why should he have abandoned her when there was plainly some chance of safety in the boats? He could not conceive of Monsieur Chatelard's risking his neck in an affair of gallantry; cupidity alone would account for his part in the drama. James went over and over the situation, as far as he understood it, but he did none of his thinking aloud. It flashed on his mind that Miss Redmond must already have separated him, in her thoughts, from the other people on the yacht; though perhaps her trust was instinctive, arising from her own need of help. How could she know that he had risked his neck twice, now, to follow the Vision? Swimming slowly, with Agatha's hand at times on his shoulder, James turned his mind sharply to a consideration of their present position. They had been alternately swimming and floating, hoping to come upon the yacht. The darkness of the night was penetrable, so that they could see a fairly large circle of water about them, but there was no shadow of the _Jeanne D'Arc_. Save for the running surge of the waters, all was silence. The pale forerunners of dawn had appeared. Their swim after the boats of the _Jeanne D'Arc_ had warmed their blood, so that for a while they were not conscious of the chill of the water. But as the minutes lengthened, one by one, fatigue and cold numbed their bodies. It was a test of endurance for a strong man; as for the girl, Jim wondered at her strength and courage. She swam superbly, with unhurried, steady strokes. If she grew chatteringly cold, she would start into a vigorous swim, shoulder to shoulder with James. If she lost her breath with the hard exercise, she would take his hand, "so as not to lose you," she would say, and rest on the breast of the waves. The wind dropped and the sea grew quiet, so that they were no more cruelly buffeted, but rocked up and down on its heaving bosom. Once, while they were "resting" on the water, Agatha broke a long silence with, "I wonder--" but did not at once say what she wondered at. Jim said nothing, but she knew he was waiting and listening. "Suppose this should be the Great Gateway," she said at last, very slowly, but quite cheerfully and naturally. "I am wondering what there is beyond." "I've often wondered, too," said Jim. "I've sometimes thought, and I've said it, too, that I was crazy to die, just to see what happens," Agatha went on, laughing a little at her own memories. "But I find I'm not at all eager for it, now, when it would be so easy to go under and not come up again. Are you?" "No, I've never felt eager to die; least of all, now." Agatha was silent a while. "What do you think death means? Shall we be we to-morrow, say, provided we can't keep afloat?" she asked by and by. "Why, yes, I think so," said Jim. "I don't know why or how, but I guess we go on somewhere; and I rather think our best moments here--our moments of happiness or heroism, if we ever have any--are going to be the regular thing." Jim laughed a little, partly at his own lame ending, and partly because he felt Agatha's hand closing more tightly over his. He didn't want her to get blue just yet, after her brave fight. But Agatha wasn't blue. She answered thoughtfully: "That isn't a bad idea," and then cheerfully turned to a consideration of the possibilities of a rescue at dawn. James had evolved a plan to wait till enough light came to enable them to reach the _Jeanne D'Arc_, if she was still afloat; then to climb aboard and hunt for provisions and life preservers or something to use for a raft. If he could do this, then they would be in a somewhat better plight, at least for a time. He prayed that the _Jeanne D'Arc_ might still be alive. The two talked little, leaving silences between them full of wonder. The details of life, the ordinary personalities, were blotted out. Without explanation or speech of any kind, they understood each other. They were not, in this hour, members of a complex and artificial society; they were not even man and woman; they were two souls stripped of everything but the need for fortitude and sweetness. At last came the dawn. Slowly the blue curtain of night lifted, lifted, until it became the blue curtain of sky, endlessly far away and far above. A twinkling star looked down on the cup of ocean, glimmered a moment and was gone. The light strengthened. A pearly, iridescent quiver came upon the waters, repeating itself wave after wave, and heralded the coming of the Lord Sun over the great murmuring sea. As the light grew, they could see a constantly widening circle of ocean, of which they were the center. As they rose and fell with the waves, the horizon fell and rose to their vision, dim and undefined. Hand in hand they floated in vaporous silver. "The day has come at last, thank God!" breathed James. "Yes, thank God!" answered the girl. "Are you very cold?" "The sun will soon warm us." "Where did you learn to swim?" "In England, mostly at the Isle of Wight, but I'm not half such a dolphin as you are." "Oh, well, boys have to swim, you know, and I was a boy once," Jim answered awkwardly. Presently he asked, and his voice was full of awe: "Have you ever seen the dawn--a dawn like this--before?" "Never one like this," she whispered. When daylight came, they found they had not traveled far from the scene of the night's disaster; or, if they had, the _Jeanne D'Arc_ had drifted with them. She was still afloat, and just as the sun rose they saw her, apparently not far away, tossing rudderless to the waves. There was no sign of the ship's boats. At the renewed miracle of light, and at sight of the yacht, Jimmy's hopes were reborn. His spirit bathed in the wonder of the day and was made strong again. The night with its horrors of struggle and its darkness was past, forgotten in the flush of hope that came with the light. Together they struck out toward the yacht, fresh with new courage. Now that he could see plainly, Jim swam always a little behind Agatha, keeping a watchful eye. She still took the water gallantly, nose and closed mouth just topping the wave, like a spaniel. An occasional side-stroke would bring her face level to the water, with a backward smile for her companion. He gloried in her spirit, even while he feared for her strength. It was a longer pull to the yacht than they had counted upon, a heavy tax on their powers of endurance. Jim came up to find Agatha floating on her back and put his hand under her shoulders, steadying her easily. "Now you can really rest," he said. "I've looked toward the horizon so long, I thought I'd look up, way up, for a change," she said cheerfully. "That's where the skylarks go, when they want to sing--straight up into heaven!" "Doesn't it make you want to sing?" She showed no surprise at the question. "Yes, it does, almost. But just as I thought of the skylarks, I remembered something else; something that kept haunting me in the darkness all night-- "'Master in song, good-by, good-by, Down to the dim sea-line--' I thought something or somebody was surely lost down in 'the dim sea-line' last night." "Who can tell? But I had a better thought than yours: Ulysses, like us, swimming over the 'wine-dark sea'! Do you remember it? 'Then two days and two nights on the resistless waves he drifted; many a time his heart faced death.'" "That's not a bit better thought than mine; but I like it. And I know what follows, too. 'But when the fair-haired dawn brought the third day, then the wind ceased; there came a breathless calm; and close at hand he spied the coast, as he cast a keen glance forward, upborne on a great wave.' That's it, isn't it?" "I don't know, but I hope it is. 'The wine-dark sea' and the 'rosy-fingered dawn' are all I remember; though I'm glad you know what comes next. It's a good omen. But look at the yacht; she's acting strange!" As the girl turned to her stroke, their attention was caught and held by the convulsions of the _Jeanne D'Arc_. There was a grim fascination in the sight. It was obvious that she was sinking. While they had been resting, her hull had sunk toward the water-line, her graceful bulk and delicate masts showing strange against ocean and sky. Now she suddenly tipped down at her stern; her bow was thrown up out of the water for an instant, only to be drawn down again, slowly but irresistibly, as if she were pulled by a giant's unseen hand. With a sudden last lurch she disappeared entirely, and only widening circles fleetingly marked the place of her going. The two in the water watched with fascinated eyes, filled with awe. When it was all over Agatha turned to her companion with a long-drawn breath. Jim looked as one looks whose last hope has failed. "I could never have let you go aboard, anyway!" He loved her anew for that speech, but knew not how to meet her eyes. "Well, Ulysses lost his raft, too!" he managed to say. "He saw the sunrise, too, just as we have seen it; and he saw a distant island, 'that seemed a shield laid on the misty sea.' Let's look hard now, each time the wave lifts us. Perhaps we also shall see an island." "We must swim harder; you are chilled through." "Oh, no," she laughed. "I shivered at the thought of what a fright I must look. I always did hate to get my hair wet." "You look all right to me." They were able to laugh, and so kept up heart. They tried to calculate the direction the yacht had taken when she left port, and where the land might lie; and when they had argued about it, they set out to swim a certain way. In their hearts each felt that any calculation was futile, but they pretended to be in earnest. They could not see far, but they created for themselves a goal and worked toward it, which is of itself a happiness. So they watched and waited, ages long. Hope came to them again presently. James, treading water, thrust up his head and scented the air. "I smell the salt marsh, which means land!" He sniffed again. "Yes, decidedly!" A moment later it was there, before their vision--that "shield laid on the misty sea" which was the land. Only it was not like a shield, but a rocky spit of coast land, with fir trees farther back. James made for the nearest point, though his heart shrank to see how far away it was. Fatigue and anxiety were taking their toll of his vigor. Neither one had breath to spare even for exultation that the land was in sight. Little by little Agatha grew more quiet, though not less brave. It took all her strength to fight the water--that mighty element which indifferently supports or engulfs the human atom. If she feared, she made no sign. Bravely she kept her heart, and carefully she saved her strength, swimming slowly, resting often, and wasting no breath in talk. But more and more frequently her eyes rested wistfully on James, mutely asking him for help. He watched her minute by minute, often begging her to let him help her. "Oh, no, not yet; I can go on nicely, if I just rest a little. There--thank you." Once she looked at him with such pain in her eyes that he silently took her hands, placed them on his shoulder and carried her along with his stronger stroke. She was reassured by his strength, and presently she slipped away from him, smiling confidently again as she swam alongside. "I'm all right now; but I suddenly thought, what if anything should happen to you, and I be left alone! Or what if I should get panicky and clutch you and drag you down, the way people do sometimes!" "But I shan't leave you alone, and you're not going to do that!" Agatha smiled, but could only say, "I hope not!" She forged ahead a little, and presently had another moment of fright on looking round and finding that Jim had disappeared. He had suddenly dived, without giving her warning. He came up a second later, puffing and spitting the bitter brine; but his face was radiant. "Rocks and seaweed!" he cried. "The land is near. Come; I can swim and take you, too, easily. And now I know certainly just which way to go. Come, come!" Agatha heard it all, but this time she was unable to utter a word. Jim saw her stiff lips move in an effort to smile or speak, but he heard no voice. "Keep up, keep up, dear girl!" he cried. "We'll soon be there. Try, _try_ to keep up! Don't lose for a moment the thought that you are near land, that you are almost there. We _are_ safe, you _can_ go on--only a few moments more!" Poor Agatha strove as Jim bade her, gallantly, hearing his voice as through a thickening wall; but she had already done her best, and more. She struggled for a few half-conscious moments; then suddenly her arms grew limp, her eyes closed, and her weight came upon Jim as that of a dead person. Then he set his teeth and nerved himself to make the effort of his life. It is no easy thing to strain forward, swimming the high seas, bearing above the surface a load which on land would make a strong man stagger. One must watch one's burden, to guard against mishap; one must save breath and muscle, and keep an eye for direction, all in a struggle against a hostile element. The goal still seemed incredibly far, farther than his strength could go. Yet he swam on, fighting against the heartbreaking thought that his companion had perhaps gone "down to the dim sea-line" in very truth. She had been so brave, so strong. She had buoyed up his courage when it had been fainting; she had fought splendidly against the last terrible inertia of exhaustion. "Courage!" he told himself. "We must make the land!" But it took a stupendous effort. His strokes became unequal, some of them feeble and ineffective; his muscles ached with the strain; now and then a strange whirring and dizziness in his head caused him to wonder dimly whether he were above or below water. He could no longer swim with closed lips, but constantly threw his head back with the gasp that marks the spent runner. Holding Agatha Redmond in front of him, with her head well above the water and her body partly supported by the life preserver, he swam sometimes with one hand, sometimes only with his legs. He dared not stop now, lest he be too late in reaching land or wholly unable to regather his force. The dizziness increased, and a sharp pain in his eyeballs recurred again and again. He could no longer see the land; it seemed to him that it was blood, not brine, that spurted from nose and mouth; but still he swam on, holding the woman safe. He made a gigantic effort to shout, though he could scarcely hear his own voice. Then he fixed his mind solely on his swimming, counting one stroke after another, like a man who is coaxing sleep. How long he swam thus, he did not know; but after many strokes he was conscious of a sense of happiness that, after all, it wasn't necessary to reach land or to struggle any more. Rest and respite from excruciating effort were to be had for the taking--why had he withstood them so long? The sea rocked him, the surge filled his ears, his limbs relaxed their tension. Then it was that a strong hand grasped him, and a second later the same hand dealt him a violent blow on the face. He had to begin the intolerable exertion of swimming again, but he no longer had a burden to hold safe; there was no burden in sight. Half-consciously he felt the earth once more beneath his feet, but he could not stand. He fell face forward into the water again at his first attempt; and again the strong hand pulled him up and half-carried him over some slimy rocks. It was an endless journey before the strong hand would let him sit or lie down, but at last he was allowed to drop. He vaguely felt the warmth of the sun drying his skin while the sea hummed in his ears; he felt distinctly the sharp pain between his eyes, and a parching thirst. He groped around in a delirious search for water, which he did not find; he pressed his head and limbs against the earth in an exquisite relief from pain; and at last his bruised feet, his aching bones and head constrained him to a lethargy that ended in sleep. CHAPTER IX THE CAMP ON THE BEACH Sunset of the day that had dawned so strangely and wonderfully for those two wayfarers of earth, James and Agatha, fell on a little camp near the spit of coast-land toward which they had struggled. The point lifted itself abruptly into a rocky bank which curved in and out, yielding to the besieging waves. Just here had been formed a little sandy cove partly protected by the beetling cliff. At the top was verdure in abundance. Vines hung down over the face of the wall, coarse grasses and underbrush grew to its very edge, and sharp-pointed fir trees etched themselves against the clear blue of the sky. Below, the white sand formed a sickle-shaped beach, bordered by the rocky wall, with its sharp point dipping far out to sea. High up on the sand a small rowboat was beached. There was no path visible up from the shingle, but it was evident that the ascent would be easy enough. Nevertheless, the campers did not attempt it. Instead, they had made a fire of driftwood on the sand out of reach of the highest tide. Near the fire they had spread fir boughs, and on this fragrant couch James was lying. He was all unconscious, apparently, of the primitive nature of his surroundings, the sweetness of his balsam bed, and the watchful care of his two nurses. Jim was in a bad way, if one could trust the remarks of his male nurse, who spoke to an invisible companion as he gathered chips and other bits of wood from the beach. He was a young, businesslike fellow with a clean, wholesome face, dressed only in gauze shirt, trousers, and boots without stockings; this lack, of course, was not immediately apparent. The tide had just turned after the ebb, and he went far down over the wet sand, sometimes climbing over the rocks farther along the shore until he was out of sight of the camp. Returning from one of these excursions, which had been a bit longer than he intended, he looked anxiously toward the fire before depositing his armful of driftwood. The blaze had died down, but a good bed of coals remained; and upon this the young man expertly built up a new fire. It crackled and blazed into life, throwing a ruddy glow over the shingle, the rocks behind, and the figure lying on the balsam couch. James's face was waxen in its paleness, save for two fiery spots on his cheeks; and as he lay he stirred constantly in a feverish unrest. His bare feet were nearest the fire; his blue woollen trousers and shirt were only partly visible, being somewhat covered by a man's tweed coat. The fire lighted up, also, the figure of Agatha Redmond. She was kneeling at the farther end of Jim's couch, laying a white cloth, which had been wet, over his temples. Her long dark hair was hanging just as it had dried, except that it was tied together low in the back with a string of slippery seaweed. Her neck was bare, her feet also; her loose blouse had lost all semblance of a made-to-order garment, but it still covered her; while a petticoat that had once been black satin hung in stiff, salt-dried creases from her waist to a little below her knees. She had the well-set head and good shoulders, with deep chest, which make any garb becoming; her face was bonny, even now, clouded as it was with anxiety and fatigue. She greeted the young man eagerly on his return. "If you could only find a little more fresh water, I am sure it would help. The milk was good, only he would take so little. I think I shall have to let you go this evening to hunt for the farm-house." "Yes, Mademoiselle," the young man replied. He had wanted to go earlier in the day, but the man was too ill and the woman too exhausted to be left alone. He went on speaking slowly, after a pause. "I can find the farm-house, I am sure, only it may take a little time. Following the cattle would have been the quickest way; but I can find the cowpath soon, even as it is. If you wouldn't be uneasy with me gone, Mademoiselle!" "Oh, no, we shall be all right now, till you can get back!" As she spoke, Agatha's eyes rested questioningly on the youth who, ever since she had revived from her faint of exhaustion, had teased her memory. He had seen them struggling in the sea, and had swum out to her aid, she knew; and after leaving her lying on a slimy, seaweed-covered rock, he had gone out again and brought in her companion in a far worse condition than herself. The young man, also, was a survivor of the _Jeanne D'Arc_, having come from the disabled craft in the tiny rowboat that was now on the beach. More than this she did not know, yet something jogged her memory every now and then--something that would not shape itself definitely. Indeed, she had been too much engrossed in the serious condition of her companion and the work necessary to make the camp, to spend any thought on unimportant speculations. But now, as she listened to the youth's respectful tones, it suddenly came back to her. She looked at him with awe-struck eyes. "Oh, now I know! You are the new chauffeur; 'queer name, Hand!' Yes, I remember--I remember." "What you say is true, Mademoiselle." He stood before her, a stubbornly submissive look on his face, as a servant might stand before his betrayed master. It was as if he had been waiting for that moment, waiting for her anger to fall on him. But Agatha was speechless at her growing wonder at the trick fate had played them. Her steady gaze, serious and earnest now, without a hint of the laughter that usually came so easily, dwelt on the young man's eyes for a moment, then she turned away as if she were giving up a puzzling question. She looked at James, whose stubbly-bearded face was now quiet against its green pillow, as if seeking a solution there; but she had to fall back, at last, on the youth. "Do you know who this man is?" she asked irrelevantly. "No, Mademoiselle. He was picked up in New York harbor, the night we weighed anchor. I have not seen him since until to-day." "'The night we weighed anchor!' What night was that?" "Last Monday, Mademoiselle; at about six bells." "And what day is to-day?" "Saturday, Mademoiselle; and past four bells now." "Monday--Saturday!" Agatha looked abstractedly down on Jimmy asleep, while upon her mind crowded the memories of that week. This man who had dragged her and her rescuer from the water, who had made fire and a bed for them, who had got milk for their sustenance, had been almost the last person her conscious eyes had seen in that half-hour of terror on the hillside. Her next memory, after an untold interval, was the rocking of the ship, an old woman who treated her obsequiously, a man who was her servile attendant and yet her jailer--but then, suddenly, as she knelt there, mind and body refused their service. She crumpled down on the soft sand, burying her head in her arms. Hand came nearer and bent awkwardly over her, as if to coax her confidence. "It's all right now, Mademoiselle. Whatever you think of me, you can trust me to do my best for you now." "Oh, I'm not afraid of you now," Agatha moaned in a muffled voice. "Only I'm so puzzled by it all--and so tired!" "'Twas a fearful strain, Mademoiselle. But I can make you a bed here, so you can sleep." Agatha shook her head. "I can sleep on the sand, just as well." "I think, Mademoiselle, I'd better be going above and look for help from the village, as soon as I've supplied the fire. I'll leave these few matches, too, in case you need them." "Yes, you'd better go, Hand; and wait a minute, until I think it out." Agatha sat up and pressed her palm to her forehead, straining to put her mind upon the problem at hand. "Go for a doctor first, Hand; then, if you can, get some food--bread and meat; and, for pity's sake, a cloak or long coat of some kind. Then find out where we are, what the nearest town is, and if a telegraph station is near. And stay; have you any money?" "A little, Mademoiselle; between nine and ten dollars." "That is good; it will serve for a little while. Please spend it for me; I will pay you. As soon as we can get to a telegraph station I can get more. Get the things, as I have said; and then arrange, if you can, for a carriage and another man, besides yourself and the doctor, to come down as near this point as possible. You two can carry him"--she looked wistfully at James--"to the carriage, wherever it is able to meet us. But you will need to spend money to get all these things; especially if you get them to-night, as I hope you may." "I will try, Mademoiselle." The ex-chauffeur stood hesitating, however. At last, "I hate to leave you here alone, with only a sick man, and night coming on," he said. "You need not be afraid for me," replied Agatha coldly. Her nerves had given way, now that the need for active exertion was past, and were almost at the breaking point. It came back to her again, moreover, how this man and another had made her a prisoner in the motor-car, and at the moment she felt foolish in trusting to him for further help. It came into her mind that he was only seeking an excuse to run away, in fear of being arrested later. A second time she looked up into his eyes with her serious, questioning gaze. "I don't know why you were in the plot to do as you did--last Monday afternoon," she said slowly; "but whatever it was, it was unworthy of you. You are not by nature a criminal and a stealer of women, I know. And you have been kind and brave to-day; I shall never forget that. Do you really mean now to stay by me?" Hand's gaze was no less earnest than her own; and though he flinched at "criminal," his eyes met hers steadily. "As long as I can help you, Mademoiselle, I will do so." At his words, spoken with sincerity, Agatha's spirit, tired and overwrought as it was, rose for an instant to its old-time buoyancy. She smiled at him. "You mean it?" she asked. "Honest true, cross your heart?" Hand's businesslike features relaxed a little. "Honest true, cross my heart!" he repeated. "All right," said Agatha, almost cheerfully. "And now you must go, before it gets any darker. Don't try to return in the night, at the risk of losing your way. But come as soon as you can after daylight; and remember, I trust to you! Good-by." Hand already, earlier in the day, had made a path for himself up the steep bank through the underbrush, and now Agatha went with him to the edge of the thicket. She watched and listened until the faint rustling of his footsteps ceased, then turned back to the camp on the beach. She went to the fire and stirred up its coals once more before returning to James. He was sleeping, but his flushed face and unnatural breathing were signs of ill. Now and then he moved restlessly, or seemed to try to speak, but no coherent words came. She sat down to watch by him. After Agatha and James had been brought ashore by the capable Mr. Hand, it had needed only time to bring Agatha back to consciousness. Both she and James had practically fainted from exhaustion, and James had been nearly drowned, at the last minute. Agatha had been left on the rocks to come to herself as she would, while Hand had rubbed and pummeled and shaken James until the blood flowed again. It had flowed too freely, indeed, at some time during his ordeal; and tiny trickles of blood showed on his lips. Agatha, dazed and aching, was trying to crawl up to the sand when Hand came back to her, running lightly over the slippery rocks. They had come in on the flowing tide, which had aided them greatly; and now Hand helped her the short distance to the cove and mercifully let her lie, while he went back to his work for James. Later he had got a little bucket, used for bailing out the rowboat, and dashed hurriedly into the thicket above after some tinkling cowbells. Though she was too tired to question him, Agatha supposed he had tied one of the cows to a tree, since he returned three or four times to fill the pail. What a wonderful life-giver the milk was! She had drunk her fill and had tried to feed it to James, who at first tasted eagerly, but had, on the whole, taken very little. He was only partly awake, but he shivered and weakly murmured that he was cold. Agatha quickly grew stronger; and she and Hand set to work to prepare the fire and the bed. Almost while they were at this labor, the sun had gone down. Sitting by Jim's couch, Agatha grew sleepy and cold, but there were no more coverings. Hand's coat was over Jim, and as Agatha herself felt the cold more keenly she tucked it closer about him. Alone as she was now, in solitude with this man who had saved her from the waters, with darkness and the night again coming on, her spirit shrank; not so much from fear, as from that premonition of the future which now and then assails the human heart. As she knelt by Jim's side, covering his feet with the coat and heaping the fir boughs over him, she paused to look at his unconscious face. She knew now that he did not belong to the crew of the _Jeanne D'Arc_; but of his outward circumstances she knew nothing more. Thirty she guessed him to be, thereby coming within four years of the truth. His short mustache concealed his mouth, and his eyes were closed. It was almost like looking at the mask of a face. The rough beard of a week's growth made a deep shadow over the lower part of his face; and yet, behind the mask, she thought she could see some token of the real man, not without his attributes of divinity. In the ordeal of the night before he had shown the highest order of patience, endurance and courage, together with a sweetness of temper that was itself lovable. But beyond this, what sort of man was he? Agatha could not tell. She had seen many men of many types, and perhaps she recognized James as belonging to a type; but if so, it was the type that stands for the best of New England stock. In the centuries back it may have brought forth fanatics and extremists; at times it may have built up its narrow walls of prejudice and pride; but at the core it was sound and manly, and responsive to the call of the spirit. Something of all this passed through Agatha's mind, as she tried to read Jim's face; then, as he stirred uneasily and tried to throw off the light boughs that she had spread over him, she got up and went to the edge of the water to moisten afresh the bandage for his forehead. Involuntarily she shuddered at sight of the dark water, though the lapping waves, pushing up farther and farther with the incoming tide, were gentle enough to soothe a child. She hurried back to Jim's couch and laid the cooling compress across his forehead. The balsam boughs about them breathed their fragrance on the night air, and the pleasant gloom rested their tired eyes. Gradually he quieted down again; his restlessness ceased. The long twilight deepened into darkness, or rather into that thin luminous blue shade which is the darkness of starlit summer nights. The sea washed the beach with its murmuring caress; somewhere in the thicket above a night-bird called. In a cranny of the rocks Agatha hollowed out the sand, still warm beneath the surface here where the sun had lain on it through long summer days, and made for herself a bed and coverlet and pillow all at once. With the sand piled around and over her, she could not really suffer; and she was mortally tired. She looked up toward the clear stars, Vega and the jeweled cross almost in the zenith, and ruddy Antares in the body of the shining Scorpion. They were watching her, she thought, to-night in her peace as they had watched her last night in her struggle, and as they would watch after all her days and nights were done. And then she thought no more. Sleep, blessed gift, descended upon her. CHAPTER X THE HEART OF YOUTH "Agatha Redmond, can you hear me?" She caught the voice faintly, as if it were a child's cry. "I'm right here, yes; only wait just a second." She could not instantly free herself from her sandy coverings, but she was wide awake almost at the first words James had spoken. Faint as the voice had been, she recognized the natural tones, the strongest he had uttered since coming out of the water. The night had grown cold and dark, and at first she was a trifle bewildered. She was also stiff and sore, almost beyond bearing. She had to creep along the sand to where Jim lay. The fire had burned wholly out, and the sand felt damp as she crawled over it. When she came near, she reached out her hand and laid it on Jim's forehead. He was shivering with cold. "You poor man! And I sleeping while I ought to be taking care of you! I'll make the fire and get some milk; there is still a little left." As she tried to make her aching bones lift her to her feet, she became aware that the man was fumbling at his coverings and trying to say something. She bent down to hear his words, which were incredibly faint. "I don't want any fire or any milk. I only wanted to know if you were there," he said diffidently, as if ashamed of his childishness. She leaned over him, speaking gently and touching his head softly with her firm, cool hands. "You're a little better now, aren't you, after your sleep? Don't you feel a little stronger?" "Yes, I'm better, lots better," he whispered. "I must have been sleeping for ages. When I woke up I thought I had a beastly chill or something; but I'm all right now; only suddenly I felt as if I must know if you were there, and if it _was_ you." He smiled at his own words, and Agatha was reassured. "I think you'll be still better for a little milk," she said, and crept away to get the pail, which had been hidden on a shelf of rock. When she came back with it, James tried manfully to sit up; but Agatha slipped an arm under his neck, in skilful nurse fashion, and held the bucket while he drank, almost greedily. As he sank back on his bed he whispered: "You are very good to take care of me." "Oh, no; I'm only too glad! And now I'm going to build up the fire again; your hands are quite cold." "No, don't go," he pleaded. "Please stay here; I'm not cold any more. And you must go to sleep again. I ought not to have wakened you; and, really, I didn't mean to." "Yes, you ought. I've had lots of sleep; I don't want any more." "It's dark, but it's better than it was that other night, isn't it?" said James. "Much better," answered Agatha. James visibly gathered strength from the milk, and presently he took some more. Agatha watched, and when he had finished, patted him approvingly on the hand, "Good boy! You've done very well," she cried. "I was so thirsty, I thought the whole earth had run dry. Will you think me very ungrateful if I say now I wish it had been water?" "Oh, no; I wish so, too. But Mr. Hand could only get us a little bit from a spring, for there isn't any other pail." It was some time before Jim made out to inquire, "Who's Mr. Hand?" "He's the man that helped us--out of the water--when we became exhausted." Agatha hesitated to speak of the night's experience, uncertain how far Jim's memory carried him, and not knowing how a sick man, in his weakness, might be affected. Still, now that he seemed almost himself again, save for the chill, she ventured to refer to the event, speaking in a matter-of-fact way, as if such endurance tests were the most natural events in the world. James' speech was quite coherent and distinct, but very slow, as if the effort to speak came from the depths of a profound fatigue. "Hand--that's a good name for him. I thought it was the hand of God, which plucked me, like David, or Jonah, or some such person, out of the seething billows. But I didn't think of there being a man behind." Then, after a long silence, "Where is he?" "He's gone off to find somebody to help us get away from here: a carriage or wagon of some sort, and some food and clothes." Something caused Jim to ejaculate, though quite feebly, "You poor thing!" And then he asked, very slowly, "Where is 'here'?" "I don't know; and Mr. Hand doesn't know." "And we've lost our tags," laughed Jim faintly. Agatha couldn't resist the laugh, though the weakness in Jim's voice was almost enough to make her weep as well. "Yes, we've lost our tags, more's the pity. Mr. Hand thinks we're either on the coast of Maine, of on an island somewhere near the coast. I myself think it must at least be Nova Scotia, or possibly Newfoundland. But Hand will find out and be back soon, and then we'll get away from here and go to some place where we'll all be comfortable." Agatha stole away, and with much difficulty succeeded in kindling the fire again. She tended it until a good steady heat spread over the rocks, and then returned to James. She curled up, half sitting, half lying, against the rocks. Clouds had risen during the recent hours, and it was much darker than the night before had been. The ocean, washing its million pebbles up on the little beach, moaned and complained incessantly. In the long intervals between their talk, Agatha's head would fall, her eyes would close, and she would almost sleep; but an undercurrent of anxiety concerning her companion kept her always at the edge of consciousness. James himself appeared to have no desire to sleep. He was trying to piece together, in his mind, his conscious and unconscious memories. At last he said: "I guess I haven't been much good--for a while--have I?" Agatha considered before replying. "You were quite exhausted, I think; and we feared you might be ill." "And Handy Andy got my job?" She laughed outright at this, as much for the feeling of reassurance it gave her as for the jest itself. "Handy Andy certainly _had_ a job, with us two on his hands!" she laughed. "I bet he did!" cried James, with more vigor than he had shown before. "He's a great man; I'm for him! When's he coming back?" "Early in the morning, I hope," said Agatha, swallowing her misgivings. "That's good," said James. "I think I'll be about and good for something myself by that time." There was another long pause, so long that Agatha thought James must have gone to sleep again. He thought likewise of her, it appeared; for when he next spoke it was in a careful whisper: "Are you still awake, Agatha Redmond?" "Yes, indeed; quite. Do you want anything?" "Yes, a number of things. First, are you quite recovered from the trouble--that night's awful trouble?" He seemed to be wholly lost as to time. "Did you come off without any serious injury? Do you look like yourself, strong and rosy-cheeked again?" Agatha replied heartily to this, and her answer appeared to satisfy James for the moment. "Though," she added, "here in the dark, who can tell whether I have rosy cheeks or not?" "True!" sighed James, but his sigh was not an unhappy one. Presently he began once more: "I want to know, too, if you weren't surprised that I knew your name?" "Well, yes, a little, when I had time to think about it. How _did_ you know it?" James laughed. "I meant to keep it a secret, always; but I guess I'll tell, after all--just you. I got it from the program, that Sunday, you know." "Ah, yes, I understand." She didn't quite understand, at first; for there had been other Sundays and other songs. But she could not weary him now with questions. As they lay there the slow, monotonous susurrus of the sea made a deep accompaniment to their words. It was near, and yet immeasurably far, filling the universe with its soft but insistent sound and echoes of sound. At the back of her mind, Agatha heard it always, low, threatening, and strong; but on the surface of her thoughts, she was trying to decide what she ought to do. She was thinking whether she might question her companion a little concerning himself, when he answered her, in part, of his own accord. "You couldn't know who I am, of course: James Hambleton, of Lynn. Jim, Jimmy, Jimsy, Bud--I'm called most anything. But I wanted to tell you--in fact, that's what I waked up expressly for--I wanted to tell you--" He paused so long, that Agatha leaned over, trying to see his face. The violence of the chill had passed. His eyes were wide open, his face alarmingly pale. She felt a sudden qualm of pain, lest illness and exhaustion had wrought havoc in his frame deeper than she knew. But as she bent over him, his features lighted up with his rare smile--an expression full of happiness and peace. He lifted a hand, feebly, and she took it in both her own. She felt that thus, hand in hand, they were nearer; that thus she could better be of help to him. "I wanted to tell you," he began again, "that whatever happens, I'm glad I did it." "Did what, dear friend?" questioned Agatha, thinking in her heart that the fever had set his wits to wandering. "Glad I followed the Face and the Voice," he answered feebly. Agatha watched him closely, torn with anxiety. She couldn't bear to see him suffer--this man who had so suddenly become a friend, who had been so brave and unselfish for her sake, who had been so cheerful throughout their night of trouble. "I told old Aleck," James went on, "that I'd have to jump the fence; but that was ages ago. I've been harnessed down so long, that I thought I'd gone to sleep, sure enough." Agatha thought certainly that now he was delirious, but she had no heart to stop his gentle earnestness. He went on: "But you woke me up. And I wouldn't have missed this last run, not for anything. 'Twas a great night, that night on the water, with you; and whatever happens, I shall always think _that_ worth living for; yes, well worth living for." James's voice died away into incoherence and at last into silence. Agatha, holding his hands in hers, watched him as he sank away from her into some realm whither she could not follow. Either his hour of sanity and calmness had passed, and fever had taken hold upon his system; or fatigue, mental and physical, had overpowered him once more. Presently she dropped his hand gently, looked to the coverings of his couch, and settled herself down again to rest. But no more sleep came to her eyes that night. She thought over all that James had said, remembering his words vividly. Then her thoughts went back over the years, recalling she knew not what irrelevant matters from the past. Perhaps by some underlying law of association, there came to her mind, also, the words of the song she had sung on the Sunday which James had referred to-- "Free of my pain, free of my burden of sorrow, At last I shall see thee--" What ages it was since she had sung that song! And this man, this James Hambleton, it appeared, had heard her sing it; and somehow, by fate, he had been tossed into the same adventure with herself. Unconsciously, Agatha's generous heart began to swell with pride in James's strength and courage, with gratitude for his goodness to her, and with an almost motherly pity for his present plight. She would admit no more than that; but that, she thought, bound her to him by ties that would never break. He would always be different to her, by reason of that night and what she chose to term his splendid heroism. She had seen him in his hour of strength, that hour when the overman makes half-gods out of mortals. It was the heart of youth, plus the endurance of the man, that had saved them both. It had been a call to action, dauntlessly answered, and he himself had avowed that the struggle, the effort, even the final pain, were "worth living for!" Thinking of his white face and feeble voice, she prayed that the high gods might not regard them worth dying for. CHAPTER XI THE HOME PORT The darkness of the night slowly lifted, revealing only a gray, leaden sky. There was no dawn such as had gladdened their hearts the morning before, no fresh awakening of the day. Instead, the coldness and gloom of the night seemed but to creep a little farther away, leaving its shadow over the world. A drizzling rain began to fall, and the wanderers on the beach were destined to a new draft of misery. Only Agatha watched, however; James gave no sign of caring, or even of knowing, whether the sun shone or hid its face. He had slept fitfully since their hour of wakefulness together in the night, and several times he had shown signs of extreme restlessness. At these periods he would talk incoherently, Agatha being able to catch only a word now and then. Once he endeavored to get up, bent, apparently, upon performing some fancied duty far away. Agatha soothed him, talked to him as a mother talks to a sick child, cajoled and commanded him; and though he was restless and voluble, yet he obeyed her readily enough. As the rain began to descend, Agatha bethought herself earnestly as to what could be done. She first persuaded James to drink a little more of the milk, and afterward took what was left herself--less than half a cupful. Then she set the bucket out to catch the rain. She felt keenly the need of food and water; and now that there was no one to heed her movements, she found it difficult to keep up the show of courage. She still trusted in Hand; but even at best he might yet be several hours in returning; and cold and hunger can reduce even the stoutest heart. If Hand did not return--but there was no answer to that _if_. She believed he would come. The soft rain cast a pall over the ocean, so that only a small patch of sea was visible; and it flattened the waves until the blue-flashing, white-capped sea of yesterday was now a smooth, gray surface, touched here and there by a bit of frothy scum. Agatha looked out through the deep curtain of mist, remembering the night, the _Jeanne D'Arc_, and her recent peril. Most vividly of all she heard in her memory a voice shouting, "Keep up! I'm coming, I'm coming!" Ah, what a welcome coming that had been! Was he to die, now, here on her hands, after the worst of their struggle was over? She turned quickly back to James, vowing in her heart it should not be; she would save him if it lay in human power to save. Her hardest task was to move their camp up into the edge of the brushwood, where they might have the shelter of the trees. There was a place, near the handle of the sickle, where the rock-wall partly disappeared, and the undergrowth from the cliff reached almost to the beach. It was from here that Hand had begun his ascent; and here Agatha chose a place under a clump of bayberry, where she could make another bed for James. The ground there was still comparatively dry. She coaxed James to his feet and helped him, with some difficulty, up to the more sheltered spot. He was stronger, physically, now in his delirium than he had been during his period of sanity in the night. She made him sit down while she ran back to gather an armful of the fir boughs to spread out for his bed; but she had scarcely started back for the old camp before James got to his feet and staggered after her. She met him just as she was returning, and had to drop her load, take her patient by the arm, and guide him back to the new shelter. He went peacefully enough, but leaned on her more and more heavily, until at last his knees weakened under him and he fell. Agatha's heart smote her. They were near the bayberry bush, though entirely out from its protection. As the drizzling rain settled down thicker and thicker about them, Agatha tried again. Slowly she coaxed James to his knees, and slowly, she helped him creep, as she had crept toward him in the night, along between the stones and up into the sheltered corner under the bayberry. It was only a little better than the open, and it had taken such prodigies of strength to get there! Agatha made a pillow for James's head and sat by him, looking earnestly at his flushed face; and from her heart she sighed, "Ah, dear man, it was too hard! It was too hard!" It was a long and weary wait for help, though help of a most efficient kind was on the way. Agatha had been looking and listening toward the upper wood, whither Hand had disappeared. She had even called, from time to time, on the chance that she could help to guide the assisting party back to the cove. At last, as she listened for a reply to her call, she heard another sound that set her wondering; it was the p-p-peter-peter of a motor-boat. She looked out over the small expanse of ocean that was visible to her, but could see nothing. Nevertheless the boat was approaching, as its puffing proclaimed. It grew more and more distinct, and presently a strong voice shouted "Ahoy! Are you there?" Three times the shout came. Agatha made a trumpet of her hands and answered with a call on two notes, clear and strong. "All right!" came back; and then, "Call again! We can't find you!" And so she called again and again, though there were tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat for very relief and joy. When her eyes cleared, she saw the boat, and watched while it anchored well off the rocks; then two men put ashore in a rowboat. "And where are our patients?" came a deep, steady voice from the rocks. "This way, sir. I think mademoiselle has moved the camp up under the trees," was the reply, unmistakably the voice of Mr. Hand. And there they found Agatha, kneeling by James and trying to coax him to his feet. "Quick, they have come! You will be cared for now, you will be well again!" she was saying. She saw Hand approach and heard him say: "This way, Doctor Thayer. The gentleman is up here under the trees," and then, for the first time in all the long ordeal, Agatha's nerves broke and her throat filled with sobs. As the ex-chauffeur came near, she reached a hand up to him, while with the other she covered her weeping eyes in shame. "Oh, I'm so glad you've come! I'm so glad you've come!" she tried to say, but it was only a whisper through her sobs. "I'm sorry I was gone so long," said Hand, touching her timidly on the shoulder. "Tell the doctor to take care of him," she begged in the faintest of voices; and then she crept away, thinking to hide her nerves until she should come to herself again. But Hand followed her to the niche in the rocks where she fled, covered her with something big and warm, and before she knew it he had made her drink a cup that was comforting and good. Then he gave her food in little bits from a basket, and sweet water out of a bottle. Agatha's soul revived within her, and her heart became brave again, though she still felt as if she could never move from her hard, damp resting-place among the rocks. "You stay there, please, Mademoiselle," adjured Mr. Hand. "When we get the boat ready, I'll come for you." Then, standing by her in his submissive way, he added a thought of his own: "It's very hard, Mademoiselle, to see you cry!" "I'm not crying," shrieked Agatha, though her voice was muffled in her arms. "Very well, Mademoiselle," acquiesced the polite Hand, and departed. Two men could not have been found who were better fitted for managing a relief expedition than Hand and Doctor Thayer. Agatha found herself, after an unknown period of time, sitting safe under the canvas awning of the launch, protected by a generous cloak, comforted with food and stimulant, and relieved of the pressing anxiety, that had filled the last hours in the cove. She had, in the end, been quite unable to help; but the immediate need for her help was past. Doctor Thayer, coming with his satchel of medicines, had at first given his whole attention to James, examining him quickly and skilfully as he lay where Agatha had left him. Later he came to Agatha with a few questions, which she answered clearly; but James, left alone, immediately showed such a tendency to wander around, following the hallucinations of his brain, that the doctor decided that he must have a sedative before he could be taken away. The needle, that friend of man in pain, was brought into use; and presently they were able to leave the cove. Doctor Thayer and Mr. Hand carried James to the rowboat, and the engineer, who had stayed in the launch, helped them lift him into the larger boat. "No more walking at present for this man!" said the doctor. They were puffing briskly over the water, with the tiny rowboat from the _Jeanne D'Arc_ and the boat belonging to the launch cutting a long broken furrow behind them. Mr. Hand was minding the engine, while the engineer and owner of the launch, Little Simon--so-called probably because he was big--stood forward, handling the wheel. Jim was lying on some blankets and oilskins on the floor of the boat, the doctor sitting beside him on a cracker-box. Agatha, feeling useless and powerless to help, sat on the narrow, uncomfortable seat at the side, watching the movements of the doctor. She was unable to tell whether doubt or hope prevailed in his rugged countenance. At last she ventured her question; but before replying Doctor Thayer looked up at her keenly, as if to judge how much of the truth she would be able to bear. "The hemorrhage was caused by the strain," he said at last, slowly. "It is bad enough, with this fever. If his constitution is sound, he may pull through." Not very encouraging, but Agatha extracted the best from it. "Oh, I'm so thankful!" she exclaimed. Doctor Thayer looked at her, a deep interest showing in his grim old face. While she looked at James, he studied her, as if some unusual characteristic claimed his attention, but he made no comment. Doctor Thayer was short in stature, massively built, with the head and trunk of some ancient Vulcan. His heavy, large features had a rugged nobility, like that of the mountains. His face was smooth-shaven, ruddy-brown, and deeply marked with lines of care; but most salient of all his features was the massively molded chin and jaw. His lips, too, were thick and full, without giving the least impression of grossness; and when he was thinking, he had a habit of thrusting his under jaw slightly forward, which made him look much fiercer than he ever felt. Thin white hair covered his temples and grew in a straggling fringe around the back of his head, upon which he wore a broad-brimmed soft black hat. Doctor Thayer would have been noticeable, a man of distinction, anywhere; and yet here he was, with his worn satchel and his old-fashioned clothes, traveling year after year over the country-side to the relief of farmers and fishermen. He knew his science, too. It never occurred to him to doubt whether his sphere was large enough for him. "I haven't found out yet where we are, or to what place we are going. Will you tell me, sir?" asked Agatha. "You came ashore near Ram's Head, one of the worst reefs on the coast of Maine; and we're heading now for Charlesport; that's over yonder, beyond that next point," Doctor Thayer answered. After a moment he added: "I know nothing about your misfortunes, but I assume that you capsized in some pesky boat or other. When you get good and ready, you can tell me all about it. In the meantime, what is your name, young woman?" The doctor turned his searching blue eyes toward Agatha again, a courteous but eager inquiry underneath his brusque manner. "It is a strange story, Doctor Thayer," said Agatha somewhat reluctantly; "but some time you shall hear it. I must tell it to somebody, for I need help. My name is Agatha Redmond, and I am from New York; and this gentleman is James Hambleton of Lynn--so he told me. He risked his life to save mine, after we had abandoned the ship." "I don't doubt it," said Doctor Thayer gruffly. "Some blind dash into the future is the privilege of youth. That's why it's all recklessness and foolishness." Agatha looked at him keenly, struck by some subtle irony in his voice. "I think it is what you yourself would have done, sir," she said. The doctor thrust out his chin in his disconcerting way, and gave not the least smile; but his small blue eyes twinkled. "My business is to see just where I'm going and to know exactly what I'm doing," was the dry answer. He turned a watchful look toward James, lying still there between them; then he knelt down, putting an ear over the patient's heart. "All right!" he assured her as he came up. "But we never know how those organs are going to act." Satisfying himself further in regard to James, he waited some time before he addressed Agatha again. Then he said, very deliberately: "The ocean is a savage enemy. My brother Hercules used to quote that old Greek philosopher who said, 'Praise the sea, but keep on land.' And sometimes I think he was right." Agatha's tired mind had been trying to form some plan for their future movements. She was uneasily aware that she would soon have to decide to do something; and, of course, she ought to get back to New York as soon as possible. But she could not leave James Hambleton, her friend and rescuer, nor did she wish to. She was pondering the question as the doctor spoke; then suddenly, at his words, a curtain of memory snapped up. "My brother Hercules" and "Charlesport!" She leaned forward, looking earnestly into the doctor's face. "Oh, tell me," she cried impulsively, "is it possible that you knew Hercules Thayer? That he was your brother? And are we in the neighborhood of Ilion?" "Yes--yes--yes," assented the doctor, nodding to each of her questions in turn; "and I thought it was you, Agatha Shaw's girl, from the first. But you should have come down by land!" he dictated grimly. "Oh, I didn't intend to come down at all," cried Agatha; "either by land or water! At least not yet!" Doctor Thayer's jaw shot out and his eyes shone, but not with humor this time. He looked distinctly irritated. "But my dear Miss Agatha Redmond, where _did_ you intend to go?" Agatha couldn't, by any force of will, keep her voice from stammering, as she answered: "I wasn't g-going anywhere! I was k-kidnapped!" Doctor Thayer looked sternly at her, then reached toward his medicine chest. "My dear young woman--" (Why is it that when a person is particularly out of temper, he is constrained to say My _Dear_ So and So?) "My dear young woman," said Doctor Thayer, "that's all right, but you must take a few drops of this solution. And let me feel your pulse." "Indeed, Doctor, it is all so, just as I say," interrupted Agatha. "I'm not feverish or out of my head, not the least bit. I can't tell you the whole story now; I'm too tired--" "Yes, that's so, my dear child!" said the doctor, but in such an evident tone of yielding to a delirious person, that he nearly threw her into a fever with anger. But on the whole, Agatha was too tired to mind. He took her hand, felt of her pulse, and slowly shook his head; but what he had to say, if he had anything, was necessarily postponed. The launch was putting into the harbor of Charlesport. Even on the dull day of their arrival, Charlesport was a pleasant looking place, stretching up a steep hill beyond the ribbon of street that bordered its harbor. Fish-houses and small docks stood out here and there, and one larger dock marked the farthest point of land. A great derrick stood by one wharf, with piles of granite block near by. Little Simon was calling directions back to Hand at the engine as they chugged past fishing smacks and mooring poles, past lobster-pot buoys and a little bug-lighthouse, threading their way into the harbor and up to the dock. Agatha appealed to the doctor with great earnestness. "Surely, Doctor Thayer, it is a Providence that we came in just here, where people will know me and will help me. I need shelter for a little while, and care for my sick friend here. Where can we go?" Doctor Thayer cast a judicial eye over the landscape, while he held his hat up into the breeze. "It's going to clear; it'll be a fine afternoon," said he. Then deliberately: "Why don't you go up to the old red house? Sallie Kingsbury's there keeping it, just as she did when Hercules was alive; waiting for you or the lawyer or somebody to turn her out, I guess. And it's only five miles by the good road. You couldn't go to any of these sailor shacks down here, and the big summer hotel over yonder isn't any place for a sick man, let alone a lady without her trunk." Agatha looked in amazement at the doctor. "Go to the old red house--to stay?" "Why not? If you're Agatha Redmond, it's yours, isn't it? And I guess nobody's going to dispute your being Agatha Shaw's daughter, looking as you do. The house is big enough for all creation; and, besides, they've been on pins and needles, waiting for you to come, or write, or do something." The doctor gave a grim chuckle. "Hercules surprised them all some, by his will. But they'll all be glad to see you, I guess, unless it is Sister Susan. She was always pretty hard on Hercules; and she didn't approve of the will--thought the house ought to go to the Foundling Asylum." Agatha looked as if she saw the gates of Eden opened to her. "But could I really go there? Would it be all right? I've not even seen the lawyer." There was no need of answers to her questions; she knew already that the old red house would receive her, would be a refuge for herself and for James, who needed a refuge so sorely. The doctor was already making his plans. "I'll drive this man here," indicating James, "and he'll need some one to nurse him for a while, too. You can go up in one of Simon Nash's wagons; and I'll get a nurse up there as soon as I can." The launch had tied up to the larger dock, and Hand and Little Simon had been waiting some minutes while Agatha and the doctor conferred together. Now, as Agatha hesitated, the businesslike Hand was at her elbow. "I can help you, Mademoiselle, if you will let me. I have had some experience with sick men." Agatha looked at him with grateful eyes, only half realizing what it was he was offering. The doctor did not wait, but immediately took the arrangement for granted. He began giving orders in the tone of a man who knows just what he wants done, and knows also that he will be obeyed. "You stay here, Mr. Hand, and help with this gentleman; and Little Simon, here, you go up to your father's livery stable and harness up, quick as you can. Then drive up to my place and get the boy to bring my buggy down here, with the white horse. Quick, you understand? Tell them the doctor's waiting." Agatha sat in the launch while the doctor's orders were carried out. Little Simon was off getting the vehicles; Doctor Thayer had run up the dock to the village street on some errand, saying he would be back by the time the carriages were there; and Hand was walking up and down the dock, keeping a watchful eye on the launch. James was lying in the sheltered corner of the boat, ominously quiet. His eyes were closed, and his face had grown ghastly in his illness. Tears came to Agatha's eyes as she looked at him, seeing how much worse his condition was than when he had talked with her, almost happily, in the night. She herself felt miserably tired and ill; and as she waited, she had the sensation one sometimes has in waiting for a train; that the waiting would go on for ever, would never end. The weather changed, as the doctor had prophesied, and the rain ceased. Fresh gusts of wind from the sea blew clouds of fog and mist inland, while the surface of the water turned from gray to green, from green to blue. The wind, blowing against the receding tide, tossed the foam back toward the land in fantastic plumes. Agatha, looking out over the sea, which now began to sparkle in the light, longed in her heart to take the return of the sunshine as an omen of good. It warmed and cheered her, body and soul. As her eyes turned from the sea to the village tossed up beyond its highest tides, she searched, though in vain, for some spot which she could identify with the memories of her childhood. She must have seen Charlesport in some one of her numerous visits to Ilion as a child; but though she recalled vividly many of her early experiences, they were in no way suggestive of this tiny antiquarian village, or of the rocky hillside stretching off toward the horizon. A narrow road wound athwart the hill, leading into the country beyond. It was steep and rugged, and finally it curved over the distant fields. But the old red house was the talisman that brought back to her mind the familiar picture. She wondered if it lay over the hill beyond that rugged road. She closed her eyes and saw the green fields, the mighty balm-of-gilead tree, the lilac bushes, and the dull red walls of the house standing back from the village street, not far from the white-steepled church. She could see it all, plainly. The thought came to her suddenly that it was home. It was the first realization she had of old Hercules Thayer's kindness. It was Home for her who had else been homeless. She hugged the thought in thankfulness. "Now, Miss Agatha Redmond, if you will come--" The eternity had ended; and time, with its swift procession of hours and days, had begun again. CHAPTER XII SEEING THE RAINBOW A few days on a yacht, with a calm sea and sun-cool weather, may be something like a century of bliss for a pair of lovers, if they happen to have taken the lucky hour. The conventions of yacht life allow a companionship from dawn till dark, if they choose to have it; there is a limited amount of outside distraction; if the girl be an outdoor lass, she looks all the sweeter for the wind rumpling her hair; and on shipboard, if anywhere, mental resourcefulness and good temper achieve their full reward. Aleck had been more crafty than he knew when he carried Mélanie and Madame Reynier off on the _Sea Gull_. Almost at the last moment Mr. Chamberlain had joined them, Aleck's liking for the man and his instinct of hospitality overcoming his desire for something as near as possible to a solitude _à deux_ with Mélanie. They could not have had a better companion. Mr. Chamberlain was nothing less than perfect in his position as companion and guest. He enjoyed Madame Reynier's grand duchess manners, and spared himself no trouble to entertain both Madame Reynier and Mélanie. He was a hearty admirer, if not a suitor, of the younger woman; but certain it was, that, if he ever had entertained personal hopes in regard to her, he buried them in the depths of his heart by the end of their first day on the _Sea Gull_. He understood Aleck's position with regard to Mélanie without being told, and instantly brought all his loyalty and courtesy into his friend's service. Madame Reynier had an interest in seeing the smaller towns and cities of America; "something besides the show places," she said. So they made visits ashore here and there, though not many. As they grew to feel more at home on the yacht, the more reluctant they were to spend their time on land. Why have dust and noise and elbowing people, when they might be cutting through the blue waters with the wind fresh in their faces? The weather was perfect; the thrall of the sea was upon them. The roses came into Mélanie's cheeks, and she forgot all about the professional advice which she had been at such pains to procure in New York. There was happiness in her eyes when she looked on her lover, even though she had repulsed him. As for Mr. Chamberlain, he breathed the very air of content. Madame Reynier, with her inscrutable grand manner, confessed that she had never before been able precisely to locate Boston, and now that she had seen it, she felt much better. Even Aleck's lean bulk seemed to expand and flourish in the atmosphere of happiness about him. His sudden venture was a success, beyond a doubt. The party had many merry hours, many others full of a quiet pleasure, none that were heavy or uneasy. If Aleck's outer man prospered in this unexpected excursion, it can only be said that his spiritual self flowered with a new and hitherto unknown beauty. It was a late flowering, possibly--though what are thirty-four years to Infinity?--but there was in it a richness and delicacy which was its own distinction and won its own reward. Mélanie's words, spoken in their long interview in the New York home, had contained an element of truth. There was a poignant sincerity in her saying, "You do not love me enough," which touched Aleck to the center of his being. He was not niggardly by nature; and had he given stintingly of his affection to this woman who was to him the best? His whole nature shrank from such a role, even while he dimly perceived that he had been guilty of acting it. If he had been small in his gift of love, it was because he had been the dupe of his theories; he had forsworn gallantry toward women, and had unwittingly cast aside warmth of affection also. But such a condition was, after all, more apparent than real. In his heart Aleck knew that he did love Mélanie "enough," however much that might be. He loved her enough to want, not only and not mainly, what she could give to him; but he wanted the happiness of caring for her, cherishing her, rewarding her faith with his own. She had not seen that, and it was his problem to make her see it. There was only one way. And so, in forgetting himself, forgetting his wants, his comforts, his studies and his masculine will--herein was the blossoming of Aleck's soul. Mélanie instinctively felt the subtle change, and knew in her heart that Aleck had won the day, though she still treated their engagement as an open question. Aleck would read to her in his simple, unaffected manner, sometimes with Madame Reynier and Mr. Chamberlain also for audience, sometimes to her alone. And since they lived keenly and loved, all books spoke to them of their life or their love. A line, a phrase, a thought, would ring out of the record, and each would be glad that the other had heard that thought; sometime they would talk it all over. They learned to laugh at their own whimsical prejudices, and then insisted on them all the harder; they learned, each from the other, some bit of robust optimism, some happiness of vision, some further reach of thought. After they had read, they would play at quoits, struggling sternly against each other; or Chamberlain would examine Mélanie in nautical lore; or together, in the evening, they would trace the constellations in the heavens. During their first week they were in the edge of a storm for a night and a day; but they put into harbor where they were comfortable and safe, and merry as larks through it all. So, day by day, Aleck hedged Mélanie about with his love. Was she thoughtful? He let her take, as she would, his thoughts, the best he could give from his mature experience. Was she gay? He liked that even better, and delighted to cap her gaiety with his own queer, whimsical drolleries. Whatever her mood, he would not let her get far from him in spirit. It was not in her heart to keep him from her; but Aleck achieved the supermundane feat of making his influence felt most keenly when she was alone. She dwelt upon him in her thoughts more intensely than she herself knew; and that intenseness was only the reflection of his own thought for her. They had been sailing a little more than a week, changing the low, placid Connecticut fields for the rougher northern shores, going sometimes farther out to sea, but delighting most in the sweet, pine-fringed coast of Maine. There were no more large cities to visit, only small villages where fishermen gathered after their week's haul or where slow, primitive boat-building was still carried on. Most of the inhabitants of the coast country appeared to be farmers as well as fishermen, even where the soil was least promising. The aspect of the shores was that of a limited but fairly prosperous agricultural community. Under the shadow of the hills were staid little homes, or fresh-painted smart cottages. Sometimes a bold rock-bank formed the shore for miles and miles, and the hills would vanish for a space. Here and there were headlands formed by mighty boulders, against which the waves endlessly dashed and as endlessly foamed back into the sea. Such a headland loomed up on their starboard one evening when the sun was low; and as the plumes of spray from the incoming waves rose high in the air a rainbow formed itself in the fleeting mist. It was a fairy picture, repeating itself two or three times, no more. "That's my symbol of hope," said Aleck quite impersonally, to anybody who chose to hear. Mr. Chamberlain turned to Aleck with his ready courtesy. "Not the only one you have received, I hope, on this charming voyage." Madame Reynier was ready with her pleasant word. "Aren't we all symbols for you--if not of hope, then of your success as a host? We've lost our aches and our pains, our nerves and our troubles; all gone overboard from the _Sea Gull_." "You're all tremendously good to me, I know that," said Aleck, his slow words coming with great sincerity. Mélanie kept silence, but she remembered the rainbow. The headland was the landward end of a small island, one part of which was thickly wooded. A large unused house stood in a clearing, evidently once a rather pretentious summer residence, though now there were many signs of delapidation. The pier on the beach had been almost entirely beaten down by storms, and a small, flimsy slip had taken its place, running far down into the water. A thin line of smoke rose from the chimney of one of the outbuildings; and while they looked and listened the raucous cry of a peacock came to them over the still water. Presently Chamberlain suggested: "I feel it in my bones that there'll be lobsters over there to be had for the asking. I heard your man say he wanted lobsters, Van; and I believe I'll row over there and see. I'm feeling uncommonly fit and need some exercise." "All right, I'll go too," said Aleck. "I'll bet a bouquet that I beat you rowing over--Miss Reynier to furnish the bouquet!" was Chamberlain's next proposition. "Do you agree to that, my lady?" "And pray, where should I get a bouquet?" "Oh, the next time we get on land. And we won't put up with any old bouquet of juniper bushes and rocks, either. We want a good, old-fashioned round bouquet of garden posies, with mignonette round the edge and a rose in the middle; a sure-enough token of esteem--that kind of thing, you know. Is it a bargain, Miss Reynier?" "Very well, it is a bargain," agreed Mélanie; "but I shall choose bachelors' buttons!" So they took the tender and got off, with a great show of exactness as to time and strictness of rules. Madame Reynier was to hold the watch, and Aleck was to wave a white handkerchief the minute they touched sand. Mr. Chamberlain was to give a like signal when they started back. The yacht slowed down, and held her place as nearly as possible. Chamberlain pulled a great oar, and was, in fact, far superior to Aleck in point of skill; but his stroke was not well adapted to the choppy waves inshore. He had learned it on the sleepy Cam, where the long, gliding blade counts best. The men stayed ashore a long time, disappearing entirely beyond the clump of trees that screened the outbuildings. When they reappeared, an old man was with them, following them down to the boat. Then the white handkerchief appeared, and the boat started on its return. Aleck profited by Chamberlain's work, and made the boat leap forward by a shorter, almost jerky stroke. He came back easily with five minutes to spare. "Good work!" said Mr. Chamberlain. "You have me beaten, and you'll get the bachelors' buttons; but you had the tide with you." "Nonsense! I had the lobsters extra!" asserted Aleck. "Well, if you had been born an Englishman, we'd make an oarsman out of you yet!" "Huh!" said Aleck. But they had news to tell the ladies, and while they were having their dinner their thoughts were turned to another matter. The island, it appeared, had for some years been abandoned by its owner, and its only inhabitant was a gray and grizzly old man, known to the region as the hermit. His fancy was to keep a light burning always by night in the landward window of his cabin, so as to warn sailors off the dangerous headland. There was no lighthouse in the vicinity, and by a kindly consent the people on the neighboring islands and on the mainland opposite encouraged his benevolent delusion, if delusion it might be called. They contrived to send him provisions at least once a week; and they had supplied him with a flag which, it was understood, he would fly in case he was in actual need. So, alone with his cow and his fowls, the old hermit spent his days, winter and summer, tending his lamp when the dark came on. Aleck and Mr. Chamberlain had picked up some of this information at the last port which the _Sea Gull_ made; but what was of new and real interest to them now was the story which the old man told them of a castaway on the island a few days before. "All hands had abandoned the yacht just before she went down, it appears. The owner was robbed by his own men and marooned on the hermit's island--that's the gist of it," said Aleck. "The hermit said the man wouldn't eat off his table," went on Mr. Chamberlain; "but asked him for raw eggs and ate them outdoors. Said that except when he asked for eggs he never spoke without cursing. At least, the hermit couldn't understand what he said, so he thought it was cursing. And while the old man was talking," added Chamberlain resentfully, "that blooming peacock squawked like a demon." "The yacht that went down, according to the man, was the _Jeanne D'Arc_," said Aleck, who had been grave enough between all their light-hearted talk. "I didn't tell you, Chamberlain, that my cousin, my old chum, went off quite unexpectedly on a boat called the _Jeanne D'Arc_. Where he went or what for, I don't know. Of course, it may have been another _Jeanne D'Arc_; it probably was. But it troubles me." Mélanie was instantly aroused. "Oh, I had an uncanny feeling when you first mentioned the _Jeanne D'Arc_!" she cried. "But could you not find out more? What became of the man that was marooned?" "He got off the island a day or two ago," said Aleck. "The people that brought provisions to the old man took him to the mainland, to Charlesport." "The beggar left without so much as thanking the old man for his eggs," added Chamberlain. "We'll put into Charlesport to-night, if you don't mind," said Aleck. "If I can find the man that was marooned, I may be able to learn something about Jim, if he really was on the yacht. You can all go ashore, if you like. There's a big summer hotel near by, and it's a lovely country." "We'll stay wherever it's most convenient for you to have us," said Mélanie, looking at Aleck; for once, with more than a friendly interest in her eyes. "And perhaps I can help you, Van; two heads, you know," said Chamberlain. Aleck, troubled as he was, could not help being grateful to his friends. So the _Sea Gull_, turned suddenly from her holiday mood, headed into the harbor of Charlesport. The village still rang, if so staid a community could be said to ring, with reports of the event of the week before. Doctor Thayer had been sphinx-like, and Little Simon had been imaginative and voluble; and it would have been difficult to say which had teased the popular curiosity the more. Aleck found a tale ready for his ears about the launch and its three passengers, with many conflicting details. Some said that a great singer had been wrecked off Ram's Head, others that it was the captain and mate of the _Jeanne D'Arc_, others that it was a daughter of old Parson Thayer's sweetheart and two sailors that came ashore. Little or nothing was known about the island castaway. Aleck followed the only clue he could find, thinking to get at least some inkling of the truth. CHAPTER XIII ALECK SEES A GHOST Little Simon drove leisurely up the long, rugged hill over which Agatha and James had so recently traveled, and drew rein in the shade at a distance of a long city block from his destination. He pointed with his whip while he addressed Aleck, his sole passenger. "Yonder's the old red house, Mister. The parson, he hated to have his trees gnawed, and Major here's a great horse for gnawing the bark offer trees. So I never go no nearer the house than this." "All right, Simon; you wait for me here." Aleck walked slowly along the country road, enjoying the fragrant fields, the quiet beauty of the place. It was still early in the day, for he had lost no time in following the clues gathered from the village as to the survivors of the _Jeanne D'Arc_. The air was fresh and clean, with a tang of the distant salt marshes. A long row of hemlocks and Norway spruce bordered the road, and, with the aid of a stone wall, shut off from the highway a prosperous-looking vegetable garden. Farther along, a flower garden glowed in the fantastic coloring which gardens acquire when planted for the love of flowers rather than for definite artistic effects. Farther still, two lilac bushes stood sentinel on either side of a gateway; and behind, a deep green lawn lay under the light, dappled shade of tall trees. It was a lawn that spoke of many years of care; and in the middle of its velvet green, under the branches of two sheltering elms, stood the old red house. It looked comfortable and secure, in its homely simplicity; something to depend on in the otherwise mutable scenes of life. Aleck felt an instantaneous liking for it, and was glad that his errand, sad as it might possibly be, had yet led him thither. Long French windows in the lower part of the house opened upon the piazza, and from the second story ruffled white curtains fluttered to the breeze. As the shield-shaped knocker clanged dully to Aleck's stroke, a large, melancholy hound came slowly round the corner of the house, approached the visitor with tentative wags of the tail, and after sniffing mildly, lay down on the cool grass. It wasn't a house to be hurried, that was plain. After a wait of five or ten minutes Aleck was about to knock again, when a face appeared at one of the side-lights of the door. Presently the door itself opened a few inches, and elderly spinsterhood, wrapped in severe inquiry, looked out at him. "Can I see the lady, or either of the gentlemen, who recently arrived here from the yacht, the _Jeanne D'Arc_?" Aleck's voice and manner were friendly enough to disarm suspicion itself; Sallie Kingsbury looked at him for a full second. "Come in." Aleck followed her into the wide, dim hall, and waited while she pulled down the shade of the sidelight which she had lifted for observation. Then she opened a door on the right and said: "Set down in the parlor while I go and take my salt risin's away from the stove. I ain't had time to call my soul my own since the folks came, what with callers at all times of the day." Sallie's voice was not as inhospitable as her words. She was mildly hurt and grieved, rather than offended. She disappeared and presently came back with a white apron on in place of the colored gingham she had worn before; but it is doubtful if Aleck noticed this tribute to his sex. Sallie looked withered and pinched, but more by nature and disposition than by age. She stood with arms akimbo near the center-table, regarding Aleck with inquisitiveness not unmixed with liking. "You can set down, sir," she said politely, "but I don't know as you can see any of the folks. The man, he's up-stairs sick, clean out of his head; and the young man, he's nursing him. Can't leave him alone a minute, or he'd be up and getting out the window, f'rall I know." Aleck listened sympathetically. "A sad case! And what is the name, if I may ask, of the young man who is so ill?" "Lor', I don't know," said Sallie. "The new mistress, her name's Redmond; some kin of Parson Thayer's, and she's got this house and a lot of money. The lawyer was here yesterday and got the will all fixed up. She's a singer, too--one of those opery singers down below, she is." Sallie made this announcement as if she was relating a bewildering blow of Providence for which she herself was not responsible. Aleck, who began to fear that he might be the recipient of more confidences than decorum dictated, hastily proffered his next question. "Can I see the lady, Miss Redmond? Or is it Mrs. Redmond?" Sallie gave a scornful, injured sniff. "_Miss_ Redmond, sir, though she's old enough to be a Mrs. I wouldn't so much mind her coming in here and using the parson's china that I always washed with my own hands if she was a Mrs. But what can she, an unmarried woman and an opery singer, know about Parson Thayer's ways and keeping this house in order, when I've been with him going on seventeen years and he took me outer the Home when I was no more than a child?" Aleck's heart would have been stone had he resisted this all but passionate plea. "You have been faithfulness itself, I am sure. But do you think Miss Redmond would see me, at least for a few minutes?" Sallie recovered her dignity, which had been near a collapse in tears, and assumed her official tone. "I don't know as you can, and I don't know _as_ you can. She's sick, too; fell overboard somehow or other, offer one of those pesky boats, and got neuralagy and I don't know what all. But I'll go and see how she's feeling." "Stay, wait a minute," said Aleck, seized with a new thought. "I'll write a message to Miss Redmond and then she'll know just what I want. If you'll be so good as to take it to her?" "Why, certainly, of course I will," Said Sallie Kingsbury. "Only you needn't take all _that_ trouble. I can tell her what you want myself." Sallie was one of those persons who regard the pen as the weapon of last resort, not to be used until necessity compels. But Aleck continued writing on a blank leaf of his note-book. The message was this: "Can you give me any information concerning my cousin, James Hambleton, who was thought to be aboard the _Jeanne D'Arc_?" He tore the leaf out, extracted a card from his pocketbook, and handed leaf and card to Sallie. "Will you please give those to Miss Redmond?" Sallie wiped her hands, which were perfectly clean, on her white apron, took the card and bit of paper and departed, sniffing audibly. When she returned, it was to say, with a slightly more interested air, that Miss Redmond wished to see him up-stairs. She stood at the bottom of the wide stairway and pointed to a corner of the upper floor. "She's in there--room on the right!" and so she stalked off to the kitchen. Aleck Van Camp sought the region indicated by Sallie's gaunt finger with some misgivings; but he was presently guided further by a clear voice. "Come in this way, Mr. Van Camp, if you please!" The voice led him to an open door, before which he stood, looking into a large, old-fashioned bedroom, from whose windows the white curtains fluttered in the breeze. Miss Redmond was propped up with pillows on a horsehair-covered lounge, which stood along the foot of a monstrous bed. She was clothed in some sort of wool wrapper, and over her feet was thrown a faded traveling rug. By her side stood a chair on which were writing materials, Aleck's note and card, and a half-written letter. Agatha sat up as she greeted Aleck. "I am glad to see you, Mr. Van Camp. Will you come in? I ask your pardon for not coming downstairs to see you, but I have been ill, and am not strong yet." She was about to motion Aleck to a chair, but stopped in the midst of her speech, arrested by his expression. Aleck stood rooted to the door-sill, with a look of surprise on his face which amounted to actual amazement. Thus apparently startled out of himself, he regarded Agatha earnestly. "Will you come in?" Agatha repeated at last. "Pardon me," he said finally in his precise drawl, "but I confess to being startled. You--you bear such an extraordinary resemblance to some one I know, that I thought it must really be she, for a moment." Agatha smiled faintly. "You looked as if you had seen a ghost." Aleck gazed at her again, a long, scrutinizing look. "It _does_ make one feel queer, you know." [Illustration: "It _does_ make one feel queer, you know."] "But now that you are assured that I'm not a ghost, will you sit down? That chair by the window, please. And I can't tell you how glad I am to see you; for James Hambleton, your cousin, if he is your cousin, is here in this house, and he is ill--very ill indeed." Aleck's nonchalance had already disappeared, in the series of surprises; but at Agatha's words a flush of pleasure and relief overspread his face. He strode quickly over toward Agatha's couch. "Oh, I say--old Jim--I thought, I was afraid--" Agatha was touched by the evidences of his emotion, and her voice became very gentle. "I fancy it is the same--James Hambleton of Lynn?" Aleck nodded and she went on: "That's what he told me, the night we were wrecked." Agatha looked at Aleck, as if she would discover whether he were trustworthy or not, before giving him more of her story. Presently she continued: "He's a very brave, a very wonderful man. He jumped overboard to save me, after I fell from the ladder; and then they left us and we swam ashore. But long before we got there I fainted, and he brought me in, all the way, though he was nearly dead of exhaustion himself. He had hemorrhage from overexertion, and afterward a chill. And now there is fever." Agatha's voice was trembling. Aleck watched her as she told her tale, the flush of happiness and joy still lighting up his face. As she finished relating the meager facts which to her denoted so many heart-throbs, a sob drowned her voice. As Aleck followed the story, his own eyes wavered. "That's Jim, down to the ground. Good old boy!" he said. There was silence for a minute, then he heard Agatha's voice, grown little and faint. "If he should die--!" Aleck, still standing by Agatha's couch, suddenly shook himself. "Where is he? Can I see him now?" Agatha got up slowly and led the way down the hall, pointing to a door that stood ajar. It was evident that she was weak. "I can't go in--I can't bear to see him so ill," she whispered; and as Aleck looked at her before entering the sick-room, he saw that her eyes were filled with tears. Agatha went back to her couch, feeling that the heavens had opened. Here was a friend come to her from she knew not where, whose right it was to assume responsibility for the sick man. He was kind and good, and he loved her rescuer with the boyish devotion of their school-days. He would surely help; he would work with her to keep death away. Whatever love and professional skill could do, should be done; there had been no question as to that, of course, from the beginning. But here was some one who would double, yes, more than double her own efforts; some one who was strong and well and capable. Her heart was thankful. Before Aleck returned from the sick-room, Doctor Thayer's step sounded on the stairs, followed by the mildly complaining voice of Sallie Kingsbury. Presently the two men were in a low-voiced conference in the hall. Agatha waited while they talked, feeling grateful afresh that Doctor Thayer's grim professional wisdom was to be reinforced by Mr. Van Camp's resources. When the doctor entered Agatha's room, her face had almost the natural flush of health. "Ah, Miss Agatha Redmond"--the doctor continued frequently to address her by her full name, half in affectionate deference and half with some dry sense of humor peculiar to himself--"Miss Agatha Redmond, so you're beginning to pick up! A good thing, too; for I don't want two patients in one house like the one out yonder. He's a very sick man, Miss Agatha." "I know, Doctor. I have seen him grow worse, hour by hour, ever since we came. What can be done?" "He needs special nursing now, and your man in there will be worn out presently." "Oh, that can be managed. Send to Portland, to Boston, or somewhere. We can get a nurse here soon. Do not spare any trouble. Doctor. I can arrange--" Doctor Thayer squared himself and paced slowly up and down Agatha's room. He did not reply at once, and when he did, it was with one of his characteristic turns toward an apparently irrelevant topic. "Have you seen Sister Susan?" he inquired, stopping by the side of Agatha's couch and looking down on her with his shrewd gaze. It was a needless question, for he knew that Agatha had not seen Mrs. Stoddard. She had been too weak and ill to see anybody. Agatha shook her head. "Well, Miss Agatha Redmond, Susan's the nurse we need for that young gentleman over there. It's constant care he must have now, day and night; and if he gets well, it will be good nursing that does it. There isn't a nurse in this country like Susan, when she once takes hold of a case. That Mr. Hand in there is all right, but he can't sit up much longer night and day, as he has been doing. And he isn't a woman. Don't know why it is, but the Lord seems bent on throwing sick men into women's hands--as if they weren't more than a match for us when we're well!" Agatha's humorous smile rewarded the doctor's grim comments, if that was what he wanted. "No, Doctor," she said, with a fleeting touch of her old lightness, "we're never a match for you. We may entertain you or nurse you or feed you, or possibly once in a century or two inspire you; but we're never a match for you." "For which Heaven be praised!" ejaculated the doctor fervently. Agatha watched him as he fumbled nervously about the room or clasped his hands behind him under his long coat-tails. The greenish-black frock-coat hung untidily upon him, and his white fringe of hair was anything but smooth. She perceived that something other than medical problems troubled him. "Would your sister--would Mrs. Stoddard--be willing to come here to take care of Mr. Hambleton?" she ventured. "Ask me _that_," snapped the doctor, "when no man on earth could tell whether she'll come or not. She says she won't. She's hurt and she's outraged; or at least she thinks she is. But if you could get her to think that it was her duty to take care of that poor boy in there, she'd come fast enough." Agatha was puzzled. She felt as if there were a dozen ways to turn and only one way that would lead her aright; and she could not find the clue to that one right way. At last she attacked the doctor boldly. "Tell me, Doctor Thayer," she said earnestly, "just what it is that causes Mrs. Stoddard to feel hurt and outraged. Is it simply because I have inherited the money and the house? She can not possibly know anything about me personally." The old doctor thrust his under jaw out more belligerently than ever, while turning his answer over in his mind. He took two lengths of the room before stopping again by Agatha's side and looking down on her. "She says it isn't the money, but that it's the slight Hercules put upon her for leaving the place, our old home, out of the family. That's one thing; but that isn't the worst. Susan's orthodox, you know, very orthodox; and she has a prejudice against your profession--serving Satan, she calls it. She thinks that's what actresses and opera singers do, though how she knows anything about it, I don't see." The grim smile shone in the doctor's eyes even while he looked, half anxiously, to see how Agatha was taking his explanation of Mrs. Stoddard's attitude. Agatha meditated a moment. "If it's merely a prejudice in the abstract against my being an opera singer, I think she will overcome that. Besides, Mr. Hambleton is neither an actor nor an opera singer; he isn't 'serving Satan.'" "Well--" the doctor hesitated, and then went on hastily with a great show of irritation, "Susan's a little set in her views. She disapproves of the way you came here; says you shouldn't have been out in a boat with two men, and that it's a judgment for sin, your being drowned, or next door to it. I'm only saying this, my dear Miss Agatha, to explain to you why Susan--" But Agatha was enlightened at last, and roused sufficiently to cause two red spots, brighter than they had ever been in health, to burn on her cheeks. She sat up very straight, facing Doctor Thayer's worried gaze, and interrupted him in tones ringing with anger. "Do you mean to tell me, Doctor Thayer, that your sister, the sister of my mother's lifelong friend, sits in her house and imagines scandalous stories about me, when she knows nothing at all about the facts or about me? That she thinks I was out in a boat alone with two men? That she is mean enough to condemn me without knowing the first thing about this awful accident? Oh, I have no words!" And Agatha covered her burning face with her hands, unable, by mere speech, to express her outraged feelings. Doctor Thayer edged uneasily about Agatha's couch, with a manner resembling that of a whipped dog. "Why, my dear Miss Agatha, Susan will come round in time. She's not so bad, really. She'll come round in time, only just now we haven't any time to spare. Don't feel so badly; Susan is too set in her views--" "'Set!'" cried Agatha. "She's a horrid, un-Christian woman!" "Oh, no," remonstrated the doctor. "Susan's all right, when you once get used to her. She's a trifle old-fashioned in her views--" But Agatha was not listening to the doctor's feeble justification of Susan. She was thinking hard. "Doctor Thayer," she urged, "do you want that woman to come here to take care of Mr. Hambleton? Isn't there any one else in this whole countryside who can nurse a sick man? Why, I can do it myself; or Mr. Van Camp, his cousin, could do it. Why should you want her, of all people, when she feels so toward us?" The moment his professional judgment came into question Doctor Thayer slipped out from the cloud of embarrassment which had engulfed him in his recent conversation, and assumed the authoritative voice that Agatha had first heard. "My dear Miss Agatha Redmond, that is foolish talk. You are half sick, even now; and it requires a strong person, with no nerves, to do what I desire done. Mr. Van Camp may be his cousin, but the chances are that he wouldn't know a bromide from a blister; and good nurses don't grow on bushes in Ilion, nor in Charlesport, either. There isn't one to be had, so far as I know, and we can't wait to send to Augusta or Portland. The next few days, especially the next twenty-four hours, are critical." Agatha listened intently, and a growing resolution shone in her eyes. "Would Mrs. Stoddard come, if it were not for what you said--about me?" she asked. "The Lord only knows, but I think she would," replied the poor, harassed doctor. "She's always been a regular Dorcas in this neighborhood." "Dorcas!" cried Agatha, her anger again flaring up. "I should say Sapphira." "Oh, now, Susan isn't so bad, when you once know her," urged the doctor. Agatha got up and went to the window, trailing her traveling rug after her. "She shall come--I'll bring her. And sometime she shall mend her words about me--but that can wait. If she will only help to save James Hambleton's life now! Where does she live?" Suddenly, as she stood at the window, she saw her opportunity. "There's Little Simon down there now under the trees; and his buggy must be somewhere near. Will you stay here, Doctor Thayer, with Mr. Hambleton, while I go to see your sister?" "Hadn't I better drive you over to see Susan myself?" feebly suggested the doctor. "No, I'll go alone." There was anger, determination, gunpowder in Agatha's voice. "But mind you, don't offer her any money," the doctor warned, as he watched her go down the hall and disappear for an instant in the bedroom where James Hambleton lay. She came out almost immediately and without a word descended the wide stairway, opened the dining-room door, and called softly to Sallie Kingsbury. Doctor Thayer returned to the sick-room. Ten minutes later he heard the wheels of Little Simon's buggy rolling rapidly up the road in the direction of Susan Stoddard's place. CHAPTER XIV SUSAN STODDARD'S PRAYER There was a wide porch, spotlessly scrubbed, along the front of the house, and two hydrangeas blooming gorgeously in tubs, one on either side of the walk. The house looked new and modern, shiny with paint and furnished with all the conveniences offered by the relentless progress of our day. Little Simon had informed Agatha, during their short drive, that Deacon Stoddard had achieved this "residence" shortly before his death; and his tone implied that it was the pride of the town, its real treasure. Even to Agatha's absorbed and preoccupied mind it presented a striking contrast to the old red house, which had received her so graciously into its spacious comfort. She marveled that anything so fresh and modish as the house before her could have come into being in the old town. It was next to a certainty that there was a model laundry with set tubs beyond the kitchen, and equally sure that no old horsehair lounge subtly invited the wearied traveler to rest. A cool draft came through the screen door. Within, it was cleaner than anything Agatha had ever seen. The stair-rail glistened, the polished floors shone. A neat bouquet of sweet peas stood exactly in the center of a snow-white doily, which was exactly in the middle of a shiny, round table. The very door-mat was brand new; Agatha would never have thought of wiping her shoes on it. Agatha's ring was answered by a half-grown girl, who looked scared when she saw a stranger at the door. Agatha walked into the parlor, in spite of the girl's hesitation In inviting her, and directed her to say to Mrs. Stoddard that Miss Redmond, from the old red house, wished particularly to see her. The girl's face assumed an expression of intelligent and ecstatic curiosity. "Oh!" she breathed. Then, "She's putting up plums, but she can come out in a few minutes." She could not go without lingering to look at Agatha, her wide-eyed gaze taking note of her hair, her dress, her hands, her face. As Agatha became conscious of the ingenuous inspection to which she was subjected, she smiled at the girl--one of her old, radiant, friendly smiles. "Run now, and tell Mrs. Stoddard, there's a good child! And sometime you must come to see me at the red house; will you?" The girl's face lighted up as if the sun had come through a cloud. She smiled at Agatha in return, with a "Yes" under her breath. Thus are slaves made. Left alone in the cool, dim parlor, so orderly and spotless, Agatha had a presentiment of the prejudice of class and of religion against which she was about to throw herself. Susan Stoddard's fanaticism was not merely that of an individual; it represented the stored-up strength of hardy, conscience-driven generations. The Stoddards might build themselves houses with model laundries, but they did not thereby transfer their real treasure from the incorruptible kingdom. If they were not ruled by aesthetic ideals, neither were they governed by thoughts of worldly display. This fragrant, clean room bespoke character and family history. Agatha found herself absently looking down at a white wax cross, entwined with wax flowers, standing under a glass on the center-table. It was a strange piece of handicraft. Its whiteness was suggestive of death, not life, and the curving leaves and petals, through which the vital sap once flowed, were beautiful no longer, now that their day of tender freshness was so inappropriately prolonged. As Agatha, with mind aloof, wondered vaguely at the laborious patience exhibited in the work, her eye caught sight of an inscription molded in the wax pedestal: "Brother." Her mind was sharply brought back from the impersonal region of speculation. What she saw was not merely a sentimental, misguided attempt at art; it was Susan Stoddard's memorial of her brother, Hercules Thayer--the man who had so unexpectedly influenced Agatha's own life. To Susan Stoddard this wax cross was the symbol of the companionship of childhood, and of all the sweet and bitter involved in the inexplicable bond of blood relationship. Agatha felt more kindly toward her because of this mute, fantastic memorial. She looked up almost with her characteristic friendly smile as she heard slow, steady steps coming down the hall. The eyes that returned Agatha's look were not smiling, though they did not look unkind. They gazed, without embarrassment, as without pride, into Agatha's face, as if they would probe at once to the covered springs of action. Mrs. Stoddard was a thick-set woman, rather short, looking toward sixty, with iron-gray hair parted in the middle and drawn back in an old-fashioned, pretty way. It was to the credit of Mrs. Stoddard's breeding that she took no notice of Agatha's peculiar dress, unsuited as it was to any place but the bedroom, even in the morning. Mrs. Stoddard herself was neat as a pin in a cotton gown made for utility, not beauty. She stood for an instant with her clear, untroubled gaze full upon Agatha, then drew forward a chair from its mathematical position against the wall. When she spoke, her voice was a surprise, it was so low and deep, with a resonance like that of the 'cello. It was not the voice of a young woman; it was, rather, a rare gift of age, telling how beautiful an old woman's speech could be. Moreover, it carried refinement of birth and culture, a beauty of phrase and enunciation, which would have marked her with distinction anywhere. "How do you do, Miss Redmond?" Agatha, standing by the table with the cross, made no movement toward the chair. She was not come face to face with Mrs. Stoddard for the purpose of social visitation, but because, in the warfare of life, she had been sent to the enemy with a message. That, at least, was Agatha's point of view. Officially, she was come to plead with Mrs. Stoddard; personally, she was hot and resentful at her unjust words. Her reply to her hostess' greeting was brief and her attitude unbending. "I have come to ask you, Mrs. Stoddard," Agatha began, though to her chagrin, she found her voice was unsteady--"I have come personally to ask you, Mrs. Stoddard, if you will help us in caring for our friend, who is very ill. Your brother, Doctor Thayer, wishes it. It is a case of life and death, maybe; and skilful nursing is difficult to find." Agatha's hand, that rested on the table, was trembling by the time she finished her speech; she was vividly conscious of the panic that had come upon her nerves at a fresh realization of the wall of defense and resistance which she was attempting to assail. It spoke to her from Mrs. Stoddard's calm, other-worldly eyes, from her serene, deep voice. "No, Miss Redmond, that work is not for me." "But please, Mrs. Stoddard, will you not reconsider your decision? It is not for myself I ask, but for another--one who is suffering." Mrs. Stoddard's gaze went past Agatha and rested on the white cross with the inscription, "Brother." She slowly shook her head, saying again, "No, that work is not for me. The Lord does not call me there." As the two women stood there, with the funeral cross between them, each with her heart's burden of griefs, convictions and resentments, each recoiled, sensitively, from the other's touch. But life and the burden life imposes were too strong. "How can yon say, Mrs. Stoddard, 'that work is not for me,' when there is suffering you can relieve, sickness that you can cure? I am asking a hard thing, I know; but we will help to make it as easy as possible for you, and we are in great need." "Should the servants of the Lord falter in doing His work?" Mrs. Stoddard's voice intoned reverently, while she looked at Agatha with her sincere eyes. "No. He gives strength to perform His commands. But sickness and sorrow and death are on every hand; to some it is appointed for a moment's trial, to others it is the wages of sin. We can not alter the Lord's decrees." Agatha stared at the rapt speaker with amazed eyes, and presently the anger she had felt at Doctor Thayer's words rose again within her breast, doubly strong. The doctor had given but a feeble version of the judgment; here was the real voice hurling anathema, as did the prophets of old. But even as she listened, she gathered all her force to combat this sword of the spirit which had so suddenly risen against her. "You are a hard and unjust woman, to talk of the 'wages of sin.' What do you know of my life, or of him who is sick over at the red house? Who are you, to sit in judgment upon us?" "I am the humblest of His servants," replied Susan Stoddard, and there was no shadow of hypocrisy in her tones. She went on, almost sorrowfully: "But we are sent to serve and obey. 'Keep ye separate and apart from the children of this world,' is His commandment, and I have no choice but to obey. Besides," and she looked up fearlessly into Agatha's face, "we _do_ know about you. It is spoken of by all how you follow a wicked and worldly profession. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled. The temple must be purged and emptied of worldliness before Christ can come in." Agatha was baffled by the very simplicity and directness of Mrs. Stoddard's words, even though she felt that her own texts might easily be turned against her. But she had no heart for argument, even if it would lead her to verbal triumph over her companion. Instinctively she felt that not thus was Mrs. Stoddard to be won. "Whatever you may think about me or about my profession, Mrs. Stoddard," she said, "you must believe me when I say that Mr. Hambleton is free from your censure, and worthy of your sincerest praise. He is not an opera singer--of that I am convinced--" Susan Stoddard here interpolated a stern "Don't you know?" "Listen, Mrs. Stoddard!" cried Agatha in desperation. "When the yacht, the _Jeanne D'Arc_, began to sink, there was panic and fear everywhere. While I was climbing down into one of the smaller boats, the rope broke, and I fell into the water. I should have drowned, then and there, if it had not been for this man; for all the rest of the ship's load jumped into the boats and rowed away to save themselves. He helped me to come ashore, after I had become exhausted by swimming. He is ill and near to death, because he risked his life to save mine. Is not that a heaven-inspired act?" Mrs. Stoddard's eyes glistened at Agatha's tale, which had at last got behind the older woman's armor. But her next attack took a form that Agatha had not foreseen. In her reverent voice, so suited to exhortation, she demanded: "And what will you do with your life, now that you have been saved by the hand of God? Will you dedicate it to Him, whose child you are?" Agatha, chafing in her heart, paused a moment before she answered: "My life has not been without its tests of faith and of conscience, Mrs. Stoddard; and who of us does not wish, with the deepest yearning, to know the right and to do it?" "Knowledge comes from the Lord," came Mrs. Stoddard's words, like an antiphonal response in the litany. "My way has been different from yours; and It is a way that would be difficult for you to understand, possibly. But you shall not condemn me without reason." "Are you going to marry that man you have been living with these many days?" was the next stern inquiry. A stinging blush--a blush of anger and outraged pride as much as of modesty--surged up over Agatha's face. She was silent a moment, and in that moment learned what it was to control anger. "I have not been 'living with' this man, in any sense of the term, Mrs. Stoddard. I will say this once for all to you, though I never would, in any other conceivable situation, reply to such a question and such an implication. You have no right to say or think such things." "Wickedness must be rebuked of the Lord," intoned Mrs. Stoddard. "Are you His mouthpiece?" said Agatha scornfully. But she was rebuked for her scorn by Mrs. Stoddard's look. Her eyes rested on Agatha's face with pleading and patience, as if she were a world-mother, agonizing for the salvation of her children. "It is His command to pluck the brand from the burning," said Susan Stoddard. "Ungodly example is a sin, and earthly love often a snare for youthful feet." As Agatha listened to Mrs. Stoddard's strange plea, the instinct within her which, from the first moment of the interview, had recoiled from this fanatical but intensely spiritual woman, found its way, as it were, into the light. Such was the power of her sincerity, that, in spite of the extraordinary character of the interview, Agatha's heart throbbed with a new comprehension which was almost love. She stepped closer to Susan Stoddard, her tall figure overtopping the other's sturdy one, and took one of her strong, work-hardened hands. "Mrs. Stoddard, this man has never spoken a word of love to me. But if I ever marry, it will be a man like him--a plain, high-hearted gentleman. There! You have a woman's secret. And now come with me, and help us to save a life. You can not, you must not, refuse me now." The subtle changes of the mind are hard to trace and are often obscure even to the eye of science; but every day those changes make or mar our joy. Susan Stoddard looked for a long minute up into the vivid face bending over hers, while her spirit, even as Agatha's had done, pierced the hedge which separated them, and comprehended something of the goodness in the other's soul. Finally she laid her other hand over Agatha's, enclosing it in a strong clasp. Then, with a certain pathetic pride in her submission, she said: "I have been wrong, Agatha; I will come." Agatha's grateful eyes dwelt on hers, but the strain of the interview was beginning to count. She sank down in the chair that Mrs. Stoddard had offered at the beginning of their meeting, and covered her eyes with one hand. The elder woman kept the other. "We will not go to our task alone," she said, "we will ask God's help. The prayer of faith shall heal the sick." Then falling to her knees by Agatha's side, with rapt, lifted face and closed eyes, she made her confession and her petition to the Lord. Her ringing voice intoned the phrases of the Bible as if they had been music and bore the burden of her deepest soul. She said she had been sinful in imputing unrighteousness to others, and that she had been blinded by her own wilfulness. She prayed for the stranger within her gates, for the sick man over yonder, and implored God's blessing on the work of her hands; and praise should be to the Lord. Amen. "And now, Angie," she said practically, as she rose to her feet, addressing the girl who instantly appeared from around the doorway, "go and tell Little Simon to drive up to the horse-block. Agatha, you go home and rest, and I'll get hitched up and be over there almost as soon as you are. Angie will help me get the ice-bag and all the other things, in case you might not have them handy. Come, Agatha!" But they paused yet a moment, stopping as if by a common instinct to look at the white cross. Susan Stoddard gazed down on it with a grief in her eyes that was the more heartbreaking because it was inarticulate. Agatha remembered the doctor's words, and understood something of the friction that could exist between this evangelistic sister and the finer, more intellectual brother. "I've never been inside the old red house since he died," said Mrs. Stoddard. "I'm sorry!" cried Agatha. "It is hard for you to come there, I know." "He maketh the rough places plain," chanted Susan Stoddard. "Hercules was a good brother and a good man!" Agatha laid her arm about the older woman's shoulder, and thus was led out to Little Simon's buggy. Susan helped her in, and Agatha leaned back, with closed eyes, indifferent to the beauty of early afternoon on a cool summer's day. Little Simon let her ride in quiet, but landed her in the dust on the opposite side of the road from the lilac bushes. "Those trees!" said Doctor Thayer's voice, as he came out to meet her. "How did you make out with Susan?" "She's coming," said Agatha. "Is your patient any better?" "I don't think he's any worse," answered the doctor dubiously, "but I'm glad Susan's coming. I'd be glad to know how you got round her." Agatha paused a moment before replying, "I wrestled with her." The doctor smiled grimly, "I've known the wrestling to come out the other way." "I can believe that!" said Agatha. "Well, it's fairly to your credit!" And perhaps this was as near praise as his New England speech ever came. CHAPTER XV ECHOES FROM THE CITY Sallie Kingsbury, unused to psychological analysis, could not have explained why Mr. Hand was so objectionable to her. He was no relative of the family, she had discovered that; and, accustomed as she was to the old-fashioned gentility of a thrifty New England town, instinct told her that he could not possibly be one of its varied products. He might have come from anywhere; he talked so little that he was suspicious on that ground alone; and when he did speak, there was no accent at all that Sallie could lay hold of. Useful as he was just now in taking care of that poor young man up-stairs, he nevertheless inspired in her breast a most unholy irritation. Her attitude was that of a housemaid pursuing the cat with the broom. Mr. Hand was not greatly troubled by Sallie's tendency to sweep him out of the way, but whenever he took any notice of her he was more than a match for her. On the afternoon following Agatha's visit to Mrs. Stoddard, he appeared to show some slight objection to being treated like the cat. He ate his luncheon in the kitchen--a large, delightful room--while Aleck Van Camp stayed with James. Hand was stirring broth over the stove, now and then giving a sharp eye to Sallie's preparation of her new mistress' luncheon. "You haven't put any salt or pepper on mademoiselle's tray, Sallie," said he, as the maid was about to start up-stairs. "_Miss_ Sallie, I should prefer, Mr. Hand," she requested in a mournful tone of resignation. "And Miss Redmond don't take any pepper on her aigs; I watched her yesterday." "Well, she may want some to-day, just the same," insisted Mr. Hand in a lordly manner, putting a thin silver boat, filled with salt, and a cheap pink glass pepper-shaker side by side on the tray. Sallie brushed Hand away in disgust. "That doesn't go with the best silver salt-cellar; that's the kitchen pepper. And, you can say _Miss_ Sallie, if you please." "No, just Sallie, if _you_ please! I've taken a great fancy to you, Sallie, and I don't like to be so formal," argued Hand. "Besides, I like your name; and I'll carry the tray to the top of the stairs for you, if you'll be good." "I wouldn't trouble you for the world, Mr. Hand," she tossed back. "You'd stumble and break Parson Thayer's best china that I've washed for seventeen years and only broke the handle of one cup. She wouldn't drink her coffee this morning outer the second-best cups; went to the buttery before breakfast and picked out wunner the best set, and poured herself a cup. She said it was inspiring, but I call it wasteful--and me with extra work all day!" Sallie disappeared, leaving a dribbling trail of good-natured complaint behind her. Mr. Hand continued making broth--at which he was as expert as he was at the lever or the launch engine. He strained and seasoned, and regarded two floating islands of oily substance with disapproval. While he was working Sallie joined him again at the stove, her important and injured manner all to the front. "Says she'll take another aig," she explained. "Only took one yesterday, and then I had two all cooked." "What did I tell you?" jeered Hand. "You didn't tell me anything about aigs, not that I recollect," Sallie replied tartly. "Well, the principle's the same," asserted Hand. After a moment his countenance assumed a crafty and jocose expression, which would have put even Sallie on her guard if she had looked up in time to see it. "You won't have so much extra work when mademoiselle's maid arrives," he said slyly. "_She'll_ wait on mademoiselle and attend to her tray when she wants one, and you won't have to do anything for mademoiselle at all." Sallie became slowly transfixed in a spread-eagle attitude, with the half of a thin white egg-shell held up in each hand. "A maid! When's she coming?" "Ought to be here now, she's had time enough. But women never can get round without wasting a lot of time." Sallie's glance must have brought him to his senses, for he added hastily, "City women, I mean." "Hm! She won't touch Parson Thayer's china--not if I know myself!" Sallie disappeared with Miss Redmond's second egg. When she returned, she delivered a message to the effect that Miss Redmond wished to see Mr. Hand when he had finished his luncheon. He was off instantly, calling, "Watch that broth, Sallie!" It was a different Hand, however, who entered Miss Redmond's room a moment later. His half impudent manner changed to distant respect, tinged with a sort of personal adoration. Agatha felt it, though it was too intangible to be taken notice of, either for rebuke or reward. Agatha was sitting in a rocking-chair by the window, sipping her tea out of the best tea-cup, her tray on a stand in front of her. She looked excited and flushed, but her eyes were tired. "Can I do anything for you, Mademoiselle?" Hand inquired courteously. "Yes, please," answered Agatha, and paused a moment, as if to recall her thoughts in order. Hand was very presentable, in negligée shirt which Sallie must have washed while he was asleep. He was one of those people who look best in their working or sporting clothes, ruddy, clean and strong. He would have dwindled absolutely into the commonplace in Sunday clothes, if he was ever so rash as to have any. "I wish to talk with you a little," said Agatha. "We haven't had much opportunity of talking, so far; and perhaps it is time that we understand each other a little better." "As mademoiselle wishes," conceded Hand. "In the first place," Agatha went on, "I must tell you that Mrs. Stoddard is coming to help nurse Mr. Hambleton. You have been very good to stay with us so long; and if you will stay on, I shall be glad. But Doctor Thayer thinks you should have help, and so do I. Especially for the next few days." "That is entirely agreeable to me, Mademoiselle." "Will you tell me what--what remuneration you were receiving as chauffeur?" "Pardon me, but that is unnecessary, Mademoiselle. If you will allow me to stay here, either taking care of Mr. Hambleton or in any outdoor work, for a week or as long as you may need me, I shall consider myself repaid." Agatha was silent while she buttered a last bit of toast. Hand's reticence and evident secretiveness were baffling. She had no intention of letting the point of wages go by in the way Hand indicated, but after deliberation she dropped it for the moment, in order to take up another matter. "I was wondering," she began again, "how you happened to escape from the _Jeanne D'Arc_ alone in a rowboat, and what your connection with Monsieur Chatelard was. Will you tell me?" A perfectly vacant look came into Hand's face. He might have been deaf and dumb. At last Agatha began again. "I am grateful, exceedingly grateful, Mr. Hand, for all that you have done for us since this catastrophe, but I can't have any mystery about people. That is absurd. Did you leave the _Jeanne D'Arc_ when the others did--when I fell into the water?" This time Hand consented to answer. "No, Mademoiselle; I did not know you had fallen into the water until I brought you ashore in the morning." "Then how did you get off?" "Well, it was rather queer. The men were all tired out working at the pumps, and Monsieur Chatelard ordered a seaman named Bazinet and me to relieve two of them. He said he would call us when the boats were lowered, as the yacht was then getting pretty shaky. Bazinet and I worked a long time; and when finally we got on deck, thinking the _Jeanne D'Arc_ was nearly done for, the boats had put off. We heard some one shouting, and Bazinet got frightened and jumped for the boat. He thought they'd wait for him. It was too dark for me to see whether he made it or not. I stayed on the yacht for some time, not knowing anything better to do--" Hand allowed himself a faint smile--"and at last, after a hunt, I found that extra boat, stowed away aft. It was very small, and it leaked; probably that was why they did not think of using it. But it was better than nothing. I found some putty and a tin bucket, and got food and a lot of other things, though the boat filled so fast that I had to throw most everything out. But I got ashore, as you know. I didn't even wait to see the last of the _Jeanne D'Arc_." Agatha's eyes shone. Hand's story was perfectly simple and plausible. But the other question was even more important. She hesitated before repeating it, however, and rewarded Hand's unusual frankness with a grateful look. "That was a night of experience for us all," she said, with a little sigh at the memory of it. "But tell me--" Agatha looked up squarely at Hand, only to encounter his deaf and dumb expression. "If you will excuse me, Mademoiselle," said Hand deferentially, "I think Mr. Hambleton's broth is burning." "Ah, well, very well!" said Agatha. And in spite of herself she smiled. Hand found Mrs. Stoddard installed in James Hambleton's room. Doctor Thayer and Aleck had gone, both leaving word that they would return before night. Mrs. Stoddard had smoothed James's bed, folded down the sheet with exactness, noted her brother's directions for treatment, and sat reading her Bible by the window. Mr. Hand stood for a moment, silently regarding first the patient, then his nurse. "By the grace of God, he will pull through, I firmly believe!" ejaculated Mrs. Stoddard. As the first words came in that resonant deep voice, Hand thought that the new nurse was swearing, though presently he changed his mind. "Yes, ma'am," he replied with unwonted meekness. Then, "I'll sleep an hour or two, if that is agreeable to you, ma'am." "Perfectly!" heartily responded Mrs. Stoddard, and Mr. Hand disappeared like the mist before the sun. It was to be an afternoon of excitement, after all, though Agatha thought that she would apply herself to the straightening out of much necessary business. But after an hour's work over letters at Parson Thayer's desk, there occurred an ebullition below which could be nothing less than the arrival of Lizzie, Agatha's maid, with sundry articles of luggage. She was a small-minded but efficient city girl, clever enough to keep her job by making herself useful, and sophisticated to the point of indecency. No woman ought ever to have known so much as Lizzie knew. Agatha was to hear how she had been relieved by the telegram several days before, how she had nearly killed herself packing in such haste, how she thought she was traveling to the ends of the earth, coming thus to a region she had never heard of before. Big Simon, who had been instructed to watch for Lizzie and bring her and her baggage out, presently arrived with the trunks, having sent the maid on ahead in the buggy with his son. Big Simon positively declined to carry the two trunks to the second floor, saying he thought they'd like it just as well, or better, if he left them in the hall down-stairs. Lizzie was angrily hesitating whether to argue with him or use the persuasion of one of her mistress' silver coins, when Agatha interfered, and saved her from making the mistake of her life. It is doubtful if she could have lived in Ilion after having been guilty of tipping one of its foremost citizens. And even if she had, she would not have got the trunks taken up-stairs. The prospect of discarding Sallie Kingsbury's makeshifts and wearing a dress which belonged to her had more comfort in it than Agatha had ever believed possible; and the reality was even better. She made a toilet, for the first time in many days, with her accustomed accessories, dressed herself in a white wool gown, and felt better. "Are these the relatives you were visiting, Miss Redmond?" inquired Lizzie, eaten up with curiosity, which was her mortal weakness. Agatha paused, struck with the form of the maid's question; but, knowing her liking for items of news, she answered cautiously: "Not relatives exactly. The Thayers were old friends of my mother." Lizzie shook out a skirt and hung it in the wardrobe in the far corner of the room. She was bursting to know everything about Miss Redmond's sudden journey, but knew better than to appear anxious. "The message at the hotel was so indefinite that I didn't know at all what I should do. After the excitement quieted down a little, I went out to visit my cousin Hattie, in the Bronx." "What sort of excitement?" "Oh, newspaper men, and the manager, and Herr Weimar, of the orchestra, and a lot of other people who came, wanting to see you immediately. They seemed to think I was hiding you somewhere." Agatha smiled. She could imagine Lizzie in her new-fledged importance, talking to all those people. "You spoke of a message--" ventured Agatha. "Yes; the one you sent the day you left, Miss Redmond. The hotel clerk said you had suddenly left town on a visit to a sick relative." "Oh, yes." Lizzie's quick scent was already on the trail of a mystery, but Agatha was in no mood just then to give her any version of the events of that Monday afternoon. "Was there any other message, Miss Redmond? Some word for me, which the clerk forgot to deliver?" "No, nothing else." "Mr. Straker came Tuesday morning with some contracts for you to sign. He said that you had an appointment with him, and he was nearly crazy when he found you had gone away without leaving your address." Agatha smiled more and more broadly, to Lizzie's disgust, but she could not help it. "I don't doubt he was disturbed. Did he come again?" "Come again, Miss Redmond!" Lizzie hung a blue silk coat over its hanger, held it carefully up to the light, and turned toward her mistress with the mien of a person who isn't to be bamboozled. "He came twice every day to see if I had any word from you; and when I went to Cousin Hattie's he called me up on the 'phone every morning and evening. Most unreasonable, Mr. Straker was. He said there wasn't a singer in town he could get to fill your engagements, and he was losing a hundred dollars a day. He's very much put out, Miss Redmond." "Well, I was, too," said Agatha, but somehow her tone failed to satisfy the maid. To Agatha the thought of the dictatorial manager fluttering about New York in quest of a vanished singer--well, the picture had its humorous side. It had its serious side, too, for Agatha, of course, but for the moment she put off thinking about that. Lizzie, however, had borne the brunt of Mr. Straker's vexation, and, in that lumber-box she called her mind, she regarded the matter solely as her personal cue to come more prominently upon the stage. "Then your accompanist came every morning, as you had directed, Miss Redmond; and Madame Florio sent word a dozen times about those new gowns." Lizzie, with the memory of her sudden importance, almost took up the role of baffled innocence. "I declare, Miss Redmond, I didn't know what to do or say to those people. The whole thing seemed so irregular, with you not leaving any word of explanation with me." "That is true, Lizzie; it was irregular, and certainly very inconvenient. And it is serious enough, so far as breaking my engagements is concerned. But the circumstances were very unusual and--pressing. Some one else gave the message at the hotel, and, as you know, I had no time even to get a satchel." "That's what I said when the reporters came--that you were so worried over your sick relative that you did not wait for anything." Agatha groaned. "Did--did the papers have much to say about my leaving town?" "They had columns, Miss Redmond, and some of them had your picture on the front page with an announcement of your elopement. But Mr. Straker contradicted that; he told them he had heard from you, and that you were at the bedside of a dying relative. Besides that, Miss Redmond, the difficulty in getting up an elopement story was the lack of a probable man. Your manager and your accompanist were both found and interviewed, and there wasn't anybody else in New York except me who knew you. Your discretion, Miss Redmond, has always been remarkable." Agatha was suddenly tired of Lizzie. "Very well, Lizzie, that will do. You may go and get your own things unpacked. We shan't return to New York for several days yet." "You've heard from Mr. Straker, of course, Miss Redmond?" "No, but I have written to him, explaining everything. Why?" "Oh, nothing; only when I sent him word that I had heard from you, he said at first that he was coming here with me. Some business prevented him, but he must have telegraphed." "Maybe he has; but it takes some time, evidently, for a hidden person to be discovered in Ilion." As soon as the words were off her lips, Agatha realized that she had made a slip. One has to look sharp when talking to a sophisticated maid. "But were you hiding, Miss Redmond?" Lizzie artlessly inquired. "Oh, no, Lizzie; don't be silly. The telegram probably went wrong; telegrams often do." "Not when Mr. Straker sends them," proffered Lizzie. "But if his telegrams have gone wrong, you may count on his coming down here himself. He is much worried over the rehearsals, which begin early in the month, he said. And he got the full directions you sent me for coming here; he would have them." Agatha knew her manager's pertinacity when once on the track of an object. Moreover, the humor of the situation passed from her mind, leaving only a vivid impression of the trouble and worry which were sure to follow such a serious breaking up of well established plans. She was rarely capricious, even under vexation, but she yielded to a caprice at this moment, and one, moreover, that was very unjust toward her much-tried manager. The thought of that man bursting in upon her in the home that had been the fastidious Hercules Thayer's, in the midst of her anxiety and sorrow over James Hambleton, was intolerable. "If Mr. Straker should by any chance follow me here, you must tell him that I can not see him," she said, and departed, leaving Lizzie wrapped in righteous indignation. "Well, I never!" she exclaimed, after her mistress had disappeared. "Can't see him, after coming all this way! And into a country like this, too, where there's only one bath-tub, and you fill that from a pump in the yard!" CHAPTER XVI A FIGHTING CHANCE The dining-room of the old red house was cool, and fragrant from the blossoming heliotrope bed below its window. The twilight, which is long in eastern Maine, shed a soft glow over the old mahogany and silver, and an equally soft and becoming radiance over the two women seated at the table. After a sonorous blessing, uttered by Mrs. Stoddard in tones full of unction, she and Agatha ate supper in a sympathetic silence. It was a meal upon which Sallie Kingsbury expended her best powers as cook, with no mean results; but nobody took much notice of it, after all. Mrs. Stoddard poured her tea into her saucer, drinking and eating absent-mindedly. Her face lighted with something very like a smile whenever she caught Agatha's eyes, but to her talk was not necessary. Sallie hovered around the door, even though Lizzie had condescended to put on a white apron and serve. But Agatha sent the city maid away, bidding her wait on the people in the sick-room instead. Mr. Hand had been left with the patient and had acquiesced in the plan to stay on duty until midnight, when Mrs. Stoddard was to be called. Agatha had spent an hour with James, helping Mrs. Stoddard, or watching the patient while the nurse made many necessary trips to the kitchen. The sight of James's woeful plight drove every thought from her mind. Engagements and managers lost their reality, and became shadow memories beside the vividness of his desperate need. He had no knowledge of her, or of any efforts to secure his comfort. He talked incessantly, sometimes in a soft, unintelligible murmur, sometimes in loud and emphatic tones. His eyes were brilliant but wandering, his movements were abrupt or violent, heedless or feeble, as the moment decreed. He talked about the dingy, nasty fo'cas'le, the absurdity of his not being able to get around, the fine outfit of the _Sea Gull_, the chill of the water. He sometimes swore softly, almost apologetically, and he uttered most unchristian sentiments toward some person whom he described as wearing extremely neat and dandified clothes. After the first five minutes Agatha paid no heed to his words, and could bear to stay in the room only when she was able to do something to soothe or comfort him. She was not wholly unfamiliar with illness and the trouble that comes in its train, but the sight of James, with his unrecognizing eyes and his wits astray, a superb engine gone wild, brought a sharp and hitherto unknown pain to her throat. She stood over his bed, holding his hands when he would reach frenziedly into the air after some object of his feverish desire; she coaxed him back to his pillow when he fancied he must run to catch something that was escaping him. It took nerve and strength to care for him; unceasing vigilance and ingenuity were required in circumventing his erratic movements. And through it all there was something about his clean, honest mind and person that stirred only affectionate pity. He was a child, taking a child's liberties. Mrs. Stoddard brooded over him already, as a mother over her dearest son; Mr. Hand had turned gentle as a woman and gave the service of love, not of the eye. His skill in managing almost rivaled Mrs. Stoddard's. James accepted Hand's ministrations as a matter of course, became more docile under his treatment, and watched for him when he disappeared. Indeed, the whole household was taxed for James; and Agatha, deeply distressed as she was, throbbed with gratitude that she could help care for him, if only for an hour. Thus it was that the two women, eating their supper and looking out over Hercules Thayer's pleasant garden, were silent. Mrs. Stoddard was thinking about the duties of the night, Agatha was swallowed up in the miseries of the last hour. Mrs. Stoddard was the first to rise. She was tipping off on her fingers a number of items which Agatha did not catch, saying "Hm!" and "Yes!" to herself. Despite her deep anxiety, Mrs. Stoddard was in her element. She had nothing less than genius in nursing. She was cheerful, quick in emergencies, steady under the excitements of the sick-room, and faithful in small, as well as large, matters. Moreover, she excelled most doctors in her ability to interpret changes and symptoms, and in her ingenuity in dealing with them. Her two days with James had given her an understanding of the case, and she was ready with new devices for his relief. Agatha finished her tea and joined Mrs. Stoddard as she stood looking out into the twilight, seeing things not visible to the outward eye. "Yes, that's it," she ended abruptly, thinking aloud; then including Agatha without any change of tone, she went on: "I think we'd better change our plans a little. I'm going up-stairs now to stay while your Mr. Hand goes over to the house for me. There are several things I want from home." Agatha had no conception of having an opinion that was contrary to Mrs. Stoddard's, so completely was she won by her tower-like strength. "You know, Mrs. Stoddard," she said earnestly, "that I want to be told at once, if--if there is any change." "I know, child," the older woman replied, with a faraway look. "We are in the Lord's hands. He taketh the young in their might, and He healeth them that are nigh unto death. We can only wait His will." Agatha was the product of a different age and a different system of thought. But she was still young, and the pressure of the hour revived in her some ghost of her Puritan ancestral faith, longing to become a reality in her heart again, if only for this dire emergency. She turned, eager but painfully embarrassed, to Mrs. Stoddard, detaining her by a touch on her arm. "But you said, Mrs. Stoddard," she implored, "that the prayer of faith shall heal the sick. And I have been praying, too; I have tried to summon my faith. Do you believe that it counts--for good?" Mrs. Stoddard's rapt gaze blessed Agatha. Her faith and courage were of the type that rise according to need. She drew nearer to her sanctuary, to the fountain of her faith, as her earthly peril waxed. Her voice rang with confidence as she almost chanted: "No striving toward God is ever lost, dear child. He is with us in our sorrow, even as in our joy." Her strong hand closed over Agatha's for a moment, and then her steady, slow steps sounded on the stairs. Agatha went into the parlor, whose windows opened upon the piazza, and from there wandered down the low steps to the lawn. It was growing dusk, a still, comfortable evening. Over the lawn lay the indescribable freshness of a region surrounded by many trees and acres of grass. Presently the old hound, Danny, came slowly from his kennel in the back yard, and paced the grass beside Agatha, looking up often with melancholy eyes into her face. Here was a living relic of her mother's dead friend, carrying in his countenance his sorrow for his departed master. Agatha longed to comfort him a little, convey to him the thought that she would love him and try to understand his nature, now that his rightful master was gone. She talked softly to him, calling him to her but not touching him. Back and forth they paced, the old dog following closer and closer to Agatha's heels. Back of the house was a path leading diagonally across to the wall which separated Parson Thayer's place from the meeting-house. The dog seemed intent on following this path. Agatha humored him, climbed the low stile and entered the churchyard. As the hound leaped the stile after her, he wagged his tail and appeared almost happy. Agatha remembered that Sallie had told her, on the day of her arrival, of the dog, and how he was accustomed to walk every evening with his master. Doubtless they sometimes walked here, among the silent company assembled in the churchyard; and the minister's silent friend was now having the peculiar satisfaction of doing again what he had once done with his master. Thus the little acre of the dead had its claim on life, and its happiness for throbbing hearts. Agatha called the old dog to her again. This time he came near, rubbed hard against her dress, and, when she sat down on a flat tombstone, laid his head comfortably in her lap, wagging his tail in satisfaction. Danny was a companion who did not obstruct thought, but encouraged it; and as Agatha sat resting on the stone with Danny close by, in that quiet yard full of the noiseless ghosts of the past, her thoughts went back to James. His unnatural eyes and restless spirit haunted her. She thought of that other night on the water, full of heartbreaking struggle as it was, as a happy night compared to the one which was yet to come. She recalled their foolish talk while they were on the beach, and smiled sadly over it. Her courage was at the ebb. She felt that the buoyancy of spirit that had sustained them both during the night of struggle could never revisit the wasted and disorganized body lying in Parson Thayer's house--her house. A certain practical sense that was strong in her rose and questioned whether she had done everything that could be done for his welfare. She thought so. Had she not even prayed, with all her concentration of mind and will? She heard again Susan Stoddard's deep voice: "No striving toward God is ever lost!" In spite of her unfaith, a sense of rest in a power larger than herself came upon her unawares. Danny, who had wandered away, came back and sat down heavily on the edge of her skirt, close to her. "Good Danny!" she praised, petting him to his heart's content. It was thus that Aleck Van Camp found them, as he came over the stile from the house. His tones were slower and more precise than ever, but his face was drawn and marked with anxiety. He had a careful thought for Agatha, even in the face of his greater trouble. "You have chosen a bad hour to wander about, Miss Redmond. The evening dews are heavy." "Yes, I know; Danny and I were just going home. Have you been into the house?" "Yes, I left Doctor Thayer there in consultation with the other physician that came to-day. They sent me off. Old Jim--well, you know as well as I do. With your permission, I'm going to stay the night. I'll bunk in the hall, or anywhere. Don't think of a bed for me; I don't want one." "I'm glad you'll stay. It seems, somehow, as if every one helps; that is, every one who cares for him." "Doctor Thayer thinks there will be a change tonight, though it is difficult to tell. Jim's family have my telegram by this time, and they will get my letter to-morrow, probably. Anyway, I shall wait until morning before I send another message." The tension of their thoughts was too sharp; they turned for relief to the scene before them, stopping at the stile to look back at the steepled white church, standing under its spreading balm-of-Gilead tree. "It seems strange," said Agatha, "to think that I sat out there under that big tree as a little girl. Everything is so different now." "Ilion, then, was once your home?" "No, never my home, though it was once my mother's home. I used to visit here occasionally, years and years ago." Aleck produced his quizzical grin. "A gallant person would protest that that is incredible." "I wasn't angling for gallantry," Agatha replied wearily. "I am twenty-six, and I haven't been here certainly since I was eight years old. Eighteen years are a good many." "To youth, yes," acquiesced Aleck. "Which reminds me, by contrast, of the hermit; he was so incredibly old. It was he who unwittingly put me on Jim's track. He said that the owner or proprietor of the _Jeanne D'Arc_ was dropped ashore on his island." "Monsieur Chatelard?" cried Agatha. "I don't know his name." "If it was Monsieur Chatelard," Agatha paused, looking earnestly at Aleck, "if it was he, it is the man who tricked me into his motor-car in New York, drugged me and carried me aboard his yacht while I was unconscious." Aleck turned a sharp, though not unsympathetic, gaze upon Agatha. "I have told no one but Doctor Thayer, and he did not believe me. But it is quite true; the wreck saved me, probably, from something worse, though I don't know what." If there had been skepticism on Aleck's face for an instant it had disappeared. Instead, there was deep concern, as he considered the case. "Had you ever seen the man Chatelard before?" "Never to my knowledge." "Did he visit you on board the yacht?" "Only once. I was put into the charge of an old lady, a Frenchwoman, Madame Sofie; evidently a trusted chaperon, or nurse, or something like that. When I came to myself in a very luxurious cabin in the yacht, this old woman was talking to me in French--a strange medley that I could make nothing of. When I was better she questioned me about everything, saying '_Mon Dieu!_' at every answer I made. Then she left me and was gone a long time; and when she came back, that man was with her. I learned afterward that he was called Monsieur Chatelard. They both looked at me, arguing fiercely in such a furious French that I could not understand more than half they said. They looked as if they were appraising me, like an article for sale, but Madame Sofie held out steadily, on some point, against Monsieur Chatelard, and finally it appeared that she converted him to her own point of view. He went away very angry, and I did not see him again, except at a distance, until the night of the wreck." "Did you find out where they were going, or who was back of their scheme?" "No, nothing; or very little. There was money involved. I could tell that. But no names were mentioned, nor any places that I can remember. You see, I was ill from the effects of the chloroform, and frightened, too, I think." "I don't wonder," said Aleck, wrinkling his homely face. He remained silent while he searched, mentally, for a clue. "I found out, through my maid, who arrived today, that some one of the kidnapping party had been clever enough to send a false message to the hotel, explaining my sudden departure." "I see, I see," said Aleck, going over the story in his mind. And presently, "Where does Hand come in? And how did Jim happen to be aboard the _Jeanne D'Arc_?" "Hand was some sort of henchman to Monsieur Chatelard, I believe. And he told me that your cousin was picked up in New York harbor, swimming for life, it appeared. No one seemed to know any more." Aleck stopped short, looked at Agatha, pursed his lips for a whistle and remained silent. They had arrived at the porch steps, and were tacitly waiting for the doctors to descend and give them, if possible, some encouragement for the coming night. But the story of the _Jeanne D'Arc_ had grown more complicated than Aleck had anticipated, and much was yet to be explained. Aleck was slow, as always, in thinking it through, but he figured it out, finally, to a certain point, and expressed himself thus: "That's the way with your steady fellows; they're all the bigger fools when they do jump." "Pardon me, I didn't catch--" "Oh, nothing," said Aleck, half irritably. "I only said Jim needed a poke, like that heifer over in the next field." Agatha understood the boyish irritation, cloaking the love of the man. "You may be able to get more information about your cousin from Mr. Hand," she said. "He would be likely to know as much as anybody." "Well, however it happened, he's here now!" "Though if it had not been for his fearful struggle for me, he would not have been so ill," said Agatha miserably. Aleck, with one foot on the low step of the piazza, stopped and turned squarely toward her. His face was no less miserable than Agatha's, but behind his wretchedness and anxiety was some masculine reserve of power, and a longer view down the corridors of time. He held her eye with a look of great earnestness. "I love old Jim, Miss Redmond. We've been boys and men together, and good fellows always. But don't think that I'd regret his struggle for you, as you call it, even if it should mean the worst. He couldn't have done otherwise, and I wouldn't have had him. And if it's to be a--a home run--why, then, Jim would like that far better than to die of old age or liver complaint. It's all right, Miss Redmond." Aleck's slow words came with a double meaning to Agatha. She heard, through them, echoes of James Hambleton's boyhood; she saw a picture of his straight and dauntless youth. She held out to Aleck a hand that trembled, but her face shone with gratitude. Aleck took her hand respectfully, kindly, in his warm grasp. "Besides," he said simply, "we won't give up. He's got a fighting chance yet." CHAPTER XVII THE TURN OF THE TIDE Lights in a country house at night are often the signal of birth or death, sometimes of both. The old red house threw its beacon from almost every window that night, and seemed mutely to defy the onslaught of enveloping darkness, whether Plutonic or Stygian. Time was when Parson Thayer's library lamp burned nightly into the little hours, and through the uncurtained windows the churchyard ghosts, had they wandered that way, could have seen his long thin form, wrapped in a paisley cloth dressing-gown, sitting in the glow. He would have been reading some old leather-bound volume, and would have remained for hours almost as quiet and noiseless as the ghosts themselves. Now he had stepped across his threshold and joined them, and new spirits had come to burn the light in the old red house. Agatha, half-dressed, had slept, and woke feeling that the night must be far advanced. The house was very still, with no sound or echo of the incoherent tones which, for now many days, had come from the room down the hall. She lit a candle, and the sputtering match seemed to fill the house with noise. Her clock indicated a little past midnight. It was only twenty minutes since she had lain down, but she was wide awake and refreshed. While she was pinning up her hair in a big mass on the top of her head, she heard in the hall slow, steady steps, firm but not heavy, even as in daytime. Susan Stoddard did not tiptoe. Agatha was at the door before she could knock. "You had better come for a few minutes," Mrs. Stoddard said. The tones were, in themselves, an adjuration to faith and fortitude. "Yes, I will come," said Agatha. They walked together down the dimly lighted hall, each woman, in her own way, proving how strong and efficient is the discipline of self-control. In the sick-room a screen shaded the light from the bed, which had been pulled out almost into the middle of the room. Near the bed was a table with bottles, glasses, a covered pitcher, and on the floor an oxygen tank. Doctor Thayer's massive figure was in the shadow close to the bed, and Aleck Van Camp leaned over the curved footboard. James lay on his pillow, a ghost of a man, still as death itself. As Agatha grew accustomed to the light, she saw that his eyes were closed, the lips under the ragged beard were drawn and slightly parted; his forehead was the pallid forehead of death-in-life. Neither the doctor nor Aleck moved or turned their gaze from the bed as Agatha and Mrs. Stoddard entered. The air was still, and the profound silence without was as a mighty reservoir for the silence within. Agatha stood by the footboard beside Aleck, while Mrs. Stoddard, getting a warm freestone from the invisible Mr. Hand in the hall, placed it beneath the bedclothes. Aleck Van Camp dropped his head, covering his face with his hands. Agatha, watching, by and by saw a change come over the sick man's face. She held her breath, it seemed, for untold minutes, while Doctor Thayer reached his hand to the patient's heart and leaned over to observe more closely his face. "See!" she whispered to Aleck, touching his shoulder lightly, "he is looking at us." When Aleck looked up James was indeed looking at them with large, serious, half-focussed eyes. It was as if he were coming back from another world where the laws of vision were different, and he was only partially adjusted to the present conditions. He moved his hands feebly under the bedclothes, where they were being warmed by the freestone, and then tried to moisten his lips. Agatha took a glass of water from the table, looked about for a napkin, but, seeing none, wet the tips of her fingers and placed them gently over James's lips. His eyes followed her at first, but closed for an instant as she came near. When they opened again, they looked more natural. As he felt the comfort of the water on his lips, his features relaxed, and a look of recognition illumined his face. His eyes moved from Agatha to Aleck, who was now bending over him, and back to Agatha. The look was a salute, happy and peaceful. Then his eyes closed again. For an hour Agatha and Aleck kept their watch, almost fearing to breathe. Doctor Thayer worked, gave quiet orders, tested the heartbeats, let no movement or symptom go unnoticed. For a time James kept even the doctor in doubt whether he was slipping into the Great Unknown or into a deep and convalescent sleep. By the end of the hour, however, Jimsy had decided for natural sleep, urged thereto, perhaps, by that unseen playwright who had decreed another time for the curtain; or perhaps he was kept by Doctor Thayer's professional persuasions, in defiance of the prompter's signal. However the case, the heart slowly but surely began to take up its job like an honest force-pump, the face began to lose its death-like pallor, the breathing became more nearly normal. Doctor Thayer, with Mrs. Stoddard quiet and efficient at his elbow, worked and tested and worked again, and finally sat moveless for some minutes, watch in hand, counting the pulsations of James's heart. At the end of the time he laid the hand carefully back under the clothes, put his watch in his pocket, and finally got up and looked around the room. Mrs. Stoddard was pouring something into a measuring glass. Agatha was standing by the window, looking out into the blue night; and Aleck could be seen through the half-open door, pacing up and down the hall. Doctor Thayer turned to his sister. "Give him his medicine on the half-hour, and then you go to bed. That man Hand will do now." Then he went to the door and addressed Aleck. "Well, Mr. Van Camp, unless something unexpected turns up, I think your cousin will live to jump overboard again." Offhand as the words were, there was unmistakable satisfaction, happiness, even triumph in his voice, and he returned Aleck's hand-clasp with a vise-like grip. His masculinity ignored Agatha, or pretended to; but she had followed him to the door. As the old man clasped hands with Aleck, he heard behind him a deep, "O Doctor!" The next instant Agatha's arms were around his neck, and the back of his bald head was pressed against something that could only have been a cheek. Surprising as this was, the doctor did not stampede; but by the time he had got clear of Aleck and had reached up his hand to find the cheek, it was gone, and the arms, too. Susan Stoddard somehow got mixed up in the general _Te Deum_ in the hall, and for the first time, now that the fight was over, allowed her feminine feelings--that is, a few tears--to come to the surface. Aleck, however, went to pieces, gone down in that species of mental collapse by which deliberate, judicial men become reckless, and strong men become weak. He stepped softly back into the bedroom and leaned again over the curved footboard, his face quite miserable. He went nearer, and held his ear down close to the bedclothes, to hear for himself the regular beating of the heart. Slowly he convinced himself that the doctor's words might possibly be true, at least. He turned to Hand, who had come in and was adjusting the shades, and asked him: "Do _you_ believe he's asleep?" in the tone of one who demands an oath. "Oh, yes, sir; he's sleeping nicely, Mr. Van Camp. I saw the change the moment I came in." Aleck still hesitated to leave, fearful, apparently, lest he might take the blessed sleep away with him. As he stood by the bed, a low but distinct whistle sounded outside, then, after a moment's interval, was repeated. Aleck lifted his head at the first signal, took another look at James and one at Hand, then light as a cat he darted from the room and down the stairs, leaving the house through one of the tall windows in the parlor. Mr. Chamberlain was standing near the lilac bushes, his big figure outlined dimly in the darkness. "Shut up!" Aleck whispered fiercely, as he ran toward him. "He's just got to sleep, Chamberlain; gone to sleep, like a baby. Don't make an infernal racket!" "Oh, I didn't know. Didn't mean to make a racket," began Chamberlain, when Aleck plumped into him and shook him by the shoulders. "He's asleep--like a baby!" he reiterated. And Chamberlain, wise comrade, took Aleck by the arm and tramped him off over the hill to settle his nerves. They walked for an hour arm in arm over the road that lay like a gray ribbon before them in the night, winding up slantwise along the rugged country. Dawn was awake on the hills a mile away, and by and by Aleck found tongue to tell the story of the night, which was good for him. He talked fast and unevenly, and even extravagantly. Chamberlain listened and loved his friend in a sympathy that spoke for itself, though his words were commonplace enough. By the time they had circled the five-mile road and were near the house again, Aleck was something like himself, though still unusually excited. Chamberlain mentioned casually that Miss Reynier had been anxious about him, and that all his friends at the big hotel had worried. Finally, he, Chamberlain, had set out for the old red house, thinking he could possibly be of service; in any case glad to be near his friend. "And, by the way," Chamberlain added; "you may be interested to hear that accidentally I got on the track of that beggar who ate the hermit's eggs. Took a tramp this morning, and found him held up at a kind of sailor's inn, waiting for money. Grouchy old party; no wonder his men shipped him." Aleck at first took but feeble interest in Chamberlain's discoveries; he was still far from being his precise, judicial self. He let Chamberlain talk on, scarcely noticing what he said, until suddenly the identity of the man whom Chamberlain was describing came home to him. Agatha's story flashed back in his memory. He stopped short in his tracks, halting his companion with a stretched-out forefinger. "Look here, Chamberlain," he said, "I've been half loony and didn't take in what you said. If that's the owner or proprietor of the _Jeanne D'Arc_--a man known as Monsieur Chatelard, French accent, blond, above medium size, prominent white teeth--we want him right away. He kidnapped Miss Redmond in New York, and I shouldn't wonder if he kidnapped old Jim and stole the yacht besides. He's a bad one." Mr. Chamberlain had the air of humoring a lunatic. "Well, what's to be done? Is it a case for the law? Is there any evidence to be had?" "Law! Evidence!" cried Aleck. "I should think so. You go to Big Simon, Chamberlain, and find out who's sheriff, and we'll get a warrant and run him down. Heavens! A man like that would sell his mother!" Chamberlain looked frankly skeptical, and would not budge until Aleck had related every circumstance that he knew about Agatha's involuntary flight from New York. He was all for going to the red house and interviewing Agatha herself, but Aleck refused to let him do that. "She's worn out and gone to bed; you can't see her. But it's straight, you take my word. We must catch that scoundrel and bring him here for identification--to be sure there's no mistake. And if it is he, it'll be hot enough for him." Chamberlain doubted whether it was the same man, and put up objections seriatim to each proposition of Aleck's, but finally accepted them all. He made a point, however, of going on his quest alone. "You go back to the red house and go to bed, and I'll round up Eggs. I think I know how the trick can be done." Aleck was stubborn about accompanying Chamberlain, but the Englishman plainly wouldn't have it. He told Aleck he could do it better alone, and led him by the arm back to the old red house, where the kitchen door stood hospitably open. Sallie was at work in her pantry. The kettle was singing on the stove, and the milk had already come from a neighbor's dairy. Sallie's temper may not have been ideal, but at least she was not of those who are grouchy before breakfast. She served Aleck and Chamberlain in the kitchen with homely skill, giving them both a wholesome and pleasant morning after their night of gloom. "You can't do anything right all day if you start behindhand," she replied when Aleck remarked upon her early rising. "Besides, I was up last night more than once, watching for Miss Redmond. The young man's sleeping nicely, she says." She went cheerfully about her kitchen work, giving the men her best, womanlike, and asking nothing in return, not even attention. They took her service gratefully, however, and there was enough of Eve in Sallie to know it. "By the way, Chamberlain," said Aleck, "we must get a telegram off to the family in Lynn." He wrote out the address and shoved it across Sallie's red kitchen tablecloth. "And tell them not to think of coming!" adjured Aleck. "We don't want any more of a swarry here than we've got now." Chamberlain undertook to send the message; and since he had contracted to catch the criminal of the _Jeanne D'Arc_, he was eager to be off on his hunt. "Good-by, old man. You go to bed and get a good sleep. I'll stop at the hotel and leave word for Miss Reynier. And you stay here, so I'll know where you are. I may want to find you quick, if I land that bloomin' beggar." "Thanks," said Aleck weakly. "I'll turn in for an hour or so, if Sallie can find me a bed." Mr. Chamberlain made several notes on an envelope which he pulled from his pocket, gravely thanked Sallie for her breakfast and lifted his hat to her when he departed. Aleck dropped into a chair and was stupidly staring at the stove when Sallie returned from a journey to the pump in the yard. "You'll like to take a little rest, Mr. Van Camp," she said, "and I know just the place where you'll not hear a sound from anywhere--if you don't mind there not being a carpet. I'll go up right away and show you the room before I knead out my bread." So she conducted Aleck to a big, clean attic under the rafters, remote and quiet. He was exhausted, not from lack of sleep--he had often borne many hours of wakefulness and hard work without turning a hair--but from the jarring of a live nerve throughout the night of anxiety. The past, and the relationships of youth and kindred were sacred to him, and his pain had overshadowed, for the hour at least, even the newer claims of his love for Mélanie Reynier. CHAPTER XVIII THE SPIRIT OF THE ANCIENT WOOD Agatha's first thought on awakening late in the forenoon, was the memory of Sallie Kingsbury coaxing her to bed and tucking her in, in the purple light of the early morning. She remembered the attention with pleasure and gratitude, as another blessing added to the greater one of James Hambleton's turn toward recovery. Sallie's act was mute testimony that Agatha was, in truth, heir to Hercules Thayer's estate, spiritual and material. She summoned Lizzie, and while she was dressing, laid out directions for the day. During her short stay in Ilion, Lizzie had been diligent enough in gathering items of information, but nevertheless she had remained oblivious of any impending crisis during the night. Her pompadour was marcelled as accurately as if she were expecting a morning call from Mr. Straker. No rustlings of the wings of the Angel of Death had disturbed her sleep. In fact, Lizzie would have winked knowingly if his visit had been announced to her. Her sophistication had banished such superstitions. She noticed, however, that Agatha's candles had burned to their sockets, and inquired if Miss Redmond had been wakeful. "Mr. Hambleton was very ill. Everybody in the house was up till near morning," replied Agatha rather tartly. "Oh, what a pity! Could I have done anything? I never heard a sound," cried Lizzie effusively. "No, there was nothing you could have done," said Agatha. "It's very bad for your voice, Miss Redmond, staying up all night," went on Lizzie solicitously. "You're quite pale this morning. And with your western tour ahead of you!" Agatha let these adjurations go unanswered. It occurred to Lizzie that possibly she had allied herself with a mistress who was foolish enough to ruin her public career by private follies, such as worrying about sick people. Heaven, in Lizzie's eyes, was the glare of publicity; and since she was unable to shine in it herself, she loved to be attached to somebody who could. Her fidelity was based on Agatha's celebrity as a singer. She would have preferred serving an actress who was all the rage, but considered a popular singer, who paid liberally, as the next best thing. There was always enough common sense in Lizzie's remarks to make some impression, even on a person capable of the folly of mourning at a death bed. Agatha's spirits, freshened by hope and the sleep of health, rose to a buoyancy which was well able to deal with practical questions. She quickly formed a plan for the day, though she was wise enough to withhold the scheme from the maid. Agatha drank her coffee, ate sparingly of Sallie's toast, and, leaving Lizzie with a piece of sewing to do, went first to James Hambleton's room. After ten minutes or so, she slowly descended the stairs and went out the front way. She circled the garden and came round to the open kitchen door. Sallie was kneeling before her oven, inspecting bread. Agatha, watched her while she tapped the bottom of the tin, held her face down close to the loaf, and finally took the whole baking out of the oven and tipped the tins on the table. "That's the most delicious smell that ever was!" said Agatha. Sallie jumped up and pulled her apron straight. "Lor', Miss Redmond, how you scared me! Couldn't you sleep any longer?" "I didn't want to; I'm as good as new. Tell me, Sallie, where all the people are. Mr. Hand is in Mr. Hambleton's room, I know, but where are the others?" "I guess they're all parceled round," said Sallie with symptoms of sniffing. "I don't wanter complain, Miss Redmond, but we ain't had any such a houseful since Parson Thayer's last conference met here, and not so many then; only three ministers and two wives, though, of course, ministers make more work. But I wouldn't say a word, Miss Redmond, about the work, if it wasn't for that young woman that puts on such airs coming and getting your tray. I ain't used to that." Sallie paused, like any good orator, while her main thesis gained impressiveness from silence. It was only too evident that her feelings were hurt. Agatha considered the matter, but before replying came farther into the kitchen and touched the tip of a finger to one of Sallie's loaves, lifting it to show its golden brown crust. "You're an expert at bread, Sallie, I can see that," she said heartily. "I shouldn't have got over my accident half so well if it hadn't been for your good food and your care, and I want you to know that I appreciate it." She was reluctant to discuss the maid, but her cordial liking for Sallie counseled frankness. "Don't mind about Lizzie. I thought you had too much to do, and that she might just as well help you, but if she bothers you, we won't have it. And now tell me where Mrs. Stoddard and the others are." Sallie's symptoms indicated that she was about to be propitiated; but she had yet a desire to make her position clear to Miss Redmond. "It's all right; only I've taken care of the china for seventeen years, and it don't seem right to let her handle it. And she told me herself that anybody that had any respect for their hands wouldn't do kitchen work. And if her hands are too good for kitchen work, I'm sure I don't want her messing round here. She left the tea on the stove till it _boiled_, Miss Redmond, just yesterday." Agatha smiled. "I'm sure Lizzie doesn't know anything about cooking, Sallie, and she shall not bother you any more." Sallie turned a rather less melancholy face toward Agatha. "It's been fairly lonesome since the parson died. I'm glad you've come to the red house." The words came from Sallie's lips gruffly and ungraciously, but Agatha knew that they were sincere. She knew better, however, than to appear to notice them. In a moment Sallie went on: "Mrs. Stoddard, she's asleep in the front spare room. Said for me to call her at twelve." "Poor woman! She must be tired," said Agatha. "Aunt Susan's a stout woman, Miss Redmond. She didn't go to bed until she'd had prayers beside the young man's bed, with Mr. Hand present. I had to wait with the coffee. And I guess Mr. Hand ain't very much used to our ways, for when Aunt Susan had made a prayer, Mr. Hand said, 'Yes, ma'am!' instead of Amen." There was a mixture of disapprobation and grim humor which did not escape Agatha. She was again beguiled into a smile, though Sallie remained grave as a tombstone. "Mr. Hand will learn," said Agatha; and was about to add "Like the rest of us," but thought better of it. Sallie took up her tale. "Mr. Van Camp and his friend came in just after I'd put you to bed, Miss Redmond, and ate a bite of breakfast right offer that table; and 'twas a mercy I'd cleared all the kulch outer the attic, as I did last week, for Mr. Van Camp he wanted a place to sleep; and he's up there now. Used to be a whole lot er the parson's books up there; but I put them on a shelf in the spare room. The other man went off toward the village." Agatha, looking about the pleasant kitchen, was tempted to linger. Sallie's conversation yielded, to the discerning, something of the rich essence of the past; and Agatha began to yearn for a better knowledge of the recluse who had been her friend, unknown, through all the years. But she remembered her industrious plans for the day and postponed her talk with Sallie. "I remember there used to be a grove, a stretch of wood, somewhere beyond the church, Sallie. Which way is it--along the path that goes through the churchyard?" "No, this way; right back er the yard. Parson Thayer he used to walk that way quite often." Sallie went with Agatha to another stile beyond the churchyard, and pointed over the pasture to a fringe of dark trees along the farther border. "Right there by that apple tree, the path is. But don't go far, Miss Redmond; the woods ain't healthy." "All right, Sallie; thank you. I'll not stay long." She called Danny and started out through the pasture, with the hound, sober and dignified and happy, at her heels. The wood was cool and dim, with an uneven wagon road winding in and out between stumps. Enormous sugar-maples reared their forms here and there; occasionally a lithe birch lifted a tossing head; and, farther within, pines shot their straight trunks, arrow-like, up to the canopy above. Farther along, the road widened into a little clearing, beyond which the birch and maple trees gave place entirely to pines and hemlocks. The underbrush disappeared, and a brown carpet of needles and cones spread far under the shade. The leafy rustle of the deciduous trees ceased, and a majestic stillness, deeper than thought, pervaded the place. At the clearing just within this deeper wood Agatha paused, sat down on a stone and took Danny's head in her lap. The dog looked up into her face with the wistful, melancholy gaze of his kind, inarticulate yet eloquent. The sun was nearly at zenith, and bright flecks of light lay here and there over the brown earth. As Agatha grew accustomed to the shade, it seemed pleasant and not at all uncheerful--the gaiety of sunlight subdued only to a softer tone. The resolution which had brought her thither returned. She stood up under the dome of pines and began softly to sing, trying her voice first in single tones, then a scale or two, a trill. At first her voice was not clear, but as she continued it emerged from its sheath of huskiness clear and flutelike, and liquid as the notes of the thrushes that inhabited the wood. The pleasure of the exercise grew, and presently, warbling her songs there in the otherwise silent forest, Agatha became conscious of a strange accompaniment. Pausing a moment, she perceived that the grove was vocal with tone long after her voice had ceased. It was not exactly an echo, but a slowly receding resonance, faint duplications and multiplications of her voice, gently floating into the thickness of the forest. Charmed, like a child who discovers some curious phenomenon of nature, Agatha tried her voice again and again, listening, between whiles, to the ghostly tones reverberating among the pines. She sang the slow majestic "Lascia ch'io pianga," which has tested every singer's voice since Händel wrote it; and then, curious, she tried the effect of the aërial sounding-board with quick, brilliant runs up and down the full range of the voice. But the effect was more beautiful with something melodious and somewhat slow; and there came to her mind an old-fashioned song which, as a girl, she had often sung with her mother: "Oh! that we two were maying Down the stream of the soft spring breeze." She sang the stanza through, softly, walking up and down among the pines. Danny, at first, walked up and down beside her gravely, and then lay down in the middle of the path, keeping an eye on Agatha's movements. Her voice, pitched at its softest, now seemed to be infinitely enlarged without being made louder. It carried far in among the trees, clear and soft as a wave-ripple. Entranced, Agatha began the second part of the song, just for the joy of singing: "Oh! that we two sat dreaming On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down--" when suddenly, from the distance, another voice took up the strain. Danny was instantly up and off to investigate, but presently came back wagging and begging his mistress to follow him. In spite of her surprise in hearing another voice complete the duet, Agatha went on with the song, half singing, half humming. It was a woman's voice that joined hers, singing the part quite according to the book: "With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth's breast And our souls at home with God!" The pine canopy spread the voices, first one and then the other, until the wood was like a vast cathedral filled with the softest music of the organ pipes. There was nobody in sight at first, but as Agatha followed the path, she presently saw a white arm and skirt projecting from behind the trunk of a tree. Danny, wagging slowly, appeared to wish to make friends, and before Agatha had time to wonder, the stranger emerged and came toward her with outstretched hand. "Ah, forgive me! I hid and then startled you; but I was tempted by the song. And this forest temple--isn't it wonderful?" Agatha looked at the stranger, suddenly wondering if she were not some familiar but half-forgotten acquaintance of years agone. She was a beautiful dark woman, probably two or three years older than herself, mature and self-poised as only a woman of the cosmopolitan world can be. It might be that compared to her Agatha was a bit crude and unfinished, with the years of her full blossoming yet to come. She had no words at the moment, and the older woman, still holding Agatha's hand, explained. "I did not mean to steal in upon you; but as I came into the grove I heard you singing Händel, and I couldn't resist listening. Your voice, it is wonderful! Especially here!" As she looked into Agatha's face, her sincere eyes and voice gave the praise that no one can resist, the tribute of one artist to another. "This is, indeed, a beautiful hall. I found it out just now by accident, when I came up here to practice and see if I had any voice left," said Agatha. She paused, as it suddenly occurred to her that the visitor might be James Hambleton's sister and that she was being delinquent as a hostess. "But come back to the house," she said. "This is not a hospitable place, exactly, to receive a guest." The stranger laughed gently. "Have you guessed who I am, then? No? Well, you see I had the advantage of you from the first. You are Miss Redmond, and I followed you here from the house, where your servant gave me the directions. I am Miss Reynier, Mélanie Reynier, and I am staying at the Hillside. Mr. Van Camp--" and to her own great surprise, Mélanie blushed crimson at this point--"that is, we, my aunt and I, were Mr. Van Camp's guests on board the _Sea Gull_. When he heard of the wreck of the _Jeanne D'Arc_ we put in to Charlesport; though he has probably explained all this to you. It was such a relief and pleasure to Mr. Van Camp to find his cousin, ill as he was; for he had feared the worst." Agatha had not heard Miss Reynier's name before, but she knew vaguely that Mr. Van Camp had been with a yachting party when he arrived at Charlesport. Now that she was face to face with Miss Reynier, a keen liking and interest, a quick confidence, rose in her heart for her. "Then perhaps you know Mr. Hambleton," said Agatha impulsively. "The fever turned last night. Were you told that he is better?" "No, I don't know him," said Mélanie, shaking her head. "Nevertheless, I am heartily glad to hear that he is better. _Much_ better, they said at the house." They had been standing at the place where Agatha had first discovered her visitor, but now they turned back into the clearing. "Come and try the organ pipes again," she begged. They walked about the wood, singing first one strain and then another, testing the curiously beautiful properties of the pine dome. They were quickly on a footing of friendliness. It was evident that each was capable of laying aside formality, when she wished to do so, and each was, at heart, frank and sincere. Mélanie's talent for song was not small, yet she recognized in Agatha a superior gift; while, to Agatha, Mélanie Reynier seemed increasingly mature, polished, full of charm. They left the wood and wandered back through the pasture and over the stile, each learning many things in regard to the other. They spoke of the place and its beauty, and Agatha told Mélanie of the childhood memories which, for the first time, she had revived in their living background. "How our thoughts change!" she said at last. "As a child, I never felt this farm to be lonely; it was the most populous and entertaining place in all the world. I much preferred the wood to anything in the city. I love it now, too; but it seems the essence of solitude to me." "That is because you have been where the passions and restlessness of men have centered. One is never the same after that." "Strangely enough, the place now belongs to me," went on Agatha. "Parson Thayer, the former owner and resident, was my mother's guardian and friend, and left the place to me for her sake." "Ah, that is well!" cried Mélanie. "It will be your castle of retreat, your Sans-Souci, for all your life, I envy you! It is charming. Pastor--Parson, do you say?--Parson Thayer was a man of judgment." "Yes, and a man of strange and dominating personality, in his way. Everything about the house speaks of him and his tastes. Even Danny here follows me, I really believe, because I am beginning to appreciate his former master." Agatha stooped and patted the dog's head. Youth and health, helped by the sympathy of a friend, were working wonders in Agatha. She beamed with happiness. "Come into the house," she begged Mélanie, "and look at some of his books with me. But first we'll find Sallie and get luncheon, and perhaps Mr. Van Camp will appear by that time. Poor man, he was quite worn out. Then you shall see Parson Thayer's books and flowers, if you will." They strolled over the velvet lawn toward the front of the house, where the door and the long windows stood open. Down by the road, and close to the lilac bushes that flanked the gateway, stood a large silver-white automobile--evidently Miss Reynier's conveyance. The driver of the machine had disappeared. "I mustn't trespass on your kindness for luncheon to-day, thank you," Mélanie was saying; "but I'll come again soon, if I may." Meantime she was moving slowly down the walk. But Agatha would not have it so. She clung to this woman friend with an unwonted eagerness, begging her to stay. "We are quite alone, and we have been so miserable over Mr. Hambleton's illness," she pleaded quite illogically. "Do stay and cheer us up!" And so Mélanie was persuaded; easily, too, except for her compunctions about abusing the hospitality of a household whose first care must necessarily be for the sick. "I want to stay," she said frankly. "The house breathes the very air of restfulness itself; and I haven't seen the garden at all!" She walked back over the lawn, looked admiringly out toward the garden, with its purple and yellow flowers, then gazed into the lofty thicket above her head, where the high elm spread its century-old branches. Agatha, standing a little apart and looking at Melanie, was again struck by some haunting familiarity about her face and figure. She wondered where she could have seen Miss Reynier before. Aleck Van Camp, appearing round the corner of the house, made elaborate bows to the two ladles. "Good morning, Miss Redmond!" He greeted her cordially, plainly glad to see her. "I slept the sleep of the blest up there in your fragrant loft. Good morning, Miss Reynier!" He walked over and formally took Mélanie's hand for an instant. "I knew it was decreed that you two should be friends," he went on, in his deliberate way. "In fact, I've been waiting for the moment when I could have the pleasure of introducing you myself, and here you have managed to dispense with my services altogether. But let me escort you into the house. Sallie says her raised biscuits are all ready for luncheon." Agatha, looking at her new friend's vivid face, saw that Mr. Van Camp was not an unwelcome addition to their number. She had a quick superstitious feeling of happiness at the thought that the old red house, gathering elements of joy about its roof, was her possession and her home. "I've promised to show Miss Reynier some queer old books after luncheon," she said. Aleck wrinkled his brow. "I'll try not to be jealous of them." CHAPTER XIX MR. CHAMBERLAIN, SLEUTH Unbeknown to himself, Mr. Chamberlain possessed the soul of a conspirator. Leaving Aleck Van Camp at the crisp edge of the day, he fell into deep thought as he walked toward the village. As he reviewed the information he had received, he came more and more to adopt Agatha's cause as his own, and his spirit was fanned into the glow incident to the chase. He walked briskly over the country road, descended the steep hill, turning over the facts, as he knew them, in his mind. By the time he reached Charlesport, he regarded his honor as a gentleman involved in the capture of the Frenchman. His knowledge of the methods of legal prosecutions, even in his own country, was extremely hazy. He had never been in a situation, in his hitherto peaceful career, in which it had been necessary to appeal to the law, either on his own behalf or on that of his friends. Legal processes in America were even less known to him, but he was not daunted on that account. He remembered Sherlock Holmes and Raffles; he recalled Bill Sykes and Dubosc, dodging the operations of justice; and in that romantic chamber that lurks somewhere in every man's make-up, he felt that classic tradition had armed him with all the preparation necessary for heroic achievement. He, Chamberlain, was unexpectedly called upon to act as an agent of justice against chicanery and violence, and it was not in him to shirk the task. His labors, which, for the greater part of his life, had been expended in tracing the evolution of blind fish in inland caves, had not especially fitted him for dealing with the details of such a case as Agatha's; but they had left him eminently well equipped for discerning right principles and embracing them. Chamberlain's first move was to visit Big Simon, who directed him to the house of the justice of the peace, Israel Cady. Squire Cady, in his shirt-sleeves and wearing an old faded silk hat, was in his side yard endeavoring to coax the fruit down gently from a flourishing pear tree. "You wait just a minute, if you please, until I get these two plump pears down, and I'll be right there," he called courteously, without looking away from his long-handled wire scoop. Mr. Chamberlain strolled into the yard, and after watching Squire Cady's exertions for a minute or two, offered to wield the pole himself. "Takes a pru-uty steady hand to get those big ones off without bruising them," cautioned the squire. But Chamberlain's hand was steadiness itself, and his eyesight much keener than the old man's. The result was highly satisfactory. No less than a dozen ripe pears were twitched off, just in the nick of time, so far as the eater was concerned. "Well, thank you, sir; thank you," said Squire Cady. "That just goes to show what the younger generation can do. Now then, let's see. Got any pockets?" He picked out six of the best pears and piled them in Chamberlain's hands, then took off his rusty, old-fashioned hat and filled it with the rest of the fruit. Chamberlain carefully stowed his treasures into the wide pockets of his tweed suit. "Now, sir," Squire Cady said heartily, "we'll go into my office and attend to business. I'm not equal to Cincinnatus, whom they found plowing his field, but I can take care of my garden. Come in, sir, come in." Chamberlain followed the tall spare old figure into the house. The squire disappeared with his pears, leaving his visitor in the narrow hall; but he returned in a moment and led the way into his office. It was a large, rag-carpeted room, filled with all those worsted knickknacks which women make, and littered comfortably with books and papers. Squire Cady put on a flowered dressing-gown, drew a pair of spectacles out of a pocket, a bandana handkerchief from another, and requested Chamberlain to sit down and make himself at home. The two men sat facing each other near a tall secretary whose pigeonholes were stuffed with papers in all stages of the yellowing process. Squire Cady's face was yellowing, like his papers, and it was wrinkled and careworn; but his eyes were bright and humorous, and his voice pleasant. Chamberlain thought he liked him. "Come to get a marriage license?" the squire inquired. Chamberlain immediately decided that he didn't like him, but he foolishly blushed. "No, it's another sort of matter," he said stiffly, "Not a marriage license! All right, my boy," agreed Squire Cady. "'Tisn't the fashion to marry young nowadays, I know, though 'twas the fashion in my day. Not a wedding! What then?" Then Chamberlain set to work to tell his story. Placed, as it were, face to face with the law, he realized that he was but poorly equipped for carrying on actual proceedings, even though they might be against Belial himself; but he made a good front and persuaded Squire Cady that there was something to be done. The squire was visibly affected at the mention of the old red house, and fell into a revery, looking off toward the fields and tapping his spectacles on the desk. "Hercules Thayer and I read Latin together when we were boys," he said, turning to Chamberlain with a reminiscent smile on his old face. "And he licked me for liking Hannibal better than Scipio." He laughed heartily. The faces of the old sometimes become like pictured parchments, and seem to be lighted from within by a faint, steady gleam, almost more beautiful than the fire of youth. As Chamberlain looked, he decided once more, and finally, that he liked Squire Cady. "But I got even with Hercules on Horace," the squire went on, chuckling at his memories. "However," he sighed, as he turned toward his desk again, "this isn't getting out that warrant for you. We don't want any malefactors loose about Charlesport; but you'll have to be sure you know what you're doing. Do you know the man--can you identify him?" "I think I should know him; but in any case Miss Redmond at the old red house can identify him." "We don't want to arrest anybody till we're sure we know what we're about--that's poor law," said Squire Cady, in a pedagogical and squire-ish tone, as if Chamberlain were a mere boy. But the Englishman didn't mind that. "I think I can satisfy you that we've got the right man," he answered. "If I find him and bring him to the old red house this afternoon, so that Miss Redmond can identify him, will you have a sheriff ready to serve the warrant?" "Yes, I can do that." "Very well, then, and thank you, sir," said Chamberlain, moving toward the door. "And I'm keen on hearing how you got even with Mr. Thayer on the Horace." The light behind the squire's parchment face gleamed a moment. "Come back, my boy, when you've done your duty by the law. Every citizen should be a protector as well as a keeper of the law. So come again; the latch-string is always out." It was mid-morning before the details connected with the sheriff were completed. By this time Chamberlain's heavy but sound temperament had lifted itself to its task, gaining momentum as the hours went by. His next step was to search out the Frenchman. The meager information obtained the day before was to the effect that the marooned yacht-owner had taken refuge in one of the shacks near the granite docks in the upper part of the village. He had persuaded the caretaker of the Sailors' Reading-room to lend him money with which to telegraph to New York, as the telegraph operator had refused to trust him. It was not difficult to get on his trade, even though the village people were constitutionally reluctant to let any unnecessary information get away from them. A mile or so farther up the shore, beyond the road that ran like a scar across the hill to the granite quarry, Chamberlain came upon a saloon masquerading as a grocery store. A lodging house, a seaman's Bethel and the Reading-room were grouped near by; the telegraph office, too, had been placed at this end of the town; obviously for the convenience of the operators of the granite quarry. The settlement had the appearance of easy-going and pleasant industry peculiar to places where handwork is still the rule. Chamberlain applied first at the grocery store without getting satisfaction. The foreign looking boy, who was the only person visible, could give him no information about anything. But at the Reading-room the erstwhile yacht-owner was known. Borrowing money is a sure method of impressing one's personality. The Frenchman had been in the neighborhood two or three days, latterly becoming very impatient for a reply to his New York telegram. A good deal of money had been applied for, was the opinion of the money-lender. This person, caretaker and librarian, was a tall, ineffective individual, with eyes set wide apart. His slow speech was a mixture of Doctor Johnson and a judge in chancery. It was grandiloquent, and it often took long to reach the point. He informed Chamberlain, with some circumlocution, that the Frenchman had been extremely anxious over the telegram. "I tried to persuade him that it was useless to be impatient over such things," said he. "And I regret to say that the man allowed himself to become profane." "I dare say." "But it would appear that he has received his telegram by this time," continued the youth, "for it is now but a short time since he was summoned to the station." Chamberlain, thinking that the sooner he got to the telegraph station the better, was about to depart, when the placid tones of the librarian again casually broke the silence. "If I mistake not, the gentleman in question is even now hastening toward the village." He waved a vague hand toward the open door through which, a little distance away, a man's figure could be seen. "Why don't you run after him and get your money?" asked Chamberlain; but he didn't know the youth. "What good would that do?" was the surprising question, which Chamberlain could not answer. But the Englishman acted on a different principle. He thanked the judge in chancery and made after the Frenchman, who was casting a furtive eye in this and that direction, as if in doubt which way he ought to go. Nevertheless, he seemed bent on going, and not too slowly, either. The Englishman swung into the road, but did not endeavor to overtake the other. They were traveling toward the main village, along a road that more or less hugged the shore. Sometimes it topped a cliff that dropped precipitately into the water; and again it descended to a sandy level that was occasionally reached by the higher tides. Near the main village the road ascended a rather steep bluff, and at the top made a sudden turn toward the town. As Chamberlain approached this point, he yielded more and more to the beauty of the scene. The Bay of Charlesport, the rugged, curving outline of the coast beyond, the green islands, the glistening sea, the blue crystalline sky over all--it was a sight to remember. Not far from the land, at the near end of the harbor, was the _Sea Gull_, pulling at her mooring. A stone's throw beyond Chamberlain's feet, a small rocky tongue of land was prolonged by a stone breakwater, which sheltered the curved beach of the village from the rougher waves. Close up under the bluff on which he was standing, the waters of the bay churned and foamed against a steep rock-wall that shot downward to unknown depths. It was obviously a dangerous place, though the road was unguarded by fence or railing. Only a delicate fringe of goldenrod and low juniper bushes veiled the treacherous cliff edge. It was almost impossible for a traveler, unused to the region, to pass across the dizzy stretch of highway without a shuddering glance at the murderous waves below. On the crest of this cliff, each of the two men paused, one following the other at a little distance. The first man, however, paused merely for a few minutes' rest after the steep climb. Chamberlain, hardened to physical exertions, took the hill easily, but stood for a moment lost in speculative wonder at the scene. He kept a sharp eye on his leader, however; and presently the two men took up their Indian file again toward the village. Some distance farther on, the road forked, one spur leading up over the steep rugged hill, another dropping abruptly to the main village street and the wharves. A third branch ran low athwart the hill and led, finally, to the summer hotel where Chamberlain and the Reyniers had been staying. At this division of the road Chamberlain saw the other man ahead of him sitting on a stone. He approached him leisurely and assumed an air of business sagacity. "Good day, sir," said Chamberlain, planting himself solidly before the man on the stone. He was rather large, blond, pale and unkempt in appearance; but nevertheless he carried an air of insolent mockery, it seemed to Chamberlain. He glanced disgustedly at the Englishman, but did not reply. "Rather warm day," remarked Chamberlain pleasantly. No answer. The man sat with his head propped on his hands, unmistakably in a bad temper. "Want to buy some land?" inquired Chamberlain. "I'm selling off lots on this hill for summer cottages. Water front, dock privileges, and a guaranty that no one shall build where it will shut off your view. Terms reasonable. Like to buy?" "_Non_!" snarled the other. Chamberlain paused in his imaginative flight, and took two luscious yellow pears from his bulging pockets. "Have a pear?" he pleasantly offered. The man again looked up, as if tempted, but again ejaculated "_Non_!" Chamberlain leisurely took a satisfying bite. "I get tired myself," he went on, "tramping over these country roads. But it's the best way for me to do business. You don't happen to want a good hotel, do you?" Coarse fare and the discomforts of beggars' lodgings had told on the Frenchman's temper, as Chamberlain had surmised. He looked up with a show of human interest. Chamberlain went on. "There's a fine hotel, the Hillside, over yonder, only a mile or so away. Best place in all the region hereabouts; tip-topping set there, too. Count Somebody-or-Other from Germany, and no end of big-wigs; so of course they have a good cook." Chamberlain paused and finished his second pear. The man on the stone was furtive and uneasy, but masked his disquiet with the insolent sneering manner that had often served him well. Chamberlain, having once adopted the role of a garrulous traveling salesman, followed it up with zest. "Of course, a man can get a good meal, for that matter, at the Red House, a little way up yonder over the hill. But it wouldn't suit a man like you--a slow, poky place, with no style." The man on the stone slowly turned toward Chamberlain, and at last found voice for more than monosyllabic utterances. "I was looking for a hotel," he said, in correct English but with a foreign accent, "and I shall be glad to take your advice. The Hillside, you say, is in this direction?" and he pointed along the lower road. "Yes," heartily assented Chamberlain, "about two miles through those woods, and you won't make any mistake going there; it's a very good place." The man got up from the stone. "And the other inn you spoke of--where is that?" "The Red House? That's quite a long piece up over the hill--this way. Straight road; house stands near a church; kept by a country woman named Sallie. But the Hillside's the place for you; good style, everything neat and handsome. And fine people!" "Very well, thanks," cut in the other, in his sharp, rasping tones. "I shall go to the Hillside." He slid one hand into a pocket, as if to assure himself that he had not been robbed by sleight-of-hand during the interview, and then started on the road leading to the Hillside. Chamberlain said "Good day, sir," without expecting or getting an answer, and turned down the hill toward the village. As soon as he had dropped from sight, however, he walked casually into the thick bushes that lined the road, and from this ambush he took a careful survey of the hill behind him. Then he slowly and cautiously made his way back through the underbrush until he was again in sight of the cross-roads. Here, concealed behind a tree, he waited patiently some five or ten minutes. At the end of that time, Chamberlain's mild and kindly face lighted up with unholy joy. He opened his mouth and emitted a soundless "haw-haw." For there was his recent companion also returning to the cross-roads, taking a discreet look in the direction of the village as he came along. Seeing that the coast was clear, he turned and went rapidly up the road that led over the hill to the old red house. When Chamberlain saw that the man was well on his way he stepped into the road and solemnly danced three steps of a hornpipe, and the next instant started on a run toward the village. He got little Simon's horse and buggy, drove into the upper street and picked up the sheriff, and then trotted at a good rattling pace around by the long road toward Ilion. CHAPTER XX MONSIEUR CHATELARD TAKES THE WHEEL Sallie Kingsbury would have given up the ghost without more ado, had she known what secular and unministerial passions were converging about Parson Thayer's peaceful library. As it was, she had a distinct feeling that life wasn't as simple as it had been heretofore, and that there were puzzling problems to solve. She was almost certain that she had caught Mr. Hand using an oath; though when she charged him with it, he had said that he had been talking Spanish to himself--he always did when he was alone. Sallie didn't exactly know the answer to that, but told him that she hoped he would remember that she was a professor. "What's that?" inquired Hand. "It's a Christian in good and regular standing, and it's what you ought to be," said Sallie. And now that nice Mr. Chamberlain, whom she had fed in the early morning, had dashed up to the kitchen door behind Little Simon's best horse, deposited a man from Charlesport, and then had disappeared. The man had also unceremoniously left her kitchen. He might be a minister brought there to officiate at the church on the following Sabbath, Sallie surmised; but on second thought she dismissed the idea. He didn't look like any minister she had ever seen, and was very far indeed from the Parson Thayer type. Hercules Thayer's business, including his ministerial duties, had formed the basis and staple of Sallie's affectionate interest for seventeen years, and it wasn't her nature to give up that interest, now that the chief actor had stepped from the stage. So she speculated and wondered, while she did more than her share of the work. She picked radishes from the garden for supper, threw white screening over the imposing loaves of bread still cooling on the side table, and was sharpening a knife on a whetstone, preparatory to carving thin slices from a veal loaf that stood near by, when she was accosted by some one appearing suddenly in the doorway. "Is this the Red House?" It was a cool, sharp voice, sounding even more outlandish than Mr. Hand's. Sallie turned deliberately toward the door and surveyed the new-comer. "Well, yes; I guess so. But you don't need to scare the daylights outer me, that way." The stranger entered the kitchen and pulled out a chair from the table. "Give me something to eat and drink--the best you have, and be quick about it, too." Sallie paused, carving-knife in hand, looking at him with frank curiosity. "Well, I snum! You ain't the new minister either, now, are you?" The stranger made no answer. He had thrown himself into the chair, as if tired. Suddenly he sat up and looked around alertly, then at Sallie, who was returning his gaze with interest. "Where are you from, anyway?" she inquired. "We don't see people like you around these parts very often." "I dare say," he snarled. "Are you going to get me a meal, or must I tramp over these confounded hills all day before I can eat?" "Oh, I'll get you up a bite, if that's all you want. I never turned anybody away hungry from this door yet, and we've had many a worse looking tramp than you. I guess Miss Redmond won't mind." "Miss Redmond!" The stranger started to his feet, glowering on Sallie. "Look here! Is this place a hotel, or isn't it?" "Well, anybody'd think it was, the way I've been driven from pillar to post for the last ten days! But you can stay; I'll get you a meal, and a good one, too." Sallie's good nature was rewarded by a convulsion of anger on the part of the guest. "Fool! Idiot!" he screamed. "You trick me in here! You lie to me!" "Oh, set down, set down!" interrupted Sallie. "You don't need to get so het up as all that! I'll get you something to eat. There ain't any hotel within five miles of here--and a poor one at that!" Thus protesting and attempting to soothe, Sallie saw the stranger make a grab for his hat and start for the door, only to find it suddenly shut and locked in his face. Mr. Chamberlain, moreover, was on the inside, facing the foreigner. "If you will step through the house and go out the other way," Mr. Chamberlain remarked coolly, "it will oblige me. My horse is loose in the yard, and I'm afraid you'll scare him off. He's shy with strangers." The two men measured glances. "I thought you traveled afoot when pursuing your real estate business," sneered the stranger. "I do, when it suits my purposes," replied Chamberlain. "What game are you up to, anyway, in this disgusting country?" inquired the other. "Ridding it of rascals. This way, please;" and Chamberlain pointed before him toward the door leading into the hall. As the stranger turned, his glance fell on Sallie, still carving her veal loaf. "Idiot!" he said disgustedly. "Well, I haven't been caught yet, anyhow," said Sallie grimly. Chamberlain's voice interrupted her. "This way, and then the first door on the right. Make haste, if you please, Monsieur Chatelard." At the name, the stranger turned, standing at bay, but Chamberlain was at his heels. "You see, I know your name. It was supplied me at the Reading-room. Here--on the right--quickly!" The hall was dim, almost dark, the only light coming from the open doorway on the right. Whether he wished or no, Monsieur Chatelard was forced to advance into the range of the doorway; and once there, he found himself pushed unceremoniously into the room. It was a large, cool room, lined with bookcases. Near the middle stood an oblong table covered with green felt and supporting an old brass lamp. Four people were in the room, besides the two new-comers. Aleck Van Camp was on a low step-ladder, just in the act of handing down a book from the top shelf. Near the step-ladder two women were standing, with their backs toward the door. Both were in white, both were tall, and both had abundant dark hair. One of the French windows leading out on to the porch was open, and just within the sill stood the man from Charlesport. "Here's a wonderful book--a rare one--the record of that famous Latin controversy," Aleck was saying, when he became conscious of the entrance of Chamberlain and a stranger. "Ah, hello, Chamberlain, that you?" he cried. Agatha and Mélanie, turning suddenly to greet Chamberlain, simultaneously encountered the gimlet-gaze of Chatelard. It was fixed first on Mélanie, then on Agatha, then returned to Mélanie with an added increment of rage and bafflement. But he was first to find tongue. "So!" he sneered. "I find you after all, Princess Auguste Stéphanie of Krolvetz! Consorting with these--these swine!" Mélanie looked at him keenly, with hesitating suspicions. "Ah! Duke Stephen's cat's-paw! I remember you--well!" But before the words were fairly out of her mouth, Agatha's voice had cut in: "Mr. Van Camp, that is he! That is he! The man on the _Jeanne D'Arc_!" "We thought as much," answered Chamberlain. "That's why he is here." "We only wanted your confirmation of his identity," said the man who had been standing by the window, as he came forward. "Monsieur Chatelard, you are to come with me. I am the sheriff of Charlesport County, and have a warrant for your arrest." As the sheriff advanced toward Chatelard, the cornered man turned on him with a sound that was half hiss, half an oath. He was like a panther standing at bay. Aleck turned toward Mélanie. "It seems that you know this man, Mélanie?" "Yes, I know him--to my sorrow." "What do you know of him?" "He is the paid spy of the Duke Stephen, my cousin. He does all his dirty work." Mélanie laughed a bit nervously as she added, turning to Chatelard: "But you are the last man I expected to see here. I suppose you are come from my excellent cousin to find me, eh? Is that the case?" Chatelard's eyes, resting on her, burned with hate. "Yes, your Highness. I am the humble bearer of a message from Duke Stephen to yourself." "And that message is--?" "A command for your immediate return to Krolvetz. Matters of importance await you there." "And if I refuse to return?" Chatelard's shoulders went up and his hands spread out in that insolent gesture affected by certain Europeans. Chamberlain stepped forward impatiently. "Look here, you people," he began, "you told me this chap was a bloomin' kidnapper, and so I rounded him up--I nabbed him. And here you are exchangin' howdy-do. What's the meaning of it all?" As he spoke, Chamberlain's eyes rested first on Mélanie, then on Agatha, whom he had not seen before. "By Jove!" he ejaculated. "Whom did he kidnap?" questioned Mélanie. "Why, _me_, Miss Reynier," cried Agatha. "He stole my car and drugged me and got me into his yacht--Heaven knows why!" "Kidnapped! You!" cried Mélanie. "Just so," agreed Aleck. "And now I see why--you scoundrel!" He turned upon Chatelard with contemptuous fury. "For once you were caught, eh? These ladies _are_ much alike--that is true. So much so that I myself was taken aback the first time I saw Miss Redmond. You thought Miss Redmond was the princess--masquerading as an opera singer." "Her Highness has always been admired as a singer!" cut in Chatelard. "No doubt! And even you were deceived!" Aleck laughed in derision. "But when you take so serious a step as an abduction, my dear man, be sure you get hold of the right victim." "She was even singing the very song that used to be a favorite of her Highness!" remarked Chatelard. "Your memory serves you too well." But Chatelard turned scoffingly toward Agatha. "You sang it well, Mademoiselle, very well. And, as this gentleman asserts, you deceived even me. But you are indiscreet to walk unattended in the park." Agatha, unnerved and weak, had grown pale with fear. "Don't talk with him, Mr. Van Camp, he is dangerous. Get him away," she pleaded. "True, Miss Redmond. We only waste time. Sheriff--" Again the sheriff advanced toward Chatelard, and again he was warned off with a hissing oath. At the same moment a shadow fell within the other doorway. As Chatelard's glance rested on the figure standing there, his face gleamed. He pointed an accusing forefinger. "There is the abductor, if any such person is present at all," said he. "That is the man who stole the lady's car and ran it to the dock. He is your man, Mister Sheriff, not I." The accusation came with such a tone of conviction on the part of the speaker, that for an instant it confused the mind of every one present. In the pause that followed, Chatelard turned with an insolent shrug toward Agatha. "This lady--" and every word had a sneer in it--"this lady will testify that I am right." Agatha stared with a face of alarm toward the doorway, where Hand stood silent. "If that is true, Miss Redmond," began the sheriff. "No--no!" cried Agatha. "He had nothing to do with it?" questioned the sheriff. As he waited for her answer, Agatha suddenly came to herself. Her trembling ceased; she looked about upon them all with her truthful eyes; looked upon Hand standing unconcernedly in the doorway, upon Chatelard in the corner gleaming like an oily devil. "No--he had nothing to do with it," she said. Chatelard's laugh beat back her words like a bludgeon. "Liars, all liars!" he cried. "I might have known!" But Chamberlain was impatient of all this. "And now, Monsieur Kidnapper, you can walk off with this gentleman here. And you can't go one minute too soon. The penitentiary's the place for you." Chatelard turned on him with another laugh. "You need not feel obliged to hold on to me, Mister Land-Agent. I know when I'm beaten--which you Englishmen never do. Got another of those pears you offered me this morning?" Before Chamberlain could make reply, or before the sheriff and his prisoner could get to the door, there was the chug of an automobile. A second later urgent and loud voices penetrated the room, first from the steps, then from the hall. One was the hearty voice of a man, the other was Lizzie's. "Can't see her! Tell me I can't see her after I've run a hundred miles a day into the jungle on purpose to see her! The idea! Where is she? In here?" And in stalked Mr. Straker, with cap, linen duster, and high gaitered boots. He was pulling off his goggles. "Well, what's this? A family party? Where's Miss Redmond?" "Mr. Straker--" cried Agatha. "That's me! Oh, there you are! Why don't you open up and get some light? I can't see a thing." "Wait a minute, Mr. Straker--" Agatha was saying, when suddenly the attention of everybody in the room was drawn outside. When Chamberlain had told Chatelard that his horse was loose in the yard, it happened to be the truth; now, excited by fear of the strange machine that had just arrived, the horse, with flying bridle-rein, was snorting and prancing on his way to the vegetable garden. It was almost beyond masculine power to resist the impulse of pursuit. Aleck and Chamberlain sprang through the window, the sheriff went as far as the lawn after them, and in that instant Chatelard slipped like an eel through the open door and out to the gate to Straker's machine, still chugging. The sheriff saw him as he jumped in. "Hey, there!" he shouted, and made a lively run for the gate. But before he reached it, Chatelard had jerked open the lever, loosened the brake, and was passing the church at half speed. "Hey, there, quick!" called the sheriff. "He's got away!" But Mr. Hand had already thought what was best to be done. "Come on, here's another machine. We'll chase him!" he cried, as he went for the white motorcar, standing farther back under the trees. It had to be cranked, which required some seconds, but presently they were off--Hand and the sheriff, in hot pursuit after Straker's car. Chamberlain and Aleck, triumphantly leading the horse, came back in time to see the settling cloud of dust. "Mr. Chamberlain--Mr. Van Camp!" cried Agatha. "They've gone! They've got away!" "Who's got away?" demanded Chamberlain. "All of them!" groaned Agatha, as she sank down on the piazza steps. "Jimminy Christmas!" ejaculated Mr. Straker. "This beats any ten-twenty-thirty I ever saw. Regular Dick Deadwood game! And he's run off with my new racer!" "What!" yelled Chamberlain. "Did that bloomin' sheriff let that bloomin' rascal get away?" "He isn't anybody I'd care to keep!" chuckled Straker. "But you know that new racer's worth something." "Did Chatelard go off in that machine?" again inquired Chamberlain slowly and distinctly of the two women. "Precisely," said Mélanie, while Agatha's bowed head nodded. "By Jove, that sheriff's a duffer! Here, Van, give me the horse." And with the words Chamberlain grabbed Little Simon's best roadster, mounted him bareback, and turned his head up the road. "I'll catch him yet!" he yelled back. But he didn't. Three miles farther along he came upon the wreck. The racer was lying on its side in a ditch which recent rains had converted into a substantial volume of mire and mud. The white machine was drawn cosily up under a spreading hemlock farther on, but Mr. Hand and the sheriff were nowhere in sight. As Chamberlain stopped to gaze on the overturned car, he heard the crashing of underbrush in the woods near by. The steps came nearer. It was evident the chase was up; they were off the scent and obliged to return. "Humph!" grunted Chamberlain, and for once the clear springs of his disposition were made turbid with satire. "We're all a pack of bloomin' asses--that's what we are. What in hell's the matter with us!" While he was tying the horse to a tree, Hand appeared, silent, with an unfathomable disgust written on his countenance. As usual, he who was the least to blame came in for the hottest of the censure; and yet, there was a sort of fellowship indicated by Chamberlain's extraordinary arraignment of them both. He was scarcely known ever to have been profane, but at this moment he searched for wicked words and interspersed his speech with them recklessly, if not with skill. It is the duty of the historian to expurgate. "I don't know just how you happen to be in this game," pronounced Chamberlain hotly, "but all I've got to say is you're an ass--an infernal ass." Hand, rolling up his sleeves, remained silent. "I suppose if you'd had a perfectly good million-dollar bank-note, you'd have let it blow away--piff! right out of your hands!" he fumed. "Or the title deed to Mount Olympus--or a ticket to a front seat in the New Jerusalem. That's all it amounts to. Catch an eel, only to let him slip through your fingers--eh, you!" Mr. Hand made no answer. Instead, he waded into the ditch-stream and placed a shoulder under the racing-car. Chamberlain's instinct for doing his share of work caused him to roll up his trousers and wade in, shoulder to shoulder with Hand, even while he was lecturing on the feebleness of man's wits. "Good horse running loose into barb-wire fences had to be caught, but it didn't need a squadron of men and a forty-acre lot to do it in. Might have known he'd give us the slip if he could--biggest rascal in Europe!" And so on. Chamberlain, usually rather a silent man, blew himself empty for once, conscious all the time that he, himself, was quite as much to blame as Hand could possibly have been. And Hand knew that he knew, but kept his counsel. Hand ought to be prime minister by this time. When the racing-car was righted, he went swiftly and skilfully to work investigating the damage and putting the machine in order, as far as possible. Chamberlain presently became impressed with his mechanical dexterity. "By Jove, you can see into her, can't you!" Hand continued silent, and left it to his companion to put on the finishing verbal touches. "Tow her home and fill her up and she'll be all right, eh?" said Chamberlain, but Hand kept on tinkering. The sudden neighing and plunging of Little Simon's poor tormented horse gave warning of the sheriff, crashing from the underbrush directly into the road. He was voluble with excuses. The fugitive had escaped, leaving no traces of his flight. He might be in the woods, or he might have run to the railroad track and caught the freight that had just slowly passed. He might be in the next township, or he might be-- "Oh, go to thunder!" said Chamberlain. CHAPTER XXI JIMMY REDIVIVUS If the occupants of the old red house felt over-much inclined to draw a long breath and rest on their oars after their anxiety and recent excitement, Agatha's manager was able to supply a powerful antidote. He was restlessness incarnate. He was combining a belated summer holiday with what he considered to be good business, "seeing" not only his prima donna secluded at Ilion, but other important people all the way from Portland to Halifax. When he heard that the man who ran off with his racing-car was also responsible for the mysterious departure of Miss Redmond, his excitement was great. "You mean to say that you were picked up and drugged in broad daylight in New York?" he demanded of Agatha. "Practically that." "And you escaped?" "The yacht foundered." "And that scamp walked right into your hands and you let him go?" Agatha forced a rueful smile. "I confess I'm not much used to catching criminals." Mr. Straker paused, lacking words to express his outraged spirit "I don't mean you, of course. This whole outfit here--what are they doing? Think they're put on in a walking part, eh? Don't they know enough to go in out of the rain?" Getting no reply to his fuming, he came down from his high horse, curiosity impelling. "What'd he kidnap you for--ransom?" "No. It seems that he mistook me for Miss Reynier--the lady out there on the lawn talking with Mr. Van Camp." Mr. Straker bent his intent gaze out of the window. "I don't see any resemblance at all." His crusty manner implied that Agatha, or somebody, was to blame for all the coil of trouble, and should be made to pay for it. "Even I was puzzled," smiled Agatha. "I thought she was some one I knew." "Nonsense!" growled Mr. Straker. "Anybody with two eyes could see the difference. She's older, and heavier. What did the scoundrel want with her?" "I don't know. She's a princess or something." Mr. Straker jumped. "She is!" he cried. "Lord, why didn't you tell me?" "I'm trying to." "Advertising!" he shouted joyfully. "Jimminy Christmas! We'll make it up--all this time lost. Princess who? Where from? I guess you do look like her, after all. I see it all now--head-lines! 'Strange confusion of identity! Which is the princess?' It'll draw crowds--thousands." Agatha escaped, leaving Mr. Straker to collect from others the details of his advertising story, which he did with surprising speed and accuracy. By the next morning he had pumped Sallie, Doctor Thayer and Aleck Van Camp, and had extracted the promise of an interview from Miss Reynier herself. The only really unsatisfactory subject of investigation was Mr. Hand, whom Straker watched for a day or two with growing suspicion. Straker had sputtered, good-naturedly enough, over the "accident" to his racing-car, and had taken it for granted, in rather a high-handed manner, that Mr. Hand was to make repairs. His manner toward the chauffeur was not pleasant, being a combination of the patron and the bully. It was exactly the sort of manner to precipitate civil war, though diplomacy might serve to cover the breach for a time. But the racing-car, ignominiously towed home by Miss Reynier's white machine, stood undisturbed in one of the open carriage sheds by the church. Eluded by Hand for the space of twenty-four hours, and finding that the injury to the car was far beyond his own mechanical skill to repair, Mr. Straker sent peremptory word to Charlesport and to the Hillside for the services of a mechanician, without satisfaction. Little Simon thought the matter was beyond him, but informed Mr. Straker that perhaps the engineer at the quarry--a native who had "been to Boston" and qualified as chauffeur--would come and look at it. "Then for Heaven's sake, Colonel, get him to come and be quick about it," adjured Mr. Straker. "And tell him for me that there's a long-yellow for him if he'll make the thing right." "He'll charge you two dollars an hour, including time on the road," solemnly announced Little Simon, unimpressed by any mention of the long-yellow. Had Little Simon "liked," he could probably have mended the car himself, but Mr. Straker's manner, so effective on Broadway, was not to the taste of these country people. He thought of them in their poverty as "peasants," but without the kindliness of the born gentleman. What Aleck Van Camp could have got for love, Mr. Straker could not buy; and he was at last obliged to appeal to Hand through Agatha's agency. "I'll look at it again," Hand replied shortly, when Agatha addressed him on the subject. The car being temporarily out of commission, it was necessary for Mr. Straker to adopt some other means of making himself and everybody about him extremely busy. He took a fancy for yachting, and got himself diligently instructed in an art which, of all arts, must be absorbed with the mother's milk, taken with the three R's and followed with enthusiastic devotion. In Mr. Straker every qualification for seamanship was lacking save enthusiasm, but as he himself never discovered this fact, his _amour propre_ did not suffer, and his companions were partly relieved of the burden of his entertainment. Presently he made up his mind that it was time for him to see Jimmy. His nose, trained for scenting news, led him inevitably to the chief actor in the unusual drama which had indirectly involved his own fortunes, and he saw no reason why he should not follow it at once. "You'd better wait a while," cautioned Doctor Thayer. "That young man pumped his heart dry as a seed-pod, and got some fever germs on top of that. He isn't fit to stand the third degree just yet." "I'm not going to give him any third degree, not a bit of it. 'Hero! Saved a Princess!' and all that. That's what's coming to him as soon as the newspapers get hold of it. But I want to know how he did it, and what he did it for. Tell him to buck up." Jimmy did buck up, though Mr. Straker's message still remains to be delivered. He gathered his forces and exhibited such recuperative abilities as to astonish the old red house and all Ilion. Doctor Thayer and each of his nurses in turn unconsciously assumed credit for the good work, and Sallie Kingsbury took a good share of pride in his satisfactory recovery. "Two aigs regular," she would say, with all a housekeeper's glory in her guests' enjoyment of food. There was enough credit to go round, indeed, and Jimmy presently became the animated and interesting center of the family. He might have been a new baby and his bedroom the sacred nursery. He was being spoiled every hour of the day. "Did he have a good night?" Agatha would anxiously inquire of Mr. Hand. "Can't tell which is night; he sleeps all the time," would be the tenor of Mr. Hand's reply. Or Sallie would ask, as if her fate depended on the answer, "Did he eat that nice piece er chicken, Aunt Susan?" And Mrs. Stoddard would say, "Eat it! It disappeared so quick I thought he'd choke. Wanted three more just like it, but I told him that invalids were like puppy-dogs--could only have one meal a day." "Well, how'd he take that?" asked the interested Sallie. "He said if I thought he was an invalid any longer I had another guess coming. Says he'll be up and into his clothes by to-morrow, and is going to _take care of me_. Says I'm pale and need a highball, whatever that is." "Never heard of it," said Sallie. "He's a good young man, if he did get pitched overboard," went on Mrs. Stoddard. "But he doesn't need me any more, and I guess I'll be going along home." "I don't know but what the rest of us need you," complained Sallie. "It's more of a Sunday-school picnic here than you'd think, what with a New York press agent and a princess, to say nothing of that Mr. Hand." "He certainly knows how to manage a sick man," said Susan. "He don't talk like a Christian," said Sallie. Mrs. Stoddard made her way to Agatha in the cool chamber at the head of the stairs. Agatha, in a dressing-sack, with her hair down, called her in and sent Lizzie away. "You're not going, are you, Mrs. Stoddard?" She took Susan's two hands and held them lovingly against her cheek. "It won't seem right here, without you." "You've done your duty, Agatha, and I've done mine, as I saw it. I'm not needed here any more, but I'll send Angie over to help Sallie with the work, after I get the crab-apples picked." Agatha held Mrs. Stoddard's hands closely. "Ah, you have been good to us!" "There is none good but One," quoted Mrs. Stoddard; nevertheless her eyes were moist with feeling. "You'll stay on in the old red house?" "I don't know; probably not for long. But I almost wish I could." "I've learned a sight by you, Agatha. I want you to know that," said Susan, struggling with her reticence and her impulse toward confession. "Oh, don't say that to me, Mrs. Stoddard. I can only remember how good you've been to us all." But Susan would not be denied. "I thought you were proud and vain and--and worldly, Agatha. And I treated you harsh, I know." "No, no. Whatever you thought, it's all past now, and you are my friend. You'll help me to take care of this dear old place--yes?" "The Lord will establish the work of your hands, my child!" She suddenly turned with one of her practical ideas. "I wouldn't let that new city man in to see Mr. Hambleton just yet, if I were you." "Is Mr. Straker trying to get in to see Mr. Hambleton?" "Knocked at the door twice this morning, and I told him he couldn't come in. 'Why not?' said he. 'Danger of fever,' said I. Then Mr. Hambleton asked me who was there, and I said, 'I don't exactly know, but it's either Miss Redmond's maid's beau or a press agent,' and then Mr. Hambleton called out, as quick and strong as anybody, 'Go 'way! I think I've got smallpox.' And he went off, quicker'n a wink, and hasn't been back since." Mrs. Stoddard's grim old face wrinkled in a humorous smile. "I guess he'll get over his smallpox scare, but Mr. Hambleton don't want to see him, not yet. He wants to see you." "I'm going in to see him soon, anyway," said Agatha. But still she waited a little before going in for her morning visit with James. It meant so much to her! It wasn't to be taken lightly and casually, but with a little pomp and ceremony. Each day since the night of the crisis she had paid her morning call, and each day she had seen new lights in Jimmy's eyes. In vain had she been matter-of-fact and practical, treating him as an invalid whose vagaries should be indulged even though they were of no importance. He would not accept her on those terms. Back of his weakness had been a strength, more and more perceptible each day, touching her with the sweetest flattery woman ever receives. It was the strength of a lover's spirit, looking out at her from his eyes and speaking to her in every inflection of his voice. Moreover, while he stoutly and continuously denied his fever-sickness, he took no trouble to conceal this other malady. As soon as he could speak distinctly he proclaimed his spiritual madness, though nobody but Agatha, and possibly Mrs. Stoddard, quite understood. "I'm not sick; don't be an idiot, Hand. And give me a shave, for Heaven's sake. Anybody can get knocked on the head--that's all the matter with me. Give me some clothes and you'll see." Even Hand had to give in quickly. Jimmy's resilience passed all expectations. He came up like a rubber ball; and now, on a fine September morning, he was getting shaved and clothed in one of Aleck's suits. Finally he was propped up in an easy chair by a window overlooking the towering elm tree and the white church. "Er--Andy--couldn't you get me some kind of a tie? This soft shirt business doesn't look very fit, does it, without a tie?" coaxed Jim. "If you ask me, I say you look fine." "Where'd you get all your good clothes, I'd like to know?" inquired Jim sternly, looking at Hand's immaculate linen. "Miss Sallie washes 'em after I go to bed in the morning," confessed Hand. "Oh, she does, does she!" jeered Jimmy. "Well, you'll have to go to bed at night, like other folks, now. And then what'll you do?" "I guess Miss Sallie'll have to sit up nights," modestly suggested Hand, when a slipper struck him in the back. "Good shot! What d'you want now--an opera hat?" he inquired derisively. "Andy!" ejaculated Jim, dismay settling on his features. "I've just thought! Do you s'pose I'm paying hotel bills all this time at The Larue?" Hand grinned unsympathetically. "If you engaged a room, sir, and didn't give it up, I believe it's the custom--" "That'll do for now, Handy Andy, if you can't get up any better answer than that. Lord, what's that!" Jim suddenly exclaimed, as if he hadn't been waiting, all ears, for that very step in the passage. "I guess likely that'll be Miss Redmond," replied the respectful Hand. And so it was. Agatha, fresh as the morning, stood in the doorway for a contemplative moment, before coming forward to take Jim's outstretched hand. "Samson--shorn!" she exclaimed gaily. "I hardly know you, all fixed up like this." "Oh, I look much better than this when I'm really dressed up, you know," Jim asserted. Agatha patted his knuckles indulgently, looked at the thinness and whiteness of the hand, and shook her head. "Not gaining enough yet," she said. "That isn't the right color for a hand." "It needs to be held longer." "Oh, no, it needs more quiet. Fewer visitors, no talking, and plenty of fresh milk and eggs." Jimmy almost stamped his foot. "Down with eggs!" he cried. "And milk, too. I'm going to institute a mutiny. Excuse me, I know I'm visiting and ought to be polite, but no more invalid's food for me. Handy Andy and I are going out to kill a moose and eat it--eh, Andy?" But Hand was gone. Agatha sat down in a big rocker at the other window. "In that case," she said demurely, "we'll all have to be thinking of Lynn and New York and work." Jim shamelessly turned feather. "Oh, no," he cried. "I'm very ill. I'm not able to go to Lynn. Besides, my time isn't up yet. This is my vacation." He looked up smiling into Agatha's face, ingenuous as a boy of seven. "Do you always take such--such venturesome holidays?" she asked. "I never took any before; at least, not what I call holidays," he said. "If you don't come over here and sit near me, I shall get up and go over to you. And Andy says I'm very wobbly on my legs. I might by accident drop into your lap." Agatha pushed her chair over toward James, and before she could sit down he had drawn it still closer to his own. "The doctor says my hand has to be held!" he assured her, as he got firm hold of hers. "For shame!" she cried. "Mustn't tell fibs." "Tell me," he begged, "is this your house, really'n truly?" It brought, as he knew it would, her ready smile. "Yep," she nodded. "And is that your tree out there?" "Yep." "Ah!" he sighed. "It's great! It's Paradise. I've dreamed of just such a heavenly place. And Andy says we've been here two weeks." "Yes--and a little more." "My holiday half gone!" His mood suddenly changed from its jocund and boyish manner, and he turned earnestly toward Agatha. "I don't know, dear girl, all that has happened since that night--with you--on the water. Hand shuts me off most villainously. But I know it's Heaven being here, with Aleck and every one so good to me, and you! You've come back, somehow, like a reality from my dreams. I watch for you. You're all I think of, whether I'm awake or asleep." Agatha earnestly regarded his frank face, with its laughing, true eyes. "Jimmy," she said--he had begged her to call him that--"it seems as if I, too, had known you a long time. More than these little two weeks." "It is more; you said so," put in Jim. "Yes; a little more. And if it hadn't been for you, I shouldn't be here, or anywhere. I often think of that." "You see!" he cried. "I had to have you, even if I followed you half-way round the globe; even if I had to jump into the sea. Kismet--you can't escape me!" But Agatha was only half smiling. "No," she protested, "it is not that. I owe--" Jim put his fingers on her lips. "Tut, tut! Dear girl, you owe nothing, except to your own courage and good swimming. But as for me, why, you know I'm yours." "James," Agatha could not help preaching a bit, "just because we happen to be the actors in an adventure is no reason, no real reason, why we should be silly about each other. We don't have to end the story that way." "Oh, don't we! We'll see!" shouted Jim. "And I'm not silly, if some other people are. I don't see why I should be cheated out of a perfectly good climax, if you put it that way, any more than the next fellow. Agatha, dearest--" But she wouldn't listen to him. "No, no," she protested, slowly but earnestly. "Look here, Mr. James Hambleton, of Lynn! I promise to do anything, or everything, that you honestly want, after you get well. I'll listen to you then. But I'm not going to let a man who is just out of a delirium make love to me." "But I'm not just out. I only had a whack on the head, and that's nothing. I'm strong as an ox. I'm saner than anybody. Do listen to me, Agatha." "No--no, I mustn't." "But tell me, dear. You're free? You're not--" he searched for the word that suited his mood--"you're not plighted?" She smiled. "No, I'm not plighted." "Ah!" he chortled, and seized both her hands, putting them to his lips. She stood over him, looking down tenderly. [Illustration: She stood over him, looking down tenderly.] "Time for your broth, Mr. Hambleton, and Mr. Straker wants to know if he can see you," interrupted Mr. Hand. "Can't see him, Andy. I'm very busy," began Jim; then added, "By the way, who is Mr. Straker?" "Tell him he may come in for a few minutes, Mr. Hand," directed Agatha. Presently the manager was being introduced in the properest manner to the invalid. Agatha, knowing James would need protection from quizzing, stayed by. "Now, tell me," wheedled Mr. Straker, "the whole story just exactly as it happened to you, please. It's very important that I should know all the details." So Jimmy, aided now and then by Agatha, delivered a Straker-ized version of the wreck and the arrival at Ilion. "But before that," questioned the manager. "How did you happen to be on the _Jeanne D'Arc_?" For the first time James hesitated. Not even Agatha knew that part of the story. "I was picked up by the _Jeanne D'Arc_ in New York harbor," he replied slowly. Mr. Straker frowned. "How--picked up?" "Out of the water." "What were you in the water for?" "I had just dropped off a tug." "What for?" "Because I wanted the yacht to pick me up." At this point Mr. Straker directed a commiserating look at Agatha. It said "Crazy" as plain as words. "What were you on the tug for?" "I had followed the yacht." "What for?" The pause before James's next answer was apparent. When it came, there came with it that same seven-year-old look of smiling ingenuousness. "I just wanted to see what they were going to do with Miss Redmond." "Jimminy Christmas!" exploded Mr. Straker. "Any more kinks in this story? How'd you know they'd stolen Miss Redmond?" And so Jimmy had to tell it all, with the abominable Straker growing more and more excited every minute, and Agatha standing mute and awe-struck, looking at him. It was plain that Jimmy, for the moment, had the upper hand. "And that's about all!" he laughed. "What on earth, man, is the matter with you?" fumed Straker. "Didn't you know there were a hundred chances to one the yacht wouldn't pick you up?" Jimmy nodded, unabashed. "One chance is good enough for me. Nothing can kill me this trip, I tell you. I'm good for anything. Lucky star's over me. I knew it all the time." Straker turned a disgusted face toward Agatha. "He's crazy as a loon! Isn't he?" he questioned glumly. But Jimmy knew his man. "No, not crazy, Mr. Straker. Only a touch o' sun! And it's glorious, isn't it, Miss Redmond?" She loved him for his boyish laughter, for the rollicking spirit in his voice, but her eyes suddenly filled as she pondered the meaning back of his extraordinary story. With Mr. Straker gone at last, it was she who came to Jim with outstretched hands. "You mean you heard me call for help, there on the hill?" "Yep," he answered, suddenly sheepish. "And you followed to rescue me if you could?" "Yep--of course." "Ah, James! Why did you do it?" Jim's small-boy expression beamed from his eyes. "I followed the Voice and the Face--as I told you once before. Don't you remember?" "I remember. But why?" His seven-year-old mood was suddenly touched with poetic dignity. "I could naught else," he said, looking into her face. It was all tenderness; and she did not resist when he drew her gently down, till her lips touched his. CHAPTER XXII A MAN OF NO PRINCIPLE Monsieur Chatelard's disappearance was as complete as though he had dropped off the earth. The sheriff, with his warrant in his pocket, hid his chagrin behind the sugar and flour barrels whose sale occupied his time when he wasn't losing malefactors. Chamberlain, having once freed his mind to the grave-like Hand, maintained absolute silence on the subject, so far as the audience at the old red house was concerned. But he went into consultation with Aleck, and together they laid a network of police inspection about Ilion and Charlesport. "It won't do any good," grumbled Chamberlain. "We'll have to catch him and choke him with our own hands, if it ever gets done." Nevertheless, they left nothing to chance. Telegraph and telephone were brought into requisition, and within twenty-four hours after the disappearance every station on the railroad, as well as every village along the coast, was warned to arrest the fugitive if he came that way. Mr. Chamberlain took the white motor and went off on long, mysterious journeys, coming back only to go into secret conclave with Aleck, or mysteriously to rush off again. Aleck Van Camp stayed at home, keeping a dog-watch on Mélanie and Madame Reynier, whether they were at the Hillside or at the old red house. Now that the purposes of the Frenchman had been made clear, and since he was still at large, the world was no safe place for unattended women. Aleck pondered deeply over the situation. "Is your amiable cousin's henchman a man to be scared off by our recent little encounter, do you think?" he asked of Mélanie. She considered. "He might be scared, easily enough. But I know well that he has a contempt for the usual machinery of the law. He has evaded it so many times that he thinks it an easy matter." Aleck smiled whimsically. "I don't wonder at that, if he has had many experiences like the last." "He boasts that he can bribe anybody." "Ah, so! But how much rope would the duke give him, do you think, on a pinch?" "All the rope he cares to take. Stephen's protection is all-powerful in Krolvetz; and elsewhere Chatelard depends, as I have said, on his wits." "But there must be some limit to the duke's stretch of conscience!" Mélanie's eyes took on their far-away look. "Perhaps there is," she said at last, "but who can guess where that limit is? Besides, all he asks of his henchmen is results. He never inquires as to methods." "Well, what do you think is the exact result Duke Stephen wants, in this case?" "He wants me either to return to Krolvetz and marry his brother, or--" Mélanie's hesitation was prolonged. "Or--what?' "Or to disappear so completely that there will be no question of my return. You see, it's a peculiar case. If I marry without his consent--" "Which you are about to do--" cut in Aleck. "I simply forfeit my estates and they go into the public treasury, where they will be strictly accounted for. But if I marry Lorenzo--" "Which is impossible--" "Then the money goes into the family, of course, as my dot. Or--or, if I should die--in that case Stephen inherits the money. And there is no doubt but that Stephen needs money." Aleck pondered for several minutes, while grave shadows threatened his face. But presently his smiling, unquenchable good temper came to the surface, and he gleefully tucked Mélanie's hand under his arm. "As I said before, you need a husband very badly." "Oh, I don't know," she laughed. The result of Aleck's moment of grave thought came a few days later, with the arrival of two quietly-dressed, unostentatious men. He told Mélanie that one man was her chauffeur for the white machine, and the other was an extra hand he had engaged for the return trip on the _Sea Gull_. The chauffeur, however, for one reason or another, rarely took the wheel, and could have been seen walking at a distance behind Mélanie whenever she stirred abroad. The extra hand for the _Sea Gull_ did just the same as the chauffeur. From the day of the arrival of the manager, Mr. Hand's rather mysterious but friendly temper underwent a change for the worse. He not only continued silent, which might easily be counted a virtue, but he became almost sulky, which could only be called a crime. There was no bantering with Sallie in the kitchen, scarcely a friendly smile for Agatha herself. Mr. Hand was markedly out of sorts. On the morning following Mr. Straker's request that Hand should repair the car, the manager found him tinkering in the carriage shed near the church. The car was jacked up on a horse-block, while one wheel lay near the road. Mr. Hand was as grimy and oily as the law allows, working over the machinery with a sort of vicious earnestness. Mr. Straker hovered around for a few moments, then addressed Hand in that tone of pseudo-geniality that marks a certain type of politician. "Look here, Colonel, I understand you were in the employ of that French anarchist." It was an unlucky moment for attack, though Mr. Straker did not at once perceive it. Hand carefully wiped the oil from a neat ring of metal, slid down on his back under the car and screwed on a nut. As Mr. Straker, hands in pockets and feet wide apart, watched the mechanician, there came through the silence and the sweet air the sound of thrushes calling from the wood beyond. Mr. Straker craned his head to look out at the church, then at the low stone wall, as if he expected to see the songsters performing on a stage before a row of footlights. He turned back to Mr. Hand. "That's right, is it? You worked for the slippery Mounseer?" "Uh-m," Hand grumbled, with a screw in his mouth. "Something like that." "What'd you do?" "I've found where she was wrenched in the turn-over. Got to have a new pin for this off wheel before she goes much farther." "All right, I'll order one by telegraph to-day. What 'd you do, I asked." Hand wriggled himself out from under the car and got on his feet. He thrust his grimy hands deep into his pockets, stood for a moment contemplative and belligerent, as if undecided whether to explode or not, and then silently walked away. As Mr. Straker watched his figure moving slowly toward the kitchen, he started a long low whistle, expressive of suspicion and doubt. Midway, however, he changed to a lively tune whose title was "I've got him on the run"--a classic just then spreading up and down Broadway. He took a few turns about the car, looked at the gearing with a knowing air, and then went into the house. If he had been a small boy, his mother would have punished him for stamping through the halls; being a grown man and a visitor, he may be described as walking with firm, bold tread. Finally he was able to run down Agatha, who was conferring with Sallie in the library. Sallie sniffed in scorn of Mr. Straker, whom she disliked far worse than Mr. Hand; nevertheless, as she left the room she twisted up her gingham apron and tucked it into its band in a vague attempt at company manners. Mr. Straker lost no time in attacking Agatha. "What d'you know about that chauffeur-nurse and general roustabout that's taking care of your young gentleman up-stairs?" he inquired bluntly. Innocent of subtlety as Mr. Straker was, he was nevertheless keen enough to see that Agatha's instincts took alarm at his words. Indeed, one skilled in reading her face could have detected the nature of the uneasiness written there. She could not lie again, as she had unhesitatingly lied to the sheriff; neither could she abandon her position as protector to Mr. Hand. She wished for cleverness of the sort that could throw her manager off the scent, but saw no way other than the direct way. "Nothing--I know almost nothing about him." "Comes from N'York?" "I fancy so." "Well, take it from me, the sooner you get rid of him the better. Chances are he's a man of no principle, and he'll do you." Agatha was silent. Meantime Mr. Straker got his second wind. "Of course he knows what he's about when it comes to a machine," the manager continued, "but mark me, he knows too much for an honest man. Looks to me as if there wasn't anything on this green earth he can't do." "Green ocean, too--he's quite as much at home there," laughed Agatha. "Humph!" Mr. Straker grunted in disgust. "Let me assure you, Miss Redmond, that it's no joking matter." Tradition to the contrary, Agatha was content to let the man have the last word. Mr. Straker turned to some business matters, wrote out telegraphic material enough to occupy the leisurely Charlesport operator for some hours, and then disappeared. Agatha was impressed by the manager's words somewhat more than her manner implied. She had no swift and sure judgment of people, and her experience of the world, short as it was, had taught her that recklessness is a costly luxury. She was meditating as to the wisest course to pursue, when the ex-chauffeur appeared. Hand wore his accustomed loose shirt and trousers without coat or waistcoat, and it seemed as if he had never known a hat. His thick hair was tumbled back from the forehead. His hands were now spotless, and his whole appearance agreeably clean and wholesome. He even looked as if he were going to be frank, but Agatha knew that must be a delusion. It was impossible, however, not to be somewhat cajoled--he was so eminently likable. Agatha took a lesson from his own book, and waited in silence for him to speak. "Mademoiselle?" His voice had an undertone of excitement or nervousness that was wholly new. "Well, Mr. Hand?" He remained standing by the door for a moment, then stepped forward with the abrupt manner of a stripling who, usually inarticulate, has suddenly found tongue. "Why did you do it, Mademoiselle?" "Do what, my friend?" "Back me up before the sheriff. Give me a slick walkout like that." Agatha laughed good-humoredly. "Why should I answer your questions, Mr. Hand, when you so persistently ignore mine?" Hand made a gesture of impatience. "Mademoiselle, you may think me all kinds of a scamp, but I'm not idiot enough to hide behind a woman. Don't you know me well enough to know that?" he demanded so earnestly that he seemed very cross. Agatha looked into his face with a new curiosity. He was very young, after all. Something in the way of experience had been grinding philosophy, of a sort, into him--or out of him. Wealth and position had been his natural enemies, and he had somehow been led to an attitude of antagonism that was, at bottom, quite foreign to his nature. So much Agatha could guess at, and for the rest, instinct taught her to be kind. But she was not willing now to take him quite so seriously as he seemed to be taking himself. She couldn't resist teasing him a bit, by saying, "Nevertheless, Mr. Hand, you did hide behind me; you had to." He did not reply to her bantering smile, but, in the pause that followed, stepped to the bookcase where she had been standing, gingerly picked up a soft bit of linen and lace from the floor and dropped it into her lap. Then he faced her in an attitude of pugnacious irritation. For a brief moment his silence fell from him. "I didn't have to," he contradicted. "I let it go because I thought you were a good sport, and you wouldn't catch me backing out of your game, not by a good deal! But there's a darned sight,--pardon me, Mademoiselle!--there's too much company round here to suit me! _You_ know me, _you_ know you can trust me, Mademoiselle! But what about Tom, Dick and Harry all over this place--casting eyes at a man?" Agatha, almost against her will, was forced to meet his seriousness half-way. "I don't know what you mean," she said. "Tell 'em!" he burst out. "Tell 'em the whole story. Tell that blamed snoopin' manager that I'm a crook and a kidnapper, and then he'll stop nosing round after me. I'll have an hour's start, and that's all I want. Dogging a man--running him down under his own automobile!" Hand permitted himself a dry smile at his own joke, but immediately added, "It goes against the grain, Mademoiselle!" Agatha's face brightened, as she grasped the clue to Hand's wrath. "I've no doubt," she answered gravely. She knew the manager. "But why should I tell him, as you suggest?" "Why?" Hand stopped a moment, as if baffled at the difficulty of putting such obvious philosophy into words. "Why? Because that's the way people are--never satisfied till they uncover and root up every blamed thing in a man's life. Yes, Mademoiselle, you know it's true. They'll always be uneasy with me around." Agatha was aware that when a man utters what he considers to be a general truth, it is useless to enter the field of argument. "Suppose you do have 'an hour's start,' as you express it. Where would you go?" "Oh, I'll look about for a while. After that I'm going to Mr. Hambleton in Lynn. He's going to have a new car." "Ah!" Agatha suddenly saw light. "Then there's only one thing. Mr. Hambleton must know the truth. It can concern no one else. Will you tell him?" Mr. Hand produced his dry smile. "Nobody has to tell Mr. Hambleton anything. He looked straight into my face that day on the hill, as we were leaving the park." "And he remembers?" Something strange in Hand's expression arrested Agatha's attention, long before he found tongue to answer. It was a look of happiness and pride, as if he owned a treasure. "He remembers very well, Mademoiselle." "And what--?" "You can't help but be square with him, Mademoiselle. But as for these gentlemen of style--" Hand paused in his oratory, his slow anger again burning on the surface. Before Agatha knew what he was about, he had picked up the handkerchief from her lap between thumb and forefinger, and was holding it at arm's length. "You can't squeeze a man's history out of him, as you squeeze water out of a handkerchief, Mademoiselle," he flared out. "And you can't drop him and pick him up again, nor throw him down. You can't do that with a man, Mademoiselle!" He tossed the flimsy linen back into her lap. "And I don't want any dealings with your Strakers--nor gentlemen of that stamp." "Nor Chatelards?" "He's slick--slick as they make 'em. But he isn't an inquisitive meddler." Agatha laughed outright; and somehow, by the blessed alchemy of amusement, the air was cleared and Mr. Hand's trouble faded out of importance. But Agatha could not let him go without one further word. She met his gaze with a straightforward look, as she asked: "Tell me, have I failed to treat you as a friend, Mr. Hand?" "Ah, Mademoiselle!" he cried; and there was a touch of shame and compunction in his voice. As he stood before Agatha, she was reminded of his shamed and cowed appearance in the cove, on the day of their rescue, when he had waited for her anger to fall on him. She saw that he had gained something, some intangible bit of manliness and dignity, won during these weeks of service in her house. And she guessed rightly that it was due to the man whom he had so ungrudgingly nursed. "I'm glad you are going to Lynn, to be with Mr. Hambleton," she said at last. "As long as he is your friend, I shall be your friend, too, and never uneasy. You may count on that. And now will you do me another kindness?" "I'll put that old racing-car in order, if that's what you mean. Of course." "As soon as possible. But it would seem that from now on you are accountable to no one but Mr. Hambleton." "I'm his man," said Mr. Hand simply. "I'd do anything for him." He turned away with his old-time puzzling manner, half deferential, half indifferent. And so Mr. Straker was ready to depart for New York at last, leaving Agatha, much against his will, to "complete her recovery" at Ilion. At least, that was the way he felt in duty bound to put it. "You have found a substitute now," Agatha urged. "It is only fair to let her have a chance. A week, more or less, can not make any difference, now that I've broken so many engagements already. I'll come back later and make a fresh start." "You stay up here and New York'll forget you're living!" growled Mr. Straker. "Not if you continue to be my manager," said Agatha. "If I'm to be your manager, I ought never to let you out of my sight for a minute. It's too dangerous." CHAPTER XXIII JIMMY MUFFS THE BALL It will sometimes happen that young gentlemen, skipping confident, even under their lucky star, will get a fall. Fortune had been too constant to Jimmy not to be ready to turn her fickle face away the moment he wasn't looking. But such is the rashness born of success and a bounding heart, that young blood leaps to its doom, smiling, as it were, on the faithless lady's back. Jimmy had no forebodings, but rioted gorgeously in returning health, in a whole pack of new emotions, and in what he supposed to be his lady's favor. Aleck, more philosophical, took his happiness with a more quiet gusto, not provoking the frown of the gods. But for Jim the day of reckoning was coming. One day Aleck joined him, walking up and down the porch. Jim was in one of his boyish, cocksure moods. "I know what you're going to say," he began, before Aleck could spring his news. "You're going to marry the princess." "Just so," said Aleck. "How'd you know? Clairvoyance?" "Nope." "Well, you needn't look so high and mighty about it, old man. Why don't you do the same thing yourself? Then we'll have a double wedding." "I've thought of that," said Jim. As the two men talked, Agatha and Mélanie, both dressed in white, strolled side by side down the garden path toward the wall. They were deep in conversation, their backs turned toward the veranda. "I don't see that they look so much alike," announced Jim, who had but recently learned all the causes and effects of the Chatelard business. Aleck's eyes gleamed. "Which one, as they stand there now, do you take to be Miss Redmond?" he asked. "One on the left," answered Jim promptly. Aleck gave a signaling whistle which caused both the women quickly to turn. Agatha was on the right. Aleck grinned broadly. "So that Yahoo of a Frenchman wasn't so stupid after all." "I'd like to get my hands on him!" muttered Jim. "Frenchman or not, there's going to be a wedding right here in the old red house on Wednesday," said Aleck. "Hoopla! I knew that was it!" "And then Mélanie and I are going to cruise back to New York. Awfully sorry--but you're not invited." "You couldn't get me aboard any gilt-edged yacht that floats!" At Jimmy's words--wholly untrue, by the way--Aleck's happy mood suddenly dimmed, as he thought of the dangers and anxieties of the past month. He turned and laid an arm, boy-fashion, over Jim's shoulder, pulling his hair as his hand went by. "You're a fool of a kid!" he said, choking. When Jim looked into his cousin's face, he knew. "Oh, I say, old man, it wasn't so bad as all that." Aleck stiffened up. "Who said anything about its being bad? You'd better get some togs to wear at the wedding. I'm going to need these clothes myself." It turned out, actually enough, that the wedding was to come off on a certain Wednesday in September. "Would you like New York and a bishop and a big church better than the old red house and the Charlesport minister?" Aleck anxiously asked of Mélanie. "Oh, no," she protested; and Aleck knew she was sincere. So they prepared to terminate their holidays by celebrating the wedding in the pine grove. Mélanie spent the intervening days happily with Agatha, or walking with Aleck, or with the delightful group that foregathered in Parson Thayer's library. Jimmy made extravagant and highly colored verses to the bride-to-be, to Sallie Kingsbury, and even to himself. His feet were often lame, but he solemnly assured the company that it was entirely due to circumstances over which he had no control. A wedding was a wedding, said he, and should have its bard; also its dancers and its minstrels. "We'll have all our friends in Ilion, anyway," said Aleck. They counted up the list. Besides the occupants of the house and those from the Hillside, there would be Doctor Thayer, Susan Stoddard and Angie, Big and Little Simon, and the lawyer. "And they're all going to dance with the bride," announced Jim. "After me. I'm first choice." "A dance led, so to speak, by the elusive Monsieur Chatelard?" The name alone made Jimmy wroth. "It's a dance for which he will pay the fiddler yet!" he prophesied. "Oh, he's gone this time. Scared out of the country for keeps!" was Aleck's expressed opinion. But that it might or might not be so, was what they all secretly thought. The day before the wedding was a jewel of a day, such as New England at her best can fling into the lap of early autumn. A wind from the sea, flocks of white cloud scudding across the sapphire sky, and a sun all kindness--such was the day. It was never a "weather breeder" either; but steady, promising good for the morrow. Many times during the week James and Chamberlain and Agatha had their heads together, planning surprises for the bridal pair. The result was that on Tuesday Jim and Chamberlain borrowed the white motor-car, loaded it down with a large variety of junk, such as food from Sallie's kitchen, flowers and so on, and started for Charlesport. They ran down to the wharf, transferred their loot to the rowboat, and pulled out to the _Sea Gull_, swinging at her mooring in deep water. A half-hour of work, and the yacht was dressed for festival. There were strings of flags to stretch from bow to masthead and to stern; pennants for topmasts; the Stars and Stripes in beautiful silk for a standard, and a gorgeous banner with an embroidered A and M intertwined, for special occasions. Flowers were placed in the cabins, and food in the lockers. The seamen had been aboard, made the yacht clean and shipshape as a war vessel on parade, and had got permission to leave for their last night ashore. Everything was in readiness, even to the laying of the fire in the engine hold. The bride and groom were to come aboard the next day about noon, and cruise down the coast leisurely, as weather permitted. Hand, in charge of the white motor-car, with Madame Reynier, Chamberlain, Agatha and Jimmy, were to start for New York, touring as long as their inclination lasted. The sophisticated Lizzie was to travel to what was, for her, the center of the universe, by the fastest Pullman. Jimmy and Chamberlain, on the way home from their visit to the _Sea Gull_, came very near being confidential. "I want to say, Mr. Hambleton, that I shall never forgive myself for bungling about that Chatelard business." "As I understand the matter, it wasn't your bungling, but the sheriff's." "It's all the same," conceded Mr. Chamberlain mournfully. "And in my opinion, the Frenchman's not done with his tricks yet. He's a dangerous character, Mr. Hambleton." Jim laughed, remembering certain incidents on the _Jeanne D'Arc_. "Do you know," Chamberlain continued, "I'm convinced the bloomin' beggar is hiding about here somewhere. I'm glad Aleck is getting away." "I thought the evidence favored the theory that Chatelard had made straight for New York." "Not a bit of it. Aleck and I let you all believe that, for the sake of the ladies. But the evidence is all the other way. We would surely have caught him if he had been on any of the New York trains. I believe he's about here and means mischief yet." "If he's about here, there's no doubt about the mischief." "I'm going down to-night to bunk on the _Sea Gull_. Aleck let the men off, to go to a sailor's dance over on one of the islands. They'll probably be at it all night, so I'm going back." "Why not let me go? I'm fine as a fiddle. You've had your full share of nasty detective work." "Not at all. I'm booked to see this thing through." "All right!" laughed Jimsy. "But if you change your mind, let me know." Arriving at the house, the men found it deserted. Windows were open and doors unlatched, but no one, not even Danny, responded to Jim's call. Chamberlain started for the Hillside in the car, and Jim wandered about lonesomely, wondering where everybody was. With Jim, as in most cases, everybody meant one person; and presently Sallie, appearing slowly from the upper regions, gave him his clue. He started nimbly for the pine wood. The wagon road stretched alluringly into the sunflecked shade of the grove. A hush like that of primeval day threw its uncanny influence over the world. Jim felt something tugging at his spirit that was unfamiliar, disquieting. He began to whistle just for company, and in a moment, as if at a signal call, Danny came along the path, sedately trotting to meet him. "Hullo, old pardner! So this is where you are." Danny said yes, and led Jim into the clearing and up to a pine stump, where everybody sat, quite alone, chin propped on hand. No singing, no book, and--or did Jimmy imagine it?--a spirit decidedly quenched. Her eyelids were red and her face was pale. "So, dear lady, I have found you. But I was listening for the song." "There is no song to-day." Agatha's manner resembled an Arctic breeze. "May one ask why?" "One can not always be singing." "No? Why not? I could--_if_ I could." Agatha was obliged to relax a trifle at Jimmy's foolishness, but only to reveal, more and more distinctly, a wretchedness of spirit that was quite baffling. It was not feminine wretchedness waiting for a masculine comforter, either, as James observed with regret; it was a stoical spirit, braced to meet a blow--or to deal one. Jimmy was not used to being snubbed, and instinctively prepared for vigorous protest. He began with a little preliminary diplomacy. "You haven't inquired what I'm going to do with the remainder of my holiday," he remarked. "I supposed you would return soon to Lynn. Shall we walk back to the house?" The unkind words were spoken in a rare-sweet voice, courteously enough. Jim looked at the speaker a moment, then emphatically said "No!" "It is quite time I was returning." "Have you anything there to do that is more important than listening to me for fifteen minutes?" Agatha did not pretend not to understand him. She turned toward him with unflinching eyes. "Truth to say, yes, Mr. Hambleton, I have. I don't wish to listen to--anything." "Oh--if you feel like that! Your 'Mr. Hambleton' is enough to strike me dumb." "Believe me, it is the best way." "Again, may one ask why?" "You are going back to your own people, to your own work. And I to mine." "But that's the very point. My idea was to--to combine them." "I guessed it." Jimmy smiled his ingenuous smile as he suavely asked, "And don't you--er--like the idea?" Agatha turned her wretched white face toward him. Into it there had come a grim determination that left Jimmy quite out in the cold. "I have no choice in liking or disliking it," she said quite evenly. "But there are plenty of reasons why I can't think of it. And you shouldn't think of it any more. I assure you, you are making a mistake." She got up as if ready to walk away, her face averted. "Agatha!" At the name she turned to Jim, as much as to say she would be quite reasonable if he would be. But her face suddenly flushed gloriously. "Agatha, dear, hear me. I did not intend to tell you all my secret to-day; not until I should be on neutral ground, so to speak. But I can't let you leave me this way." "You will have to. I am going back to the house." Up to this point, James had merely been playing tag, as it were. The game wasn't really on. A little skirmishing on either side was in order. But Agatha's last words were the call to action. They roused the ghost of some old Hambleton ancestor who meant not to be beaten. Jim squared himself in the middle of the path, touched Agatha's shoulder with the lightest, most respectful finger, and requested: "But I would ask you, as a special favor, to stay a few minutes longer." Jim's tone left Agatha no choice. She sat down again on the pine stump, but she could not meet Jimmy's eyes. He stood a few feet away from her. When he spoke, his voice was firm and steady, ringing with earnestness. There was no doubt now but that he was in the game for all he was worth. "Agatha, you shall not turn me down like this. Wait until you know me better, and know yourself better. You've had no time to think this matter over, and it involves a good deal, I admit. But we have lived through a good deal together in these few weeks. I'm here; I'm here to stay. You can't say now, dear, that you care nothing for me--can you?" [Illustration: "You shall not turn me down like this."] "What is the use of all this, I ask! You will always be my friend, my rescuer, to whom I am eternally grateful." Jimmy emitted a sound halfway between "Shucks" and "Damn" and swung impatiently clean round on his heels. "Grateful be hanged! I don't want anybody to be grateful. I want you to love me--to marry me. Why, Agatha," he argued boyishly, his hopes rising as he saw her face soften a little, "you're mine, for I plucked you out of the sea. I had to have you. I guess I knew it that Sunday, only it was 'way off, somewhere in the back of my brain. You're a dream I've always loved. Just as this old house is. You're the woman I could have prayed for. I'll do, I'll be, anything you wish; I'll change myself over, but oh, don't say you won't have me. Agatha, Agatha, you don't know how much you mean to me!" Before this speech was finished, James, according to the good old fashion, was down on his knees before his lady, and had imprisoned one of her hands. Stoic she was, not to yield! Her eyes had a suspicious moistness, as she shook her head. "You will always be the most gallant, unselfish friend I have ever known. But--" "But--what?" "Marry you I can not." "Why not?" "I can not marry anybody." Then Jimsy said a disgraceful thing. "You kissed me once. Will you do it again?" At this impudence, she neither got angry nor changed her mind--a bad sign for Jimmy. She put his hand away, saying, "You must forgive me the kiss." Jimmy jumped to his feet with another inarticulate sound, every whit as bad as an oath, and stood before her. "Agatha Redmond, will you marry me?" "No." Jim turned in his tracks and left the wood. Two hours later, at supper, Jim was inquired for. "Our last supper together, and Mr. Hambleton not here!" mourned Chamberlain. Agatha felt guilty, but could scarcely confess it. "You are all invited for next year, you know," she said. "And we're all coming," announced Mélanie. "But poor Mr. Hambleton will miss his supper tonight." The "poor Mr. Hambleton" struck Agatha. "I think Mr. Hambleton is doing very well indeed. I saw him start off for a walk this afternoon." "Jim's a chump. Give him a cold potato," jeered Aleck. But after supper was over, and the twilight deepened into darkness, Agatha sought Aleck where she could speak with him alone. "I--I think Mr. Hambleton was troubled when he left here this afternoon," she said. "Can you think where he would be likely to go? He is not strong enough to bear much hard exercise yet." Aleck looked at her keenly. "If he went anywhere, I think he'd go straight to the yacht." "I feel a little anxious, someway," confessed Agatha. Chamberlain's voice broke in upon them. "Anybody ready to take me down to the _Sea Gull_ in the car?" As Aleck started for the machine, the anxiety in Agatha's face perceptibly lightened. "And may I go with you?" she asked eagerly. CHAPTER XXIV AFTER YOU, MONSIEUR? Jim had no desire to create a sensation among his friends at the old red house; but as he left the pine grove all his instincts led him to flee in another direction. He did not fully realize just what had happened to him, but he was conscious of having received a very hard jolt, indeed. The house, full of happy associations as it was, was just now too tantalizing a place. Aleck had won out, and he and Mélanie were radiating that peculiar kind of lover's joy which shines on the eve of matrimony. Jim wished them well--none better--but he also wished they wouldn't make such a fuss over these things. Get it done and out of the way, and the less said about it the better. In fact, Jim's buoyant and sunny spirit went into eclipse; he lost his holiday ardor, and trudged over the hill and into the shore road in a state of extreme dejection. But he lingered on the way, diverted almost against his will by the sight of fishing smacks putting into harbor, an island steamer rounding a distant cliff, and the _Sea Gull_ lying motionless just within the breakwater. Women may be unkind, but a ship is a ship, after all. One can not nurse the pain even of a shattered heart when running before a stiff wind with the spinnaker set and an open sea ahead. The thought decided him. The sea should be his bride. Jim did not stop to arrange, at the moment, just how this should be brought about, but his determination was none the less firm. He became sentimental to the extent of reflecting, vaguely, that this was but philosophic justice. The sea had not conquered him--far from it; neither should She conquer him. He would follow the sea, the path of glamour, the home of the winged foot and the vanishing sail, the road to alien and mysterious lands-- Thus Jimmy, in reaction from the Arctic douche to which his emotional self had been subjected. He was, figuratively speaking, blue with the cold, but trying valiantly to warm himself. As he gazed at the _Sea Gull_, asleep on the flood tide, cutting a gallant figure in the glowing sunset, he felt an overmastering longing to be aboard. He would stay on the yacht until Chamberlain came, at least; possibly all night. Having made up his mind on this point, James persuaded himself that he felt better. Philosophy is a friend in need, after all. Why should one failure in getting one's desires crush the spirit? He would make a right-about-face, travel for a year on a sailing vessel, see the world. That was it. Hang the shoe business! Immersed in mental chaos such as these fragments of thought suggest, Jim did not perceive that he was being overtaken, until a slow greeting came to his ears. "Good evening, friend." It was the deliberate, wide-eyed youth of the Reading-room. "Ah, good evening." "If you are on your way to the Sailors' Reading-room, I wish to inform you that I have been obliged to lock up for to-night, on account of an urgent errand at the village." Jimmy stared vacantly for a moment at the pale, washed-out countenance of his interlocutor. "I thought I'd tell you," the youth went on in his copy-book style, "so as to save your taking the long walk. I am the librarian of the Reading-room." "Ah, thank you. But I wasn't going to the Reading-room to-night. I am on my way to the village." "Well, there's a large majority of people do go to the Reading-room, first and last," the youth explained with pride. "And some of them are not worthy of its privileges. I am on my way now to prevent what may be a frightful accident to one who has enjoyed the benefits of our work." Jim gazed at the youth. "A frightful accident! Then why in Heaven's name don't you hurry?" The youth exhibited a slightly injured air, but did not hasten. "I was just about to continue on my way," he said, "when it occurred to me that you might be interested to know." "That's good of you. But what is it all about?" "Some time ago, a very profane and impatient gentleman, waiting for money to be telegraphed to him from New York--" "Well, man, go on! Where is he?" "I know nothing about the movements of this ungodly person, but it appears that to-day, for the first time in its history, the quarry up yonder has been robbed. Circumstances lead the manager to suspect that this same gentleman was the perpetrator of the theft, and I am on my way to further the ends of justice." "No need to be so particular about calling him a gentleman. But what is the 'accident' likely to be?" "It is feared that the thief may not be aware of the nature of the article he has stolen, and it is very dangerous." "What on earth is it?" "It is a fairly large-sized stick of dynamite." The youth might have been discussing a fancy dance, so suave and polite was he. Jim interrupted rudely. "Dynamite, is it? Good. If it's old Chatelard, he ought to blow up. Serve him right." "I'm surprised and pained at your words, my dear friend. No soul is utterly--" "Yes, it is. Which way did he go? Where is he?" "I don't know. The manager sent me to inform the sheriff." "It won't do any good. But you'd better go, all the same." The judge in chancery went on his dignified way. He would not have hurried if he had heard Angel Gabriel's trump. The news he had brought was in the class to be considered important if true, but there was nothing in it to alter Jimmy's plans. He took the shortest cut to the shore, found a fiat-bottomed punt that was regarded by the village as general property, and pushed off. The _Sea Gull_ was a tidy craft, and looked very gay with even the half of her festival flags on view. But the gaiety did not beguile Jim's dampened spirits. He went aboard feeling that he'd like to rip the idiotic things down; but the yacht, at least, offered a place where he could think. The sunset light on the water blazed vermilion--just the color that Jim all at once discovered he hated. He looked down the companionway, but finally he decided to stretch out on deck for a few minutes' rest. He was very tired. Off in the stern was a vague mass which proved to be a few yards of canvas carefully tented on the floor. Some gimcrack belonging to the ship's ornamentation had been freshly gilded and left to dry, protected by an old sail-cloth. This, weighted down by a rusty marlinespike, spread couchwise along the taffrail, and offered to Jim just the bed he longed for. He lay down, face to the sky, and gave himself up to thoughts that were very dark indeed. He had been thrown down, unexpectedly and quite hard, and that was all there was to it. Agatha, lovely but inexplicable maid, was not for him. She had been deceptive--yes, that was the word; and he had been a fool--that was the plain truth. He might as well face it at once. He had been idiot enough to think he might win the girl. Just because they had been tossed together in mid-ocean and she had clung to him. The world wasn't an ocean; it was a spiritual stock-exchange, where he who would win must bid very high indeed for the prizes of life. And he had so little to bid! Communing thus with his unhappiness, Jim utterly lost the sense of time. The shameless vermilion sunset went into second mourning and thence to nun's gray, before the figure on the sail-cloth moved. Then, through senses only half awake, Jim heard a light sound, like a scratch-scratch on the hull of the yacht. Chamberlain, no doubt, just rubbing the nose of his tender against the _Sea Gull_. Jim was in no hurry to see Chamberlain, and remained where he was. The Englishman would heave in sight soon enough. But though Jim waited several minutes, with half an eye cocked on the stairway, nobody appeared. The wind was still, the sea like glass; not a sound anywhere. Struck by something of strangeness in the uncanny silence, Jim sat up and called "Ahoy, Chamberlain!" There was no answer. But in the tense stillness there was a sound, and it came from below--the sound of a man's stealthy tread. Jim sprang to his feet and made the companionway at a bound. He listened an instant to make sure that he heard true, cleared the steps, and landed in the darkness of the ship's saloon. As he groped along, reaching for the door of the principal cabin, the blackness suddenly lighted a little, and a dim shadow shot out and up the stairway. Jim's physical senses were scarcely cognizant of the soft, quick passing, but his thumbs pricked. He dashed after the shadow, up the stairs, out on deck, and aft. There he was--Chatelard, armed, facing his enemy once more, cool but not smiling, desperately at bay. Below him, riding just under the stern of the yacht, was the tender whose scratch-scratch had awakened Jim. A man, oars in hand, was holding the boat close to the _Sea Gull_. Jim saw all this during the seconds between his turning at the stair-top and his throwing himself plump against the figure by the railing. He was quick enough to pass the range of the weapon, whose shot rang out in the clear air, but he was not quick enough to get under the man's guard. Chatelard was ready for him, holding his weapon high. As he pressed forward, Jim felt something under his foot. He ducked quickly, as if to dodge Chatelard's hand, and on the downward swing he picked up the rusty marlinespike. It was a weapon of might, indeed. Jim's blow caused Chatelard's arm to drop, limp and nerveless. But in gaining his enemy's weapon, Jim was forced to drop his own. He put a firm foot upon the spike, however, while he held Chatelard at arm's length and looked into his face. "So we meet once more, after all!" he cried. "And once more I have the pistol." Even as Jim spoke, his adversary made a spring that almost enabled him to seize the weapon again. Jim eluded his clutch, and quick as thought threw the gun overboard. It struck far out on the smooth water. It was a sorry thing to do, as it proved, for Chatelard, watching his chance, stooped, wrenched the spike from under Jim's foot, and once more stood defiantly at bay. And at this point, he opened his thin lips for one remark. "You'll go to hell now, you pig of an American!" "But after you, Monsieur!" Jim cried, and with the words, his arms were about the other in a paralyzing grip. Had Jim been as strong as when the two men measured forces weeks before, in the fo'cas'le of the _Jeanne D'Arc_, the result might have been different. But the struggle was too long, and Jim's strength insufficient. Chatelard freed himself from his antagonist sufficiently to wield the spike somewhere about Jim's head, and there came over him a sickening consciousness that he was going down. He dropped, hanging like a bulldog to Chatelard's knees, but he knew he had lost the game. He gathered himself momentarily, determined to get on his feet once more, and had almost done it, when sounds of approaching voices mingled with the scuffle of their feet and their quick breathing. Before Jim could see what new thing was happening, Chatelard had turned for one alert instant toward the port side, whence the invading voices came. He was cut off from the stairway, caught in the stern of the yacht, his weapon gone. He gave a quick call in a low voice to the boat below, stepped over the taffrail and then leaped overboard. Propped up on an elbow, dazed and half blinded, blood flowing down his cheek, Jim stretched forward dizzily, as if to follow his disappearing enemy. He heard the splash of the water, and saw the rowboat move out from under the stern, but he saw no more. He thought it must have grown very dark. "Blest if he didn't jump overboard hanging on to that marlinespike!" said Jim stupidly to himself. And then it became quite dark. When Jimsy regained sight and consciousness, which happened not more than three minutes after he lost them, he found himself supported affectionately against somebody's shoulder, and a voice--the Voice of all voices he most loved--was in his ears. "Here I am, dear. Do not die! I have come--come to stay, if you want me, James, dearest!" And bending over him was a face--the very Vision of his dream. "Look at me, speak to me, James, dear!" The voice was a bit hysterical, but the face was eloquent, loving, adoring. It was too good to be true, though Jim was disposed to let the illusion prolong itself as far as possible. He put up his hand and smoothed her face gently, in gratitude at seeing it kind once more. Then he smiled foolishly. "It's great, isn't it!" he remarked inanely, before thinking it necessary to remove his head. Her face was still the face of tenderness, full of yearning. It did not change. She took a handkerchief from her pocket and carefully pressed it to his cheek and chin. When she took it away, he saw that it was red. "Lord, what a mess I'm making!" he exclaimed, trying at last to sit up. As he did so, it all came back to him--the flying shadow, the gun, the struggle. He leaned over to peer again through the crossed wires of the deck railing, down into the water. He turned back with an amazed expression. "_Did_ he jump overboard, honest-true, hanging on to that spike?" Neither Aleck nor Agatha could say, nor yet Mr. Chamberlain, who had been searching the yacht. Wherever it was, the rusty marlinespike had disappeared. The rowboat, too, had gone into the darkness. Jim got up, dazedly thinking for a moment that it was necessary for him to give chase, but he quickly sat down on the sail-cloth again, overcome with faintness and a dark pall before his eyes. "You are not hurt badly?" The voice was still tender, and it was all for him! As Jim heard it, the pall lifted, and his buoyant spirit came back to its own. He laughed ringingly. "Lord, no, not hurt. But--" "But what? What did you wish to say?" "Is it true? Are you here, by me, to stay?" For answer she pressed his hand to her lips. Aleck and Chamberlain, once assured that Jim was safe, went below to make a search, and Jim and Agatha were left together on the sail-cloth. As they sat there, a young moon shone out delicately in the west, and dropped quickly down after the lost sun. "It's the first moon we've seen together!" said Jim. "But we've watched the dawn." "Ah, yes; and such a dawn!" Little by little, as they sat together, the story of the fight came out. Jim told it bit by bit, not eager. When it was done, Agatha was still puzzled. "Why should he come here? What could he do here?" "I don't know, though we shall probably find out soon enough. But I don't care, now that you are here." "James, dear, will you forgive me for this afternoon?" "I'll forgive you if you'll take it all back, hide, hoofs and horns, for ever 'n ever, amen." "I take it back. I never meant it." "Then may one ask why--" "Oh, James, I don't know why." Anybody could have told them that it was only a phase of feminine panic in the face of the unknown, necessary as sneezing. But, as Jim said, it didn't matter. "Never mind. Only I don't want you to marry me because you found me here all bluggy and pitied me." "James! To talk like that! You know it wasn't--" "Then, what was it?" Jim, suddenly grown serpent-like in craft, turned his well-known ingenuous and innocent expression upon her. "The moment you left me, up there in the pine grove, I knew I couldn't do without you." "How did you know?" "Because--" "Yes, because--" Jim prompted her. "Oh, Jimsy, you know." "No, I don't." Agatha, loving his teasing, but too deeply moved, too generous and sincere to play the coquette, turned to him again a face shining with tenderness. Her eyes, like stars; her lips, all sweetness. "Only love, James, dear--" Something rose again in Jimmy's soft heart, choking him. As he had thrilled to the unknown ecstasy in Agatha's song, many days before, so now he thrilled to her voice and face, eloquent for him alone. Love and its power, life and its meaning, the long, long thoughts of youth and hope and desire--these held him in thrall. Agatha was in his arms. Time was lost to him, and earth. EPILOGUE No one ever knew whether the accomplished Frenchman reached shore, ultimately, in the rowboat, or descended to Sabrina beneath the waves. If that last hasty exit from the deck of the _Sea Gull_ was also his final exit from life, certain it is that his departure into the realm of shades was unwept and unsung. The stick of dynamite was found, after a gingerly search, lying on one of the berths in the large cabin, where it had been dropped by the Frenchman in his flight. Jimmy Hambleton did not let the shoe business entirely go to destruction, though his taste for holidays grew markedly after he brought his bride home with him to Lynn. One year, when the babies were growing up, he ordered a trim little yacht to be built and put into her berth at Charlesport. She was named the _Sea Gull_. Jimmy's chauffeur, called Hand, was her captain. Sometimes, when James and Agatha were alone, in the zone of stillness that hung over the listening water, there would rise a song, clear and birdlike: "Free of my pain, free of my burden of sorrow, At last I shall see thee--" and again Jimmy's heart would rise buoyant, free, happy--the heart of unquenchable youth. 
26593	----	[Illustration: "Your address!" bawled the Duke.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE PLACE OF HONEYMOONS By HAROLD MACGRATH Author of THE MAN ON THE BOX, THE GOOSE GIRL, THE CARPET FROM BAGDAD, ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR I. KELLER INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 1912 The Bobbs-Merrill Company PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. Y. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To B. O'G. Horace calls no more to me, Homer in the dust-heap lies: I have found my Odyssey In the lightness of her glee, In the laughter of her eyes. Ovid's page is thumbed no more, E'en Catullus has no choice! There is endless, precious lore, Such as I ne'er knew before, In the music of her voice. Breath of hyssop steeped in wine, Breath of violets and furze, Wild-wood roses, Grecian myrrhs, All these perfumes do combine In that maiden breath of hers. Nay, I look not at the skies, Nor the sun that hillward slips, For the day lives or it dies In the laughter of her eyes, In the music of her lips! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. At the Stage Door 1 II. There Is a Woman? 19 III. The Beautiful Tigress 36 IV. The Joke of Monsieur 53 V. Captive or Runaway 74 VI. The Bird Behind Bars 103 VII. Battling Jimmie 126 VIII. Moonlight and a Prince 146 IX. Colonel Caxley-Webster 166 X. Marguerites and Emeralds 185 XI. At the Crater's Edge 202 XII. Dick Courtlandt's Boy 214 XIII. Everything But the Truth 232 XIV. A Comedy with Music 249 XV. Herr Rosen's Regrets 265 XVI. The Apple of Discord 282 XVII. The Ball at the Villa 303 XVIII. Pistols for Two 326 XIX. Courtlandt Tells a Story 345 XX. Journey's End 363 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE PLACE OF HONEYMOONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER I AT THE STAGE DOOR Courtlandt sat perfectly straight; his ample shoulders did not touch the back of his chair; and his arms were folded tightly across his chest. The characteristic of his attitude was tenseness. The nostrils were well defined, as in one who sets the upper jaw hard upon the nether. His brown eyes--their gaze directed toward the stage whence came the voice of the prima donna--epitomized the tension, expressed the whole as in a word. Just now the voice was pathetically subdued, yet reached every part of the auditorium, kindling the ear with its singularly mellowing sweetness. To Courtlandt it resembled, as no other sound, the note of a muffled Burmese gong, struck in the dim incensed cavern of a temple. A Burmese gong: briefly and magically the stage, the audience, the amazing gleam and scintillation of the Opera, faded. He heard only the voice and saw only the purple shadows in the temple at Rangoon, the oriental sunset splashing the golden dome, the wavering lights of the dripping candles, the dead flowers, the kneeling devoteés, the yellow-robed priests, the tatters of gold-leaf, fresh and old, upon the rows of placid grinning Buddhas. The vision was of short duration. The sigh, which had been so long repressed, escaped; his shoulders sank a little, and the angle of his chin became less resolute; but only for a moment. Tension gave place to an ironical grimness. The brows relaxed, but the lips became firmer. He listened, with this new expression unchanging, to the high note that soared above all others. The French horns blared and the timpani crashed. The curtain sank slowly. The audience rustled, stood up, sought its wraps, and pressed toward the exits and the grand staircase. It was all over. Courtlandt took his leave in leisure. Here and there he saw familiar faces, but these, after the finding glance, he studiously avoided. He wanted to be alone. For while the music was still echoing in his ears, in a subtone, his brain was afire with keen activity; but unfortunately for the going forward of things, this mental state was divided into so many battalions, led by so many generals, indirectly and indecisively, nowhere. This plan had no beginning, that one had no ending, and the other neither beginning nor ending. Outside he lighted a cigar, not because at that moment he possessed a craving for nicotine, but because like all inveterate smokers he believed that tobacco conduced to clarity of thought. And mayhap it did. At least, there presently followed a mental calm that expelled all this confusion. The goal waxed and waned as he gazed down the great avenue with its precise rows of lamps. Far away he could discern the outline of the brooding Louvre. There was not the least hope in the world for him to proceed toward his goal this night. He realized this clearly, now that he was face to face with actualities. It required more than the chaotic impulses that had brought him back from the jungles of the Orient. He must reason out a plan that should be like a straight line, the shortest distance between two given points. How then should he pass the night, since none of his schemes could possibly be put into operation? Return to his hotel and smoke himself headachy? Try to become interested in a novel? Go to bed, to turn and roll till dawn? A wild desire seized him to make a night of it,--Maxim's, the cabarets; riot and wine. Who cared? But the desire burnt itself out between two puffs of his cigar. Ten years ago, perhaps, this particular brand of amusement might have urged him successfully. But not now; he was done with tomfool nights. Indeed, his dissipations had been whimsical rather than banal; and retrospection never aroused a furtive sense of shame. He was young, but not so young as an idle glance might conjecture in passing. To such casual reckoning he appeared to be in the early twenties; but scrutiny, more or less infallible, noting a line here or an angle there, was disposed to add ten years to the score. There was in the nose and chin a certain decisiveness which in true youth is rarely developed. This characteristic arrives only with manhood, manhood that has been tried and perhaps buffeted and perchance a little disillusioned. To state that one is young does not necessarily imply youth; for youth is something that is truly green and tender, not rounded out, aimless, light-hearted and desultory, charming and inconsequent. If man regrets his youth it is not for the passing of these pleasing, though tangled attributes, but rather because there exists between the two periods of progression a series of irremediable mistakes. And the subject of this brief commentary could look back on many a grievous one brought about by pride or carelessness rather than by intent. But what was one to do who had both money and leisure linked to an irresistible desire to leave behind one place or thing in pursuit of another, indeterminately? At one time he wanted to be an artist, but his evenly balanced self-criticism had forced him to fling his daubs into the ash-heap. They were good daubs in a way, but were laid on without fire; such work as any respectable schoolmarm might have equaled if not surpassed. Then he had gone in for engineering; but precise and intricate mathematics required patience of a quality not at his command. The inherent ambition was to make money; but recognizing the absurdity of adding to his income, which even in his extravagance he could not spend, he gave himself over into the hands of grasping railroad and steamship companies, or their agencies, and became for a time the slave of guide and dragoman and carrier. And then the wanderlust, descended to him from the blood of his roving Dutch ancestors, which had lain dormant in the several generations following, sprang into active life again. He became known in every port of call. He became known also in the wildernesses. He had climbed almost inaccessible mountains, in Europe, in Asia; he had fished and hunted north, east, south and west; he had fitted out polar expeditions; he had raided the pearl markets; he had made astonishing gifts to women who had pleased his fancy, but whom he did not know or seek to know; he had kept some of his intimate friends out of bankruptcy; he had given the most extravagant dinners at one season and, unknown, had supported a bread-line at another; he had even financed a musical comedy. Whatever had for the moment appealed to his fancy, that he had done. That the world--his world--threw up its hands in wonder and despair neither disturbed him nor swerved him in the least. He was alone, absolute master of his millions. Mamas with marriageable daughters declared that he was impossible; the marriageable daughters never had a chance to decide one way or the other; and men called him a fool. He had promoted elephant fights which had stirred the Indian princes out of their melancholy indifference, and tiger hunts which had, by their duration and magnificence, threatened to disrupt the efficiency of the British military service,--whimsical excesses, not understandable by his intimate acquaintances who cynically arraigned him as the fool and his money. But, like the villain in the play, his income still pursued him. Certain scandals inevitably followed, scandals he was the last to hear about and the last to deny when he heard them. Many persons, not being able to take into the mind and analyze a character like Courtlandt's, sought the line of least resistance for their understanding, and built some precious exploits which included dusky island-princesses, diaphanous dancers, and comic-opera stars. Simply, he was without direction; a thousand goals surrounded him and none burned with that brightness which draws a man toward his destiny: until one day. Personally, he possessed graces of form and feature, and was keener mentally than most young men who inherit great fortunes and distinguished names. * * * * * Automobiles of all kinds panted hither and thither. An occasional smart coupé went by as if to prove that prancing horses were still necessary to the dignity of the old aristocracy. Courtlandt made up his mind suddenly. He laughed with bitterness. He knew now that to loiter near the stage entrance had been his real purpose all along, and persistent lying to himself had not prevailed. In due time he took his stand among the gilded youth who were not privileged (like their more prosperous elders) to wait outside the dressing-rooms for their particular ballerina. By and by there was a little respectful commotion. Courtlandt's hand went instinctively to his collar, not to ascertain if it were properly adjusted, but rather to relieve the sudden pressure. He was enraged at his weakness. He wanted to turn away, but he could not. A woman issued forth, muffled in silks and light furs. She was followed by another, quite possibly her maid. One may observe very well at times from the corner of the eye; that is, objects at which one is not looking come within the range of vision. The woman paused, her foot upon the step of the modest limousine. She whispered something hurriedly into her companion's ear, something evidently to the puzzlement of the latter, who looked around irresolutely. She obeyed, however, and retreated to the stage entrance. A man, quite as tall as Courtlandt, his face shaded carefully, intentionally perhaps, by one of those soft Bavarian hats that are worn successfully only by Germans, stepped out of the gathering to proffer his assistance. Courtlandt pushed him aside calmly, lifted his hat, and smiling ironically, closed the door behind the singer. The step which the other man made toward Courtlandt was unequivocal in its meaning. But even as Courtlandt squared himself to meet the coming outburst, the stranger paused, shrugged his shoulders, turned and made off. The lady in the limousine--very pale could any have looked closely into her face--was whirled away into the night. Courtlandt did not stir from the curb. The limousine dwindled, once it flashed under a light, and then vanished. "It is the American," said one of the waiting dandies. "The icicle!" "The volcano, rather, which fools believe extinct." "Probably sent back her maid for her Bible. Ah, these Americans; they are very amusing." "She was in magnificent voice to-night. I wonder why she never sings _Carmen_?" "Have I not said that she is too cold? What! would you see frost grow upon the toreador's mustache? And what a name, what a name! Eleonora da Toscana!" Courtlandt was not in the most amiable condition of mind, and a hint of the ribald would have instantly transformed a passive anger into a blind fury. Thus, a scene hung precariously; but its potentialities became as nothing on the appearance of another woman. This woman was richly dressed, too richly. Apparently she had trusted her modiste not wisely but too well: there was the strange and unaccountable inherent love of fine feathers and warm colors which is invariably the mute utterance of peasant blood. She was followed by a Russian, huge of body, Jovian of countenance. An expensive car rolled up to the curb. A liveried footman jumped down from beside the chauffeur and opened the door. The diva turned her head this way and that, a thin smile of satisfaction stirring her lips. For Flora Desimone loved the human eye whenever it stared admiration into her own; and she spent half her days setting traps and lures, rather successfully. She and her formidable escort got into the car which immediately went away with a soft purring sound. There was breeding in the engine, anyhow, thought Courtlandt, who longed to put his strong fingers around that luxurious throat which had, but a second gone, passed him so closely. "We shall never have war with Russia," said some one; "her dukes love Paris too well." Light careless laughter followed this cynical observation. Another time Courtlandt might have smiled. He pushed his way into the passage leading to the dressing-rooms, and followed its windings until he met a human barrier. To his inquiry the answer was abrupt and perfectly clear in its meaning: La Signorina da Toscana had given most emphatic orders not to disclose her address to any one. Monsieur might, if he pleased, make further inquiries of the directors; the answer there would be the same. Presently he found himself gazing down the avenue once more. There were a thousand places to go to, a thousand pleasant things to do; yet he doddered, full of ill-temper, dissatisfaction, and self-contempt. He was weak, damnably weak; and for years he had admired himself, detachedly, as a man of pride. He started forward, neither sensing his direction nor the perfected flavor of his Habana. Opera singers were truly a race apart. They lived in the world but were not a part of it, and when they died, left only a memory which faded in one generation and became totally forgotten in another. What jealousies, what petty bickerings, what extravagances! With fancy and desire unchecked, what ingenious tricks they used to keep themselves in the public mind,--tricks begot of fickleness and fickleness begetting. And yet, it was a curious phase: their influence was generally found when history untangled for posterity some Gordian knot. In old times they had sung the _Marseillaise_ and danced the _carmagnole_ and indirectly plied the guillotine. And to-day they smashed prime ministers, petty kings, and bankers, and created fashions for the ruin of husbands and fathers of modest means. Devil take them! And Courtlandt flung his cigar into the street. He halted. The Madeleine was not exactly the goal for a man who had, half an hour before, contemplated a rout at Maxim's. His glance described a half-circle. There was Durand's; but Durand's on opera nights entertained many Americans, and he did not care to meet any of his compatriots to-night. So he turned down the Rue Royale, on the opposite side, and went into the Taverne Royale, where the patrons were not over particular in regard to the laws of fashion, and where certain ladies with light histories sought further adventures to add to their heptamerons. Now, Courtlandt thought neither of the one nor of the other. He desired isolation, safety from intrusion; and here, did he so signify, he could find it. Women gazed up at him and smiled, with interest as much as with invitation. He was brown from long exposure to the wind and the sun, that golden brown which is the gift of the sun-glitter on rocking seas. A traveler is generally indicated by this artistry of the sun, and once noted instantly creates a speculative interest. Even his light brown hair had faded at the temples, and straw-colored was the slender mustache, the ends of which had a cavalier twist. He ignored the lips which smiled and the eyes which invited, and nothing more was necessary. One is not importuned at the Taverne Royale. He sat down at a vacant table and ordered a pint of champagne, drinking hastily rather than thirstily. Would Monsieur like anything to eat? No, the wine was sufficient. Courtlandt poured out a second glass slowly. The wine bubbled up to the brim and overflowed. He had been looking at the glass with unseeing eyes. He set the bottle down impatiently. Fool! To have gone to Burma, simply to stand in the golden temple once more, in vain, to recall that other time: the starving kitten held tenderly in a woman's arms, his own scurry among the booths to find the milk so peremptorily ordered, and the smile of thanks that had been his reward! He had run away when he should have hung on. He should have fought every inch of the way.... "Monsieur is lonely?" A pretty young woman sat down before him in the vacant chair. CHAPTER II THERE IS A WOMAN? Anger, curiosity, interest; these sensations blanketed one another quickly, leaving only interest, which was Courtlandt's normal state of mind when he saw a pretty woman. It did not require very keen scrutiny on his part to arrive swiftly at the conclusion that this one was not quite in the picture. Her cheeks were not red with that redness which has a permanency of tone, neither waxing nor waning, abashed in daylight. Nor had her lips found their scarlet moisture from out the depths of certain little porcelain boxes. Decidedly she was out of place here, yet she evinced no embarrassment; she was cool, at ease. Courtlandt's interest strengthened. "Why do you think I am lonely, Mademoiselle?" he asked, without smiling. "Oh, when one talks to one's self, strikes the table, wastes good wine, the inference is but natural. So, Monsieur is lonely." Her lips and eyes, as grave and smileless as his own, puzzled him. An adventure? He looked at some of the other women. Those he could understand, but this one, no. At all times he was willing to smile, yet to draw her out he realized that he must preserve his gravity unbroken. The situation was not usual. His gaze came back to her. "Is the comparison favorable to me?" she asked. "It is. What is loneliness?" he demanded cynically. "Ah, I could tell you," she answered. "It is the longing to be with the one we love; it is the hate of the wicked things we have done; it is remorse." "That echoes of the Ambigu-Comique." He leaned upon his arms. "What are you doing here?" "I?" "Yes. You do not talk like the other girls who come here." "Monsieur comes here frequently, then?" "This is the first time in five years. I came here to-night because I wanted to be alone, because I did not wish to meet any one I knew. I have scowled at every girl in the room, and they have wisely left me alone. I haven't scowled at you because I do not know what to make of you. That's frankness. Now, you answer my question." "Would you spare me a glass of wine? I am thirsty." He struck his hands together, a bit of orientalism he had brought back with him. The observant waiter instantly came forward with a glass. The young woman sipped the wine, gazing into the glass as she did so. "Perhaps a whim brought me here. But I repeat, Monsieur is lonely." "So lonely that I am almost tempted to put you into a taxicab and run away with you." She set down the glass. "But I sha'n't," he added. The spark of eagerness in her eyes was instantly curtained. "There is a woman?" tentatively. "Is there not always a woman?" "And she has disappointed Monsieur?" There was no marked sympathy in the tone. "Since Eve, has that not been woman's part in the human comedy?" He was almost certain that her lips became firmer. "Smile, if you wish. It is not prohibitory here." It was evident that the smile had been struggling for existence, for it endured to the fulness of half a minute. She had fine teeth. He scrutinized her more closely, and she bore it well. The forehead did not make for beauty; it was too broad and high, intellectual. Her eyes were splendid. There was nothing at all ordinary about her. His sense of puzzlement renewed itself and deepened. What did she want of him? There were other men, other vacant chairs. "Monsieur is certain about the taxicab?" "Absolutely." "Ah, it is to emulate Saint Anthony!" "There are several saints of that name. To which do you refer?" "Positively not to him of Padua." Courtlandt laughed. "No, I can not fancy myself being particularly concerned about bambini. No, my model is Noah." "Noah?" dubiously. "Yes. At the time of the flood there was only one woman in the world." "I am afraid that your knowledge of that event is somewhat obscured. Still, I understand." She lifted the wine-glass again, and then he noticed her hand. It was large, white and strong; it was not the hand of a woman who dallied, who idled in primrose paths. "Tell me, what is it you wish? You interest me, at a moment, too, when I do not want to be interested. Are you really in trouble? Is there anything I can do ... barring the taxicab?" She twirled the glass, uneasily. "I am not in actual need of assistance." "But you spoke peculiarly regarding loneliness." "Perhaps I like the melodrama. You spoke of the Ambigu-Comique." "You are on the stage?" "Perhaps." "The Opera?" "Again perhaps." He laughed once more, and drew his chair closer to the table. "Monsieur in other moods must have a pleasant laughter." "I haven't laughed from the heart in a very long time," he said, returning to his former gravity, this time unassumed. "And I have accomplished this amazing thing?" "No. You followed me here. But from where?" "Followed you?" The effort to give a mocking accent to her voice was a failure. "Yes. The idea just occurred to me. There were other vacant chairs, and there was nothing inviting in my facial expression. Come, let me have the truth." "I have a friend who knows Flora Desimone." "Ah!" As if this information was a direct visitation of kindness from the gods. "Then you know where the Calabrian lives? Give me her address." There was a minute wrinkle above the unknown's nose; the shadow of a frown. "She is very beautiful." "Bah! Did she send you after me? Give me her address. I have come all the way from Burma to see Flora Desimone." "To see her?" She unguardedly clothed the question with contempt, but she instantly forced a smile to neutralize the effect. Concerned with her own defined conclusions, she lost the fine ironic bitterness that was in the man's voice. "Aye, indeed, to see her! Beautiful as Venus, as alluring as Phryne, I want nothing so much as to see her, to look into her eyes, to hear her voice!" "Is it jealousy? I hear the tragic note." The certainty of her ground became as morass again. In his turn he was puzzling her. "Tragedy? I am an American. We do not kill opera singers. We turn them over to the critics. I wish to see the beautiful Flora, to ask her a few questions. If she has sent you after me, her address, my dear young lady, her address." His eyes burned. "I am afraid." And she was so. This wasn't the tone of a man madly in love. It was wild anger. "Afraid of what?" "You." "I will give you a hundred francs." He watched her closely and shrewdly. Came the little wrinkle again, but this time urged in perplexity. "A hundred francs, for something I was sent to tell you?" "And now refuse." "It is very generous. She has a heart of flint, Monsieur." "Well I know it. Perhaps now I have one of steel." "Many sparks do not make a fire. Do you know that your French is very good?" "I spent my boyhood in Paris; some of it. Her address, if you please." He produced a crisp note for a hundred francs. "Do you want it?" She did not answer at once. Presently she opened her purse, found a stubby pencil and a slip of paper, and wrote. "There it is, Monsieur." She held out her hand for the bank-note which, with a sense of bafflement, he gave her. She folded the note and stowed it away with the pencil. "Thank you," said Courtlandt. "Odd paper, though." He turned it over. "Ah, I understand. You copy music." "Yes, Monsieur." This time the nervous flicker of her eyes did not escape him. "You are studying for the opera, perhaps?" "Yes, that is it." The eagerness of the admission convinced him that she was not. Who she was or whence she had come no longer excited his interest. He had the Calabrian's address and he was impatient to be off. "Good night." He rose. "Monsieur is not gallant." "I was in my youth," he replied, putting on his hat. The bald rudeness of his departure did not disturb her. She laughed softly and relievedly. Indeed, there was in the laughter an essence of mischief. However, if he carried away a mystery, he left one behind. As he was hunting for a taxicab, the waiter ran out and told him that he had forgotten to settle for the wine. The lady had refused to do so. Courtlandt chuckled and gave him a ten-franc piece. In other days, in other circumstances, he would have liked to know more about the unknown who scribbled notes on composition paper. She was not an idler in the Rue Royale, and it did not require that indefinable intuition which comes of worldly-wiseness to discover this fact. She might be a friend of the Desimone woman, but she had stepped out of another sphere to become so. He recognized the quality that could adjust itself to any environment and come out scatheless. This was undeniably an American accomplishment; and yet she was distinctly a Frenchwoman. He dismissed the problem from his mind and bade the driver go as fast as the police would permit. Meanwhile the young woman waited five or ten minutes, and, making sure that Courtlandt had been driven off, left the restaurant. Round the corner she engaged a carriage. So that was Edward Courtlandt? She liked his face; there was not a weak line in it, unless stubbornness could be called such. But to stay away for two years! To hide himself in jungles, to be heard of only by his harebrained exploits! "Follow him; see where he goes," had been the command. For a moment she had rebelled, but her curiosity was not to be denied. Besides, of what use was friendship if not to be tried? She knew nothing of the riddle, she had never asked a question openly. She had accidentally seen a photograph one day, in a trunk tray, with this man's name scrawled across it, and upon this flimsy base she had builded a dozen romances, each of which she had ruthlessly torn down to make room for another; but still the riddle lay unsolved. She had thrown the name into the conversation many a time, as one might throw a bomb into a crowd which had no chance to escape. Fizzles! The man had been calmly discussed and calmly dismissed. At odd times an article in the newspapers gave her an opportunity; still the frank discussion, still the calm dismissal. She had learned that the man was rich, irresponsible, vacillating, a picturesque sort of fool. But two years? What had kept him away that long? A weak man, in love, would not have made so tame a surrender. Perhaps he had not surrendered; perhaps neither of them had. And yet, he sought the Calabrian. Here was another blind alley out of which she had to retrace her steps. Bother! That Puck of Shakespeare was right: What fools these mortals be! She was very glad that she possessed a true sense of humor, spiced with harmless audacity. What a dreary world it must be to those who did not know how and when to laugh! They talked of the daring of the American woman: who but a Frenchwoman would have dared what she had this night? The taxicab! She laughed. And this man was wax in the hands of any pretty woman who came along! So rumor had it. But she knew that rumor was only the attenuated ghost of Ananias, doomed forever to remain on earth for the propagation of inaccurate whispers. Wax! Why, she would have trusted herself in any situation with a man with those eyes and that angle of jaw. It was all very mystifying. "Follow him; see where he goes." The frank discussion, then, and the calm dismissal were but a woman's dissimulation. And he had gone to Flora Desimone's. The carriage stopped before a handsome apartment-house in the Avenue de Wagram. The unknown got out, gave the driver his fare, and rang the concierge's bell. The sleepy guardian opened the door, touched his gold-braided cap in recognition, and led the way to the small electric lift. The young woman entered and familiarly pushed the button. The apartment in which she lived was on the second floor; and there was luxury everywhere, but luxury subdued and charmed by taste. There were fine old Persian rugs on the floors, exquisite oils and water-colors on the walls; and rare Japanese silk tapestries hung between the doors. In one corner of the living-room was a bronze jar filled with artificial cherry blossoms; in another corner near the door, hung a flat bell-shaped piece of brass--a Burmese gong. There were many photographs ranged along the mantel-top; celebrities, musical, artistic and literary, each accompanied by a liberal expanse of autographic ink. She threw aside her hat and wraps with that manner of inconsequence which distinguishes the artistic temperament from the thrifty one, and passed on into the cozy dining-room. The maid had arranged some sandwiches and a bottle of light wine. She ate and drank, while intermittent smiles played across her merry face. Having satisfied her hunger, she opened her purse and extracted the bank-note. She smoothed it out and laughed aloud. "Oh, if only he had taken me for a ride in the taxicab!" She bubbled again with merriment. Suddenly she sprang up, as if inspired, and dashed into another room, a study. She came back with pen and ink, and with a celerity that came of long practise, drew five straight lines across the faint violet face of the bank-note. Within these lines she made little dots at the top and bottom of stubby perpendicular strokes, and strange interlineal hieroglyphics, and sweeping curves, all of which would have puzzled an Egyptologist if he were unused to the ways of musicians. Carefully she dried the composition, and then put the note away. Some day she would confound him by returning it. A little later her fingers were moving softly over the piano keys; melodies in minor, sad and haunting and elusive, melodies that had never been put on paper and would always be her own: in them she might leap from comedy to tragedy, from laughter to tears, and only she would know. The midnight adventure was forgotten, and the hero of it, too. With her eyes closed and her lithe body swaying gently, she let the old weary pain in her heart take hold again. CHAPTER III THE BEAUTIFUL TIGRESS Flora Desimone had been born in a Calabrian peasant's hut, and she had rolled in the dust outside, yelling vigorously at all times. Specialists declare that the reason for all great singers coming from lowly origin is found in this early development of the muscles of the throat. Parents of means employ nurses or sedatives to suppress or at least to smother these infantile protests against being thrust inconsiderately into the turmoil of human beings. Flora yelled or slept, as the case might be; her parents were equally indifferent. They were too busily concerned with the getting of bread and wine. Moreover, Flora was one among many. The gods are always playing with the Calabrian peninsula, heaving it up here or throwing it down there: _il terremoto_, the earthquake, the terror. Here nature tinkers vicariously with souls; and she seldom has time to complete her work. Constant communion with death makes for callosity of feeling; and the Calabrians and the Sicilians are the cruellest among the civilized peoples. Flora was ruthless. She lived amazingly well in the premier of an apartment-hotel in the Champs-Elysées. In England and America she had amassed a fortune. Given the warm beauty of the Southern Italian, the passion, the temperament, the love of mischief, the natural cruelty, the inordinate craving for attention and flattery, she enlivened the nations with her affairs. And she never put a single beat of her heart into any of them. That is why her voice is still splendid and her beauty unchanging. She did not dissipate; calculation always barred her inclination; rather, she loitered about the Forbidden Tree and played that she had plucked the Apple. She had an example to follow; Eve had none. Men scattered fortunes at her feet as foolish Greeks scattered floral offerings at the feet of their marble gods--without provoking the sense of reciprocity or generosity or mercy. She had worked; ah, no one would ever know how hard. She had been crushed, beaten, cursed, starved. That she had risen to the heights in spite of these bruising verbs in no manner enlarged her pity, but dulled and vitiated the little there was of it. Her mental attitude toward humanity was childish: as, when the parent strikes, the child blindly strikes back. She was determined to play, to enjoy life, to give back blow for blow, nor caring where she struck. She was going to press the juice from every grape. A thousand odd years gone, she would have led the cry in Rome--"Bread and the circus!" or "To the lions!" She would have disturbed Nero's complacency, and he would have played an obbligato instead of a solo at the burning. And she was malice incarnate. They came from all climes--her lovers--with roubles and lire and francs and shillings and dollars; and those who finally escaped her enchantment did so involuntarily, for lack of further funds. They called her villas Circe's isles. She hated but two things in the world; the man she could have loved and the woman she could not surpass. Arrayed in a kimono which would have evoked the envy of the empress of Japan, supposing such a gorgeous raiment--peacocks and pine-trees, brilliant greens and olives and blues and purples--fell under the gaze of that lady's slanting eyes, she sat opposite the Slavonic Jove and smoked her cigarette between sips of coffee. Frequently she smiled. The short powerful hand of the man stroked his beard and he beamed out of his cunning eyes, eyes a trifle too porcine to suggest a keen intellect above them. "I am like a gorilla," he said; "but you are like a sleek tigress. I am stronger, more powerful than you; but I am always in fear of your claws. Especially when you smile like that. What mischief are you plotting now?" She drew in a cloud of smoke, held it in her puffed cheeks as she glided round the table and leaned over his shoulders. She let the smoke drift over his head and down his beard. In that moment he was truly Jovian. "Would you like me if I were a tame cat?" she purred. "I have never seen you in that rôle. Perhaps I might. You told me that you would give up everything but the Paris season." "I have changed my mind." She ran one hand through his hair and the other she entangled in his beard. "You'd change your mind, too, if you were a woman." "I don't have to change my mind; you are always doing it for me. But I do not want to go to America next winter." He drew her down so that he might look into her face. It was something to see. "Bah!" She released herself and returned to her chair. "When the season is over I want to go to Capri." "Capri! Too hot." "I want to go." "My dear, a dozen exiles are there, waiting to blow me up." He spoke Italian well. "You do not wish to see me spattered over the beautiful isle?" "Tch! tch! That is merely your usual excuse. You never had anything to do with the police." "No?" He eyed the end of his cigarette gravely. "One does not have to be affiliated with the police. There is class prejudice. We Russians are very fond of Egypt in the winter. Capri seems to be the half-way place. They wait for us, going and coming. Poor fools!" "I shall go alone, then." "All right." In his dull way he had learned that to pull the diva, one must agree with her. In agreeing with her one adroitly dissuaded her. "You go to Capri, and I'll go to the pavilion on the Neva." She snuffed the cigarette in the coffee-cup and frowned. "Some day you will make me horribly angry." "Beautiful tigress! If a man knew what you wanted, you would not want it. I can't hop about with the agility of those dancers at the Théâtre du Palais Royale. The best I can do is to imitate the bear. What is wrong?" "They keep giving her the premier parts. She has no more fire in her than a dead grate. The English-speaking singers, they are having everything their own way. And none of them can act." "My dear Flora, this Eleonora is an actress, first of all. That she can sing is a matter of good fortune, no more. Be reasonable. The consensus of critical opinion is generally infallible; and all over the continent they agree that she can act. Come, come; what do you care? She will never approach your Carmen...." "You praise her to me?" tempest in her glowing eyes. "I do not praise her. I am quoting facts. If you throw that cup, my tigress...." "Well?" dangerously. "It will spoil the set. Listen. Some one is at the speaking-tube." The singer crossed the room impatiently. Ordinarily she would have continued the dispute, whether the bell rang or not. But she was getting the worst of the argument and the bell was a timely diversion. The duke followed her leisurely to the wall. "What is it?" asked Flora in French. The voice below answered with a query in English. "Is this the Signorina Desimone?" "It is the duchess." "The duchess?" "Yes." "The devil!" She turned and stared at the duke, who shrugged. "No, no," she said; "the duchess, not the devil." "Pardon me; I was astonished. But on the stage you are still Flora Desimone?" "Yes. And now that my identity is established, who are you and what do you want at this time of night?" The duke touched her arm to convey that this was not the moment in which to betray her temper. "I am Edward Courtlandt." "The devil!" mimicked the diva. She and the duke heard a chuckle. "I beg your pardon again, Madame." "Well, what is it you wish?" amiably. The duke looked at her perplexedly. It seemed to him that she was always leaving him in the middle of things. Preparing himself for rough roads, he would suddenly find the going smooth. He was never swift enough mentally to follow these flying transitions from enmity to amity. In the present instance, how was he to know that his tigress had found in the man below something to play with? "You once did me an ill turn," came up the tube. "I desire that you make some reparation." "Sainted Mother! but it has taken you a long time to find out that I have injured you," she mocked. There was no reply to this; so she was determined to stir the fire a little. "And I advise you to be careful what you say; the duke is a very jealous man." That gentleman fingered his beard thoughtfully. "I do not care a hang if he is." The duke coughed loudly close to the tube. Silence. "The least you can do, Madame, is to give me her address." "Her address!" repeated the duke relievedly. He had had certain grave doubts, but these now took wing. Old flames were not in the habit of asking, nay, demanding, other women's addresses. "I am speaking to Madame, your Highness," came sharply. "We do not speak off the stage," said the singer, pushing the duke aside. "I should like to make that young man's acquaintance," whispered the duke. She warned him to be silent. Came the voice again: "Will you give me her address, please? Your messenger gave me your address, inferring that you wished to see me." "I?" There was no impeaching her astonishment. "Yes, Madame." "My dear Mr. Courtlandt, you are the last man in all the wide world I wish to see. And I do not quite like the way you are making your request. His highness does not either." "Send him down!" "That is true." "What is?" "I remember. You are very strong and much given to fighting." The duke opened and shut his hands, pleasurably. Here was something he could understand. He was a fighting man himself. Where was this going to end, and what was it all about? "Do you not think, Madame, that you owe me something?" "No. What I owe I pay. Think, Mr. Courtlandt; think well." "I do not understand," impatiently. "_Ebbene_, I owe you nothing. Once I heard you say--'I do not like to see you with the Calabrian; she is--Well, you know.' I stood behind you at another time when you said that I was a fool." "Madame, I do not forget that, that is pure invention. You are mistaken." "No. You were. I am no fool." A light laugh drifted down the tube. "Madame, I begin to see." "Ah!" "You believe what you wish to believe." "I think not." "I never even noticed you," carelessly. "Take care!" whispered the duke, who noted the sudden dilation of her nostrils. "It is easy to forget," cried the diva, furiously. "It is easy for you to forget, but not for me." "Madame, I do not forget that you entered my room that night ..." "Your address!" bawled the duke. "That statement demands an explanation." "I should explain at once, your Highness," said the man down below calmly, "only I prefer to leave that part in Madame's hands. I should not care to rob her of anything so interesting and dramatic. Madame the duchess can explain, if she wishes. I am stopping at the Grand, if you find her explanations are not up to your requirements." "I shall give you her address," interrupted the diva, hastily. The duke's bristling beard for one thing and the ice in the other man's tones for another, disquieted her. The play had gone far enough, much as she would have liked to continue it. This was going deeper than she cared to go. She gave the address and added: "To-night she sings at the Austrian ambassador's. I give you this information gladly because I know that it will be of no use to you." "Then I shall dispense with the formality of thanking you. I add that I wish you twofold the misery you have carelessly and gratuitously cost me. Good night!" Click! went the little covering of the tube. "Now," said the duke, whose knowledge of the English tongue was not so indifferent that he did not gather the substance, if not all the shadings, of this peculiar conversation; "now, what the devil is all this about?" "I hate him!" "Refused to singe his wings?" "He has insulted me!" "I am curious to learn about that night you went to his room." Her bear had a ring in his nose, but she could not always lead him by it. So, without more ado, she spun the tale, laughing at intervals. The story evidently impressed the duke, for his face remained sober all through the recital. "Did he say that you were a fool?" "Of course not!" "Shall I challenge him?" "Oh, my Russian bear, he fences like a Chicot; he is a dead shot; and is afraid of nothing ... but a woman. No, no; I have something better. It will be like one of those old comedies. I hate her!" with a burst of fury. "She always does everything just so much better than I do. As for him, he was nothing. It was she; I hurt her, wrung her heart." "Why?" mildly. "Is not that enough?" "I am slow; it takes a long time for anything to get into my head; but when it arrives, it takes a longer time to get it out." "Well, go on." Her calm was ominous. "Love or vanity. This American singer got what you could not get. You have had your way too long. Perhaps you did not love him. I do not believe you can really love any one but Flora. Doubtless he possessed millions; but on the other hand, I am a grand duke; I offered marriage, openly and legally, in spite of all the opposition brought to bear." Flora was undeniably clever. She did the one thing that could successfully cope with this perilous condition of the ducal mind. She laughed, and flung her arms around his neck and kissed him. "I have named you well. You are a tigress. But this comedy of which you speak: it might pass in Russia, but not in Paris." "I shall not be in the least concerned. My part was suggestion." "You suggested it to some one else?" "To be sure!" "My objections ..." "I will have my way in this affair. Besides, it is too late." Her gesture was explicit. He sighed. He knew quite well that she was capable of leaving the apartment that night, in her kimono. "I'll go to Capri," resignedly. Dynamite bombs were not the worst things in the world. "I don't want to go now." The duke picked up a fresh cigarette. "How the devil must have laughed when the Lord made Eve!" CHAPTER IV THE JOKE OF MONSIEUR With the same inward bitterness that attends the mental processes of a performing tiger on being sent back to its cage, Courtlandt returned to his taxicab. He wanted to roar and lash and devour something. Instead, he could only twist the ends of his mustache savagely. So she was a grand duchess, or at least the morganatic wife of a grand duke! It did not seem possible that any woman could be so full of malice. He simply could not understand. It was essentially the Italian spirit; doubtless, till she heard his voice, she had forgotten all about the episode that had foundered his ship of happiness. Her statement as to the primal cause was purely inventive. There was not a grain of truth in it. He could not possibly have been so rude. He had been too indifferent. Too indifferent! The repetition of the phrase made him sit straighter. Pshaw! It could not be that. He possessed a little vanity; if he had not, his history would not have been worth a scrawl. But he denied the possession vehemently, as men are wont to do. Strange, a man will admit smashing those ten articles of advisement known as the decalogue and yet deny the inherent quality which surrenders the admission--vanity. However you may look at it, man's vanity is a complex thing. The vanity of a woman has a definite and commendable purpose: the conquest of man, his purse, and half of his time. Too indifferent! Was it possible that he had roused her enmity simply because he had made it evident that her charms did not interest him? Beyond lifting his hat to her, perhaps exchanging a comment on the weather, his courtesies had not been extended. Courtlandt was peculiar in some respects. A woman attracted him, or she did not. In the one case he was affable, winning, pleasant, full of those agreeable little surprises that in turn attract a woman. In the other case, he passed on, for his impressions were instant and did not require the usual skirmishing. A grand duchess! The straw-colored mustache now described two aggressive points. What an impossible old world it was! The ambition of the English nobility was on a far lower scale than that of their continental cousins. On the little isle they were satisfied to marry soubrettes and chorus girls. Here, the lady must be no less a personage than a grand-opera singer or a _première danseuse_. The continental noble at least showed some discernment; he did not choose haphazard; he desired the finished product and was not to be satisfied with the material in the raw. Oh, stubborn Dutchman that he had been! Blind fool! To have run away instead of fighting to the last ditch for his happiness! The Desimone woman was right: it had taken him a long time to come to the conclusion that she had done him an ill turn. And during all these weary months he had drawn a melancholy picture of himself as a wounded lion, creeping into the jungle to hide its hurts, when, truth be known, he had taken the ways of the jackass for a model. He saw plainly enough now. More than this, where there had been mere obstacles to overcome there were now steep mountains, perhaps inaccessible for all he knew. His jaw set, and the pressure of his lips broke the sweep of his mustache, converting it into bristling tufts, warlike and resolute. As he was leaving, a square of light attracted his attention. He looked up to see the outline of the bearded Russ in the window. Poor devil! He was going to have a merry time of it. Well, that was his affair. Besides, Russians, half the year chilled by their bitter snows, were susceptible to volcanoes; they courted them as a counterbalance. Perhaps he had spoken roughly, but his temper had not been under control. One thing he recalled with grim satisfaction. He had sent a barbed arrow up the tube to disturb the felicity of the dove-cote. The duke would be rather curious to know what was meant in referring to the night she had come to his, Courtlandt's, room. He laughed. It would be a fitting climax indeed if the duke called him out. But what of the pretty woman in the Taverne Royale? What about her? At whose bidding had she followed him? One or the other of them had not told the truth, and he was inclined to believe that the prevarication had its source in the pomegranate lips of the Calabrian. To give the old barb one more twist, to learn if its venomous point still held and hurt; nothing would have afforded the diva more delight. Courtlandt glared at the window as the shade rolled down. When the taxicab joined the long line of carriages and automobiles opposite the Austrian ambassador's, Courtlandt awoke to the dismal and disquieting fact that he had formulated no plan of action. He had done no more than to give the driver his directions; and now that he had arrived, he had the choice of two alternatives. He could wait to see her come out or return at once to his hotel, which, as subsequent events affirmed, would have been the more sensible course. He would have been confronted with small difficulty in gaining admission to the house. He knew enough of these general receptions; the announcing of his name would have conveyed nothing to the host, who knew perhaps a third of his guests, and many of these but slightly. But such an adventure was distasteful to Courtlandt. He could not overstep certain recognized boundaries of convention, and to enter a man's house unasked was colossal impudence. Beyond this, he realized that he could have accomplished nothing; the advantage would have been hers. Nor could he meet her as she came out, for again the odds would have been largely in her favor. No, the encounter must be when they two were alone. She must be surprised. She must have no time to use her ready wit. He had thought to wait until some reasonable plan offered itself for trial; yet, here he was, with nothing definite or recognizable but the fact that the craving to see her was not to be withstood. The blood began to thunder in his ears. An idea presented itself. It appealed to him at that moment as quite clever and feasible. "Wait!" he called to the driver. He dived among the carriages and cars, and presently he found what he sought,--her limousine. He had taken the number into his mind too keenly to be mistaken. He saw the end of his difficulties; and he went about the affair with his usual directness. It was only at rare times that he ran his head into a cul-de-sac. If her chauffeur was regularly employed in her service, he would have to return to the hotel; but if he came from the garage, there was hope. Every man is said to have his price, and a French chauffeur might prove no notable exception to the rule. "Are you driver for Madame da Toscana?" Courtlandt asked of the man lounging in the forward seat. The chauffeur looked hard at his questioner, and on finding that he satisfied the requirements of a gentleman, grumbled an affirmative. The limousine was well known in Paris, and he was growing weary of these endless inquiries. "Are you in her employ directly, or do you come from the garage?" "I am from the garage, but I drive mademoiselle's car most of the time, especially at night. It is not madame but mademoiselle, Monsieur." "My mistake." A slight pause. It was rather a difficult moment for Courtlandt. The chauffeur waited wonderingly. "Would you like to make five hundred francs?" "How, Monsieur?" Courtlandt should have been warned by the tone, which contained no unusual interest or eagerness. "Permit me to remain in mademoiselle's car till she comes. I wish to ride with her to her apartment." The chauffeur laughed. He stretched his legs. "Thanks, Monsieur. It is very dull waiting. Monsieur knows a good joke." And to Courtlandt's dismay he realized that his proposal had truly been accepted as a jest. "I am not joking. I am in earnest. Five hundred francs. On the word of a gentleman I mean mademoiselle no harm. I am known to her. All she has to do is to appeal to you, and you can stop the car and summon the police." The chauffeur drew in his legs and leaned toward his tempter. "Monsieur, if you are not jesting, then you are a madman. Who are you? What do I know about you? I never saw you before, and for two seasons I have driven mademoiselle in Paris. She wears beautiful jewels to-night. How do I know that you are not a gentlemanly thief? Ride home with mademoiselle! You are crazy. Make yourself scarce, Monsieur; in one minute I shall call the police." "Blockhead!" English of this order the Frenchman perfectly understood. "_Là, là!_" he cried, rising to execute his threat. Courtlandt was furious, but his fury was directed at himself as much as at the trustworthy young man getting down from the limousine. His eagerness had led him to mistake stupidity for cleverness. He had gone about the affair with all the clumsiness of a boy who was making his first appearance at the stage entrance. It was mightily disconcerting, too, to have found an honest man when he was in desperate need of a dishonest one. He had faced with fine courage all sorts of dangerous wild animals; but at this moment he hadn't the courage to face a policeman and endeavor to explain, in a foreign tongue, a situation at once so delicate and so singularly open to misconstruction. So, for the second time in his life he took to his heels. Of the first time, more anon. He scrambled back to his own car, slammed the door, and told the driver to drop him at the Grand. His undignified retreat caused his face to burn; but discretion would not be denied. However, he did not return to the hotel. Mademoiselle da Toscana's chauffeur scratched his chin in perplexity. In frightening off his tempter he recognized that now he would never be able to find out who he was. He should have played with him until mademoiselle came out. She would have known instantly. That would have been the time for the police. To hide in the car! What the devil! Only a madman would have offered such a proposition. The man had been either an American or an Englishman, for all his accuracy in the tongue. Bah! Perhaps he had heard her sing that night, and had come away from the Opera, moonstruck. It was not an isolated case. The fools were always pestering him, but no one had ever offered so uncommon a bribe: five hundred francs. Mademoiselle might not believe that part of the tale. Mademoiselle was clever. There was a standing agreement between them that she would always give him half of whatever was offered him in the way of bribes. It paid. It was easier to sell his loyalty to her for two hundred and fifty francs than to betray her for five hundred. She had yet to find him untruthful, and to-night he would be as frank as he had always been. But who was this fellow in the Bavarian hat, who patrolled the sidewalk? He had been watching him when the madman approached. For an hour or more he had walked up and down, never going twenty feet beyond the limousine. He couldn't see the face. The long dark coat had a military cut about the hips and shoulders. From time to time he saw him glance up at the lighted windows. Eh, well; there were other women in the world besides mademoiselle, several others. He had to wait only half an hour for her appearance. He opened the door and saw to it that she was comfortably seated; then he paused by the window, touching his cap. "What is it, François?" "A gentleman offered me five hundred francs, Mademoiselle, if I would permit him to hide in the car." "Five hundred francs? To hide in the car? Why didn't you call the police?" "I started to, Mademoiselle, but he ran away." "Oh! What was he like?" The prima donna dropped the bunch of roses on the seat beside her. "Oh, he looked well enough. He had the air of a gentleman. He was tall, with light hair and mustache. But as I had never seen him before, and as Mademoiselle wore some fine jewels, I bade him be off." "Would you know him again?" "Surely, Mademoiselle." "The next time any one bothers you, call the police. You have done well, and I shall remember it. Home." The man in the Bavarian hat hurried back to the third car from the limousine, and followed at a reasonably safe distance. The singer leaned back against the cushions. She was very tired. The opera that night had taxed her strength, and but for her promise she would not have sung to the ambassador's guests for double the fee. There was an electric bulb in the car. She rarely turned it on, but she did to-night. She gazed into the little mirror; and utter weariness looked back from out the most beautiful, blue, Irish eyes in the world. She rubbed her fingers carefully up and down the faint perpendicular wrinkle above her nose. It was always there on nights like this. How she longed for the season to end! She would fly away to the lakes, the beautiful, heavenly tinted lakes, the bare restful mountains, and the clover lawns spreading under brave old trees; she would walk along the vineyard paths, and loiter under the fig-trees, far, far away from the world, its clamor, its fickleness, its rasping jealousies. Some day she would have enough; and then, good-by to all the clatter, the evil-smelling stages, the impossible people with whom she was associated. She would sing only to those she loved. The glamour of the life had long ago passed; she sang on because she had acquired costly habits, because she was fond of beautiful things, and above all, because she loved to sing. She had as many moods as a bird, as many sides as nature. A flash of sunshine called to her voice; the beads of water, trembling upon the blades of grass after a summer shower, brought a song to her lips. Hers was a God-given voice, and training had added to it nothing but confidence. True, she could act; she had been told by many a great impressario that histrionically she had no peer in grand opera. But the knowledge gave her no thrill of delight. To her it was the sum of a tremendous physical struggle. She shut off the light and closed her eyes. She reclined against the cushion once more, striving not to think. Once, her hands shut tightly. Never, never, never! She pressed down the burning thoughts by recalling the bright scenes at the ambassador's, the real generous applause that had followed her two songs. Ah, how that man Paderewski played! They two had cost the ambassador eight thousand francs. Fame and fortune! Fortune she could understand; but fame! What was it? Upon a time she believed she had known what fame was; but that had been when she was striving for it. A glowing article in a newspaper, a portrait in a magazine, rows upon rows of curious eyes and a patter of hands upon hands; that was all; and for this she had given the best of her life, and she was only twenty-five. The limousine stopped at last. The man in the Bavarian hat saw her alight. His car turned and disappeared. It had taken him a week to discover where she lived. His lodgings were on the other side of the Seine. After reaching them he gave crisp orders to the driver, who set his machine off at top speed. The man in the Bavarian hat entered his room and lighted the gas. The room was bare and cheaply furnished. He took off his coat but retained his hat, pulling it down still farther over his eyes. His face was always in shadow. A round chin, two full red lips, scantily covered by a blond mustache were all that could be seen. He began to walk the floor impatiently, stopping and listening whenever he heard a sound. He waited less than an hour for the return of the car. It brought two men. They were well-dressed, smoothly-shaven, with keen eyes and intelligent faces. Their host, who had never seen either of his guests before, carelessly waved his hand toward the table where there were two chairs. He himself took his stand by the window and looked out as he talked. In another hour the room was dark and the street deserted. In the meantime the prima donna gave a sigh of relief. She was home. It was nearly two o'clock. She would sleep till noon, and Saturday and Sunday would be hers. She went up the stairs instead of taking the lift, and though the hall was dark, she knew her way. She unlocked the door of the apartment and entered, swinging the door behind her. As the act was mechanical, her thoughts being otherwise engaged, she did not notice that the lock failed to click. The ferrule of a cane had prevented that. She flung her wraps on the divan and put the roses in an empty bowl. The door opened softly, without noise. Next, she stopped before the mirror over the mantel, touched her hair lightly, detached the tiara of emeralds ... and became as inanimate as marble. She saw another face. She never knew how long the interval of silence was. She turned slowly. "Yes, it is I!" said the man. Instantly she turned again to the mantel and picked up a magazine-revolver. She leveled it at him. "Leave this room, or I will shoot." Courtlandt advanced toward her slowly. "Do so," he said. "I should much prefer a bullet to that look." "I am in earnest." She was very white, but her hand was steady. He continued to advance. There followed a crash. The smell of burning powder filled the room. The Burmese gong clanged shrilly and whirled wildly. Courtlandt felt his hair stir in terror. "You must hate me indeed," he said quietly, as the sense of terror died away. He folded his arms. "Try again; there ought to be half a dozen bullets left. No? Then, good-by!" He left the apartment without another word or look, and as the door closed behind him there was a kind of finality in the clicking of the latch. The revolver clattered to the floor, and the woman who had fired it leaned heavily against the mantel, covering her eyes. "Nora, Nora!" cried a startled voice from a bedroom adjoining. "What has happened? _Mon Dieu_, what is it?" A pretty, sleepy-eyed young woman, in a night-dress, rushed into the room. She flung her arms about the singer. "Nora, my dear, my dear!" "He forced his way in. I thought to frighten him. It went off accidentally. Oh, Celeste, Celeste, I might have killed him!" The other drew her head down on her shoulder, and listened. She could hear voices in the lower hall, a shout of warning, a patter of steps; then the hall door slammed. After that, silence, save for the faint mellowing vibrations of the Burmese gong. CHAPTER V CAPTIVE OR RUNAWAY At the age of twenty-six Donald Abbott had become a prosperous and distinguished painter in water-colors. His work was individual, and at the same time it was delicate and charming. One saw his Italian landscapes as through a filmy gauze: the almond blossoms of Sicily, the rose-laden walls of Florence, the vineyards of Chianti, the poppy-glowing Campagna out of Rome. His Italian lakes had brought him fame. He knew very little of the grind and hunger that attended the careers of his whilom associates. His father had left him some valuable patents--wash-tubs, carpet-cleaners, and other labor-saving devices--and the royalties from these were quite sufficient to keep him pleasantly housed. When he referred to his father (of whom he had been very fond) it was as an inventor. Of what, he rarely told. In America it was all right; but over here, where these inventions were unknown, a wash-tub had a peculiar significance: that a man should be found in his money through its services left persons in doubt as to his genealogical tree, which, as a matter of fact, was a very good one. As a boy his schoolmates had dubbed him "The Sweep" and "Suds," and it was only human that he should wish to forget. His earnings (not inconsiderable, for tourists found much to admire in both the pictures and the artist) he spent in gratifying his mild extravagances. So there were no lines in his handsome, boyish, beardless face; and his eyes were unusually clear and happy. Perhaps once or twice, since his majority, he had returned to America to prove that he was not an expatriate, though certainly he was one, the only tie existing between him and his native land being the bankers who regularly honored his drafts. And who shall condemn him for preferring Italy to the desolate center of New York state, where good servants and good weather are as rare as are flawless emeralds? Half after three, on Wednesday afternoon, Abbott stared moodily at the weather-tarnished group by Dalou in the Luxembourg gardens--the _Triumph of Silenus_. His gaze was deceptive, for the rollicking old bibulous scoundrel had not stirred his critical sense nor impressed the delicate films of thought. He was looking through the bronze, into the far-away things. He sat on his own folding stool, which he had brought along from his winter studio hard by in the old Boul' Miche'. He had arrived early that morning, all the way from Como, to find a thunderbolt driven in at his feet. Across his knees fluttered an open newspaper, the Paris edition of the New York _Herald_. All that kept it from blowing away was the tense if sprawling fingers of his right hand; his left hung limply at his side. It was not possible. Such things did not happen these unromantic days to musical celebrities. She had written that on Monday night she would sing in _La Bohème_ and on Wednesday, _Faust_. She had since vanished, vanished as completely as though she had taken wings and flown away. It was unreal. She had left the apartment in the Avenue de Wagram on Saturday afternoon, and nothing had been seen or heard of her since. At the last moment they had had to find a substitute for her part in the Puccini opera. The maid testified that her mistress had gone on an errand of mercy. She had not mentioned where, but she had said that she would return in time to dress for dinner, which proved conclusively that something out of the ordinary had befallen her. The automobile that had carried her away had not been her own, and the chauffeur was unknown. None of the directors at the Opera had been notified of any change in the singer's plans. She had disappeared, and they were deeply concerned. Singers were generally erratic, full of sudden indispositions, unaccountable whims; but the Signorina da Toscana was one in a thousand. She never broke an engagement. If she was ill she said so at once; she never left them in doubt until the last moment. Indecision was not one of her characteristics. She was as reliable as the sun. If the directors did not hear definitely from her by noon to-day, they would have to find another Marguerite. The police began to move, and they stirred up some curious bits of information. A man had tried to bribe the singer's chauffeur, while she was singing at the Austrian ambassador's. The chauffeur was able to describe the stranger with some accuracy. Then came the bewildering episode in the apartment: the pistol-shot, the flight of the man, the astonished concierge to whom the beautiful American would offer no explanations. The man (who tallied with the description given by the chauffeur) had obtained entrance under false representations. He claimed to be an emissary with important instructions from the Opera. There was nothing unusual in this; messengers came at all hours, and seldom the same one twice; so the concierge's suspicions had not been aroused. Another item. A tall handsome Italian had called at eleven o'clock Saturday morning, but the signorina had sent down word that she could not see him. The maid recalled that her mistress had intended to dine that night with the Italian gentleman. His name she did not know, having been with the signorina but two weeks. Celeste Fournier, the celebrated young pianist and composer, who shared the apartment with the missing prima donna, stated that she hadn't the slightest idea where her friend was. She was certain that misfortune had overtaken her in some inexplicable manner. To implicate the Italian was out of the question. He was well-known to them both. He had arrived again at seven, Saturday, and was very much surprised that the signorina had not yet returned. He had waited till nine, when he left, greatly disappointed. He was the Barone di Monte-Verdi in Calabria, formerly military attaché at the Italian embassy in Berlin. Sunday noon Mademoiselle Fournier had notified the authorities. She did not know, but she felt sure that the blond stranger knew more than any one else. And here was the end of things. The police found themselves at a standstill. They searched the hotels but without success; the blond stranger could not be found. Abbott's eyes were not happy and pleasant just now. They were dull and blank with the reaction of the stunning blow. He, too, was certain of the Barone. Much as he secretly hated the Italian, he knew him to be a fearless and an honorable man. But who could this blond stranger be who appeared so sinisterly in the two scenes? From where had he come? Why had Nora refused to explain about the pistol-shot? Any woman had a perfect right to shoot a man who forced his way into her apartment. Was he one of those mad fools who had fallen in love with her, and had become desperate? Or was it some one she knew and against whom she did not wish to bring any charges? Abducted! And she might be, at this very moment, suffering all sorts of indignities. It was horrible to be so helpless. The sparkle of the sunlight upon the ferrule of a cane, extending over his shoulder, broke in on his agonizing thoughts. He turned, an angry word on the tip of his tongue. He expected to see some tourist who wanted to be informed. "Ted Courtlandt!" He jumped up, overturning the stool. "And where the dickens did you come from? I thought you were in the Orient?" "Just got back, Abby." The two shook hands and eyed each other with the appraising scrutiny of friends of long standing. "You don't change any," said Abbott. "Nor do you. I've been standing behind you fully two minutes. What were you glooming about? Old Silenus offend you?" "Have you read the _Herald_ this morning?" "I never read it nowadays. They are always giving me a roast of some kind. Whatever I do they are bound to misconstrue it." Courtlandt stooped and righted the stool, but sat down on the grass, his feet in the path. "What's the trouble? Have they been after you?" Abbott rescued the offending paper and shaking it under his friend's nose, said: "Read that." Courtlandt's eyes widened considerably as they absorbed the significance of the heading--"Eleonora da Toscana missing." "Bah!" he exclaimed. "You say bah?" "It looks like one of their advertising dodges. I know something about singers," Courtlandt added. "I engineered a musical comedy once." "You do not know anything about her," cried Abbott hotly. "That's true enough." Courtlandt finished the article, folded the paper and returned it, and began digging in the path with his cane. "But what I want to know is, who the devil is this mysterious blond stranger?" Abbott flourished the paper again. "I tell you, it's no advertising dodge. She's been abducted. The hound!" Courtlandt ceased boring into the earth. "The story says that she refused to explain this blond chap's presence in her room. What do you make of that?" "Perhaps you think the fellow was her press-agent?" was the retort. "Lord, no! But it proves that she knew him, that she did not want the police to find him. At least, not at that moment. Who's the Italian?" suddenly. "I can vouch for him. He is a gentleman, honorable as the day is long, even if he is hot-headed at times. Count him out of it. It's this unknown, I tell you. Revenge for some imagined slight. It's as plain as the nose on your face." "How long have you known her?" asked Courtlandt presently. "About two years. She's the gem of the whole lot. Gentle, kindly, untouched by flattery.... Why, you must have seen and heard her!" "I have." Courtlandt stared into the hole he had dug. "Voice like an angel's, with a face like Bellini's donna; and Irish all over. But for all that, you will find that her disappearance will turn out to be a diva's whim. Hang it, Suds, I've had some experience with singers." "You are a blockhead!" exploded the younger man. "All right, I am." Courtlandt laughed. "Man, she wrote me that she would sing Monday and to-night, and wanted me to hear her. I couldn't get here in time for _La Bohème_, but I was building on _Faust_. And when she says a thing, she means it. As you said, she's Irish." "And I'm Dutch." "And the stubbornest Dutchman I ever met. Why don't you go home and settle down and marry?--and keep that phiz of yours out of the newspapers? Sometimes I think you're as crazy as a bug." "An opinion shared by many. Maybe I am. I dash in where lunatics fear to tread. Come on over to the Soufflet and have a drink with me." "I'm not drinking to-day," tersely. "There's too much ahead for me to do." "Going to start out to find her? Oh, Sir Galahad!" ironically. "Abby, you used to be a sport. I'll wager a hundred against a bottle of pop that to-morrow or next day she'll turn up serenely, with the statement that she was indisposed, sorry not to have notified the directors, and all that. They do it repeatedly every season." "But an errand of mercy, the strange automobile which can not be found? The engagement to dine with the Barone? Celeste Fournier's statement? You can't get around these things. I tell you, Nora isn't that kind. She's too big in heart and mind to stoop to any such devices," vehemently. "Nora! That looks pretty serious, Abby. You haven't gone and made a fool of yourself, have you?" "What do you call making a fool of myself?" truculently. "You aren't a suitor, are you? An accepted suitor?" unruffled, rather kindly. "No, but I would to heaven that I were!" Abbott jammed the newspaper into his pocket and slung the stool over his arm. "Come on over to the studio until I get some money." "You are really going to start a search?" "I really am. I'd start one just as quickly for you, if I heard that you had vanished under mysterious circumstances." "I believe you honestly would." "You are an old misanthrope. I hope some woman puts the hook into you some day. Where did you pick up the grouch? Some of your dusky princesses give you the go-by?" "You, too, Abby?" "Oh, rot! Of course I never believed any of that twaddle. Only, I've got a sore head to-day. If you knew Nora as well as I do, you'd understand." Courtlandt walked on a little ahead of the artist, who looked up and down the athletic form, admiringly. Sometimes he loved the man, sometimes he hated him. He marched through tragedy and comedy and thrilling adventure with no more concern that he evinced in striding through these gardens. Nearly every one had heard of his exploits; but who among them knew anything of the real man, so adroitly hidden under unruffled externals? That there was a man he did not know, hiding deep down within those powerful shoulders, he had not the least doubt. He himself possessed the quick mobile temperament of the artist, and he could penetrate but not understand the poise assumed with such careless ease by his friend. Dutch blood had something to do with it, and there was breeding, but there was something more than these: he was a reversion, perhaps, to the type of man which had made the rovers of the Lowlands feared on land and sea, now hemmed in by convention, hampered by the barriers of progress, and striving futilely to find an outlet for his peculiar energies. One bit of knowledge gratified him; he stood nearer to Courtlandt than any other man. He had known the adventurer as a boy, and long separations had in nowise impaired the foundations of this friendship. Courtlandt continued toward the exit, his head forward, his gaze bent on the path. He had the air of a man deep in thought, philosophic thought, which leaves the brows unmarred by those corrugations known as frowns. Yet his thoughts were far from philosophic. Indeed, his soul was in mad turmoil. He could have thrown his arms toward the blue sky and cursed aloud the fates that had set this new tangle at his feet. He longed for the jungles and some mad beast to vent his wrath upon. But he gave no sign. He had returned with a purpose as hard and grim as iron; and no obstacle, less powerful than death, should divert or control him. Abduction? Let the public believe what it might; he held the key to the mystery. She was afraid, and had taken flight. So be it. "I say, Ted," called out the artist, "what did you mean by saying that you were a Dutchman?" Courtlandt paused so that Abbott might catch up to him. "I said that I was a Dutchman?" "Yes. And it has just occurred to me that you meant something." "Oh, yes. You were talking of Da Toscana? Let's call her Harrigan. It will save time, and no one will know to whom we refer. You said she was Irish, and that when she said a thing she meant it. My boy, the Irish are notorious for claiming that. They often say it before they see clearly. Now, we Dutchmen,--it takes a long time for us to make up our minds, but when we do, something has got to bend or break." "You don't mean to say that you are going to settle down and get married?" "I'm not going to settle down and get married, if that will ease your mind any." "Man, I was hoping!" "Three meals a day in the same house, with the same woman, never appealed to me." "What do you want, one for each meal?" "There's the dusky princess peeking out again. The truth is, Abby, if I could hide myself for three or four years, long enough for people to forget me, I might reconsider. But it should be under another name. They envy us millionaires. Why, we are the lonesomest duffers going. We distrust every one; we fly when a woman approaches; we become monomaniacs; one thing obsesses us, everybody is after our money. We want friends, we want wives, but we want them to be attracted to us and not to our money-bags. Oh, pshaw! What plans have you made in regard to the search?" Gloom settled upon the artist's face. "I've got to find out what's happened to her, Ted. This isn't any play. Why, she loves the part of Marguerite as she loves nothing else. She's been kidnaped, and only God knows for what reason. It has knocked me silly. I just came up from Como, where she spends the summers now. I was going to take her and Fournier out to dinner." "Who's Fournier?" "Mademoiselle Fournier, the composer. She goes with Nora on the yearly concert tours." "Pretty?" "Charming." "I see," thoughtfully. "What part of the lake; the Villa d'Este, Cadenabbia?" "Bellaggio. Oh, it was ripping last summer. She's always singing when she's happy. When she sings out on the terrace, suddenly, without giving any one warning, her voice is wonderful. No audience ever heard anything like it." "I heard her Friday night. I dropped in at the Opera without knowing what they were singing. I admit all you say in regard to her voice and looks; but I stick to the whim." "But you can't fake that chap with the blond mustache," retorted Abbott grimly. "Lord, I wish I had run into you any day but to-day. I'm all in. I can telephone to the Opera from the studio, and then we shall know for a certainty whether or not she will return for the performance to-night. If not, then I'm going in for a little detective work." "Abby, it will turn out to be the sheep of Little Bo-Peep." "Have your own way about it." When they arrived at the studio Abbott telephoned promptly. Nothing had been heard. They were substituting another singer. "Call up the _Herald_," suggested Courtlandt. Abbott did so. And he had to answer innumerable questions, questions which worked him into a fine rage: who was he, where did he live, what did he know, how long had he been in Paris, and could he prove that he had arrived that morning? Abbott wanted to fling the receiver into the mouth of the transmitter, but his patience was presently rewarded. The singer had not yet been found, but the chauffeur of the mysterious car had turned up ... in a hospital, and perhaps by night they would know everything. The chauffeur had had a bad accident; the car itself was a total wreck, in a ditch, not far from Versailles. "There!" cried Abbott, slamming the receiver on the hook. "What do you say to that?" "The chauffeur may have left her somewhere, got drunk afterward, and plunged into the ditch. Things have happened like that. Abby, don't make a camel's-hair shirt out of your paint-brushes. What a pother about a singer! If it had been a great inventor, a poet, an artist, there would have been nothing more than a two-line paragraph. But an opera-singer, one who entertains us during our idle evenings--ha! that's a different matter. Set instantly that great municipal machinery called the police in action; sell extra editions on the streets. What ado!" "What the devil makes _you_ so bitter?" "Was I bitter? I thought I was philosophizing." Courtlandt consulted his watch. Half after four. "Come over to the Maurice and dine with me to-morrow night, that is, if you do not find your prima donna. I've an engagement at five-thirty, and must be off." "I was about to ask you to dine with me to-night," disappointedly. "Can't; awfully sorry, Abby. It was only luck that I met you in the Luxembourg. Be over about seven. I was very glad to see you again." Abbott kicked a broken easel into a corner. "All right. If anything turns up I'll let you know. You're at the Grand?" "Yes. By-by." "I know what's the matter with him," mused the artist, alone. "Some woman has chucked him. Silly little fool, probably." Courtlandt went down-stairs and out into the boulevard. Frankly, he was beginning to feel concerned. He still held to his original opinion that the diva had disappeared of her own free will; but if the machinery of the police had been started, he realized that his own safety would eventually become involved. By this time, he reasoned, there would not be a hotel in Paris free of surveillance. Naturally, blond strangers would be in demand. The complications that would follow his own arrest were not to be ignored. He agreed with his conscience that he had not acted with dignity in forcing his way into her apartment. But that night he had been at odds with convention; his spirit had been that of the marauding old Dutchman of the seventeenth century. He perfectly well knew that she was in the right as far as the pistol-shot was concerned. Further, he knew that he could quash any charge she might make in that direction by the simplest of declarations; and to avoid this simplest of declarations she would prefer silence above all things. They knew each other tolerably well. It was extremely fortunate that he had not been to the hotel since Saturday. He went directly to the war-office. The great and powerful man there was the only hope left. They had met some years before in Algiers, where Courtlandt had rendered him a very real service. "I did not expect you to the minute," the great man said pleasantly. "You will not mind waiting for a few minutes." "Not in the least. Only, I'm in a deuce of a mess," frankly and directly. "Innocently enough, I've stuck my head into the police net." "Is it possible that now I can pay my debt to you?" "Such as it is. Have you read the article in the newspapers regarding the disappearance of Signorina da Toscana, the singer?" "Yes." "I am the unknown blond. To-morrow morning I want you to go with me to the prefecture and state that I was with you all of Saturday and Sunday; that on Monday you and your wife dined with me, that yesterday we went to the aviation meet, and later to the Odéon." "In brief, an alibi?" smiling now. "Exactly. I shall need one." "And a perfectly good alibi. But I have your word that you are in nowise concerned? Pardon the question, but between us it is really necessary if I am to be of service to you." "On my word as a gentleman." "That is sufficient." "In fact, I do not believe that she has been abducted at all. Will you let me use your pad and pen for a minute?" The other pushed over the required articles. Courtlandt scrawled a few words and passed back the pad. "For me to read?" "Yes," moodily. The Frenchman read. Courtlandt watched him anxiously. There was not even a flicker of surprise in the official eye. Calmly he ripped off the sheet and tore it into bits, distributing the pieces into the various waste-baskets yawning about his long flat desk. Next, still avoiding the younger man's eye, he arranged his papers neatly and locked them up in a huge safe which only the artillery of the German army could have forced. He then called for his hat and stick. He beckoned to Courtlandt to follow. Not a word was said until the car was humming on the road to Vincennes. "Well?" said Courtlandt, finally. It was not possible for him to hold back the question any longer. "My dear friend, I am taking you out to the villa for the night." "But I have nothing...." "And I have everything, even foresight. If you were arrested to-night it would cause you some inconvenience. I am fifty-six, some twenty years your senior. Under this hat of mine I carry a thousand secrets, and every one of these thousand must go to the grave with me, yours along with them. I have met you a dozen times since those Algerian days, and never have you failed to afford me some amusement or excitement. You are the most interesting and entertaining young man I know. Try one of these cigars." Precisely at the time Courtlandt stepped into the automobile outside the war-office, a scene, peculiar in character, but inconspicuous in that it did not attract attention, was enacted in the Gare de l'Est. Two sober-visaged men stood respectfully aside to permit a tall young man in a Bavarian hat to enter a compartment of the second-class. What could be seen of the young man's face was full of smothered wrath and disappointment. How he hated himself, for his weakness, for his cowardice! He was not all bad. Knowing that he was being watched and followed, he could not go to Versailles and compromise her, uselessly. And devil take the sleek demon of a woman who had prompted him to commit so base an act! "You will at least," he said, "deliver that message which I have intrusted to your care." "It shall reach Versailles to-night, your Highness." The young man reread the telegram which one of the two men had given him a moment since. It was a command which even he, wilful and disobedient as he was, dared not ignore. He ripped it into shreds and flung them out of the window. He did not apologize to the man into whose face the pieces flew. That gentleman reddened perceptibly, but he held his tongue. The blare of a horn announced the time of departure. The train moved. The two men on the platform saluted, but the young man ignored the salutation. Not until the rear car disappeared in the hazy distance did the watchers stir. Then they left the station and got into the tonneau of a touring-car, which shot away and did not stop until it drew up before that imposing embassy upon which the French will always look with more or less suspicion. CHAPTER VI THE BIRD BEHIND BARS The most beautiful blue Irish eyes in the world gazed out at the dawn which turned night-blue into day-blue and paled the stars. Rosal lay the undulating horizon, presently to burst into living flame, transmuting the dull steel bars of the window into fairy gold, that trick of alchemy so futilely sought by man. There was a window at the north and another at the south, likewise barred; but the Irish eyes never sought these two. It was from the east window only that they could see the long white road that led to Paris. The nightingale was truly caged. But the wild heart of the eagle beat in this nightingale's breast, and the eyes burned as fiercely toward the east as the east burned toward the west. Sunday and Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, to-day; and that the five dawns were singular in beauty and that she had never in her life before witnessed the creation of five days, one after another, made no impression upon her sense of the beautiful, so delicate and receptive in ordinary times. She was conscious that within her the cup of wrath was overflowing. Of other things, such as eating and sleeping and moving about in her cage (more like an eagle indeed than a nightingale), recurrence had blunted her perception. Her clothes were soiled and crumpled, sundrily torn; her hair was in disorder, and tendrils hung about her temples and forehead--thick black hair, full of purple tones in the sunlight--for she had not surrendered peacefully to this incarceration. Dignity, that phase of philosophy which accepts quietly the inevitable, she had thrown to the winds. She had fought desperately, primordially, when she had learned that her errand of mercy was nothing more than a cruel hoax. "Oh, but he shall pay, he shall pay!" she murmured, striving to loosen the bars with her small, white, helpless hands. The cry seemed to be an arietta, for through all these four maddening days she had voiced it,--now low and deadly with hate, now full-toned in burning anger, now broken by sobs of despair. "Will you never come, so that I may tell you how base and vile you are?" she further addressed the east. She had waited for his appearance on Sunday. Late in the day one of the jailers had informed her that it was impossible for the gentleman to come before Monday. So she marshaled her army of phrases, of accusations, of denunciations, ready to smother him with them the moment he came. But he came not Monday, nor Tuesday, nor Wednesday. The suspense was to her mind diabolical. She began to understand: he intended to keep her there till he was sure that her spirit was broken, then he would come. Break her spirit? She laughed wildly. He could break her spirit no more easily than she could break these bars. To bring her to Versailles upon an errand of mercy! Well, he was capable of anything. The room was large and fairly comfortable, but contained nothing breakable, having been tenanted at one time by a strenuous lunatic, who had considerately died after his immediate family and relations had worn themselves into their several graves, taking care of him. But Eleonora Harrigan knew nothing of the history of the room while she occupied it. So, no ghost disturbed her restless slumberless nights, consumed in watching and listening. She was not particularly distressed because she knew that it would not be possible for her to sing again until the following winter in New York. She had sobbed too much, with her face buried in the pillow. Had these sobs been born of weakness, all might have been well; but rage had mothered them, and thus her voice was in a very bad way. This morning she was noticeably hoarse, and there was a break in the arietta. No, she did not fret over this side of the calamity. The sting of it all lay in the fact that she had been outraged in the matter of personal liberty, with no act of reprisal to ease her immediate longing to be avenged. Nora, as she stood in the full morning sunlight, was like to gladden the eyes of all mankind. She was beautiful, and all adjectives applicable would but serve to confuse rather than to embellish her physical excellence. She was as beautiful as a garden rose is, needing no defense, no ramparts of cloying phrases. The day of poets is gone, otherwise she would have been sung in cantos. She was tall, shapely, deep-bosomed, fine-skinned. Critics, in praising her charms, delved into mythology and folk-lore for comparisons, until there wasn't a goddess left on Olympus or on Northland's icy capes; and when these images became a little shop-worn, referred to certain masterpieces of the old fellows who had left nothing more to be said in oils. Nora enjoyed it all. She had not been happy in the selection of her stage name; but she had chosen Eleonora da Toscana because she believed there was good luck in it. Once, long before the world knew of her, she had returned home from Italy unexpectedly. "Molly, here's Nora, from Tuscany!" her delighted father had cried: who at that time had a nebulous idea that Tuscany was somewhere in Ireland because it had a Celtic ring to it. Being filled with love of Italy, its tongue, its history, its physical beauty, she naïvely translated "Nora from Tuscany" into Italian, and declared that when she went upon the stage she would be known by that name. There had been some smiling over the pseudonym; but Nora was Irish enough to cling to it. By and by the great music-loving public ceased to concern itself about her name; it was her fresh beauty and her wonderful voice they craved to see and hear. Kings and queens, emperors and empresses, princes and princesses,--what is called royalty and nobility in the newspapers freely gave her homage. Quite a rise in the world for a little girl who had once lived in a shabby apartment in New York and run barefooted on the wet asphalts, summer nights! But Nora was not recalling the happy scenes of her childhood; indeed, no; she was still threatening Paris. Once there, she would not lack for reprisals. To have played on her pity! To have made a lure of her tender concern for the unfortunate! Never would she forgive such baseness. And only a little while ago she had been as happy as the nightingale to which they compared her. Never had she wronged any one; she had been kindness and thoughtfulness to all with whom she had come in contact. But from now on!... Her fingers tightened round the bars. She might have posed as Dido when she learned that the noble Æneas was dead. War, war; woe to the moths who fluttered about her head hereafter! Ah, but had she been happy? Her hands slid down the bars. Her expression changed. The mouth drooped, the eagle-light in her eyes dimmed. From out the bright morning, somewhere, had come weariness, and with this came weakness, and finally, tears. She heard the key turn in the lock. They had never come so early before. She was astonished to see that her jailer did not close the door as usual. He put down the breakfast tray on the table. There was tea and toast and fruit. "Mademoiselle, there has been a terrible mistake," said the man humbly. "Ah! So you have found that out?" she cried. "Yes. You are not the person for whom this room was intended." Which was half a truth and perfectly true, paradoxical as it may seem. "Eat your breakfast in peace. You are free, Mademoiselle." "Free? You will not hinder me if I walk through that door?" "No, Mademoiselle. On the contrary, I shall be very glad, and so will my brother, who guards you at night. I repeat, there has been a frightful mistake. Monsieur Champeaux ..." "Monsieur Champeaux!" Nora was bewildered. She had never heard this name before. "He calls himself that," was the diplomatic answer. All Nora's suspicions took firm ground again. "Will you describe this Monsieur Champeaux to me?" asked the actress coming into life. "He is short, dark, and old, Mademoiselle." "Rather is he not tall, blond, and young?" ironically. The jailer concealed what annoyance he felt. In his way he was just as capable an actor as she was. The accuracy of her description startled him; for the affair had been carried out so adroitly that he had been positive that until her real captor appeared she would be totally in the dark regarding his identity. And here she had hit it off in less than a dozen words. Oh, well; it did not matter now. She might try to make it unpleasant for his employer, but he doubted the ultimate success of her attempts. However, the matter was at an end as far as he was concerned. "Have you thought what this means? It is abduction. It is a crime you have committed, punishable by long imprisonment." "I have been Mademoiselle's jailer, not her abductor. And when one is poor and in need of money!" He shrugged. "I will give you a thousand francs for the name and address of the man who instigated this outrage." Ah, he thought: then she wasn't so sure? "I told you the name, Mademoiselle. As for his address, I dare not give it, not for ten thousand francs. Besides, I have said that there has been a mistake." "For whom have I been mistaken?" "Who but Monsieur Champeaux's wife, Mademoiselle, who is not in her right mind?" with inimitable sadness. "Very well," said Nora. "You say that I am free. That is all I want, freedom." "In twenty minutes the electric tram leaves for Paris. You will recall, Mademoiselle," humbly, "that we have taken nothing belonging to you. You have your purse and hat and cloak. The struggle was most unfortunate. But, think, Mademoiselle, think; we thought you to be insane!" "Permit me to doubt that! And you are not afraid to let me go?" "Not in the least, Mademoiselle. A mistake has been made, and in telling you to go at once, we do our best to rectify this mistake. It is only five minutes to the tram. A carriage is at the door. Will Mademoiselle be pleased to remember that we have treated her with the utmost courtesy?" "I shall remember everything," ominously. "Very good, Mademoiselle. You will be in Paris before nine." With this he bowed and backed out of the room as though Nora had suddenly made a distinct ascension in the scale of importance. "Wait!" she called. His face appeared in the doorway again. "Do you know who I am?" "Since this morning, Mademoiselle." "That is all." Free! Her veins tingled with strange exultation. He had lost his courage and had become afraid of the consequences. Free! Monsieur Champeaux indeed! Cowardice was a new development in his character. He had been afraid to come. She drank the tea, but did not touch the toast or fruit. There would be time enough for breakfast when she arrived in Paris. Her hands trembled violently as she pinned on her hat, and she was not greatly concerned as to the angle. She snatched up her purse and cloak, and sped out into the street. A phaeton awaited her. "The tram," she said. "Yes, Mademoiselle." "And go quickly." She would not feel safe until she was in the tram. A face appeared at one of the windows. As the vehicle turned the corner, the face vanished; and perhaps that particular visage disappeared forever. A gray wig came off, the little gray side-whiskers, the bushy grey eyebrows, revealing a clever face, not more than thirty, cunning, but humorously cunning and anything but scoundrelly. The painted scar aslant the nose was also obliterated. With haste the man thrust the evidences of disguise into a traveling-bag, ran here and there through the rooms, all bare and unfurnished save the one with the bars and the kitchen, which contained two cots and some cooking utensils. Nothing of importance had been left behind. He locked the door and ran all the way to the Place d'Armes, catching the tram to Paris by a fraction of a minute. All very well done. She would be in Paris before the police made any definite move. The one thing that disturbed him was the thought of the blockhead of a chauffeur, who had got drunk before his return from Versailles. If he talked; well, he could say nothing beyond the fact that he had deposited the singer at the house as directed. He knew positively nothing. The man laughed softly. A thousand francs apiece for him and Antoine, and no possible chance of being discovered. Let the police find the house in Versailles; let them trace whatever paths they found; the agent would tell them, and honestly, that an aged man had rented the house for a month and had paid him in advance. What more could the agent say? Only one bit of puzzlement: why hadn't the blond stranger appeared? Who was he, in truth, and what had been his game? All this waiting and wondering, and then a curt telegram of the night before, saying, "Release her." So much the better. What his employer's motives were did not interest him half so much as the fact that he had a thousand francs in his pocket, and that all element of danger had been done away with. True, the singer herself would move heaven and earth to find out who had been back of the abduction. Let her make her accusations. He was out of it. He glanced toward the forward part of the tram. There she sat, staring at the white road ahead. A young Frenchman sat near her, curling his mustache desperately. So beautiful and all alone! At length he spoke to her. She whirled upon him so suddenly that his hat fell off his head and rolled at the feet of the onlooker. "Your hat, Monsieur?" he said gravely, returning it. Nora laughed maliciously. The author of the abortive flirtation fled down to the body of the tram. And now there was no one on top but Nora and her erstwhile jailer, whom she did not recognize in the least. * * * * * "Mademoiselle," said the great policeman soberly, "this is a grave accusation to make." "I make it, nevertheless," replied Nora. She sat stiffly in her chair, her face colorless, dark circles under her eyes. She never looked toward Courtlandt. "But Monsieur Courtlandt has offered an alibi such as we can not ignore. More than that, his integrity is vouched for by the gentleman at his side, whom doubtless Mademoiselle recognizes." Nora eyed the great man doubtfully. "What is the gentleman to you?" she was interrogated. "Absolutely nothing," contemptuously. The minister inspected his rings. "He has annoyed me at various times," continued Nora; "that is all. And his actions on Friday night warrant every suspicion I have entertained against him." The chief of police turned toward the bandaged chauffeur. "You recognize the gentleman?" "No, Monsieur, I never saw him before. It was an old man who engaged me." "Go on." "He said that Mademoiselle's old teacher was very ill and asked for assistance. I left Mademoiselle at the house and drove away. I was hired from the garage. That is the truth, Monsieur." Nora smiled disbelievingly. Doubtless he had been paid well for that lie. "And you?" asked the chief of Nora's chauffeur. "He is certainly the gentleman, Monsieur, who attempted to bribe me." "That is true," said Courtlandt with utmost calmness. "Mademoiselle, if Monsieur Courtlandt wished, he could accuse you of attempting to shoot him." "It was an accident. His sudden appearance in my apartment frightened me. Besides, I believe a woman who lives comparatively alone has a legal and moral right to protect herself from such unwarrantable intrusions. I wish him no physical injury, but I am determined to be annoyed by him no longer." The minister's eyes sought Courtlandt's face obliquely. Strange young man, he thought. From the expression of his face he might have been a spectator rather than the person most vitally concerned in this little scene. And what a pair they made! "Monsieur Courtlandt, you will give me your word of honor not to annoy Mademoiselle again?" "I promise never to annoy her again." For the briefest moment the blazing blue eyes clashed with the calm brown ones. The latter were first to deviate from the line. It was not agreeable to look into a pair of eyes burning with the hate of one's self. Perhaps this conflagration was intensified by the placidity of his gaze. If only there had been some sign of anger, of contempt, anything but this incredible tranquillity against which she longed to cry out! She was too wrathful to notice the quickening throb of the veins on his temples. "Mademoiselle, I find no case against Monsieur Courtlandt, unless you wish to appear against him for his forcible entrance to your apartment." Nora shook her head. The chief of police stroked his mustache to hide the fleeting smile. A peculiar case, the like of which had never before come under his scrutiny! "Circumstantial evidence, we know, points to him; but we have also an alibi which is incontestable. We must look elsewhere for your abductors. Think; have you not some enemy? Is there no one who might wish you worry and inconvenience? Are your associates all loyal to you? Is there any jealousy?" "No, none at all, Monsieur," quickly and decidedly. "In my opinion, then, the whole affair is a hoax, perpetrated to vex and annoy you. The old man who employed this chauffeur may not have been old. I have looked upon all sides of the affair, and it begins to look like a practical joke, Mademoiselle." "Ah!" angrily. "And am I to have no redress? Think of the misery I have gone through, the suspense! My voice is gone. I shall not be able to sing again for months. Is it your suggestion that I drop the investigation?" "Yes, Mademoiselle, for it does not look as if we could get anywhere with it. If you insist, I will hold Monsieur Courtlandt; but I warn you the magistrate would not hesitate to dismiss the case instantly. Monsieur Courtlandt arrived in Marseilles Thursday morning; he reached Paris Friday morning. Since arriving in Paris he has fully accounted for his time. It is impossible that he could have arranged for the abduction. Still, if you say, I can hold him for entering your apartment." "That would be but a farce." Nora rose. "Monsieur, permit me to wish you good day. For my part, I shall pursue this matter to the end. I believe this gentleman guilty, and I shall do my best to prove it. I am a woman, and all alone. When a man has powerful friends, it is not difficult to build an alibi." "That is a reflection upon my word, Mademoiselle," quietly interposed the minister. "Monsieur has been imposed upon." Nora walked to the door. "Wait a moment, Mademoiselle," said the prefect. "Why do you insist upon prosecuting him for something of which he is guiltless, when you could have him held for something of which he is really guilty?" "The one is trivial; the other is a serious outrage. Good morning." The attendant closed the door behind her. "A very determined young woman," mused the chief of police. "Exceedingly," agreed the minister. Courtlandt got up wearily. But the chief motioned him to be reseated. "I do not say that I dare not pursue my investigations; but now that mademoiselle is safely returned, I prefer not to." "May I ask who made this request?" asked Courtlandt. "Request? Yes, Monsieur, it was a request not to proceed further." "From where?" "As to that, you will have to consult the head of the state. I am not at liberty to make the disclosure." The minister leaned forward eagerly. "Then there is a political side to it?" "There would be if everything had not turned out so fortunately." "I believe that I understand now," said Courtlandt, his face hardening. Strange, he had not thought of it before. His skepticism had blinded him to all but one angle. "Your advice to drop the matter is excellent." The chief of police elevated his brows interrogatively. "For I presume," continued Courtlandt, rising, "that Mademoiselle's abductor is by this time safely across the frontier." CHAPTER VII BATTLING JIMMIE There is a heavenly terrace, flanked by marvelous trees. To the left, far down below, is a curving, dark-shaded, turquoise body of water called Lecco; to the right there lies the queen of lakes, the crown of Italy, a corn-flower sapphire known as Como. Over and about it--this terrace--poets have raved and tousled their neglected locks in vain to find the perfect phrasing; novelists have come and gone and have carried away peace and inspiration; and painters have painted it from a thousand points of view, and perhaps are painting it from another thousand this very minute. It is the Place of Honeymoons. Rich lovers come and idle there; and lovers of modest means rush up to it and down from it to catch the next steamer to Menaggio. Eros was not born in Greece: of all barren mountains, unstirring, Hymettus, or Olympus, or whatever they called it in the days of the junketing gods, is completest. No; Venus went a-touring and abode a while upon this same gracious spot, once dear to Pliny the younger. Between the blessed ledge and the towering mountains over the way, rolls a small valley, caressed on either side by the lakes. There are flower gardens, from which in summer rises the spicy perfume of lavender; there are rows upon rows of grape-vines, terraced downward; there are purple figs and white and ruby mulberries. Around and about, rising sheer from the waters, wherever the eye may rove, heaven-touching, salmon-tinted mountains abound, with scarfs of filmy cloud aslant their rugged profiles, and beauty-patches of snow. And everywhere the dark and brooding cypress, the copper beech, the green pine accentuate the pink and blue and white stucco of the villas, the rich and the humble. Behind the terrace is a promontory, three or four hundred feet above the waters. Upon the crest is a cultivated forest of all known evergreens. There are ten miles of cool and fragrant paths, well trodden by the devoteés of Eros. The call of love is heard here; the echoes to-day reverberate with the impassioned declarations of yesterday. The Englishman's reserve melts, the American forgets his coupons, the German puts his arm around the robust waist of his frau or fräulein. (This is nothing for him; he does it unconcernedly up and down the great urban highways of the world.) Again, between the terrace ledge and the forest lies a square of velvet green, abounding in four-leaf clover. _Buona fortuna!_ In the center there is a fountain. The water tinkles in drops. One hears its soft music at all times. Along the terrace parapet are tea-tables; a monster oak protects one from the sun. If one (or two) lingers over tea and cakes, one may witness the fiery lances of the setting sun burn across one arm of water while the silver spars of the rising moon shimmer across the other. Nature is whole-souled here; she gives often and freely and all she has. Seated on one of the rustic benches, his white tennis shoes resting against the lower iron of the railing, a Bavarian dachel snoozing comfortably across his knees, was a man of fifty. He was broad of shoulder, deep of chest, and clean-shaven. He had laid aside his Panama hat, and his hair was clipped closely, and was pleasantly and honorably sprinkled with gray. His face was broad and tanned; the nose was tilted, and the wide mouth was both kindly and humorous. One knew, from the tint of his blue eyes and the quirk of his lips, that when he spoke there would be a bit of brogue. He was James Harrigan, one time celebrated in the ring for his gameness, his squareness, his endurance; "Battling Jimmie" Harrigan, who, when he encountered his first knock-out, retired from the ring. He had to his credit sixty-one battles, of which he had easily won forty. He had been outpointed in some and had broken even in others; but only once had he been "railroaded into dreamland," to use the parlance of the game. That was enough. He understood. Youth would be served, and he was no longer young. He had, unlike the many in his peculiar service, lived cleanly and with wisdom and foresight: he had saved both his money and his health. To-day he was at peace with the world, with three sound appetites the day and the wherewithal to gratify them. True, he often dreamed of the old days, the roped square, the lights, the haze of tobacco smoke, the white patches surrounding, all of a certain expectant tilt, the reporters scribbling on the deal tables under the very posts, the cheers as he took his corner and scraped his shoes in the powdered resin, the padded gloves thrown down in the center of the canvas which was already scarred and soiled by the preliminaries. But never, never again; if only for the little woman's sake. Only when the game was done did he learn with what terror and dread she had waited for his return on fighting nights. To-day "Battling Jimmie" was forgotten by the public, and he was happy in the seclusion of this forgetfulness. A new and strange career had opened up before him: he was the father of the most beautiful prima donna in the operatic world, and, difficult as the task was, he did his best to live up to it. It was hard not to offer to shake hands when he was presented to a princess or a duchess; it was hard to remember when to change the studs in his shirt; and a white cravat was the terror of his nights, for his fingers, broad and stubby and powerful, had not been trained to the delicate task of tying a bow-knot. By a judicious blow in that spot where the ribs divaricate he could right well tie his adversary into a bow-knot, but this string of white lawn was a most damnable thing. Still, the puttering of the two women, their daily concern over his deportment, was bringing him into conformity with social usages. That he naturally despised the articles of such a soulless faith was evident in his constant inclination to play hooky. One thing he rebelled against openly, and with such firmness that the women did not press him too strongly for fear of a general revolt. On no occasion, however impressive, would he wear a silk hat. Christmas and birthdays invariably called forth the gift of a silk hat, for the women trusted that they could overcome resistance by persistence. He never said anything, but it was noticed that the hotel porter, or the gardener, or whatever masculine head (save his own) was available, came forth resplendent on feast-days and Sundays. Leaning back in an iron chair, with his shoulders resting against the oak, was another man, altogether a different type. He was frowning over the pages of Bagot's _Italian Lakes_, and he wasn't making much headway. He was Italian to the core, for all that he aped the English style and manner. He could speak the tongue with fluency, but he stumbled and faltered miserably over the soundless type. His clothes had the Piccadilly cut, and his mustache, erstwhile waxed and militant, was cropped at the corners, thoroughly insular. He was thirty, and undeniably handsome. Near the fountain, on the green, was a third man. He was in the act of folding up an easel and a camp-stool. The tea-drinkers had gone. It was time for the first bell for dinner. The villa's omnibus was toiling up the winding road among the grape-vines. Suddenly Harrigan tilted his head sidewise, and the long silken ears of the dachel stirred. The Italian slowly closed his book and permitted his chair to settle on its four legs. The artist stood up from his paintbox. From a window in the villa came a voice; only a lilt of a melody, no words,--half a dozen bars from _Martha_; but every delightful note went deep into the three masculine hearts. Harrigan smiled and patted the dog. The Italian scowled at the vegetable garden directly below. The artist scowled at the Italian. "Fritz, Fritz; here, Fritz!" The dog struggled in Harrigan's hands and tore himself loose. He went clattering over the path toward the villa and disappeared into the doorway. Nothing could keep him when that voice called. He was as ardent a lover as any, and far more favored. "Oh, you funny little dog! You merry little dachel! Fritz, mustn't; let go!" Silence. The artist knew that she was cuddling the puppy to her heart, and his own grew twisted. He stooped over his materials again and tied the box to the easel and the stool, and shifted them under his arm. "I'll be up after dinner, Mr. Harrigan," he said. "All right, Abbott." Harrigan waved his hand pleasantly. He was becoming so used to the unvarying statement that Abbott would be up after dinner, that his reply was by now purely mechanical. "She's getting her voice back all right; eh?" "Beautifully! But I really don't think she ought to sing at the Haines' villa Sunday." "One song won't hurt her. She's made up her mind to sing. There's nothing for us to do but to sit tight. No news from Paris?" "No." "Say, do you know what I think?" "What?" "Some one has come across to the police." "Paris is not New York, Mr. Harrigan." "Oh, I don't know. There's a hundred cents to the dollar, my boy, Paris or New York. Why haven't they moved? They can't tell me that tow-headed chap's alibi was on the level. I wish I'd been in Paris. There'd been something doing. And who was he? They refuse to give his name. And I can't get a word out of Nora. Shuts me up with a bang when I mention it. Throws her nerves all out, she says. I'd like to get my hands on the blackguard." "So would I. It's a puzzle. If he had molested her while she was a captive, you could understand. But he never came near her." "Busted his nerve, that's what." "I have my doubts about that. A man who will go that far isn't subject to any derangement of his nerves. Want me to bring up the checkers?" "Sure. I've got two rubbers hanging over you." The artist took the path that led around the villa and thence down by many steps to the village by the waterside, to the cream-tinted cluster of shops and enormous hotels. The Italian was more fortunate. He was staying at the villa. He rose and sauntered over to Harrigan, who was always a source of interest to him. Study the man as he might, there always remained a profound mystery to his keen Italian mind. Every now and then nature--to prove that while she provided laws for humanity she obeyed none herself--nature produced the prodigy. Ancestry was nothing; habits, intelligence, physical appearance counted for naught. Harrigan was a fine specimen of the physical man, yes; but to be the father of a woman who was as beautiful as the legendary goddesses and who possessed a voice incomparable in the living history of music, here logic, the cold and accurate intruder, found an unlockable door. He liked the ex-prizefighter, so kindly and wholesome; but he also pitied him. Harrigan reminded him of a seal he had once seen in an aquarium tank: out of his element, but merry-eyed and swimming round and round as if determined to please everybody. "It will be a fine night," said the Italian, pausing at Harrigan's bench. "Every night is fine here, Barone," replied Harrigan. "Why, they had me up in Marienbad a few weeks ago, and I'm not over it yet. It's no place for a sick man; only a well man could come out of it alive." The Barone laughed. Harrigan had told this tale half a dozen times, but each time the Barone felt called on to laugh. The man was her father. "Do you know, Mr. Harrigan, Miss Harrigan is not herself? She is--what do you call?--bitter. She laughs, but--ah, I do not know!--it sounds not real." "Well, she isn't over that rumpus in Paris yet." "Rumpus?" "The abduction." "Ah, yes! Rumpus is another word for abduction? Yes, yes, I see." "No, no! Rumpus is just a mix-up, a row, anything that makes a noise, calls in the police. You can make a rumpus on the piano, over a game of cards, anything." The Barone spread his hands. "I comprehend," hurriedly. He comprehended nothing, but he was too proud to admit it. "So Nora is not herself; a case of nerves. And to think that you called there at the apartment the very day!" "Ah, if I had been there the right time!" "But what puts me down for the count is the action of the fellow. Never showed up; just made her miss two performances." "He was afraid. Men who do cowardly things are always afraid." The Barone spoke with decided accent, but he seldom made a grammatical error. "But sometimes, too, men grow mad at once, and they do things in their madness. Ah, she is so beautiful! She is a nightingale." The Italian looked down on Como whose broad expanse was crisscrossed by rippled paths made by arriving and departing steamers. "It is not a wonder that some man might want to run away with her." Harrigan looked curiously at the other. "Well, it won't be healthy for any man to try it again." The father held out his powerful hands for the Barone's inspection. They called mutely but expressively for the throat of the man who dared. "It'll never happen again. Her mother and I are not going away from her any more. When she sings in Berlin, I'm going to trail along; when she hits the high note in Paris, I'm lingering near; when she trills in London, I'm hiding in the shadow. And you may put that in your pipe and smoke it." "I smoke only cigarettes," replied the Barone gravely. It had been difficult to follow, this English. Harrigan said nothing in return. He had given up trying to explain to the Italian the idiomatic style of old Broadway. He got up and brushed his flannels perfunctorily. "Well, I suppose I've got to dress for supper," resentfully. He still called it supper; and, as in the matter of the silk hat, his wife no longer strove to correct him. The evening meal had always been supper, and so it would remain until that time when he would cease to look forward to it. "Do you go to the dancing at Cadenabbia to-night?" "Me? I should say not!" Harrigan laughed. "I'd look like a bull in a china-shop. Abbott is coming up to play checkers with me. I'll leave the honors to you." The Barone's face lighted considerably. He hated the artist only when he was visible. He was rather confused, however. Abbott had been invited to the dance. Why wasn't he going? Could it be true? Had the artist tried his luck and lost? Ah, if fate were as kind as that! He let Harrigan depart alone. Why not? What did he care? What if the father had been a fighter for prizes? What if the mother was possessed with a misguided desire to shine socially? What mattered it if they had once resided in an obscure tenement in a great city, and that grandfathers were as far back as they could go with any certainty? Was he not his own master? What titled woman of his acquaintance whose forebears had been powerful in the days of the Borgias, was not dimmed in the presence of this wonderful maid to whom all things had been given unreservedly? Her brow was fit for a royal crown, let alone a simple baronial tiara such as he could provide. The mother favored him a little; of this he was reasonably certain; but the moods of the daughter were difficult to discover or to follow. To-night! The round moon was rising palely over Lecco; the moon, mistress of love and tides, toward whom all men and maids must look, though only Eros knows why! Evidently there was no answer to the Italian's question, for he faced about and walked moodily toward the entrance. Here he paused, looking up at the empty window. Again a snatch of song-- _O solo mio_ ... _che bella cosa_...! What a beautiful thing indeed! Passionately he longed for the old days, when by his physical prowess alone oft a man won his lady. Diplomacy, torrents of words, sly little tricks, subterfuges, adroitness, stolen glances, careless touches of the hand; by these must a maid be won to-day. When she was happy she sang, when she was sad, when she was only mischievous. She was just as likely to sing _O terra addio_ when she was happy as _O sole mio_ when she was sad. So, how was a man to know the right approach to her variant moods? Sighing deeply, he went on to his room, to change his Piccadilly suit for another which was supposed to be the last word in the matter of evening dress. Below, in the village, a man entered the Grand Hotel. He was tall, blond, rosy-cheeked. He carried himself like one used to military service; also, like one used to giving peremptory orders. The porter bowed, the director bowed, and the proprietor himself became a living carpenter's square, hinged. The porter and the director recognized a personage; the proprietor recognized the man. It was of no consequence that the new arrival called himself Herr Rosen. He was assigned to a suite of rooms, and on returning to the bureau, the proprietor squinted his eyes abstractedly. He knew every woman of importance at that time residing on the Point. Certainly it could be none of these. _Himmel!_ He struck his hands together. So that was it: the singer. He recalled the hints in certain newspaper paragraphs, the little tales with the names left to the imagination. So that was it? What a woman! Men looked at her and went mad. And not so long ago one had abducted her in Paris. The proprietor threw up his hands in despair. What was going to happen to the peace of this bucolic spot? The youth permitted nothing to stand in his way, and the singer's father was a retired fighter with boxing-gloves! CHAPTER VIII MOONLIGHT AND A PRINCE When he had fought what he considered two rattling rounds, Harrigan conceded that his cravat had once more got the decision over him on points. And the cravat was only a second-rater, too, a black-silk affair. He tossed up the sponge and went down to the dining-room, the ends of the conqueror straggling like the four points of a battered weather-vane. His wife and daughter and Mademoiselle Fournier were already at their table by the casement window, from which they could see the changing granite mask of Napoleon across Lecco. At the villa there were seldom more than ten or twelve guests, this being quite the capacity of the little hotel. These generally took refuge here in order to escape the noise and confusion of a large hotel, to avoid the necessity of dining in state every night. Few of the men wore evening dress, save on occasions when they were entertaining. The villa wasn't at all fashionable, and the run of American tourists fought shy of it, preferring the music and dancing and card-playing of the famous hostelries along the water-front. Of course, everybody came up for the view, just as everybody went up the Corner Grat (by cable) at Zermatt to see the Matterhorn. But for all its apparent dulness, there, was always an English duchess, a Russian princess, or a lady from the Faubourg St.-Germain somewhere about, resting after a strenuous winter along the Riviera. Nora Harrigan sought it not only because she loved the spot, but because it sheltered her from idle curiosity. It was almost as if the villa were hers, and the other people her guests. Harrigan crossed the room briskly, urged by an appetite as sound as his views on life. The chef here was a king; there was always something to look forward to at the dinner hour; some new way of serving spinach, or lentils, or some irresistible salad. He smiled at every one and pulled out his chair. "Sorry to keep you folks waiting." "James!" "What's the matter now?" he asked good-naturedly. Never that tone but something was out of kilter. His wife glanced wrathfully at his feet. Wonderingly he looked down. In the heat of the battle with his cravat he had forgotten all about his tennis shoes. "I see. No soup for mine." He went back to his room, philosophically. There was always something wrong when he got into these infernal clothes. "Mother," said Nora, "why can't you let him be?" "But white shoes!" in horror. "Who cares? He's the patientest man I know. We're always nagging him, and I for one am going to stop. Look about! So few men and women dress for dinner. You do as you please here, and that is why I like it." "I shall never be able to do anything with him as long as he sees that his mistakes are being condoned by you," bitterly responded the mother. "Some day he will humiliate us all by his carelessness." "Oh, bother!" Nora's elbow slyly dug into Celeste's side. The pianist's pretty face was bent over her soup. She had grown accustomed to these little daily rifts. For the great, patient, clumsy, happy-go-lucky man she entertained an intense pity. But it was not the kind that humiliates; on the contrary, it was of a mothering disposition; and the ex-gladiator dimly recognized it, and felt more comfortable with her than with any other woman excepting Nora. She understood him perhaps better than either mother or daughter; he was too late: he belonged to a distant time, the beginning of the Christian era; and often she pictured him braving the net and the trident in the saffroned arena. Mrs. Harrigan broke her bread vexatiously. Her husband refused to think for himself, and it was wearing on her nerves to watch him day and night. Deep down under the surface of new adjustments and social ambitions, deep in the primitive heart, he was still her man. But it was only when he limped with an occasional twinge of rheumatism, or a tooth ached, or he dallied with his meals, that the old love-instinct broke up through these artificial crustations. True, she never knew how often he invented these trivial ailments, for he soon came into the knowledge that she was less concerned about him when he was hale and hearty. She still retained evidences of a blossomy beauty. Abbott had once said truly that nature had experimented on her; it was in the reproduction that perfection had been reached. To see the father, the mother, and the daughter together it was not difficult to fashion a theory as to the latter's splendid health and physical superiority. Arriving at this point, however, theory began to fray at the ends. No one could account for the genius and the voice. The mother often stood lost in wonder that out of an ordinary childhood, a barelegged, romping, hoydenish childhood, this marvel should emerge: her's! She was very ambitious for her daughter. She wanted to see nothing less than a ducal coronet upon the child's brow, British preferred. If ordinary chorus girls and vaudeville stars, possessing only passable beauty and no intelligence whatever, could bring earls into their nets, there was no reason why Nora could not be a princess or a duchess. So she planned accordingly. But the child puzzled and eluded her; and from time to time she discovered a disquieting strength of character behind a disarming amiability. Ever since Nora had returned home by way of the Orient, the mother had recognized a subtle change, so subtle that she never had an opportunity of alluding to it verbally. Perhaps the fault lay at her own door. She should never have permitted Nora to come abroad alone to fill her engagements. But that Nora was to marry a duke was, to her mind, a settled fact. It is a peculiar phase, this of the humble who find themselves, without effort of their own, thrust up among the great and the so-called, who forget whence they came in the fierce contest for supremacy upon that tottering ledge called society. The cad and the snob are only infrequently well-born. Mrs. Harrigan was as yet far from being a snob, but it required some tact upon Nora's part to prevent this dubious accomplishment. "Is Mr. Abbott going with us?" she inquired. "Donald is sulking," Nora answered. "For once the Barone got ahead of him in engaging the motor-boat." "I wish you would not call him by his first name." "And why not? I like him, and he is a very good comrade." "You do not call the Barone by his given name." "Heavens, no! If I did he would kiss me. These Italians will never understand western customs, mother. I shall never marry an Italian, much as I love Italy." "Nor a Frenchman?" asked Celeste. "Nor a Frenchman." "I wish I knew if you meant it," sighed the mother. "My dear, I have given myself to the stage. You will never see me being led to the altar." "No, you will do the leading when the time comes," retorted the mother. "Mother, the men I like you may count upon the fingers of one hand. Three of them are old. For the rest, I despise men." "I suppose some day you will marry some poverty-stricken artist," said the mother, filled with dark foreboding. "You would not call Donald poverty-stricken." "No. But you will never marry him." "No. I never shall." Celeste smoothed her hands, a little trick she had acquired from long hours spent at the piano. "He will make some woman a good husband." "That he will." "And he is most desperately in love with you." "That's nonsense!" scoffed Nora. "He thinks he is. He ought to fall in love with you, Celeste. Every time you play the fourth _ballade_ he looks as if he was ready to throw himself at your feet." "_Pouf!_ For ten minutes?" Celeste laughed bravely. "He leaves me quickly enough when you begin to sing." "Glamour, glamour!" "Well, I should not care for the article second-hand." The arrival of Harrigan put an end to this dangerous trend of conversation. He walked in tight proper pumps, and sat down. He was only hungry now; the zest for dining was gone. "Don't go sitting out in the night air, Nora," he warned. "I sha'n't." "And don't dance more than you ought to. Your mother would let you wear the soles off your shoes if she thought you were attracting attention. Don't do it." "James, that is not true," the mother protested. "Well, Molly, you do like to hear 'em talk. I wish they knew how to cook a good club steak." "I brought up a book from the village for you to-day," said Mrs. Harrigan, sternly. "I'll bet a dollar it's on how to keep the creases in a fellow's pants." "Trousers." "Pants," helping himself to the last of the romaine. "What time do you go over?" "At nine. We must be getting ready now," said Nora. "Don't wait up for us." "And only one cigar," added the mother. "Say, Molly, you keep closing in on me. Tobacco won't hurt me any, and I get a good deal of comfort out of it these days." "Two," smiled Nora. "But his heart!" "And what in mercy's name is the matter with his heart? The doctor at Marienbad said that father was the soundest man of his age he had ever met." Nora looked quizzically at her father. He grinned. Out of his own mouth he had been nicely trapped. That morning he had complained of a little twinge in his heart, a childish subterfuge to take Mrs. Harrigan's attention away from the eternal society page of the _Herald_. It had succeeded. He had even been cuddled. "James, you told me..." "Oh, Molly, I only wanted to talk to you." "To do so it isn't necessary to frighten me to death," reproachfully. "One cigar, and no more." "Molly, what ails you?" as they left the dining-room. "Nora's right. That sawbones said I was made of iron. I'm only smoking native cigars, and it takes a bunch of 'em to get the taste of tobacco. All right; in a few months you'll have me with the stuffed canary under the glass top. What's the name of that book?" diplomatically. "_Social Usages._" "Break away!" Nora laughed. "But, dad, you really must read it carefully. It will tell you how to talk to a duchess, if you chance to meet one when I am not around. It has all the names of the forks and knives and spoons, and it tells you never to use sugar on your lettuce." And then she threw her arm around her mother's waist. "Honey, when you buy books for father, be sure they are by Dumas or Haggard or Doyle. Otherwise he will never read a line." "And I try so hard!" Tears came into Mrs. Harrigan's eyes. "There, there, Molly, old girl!" soothed the outlaw. "I'll read the book. I know I'm a stupid old stumbling-block, but it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, that is, at the ring of the gong. Run along to your party. And don't break any more hearts than you need, Nora." Nora promised in good faith. But once in the ballroom, that little son of Satan called malice-aforethought took possession of her; and there was havoc. If a certain American countess had not patronized her; if certain lorgnettes (implements of torture used by said son of Satan) had not been leveled in her direction; if certain fans had not been suggestively spread between pairs of feminine heads,--Nora would have been as harmless as a playful kitten. From door to door of the ballroom her mother fluttered like a hen with a duckling. Even Celeste was disturbed, for she saw that Nora's conduct was not due to any light-hearted fun. There was something bitter and ironic cloaked by those smiles, that tinkle of laughter. In fact, Nora from Tuscany flirted outrageously. The Barone sulked and tore at his mustache. He committed any number of murders, by eye and by wish. When his time came to dance with the mischief-maker, he whirled her around savagely, and never said a word; and once done with, he sternly returned her to her mother, which he deemed the wisest course to pursue. "Nora, you are behaving abominably!" whispered her mother, pale with indignation. "Well, I am having a good time ... Your dance? Thank you." And a tender young American led her through the mazes of the waltz, as some poet who knew what he was about phrased it. It is not an exaggeration to say that there was not a woman in the ballroom to compare with her, and some of them were marvelously gowned and complexioned, too. She overshadowed them not only by sheer beauty, but by exuberance of spirit. And they followed her with hating eyes and whispered scandalous things behind their fans and wondered what had possessed the Marchesa to invite the bold thing: so does mediocrity pay homage to beauty and genius. As for the men, though madness lay that way, eagerly as of old they sought it. By way of parenthesis: Herr Rosen marched up the hill and down again, something after the manner of a certain warrior king celebrated in verse. The object of his visit had gone to the ball at Cadenabbia. At the hotel he demanded a motor-boat. There was none to be had. In a furious state of mind he engaged two oarsmen to row him across the lake. And so it came to pass that when Nora, suddenly grown weary of the play, full of bitterness and distaste, hating herself and every one else in the world, stole out to the quay to commune with the moon, she saw him jump from the boat to the landing, scorning the steps. Instantly she drew her lace mantle closely about her face. It was useless. In the man the hunter's instinct was much too keen. "So I have found you!" "One would say that I had been in hiding?" coldly. "From me, always. I have left everything--duty, obligations--to seek you." "From any other man that might be a compliment." "I am a prince," he said proudly. She faced him with that quick resolution, that swift forming of purpose, which has made the Irish so difficult in argument and persuasion. "Will you marry me? Will you make me your wife legally? Before all the world? Will you surrender, for the sake of this love you profess, your right to a great inheritance? Will you risk the anger and the iron hand of your father for my sake?" "_Herr Gott!_ I am mad!" He covered his eyes. "That expression proves that your Highness is sane again. Have you realized the annoyances, the embarrassments, you have thrust upon me by your pursuit? Have you not read the scandalous innuendoes in the newspapers? Your Highness, I was not born on the Continent, so I look upon my work from a point of view not common to those of your caste. I am proud of it, and I look upon it with honor, honor. I am a woman, but I am not wholly defenseless. There was a time when I thought I might number among my friends a prince; but you have made that impossible." "Come," he said hoarsely; "let us go and find a priest. You are right. I love you; I will give up everything, everything!" For a moment she was dumb. This absolute surrender appalled her. But that good fortune which had ever been at her side stepped into the breach. And as she saw the tall form of the Barone approach, she could have thrown her arms around his neck in pure gladness. "Oh, Barone!" she called. "Am I making you miss this dance?" "It does not matter, Signorina." The Barone stared keenly at the erect and tense figure at the prima donna's side. "You will excuse me, Herr Rosen," said Nora, as she laid her hand upon the Barone's arm. Herr Rosen bowed stiffly; and the two left him standing uncovered in the moonlight. "What is he doing here? What has he been saying to you?" the Barone demanded. Nora withdrew her hand from his arm. "Pardon me," said he contritely. "I have no right to ask you such questions." It was not long after midnight when the motor-boat returned to its abiding place. On the way over conversation lagged, and finally died altogether. Mrs. Harrigan fell asleep against Celeste's shoulder, and the musician never deviated her gaze from the silver ripples which flowed out diagonally and magically from the prow of the boat. Nora watched the stars slowly ascend over the eastern range of mountains; and across the fire of his innumerable cigarettes the Barone watched her. As the boat was made fast to the landing in front of the Grand Hotel, Celeste observed a man in evening dress, lounging against the rail of the quay. The search-light from the customs-boat, hunting for tobacco smugglers, flashed over his face. She could not repress the little gasp, and her hand tightened upon Nora's arm. "What is it?" asked Nora. "Nothing. I thought I was slipping." CHAPTER IX COLONEL CAXLEY-WEBSTER Abbott's studio was under the roof of one of the little hotels that stand timorously and humbly, yet expectantly, between the imposing cream-stucco of the Grand Hotel at one end and the elaborate pink-stucco of the Grande Bretegne at the other. The hobnailed shoes of the Teuton (who wears his mountain kit all the way from Hamburg to Palermo) wore up and down the stairs all day; and the racket from the hucksters' carts and hotel omnibuses, arriving and departing from the steamboat landing, the shouts of the begging boatmen, the quarreling of the children and the barking of unpedigreed dogs,--these noises were incessant from dawn until sunset. The artist glared down from his square window at the ruffled waters, or scowled at the fleeting snows on the mountains over the way. He passed some ten or twelve minutes in this useless occupation, but he could not get away from the bald fact that he had acted like a petulant child. To have shown his hand so openly, simply because the Barone had beaten him in the race for the motor-boat! And Nora would understand that he was weak and without backbone. Harrigan himself must have reasoned out the cause for such asinine plays as he had executed in the game of checkers. How many times had the old man called out to him to wake up and move? In spirit he had been across the lake, a spirit in Hades. He was not only a fool, but a coward likewise. He had not dared to "... put it to the touch To gain or lose it all." He saw it coming: before long he and that Italian would be at each other's throats. "Come in!" he called, in response to a sudden thunder on the door. The door opened and a short, energetic old man, purple-visaged and hawk-eyed, came in. "Why the devil don't you join the Trappist monks, Abbott? If I wasn't tough I should have died of apoplexy on the second landing." "Good morning, Colonel!" Abbott laughed and rolled out the patent rocker for his guest. "What's on your mind this morning? I can give you one without ice." "I'll take it neat, my boy. I'm not thirsty, I'm faint. These Italian architects; they call three ladders flights of stairs! ... Ha! That's Irish whisky, and jolly fine. Want you to come over and take tea this afternoon. I'm going up presently to see the Harrigans. Thought I'd go around and do the thing informally. Taken a fancy to the old chap. He's a little bit of all right. I'm no older than he is, but look at the difference! Whisky and soda, that's the racket. Not by the tubful; just an ordinary half dozen a day, and a dem climate thrown in." "Difference in training." "Rot! It's the sized hat a man wears. I'd give fifty guineas to see the old fellow in action. But, I say; recall the argument we had before you went to Paris?" "Yes." "Well, I win. Saw him bang across the street this morning." Abbott muttered something. "What was that?" "Nothing." "Sounded like 'dem it' to me." "Maybe it did." "Heard about him in Paris?" "No." "The old boy had transferred his regiment to a lonesome post in the North to cool his blood. The youngster took the next train to Paris. He was there incognito for two weeks before they found him and bundled him back. Of course, every one knows that he is but a crazy lad who's had too much freedom." The colonel emptied his glass. "I feel dem sorry for Nora. She's the right sort. But a woman can't take a man by the scruff of his neck and chuck him." "But I can," declared Abbott savagely. "Tut, tut! He'd eat you alive. Besides, you will find him too clever to give you an opening. But he'll bear watching. He's capable of putting her on a train and running away with her. Between you and me, I don't blame him. What's the matter with sicking the Barone on him? He's the best man in Southern Italy with foils and broadswords. Sic 'em, Towser; sic 'em!" The old fire-eater chuckled. The subject was extremely distasteful to the artist. The colonel, a rough soldier, whose diplomacy had never risen above the heights of clubbing a recalcitrant Hill man into submission, baldly inferred that he understood the artist's interest in the rose of the Harrigan family. He would have liked to talk more in regard to the interloper, but it would have been sheer folly. The colonel, in his blundering way, would have brought up the subject again at tea-time and put everybody on edge. He had, unfortunately for his friends, a reputation other than that of a soldier: he posed as a peacemaker. He saw trouble where none existed, and the way he patched up imaginary quarrels would have strained the patience of Job. Still, every one loved him, though they lived in mortal fear of him. So Abbott came about quickly and sailed against the wind. "By the way," he said, "I wish you would let me sketch that servant of yours. He's got a profile like a medallion. Where did you pick him up?" "In the Hills. He's a Sikh, and a first-class fighting man. Didn't know that you went for faces." "Not as a usual thing. Just want it for my own use. How does he keep his beard combed that way?" "I've never bothered myself about the curl of his whiskers. Are my clothes laid out? Luggage attended to? Guns shipshape? That's enough for me. Some day you have got to go out there with me." "Never shot a gun in all my life. I don't know which end to hold at my shoulder." "Teach you quick enough. Every man's a born hunter. Rao will have tigers eating out of your hand. He's a marvel; saved my hide more than once. Funny thing; you can't show 'em that you're grateful. Lose caste if you do. I rather miss it. Get the East in your blood and you'll never get it out. Fascinating! But my liver turned over once too many times. Ha! Some one coming up to buy a picture." The step outside was firm and unwearied by the climb. The door opened unceremoniously, and Courtlandt came in. He stared at the colonel and the colonel returned the stare. "Caxley-Webster! Well, I say, this globe goes on shrinking every day!" cried Courtlandt. The two pumped hands energetically, sizing each other up critically. Then they sat down and shot questions, while Abbott looked on bewildered. Elephants and tigers and chittahs and wild boar and quail-running and strange guttural names; weltering nights in the jungles, freezing mornings in the Hills; stupendous card games; and what had become of so-and-so, who always drank his whisky neat; and what's-his-name, who invented cures for snake bites! Abbott deliberately pushed over an oak bench. "Am I host here or not?" "Abby, old man, how are you?" said Courtlandt, smiling warmly and holding out his hand. "My apologies; but the colonel and I never expected to see each other again. And I find him talking with you up here under this roof. It's marvelous." "It's a wonder you wouldn't drop a fellow a line," said Abbott, in a faultfinding tone, as he righted the bench. "When did you come?" "Last night. Came up from Como." "Going to stay long?" "That depends. I am really on my way to Zermatt. I've a hankering to have another try at the Matterhorn." "Think of that!" exclaimed the colonel. "He says another try." "You came a roundabout way," was the artist's comment. "Oh, that's because I left Paris for Brescia. They had some good flights there. Wonderful year! They cross the Channel in an airship and discover the North Pole." "Pah! Neither will be of any use to humanity; merely a fine sporting proposition." The colonel dug into his pocket for his pipe. "But what do you think of Germany?" "Fine country," answered Courtlandt, rising and going to a window; "fine people, too. Why?" "Do you--er--think they could whip us?" "On land, yes." "The devil!" "On water, no." "Thanks. In other words, you believe our chances equal?" "So equal that all this war-scare is piffle. But I rather like to see you English get up in the air occasionally. It will do you good. You've an idea because you walloped Napoleon that you're the same race you were then, and you are not. The English-speaking races, as the first soldiers, have ceased to be." "Well, I be dem!" gasped the colonel. "It's the truth. Take the American: he thinks there is nothing in the world but money. Take the Britisher: to him caste is everything. Take the money out of one man's mind and the importance of being well-born out of the other...." He turned from the window and smiled at the artist and the empurpling Anglo-Indian. "Abbott," growled the soldier, "that man will some day drive me amuck. What do you think? One night, on a tiger hunt, he got me into an argument like this. A brute of a beast jumped into the middle of it. Courtlandt shot him on the second bound, and turned to me with--'Well, as I was saying!' I don't know to this day whether it was nerve or what you Americans call gall." "Divided by two," grinned Abbott. "Ha, I see; half nerve and half gall. I'll remember that. But we were talking of airships." "I was," retorted Courtlandt. "You were the man who started the powwow." He looked down into the street with sudden interest. "Who is that?" The colonel and Abbott hurried across the room. "What did I say, Abbott? I told you I saw him. He's crazy; fact. Thinks he can travel around incognito when there isn't a magazine on earth that hasn't printed his picture." "Well, why shouldn't he travel around if he wants to?" asked Courtlandt coolly. The colonel nudged the artist. "There happens to be an attraction in Bellaggio," said Abbott irritably. "The moth and the candle," supplemented the colonel, peering over Courtlandt's shoulder. "He's well set up," grudgingly admitted the old fellow. "The moth and the candle," mused Courtlandt. "That will be Nora Harrigan. How long has this infatuation been going on?" "Year and a half." "And the other side?" "There isn't any other side," exploded the artist. "She's worried to death. Not a day passes but some scurrilous penny-a-liner springs some yarn, some beastly innuendo. She's been dodging the fellow for months. In Paris last year she couldn't move without running into him. This year she changed her apartment, and gave orders at the Opera to refuse her address to all who asked for it. Consequently she had some peace. I don't know why it is, but a woman in public life seems to be a target." "The penalty of beauty, Abby. Homely women seldom are annoyed, unless they become suffragists." The colonel poured forth a dense cloud of smoke. "What brand is that, Colonel?" asked Courtlandt, choking. The colonel generously produced his pouch. "No, no! I was about to observe that it isn't ambrosia." "Rotter!" The soldier dug the offender in the ribs. "I am going to have the Harrigans over for tea this afternoon. Come over! You'll like the family. The girl is charming; and the father is a sportsman to the backbone. Some silly fools laugh behind his back, but never before his face. And my word, I know rafts of gentlemen who are not fit to stand in his shoes." "I should like to meet Mr. Harrigan." Courtlandt returned his gaze to the window once more. "And his daughter?" said Abbott, curiously. "Oh, surely!" "I may count on you, then?" The colonel stowed away the offending brier. "And you can stay to dinner." "I'll take the dinner end of the invitation," was the reply. "I've got to go over to Menaggio to see about some papers to be signed. If I can make the three o'clock boat in returning, you'll see me at tea. Dinner at all events. I'm off." "Do you mean to stand there and tell me that you have important business?" jeered Abbott. "My boy, the reason I'm on trains and boats, year in and year out, is in the vain endeavor to escape important business. Now and then I am rounded up. Were you ever hunted by money?" humorously. "No," answered the Englishman sadly. "But I know one thing: I'd throw the race at the starting-post. Millions, Abbott, and to be obliged to run away from them! If the deserts hadn't dried up all my tears, I should weep. Why don't you hire a private secretary to handle your affairs?" "And have him following at my heels?" Courtlandt gazed at his lean brown hands. "When these begin to shake, I'll do so. Well, I shall see you both at dinner, whatever happens." "That's Courtlandt," said Abbott, when his friend was gone. "You think he's in Singapore, the door opens and in he walks; never any letter or announcement. He arrives, that's all." "Strikes me," returned the other, polishing his glass, holding it up to the light, and then screwing it into his eye; "strikes me, he wasn't overanxious to have that dish of tea. Afraid of women?" "Afraid of women! Why, man, he backed two musical shows in the States a few years ago." "Musical comedies?" The glass dropped from the colonel's eye. "That's going tigers one better. Forty women, all waiting to be stars, and solemn Courtlandt wandering among them as the god of amity! Afraid of them! Of course he is. Who wouldn't be, after such an experience?" The colonel laughed. "Never had any serious affair?" "Never heard of one. There was some tommy-rot about a Mahommedan princess in the newspapers; but I knew there was no truth in that. Queer fellow! He wouldn't take the trouble to deny it." "Never showed any signs of being a woman-hater?" "No, not the least in the world. But to shy at meeting Nora Harrigan...." "There you have it; the privilege of the gods. Perhaps he really has business in Menaggio. What'll we do with the other beggar?" "Knock his head off, if he bothers her." "Better turn the job over to Courtlandt, then. You're in the light-weight class, and Courtlandt is the best amateur for his weight I ever saw." "What, boxes?" "A tough 'un. I had a corporal who beat any one in Northern India. Courtlandt put on the gloves with him and had him begging in the third round." "I never knew that before. He's as full of surprises as a rummage bag." Courtlandt walked up the street leisurely, idly pausing now and then before the shop-windows. Apparently he had neither object nor destination; yet his mind was busy, so busy in fact that he looked at the various curios without truly seeing them at all. A delicate situation, which needed the lightest handling, confronted him. He must wait for an overt act, then he might proceed as he pleased. How really helpless he was! He could not force her hand because she held all the cards and he none. Yet he was determined this time to play the game to the end, even if the task was equal to all those of Hercules rolled into one, and none of the gods on his side. At the hotel he asked for his mail, and was given a formidable packet which, with a sigh of discontent, he slipped into a pocket, strolled out into the garden by the water, and sat down to read. To his surprise there was a note, without stamp or postmark. He opened it, mildly curious to learn who it was that had discovered his presence in Bellaggio so quickly. The envelope contained nothing more than a neatly folded bank-note for one hundred francs. He eyed it stupidly. What might this mean? He unfolded it and smoothed it out across his knee, and the haze of puzzlement drifted away. Three bars from _La Bohème_. He laughed. So the little lady of the Taverne Royale was in Bellaggio! CHAPTER X MARGUERITES AND EMERALDS From where he sat Courtlandt could see down the main thoroughfare of the pretty village. There were other streets, to be sure, but courtesy and good nature alone permitted this misapplication of title: they were merely a series of torturous enervating stairways of stone, up and down which noisy wooden sandals clattered all the day long. Over the entrances to the shops the proprietors were dropping the white and brown awnings for the day. Very few people shopped after luncheon. There were pleasanter pastimes, even for the women, contradictory as this may seem. By eleven o'clock Courtlandt had finished the reading of his mail, and was now ready to hunt for the little lady of the Taverne Royale. It was necessary to find her. The whereabouts of Flora Desimone was of vital importance. If she had not yet arrived, the presence of her friend presaged her ultimate arrival. The duke was a negligible quantity. It would have surprised Courtlandt could he have foreseen the drawing together of the ends of the circle and the relative concernment of the duke in knotting those ends. The labors of Hercules had never entailed the subjugation of two temperamental women. He rose and proceeded on his quest. Before the photographer's shop he saw a dachel wrathfully challenging a cat on the balcony of the adjoining building. The cat knew, and so did the puppy, that it was all buncombe on the puppy's part: the usual European war-scare, in which one of the belligerent parties refused to come down because it wouldn't have been worth while, there being the usual Powers ready to intervene. Courtlandt did not bother about the cat; the puppy claimed his attention. He was very fond of dogs. So he reached down suddenly and put an end to the sharp challenge. The dachel struggled valiantly, for this breed of dog does not make friends easily. "I say, you little Dutchman, what's the row? I'm not going to hurt you. Funny little codger! To whom do you belong?" He turned the collar around, read the inscription, and gently put the puppy on the ground. Nora Harrigan! His immediate impulse was to walk on, but somehow this impulse refused to act on his sense of locomotion. He waited, dully wondering what was going to happen when she came out. He had left her room that night in Paris, vowing that he would never intrude on her again. With the recollection of that bullet whizzing past his ear, he had been convinced that the play was done. True, she had testified that it had been accidental, but never would he forget the look in her eyes. It was not pleasant to remember. And still, as the needle is drawn by the magnet, here he was, in Bellaggio. He cursed his weakness. From Brescia he had made up his mind to go directly to Berlin. Before he realized how useless it was to battle against these invisible forces, he was in Milan, booking for Como. At Como he had remained a week (the dullest week he had ever known); at the Villa d'Este three days; at Cadenabbia one day. It had all the characteristics of a tug-of-war, and irresistibly he was drawn over the line. The night before he had taken the evening boat across the lake. And Herr Rosen had been his fellow-passenger! The goddess of chance threw whimsical coils around her victims. To find himself shoulder to shoulder, as it were, with this man who, perhaps more than all other incentives, had urged him to return again to civilization; this man who had aroused in his heart a sentiment that hitherto he had not believed existed,--jealousy.... Ah, voices! He stepped aside quickly. "Fritz, Fritz; where are you?" And a moment later she came out, followed by her mother ... and the little lady of the Taverne Royale. Did Nora see him? It was impossible to tell. She simply stooped and gathered up the puppy, who struggled determinedly to lick her face. Courtlandt lifted his hat. It was in nowise offered as an act of recognition; it was merely the mechanical courtesy that a man generally pays to any woman in whose path he chances to be for the breath of a second. The three women in immaculate white, hatless, but with sunshades, passed on down the street. Courtlandt went into the shop, rather blindly. He stared at the shelves of paper-covered novels and post-cards, and when the polite proprietor offered him a dozen of the latter, he accepted them without comment. Indeed, he put them into a pocket and turned to go out. "Pardon, sir; those are one franc the dozen." "Ah, yes." Courtlandt pulled out some silver. It was going to be terribly difficult, and his heart was heavy with evil presages. He had seen Celeste. He understood the amusing if mysterious comedy now. Nora had recognized him and had sent her friend to follow him and learn where he went. And he, poor fool of a blunderer, with the best intentions in the world, he had gone at once to the Calabrian's apartment! It was damnable of fate. He had righted nothing. In truth, he was deeper than ever in the quicksands of misunderstanding. He shut his teeth with a click. How neatly she had waylaid and trapped him! "Those are from Lucerne, sir." "What?" bewildered. "Those wood-carvings which you are touching with your cane, sir." "I beg your pardon," said Courtlandt, apologetically, and gained the open. He threw a quick glance down the street. There they were. He proceeded in the opposite direction, toward his hotel. Tea at the colonel's? Scarcely. He would go to Menaggio with the hotel motor-boat and return so late that he would arrive only in time for dinner. He was not going to meet the enemy over tea-cups, at least, not under the soldier's tactless supervision. He must find a smoother way, calculated, under the rose, but seemingly accidental. It was something to ponder over. "Nora, who was that?" asked Mrs. Harrigan. "Who was who?" countered Nora, snuggling the wriggling dachel under her arm and throwing the sunshade across her shoulder. "That fine-looking young man who stood by the door as we passed out. He raised his hat." "Oh, bother! I was looking at Fritz." Celeste searched her face keenly, but Nora looked on ahead serenely; not a quiver of an eyelid, not the slightest change in color or expression. "She did not see him!" thought the musician, curiously stirred. She knew her friend tolerably well. It would have been impossible for her to have seen that man and not to have given evidence of the fact. In short, Nora had spoken truthfully. She had seen a man dressed in white flannels and canvas shoes, but her eyes had not traveled so far as his face. "Mother, we must have some of those silk blankets. They're so comfy to lie on." "You never see anything except when you want to," complained Mrs. Harrigan. "It saves a deal of trouble. I don't want to go to the colonel's this afternoon. He always has some frump to pour tea and ask fool questions." "The frump, as you call her, is usually a countess or a duchess," with asperity. "Fiddlesticks! Nobility makes a specialty of frumps; it is one of the species of the caste. That's why I shall never marry a title. I wish neither to visit nor to entertain frumps. Frump,--the word calls up the exact picture; frump and fatuity. Oh, I'll go, but I'd rather stay on my balcony and read a good book." "My dear," patiently, "the colonel is one of the social laws on Como. His sister is the wife of an earl. You must not offend him. His Sundays are the most exclusive on the lake." "The word exclusive should be properly applied to those in jail. The social ladder, the social ladder! Don't you know, mother mine, that every rung is sawn by envy and greed, and that those who climb highest fall farthest?" "You are quoting the padre." "The padre could give lessons in kindness and shrewdness to any other man I know. If he hadn't chosen the gown he would have been a poet. I love the padre, with his snow-white hair and his withered leathery face. He was with the old king all through the freeing of Italy." "And had a fine time explaining to the Vatican," sniffed the mother. "Some day I am going to confess to him." "Confess what?" asked Celeste. "That I have wished the Calabrian's voice would fail her some night in _Carmen_; that I am wearing shoes a size too small for me; that I should like to be rich without labor; that I am sometimes ashamed of my calling; that I should have liked to see father win a prizefight; oh, and a thousand other horrid, hateful things." "I wish to gracious that you would fall violently in love." "Spiteful! There are those lovely lace collars; come on." "You are hopeless," was the mother's conviction. "In some things, yes," gravely. "Some day," said Celeste, who was a privileged person in the Harrigan family, "some day I am going to teach you two how to play at foils. It would be splendid. And then you could always settle your differences with bouts." "Better than that," retorted Nora. "I'll ask father to lend us his old set of gloves. He carries them around as if they were a fetish. I believe they're in the bottom of one of my steamer trunks." "Nora!" Mrs. Harrigan was not pleased with this jest. Any reference to the past was distasteful to her ears. She, too, went regularly to confession, but up to the present time had omitted the sin of being ashamed of her former poverty and environment. She had taken it for granted that upon her shoulders rested the future good fortune of the Harrigans. They had money; all that was required was social recognition. She found it a battle within a battle. The good-natured reluctance of her husband and the careless indifference of her daughter were as hard to combat as the icy aloofness of those stars into whose orbit she was pluckily striving to steer the family bark. It never entered her scheming head that the reluctance of the father and the indifference of the daughter were the very conditions that drew society nearward, for the simple novelty of finding two persons who did not care in the least whether they were recognized or not. The trio invaded the lace shop, and Nora and her mother agreed to bury the war-hatchet in their mutual love of Venetian and Florentine fineries. Celeste pretended to be interested, but in truth she was endeavoring to piece together the few facts she had been able to extract from the rubbish of conjecture. Courtlandt and Nora had met somewhere before the beginning of her own intimacy with the singer. They certainly must have formed an extraordinary friendship, for Nora's subsequent vindictiveness could not possibly have arisen out of the ruins of an indifferent acquaintance. Nora could not be moved from the belief that Courtlandt had abducted her; but Celeste was now positive that he had had nothing to do with it. He did not impress her as a man who would abduct a woman, hold her prisoner for five days, and then liberate her without coming near her to press his vantage, rightly or wrongly. He was too strong a personage. He was here in Bellaggio, and attached to that could be but one significance. Why, then, had he not spoken at the photographer's? Perhaps she herself had been sufficient reason for his dumbness. He had recognized her, and the espionage of the night in Paris was no longer a mystery. Nora had sent her to follow him; why then all this bitterness, since she had not been told where he had gone? Had Nora forgotten to inquire? It was possible that, in view of the startling events which had followed, the matter had slipped entirely from Nora's mind. Many a time she had resorted to that subtle guile known only of woman to trap the singer. But Nora never stumbled, and her smile was as firm a barrier to her thoughts, her secrets, as a stone wall would have been. Celeste had known about Herr Rosen's infatuation. Aside from that which concerned this stranger, Nora had withheld no real secret from her. Herr Rosen had been given his congé, but that did not prevent him from sending fabulous baskets of flowers and gems, all of which were calmly returned without comment. Whenever a jewel found its way into a bouquet of flowers from an unknown, Nora would promptly convert it into money and give the proceeds to some charity. It afforded the singer no small amusement to show her scorn in this fashion. Yes, there was one other little mystery which she did not confide to her friends. Once a month, wherever she chanced to be singing, there arrived a simple bouquet of marguerites, in the heart of which they would invariably find an uncut emerald. Nora never disposed of these emeralds. The flowers she would leave in her dressing-room; the emerald would disappear. Was there some one else? Mrs. Harrigan took the omnibus up to the villa. It was generally too much of a climb for her. Nora and Celeste preferred to walk. "What am I going to do, Celeste? He is here, and over at Cadenabbia last night I had a terrible scene with him. In heaven's name, why can't they let me be?" "Herr Rosen?" "Yes." "Why not speak to your father?" "And have a fisticuff which would appear in every newspaper in the world? No, thank you. There is enough scandalous stuff being printed as it is, and I am helpless to prevent it." As the climb starts off stiffly, there wasn't much inclination in either to talk. Celeste had come to one decision, and that was that Nora should find out Courtlandt's presence here in Bellaggio herself. When they arrived at the villa gates, Celeste offered a suggestion. "You could easily stop all this rumor and annoyance." "And, pray, how?" "Marry." "I prefer the rumor and annoyance. I hate men. Most of them are beasts." "You are prejudiced." If Celeste expected Nora to reply that she had reason, she was disappointed, Nora quickened her pace, that was all. At luncheon Harrigan innocently threw a bomb into camp by inquiring: "Say, Nora, who's this chump Herr Rosen? He was up here last night and again this morning. I was going to offer him the cot on the balcony, but I thought I'd consult you first." "Herr Rosen!" exclaimed Mrs. Harrigan, a flutter in her throat. "Why, that's...." "A charming young man who wishes me to sign a contract to sing to him in perpetuity," interrupted Nora, pressing her mother's foot warningly. "Well, why don't you marry him?" laughed Harrigan. "There's worse things than frankfurters and sauerkraut." "Not that I can think of just now," returned Nora. CHAPTER XI AT THE CRATER'S EDGE Harrigan declared that he would not go over to Caxley-Webster's to tea. "But I've promised for you!" expostulated his wife. "And he admires you so." "Bosh! You women can gad about as much as you please, but I'm in wrong when it comes to eating sponge-cake and knuckling my knees under a dinky willow table. And then he always has some frump...." "Frump!" repeated Nora, delighted. "Frump inspecting me through a pair of eye-glasses as if I was a new kind of an animal. It's all right, Molly, when there's a big push. They don't notice me much then. But these six by eight parties have me covering." "Very well, dad," agreed Nora, who saw the storm gathering in her mother's eyes. "You can stay home and read the book mother got you yesterday. Where are you now?" "Page one," grinning. Mrs. Harrigan wisely refrained from continuing the debate. James had made up his mind not to go. If the colonel repeated his invitation to dinner, where there would be only the men folk, why, he'd gladly enough go to that. The women departed at three, for there was to be tennis until five o'clock. When Harrigan was reasonably sure that they were half the distance to the colonel's villa, he put on his hat, whistled to the dachel, and together they took the path to the village. "We'd look fine drinking tea, wouldn't we, old scout?" reaching down and tweaking the dog's velvet ears. "They don't understand, and it's no use trying to make 'em. Nora gets as near as possible. Herr Rosen! Now, where have I seen his phiz before? I wish I had a real man to talk to. Abbott sulks half the time, and the Barone can't get a joke unless it's driven in with a mallet. On your way, old scout, or I'll step on you. Let's see if we can hoof it down to the village at a trot without taking the count." He had but two errands to execute. The first was accomplished expeditely in the little tobacconist's shop under the arcade, where the purchase of a box of Minghetti cigars promised later solace. These cigars were cheap, but Harrigan had a novel way of adding to their strength if not to their aroma. He possessed a meerschaum cigar-holder, in which he had smoked perfectos for some years. The smoke of an ordinary cigar became that of a regalia by the time it passed through the nicotine-soaked clay into the amber mouthpiece. He had kept secret the result of this trifling scientific research. It wouldn't have been politic to disclose it to Molly. The second errand took time and deliberation. He studied the long shelves of Tauchnitz. Having red corpuscles in superabundance, he naturally preferred them in his literature, in the same quantity. "Ever read this?" asked a pleasant voice from behind, indicating _Rodney Stone_ with the ferrule of a cane. Harrigan looked up. "No. What's it about?" "Best story of the London prize-ring ever written. You're Mr. Harrigan, aren't you?" "Yes," diffidently. "My name is Edward Courtlandt. If I am not mistaken, you were a great friend of my father's." "Are you Dick Courtlandt's boy?" "I am." "Well, say!" Harrigan held out his hand and was gratified to encounter a man's grasp. "So you're Edward Courtlandt? Now, what do you think of that! Why, your father was the best sportsman I ever met. Square as they make 'em. Not a kink anywhere in his make-up. He used to come to the bouts in his plug hat and dress suit; always had a seat by the ring. I could hear him tap with his cane when there happened to be a bit of pretty sparring. He was no slouch himself when it came to putting on the mitts. Many's the time I've had a round or two with him in my old gymnasium. Well, well! It's good to see a man again. I've seen your name in the papers, but I never knew you was Dick's boy. You've got an old grizzly's head in your dining-room at home. Some day I'll tell you how it got there, when you're not in a hurry. I went out to Montana for a scrap, and your dad went along. After the mill was over, we went hunting. Come up to the villa and meet the folks.... Hang it, I forgot. They're up to Caxley-Webster's to tea; piffle water and sticky sponge-cake. I want you to meet my wife and daughter." "I should be very pleased to meet them." So this was Nora's father? "Won't you come along with me to the colonel's?" with sudden inspiration. Here was an opportunity not to be thrust aside lightly. "Why, I just begged off. They won't be expecting me now." "All the better. I'd rather have you introduce me to your family than to have the colonel. As a matter of fact, I told him I couldn't get up. But I changed my mind. Come along." The first rift in the storm-packed clouds; and to meet her through the kindly offices of this amiable man who was her father! "But the pup and the cigar box?" "Send them up." Harrigan eyed his own spotless flannels and compared them with the other's. What was good enough for the son of a millionaire was certainly good enough for him. Besides, it would be a bully good joke on Nora and Molly. "You're on!" he cried. Here was a lark. He turned the dog and the purchases over to the proprietor, who promised that they should arrive instantly at the villa. Then the two men sought the quay to engage a boat. They walked shoulder to shoulder, flat-backed, with supple swinging limbs, tanned faces and clear animated eyes. Perhaps Harrigan was ten or fifteen pounds heavier, but the difference would have been noticeable only upon the scales. * * * * * "Padre, my shoe pinches," said Nora with a pucker between her eyes. "My child," replied the padre, "never carry your vanity into a shoemaker's shop. The happiest man is he who walks in loose shoes." "If they are his own, and not inherited," quickly. The padre laughed quietly. He was very fond of this new-found daughter of his. Her spontaneity, her blooming beauty, her careless observation of convention, her independence, had captivated him. Sometimes he believed that he thoroughly understood her, when all at once he would find himself mentally peering into some dark corner into which the penetrating light of his usually swift deduction could throw no glimmer. She possessed the sins of the butterfly and the latent possibilities of a Judith. She was the most interesting feminine problem he had in his long years encountered. The mother mildly amused him, for he could discern the character that she was sedulously striving to batten down beneath inane social usages and formalities. Some day she would revert to the original type, and then he would be glad to renew the acquaintance. In rather a shamefaced way (a sensation he could not quite analyze) he loved the father. The pugilist will always embarrass the scholar and excite a negligible envy; for physical perfection is the most envied of all nature's gifts. The padre was short, thickset, and inclined toward stoutness in the region of the middle button of his cassock. But he was active enough for all purposes. "I have had many wicked thoughts lately," resumed Nora, turning her gaze away from the tennis players. She and the padre were sitting on the lower steps of the veranda. The others were loitering by the nets. "The old plaint disturbs you?" "Yes." "Can you not cast it out wholly?" "Hate has many tentacles." "What produces that condition of mind?" meditatively. "Is it because we have wronged somebody?" "Or because somebody has wronged us?" "Or misjudged us, by us have been misjudged?" softly. "Good gracious!" exclaimed Nora, springing up. "What is it?" "Father is coming up the path!" "I am glad to see him. But I do not recollect having seen the face of the man with him." The lithe eagerness went out of Nora's body instantly. Everything seemed to grow cold, as if she had become enveloped in one of those fogs that suddenly blow down menacingly from hidden icebergs. Fortunately the inquiring eyes of the padre were not directed at her. He was here, not a dozen yards away, coming toward her, her father's arm in his! After what had passed he had dared! It was not often that Nora Harrigan was subjected to a touch of vertigo, but at this moment she felt that if she stirred ever so little she must fall. The stock whence she had sprung, however, was aggressive and fearless; and by the time Courtlandt had reached the outer markings of the courts, Nora was physically herself again. The advantage of the meeting would be his. That was indubitable. Any mistake on her part would be playing into his hands. If only she had known! "Let us go and meet them, Padre," she said quietly. With her father, her mother and the others, the inevitable introduction would be shorn of its danger. What Celeste might think was of no great importance; Celeste had been tried and her loyalty proven. Where had her father met him, and what diabolical stroke of fate had made him bring this man up here? "Nora!" It was her mother calling. She put her arm through the padre's, and they went forward leisurely. "Why, father, I thought you weren't coming," said Nora. Her voice was without a tremor. The padre hadn't the least idea that a volcano might at any moment open up at his side. He smiled benignly. "Changed my mind," said Harrigan. "Nora, Molly, I want you to meet Mr. Courtlandt. I don't know that I ever said anything about it, but his father was one of the best friends I ever had. He was on his way up here, so I came along with him." Then Harrigan paused and looked about him embarrassedly. There were half a dozen unfamiliar faces. The colonel quickly stepped into the breach, and the introduction of Courtlandt became general. Nora bowed, and became at once engaged in an animated conversation with the Barone, who had just finished his set victoriously. The padre's benign smile slowly faded. CHAPTER XII DICK COURTLANDT'S BOY Presently the servants brought out the tea-service. The silent dark-skinned Sikh, with his fierce curling whiskers, his flashing eyes, the semi-military, semi-oriental garb, topped by an enormous brown turban, claimed Courtlandt's attention; and it may be added that he was glad to have something to look at unembarrassedly. He wanted to catch the Indian's eye, but Rao had no glances to waste; he was concerned with the immediate business of superintending the service. Courtlandt had never been a man to surrender to impulse. It had been his habit to form a purpose and then to go about the fulfilling of it. During the last four or five months, however, he had swung about like a weather-cock in April, the victim of a thousand and one impulses. That morning he would have laughed had any one prophesied his presence here. He had fought against the inclination strongly enough at first, but as hour after hour went by his resolution weakened. His meeting Harrigan had been a stroke of luck. Still, he would have come anyhow. "Oh, yes; I am very fond of Como," he found himself replying mechanically to Mrs. Harrigan. He gave up Rao as hopeless so far as coming to his rescue was concerned. He began, despite his repugnance, to watch Nora. "It is always a little cold in the higher Alps." "I am very fond of climbing myself." Nora was laughing and jesting with one of the English tennis players. Not for nothing had she been called a great actress, he thought. It was not humanly possible that her heart was under better control than his own; and yet his was pounding against his ribs in a manner extremely disquieting. Never must he be left alone with her; always must it be under circumstances like this, with people about, and the more closely about the better. A game like this was far more exciting than tiger-hunting. It was going to assume the characteristics of a duel in which he, being the more advantageously placed, would succeed eventually in wearing down her guard. Hereafter, wherever she went, there must he also go: St. Petersburg or New York or London. And by and by the reporters would hear of it, and there would be rumors which he would neither deny nor affirm. Sport! He smiled, and the blood seemed to recede from his throat and his heart-beats to grow normal. And all the while Mrs. Harrigan was talking and he was replying; and she thought him charming, whereas he had not formed any opinion of her at all, nor later could remember a word of the conversation. "Tea!" bawled the colonel. The verb had its distinct uses, and one generally applied it to the colonel's outbursts without being depressed by the feeling of inelegance. There is invariably some slight hesitation in the selection of chairs around a tea-table in the open. Nora scored the first point of this singular battle by seizing the padre on one side and her father on the other and pulling them down on the bench. It was adroit in two ways: it put Courtlandt at a safe distance and in nowise offended the younger men, who could find no cause for alarm in the close proximity of her two fathers, the spiritual and the physical. A few moments later Courtlandt saw a smile of malice part her lips, for he found himself between Celeste and the inevitable frump. "Touched!" he murmured, for he was a thorough sportsman and appreciated a good point even when taken by his opponent. "I never saw anything like it," whispered Mrs. Harrigan into the colonel's ear. "Saw what?" he asked. "Mr. Courtlandt can't keep his eyes off of Nora." "I say!" The colonel adjusted his eye-glass, not that he expected to see more clearly by doing so, but because habit had long since turned an affectation into a movement wholly mechanical. "Well, who can blame him? Gad! if I were only twenty-five or thereabouts." Mrs. Harrigan did not encourage this regret. The colonel had never been a rich man. On the other hand, this Edward Courtlandt was very rich; he was young; and he had the entrée to the best families in Europe, which was greater in her eyes than either youth or riches. Between sips of tea she builded a fine castle in Spain. Abbott and the Barone carried their cups and cakes over to the bench and sat down on the grass, Turkish-wise. Both simultaneously offered their cakes, and Nora took a ladyfinger from each. Abbott laughed and the Barone smiled. "Oh, daddy mine!" sighed Nora drolly. "Huh?" "Don't let mother see those shoes." "What's the matter with 'em? Everybody's wearing the same." "Yes. But I don't see how you manage to do it. One shoe-string is virgin white and the other is pagan brown." "I've got nine pairs of shoes, and yet there's always something the matter," ruefully. "I never noticed when I put them on. Besides, I wasn't coming." "That's no defense. But rest easy. I'll be as secret as the grave." "Now, I for one would never have noticed if you hadn't called my attention," said the padre, stealing a glance at his own immaculate patent-leathers. "Ah, Padre, that wife of mine has eyes like a pilot-fish. I'm in for it." "Borrow one from the colonel before you go home," suggested Abbott. "That's not half bad," gratefully. Harrigan began to recount the trials of forgetfulness. Slyly from the corner of her eye Nora looked at Courtlandt, who was at that moment staring thoughtfully into his tea-cup and stirring the contents industriously. His face was a little thinner, but aside from that he had changed scarcely at all; and then, because these two years had left so little mark upon his face, a tinge of unreasonable anger ran over her. "Men have died and worms have eaten them," she thought cynically. Perhaps the air between them was sufficiently charged with electricity to convey the impression across the intervening space; for his eyes came up quickly, but not quickly enough to catch her. She dropped her glance to Abbott, transferred it to the Barone, and finally let it rest on her father's face. Four handsomer men she had never seen. "You never told me you knew Courtlandt," said Harrigan, speaking to Abbott. "Just happened that way. We went to school together. When I was little they used to make me wear curls and wide collars. Many's the time Courtlandt walloped the school bullies for mussing me up. I don't see him much these days. Once in a while he walks in. That's all. Always seems to know where his friends are, but none ever knows where he is." Abbott proceeded to elaborate some of his friend's exploits. Nora heard, as if from afar. Vaguely she caught a glimmer of what the contest was going to be. She could see only a little way; still, she was optimistically confident of the result. She was ready. Indeed, now that the shock of the meeting was past, she found herself not at all averse to a conflict. It would be something to let go the pent-up wrath of two years. Never would she speak to him directly; never would she permit him to be alone with her; never would she miss a chance to twist his heart, to humiliate him, to snub him. From her point of view, whatever game he chose to play would be a losing one. She was genuinely surprised to learn how eager she was for the game to begin so that she might gage his strength. "So I have heard," she was dimly conscious of saying. "Didn't know you knew," said Abbott. "Knew what?" rousing herself. "That Courtlandt nearly lost his life in the eighties." "In the eighties!" dismayed at her slip. "Latitudes. Polar expedition." "Heavens! I was miles away." The padre took her hand in his own and began to pat it softly. It was the nearest he dared approach in the way of suggesting caution. He alone of them all knew. "Oh, I believe I read something about it in the newspapers." "Five years ago." Abbott set down his tea-cup. "He's the bravest man I know. He's rather a friendless man, besides. Horror of money. Thinks every one is after him for that. Tries to throw it away; but the income piles up too quickly. See that Indian, passing the cakes? Wouldn't think it, would you, that Courtlandt carried him on his back for five miles! The Indian had fallen afoul a wounded tiger, and the beaters were miles off. I've been watching. They haven't even spoken to each other. Courtlandt's probably forgotten all about the incident, and the Indian would die rather than embarrass his savior before strangers." "Your friend, then, is quite a hero?" What was the matter with Nora's voice? Abbott looked at her wonderingly. The tone was hard and unmusical. "He couldn't be anything else, being Dick Courtlandt's boy," volunteered Harrigan, with enthusiasm. "It runs in the family." "It seems strange," observed Nora, "that I never heard you mention that you knew a Mr. Courtlandt." "Why, Nora, there's a lot of things nobody mentions unless chance brings them up. Courtlandt--the one I knew--has been dead these sixteen years. If I knew he had had a son, I'd forgotten all about it. The only graveyard isn't on the hillside; there's one under everybody's thatch." The padre nodded approvingly. Nora was not particularly pleased with this phase in the play. Courtlandt would find a valiant champion in her father, who would blunder in when some fine passes were being exchanged. And she could not tell him; she would have cut out her tongue rather. It was true that she held the principal cards in the game, but she could not table them and claim the tricks as in bridge. She must patiently wait for him to lead, and he, as she very well knew, would lead a card at a time, and then only after mature deliberation. From the exhilaration which attended the prospect of battle she passed into a state of depression, which lasted the rest of the afternoon. "Will you forgive me?" asked Celeste of Courtlandt. Never had she felt more ill at ease. For a full ten minutes he chatted pleasantly, with never the slightest hint regarding the episode in Paris. She could stand it no longer. "Will you forgive me?" "For what?" "That night in Paris." "Do not permit that to bother you in the least. I was never going to recall it." "Was it so unpleasant?" "On the contrary, I was much amused." "I did not tell you the truth." "So I have found out." "I do not believe that it was you," impulsively. "Thanks. I had nothing to do with Miss Harrigan's imprisonment." "Do you feel that you could make a confidant of me?" He smiled. "My dear Miss Fournier, I have come to the place where I distrust even myself." "Forgive my curiosity!" Courtlandt held out his cup to Rao. "I am glad to see you again." "Ah, Sahib!" The little Frenchwoman was torn with curiosity and repression. She wanted to know what causes had produced this unusual drama which was unfolding before her eyes. To be presented with effects which had no apparent causes was maddening. It was not dissimilar to being taken to the second act of a modern problem play and being forced to leave before the curtain rose upon the third act. She had laid all the traps her intelligent mind could invent; and Nora had calmly walked over them or around. Nora's mind was Celtic: French in its adroitness and Irish in its watchfulness and tenacity. And now she had set her arts of persuasion in motion (aided by a piquant beauty) to lift a corner of the veil from this man's heart. Checkmate! "I should like to help you," she said, truthfully. "In what way?" It was useless, but she continued: "She does not know that you went to Flora Desimone's that night." "And yet she sent you to watch me." "But so many things happened afterward that she evidently forgot." "That is possible." "I was asleep when the pistol went off. Oh, you must believe that it was purely accidental! She was in a terrible state until morning. What if she had killed you, what if she had killed you! She seemed to hark upon that phrase." Courtlandt turned a sober face toward her. She might be sincere, and then again she might be playing the first game over again, in a different guise. "It would have been embarrassing if the bullet had found its mark." He met her eyes squarely, and she saw that his were totally free from surprise or agitation or interest. "Do you play chess?" she asked, divertingly. "Chess? I am very fond of that game." "So I should judge," dryly. "I suppose you look upon me as a meddler. Perhaps I am; but I have nothing but good will toward you; and Nora would be very angry if she knew that I was discussing her affairs with you. But I love her and want to make her happy." "That seems to be the ambition of all the young men, at any rate." Jealousy? But the smile baffled her. "Will you be here long?" "It depends." "Upon Nora?" persistently. "The weather." "You are hopeless." "No; on the contrary, I am the most optimistic man in the world." She looked into this reply very carefully. If he had hopes of winning Nora Harrigan, optimistic he certainly must be. Perhaps it was not optimism. Rather might it not be a purpose made of steel, bendable but not breakable, reinforced by a knowledge of conditions which she would have given worlds to learn? "Is she not beautiful?" "I am not a poet." "Wait a moment," her eyes widening. "I believe you know who did commit that outrage." For the first time he frowned. "Very well; I promise not to ask any more questions." "That would be very agreeable to me." Then, as if he realized the rudeness of his reply, he added: "Before I leave I will tell you all you wish to know, upon one condition." "Tell it!" "You will say nothing to any one, you will question neither Miss Harrigan nor myself, nor permit yourself to be questioned." "I agree." "And now, will you not take me over to your friends?" "Over there?" aghast. "Why, yes. We can sit upon the grass. They seem to be having a good time." What a man! Take him over, into the enemy's camp? Nothing would be more agreeable to her. Who would be the stronger, Nora or this provoking man? So they crossed over and joined the group. The padre smiled. It was a situation such as he loved to study: a strong man and a strong woman, at war. But nothing happened; not a ripple anywhere to disclose the agitation beneath. The man laughed and the woman laughed, but they spoke not to each other, nor looked once into each other's eyes. The sun was dropping toward the western tops. The guests were leaving by twos and threes. The colonel had prevailed upon his dinner-guests not to bother about going back to the village to dress, but to dine in the clothes they wore. Finally, none remained but Harrigan, Abbott, the Barone, the padre and Courtlandt. And they talked noisily and agreeably concerning man-affairs until Rao gravely announced that dinner was served. It was only then, during the lull which followed, that light was shed upon the puzzle which had been subconsciously stirring Harrigan's mind: Nora had not once spoken to the son of his old friend. CHAPTER XIII EVERYTHING BUT THE TRUTH "I don't see why the colonel didn't invite some of the ladies," Mrs. Harrigan complained. "It's a man-party. He's giving it to please himself. And I do not blame him. The women about here treat him abominably. They come at all times of the day and night, use his card-room, order his servants about, drink his whisky and smoke his cigarettes, and generally invite themselves to luncheon and tea and dinner. And then, when they are ready to go back to their villas or hotel, take his motor-boat without a thank-you. The colonel has about three thousand pounds outside his half-pay, and they are all crazy to marry him because his sister is a countess. As a bachelor he can live like a prince, but as a married man he would have to dig. He told me that if he had been born Adam, he'd have climbed over Eden's walls long before the Angel of the Flaming Sword paddled him out. Says he's always going to be a bachelor, unless I take pity on him," mischievously. "Has he...?" in horrified tones. "About three times a visit," Nora admitted; "but I told him that I'd be a daughter, a cousin, or a niece to him, or even a grandchild. The latter presented too many complications, so we compromised on niece." "I wish I knew when you were serious and when you were fooling." "I am often as serious when I am fooling as I am foolish when I am serious...." "Nora, you will have me shrieking in a minute!" despaired the mother. "Did the colonel really propose to you?" "Only in fun." Celeste laughed and threw her arm around the mother's waist, less ample than substantial. "Don't you care! Nora is being pursued by little devils and is venting her spite on us." "There'll be too much Burgundy and tobacco, to say nothing of the awful stories." "With the good old padre there? Hardly," said Nora. Celeste was a French woman. "I confess that I like a good story that isn't vulgar. And none of them look like men who would stoop to vulgarity." "That's about all you know of men," declared Mrs. Harrigan. "I am willing to give them the benefit of a doubt." "Celeste," cried Nora, gaily, "I've an idea. Supposing you and I run back after dinner and hide in the card-room, which is right across from the dining-room? Then we can judge for ourselves." "Nora Harrigan!" "Molly Harrigan!" mimicked the incorrigible. "Mother mine, you must learn to recognize a jest." "Ah, but yours!" "Fine!" cried Celeste. As if to put a final period to the discussion, Nora began to hum audibly an aria from _Aïda_. They engaged a carriage in the village and were driven up to the villa. On the way Mrs. Harrigan discussed the stranger, Edward Courtlandt. What a fine-looking young man he was, and how adventurous, how well-connected, how enormously rich, and what an excellent catch! She and Celeste--the one innocently and the other provocatively--continued the subject to the very doors of the villa. All the while Nora hummed softly. "What do you think of him, Nora?" the mother inquired. "Think of whom?" "This Mr. Courtlandt." "Oh, I didn't pay much attention to him," carelessly. But once alone with Celeste, she seized her by the arm, a little roughly. "Celeste, I love you better than any outsider I know. But if you ever discuss that man in my presence again, I shall cease to regard you even as an acquaintance. He has come here for the purpose of annoying me, though he promised the prefect in Paris never to annoy me again." "The prefect!" "Yes. The morning I left Versailles I met him in the private office of the prefect. He had powerful friends who aided him in establishing an alibi. I was only a woman, so I didn't count." "Nora, if I have meddled in any way," proudly, "it has been because I love you, and I see you unhappy. You have nearly killed me with your sphinx-like actions. You have never asked me the result of my spying for you that night. Spying is not one of my usual vocations, but I did it gladly for you." "You gave him my address?" coldly. "I did not. I convinced him that I had come at the behest of Flora Desimone. He demanded her address, which I gave him. If ever there was a man in a fine rage, it was he as he left me to go there. If he found out where we lived, the Calabrian assisted him, I spoke to him rather plainly at tea. He said that he had had nothing whatever to do with the abduction, and I believe him. I am positive that he is not the kind of man to go that far and not proceed to the end. And now, will you please tell Carlos to bring my dinner to my room?" The impulsive Irish heart was not to be resisted. Nora wanted to remain firm, but instead she swept Celeste into her arms. "Celeste, don't be angry! I am very, very unhappy." If the Irish heart was impulsive, the French one was no less so. Celeste wanted to cry out that she was unhappy, too. "Don't bother to dress! Just give your hair a pat or two. We'll all three dine on the balcony." Celeste flew to her room. Nora went over to the casement window and stared at the darkening mountains. When she turned toward the dresser she was astonished to find two bouquets. One was an enormous bunch of violets. The other was of simple marguerites. She picked up the violets. There was a card without a name; but the phrase scribbled across the face of it was sufficient. She flung the violets far down into the grape-vines below. The action was without anger, excited rather by a contemptuous indifference. As for the simple marguerites, she took them up gingerly. The arc these described through the air was even greater than that performed by the violets. "I'm a silly fool, I suppose," she murmured, turning back into the room again. It was ten o'clock when the colonel bade his guests good night as they tumbled out of his motor-boat. They were in more or less exuberant spirits; for the colonel knew how to do two things particularly well: order a dinner, and avoid the many traps set for him by scheming mamas and eligible widows. Abbott, the Barone and Harrigan, arm in arm, marched on ahead, whistling one tune in three different keys, while Courtlandt set the pace for the padre. All through the dinner the padre had watched and listened. Faces were generally books to him, and he read in this young man's face many things that pleased him. This was no night rover, a fool over wine and women, a spendthrift. He straightened out the lines and angles in a man's face as a skilled mathematician elucidates an intricate geometrical problem. He had arrived at the basic knowledge that men who live mostly out of doors are not volatile and irresponsible, but are more inclined to reserve, to reticence, to a philosophy which is broad and comprehensive and generous. They are generally men who are accomplishing things, and who let other people tell about it. Thus, the padre liked Courtlandt's voice, his engaging smile, his frank unwavering eyes; and he liked the leanness about the jaws, which was indicative of strength of character. In fact, he experienced a singular jubilation as he walked beside this silent man. "There has been a grave mistake somewhere," he mused aloud, thoughtfully. "I beg your pardon," said Courtlandt. "I beg yours. I was thinking aloud. How long have you known the Harrigans?" "The father and mother I never saw before to-day." "Then you have met Miss Harrigan?" "I have seen her on the stage." "I have the happiness of being her confessor." They proceeded quite as far as a hundred yards before Courtlandt volunteered: "That must be interesting." "She is a good Catholic." "Ah, yes; I recollect now." "And you?" "Oh, I haven't any religion such as requires my presence in churches. Don't misunderstand me! As a boy I was bred in the Episcopal Church; but I have traveled so much that I have drifted out of the circle. I find that when I am out in the open, in the heart of some great waste, such as a desert, a sea, the top of a mountain, I can see the greatness of the Omnipotent far more clearly and humbly than within the walls of a cathedral." "But God imposes obligations upon mankind. We have ceased to look upon the hermit as a holy man, but rather as one devoid of courage. It is not the stone and the stained windows; it is the text of our daily work, that the physical being of the Church represents." "I have not avoided any of my obligations." Courtlandt shifted his stick behind his back. "I was speaking of the church and the open field, as they impressed me." "You believe in the tenets of Christianity?" "Surely! A man must pin his faith and hope to something more stable than humanity." "I should like to convert you to my way of thinking," simply. "Nothing is impossible. Who knows?" The padre, as they continued onward, offered many openings, but the young man at his side refused to be drawn into any confidence. So the padre gave up, for the futility of his efforts became irksome. His own lips were sealed, so he could not ask point-blank the question that clamored at the tip of his tongue. "So you are Miss Harrigan's confessor?" "Does it strike you strangely?" "Merely the coincidence." "If I were not her confessor I should take the liberty of asking you some questions." "It is quite possible that I should decline to answer them." The padre shrugged. "It is patent to me that you will go about this affair in your own way. I wish you well." "Thank you. As Miss Harrigan's confessor you doubtless know everything but the truth." The padre laughed this time. The shops were closed. The open restaurants by the water-front held but few idlers. The padre admired the young man's independence. Most men would have hesitated not a second to pour the tale into his ears in hope of material assistance. The padre's admiration was equally proportioned with respect. "I leave you here," he said. "You will see me frequently at the villa." "I certainly shall be there frequently. Good night." Courtlandt quickened his pace which soon brought him alongside the others. They stopped in front of Abbott's pension, and he tried to persuade them to come up for a nightcap. "Nothing to it, my boy," said Harrigan. "I need no nightcap on top of cognac forty-eight years old. For me that's a whole suit of pajamas." "You come, Ted." "Abbey, I wouldn't climb those stairs for a bottle of Horace's Falernian, served on Seneca's famous citron table." "Not a friend in the world," Abbott lamented. Laughingly they hustled him into the hallway and fled. Then Courtlandt went his way alone. He slept with the dubious satisfaction that the first day had not gone badly. The wedge had been entered. It remained to be seen if it could be dislodged. Harrigan was in a happy temper. He kissed his wife and chucked Nora under the chin. And then Mrs. Harrigan launched the thunderbolt which, having been held on the leash for several hours, had, for all of that, lost none of its ability to blight and scorch. "James, you are about as hopeless a man as ever was born. You all but disgraced us this afternoon." "Mother!" "Me?" cried the bewildered Harrigan. "Look at those tennis shoes; one white string and one brown one. It's enough to drive a woman mad. What in heaven's name made you come?" Perhaps it was the after effect of a good dinner, that dwindling away of pleasant emotions; perhaps it was the very triviality of the offense for which he was thus suddenly arraigned; at any rate, he lost his temper, and he was rather formidable when that occurred. "Damn it, Molly, I wasn't going, but Courtlandt asked me to go with him, and I never thought of my shoes. You are always finding fault with me these days. I don't drink, I don't gamble, I don't run around after other women; I never did. But since you've got this social bug in your bonnet, you keep me on hooks all the while. Nobody noticed the shoe-strings; and they would have looked upon it as a joke if they had. After all, I'm the boss of this ranch. If I want to wear a white string and a black one, I'll do it. Here!" He caught up the book on social usages and threw it out of the window. "Don't ever shove a thing like that under my nose again. If you do, I'll hike back to little old New York and start the gym again." He rammed one of the colonel's perfectos (which he had been saving for the morrow) between his teeth, and stalked into the garden. Nora was heartless enough to laugh. "He hasn't talked like that to me in years!" Mrs. Harrigan did not know what to do,--follow him or weep. She took the middle course, and went to bed. Nora turned out the lights and sat out on the little balcony. The moonshine was glorious. So dense was the earth-blackness that the few lights twinkling here and there were more like fallen stars. Presently she heard a sound. It was her father, returning as silently as he could. She heard him fumble among the knickknacks on the mantel, and then go away again. By and by she saw a spot of white light move hither and thither among the grape arbors. For five or six minutes she watched it dance. Suddenly all became dark again. She laid her head upon the railing and conned over the day's events. These were not at all satisfactory to her. Then her thoughts traveled many miles away. Six months of happiness, of romance, of play, and then misery and blackness. "Nora, are you there?" "Yes. Over here on the balcony. What were you doing down there?" "Oh, Nora, I'm sorry I lost my temper. But Molly's begun to nag me lately, and I can't stand it. I went after that book. Did you throw some flowers out of the window?" "Yes." "A bunch of daisies?" "Marguerites," she corrected. "All the same to me. I picked up the bunch, and look at what I found inside." He extended his palm, flooding it with the light of his pocket-lamp. Nora's heart tightened. What she saw was a beautiful uncut emerald. CHAPTER XIV A COMEDY WITH MUSIC The Harrigans occupied the suite in the east wing of the villa. This consisted of a large drawing-room and two ample bedchambers, with window-balconies and a private veranda in the rear, looking off toward the green of the pines and the metal-like luster of the copper beeches. Always the suite was referred to by the management as having once been tenanted by the empress of Germany. Indeed, tourists were generally and respectively and impressively shown the suite (provided it was not at the moment inhabited), and were permitted to peer eagerly about for some sign of the vanished august presence. But royalty in passing, as with the most humble of us, leaves nothing behind save the memory of a tip, generous or otherwise. It was raining, a fine, soft, blurring Alpine rain, and a blue-grey monotone prevailed upon the face of the waters and defied all save the keenest scrutiny to discern where the mountain tops ended and the sky began. It was a day for indoors, for dreams, good books, and good fellows. The old-fashioned photographer would have admired and striven to perpetuate the group in the drawing-room. In the old days it was quite the proper thing to snap the family group while they were engaged in some pleasant pastime, such as spinning, or painting china, or playing the piano, or reading a volume of poems. No one ever seemed to bother about the incongruence of the eyes, which were invariably focused at the camera lens. Here they all were. Mrs. Harrigan was deep in the intricate maze of the Amelia Ars of Bologna, which, as the initiated know, is a wonderful lace. By one of the windows sat Nora, winding interminable yards of lace-hemming from off the willing if aching digits of the Barone, who was speculating as to what his Neapolitan club friends would say could they see, by some trick of crystal-gazing, his present occupation. Celeste was at the piano, playing (_pianissimo_) snatches from the operas, while Abbott looked on, his elbows propped upon his knees, his chin in his palms, and a quality of ecstatic content in his eyes. He was in his working clothes, picturesque if paint-daubed. The morning had been pleasant enough, but just before luncheon the rain clouds had gathered and settled down with that suddenness known only in high altitudes. The ex-gladiator sat on one of those slender mockeries, composed of gold-leaf and parabolic curves and faded brocade, such as one sees at the Trianon or upon the stage or in the new home of a new millionaire, and which, if the true facts be known, the ingenious Louis invented for the discomfort of his favorites and the folly of future collectors. It creaked whenever Harrigan sighed, which was often, for he was deeply immersed (and no better word could be selected to fit his mental condition) in the baneful book which he had hurled out of the window the night before, only to retrieve like the good dog that he was. To-day his shoes offered no loophole to criticism; he had very well attended to that. His tie harmonized with his shirt and stockings; his suit was of grey tweed; in fact, he was the glass of fashion and the mold of form, at least for the present. "Say, Molly, I don't see what difference it makes." "Difference what makes, James?" Mrs. Harrigan raised her eyes from her work. James had been so well-behaved that morning it was only logical for her to anticipate that he was about to abolish at one fell stroke all his hard-earned merits. "About eating salads. We never used to put oil on our tomatoes. Sugar and vinegar were good enough." "Sugar and vinegar are not nourishing; olive-oil is." "We seemed to hike along all right before we learned that." His guardian angel was alert this time, and he returned to his delving without further comment. By and by he got up. "Pshaw!" He dropped the wearisome volume on the reading-table, took up a paper-covered novel, and turned to the last fight of the blacksmith in _Rodney Stone_. Here was something that made the invention of type excusable, even commendable. "Play the fourth _ballade_," urged Abbott. Celeste was really a great artist. As an interpreter of Chopin she had no rival among women, and only one man was her equal. She had fire, tenderness, passion, strength; she had beyond all these, soul, which is worth more in true expression than the most marvelous technique. She had chosen Chopin for his brilliance, as some will chose Turner in preference to Corot: riots of color, barbaric and tingling. She was as great a genius in her way as Nora was in hers. There was something of the elfin child in her spirit. Whenever she played to Abbott, there was a quality in the expression that awakened a wonderment in Nora's heart. As Celeste began the _andante_, Nora signified to the Barone to drop his work. She let her own hands fall. Harrigan gently closed his book, for in that rough kindly soul of his lay a mighty love of music. He himself was without expression of any sort, and somehow music seemed to stir the dim and not quite understandable longing for utterance. Mrs. Harrigan alone went on with her work; she could work and listen at the same time. After the magnificent finale, nothing in the room stirred but her needle. "Bravo!" cried the Barone, breaking the spell. "You never played that better," declared Nora. Celeste, to escape the keen inquiry of her friend and to cover up her embarrassment, dashed into one of the lighter compositions, a waltz. It was a favorite of Nora's. She rose and went over to the piano and rested a hand upon Celeste's shoulder. And presently her voice took up the melody. Mrs. Harrigan dropped her needle. It was not that she was particularly fond of music, but there was something in Nora's singing that cast a temporary spell of enchantment over her, rendering her speechless and motionless. She was not of an analytical turn of mind; thus, the truth escaped her. She was really lost in admiration of herself: she had produced this marvelous being! "That's some!" Harrigan beat his hands together thunderously. "Great stuff; eh, Barone?" The Barone raised his hands as if to express his utter inability to describe his sensations. His elation was that ascribed to those fortunate mortals whom the gods lifted to Olympus. At his feet lay the lace-hemming, hopelessly snarled. "Father, father!" remonstrated Nora; "you will wake up all the old ladies who are having their siesta." "Bah! I'll bet a doughnut their ears are glued to their doors. What ho! Somebody's at the portcullis. Probably the padre, come up for tea." He was at the door instantly. He flung it open heartily. It was characteristic of the man to open everything widely, his heart, his mind, his hate or his affection. "Come in, come in! Just in time for the matinée concert." The padre was not alone. Courtlandt followed him in. [Illustration: Courtlandt followed him in.] "We have been standing in the corridor for ten minutes," affirmed the padre, sending a winning smile around the room. "Mr. Courtlandt was for going down to the bureau and sending up our cards. But I would not hear of such formality. I am a privileged person." "Sure yes! Molly, ring for tea, and tell 'em to make it hot. How about a little peg, as the colonel says?" The two men declined. How easily and nonchalantly the man stood there by the door as Harrigan took his hat! Celeste was aquiver with excitement. She was thoroughly a woman: she wanted something to happen, dramatically, romantically. But her want was a vain one. The man smiled quizzically at Nora, who acknowledged the salutation by a curtsy which would have frightened away the banshees of her childhood. Nora hated scenes, and Courtlandt had the advantage of her in his knowledge of this. Celeste remained at the piano, but Nora turned as if to move away. "No, no!" cried the padre, his palms extended in protest. "If you stop the music I shall leave instantly." "But we are all through, Padre," replied Nora, pinching Celeste's arm, which action the latter readily understood as a command to leave the piano. Celeste, however, had a perverse streak in her to-day. Instead of rising as Nora expected she would, she wheeled on the stool and began _Morning Mood_ from Peer Gynt, because the padre preferred Grieg or Beethoven to Chopin. Nora frowned at the pretty head below her. She stooped. "I sha'n't forgive you for this trick," she whispered. Celeste shrugged, and her fingers did not falter. So Nora moved away this time in earnest. "No, you must sing. That is what I came up for," insisted the padre. If there was any malice in the churchman, it was of a negative quality. But it was in his Latin blood that drama should appeal to him strongly, and here was an unusual phase in The Great Play. He had urged Courtlandt, much against the latter's will this day, to come up with him, simply that he might set a little scene such as this promised to be and study it from the vantage of the prompter. He knew that the principal theme of all great books, of all great dramas, was antagonism, antagonism between man and woman, though by a thousand other names has it been called. He had often said, in a spirit of raillery, that this antagonism was principally due to the fact that Eve had been constructed (and very well) out of a rib from Adam. Naturally she resented this, that she had not been fashioned independently, and would hold it against man until the true secret of the parable was made clear to her. "Sing that, Padre?" said Nora. "Why, there are no words to it that I know." "Words? _Peste!_ Who cares for words no one really ever understands? It is the voice, my child. Go on, or I shall make you do some frightful penance." Nora saw that further opposition would be useless. After all, it would be better to sing. She would not be compelled to look at this man she so despised. For a moment her tones were not quite clear; but Celeste increased the volume of sound warningly, and as this required more force on Nora's part, the little cross-current was passed without mishap. It was mere pastime for her to follow these wonderful melodies. She had no words to recall so that her voice was free to do with as she elected. There were bars absolutely impossible to follow, note for note, but she got around this difficulty by taking the key and holding it strongly and evenly. In ordinary times Nora never refused to sing for her guests, if she happened to be in voice. There was none of that conceited arrogance behind which most of the vocal celebrities hide themselves. At the beginning she had intended to sing badly; but as the music proceeded, she sang as she had not sung in weeks. To fill this man's soul with a hunger for the sound of her voice, to pour into his heart a fresh knowledge of what he had lost forever and forever! Courtlandt sat on the divan beside Harrigan who, with that friendly spirit which he observed toward all whom he liked, whether of long or short acquaintance, had thrown his arm across Courtlandt's shoulder. The younger man understood all that lay behind the simple gesture, and he was secretly pleased. But Mrs. Harrigan was not. She was openly displeased, and in vain she tried to catch the eye of her wayward lord. A man he had known but twenty-four hours, and to greet him with such coarse familiarity! Celeste was not wholly unmerciful. She did not finish the suite, but turned from the keys after the final chords of _Morning Mood_. "Thank you!" said Nora. "Do not stop," begged Courtlandt. Nora looked directly into his eyes as she replied: "One's voice can not go on forever, and mine is not at all strong." And thus, without having originally the least intent to do so, they broke the mutual contract on which they had separately and secretly agreed: never to speak directly to each other. Nora was first to realize what she had done, and she was furiously angry with herself. She left the piano. As if her mind had opened suddenly like a book, Courtlandt sprang from the divan and reached for the fat ball of lace-hemming. He sat down in Nora's chair and nodded significantly to the Barone, who blushed. To hold the delicate material for Nora's unwinding was a privilege of the gods, but to hold it for this man for whom he held a dim feeling of antagonism was altogether a different matter. "It is horribly tangled," he admitted, hoping thus to escape. "No matter. You hold the ball. I'll untangle it. I never saw a fish-line I could not straighten out." Nora laughed. It was not possible for her to repress the sound. Her sense of humor was too strong in this case to be denied its release in laughter. It was free of the subtler emotions; frank merriment, no more, no less. And possessing the hunter's extraordinarily keen ear, Courtlandt recognized the quality; and the weight of a thousand worlds lightened its pressure upon his heart. And the Barone laughed, too. So there they were, the three of them. But Nora's ineffectual battle for repression had driven her near to hysteria. To escape this dire calamity, she flung open a casement window and stood within it, breathing in the heavy fragrance of the rain-laden air. This little comedy had the effect of relaxing them all; and the laughter became general. Abbott's smile faded soonest. He stared at his friend in wonder not wholly free from a sense of evil fortune. Never had he known Courtlandt to aspire to be a squire of dames. To see the Barone hold the ball as if it were hot shot was amusing; but the cool imperturbable manner with which Courtlandt proceeded to untangle the snarl was disturbing. Why the deuce wasn't he himself big and strong, silent and purposeful, instead of being a dawdling fool of an artist? No answer came to his inquiry, but there was a knock at the door. The managing director handed Harrigan a card. "Herr Rosen," he read aloud. "Send him up. Some friend of yours, Nora; Herr Rosen. I told Mr. Jilli to send him up." The padre drew his feet under his cassock, a sign of perturbation; Courtlandt continued to unwind; the Barone glanced fiercely at Nora, who smiled enigmatically. CHAPTER XV HERR ROSEN'S REGRETS Herr Rosen! There was no outward reason why the name should have set a chill on them all, turned them into expectant statues. Yet, all semblance of good-fellowship was instantly gone. To Mrs. Harrigan alone did the name convey a sense of responsibility, a flutter of apprehension not unmixed with delight. She put her own work behind the piano lid, swooped down upon the two men and snatched away the lace-hemming, to the infinite relief of the one and the surprise of the other. Courtlandt would have liked nothing better than to hold the lace in his lap, for it was possible that Herr Rosen might wish to shake hands, however disinclined he might be within to perform such greeting. The lace disappeared. Mrs. Harrigan smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress. From the others there had been little movement and no sound to speak of. Harrigan still waited by the door, seriously contemplating the bit of pasteboard in his hand. Nora did not want to look, but curiosity drew her eyes imperiously toward Courtlandt. He had not risen. Did he know? Did he understand? Was his attitude pretense or innocence? Ah, if she could but look behind that impenetrable mask! How she hated him! The effrontery of it all! And she could do nothing, say nothing: dared not tell them then and there what he truly was, a despicable scoundrel! The son of her father's dearest friend; what mockery! A friend of the family! It was maddening. Herr Rosen brushed past Harrigan unceremoniously, without pausing, and went straight over to Nora, who was thereupon seized by an uncontrollable spirit of devilment. She hated Herr Rosen, but she was going to be as pleasant and as engaging as she knew how to be. She did not care if he misinterpreted her mood. She welcomed him with a hand. He went on to Mrs. Harrigan, who colored pleasurably. He was then introduced, and he acknowledged each introduction with a careless nod. He was there to see Nora, and he did not propose to put himself to any inconvenience on account of the others. The temporary restraint which had settled upon the others at the announcement of Herr Rosen's arrival passed away. Courtlandt, who had remained seated during the initial formalities (a fact which bewildered Abbott, who knew how punctilious his friend was in matters of this kind) got up and took a third of the divan. Harrigan dropped down beside him. It was his habit to watch his daughter's face when any guest arrived. He formed his impression on what he believed to be hers. That she was a consummate actress never entered into his calculations. The welcoming smile dissipated any doubts. "No matter where we are, they keep coming. She has as many friends as T. R. I never bother to keep track of 'em." "It would be rather difficult," assented Courtlandt. "You ought to see the flowers. Loads of 'em. And say, what do you think? Every jewel that comes she turns into money and gives to charity. Can you beat it? Fine joke on the Johnnies. Of course, I mean stones that turn up anonymously. Those that have cards go back by fast-mail. It's a good thing I don't chance across the senders. Now, boy, I want you to feel at home here in this family; I want you to come up when you want to and at any old time of day. I kind of want to pay back to you all the kind things your dad did for me. And I don't want any Oh-pshawing. Get me?" "Whatever you say. If my dad did you any favors it was because he liked and admired you; not with any idea of having you discharge the debt in the future by way of inconveniencing yourself on my account. Just let me be a friend of the family, like Abbott here. That would be quite enough honor for me." "You're on! Say, that blacksmith yarn was a corker. He was a game old codger. That was scrapping; no hall full of tobacco-smoke, no palm-fans, lemonade, peanuts and pop-corn; just right out on the turf, and may the best man win. I know. I went through that. No frame-ups, all square and on the level. A fellow had to fight those days, no sparring, no pretty footwork. Sometimes I've a hankering to get back and exchange a wallop or two. Nothing to it, though. My wife won't let me, as the song goes." Courtlandt chuckled. "I suppose it's the monotony. A man who has been active hates to sit down and twiddle his thumbs. You exercise?" "Walk a lot." "Climb any?" "Don't know that game." "It's great sport. I'll break you in some day, if you say. You'll like it. The mountains around here are not dangerous. We can go up and down in a day." "I'll go you. But, say, last night Nora chucked a bunch of daisies out of the window, and as I was nosing around in the vineyard, I came across it. You know how a chap will absently pick a bunch of flowers apart. What do you think I found?" "A note?" "This." Harrigan exhibited the emerald. "Who sent it? Where the dickens did it come from?" Courtlandt took the stone and examined it carefully. "That's not a bad stone. Uncut but polished; oriental." "Oriental, eh? What would you say it was worth?" "Oh, somewhere between six and seven hundred." "Suffering shamrocks! A little green pebble like this?" "Cut and flawless, at that size, it would be worth pounds instead of dollars." "Well, what do you think of that? Nora told me to keep it, so I guess I will." "Why, yes. If a man sends a thing like this anonymously, he can't possibly complain. Have it made into a stick pin." Courtlandt returned the stone which Harrigan pocketed. "Sometimes I wish Nora'd marry and settle down." "She is young. You wouldn't have quit the game at her age!" "I should say not! But that's different. A man's business is to fight for his grub, whether in an office or in the ring. That's a part of the game. But a woman ought to have a home, live in it three-fourths of the year, and bring up good citizens. That's what we are all here for. Molly used to stay at home, but now it's the social bug, gadding from morning until night. Ah, here's Carlos with the tea." Herr Rosen instantly usurped the chair next to Nora, who began to pour the tea. He had come up from the village prepared for a disagreeable half-hour. Instead of being greeted with icy glances from stormy eyes, he encountered such smiles as this adorable creature had never before bestowed upon him. He was in the clouds. That night at Cadenabbia had apparently knocked the bottom out of his dream. Women were riddles which only they themselves could solve for others. For this one woman he was perfectly ready to throw everything aside. A man lived but once; and he was a fool who would hold to tinsel in preference to such happiness as he thought he saw opening out before him. Nora saw, but she did not care. That in order to reach another she was practising infinite cruelty on this man (whose one fault lay in that he loved her) did not appeal to her pity. But her arrow flew wide of the target; at least, there appeared no result to her archery in malice. Not once had the intended victim looked over to where she sat. And yet she knew that he must be watching; he could not possibly avoid it and be human. And when he finally came forward to take his cup, she leaned toward Herr Rosen. "You take two lumps?" she asked sweetly. It was only a chance shot, but she hit on the truth. "And you remember?" excitedly. "One lump for mine, please," said Courtlandt, smiling. She picked up a cube of sugar and dropped it into his cup. She had the air of one wishing it were poison. The recipient of this good will, with perfect understanding, returned to the divan, where the padre and Harrigan were gravely toasting each other with Benedictine. Nora made no mistake with either Abbott's cup or the Barone's; but the two men were filled with but one desire, to throw Herr Rosen out of the window. What had begun as a beautiful day was now becoming black and uncertain. The Barone could control every feature save his eyes, and these openly admitted deep anger. He recollected Herr Rosen well enough. The encounter over at Cadenabbia was not the first by many. Herr Rosen! His presence in this room under that name was an insult, and he intended to call the interloper to account the very first opportunity he found. Perhaps Celeste, sitting as quiet as a mouse upon the piano-stool, was the only one who saw these strange currents drifting dangerously about. That her own heart ached miserably did not prevent her from observing things with all her usual keenness. Ah, Nora, Nora, who have everything to give and yet give nothing, why do you play so heartless a game? Why hurt those who can no more help loving you than the earth can help whirling around the calm dispassionate sun? Always they turn to you, while I, who have so much to give, am given nothing! She set down her tea-cup and began the aria from _La Bohème_. Nora, without relaxing the false smile, suddenly found emptiness in everything. "Sing!" said Herr Rosen. "I am too tired. Some other time." He did not press her. Instead, he whispered in his own tongue: "You are the most adorable woman in the world!" And Nora turned upon him a pair of eyes blank with astonishment. It was as though she had been asleep and he had rudely awakened her. His infatuation blinded him to the truth; he saw in the look a feminine desire to throw the others off the track as to the sentiment expressed in his whispered words. The hour passed tolerably well. Herr Rosen then observed the time, rose and excused himself. He took the steps leading abruptly down the terrace to the carriage road. He had come by the other way, the rambling stone stairs which began at the porter's lodge, back of the villa. "Padre," whispered Courtlandt, "I am going. Do not follow. I shall explain to you when we meet again." The padre signified that he understood. Harrigan protested vigorously, but smiling and shaking his head, Courtlandt went away. Nora ran to the window. She could see Herr Rosen striding along, down the winding road, his head in the air. Presently, from behind a cluster of mulberries, the figure of another man came into view. He was going at a dog-trot, his hat settled at an angle that permitted the rain to beat squarely into his face. The next turn in the road shut them both from sight. But Nora did not stir. Herr Rosen stopped and turned. "You called?" "Yes." Courtlandt had caught up with him just as Herr Rosen was about to open the gates. "Just a moment, Herr Rosen," with a hand upon the bars. "I shall not detain you long." There was studied insolence in the tones and the gestures which accompanied them. "Be brief, if you please." "My name is Edward Courtlandt, as doubtless you have heard." "In a large room it is difficult to remember all the introductions." "Precisely. That is why I take the liberty of recalling it to you, so that you will not forget it," urbanely. A pause. Dark patches of water were spreading across their shoulders. Little rivulets ran down Courtlandt's arm, raised as it was against the bars. "I do not see how it may concern me," replied Herr Rosen finally with an insolence more marked than Courtlandt's. "In Paris we met one night, at the stage entrance of the Opera, I pushed you aside, not knowing who you were. You had offered your services; the door of Miss Harrigan's limousine." "It was you?" scowling. "I apologize for that. To-morrow morning you will leave Bellaggio for Varenna. Somewhere between nine and ten the fast train leaves for Milan." "Varenna! Milan!" "Exactly. You speak English as naturally and fluently as if you were born to the tongue. Thus, you will leave for Milan. What becomes of you after that is of no consequence to me. Am I making myself clear?" "_Verdampt!_ Do I believe my ears?" furiously. "Are you telling me to leave Bellaggio to-morrow morning?" "As directly as I can." Herr Rosen's face became as red as his name. He was a brave young man, but there was danger of an active kind in the blue eyes boring into his own. If it came to a physical contest, he realized that he would get the worst of it. He put his hand to his throat; his very impotence was choking him. "Your Highness...." "Highness!" Herr Rosen stepped back. "Yes. Your Highness will readily see the wisdom of my concern for your hasty departure when I add that I know all about the little house in Versailles, that my knowledge is shared by the chief of the Parisian police and the minister of war. If you annoy Miss Harrigan with your equivocal attentions...." "_Gott!_ This is too much!" "Wait! I am stronger than you are. Do not make me force you to hear me to the end. You have gone about this intrigue like a blackguard, and that I know your Highness not to be. The matter is, you are young, you have always had your way, you have not learnt restraint. Your presence here is an insult to Miss Harrigan, and if she was pleasant to you this afternoon it was for my benefit. If you do not go, I shall expose you." Courtlandt opened the gate. "And if I refuse?" "Why, in that case, being the American that I am, without any particular reverence for royalty or nobility, as it is known, I promise to thrash you soundly to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, in the dining-room, in the bureau, the drawing-room, wherever I may happen to find you." Courtlandt turned on his heel and hurried back to the villa. He did not look over his shoulder. If he had, he might have felt pity for the young man who leaned heavily against the gate, his burning face pressed upon his rain-soaked sleeve. When Courtlandt knocked at the door and was admitted, he apologized. "I came back for my umbrella." "Umbrella!" exclaimed the padre. "Why, we had no umbrellas. We came up in a carriage which is probably waiting for us this very minute by the porter's lodge." "Well, I am certainly absent-minded!" "Absent-minded!" scoffed Abbott. "You never forgot anything in all your life, unless it was to go to bed. You wanted an excuse to come back." "Any excuse would be a good one in that case. I think we'd better be going, Padre. And by the way, Herr Rosen begged me to present his regrets. He is leaving Bellaggio in the morning." Nora turned her face once more to the window. CHAPTER XVI THE APPLE OF DISCORD "It is all very petty, my child," said the padre. "Life is made up of bigger things; the little ones should be ignored." To which Nora replied: "To a woman, the little things are everything; they are the daily routine, the expected, the necessary things. What you call the big things in life are accidents. And, oh! I have pride." She folded her arms across her heaving bosom; for the padre's directness this morning had stirred her deeply. "Wilfulness is called pride by some; and stubbornness. But you know, as well as I do, that yours is resentment, anger, indignation. Yes, you have pride, but it has not been brought into this affair. Pride is that within which prevents us from doing mean or sordid acts; and you could not do one or the other if you tried. The sentiment in you which should be developed...." "Is mercy?" "No; justice, the patience to weigh the right or wrong of a thing." "Padre, I have eyes, eyes; I _saw_." He twirled the middle button of his cassock. "The eyes see and the ears hear, but these are only witnesses, laying the matter before the court of the last resort, which is the mind. It is there we sift the evidence." "He had the insufferable insolence to order Herr Rosen to leave," going around the barrier of his well-ordered logic. "Ah! Now, how could he send away Herr Rosen if that gentleman had really preferred to stay?" Nora looked confused. "Shall I tell you? I suspected; so I questioned him last night. Had I been in his place, I should have chastised Herr Rosen instead of bidding him be gone. It was he." Nora, sat down. "Positively. The men who guarded you were two actors from one of the theaters. He did not come to Versailles because he was being watched. He was found and sent home the night before your release." "I am sorry. But it was so like _him_." The padre spread his hands. "What a way women have of modifying either good or bad impulses! It would have been fine of you to have stopped when you said you were sorry." "Padre, one would believe that you had taken up his defense!" "If I had I should have to leave it after to-day. I return to Rome to-morrow and shall not see you again before you go to America. I have bidden good-by to all save you. My child, my last admonition is, be patient; observe; guard against that impulse born in your blood to move hastily, to form opinions without solid foundations. Be happy while you are young, for old age is happy only in that reflected happiness of recollection. Write to me, here. I return in November. _Benedicite?_" smiling. Nora bowed her head and he put a hand upon it. * * * * * "And listen to this," began Harrigan, turning over a page. "'It is considered bad form to call the butler to your side when you are a guest. Catch his eye. He will understand that something is wanted.' How's that?" "That's the way to live." Courtlandt grinned, and tilted back his chair until it rested against the oak. The morning was clear and mild. Fresh snow lay upon the mountain tops; later it would disappear. The fountain tinkled, and swallows darted hither and thither under the sparkling spray. The gardeners below in the vegetable patch were singing. By the door of the villa sat two old ladies, breakfasting in the sunshine. There was a hint of lavender in the lazy drifting air. A dozen yards away sat Abbott, two or three brushes between his teeth and one in his hand. A little behind was Celeste, sewing posies upon one of those squares of linen toward which all women in their idle moments are inclined, and which, on finishing, they immediately stow away in the bottom of some trunk against the day when they have a home of their own, or marry, or find some one ignorant enough to accept it as a gift. "'And when in doubt,'" continued Harrigan, "'watch how other persons use their forks.' Can you beat it? And say, honest, Molly bought that for me to read and study. And I never piped the subtitle until this morning. 'Advice to young ladies upon going into society.' Huh?" Harrigan slapped his knee with the book and roared out his keen enjoyment. Somehow he seemed to be more at ease with this young fellow than with any other man he had met in years. "But for the love of Mike, don't say anything to Molly," fearfully. "Oh, she means the best in the world," contritely. "I'm always embarrassing her; shoe-strings that don't match, a busted stud in my shirt-front, and there isn't a pair of white-kids made that'll stay whole more than five minutes on these paws. I suppose it's because I don't think. After all, I'm only a retired pug." The old fellow's eyes sparkled suspiciously. "The best two women in all the world, and I don't want them to be ashamed of me." "Why, Mr. Harrigan," said Courtlandt, letting his chair fall into place so that he could lay a hand affectionately upon the other's knee, "neither of them would be worth their salt if they ever felt ashamed of you. What do you care what strangers think or say? You know. You've seen life. You've stepped off the stage and carried with you the recollection of decent living, of playing square, of doing the best you could. The worst scoundrels I ever met never made any mistake with their forks. Perhaps you don't know it, but my father became rich because he could judge a man's worth almost at sight. And he kept this fortune and added to it because he chose half a dozen friends and refused to enlarge the list. If you became his friend, he had good reason for making you such." "Well, we did have some good times together," Harrigan admitted, with a glow in his heart. "And I guess after all that I'll go to the ball with Molly. I don't mind teas like we had at the colonel's, but dinners and balls I have drawn the line at. I'll take the plunge to-night. There's always some place for a chap to smoke." "At the Villa Rosa? I'll be there myself; and any time you are in doubt, don't be afraid to question me." "You're in class A," heartily. "But there's one thing that worries me,--Nora. She's gone up so high, and she's such a wonderful girl, that all the men in Christendom are hiking after her. And some of 'em.... Well, Molly says it isn't good form to wallop a man over here. Why, she went on her lonesome to India and Japan, with nobody but her maid; and never put us hep until she landed in Bombay. The men out that way aren't the best. East of Suez, you know. And that chap yesterday, Herr Rosen. Did you see the way he hiked by me when I let him in? He took me to be the round number before one. And he didn't speak a dozen words to any but Nora. Not that I mind that; but it was something in the way he did it that scratched me the wrong way. The man who thinks he's going to get Nora by walking over me, has got a guess coming. Of course, it's meat and drink to Molly to have sons of grand dukes and kings trailing around. She says it gives tone." "Isn't she afraid sometimes?" "Afraid? I should say not! There's only three things that Molly's afraid of these days: a spool of thread, a needle, and a button." Courtlandt laughed frankly. "I really don't think you need worry about Herr Rosen. He has gone, and he will not come back." "Say! I'll bet a dollar it was you who shoo'd him off." "Yes. But it was undoubtedly an impertinence on my part, and I'd rather you would not disclose my officiousness to Miss Harrigan." "Piffle! If you knew him you had a perfect right to pass him back his ticket. Who was he?" Courtlandt poked at the gravel with his cane. "One of the big guns?" Courtlandt nodded. "So big that he couldn't have married my girl even if he loved her?" "Yes. As big as that." Harrigan riffled the leaves of his book. "What do you say to going down to the hotel and having a game of _bazzica_, as they call billiards here?" "Nothing would please me better," said Courtlandt, relieved that Harrigan did not press him for further revelations. "Nora is studying a new opera, and Molly-O is ragging the village dressmaker. It's only half after ten, and we can whack 'em around until noon. I warn you, I'm something of a shark." "I'll lay you the cigars that I beat you." "You're on!" Harrigan put the book in his pocket, and the two of them made for the upper path, not, however, without waving a friendly adieu to Celeste, who was watching them with much curiosity. For a moment Nora became visible in the window. Her expression did not signify that the sight of the men together pleased her. On the contrary, her eyes burned and her brow was ruffled by several wrinkles which threatened to become permanent if the condition of affairs continued to remain as it was. To her the calm placidity of the man was nothing less than monumental impudence. How she hated him; how bitterly, how intensely she hated him! She withdrew from the window without having been seen. "Did you ever see two finer specimens of man?" Celeste asked of Abbott. "What? Who?" mumbled Abbott, whose forehead was puckered with impatience. "Oh, those two? They _are_ well set up. But what the deuce _is_ the matter with this foreground?" taking the brushes from his teeth. "I've been hammering away at it for a week, and it does not get there yet." Celeste rose and laid aside her work. She stood behind him and studied the picture through half-closed critical eyes. "You have painted it over too many times." Then she looked down at the shapely head. Ah, the longing to put her hands upon it, to run her fingers through the tousled hair, to touch it with her lips! But no! "Perhaps you are tired; perhaps you have worked too hard. Why not put aside your brushes for a week?" "I've a good mind to chuck it into the lake. I simply can't paint any more." He flung down the brushes. "I'm a fool, Celeste, a fool. I'm crying for the moon, that's what the matter is. What's the use of beating about the bush? You know as well as I do that it's Nora." Her heart contracted, and for a little while she could not see him clearly. "But what earthly chance have I?" he went on, innocently but ruthlessly. "No one can help loving Nora." "No," in a small voice. "It's all rot, this talk about affinities. There's always some poor devil left outside. But who can help loving Nora?" he repeated. "Who indeed!" "And there's not the least chance in the world for me." "You never can tell until you put it to the test." "Do you think I have a chance? Is it possible that Nora may care a little for me?" He turned his head toward her eagerly. "Who knows?" She wanted him to have it over with, to learn the truth that to Nora Harrigan he would never be more than an amiable comrade. He would then have none to turn to but her. What mattered it if her own heart ached so she might soothe the hurt in his? She laid a hand upon his shoulder, so lightly that he was only dimly conscious of the contact. "It's a rummy old world. Here I've gone alone all these years...." "Twenty-six!" smiling. "Well, that's a long time. Never bothered my head about a woman. Selfish, perhaps. Had a good time, came and went as I pleased. And then I met Nora." "Yes." "If only she'd been stand-offish, like these other singers, why, I'd have been all right to-day. But she's such a brick! She's such a good fellow! She treats us all alike; sings when we ask her to; always ready for a romp. Think of her making us all take the _Kneip_-cure the other night! And we marched around the fountain singing 'Mary had a little lamb.' Barefooted in the grass! When a man marries he doesn't want a wife half so much as a good comrade; somebody to slap him on the back in the morning to hearten him up for the day's work; and to cuddle him up when he comes home tired, or disappointed, or unsuccessful. No matter what mood he's in. Is my English getting away from you?" "No; I understand all you say." Her hand rested a trifle heavier upon his shoulder, that was all. "Nora would be that kind of a wife. 'Honor, anger, valor, fire,' as Stevenson says. Hang the picture; what am I going to do with it?" "'Honor, anger, valor, fire,'" Celeste repeated slowly. "Yes, that is Nora." A bitter little smile moved her lips as she recalled the happenings of the last two days. But no; he must find out for himself; he must meet the hurt from Nora, not from her. "How long, Abbott, have you known your friend Mr. Courtlandt?" "Boys together," playing a light tattoo with his mahl-stick. "How old is he?" "About thirty-two or three." "He is very rich?" "Oceans of money; throws it away, but not fast enough to get rid of it." "He is what you say in English ... wild?" "Well," with mock gravity, "I shouldn't like to be the tiger that crossed his path. Wild; that's the word for it." "You are laughing. Ah, I know! I should say dissipated." "Courtlandt? Come, now, Celeste; does he look dissipated?" "No-o." "He drinks when he chooses, he flirts with a pretty woman when he chooses, he smokes the finest tobacco there is when he chooses; and he gives them all up when he chooses. He is like the seasons; he comes and goes, and nobody can change his habits." "He has had no affair?" "Why, Courtlandt hasn't any heart. It's a mechanical device to keep his blood in circulation; that's all. I am the most intimate friend he has, and yet I know no more than you how he lives and where he goes." She let her hand fall from his shoulder. She was glad that he did not know. "But look!" she cried in warning. Abbott looked. A woman was coming serenely down the path from the wooded promontory, a woman undeniably handsome in a cedar-tinted linen dress, exquisitely fashioned, with a touch of vivid scarlet on her hat and a most tantalizing flash of scarlet ankle. It was Flora Desimone, fresh from her morning bath and a substantial breakfast. The errand that had brought her from Aix-les-Bains was confessedly a merciful one. But she possessed the dramatist's instinct to prolong a situation. Thus, to make her act of mercy seem infinitely larger than it was, she was determined first to cast the Apple of Discord into this charming corner of Eden. The Apple of Discord, as every man knows, is the only thing a woman can throw with any accuracy. The artist snatched up his brushes, and ruined the painting forthwith, for all time. The foreground was, in his opinion, beyond redemption; so, with a savage humor, he rapidly limned in a score of impossible trees, turned midday into sunset, with a riot of colors which would have made the Chinese New-year in Canton a drab and sober event in comparison. He hated Flora Desimone, as all Nora's adherents most properly did, but with a hatred wholly reflective and adapted to Nora's moods. "You have spoiled it!" cried Celeste. She had watched the picture grow, and to see it ruthlessly destroyed this way hurt her. "How could you!" "Worst I ever did." He began to change the whole effect, chuckling audibly as he worked. Sunset divided honors with moonlight. It was no longer incongruous; it was ridiculous. He leaned back and laughed. "I'm going to send it to L'Asino, and call it an afterthought." "Give it to me." "What?" "Yes." "Nonsense! I'm going to touch a match to it. I'll give you that picture with the lavender in bloom." "I want this." "But you can not hang it." "I want it." "Well!" The more he learned about women the farther out of mental reach they seemed to go. Why on earth did she want this execrable daub? "You may have it; but all the same, I'm going to call an oculist and have him examine your eyes." "Why, it is the Signorina Fournier!" In preparing studiously to ignore Flora Desimone's presence they had forgotten all about her. "Good morning, Signora," said Celeste in Italian. "And the Signore Abbott, the painter, also!" The Calabrian raised what she considered her most deadly weapon, her lorgnette. Celeste had her fancy-work instantly in her two hands; Abbott's were occupied; Flora's hands were likewise engaged; thus, the insipid mockery of hand-shaking was nicely and excusably avoided. "What is it?" asked Flora, squinting. "It is a new style of the impressionist which I began this morning," soberly. "It looks very natural," observed Flora. "Natural!" Abbott dropped his mahl-stick. "It is Vesuv', is it not, on a cloudy day?" This was too much for Abbott's gravity, and he laughed. "It was not necessary to spoil a good picture ... on my account," said Flora, closing the lorgnette with a snap. Her great dark eyes were dreamy and contemplative like a cat's, and, as every one knows, a cat's eye is the most observing of all eyes. It is quite in the order of things, since a cat's attitude toward the world is by need and experience wholly defensive. "The Signora is wrong. I did not spoil it on her account. It was past helping yesterday. But I shall, however, rechristen it Vesuvius, since it represents an eruption of temper." Flora tapped the handle of her parasol with the lorgnette. It was distinctly a sign of approval. These Americans were never slow-witted. She swung the parasol to and fro, slowly, like a pendulum. "It is too bad," she said, her glance roving over the white walls of the villa. "It was irrevocably lost," Abbott declared. "No, no; I do not mean the picture. I am thinking of La Toscana. Her voice was really superb; and to lose it entirely...!" She waved a sympathetic hand. Abbott was about to rise up in vigorous protest. But fate itself chose to rebuke Flora. From the window came--"_Sai cos' ebbe cuore!_"--sung as only Nora could sing it. The ferrule of Flora Desimone's parasol bit deeply into the clover-turf. CHAPTER XVII THE BALL AT THE VILLA "Do you know the Duchessa?" asked Flora Desimone. "Yes." It was three o'clock the same afternoon. The duke sat with his wife under the vine-clad trattoria on the quay. Between his knees he held his Panama hat, which was filled with ripe hazelnuts. He cracked them vigorously with his strong white teeth and filliped the broken shells into the lake, where a frantic little fish called _agoni_ darted in and about the slowly sinking particles. "Why?" The duke was not any grayer than he had been four or five months previous, but the characteristic expression of his features had undergone a change. He looked less Jovian than Job-like. "I want you to get an invitation to her ball at the Villa Rosa to-night." "We haven't been here twenty-four hours!" in mild protest. "What has that to do with it? It doesn't make any difference." "I suppose not." He cracked and ate a nut. "Where is he?" "He has gone to Milan. He left hurriedly. He's a fool," impatiently. "Not necessarily. Foolishness is one thing and discretion is another. Oh, well; his presence here was not absolutely essential. Presently he will marry and settle down and be a good boy." The next nut was withered, and he tossed it aside. "Is her voice really gone?" "No." Flora leaned with her arms upon the railing and glared at the wimpling water. She had carried the Apple of Discord up the hill and down again. Nora had been indisposed. "I am glad of that." She turned the glare upon him. "I am very glad of that, considering your part in the affair." "Michael...!" "Be careful. Michael is always a prelude to a temper. Have one of these," offering a nut. She struck it rudely from his hand. "Sometimes I am tempted to put my two hands around that exquisite neck of yours." "Try it." "No, I do not believe it would be wise. But if ever I find out that you have lied to me, that you loved the fellow and married me out of spite...." He completed the sentence by suggestively crunching a nut. The sullen expression on her face gave place to a smile. "I should like to see you in a rage." "No, my heart; you would like nothing of the sort. I understand you better than you know; that accounts for my patience. You are Italian. You are caprice and mood. I come from a cold land. If ever I do get angry, run, run as fast as ever you can." Flora was not, among other things, frivolous or light-headed. There was an earthquake hidden somewhere in this quiet docile man, and the innate deviltry of the woman was always trying to dig down to it. But she never deceived herself. Some day this earthquake would open up and devour her. "I hate him. He snubbed me. I have told you that a thousand times." He laughed and rattled the nuts in his hat. "I want you to get that invitation." "And if I do not?" "I shall return immediately to Paris." "And break your word to me?" "As easily as you break one of these nuts." "And if I get the invitation?" "I shall fulfil my promise to the letter. I will tell her as I promised." "Out of love for me?" "Out of love for you, and because the play no longer interests me." "I wonder what new devilment is at work in your mind?" "Michael, I do not want to get into a temper. It makes lines in my face. I hate this place. It is dead. I want life, and color, and music. I want the rest of September in Ostend." "Paris, Capri, Taormina, Ostend; I marvel if ever you will be content to stay in one place long enough for me to get my breath?" "My dear, I am young. One of these days I shall be content to sit by your great Russian fireplace and hold your hand." "Hold it now." She laughed and pressed his hand between her own. "Michael, look me straight in the eyes." He did so willingly enough. "There is no other man. And if you ever look at another woman ... Well!" "I'll send over for the invitation." He stuffed his pockets with nuts and put on his hat. Flora then proceeded secretly to polish once more the Apple of Discord which, a deal tarnished for lack of use, she had been compelled to bring down from the promontory. * * * * * "Am I all right?" asked Harrigan. Courtlandt nodded. "You look like a soldier in mufti, and more than that, like the gentleman that you naturally are," quite sincerely. The ex-gladiator blushed. "This is the reception-room. There's the ballroom right out there. The smoking-room is on the other side. Now, how in the old Harry am I going to get across without killing some one?" Courtlandt resisted the desire to laugh. "Supposing you let me pilot you over?" "You're the referee. Ring the gong." "Come on, then." "What! while they are dancing?" backing away in dismay. The other caught him by the arm. "Come on." And in and out they went, hither and thither, now dodging, now pausing to let the swirl pass, until at length Harrigan found himself safe on shore, in the dim cool smoking-room. "I don't see how you did it," admiringly. "I'll drop in every little while to see how you are getting on," volunteered Courtlandt. "You can sit by the door if you care to see them dance. I'm off to see Mrs. Harrigan and tell her where you are. Here's a cigar." Harrigan turned the cigar over and over in his fingers, all the while gazing at the young man's diminishing back. He sighed. _That_ would make him the happiest man in the world. He examined the carnelian band encircling the six-inches of evanescent happiness. "What do you think of that!" he murmured. "Same brand the old boy used to smoke. And if he pays anything less than sixty apiece for 'em at wholesale, I'll eat this one." Then he directed his attention to the casual inspection of the room. A few elderly men were lounging about. His sympathy was at once mutely extended; it was plain that they too had been dragged out. At the little smoker's tabouret by the door he espied two chairs, one of which was unoccupied; and he at once appropriated it. The other chair was totally obscured by the bulk of the man who sat in it; a man, bearded, blunt-nosed, passive, but whose eyes were bright and twinkling. Hanging from his cravat was a medal of some kind. Harrigan lighted his cigar, and gave himself up to the delights of it. "They should leave us old fellows at home," he ventured. "Perhaps, in most cases, the women would much prefer that." "Foreigner," thought Harrigan. "Well, it does seem that the older we get the greater obstruction we become." "What is old age?" asked the thick but not unpleasant voice of the stranger. "It's standing aside. Years don't count at all. A man is as young as he feels." "And a woman as old as she looks!" laughed the other. "Now, I don't feel old, and I am fifty-one." The man with the beard shot an admiring glance across the tabouret. "You are extraordinarily well preserved, sir. You do not seem older than I, and I am but forty." "The trouble is, over here you play cards all night in stuffy rooms and eat too many sauces." Harrigan had read this somewhere, and he was pleased to think that he could recall it so fittingly. "Agreed. You Americans are getting out in the open more than any other white people." "Wonder how he guessed I was from the States?" Aloud, Harrigan said: "You don't look as though you'd grow any older in the next ten years." "That depends." The bearded man sighed and lighted a fresh cigarette. "There's a beautiful young woman," with an indicative gesture toward the ballroom. Harrigan expanded. It was Nora, dancing with the Barone. "She's the most beautiful young woman in the world," enthusiastically. "Ah, you know her?" interestedly. "I am her father!"--as Louis XIV might have said, "I am the State." The bearded man smiled. "Sir, I congratulate you both." Courtlandt loomed in the doorway. "Comfortable?" "Perfectly. Good cigar, comfortable chair, fine view." The duke eyed Courtlandt through the pall of smoke which he had purposefully blown forth. He questioned, rather amusedly, what would have happened had he gone down to the main hall that night in Paris? Among the few things he admired was a well-built handsome man. Courtlandt on his part pretended that he did not see. "You'll find the claret and champagne punches in the hall," suggested Courtlandt. "Not for mine! Run away and dance." "Good-by, then." Courtlandt vanished. "There's a fine chap. Edward Courtlandt, the American millionaire." It was not possible for Harrigan to omit this awe-compelling elaboration. "Edward Courtlandt." The stranger stretched his legs. "I have heard of him. Something of a hunter." "One of the keenest." "There is no half-way with your rich American: either his money ruins him or he runs away from it." "There's a stunner," exclaimed Harrigan. "Wonder how she got here?" "To which lady do you refer?" "The one in scarlet. She is Flora Desimone. She and my daughter sing together sometimes. Of course you have heard of Eleonora da Toscana; that's my daughter's stage name. The two are not on very good terms, naturally." "Quite naturally," dryly. "But you can't get away from the Calabrian's beauty," generously. "No." The bearded man extinguished his cigarette and rose, laying a _carte-de-visite_ on the tabouret. "More, I should not care to get away from it. Good evening," pleasantly. The music stopped. He passed on into the crowd. Harrigan reached over and picked up the card. "Suffering shamrocks! if Molly could only see me now," he murmured. "I wonder if I made any breaks? The grand duke, and me hobnobbing with him like a waiter! James, this is all under your hat. We'll keep the card where Molly won't find it." Young men began to drift in and out. The air became heavy with smoke, the prevailing aroma being that of Turkish tobacco of which Harrigan was not at all fond. But his cigar was so good that he was determined not to stir until the coal began to tickle the end of his nose. Since Molly knew where he was there was no occasion to worry. Abbott came in, pulled a cigarette case out of his pocket, and impatiently struck a match. His hands shook a little, and the flare of the match revealed a pale and angry countenance. "Hey, Abbott, here's a seat. Get your second wind." "Thanks." Abbott dropped into the chair and smoked quickly. "Very stuffy out there. Too many." "You look it. Having a good time?" "Oh, fine!" There was a catch in the laugh which followed, but Harrigan's ear was not trained for these subtleties of sound, "How are you making out?" "I'm getting acclimated. Where's the colonel to-night? He ought to be around here somewhere." "I left him a few moments ago." "When you see him again, send him in. He's a live one, and I like to hear him talk." "I'll go at once," crushing his cigarette in the Jeypore bowl. "What's your hurry? You look like a man who has just lost his job." "Been steering a German countess. She was wound up to turn only one way, and I am groggy. I'll send the colonel over. By-by." "Now, what's stung the boy?" Nora was enjoying herself famously. The men hummed around her like bees around the sweetest rose. From time to time she saw Courtlandt hovering about the outskirts. She was glad he had come: the lepidopterist is latent or active in most women; to impale the butterfly, the moth falls easily into the daily routine. She was laughing and jesting with the men. Her mother stood by, admiringly. This time Courtlandt gently pushed his way to Nora's side. "May I have a dance?" he asked. "You are too late," evenly. She was becoming used to the sight of him, much to her amazement. "I am sorry." "Why, Nora, I didn't know that your card was filled!" said Mrs. Harrigan. She had the maternal eye upon Courtlandt. "Nevertheless," said Nora sweetly, "it is a fact." "I am disconsolate," replied Courtlandt, who had approached for form's sake only, being fully prepared for a refusal. "I have the unfortunate habit of turning up late," with a significance which only Nora understood. "So, those who are late must suffer the consequences." "Supper?" "The Barone rather than you." The music began again, and Abbott whirled her away. She was dressed in Burmese taffeta, a rich orange. In the dark of her beautiful black hair there was the green luster of emeralds; an Indian-princess necklace of emeralds and pearls was looped around her dazzling white throat. Unconsciously Courtlandt sighed audibly, and Mrs. Harrigan heard this note of unrest. "Who is that?" asked Mrs. Harrigan. "Flora Desimone's husband, the duke. He and Mr. Harrigan were having quite a conversation in the smoke-room." "What!" in consternation. "They were getting along finely when I left them." Mrs. Harrigan felt her heart sink. The duke and James together meant nothing short of a catastrophe; for James would not know whom he was addressing, and would make all manner of confidences. She knew something would happen if she let him out of her sight. He was eternally talking to strangers. "Would you mind telling Mr. Harrigan that I wish to see him?" "Not at all." Nora stopped at the end of the ballroom. "Donald, let us go out into the garden. I want a breath of air. Did you see her?" "Couldn't help seeing her. It was the duke, I suppose. It appears that he is an old friend of the duchess. We'll go through the conservatory. It's a short-cut." The night was full of moonshine; it danced upon the water; it fired the filigree tops of the solemn cypress; it laced the lawn with quivering shadows; and heavy hung the cloying perfume of the box-wood hedges. "_O bellissima notta!_" she sang. "Is it not glorious?" "Nora," said Abbott, leaning suddenly toward her. "Don't say it. Donald; please don't. Don't waste your love on me. You are a good man, and I should not be worthy the name of woman if I did not feel proud and sad. I want you always as a friend; and if you decide that can not be, I shall lose faith in everything. I have never had a brother, and in these two short years I have grown to look on you as one. I am sorry. But if you will look back you will see that I never gave you any encouragement. I was never more than your comrade. I have many faults, but I am not naturally a coquette. I know my heart; I know it well." "Is there another?" in despair. "Once upon a time, Donald, there was. There is nothing now but ashes. I am telling you this so that it will not be so hard for you to return to the old friendly footing. You are a brave man. Any man is who takes his heart in his hand and offers it to a woman. You are going to take my hand and promise to be my friend always." "Ah, Nora!" "You mustn't, Donald. I can't return to the ballroom with my eyes red. You will never know how a woman on the stage has to fight to earn her bread. And that part is only a skirmish compared to the ceaseless war men wage against her. She has only the fortifications of her wit and her presence of mind. Was I not abducted in the heart of Paris? And but for the cowardice of the man, who knows what might have happened? If I have beauty, God gave it to me to wear, and wear it I will. My father, the padre, you and the Barone; I would not trust any other men living. I am often unhappy, but I do not inflict this unhappiness on others. Be you the same. Be my friend; be brave and fight it out of your heart." Quickly she drew his head toward her and lightly kissed the forehead. "There! Ah, Donald, I very much need a friend." "All right, Nora," bravely indeed, for the pain in his young heart cried out for the ends of the earth in which to hide. "All right! I'm young; maybe I'll get over it in time. Always count on me. You wouldn't mind going back to the ballroom alone, would you? I've got an idea I'd like to smoke over it. No, I'll take you to the end of the conservatory and come back. I can't face the rest of them just now." Nora had hoped against hope that it was only infatuation, but in the last few days she could not ignore the truth that he really loved her. She had thrown him and Celeste together in vain. Poor Celeste, poor lovely Celeste, who wore her heart upon her sleeve, patent to all eyes save Donald's! Thus, it was with defined purpose that she had lured him this night into the garden. She wanted to disillusion him. The Barone, glooming in an obscure corner of the conservatory, saw them come in. Abbott's brave young face deceived him. At the door Abbott smiled and bowed and returned to the garden. The Barone rose to follow him. He had committed a theft of which he was genuinely sorry; and he was man enough to seek his rival and apologize. But fate had chosen for him the worst possible time. He had taken but a step forward, when a tableau formed by the door, causing him to pause irresolutely. Nora was face to face at last with Flora Desimone. "I wish to speak to you," said the Italian abruptly. "Nothing you could possibly say would interest me," declared Nora, haughtily and made as if to pass. "Do not be too sure," insolently. Their voices were low, but they reached the ears of the Barone, who wished he was anywhere but here. He moved silently behind the palms toward the exit. "Let me be frank. I hate you and detest you with all my heart," continued Flora. "I have always hated you, with your supercilious airs, you, whose father...." "Don't you dare to say an ill word of him!" cried Nora, her Irish blood throwing hauteur to the winds. "He is kind and brave and loyal, and I am proud of him. Say what you will about me; it will not bother me in the least." The Barone heard no more. By degrees he had reached the exit, and he was mightily relieved to get outside. The Calabrian had chosen her time well, for the conservatory was practically empty. The Barone's eyes searched the shadows and at length discerned Abbott leaning over the parapet. [Illustration: "I hate you and detest you with all my heart."] "Ah!" said Abbott, facing about. "So it is you. You deliberately scratched off my name and substituted your own. It was the act of a contemptible cad. And I tell you here and now. A cad!" The Barone was Italian. He had sought Abbott with the best intentions; to apologize abjectly, distasteful though it might be to his hot blood. Instead, he struck Abbott across the mouth, and the latter promptly knocked him down. CHAPTER XVIII PISTOLS FOR TWO Courtlandt knocked on the studio door. "Come in." He discovered Abbott, stretched out upon the lounge, idly picking at the loose plaster in the wall. "Hello!" said Abbott carelessly. "Help yourself to a chair." Instead, Courtlandt walked about the room, aimlessly. He paused at the window; he picked up a sketch and studied it at various angles; he kicked the footstool across the floor, not with any sign of anger but with a seriousness that would have caused Abbott to laugh, had he been looking at his friend. He continued, however, to pluck at the plaster. He had always hated and loved Courtlandt, alternately. He never sought to analyze this peculiar cardiac condition. He only knew that at one time he hated the man, and that at another he would have laid down his life for him. Perhaps it was rather a passive jealousy which he mistook for hatred. Abbott had never envied Courtlandt his riches; but often the sight of Courtlandt's physical superiority, his adaptability, his knowledge of men and affairs, the way he had of anticipating the unspoken wishes of women, his unembarrassed gallantry, these attributes stirred the envy of which he was always manly enough to be ashamed. Courtlandt's unexpected appearance in Bellaggio had also created a suspicion which he could not minutely define. The truth was, when a man loved, every other man became his enemy, not excepting her father: the primordial instinct has survived all the applications of veneer. So, Abbott was not at all pleased to see his friend that morning. At length Courtlandt returned to the lounge. "The Barone called upon me this morning." "Oh, he did?" "I think you had better write him an apology." Abbott sat up. He flung the piece of plaster violently to the floor. "Apologize? Well, I like your nerve to come here with that kind of wabble. Look at these lips! Man, he struck me across the mouth, and I knocked him down." "It was a pretty good wallop, considering that you couldn't see his face very well in the dark. I always said that you had more spunk to the square inch than any other chap I know. But over here, Suds, as you know, it's different. You can't knock down an officer and get away with it. So, you just sit down at your desk and write a little note, saying that you regret your hastiness. I'll see that it goes through all right. Fortunately, no one heard of the row." "I'll see you both farther!" wrathfully. "Look at these lips, I say!" "Before he struck you, you must have given provocation." "Sha'n't discuss what took place. Nor will I apologize." "That's final?" "You have my word for it." "Well, I'm sorry. The Barone is a decent sort. He gives you the preference, and suggests that you select pistols, since you would be no match for him with rapiers." "Pistols!" shouted Abbott. "For the love of glory, what are you driving at?" "The Barone has asked me to be his second. And I have despatched a note to the colonel, advising him to attend to your side. I accepted the Barone's proposition solely that I might get here first and convince you that an apology will save you a heap of discomfort. The Barone is a first-rate shot, and doubtless he will only wing you. But that will mean scandal and several weeks in the hospital, to say nothing of a devil of a row with the civil authorities. In the army the Italian still fights his _duello_, but these affairs never get into the newspapers, as in France. Seldom, however, is any one seriously hurt. They are excitable, and consequently a good shot is likely to shoot wildly at a pinch. So there you are, my boy." "Are you in your right mind? Do you mean to tell me that you have come here to arrange a duel?" asked Abbott, his voice low and a bit shaky. "To prevent one. So, write your apology. Don't worry about the moral side of the question. It's only a fool who will offer himself as a target to a man who knows how to shoot. You couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with a shot-gun." Abbott brushed the dust from his coat and got up. "A duel!" He laughed a bit hysterically. Well, why not? Since Nora could never be his, there was no future for him. He might far better serve as a target than to go on living with the pain and bitterness in his heart. "Very well. Tell the Barone my choice is pistols. He may set the time and place himself." "Go over to that desk and write that apology. If you don't, I promise on my part to tell Nora Harrigan, who, I dare say, is at the bottom of this, innocently or otherwise." "Courtlandt!" "I mean just what I say. Take your choice. Stop this nonsense yourself like a reasonable human being, or let Nora Harrigan stop it for you. There will be no duel, not if I can help it." Abbott saw instantly what would happen. Nora would go to the Barone and beg off for him. "All right! I'll write that apology. But listen: you will knock hereafter when you enter any of my studios. You've kicked out the bottom from the old footing. You are not the friend you profess to be. You are making me a coward in the eyes of that damned Italian. He will never understand this phase of it." Thereupon Abbott ran over to his desk and scribbled the note, sealing it with a bang. "Here you are. Perhaps you had best go at once." "Abby, I'm sorry that you take this view." "I don't care to hear any platitudes, thank you." "I'll look you up to-morrow, and on my part I sha'n't ask for any apology. In a little while you'll thank me. You will even laugh with me." "Permit me to doubt that," angrily. He threw open the door. Courtlandt was too wise to argue further. He had obtained the object of his errand, and that was enough for the present. "Sorry you are not open to reason. Good morning." When the door closed, Abbott tramped the floor and vented his temper on the much abused footstool, which he kicked whenever it came in the line of his march. In his soul he knew that Courtlandt was right. More than that, he knew that presently he would seek him and apologize. Unfortunately, neither of them counted on the colonel. Without being quite conscious of the act, Abbott took down from the wall an ancient dueling-pistol, cocked it, snapped it, and looked it over with an interest that he had never before bestowed on it. And the colonel, bursting into the studio, found him absorbed in the contemplation of this old death-dealing instrument. "Ha!" roared the old war dog. "Had an idea that something like this was going to happen. Put that up. You couldn't kill anything with that unless you hit 'em on the head with it. Leave the matter to me. I've a pair of pistols, sighted to hit a shilling at twenty yards. Of course, you can't fight him with swords. He's one of the best in all Italy. But you've just as good a chance as he has with pistols. Nine times out of ten the tyro hits the bull's-eye, while the crack goes wild. Just you sit jolly tight. Who's his second; Courtlandt?" "Yes." Abbott was truly and completely bewildered. "He struck you first, I understand, and you knocked him down. Good! My tennis-courts are out of the way. We can settle this matter to-morrow morning at dawn. Ellicott will come over from Cadenabbia with his saws. He's close-mouthed. All you need to do is to keep quiet. You can spend the night at the villa with me, and I'll give you a few ideas about shooting a pistol. Here; write what I dictate." He pushed Abbott over to the desk and forced him into the chair. Abbott wrote mechanically, as one hypnotized. The colonel seized the letter. "No flowery sentences; a few words bang at the mark. Come up to the villa as soon as you can. We'll jolly well cool this Italian's blood." And out he went, banging the door. There was something of the directness of a bullet in the old fellow's methods. Literally, Abbott had been rushed off his feet. The moment his confusion cleared he saw the predicament into which his own stupidity and the amiable colonel's impetuous good offices had plunged him. He was horrified. Here was Courtlandt carrying the apology, and hot on his heels was the colonel, with the final arrangements for the meeting. He ran to the door, bareheaded, took the stairs three and four at a bound. But the energetic Anglo-Indian had gone down in bounds also; and when the distracted artist reached the street, the other was nowhere to be seen. Apparently there was nothing left but to send another apology. Rather than perform so shameful and cowardly an act he would have cut off his hand. The Barone, pale and determined, passed the second note to Courtlandt who was congratulating himself (prematurely as will be seen) on the peaceful dispersion of the war-clouds. He was dumfounded. "You will excuse me," he said meekly. He must see Abbott. "A moment," interposed the Barone coldly. "If it is to seek another apology, it will be useless. I refuse to accept. Mr. Abbott will fight, or I will publicly brand him, the first opportunity, as a coward." Courtlandt bit his mustache. "In that case, I shall go at once to Colonel Caxley-Webster." "Thank you. I shall be in my room at the villa the greater part of the day." The Barone bowed. Courtlandt caught the colonel as he was entering his motor-boat. "Come over to tiffin." "Very well; I can talk here better than anywhere else." When the motor began its racket, Courtlandt pulled the colonel over to him. "Do you know what you have done?" "Done?" dropping his eye-glass. "Yes. Knowing that Abbott would have no earthly chance against the Italian, I went to him and forced him to write an apology. And you have blown the whole thing higher than a kite." The colonel's eyes bulged. "Dem it, why didn't the young fool tell me?" "Your hurry probably rattled him. But what are we going to do? I'm not going to have the boy hurt. I love him as a brother; though, just now, he regards me as a mortal enemy. Perhaps I am," moodily. "I have deceived him, and somehow--blindly it is true--he knows it. I am as full of deceit as a pomegranate is of seeds." "Have him send another apology." "The Barone is thoroughly enraged. He would refuse to accept it, and said so." "Well, dem me for a well-meaning meddler!" "With pleasure, but that will not stop the row. There is a way out, but it appeals to me as damnably low." "Oh, Abbott will not run. He isn't that kind." "No, he'll not run. But if you will agree with me, honor may be satisfied without either of them getting hurt." "Women beat the devil, don't they? What's your plan?" Courtlandt outlined it. The colonel frowned. "That doesn't sound like you. Beastly trick." "I know it." "We'll lunch first. It will take a few pegs to get that idea through this bally head of mine." When Abbott came over later that day, he was subdued in manner. He laughed occasionally, smoked a few cigars, but declined stimulants. He even played a game of tennis creditably. And after dinner he shot a hundred billiards. The colonel watched his hands keenly. There was not the slightest indication of nerves. "Hang the boy!" he muttered. "I ought to be ashamed of myself. There isn't a bit of funk in his whole make-up." At nine Abbott retired. He did not sleep very well. He was irked by the morbid idea that the Barone was going to send the bullet through his throat. He was up at five. He strolled about the garden. He realized that it was very good to be alive. Once he gazed somberly at the little white villa, away to the north. How crisply it stood out against the dark foliage! How blue the water was! And far, far away the serene snowcaps! Nora Harrigan ... Well, he was going to stand up like a man. She should never be ashamed of her memory of him. If he went out, all worry would be at an end, and that would be something. What a mess he had made of things! He did not blame the Italian. A duel! he, the son of a man who had invented wash-tubs, was going to fight a duel! He wanted to laugh; he wanted to cry. Wasn't he just dreaming? Wasn't it all a nightmare out of which he would presently awake? "Breakfast, Sahib," said Rao, deferentially touching his arm. He was awake; it was all true. "You'll want coffee," began the colonel. "Drink as much as you like. And you'll find the eggs good, too." The colonel wanted to see if Abbott ate well. The artist helped himself twice and drank three cups of coffee. "You know, I suppose all men in a hole like this have funny ideas. I was just thinking that I should like a partridge and a bottle of champagne." "We'll have that for tiffin," said the colonel, confidentially. In fact, he summoned the butler and gave the order. "It's mighty kind of you, Colonel, to buck me up this way." "Rot!" The colonel experienced a slight heat in his leathery cheeks. "All you've got to do is to hold your arm out straight, pull the trigger, and squint afterward." "I sha'n't hurt the Barone," smiling faintly. "Are you going to be ass enough to pop your gun in the air?" indignantly. Abbott shrugged; and the colonel cursed himself for the guiltiest scoundrel unhung. Half an hour later the opponents stood at each end of the tennis-court. Ellicott, the surgeon, had laid open his medical case. He was the most agitated of the five men. His fingers shook as he spread out the lints and bandages. The colonel and Courtlandt had solemnly gone through the formality of loading the weapons. The sun had not climbed over the eastern summits, but the snow on the western tops was rosy. "At the word three, gentlemen, you will fire," said the colonel. The two shots came simultaneously. Abbott had deliberately pointed his into the air. For a moment he stood perfectly still; then, his knees sagged, and he toppled forward on his face. "Great God!" whispered the colonel; "you must have forgotten the ramrod!" He, Courtlandt, and the surgeon rushed over to the fallen man. The Barone stood like stone. Suddenly, with a gesture of horror, he flung aside his smoking pistol and ran across the court. "Gentlemen," he cried, "on my honor, I aimed three feet above his head." He wrung his hands together in anxiety. "It is impossible! It is only that I wished to see if he were a brave man. I shoot well. It is impossible!" he reiterated. [Illustration: Suddenly he flung aside his smoking pistol.] Rapidly the cunning hand of the surgeon ran over Abbott's body. He finally shook his head. "Nothing has touched him. His heart gave under. Fainted." When Abbott came to his senses, he smiled weakly. The Barone was one of the two who helped him to his feet. "I feel like a fool," he said. "Ah, let me apologize now," said the Barone. "What I did at the ball was wrong, and I should not have lost my temper. I had come to you to apologize then. But I am Italian. It is natural that I should lose my temper," naïvely. "We're both of us a pair of fools, Barone. There was always some one else. A couple of fools." "Yes," admitted the Barone eagerly. "Considering," whispered the colonel in Courtlandt's ear; "considering that neither of them knew they were shooting nothing more dangerous than wads, they're pretty good specimens. Eh, what?" CHAPTER XIX COURTLANDT TELLS A STORY The Colonel and his guests at luncheon had listened to Courtlandt without sound or movement beyond the occasional rasp of feet shifting under the table. He had begun with the old familiar phrase--"I've got a story." "Tell it," had been the instant request. At the beginning the men had been leaning at various negligent angles,--some with their elbows upon the table, some with their arms thrown across the backs of their chairs. The partridge had been excellent, the wine delicious, the tobacco irreproachable. Burma, the tinkle of bells in the temples, the strange pictures in the bazaars, long journeys over smooth and stormy seas; romance, moving and colorful, which began at Rangoon, had zigzagged around the world, and ended in Berlin. "And so," concluded the teller of the tale, "that is the story. This man was perfectly innocent of any wrong, a victim of malice on the one hand and of injustice on the other." "Is that the end of the yarn?" asked the colonel. "Who in life knows what the end of anything is? This is not a story out of a book." Courtlandt accepted a fresh cigar from the box which Rao passed to him, and dropped his dead weed into the ash-bowl. "Has he given up?" asked Abbott, his voice strangely unfamiliar in his own ears. "A man can struggle just so long against odds, then he wins or becomes broken. Women are not logical; generally they permit themselves to be guided by impulse rather than by reason. This man I am telling you about was proud; perhaps too proud. It is a shameful fact, but he ran away. True, he wrote letter after letter, but all these were returned unopened. Then he stopped." "A woman would a good deal rather believe circumstantial evidence than not. Humph!" The colonel primed his pipe and relighted it. "She couldn't have been worth much." "Worth much!" cried Abbott. "What do you imply by that?" "No man will really give up a woman who is really worth while, that is, of course, admitting that your man, Courtlandt, _is_ a man. Perhaps, though, it was his fault. He was not persistent enough, maybe a bit spineless. The fact that he gave up so quickly possibly convinced her that her impressions were correct. Why, I'd have followed her day in and day out, year after year; never would I have let up until I had proved to her that she had been wrong." "The colonel is right," Abbott approved, never taking his eyes off Courtlandt, who was apparently absorbed in the contemplation of the bread crumbs under his fingers. "And more, by hook or crook, I'd have dragged in the other woman by the hair and made her confess." "I do not doubt it, Colonel," responded Courtlandt, with a dry laugh. "And that would really have been the end of the story. The heroine of this rambling tale would then have been absolutely certain of collusion between the two." "That is like a woman," the Barone agreed, and he knew something about them. "And where is this man now?" "Here," said Courtlandt, pushing back his chair and rising. "I am he." He turned his back upon them and sought the garden. Tableau! "Dash me!" cried the colonel, who, being the least interested personally, was first to recover his speech. The Barone drew in his breath sharply. Then he looked at Abbott. "I suspected it," replied Abbott to the mute question. Since the episode of that morning his philosophical outlook had broadened. He had fought a duel and had come out of it with flying colors. As long as he lived he was certain that the petty affairs of the day were never again going to disturb him. "Let him be," was the colonel's suggestion, adding a gesture in the direction of the casement door through which Courtlandt had gone. "He's as big a man as Nora is a woman. If he has returned with the determination of winning her, he will." They did not see Courtlandt again. After a few minutes of restless to-and-froing, he proceeded down to the landing, helped himself to the colonel's motor-boat, and returned to Bellaggio. At the hotel he asked for the duke, only to be told that the duke and madame had left that morning for Paris. Courtlandt saw that he had permitted one great opportunity to slip past. He gave up the battle. One more good look at her, and he would go away. The odds had been too strong for him, and he knew that he was broken. When the motor-boat came back, Abbott and the Barone made use of it also. They crossed in silence, heavy-hearted. On landing Abbott said: "It is probable that I shall not see you again this year. I am leaving to-morrow for Paris. It's a great world, isn't it, where they toss us around like dice? Some throw sixes and others deuces. And in this game you and I have lost two out of three." "I shall return to Rome," replied the Barone. "My long leave of absence is near its end." "What in the world can have happened?" demanded Nora, showing the two notes to Celeste. "Here's Donald going to Paris to-morrow and the Barone to Rome. They will bid us good-by at tea. I don't understand. Donald was to remain until we left for America, and the Barone's leave does not end until October." "To-morrow?" Dim-eyed, Celeste returned the notes. "Yes. You play the fourth _ballade_ and I'll sing from _Madame_. It will be very lonesome without them." Nora gazed into the wall mirror and gave a pat or two to her hair. When the men arrived, it was impressed on Nora's mind that never had she seen them so amiable toward each other. They were positively friendly. And why not? The test of the morning had proved each of them to his own individual satisfaction, and had done away with those stilted mannerisms that generally make rivals ridiculous in all eyes save their own. The revelation at luncheon had convinced them of the futility of things in general and of woman in particular. They were, without being aware of the fact, each a consolation to the other. The old adage that misery loves company was never more nicely typified. If Celeste expected Nora to exhibit any signs of distress over the approaching departure, she was disappointed. In truth, Nora was secretly pleased to be rid of these two suitors, much as she liked them. The Barone had not yet proposed, and his sudden determination to return to Rome eliminated this disagreeable possibility. She was glad Abbott was going because she had hurt him without intention, and the sight of him was, in spite of her innocence, a constant reproach. Presently she would have her work, and there would be no time for loneliness. The person who suffered keenest was Celeste. She was awake; the tender little dream was gone; and bravely she accepted the fact. Never her agile fingers stumbled, and she played remarkably well, from Beethoven, Chopin, Grieg, Rubinstein, MacDowell. And Nora, perversely enough, sang from old light opera. When the two men departed, Celeste went to her room and Nora out upon the terrace. It was after five. No one was about, so far as she could see. She stood enchanted over the transformation that was affecting the mountains and the lakes. How she loved the spot! How she would have liked to spend the rest of her days here! And how beautiful all the world was to-day! She gave a frightened little scream. A strong pair of arms had encircled her. She started to cry out again, but the sound was muffled and blotted out by the pressure of a man's lips upon her own. She struggled violently, and suddenly was freed. "If I were a man," she said, "you should die for that!" "It was an opportunity not to be ignored," returned Courtlandt. "It is true that I was a fool to run away as I did, but my return has convinced me that I should have been as much a fool had I remained to tag you about, begging for an interview. I wrote you letters. You returned them unopened. You have condemned me without a hearing. So be it. You may consider that kiss the farewell appearance so dear to the operatic heart," bitterly. He addressed most of this to the back of her head, for she was already walking toward the villa into which she disappeared with the proud air of some queen of tragedy. She was a capital actress. A heavy hand fell upon Courtlandt's shoulder. He was irresistibly drawn right about face. "Now, then, Mr. Courtlandt," said Harrigan, his eyes blue and cold as ice, "perhaps you will explain?" With rage and despair in his heart, Courtlandt flung off the hand and answered: "I refuse!" "Ah!" Harrigan stood off a few steps and ran his glance critically up and down this man of whom he had thought to make a friend. "You're a husky lad. There's one way out of this for you." "So long as it does not necessitate any explanations," indifferently. "In the bottom of one of Nora's trunks is a set of my old gloves. There will not be any one up at the tennis-court this time of day. If you are not a mean cuss, if you are not an ordinary low-down imitation of a man, you'll meet me up there inside of five minutes. If you can stand up in front of me for ten minutes, you need not make any explanations. On the other hand, you'll hike out of here as fast as boats and trains can take you. And never come back." "I am nearly twenty years younger than you, Mr. Harrigan." "Oh, don't let that worry you any," with a truculent laugh. "Very well. You will find me there. After all, you are her father." "You bet I am!" Harrigan stole into his daughter's room and soundlessly bored into the bottom of the trunk that contained the relics of past glory. As he pulled them forth, a folded oblong strip of parchment came out with them and fluttered to the floor; but he was too busily engaged to notice it, nor would he have bothered if he had. The bottom of the trunk was littered with old letters and programs and operatic scores. He wrapped the gloves in a newspaper and got away without being seen. He was as happy as a boy who had discovered an opening in the fence between him and the apple orchard. He was rather astonished to see Courtlandt kneeling in the clover-patch, hunting for a four-leaf clover. It was patent that the young man was not troubled with nerves. "Here!" he cried, bruskly, tossing over a pair of gloves. "If this method of settling the dispute isn't satisfactory, I'll accept your explanations." For reply Courtlandt stood up and stripped to his undershirt. He drew on the gloves and laced them with the aid of his teeth. Then he kneaded them carefully. The two men eyed each other a little more respectfully than they had ever done before. "This single court is about as near as we can make it. The man who steps outside is whipped." "I agree," said Courtlandt. "No rounds with rests; until one or the other is outside. Clean breaks. That's about all. Now, put up your dukes and take a man's licking. I thought you were your father's son, but I guess you are like the rest of 'em, hunters of women." Courtlandt laughed and stepped to the middle of the court. Harrigan did not waste any time. He sent in a straight jab to the jaw, but Courtlandt blocked it neatly and countered with a hard one on Harrigan's ear, which began to swell. "Fine!" growled Harrigan. "You know something about the game. It won't be as if I was walloping a baby." He sent a left to the body, but the right failed to reach his man. For some time Harrigan jabbed and swung and upper-cut; often he reached his opponent's body, but never his face. It worried him a little to find that he could not stir Courtlandt more than two or three feet. Courtlandt never followed up any advantage, thus making Harrigan force the fighting, which was rather to his liking. But presently it began to enter his mind convincingly that apart from the initial blow, the younger man was working wholly on the defensive. As if he were afraid he might hurt him! This served to make the old fellow furious. He bored in right and left, left and right, and Courtlandt gave way, step by step until he was so close to the line that he could see it from the corner of his eye. This glance, swift as it was, came near to being his undoing. Harrigan caught him with a terrible right on the jaw. It was a glancing blow, otherwise the fight would have ended then and there. Instantly he lurched forward and clenched before the other could add the finishing touch. The two pushed about, Harrigan fiercely striving to break the younger man's hold. He was beginning to breathe hard besides. A little longer, and his blows would lack the proper steam. Finally Courtlandt broke away of his own accord. His head buzzed a little, but aside from that he had recovered. Harrigan pursued his tactics and rushed. But this time there was an offensive return. Courtlandt became the aggressor. There was no withstanding him. And Harrigan fairly saw the end; but with that indomitable pluck which had made him famous in the annals of the ring, he kept banging away. The swift cruel jabs here and there upon his body began to tell. Oh, for a minute's rest and a piece of lemon on his parched tongue! Suddenly Courtlandt rushed him tigerishly, landing a jab which closed Harrigan's right eye. Courtlandt dropped his hands, and stepped back. His glance traveled suggestively to Harrigan's feet. He was outside the "ropes." "I beg your pardon, Mr. Harrigan, for losing my temper." "What's the odds? I lost mine. You win." Harrigan was a true sportsman. He had no excuses to offer. He had dug the pit of humiliation with his own hands. He recognized this as one of two facts. The other was, that had Courtlandt extended himself, the battle would have lasted about one minute. It was gall and wormwood, but there you were. "And now, you ask for explanations. Ask your daughter to make them." Courtlandt pulled off the gloves and got into his clothes. "You may add, sir, that I shall never trouble her again with my unwelcome attentions. I leave for Milan in the morning." Courtlandt left the field of victory without further comment. "Well, what do you think of that?" mused Harrigan, as he stooped over to gather up the gloves. "Any one would say that he was the injured party. I'm in wrong on this deal somewhere. I'll ask Miss Nora a question or two." It was not so easy returning. He ran into his wife. He tried to dodge her, but without success. "James, where did you get that black eye?" tragically. "It's a daisy, ain't it, Molly?" pushing past her into Nora's room and closing the door after him. "Father!" "That you, Nora?" blinking. "Father, if you have been fighting with _him_, I'll never forgive you." "Forget it, Nora. I wasn't fighting. I only thought I was." He raised the lid of the trunk and cast in the gloves haphazard. And then he saw the paper which had fallen out. He picked it up and squinted at it, for he could not see very well. Nora was leaving the room in a temper. "Going, Nora?" "I am. And I advise you to have your dinner in your room." Alone, he turned on the light. It never occurred to him that he might be prying into some of Nora's private correspondence. He unfolded the parchment and held it under the light. For a long time he stared at the writing, which was in English, at the date, at the names. Then he quietly refolded it and put it away for future use, immediate future use. "This is a great world," he murmured, rubbing his ear tenderly. CHAPTER XX JOURNEY'S END Harrigan dined alone. He was in disgrace; he was sore, mentally as well as physically; and he ate his dinner without relish, in simple obedience to those well regulated periods of hunger that assailed him three times a day, in spring, summer, autumn and winter. By the time the waiter had cleared away the dishes, Harrigan had a perfecto between his teeth (along with a certain matrimonial bit), and smoked as if he had wagered to finish the cigar in half the usual stretch. He then began to walk the floor, much after the fashion of a man who has the toothache, or the earache, which would be more to the point. To his direct mind no diplomacy was needed; all that was necessary was a few blunt questions. Nora could answer them as she chose. Nora, his baby, his little girl that used to run around barefooted and laugh when he applied the needed birch! How children grew up! And they never grew too old for the birch; they certainly never did. They heard him from the drawing-room; tramp, tramp, tramp. "Let him be, Nora," said Mrs. Harrigan, wisely. "He is in a rage about something. And your father is not the easiest man to approach when he's mad. If he fought Mr. Courtlandt, he believed he had some good reason for doing so." "Mother, there are times when I believe you are afraid of father." "I am always afraid of him. It is only because I make believe I'm not that I can get him to do anything. It was dreadful. And Mr. Courtlandt was such a gentleman. I could cry. But let your father be until to-morrow." "And have him wandering about with that black eye? Something must be done for it. I'm not afraid of him." "Sometimes I wish you were." So Nora entered the lion's den fearlessly. "Is there anything I can do for you, dad?" "You can get the witch-hazel and bathe this lamp of mine," grimly. She ran into her own room and returned with the simpler devices for reducing a swollen eye. She did not notice, or pretended that she didn't, that he locked the door and put the key in his pocket. He sat down in a chair, under the light; and she went to work deftly. "I've got some make-up, and to-morrow morning I'll paint it for you." "You don't ask any questions," he said, with grimness. "Would it relieve your eye any?" lightly. He laughed. "No; but it might relieve my mind." "Well, then, why did you do so foolish a thing? At your age! Don't you know that you can't go on whipping every man you take a dislike to?" "I haven't taken any dislike to Courtlandt. But I saw him kiss you." "I can take care of myself." "Perhaps. I asked him to explain. He refused. One thing puzzled me, though I didn't know what it was at the time. Now, when a fellow steals a kiss from a beautiful woman like you, Nora, I don't see why he should feel mad about it. When he had all but knocked your daddy to by-by, he said that you could explain.... Don't press so hard," warningly. "Well, can you?" "Since you saw what he did, I do not see where explanations on my part are necessary." "Nora, I've never caught you in a lie. I never want to. When you were little you were the truthfullest thing I ever saw. No matter what kind of a licking was in store for you, you weren't afraid; you told the truth.... There, that'll do. Put some cotton over it and bind it with a handkerchief. It'll be black all right, but the swelling will go down. I can tell 'em a tennis-ball hit me. It was more like a cannon-ball, though. Say, Nora, you know I've always pooh-poohed these amateurs. People used to say that there were dozens of men in New York in my prime who could have laid me cold. I used to laugh. Well, I guess they were right. Courtlandt's got the stiffest kick I ever ran into. A pile-driver, and if he had landed on my jaw, it would have been _dormi bene_, as you say when you bid me good night in dago. That's all right now until to-morrow. I want to talk to you. Draw up a chair. There! As I said, I've never caught you in a lie, but I find that you've been living a lie for two years. You haven't been square to me, nor to your mother, nor to the chaps that came around and made love to you. You probably didn't look at it that way, but there's the fact. I'm not Paul Pry; but accidentally I came across this," taking the document from his pocket and handing it to her. "Read it. What's the answer?" Nora's hands trembled. "Takes you a long time to read it. Is it true?" "Yes." "And I went up to the tennis-court with the intention of knocking his head off; and now I'm wondering why he didn't knock off mine. Nora, he's a man; and when you get through with this, I'm going down to the hotel and apologize." "You will do nothing of the sort; not with that eye." "All right. I was always worried for fear you'd hook up with some duke you'd have to support. Now, I want to know how this chap happens to be my son-in-law. Make it brief, for I don't want to get tangled up more than is necessary." Nora crackled the certificate in her fingers and stared unseeingly at it for some time. "I met him first in Rangoon," she began slowly, without raising her eyes. "When you went around the world on your own?" "Yes. Oh, don't worry. I was always able to take care of myself." "An Irish idea," answered Harrigan complacently. "I loved him, father, with all my heart and soul. He was not only big and strong and handsome, but he was kindly and tender and thoughtful. Why, I never knew that he was rich until after I had promised to be his wife. When I learned that he was the Edward Courtlandt who was always getting into the newspapers, I laughed. There were stories about his escapades. There were innuendoes regarding certain women, but I put them out of my mind as twaddle. Ah, never had I been so happy! In Berlin we went about like two children. It was play. He brought me to the Opera and took me away; and we had the most charming little suppers. I never wrote you or mother because I wished to surprise you." "You have. Go on." "I had never paid much attention to Flora Desimone, though I knew that she was jealous of my success. Several times I caught her looking at Edward in a way I did not like." "She looked at him, huh?" "It was the last performance of the season. We were married that afternoon. We did not want any one to know about it. I was not to leave the stage until the end of the following season. We were staying at the same hotel, with rooms across the corridor. This was much against his wishes, but I prevailed." "I see." "Our rooms were opposite, as I said. After the performance that night I went to mine to complete the final packing. We were to leave at one for the Tyrol. Father, I saw Flora Desimone come out of his room." Harrigan shut and opened his hands. "Do you understand? I saw her. She was laughing. I did not see him. My wedding night! She came from his room. My heart stopped, the world stopped, everything went black. All the stories that I had read and heard came back. When he knocked at my door I refused to see him. I never saw him again until that night in Paris when he forced his way into my apartment." "Hang it, Nora, this doesn't sound like him!" "I saw her." "He wrote you?" "I returned the letters, unopened." "That wasn't square. You might have been wrong." "He wrote five letters. After that he went to India, to Africa and back to India, where he seemed to find consolation enough." Harrigan laid it to his lack of normal vision, but to his single optic there was anything but misery in her beautiful blue eyes. True, they sparkled with tears; but that signified nothing: he hadn't been married these thirty-odd years without learning that a woman weeps for any of a thousand and one reasons. "Do you care for him still?" "Not a day passed during these many months that I did not vow I hated him." "Any one else know?" "The padre. I had to tell some one or go mad. But I didn't hate him. I could no more put him out of my life than I could stop breathing. Ah, I have been so miserable and unhappy!" She laid her head upon his knees and clumsily he stroked it. His girl! "That's the trouble with us Irish, Nora. We jump without looking, without finding whether we're right or wrong. Well, your daddy's opinion is that you should have read his first letter. If it didn't ring right, why, you could have jumped the traces. I don't believe he did anything wrong at all. It isn't in the man's blood to do anything underboard." "But I _saw_ her," a queer look in her eyes as she glanced up at him. "I don't care a kioodle if you did. Take it from me, it was a put-up job by that Calabrian woman. She might have gone to his room for any number of harmless things. But I think she was curious." "Why didn't she come to me, if she wanted to ask questions?" "I can see you answering 'em. She probably just wanted to know if you were married or not. She might have been in love with him, and then she might not. These Italians don't know half the time what they're about, anyhow. But I don't believe it of Courtlandt. He doesn't line up that way. Besides, he's got eyes. You're a thousand times more attractive. He's no fool. Know what I think? As she was coming out she saw _you_ at your door; and the devil in her got busy." Nora rose, flung her arms around him and kissed him. "Look out for that tin ear!" "Oh, you great big, loyal, true-hearted man! Open that door and let me get out to the terrace. I want to sing, sing!" "He said he was going to Milan in the morning." She danced to the door and was gone. "Nora!" he called, impatiently. He listened in vain for the sound of her return. "Well, I'll take the count when it comes to guessing what a woman's going to do. I'll go out and square up with the old girl. Wonder how this news will harness up with her social bug?" Courtlandt got into his compartment at Varenna. He had tipped the guard liberally not to open the door for any one else, unless the train was crowded. As the shrill blast of the conductor's horn sounded the warning of "all aboard," the door opened and a heavily veiled woman got in hurriedly. The train began to move instantly. The guard slammed the door and latched it. Courtlandt sighed: the futility of trusting these Italians, of trying to buy their loyalty! The woman was without any luggage whatever, not even the usual magazine. She was dressed in brown, her hat was brown, her veil, her gloves, her shoes. But whether she was young or old was beyond his deduction. He opened his _Corriere_ and held it before his eyes; but he found reading impossible. The newspaper finally slipped from his hands to the floor where it swayed and rustled unnoticed. He was staring at the promontory across Lecco, the green and restful hill, the little earthly paradise out of which he had been unjustly cast. He couldn't understand. He had lived cleanly and decently; he had wronged no man or woman, nor himself. And yet, through some evil twist of fate, he had lost all there was in life worth having. The train lurched around a shoulder of the mountain. He leaned against the window. In a moment more the villa was gone. What was it? He felt irresistibly drawn. Without intending to do so, he turned and stared at the woman in brown. Her hand went to the veil and swept it aside. Nora was as full of romance as a child. She could have stopped him before he made the boat, but she wanted to be alone with him. "Nora!" She flung herself on her knees in front of him. "I am a wretch!" she said. He could only repeat her name. "I am not worth my salt. Ah, why did you run away? Why did you not pursue me, importune me until I wearied? ... perhaps gladly? There were times when I would have opened my arms had you been the worst scoundrel in the world instead of the dearest lover, the patientest! Ah, can you forgive me?" "Forgive you, Nora?" He was numb. "I am a miserable wretch! I doubted you, I! When all I had to do was to recall the way people misrepresented things I had done! I sent back your letters ... and read and reread the old blue ones. Don't you remember how you used to write them on blue paper? ... Flora told me everything. It was only because she hated me, not that she cared anything about you. She told me that night at the ball. I believe the duke forced her to do it. She was at the bottom of the abduction. When you kissed me ... didn't you know that I kissed you back? Edward, I am a miserable wretch, but I shall follow you wherever you go, and I haven't even a vanity-box in my hand-bag!" There were tears in her eyes. "Say that I am a wretch!" He drew her up beside him. His arms closed around her so hungrily, so strongly, that she gasped a little. He looked into her eyes; his glance traveled here and there over her face, searching for the familiar dimple at one corner of her mouth. "Nora!" he whispered. "Kiss me!" And then the train came to a stand, jerkily. They fell back against the cushions. "Lecco!" cried the guard through the window. They laughed like children. "I bribed him," she said gaily. "And now...." "Yes, and now?" eagerly, if still bewilderedly. "Let's go back!" THE END 
36215	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Famous Prima Donnas [Illustration: EDNA MAY As Violet Grey in "The Belle of New York."] Famous Prima Donnas By Lewis C. Strang _Author of_ "_Famous Actors of the Day_," "_Famous Actresses of the Day_," "_Famous Stars of Light Opera_," "_Players and Plays of the Last Quarter Century_," _etc._ Illustrated L·C·PAGE·&·COMPANY BOSTON PUBLISHERS _Copyright 1900_ BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) _All rights reserved_ Third Impression, February, 1906 _COLONIAL PRESS_ _Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co._ _Boston, U. S. A._ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION ix I. ALICE NIELSEN 1 II. VIRGINIA EARLE 21 III. LILLIAN RUSSELL 30 IV. JOSEPHINE HALL 46 V. MABELLE GILMAN 56 VI. FAY TEMPLETON 67 VII. MADGE LESSING 81 VIII. JESSIE BARTLETT DAVIS 88 IX. EDNA WALLACE HOPPER 104 X. PAULA EDWARDES 113 XI. LULU GLASER 120 XII. MINNIE ASHLEY 134 XIII. EDNA MAY 147 XIV. MARIE CELESTE 156 XV. CHRISTIE MACDONALD 172 XVI. MARIE DRESSLER 181 XVII. DELLA FOX 192 XVIII. CAMILLE D'ARVILLE 208 XIX. MARIE TEMPEST 222 XX. MAUD RAYMOND 233 XXI. PAULINE HALL 239 XXII. HILDA CLARK 253 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE EDNA MAY as Violet Grey in "The Belle of New York" _Frontispiece_ ALICE NIELSEN in "The Fortune Teller" 7 VIRGINIA EARLE as Winnifred Grey in "A Runaway Girl" 21 LILLIAN RUSSELL as "The Queen of Brilliants" 42 MABELLE GILMAN in "The Casino Girl" 56 FAY TEMPLETON singing the "coon" song, "My Tiger Lily" 67 MADGE LESSING 81 EDNA WALLACE-HOPPER 104 PAULA EDWARDES 113 LULU GLASER 120 MINNIE ASHLEY 134 CHRISTIE MACDONALD 172 MARIE DRESSLER 181 DELLA FOX 192 MARIE TEMPEST 222 Introduction The musical stage in the United States may be said to be a birthright rather than a profession. A critical examination of the conditions quickly shows one that the number of women at present prominent in light opera and kindred forms of entertainment, who have earned their positions by continued endeavor and logical development in their art, is comparatively small. The majority are, in fact, the happy victims of personality, who have been rushed into fame chiefly by chance and a fortunate combination of circumstances. They are without the requisite training, either in the art of singing or in the art of impersonation, that would entitle them to be seriously considered as great vocalists or as great actors. They are, however, past mistresses in the one essential for their profession,--the art of entertaining. The readiest proof of this peculiar state of affairs is the almost universal brevity of the careers of the women just now in the ascendancy in the musical drama. Ten years of professional life is more than many of them can claim. Arising suddenly into conspicuous popularity as they have, their reputations are founded, not on the sure basis of careful preparation and long and diversified experience, but on the uncertain qualities of personal magnetism and physical beauty. They shine with a glory that is perhaps deceptive in its brilliancy; they are the sought for by many managers, the beloved of a faddish public, and the much exploited of the newspaper press. The difficulties that encumbered the path of the compiler of this book, dealing with the women of the musical stage in this country, were numerous. First among them was the choice of subjects. The selection could not be made with deference to any classification by merit, for the triumphs of personality were not amenable to such a classification. The compiler was compelled by the conditions to bring his own personality into the case, and to choose entirely by preference. He could not be governed by an arbitrary standard of comparison; for how can personality, which is a quality, an impression, hardly a fact, and certainly not a method, be compared? In the present instance, the writer found it expedient to limit himself to those entertainers who have given at least some evidence of continued prominence. It may be, therefore, that a few names have been omitted which are rightly entitled to a place in a work of this kind. Nevertheless, the list is surely representative, even if it be not complete. After the subjects had been chosen, the question, how to treat them, at once became paramount. Again the bothersome limitations of personality asserted themselves; and one perceived immediately that criticism, meaning by that the consistent application of any comprehensive canon of dramatic art, was out of the question. The vocal art of the average light opera singer is imperfect, and the histrionic methods in vogue show little evidence of careful training: they are neither subtle nor complex. Indeed, the average woman in light opera is not an actress at all in the full meaning of the word. She does not fit herself into the parts that she is called upon to play, and she does not attempt expositions of character that will stand even the most superficial analysis. She acts herself under every circumstance. Describe in detail her work in a single rôle, and she is written down for all time. Yet, should one limit his critical vision to a single part, he not only fails to touch the main point at issue, but he runs the risk, as well, of self-deception and misunderstanding. The artistic worth of a player of personality is invariably overestimated after the first hearing; and the sure tendency of even the experienced observer, particularly if he be of sympathetic and sanguine temperament, and constantly on the watch for the slightest indication of unusual talent, is to mistake personality for art. The result is that, after indulging himself to the full in eloquent rhapsody, he encounters, upon a more intimate acquaintance, mortifying disillusionment. What is of genuine value in the player of personality is the elusive force that makes her a possibility on the stage, and the problem is to get that peculiar magnetism on paper. It is a problem unsolved so far as the writer is concerned. One can dodge above, below, and aroundabout a personality, but he cannot pierce directly into it. When it comes to the final word, one is left face to face with his stock of adjectives. Most unsatisfactory they are, too. None of them seems exactly to fit the case. They serve well enough, perhaps, to convey one individual's notions regarding the personality under discussion, but they are indeed lame and limping when it comes to presenting any definite idea of the personality itself. As for the biographical data in the book, they are as complete and as accurate as diligence and care can make them. The woman in music is conscientiously reticent regarding the details of her early struggles for position and reputation. Nothing would seem to be so satisfactory to her as a past dim and mystifying, a present of brilliancy unrivalled, and a future of rich and unshadowed promise. Famous Prima Donnas CHAPTER I ALICE NIELSEN Five years ago Alice Nielsen was an obscure church singer in Kansas City; to-day she is the leading woman star in light opera on the American stage. One feels an instinctive hesitation in putting her in the first place, however sure he may be that she is justly entitled to it. He anxiously seeks the country over for a possible rival. He feels that Alice Nielsen has hardly been tested as yet, for she has been only two seasons at the head of her own company, and she has not appeared in an opera which is of itself artistically worthy of serious consideration. Moreover, she is such a little thing,--a child, it would seem,--and is it safe to take seriously a child, even a child of so many and so potent fascinations? This feeling of doubt, caused by Miss Nielsen's stage youthfulness, is, it appears to me, the pith of the whole difficulty, and therein lurks a curious paradox. Alice Nielsen's great charms are her youth, her spontaneity, and her ingenuousness; but these very qualities are the ones that make one pause and consider before giving her the artistic rank that she has honestly earned. Alice Nielsen seems almost too human to be really great. She is too natural, too democratic, too free from conceit. She is never disdainful of her public, and she is never bored by her work. One cannot help being charmed by this little woman, who sings as if singing were the best fun in the world; who is so frankly happy when her audience likes her work and applauds her; and who goes soaring up and away on the high notes, sounding clear and pure above chorus and orchestra, without the slightest apparent effort and without a trace of affectation or of artificial striving for effect. Everybody who has ever written anything about Alice Nielsen has declared that she sings like a bird, freely, naturally, and easily, and this metaphor describes exactly the impression that she creates. Her voice one appreciates at once,--its volume and its colorful brilliancy, its great range, and its rich, sympathetic, and musical qualities; what he misses in her are the conventionalities of the prima donna,--the awe-inspiring stage presence, the impressive posings and contortious vocalizations. The world is very apt to take one at his own estimate until it gets very well acquainted with him. Alice Nielsen has never proclaimed herself a wonder, and the world has not yet fully made up its mind regarding her as an artist. It acknowledges her great personal charm, her delightful music, but it is not just sure whether she can act. I regard Miss Nielsen as a thoroughly competent actress in a limited field. She is fitted neither physically nor temperamentally for heroics, but she is fully equal to the requirements of operatic light comedy. She acts as she sings, simply and naturally, and her appeal to her audience is sure and straightforward. As an instance of this, take her striking first entrance in "The Singing Girl." She appears on a little bridge, which extends across the back of the stage. She runs quickly to the centre, then stops, stoops over with her hands on her knees in Gretchen fashion, and smiles with all her might. The action is quaint and attractive, and she wins the house at once. Alice Nielsen's smile is really a wonderful thing, and it is one proof that she knows something about acting. It never seems forced. Yet, when one stops to think, he must see that a girl cannot smile at the same time, night after night, without bringing to her aid a little art. To appear perfectly natural on the stage is the best possible acting, and that is just what Alice Nielsen does with her smile. However, "The Singing Girl," for which Victor Herbert wrote the music, Harry Smith the lyrics, and Stanislaus Stange the libretto, like "The Fortune Teller," in which Miss Nielsen made her début as a star during the season of 1898-99, was from any standpoint except the purely spectacular a pretty poor sort of an opera. There was a great deal to attract the eye. The costuming was sumptuous, the groupings and color effects novel and entrancing, and the action throughout mechanically spirited. Mr. Herbert's music, which was plainly written to catch the public fancy, fulfilled its purpose, though that was about all that could be said in its favor. It waltzed and it marched, and it broke continually into crashing and commonplace refrains. It was strictly theatrical music, with more color than melody, showy and pretentious, but without backbone. There was really only one song in the whole score that stuck to the memory, and that was Miss Nielsen's solo, "So I Bid You Beware." Possibly, even in this case I am giving Mr. Herbert more credit than belongs to him, for Miss Nielsen's interpretation of the ditty was nothing short of exquisite. She found a world of meaning in the simple words, coquetted and flirted with a fascinating girlishness that was entrancing, and flashed her merry blue eyes with an invitation so purely personal that for a moment the footlights disappeared. [Illustration: ALICE NIELSEN In "The Fortune Teller."] Mr. Stange's libretto was wofully weak. It seemed to be full of holes, and into these a trio of comedians were thrust with a recklessness born of desperation. What Mr. Stange did faithfully was to keep Miss Nielsen on the stage practically all the time that she was not occupied in taking off petticoats and putting on trousers--or else reversing the process. To be sure, he succeeded in bringing about these many changes with less bewilderment than did Harry Smith in the case of "The Fortune Teller," the plot of which no one ever confessed to follow after the first five minutes of the opening act. Alan Dale once described this peculiar state of affairs in the following characteristic fashion:-- "In 'The Fortune Teller' the astonishing Harry B. Smith, who must have gone about all summer perspiring librettos and dripping them into the laps of all the stars, has woven a rôle for Miss Nielsen that is stellar but difficult to comprehend. Miss Nielsen appeared as three people who are always changing their clothes. Just as the poor little woman has got through all her vocal exercises as Irma, Mr. Smith insists that she shall be Musette in other garbs. And no sooner has she appeared as Musette and sang something else than Mr. Smith rushes her off and claps her into another garb as Fedor. You don't know who she intends to be from one minute to another, and I am quite sure that she herself doesn't. The variety of dresses, tights, wraps, jackets, and hats sported by this ambitious and earnest little girl is simply astonishing. It must be very difficult to accomplish these chameleon-like changes without getting rattled. Miss Nielsen seemed to enjoy herself, however; and as for getting rattled, she coquetted with her audience as archly after the twelfth change as she did after the first." Alice Nielsen was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Her father, from whom she probably inherited her musical talent, was a Dane. He was an excellent violinist, but he was never able to turn his gifts to financial advantage. During the Civil War he fought on the Union side and received a severe wound that is believed to have been the indirect cause of his death, which occurred when Alice was about seven years old. Alice Nielsen's mother was of Irish parentage,--a woman of sturdy and sterling qualities. After the war the family settled in Warrensburg, Missouri, and remained there until after Mr. Nielsen's death. There were four children in the family, three girls and a boy, and Alice was next to the oldest. After the death of Mr. Nielsen, Mrs. Nielsen removed with her children to Kansas City and opened a boarding-house at the corner of Thirteenth and Cherry streets. Alice was at that time about eight years old. For some years she attended school at St. Teresa's Academy, and later she studied music and voice culture under a Kansas City music-teacher, Max Desci. Many years afterward this tutor claimed the whole credit for developing her voice and for "bringing her out," even going so far as to sue her for $8,000, which he alleged to be due him for music lessons. He lost the suit, however. Kansas City first began to talk of Alice Nielsen's voice after she became a member of the choir of St. Patrick's Church, with which she was connected for five years. She married the organist, Benjamin Neutwig, from whom she was divorced in 1898. After her marriage she continued to live in her mother's apartments at Thirteenth and Cherry streets, where, in fact, she made her home until she left Kansas City. Appreciating his wife's unusual gifts, Mr. Neutwig did much to develop them, and it was perhaps due to him as much as to any one else that she became something more than a church singer. The Kansas City friends of Alice Nielsen relate many interesting incidents of her early life, nearly all of which show indications of the spirit and strength of character that have done so much toward pushing her forward. The following anecdotes, told by a member of St. Patrick's Church choir, were published in the "Kansas City World":-- "I was in a grocery store near Twelfth and Locust streets with Alice one day, when she was about fifteen years old, I should judge. A couple of boys of her age were plaguing her. She took it good-naturedly for awhile, but finally warned them to let her alone. They persisted. Then becoming exasperated, she picked up an egg and threw it, hitting one of her tormentors squarely in the face. Of course the egg broke, and the boy's countenance was a sight for the gods. I understand she apologized afterward. This may be recorded as her first hit. "She joined the choir of St. Patrick's Church, Eight and Cherry streets, eleven years ago, and sang in it about five years, or until she left Kansas City to begin her operatic career. It was there she met Benjamin Neutwig, the organist. A great many persons were jealous of her vocal talents, nor were certain members of the church itself entirely exempt from twinges of envy. Indeed, a no less personage than she who was at that time choir leader manifested symptoms of this kind to a pronounced degree. "I remember one Easter service, Alice, then a girl of probably eighteen, was down to sing a solo in Millard's Mass. The leader was angry: she thought the solo should have been assigned to her. Alice knew of the hostility, and it worried her, but she rose bravely and started in. Scarcely had she sung the first line when the choir leader turned and gave Alice a hateful look. "It had the desired effect. The singer's voice trembled, broke, and was mute. She struggled bravely to regain her composure, but it was useless,--she could not prevail against that malevolent gaze from the choir leader. This, I believe, was the first and only time Alice Nielsen ever failed in public. "It is a wonder, in the face of petty jealousies of this kind, coupled with the poverty of her mother, which seemed an insurmountable barrier to a musical education, that Alice's talents were not lost to the world. For every influence tending to push her forward, there seemed a dozen counter influences tending to pull her back. As a child, I have seen her many a time on the street, barefooted, clothing poor and scant, running errands for her mother. Later in life, when she was almost a young lady, I have known her to sing in public, gowned in the cheapest material, and she would appear time after time in the same dress. On such occasions she was often wan and haggard, as if from anxiety or overwork. But once in a while she received the praise which she so richly merited. "One day Father Lillis received a letter from a travelling man who was stopping at the Midland, in which he asked the name of the young woman who sang soprano in the choir. He had attended church the day before, he said, and had heard her sing. 'It is the most wonderful voice I ever heard,' he wrote. 'That girl is the coming Florence Nightingale.' I don't know whether the letter was ever answered or not, but Alice came to know of the incident, and it pleased her. "Both before and after she joined the choir, Alice appeared in amateur theatricals and in church concerts. She was always applauded and appreciated, but it was in the character of a soubrette in 'Chantaclara,' a light opera put on at the Coates Opera House by Professors Maderia and Merrihew, that she created the most decided sensation. This was but a few weeks before she left Kansas City." Miss Nielsen bade farewell to Kansas City in 1892, going away with an organization that styled itself the Chicago Concert Company, and which planned to tour the small towns of Kansas and Missouri. This, her earliest professional experience, ended in disaster, and Miss Nielsen was stranded in St. Joseph, Missouri, before she had been out a week. It was an eventful week, however, and Miss Nielsen vividly recalls it. "We got out somewhere in far Missouri," said Miss Nielsen, "with the thermometer out of sight and hotels heated with gas jets and red flannel. Nobody had ever heard of us. I don't think that in some of the towns we struck they'd ever heard anything newer than the 'Maiden's Prayer,' and that was as much as they wanted. They called me 'the Swedish Nightingale,' and you can imagine how I felt,--a nightingale in such a climate, and Swedish at that. But I just sang for all I was worth and I tried to educate them, too. I sang the 'Angel's Serenade,' and they didn't like it, because when they tried to whistle it in the audience, they couldn't. We didn't carry any scenery; we just had a lot of sheets with us, and used to drape the stage ourselves. "One 'hall' we came to, there was no dressing-room, so we strung a sheet in one corner, and some one put a table behind with a lamp on it. The 'ladies of the company' (myself and the contralto) occupied this improvised dressing-room. Suddenly we discovered that we were unconsciously treating the audience to a shadow pantomime performance. There was only one way out of the difficulty,--we women must shield each other. So I held my skirts out while the contralto dressed, and she did the same for me. "I remember in one place we had managed to excite the hayseeds into coming to hear us, and the hall was quite full. We were giving a little operetta. Somehow or other it didn't seem to please the public, and they were in a mood to be disagreeable,--yes, restless. They wanted their money's worth; they were mean enough to say so. "We held a consultation behind our sheetings, and the tenor suddenly remembered that once upon a time, when he was a school-boy, he used to amuse his comrades with tricks. 'Could he do them now?' we asked. He would do his best, he said. So he got a wooden table, hammered a nail into it, bent it a little, and slipped a curtain ring on his finger. "The trick was to lift the table with the palm of the hand, the ring and nail being invisible. Just in the middle of the trick the nail broke. Well, I believe that audience was ready to mob us. The bass, seeing the situation, made a dive for the money in the front of the house, and we escaped. It was a packed house, too. There must have been as much as eight dollars." "Did you ever have to walk?" "Yes, indeed. We walked eight miles once to a town,--snowballed each other all the way. It was lots of fun. When we got there the local paper had an advance notice something like this: 'We are informed that "the Swedish Nightingale" and others intend to give a show in the schoolhouse to-night. Any one who pays money to go to their show will be sorry for it.' "The local manager, an Irishman, asked us to sing a little piece for him when we arrived. After we had done so, he said he had never heard anything so bad in all his life. As to the nightingale, he would give her three dollars to sing ballads, but the rest of the troupe were beneath contempt. His language was a dialect blue that was awful. I tell you it was hard luck singing in Missouri." In St. Joseph Miss Nielsen was fortunate enough to secure an engagement to sing in a condensed version of the opera "Penelope" at the Eden Musée. She received seventy-five dollars for her services, and this money paid the railroad fares of herself and some of the members of the defunct concert company to Denver, Colorado. There her singing attracted the attention of the manager of the Pike Opera Company, which she joined and accompanied to Oakland, California. Her first part with a professional opera company was that of Yum Yum in "The Mikado." The Pike Opera Company later played in San Francisco, and in that city she was heard in "La Perichole" by George E. Lask, the stage manager of the Tivoli Theatre, which was, and is still, I believe, given over to opera after the style of Henry W. Savage's various Castle Square Theatre enterprises in the East. Miss Nielsen was engaged for the Tivoli Company. She sang any small parts at first, but gradually arose until she became the prima donna of the organization. In all, she is said to have sung one hundred and fifty parts at the Tivoli, where she remained for two years. While she was singing Lucia, H. C. Barnabee of The Bostonians, which organization was then playing in San Francisco, read of her in the newspapers and went to hear her. The result was the offer of an engagement, which she accepted. Her first part with The Bostonians was Anita in "The War Time Wedding." Then she was given the small part of Annabelle in "Robin Hood." She also sang in "The Bohemian Girl" and was Ninette in "Prince Ananias." The next season she created Yvonne in "The Serenade," and was the hit of the opera,--so much of a hit, indeed, that nothing remained for her but to go starring in "The Fortune Teller." CHAPTER II VIRGINIA EARLE An accomplished and versatile artist is Virginia Earle, who, because of the variety of her attainments and the grace and finish of her art, is entitled to rank with the foremost soubrettes on the American stage. Miss Earle's ability has been tested in many forms of the drama. She has appeared in light opera, in extravaganza, in musical comedy, and in the Shakespearian drama. I question if there is another in her line now before the public who can claim any such extensive experience. [Illustration: VIRGINIA EARLE As Winnifred Grey in "A Runaway Girl."] It would be strange if this diversified endeavor had not had its effect on her art. In her we find united with a personality of curiously subtle charm an authority in action that is restful and refreshing. In her presentation of a part there is neither hesitancy nor misplaced endeavor. She always has command of herself and of the rôle that she is portraying. One never for a moment feels that she is to the slightest degree uncertain as regards the effect that she will produce on her audience. She knows what to do and how to do it. Yet, when one stops to think of it, her power over her audience is far in excess of what one would naturally expect. Miss Earle is by no means impressive in her stage presence. She cannot be called beautiful. Her singing voice is a modest instrument, though a wonderfully expressive one, it must be acknowledged. Her acting is quiet, even unassuming, but it is also plain, easily comprehended, and always appropriate. She apparently never does anything to attract attention, yet attention rarely fails to be centred on her. This, of course, is due to the finish of her art and a fine technique that makes its presence felt by its seeming absence. If Miss Earle cannot justly claim any exceptional advantages in the matter of physical beauty, she certainly has the greater advantage of an intensely magnetic personality. Her individuality, too, is thoroughly distinct. It is one of the paradoxes of acting that the more distinct the artist's individuality, the greater is his ability to set apart one from another the characters which he assumes. Miss Earle has this talent for making each one of her rôles a separate and distinct personage to a greater degree than any of her associates in the musical field. She does this, too, in a strictly legitimate way, by impersonation pure and simple without the aid of make-up. I remember especially what entirely different persons were her Mollie Seamore in "The Geisha" and her Winnifred Grey in "A Runaway Girl," so different, in fact, that one who knew her only in the first part found it hard to believe for some time that it really was she in the second part. Those who saw her in "The Geisha" cannot fail to recall the fascinating, quizzical squint that was continually getting into the mischievous Mollie's eyes. I know that I liked it so much that when I saw Miss Earle the next season as Winnifred Grey, the first thing I looked for was the squint. I was astonished to find that it was not there, and disappointed, too, for I had always associated the actress in my own mind with that squint. No sign of it could I perceive until the last act, when it came suddenly into view while she was singing the song about the boy with the various kinds of guesses. It gathered around the corners of her eyes, and it twinkled as merrily as ever. It made me quite happy again, for I felt that I should not be compelled to revise my imagination and repicture Miss Earle without the tantalizing squint. Miss Earle is a noteworthy example of the long time, the constant endeavor, and the faithful service that are sometimes required to win recognition in the important theatrical centres of the country. She had been many years on the stage before George Lederer finally gave her an engagement at the New York Casino. That was really the first chance that she ever had to prove herself something more than a one night stand favorite, and since that time she has only rarely played outside of New York. This long-delayed recognition was one of the freaks of fortune for which no one can account. She was apparently one of those unlucky persons who through no fault of their own start wrong. She was born in the West, in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 6, 1873, and it was in the West that she remained for a number of seasons. Her theatrical career began when she was very young, and the Home Juvenile Opera Company was the means of introducing her to the stage. This was in 1887, and her first part was Nanki Poo in "The Mikado." Miss Earle also played leading rôles in the other Gilbert and Sullivan operas then so popular,--"Patience," "Pinafore," and "The Pirates of Penzance." Then she joined the Pike Opera Company and toured the West in a repertory of the best-known light operas. In San Francisco she was engaged by Hallen and Hart, the farce comedy team, and remained with them for two seasons, appearing in "Later On." Her next engagement was with Edward E. Rice, and under his management she went to Australia. Three years were spent there, during which time she acted Taggs in "The County Fair," Gabriel in "Evangeline," Madora in "The Corsair," Dan Deny in "Cinderella," and Columbia in Rice's "World's Fair." On her return to America she was engaged for Charles Hoyt's farce comedy, "A Hole in the Ground," acting the lunch counter girl; and after a short but successful season with this mess of nonsense she joined a company under the management of D. W. Truss & Company, playing "Wang" in the places too small for DeWolf Hopper to visit. For two seasons with this organization Miss Earle acted Della Fox's famous part of Mataya. Canary and Lederer of the New York Casino then secured her services, and under their management she assumed leading parts in "The Passing Show," "The Merry World," in which she doubled the rôles of Vaseline and Little Billee, in "Gay New York," and "The Lady Slavey." As soon as her contract with the Casino expired, Augustin Daly engaged her for his musical comedy company, where she succeeded Violet Lloyd as Mollie Seamore in "The Geisha." Not only did she present this part with ready skill, but she made a second hit as Flora in "Meg Merrilies." Nor did old comedy daunt her, for as still another Flora, maid to Ada Rehan in "The Wonder," her work was much praised. She crowned her success by appearing in Shakespeare, winning new laurels with her Ariel in "The Tempest." In all these impersonations her readiness in song was of service, but her vivacity counted for much; and, more than that, her magnetic influence over her audience, which it is impossible to analyze. A number of years before, Sarah Bernhardt had taken a fancy to Miss Earle's Taggs in "The County Fair," and had predicted a future for her. Notwithstanding this, however, it is not unlikely that Miss Earle herself would have been incredulous had any one told her a few months before, while she was playing Prince Rouge et Noir in "Gay New York," that within a year she would be a principal in Shakespeare at Daly's. Dora in "The Circus Girl" and Winnifred Grey in "A Runaway Girl" followed, and Miss Earle's conquest of New York was complete. She had won recognition at last as a soubrette who was an artist as well as a personality. After Mr. Daly's death Miss Earle returned to the New York Casino, appearing first as Percy Ethelbert Frederick Algernon Cholmondely in "The Casino Girl." This part by no means showed her at her best, although she did fully as well as could be expected with the material with which she had to work. CHAPTER III LILLIAN RUSSELL For many years Lillian Russell held without challenge and without serious rivalry the first place among light opera prima donnas in this country. Her triumphs followed one after the other in rapid succession, and her popularity in all the leading cities in the country--and she would visit none except leading cities--was remarkable. "Queen of Comic Opera" she was called; and what a vision of loveliness, she was, to be sure! the most perfect doll's face on the American stage, as some one described it. A golden-haired goddess, with big blue eyes that seemed a bit of June sky, and perfectly rounded cheeks, soft and dimpled like a baby's. There are two classes of women in the world,--pretty women, whom we see everywhere, and beautiful women, about whom we often read, but whom we seldom see in real life. Lillian Russell was emphatically a beautiful woman. She was almost an ideal. I remember her in all her perfection as Florella in "The Brigands," by W. S. Gilbert and Jacques Offenbach, during the season of 1888-89. Later she learned to act better than she did in those days,--but then she did not need to act. When one saw her, he forgot all about acting. He thought of nothing except Lillian Russell, her extraordinary loveliness of person, and her voice of golden sweetness. She compelled admiration that was almost personal homage. And she could sing, too! Her voice, a brilliant soprano, was rich, full, and complete, liquid in tone, pure and musical. From 1888 to 1896 were the days of her greatest successes, and the list of operas in which she appeared during that time is a remarkable one. Besides "The Brigands," there were "The Queen's Mate," "The Grand Duchess," "Poor Jonathan," "Apollo," "La Cigale," "Giroflé-Girofla," "The Mountebanks," "Princess Nicotine," "Erminie," "The Tzigane," "La Perichole," "The Little Duke," and "An American Beauty." Naturally enough, the Lillian Russell of to-day is not the Lillian Russell of ten years ago. Her great beauty has lost some of its freshness, and her voice, though by no means wholly past its usefulness, is worn by the years of constant use in the theatre. She still retains to a remarkable extent, however, her great personal hold on the public. Although the Lillian Russell of to-day fails to maintain the standard of the Lillian Russell of yesterday, there are but few light opera sopranos on the American stage who can fairly rival her even now, and there is no one who is at present what Lillian Russell was ten years ago. Lillian Russell was christened Helen Louise Leonard. Tony Pastor gave her the name of Lillian Russell, for the very practical reason, I believe, that it had so many "l's" in it, and consequently would look well on a bill-board. Little Miss Leonard was born in Clinton, Iowa. Her father was the proprietor and editor of the "Clinton Weekly Herald," and Lillian Russell's first press notice read as follows: "Born to Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Leonard, at their home on Fourth Avenue, December 4, 1861, a bright baby girl, weighing nine and one-half pounds." In spite of the fact that this birth notice speaks of a high-sounding Fourth Avenue, Lillian Russell was born in an alley. The house in Clinton, in which the interesting event occurred, was situated in the rear of the office building of H. B. Horton, located on Fourth Avenue, between First and Second streets, and faced east on the alley running north and south between Third and Fourth avenues. At that time the house was situated almost in the centre of the business section across the street from the Iowa Central Hotel, then the largest hotel in the state and one of the finest west of Chicago. Shortly after the baby's birth the Leonard family removed from their abode on the alley to 408 Seventh Avenue, immediately in the rear of the Baptist Church, and at that time one of the finest residences in the town. Here the remainder of their days in Clinton was spent. During the first few years of her life there was nothing to distinguish Helen Louise Leonard from any other baby; but by the time she was two years old, she showed the marks of great beauty, having large blue eyes and golden hair. She was not reared among all the comforts of life. Her country editor father was not possessed of wealth, but was compelled to work hard on his prosperous, though none too well-paying newspaper, every day of his life. During the period of Lillian's babyhood, too, the war forced the prices of luxuries entirely beyond the reach of all but the rich. Lillian inherited her good looks from her father. Charles E. Leonard was a man of fine appearance, and always dressed in a faultless manner. When he went to Clinton in 1856 he was probably thirty years of age and showed plainly the marks of early culture and training. He, too, was a blond. That he was a man of marked ability is evidenced by the success he achieved in his profession in what was then a scattering Western settlement of not half a hundred houses all told, in the midst of a country unreclaimed and almost wholly unsettled. On December 18, 1856, he issued the first number of the "Clinton Herald," a weekly publication having as competitors two other well-established newspapers at Lyons, only one mile north in the same county. There was really no field at Clinton at that time for a newspaper, but Leonard thought otherwise. The panic of 1857 caught the enterprise in the weakness of infancy; but the paper survived the financial storm and eventually came forth on the top wave of success, all of which was undoubtedly due to the excellent business management of Leonard and the strong personality he threw into his work. When the general offices of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad were removed to Chicago in 1865, Mr. Leonard moved the fine job office connected with the "Herald" to that city, as the nucleus for the extensive printing establishment he later acquired. After the family moved to Chicago, Lillian Russell spent several years in the Convent of the Sacred Heart in that city. Her first music lessons were on the violin, and were given by Professor Nathan Dyer. Then she took vocal lessons from Professor Gill in Chicago. When the time came for him to show off his pupils, he gave a musicale in Chickering Hall. The fair-haired Lillian sang at this concert "Let Me Dream again" by Sullivan and "Connais-tu le Pays?" from "Mignon." The papers, of course, gave her complimentary notices, one declaring that she sang "like an old professional." Possibly it was this notice that first turned her mind toward the stage. For some time after that, however, she sang in St. John's Episcopal Church on the West Side, and studied with Madame Jennivally, who encouraged her in her ambition to become a grand opera singer. With the idea of studying for the grand opera stage, she went to New York to have her voice tried, and she had taken but a few lessons of the late Dr. Damrosch when Mrs. William E. Sinn persuaded her to join the chorus of Edward E. Rice's "Pinafore" company for the sake of the experience on the stage. This connection lasted about two months and was terminated by her first matrimonial experience, her marriage to Harry Braham, the musical director of the company. She retired from the stage for a time, but her domestic happiness did not last long. It then became a matter of necessity for her to get an engagement, and she applied in vain to such managers as McCaull and D'Oley Carte, who could find nothing in her voice to warrant them in giving her a chance. She finally succeeded in getting a position in a curious way. She was living in a theatrical boarding-house, and among her fellow-boarders was a girl who was engaged by Tony Pastor for a specialty act in his theatre, which at that time was situated on Broadway opposite Niblo's Garden. While calling at the house one day to complete some business transactions with this young woman, the variety manager heard Miss Russell singing in a neighboring room. He asked who she was and said he wanted to meet her. He did meet her, and at once offered her fifty dollars a week to sing ballads at his theatre. Fifty dollars a week was a good salary in those days, and the following Monday saw the name of Lillian Russell, "the English ballad singer," described as one of the leading attractions on the programme. "I was very cool and collected up to the time that I heard the first note of the orchestra," wrote Miss Russell, in describing her first experience at Pastor's. "From that moment until I had finished my third song, however, I was practically in a trance. I was told afterward that I did splendidly, but to this day I cannot tell what occurred after I went on the stage until I reached my dressing-room and donned my street clothes." She sung with considerable success such well-known songs as "The Kerry Dance" and "Twickenham Ferry." "The Kerry Dance," in fact, created a bit of a sensation. It was a style of vocal music quite new at that time in the variety theatres. When Mr. Pastor introduced his stage burlesques on "Olivette," "The Pirates of Penzance," and other popular operettas, Miss Russell took part in them, and she also appeared in Pastor's condensed version of "Patience." Then Colonel John A. McCaull enticed Miss Russell away from Mr. Pastor's by means of a larger salary, and she sang under his management in "The Snake Charmer" at the Bijou Opera House. Her next engagement was with a company under the management of Frank Sanger. It was a strong organization, and some of its members were Willie Edouin, Alice Atherton, Jacob Kruger, Lena Merville, and Marion Elmore. Its tour extended straight through the country to California; and the experience that Miss Russell gained with the distinguished artists of the company was invaluable to her. A season of concert work was followed by her engagement at the New York Casino, and her appearance in the "The Sorcerer" and "The Princess of Trebizonde." At this period in her career another man interfered, and the fair Lillian disappeared from the Casino, as did also Edward--they called him Teddy--Solomon, the leader of the orchestra. The couple went to England, where they remained two years, Miss Russell appearing in two operas which Solomon wrote for her,--"Virginia" at the Gaiety Theatre and "Polly" at the London Novelty Theatre. Miss Russell left Solomon when she learned that another woman claimed to be his wife and returned to the United States. She joined the Duff Opera Company, with which she remained until May, 1888, when she again resumed her place at the head of the New York Casino forces, singing first the Princess in "Nadjy," the part originated by Isabelle Urquhart, when the opera was first produced in New York. The revival ran for something like two hundred nights; and the popular "Nadjy" was succeeded by "The Brigands," which was also very successful. The years of her greatest success already referred to then followed. During the season of 1897-98 Miss Russell appeared with Della Fox and Jefferson DeAngelis in "The Wedding Day;" and her last appearances in opera were in April, 1899, in "La Belle Hélène" with Edna Wallace Hopper. During the season of 1899-1900, Miss Russell was with the Weber and Fields Company, whose clever burlesques make life in New York so merry. Miss Russell was recently asked which one of the many operas in which she had appeared was her favorite. "'The Grand Duchess,'" she replied emphatically. "That, to my mind, was one of the best comic operas ever written. Then I had a beautiful part in 'Giroflé-Girofla' and 'La Perichole,' but 'The Grand Duchess' was my favorite." [Illustration: LILLIAN RUSSELL As "The Queen of Brilliants."] Miss Russell also described interestingly her methods of working up a part:-- "How do I study my parts? Well, every one has his or her own peculiar idea of study and rehearsal, but the true artist always arrives at the same result, with the aid of a clever stage manager and musical conductor. When a part is handed to me, generally six weeks before the opening night, I read it through carefully, picture myself in different positions in the several scenes, and then I separate the music from the dialogue and study the music first. The majority of the operas in which I have recently appeared are of the French or Viennese school, and in the translation there will sometimes appear a word or a sentence that does not harmoniously fit the music. Of course this must be altered before it is finally committed to memory. Then, again, we are all inclined to think ourselves wise enough to improve upon the composer's work, and where a chance is found to introduce a phrase to show one's voice to better advantage, as a rule, the opportunity is not neglected. "After I become thoroughly conversant with the music, I take up the study of the dialogue. This, to a comic opera singer, is the hardest task of all; for it is written in the blue book that an interpreter of comic opera cannot act. The desire to overcome this prejudice often has a disastrous result; and instead of doing justice to the rôle and one's self, the fear of adverse criticism will be so overpowering that the delivery of the dialogue, and the attempt to convey the author's idea to the audience, become extremely painful alike to the auditor and the artist. A great many times I have formed my own conception of a part only to find myself entirely in the wrong at the first rehearsal; and then to undo what I had done and to grasp the new idea would confuse me for several days." To complete the Russell marriage record, it should be added that in January, 1894, during the run of "The Princess Nicotine," she became the wife of the tenor of the company, Signor Giovanni Perugini, known in private life as John Chatterton. This marriage also resulted unhappily, and was followed by a separation and a divorce. CHAPTER IV JOSEPHINE HALL Josephine Hall soared into a prominence that she had not before enjoyed, on the screechy strains of "Mary Jane's Top Note" in "The Girl from Paris" during the season of 1897-98. Previous to that, however, she had passed through a varied theatrical experience. She was born in Greenwich, Rhode Island, and came of a very well-known family. Like many others, she acquired her first taste for the stage by appearing in amateur theatricals. The story is that she ran away from home to become an actress, and journeyed to Providence, where she made it known at the stage door of one of the theatres that she was going to win fame by treading the boards, or die in the attempt. She was plain "Jo" Hall when she made her professional début as Eulalie in "Evangeline" at the Fourteenth Street Theatre, New York, under the management of Edward E. Rice. After this initial appearance in extravaganza, she forsook the musical stage entirely until she succeeded Paula Edwardes in the title rôle of "Mam'selle 'Awkins," although in the farces with which she was identified for a number of seasons, she usually was given a chance to introduce one or more comic songs. After she left Mr. Rice, she became a member of Eben Plympton's "Jack" company. Then she came under Charles Frohman's management, and was consistently successful in such parts as Evangeline in "All the Comforts of Home," Jennie Buckthorne in "Shenandoah," and Katherine Ten Broeck Lawrence in "Aristocracy." The last two plays, it will be remembered, were by Bronson Howard, and he once took occasion to remark that Miss Hall came nearer meeting his ideal of the two characters she impersonated than any other actress on the stage. Then came her big hit in "The Girl from Paris," in which she played the character part of Ruth, the slavey, and sang the ludicrous "Mary Jane's Top Note." How she happened to hit upon this fantastic conception, she once related as follows:-- "I felt that the song would not be a success unless I did something out of the ordinary. The context of the song indicated a high note, which was not given in London, so I conceived the notion of giving a high screech at the climax, which proved to be just what it needed. It was a difficult song to render effectively, as it had to be spoken almost entirely; and as I have a very good ear for music, I found it difficult to keep from singing. The high note had to be off key to make it more ridiculous. I couldn't have sung the song for any length of time, as the strain would have injured my speaking voice." During the first half of the season of 1899-1900, Miss Hall was the Praline in "The Girl from Maxim's,"--a French farce, undeniably dirty, but funny to those not saturated to the point of boredom with the foreign variety of low comedy, which has all the marks of being manufactured to order. It is farce which drives the spectator breathlessly along the road of hilarity by means of a rapidly moving series of mechanically conceived situations. "The Girl from Maxim's" was bluntly suggestive and crudely salacious, as are all these off-color French farces which are turned into English, but it was also bright and ingenious in its machine-like way, and it was in addition very well acted. Whatever patronage "The Girl from Maxim's" gained outside of New York--and it made money, so I have understood, both in Boston and Philadelphia--was given it, not because it was audacious, but solely on its merits as an entertainment. It has been shown time and time again that a farce, which is only salacious and nothing more, cannot live on the road. "The Turtle," which was boomed as the smuttiest thing that ever was, but which was also stupid and inane, never earned a dollar outside of New York. "Mlle. Fifi," which was both dirty and boresome, had a similar experience. "The Cuckoo," whose suggestiveness was much exploited, but whose only merits were an exceedingly smart last act and a very fine cast, was only mildly patronized. On the other hand, "Because She Loved Him So," a delightful farce and innocent enough for Sunday-school presentation, enjoyed two seasons of prosperity and kept two different companies of players employed. "At the White Horse Tavern," another fresh and unsmirched farce, also had a prosperous run. No, whatever success attended "The Girl from Maxim's" was rather in spite of, instead of traceable to, its filth. It had merit as a mirth-maker. Its spirit was unflagging, its ingenuity amazing, and its character studies capable. There was not a suspicion of a drag until a few minutes before the final curtain, when the indefatigable author, George Feydeau, seemed suddenly to lose his breath. Josephine Hall's Praline, with all her doubtful morals and her questionable freedom of speech and action, was an exceedingly attractive young woman. She bubbled with merriment, and never for a moment was she to the slightest extent worried even in the midst of the most bewildering complications. Her unfailing good humor was really the backbone of the play. Indeed, the faculty of making black appear white seems to be something of a specialty with Miss Hall, who has exuberance of spirits without vulgarity or coarseness, and whose unconventionality has coupled with it refinement and inherent delicacy. Her jollity is whole-souled without harshness. Hers is the witchery of personality joined to an art that is authoritative and complete in its own sphere. "Mam'selle 'Awkins" was an indifferent conglomeration of old stage jokes and tinkling music. That it should have succeeded at all was an odd chance, but that it should have entertained Philadelphia for so many weeks was indeed a mystery. Honorah 'Awkins was a Cockney, who, with a fortune acquired in the soap trade, was on the hunt for a titled husband. This was the plot. The part of Honorah was created by Paula Edwardes, who took her work rather seriously and went in for a touch of artistic character drawing. Miss Hall did not trouble herself much about imitating nature. She relied wholly on her ability to give her audience a good time. She played Mam'selle 'Awkins in a dazzling red wig and a complexion that suggested an hour or two over the kitchen stove, or better still, considering the antecedents of the fair Honorah, over the scrubbing board. Neither did Miss Hall go very heavily into the Cockney; she suggested rather than reproduced, and then fell back on her powers as a fun-maker to win out with her audiences. For her, this method filled the bill perfectly. Of course, we knew from previous experience that Miss Hall was a capable actress in the hurricane variety of farce, but she did not draw heavily on that side of her artistic equipment in "Mam'selle 'Awkins." She went in head over heels to be as entertaining as possible with the materials at hand,--which, it must be confessed, were not over abundant--and with whatever else she herself could devise. She walked the tight-rope of vulgarity with marvellous expertness, and because she was Josie Hall, one laughed instead of turning up his nose. In spite of the fact that she has been continually called upon to play all sorts of impossible foreigners, Miss Hall's humor is essentially the humor of the average American. It is fun straight out from the shoulder with the laugh just enough hidden to make it all the more enjoyable when it is discovered. It is not the heavy punning variety so mysteriously popular with the Englishman, nor the _double entendre_ of the Frenchman. Though she may act Cockneys and French grisettes to the end of the chapter, Miss Hall will always be what she was born,--a jolly American girl. And this suggests a brilliant idea,--one that may be novel to those who up to date have had her artistic fate in their hands. Why not give Miss Hall a chance to play the girl next door? Why scour Europe for a human specimen which only warps a personality that belongs right here at home? Try her once in a character--farcical naturally--that has some native stuff in it. Let her show us a girl whom we know first-hand as the genuine article. I think that the result would be a surprise for somebody. CHAPTER V MABELLE GILMAN Very much in evidence in the unusually strong and brilliant cast, even for the New York Casino, that lent its assistance to such good purpose in bringing into popular favor during the season of 1899-1900 that really amusing as well as highly colored vaudeville, "The Rounders," was Mabelle Gilman,--a young woman whose stage experience has been short, but whose histrionic and musical talent, remarkable beauty, winsome personality, and artistic temperament would seem to make comparatively safe the prophecy of an especially rosy future. Miss Gilman has two most valuable qualities that are many times lacking in girls who enter the musical field,--strength of character and will power. One has only to see her on the stage to be convinced that she is not one that will be content to drift willy-nilly with the tide on the calm sea of self-satisfaction and unambitious gratification. [Illustration: MABELLE GILMAN In "The Casino Girl."] Equipped, as I am sure she is, with a serious art purpose, and richly endowed, as I know that she is, with so much that brings success in the theatre, her reputation will not long be confined, as is at present the case, to the comparatively narrow limits of two or three of the most important theatrical centres. Indeed, when one considers her youth--she is not yet twenty years old--and the few seasons that she has been before the public, Miss Gilman's advancement has been little short of phenomenal. Although she was born and educated in San Francisco, the professional labors that have won for her her present position in musical comedy have been entirely confined to New York, with the exception of a single short engagement in Boston and another in London. This has been, on the whole, a fortunate circumstance, for it has undoubtedly kept her keyed up to her best endeavor, and it has also saved her from the energy-dissipating fatigue of constant travel, and the artistic inertia resulting from long association with a single part. On the other hand, it has unquestionably limited her reputation, and also deprived her of the lessons to be learned from acting before all sorts and conditions of humanity. The New York public is oddly provincial in its narrow self-sufficiency, but, worse than that, it has in a highly developed form the sheep instinct of follow-my-leader. It is both faddish and freakish, and on that account its judgments are not always to be trusted and its influence is sometimes to be deplored. New York is a wonderfully amusing city--to the outsider who watches its antics from a safe distance. It has the atmosphere of an excessively nervous woman, watching apprehensively a mouse-hole; it is constantly on the verge, occasionally in the very midst of, hysteria. It enjoys no intellectual calm, no quiet repose, no philosophical serenity. It is always gaping widely for a sensation, real or manufactured, eager as the child who is all eyes for the toy-balloon man in the Fourth of July crowd. Many times has this hysterical tendency moulded the affairs of the theatres in New York, and for that reason New York's judgment can be by no means the all in all to the country at large. A New York reputation, which means so much to the average man and woman connected with the stage in this country, may result in a temporarily inflated salary, but it does not necessarily promise long-continued success. Far from it! New York, after all, is merely a centre, not the centre, as the dwellers within its walls are firmly convinced is the case. It is not London monopolizing the whole of Great Britain, and it is not Paris, by common consent the privileged representative of France. In the case of Miss Gilman, however, the judgment of New York is fully justifiable. Rarely lovely as she is,--a perfect brunette type, black hair, black eyes, and expressive face,--she does not rely on her beauty, nor on the attractiveness of her personality for success; she is an actress as well. It should be understood that the spoken drama and the musical drama are two different things. The ideal of the first is to create an impression of naturalness and fidelity to nature. It has its conventions, but they are every one of them evils, which are continually being uprooted by the combined intelligence of the dramatist, the actor, and the theatre-goer. Conventions, on the other hand, are the very life of the musical drama, which is in its whole scheme a travesty on nature and a violation of dramatic art. The musical drama is art purposely artificial. Consequently, while the actor in the spoken drama strives to the best of his ability for sincerity and conviction, and feels that he has attained the highest when he causes the spectator of his mock frenzy to forget absolutely that the emotion engendered is only a wilful simulation of the genuine article, the actor in the musical comedy is purposely and frankly artificial. He is limited to presenting the symbol without in the least striving for deception. It is the quality of inherent insincerity that makes anything approaching sentiment dangerous in the musical drama. The highly dramatic and the essentially farcical can be utilized in this form of stage representation with equal facility; but when the musical drama approaches the comedy field of the spoken drama, it begins at once to tread on dangerous ground. For this reason Miss Gilman's greatest achievement in "The Rounders" was the remarkable success with which she accomplished the formidable task of mixing sentiment into a musical comedy. Her rôle of the little Quakeress married out of hand to a sportive Frenchman really had an element of pathos in it,--a hint of pathos, as it were, not enough to be ridiculous, but just enough to add a touch of human interest and character contrast to the picture, and thus to make Priscilla something more than a lay figure in a popular vaudeville. There was art in the characterization, the art of the sensitive and essentially feminine woman, and this art appealed strongly to the chivalrous side of man's nature; he felt at once the instinctive desire to protect this woman so remarkably impressive in her feminine way. So modest, so demure, so innocent, and so altogether appropriate was the quiet gray of the Quakeress gown worn by Miss Gilman, that the sight of her later on in the bathing suit that would not, perhaps, have caused much comment at Newport, was a distinct shock, while the dance that went with the bathing costume song--a dance of many boneless bendings and gymnastic kicks and contortionist feats--was only believed as a fact because it was seen. Theoretically, one would be justified in claiming that Miss Gilman never danced it. Moreover, according to all precedents, this astonishing exhibition should have destroyed at once and forever all the sentiment in Miss Gilman's Quakeress, but, as a matter of fact, it did nothing of the kind. When she resumed her quiet gray, she was again the same winsome, pathetic, in-need-of-protection little thing as before. A paradox such as this is only explainable in one way: the perpetrator of it knows how to act and is something more than a prettily decorated bit of personality. Another surprise, which Miss Gilman has in store for those who pass judgment regarding her complete artistic equipment at first sight of her face, is her singing voice. I know that I expected to hear the plaintive, faint, and indefinite piping that goes with so many girlishly innocent soubrettes. It proved, however, a full and satisfying soprano, rich and mellow, a soprano which did not make holes in the atmosphere on the top notes. She has had the advantage of instruction in singing from Mr. George Sweet of New York, who is justly proud of his pupil. While Miss Gilman was a student at Mills College in San Francisco, Augustin Daly heard her recite, and was sufficiently impressed with her ability to offer her a place in his New York company. She lost no time in coming East and at once signed with Mr. Daly for a term of five years. His death occurred before this contract had expired, and it was thus that it happened that Miss Gilman was free to join George W. Lederer's forces at the Casino in New York. While under the management of Mr. Daly, Miss Gilman played in "The Tempest" and "The Merchant of Venice." Her Jessica in the latter drama was an exquisitely charming bit, and received the especial commendation of Mr. Daly. Of the Daly musical comedy productions she appeared in "The Geisha," "The Circus Girl," "La Poupée," and "A Runaway Girl." Priscilla, in "The Rounders," was her first part at the Casino, and during the spring of 1900 she was one of the prominent features in "The Casino Girl," a Harry B. Smith product. The fineness of Miss Gilman's art as shown in this work was thus commented on:-- "The production brings distinctly to the front Miss Mabelle Gilman, one of the most conscientious young actresses on the stage. Miss Gilman's work shows that she is a careful student of her art. Everything is done by method, and yet with such ease and naturalness that one might imagine it was play and no work. Miss Gilman has a sweet, well-cultivated voice, and uses it apparently without effort, but to the greatest advantage." Miss Gilman's experience at the Casino has developed in her an appreciation of comedy and a quiet vein of humor that she had not previously shown. CHAPTER VI FAY TEMPLETON Born almost literally in the theatre, and cradled as a baby in a champagne wardrobe basket, a full-fledged "professional" at the tender age of three years, it would have been marvellous, indeed, if Fay Templeton had become anything else except an actress. When I heard these tales of Fay Templeton's life in the nursery period of her existence,--stories of how she had often slept in the dressing-room while her mother, Alice Vane, died nightly in the leading rôle of some old-time tragedy, of the nights and the days of travel, of all the nerve-racking hardships that made up the weary, weary life of the actor "on the road,"--I was strongly reminded of the early life of Minnie Maddern Fiske. Both were children of the theatre; and forthwith we who are not children of the theatre exclaim, how pathetic that is! So they seem to me, I must confess, these children without homes and without companions of their own age, knowing nothing of the pleasure of quarrelling and making up again, children whom one never thinks of as young, and yet who cannot really be old, brought up as they are in the indescribable and contradictory atmosphere that is characteristic of the stage, an atmosphere of hypocrisy and simple-mindedness, of contemptible smallness of spirit and self-sacrificing generosity, of petty spitefulness and frank good fellowship, of foolish jealousies and whole-souled democracy. With all their artificiality, superficiality, and self-sufficiency, I think that there is, on the whole, more frankness, sincerity, and honest selfishness among stage folks than among any other class of society. In certain respects, actors are in their relations with one another far less the actor than are many persons who are not supposed to act at all. [Illustration: FAY TEMPLETON Singing the "Coon" Song, "My Tiger Lily."] A strange thing must life seem to the child of the theatre, when he gets old enough to think about it. He looks upon the world topsy-turvy, as it were. The serious things of his life are the frivolities of the work-a-day world, and the viewpoint of these work-a-days must be a constant source of perplexity to him. He must wonder, for instance, why they go to the theatre at all, why they are so foolish as to spend money, which is such a rare and precious thing, to behold the commonplace and dreary business of play-acting. How he, the pitied one of the world of homes and domesticated firesides, in his turn must pity those easily beguiled individuals who practise theatre-going! How he must smile ironically at their sophisticated innocence and be even shocked at their unaccountable ignorance! Thus it happens that he pities us because we have illusions about things that he knows are the crudest delusions, and we pity him because he lives a life so far apart from ours that we can see nothing in it but hardship and unhappiness. We of the homes waste our tears on him who feels no need of a home, who, contented with his lot and glorying in his freedom, scorns publicly the narrow monotony of a seven A.M. to six P.M. with an hour off for luncheon at noon existence. Which is right? Both--and neither. But to return to Fay Templeton and Mrs. Fiske. Miss Templeton made her first appearance on the stage when she was three years old, dressed as a Cupid and singing fairy songs. Mrs. Fiske began even younger, and she, too, was a singer. Arrayed in a Scotch costume of her mother's making, she piped in a shrill treble between the tragedy and the farce a ballad about "Jamie Coming over the Meadow." After this infantile experiment, however, Mrs. Fiske forsook the lyric stage practically for good and all, although she did at one time play Ralph Rackstraw in Hooley's Juvenile Pinafore Company. Miss Templeton, on the other hand, clung faithfully to opera and the allied forms of theatrical entertainment, particularly that branch known as burlesque, in which she was and still is an adept without a compare. The nearest that she ever came to being identified with what player-folk delight to call the "legitimate" was when at the age of seven years she played Puck in Augustin Daly's production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Grand Opera House in New York. This was considered a remarkable impersonation, especially for a child of seven, and it received the special commendation of Mr. Daly himself. Miss Templeton's success at so youthful an age was, to be sure, most unusual, but it was by no means inexplicable, if one only knew that she had had, even at that time, four years' experience on the stage, and that she had starred, principally throughout the West and South, at the head of a company managed by her father, John Templeton. The generalization that infant stage prodigies never amount to anything has fully as great a percentage of truth in its favor as any other generalization, but there are occasional exceptions. Mrs. Fiske, already referred to, was one; Della Fox was another; and Fay Templeton was a third, and possibly the most remarkable case of all. Mrs. Fiske at least had the advantage of the intellectual training of the classic drama, and Della Fox, after her precocious success as a child, was kept faithfully at school for a number of years by stern parental authority; but Fay Templeton during her childhood was continually associated--with the possible exception of Puck--with the lightest and frothiest in the theatrical business. More than that she was at the head of the company, the star, the praised and petted. Whoever saved her from herself and the disastrous results of childish self-conceit is entitled to the greatest credit. After her hit in New York in "A Midsummer's Night's Dream," Miss Templeton travelled to San Francisco with her father and James A. Herne. There she became a prima donna in miniature, and charmed the Californians, especially by her imitations of the prominent grand opera and comic opera artists of the day. Her San Francisco experience was followed by her appearance at Niblo's Garden, New York, as Parepa Rosa, Aimée, and Lucca. The next half-a-dozen years were spent principally in the South, where she starred in a repertory of which her Puck in "A Midsummer's Night's Dream" was the chief feature. Fay Templeton was fifteen years old when she became a recognized light opera star of national reputation. She was the original in this country and the best-known Bettina in "The Mascotte," and she also appeared in "Giroflé-Girofla." For two years she played Gabriel, which was created by Eliza Weatherby, one of the most beautiful of the Lydia Thompson burlesquers, in "Evangeline," and she was also in the revival of "The Corsair." At the Fourteenth Street Theatre, New York, in August, 1890, after a period of absence from the stage, Miss Templeton brought out the burlesque called "Hendrick Hudson; or, The Discovery of Columbus," by Robert Frazer and William Gill. This told an imaginary story of the meeting, at the El Dorado Spring in Florida, of Columbus lost on his third expedition to America, and Hudson. It was not an unfruitful theme for burlesque treatment, but the work itself was poorly put together, disconnected, and prone to drag. Neither was Miss Templeton herself all that could be desired. She was apparently in a state of transition. She had lost the roguish girlishness that made her Gabriel so charming, and she had not yet learned to give free rein to the rich individuality and the unctuous humor that are so characteristic of her work at the present time. No dramatic critic would say to-day, as was said at that time, of the production of "Hendrik Hudson," that "it must be written, in reluctant sorrow, that Miss Templeton was not sufficient in talent nor in charm to lead a burlesque company to great success." Miss Templeton was not seen again, after the short and inglorious career of "Hendrik Hudson," until she brought out "Mme. Favart" during the season of 1893-94. The piece that re-established her in public favor, however, was "Excelsior, Jr.;" New York, in particular, finding her impersonation of the up-to-date young man about town very much to its liking. After she joined the Weber and Fields organization in New York and unexpectedly shone forth as a marvellously entrancing interpreter of "coon" songs, she clinched her hold on the public with which she is now an established favorite. During the season of 1899-1900 Fay Templeton was identified with those two gorgeous productions, "The Man in the Moon" and "Broadway to Tokio," besides taking a flyer into vaudeville, where she first brought out her wonderful imitation of Fougère, the French chanteuse. In shows like "The Man in the Moon" and "Broadway to Tokio" one is expected to have nothing with him except the two senses of sight and hearing. It is the spectator's part to take what comes--and it is supposed to come constantly and rapidly--simply for the sake of the moment's fun that there may be in it. His cue is to laugh at the stage jokes of the hard-worked comedians, and to be dazzled into a semi-hypnotic state by the dancing women posturing amid marvellous effects of light and color. They are eminently entertainments to be felt and not thought about. One is constantly receiving new impressions, and just as constantly forgetting all about them. The result is that after the shows are all over, one is surprised to find that from the mass of material he has retained no one impression distinctly. He remembers only flashes here and there. One figure, however, was revealed by each and every one of these memory flashes,--that of Fay Templeton, whose wonderful versatility as an entertainer, and whose pure virtuosity as an artist, both of them given free rein in these spectacles, raised her head and shoulders above her associates in the two casts. In "The Man in the Moon" there was nothing else that evidenced half the art shown in her singing of the ditty "I Want a Filipino Man." It was, it is true, a fearfully suggestive study of elemental human passion, a song of hot blood and crude, unblushing animalism. But it was wonderfully well done, and the swing of its rhythmic sensuality was not to be resisted. Two things that Fay Templeton did in "Broadway to Tokio" I recall with especial vividness. One was her treatment of the cake-walk, commonly a prosaic, athletic exhibition of increasing boredom. She evolved from the conventional prancing of the gay soubrette a dance whose appeal to the imagination was intense, a dance into which might be read many meanings. Her cake-walk was the embodiment of languorous grace and the acme of sensuous charm. It breathed an atmosphere of tropical indolence. It suggested the lazy enjoyment of the cool of the evening after a long day of hot, fierce summer sunshine, the time when one dreams idly of fleshly delights. It was a dance teeming with passion, passion quiescent, which a breath would fan into a blaze. Miss Templeton's second remarkable achievement was her imitation of Fougère, or, better still, her impersonation of Fougère. It is difficult to describe intelligently just the effect of Miss Templeton's art in this specialty. It was not a photographic copy of the external Fougère; it was rather a reproduction of the Fougère personality. Indeed, she pictured only with indifferent fidelity the Fougère mannerisms, but she placed before one, with almost uncanny accuracy, the Fougère individuality and the Fougère stage appeal. It was, in fact, acting as distinguished from mimicking. Fay Templeton literally represented Fougère as she might a dramatist's imaginary personage. Temperamentally, Miss Templeton does not in the remotest way suggest Fougère. The French woman, indeed, is just what Fay Templeton is not. She is thin, she is nervous with a champagne sparkle, and she is perpetually and restlessly vivacious in her artificial French way. Fay Templeton is not thin, and her personality is far away from nervousness. Where Fougère would worry herself half to death, Fay Templeton would insist on solid comfort and plenty of time to think, even a chance to sleep, over the vexing problem. One pictures Fay Templeton as passing her leisure moments in the luxurious embrace of a thickly wadded couch piled high with the softest of pillows. Nor is hers the champagne temperament,--rather that of rich and mellow old Madeira, a wine of substance, of delicate aroma and of fruity flavor, which does not immediately bubble itself into a state of insipidness. CHAPTER VII MADGE LESSING Madge Lessing had been on the stage a number of years before she suddenly sprang full into the illuminating power of the limelight of publicity as the principal part of the astonishing success of that alluring beauty show, "Jack and the Beanstalk." At that time everybody made the discovery that no one knew exactly who she was, and Miss Lessing has succeeded even to this day in shrouding her early life in mystery. This much is known,--that she ran away from home to go on the stage. She came to the United States from London about 1890 and became a chorus girl at Koster and Bial's in New York. She remained in that humble position only a week, being promoted at one step to the title rôle in the burlesque, "Belle Hélène." Her next engagement was with the Solomon Opera Company, and this was followed by her appearance in "The Passing Show" and "The Whirl of the Town." [Illustration: MADGE LESSING.] As far as the casual theatre-goer was concerned, however, she did not exist until the Klaw and Erlanger production of "Jack and the Beanstalk." This extravaganza, like "1492," also the work of R. A. Barnet, was first brought out by the First Corps of Cadets of Boston, and it is still counted the greatest success that this brilliant troupe of amateurs ever had. In the Cadet performances the principals and chorus were all men, and naturally this order of things was changed when the extravaganza passed over into the professional hands. Otherwise it was given practically in its original form. Mr. Barnet struck a veritable gold mine when he hit upon the idea of dramatizing Mother Goose. "Jack" was his first ploughing of this field, and although he has worked it often since, he has not yet succeeded in getting from the old ground another crop so exactly suited to the popular taste. Mr. Barnet undoubtedly got his general scheme from the annual London pantomimes. His work was loosely constructed, and his lines were not all of them of the kind that readily cross the footlights. His wit, while wholly conventional, was also a trifle involved. It did not sparkle. His situations, on the other hand, were effective, and especially were they adaptable to expansion under the gentle administration of a stage manager with an eye for light and color and pleasing groupings. In the process of development the spectacular qualities of "Jack and the Beanstalk" came prominently into the foreground, while the literary qualities--a purely descriptive phrase, which in this connection gracefully designates a condition without stating a fact--were lost in the midst of the substitutions by players with specialties. The stage wit of actors has one advantage over that of writers of dialogue; it may not be analyzed, it may be utterly inane on examination, but it does crackle for the moment. In fact, it exists only because it crackles. Thus "Jack and the Beanstalk" became in the course of its evolution the conventional spectacular extravaganza of theatrical commerce, of which Mr. Barnet was the sponsor rather than the creator. It was also, at the time of its production, a marvellous exploitation of feminine loveliness, and the especial gem of the great array was the bewildering vision of physical perfection, Madge Lessing, in the principal boy's part of Jack. No great amount of histrionic talent was demanded of her, for her success depended, not so much on what she did as how she looked. Madge Lessing then and there established herself as the exception that proved the rule. I confess that I usually find the woman in tights a decided disillusionment. Instead of making a subtle and seductive appeal to the imagination, she is a prosaic fact; interesting, possibly, as an anatomical study, she loses in a peculiar way the fascinations of the feminine gender. When tights enter into the problem, there is a vast difference between the womanly woman and the womanish woman. The first is a rare and, I may also add, a pure delight. The second is merely an embarrassment. Miss Lessing belonged, in "Jack and the Beanstalk," to the class of womanly women. She was as femininely alluring amid the bald disclosures of unblushing fleshings as amid the tantalizing exasperations of swishing draperies. Her beauty was exuberant, voluptuous, pulse-stirring,--a laughing, happy face, crowned and encircled with tangled masses of dark brown hair, which made her head almost too large, to be sure, though size counted for little amid the ravishments of sparkling eyes and kissable dimples that danced in and out on either cheek. Miss Lessing walked through this part of Jack--walking through was all that was demanded of her--with a pretty unaffectedness that met all requirements, and she sang with a voice of considerable sweetness, but of no great power. Still, she has in a mild, inoffensive way some small ability as an actress. This was shown in "A Dangerous Maid" and in "The Rounders," which followed her engagement in that failure imported from London, "Little Red Riding Hood," which was brought out in Boston just before Christmas, 1899. In "The Rounders" Miss Lessing succeeded Mabelle Gilman as Priscilla during the run of that brisk vaudeville at the Columbia Theatre, Boston. It is a thankless task, that of successorship which results inevitably in direct comparisons, but Miss Lessing met the test surprisingly well. Without Miss Gilman's strength of personality and less apparent art, Miss Lessing indicated with unmistakable correctness the sentimental atmosphere of prudish modesty, which represents Priscilla as a dramatic character. With memories of "Jack and the Beanstalk"--they seem inevitable where Miss Lessing is concerned--one was a little bewildered at Priscilla's embarrassment in her ballet costume during the scene in Thea's dressing-room. This bewilderment was due to Miss Lessing's inability to impersonate. She is always Madge Lessing acting,--never Madge Lessing identified with another and wholly different personality; and at the sight of Madge Lessing embarrassed because she wore tights, one had a right to be bewildered. During the Spring of 1900 Miss Lessing also appeared in the title rôle of "The Lady Slavey" when that musical farce was revived in Boston. CHAPTER VIII JESSIE BARTLETT DAVIS The name and fame of Jessie Bartlett Davis are linked inseparably with the history of that prominent light opera organization, The Bostonians, with which she was connected for ten years, and from which she resigned during the summer of 1899. If the proprietors of The Bostonians had ever acknowledged that it were possible for any one to be a star in their troupe, that star would have been Mrs. Davis. To be sure, tradition would have been violated by such a procedure, for Mrs. Davis is a contralto, and tradition decrees that a soprano shall be the only woman star in opera. The composer naturally conceives his heroine as a soprano. In fact, his heroine must be a soprano in order that he may invent brilliants for her to sing. You cannot do that sort of thing for the mellow-toned contralto, and consequently she is never the centre of feminine interest. When a composer needs a contralto for a quartette or something of that kind, he usually puts her in tights and calls her a man, gets her as little involved in the plot as possible, gives her some heart-throbbing songs and uses her voice effectively for padding in the choruses, where the high notes of his heroine soprano shine like diamonds. There is, however, one seriously practical reason for the neglect of the contralto, Sopranos, good, bad, and indifferent, are almost as common as piano-players, but contraltos--even bad and indifferent contraltos--are rare enough to be noted when found; while contraltos that vocally are entitled to rank with the best light opera sopranos are so uncommon it is not strange that no one thought it worth while to write operas especially for them. When one does find such a contralto, he hears a quality of tone that is charged with sympathetic appeal. Where the soprano is sparkling, the contralto is thrilling. Where the soprano is vivacious, happy, delighting in the sunshine, the contralto is fervid, passionate, and throbbing with sentiment. In Mrs. Davis's case, with the voice is also united an attractive personality and comely face and figure, as well as no mean gifts as an actress. Mrs. Davis's natural voice is a magnificent instrument, but whether she made as much of it as she might, especially in later years, is a question. A large voice carries with it its responsibilities. The singer, with vast resources at his command, finds it so easy to make an impression on the unmusicianly auditor merely by letting the big voice go, to win applause by making a tremendous volume of sound, that one need not be surprised to discover in such a singer a growing tendency toward broad and somewhat coarse effects and a lessening appreciation of delicacy, of light and shade, of phrasing, and of the finer variations of expression. However, if Mrs. Davis has made such a criticism not altogether undeserved, it is equally true that she has never permitted herself--even after her performances of Alan-a-Dale in "Robin Hood" passed the two-thousandth mark--to become wholly a victim of musical charlatanism, which in the "Robin Hood" instance just cited would not only have been excusable but was wellnigh unavoidable. She has never been forgetful of the art of interpretation and of expression, and by means of her beautiful voice she has kept herself well in the lead among the light opera contraltos. Sympathy in a contralto is a prime essential. She must appeal to the heart with her rich, pulsating tones. It is not her province to electrify by vocal gymnastics; she is the conveyer of emotion. If this emotion be true and honest and sincere, then the singer brings a message that enriches, ennobles, and broadens; if, on the other hand, the emotion be false and artificial, the singer, however admirable her art in other respects, fails lamentably in a most important particular. The highest praise that can be given Mrs. Davis is that she has rarely failed to impress her audiences with the truth and sincerity of the emotion inspired by her music. Jessie Bartlett Davis was born in Morris, Illinois, a little town not far from Chicago, in 1866. She came from good New England stock, her parents having moved to Illinois from Keene, New Hampshire, where her father was the school-teacher, the leader of the church choir, and the instructor in music to the few persons in the town who cared to employ him in that capacity. One day he fell in love with a seventeen-year-old miss, who applied to him for a position as school-teacher, and shortly after married her. The Bartlett family was a large one,--four girls and four boys, besides Jessie, who might be called the pivot of the family, three of the boys being older and three of the girls younger than she. It is interesting to know, too, that during the Civil War Mrs. Davis's father enlisted and served his time as a soldier. There was no spare money in this household to spend on a musical education for Jessie Bartlett, who began to sing almost before she could talk. When she could scarcely toddle, she would climb on the stool before the old-fashioned melodeon, strike away at the notes of the instrument with her tiny fists, and sing at the top of her voice. Her father taught her all that he knew about music, and by the time that she was twelve years old, she was the leading spirit in every musical event in the town. Her voice was something tremendous,--"loud enough to drive every one out of the schoolhouse when I opened my mouth," according to her own statement. In fact, she was at that time chiefly concerned about the amount of noise that she could make, and she used her big voice at the fullest extent, habitually and wilfully drowning out anybody who dared to join in the singing when she was present. She sang in the church choir, and wherever else there was any one to listen to her. Finally, when she was fifteen years old, she became a member of Mrs. Caroline Richings Bernard's "Old Folks'" Concert Company at a salary of seven dollars a week, and her voice, even then, uncultivated as it was, attracted considerable attention. When the troupe disbanded in 1876, she returned to her home in Morris. Next she was given an engagement to sing in the Church of the Messiah in Chicago, and the whole family moved to that city with her. While singing in church, she also studied with Fred Root, son of George F. Root, the composer of many popular ballads. The "Pinafore" craze was directly responsible for Jessie Bartlett's entrance into opera. John Haverly heard her sing while he was making the rounds of the church choirs looking up members for the Chicago Church Choir "Pinafore" Company, and engaged her for the part of Little Buttercup at a salary of fifty dollars a week. It was therefore in this rôle that she made her début on the operatic stage. At the end of the season she married the manager, William J. Davis, who is at present prominently connected with theatrical affairs in Chicago. Mr. Davis firmly believed in his wife's future, and after her "Pinafore" engagement was over he advised her to decline all further offers until she had learned better how to use her voice. He took her to New York, where she became a pupil of Signor Albites. Then Colonel Mapleson, who was at that time managing Adelina Patti, heard her sing and advised her to study for grand opera. It happened, not long after, that the contralto who was to appear as Siebel in "Faust" with Patti was taken ill. There was no substitute in the company, and Colonel Mapleson came to Mrs. Davis in a great state of mind. It was then Saturday, and the performance of "Faust" was to be on the following Monday. Her teacher coached her in the part all that day, and Saturday night was spent in memorizing the words and music. Sunday was given over to a thorough drill in the customary stage business of Siebel's part, and the memorable Monday night found the aspirant ready, but fearful and trembling. "What frightened me more than anything else," said Mrs. Davis, "was the romanza that Siebel sings to Marguerita. I was so afraid of Patti, whom I considered a vocal divinity, that I finished the romanza without having dared to look her in the face. You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when she took my face in her hands and kissed me on both cheeks. Afterward in the wings she threw her arms around my neck, exclaiming: 'You're going to sing in grand opera, and I'm going to help you.' Adelina Patti's favor and influence did more for me than two years of hard study. There were only two weeks left of the opera season. During that time I appeared twice as Siebel in 'Faust,' and once as the shepherd boy in 'Dinorah.'" Colonel Mapleson evidently thought that he had made a find, for he offered to send Mrs. Davis to Italy, to give her three years of study with the greatest teachers in the world, every advantage and every opportunity, in short, to become a world-famous singer. In return for these favors Mrs. Davis was to sing under Colonel Mapleson's direction for three years. Personal reasons made it impossible for her to accept this offer, however, though she did not give up the idea of singing in grand opera. After the birth of her son, Mrs. Davis studied a year with Madame LaGrange in Paris. On her return she sang for a season in W. T. Carleton's company. Her principal parts were the drummer boy in "The Drum Major" and the German girl in "The Merry War." The next season found her in the American Opera Company, which included Fursch-Nadi, Emma Juch, and Pauline L'Allemand, with Theodore Thomas as musical conductor, and the season following that she was with the reorganized National Opera Company. "That was hard work," remarked Mrs. Davis, "all for no money, and so I got home to Chicago, tired, sick, and discouraged, and vowing that I would never sing in public as long as I lived." "But you changed your mind?" "Not immediately. While I was resting in Chicago the manager of The Bostonians came to see me to talk about an engagement. Agnes Huntington was their contralto, but they wanted to replace her. At first I said 'No!' point blank. I thought nothing would induce me to leave the comfort and seclusion of my home. Then the manager came to see me again, and--well, woman-like I changed my mind." During her first seasons with The Bostonians, Mrs. Davis's repertory was an extensive one and comprised the Marchioness in "Suzette," Dorothea in "Don Quixote," Cynisca in "Pygmalion and Galatea," Vladimir Samoiloff in "Fatinitza," Siebel in "Faust," Nancy in "Martha," Azucena in "The Troubadour," Carmen in "Carmen," and the Queen of the Gipsies in "The Bohemian Girl." Her great success as Alan-a-Dale in "Robin Hood," brought out at the Grand Opera House in Chicago on June 9, 1890, followed, and this part kept her busy for several seasons. While The Bostonians were on their long hunt--not yet finished, I believe--for a successor to "Robin Hood," Mrs. Davis appeared in "The Maid of Plymouth," "In Mexico," or, "A War-time Wedding," "The Knickerbockers," "Prince Ananias," and "The Serenade," with its beautiful "Song of the Angelus." I think it was in 1896 that Mrs. Davis estimated that she had sung "Oh, Promise Me," that popular interpolated song in "Robin Hood," something like five thousand times. "Robin Hood" had received at that time 2041 performances, and she had appeared in it all but twenty-five or thirty of them. "Oh, Promise Me" always got an encore, and often a double encore, which brought the number up to Mrs. Davis's estimate. "I don't tire so much of the acting of a rôle as I do singing the same words and music night after night," she continued. "I sang 'Oh, Promise Me' until I thought they ought to blow paper wads at me. One day in Denver I said to our conductor, Sam Studley, 'Sam, I'm so sick of "Oh, Promise Me" that I've made up mind to sing something else.' 'Jessie,' he said, 'I don't blame you!' So it was agreed that on the following night I would substitute another of DeKoven's sentimental songs. But they wouldn't have it. I had no sooner commenced singing it than there were shouts from all over the house of 'Oh, Promise Me!' 'We want "Oh, Promise Me!"' I managed to struggle through one verse, and then ran off the stage laughing. Then Mr. Studley struck up the introductory to 'Oh, Promise Me,' and I went back and satisfied the audience by singing their favorite ballad. It's an awful fate to become identified with a single song. "Being a singer is not like being an actress. If you are a singer, your voice must be your first care. An actress, if she gets over-tired, can go on and spare herself. A singer cannot. An actress can use less voice at one time than at another. A singer cannot. Now, over-fatigue, excitement, anxiety, all affect the voice by which the singer lives. "I had my grand opera experience. I wasn't very happy in it, although I had good rôles to sing--once in a while. I did not know how to protect myself. I was young then and too good-natured. I confess that while the work in grand opera was more to my taste, I was happier in light opera, and, after all, that is a great thing in the world. Sometimes I used to sigh for more serious work, for a heavier rôle, and in that way 'In Mexico' came to pass. I used to say sometimes 'Oh, I wish I could have a hard part; I am tired of rigging up to show my legs. I want something to do that is hard to do.' So when 'In Mexico' was read they said, 'Well, here's Mrs. Davis's serious part.'" That opera was, indeed, very serious, so serious, in fact, that the public would have nothing to do with it. It was brought out in San Francisco on October 28, 1895. The music was by Oscar Weil and the book by C. T. Dazey, the author of the popular melodrama "In Old Kentucky." CHAPTER IX EDNA WALLACE HOPPER A captivating atom of femininity was Edna Wallace when she succeeded Della Fox as the soubrette foil to the DeWolf Hopper's long-leggedness. What a happy girlish smile she had,--her eyes sparkled and danced so merrily, the little dimples in her cheeks were so altogether alluring! Edna Wallace Hopper never was much of a singer, but she was so pretty and so delicate that one never troubled himself about her voice; he was chiefly concerned lest she might thoughtlessly break into bits. She was vivacity itself, vivacity that never seemed noisy nor forced, just the spontaneous expression of natural blithesomeness; and her magnetism could not be escaped. Although she could not sing, she could act in her soubrettish way, for her little experience on the stage had been spent with plays and not with operas. [Illustration: Copyright, 1898, by B. J. Falk, Waldorf-Astoria, N. Y. EDNA WALLACE-HOPPER.] The art of the soubrette is about the hardest thing in the world to pin down for examination. In fact, in many cases, the word "art," in connection with the soubrette, is purely conventional; instinct would more correctly describe the means employed by her to gain her stage effects. Dramatic instinct is, of course, the corner-stone of the actor's mental equipment. Indeed, we all have to a degree that involuntary notion what to do under certain circumstances--wholly unexpected circumstances possibly--to create the impression we wish to make. Preachers have it abundantly, or else their words from the pulpit would be ineffective; lawyers are also exceptionally endowed with it, or else their addresses to the jury would be worse than useless; teachers, family physicians, the man who makes politics a profession, all must have the dramatic instinct to win any great success. In the case of the soubrette, dramatic instinct is limited in its field. She does not, as a general thing, attempt impersonation, and she never is called upon to do anything more than slightly ruffle the surface of emotional possibilities by a faint appeal to the sentiments. Her dramatic instinct is chiefly concerned in presenting to the best advantage an attractive personality and sparkling temperament backed up by a pretty face and a pleasing figure. Herein lies the difficulty of writing about soubrettes. Having called them happy, gay, graceful, altogether charming, one finds that he has nothing more to say. He cannot talk about their art, for their art is merely themselves, indefinable and impossible of description. He cannot talk about the characters they have played, for they have never played but one, and that themselves. Edna Wallace Hopper's Paquita in "Panjandrum," for example, was none other than her Estrelda in "El Capitan." The environment was different and the raiment was different, but the character was the same. Now a personality cannot be put on paper; it cannot be talked over except in the most superficial and unsatisfactory way. It can only be felt. When one has declared that a certain actor's personality is unusually attractive, he has spoken the last word. Edna Wallace Hopper, in common with all other light opera soubrettes, is a personality. She is there to be liked or disliked just as the notion happens to strike one; but whether one likes or dislikes her, there is no possible ground for an argument about the matter. This person here, who is unmoved by her presence, may claim that she cannot sing and that she is wholly artificial. That person there, who finds her altogether delightful, will declare that he does not care whether she sings or not, and such a dainty creature is she that her frank artificiality is a positive delight. Personally I have always found Edna Wallace Hopper exceptionally entertaining. I first bowed the knee before her smile and her coaxing dimples--a great deal of Mrs. Hopper's fascination is smiles and dimples--when she was very new to the stage, and I have never wholly escaped from their thraldom since that time. I acknowledge freely all her shortcomings,--her lack of versatility and resourcefulness, her narrowness of range,--but as long as she keeps her smile and her dimples, I am certain that I shall never be absolutely insensible to her allurements. She is wholly and fixedly a soubrette, a pretty, dancing, laughing creature without a suggestion of seriousness or the slightest trace of emotion. She is not to be studied, and she does not pretend to any depth of illusion. She is an impression, to be admired or scorned always in the present tense. Edna Wallace was born in San Francisco and was educated at the Vanness Seminary there. It was due entirely to Roland Reed, the light comedian, that the idea of going on the stage ever entered her head. Mr. Reed met Miss Wallace at a reception while he was playing in San Francisco in 1891. She was then not far from seventeen years old. Impressed with her vivacity, he laughingly offered her a position in his company, and, behold! the mischief was done. She accepted quickly; and although her parents did not approve of the plan in the least, she journeyed east during the summer, and in August made her appearance at the Boston Museum with Mr. Reed as Mabel Douglass in "The Club Friend." Two weeks later she acted in the same play at the Star Theatre in New York, where six weeks later she was given the leading ingénue rôle in "Lend Me Your Wife." She attracted the attention of Charles Frohman, and was engaged by him, appearing successively as Lucy Mortan in "Jane," Mrs. Patterby in "Chums," Margery in "Men and Women" and as Wilbur's Ann, the boisterous frontier maiden, in "The Girl I Left Behind Me." It was while she was acting in this play in June, 1893, that she was married to DeWolf Hopper. A few weeks after this, Della Fox, the Paquita in "Panjandrum," was taken suddenly ill and journeyed off to Europe. Mrs. Hopper jumped into the part and played it successfully until the end of the New York season. The following comment on Mrs. Hopper shortly after her first appearance in light opera is interesting:-- "A winsome little woman recently bounded into the affectionate regard of New York audiences at the Broadway Theatre. The severely critical may take occasion to compare her with her predecessor as Paquita in 'Panjandrum,'--possibly to her disadvantage in some instances,--but the fact still remains that the audiences like her immensely, because she is young, pretty, modest, and because she can act. Edna Wallace Hopper, if not able to sing quite as well as some comic opera performers, is a capable actress, and in this respect her advancement has been somewhat remarkable." In the fall Mrs. Hopper returned to Charles Frohman's management, but she was not long after released from her contract so that she could assume the part of Merope Mallow in DeWolf Hopper's production of "Dr. Syntax." This was a decidedly attractive bit of work natural and artistic. On the road she also assumed Della Fox's old character of Mataya in "Wang." When "El Capitan" was produced in Boston in April, 1896, she created the part of Estrelda, the hero-worshipping coquette, her first original rôle, by the way, in opera, for her character in "Dr. Syntax" was taken directly from a similar conception in "Cinderella at School." This was her last rôle with the Hopper organization, for while it was still a popular attraction, domestic difficulties separated her from Mr. Hopper, and she retired from the company at the expiration of her contract with Ben Stevens, the manager. Mrs. Hopper next appeared in "Yankee Doodle Dandy," an extravaganza of doubtful merit, and with Lillian Russell in a revival of "La Belle Hélène." During the season of 1899-1900, she shared the honors with Jerome Sykes in the extravaganza, "Chris and the Wonderful Lamp," acting the part of the sophisticated youth Chris. CHAPTER X PAULA EDWARDES [Illustration: PAULA EDWARDES.] One of the few young and pretty women making a specialty of eccentric comedy parts is Paula Edwardes, a Boston girl, who, starting at the foot of the ladder only a few seasons ago, has quickly claimed a position of prominence in the musical comedy world. Miss Edwardes's most recent characterizations have been two different varieties of the Cockney type in "A Runaway Girl" and "Mam'selle 'Awkins," but previous to that she gave a taste of her ability in this line of impersonation by creating in "The Belle of New York" the rôle of Mamie Clancy, the Bowery girl, a type of character which is nothing more nor less than an Americanized Cockney. I have no idea where Miss Edwardes picked up her weird and wonderful Cockney dialect, unless she got it during her short visit in London with "The Belle," for she was born and brought up in Boston, where, as every one knows, nothing is spoken except the purest of Emersonian English. Neither will I vouch for the accuracy of Miss Edwardes's importation. However, it sounds English enough, and it is certainly hard enough to understand to be the real thing. There are two ways of presenting a character study of the uncultivated types of civilized humanity. One is faithfully to imitate the original, sparing not in the least vulgarity, uncouthness, and coarseness. The comedy in this method is the crude product of incongruity and contrast. The second method is merely to retain a recognizable likeness to the original, to tone down the vulgarity, to reduce the uncouthness to a suggestion, and to rely for effect on an heightened sense of humor. There is also introduced in this second method of treatment a subtle, but nevertheless distinct, self-appreciation of one's own unfitness for polite society and social conventions,--a cynical atmosphere, as it were, that gives the study a touch of satire. The first method is usually adopted by the unpolished and unthinking actor of variety sketch training, and often, too, by the acrobatic and strictly mechanical comedian of light opera surroundings. It is comedy acting which proves vastly amusing to such as desire their theatrical entertainment as devoid as possible of any intellectual flavor, who do not care to hunt for a fine point, and who are bored by anything that suggests an intelligent appreciation of humor. The comedy of the second method is on a decidedly higher plane. It suggests more than it actually represents. It is more delicate in every way, and it requires a modicum of intelligence on the part of the spectator to be estimated at its full value. Miss Edwardes's Carmenita in "A Runaway Girl" was a genuine characterization. She did more than to array herself in garments of curious pattern, stain her face a gypsy tan and talk a Blackfriars-ish, or alleged Blackfriars-ish dialect, that was wellnigh incomprehensible; she also imparted an individuality to the rôle, and one got from her acting a distinct impression of Carmenita, the woman. Such was the case, too, with her Honorah in "Mam'selle 'Awkins." She evolved, from the precious little material that was given her, a personality. Josephine Hall, on the other hand, let the character go completely by the board, and relied entirely for success on her ability as an entertainer. I will not say which achieved the better results in this particular instance, for the entertainment in which they appeared was too absurd to be considered seriously even as an absurdity. Miss Edwardes, however, adopted the more artistic treatment of the two. Paula Edwardes went into the theatrical business on the strength of a voice, a face, and a figure, which is simply another way of saying that she began in the chorus. It happened in Boston, and the occasion was the professional production by Thomas Q. Seabrooke of the First Corps of Cadets' extravaganza, "Tobasco." Miss Edwardes was understudy for Elvia Crox, the leading soubrette, and a little luck came the chorus girl's way at the first matinée. Miss Crox declared that she was too ill to play, and Miss Edwardes took her part for the afternoon, succeeding so well that Miss Crox rapidly recovered her health and was able to appear at the evening performance. Nevertheless, the next season still found Miss Edwardes in the chorus, this time with Hoyt's "A Black Sheep." Again Boston was good to her, for when the company reached that city, Bettina Gerard, who was playing the Queen of Burlesque, was affected by the climate or something of that kind, threw up her part, and Miss Edwardes was pressed into service in the emergency. Her success was sufficient to put an end for good and all to her chorus experience. The following season Miss Edwardes was in "A Dangerous Maid" with Laura Burt and Madge Lessing, and then she created the part of Mamie Clancy in "The Belle of New York." She went to London with the original company, but after a few months she became tired of the fog and homesick for New York and the familiar surroundings of Broadway and the Rialto. So she resigned from "The Belle" cast and took the next steamer for the United States. Augustin Daly engaged her for Carmenita in "A Runaway Girl," and at the conclusion of the run of that piece in New York she was transferred to "The Great Ruby" in which she made quite a hit as Louise Jupp, the romantically inclined hotel cashier. In February, 1900, she appeared in "Mam'selle 'Awkins," creating the title rôle, and after that she acted in Boston and New York her old part of Carmenita in "A Runaway Girl." CHAPTER XI LULU GLASER [Illustration: LULU GLASER.] A very few years ago Lulu Glaser was known only as "Francis Wilson's new soubrette." That continued for several seasons after she succeeded the fascinating Marie Jansen,--she of the rippling laugh and the form of inscrutable perfection. Lulu Glaser was a bright, sparkling girl in those days of her earlier successes, winsome in personality and as pretty as a picture with her light fluffy hair and her eyes that still retained their girlishness. Her vivacity was remarkable, and her spirits were unflagging. She worked with all her might to please, and she was successful to an unusual degree. Too bad that those excellent qualities--vivacity, freshness, and unsophisticated youthfulness--should have so nearly proved her undoing! Too much kindness on the part of those who wished her only the utmost good, indiscriminate praise and the conventional applausive audience, together with association with Francis Wilson, an excellent comedian in his own line, but not a player who will bear imitation, have brought Miss Glaser to a most critical period in her career. Her personal popularity, it is true, has not suffered as yet,--at least, not to any appreciable extent,--but her reputation as an artist is already on the wane among discriminating judges. She should rank with the very best of our light opera soubrettes, but it would not be true to say that she does. Miss Glaser's utter lack of any notion of the inherent fitness of things and of her own position as a paid entertainer is shown most conspicuously and most persistently in her exasperating habit of "guying" every performance in which she participates. Here is a young woman of unquestioned talent both as an actress and a singer, bound down hill simply and solely for the want of restraining good sense and proper discipline. She is much in need of the fatherly advice of a hard-headed stage manager, who would curb that vivacity which has run riot and squelch effectively a condition of cocksureness that is amazing in its effrontery. The trick of "guying" may seem to those on the stage very pretty and highly amusing, but to an audience it is at first surprising, then bewildering, and finally utterly wearisome and disgusting. The actor, who systematically makes sport on the stage for the benefit of his fellow-players instead of attending to his own business of amusing those who have paid their money for entertainment, commits a breach of artistic etiquette that is wholly inexcusable. The stage is a dangerous place for one to give free rein to personal adoration. I have known actors who were free from conceit and complete self-satisfaction, but they are comparatively few. Fortunately, however, this generous estimate of one's own attainments does not often, as in Miss Glaser's case, intrude itself into the actor's art. Still, is her condition of mind to be wondered at? She was only a girl when she began to be the subject of kindly notoriety. She was praised, praised, praised, and, worst of all, she was without the restraining influence of a strict disciplinarian. From desiring above all else to please her audience, and with that end in view, giving lavishly on every occasion the very best that was in her, she developed a frame of mind that conceived her position to be directly opposite to what it really was. She began to feel that the favor was on her side,--that her audience should be grateful to her for taking part in the show. She acquired an atmosphere of condescension and patronage which would have been ridiculous if it had not been so provoking. This curious attitude was noticeable to a considerable extent in "The Little Corporal;" but it could be endured there, for "The Little Corporal" was, in comparison with the average, an opera not altogether without merit. In "Cyrano de Bergerac," however, that wretched misconception, Miss Glaser's egotism bloomed forth in an astonishing fashion. She was almost below the sphere of serious attention. It is painful to speak so harshly of a woman naturally so charming as Miss Glaser, whom I would be only too glad to eulogize in rainbow-hued words. I confess that I like her, but that is my weakness. Indeed, if I did not like her, and if I were not convinced of her genuine ability, I should not distress myself to the extent of being honest with her. Sometimes I have even thought that she had a sense of humor until her persistent "guying" knocked the notion out of my head. "Guying" does not signify a sense of humor. A sense of humor includes, besides the ability to comprehend a joke in a minstrel show, a saving appreciation of the ridiculous in one's self as well as in humanity at large. This quality of looking at one's self from the viewpoint of some one else is rare in man, but it is still rarer in woman. Woman, however, is more expert than man at "faking" a sense of humor. When Miss Glaser really gets down to business and makes fun wholly for her audience, she is a most entertaining little woman. Her talent for burlesque is unmistakable, although her characters do not always have the atmosphere of spontaneity. Her whole experience having been with Francis Wilson, it is not strange, perhaps, that she should have adopted some of his methods. A comic opera comedian, whose humor is so much a matter of individuality, is the last person in the world to be imitated. In many cases he is an acquired taste, and almost always he is only conventional, trading on a trick of personality. Lulu Glaser was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, on June 2, 1874, and continued to live there until she joined Francis Wilson's company in 1892. "I surely inherited no longing for the stage," once remarked Miss Glaser, "for none of my family ever had any professional connection with the theatre. I just had a passionate longing to sing. I talked of it incessantly, and finally father said to mother: 'Let her try it; she will never be satisfied until she does. You go with her to New York, and we shall see what comes of it.' So to New York my mother and I went, and through a friend who knew somebody else who knew Francis Wilson's leader of the orchestra, I got an introduction to this all-important personage. "Well, I think it was all of a month we had to wait before the interview could be arranged, and then one eventful day I sang for Mr. de Novellis on the stage of the Broadway Theatre. No, strangely enough, I wasn't nervous in the least. The song, I remember, was 'My Lady's Bower;' and when I had finished it, Mr. de Novellis said that he would suggest that I should see Mr. Wilson,--'the great Wilson,' as I described him in a letter to my father after the first interview. The company was to produce 'The Lion Tamer,' and Mr. Wilson made me understudy to Miss Marie Jansen, meantime giving me a place in the chorus. "My chance to sing alone came sooner than I anticipated, before I was ready for it, evidently, because on the night when Miss Jansen fell ill, and I was to take her place, I fainted before the curtain went up. But I was not discouraged. 'She is sure to do splendidly now,' said Mr. Wilson, when he heard of that faint. A few months later, Miss Jansen resigned to become a star, and Mr. Wilson informed me, while I was still in the chorus, that I was to have her place. And he regarded it as the greatest achievement of my life, that for the remaining weeks of the season I never told a soul of what was in store for me." During her first season Miss Glaser played, besides Angelina in "The Lion Tamer," Lazuli in "The Merry Monarch." Then she tried Javotte in "Erminie," which performance added greatly to her reputation. It is perhaps, the best thing that she has ever done, and certainly bears comparison with the work of other soubrettes in the part. Her next rôle was that of Elverine in "The Devil's Deputy," and from this came still more praise. The rather sedate--for a soubrette--character of Rita in "The Chieftain" was her next exploit. This was what might be termed a "straight" part, and was only given to Miss Glaser after two other rôles had been assigned to her. "The Chieftain" was produced in the fall of 1895. When Mr. Wilson secured the opera the previous spring, he told Miss Glaser that she was to play Dolly. "Very well," said she, not in the least surprised, for the rôle was precisely in her line. But she had scarcely begun to plan her conception of the character when somebody discovered that Dolly appeared only in the second and last acts. "That will never do, you know," said Mr. Wilson. "I tell you what we will do, you must be Juanita, the dancing girl. That is the soubrette part, after all." "Very well," said Miss Glaser again, with perfect confidence that she would be cast to the best advantage, whatever happened. The season ended, Miss Glaser went with her mother to their summer home at Sewickley, just out of Pittsburg, and Mr. Wilson sailed for Europe. He saw "The Chieftain" in London, and at once sent a cablegram to Sewickley: "You are to play Rita." This was indeed a surprise to Miss Glaser,--to be the dignified prima donna of the house bill! It almost took her breath away. "Do you think I can do it?" she asked Mr. Wilson, when he returned. "I will stake my reputation on it," was the prompt reply. So when Sullivan's opera was produced at Abbey's Theatre in New York in September, the public and the critics declared that Mr. Wilson's leading woman was as strong in the "straight" parts as she had proved herself to be in the lighter lines in which she had first won her reputation. "But, oh, wasn't I nervous that first night!" confessed Miss Glaser. "And didn't I pick up the papers the next morning with fear and trembling!" Miss Glaser, before the run of the opera was over, however, found her part in "The Chieftain" somewhat hampering, and she was pleased enough when Pierrette in "Half a King" placed her back in the ranks of the joyous and captivating soubrettes. Light-hearted, too, was her part in "The Little Corporal," a rôle which travelled all the way from the long skirts of a court lady to the not too tight trousers of a drummer boy in the French army. In "The Little Corporal" one could not help but notice how great an influence Mr. Wilson's clowning methods had exercised on Miss Glaser. Mr. Wilson, however, was artistic in his fooling, and was not given to overdoing the thing, which was not strange, for he had been at it a good many years. Miss Glaser especially worked to the limit the old "gag" popular with variety "artists," of laughing at the jokes on the stage as if they were impromptu affairs gotten up for her especial benefit. She did it rather well, although she did it too much. Perhaps because the jokes were funny and one laughed at them himself, one liked to think that Miss Glaser--some time before, of course--did see something funny in Mr. Wilson's remarks, and that she laughed at them now because she remembered how she had laughed at them at first. Marie Jansen used to laugh, too, when she was with Mr. Wilson, and her laugh was a wonderful achievement,--a thing of ripples, quavers, and gurgles. And this coincidence suggests a horrible thought. Possibly Mr. Wilson himself was to blame for these laughs. Possibly he stipulated in the bond that his soubrettes should laugh early and often at his jokes as a cue to the audience. In the early scenes of "The Little Corporal," regardless of laughs and all else, Miss Glaser was captivating, and her first song--it was something about a coquette, as I recall it--was a fetching bit of descriptive singing. During the season of 1899-1900, Miss Glaser played Roxane in "Cyrano de Bergerac," and Javotte in "Erminie." CHAPTER XII MINNIE ASHLEY [Illustration: MINNIE ASHLEY.] Artless girlishness, remarkable personal charm, and skill as an imaginative dancer scarcely equalled on the American stage, account for Minnie Ashley's sudden success in musical comedy. Aside from her dancing, which is artistic in every sense, she is by no means an exceptionally talented young woman. Nature was indeed good to her when it endowed her with a most fascinating personality, a pretty, piquant face, and a slim, graceful figure, but it was by no means lavish with other gifts most desirable. Miss Ashley's range as an actress is decidedly limited; she is not to the slightest degree versatile, and she has no notion at all of the art of impersonation. Her singing voice is more of an imagination than a reality, although one is sometimes deceived into believing that she can sing in a modest way by the admirable skill with which she uses the little voice that is hers. She has a due regard for its limitations, and she delights one by the clearness of her enunciation and the expressive daintiness of her interpretation of the simple ballads that show her at her best. Nothing could be more exquisitely charming than her art in such songs as "The Monkey on the Stick" and "The Parrot and the Canary" in "The Geisha," "A Little Bit of String" in "The Circus Girl," and "I'm a Dear Little Iris" and "This Naughty Little Maid" in "A Greek Slave." These songs are all of the same class,--little humorous narratives, or, better yet, funny stories set to music. Miss Ashley seems almost to recite them, so perfectly understandable is every word, yet she keeps to the tune at the same time. Not a point in the story is overlooked, and every phase of meaning is captivatingly illustrated in pantomime. Miss Ashley's pantomime, like her acting, is limited in quantity; so limited, in fact, that it suggests, after one becomes familiar with it, the fear that it is all mannerism. Even at that, I doubt if any one can escape its persuasive appeal, can remain absolutely cold and unresponsive before those eyes so full of roguish innocence, those lips smiling a challenge, and that pretty bobbing head shaking a negative that means yes. However, if he be unmoved by Miss Ashley's singing, he surely cannot resist her dancing. It is as an illustrative dancer that Miss Ashley is supreme. She is the one woman who comprehends dancing as something more than violent physical exercise, who appreciates the art of dancing in its classic sense as a means of symbolic and poetic expression. Minnie Ashley dances with her whole body moving in perfect unity and in perfect rhythm. She is the personification of grace from head to foot, and there is vivacity and joy and fulness of life in the saucy noddings of her head, the languorous sway of her form, the sinuous wavings of her arms and hands, and the bewildering mingling of billowy draperies and flashy, twinkling feet. When Minnie Ashley kicks, she does so delicately and deliberately,--kicks that end with a shiver and quiver of the toe-tips. It has been Miss Ashley's good fortune in most of her parts to be permitted to dance in long skirts. As Gwendolyn in "Prince Pro Tem," however, she wore the conventional soubrette skirt of knee length. It was surprising what a handicap it was to the full effectiveness of her dancing. Miss Ashley is not a whirlwind dancer; she does not sacrifice grace for speed, nor dignity for astounding contortions of the body. Knowing full well the value of the artistic repose and the crowning fascination of suggestion, she handles her draperies with that rare skill which makes them seem a part of herself. Their sweeping softness destroys all crude outlines, and they are at the same time tantalizing provokers of curiosity. The short skirt--blunt, plain-spoken, and tactless--compelled the substitution of abandon for sensuousness, and consequently a sacrifice of coquetry and suggestiveness. Minnie Ashley was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1875. Her family name was Whitehead. When she was very young her father and mother separated, her mother going to Boston and taking Minnie with her. The mother afterward was married to a man by the name of Ashley, and it was as Minnie Ashley that the dainty actress was always known during her girlhood in Boston. She lived and went to school both in Roxbury and the South End; and she learned her first dancing steps, as thousands of city children do, by tripping away on the sidewalk to the grinding music of the hand-organ. Her first appearances in public were made at the children's festivals on Washington's birthday in the old Music Hall, Boston. The first year she was the Queen of the Fairies with a number of other school-children as subjects; and the next year, after demonstrating that she could dance, she was promoted to the position of solo dancer, and a feature of the entertainment was her exposition of the intricacies of "The Sailor's Horn-pipe." Her native talent, so prettily shown at these children's festivals, attracted the attention of a teacher of dancing, who took Miss Minnie under her charge and gave the child the instruction that was necessary to develop her gifts to the best advantage. During the summer the teacher took her promising pupil to the summer resorts in the White Mountains. There the guests were charmed, and the boys and girls of ambitious parents were instructed in the art Terpsichorean. This lasted until Miss Minnie came to the conclusion that she was doing all the work while her companion was reaping most of the profits. So they quarrelled about it and separated, Miss Ashley returning to Boston firmly resolved to go upon the stage as a professional dancer. At that time Edward E. Rice was organizing a company to produce the R. A. Barnet spectacle, "1492," and to him Miss Ashley applied. She succeeded in getting a place in the chorus. When DeWolf Hopper brought out "El Capitan" in Boston in 1896, she was still in the chorus, although she was permitted to understudy Edna Wallace Hopper. Miss Ashley, however, had developed since the days of "1492," and although she was in the chorus, she was by no means of the chorus. Her individuality was so pronounced, her magnetism so potent, that the largest chorus could not conceal her. She literally stood forth from the group, a graceful and beautiful figure, animated, interesting, and pertly captivating. She had something of the spirit of France about her, or at least what we think is the spirit of France; and it was not altogether strange, therefore, that her first engagement outside the chorus should have been to act a French girl. This occurred in a musical comedy called "The Chorus Girl," which was brought out at the Boston Museum after the close of the regular season in 1898. "The Chorus Girl" was pretty poor stuff, but Miss Ashley's personal success was considerable. The following season J. C. Duff put "The Geisha" and "The Circus Girl" on the road, and Miss Ashley played Mollie Seamore in "The Geisha" and Dolly Wemyss in "The Circus Girl." In May, 1899, when "Prince Pro Tem," a musical comedy by R. A. Barnet and L. S. Thompson, which has never played a successful engagement outside of Boston, was revived, Miss Ashley appeared as Gwendolyn. Those who heard Josie Sadler sing "If I could only get a Decent Sleep" in "Broadway to Tokio," may be interested to know that this touching ballad was originally one of the chief hits of "Prince Pro Tem." "Prince Pro Tem," with its numerous deficiencies, had one thoroughly artistic character, Tommy Tompkins, the showman. Fred Lenox acted the part; and a capital bit of comedy it was, too, deliciously humorous in its depreciating self-sufficiency, wonderfully clever as a loving and sympathetic caricature, and thoroughly convincing as a sincere study of human nature, a Thackeray-like creation, which was worthy of a more pretentious setting than it received in Mr. Barnet's show. When "A Greek Slave" was produced in New York in November, 1899, that city discovered Minnie Ashley and forthwith shouted her name from the housetops. "A Greek Slave" was not a success, but Miss Ashley's Iris was. As the "New York Telegram" said:-- "And there is Minnie Ashley. A slim, graceful, attractive young woman, with scarcely the suggestion of her wonderful magnetic power in her slender outlines. Two minutes after she had made her entrance, the house was hers and all that therein was. She couldn't sing in the same country with Dorothy Morton. She couldn't act in a manner to warrant attention on that score--and she knew it, and didn't make any harrowing attempts to reach what was beyond her. She knew herself. There was part of the secret. She didn't endeavor to gather in impossibilities. She simply came out and played with that audience as a little child would play with a roomful of kittens. 'You may purr over me and lick my hand and look at me with your great, appreciative eyes,' she told her kittens, 'and in return, I will stroke you and soothe you, and charm you.' "And she certainly did charm that house. She has a pleasing little voice which she uses with utmost judiciousness. She has an innate grace and refinement that are most telling accomplishments. As she informed us in her opening song, 'I'm a Dear Little Iris,' a slave girl, who knows how to drape herself and how to execute the steps of the airiest, fairiest dances. There have been many times at the Metropolitan Opera House when great singers have been overwhelmed by the fierce applause of an emotional audience. Then the bravos have been shouted and the enthusiasm has reached a fever pitch. But before last night these scenes have formed no part of the programme at the Herald Square. Miss Ashley changed that old order, and changed it with the lightness and lack of perceptible effort which characterized her whole performance. The house simply went wild over this practically unknown girl. Her name was called again and again, and the encores of her pretty little songs stretched the opera out far beyond its legitimate length. The house admired the daintiness, the womanliness, and the suggestion of the thorough-bred in this young girl. The poise of her head, the poetical motion of her body, the total lack of self-consciousness, these were constant delights." "To Minnie Ashley," declared the "Boston Transcript," a few weeks later, when "A Greek Slave" was played in Boston, "fell nine-tenths of the honors of the performance, and she gave another impersonation fully as charming as those with which she has been associated in 'The Geisha,' 'The Circus Girl,' and 'Prince Pro Tem.' She was a dainty little slave, demure as was befitting the character, but with a way that was certainly irresistible. She is a real comédienne, and each of the points in the few funny lines that fell to her lot was capitally brought out. Especially clever was the song about 'The Naughty Little Girl' in the second act, where she made the hit of the evening. Nature never intended her to be a prima donna, but it gave her the power to sing a song like that in a way that leaves nothing to be desired, and when she dances--well, it doesn't matter in what language she dances; Latin, Japanese or Yankee, the result is just the same." While she was with DeWolf Hopper, Miss Ashley was married to William Sheldon, a half-brother of Walter Jones, from whom she was afterward separated. CHAPTER XIII EDNA MAY A pretty face and a gentle, winning personality brought Edna May into prominence in the most dramatic fashion. Edna May Petty, the daughter of E. C. Petty, a letter-carrier in Syracuse, New York, lovely to look upon and demure in manner, had some talent for singing, but more for dancing, when her parents yielded to her entreaties and said that she might go to New York to study for the stage. She was only sixteen years old. Hardly had she settled down to her singing and dancing lessons, however, when along came Fred Titus, at that time the holder of the hour bicycle record and one of the most prominent racing men in the country. They were married, but Edna May remained just as determined as ever to go on the stage. Her ambitions were forced for a time to be satisfied with occasional opportunities to substitute in church choirs. Her name first appeared on a playbill when "Santa Maria" was produced at Hammerstein's in New York, but the part was so small as to be practically non-existent. Then she was engaged for White's Farcical Comedy Company and appeared in Charles H. Hoyt's "A Contented Woman." At this point there is a dispute as regards Miss May's next move, or at least there was a dispute until manager and star patched up their difficulties. George W. Lederer was wont to claim that Edna May joined the chorus of his prospective "The Belle of New York" company. At the last moment, the woman whom he had engaged for leading part disappointed him. He had to do something quickly, and he cast about in his own chorus for a girl who might fill the part for a night or two until he could find someone to take it permanently. His discerning eye fell on the plaintive prettiness of Edna May. "She'll look the part, anyhow," he declared. So in this haphazard fashion, Violet Grey, the Salvation Army lassie, was passed over to her, and, presto! her fortune was made. "But it was not that way at all," pouted the gentle Miss May, after she had signed a contract to leave Mr. Lederer and return to London under some one else's care. "I never was in Mr. Lederer's chorus. I went to Mr. Lederer after I had been playing a small part in the 'Contented Woman' company. I begged him to put my name down for something even if it were ever and ever so little, and he gave me the part of Violet Grey in 'The Belle.'" At this time, also,--this period devoted by Miss May to the signing of the contracts, which never amounted to anything, after all,--a second dispute arose regarding Miss May's indebtedness to Mr. Lederer for her success in "The Belle." Mr. Lederer announced to a deeply impressed public that he had trained Miss May with the most extraordinary attention to detail. He had made her walk chalk-lines on the stage, and had written on the music-score minute directions regarding gestures, even indicating the exact point where she was captivatingly to cast down her eyes. "No, no, no," declared Miss May. "All that is very unkind and very untrue. He did not teach me all or nearly all I know about my art, and he did not have to write out gestures and full directions for my conduct on the stage. Not one word of this sort of thing was written in the score. Mr. Lederer rehearsed me, it is true, but not as if he were rehearsing a performing seal. He gave me an opportunity, and for that I am very grateful. But that is all he did. I am not such a fool as Mr. Lederer is always pretending to think me." However, regarding Miss May's extraordinary popular success in "The Belle of New York" in this country, and more especially in London, there can be no dispute. That is a fact discernible without opera glasses. It was, however, almost wholly a triumph of personality. Violet Grey is what actors call a "fat" part. The Salvation Army lassie, a quaint, subdued, almost pathetic figure, thrown in the midst of the contrasting hurly-burly and theatrical exaggerations of a typical musical farce, appeals irresistibly to the spectator's sympathy. She touches deftly the sentiments, for in her modest way she is a bit of real life, a touch of human nature, in surroundings where the men and women of every-day life are complete strangers. But Violet Grey is not a rôle to be acted. It is not, in the strictest sense, a dramatic character at all, merely a picture from life, set forth without comment and without exposition. One sees all that there is to see, the instant Violet Grey appears on the scene; he recognizes at once her reality and her fidelity to nature, and he falls a victim to her charm without further ado. The actress cast for this part must in a sense live it. She must, as Mr. Lederer said, "look the part;" she must suggest at a glance, modesty, demureness, quaintness, spirituality, and idealism. Coquetry, any notion of archness or frivolity, must be rigorously banished. There her responsibility practically ends, for folded hands, cast-down eyes, and the ability to sing a little do the rest. Success in such a part as Violet Grey affords not the slightest test of artistic ability, and Edna May's artistic future is still a matter of doubt. She has appeared in only one operetta aside from "The Belle,"--"An American Beauty," brought out in London by an American company in April, 1900. The remarkable feature of Miss May's career was the furore that she created in London, where, due as much to her personal popularity as to any other one thing, "The Belle of New York" ran for eighty-five weeks. It was wonderful, when one thinks of it, that sweet simplicity could do so much. Of course, when Miss May returned to this country in January, 1900, she had many pleasant remarks to make about the Londoners. Speaking of the opening night, she said: "I played the part during the long run in the United States, so I was very used to it, and there was nothing out of the ordinary about the first night in London, until the sensation caused by their tremendous applause came to me. There is nothing like it, nothing that approaches it. It is quite the most delicious sensation on earth. I don't expect ever to feel it again quite as I did that night. It's like the first kiss, you know, or the first anything. After that it's only repetition. "Success was particularly sweet to me at that time, but it was something of a shock. I wasn't looking for such a reception. They not only applauded, they shouted and deluged me with flowers. The next day I found myself talked about everywhere. I had done nothing but be natural, and do my best, yet they praised my talent. They kept my rooms flower-laden; they sent me rich gifts, and what was more,--oh, a great deal more,--they held out to me the hand of friendship, men and women alike, and made me one of them. "There is one of the most marked differences between London and New York. Here a girl who enters the profession is ostracized; there it is considered an added charm. Here if a girl of any social position chooses a stage career, it must be at a great personal sacrifice. There, whatever social prestige she may have will be an aid to her in her professional ambitions. One of the greatest helps to me in London was the way the genuine people of the aristocracy opened their doors to me, and made me welcome in their lives and homes. For my own part, I did not know that it was possible for so much happiness to come to a single life as I have realized during the past two years abroad." CHAPTER XIV MARIE CELESTE Almost as necessary as a singing voice to the young woman who would venture into light opera and musical comedy, are physical attractiveness and personal magnetism. An unusually good voice, daintiness of face and figure, and a winsome personality. Marie Celeste has, and she has one other quality which to me makes her work on the stage especially enjoyable. That is her total lack of affectation. When one sees her he is not conscious of that irritating screen of artificiality that so often darkens and sometimes hides completely the personality on the stage. An actor, to be effective, must show a personality of some sort. It may not be his own, but it should appear to be his own. The ability, under the conditions represented in the theatre, to convince an audience that the personality represented is a real personality constitutes that branch of acting known as impersonation. Actors try to accomplish this deception by various means. They bring to their aid wonderful skill in make-up and astonishing ingenuity in pantomime; but these external devices fail, every one of them, to produce the impression desired, unless the final effect on the mind of the person to be convinced is one of simplicity and sincerity. To create this impression of simplicity and sincerity, the actor must project his character mentally as well as reproduce it physically; he must appeal to the mind as well as to the eye; he must know human nature; he must study and experiment, and he must have the dramatic temperament. Simplicity and sincerity of this kind are none too common on the stage, and especially is one not apt to find them among the men and women who interpret any form of opera. There are two simple reasons for this. One is that the operatic singer who has a chance to study naturally enough seeks first of all to improve the voice on which he is so dependent. Acting he regards as something that can be quickly acquired from the ubiquitous stage manager. The second reason is that, even in the case of singers who can act, the artificiality of the operatic scheme--drama united with music--is bound to affect the player's art. The player in opera acts, not as men and women act, but as operatic tenors or sopranos or bassos have acted ever since opera came into being. In fact, we have become so accustomed to strutting tenors and mincing sopranos that we accept what they have to offer as a matter of course. If only they sing well and their inherent artificiality be not too ridiculous, we are satisfied. Yet when spontaneity and conviction are present, what a change in conditions they cause! They make opera--even the frivolous opera of the hardworking Harry B. Smith, who has what William J. Henderson calls the "operetta libretto habit"--seem real. One does not have to adopt the intended illusion by a sort of free-will process; it is forced on him. Marie Celeste is one of the few actresses in opera. She has spontaneity and conviction, simplicity and sincerity, and in particular refreshing and unconscious naïveté. Her personality is attractive, winsome, and thoroughly feminine, and her style is vivacious, sparkling, and refined. Her voice is a high soprano of considerable power, and might easily of itself have won her a place on the operatic stage. As a matter of fact, however, her greatest successes have been in parts where singing was something of a secondary consideration. Both physically and temperamentally, Miss Celeste is best fitted for soubrette rôles, parts that require appreciative humor, girlish charm, and artistic finish, ability to dance, and some pretensions as a ballad singer. Miss Celeste's dancing is dainty and graceful, without physical violence, and with a hint of the poetry of motion that makes dancing something more than an athletic feat. As Winnifred Grey in "A Runaway Girl"--a part in which personal charm counted for a great deal--Miss Celeste made a splendid impression largely through her ability as an actress. The music of the part was too low to show her voice to the best advantage, yet she sang the fetching "The Boy Guessed Right the Very First Time" song more effectively than any one I have ever heard. It is, of course, a simple enough ditty, which, however, demands considerable finesse, suggestive action, and a strain of humor to make it go as it should. The sentiment that she put into the second verse of the catchy little duet, "I Think 'twould Break my Heart," was exquisitely delicate and true. Except for a pretty moment at the end of the first act, there is little else than these two bits in the part, aside from an attractive monotony of brightness and happiness; and brightness and happiness, of course, are directly in the line of every musical comedy girl. Marie Celeste--her full name is Marie Celeste Martin--was born and brought up in New York City. So far as she knows, she was the first one of her family to go upon the stage. In fact, from her mother she inherited a strain of Quaker blood, which certainly would never have countenanced a theatrical career. Her mother's grandfather, however, was a Frenchman, and from him probably came her artistic temperament. He was a bit of an inventor in his way, though apparently not a very practical one, a man who dreamed of great things, but like Cotta in "The Schönberg-Cotta Family" failed to bring them to an issue in time to reap any material benefit. Of an original turn of mind and a sanguine temperament, he experimented with many inventions from which he expected to derive fortune and fame. None of them amounted to anything, however. Marie's father died when she was a girl studying music in the New York Conservatory, and she was obliged to look about for a means whereby to earn her livelihood. For some time she had thought of the stage,--say rather idly speculated regarding it as a possibility without ever really believing that she would sometime adopt it as her life-work. Naturally, therefore, it was to the stage that she turned at this time of adversity. Her ambition was opera. She knew that she had a voice, but she also knew that she could not act. With rare foresight in one so young, she made up her mind that the first thing for her to do was to learn to act, and she pluckily took an engagement in a stock company at Halifax, Nova Scotia. That was in 1890, and her first part was Fantile, the maid in Ben Teal's melodrama, "The Great Metropolis." "Mr. Teal, whom afterward I came to know very well, and I have often laughed over that," said Miss Celeste. "But it was hard work in that stock company. We changed the bill twice a week, and sometimes now I think how often I have sat with a dress-maker on one side of me and my part in a chair near my elbow on the other side, memorizing my lines while I sewed away for dear life on my costumes." Miss Celeste steadily gained in skill as an actress, and was given characters of increasing importance. She went with the company to Portland; and when she announced that she was going to leave the organization and look for an opening in opera, she was offered the position of leading woman as an inducement to stay. After Miss Celeste returned to New York, she studied singing for a time, and then was engaged for the farce comedy, "Hoss and Hoss," which exploited Charles Reed, now dead, and Willie Collier, who is at present emulating the example of Nat Goodwin and trying to make himself over into a legitimate comedian. The company opened at the Hollis Street Theatre in Boston, on January 12, 1892, and Miss Celeste's character was Polly Hoss. It was not really a character though, only a name, and she was engaged not to act, but to sing. Everybody in the company thought that she was a beginner, and she did not tell her associates how she had barely escaped being leading lady of a two-bills-a-week stock-company. "Hoss and Hoss" was a typical farce comedy of the Charles H. Hoyt school,--a plotless, formless thing, which was no play, but a vehicle. The chief object of the person that conceived it was to get every person in the company on the stage at the same time, toward the end of the third act. When this remarkable artistic feat was accomplished, a leading personage in the cast would remark with elaborate casualness:-- "Seeing we're all here and looking so well, suppose we have a little music." Forthwith every one on the stage fell into the nearest chair in a helpless sort of a way, as if life were a veritable snare and delusion, and the master of ceremonies continued:-- "Miss Jones, will you kindly favor us with that beautiful ballad entitled 'Way Down upon the Swanee River?'" And so they began, and thus they continued, until every one on the stage had his chance to air his talent before a highly entertained assemblage. It was not exactly a minstrel show, but it approached the minstrel territory. On the bill it was called the "olio." Miss Celeste's part in the "olio" was to sing a ballad; and as no one knew anything about her, she was placed almost at the end of the list of entertainers. When she came to talk with Frank Palmer, the musical director of the company, he asked her what song she had chosen. She told him, and then he wanted to know what she was going to give as an encore. "You know," said Miss Celeste, in telling me the story, "I wasn't very old, and I wasn't very big, and I was terribly nervous, and just a little frightened. I knew what I intended to sing, but it took all the courage I had to murmur gently, 'I'd like to sing, "Coming Thro' the Rye."' "Never shall I forget the expression of disgust on Mr. Palmer's face. "'I'll rehearse you, anyway,' was all he said. "But I didn't tell him that I had taken a little advantage of him. As a matter of fact, I had sung 'Coming Thro' the Rye' in Halifax, in a part which required a song, and in which the old melody seemed appropriate. I knew I could make a success of it. "We went on with the rehearsals,--Mr. Palmer and I,--and he was very kind and considerate after he heard me sing, transposed the music to a higher register, so as to show my voice to better advantage, and gave me any number of little points. When it was all arranged, he said:-- "'Now promise me one thing. Promise that you won't tell any one in the company what you are going to sing.' "I promised. I suppose he was afraid that some one of them would make fun of me. "'And you won't flunk, will you?' he added. "'No,' I said, 'I won't flunk.' "On the first night," continued Miss Celeste, "'Coming Thro' the Rye' brought me four or five recalls, and consequently after that the stage manager gave me a much better place in the 'olio.' That is the reason I call 'Coming Thro' the Rye' my mascot." After her farce comedy experience, Miss Celeste became a member of Lillian Russell's opera company, appearing as Paquita in "Giroflé-Girofla," Petita in "The Princess Nicotine," and Wanda in "The Grand Duchess." During the season of 1894-95 she was with Della Fox in "The Little Trooper," singing the part of Octavie most charmingly, and acting as understudy to Miss Fox, whose rôle she played many times. The next season she returned to Miss Russell's company, making so effective as to attract considerable attention the trifling part of Ninetta in "The Tzigane." She also sang Gaudalena in "La Perichole," and the Duchess de Paite in "The Little Duke." Miss Celeste was taken seriously ill in March, 1896, and her work during the following season was necessarily not very heavy. Under the management of Klaw and Erlanger she appeared as the Queen in "The Brownies," in which, by the way, she again sang "Coming Thro' the Rye;" and the following summer she made a decided hit as Peone Burn in the lively spectacle, "One Round of Pleasure." Mistress Mary in "Jack and the Beanstalk" followed, and then she succeeded Christie MacDonald as Minutezza in "The Bride Elect." Her last part was Winnifred Grey in "A Runaway Girl." Miss Celeste has also sung leading parts with the Castle Square Opera Company, under Henry W. Savage's management, in New York, and for a brief season in Boston. Her principal part with this organization was Santuzza in "Cavalleria Rusticana." "I suppose Mr. Savage thought I looked the part," said Miss Celeste, "and so he asked me to study it. I was really frightened at the idea. I told him that I had never tried anything heavy like Santuzza, and that tragedy was not in my line. He insisted that I attempt it, however, and so I did the best I could. I got into the part far better than I believed were possible, and the result surprised me. I don't think I could do anything with a rôle that runs the gamut of emotions, as they say. But Santuzza is all in one key, a perfect whirlwind, and after you once strike the pace she fairly carries you along with her own impetuosity. "What is the most enjoyable part I ever had?" said Miss Celeste, repeating my question. "That's easily answered: Mataya in 'Wang,' which I played during a summer engagement, just before DeWolf Hopper went to England. He's such a dear boy,--Mataya, I mean,--thinks he is so very sporty when he isn't at all, and then he's so very much in love. I was very fond of that boy. "I think there is a fascination about boys' parts, anyway. It is something of a study to do them just right, to be feminine and still not to be effeminate. An old stage manager once said to me, 'Be sure you please the women. That will bring them to the theatre, and they will bring the men.' The difficulty in playing boys is to please the women, and at the same time to keep your boy from being a poor, weak, colorless creature. One must never overstep the line of womanliness in seeking masculinity, and she must still make the character a real boy and not a girl disguised as a boy." CHAPTER XV CHRISTIE MACDONALD [Illustration: Copyright, 1896, by Aimé Dupont, N. Y. CHRISTIE MACDONALD.] After eight years of soubrette experience Christie MacDonald unexpectedly came into prima donnaship in February, 1900. A light opera called "The Princess Chic," book by Kirke LaShelle and music by Julian Edwards, had been living a quiet life at the Columbia Theatre, Boston, for several weeks. For some reason or other it did not seem to go just as it should. It was a good opera at that--much better than the average. Mr. LaShelle's book told a story with a genuine dramatic climax, and Mr. Edwards's music was charming,--simple but melodious. There was action enough apparently, but the performance dragged. It lacked snap and vigor. The prima donna rôle in this opera was one of great difficulty. It demanded an actress as well as a singer,--a woman who could be swaggering, audacious, and masculinely incisive as the Princess, masquerading as her own envoy, timid, modest, and shrinkingly feminine as the make-believe peasant girl, and finally queenly and royal as the Princess in her proper person. The plot of "The Princess Chic," by the way, paralleled history in a curious manner, and the story of how it was written was told me by Mr. LaShelle:-- "To begin with," said he, "'The Princess Chic' was not taken from the French, though there was a French vaudeville with the same title. I got the idea of the opera fixed in my mind after seeing Henry Irving play 'Louis XI.' during one of his visits to this country. You remember in that drama where the envoy from the Duke of Burgundy and his clanking guard march into Louis's presence. The envoy throws his mailed gauntlet at Louis's feet and exclaims, 'That is the answer of Charles the Bold!' or words to that effect, at any rate. "That kindled my admiration for Charles the Bold, and I have been admiring him ever since. Consequently when I wanted a comic opera and couldn't get any one to write it for me, I said to myself, 'Here's a chance for Charles the Bold.' I forthwith started in on what is now the second act of 'The Princess Chic,' and wrote backward and forward. "Now comes the odd part of the whole business. I had to have a woman for my opera, so I invented the Princess Chic. I had to have a plot,--I'm a bit old-fashioned, I know,--so I invented the intrigue of Louis XI. plotting to cause a revolt among the subjects of the Duke of Burgundy. I seemed to be getting along first-rate when it occurred to me that it wouldn't do any harm to delve a bit into history. So I delved. "You can imagine my astonishment when I found that I had unwittingly been duplicating to a startling extent historical fact. I discovered that there actually had been a Princess Chic. I learned that Louis XI. had thought to cause trouble in Charles's domain, and by this means to open a way for the seizure of that province for France. The Duke's bold move in arresting the King and holding him captive until the King agreed to a treaty that suited Charles was new to me, however, and I grabbed it quick. "Now you have the whole story of 'The Princess Chic.' Somebody has accused me of coquetting with history. I deny all coquetry. 'The Princess Chic' is to all intents and purposes genuine history, much nearer fact than many a historical drama that makes more pretences of sticking closely to the truth." However, history or no history, the opera did not act as it should, and Mr. LaShelle decided to try what the effect of a new prima donna would be. He wanted Camille D'Arville, but she was not available; and by some marvellous stroke of good fortune he hit upon Christie MacDonald. How he happened to do it is a mystery. Christie MacDonald was, of course, well known as a very amiable little lady with a decided fancy for short skirts and for frisky and vivacious characters, that sang prettily and danced nimbly. Never for a moment had she been associated with the dignified prima donna. Nor had she ever been guilty of seriousness. Moreover, if the whole truth were to be told, her voice--though sweet, delicate, musical, and skilfully controlled--was by no means strong. Decidedly Christie MacDonald had other things besides a voice to make her attractive. There was her personality, magnetically feminine, her temperament, so sunshiny and happy, and her face, not exactly pretty, but immensely attractive when fun lighted it up with smiles. Therefore Christie MacDonald's Princess Chic came as a great surprise. At first, she was apparently feeling her way in the rôle. She was, in fact, a model of discretion, but save in one particular her acting lacked force and conviction. As the peasant girl, in this three-sided impersonation, she was from the first exquisite. Never was the subtle attack of a modest maiden upon a susceptible man's heart more daintily or more fascinatingly exhibited. Under every circumstance Miss MacDonald was simple and straightforward in her methods, and absolutely free from affectation and self-consciousness. How thoroughly delightful that is! Singers, in particular, are the victims of conventional mannerisms, smiles that are meaningless and as a result expressionless, curious contortions with the eyes, and strange movements of the hands. How much they would gain by mastering the difficult art of artistically doing nothing! With so much that was good in evidence during her earliest presentations of the Princess Chic, with her faults those of omission rather than commission, it was only natural that Miss MacDonald should improve greatly as she became thoroughly familiar with the requirements of the part, and as she gained experience in acting it. Especially did she seem to catch the spirit of the Princess Chic masquerading as the handsome young envoy. She developed a most entrancing swagger and the most captivating nonchalance. Her voice, too, which at first seemed almost too light for Mr. Edwards's trying music, was heard to a much better advantage later; and in spite of its want of volume, it had a strange insistency, a peculiar penetrating quality, which enabled it to balance admirably the full chorus in the ensemble climaxes. Before she adopted the stage professionally, Christie MacDonald gained a little experience by taking small parts in several summer "snap" companies in her home city of Boston. Her parents were not altogether pleased at her theatrical aspirations, and even after she had been enrolled in 1892 as a member of Pauline Hall's company, she was persuaded to give up the engagement in deference to their wishes. Just at this critical point in her career, however, she chanced to meet Francis Wilson, who had "The Lion Tamer" in rehearsal. He heard her sing and liked her voice so well that he offered her a place in his company. The temptation was too strong to be resisted, and Miss MacDonald established herself under the Wilson banner. At first she was given only a small part in "The Lion Tamer," and at the same time understudied Lulu Glaser in both "The Lion Tamer" and "The Merry Monarch." The next season she played Marie, the peasant girl, in "Erminie," and during Miss Glaser's illness, Javotte. When "The Devil's Deputy" was brought out for the season of 1894-95, she created the rôle of Bob, the valet. She was a capital Mrs. Griggs in the pretty Sullivan opera, "The Chieftain," her singing of the topical song, "I Think there is Something in That," being especially popular. During the summer of 1896 she appeared in Boston in "The Sphinx," making a pleasing impression as Shafra. The following fall found her again with the Francis Wilson forces, playing Lucinde in "Half a King." That summer she filled another engagement in Boston as the Japanese maiden Woo Me, in the not-too-successful opera, "The Walking Delegate." It was a dainty part and charmingly done. The next season Miss MacDonald was engaged by Klaw and Erlanger for the Sousa opera, "The Bride Elect," with which she remained two seasons, and this was followed by her appearance in "The Princess Chic." CHAPTER XVI MARIE DRESSLER [Illustration: MARIE DRESSLER.] One cannot see Marie Dressler on the stage without being convinced that she is acting no one in the world but herself. Such, I believe, is the actual condition of affairs, although there are sometimes strange paradoxes in theatrical life. It would not be altogether extraordinary for the rollicking tomboy of the stage to be in private life the most retired and the most dignified person imaginable, a woman with spinster written all over her face and reeking in domesticity, with a decided fondness for tea, toast, and tidies. However, that is not the case with Marie Dressler. She has a mental quirk that keeps the incongruous side of life in her view practically all the time. She cannot help pricking constantly the bubble of mirth any more than she can help breathing. Her humor is just the kind that one would naturally expect to find as a companion to her overflowing physique,--ponderous, weighty, and a bit crude, perhaps, but spontaneous, real, and thoroughly good-natured. She never stabs with the keen shaft of cynical wit, and she does no business in the epigram market. Her specialty is incongruity, for Marie Dressler is a burlesquer in thought, word, and deed, and being a burlesquer she is of necessity absolutely without illusions. When one is so susceptible to the oddities, the inconsistencies, and the tragic pettiness of human affairs as she is, it is a toss-up whether or not his settled condition of mind, after a fair experience with the world, be one of gloomy pessimism or irresponsible optimism. Had Miss Dressler been by nature cold, suspicious, and inherently selfish, had she been unsympathetic and without the milk of human kindness, her instinct for incongruity would surely have turned her toward misanthropy. Her disposition, however, was rollicking, jovial, and fun-loving. She was naturally impulsive, generous, and warm-hearted. Consequently, life, even in its smallnesses and its meannesses, made her laugh. With the humorist's whimsical temperament she united also the happy faculty of being able to communicate to others by means of the theatre her comical view of things. Choosing to do this through the force of her own personality rather than by infusing her personality into a dramatist's conception, she became a droll, a professional jester. Miss Dressler's best-known and most characteristic work on the stage was done in the rôle of the boisterous music-hall singer, Flo Honeydew, in "The Lady Slavey." It was hardly a case of acting,--better call it a case of letting herself go. Marie Dressler without subterfuge presented herself in the guise of the unconventional Miss Honeydew. She seemed a big, overgrown girl and a thoroughly mischievous romp with the agility of a circus performer and the physical elasticity of a professional contortionist. To call her graceful would be an unpardonable accusation. Possibly she might have been graceful had she chosen to be; but what she was after principally was energy, and she got it,--whole car-loads of it. Her comic resource was inexhaustible, her animal spirits were irrepressible, and her audacity approached the sublime. Yet, amid all her amazing unconventionality and her astonishing athletic feats, one found, if he met her on her own plane of impersonal jollity, neither vulgarity nor suggestiveness. Her mental attitude toward her audience was absolutely clean and straightforward. She was not a woman cutting up antics and indulging in unseemly pranks, but a royal good fellow with an infinite variety of jest. With nothing especially tangible to offer as evidence, I have a suspicion that Marie Dressler, if she could escape from her reputation as a burlesquer, might act a "straight" part not at all badly. It is only a fine line between burlesque and legitimate acting, only a triflingly different mental attitude, which results in travesty instead of seriousness. Of course, the burlesque must be set forth with the proper amount of exaggeration to give point to the take-off, but that is only a matter of technique. Artificiality in actors and insincerity in dramatists very often result in unconscious burlesque. The melodramatic school is particularly prone to this most inartistic of blunders, and many a good laugh has followed lines that were supposed to be charged with the most highly colored sentiments and situations that were intended to be dramatically strong and impressive. One at all familiar with Miss Dressler's methods cannot have failed to notice her trick of beginning a speech with profound and even convincing seriousness and ending it in ridiculous contrast with a sudden drop from the dramatic to the commonplace. In spite of the fact that one knows for a certainty that she is fooling him, she succeeds invariably in making the first part of her sentence seem honest and sincere. Now, I do not believe that she could hit just the right key every time in these startling and laughter-provoking contrasts, if she did not have to an unusual extent the instinct for dramatic effect, which is so large a part of the equipment of the legitimate actor. However, I hope that she will never make the experiment. There are already enough serious actors of ordinary calibre, while the genuine burlesquer of Marie Dressler quality is rare indeed. Miss Dressler's versatility as a single entertainer was splendidly illustrated in a curious variety act, which was called "Twenty Minutes in Shirt Waists." It was devised for the sole purpose of showing off to the best advantage Miss Dressler's native talent for fun-making and travesty. It was mere hodge-podge, of course, with neither rhyme nor reason, but it did afford Miss Dressler every chance that she could desire to display her marvellous resource as a comic entertainer. The title of the sketch, "Twenty Minutes in Shirt Waists," suggested some sort of a disrobing act, but in that it was deceptive. Indeed, the title--and possibly it was all the better for that--had no connection at all with the act beyond the fact that Miss Dressler and her assistant, Adele Farrington, both wore shirt waists of spotless white. It was a very intimate and unstagy affair. The two entertainers called each other Marie and Adele, and they kept up the illusion of spontaneous comradeship by appearing, or seeming to appear, in the Eleanora Duse fashion, without facial make-up. The turn itself was a continuous "jolly," and Miss Dressler introduced before it was over about everything funny that she ever did in the theatre, including the amusing revolving hat of "The Lady Slavey" fame. Miss Dressler was born in Canada, and went on the stage when she was sixteen years old; and in spite of the fact that she was without experience,--in fact, before she had ever seen a comic opera,--she rather inverted the ordinary method of procedure, and started at once to play old women. Her first character was Katisha in "The Mikado" in a company managed by Jules Grau. The reason, so she claims, that she made a try at "old women" was because she was too big and healthy ever to meet with success as a soubrette. Her Katisha was sufficiently liked to convince her that light opera was just the place for her, and thus her theatrical career began. "I might state," remarked Miss Dressler, naïvely, in speaking of her early experiences, "that we members of the Grau Company were promised and were supposed to receive very good salaries. All we got, however, was the promises, and they came early and often. No, that is not altogether true: we got besides the promises twenty-five cents which was handed to each member of the company every night. It was supposed to be squandered in the purchase of beer. I forgot this little circumstance, for I did not drink beer, and consequently in my case the aforesaid quarter of a dollar was not forthcoming. This omission hurt me so much that I resigned from this enterprising organization, and wandered to Philadelphia. The exchequer was about as low as it well could be, and I was glad enough to take a place in the chorus of a summer company at eight dollars a week,--not a great deal, to be sure, but I got it, such as it was." Miss Dressler's next engagement was with the Bennett and Moulton Opera Company, from which Della Fox was also graduated. This organization played week stands in small cities and large towns, giving two performances a day and changing the bill every day. This may be said to have been Miss Dressler's school, for while under the Bennett and Moulton management she appeared in thirty-eight different operas and played every variety of part, from prima donna rôles to old women. Following this arduous experience on the road came her first appearance in New York at the Fifth Avenue Theatre as Cunigonde in "The Robber of the Rhine," an opera of which Maurice Barrymore, who wrote the book, and Charles Puerner, who composed the music, never had reason to feel proud. Her first New York success of any consequence, therefore, was not made until she appeared with Camille D'Arville in "Madeleine, or the Magic Kiss." Her next venture was as the Queen in "1492," the part which brought fame to that most accomplished woman impersonator, Richard Harlow. After the termination of this engagement she appeared for a time at the Garden Theatre, New York, under the management of A. M. Palmer, and then joined Lillian Russell in "Princess Nicotine." Her remarkable success in "The Lady Slavey" came next, and since then she has been seen in "Hotel Topsy Turvy," "The Man in the Moon," and vaudeville. CHAPTER XVII DELLA FOX [Illustration: Copyright, 1894, by J. B. Falk, Waldorf-Astoria, N. Y. DELLA FOX.] It was a dozen or fifteen years ago that the hard-working organization known as the Bennett and Moulton Opera Company was a frequent visitor to the small cities and large towns of New England. It played week stands with daily matinees, and it was, more than likely, the pioneer to flaunt in the theatrical field the conquering banner of "ten, twenty, thirty." I have every feeling of gratitude toward the Bennett and Moulton Opera Company, for it introduced me, at the modest rate of ten cents per introduction, which small sum purchased the right to sit aloft in the gallery, to all the famous old-time operettas,--"Olivette," "The Mascotte," "The Chimes of Normandy," and others. As I recall the annual performances of this obscure troupe, they were surprisingly good. At least, so they seemed to me, and I can laugh even now at the excruciatingly funny fellow who sang the topical song, "Bob up Serenely" in "Olivette." There was also a curious dance, I remember, that went with the song,--a spreading out simultaneously of arms and legs in jumping-jack fashion,--and we boys thought it vastly amusing. We clapped and stamped and whistled, and kept the poor comedian at work as long as our breath held out and long after his had gone. The last time that I saw the Bennett and Moulton Opera Company was in "Fra Diavolo," and the prima donna--the term seems ridiculous and absurd as I think of the person to whom it is applied--was a golden-haired little creature, wonderfully ample, tremendously in earnest, and strangely fascinating, a dainty slip of a girl, who seemed, in truth, only a child. I can see her now as she sat on the edge of the bed in the chamber scene, unfastening her shoes, singing very sweetly and very expressively her good-night song, all unconscious of the bold brigands who were watching the proceedings from their places of concealment. She charmed me as no singer in light opera ever had before, and the impression that she made upon me has never been lost. The child was Della Fox, of whom at that time no one had ever heard--Della Fox in the humblest of surroundings, but to me more fascinating than in any of the brilliant settings that have since been hers. I did not see Della Fox again until 1890, when she was playing Blanche in "Castles in the Air" with DeWolf Hopper. She had changed greatly in the few years, though far less than she has since the days of "Castles in the Air," "Wang," and "Panjandrum." Her appealing, unsophisticated girlishness had gone, and in its place was self-possession and authority. She was charming in her daintiness, provoking in her coquetry, a tantalizing atom of femininity. Her archness was not bold nor unwomanly, and her vivacity was well within the bounds of refinement and good taste. Her singing voice, too, was musical, though not over strong. Della Fox was born in St. Louis on October 13, 1872. Her father, A. J. Fox, was a photographer, who made something of a specialty of theatrical pictures; and thus Della's babyhood was passed, not exactly in the playhouse atmosphere, perhaps, but certainly in an atmosphere next door to that of the greasepaint and footlights. Her experience on the stage began when she was only seven years old as the midshipmate in a children's "Pinafore" company, which travelled in Missouri and Illinois for a season. She was an astonishingly precocious child, and many persons who watched her shook their heads and predicted that her talent had ripened too early, and that, as is the case with many promising stage children, she would never amount to anything. Apparently this midshipmate experience firmly established in Miss Della's childish mind the intention to become an actress. Her parents, however, succeeded in keeping her in school for a few years longer, though she appeared in several local performances where a child was needed. When she was nine years old, for instance, she acted for a week in St. Louis the child's part in the production of "A Celebrated Case" of which James O'Neill was the star, and she was also at one time with a "Muldoon's Picnic" company. Her first real professional experience, however, was obtained with an organization known as the Dickson Sketch Club. This was gotten up by four St. Louis young men, W. F. Dickson and W. G. Smythe, both of whom became prominent theatrical managers, Augustus Thomas, the playwright, and Edgar Smith, the author of several Casino pieces, and at present writer-in-ordinary to Weber and Fields. Mr. Thomas made a one-act play of Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett's story, "Editha's Burglar," and the company also appeared in a musical farce called "Combustion." Della Fox was the Editha in the play and the soubrette in the musical piece, while Mr. Thomas acted Bill Lewis, the burglar, and Mr. Smith was Paul Benton. Miss Fox's impersonation of Editha was, according to report, very good indeed. At any rate, the success of the play was sufficient to encourage the author to expand it to three-acts. The result was "The Burglar," one of the first plays in which Mr. E. H. Sothern appeared as a star. In the three-act version Sothern acted Bill Lewis, the burglar, and Elsie Leslie was Editha. Mr. Dickson, who is now connected with the business staff of the Alhambra in Chicago, referred not long ago to this early experience as a manager. "Yes," he said, "that was 'Gus' Thomas's début as a dramatic author. 'Gus' was in the box office with me at the Olympic in St. Louis, and he managed to find time during the leisure moments when he was not selling tickets to scribble ideas in dramatic form. He read me this little sketch, 'Editha's Burglar,' and asked me to give it a trial. Right across the street from the theatre lived Della Fox, daughter of a photographer, a precocious little miss, whose talents were always in requisition whenever there were any child's parts to be filled at the theatre. I used to send over for Della whenever there was a little part for her, and she was delighted to get away from school and skip and trip before the footlights. After 'Gus' had read the play to me, he suggested that Della should play little Editha, and as a result I was induced to put the piece on with the budding author in the principal rôle. It had a certain sort of success, and we went on a tour, using 'The Burglar' as a curtain raiser to another play called 'Combustion,' also from 'Gus' Thomas's pen. Later 'The Burglar' was produced in New York as a curtain-raiser to William Gillette's comedy, 'The Great Pink Pearl.' Gillette himself played the burglar, and Mr. Thomas was encouraged to expand his sketch into a pretentious three-act play, and it went on the road, making money for the managers and familiarizing the public with Augustus Thomas's name." Next came Miss Fox's connection with the Bennett and Moulton Company, with which she appeared in the leading soprano rôles of all the light operas,--"Fra Diavolo," "The Bohemian Girl," "The Pirates of Penzance," "Billie Taylor," "The Mikado," and "The Chimes of Normandy." Her success with this minor organization brought her to the notice of Heinrich Conried, who was getting together an opera company to appear in "The King's Fool." She was given the soubrette part, and created something of a stir wherever the opera was given by her singing of "Fair Columbia," one of the most popular songs of the piece. From Mr. Conried also she received about all the real instruction in dramatic art that she had ever had. When Davis and Locke, who had managed the Emma Juch Opera Company, decided to launch DeWolf Hopper as a star, they began to look about for a small-sized soubrette to act as a foil for Mr. Hopper's great height. George W. Lederer, of the New York Casino, suggested Della Fox, and accordingly she was engaged and opened with Hopper in "Castles in the Air" at the Broadway Theatre, New York, in May, 1890. Her success in this larger field was remarkable, and before the summer was over she was sharing the honors with Hopper and was just as strong a popular favorite as he. Her Blanche was a delightful creation throughout, but best remembered is the "athletic duet" in which she and Hopper gave amusing pantomimic representations of games of billiards, baseball, and other familiar sports. Her Mataya in "Wang," which was brought out in New York in the summer of 1891, was another triumph. This was, perhaps, the most artistic of all her rôles. She was cute, impish, and jaunty in turn as the Crown Prince, and, in addition, was a picture never to be forgotten in her perfect fitting white flannel suit, worn in the second act. It was in this act, too, that she sang the famous summer-night's song, which was whistled and hand-organed throughout the land. Next Miss Fox created the principal soubrette rôle in Mr. Hopper's opera "Panjandrum," in which she continued to appear until she made her début as a star in August, 1894, at the Casino, New York, in Goodwin and Furst's opera, "The Little Trooper." Her first season was extremely successful. The next year she was seen in "Fleur-de-lis," another Goodwin-Furst product. Writing of Miss Fox in this opera, Philip Hale said:-- "Disagreeable qualities in the customary performance of Miss Fox were not nearly so much in evidence as in some of her other characters. She was not so deliberately affected, she was not so brazen in her assurance. Even her vocal mannerisms were not so conspicuous. She almost played with discretion, and often she was delightful. Her self-introduction to her father was one long to be remembered. No wonder that the audience insisted on seeing it again and again. All in all, Miss Fox appeared greatly to her advantage." His criticism of the opera is also interesting: "It was March 31, 1885, that 'Pervenche,' an operetta, text by Duru and Chivot, music by Audran, was first produced at the Bouffes-Parisiens. Mrs. Thuillier-Leloir was the Pervenche, Maugé the Count des Escarbilles, and Mesnacker the Marquis de Rosolio. The honors of the evening, however, were borne away by Mr. and Mrs. Piccaluga, who were respectively Frederick and Charlotte. The opera did not please, and it ran only twenty-nine nights. Nor has it been revived. "In the time of Henry the Second, or Henry the Third, two nephews disputed the right to possess a castle in Touraine that had belonged to their late uncle, who died without will. Rosolio held the castle, and Escarbilles tried to dislodge him. By the will, found eventually, the castle belonged to Rosolio if Frederick, the son of Escarbilles, should marry Pervenche, the natural daughter of Rosolio. "The performance was in the main poor, and the music of Audran was not distinguished, they say. A romance of Frederick, a pastorale Tyrolienne sung by Charlotte at the end of the second act, and a duet of menders of faience in the third act, said to be the best of the three, alone seemed worthy of remark. "So much for 'Pervenche,' the libretto of which furnished the foundation for Mr. Goodwin's story and songs. Just how far Mr. Goodwin departed from the situations furnished by Messrs. Durn and Chivot, I am unable to say, for I never saw 'Pervenche' nor its libretto. However much he may be indebted, this can be truly said: he has written an entertaining book; the plot is coherent, and the situations laughable. The second act is admirable throughout. The colossal effrontery of the starved Rosolio in the castle manned by women disguised as soldiers, the reconciliation of the nephews, the exchange of reminiscences of gay student days in Paris, the discovery of the imposition, and the renewed hostilities,--these are amusing and well connected. Furthermore, the audience at the end of this act realizes at once the need of a third act, to clear up matters. Now this is rare in operetta of to-day. Even in the third act the interest never flags, although there was one dreadful moment, when it looked as though the old 'Mascotte' third-act business was to be introduced. Fortunately the suspicion was groundless, and the audience breathed freer and forgot its fears in the enjoyment of the delightful scenes between Des Escarbilles and the miller, and then the ghost. "Not so much can be said in praise of the music. It is the same old thing that has served in many operettas. There is a jingle, there are the inevitable waltz tunes that always sound alike. But the music gives the comedians an excuse for singing and dancing. It thus serves its turn and is promptly forgotten until another operetta comes, and the hearer has a vague impression that he has heard the tunes before." "The Wedding Day," with Della Fox, Lillian Russell, and Jefferson De Angelis in the cast, was brought out in the fall of 1897, and it revived to a degree old-time memories of players at the Casino. The opera itself proved to be of an order of merit recalling "Falka," "The Merry War," and "Nanon," the like of which had not appeared for many, many seasons. The music was ambitious without being dull, and some of the concerted numbers had genuine musicianly value. The story held its interest fairly well, though in spots it was too complicated, and at one point in the third act quite absurd. Still it was an excellent vehicle to display the talents of the so-called "triple alliance" of comic opera stars. Miss Fox, who had shown a decided tendency toward stoutness, had trained down to within hailing distance of her former slender lithesomeness, and she made a pretty and attractive bride. The following season found Miss Fox again an individual star, this time in "The Little Host." Her last appearances in opera were made in this piece, for after her season had begun in the fall of 1899, she was taken seriously ill, and for a long time her death was expected. She recovered partially, however, after months of illness, and in the spring of 1900 she appeared for a few months in vaudeville. Even this labor proved too much for her strength, and her friends were compelled to remove her to a place where she might have perfect rest. CHAPTER XVIII CAMILLE D'ARVILLE Camille D'Arville, like Lillian Russell, Pauline Hall, and Jessie Bartlett Davis, is one of the old guard, in American light opera. She has not appeared in opera for some time, for during the season of 1899-1900 she followed the general inclination and went into vaudeville. From these appearances it was apparent that her voice was not what it had been once--and little wonder that it had failed, when one recalls how continuously that voice has been in use since the owner left her Dutch home, forswore her own name of Neeltye Dykstra, and first learned to talk a prettily accentuated English. She still had in full the power to win an audience instantly and completely. Nor had she lost to any perceptible degree her rare good looks. A little fuller in the figure, perhaps, than she was five years ago, she carried herself with the same fine grace and perfect poise which were of themselves an art. Camille D'Arville has temperament, and she has style. It is these two qualities particularly that have brought her success so often in dashing cavalier parts, parts which require that a woman shall act either a man or a woman masquerading as a man. The modern comic opera librettist often has but one main purpose in mind, that is, to get his prima donna in tights as soon after the show begins as possible and keep her in them as long as practical. Indeed, if one were looking for a practical way to distinguish modern comic opera from extravaganza, he might find it in this matter of tights. If the leading woman represent a woman disguised as a man, she is an operatic prima donna; if, on the contrary, she be represented as a man from start to finish, she is merely principal "boy" in extravaganza. I suppose this tendency toward tights, which is so common as to be almost a light-opera conventionality, is an outgrowth or heritage from the old-fashioned burlesque. In fact, the difference between the modern comic opera and the burlesque of thirty years ago is purely one of degree. The relation between the two is similar to that between the variety show of eight years ago and the so-called "fashionable vaudeville" of to-day. Variety has been put through what managers of the large circuits call a refining process. There is no denying that the old-style variety show in most of its components was crude, noisy, and vulgar, and that its surroundings were scarcely favorable to the development of high art. But one was always sure of finding vigor and life--plenty of both--in the old-time varieties, and there were oftentimes spontaneity and humor--rude and bucolic, perhaps, but real, just the same--which one is not sure of meeting in the latter-day entertainments so carefully prepared for the mentally delicate and sensitive. Modern comic opera has adopted in a modified and refined form the chief characteristics--one of them the woman in tights and another of them the clown with his perfunctory low comedy--of the old-fashioned burlesque. Of course, the opera makes more pretensions than did the burlesque, and musically it is superficially superior, not necessarily more tuneful but orchestrated with more scholarly skill. Stage pageantry to-day is also much further developed, and spectacular effects are far more elaborate. The costuming is richer and more tasteful, and the women on the stage--if not actually younger and prettier--are certainly daintier and more feminine. The girlishness and natural beauty of many modern light-opera choruses are simply amazing. If we look beneath these externals, however, we find that the comic opera of to-day is hardly an advance over the burlesque of yesterday. There was good stuff in most of the old burlesques. They had original ideas, plenty of simple dramatic action, and some genuine comedy, but it is seldom that one finds any of these three essentials in the book of the modern comic opera. Not for ten years, I am tempted to declare, has there been written a light-opera libretto with sufficient intrinsic merit to attract the public attention without the assistance of the most magnetic personalities surrounded and set forth by the most gorgeous of stage accessories. Camille D'Arville's cavaliers--and in recent years she has not played a part that did not require male attire--are a direct heritage from the burlesque stage. When Camille D'Arville becomes a man, she makes the change from petticoats without the slightest show of self-consciousness. I heard her once termed the most modest woman in tights on the stage. That was simply an acknowledgment of her complete effacement of the personal equation. Yet her individuality was not at all diminished, her presence was inspiring, and her acting both vivacious and forceful. Camille D'Arville was born in 1863 in the village of Oldmarck, Province of Overyseel, Holland, and came of a family that had never shown any theatrical or especial musical talent. When she was twelve years old, her voice gave promise of developing into something more than the ordinary, and she was sent to the Conservatory at Amsterdam for instruction. Here she made her first appearance in concert in 1877. Later she went to Vienna, where she received further instruction, and also made a successful appearance in a one-act operetta. "I was a big girl fourteen or fifteen years old before I saw other lands than my own Holland," remarked Miss D'Arville, "and after I left Amsterdam I was on the Continent and in England for a long time before I returned home. I still claim Holland as my birthright, however, and I do not want to be called anything but Dutch. If I have a trace of French accent in speaking English, as some claim, it is not my fault. "But, do you know," she continued, "if it were purely a matter of inclination, I think I should much rather be an actress than to be a singer. Of course, I love music, but what can be more gratifying than to portray the heroines of Shakespeare and other great dramatists? But my natural endowment as a singer led me toward the operatic career. In opera I prefer a strong dramatic rôle, a part which has only one grand song if it afford plenty of opportunity for acting. "When did I first sing in public? Oh, I can't remember that. I appeared in concerts in Amsterdam when I was a girl, and by the time I entered my teens I took part in operatic performances given by the Conservatory pupils. Do you mean when did I make my real début in opera? I suppose that might be said to have occurred in March, 1883, at the Strand Theatre, London, in an operetta entitled 'Cymbria, or the Magic Thimble.'" Before this, however, Miss D'Arville had anything but a pleasant experience in London. She went there under the supposition that she had been engaged to sing in opera. The managerial promise she found to be worthless, and she had to be satisfied with a chance to earn a little money in a music hall. It was after several months of the most uncongenial toil that she finally gained recognition in "Cymbria." "Harry Paulton was responsible for that appearance," continued Miss D'Arville. "He heard me sing, and under his tuition I learned the words of the opera and sung them before I understood their meaning. It was not long, however, before I could speak English fairly well. The Dutch, you know, are famous linguists. "In October of the same year I created the part of Gabrielle Chevrette in 'La Vie,' an adaptation by H. B. Farnie of Offenbach's 'La Vie Parisienne.' The critics spoke very kindly of me then, but were much more generous in their praises when during the following spring I appeared as Fredegonda in a revival of M. Hervé's 'Chilperic' given at the Empire Theatre. Perhaps chief among my early successes was in 'Rip Van Winkle.' I succeeded Miss Sadie Martinot in the leading soprano part, and sang it until the end of the opera's long run. Fred Leslie was the Rip Van Winkle, and very fine he was, too. It was a pity he afterward became so thoroughly identified with burlesque." It was at the time of her first appearance in opera in England that the singer adopted the name of Camille D'Arville. It was chosen for euphony only, and had no significance whatever. After her success in "Rip Van Winkle" Miss D'Arville toured the English province with "Falka," and in 1887 returned to London to play in "Mynheer Jan." This was followed by an engagement at the Gaiety Theatre, and her position in London seemed established, when a quarrel with the management caused her to break her contract and she appeared at another theatre in the title rôle of "Babette." Miss D'Arville first came to this country in the spring of 1888, being under engagement to J. C. Duff; and her first appearance here was made in New York in April in "The Queen's Mate" in the cast with Lillian Russell. In the fall Miss D'Arville returned to London, where she appeared in "Carina," in which piece her charming archness was a feature. The Carl Rosa Company then engaged her to take the part of Yvonne in "Paul Jones," in which Agnes Huntington as the hero had taken the city by storm. With the same company she also created the title rôle in "Marjorie," which also enjoyed a long run. During the summer of 1889 Miss D'Arville became connected with the New York Casino, appearing in "La Fille de Madame Angot," "The Grand Duchess," and "Poor Jonathan." Back to London she hied herself once more, and for a time was heard at the Trocadero and Pavillon. Then she returned to the United States, and joined the Bostonians, with whom she sang Arline in "The Bohemian Girl," Maid Marion in "Robin Hood," and Katherine in a revival of "The Mascotte." She was probably the most satisfactory Maid Marion, all things considered, that ever sang the part. Certainly she was better as an actress than Marie Stone, who had previously taken the rôle, and she was physically better fitted to the character than Alice Nielsen. Critics, who up to that time had not been entirely satisfied with Miss D'Arville, claiming that her vocal method was bad and her acting oftentimes crude and meaningless, found her work in "Robin Hood" very much to their taste. "As a singer she has improved during the past year," said one. "Her tones are purer; she uses her voice with more discretion; and she has discovered that a scream is not synonymous with forte. She is vivacious; she lends a dramatic interest that has been sadly lacking in former performances of this company, when the members were too apt to mistake the audience for a congregation and the stage for a choir loft. She is fair to look upon, and yet she does not strive to monopolize attention." After quitting the Bostonians Miss D'Arville starred in Edward E. Rice's spectacular production of the extravaganza "Venus," which was first acted in Boston in September, 1893. Her dashing Prince Kam, that imaginary Thibetian potentate, who, finding no earthly beauty that satisfied his ideal, journeyed to Mars, where he succeeded in winning the love of Venus herself, was a thoroughly delightful characterization. "A Daughter of the Revolution," with which Miss D'Arville was next identified, was made over by J. Cheever Goodwin and Ludwig Engländer from a comic opera called "1776," produced some ten years before by a German company playing at the Thalia Theatre in New York. It achieved but limited popularity at that time, but in its revised form it was an agreeable, if not exactly exciting, entertainment. It was not an ideal comic opera, by any means. Too much of the machinery of construction was left visible for that. There were two characters, the dealer in military supplies and the laundress, so obviously dragged in simply because the low-comedy man needed a foil and a soubrette to play opposite to him, that one looked to see the marks of violence on their ears. But librettos are hard things to write--they must be or we should certainly find one now and then that is above reproach--so one would fain overlook jarring circumstances for the sake of the tuneful melodies of the score and the brisk action. Miss D'Arville sang well, and made an attractive picture in her series of becoming costumes. A starring tour in "Madeleine; or the Magic Kiss," a comic opera of considerable merit although it never won more than a fair degree of popularity, was her next venture, and then she was engaged to create the prima donna rôle of Lady Constance in "The Highwayman," a Reginald DeKoven and Harry B. Smith composition. A quarrel with the management while rehearsals were in progress caused her to retire from the company, however, and her place was taken by Hilda Clark. CHAPTER XIX MARIE TEMPEST [Illustration: MARIE TEMPEST.] No better characterization of Marie Tempest, that wonderfully fascinating personality which last appeared in this country during the season of 1893-94 in "The Algerian," have I ever seen than that written by Charles Frederick Nirdlinger and published several years ago in the "Illustrated American." "Nell Gwynne lives again in the person of Marie Tempest," declared Mr. Nirdlinger. "From out of a past tinkling with tuneful poesy, sparkling with the glory of palettes that limned only beauty and grace, bubbling with the merriment and gallantry of gay King Charlie's court, there trips down to moderns a most convincing counterfeit of that piquant creature. If one may trust imagination's ear, little Tempest sings as pretty Nell did: in the same tenuous, uncertain voice, with the same captivating tricks of tone, the same significant nuances, and the same amorous timbre. Tempest talks just as Nell did, and walks with the same sturdy stride,--there was nothing mincing about Nell,--and, if one may trust to fancy's eye, she looks just as Nell looked. I have seen Nell a hundred times, and so have you, dear reader. The mere sight of that curt, pert, and jadish name--Nell Gwynne--calls up that strangely alluring combination of features: the tip-tilted nose, the pouting lips, the eyes of a drowsy Cupid, the confident, impudent poise of the head. None of them fashioned to the taste of the painter or sculptor, but forming in their unity a face of pleasing witchery. "There is no record of Nell's artistic methods, of the school of her mimetic performance, or the style of her singing. All we know of that sort of thing we must gather from the rhymes and rhapsodies of the poets. Some of them wrote in prose, to be sure; but they were poets for all that, and poets are such an unreliable lot when it comes to judging such a girl as Nell. If she had any art, though, I'll be bound it was like Tempest's. There is but one way to be infinitely charming in the craft of the theatre,--the eternal verities of art prevent that it should be otherwise,--and whatever devices of mimic mechanism Nell employed must have been those of her modern congener. But she never studied in Paris, some sceptic will say, and Tempest did: how could Nell Gwynne have mastered the lightness of touch, the exquisite refinement of gesture, the infinity of significant byplay that constitute the distinctly Parisian method of Tempest? To that I would answer that Tempest's method is not distinctly Parisian, that it is not at all Parisian. She is a delightful artist, not because of her brief period of Gallic training, but in spite of it. "Elsewhere I have ventured an opinion on the subject of what we have been taught to regard as the French school of comic opera. That school, if we may judge of its academic principles and practices by the performances of some of its most proficient graduates, has nothing in common with the methods of Tempest. Wanton wiles and indecent suggestion,--these are the essential features of that ridiculously lauded French school; kicks and winks and ogling glances, postures of affected languor, and convincing feats of vicious sophistication. Where, in all that, is to be found the simple graciousness, the dainty, delicate, unobtrusive art of Marie Tempest? To liken her to the garish product of that French school--as well liken Carot's sensuous nymph of the wood to Bougereau's sensual nymph of the bath! For my own part, I don't believe Tempest belongs to any school, or if she does, it is a school of which she is at once mistress and sole pupil. Indeed, it may be doubted whether instruction and training have any considerable part in the charm of such a player. There are women of infinitely better method--not manner--of singing and acting; women with whom nature has dealt far more carefully and generously in beauty of face and figure; women even in no degree inferior to Tempest in innate allurement. But this little Englishwoman, with her svelte form and her bewitching face of ugly features, her tricky voice that makes one think of a thrush that has caught a cold, her impertinences and patronizing ways with her audience, has about her a vague, illusive something that makes of her the most fetching personality of the comic-opera stage." Marie Tempest, whose real name is Marie Etherington, was born in London in 1867. Her father died while she was a child, and she was educated abroad by her mother. Five or six years of her life were spent in a convent near Brussels. From there she was sent to Paris to finish her education, afterward going to London, where she became a student at the Royal Academy of Music. At that time she had no idea of going upon the stage. Her exceptional musical talent at once became apparent to the professors at the academy, notably Emanuel Garcia, who, although then upward of eighty years of age, took the liveliest interest in his young pupil. Miss Tempest worked so successfully with Garcia that within eighteen months of her entrance at the academy she had carried off from all other competitors the bronze, silver, and gold medals representing the highest rewards the academy could offer. She also studied for a time with Signor Randeggor, in London, and in 1886 made her first appearance on any stage at the London Comedy in "Boccaccio." It was a small part that she played in the London company managed by Arthur Henderson, and the salary which she received was four pounds a week. After that she created the soprano part in an opera called "The Fay o' Fire" at the Opera Comique, from thence returning for a few months to the Comedy Theatre to take Florence St. John's place in "Erminie." Miss Tempest then took an engagement with Augustus Harris at the Drury Lane in Hervise's comic opera, "Frivoli." In 1887 she joined Henry J. Leslie's company, then playing at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, London, in Alfred Cellier's opera, "Dorothy," in which she assumed the title rôle. In this part Miss Tempest made a very great success. She played in "Dorothy" for nearly nine hundred performances at the Prince of Wales and Lyric theatres. Subsequently she appeared at the Lyric in Cellier's opera of "Doris" and after that in "The Red Hussar." Although Miss Tempest was engaged chiefly in light opera, during these years she at various times undertook more serious work, frequently singing in oratorio and in the high-class London concerts. She came to this country for the first time in the spring of 1890, appearing in New York and after on tour as Kitty Carroll in "The Red Hussar." Her success was remarkable, and she at once became an established favorite. Although the prima donna of to-day might consider Kitty Carroll, with only its three changes of costume, from soldier to beggar girl and then to heiress, a veritable sinecure, Marie Tempest's skill in passing quickly from one character to another was ten years ago quite as much commented on as was her unquestionably artistic presentation of the triple rôles. She also repeated in this country her London success in "Dorothy," and sang in "Carmen" as well. Miss Tempest was next seen at the New York Casino as the successor to Lillian Russell and Pauline Hall. In the operetta, "The Tyrolean," she had a part scarcely equal to her abilities, although the nightingale song, which came in the last act, was a charming melody and was so delightfully sung by Miss Tempest as really to be the feature of the performance. In her peasant's dress Miss Tempest was the choicest of dainty morsels, a dream of fairylike loveliness. Her greatest success in this country, however, was "The Fencing Master" in which the prima donna rôle was peculiarly suited to her personality. This opera was built around the conceit of a master of fencing, who, not being blessed with a son to succeed him in his profession, brought up his daughter as a boy, and by severe training made her a most expert user of foil and sword. In this character Miss Tempest united remarkably well boyish freedom and masculine swagger with feminine charm and ingenuousness, and the picture that she made was one never to be forgotten. It was true, however, in spite of her great attractiveness in the part, that tights and tunic did take away a little of that subtle bewitchery, which was the root of her wonderful winsomeness in "Dorothy." It was a Boston critic, I believe, who said of her in this opera, that she suggested a Dresden china image that had hopped down from the mantel and committed an indiscretion. Still another, evidently a bit of a china connoisseur himself, applied the fancy porcelain simile with far more searching analysis. "She reminds one of a bit of Sèvres china," he declared, "although a pretty piece of Dresden would not be an inappropriate simile, especially when she is dressed in that picturesquely ragged costume in the first act. Sèvres china, however, is to an art connoisseur what truffles and pâte-de-foie gras are to an accomplished epicure." Whether she were Dresden china or Sèvres china, it mattered not; the main fact remained that a thoroughly feminine woman like Miss Tempest needed the fuss and feathers of feminine attire to bring out her attractions in the most effective way. That the public unconsciously felt this was proven even in "The Fencing Master," where her appearance in the last act in all the glory of court gown and flashing jewels was always the signal for the heartiest applause. In "The Algerian," by Reginald DeKoven and Glen MacDonough, which followed "The Fencing Master," being brought out in Philadelphia in September, 1893, Miss Tempest not only returned to the garb of her own sex, but appeared as well in her own auburn hair with that tiny irresistible curl hanging down the middle of her forehead, just like that of the little girl in the old ballad. At the close of the run of this opera in 1894, Miss Tempest returned to London. Her greatest hits of recent years in that city have been made as the heroine in "The Artist's Model" and as O Mimosa San in George Edwardes's original production of "The Geisha" at Daly's Theatre in London. CHAPTER XX MAUD RAYMOND High in the ranks of women low comedians who have been graduated from the variety theatre into musical comedy and extravaganza, is Maud Raymond, who fairly shares the honors with the Rogers Brothers in their popular vaudevilles. It would be unfair to call Miss Raymond an actress, for she does not aspire to be anything more than a delightful entertainer, whose unusual mimetic gifts and whose real or assumed sense of humor led her to adopt as the most natural thing imaginable the serious calling of making the world laugh. With her marked individuality, Miss Raymond drifted as a matter of course into character impersonation. In the days when she entered the varieties three distinct types of low-comedy characterizations were recognized--the Irish, the Dutch, and the negro. The first two were genuine burlesques, while the last named was the familiar minstrel type,--a great deal of burnt cork and an insignificant amount of genuine negro. Miss Raymond selected the Dutch type. Whether she was the first woman to attempt a Dutch character sketch, I do not know, but I am willing to risk the statement that she was the best one. An amazingly grotesque figure she presented, with her figure built on the lines of a meal sack with a string tied around the middle, and her huge sabots that clattered noisily every step she took. Her face was a study in ponderous stupidity, and her movements were slow and unwieldy. Yet, with all its grotesqueness, its mammoth exaggerations, there was human nature in the sketch and rich, full-blooded humor, the brutal, coarse humor of the soil, humor that had not been refined into flavorless delicacy nor polished into insipidness for the moral salvation of too easily shocked tenderlings. When the "coon" craze struck the stage, Miss Raymond was among the first to take that up, and she has clung faithfully to it ever since. Like all her work, her interpretation of the modern "coon" song is all her own. She does not reproduce so fantastically as some others the antics of the swell cake-walker, but she infuses into her work a rich humor that is infectious. In this one particular she resembles closely Miss May Irwin. May Irwin's "coon," however, is the Southern "mammy" type, while Maud Raymond's is of Northern city birth and training. In this aspect of her "coon" art, Miss Raymond seems nearer the progenitor of the up-to-date stage negro, who was, of course, the "nigger" minstrel of a number of decades ago. Miss Raymond's method was capitally illustrated in the song "I thought that he had Money in the Bank," which was introduced in "The Rogers Brothers in Wall Street" during the season of 1899-1900. Her dialect was by no means extraordinary. It had not the darky softness and twang, which one finds for instance so faithfully reproduced by Artie Hall. Miss Raymond, however, got a curious comic effect by twisting her words out of the corner of her mouth in a manner indescribable, by hunching up her shoulders, one a little higher than the other, thrusting her head forward, crooking her elbows, and letting her hands hang loose and lifeless as if they had been broken at the wrists. After seeing Miss Raymond's inimitable Dutch woman, I carried away the impression that she herself inclined toward embonpoint,--that she was grossly notoriously fat, in fact. Later observations, however, have caused me to revise that impression. Miss Raymond is not fat, merely comfortably plump. She is a decided brunette with rather irregular features, but features none the less attractive for that, snapping black eyes that seem always to sparkle with irrepressible merriment, and an inexhaustible amount of vivacity. Vivacity may, indeed, be said to be her specialty. It is always in evidence, and yet it never runs riot and it never becomes wearisome. Miss Raymond has been a vaudeville feature for the past twelve years. She made her first appearance with Rice and Barton's company, and afterward played two years with Harry Williams's Own Company. Her next appearance was in the soubrette part in "Bill's Boot," in which Joe J. Sullivan starred. She then joined Irwin Brothers' Company, in which she sang with great success. She spent several weeks in the Howard Athenæum Company when it was under James J. Armstrong's management, and finished the season with Fields and Hanson. Miss Raymond was specially engaged to play the soubrette rôle in Bolivar in Donnelly and Girard's "The Rainmakers." Those popular stars declared that the part had never been so well done as it was by Miss Raymond, but she was obliged to retire at the end of the season on account of illness. During the summer she appeared on the roof gardens and in the continuous houses. She joined Tony Pastor's company in the early fall, and played a season of fifteen weeks with that organization, meeting with great success. When the Rogers Brothers began starring with "The Reign of Error" in the fall of 1898, she was made a prominent feature of their company, and she continued with them as their leading support the following season in "The Rogers Brothers in Wall Street." She is also the wife of one of the brothers, though whether of Max or Gus I never can remember. CHAPTER XXI PAULINE HALL A very remarkable woman is Pauline Hall, whose stage career of twenty-five years encompasses every experience possible in light opera in this country. Miss Hall began as a dancer. She spent her apprenticeship in the chorus. She sang inconsequential rôles in opera, and she acted small parts in drama. She had her season in burlesque. She was for years the foremost figure in the best light-opera organization this country has ever known. She has starred, and she is to-day a better singer than the majority of her youthful contemporaries, a better actress than all except a very few of them, and a more satisfactory all-around artist--if the expression be permissible--than any of them. When I heard her sing with Francis Wilson in "Cyrano de Bergerac"--about the stupidest opera, by the way, ever produced--and in "Erminie" in the spring of 1900, I was amazed; her voice was in splendid condition, certainly better than it had been five years before, true in tone, clear, and without huskiness. It showed its wear only in the loss of the richness and sweetness--the music, one might say--of the old Casino days. In figure Miss Hall was trim and youthful. Her face was plump and rounded like a girl's. Her hair, cut short for boys' parts and coquettishly curled, retained its dark, almost black, hue, while her eyes--wonderfully handsome they always were--snapped and sparkled like a débutante's. Pauline Hall's fame reached its height during the long run of "Erminie" at the New York Casino. She was the originator of the rôle of the Erminie, and she sang in the opera in all the principal cities of the country. She was--and is still, for that matter--one of the finest formed women on the American stage, and her stately manner and graceful demeanor gained for her the sobriquet so commonly associated with her name--statuesque. During her subsequent starring career Miss Hall continued a popular favorite, although she was not consistently successful in obtaining operas of notable merit. "Puritania" met with excellent success, but "The Honeymooners" and "Dorcas" were neither of them strong enough to make any lasting impression. They were both of the familiar "prima donna in tights" type, and their librettos were without striking originality, and their scores showed only commonplace tunefulness. In spite of this handicap Miss Hall succeeded in maintaining--largely through the force of her personality and art--her place among the foremost in light opera in this country. During the season of 1899-1900 she most happily again became associated with Francis Wilson, who is also an "Erminie" product. Miss Hall, with her renewed youth and her years of experience, at once took a position in Wilson's company, second only to the star. In "Cyrano" she made Christian--a barren and sterile character--vigorous, picturesque, and attractive, while her Princess in "Erminie," barring the loss of vocal mellowness already referred to, was stronger than it was a dozen years ago. Pauline Hall's active life on the stage began when she was about fifteen years old. She was born in Cincinnati about 1860 in rather humble quarters in the rear of her father's apothecary shop on Seventh Street. She bore the somewhat formidable and decidedly German name of Pauline Fredericka Schmidgall, until she adopted the simple and harmonious stage name of Pauline Hall. It was in 1875, at Robinson's Opera House in Cincinnati, under the management of Colonel R. E. J. Miles, that Miss Hall made her first appearance on the stage. She began at the very bottom of the ladder, an "extra girl" in the chorus and a dancer in the ballet. Next she journeyed to the Grand Opera House in the same city, a theatre which was also under Colonel Miles's management, where she remained until the versatile Mr. Miles organized and put on the road his "America's Racing Association and Hippodrome," a circus-like enterprise. She was made a feature in the street parade tableaux of Mazeppa used to advertise the attraction, and a very effective figure she must have been, too, for she was a handsome girl and a picture of physical perfection. Besides luring the public to the show, Miss Hall entertained it after it got there by driving a Roman chariot in the races. After a summer of this exciting work Miss Hall returned to the theatre as a member of the chorus of the Alice Oates Opera Company, which was at that time making a Western tour under the management of the same Colonel Miles. Alice Oates was then in her prime, and the most popular operatic star in the country. She was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and educated in Louisville. When she was nineteen years old she made her début in Chicago in the Darnley burlesque, "The Field of the Cloth of Gold." She sang in "The Little Duke," "The Mascotte," "The Pretty Perfumer," "The Princess of Trebizonde," "The Grand Duchess," and "Olivette," and was one of the first of the many Ralph Rackstraws in "Pinafore" in this country. She died in Philadelphia on January 11, 1887, at the early age of thirty-seven years. She was small of figure and pretty of face, unusually so off the stage and dazzlingly so on the stage. Her voice was of rare compass and sympathetic in tone, and her acting was vivacious, dashing, and hearty. After leaving the Alice Oates Company, small parts in Samuel Colville Folly company gave Miss Hall a slight advance in the theatrical world, and then she made her first and only appearance in the "legitimate." She joined Mary Anderson's company, and for three or four months acted minor characters in the plays of Miss Anderson's repertory, which at that time was somewhat limited. Among Miss Hall's parts were Lady Capulet in "Romeo and Juliet" and the Widow Melnotte in Lord Bulwer Lytton's stilted melodrama, "The Lady of Lyons." In 1880, Miss Hall first began to be noticed by professional discoverers of stage talent. She was then a member of Edward E. Rice's "Surprise Party," with which she appeared in "Horrors" and "Revels." Next, in Rice's greatest success, "Evangeline," Miss Hall played Gabrielle and even Hans Wagner, being the first woman to try the droll character. In the fall of 1882 she went on a tour with J. H. Haverly's "Merry War" company, and sang the part of Elsa. With Haverly she also appeared in "Patience." Following this engagement she rejoined Mr. Rice's forces, and on December 1, 1883, opened with his company at the Bijou Opera House, New York, where she created the part of Venus in "Orpheus and Eurydice." She was a success from the start, and continued with Mr. Rice until the close of the run of the burlesque on March 15 of the following year, when she went with the company, under the management of Miles and Barton, on the road. On her return to New York, Miss Hall again appeared at the Bijou, on May 6, 1884, as Hasson in a revival of "Blue Beard," following this with another road experience that lasted until July. In August she began an engagement at Niblo's Garden, New York, as Loresoul in Poole and Gilmour's spectacular production of "The Seven Ravens." The part was a singing one, and Miss Hall added considerably to her popularity among the frequenters of the burlesque shows that were so largely patronized in those days. In February, 1885, Miss Hall was in the title rôle of "Ixion" at the Comedy Theatre, New York, though only for a short time, and on April 4 she made her first appearance in a German speaking part, singing Prince Orloffsky in "Die Fiedermaus" at the Thalia Theatre. On May 25 Miss Hall opened with Nat C. Goodwin at the Park Theatre, Boston, and created the character of Oberon in the travesty "Bottom's Dream." This was a failure, and in a few weeks Miss Hall returned to New York, where she signed with Rudolph Aronson of the Casino, making her first appearance as Ninon de l'Enclos in the English presentation of "Nanon." She did well with the part, and further increased the favorable impression that she had made by her Angelo in "Amorita" and her Saffi in "The Gipsy Baron." Next came "Erminie," which achieved a success as yet unequalled by any light opera in this country unless it be "Robin Hood." The successor to "Erminie" was "Nadjy," also a famous hit, in which, however, Miss Hall's part of the Princess Etelka was overshadowed by the character of Nadjy, the dancer, so captivatingly played by Marie Jansen in the original production. After "Nadjy" came "The Drum Major," which failed, however, to make any lasting impression. After leaving the Casino Miss Hall began her career as a star, appearing in "Puritania." This was followed the next year by "Amorita" and "Madame Favart," while "Puritania" was retained in her repertory. The season succeeding she brought out "The Honeymooners." During 1894-95 her operas were "La Belle Hélène," a revival of "The Chimes of Normandy," and "Dorcas." She then retired from the stage for a while, and afterward appeared in vaudeville until she joined Francis Wilson. "Puritania, or the Earl and the Maid of Salem," the best known and most successful of all her operas, was produced in Boston in the summer of 1892. The opera was written by C. M. S. McLellan, and Edgar Stillman Kelley was responsible for the music. The story of the opera was decidedly attractive. The action began in Salem. Elizabeth, a fair young miss of the town, had been accused of being a witch by Abigail, a confirmed woman-hater. Elizabeth was tried by the local tribunal and was condemned, chiefly because she had refused to wed Jonathan Blaze, the chief justice of the court. Just as the sentence was pronounced an English ship arrived in the harbor, and Vivian, Earl of Barrenlands, came ashore. He rescued Elizabeth from the mob, and captivated by her beauty proceeded to make love to her. Nothing would do but he must take her back to England with him. Smith, the Witch-finder-general to his Majesty Charles II., was indignant because Vivian had won the girl, and threatened to expose her as a witch to the king. The second act took place in a subterranean chamber under the king's palace, where Killsin Burgess, a conspirator, was plotting after the Guy Fawkes fashion to blow up everything. So deeply did he meditate on divers plots and treasons, that he fell asleep, lighted pipe in mouth and seated on a keg of gunpowder. The next scene showed the palace where King Charles had just bestowed his favor on Vivian and the future Countess of Barrenlands. Smith entered with Blaze and Abigail, and the trio denounced Elizabeth as a witch. Elizabeth, driven half mad by their false accusations, mockingly declared that she was a witch, and proceeded to "weave a spell." She summoned Asmodeus, the Prince of Eternal Darkness, to appear. A loud report was heard, and the form of Burgess was hurled through the air. The sparks from his pipe had ignited the keg of powder which exploded just as Elizabeth was pretending to display her powers. Of course, Elizabeth was condemned by the king on this _prima facie_ evidence; but Burgess, recognizing her as his daughter, confessed his conspiracy against the king, and all ended happily. Miss Hall gave the opera a first-class production, a fine cast, and handsome scenery. Louise Beaudet acted Elizabeth, and graceful and charming she was, too. Miss Hall herself played Vivian. Frederic Solomon was the original Witch-finder-general, and his conception of the character was thoroughly original. Jacques Kruger as the Judge, Eva Davenport as Abigail, John Brand as the King, and Alf Wheelan as the Conspirator were all happily chosen. The opera ran in Boston from June until September. Then Miss Hall took the opera on the road for a season. "Puritania" was tuneful and bright in action. The dialogue was often sparkling, the fun was spontaneous, and the three comedians had parts which had the added value of being characters. Vivian was admirably suited to Miss Hall's talents. Her songs were given with spirit, her acting had that freedom so characteristic of her "boys," while her costumes were pictorially gorgeous. Miss Hall's first husband was Edward White, whom she met in San Francisco in 1878, where he was engaged in mining enterprises. They were married in St. Louis in February, 1881. Eight years later Miss Hall secured a divorce from Mr. White, and in 1891 she was married to George B. McLellan, the manager of her company. CHAPTER XXII HILDA CLARK The divine gift of song has placed Hilda Clark, whose ability as an actress is by no means great, in a position of prominence in the theatrical world. She went on the stage because she could sing, and did not learn to sing because she was on the stage; and, owing to the fact that there is, always has been, and always will be a demand for attractive young women with pleasing singing voices, she has had her fair measure of success. Miss Clark has also the added charm of more than ordinary physical attractiveness. She is a blonde of prettily irregular features. Her personality is winning rather than compelling, and her stage presence is good, though there are times when this would have been improved by more bodily grace and freedom. Byron, who hated a "dumpy woman," would have found Miss Clark "divinely tall and most divinely fair," but very likely he would have advised her to take a mild course in calisthenics in order to acquire conscious control of a somewhat unruly physique. Hilda Clark comes of an old Southern family, several of whose members won military distinction. An ancestor of hers, Colonel Winston, was awarded a sword by Congress for his services in the Revolutionary War. Her great-grandfather, General Winston, was distinguished in the war of 1812, while several of her relatives were noted for gallantry during the Civil War. Miss Clark was born in Leavenworth, Kansas, in the early seventies. When her father, who was a banker, died, the family removed to Boston, where Miss Clark was educated. As she grew into womanhood, her voice attracted the attention of her friends, and by their advice she went to Europe, where she studied music for two years. On her return to this country she became the soprano of St. Mark's Church in New York City, and it was there that Willard Spenser, the composer of "The Princess Bonnie," first heard her sing. Miss Clark's voice is what is technically known as a soprano legere, and while she excels in floria music, her voice has considerable of that rare sympathetic quality possessed by coloratura singers. Her work in the theatre may be summed up in a few words. She made her début in the title rôle of "The Princess Bonnie" in September, 1895. After that she accepted the offer of The Bostonians, with whom she appeared for a season. In "The Serenade" she alternated in the rôle of Yvonne, the ballet dancer, with Alice Nielsen, and she also sung Maid Marian in "Robin Hood" and Arline in "The Bohemian Girl." Next she was engaged by Klaw and Erlanger. She created the part of Lady Constance in "The Highwayman" after Camille D'Arville, who was expected to take the character, had quarrelled with the stage manager over some detail in the action, and refused to have anything more to do with the opera. Miss Clark was quite successful in this character, and it may be said to have established her firmly in the ranks of the light opera prima donnas. Next came her appearance in the prima donna rôle of John Philip Sousa's opera "The Bride Elect," in which she is best known by the general public. Sousa is the most eminent composer for the bass drum and the cymbals that we have, and he can make music with more accents than any other man in the business. His powerful first and third beats set the feet to tapping and the head to nodding, and the American public thinks that it is great stuff. So it is, the finest music for a military parade that ever came out of a brass band. Sousa writes his music with a metronome at his elbow clacking out the marching cadence of 120 to the minute. Every time the machine clacks he puts in a bang on the big drum and a clash with the cymbals. Then he weaves a stately moving melody around the bangs and the clashes, marks the whole business "fortissimo," and lets it go. He does not bother much about originality. His strong point is marches, and he knows it. In "The Bride Elect," he gave us marches--shall we say "galore"? The score was undoubtedly catchy, and the tunes pleased for the moment. As for the book, which was also by Sousa, it was nothing to boast of. It served admirably as a ringer-in for the marches. Miss Clark's work in "The Bride Elect" was thoroughly satisfactory. She sang the music with splendid effect and with much brilliancy. Her acting, to be sure, was hardly all that could be desired, but, fortunately for her success, the book did not call for any great dramatic force. Miss Clark's career has been somewhat unusual in that she took at once a position of importance on the stage and has continued in positions of importance ever since. All this has happened because she could sing; and so busy has she been with her singing that she really has had no time to learn to act. In other words, in spite of her five years behind the footlights, she still lacks experience. The woman who starts in a humble capacity in the chorus and who climbs slowly to the heights of calciumdom may have at first very crude notions regarding action, but she learns as time goes on to be non-committal in gesture at least. She may not develop into a histrionic genius, but she does acquire facility in the conventions of light opera that so often stand for acting. It is of just this facility that Hilda Clark is most in need. Index "Algerian," Tempest, Marie, 222, 232. "All the Comforts of Home," Hall, Josephine, 47. "American Beauty," May, Edna, 152. Russell, Lillian, 32. American Opera Company, 98. "Amorita," Hall, Pauline, 247, 248. Anderson, Mary, 245. "Apollo," Russell, Lillian, 32. "Aristocracy," Hall, Josephine, 47. Aronson, Rudolph, 247. "Artist's Model," Tempest, Marie, 232. Ashley, Minnie, 134. Atherton, Alice, 40. "Babette," D'Arville, Camille, 217. Barnabee, H. C., 19. Barnet, R. A., 82, 83, 140, 141. Barrymore, Maurice, 190. Beaudet, Louise, 251. "Belle Hélène," Hall, Pauline, 248. Hopper, Edna Wallace, 112. Lessing, Madge, 82. Russell, Lillian, 42. "Belle of New York," Edwardes, Paula, 113, 118. May, Edna, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153. Bennett & Moulton Opera Company, 189, 190, 192, 193, 194, 199. Bernard, Caroline Richings, 94. Bernhardt, Sarah, 28. "Billie Taylor," Fox, Della, 199. "Bill's Boot," Raymond, Maud, 137. "Black Sheep," Edwardes, Paula, 117. "Blue Beard," Hall, Pauline, 246. "Boccaccio," Tempest, Marie, 227. "Bohemian Girl," Clark, Hilda, 256. D'Arville, Camille, 218. Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 99. Fox, Della, 199. Nielsen, Alice, 20. Bostonians, Clark, Hilda, 255, 256. D'Arville, Camille, 218, 219. Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 88, 98, 99. Nielsen, Alice, 19, 20. "Bottom's Dream," Hall, Pauline, 247. Braham, Harry, 38. Brand, John, 251. "Bride Elect," Celeste, Marie, 169. Clark, Hilda, 256, 257, 258. MacDonald, Christie, 180. "Brigands," Russell, Lillian, 31, 32, 42. "Broadway to Tokio," Templeton, Fay, 76, 78. "Brownies," Celeste, Marie, 169. Burnett, Mrs. Frances Hodgson, 197. Burt, Laura, 118. "Carina," D'Arville, Camille, 217. Carl Rosa Opera Company, 217, 218. Carleton Opera Company, 98. "Carmen," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 99. Tempest, Marie, 229. Casino, New York, 25, 27, 29, 40, 65, 66, 200, 201, 206, 218, 229, 240, 247, 248. "Casino Girl," Earle, Virginia, 29. Gilman, Mabelle, 65. Castle Square Opera Company, 19, 169. "Castles in the Air," Fox, Della, 194, 195, 200, 201. "Cavalleria Rusticana," Celeste, Marie, 169, 170. "Celebrated Case," Fox, Della, 196. Celeste, Marie, 156. Cellier, Alfred, 228. "Chantaclara," Nielsen, Alice, 14. "Chieftain," Glaser, Lulu, 128, 129, 130, 131. MacDonald, Christie, 180. "Chilperic," D'Arville, Camille, 216. "Chimes of Normandy," Fox, Della, 199. Hall, Pauline, 248. "Chorus Girl," Ashley, Minnie, 141. "Chris and the Wonderful Lamp," Hopper, Edna Wallace, 112. "Chums," Hopper, Edna Wallace, 110. "Cigale," Russell, Lillian, 32. "Cinderella," Earle, Virginia, 26. "Circus Girl," Ashley, Minnie, 135, 141. Earle, Virginia, 28. Gilman, Mabelle, 65. Clark, Hilda, 221, 253. "Club Friend," Hopper, Edna Wallace, 109. Collier, Willie, 164. "Combustion," Fox, Della, 197, 198, 199. Conried, Heinrich, 199, 200. "Contented Woman," May, Edna, 148. "Corsair," Earle, Virginia, 26. Templeton, Fay, 74. "County Fair," Earle, Virginia, 26. Crox, Elvia, 117. "Cymbria, or the Magic Thimble," D'Arville, Camille, 215, 216. "Cyrano de Bergerac," Glaser, Lulu, 124, 133. Hall, Pauline, 240, 242. Dale, Alan, 7, 8. Daly, Augustin, 27, 29, 64, 71, 118. "Dangerous Maid," Edwardes, Paula, 118. Lessing, Madge, 86. D'Arville, Camille, 190, 208, 256. "Daughter of the Revolution," D'Arville, Camille, 220, 221. Davenport, Eva, 251. Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 88, 208. Davis, William J., 95. Dazey, C. T., 103. DeAngelis, Jefferson, 42, 206. DeKoven, Reginald, 221, 232. Desci, Max, 9. "Devil's Deputy," Glaser, Lulu, 128. MacDonald, Christie, 179, 180. Dickson Sketch Club, 196, 197, 198, 199. Dickson, W. F., 196, 197, 198, 199. "Dinorah," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 97. "Don Quixote," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 99. "Dorcas," Hall, Pauline, 241, 248. "Doris," Tempest, Marie, 228. "Dorothy," Tempest, Marie, 228, 229, 232. Dressler, Marie, 181. "Dr. Syntax," Hopper, Edna Wallace, 111. "Drum Major," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 98. Hall, Pauline, 248. Duff, J. C., 141, 217. Duff Opera Company, 41. Duse, Eleanora, 187. Earle, Virginia, 21. "Editha's Burglar," Fox, Della, 197, 198, 199. Edouin, Willie, 40. Edwardes, George, 232. Edwardes, Paula, 47, 113. Edwards, Julian, 172, 178. "El Capitan," Ashley, Minnie, 140. Hopper, Edna Wallace, 107, 111. Engländer, Ludwig, 220. "Erminie," Glaser, Lulu, 128, 133. Hall, Pauline, 240, 242, 248. MacDonald, Christie, 179. Russell, Lillian, 32. Tempest, Marie, 227. "Evangeline," Earle, Virginia, 26. Hall, Josephine, 47. Hall, Pauline, 245. Templeton, Fay, 74. "Excelsior, Jr.," Templeton, Fay, 75. "Falka," D'Arville, Camille, 217. Farnie, H. B., 216. Farrington, Adele, 187. "Fatinitza," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 99. "Faust," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 96, 97, 99. "Fay o' Fire," Tempest, Marie, 228. "Fencing Master," Tempest, Marie, 230, 231, 232. "Fiedermaus," Hall, Pauline, 247. "Fille de Madame Angot," D'Arville, Camille, 218. First Corps of Cadets, 82, 117. Fiske, Minnie Maddern, 67, 70, 71, 72. "Fleur-de-lis," Fox, Della, 202. "Fortune Teller," Nielsen, Alice, 5, 7, 20. Fougère, 76, 78, 79, 80. "1492," 82. Ashley, Minnie, 140. Dressler, Marie, 190. Fox, Della, 27, 42, 72, 104, 110, 111, 168, 190, 192. "Fra Diavolo," Fox, Della, 193, 194, 199. Frazer, Robert, 74. "Frivoli," Tempest, Marie, 228. Frohman, Charles, 47, 109, 111. Fursch-Nadi, 98. Furst, William, 201, 202. Garcia, Emanuel, 227. "Geisha," Ashley, Minnie, 135, 141. Earle, Virginia, 23, 24, 27. Gilman, Mabelle, 65. Tempest, Marie, 232. Gerard, Bettina, 117. Gilbert, W. S., 19, 26, 31. Gill, William, 74. Gillette, William, 199. Gilman, Mabelle, 56, 86. "Gipsy Baron," Hall, Pauline, 247, 248. "Girl from Maxim's," Hall, Josephine, 49, 50, 51. "Girl from Paris," Hall, Josephine, 46, 48. "Girl I Left Behind Me," Hopper, Edna Wallace, 110. "Giroflé-Girofla," Celeste, Marie, 168. Russell, Lillian, 32, 42. Templeton, Fay, 74. Glaser, Lulu, 120, 179. Goodwin, J. Cheever, 201, 202, 204, 220. Goodwin, N. C., 164, 247. "Grand Duchess," Celeste, Marie, 168. D'Arville, Camille, 218. Russell, Lillian, 32, 42. Grau, Jules, 188, 189. "Great Metropolis," Celeste, Marie, 163. "Great Ruby," Edwardes, Paula, 118. "Greek Slave," Ashley, Minnie, 135, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146. Hale, Philip, 202, 203, 204, 205. "Half-a-King," Glaser, Lulu, 131. MacDonald, Christie, 180. Hall, Artie, 236. Hall, Josephine, 46, 116. Hall, Pauline, 179, 208, 229, 239. Hallen, Fred, 26. Hammerstein, Oscar, 148. Harlow, Richard, 191. Harris, Augustus, 228. Hart, Joseph, 26. Haverly, J. H., 85, 246. Henderson, Arthur, 227. Henderson, William J., 159. "Hendrik Hudson," Templeton, Fay, 74, 75. Herbert, Victor, 5, 6. Herne, James A., 73. "Highwayman," Clark, Hilda, 256. "Hole in the Ground," Earle, Virginia, 26. "Honeymooners," Hall, Pauline, 241, 248. Hopper, DeWolf, 27, 104, 110, 111, 140, 146, 170, 200, 201. Hopper, Edna Wallace, 42, 104, 140. "Horrors," Hall, Pauline, 245. "Hoss and Hoss," Celeste, Marie, 164, 165, 166, 167. "Hotel Topsy Turvy," Dressler, Marie, 191. Howard, Bronson, 47. Hoyt, Charles H., 26, 148, 164. Huntington, Agnes, 99, 218. "In Gay New York," Earle, Virginia, 27, 28. "In Mexico" (see "War Time Wedding"). Irwin, May, 235. "Ixion," Hall, Pauline, 247. "Jack," Hall, Josephine, 47. "Jack and the Beanstalk," Celeste, Marie, 169. Lessing, Madge, 81, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87. "Jane," Hopper, Edna Wallace, 110. Jansen, Marie, 120, 127, 128, 248. Jones, Walter, 146. Juch, Emma, 98, 200. Kelley, Edgar Stillman, 249. "King's Fool," Fox, Della, 200. Klaw and Erlanger, 82, 169, 180, 256. "Knickerbockers," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 100. Koster and Bial's, 81. Kruger, Jacques, 251. "Lady of Lyons," Hall, Pauline, 245. "Lady Slavey," Dressler, Marie, 183, 184, 188, 191. Earle, Virginia, 27. Lessing, Madge, 87. L'Allemand, Pauline, 98. LaShelle, Kirk, 172, 173, 174, 175. Lask, George E., 19. "Later On," Earle, Virginia, 26. Lederer, George W., 25, 27, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 200. "Lend Me Your Wife," Hopper, Edna Wallace, 109. Lenox, Fred, 142. Leonard, Charles E., 33, 35. Leslie, Elsie, 197. Leslie, Fred, 216. Leslie, Henry J., 228. Lessing, Madge, 81, 118. "Lion Tamer," Glaser, Lulu, 127, 128. MacDonald, Christie, 179. "Little Corporal," Glaser, Lulu, 124, 131, 132. "Little Duke," Celeste, Marie, 108. Russell, Lillian, 32. "Little Host," Fox, Della, 207. "Little Red Riding Hood," Lessing, Madge, 86. "Little Trooper," Celeste, Marie, 168. Fox, Della, 168, 201, 202. Lloyd, Violet, 27. Lucia, Alice Nielsen as, 19. MacDonald, Christie, 169, 172. MacDonough, Glen, 232. "Madame Favart," Hall, Pauline, 248. Templeton, Fay, 75. "Madeleine, or, the Magic Kiss," D'Arville, Camille, 221. Dressler, Marie, 190. "Maid of Plymouth," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 100. "Mam'selle 'Awkins," Edwardes, Paula, 113, 116, 119. Hall, Josephine, 47, 52, 53. "Man in the Moon," Dressler, Marie, 191. Templeton, Fay, 76, 77. Mapleson, Colonel, 95, 96, 97. "Marjorie," D'Arville, Camille, 218. "Martha," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 99. Martinot, Sadie, 216. "Mascotte," D'Arville, Camille, 218. Templeton, Fay, 74. May, Edna, 147. McCaull, John A., 40. McLellan, C. M. S., 249. McLellan, George B., 252. "Meg Merrilies," Earle, Virginia, 27. "Men and Women," Hopper, Edna Wallace, 110. "Merchant of Venice," Gilman, Mabelle, 65. "Merry Monarch," Glaser, Lulu, 128. MacDonald, Christie, 179. "Merry War," Hall, Pauline, 246. "Merry World," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 98. Earle, Virginia, 27. "Midsummer Night's Dream," Templeton, Fay, 71, 73. "Mikado," Dressler, Marie, 188. Earle, Virginia, 26. Nielsen, Alice, 19. Miles, R. E. J., 243, 244. "Mountebanks," Russell, Lillian, 32. "Muldoon's Picnic," Fox, Della, 195. "Mynheer Jan," D'Arville, Camille, 217. "Nadjy," Hall, Pauline, 248. Russell, Lillian, 41. "Nanon," Hall, Pauline, 247. National Opera Company, 98. Neutwig, Benjamin, 10, 11. Nielsen, Alice, 1, 219, 255. Nirdlinger, Charles Frederick, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226. Oates, Alice, 243, 244. Offenbach, Jacques, 31, 216. "One Round of Pleasure," Celeste, Marie, 169. O'Neill, James, 196. "Orpheus and Eurydice," Hall, Pauline, 246. Palmer, A. M., 191. Palmer, Frank, 166, 167. "Panjandrum," Fox, Della, 194, 201. Hopper, Edna Wallace, 106, 110, 111. "Passing Show," Earle, Virginia, 27. Lessing, Madge, 82. Pastor, Tony, 33, 38, 39, 238. "Patience," Earle, Virginia, 26. Hall, Pauline, 246. Russell, Lillian, 40. Patti, Adelina, 96, 97. "Paul Jones," D'Arville, Camille, 218. "Penelope," Nielsen, Alice, 18. "Perichole," Celeste, Marie, 168. Nielsen, Alice, 19. Russell, Lillian, 32, 42. Perugini, Giovanni, 45. Pike Opera Company, 18, 26. "Pinafore," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 95. Earle, Virginia, 26. Fox, Della, 195, 196. Russell, Lillian, 37. "Pirates of Penzance," Earle, Virginia, 26. Fox, Della, 199. Plympton, Eben, 47. "Polly," Russell, Lillian, 41. "Poor Jonathan," D'Arville, Camille, 218. Russell, Lillian, 32. "Poupée," Gilman, Mabelle, 65. "Prince Ananias," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 100. Nielsen, Alice, 20. "Prince Pro Tem," Ashley, Minnie, 137, 141, 142. "Princess Bonnie," Clark, Hilda, 255. "Princess Chic," MacDonald, Christie, 172, 176, 177, 178, 180. "Princess Nicotine," Celeste, Marie, 168. Dressler, Marie, 191. Russell, Lillian, 32, 45. "Princess of Trebizonde," Russell, Lillian, 41, 42. Puerner, Charles, 190. "Puritania," Hall, Pauline, 241, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252. "Queen's Mate," D'Arville, Camille, 217. Russell, Lillian, 32. "Rainmakers," Raymond, Maud, 238. Raymond, Maud, 233. "Red Hussar," Tempest, Marie, 228, 229. Reed, Charles, 164. Reed, Roland, 109. Rehan, Ada, 28. "Reign of Error," Raymond, Maud, 238. "Revels," Hall, Pauline, 245. Rice, Edward E., 26, 37, 47, 140, 219, 245, 246. "Rip Van Winkle," D'Arville, Camille, 216, 217. "Robber of the Rhine," Dressler, Marie, 190. "Robin Hood," Clark, Hilda, 255. D'Arville, Camille, 218, 219. Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 91, 99, 100, 101. Nielsen, Alice, 20. Rogers Brothers, 233, 238. "Rogers Brothers in Wall Street," Raymond, Maud, 235, 236, 238. "Romeo and Juliet," Hall, Pauline, 245. Root, Fred, 94. Root, George F., 95. "Rounders," Gilman, Mabelle, 56, 61, 62, 63, 65, 86. Lessing, Madge, 86, 87. "Runaway Girl," Celeste, Marie, 160, 161, 169. Earle, Virginia, 23, 24, 28. Edwardes, Paula, 113, 115, 116, 117, 119. Gilman, Mabelle, 65. Russell, Lillian, 30, 168, 191, 206, 208, 217, 229. Sadler, Josie, 142. "Santa Maria," May, Edna, 148. Savage, Henry W., 19, 169. Seabrooke, Thomas Q., 117. "Serenade," Clark, Hilda, 255. Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 100. Nielsen, Alice, 20. "Seven Ravens," Hall, Pauline, 246, 247. Sheldon, William, 146. "Shenandoah," Hall, Josephine, 47. "Singing Girl," Nielsen, Alice, 4, 5. Smith, Edgar, 97. Smith, Harry B., 5, 7, 65, 159, 221. Smythe, W. G., 196. "Snake Charmer," Russell, Lillian, 40. Solomon, Edward, 41. Solomon, Frederic, 251. Solomon Opera Company, 82. "Sorcerer," Russell, Lillian, 40. Sothern, E. H., 197. Sousa, John Philip, 256, 257. Spenser, Willard, 255. "Sphinx," MacDonald, Christie, 180. Stange, Stanislaus, 5, 6. St. John, Florence, 228. Stone, Marie, 218. Sullivan, Arthur, 19, 26. Sullivan, Joe J., 237. "Suzette," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 99. Sykes, Jerome, 112. Teal, Ben, 163. "Tempest," Earle, Virginia, 28. Gilman, Mabelle, 65. Tempest, Marie, 222. Templeton, Fay, 67. Templeton, John, 72. Thomas, Augustus, 196, 197, 198, 199. Thomas, Theodore, 98. Thompson, L. S., 141. Titus, Fred, 147. Tivoli Opera Company, 19. "Tobasco," Edwardes, Paula, 117. "Troubadour," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 99. "Twenty Minutes in Shirt Waists," Dressler, Marie, 186, 187, 188. "Tyrolean," Tempest, Marie, 229, 230. "Tzigane," Celeste, Marie, 168. Russell, Lillian, 32. Urquhart, Isabelle, 41. Vane, Alice, 67. "Venus," D'Arville, Camille, 219, 220. "Vie," D'Arville, Camille, 216. "Virginia," Russell, Lillian, 41. "Walking Delegate," MacDonald, Christie, 180. "Wang," Celeste, Marie, 170. Earle, Virginia, 27. Fox, Della, 194, 201. Hopper, Edna Wallace, 111. "War Time Wedding," Davis, Jessie Bartlett, 100, 102, 103. Nielsen, Alice, 20. Weathersby, Eliza, 74. Weber and Fields, 42, 75, 197. "Wedding Day," Fox, Della, 206. Russell, Lillian, 42. Weil, Oscar, 103. Wheelan, Alf. C., 251. "Whirl of the Town," Lessing, Madge, 82. White, Edward, 252. Wilson, Francis, 120, 121, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 179, 240, 242, 249. "Wonder," Earle, Virginia, 28. "World's Fair," Earle, Virginia, 26. "Yankee Doodle Dandy," Hopper, Edna Wallace, 112. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected as follows: Pages 176 and 212: "d'Arville" changed to "D'Arville" Page 198: "debut" changed to "début" Punctuation has been corrected without note. 
59724	----	[Illustration: Cover art] [Frontispiece: ...stood with arms interlocked and heads touching as their voices soared in the grand finale.] _The Baritone's Parish_ _or_ "_All Things to all Men_" _By_ _James M. Ludlow_ _Fleming H. Revell Company_ _New York Chicago Toronto_ _MDCCCXCVI_ Copyright, 1896, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY. BOOKS BY JAMES M. LUDLOW, D.D., Litt.D. THE CAPTAIN OF THE JANIZARIES. A Story of the Times of Scanderbey, and the Fall of Constantinople. A KING OF TYRE. Contrasted Scenes of Jewish and Phoenician Life, 400 B.C., woven into romance. THAT ANGELIC WOMAN. A Story from High Life To-day. A MAN FOR 'A THAT; OR, "MY SAINT JOHN." A Story of City Life among the Lowly. THE AGE OF THE CRUSADES. Life in the XI. and XII. Centuries. _In preparation_. THE BARITONE'S PARISH; OR, "ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN" The pulpit and the choir gallery are closely related in our city churches. It is, however, a sad fact that the "sons of the prophets" and the "sons of Korah" usually know but little of one another; and this is to the loss of both. To the musicians the minister often seems a recluse, and the clergyman comes to look upon his choir as a band of itinerant minstrels. It is therefore very refreshing to note that between the pastor of St. Philemon's, the Rev. Dr. Wesley Knox, and Mr. Philip Vox, there sprang up an intimacy almost from the day when the new baritone sang his first solo. It was Shelley's "Resurrection," which had been rendered as an offertory after one of the doctor's finest efforts at an Easter sermon. Deacon Brisk, the chairman of the music committee, met the preacher at the chancel-rail within fifteen seconds after the benediction had been pronounced; before the sexton could deliver a message that a parishioner was in momentary expectation of death, and required the pastor's immediate attendance; before Lawyer Codey had adjusted his silk hat like a falcon on his wrist preparatory to his stately march down the middle aisle; and even before the soprano had adjusted her handsome face and bonnet over the front of the choir gallery to inspect the passers-out. Deacon Brisk was like most music committee-men in that he knew little about the musical art; but he was a hustler in getting the worth of his money in whatever job he undertook. Rubbing his hands in self-congratulation upon the new baritone's engagement, he delivered himself of a panegyric which he had spent the time of the closing prayer in composing: "I tell you, doctor, Vox was a catch. Why, he sang "'In slumber lay the brooding world Upon that glorious night,' so sweetly that you could almost hear the stars twinkle through the music; and when he struck "'Let heaven's vaulted arches ring,' it seemed as if the sky were tumbling down through the church roof. That's great singing; eh, doctor? Cost only three hundred extra; worth a thousand on the church market!" "Yes," said the doctor, "I was pleased with the man's voice. I am impressed with the idea that there is more than larynx and training in him. There must be bigness and sweetness of soul behind those tones. Men can't sing that way to order. Come, Brisk, introduce us when those young women get through talking to him. I know I shall like him. But I didn't know that you were so well up in musical judgment." "Why, doctor," rejoined Brisk, "it doesn't require that a man shall be an electrical engineer in order to invest successfully in a trolley." The dominie was a bachelor. That was a pity; for a wife and family of ten could have homed themselves in his heart without detracting from the love he had for everybody else. But having no wife to console him after the efforts of a hard Sunday, he was accustomed to ask one or another of the young men to come to the study and "curry him down," as he said, after evening service. Soon Vox came to occupy permanently this place of clerical groom. The saintly folk who thought that the light burning until Sunday midnight in the sanctum was a sign of the protracted devotions of their pastor would, on one occasion at least, have been astounded to see the reality. On the lounge was stretched the tired preacher, his feet on a pile of "skimmed" newspapers, reserved for the more thorough perusal they would never get. In his lap lay the head of a big collie, whose eyes were fixed on the handsome face of his master. Do dogs have religious instinct? If so, this was a canine hour of worship, and the dog was a genuine mystic. In some famous pictures of the adoration of the Magi less reverence and love are depicted on the faces than gleamed from beneath the shaggy eyebrows of the brute. By the study-table sat Vox, his big bushy head and square Schiller-cut face (except for the very unpoetic mustache) bending over a chafing-dish that sent up the incense of Welsh rarebit, the ingredients of which were the offering of the landlady's piety. "Doctor," said Vox, suddenly poising the spoon as if it were a baton, and dripping the melted cheese on to the manuscript of the night's sermon before the preacher had decided whether to put it into his "barrel" or his waste-basket--"doctor, do you know that I feel like a hypocrite, singing in a Christian church?" "You a hypocrite, Vox? You couldn't act a false part any more than you could sing a false note without having the shivers go all through you." "Well," replied the singer, "that is just what is the matter with me. The shivers do go through me. I am shocked at the moral discord I am making. I am striking false notes all the time. My life doesn't follow the score of my conscience. I don't mean that I have committed murder or picked pockets, but it seems to me that I am breaking the commandment by bearing false witness about myself, making people think I am a saint, or want to be one, when the fact is that I put no more heart into my singing than the organ-pipe does." So saying Vox strode across the floor, holding a plate of rarebit as if it were a sheet of music, and jerked the toasted cheese off it as he seemed to jerk the notes off the paper when he sang. The doctor slipped from the lounge just in time to escape a savory splash which was aiming itself straight for the space between his vest and shirt-bosom. The dog growled at the apparent attack upon his master, but was diverted from further warlike demonstrations by the bit of toast that fell under his nose. "Your dog is as good as a special policeman for you, doctor." "Yes, he defends me in more ways than one. Do you know why I call him Caleb? Caleb is Hebrew for 'God's dog.' One day, when he was a pup, I forgot myself and dropped into a regular pessimist over some materialistic trash I was reading. The pup seemed to notice my sour face, and put his paws upon my knees, lolled out his tongue, and searched me through and through with those bright eyes of his. It was as much as to say, 'Master, you're a fool. Look at me. Didn't it take a God to make such a marvelous creature as I am?' So I have called him Caleb ever since. He tackles many a doubt for me, as he would any other robber." "I wish I had your faith, doctor," said Vox, putting his arm around Caleb's neck, and dropping another piece of toast into the waiting jaws. "Faith? You have got it, Phil; only you don't know it." "Nonsense, doctor! I suppose I believe the Creed; at least I don't disbelieve it. But I don't feel these things. That's what makes me say that I am a hypocrite to sing in a Christian church. To-night I saw a woman crying during my solo. I felt like stopping. I never feel like crying, except when the notes cry themselves; then I confess to a moistening that goes all through me. Now what right have I to make another feel what I don't feel myself? I tell you, doctor, I am nothing but a bellowing hypocrite. I'm going into opera, where it is all make-believe. You know that I've had offers that would tempt a singing devil; and I believe I would be one if it were not for you." The doctor eyed his guest quizzically for a moment, then deliberately stretched himself again on the lounge. "Phil, that cheese has gone to your head. I didn't think it was so strong. Yet I can understand your mistake, for I used to talk that way to myself when I was as green and unsophisticated as you are. I would scratch out the best sentences from my sermons, because I didn't feel all they meant, and would accuse myself of duplicity and cant because my experience was not up to my doctrine. But what if it wasn't? My brain isn't as big as the Bible. My conscience isn't as true and vivid as Moses' was when he wrote down the Ten Commandments. My heart isn't as tender as Christ's. If a preacher says only what he is able to feel at the moment, there will be poor fodder for the parish. So it is all through life. People talk in society on a higher level than they habitually think. They ought to. That is what society is for--to tune up to key the sagging strings of common, humdrum life. All politeness will cease when everybody acts on your theory. We must not say 'Good-morning' to a neighbor because at the moment we do not really care whether his day is going to be pleasant or not. You must not take off your hat to a lady on the street, unless at the instant you are possessed of a profound respect for the sex. Who was that composer that said that he never knew what a piece he had written until he heard Joseffy play it? They asked Parepa to sing 'Coming through the Rye.' She said, 'Pshaw! I've sung it threadbare. I grind it out now as the hand-organ does.' But she sang it, and brought down the house. Why shouldn't she? Feel! Do you suppose that old violin feels anything of the joy that thrills through its fibers? Shall I smash it for a hypocritical contrivance of wood and catgut? Did I kick Dr. Cutt out of the study the other day because he didn't realize the good he had done me in reducing the swelling of my sprained ankle? Yet you want me to let you kick yourself out of the church because you are not one of the 'angels of Jesus,' or haven't had all the joy of life crushed out of you by affliction, so that you are 'weary of earth,' as you sing!" The doctor warmed with his theme, until, standing up, he put his big hands on Vox's shoulders, and fairly shouted at him: "Sing, Phil! Sing the brightest, happiest things that God ever inspired men to write. But don't go croaking like an owl because you don't feel like a nightingale." "Well," said Vox, drawing a long breath, and letting it out in a whistle, "that cheese or something else has inspired you, doctor. I never heard you so eloquent in the pulpit. Why don't you preach at us that way? Take us, as it were, one by one, and go through us, instead of preaching at humanity in the lump. I confess that you have persuaded me about my Sunday work. I am not going to leave it off. But now for the other six days in the week. I can convince you that they are full of husks that do nobody any good. Here's my diary. Isn't it contemptible for a man with even a singer's conscience? Monday, sung at Checkley's musicale for fifty dollars and a score of feminine compliments; Tuesday, in oratorio for one hundred dollars and some newspaper puffs, which were all wrong from a critical standpoint; Wednesday, moped all day because I couldn't sing--raw throat; Thursday, made believe teach a lot of tone-deaf fellows who can never sing any more than crows, and took their money for the imposition; Friday, ditto; Saturday, rehearsal. Now who am I helping by peddling my chin-wares?" Vox stopped for lack of breath, as well as from the fact that his week had run out. "Go on," said the doctor, nonchalantly. "You can certainly slander yourself worse than that. What! no more? Why, Vox, I know there are worse things about you than what you have told me." Vox colored. "You needn't blush so over it, Phil," and the doctor burst out laughing at him. "I am not going to twit you on any disagreeable facts. I didn't say I knew what those worse things were; but I do know that you are not such a sweet saint as to have only the faults mentioned. If they were all, I would have a glass case made for you at once, put your bones up in leather, and place a basin of holy water at your door for passers-by to dip their fingers in. But soberly, Phil, I think I can size you up, or down." "All right; try it. You may find me so big a fool that it will take some time to get my full measurement." With that he stretched himself to his full height, and posed with his fingers in his vest-holes. The attitude interested Caleb, who stretched himself out to almost corresponding dimensions horizontally along the floor, recovering his legs slowly to the accompaniment of a long and dismal whine. "He does that," said the doctor, "only when there is going to be a death in the neighborhood, or when I begin to read my sermons aloud in the study. He knows I am going to lecture you. Charge, Caleb! "Dearly beloved Vox! you have two first-class deficiencies. First, a purposeless life. You happen to be doing good with that wonderful voice of yours; but that is nothing to your credit. You can't help cheering people when you wag your jaws any more than Caleb can help being a comfort to me when he wags his tail. You didn't study music for the sake of helping anybody, but only because music gave you a pleasurable means of getting a livelihood. So you have no soul-satisfaction in your profession, for all you are succeeding so grandly in it. You are like that piece of music which you said was a failure, because, though there were some fine harmonies in it, it had no theme, no prevailing idea, no musical purpose." "That's me," said Vox, _sotto voce_, holding his head in his hands. "I know that I am a mere medley, part sacred, part profane, and both parts played by the devil! Go on." "Stop your pessimism," rejoined the doctor. "That poetic head of yours reminds me that Schiller in the 'Bell' gives utterance to the same idea I am trying to beat into you." "The Bell? That's me, too; all brass and clapper!" grumbled Vox, twisting Caleb's ears until the brute whined. The doctor, not heeding either the singer's soliloquy or the brute's, quoted in oratorical style: "'So let us duly ponder all The works our feeble strength achieves; For mean, in truth, the man we call Who ne'er what he completes conceives. And well it stamps our human race, And hence the gift to understand, That man within the heart should trace Whate'er he fashions with the hand.'" Vox groaned. "That's rather heavy poetry for creatures of our caliber, isn't it, Caleb? But I guess that I catch on.--It means the same as the line of the hymn you gave out to-night, doctor;" and Vox sang: "'Take my voice, and let me sing Always, only, for my King.' "That is, if I'm a bell, I should be one on purpose, whether a church-bell, or a door-bell, or only 'God's dog,' to growl"--patting Caleb. "But what is that second thing I lack? Since you've taken the contract to make me over, I want you to be thorough with the job." "The second thing you need," said the doctor, "is in some way to be made to see that you are doing good. From your perch in the gallery you don't get a glimpse into the people's hearts. I couldn't preach if I didn't go among the people during the week, and get the encouragement of knowing that I had helped somebody." "Yes," said Vox, "I've heard Joe Jefferson say that he couldn't act worth a cent if the people didn't applaud. I beg your pardon, doctor, for comparing the pulpit with the stage. But go on with your lecture." "Oh, you've knocked the lecture out of my head with your nonsense, Phil." "But you knocked it pretty well into mine. I'd like to see somebody I've helped. Show him up." "Humph!" grunted the doctor, and, after a moment's silence, said abruptly, "Phil, will you go with me to-morrow night?" "Where?" "Leave that to me." "That's a blind sort of an invitation, doctor. But, of course, I will go anywhere you want me to. But what is it? Some holy Sorosis? That reformed theater you talk about? Any charge for admittance, or collection? Of course, going with a distinguished clergyman I shall have to appear in swallow-tails and arctic shirt-front." "Not a bit of it, Phil; your oldest clothes, so that you will look just as mean as you say you feel; then, for once, you can't accuse yourself of being a hypocrite." There was a motley crowd in the front room of a Bowery twenty-cent lodging-house. The room was the parlor, but the occupants called it the "deck," in distinction from the rest of the house, which was filled with bunks. There were hard old soakers in a periodical state of repentance; or, to speak more scientifically, in that state of gland-moistening that comes after a certain amount of poor beer has permeated the system. There were young prodigals, in there for the night because they had no money for a night's carousal elsewhere. There was a sprinkling of honest men, thankful for even this refuge from the sleety streets. There were some two hundred pieces of the great human wreck made by the hard times, which were beached in Brady's Harbor, as the place was called. The usual hubbub had calmed while a story-teller, who sat on the edge of a table, and whose slouch-hat and high ulster collar did not altogether conceal the genial face of Dr. Knox, entertained the crowd with old army yarns, which, as usual with such literature, were taken largely from the apocryphal portion of our national annals. "Bully for you! Give us another!" was the encore, emphasized with the rattle of backgammon-boards and boot-heels. "Haven't any more; but I have a friend here who will bring up the reserves in the way of a song." "Song, song! Rosin your larynx, old boy!" greeted the suggestion, while the crowd gathered closer about Vox, and several who had "turned in" for the night turned out of their bunks again, minus coats and boots. A friendly slap on the back by something less than a ten-pound hand helped the singer to clear his throat. Vox gave them "O'Grady's Goat" and one or two other classics of the Tenderloin district, with the rapt appreciation of his audience. Tom Moore's "Minstrel Boy," to the genuine old Irish melody, struck the heroic chord in the breasts of men most of whom were deserters from the real battle-fields of life. Then Vox dropped into a lullaby. The tender mother words given in his masculine tones seemed a burlesque as he began; but the deep bass took on the softness and sweetness of a contralto, and made one think, if not of a mother cooing to her baby, at least of some rough, great-hearted man who had found a lost child and was rocking it to sleep in his strong arms. More than one greasy sleeve got into its owner's eyes before Vox ended. "An' 'aven't ye a Scotch sang, me laddie?" asked an old fellow, knocking the ashes from his pipe against the window-sill. "My Ain Countrie" followed. As the music floated, the thick smoke of the room seemed to drift away. The land of birds and beauty lay before eyes that for months and years had looked only upon the crowded misery of slumdom. When the voice ceased the illusion continued for a while in spite of the picking sleet at the window-panes. At length the silence was broken by a voice that came from a distant corner of the room. It repeated the last verse in tones as pure as those of Vox himself, though a high tenor in quality. Some of the notes were broken by hiccups. Vox looked in amazement at the singer--a half-drunken youngish man curled nearly double in a chair which was tipped back against the wall. His battered derby and unscraped chin did not effectually disguise the handsome fellow beneath them. He was like the Apollo Belvedere when first exhumed from the mud of Antium. "Who are you, my friend?" asked Vox, in as kindly a tone as his surprise allowed. "Friend? (hic) haven't got any friend," replied the man; and he struck up the verse that had just been rendered. His voice was husky at first, but after a few notes it clarified itself, as brooks do in running. His tones became marvelously sweet, touching the highest note without the slightest suggestion of falsetto. It was a transcendent voice, one that might have once belonged to some spirit, and gone astray among men. The singer went through the verse this time without hiccup or slur; but the instant he stopped the drunk resumed its sway. Down came the chair with a bump on to its front legs, which sent the man headlong into the arms of Vox, with whom he wanted to fight. "I won't fight you," said Vox, helping him back to his seat; "but I'll dare you to sing with me." "Sin' wi' you! 'Cept your challenge. I can whip you with my--my tongue (hic) as bad as my wife she (hic) whipped me with her (hic) tongue." "What shall we sing, old boy?" inquired Vox, with that easy familiarity which showed that he had seen such customers before. "Sin' a song o' sispence, Pocket full o' rye," sang the man. "Say, what's the use o' havin' your pocket full o' rye (hic)? 'D rather have a belly full o' rye; wouldn't you (hic)?" "You've enough rye in you for to-night," said Vox. "Come, pull the cork out of your throat, and let's have a song." Vox got a chair, and tipped it back by the side of the maudlin fellow, then struck up Mazzini's two-part song, "The Muleteers." The stranger joined in. Such singing was never heard before nor since in Brady's Harbor, nor, for that matter, in Carnegie Hall. After a bar or two the men rose to their feet and stood with arms interlocked and heads touching as their voices soared in the grand finale. The noise brought in Brady, who said it was "galoreous," but for all that they'd have to "bolt up their chins," as it was past twelve o'clock, and the "perlice wasn't so easy on lodgin'-houses as they was on the swill-shops." "See here, Vox," said the doctor, "I am going home alone to-night. Find out your pal. Chum him a bit. A man with that voice has had culture. Scrape the rust off him, and you will find something polished beneath, or I am no judge of human nature. Take him for your parish, Phil." "A heathenish sort of a mission that," replied Vox, looking at the fellow, who was trying, as he said, to find his night-key to get his boots off with. After a moment's hesitation, Vox added: "All right, doctor; you've had as hard a field with me, if it wasn't so dirty a one. I'll take him for a sobering walk in the drizzle, and then get him into better quarters than he has here." Vox had his hands full with his job, and at times his arms full too. His companion insisted that the Bowery sidewalk, covered with sleet, was a toboggan-slide, and that he was tumbling off the sled. What could Vox do with his protégé? He couldn't walk him or slide him all night. A policeman proposed to relieve him of his anxiety by taking them both to the station-house, but was persuaded not to perform this heroic exploit by the man's assurance that his pal's legs hadn't any snakes in them, and by Vox's demonstration that he could stand alone. Then Vox thought of the story of the good Samaritan, with rising respect for the priest that passed by on the other side. Next, having got into the charity business, he envied the Samaritan at least his ass, "instead," as Vox soliloquized, "of making an ass of myself." He thought of taking the fellow to some hotel, paying for his lodging, and hiring the clerk to see that he was properly sobered off in the morning; but concluded that, whatever might have been the case on the road to Jericho, there was no innkeeper on the Bowery whom he could trust with such a commission, or who would trust him to call in the morning and pay the bill. He could take him back to Brady's Harbor, he thought; but when they turned about the man declared that he wouldn't walk up a toboggan-slide, and sat down on the sidewalk for another ride. The flash of a passing cab let a little light in upon his problem. Hailing the driver, with whose help he got his load into the vehicle, he told him to drive to No. -- Madison Avenue, where he had his own day quarters--elegant rooms, fitted up for his instruction of the fashionable "daughters of music" at six dollars an hour. Sweezy, the janitor, was roused up, and with his assistance Vox was able to congratulate himself that he had gone "one better" on the good Samaritan, in that he had lodged his man in finer chambers. He could not help laughing at the incongruousness of the snoring mass and the elegant divan on which it lay. He thought of Bottom the weaver, with the ass's head, in the lap of Titania, and, as he piled the cushions so that the fellow would not tumble off, addressed him in the words of the fairy: "Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, And stick musk roses in thy sleek smooth head, And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy." But tears are near to laughter, and as Vox contemplated his completed work he had to sit down a moment and cry. "It's a hard sight, sir," said Sweezy, "but bless you, Mr. Vox, the best of us has just sich among our closest friends. I wish, sir, as how it was my own boy, Tommy, you had found the night." And Sweezy cried too. Sweezy promised to take an early look at the man in the morning when he turned on the steam heat. Vox went away to his boarding-house around the corner, vexed at the doctor for getting him into such a scrape, yet feeling down in the depths of his heart a satisfaction that more than half compensated him for his rough experience. He fell asleep thinking of the good Samaritan, Bottom with the ass's head, Salvation Army lasses, and the Prohibition party; and, in the midst of a horrid dream, woke up imagining himself drunk and about to fall off a precipice. Before breakfast next morning he went around to the rooms to look after his charge. The fellow had vamosed. Sweezy was taking account of the furniture, and, though nothing was missing, and only a lamp-shade broken, declared that Vox had been victimized by a sharper: "A regular sharper, sir. I thought so when you brought him in. You ought to have knowed, sir, at a glance of him, what he was. You've nussed, sir, a wiper in your bosom, and it's a mercy, sir, a mercy if he hasn't stung you no worse. Is your pocket-book with you? You ought at least to have took off his boots. That spot on the cover will never come out without piecing." Vox contemplated the scene of his first charity exploit much as Bonaparte did the battle-field of Waterloo. He had but one remark to make, which was: "Sweezy, don't you open your head about this business." Vox was not in an amiable mood when he met the doctor the next Sunday night. He debated with him the inadvisability of decent people attempting to do slumming in the name of either religion or charity. He took the ground that the men who had themselves been rescued from the dens of the city were the only ones to do this work, as they train chetahs to hunt their own kind, and reformed thieves to become detectives. The doctor was half inclined to agree with him, not so much from conviction as from seeing the disgust the business had wrought in the mind of his friend. Yet he excused himself for having led Vox into this experience on the ground that it is Christian duty to try to rescue the fallen, even though one does not accomplish anything. "I don't believe in your theory," said Vox, warmly. "Let buzzards clean up the offal, but decent birds had better follow their sweeter instincts and keep away. One thing is certain: I am not going to light on such moral carrion again." It was more than a month later when a respectable-looking stranger called upon Vox at his rooms. The singer was engaged at the time arranging with a lady of the Four Hundred for the vocal culture of her daughters. The visitor quietly awaited his leisure. He was very genteel in appearance. If one had been critical he might have thought that for such a stinging cold day an ulster would have been more suitable than the light fall overcoat he wore; and some might have observed that it was not the fashion that season to wear one's outer garment so short that the tails of the under-coat protruded. But Vox was occupied with the stranger's face, which was exceedingly prepossessing. "Mr. Vox, I believe?" "My name, sir. What can we do for each other?" "If I am not mistaken in the person, you once did me a great service." "You must be mistaken in the person," said Vox, "or else I have done it unconsciously, for I have no recollection of our having met." The man seemed puzzled. "Possibly!" he said, slowly, as he scanned the singer's features. "Undoubtedly it is so," said Vox, and, seeing the man's perplexity, quickly added, in the most genial manner, "I am sorry it is so, for I should be glad to remember that I had served you. Possibly I may do so in the future." The man hesitatingly began to withdraw. Near the door he stopped, and, glancing about the room, half to himself and half as an apology to Vox, said, "Perhaps I have dreamed it. But will you allow me to ask you a question? Do you ever sing Mazzini's 'Muleteers'?" "Often," replied Vox. "This, you mean," and he struck up the first line. His visitor instantly joined him. Vox stopped as quickly. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "There are not two voices in the world like that." Putting his hand on the man's shoulder, he peered into his face. He could not recall the features, for the dim light in Brady's Harbor and the general slouch of the fellow that night had not really allowed him to see his face fully. He imagined how this man might look with a week's beard on his chin, an untrimmed mustache covering his fine lips, and a dirty derby concealing his forehead. "Are you that man?" "I am; or, rather, I was that man. But I hope--thanks to God and you--I am a very different man to-day. I came to tell you my gratitude for a kindness which I had come to doubt one man ever rendered to another, and to apologize for my bestial treatment of you. I was not a man then, Mr. Vox, only a beast; and, if you will believe me, I was not accountable, for I knew no better. I have the vaguest remembrance of that night, as of many another night. When I awoke at daylight in these rooms I had just sense enough to know that somebody had befriended me or played a trick on me, and to be ashamed to meet him, whoever he was. So I sneaked away. When I was sobered I couldn't recall the place. But the 'Muleteers' rang in my ears, and your voice, every note, the tone and quality. I had heard you sing elsewhere, and knew that but one voice, that of Vox, could have sung in that way. And now it has taken a month for me to get up manliness enough to come and do the decent thing." "Don't talk in that way," said Vox, coloring as if he were receiving abuse instead of praise. "I did nothing that any man would not do for another. A man would be inhuman, a mere brute, not to--" Then he thought of what he had lately said to the doctor about buzzards and benevolent slummers, and he felt like a hypocrite again. "But don't talk about the past. Let it go. Isn't there something I can do for you now?" glancing at the man's threadbare coat. "Yes, there is one favor I would like very much to have you do me. I have had a hard struggle with myself these few weeks. I resolved that I would not drink again. I have kept my purpose, but it has been like being tied to a wild beast in a cage. More than once I have started out for a drink, but have come back without it. It is hard to feel that you are all alone in the fight, that nobody knows of it. It's like making that cane stand by itself." "But you have friends," said Vox, kindly. "Friends that have ceased to be friends are worse than strangers," replied the man, in an abstracted sort of way. "My friends don't believe in me; I've got to make new friends, who don't know how weak I am. Perhaps they will believe in me for a while at least, and that will give a man some strength. But to be all alone in a fearful struggle! Oh, it's the loneliness that takes all the heart out of one. You know how one voice steadies another in singing. Drunk as I was when I sang with you, I believe I sang every note correctly; but alone I couldn't have rendered three notes true. I want you to let me rest for a while on your confidence, your good wishes, Mr. Vox; and to let me drop in once in a while, just to tell you that I am all right yet." "My good fellow, you can come, and you can stay with me just as much as you want to," said Vox; and for all that he knew that this was a very rash thing to say to a stranger, he would have resented any one's telling him so. "No," replied the man, "I shall not intrude upon you; but may I ask you to keep this pledge I have written? The paper is crumpled; that's because I have taken it out so often when the temptation was pretty strong. It was something like a friend; and I could say to it, 'You see I have kept faith with you, bit of paper, and I will.' So I would start out on another campaign. But if you will keep it for me I will feel better. I can think then that somebody knows what I am doing." Vox took the paper. It was written in fine penmanship, and signed "Charles Downs." "Downs? Charles Downs? Not Downs who used to be in the Mendelssohn? The tenor at St. Martha's? And you are speaking of being grateful to me for a common act of humanity! Why, man, I owe more to you than I can ever repay. It was hearing you sing once that gave me my first ambition to be a singer. I began to save my money that night that I might take lessons. I even tried to find you; but you had gone, nobody knew where." "I was on the road to hell then," said Downs. "Thank Heaven you didn't find me; I might have injured you by my example. But no, I think not. You were not inclined my way." The two men sat in silence for a few moments. Thought was becoming oppressive. Vox was of that mercurial disposition that cannot keep solemn long at a time. His vent-valves worked easily. "Come," said he, "let's try the old song." If he had deliberated he would not have chosen a reminder of the past. But there was something irresistible about Vox, and Downs joined with him as they rollicked through the "Muleteers." Sweezy stood in the doorway listening. "That," said Vox, "is the greatest compliment a man can have. Sweezy there has no more music in him than a horse; but see! we have woven the spell about him. I believe we do sing well together. What couldn't we do if we would practise together? Now I will keep this pledge for you, Downs, if you will promise to come every day at twelve and sing with me. We will lunch together, and I will see that you don't get a drop to drink." "I can't." "Why not?" "I have engaged to go to work." "Where?" "Enlisted." "What! Enlisted? To throw yourself away again?" Vox gripped the arms of Downs as if he were a prisoner. "Where have you enlisted?" "In the street-sweeping brigade." "Great guns!" said Vox. "No, great brooms!" replied his friend. "I need outdoor work; there I will get it. I need to keep away from other men; and on the street I will be left to my own company as nicely as if I were a hermit. Besides, there will be a poetic fitness in one who has lived so dirty a life as I have giving himself up to the work of cleaning things. Then, too, I can see life; and that will be interesting. Nothing is so fascinating to one who has had my experience as the sight of a crowd, if only one can himself keep out of it." With that Downs sang: "'Hurry along, sorrow and song; All is vanity under the sun. Velvet and rags: so the world wags, Until the river no more shall run.'" Vox readily upset the street-sweeping project by showing Downs how he could be helpful to him in certain musical matters he had on foot, and even guaranteed to turn over to him several of his pupils who were trying to develop tenor voices. The next Sunday night after service the doctor took the singer's arm at the church door with his usual chirpy invitation, "Come, Phil, don't let Mrs. Cupp's pepper and mustard get cold, or the cheese get away from us." "Walk around the block with me first, doctor; I've got something to tell you which I'd rather you would hear when you can't see my face." "Why, what have you been doing now that you are ashamed of, Phil? Oh, I know. You have proposed to the soprano, or been perpetrating some other trick on your bachelor friends. I'll forgive you at the start, however, because"--lowering his voice until there was a frog in it--"because I know something about--but it's none of your business, Phil, so I won't tell you anything about it. No disappointment, my boy?" "No." "Then count on me to marry you for nothing, and throw in the benediction besides." "It's no love-affair," said Vox. "Cupid might as well break his arrows on a rhinoceros as shoot at me. It's that drunken fellow. I've been awfully taken in." "What! has he turned up? Fleeced you again?" "Well, not exactly fleeced me, but scorched me; he has heaped coals of fire on my head. I want to take back all I have said against him, and everything I said against slumming." He then related what the reader knows. Having worked off the steam of his extra emotion, he accompanied the doctor to the study. Here Vox gave a description of his new friend: "a well-educated man, a splendid all-round musician, a fine business man; has a wife who won't live with him, nor even let him see her--he has treated her so outrageously; but he loves her tenderly. He was once employed by Silver & Co., who thought so much of him that they were making proposals for his entering the firm when they began to suspect his rum habit. His name is Downs." "Downs? With Silver & Co.?" The names set the doctor thinking. At length, coming out of his reverie, he picked up from the study-table a piece of marble, a bit of a fluted column he had found amid the ruins of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. He traced on it with the pen the word D-o-w-n-s. Then he rubbed the word out with his finger; but a black spot was left that he could not get off the marble. "There! that's the way I would spoil the job if I should try to restore the ruins of Downs. Phil, stick to that man. I'll leave him to you. He's your parish. With your voice and his love of music, you ought to make him follow you as the rocks followed Orpheus. That's the meaning of the old legend--you can sing the hardest wretch into heaven. Try it, Phil." The doctor spent a half-hour next day in Silver & Co.'s office. Just what he and Silver talked about we cannot say; but Silver was overheard to remark, as the doctor was leaving, "My wife thinks the world of the little woman, and when those two women are satisfied with his reformation, all right." There never was a finer program for a musicale than that which, some six months later, packed the upper Carnegie Hall with the elite of the music-lovers of New York. Vox was the drawing card, for he had become, if not the celebrity, at least the fad, of the season. "Oh, Vox! he's just splendid!" was as familiarly heard as the clicking of afternoon tea-cups everywhere between Flushing and Orange Mountain. On the occasion referred to he had achieved a sevenfold encore for one performance. To the surprise of everybody, however, when he appeared to acknowledge the ovation, he led another man with him to the footlights; one who might have been his twin brother, for there was just that sort of difference between them that ought to exist between a tenor and a baritone--the former a little slighter in form and features. Curiosity was not allowed to get to the whispering-point when they rendered the Graben-Hoffman duet, "I feel thy angel spirit." The applause was furious. Nothing like it had been heard for six months outside of Brady's Harbor. Vox gracefully stepped a little to the rear. The audience caught his meaning, and the room rang with the cry of "Tenor! tenor!" Vox slipped to the piano, and played the chords of "Salva di Mora" from Gounod's "Faust." And how grandly Downs sang it! If Deacon Brisk had been there, even he, with his "star-twinkling" and "roof-splitting" metaphors, could not have described it. "If Faust sang like that," said an elderly gentleman in the audience to his wife, "no wonder he won the heart of Marguerite." And he pressed his wife's hand, which somehow had got into his. "Hush, John," replied the woman. Then she put a handkerchief to her eyes instead of her lorgnette. "He's all right again," said the man, and he squeezed his wife's arm, and nudged her nervously. "John, don't!" And the woman glanced at the woman next to her, as if that individual might care what cooing these old doves indulged in. This other woman wore a half-veil, one of those vizors with which women hide their beauty or their freckles from the gaze of the curious. Not seeing her face, one cannot say what was transpiring behind the veil; but the veil shook as if some convulsive emotion might be working itself out, or struggling to keep itself in. When Downs left the stage Vox hugged him as a bear would her cub. "Come," said he, "let's go out in the room and talk to the Silvers." "The Silvers here!" exclaimed Downs, in consternation. "They were here, but I believe they have left. Yes, their seats are empty. Now that's too bad." "No wonder they left when they saw me on the stage. Vox, you know that they know all about me. They would kick me off their doorstep if I were a beggar. You've disgraced yourself by bringing me here, as I told you you would. The Silvers, of all the people in the world! I wouldn't have sung if I had suspected their being here." "Well, you did sing. Thank God for it, too," replied his friend. The next Sunday night at the hobnob Vox tried to make a report to the doctor of the progress of his protégé. "Oh, he sang magnificently! I tell you, that man is reinstated in this community. Do you know, doctor, the Silvers were both there?" "Indeed!" ejaculated his friend, pulling Caleb's tail, and laughing at the dog's surprise. Then he pulled it again, and laughed at the dog's jump as if he had never seen such antics before. "See here, doctor, you don't seem to care about Downs. That dog is more to you than a human being. But you've got to listen to me." Vox got rapturous in his account of Downs's success, and ended with, "I couldn't help wishing that his wife had been there to see him--handsome, healthy, true man in every feature and tone of voice. She would have had to fall in love again, or I'll forswear all faith in the sex." The doctor rolled himself on the sofa in such glee that the dog accepted his master's antics as a challenge to more of his own, and pounced upon him. "What's the matter with you now?" asked the singer, in amazement. "Why, his wife was there," roared the doctor. "The thunder she was!" Vox jumped up as if he had been sitting in an electric chair. Caleb growled to hear such language in the presence of his patron saint. "I beg your pardon, doctor, but how do you know she was there?" "Why, I suppose she was, because Mrs. Silver promised to go and take her to hear _you_ sing." And the doctor laughed so loud and hilariously that the collie crept under the lounge, as if in fear of some more serious explosion. "And you have been playing the hypocrite with me all the time?" Vox was nettled. "If I had known that I wouldn't have sung a note, nor would I have let Downs do it, either." "Yet you just said you wish she had been there. Don't you see that had you known you would have spoiled your own job?" said the doctor, working out of his hysteria. "But, Phil, I'm hungry with preaching and laughing at you. Light up the chafing-dish, put in plenty of red pepper, and when your cockles are warmed you may read this," tossing him a note. Vox read: "DEAR DOCTOR: When I heard Downs sing the other night, I felt sure that your judgment of him was correct, and that he is a new man. Mrs. Downs has been with him for several days. God bless that little woman! She has borne up bravely during her trial; never lost heart; and now she has her reward. Of course Downs has his old place with us. I want to know that Mr. Vox. Bring him around to dine with us Wednesday night. If my wife can persuade them, we will have Mr. and Mrs. Downs too. "Yours faithfully, "JOHN SILVER." While Vox was reading the note Caleb came out from under the lounge, and putting his head in the singer's lap, gazed as worshipfully into his face as he had ever gazed into that of his master. * * * * * * * * THE Looking Upward Booklets 12mo, decorated boards, each 30 cents 1. DID THE PARDON COME TOO LATE? By Mrs. Ballington Booth. 2. COMFORT PEASE, AND HER GOLD RING. By Mary E. Wilkins. 3. MY LITTLE BOY BLUE. By Rosa Nouchette Cary. Illustrated. 4. A WASTREL REDEEMED. By David Lyall. Illustrated. 5. A DAY'S TIME-TABLE. By E. S. Elliott, author of "Expectation Corner," etc., etc. Illustrated. 6. BROTHER LAWRENCE. The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of Holy Life. Illustrated. 7. THE SWISS GUIDE. An Allegory. By Rev. C. H. Parkhurst. 8. WHERE KITTY FOUND HER SOUL. By Mrs. J. H. Walworth. 9. ONE OF THE SWEET OLD CHAPTERS. By Rose Porter. Illustrated. 10. THE BARITONE'S PARISH. By Rev. J. M. Ludlow, D.D. 11. CHILD CULTURE; or, the Science of Motherhood. By Hannah Whitall Smith. 12. RISEN WITH CHRIST. By Rev. A. J. Gordon, D.D. 13. RELIQUES OF THE CHRIST. A Poem. By Rev. Denis Wortman, D.D. 14. ERIC'S GOOD NEWS. By the author of "Probable Sons." Illustrated. 15. YE NEXTE THYNGE. By Eleanor Amerman Sutphen. Illustrated. 16. SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHING. Two Addresses. By R. C. Ogden and J. R. Miller, D.D. 17. SAMUEL CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG. By Robert C. Ogden. With Portrait. 18. BUSINESS. A Plain Talk with Men and Women Who Work. By Amos R. Wells. Fleming H. Revell Company NEW YORK: 112 Fifth Avenue CHICAGO: 63 Washington Street TORONTO: 154 Yonge Street 
33358	----	GREAT SINGERS ON THE ART _of_ SINGING EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCES WITH FOREMOST ARTISTS BY JAMES FRANCIS COOKE A SERIES OF PERSONAL STUDY TALKS WITH THE MOST RENOWNED OPERA CONCERT AND ORATORIO SINGERS OF THE TIME _ESPECIALLY PLANNED FOR VOICE STUDENTS_ [Illustration] THEO. PRESSER CO. PHILADELPHIA, PA. COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY THEO. PRESSER CO. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT SECURED CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 5 THE TECHNIC OF OPERATIC PRODUCTION 21 WHAT THE AMERICAN GIRL SHOULD KNOW ABOUT AN OPERATIC CAREER _Frances Alda_ 31 MODERN VOCAL METHODS IN ITALY _Pasquale Amato_ 38 THE MAIN ELEMENTS OF INTERPRETATION _David Bispham_ 45 SUCCESS IN CONCERT SINGING _Dame Clara Butt_ 58 THE VALUE OF SELF-STUDY IN VOICE TRAINING _Giuseppe Campanari_ 68 ITALY, THE HOME OF SONG _Enrico Caruso_ 79 MODERN ROADS TO VOCAL SUCCESS _Julia Claussen_ 90 SELF-HELP IN VOICE STUDY _Charles Dalmores_ 100 IF MY DAUGHTER SHOULD STUDY FOR GRAND OPERA _Andreas Dippel_ 110 HOW A GREAT MASTER COACHED OPERA SINGERS _Emma Eames_ 121 THE OPEN DOOR TO OPERA _Florence Easton_ 133 WHAT MUST I GO THROUGH TO BECOME A PRIMA DONNA? _Geraldine Farrar_ 144 THE MASTER SONGS OF ROBERT SCHUMANN _Johanna Gadski_ 154 TEACHING YOURSELF TO SING _Amelita Galli-Curci_ 166 THE KNOW HOW IN THE ART OF SINGING _Mary Garden_ 176 BUILDING A VOCAL REPERTOIRE _Alma Gluck_ 185 OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUNG CONCERT SINGERS _Emilio de Gogorza_ 191 THOROUGHNESS IN VOCAL PREPARATION _Frieda Hempel_ 200 COMMON SENSE IN TRAINING AND PRESERVING THE VOICE _Dame Nellie Melba_ 207 SECRETS OF BEL CANTO _Bernice de Pasquali_ 217 HOW FORTUNES ARE WASTED IN VOCAL EDUCATION _Marcella Sembrich_ 227 KEEPING THE VOICE IN PRIME CONDITION _Ernestine Schumann-Heink_ 235 ITALIAN OPERA IN AMERICA _Antonio Scotti_ 251 THE SINGER'S LARGER MUSICAL PUBLIC _Henri Scott_ 260 SINGING IN CONCERT AND WHAT IT MEANS _Emma Thursby_ 269 NEW ASPECTS OF THE ART OF SINGING IN AMERICA _Reinald Werrenrath_ 283 HOW I REGAINED A LOST VOICE _Evan Williams_ 292 INTRODUCTION VOCAL GOLD MINES AND HOW THEY ARE DEVELOPED Plutarch tells how a Laconian youth picked all the feathers from the scrawny body of a nightingale and when he saw what a tiny thing was left exclaimed, "_Surely thou art all voice and nothing else!_" Among the tens of thousands of young men and women who, having heard a few famous singers, suddenly determine to follow the trail of the footlights, there must be a very great number who think that the success of the singer is "voice and nothing else." If this collection of conferences serves to indicate how much more goes into the development of the modern singer than mere voice, the effort will be fruitful. Nothing is more fascinating in human relations than the medium of communication we call speech. When this is combined with beautiful music in song, its charm is supreme. The conferences collected in this book were secured during a period of from ten to fifteen years; and in every case the notes have been carefully, often microscopically, reviewed and approved by the artist. They are the record of actual accomplishment and not mere metempirical opinions. The general design was directed by the hundreds of questions that had been presented to the writer in his own experience in teaching the art of singing. Only the practical teacher of singing has the opportunity to discover the real needs of the student; and only the artist of wide experience can answer many of the serious questions asked. The writer's first interest in the subject of voice commenced with the recollection of the wonderfully human and fascinating vocal organ of Henry Ward Beecher, whom he had the joy to know in his early boyhood. The memory of such a voice as that of Beecher is ineradicable. Once, at the same age, he was taken to hear Beecher's rival pulpit orator, the Rev. T. de Witt Talmage, in the Brooklyn Tabernacle. The harsh, raucous, nasal, penetrating, rasping, irritating voice of that clergyman only served to emphasize the delight in listening to Beecher. Then he heard the wonderful orotund organ of Col. Robert J. Ingersoll and the sonorous, mellow voice of Edwin Booth. Shortly he found himself enlisted as a soprano in the boy choir of a large Episcopal church. While there he became the soloist, singing many of the leading arias from famous oratorios before he was able to identify the musical importance of such works. Then came a long training in piano and in organ playing, followed by public appearances as a pianist and engagements as an organist and choirmaster in different churches. This, coupled with song composition, musical criticism and editing, experience in conducting, managing concerts, accompanying noted singers and, later, in teaching voice for many years, formed a background that is recounted here only to let the reader know that the conferences were not put down by one unacquainted with the actual daily needs of the student, from his earliest efforts to his platform triumphs. WHAT MUST THE SINGER HAVE? What must the singer have? A voice? Of course. But how good must that voice be? "Ah, there's the rub!" It is this very point which adds so much fascination to the chances of becoming a great singer; and it is this very point upon which so many, many careers have been wrecked. The young singer learns that Jenny Lind was first refused by Garcia because he considered her case hopeless; he learns that Sir George Henschel told Bispham that he had insufficient voice to encourage him to take up the career of the singer; he learns dozens of similar instances; and then he goes to hear some famous singer with slender vocal gifts who, by force of tremendous dramatic power, eclipses dozens with finer voices. He thereupon resolves that "voice" must be a secondary matter in the singer's success. There could not be a greater mistake. There must be a good vocal basis. There must be a voice capable of development through a sufficient gamut to encompass the great works written for such a voice. It must be capable of development into sufficient "size" and power that it may fill large auditoriums. It must be sweet, true to pitch, clear; and, above all, it must have that kind of an individual quality which seems to draw the musical interest of the average person to it. THE PERFECT VOICE Paradoxically enough, the public does not seem to want the "perfect" voice, but rather, the "human" voice. A noted expert, who for many years directed the recording laboratories of a famous sound reproducing machine company, a man whose acquaintance with great singers of the time is very wide, once told the writer of a singer who made records so perfect from the standpoint of tone that no musical critic could possibly find fault with them. Yet these records did not meet with a market from the general public. The reason is that the public demands something far more than a flawless voice and technically correct singing. It demands the human quality, that wonderful something that shines through the voice of every normal, living being as the soul shines through the eyes. It is this thing which gives individuality and identity to the voice and makes the widest appeal to the greatest number of people. Patti was not great because her dulcet tones were like honey to the ear. Mere sweetness does not attract vast audiences time and again. Once, in a mediæval German city, the writer was informed that a nightingale had been heard in the _glacis_ on the previous night. The following evening a party of friends was formed and wandered through the park whispering with delight at every outburst from the silver throat. Never had bird music been so beautiful. The next night someone suggested that we go again; but no one could be found who was enthusiastic enough to repeat the experience. The very perfection of the nightingale's song, once heard, had been sufficient. THE LURE OF INDIVIDUALITY Certain performers in vaudeville owe their continued popularity to the fascinating individuality of their voices. Albert Chevalier, once heard, could never be forgotten. His pathetic lilt to "My Old Dutuch" has made thousands weep. When he sings such a number he has a far higher artistic control over his audience than many an elaborately trained singer trilling away at some very complicated aria. A second-rate opera singer once bemoaned his fate to the writer. He complained that he was obliged to sing for $100.00 a week, notwithstanding his years of study and preparation, while Harry Lauder, the Scotch comedian, could get $1000 a night on his tours. As a matter of fact Mr. Lauder, entirely apart from his ability as an actor, had a far better voice and had that appealing quality that simply commandeers his auditors the moment he opens his mouth. Any method or scheme of teaching the art of singing that does not seek to develop the inherent intellectual and emotional vocal complexion of the singer can never approach a good method. Vocal perfection that does not admit of the manifestation of the real individual has been the death knell of many an aspiring student. Nordica, Jean de Reszke, Victor Maurel, Plançon, Sims Reeves, Schumann-Heink, Garden, Dr. Wüllner, Evan Williams, Galli-Curci, and especially our greatest of American singers, David Bispham, all have manifested a vocal individuality as unforgetable to the ear as their countenances are to the eye. If the reader happens to be a young singer and can grasp the significance of the previous paragraph, he may have something more valuable to him than many lessons. The world is not seeking merely the perfect voice but a great musical individuality manifested through a voice developed to express that individuality in the most natural and at the same time the most comprehensive manner possible. Therefore, young man and young woman, does it not seem of the greatest importance to you to develop, first of all, the _mind and the soul_, so that when the great hour comes, your audience will hear through the notes that pour from your throat something of your intellectual and emotional character? They will not know how, nor will they ask why they hear it,--but its manifestation will either be there or it will not be there. Upon this will depend much of your future success. It can not be concealed from the discerning critics in whose hands your progress rests. The high intellectual training received in college by Ffrangçon Davies, David Bispham, Plunkett Greene, Herbert Witherspoon, Reinald Werrenrath and others, is just as apparent to the intelligent listener, in their singing at recitals, as it would be in their conversation. Others have received an equivalent intellectual training in other ways. The young singer, who thinks that in the future he can "get by" without such a training, is booked for disappointment. Get a college education if you can; and, if you can not, fight to get its equivalent. No useful experience in the singer's career is a wasted one. The early instrumental training of Melba, Sembrich, Campanari, Hempel, Dalmores, Garden, and Galli-Curci, shows out in their finished singing, in wonderful manner. Every singer should be able to play the piano well. It has a splendid effect in the musical discipline of the mind. In European conservatories, in many instances, the study of the piano is compulsory. YOUR PHILOSOPHY OF SINGING The student of singing should be an inveterate reader of "worthwhile" comments upon his art. In this way, if he has a discriminating mind, he will be able to form a "philosophy of singing" of his own. Richard Wagner prefaced his music dramas with lengthy essays giving his reasons for pursuing a certain course. Whatever their value may be to the musical public at this time, it could not have been less than that to the great master when he was fighting to straighten out for his own satisfaction in his own mind just what he should do and how he should do it. Therefore, read interminably; but believe nothing that you read until you have weighed it carefully in your own mind and determined its usefulness in its application to your own particular case. The student will find the following books of real value in his quest for vocal truth: _The Philosophy of Singing_, Clara Kathleen Rogers; _The Vocal Instructor_, E. J. Myer; _The Psychology of Singing_, David C. Taylor; _How to Sing_, Lilli Lehmann; _Reminiscences of a Quaker Singer_, David Bispham; _The Art of the Singer_, W. J. Henderson. The student should also read the biographies of famous singers and keep in touch with the progress of the art, through reading the best magazines. THE HISTORY OF SINGING The history of singing parallels the history of civilization. Egypt, Israel, Greece and Rome made their contributions; but how they sang and what they sang we can not definitely know because of the destruction of the bridge between ancient and modern notation, and because not until Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, was there any tangible means of recording the voices of the singers. The wisdom of Socrates, Plato and Cæsar is therefore of trifling significance in helping us to find out more than how highly the art was regarded. The absurd antics of Nero, in his ambition to distinguish himself as a singer, indicated in some more or less indefinite way the importance given to singing in the heyday of Rome. The incessant references to singing, in Greek literature, tell us that singing was looked upon not merely as an accomplishment but as one of the necessary arts. Coincident with the coming of Italian opera, about 1600, we find a great revival of the art of singing; and many of the old Italian masters have bequeathed us some fairly instructive comments upon the art of _bel canto_. That these old Italian teachers were largely individualists and taught empirically, with no set methods other than that which their own ears determined, seems to be accepted quite generally by investigators at this date. The _Osservazione sopra il Canto figurato_ of Pietro Francesco Tosi (procurable in English), published in 1723, and the _Reflessioni pratichi sul Canto figurato_, published in 1776, are valuable documents for the serious student, particularly because these men seemed to recognize that the so-called registers should be equalized. With them developed an ever-expanding jargon of voice directions which persist to this day among vocal teachers. Such directions as "sing through the mask" (meaning the face); "sing with the throat open"; "sing as though you were just about to smile"; "sing as though you were just about to experience the sensation of swallowing" (_come bere_); "support the tone"; etc., etc., are often more confusing than helpful. Manual Garcia (1805-1906), who invented the laryngoscope in 1855, made an earnest effort to bring scientific observation to the aid of the vocal teacher, by providing a tiny mirror on the end of a rod, enabling the teacher to see the vocal cords during the process of phonation. How much this actually helped the singing teacher is still a moot point; but it must be remembered that Garcia had many extremely successful pupils, including the immortal Jenny Lind. The writer again advises the serious student of singing to spend a great deal of time in forming his own conception of the principles by which he can get the most from his voice. Any progressive artist teacher will encourage him in this course. In other words, it is not enough in these days that he shall sing; but he must know how he produces his results and be able to produce them time and time again with constantly increasing success. Note in the succeeding conferences how many of the great singers have given very careful and minute consideration to this. The late Evan Williams spent years of thought and study upon it; and the writer considers that his observations in this volume are among the most important contributions to the literature of voice teaching. This was the only form in which they appeared in print. Only one student in a hundred thousand can dispense with a good vocal teacher, as did the brilliant Galli-Curci or the unforgetable Campanari. A really fine teacher of voice is practically indispensable to most students. This does not mean that the best teacher is the one with the greatest reputation. The reputation of a teacher only too often has depended upon his good fortune early in life in securing pupils who have made spectacular successes in a short time. There are hundreds of splendid vocal teachers in America now, and it is very gratifying to see many of their pupils make great successes in Europe without any previous instruction "on the other side." Surely nothing can be more helpful to the ambitious vocal student than the direct advice, personal suggestions and hints of the greatest singers of the time. It is with this thought that the writer takes especial pride in being the medium of the presentation of the following conferences. It is suggested that a careful study of the best sound-reproducing-machine records of the great singers included will add much to the interest of the study of this work. The enormous incomes received from some vocal gold mines, such as Caruso, John McCormack, Patti, Galli-Curci, and others, have made the lure of the singer's career so great that many young vocalists are inclined to forget that all of the great singers of the day have attained their triumphs only after years of hard work. Galli-Curci's overwhelmingly successful American début followed years of real labor, when she was glad to accept small engagements in order to advance in her art. John McCormack's first American appearances were at a side show at the St. Louis World's Fair. Sacrifice is often the seed kernel of large success. Too few young singers are willing to plant that kernel. They expect success to come at the end of a few courses of study and a few hundred dollars spent in advertising. The public, particularly the American public, is a wary one. It may be possible to advertise worthless gold mining stock in such a way that thousands may be swindled before the crook behind the scheme is jailed. But it is impossible to sell our public a so-called golden-voiced singer whose voice is really nothing more than tin-foil and very thin tin-foil at that. Every year certain kinds of slippery managers accept huge fees from would-be singers, which are supposed to be invested in a mysterious formula which, like the philosopher's stone, will turn a baser metal into pure gold. No campaign of advertising spent upon a mediocrity or an inadequately prepared artist can ever result in anything but a disastrous waste. Don't spend a penny in advertising until you have really something to sell which the public will want. It takes years to make a fine singer known; but it takes only one concert to expose an inadequate singer. Every one of the artists represented in this book has been "through the mill" and every one has triumphed gloriously in the end. There is one road. They have defined it in remarkable fashion in these conferences. The sign-posts read, "Work, Sacrifice, Joy, Triumph." With the multiplicity of methods and schemes for practice it is not surprising that the main essentials of the subject are sometimes obscured. That such discussions as those included in this book will enable the thinking student to crystallize in his own mind something which to him will become a method long after he has left his student days, can not be questioned. One of the significant things which he will have to learn is perfect intonation, keeping on the right pitch all the time; and another thing is freedom from restriction, best expressed by the word poise. William Shakespeare, greatest of English singing teachers of his day, once expressed these important points in the following words: "The Foundations of the Art of Singing are two in number: "First: (A) How to take breath and (B) how to press it out slowly. (The act of slow exhalation is seen in our endeavor to warm some object with the breath.) "Second: How to sing to this controlled breath pressure. "It may be interesting at this point to observe how the old singers practiced when seeking a full tone while using little breath. They watched the effect of their breath by singing against a mirror or against the flame of a taper. If a note required too much pressure the command over the breath was lost--the mirror was unduly tarnished or the flame unduly puffed. 'Ah' was their pattern vowel, being the most difficult on account of the openness of the throat--the vowel which, by letting more breath out, demanded the greatest control. The perfect poise of the instrument on the controlled breath was found to bring about _three_ important results to the singer: "_First result_--Unerring tuning. As we do not experience any sensation of consciously using the muscles in the throat, we can only judge of the result by listening. When the note sounds to the right breath control it springs unconsciously and instantaneously to the tune we intended. The freedom of the instrument not being interfered with, it follows through our wishing it--like any other act naturally performed. This unerring tuning is the first result of a right foundation. "_Second result_--The throat spaces are felt to be unconscious and arrange themselves independently in the different positions prompted by the will and necessary to pronounciation, the factors being freedom of tongue and soft palate, and freedom of lips. "_Third result_--The complete freedom of the face and eyes which adapt themselves to those changes necessary to the expression of the emotions. "The artist can increase the intensity of his tone without necessarily increasing its volume, and can thus produce the softest effect. By his skill he can emit the soft note and cause it to travel as far as a loud note, thus arousing emotions as of distance, as of memories of the past. He produces equally well the more powerful gradations without overstepping the boundary of noble and expressive singing. On the other hand, an indifferent performer would scarcely venture on a soft effect, the absence of breath support would cause him to become inaudible and should he attempt to crescendo such a note the result would be throaty and unsatisfactory." Another most important subject is diction, and the writer can think of nothing better than to quote from Mme. Lilli Lehmann, the greatest Wagnerian soprano of the last century. "Let us now consider some of the reasons why some American singers have failed to succeed. How do American women begin their studies? Many commence their lessons in December or January. They take two or three half-hour lessons a week, even attending these irregularly, and ending their year's instruction in March or, at the latest, in April. Surely music study under such circumstances is little less than farcical. The voice, above all things, needs careful and constant attention. Moreover, many are lacking lamentably in the right preparations. Some are evidently so benighted as to believe that preparation is unnecessary. Or do they believe that the singing teacher must also provide a musical and general education? "Is there one among them, for instance, who can enunciate her own language faultlessly; that is, as the stage demands? Many fail to realize that they should, first of all, be taught elocution (diction) by teachers who can show them how to pronounce vowels purely and beautifully, and consonants correctly and distinctly, so as to give words their proper sounds. How can anyone expect to sing in a foreign language when he has no idea of his own language--no idea how this wonderful member, the tongue, should be used--to say nothing of the terrible faults in speaking? I endorse the study of elocution as a preparatory study for all singing. No one can realize how much simpler and how much more efficient it would make the work of the singing teacher." Finally, the writer feels that there is much to be inferred from the popular criticism of the man in the street--"There is no music in that voice." Mr. Hoipolloi knows just what he means when he says that. As a matter of fact, the average voice has very little music in it. By music the man means that the pitch of the tones that he hears shall be so unmistakable and so accurate, that the quality shall be so pure and the thought of the singer so sincere and so worth-while, that the auditor feels the wonderful human emotion that comes only from listening to a beautiful human voice. Put real music in every tone and your success will not be far distant. JAMES FRANCIS COOKE. Bala, Pa. THE TECHNIC OF OPERATIC PRODUCTION WHAT THE STUDENT WHO ASPIRES TO GO INTO OPERA SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE MECHANICAL SIDE OF GIVING AN OPERATIC PERFORMANCE Even after one has mastered the art of singing there is still much that the artist must learn about the actual working of the opera house itself. This of course is best done by actual experience; but the writer has found that much can be gained by insight into some of the conditions that exist in the modern opera house. In the childhood of hundreds of people now living opera was given with scenery and costumes that would be ridiculed in vaudeville if seen to-day. Pianos, lamps, chairs and even bird cages were often painted right on the scenery. One set of costumes and properties was made to do for the better part of the repertoire in such a way that even the most flexible imagination was stretched to the breaking point several times during the performance. Now, most of this has changed and the modern opera house stage is often a mechanical and electrical marvel. It is most human to want to peep behind the scenes and see something of the machinery which causes the wonderful spectacle of the stage. We remember how, as children, we longed to open the clock and see the wheels go round. Behind the asbestos curtain there is a world of ropes, lights, electrical and mechanical machinery, paints and canvas, which is always a territory filled with interest to those who sit in the seats in front. Much of the success of the opera in New York, during the early part of the present century, was due to the great efficiency of the Director, Giulio Gatti-Casazza. Gatti-Casazza was a graduate of the Royal Italian Naval Academy at Leghorn, and had been intended for a career as a naval engineer before he undertook the management of the opera at Ferrara. This he did because his father was on the board of directors of the Ferrara opera house, and the institution had not been a great success. His directorship was so well executed that he was appointed head director of the opera at La Scala in Milan and astonished the musical world with his wonderful Italian productions of Wagner's operas under the conductorship of Toscanini. In New York many reforms were instituted, and later took the New York company to Paris, giving performances which made Europe realize that opera in New York is as fine as that in any music center in the world, and in some particulars finer. The New York opera is more cosmopolitan than that of any other country. Its company included artists from practically every European country, but fortunately includes more American singers and musicians to-day than at any time in our operatic history. We are indebted to the staff of the Metropolitan Opera House, experts who, with the kind permission of the director, furnished the writer with the following interesting information: [Illustration: PROFILE OF THE PARIS GRAND OPERA. (NOTE THAT THE STAGE SECTION IS LARGER THAN THE AUDITORIUM. ALSO NOTE THE IMMENSE SPACE GIVEN TO THE GRAND ENTRANCE STAIRWAY.)] A WORLD OF DETAIL Few people have any idea of how many persons and how many departments are connected with the opera and its presentation. Considering them in order, they might be classed as follows: The General Manager and his assistants. The Musical Director and his assistants. The Stage Director and his assistants. The Technical Director and his assistants. The Business Director and his assistants. The Wardrobe Director and his assistants. The Master of Properties and his assistants. The Head Engineer and his assistants. The Accountant and his assistants. The Advertising Manager and his assistants. The Press Representatives and his assistants. The Superintendent and his assistants. The Head Usher and his assistants. The Electrician and his assistants. Few of these important and necessary factors in the production ever appear before the public. Like the miners who supply us with the wealth of the earth, they work, as it were, underground. No one is more directly concerned with making the production than the Technical Director. In that we are fortunate in having the views of Mr. Edward Siedle, Technical Director of the Metropolitan Opera Company, of New York. The complete picture that the public sees is made under the supervision of Mr. Siedle, and during the actual production he is responsible for all of the technical details. His experience has extended over a great many years in different countries. He writes: THE TECHNIC OF THE PRODUCTION I understand you wish me to give you some idea of the technicalities involved in producing the stage pictures which go to form an opera. Let us suppose it is an opera by an American composer. My first procedure would be to place myself in touch with the author and composer. After having one or two talks with them I secure a libretto. When a mutual understanding is agreed upon between us as to the character of the scenes required and the positions of particular things in relation to the business which has to take place during the performance, I make my plans accordingly, and look up all the data available bearing upon the subject. It is now time to call in the scenic artist, giving him my views and ideas, so that he can start upon the designing and painting of the scenery. His first design would be in the form of a rough sketch and a more clearly worked-out ground plan. After further discussion and alterations we should definitely agree upon a scheme, and he would proceed to make a scale model. When this model is finished it is a perfect miniature scene of the opera as it will appear on the night the opera is produced. The author and composer are then called in to meet the impresario and myself for a final consultation. We now finally criticize our plans, making any alterations which may seem necessary to us. When these alterations are completed the plans are handed over to the carpenter, who immediately starts making his frames and covering them with canvas, working from the scale model. The scenic artist is now able to commence his work in earnest. The "properties" are our next consideration. Sketches and patterns are made, authorities are consulted, and everything possible is done to aid the Property Master in doing his part of the work. Unless the opera in question calls for special mechanical effects, or special stage machinery, the scene is adapted to the stage as it is. If anything exceptional has to be achieved, however, special machinery is constructed. The designing of the costumes is gone over in much the same way as the construction of the scenery. The period in which the opera is laid, the various characters and their station in life, are all well talked over by the composer, author and myself. The costume designer is then called in, and after listening to what every one has to say and reading the libretto, he submits his designs. These, when finished, are criticized by the impresario, the composer, the author and myself, and any suggestion which will improve them is accepted by the designer, and alterations are made until everything is satisfactory. The designs are then sent to the costume maker. The important matter of lighting and electrical effects is not dealt with until after the scenery has been completed, painted and set up on the stage, except in the case when exceptional effects are demanded. The matter is then carefully discussed and arranged so that the apparatus will be ready by the time the earlier rehearsals are taking place. The staff required by a Technical Director in such an institution as the Metropolitan Opera House is necessarily a large one. He needs an able scenic artist with his assistants and an efficient carpenter with his assistants to complete the scenic arrangements as indicated in the models. The completed scenery is delivered over to the stage carpenter who has a large body of assistants, and is held responsible for the running of the opera during rehearsals and performances. The stage carpenter has also under his control a body of carpenters who work all night, commencing their duties after the opera is over, removing all the scenery used in the opera just finished from the opera house and bringing from the various storehouses the scenery required for the next performance or rehearsal. The electrician is an important member of my staff, and he, of course, has a number of assistants. The Property Master and his assistants and the Wardrobe Mistress and her assistants also are extremely important. Then the active engineer who is responsible for the heating and ventilating, and also for many of the stage effects, is another necessary and important member. In all, the Opera House, when in full swing, requires for the technical or stage detail work alone about 185 people. [Illustration: HOW AN OPERATIC STAGE LOOKS FROM BEHIND.] Thus far we have not considered the musical side of the production. This is, of course, under the management of the General Director and the leading Musical Director. Very little time at best is at the disposal of the musical director. A director like Toscanini would, in a first-class opera house, with a full and competent company, require about fifteen days to complete the rehearsals, and other preparations for such a production as _Aïda_, should such a work be brought out as a novelty. A good conductor needs at least four orchestra rehearsals. _Pelleas et Melisande_ would require more extensive rehearsing, as the music is of a new order and is, in a sense, a new form of art. IMPORTANT REHEARSALS While the head musical director is engaged with the principals and the orchestra, the Chorus-master spends his time training the chorus. If his work is not efficiently done, the entire production is greatly impeded. The assistant conductors undertake the work of rehearsing the soloists prior to their appearance in connection with the orchestra. They must know the Head Director's ideas perfectly, and see that the soloists do not introduce interpretations which are too much at variance with his ideas and the accepted traditions. In all about ten rehearsals are given to a work in a room set aside for that purpose, then there are five stage rehearsals, and finally four full ensemble rehearsals with orchestra. In putting on an old work, such as those in the standard repertoire, no rehearsals are demanded. The musical forces of the Metropolitan Opera House, for instance, make a company of at least two leading conductors, twelve assistant conductors, about ninety soloists, a chorus numbering at least one hundred and twenty-five singers, thirty musicians for stage music, about twenty stage attendants and an orchestra of from eighty to one hundred performers, to say nothing of the costume, scenic and business staff, making a little industry all in itself. The General Director, the Stage Manager, and often the Musical Director make innumerable suggestions to the singers regarding the proper histrionic presentation of their rôles. As a rule singers give too little attention to the dramatic side of their work and demand too much of the stage manager. In recent years there has been a great improvement in this. Prior to the time of Gluck, Weber and Wagner, acting in opera was a matter of ridicule. THE BALLET About seventy or one hundred persons make up the ballet of a modern grand opera. At least ten years of continuous study are required to make a finished ballet dancer in the histrionic sense. Many receive very large fees for their services. The art of stage dancing also has undergone many great reforms in recent years; and the ballets of to-day are therefore much more popular than they were in the latter part of the last century. The most popular ballets of to-day are the _Coppelia_ and _Sylvia_ of Delibes. The ballets from the operas of _La Gioconda_, _Samson et Delila_, _Armide_, _Mephistophele_, _Aïda_, _Orfeo_, _L'Africaine_, and _The Damnation of Faust_ also are very popular. At a modern opera house like the Metropolitan in New York City the number of employees will be between six hundred and seven hundred, and the cost of a season will be about one million dollars. FRANCES ALDA (MME. GIULIO GATTI-CASAZZA) BIOGRAPHICAL Mme. Frances Alda was born at Christ Church, New Zealand, May 31st, 1883. She was educated at Melbourne and studied singing with Mathilde Marchesi in Paris. Her début was made in Massenet's _Manon_, at the Opera Comique in Paris in 1904. After highly successful engagements in Paris, Brussels, Parma and Milan (where she created the title rôle in the Italian version of _Louise_), she made her American début at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York as Gilda in Verdi's _Rigoletto_. Since her initial success in New York she has been connected with the Metropolitan stage every season. In 1910 she married Giulio Gatti-Casazza, manager of the Metropolitan Opera House, and is probably better able to speak upon the subject herewith discussed than any one in America. She has also appeared with great success in London, Warsaw, Buenos Aires and other cities, in opera and in concert. Many of the most important leading rôles in modern opera have been created by her in America. [Illustration: MME. FRANCES ALDA. © Underwood & Underwood.] WHAT THE AMERICAN GIRL SHOULD KNOW ABOUT AN OPERATIC CAREER MME. FRANCES ALDA (MME. GATTI-CASAZZA) REGULARITY AND SUCCESS To the girl who aspires to have an operatic career, who has the requisite vocal gifts, physical health, stage presence and--most important of all--a high degree of intelligence, the great essential is regular daily work. This implies regular lessons, regular practice, regular exercise, regular sleep, regular meals--in fact, a life of regularity. The daily lesson in most cases seems an imperative necessity. Lessons strung over a series of years merely because it seems more economical to take one lesson a week instead of seven rarely produce the expected results. Marchesi, with her famous wisdom on vocal matters, advised twenty minutes a day and then not more than ten minutes at a time. For nine months I studied with the great Parisian maestra and in my tenth month I made my début. Of course, I had sung a great deal before that time and also could play both the piano and the violin. A thorough musical knowledge is always valuable. The early years of the girl who is destined for an operatic career may be much more safely spent with Czerny exercises for the piano or Kreutzer studies for the violin than with Concone Solfeggios for the voice. Most girls over-exercise their voices during the years when they are too delicate. It always pays to wait and spend the time in developing the purely musical side of study. MODERATION AND GOOD SENSE More voices collapse from over-practice and more careers collapse from under-work than from anything else. The girl who hopes to become a prima donna will dream of her work morning, noon and night. Nothing can take it out of her mind. She will seek to study every imaginable thing that could in any way contribute to her equipment. There is so much to learn that she must work hard to learn all. Even now I study pretty regularly two hours a day, but I rarely sing more than a few minutes. I hum over my new rôles with my accompanist, Frank La Forge, and study them in that way. It was to such methods as this that Marchesi attributed the wonderful longevity of the voices of her best-known pupils. When they followed the advice of the dear old maestra their voices lasted a long, long time. Her vocal exercises were little more than scales sung very slowly, single, sustained tones repeated time and again until her critical ear was entirely satisfied, and then arpeggios. After that came more complicated technical drills to prepare the pupil for the fioriture work demanded in the more florid operas. At the base of all, however, were the simplest kind of exercises. Through her discriminating sense of tone quality, her great persistence and her boundless enthusiasm, she used these simple vocal materials with a wizardry that produced great _prime donne_. THE PRECIOUS HEAD VOICE Marchesi laid great stress upon the use of the head voice. This she illustrated to all her pupils herself, at the same time not hesitating to insist that it was impossible for a male teacher to teach the head voice properly. (Marchesi herself carried out her theories by refusing to teach any male applicants.) She never let any pupil sing above F on the top line of the treble staff in anything but the head voice. They rarely ever touched their highest notes with full voice. The upper part of the voice was conserved with infinite care to avoid early breakdowns. Even when the pupils sang the top notes they did it with the feeling that there was still something in reserve. In my operatic work at present I feel this to be of greatest importance. The singer who exhausts herself upon the top notes is neither artistic nor effective. THE AMERICAN GIRL'S CHANCES IN OPERA The American girl who fancies that she has less chances in opera than her sisters of the European countries is silly. Look at the lists of artists at the Metropolitan, for instance. The list includes twice as many artists of American nationality as of any other nation. This is in no sense the result of pandering to the patriotism of the American public. It is simply a matter of supply and demand. New Yorkers demand the best opera in the world and expect the best voices in the world. The management would accept fine artists with fine voices from China or Africa or the North Pole if they were forthcoming. A diamond is a diamond no matter where it comes from. The management virtually ransacks the musical marts of Europe every year for fine voices. Inevitably the list of American artists remains higher. On the whole, the American girls have better natural voices, more ambition and are willing to study seriously, patiently and energetically. This is due in a measure to better physical conditions in America and in Australia, another free country that has produced unusual singers. What is the result? America is now producing the best and enjoying the best. There is more fine music of all kinds now in New York during one week than one can get in Paris in a month and more than one can get in Milan in six months. This has made New York a great operatic and musical center. It is a wonderful opportunity for Americans who desire to enter opera. THE NEED FOR SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE There was a time in the halcyon days of the old coloratura singers when the opera singer was not expected to have very much more intelligence than a parrot. Any singer who could warble away at runs and trills was a great artist. The situation has changed entirely to-day. The modern opera-goer demands great acting as well as great singing. The opera house calls for brains as well as voices. There should properly be great and sincere rivalry among fine singers. The singer must listen to other singers with minute care and patience, and then try to learn how to improve herself by self-study and intelligent comparison. Just as the great actor studies everything that pertains to his rôle, so the great singer knows the history of the epoch of the opera in which he is to appear, he knows the customs, he may know something of the literature of the time. In other words, he must live and think in another atmosphere before he can walk upon the stage and make the audience feel that he is really a part of the picture. Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree gave a presentation that was convincing and beautiful, while the mediocre actor, not willing to give as much brain work to his performance, falls far short of an artistic performance. A modern performance of any of the great works as they are presented at the Metropolitan is rehearsed with great care and attention to historical detail. Instances of this are the performances of _L'Amore di Tre Re_, _Carmen_, _Bohême_, and _Lohengrin_, as well as such great works as _Die Meistersinger_, and _Tristan und Isolde_. PHYSICAL STRENGTH AND SINGING Few singers seem to realize that an operatic career will be determined in its success very largely through physical strength, all other factors being present in the desired degree. That is, the singer must be strong physically in order to succeed in opera. This applies to women as well as to men. No one knows what the physical strain is, how hard the work and study are. In front of you is a sea of highly intelligent, cultured people, who for years have been trained in the best traditions of the opera. They pay the highest prices paid anywhere for entertainment. They are entitled to the best. To face such an audience and maintain the high traditions of the house through three hours of a complicated modern score is a musical, dramatic and intellectual feat that demands, first of all, a superb physical condition. Every day of my life in New York I go for a walk, mostly around the reservoir in Central Park, because it is high and the air is pure and free. As a result I seldom have a cold, even in mid-winter. I have not missed a performance in eight years, and this, of course, is due to the fact that my health is my first daily consideration. [Illustration: PASQUALE AMATO. © Mishkin.] PASQUALE AMATO BIOGRAPHICAL Pasquale Amato, for so many years the leading baritone at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, was born at Naples March 21st, 1878. He was intended for the career of an engineer and was educated at the Instituto Tecnico Domenico. He then studied at the Conservatory of Naples from 1896 to 1899. His teachers there were Cucialla and Carelli. He made his début as Germont in _La Traviata_ in the Teatro Bellini at Naples in 1900. Thereafter his successes have been exceptionally great in the music centers of South America, Italy, Russia, England, Egypt, and Germany. He has created numerous rôles at the Metropolitan Opera House, among them Jack Rance in the _Girl of the Golden West_; Golaud in _Pelleas and Melisande_ (Milan); _L'Amore di Tre Re_; _Cyrano_ (Damrosch); _Lodoletta_ (Mascagni); _Madame Sans Gene_. He has visited South America as an artist no less than ten times. His voice is susceptible of fine dramatic feeling. MODERN VOCAL METHODS IN ITALY PASQUALE AMATO When I was about sixteen years of age my voice was sufficiently settled to encourage my friends and family to believe that I might become a singer. This is a proud discovery for an Italian boy, as singing--especially operatic singing--is held in such high regard in Italy that one naturally looks forward with joy to a career in the great opera houses of one's native country and possibly to those over the sea. At eighteen I was accordingly entered in the conservatory, but not without many conditions, which should be of especial interest to young American vocal students. The teachers did not immediately accept me as good vocal material. I was recognized to have musical inclinations and musical gifts and I was placed under observation so that it might be determined whether the state-supported conservatory should direct my musical education along vocal lines or along other lines. This is one of the cardinal differences between musical education in America and musical education in Italy. In America a pupil suddenly determines that he is destined to become a great opera singer and forthwith he hires a teacher to make him one. He might have been destined to become a plumber, or a lawyer, or a comedian, but that has little to do with the matter if he has money and can employ a teacher. In Italy such a direction of talents would be considered a waste to the individual and to the state. Of course the system has its very decided faults, for a corps of teachers with poor or biased judgment could do a great deal of damage by discouraging real talent, as was, indeed, the case with the great Verdi, who at the age of eighteen was refused admission to the Milan Conservatory by the director, Basili, on the score of lack of talent. However, for the most part the judges are experienced and skilful men, and when a pupil has been under surveillance for some time the liability of an error in judgment is very slight. Accordingly, after I had spent some time in getting acquainted with music through the study of Notation, Sight-singing, Theory, Harmony, Piano, etc., I was informed at the end of two years that I had been selected for an operatic career. I can remember the time with great joy. It meant a new life to me, for I was certain that with the help of such conservative masters I should succeed. On the whole, at this time, I consider the Italian system a very wise one for it does not fool away any time with incompetence. I have met so many young musicians who have shown indications of great study but who seem destitute of talent. It seems like coaxing insignificant shrubs to become great oak trees. No amount of coaxing or study will give them real talent if they do not have it, so why waste the money of the state and the money of the individual upon it. On the other hand, wherever in the world there is real talent, the state should provide money to develop it, just as it provides money to educate the young. ITALIAN VOCAL TEACHING So much has been said about the Old Italian Vocal Method that the very name brings ridicule in some quarters. Nothing has been the subject for so much charlatanry. It is something that any teacher, good or bad, can claim in this country. Every Italian is of course very proud indeed of the wonderful vocal traditions of Italy, the centuries of idealism in search of better and better tone production. There are of course certain statements made by great voice teachers of other days that have been put down and may be read in almost any library in large American cities. But that these things make a vocal method that will suit all cases is too absurd to consider. The good sense of the old Italian master would hold such a plan up to ridicule. Singing is first of all an art, and an art can not be circumscribed by any set of rules or principles. The artist must, first of all, know a very great deal about all possible phases of the technic of his art and must then adjust himself to the particular problem before him. Therefore we might say that the Italian method was a method and then again that it was no method. As a matter of fact it is thousands of methods--one for each case or vocal problem. For instance, if I were to sing by the same means that Mr. Caruso employs it would not at all be the best thing for my voice, yet for Mr. Caruso it is without question the very best method, or his vocal quality would not be in such superb condition after constant years of use. He is the proof of his own method. I should say that the Italian vocal teacher teaches, first of all, with his ears. He listens with the greatest possible intensity to every shade of tone-color until his ideal tone reveals itself. This often requires months and months of patience. The teacher must recognize the vocal deficiencies and work to correct them. For instance, I never had to work with my high tones. They are to-day produced in the same way in which I produced them when I was a boy. Fortunately I had teachers who recognized this and let it go at that. Possibly the worst kind of a vocal teacher is the one who has some set plan or device or theory which must be followed "willy-nilly" in order that the teacher's theories may be vindicated. With such a teacher no voice is safe. The very best natural voices have to follow some patent plan just because the teacher has been taught in one way, is inexperienced, and has not good sense enough to let nature's perfect work alone. Both of my teachers knew that my high tones were all right and the practice was directed toward the lower tones. They worked me for over ten months on scales and sustained tones until the break that came at E flat above the Bass Clef was welded from the lower tones to the upper tones so that I could sing up or down with no ugly break audible. I was drilled at first upon the vowel "ah." I hear American vocal authorities refer to "ah" as in father. That seems to me too flat a sound, one lacking in real resonance. The vowel used in my case in Italy and in hundreds of other cases I have noted is a slightly broader vowel, such as may be found half-way between the vowel "ah" as in father, and the "aw" as in law. It is not a dull sound, yet it is not the sound of "ah" in father. Perhaps the word "doff" or the first syllable of Boston, when properly pronounced, gives the right impression. I do not know enough of American vocal training to give an intelligent criticism, but I wonder if American vocal teachers give as much attention to special parts of the training as teachers in Italy do. I hope they do, as I consider it very necessary. Consider the matter of staccato. A good vocal staccato is really a very difficult thing--difficult when it is right; that is, when on the pitch--every time, clear, distinct, and at the same time not hard and stiff. It took me weeks to acquire the right way of singing such a passage as _Un di, quando le veneri_, from _Traviata_, but those were very profitable weeks-- [Illustration: musical notation Un di, quan-do le ve-ne-ri il tem-po a-vrà fu-ga-te ] Accurate attack in such a passage is by no means easy. Anyone can sing it--but _how it is sung_ makes the real difference. The public has very odd ideas about singing. For instance, it would be amazed to learn that _Trovatore_ is a much more difficult rôle for me to sing and sing right than either _Parsifal_ or _Pelleas and Melisande_. This largely because of the pure vocal demands and the flowing style. The Debussy opera, wonderful as it is, does not begin to make the vocal demands that such a work as _Trovatore_ does. When the singer once acquires proficiency, the acquisition of new rôles comes very easy indeed. The main difficulty is the daily need for drilling the voice until it has the same quality every day. It can be done only by incessant attention. Here are some of the exercises I do every day with my accompanist: [Illustration: musical notation _First time forte second time piano._] DAVID BISPHAM BIOGRAPHICAL David Bispham, in many ways the most distinguished of all American singers, was born in Philadelphia January 5th, 1857. Educated at Haverford College, Pa. At first a highly successful amateur in Philadelphia choirs and theatricals, he went to Milan in 1886, studying with Vannuccini, Lamperti and later in London with Shakespeare and Randegger. His operatic début was made in Messager's _Basoche_ at the Royal English Opera House, 1891. In 1892 he appeared as Kurvenal and met with great favor. His Wagnerian rôles have been especially distinctive since the start. From 1896 to 1909 he sang alternately at the Metropolitan in New York and at Covent Garden in London, and was admittedly one of the foremost attractions of those great companies in the golden era of our operatic past. He was also immensely in demand as a recital and as an oratorio singer and as a dramatic reader. Few singers have shown the versatility and mastery of David Bispham and few have been so justly entitled to the academic honors LL.D., B.A., and Mus. Doc., which he had earned. He was the author of numerous articles on singing--the very successful autobiography, "A Quaker Singer's Reminiscences," and the collections, "David Bispham's Recital Album," "The David Bispham Song Book" (for schools). He was also ever a strong champion of the use of the English language in singing. He died in New York City Oct. 2d, 1921. [Illustration: DAVID BISPHAM.] THE MAIN ELEMENTS OF INTERPRETATION DAVID BISPHAM So many things enter into the great problem of interpretation in singing that it is somewhat difficult to state definitely just what the young singer should consider the most important. Generally speaking, the following factors are of prime significance: 1. Natural Aptitude. 2. General Education and Culture. 3. Good Musical Training. 4. Accurate Vocal Training. 5. Familiarity with Traditions. 6. Freedom of Mind. 7. Good Health. 8. Life Experience. 9. Personal Magnetism--one of the most essential,--and 10. Idealism. 1. _Natural Aptitude._--You will notice that foremost consideration is given to those broad general qualities without which all the technical and musical training of the world is practically worthless. The success of the art worker in all lines depends first upon the nature of the man or woman. Technical training of the highest and best kind is essential, but that which moves great audiences is not alone the mechanics of an art, but rather the broad education, experience, ideals, culture, the human sympathy and magnetism of the artist. 2. _The Value of Education and Culture._--I cannot emphasize too strongly the value of a good general education and wide culture for the singer. The day has passed when a pretty face or a well-rounded ankle could be mistaken for art on the operatic stage. The public now demands something more than the heroic looking young fellow who comes down to the footlights with the assurance of youth and offers, for real vocal art, a voice fresh but crudely trained, and a bungling interpretation. Good education has often been responsible for the phenomenal success of American singers in European opera houses. Before the last war, in nearly all of the great operatic centers of the Continent, one found Americans ranking with the greatest artists in Europe. This was a most propitious condition, for it meant that American audiences have been compelled to give the long-delayed recognition to our own singers, and methods of general and vocal education. In most cases the young people of America who aspire to operatic triumphs come from a somewhat better class than singers do in Europe. They have had, in most cases, better educational, cultural and home advantages than the average European student. Their minds are trained to study intelligently; they are acquainted with the history of the great nations of the world; their tastes are cultivated, and they are filled with the American energy which is one of the marvels of the centuries. More than this, they have had a kind of moral uplift in their homes which is of immense value to them. They have higher ideals in life, they are more businesslike and they keep their purposes very clearly in view. This has created jealousy in some European centers; but it is simply a case of the survival of the fittest, and Europe was compelled to bow in recognition of this. Vocal art in our own land is no longer to be ignored, for our standards are as high as the highest in the world, and we are educating a race of singers of which any country might be proud. 3. _Good Musical Training._--A thorough musical training--that is, a training upon some musical instrument such as the piano--is extremely desirable, but not absolutely essential; for the instrument called the Human Voice can be played on as effectively as a violin. The singer who is convinced of his ability, but who has not had such advantages in early youth, should not be discouraged. He can acquire a thorough knowledge of the essentials later on, but he will have to work very much harder to get his knowledge--as I was obliged to do. Artistic ability is by no means a certain quality. The famous art critic, Vassari, has called our attention to the fact that one painter who produced wonderful pictures had an exhaustive technical training, another arising at his side who also achieved wonderful results had to secure them by means of much bungling self-study. It is very hard to repress artistic ability. As the Bible says: "Many waters cannot quench love." So it is with music; if the ability is there, it will come to the front through fire and water. 4. _Accurate and Rational Vocal Training._--I have added the word rational for it seems a necessary term at a time when so much vocal teaching is apparently in the hands of "faddists." There is only one way to sing, that is _the right way_, the way that is founded upon natural conditions. So much has been said in print about breathing, and placing the voice, and resonance, that anything new might seem redundant at this time. The whole thing in a nutshell is simply to make an effort to get the breath under such excellent control that it will obey the will so easily and fluently that the singer is almost unconscious of any means he may employ to this end. This can come only through long practice and careful observation. When the breath is once under proper control the supply must be so adjusted that neither too much nor too little will be applied to the larynx at one time. How to do this can be discovered only by much practice and self-criticism. When the tone has been created it must be reinforced and colored by passing through the mouth and nose, and the latter is a very present help in time of vocal trouble. This leads to a good tone on at least twenty-six steps and half-steps of the scale and with twenty or more vowel sounds--no easy task by any means. All this takes time, but there is no reason why it should take an interminable amount of time. If good results are not forthcoming in from nine months to a year, something is wrong with either the pupil or the teacher. The matter of securing vocal flexibility should not be postponed too long, but may in many instances be taken up in conjunction with the studies in tone production, after the first principles have been learned. Thereafter one enters upon the endless and indescribably interesting field of securing a repertoire. Only a teacher with wide experience and intimacy with the best in the vocal literature of the world can correctly grade and select pieces suitable to the ever-changing needs of the pupil. No matter how wonderful the flexibility of the voice, no matter how powerful the tones, no matter how extensive the repertoire, the singer will find all this worthless unless he possesses a voice that is susceptible to the expression of every shade of mental and emotional meaning which his intelligence, experience and general culture have revealed to him in the work he is interpreting. At all times his voice must be under control. Considered from the mechanical standpoint, the voice resembles the violin, the breath, as it passes over the vocal cords, corresponding to the bow and the resonance chambers corresponding to the resonance chambers in the violin. 5. _Familiarity With Vocal Traditions._--We come to the matter of the study of the traditional methods of interpreting vocal masterpieces. We must, of course, study these traditions, but we must not be slaves to them. In other words, we must know the past in order to interpret masterpieces properly in the present. We must not, however, sacrifice that great quality--individuality--for slavery to convention. If the former Italian method of rendering certain arias was marred by the tremolo of some famous singers, there is no good artistic reason why any one should retain anything so hideous as a tremolo solely because it is traditional. There is a capital story of a young American singer who went to a European opera house with all the characteristic individuality and inquisitiveness of his people. In one opera the stage director told him to go to the back of the stage before singing his principal number and then walk straight down to the footlights and deliver the aria. "Why must I go to the back first?" asked the young singer. The director was amazed and blustered: "Why? Why, because the great Rubini did it that way--he created the part; it is the tradition." But the young singer was not satisfied, and finally found an old chorus man who had sung with Rubini, and asked him whether the tradition was founded upon a custom of the celebrated singer. "Yes," replied the chorus man, "da gretta Rubini he granda man. He go waya back; then he comea front; then he sing. Ah, grandissimo!" "But," persisted the young American, "_Why did he go to the back before he sang?_" "Oh!" exclaimed the excited Italian; "Why he go back? He go to spit!" Farcical as this incident may seem, many musical traditions are founded upon customs with quite as little musical or esthetic importance. Many traditions are to-day quite as useless as the buttons on the sleeves of our coats, although these very buttons were at one time employed by our forefathers to fasten back the long cuffs. There are, however, certain traditional methods of rendering great masterpieces, and particularly those marked by the florid ornamentation of the days of Handel, Bach and Haydn, which the singer must know. Unfortunately, many of these traditions have not been preserved in print in connection with the scores themselves, and the only way in which the young singer can acquire a knowledge of them is through hearing authoritative artists, or from teachers who have had wide and rich experience. 6. _Freedom of Mind._--Under ideal conditions the mind should be free for music study and for public performance. This is not always possible; and some artists under great mental pressure have done their best work solely because they felt that the only way to bury sorrow and trouble was to thrust themselves into their artistic life and thus forget the pangs of misfortune. The student, however, should do everything possible to have his mind free so that he can give his best to his work. One who is wondering where the next penny is coming from is in a poor condition to impress an audience. Nevertheless, if the real ability is there it is bound to triumph over all obstacles. 7. _Good Health._--Good health is one of the great factors of success in singing. Who needs a sounder mind than the artist? Good health comes from good, sensible living. The singer must never forget that the instrument he plays upon is a part of his body and that that instrument depends for its musical excellence and general condition upon good health. A $20,000 Stradivarius would be worthless if it were placed in a tub of water; and a larynx that earns for its owner from $500 to $1,500 a night is equally valueless when saturated with the poisons that come from intemperate or unwise living. Many of the singer's throat troubles arise from an unhealthy condition of the stomach caused by excesses of diet; but, aside from this, a disease localized in any other part of the body affects the throat sympathetically and makes it difficult for the singer to get good results. Recital work, with its long fatiguing journeys on railroads, together with the other inconveniences of travel and the responsibility and strain that come from knowing that one person alone is to hold from 1,000 to 5,000 people interested for nearly two hours, demands a very sound physical condition. 8. _Life Experience._--Culture does not come from the schoolroom alone. The refining processes of life are long and varied. As the violin gains in richness of tone and intrinsic value with age, so the singer's life experience has an effect upon the character of his singing. He must have seen life in its broadest sense, to place himself in touch with human sympathy. To do this and still retain the freshness and sweetness of his voice should be his great aim. The singer who lives a narrow and bigoted existence rarely meets with wide popular approval. The public wants to hear in a voice that wonderful something that tells them that it has had opportunities to know and to understand the human side of song, not giving parrot-like versions of some teacher's way of singing, but that the understanding comes from the very center of the mind, heart and soul. This is particularly true in the field of the song recital. Most of the renowned recital singers of the last half century, including Schumann-Heink, Sembrich, Wüllner, the Henschels and others, were considerably past their youth when they made their greatest successes. A painting fresh from the artist's brush is raw, hard and uninteresting, till time, with its damp and dust, night and day, heat and cold, gives the enriching touch which adds so wonderfully to the softness and beauty of a picture. We singers are all living canvases. Time, and time only, can give us those shades and tints which reveal living experience. The young artist should hear many of the best singers, actors, and speakers, should read many of the best books, should see many beautiful pictures and wonderful buildings. But most of all, he should know and study many people and learn of their joys and their sorrows, their successes and their failures, their strength and their weaknesses, their loves and their hates. In all art human life is reflected, and this is particularly true in the case of vocal art. For years, in my youth, I never failed to attend all of the musical events of consequence in my native city. This was of immense value to me, since it gave me the means of cultivating my own judgment of what was good or bad in singing. Do not fear that you will become _blasé_. If you have the right spirit every musical event you attend will spur you on. You may say that it is expensive to hear great singers, and that you can only attend recitals and the opera occasionally. If this is really the case you still have a means of hearing singers which you should not neglect. I refer to the reproducing machines which have grown to be of such importance in vocal education. Phonograph records are nothing short of marvelous, and my earnestness in this cause is shown by the fact that I have long advocated their employment in the public schools, and have placed the matter before the educational authorities of New York. I earnestly urge the music teachers of this country, who are working for the real musical development of our children, to take this matter up in all seriousness. I can assure them that their efforts will bring them rich dividends in increased interest in musical work of their pupils, and the forming of a musical public. But nothing but the classics of song must be used. The time for the scorning of "high-brow" songs is past, and music must help this country to rid itself of the vogue of the "low-brow" and the "tough." Let singers strive to become educated ornaments of their lofty profession. 9. _Personal Magnetism._--One of the most essential. The subject of "personal magnetism" is ridiculed by some, of course, but rarely laughed at by the artist who has experienced the astonishing phenomena in the opera house or the concert room. Like electricity it is intangible, indefinable, indescribable, but makes its existence known by manifestations that are almost uncanny. If personal magnetism does not exist, how then can we account for the fact that one pianist can sit down to the instrument and play a certain piece, and that another pianist could play the same piece with the same technical effect but losing entirely the charm and attractiveness with which the first pianist imbued the composition? Personal magnetism does not depend upon personal beauty nor erudition nor even upon perfect health. Henry Irving and Sarah Bernhardt were certainly not beautiful, but they held the world of the theater in the palm of their hand. Some artists have really been in the last stages of severe illness but have, nevertheless, possessed the divine electric spark to inspire hundreds, as did the hectic Chopin when he made his last famous visit to England and Scotland. Personal magnetism is not a kind of hypnotic influence to be found solely in the concert hall or the theater. Most artists possess it to a certain degree. Without this subtle and mysterious force, success with the public never comes. 10. _Idealism._--Ideals are the flowers of youth. Only too often they are not tenderly cared for, and the result is that many who have been on the right track are turned in the direction of failure by materialism. It is absolutely essential for the young singer to have high ideals. Direct your efforts to the best in whatever branch of vocal art you determine to undertake. Do not for a moment let mediocrity or the substitution of artificial methods enter your vision. Holding to your ideal will mean costly sacrifices to you; but all sacrifices are worth while if one can realize one's ideal. The ideal is only another term for Heaven to me. If we could all attain to the ideal, we would all be in a kind of earthly Paradise. It has always seemed to me that when our Lord said "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," he meant that it is at hand for us to possess now; that is the _ideal_ in life. [Illustration: DAME CLARA BUTT.] DAME CLARA BUTT BIOGRAPHICAL Dame Butt was born at Southwick, Sussex, February 1, 1873. Her first lessons were with D. W. Rootham in Bristol. In 1889 she won a scholarship at the Royal College of music where the teacher was J. H. Blower. Later she studied for short periods with Bouhy in Paris and Etelka Gerster in Berlin. Her début was made as Ursula in Sullivan's setting of the Longfellow poem, _Golden Legend_. Her success was immediate and very great. She became in demand at all of the great English musical festivals and also sang before enormous audiences for years in the great English cities. In 1900 she married the noted English baritone R. Kennerly Rumford and together they have made many tours, including a tour of the world, appearing everywhere with continued success. Her voice is one of rich, full contralto quality with such individual characteristics that great English composers have written special works to reveal these great natural gifts. Dame Butt received her distinction of "Dame" from King George in 1920. Her happy family life with her children has won her endless admirers among musical people everywhere. SUCCESS IN CONCERT SINGING DAME CLARA BUTT HEALTH AND SINGING It must be obvious to all aspiring vocal students that splendid good health is well nigh indispensable to the singer. There have been singers, of course, who have had physical afflictions that have made their public appearances extremely painful, but they have succeeded in spite of these unfortunate drawbacks. In fact, if the young singer is ambitious and has that wonderful gift of directing her efforts in the way most likely to bring fortunate results, even physical weakness may be overcome. By this I mean that the singer will work out some plan for bringing her physical condition to the standard that fine singing demands. I believe most emphatically that the right spirit will conquer obstacles that often seem impassable. One might safely say that nine-tenths of the successes in all branches of artistic work are due to the inextinguishable fire that burns in the heart and mind of the art worker and incites him to pass through any ordeal in order to deliver his message to the world. MISDIRECTED EFFORT The cruel part of it all is that many aspire to become great singers who can never possibly have their hopes realized. Natural selection rather than destiny seems to govern this matter. The ugly caterpillar seems like an unpromising candidate for the brilliant career of the butterfly, and it oftentimes happens that students who seem unpromising to some have just the qualities which, with the right time, instruction and experience, will entitle them to great success. It is the little ant who hopes to grow iridescent wings, and who travels through conservatory after conservatory, hoping to find the magic chrysalis that will do this, who is to be pitied. Great success must depend upon special gifts, intellectual as well as vocal. Oh, if we only had some instinct, like that possessed by animals, that would enable us to determine accurately in advance the safest road for us to take, the road that will lead us to the best development of our real talents--not those we imagine we may have or those which the flattery of friends have grafted upon us! Mr. Rumford and I have witnessed so much very hard and very earnest work carried on by students who have no rational basis to hope for success as singers, that we have been placed in the uncomfortable position of advising young singers to seek some other life work. WHEN TO BEGIN The eternal question, "At what age shall I commence to study singing?" is always more or less amusing to the experienced singer. If the singer's spirit is in the child, nothing will stop his singing. He will sing from morning until night, and seems to be guided in most cases by an all-providing Nature that makes its untutored efforts the very best kind of practice. Unless the child is brought into contact with very bad music he is not likely to be injured. Children seem to be trying their best to prove the Darwinian theory by showing us that they can mimic quite as well as monkeys. The average child comes into the better part of his little store of wisdom through mimicry. Naturally if the little vocal student is taken to the vaudeville theatre, where every imaginable vocal law is smashed during a three-hour performance, and if the child observes that the smashing process is followed by the enthusiastic applause of the unthinking audience, it is only reasonable to suppose that the child will discover in this what he believes to be the most approved art of singing. It is evident then that the first thing which the parent of the musical child should consider is that of teaching him to appreciate what is looked upon as good and what is looked upon as bad. Although many singers with fine voices have appeared in vaudeville, the others must be regarded as "horrible" examples, and the child should know that they are such. On the other hand, it is quite evident that the more good singing that the child hears in the impressionable years of its youth the greater will be the effect upon the mind which is to direct the child's musical future. This is a branch of the vocalist's education which may begin long before the actual lessons. If it is carefully conducted the teacher should have far less difficulty in starting the child with the actual work. The only possible danger might be that the child's imitative faculty could lead it to extremes of pitch in imitating some singer. Even this is hardly more likely to injure it than the shouting and screaming which often accompanies the play of children. The actual time of starting must depend upon the individual. It is never too early for him to start in acquiring his musical knowledge. Everything he might learn of music itself, through the study of the piano or any other instrument would all become a part of his capital when he became a singer. Those singers are fortunate whose musical knowledge commenced with the cradle and whose first master was that greatest of all teachers, the mother. Speaking generally, it seems to be the impression of singing teachers that voice students should not commence the vocal side of their studies until they are from sixteen to seventeen years of age. In this connection, consider my own case. My first public appearance with orchestra was when I was fourteen. It was in Bristol, England, and among other things I sang _Ora Pro Nobis_ from Gounod's _Workers_. I was fortunate in having in my first teacher, D. W. Rootham, a man too thoroughly blessed with good British common sense to have any "tricks." He had no fantastic way of doing things, no proprietary methods, that none else in the world was supposed to possess. He listened for the beautiful in my voice and, as his sense of musical appreciation was highly cultivated, he could detect faults, explain them to me and show me how to overcome them by purely natural methods. The principal part of the process was to make me realize mentally just what was wrong and then what was the more artistic way of doing it. LETTING THE VOICE GROW After all, singing is singing, and I am convinced that my master's idea of just letting the voice grow with normal exercise and without excesses in any direction was the best way for me. It was certainly better than hours and hours of theory, interesting to the student of physiology, but often bewildering to the young vocalist. Real singing with real music is immeasurably better than ages of conjecture. It appears that some students spend years in learning how they are going to sing at some glorious day in the future, but it never seems to occur to them that in order to sing they must really use their voices. Of course, I do not mean to infer that the student must omit the necessary preparatory work. Solfeggios, for instance, and scales are extremely useful. Concone, tried and true, gives excellent material for all students. But why spend years in dreaming of theories regarding singing when everyone knows that the theory of singing has been the battleground for innumerable talented writers for centuries? Even now it is apparently impossible to reconcile all the vocal writers, except in so far as they all modestly admit that they have rediscovered the real old Italian school. Perhaps they have. But, admitting that an art teacher rediscovered the actual pigments used by Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt or Raphael, he would have no little task in creating a student who could duplicate _Mona Lisa_, _The Night Watch_ or the _Sistine Madonna_. After leaving Rootham, I won the four hundred guinea scholarship at the Royal College of Music and studied with Henry Blower. This I followed with a course with Bouhy in Paris and Etelka Gerster in Berlin. Mr. Rumford and I both concur in the opinion that it is necessary for the student who would sing in any foreign language to study in the country in which the language is spoken. In no other way can one get the real atmosphere. The preparatory work may be done in the home country, but if one fails to taste of the musical life of the country in which the songs came into being, there seems to be an indefinable absence of the right flavor. I believe in employing the native tongue for songs in recital work. It seems narrow to me to do otherwise. At the same time, I have always been a champion for songs written originally with English texts, and have sung innumerable times with programs made from English lyrics. PREPARING A REPERTOIRE The idea that concert and recital work is not as difficult as operatic work has been pretty well exploded by this time. In fact, it is very much more difficult to sing a simple song well in concert than it is to sing some of the elaborate Wagnerian recitatives in which the very complexities of the music make a convenient hiding place for the artist's vocal shortcomings. In concert everything is concentrated upon the singer. Convention has ever deprived him of the convenient gestures that give ease to the opera singer. The selection of useful material for concert purposes is immensely difficult. It must have artistic merit, it must have human interest, it must suit the singer, in most cases the piano must be used for accompaniment and the song must not be dependent upon an orchestral accompaniment for its value. It must not be too old, it must not be too far in advance of popular tastes. It is a bad plan to wander indiscriminately about among countless songs, never learning any really well. The student should begin to select numbers with great care, realizing that it is futile to try to do everything. Lord Bolingbroke, in his essay on the shortness of human life, shows how impossible it is for a man to read more than a mere fraction of a great library though he read regularly every day of his life. It is very much the same with music. The resources are so vast and time is so limited that there is no opportunity to learn everything. Far better is it for the vocalist to do a little well than to do much ineffectually. Good music well executed meets with very much the same appreciation everywhere. During our latest tour we gave almost the very same programs in America as those we have been giving upon the European Continent. The music-loving American public is likely to differ but slightly from that of the great music centers of the old world. Music has truly become a universal language. In developing a repertoire the student might look upon the musical public as though it were a huge circle filled with smaller circles, each little circle being a center of interest. One circle might insist upon old English songs, such as the delightful melodies of Arne, Carey, Monroe. Another circle might expect the arias of the old Italian masters, Carissimi, Jomelli, Sacchini or Scarlatti. Another circle would want to hear the German Lieder of such composers as Schumann, Schubert, Brahms, Franz and Wolf. Still another circle might go away disappointed if they could not hear something of the ultra modern writers, such as Strauss, Debussy or even that freak of musical cacophony, Schoenberg. However diverse may be the individual likings of these smaller circles, all of the members of your audience are united in liking music as a whole. The audience will demand variety in your repertoire but at the same time it will demand certain musical essentials which appeal to all. There is one circle in your audience that I have purposely reserved for separate discussion. That is the great circle of concert goers who are not skilled musicians, who are too frank, too candid, to adopt any of the cant of those social frauds who revel in Reger and Schoenberg, and just because it might stamp them as real connoisseurs, but who really can't recognize much difference between the _Liebestod_ of _Tristan und Isolde_ and _Rule Britannia_,--but the music lovers who are too honest to fail to state that they like the _Lost Chord_ or the lovely folk songs of your American composer, Stephen Foster. Mr. Plunkett Greene, in his work upon song interpretation, makes no room for the existence of songs of this kind. Indeed, he would cast them all into the discard. This seems to me a huge mistake. Surely we can not say that music is a monopoly of the few who have schooled their ears to enjoy outlandish disonances with delight. Music is perhaps the most universal of all the arts and with the gradual evolution of those who love it, a natural audience is provided for music of the more complicated sort. We learn to like our musical caviar with surprising rapidity. It was only yesterday that we were objecting to the delightful piano pieces of Debussy, who can generate an atmosphere with a single chord just as Murillo could inspire an emotion with a stroke of the brush. It is not safe to say that you do not like things in this way. I think that even Schoenberg is trying to be true to his muse. We must remember that Haydn, Beethoven, Wagner and Brahms passed through the fire of criticism in their day. The more breadth a singer puts into her work the more likely is she to reap success. Time only can produce the accomplished artist. The best is to find a joy in your work and think of nothing but large success. If you have the gift, triumph will be yours. [Illustration: GIUSEPPE CAMPANARI. © Dupont.] GIUSEPPE CAMPANARI BIOGRAPHICAL Giuseppe Campanari was born at Venice, Italy, Nov. 17th, 1858. His parents were not particularly musical but were very anxious for the boy to become a musician. At the age of nine he commenced to study the piano and later he entered the Conservatory of Milan, making his principal instrument the violoncello. Upon his graduation he secured a position in the 'cello section of the orchestra at "La Scala." Here for years he heard the greatest singers and the greatest operas, gaining a musical insight into the works through an understanding of the scores which has seldom if ever been possessed by a great opera singer. His first appearance as singer was at the Teatro dal Verme in Milan. Owing to voice strain he was obliged to give up singing and in the interim he took a position as a 'cellist in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, remaining with that organization some years. He then made appearances with the Emma Juch Opera Company, the Heinrichs Opera Company, and eventually at the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York, where he achieved his greatest triumphs as leading baritone. Mr. Campanari long since became an American citizen and has devoted his attention to teaching for years. His conference which follows is particularly interesting, as from the vocal standpoint he is almost entirely self taught. THE VALUE OF SELF-STUDY IN VOICE TRAINING GIUSEPPE CAMPANARI So much has been written upon the futility of applying one method to all cases in vocal instruction that it seems useless for me to say anything that would add to the volume of testimony against the custom of trying to teach all pupils in the same manner. No one man ever has had, has, or ever will have, a "method" superior to all others, for the very simple reason that the means one vocalist might employ to reach artistic success would be quite different from that which another singer, with an entirely different voice, different throat and different intellect, would be obliged to employ. One of the great laws of Nature is the law of variation; that is, no two children of any parents are ever exactly alike. Even in the case of twins there is often a great variation. The great English philosopher, Darwin, made much of this principle. It is one which all voice students and teachers should consider, for although there are, from the nature of things, many foundation principles which must remain the same in all cases, the differences in individual cases are sufficient to demand the greatest keenness of observation, the widest experience and an inexhaustible supply of patience upon the part of the teacher. Please understand, I am not decrying the use of books of exercises such as those of Concone, Marchesi, Regine, Panofka and others. Such books are necessary. I have used these and others in teaching, suiting the book to the individual case. The pupil needs material of this kind, and it should be chosen with the greatest care and consideration not only of the pupil's voice, but of his intellectual capacity and musical experience. These books should not be considered "methods." They are the common property of all teachers, and most teachers make use of them. My understanding of a "method" is a set of hard and fast rules, usually emanating from the mind of some one person who has the effrontery to pass them off upon an all too gullible public as the one road to a vocal Parnassus. Only the singer with years of experience can realize how ridiculous this course is and how large is the percentage of failure of the pupils of teachers whose sole claim to fame is that they teach the---- method. Proud as I am of the glorious past of vocal art in the country of my birth, I cannot help being amused and at the same time somewhat irritated when I think of the many palpable frauds that are classed under the head of the "Real Old Italian Method" by inexperienced teachers. We cannot depend upon the past in all cases to meet present conditions. The singers of the olden day in Italy were doubtless great, because they possessed naturally fine voices and used them in an unaffected, natural manner. In addition to this they were born speaking a tongue favorable to beautiful singing, led simple lives and had opportunities for hearing the great operas and the great singers unexcelled by those of any other European country. That they became great through the practice of any set of rules or methods is inconceivable. There were great teachers in olden Italy, very great teachers, and some of them made notes upon the means they employed, but I cannot believe that if these teachers were living to-day they would insist upon their ideas being applied to each and every individual case in the same identical manner. THE VALUE OF OPERA This leads us to the subject at hand. The students in Italy in the past have had advantages for self-study that were of greatest importance. On all sides good singing and great singing might be heard conveniently and economically. Opera was and is one of the great national amusements of Italy. Opera houses may be found in all of the larger cities and in most of the smaller ones. The prices of admission are, as a rule, very low. The result is that the boys in the street are often remarkably familiar with some of the best works. Indeed, it would not be extravagant to say that they were quite as familiar with these musical masterpieces as some of the residents of America are with the melodramatic doings of Jesse James or the "Queen of Chinatown." Thus it is that the average Italian boy with a fair education and quick powers of observation reaches his majority with a taste for singing trained by many opportunities to hear great singers. They have had the best vocal instruction in the world, providing, of course, they have exercised their powers of judgment. Thus it is that it happens that such a singer as Caruso, certainly one of the greatest tenors of all time, could be accidentally heard by a manager while singing and receive an offer for an engagement upon the spot. Caruso's present art, of course, is the result of much training that would fall under the head of "coaching," together with his splendid experience upon the operatic stage itself. I trust that I have not by this time given the reader of this page the impression that teachers are unnecessary. This is by no means the case. A good teacher is extremely desirable. If you have the good fortune to fall into the hands of a careful, experienced, intelligent teacher, much may be accomplished; but the teacher is by no means all that is required. The teacher should be judged by his pupils, and by nothing else. No matter what he may claim, it is invariably the results of his work (the pupil's) which must determine his value. Teachers come to me with wonderful theories and all imaginable kinds of methods. I always say to them: "Show me a good pupil who has been trained by your methods and I will say that you are a good teacher." Before our national elections I am asked, "Which one of the candidates do you believe will make the best President?" I always reply, "Wait four years and I will pass my opinion upon the ability of the candidate the people select." In other words, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." SINGERS NOT BORN, BUT MADE We often hear the trite expression, "Singers are born, not made." This, to my mind, is by no means the case. One may be born with the talent and deep love for music, and one may be born with the physical qualifications which lead to the development of a beautiful voice, but the singer is something far more than this. Given a good voice and the love for his music, the singer's work is only begun. He is at the outstart of a road which is beset with all imaginable kinds of obstacles. In my own case I was extremely ambitious to be a singer. Night after night I played 'cello in the orchestra at La Scala, in Milan, always wishing and praying that I might some day be one of the actors in the wonderful world behind the footlights. I listened to the famous singers in the great opera house with the minutest attention, making mental notes of their manner of placing their voices--their method of interpretation, their stage business, and everything that I thought might be of any possible use to me in the career of the singer, which was dearest to my heart. I endeavored to employ all the common sense and good judgment I possessed to determine what was musically and vocally good or otherwise. I was fortunate in having the training of the musician, and also in having the invaluable advantage of becoming acquainted with the orchestral scores of the famous operas. Finally the long-awaited opportunity came and I made my début at the Teatro dal Verme, in Milan. I had had no real vocal instruction in the commonly accepted sense of the term; but I had really had a kind of instruction that was of inestimable value. NOT GIVEN TO ALL TO STUDY SUCCESSFULLY WITHOUT A TEACHER Success brought with it its disadvantages. I foolishly strained my voice through overwork. But this did not discourage me. I realized that many of the greatest singers the world has ever known were among those who had met with disastrous failure at some time in their careers. I came to America and played the violoncello in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. All the time I was practicing with the greatest care and with the sole object of restoring my voice. Finally it came back better than ever and I sang for Maurice Grau, the impresario of the Metropolitan Opera House, in New York. He engaged me and I sang continuously at the Metropolitan for several years. Notwithstanding this varied experience, I will seek to learn, and to learn by practical example, not theory. The only opera school in the world is the opera house itself. No school ever "made" a great singer or a great artist. The most they have done has been to lay the foundation. The making of the artist comes later. In order to do without instruction one must be very peculiarly constituted. One must be possessed of the pedagogical faculty to a marked degree. One must have within oneself those qualities for observing and detecting the right means leading to an artistic end which every good teacher possesses. In other words, one must be both teacher and pupil. This is a rare combination, since the power to teach, to impart instruction, is one that is given to very few. It is far better to study alone or not at all than with a poor teacher. The teacher's responsibility, particularly in the case of vocal students, is very great. So very much depends upon it. A poor teacher can do incalculable damage. By poor teachers I refer particularly to those who are carried away by idiotic theories and quack methods. We learn to sing by singing and not by carrying bricks upon our chest or other idiotic antics. Consequently I say that it is better to go all through life with a natural or "green" voice than to undergo the vocal torture that is sometimes palmed off upon the public as voice teaching. At best, all the greatest living teacher can do is to put the artist upon the right track and this in itself is responsibility enough for one man or one woman to assume. SINGERS MAKE THEIR OWN METHODS As I have already said, most every singer makes a method unto himself. It is all the same in the end. The Chinese may, for instance, have one name for God, the Persians another, the Mohammedans another, and the people of Christian lands another. But the God principle and the worship principle are the same with all. It is very similar in singing. The means that apply to my own case may apparently be different from those of another, but we are all seeking to produce beautiful tones and interpret the meaning of the composer properly. One thing, however, the student should seek to possess above all things, and this is a thorough foundation training in music itself. This can not begin too early. In my own home we have always had music. My children have always heard singing and playing and consequently they become critical at a very early age. I can not help repeating my advice to students who hope to find a vocal education in books or by the even more ridiculous correspondence method. Books may set one's mental machinery in motion and incite one to observe singers more closely, but teach they can not and never can. The sound-reproducing machines are of assistance in helping the student to understand the breathing, phrasing, etc., but there is nothing really to take the place of the living singer who can illustrate with his voice the niceties of placing and _timbre_. My advice to the voice students of America is to hear great singers. Hear them as many times as possible and consider the money invested as well placed as any you might spend in vocal instruction. The golden magnet, as well as the opportunities in other ways offered artists in America, has attracted the greatest singers of our time to this country. It is no longer necessary to go abroad to listen to great singers. In no country of the world is opera given with more lavish expenditure of money than in America. The great singers are now by no means confining their efforts to the large Eastern cities. Many of them make regular tours of the country, and students in all parts of this land are offered splendid opportunities for self-help through the means of concerts and musical festivals. After all, the most important thing for any singer is the development of the critical sense. Blind imitation is, of course, bad, but how is the student to progress unless he has had an opportunity to hear the best singers of the day? In my youth I heard continually such artists as La Salle, Gayarre, Patti, De Reszke and others. How could I help profiting by such excellent experiences? GREAT VOICES ARE RARE One may be sure that in these days few, if any, great voices go undiscovered. A remarkable natural voice is so rare that some one is sure to notice it and bring it to the attention of musicians. The trouble is that so many people are so painfully deluded regarding their voices. I have had them come to me with voices that are obviously execrable and still remain unconvinced when I have told them what seemed to me the truth. This business of hearing would-be singers is an unprofitable and an uncomfortable one; and most artists try to avoid the ordeal, although they are always very glad to encourage real talent. Most young singers, however, have little more than the bare ambition to sing, coupled with what can only be described by the American term, "a swelled head." Someone has told them that they are wonderfully gifted, and persons of this kind are most always ready to swallow flattery indiscriminately. Almost everyone, apparently, wants to go into opera nowadays. To singers who have not any chance whatever I have only to say that the sooner this is discovered the better. Far better put your money in bank and let compound interest do what your voice can not. ENRICO CARUSO BIOGRAPHICAL Enrico Caruso was born at Naples, February 25th, 1873. His fondness for music dates from his earliest childhood; and he spent much of his spare money in attending the opera at San Carlo and hearing the foremost singers of his time in many of the rôles in which he appeared later on. His actual study, however, did not start until he was eighteen, when he came under the tuition of Guglielmo Vergine. In 1895 he made his début at the Teatro Cimarosa in _Caserta_. His first appearances drew comparatively little attention to his work and his future greatness was hardly suspected by many of those who heard him. However, by dint of long application to his art he gained more and more recognition. In 1902 he made his début in London. The following year he came to New York, where the world's greatest singers had found an El Dorado for nearly a quarter of a century. There he was at once proclaimed the greatest of all tenors and from that time his success was undeviating. Indeed his voice was so wonderful and so individual that it is difficult to compare him with any of his great predecessors; Tamagno, Campanini, de Reszke and others. In Europe and in America he was welcomed with acclaim and the records of his voice are to be found in thousands of homes of music lovers who have never come in touch with him in any other way. Signor Caruso had a remarkable talent for drawing and for sculpture. His death, August 2d, 1921, ended the career of the greatest male singer of history. [Illustration: ENRICO CARUSO.] ITALY, THE HOME OF SONG ENRICO CARUSO OPERA AND THE PUBLIC IN ITALY Anyone who has traveled in Italy must have noticed the interest that is manifested at the opening of the opera season. This does not apply only to the people with means and advanced culture but also to what might be called the general public. In addition to the upper classes, the same class of people in America who would show the wildest enthusiasm over your popular sport, base-ball, would be similarly eager to attend the leading operatic performances in Italy. The opening of the opera is accompanied by an indescribable fervor. It is "in the air." The whole community seems to breathe opera. The children know the leading melodies, and often discuss the features of the performances as they hear their parents tell about them, just as the American small boy retails his father's opinions upon the political struggles of the day or upon the last ball game. It should not be thought that this does not mean a sacrifice to the masses, for opera is, in a sense, more expensive in Italy than in America; that is, it is more expensive by comparison in most parts of the country. It should be remembered that monetary values in Italy are entirely different from those in America. The average Italian of moderate means looks upon a lira as a coin far more valuable than its equivalent of twenty cents in United States currency. His income is likely to be limited, and he must spend it with care and wisdom. Again, in the great operatic centers, such as Milan, Naples or Rome, the prices are invariably adjusted to the importance of the production. In first-class productions the prices are often very high from the Italian standpoint. For instance, at La Scala in Milan, when an exceptionally fine performance is given with really great singers, the prices for orchestra chairs may run as high as thirty lira or six dollars a seat. Even to the wealthy Italian this amount seems the same as a much larger amount in America. To give opera in Italy with the same spectacular effects, the same casts composed almost exclusively of very renowned artists, the same _mise en scene_, etc., would require a price of admission really higher than in America. As a matter of fact, there is no place in the world where such a great number of performances, with so many world-renowned singers, are given as at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. There is no necessity for any one to make a special trip to Europe to hear excellent performances in these days. Of course such a trip would be interesting, as the performances given in many European centers are wonderfully fine, and they would be interesting to hear if only from the standpoint of comparing them with those given at the Metropolitan. However, the most eminent singers of the world come here constantly, and the performances are directed by the ablest men obtainable, and I am at loss to see why America should not be extremely proud of her operatic advantages. In addition to this the public manifests a most intelligent appreciation of the best in music. It is very agreeable to sing in America, as one is sure that when he does well the public will respond at once. ITALIAN, THE LANGUAGE OF MUSIC Perhaps the fact that in Italy the audiences may understand the performances better because of their knowledge of their native language may add to the pleasure of opera-going. This, however, is a question, except in the case of some of the more modern works. The older opera librettos left much to be desired from the dramatic and poetic standpoints. Italian after all is the language of music. In fact it is music in itself when properly spoken. Note that I say "when properly spoken." American girls go to Italy to study, and of course desire to acquire a knowledge of the language itself, for they have heard that it is beneficial in singing. They get a mere smattering, and do not make any attempt to secure a perfect accent. The result is about as funny as the efforts of the comedians who imitate German emigrants on the American stage. If you start the study of Italian, persist until you have really mastered the language. In doing this your ear will get such a drill and such a series of exercises as it has never had before. You will have to listen to the vowel sounds as you have never listened. This is necessary because in order to understand the grammar of the language you must hear the final vowel in each word and you must hear the consonants distinctly. There is another peculiar thing about Italian. If the student who has always studied and sung in English, German or French or Russian, attempts to sing in Italian, he is really turning a brilliant searchlight upon his own vocal ability. If he has any faults which have been concealed in his singing in his own language, they will be discovered at once the moment he commences to study in Italian. I do not know whether this is because the Italian of culture has a higher standard of diction in the enunciation of the vowel sounds, or whether the sounds themselves are so pure and smooth that they expose the deficiencies, but it is nevertheless the case. The American girl who studies Italian for six months and then hopes to sing in that language in a manner not likely to disturb the sense of the ridiculous is deceiving herself. It takes years to acquire fluency in a language. AUDIENCES THE SAME THE WORLD AROUND Audiences are as sensitive as individuals. Italy is known as "the home of the opera"; but I find that, as far as manifesting enthusiasm goes, the world is getting pretty much the same. If the public is pleased, it applauds no matter whether it be in Vienna, Paris, Rome, Buenos Aires, New York, or Oshkosh. An artist feels his bond with his audience very quickly. He knows whether his auditors are delighted, whether they are merely interested or whether they are indifferent a few seconds after he has been upon the stage. I can judge my own work at once by the attitude of the audience. No artist sings exactly alike on two successive nights. That would be impossible. Although every sincere artist tries to do his best at all times, there are, nevertheless, occasions when one sings better than at others. If I sing particularly well the audience is particularly enthusiastic; if I am not feeling well and my singing indicates it, the audience will let me know at once by not being quite so enthusiastic. It is a barometer which is almost unfailing. This is also an important thing for the young singer to consider. Audiences judge by real worth and not by reputation. Reputation may attract money to the box office, but once the people are inside the opera house the artist must really please them or suffer. Young singers should not be led to think that anything but real worth is of any lasting value. If the audience does not respond, do not blame the audience. It would respond if you could sing so beautifully that you could compel a response that you know should follow real artistic achievement. Don't blame your teacher or your lack of practice or anything or anybody but yourself. The verdict of the audience is better than the examination of a hundred so-called experts. There is something about an audience that makes it seem like a great human individual, whether in Naples or in San Francisco. If you touch the heart or please the sense of beauty, the appetite for lovely music--common to all mankind--the audience is yours, be it Italian, French, German or American. OPERATIC PREPARATION IN ITALY The American student with a really good voice and a really fine vocal and musical training, would have more opportunities for engagements in the smaller Italian opera houses, for the simple reason that there are more of these opera houses and more of these opera companies. Bear in mind, however, that opera in Italy depends to a large extent upon the standing of the artists engaged to put on the opera. In some cities of the smaller size the municipality makes an appropriation, which serves as a guarantee or subsidy. An impresario is informed what operas the community desires and what singers. He tries to comply with the demand. Often the city is very small and the demand very slightly indicated in real money. As a result the performances are comparatively mediocre. The American student sometimes fails to secure engagements with the big companies and tries to gain experience in these small companies. Sometimes he succeeds, but he should remember before undertaking this work that many native Italian singers with realty fine voices are looking for similar opportunities and that only a very few stand any chance of reaching really noteworthy success. OPERA WILL ALWAYS BE EXPENSIVE He should, of course, endeavor to seek engagements with the big companies if his voice and ability will warrant it. Where the most money is, there will be the salaried artists and the finest operatic spectacle. That is axiomatic. Opera is expensive and will always be expensive. The supply of unusual voices has always been limited and the services of their possessors have always commanded a high reward. This is based upon an economic law which applies to all things in life. The young singer should realize that, unless he can rise to the very top of his profession, he will be compelled to enlist in a veritable army of singers with little talent and less opportunity. One thing exists in Italy which is very greatly missed in America. Even in small companies in Italy a great deal of time is spent in rehearsals. In America rehearsals are tremendously expensive and sometimes first performances have suffered thereby. In fact, I doubt whether the public realizes what a very expensive thing opera is. The public has little opportunity to look behind the scenes. It sees only the finished performance, which runs smoothly only when a tremendous amount of mental, physical and financial oil has been poured upon the machinery. I often hear men say here in New York, "I had to pay fifty dollars for my seat to-night." That is absurd--the money is going to speculators instead of into the rightful channels. This money is simply lost as far as doing any service whatever to art is concerned. It does not go into the opera house treasury to make for better performances, but simply into the hands of some fellow who had been clever enough to deprive the public of its just opportunity to purchase seats. The public seems to have money enough to pay an outrageous amount for seats when necessary. Would it not be better to do away with the speculator at the door and pay say $10.00 for a seat that now costs $7.00? This would mean more rehearsals and better opera and no money donated to the undeserving horde at the portals of the temple. THE STUDENT'S PREPARATION I am told that many people in America have the impression that my vocal ability is kind of a "God-given" gift; that is, something that has come to me without effort. This is so very absurd that I can hardly believe that sensible people would give it a moment's credence. Every voice is in a sense the result of a development, and this is particularly so in my own case. The marble that comes from the quarries of Carrara may be very beautiful and white and flawless, but it does not shape itself into a work of art without the hand, the heart, and the intellect of the sculptor. Just to show how utterly ridiculous this popular opinion really is, let me cite the fact that at the age of fifteen everybody who heard me sing pronounced me a bass. When I went to Vergine I studied hard for four years. During the first three years the work was for the most part moulding and shaping the voice. Then I studied repertoire for one year and made my début. Even with the experience I had had at that time it was unreasonable to expect great success at once. I kept working hard and worked for at least seven years more before any really mentionable success came to me. All the time I had one thing on my mind and that was never to let a day pass without seeing some improvement in my voice. The discouragements were frequent and bitter; but I kept on working and waiting until my long awaited opportunities came in London and in New York. The great thing is, not to stop. Do not think that, because these great cities gave me a flattering reception, my work ceased. Quite on the contrary, I kept on working and am working still. Every time I go upon the stage I am endeavoring to discover something that will make my art more worthy of public acceptance. Every act of each opera is a new lesson. DIFFERENT RÔLES It is difficult to invest a rôle with individuality. I have no favorite rôles. I have avoided this, because the moment one adopts a favorite rôle he becomes a specialist and ceases to be an artist. The artist does all rôles equally well. I have had the unique experience of creating many rôles in operas such as _Fedora_, _Adrienne_, _Germania_, _Girl of the Golden West_, _Maschera_. This is a splendid experience, as it always taxes the inventive faculties of the singing actor. This is particularly the case in the Italian opera of the newer composers, or rather the composers who have worked in Italy since the reformation of Wagner. Whatever may be said, the greatest influence in modern Italian opera is Wagner. Even the great Verdi was induced to change his methods in _Aïda_, _Otello_, and _Falstaff_--all representing a much higher art than his earlier operas. However, Wagner did nothing to rob Italy of its natural gift of melody, even though he did institute a reform. He also did not influence such modern composers as Puccini, Mascagni, and Leoncavallo to the extent of marring their native originality and fertility. [Illustration: MME. JULIA CLAUSSEN.] MME. JULIA CLAUSSEN BIOGRAPHICAL Mme. Julia Claussen was born at Stockholm, Sweden, the land of Jenny Lind and Nilsson. Her voice is a rich, flexible mezzo-soprano, with a range that has enabled her to assume some contralto rôles with more success than the average so-called contralto. In her childhood she studied piano, but did not undertake the serious study of voice until she was eighteen, when she became a student at the Royal Academy of Music, under Professor Lejdstrom (studying harmony and theory under the famous Swedish composer Sjogren). Her début was made at the Royal Opera, at the age of twenty-two, in _La Favorita_, singing the rôle in Swedish. Later she went to Berlin, where she was coached in German opera by Professor Friedrich at the Royal High School of Music. Her American début was made in 1912, in Chicago, where she made an immediate success in such rôles as _Ortrud_, _Brünnhilde_ and _Carmen_. She was then engaged at Covent Garden and later sang at the Champs Elysée Theatre, under Nikisch, in Paris. For two years she appeared at the Metropolitan. She has received the rare distinction of being awarded the Jenny Lind Medal from her own government and also of being admitted to the Royal Academy of Sweden, the youngest member ever elected to that august scientific and artistic body. She has also been decorated by King Gustavus V of Sweden with Literis et Artibus. In America she has made an immense success as a concert singer. MODERN ROADS TO VOCAL SUCCESS MME. JULIA CLAUSSEN WHY SWEDEN PRODUCES SO MANY SINGERS The question, "Why does Sweden produce so many singers?" is often asked me. First it is a matter of climate, then a matter of physique, and lastly, because the Swedish children do far more singing than any one finds in many other countries. The air in Sweden is very rarefied, clear and exhilarating. Owing to frugal living and abundant systematic exercise, the people become very robust. This is not a matter of one generation or so, but goes back for centuries. The Swedes are a strong, energetic, thorough race; and the same attributes of industry and precision which have made them famous in science are applied to the study of music. The Swedish child is made to understand that singing is a needful, serious part of his life. His musical training begins very early in the schools, with a definite scheme. All schools have competent, experienced teachers of singing. In my childhood another factor played a very important part. There was never the endless round of attractions, toys, parties, theatres and pastimes (to say nothing of the all-consuming movies). Life was more tranquil and therefore the pursuit of good music was far more enjoyable. American life moves at aeroplane speed. The poor little children hardly have time to breathe, let alone time to study music. Ragtime is the musical symptom of this American craving for speed and incessant excitement. In a blare and confusion of noises, like bedlam broken loose, what chance has a child to develop good taste? It is admittedly fascinating at times; but is without rhyme, reason or order. I never permit my children to pollute my piano with it. They may have it on the talking machine, but they must not be accomplices in making it. Of course, things have changed in Sweden, too; and American ragtime, always contagious, has now infected all Europe. This makes the music teacher's task in this day far more difficult than formerly. I hear my daughters practicing, and now and then they seem to be putting a dash of ragtime into Bach. If I stop them I find that "Bach is too slow, I don't like Bach!" This is almost like saying, "I don't like Rubens, Van Dyke or Millet; please, teacher, give me Mutt and Jeff or the Katzenjammer Kids!" American children need to be constantly taught to reverence the great creators of the land. Why, Jenny Lind is looked upon as a great national heroine in Sweden, much as one might regard George Washington in America. Before America can go about musical educational work properly, the teachers must inculcate this spirit, a proper appreciation of what is really beautiful, instead of a kind of wild, mob-like orgy of blare, bang, smash and shriek which so many have come to know as ragtime and jazz. SELF-CRITICISM If one should ask me what is the first consideration in becoming a success as a singer, I should say the ability to criticise one's self. In my own case I had a very competent musician as a teacher. He told me that my voice was naturally placed and did very little to help place it according to his own ideas. Perhaps that was well for me, because I knew myself what I was about. He used to say, "That sounds beautiful," but all the time I knew that it sounded terrible. It was then that I learned that my ear must be my best teacher. My teacher, for instance, told me that I would never be able to trill. This was very disheartening; but he really believed, according to his conservative knowledge, that I should never succeed in getting the necessary flexibility. By chance I happened to meet a celebrated Swedish singer, Mme. Östberg, of the old school. I communicated to her the discouraging news that I could never hope to trill. "Nonsense, my dear," she said, "someone told me that too, but I determined that I was going to learn. I did not know how to go about it exactly, but I knew that with the proper patience and will-power I would succeed. Therefore I worked up to three o'clock one morning, and before I went to bed I was able to trill." I decided to take Mme. Östberg's advice, and I practiced for several days until I knew that I could trill, and then I went back to my teacher and showed him what I could do. He had to admit it was a good trill, and he couldn't understand how I had so successfully disproved his theories by accomplishing it. It was then that I learned that the singer can do almost anything within the limits of the voice, if one will only work hard enough. Work is the great producer, and there is no substitute for it. Do not think that I am ungrateful to my teacher. He gave me a splendid musical drilling in all the standard solfeggios, in which he was most precise; and in later years I said to him, "I am not grateful to you for making my voice, but because you did not spoil it." After having sung a great deal and thought introspectively a great deal about the voice, one naturally begins to form a kind of philosophy regarding it. Of course, breathing exercises are the basis of all good singing methods, but it seems to me that singing teachers ask many of their pupils to do many queer impractical things in breathing, things that "don't work" when the singer is obliged to stand up before a big audience and make everyone hear without straining. If I were to teach a young girl right at this moment I would simply ask her to take a deep breath and note the expansion at the waist just above the diaphragm. Then I would ask her to say as many words as possible upon that breath, at the same time having the muscles adjacent to the diaphragm to support the breath; that is, to sustain it and not collapse or try to push it up. The trick is to get the most tone, not with the most breath but with the least breath, and especially the very least possible strain at the throat, which must be kept in a floating, gossamer-like condition all the time. I see girls, who have been to expensive teachers, doing all sorts of wonderful calisthenics with the diaphragm, things that God certainly did not intend us to do in learning to speak and to sing. Any attempt to draw in the front walls of the abdomen or the intercostal muscles during singing must put a kind of pneumatic pressure upon the breath stream, which is sure to constrict the throat. Therefore, in my own singing, I note the opposite effect. That is, there is rather a sensation of expansion instead of contraction during the process of expiration. This soon becomes very comfortable, relieves the throat of strain, relieves the tones of breathiness or all idea of forcing. There is none of the ugly heaving of the chest or shoulders; the body is in repose, and the singer has a firm grip upon the tone in the right way. The muscles of the front wall of the abdomen and the muscles between the lower ribs become very strong and equal to any strain, while the throat is free. In the emission of the actual tone itself I would advise the sensation of inhaling at first. The beginner should blow out the tone. Usually instead of having a lovely floating character, with the impression of control, the tone starts with being forced, and it always remains so. The singer oversings and has nothing in reserve. When I am singing I feel as though the farther away from the throat, the deeper down I can control the breath stream, the better and freer the tone becomes. Furthermore, I can sing the long, difficult Wagnerian rôles, with their tremendous demands upon the vocal organs, without the least sensation of fatigue. Some singers, after such performances, are "all in." No wonder they lose their voices when they should be in their prime. For me the most difficult vowel is "ah." The throat then is most open and the breath stream most difficult to control properly. Therefore I make it a habit to begin my practice with "oo, oh, ah, ay, ee" in succession. I never start with sustained tones. This would give my throat time to stiffen. I employ quick, soft scales, always remembering the basic principle of breath control I have mentioned, and always as though inhaling. This is an example of what I mean. To avoid shrillness on the upper tone I take the highest note with oo and descend with oo. [Illustration: musical notation: Ex. 1] The same thought applied to an arpeggio would be: [Illustration: musical notation: Ex. 2] These I take within comfortable limits of my voice, always remembering that the least strain is a backward step. These exercises are taken through all possible keys. There can never be too much practice of a scale or arpeggio exercise. Many singers, I know, who wonder why they do not succeed, cannot do a good scale, the very first thing they should be able to do. Every one should be like perfect pearls on a thread. AMERICA'S FATAL AMBITION One of the great troubles in America is the irrepressible ambition of both teachers and pupils. Europe is also not untinged with this. Teachers want to show results. Some teachers, I am told, start in with songs at the first or second lesson, with the sad knowledge that if they do not do this they may lose the pupil to some teacher who will peddle out songs. After four or five months I was given an operatic aria; and, of course, I sang it. A year of scales, exercises and solfeggios would have been far more time-saving. The pupils have too much to say about their education in this way. The teacher should be competent and then decide all such questions. American girls do not want this. They expect to step from vocal ignorance to a repertoire over night. When you study voice, you should study not for two years, but realize you will never stop studying, if you wish to keep your voice. Like any others, without exercise, the singing muscles grow weak and inefficient. There are so many, many things to learn. Of course, my whole training was that of the opera singer, and I was schooled principally in the Wagnerian rôles. With the coming of the war the prejudice against the greatest anti-imperialist (with the possible exception of Beethoven) which music ever has known--the immortal Wagner--became so strong that not until now has the demand for his operas become so great that they are being resumed with wonderful success. Therefore, with the exception of a few Italian and French rôles, my operatic repertoire went begging. It was necessary for me to enter the concert field, as the management of the opera company with which I had contracts secured such engagements for me. It was like starting life anew. There is very little opportunity to show one's individuality in opera. One must play the rôle. Therefore I had to learn a repertoire of songs, every one of which required different treatment and different individuality. With eighteen members on the program, the singer has a musical, mental and vocal task which devolves entirely upon herself without the aid of chorus, co-singers, orchestra, costumes, scenery and the glamour of the footlights. It was with the greatest delight that I could fulfill the demands of the concert platform. American musical taste is very exacting. The audiences use their imagination all the time, and like romantic songs with an atmospheric background, which accounts for my great success with songs of such type as Lieurance's _By the Waters of Minnetonka_. One of the greatest tasks I ever have had is that of singing my rôles in many different languages. I learned some of them first in Swedish, then in Italian, then in French, then in German, then in English; as I am obliged to re-learn my Wagnerian rôles now. The road to success in voice study, like the road to success in everything else, has one compass which should be a consistent guide, and that is common sense. Avoid extremes; hold fast to your ideals; have faith in your possibilities, and work! work!! work!!! [Illustration: CHARLES DALMORES IN MASSENET'S HERODIADE. © Mishkin.] CHARLES DALMORES BIOGRAPHICAL M. Charles Dalmores was born at Nancy, France, December 31st, 1871. His musical education was received at the Nancy Conservatoire under Professor Dauphin, and it was his intention to become a specialist in French horn. He also played the 'cello. When he applied to the Paris Conservatoire he was refused admission to the singing course because "he was too good a musician to waste his time with singing." He became professor of French horn at the Lyons Conservatory; but his love for opera led him to study by himself until he made his début at Rouen in 1899. He then sang at the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels, Covent Garden, Bayreuth, New York, and Chicago, with ever-increasing success. Dalmores is a dramatic tenor, and his musicianship has enabled him to take extremely difficult rôles of the modern type and achieve real artistic triumphs. He is one of the finest examples of the self-trained vocalist. SELF-HELP IN VOICE STUDY CHARLES DALMORES It is always a pleasure to talk upon self-help and not self-study, because I believe most implicitly in the former and very much doubt the efficacy of the latter in actual voice study. The voice, of all things, demands the assistance of a good teacher, although in the end the results all come from within and not from without. That is, the voice is an organ of expression; and what we make of it depends upon our own thought a thousand times more than what we take in from the outside. It is the teacher who stimulates the right kind of thinking who is the best teacher. The teacher who seeks to make his pupils parrots rarely meets with success. My whole career is an illustration of this, and when I think of the apparently insurmountable obstacles over which I have been compelled to climb I cannot help feeling that the relation of a few of my own experiences in the way of self-help could not fail to be beneficial. AT THE PARIS CONSERVATORY I was born at Nancy on the 31st of December, 1871. I gave evidences of having musical talent and my musical instruction commenced at the age of six years. I studied first at the Conservatory at Nancy, intending to make a specialty of the violin. Then I had the misfortune of breaking my arm. It was decided thereafter that I had better study the French horn. This I did with much success and attribute my control of the breath at this day very largely to my elementary struggles with that most difficult of instruments. At the age of fourteen I played the second horn at Nancy. Finally, I went, with a purse made up by some citizens of my home town, to enter the great Conservatory at Paris. There I studied very hard and succeeded in winning my goal in the way of receiving the first prize for playing the French horn. For a time I played under Colonne, and between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three in Paris I played with the Lamoureaux Orchestra. All this time I had my heart set upon becoming a singer and paid particular attention to all of the wonderful orchestral works we rehearsed. The very mention of the fact that I desired to become a singer was met with huge ridicule by my friends, who evidently thought that it was a form of fanaticism. For a time I studied the 'cello and managed to acquire a very creditable technic upon that instrument. A DISCOURAGING PROSPECT Notwithstanding the success I had with the two instruments, I was confronted with the fact that I had before me the life of a poor musician. My salary was low, and there were few, if any, opportunities to increase it outside of my regular work with the orchestra. I was told that I had great talent, but this never had the effect of swelling my pocketbook. In my military service I played in the band of an infantry regiment; and when I told my companions that I aspired to be a great singer some day they greeted my declaration with howls of laughter, and pointed out the fact that I was already along in years and had an established profession. At the sedate age of twenty-three I was surprised to find myself appointed Professor of French Horn at the Conservatory of Lyons. Lyons is the second city of France from the standpoint of population. It is a busy manufacturing center, but is rich in architectural, natural and historical interest; and the position had its advantages, although it was away from the great French center, Paris. The opera at Nancy was exceedingly good, and I had an opportunity to go often. Singing and the opera were my life. My father had been manager at Nancy and I had made my first acquaintance with the stage as one of the boys in _Carmen_. A TEST THAT FAILED I have omitted to say that at Paris I tried to enter the classes for singing. My voice was apparently liked, but I was refused admission upon the basis that I was too good a musician to waste my time in becoming an inferior singer. Goodness gracious! Where is musicianship needed more than in the case of the singer? This amused me, and I resolved to bide my time. I played in opera orchestras whenever I had a chance, and thus became acquainted with the famous rôles. One eye was on the music and the other was on the stage. During the rests I dreamt of the time when I might become a singer like those over the footlights. Where there is a will there is usually a way. I taught solfeggio as well as French horn in the Lyons Conservatory. I devised all sorts of "home-made" exercises to improve my voice as I thought best. Some may have done me good, others probably were injurious. I listened to singers and tried to get points from them. Gradually I was unconsciously paving the way for the great opportunity of my life. It came in the form of an experienced teacher, Dauphin, who had been a basso for ten years at the leading theatre of Belgium, fourteen years in London, and later director at Geneva and Lyons. He also received the appointment of Professor at the Lyons Conservatory. A FAMOUS OPPORTUNITY One day Dauphin heard me singing and inquired who I was. Then he came in the room and said to me, "How much do you get here for teaching and playing?" I replied, proudly, "six thousand francs a year." He said, "You shall study with me and some day you shall earn as much as six thousand francs a month." Dauphin, bless his soul, was wrong. I now earn six thousand francs every night I sing instead of every month. I could hardly believe that the opportunity I had waited for so long had come. Dauphin had me come to his house and there he told me that my success in singing would depend quite as much upon my own industry as upon his instruction. Thus one professor in the conservatory taught another in the art he had long sought to master. Notwithstanding Dauphin's confidence in me, all of the other professors thought that I was doing a perfectly insane thing, and did all in their power to prevent me from going to what they thought was my ruin. DISCOURAGING ADVICE Nevertheless, I determined to show them that they were all mistaken. During the first winter I studied no less than six operas, at the same time taking various exercises to improve my voice. During the second winter I mastered one opera every month, and at the same time did all my regular work--studying in my spare hours. At the end of my course I passed the customary examination, receiving the least possible distinction from my colleagues who were still convinced that I was pursuing a course that would end in complete failure. This brought home the truth that if I was to get ahead at all I would have to depend entirely upon myself. The outlook was certainly not propitious. Nevertheless I studied by myself incessantly and disregarded the remarks of my pessimistic advisers. I sang in a church and also in a big synagogue to keep up my income. All the time I had to put up with the sarcasm of my colleagues who seemed to think, like many others, that the calling of the singer was one demanding little musicianship, and tried to make me see that in giving up the French horn and my conservatory professorship I would be abandoning a dignified career for that of a species of musician who at that time was not supposed to demand any special musical training. Could not a shoemaker or a blacksmith take a few lessons and become a great singer? I, however, determined to become a different kind of a singer. I believed that there was a place for the singer with a thorough musical training, and while I kept up my vocal work amid the rain of irony and derogatory remarks from my mistaken colleagues, I did not fail to keep up my interest in the deeper musical studies. I had a feeling that the more good music I knew the better would be my work in opera. I wish that all singers could see this. Many singers live in a little world all of their own. They know the music of the footlights, but there their experience ends. Every symphony I have played has been molded into my life experience in such a way that it cannot help being reflected in my work. A CRITICAL MOMENT Finally the time came for my début in 1899. It was a most serious occasion for me; for the rest of my career as a singer depended upon it. It was in Rouen, and my fee was to be fifteen hundred francs a month. I thought that that would make me the richest man in the world. It was the custom of the town for the captain of the police to come before the audience at the end and inquire whether the audience approved of the artist's singing or whether their vocal efforts were unsatisfactory. This was to be determined by a public demonstration. When the captain held up the sign "Approved," I felt as though the greatest moment in my life had arrived. I had worked so long and so hard for success and had been obliged to laugh down so much scorn that you can imagine my feelings. Suddenly a great volume of applause came from the house and I knew in a second what my future should be. Then it was that I realized that I was only a little way along my journey. I wanted to be the foremost French tenor of my time. I knew that success in France alone, while gratifying, would be limited, so I set out to conquer new worlds. Wagner, up to that time, had never been sung by any French tenor, so I determined to master German and become a Wagner singer. This I did, and it fell to me to receive that most coveted of Wagnerian distinctions, "soloist at Beyreuth," the citadel of the highest in German operatic art. In after years I sang in all parts of Germany with as much success as in France. Later I went to London and then to America, where I sang for many seasons. It has been no small pleasure for me to return to Paris, where I once lived in penury, and to receive the highest fee ever paid to a French singer in the French capital. THE NEED FOR GREAT CARE I don't know what more I can say upon the subject of self-help for the singer. I have simply told my own story and have related some of the obstacles that I have overcome. I trust that no one who has not a voice really worth while will be misled by what I have had to say. The voice is one of the most intricate and wonderful of the human organs. Properly exercised and cared for, it may be developed to a remarkable degree; but there are cases, of course, where there is not enough voice at the start to warrant the aspirant making the sacrifices that I have made to reach my goal. This is a very serious matter and one which should be determined by responsible judges. At the same time, the singers may see how possible it is for even experienced musicians, like my colleagues in Lyons, to be mistaken. If I had depended upon them and not fought my own way out, I would probably be an obscure teacher in the same old city earning the munificent salary of one hundred dollars a month. FIGHTING YOUR OWN WAY The student who has to fight his own way has a much harder battle of it; but he has a satisfaction which certainly does not come to the one who has all his instruction fees and living expenses paid for him. He feels that he has earned his success; and, by the processes of exploration through which the self-help student must invariably pass, he becomes invested with a confidence and "I know" feeling which is a great asset to him. The main thing is for him to keep busy all the time. He has not a minute to spare upon dreaming. He has no one to carry his burden but himself; and the exercise of carrying it himself is the thing which will do most to make him strong and successful. The artists who leap into success are very rare. Hundreds who have held mediocre positions come to the front, while those who appear most favored stay in the background. Do not seek to gain eminence by any influence but that of real earnest work; and if you do not intend to work and to work hard, drop all of your aspirations for operatic laurels. [Illustration: ANDREAS DIPPEL. © Dupont.] ANDREAS DIPPEL BIOGRAPHICAL Andreas Dippel was born at Cassel, 1866. His father was a manufacturer who had the boy educated at the local gymnasium, with the view to making him a banker. After five years in a banking house he decided to become a singer and studied with Mme. Zottmayr. Later he went to Berlin, Milan and Vienna, where he studied with Julius Hey, Alberto Leoni and Johann Ress. In 1887 he made his début at Bremen, in _The Flying Dutchman_. He remained with that company until 1892. In the meantime, however, he had appeared at the Metropolitan in New York, with such success that he toured America as a concert singer with Anton Seidl, Arthur Nikisch, and Theodore Thomas. From 1893 to 1898 he was a member of the Imperial Court Opera at Vienna. In 1898 he returned to America to the Metropolitan. In 1908 he was appointed administrative manager of the Metropolitan Company, later becoming the manager of the Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Company. Mr. Dippel is a fine dramatic tenor with the enormous repertoire of 150 works in four different languages. He is a fine actor and has been equally successful in New York, London, and Beyreuth. He also has a repertoire of 60 oratorios. IF MY DAUGHTER SHOULD STUDY FOR GRAND OPERA ANDREAS DIPPEL The training of the girl designed to become a great prima donna is one of the most complex problems imaginable. You ask me to consider the case of an imaginary daughter designed for the career in order to make my opinions seem more pertinent. Very well. If my daughter were studying for grand opera, and if she were a very little girl, I should first watch her very carefully to see whether she manifested any uncontrollable desire or ambition to become a great singer. Without such a desire she will never become great. Usually this ambition becomes evident at a very early age. Then I should realize that the mere desire to become a great singer is only an infinitesimal part of the actual requirements. She must have, first of all, fine health, abundant vitality and an artistic temperament. She must show signs of being industrious. She should have the patience to wait until real results can be accomplished. In fact, there are so many attributes that it is difficult to enumerate them all. But they are all worth considering seriously. Why? Simply because, if they are not considered, she may be obliged to spend years of labor for which she will receive no return except the most bitter disappointment conceivable. Of the thousands of girls who study to become prima donnas only a very few can succeed, from the nature of things. The others either abandon their ambitions or assume lesser rôles from little parts down to the chorus. You will notice that I have said but little about her voice. During her childhood there is very little means of judging of the voice. Some girls' voices that seem very promising when they are children turn out in a most disappointing manner. So you see I would be obliged to consider the other qualifications before I even thought of the voice. Of course, if the child showed no inclination for music or did not have the ability to "hold a tune," I should assume that she was one of those frequent freaks of nature which no amount of musical training can save. Above all things I should not attempt to force her to take up a career against her own natural inclinations or gifts. The designing mother who desires to have her own ambitions realized in her daughter is the bane of every impresario. With a will power worthy of a Bismarck she maps out a career for the young lady and then attempts to force the child through what she believes to be the proper channels leading to operatic success. She realizes that great singers achieve fame and wealth and she longs to taste of these. It is this, rather than any particular love for her child, that prompts her to fight all obstacles. No amount of advice or persuasion can make her believe that her child cannot become another Tetrazzini, or Garden, or Schumann-Heink, if only the impresario will give her a chance. In nine cases out of ten Fate and Nature have a conspiracy to keep the particular young lady in the rôle of a stenographer or a dressmaker; and in the battle with Fate and Nature even the most ambitious mother must be defeated. HER VERY EARLY TRAINING Once determined that she stood a fair chance of success in the operatic field I should take the greatest possible care of her health, both physically and intellectually. Note that I lay particular stress upon her physical training. It is most important, as no one but the experienced singer can form any idea of what demands are made upon the endurance and strength of the opera singer. Her general education should be conducted upon the most approved lines. Anything which will develop and expand the mind will be useful to her in later life. The later operatic rôles make far greater demands upon the mentality of the singer than those of other days. The singer is no longer a parrot with little or nothing to do but come before the footlights and sing a few beautiful tones to a few gesticulations. She is expected to act and to understand what she is acting. I would lay great stress upon history--the history of all nations--she should study the manners, the dress, the customs, the traditions, and the thought of different epochs. In order to be at home in _Pelleas and Melisande_, or _Tristan und Isolde_, or _La Bohême_ she must have acquainted her mind with the historical conditions of the time indicated by the composer and librettist. HER FIRST MUSICAL TRAINING Her first musical training should be musical. That is, she should be taught how to listen to beautiful music before she ever hears the word technic. She should be taught sight reading, and she ought to be able to read any melody as easily as she would read a book. The earlier this study is commenced with the really musical child, the better. Before it is of any real value to the singer her sight reading should become second nature. She should have lost all idea of the technic of the art and read with ease and naturalness. This is of immense assistance. Then she should study the piano thoroughly. The piano is the door to the music of the opera. The singer who is dependent upon some assistant to play over the piano scores is unfortunate. It is not really necessary for her to learn any of the other instruments; but she should be able to play readily and correctly. It will help her in learning scores, more than anything else. It will also open the door to much other beautiful music which will elevate her taste and ennoble her ideals. She should go to the opera as frequently as possible in order that she may become acquainted with the great rôles intuitively. If she cannot attend the opera itself she can at least gain an idea of the great operatic music through the talking machines. The "repertory" of records is now very large, but of course does not include all of the music of all of the scenes. She should be taught the musical traditions of the different historical musical epochs and the different so-called music schools. First she should study musical history itself and then become acquainted with the music of the different periods. The study of the violin is also an advantage in training the ear to listen for correct intonation; but the violin is by no means absolutely necessary. LANGUAGES All educators recognize the fact that languages are attained best in childhood. The child's power of mimicry is so wonderful that it acquires a foreign language quite without any suggestion of accent, in a time which will always put their elders to shame. Foreign children, who come to America before the age of ten, speak both then-native tongue and English with equal fluency. The first new language to be taken up should be Italian. Properly spoken, there is no language so mellifluous as Italian. The beautiful quantitative value given to the vowels--the natural quest for euphony and the necessity for accurate pronunciation of the last syllable of a word in order to make the grammatical sense understandable--is a training for both the ear and the voice. Italy is the land of song; and most of the conductors give their directions in Italian. Not only the usual musical terms, but also the other directions are denoted in Italian by the orchestral conductors; and if the singer does not understand she must suffer accordingly. After the study of Italian I would recommend, in order, French and German. If my daughter were studying for opera, I should certainly leave nothing undone until she had mastered Italian, French, German and English. Although she would not have many opportunities to sing in English, under present operatic conditions, the English-speaking people in America, Great Britain, Canada, South Africa, and Australia are great patrons of musical art; and the artist must of course travel in some of these countries. THE STUDY OF THE VOICE ITSELF Her actual voice study should not commence before she is seventeen or eighteen years of age. In the hands of a very skilled and experienced teacher it might commence a little earlier; but it is better to wait until her health becomes more settled and her mature strength develops. At first the greatest care must be taken. The teacher has at best a delicate flower which a little neglect or a little over training may deform or even kill. I can not discuss methods, as that is not pertinent to this conference. There is no one absolutely right way; and many famous singers have traveled what seem quite different roads to reach the same end. However, it is a historic fact that few great singers have ever acquired voices which have had beautiful quality, perfect flexibility and reliability, who have not sung for some years in the old Italian style. Mind you, I am not referring to an old Italian school of singing here, but more to that class of music adopted by the old Italian composers--a style which permitted few vocal blemishes to go by unnoticed. Most of the great Wagnerian singers have been proficient in coloratura rôles before they undertook the more complicated parts of the great master at Beyreuth. It is better to leave the study of repertoire until later years; that is, until the study of voice has been pursued for a sufficient time to insure regular progress in the study of repertoire. Personally, I am opposed to those methods which take the student directly to the study of repertoire without any previous vocal drill. The voice, to be valuable to the singer, must be able to stand the wear and tear of many seasons. It is often some years before the young singer is able to achieve real success and the profits come with the later years. A voice that is not carefully drilled and trained, so that the singer knows how to get the most out of it, with the least strain and the least expenditure of effort, will not stand the wear and tear of many years of opera life. After all, the study of repertoire is the easiest thing. Getting the voice properly trained is the difficult thing. In the study of repertoire the singer often makes the mistake of leaping right into the more difficult rôles. She should start with the simpler rôles; such as those of some of the lesser parts in the old Italian operas. Then, she may essay the leading rôles of, let us say, _Traviata_, _Barber of Seville_, _Norma_, _Faust_, _Romeo and Juliet_, and _Carmen_. Instead of simple rôles, she seems inclined to spend her time upon _Isolde_, _Mimi_, _Elsa_ or _Butterfly_. It has become so, that now, when a new singer comes to me and wants to sing _Tosca_ or some rôle that (sic) the so-called new or _verissimo_ Italian school, I almost invariably refuse to listen. I ask them to sing something from _Norma_ or _Puritani_ or _Dinorah_ or _Lucia_ in which it is impossible for them to conceal their vocal faults. But no, they want to sing the big aria from the second act of _Madama Butterfly_, which is hardly to be called an aria at all but rather a collection of dramatic phrases. When they are done, I ask them to sing some of the opening phrases from the same rôle, and ere long they discover that they really have nothing which an impresario can purchase. They are without the voice and without the complete knowledge of the parts which they desire to sing. Then they discover that the impresario knows that the tell-tale pieces are the old arias from old Italian operas. They reveal the voice in its entirety. If the breath control is not right, it becomes evident at once. If the quality is not right, it becomes as plain as the features of the young lady's face. There is no dramatic--emotional--curtain under which to hide these shortcomings. Consequently, knowing what I do, I would insist upon my daughter having a thorough training in the old Italian arias. HER TRAINING IN ACTING Her training in acting would depend largely upon her natural talent. Some children are born actors--natural mimics. They act from their childhood right up to old age. They can learn more in five minutes than others can learn in years. Some seem to require little or no training in the art of acting. As a rule they become the most forceful acting singers. Others improve wonderfully under the direction of a clever teacher. The new school of opera demands higher histrionic ability from the singer. In fact, we have come to a time when opera is a real drama set to music which is largely recitative and which does not distract from the action of the drama. The librettos of other days were, to say the least, ridiculous. If the music had not had a marvelous hold upon the people they could not have remained in popular favor. To my mind it is an indication of the wonderful power of music that these operas retain their favor. There is something about the melodies which seems to preserve them for all time; and the public is just as anxious to hear them to-day as it was twenty-five and fifty years ago. Richard Wagner turned the tide of acting in opera by his music dramas. Gluck and von Weber had already made an effort in the right direction; but it remained for the mighty power of Wagner to accomplish the final work. Now we are witnessing the rise of a school of musical dramatic actors such as Garden, Maurel, Renaud, and others which promises to raise the public taste in this matter and which will add vastly to the pleasure of opera going, as it will make the illusion appear more real. This also imposes upon the impresario a new contingency which threatens to make opera more and more expensive. Costumes, scenery and all the settings nowadays must be both historically authentic and costly. The collection of wigs, robes, and armor, together with a few sets of scenery, often with the chairs and other furniture actually painted on the scenes, which a few years ago were thought adequate for the equipment of an opera company, have now given way to equipment more elaborate than that of a Belasco or a Henry Irving. Nothing is left undone to make the picture real and beautiful. In fact operatic productions, as now given in America, are as complete and luxurious as any performances given anywhere in the world. MME. EMMA EAMES BIOGRAPHICAL Mme. Emma Eames was born at Shanghai, China. Her father, a graduate of Harvard Law School, had been a sea-captain and had been in business in the Chinese city. At the age of five she was brought back to the home of her parents at Bath, Maine. Her mother was an accomplished amateur singer who supervised her early musical training. At sixteen she went to Boston to study with Miss Munger. At nineteen she became a pupil of Marchesi in Paris and remained with the celebrated teacher for two years. At twenty-one she made her début at the Grand Opera in Paris in _Romeo et Juliette_. Two years later she appeared at Covent Garden, London, with such success that she was immediately engaged for the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Few singers ever gained such a strong hold upon the American and English public. Her voice is a fine flexible soprano, capable of doing _Marguerite_ or _Elisabeth_ equally well. Her husband, Emilio de Gogorza, with whom it is our privilege to present a conference later in this book, is one of the foremost baritones of our time. [Illustration: MME. EMMA EAMES.] HOW A GREAT MASTER COACHED OPERA SINGERS MME. EMMA EAMES GOUNOD AN IDEALIST One does not need to review the works of Charles Gounod to any great extent before discovering that above all things he was an idealist. His whole aspect of life and art was that of a man imbued with a sense of the beautiful and a longing to actualize some noble art purpose. He was of an age of idealists. Coming at the artificial period of the Second Empire, he was influenced by that artistic atmosphere, as were such masters of the brush as Jean August Ingres and Eugène Delacroix. This, however, was unconscious, and in no way affected his perfect sincerity in all he did. FIRST MEETING WITH GOUNOD I was taken to Gounod by my master, Mme. Mathilde Marchesi, who, perhaps, had some reason to regret her kindness in introducing me, since Gounod did not favor what he conceived as the Italian method of singing. He had a feeling that the Italian school, as he regarded it, was too obvious, and that French taste demanded more sincerity, more subtlety, better balance and a certain finesse which the purely vocal Italian style slightly obscured. Mme. Marchesi was very irate over Gounod's attitude, which she considered highly insulting; whereas, as a matter of fact, Gounod was doing the only thing that a man of his convictions could do, and that was to tell what he conceived as the truth. Gounod's study was a room which fitted his character perfectly. His very pronounced religious tendencies were marked by the stained glass windows which cast a delicate golden tint over the little piano he occasionally used when composing. On one side was a pipe organ upon which he was very fond of playing. In fact, the whole atmosphere was that of a chapel, which, together with the beautiful and dignified appearance of the master himself, made an impression that one could not forget. His great sincerity, his lofty aims, his wonderful earnestness, his dramatic intensity, were apparent at once. Many composers are hopelessly disappointing in their appearance, but when one saw Gounod, it was easy to realize whence come the beautiful musical colors which make _Romeo et Juliette_, _Faust_ and _The Redemption_ so rich and individual. His whole artistic character is revealed in a splendid word of advice he gave to me when I first went to him: "Anyone who is called to any form of musical expression must reveal himself only in the language that God has given him to speak with. Find this language yourself and try, above all things, to be sincere--never singing down to your public." Gounod had a wonderful power of compelling attention. While one was with him his personality was so great that it seemed to envelop you, obliterating everything else. This can be attributed not only to magnetism or hypnotism, but also to his own intense, all-burning interest in whatever he was engaged upon. Naturally the relationship of teacher and pupil is different from that of comradeship, but I was impressed that Gounod, even in moments of apparent repose, never seemed to lose that wonderful force which virtually consumed the entire attention of all those who were in his presence. He had remarkable gifts in painting word-pictures. His imagination was so vigorous that he could make one feel that which he saw in his mind's eye as actually present. I attribute this to the fact that he himself was possessed by the subject at hand and spoke from the fountains of his deepest conviction. First he made you see and then he made you express. He taught one that to convince others one must first be convinced. Indeed, he allowed a great variety of interpretations in order that one might interpret through one's own power of conception rather than through following blindly his own. During my lessons with Gounod he revealed not only his very pronounced histrionic ability, but also his charming talent as a singer. I had an accompanist who came with me to the lessons and when I was learning the various rôles, Gounod always sang the duets with me. Although he was well along in years, he had a small tenor voice, exquisitely sweet and sympathetic. He sang with delightful ease and with invariably perfect diction, and perfect vision. If some of our critics of musical performances were more familiar with the niceties of pronunciation and accentuation of different foreign languages, many of our present-day singers would be called upon to suffer some very severe criticisms. I speak of this because Gounod was most insistent upon correct pronunciation and accent, so that the full meaning of the words might be conveyed to every member of the audience. A HEARING AT THE OPERA When I went to the opera for my hearing or _audition_, Gounod went with me and we sang the duets together. The director, M. Gailhard, refused my application, claiming that I was a debutante and could not expect an initial performance at the Grand Opéra despite my ability and musical attainments. It may be interesting for aspiring vocal students to learn something of the various obstacles which still stand in the way of a singer, even after one has had a very thorough training and acquired proficiency which should compel a hearing. Alas! in opera, as in many other lines of human endeavor, there is a political background that is often black with intrigue and machinations. I was determined to fight my way on the merit of my art, and accordingly I was obliged to wait for nearly two years before I was able to make my début. These were years filled with many exasperating circumstances. I went to Brussels after two years' study with Marchesi, having been promised my début there. I was kept for months awaiting it and was finally prevented from making an appearance by one who, pretending to be my friend and to be doing all in her power to further my career, was in reality threatening the directors with instant breaking of her contract should I be allowed to appear. I had this on the authority of Mr. Gevaërt, the then director of the Conservatoire and my firm friend. The artist was a great success and her word was law. It was on my return that I was taken to Gounod and I waited a year for a hearing. Gounod's opera, _Romeo et Juliette_, had been given at the Opéra Comique many times but there was a demand for performances at the Grand Opéra. Accordingly Gounod added a ballet, which fitted it for performance at the Opéra. Apropos of this ballet, Gounod said to me, with no little touch of cynicism, "Now you shall see what kind of music a _Ga Ga_ can write" (Ga Ga is the French term for a very old man, that is, a man in his dotage). He was determined that I should be heard at the Grand Opera as Juliette, but even his influence could not prevent the director from signing an agreement with one he personally preferred, which required that she should have the honor of making her début at the Grand Opéra in the part. Then it was that I became aware that it was not only because I was a debutante that I had been denied. Gounod would not consent to this arrangement, insisting on her making her début previously in _Faust_, and fortunate it was, since the singer in question never attained more than mediocre success. Gounod still demanded as a compromise that the first six performances of the opera should be given to Adelina Patti, and that they should send for me for the subsequent ones. In the meantime I was engaged at the Opéra Comique. There Massenet looked with disfavor upon my début before that of Sybil Sanderson. Massenet had brought fortunes to the Opéra Comique through his immensely popular and theatrically effective operas. Consequently his word was law. I waited for some months and no suggestion of an opportunity for a performance presented itself. All the time I was engaged in extending my repertoire and becoming more and more indignant at the treatment I was receiving in not being allowed to sing the operas thus acquired. My year's contract had still three months to run when I received an offer from St. Petersburg. Shortly thereafter I received a note from M. Gailhard announcing that he wished to see me. I went and he informed me that Gounod was still insistent upon my appearance in the rôle of _Juliette_. I was irritated by the whole long train of aggravating circumstances, but said, "Give me the contract, I'll sign it." Then I went directly to the Opéra Comique and asked to see the director. I was towering with indignation--indeed, I felt myself at least seven feet tall and perhaps quite as wide. I demanded my contract. To his "Mais, Mademoiselle--" I commanded, "Send for it." He brought the contract and tore it up in my presence, only to learn next morning to his probable chagrin that I was engaged and announced for an important rôle at the Grand Opéra. The first performance of a debutante at the Grand Opéra is a great ordeal, and it is easy to imagine that the strain upon a young singer might deprive her of her natural powers of expression. The outcome of mine was most fortuitous and with success behind me I found my road very different indeed. However, if I had not had a friend at court, in the splendid person of Charles Gounod, I might have been obliged to wait years longer, and perhaps never have had an opportunity to appear in Paris, where only a few foreigners in a generation get such a privilege. It is a great one, I consider, as there is no school of good taste and restraint like the French, which is also one where one may acquire the more intellectual qualities in one's work and a sense of proportion and line. GOUNOD AS A MODERNIST I have continually called attention to Gounod's idealism. There are some to-day who might find the works of Gounod artificial in comparison with the works of some very modern writers. To them I can only say that the works of the great master gave a great deal of joy to audiences fully as competent to judge of their artistic and æsthetic beauty as any of the present day. Indeed, their flavor is so delicate and sublimated that the subsequent attempts at interpreting them with more realistic methods only succeeds in destroying their charm. It may be difficult for some who are saturated with the ultra-modern tendencies in music to look upon Gounod as a modernist, but thus he was regarded by his own friends. One of my most amusing recollections of Gounod was his telling me--himself much amused thereby--of the first performance of _Faust_. His friends had attended in large numbers to assist at the expected "success," only to be witnesses of a huge failure. Gounod told me that the only numbers to have any success whatsoever were the "Soldiers' Chorus," and that of the old men in the second part of the first act. He said that all his friends avoided him and disappeared or went on the other side of the street. Some of the more intimate told him that he must change his manner of writing as it was so "unmelodious" and "advanced." This seems to me a most interesting recollection, in view of the "cubist" music of Stravinsky and Co. of to-day. In thinking of Gounod we must not forget his period and his public. We must realize that his operatic heroes and heroines must be approached from an altogether idealistic attitude--never a materialistic one. See the manner in which Gounod has taken Shakespeare's _Juliette_ and translated her into an atmosphere of poetry. Nevertheless he constantly intensifies his dramatic situations as the dramatic nature of the composition demands. His _Juliette_, though consistent with his idea of her throughout, is not the _Juliet_ of Shakespeare. As also his _Marguerite_ is that of Kaulbach and not the Gretchen of Goethe. Of course, a great deal depends upon the training and school of the artist interpreting the rôle. In my own interpretations I am governed by certain art principles which seem very vital indeed to me. The figure of the Mediæval Princess _Elsa_ has to be represented with a restraint quite opposed to that of the panting savage _Aïda_. Also, the palpitating, elemental _Tosca_ calls for another type of character painting than, for instance, the modest, gestureless, timid and womanly Japanese girl in Mascagni's _Iris_. These things are not taught in schools by teachers. They come only after the prolonged study which every conscientious artist must give to her rôles. Gounod felt this very strongly and impressed it upon me. All music had a meaning to him--an inner meaning which the great mind invariably divines through a kind of artistic intuition difficult to define. I remember his playing to me the last act of _Don Giovanni_, which in his hands gained the grandeur and depth of Greek tragedy. He had in his hands the power to thrill one to the very utmost. Again he was keenly delighted with the most joyous passages in music. He was exceptionally fond of Mozart. _Le Nozze di Figaro_ was especially appreciated. He used to say, after accompanying himself in the aria of Cherubino the Page, from the 1st act, "Isn't that Spring? Isn't that youth? Isn't that the joy of life? How marvelously Mozart has crystallized this wonderful exuberant spirit in his music!" ONE REASON FOR GOUNOD'S EMINENCE One reason for Gounod's eminence lay in his great reverence for his art. He believed in the cultivation of reverence for one's art, as the religious devotee has reverence for his cult. To Gounod his art was a religion. To use a very expressive colloquialism, "He never felt himself above his job." Time and again we meet men and women who make it a habit to look down upon their work as though they were superior to it. They are continually apologizing to their friends and depreciating their occupation. Such people seem foreordained for failure. If one can not regard the work one is engaged upon with the greatest earnestness and respect--if one can not feel that the work is worthy of one's deepest _reverence_, one can accomplish little. I have seen so much of this with students and aspiring musicians that I feel that I would be missing a big opportunity if I did not emphasize this fine trait in Gounod's character. I know of one man in particular who has been going down and down every year largely because he has never considered anything he has had to do as worthy of his best efforts. He has always been "above his job." If you are dissatisfied with your work, seek out something that you think is really deserving of your labor, something commensurate with your idea of a serious dignified occupation in which you feel that you may do your best work. In most cases, however, it is not a matter of occupation but an attitude of mind--the difference between an earnest dignified worker and one who finds it more comfortable to evade work. This is true in music as in everything else. If you can make your musical work a cult as Gounod did, if you have talent--vision--ah! how few have vision, how few can really and truly see--if you have the understanding which comes through vision, there is no artistic height which you may not climb. One can not hope to give a portrait of Gounod in so short an interview. One can only point out a few of his most distinguishing features. One who enjoyed his magnificent friendship can only look upon it as a hallowed memory. After all, Gounod has written himself into his own music and it is to that we must go if we would know his real nature. MME. FLORENCE EASTON BIOGRAPHICAL Mme. Florence Easton was born at Middleborough, Yorkshire, England, Oct. 25, 1887. At a very early age she was taken to Toronto, Canada, by her parents, who were both accomplished singers. She was given a musical training in youth with the view of making her a concert pianist. Her teacher was J. A. D. Tripp, and at the age of eleven she appeared in concert. Her vocal talents were discovered and she was sent to the Royal Academy at London, England, where her teachers were Reddy and Mme. Agnes Larkom, a pupil of Garcia. She then went to Paris and studied under Eliot Haslam, an English teacher resident in the French metropolis. She then took small parts in the well-known English Opera organization, the Moody-Manners Company, acquiring a large repertoire in English. With her husband, Francis Maclennen, she came to America to take the leading rôles in the Savage production of _Parsifal_, remaining to sing the next season in _Madama Butterfly_. The couple were then engaged to sing for six years at the Berlin Royal Opera and became wonderfully successful. After three years at Hamburg and two years with the Chicago Opera Company she was engaged for dramatic rôles at the Metropolitan, and has become a great favorite. [Illustration: MME. FLORENCE EASTON. © Mishkin.] THE OPEN DOOR TO OPERA MME. FLORENCE EASTON What is the open door to opera in America? Is there an open door, and if not, how can one be made? Who may go through that door and what are the terms of admission? These are questions which thousands of young American opera aspirants are asking just now. The prospect of singing at a great opera house is so alluring and the reward in money is often so great that students center their attentions upon the grand prize and are willing to take a chance of winning, even though they know that only one in a very few may succeed and then often at bitter sacrifice. The question is a most interesting one to me, as I think that I know what the open door to opera in this country might be--what it may be if enough patriotic Americans could be found to cut through the hard walls of materialism, conventionalism and indifference. It lies through the small opera company--the only real and great school which the opera singer of the future can have. THE SCHOOL OF PRIME DONNE In European countries there are innumerable small companies capable of giving good opera which the people enjoy quite as thoroughly as the metropolitan audiences of the world enjoy the opera which commands the best singers of the times. For years these small opera companies have been the training schools of the great singers. Not to have gone through such a school was as damaging an admission as that of not having gone through a college would be to a college professor applying for a new position. Lilli Lehmann, Schumann-Heink, Ruffo, Campanini, Jenny Lind, Patti, all are graduates of these schools of practice. In America there seems to have existed for years a kind of prejudice, bred of ignorance, against all opera companies except those employing all-star casts in the biggest theatres in the biggest cities. This existed, despite the fact that these secondary opera companies often put on opera that was superior to the best that was to be heard in some Italian, German and French cities which possessed opera companies that stood very high in the estimation of Americans who had never heard them. It was once actually the case that the fact that a singer had once sung in a smaller opera company prevented her from aspiring to sing in a great opera company. America, however, has become very much better informed and much more independent in such matters, and our opera goers are beginning to resemble European audiences in that they let their ears and their common sense determine what is best rather than their prejudices and their conventions regarding reputation. It was actually the case at one time in America that a singer with a great reputation could command a large audience, whereas a singer of far greater ability and infinitely better voice might be shut out because she had once sung in an opera company not as pretentious as those in the big cities. This seemed very comic indeed to many European singers, who laughed in their coat sleeves over the real situation. In the first place, the small companies in many cities would provide more singers with opportunities for training and public appearances. The United States now has two or three major opera companies. Count up on your fingers the greatest number of singers who could be accommodated with parts: only once or twice in a decade does the young singer, at the age when the best formative work must be done, have a chance to attain the leading rôles. If we had in America ten or twenty smaller opera companies of real merit, the chances would be greatly multiplied. The first thing that the singer has to fight is stage fright. No matter how well you may know a rôle in a studio, unless you are a very extraordinary person you are likely to take months in acquiring the stage freedom and ease in working before an audience. There is only one cure for stage fright, and that is to appear continually until it wears off. Many deserving singers have lost their great chances because they have depended upon what they have learned in the studio, only to find that when they went before a great and critical audience their ability was suddenly reduced to 10 per cent., if not to zero. Even after years of practice and experience in great European opera houses where I appeared repeatedly before royalty, the reputation of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York was so great that at the time I made my début there I was so afflicted by stage fright that my voice was actually reduced to one-half of its force and my other abilities accordingly. This is the truth, and I am glad to have young singers know it as it emphasizes my point. Imagine what the effect would have been upon a young singer who had never before sung in public on the stage. Footlight paralysis is one of the most terrifying of all acute diseases and there is no cure for it but experience. THE BEST BEGINNING In the Moody Manners Company in England, the directors wisely understood this situation and prepared for it. All the singers scheduled to take leading rôles (and they were for the most part very young singers, since when the singer became experienced enough she was immediately stolen by companies paying higher salaries) were expected to go for a certain time in the chorus (not to sing, just to walk off and on the stage) until familiar with the situation. Accordingly, my first appearance with the Moody Manners Company was when I walked out with the chorus. I have never heard of this being done deliberately by any other managers, but think how sensible it is! Again, it is far more advantageous for the young singer to appear in the smaller opera house at first, so that if any errors are made the opera goers will not be unforgiving. There is no tragedy greater than throwing a young girl into an operatic situation far greater than her experience and ability can meet, and then condemning her for years because she did not rise to the occasion. This has happened many times in recent years. Ambition is a beautiful thing; but when ambition induces one to walk upon a tight rope over Niagara, without having first learned to walk properly on earth, ambition should be restrained. I can recollect several singers who were widely heralded at their first performances by enthusiastic admirers, who are now no longer known. What has become of them? Is it not better to learn the profession of opera singing in its one great school, and learn it so thoroughly that one can advance in the profession, just as one may advance in every other profession? The singer in the small opera company who, night after night, says to herself, "To-morrow it must be better," is the one who will be the Lilli Lehmann, the Galli-Curci, or the Schumann-Heink of to-morrow; not the important person who insists upon postponing her début until she can appear at the Metropolitan or at Covent Garden. Colonel Henry W. Savage did America an immense service, as did the Aborn Brothers and Fortune Gallo, in helping to create a popular taste for opera presented in a less pretentious form. America needs such companies and needs them badly, not merely to educate the public up to an appreciation of the fact that the finest operatic performances in the world are now being given at the Metropolitan Opera House, but to help provide us with well-schooled singers for the future. NECESSITY OF ROUTINE Nothing can take the place of routine in learning operas. Many, many opera singers I have known seem to be woefully lacking in it. In learning a new opera, I learn all the parts that have anything to do with the part I am expected to sing. In other words, I find it very inadvisable to depend upon cues. There are so many disturbing things constantly occurring on the stage to throw one off one's track. For instance, when I made my first appearance in Mascagni's _Lodoletta_ I was obliged to go on with only twenty-four hours' notice, without rehearsal, in an opera I had seen produced only once. I had studied the rôle only two weeks. While on the stage I was so entranced with the wonderful singing of Mr. Caruso that I forgot to come in at the right time. He said to me quickly _sotto voce_-- "_Canta! Canta! Canta!_" And my routine drill of the part enabled me to come in without letting the audience know of my error. The mere matter of getting the voice to go with the orchestra, as well as that of identifying cues heard in the unusual quality of the orchestral instruments (so different from the tone quality of the piano), is most confusing, and only routine can accustom one to being ready to meet all of these strange conditions. One is supposed to keep an eye on the conductor practically all of the time while singing. The best singers are those who never forget this, but do it so artfully that the audience never suspects. Many singers follow the conductor's baton so conspicuously that they give the appearance of monkeys on a string. This, of course, is highly ludicrous. I don't know of any way of overcoming it but experience. Yes, there is another great help, and that is musicianship. The conductor who knows that an artist is a musician in fact, is immensely relieved and always very appreciative. Singers should learn as much about the technical side of music as possible. Learning to play the violin or the piano, and learning to play it well is invaluable. WATCHING FOR OPPORTUNITIES The singer must be ever on the alert for opportunities to advance. This is largely a matter of preparation. If one is capable, the opportunities usually come. I wonder if I may relate a little incident which occurred to me in Germany long before the war. I had been singing in Berlin, when the impresario of the Royal Opera approached me and asked me if I could sing _Aïda_ on a following Monday. I realized that if I admitted that I had never sung _Aïda_ before, the thoroughgoing, matter-of-fact German Intendant would never even let me have a chance. Emmy Destinn was then the prima donna at the Royal Opera, and had been taken ill. The post was one of the operatic plums of all Europe. Before I knew it, I had said "Yes, I can sing _Aïda_." It was a white lie, and once told, I had to live up to it. I had never sung _Aïda_, and only knew part of it. Running home I worked all night long to learn the last act. Over and over the rôle hundreds and hundreds of times I went, until it seemed as though my eyes would drop out of my head. Monday night came, and thanks to my routine experience in smaller companies, I had learned _Aïda_ so that I was perfectly confident of it. Imagine the strain, however, when I learned that the Kaiser and the court were to be present. At the end I was called before the Kaiser, who, after warmly complimenting me, gave me the greatly coveted post in his opera house. I do not believe that he ever found out that the little Toronto girl had actually fibbed her way into an opportunity. TALES OF STRAUSS Strauss was one of the leading conductors while I was at the Royal Opera and I sang under his baton many, many times. He was a real genius,--in that once his art work was completed, his interest immediately centered upon the next. Once while we were performing _Rosenkavalier_ he came behind the scenes and said: "Will this awfully _long_ opera never end? I want to go home." I said to him, "But Doctor, you composed it yourself," and he said, "Yes, but I never meant to conduct it." Let it be explained that Strauss was an inveterate player of the German card game, Scat, and would far rather seek a quiet corner with a few choice companions than go through one of his own works night after night. However, whenever the creative instinct was at work he let nothing impede it. I remember seeing him write upon his cuffs (no doubt some passing theme) during a performance of _Meistersinger_ he was conducting. THE SINGER'S GREATEST NEED The singer's greatest need, or his greatest asset if he has one, is an honest critic. My husband and I have made it a point never to miss hearing one another sing, no matter how many times we have heard each other sing in a rôle. Sometimes, after a big performance, it is very hard to have to be told about all the things that one did not do well, but that is the only way to improve. There are always many people to tell one the good things, but I feel that the biggest help that I have had through my career has been the help of my husband, because he has always told me the places where I could improve, so that every performance I had something new to think about. An artist never stands still. He either goes forward or backward and, of course, the only way to get to the top is by going forward. The difficulty in America is in giving the young singers a chance after their voices are placed. If only we could have a number of excellent stock opera companies, even though there had to be a few traveling stars after the manner of the old dramatic companies, where everybody had to start at the bottom and work his way up, because with a lovely voice, talent and perseverance anyone can get to the top if one has a chance to work. By "work" I mean singing as many new rôles as possible and as often as possible and not starting at a big opera house singing perhaps two or three times during a season. Just think of it,--the singer at a small opera house has more chance to learn in two months than the beginner at a big opera house might have in five years. After all, the thing that is most valuable to a singer is time, as with time the voice will diminish in beauty. Getting to the top via the big opera house is the work of a lifetime, and the golden tones are gone before one really has an opportunity to do one's best work. [Illustration: GERALDINE FARRAR.] GERALDINE FARRAR BIOGRAPHICAL Although one of the youngest of the noted American singers, none has achieved such an extensive international reputation as Miss Farrar. Born February 28, 1882, in Melrose, Mass., she was educated at the public schools in that city. At the school age she became the pupil of Mrs. J. H. Long, in Boston. After studying with several teachers, including Emma Thursby, in New York, and Trabadello, in Paris, she went to Lilli Lehmann in Berlin, and under this, the greatest of dramatic singers of her time, Miss Farrar received a most thorough and careful training in all the elements of her art. She made her début as Marguerite in _Faust_ at the Royal Opera in Berlin, October 15th, 1901. Later, after touring European cities with ever increasing successes, she was engaged at the Opera Comique and Grand Opera, Paris, and then at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, where she has been the leading soprano for many seasons. The many enticing offers made for appearances in moving pictures led to a new phase of her career. In many pictures she has appeared with her husband, M. Lou Tellegen, one of the most distinguished actors of the French school, who at one time was the leading man for Sarah Bernhardt. The following conference is rich in advice to any young woman who desires to know what she must do in order to become a prima donna. WHAT MUST I GO THROUGH TO BECOME A PRIMA DONNA? MME. GERALDINE FARRAR What must I do to become a prima donna? Let us reverse the usual method of discussing the question and begin with the artist upon the stage in a great opera house like the Metropolitan in New York, on a gala night, every seat sold and hundreds standing. It is a modern opera with a "heavy" score. What is the first consideration of the singer? Primarily, an artist in grand opera must _sing_ in some fashion to insure the proper projection of her rôle across the large spaces of the all-too-large auditoriums. Those admirable requisites of clear diction, facial expression and emotional appeal will be sadly hampered unless the medium of sound carries their message. It is only from sad experience that one among many rises superior to some of the disadvantages of our modern opera repertoire. Gone are the days when the facile vocalist was supported by a small group of musicians intent upon a discreet accompaniment for the benefit of the singer's vocal exertions. Voices trained for the older repertoire were not at the mercy of an enlarged orchestra pit, wherein the over-zealous gentlemen now fight--_furioso ad libitum_--for the supremacy of operatic effects. An amiable musical observer once asked me why we all shouted so in opera. I replied by a question, asking if he had ever made an after-dinner speech. He acquiesced. I asked him how many times he rapped on the table for attention and silence. He admitted it was rather often. I asked him why. He said, so that he might be heard. He answered his own question by conceding that the carrying timbre of a voice cannot compete successfully against even banquet hall festivities unless properly focused out of a normal speaking tone. The difference between a small room and one seating several hundred is far greater than the average auditor realizes. If the mere rattling of silver and china will eclipse this vocal effort in speech I leave to your imagination what must transpire when the singer is called upon to dominate with one thread of song the tremendous onslaught of an orchestra and to rise triumphant above it in a theater so large that the faithful gatherers in the gallery tell me we all look like pigmies, and half the time are barely heard. Since the recesses where we must perform are so exaggerated everything must be in like proportion, hence we are very often too noisy, but how can it be otherwise if we are to influence the eager taxpayer in row X? After all, he has not come to hear us _whisper_, and his point of vantage is not so admirable as if he were sitting at a musical comedy in a small theater. For this condition the size of the theater and the instrumentation imposed by the composer are to be censured, and less blame placed upon the overburdened shoulders of the vocal competitor against these odds. Little shading in operatic tone color is possible unless an accompanying phrase permits it or the trumpeter swallows a pin! LUCIA OR ZAZA If your repertoire is _The Barber_, _Lucia_, _Somnambula_ and all such Italian dainties, well and good. Nothing need disturb the complete enjoyment of this lace-work. But if your auditors weep at _Butterfly_ and _Zaza_ or thrill to _Pagliacci_, they demand you use a quite different technic, which comes to the point of my story. I believe it was Jean de Reszke who advocated the voice "in the mask" united to breath support from the diaphragm. From personal observation I should say our coloratura charmers lay small emphasis on that highly important factor and use their head voices with a freedom more or less God given. But the power and life-giving quality of this fundamental cannot be too highly estimated for us who must color our phrases to suit modern dramatics and evolve a carrying quality that will not only eliminate the difficulty of vocal demands, but at the same time insure immunity from harmful after-effects. This indispensable twin of the head voice is the dynamo which alone must endure all the necessary fatigue, leaving the actual voice phrases free to float unrestricted with no ignoble distortions or possible signs of distress. Alas! it is not easy to write of this, but the experience of years proves how vital a point is its saving grace and how, unfortunately, it remains an unknown factor to many. To note two of our finest examples of greatness in this marvelous profession, Lilli Lehmann and Jean de Reszke, neither of whom had phenomenal vocal gifts, I would point out their remarkable mental equipment, unceasing and passionate desire for perfection, paired with an unerring instinct for the noble and distinguished such as has not been found in other exponents of purely vocal virtuosity, with a few rare exceptions, as Melba and Galli-Curci, for instance, to mention two beautiful instruments of our generation. The singing art is not a casual inspiration and it should never be treated as such. The real artist will have an organized mental strategy just as minute and reliable as any intricate machinery, and will under all circumstances (save complete physical disability) be able to control and dominate her gifts to their fullest extent. This is not learned in a few years within the four walls of a studio, but is the result of a lifetime of painstaking care and devotion. There was a time when ambition and overwork so told upon me that mistakenly I allowed myself to minimize my vocal practice. How wrong that was I found out in short time and I have returned long since to my earlier precepts as taught me by Lilli Lehmann. KEEP THE VOICE STRONG AND FLEXIBLE In her book, _How to Sing_, there is much for the student to digest with profit, though possible reservations are advisable, dependent upon one's individual health and vocal resistance. Her strong conviction was, and is, that a voice requires daily and conscientious exercise to keep it strong and flexible. Having successfully mastered the older Italian rôles as a young singer, her incursion into the later-day dramatic and classic repertoire in no wise became an excuse to let languish the fundamental idea of beautiful sound. How vitally important and admirably _bel canto_ sustained by the breath support has served her is readily understood when one remembers that she has outdistanced all the colleagues of her earlier career and now well over sixty, she is as indefatigable in her daily practice as we younger singers should be. This brief extract about Patti (again quoting Lilli Lehmann) will furnish an interesting comparison: In Adelina Patti everything was united--the splendid voice paired with great talent for singing, and the long oversight of her studies by her distinguished teacher, Strakosch. She never sang rôles that did not suit her voice; in her earlier years she sang only arias and duets or single solos, never taking part in ensembles. She never sang even her limited repertory when she was indisposed. She never attended rehearsals, but came to the theater in the evening and sang triumphantly, without ever having seen the persons who sang or acted with her. She spared herself rehearsals, which, on the day of the performance or the day before, exhaust all singers because of the excitement of all kinds attending them, and which contribute neither to the freshness of the voice nor to the joy of the profession. Although she was a Spaniard by birth and an American by early adoption, she was, so to speak, the greatest Italian singer of my time. All was absolutely good, correct and flawless, the voice like a bell that you seemed to hear long after its singing had ceased. Yet she could give no explanation of her art, and answered all her colleagues' questions concerning it with "Ah, je n'en sais rien!" She possessed unconsciously, as a gift of nature, a union of all those qualities that other singers must attain and possess consciously. Her vocal organs stood in the most favorable relations to each other. Her talent and her remarkably trained ear maintained control over the beauty of her singing and her voice. Fortunate circumstances of her life preserved her from all injury. The purity and flawlessness of her tone, the beautiful equalization of her whole voice constituted the magic by which she held her listeners entranced. Moreover, she was beautiful and gracious in appearance. The accent of great dramatic power she did not possess, yet I ascribe this more to her intellectual indolence than to her lack of ability. But how few of us would ever make a career if we waited for such favors from Nature! LESSONS MUST BE ADEQUATE Bearing in mind the absolute necessity and real joy in vocal work, it confounds and amazes me that teachers of this art feel their duty has been accomplished when they donate twenty minutes or half an hour to a pupil! I do not honestly believe this is a fair exchange, and it is certainly not within reason to believe that within so short a time a pupil can actually benefit by the concentration and instruction so hastily conferred upon her. If this be very plain speaking, it is said with the object to benefit the pupil only, for it is, after all, _they_ who must pay the ultimate in success or failure. An hour devoted to the minute needs of one pupil is not too much time to devote to so delicate a subject. An intelligent taskmaster will let his pupil demonstrate ten or fifteen minutes and during the same period of rest will discuss and awaken the pupil's interest from an intelligent point of view, that some degree of individuality may color even the drudgery of the classroom. A word of counsel from such a mistress of song as Lehmann or Sembrich is priceless, but the sums that pour into greedy pockets of vocal mechanics, not to say a harsher word, is a regretable proceeding. Too many mediocrities are making sounds. Too many of the same class are trying to instruct, but, as in politics, the real culprit is the people. As long as the public forbear an intelligent protest in this direction, just so long will the studios be crowded with pathetic seekers for fame. What employment these infatuated individuals enjoyed before the advent of grand opera and the movies became a possible exhaust pipe for their vanity is not clear, but they certainly should be discouraged. New York alone is crowded with aspirants for the stage, and their little bag of tricks is of very slender proportions. Let us do everything in our power to help the really worthy talent; but it is a mistaken charity, and not patriotic, to shove singers and composers so called, of American birth, upon a weary public which perceives nothing except the fact that they are of native birth and have no talent to warrant such assumption. I do not think the musical observers are doing the cause of art in this country a favor when columns are written about the inferior works of the non-gifted. An ambitious effort is all right in its way, but that is no reason to connect the ill-advised production with American hopes. On the contrary, it does us a bad turn. I shall still contend that the English language is not a pretty one for our vocal exploitations, and within my experience of the past ten years I have heard but one American work which I can sincerely say would have given me pleasure to create, that same being Mr. Henry Hadley's recently produced _Cleopatra's Night_. His score is rich and deserving of the highest praise. In closing I should like to quote again from Mme. Lehmann's book an exercise that would seem to fulfill a long-felt want: "The great scale is the most necessary exercise for all kinds of voices. It was taught me by my mother. She taught it to all her pupils and to us." Here is the scale as Lehmann taught it to me. [Illustration: musical notation: Breath Breath Breath Breath] It was sung upon all the principal vowels. It was extended stepwise through different keys over the entire range of the two octaves of the voice. It was not her advice to practice it too softly, but it was done with all the resonating organs well supported by the diaphragm, the tone in a very supple and elastic "watery" state. She would think nothing of devoting from forty minutes to sixty minutes a day to the slow practice of this exercise. Of course, she would treat what one might call a heavy brunette voice quite differently from a bright blonde voice. These terms of blonde and brunette, of course, have nothing to do with the complexion of the individual, but to the color of the voice. THE ONLY CURE Lehmann said of this scale: "It is the only cure for all injuries, and at the same time the most excellent means of fortification against all over-exertion. I sing it every day, often twice, even if I have to sing one of the heaviest rôles in the evening. I can rely absolutely upon its assistance. I often take fifty minutes to go through it once, for I let no tone pass that is lacking in any degree in pitch, power, duration or in single vibration of the propagation form." Personally I supplement this great scale often with various florid legato phrases of arias selected from the older Italians or Mozart, whereby I can more easily achieve the vocal facility demanded by the tessitura of _Manon_ or _Faust_ and change to the darker-hued phrases demanded in _Carmen_ or _Butterfly_. But the open secret of all success is patient, never-ending, conscientious _work_, with a forceful emphasis on the _WORK_. [Illustration: JOHANNA GADSKI.] MME. JOHANNA GADSKI BIOGRAPHICAL Mme. Gadski was born at Anclam, Prussia, June 15, 1872. Her studies in singing were principally with Mme. Schroeder-Chaloupha. When she was ten years old she sang successfully in concert at Stettin. Her operatic début was made in Berlin, in 1889, in Weber's _Der Freischütz_. She then appeared in the opera houses of Bremen and Mayence. In 1894 Dr. Walter Damrosch organized his opera company in New York and engaged Mme. Gadski for leading rôles. In 1898 she became high dramatic soprano with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York, and the following year appeared at Covent Garden. She was constantly developing as a singer of Wagner rôles, notably _Brunhilde_ and _Isolde_. Her repertoire included forty rôles in all, and the demand for her appearance at festivals here and abroad became more and more insistent. She sang at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York until 1917, when the notoriety caused by the activities of her husband, Captain Hans Tauscher, American agent for large German weapon manufacturers, forced her to resign. Mme. Gadski made a close study of the Schumann Songs for years; and the following can not fail to be of artistic assistance to the singer. THE MASTER SONGS OF ROBERT SCHUMANN MME. JOHANNA GADSKI ROBERT SCHUMANN'S LYRIC GIFT One cannot delve very far into the works of Schumann without discovering that his gifts are peculiarly lyric. His melodic fecundity is all the more remarkable because of his strong originality. Even in many of his piano pieces, such as _Warum?_, _Träumerei_ or the famous _Slumber Song_, the lyric character is evident. Beautiful melodies which seem to lend themselves to the peculiar requirements of vocal music crop up every now and then in all his works. This is by no means the case with many of the other great masters. In some of Beethoven's songs, for instance, one can never lose sight of the fact that they are instrumental pieces. It was Schumann's particular privilege to be gifted with the acute sense of proportion which enabled him to estimate just what kind of an accompaniment a melody should have. Naturally some of his songs stand out far above others; and in these the music lover and vocal student will notice that there is usually a beautiful artistic balance between the accompaniment and the melody. Another characteristic is the sense of propriety with which Schumann connected his melodies with the thought of the poems he employed. This is doubtless due to the extensive literary training he himself enjoyed. It was impossible for a man of Schumann's life experience to apply an inappropriate melody to any given poem. With some song writers, this is by no means the case. The music of one song would fit almost any other set of words having the same poetic metre. Schumann was continually seeking after a distinctive atmosphere, and this it is which gives many of his works their lasting charm. THE INTIMATE AND DELICATE CHARACTER OF SCHUMANN SONGS Most of the greater Schumann songs are of a deliciously ultimate and delicate character. By this no one should infer that they are weak or spineless. Schumann was a deep student of psychology and of human life. In the majority of cases he eschewed the melodramatic. It is true that we have at least one song, _The Two Grenadiers_, which is melodramatic in the extreme; but this, according to the greatest judges, is not Schumann at his best. It was the particular delight of Schumann to take some intense little poem and apply to it a musical setting crowded full of deep poetical meaning. Again, he liked to paint musical pastels such as _Im wunderschönen Monat Mai_, _Frühlingsnacht_ and _Der Nussbaum_. These songs are redolent with the fragrance of out-of-doors. There is not one jarring note. The indefinable beauty and inspiration of the fields and forests have been caught by the master and imprisoned forever in this wonderful music. _Im wunderschönen Monat Mai_, which comes from the _Dichterliebe_ cycle, is indescribably delicate. It should be sung with great lightness and simplicity. Any effort toward a striving for effect would ruin this exquisite gem. _Frühlingsnacht_ with its wonderful accompaniment, which Franz Liszt thought so remarkable that he combined the melody and the accompaniment, with but slight alterations, and made a piano piece of the whole--is a difficult song to sing properly. If the singer does not catch the effervescent character of the song as a whole, the effect is lost. Any "dragging" of the tones destroys the wonderful exuberance which Schumann strove to connote. The balance between the singer and the accompanist must be perfect, and woe be to the singer who tries to sing _Frühlingsnacht_ with a lumbering accompanist. _Der Nussbaum_ is one of the most effective and "thankful" of all the Schumann songs. Experienced public singers almost invariably win popular appreciation with this song. It is probably my favorite of all the Schumann songs. Here again delicacy and simplicity reign supreme. In fact simplicity in interpretation is the great requirement of all the art songs. The amateur singer seems to be continually trying to secure "effect" with these songs and the only result of this is affectation. If amateurs could only realize how hard the really great masters tried to avoid results that were to be secured by the cheap methods of "affectation" and "show," they would make their singing more simple. Success in singing art songs comes through the ability of the artist to bring out the psychic, poetical and musical meaning of the song. There is no room for cheap vocal virtuosity. The great songs bear the sacred message of the best and finest in art. They represent the conscientious devotion of their composers to their loftiest ideals. I have mentioned three songs which are representative, but there are numberless other songs which reveal the intimate and personal character of Schumann's works. One popular mistake regarding these songs which is quite prevalent is that of thinking that they can only be sung in tiny rooms and never in large auditoriums. Time and again I have achieved some of the best results I have ever secured on the concert stage with delicate intimate works sung before audiences of thousands of people. The size of the auditorium has practically nothing to do with the song. The method of delivery is everything. If the song is properly and thoughtfully delivered, the audience, though it be one of thousands, will sit "quiet as mice" and listen reverently to the end. However, if one of these songs were to be sung in a flamboyant, bombastic manner, by some singer infected with the idea that in order to impress a multitude of people an exaggerated style is necessary, the results would be ruinous. If overdone, they are never appreciated. Art is art. Rembrandt in one of his master paintings exhibits just the right artistic balance. A copy of the same painting might become a mere daub, with a few twists of some bungling amateur's brush. Let the young singer remember that the results that are the most difficult to get in singing the art song are not those by which she may hope to make a sensational impression by means of show, but those which depend first and always upon sincerity, simplicity and a deep study of the real meaning of the masterpiece. THE LOVE INTEREST IN THE SCHUMANN SONGS Up to the time Schumann was thirty years of age (1840), his compositions were confined to works for the piano. These piano works include some of the very greatest and most inspired of his compositions for the instrument. In 1840 Schumann married Clara Wieck, daughter of his former pianoforte teacher. This marriage was accomplished only after the most severe opposition imaginable upon the part of the irate father-in-law, who was loath to see his daughter, whom he had trained to be one of the foremost pianists of her sex, marry an obscure composer. The effect of this opposition was to raise Schumann's affection to the condition of a kind of fanaticism. All this made a pronounced impression upon his art and seemed to make him long for expression through the medium of his love songs. He wrote to a friend at this time, "I am now writing nothing but songs great and small. I can hardly tell you how delightful it is to write for the voice, as compared with instrumental composition; and what a tumult and strife I feel within me as I sit down to it. I have brought forth quite new things in this line." In letters to his wife he is quite as impassioned over his song writing as the following quotations indicate: "Since yesterday morning, I have written twenty-seven pages of music (something new of which I can tell you nothing more than that I have laughed and wept for joy in composing them). When I composed them my soul was within yours. Without such a bride, indeed no one could write such music; once more I have composed so much that it seems almost uncanny. Alas! I cannot help it: I could sing myself to death like a nightingale." During the first year of his marriage Schumann wrote one hundred of the two hundred and forty-five songs that are attributed to him. In the published collections of his works, there are three songs attributed to Schumann which are known to be from the pen of his talented wife. As in his piano compositions Schumann avoided long pieces and preferred collections of comparatively short pieces, such as those in the _Carnaval_, _Kreisleriana_, _Papillons_, so in his early works for the voice Schumann chose to write short songs which were grouped in the form of cycles. Seven of these cycles are particularly well known. They are here given together with the best known songs from each group. Cycle Songs _Liederkreis_ {_Ich wandelte unter den Bäumen._ {_Mit Myrthen und Rosen._ {_Die Lotusblume._ _Myrthen_ {_Lass mich ihm am Busen hangen._ {_Du bist wie eine Blume._ {_Der Nussbaum._ _Eichendorff Liederkreis_ {_Waldesgespräch._ {_Frühlingsnacht._ {_Wanderlust._ _Kerner Cycle_ {_Frage._ {_Stille Thränen._ {_O, Ring an meinem Finger._ _Frauenliebe und Leben_ {_Er, der Herrlichste von Allen._ {_Ich grolle nicht._ _Dichterliebe_ {_Im wunderschönen Mai._ {_Ich hab' im Traum geweinet._ {_Three of the songs in this_ _Liebesfrühling_ {_Cycle are attributed to_ {_Clara Schumann._ Critics seem to be agreed that Schumann's talent gradually deteriorated as his mental disease increased. Consequently, with but few exceptions his best song works are to be found among his early vocal compositions. I have tried repeatedly to bring forth some of the lesser known songs of Schumann and have time and again devoted long periods to their study, but apparently the public, by an unmistakable indication of lack of approval, will have none of them. Evidently, the songs by which Schumann is now best known are his best works from the standpoint of popular appreciation. Popular approval taken in the aggregate is a mighty determining factor. The survival of the fittest applies to songs as well as to other things in life. This is particularly so in the case of the four famous songs, _Die beiden Grenadiere_, _Widmung_, _Der Nussbaum_ and _Ich grolle nicht_, which never seem to diminish in popularity. SCHUMANN'S LOVE FOR THE ROMANTIC Schumann's fervid imagination readily led to a love for the romantic. His early fondness for the works of Jean Paul developed into a kind of life tendency, which resulted in winning him the title of the "Tone-Poet of Romanticism." Few of his songs, however, are really dramatic. _Waldesgespräch_, which Robert Franz called a pianoforte piece with a voice part added, is probably the best of Schumann's dramatic-romantic songs. I have always found that audiences are very partial to this song; and it may be sung by a female voice as well as the male voice. The _Two Grenadiers_ is strictly a man's song. _Ich grolle nicht_, while sung mostly by men, may, like the _Erl-King_ of Schubert, be sung quite as successfully by women singers possessing the qualities of depth and dramatic intensity. PECULIAR DIFFICULTIES IN INTERPRETING SCHUMANN SONGS I have already mentioned the necessity for simplicity in connection with the interpretation of the Schumann songs. I need not tell the readers of these pages that the proper interpretation of these songs requires a much more extensive and difficult kind of preparatory work than the more showy coloratura works which to the novice often seem vastly more difficult. The very simplicity of the Schubert and Schumann songs makes them more difficult to sing properly than the works of writers who adopted a somewhat more complicated style. The smallest vocal discrepancies become apparent at once and it is only by the most intense application and great attention to detail that it is possible for the singer to bring her art to a standard that will stand the test of these simple, but very difficult works. Too much coloratura singing is liable to rob the voice of its fullness and is not to be recommended as a preparation for the singer who would become a singer of the modern art songs. This does not mean that scales and arpeggios are to be avoided. In fact the flexibility and control demanded of the singers of art songs are quite as great as that required of the coloratura singer. The student must have her full quota of vocal exercises before she should think of attempting the Schumann Lieder. SCHUMANN'S POPULARITY IN AMERICA Americans seem to be particularly fond of Schumann. When artists are engaged for concert performances it is the custom in this country to present optional programs to the managers of the local concert enterprises. These managers represent all possible kinds of taste. It is the experience of most concert artists that the Schumann selections are almost invariably chosen. This is true of the West as well as of the South and East. One section of the program is without exception devoted to what they call classical songs and by this they mean the best songs rather than the songs whose chief claim is that they are from the old Italian schools of Carissimi, Scarlatti, etc. I make it a special point to present as many songs as possible with English words. The English language is not a difficult language in which to sing; and when the translation coincides with the original I can see no reason why American readers who may not be familiar with a foreign tongue should be denied the privilege of understanding what the song is about. If they do not understand, why sing words at all? Why not vocalize the melodies upon some vowel? Songs, however, were meant to combine poetry and music; and unless the audience has the benefit of understanding both, it has been defrauded of one of its chief delights. Some German poems, however, are almost untranslatable. It is for this reason that many of the works of Löwe, for instance, have never attained wide popularity. The legends which Löwe employed are often delightful, but the difficulties of translation are such that the original meaning is either marred or destroyed. The songs or ballads of Löwe, without the words, do not seem to grasp American audiences and singers find it a thankless task to try to force them upon the public. I have been so long in America that I feel it my duty to share in popularizing the works of the many talented American composers. I frequently place MacDowell's beautiful songs on my programs; and the works of many other American composers, including Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, Sidney Homer, Frank Le Forge and others make fine concert numbers. It has seemed to me that America has a large future in the field of lyric composition. American poets have long since won their place in the international Hall of Fame. The lyrical spirit which they have expressed verbally will surely be imbued in the music of American composers. The opportunity is already here. Americans demand the best the world can produce. It makes no difference what the nationality of the composer. However, Americans are first of all patriotic; and the composer who produces real lyric masterpieces is not likely to be asked to wait for fame and competence, as did Schubert and Schumann. [Illustration: MME. AMELITA GALLI-CURCI. © Victor Georg.] MME. AMELITA GALLI-CURCI BIOGRAPHICAL Mme. Galli-Curci was born at Milan, November 18th, 1889, of a family distinguished in the arts and in the professions. She entered the Milan Conservatory, winning the first prize and diploma in piano playing in 1903. For a time after her graduation she toured as a pianist and then resolved to become a singer. She is practically self-taught in the vocal art. Her début was made in Rome at the Teatro Constanzi, in the rôle of _Gilda_ in _Rigoletto_. She was pronouncedly successful from the very start. During the next six years she sang principally in Italy, South America (Three Tours), and in Spain, her success increasing with every appearance. In 1916 she appeared at Chicago with the Chicago Opera Company, creating a furore. The exceptionally beautiful records of her interpretations created an immense demand to hear her in concert, and her successes everywhere have been historic. Not since Patti has there been a singer upon whom such wide-spread critical comment has been made in praise of her exquisite velvety quality of tone, vocal technic and interpretative intelligence. Hailed as "Patti's only successor," she has met with greater popular success in opera and concert than any of the singers of recent years. In 1921 she married the gifted American composer, Homer Samuels, who for many years had been the pianist upon her tours. TEACHING YOURSELF TO SING MME. AMELITA GALLI-CURCI Just what influence heredity may have upon the musical art and upon musicians has, of course, been a much discussed question. In my own case, I was fortunate in having a father who, although engaged in another vocation, was a fine amateur musician. My grandfather was a conductor and my grandmother was an opera singer of distinction in Italy. Like myself, she was a coloratura soprano, and I can recollect with joy her voice and her method of singing. Even at the age of seventy-five her voice was wonderfully well preserved, because she always sang with the greatest ease and with none of the forced throat restrictions which make the work of so many singers insufferable. My own musical education began at the age of five, when I commenced to play the piano. Meanwhile I sang around the house, and my grandmother used to say in good humor: "Keep it up, my dear; perhaps some day you may be a better singer than I am." My father, however, was more seriously interested in instrumental music, and desired that I should become a pianist. How fortunate for me! Otherwise, I should never have had that thorough musical drill which gave me an acquaintance with the art which I cannot believe could come in any other way. Mascagni was a very good friend of our family and took a great interest in my playing. He came to our house very frequently, and his advice and inspiration naturally meant much to a young, impressionable girl. GENERAL EDUCATION My general education was very carefully guarded by my father, who sent me to the best schools in Milan, one of which was under the management of Germans, and it was there that I acquired my acquaintance with the German language. I was then sent to the Conservatorio, and graduated with a gold medal as a pianist. This won me some distinction in Italy and enabled me to tour as a pianist. I did not pretend to play the big, exhaustive works, but my programs were made up of such pieces as the _Abeg_ of Schumann, studies by Scharwenka, impromptus of Chopin, the four scherzos of Chopin, the first ballade, the nocturnes (the fifth in the book was my favorite) and works of Bach. (Of course, I had been through the Wohltemperiertes Clavier.) In those days I was very frail, and I had aspired to develop my repertoire so that later I could include the great works for the piano requiring a more or less exhaustive technic of the bravura type. Once I went to hear Busoni, and after the concert, came to me like a revelation, "You can never be such a pianist as he. Your hand and your physical strength will not permit it." I went home in more or less sadness, knowing that despite the success I had had in my piano playing, my decision was a wise one. Figuratively, I closed the lid of my piano upon my career as a pianist and decided to learn how to sing. The memory of my grandmother's voice singing Bellini's _Qui la Voce_ was still ringing in my ears with the lovely purity of tone that she possessed. Mascagni called upon us at that time, and I asked him to hear me sing. He did so, and threw up his hands, saying, "Why in the world have you been wasting your time with piano playing when you have a natural voice like that? Such voices are born. Start to work at once to develop your voice." Meanwhile, of course, I had heard a great deal of singing and a great deal of so-called voice teaching. I went to two teachers in Milan, but was so dissatisfied with what I heard from them and from their pupils that I was determined that it would be necessary for me to develop my own voice. Please do not take this as an inference that all vocal teachers are bad or are dispensable. My own case was peculiar. I had been saturated with musical traditions since my babyhood. I had had, in addition, a very fine musical training. Of course, without this I could not have attempted to do what I did in the way of self-training. Nevertheless, it is my firm conviction that unless the student of singing has in his brain and in his soul those powers of judging for himself whether the quality of a tone, the intonation (pitch), the shading, the purity and the resonance are what they should be to insure the highest artistic results, it will be next to impossible for him to secure these. This is what is meant by the phrase--"singers are born and not made." The power of discrimination, the judgment, etc., must be inherent. No teacher can possibly give them to a pupil, except in an artificial way. That, possibly, is the reason why so many students sing like parrots: because they have the power of mimicry, but nothing comes from within. The fine teacher can, of course, take a fine sense of tonal values, etc., and, provided the student has a really good natural voice, lead him to reveal to himself the ways in which he can use his voice to the best advantage. Add to this a fine musical training, and we have a singer. But no teacher can give to a voice that velvety smoothness, that liquid fluency, that bell-like clarity which the ear of the educated musician expects, and which the public at large demands, unless the student has the power of determining for himself what is good and what is bad. FOUR YEARS OF HARD TRAINING It was no easy matter to give up the gratifying success which attended my pianistic appearances to begin a long term of self-study, self-development. Yet I realized that it would hardly be possible for me to accomplish what I desired in less than four years. Therefore, I worked daily for four years, drilling myself with the greatest care in scales, arpeggios and sustained tones. The colorature facility I seemed to possess naturally, to a certain extent; but I realized that only by hard and patient work would it be possible to have all my runs, trills, etc., so that they always would be smooth, articulate and free--that is, unrestricted--at any time. I studied the rôles in which I aspired to appear, and attended the opera faithfully to hear fine singing, as well as bad singing. As the work went on it became more and more enjoyable. I felt that I was upon the right path, and that meant everything. If I had continued as a pianist I could never have been more than a mediocrity, and that I could not have tolerated. About this time came a crisis in my father's business; it became necessary for me to teach. Accordingly, I took a number of piano pupils and enjoyed that phase of my work very much indeed. I gave lessons for four years, and in my spare time worked with my voice, all by myself, with my friend, the piano. My guiding principles were: _There must be as little consciousness of effort in the throat as possible._ _There must always be the Joy of Singing._ _Success is based upon sensation, whether it feels right to me in my mouth, in my throat, that I know, and nobody else can tell me._ I remember that my grandmother, who sang _Una voce poco fa_ at seventy-five, always cautioned me to never force a single tone. I did not study exercises like those of Concone, Panofka, Bordogni, etc., because they seemed to me a waste of time in my case. I did not require musical knowledge, but needed special drill. I knew where my weak spots were. What was the use of vocal studies which required me to do a lot of work and only occasionally touched those portions of my voice which needed special attention? Learning a repertoire was a great task in itself, and there was no time to waste upon anything I did not actually need. Because of the natural fluency I have mentioned, I devoted most of my time to slower exercises at first. What could be simpler than this? [Illustration: musical notation: Ex. 1] These, of course, were sung in the most convenient range in my voice. The more rapid exercises I took from C to F above the treble staff. [Illustration: musical notation: Ex. 2] Even to this day I sing up to high F every day, in order that I may be sure that I have the tones to E below in public work. Another exercise which I used very frequently was this, in the form of a trill. Great care was taken to have the intonation (pitch) absolutely accurate in the rapid passages, as well as in the slow passages. [Illustration: musical notation: Ex. 3] When I had reached a certain point, I determined that it might be possible for me to get an engagement. I was then twenty, and my dear mother was horrified at the idea of my going on the stage so young. She was afraid of evil influences. In my own mind I realized that evil was everywhere, in business, society, everywhere, and that if one was to keep out of dirt and come out dean, one must make one's art the object first of all. Art is so great, so all-consuming, that any one with a deep reverence for its beauties, its grandeur, can have but little time for the lower things of life. All that an artist calls for in his soul is to be permitted to work at his best in his art. Then, and then only, is he happiest. Because of my mother's opposition, and because I felt I was strong enough to resist the temptations which she knew I might encounter, I virtually eloped with a copy of _Rigoletto_ under my arm and made my way for the Teatro Constanzi, the leading Opera House of Rome. I might readily have secured letters from influential musical friends, such as Mascagni and others, but I determined that it would be best to secure an engagement upon my own merits, if I could, and then I would know whether or not I was really prepared to make my début, or whether I had better study more. I went to the manager's office and, appealing to his business sense, told him that, as I was a young unknown singer, he could secure my services for little money, and begged for permission to sing for him. I knew he was beset by such requests, but he immediately gave me a hearing, and I was engaged for one performance of _Rigoletto_. The night of the début came, and I was obliged to sing _Caro Nome_ again in response to a vociferous encore. This was followed by other successes, and I was engaged for two years for a South American tour, under the direction of my good friend and adviser, the great operatic director, Mugnone. In South America there was enthusiasm everywhere, but all the time I kept working constantly with my voice, striving to perfect details. At the end of the South American tour I desired to visit New York and find out what America was like. Because of the war Europe was operatically impossible (it was 1916), but I had not the slightest idea of singing in the United States just then. By merest accident I ran into an American friend (Mr. Thorner) on Broadway. He had heard me sing in Italy, and immediately took me to Maestro Campanini, who was looking then for a coloratura soprano to sing for only two performances in Chicago, as the remainder of his program was filled for the year. This was in the springtime, and it meant that I was to remain in New York until October and November. The opportunity seemed like an unusual accident of fate, and I resolved to stay, studying my own voice all the while to improve it more and more. October and the début in _Rigoletto_ came. The applause astounded me; it was electric, like a thunderstorm. No one was more astonished than I. Engagements and offers came from everywhere, but not enough, I hope, to ever induce me not to believe that in the vocal art one must continually strive for higher and higher goals. Laziness, indifference and lassitude which come with success are the ruin of Art and the artist. The normal healthy artist with the right ideals never reaches his Zenith. If he did, or if he thought he did, his career would come to a sudden end. [Illustration: MARY GARDEN. © Mishkin.] MARY GARDEN BIOGRAPHICAL Mary Garden was born February 20th, 1877, in Aberdeen, Scotland. She came to America with her parents when she was eight years of age and was brought up in Chicopee, Massachusetts, Hartford, Connecticut, and Chicago, Illinois. She studied the violin when she was six and the piano when she was twelve. It was the ambition of her parents to make her an instrumental performer. She studied voice with Mrs. S. R. Duff, who in time took her to Paris and placed her under the instruction of Trabadello and Lucien Fugére. Her operatic début was made in Charpentier's _Louise_ at the Opera Comique in 1900. Her success was immediate both as an actress and as a singer. She was chosen by Debussy and others for especially intricate rôles. She created the rôle of _Melisande_; also, _Fiammette_ in Laroux's _La Reine Fiammette_. In 1907 she made her American début in _Thaïs_ at the Manhattan Opera House in New York City. Later she accepted leading rôles with the Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Co. She is considered by many the finest singing actress living--her histrionic gifts being in every way equal to her vocal gifts. In 1921 she was made the manager of the Chicago Opera Company. THE KNOW HOW IN THE ART OF SINGING MARY GARDEN The modern opera singer cannot content herself merely with the "know how" of singing. That is, she must be able to know so much more than the mere elemental facts of voice production that it would take volumes to give an intimation of the real requirements. The girl who wants to sing in opera must have one thought and one thought only--"what will contribute to my musical, histrionic and artistic success?" Unless the "career" comes first there is not likely to be any "career." I wonder if the public ever realizes what this sacrifice means to an artiste--to a woman. Of course, there are great recompenses--the thrill that comes with artistic triumphs--the sensations that accompany achievement--who but the artist can know what this means--the joy of bringing to life some great masterpiece? Music manifests itself in children at a very early age. It is very rare indeed that it comes to the surface later in life. I was always musical. Only the media changed--one time it was violin, then piano, then voice. The dolls of my sisters only annoyed me because I could not tolerate dolls. They seemed a waste of time to me, and when they had paper dolls, I would go into the room when nobody was looking and cut the dolls' heads off. I have never been able to account for my delight in doing this. My father was musical. He wanted me to be a musician, but he had little thought at first of my being a singer. Accordingly, at eight I was possessed of a fiddle. This meant more to me than all the dolls in the world. Oh, how I loved that violin, which I could make speak just by drawing a bow over it! There was something worth while. I was only as big as a minute, and, of course, as soon as I could play the routine things of de Beriot, variations and the like, I was considered one of those abominable things, "an infant prodigy." I was brought out to play for friends and any musical person who could stand it. Then I gave a concert, and my father saw the finger of destiny pointing to my career as a great violinist. To me the finger of destiny pointed the other way; because I immediately sickened of the violin and dropped it forever. Yes, I could play now if I had to, but you probably wouldn't want to hear me. Ah, but I do play. I play every time I sing. The violin taught me the need for perfect intonation, fluency in execution, ever so many things. Then came the piano. Here was a new artistic toy. I worked very hard with it. My sister and I went back to Aberdeen for a season of private school, and I kept up my piano until I could play acceptably many of the best-known compositions, Grieg, Chopin, etc., being my favorites. I was never a very fine pianist, understand me, but the piano unlocked the doors to thousands of musical treasure houses--admitted me to musical literature through the main gate, and has been of invaluable aid to me in my career. See my fingers, how long and thin they are--of course, I was a capable pianist--long, supple fingers, combined with my musical experience gained in violin playing, made that certain. Then I dropped the piano. Dropped it at once. Its possibilities stood revealed before me, and they were not to be the limit of my ambitions. For the girl who hopes to be an operatic "star" there could be nothing better than a good drilling in violin or piano. The girl has no business to sing while she is yet a child--and she is that until she is sixteen or over. Better let her work hard getting a good general education and a good musical education. The voice will keep, and it will be sweeter and fresher if it is not overused in childhood. Once, with my heart set upon becoming a singer, my father fortunately took me to Mrs. Robinson Duff, of Chicago. To her, my mentor to this day, I owe much of my vocal success. I was very young and very emotional, with a long pigtail down my back. At first the work did not enrapture me, for I could not see the use of spending so much time upon breathing. Now I realize what it did for me. What should the girl starting singing avoid? First, let her avoid an incompetent teacher. There are teachers, for instance, who deliberately teach the "stroke of the glottis" (coup de glotte). What is the stroke of the glottis? The lips of the vocal cords in the larynx are pressed together so that the air becomes compressed behind them and instead of coming out in a steady, unimpeded stream, it causes a kind of explosion. Say the word "up" in the throat very forcibly and you will get the right idea. This is a most pernicious habit. Somehow, it crept into some phases of vocal teaching, and has remained. It leads to a constant irritation of the throat and ruin to the vocal organs. When I went to Paris, Mrs. Duff took me to many of the leading vocal teachers of the city, and said, "Now, Mary, I want you to use your own judgment in picking out a teacher, because if you don't like the teacher you will not succeed." Thus we went around from studio to studio. One asked me to do this--to hum--to make funny, unnatural noises, anything but sing. Finally, Trabadello, now retired to his country home, really asked me to sing in a normal, natural way, not as a freak. I said to myself, "This is the teacher for me." I could not have had a better one. Look out for teachers with freak methods--ten to one they are making you one of their experiments. There is nothing that any voice teacher has ever found superior to giving simple scales and exercises sung upon the syllables Lah (ah, as in harbor), Leh (eh, as in they), Lee (ee, as in me). With a good teacher to keep watch over the breathing and the quality, "what more can one have?" I have always believed in a great many scales and in a great deal of singing florid rôles in Italian. Italian is inimitable for the singer. The dulcet, velvet-like character of the language gives something which nothing else can impart. It does not make any difference whether you purpose singing in French, German, English, Russian or Soudanese, you will gain much from exercising in Italian. Staccato practice is valuable. Here is an exercise which I take nearly every day of my life: [Illustration: musical notation] The staccato must be controlled from the diaphragm, however, and this comes only after a great deal of work. Three-quarters of an hour a day practice suffices me. I find it injurious to practice too long. But I study for hours. Such a rôle as _Aphrodite_ I take quietly and sing it over mentally time and time again without making a sound. I study the harmonies, the nuances, the phrasing, the breathing, so that when the time for singing it comes I know it and do not waste my voice by going over it time and again, as some singers do. In the end I find that I know it better for this kind of study. The study of acting has been a very personal matter with me. I have never been through any courses of study, such as that given in dramatic schools. This may do for some people, but it would have been impossible for me. There must be technic in all forms of art, but it has always seemed to me that acting was one of the arts in which the individual must make his own technic. I have seen many representatives of the schools of acting here and abroad. Sometimes their performances, based upon technical studies of the art, result in superb acting. Again, their work is altogether indifferent. Technic in acting is more likely to suppress than to inspire. If acting is not inspired, it is nothing. I study the human emotions that would naturally underlie the scene in which I am placed--then I think what one would be most likely to do under such conditions. When the actual time of appearance on the stage arrives, I forget all about this and make myself the person of the rôle. This is the Italian method rather than the French. There are, to my mind, no greater actors living than Duse and Zacchona, and they are both exponents of the natural method that I employ. Great acting has always impressed me wonderfully. I went from Paris to London repeatedly to see Beerbohm Tree in his best rôles. Sir Herbert was not always uniformly fine, but he was a great actor and I learned much from watching him. Once I induced Debussy to make the trip to see him act. Debussy was delighted. Debussy! Ah, what a rare genius--my greatest friend in Art! Everything he wrote we went over together. He was a terribly exacting master. Few people in America realize what a transcendent pianist he was. The piano seemed to be thinking, feeling, vibrating while he was at the keyboard. Time and again we went over his principal works, note for note. Now and then he would stop and clasp his hands over his face in sudden silence, repeating, "It is all wrong--it is all wrong." But he was too good a teacher to let it go at that. He could tell me exactly what was wrong and how to remedy it. When I first sang for him, at the time when they were about to produce _Pelleas and Melisande_ at the Opera Comique, I thought that I had not pleased him. But I learned later that he had said to M. Carré, the director: "Don't look for anyone else." From that time he and his family became my close friends. The fatalistic side of our meeting seemed to interest him very much. "To think," he used to say, "that you were born in Aberdeen, Scotland, lived in America all those years and should come to Paris to create my _Melisande_!" As I have said, Debussy was a gorgeous pianist. He could play with the greatest delicacy and could play in the leonine fashion of Rubinstein. He was familiar with Beethoven, Bach, Handel and the classics, and was devoted to them. Wagner he could not abide. He called him a "griffe papier"--a scribbler. He thought that he had no importance in the world of music, and to mention Wagner to him was like waving a red flag before a bull. It is difficult to account for such an opinion. Wagner, to me, is the great tone colorist, the master of orchestral wealth and dramatic intensity. Sometimes I have been so Wagner-hungry that I have not known what to do. For years I went every year to Munich to see the wonderful performances at the Prinzregenten Theater. In closing let me say that it seems to me a great deal of the failure among young singers is that they are too impatient to acquire the "know how." They want to blossom out on the first night as great prima donnas, without any previous experience. How ridiculous this is! I worked for a whole year at the Opera Comique, at $100 a month, singing such a trying opera as _Louise_ two and three times a week. When they raised me to $175 a month I thought that I was rich, and when $400 a month came, my fortune had surely been made! All this time I was gaining precious experience. It could not have come to me in any other way. As I have said, the natural school--the natural school, like that of the Italians--stuffed as it is with glorious red blood instead of the white bones of technic in the misunderstood sense, was the only possible school for me. If our girls would only stop hoping to make a début at $1,000 a night and get down to real hard work, the results would come much quicker and there would be fewer broken hearts. MME. ALMA GLUCK BIOGRAPHICAL Mme. Alma Gluck was born at Jassy, Roumania. Her father played the violin, but was not a professional musician. At the age of six she was brought to America. She was taught the piano and sang naturally, but had no idea of becoming a singer. Her vocal training was not begun until she was twenty years of age. Her teacher, at that time, was Signor Buzzi-Peccia, with whom she remained for three years, going directly from his studio to the Metropolitan Opera House of New York. She remained there for three years, when the immense success of her concert work drew her away from opera. She then studied with Jean de Reszke, and later with Mme. Sembrich for four or five years. Since then she has appeared in all parts of the United States with unvarying success. Her records have been among the most popular of any ever issued. Together with her husband, Efrem Zimbalist, the distinguished violinist, she has appeared before immense audiences in joint recitals. [Illustration: MME. ALMA GLUCK. © Mishkin.] BUILDING A VOCAL REPERTOIRE ALMA GLUCK Many seem surprised when I tell them that my vocal training did not begin until I was twenty years of age. It seems to me that it is a very great mistake for any girl to begin the serious study of singing before that age, as the feminine voice, in most instances, is hardly settled until then. Vocal study before that time is likely to be injurious, though some survive it in the hands of very careful and understanding teachers. The first kind of a repertoire that the student should acquire is a repertoire of solfeggios. I am a great believer in the solfeggio. Using that for a basis, one is assured of acquiring facility and musical accuracy. The experienced listener can tell at once the voice that has had such training. Always remember that musicianship carries one much further than a good natural voice. The voice, even more than the hands, needs a kind of exhaustive technical drill. This is because in this training you are really building the instrument itself. In the piano, one has the instrument complete before he begins; but in the case of the voice, the instrument has to be developed and sometimes _made_ by study. When the pupil is practicing, tones grow in volume, richness and fluency. There are exercises by Bordogni, Concone, Vaccai, Lamperti, Marchesi, Panofka, Panserson and many others with which I am not familiar, which are marvelously beneficial when intelligently studied. These I sang on the syllable "Ah," and not with the customary syllable names. It has been said that the syllables Do, Re, Mi, Fa, etc., aid one in reading. To my mind, they are often confusing. GO TO THE CLASSICS After a thorough drilling in solfeggios and technical exercises, I would have the student work on the operatic arias of Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and others. These men knew how to write for the human voice! Their arias are so vocal that the voice develops under them and the student gains vocal assurance. They were written before modern philosophy entered into music--when music was intended for the ear rather than for the mind. I cannot lay too much stress on the importance of using these arias. They are a tonic for the voice, and bring back the elasticity which the more subdued singing of songs taxes. When one is painting pictures through words, and trying to create atmosphere in songs, so much repression is brought into play that the voice must have a safety-valve, and that one finds in the bravura arias. Here one sings for about fifty bars, "The sky is clouded for me," "I have been betrayed," or "Joy abounds"--the words being simply a vehicle for the ever-moving melody. When hearing an artist like John McCormack sing a popular ballad it all seems so easy, but in reality songs of that type are the very hardest to sing and must have back of them years of hard training or they fall to banality. They are far more difficult than the limpid operatic arias, and are actually dangerous for the insufficiently trained voice. THE LYRIC SONG REPERTOIRE Then when the student has her voice under complete control, it is safe to take up the lyric repertoire of Mendelssohn, Old English Songs, etc. How simple and charming they are! The works of the lighter French composers, Hahn, Massenet, Chaminade, Gounod, and others. Then Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Löwe, Schubert, Schumann and Brahms. Later the student will continue with Strauss, Wolf, Reger, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Mousorgsky, Borodin and Rachmaninoff. Then the modern French composers, Ravel, Debussy, Georges, Köchlin, Hue, Chausson, and others. I leave French for the last because it is, in many ways, more difficult for an English-speaking person to sing. It is so full of complex and trying vowels that it requires the utmost subtlety to overcome these difficulties and still retain clarity in diction. For that reason the student should have the advice of a native French coach. When one has traveled this long road, then he is qualified to sing English songs and ballads. AMERICAN SONGS In this country we are rich in the quantity of songs rather than in the quality. The singer has to go through hundreds of compositions before he finds one that really says something. Commercialism overwhelms our composers. They approach their work with the question, "Will this go?" The spirit in which a work is conceived is that in which it will be executed. Inspired by the purse rather than the soul, the mercenary side fairly screams in many of the works put out by every-day American publishers. This does not mean that a song should be queer or ugly to be novel or immortal. It means that the sincerity of the art worker must permeate it as naturally as the green leaves break through the dead branches in springtime. Of the vast number of new American composers, there are hardly more than a dozen who seem to approach their work in the proper spirit of artistic reverence. ART FOR ART'S SAKE, A FARCE Nothing annoys me quite so much as the hysterical hypocrites who are forever prating about "art for art's sake." What nonsense! The student who deceives himself into thinking that he is giving his life like an ascetic in the spirit of sacrifice for art is the victim of a deplorable species of egotism. Art for art's sake is just as iniquitous an attitude in its way as art for money's sake. The real artist has no idea that he is sacrificing himself for art. He does what he does for one reason and one reason only--he can't help doing it. Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works. Time and again a student will send me an urgent appeal to hear her, saying she is poor and wants my advice as to whether it is worth while to continue her studies. I invariably refuse such requests, saying that if the student could give up her work on my advice she had better give it up without it. One does not study for a goal. One sings because one can't help it! The "goal" nine times out of ten is a mere accident. Art for art's sake is the mask of studio idlers. The task of acquiring a repertoire in these days, when the vocal literature is so immense, is so overwhelming, that the student with sense will devote all his energies to work, and not imagine himself a martyr to art. EMILIO DE GOGORZA BIOGRAPHICAL Emilio Edoardo de Gogorza was born in Brooklyn, New York, May 29th, 1874, of Spanish parents. His boyhood was spent in Spain, France and England. In the last named country he became a boy soprano and sang with much success. Part of his education was received at Oxford. He returned to America, where his vocal teachers were C. Moderati and E. Agramonte. His début was made in 1897 in a concert with Mme. Marcella Sembrich. His rich fluent baritone voice made him a great favorite at musical festivals in America. He has sung with nearly all of the leading American orchestras. The peculiar quality of his voice is especially adapted to record making and his records have been immensely popular. He married Emma Eames, July 13th, 1911. [Illustration: EMILIO DE GOGORZA. © Dupont] OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUNG CONCERT SINGERS EMILIO DE GOGORZA There has never been a time or a country presenting more inviting opportunities to the concert and the oratorio singer than the America of to-day. As a corollary to this statement there is the obvious fact that the American public, taken as a whole, is now the most discriminating public to be found anywhere in the world. Every concert is adequately reviewed by able writers; and singers are continually on their mettle. It therefore follows that while there are opportunities for concert and oratorio singers, there is no room for the inefficient, the talentless, brainless aspirants who imagine that a great vocal career awaits them simply because they have a few good tones and a pleasing stage presence. This is the age of the brain. In singing, the voice is only a detail. It is the mentality, the artistic feeling, the skill in interpretation that counts. Some of the greatest artists are vocally inferior to singers of lesser reputation. Why? Because they read, because they study, because they broaden their intellects and extend their culture until their appreciation of the beautiful is so comprehensive that every degree of human emotion may be effectively portrayed. In a word they become artists. Take the case of Victor Maurel, for instance. If he were ninety years old and had only the shred of a voice but still retained his artistic grasp, I would rather hear him than any living singer. I have learned more from hearing him sing than from any other singer. Verdi chose him to sing in _Otello_ against the advice of several friends, saying: "He has more brain than any five singers I know." Some people imagine that when an artist is embarked upon his professional work study ceases. It is a great mistake. No one works harder than I do to broaden my culture and interpretative skill. I am constantly studying and trust that I may never cease. The greater the artist the more incessant the study. It is one of the secrets of large success. SPECIAL STUDY REQUIRED FOR CONCERT SINGING People imagine that the opera requires a higher kind of vocal preparation than the concert or oratorio stage. This is also a great misconception. The operatic singers who have been successful as concert singers at once admit that concert singing is much more difficult. Comparatively few opera singers succeed as concert singers. Why? Because in opera the voice needs to be concentrated and more or less uniform. An opera house is really two buildings, the auditorium and the stage. The stage with its tall scene-loft is frequently as large from the standpoint of cubic feet as the auditorium. Sometimes it is larger. To fill these two immense buildings the voice must be strong and continually concentrated, _dans le Masque_. The delicate little effects that the concert singer is obliged to produce would not be heard over the footlights. In order to retain interest without the assistance of scenery and action the concert singer's interpretative work must be marked by an attention to details that the opera singer rarely considers. The voice, therefore, requires a different treatment. It must be so finely trained that it becomes susceptible to the most delicate change of thought in the singer's mind. This demands a really enormous amount of work. The successful concert singer must also have an endurance that enables her to undergo strains that the opera singer rarely knows. The grand opera singer in the great opera houses of the world rarely sings more than two or three times a week. The concert singer is often obliged to sing every night for weeks. They must learn how to relax and save the voice at all times, otherwise they will lose elasticity and sweetness. A young woman vocal student, with talent, a good natural voice, intelligence, industry, sufficient practice time, a high school education, and a knowledge of the rudiments of music, might complete a course of study leading to a successful concert début in three years. More frequently four or five years may be required. With a bungling teacher she may spend six or seven. The cost of her instruction, with a good teacher in a great metropolis, will be more per year than if she went to almost any one of the leading universities admitting women. She will have to work harder than if she took a regular college course. Progress depends upon the individual. One girl will accomplish more in two years than another will accomplish in five years. Again, the rate of progress depends upon personal development. Sometimes a course of study with a good teacher will awaken a latent energy and mental condition that will enable the student to make great strides. My most important work has been done by self-study with the assistance and advice of many singers and teachers who have been my friends. No pupil who depends entirely upon a teacher will succeed. She must work out her own salvation. It is the private thought, incessant effort and individual attitude that lead to success. STUDY IN YOUR HOME COUNTRY I honestly believe that the young vocal student can do far better by studying in America than by studying abroad. European residence and travel are very desirable, but the study may be done to better advantage right here in our own country. Americans want the best and they get it. In Europe they have no conception whatever of the extent of musical culture in America. It is a continual source of amazement to me. In the West and Northwest I find audiences just as intelligent and as appreciative as in Boston. There is the greatest imaginable catholicity of taste. Just at present the tendency is away from the old German classics and is leading to the modern works of French, German and American composers. Still I find that I can sing a song like Schumann's "Widmung" in Western cities that only a few years ago were mere collections of frontier huts and shacks, and discover that the genius of Schumann is just as potent there as in New York City. I have recently been all over Europe, and I have seen no such condition anywhere as that I have just described. It is especially gratifying to note in America a tremendous demand for the best vocal works of the American composers. The young concert singer must have a very comprehensive repertoire. Every new work properly mastered is an asset. In oratorio she should first of all learn those works that are most in demand, like the _Messiah_, the _Elijah_, the _Creation_ and the _Redemption_. Then attention may be given to the modern works and works more rarely performed, like those of Elgar, Perosi and others. After the young singer has proven her worth with the public she may expect an income of from $10,000.00 to $15,000.00 a year. That is what our first-class singers have received for high-class concert work. Some European prima donnas like Schumann-Heink and others have commanded much higher figures. You ask me what influence the sound reproducing machines have had upon the demand for good vocal music in America. They have unquestionably increased the demand very greatly. They have even been known to make reputations for singers entirely without any other road to publicity. Take the case of Madame Michaelowa, a Russian prima donna who has never visited America. Thousands of records of her voice have been sold in America, and now the demand for her appearance in this country has been so great that she has been offered huge sums for an American tour. I believe that if used intelligently the sound reproducing machine may become a great help to the teacher and student. It is used in many of the great opera houses of the world as an aid in determining the engagement of new singers who cannot be personally heard. Some of the records of my own voice have been so excellent that they seem positively uncanny to me when I hear them reproduced. I have no patent exercises to offer to singing students. There are a thousand ways of learning to breathe properly and they all lead to one end. Breathing may best be studied when it is made coincident with the requirements of singing. I have no fantastic technical studies to offer. My daily work simply consists of scales, arpeggios and the simplest kind of exercises, the simpler the better. I always make it a point to commence practicing very softly, slowly and surely. I never sing notes outside my most comfortable range at the start. Taking notes too high or too low is an extremely bad plan at first. Many young students make this fault. They also sing much too loud. The voice should be exercised for some considerable time on soft exercises before loud notes are even attempted. It is precisely the same as with physical exercises. The athlete who exerts himself to his fullest extent at first is working toward ultimate exhaustion. I have known students who sang "at the top of their lungs" and called it practice. The next day they grew hoarse and wondered why the hoarseness came. NEVER SING WHEN TIRED Never sing when out of sorts, tired or when the throat is sore. It is all very well to try to throw such a condition off as if it were a state of mind. My advice is, DON'T. I have known singers to try to sing off a sore throat and secure as a result a loss of voice for several days. Our American climate is very bad for singers. The dust of our manufacturing cities gets in the throat and irritates it badly. The noise is very nerve racking, and I have a theory that the electricity in the air is injurious. As I have said, the chances in the concert and operatic field are unlimited for those who deserve to be there. Don't be misled. Thousands of people are trying to become concert and oratorio singers who have not talent, temperament, magnetism, the right kind of intelligence nor the true musical feeling. It is pitiful to watch them. They are often deluded by teachers who are biased by pecuniary necessity. It is safe to say that at the end of a year's good instruction the teacher may safely tell what the pupil's chances are. Some teachers are brutally frank. Their opinions are worth those of a thousand teachers who consider their own interests first. Secure the opinions of as many artists as possible before you determine upon a professional career. The artist is not biased. He does not want you for a pupil and has nothing to gain in praising you. If he gives you an unfavorable report, thank him, because he is probably thinking of your best interests. As I have said, progress depends upon the individual. One man can go into a steel foundry and learn more in two years than another can in five. If you do not become conscious of audible results at the end of one or two years' study do some serious thinking. You are either on the wrong track or you have not the natural qualifications which lead to success on the concert and oratorio stage. [Illustration: MME. FRIEDA HEMPEL. © Mitzi] FRIEDA HEMPEL BIOGRAPHICAL Frieda Hempel was born at Leipzig, June 26, 1885. She studied piano for a considerable time at the Leipzig Conservatory and the Stern Conservatory. Later she studied singing with Mme. Nicklass Kempner, to whom she is indebted for her entire vocal education up to the time of her début in opera. Her first appearance was in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_, at the Royal Opera in Berlin. After many very successful appearances in leading European Opera Houses she was engaged for the Metropolitan Opera House in New York where she immediately became very popular in stellar rôles. Her repertoire runs from the _Marriage of Figaro_ to _Die Meistersinger_. Her voice is a clear, pure, sweet soprano; and, like Mme. Sembrich and Mme. Galli-Curci, she clearly shows the value of her instrumental training in the accuracy, precision and clarity of her coloratura work. She has made many successful concert tours of the United States. In addition to being a brilliant singer she is an excellent actress. She is now an American citizen and the wife of an American business man. THOROUGHNESS IN VOCAL PREPARATION MME. FRIEDA HEMPEL WHY SOME SUCCEED AND SOME FAIL In every thousand girls who aspire to Grand Opera probably not more than one ever succeeds. This is by no means because of lack of good voices. There are great numbers of good voices; although many girls who want to be opera singers either deceive themselves or are deceived by others (often charlatan teachers) into believing that they have fine natural voices when they have not. There is nothing more glorious than a beautiful human voice--a voice strong, resonant, if necessary, but velvety and luscious if needs be. There are many girls with really beautiful natural voices who have lost their chances in Grand Opera largely because they have either not had the personal persistence necessary to carry them to the point where their services are in demand by the public or they have had the misfortune not to have the right kind of a vocal or musical drill master--a really good teacher. Teachers in these days waste a fearful amount of time in what they consider to be their methods. They tell you to sing in the back, or on the side or through the mask or what not, instead of getting right down to the real work. My teacher in Berlin, at the Conservatory, insisted first of all upon having me sing tones and scales--mostly long sustained tones--for at least one entire year. These were sung very softly, very evenly, until I could employ every tone in my voice with sureness and certainty. I don't see how it could possibly have been accomplished in less time. Try that on the American girl and she will think that she is being cheated out of something. Why should she wait a whole year with silly tones when she knows that she can sing a great aria with only a little more difficulty? The basis of all fine singing, whether in the opera house or on the concert stage, is a good legato. My teacher (Nicklass Kempner) was very insistent upon this. In working with such studies as those of Concone, Bordogni, Lütgen, Marchesi or Garcia--the best part of the attention of the teacher was given to the simple yet difficult matter of a beautiful legato. After one has been through a mass of such material, the matter of legato singing becomes more or less automatic. The tendency to slide from one tone to another is done away with. The connection between one tone and another in good legato is so clean, so free from blurs that there is nothing to compare it with. One tone takes the place of another just as though one coin or disk were placed directly on top of another without any of the edges showing. The change is instantaneous and imperceptible. If one were to gradually slide one coin over another coin you would have a graphic illustration of what most people think is legato. The result is that they sound like steam sirens, never quite definitely upon any tone of the scale. A GOOD LEGATO A good legato can only be acquired after an enormous amount of thorough training. The tendency to be careless is human. Habits of carefulness come only after much drill. The object of the student and the teacher should be to make a singer--not to acquire a scanty repertoire of a few arias. Very few of the operas I now sing were learned in my student days. That was not the object of my teacher. The object was to prepare me to take up anything from _Martha_ to _Rosenkavalier_ and know how to study it myself in the quickest and most thorough manner. Woe be to the pupil of the teacher who spends most of the time in teaching songs, arias, etc., before the pupil is really ready to study such things. GOOD FOUNDATIONS Everything is in a good foundation. If you expect a building to last only a few weeks you might put up a foundation in a day or so--but if you watch the builders of the great edifices here in American cities you will find that more time is often spent upon the foundation than upon the building itself. They dig right down to the bed rock and pile on so much stone, concrete and steel that even great earthquakes are often withstood. A LARGE REPERTOIRE With such a thorough foundation as I had it has not been difficult to acquire a repertoire of some seventy-five operas. That is, by learning one at a time and working continually over a number of years the operas come easily. In learning a new work I first read the work through as a whole several times to get the character well fixed in my mind. Then I play the music through several times until I am very familiar with it. Then I learn the voice part, never studying it as a voice part by itself, but always in relation to the orchestra and the other rôles. Finally, I learn the interpretation--the dramatic presentation. One gets so little help from the orchestra in modern works that many rehearsals are necessary. In some passages it is just like walking in a dark night. Only a true ear and thorough training can serve to keep one on the key or anywhere near the key. It is therefore highly necessary that vocal students should have a good musical training in addition to the vocal training. In most European conservatories the study of piano and harmony are compulsory for all vocal students. Not to have had this musical training that the study of the piano brings about, not to have had a good course in theory or in training for sight-singing (ear training) is to leave out important pillars in a thorough musical foundation. MORE OPERA FOR AMERICA It would be a great gratification for all who are interested in opera to see more fine opera houses erected in America with more opportunities for the people. The performances at the Metropolitan are exceedingly fine, but only a comparatively few people can possibly hear them and there is little opportunity for the performance of a wide variety of operas. The opera singer naturally gets tired of singing a few rôles over and over again. The American people should develop a taste for more and more different operas. There is such a wonderful field that it should not be confined to the performance of a very few works that happen to be in fashion. This is not at all the case in Europe--there the repertoires are very much more extensive--more interesting for the public and the artists alike. STRONG EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF OPERA Opera has always seemed to me a very necessary thing in the State. It has a strong educational value in that it develops the musical taste of the public as well as teaching lessons in history and the humanities in a very forceful manner. Children should be taken to opera as a regular part of their education. Opera makes a wonderful impression upon the child's imagination--the romance, the color, the music, the action are rarely forgotten. Many of the operas are beautiful big fairy stories and the little folks glory in them. Parents who desire to develop the taste of their children and at the same time stimulate their minds along broader lines can do no better than to take them to opera. Little towns in Europe often have fine opera houses, while many American cities several times their size have to put up with moving picture theatre houses. Why does not some enthusiastic American leader take up a campaign for more opera in America? With the taste of the public educated through countless talking machine records, it should not prove a bad business venture if it is gone about in a sensible manner. DAME NELLIE MELBA BIOGRAPHICAL Dame Nellie Melba (stage name for Mrs. Nellie Porter Armstrong, née Mitchell) is described in Grove's Dictionary as "the first singer of British birth to attain such an exalted position upon the lyric stage as well as upon the concert platform." Dame Melba was born at Burnley near Melbourne, May 19, 1861, of Scotch ancestry. She sang at the Town Hall at Richmond when she was six years of age. She studied piano, harmony, composition and violin very thoroughly. At one time she was considered the finest amateur pianist in Melbourne. She also played the church organ in the local church with much success. In 1882 she married Captain Charles Armstrong, son of Sir Andrew Armstrong, Baronet (of Kings County, Ireland). In 1886 she sang at Queens Hall in London. After studying with Mme. Marchesi for twelve months she made her début as Gilda (_Rigoletto_) at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. Her success was instantaneous. Her London début was made in _Lucia_ in 1888. One year later she made her Parisian début in Thomas' _Hamlet_. In 1894 she created the rôle of Nedda in _I Pagliacci_. Petrograd "went wild" over her in 1892. In 1892 she repeated her successes and in 1893 she began her long series of American triumphs. The fact that her voice, like that of Patti, has remained astonishingly fresh and silvery despite the enormous amount of singing she has done attests better than anything else to the excellence of her method of singing. In the following conference she gives the secret of preserving the voice. [Illustration: DAME NELLIE MELBA.] COMMON SENSE IN TRAINING AND PRESERVING THE VOICE DAME NELLIE MELBA HOW CAN A GOOD VOICE BE DETECTED? The young singer's first anxiety is usually to learn whether her voice is sufficiently good to make it worth while to go through the enormous work of preparing herself for the operatic stage. How is she to determine this? Surely not upon the advice of her immediate friends, nor upon that of those to whom she would naturally turn for spiritual advice, medical advice or legal advice. But this is usually just what she does. Because of the honored positions held by her rector, her physician, or her family lawyer, their services are all brought to bear upon her, and after an examination of her musical ability their unskilled opinion is given a weight it obviously does not deserve. The only one to judge is a skilled musician, with good artistic taste and some experience in voice matters. It is sometimes difficult to approach a singing teacher for this advice, as even the most honest could not fail to be somewhat influenced where there is a prospect of a pupil. I do not mean to malign the thousands of worthy teachers, but such a position is a delicate one, and the pupil should avoid consulting with any adviser except one who is absolutely disinterested. In any event the mere possession of a voice that is sweet and strong by no means indicates that the owner has the additional equipment which the singer must possess. Musical intelligence is quite as great an asset as the possession of a fine voice. By musical intelligence I mean something quite different from general intelligence. People seem to expect that the young person who desires to become a fine pianist or a fine violinist, or a fine composer, should possess certain musical talents. That is, they should experience a certain quickness in grasping musical problems and executing them. The singer, however, by some peculiar popular ruling seems to be exempted from this. No greater mistake could possibly be made. Very few people are musically gifted. When one of these people happens to possess a good voice, great industry, a love for vocal art, physical strength, patience, good sense, good taste and abundant faith in her possibilities, the chances of making a good singer are excellent. I lay great stress upon great determination and good health. I am often obliged to sing one night, then travel a thousand miles to sing the next night. Notwithstanding such journeys, the singer is expected to be in prime condition, look nice, and please a veritable multitude of comparative strangers all expecting wonderful things from her. Do you wonder that I lay stress upon good health? The youthful training of the singer should be confined quite strictly to that of obtaining a good general and musical education. That is, the vocal training may be safely postponed until the singer is seventeen or eighteen years of age. Of course there have been cases of famous singers who have sung during their childhood, but they are exceptions to all rules. The study of singing demands the direction of an intelligent, well-ordered mind. It is by no means wholly a matter of imitation. In fact, without some cultivation of the taste, that is, the sense of discriminating between what is good and bad, one may imitate with disastrous results. WHAT WORK SHOULD THE GIRL UNDER EIGHTEEN DO? I remember well an incident in my own youth. I once went to a concert and heard a much lauded singer render an aria that was in turn vociferously applauded by the audience. This singer possessed a most wonderful tremolo. Every tone went up and down like the teeth of a saw. It was impossible for her to sing a pure even tone without wobbling up and down. But the untrained audience, hungry to applaud anything musical, had cheered the singer despite the tremolo. Consequently I went home and after a few minutes' work I found that it was possible for me to produce a very wonderful tremolo. I went proudly to my teacher and gave an exhibition of my new acquirement. "Who on earth have you been listening to?" exclaimed my teacher. I confessed and was admonished not to imitate. The voice in childhood is a very delicate organ despite the wear and tear which children give it by unnecessary howling and screaming. More than this, the child-mind is so susceptible to impressions and these impressions become so firmly fixed that the best vocal training for the child should be that of taking the little one to hear great singers. All that the juvenile mind hears is not lost, although much will be forgotten. However, the better part will be unconsciously stowed away in the subconscious mind, to burst forth later in beautiful song through no different process than that by which the little birds store away the song of the older birds. Dealers in singing birds place them in rooms with older and highly developed singing birds to train them. This is not exactly a process of imitation, but rather one of subconscious assimilation. The bird develops his own song later on, but has the advantage of the stored-up impressions of the trained birds. A GENERAL MUSICAL TRAINING I have known many singers to fail dismally because they were simply singers. The idea that all the singer needs to know is how to produce tones resonantly and sweetly, how to run scales, make gestures and smile prettily is a perfectly ridiculous one. Success, particularly operatic success, depends upon a knowledge of a great many things. The general education of the singer should be as well rounded as possible. Nothing the singer ever learns in the public schools, or the high schools, is ever lost. History and languages are most important. I studied Italian and French in my childhood and this knowledge was of immense help to me in my later work. When I first went to Paris I had to acquire a colloquial knowledge of the language, but in all cases I found that the drill in French verbs I had gone through virtually saved me years of work. The French pronunciation is extremely difficult to acquire and some are obliged to reside in France for years before a fluent pronunciation can be counted on. I cannot speak too emphatically upon the necessity for a thorough musical education. A smattering is only an aggravation. Fortunately, my parents saw to it that I was taught the piano, the organ, the violin and thoroughbass. At first it was thought that I would become a professional pianist; and many were good enough to declare that I was the finest amateur pianist in Melbourne. My Scotch-Presbyterian parents would have been horrified if they had had any idea that they were helping me to a career that was in any way related to the footlights. Fortunately, my splendid father, who is now eighty-five years old, has long since recovered from his prejudices and is the proudest of all over my achievements. But I can not be too grateful to him for his great interest in seeing that my early musical training was comprehensive. Aside from giving me a more musicianly insight into my work, it has proved an immense convenience. I can play any score through. I learn all my operas myself. This enables me to form my own conception, that is, to create it, instead of being unconsciously influenced by the tempos and expression of some other individual. The times that I have depended upon a _repititeur_ have been so few that I can hardly remember them. So there, little girl, when you get on your mother's long train and sing to an imaginary audience of thousands, you will do better to run to the keyboard and practice scales or study your études. THE FIRST VOCAL PRACTICE The first vocal practice should be very simple. There should be nothing in the way of an exercise that would encourage forcing of any kind. In fact the young singer should always avoid doing anything beyond the normal. Remember that a sick body means a sick voice. Again, don't forget your daily outdoor exercise. Horseback riding, golf and tennis are my favorites. An hour's walk on a lovely country road is as good for a singer as an hour's practice. I mean that. In avoiding strain the pupil must above all things learn to sing the upper notes without effort or rather strain. While it is desirable that a pupil should practice all her notes every day, she should begin with the lower notes, then take the middle notes and then the so-called upper notes or head notes which are generally described as beginning with the F sharp on the top line of the treble staff. This line may be regarded as a danger line for singers young and old. It is imperative that when the soprano sings her head notes, beginning with F sharp and upward, they shall proceed very softly and entirely without strain as they ascend. I can not emphasize this too strongly. PRESERVING THE VOICE Let me give you one of my greatest secrets. Like all secrets, it is perfectly simple and entirely rational. _Never give the public all you have._ That is, the singer owes it to herself never to go beyond the boundaries of her vocal possibilities. The singer who sings to the utmost every time is like the athlete who exhausts himself to the state of collapse. This is the only way in which I can account for what the critics term "the remarkable preservation" of my own voice. I have been singing for years in all parts of the musical world, growing richer in musical and human experience and yet my voice to-day feels as fresh and as dear as when I was in my teens. I have never strained, I have never continued rôles that proved unsuited to me, I have never sung when I have not been in good voice. This leads to another very important point. I have often had students ask me how they can determine whether their teachers are giving them the kind of method or instruction they should have. I have always replied, "If you feel tired after a lesson, if your throat is strained after a little singing, if you feel exhausted, your teacher is on the wrong track, no matter what he labels his method or how wonderful his credentials are." Isn't that very simple? I have known young girls to go on practicing until they couldn't speak. Let them go to a physician and have the doctor show them by means of a laryngoscope just how tender and delicate their vocal organs are. I call them my "little bits of cotton"; they seem so frail and so tiny. Do you wonder that I guard them carefully? This practice consists of the simplest imaginable exercises--sustained scales, chromatic scales and trills. It is not so much _what_ one practices, but _how_ one practices. IS THE ART OF SINGING DYING OUT? We continually hear critics complain that the art of singing is dying. It is easy enough to be a pessimist, and I do not want to class myself with the pessimists; but I can safely say that, unless more attention is paid to the real art of singing, there must be a decadence in a short time. By this I mean that the voice seems to demand a kind of exercise leading to flexibility and fluent tone production that is not found in the ultra-dramatic music of any of the modern composers. Young singers begin with good voices and, after an altogether inadequate term of preparation, they essay the works of Strauss and Wagner. In two years the first sign of a breakup occurs. Their voices become rough,--the velvet vanishes and note after note "breaks" disagreeably. The music of the older Italian composers, from Scarlatti or Carissimi to Donizetti and Bellini, despite the absurd libretti of their operas, demanded first of all dulcet tones and limpid fluency. The singers who turned their noses up at the florid arabesques of old Italy for the more rugged pageantry of modern Germany are destined to suffer the consequences. Let us have the masterpieces of the heroic Teutons, by all means, but let them be sung by vocalists trained as vocalists and not merely by actors who have only taken a few steps in vocal art. The main point of all operatic work must be observed if opera is to continue successfully. Delibes chose me to sing a performance of his _Lakmé_ at Brussels. It was to be my début in French. I had not then mastered the French pronunciation so that I could sing acceptably at the Paris Grand Opera, the scene of my later triumphs. Consequently I was permitted to sing in Brussels. There the directors objected to my pronunciation, calling it "abominable." Delibes replied, "_Qu'elle chante en chinois, si elle veut, mais qu'elle chante mon opera_" ("Even if she sang in Chinese, I would be glad to have her sing my opera"). I am asked what has been my greatest incentive. I can think of nothing greater than opposition. The early opposition from my family made me more and more determined to prove to them that I would be successful. If I heard some singer who sang successfully the rôles I essayed, then I would immediately make up my mind to excel that singer. This is a human trait I know; but I always profited by it. Never be afraid of competition or opposition. The more you overcome, the greater will be your ultimate triumph. MME. BERNICE DE PASQUALI BIOGRAPHICAL Mme. Bernice de Pasquali, who succeeded Marcella Sembrich as coloratura soprano at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, is not an Italian, as her name suggests, but an American. She was born in Boston and is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Practically all of her musical training was received in New York City where she became a pupil of Oscar Saenger. Her successes, however, are not limited to America as she has appeared in Mexico, Cuba, South Africa and Europe, in many places receiving great ovations. Her voice is a clear, high, flexible soprano, equally fine for concert or opera. Her husband, Signor Pasquali, made a lifetime study of the principles of the "Bel Canto" school of singing, and the following conference is the result of long experiment and study in the esthetic, philosophical and physiological factors in the most significant of the so-called methods of voice training. [Illustration: MME. BERNICE DE PASQUALI.] SECRETS OF BEL CANTO MME. BERNICE DE PASQUALI CENTURIES OF EXPERIMENTAL EXPERIENCE In no land is song so much a part of the daily life of the individual as in Italy. The Italian peasant literally wakes up singing and goes to bed singing. Naturally a kind of respect, honor and even reverence attaches to the art of beautiful voice production in the land of Scarlatti, Palestrina and Verdi, that one does not find in other countries. When the Italian singing teachers looked for a word to describe their vocal methods they very naturally selected the most appropriate, "Bel Canto," which means nothing more or less than "Beautiful Singing." Probably no words have been more abused in music teaching than "bel canto," and probably no words have a more direct meaning or a wider significance. What then is "good singing" as the Italians understand it? Principally the production of a perfectly controlled and exquisitely beautiful tone. Simple as this may seem and simple as it really is, the laws underlying the best way of teaching how to secure a beautiful tone are the evolution of empirical experiences coming down through the centuries. It is a significant fact that practically all of the great singers in Wagner rôles have first been trained in what is so loosely termed "bel canto" methods. Lilli Lehmann, Schumann-Heink, Nordica and others were capable of singing fine coloratura passages before they undertook the works of the great master of Beyreuth. THE SECRET OF CONSERVING THE VOICE In the mass of traditions, suggestions and advice which go to make the "bel canto" style, probably nothing is so important to American students as that which pertains to conserving the voice. Whether our girls are inordinately fond of display or whether they are unable to control their vocal organs I do not know, but one is continually treated to instances of the most ludicrous prodigality of voice. The whole idea of these young singers seems to be to make a "hit" by shouting or even screeching. There can be no milder terms for the straining of the tones so frequently heard. This prodigality has only one result--loss of voice. The great Rubini once wrote to his friend, the tenor Duprez, "You lost your voice because you always sang with your capital. I have kept mine because I have used only the interest." This historical epigram ought to be hung in all the vocal studios of America. Our American voices are too beautiful, too rare to be wasted, practically thrown away by expending the capital before it has been able to earn any interest. Moreover, the thing which has the most telling effect upon any audience is the beauty of tone quality. People will stop at any time to listen to the wonderful call of the nightingale. In some parts of Europe it is the custom to make parties to go at nights to the woods to hear that wonderful singer of the forests. Did you ever hear of any one forming a party for the express purpose of listening to the crowing of a rooster? One is a treat to the ear, the other is a shock. When our young singers learn that people do not attend concerts to have their ears shocked but to have them delighted with beautiful sound, they will be nearer the right idea in voice culture. The student's first effort, then, should be to preserve the voice. From the very first lesson he must strive to learn how to make the most with little. How is the student to know when he is straining the voice? This is simple enough to ascertain. At the very instant that the slightest constriction or effort is noticed strain is very likely to be present. Much of this depends upon administering exactly the right amount of breath to the vocal cords at the moment of singing. Too much breath or too little breath is bad. The student finds by patient experiment under the direction of the experienced teacher just how much breath to use. All sorts of devices are employed to test the breath, but it is probable that the best devices of all are those which all singers use as the ultimate test, the ear and the feeling of delightful relaxation surrounding the vocal organs during the process of singing. COURAGE IN SINGING Much of the student's early work is marred by fear. He fears to do this and he fears to do that, until he feels himself walled in by a set of rules that make his singing stilted. From the very start the singer, particularly the one who aspires to become an operatic singer, should endeavor to discard fear entirely. Think that if you fail in your efforts, thousands of singers have failed in a similar manner in their student days. Success in singing is at the end of a tall ladder, the rungs of which are repeated failures. We climb up over our failures to success. Learn to fear nothing, the public least of all. If the singer gives the audience the least suspicion that she is in fear of their verdict, the audience will detect it at once and the verdict will be bad. Also do not fear the criticism of jealous rivals. Affirm success. Say to yourself, "I will surely succeed if I persevere." In this way you will acquire those habits of tranquillity which are so essential for the singer to possess. THE REASON FOR THE LACK OF WELL-TRAINED VOICES There are abundant opportunities just now for finely trained singers. In fact there is a real dearth of "well-equipped" voices. Managers are scouring the world for singers with ability as well as the natural voice. Why does this dearth exist? Simply because the trend of modern musical work is far too rapid. Results are expected in an impossible space of time. The pupil and the maestro work for a few months and, lo and behold! a prima donna! Can any one who knows anything about the art of singing fail to realize how absurd this is? More voices are ruined by this haste than by anything else. It is like expecting the child to do the feats of the athlete without the athlete's training. There are singers in opera now who have barely passed the, what might be called, rudimentary stage. With the decline of the older operas, singers evidently came to the conclusion that it was not necessary to study for the perfection of tone-quality, evenness of execution and vocal agility. The modern writers did not write such fioratura passages, then why should it be necessary for the student to bother himself with years of study upon exercises and vocalises designed to prepare him for the operas of Bellini, Rossini, Spontini, Donizetti, Scarlatti, Carissimi or other masters of the florid school? What a fatuous reasoning. Are we to obliterate the lessons of history which indicate that voices trained in such a school as that of Patti, Jenny Lind, Sembrich, Lehmann, Malibran, Rubini and others, have phenomenal endurance, and are able to retain their freshness long after other voices have faded? No, if we would have the wonderful vitality and longevity of the voices of the past we must employ the methods of the past. THE DELICATE NATURE OF THE HUMAN VOICE Of all instruments the human voice is by far the most delicate and the most fragile. The wonder is that it will stand as much "punishment" as is constantly given to it. Some novices seem to treat it with as little respect as though it were made out of brass like a tuba or a trombone. The voice is subject to physical and psychical influences. Every singer knows how acutely all human emotions are reflected in the voice; at the same time all physical ailments are immediately active upon the voice of the singer. There is a certain freshness or "edge" which may be worn off the voice by ordinary conversation on the day of the concert or the opera. Some singers find it necessary to preserve the voice by refraining from all unnecessary talking prior to singing. Long-continued practice is also very bad. An hour is quite sufficient on the day of the concert. During the first years of study, half an hour a day is often enough practice. More practice should only be done under special conditions and with the direction of a thoroughly competent teacher. Singing in the open air, when particles of dust are blowing about, is particularly bad. The throat seems to become irritated at once. In my mind tobacco smoke is also extremely injurious to the voice, notwithstanding the fact that some singers apparently resist its effects for years. I once suffered severely from the effects of being in a room filled with tobacco smoke and was unable to sing for at least two months. I also think that it is a bad plan to sing immediately after eating. The peristaltic action of the stomach during the process of digestion is a very pronounced function and anything which might tend to disturb it might affect the general health. The singer must lead an exceedingly regular life, but the exaggerated privations and excessive care which some singers take are quite unnecessary. The main thing is to determine what is a normal life and then to live as close to this as possible. If you find that some article of diet disagrees with you, remember to avoid that food; for an upset stomach usually results in complete demoralization of the entire vocal system. SOME PRACTICE SUGGESTIONS No matter how great the artist, daily practice, if even not more than forty minutes a day, is absolutely necessary. There is a deep philosophical and physiological principle underlying this and it applies particularly to the vocal student. Each minute spent in intelligent practice makes the voice better and the task easier. The power to do comes with doing. Part of each day's practice should be devoted to singing the scale softly and slowly with perfect intonation. Every tone should be heard with the greatest possible acuteness. The ears should analyze the tone quality with the same scrutiny with which a botanist would examine the petals of a newly discovered specimen. As the singer does this he will notice that his sense of tone color will develop; and this is a very vital part of every successful singer's equipment. He will become aware of beauties as well as defects in his voice which may never have been even suspected if he will only listen "microscopically" enough. Much of the singer's progress depends upon the mental model he keeps before him. The singer who constantly hears the best of singing naturally progresses faster than one surrounded by inferior singing. This does not recommend that the student should imitate blindly but that he should hear as much fine singing as possible. Those who have not the means to attend concerts and the opera may gain immensely from hearing fine records. Little Adelina Patti, playing as a child on the stage of the old Academy of Music in New York, was really attending the finest kind of a conservatory unawares. The old Italian teachers and writers upon voice, knowing the florid style in which their pupils would be expected to sing, did not have much to do with fanciful exercises. They gave their lives to the quest of the "bel canto"; and many of them had difficulty in convincing their pupils that the simplest exercises were often the hardest. Take for instance this invaluable scale exercise sung with the marks of expression carefully observed. This exercise is one of the most difficult to sing properly. Nevertheless, some student will rush on to florid exercises before he can master this exercise. To sing it right it must be regarded with almost devotional reverence. Indeed, it may well be practiced diligently for years. Every tone is a problem, a problem which must be solved in the brain and in the body of the singer and not in the mind of any teacher. The student must hold up every tone for comparison with his ideal tone. Every note must ring sweet and clear, pure and free. Every tone must be even more susceptible to the emotions than the expression upon the most mobile face. Every tone must be made the means of conveying some human emotion. Some singers practice their exercises in such a perfunctory manner that they get as a result voices so stiff and hard that they sound as though they came from metallic instruments which could only be altered in a factory instead of from throats lined with a velvet-like membrane. [Illustration: musical notation: Sing with great attention to intonation.] Flexibility, mobility and susceptibility to expression are quite as important as mere sweetness. After the above exercise has been mastered the pupil may pass to the chromatic scale (scala semitonata sostenuto); and this scale should be sung in the same slow sustained manner as the foregoing illustration. MME. MARCELLA SEMBRICH BIOGRAPHICAL Mme. Marcella Sembrich (Praxede Marcelline Kochanska) was born in Wisnewczyk, Galicia, February 15, 1858. Sembrich was her mother's name. Her father was a music teacher and she tells with pleasure how she watched her father make a little violin for her to practice upon. At the age of seven she was taken to Wilhelm Stengel at Lemberg for further instruction. Later she went to study with the famous pedagogue, Julius Epstein, at Vienna, who was amazed by the child's prodigious talent as a pianist and as a violinist. He asked, "Is there anything else she can do?" "Yes," replied Stengel, "I think she can sing." Sing she did; and Epstein was not long in determining that she should follow the career of the singer. Her other teachers were Victor Rokitansky, Richard Lewy and G. B. Lamperti and a few months with the elder Francesco Lamperti. Her début was made in Athens in 1877, in _I Puritani_. Thereafter she toured all of the European art centers with invariable success. Her first American appearance was in 1883. She came again in 1898 and for years sang with immense success in all parts of America. America has since become her home, where she has devoted much time to teaching. [Illustration: MME. MARCELLA SEMBRICH. © Dupont.] HOW FORTUNES ARE WASTED IN VOCAL EDUCATION MME. MARCELLA SEMBRICH EVERY ONE WHO CAN SHOULD LEARN TO SING Few accomplishments are more delight-giving than that of being able to sing. I would most enthusiastically advise anyone possessing a fair voice to have it trained by some reliable singing teacher. European peoples appreciate the great privilege of being able to sing for their own amusement, and the pleasure they get from their singing societies is inspiring. If Americans took more time for the development of accomplishments of this kind their journey through life would be far more enjoyable and perhaps more profitable. I believe that all should understand the art of singing, if only to become amateurs. That music makes the soul more beautiful I have not the least doubt. Because some musicians have led questionable lives does not prove the contrary. What might these men have been had they not been under the benign influence of music? One has only to watch people who are under the magic spell of beautiful music to understand what a power it has for the good. I believe that good vocal music should be a part of all progressive educational work. The more music we have, the more beautiful this world will be, the more kindly people will feel toward each other and the more life will be worth living. WRONG TO ENCOURAGE VOICELESS ASPIRANTS But when I say that everyone who possesses a voice should learn to sing I do not by any means wish to convey the idea that anyone who desires may become a great singer. That is a privilege that is given to but a very few fortunate people. So many things go together to make a great singer that the one who gives advice should be very circumspect in encouraging young people to undertake a professional career--especially an operatic career. Giving advice under any conditions is often thankless. I have been appealed to by hundreds of girls who have wanted me to hear them sing. I have always told them what seemed to me the truth, but I have been so dismayed at the manner in which this has been received that I hesitate greatly before hearing aspiring singers. It is the same way with the teachers. I know that some teachers are blamed for taking voiceless pupils, but the pupils are more often to blame than the teacher. I have known pupils who have been discouraged by several good teachers to persist until they finally found a teacher who would take them. Most teachers are conscientious--often too conscientious for their pocketbooks. If a representative teacher or a prominent singer advises you not to attempt a public career you should thank him, as he is doubtless trying to save you from years of miserable failure. It is a very serious matter for the pupil, and one that should be given almost sacred consideration by those who have the pupil's welfare at heart. Wise, indeed, is the young singer who can so estimate her talents that she will start along the right path. There are many positions which are desirable and laudable which can be ably filled by competent singers. If you have limitations which will prevent your ever reaching that "will-o'-the-wisp" known as "fame," do not waste money trying to achieve what is obviously out of your reach. If you can fill the position of soloist in a small choir creditably, do so and be contented. Don't aspire for operatic heights if you are hopelessly shackled by a lack of natural qualifications. It is a serious error to start vocal instruction too early. I do not believe that the girl's musical education should commence earlier than at the age of sixteen. It is true that in the cases of some very healthy girls no very great damage may be done, but it is a risk I certainly would not advise. Much money and time are wasted upon voice training of girls under the age of sixteen. If the girl is destined for a great career she will have the comprehension, the grasp, the insight that will lead her to learn very rapidly. Some people can take in the whole meaning of a picture at a glance; others are obliged to regard the picture for hours to see the same points of artistic interest. Quick comprehension is a great asset, and the girl who is of the right sort will lose nothing by waiting until she reaches the above age. PIANO OR VIOLIN STUDY ADVISABLE FOR ALL SINGERS Ambition, faithfulness to ideals and energy are the only hopes left open to the singer who is not gifted with a wonderfully beautiful natural voice. It is true that some singers of great intelligence and great energy have been able to achieve wide fame with natural voices that under other conditions would only attract local notice. These singers deserve great credit for their efforts. While the training of the voice may be deferred to the age of sixteen, the early years should by no means be wasted. The general education of the child, the fortification of the health and the study of music through the medium of some instrument are most important. The young girl who commences voice study with the ability to play either the violin or the piano has an enormous advantage over the young girl who has had no musical training. I found the piano training of my youth of greatest value, and through the study of the violin I learned certain secrets that I later applied to respiration and phrasing. Although my voice was naturally flexible, I have no doubt that the study of these instruments assisted in intonation and execution in a manner that I cannot over-estimate. A beautiful voice is not so great a gift, unless its possessor knows how to employ it to advantage. The musical training that one receives from the study of an instrument is of greatest value. Consequently, I advise parents who hope to make their children singers to give them the advantage of a thorough musical training in either violin study or the piano. Much wasted money and many blasted ambitions can be spared by such a course. A GOOD GENERAL EDUCATION OF VAST IMPORTANCE The singer whose general education has been neglected is in a most unfortunate plight. And by general education I do not mean only those academic studies that people learn in schools. The imagination must be stimulated, the heartfelt love for the poetical must be cultivated, and above all things the love for nature and mankind must be developed. I can take the greatest joy in a walk through a great forest. It is an education to me to be with nature. Unfortunately, only too many Americans go rushing through life neglecting those things which make life worth living. MUSICAL ADVANCE IN AMERICA There has been a most marvelous advance in this respect, however, in America. Not only in nature love but in art it has been my pleasure to watch a wonderful growth. When I first came here in 1883 things were entirely different in many respects. Now the great operatic novelties of Europe are presented here in magnificent style, and often before they are heard in many European capitals. In this respect America to-day ranks with the best in the world. Will you not kindly permit me to digress for a moment and say to the music lovers of America that I appreciate in the deepest manner the great kindnesses that have been shown to me everywhere? For this reason, I know that my criticisms, if they may be called such, will be received as they are intended. The singer should make a serious study of languages. French, German, English and Italian are the most necessary ones. I include English as I am convinced that it is only a matter of a short time when a school of opera written by English-speaking composers will arise. The great educational and musical advance in America is an indication of this. As for voice exercises, I have always been of the opinion that it is better to leave that matter entirely to the discretion of the teacher. There can be no universal voice exercise that will apply to all cases. Again, it is more a matter of how the exercise is sung than the exercise itself. The simplest exercise can become valuable in the hands of the great teacher. I have no faith in the teachers who make each and every pupil go through one and the same set of exercises in the same way. The voice teacher is like the physician. He must originate and prescribe certain remedies to suit certain cases. Much money is wasted by trying to do without a good teacher. If the pupil really has a great voice and the requisite talent, it is economical to take her to the best teacher obtainable. American women have wonderful voices. Moreover, they have great energy, talent and temperament. Their accomplishments in the operatic world are matters of present musical history. With such splendid effort and such generosity, it is easy to prophesy a great future for musical America. This is the land of great accomplishments. With time Americans will give more attention to the cultivation of details in art, they will acquire more repose perhaps, and then the tremendous energy which has done so much to make the country what it is will be a great factor in establishing a school of music in the new world which will rank with the greatest of all times. MME. ERNESTINE SCHUMANN-HEINK BIOGRAPHICAL Mme. Ernestine Schumann-Heink (née Roessler) was born near the city of Prague, July 15, 1861. She relates that her father was a Czech and her mother was of Italian extraction. She was educated in Ursuline Convent and studied singing with Mme. Marietta von Leclair in Graz. Her first appearance was at the age of 15, when she is reported to have taken a solo part in a performance of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony, at an important concert in Graz. Her operatic début was made at the Royal Opera, Dresden, in _Trovatore_. There she studied under Krebs and Franz Wüllner. It is impossible to detail Mme. Schumann-Heink's operatic successes here, since her numerous appearances at the leading operatic houses of the world have been followed by such triumphs that she is admittedly the greatest contralto soloist of her time. At Bayreuth, Covent Garden, and at the Metropolitan her appearances have drawn multitudes. In concert she proved one of the greatest of all singers of art songs. In 1905 she became an American citizen, her enthusiasm for this country leading her to name one of her sons George Washington. During the great war (in which four of her sons served with the American colors) she toured incessantly from camp to camp, giving her services for the entertainment of the soldiers and winning countless admirers in this way. Her glorious voice extends from D on the third line of the bass clef to C on the second leger line above the treble clef. [Illustration: MME. ERNESTINE SCHUMANN-HEINK.] KEEPING THE VOICE IN PRIME CONDITION MME. ERNESTINE SCHUMANN-HEINK THE ARTIST'S RESPONSIBILITY Would you have me give the secret of my success at the very outstart? It is very simple and centers around this subject of the artist's responsibility to the audience. My secret is absolute devotion to the audience. I love my audiences. They are all my friends. I feel a bond with them the moment I step before them. Whether I am singing in blasé New York or before an audience of farmer folk in some Western Chautauqua, my attitude toward my audience is quite the same. I take the same care and thought with every audience. This even extends to my dress. The singer, who wears an elaborate gown before a Metropolitan audience and wears some worn-out old rag of a thing when singing at some rural festival, shows that she has not the proper respect in her mind. Respect is everything. Therefore it is necessary for me to have my voice in the best of condition every day of the year. It is my duty to my audience. The woman who comes to a country Chautauqua and brings her baby with her and perchance nurses the little one during the concert gets a great deal closer to my heart than the stiff-backed aristocrat who has just left a Pekingese spaniel outside of the opera house door in a $6000.00 limousine. That little country woman expects to hear the singer at her best. Therefore, I practice just as carefully on the day of the Chautauqua concert as I would if I were to sing _Ortrud_ the same night at the Metropolitan in New York. American audiences are becoming more and more discriminating. Likewise they are more and more responsive. As an American citizen, I am devoted to all the ideals of the new world. They have accepted me in the most whole-souled manner and I am grateful to the land of my adoption. THE ADVANTAGE OF AN EARLY TRAINING Whether or not the voice keeps in prime condition to-day depends largely upon the early training of the singer. If that training is a good one, a sound one, a sensible one, the voice will, with regular practice, keep in good condition for a remarkably long time. The trouble is that the average student is too impatient in these days to take time for a sufficient training. The voice at the outstart must be trained lightly and carefully. There must not be the least strain. I believe that at the beginning two lessons a week should be sufficient. The lessons should not be longer than one-half an hour and the home practice should not exceed at the start fifty minutes a day. Even then the practice should be divided into two periods. The young singer should practice _mezza voce_, which simply means nothing more or less than "half voice." Never practice with full voice unless singing under the direction of a well-schooled teacher with years of practical singing experience. It is easy enough to shout. Some of the singers in modern opera seem to employ a kind of megaphone method. They stand stock still on the stage and bawl out the phrases as though they were announcing trains in a railroad terminal. Such singers disappear in a few years. Their voices seem torn to shreds. The reason is that they have not given sufficient attention to _bel canto_ in their early training. They seem to forget that voice must first of all be beautiful. _Bel canto_,--beautiful singing,--not the singing of meaningless Italian phrases, as so many insist, but the glorious _bel canto_ which Bach, Haydn and Mozart demand,--a _bel canto_ that cultivates the musical taste, disciplines the voice and trains the singer technically to do great things. Please understand that I am not disparaging the good and beautiful in Italian masterpieces. The musician will know what I mean. The singer can gain little, however, from music that intellectually and vocally is better suited to a parrot than a human being. Some of the older singers made _bel canto_ such an art that people came to hear them for their voices alone, and not for their intellectual or emotional interpretations of a rôle. Perhaps you never heard Patti in her prime. Ah! Patti--the wonderful Adelina with the glorious golden voice. It was she who made me ambitious to study breathing until it became an art. To hear her as she trippingly left the stage in Verdi's _Traviata_ singing runs with ease and finish that other singers slur or stumble over,--ah! that was an art! [Illustration: musical notation: Ex. 1 il mio pen sier, il mio pen-sier___ il mio pen-sier. ] Volumes have been written on breathing and volumes more could be written. This is not the place to discuss the singer's great fundamental need. Need I say more than that I practice deep breathing every day of my life? THE AGE FOR STARTING It is my opinion that no girl who wishes to keep her voice in the prime of condition all the time in after years should start to study much earlier than seventeen or eighteen years of age. In the case of a man I do not believe that he should start until he is past twenty or even twenty-two. I know that this is contrary to what many singers think, but the period of mutation in both sexes is a much slower process than most teachers realize, and I have given this matter a great deal of serious thought. LET EVERYBODY SING! Can I digress long enough to say that I think that everybody should sing? That is, they should learn to sing under a good singing instructor. This does not mean that they should look forward toward a professional career. God forbid! There are enough half-baked singers in the world now who are striving to become professionals. But the public should know that singing is the healthiest kind of exercise imaginable. When one sings properly one exercises nearly all of the important muscles of the torso. The circulation of the blood is improved, the digestion bettered, the heart promoted to healthy action--in fact, everything is bettered. Singers as a rule are notoriously healthy and often very long lived. The new movement for community singing in the open air is a magnificent one. Let everybody sing! A great singing teacher with a reputation as big as Napoleon's or George Washington's is not needed. There are thousands and thousands of unknown teachers who are most excellent. Often the advice or the instruction is very much the same. What difference does it make whether I buy Castile soap in a huge Broadway store or a little country store, if the soap is the same? Many people hesitate to study because they can not study with a great teacher. Nonsense! Pick out some sensible, well-drilled teacher and then use your own good judgment to guide yourself. Remember that Schumann-Heink did not study with a world-famed teacher. Whoever hears of Marietta von Leclair in these days? Yet I do not think that I could have done any more with my voice if I had had every famous teacher from Niccolo Antonio Porpora down to the present day. The individual singer must have ideals, and then leave nothing undone to attain those ideals. One of my ideals was to be able to sing pianissimo with the kind of resonance that makes it carry up to the farthest gallery. That is one of the most difficult things I had to learn, and I attained it only after years of faithful practice. THE SINGER'S DAILY ROUTINE To keep the voice in prime condition the singer's first consideration is physical and mental health. If the body or the mind is over-taxed singing becomes an impossibility. It is amazing what the healthy body and the busy mind can really stand. I take but three weeks' vacation during the year and find that I am a great deal better for it. Long terms of enforced indolence do not mean rest. The real artist is happiest when at work, and I want to work. Fortunately I am never at loss for opportunity. The ambitious vocal student can benefit as much by studying a good book on hygiene or the conservation of the health as from a book on the art of singing. First of all comes diet. Americans as a rule eat far too much. Why do some of the good churchgoing people raise such an incessant row about over-drinking when they constantly injure themselves quite as much by over-eating? What difference does it make whether you ruin your stomach, liver or kidneys by too much alcohol or too much roast beef? One vice is as bad as another. The singer must live upon a light diet. A heavy diet is by no means necessary to keep up a robust physique. I am rarely ill, am exceedingly strong in every way, and yet eat very little indeed. I find that my voice is in the best of condition when I eat very moderately. My digestion is a serious matter with me, and I take every precaution to see that it is not congested in any way. This is most important to the singer. Here is an average ménu for my days when I am on tour: _BREAKFAST Two or more glasses of Cold Water (not ice water) Ham and Eggs Coffee Toast._ _MID-DAY DINNER Soup Some Meat Order A Vegetable Plenty of Salad Fruit._ _SUPPER A Sandwich Fruit._ Such a ménu I find ample for the heaviest kind of professional work. If I eat more, my work may deteriorate, and I know it. Fresh air, sunshine, sufficient rest and daily baths in tepid water night and morning are a part of my regular routine. I lay special stress upon the baths. Nothing invigorates the singer as much as this. Avoid very cold baths, but see to it that you have a good reaction after each bath. There is nothing like such a routine as this to avoid colds. If you have a cold try the same remedies to try to get rid of it. To me, one day at Atlantic City is better for a cold than all the medicine I can take. I call Atlantic City my cold doctor. Of course, there are many other shore resorts that may be just as helpful, but when I can do so I always make a bee line for Atlantic City the moment I feel a serious cold on the way. Sensible singers know now that they must avoid alcohol, even in limited quantities, if they desire to be in the prime of condition and keep the voice for a long, long time. Champagne particularly is poison to the singer just before singing. It seems to irritate the throat and make good vocal work impossible. I am sorry for the singer who feels that some spur like champagne or a cup of strong coffee is desirable before going upon the stage. It amuses me to hear girls say, "I would give anything to be a great singer"; and then go and lace themselves until they look like Jersey mosquitoes. The breath is the motive power of the voice. Without it under intelligent control nothing can be accomplished. One might as well try to run an automobile without gasoline as sing without breath. How can a girl breathe when she has squeezed her lungs to one-half their normal size? PREPARATION FOR HEAVY RÔLES The voice can never be kept in prime condition if it is obliged to carry a load that it has not been prepared to carry. Most voices that wear out are voices that have been overburdened. Either the singer does not know how to sing or the rôle is too heavy. I think that I may be forgiven for pointing out that I have repeatedly sung the heaviest and most exacting rôles in opera. My voice would have been shattered years ago if I had not prepared myself for these rôles and sung them properly. A man may be able to carry a load of fifty pounds for miles if he carries it on his back, but he will not be able to carry it a quarter of a mile if he holds it out at arm's length from the body, with one arm. Does this not make the point clear? Some rôles demand maturity. It is suicidal for the young singer to attempt them. The composer and the conductor naturally think only of the effect at the performance. The singer's welfare with them is a secondary consideration. I have sung under the great composers and conductors, from Richard Wagner to Richard Strauss. Some of the Strauss rôles are even more strenuous than those of Wagner. They call for great energy as well as great vocal ability. Young singers essay these heavy rôles and the voices go to pieces. Why not wait a little while? Why not be patient? The singer is haunted by the delusion that success can only come to her if she sings great rôles. If she can not ape Melba in _Traviata_, Emma Eames as Elizabeth in _Tannhäuser_ or Geraldine Farrar in _Butterfly_, she pouts and refuses to do anything. Offer her a small part and she sneers at it. Ha! Ha! All my earliest successes were made in the smallest kinds of parts. I realized that I had only a little to do and only very little time to do it in. Consequently, I gave myself heart and soul to that part. It must be done so artistically, so intelligently, so beautifully that it would command success. Imagine the rôles of Erda and Norna, and Marie in _Flying Dutchman_. They are so small that they can hardly be seen. Yet these rôles were my first door to success and fame. Wagner did not think of them as little things. He was a real master and knew that in every art-work a small part is just as important as a great part. It is a part of a beautiful whole. Don't turn up your nose at little things. Take every opportunity, and treat it as though it were the greatest thing in your life. It pays. Everything that amounts to anything in my entire career has come through struggle. At first a horrible struggle with poverty. No girl student in a hall bedroom to-day (and my heart goes out to them now) endures more than I went through. It was work, work, work, from morning to night, with domestic cares and worries enough all the time to drive a woman mad. Keep up your spirits, girls. If you have the right kind of fight in you, success will surely come. Never think of discouragement, no matter what happens. Keep working every day and always hoping. It will come out all right if you have the gift and the perseverance. Compulsion is the greatest element in the vocalist's success. Poverty has a knout in its hand driving you on. Well, let it,--and remember that under that knout you will travel twice as fast as the rich girl possibly can with her fifty-horse-power automobile. Keep true to the best. _Muss_--"I MUST," "I will," the mere necessity is a help not a hindrance, if you have the right stuff in you. Learn to depend upon yourself, and know that when you have something that the public wants it will not be slow in running after you. Don't ask for help. I never had any help. Tell that to the aspiring geese who think that I have some magic power whereby I can help a mediocre singer to success by the mere twist of the hand. DAILY EXERCISES OF A PRIMA DONNA [Illustration: musical notation] Daily vocal exercises are the daily bread of the singer. They should be practiced just as regularly as one sits down to the table to eat, or as one washes one's teeth or as one bathes. As a rule the average professional singer does not resort to complicated exercises and great care is taken to avoid strain. It is perfectly easy for me, a contralto, to sing C in alt but do you suppose I sing it in my daily exercises? It is one of the extreme notes in my range and it might be a strain. Consequently I avoid it. I also sing most of my exercises _mezza voce_. There should always be periods of intermission between practice. I often go about my routine work while on tour, walking up and down the room, packing my trunk, etc., and practicing gently at the same time. I enjoy it and it makes my work lighter. Of course I take great pains to practice carefully. My exercises are for the most part simple scales, arpeggios or trills. For instance, I will start with the following: [Illustration: musical notation] This I sing in middle voice and very softly. Thereby I do not become tired and I don't bother the neighborhood. If I sang this in the big, full lower tones and sang loud, my voice would be fatigued rather than benefited and the neighbors would hate me. This I continue up to _D_ or _E_ flat. [Illustration: musical notation] Above this I invariably use what is termed the head tone. Female singers should always begin the head tone on this degree of the staff and not on _F_ and _F#_, as is sometimes recommended. I always use the Italian vowel _ah_ in my exercises. It seems best to me. I know that _oo_ and _ue_ are recommended for contraltos, but I have long had the firm conviction that one should first perfect the natural vocal color through securing good tones by means of the most open vowel. After this is done the voice may be further colored by the judicious employment of other vowels. Sopranos, for instance, can help their head tones by singing _ee_ (Italian _i_). I know nothing better for acquiring a flexible tone than to sing trills like the following: [Illustration: musical notation] and at the same time preserve a gentle, smiling expression. Smile naturally, as though you were genuinely amused at something,--smile until your upper teeth are uncovered. Then, try these exercises with the vowel _ah_. Don't be afraid of getting a trivial, colorless tone. It is easy enough to make the tone sombre by willing it so, when the occasion demands. You will be amazed what this smiling, genial, _liebenswürdig_ expression will do to relieve stiffness and help you in placing your voice right. The old Italians knew about it and advocated it strongly. There is nothing like it to keep the voice youthful, fresh and in the prime of condition. THE SINGER MUST RELAX Probably more voices are ruined by strain than through any other cause. The singer must relax all the time. This does not mean flabbiness. It does not mean that the singer should collapse before singing. Relaxation in the singer's sense is a delicious condition of buoyancy, of lightness, of freedom, of ease and entire lack of tightening in any part. When I relax I feel as though every atom in my body were floating in space. There is not one single little nerve on tension. The singer must be particularly careful when approaching a climax in a great work of art. Then the tendency to tighten up is at its greatest. This must be anticipated. Take such a case as the following passage from the famous aria from Saint-Saëns' _Samson et Delila_, "_Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix_." The climax is obviously on the words "Ah!--verse moi." The climax is the note marked by a star (_f_ on the top line). [Illustration: musical notation: Reponds a ma ten-dres-se, Re-ponds a ma ten-dress-s! Ah!--ver-se-moi--ver-se-moi.. l-i-vres-se!] When I am singing the last notes of the previous phrase to the word "tendresse," anyone who has observed me closely will notice that I instinctively let my shoulders drop,--that the facial muscles become relaxed as when one is about to smile or about to yawn. I am then relaxing to meet the great melodic climax and meet it in such a manner that I will have abundant reserve force after it has been sung. When one has to sing before an audience of five or six thousand people such a climax is immensely important and it requires great balance to meet it and triumph in it. ANTONIO SCOTTI BIOGRAPHICAL Antonio Scotti was born at Naples, Jan. 25, 1866, and did much of his vocal study there with Mme. Trifari Paganini. His début was made at the Teatro Reale, in the Island of Malta, in 1889. The opera was _Martha_. After touring the Italian opera houses he spent seven seasons in South America at a time when the interest in grand opera on that continent was developing tremendously. He then toured Spain and Russia with great success and made his début at Covent Garden, London, in 1899. His success was so great that he was immediately engaged for the Metropolitan in New York, where he has sung every season since that time. His most successful rôles have been in _La Tosca_, _La Bohême_, _I Pagliacci_, _Carmen_, _Falstaff_, _L'Oracolo_ and _Otello_. His voice is a rich and powerful baritone. He is considered one of the finest actors among the grand opera singers. During recent years he has toured with an opera company of his own, making many successful appearances in some of the smaller as well as the larger American cities. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ANTONIO SCOTTI IN THE COSTUME OF HIS MOST FAMOUS RÔLE, SCARPIA, IN "LA TOSCA," BY PUCCINI.] ITALIAN OPERA IN AMERICA ANTONIO SCOTTI So closely identified is Italy with all that pertains to opera, that the question of the future of Italian opera in America is one that interests me immensely. It has been my privilege to devote a number of the best years of my life to singing in Italian opera in this wonderful country, and one cannot help noticing, first of all, the almost indescribable advance that America has made along all lines. It is so marvelous that those who reside continually in this country do not stop to consider it. Musicians of Europe who have never visited America can form no conception of it, and when they once have had an opportunity to observe musical conditions in America, the great opera houses, the music schools, the theatres and the bustling, hustling activity, together with the extraordinary casts of world-famous operatic stars presented in our leading cities, they are amazed in the extreme. It is very gratifying for me to realize that the operatic compositions of my countrymen must play a very important part in the operatic future of America. It has always seemed to me that there is far more variety in the works of the modern Italian composers than in those of other nations. Almost all of the later German operas bear the unmistakable stamp of Wagner. Those which do not, show decided Italian influences. The operas of Mozart are largely founded on Italian models, although they show a marvelous genius peculiar to the great master who created them. OPERATIC TENDENCIES The Italian opera of the future will without doubt follow the lead of Verdi, that is, the later works of Verdi. To me _Falstaff_ seems the most remarkable of all Italian operas. The public is not well enough acquainted with this work to demand it with the same force that they demand some of the more popular works of Verdi. Verdi was always melodious. His compositions are a beautiful lace-work of melodies. It has seemed to me that some of the Italian operatic composers who have been strongly influenced by Wagner have made the mistake of supposing that Wagner was not a master of melody. Consequently they have sacrificed their Italian birthright of melody for all kinds of cacophony. Wagner was really wonderfully melodious. Some of his melodies are among the most beautiful ever conceived. I do not refer only to the melodies such as "Oh, Thou Sublime Evening Star" of _Tannhäuser_ or the "Bridal March" of _Lohengrin_, but also to the inexhaustible fund of melodies that one may find in most every one of his astonishing works. True, these melodies are different in type from most melodies of Italian origin, but they are none the less melodies, and beautiful ones. Verdi's later operas contain such melodies and he is the model which the young composers of Italy will doubtless follow. Puccini, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and others, have written works rich in melody and yet not wanting in dramatic charm, orchestral accompaniment and musicianly treatment. OPERA THE NATURAL GENIUS OF ITALY'S COMPOSERS When the Italian student leaves the conservatory, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred his ambitions are solely along the line of operatic composition. This seems his natural bent or mould. Of course he has written small fugues and perhaps even symphonies, but in the majority of instances these have been mere academic exercises. I regret that this is the case, and heartily wish that we had more Bossis, Martuccis and Sgambattis, but, again, would it not be a great mistake to try to make a symphonist out of an operatic composer? In the case of Perosi I often regret that he is a priest and therefore cannot write for the theatre, because I earnestly believe that notwithstanding his success as a composer of religious music, his natural bent is for the theatre or the opera. THE COMPOSERS OF TO-DAY Of the great Italian opera composers of to-day, I feel that Puccini is, perhaps, the greatest because he has a deeper and more intimate appreciation of theatrical values. Every note that Puccini writes smells of the paint and canvas behind the proscenium arch. He seems to know just what kind of music will go best with a certain series of words in order to bring out the dramatic meaning. This is in no sense a depreciation of the fine things that Mascagni, Leoncavallo and others have done. It is simply my personal estimate of Puccini's worth as an operatic composer. Personally, I like _Madama Butterfly_ better than any other Italian opera written in recent years. Aside from _Falstaff_, my own best rôle is probably in _La Tosca_. The two most popular Italian operas of to-day are without doubt _Aïda_ and _Madama Butterfly_. That is, these operas draw the greatest audiences at present. It is gratifying to note a very much unified and catholic taste throughout the entire country. That is to say, in Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and Philadelphia one finds the public taste very similar. This indicates that the great musical advance in recent years in America has not been confined to one or two eastern cities. THE INFLUENCE OF THE STAR SYSTEM It is often regretable that the reputation of the singer draws bigger audiences in America than the work to be performed. American people go to hear some particular singer and not to hear the work of the composer. In other countries this is not so invariably the rule. It is a condition that may be overcome in time in America. It often happens that remarkably good performances are missed by the public who are only drawn to the opera house when some great operatic celebrity sings. The intrinsic beauties of the opera itself should have much to do with controlling its presentation. In all cases at present the Italian opera seems in preponderance, but this cannot be said to be a result of the engagement of casts composed exclusively of Italian singers. In our American opera houses many singers of many different nationalities are engaged in singing in Italian opera. Personally, I am opposed to operas being sung in any tongue but that in which the opera was originally written. If I am not mistaken, the Covent Garden Opera House and the Metropolitan Opera House are the only two opera houses in the world where this system is followed. No one can realize what I mean until he has heard a Wagner opera presented in French, a tongue that seems absolutely unfitted for the music of Wagner. THE POSSIBLE INFLUENCE OF STRAUSS AND DEBUSSY I do not feel that either Strauss or Debussy will have an influence upon the music of the coming Italian composers similar to that which the music of Wagner had upon Verdi and his followers. Personally, I admire them very much, but they seem unvocal, and Italy is nothing if not vocal. To me _Pelleas and Melisande_ would be quite as interesting if it were acted in pantomime with the orchestral accompaniment. The voice parts, to my way of thinking, could almost be dispensed with. The piece is a beautiful dream, and the story so evident that it could almost be played as an "opera without words." But vocal it certainly is not, and the opportunities of the singer are decidedly limited. Strauss, also, does not even treat the voice with the scant consideration bestowed upon it in some of the extreme passages of the Wagner operas. Occasionally the singer has an opportunity, but it cannot be denied that to the actor and the orchestra falls the lion's share of the work. OPERATIC CENTERS IN ITALY Americans seem to think that the only really great operatic center of Italy is Milan. This is doubtless due to the celebrity of the famous opera house, La Scala, and to the fact that the great publishing house of Ricordi is located there, but it is by no means indicative of the true condition. The fact is that the appreciation of opera is often greater outside of Milan than in the city. In Naples, Rome and Florence opera is given on a grand scale, and many other Italian cities possess fine theaters and fine operatic companies. The San Carlos Company, at Naples, is usually exceptionally good, and the opera house itself is a most excellent one. The greatest musical industry centers around Milan owing, as we have said, to the publishing interests in that city. If an Italian composer wants to produce one of his works he usually makes arrangements with his publisher. This, of course, brings him at once to Milan in most cases. MORE NEW OPERAS SHOULD BE PRODUCED It is, of course, difficult to gain an audience for a new work, but this is largely the fault of the public. The managers are usually willing and glad to bring out novelties if the public can be found to appreciate them. _Madama Butterfly_ is a novelty, but it leaped into immediate and enormous appreciation. Would that we could find a number like it! _Madama Butterfly's_ success has been largely due to the fact that the work bears the direct evidences of inspiration. I was with Puccini in London when he saw for the first time John Luther Long's story, dramatized by a Belasco, produced in the form of a one-act play. He had a number of librettos under consideration at that time, but he cast them all aside at once. I never knew Puccini to be more excited. The story of the little Japanese piece was on his mind all the time. He could not seem to get away from it. It was in this white heat of inspiration that the piece was moulded. Operas do not come out of the "nowhere." They are born of the artistic enthusiasm and intellectual exuberance of the trained composer. AMERICA'S MUSICAL FUTURE One of the marvelous conditions of music in this country is that the opera, the concert, the oratorio and the recital all seem to meet with equal appreciation. The fact that most students of music in this land play the piano has opened the avenues leading to an appreciation of orchestral scores. In the case of opera the condition was quite different. The appreciation of operatic music demands the voice of the trained artist and this could not be brought to the home until the sound reproducing machine had been perfected. The great increase in the interest in opera in recent years is doubtless due to the fact that thousands and thousands of those instruments are in use in as many homes and music studios. It is far past the "toy" stage, and is a genuine factor in the art development and musical education of America. At first the sound reproducing machine met with tremendous opposition owing to the fact that bad instruments and poorer records had prejudiced the public, but now they have reached a condition whereby the voice is reflected with astonishing veracity. The improvements I have observed during the past years have seemed altogether wonderful to me. The thought that half a century hence the voices of our great singers of to-day may be heard in the homes of all countries of the globe gives a sense of satisfaction to the singer, since it gives a permanence to his art which was inconceivable twenty-five years ago. [Illustration: HENRI SCOTT.] HENRI SCOTT BIOGRAPHICAL Henri Scott was born at Coatesville, Pa., April 8, 1876. He was intended for a business career but became interested in music, at first in an amateur way, in Philadelphia. Encouraged by local successes he went to study voice with Oscar Saenger, remaining with him for upward of eleven years. He was fortunate in making appearances with the "Philadelphia Operatic Society," a remarkable amateur organization giving performances of grand opera on a large scale. With this organization he made his first stage appearances as Ramphis in _Aïda_, in 1897. He had his passage booked for Europe, where he was assured many fine appearances, when he accidentally met Oscar Hammerstein, who engaged him for five years. Under this manager he made his professional début as Ramphis at the Manhattan Opera House in New York, in 1909. Hammerstein, a year thereafter, terminated his New York performances by selling out to the Metropolitan Opera Company. Mr. Scott then went to Rome, where he made his first appearance in _Faust_, with great success. He was immediately engaged for the Chicago Opera Company where, during three years, he sang some thirty-five different rôles. In 1911 he was engaged as a leading basso by the Metropolitan, where he remained for many seasons. He has sung on tour with the Thomas Orchestra, with Caruso and at many famous festivals. He has appeared with success in over one hundred cities in the United States and Canada. In response to many offers he went into vaudeville, where he has sung to hundreds of thousands of Americans, with immense success. Mr. Scott is therefore in a position to speak of this new and interesting phase of bringing musical masterpieces to "the masses." THE SINGER'S LARGER MUSICAL PUBLIC HENRI SCOTT Like every American, I resent the epithet, "the masses," because I have always considered myself a part of that mysterious unbounded organization of people to which all democratic Americans feel that they belong. One who is not a member of the masses in America is perforce a "snob" and a "prig." Possibly one of the reasons why our republic has survived so many years is that all true Americans are aristocratic, not in the attitude of "I am as good as everyone," but yet human enough to feel deep in their hearts, "Any good citizen is as good as I." WHY GRAND OPERA IS EXPENSIVE Music in America should be the property of everybody. The talking machines come near making it that, if one may judge from the sounds that come from half the homes at night. But the people want to hear the best music from living performers "in the flesh." At the same time, comparatively, very few can pay from two to twenty dollars a seat to hear great opera and great singers. The reason why grand opera costs so much is that the really fine voices, with trained operatic experience, are very, very few; and, since only a few performances are given a year, the price must be high. It is simply the law of supply and demand. There are, in America, two large grand opera companies and half a dozen traveling ones, some of them very excellent. There are probably twenty large symphony orchestras and at least one hundred oratorio societies of size. To say that these bodies and others purveying good music, reach more than five million auditors a year would possibly be a generous figure. But five million is not one-twentieth of the population of America. What about the nineteen-twentieths? On the other hand, there are in America between two and three thousand good vaudeville and moving picture houses where the best music in some form is heard not once or twice a week for a short season, but several times each day. Some of the moving picture houses have orchestras of thirty-five to eighty men, selected from musicians of the finest ability, many of whom have played in some of the greatest orchestras of the world. These orchestras and the talking machines are doing more to bring good music to the public than all the larger organizations, if we consider the subject from a standpoint of numbers. A REVOLUTION IN TASTE The whole character of the entertainments in moving picture and vaudeville theaters has been revolutionized. The buildings are veritable temples of art. The class of the entertainment is constantly improving in response to a demand which the business instincts of the managers cannot fail to recognize. The situation is simply this: The American people, with their wonderful thirst for self-betterment, which has brought about the prodigious success of the educational papers, the schools and the Chautauquas, like to have the beautiful things in art served to them with inspiriting amusement. We, as a people, have been becoming more and more refined in our tastes. We want better and better things, not merely in music, but in everything. In my boyhood there were thousands of families in fair circumstances who would endure having the most awful chromos upon their walls. These have for the most part entirely disappeared except in the homes of the newest aliens. It is true that much of our music is pretty raw in the popular field; but even in this it is getting better slowly and surely. If in recent years there has been a revolution in the popular taste for vaudeville, B. F. Keith was the "Washington" of that revolution. He understood the human demand for clean entertainment, with plenty of healthy fun and an artistic background. He knew the public call for the best music and instilled his convictions in his able followers. Mr. Keith's attitude was responsible for the signs which one formerly saw in the dressing rooms of good vaudeville theaters, which read: +--------------------------------------------------+ |Profanity of any kind, objectionable or suggestive| |remarks, are forbidden in this theater. | |Offenders are liable to have the curtain rung | |down upon them during such an act. | +--------------------------------------------------+ Fortunately these signs have now disappeared, as the actors have been so disciplined that they know that a coarse remark would injure them with the management. Vaudeville is on a far higher basis than much so-called comic opera. Some acts are paid exceedingly large sums. Sarah Bernhardt received $7000.00 a week; Calve, Bispham, Kocian, Carolina White and Marguerite Sylvia, accordingly. Dorothy Jordan, Bessie Abbott, Rosa Ponselle, Orville Harold and the recent Indian sensation at the Metropolitan, Chief Caupolican, actually had their beginnings in vaudeville. In other words, vaudeville was the stepping-stone to grand opera. SINGING FOR MILLIONS Success in this new field depends upon personality as well as art. It also develops personality. It is no place for a "stick." The singer must at all times be in human touch with the audience. The lofty individuals who are thinking far more about themselves than about the songs they are singing have no place here. The task is infinitely more difficult than grand opera. It is far more difficult than recital or oratorio singing. There can be no sham, no pose. The songs must please or the audience will let one know it in a second. The wear and tear upon the voice is much less than in opera. During the week I sing in all three and one-half hours (not counting rehearsals). When I am singing Mephistopheles in _Faust_ I am in a theater at least six hours--the make-up alone requires at least one and one-half hours. Then time is demanded for rehearsals with the company and with various coaches. THE ART OF "PUTTING IT OVER" Thus the vaudeville singer who is genuinely interested in the progress of his art has ample time to study new songs and new rôles. In the jargon of vaudeville, everything is based upon whether the singer is able "to put the number over." This is a far more serious matter than one thinks. The audience is made up of the great public--the common people, God bless them. There is not the select gathering of musically cultured people that one finds in Carnegie Hall or the Auditorium. Therefore, in singing music that is admittedly a musical masterpiece, one must select only those works which may be interpreted with a broad human appeal. One is far closer to his fellow-man in vaudeville than in grand opera, because the emotions of the auditors are more responsive. It is intensely gratifying to know that these people want real art. My greatest success has been in Lieurance's Indian songs and in excerpts from grand opera. Upon one occasion my number was followed by that of a very popular comedienne whose performance was known to be of the farcical, rip-roaring type which vaudeville audiences were supposed to like above all things. It was my pleasure to be recalled, even after the curtain had ascended upon her performance, and to be compelled to give another song as an encore. The preference of the vaudeville audience for really good music has been indicated to me time and again. But it is not merely the good music that draws: the music must be interpreted properly. Much excellent music is ruined in vaudeville by ridiculous renditions. HOW TO GET AN ENGAGEMENT Singers have asked me time and again how to get an engagement. The first thing is to be sure that you have something to sell that is really worth while. Think of how many people are willing to pay to hear you sing! The more that they are willing to pay, the more valuable you are to the managers who buy your services. Therefore reputation, of course, is an important point to the manager. An unknown singer can not hope to get the same fee as the celebrated singer no matter how fine the voice or the art. Mr. E. Falber and Mr. Martin Beck, who have been responsible for a great many of the engagements of great artists in vaudeville and who are great believers in fine music in vaudeville, have, through their high position in business, helped hundreds. But they can not help anyone who has nothing to sell. The home office of the big vaudeville exchange is at Forty-seventh and Broadway, N.Y., and it is one of the busiest places in the great city. Even at that, it has always been a mystery to me just how the thousands of numbers are arranged so that there will be as little loss as possible for the performers; for it must be remembered that the vaudeville artists buy their own stage clothes and scenery, attend to their transportation and pay all their own expenses; unless they can afford the luxury of a personal manager who knows how to do these things just a little better. The singer looking for an engagement must in some way do something to gain some kind of recognition. Perhaps it may come from the fact that the manager of the local theater in her town has heard her sing, or some well-known singer is interested in her and is willing to write a letter of introduction to someone influential in headquarters. With the enormous demands made upon the time of the "powers that be," it is hardly fair to expect them to hear anyone and everyone. With such a letter or such an introduction, arrange for an audition at the headquarters in New York. Remember all the time that if you have anything really worth while to sell the managers are just as anxious to hear you as you are to be heard. There is no occasion for nervousness. EXCELLENT CONDITIONS Sometimes the managers are badly mistaken. It is common gossip that a very celebrated opera singer sought a vaudeville engagement and was turned down because of the lack of the musical experience of the manager, and because she was unknown. If he wanted her to-day his figure would have to be several thousand dollars a week. The average vaudeville theater in America is far better for the singer, in many ways, than many of the opera houses. In fact the vaudeville theaters are new; while the opera houses are old, and often sadly run down and out of date. Possibly the finest vaudeville theater in America is in Providence, R. I., and was built by E. F. Albee. It is palatial in every aspect, built as strong and substantial as a fort, and yet as elegant as a mansion. It is much easier to sing in these modern theaters made of stone and concrete than in many of the old-fashioned opera houses. Indeed, some of the vaudeville audiences often hear a singer at far better advantage than in the opera house. The singer who realizes the wonderful artistic opportunities provided in reaching such immense numbers of people, who will understand that he must sing up to the larger humanity rather than thinking that he must sing down to a mob, who will work to do better vocal and interpretative thinking at every successive performance, will lose nothing by singing in vaudeville and may gain an army of friends and admirers he could not otherwise possibly acquire. EMMA THURSBY BIOGRAPHICAL Emma Thursby was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., and studied singing with Julius Meyers, Achille Errani, Mme. Rudersdorf, Lamperti (elder), San Giovanni and finally with Maurice Strakosch. She began her career as a church singer in New York and throngs went to different New York churches to hear her exquisitely mellow and beautiful voice. For many years she was the soprano of the famous Plymouth Church when Henry Ward Beecher was the pastor. Her voice became so famous that she went on a tour with Maurice Strakosch for seven years, in Europe and America, everywhere meeting with sensational success. Later she toured with the Gilmore Band and with the Thomas Orchestra. She became as popular in London and in Paris as in New York. Her fame became so great that she finally made a tour of the world, appearing with great success even in China and Japan. [Illustration: EMMA THURSBY.] SINGING IN CONCERT AND WHAT IT MEANS EMMA THURSBY Although conditions have changed very greatly since I was last regularly engaged in making concert tours, the change has been rather one of advantage to young singers than one to their disadvantage. The enormous advance in musical taste can only be expressed by the word "startling." For while we have apparently a vast amount of worthless music being continually inoculated into our unsuspecting public, we have, nevertheless, a corresponding cultivation of the love for good music which contributes much to the support of the concert singer of the present day. The old time lyceum has almost disappeared, but the high-class song recital has taken its place and recitals that would have been barely possible years ago are now frequently given with greatest financial and artistic success. Schumann, Franz, Strauss, Grieg and MacDowell have conquered the field formerly held by the vapid and meaningless compositions of brainless composers who wrote solely to amuse or to appeal to morbid sentimentality. The conditions of travel, also, have been greatly improved. It is now possible to go about in railroad cars and stop at hotels, and at the same time experience very little inconvenience and discomfort. This makes the career of the concert artist a far more desirable one than in former years. Uninviting hotels, frigid cars, poorly prepared meals and the lack of privacy were scarcely the best things to stimulate a high degree of musical inspiration. HEALTH Nevertheless, the girl who would be successful in concert must either possess or acquire good health as her first and all-essential asset. Notwithstanding the marvelous improvement in traveling facilities and accommodations, the nervous strain of public performance is not lessened, and it not infrequently happens that these very facilities enable the avaricious manager to crowd in more concerts and recitals than in former years, with the consequent strain upon the vitality of the singer. Of course, the singer must also possess the foundation for a good natural voice, a sense of hearing capable of being trained to the keenest perception of pitch, quality, rhythm and metre, an attractive personality, a bright mind, a good general education and an artistic temperament--a very extraordinary list, I grant you, but we must remember that the public pays out its money to hear extraordinary people and the would-be singer who does not possess qualifications of this description had better sincerely solicit the advice of some experienced, unbiased teacher or singer before putting forth upon the musical seas in a bark which must meet with certain destruction in weathering the first storm. The teacher who consciously advises a singer to undertake a public career and at the same time knows that such a career would very likely be a failure is beneath the recognition of any honest man or woman. THE SINGER'S EARLY TRAINING The education of the singer should not commence too early, if we mean by education the training of the voice. If you discover that a child has a very remarkable voice, "ear" and musical intelligence you had better let the voice alone and give your attention to the general musical education of the child along the lines of that received by Madame Sembrich, who is a fine violinist and pianist. So few are the teachers who know anything whatever about the child-voice, or who can treat it with any degree of safety, that it is far better to leave it alone than to tamper with it. Encourage the child to sing softly, sweetly and naturally, much as in free fluent conversation, telling him to form the habit of speaking his tones forward "on the lips" rather than in the throat. If you have among your acquaintances some musician or singer of indisputable ability and impeccable honor who can give you disinterested advice have the child go to this friend now and then to ascertain whether any bad and unnatural habits are being formed. Of course we have the famous cases of Patti and others, who seem to have sung from infancy. I have no recollection of the time when I first commenced to sing. I have always sung and gloried in my singing. See to it that your musical child has a good general education. This does not necessarily mean a college or university training. In fact, the amount of music study a singer has to accomplish in these days makes the higher academic training apparently impossible. However, with the great musical advance there has come a demand for higher and better ordered intellectual work among singers. This condition is becoming more and more imperative every day. At the same time you must remember also that nothing should be undertaken that might in any way be liable to undermine or impair the child's health. WHEN TO BEGIN TRAINING The time to begin training depends upon the maturity of the voice and the individual, considered together with the physical condition of the pupil. Some girls are ready to start voice work at sixteen, while others are not really in condition until a somewhat older age. Here again comes the necessity for the teacher of judgment and experience. A teacher who might in any way be influenced by the necessity for securing a pupil or a fee should be avoided as one avoids the shyster lawyer. Starting vocal instruction too early has been the precipice over which many a promising career has been dashed to early oblivion. In choosing a teacher I hardly know what to say, in these days of myriad methods and endless claims. The greatest teachers I have known have been men and women of great simplicity and directness. The perpetrator of the complicated system is normally the creator of vocal failures. The secret of singing is at once a marvelous mystery and again an open secret to those who have realized its simplicity. It cannot be altogether written, nor can it be imparted by words alone. Imitation undoubtedly plays an important part, but it is not everything. The teacher must be one who has actually realized the great truths which underlie the best, simplest and most natural methods of securing results and who must possess the wonderful power of exactly communicating these principles to the pupil. A good teacher is far rarer than a good singer. Singers are often poor teachers, as they destroy the individuality of the pupil by demanding arbitrary imitation. A teacher can only be judged by results, and the pupil should never permit herself to be deluded by advertisements and claims a teacher is unable to substantiate with successful pupils. HABITS OF SPEECH, POISE AND THINKING One of the deep foundation piers of all educational effort is the inculcation of habits. The most successful voice teacher is the one who is most happy in developing habits of correct singing. These habits must be watched with the persistence, perseverance and affectionate care of the scientist. The teacher must realize that the single lapse or violation of a habit may mean the ruin of weeks or months of hard work. One of the most necessary habits a teacher should form is that of speaking with ease, naturalness and vocal charm. Many of our American girls speak with indescribable harshness, slovenliness and shrillness. This is a severe tax upon the sensibilities of a musical person and I know of countless people who suffer acute annoyance from this source. Vowels are emitted with a nasal twang or a throaty growl that seem at times most unpardonable noises when coming from a pretty face. Consonants are juggled and mangled until the words are very difficult to comprehend. Our girls are improving in this respect, but there is still cause for grievous complaint among voice teachers, who find in this one of their most formidable obstacles. Another common natural fault, which is particularly offensive to me, is that of an objectionable bodily poise. I have found throughout my entire career that bodily poise in concert work is of paramount importance, but I seem to have great difficulty in sufficiently impressing this great truth upon young ladies who would be singers. The noted Parisian teacher, Sbriglia, is said to require one entire year to build up and fortify the chest. I have always felt that the best poise is that in which the shoulders are held well back, although not in a stiff or strained position, the upper part of the body leaning forward gently and naturally and the whole frame balanced by a sense of relaxation and ease. In this position the natural equilibrium is not taxed, and a peculiar sensation of non-constraint seems to be noticeable, particularly over the entire area of the front of the torso. This position suggests ease and an absence of that military rigidity which is so fatal to all good vocal effort. It also permits of a freer movement of the abdominal walls, as well as the intercostal muscles, and is thus conducive to the most natural breathing. Too much anatomical explanation is liable to confuse the young singer, and if the matter of breathing can be assisted by poise, just so much is gained. Another important habit that the teacher should see to at the start is that of correct thinking. Most vocal beginners are poor thinkers and fail to realize the vast importance of the mind in all voice work. Unless the teacher has the power of inspiring the pupil to a realization of the great fact that nothing is accomplished in the throat that has not been previously performed in the mind, the path will be a difficult one. During the process of singing the throat and the auxiliary vocal process of breathing are really a part of the brain, or, more specifically, the mind or soul. The body is never more than an instrument. Without the performer it is as voiceless as the piano of Richard Wagner standing in all its solitary silence at Wahnfried--a mute monument of the marvelous thoughts which once rang from its vibrating wires to all parts of the civilized world. We really sing with that which leaves the body after death. It is in the cultivation of this mystery of mysteries, the soul, that most singers fail. The mental ideal is, after all, that which makes the singer. Patti possessed this ideal as a child, and with it the wonderful bodily qualifications which made her immortal. But it requires work to overcome vocal deficiencies, and Patti as a child was known to have been a ceaseless worker and thinker, always trying to bring her little body up to the high æsthetic appreciation of the best artistic interpretation of a given passage. MAURICE STRAKOSCH'S TEN VOCAL COMMANDMENTS It was from Maurice Strakosch that I learned of the methods pursued by Patti in her daily work, and although Strakosch was not a teacher in the commercial sense of the word, as he had comparatively few pupils, he was nevertheless a very fine musician, and there is no doubt that Patti owed a great deal to his careful and insistent régime and instruction. Although our relation was that of impresario and artist, I cannot be grateful enough to him for the advice and instruction I received from him. The technical exercises he employed were exceedingly simple and he gave more attention to how they were sung than to the exercises themselves. I know of no more effective set of exercises than Strakosch's ten daily exercises. They were sung to the different vowels, principally to the vowel "ah," as in "father." Notwithstanding their great simplicity Strakosch gave the greatest possible attention and time to them. Patti used these exercises, which he called his "Ten Commandments for the Singer," daily, and there can be little doubt that the extraordinary preservation of her voice is the result of these simple means. I have used them for years with exceptional results in all cases. However, if the singer has any idea that the mere practice of these exercises to the different vowel sounds will inevitably bring success she is greatly mistaken. These exercises are only valuable when used with vowels correctly and naturally "placed," and that means, in some cases, years of the most careful and painstaking work. Following are the famous "Ten Vocal Commandments," as used by Adelina Patti and several great singers in their daily work. Note their simplicity and gradual increase in difficulty. They are to be transposed at the teacher's discretion to suit the range of the voice and are to be used with the different vowels. [Illustration: I, musical notation] [Illustration: II, musical notation] [Illustration: III, musical notation] [Illustration: IV, musical notation] [Illustration: V, musical notation] [Illustration: VI, musical notation] [Illustration: VII, musical notation] [Illustration: VIII, musical notation] [Illustration: IX, musical notation] [Illustration: X, musical notation] The concert singer of the present day must have linguistic attainments far greater than those in demand some years ago. She is required to sing in English, French, German, Italian and some singers are now attempting the interpretation of songs in Slavic and other tongues. Not only do we have to consider arias and passages from the great oratorios and operas as a part of the present-day repertoire, but the song of the "Lied" type has come to have a valuable significance in all concert work. Many songs intended for the chamber and the salon are now included in programs of concerts and recitals given in our largest auditoriums. Only a very few numbers are in themselves songs written for the concert hall. Most of the numbers now sung at song concerts are really transplanted from either the stage or the chamber. This makes the position of the concert singer an extremely difficult one. Without the dramatic accessories of the opera house or the intimacy of the home circle, she is expected to achieve results varying from the cry of the Valkyries, in _Die Walküre_, to the frail fragrance of Franz' _Es hat die Rose sich beklagt_. I do not wonder that Mme. Schumann-Heink and others have declared that there is nothing more difficult or exhausting than concert singing. The enormous fees paid to great concert singers are not surprising when we consider how very few must be the people who can ever hope to attain great heights in this work. [Illustration: REINALD WERRENRATH. © Mishkin.] REINALD WERRENRATH BIOGRAPHICAL Reinald Werrenrath was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., August 7, 1883. His father, George Werrenrath, was a distinguished singer, and his mother (née Aretta Camp) is the daughter of Henry Camp, who was for many years musical director of Plymouth Church during the ministry there of Henry Ward Beecher. George Werrenrath was a Dane, with an unusually rich tenor voice, trained by the best teachers of his time in Germany, Italy, France and England. During his engagement as leading tenor in the Royal Opera House in Wiesbaden, he left Germany by the advice of Adelina Patti, eventually going to England with Maurice Strakosch, who was then his coach. In London Werrenrath had a fine career, and there was formed a warm and ultimate friendship with Charles Gounod, with whom he studied and toured in concerts through England and Belgium. George Werrenrath came to New York in 1876, by the influence of Mme. Antoinette Sterling and of the well-known Dane, General C. T. Christensen. He immediately became well known by his appearance with the Theodore Thomas Orchestra, as well as by his engagement at Plymouth Church, where he was soloist for seven years. He was probably the first artist to give song-recitals in the United States, while his performances in opera are still cherished in the memories of those people who can look back on some of the fine representations given under the baton of Adolph Neuendorf, at the old Academy of Music, which made the way for the later work at the Metropolitan Opera House. His interpretation of _Lohengrin_ was adjudged most wonderfully poetical. Reinald Werrenrath studied first with his father. At the Boys' High School and at New York University he was leader of musical affairs throughout the eight years spent in those schools. He studied violin with Carl Venth for four years, and had as his vocal teachers Dr. Carl Dufft, Frank King Clark, Dr. Arthur Mees, Percy Rector Stephens and Victor Maurel, giving especial credit for his voice training to years of study with Mr. Stephens whose vocal teaching ideas he sketches in part in the following. He has appeared with immense success in concert and oratorio in all parts of the United States. His talking machine records have been in great demand for years, and his voice is known to thousands who have never seen him. His operatic début was in _Pagliacci_, as _Silvio_, in the Metropolitan Opera House, February 19, 1919, where he later had specially fine success as _Valentine_ in _Faust_ and as the _Toreador_ in _Carmen_. NEW ASPECTS OF THE ART OF SINGING IN AMERICA REINALD WERRENRATH Every now and then someone asks me whether America is really becoming musical. All I can say is that a year ago I, with my accompanist, traveled over 61,000 miles, touching every part of this country and, during that eight months, singing almost nightly when the transit facilities would permit, found everywhere the very greatest enthusiasm for the very best music. Of course, Americans want some numbers on the program with the so-called "human" element; but at the same time they court the best in vocal art and seem never to get enough of it. All of my instruction has been received in America. All of my teachers, with the exception of my father and Victor Maurel, were born in America; so I may be called very much of an American product. Just why Americans should ever have been obsessed with the idea that it was impossible to teach voice successfully on this side of the Atlantic is hard to tell. I have a suspicion that many like the adventure of foreign travel far more than the labor of study. Probably ninety-five per cent. of the pupils who went over did so for the fascinating experience of living in a European environment rather than for the downright purpose of coming back great artists. Therefore, we should not blame the European teachers altogether for the countless failures that have floated back to us almost on every tide. I have recently heard a report that many of the highest-priced and most efficient voice teachers in Italy are Americans who have Italianized their names. Certainly the most successful voice teachers in Berlin were George Ferguson and Frank King Clark, who was at the top of the list also in Paris when he was there. The American singer should remember in these days that, first of all, he must sing in America and in the English language more than in any other. I am not one of those who decry singing in foreign languages. Certain songs, it is true, cannot be translated so that their meaning can be completely understood in English; yet, if the reader will think for a moment, how is the American auditor to understand a single thought of a poem in a language of which he knows nothing? The Italian is a glorious language for the singer, and with it English cannot be compared, with its thirty-one vowel sounds and its many coughing, sputtering consonants. Training in Italian solfeggios is very fine for creating a free, flowing style. Many of the Italian teachers were obsessed with the idea of the big tone. The audiences fired back volleys of "Bravos!" and "Da Capos" when the tenor took off his plumed hat, stood on his toes and howled a high C. That was part of his stock in trade. Naturally, he forced his voice, and most of the men singers quit at the age of fifty. I hope to be in my prime at that time, as my voice seems to grow better each year. Battistini, who was born in 1857, is an exception. His voice, I am told, is remarkably preserved. CLIMATIC CONDITIONS A SERIOUS HANDICAP Climatic conditions in many parts of America prove a serious handicap to the singer. At the same time, according to the law of the survival of the fittest, American singers must take care of themselves much better than the Italians, for instance. The salubrious, balmy climate of most of Italy is ideal for the throat. On our Eastern seaboard I find that fifty per cent. of my audiences in winter seem to have colds and bronchitis. The singer who is obliged to tour must, of course, take every possible precaution against catching cold; and that means becoming infected from exposure to colds when the system is run down. I attempt to avoid colds by securing plenty of outdoor exercise. I always walk to my hotel and to the station when I have time; and I walk as much as I can during the day. When I am not singing I immediately start to play--to fish, swim or hunt in the woods if I can make an opportunity. OPERATIC STUDY In one respect Europe is unquestionably superior to America for the vocal student. The student who wants to sing in opera will find in Europe ten opportunities for gaining experience to one here. While we have a few more opera companies than twenty-five years ago, it is still a great task to secure even an opening. Americans, outside of the great cities, do not seem to be especially inclined toward opera. They will accept a little of it when it is given to them by a superb company like the Metropolitan. In New York we find a public more cosmopolitan than in any other city of the world, with the possible exception of London. In immediate ancestry it is more European than American, and naturally opera becomes a great public demand. Seats sell at fabulous prices and the houses are crowded. Next comes opera at popular prices; and we have one or two very good companies giving that with success. Then there is the opera in America's other cosmopolitan center, Chicago, where many world-famed artists appear. After that, opera in America is hardly worth mentioning. What chance has the student? Only one who for years has been uniformed in a black dress suit and backed into the curve of the grand piano in a recital hall can know what it means to get out on the operatic stage, in those fantastic clothes, walk around, act, sing and at the same time watch the conductor with his ninety men. Only he can know what the difference between singing in concert and on the operatic stage really is. Yet old opera singers who enter the recital field invariably say that it is far harder to get up alone in a large hall and become the whole performance, aided and abetted only by an able accompanist, than it is to sing in opera. The recital has the effect of preserving the fineness of many operatic voices. Modern opera has ruined dozens of fine vocal organs because of the tremendous strain made upon them and the tendency to neglect vocal art for dramatic impression. If there were more of the better _singing_ in opera, such as one hears from Mr. Caruso, there would be less comment upon opera as a bastard art. Operatic work is very exhilarating. The difference between concert and opera for the singer is that between oatmeal porridge and an old vintage champagne. There is no time at the Metropolitan for raw singers. The works in the repertoire must be known so well in the singing and the acting that they may be put on perfectly with the least possible rehearsals. Therefore, the singer has no time for routine. The lack of a foreign name will keep no American singer out of the Metropolitan; but the lack of the ability to save the company hundreds of dollars through needless waits at rehearsals will. NATURAL METHODS OF SINGING Certainly no country in recent years has produced so many "corking" good singers as America. Our voices are fresh, virile, pure and rich; when the teaching is right. Our singers are for the most part finely educated and know how to interpret the texts intelligently. Mr. W. J. Henderson, the eminent New York critic, in his "Art of Singing," gave the following definition, which my former teacher, the late Dr. Carl Dufft, endorsed very highly: "Singing is the expression of a text by means of tones made by the human voice." More and more the truth of this comes to me. Singing is not merely vocalizing but always a means of communication in which the artist must convey the message of the two great minds of the poet and the composer to his fellow man. In this the voice must be as natural as possible, as human as possible, and not merely a sugary tone. The German, the Frenchman, the Englishman and the American strive first for an intelligent interpretation of the text. The Italian thinks of tone first and the text afterward, except in the modern Italian school of realistic singing. For this one must consider the voice normally and sensibly. I owe my treatment of my voice largely to Mr. Stephens, with whom I have studied for the last eight years, taking a lesson every day I am in New York. This is advisable, I believe, because no matter how well one may think one sings, another trained mind with other ears may detect defects that might lead to serious difficulties later. His methods are difficult to describe; but a few main principles may be very interesting to vocalists. My daily work in practice is commenced by stretching exercises, in which I aim to free the muscles covering the upper part of the abdomen and the intercostal muscles at the side and back--all by stretching upward and writhing around, as it were, so that there cannot possibly be any constriction. Then, with my elbows bent and my fists over my head, I stretch the muscles over my shoulders and shoulder blades. Finally, I rotate my head upward and around, so that the muscles of the neck are freed and become very easy and flexible. While I am finishing with the last exercise I begin speaking in a fairly moderate tone such vowel combinations as "OH-AH," "OH-AH," "EE-AY," "EE-AY," "EE-AY-EE-AY-EE-AY," etc. While doing this I walk about the room so that there will not be any suggestion of stiltedness or vocal or muscular interference. At first this is done without the addition of any attempted nasal resonance. Gradually nasal resonance is introduced with different spoken vowels, while at the same time every effort is made to preserve ease and flexibility of the entire body. Then, when it seems as though the right vocal quality is coming, pitch is introduced at the most convenient range and exercises with pitch are taken through the range of the voice. The whole idea is to make the tones as natural and free and pure as possible with the least effort. I am opposed to the old idea of tone placing, in which the pupil toed a mark, set the throat at some prescribed angle, adjusted the tongue in some approved design, and then, gripped like the unfortunate victim in the old-fashioned photographer's irons, attempted to sing a sustained tone or a rapid scale. What was the result--consciousness and stiltedness and, as a rule, a tired throat and a ruined singer. These ideas may seem revolutionary to many. They are only a few of Mr. Stephens' very numerous devices; but for many years they have been of more benefit than anything else in keeping me vocally fit. We in the New World should be on the outlook for advance along all lines. Our American composers have held far too close to European ideals and done too little real thinking for themselves. Our vocal teachers and, for that matter, teachers in all branches of musical art in America have been most progressive in devising new ways and better methods. There will never be an American method of singing because we are too wise not to realize that every pupil needs different and special treatment. What is fine for one might be injurious to the next one. [Illustration: EVAN WILLIAMS.] EVAN WILLIAMS BIOGRAPHICAL Evan Williams, as his name suggests, was of Welsh ancestry, although born in Trumbull County, Ohio, Sept. 7, 1867. As a boy his singing attracted the attention of his friends and neighbors. When a young man he went to Mme. Louise von Fielitsen, in Cleveland, and studied under her for four years. At the end of this time it became necessary for him to earn money immediately, as he had married at the age of twenty. Accordingly he went with the "Primrose and West" minstrels for one season. Everywhere he appeared his voice attracted enthusiastic attention. This aroused his ambition and in 1894 he went to New York where he was engaged at All Angels Church at a yearly salary of $1000.00. Six months later the Marble Collegiate Church took him over at $1500.00 which was shortly raised to $2000.00. In 1896 he appeared at the Worcester Festival with great success and then went to New York to study with James Sauvage for three years. Notwithstanding his long terms of instruction with teachers of high reputation, Mr. Williams felt that he had still much to learn, as he would find himself singing finely one night and so badly on the next that he would resolve never to sing again. Accordingly he studied with Meehan for three years more. Then he retired from the concert stage for three years in order to improve himself. Deciding to appear in public again he went to London where he sang for three years with popular success. However, he was still dissatisfied with his voice. Mr. Williams' personal narrative tells how he got his voice back. His death, May 24, 1918, prevented him from carrying out his project to become a teacher and thus introduce his discoveries. The following, therefore, becomes of interesting historical significance. HOW I REGAINED A LOST VOICE EVAN WILLIAMS There is nothing so disquieting to the singer as the feeling that his voice, upon which his artistic hopes, to say nothing of his livelihood, depend, is not a reliable organ, but a fickle thing which to-day may be in splendid condition but to-morrow may be gone. Time and again I have been driven to the verge of desperation by my own voice. While I am grateful to all of my excellent teachers for the many valuable things they taught me, I had a strong feeling that there was something which I must know and which only I myself could find out for myself. After a very wide experience here and in England I found myself with so little confidence in my ability to produce uniformly excellent results when on the concert stage, that I retired to Akron, Ohio, resolving to spend the rest of my life in teaching. There I remained for four years, thinking out the great problem that confronted me. It is only during the last year that I have become convinced that I have solved it. My musical work has made me well-to-do and I want now to give my ideas to the world so that others may profit if they find them valuable. I have nothing to sell--but I trust that I can put into words, without inventing a new and bewildering nomenclature, something that will prove of practical assistance to young singers as it has been to me. AN INDISPUTABLE RECORD In 1908 I left Akron and resolved to try to reinstate myself in New York as a singer. I also made talking machine records, only to find that seldom could I make a record at the first attempt that was up to the very high standard maintained by the company in the case of all records placed upon the market for sale. This meant a great waste of my time and the company's material and services. It naturally set me thinking. If I could do it one time--why couldn't I do it all the time? There was no contradicting the talking machine record. The machine records the slightest blemish as well as the most perfect tone. There was no getting away from the fact that sometimes my singing was far from what I wished it to be. The strange thing about it all was that my singing did not seem to depend upon the physical condition or feeling of my throat. Some days when my throat felt at its very best the records would come back in a way that I was ashamed of. It is a strange feeling to hear one's own voice from the talking machine. It sounds quite differently from the impression one gets while singing. I began to ponder, why were some of my records poor and others good? After deep thought for a very long period of time, I commenced to make certain postulates which I believe I have since proved (to my own satisfaction at least) to be reasonable and true. They not only resulted in an improvement in my voice, but they enabled me to do at command what I had previously been able to do only occasionally. They are: I. Tone creates its own support. II. Much of the time spent in elaborate breathing exercises (while excellent for the health and valuable to the singer, in a way) do not produce the results that are expected. III. The singer's first studies should be with his brain and ear, rather than through an attempt at muscular control of the breathing muscles. IV. Vocal resonance can be developed through a proper understanding of tone color (vocal timbre), so that uniformly excellent production of tones will result. TONE CREATES ITS OWN SUPPORT The first two postulates can be discussed as one. Tone creates its own support. How does a bird learn to sing? How does the animal learn to cry? How does the lion learn to roar? Or the donkey learn to bray? By practicing breathing exercises? Most certainly not. I have known many, many singers with splendid voices who have never heard of breathing exercises. Go out into the Welsh mining districts and listen to the voices. They learn to breathe by learning how to sing, and by singing. These men have lungs that the average vocal student would give a fortune to possess. By singing correctly they acquire all the lung control that any vocal composition could demand. As a matter of fact, one does not need such a huge amount of breath to sing. The average singer uses entirely too much. A goose has lungs ten times as large as a nightingale but that doesn't make the goose's song lovely to listen to. I have known men with lungs big enough to work a blast furnace who yet had little bits of voices, so small that they were ridiculous. It would be better for most vocal students to emit the breath for five seconds before attacking the tone. One of the reasons for much vocal forcing is too much breath. Maybe I haven't thought about these things! I have spent hours in silence making up my mind. It is my firm conviction that the average person (entirely without instruction in breathing of a special kind) has enough breath to sing any phrase one might be called upon to sing. I think, without question, that teachers and singers have all been working their heads off to develop strength in the wrong direction. Mind you--this is not a sermon against breathing. I believe in plenty of breathing exercises for the sake of one's health. A GOOD POSITION Singers study breathing as though they were trying to learn how to push out the voice or pull it out by suction. By standing in a sensible position with the chest high (but not forced up) the lung capacity of the average individual is quite surprising. A good position can be secured through the old Delsarte exercise which is as follows: I. Stand on the balls of your feet, heels just touching the floor. II. Hold your arms at your side in a relaxed condition. III. Move your arms forward until they form an angle of forty-five degrees with the body. Press the palms down until the chest is up comfortably. IV. Now let your arms drop back without letting your chest fall. Feel a sense of ease and freedom over the whole body. Breathe naturally and deeply. In other words, to "poise" the breath, stand erect, at attention. Most people when called to this "attention" posture stiffen themselves so that they are in a position of resistance. When I say _attention_,--I mean the position in which you have alertness but at the same time complete freedom,--when you can freely smile, sigh, scowl and sneer,--the attention that will permit expansion of the chest with every change of mood. Then, open the mouth without inhaling. Let the breath out for five seconds, close the mouth and inhale through the nostrils. I keep the fact that I breathe into the lungs through the nostrils before me all the time. Again open the mouth without allowing the air to pass in. Practice this until a comfortable stretch is felt in the flesh of the face, the top of the head, the back, the chest and the abdomen. If you stretch violently you will not experience this feeling. SENSATIONS I fully realize that much of what I have said will not be in accord with what is preached, practiced and taught by many vocal teachers and I cannot attempt to reply to any critics. I merely know what sensations and experiences I have had after a lifetime of practical work in a profession which has brought me a fortune. Furthermore I know that anything anyone might say on the subject of the human voice would be at variance with the opinions of others. There is probably no subject in human ken in which there is such a marked difference of opinion. I can merely try to describe my own sensations and vocal experiences. In trying to represent the course of the sensation I experience in producing a good tone, I have employed the following illustration. Imagine two pieces of whip cord. Tie the ends together. Place the knot immediately under the upper lip directly beneath the center bone of the nose, run the strings straight back for an inch, then up over the cheek bones, then down around the uvula, thence down the large cords inside the neck. At a point in the center between the shoulders the cords would split in order to let one set go down the back and the other toward the chest, meeting again under the arm-pits, thence down the short ribs, thence down and joining in another knot slightly back of the pelvic bone. Laugh, if you will, but this is actually the sensation I have repeatedly felt in producing what the talking machine has shown to be a good tone. Remember that there were plenty to laugh at Columbus, Gallileo and even Darius Green of the Flying Machine. Stand in "attention" as directed, with the body responsive and the mind sensitive to physical impressions. When opening the mouth without taking in air a slight stretch will be experienced along the whole track I have described. The poise felt in this position is what permitted Bob Fitzsimmons to strike a deadly blow with a two-inch stroke. It is the responsive poise with which I sing both loud and soft tones. Furthermore, I do not believe in an absolutely relaxed lower jaw as though it had been broken. Who could sing with a broken jaw?--and a broken jaw would represent ideal relaxation. The jaw should be slightly stretched but never strained. I think that the word relaxation, as used by most teachers and as understood by most students, is responsible for more ruined voices than all other terms used in vocal teaching. I have talked this matter over with numberless great singers who are constantly before the public, and their very singing is the best contradiction of this. When you hold your hand out freely before you what is it that keeps it from falling at your side? That same condition controls the jaw. Find it: it is not relaxation. If you would be a perfect singer find the juggler who is balancing a feather. Imagine yourself poised on the top of that feather, and sing without falling off. CONTRASTING TIMBRES THAT LEAD TO A BEAUTIFUL TONE WHEN COMBINED We shall now seek to illustrate two contrasting qualities of tones, between which lies that quality which I sought for so long. The desired quality is not a compromise, but seems to be located half way between two extremes, and may best be brought to the attention of the reader by describing the extremes. The first is a dark quality of tone. To get this, place the tips of the second fingers on the sides of the voice box (Adam's apple) and make a dark almost breathy sound, using "u" as in the word hum. Do this without any signs of strain. Allow the sound to float up into the mouth and nose. To many there will also be a sensation as though the sound were also floating down into the lungs (into both lungs). Do not make any conscious effort to force the sound or place it in any particular location. The sound will do it of its own accord if you do not strain. While the sound is being made, there will be a slight upward pulling of the voice box, a slight tugging at the voice box. This, of course, occurs automatically, and there should be no attempt to control it or promote it. It is nature at work. The tongue, while making this sound, should be limp, with the tip resting on the lower front teeth. All along it is necessary to caution the singer not to strive to do artificial things. Therefore do not poke or stick the tip of your tongue against the front teeth. If your tongue is not strained it will rest there naturally. Work at this exercise until you can fill the mouth and nose (and also seemingly the chest) with a rich, smooth, well-controlled, well-modulated dark sound and do it easily,--with slight effort. Do not try to hold the sound in the throat. The second sound we shall experiment with is the extreme antithesis of the first sound. Its resonance is high and it is bright in every sense. Place the fingers on the joints just in front and above holes in the ears. Open the mouth without inhaling and make the sound of "e" as in when. As the dark sound described before cannot be made too dark this sound cannot be made too strident. It is the extreme from the rumble of the drum to the piercing rasp of the file. I have called it the animal sound, and in calling it strident, please do not infer that the nose, or any part of the mouth or soft palate, should be pinched to make it nasal, in the restricted sense of that term. When I sing this tone it is accompanied with a sensation as though the tone were being reflected downward from the voice box over to each side of the chest just in front of the arm-pits and then downward into the abdomen. Here the great danger arises that the unskilled student will try to produce this sensation, whereas the fact of the matter is that the sensation is the accompaniment of the properly produced tone and cannot be made artificially. Don't work for the sensation, work for the tone that produces such a sensation. At the same time the tone has a sensation of upward reflection, as though it arose at the back of the voice box and separated there, passed up behind the jaws to the points where your fingers are resting, entering the mouth from above, as it were from a point just between the hard and soft palates, and becoming one sound in the mouth. The uvula and part of the soft palate should be associated with the dark sound. The hard palate and part of the soft palate should be associated with the strident tone. THE TONGUE POSITION In making the strident sound the tongue should rest in the same position as for the dark sound. The dark tone never changes and is the basic sound which gives fullness, foundation, depth to the ultimate tone. Without it all voices are thin and unsubstantial. The nearer the singer gets to this the nearer he approaches the great vibrating base upon which the world is founded. Remember that the dark tone never changes. It is the background, the canvas upon which the singer paints his infinite moods by means of different vowels, emotions, and the tone colors which are derived in numberless modifications from the strident tone. Another simile may bring the subject nearer to the reader student. Imagine the dark tone and all the sensations in different parts of the body as a kind of atmosphere or gas which requires to be set on fire by the electric spark of the strident tone. The dark tone is all necessary, but it is useless unless it is properly electrified by the strident tone. A PRACTICAL STEP How shall we utilize what we have learned, so that the student may convince himself that herein ties the truth which, properly understood and sensibly applied, will lead to a means of improving his tone. If the foregoing has been carefully read and understood, the following exercise to get the tone which results from a combination of the dark and the strident is simple. I. Stand erect as directed. II. Open the mouth _without inhaling_. III. Produce the dark tone ("u" as in hum). IV. Close the mouth and allow the air to pass in and out of the nostrils for a few seconds. V. Open the mouth without inhaling. VI. Make the strident sound ("e" as in when). VII. Close the mouth and let the air pass in and out of nostrils a few seconds. VIII. Open the mouth without inhaling. IX. Sing the vowel "Ah" as in _father_ in such a manner that it is a combination of the dark tone and the strident tone. X. Do this in such a way that all of the breathy disagreeable features of the dark tone disappear but its foundation features remain to give it fullness and roundness, while all of the disagreeable features of the strident tone disappear although its color-giving, light-giving, life-giving characteristics are retained to give the combination-tone richness and sweetness. A beautiful result is inevitable, if the principle is properly understood. I have tried this with many people who have sung but little before in their lives and who were not conscious of having interesting voices. Without a long course of vocal lessons or anything of the sort they have been able to produce in a short time--a very few minutes--a tone that would be admired by any critic. A COMFORTABLE PITCH It is to be assumed that the student will, in these experiments, take the pitch in his voice which is most comfortable. Having mastered the combination tone on "Ah" at any pitch, it will be easy to try other pitches and other vowels. "Ah" is the natural vowel, but having secured the "know how" through a correct production of "Ah" the same results may be attained with any other vowel produced in a similar way. "E" as in _see_ has of course more of the strident quality, the high, bright quality and "OO" as in moon more of the dark, but even these extreme tones may be so placed that they become enriched through the employment of resonance of all those parts of the mouth, nose and body which may be brought naturally to reinforce them. "PING" I have never met a singer who was not looking for "ping" or what is called brightness. Most voices are hopelessly dead, and therefore lack sweetness. The voices are filled with night--black hollow gloomy night or else they are as strident as the caterwauling of a Tom Cat. The happy mean between the extremes is the area in which the singer's greatest results are attained. Think of your tone, always. The breath will then take care of itself. If the tone has a tremulo, or sounds stuffy or sounds weak, you have not apportioned the right amount of breath to it, but you are not going to gain this information by thinking of the breath but by thinking of the tone. LET YOUR OWN EARS CONVINCE YOU Now, that is all there is to it. I am not striving to found a method or anything of the sort; but I have seen students waste years on what is called "voice placing" and not come to anything like the same result that will come after the accomplishment of this simple matter. Try it out with your own voice. You will see in a short time what it will do. Your own ears will convince you, to say nothing of the ears of your friends. All I know is that after I discovered this, it was possible for me to employ it and make records with so small a percentage of discard that I have been surprised. It remains for the intelligent teachers to apply such knowledge to a systematic vocal course of exercises, studies and songs, which will help the pupil to progress most rapidly. Don't think that I am pretending to tell all that there is to vocal culture in an hour. It is a great and important study upon which I have spent a lifetime. However, as I said before, I have nothing to sell and I am only too happy to give this information which has cost me so many hours of thought to crystallize. Typographical errors corrected by the transcriber of this etext: Talmadge=>Talmage Artious=>Artibus citadal=>citadel Wohltemperites=>Wohltemperiertes liebenswurdig=>liebenswürdig Délibes=>Delibes Words not changed: unforgetable, skilful, Beyreuth, marvelous 
38153	----	produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) STARS OF THE OPERA BY MABEL WAGNALLS [Illustration: Photographs Copyright by Aimé Dupont and Falk, New York. "STARS OF THE OPERA."] STARS OF THE OPERA A Description of Operas & a Series of Personal Interviews with Marcela Sembrich, Emma Eames, Emma Calve, Lillian Nordica, Lilli Lehmann, Geraldine Farrar & Nellie Melba BY MABEL WAGNALLS Author of "Miserere," "Selma, the Soprano," etc. REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY NEW YORK & LONDON 1909 Copyright, 1899, and 1907 BY FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY Registered at Stationers' Hall, London [Printed in the United States] AUTHOR'S NOTE _All the interviews in this book have been proof-read by the singers_ Published, September, 1907 To those who love music but have no opportunity to familiarize themselves with grand opera this book is respectfully dedicated TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE AN INTERVIEW WITH MARCELLA SEMBRICH 13 "SEMIRAMIDE" 25 A CALL ON EMMA EAMES 43 "FAUST" 57 "WERTHER" 79 CALVÉ AND "CARMEN" 105 "CARMEN" 117 "HAMLET" 143 A TALK WITH LILLIAN NORDICA 169 "LOHENGRIN" 185 "AIDA" 215 "THE HUGUENOTS" 239 AN HOUR WITH LILLI LEHMANN 265 "THE FLYING DUTCHMAN" 279 MELBA, THE AUSTRALIAN NIGHTINGALE 303 "LAKME" 315 "I PAGLIACCI" 337 "ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE" 357 THE GENIUS OF GERALDINE FARRAR 369 "MADAME BUTTERFLY" 379 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Group of Miniature Portraits, "Stars of the Opera" _Frontispiece_ Marcella Sembrich 15 Sembrich as Rosina in "The Barber of Seville" 22 Emma Eames 45 Melba as Marguerite in "Faust" 64 Emma Calvé 107 Calvé as Carmen 128 Calvé as Ophelia in "Hamlet" 164 Lillian Nordica 171 Nordica as Brunhilde in "Siegfried" 182 Eames as Elsa in "Lohengrin" 202 Nordica as Aida 220 Lilli Lehmann 267 Lehmann as Isolde in "Tristan and Isolde" 270 Lehmann as Venus in "Tannhäuser" 276 Nellie Melba 305 Melba as Elizabeth in "Tannhäuser" 312 Geraldine Farrar 371 Miss Farrar as "Madame Butterfly" 384 An Interview with Marcella Sembrich [Illustration: Copyright by Aimé Dupont, N. Y. MARCELLA SEMBRICH.] STARS OF THE OPERA AN INTERVIEW WITH MARCELLA SEMBRICH Early in the season of 1898-99 there was a performance of "Traviata" in the Metropolitan Opera-House which might be described as "an occasion of superlatives"--including the largest auditorium, the biggest audience, the finest singers. Grand opera in itself is a culmination and combination of the greatest efforts of the greatest minds. There is, in the first place, the plot of the libretto, which in the case of "Traviata" was the masterpiece of Dumas, France's greatest dramatist--a man who labored all his life as tho achievement required only work, and who yet possessed such mental power as no amount of work could achieve. After Dumas comes the librettist who transposed the story into suitable Italian verse to be set to music. And then we have the work, the inmost thoughts, of Giuseppe Verdi, Italy's greatest living composer. There was a day when each of these sparkling melodies that now delight the whole world was born in the soul of Verdi, and heard by him alone. But he patiently put upon paper every note that his years of study and his gifted soul impelled. The work of the composer, the dramatist, and the librettist belongs to the past, however, and that audience of five thousand people did not bestow much thought on them. Nor did they think very often of the orchestra, composed of fifty thorough musicians, who really worked more during the performance than any of the other participants. It may be mentioned here that in all grand operas the orchestra plays continually; it is the wall upon which the picture is hung. There may be pauses in the singing, but the conductor's baton never rests. People seldom appreciate the vast knowledge of music and the remarkable ability in sight-reading which these orchestra players possess. Not one of them but has worked at his art from childhood; most of them play several different instruments; and they all hold as a creed that a false note is a sin, and a variation in rhythm is a fall from grace. The director is their temporary deity who commands the orchestra beneath and the stage above--a little universe of music. He holds all together and dictates the tempo, the expression, and the phrasing. His commands are for the time being immutable as the laws of nature, for any serious disobedience would cause the whole structure to fall to pieces. The five thousand listeners gave some applause to the director after the playing of the introduction, and they gave a little more to the chorus--those earnest workers who serve grand opera as the stokers do a ship. Then the tenor received a good deal of applause--his reward for training his voice, studying music, memorizing operas, overcoming nervousness, and singing in public twenty years. But the great applause, the "bravos," the cheering, the excitement, were reserved for the star, the soprano--Marcella Sembrich! It is always impressive to witness such a success. It is inspiring to know that one woman can so stir the hearts of the people. Madame Sembrich's voice is as perfect a voice as the world has ever heard. Yet her greatness consists more in her art than in her voice. She has not been satisfied merely to use her gift as nature gave it, but she has acquired a mastery of tone-coloring so that every tone has a meaning of its own, and seems to express a distinct emotion. In the last act of "Traviata" the quality of her tones, always beautiful, but ever varying as her art dictates, conveys to the listener surely and truly the approach of death and the hope of heaven. This is great art indeed. No wonder the audience fairly gasps as the last sweet tone leaves the lips of the pale Violetta and soars away into infinite space. It was the day after "Traviata," when, in response to a knock at Madame Sembrich's door in the Hotel Savoy, a mellow voice said, "Come in." On my obeying this summons, the singer was "discovered"--as the librettos have it--standing near her grand piano, alone, and as unostentatious as your own sister. There was no effect of the impressive prima donna, all flowers and frills and _frou-frou_. She was quite alone, just as lesser mortals sometimes are; and she furthermore spared her visitor from any sense of interrupted work, or great haste, or the magnitude of the occasion. She was just a courteous, quiet lady who seated herself beside the visitor and talked earnestly about music and work. When asked how early she began to study the art seriously, she replied: "When I was six years old. My father taught me the piano until I was ten. He was a very gifted man. Then I also studied for a while with Dr. Stengel, who is now my husband, and with Epstein in Vienna." On learning that her visitor was acquainted with Vienna, Madame Sembrich's face lighted up (she has a radiant smile): "Ach! then you speak German?" And from this point she talked altogether in German, which is more akin to her native Polish. She is fluent, however, in all the continental languages. "We have to know them all, for we need them constantly," she explained. In reply to other questions, the singer told enthusiastically of her early work. "I can not say I was ever discouraged, for I so enjoyed my art that it was always of absorbing interest; but my whole life has been made up of hard work, always work. I also studied the violin and composition, and I used to rise early and go to bed late, for I worked six and seven hours a day." Madame Sembrich is one of the most thorough, all-round musicians on the lyric stage to-day, for she is not only a singer, but has played successfully in public on piano and violin. Her rare gift of voice was not discovered until she was seventeen. Then her great knowledge of music enabled her quickly to develop the voice, and it was not long before she appeared in opera and made her first great success in London. When asked if she was ever nervous, the answer came promptly: "Oh, yes, very nervous! _Now_ I am always nervous. But in the early days it was not so bad. When you are young and have a beautiful voice, you think it is all that is necessary, and are not nervous, because you do not realize the depth and extent of art. But as you grow older you appreciate the possibilities of art--you know what it implies, and how perfect you wish to make it; and then you are nervous. It is more nervous work, too, for such artists as Madame Patti, Madame Melba, or myself, who travel about and sing first in one place and then in another, because each time we have to win our audience and make a new conquest. In Europe, at the great opera-houses such as are in Vienna or Berlin, it is different, for there the singers are engaged permanently. The public knows how well they can do, and if sometimes they are not at their best, they know the public will excuse them. I find I am more nervous, too, as my reputation increases, for more is expected of me." Referring again to her studies, Madame Sembrich counted over thirty-seven full operas that she has learned. It is well to consider for a moment what this implies. Aside from the native gifts of voice, musical talent, and dramatic temperament, there must be years of practise in singing and acting; then the words of each opera must be memorized, sometimes in three languages. After studying, originating, and mastering the action, the music must be learned, and every word wedded to a certain tone, and every tone to a certain beat of time. Herein the actress has but a slight task compared to the opera singer, for in the drama it matters not if a word comes a moment sooner or later; but in grand opera a second's deviation might cause a discord. [Illustration: Copyright by Aimé Dupont, N. Y. Sembrich as Rosina in "The Barber of Seville."] Madame Sembrich delights in the opera "Traviata" because of its intense action. "But I like, too, the lighter operas. The merriment of 'Rosina' amuses me as I act it." One more question was asked as her visitor arose to go. "Is it true, Madame Sembrich, that you walk two hours every day?" "Yes," she answered good-humoredly. "I had just returned to-day when you came. I started at eleven and got home at one." Regular and rigorous in her daily life even yet! Upon meeting Madame Sembrich, one receives an impression of graciousness and greatness not to be forgotten. "Semiramide" "SEMIRAMIDE" All great prima donnas have in their repertoire the majority of famous operas, but through fitness of physique or temperament or quality of voice they become associated with certain rôles more than others. Sometimes it is merely a caprice of the public that holds them to a particular line of operas. At present Madame Sembrich is regarded as the great exponent of the old Italian school. Among her thirty-seven operas "Semiramide" is one in which New Yorkers have not yet heard her; but it is in some respects the most typical of its kind. "Semiramide" belongs to the old style of Italian operas. It is light in substance, but glistening with scales and cadenzas that are scattered over it like spangles upon tulle. Rossini's music is always beautiful but conveys little meaning, and it impresses the modern musical taste like a meal of bonbons. Although Semiramis lived hundreds of years before the Christian era, we listen in vain for any ancient atmosphere to the composition or for the "_melodrame tragico_," as designated by the libretto. This music would be as suitable to the "Barber of Seville" as to the "Queen of Babylon." In other words, the old operas were a series of separate songs adapted to a connected story, whereas we now expect the score so thoroughly to embody the text that the two are inseparable. "Semiramide," however, bears several claims to distinction that prevent the possibility of extinction. It is the opera _par excellence_ of duets. They are the delightful, old-fashioned kind, wherein the two voices are side by side, only separated by a perfect third; and when the conductor has whipped up a good tempo away they go like a span of horses, over hills and valleys of scales and arpeggios, bridged-over intervals, and clumps of trills. Differing from all other operas, this one gives as much prominence to the contralto as to the soprano. They must have equal facility of execution; and, indeed, none of the rôles are exempt from this demand. Tenor, contralto, baritone, and bass vie with each other in performing dangerous feats of vocal agility. There are passages where they all, one after another, run up a scale and land on a certain note, like athletes jumping from a spring-board. We smile at such display, and are inclined to regard the opera as one big solfeggio; but let it not be forgotten that this is the old Italian style, and interesting from this point of view. Another claim to lasting fame is its overture--one of the prettiest, happiest, showiest orchestral compositions extant. It is a stock program piece, being simple enough for any orchestra to perform and yet rousing enough always to elicit applause. The opening scene represents a temple wherein Oroe, the chief of the Magi, is discovered kneeling before an altar. He has received a celestial revelation of some dark crime that is awaiting vengeance, and his first short recitative refers to this secret. Arising from his knees, Oroe orders the gates of the temple to be opened. The Assyrian multitude enter bearing offerings and garlands, while they sing a light melody that would do for a modern topical song. Idrenus, an Indian prince, also comes in with his attendants, bearing incense and offerings. He is the tenor, but unimportant, because this opera has no love-scene, and consequently little use for a tenor. Assur, an Assyrian potentate, is another devout supplicant at the altar of Belus. We soon learn the occasion of these earnest efforts to propitiate the gods: Semiramis, the queen, will to-day select a successor to the late King Ninus. A very good example of what we consider the incongruities of the old school is found in these first two arias of Idrenus and Assur. The tenor comes in alone and delivers a flourishing solo, ornate as his costume. Then Assur, the basso, makes his entrance and sings in a lower key the same remarkable pyrotechnics. This antagonizes the fundamental rule of modern opera, which requires each character to maintain a musical individuality. There is some further conversation in the form of a terzetto between Idrenus, Assur, and Oroe, and the fact is disclosed that Assur expects the queen's choice to fall on him. Another light and bright chorus announces the entrance of Semiramis. She is represented as young and beautiful, altho she is a widow and the mother of a son who mysteriously disappeared years before the story opens. But radiant as is her appearance, Semiramis opens the ceremonies with uneasiness, for she has determined to make Arsaces the future king. He is a young army officer, and there is no just reason why he should be favored; but the queen has become enamored of him. Arsaces, however, is unconscious of her infatuation. She has summoned him to this ceremony; but he has not yet arrived, and for this reason she hesitates. In a quartet that is worked up like a rondo upon a very pleasing theme, the others urge her to begin. She reluctantly steps forward, but at her first mention of the dead king there is a flash of lightning and the sacred fires are extinguished. The people regard this as a dire omen. Oroe glances knowingly at both Semiramis and Assur as he again refers to a crime that has aroused the wrath of the gods. He orders the ceremonies to be postponed pending the arrival of a sacred oracle from Memphis. The queen and her attendants withdraw, and the temple is vacated. The orchestra plays through several pages of sixty-fourth and thirty-second notes, after which the interesting and important Arsaces enters with two slaves who bring a casket. Arsaces is always a very youthful and impossible-looking general, in spite of his glittering cuirass, for be it known this is the contralto rôle, and, musically speaking, a very great one. We learn from his first recitative that this casket contains precious documents and relics of the late king which have been guarded and concealed by Phradates, the supposed father of Arsaces. Phradates has recently died, and in compliance with his request Arsaces brings these treasures to the high priest. We also learn that the young general is puzzled over the queen's summons; and last, but not least, we learn that he is in love with the beautiful Princess Azema. The mere mention of her name starts him to singing a rapturous song, bubbling over with brilliant roulades. After presenting his casket to the high priest, Arsaces encounters Assur, who soon makes it known that he also loves the fair Azema. This so maddens Arsaces that he resolves at once to ask Semiramis for the hand of the princess. These rivals cordially hate each other, but Rossini inspires them to sing the same melodies, and their voices mingle in beautiful harmony of tone and rhythm. The second rising of the curtain reveals Semiramis reclining under a bower in her palace garden. She is surrounded by maidens and slaves who sing languid, luxuriant melodies for her diversion. Rossini's style is well suited to this scene. As the arias are presented one by one, it is like unfolding the contents of an Assyrian treasure-chest full of shimmering silks and glittering jewels. Among this collection there is one gem called the "Bel Raggio," a name as famous in its way as the Koh-i-noor. This musical brilliant belongs to Queen Semiramis, who displays its scintillating beauty with evident pride. The "Bel Raggio" is one of the four great corner-stones of the bravura singer's repertoire, of which the remaining three are: "Una voce poco fa," also by Rossini; the Dinorah "Shadow Song," and Eckert's "Echo Song." When listening to "Bel Raggio" one should never try to follow the words or even wonder what she is saying. Just listen to the music. Those radiant, ravishing, intoxicating warbles and runs tell one plainly enough that she is happy, and this is sufficient. Semiramis is awaiting Arsaces and the oracle from Memphis. The latter is received first, and bears the cheering words, "Thy peace shall be restored with the return of Arsaces." True to the nature of oracles, this one has a double meaning, and Semiramis construes it in the wrong way. When Arsaces enters there follows a bevy of famous duets. But the conversation is quite at cross purposes. Arsaces tells of a long-cherished love, which Semiramis thinks is for herself. She promises that all his hopes shall be realized, whereupon the two wander off side by side through a forest of cadences, roulades, and scales. They sometimes become separated, when the soprano pauses to run up the scale-ladder and pluck a brilliant high note, or the contralto lingers to pick up tones that are rich and full as fallen fruit; but they finally emerge together, trilling high and low like birds from a thicket. The third scene represents a magnificent hall in the palace. There are, of course, a throne and other "properties," but most conspicuous is the tomb or mausoleum of Ninus. For a second time the Assyrian noblemen and people gather to hear the appointment of a new king. As they sing a sweeping march, Semiramis enters more gorgeously arrayed than ever. She takes her place at the throne, and with an imperious gesture commands allegiance to the king of her choice. These regal phrases contain such a prodigality of dazzling colorature that we are reminded of the far-famed hanging gardens devised by this same extravagant queen. In the matter of lavish display the music of "Semiramide" is strikingly appropriate. Assur, Arsaces, Idrenus, and Oroe vow obedience, and their hymn-like ensemble is one of the grandest themes Rossini ever composed. Like the prayer from Weber's "Freischütz," this quintet has long held a place in church choir-books, and a more religious and inspiring melody could hardly be imagined. The soprano scatters delicious appoggiaturas and cadenzas above the steady and noble ensemble like flowers upon an altar. The "Semiramide Quintet" is another one of its claims to lasting fame. In a lighter vein is the queen's next proclamation, to the effect that the future king shall also be her husband. This arouses general surprise. But when she finally designates Arsaces, the amazement on all sides is loud. Assur demands justice from the queen, insinuating some secret compact that she dare not disregard. He is haughtily silenced by Semiramis, who at the same time bestows upon him the hand of fair Azema. Poor Arsaces is beside himself. He tries to explain, but the queen will listen to no remonstrances. An altar is brought forward, and the priests are about to pronounce the marriage bans when a hollow, subterranean sound and distant thunder cause consternation. The people are horrified to behold the tomb of Ninus slowly open and its occupant step forth. Turning to Arsaces, the ghost bids him avenge a terrible crime: "With courage into my tomb descend; there to my ashes a victim thou shalt offer. But first obey the counsel of the priest." The ghost disappears, and the act closes with a strong chorus of dismay. Semiramis leads the singing, and for once her music has only prim quarter-notes and half-notes: her colorature is all frightened away. The next act contains an interview between Assur and Semiramis, wherein we learn about the crime so often referred to. The late King Ninus was poisoned by Assur, who had been promised the throne. But the guilty queen has since preferred Arsaces, and this explains Assur's great anger. He threatens to kill the young favorite; but Semiramis has resumed her ostentatious manner and music, and will not heed his words. There follows a scene in the queen's apartment. She is still striving to win Arsaces, but her overtures repel him more than ever. He has just returned from an interview with the priest. The contents of the casket have been revealed to him, and he shows Semiramis a paper proving the startling fact that Arsaces himself is her long-lost son. He has also learned that Ninus, his father, was murdered. Remorse promptly overtakes the queen. She weeps and wails in chromatics and scales that quite touch Arsaces. They sing a glorious duet that is like a benediction, so noble and pure are its harmonies. It is called "Giorno d'orrore" (day of horror). Arsaces bids his mother adieu. He is going to the tomb to avenge his father's death, tho he knows not how nor whom he shall strike. It rests with the gods to guide him; he only obeys the command. There follows another smoothly flowing duet resembling all the others in its simple structure, unmistakable rhythm, and prominent melody. The finale of "Semiramide" has little to commend it, being absurd in action and presenting only one pleasing or noticeable theme. This is a dainty, quaint violin passage that delighted us in the overture, but which we never thought of connecting with a tragic climax. How different is this tomb music from that of Gounod's "Romeo and Juliet!" There the marvelous harmonies are like sweet dreams accompanying the sleep of death, but here we are only conscious of the "deep, damp vault, the darkness and the worm." The chief absurdity of this scene lies in the fact that it should be too dark for the characters to see each other and yet it must be light enough for the audience to see everything. Another incongruity is the assembling of all the principals and a good-sized chorus in this tomb where we expected Arsaces alone. But it is explained that Assur heard of the hero's coming and planned to follow with the intention of killing him; Oroe heard of Assur's plan and brings an armed guard to protect Arsaces; and, finally, Semiramis follows because she is anxious about everybody and everything. They enter at different times; grope around among tombs, and pretend not to see each other. Arsaces finally hears and recognizes the voice of Assur. He has no doubt that the gods have sent Assur to be the victim. The hero promptly stabs in the direction of the voice, but because it is so very dark he happens to kill Semiramis instead of Assur. But this mistake does not much affect either the music or the action. The final chorus of the opera is as light and bright as the first. A Call on Emma Eames [Illustration: Copyright by Falk, N. Y. EMMA EAMES.] A CALL ON EMMA EAMES A call at the Hotel Marie Antoinette is a veritable eighteenth-century dream. A powdered footman in satin knee-breeches and the full court costume of that period flings open the great glass doors as you enter, and another one escorts you around some columns, and through some curtains, and down some steps to the main reception-room, where you wait while your name is announced. The Hotel Marie Antoinette is very exclusive, so you happen to be alone in this great apartment, with its stained-glass dome and carved-oak walls; alone, excepting for the pretty soft-voiced maid who is arrayed as were the ladies-in-waiting of the Trianon. She assists you in removing your wraps, and at the same time talks enthusiastically about the great personage you have come to see. "We all here just love her, she is so gracious and appreciative of everything we do, and so kind to us. She gives us tickets to the opera, and she isn't at all proud or haughty. She often comes in here of an afternoon to have tea. There is her corner where she always sits"--and the maid points quite reverentially to a dainty recess curtained with tapestries and dreamily illumined by a huge pendant red globe. As your glance roams on, you find many objects that hold your attention. There are historic cabinets of rare value and workmanship, little tea-tables beside the various couches, bearing trays of antique china and tiny spoons of old silver, all sought and selected from the castles and treasure-rooms of Europe. There is one dainty solid gold clock that belonged to Marie Antoinette and was used in her boudoir. Another one which she also owned is jeweled with turquoise and garnets. Many valuable miniatures of the unfortunate queen and her family are on the desks and writing-tables. In one enticing alcove are two rows of sumptuous volumes bound in red and gold whose mere titles set one to dreaming of court intrigues and palace revels. "The Secret Memoirs of the Court" comprise one set of ten books; ten more are devoted to Napoleon, and "The Life and Times of Louis XV." also occupies much shelf-room; while on the center-table is a collection of engravings portraying the life of Marie Antoinette. You quite feel yourself a court lady by this time; and when the powdered dignitary again appears and calls out your name in stately tones, you follow him with a sense of importance quite pleasant and unusual. You are led past more columns and through more curtains, until finally he leaves you in a moderate-sized ante-room. Here you wait for some moments, expectantly watching the doorway by which you entered, when suddenly, on the opposite side of the room, some folding-doors which you had not noticed are flung wide open by unseen hands, and behold the queen--of grand opera, Madame Emma Eames! It was indeed a right royal vision I beheld: a beautiful woman, in every sense of the term, clad in a fawn-colored gown of rich design, and bejeweled with chains of pearls and a brooch of diamonds. She was seated on a pale satin divan, but came forward to greet her visitor, and shook hands cordially. Madame Eames is more than beautiful, for together with regular features and soft curves she has a strong face and a pose of the head that is all determination and force. She is tall and full-figured, her hair is dark, and her eyes are very blue. She displayed a charming smile as she motioned her visitor to a seat near by, and then followed a rapid sequence of questions and answers. Madame Eames showed a kindly response to her visitor's spirit of earnestness, and tried to tell as much as possible in every reply she made. First in order of interest is the fact that she was born, August 13, 1867, in Shanghai, China. There's a beginning for you!--enough to crush an ordinary mortal. But Emma Eames took it otherwise; and all who know of her now must admit that to be born under the star of the East on the thirteenth day of the month is after all not bad. As soon as she was old enough to walk she left the land of her birth and came with her mother and father (who was a lawyer of the international courts) to their native home, the city of Bath, in Maine. Here she studied music with her mother, going later on to Boston and finally to Paris, where she worked with indomitable will studying operas, dramatic action, voice culture, and especially French. This last is very important for those aiming to sing publicly in Paris, for the people there will not tolerate any weakness of pronunciation. When asked if she ever had time for any social pleasures, Madame Eames answered very earnestly: "I have never done anything in my life but work. I cared for other pleasures just as any girl does, but have always foregone them." As a result of this ceaseless work she was fitted for the operatic stage in two years' time. "It was Gounod himself who selected me to sing in his opera 'Romeo and Juliet.' He taught me that music, and also 'Faust.' He was a most lovable old man, so modest, and above all sincere and truth-loving in his music. He often said to me, 'Never degrade music, the one divine language on earth, to express a lie.' When teaching a phrase, instead of dictating, as you would expect so great a man to do, he always asked, 'How do you _feel_ when you hear that? Sing it as _you feel it_, not what I feel or tell you.' And he could sing so exquisitely! Yes, old as he was, and he had just the smallest possible voice, yet it was delightful to hear." Madame Eames's tones were tender and thoughtful as she recalled these reminiscences of her beloved master. The number thirteen looms up again in Madame Eames's history as the date of her great début. It was the evening of March 13, 1889, in the world's most beautiful opera-house, that the swaying pendants of its great chandelier vibrated to the sound of a new voice and the marble walls of its ornate halls reverberated to the sound of a new name--"Emma Eames, la jeune Américaine." No wonder she made a sensation; she is the ideal Juliet, youthful, beautiful, and with a voice of golden timbre. A more lovely scene and more tender tragedy has never been depicted in music than is the last act of this opera. The beholder sees in the somber setting of an iron-barred tomb the white-clad form of Juliet lying upon a bier that is raised like an altar above several steps. There are loose flowers still unwithered scattered near the silent sleeper, and one pale torch burns restlessly in a brazier at her head. No other movement; no change on the stage for many minutes. But the listeners, in this pause, are brought heart to heart with the gentle composer, who sleeps himself now in the Pantheon of Paris. Gounod has enwrapped this scene in ethereal harmonies that make one think of Death not as the King of Terrors, but as the Queen of Repose. The principal melody is a lulling, loving strain that floats and fades away like a final "hush" to rest. The classic purity of Madame Eames's beauty impresses itself in these moments perhaps more than any other, and the nobility of her voice reveals itself, in the succeeding dramatic climax of the opera, to the fullest. In speaking now of her début, the singer says that she was very nervous, "for, before the public has approved, you don't feel sure that you know anything. After this, there is some foundation for your nerves to rest on, altho you realize how much there is still to learn. But I am always nervous even yet, never knowing what trick my nerves may play on me. No, my memory gives me no anxiety, for I fortunately have a very reliable one. If by any chance I forget a word on the stage, I know my health is run down, and I then at once take a rest for several days." But Emma Eames does not take many such rests. Young as she is, she has already sung in twenty-one different operas with unvarying success, in England, France, and Italy as well as her own country. When studying a new rôle she makes every effort to be accurate in all details. "I always give great thought to my costumes, but when once I have studied thoroughly into the period represented and feel convinced that my designs are correct, I never change them. When one set is shabby I merely have it duplicated." Little wonder a prima donna has no time for social gayety when you consider all the accessories to her art. Aside from the study and actual performing, she must take proper exercise for her health, must attend rehearsals, give time to the costumer--and, also, to the many interviewers. Madame Eames smiled at this suggestion, and said: "I don't mind any of these, but I do dread having my photograph taken. We have to put on the entire costumes of different operas: wigs, stockings, gloves, slippers--everything as tho ready to go on with our lines, and all just to stand around in a studio and pose. It is terrible; it takes a whole day sometimes." A question about her method of study brought forth the fact that at one time she was quite misdirected in the use of her voice. "I was turned entirely in the wrong direction, and it is no exaggeration to say that I have fought the battle out step by step and note by note all alone--or, rather, in the very presence of the public. When I first appeared my voice-control was uncertain; I did not dare take any liberties with my tones. I was in constant anxiety, and miserable because I had not the power of voice-emission that I wanted. I assure you in those days I was sometimes so discouraged that I thought seriously of giving up my profession." An astounding assertion this will seem to the thousands of listeners enthralled by her voice to-day. But Madame Eames was very serious, and she added philosophically: "After all, I don't think one can attain anything worth having unless one has suffered deeply." Every summer Madame Eames takes a six-weeks' vacation in her Italian castle near Florence. I was shown a description of this edifice, which reads like a page of old history. The sullen gray stone walls are six feet thick, and the heavy doors with their great iron hinges are all carved by hand, as indeed is all the workmanship on the place. The main hall of the castle is sixty feet long and twenty-five feet wide. There are four massive fireplaces in this one apartment, and a wooden balcony reached by a broad stairway runs all around the second story of the hall. The ceiling is of carved oak, and a reproduction of a famous one in Florence. Everything is in accord with the traditions of the Middle Ages. Madame Eames takes great delight in this castle, and she has with her numerous photographs of it. There will probably be many guests in those halls; but even if the gifted owner lived there alone it would always seem peopled by a large assemblage, for Madame Eames studies much during these vacations, and the mystic characters of her repertoire may be said to hover ever near. The castle is to be furnished with rich hangings and historic trophies; but most priceless of all should be counted the music furnished by her own rare voice. This will soar out and reecho at all hours; sometimes a memory of Elsa, and again a thought of Sieglinde. It were indeed a pity to fling the stray tones of a great voice upon crude walls and cramped quarters; let them rather resound and reverberate, and perchance be preserved, by the listening atoms of carved wood and chiseled stone. If the earth is God's garden and we are the plants that grow, then Madame Eames must be likened to a rare orchid, radiant in the sunshine of great success, and showered with all possible blessings. "Faust" "FAUST" Faust is the opera in which Madame Eames has appeared most often in this country. No less than sixteen composers have used Goethe's poem as a libretto. Many of these works are excellent, and frequently we hear excerpts from them in our concerts. But Gounod has clad the words in musical raiment of such surpassing loveliness that he has almost robbed Goethe of his masterpiece. At this day, on hearing the name Faust we think of the opera simultaneously with, if not before, the poem. He has made of it a "grand opera" in every sense; and yet so abounding in melody that even an untrained ear is captured. There is no overture. It is a fact without a cause that some operas have overtures and some have not. "Faust" opens with a short orchestral prelude that is somber and subdued--quite suggestive of the doubt and darkness that characterize the scene upon which the curtain rises. Faust, the philosopher, the student, is seated in his cell, surrounded by books, parchments, chemicals, skulls, and hour-glasses. He has grown old in his delving after the mysteries, and even now he has devoted the whole night to study. The lamp burns low, and all about him is dark and gloomy. He closes his book sadly, and exclaims in tones that seem spontaneous, but are, nevertheless, in accurate rhythm with the orchestra, "In vain!" He does not find the knowledge he seeks; his investigations are without avail. It seems strange to hear these laments sounded by a tenor voice; but this trifling incongruity of high tones and old age does not last long. The character Faust is one of the greatest tenor rôles. His soliloquy is presently broken in upon by a chorus behind the scenes. It is the song of reapers going to their daily work. The morning light streams in at the window which Faust throws open as he listens. But sunshine itself is not brighter than that song. It is so joyous and light-hearted that the listener fairly inhales the dew-laden air of the fields. This first melody in the opera is as perfect a morceau for its size as was ever written. The solitaire in his cell is also affected by the radiant song, and he envies the reapers for their contentment and for their youth. Yes, _youth_ is what he longs for. Altho Faust has declared his study to be "in vain," he has, nevertheless, acquired the accomplishment of being able to call up Mephistopheles (this is the operatic name for the great demon), and in his present despair he resorts to this power. Mephisto appears without delay. Flaming colors and a bass voice are the essential attributes of this great character. It seems rather hard on our artists who sing to low G that a bass voice is so often chosen to represent iniquity; but such happens to be the case. Mephisto is invariably clad in red from head to toe; exaggerated eyebrows and a fantastic cap with unobtrusive horns complete his diabolical appearance. In a continuous flow of harmony, Faust informs his visitor of his wants, and Mephisto promptly states his conditions: for the price of his soul after death the philosopher shall now be granted his youth. Faust hesitates at this, whereupon the wily demon causes him to behold a vision. A bright light at the back of the stage suddenly reveals the lovely Marguerite at her spinning-wheel. While the picture lasts there is heard in the orchestra a suggestion of one of the themes that come afterward in the love-scene of the opera; this is accompanied by a soft tremolo on the violins. Forest scenes, moonlight, and dreams are very often represented in music by a violin tremolo. When the vision passes away, Faust is decided, and he drinks the potion Mephistopheles prescribes. Presto! The gray hair and beard disappear; the long robe falls off, and Faust is a young man--tall and handsome, as a tenor should be. He comes forward with an elastic step and sings of youth and its joys, which now are his. The music has undergone a metamorphosis like the singer. It throbs with a life and vigor which were lacking before; and this final song of the first act is one of the best tenor solos in the opera. The second act is chiefly remarkable for its choruses. It is called the Kyrmess, and represents a street thronged with villagers in festive array and mood. They dance and sing in honor of their soldiers, who start this day to war. The opening chorus is divided among the students, girls, soldiers, and citizens, the latter being represented by old men, who come forward and sing their delightful refrain in thin, piping voices. Every phrase of this first chorus is a surprise, and each one seems more fascinating than the preceding. It is all in a rapid, tripping tempo, and fairly bubbles over with good humor. In this act we are introduced to all the principal characters. Siebel, the village youth who loves Marguerite, is already on the scene, and very soon her soldier-brother, Valentine, appears. This is the baritone rôle, and, while not a long one, is still important, and requires a great artist, for he has a splendid death-scene in the fourth act. His first solo begins with the words "O santa medaglia!" ("O blessed medallion!"). He sings to the token which his sister has just given him at parting. He is depressed at the thought of leaving Marguerite alone, for she is an orphan; but Siebel consoles him with promises to protect and watch over her. Mephisto is the next one to come upon the scene, and, in spite of his satanic make-up, the villagers do not recognize his "name and station." He joins in their merry-making, and soon astounds them with his wizard tricks and actions. He sings a song about "Gold--the lord of the earth." It is one of the three important solos of this rôle, and is a most characteristic piece. One has not the least doubt that he learned it at home! Such eccentric, sardonic intervals and rhythm at once suggest an unholy origin. [Illustration: Copyright by Aimé Dupont, N. Y. Melba as Marguerite in "Faust."] The peasants soon become so convinced of this stranger's evil power that they unanimously hold up the hilts of their swords, which are formed like a cross, and before this emblem Mephisto trembles. A very strong and inspiring chorus accompanies this move on the part of the peasants. Faust, the handsome cavalier, now comes forward. After a short dialog between this master and servant--who we know are under compact to change places in the hereafter--the chorus again take possession of the stage. They sing first a charming waltz song, which of itself seems to start them all to dancing. And then comes the celebrated "Faust Waltz," during which the listener should pay most attention to the orchestra. There is some singing and much dancing on the stage, but the instruments have the most important part. Of this well-known composition it is unnecessary to say more than that it is a splendid waltz. Its brilliant rhythm is temporarily diverted by the entrance of Marguerite, who is on her way home from church. She carries a prayer-book in her hand, and is dressed in white, which betokens innocence. This costume of the heroine has been considered as imperative as the make-up of Mephisto; but Madame Eames carefully studied old Nuremburg pictures and resurrected the correct style of that period, which somewhat departs from operatic tradition. On seeing Marguerite, Faust addresses her as "My charming lady," and begs permission to walk home with her. To which Marguerite very properly replies that she is neither "charming" nor a "lady," and can go home "alone." The question and response last only a moment, but the two themes are most exquisitely adapted to the words, and should be noted, as they recur later on in the opera. Especially lovely are these first notes of the soprano; and after so much chorus and bass and orchestra, they soar out like strokes from a silver bell. Marguerite goes on her homeward way, and leaves Faust more in love than before. Mephisto rejoices, and the waltz is resumed. Thus ends Act II. And now for the Garden Scene--a veritable bouquet of melodies, flowers that never fade! The first aria is, indeed, called the "Flower Song," but only because Siebel sings to the flowers he has brought for Marguerite. Siebel is the contralto rôle, and therefore always taken by a woman. It is a very short part, but as two of the sweetest songs in the opera belong to Siebel, great artists are glad to take the character. The short prelude by the orchestra before the "Flower Song" is as artistic as any other part. It seems to smooth the brow and quiet the mind, and coax the hearer into just the right mood "to be lulled by sounds of sweetest melody." Siebel's song is indeed "sweetest melody"--so much so that a poor singer can hardly spoil it. That gentle and caressing theme captures the heart every time. After Siebel has gone, there enter Faust and Mephistopheles (who gains admission everywhere). The latter is in high spirits, and Faust is in love. They look upon the garden with different emotions. Faust rhapsodizes and is lost in romance; but Mephisto's more practical vision perceives the flowers which Siebel has left at Marguerite's door. He goes off at once to procure a present that shall outshine these. During his absence Faust sings the "Salve Dimore." These are the first words of the song, which mean "Hail! dwelling pure and simple;" but this composition is always given its Italian name. It is interesting to note the names by which celebrated arias are known. Some are designated by the subject, as the "Jewel Song," "Flower Song." Then, again, some are known by the rhythm, as the "Waltz Song" from "Romeo and Juliet," or the "Polacca from 'Mignon.'" Then, there are others whose names only indicate the number of voices, as the "Sextet from 'Lucia,'" the "Quartet from 'Rigoletto';" while many are spoken of by their Italian names. The "Salve Dimore" belongs to this class, and, like the "Jewel Song," is so celebrated that many people who have not heard the music are still familiar with the name. The tenor who does not receive abundant applause after this aria may feel that he has lost his best chance in the opera. After the solo Mephisto reenters with a jewel-casket under his arm. He places this where Marguerite will surely find it, and then the two retire. Now is an expectant moment, for the soprano holds the stage alone for some time, and has in this scene her finest solos. She comes in through the garden gate and walks very slowly, for she is thinking about the handsome stranger who spoke to her in the street. She tries, however, to forget the occurrence, and resolutely sits down to her spinning. As she spins she sings a ballad called "The King of Thule." It is a sad little song, with strange minor intervals that make one feel "teary 'round the heart." Marguerite interrupts her ballad to soliloquize again, in pretty recitative tones, about that "fine stranger," but she soon recalls herself and resumes the song. At last she gives up trying to spin, and starts for the house; whereupon she sees Siebel's flowers, which are admired, but dropped in amazement when her eyes rest upon the jewel-box. After some misgivings she opens it and discovers jewels so beautiful that from sheer joy and delight she starts to trilling like a bird. This trill is the opening of the great aria, which seems to thus poise for a moment and then fly away in the ascending scale which commences the brilliant theme. The "Jewel Song" is as difficult as it is beautiful, and the artist who renders it well deserves unstinted praise. Before the song is ended, Martha, the matron in whose care Marguerite has been entrusted, comes into the garden, and soon is followed by Faust and Mephistopheles. Hers is a necessary but unimportant character, as she has no solo and is merely a foil for Mephistopheles. She is represented as a very susceptible widow, and he takes upon himself the uninviting task of making love to her in order that Faust and Marguerite may have a chance. The two couples walk back and forth in the garden, which is supposed to extend beyond the limits of the stage. The courting as done by Mephistopheles is highly absurd, and is, in fact, the only touch of humor in the opera. But very different are the scenes between Faust and Marguerite. Every phrase is full of charming sincerity. But it is after the quartet, after the second exit and reappearance, that we hear their great love duet. The evening shadows have lengthened, and "Tardi si fa" ("It groweth late") are the first words of this superb composition, which is indeed like pure gold. It stands alone in musical literature as the ideal love music. The only work that is ever compared to it is Wagner's duet in the "Walküre." Some writer has ventured the statement that in this "Faust" duo Gounod has "actually discovered the intervals of the scale which express the love passion." The idea is not a wild one nor a new one, for it is known that the Greeks held a similar belief, and even prohibited certain harmonies and intervals as being too sensuous. Be that as it may, there is a subtle charm about Gounod's music that eludes description. When we hear that final ecstatic leap from C sharp to high A, a mystic hush and spell steals over us. There is little more after the duo. Marguerite rushes into the house, and Faust is aroused by the unwelcome voice of Mephistopheles. The latter's jesting tone is most irritating to the lover. But this dialog is soon interrupted by one of the loveliest scenes in the opera. Marguerite throws open the blinds of her window and looks into the garden, which she believes is now vacant. The moonlight falls upon her, and she suddenly begins singing. It is a burst of melody as spontaneous and free as the song of a nightingale. The song is not long, and soon the curtain descends; but the picture leaves a lasting impression. Act IV. comprises three scenes. The first one is short, and depicts Marguerite's grief and remorse. Faust has forsaken her, and the faithful Siebel tries to comfort and console. This second solo of Siebel's is a melody of noble simplicity. The beautiful cadence given to the twice-repeated name, "Marguerita," reveals a heart full of unselfish love. The next scene represents a street in front of Marguerite's house. There is general excitement and anticipation among the villagers, for to-day the soldiers return from war. They presently enter, amid much rejoicing, and sing their great chorus, called the "Faust March." This march is so popular and well known that people who believe they have never heard a note of the opera will be surprised to find that they recognize this march. It is played by every military band in the country. After the chorus the soldiers disperse to their homes and friends. Valentine is greeted by Siebel, but the brother inquires about his sister, and hastens into the house. The stage now is darkened, for the hour is late. Presently Faust and Mephisto appear. The latter has brought his guitar, and he assumes the privilege of singing a serenade to Marguerite, while Faust stands to one side in melancholy meditation. Mephisto's song is more insulting than complimentary. As a musical expression of irony, sarcasm, and insolence, this composition is certainly a success. The last three notes of the first phrase are a veritable leer. This is the second important bass solo, and, when well given, is highly effective, as it admits of great variety of expression. But instead of bringing forth the object of the serenade, Marguerite's brother appears at the door, and with drawn sword. He seeks out Faust and challenges him to a duel. The challenge is accepted, and they are soon fighting; but the result is inevitable, for Mephisto uses his demoniac power to protect Faust, and so Valentine is wounded. The noise of the scuffle has aroused the villagers, who hurry in with lanterns and find Valentine dying. Marguerite rushes forward and falls on her knees beside him, but Valentine motions her away. He rises up in his death agony and curses her in tones that are like balls of fire. The villagers look on with awe, while poor Marguerite is stunned by these terrible words from her dying brother. It is the most tragic moment of the opera. When Valentine expires, every one kneels as they sing a solemn prayer, and the curtain falls. We have next the Church Scene, whose sublime music displays Gounod's special forte. He is perhaps greater as a composer of ecclesiastical music than anything else. His genius finds most congenial soil in religious themes, and therefore is this church scene with its mighty choruses and organ interludes truly grand. We hear the organ tones even before the curtain rises, and when it does Marguerite is discovered kneeling on a prayer-chair, apart from the other worshipers. She tries to pray and find comfort in her despair, but an awful voice mocks her endeavors, and that voice is Mephistopheles, who comes to her now in his true character. He is near her, but she can not see him, while he terrifies and tortures her with fearful prophecies. Vainly and desperately she strives to follow the familiar service, but she can hear only the demon's voice. It draws ever nearer, and its words increase her terror. At last with a cry of anguish Marguerite falls down unconscious. Mephistopheles stands over her, and his face beams with satanic glee. True to Goethe's story, Marguerite becomes insane from grief and kills her child. The last act finds her in prison. Once again she is clad in white. Her hair hangs loose upon her shoulders, and chains bind her wrists. She is sleeping on a straw pallet as the curtain rises, and Faust enters with his companion. They have come to release the prisoner. But when she is aroused and urged to flee she pays little heed to their request, for she does not recognize them. But the sound of Faust's voice recalls to her that first meeting so long ago, when he said, "My fair lady, may I walk with you?" She sings again the charming phrase as we heard it in the second act; but it is now rendered with a certain pathos and simplicity that bring tears to our eyes. She presently perceives Mephistopheles, and the sight fills her with terror. She falls on her knees and invokes the angels of heaven to pardon and receive her soul. The fervor of this prayer knows no bounds. A veritable religious ecstasy throbs through the music. The theme is broad and free, and seems to burst asunder every bond. It suggests a glory and splendor that are celestial. Ever higher and grander it grows. Marguerite is now standing with upraised arms; and altho Faust and Mephisto join in the singing, our attention is entirely riveted by that white-robed supplicant. The peerless theme is repeated three times, and always higher than before. Those soprano tones finally reach an atmosphere so clear and rare that they seem to carry the soul of Marguerite with them. The last high B soars up to heaven like a disembodied spirit. It matters not what occurs after this. We have a dim consciousness of Marguerite falling down, of some words of lament from Faust; but for us the opera was ended with that last supernal note. "Werther" "WERTHER" Madame Eames is the only prima donna whom America has heard in "Werther"--a work which in Paris ranks as Massenet's best. But she does not sing it often, because, as she says, "It all lies in such a low key; and to sing always in one place is hard on the voice." Then she adds, "But the love-music of Werther is beautiful." Goethe's love-stories find favor with French composers. Massenet has accomplished with "Werther" what his predecessors have done with "Mignon" and "Faust." His work is very recent and altogether unique. The story is not dramatic, and there are no regulation operatic characters,--no gods, no kings, no peasants, gypsies, fairies, demons, villains, slaves, soldiers, and not even a chorus. The scenery is also unconventional; not a palace, nor a mountain, nor a dungeon in the whole play. The _dramatis personæ_ of "Werther" are taken from "ye lower middle classes," and they are graced with such names as Schmidt, Johann, Sophia, and Katie. We find it agreeable and gratifying to see our own common selves and everyday emotions elevated to the regions of classic music. It is easy to understand why Massenet was attracted by the story, in spite of its dramatic weakness and lack of stage effects. It offers unbounded opportunities for love-music. Most opera composers must content themselves with one rousing duet and perhaps a solo or two; but in this story the hero sings of love from first to last. The prelude to this homely opera is like the blessing before a meal. It is peaceful and soothing, and might be called a pastorale. As the curtain rises we are greeted with the chatter and laughter of childish voices: two innovations at one stroke, for real children and real laughter have never before held a place in grand opera. This first scene of "Werther" forms a pleasing summer picture. We see the garden and terrace of a simple country house, whose owner, the town bailiff, is seated upon the veranda surrounded by his six children, to whom he is teaching a Christmas carol. He seems to be teaching them, but in point of fact he is teaching the audience this charming melody, which must be kept in mind, for it recurs at various intervals during the opera. So the children sing at first very loud and badly. The good-natured bailiff shakes his head and stops his ears. After a second attempt the song goes smoothly, and during this performance Schmidt and Johann enter the garden. These are some tavern friends of the bailiff, who lend variety to the music by giving occasion for the inevitable drinking-song. They compliment the children and inquire after Charlotte. "She is dressing for a ball," answers Sophia, the bailiff's second daughter. We might tire of this plain conversation and the buffoon manners of Schmidt and Johann, but the accompanying music is of absorbing interest. Massenet makes much use of counterpoint, which has been broadly defined as the art of combining melodies. A crude but familiar example is that wonder-inspiring piano performance of "Yankee Doodle" in one hand with "Fisher's Hornpipe" in the other. It is interesting to follow the various themes in Massenet's orchestra. Sometimes a bit of the Christmas carol combines with the gruff, reeling song of Bacchus, which, in turn, is blended with a broad and noble theme that always appears in connection with the name of Charlotte. Another theme, that might be characterized as severely intellectual, asserts itself whenever the conversation turns upon Albert, her absent fiancé. Schmidt and Johann go off arm in arm, lustily singing, "Vivat Bacchus." Sophia enters the house, while the bailiff retires with the children to an alcove on the veranda, where we see him patiently rehearsing that Christmas carol, word for word. The music now undergoes a transition, like a dreamer turning in his sleep. There are harp-chords, arpeggios, and trills written soft and "dim." A richly clad traveler enters the garden, looking about him with evident emotion. It is Werther, returned after years of absence to his native village. "I know not if I dream or wake," are his first words, while the instruments recall that pastoral motif of the prelude. Birds and trees and the limpid brook are all apostrophized in word and tone, until, with a sunburst of rising chords, there is introduced a new and radiant theme, eulogizing-- "All nature, full of grace, Queen over time and space;" while under the spell of his emotions--for Werther is a poet and a dreamer--there comes to him, like the song of angels, that blessed Christmas carol which the children are singing softly and with perfect rhythm. The already familiar Charlotte-theme announces the heroine's entrance. The girlish costumes of this bourgeoise character are unusually becoming to Madame Eames; they present her in quite a new light, and her first entrance gives a pleasing surprise to the audience. She is embraced by the children, who love Charlotte dearly, for she is to them both a sister and a mother. Regardless of her best gown, she now goes to a buffet on the veranda and distributes slices of bread and butter. This scene has prompted the epithet, "bread-and-butter opera." In the mean time Werther is welcomed by the bailiff and introduced to Charlotte. Sounds of gay music accompany the arrival of guests who will take Charlotte to the ball. This festive music is unique. The bass presents a defiant repetition of one chord that is stubbornly out of harmony with the bright melody above, like old age shaking his head at youthful gaiety. It is decided that Werther shall go along to the ball. The dance-theme is resumed, and the merry party go out. Sophia takes the children into the house, and the bailiff goes off to the tavern, humming on the way that comical drinking-song. The stage grows darker, the music softer, and we hear a fragment of the Albert-theme. It is like seeing the shadow before the person, for Albert soon enters. He has returned unexpectedly. Sophia rushes out to greet him, and she regrets that Charlotte is absent. Before going into the house Albert sings to the night winds of his love, and hopes that Charlotte on entering the garden will discover the thoughts that he leaves. The orchestra toys with this melody for a time, but then is diverted by memories of the ball music. Snatches of the bewitching strain flit by in different keys, like belated guests in vari-colored dominoes. They are faint as phantoms--a gentle swaying of the violins, a touch of the harp, and then they vanish. There is a pause. The moon has appeared, and the humble garden seems transformed into a fairy bower. Like the spirit of a dream is the melody now arising. Ethereal in its beauty but supreme in power, it rules over the entire opera. This is the love-theme. We are not surprised to see Werther and Charlotte enter arm in arm. It is a familiar situation: he is "seeing her home" from the ball. And arrived at their destination, they linger at the gate as couples have done before and since. Charlotte is of a serious nature, and their talk is never light. She tells of her mother and the terrible experience of losing one so dear. "I believe that she watches over me and knows when I do her bidding." Charlotte's tones are full of pathos, and she becomes abstracted in her memories, while Werther, enraptured by her goodness and beauty, gives utterance to the feelings that enthrall him. The music grows stronger and higher, until it breaks forth in a resounding reality of the love-theme. Over an accompaniment of throbbing chords this superb melody sweeps by like a meteor passing the earth; and during this luminous transition we hear the voice of Werther, "Charlotte, I love thee!" There follows a hush, and then a chilling, awful discord. Some one is calling from the house, "Albert has come home!" Charlotte staggers at this news. She explains that Albert is her betrothed--it was her mother's wish. "May she forgive me, that for one moment at your side I forgot my vow." Charlotte goes up the steps; she turns once, but then hastens inside. Werther buries his face in anguish at the thought of her wedding another. Several months have elapsed since the events of the first act. The elm-tree foliage is denser and the situations of the drama have changed, but love and music remain the same. Schmidt and Johann are discovered sitting before the tavern "of a Sunday afternoon." Their good-natured song of Bacchus greets us like an old friend. The church and parsonage are in plain view, and a solemn choral from within alternates with the drinking-song without. The village is to-day _en fête_ in honor of the pastor's golden wedding. The serious and thoughtful Albert-theme marks the entrance of Charlotte and Albert, who are married. They loiter on their way to church and sit down on a bench under the trees. Very calm and tender is the music of this little scene between husband and wife. The organ resounds the chords of a beautiful hymn, at which summons Charlotte and Albert join the other worshipers. Werther has been observing the pair from a distance. When they are gone he comes forward, exclaiming with grief and bitterness, "Wedded to another!" The tempestuous chords of the orchestra clash into the holy harmonies of the organ. Jagged fragments of Werther's first song of admiration depict his shattered joy. As one holds together the pieces of a broken vase, sadly recalling its lost loveliness, so does the orchestra again build up that old theme in all its beauty while Werther sings of what might have been. Rebellious at fate, he cries out: "It is I--I alone whom she could have loved!" The succeeding aria is reckless as a steed galloping to his death. It plunges from high tones to a sob, and the singer, flinging himself upon a bench, buries his face in his arms. Albert discovers Werther thus despondent, and, suspecting the cause, he questions him; but Werther desperately disclaims his love for Charlotte. This interview is musically serious and sad. But suddenly the orchestra gives us a new key, a new melody, a sprinkling of lithesome staccatos falling like a shower of apple-blossoms. With a smile on her lips and flowers in her hands, Sophia enters, unconscious of the surrounding turbulent emotions. She gaily announces that they intend to dance, and that Werther must join her in the minuet. Observing his somber expression, she bids him cheer up, for to-day-- "All the world is gay! Joy is in the air!" This song is the most popular one of the opera. It is bright and light, and full of fluttering phrases--a veritable song of spring. When Albert and Sophia are gone, Werther cries out with explosive candor, "I told a falsehood!" He is wretched beyond compare. He can not cease loving, and he dare not cease lying. Charlotte comes from the church, and, greeting him kindly, asks if he, too, is going to the parsonage. They speak lightly but feel deeply, as is evidenced by the music. That wondrous love-theme softly surrounds them like the magic fire of the Walküre. The harmonies mount up from the instruments like flames from living embers. A spell is upon them. Charlotte stands mute, while Werther sings of that evening when he touched her hand and looked into her eyes for the first time. Softly and slowly the beautiful melody disappears, giving place to a different chord and motif: "Albert loves me--and I am his wife!" Charlotte has recovered herself. She entreats Werther to turn his heart elsewhere: "Why do you love me?" This hero seems to understand himself, for he answers: "Ask a madman why he has lost his reason!" Then Charlotte urges him to go away for a time, say until Christmas. "Yes, until Christmas--good-by, my friend!" She leaves before he has time to refuse. Now follows a musical adaptation of Goethe's very poetical and ingenious plea for suicide. "Do we offend Heaven in ceasing to suffer? When a son returns from his journey before the expected time, far from feeling resentment, the father hastens to greet him; and can it be that our heavenly Father is less clement?" During this soliloquy we encounter strange chords in the orchestra. Strains of a gay minuet play upon these tragic tones like rainbow colors on the angles of a glacier. The dance has begun, and Sophia, appearing at the parsonage door, tells Werther that she is waiting. He walks away. "You are leaving! But you will come back?" cries the disappointed Sophia. "No--never! Good-by!" and Werther turns down the road out of sight. Either for the lost dance or the lost partner, Sophia bursts into tears. Albert and Charlotte find her thus, and between sobs she tells them how Monsieur Werther has gone away forever. Charlotte stands rigid, while Albert exclaims to himself: "He loves my wife!" The gay assemblage within the parsonage has no knowledge of this brewing tragedy, so the minuet continues till the curtain descends. The prelude to Act III. is somber and depressing. It clings to the harmonies of that last scene between Charlotte and Werther--the exile motif. The curtain's rising reveals Charlotte sitting at her work-table, lost in thought while her needle plies. The soft light of the lamp illumines a _petit salon_; the hour hand of the clock points to the figure five, and the libretto tells us it is the 24th of December. The subject of her thoughts is Werther--always Werther! Why can she not banish him from her mind as she did from her presence? The question is not hard to answer, for we learn that he has been writing to her. As tho drawn by a magnet, Charlotte goes to the desk and reads again the letters she fain would forget. Moaning minors like a winter wind accompany the perusal of these sad and poetic epistles. Werther writes: "If I never return, blame me not, but weep instead, for I shall be dead." Terrifying tremolos accompany the tragic theme that is now let loose in the orchestra like a strange, wild animal in the arena. It preys upon the emotions, gnawing at the heart of every listener. Massenet delights in startling contrasts. While Charlotte is grieving over these missives, a happy voice greets her, "Good day, sweet sister!" It is Sophia, come with an armful of toys and a heart full of melody. She is accompanied by the gay staccatos of her "Spring Song." Charlotte hastily conceals the letters; but tears are not so easily disposed of. Perceiving the reddened eyes, Sophia tries to cheer her sister by singing of "Laughter, the light of the heart." The gaiety of this music, with its sparkling scales and tripping tempo, is infectious. But tears again gather in Charlotte's eyes when Sophia mentions the name of Werther. The little sister is very sorry; but Charlotte says never mind, weeping does one good. "The tears we do _not_ shed fall back upon the heart, which, altho it is big, is very frail and can break with the weight of a tear." The music to this sentiment is a tone-poem well worthy of the text. It is written in a low key. Joy mounts upward on the scale, but grief weighs down. Sophia goes out, and all the bright music with her. Falling upon her knees, Charlotte prays for strength. This supplication is truly grand, with superb crescendos and plaintive diminuendos. The music now swells out with sudden impetus and the parlor door is brusquely opened. Charlotte turns around and exclaims--with startled tones, "Werther!" He is leaning against the door as tho wearied in mind and body. "I tried not to come--_mais me voici_!" With forced calm Charlotte bids him welcome. He looks with fond memory upon the old piano and familiar books. They talk of casual things, and incidentally Charlotte calls his attention to the poems he was translating when he left. The music of this scene has been unnaturally tranquil; the gentle Charlotte-theme and another phrase, graceful and simple as a nursery rhyme, are used with touching effect. But with the mention of these poems sudden emotion breaks through the constraint. Werther turns to the unfinished verse and reads aloud. The ensuing scene is dramatically not a new one. In "Francesca da Rimini" the heroine is wooed and won by the reading of a poem; but added to the charm of verse we here have the enthralling power of music. In both instances the reading ends with--a kiss. The succeeding aria is a song of soaring ecstasy about "_ce premier baiser_." Werther proclaims that "only love is real!" But Charlotte suddenly recoils at her weakness, and rushing to a side door, exclaims: "We must never meet again! Good-by--for the last time!" and disappears. The music has assumed a dolorous strain that vividly portrays the pathos of her last words. Werther calls for her to come back. He knocks at the door, but is only answered by the tragic chords of the orchestra. They are furious and fearful, but, strange to say, they adequately express an awful silence. "So be it!" at last exclaims the sorrowful Werther. Crashing chords whirl riot in the orchestra as the hero hastens away. The stage is vacated, but the music tells us whom next to expect. The Albert-theme, easily recognizable tho a trifle harsher than before, comes forward to preside over the finale of this act. Albert steps into the room, surprised and preoccupied. He has met the distracted Werther at the front door, and here finds Charlotte locked in her room. In answer to his authoritative call she comes forward looking pale and frightened. He questions her, but she answers evasively. At this moment a message is handed to Albert by a servant. It is from Werther: "I go on a long journey. Kindly lend me your pistols. Farewell." Charlotte knows the import of these words, but dare not speak. Perhaps Albert also knows. He coldly bids her hand the weapons to the servant. Mutely and slowly she goes to the case and delivers the contents as she was bid. That theme in the orchestra continues quietly to move back and forth like a person keeping the death-watch. When the servant has gone, Albert strides angrily out of the room. Charlotte stands for a moment immobile. The music also seems to stand still; then a sudden impetuous outburst of the instruments coincides with her decision. From highest B to lowest F octaves and chords are hurled together, as Charlotte, seizing a mantle, rushes to the door. "Pray Heaven I may not be too late!" We follow Charlotte in her flight. The scene changes to a view of the village. It is Christmas eve, nearing midnight. The snow is falling in wild gusts, but through a rift in the clouds the moon looks down upon the peaceful town. Roofs and trees are covered with snow, while from some of the windows household lights are gleaming. The church, too, is lighted, but the moonlight and the snow are most prominent. Even these however are not so important as the music. More chilling than hail or snow are those sudden blasts of chords and octaves falling one on top of the other, down, down until they join and melt into the steady tremolo of the bass. Finally, like Death seated on a tombstone, the terrifying tragic theme again looms up. During this introduction the winter scene on the stage remains the same. The snow continues to fall, and we hear it in the orchestra--a steady movement of double thirds over which play varying melodies like Christmas lights. The musicians turn their leaves once, twice, three times, but still that slowly palpitating accompaniment goes on. There is something appalling in this persistency. What was at first delightful becomes oppressive, for we are somehow reminded that falling snow can bury the living and hide the dead. A distant bell sounds the hour of twelve. Fierce winds arise, and we see the muffled figure of a woman struggling her way against the gale. The tempest is again heard in the orchestra. Breathlessly we watch the heroine's slow progress, and wonder if she will be too late. The scene changes to a little room strewn with books and papers. A lamp on the wooden table casts sickly rays upon the surroundings, but we can plainly see a figure reclining on a chair near the open window. It is Werther, pale and unconscious. Charlotte rushes in, and at sight of the dying man is beside herself with grief. She calls him by name, and the sound of her voice revives him. He asks her faintly to stay near him, to pardon him and love him. While he speaks there arises from the orchestra, like the dim visions of a dying man, that first love-theme so full of summer gladness. Charlotte sings to him the words he has longed to hear. This last love-song ends in a whisper. The instruments, too, seem hushed with that mysterious silence of Christmas night. We can see through the window the bright moonlight, for the storm has abated. Suddenly the dying man looks up as sweet music greets his ear-- "Noël! Noël! Noël! Proclaim the wondrous birth! Christ the Lord has come to earth!" It is the happy children's voices singing their Christmas song in the church. A merry carillon of the instruments accompanies the familiar tones of Sophia's high, bright voice in the distance-- "All the world is gay! Joy is in the air!" This startling contrast of life and death has never been more beautifully portrayed. Werther sadly smiles, murmuring that it is his song of deliverance. He dies in Charlotte's arms. She cries out, despairing, inconsolable, "It is finished!" Death is in the orchestra, in the darkness, in the ensuing silence. But suddenly, like "the morning in the bright light," those far-away voices again sing-- "Noël! Noël! Noël!" Calvé and "Carmen" [Illustration: EMMA CALVÉ.] CALVÉ AND "CARMEN" "Hear Calvé in 'Carmen'--and die," is the motto which heralded this singer's first visit to America. Our curiosity was greatly aroused, for we thought we knew all about "Carmen." We clung to the traditions of our own Minnie Hauk who had created the rôle, and could imagine nothing better than a trim, dainty Carmen with high-heeled slippers, short skirts, and a Spanish mantilla. Great was our amazement on that memorable night in 1894 when we beheld for the first time a real cigarette girl of modern Spain. Here was a daring innovation that at once aroused attention and new interest in the opera. This Carmen wore high-heeled slippers, 'tis true, but somewhat worn down and scuffed, as they must be if she was in the habit of running over the cobblestones of Seville as she ran to the footlights on her first entrance. And her skirts, far from being well-setting and so short as to reveal shapely ankles and a suspicion of lace petticoats, were of that sloppy, half-short length, which even the street girls of London wear to-day. But most astounding of all departures was the absence of any sign of a mantilla! How could one be Spanish without a mantilla--any more than one could be Russian without fur! But this Carmen had an eye to color--she could hardly otherwise be a coquette--and in her hair at the nape of her neck was deftly tucked a large crimson flower. Her hair, however, was carelessly pinned, and even tumbled quite down later on--a stroke of realism which was added to by the way she coiled it up and jabbed it into place again. A strange performance to behold in a grand opera setting; and we might have resented such defiance of the code had we not been forced to admit that it was all absolutely correct, and this Carmen was more truly Spanish than any impersonation we had seen. Even her voice seemed tropical; such richness of tone, warmth, and color had never before been combined in the singing of Bizet's opera. Had Bizet only lived to this day he might have died happily, for Carmen, the child of his brain, found no favor with the public when first introduced. After the surprise of Madame Calvé's costume and then of her voice, New Yorkers awoke to the fact that Carmen had never before been acted. This performance was a revelation, a character study of a creature who recklessly holds that it is _right_ to get all the pleasure you can, and _wrong_ not to have what you want. It was the evening after one of these great Carmen performances when a knock at the prima-donna's door elicited the Parisian response--"Entrez." Mme. Calvé's salon was brilliantly lighted and richly furnished, but it seemed only a sombre setting to the singer's radiant self. Not that she was gaudily gowned; on the contrary, her dress was simple, but her personality, her smile, her animation, are a constant delight and surprise. Mme. Calvé is thoroughly French, and thoroughly handsome, and appears even younger off the stage than on. She is tall and of splendid figure; her complexion is fresh and clear, with an interesting tinge of olive, and her eyes are black as her hair, which was arranged very pompadour. Mme. Calvé seated herself with a half-serious, half-amused expression, as tho to recite a lesson, and announced that she was ready and willing to answer "toutes les questions que vous voulez." This seemed a golden opportunity to learn all there is to know about singing. It stands to reason that the most direct and easy method of acquiring this art is simply to ask one of the greatest singers of the day how she does it. Some one found out how to play the piano by asking Rubinstein, who said--"All you have to do is to select the right keys and strike them at the right time." So, with this idea in view, Mme. Calvé was asked first what she thinks of when she steps before the public--her voice, her acting, or the music? "I think of Carmen," she answered, "if that is the opera. I try to _be Carmen_--that is all." When asked if she practices her voice much during the day, Mme. Calvé shook her head. "No--not now. You see, I must have mercy on my poor voice and save it for the evenings when I sing. Formerly, of course, I practiced every day, but never more than an hour with full voice. Yes, an hour at one time, once a day, that is all. But I studied much besides. At first I wanted to be an actress, and for this purpose gave much time to dramatic art. My mother was a fine musician; she is the one who urged me to sing." "What did you practice when you first began with the voice?--single tones?" Mme. Calvé looked thoughtful--she could hardly recall, until a friend who was present suggested--"it was rather intervals and arpeggios, n'est ce pas?" then the great Carmen quickly nodded. "Yes--you are right; intervals at first, and not until later on, sustained tones. I do not consider single sustained tones good for the beginner." In reply to a question about breathing, she answered: "Oh, yes; all singers must practice special exercises for the breath. What else did I do? Well, I hardly remember. I never had any trouble with my throat or my tongue,--no, I never thought much of these." She was then asked, by way of suggestion: "Did you ever _hum_ in your practice?" Now her face lighted up. "Yes," she replied, all animation, "and, do you know, that is splendid! I do it a great deal even yet, especially for the high tones like this"----, and there and then, without moving a muscle, like a conjurer materializing a flock of birds, she showered upon us a bevy of humming-tones. They were soft, of course, but clear and perfect as tho made with full voice, and you wanted to wrap each one in cotton and take it home. But--they were gone!--and the singer went on speaking. "With Mme. Marchese I used to hum a great deal. Yes, it is an excellent practice, for it brings the tone forward right here," and she touched the bridge of her nose. Mme. Calvé is so genial and vivacious in conversation that you are led to forget her position and wonderful attainments. But now and then it flashes over you that this is the woman whose manifold art has astonished two continents; a singer who makes any rôle she undertakes so distinctly her own that other singers hardly dispute her right to monopolize it. Not only is her "Carmen" a creation; Ophelia, too, she has imbued with new interest, introducing many startling voice and breath effects. Throughout all the mad scene she calls into use an "eerie-tone" that is fearful in its pathos and terror. "I love that rôle!" she exclaimed, as the subject came up. "The mad scene! Ah, it is superb." Even in Faust, the very Ancient of Days among operas, Mme. Calvé has surprised us with original touches, altho it is a work that every musician of any description has performed in some way or other. The pianist flourishes with the waltz, or a general fantasia of the opera on every and all occasions. The organist delights in the church-scene music, while the violinist rhapsodizes with the love duo or a potpourri of all the arias. Concert sopranos never cease to exploit the Jewel-song, while the contralto's audience never tires of the famous Flower-song. "O Sancta Medaglia" is dear to the heart of the barytone, and the tenor has a choice of beautiful solos from the first act to the last. Bass singers can find nothing better as a medium for gaining public favor than Mephisto's song to the "God of Gold." Even flutist and clarinetist resort to "Faust," the Imperishable, when they want something sure to please. And last, but not least, the cornet:--ask any soloist on this instrument what piece he has played most often, and, I warrant you, he will answer, "My Faust fantaisie!" The opera singer who does not have in her scrap-book some account of her performance as Marguerite can hardly count herself a prima-donna. No other opera is so essentially a piece of common property as is this Gounod's "Faust." So much the more is Mme. Calvé's achievement to be wondered at. A very stroke of genius is the dropping of Marguerite's prayer-book in the excitement of her first meeting with Faust, so symbolical is it of his effect on her life. This is more than realism--it is poetry. Again, in the spinning-song, she creates an exquisite effect by disentangling a knot in the thread on her wheel and at the same time slowing up with her song and diminishing it until the wheel turns again and she resumes the tempo. When asked how she ever thinks of these innovations, especially the one of inserting ecstatic little laughs in the Jewel-song, she smiled prettily and shrugged her shoulders. "It just comes to me in the acting--I don't know how. But I never change the music." She wished it impressed that, whatever her innovations, she maintains a reverence for all of the composer's work. There is something about Mme. Calvé that makes you feel in her presence the subtle influence of a large heart and a grand soul. In her own land she is famed not only for her singing, but also for her great generosity. "Carmen" "CARMEN" Every one likes "Carmen." Its popularity has been ascribed to the fact that "the action explains itself to the eye." One might also add that the music explains itself to the ear, for the themes are all unfurled and displayed like so many banners. In choosing Mérimée's novel for a libretto, Bizet recognized the growing demand for dramatic plots with rapid action--a demand which has since evolved such one-hour tragedies as "Cavalleria Rusticana" and "I Pagliacci." Aside from the stirring romance and fascinating music, "Carmen" also presents very delightful stage-pictures. The suburbs of Seville form an interesting setting, and the characters all require brilliant costumes. A bull-fighter, two smugglers, three gypsies, cigarette girls, and soldiers--not a plain individual among them! Before meeting these unusual personages we are presented with a letter of introduction from Bizet, which, because it is written in musical notation, the orchestra kindly interprets to us. We herein learn that these people take their pleasures, loves, and hates at a breakneck pace. There is a feverish excitement about the whole prelude; but at the end we hear a tragic minor motif of passion and pain that sends a chill to the heart. It is the Carmen-theme--Carmen herself. A gay plaza in Seville is the first scene of action. At one side is the guard-house, near which are a number of soldiers who mingle and converse with the other strollers and promenaders. A gossiping, good-natured chorus about the square and the people is the opening number. This pleasing melody, in spite of its simplicity, has strange intervals and a restless tempo that are thoroughly Spanish. A young peasant girl soon enters, rather timidly. It is Michaela, the high soprano rôle, which because of its two fine arias is often taken by a great artist, altho the part is a subordinate one. It has frequently been sung by Madame Eames. Michaela inquires for a brigadier called Don José. An officer politely informs her that Don José belongs to the next guard, which will soon arrive. With a musical phrase of dainty and condescending gallantry he invites her to tarry with them. Michaela declines the invitation, and uses the same musical setting for her own words. With the announcement that she will return after a while she escapes from their entreaties. The chorus is resumed, and the walking and talking go on as before. Soon the fifes and drums of the relief guard are heard in the distance. The soldiers in front shoulder arms and stand in file as the approaching company appears, followed by a lot of street gamins who keep step and sing to the music. This is so lively and inspiriting that we would march and sing too if we dared. There is a satisfying quantity of this "ta-ta-ta-ra" music. After marching to the foreground the new guards change place with the old, who are then led away with the same contingent of music and street boys. The soldiers and people at last disperse, leaving Don José and a superior officer, Zuniga, conversing together. The latter points to a large building, which he says is the cigarette factory, where are employed many pretty girls. Don José professes to care little for these, and we soon learn that he loves Michaela. The factory bell now rings, and a crowd of young men and boys at once fill the square in eager anticipation of seeing the cigar girls. José sits down near the guard-house and busies himself with a little chain he is mending. The tenors sing a short pianissimo chorus about these dark-eyed girls, whom they always court and follow. It closes with a drooping, yearning ritardando that quite prepares us for the next languishing measures. The factory girls enter, with cigarettes in their mouths and a nonchalant manner that is delightful. Between puffs of smoke they sing a slumbrous refrain that suggests the effect of nicotine. The lingering legato melody seems to rise softly and rest in the air until it passes away in tones so faint that Bizet has marked them four times pianissimo. The young men now accost the girls, and soon inquire for Carmen. "Where is Carmen?" That tragic cry which ended the prelude is heard again in the orchestra, but so disguised by rapid tempo as to be scarcely recognizable, and with this theme Carmen rushes upon the scene. Black-eyed, pearly-teethed Carmen, with cheeks like the red acacia flowers at her throat, and her whole appearance like a splash of sunshine! The youths clamor about her and inquire collectively when she will love them. Carmen bestows regardlessly some of her dangerous laughing glances, and then sings her great song, the "Habenera," so called because of its rhythm, which is like a Spanish dance. But no mazy, undulating dance could be so fascinating as this song about "Love, the child of Bohemia." The compass of its ravishing melody is within a single octave. The notes cling lovingly together, for the intervals are mostly half-tones; and, indeed, as Carmen sings them each one seems like a kiss or a caress. The theme is first given in the minor, and then softly taken up by the chorus in the major--an effect as surprising and delightful as a sudden breeze on a sultry night. The accompaniment is like the soft picking of mandolins, and all things combine to represent the warm luxuriance of Spain. During the song Carmen has perceived Don José, who continues his work and gives her no attention whatever, which is a new experience for this spoiled and petted cigarette girl. She purposely becomes more personal in her song, and ends with the audacious words, "if you love me not and I love you--beware!" With a sudden dash of impertinent coquetry she flings a flower at Don José, and then rushes off the stage amid peals of laughter from the others, who follow. The young soldier, thus left alone, finds himself troubled with mingled feelings of resentment at the girl's impudence and admiration for her beauty. He puts the flower in his coat, but at once forgets the whole incident as he sees Michaela, whom he joyously welcomes. She has come to town for a day, and she brings a letter from his mother, also some money, and still something else, which she hesitates over, but finally delivers as it was given her--a kiss from his mother. There is nothing of the coquette about Michaela, and her songs are all straightforward, simple airs that win by their very artlessness. Her message is sung with harp accompaniment, and the harmonies are pure and clear. Then follows a duet about the mother and home in the village, and the tenderness of this music reveals that Don José is a loving and devoted son. When the duet is ended Michaela leaves José to read his letter. Music as peaceful as village church bells comes from the orchestra while the young soldier reads. He touches the letter to his lips and is prepared to obey his mother, especially in the matter of wedding the pretty Michaela. His thoughts are interrupted by a wild scream from the factory and sounds of disputing voices. A number of girls rush from the building, all talking at once, and they fairly besiege Zuniga with explanations of what has happened. There was a quarrel and Carmen struck another girl--some say she did, and some say she didn't. Don José, in the mean time, has gone into the factory and brings out the struggling Carmen. He tells his superior officer about the affair, which ended in one girl's being wounded by "this one." Carmen tosses her head, and when the officer asks what she has to say in defense she looks into his face and sings "la-la-la-la!" Her impertinence would be almost repellent were it not that her voice is "like the wooing wind," and even her "la-la-la" is bewitching. Further questioning only elicits the same response, and the officer angrily declares she may finish her song in prison. He orders Don José to fetter her hands and keep watch while he goes to make out the order of imprisonment. While all are gone a most interesting scene occurs between the prisoner and her keeper. The latter ties her hands, and says he must take her soon to prison, as his superior has ordered. Carmen, in her present attitude of charming helplessness, announces with sweetest tones that Don José will help her, in spite of the orders, because "I know you love me!" This is too much. When José recovers from his astonishment at her audacity he commands her to sit still and not speak to him--"not another word." Carmen nods her head in saucy obedience, and talks no more; she only sings! Sings of "an inn near the ramparts of Sevilla" where she will go to dance the Seguidilla. The song is in the rhythm of that dance, and its sinuous melody is handled by Carmen like a toy. She composes words to suit the occasion: "My heart is free and willing to love whoever loves me." Don José, who has been trying to ignore her, but without success, tells her again to stop. She looks up with a grieved expression and her prettiest smile, and says she is not talking, only singing to herself and thinking; he surely cannot forbid her thinking! So she goes on thinking aloud about a "certain officer, who is not captain, nor even lieutenant--he is only a brigadier; but still he is great enough to win the heart of Carmen." Such words, music, glances, and smiles are more than Don José can resist, and it is not long before he succumbs to her witchery. He unties her hands and asks desperately, "Carmen, Carmen, do you mean it?" And for answer she softly sings to him that rapturous song of the Seguidilla. [Illustration: Copyright by Aimé Dupont, N. Y. Calvé as Carmen.] The orchestra now starts up a lively repetition of the last chattering chorus, and with it the superior officer, Zuniga, reenters. He hands José the order and bids him lead the prisoner to her destination. Carmen holds her hands back, as tho still fettered, and she tells José in an undertone to let her push him as they march off, and during the commotion thus aroused she will escape. Then she turns to Zuniga, and with the greatest effrontery favors him with a fragment of the "Habenera" song, to which refrain she marches away with apparent docility. The whole group of cigarette girls and young men follow after. Just as they are turning to the bridge, Carmen escapes as she has planned. She throws back the rope from her hands and runs off laughing. It is fun for all but Don José, who for this neglect of duty is himself escorted to prison. Bizet has preceded every act with an orchestral introduction called the _entr'acte_, which presents some important theme or portrays the character of the scene. Thus before the curtain rises on the second act we become familiar with a new and happy melody, which we later on recognize and welcome. After the _entr'acte_ the stringed instruments, with a touch of the triangle and tambourine, hold the supremacy as they breathe forth faint, weird harmonies that flit about like moving shadows. The scene presents an interior view of the inn "near the ramparts of Sevilla." It is evening, and amid the glow of soft lights Carmen and her gypsy friends are entertaining some officers with their dancing. She further enlivens the scene by singing a Bohemian song, whose liquid phrases fall upon the air like the soft splashing of a fountain. After the song and dance it is time for the inn to close, but at this moment shouts and hurrahs are heard from without. It is a torchlight procession in honor of Escamillo, the bull-fighter, who presently enters amid general acclamations. He wears a gorgeous costume, and sings a rousing song about the exciting life of a toreador. This baritone aria is the most famous of the many popular numbers which comprise this opera. Its strongly accented rhythm and pulsating theme immediately suggest the blaze of lights and blare of trumpets which belong to the arena. Escamillo soon perceives Carmen, and as quickly falls in love. She dismisses him with a coquettish remark that might mean much or little, and then all depart excepting Carmen and her two gypsy friends, Frasquita and Mercedes. These are soon joined by their comrades, the two smugglers, who softly tell of a new enterprise which will require the "ladies' assistance." Frasquita and Mercedes consent to leave at once. Then follows an exquisite quintet, sung with tempo prestissimo and tones pianissimo. Carmen suddenly astounds them with the assertion that she can not go, and gives as her reason that she is awaiting Don José, who to-day is released after two months' imprisonment, and further adds that she loves him. They take this at first as a joke; but finding her determined, they suggest that she induce José to join them. She says she will try, and the rest hurry out as they hear the young soldier approaching. He is singing a gay barrack song, and thus comes to Carmen with his heart in his voice and soul in his eyes. She welcomes him impulsively, and ere long she sings and dances for his amusement. Her song is but an accompaniment to the dance--a low, crooning melody without words which resembles the contented purring of a magnificent feline as she glides and sways with a splendid grace around the infatuated José. A bugle-call is heard in the distance, a summons the soldier must obey, and he stops Carmen in the midst of her dance. She thinks he is joking and commences again; but when she actually realizes that he is going to leave her, that he finds it _possible_ to leave, a perfect whirlwind succeeds the sirocco. She throws him his cap and sword, and bids him go forever if such is his love. Poor Don José remonstrates, but she will not listen until at last he forces her to hear how real and true is his love for her. He draws from his coat the little flower she threw at him two months ago, and he tells how, during all his days in prison, it was his dearest treasure. This music is more like the song of a pilgrim at a sacred shrine than a song of love, it is so simple and sincere. Its tenderness seems to reach even the heart of Carmen, for she now turns and with entreating looks and wooing tones she coaxes him to go with her and lead the free life of a bandit. The accompaniment is like the distant prancing of wild horses and the melody like the forest wind, low as a whisper, but sweeping before it all the fluttering doubts of a weak conscience. It is desertion, disgrace, dishonor, that Carmen asks of him, and José recoils. He is just on the point of refusing when a knock at the door is heard and Zuniga enters. He is himself in love with Carmen, and has presumed thus to return after the others have gone, in hopes of finding her alone. On discovering the presence of Don José he is angry and orders him away; but José's jealousy is also aroused and he firmly refuses to obey. A duel would ensue did not Carmen quickly call her friends. They seize Zuniga, and to avoid being denounced must keep him prisoner until they have made sure their escape. Carmen turns to José and asks once more if he will be one of them. As there is now no alternative, he consents, whereupon Carmen with light steps and light heart rushes to his arms like a sunbeam, dispelling for the moment all clouds of memory and doubt. The free, fearless measures of her mountain song are heard again as all sing about the gypsies' life of liberty. They all go off as the curtain falls. The next _entr'acte_ is sometimes called the intermezzo, for it divides the opera--the comedy from the tragedy--and it contains the first premonition of sorrow. As the curtain rises we hear a stealthy, shivering theme that well characterizes the scene before us--a wild, picturesque ravine, which is the smugglers' retreat. Some gypsies are reclining on the rocks; others soon enter, and sing a quite enticing chorus about the dangers and pleasures of their profession. Two leaders of the band then go off to reconnoiter, while the others rest. Don José is seen standing on one of the rocks, and when Carmen rather moodily inquires his thoughts he tells her of his mother in the village, who still believes him to be an honest man. Carmen coldly advises him to go back to her. Quick as thought-suggestion the orchestra recalls the tragic motif which we had almost forgotten. It causes us to feel with José the sting of Carmen's words. Our attention is now directed to Frasquita and Mercedes, who are seated on a bale of goods and trying their fortunes. A light staccato accompaniment sustains their still lighter song. The dainty measures are flung up like bubbles, reflecting the gay colors of the cards, which chance to be all diamonds and hearts. Carmen also tries her luck, but only the dark cards fall to her--death, always death; and to the superstitious gyspy this is like a knell. Again that tragic, mournful theme, like the extended hand of fate, feels its way slowly but surely through the orchestra, and then Carmen sings a meditative, melancholy refrain about the cards whose "decrees are never false." The music is in a low key, as tho kept under and depressed by her despair, and it touches our sympathy to see the sunny, frivolous Carmen for once thoughtful. The two smugglers presently return and report that three coast-guards intercept the way. The girls promise to entertain and divert these while the men make off with the booty. To the strains of a rollicking chorus they all go out, after stationing Don José as watch on one of the highest rocks. At this moment Michaela, with a guide, comes timidly forward. She has dared to follow the smugglers to this retreat for the purpose of seeing José and begging him to return. She has tried to be brave, but her heart now trembles, and this fact she confesses in her beautiful and best aria, "Je dis que rien" ("I say that nothing shall terrify me"). As she begs Heaven to strengthen her courage, the soft arpeggios of the instruments seem to rise like incense and carry her sweet prayer with them. She presently perceives José in the distance and tries to attract his attention, but he is watching another intruder--on whom he now fires. Michaela hides herself in terror as Escamillo enters and philosophically studies the newly made bullet-hole in his cap. Don José also comes down to interrogate this visitor. The toreador good-naturedly informs him that he has fallen in love with a gypsy girl, Carmen, and comes to find her. He also adds, "It is known that a young soldier recently deserted his post for her, but she no longer loves him." Jealousy seems but a feeble word to describe the feelings of Don José on hearing this. He quickly reveals his identity and challenges the toreador. After a short duet, which contains chromatic crescendos of blind fury for the tenor and insolent intervals for the baritone, they fight. Carmen, for the second time, averts a duel by her timely entrance. She calls for help, and the whole troupe of gypsies rush in. They separate the rivals and order them to suspend their quarrel, as all is now arranged for the journey. Before bidding farewell Escamillo invites all to his next bull-fight in Seville. "Whoever loves me will come,"--this with a tender look to Carmen that maddens José. Escamillo goes off and the others also start, but they suddenly discover Michaela in her hiding-place and bring her forward. She is frightened and rushes to José for protection, begging him to go home with her. Carmen cruelly seconds this entreaty, and then José turns upon her: "Take care, Carmen!" The words are menacing, but not so the music. José suffers more than he hates, and, instead of the rising tones of anger, the harmonies which struggle upward are continually repulsed as they reach the top, like a wild bird that beats its wings against prison bars. When Michaela finally tells him that his mother is dying, Don José consents to go. He calls out to Carmen, "We shall meet again!" She pays little heed to his words, but a glad smile lights her features as she hears in the distance the song of the toreador. And with this melody the act ends. The final scene represents the gates of the arena where occurs the great bull-fight, and the preceding _entr'acte_ is like the flaming advertisement of a circus, exciting and enthusing from first to last. The opening chorus is sung by venders who throng the square and cry their wares. After this the arena music announces the entrance of the performers. They come in on horseback, and amid enthusiastic greetings from the crowd ride into the arena. Escamillo, the hero of the hour, enters with Carmen at his ride. The public cry, "Vive, Escamilla!" and burst into a vociferous singing of the "Toreador Song." Carmen is radiant as the dawn, and the bull-fighter wears colors and spangles that quite eclipse any soldier's uniform. Before he enters the ring they sing a love-duet that displays more depth of feeling than we should expect from a Zingara. When the toreador has gone and the arena gates are closed, Mercedes and Frasquita anxiously inform Carmen that Don José has been seen in the crowd, and they urge her to leave; but she declares she is not afraid of José or any one. They leave her alone, and presently the rejected lover appears before her. But not in anger or to avenge does Don José present himself. He is too utterly dejected and broken-hearted for that. He comes only to entreat and plead for her love. Before he speaks we are warned by the ever-terrible death-theme, which has hung over the whole opera like a suspended sword, that the end is near. But Don José does not know this. Neither does Carmen, else perhaps she would not so ruthlessly spurn him when he begs her to go with him and begin a new life. When he piteously asks if she no longer loves him, her answer is a decisive "Non; je ne t'aime plus." But words have lost their sting for poor José. In a minor melody, that seems to cry out for pity, he says he loves her still. He offers to remain a bandit--anything, all things! And then the pathetic minor melody breaks into the major as he desperately adds: "Only, Carmen, do not leave me!" At this moment a fanfare and applause are heard in the arena, which cause Carmen's face to glow with pleasure as she thinks of Escamillo. She tries to rush past Don José into the amphitheater, but he intercepts her and forces her to confess that she loves this man whom they applaud. Once again the gay fanfare is heard, and Carmen tries to pass. It is now that the tragic motif takes possession of the orchestra and dominates all else. Fearful and appalling sound those five notes which form the theme as they are repeated in various keys. In a frenzy of anguish Don José asks Carmen for the last time to go with him. She refuses, and then, as the toreador's song of triumph announces his success, José stabs the beautiful gypsy, who falls at his feet like a crushed butterfly. The gates of the arena are thrown open and its glittering pageant comes forth, while José, with insane grief, calls out, "I have killed her--Carmen--whom I adored!" There is no climax more thrilling on the lyric stage than this death of Carmen. "Hamlet" "HAMLET" Of all Shakespeare's plays, Hamlet is the most difficult to surround with music and adapt for the lyric stage. It is more scholastic than dramatic, and for this reason composers have passed it by with the single exception of Ambroise Thomas. His accomplishment certainly deserves more commendation than was bestowed by an irate critic who said: "There are four weary, dreary acts before you come to the music." This assertion is correct in one way, for the opera is indeed long--quite too long; but there is, nevertheless, much that is beautiful in those four acts preceding the mad scene. But even were this not the case, that last scene is so exquisite that it would atone for any amount of previous ennui. Thomas has given his principal rôle to the baritone, which seems an innovation. Whenever a lower voice has been honored with the leading rôle in a grand opera the reason is found in the character, as the jovial Barber of Seville, the deformed Rigoletto, the accursed Flying Dutchman; but the tenor has always held undisputed possession of the lover's part. It takes us some little time to become reconciled to this baritone-voiced young prince. But we finally realize that he is less a lover than a philosopher, which probably explains why Thomas turned from the tenor. The opera opens with a short and somber prelude that closely resembles the later introduction to the ghost-scene. It is therefore more descriptive of the melancholy Dane than of the first act, which is brilliant throughout. The curtain rises upon a state hall in the palace, where have been celebrated the wedding and coronation of Claudius and Gertrude, brother and widow of the late king. A sturdy march that is quite Danish in character accompanies the grand entrance of the king and queen. That music can express a nationality is clearly evinced by this march, which possesses a rugged, North-sea atmosphere that differs from all others. The first aria is given by the king, who eulogizes his new-made wife, "our sometime sister, now our queen." After this bass solo with its pleasing rhythm and satisfying cadences the queen inquires for her son Hamlet, who is not among the revelers. But her anxieties are drowned by the festive music that recommences and continues until the entire court have made their exit. The music now changes to a meditative, minor mood, which announces the entrance of Hamlet. He shares no joy on this occasion of his mother's wedding, and his first words are a short recitative about "frailty, thy name is woman." His soliloquy is followed by a phrase in the orchestra--a timid, questioning sort of introduction which before the opera is over we learn to associate with the gentle Ophelia. She enters and addresses Hamlet, her betrothed, with an anxious inquiry about his intended departure from Denmark. On learning from his own lips that the report is true, she asks why he leaves, and begins to doubt his love. There is a daintiness and a delicacy to all of Ophelia's music; and in this short melody, so admirably blended with the accompaniment, there is a wooing charm that diverts even Hamlet from his grief. He clasps her hands, and with thrilling fervor bids her-- "Doubt that the stars are fire. Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt Truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love." This is the great theme of the opera, the center-stone of the musical crown that the French composer has given to Shakespeare's Hamlet. Its love-laden melody would carry conviction to a less trusting heart than Ophelia's. She receives it like truth from heaven. Its memory lingers ever, and even in her after madness, when the words have no meaning, we hear them again "like sweet bells jangled out of tune." There follows a duet based upon Hamlet's vow. The soprano voice occasionally runs up in some happy little roulades which seem like the outburst of joy which can not confine itself to the prescribed theme. However long the whole opera, we certainly could not spare a note from the love-duet; it ends only too soon. Ophelia's brother, Laertes, comes in. He is a soldier, and has just received a commission which requires his speedy departure; so he sings a farewell to his sister and bids Hamlet be as a brother to her in case he never returns. This first and only cavatina of Laertes is well worth a good artist. It is melodious and pleasing, even when compared to the previous duet. As he finishes, gay music is heard from the inner hall. Ophelia asks Hamlet to join the festivities, but he declines and retires sorrowfully as some pages and young officers enter. They sing a unique and merry chorus without accompaniment, which is interrupted by the entrance of Horatio and Marcellus, who inquire for Hamlet. They declare they have seen the ghost of the late king, and seek to apprise Hamlet of the fact. The merry-makers laugh and call it a delusion; but the two friends continue their search for the young prince. The dance music is resumed, and so fascinating and emphatic is its rhythm that our pulses throb in tempo long after the curtain descends. The second act represents the esplanade outside of the castle. It is a chilly moonlight night--a sharp contrast to the beam of lights from within and the blare of dance music which ever and anon reaches our ears. But the prelude which opens the act is thoroughly descriptive of the scene before us. It has deep, rumbling tremolos and chilling chromatic crescendos, with here and there a moaning, wo-weighted theme that is piteous to hear. There is much singing without orchestra and much orchestra without singing in this scene of the esplanade, which accounts for the charge against it of being "rather thin ghost music." Horatio and Marcellus are the first to enter. They are soon joined by Hamlet, to whom they recount the strange visitation of the previous night. As they wait and watch for the specter to reappear, a gay fanfare from the palace jars upon the stillness. Strains of the wedding-march are heard, and there seems abundant reason for the dead king to rise from his grave! Hamlet utters expletives over the mockery of such gaiety within, while "here is the shadow of mourning." His words are accompanied by an oft-repeated minor phrase of four notes which is stealthy and fearful. This ghost-theme alternates with a single monotonous tone that represents the twelve strokes of a clock. Hamlet hushes his singing; there is a soft, eerie tremolo of the violins; the pale moonlight falls upon the castle's turreted towers. Marcellus and Horatio speak in whispers, when suddenly the orchestra gives a great crash of brass and cymbals that makes your blood freeze. The phantom has appeared. Now follows the incantation, so called because Hamlet conjures the spirit to speak to him. This music is based entirely upon the four-note ghost theme, which is elaborated and carried by the orchestra through many forms. At last the specter speaks, and in a deep monotone informs Hamlet how he was murdered by the present King. His own brother stole his life, his wife, and his throne. He bids Hamlet avenge this terrible crime, and then disappears. Hamlet cries out in a theme large and grand, "Farewell to fame, love, and happiness!" Revenge shall hereafter be the aim of his life. The peaceful love-music greets our ears as we look upon the next scene, which reveals the gardens of the palace. The superb theme of Hamlet's vow rings out in clear, untroubled octaves as the fair Ophelia comes forward with a book in her hand. She is trying to read, but thoughts of Hamlet constantly intrude themselves. "He has not touched my hand for quite two days, and seems to avoid my presence." She again turns to her book and reads aloud. Ophelia reads very beautifully. Thomas has with music conveyed the impression of enunciating words from a book. We would know she was reading even if the book were not visible nor the words audible, and yet it is not by means of a monotone that this idea is conveyed. It is a simple song melody, and the effect is probably due to the rhythm rather than the intervals. After reading one stanza, Hamlet's vow--that theme so deep and true--is again heard, and the hero himself comes thoughtfully upon the scene. He is in the background, but Ophelia has seen him, and she quickly makes a pretense of reading. She listens for every step as he draws nearer, and believes he will speak. He sees her and at first comes forward, but then remembers that he has foresworn love; and thinking she has not seen him, he quietly retires. Poor Ophelia throws down her book in wildest grief, and a song of despair springs from her heart. "Vows have wings and they fly with the dawn; the day which gives them birth also sees them die." Every note is like a tear, and the harmonies are plaintive and pitiful. The queen presently enters and is grieved to find Ophelia weeping. The latter explains that Hamlet no longer loves her, and she begs permission to leave the court; but the queen puts other ideas in her head. She says that Hamlet has also acted strangely toward her, and she believes his mind is affected. For this reason she asks Ophelia to remain, and hopes her presence may restore him. This first song of the queen, who must have a mezzo-soprano voice of dramatic quality, combines dignity and pathos. Its mood does not contrast, but harmonizes with the previous aria. Ophelia accepts the queen's advice, and then goes off as the king enters. He confers with his wife about Hamlet's alarming behavior, but their conversation is interrupted by the prince himself, who greets them moodily and assumes more vagaries than he feels. He is constantly seeking to entrap the king into some sign or remark which will verify the ghost's charge of murder. He has therefore planned to have a play enacted which shall depict the king's crime. His invitation to this theatrical entertainment is welcomed by the unsuspecting king and queen, who are delighted that he thus seeks diversion. As they go off, Hamlet exclaims tragically, "Patience, my father, patience!" and the orchestra reveals to us thoughts of revenge, for we hear again that ponderous and melancholy theme which ended the ghost scene. Hamlet is now joined by the actors whom he has engaged for the play. They sing a characteristic chorus about their several talents, and then Hamlet explains to them the plot they are to enact--how a king whom he calls Gonzago shall be poisoned by his brother, who afterward places the crown on his own head and marries the widow. After this preliminary, Hamlet calls for wine and bids the players make merry. He sings to them a drinking-song of dazzling exuberance. It is strange how universally successful operatic composers are in the matter of drinking-songs. You can name off-hand more popular _chansons Bacchic_ than any other one style of aria. There are various well-known serenades and prayers and spinning-songs, but of drinking-songs there are any number. "Lucrezia Borgia," "Rigoletto," "Traviata," "Huguenots," "Cavalleria Rusticana,"--their drinking-songs are heard every day on the hand-organs in the street. And so in "Hamlet" its drinking-song is one of the most celebrated numbers of the opera. Its bubbling rhythm and hilarious melody are continued even after the song is ended and the curtain descends. It lingers like the effect of wine. Act III. is the play scene. There is a small stage erected at one side of the spacious palace hall, and opposite this is a throne for the king and queen. The orchestra carries everything before it with the rousing Danish march which accompanies the ceremonious entrance of the entire court. This composition ranks with the drinking-song in popularity. When all are assembled, Hamlet places himself in a position to watch the king, and as the mimic play proceeds he explains the action, which is all in pantomime. The orchestral descriptive music of this play within a play is beautiful and interesting. As in Ophelia's reading, the simple melody and hesitating rhythm again convey the impression of something inserted, something apart from the real action of the play. Hamlet becomes more and more excited as the play goes on, for he sees unmistakable signs of uneasiness in the king's expression; and when at last the mimic murderer pours poison into the ear of his sleeping victim, the king rises in anger and orders the players away. Hamlet in a delirium of vengeful joy cries out the king's guilt. He pushes his way through the surrounding courtiers, and with unbridled fury accuses the murderer. He is sustained by a perfect tidal wave of chords from the orchestra, which dash and beat and break, but only harm the good ship they bear instead of the rock they attack. The people regard Hamlet's charge as an outburst of madness, and he presently lends credence to this belief by singing with wild hilarity the drinking-song of the previous act. The following strong and seething chorus of dismay is again interrupted at the very end by Hamlet's mad song-- "Life is short and death is near; We'll sing and drink while yet we may." With a wild mocking laugh he falls into Horatio's arms as the king and court withdraw. The great feature of the fourth act is the scene between Hamlet and his mother, but there is much besides. The scene represents the queen's apartment in the palace, and the first number is Hamlet's soliloquy. He blames himself and deems it cowardice that he did not strike the king dead when he had the opportunity. Then follows the musical arrangement of "To be or not to be," a speech so unsuited to music that Thomas has cut it down to a few lines. Hamlet presently sees the king approaching, and he conceals himself behind a curtain with the intention of attacking him. But the king thinks himself alone, and in agony of mind he kneels on the prie-dieu and prays. It is an impressive composition, this prayer with its cathedral harmonies and blending accompaniment. Hamlet glides softly toward the door, for he can not kill even his father's murderer at prayer. The king, who has heard the footsteps, cries out in terror, for he fancies it was the ghost of his brother. Polonius, the father of Ophelia, quickly enters and reassures the king. They walk out arm in arm, and from their few words it is gleaned that Polonius was an accomplice to the crime. Hamlet hears them, and is horrified to learn this fact about Ophelia's father. At this moment the queen and Ophelia enter, and the former announces to Hamlet that it is her wish as well as the king's that his marriage shall take place at once. The prince blankly refuses to obey in spite of the queen's urging; but his heart endures a struggle when the poor Ophelia sings of her grief and returns to him his ring. The sweet minor strain in her song implies a sad resignation that is more touching than intense lamentation. She goes out weeping. The queen then turns to Hamlet and upbraids him for his faithlessness. She presently recurs to the terrible scene at the play, and utters the famous words, "Thou hast thy father much offended." The scene which follows demands great dramatic ability of the queen, as well as vocal strength. After a sharp and active recitative dialog, in which Hamlet announces himself as her judge and no longer her son, she sings a fine entreaty that the tenderness of the son may mitigate the severity of the judge. It is a strong and powerful theme, but Hamlet is obdurate. He contrasts the late king with the present one in words and tones that make his mother cower. She again pleads for mercy and forgiveness, and finally falls in a swoon as the stage is darkened and the ghost appears. Hamlet trembles before this admonisher. The music of the incantation is again heard, and the phantom bids Hamlet spare his mother, but "fail not to avenge." As the ghost disappears the instruments are weighted with that great and gloomy theme of revenge which seems to descend and enwrap the whole scene like a dark, heavy mist. The queen awakens; but there is little more seen or heard before the curtain falls. Act V. is known as the Mad Scene, one of the most beautiful, most ideal, and most difficult creations ever put upon the lyric stage. It is seldom performed, merely because there are few artists who can adequately render its astonishing music. There are other mad scenes in existence. The one from "Lucia di Lammermoor" is very celebrated, but its music no more expresses the vagaries of madness than does any other florid aria. Of course, lavish colorature seems appropriate and is considered imperative; but Donizetti's florid fancies are mere plumes and flounces draped upon a melody, whereas with Thomas these form the texture of the theme. The French composer well knows the worth of his mad music, and he has taken pains to present it most advantageously. You are not ushered at once from the grim and gruesome harmonies of the last act to this wealth of inspiration, but are first entertained by a ballet of shepherds and shepherdesses. During this dance we become accustomed to the beautiful rural landscape, the gentle stream at the back and the drooping willows. We are also brought under the spell of a different kind of music; these pastoral ballet motifs are very charming. They are light and fantastic, but at the same time suggest a midsummer peace and tranquillity. At last the dainty dance is ended, and then the rustic group perceive a strange figure approaching--a beautiful maid, with her flowing hair adorned with bits of straw and wild flowers. Her white dress is torn, and her bare arms carry a straggling bunch of flowers which she plays with and caresses. That exquisite inquiring little introduction which we heard in the first act again announces the entrance of Ophelia. She glances a moment at the pretty peasants, and then, with intuitive politeness, asks permission to join in their sport. There is a subtle pathos about this first little phrase, which is sung without accompaniment, and is simple as a child's question. She goes on to tell them how she left the palace at dawn and no one has followed. "The tears of night were still on the ground and the lark poured forth its morning song." A perfect bird-throat warble of trills and fluttering staccatos follows this memory of the lark. But her thoughts are varied, and she suddenly turns and asks: "Why do you whisper to each other? Don't you know me? Hamlet is my betrothed, and I--I am Ophelia." Then she tells them, in tones that rest upon the accompaniment like lilies on a lake, how Hamlet vowed always to love her and that she has given him her heart in exchange. "If any one should tell you that he will leave and forget me, do not believe it. Believe nothing they tell you, for Hamlet is my betrothed, and I--I am Ophelia." But in spite of this assertion of Hamlet's faith, there is throughout all the music a ring of perpetual pain. She clasps her hand to her head with terror, and exclaims: "If he were false I think I should lose my reason!" [Illustration: Copyright by Aimé Dupont, N. Y. Calvé as Ophelia in "Hamlet."] The flowers again hold her attention, and she plays with them as the orchestra commences a ravishing waltz theme. She at first pays little heed to the music, but its gay melody at last drifts to her soul and finds immediate expression. The difficult phrases fall from her lips like petals from a flower. Gleeful chromatics and happy trills are also thrown in, and we would soon forget it was the sad Ophelia did she not suddenly tire of this extravagant virtuosity. She turns to the shepherds and bids them harken to the song she will sing. Then follows a ballad whose moaning, minor harmonies sound like a sighing breeze. It is about the sirens beneath the water who lure men to its glassy depths. The wearied, worried mind of the mad girl now revels in a wild, merry laugh, which is as quickly followed by passionate sobs; but she finally remembers to finish her song about the siren. This strange, sad melody possesses a weird charm that is irresistible. Again she breaks into hilarious laughter and uncontrolled weeping. Grief without hope and joy without memory alternate in rapid succession. The music of this portion defies description. It is a perfect conflagration of impossible staccatos and scales. With one last sweeping chromatic run, that rushes like the whistling wind from low D to high E, Ophelia kneels down with her flowers and thinks only of them. The peasants retire from the scene, and the orchestra take up fragments of the waltz. They play for some moments, while Ophelia contentedly rearranges her bouquet. But presently a wonderful change comes over the music. We hear only the string instruments and flute, and soon these, too, are hushed, while out of the air a magical song arises. It is the siren's ballad, faint as a vision but with full harmonies. Thomas has produced this effect of dream-music by having the chorus sing behind the scenes with closed mouth. This soft humming of a hidden chorus well resembles the buried voices of water-nymphs. Ophelia at once recognizes the song, and she is drawn by the music toward the stream, where she hopes to see the sirens. All unconscious, she pushes her way through the rushes and reeds on the bank. The chorus has ceased, and only the tender, liquid tones of the harp now fill the air. Ophelia steps too far and soon falls into the "weeping brook." Her dress bears her up for a time, and we hear her sweetly singing as she floats down the stream. It is no longer the ballad or the gay waltz, but quite another theme to which her memory now clings. It is Hamlet's glorious vow-- "Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love." Ophelia ends her song with a lingering high note of such silvery beauty that it seems like a far-away star in the dark night of death. A Talk with Lillian Nordica [Illustration: Copyright by Aimé Dupont, N. Y. LILLIAN NORDICA.] A TALK WITH LILLIAN NORDICA It was during one of Patti's farewell seasons at the old Academy of Music that a young American girl, by the name of Lillian Norton, first appeared as a prima donna. She made a success, but not a sensation, for she had not then the halo of a European glory, and people were in those days too intent on the passing star to note any rising one. But later on, when she Italianized her name, they applauded the same voice more loudly, tho their attention was still more directed to the foreign artists who appeared every year. The American girl all this time never relaxed her determination, but kept on working with a will, learning rôles there was no prospect of using, and studying all things in her line. At last she was engaged by the Metropolitan Opera Company; but her name was not printed at the top of the list, and she was not held out as the magnet to fill the house on the opening night. In the end, tho, she sang oftener than any of the other sopranos, for when they were indisposed she it was that always came forward. _There was never a rôle she could not sing, and never a time she was not ready._ The dormant appreciation of her countrymen became at last thoroughly aroused. Since then her success has swept onward with unabating force. The following season in New York the enthusiasm she inspired was so great that one large club of opera-goers presented her with a diamond tiara, and the people that year had to stand in line when buying seats to hear Madame Lillian Nordica. The Waldorf-Astoria, where she lives when in New York, is quite a contrast to the humble New England home in Farmington, Me., where she was born. This hotel is a city in itself, and the visitor who inquires for some distinguished resident is conducted personally along the marble avenues and carpeted byways and through the beautiful "palm-garden." The door of Madame Nordica's apartment was opened by a white-capped maid, who seated the caller and then left the room. It was the day of a blizzard, and from this sixth-floor elevation the snow-storm without was of superb fury. It battered against the window as tho maddened by the sight within of the prima donna's cosy parlor, of the shaded electric lights, the wide-open grand piano, and the numerous long-stemmed roses, in various tall jars, fragrant and peaceful as a summer's day. Through the silken draperies of a doorway could be heard the sound of voices, of occasional laughter, and then--a scale, a trill, and a soft high note. It was an exquisite grand-opera effect with the whistling storm by way of orchestral accompaniment. Soon the curtains were parted and Madame Nordica entered--a woman of regal height and figure, but with manners thoroughly American and democratic. "Do you mean to say you came through all this storm to see me! You are certainly very brave." These were her first words; then she drew up a comfortable chair, and added: "Well, it's just the sort of day to talk and take things easy." Madame Nordica's tones convey even more than her words, for her voice is noticeably beautiful in conversation. It is fascinating in its variety, its softness, and its purity. Her face is also very expressive, as well as beautiful, with a complexion remarkably fine, teeth of absolute perfection, and thoughtful blue eyes set well apart. She wore a house-gown of pale, clinging blue silk, and, with the exception of her wedding ring, had on no jewelry. She told first of her birthplace and home. "I was the sixth girl, and I think my parents were rather tired out by the time I came. I wasn't even baptized!" Then she talked of her work. "I studied first in Boston, and sang there in church; but I made my concert début here in New York with Gilmore at the old Madison Square Garden. He took me with him afterward to Europe. When I returned to America I sang in all the Italian operas, especially Verdi's." Madame Nordica still holds to-day a supreme place as a singer of the Italian school, altho her greatest fame has been won in the Wagner rôles. When asked if she had ever met Verdi, the singer replied in the affirmative. "I met him in Italy, but only once. I was much better acquainted with Gounod, and also the modern composers, Leoncavallo, Mascagni, etc., but now I devote my chief time to Wagner." This led to inquiries about Madame Cosima Wagner. "Ah, I lived right with her for three months, and it was a great privilege for me. Her husband's music is to her like her very eyes. She taught me the German and helped me in every way. 'Lohengrin' had never been sung in Baireuth, and I was to create there the rôle of Elsa." A remarkable honor this was, indeed: to be the first Elsa in Wagner's own temple, under the guidance of his own wife, with the grave of the great composer fairly in sight, and memories of the "Mad King" on all sides--the king whose ears were deaf to the functions of state, but open to the art of heaven. "It was a great opportunity for me, but I sometimes thought I would have to give it up. Oh! I have been so discouraged! I have wept _barrels of tears_!" This is a kind message for the great singer to send to the many struggling aspirants who may to-day be working under discouragement. Madame Nordica insists that "work is everything. The voice is but the material; it is the stone from which the cathedral is built." After her great success in Baireuth, the American prima donna sang Elsa in New York. "But I had to sing again in Italian, for the rest of the company had not learned the German. It was through my efforts that they have since studied these rôles in the original, and we now sing all the Wagner operas in German." It was a great musical event when Jean de Reszke and Madame Nordica appeared as Tristan and Isolde. This love-tragedy done in music is perhaps the most profound of all operas. It is somber with sorrow throughout; even the great love-duet in the second act is too intense and grand in its motifs ever to be called happy. It is not the joyous emotion of youth, but the fervor of maturity, where life itself is staked for a mighty love. This second act is a wondrous musical scene. It is in the moonlit gardens of the Cornish castle where Tristan and Isolde meet clandestinely, while Bragaende, the faithful attendant, keeps watch in the tower above. She is not seen, but the calm sustained tones of her watch-tower song soar out in contrast to the intense love-music like a beacon-light on a turbulent sea. Another very popular rôle of Madame Nordica's, tho altogether different in style, is Valentine in "The Huguenots." Her sustained and crescendoed high C in the third act of this opera is worth a long journey to hear. Madame Fursch-Madi in years agone used to sing this rôle very grandly, but she was plain of feature; whereas with Madame Nordica her Valentine is so beautiful to behold that the audience is aroused to greatest sympathy with the hero's struggle between love and duty. "Our art is so very legitimate," Madame Nordica thoughtfully remarked. "The painter or the writer can take advice, can be assisted, and has time to consider his work; but we must face the music alone, at the point of the bayonet as it were, for every tone must come at the right moment and on the right pitch. The actress has neither of these requirements to meet. It is very trying, also, to sing one night in German and the next time in some other language. Indeed, every performance is a creation. No wonder we are so insistent on the applause. A painter or writer can say to himself, if his work is not at first well received, 'Just wait till I am dead!' But our fate and fame are decided on the spot." Madame Nordica grew enthusiastic as she talked, and her face was all animation. "It is easy to criticize us, but hard for an outsider to appreciate the difficulties of our art. No one is in a place he does not deserve--at least not for any length of time. And I believe, too, that no one lacks for opportunity. When people say, So-and-so has a beautiful voice, and ought to be on the Metropolitan stage, just inquire what that person can do. Very likely she only knows one language, and probably can not sing a single act of one opera straight through. Why should she be on the Metropolitan stage? A girl came to me not long ago who had been singing with some English opera company. She had a beautiful voice and said she could sing everything, which I found to be true. I asked why she did not go to Mr. Grau, and she replied, quite disheartened, that he would do nothing for her. Then I asked, 'Are you ready for _anything_? I feel quite sure he could use you now as the page in "Romeo and Juliet."' 'Oh, I wouldn't sing a secondary rôle!' she quickly exclaimed. Now that girl makes a great mistake. To sing well one beautiful aria on the same stage with such artists as the two De Reszkes and Madame Melba would do her more good than to sing the first rôles in a poor company." Madame Nordica spoke very earnestly as she related this story of a lost opportunity, which so plainly points its own moral. Another incident she told gives the reverse side of the same idea: "I remember one day some singers were discussing another member of their company, and claiming that he did not deserve his high position; but I protested, and said: 'Just consider what that man can do. He knows every language, has a fine stage presence, a good voice, and can sing every rôle in the repertoire. Now where will you get another to fill his place?' "Our art to-day is very different from what it used to be. People wonder who will replace Patti or some other retiring singer; but if one should appear who adequately filled the vacant place, we would at once hear people saying, 'She only sings coloratura rôles and nothing but Italian!' No, the great artist to-day is the one who has mastered all, who does the work of three in former years, and not one who shines forth temporarily in a few special rôles." Madame Nordica can certainly speak with authority on this point, for she is one whom we may truly say has "mastered all." Her repertoire is astonishing in its scope and variety; and when we consider that out of eighty-seven million people, which is our present population, including the colonies, she is the only one to-day who sings the three "Brünhildes" of Wagner and also his "Isolde," we can then better appreciate Madame Nordica's achievement. It needs a very great mind to grasp and portray these Wagnerian creations. Brünhilde, the war goddess, must be both tender and heroic--as it were, divinely human. No composer but Wagner could have imparted these qualities; but he was himself a sort of musical Jove, who wielded the scale like a thunderbolt. If any one doubt this, let him hear and behold the wonderful "Ride of the Walküre," those five war maidens, daughters of Wotan, who chase through the clouds on their armored steeds, and call one another in tones unearthly, to an accompaniment of whizzing strings, and clanging brass, and a torrent of intricate chords. The music depicts the fierce clash of the elements, the war gods in battle, the clamor of shields, and the furious dash of wild horses. Above it all there rings out on the air the weird, far-reaching cry of Brünhilde, the leader of the Walküre maidens, and her call is repeated from the East, from the West, from the uttermost mountain-peaks, by her sister spirits, who are sometimes hidden and sometimes revealed by the fast-rushing clouds, through which their steeds gallop and plunge. [Illustration: Copyright by Aimé Dupont, N. Y. Nordica as Brünhilde in "Siegfried."] Whoever can hear this wonder-work and not bow to Wagner's greatness is surely a musical degenerate. "My progress has not been by leaps and bounds," Madame Nordica presently announced; "it has been more tortoise-like; and I have sometimes seen others sweep past me with apparently little effort. But in the end justice comes around to all. What is it Mrs. Carter says in 'Zaza' about success? 'It comes from much misery.' Yes, there is very much of that. 'And much work,'--ah, a _great deal_ of that. 'And a little luck,'--yes, a _very_ little of that; it is not good to have much luck." As I arose to go, Madame Nordica added with a smile: "You see I could talk on this subject all day. The sum of it is, success comes from steady daily work. You must work well in the morning, and then work some more in the afternoon--and it is well to practise between times too!" "Lohengrin" "LOHENGRIN" There seems a very magic about the name of Lohengrin--a mythical strength and beauty that at once characterize the whole opera. The fault is occasionally found that Wagner's operas are long and at times tedious; but this term is never applied to "Lohengrin." One is disarmed of this suspicion in the very first prelude. Ah, what a prelude is that! It is like the gradual drawing together from empty space all the music of the spheres. The two first measures are so pianissimo that we scarcely hear them, but the vague and far-away voices come slowly nearer. They mingle with each other and weave in and out, until there is a crescendo mighty and overpowering. We are now prepared for the legendary character of the opera; such music could not represent things earthly. The curtain rises upon a scene of medieval coloring. It is a woodland upon the banks of the Scheldt in the province of Brabant. A throne is erected on one side, and here the king of Germany is holding court. He is visiting this province of his realm to solicit aid in a coming war. After this fact is announced by the herald, the king arises and in stately phrases greets the people and explains more fully the object of his visit. He closes with the observation that it grieves him to find this province in a state of discord, and he requests Frederick of Telramund, an esteemed nobleman of Brabant, to recount the situation. Frederick, which is the baritone rôle, tells a strange and interesting story. The province is at present without any ducal ruler, owing to the recent mysterious disappearance of the young heir. He was last seen in company with his sister Elsa. The two were walking in the forest, but she returned alone and declared she had lost her brother. Frederick now charges Elsa with murder, and furthermore lays claim to the ducal throne in the name of himself and also his wife Ortrud, who bears some kinship to the late duke. On hearing this charge the king summons Elsa, who presently comes forward with bowed head and sorrowful mien. This must have been a thrilling moment at that first performance in Baireuth when Lillian Nordica stepped before the audience. It was not only Elsa challenging her accusers, but an American girl challenging German critics under the dome of their most hallowed shrine, with their own music and in their own language. But whatever a singer's emotions may be, she must give no evidence of them. It is wonderful how smoothly these great performances always run. Come what may, the play goes on. Elsa can say no more in her behalf than has already been given; but when urged by the king to speak freely all that is on her heart, she tells of a wonderful vision which came in her hour of distress. An armored knight, more grand than any she had seen, appeared to her and promised to be her deliverer and champion. This dream-song of Elsa's is like a musical apparition, so ethereal and spirituelle; but one must not seek for these wonderful beauties in the voice-part alone. With Wagner the orchestra is never a mere accompaniment, but more often the principal part. A theme is sometimes begun in the orchestra and finished by the voice, or it may be altogether with the instruments. Wagner handles the voice like a noble metal which can be fashioned into useful vessels to carry and convey the emotions, in contrast to the Italian composers, who look upon the voice as a jewel to be displayed and admired for its own sake. To return to Elsa's song. It should be understood from the first that each theme in the opera expresses some emotion or idea which is consistently adhered to throughout. For instance, when Elsa describes the knight in her dream, there is heard in the orchestra a few bars of the Lohengrin--or swan-song, a theme which is constantly revealing itself in this great kaleidoscope of sound whenever the hero appears or is mentioned. Again, when she speaks of his glittering armor, the splendid warlike motif which asserts itself is the same one that is worked up in the crescendo preceding Lohengrin's arrival. After this strange recital of Elsa's, Frederick still maintains his charge against her, and states as her motive for the crime that she hoped to gain the throne. The king decides to settle the question by single combat. Frederick must defend himself against whomever may come forward as Elsa's champion. This custom is according to the ancient belief that "might is right," and that Heaven itself is the awarder of victory and defeat. The herald of the king announces, with a trumpet-call, the impending combat, and bids "him who will fight for Elsa of Brabant to come forth at once." The call dies away, but no one presents himself as her defender, and it appears as tho Heaven already indicates which side is right. Elsa piteously begs them to call again. Her wish is granted, and once more the cry rings forth. She falls on her knees, and in tones that vibrate with intense despair prays Heaven to send her the hero of her dream. "Elsa's prayer" and "Elsa's dream" are two of the most beautiful soprano solos in the opera. The prayer is short, but it accomplishes a thrilling crescendo. The final climax is such a passionate outcry that we are not surprised to see an immediate answer granted. Wagner is a master of crescendos, and he now commences one for the chorus which is truly wonderful in effect. Instead of starting all the voices pianissimo, or even part of the chorus, he starts with a single voice. One man has perceived a knight floating down the river in a boat drawn by a swan. He whispers it to his neighbor, who in turn says, "Look!" and then another and another in quick succession join in exclamations, until all are singing of the strange sight. They rush to the bank, and still the wonder grows. The knight of the swan draws nearer, the orchestra crashes out its stupendous theme, the sopranos ring out above everything, and the whole chorus seems to have doubled its capacity. It is a greeting worthy of the subject, who is Lohengrin himself. No wonder the people subside and look at him with awe as he steps upon the bank. He is clad in shining silver, with a helmet, shield, and sword. His face is fair and his hair is blonde. Before noticing the people, he turns to the swan and sings it a farewell. This song is only two lines long, and for the most part without accompaniment. It is apparently simple, and differs little from the form of a recitative, and yet so rare and strange is this melody that it portrays the legendary character of the opera more than any other phrase. It seems as tho Lohengrin is still singing in the mystical language and music of that other world from which he has come. Every one knows this song by its German name, "Mein lieber Schwan," and it is so much admired and so famous that it is actually paraphrased. A man must be great indeed to be caricatured; how much more is this true of classical music! Lohengrin soon comes forward and bows before the king, after which he announces that he has been sent as champion "for a noble maid who is falsely accused." But before entering the combat he speaks to Elsa, who has previously offered to bestow her hand and heart upon whomever would fight for her. She now reiterates this vow most gladly, and also makes another promise which the strange knight requests--she must never ask from whence he came, nor what his name. Lest there be any misunderstanding, he repeats the impressive phrase in a higher key, and Elsa again promises. This short theme is most important. It might be described as the dark motif. It is the one most often heard when Ortrud and Frederick do their evil plotting, for it is by means of this interdiction of Lohengrin's that they eventually succeed in accomplishing Elsa's unhappiness. When the two combatants face each other and all is ready, the herald again comes forward and solemnly proclaims the rules governing such contests. They are interesting to note: "No one shall interfere with the fight under penalty of losing his head or his hand;" and furthermore, no sorcery or witchcraft shall be exerted, for Heaven alone must decide who is right. After this preliminary the king arises and prays for the just judgment of Heaven to show clearly which side is true and which is false. Wagner always favored the bass voice when possible, and so he has given to the king this splendid and impressive composition, with its rich, full chords and stirring rhythm. The chorus takes up the prayer and finishes it with inspiring breadth and grandeur. The king strikes upon his shield three times and the battle begins. It does not last long, for Frederick is soon disarmed and thrown down by Lohengrin, who, however, spares his life. The victory has proven Elsa's innocence and Frederick's falsehood. The latter is disgraced utterly, while Lohengrin is regarded as Heaven's favorite. Elsa sings forth her joy and gratitude in melodic phrases which would need no words. The music of Elsa and Lohengrin is like the music of day--it is so clear, so lucid and full of melody in contrast to the rugged, weird, and gloomy themes of Ortrud and Frederick. The great chorus of victory is the last number of this act. It brings in with Wagner's inimitable modulations the martial theme of the previous chorus and also Elsa's song of praise. All excepting Ortrud and Frederick look happy and join in the singing right heartily as the curtain descends. The second act comprises Ortrud's great scene. This rôle may be sung by a contralto, but is better adapted to a mezzo-soprano. Ortrud is often called the operatic Lady Macbeth. She is not only as wicked and ambitious as Shakespeare's heroine, but is also a sorceress of no mean ability, for it is she who made away with Elsa's brother; but this fact is not revealed until the last act. She also exerted her power upon Frederick with such effect that he believed her to be a prophetess. He was sincere in his accusation against Elsa, for Ortrud told him she had witnessed the crime herself. But he is now awakened to her wickedness, and the scene opens with his maledictions against her and his abject wretchedness over his own disgrace. The two are seated upon the church steps facing the palace, where jubilant preparations are going on for the wedding of Elsa and Lohengrin, which will take place at dawn. It is yet night, and the music is deep and ominous. The dark motif and a new one which seems to represent Ortrud are the musical heart and soul of this scene. They stalk about the orchestra like restless phantoms, and are heard in all sorts of keys and instruments. After Frederick's great harangue against his wife and fate and everything, she calmly inquires the cause of his anger. She declares that she never deceived him, and that the recent combat was unfairly influenced by Lohengrin's sorcery. Such is her power over Frederick that he again believes and listens to her plans. She explains how Lohengrin may yet be robbed of his power and Frederick's honor vindicated. Elsa must be induced to ask the hero his name, or he must be wounded, be it ever so slightly. Either of these methods will annihilate his power. This remarkable scene closes with a duet about revenge, which the two voices sing in unison--a point indicative of their renewed unity of purpose. The music now changes to harmonies that charm and soothe, and Elsa appears upon the balcony of her palace. The moonlight falls upon her as she clasps her hands in rapture and sings to the gentle zephyrs of her love. It is a song as peaceful as the night; and in contrast to the recent somber and spectral themes, it beams forth like a diamond against black velvet. This solo of Elsa's is one of the most difficult to sing because of its many sustained pianissimo tones. After the last sweet note has died away like a sigh, Ortrud, who is still seated on the steps beneath, calls to Elsa in a pleading voice. She appeals to the latter's sympathy by announcing herself as "that most unhappy woman, Ortrud," wife to the disgraced Frederick. "We are cursed by God and man, and welcomed nowhere." Thus speaks the sorceress; and Elsa, in the goodness of her heart, takes pity and impulsively offers to receive the outcast. She retires from the balcony and presently opens the door below to welcome Ortrud, who in this short interim has sung some splendid phrases of gloating animosity. But she kneels like a humble slave before the unsuspecting Elsa, who invites her to the wedding and also promises to induce Lohengrin to pardon Frederick. As an expression of gratitude, Ortrud now offers to exert the power of prophecy for Elsa's benefit. Prophecy and sorcery are regarded in different lights: the latter is wicked and implies collusion with the evil one, while the "prophetic eye" is a gift to be coveted. Ortrud pretends to possess this power. She forewarns Elsa against too great confidence in her hero, and mysteriously hints that he may leave as suddenly as he came. These words are accompanied by the threatening dark motif, which hovers ever near like a lowering cloud. Elsa recoils at the thought--this first seed of suspicion,--but she soon smiles assuredly and sings to Ortrud a lovely song about "the faith and trust that knows no doubt." Wagner's words are as beautiful as his music, and in this composition they seem to mount upward on the "wings of song" like the spontaneous utterance of a pure heart. Elsa puts her arms gently about Ortrud and leads her into the palace. Frederick, who has kept in the background, watches them disappear, and the scene closes with his final descant on revenge. After his exit the orchestra has a solo, so to speak, while the stage is occupied in representing the dawn of day. Villagers stroll in one by one, garlands are hung in honor of the wedding, and the scene becomes constantly brighter and more active. The herald appears above the gates of the palace and makes three announcements in the name of the king: First, that Frederick of Telramund is banned and shall be befriended by no one; second, that the Heaven-favored stranger shall hereafter be called the guardian of Brabant; and, third, that this hero shall lead them soon to "victorious war." Then follows a chorus about the Heaven-sent guardian of Brabant, after which there is a momentary commotion caused by Frederick, who, in spite of the ban against him, comes forward and asserts that he will defy their much-lauded hero and will open their eyes to his duplicity. But this incident is forgotten in the gorgeous scene which now commences. The wedding-guests come slowly from the palace, and wend their way in stately procession toward the church. Their course is accompanied by a march of pontifical solemnity, which attains its grandest beauty when Elsa comes down the great stairway clad in robes of regal splendor. All voices join in praise for "Elsa of Brabant." [Illustration: Copyright by Aimé Dupont, N. Y. Eames as Elsa in "Lohengrin."] The procession proceeds to the church; the music increases in strength, when suddenly there is a discord. Elsa is confronted at the church entrance by Ortrud, who fiercely declares she will no longer follow like an attendant; that she is the one to whom people should bow instead of Elsa, whose future lord comes of a land and family which he dare not tell! Elsa is dumbfounded by this sudden onslaught from the woman she has befriended. But Ortrud maintains her position, and actually defies Elsa to ask the hero his name. This attack is diverted by the ceremonious entrance of the king and Lohengrin, to whom Elsa hastens with her grievance. Ortrud is promptly ordered aside, and the procession resumes its march. But again the solemn cathedral music crashes into a discord. Frederick, the despised one, dares to rush before the king and bar the way as he begs them to harken to his words. There is great indignation over the interruption, but Frederick so intensely cries for justice that at last even the king listens as he charges Lohengrin with sorcery. He sustains the charge by demanding Lohengrin to tell his name, if he be an honest man; if he can not do this there must be some dark secret to hide. All turn to the hero expectantly, but he only defends himself by saying that he has proven his worth in mortal combat, according to ancient usage, and that he will not answer Frederick nor even the king--only Elsa shall be answered this question. He turns to her and finds her trembling with agitation. The orchestra tells us her thoughts, for we hear the Ortrud-theme and dark motif writhing in and out like venomous serpents. A murmuring sort of chorus about the strange secret which the hero so zealously guards is gradually resolved into a song of allegiance and belief. The king declares Frederick unworthy of consideration. But during the jubilant chorus which follows, that Miserable steals up to Elsa and casts his final poison-shaft. He tells her that if Lohengrin were once wounded, "merely pricked in the finger," he would then bestow upon her full confidence and never leave. Frederick further says he will "linger near the coming night," and when she calls will enter and commit the deed without harm to Lohengrin. Elsa spurns the tempter away, and Lohengrin, who perceives him at her side, bids him forever begone. But finding Elsa even more agitated than before, he asks in the presence of all if she wishes to be told his name. She remembers her vow, and in tones of exultation declares that love is greater than doubt. The magnificent march music is again resumed, and they enter the minster without further incident, excepting the defiant gaze of Ortrud as Elsa passes; and while the curtain descends we hear again, half hidden in the orchestra, the terrible dark motif. There is a brilliant orchestral introduction to the third act, which represents the marriage fête. Its tempo and rhythm are positively gay, tho this is an adjective seldom appropriate to Wagner. But the hilarity has subsided by the time the curtain rises: the trumpets and cymbals are hushed, and the gentlest of music greets our ears as we look upon the bridal chamber. The voices are at first distant, but gradually approach, and the effect of their song steals over us like a potent charm. It is the wedding-march--the "Lohengrin Wedding-March"! We all know the power of that music. There are some compositions which become absorbed, as it were, by the world like important inventions or discoveries. People require certain musical forms of expression as they do artificial light, and we pity those who did without this "Wedding-March," or Chopin's "Funeral March," or the Schubert "Serenade," as we pity our ancestors who made shift with tallow candles instead of incandescent lamps. The charm of the "Wedding-March" is not diminished because we know it so well. With Wagner as with Beethoven, every hearing reveals new beauties. When the chorus at last leaves Elsa and Lohengrin alone, we echo his first words: "The sweet song now is ended." But our regrets are quickly appeased by the delicious love-duet which follows. It is a scene of rapt delight--of happiness too great to last. Not in vain did we have the dark motif jangled in our ears when the curtain last descended; it meant trouble in the coming act, as we soon perceive. Elsa wishes she knew his name--just to speak it lovingly as he does hers. Then Lohengrin points to the open window through which the moonlight streams upon them, and he sings of the perfumed air which they enjoy without questioning its cause or source; thus, he says, should they love. The exquisite melody of this song seems to exhale from his heart like fragrance from a flower. It is redolent of tenderest love. The nobility and beauty of Lohengrin's character so impress themselves, that Elsa feels oppressed with her own unworthiness. She wishes she might do something heroic to prove her love. For instance, if he would confide to her his secret, she would guard it so faithfully that death itself could not wrest it from her! Very sweetly and beautifully does she coax for this token of trust on his part. Lohengrin replies most gently that he has trusted her already by believing that she would keep her vow. Then he says she little knows how much she is to him; that no earthly honor--not the king's kingdom--could replace what he has left. Only Elsa, his bride, can recompense the sacrifice; for not from night and grief does he come, but from a home of joy and pride. Like a flash does this remind Elsa of Ortrud's prophecy that he may leave her. The Ortrud-theme swoops down upon the orchestra and settles there like an ill-omened bird. The director's baton may send it away for a moment, but down it comes again, and the dark motif with it. Poor Elsa becomes almost frenzied. She believes Lohengrin will long for his beautiful home, which even now he can not forget. She sees in her mind's eye the swan-boat approaching to take him away. Lohengrin speaks reassuringly; but the spell is upon her, and nothing--nothing can give her peace but to know the truth. With mounting tones, the last one of which is like an outcry, she asks the fatal question. Lohengrin gives an exclamation of grief. At this moment the door is burst open by Frederick, who with drawn sword has come to wound the hero, or, more probably, to kill him. Elsa at once recognizes his intention, and frantically bids Lohengrin defend himself. With a single thrust he kills his would-be assassin. This intense and tragic climax is followed by a lull. Elsa has fallen half-swooning on the couch, and Lohengrin stands sorrowfully to one side. He at last exclaims slowly and sadly: "Now is our sweet joy fled;" and then we hear in the orchestra, faint and beautiful as a memory, that first love-duet. It is only a fragment, a fleeting thought, but so touching and pathetic that we could weep with Lohengrin for the harmony that is gone. The last act is short and almost entirely taken up by Lohengrin's story and farewell. The scenery is the same as in the first act, and the entire chorus of noblemen and soldiers again assemble before the king. They have not yet heard of the tragic event which ended the last act, and are therefore surprised when a bier is carried in and placed solemnly before them. It bears the body of Frederick. They are still more surprised when Elsa enters, pale and dejected, and then their hero, who appears equally sad. But surprise reaches its climax when they hear him announce that he can not be their leader. Lohengrin wastes no words. After the first assertion he informs them of Frederick's death; whereupon all voices declare his fate to be most just, and the body is removed. Lohengrin then announces that Elsa, his wife, has broken the vow which they all heard her make, and he has come before them to answer her question and dispel the mad suspicion which a wily tempter implanted in her heart. They shall all learn his name and heritage, and may then judge whether he was worthy of their trust. The people wonder with awe-hushed voices what revelation is in store, and then there floats in the orchestra the soft tremolo of the swan-music, as Lohengrin tells them of a distant land called Montsalvat, where is a radiant temple. And in this temple is guarded a sacred vessel which possesses wonder-powers. A dove descends from heaven once every year to renew its marvelous strength. This treasure-blessing is called the "Grail," and to its chosen votaries a matchless power is given. These knights of the Grail are sent abroad as champions of innocence and truth, and they may tarry so long as their name is unknown. But the Grail's blessing is too pure and holy to be regarded by common eyes, and if disclosed its champion must leave at once. Lohengrin adds that this penalty now falls on him, for he is a knight of the Grail: his father, great Parsifal, wears its crown, and "I am Lohengrin." As in the first prelude and swan-song, the harmonies of this last great recital seem not of earth but from another sphere; they linger and abide with us like a beautiful blessing. This silver-clad knight of the Grail has been singing of a hallowed mystery whose purity and spirituality are revealed more in the music than by the words. After bidding farewell to the hapless Elsa, from whom he must part in spite of her piteous appeals, there comes gliding upon the river the swan-boat. He sings a sad welcome to the swan, and then announces to Elsa that could he have remained one year, through the mercy of the Grail her brother would have returned. He hands her his sword and horn and ring to give this brother if ever he comes back. The sword and horn will impart strength and victory, and the ring shall remind him of "Lohengrin who loved Elsa and was her champion." A jarring interruption is now created by Ortrud, who cries out with reckless triumph that the swan who serves Lohengrin is the bewitched brother, and that Elsa has herself to thank for causing the hero's departure, which forever prevents the young Duke's return. On hearing this mocking invection from the sorceress, Lohengrin clasps his hands in a fervent prayer, which is at once answered. A dove descends from heaven and touches the swan, which is immediately changed into the young heir. He rushes forward to embrace his sister, while Lohengrin steps into the boat, which is drawn away by the dove. It floats silently down the beautiful river, and the hero stands sorrowfully leaning upon his silver shield. This is our last glimpse of Lohengrin, the Knight of the Grail. "Aida" "AIDA" Madame Nordica's "Aida" is an unsurpassed performance and always draws crowded houses, for the strange pathos of the music displays her wonderful voice to its fullest beauty. As in "Carmen" every measure scintillates with the sunshine of Spain, so in "Aida" every phrase seems shadowed by the mysteries of Egypt. A comparative study of these two operas will forcibly impress one with the power of music to express nationality. "Aida" carries one to a distant land and centuries back; but this power of breathing the musical life of ancient Egypt into the still form of a libretto is the culmination of modern art. Giuseppe Verdi, the greatest modern Italian composer, had written twenty-six operas before he wrote "Aida." A tender, wistful strain high up in the violins forms the opening of the prelude. With this first faint phrase the composer seems to awaken from her long sleep the muse of Egyptian music. Like the hero of fairy lore, Verdi, the prince of melody, has penetrated a realm of slumbering harmonies. They are at first subdued, dazed, and bewildered with themes mingled and woven together like exquisite cobwebs. The conductor's wand gently disperses these clinging meshes of sound, the curtain is lifted, and we are ushered into the musical life of an ancient civilization. We see a hall in the palace at Memphis, and Ramphis, the high priest, converses with Rhadames, a distinguished soldier. They talk of the impending war against Ethiopia, and it is intimated that Rhadames may be chosen to lead the Egyptians. But the words and song are of little interest compared to the orchestral accompaniment. This is somber and subdued; the notes are of equal length, and the intervals seem of geometric exactitude like the diagram of an astrologer. Ramphis goes out leaving Rhadames joyous over the prospect of becoming a general. He thinks of his beloved Aida, to whom he will return laden with laurels. "Celeste Aida!" is the title of this great romanza. Like all love-songs it is legato, andante, and pianissimo, but at the same time noticeably original and characteristic. The harmonies are constructed with rigid grandeur, but softened and beautified by a tender melody that rests upon them like moonlight on the pyramids. While he is lost in thoughts of Aida, the Princess Amneris enters. She inquires the cause of his radiant expression, and insinuatingly wonders if it is some dream of love. Rhadames only replies that he has hopes of martial honors, and is therefore happy. The Princess secretly loves Rhadames, and her questions are based on jealousy, which is revealed in the nervous, agitated theme that accompanies this duet. Her suspicions are further aroused by the entrance of Aida. As the heroine approaches we hear again the pensive theme that opened the prelude. It takes on a new and greater meaning, for Aida is a captive slave, an exile, and the music reminds us of some great longing that vainly strives to express itself. This effect is due to the fact that the musical cadence is left unresolved. Aida must have the dark complexion of the Ethiopian, and very few prima donnas look well under coffee-colored cosmetic; but Madame Nordica's appearance does not suffer from the application. This Aida is beautiful, and Rhadames can scarce conceal the joy of her presence. The captive also looks down to hide her emotion. But Amneris has detected every glance, and again that jealous theme sweeps like a flame over the orchestra. [Illustration: Copyright by Aimé Dupont, N. Y. Nordica as Aida.] The princess addresses her slave by sisterly names, and asks the cause of her downcast looks. Aida says she grieves because of the war against her native land. There follows a trio wherein Amneris fosters her jealousy, while Aida and Rhadames tremble lest their secret be discovered. Sounds of martial music prelude the entrance of the king and his suite. When they are assembled a messenger comes forward to announce that the Ethiopians are marching toward Egypt's capital under the leadership of their king, Amonasro. Upon hearing this name Aida exclaims to herself, "My father!" and we thereby learn that she is a princess, but has concealed the fact from her captors. The Egyptians impulsively shout "To war!" and Rhadames is proclaimed their leader. They sing a war-hymn which is so inspiring that even Aida joins in this prayer for victory to Rhadames. After a grand climax all go out excepting the heroine. "Return victorious!" She repeats this last sweeping phrase, and shudders at the words, for success to Rhadames implies defeat to her father. This distressing thought agitates the music like the passing of a great ship over tranquil waters. The ensuing melody rises and falls like waves in the wake of a vessel. Aida realizes that she can not pray for either lover or father. "Was there ever a heart so oppressed!" Her song is like a wail, and the accompaniment introduces a pagan use of the monotone that gives startling effects. "Pieta, pieta!" are the final words of Aida's great solo. She goes off, and the scene changes to an interior view of the temple of Vulcan. It is a brilliant setting, with solid columns and golden statues, mysterious colored lights and fuming incense, priests and priestesses in glittering costumes; but the music of this consecration-scene reveals more barbaric splendor than the surroundings. The first sounds are the full, pulsating chords of a harp, and from an inner sanctum the grand priestess sings with rich soprano tones a weird refrain that is weighted with mystery. The priests in front answer in subdued, awe-hushed voices. Three times the wondrous song and answer are repeated, after which the priestesses perform a sacred dance around the altar. The music of this dreamy dance has the most astonishing progressions, but at the same time maintains an imposing solemnity. During the dance Rhadames is led to the altar, where a silver veil is placed over his head. Ramphis, the high priest, charges him with the welfare of the Egyptian army; and then follows a splendid prayer that Ramphis starts like a sacred fire. It reaches Rhadames, who sings in a higher key, and then it spreads and fills the great temple; bassos, tenors, soloists, and chorus take it up in turn and form one mighty rondo. Like a response from heaven comes the chant of the grand priestess from within. Her inspired refrain with its harp accompaniment alternates with the exalted prayer in front. This consecration-scene has little to do with the plot of the story, but it contains some of Verdi's finest music. Several months are supposed to elapse before the second act, which opens with a scene in the apartment of Amneris. Maids are robing the princess for a festive occasion, and we learn by their chorus that Rhadames will to-day return from victorious war. This scene is monopolized by the stringed instruments and female voices. A tropical indolence characterizes the choruses, with their abundant harp accompaniment. Amneris ever and anon breaks forth with an expansive theme expressing her unconquered love for Rhadames. To divert their mistress a group of Moorish slaves perform a lively, grotesque dance, for which Verdi has written music of intoxicating witchery. It is crisp as the snapping of fingers and uncivilized as the beating of bamboo reeds--a veritable savage revel that is nevertheless graceful and delicate. The chorus resume their dreamy praise of the hero, and Amneris continues her moody thoughts of love. Like an electric flash from a sultry sky does the entrance of Aida affect the musical atmosphere. At sight of the beautiful captive, Amneris again rages with jealousy, as is plainly indicated by the conflicting themes in the orchestra. With subtle devices the princess seeks to entrap her rival. She pretends a deep sympathy for Aida's grief over the vanquished Ethiopians, and adds that "Egypt also has cause to mourn, for our brave leader Rhadames is among the slain." This treacherous falsehood is foisted so suddenly that Aida loses caution and reveals her emotion. Amneris cries out in fury: "Tremble, slave! thy secret is discovered!" She informs Aida that Rhadames lives, and that she, Pharaoh's daughter, loves the hero and "will not brook the rivalry of a slave!" Amneris threatens death as the punishment for such audacious love. The proud captive stands for a moment in defiance; but realizing the futility of such action, she humbly pleads for pardon. In this song the composer admirably simulates a savage dearth of compass and harmony--an effect of crude simplicity that is charming and touching. The scene is interrupted by a song of victory from the streets, a signal for the festivities to begin. After commanding the Ethiopian to follow as a menial in the celebration, Amneris goes out. Aida closes the scene with the same prayer to Heaven "Pieta!" that ended the first act. A noisy march introduces the next scene, which represents a grand avenue in Egypt's capital. At the back of the stage is a triumphal arch and at one side a throne. The greater part of this act is spectacular, and after an opening chorus the orchestra has for some time entire charge of the music. The March from "Aida" is almost as popular as the Faust March. Its harmonies never swerve from the Egyptian type, being always stately and substantial as their architecture. While the brass instruments are playing with full force, we witness the ceremonial entrance of the court, with innumerable priests and soldiers, trumpeters, fan-bearers, standard-bearers, train-bearers, white slaves, black slaves, flower girls, and dancing girls. There follows an elaborate ballet divertissement, clothed in music of gay pattern and gaudy design, but light in substance. Five lines of continuous staccatos, like so many strings of beads, form the opening of this dance music. The salient points that impart an unmistakable Egyptian atmosphere to this composition are as follows: A savage repetition of every musical phrase, a wild predilection for the monotone, a limited variety of keys, and a preponderant accenting of the rhythm. After the dance more soldiers enter, some more slaves, more banners, chariots, and sacred images. A chorus of welcome to the conquering hero is struck up, and it increases in strength and grandeur with the pageantry on the stage. It is not merely the crescendo, but the glorious swing and rhythm of the melody that so inspires enthusiasm. When at last Rhadames is borne in on a golden palanquin, the climax is stupendous. With a final "Gloria!" shouted by every voice the hero comes forward to be embraced by the king. A group of Ethiopian prisoners are led forward, and Aida with a cry of joy recognizes her father. He has disguised himself as a common soldier, and does not wish it known that he is the defeated king Amonasro. Every one is interested in this reunion of Aida with her father, and the princess secretly rejoices to have them both in her power. Amonasro makes a noble plea for mercy, and his words are set to music that "droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven." It is like a tone-translation of Shakespeare's ode to the quality of mercy. Aida and the other captives lend their voices to the entreaty. Rhadames, who has been observing Aida but dare not address her, is moved by his love to ask for the prisoner's release. The king feels bound to grant the hero's request, but finally decides to retain Aida and her father as hostages of peace. As a final honor the king presents his daughter to Rhadames, and adds that by her side he shall some day reign over Egypt. The act closes with another grand ensemble. Amneris gloats over her rival's subjection, Rhadames longs for Aida but dare not oppose the king, and the heroine bemoans her fate. The priests, people, soldiers, and prisoners praise the king, the trumpets blare forth the Aida March, and the curtain descends. Act III. is the most beautiful both scenically and dramatically. It pictures the banks of the Nile at night. An illuminated temple is at one side, and we see the silvery river winding its way amid palms and rushes far into the distance. Not only is the landscape bathed in "softened light," but also the music imparts an unmistakable effect of moonlight. A faint violin pizzicato that vibrates but never changes position is maintained throughout the introduction, while the other instruments call up weird sounds of the night--the palm-trees rustling together and the plaintive cry of some river-bird--then all is still: only that fluttering moonbeam holds the senses. The silence is broken by a solemn chant from within the temple, and one soprano voice soars out alone in an incantation, mysterious and imposing as an oracle. A royal barge glides to the river's bank, and Amneris with her maids and the high priest Ramphis betake themselves to the temple, where the princess offers prayers for her coming marriage. The sphinx-like song of the grand priestess is again heard, and then every sound is hushed excepting the dreamy pizzicato movement in the violins that so resembles the flitting of moonbeams. Ere long the solitary tones of the Aida-theme arise from the stillness like a spirit of night. Never before have we realized the full beauty of this melody, for amid the blare and brightness of other harmonies it has been obscured like a sensitive flower. But here in the solitude and darkness it unfolds itself like some glorious night bloom. With cautious steps the heroine enters. Rhadames has told her to meet him, and Aida wonders what greeting he will have for her. If it is but to say farewell, then "Nilus, the mighty river, shall quiet forever the exile's grief." For the present she plunges into a flood of memory about her native land, a stream of words that gently flows through a forest of beautiful harmonies. It is a song of homesickness that soothes tho it saddens. While still under the spell of this music Aida is startled by the entrance of her father. He also sings of their distant home, but with an underlying purpose. He says they may yet return; that it is in her power to save Ethiopia, to regain her throne, her love, and to vanquish her rival Amneris. The father has been quick to detect the love between Aida and Rhadames. Amonasro announces that his people are prepared to renew their attack and that success is assured if they can learn by what path the Egyptians will march. He wishes his daughter to win, by fair means or false, this secret from Rhadames. Aida at first refuses to act this part of treachery, whereupon Amonasro chills her with his curse. He says she is no longer his daughter, "No longer princess of Ethiopia, but a slave of the Pharaohs!" The proud blood of the captive is aroused by this epithet. She entreats her father to recall his words, for "'Patria mia' ('my country') is more to me than my love. I will obey." The accompaniment presents an unvaried monotone in the treble, while beneath it there is a pathetic melody half hidden by the upper octaves like romance suppressed by duty. Amonasro conceals himself behind palm-trees as Rhadames approaches. Never has the joy of meeting been more admirably expressed in music than in Rhadames's greeting of Aida. It is a flight of song as spontaneous and free as the flight of a released bird. He tells her that he will not marry the princess, but must start at once on a second war; and if this time victorious he will tell the king of his love and will claim Aida as the reward of his valor. It is a brave plan, but she quickly discovers the weak point. The nervous, inflammatory theme of jealousy that accompanied Amneris in the first act again arises like a hot breath from the orchestra. Aida well knows that the princess would wreak vengeance "like the lightning of heaven." There is only one course that will unite the lovers, and this is to fly--"Fugire!"--to fair Ethiopia, Aida's native land. She coaxes and entreats in phrases of delirious, dream-like beauty descriptive of that wondrous land--"There where the virgin forests rise 'mid fragrance softly stealing." A halcyon peace pervades the music, and its harmonies are strange and rare like the perfume of some exotic flower. Rhadames demurs, but the power of her song is irresistible, and he soon consents to leave Egypt for her sake. There is nothing half way about his decision when once made. The orchestra music rises in emphatic, resolute crescendos that are gloriously inspiring, and the singer's voice is carried forward like a rider on his steed. The music recurs to the first impulsive theme of greeting. It is given in full chords, and the soprano joins with the tenor. Every note is accented and the crescendos are augmented. Both voices and orchestra mount upward and soar away on one final, sustained note. As the lovers start to go, Aida asks, "By what route do the Egyptians march? We must avoid them in our flight." Rhadames names the path, whereupon Amonasro steps forward announcing that "the king of Ethiopia" has overheard this important secret. He promises royal honors to Rhadames; but the hero is overwhelmed with the realization that he has betrayed his country. Vengeance falls upon him at once, for Amneris and the high priest have also overheard. They come from the temple and denounce Rhadames as a traitor. He is seized, but Amonasro and Aida escape. The first scene of the fourth act reveals a hall in the palace. At the back is a large portal leading to the subterranean court of justice. Amneris holds the stage alone during the greater part of this scene. The orchestra preludes it with the familiar theme of jealousy that indicates the ensuing action as clearly as the title to a chapter. Rhadames is to-day awaiting judgment, and the princess, as a last resort, offers to secure his pardon if he will promise to forget Aida. The hero firmly refuses the proffered love of Amneris. He believes Aida is dead and prefers to die also. Very grandly does the music depict Amneris's outraged feelings. She flings a fusilade of wrathful tones, every one bearing the sting of sharp accent. But when he is gone her pride and jealousy wilt under the warmth of genuine love. She sees him led to his doom in the underground courts and hears the priests and judges chanting his name as traitor. This scene resembles the "Miserere" in "Il Trovatore." Three times the unseen chorus is followed by the soprano in front, who sings an anguished phrase that starts with a high note and ends with a palpitating, gasping decrescendo that is almost identical with the music of Leonore. The priests condemn Rhadames to be buried alive. As they again pass through the hall, Amneris pleads and implores for mercy, but it is now too late. No power can save the hero. The last scene of the opera is very short, but it is the most important. It represents two floors, the upper one being a splendid and brilliant temple interior, while beneath it is the crypt--gloomy and terrible. This is the tomb of Rhadames, who has just been immured. The priests above are placing the final stone as the curtain rises and the hero is seen below reclining on the steps. He is thinking of Aida while resignedly awaiting his slow and awful death. Suddenly a voice calls him, and Aida herself appears to his wondering gaze. She had heard of his fate, and to prove her love has secretly returned and hidden in this tomb to die with him. The following song of the lovers has been humorously referred to as the "starvation duet." The fact of this appellation only reveals how celebrated is the composition. It is more generally known as "the duet from 'Aida.'" There are other duets in the opera, but when another is meant it is designated; this is the _great_ one. Its pathetic harmonies are mingled with the solemn chant of the grand priestess in the temple above and the music of a sacred dance. Aida becomes delirious, and sees in her dreams the gates of heaven opening. Indeed, the music is exquisite enough to make any one dream of heaven. When Madame Nordica sings it, the whole scene seems real and so sadly beautiful that your own heart too almost stops its beating. With soft, sweet tones and bated breath Aida sings till she dies. Instead of closing with a crescendo, as do most operas, the final of "Aida" becomes ever softer and fainter, like a departing spirit. The brass and wood instruments have long since retired, only the violins and harp keep up a gentle vibrating accompaniment like the flutter of cherubs' wings. The curtain descends very slowly, and the last notes of the violin are written doubly pianissimo. The muse of Egyptian music glides away as silently as she came. "The Huguenots" "THE HUGUENOTS" It is not surprising that the massacre of St. Bartholomew should have attracted such a composer as Giacomo Meyerbeer. The terrible scene immediately suggests a blaze of orchestral chords, seething strings, and shrieking brass, a style in which Meyerbeer delighted. He secured the collaboration of the celebrated French dramatist Eugene Scribe, who apparently went to work at this libretto by writing the fourth act first and then forcing the preceding situations to fit together as best they would. The result is not wholly satisfactory; but where the plot is vague the music is clear and strong enough to carry our emotions over chasms of inconsistencies. The great theme of the opera is the Huguenot hymn, a thrilling song of faith, with firm, bold harmonies that express unswerving belief. This hymn is used in the overture with grand effect. It is sustained and upheld clear and strong amid the murmurings and attacks of surrounding variations until it finally bursts forth in untrammeled splendor like the supremacy of religious faith. The curtain rises upon a banquet-hall in the mansion of Count de Nevers, who is a gay young nobleman of Touraine, the province of France in which the first two acts occur. Nevers is giving a supper to his comrades, and the first chorus is the celebrated drinking-song, a refrain so abounding in good cheer that it predisposes one in favor of the whole opera. The revelers are all Romanists, with the exception of Raoul de Nangis, a young Huguenot, who because of recent promotion in the army has been included among the guests. Nevers proposes a toast to "our sweethearts," and gaily adds that he must soon forego such frivolities as he is to be married. Some one suggests that they all recount their love affairs, and Raoul is requested to begin. He relates an adventure wherein he rescued a beautiful lady from the rude insults of some boisterous students. He has not seen her since and knows not her name, but she dwells--in his heart. His glowing description of the heroine is a verbal portrait framed in music of golden beauty. It is the best tenor solo of the opera. After this love-story some surprise is caused by the entrance of Marcel, a Huguenot soldier, who is Raoul's faithful attendant and has followed his young master to this banquet merely to be near and watch over him. Marcel much disapproves of this "feasting in the camp of the Philistines," as he terms it, and by way of atonement he renders in a loud voice that fervid hymn which the Huguenots always sing when in danger. Raoul begs his friends to excuse the rough soldier, and they promptly attest their good will by inviting Marcel to drink. He declines the wine, but consents to sing for them. His song has a wild refrain like the firing of musketry, "Piff-paff-piff," and it is a celebrated bass aria. When this whizzing composition is ended a servant informs the host that a strange visitor would like to speak with him privately. Nevers at first refuses to see any one; but on learning that it is a veiled lady he changes his mind and goes out, after laughingly announcing that he is thus constantly sought by handsome women. During his absence the others joke about the incognita and handle her reputation lightly. They look through a window and see her conversing with Nevers in his private apartment. At sight of her face Raoul recoils, for this clandestine visitor is none other than the heroine of his romance--the beauty to whom he had lost his heart. His ideal is shattered by the discovery. When Nevers returns the audience learns from an aside remark that the lady was his prospective bride, Valentine de St. Bris, and that she came to beg release from her promise. He has reluctantly complied, but does not inform his guests of the matter. At this moment a richly attired young page presents himself. It is Urban, the contralto rôle, who after bowing gracefully on all sides sings a charming and celebrated aria, "Nobil donna,"--"a noble lady sends by me a missive to one of these gentlemen." Such is the substance of this exquisite song with its chivalrous melody, surrounded by rococo embellishments that seem as appropriate to the pretty page as are his Louis Quinze slippers and point-lace ruffs. The note is addressed to Raoul, a fact that occasions some surprise. The young Huguenot reads aloud what sounds like a practical joke, for the paper tells that a court carriage is in waiting to convey him blindfolded to an unnamed destination. His companions urge him to go, for they have recognized the seal as belonging to Queen Margaret of Touraine; but Raoul does not know this. He, however, accepts their advice, and allows himself to be blindfolded in spite of protests from Marcel. They sing a bewitching ensemble that is finally resolved into the familiar drinking-song. With these rollicking measures Raoul is led away by the page and the curtain descends. The opening of the second act is like a musical mirage--tone-phantasies suspended in the air. We see before us the luxuriant palace gardens where Margaret, queen of Touraine, is surrounded by her maids of honor. Terraces and fountains, jeweled hands and feathered fans, vibrant harps and caroling flute combine to form an effect of elegant repose. Margaret is the rôle for colorature soprano, in contradistinction to the heroine, Valentine, which is for dramatic soprano. The music of the queen is very beautiful and so difficult that it requires a great artist, altho there is but the one important scene. It is considered by some to be Madame Melba's best rôle. Her first aria is about "this fair land," and we incidentally learn that she deplores the existing dissension between Catholics and Huguenots, the one blot upon the perfect peace of Touraine. Her court ladies presently sing an idyllic refrain, and Margaret joins in their song; but while the others abide by the simple melody she decks it out with colorature spangles quite befitting a queen. After another florid solo the favorite maid of honor, Valentine de St. Bris, enters. She wears a riding costume and has just returned from her venturesome interview with De Nevers, who, as she joyfully announces, has released all claim to her hand. We soon learn that Valentine loves Raoul and has confided in the queen, who is planning the marriage of these two, which she much desires because it will unite the leading families of Catholics and Huguenots. The queen rather delights in playing the good fairy, and for this reason has summoned Raoul in the mysterious fashion witnessed in the first act. Before he arrives there is another chorus, called the "song of the bathers." A harp accompaniment like rustling leaves plays around the melody, which is of eolian sweetness, until suddenly, like a fitful breeze, there comes an elfish measure all in the treble. After a brief disporting of this air-sprite we hear again the soft eolian harmonies, which rise and fall until lulled into silence. The page Urban announces that a stranger is approaching, and the maids of honor gather around as he tells of this young cavalier who comes with blindfolded eyes and knows not his destination. Urban's song is brimming over with mischievous coquetry. Its opening words are simply, "No, no, no, no, no, no, you never heard so strange a tale." The court ladies are all in a flutter of curiosity when Raoul is led in, and they would like to see the outcome of this adventure; but the queen orders them away. Now follows a scene that is full of quaint themes and ingenious duets, a musical branch with many blossoms. Raoul is permitted to remove the bandage from his eyes. He looks with wonder upon the beautiful scene, and then addresses elegant phrases of adoration to the fair lady before him. She is not devoid of coquetry--this queen of Touraine--and for some moments there is a graceful game between the two in which the shuttlecock of love is tossed upon the battledores of music. But it is only a game, and the toy is presently dropped. Urban enters to announce that some noblemen of Touraine have come to attend the queen. Raoul is amazed to learn the lady's identity, and Margaret hastens to inform him that in order to unite the Huguenots and Catholics of her province she has arranged a marriage between him and the daughter of St. Bris. Raoul bows obedience to her wish. The Catholics and Protestants enter in stately procession and group themselves on either side of the stage, Raoul and Marcel heading the Huguenots, while St. Bris and Nevers represent the opposite side. Margaret welcomes them in musical phrases that are right royal. She informs St. Bris and Nevers that the king of France requests their immediate presence in Paris, and she then makes her own request, which is that Huguenots and Catholics shall lay aside all enmity and sanction the marriage that she has arranged. They sing a splendid refrain calling upon heaven to witness their vow of future fellowship. This scene contains some fine climaxes, and several brilliant cadenzas for the queen. Margaret sends for Valentine, and expects Raoul to be thrilled with delight when he recognizes the heroine of his romance. But as Valentine comes forward, Raoul gives an exclamation of indignant surprise, for he thinks some great insult is implied in asking him to marry this woman who secretly visits De Nevers and who has been the subject of jests. Without explanation he firmly refuses to accept her for his bride. The consternation hereby aroused is admirably expressed in the music. The first measures are hushed, as tho the chorus were dumbfounded; but they soon gain their voices and denounce Raoul in ringing tones. Valentine exclaims, "What have I done to earn such disgrace?" and the theme is taken up in grand form by the others. Every now and then we catch the firm tones of Marcel who amid all this dissension is singing his Huguenot hymn. St. Bris draws his sword, but the queen forbids a duel in her presence, and reminds him that he must go at once to Paris. Raoul declares he will follow and is ready to fight St. Bris at any time. The action and music increase in strength until the curtain falls. Act III. pictures an open square in Paris, the Pré-aux-Clercs, which extends back to the river. There are two taverns and a church in the foreground, and the stage is filled with a mingled crowd. After an opening chorus of promenaders some Huguenot soldiers come forward and sing a march that is equally stirring and much resembles our own "Rally 'round the flag." It is, however, more elaborate, and has a surprising effect in which the upper voices sing a steady accompaniment of "derum-de-dum-dum," while words and melody are in the bass. There follows a sharp contrast in the song of some Catholic maidens on their way to church. Purity and simplicity are expressed by the slender accompaniment of flute and clarionet. The people kneel as they hear this "Ave Maria," but Marcel, who has just entered, refuses to do so. The Catholics are angered, while the Huguenots side with Marcel. There is a vigorous ensemble in which the "Ave Maria" and soldiers' chorus are admirably combined, and through it all are heard the disputing cries of the two factions. A general scuffle would ensue were it not for a sudden diversion in the form of some brightly clad gypsies who enter and solicit trade in fortune-telling. Their song is as gay as their costume, and they wind up with a fantastic dance. The orchestra music is here more deserving of attention than the stage picture. The principal melody has the quaint conceit of reiterating one note through five beats, and then with a quick turn reeling on to the next, like a dancer poising on one foot until forced to whirl upon the other. After this divertissement, St. Bris, his friend Maurevert, and de Nevers come out of the church where they have left Valentine, who, we now learn, is after all to marry Nevers and this is their wedding-day. The bridegroom goes to bring his retinue to escort the bride home, and St. Bris felicitates himself for bringing about this union which wipes out the disgrace of Raoul's refusal. His remarks are interrupted by Marcel, who delivers a letter from his master which designates the Pré-aux-Clercs as meeting-place and an "hour after sundown" the time for their deferred duel. Maurevert suggests to St. Bris that the Huguenot deserves more punishment than can be meted out in honorable combat, and the two friends retire in consultation. The stage is darkened and we hear the curfew bell, while a watchman goes through the street chanting a drowsy refrain that tells all good people to close their doors and retire. Maurevert and St. Bris again cross the stage, and we glean from their few words that a plot is brewing for Raoul's destruction. But Valentine has been standing at the church door and overheard their talk. She is much alarmed, and wishes to warn Raoul, but knows of no way until suddenly she hears and recognizes the voice of Marcel. She calls to him, and he asks: "Who calls in the night? Explain at once or I will fire!" Valentine quickly thinks to speak the potent name "Raoul." Meyerbeer has very aptly used for this call the interval of the perfect fifth, which is known as the cry of nature, because it is the most natural interval to fall upon when calling in the open air. The milkmaid calling her cows or the huckster vending his wares will most often be found singing the perfect fifth. On hearing the name of his master Marcel is satisfied and comes forward to investigate, but Valentine's face is concealed by her bridal veil. She tells him that his master should be well armed and have strong friends near in the coming duel, else he will fall the victim of a plot. Valentine starts to go, but Marcel detains her with the question, "Who art thou?" She hesitates and then answers, "A woman who loves Raoul." In a highly dramatic aria whose phrases are like storm-tossed billows on a restless deep-sea accompaniment she confesses that in saving the one she loves she has "betrayed her own father." The two voices finally work together as is the fashion of duets, and end up with a flourishing climax. At this point occurs the famous high C which Madame Nordica so brilliantly sustains and crescendos throughout four measures. It is a _tour de force_ which always brings down the house. Valentine now reenters the church as the principals and seconds of the duel approach. Marcel tries to warn his master, but Raoul will not listen to suspicions, for he believes his opponent to be honorable. There follows a splendid septet, in which Raoul sings the leading refrain buoyant with youthful courage. The ensemble is occasionally interspersed with the religious tones of Marcel, who prays Heaven to interfere. A grand, swinging theme in which all the voices move together like a great pendulum is the final of this septet. The duel begins, but Marcel, who is on the alert, hears approaching footsteps and draws his sword. Maurevert enters and cries out as prearranged: "A duel with unfair numbers! More Huguenots than Catholics! Help!" whereupon his followers rush in and surround Raoul. But at this moment the Huguenot soldiers who are merry-making in the tavern commence singing their jolly "derum-de-dum-dum," whereupon Marcel rushes to the door and sings in thundering tones the Protestant hymn, which the soldiers within at once recognize as a signal of danger. They hurry out, and then follows a lively commotion on all sides. But there are more words than blows, and the excitement is presently quelled by the ceremonious entrance of Queen Margaret who has just arrived in Paris. She is much displeased to come upon party dissension. St. Bris blames Raoul, while the Huguenot charges St. Bris with treachery. At this moment Valentine comes from the church, and Marcel relates how she warned him of a plot. There is general amazement on hearing this. Raoul now thinks to make some inquiries about this lady he had so unhesitatingly condemned, and learns how terrible was his mistake. St. Bris enjoys telling him that she is the bride of De Nevers, and we hear the approaching music of the nuptial barge. An illuminated flotilla appears at the back of the stage, and Nevers steps upon the bank. He addresses to Valentine some gallant phrases of welcome, and escorts her to the boat as his splendid retinue sing a joyous wedding-march. The curtain falls upon a whirl of gay music. Scribe is on terra firma in the fourth act, which is really the nucleus of the plot, and is perhaps the most dramatic love-scene of any grand opera. The curtain rises upon an apartment in the house of Nevers, and Valentine is alone. The opening orchestral measures seem oppressed with a tuneful despair that is soon explained by her song, wherein she bewails this forced marriage, for her heart still cherishes Raoul. The hero suddenly appears at her door, and Valentine thinks she is dreaming until Raoul announces that he has come "like a criminal in the night, risking all" for the sake of seeing her and craving forgiveness. They hear approaching footsteps, and Valentine prevails upon him to enter a side room just as her father and husband come in at the main door with a company of Catholic noblemen. They are too interested in themselves to note Valentine's agitation, and she, being a Catholic, is allowed to remain while her father unfolds the awful plan sanctioned by Catherine de Medicis to "wipe the Huguenots from the face of the earth." The great theme of this conjuration-scene, "blessed is revenge, obey the good cause," is softly sung by St. Bris and then taken up by the others in broad harmonies that swell out and sweep forward like a mighty torrent. When the tone-waves are again tranquil St. Bris bids his friends swear allegiance to the royal decree, and all comply with the exception of De Nevers, who declares he can not join in such murder. There is graceful nobility in his music and fervor in his words. The details of the plot are sung by St. Bris in hushed, hurried tones: how "to-night when strikes the bell of St. Germaine" the Catholics shall rush upon the unsuspecting Huguenots. He then admits into the room a group of monks, who tie white scarfs upon the conspirators and bless their uplifted swords. The music of this scene is grandly sustained by the orchestra, but the ensemble is difficult and requires much rehearsing, for it abounds in surprising fortes and pianissimos. When the conspirators are gone, Raoul starts from his hiding-place toward the door, but Valentine intercepts the way. He wishes to fight for his friends or die with them, but she begs him to stay. There follows a thrilling duet in which the voices pursue each other with growing intensity. The tempo is rapid, and the phrases short and breathless. The first minor melody is soft, but throbbing with suppressed emotion like the strange light and peculiar hush preceding a tempest. Then the music rushes into the major, where it reels and sways like an anchored ship that must soon break its moorings. The soprano voice rises upon G, A, B flat, B natural, and finally C, where all bonds seem loosed and the music rebounds in a rapid descending chromatic run. Then comes a furious passage in which the orchestra conductor uses his baton like a Roman charioteer lashing his steeds. Valentine places herself before the door, and in a desperate moment she declares, "Thou must not go, for, Raoul--I love thee!" This confession is followed by a transporting duet that brings oblivion to other memories. Its mellifluous melody is written pianissimo, dolce, legato, amoroso, and the orchestra carries it one measure behind the voice, thus keeping the theme constantly in the air like a sweet incense. A bell in the distance suddenly scatters all lingering harmonies. It is the bell of St. Germaine, and Raoul is aroused to reality. He sings a dramatic refrain about duty and honor, but Valentine still entreats him to stay. Her song is simple as a lullaby but powerful in effect, and he is distracted between her pleadings and the cries from the street. Flinging open the window, he shows her the terrible scene of massacre. A lurid light falls upon them, and there is murder in the orchestral music. Valentine swoons. Raoul looks with anguish upon her prostrate form and we hear the struggle he endures. The melody of Valentine's last sweet song predominates for a moment in the orchestra, but then the noise of the massacre is resumed. Raoul hesitates no longer. One farewell glance, and he rushes with drawn sword through the open window to the street. Unlike many operas in which the fourth act is the greatest, the finale of "The Huguenots" is of sustained intensity and not an anti-climax. This fifth act is often omitted, however, as it makes the opera very long. The scene represents a street at night--men, women, and children cross the stage and take refuge in a church. Raoul and Marcel chance to meet, and they are soon surprised by the entrance of Valentine, who has recklessly followed the hero. She wears the white scarf which betokens Catholicism and has brought one for Raoul, but he refuses this mode of escape. Valentine then flings her own emblem away and declares she will join his faith. The music of this entire act is most thrilling. We hear the women in the church singing as a last prayer that grand Huguenot hymn and in the distance a chorus of murderers as they make their awful progress through the streets. This massacre music is blood-curdling; its steady, muffled tread sounds like marching over a paving of dead bodies. The waiting figures in the foreground again hold our attention. Marcel relates how he witnessed the death of De Nevers, and on learning that Valentine is free these lovers kneel before the Huguenot soldier, who blesses their union. The choral in the church is again heard, and those outside join in its splendid harmonies. Valentine sings with the fervor of her new-found faith, "Hosanna, from on high the clarion sounds!" This last trio resembles the finale of "Faust" in that the theme rises higher and higher, like a flaming fire, to be quenched at last by Death. The murder-chorus is heard approaching, and soon a group of massacrers enter. "Who is there?" they ask. "Huguenot!" replies the hero, and in ringing tones a woman's voice cries out, "Huguenot!" "Fire!" orders St. Bris, who thereby kills his own daughter. An Hour with Lilli Lehmann [Illustration: LILLI LEHMANN.] AN HOUR WITH LILLI LEHMANN In Berlin, fourteen years ago, the foreigner was at once impressed with two faces, new to him, but conspicuous in every show-window. One picture represented an imposing, middle-aged man, which you were told was "unser Kronprinz," and the other, a handsome, fine-figured woman, was "unsere Lilli Lehmann." And you were looked at in surprise for not knowing "our Lilli Lehmann." The Berliners have always spoken in a possessive sense of this lady--their star of the opera--especially in that year when she broke her contract with the Kaiser to accept an engagement in America. It made a great talk there at the time, but the Berliners thought none the less of her, and the morning after her début in New York the first words that greeted you in the Vaterland were: "Have you heard the news? The Lilli Lehmann has had a great success in America." Fourteen years later this same Lilli Lehmann is still having "a great success in America." Her art is enduring as it is great. She is equally successful in colorature and dramatic rôles; but her physique and voice are particularly fitted to the mythical Wagnerian characters. Lilli Lehmann imparts to these legends of the Norseland all the attributes our fancy calls for. Her Scandinavian goddess is a creature of mighty emotions, heroic build, and a voice at times like the fierce north wind. Her cry of the Walküre is a revelation in the art of tone-production. I was to call upon Madame Lehmann at 9:30 A.M., and this after a great and long performance the evening before. I had visions of the prima donna still in bed, receiving her caller quite in negligee, and sipping her coffee, served by a French maid, while a parrot and pet dog and flowers and the morning mail and newspapers combined to form an effect of artistic confusion. This makes a pleasing picture, but it is not Lilli Lehmann. There is no sense of "artistic confusion" about her from her gray-tinged hair to her grand, true voice. In answer to the visitor's knock at her room in the Hotel Netherlands, she opened the door herself, and shook hands with true German cordiality. The bed in the adjoining room was already made, and there was no sign of a late breakfast; all this at an hour when it is safe to say half her hearers of the evening before were not yet up. And Lilli Lehmann, who in the eyes of the public is majestically arrayed in flowing robes and breastplates and silver shields, wore on this occasion, over her plain serge dress, the typical little fancy apron--so dear to the German _Hausfrau_. The Berliners may well call her "Our Lilli Lehmann," for she is as unassuming to this day as the least of them. But altho she impresses you as unpretentious, you also feel at once her great force and energy. It shows in her every word and movement, and also in her business-like method of being interviewed. "Yes, I am quite tired," was her first remark as she seated herself at a little writing-desk and her visitor near by. "The opera lasted so late; I did not get to bed until two o'clock. But I was waiting for you this morning, and had just prepared to write down some items you might wish to know." Then she took a pencil and paper,--and what do you suppose she wrote first? These are the exact words, and she read them aloud as she wrote: "Born--Würzburg, November 24, 1848." I could not conceal some surprise, and was obliged to explain: "The American ladies so seldom give their age that your frankness is a revelation." "The Lilli Lehmann" smiled and said: "Why not? One is thereby no younger." [Illustration: Copyright by Aimé Dupont, N. Y. Lehmann as Isolde in "Tristan and Isolde."] She turned again to the desk, and went on with the "interview," using her pencil with great firmness and rapidity as she wrote in German, and with all possible abbreviations: "I was brought up in Prague, where I made my début when eighteen years of age. My mother was my first teacher and constant companion. She was herself a dramatic soprano, well known as Maria Löw, and my father, too, was a singer." "In what opera did you first appear?" "It was the 'Magic Flute,' and I appeared in one of the lighter rôles; but two weeks later, during the performance, the dramatic soprano was taken ill, and I then and there went on with her rôle, trusting to my memory after hearing it so often. My mother, who was in the audience and knew I had never studied the part, nearly fainted when she saw me come on the stage as Pamina." Madame Lehmann's feats of memory have more than once created a sensation. We remember the astonishment aroused in New York music circles five years ago when she mastered the Italian text of "Lucrezia Borgia" in three days. Recurring to her life in Prague, Madame Lehmann further said: "I appeared not only in many operas, but also as an actress in many plays. In those days opera singers were expected to be as proficient in the dramatic side of their art as the musical, and we were called upon to perform in all the great tragedies. But nowadays this would be impossible, since the operatic repertoire has become so tremendous." People seldom consider how much larger is the present list of famous operas than formerly. All the Wagnerian works, many of Verdi's, and most of the French have taken their places in comparatively recent years, and yet there is still a demand for all the old operas too. The singer who attains Wagner must at the same time keep up her Mozart, Beethoven, Glück, Rossini, Meyerbeer, and Bellini. As the visitor mentioned Bellini, Madame Lehmann assented. "Yes, we are to give 'Norma' here next month." "Norma," abounding in melody and florid fancies, is as different from Wagner as a cloudless sky from a thunder-storm. The divine art, like nature, has its various moods, and Wagner and Bellini represent two extremes. Among Wagner's works, "Isolde" is one character to which Madame Lehmann's temperament and physique are strikingly fitted. Throughout the long first act, wherein she is almost constantly singing, she imparts a glorious impression of one who _thinks in music_. The fearless, impassioned Isolde thinks bitter, rancorous thoughts of Tristan, whom she abhors, until with fierce resolve she hands him the fatal drink which, unknown to herself, is a love-potion. The previous dearth of action has created a ready mood for us to thrill and respond at the love-frenzy, the delirium which now animates the scene as these unwitting lovers suddenly find all hatred and other memories gone from their hearts. It may be mentioned here that Wagner firmly believed in the power of contrast, and he purposely preceded his greatest climaxes by what many would deem an unwonted length of inaction. In 1870 Lilli Lehmann was engaged for the Berlin Opera-House. Americans can hardly appreciate the significance of this fact; but it means much. The opera in Berlin is supported by the government and directly under the supervision of the emperor. The singers are not engaged for a season, but for life, being entitled to an annuity after they retire from the stage. Lilli Lehmann's contract was signed by the kaiser during the Franco-Prussian war. When asked if the old Emperor Wilhelm was musical, Madame Lehmann smiled, and there was a gleam of humor in her eyes: "No, I can not truthfully say that he was at all musical, tho he was wonderfully kind and good to all artists." For fifteen years Lilli Lehmann sang in Berlin with an occasional flight to Baireuth under the kaiser's permission, where she sang for Wagner himself. "I was one of the Rhine daughters, and also the first Forest Bird in 'Siegfried.'" Wagner's own Forest Bird! It is a thrilling and poetic statement that would be hard to equal. Of all this great master's characters, including gods and demi-gods, knights and shepherds, dwarfs and giants, his most original, and perhaps for this reason his best-loved children of the brain, were, we believe, his Rhine daughters and his Forest Bird. The former sing under the water laughing strains of mystical import and unearthly sweetness, while the Forest Bird sings in the air--always unseen, but more impressive than the greatest presence. This bird-music is not very long, but it is of unsurpassed beauty, and the most memorable theme in the opera. The scene too is exceptional and powerful in its simplicity--only one person on the stage. Siegfried, the inspired youth, who knows the speech of bird and beast, is alone in the forest when he hears a bird sing. He pauses to listen, as you in the audience do too, for the song is not a meaningless mocking-bird array of trills and cadences, but a tender strain that bespeaks the bird as a prophet. Siegfried tries to catch the message, tries to see the bird, and tries, too, to imitate its tones. He cuts him a reed from the water-banks, and shapes it and tests it until he can play upon it the music he hears. Ah, we should like to have been in that audience at Baireuth when this Forest Bird took its first flight into the world! It is a great thing to create a rôle, to set the standard by which all later performances shall be modeled. If the new opera proves to be a great and lasting work, the singers who created the important rôles are always credited therewith and mentioned. They usually have been selected by the composer, and their performance is the result of his best instruction as well as their own inspiration. Madame Lehmann has "created" many rôles, but the most poetic, we deem, is the Forest Bird. [Illustration: Copyright by Aimé Dupont, N. Y. Lehmann as Venus in "Tannhäuser."] After writing with characteristic abbreviation the foregoing fact--"'75-'76, Baireuth, Rhine daughter, I Forest Bird"--Madame Lehmann handed over the paper and asked "Is there anything more I can tell you?" Her bright eyes, clear complexion, and magnificent figure prompted a personal question: "How do you keep your splendid health, and the strength to work so much?" For this she had a ready answer: "I have been a vegetarian for the past five years." In reply to one more parting question, Lilli Lehmann spoke words of wisdom that are worthy of reflection: "Yes, I still practise and study more than ever. At the end one is just beginning." "The Flying Dutchman" "THE FLYING DUTCHMAN" "The Flying Dutchman" is one of the most melodious of Wagner's operas, and also one of the most popular in Germany. Its soprano rôle is well beloved by all Wagnerian singers, but for some reason the work is seldom given in this country. Americans have never had an opportunity to hear Madame Lehmann in this opera, but it is one in which she is well known abroad. "Der Fliegende Holländer" is an early offspring of Wagner's genius, and was composed at a time when Fate frowned upon him, and poverty and despair were his close companions. After six weeks of feverish labor, alone in hostile Paris, Wagner presented his beloved score to the orchestra of the "Conservatoire." They promptly condemned it, which affords a notable example of the change in musical taste. Portions of the "Flying Dutchman" now hold a permanent place on French programs. The plot, as well as the music, is as usual Wagner's own. "A daring captain, after frequent vain attempts to double the Cape of Storms, swears a mighty oath to persevere throughout eternity. The devil takes him at his word, and the hapless mariner is doomed to roam the seas forever." Such is the legend of the Flying Dutchman, to which Wagner has added one redeeming clause: once in seven years the wanderer may land in search of a faithful wife. If she be true unto death the curse shall be lifted. Wagner's music is so powerful and absolutely appropriate that it seems to suggest the text, instead of conforming to it. No ordinary tunes or conventional harmonies could adequately depict the roaming, restless, Satan-chased sailor. The overture opens with the curse-theme, which seems like the phantom ship itself as we follow its course throughout the introduction. It rides over and under and around hurricanes of chromatics and tremolos. Chords sweep like a deluge over the luckless theme. But as neither rocks nor tempest can annihilate the accursed vessel, so this theme mounts ever uppermost. On and on, "_Ohne Rast, ohne Ruh_," must sail the Flying Dutchman. But the wanderer in his dark existence finds hope in the salvation-theme, a peaceful, religious phrase that is poised like a single star amid the tumultuous elements. Like all of Wagner's overtures, this one has become a favorite program piece. With the ascending curtain there arises from the orchestra a storm of restless tremolos and shrieking scales. The wind and waves thus rendered in the music are also depicted on the stage. An expanse of ocean occupies most of the scene, only in front the turbulent waves beat against a bleak Norwegian coast. Driven thither by the elements, a ship casts anchor at the shore. Daland, the captain, steps on land, while his crew noisily pull up sails and cast out cables. As they work they shout in unison a rude refrain that lends rhythm to their movements, "Ho-lo-jo! Ho-he!" This is accompanied by surging waves of sound from the orchestra. Owing to the sudden storm, this ship has been carried seven miles away from the home port, to which it was returning after a long voyage. There is nothing to do but wait for a south wind to carry them back. Daland goes on board again and orders the sailors to rest. He also retires, after entrusting the watch to his boatswain. Altho this boatswain has no name, he is no insignificant character, for to him falls one of the loveliest songs of the opera. He has a tenor voice, and is in love with a "blue-eyed mädel." He makes a tour of the deck, and then seats himself by the rudder. The storm has abated, but we occasionally hear a gust of chromatics and a splash of chords. To ward off sleep, the boatswain sings of his sweetheart, and calls upon the south wind to blow their good ship home. This music is delightful and refreshing as a salt sea breeze. The sailor does not trouble himself with any fixed standard of tempo. He sings like the fitful wind, one moment "accelerando," and the next "una poco moderato." He sustains the climaxes and indulges in sentimental "rubatos," all of which is a touch of naturalness skilfully introduced by the composer. The boatswain makes another tour of the deck and then renews his song; but there is this time more languor in his tones. The phrases are separated by frequent "rests," the "moderatos" have developed into "largos;" the "rubatos" are exaggerated, and finally this sweet-voiced boatswain falls asleep. Soon the clouds become black and lowering, the waves are white and towering, and the orchestra is like a seething cauldron of sound. The conductor stirs it up more and more, until he brings to the top that awful curse-theme of the Flying Dutchman. We lift our eyes to the stage, and lo! over the dark waters comes another ship, strange and uncanny in appearance, for its sails are blood-red and they hang upon masts that are black as night. With a mighty crash this wanderer of the seas sinks anchor alongside the Norwegian vessel. The dreaming boatswain is aroused for a moment. He hums a snatch of his love-song, and then once again nods his head in slumber. A terrifying silence falls upon the music as we watch the ghostly crew of the phantom vessel noiselessly furl those crimson sails. There is a pause, and then, soft but impressive, that remarkable curse-motif announces the approach of the Holländer himself. He steps upon shore after another seven years of wandering. His stalwart figure is draped in a black mantle, he wears a full beard, and has a baritone voice. The first solo of the Holländer is most interesting; but those who expect a pleasing tune with a one-two-three accompaniment will be disappointed. One is apt to think that music must be always beautiful to be admired, but Wagner has taught that this idea is erroneous. Music should represent what the maker feels, just as painting does what he sees; and in proportion to the correctness of his representation is the work to be admired. As a prominent example of this fact in painting, mention may be made of Munkacsy's picture of Judas, which all admire but none call beautiful. And so this solo of the accursed mariner is not beautiful, as that term goes. How could it be? The weary, dreary, condemned Dutchman communing with himself does not think of graceful melodies that delight the senses. His phrases, instead, are all angular, bitter, heavy, and despairing. He tells of his longing for rest, and he mocks at the hope of finding true love. Too often has he been deceived: "I wait and watch for the Judgment Day. Then only shall I rest!" The Holländer leans mournfully against a rock, and the music subsides, until a light-hearted melody directs our attention to the Norwegian ship. Daland has come upon deck, and is surprised to find another ship alongside. He calls the boatswain, who, half awake, commences to hum his love-song; but another call from the captain brings him to his feet. They hasten to signal the strange ship, but receive no answer; whereupon Daland, seeing the Holländer, steps upon shore to accost him. Politely but unconcernedly the hero makes answer to all questions, and learns, in turn, that Daland's home is but seven miles' sail from here. The Holländer asks for a night's lodging, and offers to pay liberally. He brings forth a casket of jewels, which he declares is but a sample of the cargo he carries. With bitter tones he adds: "What joy are such riches to me? I have no home, no wife, no child; all my wealth should be yours if you could give me these." He astonishes Daland with the sudden question, "Have you a daughter?" and on being answered in the affirmative the Holländer proposes to wed her. Very nobly does this strange suitor plead his cause, his longing for love and rest. The music is here truly beautiful, for the hero is striving to win and please. Captured by the prospect of wealth and also by the strange fascination of the Holländer, Daland consents to the proposition. Once again the sad seaman is tempted to hope. The music has become decisive and, because of rapid tempo, sounds quite joyous. On top of this pleasing climax there comes a happy cry from the Norwegian ship: "A south wind! south wind!" The sailors sing their "Ho-lo-jo" chorus as they let down sails and pull up anchor. Daland goes on board, and the Holländer promises to follow. With a breezy accompaniment of wind instruments the two ships sail away and the curtain descends. The prelude to the second act carries us from the storm-beaten coast of Norway to the domestic peace of Daland's home. The composition is like a brisk sail over smooth harmonies. It opens with the boatswain's song of the south wind, and after a succession of undulating passages finally lands upon the celebrated spinning-chorus. A capacious room in the captain's home is filled with a merry company of maidens, who, with their spinning-wheels, are working together under the watchful eyes of Frau Mary. The wheels whir and whiz, like a drone of bees, the orchestra keeps up a continuous revolving accompaniment, and even the melody, with its ingenious rhythm, simulates a whirling wheel. The picture is as pleasing as the music; both are unique and delightful. The girls spin industriously where the song goes fast, but unconsciously hold up with the ritardandos, and Frau Mary has frequent occasion to remonstrate. Only Senta, the captain's daughter, does not join in the song. She is sitting in a big arm-chair and dreamily regards a large picture that is hanging over the hearth. It is an ideal portrait of the Flying Dutchman, such as many seafaring folk possess. Senta is an imaginative girl, and has always been fascinated by the "pale man" on the wall and his story. She begs Frau Mary to sing the ballad of the Flying Dutchman. This request being refused, Senta sings it herself. Truly wonderful is this ballad, with its blustering accompaniment and shivering climaxes. The final verse relates how every seven years the weary seaman lands in search of a faithful wife, but never yet has he found one. "False love! false faith! Forever and ever must he ride the seas!" Senta has become so wrought up by the song that she now sinks back in her chair from exhaustion, while the other girls sing with bated breath that beautiful melody of the salvation-theme. "And will he never find her?" they ask with childlike credulity. Senta suddenly springs from her chair and sings out with exultant tones: "I am the one who could save him! I would be true till death! May heaven's angels send him to me!" This music is of boundless intensity; the strongly accented accompaniment sweeps forward and recedes like angry breakers, while the voice part soars above like a fearless sea-bird. "Senta! Senta! Heaven help us, she has lost her reason!" exclaim the astonished maidens, and Frau Mary utters maledictions upon that "miserable picture," threatening to throw it out of the house. At this moment Erik, the young hunter who loves Senta, hastily enters, announcing that her father's ship is landing. The dreamy heroine promptly revives at this news, and becomes as elated and excited as any of the girls. They all want to rush out and see the ship, but Frau Mary orders them back, directing them, instead, to the kitchen, where there is work to be done on account of this sudden home-coming. With much chattering and commotion the girls and Frau Mary go out, leaving Senta and Erik alone. He detains her to listen to his vows and fears. Very tender and earnest is this song of love and doubt. Wagner knew well how to use the simple melody, which he considered essential to some emotions but out of place with others. Like the artist's fine brush, it will not do for painting storm-clouds, but in scenes of delicate delineation it is used with good effect. Erik is troubled about a dream he had the night before. To the usual accompaniment of violin tremolos, he relates how he saw Senta's father bring with him a stranger who looked like that picture on the wall. Already we hear far away beneath the tremolos, soft but distinct, the curse-theme of the Flying Dutchman. As the dream-song goes on this ominous phrase comes nearer, step by step, always in a higher key, always louder and more impressive. It represents, in fact, the actual approach of the Holländer. Senta listens as though entranced, while Erik tells how he saw her come forward and kneel at the stranger's feet. But the "pale man" lifted her in his arms and carried her away over the sea. To Erik's horror, Senta turns toward the picture and cries out: "He is seeking me! I would save him!" The young hunter sadly goes away, believing that she is out of her mind. Senta continues gazing at the picture. The music has become soft and slow, and the curse-theme pervades the air like a ghostly presence. But the heroine sings to herself that beautiful salvation-motif. The phrase is finished with a startled shriek, for the door has opened, and there before the astonished girl stands her hero--"der Fliegende Holländer!" Daland, her father, is also there, but Senta has neither sight nor thought of him. She stands immobile and amazed, her eyes never turning from the Holländer. When Daland comes nearer, she grasps his hand, whispering, "Who is that stranger?" The father has carefully prepared his answer, and it is the finest bass solo of the opera. After telling Senta that the stranger has come to be her bridegroom, he turns to the Holländer, asking, "Did I exaggerate her loveliness? Is she not an ornament to her sex?" In this phrase the listener is surprised with a genuine _ad libitum_ colorature passage, a style of musical decoration in which Wagner seldom indulges. But in the original text this bit of fioritura falls upon the word _zieret_ ("ornament"), and thus is a striking example of Wagner's theory that music must fit the words. Daland sings on for some time, until he notices that neither Senta nor the Holländer accord him any attention. They are still gazing at each other, and the father very wisely goes out. The leading theme of his aria slowly departs from the orchestra, and then, softly and hesitatingly, the curse-theme and salvation-motif enter side by side. They move around a little, as tho to make themselves at home, and then begins the great duet between soprano and baritone. The Holländer recognizes in Senta the angel of his dreams, and she finds his voice greeting her like familiar music. A beautiful melody is borne upon the orchestra like a boat on the breast of a stream. As the graceful structure floats past, the soprano and then the baritone enter upon it. They glide on together, over smooth places, upon tremulous undercurrents, but finally touch upon the salvation-theme, which, throughout the opera, is typical of the seaman's haven. It often arises above stormy passages like a mirage of the longed-for harbor. After this vocal excursion the Holländer asks Senta if she is willing to abide by her father's choice and to vow eternal faith. Her consent is glad and free. There is another ensemble introducing a new and stirring joy-theme. The highest note always occurs upon the word faith, thus fulfilling the substance of the text, which is, "Faith above all!" Daland reenters and is delighted to find such unity of voice and purpose. He wishes the engagement announced at the evening fête which his sailors will have to celebrate their home-coming. Senta repeats her vow to be faithful unto death, and the act closes with an exhilarating trio. Wagner makes his orchestral preludes conform to a distinct purpose--that of connecting the acts. So with the next introduction we hear the joyous theme of the recent duet gradually modulated into a whispering memory of the boatswain's song. This, in turn, develops into a new and noisy nautical refrain, that is continued till the curtain rises, and then is sung by the Norwegian sailors who are on the deck of their ship. They are merry-making. The ship is illuminated with gay lanterns, as are also the tavern and houses in the foreground. But not so the stranger's vessel that lies alongside at the back of the stage. It is engulfed in gloom and silence like the grave. The gay Norwegian chorus has a peculiar rhythm that suggests the flapping of sail-cloth in a brisk wind; it has sharp, rugged accents and a spirited tempo. The song is ended with a regular hornpipe dance on deck. This bewitching dance-melody seems thrown in to show what Wagner could do in that line if he wanted to. Some maidens come from the tavern with a basketful of provisions. While the sailors continue dancing to the gay orchestral accompaniment, the girls sing among themselves in quite another strain. As their conversation should be most prominent, the dance-melody is promptly changed from major to minor, which always gives a subduing and receding effect like "scumbling over" in painting. The girls go toward the Holländer's ship, intending their provisions for the strangers, who seem to be sleeping profoundly. The girls call to them, but only a ghostly silence rewards their efforts. They sing a winning waltz phrase inviting the strangers to join their fête; they offer every inducement to arouse the silent crew, and finally resort to a great outcry: "Seamen! Seamen! wake up!" But again only prolonged stillness is the answer. The well-meaning maidens are thoroughly frightened, and they hasten away after handing their basket to the Norwegian sailors. These proceed to enjoy the contents. They fill their wine-glasses and repeat the merry opening chorus. In the mean time the sea surrounding the Holländer's ship becomes suddenly turbulent, a weird blue light illumines the vessel, and its crew, which were before invisible, are seen to move about. The Norwegians cease singing, while their ghostly neighbors begin to chant in hollow tones that terrible curse-theme. Tremolos and chromatics descend upon the orchestra like a storm of hail and rain that almost drown the singers' voices. To a demoniacal refrain full of startling crescendos and pauses they sing of their gloomy captain "Who has gone upon land to win a maiden's hand." Then they laugh an unearthly "Ha! ha!" The Norwegian sailors have listened at first with wonder and then with horror. Like children afraid in the dark, they decide to sing as loud as they can. So their gay sailors' chorus rings out above the steady curse-theme of the Holländer's crew. The Norwegians urge each other to sing louder. Three times they start their song in a higher key, but that fearful refrain from the phantom ship overcomes every other sound. The Norwegians are too terrified to continue. They cross themselves and hurry below deck. The sign of the cross arouses another mocking laugh from the crew of the _Flying Dutchman_. Then sudden silence falls upon them. The blue flame disappears and darkness hangs over all, while in the orchestra there is a long-sustained note, and then one soft minor chord like the shutting of a door upon the recent musical scene. The succeeding harmonies are of another character, as distinct as a new stage-setting. A phrase that well simulates hurried footsteps accompanies the hasty entrance of Senta and Erik, who is much agitated. He has just heard of her engagement to the stranger, and can scarce believe it. He upbraids and pleads in one breath, while Senta begs him to desist. But the despairing Erik kneels before her and sings with grief-stricken tones of their past love. Like all of Erik's music, this cavatine is simple and sincere, as one would expect from a peasant lad. While he is kneeling before her the Holländer comes upon the scene unobserved. With tones as furious as the orchestra accompaniment he cries out: "Lost! My happiness is lost! Senta, farewell!" He summons his crew to haul up anchor and let down sails. "False love! false faith! I must wander the seas forever!" A tempestuous trio follows the Holländer's outcry. Senta reiterates her vow, and with intense fervor declares he must not leave her. Maidens and sailors rush to the scene, but all stand back in amazement as they hear the stranger announce: "You know me not, else had you ne'er received me. My ship is the terror of all good people. I am called Der Fliegende Holländer!" With this word he springs upon board; the crimson sails expand upon the black masts, and the ship leaves shore; while the ghostly crew chant their blood-curdling "Jo-ho-ho!" But this is our last hearing of the curse-theme. Senta has rushed upon a high rock projecting into the sea. With full voice and soaring tones she calls to the receding ship: "My vow was true! I am faithful unto death!"--whereupon she throws herself into the waves. No sooner has she done so than the phantom vessel sinks from sight. The music also tumbles down a tremendous chromatic; then it mounts again, changing from minor to major, which gives an effect of sudden peace. The Holländer has found true love. He rescues Senta, and we see him clasping her in his arms, while the chords of the salvation-theme rise above the other harmonies like the spires of a beautiful city. The haven has been reached at last. Melba the Australian Nightingale [Illustration: NELLIE MELBA.] MELBA, THE AUSTRALIAN NIGHTINGALE A memorable performance of "Aida" was given in London, at Covent Garden, a number of years ago. The Ethiopian slave-girl, dark-tinted and slight of figure, attracted no particular attention with her first unimportant recitative notes. The audience was diverted by the fine tenor singing, the excellent contralto, and the well-drilled work of the chorus. There followed more of this ensemble, more good orchestral playing, and then an effect of melody, or rhythm, or something--that gradually caused every pulse to quicken, and stirred every soul in a strange, unaccountable way, until suddenly we realized that it was not the rhythm, or the harmony, or the tenor, or the orchestra, but _one soprano voice_, whose tones seemed to penetrate all space and soar to all heights and thrill all hearts in a manner that was overpowering! The slave-girl was singing! A new star from the Southern Hemisphere was just beginning to appear in the North! A "_new name_" had been added, and was soon to be heard by "all who had an ear to hear"--Melba, the Australian Nightingale. All critics agree that the quality of her voice has never, in the annals of music, been surpassed. In furnishing Melba her name, which is a diminutive of Melbourne, the far continent has sprung into a musical prominence it never before attained. From a land at the outer edge of the world, a sovereign of song has arisen. It would, of course, be artistic and effective to picture Melba's early life as one of struggle and privation. But, search as one will, not a crust or a tatter turns up in her history! She never shivered on a doorstep, or sang for pennies in the street! Let the dismal truth be told,--her father was wealthy, and his gifted daughter never lacked for anything. Nellie Mitchell, as she was known in those days, was gifted not only with a voice, but with a splendid determination to work. She practiced diligently all the time in the line of her ambition, and learned to play admirably on the piano, violin, and pipe-organ. All this in spite of the diversions and enticements of young companions and monied pastimes. Wealth, as well as poverty, may serve to hinder progress, and it is much to Melba's credit that she had the perseverance to work unceasingly. Even at school, during recess hours, she was always humming and trilling. This latter trick was a source of puzzling delight to her comrades, who never tired of hearing "that funny noise she made in her throat." The marvelous Melba trill, you see, was a gift of the gracious fates at her birth--just back of the silver spoon in her mouth was tucked a golden trill. The story of her childhood is best told in her own words: "My mother was an accomplished amateur musician, and it was her playing that first gave me an idea of the charms of music. I was forever humming everything I heard, and she was always telling me to stop, for my noise was unceasing! My favorite song was 'Coming Thro' the Rye.' I also liked 'Nellie Ely,' because my own name was Nellie!" Incidentally, it was learned that dolls were tabooed by this prima-donna in pinafores. "I hated dolls. My favorite toys were horses--wooden horses. One given to me by my father's secretary was almost an idol to me for years." Recurring to the subject of music, Mme. Melba continued: "I didn't _sing_ much when a child; I only _hummed_. And by the way, a child's voice should be carefully guarded. I consider the ensemble singing in schools as ruinous to good voices. Each one tries to outdo the other, and the tender vocal cords are strained and tired. I, personally, did not seriously study singing until after my marriage at seventeen years of age." The preparation required for Mme. Melba's career was neither very long nor arduous. She studied nine months with Marchese, then was ready to make her début in Brussels as a star. All things came easy to her, because her voice never had to be "_placed_"; her tones were jewels already set. "The first opera I ever heard was Rigoletto.' That was in Paris, when I was studying. What did I think of it? Well, I dare say my inexperience made me very bumptious, but I remember thinking I could do it better myself! In Australia I had no chance to hear operas. 'Lucia' I have never yet heard, tho that is perhaps the rôle most associated with my name." "Lucia" has, indeed, become a Melba possession. The mad-scene alone, on a program with her name, would invariably crowd the house. It is a veritable frolic to hear her in this aria. She is pace-maker, as it were, to the flute, which repeats every phrase that she sings. It is the prettiest race ever run, and when at the finish the time-keeper brings down his baton, the audience cheers itself hoarse for the winner. When asked her opinion of the new gramaphones and the wonderful records of her voice, Madame Melba spoke with enthusiasm. "They are, indeed, a remarkable achievement. I am looking, however, for still greater improvements, and am keenly interested in every new development." A matter of "keen interest" it must, indeed, be to every prima-donna of to-day--this amazing, magic trumpet that can record the subtle individual quality of a singer's voice, and give it gloriously forth again when desired. By means of this weird invention, the present vintage of fine voices can be bottled up like rare wine, and poured out in future years. More wonderful still: like the "widow's cruse," this trumpet never grows empty; from its uptilted mouth the flow of song will stream on continuously, if so desired and directed. It is enough to make poor Jenny Lind and other long-silent singers turn restlessly in their graves: they died too soon to profit by the powers of this recording trumpet,--which surely has no rival save the one that Gabriel blows. Some further random questions about the experiences of a prima-donna elicited the following item. Mme. Melba smiled as she told it: "Yes, I have some queer things said to me. Just recently a young girl of eighteen, who wished me to hear her sing, assured me that there were only two fine voices in the world to-day--hers and mine! "But I must tell you," she added brightly, "the most graceful compliment ever paid me. It was by an Irish woman, who, in commenting on the lack of song in the native birds of Australia, pointed out that they had treasured up all their melody through the ages and then had given it to me." Some one has said, "The ease of Melba's singing is positively audacious!" She certainly makes light of the most time-honored difficulties. She will start a high note without any preparation, with apparently no breath and no change of the lips. Faint at first as the "fabric of a dream," it is followed by the gradual grandeur of a glorious tone, straight and true as a beam of light, until finally it attains the full zenith of a crescendo. In a bewildering variety of ways writers have attempted to describe the wonder of her voice. "It seems to develop in the listener a new sense; he feels that each tone _always has been_ and _always will be_. She literally lays them out on the air." "Her _tone-production_ is as much a gift as the voice itself." After all, "she is Melba, the incomparable, whose beauty of voice is only equaled by the perfection of her art." "In future years the present time will be referred to, musically, as 'in the days of Melba.'" Like all great prima-donnas, Madame Melba has a beautiful home of her own, and a country place to which she hies in the summer. Her town house is near Hyde Park, London. We imagine these song-birds during the hot months resting luxuriantly in their various retreats--Melba in her river residence, Calvé in her French chateau, Jean de Reszke on his Polish estate, Eames in her Italian castle, and Patti at "Craig y Nos." But it is hardly an accurate picture, for _rest_ to the artist still means _work_. They study all summer, every one of them, and entertain other artists, who work with them, or, at any rate, contribute to the perpetual whirl of music in which they live. A very good idea of the home life of these song-queens was given to me by a young lady who visited one of them for several months. "Do you know," she said, "it was positively depressing to be near so much talent and genius. [Illustration: Photograph by Davis & Sanford. Mme. Melba as Elizabeth in "Tannhäuser."] "Why, in the drawing-room they would be talking seven or eight languages; and some one would improvise at the piano, while another would take a violin and join in with the most wonderful cadenzas, and then, perhaps, the piano-player would step aside and some one else would slide into his place and continue the improvisation the first one had begun; and so on all the time, until really I began to feel just about as small and worthless as a little pinch of dust." "Lakme" "LAKME" Lakme was one of Patti's most successful rôles, and very few other singers have ventured to attempt it. But Madame Melba includes it in her repertoire, and a great treat is in store for New Yorkers when the managerial difficulties in the way of its production are sufficiently overcome for her to present it. "Lakme" is composed by Delibes. This name at once recalls that exquisite "pizzicato" from the ballet "Sylvia," a musical fragment that has floated around the world and stuck to the programs of every land. The same delicate fancy and witchery that characterize the ballet are also prominent in the opera. His style is perhaps the furthest removed from Wagner of any modern composer. "Lakme" has no crescendo worth mentioning, and the themes are, for the most part, left to take care of themselves; but every phrase is fascinating, and there is never a tedious passage. The prelude opens in the minor key with a group of octaves erect and solemn as pine trees. The next phrase starts up like a blue flame darting from obscurity--a fantastic measure with wild harmonies that plainly suggest India as Lakme's home. A pathetic wail from the flute offsets this elfish interlude; the gloom of the minor still hangs over all, and the persistent tremolo of the violins becomes oppressive as the perfume of magnolias. It is like a forest at midnight. Suddenly the gloom and stillness are dispersed by the love-theme of the opera, which is in the major key, and consequently has a purifying effect. Major and minor are the oxygen and nitrogen of the musical atmosphere. A peculiar, rhythmical beating of the triangle accompanies the rising of the curtain, which reveals a luxuriant garden enclosed by a bamboo fence. At the back is a little river, and a modest dwelling stands on the bank; but a pretentious idol at one side characterizes the place as a sanctuary. Day is breaking, and as the light increases those soft, metallic tones of the triangle penetrate the air like sunbeams. Nilikanthe, a Brahmin priest and owner of the dwelling, comes forward with two slaves, who open the bamboo gates, admitting a group of Hindu devotees, who prostrate themselves before the idol. Beneath the radiance of those unceasing triangle tones arises a languid prayer, soft as the gray morning mist, after which Nilikanthe addresses the worshipers. He refers to their recent English conquerors, who have "displaced our gods and devastated our temples." His tones mount higher and ring out with religious ecstasy until he causes a sudden hush. The music of invisible harps fills the air, and as the Hindus again kneel a woman's voice, like a clarion call, renders an incantation that is rare and wondrous. It sounds like the song of an angel, but it is only Lakme, the Brahmin's daughter. She comes forward and mingles her prayer with those of the people. Weird and strange, like the tones of a wild bird, her voice soars above the chorus, filling the air with reckless trills and soft staccatos. The worshipers arise and go out, leaving Lakme and her father alone. She is a "child of the gods," and her life is dedicated to Brahma. Nilikanthe declares it is her pure influence that protects their sacred abode from the enemy. He leaves her for a time in charge of Mallika, a trusty slave. When he is gone the music assumes a lighter mood, while mistress and maid look about for diversion. After removing her jewels and placing them upon a stone table, Lakme proposes a row on the river. The music of this scene is fraught with a tropical heat and midday languor--dreamy, drowsy violin tremolos that suggest the drone of bees. The two maidens render a duet whose words-- "Ah, we'll glide, With the tide--" are set to music that seems to sing itself. It is a fountain of melody with flowing rhythm and rippling runs, staccatos like drops of water, and trills that are light as bubbles. The singers step into the boat, and we hear their song far down the stream, soft as a shadow and lovely as a dream. After a moment's silence a new element comes forward--a party of English sight-seers. Their appearance in grand opera seems to us as much an invasion as their presence in India does to the Hindu. After the costume of Lakme, which is all spangles and bangles and gauze and fringe, we are astonished to see the modern English waistcoats, fashionable bonnets, and long-trained skirts. But it is all compatible with facts and history. Gerald is an officer in the army; Ellen, his fiancée, is a daughter of the governor; the other couple are their friends, and Mrs. Benson is the chaperone. To enter this enclosure, the party have had to force an opening in the bamboo. It is evident trespassing, but they are too unconcerned to care. Their first rollicking ensemble is an interesting evidence of the composer's ability to change from the Hindu to the English type. Instead of weird, uncivilized cadenzas, these are plain, Christianlike harmonies, such as we have been brought up to and can anticipate. Indeed, this song recalls Arthur Sullivan in his best mood. After inspecting the idol and various points of interest, the party discover Lakme's jewels. Ellen admires their workmanship, and Gerald proposes to sketch them; but Mrs. Benson urges the party away. They all go excepting Gerald, who insists on copying the jewels. He prepares his sketching materials and is apparently in haste; but true to the precepts of grand opera, he first sings to us a long and beautiful aria about "taking the design of a jewel." By the time he has sustained the last high tone through five measures, Lakme and Mallika have finished their row upon the river. Gerald conceals himself behind a shrub as they enter. The undulating melody of their boat-song is rendered by the orchestra, first softly, then with increasing strength, until it ends with a sforzando chord as the boat touches shore. Lakme brings forward an armful of flowers as an offering to the idol, and she sings a tender little song whose pathetic melody belies the text, which constantly asserts, "I am happy." The accompaniment is a simple violin arpeggio, swaying back and forth upon the melody like a butterfly on a flower. Between the verses it flutters up in a fanciful cadenza, but soon returns, and, alighting on the melody, it continues to sway as before. Great is Lakme's indignation on perceiving Gerald, the intruder. As she goes toward him, her every step is emphasized by a resolute chord in the orchestra. "Leave at once!" she commands. "This ground is sacred, and I am a child of the gods!" But Gerald has fallen hopelessly in love with the pretty priestess, and he loses no time in telling her. No one has ever dared thus to address Lakme, and she is incensed at his boldness. She warns him that death will be the penalty of his rash trespassing unless he goes at once. But Gerald only repeats his sweeping song of infatuation. At last, moved to admiration by his courage, Lakme ventures to ask by what god is he inspired. Like ripples of sunlight are the next measures, wherein he tells her that the God of Love makes him fearless. Interested in this new deity, the Hindu maiden repeats after him the sparkling words and music. She sings timidly and a tone too low, but Gerald leads his ready pupil into the right key, and they sing together with full voice this most fascinating melody. The final rapturous tone has scarcely subsided when Lakme hears her father approach. Complying with her entreaties, Gerald departs just in time for Nilikanthe to perceive the broken fence. He vows vengeance upon the profane foe who has dared to enter here. His followers second the cry, while Lakme stands aside in fear and trembling. Tambourines and fifes predominate in the next orchestral prelude. It is a miniature _marche militaire_, and unmistakably English. The second act discloses a public square filled with Indian shops and bazars. It is the occasion of a great festival at the pagoda. Merchants and promenaders occupy the stage, and their opening chorus is all bickering and bargaining. The music is very ingenious. A free use of harmonic discords, dazzling scales that seem to clash with their bass, and chromatics that run into each other gives an effect of Oriental extravagance--gay colors upon crumbling walls, jewels over rags. The chorus continues until a bell announces the beginning of the festival and time for the venders to disperse. They slowly depart and give place to the ballet, without which Delibes would hardly be himself. It is interesting to note the specialties that different composers unconsciously assume. Liszt seemed to revel in rhapsodies; while the alliteration, "Schubert's Songs," comes uppermost in spite of our knowledge that he wrote some eleven hundred other compositions. Bach invented more fugues than any one else; while Handel made his most lasting impression with oratorios. Symphonies and sonatas were the life-work of Beethoven; while Chopin had a particular fancy for nocturnes. And Mendelssohn! With all deference to his greater works, it must be conceded that "Songs Without Words" are inseparably linked with his name. Verdi with his tremendous range of operas has had little time for anything else. The list could be extended to almost any length; but we will only add that Czerny is known for his scale exercises and Kullak for his octaves; while Weber, in the language of a recent critic, "is famous because he invited all the world to waltz!" But to return to Delibes and his ballets. The present one is divided into several movements--the first being slow but of throbbing rhythm, while in the second one the melody whirls and spins around like a top. It is constantly whipped up by the conductor's baton, and the dizzy pace continues until this merry melody bumps against a substantial chord. After the ballet Lakme and her father come forward. They are disguised as pilgrim mendicants, the better to enable Nilikanthe to seek out his foe. It must be understood that this Hindu thirst for vengeance is a matter of religious belief, and the music plainly impresses this fact. A weird theme that was prominent in the overture recurs as Nilikanthe explains that the wrath of heaven must be appeased with the blood of a victim. He has cleverly surmised that Lakme was the attraction inducing the stranger to trespass on sacred ground. Confident that every one will attend this great festival, the Brahmin has brought his daughter as a decoy. She plays the rôle of a street ballad-singer, and is at the merciless command of her father. He bids her look gay and sing with full voice so as to attract a crowd. The orchestra gives her the keynote, and then, like a necromancer performing wonders with a coin, she executes a cadenza that bewilders and dazzles the senses. Her tones soar away like carrier-birds, and they bring the people from far and near to hear the wondrous singing. When a crowd has collected, Nilikanthe announces that she will sing to them the "Legend of the Pariah's Daughter." Lakme sings as easily as she talks. The first phrase is a simple little narrative about a maiden wandering at eve in the forest, fearless of beast and sprite, for she carries in her hand a little bell that wards off evil with its merry tinkling. Then follows one of the most difficult staccato fantasias in existence, for the voice imitates the tinkle of that silver bell. The tones fall fast as rain-drops in a shower, round as beads and clear as crystal. The composer shows no respect or reverence for high notes. Upper B is given a "shake" and any amount of staccato raps, while even high E, that slumbering "spirit of the summit," is also aroused to action. In fact, this aria is one of the few that can not be poorly rendered. To do it at all argues doing it well. Its difficulties protect it like a barricade from the attack of mediocre singers. The second verse relates how the maiden meets a stranger, who is saved from the surrounding wolves by the tinkle of her magic bell. This stranger was "great Vishnu, Brahma's son;" and since then-- "In that dark wood The traveler hears Where Vishnu stood The sound of a little bell ringing." Soft and clear as a wood-nymph laughing those marvelous staccatos again peal forth. During his daughter's performance Nilikanthe has been scanning the faces around him, but none reveals any emotion other than the pleasure of listening. Furious that his plan has not succeeded, he bids Lakme to sing it again--"Louder!" But she has suddenly perceived Gerald approaching; and, knowing that if he recognizes her he will betray himself, she does not wish to sing. She pleads and entreats, but her father is obdurate. So she begins with pouting lips and trembling voice. "Sing out!" admonishes Nilikanthe. As Gerald draws nearer, Lakme becomes more and more disturbed. The pretty staccatos are all out of place, like blossoms falling to pieces. They are flat where they should be sharp, and minor instead of major; but her tones, like perfect petals, are none the less lovely because detached. Once, twice, three times she recommences, always in a higher key. Suddenly she utters a musical scream as Gerald comes up to her, and Nilikanthe exclaims: "'Tis he!" In the mean time, Gerald hears the fifes and tambourines of his regiment and goes to answer the roll-call. Nilikanthe summons his Hindu followers and informs them that he has discovered the foe. This solo with chorus of the conspirators is minor, _mysterioso_, and _agitato_; it is the most interesting bass solo of the opera. The conspirators go off, leaving Lakme alarmed and disconsolate. Like a faithful hound, Hadji, the slave, draws near to her and whispers that he has seen her tears and heard her sighs: "If you have a friend to save, confide in me." His words are _parlando_, but the orchestra illumines them with music clear as a calcium light. Lakme grasps his hand in gratitude, but motions him aside as she perceives Gerald thoughtfully returning. The hero has left his comrades at the first opportunity and retraced his steps to the place he left Lakme. His joy on finding her is portrayed in a musical greeting of such unbounded rapture that one key will hardly hold it. The ensuing love-duet deserves to rank with the best. But Lakme is more sad than glad, for she knows of impending danger. She urges him to flee, and tells him of "a little cabin hidden in the forest, quite near by," where he can hide secure from his enemies. This Cabin Song is an idyllic refrain, with gentle harmonies that picture more than the words. She urges him to follow her; but, in spite of his infatuation, Gerald realizes his duty as a soldier. He dare not go. Like dust before a tempest is the succeeding instrumental passage announcing the approach of the great procession. The notes, like atoms, are carried forward faster and higher, until they come so thick that you can not distinguish them. This cloud of music melts away before the mighty chant of the Brahmins as they march to the pagoda. Their weird incantation fills the air like a trumpet-blast. The greater part of this processional music greets our ears familiarly, because it was given in the overture. Upon this somber background of Hindu harmonies the composer delights in casting gleams of Sullivanesque music in the form of passing remarks from the English onlookers. The contrast is startling as magic-lantern pictures thrown upon the pyramids. As the procession marches on, we see Nilikanthe point out Gerald to the other conspirators. They cautiously surround him, and at the bidden moment he is stabbed by Nilikanthe, who then disappears in the crowd. On hearing the victim's cry, Lakme rushes forward. The stage is darkened, for it is evening, and the lights of the procession are gone. The Hindu maiden finds Gerald but slightly wounded. She calls Hadji, the slave, and then, without further explanation on her part, the instruments whisper to us her intention. We hear the soothing harmonies of that lovely song about "a little cabin hidden in the forest quite near by." The second _entr'acte_ is performed after the rising of the curtain. We see an Indian forest, dense of foliage and brilliant with flowers. At one side is a hut, half concealed by the shrubbery, and near it are Lakme and Gerald, the latter reclining upon a bank, while she watches over him as he slumbers. No sound or movement mars the effect of a perfect picture, and beneath it all, like gold letters spelling out the subject, come the tones of that sweet melody of the Cabin Song. The conductor at his desk reminds us of an artist at his easel who, with a magic brush, traces in tone-colors this beautiful inscription. After the _entr'acte_ Lakme softly sings a slumber-song, simple as a child's prayer and as beautiful. There are only two phrases in it, but they come and go like wandering thoughts. When Gerald awakes he recalls how he was brought here, while Lakme relates how with wild herbs and the juice of flowers he has been restored. Their rapturous conversation is interrupted by a chorus from without, the voices of young men and maidens on their way to a fountain in the forest from whence, it is said, if two lovers drink they will always be united. Lakme solemnly explains this beautiful belief and at once proposes to bring a cup of the water. "Wait for me," she admonishes as she runs out, and we hear her voice mingle with the far-away chorus of the other lovers. During her absence a comrade of Gerald's discovers his retreat. The newcomer announces that their regiment has orders to move on, and that if Gerald does not join them he will be dishonored. This visit passes over like a modern railroad through an Arcadian temple. Poor Lakme soon discovers the devastation. With charming faith she extends her cup of water to Gerald, but at this moment he hears the fifes and drums of his regiment. Lakme still offers the cup. "Drink and vow to be mine!" But Gerald does not heed her words, for he is distracted with thoughts of duty and honor. She also hears this English music. "His love is faltering!" she piteously cries; and then with a decision as impulsive as her nature she plucks a flower of the deadly Datura and eats it without being observed by Gerald. She turns to him tenderly and sings of their love,--a melody so gentle and pathetic that he can no longer resist. He picks up the fallen goblet, and touching it to his lips vows to love forever. They sing together a song of exaltation. Suddenly Nilikanthe breaks in upon them. He brings his followers and would kill Gerald at once, did not Lakme rush between them: "If a victim to the gods must be offered, let them claim one in me!" In tones of ecstasy she repeats the final phrase of her love-song; but her voice soon fails, and with a sudden gasp she falls at the Brahmin's feet--dead. Like hot flames reaching up at him from the orchestra come the tones of his terrible vow-theme. The victim has been offered, but instead of glory, only ashes fall upon him. "I Pagliacci" "I PAGLIACCI" Pagliacci is the Italian word for clowns, a decidedly unique subject for grand opera. Novelty is one of the characteristics of this work. It has already achieved fame, altho but a child in age and size, being only a few years old and two acts long. Leoncavallo, the composer and librettist, has since written another opera, "I Medici," which has found favor in Europe, but is still unheard in America. Pagliacci is startling and intense from the entrance of the Prologue to the clown's last word, "_finita_." The music abounds in surprises, and altho Leoncavallo has been charged with some plagiarism, his work but reflects the influence of such recent composers as Wagner and Mascagni. The opening orchestral measures are of peculiar rhythm, and suggest the spasmodic movement of puppets on a string; but this implies no lack of dignity to the composition. There are passages that recall the "Flying Dutchman," and Leoncavallo adopts the Wagnerian method of handling his themes; in other words, each one has a meaning that is adhered to throughout the opera. In this introduction we hear the warm and sunny love-music, followed by the somber theme of revenge like a shadow after light. Then the puppet-music is hastily resumed, to remind us that a clown must laugh and dance, however bitter his feelings. During the overture a painted and grotesque personage steps before the curtain and announces himself as the Prologue. This innovation has prompted some wag to remark that "the opera commences before it begins!" Mascagni, in his "Cavalleria Rusticana," was the first to present an unconventional opening, by having a serenade behind the curtain, but Leoncavallo has outdone his rival by having a prologue in front of the curtain. He tells us that the play is taken from life, and that in spite of their motley and tinsel the actors have human hearts. This satisfying song, with its appealing melody and large, resounding accompaniment, has never yet failed to arouse an encore. With a final signal for the play to begin, the Prologue skips out as the curtain goes up. The scene represents an Italian village gaily decorated for the "Feast of the Assumption," an annual fête that lasts a week. We see at one side a rough mimic theater, with stage and curtain, a temporary structure erected for a troupe of players who are just entering the town. There are shouting and laughter behind the scenes, sounds of a discordant trumpet and a terrible drum, and soon the villagers enter, vociferously greeting and surrounding a donkey-cart in which are the players. It is a meager troupe, consisting of Canio, the master, Nedda, his wife, Beppo, the harlequin, and Tonio, the fool. They wear fantastic costumes. Canio beats his big drum, while Nedda scatters play-bills, and the villagers think the troupe quite wonderful. They are welcomed with an impulsive sweeping chorus that seems to disregard all precedent in the matter of keys. These peasants apparently sing in an ungoverned, unrestrained way of their own; but as an Italian's tattered costume is always picturesque, so is this artless music most graceful and charming. Canio bows grotesquely on all sides, and again thumps his drum to make the people listen as he tells them that at seven o'clock the play will begin: "You all are invited, And will be delighted As you witness the woes of poor Punchinello, Who revenges himself on a rascally fellow." Canio's professional music, such as the foregoing speech, is made admirably artificial, thin and cheap as tissue paper, with uncertain accompaniment and flimsy melodies. When the excitement has subsided, Tonio, the fool, offers to lift Nedda from the cart, but Canio boxes his ears and helps his own wife down. The people laugh at Tonio's discomfort, and he goes off grumbling. This pantomime action and the succeeding bit of dialog are accompanied by a rollicking, hurdy-gurdy sort of motif in the orchestra. A villager invites the players to a drink in the tavern. Canio and Beppo accept, and they call Tonio to come along, but he replies from behind the mimic theater, "I am cleaning the donkey, and can't come." The villager laughingly suggests that Tonio is only waiting for a chance to court Nedda. Canio takes this joke rather seriously, and sings an earnest cantabile to the effect that such a game would be dangerous: "On the stage, when I find her with a lover I make a funny speech and every one applauds; but in life--believe me, it would end differently." This last phrase is adapted to the dismal, menacing theme of revenge that was started like a germ in the overture. It is still deeply buried among the instruments, but its growth is steady from the beginning of the opera to the end. Canio closes his song by assuring all that there is no ground for suspicion. He embraces Nedda, and declares that he loves and respects her. The hurdy-gurdy music is resumed, and distant bagpipes are heard,--noises peculiar to a village fête. The chorus sing with much good humor, and are accompanied by a charming violin obligato. Then comes the Bell Chorus, so named because the church bell calls them to vespers. "Prayers first, and then the play!" exclaim the young people as they go out. The delightful turns and curves of this bell-song are continued until quite in the distance. Nedda is left alone, and the orchestra, like a merciless conscience, repeats to her Canio's threatening theme. She has a secret that causes her to tremble as she recalls her husband's dark looks and words; but her fears are momentary, for the day is bright and so is her heart. She sings to the sunshine and the birds in the sky. A gay tremolo of the stringed instruments seems to fill the air with feathered songsters, and they remind Nedda of a little ballad her mother used to croon. This popular ballatella is generally referred to as the Bird Song. There is a busy, buzzing string accompaniment, and the melody is a gentle, legato waltz movement. The last notes are descriptive of a bird's flight "away, away!" so high that the tone seems to soar out of sound as a bird out of sight. Nedda turns around, and is surprised to find Tonio listening with rapt adoration. He is only a jester, and quite ridiculous to look upon; but he nevertheless loves Nedda, and tells her so. In this aria, Tonio reveals a depth of feeling that is in touching contrast to his painted face and comical clothes. Nedda laughs uproariously at his confession, and with heartless sarcasm she quotes the scherzando music of the prospective play-scene, and says he must save his fine love-making for the stage. In vain Tonio pleads and falls on his knees. She threatens to call her husband, and finally snatching up a whip, gives Tonio a smart blow on the face. His love is turned to hatred, and he vows vengeance for this insult. He is very much in earnest, and indeed the composer has given him quite a fine vengeance-theme, all his own. It is heard groveling and growling among the bass instruments, like some disturbed animal. Tonio goes off with frowns and threats, but Nedda forgets these in the joy of seeing Silvio. As he cautiously enters, the orchestra announces in the plainest musical phrases that this newcomer is the lover. That theme amoroso is unmistakable even had we not been introduced to it in the prologue. Throughout this love-scene it is the leading spirit, sporting around from treble to bass, now in the orchestra, then in the voice; sometimes veiled in a minor key or suppressed by top-heavy chords; again, it will start to materialize but at once disappear, or when most unexpected will push itself forward with impish delight. The witchery of this music undermines fear and caution. The lovers do not notice Tonio's leering face as he overhears their vows and then goes off to bring Canio; nor do they hear the stealthy approach of Tonio's revenge in the orchestra. Nedda agrees to elope with Silvio, "to forget the past and love forever!" He has climbed the wall and sings these farewell words with Nedda, just in time for Canio to hear them. The husband rushes forward with a cry of rage, but he fails to recognize the lover. Nedda has warned Silvio to flee, and Canio scales the wall in pursuit. She is left for a moment with Tonio, who gloats over his revenge. With bitter irony Nedda cries "Bravo!" to his success. She calls him a coward and other terrible names, but the despised jester only shrugs his shoulders. When Canio returns from his futile chase, he grasps Nedda, tortures her and threatens her, but she will not tell her lover's name. He declares she shall die, and with these words that bitter revenge-theme for the first time blossoms out in the voice part. It is sung and shouted by the maddened Canio, while the director's baton swings over the orchestra like a reaper's sickle, gathering in this full-grown theme. Canio draws his dagger, but is forcibly restrained by Beppo, who tries to reason with his master. "It is time for the play to begin. The people pay their money and must be entertained." Nedda is told to go and dress for her part, while Canio is advised to restrain his anger until after the play. He allows himself to be persuaded. The others go off to make ready, and he too must soon don the paint and powder. He looks sadly at the little theater, and sings a magnificent aria that attains the uttermost heights of pathos. He must amuse the people while his heart is breaking. He dare not weep as other men, for "I am only a clown." Canio goes off sobbing as the curtain descends. An intermezzo of much beauty and deep feeling is performed by the orchestra between the acts. Its opening measures recall the funeral march of the "Götterdämmerung"--dolorous, heart-weary passages that presently break away with a nervous energy into the cantabile theme of the prologue. This intermezzo is not long, and we are again enlivened by the scene on the stage. It is evening, "at seven o'clock," and the mimic theater is illuminated by gay lanterns. The people are flocking to the performance, and they drag forward benches and chairs to sit upon. Tonio stands at one side of the little stage beating a drum, while Beppo blows the trumpet which is still out of tune, and therefore the opening bars of this act are exactly like the first. These good people make a great rush and fuss in getting their seats, and they sing a simple, hearty refrain about the great event of seeing a play. The original and refreshing chorus that delighted us in the first act is repeated, and we become as excited and eager as the villagers to witness the performance about to take place on that little wooden stage with its cheap red curtain. Silvio is among the crowd, and he finds a chance to speak with Nedda as she passes the money-box. He arranges to meet her after the play, and she admonishes him to be careful. After she has collected the money the players go back of the scenes. A little bell is rung, and the wonderful red curtain goes up. The comedy is called "Columbine and Punchinello," and Nedda, who plays the part of Columbine, is discovered sitting by a table. The room is roughly painted and Nedda wears some cheap finery, but the people applaud and think it beautiful. The play-music is all angular and grotesque, glaring effects thrown on in splashes like an impressionist painting. It is admirably appropriate, and perhaps the most unique stroke in the opera. To return to the action of the mimic play. Columbine soliloquizes for a moment about her husband Punchinello, whom she does not expect home until morning. She looks toward the window and evidently expects some one else. The pizzicato tuning of a violin is heard through the window. The player gets his instrument to the right pitch and then sings a serenade to the "fair Columbine." She would fain receive her adorer, but at this moment the servant (Tonio) enters. He looks at Columbine, and with exaggerated music and ridiculous sighs informs the hearers that he loves her, and now that the husband is away he finds courage to get abruptly on his knees. Columbine pays no attention to his love-making, but she accepts the property chicken that he takes from his basket. The village spectators laugh and applaud. The scene on the mimic stage is next enlivened by the lover (Beppo), who climbs in through the window, and on seeing the servant promptly takes hold of his ear and shows him out of the room. The spectators, of course, laugh at this and think the whole play very funny. Columbine entertains her lover by giving him a good supper. Their harmonious conversation includes a charming and graceful gavotte melody that is decidedly the gem of this play-music. Its dainty elegance and classic simplicity are worthy of Bach himself. The servant rushes in upon the supper-scene, and with mock agitation announces that Punchinello is coming. The lover hurries out of the window as the husband enters. It is Canio, the real husband, who acts this part, and as he sees Nedda at the window he is struck with the similarity of the play to the reality. For a moment the play-music is dropped and we hear the serious love-theme of the opera closely pursued by that bitter wail of revenge that clings and creeps around it like a poison-vine. Canio chokes down his grief and bravely tries to go through his burlesque part. A new, jerky little melody accompanies the remarks of Punchinello, and it would be very gay were it not written in the minor, which gives it a touching effect of faint-heartedness. Punchinello asks Columbine who has been with her, and she replies, "Only the servant." But Punchinello again asks who was the man--"tell me his name." The last words are real, and Canio no longer acts a part. Nedda tries to keep up the farce, and the serious themes and play-music alternate as the scene goes on. With curses, threats, and entreaties Canio tries to learn the name of Nedda's lover, and Silvio in the audience becomes uneasy; but the other villagers only think it is fine acting. When Canio at last buries his face in sobs as he recalls how much he loved his wife, the people shout "Bravo!" Nedda again tries to resume the play. She forces herself to smile and sing the gay gavotte; but this only maddens Canio the more. With tones of fury he declares that she shall either die or tell her lover's name. Nedda defies him, and her words are sustained by a distorted arrangement of the love-theme, which effect is like seeking concealment behind a skeleton. The music has become as breathless as the situation. Nedda tries to escape toward the spectators, but Canio holds her, and there follows a piercing shriek. Nedda has been stabbed. She falls, and with her dying breath calls "Silvio!" Canio turns upon her lover and completes vengeance with a single stroke. The orchestra now trumpets forth, like the expounding of a moral, that poignant theme whose growth and supremacy we have watched. The village spectators are still puzzled, and can hardly believe that the tragedy is real. Tonio comes forward and announces in parlando voice that "the comedy is finished!" * * * * * "Pagliacci" only occupies half an evening, and even with the "Australian Nightingale" and a great tenor in the cast the public still expect "some more." New Yorkers have become spoiled by the great performances lately given at the opera-house. We take it as a matter of course that "Don Giovanni" should be given with Lehmann, Sembrich, Nordica, Edouard de Reszke and Maurel, and quite expect "The Huguenots" to have in its cast two great sopranos and the two de Reszkes. We have an idea that a large city like New York should expect nothing less, and are not sure but the European capitals do better. In point of fact, however, when Madame Sembrich sings in Berlin the royal opera-house is crowded by the attraction of her name alone; and the same may be said of Madame Melba in Paris, or Calvé, or any of them. There are never more than six or seven great prima donnas in the world at one time, and when one of these sings in Europe the rest of the company is often mediocre. But not so in New York. After "Pagliacci" with Melba, "Cavalleria" with Calvé is the usual program--a rather unfortunate combination of operas, for they are both so feverishly intense. After the "beautiful horror" of "Pagliacci's" finale, a contrast might be welcome. Glück's "Orpheus and Eurydice" is a short opera that alongside of Leoncavallo's work would delight the musical epicure. Such an opportunity to study the new and the old would surely be beneficial. "Orpheus and Eurydice" "ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE" Classic myth and classic music are in this opera happily united. The beautiful legend belongs to the past, but Glück the composer, like Orpheus the musician, has brought the departed to life. With gentle harmonies he pacified those surrounding Furies, the critics, and his creation has attained a lasting place in the musical world. Simplicity and sincerity stamp the entire composition. The musical thoughts are put down in the plainest, straightest way, in strong contrast to the old Italian style, whose profuse embellishments remind one of ornate penmanship. Glück lived more than a century ago, but his ideas anticipated many of our modern formulas. He succeeded in imparting a musical individuality to all his characters. To properly enjoy Glück's masterpiece the listener should present himself with a spirit as gentle as the composer. The opera is more idyllic than overpowering. Enjoy it as you would a perfect day in some peaceful valley. The overture to "Orpheus and Eurydice" is not remarkable. It bears no theme-feature in common with the opera, and its kinship is only discernible in name and nature, both opera and overture being devoid of ostentation. The curtain rises upon a Grecian landscape that is beautiful but sad, for amid drooping willows and solemn pines stands the tomb of Eurydice. Orpheus, the disconsolate husband, is leaning upon the shrine. Not even his lute can solace him in this hour of grief. A dirge of unrivaled beauty arises from the orchestra like a flower from the earth. It is taken up by the chorus and given as an offering to the departed. There is something mythical about the music as well as the scene. All nature seems to join in this lament over Eurydice. Ever and anon Orpheus proclaims her name in tones so pitiful that-- "The rocks and rills and surrounding hills Feel pity, and are touched." He asks the chorus to scatter flowers upon her grave and then leave him alone, for their song but adds to his grief. Accompanied by an orchestral ritornelle of Arcadian simplicity, they strew their garlands and then retire. The wood-wind and viol follow Orpheus in his solitary plaint that again reminds us of the voice of nature. It is a feminine voice, too, a fact worth mentioning, for Orpheus is now considered the contralto _rôle de résistance_. After vainly beseeching high heaven and all the gods to restore his lost Eurydice, Orpheus decides to brave the realms of Pluto. He will himself wrest her from death's power. The gods help those that help themselves, and now Amor, the god of love, comes to his assistance. Amor says he shall descend in safety to the lower world, and will find his Eurydice among the peaceful shades. He must take his lute, and perchance by the power of music he can induce Pluto to release her. Was there ever a more charming story for an opera! Amor further dictates that while leading Eurydice to the upper world he must not look upon her, else all endeavor will have been in vain, and death will at once claim his own. After promising to obey, Orpheus sings a song full of gratitude, with here and there a gleam of gladness like flecks of sunlight after rain. His final aria is the very noontide of joy, dignified always but none the less radiant. Glück here finds use for colorature--plain, classical scales and broken thirds without any appoggiaturas or even staccatos; but his even-tempoed sixteenth notes seem as gay as Rossini's breathless sixty-fourths. The second act is the most interesting. It pictures the nether world of Hades. There are vistas of receding caverns full of smoke and flames. Furies and Demons occupy the stage. According to Glück, the brass instruments furnish the music of Hades, in opposition to the harps, which belong to heaven. The first tones are hurled up by the trumpets like a blast of molten rocks. Then like a balm to all the senses, nectar after poison, incense after sulfur, day after night, come the next celestial harmonies. It is Orpheus with his lute, whose harp-tones reach us from afar, as this musician of the gods plays his way through the gates of Hades. For a moment the Furies cease their revel, as they wonder what mortal dares to enter here. When they resume their dance the orchestra renders a reeling, demoniacal medley of scales and staccatos. Again the Furies stop as they see Orpheus approaching, and they sing a malediction upon this mortal so audacious. They try to frighten him with howls from the watch-dog Cerberus, an effect admirably represented by the instruments. The music is all fearful and threatening, with creeping chromatics shrouded in a minor key. Orpheus is undaunted; and with enduring faith in the power of his music he takes up his harp and sings to them of his love for Eurydice. Entreating their pity, he begs them to let him pass; but Cerberus still howls and the Furies shout "No!" They threaten him with eternal torture, but the inspired youth sings on. No punishment they can devise could exceed the grief he already suffers--such is the burden of his song. Even the Demons and Furies can not long resist such tender strains. With bated breath they wonder what strange feeling steals o'er them, for pity is a new sensation: "The cheeks of the Furies were wet with tears; all Hades held its breath." Three times the wondrous song and accompaniment still the shrieks of Pluto's realm. Orpheus is finally allowed to pass. The Furies and Demons hasten to drown their recent emotion in a mad revel that surpasses the first one. This demon-dance is admirably characterized by the music. It has a rapid tempo and a perpetual motion that suggest dancing on hot iron. Tremolos rise and fall like puffs of smoke, while scales like coiling snakes and staccatos like skipping imps add to the effect of pandemonium. Act III. pictures the Elysian fields, the abode of the blest where "calm and eternal rest" pervade even the music. The orchestral introduction is saintly, with its religious harmonies and classic purity. It is simple, but yet so interesting that we can imagine the immortal spirits hearing forever and never weary, for classical music is always new and always beautiful. The flute and stringed instruments perform the great part of this Elysian music. White-robed spirits glide about, and one soprano voice starts up a happy, flowing melody that inspires a chorus of others. It is Eurydice who leads this singing of the blest. There is dancing as well as singing, and during this divertisement the instruments weave out a new musical fabric. The steady accompaniment and firm legato theme are the woof and warp through which, around which, and over which a little five-note appoggiatura sports like a weaver's shuttle. It appears four times in every measure, but never twice in the same place. With wonder and admiration comes Orpheus upon the scene. The orchestra continues its blithe harmonies while Orpheus sings of the beauteous sight. But not even such surroundings can quell his longing for Eurydice. Unlike the Furies, who only granted his prayer because compelled by his wondrous music, the spirits of the blest can not see any one suffer. With one voice and immediately they tell him to take Eurydice. To the strains of softest music Orpheus approaches the various spirits. He harkens to their heart-beats, and finally recognizes his loved one without seeing her. The scene changes to another part of the nether world, a forest through which Orpheus is leading Eurydice back to earth. A nervous, anxious instrumental passage precedes the opening recitative dialogue. Eurydice at first rejoices over her new-found life, but then forgets all else in surprise and grief because Orpheus will not look at her. She questions him, entreats him, fears she is no longer beautiful, or that his heart has changed. Orpheus explains that he dare not look at her, but Eurydice is not satisfied. She refuses to go farther, for if he can not look at her she does not wish to live. The ensuing duet is intense and full of climacteric effects. The voices chase each other like clouds before a storm, low down and hovering near that sea of sound, the orchestra, over which the conductor rules with his wand like Neptune with his trident. Orpheus firmly resists the pleadings of Eurydice until she declares that his coldness will break her heart,--she will die of grief if he does not look at her. Little wonder that he flings prudence to the winds and impulsively turns to embrace her. But no sooner has he looked upon Eurydice than she droops and sinks from his arms like a blighted flower. Death has again come between them. Orpheus cries aloud his grief, and there springs from his heart a song of lamentation surpassing any other as a geyser does a fountain. "Ach, ich habe sie verloren!" is the German and "Che in faro" the Italian name of this great song that is the standard classical contralto program piece. It is full of sobbing cadenzas and sighing intervals that express more than words or deeds. Grief at last gives place to desperation: He is on the point of killing himself when Amor reappears. The gods are again moved to pity by his enduring love, and Amor with a touch of her wand revives Eurydice. The opera closes with a trio between Amor and the reunited pair, an ode to the power of love. It is a sort of musical apotheosis. The orchestral accompaniment has a steady, revolving movement that might suggest the wheel of time tuned and turned in harmony with the voice of love. The Genius of Geraldine Farrar [Illustration: Copyright by Aimé Dupont. Geraldine Farrar.] THE GENIUS OF GERALDINE FARRAR Some half-dozen years ago rumors, vague as perfume from an unfolding flower, began to reach America about a new prima-donna; a Boston girl, very young and very beautiful; singing at the Berlin Royal Opera-house. No American before had ever held such a position--life-member of the opera company which Kaiser Wilhelm supervises, and the Great Frederick founded. Years went by and still the name of Geraldine Farrar was wafted across the waters--and still she was spoken of as "very young." American critics grew somewhat incredulous; Germany, of course, is musical and deep-rooted in the science of the art, but New York holds a record of her own in matters operatic, and is not disposed to accept unchallenged a verdict from the land of beer and thorough-bass. At last the hour came when Geraldine Farrar appeared as a star in her native land. It was a momentous occasion--the opening of the season; a brilliant audience, diamond-glinting and decollete; an audience familiar with the value of Tiffany tiaras, but inclined to be dubious about Berlin laurels. The curtain arose upon the first act of Romeo and Juliet; a blaze of color and a whirl of gay music. Soon the dancers dispersed, and a slender figure in saphire satin sauntered down the Capulet stairs, came forward with quiet confidence, and commenced the famous Waltz Song--slowly--dreamily. With these very first notes Geraldine Farrar revealed originality; she sang them as tho thinking aloud; the words fell from her lips like a tender caress-- "I would linger in this dream that enthralls me." She closed the aria with brilliant tones, a high note--and a smile. Geraldine Farrar's smile is something to drive a poet to sonnets--and a prince to sighs! One paper the next morning declared: "From that moment she could have wrapped the whole audience around her little finger." There followed a "Farrar furor," tho cautious critics were careful to point out that her performance as yet evinced nothing more than "a lovely voice, a peculiarly gifted dramatic temperament, youth, beauty, and considerable experience!" That's all! "She is not yet a finished artist," these critics say, but at four-and-twenty what would you? Her voice is "golden," and no one denies that her histrionic gifts are phenomenal. It is strange--this quality of native _greatness_. In the case of these famous singers, one almost feels that the _greatness_ makes the voice. The _mind_ is what counts, after all. Geraldine Farrar impresses one forcibly with this fact. Her mind is alert, keen, observant, thoughtful, quick at reaching conclusions, widely interested, eager to learn, but at the same time self-contained and firmly poised. When talking about music her face lights up. She has much to say; she has thought and studied deeply; she is intense, enthusiastic, full of her subject, aglow with earnestness and vitality. From early childhood she was always singing, always acting, and always _intending to be a prima-donna_. "I began voice-study when I was twelve, but before that had sung all of Faust in Italian, and acted it according to my own imagination." When asked if she had not run some risk of harming the vocal cords by beginning so young, she explained that her voice at this age was remarkably mature and full. She was possessed, besides, with an irresistible desire to sing, so it seemed both prudent and wise to commence serious study thus early. "A born singer is _instinctive_, and selects, almost instinctively, her individual means of expression, avoiding, in the main, what is distinctly harmful. But practice and study are continuously and always necessary. I work faithfully every day with scales and trills and intervals. Before a performance I go over my part, mentally, from beginning to end." In reply to a question about her ambition, she answered promptly and impressively: "Yes, I have one very decided ambition: I wish to develop my powers to the fullest extent and most complete beauty, and then--I wish to have the _courage_, when physical strength no longer responds to the creative demands, to _abdicate in favor of Youth_! Youth must be recognized, enjoyed, encouraged! We should have more of this God-given fragrance in our mimic world, and less of hard-earned, middle-aged experience." Miss Farrar's favorite recreation is "_sleep_--and much of it!" As for books, she likes "everything." "I read a great deal," she commented. "When I was studying 'Madame Butterfly,' I read everything I could find about the Japanese. I tried to imbue myself with their spirit. I bought up old prints, and pictures, and costumes; I learned how they eat, and sleep, and walk, and talk, and think, and feel. I read books on the subject in French and German, as well as in English." Incidentally it came out that she memorized this most difficult of operas in fifteen days. "No, I am never afraid of forgetting my lines." Then, tapping her forehead lightly, she added: "When a thing is once learned, it seems to stick in a certain corner of your brain and stay there." There was youth and girlishness in her off-hand manner of making this remark. In fact, the artist and girl are constantly alternating in the play of her features, and it is fascinating to watch this hide-and-seek of youth and maturity. The girl-spirit was uppermost now, as she sank back comfortably in her big arm-chair, drew her Frenchy peignoire more snugly about her, and related some of the droll _contretemps_ that occur on the opera-house stage. "The audience never seems to see them, but the most ridiculous things happen, and then it is terrible when you want to laugh, but dare not." A mention of Lilli Lehmann suddenly sobered the conversation. Lilli Lehmann is Geraldine Farrar's teacher--"and a very severe one"--her pupil asserts. "But she--and all Germans--appreciate _personality_. That is why I have been allowed to develop my own ideas--to be individual. That is, to me, the most interesting part of the art. I am keenly interested in observing life--the expression of people's faces, their way of saying and doing things. Wherever I am, whatever I see, I am always finding something to use in my art. "I once saw a death--it sounds unfeeling to say it, but I now use the very expression I saw then in the finale of 'Boheme.'" Geraldine Farrar's realism is a well-known phase of her art. A striking instance is her performance in the last act of Romeo and Juliet: she sings almost the entire scene _lying down_! An amazing innovation. "Perhaps it is unusual," she commented, "but the simple repose seems to me more fully to accentuate the sublime and lyric climax of the tragedy." This is a little rift into the prima-donna's viewpoint. She believes that "vocal intensity and dramatic value should so merge one into the other that they produce equalized sincerity of expression and constant changing of color, movement, and sentiment." "Give your best always; take _Sincerity_ for your guide, and _Work_, never-ending, for your master." This is Geraldine Farrar's creed. "Madame Butterfly" MADAME BUTTERFLY Beauty of plot and great music are to an opera what fair features and a noble soul are to woman. "Madame Butterfly" possesses these attributes, and has consequently won that instant success which only true beauty, in either art or nature, calls forth. Very seldom is the story of an opera so intensely thrilling that the original author is borne in mind; but it may be stated as a fact that no one applauds Giacomo Puccini's splendid music without also thinking "All Hail!" to John Luther Long, who wrote this strangely tender tragedy. Distinctly unique as a grand opera setting is the Land of Cherry-blossoms. Never before have the higher harmonies been blended in with embroidered kimonas and chrysanthemum screens. The innovation is delightful, however; refreshing, uplifting, enlarging. By means of great music we are enabled to understand great emotion in the Little Land. In this opera the hero is the villain, if one may so express it. He is also an American; a lieutenant in the U. S. Navy, and from first to last he seems blandly unconscious of his villainy. This is distressing morally, but musically one could wish it no different. As the rainbow-mist rises out of the whirlpool, so the beautiful in art is most often evolved from a maelstrom of sin and tragedy. A flowered veranda to a tiny house, a lilac-garden that overlooks a far, fair view of Nagasaki, the bright blue bay and azure sky--this is the opening scene of Puccini's opera. The brief orchestral prelude is a pretty piece of fugue work, four-voiced and accurately constructed. A fugue is unusual in grand opera, but Puccini has a purpose in everything, and his music is essentially descriptive. The opening conversation in this opera concerns the construction of the tiny villa, and as a fugue is the one music-form suggestive of rules and measurements--a secure foundation and precise superstructure--it is clear that this bit of musical masonry, with its themes overlapping but carefully joined, is intended to represent the house. On the stage the dainty dwelling is glowingly described by Goro, a Japanese marriage-broker; very obsequious in manners, but characterized in the orchestra by a most energetic, business-like theme that follows him around like a shadow. A wedding of his arranging is soon to take place, and this house has been rented for the honeymoon. The bridegroom, Lieutenant Pinkerton, of the U. S. Navy, is viewing the abode for the first time. He wears a handsome uniform, and serves the opera as tenor, hero, lover, villain--all in one. Goro makes him acquainted also with the house-servant, Susuki, a solemn-faced, saffron-colored maiden, whose name means "Gentle-breeze-of-the-morning." Pinkerton prefers to call her "Scare-crow." The first invited guest to arrive is the U. S. Consul. A sympathetic and genuinely tender theme announces this character's approach. Always listen to the orchestra if you would know the real nature of these people of the play. In grand opera, as in real life, _words_ very often conceal thought; but by the power of music the listener is endowed with a temporary sense of omniscience; he can read the hearts and motives of the creatures he observes. It being still early, Pinkerton and the Consul seat themselves while the hero explains this marriage he is entering upon. But first he orders a "whisky and soda." There is apparently no translation for this barroom barbarism, so the English words are used, and their effect is noticeably jarring. No critic has failed to remark this surprising debut of fire-water on the lyric stage! There is charm and poetry in the Italian wine-glass, and we have grown accustomed to see that mingled with melody--but the American whisky-bottle stands remote from music as a pig from Paradise. Puccini seems to realize this, for he accompanies the obnoxious word with a discord! There is nothing discordant, however, in Pinkerton's description of his bride--the lovely lady Butterfly--"dainty in stature--quaint little figure--seems to have stepped down, straight from a screen." The music here is delicate and frail, like an exquisite tracery of gold lacquer. [Illustration: Copyright by Aimé Dupont. Miss Farrar as "Madame Butterfly"] He intends to marry this Japanese bride in Japanese fashion, thereby making the tie unbinding in America--a slip-knot adjustment that she, poor thing, is unaware of. The Consul remonstrates with Pinkerton over his "easy-going gospel" of free love, but this light-hearted villain will not listen. He holds up his glass instead, and to a buried accompaniment of the "Star-spangled Banner," he proposes a toast to America--and also to the day on which he shall wed in _real_ marriage a _real_ wife of his own nationality. With this atrocious toast scarcely uttered, poor little trusting Butterfly is heard in the distance with her bridesmaids, singing as they approach. A delirium of joy breathes through this song, which is a weird succession of Oriental intervals, strange as an opium dream. As the harmonies grow firmer, Butterfly's voice rings out above the others, while in the orchestra the conductor with his baton slowly unearths, like a buried diamond, the great love-theme of the opera. It beams forth in sultry splendor, a cluster of chords with imprisoned tones that flash forth unlooked-for harmonies. At last she enters--this Japanese heroine, her brilliant draperies as bright as her name. Her maidens all carry huge paper parasols and fluttering fans--a merry group of girls, filled with varied emotions of timidity, envy, curiosity, and fun. They courtesy, and smile, and sing, and sigh, and lower their eyes with knowing charm. Throughout this scene it is interesting to note the different themes and their consistent use. A phrase of the opening fugue invariably appears whenever the _house_ is mentioned; still another architectural motif protrudes into prominence every time the town Nagasaki is referred to. Susuki has a theme of her own; so has the Consul. When the relations of the bride troop in, we recognize the fact that they, too, have a theme; we learned it when Goro, some time back, was enumerating the expected guests. This theme now asserts itself in the orchestra as the grotesque company assembles. There is nothing great about this melody: it is a mincing, thin-bodied affair, but disports itself with much confidence during its little hour of importance; it shoves out every other theme from the orchestra and demands undivided attention. But at last the director's stick chases it out of the enclosure. The guests in the meantime have been gossiping among themselves, disparaging the bride, criticizing the groom--and partaking of his refreshments. All flats and sharps and accidentals are suddenly dropt from the score when the official registrar reads in monotone voice, and plain C major, the simple marriage form. The ceremony is soon over, but the guests linger on. Pinkerton plies them with wine, but makes little headway in hurrying the festivities to an end. He has grown heartily tired of these new relations, and longs to see them go, but, instead of any one leaving, another one suddenly arrives, an absent uncle, who plunges amongst them in a frenzy of wrath and excitement. He has learned at the American Mission that Butterfly, without telling her family, has changed her religion and cast off the faith of her fathers. Cries of horror, moans, and execrations follow this announcement. Butterfly is denounced by her family--abjured and disowned. She cowers before them, distressed, but not utterly crushed, for love remains to console her. The tragic theme of the opera; a gruesome sequence of minor thirds, takes this opportunity to stalk into the orchestra and reconnoiter, like an undertaker looking over the premises before he is really needed. This theme has active work to do later on, but as yet does not seem very terrifying. When the relations and guests are gone, Butterfly is soon persuaded to forget the "stupid tribe." Evening has come; there is a twilight tinge to the music; it is "_dolce_," "_expressione_," and "_rallentando_." Puccini is a master of modulations. He employs large, full harmonies, soul-asserting, all-engulfing chords, that feel their way from one key to another, and burst forth in new glory with every transition. This persistent progress through varying keys has an effect of leading the listener through different rooms in some palatial edifice. In the hands of a great composer, each key of the scale unlocks a new vista in the enchanted palace of music. Behind a screen on the veranda, Butterfly changes her chromatic kimona to one of white silk. She emerges with garments all soft and fluttering, like the trembling white wings of a night-moth. Pinkerton leads her into the garden, and there, under the spell of the silent stars, they sing of love and of the glorious mystic night, with its gentle breeze that passes like a benediction over the bending lilacs. Fire-flies (cleverly imitated) hover in the air and flicker faintly, like candles in a distant chancel. The conductor waving his wand, like a priest the swinging censor, evokes a wreathing mist of music that enwraps the lovers in a drapery of dreams. Melodies and harmonies rise into being and pass away like phantoms floating by, until at last the great love-theme of the opera once again is flashed upon us. The _diamond_, scarce revealed before, is now in its proper setting. It is displayed in solemn glory by the dignitary at the desk, who, with upraised, swaying hands, holds aloft this precious theme, as a priest does the sacred emblem. Act II. pictures the interior of Butterfly's house. There is desolation in the home; the orchestra tells us this, for the tragic theme possesses the instruments, creeping around among them, serpent-like, and enfolding them in its coils. The rising curtain reveals Susuki kneeling before a shrine; she is praying that Pinkerton may return. Three times have the dragon-kites swelled in the breeze and the peach trees flushed into bloom since the day he sailed away. Her prayer abounds in strange and uncouth harmonies that wail themselves into silence. When the incantation is finished, an orchestral phrase of keen despair and tortured hope accompanies Butterfly as she asks: "How soon shall we be starving?" Susuki counts over the few remaining yen, and expresses doubt about Pinkerton's return. Again that same theme of anguish pierces the air like a knife as Butterfly shrieks out: "Silence!" She will not listen to doubt. She insists that he will return, and she fondly adds, "he will call me again his tiny child-wife, his little Butterfly!" With this memory there is a momentary return of the great Love-theme in the orchestra; tender and fleeting, like a smile on the face of the dying. Butterfly sings of the radiant hour, some day, when they shall see "in the distance a little thread of smoke," and then "a trim, white vessel," flying the American flag! The music of this aria has a confident ring and a forward swing, like a great ship nearing shore. Large and splendid is the final climax: "He will return--I know!" A familiar theme in the orchestra heralds the approach of the U. S. Consul. He brings a letter from Pinkerton which he wishes Butterfly to hear, but Japanese politeness interferes for some time. He must first accept tea and wine, a pipe to smoke, and a cushion to sit on. He is questioned about his health and the health of his honorable ancestors. His own "Augustness" is profusely welcomed. Scarcely have these formalities been accomplished when another visitor arrives--a pompous personage, accompanied by servants who bring presents and flowers. He comes to persuade Madame Butterfly that her husband's absence amounts to a divorce, and that he, Prince Yamadori, should be accepted as Pinkerton's successor. This energetic wooer, lemon-faced and almond-eyed, imparts to the music a spicy flavor, grotesque and Japanese. His brief, breezy phrases have a turn and tang that belongs entirely to the Land of Nippon; staccato suggestions of chop-sticks and Oolong. The hostess politely declines to listen to her elaborate suitor. She busies herself pouring tea, while in the orchestra a delightfully tender, untroubled waltz-theme reflects her tranquil spirit, which is like some quiet mountain pool in the path of a coming avalanche. Impending disaster is near. Pinkerton's letter contains news that will bring devastation to the little Japanese home. He is coming back--but not to see Butterfly; a new wife comes with him. The Consul waits until Yamadori has gone, then bravely tries to read the letter, but his eager listener is too excited to hear to the end. "He is coming!" That is enough! Her joy is unbounded. She speeds from the room and in a moment returns with a sunny-haired child on her shoulders--her "baby-boy!"--her "noble little American!"--to whom she tells the glad news that his father soon will return. The distressed Consul has not the heart to enlighten her further. He leaves rather abruptly. A moment later a signal gun is heard in the distance. Susuki plunges in, breathless;--"The harbor cannon!" Both women rush to the window. They can see the ship! A man-of-war! The Stars and Stripes! Oh, the pain of this joy! The audience, knowing all, is torn and racked with emotion as the orchestra reiterates Butterfly's recent song of confidence about "his sure return." Now is her "hour of triumph!" She proclaims it to high heaven--to Susuki--and to all "the eight hundred thousand gods and goddesses of Japan." All the world had told her he would forget and never return--but she knew!--she knew! Now, at last, her faith triumphs--he is here! Superb is the crescendo now sweeping upward on the crest of America's martial theme. The Star-Spangled Banner is bugled by the instruments, while Butterfly's voice, in high and jubilant accord, sings again the glad words: "He is here!--he loves me!" In the orchestra the love-theme--the great theme--arises slowly and passes by like a spirit of the past, a soul long dead, a memory faded. Now follows a poetic scene unsurpassed for picturesque charm and grace. In accordance with Japanese custom, the two women sprinkle the room with flowers, in honor of his home-coming. Great baskets full of blossoms are brought in by Susuki, while Butterfly, always singing, showers the room with petals. She sways with the rhythm of joy and music, flinging the flowers in reckless profusion, her voice seeming to follow their flight--up in the air--and down again. Susuki, too, scatters rainbow-clouds of jasmine, peach-blooms, and violets; her contralto voice at the same time giving depth of color to the music. In the orchestra dainty, fluttering phrases are lightly tossed about, as tho shaken from the instruments by a passing breeze. Full of strange involutions and harmonies, the music of this "flower-duet" possesses the essential quality of all that is lasting and classic--hidden beauty beneath the obvious. With the choicest "mixing" of harmony, orchestra and voice, Puccini has brewed a "blend" most rare, and sugared it with melody. When the baskets are emptied and the last flower fallen, a few final notes of the refrain still left in the orchestra are hurriedly brushed out by the conductor's baton. On the stage, as the daylight melts into dusk, Butterfly, all in a flurry, is decking herself in her wedding gown, while the orchestra calls up memories of the lilac-garden and the fire-flies. When all is ready, Butterfly, Susuki, and the little one take positions at the window. Long and patiently they watch and wait. The orchestra plays a soft, unchanging staccato accompaniment. The moonlight finds its way into the room. At last the maid and the child fall asleep. Not so with Butterfly; rigid and still she stands at the window, her eyes on the distant harbor-lights. A sound of far-away voices softly humming a sad, weird refrain, fills the scene with mystery, suggesting the moan of guardian spirits. All this while the gentle staccato harmonies in the orchestra continue to flit back and forth, like the changing lights of swinging lanterns. Butterfly does not move. The curtain slowly descends. The prelude to the last act opens with a theme that crashes and tears its way into prominence: a pitiless, gruesome group of notes, that sounds vaguely familiar, tho it has never been emphasized like the tragic-theme and others gone before. In the first act this dire phrase was heard for a moment, buried softly among the harmonies that accompanied Butterfly's first entrance song. She was happy then, but, nevertheless, this germ of agony was lurking near, as tho to suggest that we, each one, carry within our own temperament the weakness or fault that will eventually lead us to grief. The orchestra is kept very active during this prelude or intermission. The past is presented in flashes of old themes, and the coming day is presaged by new phrases of potent meaning. Sounds of the harbor life beginning to stir, distant voices of sailors chanting, are heard even before the curtain rises. When this is lifted, behold poor Butterfly still at her post! All night she has watched and waited, never moving, never doubting. Now the dawn, cruel, cold-eyed and leering, begins to peer through the window. The pale, frail figure in her wedding gown still does not move; she still hopes on, counting the stars as they disappear; measuring each moment by her heart's wild beating. The dawn grows rosy, the music in the orchestra tells of the world's awakening. The sun's glad welcome is proclaimed in a resounding pean of harmonies, pierced with sharp, bright strokes from the triangle. But all this brilliant daybreak music fails to modify the tragedy of the dawn. Susuki awakens to despair, but poor little Butterfly still asserts, "He'll come! he'll come!" When urged by the maid to rest, she takes the little one up in her arms, soothing him gently with a quiet song as she mounts the stairs to her sleeping-room. Scarcely has she gone, when Susuki is startled by a knock at the door. Pinkerton has come--and the Consul with him, but they tell the maid not to summon her mistress--not yet. The music of the flower-duet fills the air like a faint perfume as Pinkerton observes the withered blossoms, and Susuki explains the decorations and tells of Butterfly's weary vigil. A moment later she sees through the window a lady waiting in the garden. It is Pinkerton's wife. "Hallowed souls of our fathers! The world is plunged in gloom!" Susuki falls prostrate on her knees. The ensuing trio is a magnificent musical unfoldment of sympathy from the Consul, remorse from Pinkerton, and consternation from Susuki. It is a splendid mingling of emotion and melody. The two men are left alone as the maid goes out to speak with the new wife. Pinkerton acts properly distressed over the situation, and his friend, being only human, cannot refrain from saying, "I told you so," whereupon the music of his warning remonstrance in the first act is plainly marked in the orchestra, like an underscoring to written words. Pinkerton sighs over the room and its associations, sheds a few tears, and then decides the strain is too great for him. As he leaves the house, his wife and Susuki walk into view at the window. At this moment Butterfly comes rushing down the stairs; she has heard voices--"he is here!" Susuki tries to ward off the evil moment, but the _hour has struck_. The tragic theme rises up supreme--revealing itself in unclothed hideousness: all the other themes have fallen away; they were as mere empty masks over the face of truth--behind life is always death--back of the smile is a skeleton. Through the open window Butterfly sees the "other woman." "Who are you?" Mechanically her lips frame the words, as she stands there, paralyzed--stunned. But the question was perfunctory; the explanations that follow only confirm what she knew at first sight. Very gently the American wife proposes to Butterfly to adopt her child and bring him up as her own. The Japanese mother listens dumbly--then slowly realizes that unless she consents to this plan her boy will have no name. Butterfly says very little--but she accedes. She asks, however, that Mr. Pinkerton himself shall come for the child. "Come in half an hour--in half an hour." Agreed to this, the Consul and the American lady go away. Susuki is now quietly ordered to leave the room. She protests, but her mistress is firm; she wishes to be alone. When the weeping maid has gone, Butterfly lights a lamp at the little shrine and bows before it. Then she takes from the wall a dagger, but drops this as the baby suddenly enters, shoved in by Susuki--faithful slave! who, forbidden to enter herself, thus blindly tries to frustrate Butterfly's ominous wish to be alone. The child rushes to its mother's arms, and Butterfly clasps it wildly, calling it all the extravagant love-names Japanese fancy can devise. "'Tis for you, my love, that I am dying!" She holds him at arm's-length and bids him look long and well upon her face. The baby tosses his head and laughs; he little recks what she is saying: "_Take one last look on your mother's face, that the memory may linger._" The tragic theme attains a grandeur now that makes it seem the apotheosis of human heartache. Through the alembic of the composer's art this gruesome theme emerges ablaze with a terrible glory. It sweeps apast like a fiery chariot, bearing poor little Butterfly's soul to heaven. There is little more to record; the moment of death seems already gone through in bidding the child good-bye. What follows is done very quietly; every movement is lifeless and spiritless. She ties a bandage about the little one's eyes, and she puts in his hand an American flag; the Japanese mother's token of surrender. Then Butterfly picks up the dagger. The deed is soon done; she totters to the floor, and with her last breath tries to reach for her baby's hand. * * * * * Advertisements The Palace of Danger A Story of La Pompadour By MABEL WAGNALLS A story possessing the five essential qualities that constitute greatness in a novel:--a plot "keenly dramatic" (_Review of Reviews_); "a wealth of charm of style," (_N. Y. Press_); such sustained interest that it has "not a dull line from beginning to end." 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Four splendid illustrations by John Ward Dunsmore._ _Price, $1.50._ FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Pubs., New York * * * * * _JUST RE-PUBLISHED_ MISERERE By MABEL WAGNALLS _Author of "Stars of the Opera," &c._ A brief, but beautiful romance in which the discovery of a rich and powerful voice leads ultimately to a climax as thrilling as the death scene in "Romeo and Juliet." The story is told with simple grace and directness, and is singularly pathetic and forceful. "It is perfectly delightful. The theme is new and interesting."--_Ella Wheeler Wilcox._ "It is a story of tender and pathetic interest--the story of a woman with a wonderfully beautiful voice. A dainty and fascinating romance which will appeal to music lovers."--_Chicago News._ "It vibrates with musical sentiment. There is a good deal of artistic skill displayed in its description."--_Boston Watchman._ "A story unique in theme, delightfully told with many delicate touches."--_The Arena_, Boston. _Small 12mo, Cloth. Illustrated. 40 Cents, net_ FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Pubs., New York * * * * * Selma, the Soprano By MABEL WAGNALLS Forms one of the chapters in the book entitled "One of Those Coincidences." It is the tragical story of a journalist and his talented sweetheart and wife, who are at first separated, and then reunited by strange fortunes. The story is filled with music and feeling, and holds the reader's intense interest to the very end. OTHER ENTERTAINING STORIES BOUND IN THE SAME VOLUME ONE OF THOSE COINCIDENCES By Julian Hawthorne THE TAPER By Count Leo Tolstoi HOW VIARDEAU OBEYED THE BLACK ABBE By Charles G. D. Roberts JOHN MERRIL'S EXPERIMENTS IN PALMISTRY By Florence M. Kingsley FRANCISCO By Walcott Le Clear Beard JACOB CITY By A. Stewart Clarke AT THE END OF HIS ROPE By Florence M. Kingsley THE STRANGE CASE OF ESTHER ATKINS By Mrs. L. E. L. Hardenbrook THE EASTER OF LA MERCEDES By Mary C. Francis THE ROMANCE OF A TIN ROOF AND A FIRE ESCAPE By Myra L. 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32980	----	produced from scanned images of public domain material at The Internet Archive.) [Illustration: Photo of Kathleen Howard, Autographed] CONFESSIONS OF AN OPERA SINGER BY KATHLEEN HOWARD NEW YORK MCMXVIII ALFRED A. KNOPF COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY KATHLEEN HOWARD BAIRD _Published September 1918_ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA _To Marjorie_ FOREWORD So many fantastic tales have come to us of students' life abroad, of their temptations, trials, finances, successes and failures, that I have attempted to give here the true story of the preparation for an operatic career, and its fruition. My road leads from New York to Paris, to Germany and thence to London, and back to the Metropolitan Opera House. My operatic experiences in Germany are inalienably associated with the lives of the people, particularly with the German officer class, viewed publicly and privately; in fact in the town where I was first engaged, Metz, I found they were as vital a part of the Opera house life as the singers themselves. Their arrogance tainted the town life as well, and here I first became acquainted with the pitiful attempt at swagger and brilliancy which often covered a state of grinding poverty, or the thwarted natural domestic instincts which were ruthlessly sacrificed to the "uniform"--the all-desirable entrée to society, for which no price was too high to pay. I hope this book will be of interest not only to those whose goal is the operatic or concert stage, but to those to whom "human documents" appeal. It is a story of real people, real obstacles overcome, and contains much intimate talk of back-stage life in opera houses. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I THE WAY IT ALL HAPPENED 13 II A STRUGGLE AND A SOLUTION 21 III PARIS AT LAST 30 IV PENSION PERSONALITIES 39 V OPERATIC FRANCE VERSUS OPERATIC GERMANY 50 VI PREPARING RÔLES IN BERLIN 59 VII MY FIRST OPERATIC CONTRACT SIGNED 67 VIII MY ONE LONE IMPROPOSITION 76 IX THE MAKINGS OF A SMALL MUNICIPAL OPERA HOUSE 85 X MY DÉBUT AND BREAKING INTO HARNESS 100 XI SOME STAGE DELIGHTS 110 XII MISPLACED MOISTURE AND THE STORY OF A COURT-LADY 123 XIII HUMAN PASSIONS AND SMALLPOX 139 XIV DISCOURAGEMENTS THAT LED TO A COURT THEATRE 153 XV SALARIES AND A TENOR'S GENIUS 164 XVI THE ART OF MARIE MUELLE 172 XVII THE NON-MILITARY SIDE OF A GERMAN OFFICER'S LIFE 184 XVIII GEESE AND GUESTS 199 XIX RUSSIANS, COMMON AND PREFERRED 206 XX THE GRANDMOTHERS' BALLET 220 XXI STAGE FASHIONS AND THE GLORY OF COLOUR 230 XXII ROYAL HUMOUR 242 XXIII COVENT GARDEN AND--AMERICA 257 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Kathleen Howard _Frontispiece_ I Carmen as I Used to Dress It 76 II Carmen as I Now Dress It 84 I Amneris as I Used to Dress It 126 II Amneris as I Now Dress It 134 I Dalila as I Used to Dress It 172 II Dalila as I Now Dress It 180 Caruso's Caricature of Kathleen Howard 260 CHAPTER I THE WAY IT ALL HAPPENED I was very young and I was engaged to be married. We had just lost our money in rather dramatic fashion, and we were all doing what we could to supply the sudden deficit. My sister began to prepare herself to be a teacher, my brother left his boarding school and came home to go into a friend's office, and I--well, I accepted the hand and heart of the young man in our set with whom I had had most pleasure in dancing in winter and sailing in summer. My heart didn't lose a beat and turn over when I saw him coming as did those of the heroines in Marion Crawford's novels, but we were the best friends in the world, and I thought that anything else must be a literary exaggeration, put in to make the story more exciting; just as the heroine's eyelashes were usually exaggerated to the abnormal length of an inch to make her more beautiful, though none of the girls I knew had them like that. He was a young business man, just starting as assistant to his father whose business was an old established, comfortable sort of family affair, big enough to supply, in time, an extra income for an unambitious young couple like ourselves. Every one congratulated us heartily, and I began to embroider towels and hem table napkins and to dream about patterns of flat silver. The whole arrangement was satisfactory to the point of banality, and I might be quite an old married woman by this time, but--I had a voice. Nine-tenths of me, at this age, were the normal, rational characteristics of a well-brought up, bright, good looking girl. But the last tenth was an unknown quantity, a great big powerful something which I vaguely felt, even then, to be the master of all the other tenths, a force which was capable of having its own way with the rest of me if I should ever give it a chance. My voice, the agent of this vague power, had developed rather late. It is true that our whole childhood had been coloured by music, that we read notes before we could read letters, and that music was our earliest and most natural mode of expression. My father's greatest joy in life was music, and he always played imaginative musical games with us in the evenings. The earliest one I remember was when we were tiny tots. He used to improvise on the small organ we had and ask us questions which we had to answer, singing to his accompaniment. I was Admiral Seymour and Marjorie was General Wolsey. I remember his singing, "And how would you get your ships along, Admiral, If your sails and oars were shot overboard?" I sang solemnly, "I'd shubble them along with shubbles." Afterwards when I began to sing from printed music with him I remember saying one evening as he was playing hymns and unfamiliar English ballads for me to sing, "Papa, please let me look at the music and follow the notes up and down." I really began reading music at four years old. We played and sang all our childhood. When Marjorie was seven and I was six we sang Even-song at the village church, as the members of the regular choir were ill or absent. Marjorie had a heavenly childish soprano and I a heavy nondescript voice. But I always pleased my father by singing real "second voice" and not just following the soprano in thirds. He used to give us a note, and we then had to run round our rather large house humming it. It was the deepest disgrace we ever knew if we had sharped or flatted when we got back to the starting point. He taught us musical terms by making us dance to different rhythms he played, and would call out "Allegro," "Vivace," "Adagio," "Molto allegro," "Legato," and so forth, to which we had to change instantly. Whenever any one came to the house, we played and sang for them, and though it might have been rather awful for the visitors it was very good for us to get used to an audience. He used to arrange fairy tales like "Bluebeard" in doggerel verses and write accompaniments to them, and we then learned them by heart and rehearsed them, and some grand night played them for all the neighbours. I remember the way we showed Bluebeard's chamber where the heads of his wives were kept. We hung a sheet on the wall and Marjorie and I stood in front of it, with pale faces, closed eyes and open mouths, and our long hair pinned up high above our heads on the sheet. Another sheet was then stretched across us, just below our chins, and the effect was rather ghastly in a dim light. I remember we sang at the last: "Oh, Bluebeard, oh, Bluebeard, Frustrated, checkmated, Dissipated, agitated, Castigated, lacerated, Bluebeard!" When school was over we always gave a dramatic performance; if the weather was fine enough we held them in the big garden that was our childhood's playground. We dressed behind a huge flowering-currant bush, and I can remember a performance of an act of "Twelfth Night," in which I, aged about seven, was _Malvolio_, Lal, my brother, _Maria_, and Marjorie, _Olivia_. I had always been able to sing, but the sudden growth of my voice was a surprise. One day, in school, we were asked to write a composition on our favourite wish. All the other girls said they wished for curly hair, for pretty dresses, for as much candy as they could eat, for any other frivolous thing that came into their heads. But I took it seriously and told my dearest wish in all the world--a great voice, a voice with which I could make audiences cry or laugh at my will. And, strangely enough, from that time my girlish voice began to grow stronger and stronger, until I could proudly make more noise with it than any other girl in school. Then it grew louder and higher, until it was impossible to ignore such a big possession any longer, and the family decreed that I must have singing lessons. I took lessons accordingly from an excellent local teacher, practised scales and exercises and later studied the classic songs and arias as seriously as I could, but it was so fatally easy to be interrupted. We were all out of school for the first time and enjoying our freedom. It was so much more chic to go down to Huyler's in the mornings, when the girls only a year younger were hard at their lessons, than in the afternoon when the whole girl world was at liberty. I would just begin a morning's work when some one would call me on the telephone to go to the dressmaker's with her, or help arrange the flowers for a dinner party. I loved both flowers and dresses, and it was easy to think, "Oh! I'll practise this afternoon!" and fly off to be gone all day. In the evening there was my fiancé who had to tell me all the absorbing details of his office, or there was a dance, or a theatre party, and I took everything that came my way and enjoyed it all equally. But all the time my voice was really first in my thoughts, and I longed to study seriously and intensely, to arrange my whole life for it and its proper development. The family, it seemed to me, was more interested in my trousseau than in anything else. They had scraped together five hundred dollars, and I was to have it all, incredible as it sounded, to buy clothes with. Subconsciously all day, and compellingly in bed at night, the thought of what I could do for my voice with that five hundred dollars was with me. I saw myself only as a singer, and knew that I could never be happy unless I were allowed first to get my instrument in thorough working order and then to use it. The phrases, "working out your own salvation," "fulfilling your own destiny," "the necessity of self-development," and all those other nicely turned expressions which most students have at their tongues' end, were unknown to me. I just _felt_, inarticulately. But my feeling was strong enough to carry me into action, the step which phrasemakers, who find complete satisfaction in their phrases, often omit. New York was my Mecca. I talked it all over with my fiancé, told him what a year there would do for me, making it clear that I expected to sing professionally after our marriage. He agreed to everything and promised that I should do as I wished. His possible objection disposed of, only the financial difficulty remained, looming large before me. Deeply and more deeply I was convinced in my own mind that I might marry in old clothes, but not with my voice untrained. I finally summoned courage to propose to my family that I should use the precious five hundred for a year's study in New York instead of a trousseau. Miraculous to relate they agreed, and I was boundlessly happy and saw my path golden ahead of me. We all spoke and thought of my future as that of a concert singer. My intention of marrying seemed to make anything else out of the question. Indeed, at that time, the Metropolitan in New York formed the only oasis in the operatic desert of America. There were spasmodic attempts at travelling companies in English, but no other sign of a permanent institution throughout the length and breadth of the country. I must confess, however, that the operatic bee buzzed considerably at times in the less conspicuous portions of my bonnet. One or two musicians of standing, who heard me sing, pronounced mine "an operatic voice," and strange longings stirred inside me when I saw the Metropolitan singers on the boards. CHAPTER II A STRUGGLE AND A SOLUTION That winter in New York was a revealing experience to me in many ways. Numbers of things assumed different values in my estimation. One of the first new things I learned was the comparative insignificance of $500 as a provision for a year's expenses. I lived at one of those boarding houses which are called both "reasonable" and respectable, but are vastly inferior in both comfort and society to the European pension which costs a good deal less. I had lessons in singing, diction and French, all of which counted up to a great many dollars a week. My five hundred began to shrink at an alarming rate, and I don't know what I should have done if a friend had not advised me to try for a "church position," that invaluable means of adding to the resources of a student, which is possible only in America. Besides offering a splendid chance of financial assistance, the church position system is an infallible test of the money value of one's voice. How many girls have I known in Europe embarking upon the expensive and dreadfully laborious preparation for an operatic career, without possessing a single one of the qualifications necessary to success, without even an adequate, to say nothing of an unusual, voice! Their singing of "Because I love you!" has been the admiration of their local circle, even less musical than themselves, and this little success has been enough to start them on a career, doomed to certain failure. If they had only tried for church positions in a large city in America, had competed in the open market of their own country, they would have been saved a heartbreak and much good money besides. I won a $1000 position almost at once, over the heads of many older and more experienced competitors, on the merits of my voice alone. The salary was my financial salvation, but, besides this, my general musicianship was much improved by the practice in sight-reading and _ensemble_ singing. I grew used to facing an audience, and found a chance to put into use what I learned in my singing lessons. Blessed be the quartet choir of America, say I; an invaluable institution for the musical sons and daughters of our country. The church in which I sang had many wealthy members, and the dress-parade on Sundays used to be quite a sight. Our place, as choir, was directly facing the congregation, in a little gallery, so that our hats and dresses were subjected to very searching scrutiny. The furnishing of suitable garments for such an exalted position became quite a problem. The soprano was a well-known singer, who, in addition to a good salary, had many concert and oratorio engagements; and her furs and ostrich feathers were my despair. I would sit up half the night to cover a last-year's straw hat with velvet. I made an endless succession of smart blouses which, as we were hidden below the waist by the railing, I wore with the same "utility" black broadcloth skirt. I constructed the most original collars and jabots for them out of odds and ends. I remember one was made of a packet of silver spangles sewn in rows overlapping each other like fish scales. One of my engagement presents had been a silver mesh bag, and when I wore it at my belt, and the collar round my neck, the choir used to call me "Mrs. Lohengrin." As we took off our outdoor wraps to sing, my smartness in the gallery was assured, but the cleverest manager can't contrive at home a substitute for furs, and the soprano had chinchilla! I was years younger than the others and they were very sweet to me. Living at my boarding house was a young doctor, who also would have liked to be nice to me. But my exaggerated conscientiousness would not allow me to have anything to do with one man while I was engaged to another, and I refused all his invitations to the theatre and to Saturday afternoon excursions. My one indulgence was in standing-room tickets for the Metropolitan. What a boon to girls in my situation would be the inexpensive municipal opera and endowed theatres of Germany with their system of _Schule Vorstellungen_ (students' performances) of standard plays and operas at prices that put a comfortable seat within the means of even the most humble purse! This was the lack the Century Opera would have supplied. My church engagement was to come to an end May first. The thought of turning my back on the start I had made depressed me fearfully. I had given my word to marry and did not think of wavering. But the letters of my fiancé and his rare visits to New York had not helped us to understand each other better. Many hours I walked the floor longing for advice, and wrestling with myself. I said to my sister, "I have my foot on the first rung of the ladder and now I must take it off." It all seems so simple now. Almost any other girl would have broken her engagement without much thought. But I had not been brought up that way, and so I had hours and days of misery. The one thought that comforted me was that I could go on at any rate as well as it was possible in my own town, and though it would be much harder to make a career from there, it _could_ be done with the co-operation of my husband. It was hard for me to talk in those days, but one day driving down Fifth Avenue in a hansom, a rare treat, I remember my feelings were too much for me, and I burst through my repression and told him how I _must_ develop that side of me, and he said, "And I'll help you, little girl; you can count on me." I believed him of course. But while I was dreadfully serious, he, as I learned later, ranked my singing with the china-painting and fancy-work of his relations, as a sort of harmless pastime, to occupy my leisure moments. The truth was, of course, that, as often happens, he had entirely mistaken my character, had made his ideal woman out of his head, given her my outward appearance, and fallen in love with her. The real "me" was a disconcerting stranger, of whom he caught only occasional glimpses. About the first of May, I returned home. They were all at the station to meet me; my fiancé had even broken into his office hours to be there too. We had seen each other seldom during my absence from home, for New York was a long way off, and he was saving his pennies religiously for the great event. When we married, our income would be a tight fit in any case, and I could not help rejoicing that my singing might add considerably to it. There were no $1000 church positions in our town, but one or two of the churches paid respectable salaries to their quartets, and I hoped soon to begin to make a concert career. For a little while after my return I was very happy. Every one was so nice to me and seemed to think I had done remarkable things already. Our church asked me to sing a solo the Sunday when the bishop was expected, and I held a sort of reception afterwards and heard many pleasant things about my progress. After my hard work and self-denial, the rest, the gentle flattery, and the comfort of home surroundings were very welcome. Only with my fiancé things were not so satisfactory. Something, I did not know what, was the matter; but it all culminated one evening in his saying that no married woman should follow a profession, that she should find "occupation enough in her own home." This was really a great shock to me, as he had promised me his support in my work so often. Imagine my surprise after a three years' engagement, when he had his family tell me just three weeks before the wedding that I was to give up all hope of singing professionally after encouraging me in it during the entire time. I knew by then that I could never be happy nor make him happy if I gave up all thought of singing professionally. I asked him very quietly if those were his convictions, and, on his affirmative answer, I took off his ring, returned it to him, and went upstairs without one more word, feeling as if I had been awakened out of a nightmare, and though still palpitating from the shock was experiencing relief at finding it over. In my own room I stretched my arms above my head and said, "_Free!_" A marvellous vista of freedom opened to me after the months of strain. I could hardly bear to go to sleep; it was so wonderful to plan how I could go ahead and study, study. The next morning I saw my mistake in supposing the affair to be over, for there ensued many trying days and floods of tears all round. Then came the solemn and awkward returning of all the engagement cups and saucers and knicknacks, to nearly our whole circle of acquaintance. My family stood by me and performed this unattractive task, while I packed up to return to New York. I had given up my choir, and now found it a difficult matter to get another. All the churches had made their arrangements for the year and the best I could hope for was occasional substituting in case one of the altos was unable to sing. I made the round of the agents' offices. Some heard me and were complimentary, some refused as their lists were full. But when I mentioned the word "engagement," I was always met by the rejoinder "No experience." I used to say to them, "But how can I ever get experience if you won't give me a chance?" They would shrug and answer that that wasn't their affair. It seemed a hopeless deadlock. No one would engage me without experience and no one would give me an opportunity to become experienced. I knew that the one way out of the difficulty was to go abroad and get experience there. I have said that the idea of singing in opera had always made a strong appeal to me, and I knew that I had some of the qualifications necessary for the stage--a big voice, good stage-appearance, and ability to act (we had always acted) as well as a great capacity for hard work. But the essential qualification, without which the others were all ineffective, was the financial support necessary to get me there and to provide means of studying and of living adequately while I prepared myself for opera. I despaired of obtaining this, but the way was suddenly opened for me in what seemed a miraculous manner. Friends of mine in the church, Frank Smith Jones and his wife, offered to finance me through my years of preparation and for as long afterwards as I might need their aid. These real friends were behind me for years, and I owe them more than I could ever repay. They made it possible for me to have my sister with me, for me, a rather delicate girl, an inestimable benefit. In the seventh heaven of joy, I prepared to go to Paris to study with Jacques Bouhy, recommended to me by my New York teacher. I packed my few clothes, some songs, and a boundless enthusiasm, and set sail. CHAPTER III PARIS AT LAST I crossed on one of the steady big boats of the Atlantic Transport Line. I remember only one passenger, a boy of even then such personal magnetism that he stands out in my recollection as clearly as any one I have ever met, though he was then only a young fellow and unknown to fame. His name was Douglas Fairbanks and his ambition was to go on the stage. He said as we neared England: "Well, some day we'll read, 'Conried of the Metropolitan Opera House presents Miss Kathleen Howard,' and 'Charles Frohman presents Mr. Douglas Fairbanks.'" His prophecy, which I recall even to the spot on the boat where he made it, and the expression of his eyes which matched mine at that moment, has almost been fulfilled. I reached Paris in the beginning of September with "my instrument" in working order, with a smattering of French, a letter of credit for $1000, and a large supply of courage. I found my voice adequate to all my demands upon it, but the money just half enough (it was increased the next year). As for my courage, I have had to go on renewing that ever since, until it has become the largest factor in my success. Emma Juch told me once that she always said it was not difficult to attain success and make a career. Perhaps her success was made at a time when the competition was less keen, but I at any rate could never agree with her. I arrived in Paris early in the morning and went to a small hotel in the rue Cambon. It quite thrilled me to ask the chambermaid for _eau chaude_ instead of "hot water"; and I felt proud of knowing that the midday meal was called _déjeuner à la fourchette_. I remember that meal to this day--it began with radishes and butter, those inseparable companions in France, went on to omelette, then cold meat and salad, with small clingstone peaches and little white grapes for dessert. Red or white wine was "_compris_," and the bread was a yard long, cut half through into sections, and laid down the middle of the table. It was all half-miraculous to me, and afterwards when I went out to stroll under the arches of the rue de Rivoli I thought myself in fairyland. The jewelry, lingerie and photograph shops delighted me, as they have innumerable tourists, and the name "Redfern" over a doorway gave me a thrill. The Place de la Concorde seemed one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen, an opinion which I still hold, by the way, and I felt like a queen when I called an open _fiacre_ and drove in state toward the Arc de Triomphe, stopping to buy a big bunch of red roses for twenty cents from a ragged man who ran shouting beside my carriage. In the evening I went to the opera and wondered at the great stairway and at the big auditorium, and still more at the poor performance I saw there but which I accounted for by the fact that September is the dull season. That first day was all thrills. The next was spent in arranging hours for lessons, and collecting pension addresses from all my acquaintances, as I saw that it would be impossible to do my work in a hotel. I set bravely out on my hunt for a dwelling place. Prices have increased considerably since those days, for at that time it was possible to get very good board and lodging on the left bank of the Seine for five francs a day. My professor, Jacques Bouhy, however, lived near the Arc de Triomphe, and I wished to be within walking distance. I toiled up and down a great many stairs, and peeped into a great many rooms without finding what I sought. I could not bear to wait a day to begin working, and was just a bit discouraged, when I had the good fortune to meet two girls from home, who gave me the address of the pension where they had stayed. I rushed off at once to see it, and found a very nice house of several floors, situated in a _cité_, a sort of garden behind the first row of houses on the street, so that its windows faced a view of trees and flowerbeds with circular gravel walks around them, instead of cobblestones. The head of the pension was an old woman who looked like a Bourbon but was really a bourgeoise. It was nearly noon when I arrived, but she was still in a wonderful dressing gown of purple and yellow stripes, with _chaussons_, cloth slippers, on her feet, and an elaborate coiffure of dyed black hair above her yellow old face. She came to me in the salon, a long narrow room with French windows framing tree-tops, the windows and doors all hung with rose-red velvet which looked as if it had been in place since the First Empire. There were sofas of rose, and chairs of the same with black wooden rims, tables and mantel-pieces with thousands of things on them, and an old-fashioned square piano in the corner. Madame was most gracious, remembered the name of her former lodgers, said they were _très gentilles_, turned a neat compliment to the American nation, and showed me the rooms herself. I chose a back one of good size, nicely furnished and hung with a pretty chintz. It had a _cabinet de toilette_, or large cupboard for washstand and trunks, opening off it, and I was to have it with complete board, for two hundred francs a month ($40). The price was really higher, but my arrangement was for the winter. I was to pay extra for light and heat. The room had an open fireplace with a _grille_ or fire-basket in it, for which I could buy _boulets_, coal dust pressed into egg-shaped balls, for three francs a sack. Later, I could have had a _salamandre_, one of the excellent small stoves which fit into the fireplace, really warm a room, and require filling only once in twenty-four hours. But I wanted something to poke, and I had an idea that Paris winters were not very formidable. As a matter of fact, anything more penetrating than their damp sunless cold it is impossible to imagine. For light, there was a huge lamp for which I could buy _luciline_, a kind of highly refined kerosene which has no odour and burns well. I made my bath arrangements with Jean, Madame's old servant, who with his wife, Eugénie, was the real head of the establishment. I had bought a collapsible rubber tub, and Jean was to bring me a big can of hot water every morning. I found that I had to tip occasionally or the water became as cool as Jean's manners. Madame showed me her dining room, and told me with pride that her cuisine was of an excellence renowned. I went to fetch my trunks and hire a piano, glad that my long search was over. The piano was a small upright, a tin pan for tone, as are all Parisian pianos _en location_, and it was to cost me ten francs a month, with eight francs for carting. They are more expensive now. When it was installed, my Lares and Penates on top of it, and my music on a stool beside it, I felt that my feet were firmly planted on the ladder leading to success. Then I began to work. And how I did work that winter! I had two singing lessons a week, and a session with the opera class lasting three hours in which we went through the dramatic action of our rôles. I slaved at my repertoire working three hours a week with a coach, and spending hours and hours a day learning by heart at home. Of course I began with the very biggest rôles--we all do. The personalities of _Amneris_, _Carmen_, _Dalila_, _Azucena_ in turn, all in their French version of course, occupied my mind waking and sleeping. Jacques Bouhy was always kind, grave and courteous with me. The thought of his having created _Escamillo_ and his real knowledge of French traditions thrilled me. He lent me his copy of "Samson et Dalila" from which to copy the French words. It had an inscription from Saint-Saens "À M. Bouhy, _grand prêtre et grand artiste_." He created the rôle of the Grand Priest. The only time I ever saw him upset was one day after the Opera class. We all thought him safely out riding as he always was on Mondays. My letter, written at that time to my mother, says: "This morning in the opera class we had rather an unpleasant time. Little N., with the beautiful tenor voice, has learned in one week the first half of the _Samson_ duet for me. He has had to learn it from a score which has only his voice part written in it. He is frightfully down on his luck and with the gorgeous voice and speaking French can't get anything to do, and has no money, not a cent to his name. We had done that, some one else had sung, and having ten minutes left, Valdejo told N. to sing again if he would. He was tired, but jumped up and began the first part of "Faust." He kept forgetting it. Suddenly the door opened and in walked Bouhy as white as a sheet. He commanded N. to stop singing and to learn his things before coming again to the class. Said, why did he sing like a baritone when he was a tenor, mocked him, told him he was ashamed to have such sounds made _chez lui_, that he had been a year on "Faust." What example was he to the others? Every one else had always worked seriously. He stormed for five long minutes, N. standing quite still, with his brown dog's eyes fixed on him--then he left the room. It was frightfully uncomfortable for us too. I am sure I have done just such rotten work so it may be my turn next. Of course Bouhy was right. N. has been there a year and ought to know it; but he is just tired out, and never sleeps he says. They say Bouhy is beginning to show his age. This week he bounced his cook whom he has had for years." I had two French lessons a week, and should have had at least one diction lesson besides, but for an invaluable course which I had taken in New York with the Yersin sisters. These lessons were a nerve-racking experience from which I used to emerge with my feathers all rubbed the wrong way from the strain of trying to imitate the intangible differences between the various French "e's." But I have always been grateful for this rigid training, from the time when I first reached Paris, and, though speaking very little French, could give an address to a _cocher_ without having to repeat it, until now, when I can thank my trained ear for a perfect accent in singing foreign languages. I think no one ever studied more unrelentingly than I, during that first year of hot enthusiasm. I began early in the morning, and the only reason that I did not burn the midnight oil was that I found it cost me too much in kerosene and firing. I could keep warm in bed for nothing, and _boulets_ were my pet economy. Coming from a country where a warm room was taken for granted, and where the furnaces in hotels and boarding houses might have been supplied by Elijah's ravens for all I knew about it, I just couldn't bear to see my money burning away bit by bit in a grate; and many a time I have put on my fur-lined coat rather than add fuel to the dying heap of dreadfully expensive ashes in the _grille_. CHAPTER IV PENSION PERSONALITIES At first I had no companionship and very little recreation, beyond the ever fresh wonder and delight of the Paris streets as I saw them in my daily constitutional. One day I went with a girl friend to visit her _atelier_. I wrote to my mother: "We spent a long time in the life-class room--nude, (not us but the model). It was a mixed class. A large oblong room, filled with I should think over a hundred students, mostly men. They sat in a circle facing the model throne. The floor is not raised, but the effect of an amphitheatre is produced by rush bottom stools of different heights. They rest their pads or drawing portfolios on a railing in front of them. The room is intolerably hot because of the model. What struck us most was the intense silence and atmosphere of earnestness; no one speaks and there is only the gentle rub-rub of the charcoal, crayon, or pencil against the paper. The students look quickly up and down and never move their glance except from their sketch to the model and back again. She was a very pretty young girl and took graceful half-hour poses. The one interruption was a quiet voice at the end of a half-hour, '_C'est l'heure_'; and they stopped for a few minutes' rest. We went into another room, where a picturesque old wretch with long black curls, red velvet waist-coat, long blue cape, well thrown back, black, grimy hands clasped around his knee, and clumsy, rusty boots stuck out in front of him, was seated." Later one of these old models used to come to my brother. He had a card on which was printed the list of poses he was prepared to take.--"The twelve Apostles," "The Eternal Father" and "The God Jupiter." I found a little English tea-room about a mile away, and often went there for tea and muffins which in those days were hardly procurable in French places. The tea-habit is only about ten years old in France. The people in the shop soon knew me by sight, which was just as well, as I would begin going over the words of some part in my head and walk out serenely, quite forgetting to pay for my tea. I still go there occasionally when I am in Paris and remind them of that. I sometimes went to the two operas and to the theatre, but not nearly often enough, as I could spare neither time nor money, and the late hours made a concentration on the next morning's work more difficult. The concert world was a great disappointment to me. I think I longed for nothing so much that year, as to hear great orchestral music well performed; but the Lamoreux and Chevillard concerts did little to satisfy this craving, and I was amazed at the roughness of the strings and the narrow scope of the programs. Many of the great artists avoided Paris in their tours, the reason given being lack of suitable concert halls. On the other hand, a whole new school of composition was opened to me that winter by a fellow _pensionnaire_. Charles Loeffler and Henry Hadley spent part of the winter in our pension, and Mr. Loeffler introduced me to the French modernists. Later in the winter we often talked over their works together. He used to stroll into my room about tea time, saying he liked to watch me make tea for I had such attractive fingers. He used to take me to the odd corners of his beloved Paris, _cafés_ haunted by long-haired _Sorbonne_ students, and _cafés chantants_, where the frank improprieties of the ditties were for me so impenetrably disguised by the _argot_ in which they were written that I did not understand a word of them. "When your French gets more colloquial," he used to say, "I shan't be able to bring you here any more. Oh! if you were only a man!" He always ended with this exclamation, and I never knew why, for my woman-hood did not seem to disturb him particularly. Perhaps he felt the want of a sort of Fidus' Achates to confide in. He took me to two famous places, and this is my description of them in a letter to my mother: "We went first to the famous 'Noctambules' in the Quartier Latin. It is where the wittiest men of their _genre_ are to be found. They are many of them decorated by the government. One hears witty topical songs, _chansons d'amour_, and absurdities telling of the eels and fishes in amorous conversation, such extravagances as the French love. There is no vulgarity. Their diction is marvellous, and of course they sacrifice, entirely, their tone to their words. All around the walls are posters and drawings of famous artists and caricatures of Parisians. The performers are called on in turn by the master of ceremonies, and take their stand on a little platform in front of the piano half way up the room. When they have finished, if they have been popular, we are all called on to join in the _doublement_ for Monsieur so and so. This consists of clapping to a certain rhythm, which is thumped on the piano: 1 2 3 4 5,--1 2 3 4 5,--1 2 3 4 5--1 2 3--and over again." In those days Charles Fallot was still at the "Noctambules" and used to arise, very black and white and thin, and gaze at himself in the big mirror opposite, while he gestured with his long, skinny arms and thoroughly French hands, and delivered himself of his witty _double entendre chansons_. Another night we went to a famous Montmartre place, Boite à Fursy, but it was not at all the same thing, and we neither of us liked it. Henry Hadley had the room above me, and often told me my hours of playing "Carmen," etc., nearly maddened him. I always studied in bed or at the piano, without singing, and rarely used my voice when committing rôles to memory. Hadley often had Cyril Scott, the English composer, in his rooms, and I used to listen with joy to Scott's imaginative playing. It was like birds sweeping and swooping, all keys and intervals were interwoven. He always said, one hand on his forehead, "I have no understanding for limitations of harmony or rules of tempo." And indeed why should one have? He liked nothing older than Debussy and was unspeakably bored by Gluck or Beethoven and their ilk, though he loved "Carmen." Hadley still retained a strong admiration for Wagner and respect for the old school, though he much appreciated the moderns and the modern orchestra. I first saw Mary Garden as _Mélisande_ with him. We both sat rapt and spellbound to the end, transported by what was to me a perfect revelation as to scoring for modern orchestra, the intangible operatic form, and most of all the subtle imaginative acting of Mary Garden. Her power of suggestion in those days was capable of conveying any shade of thought or delicate mood to the spectator. That performance has always been and will always be an inspiration to me. Hadley was always starting off on impossible journeys to Egypt and the Orient, in search of "material." His talk was filled with the strangest scraps of out-of-the-way information, like bright-coloured rags in a dust heap. Bauer lived a door or two away, and I used to hear him practising and then hear his concerts. A wordy war would rage at our end of the table at dinner, while old Madame, from her seat of honour in the centre, would cry, "_Mais français, parlez français, mes enfants!_ You crush my ears with your English!" Of course, no attention was paid to her. Joining passionately in the discussions, though not themselves of the _métier,_ were two American girls, living on the top floor, who were supposed to be writing a play together. One or another of the composers was usually more or less in love with one or other of the girls, and they took sides accordingly, for and against the recognized masters of the past. The two were amusing, always doing something eccentric. At one time they had an incubator in their room, the gift of a passing admirer, and we engaged passionately in raising chickens. The machine was heated by a huge kerosene lamp, and they were always turning it too high and having it fill the room with blacks and smoke, or letting it go out altogether. However, two or three chicks, more strenuously determined to live than the rest, managed to struggle out at length, and their advent was heralded by the whole pension. We had marked our initials on the eggs, one egg each, and when mine showed the first signs of life, I held it in my hand till it was partly hatched. The little pecks inside the shell were fascinating to feel in one's palm. As soon as the chicks could walk, they were taken downstairs into the _cité_, and their attempts to scratch gravel were hailed by the assembled inhabitants of the garden in a rapture of several languages. One Englishman wanted to make them little jackets, so he could take them for walks in the _Bois_. Discussion was meat and drink to all these people. Their cry was "Sensations, sensations! Let the artist experience everything in his own person!" This doctrine sounded rather a menace to conduct, but talking endlessly about sensations seemed to be equivalent in most cases to experiencing them. Nevertheless, some of them indulged in desperate orgies of black coffee and cigarettes as an invocation to their muse; and one of the composers assured me that the great symphonic poem on which he was at work, had been inspired by breaking a bottle of Houbigant's _Idéal_ in a closed cab and driving for hours in the _Bois_, inhaling the perfume. They loved to recount these Gargantuan excesses, and were extravagant in praise of midnight oil, attic windows, and the calm inspiration of early dawn after nights of frantic toil. They were dreadfully sincere, and very amusing to watch, but it seemed to me that there was a great deal of stage setting for very little play. They tended the green shoot of their artistic development with such fantastic care, that it was in danger of dying from too much consideration. Personally, I was too busy, either for sensations or the analysis of them, though I used to wonder what this Paris could be like into which they journeyed and from which they returned full of tales of affairs and lovely women and gorgeous houses. It all seemed most romantic and interesting to me. The other end of the dinner table represented staid conventionality in contrast to our anarchism. In the centre sat Madame and beside her her life-long friend, the editor of one of the Paris newspapers. Some hinted that he was something more than a friend, in spite of Madame's seventy years. Opposite her, was Madame M----, once an American in the days of long ago, but with no trace of it left except in her persistent accent. She was reputed to possess one hundred dresses, and certainly the variety of her costume was amazing; but as she was at least fifty-five and had preserved every gown for the last thirty years, her annual dress expenditure, after all, was probably not extravagant. Her old husband was never allowed a word when she was present, so he revenged himself for the privation by interfering with every game started after dinner in the _salon_--bridge, poker, patience, no matter what it was, he always insisted that the players were quite wrong and that he could show them how it was done in the clubs. There was a young Russian girl with a pretty face and pretty clothes, whose hands, however, betrayed her peasant origin. Her beautiful sister was engaged at the Grand Opera, so she was an object of great interest to me. There were some Swedes, and nondescript Americans, and a charming French family, a mother and two daughters, bearers of an historic name, who had come up from their _château_ in the South of France that the girls might have masters in various "accomplishments," and were living in the _pension_ from motives of economy. On Sundays their brother, a young naval officer, used to dine with them. With his pale, aristocratic face, and with little side-whiskers, the high stock of his uniform, his strapped trousers and narrow, arched feet, he was like a John Leech drawing come to life. Then there was a large Frenchwoman, Madame la Marquise de Quelquechose, who lent the lustre of her title and her ancestral jewels to our _bourgeois_ board. At least, she said her jewels were heirlooms, but her ancestors must have had a prophetic taste in jewelry, as I often saw replicas of her ornaments in the shops of the rue de Rivoli. An old Englishwoman completed our list of permanencies. In spite of twenty years' residence in Paris, she would still ask for "oon petty poo de pang" in a high, drawling voice. There were transients of many nationalities, but these were our regular inmates. An interesting man sometimes dined with us. Writing my mother about him I say: "Last night Mr. H---- dined here and told us many yarns about Sarah Bernhardt. He said once when he was in California he was asked to meet her and they all went on a hunting picnic together. She dropped her robe when she got to the island where they had _déjeuner_, undoing a wide, heavy, Egyptian gold and precious-stone belt, and appeared attired in a man's velvet hunting-suit. He says she adores to talk _cancan_, and referred to the manager as 'that _cochon_.' After breakfast, she threw the champagne bottles far into the lake and shot them to pieces at the first shot. The only posey thing she did was when she undid her belt and threw it far across the road, and when he asked her if that was the way she treated such beautiful things, she said that the man who gave it to her was domestic!... It is colder than charity here at present, at least I feel it so in the house. I shall start my fire today for the first time. Yesterday I bought a bunch of violets, and do you know why? To keep myself from buying chestnuts, which are bad for the voice. You see, if I spent my _sous_ for violets I could not afford more for chestnuts. Thus prevented I myself." CHAPTER V OPERATIC FRANCE VERSUS OPERATIC GERMANY After a few months of strenuous endeavour on my part, I began to be a little dissatisfied and restless. I saw clearly that in a year's time, working at such pressure, I should have a sufficient repertoire to begin my apprenticeship on the stage; but I did not see my way to a _début_ quite so clearly. I talked with the other pupils, to get their ideas of progression. They all said, "When I make my _début_ at the Opera," or "the Comique." They were all sure of an opening at the top and apparently would consider nothing less than leading rôles in a world capital. That was not my idea at all. I did not care about a _début_. I wanted to learn to act, to do my big parts over and over again before an audience, to sing them into my voice, to learn to make voice, face, and my whole body an articulate expression of all that the rôle had to say. I tried to find out how the singers of the two operas had made their careers. Some, I learned, though doing leading work, still paid for their performances by taking so and so many francs worth of seats every time they sang. Some had gained a hearing by the influence of their teachers. Some were there by "protection." The Russian girl's sister was very beautiful, but she was not very gifted either vocally or histrionically, and I wondered at her engagement, until I heard that she was the _protégée_ of a certain rich man. The winners of the first prize at the Conservatoire had a chance given them, and one or two had made good to a certain extent, and still sang occasionally. But, I thought, if the débutantes of the Conservatoire must be given an opportunity, there can be very little room for other inexperienced singers, and certainly none for foreigners. The "France for the French" spirit had impressed me tremendously, as it must all foreigners in Paris. Generous as the city is to them, she rightly gives her rewards to those of her own race first. The opera class was another source of annoyance to me. The one idea was "copy what I show you"--make a faithful imitation whether it expresses what you feel or not; it doesn't matter what you feel so long as you pour everything into the same moulds and turn out neat little shapes, labelled "love," "hate," "despair," all ready for use, and all "true to the traditions of the French school." The first lessons of all were in standing and walking, and there began my sadness. The traditions demanded that one's feet be set eternally at "ten minutes to two." Mine would deviate from this rule, and I aided and abetted them in their mutiny. My instinct was to sit down occasionally with my knees together, instead of always draping one leg at the side of the chair. I often felt like singing quite a long phrase with no gestures at all, instead of keeping up a succession of undulating arm-movements. Our dramatic coach, a fiery individual, who chewed coffee-berries persistently, struggled in vain to teach me to lay one hand on my heart in the traditional manner, two middle fingers together, little one crooked, thumb in. Sometimes mine looked like a starfish, and sometimes like a fist, and both were taboo. Gestures had to melt into each other; there were different ones for different emotions, and woe betide you if you mixed them! There was a sort of test speech beginning, "_Moi, qui vous parle._" The hand at "_moi_" had to be laid upon the chest in the approved manner. I have forgotten the middle, but the end was, "_Et vous jure, que je le ferai jamais!_" At _jure_ one elevated the right hand, the first two fingers raised, and at _jamais_ the right arm described a figure eight across the upper half of the body, with the gesture of tearing away a long beard. We did this all winter and never reached perfection, that is, an exact copy of Valdejo, our instructor. We had to practice the classic walk--slowly advancing, foot dragging, stomach out, very lordly to see, one arm bent from the elbow with the forearm and hand resting against the body--a most difficult thing. The different versions were very comic, but the idea was excellent and I used it later in "Orfeo." Certainly a pulled back tummy would not be in character in a Greek tunic. Later, we had to act scenes from our operas, and there I got on better. I used to get absorbed in the character to the extent of becoming perfectly oblivious of my surroundings. I remember once, as _Dalila_, throwing myself so hard upon the supposed couch of _Dalila_, that I thumped my head on the marble mantel behind me. My watching class mates burst into a snicker, and I into real tears of anger, not of pain. I had entirely forgotten them when their giggles wrenched me back into the present; but their great pride was never to forget themselves and always to be ready to imitate the coach in cold blood. He, however, appreciated that I had something in me, and used to thump me on the back, and call me "Canaille!" when I did anything that pleased him--a curious expression of approval. I am not denouncing the ordinary "opera class." This method of slavish imitation doubtless has its usefulness for some people. The old order of opera singer was often trained by such schooling. But Mary Garden had opened my eyes to the new order of singing actors, and the old method was no help to me. I longed for a real stage on which to try out my own ideas, and find by experience whether they were right or wrong. I wanted to gain that subtle quality, "authority," which is nearly as important as voice itself, that routine which makes one forget the four long bones of the body, and blends all its members into an instrument of expression, homogeneous and harmonious. In my researches into the life-stories of French singers, I heard much of "the French provinces" as a training school, and turned my attention to accumulating all the information on that subject that I could gather. I heard tales of southern audiences who cheered their singers to the echo, waited in a mob to tear the horses from their carriages after a performance, pelted them with flowers and expressed their approval in other picturesque fashions. The reverse side of these tales is of directly opposite character, when benches are torn up and flung over the gallery by the "gods," disappointed at not hearing a favourite singer, and the head of the unlucky substitute is the target for their missiles till he makes good with a high note loud enough to pierce the din of their protestation. If a wretched singer clears his throat loud enough to be heard, he will be greeted at each entrance by a chorus of throat-clearing from the gallery. If his acting of a part strikes them as being pretentious or over-solemn, groans and cries of "Shakespear-r-r-e" reward his efforts. To crack on a high note is the certain signal for a riot of yelling and jeers, but the unhappy singer must stick it out at any cost, for if he leaves the stage, they wait for him outside and set upon him bodily. "If you've made the round of the Provinces," as Harry Weldon, who has done so, once said to me, "you can sing in Hell!" Of course, not all provincial audiences are so "temperamental" as the southerners, but, as far as I could learn, paid performances and protection seemed to exist everywhere in greater or less degree. The repertoire was limited and old-fashioned--the standard French operas, "Faust," "Mignon," "Carmen," "Hamlet," were performed, with "Traviata," "Trovatore," "Aida," "The Barber," some Meyerbeer, and many of the lighter works, like "La Fille du Regiment." Among the more modern works were "Werther" and "Manon" of Massenet, with "Bohème" and "Butterfly" and perhaps "Louise." "Lohengrin" and "Tannhäuser" were sometimes given, but the big Wagner dramas, the classics of Mozart, Weber and Gluck, and the moderns like Debussy, Dukas, Strauss, Humperdinck, seemed neglected. Over all there hung a general lack of method, musical thoroughness and discipline. I must confess that I judge largely by hear-say, as the only provincial French opera house of which I have any personal knowledge is that of Nancy. So it may be that I do "The Provinces" an injustice. Of course, both Monte Carlo and Nice offer many novelties. But then Monte Carlo is not a provincial French opera at all. On the other hand, the stories I heard of the great operatic machinery of Germany began to attract me irresistibly. The organized system of opera, the great chain of opera houses, the discipline of their rigid schooling, the concentration and deep musical sincerity of their musicians, the simplicity of German life, all seemed to offer what I was looking for. The dramatic quality of my voice would have more scope in their more varied repertoire, while surely in their hundred-odd opera houses I might find a place to work out my ideas in peace. Every one thought me crazy. My teachers tried their hardest to dissuade me, promising me a great career in France. But I felt a call to Germany where I hoped to find the right conditions for my own development which seemed lacking in France. The great barrier was the language--the difficulty of singing in it, to say nothing of learning it, for I did not know one word. Jean de Reszke said to me later, speaking of German as a language for singing: "_Avec cette langue, vous n'arriverez jamais._" (With that language, you will never succeed.) However, I have said that I had a good deal of courage in those days, and I determined to go to Berlin to try my luck. Not that I was tired of Paris. It is still my favourite city offering a wonderful opportunity for broadening culture to those who can get into touch with its art life. I owe it a great debt for deepening my artistic perception, and developing that sense of true proportion which keeps one from exaggeration on the one hand and pedantry on the other. But I should not recommend Paris as the best school for the ordinary American student of singing, who has no opportunity to penetrate into real French life. There is no lack of sincerity in the real French institutions, the Conservatoire, the schools of art, the Sorbonne--there are found concentration, competition, and keenness enough. But the foreign student of singing does not ordinarily come into contact with these institutions. In the Paris vocal studios, as I know them, there is a dissipation instead of a conservation of energy. The students expect to win the crown without running the race, and money and influence play too great a rôle. They (vocal students, I mean) tend to exaggerate their little emotions into _grandes passions_, and hold the most disproportionate views of their own importance. I do not mean to say that I agree with a certain singer who brought back harrowing tales of immorality among American students in Europe. Amongst all the hundreds of vocal students I have known, I never met one case of flagrant misbehaviour. In general the girls live quietly and strive according to their lights, though there is not one in twenty with resolution enough to concentrate on the hard work necessary for a great career. The temptation is to fritter away both time and money on the things that don't matter. CHAPTER VI PREPARING RÔLES IN BERLIN The first of September, without a word of German, I set out for Berlin. My mother had come over during the preceding Spring, to make her home in Paris with my sculptor brother Cecil and my sister. From this time on I went to them for the summers, and my sister joined me when I went to Metz, and has never left me since. It made it harder to leave both family and Paris behind and go into an unknown land, but I felt it to be the best way. Lilli Lehmann's studio was my objective point. I found her address in a musical journal, and armed with that, and the address of an inexpensive _pension_, I took the train. Arrived in Berlin, I took a _Droschke_, directing the driver to my pension by showing him the street and number on a piece of paper. Somewhere between that _Droschke_ and my room, my travelling clock got lost, and what a time I had to recover it! The apple-cheeked maid knew of the existence of no other language beside her own. In vain I made a pendulum of my finger and tirelessly repeated "tick, tick"--no gleam of intelligence dawned in her Prussian blue eyes. The first few days brought a series of disappointments. The Lehmann idea had to be abandoned. She was out of town and recommended me by letter to a certain Herr----, to whom she was sending every one who applied to her. I found him a dear old man indeed, but one who had nothing to say to me on the subject of voice production which I had not heard already. However, I decided to begin the study of German repertoire with him, painstakingly re-learning the operas I already knew in French, and adding the new ones required for a German engagement. Later I found a good _répétiteur_, who knew the operas thoroughly, quite sufficient and much cheaper, as he charged only four marks ($1.00) an hour. I studied the words of my rôles with Herr----'s wife, who had been an actress and a good one, and who laid the foundation of what I am proud to say is now a perfect German accent. These lessons were five marks an hour and were quite worth it. I would learn a rôle by heart, sentence by sentence, looking up every word in the dictionary and writing in the translation over the German, spending hours in fruitless search for a past participle which did not look as if it belonged to its infinitive, the only part of the verb, of course, to be given in the dictionary! Then, sentence by sentence, I would go over it with Frau----, repeating each word after her, sometimes twenty times! We also used those splendid books, known I found afterwards to every German actor, in which paragraphs of words with the same vowel sound or combination of vowel and consonants are given to be repeated over and over again. Besides this drudgery, I had German lessons for four months (at three marks or seventy-five cents) for which I had to translate and write exercises. All the labyrinths of the declension of articles, nouns and adjectives in three genders and plurals, lay before me to be explored. The datives and accusatives haunted my dreams by night, and by day I was reduced to the sign language. I had left my first pension, and crushing down the temptation to live in one of the big, gay German-American pensions, where justice is tempered with mercy, so to speak, I moved myself and my piano into a real German one, where I was the only alien. It was one floor of a large house in a quiet side street--the top floor, and no elevator! I climbed eighty-seven steps by actual count every time I came home from a lesson. I had a huge room, heated by steam, with board for four marks a day. The meals were _echt Deutsch_. Breakfast was set ready on the dining-room table at some unearthly hour, and the guests went in and helped themselves when they chose. The coffee and hot milk were kept warm over little alcohol flames, and there were delicious Berlin rolls and the best of unsalted butter. Dinner was at two, and was good in its plain way. We had some North German dishes which one had to learn to enjoy, like olives. Hot chocolate soup I grew quite fond of, but beer soup, sorrel soup, and cabbage soup with cherries in it were never exactly intimates of mine. One dish of baked ham with dumplings and hot plum jam sounds strange, but improves on acquaintance; _Pumpernickel_, and _Schmierkaese_ are better than their names, and _Kartoffelpuffen mit Preisselbeeren_ (potato cakes with cranberries) are delicious. We had good plain puddings and black coffee for dessert every day, and quite wonderful roast Pomeranian goose and _Eistorte_ with whipped cream on Sundays. Supper was at eight, and the menu was certainly a model for the simple life. Bread and butter with slices of sausage and cold ham, sometimes big dishes of roast chestnuts instead of cold meat, or potatoes in their jackets, or some of the endless variety of North-German cheeses--to drink, tea or beer, and that was all. My fellow pensionnaires were nearly all teachers, or students preparing to be teachers. They all spoke German and nothing but German, and, at first, I used to think my mind would drown in the overwhelming floods of it that assailed my ears. Gradually it came to sound like individual words and phrases, and soon I dared occasionally to launch a small conversational barque upon it, avoiding the disastrous rocks of gender as skilfully as possible, though often at first, by the time that my genders and cases were all arranged for a sentence, the subject had changed, and I could not use it. We had a Fräulein Lanz, Fräulein Franz, and Fräulein Kranz, four or five other Fräuleins and no males at all. Another American student of singing came to live there, and in the evening we used to go to the opera or to concerts together. Everything begins early in Berlin, and those who had tickets for some entertainment missed the eight o'clock supper. So plates of _belegte Broedchen_ (rolls with cold meat) would be set out for them on the dining-table, and all the others would be sitting there with their needle-work, and would demand "_Nun, wie war es?_" when we came in. On Saturdays the evening paper announced the program at the opera for the week, and we could hardly wait to look at it. The cheaper seats are in great demand. Students wait for hours, sometimes from earliest dawn, outside the box office on Sunday mornings when the sale for the week begins. We had an arrangement with the keeper of a little fruit and vegetable shop, to save ourselves the wait. We would decide what we wished to see and go over to his shop on Saturday evening to order the seats from him. He then went down early enough to secure the front row in the top gallery for us at two marks fifty, and we paid him twelve cents for his trouble. Sixty-two cents is quite a high price in comparison to those of the rest of the Opera House, for the orchestra chairs cost only eight marks. The top gallery is vast, and the back rows are much cheaper, but the authorities show their sense in keeping up the price of the front rows and I don't think there is ever an empty seat there. To concerts we were often admitted free, on saying that we were students, unless the artist was a great favourite, and in that case we could buy standing room, or seats in the gallery for one mark. We always went and came home in the street cars, paying the two cent fare with a one cent tip to the conductor, and dressing in our ordinary street clothes, with scarves over our hair. I used to go alone sometimes, and was never spoken to or molested in any way. No one looked at you twice, unless you looked at him three times. On Sundays I would take a day off, and, in true German fashion, make an expedition; in bad weather to some museum or picture gallery, in Autumn or Spring to some out-of-door restaurant. Sometimes I was too tired to go further than the _Tiergarten_. Then I would stroll gently across it and have coffee and cakes at the _Zelt_, or big open-air refreshment gardens where the band plays. They are the resort of _hoi polloi_ of Berlin in countless family groups: the father rather fat with hirsute adornments, the mother also rather massive, and their plump children, all drinking beer out of tall glasses and mugs, or coffee in inch-thick white cups, and eating wedges of highly decorated _Torte_, with or without the addition of heaped-up whipped cream. If I felt more strenuous, I would take a car out to the Grunewald, a villa-colony suburb, with roads winding through pine woods. I would sit under the trees and invite my soul. As I sat there, some girl or boy's school would come trooping by, singing a _Volkslied_ of interminable verses, in four parts, having tramped all day for the pure joy of motion in the open air. Then I would have coffee and a triangle of cherry pie, and what cherry pie! at the _Hundekehle_, an immense restaurant on the border of a small lake, accommodating I don't know how many fat Prussians at once with refreshments. Every German town has some such resort, where inexpensive creature comforts are the reward of a long walk. Such an expedition of the whole family is their greatest treat, and one in which they have the sense to indulge as often as possible. Even on week day afternoons the housewives find time for a stroll, a reviving cup of coffee, and a little gossip, though of course that is not the same thing as going _en masse_ with Hans and the Kinder. Of course, this was long before the war. CHAPTER VII MY FIRST OPERATIC CONTRACT SIGNED By the first of December I had broken the back of the German declensions, understood a good part of an ordinary conversation, and had painfully acquired three or four rôles in German. The gadfly of my ambition began to torment me again, and I determined to look for a "job." Students often ask me "How did you get your first engagement?" This is how. I went to see the best agent in Berlin, Herr Harder, a man of the highest reputation for fair dealing, who was the recognized head of his profession. Opinion as to the agent's powers of usefulness is divided among singers. Some maintain that they have made all their good engagements independently, others tell you that you are safe only in the hands of a reputable agent. I have closed contracts in both ways. The agent is not omnipotent. It is his business to watch the operatic field and notify you when there is a vacancy that he thinks would suit you. He is apt to know first where such vacancies are likely to occur. Directors who are looking for singers sometimes go straight to their favourite agent. Then he, the agent, sends you word that Herr Direktor So and So will be at his Bureau on such a day to hear singers. When you respond, you may find yourself the only contralto among many other voices, or you may find yourself one of six or seven all wanting the same engagement. The agent keeps contract blanks in his office, and when he hears of a vacancy in an opera house, he fills in a blank with your name, the name of the theatre, and tentatively the salary he thinks they will pay, and sends it to you. You sign it if it suits you, and return it to the agent. This is really nothing more than a notification that there is, or will be, such a vacancy, and is not worth the paper it is written on. American girls, who do not understand this, will tell you that they have "been offered Berlin, or Vienna, or Munich," when they have merely received one of these _Agenten-Verträge_. A contract is worth nothing as such, until it is countersigned by the director of the opera house, and yourself as singer. Even then, it is not valid until you have sung as many "trial performances" at the opera house as the contract calls for, and for which you may have to wait six months. I told Herr Harder what I wanted--a chance to do big rôles somewhere, salary no particular object, as I should look upon the experience as the completion of my training. I sang for him, left with him my repertoire and photographs, and he promised to let me know of the first opportunity that presented itself. In a short time, he sent for me to come and see the Director of the Theater des Westens, a Berlin theatre which at that time was the home of a sort of popular opera. I sang for the manager, and he was very complimentary. He offered to engage me at once, but he added, curiously enough, that I was too good for him! They gave only the older operas like "Trovatore," on which the copyright had expired, and of these only the ones which the Hofoper did not give, so that I should have no chance to sing my big parts. At the same time, he said he would very much like to have me. The offer did not suit my plans, and I decided to refuse it. I went on with my work until just before Christmas, when Herr Harder made me a second proposal. This was the position of first contralto in the garrison town of Metz in Alsace-Lorraine. The opera was a municipal one, that is it was subsidized by the town, they played a season of seven months, and gave a large repertoire including some of the Ring dramas. I was to go down there, sing for the management, and if they liked me, begin my engagement the following September, giving me time to make additions to my German repertoire. As I was a beginner of course I could not give the usual guest performances. _Vorsingen_ is a trying ordeal. The great theatres have regular days for hearing aspirants, but this was a small theatre. The appointment is usually made on the stage, sometimes during, sometimes just after a rehearsal. Groups of the singers regularly engaged in the opera house stand in the wings, and you feel a nameless hostility emanating from all of them, especially from the one whom you are going to try to supplant. The theatre is like a cavern, and the acoustic is of course totally unknown to you. Two or three pale spots down in the orchestra chairs indicate the whereabouts of the director and perhaps the stage manager and first Kapellmeister who have come to hear you. The overhead "rehearsal lights" are very unbecoming and you are quite conscious of it. If you are to sing with orchestra, the conductor presents you to the players, "_Meine Herren, Fräulein----._" You bow, and your insides slip a few inches lower. My first _Vorsingen_ was with the piano. It stood at one side of the stage, and a whipper-snapper of a third Kapellmeister dashed more or less accurately into the prelude of the second aria from "Samson et Dalila." Then came a momentous interview in the Director's office. I had sung such good German, thanks to Frau----, that he had no idea that I understood only about three words in five of what he said. For form's sake he kept saying, "_Sie verstehen mich, Fräulein?_" and when I answered "_Ja_," he was satisfied. His wife, who thought she spoke English, was present, and tried to say a great deal, but my German proved the more serviceable of the two. I gathered that I was offered a two season contract, to sing the leading contralto parts, at the princely salary of 150 marks a month! (about $35). There was no _Spielgelt_. Salaries are usually divided into so much per month down, and so much per performance, the number of performances per month guaranteed; that is, one is paid for a certain number whether one sings them or not, and any performances over and above this number are paid extra. If a performance is lost by one's own fault, through illness for example, the _Spielgelt_ for that performance is forfeited. Three days absence from the cast through illness, even though one may be scheduled to sing only once during those days, is counted as one _Spielgelt_. Illness is, in fact, almost a crime. In addition to losing your money, you have to have witnesses to prove that you are really ill, for theatre directors in Germany are a suspicious lot and take nothing for granted. If you wake on the morning of a performance with laryngitis, that dread enemy of the voice, or if you fall downstairs on your way to the theatre and sprain your ankle, you must notify the theatre before a certain hour in the day, perhaps ten or twelve, or four o'clock, that you cannot sing that night. Your word for it alone won't do. Every theatre has special doctors on its list, and you must call in one of these, whether he is your regular physician or not. He makes an examination and gives you a signed statement that you are unable to appear, adding, if the disorder be serious, how many days it will be in his opinion, before you can return to work. It often happens that the man most experienced in treating your illness, the best throat specialist in town, for example, is not on the books as "Theater-Arzt," and then if you wish to be treated by him, you sometimes have trouble with the theatre doctor. In the theatre in which I was first engaged, I had a disagreeable experience of this kind. I was ill with bronchitis, and sent word to the theatre the day before, that I should not be able to sing _Marta_, in "Faust," on the night scheduled for it. I had already committed the deadly crime of illness once before that season, and this time my defection was particularly annoying to the management because they had to get a guest for "Faust" anyway, and they would be forced to send posthaste for another to sing the _Nurse_. Their irritation with me was equalled, if not surpassed, by that of the regular theatre doctor, whose professional honour had been outraged the last time by my insistence upon the services of a very clever throat specialist who lived in the town, and whose aid I had had the bad taste to prefer to his own. Between them, I was the corn between the upper and nether millstone. Next day the theatre sent word that they would accept nothing but a certificate from their own doctor, and the doctor shortly after appeared at my bedside. I could hardly speak out loud, but managed to whisper a request that he would write me an "_Attest_" for three days. To my surprise he began to hem and haw, and finally stammered out: "There is really no reason in my opinion, why you shouldn't sing this evening!" I was so furious I saw red. I sat up in bed, and whispered savagely: "You say I can sing tonight! Very well, get out of my room, and I'll go to the theatre and sing this evening, with my voice in this condition, and _you_ will be responsible for the consequences!" He got up, twisting his hat in his hands, and stammering something. I simply fixed my eyes on him, and fairly glared him out of the room. Then I dressed like a hurricane and rushed to the director's office. "I have come to sing _Marta_," I announced hoarsely. "Oh! _liebes Fräulein_----" began the director, positively scared by my pale face and furious eyes, "_Of course_ we don't want you to sing when you are so hoarse. Doctor---- was quite mistaken; please go home and take care of yourself. We'll get a guest for the _Nurse_ at once!" "Very well," I said, "I will go home if you say so; but remember Doctor---- says I can sing, and I am ready to do so on his responsibility." I went back after my illness to see the director, who to my surprise began to attack me violently about my absence. He stormed, and thumped the desk, and would listen to nothing I said. I tried to tell him he had no right to speak to me in that way, as I had really been ill, and had always done my duty when well. He raved back that I had _not_ done my duty, and it seemed to me so futile to argue, that I walked out without answering and left him raving. I went home and stayed there for five days, and at the end of that time the director sent his secretary "to explain" and ask me to return to my duty. It was an awkward interview for him, poor man, so I let him off easily, graciously accepted the somewhat disguised apology, and, as I was quite recovered and eager to sing again, signified my willingness to appear the following night. To return to my first contract.--There was a formidable list of rôles which I must agree to have ready, and the director also insisted on my studying with a certain well-known woman teacher in Berlin! I conveyed to him as well as I could, that I would settle all this with my agent, as I had no intention of agreeing to all of it, and was afraid to trust my German to say so diplomatically. He added, "Of course you are too good for us, Fräulein." This was the second time I had been told I was too good for an engagement. Every one seemed to think I ought to aim at a secondary position in one of the big opera houses, rather than a leading one in a smaller place. The prospect of singing pages or confidants in a capital city, with perhaps one good rôle in a season, did not meet my needs at all; but no one seemed to sympathize with my ideas. I wanted to make a career in Germany, as if I were a German singer, having my own recognized place in the opera house in which I was engaged, singing the big rôles by right, without intriguing or fighting for them. On returning to Berlin, I wrote to Herr Harder that I would learn a certain specified number of rôles in addition to those I already knew, making about twelve in all, and ignored the singing-teacher proposition altogether as I had formed the intention of going to coach with Jean de Reszke. On these terms the contract was returned to me signed by the director, and I was engaged. CHAPTER VIII MY ONE LONE IMPROPOSITION "When I make my début" was the phrase that I had heard so often on the lips of my American fellow students. Each one had chosen her opera house, and decided in which rôle she would dazzle a clamouring public. Sometimes one more modest would choose Monte Carlo in preference to Paris, or if she intended to make a career in Germany, she might hesitate between the rival merits of Dresden and Berlin. But that the theatre should be one of the half-dozen leading ones in the world, and the rôle her favourite, were foregone conclusions before she left America. In this respect, I quite shattered the tradition of the prima donna, for I sang my first part in a small provincial German opera house, at twenty-four hours' notice, and it was one of those which I have least pleasure in singing. I remember that a well-known American writer, living in Paris, said patronizingly to my mother à propos of my first appearance, "Let us hope that she will make a real début later, for this can hardly be called one, can it?" "Well, after all," answered my mother, "who knows where most of the great singers of today made their débuts?" [Illustration: I CARMEN AS I USED TO DRESS IT] Contemporary fiction is full of opera singing heroines who jump into fame in a single night, like Minerva springing full armed from the head of Jupiter. Well, perhaps some of them do so--but I have never met a singer, even of the highest international reputation, who has not had some dark checkers of disappointment in his career. All his clouds may have had silver linings, but sometimes the silver gets mighty tarnished before he succeeds in struggling through the cloud, and sometimes another singer gets through first and steals the silver outright. I cannot say that I have ever been in great danger morally on the stage, but my courage, my nerve, has been sometimes severely threatened, and I have needed to summon the most dogged determination to keep it from failing altogether. I feel sure that all successful singers share my experience in greater or less degree, especially those who have been trained in foreign countries. Not all of them, by any means, have been through as severe a school as mine; few American singers at any rate, have made a career in a foreign country exactly as if they had been a native of it. Many have been engaged for special rôles in one of the larger opera houses, and after several years of experience, have sung but a few parts, all of which have been those most suited to them. I have sung, on the contrary, the entire repertoire of a typical German opera house, where operas are regularly given of which the Metropolitan audience has never even heard. In my first season, I sang in all fifteen different rôles in the first seven months of my career. I have appeared in eighty-five, ranging from the Wagner music dramas to the "Merry Widow" and singing many of the rôles in three different languages. It has been "the strenuous life" in its severest form, but I do not regret any of it, nor feel that my effort has been wasted, for I know that I understand my _métier_, comprehensively and in detail, and nothing can take away the satisfaction of that. The beginning of the season found my sister and myself in the town of Metz, as according to contract we had arrived six days before the opening. The weather was hot and dusty, and the town seemed deserted, for the regiments which gave it life and colour was still away at the Autumn manoeuvres. We felt very forlorn at first, strangers in a strange land with a vengeance, and without the least idea of what the immediate future might hold for us. My German had improved considerably since my interview with the director, but my sister did not know one word. Luckily for her there was almost as much French spoken in the town as German. There were many shops of absolutely French character, where she was treated with great consideration as coming from Paris. Even the officials of the town, the post office employés, custom officers, and others with whom she came in contact, though rather deaf in their French ear, would make shift to understand her if necessary, adding an extra touch of rigidity to their already sufficiently severe manner, in order to nip any "French familiarity" in the bud. We went to the hotel that had been recommended to us, as the principal one in the town was in the process of reconstruction and swarmed with plasterers and carpenters. It was rather a dreadful place, with enormous dark rooms, dingily furnished with heavy old-fashioned furniture; but it was very near the theatre and as we meant to find lodgings later, we tried not to be depressed by its gloominess. Of course, the first thing we did was to visit the theatre. To reach it one crossed a bridge over the river, picturesquely bordered with old overhanging houses, then a cobblestone "Platz," and there, rather shabby but still quite imposing, it stood. On the way I read my name for the first time on a German poster, with a distinct thrill. I knew my way to the stage-entrance, and through it to the Direktor's Bureau, where several shocks awaited me. I learned that the man who had engaged me had been superseded by a new one, who had not yet arrived. Matters were in charge of the stage manager, a huge, towering creature, with a great bass voice, who was a rather remarkable actor. He had come down in the world, having begun life as a cavalry officer, and he had strange gleams of the gentleman about him, even then. He was, by the way, the one man in the profession who ever made me a questionable offer. He grew to admire me very much as time went on, and one day, after I had been there some time, he asked me to sign a further contract with the theatre. "You'll never get anything very much better," he said, "as you are a foreigner. We'll make a good contract with you, and perhaps, later--who knows?--you may have a 'protection salary.'" He paused to see the effect of his proposal, and was met with absolute non-comprehension on my part, as I really did not understand, at the time, the German words he was using. He dropped his proposal there and then, and the affair had no unpleasant consequences for me, as he never referred to it again. And that is the single instance of that sort which I have encountered. Nevertheless, I might possibly have had further trouble with him, for my appearance really seemed to appeal to him very much, later in the winter. Just before Christmas, however, he died, almost overnight, as we were in the midst of rushing a production of "Trompeter von Säkkingen." He had informed me on Friday night that I should have to sing the _Countess_ on the following Tuesday. I did not know a word of it, and was on the way on Saturday morning to get the score, when I heard that he was dangerously ill--and by Sunday morning he was dead. Poor man! he had some good qualities and real talents, but it turned out that he was a great scoundrel and had been robbing the direction left and right, under the pretence of assisting the new director. This new director, who had never even heard my voice, had been a well-known Wagnerian singer in his day and intended to take some of the principal baritone rôles in his new position, to the intense disgust of the regular _Heldenbariton_. All the outstanding contracts had been taken over in his name. This sudden change of management, during vacation time, made a little trouble for me as it happened. None of the present staff had heard me sing. They knew only that I was a foreigner without experience, heard that my conversational German was not yet perfect (a much rarer accomplishment than a perfect accent in singing), and therefore doubted my ability to do the work of the first contralto. So they had engaged a native, which meant that it was "up to me" to prove myself capable at the first opportunity or lose the chance of doing first rôles or perhaps be dismissed altogether. Our hotel was impossible for a long stay, and, of course, after my Berlin experience, my first idea was a good German pension. We went to the _Verkehrsverein_--the Information Bureau which is a feature of all German towns, and asked for a pension address. The man in charge shook his head. There was only one such place, he said, and he feared that it would not suit us, but we might go and see. We went accordingly, and found a nice-enough looking house in the newest quarter, quite the other side of the town from the theatre. The inside of the house, however, told its own story--concrete floors, whitewashed walls with garish religious prints on them, and deal furniture with red and white table covers much in evidence. The bedrooms were cell-like and garnished with mottoes, while a Bible and candlestick by each bedside were the only other decorations. "What is this institution?" we asked. "It is the German Young Ladies Evangelical Home, for Protestants only," we were told. We thanked the Matron, and decided that we were neither German, Evangelical nor young enough for such a home, even though we might be ladies and Protestants. Disappointed in our hope of finding a pension, we returned to our friend of the Information Bureau, this time to ask for addresses of furnished rooms with a decent landlady to attend to them for us. He shook his head once more--it was very difficult in a garrison town, he said, to be certain of the character of a house which had furnished rooms to let. "But where do the artists of the theatres usually live?" we asked. "Oh! they either take furnished rooms, or bring their own furniture," he answered, "or live in the smaller hotels. But then they are Germans and used to judging in such cases. There is, however, an English lady living here who knows the town thoroughly, and you had better go to her and get her to find rooms for you." As we felt that we could not possibly ask a totally unknown Englishwoman to find lodgings for us, my sister set out on the hunt alone. As a foreigner speaking no German, and a woman looking for rooms all by herself, she was received in a very curious manner by most of the landladies she visited, and evidently looked upon with strong suspicion. We were getting desperate, as the time of my début was coming nearer and nearer and we were still unsettled. Finally we resolved to throw ourselves upon the mercy of the unknown Englishwoman after all, and wrote her a note begging her assistance in finding two furnished rooms near the theatre, with a _Hausfrau_ who would look after them and serve our breakfast. We had to find a furnished apartment as we were not like some of my colleagues who possess their own furniture and pass their lives in a sort of singing journey through the country, always surrounded by their own household goods. [Illustration: CARMEN AS I NOW DRESS IT] CHAPTER IX THE MAKINGS OF A SMALL MUNICIPAL OPERA HOUSE Early the next morning, before we were up, our English friend kindly came to see us, and with her help we soon discovered just what we were looking for, in an eminently respectable house, where the _Hausfrau_ was the wife of a policeman, so that we were under the shadow of the majesty of the law. A young doctor had the rooms, but she assured us that he was moving immediately, and that we might send our trunks the following day. We duly arrived the next afternoon with an avalanche of baggage and found that the poor young man had had no intention of leaving before the end of the month and had even invited guests for that very evening! Floods of German ensued between him and the _Hausfrau_, while we sat philosophically on our trunks in the hall and waited. Presently she emerged, rather heated of countenance, to say that it was all arranged, and to begin moving our things into the bedroom. The doctor called us into the sitting-room, waived aside our explanations and thanks for his gallantry, and shutting all the doors mysteriously, proceeded to the only revenge in his power--to defame the character and impugn the honesty of our future hostess. "Keep things locked, I warn you, keep them locked!" he repeated earnestly, all the while cramming books, bottles and garments promiscuously into a trunk. We made allowances for his need of reprisal, and took his warning with a grain of salt; and as a matter of fact our landlady never touched anything of ours except what she doubtless considered her proper "commission" levied upon our coal and kerosene. She was quite satisfactory on the whole, except that she _would_ quarrel very noisily with her policeman from time to time, or rather he with her. When we remonstrated and said that we could not stand it and that she shouldn't, she answered that she would be only too glad to get out of her bargain, but that she had put her money into this marriage and therefore had to stay in it! Her small boy was named Karl, but she always called him "Schweinsche'." She had a few wisps of greyish drab hair wound round a sort of steering-wheel of celluloid in the back. On Christmas my sister hunted for hours for a present for her, and finally returned with a magnificent set of rhinestone-set haircombs. I have always wondered what the poor woman did with them, as her hair could not have covered an eighth of their prongs. The reason for the summary dismissal of her former tenant was, of course, the extra money that she made out of our being foreigners who did not know the tariff, and the fact that there were two of us to be served. We paid sixty marks, fifteen dollars, a month for the rooms, service and breakfast of coffee and rolls, and little as this seems, I don't suppose the doctor had paid a penny over forty. Our colleagues thought us spendthrifts and gullible foreigners, as they paid about thirty marks and got their own breakfast. My sister had two chafing dishes on which she cooked our supper, but the two o'clock dinner was a problem. I was too tired after the strenuous morning rehearsals beginning at ten o'clock, and the strain of trying to follow all the directions I received in German, to go to the Hotels or restaurants for dinner, as most of my colleagues did. Our landlady suggested that she should have it fetched from the officers' mess of the crack cavalry regiment, whose barracks were near by. She said this was a usual arrangement. We bought a sort of tier of enamelled dishes, fitting into each other and carried in a kind of wickerwork handle. One contained soup, the next meat, the third vegetable, while bread or dessert reposed in the top. We can testify that even crack regiments are not unduly pampered in the Fatherland, for anything plainer, or more unappetizing than these dinners, I have never tried to eat. Perhaps they gained something when served hot in the officers' _Casino_, but we found it almost impossible to down them, eaten out of our enamel-ware dishes. After a time, when the newness of everything in the theatre had worn off a little, and I began "to feel my feet," we arranged to dine at the hotel where many of the colleagues met daily. This was a far better plan, as, in addition to a really hot meal, we had a splendid opportunity to improve our German. I was naturally making rapid progress in it, but my sister still had to confine herself to the shops where they understood French. One day when I came home from rehearsal, she told me that our _Hausfrau_ had repeated to her a long piece of gossip in German. Seeing by my sister's face that she had not understood, the woman said, "Oh, you don't understand, Fräulein. Well, I'll say it all over again in French." Then she proceeded to repeat it again, very loudly and slowly--in German! Of course it is rather dreadful to be called just "Fräulein" by your landlady in Germany, but the social standing of the singers and players in a provincial theatre is usually not high enough to warrant anything else. A position in an opera house in a capital city, or in a Hoftheater, confers social importance enough upon its holder to entitle her to the prefix _gnädiges_ (gracious) before the ignominious _Fräulein_, which in society is properly used to designate only a governess, a companion, or a saleswoman in a shop. Titles and forms of address are a ticklish subject in the Fatherland, at any time. It is hard to comprehend the mazes of male progression from the simple "Rat," through the subsequent variations of Hofrat (court councillor), Geheimer Hofrat (privy court councillor), Geheimrat (privy councillor), Wirklicher Geheimrat (really truly privy councillor), to the lofty dignity of Excellenz. Old-fashioned ladies used to employ the feminized version of their husband's titles, and I once knew an old dame who insisted upon being addressed as "_Frau Oberlandgerichtsräthin_." The bourgeoisie used to copy the aristocracy in this respect, and at the afternoon Kaffeeklatsch, Frau Hofcondittor Meyer would inquire about the health of Herr Strassenbahnsinspektor Braun, from his wife the Frau Strassenbahnsinspektorin (street car inspectoress). Modern life is too crowded perhaps for such lengthy addresses, but Frau Meyer and Herr Braun are certainly less picturesque cognomens. Among the artistocracy the proper titles and forms of address have many pitfalls for the foreigner, though I used to dodge them fairly successfully by addressing every woman older than myself as "_Gnädige Frau_" irrespective of her "handle," and the men by no title at all, except in the case of a prince not of royal blood, who has to be called by the mouth-filling courtesy title of _Durchlaucht_. Of course in letter-writing this way round is not always possible, and here the complications are simply terrifying. The salutation of a lady without any title at all ranges all the way from "Wertes Fräulein" (Worthy Miss), almost an insult to a person of any gentility, to the punctilious "Hochvereherte und gnädige Frau" (Highly honoured and gracious lady) of high society. Even the envelope provides a subtle form of insult or of flattery. In Germany one is simply born, well-born, highly well-born, or high born as the case may be. If you are rightly entitled to the third, how irritating to be publicly branded on the outside of a letter as only well-born. On the other hand, if you really belong among the merely born, what a delicate attention to be acknowledged "_Hochwohlgeborene_" for all the world, including the _Portier's Frau_ to see! Shops in writing to you (as long as your credit is good) love to employ the latter on the envelope, repeat it in the body of the letter which always begins "Highly honoured and gracious Miss" and sign themselves "Mit Vorzüglicher Hochachtung"--"with magnificent respect." Friends, of course, call you just Fräulein So-and-so, as we should say "Miss Brown," except if they are young men, when they usually stick to the "gracious Miss." You must never inquire for the members of a person's family without the Mr., Mrs., or Miss being added: "How is your Frau Mother, Herr Father, or Fräulein Sister?" There is a curious phrase for parents--"How are your _Herren_ Parents?" being the strictly correct form of question. Yes! Etiquette is very complicated in Germany and requires a great deal of study from the "Out-lander." To return to the theatre--we expected that my sister would have the run of my dressing-room, and that she might be present at the rehearsals. We found on the contrary that the most rigorous rules were enforced to forbid entrance to the theatre to any one not a regular member of the staff. No one else was allowed to pass the porter's lodge. There were regular dressers provided by the theatre, and my sister was present only once or twice at rehearsals during my two seasons in Metz and then only by special request. The rehearsals for the next day were posted at the stage door. They were not printed or typed, but written in German script, with chalk on the blackboard. They would be placed there at six o'clock every evening, and my sister used to go over to find out for me what they were. She could not read German script at all, neither could I, very well; so she used to take paper and pencil and laboriously draw everything on the board, chorus calls and all, for fear of missing something. Then, letter by letter, we would puzzle it out, and find out the hours of my rehearsals, as if they had been written in cipher. She was always present at my performances. I had to write, "I beg in the most polite manner for a seat for my sister for this evening's performance," and drop it into a special box before half past eleven in the morning. Then in the evening, if there were a vacant place in the orchestra chairs, she would have it. On Sundays the house was often _ausverkauft_, sold out, so we generally bought a seat if I were singing on that night, so as to be on the safe side. The prices ranged from four marks for box seats, to five cents in the gallery. The orchestra chairs cost three marks (75 cents), but nearly every one had an _Abonnement_, or sort of season ticket, which made them much cheaper. The rates for officers were very low indeed. The chief cavalry regiments had the boxes between them, and the less important lieutenants of the infantry or the despised engineers had seats in the first balcony. Years ago, in the old unregenerate days, these boxes full of young cavalrymen furnished almost more entertainment than the stage. The boxes had curtains to be drawn at will, and the young rascals would order champagne served to them there, and drink toasts loudly to their favourite singers in the midst of their performances. Some of the frail fair ones of the town would visit them behind the drawn curtains, and there were high times generally. This has all come to an end, gone the road of other equally charming old customs, and I saw very little misbehaviour among the lieutenants, except sometimes when the provocation was really too strong for them. One evening a very solemn young White Dragoon, over six feet tall, coming in in the half darkness after the curtain was up, missed his chair and plumped down, sabre and all, on the floor of the box instead, to the joy of his comrades; and once in a Christmas pantomime, they all forgot their military dignity at the spectacle of a very fat young chorus girl, whom bad judgment on the part of the ballet mistress had costumed most realistically for the part of a white rabbit. Sunday is usually chosen for the first night, as a larger proportion of the inhabitants is at liberty on that day. At our theatre, performances of opera were given on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday nights, with plays or _Possen mit Gesang_ (farces with singing) on alternate nights. The bill changed every night, but each standard opera was repeated three or four times in the season. New operettas like the "Merry Widow" were also produced, and, if successful, ran eight or ten times during the seven months of the season. There was a company of singers consisting of a "high dramatic" soprano, a "young dramatic," a coloratura, and an "opera soubrette," all sopranos. There was a leading contralto, a second contralto to do the very small parts, who was usually a volunteer without pay, and a "comic old woman," who also took part in the plays. There was sometimes another volunteer soprano to do pages and the like. Then there was the "heroic tenor," who is a sort of King and is treated by the management with some of the ceremony used toward royalty, and the lyric tenor, quite humble in comparison, and a tenor-buffo for "funny parts," with sometimes a special operetta tenor when the theatre was prospering. There were two baritones, "heroic" and "lyric," a "serious" and a "comic" bass, and one or two other men of more or less anomalous position who "fill in" and act in the plays. The only singers who never did anything but sing, were the two "dramatic" sopranos, the first contralto, and the heroic tenor and baritone. There was a company of actors besides and all of these, no matter what their standing, were expected to appear in such operas as "Tannhäuser" in the singing contest, in the church scene of "Lohengrin," and as _Flora's_ guests in "Traviata," to help "dress the stage." It is not the least of one's troubles as a beginner to stand on the stage as _Ortrud_, perhaps, and see these supercilious real actresses come filing out dressed as court beauties, cynically watching your attempt at acting. Actors have their proper range of parts, called _Fach_ in Germany, and special designations like the singers. The chief of them are the _Jugendlicher Held_ or Young Hero, corresponding to the Heroic Tenor, and his partner the _Erste Heldin_. Nearly as important, however, are the _Erster Liebhaber_, or Young Lover, and the _Jugendliche Liebhaberin und Erste Salondame_--Young Lovehaveress and First Drawingroom Lady. There are the _Helden Vater_ and _Heldin Mutter_, the _Intrigant_ or Villain, and the _Bon Vivant_ (pronounced Bong Vivong) who is a sort of general good fellow and occasional hero. The _Erster Komiker_ is always a popular figure with the public and has his subordinate funnyman, usually much younger. There is a soubrette to do the saucy maid parts, a _Naive_, what we should call Ingenue, and a _Komische Alte_, or funny old woman; several "drawingroom ladies" and "gentlemen" and minor "_Chargen Spieler_" or character actors. The small parts are usually filled by chorus men and women, and the opera soubrette or the operetta tenor, have to double and do the cheeky maids or giggly school girls and giddy young officers in the plays. Many of the minor actors were, or were assumed to be, sufficiently musical to take small parts in operas requiring a large cast, appearing as _Telramund's_ four nobles, and as _Meister_ in the first act of "Meistersingers" or as competitors in the _Preissingen_ in "Tannhäuser." The opera gains very much by having these experienced actors in the small rôles. Our chorus was composed of about thirty members, and the orchestra of from forty to fifty, reinforced in the brass and wind instruments from the local military bands. Three Kapellmeisters held sway over them: the First Kapellmeister an autocrat with arbitrary power who directed the important operas, the second who lead the old stagers like "Martha" and "Trovatore" and the operettas, and the third who was usually a volunteer learning his profession, and who acted as répétiteur for the soloists and directed pantomimes, the songs in the farces, and "Haensel und Gretel" once a year if he was good. He was always on duty during performances to direct any music behind the scenes. In good theatres there are several of these young men, as in "Rheingold" for example each Rhine daughter ought to have one to herself, and there is a special répétiteur for the chorus or chorus master besides. Our ballet was composed of a solo dancer and about sixteen coryphées, directed by a _Balletmeisterin_ who also shared the leading parts with the solo dancer. One of the girls,--Irene, was a big handsome creature who usually danced the boy's parts. She had a little girl of about six, who had apparently no father. During the second year I was told one day: "This is Irene's wedding day; will you say something to her?" It appeared she and her clown husband had been devoted to each other for years, but had neglected the ceremony as they neither of them could earn enough alone to support the two. The clown ("August," of course) could not find an engagement in the theatre and so they had just waited. He had just returned from a long world tour and now they were to be married. Every one was delighted. Last but not least, came the supers, called in Germany _Statisten_, who held spears in "Aida" and returned victorious in "Faust." They were drawn from the infantry regiments and received thirty pfennigs (7-1/2c) a night. They arrived with their _Unteroffizier_ an hour before they were wanted and were turned into a big room to be made into warriors, captives, or happy peasantry. The result was sometimes amusing. In "Aida" they used to put on their pink cotton tights over their underwear, so that one saw the dark outline of socks and the garters gleaming through, and they all kept on their elastic-sided military boots, with the tabs to pull them on by, sticking out before and behind. Fortunately the audience had but a brief glimpse of them before they were ranked in a conglomerate mass at the back of the stage. Sometimes on our walks we would meet these men on sentry duty, or in batches with their _Unteroffizier_, who would call out, "_Au-gen rechts!"_ (Eyes right!) and give us the officers' salute with mighty grins of recognition. The principals of the opera are usually talented young singers on the way up, or older singers of some reputation on the way down, with perhaps a sprinkling of those who have obtained their engagements by influence. The contracts are usually for from two to three years, and are not very often renewed. The talented ones go on to better engagements, and it is "better business" for the theatre to have a change of principals. Great favourites remain longer unless they get something better. Many of those who were engaged with me in Metz have made careers. Two were at the Charlottenburg Opera House in Berlin at the outbreak of the war, and one in Hamburg, both in leading positions. One was a stage-manager at the Volksoper in Vienna, and one teacher in a conservatory. CHAPTER X MY DÉBUT AND BREAKING INTO HARNESS I had to sing _Azucena_, my first part on any stage, without rehearsal. The reason for this dawned upon me afterwards. Though I sang German well by this time, my conversational powers still left something to be desired. I have explained that the present director had never heard my voice; no one knew of what I was capable, and they quite expected that I would prove incompetent, and had engaged a native born contralto to provide for this contingency. When I heard one evening, that I should have to sing _Azucena_ on the next, I confess that something rather like panic assailed me for a few minutes. The stage manager called me onto the stage, and spent half an hour in showing me the entrances and exits, and giving me the merest outline of the positions. That is all the preparation I had for my so-called début. The other members of the cast had sung the opera together many times the year before, which made the performance possible. The lyric tenor was a decent enough colleague, though an absolute peasant in behaviour, with an extraordinary high voice which was rapidly degenerating from misuse. The baritone was of the tried and true type, and a great favourite, and the soprano was easy to get on with. They were all nice enough to me, if somewhat uninterested and indifferent, for I had had as yet so little to do with them that we hardly knew each other. They thought me a rich dilettante at that time I fancy. I was so horribly nervous all that day that I fainted whenever I tried to stand up, and when I began to sing my sister did not recognize my voice. However, I was very well received indeed, all the criticisms the next day were favourable, and there was no question after that as to who should sing the leading rôles. It was fortunate for me that I succeeded in pulling myself together sufficiently to make a success, as at that time the old system of _Kündigung_ was still in force. I have said that a contract was not valid until the singer had successfully completed the number of guest performances stated therein. I had not been called upon for these _Gastspiele_ because I was a beginner, but they are almost invariably included in the contract. Now-a-days your engagement is settled after you have successfully made these trial appearances, and you then remain in that engagement for a full season; and the management must let you know before February first (sometimes January first) whether you are to be re-engaged or not. This is in order to give the singer time to make arrangements for the coming season. When I was engaged in Metz the management of a theatre had the right to dismiss any singer after three weeks, whether he had made his guest appearances beforehand or not, if he had failed in that time to make good with the public. He was also liable to dismissal after his first appearance, if he proved quite impossible. This was what they were expecting in my case. The arrangement was most unfair to the poor singer, leaving him stranded (with practically no chance of work that year) after he had moved all his possessions and thought himself established for the season. The big artists' society, the _Genossenschaft_, which is the only protective institution for singers in Germany, has at last succeeded in abolishing this unjust condition of affairs. There was a flagrant case of this kind in the theatre during the first three weeks of my engagement. The "high dramatic" soprano had finished the first three weeks of her engagement, during which she had had to learn two new parts, providing costumes, at her own expense, for a rôle which she had not expected to have to sing. She had had a fair success and thought herself secure. In the meantime, the management had had no idea of keeping her on permanently, but had merely engaged her to fill in the time, while they were waiting for another singer, who was filling an out-of-season engagement elsewhere, and could not report for three weeks. When she was free, they told the first one that she had not pleased sufficiently and dismissed her. The good theatres did not take advantage of this privilege of course, even while it still existed. My second rôle was a very small one, one of the court ladies of "Les Huguenots." A native first contralto would probably not have been asked to do such a small part, but there being no regular part for my voice in the opera, I think they were glad to use my good stage appearance, and of course, as a beginner I made no protest, being glad of every chance to become more used to the stage. The part was sprung upon me suddenly, and I had no dress for it. The second contralto also had a court lady to do, and the good creature offered to lend me a gorgeous Elizabethan dress of white satin and silver (which, she told me, she also intended to wear as _Amneris_!) and she would "go in black." I was touched, but I could not deprive her of her splendour, so we arranged something out of the pointed pink bodice of one of my other gowns, and the long white skirt of a summer dress, with a ladder arrangement of pink velvet bands sewn on up the front. I remember as I made my entrance, looking up suddenly and seeing the sinister eyes of Carlhof the stage manager, fixed on me from the wings. He proceeded to mock my walk, which was no doubt very American, and not that of a court lady at all. I never forgot the mental jolt it gave me and the sudden realization that every rôle should have a different walk. The range of parts that one is called upon to perform is astonishing. Formerly the limits of a _Fach_ (line of parts) were more rigidly observed than at present, when the personality of a singer in relation to a rôle is more often taken into consideration. Still, if a rôle definitely belongs to the _Fach_ of a certain singer, he is supposed to have first right to it. Difficulties arise in apportioning the parts in very modern operas, whose composers seem no longer disposed to write definitely for a coloratura soprano or a serious bass, but mix up the voice range and styles of singing indiscriminately in one part. My second real part was _Fricka_ in "Walkuere," in which I had a great success vocally, but unfortunately looked a great deal younger than the portly _Brünnhilde_ and far more like her daughter than her stepmother. Then came the _Third Lady_ in "Magic Flute," the _Third Grace_ in "Tannhäuser," _Martha_ in "Faust," _Orlofsky_ in "Fledermaus," _Frau Reich_ in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," the _Gräfin_ in "Trompeter von Säkkingen," _Pamela_ in "Fra Diavolo," _Witch_ in "Haensel und Gretel"; and finally "Carmen." All these before Christmas of my first year. I did not have one of them on my repertoire when I arrived in Metz, except _Fricka_ and _Carmen_, and the latter in French. The three graces in "Tannhäuser" were done by the beauties of the theatre, two premières danseuses and myself! We were to dress in white Greek draperies with jewels, and of course, as we were to be seductive, pink roses. I wore my beautiful _Bergcrystal_ necklace, made for me in Paris. The ladies could not contain their jealousy and said of course, "aufgedonnert" (thundered out) like that I naturally would stand out from them. Annoyed at their pettiness I removed the diamonds and flowers and all ornaments. They then said of course to go without any ornaments was palpably the best way of all to make myself conspicuous. So I let it go at that. I well remember the _Third Lady_, for there are spoken passages in this opera, and I had to speak German for the first time before an audience of critically listening natives, and Mozartian German at that! _Pamela_ nearly gave me nervous prostration. They were determined that I should do it because she had to speak German with an English accent, so they said it was made for me. As a matter of fact, after the months I had spent in carefully eradicating my English accent it was difficult suddenly to exaggerate it to order. I had to learn, rehearse and play the entire part in five days, and I thought I should go mad. I had never seen the wretched thing, so the baritone who played my husband kindly came over to help me with the business. Otherwise my sister and I hardly left the piano to eat and sleep. The dialect part of the libretto was in an ancient manuscript copy, torn, marked and dog's-eared, and written in an almost illegible German script. I could not take time enough to puzzle it out, so my sister spent hours poring over it, deciphering the German letters literally one by one by aid of a key, and writing it again in Latin script. I had no clothes for it, as it was not on my repertoire and it plays in 1820, but they costumed it for me in modern dress, so again my summer wardrobe was called into service. I learned it so quickly that the colleagues called me "Die Notenfresserin" or note-eater, but the strain was awful. I remember when I was studying _Pamela_ the Kapellmeister told me at least ten times, how the contralto who played the _Pamela_ in his father's theatre and who was also an English-speaking woman, had so caught his father's fancy in that rôle, that from then on he had a tremendous affair with her. This he repeated to me again and again, but I never seemed to take the hint. As _Erda_ in "Siegfried" I had a most trying experience. The director had been, as I have said, a well-known Bayreuth singer, and he thought no one could sing Wagner but himself. Unfortunately he had a strong tendency to "look upon the wine," and when he had a part to sing nervousness attacked him to such an extent that he began drinking in self-defence to enable him to stand the strain. Perhaps his beverages were more potent than usual, but that night he was decidedly irresponsible. He struggled through the _Wanderer's_ first scene, and conscious that he was doing it badly, he sent out for a bottle of champagne as a bracer. The consequence was that in our scene in the third act, he was utterly incapacitated. He sang all kinds of things not in the text, bits from _Hunding_ in "Walkuere," from _Daland_ in "Hollaender," from "Fidelio." He rolled about the stage and lurched in my direction with his spear pointed at me, shouting _Pogner's_ advice to _Eva_ while I was singing _Erda's_ responses. It seemed to go on for ages, but at last _Siegfried_, waiting for his cue in the wings, realized that he must save the scene, entered and escorted his befuddled relation from the stage. I had made up with a creamy white grease paint and no red. My sister said, "Why did you make up with rouge and not have the pallor we agreed upon?" My cheeks were so scarlet from mortification that no grease paint would have paled them. The audience took it splendidly, I must confess, and refrained from any expression of disapproval or joy--though it _must_ have been funny! The next day there were announcements in all the papers that he had had a temporary lapse of memory owing to grief over the sudden death of his mother, who, as the stage manager cynically informed us, had reached out a hand from the grave to save her son, she having been dead for ten years! The director went to Berlin and stayed there for weeks. We afterwards learned that it was a plot, deliberately planned and put through by Carlhof to gain the direction of the theatre. I can see him now stalking around, six foot four, chewing his rag of a dyed moustache, his face pale and his eyes glittering with anxiety as to the success of his plan to encourage the director to drink. The director once told me the hours between the last meal and the time to go to one's dressing room to begin making up are the dangerous ones. He said, "First one takes a glass of wine to steady one's shaking nerves; later a glass is not enough so it becomes a bottle, then two bottles and so on till control is lost." It is easy for any singer to understand, and the best remedy is to omit that first glass. "Carmen" was the second opera which I had to do without rehearsal. The soprano had failed in it and it was promised to me to keep if I could do it _ohne probe_ (without rehearsal). I sang it for the first time, quaking with nerves, on Christmas Day, and my nick-name after that was "Die schoene Carmen." After Christmas we produced the "Merry Widow" which was new then, and I was cast for the _Dutiful Wife_. There was plenty of variety in my work. I would sing _Carmen_ on Sunday, _Orlofsky_ in "Fledermaus" on Tuesday, speaking German with a Russian accent, _Pamela_ on Thursday night with an English accent, and _Frau Reich_ on Friday night with no accent at all! I dressed _Frau Reich_ in a gown of the time of Henry V while the rest of the cast "went Shakespearean." We were far too busy for dress rehearsals of an old opera, and I supposed of course that it would be costumed in the real period of the play. When I appeared on the stage, they all demanded "And what, pray, are _you_ supposed to represent?" "I am playing Shakespeare's _Frau Reich_," I answered with dignity--"and I am the only person on the stage who is properly dressed." But you have to know your colleagues well before you can make an answer like that successfully, without their hating you for it. CHAPTER XI SOME STAGE DELIGHTS We had also what is known as _Abstecher_, on off nights. That is, performances in a neighbouring and still smaller town about once a month. We would travel altogether, taking our costumes and make-up with us, principals second class and chorus third. Our fare was paid, and the generous management allowed us two marks apiece (50c) extra for expenses! As we left at five P.M. returning at one or two in the morning, this allowance was not excessive for food alone, but the thrifty took black bread and sausage with them, and expended only fifteen pfennigs (3-1/2c) for beer. Our _Abstecher_ was a village with a cavalry barracks, a railroad station, and not much else. The theatre was built over a sort of warehouse and stable combined, and we fell over bales and packing cases at the entrance. The dressing rooms were tiny boxes, with a shelf, one gas light in a wire globe, and a red-hot stove in each room, and no window. We dressed three in a room. The stage was so small that once, as _Nancy_, I played a whole scene with the tail of my train caught in the door by which I had entered, and never knew it! We were always given a rapturous welcome. Sometimes one of the principals would miss the train and be forced to come on by a later one, and then the sequence of scenes in the opera would be changed quite regardless of the plot, for we would play all the scenes, in which he did not appear, first, and do his afterwards. After the opening chorus, the soprano would go on for her aria, and while she was singing it, we would decide what to give next. "I'll do my aria!" "Oh no! Not the two arias together!" "Let's have the duet from the third act, and then the soprano and tenor can just come in casually and we'll do the big quartet, and then you can do your aria!" We would see the audience hunting in a confused sort of way through their libretto, with expressions rather like Bill the Lizard. This happened once in the "Merry Wives," which is confusing at best. After the performance there was no place in which to wait but the café of the station. I was looked upon as recklessly extravagant because I would order a _Wiener Schnitzel mit Salat_ for sixty pfennigs (15¢) and when I took two cents' worth of butter too, they would raise their eyebrows and murmur, "_Diese Amerikaner!_" Sometimes the Director came with us, and then the principals would be invited to his table and treated to (German) champagne. But we were always glad when he stayed at home, because we were much freer over our beer. There are always one or two members of the company who are extremely amusing, and their antics, imitations and reminiscences make the time fly. There was one little chap, the son of a Rabbi, who lived on nothing a day and found himself, and was an extraordinary mimic. His imitations of a director engaging singers, the shy one, the bold one, the beginner; and his marvellous take-off of the members of the company kept us in roars of laughter. He could imitate anything--a horse, a worn-out piano--and is now one of the most successful "entertainers" in Berlin. The ones in whose compartment he travelled on the train thought themselves lucky and often arrived so hoarse from laughing that they could hardly sing. All this experience is invaluable for the beginner, his self-consciousness melts like snow in July, and it gives him, as nothing else can, that poise and authority on the stage which are almost as important as the voice itself. But the work, especially for a foreigner, is killing. It is not so much the performances themselves, great as the strain of these actually is, but the constant, never-ceasing learning by heart, and the drag of continuous rehearsing. The "room rehearsals" of the music alone, take place, in a theatre of this kind, in one of the dressing rooms where there is a piano. The room is almost always small and very close, and there are eight or ten people packed into it, all singing hard and exhausting the little air there is. The stage rehearsals with the almost invariable and inevitable shouting and excitement are very trying to the nerves, especially when one is making two or three débuts a week, that is, singing a new part for the first time almost every other night as I did, at the beginning of my career. The better the theatre, of course, the greater the smoothness and lack of confusion at stage rehearsals. The singers and orchestra men are more experienced, and more competent, and the manners of the Kapellmeister improve in ratio to the importance of the opera house. A little extra excitement is permissible when a new production is being put on, but at the rehearsals of repetitions undue exhibitions of "temperament" on either side are discouraged, and the powers that be have to mind their manners and stick to the conventional forms of address. The _Heldentenor_ may sometimes have to allow his artistic nature to get the better of him for a moment, but no one else may claim such license. The stage during rehearsals is like a workshop--a certain amount of noise and confusion is necessitated by the labour going on in it, but no one has time to spare from his share of the job in hand, and the discipline in a good theatre is remarkable. The native German is trained, of course, both to give and take orders well, the result of the whole system of government, both of the family and of the nation. Stage etiquette and the relationship between principals and chorus, _erste und zweite Kräfte_ (principals of first and second rank) singers and the management, grows more conventional and regulated according to the class of the theatre. Those in authority may exact perfect obedience, but they must ask for it properly; and while an individual is entitled to proper consideration, he must never forget that he is but a unit of the whole. The dressing-room arrangements in Metz were rather primitive. The theatre was 100 years old, for one thing, and no one had ever had the money to install new conveniences. In a good German theatre, the dressing rooms are rarely used for rehearsing, and the principals dress alone, at least when they have a big rôle to sing. In Metz I shared my room with several other women and had only a corner of it which I could call my own. Long shelves with lockers under them ran down two sides of the room, with lights over them at intervals, and under every light a singer "made up." There was a long glass at one end of the room, but we had to provide individual mirrors for ourselves. There was no running water, only a couple of jugs and basins stood in one corner of the shelf. Good routined dressers were provided by the theatre. Mine was an Alsatian who loved to speak French with me, but whom I discouraged as I wanted all the practise I could get in German. She used to call me "Fräulein Miss"--pronouncing the latter like the German word _miess_ which means mediocre, but she meant to be particularly respectful. I have always found that it pays a hundred fold to make friends of the dressers, stage-doorkeeper, property-man, carpenter, head scene-shifter, fireman and all the other workers whose co-operation is necessary for a good _ensemble_. It is usually quite easy to be on good terms with them, and they have unlimited opportunities for making things go smoothly for you, or the reverse. Women's costumes are not kept in the theatre; as they are the personal property of the singer they must be kept at home, and be sent over to the theatre on the morning of a performance. A _Korbträger_ (basket carrier) is usually provided to whom you give from 75 cents to $1.00 a month, and who performs this service for you--but many singers send their maids. With the usual discrimination against our sex, men's costumes are provided in opera houses of all grades. In the largest theatres the women's are furnished also, and you even have to have special permission to wear your own. The scenery and costumes in Metz were often surprisingly good when one considered that so few "sets" must do such varied things. Our property man was an inventive genius at making something out of nothing. He prided himself upon certain realistic details. If the piece called for coffee, the real article, though of some dreadful variety unknown to contemporary culinary science, was provided, and really poured into the cups. If a meal were to be served on the stage, some sort of real food was there for the actors to eat, even if it were only slices of bread served elaborately as the most _recherché_ French supper, though usually it was ladyfingers. Eating scenes are usually confined to the drama, though there are some operas in which a meal "comes before" as the Germans say. In the "Merry Wives of Windsor" for example, the scene containing _Anna's_ letter aria opens with the company at supper in _Frau Reich's_ home. The wives are explaining their tricks and plotting _Falstaff's_ final discomfiture in spoken dialogue. One night when I was singing _Frau Reich_ in Metz there was a particularly attractive dish of real apples on the stage supper table. The _Herr Reich_ was the serious bass, a thrifty individual who couldn't bear to let a penny's worth of anything escape him. As his guests rose to go he picked up the dish of apples and pressed it upon them. "Here," he improvised, "take these home to the children. Oh! You have no children--well, take them anyway--the children will come later." His hospitable wishes were received with bewilderment by the audience, but as he made his exit with his guests and immediately began to eat the apples, he bore his scolding from the _régisseur_ very philosophically. On some stages where the provisions are more elaborate, the actors in certain plays make a regular practise of eating their suppers on the stage. In "Divorçons" for example or in the "Anatol Cyclus" of Schnitzler. Our property man in Metz, with the historic Shakespearean name of Mondenschein, (Moonshine) was an ardent lover of drapery. An artistocratic interior, to his mind, must be entirely filled with as many different materials as possible, all hanging in folds. He had three pairs of near-silk portières, bright pink, dull green, and pale yellow, and the combinations that he made with those six curtains were endless. Garlands of roses, too, were a great resource of his--draped round a couch with a fur rug upon it, and a red light over all, they transformed the scene into the bower of a Messalina. In a white light festooned upon a mantel-piece, or above a doorway, they could be depended upon to supply the appropriate setting of the _Erste Naive's_ most appealing scene. The young lovehaveress and first salon lady, had to receive them, wired together into a bunch, with the same delightful surprise, and put them into the same Japanese jar without any water in it, in play after play. But the property man always squandered a perfectly new, uncreased piece of paper for every performance with which to make a cornucopia for them, in the approved German style. He was quite a specialist in such matters as the colour of telegrams in different countries, and in the manner of folding newspapers, points which are sometimes neglected in many better theatres. Of course his talents in this direction had a better chance in the dramatic than in the operatic productions. It is a curious thing to note in this connection, how archaic the arrangement of such details remains in operatic performances even on the best stages. How in "Carmen" for example, the singers must pretend to drink to _Escamillo_ out of perfectly dry tin cups, instead of using real wine and glasses, as a quite second-rate dramatic company would do. How _Butterfly_ and _Suzuki_ are never given real tea to serve to the _Consul_ or _Yamadori_. Or how the girls in "Thais" bring up their water-jars out of the well with the outsides quite dry. Of course in theatres of the Metz class matters of costuming are simplified, and historical accuracy is not one of the aims. For example, everything before Christ is done in fur rugs and winged helmets for the men, and flannel nightgowns and long hair for the women. Any period up to the thirteenth century is costumed in mantles and gowns of furniture brocade, after that it is _Alt-deutsch_ (old German), or _Spanisch_ (Shakespearean--mostly black velvet and jet or white satin and silver), until it turns safely into _Rococo_, which means white wigs. After that it is all _Modern_, and even the chorus has to supply its own modern clothes. The men principals have their historical costumes, with the exception of wigs, tights, and shoes, supplied to them, but the women must have their own. The collection of men's clothes in an old theatre is sometimes quite remarkable, some of the suits of a hundred years ago being actually of the period. They retain the smells of the period also, many of them; for in a theatre like that of Metz I don't believe the men's clothes were ever cleaned. Things which have been worn several times a week for seven months a year during the past hundred years, accumulate a richness and variety of odours which must be sniffed to be appreciated--a very ancient and fish-like smell indeed. I often wished at Metz that I had no use of my nose, and I have wished it many times since. As _Amneris_, to force your way for the entrance in the triumph scene, through an Egyptian populace composed of German Infantrymen, is a squeamish business at best; but when they are attired in clothes that haven't been washed for years, it is a feat before which any one may quail, especially if he belongs to the number of unfortunates, unluckily far from rare among singers, whose stomach nerves are affected in any case when they have a big part before them. Washing was not any too popular in Metz even among the principals. I have dressed with leading women whose arms showed streaks of white where the water had run down as they washed their hands, stopping conscientiously at the wrists. Their make-up would be removed with the same dirty rag night after night during the whole season; and their personal garments under more or less smart outer raiment, had often done overlong service. I must hasten to say, however, that this state of affairs was the exception rather than the rule, and that in better theatres, the women principals were always scrupulously cleanly. Over ornamentation or fineness in undergarments is usually looked upon as rather questionable, among the solid middle classes in Germany. My mother had made me a dainty supply of be-ribboned linen, and I was told after I had been in Metz for some time, that at first, the Alsatian woman who dressed me reported me to be "_beaucoup trop soignée de ne pas avoir un amant_." However, she changed her mind later on, and put it down to American extravagance--always a safe play. Some of the men were much more careless than the women. Our operetta tenor played the whole season in the same shirt, powdering the bosom freshly each evening with a yellowish powder which he used for his face. At Carnival time, some of the Schauspieler remained for three days in the clothes in which they had played on Saturday night, never going to bed, or even removing their make-up till the fun came to an end early Wednesday morning. Many of the older members dyed their hair, as it had begun to turn grey. Of course they did not have it done by competent people, or nearly often enough, and the shades of rusty brown, green, or purple it assumed were quite startling. Our first Kapellmeister used to dye his hair a rich black. He was a good-looking man and very vain. He was also portly and easily became over-heated. Of course when this happened, the perspiration running down his neck was dyed black too, and he would be intensely worried for fear we should see it. We knew his sensitiveness, and took delight in sitting directly behind him at the piano, though he would urge, beg, and finally command us to sit beside him. He was kindhearted in his way, and I remember one instance of this. The stage manager, in a vile humour, had come storming into the midst of a room rehearsal one day, with some trivial complaint against me, and had succeeded in making me cry, not a difficult matter at that time as I was always in a state of nerve strain owing to continuous over-fatigue. The Kapellmeister did his best to comfort me, telling me not to mind, praising my work, and finally pressing upon me his huge, brand new silk handkerchief--a real sacrifice, as he had probably intended to use it for days! His fingertips used to split in the cold weather from much piano pounding and I won his heart by prescribing collodion for them. He continually praised my sight reading and quickness in learning and it was he who gave me the nick-name of "Notenfresserin." CHAPTER XII MISPLACED MOISTURE AND THE STORY OF A COURT-LADY The Bohemian, Hungarian and Croatian singers nearly always add to one's joy in work by eating garlic. The "high dramatic" soprano in my next engagement was from Croatia. The first time I went to Prague to sing, on alighting from the train I sniffed a strangely familiar odour. The impression of familiarity grew stronger and stronger as I drove to the hotel--but I couldn't place it. At last it came to me--the whole town smelled like our soprano! I have often wished, while on the stage, for temporary atrophy of the senses. In addition to the fustiness of much worn clothes and infrequent bathing, you really have all kinds of horrors to endure. Some terrible creatures with a passion for distinct enunciation and with unfortunate dental formation, spray you copiously when uttering words like _Mutter_ or _Freude_. This always seems to happen in some impassioned scene when you simply can't get away from them, and have absolutely no defence. Others have painfully hot and wet, or painfully cold and wet hands with which they persistently paw you. I remember one lyric tenor who was my bugbear because he had hands like a fresh, cold fish. The soprano and I had a scene with him in one opera, in which she had to say, "_Die Hand, so weich, so warm_" (the hand, so soft, so warm), speaking of his clammy member. I dared her one night, to say instead, "_Die Hand, so feucht, so kalt_" (The hand, so moist, so cold), and when it came to the point, sure enough she did so, her voice so shaky with suppressed laughter, that it came out in a tremulous pianissimo. We both had to turn away from the front in silent convulsions, but not a soul in the house was the wiser. This is a horrible subject and I might enlarge upon it endlessly, recalling for example, the pleasures of being folded in the embrace of a large, warm, damp tenor smelling at best of onions; or still worse the large drops which rain upon you during the most touching love scene from his manly brow, while you, though shuddering with disgust, daren't try to dodge them, or even change the wistfully adoring expression of your countenance. It may be honest sweat, but it is a demned moist unpleasant kind of honesty in my opinion. Goritz told me that he once, as _Kurwenal_, in the last act of "Tristan," dripped on a prostrate _Tristan's_ eye so long that the poor tenor was blind for days after. This is German efficiency! Some of the colleagues at Metz were a great contrast to others in their scrupulous care of their personal appearance. The lyric baritone, a youngster from the Rhineland making his début in opera, attracted me at the very first rehearsal by his groomed look and beautifully manicured finger-nails. He came from quite ordinary people, and had been brought up to be a "Tapizierer," curtain hanger, upholsterer, etc. He had never met any Americans before and we grew to like him very much, and used to let him go for walks with us, and come to us for tea. He was always wanting to _tapizieren_ for us and criticizing the hang of the curtains, etc., in our rooms. We taught him to play Canfield, more to keep him from talking than for any other reason, for my sister and I used to play patience for hours, so that we should not be tempted to talk when I was resting my voice in the brief intervals between rehearsals and performances. We used to play with pretty little German patience cards in a pocket size, and he was simply infatuated with the game. He showed all his friends how to play, and dozens of packs of these cards were imported from Frankfort where they are made. The craze spread rapidly; all the officers began to play in their Casinos, and the principals in the theatre were always being roared at for keeping the stage waiting during rehearsals, when they missed their cues by being absorbed in the game of Canfield. It became the great resource of those who had small parts in the first act of an opera, and then had to wait in costume and make-up until the very end like the _Meister_ in "Meistersinger," or _Mary_ in "Fliegender Holländer" who has a seemingly interminable wait after her one scene at the beginning of the second act, until at the very last of the third she has to rush in for the single phrase "_Senta, Senta, wass willst du tun?_" In return for our tea, the little baritone would tell us amusing tales of his experiences in a cavalry regiment while doing his military service. His high spirits and his beautiful voice made him popular with officers and men, but he was quite unamenable to discipline, and had spent something like ninety days in prison during his first year, for such offences as refusing to stop singing on the march, or for cheeking an officer. He used to call us his goddesses, and speak to us as "Fräuleinchen." Our rooms, through him, were the starting place of new culinary ideas in Metz. We taught him to make and like such American delicacies as salted almonds, chocolate fudge, and hot chocolate sauce for ice cream, an unheard of combination. We tried to make him like fruit salad with mayonnaise; but the mixture of sweet with oil and vinegar was too much for his burgher palate, and he used to quote to us the Bavarian proverb, "_Was der Bauer net kennt frisst er net._" (What the peasant doesn't know he doesn't eat.) [Illustration: AMNERIS AS I USED TO DRESS IT] The country round Metz is rarely beautiful, in its half-French, half-German character. It retains its typical French poplars, planted in long lines, which turn pure gold in autumn. A placid river, the Moselle, runs between hills covered with orchards and vineyards, with picturesque villages of grey stone and red tiling, piled steeply up their sides. The meadows in the fall are filled with lavender crocuses--the kind that Meredith's Diana got up at four A.M. to gather. Every village has of course its "Gasthaus," some still absolutely French in the arrangement of their marble topped tables, mirrors, and red upholstered benches running round three sides of the room. We have drunk coffee in autumn, and _Maibowle_ in spring in every one of them, I think. I dare say many of them are still using the same card board circles under their customers' beer-glasses which we marked with our initials. Can you flip them from the edge of the table into your own hand? The town of Metz itself is interesting enough, and we explored it thoroughly. It is very ancient ground indeed, and there are Roman walls still to be seen, with characteristically beautiful brick-work; old chapels, a Gothic cathedral, and the remains of the mediaeval wall and moat which once surrounded the town, with great arched fortified gates at its east and west entrances. On returning once from a long walk with the little baritone we entered by the eastern gate, and as he was doing a small part that evening, and it was getting unpleasantly near the hour of the performance, we took a short cut through an unfamiliar part of the town. We soon found ourselves in a narrow street of respectable enough looking houses, but as we passed, out of nearly every window on both sides, a female head was thrust, all in varying degrees of frowsiness, and remarks and comments in half unintelligible dialect were yelled at us with shrieks of hideous laughter. Our little escort grew purple with confusion, walking faster and faster, and when we reached an open square he broke into the most fervent apologies for unwittingly leading us into such a street. It was a curious and unpleasant little experience and reminded me of certain quarters in oriental cities of which I had heard tales. We named it "the street of queer women" and avoided the eastern gateway in our walks thereafter. Later in the season another colleague sometimes joined our tea parties and walking expeditions. This was an immensely talented youth, attached to the theatre in an anomalous position of third Kapellmeister, in reality a volunteer without pay, hoping to pick up an occasional chance to gain experience in conducting an orchestra. He was a Frenchman of excellent family who had studied in one of the great conservatories and thought he spoke the German language. Such German I have never heard before or since. His French inability to aspirate an "h," a pronounced stutter, and the most nonchalant disregard of gender, formed a combination which was enough to upset the gravity of a German customs house official himself! It was his business among other things, to "_einstudieren_" the new members of the chorus in any opera which they did not know, but of course his version of their language rendered any authority he might have had over them quite ineffectual, and his position was anything but enviable. At the same time he was a really magnificent pianist, a composer of promise, and a thorough musician; but if ever a creature was out of his element he was that creature as Kapellmeister in Metz. And yet what is a young fellow in his position to do? The desire to conduct, the longing to interpret the great masters through the medium of an orchestra, possessed him to the point of obsession; but where to find an orchestra to conduct was a problem. The barrier "no experience" was erected across his path as it had been across mine, though he must serve an apprenticeship somewhere. The musical life of Germany attracted him for the same reasons as it had attracted me, and so he endured a veritable martyrdom in the pursuance of his dream. He was a pupil of Nikisch and told us Nikisch had told him he made half his career with his cuffs. Whoever has watched him shoot them gently out as he begins to conduct will know what he meant. Our rooms were a sort of haven for this boy, I think, where he could talk of the things that absorbed him in a language that was his servant instead of his master. In return he would play so gorgeously for us, that our little upright piano rocked under the strain. He could suggest a whole orchestra in his playing. Strauss' "Salome" was brand new then and he revelled in it, and adopted the motif of _Jochanaan_ as a signal which he and the baritone would whistle under our windows. Sometimes he would get lost at the piano and play for hours, till our supper time was past, and our good friend Emma Seebold, the "_Hoch Dramatische_," would rush in and urge us to hurry and get ready for some mythical dinner to which we were invited. This was always successful, owing to Seebold's talent. We grew very fond of her and often spent our evenings together. She had a lovely voice and would put her head back on her chair sometimes in the evening and sing us languorous Austrian peasant songs with her fascinating Viennese accent. Her passion was remnants, and she would send home boxes of scraps of passementerie and odds and ends of silk trimmings which she would sew all over her costumes. The richness she saw in it was pathetic. Bargain gloves were also irresistible, and she had green ones and purple ones, spotted and mildewed ones, and loved them all because they were cheap. The pianist and the baritone often met at our rooms and got on surprisingly well considering their utter lack of points of contact and the natural contempt that they felt for each other. The Frenchman was certainly mildly crazy. He believed that his astral body, or psychic envelope, or something was visible as an aura of light around his hand, and he would hold it up and look at it and say, "_Ah, oui, elle est là--je vais bien aujourd'hui_," or shake his head and say, "_Non, pas là aujourd'hui--je ne suis rien!_" He was good looking, bearing a strong resemblance to the portraits of Oscar Wilde. He dressed well, and his washing bills--amounting as we were told, with bated breath, to ten and fifteen marks a week--were the scandal of the theatre! Since those days he has gone back to his piano, though he persevered in the theatre long enough to obtain a second Kapellmeister position in a good opera house. I have met him casually all over Europe, and he is one of the very few of the old _Kollegen_ from Metz whom I have ever seen again. These three were the only ones that season whom we cared about, though we were friendly enough with all of them after Christmas, and as I have said, we dined at the hotel with a group of them every day. They were all types in their way. First the director--a survival of the old school, with rather long dyed hair and enormous dyed moustache, always in _Gehrock_ (frock coat) with a large tie in which reposed a royal monogram in pearls and diamonds presented to him by the Hereditary Grand Duke of Glumphenbergen-Schlimmerheim or something, during his career as _Heldenbariton_. In the street he wore a soft black felt hat which would have done for the _Wanderer_ in "Siegfried," and of course a fur-lined coat whenever the weather gave the least excuse for one. Champagne was his universal panacea--his very present help in trouble. If he had a disagreement with a singer for any cause and wished to make it right again, he would always send a bottle of _Sekt_ if it were a woman, or present the money to buy one if it were a man. He had been a famous singer in his day, and known others far more so, and his reminiscences could be interesting enough. His stories of Bayreuth under the old régime, were really interesting, with the prescribed position of every finger, every gesture studied to an inch, every tone closed, opened, coloured according to strictest rule, every syllable enunciated with minutest care, and the effect of all this schooling on the singer--the strained and broken nerves, the wrecked voices that were the result of it. Diction--_Aussprache_--was naturally enough his hobby, but his ideas were absurdly exaggerated and caused much more or less hidden amusement among the _Personal_. He insisted, for example, upon so much "t" in a phrase like Mignon's "_Dahin, dahin, moecht ich mit dir_," that it sounded like "_Moecht tich mit tier_." Anything of that sort among colleagues is looked upon as a tremendous joke, especially when it is on the director. One result of his former glory was that famous people came to this theatre to _gastieren_ and it also seemed to us as if every former singer or actor in Germany of any pretension to fame, who had a son or daughter to launch in either profession, sent them to our director for a début. This was looked upon by us as a bore; but the famous guests were rather amusing, because when they had gone, the director used to relate all kinds of derogatory stories about them. Possart---- Ritter, Ernst von---- was perhaps the most renowned. He came to recite Manfred at a special performance with our soloists and chorus. The director told us how, during the most impassioned speeches of Goethe or Shakespeare his eye would be on the upper gallery, counting empty places, and how after the performance when the box office sheet showed an _ausverkauftes Haus_ he would demand, "What about those three empty seats in the second row of the top gallery, at the left?" He told a similar tale of a famous Austrian guest-artist, the leading Teutonic exponent of his day of the negative side in the never-ending argument of stage technique "to feel or not to feel." He had mechanical as well as histrionic genius, and his dramatic art had become so mechanical too, towards the end of his career, that he could utilize such places in his great parts as Hamlet's soliloquy for thinking out scientific puzzles, although his power over the emotions of his audience never lost its effect. [Illustration: AMNERIS AS I NOW DRESS IT] The director's own story was a real romance. While still on the upward side of the hill of fame, he had met and loved the wife of a nobleman, the scion of an ancient house. She had been maid-of-honour at the most exclusive court in Europe, the confidante of the royal family, and was said to know the true story of many of the mysterious incidents in court history. In fact she was supposed to have been married off hurriedly to her much older husband to get her away from the royal circle of whose secrets she knew altogether too many. The infatuation of the singer for the lady was mutual, and in course of time a boy was born to them, who reached the age of six years before the noble husband consented to divorce his wife, or rather, I think, his lawyers consented for him, as by that time dissipation had quite softened whatever brain he may have had to begin with. This mental condition of his gave her the care of their children, and in Metz their youngest son, their daughter a girl of about twenty, and the director's little boy all lived together. At holiday times another of her sons, a most charming young fellow, a lieutenant in a crack cavalry regiment, used to visit them too. She invited my sister and me to meet him, and the whole family often attended the opera together. He liked me in several rôles and used to send me wonderful flowers. I still have a huge green bowl which he sent me filled with violets, in return for the photograph for which he had begged. He was an example of the most elegant type of young officer, the aristocrat of _Uradlige Familie_, fair, with delicate features; his six feet of slimness, with long slender limbs and very little body, clothed in his glove-fitting uniform. He had the fashionable three creases across the front of his smart Hussar jacket where his tummy should have been. His poor little story turned into tragedy. He contracted consumption and did not tell his people, but used their influence to get himself transferred to German West Africa, on the plea of wanting to see service. Arrived there, he quietly shot himself one evening as the easiest way out of a life that promised him nothing but misery. A sort of malignant fate seemed to pursue the children of that first marriage, for the charming young daughter also came to a sudden and most tragic end, as I shall tell later on. The director's wife was very nice to us. She often invited us to visit her although we did so but seldom. Her rooms were filled with relics of her former life--portraits of herself as lady-in-waiting to the Empress of Austria, in court dress, portraits of her Empress, old photographs of groups on terraces and at castle gates, almost every person in them a "personage." She herself still wore her hair as her Empress had done, in a coronet of narrow braids set round her head. She said that they were sewn together with the same coloured silk as the hair every morning after being braided, to make them stand up. With us she always played the _grande dame_, apparently quite without effort, but there were stories about her which seemed to show that she could be something very different. She certainly could talk most interestingly of her former grandeur. One of her tales was of a lady of the court who owned the smallest dog that any one had ever seen. It was so tiny that she used to carry it, when in evening dress, in the front of her décolletage. One night at dinner as she leaned forward to eat her soup, the dog fell into the plate. There was vermicelli in the soup, and before she could fish it out of this entanglement, the poor little thing was drowned! Another time the Frau Direktor showed us a photograph of a very slim and shapely young dragoon in full regalia, cloak and all, holding a letter up to hide his face. As there was evidently a story we begged her to tell it to us. She said that there had been a certain young married Countess of the court, who was known as a great prude and was always boasting of her exaggerated wifely devotion. Her airs became, said the Frau Direktor, quite insufferable, and so she herself resolved to put such armour-plate virtue to the test. At Carnival time, therefore, she dressed herself as a young officer for a ball at which the _Hofgesellschaft_ was to be present, and a very dashing figure she made, according to the picture. In this disguise she then proceeded to give the Countess the rush of her life. The gallant pursued the virtuous Countess all the evening, and was rewarded by being asked to escort her ladyship to her home. In the carriage the "Lieutenant's" attentions became still more pressing, when to his secret dismay, the fair creature suddenly melted entirely, cast herself into his arms, and swore she adored him. Arrived at her house, the "Lieutenant" beat a hasty retreat vowing all sorts of things for their next meeting, which naturally never took place. But the vanished Lieutenant did not resemble the gentlemen of Virginia who kiss and never tell, for the Countess' share in the story leaked out, and her reputation for unassailable devotion was irreparably damaged, to the great satisfaction of all her acquaintance. CHAPTER XIII HUMAN PASSIONS AND SMALLPOX At the beginning of the season, the director's family was still in the country, where they remained until the opera had been running for some time. We met his wife and daughter for the first time at a luncheon given by him at the hotel where we had arranged to take our two o'clock dinner, after trying all sorts of unsuccessful ways of dining in private. The stage manager of the drama, the first and second Kapellmeister, the "Bureau Chef," the Heldentenor, Heldenbariton, High Dramatic, Coloratura, my sister and myself were all invited. Just as we were seating ourselves, the _Schauspiel Regisseur_, Herr S----, noticed that there were thirteen at table. He turned as white as a sheet, jumped up, and scarcely stopping to apologize, hurriedly left the room, nor could he be prevailed upon to return, although the director followed him into the hall to remonstrate. He protested that one of our number was certain to die within the year as it was, and he wished to insure its not being himself by refusing to sit down at all. Curiously enough, his prophecy came true, for the Director's young step-daughter died very suddenly soon after. Herr S---- was a most unpleasant person, as I discovered later, and I was always thankful that my identification with the _Opern-Personal_ kept me out of his way. He had a sort of spurious veneer and ingratiating manner, which was at variance with his hard, square, passion-scarred countenance. He pretended an enormous admiration for the American woman, and that very day before luncheon, he showed me with great pride a small American-made patent-leather shoe, which he took out of the tail pocket of his frock-coat, telling me with a leer that it belonged to a girl of _my_ country, where the women had the most beautiful feet in the world, and that it was his talisman and never left him! He bore a bad name among the women players in the company. One of the little actresses, a girl of good family, in her first season, used to tell me unpleasant tales of him in her rapid, ungrammatical French, whenever I met her; and she always referred to him as "That beast!" Our Heldentenor of that season was an uninteresting personage, a quite elderly man of enormous routine and mediocre equipment, who had sung in all sorts of opera houses and was on the last lap of a long career. He was said to be nearly sixty, and was quite bald, but he managed to make a surprisingly youthful appearance on the stage. He had been at it so long that he could make an attempt at acting almost anything--even youth. His sprightly legs in "Fra Diavolo" were quite adolescent. He kept himself discreetly to himself, and was never seen in the cafés, nor on the streets with his colleagues. His greatest joy was a tiny dog, whose tricks he delighted to show off to every one. The little thing would whine for a soprano, growl for a bass, howl for a tenor, bark when told "The Direktor's coming," and sit up and beg at the word _Gage_ (salary,) in a very amusing way, and his master was intensely proud of his accomplishments. The lyric tenor of the first season was a peasant from Swabia, with a droll accent and a lovely voice which he forced in a most agonizing manner. He would shake all over when he sang a high note, and yet his natural voice ranged easily to high D sharp--I have even heard him sing an E. His dialect and his ignorance made him the butt of the company, but he was very goodnatured and took it all in good part. He used to say: "Yes, I know--my wife is a French woman and she tells me to say _Mignon_, but I'm a peasant--I say _Mischnong_." She was years older than he and of better class. She had helped him to the little study that he had had, and out of gratitude he had married her, but they were said to disagree very consistently. The Heldenbariton was quite a nice fellow, big and burly with a good voice; he was a great favourite with the public, whom he had pleased by marrying, out of the chorus, a townswoman who adored him. The second Kapellmeister was a vague, weak creature, henpecked by his vain little wife who was never happy unless she was the centre of some one's admiration. She was inordinately proud of her small feet, and our little friend the lyric baritone used to make her furious, by insisting that mine were smaller! Her dream was to go on the stage too, if only to sing pages in "Lohengrin" and "Tannhäuser," and later her hope was realized, I heard, when several of them went off together in April to a "Monatsoper" on the _Russische Grenze_ (Russian Frontier). The coloratura soprano was a Dutch woman, speaking German with more accent than I did. She was very fair, very fat, and very lazy, and she had a capacity for food that I have seen equalled but never surpassed. She dined with us daily, and woe to the person who had to serve himself from a dish that had been passed to her! Eat until you could hold no more was a part of the creed of all my colleagues. Anything short of absolute repletion, and the meal was considered a failure. "_Sind Sie satt?_" They would ask each other gravely--"_Ich bin nicht satt!_" Meaning literally, "Are you full?" "_I_ am _not_ full." And this was a grave cause of resentment against the hotel management. I must say that most of them reached this desirable consummation long before the coloratura soprano, for she continued placidly as long as there was any food in sight. She would even finish anything left on another's plate, and our table always looked as if a horde of locusts had visited it. Those colleagues of my first engagement are stamped upon my memory--representing as they did so much that was new to me,--a new nationality, a new profession, and in many cases a new social class. Take them all together they were a pretty decent lot considering their antecedents and surroundings. As a general rule, I think the actors are apt to be of a somewhat higher social class than the singers, as a remarkable voice occurs when and where it will, while a vocation for the acting stage presupposes a certain amount of education and refinement of surroundings, although there have been, of course, some notable exceptions. They wanted us to meet the officers of the different smart regiments. The Red Dragoons in particular were supposed to be all-powerful in deciding the success or failure of a singer, and the colleagues kindly thought we ought all to have the advantage of this. One or two of the women of course had affairs with them, and as Marjorie and I did not care to meet the officers in just that society, we were sometimes hard put to it to find a good excuse. Once my sister went to bed, though perfectly well, for several days, to avoid a particularly pressing invitation. Later we met these officers through letters from our relatives, and liked some of them tremendously. Even their affairs were the outcome of the system, and did no particular harm to any one. The opera soubrette had one of years' standing with a tall ungainly White Dragoon. He was a harmless idiot, and she a smart German-Polish Jewess, a nice little thing. We each had a "Benefiz" before leaving the Metz engagement, when we were showered with flowers and gifts from our friends and admirers, also sharing in the box-office receipts. R----, the soubrette, told us the day after hers, still breathless from rage, that "_Er_"--she never called him anything but "He"--had sent her an umbrella, bound in the middle of a huge sheaf of roses. He had not passed it over the footlights, so that every one might see its splendour, but had left it at her rooms. When he called on her expecting soft thanks, she berated him soundly, and succeeded in so enraging his usually placid self that he threw his big sabre through the window, sending it crashing into the court below. One handsome Red Dragoon, a notorious connoisseur of music and women, and believed absolutely irresistible, always sat in a box at our right from the stage. His one reputable passion was music. He had at that time an affair with a Dutch woman, who had been handsome and distinguée--she was pitifully his slave. Going to the theatre one evening we saw her approaching from one direction in the big court in front of the theatre, as he approached from another. She smiled infatuatedly at him but he passed her without a look--perhaps his idea of a tribute to my sister and me. I felt sorry for her as the joy left her face. Several years after, while touring in Holland, in a charming little place where we went to pass a free afternoon, we saw this same woman. She had found the strength to shake off her German master, had married a countryman and looked prosperous and happy. Neither Marjorie nor I ever received an offensive word or look from an officer. They used sometimes to send me postcards after a _Carmen_ or _Amneris_ night, closely scribbled over with signatures and greetings and phrases of admiration, all highly respectful. It always pleased me very much to receive these cards. The _Genossenschaft_ members of most theatres organize a _fête_ every year for the benefit of their society, and that spring we had a fancy dress ball. A lady is chosen at these balls by popular vote to be Rose Queen. I was chosen that time and had to parade around the room on the arm of a portly Major, who often sent me flowers and books of his own poems. I wore my _Carmen_ dress of black satin, with gold flowers, and my scarlet Spanish shawl. There was much cheap champagne drunk to the popular toast of "General Quenousamong." This was originally "_Que nous aimons_" (To those we love), and the "general" meant that every one was to join in. The French touch was considered elegant, just as _Couzank_ was the polite word for cousin, and _Satank_ for satin. Balls of this kind are highly popular and a great contrast to the usually simple lives of these small-town people. One form of simplicity I never adopted was the quite general one of eating their evening supper, consisting usually of a bit of sausage, and black bread and butter, out of bits of paper casually put down amongst the objects on the table in their bedrooms. When you had finished, you simply rolled up and threw away the greasy papers and the thing was over. Sometimes a meal may be captured free. One of our "comics" in Metz had to fish at the back of the stage in an operetta. He was always furnished with a salt herring by the property man, which he would suspend solemnly out of sight of the audience for a while, then slowly draw up, and proceed to eat. A clean picked spine was all that remained by the end of the act, and he had had his supper. Often the performances supplied me with welcome comic relief behind the scenes. I learned for instance, that the text of the Anvil chorus sung round me, as I lay on the canvas rock couch of _Azucena_, in "Trovatore," was: "_Ich habe Dir schon laengst gesagt, die Wurst sie schmeckt nach Seife_"--"I told you long ago, the sausage tastes of soap." Also the soldiers in "Faust" made their rollicking return from the wars to the words: "_He--ring und Apfel--Kartoffelnsalat._" "Herring and apple--potato salad." _Siegmund_ grows woefully vulgar, and the opening bars of his love song to his sister always say now to me: "_Winter Struempfe riechen im Monat Mai._" Once in "Tiefland" the old man in the first act was presented with a large lump of Limburger cheese, which he had to sniff and hold gratefully for a long time, while his rejoicing colleagues slapped their knees with glee in the wings. Sometimes the humour was replaced by other less agreeable emotions. For my _Benefiz_, the last year of my engagement, I was to sing _Carmen_. I wanted a popular guest tenor from a neighbouring _Hoftheater_ to be my _José_, and he finally agreed to come. He would not come in time for rehearsal and I did not see him until I turn my head in the first recitative and see him making his sword chain. From then on, he directed me in lordly tones throughout the first act. I had often sung _Carmen_ in Metz and the audience knew most of my business and expected it; also as I had prepared the rôle in Paris and spent months of study on it I did not see why all of my business should be changed on my own festive night. Therefore in our short talk before the second act, I told him my positions as nicely as I could, he saying to everything, "_Aber warum? Warum?_" (But why, why?). I stood this as long as I could and told him all the warums, till finally I said "Because I want to!" At this he lost his temper and left the stage. I was surprised, but supposed he was nervous. From then on, things went from bad to worse. Everything _Carmen_ said to _José_, he thought Howard was saying to him. I tried to whisper that I meant nothing by it--that that was the way I played it, but he grew blacker and blacker. Finally in the last act I struck him with my fan, my usual business to make _José_ let _Carmen_ pass. He rushed at me and caught my wrists and shouted, "_Was faellt Ihnen denn ein_" ("What's the matter with you?") I was frightfully upset and nearly crying by then, but had to go on. At the last as I lay on the floor and he stood over me, he deliberately threw his heavy dagger in my face, and I, a corpse, had to move my head to avoid being hurt. He rushed to his dressing room and cried and shouted for a half hour before his wife dared to go in and calm him. I believe it was all jealousy. He had been most popular in the town, and could not bear to share a performance with any one. The next day I could hardly hobble; all my bones seemed wrenched; but every one was most sympathetic and kind. The bells in Metz were most numerous and depressing. The cathedral near us chimed all day an out-of-tune singsong, which the natives said was, "_Ich bin todt und komm' nicht wieder!_" ("I am dead and shall not come again!") The depression of the first year culminated in a smallpox epidemic, which broke out shortly before the theatre closed. Marjorie dreamed of it just before it happened, and that I died of it, which, of course, haunted her all through the outbreak. It was frightfully mismanaged by the authorities. The suspects were called for by policemen and carried from the houses to an open wagon, (this in February and March,) and driven to the hospitals. The _Kaserne_ or barracks where cases occurred, were isolated; but in our daily walks we passed them with shudders. We were both so tired and had had so many shocks and eye-openers as to what life really is, that this last nightmare completely obsessed and unnerved us. Our policeman neighbour carried suspects, and of course his uniform was never even fumigated and we knew it. The dear little daughter of the director's wife was taken away from home one night, in spite of her parents' remonstrances. She was ill of rheumatic fever, and the authorities heard of it, pronounced it smallpox, and took her away in the open carriage. She died in a few days, and no one ever knew whether it was smallpox or not. Her mother never quite got over it; the child was so sweet and young. The wagon used to stand in the street before a suspect house, with children playing around it. The police seemed to run the whole thing, and would carry bedding out of the houses and leave it to be burned in the street. We were told that the very poor used to steal this bedding at night. Of course we were vaccinated, but it did not take. The last performances of the season were abandoned, as every one was afraid of crowded places, and I left for Berlin on business. While there my throat became frightfully sore, and of course I thought, "Aha! I have it!" And of course I didn't have it. I returned worn out to Paris and rested there. About this time I went first to Jean de Reszke. His beautiful house, near the _Bois_, with its little theatre, was the scene of much nervousness and struggles to become _prime donne_. The master opened my eyes to the beauties of style. His Wagner, better than the best Wagnerian singer I have ever heard, his French style, the wonderfully Italian and yet manly interpretations he gave the Puccini and Verdi rôles, were all a marvellous inspiration to me. With a pupil he considered intelligent he would take no end of trouble, and a "_Bien_" from him was a jewel above price. The tales de Reszke pupils sometimes tell me of the wonderful things he told them and predicted for them have always amused me, because in all the time I have been in his studio I have never heard anything like it. I was so infatuated by my work with him, and so humbled at the vista of endless effort it opened before me, before his ideas could be carried out in every tone one sang, that I asked him one day if I should not spend the next winter in his studio, and leave the stage for a year. He thought it over seriously, and advised me to go on with the stage work, for the routine I was getting was as valuable a teacher as he was. It would have been a great privilege to have spent an entire year with him, and if I could have afforded it, I should have done so. CHAPTER XIV DISCOURAGEMENTS THAT LEAD TO A COURT THEATRE The second year of my first engagement was drawing to a close, and I was much exercised over the next step. I wanted to try for one of the _Hoftheaters_, not the very largest and most famous, but a place with a good orchestra and carefully prepared productions. There seemed to be no vacancy in just such a theatre, and my agent offered me a contract for a great _Stadttheater_, probably the first municipal opera house in Germany. Their contralto, who was a great favourite, had a contract for a big Royal Opera, and they felt sure she would be engaged. With some misgivings, I signed the _Vertrag_, and then began the long dickering to arrange the guest performances which should decide my fate. They finally asked me to sing _Azucena_ at an afternoon performance. It had taken so long to find a date which suited us both, that a good deal of time had elapsed between the signing of the contract and their letter. I, of course, refused to sing an afternoon performance, and it was finally arranged that I should sing _Carmen_ on a certain date. There is a sort of unwritten law that they shall choose one part, and you another, but it is not always observed. This difficulty over the rôle should have warned me that there was something wrong. Such a disagreement is a pretty good indication that your contract will not be made _perfekt_. I travelled all night, and arrived to find a rehearsal on the same day as the performance. It was what is called an _Arrangier Probe fuer den Gast_, rehearsal without orchestra, of the scenes in which the "Guest" takes part. All the colleagues were nice to me, but I saw the contralto watching from the wings, and she gave me a dagger glare; so I thought that there was "something rotten in the state of Denmark," as she was supposed to be leaving voluntarily. I sang well that night, and had a real success with the audience, and with my colleagues. They all said to me, "Oh, you are certainly engaged after a hit like that." But I felt a premonition which increased to a certainty when I heard that the Director had not troubled to watch my performance, but had left the theatre in the middle of the first act. I left the next morning, and in a day I received a letter from the Director saying that I had not had quite enough experience to sing their repertoire. I learned some time afterwards that their contralto had sung one of her guest-performances before I went there, had failed to make a sufficient impression, and had decided to remain where she was. This had been settled between her and the Direction before I sang at all; still they had let me sing with no prospect of an engagement, and allowed it to appear to be my fault that I was not engaged. Legally, of course, they were quite within their rights, as I could have sued them if they had not given me a chance to sing the _Gastspiel_ called for in my contract. But any singer, in such circumstances, would infinitely prefer to be told the facts. Later, I once begged a director to tell me if it were really worth while to _gastieren_ in his opera house. He said, certainly, they were not considering any one else and really wanted to hear me. I sang there with one of the biggest personal successes I have ever made, the _Bürgermeister_ and all the Committee (it was a municipal theatre managed by a Committee with the Mayor at the head) came on the stage to congratulate me, and I had to take nine curtain calls alone after the last act. I was not engaged, however, and found out that they had already decided to engage a contralto who had sung one _Gastspiel_ before me and the other directly afterwards. This sort of thing happens even to the most experienced native-born singer. One tenor in D. sang a guest performance _auf Engagement_, and learned that he was the seventh who had tried for that position in the same part, and they kept on their original one after all! Of course, these performances are paid, but the fact that one has sung without being engaged becomes known everywhere through the weekly theatrical paper, which gives the repertoire and singers in each opera, of all the reputable opera houses in Germany. But the fact that the management never intended to engage you is not generally known. If you have bad luck like this three or four times, it injures your standing as an artist. The _Genossenschaft_ or stage society is trying to make each theatre confine itself to issuing only one contract at a time to fill any vacancy they may have, which will largely prevent this evil. A second disappointment followed right on the heels of the first one. I had a second string to my bow, as there was a vacancy in a very good _Stadttheater_ for which I was anxious to try. I opened negotiations with them through my agent, and after the usual delay arranged the _Gastspiels_. Their contralto was also leaving voluntarily. I was to sing the two _Erdas_ and _Ulrica_ in the "Masked Ball." When I got there, I found this changed to the _Erdas_ and _Fricka_, which I had not sung for a year. Then they demanded _Frau Reich_ in "Merry Wives" without a rehearsal instead of the "Siegfried" _Erda_. I was very unhappy, for I knew from this that things were going badly, and that they had no intention of engaging me, no matter how or what I sang. The Direction wrote me that, in spite of my great talents, my voice was not quite large enough for their house. The truth was that their contralto, who was a Jewess and therefore of the same religion as most of the committee, had been offered an increase of salary to remain, and had accepted. The Direction themselves felt badly over the way they had treated me, and the _Intendant_ telephoned to a _Hoftheater_, not far off, where he knew there was going to be a vacancy, to recommend me to their Director in the highest terms. This was Darmstadt, the capital of a small principality, famous for its opera house, which had existed for a hundred years. It is a town of about 100,000 inhabitants, and the residence of the reigning Grand Duke, Ernst Ludwig. His mother had been the Princess Alice of England, daughter of Queen Victoria. He and his second wife, Eleanore, lived with their two little sons at the palace Princess Alice's money had built for them. It was really not a palace at all, but a large, roomy, comfortable house. His beautiful sister, Alexandra, married the Czar of Russia; another sister married the Kaiser's brother, Prince Henry of Prussia. The opera house, called _Hoftheater_, stood high in the second class. In the first class are Berlin, Vienna, Dresden and Münich, with possibly Hamburg. Then come Cologne, Frankfurt and Leipsic, and the _Hoftheaters_ Hanover, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, etc. In the third class are the smaller _Hoftheaters_ like Coburg, and the _Stadttheaters_ like Mainz. In the fourth, are the smallest _Stadttheaters_, and last of all come the little towns which have _Monatsoper_, or a one month season of opera in the year, after the seven month theatres are closed. The first class houses are open all the year, with a four or six weeks' vacation for the singers at different times, so that they shall not all be away together. The next class has a nine months' season, but in the _Hoftheaters_ the salary is paid in monthly instalments for twelve months in the year. I took the train for the town, not caring much whether they wanted me or not. Perhaps that was the right attitude, for after hearing one song with piano accompaniment, the _Intendant_ offered me a five-year contract. I asked them to make it three; the town seemed so small and quiet that I did not like the sound of five years in it. The salary was the highest they had ever paid a contralto. The Director said at once, "How much did they offer you in----?" and agreed to pay me only 500 marks a year less. I arranged to _gastieren_ very soon in _Carmen_, with _Nancy_ and one other part to follow. I sang only the _Carmen_ on trial, however, as the Grand Duke, who had come in especially from his country place to hear me, engaged me personally after the first act. I had a wonderful and rare chance to "be grand" when the Director told me this. He asked me if I would be willing to sing my other _Gastspiel_ of _Nancy_. I replied loftily that I really could not do so, as I must return to Paris. Six days before the opening of the season, according to contract, I arrived with my sister in the town which was to be my home for the next three years. It is surrounded by forests and looked very pretty; but oh! so quiet! The _Hoftheater_ stands in a park, and is a classic-looking structure seating 1,400 persons. It has been there for a hundred years, and runs by clockwork. A building behind it, more than half as large as the theatre itself, contains the ballet school and scene-painting lofts and a complete dressmaking and tailoring establishment, with the wardrobe mistress and master at the head, where all costumes are made. They are also kept here, and the collection is a very complete one, with endless sets of uniforms, armour and historical costumes of all kinds. Men's dress is supplied; women who have a salary of more than 3600 marks ($900) are supposed to supply their own, but if you are nice to the wardrobe mistress she will usually contrive to find what you want, though you must get permission from the Direction to wear it. Excellent dressers are provided for the principals, and a hair-dresser to put on your wig. There is a small charge if it requires dressing. The theatre pays these people, but you are supposed to tip them on New Year's Day, also the stage doorkeeper, the man who brings you the scores of your parts, and any one else you like, though only the first four expect it; and 10 marks ($2.50) is a liberal tip. You are expected to keep your costumes at home, and send them over in a basket-trunk on the morning of the performance for your dresser to unpack, press and hang up. You pay a man $1.00 a month to do this, though many singers send their servant. There are four Kapellmeisters, the first one who rejoiced in the title of _Hofrat_ (Court councillor), the second, and third, and a fourth for the chorus. Felix Weingartner is now first conductor there. The orchestra consists of sixty musicians, and is really good. They have played together so long, that they can play almost anything, and they excel in Mozart, whom, with Wagner, they adore, while they look with condescension upon the works of Puccini. The scenery of this particular opera house used to be famous. They were the first to have moons which really rose about as slowly as the real one, and they are still unique in possessing a wonderful clock-work sun, which contracts as it rises. The _Ring_ dramas, with their complicated settings, are given without a single hitch; the "Magic Flute" is presented with some nineteen scenes, all dark changes; and this is one of the four theatres in the world where Goethe's "Faust" is given entire, on four consecutive evenings. The artist, Kempin, who is responsible for all new scenery, is a man of considerable reputation, outside the town as well as in it, as a painter. He does excellent things when he is allowed a free hand, as he inclines very strongly toward modern _styliziert_ (conventionalized) scenery _à la Reinhardt_. His production of "La Belle Hélène" was worth seeing, and his "_Gretchen's_ room" in "Faust" is one of the most charming stage settings I have ever seen. There is a large, thoroughly trained chorus, each with a repertoire of over fifty operas, whose members are paid, as a rule, about 125 marks a month ($26), everything but modern dress supplied. None receives more, except those who fill small "speaking parts." In a ballet of forty the dancers receive from 75 to 80 marks apiece with all costumes furnished. Knowing these figures, as I do, it is hard for me to credit those I once saw quoted in a music journal from a German book on the subject. The author stated that the ballet girls in Hanover receive only 10 marks ($2.50) a month. Hanover, being a larger city and affiliated with Berlin pays better salaries than this opera house of which I am writing. He also said that the "leading lady" in Eisenach had only 15 marks a month! As I, as a beginner and foreigner, in Metz, received $35 a month, I cannot but think that he had forgotten to add the cipher and meant 150 marks! The costume expenses that he spoke of, are certainly a great tax upon the German _actresses_ in smaller theatres; but I think I have shown how greatly the wardrobe of a _singer_ in such a theatre may be simplified, especially by a thrifty German woman, up to all the dodges of different pairs of sleeves for the same gown. After all, costume expenses are as high or as low as one makes them. None of our American girls thinks of becoming an actress on the European stage, so these costume expenses need not trouble her personally, and the majority of German actresses manage to live on their earnings. The principals in my theatre received from $900 to $3500 a year, which last named sum is paid to the _Heldentenor_, and on which he is rich. The rent of a good flat is 700-800 marks a year ($180-$200). I paid 1100 marks ($275) for mine because it was situated on the best street, near the palace. It contained four rooms, with kitchen, bath, maid's room and two balconies. A good general servant receives 25 marks a month ($6.24). Her wages and everything about her are regulated by police inspection. The _Polizei_, in fact, regulates the whole town, even the closing of the theatre, which can only be shut in case of destruction by fire, serious epidemic or martial law. The same system of alternating plays with opera obtains in all but the very largest German cities. We had some splendid actors in our cast, some of whom are now in leading positions in the greatest theatres. The repertoire, for a town of 100,000 people, is extraordinary. The German classics, Goethe and Schiller, alternate with Shakespeare; the modern poetic dramas, the plays of Hebbel, Grillpartzer, the sparkling comedies of Schnitzler are interchanged with translations of Ibsen, Bernard Shaw, Pinero, etc. Sudermann and Hauptmann may follow the latest French salon comedy, or a new farce; and the good old ones that everybody knows like "Kyritz Pyritz," and "Charley's Aunt" are not allowed to die. Then there are peasant plays in dialect and fairy plays for the children at Christmas. CHAPTER XV SALARIES AND A TENOR'S GENIUS If you make a hit with the audience your residence in the town is made very pleasant. Even the conductors and motormen of the street cars used to greet me as they passed and all the policemen were my friends. I had letters to some of the people in the town through relations, and took as much part as I had time for in the really charming, if slightly narrow, social life of the place. The centre of everything was, of course, the Court. The Grand Duke took a great interest in the theatre, and used to watch the productions notebook in hand. Any detail which did not please him was immediately noted and sent then and there to the stage manager to be changed. We had some special privileges as we were classed as _Beamten_ or official servants of the government. One was the right to wine from the ducal cellars at cost price, or duty free. Another was a 10 per cent. discount at all the shops. Extra money is often to be picked up by a _Gastspiel aushilfsweise_, that is, an emergency call from a neighbouring theatre. Our opera soubrette once received a hurry call to another _Hofoper_ one hour's journey away. The train would have made her too late, so she took an automobile and her costume with her, and drove at breakneck speed through the woods to the town. She was to sing _Cherubino_ in "Figaro" and, as she dressed in the auto to save time, the surprise of the chauffeur may be imagined when, instead of a brunette girl, a blond boy emerged from his car! I made my first appearance as a regular member of the company as _Dalila_. The only comment afterwards of the first Kapellmeister, who directed the performance, was, "Why did you make the eighth note in such and such a phrase a sixteenth?" I repeat this, in order to give an idea of the standard of thoroughness with which the musical part of the opera was prepared. When we were rehearsing _Dalila_ on the stage, I, having studied the rôle in Paris and being imbued with the spirit of the French performers, occasionally gave that swing from the hips on a particularly luscious phrase, using as faithfully as I could remember it de Reszke's masterly interpretation and flow of line. The _Hofrat_ rapped on his desk, and half patronizingly, half contemptuously, with a pitying smile, bade me not indulge in _franzoesische Manniere_--French mannerisms. As many room rehearsals were held as were necessary before the singers could sing their parts, giving every note its exact value. A singer might make mistakes during the performance, but the _Hofrat_ always mentioned it afterwards. My _Samson_ was, of course, the _Heldentenor_, and he was a character; a tall, good-looking man, with an immense, ill-used voice, but a wonderful actor. He had a great success with the ladies, and his adventures, matrimonial and otherwise, were the principal source of gossip of the town. His lady-love at this time was a certain Baroness, whom he afterwards married. Their great amusement was rushing about the country together in a white automobile filled with flowers. She used to hang fascinated over the edge of her box, high above the stage, watching his every look and gesture, her large bust on the edge of the box. When he left the stage she would sink back in her chair, really exhausted, and rub her eyes with her hand. He was the only person who was allowed to disturb the orderly rehearsals. Every one was afraid of him when he lost his temper and raged up and down the stage, shouting what he would do to his enemy when he caught him. One day, I remember, he was furious with the _Intendant_ because birthday honours had been distributed by the Grand Duke, in the form of decorations, and he had received none. He made sure that it was the _Intendant's_ spite against him, but it was in reality, of course, his notorious way of living that prevented his being decorated. He shouted that he would "buy himself two cents' worth of soft soap and grease his back with it and make the _Intendant_ climb up it!" Then that he would get him in the woods and run his auto over him, and run it back and forth, and back and forth, until there was nothing left but apple sauce! Finally the Direction could stand him no longer, great actor as he was, and his contract was broken on the pretext of his having been absent from the town without leave. You are supposed not to go further than a certain stated distance from the theatre without due notification and permission. He left the place with his Baroness, and his return to it was characteristic. The first time that Zeppelin's airship passed over the town, he was in it, hanging out of the car, shouting and throwing down postcards! As _Siegfried_ in "Goetterdaemmerung," he left an ineffaceable impression on me. I have never seen it equalled by any tenor. When he gazes at _Brünnhilde's_ ring, and his memory fails to recall just what it means to him, his puzzled look of baffled memory, the ray of understanding that almost pierced his forgetfulness, all were suggested in so tremendous a way that one saw inside his brain,--and all this utterly without exaggerated mannerisms. I seemed to find favour in his sight, and during the _Dalila_ rehearsals he made hot love to me. In the performance, when _Dalila_ sinks into his arms on the couch, he nearly upset me by saying fervently out loud: "_Ach! endlich weiss man was est ist ein schoenes Weib im Arm zu haben?_" ("Ah! at last one knows what it is to have a beautiful woman in one's arms.") I considered this a distinct reflection on his adoring Baroness, and withheld the signs of delight he no doubt expected. He told me once, one only wish he had,--just to see my _Spinne_, or _lingerie_ closet. One day, as we were all in the greenroom, during a rehearsal, waiting our turn to be called to the stage, I saw S----'s eyes transfixed with horror. Looking in the direction he pointed I saw the opera soubrette Z----, putting on her rubbers and crossing her legs in doing so. This action revealed to our delighted gaze trouserettes of red striped canton flannel, shirred into a band half way between calf and ankle, and there adorned with a blanket-stitched frill of the same material. S---- was too sickened by the sight to do more than helplessly gasp, "Typical!" to me. A curious person; fastidious, sensual, unquestionably endowed with genius, he just couldn't behave. He was asked to sing _Siegfried_ once, at a neighbouring opera house, on very short notice. He had to dress in the train in order to be there on time when the curtain went up. Fellow travellers, who saw him enter the train dressed in the ordinary way, were rather horrified to see a half-naked savage emerge at the journey's end; but S---- was quite impervious to the sensation he created. He never wore the hideous tights most _Siegfrieds_ try to make you think are skin, but his splendid shoulders rose naked from his bearskin, and his bare legs were bound with furry thongs. The _Heldenbariton_ was of another type. He had been twenty-five years on the stage, and twenty in this theatre. Opera singing for him was like going to his office. He had his house with a charming garden, his family, and a circle of friends and acquaintances, which included nearly the whole population. There are many cases like his in this class of theatre, and a pleasant life they lead. After eight years in the same _Hoftheater_ they are eligible for a pension, a certain proportion of their salary, which increases with their years of service, up to a fixed point. Only certain _Hoftheaters_ have this pension fund; it is very nice for some singers, but a great hardship for others. If you leave that theatre before your eight years are up, you lose all that you have paid during your engagement. Contribution to the pension fund is compulsory for all singers and actors in that theatre. One singer whom I knew had spent sixteen years in different theatres, always paying a pension tax, and never receiving the benefit of one penny from the money, as her engagement in each place came to an end before the stipulated eight years. Unscrupulous directors take advantage of this to fail to renew a singer's contract when it gets near the eighth year. The invaluable _Genossenschaft_ is also trying to remedy this abuse. Some of the regular members of a _Hoftheater_ have enviable concert reputations as well, though in Germany the two professions are quite separate, and concert singing is generally looked upon as the higher branch of art. The critics are suspicious of the opera singer in concert, to such an extent that I was advised, at my first Berlin recital, to keep my real standing in the profession dark and present myself without my title of _Hofopernsängerin_. I suggested to my agent that, as I was quite unknown in Berlin, it might be well to spend a little money in extra advertising. "Advertising?" said he, "they will think you are a soap!" So I sang unheralded except by the usual half-inch in the daily papers. In contrast to the publicity campaigns and press-agents of this country, let me give another instance of how they did things in Germany before the war. On being engaged at this _Hoftheater_, I thought I ought to let the public know it. I wrote my agent, Herr Harder, asking him to spend 1000 marks ($250) for me in judicious advertising of my engagement. He answered that there was no way in which he could place the money to further my interests, and returned it! The first contract which was offered me for a concert tour in America, provided for $2,000 to be paid down for advertising before the tour began. CHAPTER XVI THE ART OF MARIE MUELLE One factor in my success was the beautiful wardrobe I was enabled to have through the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Frank S. Jones. The first clothes I ordered from Marie Muelle in Paris, the summer before I went to Metz, I left entirely to her. She showed me designs and had bolts of wonderful shimmering silks unrolled for my inspection, and brought out boxes of curious embroideries, which she kept for her special friends. The _Amneris_ and _Dalila_ costumes she made me were very French of that period of the _Comique_; pale pinks and greens and everything in long wigs. I wore them a few seasons, but as I grew more in knowledge I did not feel at all Egyptian in pink _crêpe de Chine_, nor Syrian in pale green. My brother Cecil and I love the Egyptian part of the Louvre, and have spent hours there together. We found a fascinating bronze princess of the right period, which we proceeded to try and copy for me for _Amneris_. [Illustration: DALILA AS I USED TO DRESS IT] We were staying out of town at Giverny, the artist colony made famous by Monet, Macmonnies, Friesieke, the A. B. Frost family and many artist friends. I had a big studio with my brother, and he made huge designs of the wings the princess used for her skirt, pinning them on the wall of the studio, then colouring them in the tones of the mummy cases, allowing for their fading through the ages. These designs we took to Muelle, who was most enthusiastic. We worked hard and long on that costume, getting the headdress just right, and making it practical as well as correct. The jewelry I made myself, from wooden beads painted the right colour and in the rue de Rivoli I found just the right Egyptian charms and figures of blue earthenware to hang on the necklace. My wig maker could not seem to satisfy me, so I finally took a short-haired black wig, and braided into it one hundred strands, made of lustreless wool. The dress seemed to lack something when on, so I twisted ropes of turquoise beads round the wrists and the blue accented the whole. The _Dalila_ clothes I had been wearing then seemed hopelessly pale, washy and conventional, so we hunted the shops of Berlin and Paris for vivid embroideries and searched museums for Syrian women. They did not seem at all popular, though we found magnificent reliefs of men. Taking these as a basis, we built some barbaric robes of scarlet and purple, added a fuzzy short black wig, and I felt much more "like it." I found a necklace of silver chains with clumps of turquoise matrix, in Darmstadt, and had a headdress made to match it. A comparison of the _Amneris_ and _Dalila_ photos will show how one's sense of costuming develops. We bought all the books on the subject we could find, and studied them for hours. We cut out reproductions of historic portraits and invested largely in photos in the different art galleries we haunted, and pasted them into scrap books. Caps and headdresses have always interested me intensely. The one I wear in "Meistersinger" I copied from a portrait in Antwerp. The Norwegian one I wear as _Mary_ in "Fliegender Hollaender" I bought in Norway, together with the rest of my costume. Nothing gives such character to a silhouette as a characteristic head, and having to do endless old women, I could give them all just as endless changes of headgear. A comparison of the photos will also show how one grows into the rôle with years of playing, and how one's eyes "come to," how one develops histrionically--how the silhouette acquires snap and vim and carrying power at a distance, and outlines become crisp and authoritative. My first _Carmen_ clothes were very _Opéra Comique_ and not at all Spanish gipsy. I studied the Spanish cigarette girls and those of gipsy blood as carefully as possible, and my idea of the rôle changed naturally. I went to Muelle one summer, and told her that I was no longer happy in satin princess dresses. She said that Zuloaga had just designed and superintended the making of Breval's clothes for the _Comique's_ real Spanish revival of _Carmen_. She could duplicate these for me as she knew just where to send in Spain for the flowered cottons in garish colours, and the shot silk scarfs that Zuloaga had imported for Breval. I was delighted at this and adapted the costumes to my needs, using the last one exactly as Zuloaga had intended, with the huge red comb, made specially in Spain. When I sang _Carmen_ before Prince Henry of Prussia in Darmstadt, he sent word to me that my skirts were too long, no Spanish woman wore them so long. I knew, however, that they were the right length, and any one can see by studying Zuloaga's paintings that the soubrette length skirt is not worn on the proud, swinging hips of the Spanish girl. I have been told by Spaniards that I am an exact reproduction of a Spanish gipsy as _Carmen_, which shows my studies were not in vain. People have said that Merimée's and Bizet's _Carmen_ is not Spanish, and perhaps they are right; but in aiming to portray a Spaniard, what model can one take but a real one? My _Orfeo_ clothes I have never changed. The _crêpe de chine_ for them was imported by Mounet-Sully for one of his characters, and Muelle gave me the piece that was left over. Its beautiful creamy colour and thick softness cannot be improved upon, to my mind. Marie Muelle is now the first operatic costumer of the world. This reputation she has built unaided through her own unfailing energy. Through her rooms pass the most fabulous-priced opera singers, the greatest actors, the stage beauties, famous managers, producers, and designers, the ladies of the great world seeking costumes for wonderful private _fêtes_--and gentlemen seeking the ladies--all the varied crowd of many nationalities to whom the old childish pastime of "dressing up" is a business or a pleasure. The present establishment in the rue de la Victoire is quite impressive. The hall is usually half-filled with the trunks of "Muelle artists" engaged in America, who bring their things into New York in bond to avoid paying the ruinous customs charges, and are therefore forced to go through the weary round of dispatching the same old stage wardrobe out of the country and bringing it back again every season. Even when the clothes are quite reduced to shreds and patches the rags have to be elaborately packed, identified by lynx-eyed officials, and sent at least outside the three-mile limit of the American Continent to be thrown away! The first big white reception room of the Maison contains a long table usually littered with samples, some chairs, and a large mirror lit like that of a star's dressing room. There is a mantelpiece covered with photographs of singers of all grades of celebrity, each dedicated with a message of admiring affection to Marie Muelle. Around the wall are various _armoires_, one containing a library of works on costume, another a glittering collection of stage jewelry, a third many portfolios of water-colour designs for every sort and kind of theatrical garment for every rôle. Oh! those designs! A young soprano has won an engagement in Monte Carlo and wants a stage wardrobe for her repertoire. Out comes the "Modern French" portfolio with a bewildering series of blonde and sinuous _Thaises_, Moyen-Age _Mélisandes_, a scintillating _Ariane_ in contrast to a demure little work-a-day _Louise_; and the lady spends a delightful afternoon in selecting her favourites. Then Muelle sends for an armful of samples-- "_Crêpe de chine_, of course, for the _Thais_. Yes, in flesh pink with plenty of embroidery. Here is an _échantillon_"--and she pins it to the drawing. The singer picks out a scrap of heavy, lustrous crêpe-- "No, not that quality. That is something special, and there is no more to be had for love or money." Colours and fabrics are decided upon, all tested for becomingness under the bunched electric lights, which mimic the strong light of the stage. Each design has an assortment of tags of material pinned where many others have been pinned before. Muelle is an expert in colours for the stage. She doesn't talk learnedly of synthetic dyes, processes, or German competition, but she can give you a bright blue that is warranted to stay blue, no matter what vagaries of lighting a stage manager may indulge in. Her pale colours never turn insipid, nor her dark ones muddy. She keeps a special dyeing establishment busy with her orders alone, and twenty-four hours seems time enough to obtain any shade known to the palette. The textiles once chosen, Camille is called to "take measures" and arrange for the fittings. "And now, one question," says Mademoiselle, "Is your stage level, or does it slope towards the back? Very well, that is all." When the singer arrives for her first trying-on, the fitting room is filled with lengths of material, and Mademoiselle herself stands in the midst, brandishing a huge pair of shears. She throws a length of silk over one of your shoulders, puts in two pins, and bunching the material in her left hand, gives a slash with the scissors in her right, with a recklessness that makes you shudder. A pull here, a fold there, two more pins--and the stuff hangs as almost no one else can make it hang, accentuating a good figure and disguising a poor one. Occasionally in filling a regular order she will stumble upon an unusual effect. One day they were making Moyen-Age sleeves for the dress of a well-known singer whom Mlle. Muelle has gowned for years, but who has never been included in the list of her special favourites. The sleeve was of slashed silvery grey, lined with cerise, the lining showing on the edges. She picked up a bit of cloth of silver and pulled it through the slashes. The effect charmed her. "_Tenez!_" she said, "That is too good for her. We'll keep that for La Belle Geraldine." "La Belle Geraldine," as Miss Farrar is known in Paris, is one of Muelle's most constant patrons. Ever since her Berlin days she has been costumed by the Maison Muelle, and she stands very high in the list of Mademoiselle's favourites. The outer room may contain the photographs of celebrities great and small, but in the inner room there are just two--a portrait of Miss Farrar as _Elizabeth_ and one of myself as _Carmen_. Opening off the main reception and fitting rooms are others lined with _armoires_ and stacks of boxes running to the ceiling. Then come the rooms for cutting and sewing, and the embroidery rooms. Muelle uses quantities of solid embroidery and _appliqué_ work, where other costumers are content with stenciling and gilding. She has the secret of a metal thread that does not tarnish. Her idea is that the use of first-class materials, good silks and satins, real velvets is a necessity in these days of electric lighting, which is as revealing as sunlight; that the substitution of imitation fabrics went out with the use of gas in the theatre, and that the superior wearing qualities alone of the best materials justify the greater expense. The capacity of her _armoires_ and the size of the accumulated collections they contain were tested some years ago by the special production of Strauss's "Salome" at the Châtelet Theatre in Paris, when Muelle was called upon, at ridiculously short notice, to furnish all costumes for a cast of 150 people. There was a royal ransacking of cupboards and jewel cabinets, but everything was ready on time for the dress rehearsal. [Illustration: DALILA AS I NOW DRESS IT] A greater feather in her cap was the order to costume the new productions of the Russian Ballet, from designs by no less a personage than the great Leon Bakst himself. Then ensued a dyeing of silks and a printing of chiffons, a stringing of beads and knotting of fringes which set the whole establishment humming like a beehive. For all their thousand problems, the costumes were finished and delivered at the appointed time. Since that triumph there has been hardly an important costume event in all Paris in which Muelle has not had a share, if not entire charge. She costumed Astruc's first season in the Théâtre des Champs Elysées. She has been responsible for the costuming of many productions of the Russian Ballet, and for great spectacles like Debussy's "St. Sebastien" and "La Pisanelle" of D'Annunzio. Society knows her as well as the stage, for she has been the presiding genius at many an exquisite fête, Greek, Roman, or Persian, held in lovely gardens behind the prosaic exteriors of exclusive Parisian homes. But all this has not turned her head, nor changed her toward her old friends. She still loves a good gossip. Many a note have we had from her--"I am delighted that Mademoiselle is returning to Paris, and hope that she will come to see me. I have quantities of stories to tell her, and we shall die of laughing." But though she enjoys a choice tidbit, she will tolerate no malicious tale-bearing. She refused an order, tactfully and firmly, from one singer because the lady tried to tell tales out of school against one of Muelle's chosen favourites. Her revenge in this case was typical. She knows that advancing age is the enemy _par excellence_ of popularity for stage people, so she makes a point of always referring to the delinquent as "La Mère So-and-So!" The list of her kindnesses to artists is unending. One case that I know of personally is typical. A girl with an unusually beautiful voice had arranged a début, leading to a first engagement, and she ordered her wardrobe from Muelle. She failed to be engaged after her début, however, and one disappointment after another came to her, so that it seemed impossible for her to make a start at all. But Muelle had faith in her, and kept the beautiful clothes, unpaid for, hanging in her presses for several years. At last the girl made a great hit in Russia, and is now a well-known singer, and, needless to say, a faithful adherent of the Maison Muelle. This is only one instance of the kind, and, of course, there are many, many more in which Mademoiselle's kindness does not find a monetary reward. Often have I heard her suggesting economy to those whose salaries are not in the "fabulous" class. She will show a girl how to costume two rôles, with the same dresses, by combinations and changes so cleverly thought out that the keenest public won't detect them. _Elizabeth_ and _Elsa_ may wear the same mantle, right side out in one rôle and wrong side out in the other. An extra tabard of brocade or embroidery will allow an _Ophelia_ to wear the gowns of _Marguerite_--all tricks of the trade, and well understood in the Maison Muelle. Brilliantly clever, immensely capable, good-natured, and big-hearted, a splendid organizer and the faithfulest of friends, Marie Muelle has earned by the hardest of hard work, and now justly enjoys her title of "First Theatrical Costumer," not only of Paris, but of the world. CHAPTER XVII THE NON-MILITARY SIDE OF A GERMAN OFFICER'S LIFE One of the first things you do on arriving at a new residence in Germany is to acquaint the police of your presence. This is called _Anmeldung_. It is a fearsome experience and admits of no trifling. You go to the appointed stuffy office, and tell your nationality, birthplace with date of birth, your parents' names, their profession if any, and your own, their birthplaces and ages, if they are dead and what they died of, whether you are married or single, number, names and ages of your children, and any little extra detail that may occur to the official in Prussian blue who holds the inquisition. If you have an unusual name, he won't believe you when you claim it. A girl I knew was christened Jean, but she is down in the police records of Berlin as Johanna, because her policeman said that Jean was a man's name, and French at that! Every servant maid has a book, which must be signed by the police when you engage her, and when she leaves you, before she may take another place. When you engage her she must be _angemeldet_ too, in order that she may be charged with her proper insurance tax. This amounts to about five dollars a year; the employer pays one-half, the servant the other. Many employers pay it all. This entitles the servant to treatment at the dispensary or in the hospital if she is ill. The police are very careful of her comfort, and pay a visit to the house in which she is employed to see that her room is big enough, airy enough, warmed in winter, and that her bed is comfortable! She has a long list of "rights" including so many loaves of black bread and so many bottles of beer per week; and she dare not be offended if you keep everything under lock and key. You have not yet finished your _Anmeldung_ if you keep a dog, for he must be registered, too, and you pay highly for the luxury. The _Polizei_ decides when you may and may not play on your piano or sing. Before nine in the morning, after nine at night, all musical instruments are taboo. The sacred sleeping hour after dinner, from two to four, must also be observed in silence in Berlin. Nothing dare interfere with the after-dinner nap; even the banks are closed from one to two, or even three. You write to the _Polizei_ in Germany where the Englishman writes to the _Times_. I remember a perfect avalanche of anonymous cards in Darmstadt because a child in our house would practise with her windows open and neighbours thought it was the _Hofopernsaengerin_ Howard. The intricacies of paying your taxes take some study. Foreigners must pay taxes on money earned in the country; town and county taxes are payable every three months, on alternate months, in two different parts of the town. You arrive at the _Staedtische Halle_ to pay your town taxes, and you are very lucky if, after picking out the right month, you succeed in hitting the day when the place is open. A small sign on the locked door may greet you: "Closed on the ninth and fifteenth of every month." If day and month are right, you may easily strike the wrong hour, for town taxes are payable, say, from eight to ten A. M., and two to five P. M., while county ones are from nine to twelve, and four to seven. There are church taxes besides, very small if you are Catholic and larger if you are Evangelical. I succeeded in getting out of these by declaring myself neither. Unfortunately I did not know the word for undenominational and so had to say that we were "heathen." My sister was asked in a rasping official voice, filled with the large contempt for women which a certain type of German official always reeks with, "_Sind Sie ledig?_" She, poor dear, had never heard "_ledig_" before, and stammered "_Was?_" The question was rapped out again, and she said, "_Ich--weiss nicht._" When she got home and looked up _ledig_, she found the man had been asking if she were married or single. What he made of her answer we never knew. All these little things are very amusing in Germany. The way everything seems _verboten_, at first is annoying, but later amusing. The paths in the Tiergarten in Berlin always used to tempt me to be bad. I always wanted to walk on the path reserved for bicyclists, or horses, or sit on the benches reserved for children only. The letter boxes say to you, "_Aufschrift und Marke nicht vergessen!_" ("Address and stamp not to be forgotten!") The door mat shrieks at you, "_Bitte, Fuesse Reinigen!_" ("Please wipe your feet.") Towels, brushes, etc., all say "_Bitte_" at you. I believe one could travel all through Germany with just "_Bitte_," and get an insight into the different phases of German character through the intonations of this word. A rather annoying custom in Darmstadt was the way the bakers over-celebrated every holiday. They had usually the "_Erster, Zweiter, und Dritter Feiertag_"--first, second and third holiday, and they toiled not on those three days. All the bread you could get, if you had neglected to provide enough, was square pretzels, baked exceptionally large and hard. This may have been a Darmstadt custom only, as they vary so all over Germany, that what holds good in the north may be quite unknown in the south. For instance, cream is _Sahne_ in Berlin, _Rahm_ in Darmstadt, and has even a third name in other parts of Germany, which I have forgotten. You can get a wonderful _Sandtorte_--a firm, delicious cake, in Berlin, but I never succeeded in getting it just right in Southern or Middle Germany. A quaint old custom in Darmstadt was always observed on the first Sunday in Advent. The Grand Duke always did his shopping for Christmas on that day, and the country people thronged into the town. A band used to play before the shop in which the Grand Duke was, and move as he moved. We gave an extra long performance at the opera, "Goetterdaemmerung," or some such serious business, but the Grand Duke never could honour us with his presence, as every one in town would have felt cheated if he had. The shopping in Darmstadt was really quite remarkable. We always thought it an excellent thing that after eleven o'clock in the morning not a scrap of meat was visible in the white-tiled butcher shops, everything being put away on ice. Food is taken very seriously, of course, and asparagus is honoured above any other vegetable by having its own subscription season. That is, you subscribe at the beginning of the season, so much a day, and asparagus is delivered to you daily while it lasts at that price, the sum not varying with the fluctuations of the market. The old market place was a delight on full market days. The grumpy old women would sit in the middle of their piles of fruit and vegetables, while you threaded your way along the uneven cobblestone lanes they had left in between their stalls. Brilliant awning umbrellas have been adopted and glow in the sun, against the darkly moist, old walls of the frowning castle just behind. The old Dames call out to you, "Well, Madamsche', nothing from me today? Aren't my things good enough for you?" "Madamsche'" is a left-over from ancient French times, and the final "n" is left off, as are all "n's" in Hessen dialect. This dialect also lacks "r's." They tell a tale of the Railroad conductors calling out "Station Daaaaamstadt!" so loudly and persistently as to annoy Grand Ducal ears, and they were ordered to pay more attention to their "r's." Now they call out in a superior tone "Starrrr-rtion--Damstadt!" and feel sure every one is satisfied. We had exceptional opportunities of knowing Germans of all classes, from the cleaning women in the theatre to royalty. The military types are most varied, ranging from the Prussian Junker to the _gemuetlicher Bayer_, with his easy South German ways. We met many officers and their families, both in Metz and Darmstadt. In Metz, during the last year, we grew to know and be fond of a young Bavarian lieutenant. With him we drove and picnicked in the lovely Metz country. It was early spring, and we would take the train to some little village near by, and have our tea in the woods or at one of the thousands of _Gasthäuse_ that dot Germany. I remember one Sunday afternoon in a still, steep-sided ravine, the walls of it rising sharply on either side, thickly wooded with giant beeches; the sun-flecked grass aquiver with myriads of white ethereal wind-flowers. A shrine, with a blue-robed Virgin looked down on us, and the wood-hush was only broken by the songs of birds, twittering and gurgling high above us in the branches. Suddenly far off the sound of singing; and slowly a procession of children came into view, singing in well-harmonized parts as they walked. They all genuflected before the Virgin and wound off into the woods, their voices dying away in the distance. We often studied the old battlefields, so fiercely contested in 1870, and F---- would point out to us just where the different regiments advanced and fell. A long way off seemed the horrors of war, and we never dreamed what much greater horrors were soon to descend on us. We loved the Bavarians with their kind artistic souls in those days, and yet they tell me they were among the worst in the early days in Belgium. The military spirit was rampant in Metz, of course, and we got to know that side of it well, as some of the officers had English wives, who were very good to us. The delightful manners of the officers always charmed us; we were told they are trained to social manners by their superior officers. The cavalry regiments were the smartest ones, both in Metz and Darmstadt, the Infantry being solidly aristocratic, but less dashing. The _Pioniere_ (Engineers) were rather despised socially, while the poor _Train_ or Commissariat, was utterly looked down upon and hardly bowed to. The Bavarian infantry has its special social standing, because the old nobility is largely represented in it. What they lack in riches they make up in pride. All the other German infantry regiments wear dark blue trousers, no matter what colour their tunics; the Bavarians, however, have stuck to their light blue trousers, in spite of all attempts to change them. The Prince Regent was famous for wearing his much too long, and very wrinkled over badly fitting boots. The smartest officers wore the _Ballon Muetze_ (balloon cap) introduced by the Crown Prince and ineffectually forbidden by his father. It is called "balloon" because it is much higher than the ones worn by less smart officers. The height of the collar is the other important thing. In a sterling officer of the old school, it is low and comfy; the smarter you are the higher your collar. If they are fat, the two or three creases at the back of the neck above the collar, always look to me unmistakably--German. The life they lead is in general very simple, according to our ideas. Their Casino is their meeting place in the evening, like an officers' club. Some of them are tremendously hard workers, most ambitious, and showing real interest in their men. F---- used to teach his more illiterate ones to read and write, and many were the stories he told of the thick-headed Bavarian peasants. The difference in these men, when we saw them arriving in the fall, as rookies, and after a year's training, was absolutely amazing; slumped shoulders had straightened, lower jaws had decided to connect with upper ones, and eyes focused intelligently. Each officer has his _Bursch_ or private servant, who usually chooses to be one. These are treated as friends by their masters, if the latter happen to be non-Prussian in character. I said once to F----, "Is Karl your servant?" "No, he is _mein Freund_" he said. An officer in Diedenhofen where we occasionally sang while I was with the Metz opera, used to send me gorgeous flowers. He had a way of sitting near the stage and applauding by flapping his handkerchief against the palm of his white kid glove, which so enraged me that I never acknowledged the flowers. One night, an ugly old contralto took my part, as I was laid up, and that was the night the officer had selected to present me with a huge basket of white azaleas and blue satin ribbon. The old dame rewarded the house in general with a false-teeth smile on receiving them over the footlights, which must have discouraged my admirer as the flowers stopped abruptly. We quite often saw young officers very drunk on the streets in Metz, at about five in the afternoon. Asking F---- about this, we were told that it was only the young ones, if we would notice, and that they were obliged to empty their glasses, when toasted by superior officers at regimental dinners. If these gentlemen caught their eyes, as they raised their glasses, many times during the two o'clock dinner, the silly young fellows' heads naturally grew befuddled, but it was not etiquette to refuse to empty their glass. This custom was very hard on a _Faehnrich_ or Ensign, and was later done away with. The smartest officers had English dogcarts, and were certainly most dashing. Many clever ones in the cavalry made money out of horses, buying and selling them amongst themselves. In Darmstadt they introduced the English hunt, and wore the pink. We used to go up to Frankfort for the "gentlemen races," and often saw our own Northern cousins, whose names we knew, but whom we never had the opportunity of meeting, riding with great skill and daring. These races were much encouraged by the Kaiser, and sometimes giant Eitel-Fritz would come and look on, or the dandy Prince Schaumberg-Lippe would make his horse mince round the ring. He was a great beau and ladies' favourite and the horrible accident that has deprived him of his beauty in the battlefield, seems an impossible thing to have happened to just him. Our friend F---- was known in his regiment as "Revolver mouth." This title he earned through his witty tongue and his habit of hitting the bull's-eye in his table conversation. His great friend, a smart young _nouveau riche_, in the most exclusive cavalry regiment, who had much more money than brains, was the butt of much goodnatured chaff from F----. One evening F---- recounted to a group of brother officers how S----, who was notorious for his absent-mindedness and poor memory, was seen miles away from home, galloping down a dusty road. F---- hailed him and said, "But where's your horse?" "That's true," said S---- looking down in utter astonishment, "I must have forgotten to get on him." S---- was famous for his sharpness in choosing and trading horseflesh, and F---- used to call him on the 'phone, saying "Is this Herr S----? _Guten tag!_ I am Graf Pumpernickel." Then he would elaborately arrange a rendezvous in some very public spot in Metz, at which S---- was to appear with the horse he wished to trade. Of course when poor S---- kept the appointment, only a group of jeering young rascals greeted him, and S---- never discovered who Graf Pumpernickel was, though the joke was often repeated. The money question of the poorer officers, often proves very serious. They are forbidden to earn money in any way except by writing. They cannot marry the girl they choose unless between them they have a certain sum, a minimum; this keeps many fine young officers and charming girls from matrimony; and frequently results on the man's side in far-reaching evils of entangling affairs, and illegitimate children. An officer said to me once, he _thought_ he had no children, but a pretty woman who kept a shop in the Kathedral Plate once sent him a baby's pillow and he never was quite sure just what that meant. The Berlin demi-mondaines are certainly fascinating creatures, dressed in the most exquisite Paris clothes, and it is easy to understand how some penniless Graf may become hopelessly involved in an affair with one of them. Officially such things are frowned on. Talking of officers' troubles one day, F---- told me that suicide was often the _only_ possible solution, and for the honour of one's regiment one was sometimes expected to end one's life. An acquaintance of his had had a revolver sent him by his commanding officer as a gentle hint, on finding himself involved in a scandalous affair. In one Bavarian regiment, if you had debts, you were liable to be summoned at literally a moment's notice before your Colonel, and ordered to pay your debts in so many days, or leave the regiment. The usual thing was then to obtain the hand in marriage of the most attractive girl you knew with the most attractive bank-account. Sometimes they disappeared to America. Frau Seebold told us once, while she was singing in New York one winter, with an Austrian prima donna, that a man applied at the door for work during a heavy fall of snow. She told him to clear it away, and then come in for his money. He came, and noticing her strong accent, asked if she had long left the Fatherland. On her replying "no," he burst into a flood of German, and told her his pitiful story, while she made him hot coffee and tried to comfort him. He had been a lieutenant in a smart regiment, had gotten into trouble through a brother officer betraying his trust in him, and had had to disappear to America for the honour of the regiment. The poor fellow put his head on the kitchen table and sobbed as he told her how he sank lower and lower, till finally he shovelled snow. He also told her there was a club in New York where ex-officers who were coachmen, truck drivers, or waiters by day, could be gentlemen and comrades by night. He said their crests were carved above their places on the wall, and no one could belong except those of high birth. All this was years ago, and I have no idea whether such a place still exists. When a sudden silence falls on a party in Germany they say, "A Lieutenant pays his debts." Promotion is very slow, and to arrive at a decent income takes years. A Bavarian Colonel has only eight thousand marks a year. The equipment of an officer is very expensive; their Parade uniforms must always be spotless, and though you may wear tricot cloth every day, your parade uniform must be of finest broadcloth, and your sword knots of shining silver though a dash of rain ruins both. The scarlet collars are more extravagant even than the white cloth ones, as white may be cleaned at least once with gasoline, but scarlet is too delicate, and the slightest perspiration makes a lasting stain. This was all before the war, though, and perhaps the dazzling uniforms have given place for ever to dull khaki. If so Germany is the drabber, for the colour was a thing to make one's heart leap. In Darmstadt the first four rows in the orchestra were reserved for officers at reduced rates, and that beautiful border of colour always framed the stage in a brilliant band on opera nights. In Metz the rule against appearing in "Civil" on the street was very strict, and F---- used to come to see us in a full set of tennis flannels brandishing a racket, though he had never played in his life! In Darmstadt the same strictness prevailed. A friend of ours, a Major holding a very high position, had to dodge round corners, when he was out of uniform, in case the terrible General Plueskow should see him, and order him twenty-four hours' room arrest! By the way, when General Plueskow, who was about six feet seven, was in France as a young man, the French made a quip about him, "Who is the tallest officer in the German army?" was the question, and the answer was "Plueskow, because he is _Plus que haut_." CHAPTER XVIII GEESE AND GUESTS I was on the whole very happy in Darmstadt. All the leading contralto work came to me by right, and it was brightened by an occasional rôle in operetta. They found they could use me for smart ladies in such things as "Dollar Prinzessin," and I greatly enjoyed the dancing and gaiety of those performances. We had many operas in the repertoire that are seldom or never heard of in this country, "Evangelimann," "Hans Heiling," "Sieben Schwaben," all the Lortzings, "Undine," "Wildschuetz," "Zar und Zimmermann," "Weisse Dame," etc. Such things as "Fra Diavolo," and "Lustige Weiber," were always delightful to play. We gave "Koenigskinder" the first year it was brought out in Germany. Our clever Kempin designed charming sets for it, lit in the modern way, and the soprano, though a plain little thing, had a heavenly sympathetic voice, with a floating quality most appealing in the high part. During the _Première_ at the end of the last act, just as we were taking our calls from an enthusiastic public, a strange bearded man stepped out of the wings and joined us. Humperdinck, of course, whom I recognized in a minute from his photos. He said nothing to any of us, and we often speculated as to why he did not. He must have been pleased with the production, or he would not have shown himself; indeed we heard he was pleased, but no word was vouchsafed us. For our geese we had grey Pomeranian beauties and immense white birds from Italy. The Italians, besides being bigger were more numerous; they saw their opportunity to bully the Teutons within an inch of their lives, and they took it. There was a tank of real water on the stage, in which they loved to splash, but do you suppose a German goose was ever allowed to go near it? Ominous hisses kept them away, and they hated hissing as all actors do. The foreigners gobbled up all the food, before the others could get it, and the only time that there was any unanimity among them was when they were doing something they should not. One night the largest Italian stepped into a depression near the footlights, caught his foot, squawked loudly and passed on. The second largest immediately followed suit; there were eleven of them, and they all in turn caught a foot, squawked and waddled on, to the great delight of the audience. It was agonizing for us on the stage, waiting for each squawk. Animals were always a trial to the performers, though considered to lend a sure magnificence from the manager's point of view. We used to have a pack of hounds in the first act finale of "Tannhäuser." They always behaved beautifully and were allowed to run without leashes. One night, however, our little round _Souffleuse_, as the prompter is called, named "Bobberle" by the tenor as she was as broad as she was long, had taken her bread and sausages into her tiny pen. The dogs suddenly winded this, made a dive for the _Souffler Kasten_ (prompter's box), scratched out the package, devoured the contents and then politely left their cards on the box; poor Bobberle in helpless rage prompting the while. Since that night the dogs have been chained two and two. We often had famous guests. Edith Walker sang several times with us, and Knote quite as often. Schumann-Heink, a great friend of the Grand Duke's (she told me she would go through fire for him), sang _Azucena_. She had always been my girlhood's idol, and my ideal of an artist, so I embraced the opportunity to send her a wreath. They said she was much pleased by the attention from a contralto! She used some of my _Schmink_ to make up with, and I proudly have the stubs to this day. She made us all laugh in rehearsal. When she says in the last act that they will find only a skeleton when they come to drag her from her prison, she passed her hands over her ample contours and emitted a spontaneous chuckle that was irresistibly infectious. Bahr Mildenburg came to us also and revealed to me what _Ortrud_ might be. Especially in the first act is she overwhelming. In playing the part later I always felt her influence, and many things I do in that act were inspired by thoughts she gave me. Watch most _Ortruds_ in that scene. They simply stand in what they consider mantled inscrutability, trying to portray evil in a heavy, unsubtle manner; and then see Bahr Mildenburg, if you can. All the really great people I have ever met are unpretentious and absolutely charming to work with. Only the near-great seem to consider it necessary to remind you all the time that they are other than you. The greater the man the simpler his manner, I have always found, and I think many will agree with me. There was an excellent store of men's costumes to call on; beautiful embroidered coats and waistcoats from the eighteenth century, real uniforms of many regiments of bygone days, and the best Wagnerian barbaric stuff I have ever seen, with the exception of van Rooy's. One of the principal men singers was a tall dark fellow, with a most passionate disposition. We played together often and he fell very much in love with me. One day when we were all together at a wood coffee house, his wife asked him how he had broken his watch which she found smashed on the floor one morning. He said he had dropped it while reading the night before, but he told me he had been sitting thinking of me long after his wife had retired, and suddenly saw his watch shattered in a thousand pieces on the floor across the room, where he had hurled it. He was devoted to his little son, a charming sunny little chap, with the dark colouring of his mother. When I think of these good comrades of mine I cannot but wonder what the war has done to them. The Hun element seemed to be in very few of them, but I can remember it in one. This impossible person, frightfully conceited, lacking absolutely in humour, annoyed and goaded me through two long years with his boorish manners, low ideas of American life, loudly expressed, and crass ignorance of all ideals of living. I came to rehearsal one day and found the colleagues assembled in the green room looking very grave over something. This man H---- said "Ah, here she is!" Then he proceeded to hand round to every one a clipping, which seemed to hurt and annoy them all. He would not show it to me, insinuating that I knew all about it. This I stood for an hour and a half; finally I insisted on seeing the clipping which was from the leading paper of a neighbouring city. The critic reviewed a _première_ we had just given, slating every one but myself, and saying that I belonged on the world-stage. This had been sufficient grounds for my persecutor to explain the bad criticisms of my other colleagues to them, by telling them that I had an affair with this to me of course, utterly unknown, unheard of critic. When I realized just what he meant, I saw black, seized a property crook stick that lay on the table, and struck him violently on the arm. I then came to, and rushed to the window to cool off. He took the blow without a word, and when I finally turned back from the window ready in a revulsion of feeling to tell him that I was sorry to have hurt him, I found the others all smiling broadly, in relief that I had cleared the matter up. Of course none of them had believed for a second what he had tried to make them believe. We gave the whole of Goethe's "Faust" in four evenings. We had Lassens' music and I sang two angels and an archangel, a sphinx and a siren during the performances. The mechanical part of the production with its flying witches, flying swings for _Faust_ and the devil, traps, dark changes, built-up effects reaching from the footlights to almost the top of the proscenium arch at the back of the stage, and a thousand and one details were managed without a hitch. "Butterfly" we gave for the first time while I was there, and the Grand Duke took a great interest in the performance. He sent down some beautiful kimonos from his private collection for the _Butterfly_ to wear, but paid me the compliment of letting me get my own. I had searched costumers and Japanese shops in vain, in London, Paris and Berlin, for a plain coloured kimono such as servants wear, and finally got one direct from Japan. The _Suzukis_ I have always seen have been attired like second editions of _Butterfly_ not realizing in the least the value of the contrast to them if they look like a real servant. I have had letters from people who knew the East intimately, who have said very flattering things about my portrayal of the manner of a Japanese, after they have seen my performance, in company with real Japanese. This, considering my height, has always pleased me immensely. If you can feel in a vast audience that even one person knows, understands and appreciates the study you have put upon a rôle to make it true to life, you are rewarded for your pains. CHAPTER XIX RUSSIANS, COMMON AND PREFERRED The Grand Duke was always very good to me. He liked talking English with my sister and me, and always referred to the Germans as "they," never as "we." He asked me to the palace one evening to dinner. We dined in a room hung with portraits of his beautiful sisters. They looked like fair angels, the portraits having been painted when both the Czarina of Russia and her sisters were quite young girls. We were told by friends that the Czarina used to be perfectly exquisite as a young woman, usually gowned in pale grey with a huge bunch of violets. After dinner we went up to the Grand Duke's own private music room where guests were seldom invited. The piano was set high, on a hollow inlaid sounding box, an idea of His Royal Highness's which improved the tone immensely. Behind it on the wall was a life size painting of a Buddha-like female figure. This was in creamy brown and gold, inlaid with chrysophrases, and lit mysteriously at will from either side, on top, or bottom. The lighting he preferred, and which he told me he used when he played for hours--he knew not what--was provided by four rings of glass, suspended horizontally from the ceiling, through which a radiant sapphire light poured. I don't know how it was managed, but it was very beautiful. In one corner of the room was a grotto, also blue lit with a charming, quiet, nude figure, and a fountain that drip-dripped as you listened. I sat down at the piano and played and sang all the negro melodies my father had collected in the Bahamas years before. I think the guests were rather bewildered by the swift pattering English, but the Grand Duke and his cousin, the Princess Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein were charmed with them. Princess Victoria and her mother, Princess Christian, King Edward's sister, were afterwards good enough to be patronesses at my first recital in London. The Grand Duke loved beautiful Oriental effects, and never seemed to me to be in the least German. He came to a supper-dance once, given by a Baronin O----, dressed as an oriental potentate of sorts. He kept the several hundred guests, and the good dinner waiting over an hour, because he insisted on making up the whole court himself. His wife wore a wonderful headdress she made herself, copied from the fresco in his music room. It was all gold beads and emeralds. Round her neck was a huge pear-shaped green stone. I was thinking of the chrysophrases I had seen inset in the wall of the music room, and said: "What wonderful chrysophrases, Your Royal Highness." "Not chrysophrases, emeralds," she gently corrected me. The Baroness had engaged some people to entertain the Grand Duke at supper, served in the huge new ball-room, but two days before the ball, she telephoned she was in despair as the people had _abgesagt_, and she could get no one else. Would I be so awfully kind as I was coming anyway, to help her out? Every one in town knew all my intimate songs as I had sung them at various functions where the court was invited, so Marjorie and I had to put on our thinking caps to find a new "stunt." Marjorie played the _Laute_, that big, graceful instrument so popular with the love-sick girl in Germany, and I knew some old French songs like "Claire de Lune," that I sang to her accompaniment. I went to the theatre and borrowed the tenor's Pagliacci costume, whitened my face and dressed Marjorie as a _Pierrette_. At a given signal I sprang from between purple curtains, put my finger to my lips, turned and beckoned to _Pierrette_ and led her to the little stage the Baroness had built. The songs went off very well, and the day was saved. Later I changed to a _Dalila_ costume, and danced with the Grand Duke, dances he invented as we went along, a favourite amusement of his. He always held his partner to the side, with one arm about her waist, and I must say it was very practical and comfortable. He danced beautifully and his favourite partner was a tall Fräulein von B---- a friend of ours. Once returning from a concert in a little town in the Bergstrasse where I had been singing, and which had been attended by part of the court, this same Hofdame and a famous violinist happened to be with us. We took fourth-class tickets which entitle you to travel with the peasants in large wooden box-cars, with benches running round the walls. We all danced to the violinist's playing, while the peasants looked solemnly on from their benches. I collected _pfennige_ in a hat which the violinist then put on his head, _pfennigs_ and all. It was a lovely trip. We heard some of the formal court balls were most amusing. We never went to them as we had not had ourselves presented formally, though this could have been easily arranged. The supper usually consisted largely of ham and spinach, typical of the German Royal simplicity. The dancing was conducted under difficulties. Reversing was not allowed, and all the dancers had to go in the same direction. When the Grand Duke wished to dance, his Chamberlain went in front of him to clear the way, as it was always dreadfully crowded. The women were not permitted to pick up their gowns, although trains were _de rigueur_ and no short skirts allowed. As nearly all the men are in uniform, including spurs, the ladies have to make frequent trips to the dressing room to repair damages. And yet it is fatal to wear an old gown, as the Grand Duke has a terrific memory and will say: "Oh, that is the charming gown you wore at Kiel two years ago, isn't it?" All the officers and their wives above the rank of Major must be invited to the court balls, and, in a small principality like this, those of lower rank receive invitations too. One Lieutenant, a member of one of the oldest and poorest Darmstadt families, brought his bride to her first court ball. She was pretty, but beneath him in social position, and he had forgotten to tell her the rule about the trains. She lifted her bridal finery out of the way of the devastating spurs, and was politely requested by a messenger from Royalty to drop it again. Alas! She forgot the warning and again switched her train up from the floor, upon which the oldest _Ehrendame_ (Maid of honour), requested her to leave the dancing floor. The poor husband felt it so keenly that he asked to be transferred to a regiment in another town, and his request was granted. They have a custom of choosing an _erster Taenzer_ for every big ball. He is usually one of the young officers of the highest birth, and his duties are to assist the hostess in every possible way, and lead all the dances. Court etiquette is really a most hampering institution. In talking to the Grand Duke for instance, I might not introduce a topic, he had to give all the leads. This naturally has a deadening effect on the conversation. At first the tongue-paralyzing "Yes, Your Royal Highness," "No, Your Royal Highness," even more paralyzing in German, "_Ja wohl, Koenigliche Hoheit_," "_Nein, Koenigliche Hoheit_," had to be gone through with, but after a few minutes' conversation I might follow the simple English custom in talking with Royalty, and say "Yes, Sir," or "No, Sir." When the Grand Duchess left a crowded ball-room it was painful both for her and for us. As she advanced, modest and self-conscious, one made a low _Knix_; to one lady she would give her hand, always bristling with rings, and you had to kiss the back of it, risking cutting your lip on the rings; to another merely a glance of the eye, or a nod of the head, and so the slow, tortuous exit was made. In the town on muddy days, you might come on the Grand Duke suddenly in a narrow street and you had to back up against the wall to let him pass, at the same time dragging your best skirt in the dirt in the knee-straining curtsey. I often thought how immensely popular would be the Prince or Grand Duke or King, who would one day say, "Oh, stop it, all of you, and give me your hands and your eyes like human beings." But _what_ would the Kaiser say? Before we went to Darmstadt the Grand Duke had had a tragedy from which they said he had never recovered. His adored little daughter Elisabeth was the idol of every one, and the town children's fairy princess. She was asked to visit her aunt, the Czarina, at Petrograd. While there she died very suddenly, though in perfect health when she left Darmstadt. She is believed to have eaten some poisoned food prepared for the Czar's own children. A monument to her in the _Herren Garten_ at Darmstadt, shows a glass coffin of the fairytale type; in it lies sleeping "Snow-White," with the gnomes around her. Above, a weeping willow brushes soft fingers over the sleeping princess. We had several _Backfisch_ admirers; the English "Flapper" comes nearer to translating this strange word than anything I know. These girls followed us closely in the streets for a year and finally met us. At first my sister had her band and I had mine. Finally they dwindled to just two, very sweet, charming young girls, of whom we became very fond. Marjorie's was the daughter of a colonel, a count, who was very strict and military with his delicate flower of a girl. As I have said, strange revealing glimpses of the Hun element came to us now and then, the spirit which now seems to engulf all the better German people. Two of our girl friends were daughters of a famous noble house. Their father was a very old General who lived in great seclusion. His pretty, fair daughters L---- and E----, were often at our house, and were very fond of my mother who lived with us then. The old General finally died, and the girls were worn and bent with grief from his long illness and the trials of nursing him. Their brother was with his regiment, and for some reason could not get to them in time to make arrangements for the funeral. The girls were left badly off, and could not afford a pretentious ceremony. When they tried to explain this to the undertaker, he was incredulous, but finally said with a brutal sneering laugh: "Of course you can have a _pauper's_ funeral if you want one." Everything was done in a way to make it all as hard as possible for the poor girls by these brutes, and they used to come and tell us with floods of tears of the insults they had to swallow. At last the brother arrived, and of course as soon as he appeared in _uniform_ he was bowed down to and served as only a uniform is served in Germany by such brutal types. During the second year in October word came to us that the Czar of Russia was coming to rest with his family at the Grand Duke's hunting lodge, just outside Darmstadt. We were nervous at the thought of all the Russian students who always throng the Technical School at Darmstadt. It seemed such an easy thing to bomb a man in such a small quiet town. They took great precautions, however, and nothing happened. I sang many times for the Czar, in "command performances" of _Dalila_, etc. When he left he was good enough to send me a brooch "as a remembrance of his wife." It is the Imperial crown, with sapphire eyes, surrounded by a laurel wreath. He used to sit in a box nearest the stage with the Grand Duke. In the next box were the little Grand Duchesses, Olga, Tatiana and Marie, and sometimes Anastasia, the littlest one of all. They would call in the intervals, "Papa, come in here; _do_ Papa dear." They always spoke English together. He would go to them and they would climb all over him, petting him and playing with his hair. It was rather charming to watch. Prince Henry of Prussia was there too, as these three, the Grand Duke, Czar, and Prince Henry are, or were, fast friends. When they left the theatre a curious crowd always gathered to see them, but we never had so much as a glimpse of them, for five black, mysterious motors, closely hooded, left in a procession, and no one ever knew which one the Czar was in. The Czarina never came to the theatre; she was intensely nervous just then, and went nowhere. The Czar was to leave Darmstadt on the Monday, and on Sunday we were to sing "Meistersinger" for him. The day before I had felt frightfully ill, and suffered as I had been doing for several weeks with pains in my side. Sunday morning I sent for a doctor, the pain being so bad I was afraid I would not be able to get through the performance that night. The doctor in turn sent for the surgeon, who packed me off in an hour to the hospital for an appendicitis operation. The next morning I was operated upon, and they told me the Grand Duke had sent to ask how I was, as the Czar wished to know if the operation was successful before he left town. I thought it showed a charming, kindly thoughtfulness of others. The nurses were all most kind to me in the hospital, but the surgeon was utterly uninterested in anything but the healing of the wound itself, and paid absolutely no attention to the other rather distressing occurrences of my illness. One could see that a highly strung, nervous American woman would have fared badly with him. Sazonoff was with the Czar's suite, and I remember the Darmstadtites were much insulted because he always took the train to Frankfurt half an hour away, or to Wiesbaden (one hour), for luncheon or dinner, as he said there was nothing fit to eat at the local hotels. I secretly quite agreed with him. We often went ourselves to Frankfurt for tea, or a wild American craving would come over me for lobster or chicken salad, and we would up and away to Wiesbaden for supper. Darmstadt was very conveniently situated for short trips, surrounded as it is by interesting towns--Heidelberg only a short distance south of us, or Mannheim close enough for a day's visit. I sang _Niklaus_ in "Hoffmann" in Mannheim for the first time without a rehearsal, having learnt the part in my room at the piano without a Kapellmeister to give me the _tempi_, and never having seen the opera. That was a trying experience, not helped by the tenor knocking me flat down in the Venetian scene as I rushed on to tell him that the watch was coming. He weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds, and colliding with him in midcareer, I gave him right of way by going down flat on my back. At Frankfurt we heard a wonderful performance of "Elektra" with Richard Strauss conducting and Bahr-Mildenburg as _Klytemnestra_. I shall never forget her in it, nor the orchestral effects Strauss produced. I felt at the end as if I had been watching an insane woman, so marvellous was Bahr-Mildenburg's portrayal of the half-demented creature. Her large face, pale, with haunting, sick eyes, her scarlet, gold-embroidered draperies, the clutching, bony fingers on her jewelled staff, the swaying body she seemed barely able to keep erect, the psychology of the queen's character, all this together combined to give the exact effect she wanted, and to convey it strongly and clearly to the farthest seat in the big theatre. We grew to know very well a Russian boy, whose family had interests in Darmstadt. He told us much of Russia and he and his sister seemed creatures of a different world to us. She was frail and exotic looking, with very curly, bronze hair, a skin like a gardenia petal, and the tiniest full-lipped, blood-red mouth I have ever seen. At home she spent most of her time in the saddle or in the stables. She had men's uniforms made, and rode out with the officers dressed as they were. They could both drink enormous quantities of _Bowle_ and follow it up with champagne and Swedish punch, and never even flush pink. Only S---- used to become very talkative and spout Greek verses by the hour. At that time we lived in a pension, and every Saturday night or after a big performance of mine, say "Carmen," he would arrange an elaborate fête. Sometimes we all had to appear dressed as Romans in sheets and wreaths, before he was satisfied. One night I remember I grew tired of our all being so monotonously beautiful, and came down dressed as a Suffragette, with the false nose I wear as the _Witch_ in "Haensel und Gretel," flowing grey locks, spectacles, and some ridiculous costume, half Greek and half witch. S---- was so horrified that he never once looked at me during the evening and I finally saw that he was so genuinely unhappy that I changed to something more esthetic. He had as much spending money apparently as he desired, but his sister never had a cent. She had no evening gown and only shabby clothes. She seemed blissfully unaware of any shortcomings of her wardrobe, however, and only once felt the lack of a party dress. We arranged something for her that time, as she had no money to spend, and her brother did not seem to think it necessary to give her any. After a particularly successful fête, S---- would wander the deserted streets and kneel before fountains in the public squares, dipping water from them with his derby hat, and pouring it on the earth as libations to Pallas Athene, as he always called me. And he was not in the least drunk, if you will believe me, only fearfully Russian. When they left the pension their luggage at the station consisted of a pile of shabby hand-baggage, mostly newspaper parcels. The girl had no purse but a soldier's little coin case of goatskin, so Frau von A---- emptied her own bag, and stuffed L----'s possessions into it. Their indifference to all these things which would all have been regulated and in keeping with their position if they had belonged to any other country than Russia, I believe was quite typical and seemed to me rather sublime. S---- afterwards made a trip round the world. Goodness knows how he found out whether I was singing or not, but some night after singing one of my big rôles I would receive a monstrous basket of red roses, or an armful of orchids, cabled for from Honolulu or China. He even remembered my _Dachshund's_ birthday, and cabled the baker to send Peter a wonderful _Torte_ with birthday candles. CHAPTER XX THE GRANDMOTHERS' BALLET All this time I was working very hard at the opera. Our repertoire was very large, including nearly all the Italian operas, from Verdi to Wolf-Ferrari, and the German operas from the time of Weber and Mozart up to Humperdinck. Everything was given in German, some of the translations good and some poor. At first it had seemed terribly difficult to accustom myself to the German sounds in _Dalila_ or _Carmen,_ after the sonorous French, but latterly German came to seem quite as natural, though never so beautiful nor singable. Every one in the audience, however, understood the text, and surely this is the important thing. How can they enter into the spirit of an opera when they are guessing whether that is a love phrase or an insult that the tenor is singing? The prejudice against translating into the vernacular has had to be overcome in nearly all European countries and will, I suppose, be only a question of time with us. In Russia, operatic composers flowered and reached their world prominence only after the Russian language was used for the libretto. In Germany Italian was discarded for the language of the singers only after a long struggle, but the great abundance of German operas came after it was adopted, not before. In France also Italian libretti were used for generations, but can any one imagine a Debussy composing a "Pelléas et Mélisande" to an Italian libretto? Each school must find itself in its own tongue, and I question whether these matters can be hurried. I have always thought a good English translation would contribute more to the general pleasure of the audience than a misunderstood gabble of words, even though English is perhaps lacking in the subtle charm worked upon us by foreign speech. My colleagues by this time accepted me almost as a German, and I did the routine work as though I were a German. Surely this experience is more profitable than an occasional appearance on a more famous stage, such as many of my own country-women aimed at. I often heard of their struggles against intrigue, and long pauses between rôles, while they waited hoping for a chance. We all worked steadily through the season and rehearsed every day. The scheme of rehearsals was worked out and given to us every two weeks on a printed _Spielplan_. This showed us exactly which operas and plays were scheduled for the next fortnight, and all the rehearsals we should have to attend, beginning with the room rehearsals for the soloists alone, then the stage rehearsals without chorus, the stage rehearsal with chorus and piano, and finally the _General Probe_, or last orchestra rehearsal on the stage, with everything as at a performance. At the side of the _Spielplan_ was a tentative list of works in preparation with their probable dates of appearance. All this made the work very systematic, and I knew exactly what time I should have for study and what for myself. If a rare week passed without my singing at least once I grew restless and unhappy. My constant aim was to learn and develop, and every rôle taught me something. Versatility is a most useful attribute on the operatic stage, and if you play all the way from _Fides_ to soubrette parts in operetta, and the audience sticks to you, you may be considered fairly versatile. I remember one strenuous week in particular. I had to sing _Dalila_ in Prague on Wednesday evening. "Zauberfloete" was scheduled for Tuesday in Darmstadt, and by taking a late train I could arrive in Prague in time to dress for _Dalila_. I had to sing the last bit of the _Third Lady_ in "Zauberfloete" in travelling dress with a black cloak thrown over me and then rush straight to the train. We travelled all night, changing at Dresden in the middle of the night, and waiting at the noisy station for some time. Arrived at Prague I went straight to the theatre, the old one with gas lamps for footlights. "Don Giovanni" of Mozart was given for the first time in this very theatre they told me, and was, I believe, directed by Mozart himself. I duly sang my _Dalila_ and sped back to Darmstadt, where I had to sing _Frau Reich_ Thursday night; and this tiring lady has to have a certain lightness of touch no matter how much train smoke you have swallowed. My troubles were not over yet as I had to take the train that night for Edinboro, Scotland, where I was to appear with the orchestra, and on the following night in Glasgow. The journey was long and tedious, and the only bright spot I can remember was while we crossed a bit of Belgium. We had had a lunch basket handed in with the typical bottle of _vin rouge_, and neither Marjorie nor I wanted it. The next time our train slowed down we happened to have an engine beside us, and I handed the wine through the window to the driver, who received it with true Belgian imperturbability. I was very tired and very sick crossing the channel. We arrived in London in a terrible storm, feeling absolutely exhausted. Marjorie said, "The only thing that hasn't happened is, that we have not yet lost our baggage." We waited on the cold platform--it was November,--till all the luggage had been taken out of the vans--no familiar trunks for us. I went worn out to the hotel, leaving poor Marjorie to struggle. She made the round of the stations where possible trains from the coast might be met--all of no avail. The next day was Sunday and we could not possibly have found a gown for me to use at the concert. We slept that night in towels and underclothes, and if you've ever done it you know what sort of an all-night funeral _that_ is. The next morning early the missing trunks were found and we continued our journey. We were much amused when we found that no trains left for Scotland during the day on Sunday, and that they had to wait for the friendly cover of the night before they dared nefariously to slip out and break the Sabbath calm. Monday night I almost broke down on the platform during the concert, in one of the hugest halls in the world. Marjorie comforted me and sent for some whiskey which I gulped down between songs. Gradually the chilled blood in me thawed, and my voice with it, my nerve came back and I scored a success, as I did the following night in Glasgow. We then went back to Darmstadt the quickest possible way, having been in six countries in as many days. We walked a great deal in the beautiful country round Darmstadt, and I sometimes rode over the miles of charming bridle paths. We made expeditions into the beautiful Taunus country, all gold and scarlet in autumn. The delightful custom of having _Wald Haeuse_ at convenient distances in every direction round the city, makes these expeditions a great pleasure. The coffee is usually good, and the cakes always so. Darmstadt is on the Bergstrasse, almost a highway through that part of Germany, and we were pestered one year with a constant stream of beggars. They were usually ex-theatre people they said, and I found they only came to me and not to my colleagues, so word must have been passed round that an "easy" and extremely rich American lived in the town, who was good for at least a mark. The strangest stories circulated about us, and why we should choose Germany to live in. One was that I was the illegitimate daughter of King Edward, therefore a cousin of the Grand Duke, which explained a likeness to him which I could see myself. They said my sister and mother were really no relation to me, but simply paid to take care of me. As I have said we had several picturesque privileges because I was a _Grossherzogliche Beamtin_--an employée of the Royal house. I used to go on certain days to the old Schloss near the theatre, no longer the residence of the reigning family as it was too old to be comfortable. I passed under shadowy arches and through cobblestone courts, surrounded by aged windows, till I came to where the _Schloss Kellermann_ lived. I went down a steep old stone stair into the bowels of the earth, where I was greeted by the Head Cellarman, who wore a white apron and took orders at a candle-lit table. I told him just how much Rotwein I wanted, or perhaps a bottle of champagne for a treat, and paid a ridiculously small sum for it all. The Grand Duke got it duty free and at special rates, and we, as his employés were entitled to this rate too. For a small fee two large flunkies in _Grossherzogliche_ uniforms would deliver it to my apartment later in the day. I believe the cellars were very wonderful, but I never was asked to investigate. I think only the principals had this privilege, neither the chorus nor the ballet sharing it, but I may be mistaken. Our ballet was rather pitiful. Kind-hearted directors hesitated to dismiss faithful servants of years' standing, and the result was a phalanx of grandmothers at the back of the stage. I used to give my old clothes to the chorus and ballet women, and one family in particular I almost adopted. The poor mother was a handsome creature of about forty-five. Her eldest son was twenty-four and a carpenter, and two babies were born while I was in Darmstadt. Children of all ages came in between. The father drank and used to ill-treat the mother, who had to dance gaily as a peasant boy or gypsy, and then go home to all that misery. Little by little I told the officers' wives I knew about these things and they were very kind about sending their worn clothing to me to distribute amongst the women. I believe it amused them very much to see their old evening gowns washed, always washed, and refurbished, doing duty as "Empire" gowns, or as the latest thing in Paris creations on the backs of the walk-on ladies in the French comedies. Eighty marks a month is not much, even if it is paid all the year round, and somebody has got to help. We had a school of forestry in the town, largely attended by American boys. It was in the period when our Western boys padded their shoulders tremendously and wore hump-toed boots. These boys were all husky specimens, who dressed in the most foresty of forest clothes, boots laced to the knee, wide western hats and flannel shirts. The woods round Darmstadt are all most tame and well looked after, but the boys seemed to think they were dressing the part correctly. When left to themselves these boys were quite well behaved, but the German students tried to bully them. The beer-drinking type of student, with his ridiculous little coloured cap stuck on one side of his head, thinks he owns his own particular café where his _Stamm-Tisch_ may happen to be. They objected to various mannerisms of the American boys who visited these cafés, and the American boys replied in their own western way by knocking the Germans down. This method of fist fighting was quite unknown to the Germans, who replied by sending a challenge to duel according to their custom. The American boys in turn knew nothing of duelling and refused to fight except with fists. I think a good many fat Germans bit the dust and got up swearing vengeance. Finally, we heard, the American boys wired to their fellow countrymen who were students in Frankfort, "Come over tonight and clean up." Exactly what happened we never heard, but as both sides grew to understand and respect each other more, the trouble gradually subsided. The Russian element, usually rather undesirable in Darmstadt, contributed largely to the disturbances. There were several duelling corps in town, and an American friend of ours, a student at the technical college, told us of witnessing their extremely bloody combats. Part of the glory is to have yourself sewed up without an anesthetic, and go on fighting, and we heard sickening details. It is supposed to make your nerve tremendously steady, and the ones who go through the stated number of duels, fighting their way slowly through a regular course of progression, always the winner, must indeed be shock and disgust proof. The authorities frowned on the practice but it existed in force nevertheless. One boy killed another while we were there; he was imprisoned, but on his return was treated as a conquering hero by the members of his corps. That surely belongs to Hun training. CHAPTER XXI STAGE FASHIONS AND THE GLORY OF COLOUR We played continuously nine months from September to June, and then scattered for the holidays. I often went to Munich for the Wagnerian _Festspiel_. We have many German relatives (though not a drop of German blood), as three of my grandfather's sisters married German officers. Through remote ancestors we also have dozens of cousins in the north of Germany. The Munich relations I dearly loved. The son of the famous court architect, von Klenze, who built nearly all the noble buildings in Munich for the old King Ludwig of Bavaria, who abdicated his throne--married my mother's aunt, and their descendants were always very charming to me. The northern cousins who lived in East and North Prussia we always heard were quite different, cold, critical, and not warm, and artistic, and friendly, as I found our southern relations. In Darmstadt they seem between the two peoples in character, and of course in the theatre one meets all sorts. Our _Souffleuse_, "Bobberle," was from Schwabia, and her sister was a character. She proved her elegance by wearing the most brilliant colours on her fat little body, and plastering the family jewelry all over herself. She screamed remarks about the members of the company to her friends between the acts, and the remarks were not as undiscerning as you might think. The top box on the right side of the house, was reserved for the humble hangers-on of the _Personal_. My sister used often to sit up there as she could just walk in without my having to ask for a seat, while my mother sat in state in a specially reserved seat in the orchestra, for which I had to ask each time. The oldest mothers and the _Souffleuse's_ sister used to be an unending joy to my sister, in their comments. The order of their seats was theirs by divine right, they thought, and woe betide some comparatively new-comer who would venture to take one-eyed Frau S----'s or fat Frau W----'s chair. It was called the _Raben's Nest_ (the raven's nest), and we felt its influence hanging over us on the stage. I was quite familiar with the remarks that were made nightly: "_Ach! unsere Kaethe spielt ja Heute!_" ("Oh! our little Katy plays tonight"), the mother of Katy would announce rapturously, and settle down with her chin on the rail, and her back bent like a jack-knife, for three hours of proud but critical joy. She had probably toiled most of the night with her little seamstress to turn out the marvels Kaethe wore. There are certain props that lend an unfailing air of gorgeousness to the provincial German mind, whether viewed from in front of, or behind the footlights. An aigrette does duty for years and has a sure-fire elegance; pinned on a winter hat of black velvet, or a summer leghorn, or worn with a bow in an evening coiffure, you know its wearer belongs to the most exclusive social set. Our coiffeur had only one eye, but used to bring that one as close as possible to the head of her victim and make it do duty for two. She turned out wonderful puffs and curls. In "Dollar Prinzessin" I introduced a new style of hair dressing from Paris: the hair parted, and a multitude of close curls at the back of the head, the whole surrounded by a rather broad band of ribbon of the shade one desired. This took Darmstadt by storm, and was repeated for two years in every conceivable version. The curls I am sorry to say, turned into tight sausages, but how much more _praktisch_! Couldn't the curls then be worn at least three times without being re-dressed? A lorgnon is of course "Hoch elegant," also quite irresistibly snorty, if you are playing an elderly Duchess type of person. If you read that tunics are worn in Paris you put them on all your gowns, though they may be hideously unbecoming to you. Even the time-honoured hat-on-the-back-of-the-head outline had to be renounced one season, and every one peered out at you from a hat or toque brim almost down on the bridge of the nose in front, and cocked up in the back. Unbecoming--it was admitted--, but "man" did it in Paris and should Darmstadt lag behind? The problem of clothes for the actress is a terrific one, and I think almost every one in town knows and makes allowances for this. The men go further astray in the quest of fashion, or perhaps it is that the slightest lapse from rigid formality is so noticeable in their dress of today. In Metz dickeys, or small false fronts, were worn as a matter of course in the place of evening shirts. If you were long and the dickey was short you stuck a jaunty, flaming silk handkerchief in your vest in front, to hide dangerous glimpses of Jaegers. And then why stick slavishly to the bow tie of white cotton? A black or scarlet string tie was distinctly more novel, and attracted attention at once if worn with an otherwise conventional evening coat. In Darmstadt the men knew better, but some of them tried to ape the officers in walk, monocle, or hair brushing, to the huge delight of the officers. One clever actor always made his greatest climax by suddenly throwing back his coat edge as he finished a "There, what do you say to that?" speech, and so revealing the gorgeous black satin lining. This of course was unanswerable, and never failed of its effect. You knew at once you had a man of the world before you, a man familiar with the most exclusive club life, valeted, perfumed and manicured irreproachably, and you succumbed accordingly. The Grand Duke would sit, lynx-eyed, up in his box, and take this all in. I always felt he never missed anything, and it was inspiring to play to him. When his box was empty I always missed this scrutiny. Sometimes one gets messages that well-known people have been out in front, and this knowledge, and the thought that some wandering _Intendant_ in search of talent may be watching you, always spurs you on if you are tired. Once a famous Dutch painter saw me as _Amneris_. He was of course quite unknown to me, but sent me word later to say what pleasure I had given him by recreating in his mind the Egyptian silhouettes and colouring he loved. I had striven so hard to do this, it was a great pleasure to know that I had succeeded in suggesting it. A dear old gentleman in town, who had travelled much, sent me many postcards from Spain, because my _Carmen_ brought back to him his happy days there. He sent me a real Russian "Order" for my _Orlofsky_ in "Fledermaus," which I always afterwards wore with that gentleman's severe court dress. Laurel wreaths and wreaths of heavy silvered leaves were sent to me, with gold lettered inscriptions, and I kept them for ages in my music room. During the last winter in Darmstadt I went up to Berlin to give a try-out recital. It was managed by the great Wolf Bureau, and my friend Mr. Fernow at once took an interest in me, which continued as long as I was in Germany. I heard of Coenraad von Bos, and wanted to have him play for me. We rehearsed the day before the concert, and I soon found I had made another real friend in Bos. He said afterwards, when he was told I wanted just one rehearsal for a Berlin recital, he thought to himself I must be either very bad or very good. The truth was I could not get a longer leave of absence from the opera and so more than one rehearsal was impossible. I have always adored rehearsing, especially for a concert, with such an artist as Bos to play for me, and one of the greatest joys of my life was preparing a program with Erich Wolf for a later Berlin recital. To go back to my concert--Bos worked very hard that evening to make it a success, calling up all of his musical friends to tell them of his new find. It _was_ a great success and I have never read such notices as I received from all the papers. They told me no foreigner had ever had such unanimous and extraordinary praise for a first recital, and Papa Fernow kissed me in the green room. I should have immediately followed up that concert with two or three more, but I was obliged to return to my duties, and so lost the opportunity of reaping the reward of an unusual beginning. They wanted me to sign on in Darmstadt, but I felt that I had sung the repertoire faithfully for three years, and that I wanted more worlds to conquer, and a bigger town to criticize my work. I went to Munich to sing for Baron S----, who liked me and offered me a contract, depending on the outcome of two _Gastspiele_, or guest performances, to be absolved the following October, my contract then to go into effect. My farewell in Darmstadt was "Carmen" and the people _were_ good to me. After the last curtain I left the stage for a minute, and when I came back to take my calls the stage was filled from side to side with flowers; they were banked and grouped all round me. The curtain then went up and down innumerable times, till I felt like weeping at leaving all these kind friends. For some reason my cab did not come for me and when I left the theatre the crowd waiting at the stage door followed me home, calling out "Come back soon," "Auf Wiedersehen," and many kind things. These are not perhaps great triumphs, but they make an artist's life very happy, and the life I led for those three years, comes very near being the ideal one for an opera singer. I think it was two years before this, on returning to Paris, that I took part in Strauss' "Salome." We gave six performances at the Châtelet. I took the page's small part, just for the fun of it, and so as to study the opera. The stage manager was a German of course, and spoke very little French. The singers were all Germans, and the "figurants," supers, all French. Things did not go well at rehearsals. Burrian, as the King would cry for wine or grapes, and no one moved to get what he wished, as no one understood what he was saying, and so could not get the musical cue. I was the only person able to speak the two languages fluently, and finally the stage manager asked me to take charge of all the business on my side of the stage. "_Suivez Madame!_" he would yell. So I said "Remove throne." "Bring golden vessels." "Clear stage," etc., to the intelligent crowd of supers, many of whom were young actors, who wanted as I did to study the opera. I remember one hideous little girl, who had an unattractive sore lip. Some one told her that it did not matter much, trying to comfort her, as she seemed so depressed about it, but she was inconsolable, and replied darkly, "it was always seven days lost." This brave effort to create the impression of an otherwise lurid existence deceived no one however, though they were too polite to show their doubt. Destinn's voice rose thrillingly in the love phrases that _Salome_ pours at _John_; and though she wore a costume that my young French friends considered consisted chiefly of _chats enragés_,--mad cats,--as it had two huge animal heads of gold, where such types of stage villainesses are always heavily protected, the tense quality of her voice, and the simple strength of her acting suited the character as Strauss had painted it with his music, and she achieved results that no other singer I know of could have done. I had gone back as usual to de Reszke to have my voice put in order, and was having, at the same time, my taste put in order by my sculptor brother Cecil, in our walks and talks about Paris and its museums. My brother's wonderfully clear vision of art and beauty is never clouded, and I owe much to my association with him. We used to go to all the Salons, and I remember vividly the first time we stumbled on a specimen of the modern Spanish school, then quite new to us. We had looked at dreary wastes of raspberry jam Venuses, resting on the crests of most solid waves, dozens of canvases still in the Louis XVI era, and much pastel-coloured mediocrity, when suddenly I called out "Look, Cec, something new!" It was a big square of flaming colour--women and a child in red checked cotton, picking scarlet tomatoes from high-trained vines, in the brilliant sun. It glowed and fairly zizzed with colour, and had that radiating, vibrating quality that things have in the hot sunshine. We had had the "confetti" and "spot" types of work for some years, but this canvas dwarfed anything modern I had seen in Paris. We have never found another one by the same man, and have often wondered what became of his work. I think that was when I first fell in love with colour _per se_, though I had flirted with it before. We had loved Monet and the opalescent, shimmering lights in his water-garden series, but never had I been so stirred and thrilled by mere paint on canvas as I was by this Spaniard's work. It seems that a man only rarely can put colours together that will have the living dazzling look that one sees in nature. Matisse was a past master of it, and even though one might not agree with him otherwise, his colour was a joy. Later the Cubists and Futurists invaded Paris. When I am with Cecil and he talks to me of their work, I see their aims quite clearly, and understand what they are trying to express, for their "line of talk" is much more lucid than their work: but when I am not with my brother I must confess my understanding is dimmed, and I forget the arguments he used. We lived very simply in Paris, having our meals sometimes at the _quartier_ restaurants, and sometimes getting _filets_ of fresh mushrooms, peas, and delicious Paris potatoes, with big strawberries shaped like little whisk-brooms, and _crême d' Isigny_ in its stubby little earthen pots, and preparing them at home. I had a small apartment in the same house as my mother, and my brother had his studio some blocks from us. We met Spaniards, Norwegians, French, anything but Americans, of whom we knew but few--we learnt so much more through talking with people of other nationalities than our own. Paris is such a marvellous place for development. As my brother said, he never knew when some one whose opinion he must respect might not drop into the studio, and give his work a searching inspection. The atmosphere of having to keep constantly at your very best because of the rigid intellectual criticism you encounter at every turn, is most stimulating. Rembrandt Bugatti was a great friend of my brother's, of whom I think he was really fond, and this was a priceless association for a young student. Bugatti was a genius, unrivalled by any other man of his age, and very few of any other age, and his tragic death is a great loss to the art world. His growing deafness and his acute sensitiveness must have made life impossible for him. His recollection of the happy years spent in Antwerp, when he and my brother were well-known figures there--wearing long, swinging, dark blue, Italian cavalry capes, smoking eternal pipes and working all day in the open air in the Zoo--compared to what the Germans have made of Belgium, proved too great a spiritual burden for him. CHAPTER XXII ROYAL HUMOUR During that summer Baron S---- died in Munich. This of course was a great blow to me and I did not know what I could do about my contract. I went to Berlin to see Herr Harder, who told me I must _gastieren_ according to contract in October, but as the new _Intendant_ was not to come into office till November, no one could really engage me, especially as a very exacting new musical director was coming from Vienna later in the season, and they would both undoubtedly want to choose their own first contralto. However, I went and sang under trying circumstances, with a very sore throat and a sinking heart. The colleagues thought I would be engaged, but I did not see who was to do it, and as it turned out I was right--and there _was_ no one to do it. This depressed me extremely, but I resolved to return to Berlin, and devote the year to following up my previous recital. As a matter of fact, this apparent blow turned out to be all for the best, as so often happens, for otherwise I should have been caught in Germany at the beginning of the war, and my career upset, which happened to several other girls. The concert field is a rich one in Europe and I had made a good beginning. I booked a tour in Holland, through the kindly offices of Bos, where I was as well received as I had been in Berlin. The critics wrote such eulogies that I almost blush to read them. People quite unknown to me would go from town to town to hear me, and I would see them at Rotterdam or Utrecht smiling up at me. I have never sung to such adorable audiences. They seem to understand all languages, and a "Claire de Lune" sung in French seems to please them as much as Schubert's magnificent "Allmacht." The "coffee pause" half way down the program, was quite a shock to me the first night, but I soon grew to look for it, and enjoyed the smell of the strong smoking coffee the waiters used to carry round on trays to the audience. It was rather disturbing, however, to have to watch the waiters finish up the contents of the pots, at the back of the hall, while I began on the second half of the program. Evidently to them the coffee, and the audience, were of first importance, and the mere singer quite secondary; all of which is point of view. My sister and I lived at The Hague, and Holland is so delightfully small that we could nearly always return there, after the evening's concert in another town. I went back in the spring for another series of recitals and felt that I was returning to old friends. I was offered a tour to Java, and would love to have undertaken it, but could not see my way clear just then. In December I was in Berlin for a week or two, and Harder sent me word to come and sing for Mr. Percy Pitt of Covent Garden. The two contracts I had held so far had been closed with a minimum of delay and trouble, and now I was to make the biggest one of my career in the same simple way. I was not in the best of voice when I sang for Mr. Pitt, but I sang the Siegfried _Erda_, and was disgusted with myself for singing so badly. He asked me if I were ready to sing the list of leading rôles which he read to me, and on my answering in the affirmative engaged me on the spot; proving, to me at least, that successful or unsuccessful _Vorsingen_ and even _Gastspiele_ have very little to do with most engagements. In the case of a singer of any reputation at all, the Director has usually made up his mind pretty well beforehand what he is going to do. If he wants you he takes you, even if you have sung badly that particular time, and if he does not want you, nothing that I have heard of can make him engage you. This contract was for the following spring. We were to give the "Ring" of Wagner, three times, and Arthur Nikisch was to conduct. Also "Koenigskinder" was to be given for the first time at Covent Garden, and I was one of the few who had sung the _Witch_ at that time. "The Flying Dutchman" completed the list of operas I was to sing in. After closing the contract we left for Bergen, Norway, where I had a concert engagement. One great advantage of having my dear friends, the Jones, back of me, was, that I could take a big journey like this; and though it might eat up all of my profit I did not have to refuse it on that account. We were fascinated by Scandinavia, and though I went to sing with the orchestra in one concert only, I remained in Bergen to give three recitals by myself. The trip across the Finse railway, over the snowy glaciers, I shall never forget. The line had only recently been opened, and very few passengers shared the trip with us. We saw a herd of reindeer, and I fed some of them with coarse salt at one of the stations. Bergen itself was warm and muggy and smelt of fish. Everything in the place smelt of fish, even the hotel towels. Two kindly women managers took charge of my concerts, and I felt far away from America till I saw a portrait of Miss Emma Thursby in their music shop. The warm-hearted Norwegians were delightful to us, and we met many of Grieg's relations, and heard tales of him. One of his cousins, I think, came all the way to Berlin to study with me, but to my great regret I had no time to give her. I was interviewed on my first day by a nice little fellow, who could hardly speak German, and no English nor French. Our conversation was conducted under difficulties, but was most enjoyable none the less. The next day I received a request for a photo from him, with a card saying: "_Seit ich Ihnen sah bin ich sterblich verliebt._"--This bad German means approximately, "Since I saw you I am mortally in love." We loved our stay in Scandinavia. I remember when we first arrived in Christiania we could not make out why the streets were thronged with good looking men and women, from two o'clock till three in the afternoon, and quite empty after that. We walked through the snowy, glittering avenues, and met all these healthy red-cheeked pedestrians talking and laughing and having a wonderful social time. We then discovered their meal times are quite different from ours. You have an early cup of coffee, then a light breakfast at eleven o'clock, then dinner at three or four, preceded sometimes by this walk. Supper is served at eight-thirty or nine, and is usually laid out on a long table in the centre of the room. There are cold meats and salads; cold fish and pickled fish; queer breads; and, of course, you go first for the wonderful _hors d'oeuvres_ of countless varieties, for this is where they grow. A Swede once told me you could always tell a German travelling in Sweden, because when the _Schwedische Platte_ or _hors d'oeuvres_ were passed to him, he made a meal of the dainty mayonnaise and savoury morsels, instead of eating them as an appetizer, as is intended. In the beautiful station of Copenhagen, decorated in the old Norse style, with scarlet-painted wooden carved beams, we were served with all we could eat of these dainties with bread and butter, for about forty cents--and I wished I were a German! On the way home, we were storm-bound at Copenhagen, and I at once fell in love with that city, and its wonderful blond race of big men and women. We heard stories of divorces and passionate love affairs, that made other nations pale by contrast. One delightful man told us he had had no objection to his wife having _one_ lover, but when he found she had seven, he thought it time to get a divorce! He still quite often saw her, and said they were the best friends in the world. He liked to take her out to dinner and the theatre and tell her all about everything. He called us "The Misses Chickens Howard," and was only restrained by business engagements from following us from place to place. That was a hobby of his, he said, when he found a sympathetic artist. We crossed back to Germany, and I sang with Nickisch for the first time, in Hamburg. His room behind the stage swarmed with ladies, in the _entr'acte_, and the concert master told me it was always so. A valet looked him over carefully before he went on the stage, pulled down his coat, and patted the Herr Professor's shoulders. I remembered the cuff story in Metz and watched through the crack of the door to see if it still held good--and it did! Later I sang with Mengelberg in Frankfort. He said to me, eating apples the while: "I engaged you because friends of mine in Holland told me you could sing. Can you?" After the concert he came to me again, still eating apples, and said: "_Es is wahr. Sie haben eine Prachtvolle Stimme, und koennen prachtvoll singen_," and kissed my hand. To hear Mengelberg direct "Tod und Verklaerung" of Strauss, with his own orchestra is one of the most tremendous things I have ever experienced. One is transported. A little man with a tight mouth and an aureole of fair hair, he is feared by his men, but _how_ he is respected! That winter he spent almost every night in the train, as he conducted regularly in Holland, Germany and Russia. I have always been able to get on with really great musicians, and have found only the second best _difficile_ and small. The path seems suddenly smooth when in rehearsal, you feel this wealth of absolute knowledge and authority supporting, leading and inspiring you. Anxiety vanishes and one's best pours from one without effort, only with the sensation of wringing every last drop of beauty from the phrase. We returned to Sweden to concerts with Stenhammer, and I should have crossed to Helsingfors to sing _Dalila_, but had to return on account of engagements in Germany. Through our forbears, as I have said, we have many relations in Germany; and in Berlin we enjoyed immensely knowing our cousins the von M---- s. The General had just been moved back to Berlin to fill an extremely high military position, and as he was musical we, of course, had much in common. The daughters were all beautifully brought up; simple girls, frank and natural as German aristocrats are. They gave a musical, at which the General and I both sang. Their apartment was very large, but was so crowded for the concert that I felt as though the Duchess of Dalibor sat almost in my throat as I sang, and her enormous pearls distracted me in the "Sapphische Ode." I have never seen such unbelievably huge pearls. We were asked to stay to _Abendessen_ after the concert, and it consisted chiefly of the sandwiches and refreshments left over from the party. This showed us again the absolute simplicity of the well-born German of irreproachable position. The girls were very intimate with the Kaiser's only daughter, Princess Victoria Louise, and when her marriage to the Duke of Brunswick's son, was celebrated, Irma was one of the bride's-maids. Onkle Geo, as we called him, told us about the Kaiser, to whom he was devoted. At the dinner table, he said, His Majesty would usually talk only with the men present, ignoring completely the ladies who might be present. When the General made his re-entry into court for the first time after receiving his high office, all the courtiers present watched to see just how he would be received by His Majesty, which would then give the keynote for his treatment by the whole court. After the general reception, General von M---- was invited to go into a more private room with several more gentlemen. This promised well, as it was in this room that the Kaiser talked more intimately with the guests of his choosing. The General held his helmet with its _Feder-busch_, or crest of white feathers on his arm, and felt the eyes of all assembled on him as the Kaiser came quickly into the room, and made his way to him. Now was the critical moment that might have everlasting consequences. Onkle Geo confessed to nervousness, but His Majesty guessed the situation, and said, "Hum! _You_ need a new helmet, that _Feder-busch_ is shabby," in a bantering tone. The courtiers knew this was meant for friendly, humorous comment, and was intended to be laughed at, so they laughed accordingly at Onkle Geo's confusion, and the ice was broken. "And my helmet was quite new!" said Onkle Geo, half indignantly, half laughing. The court was very simple, and we heard stories of this through other friends who had the _entrée_. A Graefin D----, returning one evening from a court ball given in honor of the then Regent of Bavaria, gave me a bon-bon done up in silver paper, with a little photo of the Kaiserin on it. The bon-bon was white, and the Graefin said as long as any one could remember, these had been the official souvenirs of court dinners: only the photo varied. One charming girl we knew, a great favourite of the Empress, came back from the Palace one Christmas day, and told us what she had received from Her Majesty as a Christmas greeting--a small, old-fashioned tippet and muff of woolly white Angora, and two small, cheap Japanese vases, that some one had given the Empress the year before. The Royal magnificence one would expect gave way to--extreme simplicity let us call it. The Kaiser took a keen interest in the opera, and gave wonderful presents to his favourite singers. We saw a spectacle at the opera house that he was supposed to have inspired, and which was carried out under his direction. It was a sort of panorama of scenes in Corfu, where he spent much time. It must have been horribly expensive, for I never saw so much scenery at any performance, and it really was exquisite to see those beautifully reproduced scenes unfold before one. Such things, however, as painted castles and woods and flowers always seem to me excessively naïve. The Russian idea of a wonderful imaginative back-drop is infinitely more stimulating to a performance. Of course, there are places where it cannot be used. If the scene is laid in a Childs' restaurant a back-drop might perhaps be comic to a mind not yet used to making its own pictures; but I hope and believe the aim is towards simplicity in this direction; but the simplicity must be carried out by artists, and first-rate ones. Who, who has seen the leaping figures of the Russian Ballet in "Prince Igor," has felt a lack on the scenic side because the tents with their feather of smoke were suggested on a flat back-drop? Who longed for real, that is, one-side real, tents--with steam escaping from a semi-hidden pipe through the top? The luridness was suggested by colour far more skilfully than if rocks, thinly swaying and lit by red lights, had cluttered up the wings. Make the audience do the thinking, blend stimulation with simulation, and if your artist has been a true one no one will cry for flapping pillars, or crumpled leaves on a net. "Boris Goudonow," as it used to be given at the Metropolitan, is a good example of what real artist vision can do with colour. Those who saw those figures in brilliant green, kneeling with their backs to the audience, barring off the procession scene, while the towering minaret of the cathedral carried the eye up and up at the back, will surely never forget the light and shade grouping. It has since, I am sorry to say, lost some of its skilful arrangement, which I suppose is unavoidable, but the performance is still homogeneous and a unit, as to _décors,_ score and costumes. It was on the Kaiser's birthday that we saw "Corfu," and afterwards we went to the newly-opened Hotel Esplanade for supper. I have never seen such a sight. All imaginable uniforms were there, on all types of officers and foreign diplomats. Some looked magnificently romantic, and some as if they had stepped from the comic opera stage. The women, as usual in Germany, though plentifully be-jewelled, looked dull and inadequate beside the men. One summer night in Berlin, we went to Max Reinhardt's small theatre, the Kammerspiel, to see "Fruehlingserwachen." My dear friend, Oscar Saenger, was in town, and I had happened to see him in a box at the opera the evening before. He had come to see Berger, the giant baritone whom he had transformed into a tenor, in his first performance of _Siegmund_. I think Putnam Griswold, that splendid type of the best American singer, sang the _Wanderer_ that night. Saenger asked us to go to the theatre with him, as we had not met in years, and by chance we chose "Fruehlingserwachen" of Wedekind. Never shall I forget that evening. The quiet, dark wooden walls of the theatre, and the comfortable box they showed us into, in which we sat, seeing but unseen in the obscurity; the lack of applause when the curtain fell, and then--the performance. German actors lead the world, in my opinion, and the intensity of those players, the skill with which they played those most unhappy children, the tremulous, inadequate mother, that dark scene with its girl-women shriek, left us breathless and dazed. The highest possible tribute I pay to German actors, and to some of those gathered together that winter in that theatre. Such a _Falstaff_ I never saw as we saw there in "Henry V," nor such marvellous presentations of Shakespeare. Moissy as _Prince Hal_ in his father's deathbed scene; the _Doll Tearsheet_; the collection of hangers-on in the Inn Scene, the understanding of the spirit of Shakespeare--all these were priceless joys. Shakespeare does not spell bankruptcy in Germany, and the people really love it, and perhaps there is a reason why. The next night in the same house, you might see a translation of a French drawingroom comedy. With the exception of one or two, these people were quite as at home in that as in classic drama. That I had never believed possible till I saw it proven. It had always seemed to me that the French were absolutely unrivalled in such things as "Mlle. Georgette, ma femme"; but they were even more sincerely, yet just as lightly done by Reinhardt's people. It was always such a joy in Europe to go to the theatre in London, Paris or Berlin. To see Lavallière with her inimitable _gamine_ ways, was the most delicious of pleasures; and the polish of the older actors of the French stage, the _Marquis_ or _Marquise_, or old butler or housekeeper, as the case may be, is a wonderful model for the student. French actors seem to be able to come into a room, sit down at a table and talk for half an hour, using almost no gestures, without becoming in the least boresome or monotonous. When scenes of strong passion are wanted, the Germans, I think, excel their French rivals. A Frenchman, or, for that matter, any Latin, is inclined to rant just a bit, and become unconvincing, at least to an Anglo-Saxon mind; but the German, when called upon for strength and power of passion, rises thrillingly and gloriously, and completely sweeps you away. Even in Darmstadt we had many notable performances. That of the "Versunkene Glocke," for instance, was most memorable. We had a splendid old actor for the _Well Spirit, Nickelmann,_ and nothing could have been wetter or more unearthly than his sloshing slowly up from the depth of the well, his webbed, greenish fingers appearing clutchingly first, and then his grating, fishy croak, "_R-r-r-rautendelein! R-r-r-r-rautendelein!_" The faun was also excellently done by a young fellow with marvellous faun-like agility; altogether these unpretentious people realized the fairy-tale spirit, the wood feeling of the story, in a most imaginative, subtle way. Where in America in a town of Darmstadt's size could you see such a performance? CHAPTER XXIII COVENT GARDEN AND--AMERICA In due time we set out for London. One of our cousins had found us delightful diggings in M---- Street, which I was able to enjoy, as dear Mr. and Mrs. Jones sent me an extra cheque to impress London with. We were waited upon by an old butler, and his wife did the cooking. Such legs of lamb, and deep plum tarts, with lashings of clotted cream! Such snowy napery, and silver polished as only English butlers can polish it. It was not by any means my first visit to London, professionally. I had sung in private drawingrooms in previous seasons, and had also given a recital. Her Royal Highness Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, and her daughter, Princess Victoria, graciously consented to be my patronesses at this concert. I had not the slightest idea how to arrange for them, after they had kindly consented to be present, but I gathered that a special pair of comfortable chairs must be put directly below the stage, with a little table. Then I thought "Flowers or no flowers?" I should have loved to send them, but English Royalties are so simple and natural I instinctively felt that any ostentation would be distasteful. Somehow one hates to do the wrong thing in the presence of Personages; it is an un-American feeling, but a human one. They applauded me a great deal, and after a bow of acknowledgment to the nice audience I gave the Princesses each time an English, straight-up-and-down curtsey, and I hope that was right. In Germany a back-swaying, one-toe-pointed-in-front curtsey was demanded. These things are at once trivial and vastly important. The decent getting Their Royal Highnesses in and out of the hall I left to the capable manager, to whom Princess Christian said as she passed, "She ought to be singing in Covent Garden." I very soon was. I was rather nervous at the beginning at Covent Garden. Most of the others were so famous, and all of them so much older than I. However, I soon got recognition and they were all very nice to me. I enjoyed especially talking to Van Rooy. He told me all about the wonderful armour he wore in the "Ring." Never have I seen his equal as the _Wanderer_. As he himself said, the old line of singers, the giants, the de Reszkes, Terninas, Lehmanns and Brandts, seemed to have died out. I often look for the grand line, the dignity, the flowing, noble breadth of gesture one saw in the older Wagnerian singers, but how often does one see it now? Of course, my memories of them are those of a very young girl, but I saw the same thing in Van Rooy, though his voice showed wear, and the bigness of their impersonations is stamped indelibly on my memory, dwarfing the lesser ones. Nikisch came for the last few rehearsals. He took that raw, English-sounding orchestra, with its unrelated sounds of blaring brass, and rough strings, and unified and dignified it by his personality, his work and his brain power till it produced what he would have--Wagner in his glory. His gestures were like a sculptor's. My brother, who came to stay with us, also noticed this. Nikisch seemed to sculpt the phrases out of the air, and brought home again to us both the close relation between the lines of music and the lines of noble sculpture. The Parthenon freeze--is it not music? My brother says the Air of Bach is absolutely one with the outlines of this masterpiece, just as pure, noble and majestically simple, moving in slow, stately rhythm. We gave the "Ring" three times and I sang the _Erdas_ and _Fricka_ and _Waltrautes_. The latter in "Goetterdaemmerung" I enjoyed doing so much with Nikisch. We only rehearsed it at the piano, and he said as he sat down: "_Jetzt bin ich neugierig. Entweder kann die Waltraute wunderschoen sein, oder sehr langweilig._" ("Now I am curious. _Waltraute_ can either be very beautiful or very uninteresting.") He did not find it _langweilig_ however. I had one of my fits of depression I so often get after singing, (when I feel I must leave the stage, I am so hopelessly bad, and nothing any one can do or say cheers me inwardly), and it was particularly abysmal, the day after _Waltraute_. One never sings just as one would like to, and in my head I hear the phrase so much more beautifully done than any one but Caruso can do it. That day I sat at lunch with my faithful Marjorie, who always puts up with me. We were lunching in a little place near us, and I was deep in the blues. Marjorie's eye fell on the _Daily Telegraph_ and we saw a wonderful criticism by Robin Legge; just a few words, but so sincere and appreciative. It helped such a lot. Criticism can mean so much to one for good or evil. The thought of a cruelly amusing phrase the critic has coined, unable to resist the very human temptation, will come winging to you the next time you step out on the stage to sing the same rôle, and you feel that sardonic wave striking you afresh and jangling your already quivering nerves. It takes courage after that to go on. On the contrary, a few words of appreciation of what you have tried so hard, through such long years to do, will tide you over many black hours of discouragement, and you think: "I can't be so absolutely rotten, didn't X---- write that about me? and he's supposed to know something about it." An intelligent constructive criticism is the most helpful thing possible, and stimulates one to work to correct one's faults. Personal remarks wound one's feelings deeply, and one is obliged to swallow hard and go bravely on, but the policeman's life is not a happy one. [Illustration: CARUSO'S CARICATURE OF KATHLEEN HOWARD] The Royal Opera is in the middle of the vegetable market, and on the days when produce arrives, the streets are full of cockney porters. It was rather amusing one day, going to rehearsal. I was dressed in my new black satin suit from Paris, and a smart little white hat. A porter caught sight of me, pushed back the other men on both sides of me, and said, "Get out of the loidy's wy, cahn't yer, Bill? That's roight, Miss, I always loikes to see the lydies wen Ahm workin', that's right, Miss, very neat, too." The next day it was raining and I was not so smart, and the same man saw me and said with an air of disappointment, "Ah don't like it 'aaf so well as yisterdy, Miss." I have often heard of American singers who could "bluff" or "hypnotize" directors into giving them chances which they thought they were entitled to, and from which they always emerged with flying colours. This is the tale of how I once, and only once, tried to "bluff," and how I nearly got caught at it. When the list of rôles for Convent Garden was submitted to me in Berlin I had actually sung on the stage all of them but one, _Brangaene_. I always found this lady so weak, compared to _Isolde_, that she had never interested me especially, and I had never studied her. I decided, however, that having sung ninety-nine per cent. of the rôles they wanted I could risk the one per cent., _Brangaene_, hoping that Kirkby-Lunn would not relinquish her. I learned the rôle, though, in record time between concert dates, and trusted to "luck." The season was drawing to a close, and all the operas had passed off well, when, just as we were going to dinner one evening, I was called to the 'phone and told Madame Kirkby-Lunn had been taken suddenly ill at the beginning of the first act of "Tristan," would probably not be able to go on in the second, and would I please come right down and make up. In a nervous tremor, for _Brangaene_ is not easy without orchestra rehearsal, and I was not quite sure of all the business cues, I went down, hunted out something to wear, put on my trusty "beauty" wig, hurriedly went over the second act with an assistant conductor, finding my memory was standing the strain, and then stood trembling in the wings. I thought to myself "Nemesis!" and shivered. What I hoped was--that if Madame really was going to have to give up it might be just before the lovely "Warnung" behind the scenes, because I had always wanted to sing that. There I stood and the rouge soaked into my face as it always mysteriously does, when one is not at one's best, leaving me pale and anxious--a real _Brangaene_. Poor Madame Kirkby-Lunn sang just as beautifully as ever though, but fainted after the second act. I went into her dressing room and offered to do the last bit and let her go home after her plucky fight. She, however, said she realized it was a thankless task for a singer to finish another singer's performance, and that she would not think of asking me to do it. She rested awhile, I still hovering, as requested by the management, till all was over; and I then went home, more exhausted than if I had sung a performance, but resolved to sin no more, and thanking my gods that I had not had to face that critical assemblage without adequate preparation. The Italian season was to come directly after ours, and they all came drifting in during our last days, to report for rehearsal. One day as I was up in my dressing room, preparing for a matinée, I heard a golden droning below me, rising and falling on half breath--Caruso at a room rehearsal. Words cannot describe the beauty of it, but it gave me exquisite pleasure. A day or two later I was at the Opera House on some errand and chanced to hear the rehearsal of "Pagliacci." Caruso was strolling about the stage, beautifully dressed as usual, with a pale grey Derby hat, gloves of wash-leather and light-coloured cane. The time came for his famous solo. He stood near the footlights with his eyes on the conductor, as we usually do when running over a familiar rôle with an unfamiliar conductor. He began softly with his wonderful effortless stream of tone, so characteristic, and so impossible of imitation. As the music worked on his emotions, always just below the surface with this great artist, his voice thrilled stronger and stronger in spite of him, till suddenly in full flood it poured out its luscious stream--and one thanked God anew for such a voice. Covent Garden on the night of a Court ball holds the most brilliant audience I have ever seen. The English woman is at her best in evening dress, the jewels are fabulous and the whole affair most dazzling. I remember one evening seeing King Manoel of Portugal in a box. It was shortly after his hasty flight from his own country, and by an odd chance his box was just under a very large "Exit" sign, the pertinence of which was striking. Destinn was our _Senta_ in "Holländer." She was just back from America, and at rehearsal she had to cut out several portamenti which, she said, she had contracted from the Italians, but which infuriated the German conductor. At the stage rehearsals she directed everything in accordance with Bayreuth tradition, which attaches the utmost importance to every slightest stage position; and the other singers followed her directions with an almost reverent devotion. At the performance she was wonderful, as usual. She wore a real Norwegian bridal headdress, a sort of basket of flowers. A Cockney super, on his way out, remarked in passing me, "I s'y, wot price Destinn's hat?" It was strange, coming from Germany, where every word almost is understood by the audience, to sing to people whose facial expression did not respond to the text; one feels that the inner meaning of the words is lost, is going for nothing, and this leads to a vague sense of irritation, if one allows the impression to dominate. There were several young Americans with us with glorious voices, straight from Jean de Reszke's studio. They were to sing the _Rheintöchter_, and some of the _Walküren_ in the "Ring." One or two were full of ambition and thankful for the experience they were receiving, while being paid. Some of them, however, showed a quite extraordinary attitude, not rare among students of the moneyed class. The air was filled with their complaints at the length of rehearsals, at the discomfort of the swings for the _Rhinemaidens_, at anything and everything. I was present one day when one of them called Mr. Percy Pitt aside and gravely took him to task for not having the swings adjusted to her comfort--thereby incidentally killing her chances with the management, for a beginner is before anything a beginner in a great Opera House, and is supposed to find her level and make no fuss about it. These girls constantly spoke loftily of their displeasure at the way things were run. When they were offered an extension of their contracts, owing to the repetitions of the "Ring," they could hardly be brought to consider signing on. I said to them, knowing the game, "Girls, some day you will be on your knees to get such engagements as you now hold. You have the chance of singing difficult parts with a great Master in a great Opera House, and you don't seem in the least to realize what that means." I regret to say my prophecy was nearly correct, for I think only one, a really serious girl, has prospered in her career. The attitude one assumes to one's operatic work in early years is surely reflected later, and the best advice a student can follow is that given me by Schumann-Heink, "Sing everything, no matter what they ask you to do." It was very amusing to hear the discussions as to what the audience should wear. We gave the performances more or less on the Bayreuth plan, beginning early and with one unusually long pause. As it was broad daylight at the hour set for the curtain to go up, and as the perfect Londoner loathes to be about after dark in anything but evening dress, the problem bothered many. Besides, evening dress is _de rigueur_ at Covent Garden. Some rushed home in the longest pause to dress and dine; some frankly omitted the first acts and came late, splendidly be-jewelled; some wore evening dresses and kept on their evening coats till the sun was decently down; and then bared their suitably naked shoulders. Others were just dubby and high-necked, and brought sandwiches in their pockets, feeling the holier and more Germanly reverent in consequence. * * * * * It is a great help to be able to afford to have some one with you in opera life. Home surroundings are the most conducive to good work, and it is hard to make a home alone; but you do not absolutely _need_ any one, if this is not possible. My "morals" were never in danger--no "infamous proposals" were made to me by agent, conductor or director. In my first engagement, one or two of the giddier members of the company had affairs with young officers--in no case a flagrant scandal, as with a married man. Their relations to each other in the theatre were all that could be demanded. The most exaggeratedly correct behaviour was exacted from me. One day in Metz, for example, we went for a walk in the country with the lyric baritone, a nice little chap, who was a great friend of ours. It was a lovely, frosty day in autumn, and we were walking fast through a forest road, when we passed a carriage with the very prim wife of an officer sitting in it. The next day, an acquaintance of ours told us, as a joke, that the same woman had said that afternoon to her, "I thought you told me that Fräulein Howard was a lady?" "So she is," said our friend. "Oh, no," said the other, "she can't be. I saw her and her sister walking with one of the singers from the theatre, and they were behaving very badly." "What were they doing?" asked our friend. "They were all three holding on to his stick!" said she, in a horrified tone! I went abroad to learn my business and I learned it. There is much talk about it not being necessary to go abroad to prepare oneself for an operatic career, but the time has not yet come in America when the student can find the same opportunity to practice, or work out _on the stage_ her beginner's faults. In Europe you can do this in blissful semi-obscurity. I hope and believe the time will come when a girl will not have to go through all I went through in order to develop her talent, but may do it in her own country. But the wonderfulness of Europe for those whose eyes are open cannot yet be replaced by America, and a real artist will surely flower more perfectly on that side of the water. To those who go I can only say that I hope they may have the tremendous advantage of fairy god-parents, as I had, and perhaps a sister Marjorie. After the season closed at Covent Garden I met the manager of the new Century Opera, soon to be opened in New York. He offered me a long contract, and I finally decided to return to America. I saw a photograph of Edward Kellogg Baird in a musical paper at this time, and read of his connection with the enterprise. I said to myself, "That is the type of man I shall marry--if I ever do marry." I came to the Century, met my husband, E. K. B., and worked with him for the success of the opera, which lay very near our hearts; but the war and other unfortunate circumstances proved too much to overcome, and we were forced to suspend. I finally attained the Metropolitan Opera, which I find the most absorbingly interesting house with which I have ever been connected, and which is the greatest school of all. REPERTOIRE 1. Carmen In French, German, English. 2. Amneris (Aida) French, German, English, Italian. 3. Azucena (Trovatore) Italian, German, English. 4. Fides (Prophète) French, German. 5. Dalila (Samson et Dalila) French, German, English. 6. Martha (In Faust) French, German, English. 7. Siebel (In Faust) French, German, English. 8. Maddalena (In Rigoletto) Italian, German, English. 9. Nancy (In Marta) Italian, German, English. 10. Ortrud (Lohengrin) German, English. 11. Lucia (Cav. Rus.) Italian, German, English. 12. Lola (Cav. Rus.) Italian, German, English. 13. Mary (Flieg. Hollaender) German. 14. Erda (Siegfried). 15. Erda (Rheingold). 16. Schwertleite (Walkuere). 17. Grimgerde (Walkuere). 18. Waltraute (Walkuere). 19. Waltraute (Goetterdaemmerung). 20. Erste Norn (Goetterdaemmerung). 21. Fricka (Walkuere). 22. Flosshilde (Goetterdaemmerung). 23. Flosshilde (Rheingold). 24. Hexe (Haensel und Gretel) German, English. 25. Nicklaus (Hoffman) German, English. 26. Valencienne (Merry Widow). 27. Frederika (Waltzertraum). 28. Dritte Dame (Zauberfloete). 29. Oeffentliche Meinung (Orpheus in der Unterwelt). 30. Orfeo (Gluck). 31. Molly (Geisha). 32. Georgette (Gloeckchen). 33. Pamela (Fra Diavolo). 34. Graefin (Trompeter). 35. Orlofsky (Fledermaus). 36. Frau Reich (Lustige Weibe). 37. Page (Salome). 38. Olga (Dollar Prinzessin). 39. Magdalena (Meistersingers). 40. Graefin (Heilige Elisabeth) German, English. 41. Martha (Undine). 42. Hedwig (Wilhelm Tell) German, English. 43. Gertrude (Hans Heiling). 44. Marzellina (Figaro) Italian, German. 45. Graefin (Wildschuetz). 46. Ascanio (Benvenuto Cellini). 47. Jacqueline (Arzt wieder willen) German, English. 48. Gertrude (Romeo and Juliet) German. 49. Stephano (Romeo and Juliet) German, English. 50. Hexe (Sieben Schwaben). 51. Ulrica (Masken Ball) Italian, German. 52. Hexe (Koenigskinder). 53. Cleo (Kuhreigen). 54. Suzuki (Butterfly) English, Italian, German. 55. Magdalena (Evangelimann). 56. Carmela (Jewels of the Madonna) English, Italian, German. 57. Mother (Louise). 58. Cieca (Giaconda) German, English, Italian. 59. Nutrice (Boris). 60. Blumenmaedchen (Parsifal). 61. Annina (Rosenkavalier). 62. Albine (Thais). 63. Mistress Benson (Lakme). 64. Margarethe (Weisse Dame). 65. Cypra (Zigeuner Baron). 66. Fattoumah (Marouf). 67. Amelfa (Le Coq d'Or). 68. Mrs. Everton (Shanewis). Etc., etc. STUDIED NOT SUNG Brangaene (Tristan). Mutter Gertrud (Haensel und Gretel) Etc., etc. THE END 
33168	----	produced from images available by The Internet Archive.) FAMOUS SINGERS LAHEE [Illustration: _Calvé as Santuzza_.] Famous Singers of To-day and Yesterday By Henry C. Lahee _ILLUSTRATED_ [Illustration: logo] Boston L. C. Page and Company (Incorporated) 1898 _Copyright, 1898_ BY L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY (INCORPORATED) Colonial Press: Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, U. S. A. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE PREFACE vii I. FROM 1600 TO 1800 A.D. 11 II. PASTA TO MARIO 41 III. MARIO TO TIETIENS 77 IV. PRIMA DONNAS OF THE FIFTIES 110 V. PRIMA DONNAS OF THE SIXTIES 143 VI. PRIMA DONNAS OF THE SEVENTIES 186 VII. PRIMA DONNAS OF THE EIGHTIES 220 VIII. TENORS AND BARITONES 260 IX. CONTRALTOS AND BASSOS 296 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF FAMOUS SINGERS 325 INDEX 333 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE CALVÉ AS SANTUZZA _Frontispiece_ JENNY LIND 84 JEAN DE RESZKE AS ROMEO 98 ADELINA PATTI 128 NILSSON AS VALENTINE 162 LILLIAN NORDICA 220 MELBA AS OPHELIA 244 EMMA EAMES 258 EDOUARD DE RESZKE AS MEPHISTOPHELES 272 ALVARY IN RIGOLETTO 280 SOFIA SCALCHI 300 PLANÇON AS RAMFIS IN AIDA 318 PREFACE. It has been the desire of the author to give, in a book of modest dimensions, as complete a record as possible of the "Famous Singers" from the establishment of Italian Opera down to the present day. The majority are opera singers, but in a few cases oratorio and concert singers of exceptional celebrity have been mentioned also. To give complete biographical sketches of all singers of renown would require a work of several large volumes, and all that can be attempted here is to give a mere "bird's-eye view" of those whose names exist as singers of international repute. For much information concerning the earlier celebrities the author is indebted to Clayton's "Queens of Song," "Great Singers" by Ferris, and "The Prima Donna" by Sutherland Edwards, in which interesting volumes much will be found at length which is greatly condensed in this little volume. To Maurice Strakosch's "Souvenirs d'un Impresario," and to "Mapleson's Memoirs," the writer owes something also in the way of anecdote and fact concerning many singers of the latter half of this century. As it is impossible to give biographical sketches of more than a comparatively small number of singers who have achieved renown, the work is supplemented by a chronological table which is more comprehensive. No such table can, however, be perfect. For singers of the past the following authorities have been used: "Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians," C. Egerton Lowe's "Chronological Cyclopædia of Musicians and Musical Events," James D. Brown's "Biographical Dictionary of Musicians," and "A Hundred Years of Music in America." Concerning singers of later times, who have risen to fame since those works were compiled, such items have been used as could be found in the newspapers and magazines of their day, and the information is of necessity imperfect. It is nevertheless hoped that the table may be of some use as carrying the history of famous singers some years beyond anything hitherto published in book form, and it has been the desire of the author to make the book interesting alike to student and amateur. FAMOUS SINGERS OF TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY. CHAPTER I. FROM 1600 TO 1800 A. D. The year 1600 marked the beginning of a new era in musical history, for in that year the first public performance of regular opera took place in Florence, when the "Eurydice" of Rinuccini and Peri was given in honor of the wedding of Marie de' Medici and Henry IV. of France. The growth and ever-increasing popularity of the opera, the development of civilization, the increase of wealth and the population of new countries, have led not only to the highest cultivation of the human voice, wherein music exerts its greatest power of fascination, but have brought forward hundreds of competitors for the artistic laurels which are the reward of those who reach the highest state of musical perfection. For nearly a century opera was confined to the continent of Europe, but in 1691 Margarita de L'Epine, a native of Tuscany, appeared in London. She was remarkable for her plainness of speech and of features, her rough manners and swarthy appearance, and she must indeed have been possessed of a fine voice to have been able to retain her hold on public favor. In 1692 she announced her last appearance, but it was so successful that she kept on giving last appearances and did not leave England for several years, thus inaugurating a custom which is observed to the present day. Margarita married the celebrated Doctor Pepusch. Contemporary with her was Katharine Tofts, an English woman, for an account of whom we are indebted to Colley Cibber, the great critic and playwright. She was a very beautiful woman with an exquisitely clear, sweet voice. Her career was short, for, after having achieved a tremendous success in one of her parts, she became demented, and, though eventually cured, she never returned to the stage. There was a lively rivalry between the two singers, which furnished gossip for the town. Anastasia Robinson, mild and pleasing in manners, with great sweetness of expression and large blue eyes, was engaged to sing by George Frederick Händel, who at that time was the impresario of the London opera. Other singers he engaged in Dresden, of whom Margherita Durastanti was the soprano. Large, coarse, and masculine, she is said to have been distinguished as much for the high respectability of her character as for her musical talent. Senesino was considered the leading tenor singer of his day. He was a man of imposing figure and majestic carriage, with a clear, powerful, equal, and fluent voice. The basso was Boschi, who was chiefly remarkable for a voice of immense volume and a very vigorous style of acting. Anastasia Robinson was eclipsed, after a career of twelve years, by Francesca Cuzzoni, and married the Earl of Peterborough. She left a reputation for integrity and goodness seldom enjoyed by even the highest celebrities. Cuzzoni made an immediate and immense success, and Händel took great pains to compose airs adapted to display her exquisite voice. She, in return, treated him with insolence and caprice, so that he looked about for another singer. His choice fell upon Faustina Bordoni, a Venetian lady who had risen to fame in Italy. She was elegant in figure, agreeable in manners, and had a handsome face. Cuzzoni, on the other hand, was ill made and homely, and her temper was turbulent and obstinate. A bitter rivalry at once sprang up, Händel fanning the flame by composing for Bordoni as diligently as he had previously done for Cuzzoni. The public was soon divided, and the rivalry was carried to an absurd point. At length the singers actually came to blows, and so fierce was the conflict that the bystanders were unable to separate them until each combatant bore substantial marks of the other's esteem. Cuzzoni was then dispensed with, and went to Vienna. She was reckless and extravagant, and was at several times imprisoned for debt, finally dying in frightful indigence after subsisting by button making,--a sad termination of a brilliant career. Bordoni led a prosperous life, married Adolfo Hasse, the director of the orchestra in Dresden, sang before Frederick the Great, and passed a comfortable old age. Both she and her husband died in 1783, she at the age of eighty-three and he at eighty-four. Other singers of this period were Lavinia Fenton, who became the Duchess of Bolton, and who is chiefly remarkable for having been the original Polly in Gay's "Beggar's Opera;" Marthe le Rochois, who sang many of Lulli's operas,--a woman of ordinary appearance but wonderful magnetism; Madame La Maupin, one of the wildest, most adventurous and reckless women ever on the stage; and Caterina Mingotti, a faultless singer, of respectable habits. Mingotti was seized with the fatal ambition to manage opera, and soon reached the verge of bankruptcy. She contrived, however, to earn enough by singing during the succeeding five years to support her respectably in her old age. To this period also belongs Farinelli, or Broschi, who was the greatest tenor of his age, perhaps the greatest who ever lived, for we are told that there was no branch of his art which he did not carry to the highest pitch of perfection. His career of three years in London was a continuous triumph, and he is said to have made £5,000 each year,--a very large sum in those days. His singing also restored to health Philip V. of Spain, who was a prey to depression, and neglected all the affairs of his kingdom. At the court of Spain his influence became immense until Charles III. ascended the throne, when Farinelli quitted Spain, "at the royal suggestion," and retired to Bologna. Of the long list of men who have distinguished themselves as singers in opera, it is curious to note that almost, if not quite, the first were a Mario and a Nicolini, names which are familiar to us as belonging to well-known tenors of this (nineteenth) century. Of Mario but little is recorded; but Nicolini, whose full name was Nicolino Grimaldi Nicolini, and who was born in 1673, is known to have sung at Rome in 1694. He remained on the stage until 1726, but the date of his death is unknown. Nicolini sang in England in 1708, and at several subsequent times, and was well received. Addison wrote of him, concerning his acting, that "he gave new majesty to kings, resolution to heroes, and softness to lovers." Caterina Gabrielli was the daughter of a cook of the celebrated Cardinal Gabrielli, and was born at Rome, November 12, 1730. She possessed an unusual share of beauty, a fine voice, and an accurate ear. She made her first appearance when seventeen years old at the theatre of Lucca, in Galuppi's opera, "Sofonisba." She was intelligent and witty, full of liveliness and grace, and an excellent actress. Her voice, though not powerful, was of exquisite quality and wonderful extent, its compass being nearly two octaves and a half, and perfectly equable throughout, while her facility of vocalization was extraordinary. Her fame was immediately established, and soon she had all mankind at her feet; but she proved to be coquettish, deceitful, and extravagant. No matter with whom she came in contact, she compelled them to give way to her whims. On one occasion she refused to sing for the viceroy of Sicily, and was therefore committed to prison for twelve days, where she gave costly entertainments, paid the debts of her fellow prisoners, and distributed large sums amongst the indigent. Besides this, she sang all her best songs in her finest style every day, until the term of her imprisonment expired, when she came forth amid the shouts of the grateful poor whom she had benefited while in jail. Despite her extravagance Gabrielli had a good heart. She gave largely in charity, and never forgot her parents. Having by degrees lost both voice and beauty, Gabrielli retired finally to Bologna in 1780, and died there in April, 1796, at the age of sixty-six. In the room in Paris in which the unfortunate Admiral Coligny had been murdered, was born on February 14, 1744, the beautiful, witty, but dissipated Sophie Arnould. At the age of twelve her voice, which was remarkable for power and purity, attracted the attention of the Princess de Modena, through whose influence she was engaged to sing in the king's chapel. In 1757 she made her first appearance in opera, when her beauty and her acting enabled her to carry everything before her. The opera was besieged whenever her name was announced, and all the gentlemen of Paris contested for the honor of throwing bouquets at her feet. At length she eloped with Count Lauraguais, a handsome, dashing young fellow, full of wit and daring. Her home resembled a little court, of which she was the reigning sovereign, and her salon was always crowded by men of the highest distinction. When Benjamin Franklin arrived in Paris, he confessed that nowhere did he find such pleasure, such wit, such brilliancy, as in the salon of Mlle. Arnould. She remained faithful to her lover for four years, when he bestowed on her a life-pension of 2,000 crowns. While she never spared any one in the exercise of her wit, she was occasionally the subject of ridicule herself, as, for instance, when the Abbé Galiani was asked his opinion of her singing, and replied, "It is the finest asthma I ever heard." Sophie Arnould appeared in several of Gluck's operas, and acquitted herself to the satisfaction of the composer. Her voice had not apparently fulfilled early expectations, but her beauty and her acting made her a success. When Voltaire one day said to her, "Ah, mademoiselle, I am eighty-four years old, and I have committed eighty-four follies," she replied, "A mere trifle; I am not yet forty, and I have committed more than a thousand." In 1792 she purchased the presbytère of Clignancourt, Luzarches (Seine-et-Oise). She had a fortune of 30,000 livres and innumerable friends, but in less than two years she had lost her fortune, and her friends being dispersed by exile, imprisonment, and the scaffold during the Revolution, she was reduced to the lowest stage of poverty. She went to Paris and sought an interview with Fouché, now a great man, who had been one of her most ardent admirers. He awarded her a pension of 2,400 livres, and ordered that apartments should be given her in the Hôtel d'Angevilliers. In 1803 she died in obscurity. Among the celebrated male singers of this period were Gasparo Pacchierotti, and Giovanni Battista Rubinelli. The former of these was considered to have been the finest singer of the latter part of the eighteenth century. Endowed with a vivid imagination, uncommon intelligence, and profound sensibility, a tall and lean figure, a voice which was often uncertain and nasal, he required much determination and strength of character to overcome the defects and take advantage of the good qualities which nature had bestowed upon him. Yet he is described by Lord Mt. Edgecumbe as "decidedly the most perfect singer it ever fell to his lot to hear." Rubinelli, on the other hand, from his fullness of voice and simplicity of style pleased a greater number than Pacchierotti, though none perhaps so exquisitely as that singer. Rubinelli's articulation was so pure and well accented that in his recitatives no one conversant with the Italian language ever had occasion to look at a libretto while he was singing. His style was true cantabile, in which he was unexcelled. Upon the retirement of Sophie Arnould a new star appeared in the person of Antoinette Cecile Clavel St. Huberty, the daughter of a brave old soldier who was also a musician. Her first appearances in opera were made in Warsaw, where her father, M. Clavel, was engaged as repetitor to a French company. From Warsaw she went to Berlin, where she married a certain Chevalier de Croisy, after which she sang for three years at Strasbourg. At last she went to Paris, where she appeared in 1777 in Gluck's "Armida." Madame St. Huberty did not rush meteor-like into public favor. Her success was gained after years of patient labor, during which she endured bitter poverty, and sang only minor parts. In person she was small, thin, and fair; her features were not finely formed, and her mouth was of unusual size, but her countenance was expressive. In 1783 she reached the summit of her success, when she appeared in the title rôle of Piccini's opera, "Dodon." Louis XVI., who did not much care for opera, had it performed twice, and was so much pleased that he granted Madame St. Huberty a pension of 1,500 livres, to which he added one of five hundred more from his privy purse. Concerning her performance of this part we are told by Grimm, "Never has there been united acting more captivating, a sensibility more perfect, singing more exquisite, happier byplay, and more noble abandon." In 1790 Madame St. Huberty retired from the operatic stage and married Count d'Entraigues. After a political career in Spain and Russia, during which the count and his wife passed through some trying vicissitudes, they settled in England, but on the 22d of July, 1812, both the count and countess were assassinated by a servant, who had been bribed by an agent of Fouché to obtain certain papers in their possession. Gertrude Elizabeth Mara was the daughter of Johann Schmaling, a respectable musician of Hesse Cassel. Her mother died shortly after her birth in 1749, but her father out of his limited means gave her the best education he could. As she was considered a prodigy her father took her from town to town till they reached Holland, where, after performing for some time, they went to England. Thence, after earning some money by giving concerts, they travelled to Germany, arriving at Leipzig in 1766, where the young singer obtained an engagement at the theatre as first singer, at a salary of six hundred dollars. From this time she continued to prosper, and she quite captivated that opinionated monarch, Frederick the Great. In 1773 she fell in love with, and married, a handsome violoncellist named Jean Mara. He was a showy, extravagant man, and fell into dissipated habits, but through all Madame Mara was devoted to him. Her personal appearance was far from striking. She was short and insignificant, with an agreeable, good-natured countenance. Her manner, however, was prepossessing, though she was an indifferent actress. But her voice atoned for everything. Its compass was from G to E in altissimo, which she ran with the greatest ease and force, the tones being at once powerful and sweet. Her success she owed to her untiring industry. Nothing taxed her powers, her execution was easy and neat, her shake was true, open, and liquid, and though she preferred brilliant pieces, her refined taste was well known. In England she gathered many laurels, as well as in Germany and other countries which she visited, but she came into collision with the authorities at Oxford, on account of her ignorance of the English language and of Oxford customs. On leaving England she sang at a farewell concert which netted seven hundred pounds, and her rival, Mrs. Billington, generously gave her services. Madame Mara passed the last years of her life at Revel, where she died, January, 1833, at the age of eighty-five. On the celebration of her eighty-third birthday she was offered a poetical tribute by no less a person than Goethe. Of Madame Mara's contemporary male singers Luigi Marchesi is entitled to mention, for he had, within three years of his début, the reputation of being the best singer in Italy. He visited all Europe, even penetrating to St. Petersburg, in company with Sarti and Todi. Besides his wonderful vocal powers, which enabled him to execute the most marvellous embellishments, he was noted for great beauty of person, and for the grace and propriety of his gestures. Crescentini, too, who was considered the last great singer of his school, sang at all the chief cities of Europe, and was given by Napoleon the Iron Cross, an honor which aroused many jealousies. "Nothing could exceed," says Fétis, "the suavity of his tones, the force of his expression, the perfect taste of his ornaments, or the large style of his phrasing." For several years after his retirement he was a professor at the Royal College of Music at Naples. Mrs. Elizabeth Billington was considered to be the finest singer ever born in England. Her father was a member of the Italian Opera orchestra named Weichsel, and her mother, a pupil of John Christian Bach, was a leading vocalist at Vauxhall, whose voice was noted for a certain reediness of tone, caused, it is said, by her having practised with the oboe,--her husband's instrument. Elizabeth Weichsel was born in 1770, and began to compose pieces for the pianoforte when eleven years of age. At fourteen, she appeared at a concert at Oxford. She continued her study of the piano under Thomas Billington, one of the band of Drury Lane, to whom she was married in 1785, in opposition to the wishes of her parents. They were very poor, and went to Dublin to seek engagements, and here Mrs. Billington appeared at a theatre in Smock Alley, singing with the celebrated Tenduccini. Her early efforts were not crowned with the greatest success, but she did better at Waterford, and later on, when she returned to London, she was still more successful. Her voice was a pure soprano, sweet rather than powerful, of extraordinary extent and quality in its upper notes, in which it had somewhat the tone color of a flute or flageolet. In her manner she was peculiarly bewitching. Her face and figure were beautiful, and her countenance full of good humor, but she had comparatively little talent as an actress. In 1786 she first appeared at Covent Garden, in the presence of the king and queen, and her success was beyond her most sanguine anticipations. She sang in a resplendently brilliant style, and brilliancy was an innovation in English singing. Mrs. Billington one day received a great compliment from Haydn, the composer. Reynolds, the painter, was finishing her portrait, and Haydn, on seeing it, said: "You have made a mistake. You have represented Mrs. Billington listening to the angels; you should have made the angels listening to her." In 1796, while in Italy, Mr. Billington died in a sudden and mysterious manner. Soon afterwards his widow went to Milan, where she fell in love with a Frenchman, the son of a banker in Lyons, named Felican. He was a remarkably handsome man, but no sooner were they married (in 1799) than he commenced to treat her most brutally, and eventually she was obliged to run away from him. She returned to London under the care of her brother. On reaching London, a lively competition for her services began between Harris and Sheridan, the theatrical managers. She gave the preference to Harris, and received £3,000 to sing three times a week, also a free benefit was ensured at £500, and a place for her brother as leader of the band. Eventually, however, the dispute was ended by arbitration, and it was decided that she should sing alternately at each house. At the height of her popularity Mrs. Billington is said to have averaged an income of £14,000 a year. She retired from the stage on March 30, 1806, on which occasion she was the first to introduce Mozart's music into England, giving the opera, "Clemenza di Tito," of which there was only one manuscript copy in England. That belonged to the Prince of Wales, who lent it for the occasion. After a separation of fifteen years, Mrs. Billington was reunited to her second husband, but he at once resumed his brutal treatment, and her death, in 1818, was caused by a blow from his hand. One of the most popular and charming singers at La Scala, in the Carnival of 1794, was Giuseppa Grassini, the daughter of a farmer of Varese in Lombardy, where she was born in 1775. She received decided advantages by making her début with some of the greatest artists of her time,--Marchesi, Crescentini, and Lazzarini. Grassini was an exquisite vocalist in spite of her ignorance, and albeit fickle and capricious, a most beautiful and fascinating woman,--luxurious, prodigal, and generous, but heavy and dull in conversation. Her voice was originally a soprano, but changed to a deep contralto. It was rich, round, and full, though of limited compass, being confined within about one octave of good natural notes. Her style was rich and finished, and though she had not much execution, what she did was elegant and perfect. She never attempted anything beyond her powers, her dramatic instincts were always true, and in the expression of the subdued and softer passions she has never been excelled. Her figure was tall and commanding, and her carriage and attitudes had a classic beauty combined with a grace peculiarly her own. Her head was noble, her features were symmetrical, her hair and eyes of the deepest black, and her entire appearance had an air of singular majesty. Napoleon invited her to Paris, where she soon became an object of inveterate dislike to the Empress Josephine. In 1804, returning to Paris after a visit to Berlin, Napoleon made her directress of the Opera. In the same year she visited London, singing alternately with Mrs. Billington. In London she did not make a great success, and when her benefit took place she asked the good-natured Mrs. Billington to sing, fearing that she would not succeed alone. In succeeding seasons, however, Grassini grew in public favor, and on reappearing in England, in 1812, she was rapturously received, but her powers were now on the wane, and at the end of the season she departed unregretted. For some years longer she sang in Italy, Holland, and Austria, retiring about 1823. She married Colonel Ragani, afterwards director of the Opera in Paris, and resided for many years in that city. She died in Milan in 1850, at the mature age of eighty-five. Charles Benjamin Incledon and John Braham were two English singers of renown who came into prominence about the same time. Incledon began as a choir boy in Exeter Cathedral, after which he went into the navy, where his voice developed into a fine tenor. Leaving the sea, he studied singing, and soon became popular. His natural voice was full and open, and was sent forth without the slightest artifice, and when he sang pianissimo his voice retained its original quality. His style of singing was bold and manly, mixed with considerable feeling, and he excelled in ballads. In 1817 he visited America, where he was well received. The career of John Braham is of interest to all who love the traditions of English music. In his early days he was so poor that he was obliged to sell pencils for a living, but his musical talent being discovered by Leoni, a teacher of repute, who took him under his tutelage, he appeared at the age of thirteen at Covent Garden. At the age of about twenty he was fitted for the Italian stage, and at once made his mark. Even Crescentini, who was placed in the background, acknowledged Braham's talent, and when he sang in Italy his name was freely quoted as being one of the greatest living singers. As he grew older he attained a prodigious reputation, never before equalled in England, and whether singing a simple ballad, in oratorio, or in the grandest dramatic music, the largeness and nobility of his style were matched by a voice which in its prime was almost peerless. Braham amassed a large fortune, and then aspired to be a manager, an experiment which quickly reduced him to poverty. In 1840 he visited America, and made a grand operatic and concert tour. In private life he was much admired, and was always found in the most conservative and fastidious circles, where as a man of culture, a humorist, and a raconteur, he was the life of society. Braham was frequently associated in opera with Madame Angelica Catalani, the last of the great singers who came before the public in the eighteenth century. She was a woman of tall and majestic presence, a dazzling complexion, large, beautiful blue eyes, and features of ideal symmetry,--a woman to entrance the eye as well as the ear. Her voice was a soprano of the purest quality, embracing a compass of nearly three octaves, and so powerful that no band could overwhelm its tones. The greatest defect of her singing was that, while the ear was bewildered with the beauty and tremendous power of her voice, the feelings were untouched,--she never appealed to the heart. She could not thrill like Mara, nor captivate her hearers by a birdlike softness and brilliancy, like Billington. She simply astonished her audiences. Her private life was as exemplary as her public career was dazzling. She was married, after a most romantic courtship, to a M. de Vallebregue, a French captain of Hussars, who turned out to be an ignorant, stupid man, but a driver of hard bargains for his wife's talents. His musical knowledge is illustrated by an anecdote to the effect that on one occasion, when his wife complained at a rehearsal that the piano was too high, he had the defect remedied by sending for a carpenter and making him cut off six inches from the legs of the instrument. In spite of the reputation for avarice which her husband helped to create, Madame Catalani won golden opinions by her sweet temper, liberality, and benevolence. Towards the end of her career Catalani drew down on her head the severest reprobation of all good judges by singing the most extravagant and bizarre show pieces, such as variations, composed for the violin, on "Rule Britannia," "God Save the King," etc. The public in general, however, listened to her wonderful execution with unbounded delight and astonishment. In 1831 Madame Catalani retired from the stage. Young and brilliant rivals, such as Pasta and Sontag, were rising to contest her sovereignty, and for several years the critics had been dropping pretty plain hints that it would be the most judicious and dignified course. She settled with her family on an estate near Lake Como; but in 1848 she went to Paris to escape the cholera, which was then raging, and in a few months, notwithstanding her precaution, she fell a victim to that dread disease. CHAPTER II. PASTA TO MARIO. It is impossible in these chapters to make more than a passing sketch of many famous singers, and we must therefore be content with the mere mention of such as Fodor, Camporese, Pisaroni, and Damoreau, who all, in their day, attained high renown. We now come to Giuditta Pasta, who must be placed in the very front rank, as an artist who could transform natural faults into the rarest beauties, who could make the world forgive the presence of many deficiencies, and who engraved deeper impressions on the memory of her hearers than any other, even in an age of great singers. Her voice at first was limited, husky, and weak, without charm, without flexibility. Though her countenance _spoke_, its features were cast in a coarse mould. Her figure was ungraceful, her movements were awkward, and, at the end of her first season, she found herself a dire failure. She suddenly withdrew from the operatic world and betook herself to study, and when she reappeared she made a great impression. By sheer industry she had increased the range of her voice to two octaves and a half. Her tones had become rich and sweet, her shake was most beautiful, but her genius as a tragedienne surpassed her talent as a singer. Poetical and enthusiastic by temperament, the crowning excellence of her art was a grand simplicity. There was a sublimity in her expression of vehement passion which was the result of measured force, energy which was never wasted, exalted pathos that never overshot the limits of art. Vigorous without violence, graceful without artifice, she was always greatest when the greatest emergency taxed her powers. No one could ever sing "Tancredi" like Pasta; "Desdemona" furnished the theme for the most lavish praises of the critics; "Medea" is said to have been the grandest lyric interpretation in the records of art. She had literally worked her way up to eminence, and, having attained the height, she stood on it firm and secure. Madame Pasta was associated in many of her successes with the tenor Garcia, more celebrated as the father of Malibran and Viardot, and as one of the greatest vocal teachers of the century; with the baritone Bordogni, and the basso Levasseur. Honors were showered upon her in all parts of Europe, and it is said that her operatic salary of £14,000 was nearly doubled by her income from other sources; but she lost nearly her entire fortune by the failure of a banker in Vienna, and, in the endeavor to retrieve her fortunes, she remained on the stage long after her vocal powers were on the wane. Rossini, the celebrated composer, married an opera singer, Isabella Angela Colbran. She was born at Madrid, her father being court musician to the King of Spain. Among her teachers was the celebrated Crescentini, and her style and voice being formed by him, she was, from 1806 to 1815, considered one of the best singers in Europe. After that time her voice began to depart; but, as she was a great favorite with the King of Naples, she remained at that city till 1821, and all good, loyal Neapolitans were expected to enjoy her singing, which was sometimes excruciatingly out of tune. She was born in 1785, but it was not until 1822 that she married Rossini, who was seven years her junior. In 1824 she went with her husband to London, and they made a great pecuniary success, besides being greatly admired for artistic taste in private concerts. Some four years after the appearance of Madame Pasta another star of the first magnitude appeared,--Henrietta Sontag, a beautiful and fascinating woman, and, as some say, the greatest German singer of the century. Nature gave her a pure soprano voice of rare and delicate quality, united with incomparable sweetness. Essentially a singer and not a declamatory artist, the sentiment of grace was carried to such a height in her art that it became equivalent to the more robust passion and force which distinguished some of her great contemporaries. She began singing minor parts at the theatre at the early age of eight, and her regular début in opera took place when she was only fifteen. "She appeared to sing," we are told, "with the volubility of a bird, and to experience the pleasure she imparted." Her great art lay in rendering pleasing whatever she did. The ear was never disturbed by a harsh note. The most romantic stories circulated about the adoration lavished upon her by men of rank and wealth, and it was reported that no singer ever had so many offers of marriage from people of exalted station. But she had met in Berlin a Piedmontese nobleman, Count Rossi, to whom she became affianced, and Mlle. Sontag refused all the flattering overtures made by her admirers. One of her most ardent lovers was De Beriot, the great violinist, who, on his rejection, fell into a deep state of despondency, from which the fascinations of the beautiful Malibran at length roused him. Sontag's union with Rossi was for a long time kept secret on account of the objections of his family, but she retired from the stage and lived nearly twenty years of happy life in the various capitals of Europe, to which her husband, attached to the Sardinian legation, was accredited. At length, in 1848, her fortune was swept away in the political revolution, and she announced her intention of returning to the stage. She was at once offered £17,000 for the season at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, and on her first appearance it was evident that time had but developed the artist. What little her voice had lost was more than compensated for by the deeper passion and feeling which permeated her efforts, and she was rapturously greeted. In 1852 she made a tour of the large cities of the United States, where she quickly established herself as one of the greatest favorites, in spite of the fact that Malibran and Jenny Lind had preceded her, and that the country had hardly recovered from the Lind mania. In New Orleans she entered into an engagement to sing in the City of Mexico; but while her agent was absent in Europe, gathering together an operatic company, she was seized with cholera and died in a few hours. Joseph Staudigl, who was born in 1807, at Wollersdorf, Austria, was one of the most distinguished and accomplished bassos of the first half of this century. He was a man of varied gifts and ardent temperament, frank, open, and amiable. In 1825 he entered upon his novitiate in the Benedictine monastery at Melk, but two years later he went to Vienna to study surgery. Here his funds gave out, and he was glad to sing in the chorus at the Kärnthnerthor Theatre. In due course the opportunity offered for him to take leading parts, and he soon gained a great reputation. He was also a great singer of church music and oratorio, for which branches of music he had an inborn love. Staudigl's last appearance took place in 1856, on Palm Sunday, for a few days later he became a victim to insanity, from which he never recovered. He made repeated tours abroad, and was much admired wherever he went. As a singer of Schubert's Lieder he was without a rival, and his performances of the "Erlkönig," the "Wanderer," and "Aufenthalt" were considered wonderful. His death occurred in 1861, and his funeral was the occasion of a great demonstration. Manuel Garcia, the tenor, had two daughters who both achieved the highest distinction on the operatic stage. The eldest, Maria Felicien, became Madame Malibran, and she is mentioned to-day as one of the most wonderful operatic singers that the world has produced. Daring originality stamped her life as a woman and her career as an artist, and the brightness with which her star shone through a brief and stormy history had something akin in it to the dazzling but capricious passage of a meteor. As a child she was delicate, sensitive, and self-willed, and she had a prodigious instinct for art. Nevertheless, her voice was peculiarly intractable, being thin in the upper notes, veiled in the middle tones, and her intonation very imperfect. On leaving school she was taken in hand by her father, who was more pitiless to her than to his other pupils. He understood her disposition thoroughly, and said that she could never become great except at the price of much suffering, for her proud and stubborn spirit required an iron hand to control it. Soon after making her début she went with her father to America, for he had conceived a project for establishing opera in the United States. His company consisted of himself, Madame Garcia, a son, and his daughter. Maria's charming voice and personal fascination held the public spellbound, and raised the delight of opera-goers to a wild pitch of enthusiasm. While in New York, a French merchant, M. François Eugene Malibran, fell passionately in love with her, and she, being sick of her father's brutality, and the supposed great fortune of Malibran dazzling her imagination, married him, though in opposition to her father's will. A few weeks after the marriage M. Malibran was a bankrupt, and imprisoned for debt, and his bride discovered that she had been cheated by a cunning scoundrel, who had calculated on saving himself from poverty by dependence on the stage earnings of his wife. Garcia and the rest of his family went to Mexico, where he succeeded in losing his fortune. Madame Malibran remained in New York with her husband; but at the end of five months she wearied of her hard fate, and, leaving him, returned to Paris. Here she soon had the world at her feet, for the novelty and richness of her style of execution set her apart from all other singers as a woman of splendid and inventive genius. Her voice was a mezzo-soprano, naturally full of defects, and, to the very last, she was obliged to go through her exercises every day to keep it flexible; but by the tremendously severe discipline to which her father's teaching subjected her, its range extended so that it finally reached a compass of three octaves. Her high notes had an indescribable brilliancy, and her low tones were so soft, sweet, and heart-searching that they thrilled with every varying phase of her sensibilities. Mr. Chorley writes: "She may not have been beautiful, but she was better than beautiful, insomuch as a speaking, Spanish, human countenance is ten times more fascinating than many a faultless angel face, such as Guido could paint. There was a health of tint, with but a slight touch of the yellow rose in her complexion, a great mobility of expression in her features, an honest, direct brightness of the eye, a refinement in the form of her head, and the set of it on her shoulders." Malibran could speak and write in five languages, and sing in any school. She had the characteristic of being able to fire all her fellow artists with her genius, and she was a tremendous worker. She was also very fond of outdoor exercises, being a daring horse-woman and swimmer. On the death of her husband she married De Beriot, the violinist, to whom she had been passionately attached for some time, but shortly afterwards she was thrown from her horse, while attending a hunt in England. She sustained severe internal injury which eventually proved fatal, though not until she had made heroic efforts to continue her career, and fill all her engagements. Her death produced a painful shock throughout all Europe, for she had been as much admired and beloved as a woman, as she was worshipped as an artist. The genius of the Garcia family shone not less in Madame Malibran's younger sister, Pauline, than in herself. Pauline was thirteen years the junior of Maria, and did not become celebrated until after the death of her sister. In the meantime, Grisi and other great singers had appeared. Pauline was the favorite child of Garcia. "Pauline," he would say, "can be guided by a thread of silk, but Maria needs a hand of iron." At the age of six she could speak fluently in French, Spanish, Italian, and English, and to these she afterwards added German. She also learned to play the organ and piano as if by instinct. In her early days she went with her father to Mexico, where they met with many strange adventures, notably on one occasion, when they were seized by bandits, who plundered Garcia of his savings, bound him to a tree, and made him sing for his life. Pauline was seven years old on her return to Europe, and three years later she became one of the pupils of Franz Liszt. When she was eleven her father died, and she began to study voice with Adolph Nourrit, the tenor, who had been one of her father's favorite pupils. Her first public appearance was made in Brussels, at the age of sixteen, and it was the first occasion on which De Beriot appeared after the death of Madame Malibran, his wife. Pauline Garcia's voice was like that of her sister in quality. It combined the two registers of contralto and soprano, from low F to C above the lines, but the upper part of an originally limited mezzo-soprano had been literally fabricated by an iron discipline, conducted by the girl herself with all the science of a master. Her singing was expressive, descriptive, thrilling, full, equal and just, brilliant and vibrating, especially in the medium and lower notes. Capable of every style of art, it was adapted to all the feelings of nature, but particularly to outbursts of grief, joy, or despair. M. Viardot, the director of the Paris Opera, went to London to hear her, and was so delighted that he offered her the position of prima donna for the next season. She was then only eighteen, and by this engagement she was fairly embarked upon a brilliant career. M. Viardot fell deeply in love with her shortly after his introduction to her, and in 1840 they were married. Returning to the stage after a short retirement, Madame Viardot visited most of the great cities, and invariably received the most enthusiastic welcome. On some occasions the audience could scarcely be induced to leave the house at the end of the performance. Once she played, on account of the illness of another singer, the two parts of "Alice" and "Isabella" in "Robert le Diable," changing her costume with each change of scene, and representing in one opera the opposite rôles of princess and peasant. After Madame Viardot's retirement in 1862, she held for many years a professional chair at the Paris Conservatoire. In private life she has been always loved and admired, and she is to this day recognized as one of the great vocal teachers of Paris. Adolf Nourrit, of whom the French stage is deservedly proud, was a pupil of Garcia, and for ten years was principal tenor at the Académie, creating all the leading tenor rôles produced during that time. He was idolized by the public, and was a man of much influence in musical circles. He gave a distinct stamp and flavor to all his parts, and was as refined and pleasing in comedy as he was pathetic and commanding in tragedy. It was he who popularized the songs of Schubert, and otherwise softened the French prejudice against the German music of his time. In private life he was witty, genial, and refined, and was, therefore, a favorite guest at the most distinguished and exclusive "salons." Nourrit was subject to alternate fits of excitement and depression, and was affected to such a degree by some articles praising his rival, Duprez, at his expense, that his friends feared for his sanity. Eventually, while filling an engagement in Italy, he threw himself out of his bedroom window and was instantly killed on the paved courtyard below. Duprez, like Nourrit, was a student at the Paris Conservatoire, and for many years a leading figure at the Académie. At first he was not a success in opera, but, by dint of study and hard work, he achieved a high reputation. In person he was insignificant, but his tragic passion and splendid intelligence gave him a deserved prominence. He composed much music, including two masses and eight operas, and was the writer of a highly esteemed musical method. After finishing his operatic career he became a professor of singing at the Conservatoire. Madame Grisi, who made her début in 1823, and held her place as one of the greatest singers for many years, was the daughter of an Italian officer of engineers, and her mother's sister was the once celebrated Grassini, a contemporary of Mrs. Billington and Madame Mara. Giulietta Grisi, as a child, was too delicate to receive any musical training; but her ambition caused her to learn the pianoforte by her own efforts, and her imitation of her sister Giuditta's vocal exercises indicated to her family the bent of her tastes. In due course she entered the conservatoire in her native town, and was later sent to her Uncle Ragani at Bologna, where, for three years, she was under the instruction of Giacomo Guglielmi. Gradually the beautiful quality of her voice began to manifest itself. She was remarkably apt and receptive, and profited by her masters to an extraordinary degree. For three months she studied under Filippo Celli, and in 1828 she made her début in Rossini's "Elmira." Rossini was delighted with her, and the director of the theatre immediately engaged her for the carnival season. The career thus auspiciously commenced, continued for more than a quarter of a century, during which time Grisi delighted audiences throughout the whole of Europe, and made a tour, with Mario, of the United States. The production of Bellini's last opera, "I Puritani," in 1834, was one of the greatest musical events of the age, not solely on account of the work, but because of the very remarkable quartet which embodied the principal characters,--Grisi, Rubini, Tamburini, and Lablache. This quartet continued in its perfection for several years, with the substitution later of Mario for Rubini, and was one of the most notable and interesting in the history of operatic music. Giulietta Grisi's womanly fascinations made havoc among that large class who become easily enamored of the goddesses of the theatre, and she was the object of many passionate addresses. She married in 1836 a French gentleman of fortune, M. Auguste Gerard de Melcy, but she did not retire. This marriage was unhappy, and after her release from it by divorce she became the wife of Mario, the great tenor. Grisi united much of the nobleness and tragic inspiration of Pasta, with something of the fire and energy of Malibran; but, in the minds of the most capable judges, she lacked the creative originality which stamped each of the former two artists. Her dramatic instincts were strong and vehement, lending something of her own personality to the copy of another's creation, and her voice as nearly reached perfection as any ever bestowed on a singer. Madame Grisi continued before the public until 1866, although her powers were failing rapidly. In 1869 she died of inflammation of the lungs. From the year 1834, when she made her début at the King's Theatre, London, until 1861, when she retired from the Royal Italian Opera, Grisi missed only one season in London, that of 1842. It was a rare thing indeed that illness or any other cause prevented her from fulfilling her engagements. She seldom disappointed the public by her absence, and never by her singing. Altogether her artistic life lasted about thirty-five years. During sixteen successive years she sang, during the season, at the Théâtre des Italiens in Paris, her engagements there beginning in 1832 with her appearance as Semiramide. Both Grisi and her husband, Mario, were much admired by the Czar Nicholas of Russia, and it is said that the Czar, meeting Grisi one day walking with her children, stopped and said facetiously, "I see, these are the pretty Grisettes." "No," replied Grisi, "these are my Marionettes." Mario, too, is said to have been asked by the Czar to cut his beard in order to the better look one of his parts. This he declined to do, even when the Czarina, fearing that he might become a victim of the Czar's displeasure, added her request. But Mario declared that it was better to incur the displeasure of the Czar than to lose his voice, saying that if they did not like him with his beard, upon which he relied for the protection of his voice, they surely would not like him without his voice. During the height of their prosperity, Grisi and Mario lived in princely extravagance. Their family consisted of six daughters, of whom three died quite young, and they were enthusiastically devoted to one another. Giambattista Rubini, who was for years associated with Grisi, was a native of Bergamo, where he made his début at the age of twelve in a woman's part, sitting afterwards at the door of the theatre between two candles, and holding a plate into which the public deposited their offerings. During his early life he belonged to several wandering companies, in which he filled the position of second tenor; but in 1814, at the age of nineteen years, he was singing in Pavia for a salary of about nine dollars a month. Before the end of his career he was paid £20,000 a year for his services at the St. Petersburg Imperial Opera. Rubini's countenance was mean, his figure awkward, and he had no conception of taste, character, or picturesque effect; but his voice was so incomparable in range and quality, his musical equipment and skill so great, that his memory is one of the greatest traditions of lyric art. Like so many of the great singers of his time, Rubini first gained his reputation in the operas of Bellini and Donizetti, and many of the tenor parts of these works were composed expressly for him. The immense power, purity, and sweetness of his voice have probably never been surpassed, and its compass was of two octaves, from C in the bass clef. He could also sing in falsetto as high as treble F, and with such skill that no one could detect the change into the falsetto. Rubini died in 1852, leaving one of the largest fortunes ever amassed on the stage. Another member of the celebrated "Puritani" quartet was Antonio Tamburini, a native of Faenze. Without any single commanding trait of genius, he seems, with the exception of Lablache, to have combined more attractive qualities than any male singer who ever appeared. He was handsome and graceful, and a master of the art of stage costume. His voice, a baritone of over two octaves in extent, was full, round, sonorous, and perfectly equal throughout. His execution was unsurpassed and unsurpassable, of a kind which at the present day is well-nigh obsolete, and is associated in the public mind with sopranos and tenors only. An amusing instance of Tamburini's versatility was shown at Palermo during the carnival season of 1822, when the audience attended the theatre armed with drums, trumpets, shovels, and anything that would make a noise. Tamburini, being unable to make his basso heard, sang his music in falsetto, an accomplishment which so delighted the audience that they laid aside their instruments of torture, and applauded enthusiastically. The prima donna, however, was so enraged and frightened by the rough behavior of the audience that she fled from the theatre, and the manager was at his wit's end. Tamburini donned the fugitive's satin dress, clapped her bonnet over his wig, and appeared on the stage with a mincing step. He sang the soprano score so admirably, burlesquing the action of the prima donna, but showing far greater powers of execution than she possessed, that his hearers were captivated. He did not shirk even the duets, but sang the woman's part in falsetto, and his own in his natural voice. He retired in 1859, and died at Nice in 1876. Luigi Lablache, the basso of the "Puritani" quartet, is considered by many authorities to have been the greatest artist among men that ever appeared in opera. In stature he was a giant, and we are told that one of his boots would make a good portmanteau or one of his gloves would clothe an infant. His strength was enormous, and his voice magnificent; the vibration thereof was so tremendous that it was dangerous for him to sing in a greenhouse, though why this particular danger is noted must be left to conjecture, for there is no record in history to show that it was customary or essential to sing in greenhouses. Anecdotes of Lablache's generosity and noble character are plentiful, and there are some also which show that he was a lover of good jokes. Of these, perhaps the following is the most amusing. Once when the "Puritani" quartet was in Paris, Lablache was quartered at the same hotel as General Tom Thumb, who was delighting audiences at a vaudeville. An English tourist, who was making strenuous efforts to meet Tom Thumb, burst into the great basso's apartment, but seeing such a giant, hesitated, and apologized, saying that he was looking for Tom Thumb. "I am he," said Lablache, in his deepest tones. The Englishman, taken flat aback, exclaimed: "But you were much smaller when I saw you on the stage yesterday." "Yes," replied Lablache; "that is how I have to appear, but when I get home to my own rooms I let myself out and enjoy myself," and he proceeded to entertain his visitor. In his student days Lablache was so dominated by the desire to appear on the stage that he ran away from the conservatorium no less than five times, each time being caught and brought back in disgrace. On one occasion he engaged himself to sing at Salerno for fifteen ducats a month, and received a month's pay in advance. He lingered two days in Naples and spent his money, apparently also disposing of most of his clothes. As he could not well appear at Salerno without luggage, he filled his portmanteau with sand, and set forth. A couple of days later he was captured by the vice-president of the conservatorium, and taken back to Naples. The impresario hastened to make good his loss by seizing the portmanteau, which, however, proved to be very disappointing. After Lablache made his first appearance in opera his fame grew rapidly, and in a few years had reached colossal proportions. Among the honors which fell to his lot was that of being music teacher to Queen Victoria. His death, which occurred in 1858, drew forth expressions of regret from all parts of Europe, for it was felt that in Lablache the world of song had lost one of its brightest lights. Mario, who followed Rubini as tenor in the celebrated "Puritani" quartet, was more closely connected with the career of Madame Grisi than any other singer, for he became her husband. His proper title was Mario, Cavaliere di Candia; but, in order to soothe the family pride, he was known on the stage by his Christian name only. When he first went to Paris, in 1836, he held a commission in a Piedmontese regiment. The fascinating young Italian officer was welcomed in the highest circles, for his splendid physical beauty, and his art-talents as an amateur in music, painting, and sculpture, separated him from all others, even in a throng of brilliant and accomplished men. In Paris he fell into debt, and, having a beautiful voice, he accepted the proposition of Duponchel, the manager of the opera, and entered upon stage life. Though his singing was very imperfect and amateurish, his princely beauty and delicious, fresh voice took the musical public by storm. Mario will live in the world's memory as the best opera-lover ever seen. In such scenes as the fourth act of "Les Huguenots," and the last act of "Favorita," Mario's singing and acting were never to be forgotten by those that witnessed them. Intense passion and highly finished vocal delicacy combined to make these pictures of melodious suffering indelible. As a singer of romances he has never been equalled; in those songs where music tells the story of passion, in broad, intelligible, ardent phrases, and presents itself primarily as the vehicle of violent emotion, Mario stood ahead of all others of his age. For a quarter of a century he remained before the public of Paris, London, and St. Petersburg, but he did not finally retire until 1867. The story of Mario's life reads like a romance. At times he was steeped in the depths of poverty; at others, he enjoyed great wealth and lived in princely style. Shortly after his first arrival in Paris, he found himself deeply in debt, and so poor that he was obliged to sleep in a very cheap lodging-house where several people occupied one room. One night he awoke and found a man kneeling over him, to rob him. "What do you want?" asked Mario. "Your money," was the reply. "Take all you can find, my friend," answered Mario, "but please let me continue my dreams and my sleep." Mario was as careless in regard to time as to money. It is related that once upon a time he arrived half an hour early, to keep an appointment. Nobody was more surprised than Mario himself, and, after investigation, he discovered that he had mistaken eleven o'clock for five minutes to twelve, and would have been the customary half hour late if his calculations had been correct. Mario had a particular aversion to writing letters, and when he received an invitation from some person of high degree he would frequently say, "Oh, I will write to-morrow," and Mario's to-morrow was the proverbial one which never came. He was nevertheless kind and thoughtful for every one, and to his personal graces and charms he owes his reputation as much as to his art, for he was always more or less of an amateur. His wonderful gifts were not developed by study, like the equally wonderful voice of Rubini, who surpassed in this respect every tenor before or after. As an instance of the admiration in which Mario was held by the fair sex, we are told that a certain lady followed him wherever he sang. She never spoke to him, never tried to press herself upon him, but never missed a performance in any part of the world in which he sang, except on three occasions when she was prevented by sickness. This continued for a period of forty years. Like all men of similar disposition, Mario was subject to fits of wild, unreasoning jealousy, and his domestic life with Grisi was not always of the smoothest nature, though there was absolutely no cause for jealousy on either side. On one occasion, Mario is said to have worked himself up into such a state of excitement that he smashed everything in the room. Grisi, too, once reached so great a depth of despair that she rushed out to drown herself. A fleet-footed friend followed her, and reached her just as she was preparing to make the final plunge. All kinds of arguments were used to turn her from her purpose, but in vain, until her rescuer pictured to her how dirty and muddy she would look when taken out of the river. This argument prevailed, and the prima donna deferred her demise. In spite of the large amount of money earned by Mario, he retired from the stage a poor man. His improvidence was magnificent. Twice the public subscribed for his needs, and once, the old unthriftiness about him still, he flung away his capital and was royally penniless again. At Rome, in which city he spent his last days, he was given the post of curator of the Museum; but the glory of his past still adhered to him, and he was surrounded by a host of admirers, who enjoyed hearing the old man talk about his adventures. He died, in 1883, in the arms of Signor Augusto Rotoli. His life had been triumphant beyond the lot of all but the most fortunate, and the memory he left was singularly kind and beautiful. A memorandum, published at the time of Mario's retirement, states that during his career he gave, in London alone, 935 performances, of which 225 were in operas of Donizetti, 170 Meyerbeer, 143 Rossini, 112 Verdi, 82 Bellini, 70 Gounod, and 68 Mozart, the remaining 65 performances being operas of seven other composers. CHAPTER III. MARIO TO TIETIENS. Contemporary with Sontag, Malibran, and Grisi, was Madame Schröder-Devrient, who was one of the earliest and greatest interpreters of German opera. Though others have surpassed her in vocal resources, she stands high in the list of operatic tragediennes, and for a long time reigned supreme in her art. Her deep sensibilities and dramatic instincts, her noble elocution and stately beauty, fitted her admirably for tragedy, in which she was unrivalled except by Pasta. Her voice was a mellow soprano, which, though not specially flexible, united softness with volume and compass. Her stage career began at the age of six, but she was seventeen when she made her début in opera. Her highest triumph was achieved as Leonora in the "Fidelio." Her marriage with M. Devrient, a tenor singer whom she met in Dresden, did not turn out happily. Madame Devrient retired in 1849, having amassed a considerable fortune by her professional efforts. Her retirement occasioned much regret throughout Germany, and the Emperor Francis I. paid her the unusual compliment of having her portrait painted in all her principal characters, and placed in the Imperial Museum. She died in 1860 at Cologne, and the following year a marble bust was placed in the opera house at Berlin. Madame Devrient must be classed with that group of dramatic singers who were the interpreters of the school of music which arose in Germany after the death of Mozart, and which found its characteristic type in Carl Maria Von Weber, for Beethoven, who on one side belongs to this school, rather belongs to the world, than to a single nationality. Fanny Persiani, who was contemporary with Grisi and Viardot, was the daughter of Tacchinardi, a tenor singer of no small reputation. Tacchinardi was a dwarf, hunchbacked and repulsive in appearance, yet he had one of the purest tenor voices ever given by nature and refined by art, which, together with extraordinary intelligence and admirable method of singing, and great facility of execution, elicited for him the admiration of the public. His daughter Fanny showed a passion for music almost as an infant, and was carefully trained by her father. At eleven years of age she took part in an opera as prima donna at a little theatre which Tacchinardi had built near his country-place just out of Florence. She had a voice of immense compass, to which sweetness and flexibility were added by study and practice. She married Joseph Persiani, an operatic composer, at the age of twelve, for her father did not wish her to go on the stage, and thought that an early marriage would change her tastes. For several years she lived in seclusion at her husband's house; but at last an opportunity offered to sing in opera, and she was unable to resist it. Madame Persiani belonged to the same style as Sontag, not only in character of voice but in all her sympathies and affinities. Moscheles, in his diary, speaks of the incredible technical difficulties which she overcame, and compares her performance with that of a violinist, for she could execute the most florid, rapid, and difficult music with such ease as to excite the wonder of her hearers. Aside from her wonderful executive art in singing, Madame Persiani will be remembered as having contributed, perhaps, more than any other singer to making the music of Donizetti popular. Her death occurred in 1867. The name of Jenny Lind will be remembered when Malibran, Grisi, and many of the greatest singers have sunk into oblivion, because of her good works. Besides being one of the few perfect singers of the century, her life was characterized by deep religious principles and innumerable charitable works, of which not the least was the use of the fortune of over $100,000, which she made during her American tour, in founding art scholarships and other charities in Sweden, her native land. Jenny Lind was born in 1820 at Stockholm, and was the daughter of poor but educated parents, her father being a teacher of languages and her mother a schoolmistress. From her cradle she showed the greatest delight in music, and at the age of three she could sing with accuracy any song that she had heard. Her musical education began at the age of nine; but, notwithstanding the brilliant career predicted for her by her friends, her life for many years was a history of patient hard work and crushing disappointments. When she was presented by her singing teacher to Count Pücke, the director of the court theatre at Stockholm, with a view to getting her admitted to the school of music connected with it, she made no impression on him, and it was only by great persuasion that he could be induced to accept her. In this theatre she appeared in child's parts while scarcely in her teens, but when she was about thirteen years old her voice suddenly failed. She continued patiently with her other musical studies, and in four or five years her voice returned as suddenly as it had left her. Shortly after this, she sang at a concert the part of Alice, in the fourth act of "Roberto," and made such a favorable impression that she was immediately given the part of Agatha, in "Der Freischütz," and made her first appearance in opera. She soon became a great favorite in Stockholm, where she remained for nearly two years. Filled with ambition, she now went to Paris and sought the celebrated teacher, Manuel Garcia, whose first advice to her was not to sing a note for three months. Garcia never expected great things of her, although he was pleased with her diligence and her musical intelligence. Meyerbeer, on the contrary, who heard her about a year later, at once recognized in her voice "one of the finest pearls in the world's chaplet of song," and through his influence she obtained a hearing in the salon of the Grand Opera. This did not result in an engagement, and Jenny Lind was so mortified that years afterwards, when her reputation was established, and she was offered an engagement in Paris, she declined it without giving any reason. She now returned to Stockholm, where she was received with the greatest enthusiasm; but soon afterwards she appeared at Copenhagen, and then, through Meyerbeer again, she procured an engagement at Berlin, where, in the part of Alice in "Roberto," she made a profound impression. She next sang in Vienna, where she made a veritable triumph. On the last night of her engagement her carriage was escorted home by thousands. Thirty times she was obliged to appear at the window of her hotel, and the crowd scrambled for the flowers which she threw them in acknowledgment of their applause, and carried them home as treasures. She became the talk of musical circles throughout Europe, and prices rose enormously whenever she was to sing. [Illustration: _Jenny Lind._] She sang in London for the first time in 1847, and, through judicious advertising, the public were worked up to a great state of expectation. Tickets were held at fabulous prices, and since the days of Mrs. Siddons's seventh farewell, nothing like the excitement had been known. Many ladies sat on the stairs of the opera house, unable to penetrate to the auditorium. Her operatic career in London was short as it was brilliant, for she sang for the last time on the operatic stage in the season of 1849, after which she appeared only in concerts and oratorio. Concerning the charm of her singing, one may judge from a sentence written by Chorley, the well-known critic, who least of all men was likely to be carried away by emotion. "It was a curious experience," he says, "to sit and wait for what should come next, and to wonder whether it was really the case that music had never been heard till the year 1847." On the other hand, Mr. Chorley wrote later on to the effect that she invariably sang somewhat sharp, and that he could not consider any prima donna to be a great artist who was only positively successful in four operas,--"Roberto," "La Sonnambula," "La Figlia del Reggimento," and "Le Nozze di Figaro." In Norma she was a failure. But again Chorley may well be quoted: "Of all the singers whom I have ever heard, Mlle. Lind was perhaps the most assiduous. Her resolution to offer the very best of her best to the public seemed part and parcel of her nature, and of her conscience. Not a note was neglected by her, not a phrase slurred over. Her execution was great, and, as is always the case with voices originally reluctant, seemed greater than it really was. Her shake was true and brilliant, her taste in ornament was altogether original. She used her pianissimo tones so as to make them resemble an effect of ventriloquism." Jenny Lind's tour in America was eventful. It began with a serenade by a band of one hundred and thirty musicians, preceded by seven hundred of the firemen of New York. The demonstration occurred at one o'clock in the morning, and was witnessed by a crowd of thirty thousand people. The tickets for the concerts were sold by auction, and the highest price paid was $225,--by an enterprising business man. During her stay in America, Jenny Lind was followed by crowds eager to see her; receptions were arranged, and everything was done to keep up the excitement. She was under the management of Mr. P. T. Barnum, from whom she later obtained her release on payment of a forfeit of $30,000. In 1851 Mlle. Lind put herself under the management of Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, a pianist of considerable ability, whom she married in Boston. In 1852 she returned to Europe with her husband and settled in Dresden, but eight years later they came to England and resided in London, whence they moved after several years to Malvern Wells. In 1887 Madame Lind Goldschmidt died. She is remembered as one of the sweetest singers and most charming women of her time. A singer who replaced Fanny Persiani and surpassed her in popularity, who sang in the same rôles and in the same theatres as Grisi, and who, according to Chorley, was the most ladylike person he had seen on the stage of the Italian opera, except Madame Sontag, was Angiolina Bosio. Born at Turin in 1830, and belonging to a family of artists, both musical and dramatic, she made her first appearance at the age of sixteen, and scored a decided triumph. In 1848 she sang at Paris, but without her customary success, and she immediately made a tour of the West, visiting Havana, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, in all of which places she was greatly admired. In 1851 she returned to Europe, and married a Greek gentleman named Xindavelonis. She returned to the stage, but was not favorably received until, at the end of the season of 1852, she sang in "I Puritani," in the place of Grisi. This was the turning-point in her fortune, and her popularity increased rapidly, until she died suddenly in St. Petersburg, where the rigorous climate was too severe for her delicate constitution. At St. Petersburg she was nominated première cantatrice, an honor never previously bestowed. Madame Bosio was possessed of much taste in the matter of dress, together with a graceful condescension of manner. Her features were irregular, and yet she was extremely pleasing, so much so, in fact, that the critics wrote of "her gay, handsome face." Her most remarkable performance was in "La Traviata," in which she sang with the tenor Gardoni and the bass Ronconi, both singers of great renown. The greatest contralto of the middle of the century was undoubtedly Marietta Alboni, the daughter of a custom-house officer of Casena, Romagna. She was born in 1822, and, like most of the great singers, showed her talent early. She was placed under good teachers, and attracted the attention of Rossini by her beautiful voice. He took so much interest in her that he gave her instruction in some of her parts. Thus she had the honor of being Rossini's only pupil. In 1842 she made her first appearance in opera, and was soon after engaged at La Scala, Milan, where she remained for four years. After this she appeared at Vienna, and then she travelled through Europe, creating a general furore. Alboni was not an actress,--she was a singer simply and absolutely, and her singing was such as to carry everything before it. The tones of her voice were rich, full, mellow, and liquid,--sumptuous, they have been called,--and of a pure and sympathetic quality. It was not even, for the upper register was thin. Her articulation was perfectly clear and fluent, even in the most difficult passages, and her style and method were considered models. Her figure, though large, was graceful and commanding, and her disposition was amiable. She was both independent and dignified. While in Germany, and comparatively unknown, she declined to seek the favor of the press, preferring to trust to the judgment of the public. Once upon a time, when Madame Alboni was at Trieste, she was informed of the existence of a plot to hiss her off the stage. Having ascertained the names of her detractors and where they were to be found, she donned male attire, in which her short hair and robust figure helped to complete her disguise, and went to the café at which the conspirators met. Here she found them in full consultation, and, taking a seat at a table, she listened to their conversation for a time. After awhile she addressed the leader, saying: "I hear that you intend to play a trick upon some one. I am very fond of a little practical joke myself, and should be glad if you would allow me to join you on this occasion." "With pleasure," was the reply; "we intend to hiss an opera singer off the stage this evening." "Indeed, and of what is she guilty?" "Oh, nothing except that, being an Italian, she has sung in Munich and Vienna to German audiences, and we think she ought to receive some castigation for her unpatriotic conduct." "I agree with you,--and now please tell me what I am to do." "Take this whistle," said the leader. "At a signal to be given at the conclusion of the air sung by Rosina, the noise will begin, and you will have to join in." "I shall be very glad to do so," replied the singer, and put the whistle in her pocket. In the evening the house was packed, every seat was occupied, and the audience warmly applauded the opening numbers of the opera. In due course Madame Alboni appeared, and at the point at which she was about to address her tutor, a few of the conspirators began to make a disturbance, not waiting for the signal. Without showing any concern, Madame Alboni walked down to the footlights, and holding up the whistle, which was hung to her neck by a ribbon, she exclaimed: "Gentlemen, are you not a little before your time? I thought we were not to commence whistling until after I had sung the air." For a moment a deathlike stillness prevailed. Then, suddenly, the house broke into thunders of applause, which was led by the conspirators themselves. Alboni visited the United States in 1852, just after the visit of Jenny Lind, and received what was considered a cordial welcome. Nevertheless she is said to have expressed some disappointment. In 1853 she married the Count of Pepoli, and soon after retired. She did not again sing in public, except in 1871, when she sang the contralto part in Rossini's Mass, a part which the composer had desired, before his death, that she would take when it was produced. In social life the Countess of Pepoli was as much the idol of her friends as she had previously been of the public. In 1877 she married a second time, taking Major Zieger for her husband. Her death took place at the Ville d'Avray, Paris, in 1894. For several years the favorite tenor on the French stage was Gustave Hyppolite Roger, a man of amiable and benevolent disposition, who was educated for the legal profession. He was born in 1815, at La Chapelle St. Denis, Paris, and entered the Conservatoire in 1836, carrying off, the following year, the first prizes for singing and comic opera. His début was made in February, 1838, and he remained at the Opera Comique for ten years, after which he went to the Académie, and created a great sensation with Madame Viardot, in "Le Prophète." His acting was good both in tragic and comic parts, and he created many new rôles. In 1859 he met with an unfortunate accident, and lost his right arm by the bursting of a gun, and this put an end to his operatic career in Paris. He continued, however, to sing in provincial towns and in Germany, until 1861, when he reappeared at the Opera Comique. But it was evident that the time for his retirement had come, and he took pupils, becoming a professor of singing at the Conservatoire in 1868, and holding the position until his death in 1879. The mantle of Braham, the greatest English tenor of his day, descended to John Sims Reeves, the son of a musician, who was born at Shooter's Hill, Kent, in 1822. Reeves, we are told, received the traditions of Braham, and refined them. He obtained his early musical instruction from his father, and at fourteen held the position of organist at North Gray Church. Upon gaining his mature voice he determined to be a singer, and at first sang baritone and second tenor parts, making his début in opera, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, as Count Rudolpho in "La Sonnambula." Before long his voice developed into a tenor of an exceptionally beautiful quality, and, in 1847, when he appeared at Drury Lane, he at once took a position as a singer of the first rank. His acting, too, was natural and easy, manly, and to the purpose, exhibiting both passion and power without exaggeration. His greatest triumph, however, was achieved in oratorio, and his performance of "The Enemy Said," in "Israel in Egypt," at the Crystal Palace, in 1857, was of such a nature as to electrify his hearers. In England the name of Sims Reeves was for many years sufficient to draw an audience large enough to fill any auditorium to overflowing, although he frequently disappointed the public by non-appearance. It was known that he considered it wiser to disappoint the public than to risk losing his voice, and, as a result, people soon realized that to hear him once was sufficient to atone for several disappointments. To the general public Sims Reeves endeared himself chiefly by his exquisite ballad singing; and, just as Patti is associated with "Home, Sweet Home," his name is coupled with "Come into the Garden, Maud." Up to the age of seventy, Sims Reeves appeared occasionally in concerts, and even at the present day he can secure an audience, although his powers have long since passed away. Enrico Tamberlik, who flourished during the middle of the century, was a tenor of high rank. He belonged to the class of "tenore di forza," and used to make a tremendous effect with his high C, which he produced with immense power. His voice was one of great richness of tone and volume, but his singing was marred by the persistent use of the vibrato, a fault all too common. Tamberlik, like Sims Reeves and Jean de Reszke, sang originally as a baritone, and developed later into a tenor. His delivery was grand and noble, his phrasing perfect, and he sang with a great depth of expression. His elocution was so fine that every word was delivered with full effect, and his dramatic power was unusually great. He was seen to best advantage in heroic parts, in which his fine figure and majestic bearing, together with the power and resonance of his voice, were displayed. [Illustration: _Jean de Reszke as Romeo._] Tamberlik was born at Rome in 1820, made his début at Naples in 1841, and soon built up a great reputation. In 1850 he appeared in London, and became so great a favorite that he was engaged there every season until 1864. In 1874 he made a tour of the United States, and he is said to have been the first tenor of importance who visited South America, singing at Rio Janeiro, Buenos Ayres, and Montevideo. One of his most notable performances was in 1871, when he took the part of Otello, in Rossini's opera of that name, with Faure as Iago, and Nilsson as Desdemona. Tamberlik was a shrewd man of business, but an excellent companion. His conversational powers were immense, and as he had come in contact with, and known intimately, many men and women famous in the world of fashion, art, and literature, he had an endless fund of interesting anecdotes. In 1877 he retired from the stage, having the good sense to seek private life before his powers had faded. He settled in Madrid, and became a manufacturer of arms. While in retirement he had the rare experience of reading his own obituary notices, for, in 1882, a rumor of his death went forth into Italy and France. Though it was entirely without foundation, the press at once teemed with eulogistic biographies of the great tenor, which were copied throughout Europe. As they were highly complimentary, the subject was much pleased, and made a collection of them which he pasted into an album and enjoyed for seven years. He died in 1889. During the same period there flourished Karl Formes, one of the most remarkable bassos of his time, who was popular in spite of the fact that he frequently offended by false intonation. Formes was the son of a sexton of Muhlheim on the Rhine, and was born in 1810. He gained the greater part of his musical education by singing in the choir of the church. He grew up with a strong love for the drama, as well as for music, and at the age of sixteen his enthusiasm was such that when Essler, the actor, visited Cologne, young Formes, not having sufficient money to pay both for the ferry and his ticket, tied his clothes around his neck, and swam the Rhine, rather than miss the performance. When Staudigl, the bass singer, visited the same city, Formes listened to his singing with awe, and the next season he begged to be allowed to sing the part of Bertram at the opera. This was one of Staudigl's favorite rôles. Staudigl, who heard the performance, was so pleased that he introduced Formes as his successor. Formes, however, first came into notice by singing at some concerts given for the benefit of the Cathedral fund, at Cologne, in 1841. In the following year he made his operatic début, his success leading to an engagement for three years. He then sang in Vienna, and in 1849 appeared in London with a German company, taking the part of Zarastro in the "Zauberflöte," at Drury Lane Theatre. The next year he was engaged for Italian opera, at Covent Garden, and sang there every season for some fifteen years. He had a voice which, for volume, compass, and quality, was one of the most magnificent ever heard, a stage presence handsome and attractive, and exceptional dramatic ability. Formes was a man of unsettled, roving disposition, and spent much of his time in Russia and in Spain, but in 1857 he visited the United States, and eventually began a wandering life in this country, going wherever fancy took him, and singing in almost all the larger cities. In 1882 he, being then seventy-two years of age, married a Miss Pauline Greenwood, who had been one of his pupils in Philadelphia. Shortly afterwards the happy couple settled in San Francisco, where he frequently sang in concerts, and where he had a number of pupils. His voice was wonderfully well preserved, and he was strong and active, giving some fifteen lessons daily, until his death in 1889. Niemann is authority for a story about Formes. Once when he was in Germany, Formes was very anxious to sing at court, and Niemann succeeded in securing for him the opportunity. According to Niemann's ideas of art, Formes sang atrociously, bellowing and shouting in stentorian tones. Niemann was in an agony throughout the performance, thinking of his responsibility; but, to his surprise, when the song was over, the old Emperor William I. applauded loudly, and seemed highly delighted, and demanded an encore. He probably thought what a fine dragoon officer Formes would have made, shouting commands with his great voice. At about the same time there flourished another tenor of high rank, whose career was confined almost entirely to Germany, Joseph Alois Tichatschek. He was born in 1807, at Ober Weckelsdorf, in Bohemia, and became a chorus singer in 1830, rising in his profession until, in 1837, he made his début as a soloist at Dresden. In 1841 he sang for a few nights in London, at Drury Lane, during a season of German opera; also at Liverpool and Manchester, and was described as "young, prepossessing, and a good actor; his voice is excellent, and his style, though not wanting in cultivation, is more indebted to nature than to art." He was also said to have proved himself "the hit of the season." Tichatschek died in 1886. A singer who was much more widely known, and who belonged to the time of Grisi, Mario, Lablache, and the great operatic representations of those days, was Georgio Ronconi, the baritone. He had a reputation extending throughout Europe and into America, and he owes his celebrity rather to histrionic powers than to his voice, for we are told by Chorley that "there are few instances of a voice so limited in compass (hardly exceeding an octave), so inferior in quality, so weak, so habitually out of tune. The low stature, the features unmarked and commonplace, when silent, promising nothing to an audience, yet which could express a dignity of bearing, a tragic passion not to be exceeded, or an exuberance of the wildest, quaintest, most whimsical, most spontaneous comedy. These things we have seen, and have forgotten personal insignificance, vocal power beyond mediocrity, every disqualification, in the spell of strong, real sensibility." It was one of the many cases in which dramatic talent has made up for lack of voice. Ronconi sang for many years in London, in all the great comic operas. He retired in 1874, and became a teacher of singing. He died in 1890. In 1849 two stars of importance appeared on the operatic horizon,--Madame Marie Caroline Félix Miolan Carvalho, and Mlle. Theresa Carolin Johanna Tietiens. Madame Carvalho became the foremost lyric artist on the French stage, and was engaged for many years at the Opera Comique and at the Grand Opera in Paris, but she also sang frequently in London, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and other cities of Europe. Her first public appearance was made at a performance for the benefit of Duprez, her teacher, and she sang in the first act of "Lucia," and in the trio in the second act of "La Juive." Her last appearance, which took place in 1887, two years after her retirement from the stage, was also at a benefit,--a concert in aid of the sufferers by the fire at the Opera Comique. On this occasion she sang with Faure. Madame Carvalho was the daughter of an oboe player named Félix Miolan, who educated her musically until she entered the Paris Conservatoire, and studied with Duprez, gaining, in 1847, the first prize for singing. Her voice was high and thin, but was used with consummate skill and delicacy, and her interpretation of the rôle of Marguerite, in "Faust," was considered a most complete and delightful personation. She was a native of Marseilles, born in 1827. In 1853 she married Leon Carvaillé, more generally known as Carvalho, who became director of the Opera Comique. He held this position at the time of the fire; and, as the accident was judged to have been due to the carelessness of the management, Carvalho was fined and imprisoned. Madame Carvalho died in 1895, at Puys, near Dieppe. Tietiens has been called the last of the great race of dramatic singers made splendid by such as Pasta, Malibran, Grisi, and Viardot-Garcia. Never was so mighty a voice so sweet and luscious in its tone. It had none of the soprano shrillness, but was more of a mezzo-soprano quality throughout, and softer than velvet. Her style of singing was noble and pure, her acting was earnest, animated, and forcible, her stage presence was imposing. Such parts as Norma and Lucretia Borgia are said to have died with her, so grand was her interpretation of them, and she sang the part of Ortrud in "Lohengrin" so finely that, in all probability, she would have become noted as a Wagnerian singer had not death snatched her away in her prime. No singer ever became more popular in England, where she lived for many years, and where her death was considered as a national loss. Mlle. Tietiens was born in Hamburg, in 1831, of Hungarian parents, and first appeared in opera in that city at the age of eighteen. She sang in London every season from 1859 till 1877, the year of her death, and was as great an oratorio singer as she was operatic artist. Mlle. Tietiens was tall, massive, and dignified, and dominated the stage with her presence. In 1876 she visited the United States, and made a concert tour, but none could have a full conception of her power who did not see her in one of her great parts. Like other singers who have for years maintained their popularity in England, her private life was most admirable, and her kind and charitable nature endeared her to the nation. CHAPTER IV. PRIMA DONNAS OF THE FIFTIES. The years immediately following 1850 were rather barren of stars of the first magnitude in the line of sopranos, although Stockhausen, Faure, Wachtel, and Nicolini all belong to that period, besides Adelaide Phillips, the contralto. The chief soprano of the year 1851 was Madame Nantier-Didier, a native of the Isle of Bourbon, who had a somewhat successful career in the chief cities of Europe, but who was considered "a first-rate singer of the second class." She had a gay, handsome face, a winning mezzo-soprano voice, and neat execution. In the following year appeared two singers of high rank, Maria Piccolomini, and Euphrosine Parepa, more generally known as Madame Parepa-Rosa. Piccolomini owed her success chiefly to her clever acting, and her charming little figure. Her voice was weak and limited, and she was not sure in her intonation, nor did she excel in execution. She visited the United States in 1858, and was well received. Her stage career was not very long, for she retired in 1863, and married the Marchese Gaetani. Parepa-Rosa was born in Scotland, at Edinburgh. Her father was a Wallachian boyard, and her mother (Elizabeth Seguin) a singer of some repute. Parepa's full name was Euphrosine Parepa de Boyesku. She was a well-educated woman, speaking and writing several languages correctly, and she had a voice of great power and sweetness, with a range of two and a half octaves. She was, also, a woman of fine figure and imposing stage presence. Her reputation was gained, however, more in concert and oratorio than in opera, but her memory will remain in America as that of one who did much towards the cultivation of the public taste for opera. In 1865 she came to America on a tour with Mr. Carl Rosa, whom she married in 1867, her first husband, Captain De Wolfe Carvell, having died in 1865. After this they remained for four years, during which time they organized the Carl Rosa Opera Company, for the performance of English and Italian opera. Madame Parepa-Rosa was the principal singer, and the company met with great success, singing not only in opera, but also in oratorio and concerts. In 1871 they went to Cairo, Egypt, on account of Carl Rosa's health, but they returned to America before winter, bringing with them Wachtel, the German tenor, and Santley, the English baritone. In 1873 they again returned to Europe, but Madame Rosa was soon afterwards seized with an illness which terminated in her death in January, 1874. The Carl Rosa Opera Company, which was thus established, remained in existence until recently, and has been a successful company, always employing several singers of high rank. In 1898, owing to a declining business, it was decided to wind the company up, or reorganize it, and meetings were held to decide the matter. The star of 1856 was Madame Peschka-Leutner, who sang in 1872 at the Jubilee festival in Boston. Although she had appeared in London, she was but little known outside of her own country, where she was very popular. She died at Wiesbaden in 1890. Before 1860 the French stage also produced two singers of high rank. In 1858 Madame Artôt made her début at the Paris Opera, though she had already been heard in concerts in Belgium, Holland, and England. She was the daughter of the horn professor at the Brussels Conservatoire, and was taught singing by Madame Viardot-Garcia. Her engagement at Paris was due to Meyerbeer, and her success was such as to draw praise even from the extremely critical Berlioz. In the following year she took to Italian opera, and for many years was well known throughout Europe. Marguérite Josephine Désirée Montaigny Artôt, for such was her name in full, was born in 1835, and in 1869 she married a well-known Spanish tenor, Padilla-y-Ramos. Together they sang in most of the great European cities until their retirement. As late as 1887 they sang in Berlin, in which city Madame Artôt settled as a teacher of singing. Madame Galli-Marié, whose celebrity as Mignon and Carmen is world-wide, was the daughter of an opera singer, Mécène Marié de l'Isle. She made her début at Strasburg in 1859, and about the same time married a sculptor named Galli, who died in 1861. Madame Galli-Marié's dramatic talent was great, and she has succeeded in characters of entirely opposite nature. Her voice was not remarkable; but, like many of the most renowned artists of the century, her originality and artistic temperament were sufficient to place her in the first rank. When "Carmen" was produced, and Madame Galli-Marié was chosen for the title rôle, Bizet re-wrote the part to suit her voice, which was of limited range, having neither the low notes of a contralto nor the high ones of the soprano. She was, however, owing to her dramatic capabilities, not only the first but one of the best Carmens seen until the time of Calvé. In 1859 there arose from the opposite ends of the earth, two stars of the first magnitude, whose brilliancy was sufficient to silence the complaints of those who declared that the art of singing was a lost art. Such wails have arisen from time to time ever since opera was established, and possibly they may have existed in some form previous to that time, but up to the present date there is good evidence that the art of singing flourishes. It is human nature to declare that things of the past were superior to those of the present, and in their day Cuzzoni, Gabrielli, Catalani, Pasta, Grisi, and Jenny Lind, besides a number of others, were all such singers "as had never before been heard." Between Pauline Lucca and Adelina Patti there was a wide difference, and yet both singers triumphed in the same parts. Lucca made her début at Olmutz as Elvira in "Ernani," Patti first appeared in New York as Lucia. Both Lucca and Patti made their début at the age of sixteen, though some authorities state that Lucca was born in 1841; and both singers followed in matrimony the conventional course of the prima donna, and married twice. Pauline Lucca was born in Vienna, her father being an Italian merchant in comfortable circumstances. Pauline's high musical gifts attracted attention early, but her father objected to the idea of educating her for the stage. When she was about thirteen years old business reverses caused him to change his mind, and Pauline was placed under the best available teachers. In due course an engagement was secured for her at Olmutz, and she at once became a favorite. For four months she sang at a salary of sixty florins a month, and then she was engaged at Prague at five hundred florins a month. Her next engagement was at Berlin at one thousand thalers a month. Her popularity at Olmutz was so great that before she left that place she was honored by the inhabitants with a musical serenade and torchlight procession. It happened that about this time Meyerbeer, the composer, was casting his eye over the operatic world for a singer to whom he felt that he could entrust the creation of the part of Selika in his yet unpublished "L'Africaine." He heard of Lucca, and when she was singing at Prague he came over from Berlin on purpose to hear her. So pleased was he with her performance that after the opera he desired to be presented to her, and on being taken to her room, he rushed up to her and kissed her vehemently on both cheeks, much to the surprise and embarrassment of the young lady, who had no idea as to his identity. A modern prima donna, not long ago, experienced a similar burst of enthusiasm from an unknown elderly gentleman who also shed tears. After he had gone, and she had recovered from her surprise, she missed a very valuable piece of jewelry. It is only proper, therefore, for all composers intending to make a demonstration to send word before-hand. On the following day Meyerbeer called at her hotel and offered Mlle. Lucca an engagement at Berlin, which she accepted, and which took effect at the end of her Prague engagement, eight months later. During these eight months Lucca received a proposal of marriage from the young Prince Lobkowitz, who had fallen desperately in love with her; but she did not listen to his appeals, and the unfortunate prince was rejected. Some time after this event, which was so mortifying as to probably affect his disposition, he sought and found death on the field of honor, becoming involved in a duel. Lucca now went to Berlin. Meyerbeer took her under his own immediate charge, and she appeared in three of his greatest characters, Alice in "Roberto," Bertha in "Il Prophete," and Vielka in the "Camp of Silesia." She was in her eighteenth year, and her beauty both of person and voice excited the greatest admiration and drove the Berlin public wild with rapture. Under Meyerbeer's supervision she gained splendid triumphs and was appointed court singer for life. During this time of triumph in Berlin she was visited by Adelina Patti, whose fame was also spreading over Europe; in fact, if one may judge by financial results, Patti's star was much higher in the heavens than that of Lucca, for whereas Lucca was receiving one thousand thalers a month, Patti was being paid one thousand francs a night. Lucca was living in apartments on a fourth floor, in quite an unconventional style, and was in bed when Patti called. Nevertheless, she received her visitor, and Strakosch, her manager, with many signs of unaffected pleasure, and they became firm friends, their rivalry being confined to the stage. Lucca's progress to fame was now very rapid. She appeared in London in 1863 and 1864, making a remarkable impression. In 1865 Meyerbeer's "L'Africaine" was to be produced in Paris, and he was anxious that Lucca should sing the part of Selika, but this was impossible without the consent of the King of Prussia, and as he was opposed to her singing in Paris at that time, he would not give the necessary consent. Meyerbeer felt so strongly on the subject that he added a codicil to his will stating that, if Pauline Lucca was engaged to sing Selika at the Opera House in Berlin, the work might be sung there in German,--otherwise, he forbade its production. "L'Africaine" was produced in Paris on April 28, 1865; but Meyerbeer never witnessed its performance in public, for he was seized with illness on April 23d of that year, and died on May 2d. In London this opera was produced on July 22d, and Lucca sang the part for which Meyerbeer had selected her, as she also did at Berlin. Her performance in London is on record as one of the very highest achievements in the lyrical drama. In Berlin she created a perfect furore, singing in a company which introduced Wachtel and Betz. While the performance was in progress, the house and even the carriage of the young prima donna were decorated with the rarest and most beautiful flowers, and with such profusion that she was hardly able to recognize her home. The Czar of Russia now wished to hear this incomparable singer, so he sent a polite message to the King of Prussia, requesting that she be allowed to sing at St. Petersburg, and offering her a salary of eighty thousand rubles for the season of four months. The King of Prussia had not the same scruples concerning Russia that he had about France, so his gracious consent was given, as it was, also, on the following season. Lucca made an immense impression at St. Petersburg, where at the end of the season she was serenaded by the band of the Imperial Guards. The streets were illuminated from the theatre to her house at the orders of the Crown Princess Dagmar, the Empress gave her a priceless and beautiful pair of diamond earrings, the public, through the leader of the orchestra, presented her with a splendid diadem covered with precious stones, and the members of the orchestra subscribed and made her a present of a laurel wreath in gold. But the greatest demonstration in her honor occurred when she organized a concert for the benefit of indigent students, the receipts of which exceeded ten thousand rubles. Then she was called forward thirty times, and the students unharnessed her horses and dragged her carriage home. They seized her shawl and tore it into fragments for mementos, and she also had to give up her gloves and handkerchief for the same purpose. Similar demonstrations have taken place at different times, and in other cities, in honor of other singers. It is quite an ordinary matter in Russia for a singer to be called forward ten or twenty times, and even thirty times is not by any means so extraordinary as it would be in London or New York, or, more particularly, in Boston. Jenny Lind lost a shawl in New York through the enthusiasm of the public, and in 1881 Patti enjoyed the experience in Brooklyn of being dragged home by a crowd of enthusiasts. Perhaps Patti had the most curious demonstration in London, just before she sailed for New York under Mapleson's management, and Mapleson is the authority for the anecdote. After the last performance of the season, Patti was escorted from the theatre to the train en route for Liverpool by a procession of theatrical people in costume, with a brass band. This was at one o'clock in the morning. Full accounts of it were, of course, obtained somehow by the American papers. In 1865 Pauline Lucca had married a German military officer, Baron von Rahden, who, when the Franco-German war broke out, went to the front, and was severely wounded in the celebrated charge of Mars-La-Tour. Lucca, hearing of his misfortune, made her way to the scene of the conflict, and sought him out in the military hospital, where she tenderly nursed him until he could be taken home. Her devotion to him was admirable; but, unfortunately, a change in her feelings seems to have occurred before very long, for when in 1872 she was in New York she brought suit for divorce against the Baron, and he, being unaware of the proceedings, made no defence, so that rightly or otherwise Madame Lucca secured her divorce. Later on, when von Rahden forwarded papers which were supposed to establish his innocence of the charges made against him by his irate and jealous spouse, the case was closed, and no notice was taken of the defence. Matters seem, however, to have arranged themselves to the satisfaction of all concerned, for the Baron married the young lady who had been the cause of Lucca's jealousy, and Lucca married Baron von Wallhofen, an intimate friend of Von Rahden, who, also, had been wounded at Mars-La-Tour, and who had followed her to America. Pauline Lucca was one of the few singers gifted with original genius, and she imparted specific individuality to each of her characters, even the most colorless. Her versatility was very great, and she had a repertoire of fifty-six rôles. Her voice was a full soprano of sympathetic quality, and with a range of two and a half octaves, extending to C in alt, and capable of expressing every kind of emotion. Like Patti she was of slender figure, and at one time she played Marguerite in "Faust" on alternate nights with her. Lucca was essentially a lyric actress rather than a singer pure and simple, and had the power of realizing the highest dramatic conception both of poet and composer; she was able to draw inspiration from the abstract idea, and she has been called "transcendentally human." After her memorable tour in the United States, in 1872, Madame Lucca continued before the public in Europe until 1884, since which time she has lived in Vienna, and devoted herself chiefly to teaching. While Lucca was thus rising to the highest pinnacles of fame, Patti also was scoring great successes. In London she had become a permanent favorite, and from the year 1861, in which she made her European début, for more than twenty years she was engaged every season at Covent Garden. In spite of all rivalry, she held her position there as the most popular opera singer of modern times. She has enjoyed the same popularity on the continent, and in America also she has been immensely popular. [Illustration: _Patti._] Adelina Patti's voice was one of moderate power, but great range and of wonderful flexibility. Her production was faultless, and she was, and is, undoubtedly, one of the greatest mistresses of vocalization of the century. As an actress, she could not compare with many other singers, and her greatest successes were gained in such operas as made the least demand upon the histrionic capabilities of the performer. Her repertoire included about thirty operas, mostly of the Italian school, though she also sang in the operas of Meyerbeer and Gounod, and others. She was one of the many "Carmens;" but while her interpretation vocally was excellent, she was by no means equal dramatically to Mlle. Hauk, and much less so to Calvé, the latest and by far the greatest interpreter of that rôle. One of the most notable events of Madame Patti's career occurred when, in 1868, at the funeral of Rossini, the composer, she sang with Madame Alboni the beautiful duet, "Quis est Homo," from Rossini's "Stabat Mater." On that occasion such an assembly of noted musicians and singers was gathered together to honor the great composer as probably never before met under the same roof. To hear that beautiful music, rendered by two such artists over the grave of the composer, was to feel in the truest sense the genius of Rossini, and the part that he played in the music of the nineteenth century. The name of Patti has always been associated with high prices, and not without cause; for, although other singers have received larger sums for isolated engagements, none have ever succeeded in maintaining such a uniformly high rate. When she returned to America in 1881, after an absence of some twenty years, Patti held mistaken notions about the American people, and her early concerts were a bitter disappointment. High prices and hackneyed songs did not suit the public, and in order to make a success of the tour Madame Patti was obliged to throw over her French manager, and employ an American (Henry E. Abbey) who knew the public, and who immediately cut the prices down to one-half. Eventually the season was successful, both artistically and financially, her voice showing but little sign of wear, and her execution being as brilliant as ever. At Brooklyn the people took the horses out of her carriage, and dragged her home,--one facetious writer remarking that he saw no reason for taking away her horses, and substituting asses. The following clever rhyme, at the expense of her manager, taken from "Puck," voices the opinion of the public very neatly, in regard to Patti's tour, in 1881-2: Patti cake, Patti cake, Franchi man! "So I do, messieurs, comme vite as I can." "Roulez et tournez et marquez 'with care,' Et posez au publique à ten dollars a chair." Farinelli is said to have made $30,000 per annum, a very large sum for the times in which he lived. Catalani's profits ran almost to $100,000 a season. Malibran received $95,000 for eighty-five performances at La Scala. Jenny Lind, for ninety-five concerts, under Barnum's management, received $208,675, all good figures. But Rubini is said to have made $11,500 at one concert, and Tamagno is the highest-priced tenor of the present day. Patti at one time made a contract for a series of performances at $4,400 a night, and later on her fee was $5,000 a night, paid in advance, but when she came to Boston in 1882, and sang in three performances given in a week, her share of the receipts was $20,895. The attendance at the Saturday matinée was 9,142 people, and her share of the receipts for that performance alone was $8,395. Madame Patti always had the advantage of excellent management. Until her marriage with the Marquis de Caux she was under the management of her brother-in-law, Maurice Strakosch, and so assiduous was he in his protection of his young star from unnecessary wear and tear that he became the subject of many jokes. It is said that he occasionally took her place at rehearsals, that when visitors called on her they saw him instead, and some people, with vivid imagination, declared that Strakosch sat for Patti's photograph, and that he once offered to receive a declaration of love for her. One is apt to doubt the necessity of all this management, for Patti seems to have been admirably adapted for self-defence, and even for aggression in financial matters. An amusing anecdote is told of her by Max Maretzek, who, one day, when she was a small child, in a moment of generosity promised her a doll, or, as some accounts have it, some bon-bons as a reward for singing in a concert. It was to be her very first appearance. Patti did not forget the promise, and when it was nearly time for her to sing she asked for her doll. Maretzek had forgotten it, and promised that she should have it after the concert, or the next day. But no, she must have it first, or she would not go on and sing. The poor man was in despair. It was late and stores were all closed, but by some means he succeeded in getting the bribe, whether dolls or bon-bons, and, rushing back in breathless haste, he handed it to her. Then she became cheerful at once, and giving it to her mother to be taken care of, she went on and performed her part in the concert. One of the most amusing of these anecdotes was told by Colonel Mapleson, the well-known impresario, who says that no one ever approached Madame Patti in the art of obtaining from a manager the greatest possible sum that he could contrive by any possibility to pay. In 1882, owing to the competition of Henry Abbey, the American impresario, Mapleson was obliged to raise Patti's salary from $1,000 per night to $4,000, and, finally, to $5,000 per night, a sum previously unheard-of in the annals of opera. The price, moreover, was to be paid at two o'clock of the day on which Patti was to sing. On the second night of the engagement at Boston, Madame Patti was billed to sing in "Traviata." Expenses had been heavy and the funds were low, so that when Signor Franchi, Patti's agent, called at the theatre promptly at two o'clock, only $4,000 could be scraped together. Signor Franchi was indignant, and declared that the contract was broken, and that Madame Patti would not sing. He refused to take the $4,000, and went off to report the matter to the prima donna. At four o'clock, Signor Franchi returned to the theatre, and congratulated Colonel Mapleson on his facility for managing Madame Patti, saying that she would do for the colonel that which she would do for no other impresario. In short, Patti would take the $4,000 and dress for her part, all except her shoes. She would arrive at the theatre at the regular time, and when the remaining paltry $1,000 was forthcoming she would put on her shoes and be ready to go on the stage. Everything happened as Patti had promised. She arrived at the theatre costumed as Violetta, but minus her shoes. Franchi called at the box-office, but only $800 was on hand. The genial Signor took the money and returned to Patti's room. He soon appeared again to say that Madame Patti was all ready except one shoe, which she could not put on until the remaining $200 was paid. It was already time for the performance to begin, but people were still coming in, and after some slight delay Signor Franchi was able to go in triumph to Madame Patti with the balance of the amount. Patti put on her other shoe and proceeded to the stage. She made her entrance at the proper time, her face radiant with smiles, and no one in the audience had any idea of the stirring events which had just taken place. In later years, when Madame Patti invested some of her fortune in the beautiful castle at Craig-y-Nos, in Wales, the people employed to put the place into repair, knowing of her reputed wealth and extravagance, sent in enormous bills. But Madame Patti was not to be imposed upon, and the result was that the amounts melted down considerably under the gentle influence of the law. The unkindest cut of all was, however, when a Belgian gentleman, who had amused himself at Craig-y-Nos, who had fished, shot, and been entertained, but who always managed to be present during discussions on business, sent in a bill of £3,000 for his services as agent. Under the management of Colonel Mapleson, Patti travelled in most luxurious style. She had a special car which is said to have cost $65,000, and a whole retinue of servants. At Cheyenne, the legislature and assembly adjourned and chartered a special car to meet the operatic train. A military band was at the station, and nearly the whole population turned out to witness the arrival. Tickets to the opera were ten dollars each, and there was an audience of 3,000 people. California seems to have been considered doubtful territory, for Patti left the question undecided as to whether she would go so far. When she did arrive it was merely as a visitor, but her delight with the "heavenly place" was so great that she declared she _must_ sing there. The necessary delay incurred by sending to Chicago for numerous trunks containing her wardrobe, gave sufficient time for the excitement in San Francisco to work up to fever heat. Tickets sold at unheard-of prices, and more or less damage to property was done in the scramble. Adelina Patti made her first matrimonial venture in 1868, when she was united to the Marquis de Caux, an event which did not interfere with her operatic career, for she filled an engagement of six weeks at Paris, and then went on to St. Petersburg, where the town opened a subscription which amounted to 100,000 rubles, and presented her with a diamond necklace. In 1885 Madame Patti obtained a divorce from the Marquis de Caux, from whom she had separated in 1877, and the following year married Ernest Nicolini, the tenor singer. Nicolini was a man of fine stage presence, and, for a time, after the retirement of Mario, was considered the best tenor on the stage. His voice was of moderate power and of pleasing quality, but his tremolo was, to say the least, extensive. For some years Madame Patti declined every engagement in which Nicolini was not included, until the public indignation found vent in many protests. Signor Nicolini seems to have been a devoted and admiring husband, and to have entered heartily into the pleasures of the luxurious life of Craig-y-Nos. He died in January, 1898. After some years of retirement from the operatic stage, during which she sang only in concerts, Patti made a reappearance at Covent Garden in 1895, and showed that her voice, notwithstanding nearly forty years of use, was wonderfully well preserved. Nevertheless it was a disappointment to those who had heard her in her prime. As a reason for its preservation she says that she never sings when she is tired, and never strains for high notes. Sir Morell Mackenzie, the great throat specialist, said that she had the most wonderful throat he ever saw. It was the only one in which the vocal cords were in absolutely perfect condition after many years of use. They were not strained, warped, or roughened in the slightest degree, but absolutely perfect, and there was no reason why they should not remain so for ten or even twenty years longer. It was by her voice alone that she charmed and delighted her audiences, and she will doubtless be recorded as the possessor of the most perfect voice of the nineteenth century. She witnessed the rise of many rivals, but none ever equalled her in popularity, though many excelled her in dramatic powers. Lucca, Sembrich, Nilsson, were all greater as actresses, but of all the rivals of her prime only Sembrich and Albani remain, and several years must elapse before their careers will equal the length of Patti's. Probably no other singer has succeeded in amassing so great a fortune as Madame Patti. Her earnings enabled her to purchase, in 1878, the beautiful estate in Wales, which she remodelled to suit her own ideas. Here she has lived in regal style and entertained lavishly many of the most noted people of the civilized world. Her wealth is by no means confined to real estate, for she has a rare collection of jewels, said to be the largest and most brilliant owned by any of the modern actresses and opera singers. One of her gowns, worn in the third act of "La Traviata," was covered with precious stones to the value of $500,000. Madame Patti's most popular rôles were Juliet and Aida, and though she created no new parts of importance, she has amply fulfilled the traditional rôle of prima donna in matters of caprice and exaction, and has even created some new precedents. In 1898 she was still before the public, singing in concerts in London and elsewhere. CHAPTER V. PRIMA DONNAS OF THE SIXTIES. At the middle of the century critics began to cry out about the decadence of the vocal art, much as they have done at intervals during the past two centuries, and with as little real cause. The great singers of recent years had departed, and apparently none had arisen to take their place, and yet the latter half of the century has been adorned by stars who, as far as we are able to judge, are not inferior to those who have gone before. It is probable that other stars also will arise who will delight as large audiences and create as great excitement as Grisi, Lind, and Malibran. While it is undoubtedly true that declamation holds a more important place in modern opera than it did in the operas of bygone days, and some declare that the art of vocalization is extinct, yet singers who can charm by pure vocalization are still as welcome as ever, though more is expected of them in the dramatic branch of their art. It is doubtful whether a greater trio of singers has been before the public at any time than Patti, Lucca, and Nilsson, and yet they appeared at a time when it was claimed that vocal art was dead. During the first half of the century we have seen that some of the great singers visited the United States. Garcia brought his daughter to America, where she created a great sensation and found her first husband. Sontag crossed the ocean, Grisi, Alboni, and Jenny Lind had found appreciative audiences in America. Among the men, Incledon was the first singer of importance to cross the water. We now arrive at a period when not only many great singers, and some of less repute, crossed the wild Atlantic for American dollars, but America began to supply singers to the European market. When Colonel Mapleson was interviewed in San Francisco during Patti's tour, he declared that there were more than 2,000 American vocal students in Europe, and he mentioned fifteen who had appeared under his management up to 1883. This number included Patti, who could hardly be claimed as American, for she was born in Madrid, of Italian parents. But between 1860 and 1870, Clara Louise Kellogg, Minnie Hauk, and Annie Louise Gary were genuine Americans, as was also Adelaide Phillips, who made her début in 1854. In later years the number increased till, at the present day, at least two of the greatest artists among the prima donnas are of American origin, while a large number have reached a high position and may be destined for the greatest honors. The star of the year 1860 was born in Vienna, made her début there, and remained there for some years. Marie Gabrielle Krauss was one of those singers, who, with a voice far from perfect, was able by her style, her phrasing, and her musical delivery, to which must be added the incontestable power of dramatic accent, to be classed among the greatest singers of her time. In 1867 she was engaged in Paris and sung there for many years, except during the Franco-Prussian war. In 1861, Carlotta Patti made her début, but she was obliged to abandon the operatic stage on account of lameness. She was an elder sister of Adelina Patti, and for many years was very popular on the concert stage, sharing with her sister wonderful facility of execution and beautiful quality of voice. Probably no singer of her time travelled so extensively as Carlotta Patti, who is said to have visited every part of the world in which a concert could be successfully given. In 1879 she married Mr. Ernst de Munck, of Weimar, a violoncellist, but ten years later she died. Clara Louise Kellogg was one of the early American singers, who, though her great musical gifts enabled her to win triumphs in opera in the great musical centres of the world, devoted the prime of her life to giving English opera in her native land. Miss Kellogg was born in Sumterville, S. C., in 1842, but in 1856 she went, with her mother, who had considerable musical ability, to New York, in order to continue the musical education which her mother had begun. In 1861, before she had completed her nineteenth year, she made her début at the Academy of Music, in "Rigoletto" as Gilda, and sang during the season about a dozen times. In 1867 she appeared at Her Majesty's Theatre in London as Margherita, and was reëngaged for the following year. She then returned to the United States and made a concert tour which lasted for four years. In 1872 she was back again in London at Her Majesty's. In 1874 she organized an English Opera company in America, translating the words, training the chorus, and doing most of the hard work of the enterprise herself. Such was her ardor and enthusiasm that she sang in the winter of 1874-5 no less than one hundred and twenty-five times. From that time until 1882, she was constantly before the public in opera or concert, and in addition to her musical talents she was remarkable for business ability. Her voice was of large compass and great purity, and when she retired she left a memory of a good, exemplary life, full of benevolent actions. It is said that in her youth she was engaged to be married to a schoolmate, but the marriage was necessarily to wait until they had sufficient means. She went on the stage, was successful, and wrote to him saying that she had sufficient money and was ready. He, however, felt it incumbent upon him to provide at least a capital equal to hers, and desired a further postponement. This annoyed her, and her enthusiasm cooled off. Money-making was a slow process with him, and before he had satisfied his conscience she had announced her engagement to another man. Miss Kellogg retired in 1882, and married Mr. Strakosch, a son of the celebrated impresario. During Miss Kellogg's travels in the United States she visited with her company a great many towns which have since become music-loving cities, and she met with many highly amusing experiences, besides some which were less amusing than instructive. She has exerted an educational influence throughout the country which it would be difficult to over-estimate; indeed, it can be claimed that the ambition of many young Americans to study music owes its origin to the efforts of those who, like Miss Kellogg, visited the smaller towns, and made it possible for a large number of people to enjoy music of a high order. The year 1862 produced a singer of great ability, Ilma di Murska, a native of Croatia, one of the most brilliant sopranos, and one of the most eccentric women of her time. There seems to be considerable uncertainty about her early life, both as to birth and marriage. By some authorities it is stated that she was born in 1843, the year in which Patti, Nilsson, and (some say) Lucca were born. On the other hand, the date of her birth is placed both in 1836 and 1837, and there are many reasons for supposing that one of these earlier dates is the right one. Concerning her first marriage, one authority states that her first husband was Count Nugent, a descendant of a renowned Irish officer of that name, by whom she had a son and a daughter, and that the son committed suicide in 1876. Another account is that in early life she married General Eider, from whom she separated on account of her eccentricities, which made it impossible for him to live happily with her. This account speaks of her daughter, and it is tolerably well established that she did have a daughter, for that young lady played an important and not particularly creditable part in the history of the talented singer. It is not impossible that she may have married both Count Nugent and General Eider, for she certainly married frequently, and in that respect holds a unique place, even in the list of much-married prima donnas. Madame di Murska was tall and slender in figure, of striking appearance, and with features not specially attractive, but her vigor and originality were remarkable. Her impersonations were full of life, and, while she occasionally exaggerated in gesture or expression, she invariably held the attention of her audience. She sang the most difficult passages, and gave the most florid ornamentation, with ease and certainty. As Lucia, Astrofiammante, and Dinorah, she made a great sensation, even at a time when Adelina Patti was considered to be perfection in those parts. The writer remembers her in "Roberto" at Drury Lane, when her impassioned acting resulted in a very funny incident. While she sang the beautiful aria, "Robert, toi que j'aime," the object of her adoration reposed in oblivion on a red plush sofa. In her abandon she let her face rest for a moment on the head of the sofa, where, when she arose, there remained a large, white patch, which aroused the audience to laughter, in spite of themselves. Truly, the step from the sublime to the ridiculous is very small. Ilma di Murska made her début at Florence, after which she sang at Pesth, Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg, and London. Her memory is said to have been remarkable, and her facility in learning equally so, for she could learn her part by merely reading it, sometimes in bed, from the score. In 1873 she made a tour in the United States, an account of which was once given by Mr. de Vivo,[1] who was her manager. During this tour her eccentricities caused her manager much anxiety, for at times when he needed money, and, having paid large sums to her, felt confident that she was able to furnish funds, she had always sent her earnings to her daughter, who seems to have kept her in a chronic state of poverty. The company travelled across this continent, and went to Australia and New Zealand. During the Australian tour Madame di Murska became very much interested in Alfred Anderson, a young musician belonging to the company. He fell into bad health, and, when confined to his room by sickness, the eccentric singer insisted upon nursing him. Soon afterwards they were quietly married. They were then in Sidney, and the marriage took place in December, 1875. Mr. Anderson continued so ill that he was obliged to return to Melbourne, his native city, where he went to his father's house. It seems that the family were opposed to the marriage, for Madame di Murska was refused admission, and was obliged to stay at a hotel. There seem also to have been some peculiar financial transactions, for, according to accounts, when Mr. Anderson died, which was some three or four months after the marriage, Madame di Murska lost a large sum of money. This experience, however, did not by any means crush her, for in May, 1876, five months after her marriage to Anderson, she fearlessly embarked on another matrimonial venture, this time taking as her partner for life Mr. John T. Hill. This union does not seem to have been permanent, for nothing more is heard of Mr. Hill in connection with Madame di Murska. [1] Mr. Diego de Vivo died in New York, on August 11, 1898, at the age of seventy-six. He was instrumental in introducing to the American public many artists who have become well-known. In Australia, di Murska never attained the same popularity that attended her efforts in Europe, her peculiarities were so marked. She is said to have always refused to be interviewed, or to see any one at her hotel, and she used to spend her time in training a lot of parrots, magpies, cockatoos, monkeys, and other creatures, to sing. She had a wagon-load of pets, which were taken from town to town, wherever she sang, and were an unmitigated nuisance. She also had a big Newfoundland dog, named Pluto, for whom a cover was always laid at the dinner table. Pluto dined on capon and other dainties, and was a model in regard to table manners. Her parrots cost her a great deal of money, for they had a decided antipathy to silk or damask upholstery, particularly to flowered patterns, but Madame di Murska always seemed pleased when the bills for the depredations of her pets were presented to her. Once while the company was at Glasgow, one of the members fed a parrot with parsley till it died. Di Murska called in two learned Scotch professors to hold a post-mortem examination, and they decided that the bird had died of wall-paper, and charged three guineas for their opinion. Some few years later Madame di Murska was induced to return to the United States, where a position was secured for her in New York as a vocal teacher, but although possessed of undoubted talent, she completely failed to impart it to her pupils, nor was she any longer successful in concerts. Her money, which had been sent to her daughter as fast as she earned it, had all been squandered, and she fell into the direst poverty. The musicians of New York interested themselves in her behalf, and sufficient money was raised to send her home. She survived but a short time, and, in 1889, on January 4, her troubled life ended. It was an extremely sad termination to a brilliant career, and its sadness was emphasized by the fact that her daughter, whose happiness had seemed her greatest solicitude, committed suicide over her grave. It is said that General Eider, hearing of the tragic event, caused a stone to be erected at the graves of his eccentric wife and daughter. One of the most important and brilliant rivals of Adelina Patti was Christine Nilsson, a Swede. Miss Nilsson was the only daughter of a poor farmer at Sjöabal, near Wexio. She was born in 1843, the same year in which Patti was born, and was seven years younger than her youngest brother, who was the third son of his parents, and who, being of a musical nature, had studied the violin in the best way that he could without a teacher. He turned his talent to account by playing at balls in the neighboring villages. When Christine was nine years old she was wont to sing the native melodies of her country, and she, too, learned to play her brother's violin in order to accompany her voice. When she reached her twelfth year, her mother used to take her to the neighboring fairs, where, her golden hair tied simply under a handkerchief, she played and sang to admiring rustics, who would contribute their small donations to her brother, who passed his hat around. At the age of thirteen came a turning-point in her career. She was at a fair in Llungby, when a ventriloquist, who had set up his booth near where she was singing, finding that all the trade passed him and went to her, came over and made a bargain, offering her twenty francs to sing at his booth during the remaining eight days of the fair. While singing for her new employer, she attracted the attention of Judge Toernerheljm, who was touched by her beauty, her grace, and the delightful tones of her voice. He resolved to rescue her from the career of a vagrant musician, and asking about her father and mother, said that he would take her and place her with a lady who would be kind to her. The simple little maid replied that she could not break her contract with the ventriloquist, but the judge agreed to satisfy him. So she sent her brother home to tell the story and ask advice. He returned with a message from her parents saying that she was to go, but not to come home first, as they could not bear to part with her if she did. Accordingly Christine went with Judge Toernerheljm, who placed her with the Baroness Leuhusen, formerly a vocal teacher, from whom the young singer received her first lessons, and, at the same time, attended school in Halmstadt. In due time she went to Stockholm, where she took lessons under Franz Berwald, and in six months' time she sang at Court. The young singer now went to Paris accompanied by Baroness Leuhusen, and began a course of lessons under Wartel. She so profited by his instruction, that she made her début at the Théâtre Lyrique on October 27, 1864, as Violetta in "La Traviata," and afterwards appeared as Lady Henrietta, Astrofiammante, Elvira ("Don Giovanni"), etc. She remained at the Théâtre Lyrique nearly three years, after which she went to England and sang at Her Majesty's, making her first appearance as Violetta, on June 8, 1867. Notwithstanding that Patti had the world at her feet, the success of Nilsson was extremely brilliant, her impersonation of Marguerite in "Faust" calling forth unstinted praise, and it is the opinion of many that in that part she has never been excelled. Her representation of Marguerite was that of a quiet, simple girl, full of maidenly reserve during the first three acts, a deep-natured young girl, restrained from the full expression of her feelings by every instinct of her better nature, and every rule of her daily life. This very forbearance of style made her final surrender a thousand times more impressive than is usual. It was accomplished in one wild, unlooked-for rush of sudden emotion, caused by the unexpected return of her lover. The picture which Nilsson gave of this tender, gentle girl, in the pensive, anxious joy of her first love, and in the despair and misery of her darkened life, was one over which painters and poets might well go wild with enthusiasm. Nilsson had a voice of wonderful sweetness and beauty, and possessed the most thorough skill in vocalization. She could reach with ease F in alt, and showed to advantage in such operas as "Zauberflöte." Her singing was cold, clever, and shrewd, and she calculated her effects so well, that her audience was impressed by the semblance of her being deeply moved. The eulogies of London and Paris dwelt more upon her acting than upon her singing, more upon her infusion of her own individuality into Marguerite, Lucia, and Ophelia than upon any merely vocal achievement. She was considered a dramatic artist of the finest intuitions, the most magnetic presence, and the rarest expressive powers. There was, too, a refinement, a completeness, and an imaginative quality in her acting, which was altogether unique. [Illustration: _Nilsson as Valentine._] From 1870 to the spring of 1872 Miss Nilsson was in America, where she met with a perfect ovation. In 1872 she returned to London, and in July was married by Dean Stanley, in Westminster Abbey, to M. Auguste Rouzeaud, of Paris. She visited America again in the season of 1873-4. In 1881, Nilsson sang in opera for the last time, but continued to sing in oratorio and concerts until 1888, since which time she has remained in the seclusion of private life. According to Maurice Strakosch, Miss Nilsson once visited a celebrated palmist, Desbarolles, who examined her hand, and told her that she would encounter many troubles, of which most would be caused by madness or by fire. This prophecy proved to be true, for several times during her American tour she was annoyed by insane lovers. In New York, she was obliged to seek the protection of the court from a man who pestered her with attentions, and again in Chicago she had a very unpleasant experience, both of which affairs caused some sensation at the time. But more serious than these incidents was the loss of a great part of her savings through the Boston fire, and this was followed in 1882 by the death of her husband, M. Rouzeaud, from insanity, caused by mental worry over business reverses. The events which led up to Nilsson's retirement from the operatic stage are told by Colonel Mapleson, but it must be remembered that he was a man much harassed by the peculiarities of prima donnas, and his experiences with Madame Nilsson were not the least of his trials. In 1868 Nilsson was so successful that she revived the drooping fortunes of Her Majesty's Theatre, which had recently been burnt down. At the same time Patti was singing at Covent Garden. Nilsson felt that her achievements were equal to those of Patti, and justified her in regarding herself as Patti's successful rival. Thus, whenever Patti secured a large sum for her services, Nilsson demanded as much. When competition became keen between Mapleson and Abbey, the American impresario, Mapleson made overtures to Nilsson, as Abbey was outbidding him for Patti, but the Swedish singer would accept no engagement at less than Patti's figures. Feeling that Patti was the strongest drawing card, Mapleson gave up the idea of playing Nilsson against her, and determined to outbid Abbey for Patti. This competition resulted in the establishment of Patti's price of $5,000 a performance, and Nilsson was left without an engagement. In 1884 she made a concert tour in the United States, when Brignoli sang with her. He once caused some merriment, which went the round of the papers, when he came forward, in a Missouri town, to apologize for Nilsson's slight indisposition. "Madame Nilsson ees a leetle horse," he said. Noticing a ripple of laughter amongst the audience, he repeated the statement that Nilsson "was a leetle horse," when a facetious occupant of the gallery brought down the house by remarking, "Well, then, why don't you trot her out?" Brignoli was a very useful tenor, and toured the country many times with various prima donnas. He was as full of oddities as of music, and a very amusing story is told of him in connection with an Havana engagement. It appears that he was displeased at his reception, so he decided that on the next night he would punish the people by having a sore throat. He sent notice at the proper time to the manager, who, according to the laws of the country, was obliged to report the fact to the government. A doctor was sent by the authorities to ascertain the state of his health, and finding no sign of indisposition looked very serious, and told the tenor that it was a case of yellow fever. This so frightened the capricious singer that he declared himself perfectly able to sing, and he took his revenge by singing so finely that he outshone his previous reputation, and electrified his audience. Nilsson's first care, when she began to accrue wealth, was to purchase farms for her parents and her brother. When she returned to Sweden in her prime she met with such a reception as had not been known since the time of Jenny Lind. She entered enthusiastically into the life of her compatriots, played dances for them on the violin, as she had done in the days of her childhood, and sang the songs of her country. In 1887 Madame Nilsson married a second time, choosing for her husband Count Casa di Miranda, and after her farewell concerts, given in 1888, retired permanently. During her stage career Nilsson gave to the world new and refined interpretations of many well-known rôles, but her only creation was the part of Edith in Balfe's "Talismano," though when Boito's "Méphistophele" was first produced in England, in 1880, she sang the part of Margaret. She also gave a remarkable dramatic and poetical interpretation of the part of Elsa in "Lohengrin." Of all the singers of German opera, by which we now mean _Wagner_, none has attained so great a reputation as Frau Amalie Materna. With a soprano voice of unusual volume, compass, and sustaining power, a fine stage presence, and great musical and dramatic intelligence Frau Materna left nothing to be desired in certain rules. Amalie Materna was born in Styria at a place named St. Georgen, where her father was a schoolmaster. This was in 1847, and when she was twelve years of age her father died, leaving his family penniless. Amalie and an older brother found means to go to Vienna where a music teacher tried her voice, and though he saw great promise in it he declined to undertake her musical education on such terms as she could offer. Sadly disappointed, Amalie joined her mother and another brother at St. Peter in Upper Styria, and lived there for the three following years, when the family migrated to Gratz. It is related that Suppé, the composer, sometimes spent his summer holiday at Gratz with some old friends. Every evening the party would gather in the garden to play skittles. When ready to begin they would call to the woman next door to send the "lad" to set up the skittles. The "lad" was a sprightly, black-eyed girl named "Maly" Materna. One day Suppé happened to hear her sing, and struck by the beauty of her voice, called the attention of Kapellmeister Zaitz, also a visitor at Gratz. Soon after this "Maly" became a member of the chorus at the Landes theatre, and by Suppé's advice Treumann engaged her for Vienna. She had meanwhile developed her voice. Materna's first salary was forty gulden a month, but her first appearance was so successful that this was raised to one hundred gulden. For two years she sang in Offenbachian rôles, and it was at the termination of her second season that she became engaged at the Karl Theatre in Vienna, at a yearly salary of five thousand gulden, with an extra honorarium of five gulden for each performance. While appearing nightly in the light works of the French and German composers of the time, Fraulein Materna studied diligently during the day at the more exacting rôles of heavy opera with Professor Proch, and in 1868 sang, in the presence of Hoffkapellmeister Esser, Donna Elvira's grand air from "Don Giovanni." Esser was delighted with her, and insisted that Hofrath Dingelstedt should give the young singer a hearing, and the result was that she was engaged for the Imperial Opera House. Shortly after her engagement at the theatre in Gratz she married an actor named Friedrich, who was engaged with her when she went to the Karl Theatre, Vienna. In 1869 she made her début at the Imperial Opera House in the rôle of Selika, in the "Africaine," in which part she was able to demonstrate her capabilities, for she won a signal success, and was at once placed in a high position among opera singers of the German school. Still higher honors were in store for her. In 1876, twenty-eight years after its first conception, "Der Ring des Nibelungen" of Wagner was performed entire at Bayreuth, on which occasion the part of Brunhilde was entrusted to Frau Materna. The really magnificent impersonation which she gave earned for her a world-wide reputation. It was a part for which she was exceptionally well qualified, and in which she never had an equal. It is stated that Wagner, hearing Materna sing at Vienna while she was at the Imperial Opera House, and while the production of the Nibelungen Trilogy was uppermost in his mind, exclaimed: "Now I have found my Brunhilde. I take her with thanks. I am glad to have found her in Vienna." During the Wagner festival, which was held in London in 1877, Materna confirmed the high reputation which she had gained in Germany, and when "Parsifal" was produced in 1882 at Bayreuth, Materna created the part of Kundry. In 1882 she visited the United States, singing in New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago, and again in 1884 she crossed the Atlantic and sang in the Wagner festival of that year with Scaria and Winkelmann, all of whom made good impressions and helped to pave the way for the production of the operas entire. Frau Materna retired from the stage in 1897, on which occasion she sang in a concert given in the hall of the Musical Union in Vienna. A remarkable gathering of musicians and celebrities was there. Materna's first number was the entrance aria of Elizabeth from "Tannhäuser," which was given with such dramatic force that one could not fail to ask, "Is this the singer who is about to retire?" Her great triumph came, however, in the last number, which was "Isolden's Liebestod," and as her wonderful voice, full of passion and dramatic power, rang through the hall, the enthusiasm of the audience knew no bounds. After being recalled many times Frau Materna was obliged to make a speech of thanks, in which she touchingly referred to the many years which she had passed at Vienna, and to the fact that Wagner had found her there and entrusted her with the creation of his greatest parts. In private life Materna is simple and unaffected. She is as unpretentious in her personality as she is great in her talent. She has the unassuming manners which so endeared Parepa-Rosa to the hearts of the people. As an artist she may best be called a vocal musician. She was not a vocal technician of the school of Jenny Lind, Nilsson, Patti, or Gerster. Her voice, though unable to give phenomenal runs, trills, or cadenzas, was adequately trained, and was of remarkable richness and breadth. The work of the poet rather than of the singing teacher was apparent in her interpretations, and the dramatic intensity and passionate force of her delivery were effective even upon the concert stage. It is doubtful whether any singer will ever combine more of the qualities which are essential to the perfect interpretation of Wagner's operas, and Materna may, therefore, be set down as the greatest singer of her school. Materna's original contract for three years at the Imperial Opera House was many times renewed, and she scarcely ever left Vienna during the season. Occasionally she was heard in Frankfort, Berlin, Hamburg, and Leipzig. She also sang in London in the Wagner concerts, and she visited the United States several times. Since her retirement, she has left Vienna to take up her permanent abode in the Château St. Johann, near Gratz, which she has purchased. When Bizet wrote "Carmen" he intended it for Marie Roze, a versatile artist of the French stage. She, however, had made an engagement in England which prevented her from creating the rôle as intended, and it was re-written for Madame Galli-Marié, but although she at first had made some objections to the character which Carmen was supposed to represent, she afterwards became famous in that part. Marie Roze was born in Paris in 1846, and in 1865 gained first prizes at the Paris Conservatoire in singing and comic opera. In the same year she made her début at the Opera Comique, and was engaged for the following four years, during which she appeared in many rôles. Her operatic career was uniformly successful; she made several tours of Europe, and came to America in 1877, after which she became a member of the Carl Rosa Opera Company. At the outbreak of the Franco-German war, she left the opera and joined the army, serving with the greatest zeal in the ambulance department. For her services during that struggle and during the siege of Paris, she received the Geneva Cross and a diploma from M. Thiers. Mlle. Roze married Mr. Perkins, a promising American bass singer, but his career was cut short by death in 1875. She afterwards became the wife of Colonel Henry Mapleson, the impresario, but the marriage did not prove to be a happy one, and they separated some years later. One cannot help wondering that Mapleson, whose experience with prima donnas had been so harassing, should have allied himself matrimonially to one of that ilk, but it is probable that his experiences had warped his nature, for in the scandal which the separation caused, public sympathy was with the wife. Madame Roze was the possessor of great personal attractions, and in her early days was once so pestered by an admirer that she sought the protection of the police. The aggressive youth, a French gentleman who had threatened to destroy her beauty with vitriol unless she favored his suit, attempted one night to scale the wall and enter her window. The guard fired and the misguided young man dropped dead. Madame Roze has of late taken up her residence again in Paris, where she teaches, and occasionally sings at concerts. The year 1868 brought forth another great exponent of Wagnerian characters to whom has been accorded by many good critics a very high rank among dramatic sopranos. Lilli Lehmann was born in 1848 at Wurzburg, and was taught singing by her mother, who was formerly a harp player and prima donna at Cassel under Spohr, and the original heroine of several operas written by that master. Fraulein Lehmann's position in the operatic world was not won suddenly. She made her first appearance in Prague as the First Boy in "Zauberflöte," after which she filled engagements in Dantzig (1868) and Leipzig (1870). In the latter year she appeared at Berlin as Vielka, and was so successful that she received a further engagement. In 1876 she was appointed Imperial Chamber singer. She now began to sing in Wagner's operas, taking the parts of Woglinde and Helmwige, and she sang the "Bird" music in Wagner's trilogy at Bayreuth. In 1880 she made a successful appearance in England as Violetta, and again as Philine in "Mignon." She also sang at Her Majesty's Theatre for two seasons, and in 1884 she went to Covent Garden and made a substantial success as Isolde. The following year she visited the United States, and for several years was frequently heard in German opera, acquiring a great reputation, but in 1892 she was taken ill and returned to Germany. At that time the condition of her health was such that it was feared she would never sing again; but in 1896 she reappeared and was engaged to sing at Bayreuth, where she electrified the world by her magnificent performance. One of the critics wrote regarding the event: "Lehmann is the greatest dramatic singer alive, despite the fact that her voice is no longer fresh; but her art is consummate, her tact so delicate, and her appreciation of the dramatic situation so accurate, that to see her simply in repose is keen pleasure." Like all the greatest Wagnerian singers, her reputation was made in work of a very different nature. It was, indeed, because of her ability to sing music of the Italian school that she was so highly successful in the Wagner rôles, and it may be stated that her long career, and Materna's, are sufficient refutation of the oft-repeated assertion, that Wagner opera wears out a singer's voice rapidly. In 1888 Lilli Lehmann married Paul Kalisch, of Berlin, a tenor singer of good repute. The marriage took place after an engagement of several years, and was carried out, in a most informal manner, in New York. Herr Kalisch telegraphed one afternoon to a clergyman to the effect that he was coming at five o'clock to be married. The clergyman held himself in readiness, the couple arrived promptly, and the knot was tied. During the few years of retirement, Frau Lehmann-Kalisch resided in Berlin, where she devoted her time to teaching the vocal art, but since her Bayreuth appearance of 1896, she has revisited America, and renewed her former triumphs. Minnie Hauk will be remembered as the creator (in London) of "Carmen," in Bizet's opera of that name. The opera had not been very successful in Paris, but when it was produced at Her Majesty's, in London, Miss Hauk demonstrated that she was not only a singer of more than ordinary ability, but possessed also considerable dramatic power. Miss Hauk was born in New York, in 1852. Her father was a German, and a scholar of high reputation, who, having taken part in the revolutionary movement of 1848, went to New York, where he married an American lady. On account of her health he was obliged to take her, and the child, Minnie, to the West, and they settled at Leavenworth, Kan., where Mr. Hauk acquired some property. At this time Kansas was still peopled by Indians, and life was rough and unsettled. Amidst wars, inundations, hurricanes, and attacks from Indians, Minnie Hauk spent her early childhood. Her mother's health did not improve even under these stimulating conditions, and the family moved to New Orleans, taking passage in a steamer owned by Mr. Hauk. This vessel was lost during the voyage, but the family arrived safely in New Orleans, in time to witness the siege of that city during the War of the Rebellion,--the burning of the cotton presses and ships, the battle, and the occupation by Northern troops, all form most interesting and striking recollections. Yet amidst the scene of strife, the young girl was singing from morning till night, roaming about the plantations surrounding the city, climbing trees, imitating the songs of birds. The negroes on the plantations taught her their songs, she learned to play the banjo, and she organized theatrical performances amongst her playmates. All her inclinations pointed to a stage career, and when a concert was arranged for the benefit of the widows and orphans of the war, she was invited to sing, though not more than twelve years old. This was her first appearance in public, and the pieces which she sang were "Casta Diva," and a selection from Auber's "Crown Diamonds." Her success in this concert was so great, that when the family returned to New York, she was placed under Signor Errani to begin her operatic education. She made rapid progress, and after several essays at the private theatre of Mr. Leonard Jones, she made a successful début at the Academy of Music, singing the part of Amina in "La Sonnambula," and becoming at once a popular singer. This was in 1868, and later in the same year she made her début in London. Under the management of Maurice Strakosch she made a tour through Holland and Russia, and was also well received in Vienna, in 1870, at the Imperial Opera House. In 1874, she was invited to join the Royal Opera House at Berlin, as leading prima donna, by the express desire of Emperor William and the Empress Augusta. Here she remained four years. In 1877 she appeared at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels, and in 1878 she returned to America. During the spring seasons of 1878 to 1880, she sang on alternate nights with Nilsson, at Her Majesty's in London. She made a brilliant record both in Europe and America, as a leading star of Her Majesty's Opera Company during the seasons of 1881-2-3-4-5-6, but of late years has not been heard in opera. Mapleson gives Miss Hauk credit for being one of the most capricious of prima donnas, and declares that he generally received three or four notes a day from her containing complaints or requests. She married in 1876 Chevalier Hesse von Wartegg, who has written some interesting books on Tunis and Algiers. CHAPTER VI. PRIMA DONNAS OF THE SEVENTIES. The decade beginning with the year 1860 was remarkably prolific in singers, producing not only the prima donnas whose careers we have reviewed in the previous chapters, but also some of the finest contralto, tenor, and baritone singers of the latter part of the century. With each decade we find the American singer more in evidence. We have had Clara Louise Kellogg and Minnie Hauk, the sopranos, Adelaide Phillips, contralto, and Annie Louise Cary, and the number increases as we proceed, until we find American singers standing on an artistic equality with the best that the world can produce. The decade of 1870 opens with a prima donna from the American continent,--a singer who has held her place in public estimation for nearly thirty years, Madame Albani. While she was not such a marvellous colorature singer as Patti or Gerster, she combined so many excellent qualities that she is justly entitled to a position among the great singers of the century. As one critic expressed his opinion, she was "beautiful, tuneful, birdlike, innocent, and ladylike," to which might be added, "always reliable." Madame Albani's family name was Marie Louise Cecilia Emma Lajeunesse, and she was born, in 1850, of French-Canadian parents at Chambly, near Montreal. Her father was a professor of the harp, so she began life in a musical atmosphere. When she was five years of age the family moved to Montreal, and she was placed in the convent of the Sacre Coeur, where she received her education, and such musical instruction as the convent could provide. In 1864 the family again moved, this time to Albany, N. Y., and when Mlle. Lajeunesse entered upon her professional career, she adopted the name of this city, because it was here that she decided upon becoming a professional singer. While singing in the choir of the Catholic Cathedral she attracted the attention of the bishop by her beautiful voice, and he strongly urged her father to take her to Europe, and place her under proper masters for the development of her remarkable talent. To provide the necessary funds, a concert was given in Albany, after which Mlle. Lajeunesse and her father proceeded to Paris, where she commenced her studies with Duprez. After some months she went on to Milan, where she became a pupil of Lamperti, who thought so highly of her that he dedicated to her a treatise on "the shake." In 1870 she made her début at Messina, in the Sonnambula, after which she sang for a time at Florence. In 1872 she obtained an engagement in London, and on April 2d appeared at the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden. The beautiful qualities of her voice and the charm of her appearance were at once appreciated, and before the end of the season she was firmly established in the favor of the public. Later in the season she appeared in Paris, and then returned to Milan for further study, but so favorable an impression had she made, that she was engaged for the season of 1873 in London. She then went to St. Petersburg, after which she revisited America, and sang again in the Cathedral at Albany. In 1878 Albani married Mr. Ernest Gye, the lessee of Covent Garden Theatre, and for many years was one of the permanent attractions at that house. She has visited America several times, and has also sung in most of the large cities of Europe, where her reputation has been steadily maintained. Madame Albani's honors have not all been won in opera, though she has an immense repertoire, including Italian, French, and German operas. She is also one of the foremost concert and oratorio singers, and has had the honor of creating numerous soprano parts at the great festivals. At the request of Sir Arthur Sullivan, she travelled from Brussels to Berlin expressly to sing the part of "Elsie" in the "Golden Legend," at its second performance in that city. She had created the part when it was produced in 1886. In England, where Madame Albani has made her home for so many years, she is as popular and as highly respected on account of her domestic life, as on account of her artistic career, and her friends are not only numerous but include many of the most intellectual people of the day. Notwithstanding the success which Madame Albani made in England, France, Russia, and other countries, she had her trials and disappointments. At one time, when she was singing at La Scala, in Milan, she was suffering from a slight hoarseness. Most audiences would have been indulgent, but not so the Milanese, who are particularly cruel to singers who have made their reputation in other places. The Milanese hissed and groaned. Huskiness in a singer was, to them, a crime. The tenor, seeing how matters stood, was taken with a sudden indisposition, and left Albani to carry on the performance alone. The opera was "Lucia," and it proceeded no farther than the mad scene, for Madame Albani, indignant at the treatment accorded her, turned her back on the audience, and in a most dignified manner, marched off the stage, leaving the curtain to fall on a scene of confusion. No entreaties or arguments on the part of the impresario would induce her to finish the opera, or even to continue her engagement at La Scala. Colonel Mapleson tells this story concerning Albani's first London engagement. He heard of her singing at a small theatre at Malta, and, thinking that she would be successful, he made her an offer, through an agent, of a contract to sing at Her Majesty's Theatre. She agreed to it, and went to London, but, on arriving there, she told the cabman to drive her to the "Italian Opera House." He, instead of going to Her Majesty's, took her to Covent Garden, which was also devoted to Italian opera. She was shown up to the manager's office, and stated that she had come to sign the contract which Mr. Mapleson had offered her. Mr. Gye, thinking to play a joke on his rival, Mapleson, made out a contract, and Albani signed it. Mr. Gye then told her that he was not Colonel Mapleson, but that he could do much better for her. He offered to tear up the contract if she liked, but told her that Nilsson was singing at Her Majesty's and would brook no rival. Albani decided to let the contract stand, and thus became one of the stars of Covent Garden, eventually marrying the son of Mr. Gye. Concerning Albani's singing in Berlin, the _Berliner Tageblatt_ said: "The lady possesses an exceedingly peculiar organ, trained in a remarkable manner, and no one else has a voice which can be compared to it. It is not extensive in its range; the lower chest notes of the one-line octave might be fuller and more powerful, but the upper register is distinguished for enchanting sweetness, unfailing correctness, and, what is especially worthy of notice, a softness enabling the lady to breathe forth the gentlest pianissimo in passages which others can reach only with the greatest effort. Runs, staccatos, and shakes are not merely certain and pleasing, but, as regards form, so graceful that we listen to them with delight." An interesting anecdote concerning Madame Albani, and one which may tend to confirm the faith of those who doubt theorists, is to the effect that, when she was young and unknown, she paid a visit to a throat specialist, who had a theory that, by examination, it is possible for an expert to tell whether the possessor has an organ susceptible of producing a fine singer, even if he does not know music, and never sang a note. After examining Albani, without knowing her particular reason for consulting him, he exclaimed: "My dear young lady, Nature has given you a wonderful organ. You can, if you will, become one of the greatest of singers. If you possess dramatic ability equal to the endowment of your throat, you can become a famous lyric artist, and I advise you to devote your energies to the cultivation of your powers." The young singer thanked him, and disappeared. Some years after, he went West, and one day in Chicago, a handsomely dressed lady entered his office. "Don't you know me?" she said. But he was unable to recall her last visit, until she revealed her name, and related the whole incident, when he seemed very much surprised at the proof of his own wisdom. In 1898 Madame Albani paid a visit to South Africa, where she had a grand reception. After a career of nearly thirty years, she is still as popular as ever. The history of Emma Abbott is one which will be read with interest by all struggling and ambitious young people, for it is a story of brave battling against innumerable difficulties. Miss Abbott was the daughter of a poor music teacher, of Peoria, Illinois. Her early years gave her an acquaintance with hardship which, perhaps, enabled her to keep up her courage in the face of all obstacles. Imbued with the desire to help the family finances, she got the idea of giving a concert on her own account, for even as a small child she had a beautiful voice. At the age of thirteen, when she went to Mount Pulaski, on a visit to some friends, she put her idea into execution. She was trusted by the printer for her programmes and handbills. She posted her notices with her own hand, and secured a good audience. Her proceeds amounted to ten dollars, of which three dollars went to settle her bills, and with the remaining seven dollars she returned in triumph to her mother. After this, she gave guitar lessons to pay her schooling. At the age of sixteen, she heard of a vacancy for a school-teacher, and walked nine miles to see the school committee, with the result that, in recognition of her pluck, the place was given to her. Four months later she gave her first large concert in Peoria, and made one hundred dollars. She now travelled to various places giving concerts and fell in with an opera company from Chicago, the manager of which induced her to join the company. In due course the company broke up, and Miss Abbott found herself without money, but a kind-hearted railroad man advised her to go to New York, and present herself to Parepa-Rosa. He gave her a pass to Detroit, and then she was to go through Canada, and so to New York. Her journey was managed in the face of tremendous obstacles. She gave concerts, but found little response to her efforts. She frequently had to walk from one town to another. Once she had her feet frozen and many times she suffered from hunger. At last she reached New York, but, in spite of all her efforts, failed to reach Parepa-Rosa, and with her last fifteen dollars, she set out for the West again. While in Toledo she heard that Miss Kellogg was in town, and she called at her hotel and asked to see her. She sang for Miss Kellogg, who received her kindly, and who was so pleased with her that she gave her a letter to Errani, New York, and enough money to enable her to study for two years. Thus ended her bitterest struggles. After studying some time she secured the position of soprano in the choir of the Fifth Avenue Church, with a salary of $1,500, and on May 20, 1872, she set off for Europe with a large sum of money subscribed by the wealthy people of the church, whose admiration she had gained by her voice and her character. She soon made her début in Paris, and made a sensation. In Paris she married Eugene Wetherell, a young druggist of New York. If Miss Abbott is not enrolled among the great opera singers, it is because her ambition led her away from the beaten track, for, having made a reputation, she established an opera company of her own, which existed in America for several years, and enabled her to make a fortune estimated at half a million dollars. Her husband died in 1889, and his loss was a blow from which she never fully recovered. She was herself taken away in her prime in 1891. In 1873 a young singer made her début at Dresden, who was destined to achieve a high reputation as an interpreter of Wagner, and to rival the greatest stars of her school. Thérèse Malten, who was born at Insterburg, Eastern Prussia, appeared in Dresden as Pamina, and as Agatha. For nearly ten years she sang only in Dresden, taking many of the soprano rôles in Italian opera. In 1882 she sang at Bayreuth, as Kundry, at the desire of Wagner, who had a very high opinion of her ability, which was amply justified by the results. In London she appeared in May, 1882, when she made a great impression, and the critics declared that, though her art in singing was not so perfect as Materna's, her voice was fresh, magnificent, powerful, and that she had great personal beauty. Besides possessing a voice of extraordinary compass, with deep and powerful notes in the lower register, she was considered an admirable actress. In 1883 she was chosen by Wagner to sing the part of Isolde at Bayreuth, when she was described, amidst all the praise that was bestowed upon her, as a young singer who was never known out of Dresden until she sang in London the previous year. Madame Katharina Lohse-Klafsky, who was born in the same year as Malten, and was for several years prima donna at the Hamburg Opera, visited America in 1895, and died unexpectedly at Hamburg the following year as the result of an operation. She was a native of Hungary, and began her career in Italian opera, though she was best known as a Wagnerian singer. She had a large repertoire, and created the part, in German, in "La Navarraise." She met with great success in London in 1892 and 1894. She had a full, rich-toned voice and a handsome stage presence. A career of exceptional brilliance, but all too brief, was that of Etelka Gerster, who was born at Koschau, in Hungary, in 1856. Her father was a merchant, and brought up his family to refined tastes. All his children were fond of music, but none seemed to think of special musical study until a visiting friend from Vienna spoke of the promise which he thought lay in Etelka's voice. This gentleman asked permission to bring his friend Hellmesberger to hear her, and some time later the visit took place. Doctor Hellmesberger endorsed the opinion already given, but said that there was only one judge of such matters in Vienna,--Madame Marchesi A visit was therefore made to Vienna, with the result that Mlle. Gerster became a pupil of Marchesi, and after a year of hard study won first prize at the Conservatoire. About this time "Aida" was brought out at Vienna, and the composer Verdi came to superintend its production. He visited the Conservatoire, and a little soirée musicale was given in his honor. On this occasion Gerster sang several pieces, and Verdi was so pleased that he advised her to go on the stage. Soon after this Gerster got an engagement to sing at Venice under the management of Signor Gardini. She spent two seasons singing in Italian and Spanish towns, but in 1877 she appeared in Berlin at Kroll's Theatre. This engagement was the turning-point of her career, for by the magic of her voice she turned the second-class theatre into a resort to which the nobility flocked every night, and the venerable emperor and his court always held the front row of seats. For three weeks the company, composed of singers unknown to fame, sang to empty houses. Then, whispers of the fact that Kroll's Theatre had a singer of extraordinary ability resulted in increasing audiences. The emperor came and was delighted, and an invitation to sing at court was the result. After this triumphant engagement, Gerster married her manager, Signor Gardini, while they were in Pesth. Compared with many prima donnas, Madame Gerster's life has been uneventful. Her position as a singer was as a representative of the old art of beautiful singing. She charmed with gracefulness, smoothness, and exquisite finish of execution, and the most perfect musical taste, which every phrase, even in the most florid passages, revealed. She could not awe, like Pasta, but she could fascinate and charm. She was not a great actress, but she was graceful and pleasing on the stage. Madame Gerster visited the United States several times, but at the end of the season of 1881 she declared that she would never sing again under the management of Colonel Mapleson. He had hurt her feelings by neglect. He had called on other members of the company, and showed various little attentions to them, but he never called on her nor inquired about her health when she was not feeling well, and finally went off to Europe without saying "Good-by." This hurt the feelings of Signor Gardini, as well as those of his talented spouse, but she nevertheless returned as a member of his company in 1883-84, when there was great rivalry between Gerster and Patti. On approaching Cheyenne, Patti insisted on having her car detached from the train and making a separate entry, as she could not bear to share the admiration of the multitude with Gerster. During this tour there was one occasion on which, Patti and Gerster appearing together, Patti received so many flowers that the audience were weary with the delay caused by handing them over the footlights. When this ceremony was over, one small basket of flowers was handed for Gerster, but the audience arose and gave her a tremendous ovation. Henceforth Patti refused to sing with Gerster, and open war was declared, Patti declaring that Gerster had "the evil eye," and Gerster saying pointed things about Patti, as, for instance, when the aged governor of Missouri, in a burst of enthusiasm, kissed Patti, and Gerster, on being asked her opinion about this frivolity, said that she saw no harm in a man kissing a woman old enough to be his mother. In 1885 Gerster came again to America on a concert tour, but her beautiful voice had gone. She sang twice in New York, and made a most dismal failure, so she gave up the tour and went home, much to the regret of Americans who remembered the days when her singing gave the most exquisite delight. Signor and Signora Gardini had a beautiful estate in the Campagna of Italy, to which they retired between seasons, and where they enjoyed entertaining their guests. Signora Gardini was devoted to the cares of her household, and proved herself to be an excellent housekeeper and an accomplished cook. In this home nothing was wanting to make it a most delightful place of residence for even such a spoiled child as a prima donna. But alas! this happy life was destined to end very soon. Colonel Mapleson in his memoirs declared that Gerster was a most difficult person to get along with, and now Signor Gardini was forced to the same conclusion, for it was reported that the beautiful prima donna was in the habit of giving way to frightful outbursts of temper. To this cause is attributed the loss of her voice, as well as the loss of her husband. The "Villa Mezzana" was closed, and portions of the estate let to various small farmers. Madame Gerster went with her children to Paris, but soon after moved to Berlin and became a vocal teacher. She was only twenty-eight years of age when at the height of her fame, and at thirty her career was over. Referring to Mapleson once more, who was never inclined to mince matters when he was annoyed by a prima donna, we get the following anecdote. While travelling between Louisville and Chicago, the sleeping-car in which Gerster was travelling broke down and had to be side-tracked. Madame Gerster was requested to change into another car, as it was impossible to continue in the one which she was occupying, but she positively refused to move. She had paid to ride in that car, and in that car would she go and in no other. No arguments could induce her to change her mind. At last an expedient was discovered,--the station agent at the nearest place was a remarkably fine-looking man. He was dressed up and introduced to her as the president of the road. He flattered her till she began to soften, and then told her that the company would be under great obligations to her if she would consent to use another car. He had a Brussels carpet laid from the door of her car to that which she was to occupy, and the lady, pleased at the deference shown to her by so high an official, at last consented to make the change. Some of the press criticisms of Gerster's performances during her tour in 1881 were highly amusing. The following were selected from a paper published in a large Southern city: "Mrs. Gerster's Lucia is the Lucia of our youth, and our first ecstasies arose as from a nest of flowers as fresh and adorable as ever," whatever that may mean. What it ordinarily described as a walk was pictured in the following mysterious sentence: "Her light tread as of a restless and frightened bird." Some of her trills were described as "aflame with passionate intoxication," while others were "white and wet with the tears of grief." All this excellence was manifested with "never a scream to mar her singing." Such admirable descriptions must have gone far towards reconciling those who were unable to see and hear the great songstress. There is and has been much fault to find with American musical criticism. Excellent musicians have been subjected to the vulgar abuse of self-sufficient ignoramuses. A movement was recently put on foot to establish a school of musical journalism, and possibly the following selection, which was written concerning a lady of excellent musical ability and of world-wide reputation, may be allowed here as an argument in favor of a proper training for critics. For absolute vulgarity it may be awarded a first prize. It was written in 1882 in a city which lays claim to civilization, and the only excuse for its introduction is the hope that it may serve a good end. "The divine ---- was as resolute as usual, which, by the way, she ought to be, being well seasoned. The editor of this paper makes no great pretensions in the way of musical criticism, but when a genuine six hundred dollar grand spiral subsand twist, back-action, self-adjusting, chronometer-balanced, full-jewelled, fourth-proof, ripsnorting conglomeration comes to town, he proposes to hump himself. Her diaphragm has evidently not, like wine, improved with old age. Her upper register is up-stairs near the skylight, while her lower register is closed for repairs. The aforesaid ---- performed her triple act of singing, rolling her eyes, and speaking to some one at the wings, at the same time. Her smiles at the feller behind the scenes were divine. Her singing, when she condescended to pay attention to the audience, to my critical ear (the other ear being folded up) seemed to be a blending of fortissimo, crescendo, damfino or care either. Her costume was the harmonious blending of the circus tent and balloon style, and was very gorgeous, barring a tendency to spill some of its contents out at the top. The Italian part of the business was as fidgety and furious as usual, and demonstrated what early associations with hand-organ and monkey will accomplish. "The venerable and obese freak of nature,----, was as usual, his appearance very nearly resembling a stove in a corner grocery, or water-tank on a narrow-gauge railroad. He was not fully appreciated until he turned to go off the stage. Then he appeared to the best advantage, and seemed to take an interest in getting out of sight as quickly as possible, an effort in which he had the hearty approval of the audience." Maurice Strakosch, on behalf of Christine Nilsson, brought suit against a paper published in a large town in New York State for printing an article under the head of "Nilsson Swindle," in which the bucolic editor declared that Nilsson was no singer and could not be compared with Jenny Lind; therefore she had no right to charge Lind prices. Marcella Sembrich, who made her début in 1877 as an opera singer, is one of the most talented musicians of the century. She was born in Galicia, at Lemberg, in 1858, and was taught music by her father, while very young. She appeared in a concert at the age of twelve, playing both the pianoforte and the violin. She continued her studies on these instruments under Stengel and Bruckmann, professors at Lemberg, and then went to Vienna to complete her studies under Franz Liszt. Here, however, she was found to be the possessor of an unusually fine voice, which she began to cultivate under Lamperti the younger, and she decided to become an opera singer. Her engagement in Athens, where her début took place, was highly successful, and she next appeared at Dresden in October, 1878, where she remained until the spring of 1880, acquiring a high reputation. In June of that year she made her first appearance in London, under the management of Mr. Ernest Gye, and was so successful that she was engaged for the two following seasons. Of the impression made by her in London, one of the critics wrote: "Her voice has been so carefully tutored that we cannot think of any part in any opera, where a genuine soprano is essential, that could present difficulties to its possessor not easily got over _per saltum_." Sembrich was included with Patti, Gerster, Di Murska, and Albani, as one of "the great lights of the day," in 1880. In St. Petersburg Mlle. Sembrich once gave a concert which drew an immense audience, all the tickets being sold. The receipts, which amounted to over nine thousand rubles, were handed over to the poor students' fund. At this concert, the audience had the opportunity to admire her in the capacities of singer, violinist, and pianist. As a violinist she could be listened to with pleasure; as a pianist she was considered worthy of a place in the front rank, particularly as an excellent interpreter of Chopin, while as a singer she was one of the "great lights of the day." Mlle. Sembrich married her former teacher, Stengel, and has for many years made her home in Dresden. She is an ardent horse-woman, and is said to have called forth a somewhat doubtful compliment from the Emperor of Germany, when her horse became frightened during a military review, and she succeeded in managing the animal with great skill. "Madame," said he, "if you were not the greatest singer in the world, you would be empress of the circus." In 1897 Mlle. Sembrich made a tour of the United States, singing in concerts in most of the large cities, and fully maintaining her high reputation. In 1879, at Turin, another young American singer made her début, at the age of eighteen. Marie Van Zandt came of a New York family of Dutch extraction. Her mother was a singer of some renown, and had been a member of the Carl Rosa company. Marie was taught singing by Lamperti, and after her début in Turin she went to London, and appeared at Her Majesty's Theatre, where she was well received on account of the freshness of her voice and her unaffected style. The following year she appeared in Paris at the Opera Comique as Mignon, and made such a success that she was immediately engaged for a term of years. Although her voice was extremely light, it was of sweet quality, and marvellously flexible. Her success in Paris was instantaneous, and she became the pet of society, besides which she was, strange to say, well liked by her fellow artists, and admired by her impresario. Ambroise Thomas, the composer, declared her to be the very impersonation of Mignon, and she sang in that rôle sixty-one nights to crowded houses. It is doubtful whether any singer ever won more rapid fame. At the end of her season she had impresarios from Sweden, Russia, England, and America offering her engagements. It is said, too, that no less than six composers wrote operas for her, and that Delibes's "Lakmé" was one of these. In November, 1884, Rossini's "Barbiere" was revived, and Miss Van Zandt was cast for the leading part. She was, however, so overcome by nervousness that she lost her voice, and was, in consequence, treated most shamefully by the press and public of fickle Paris. She therefore obtained leave of absence, and played in Copenhagen and other places, appearing in St. Petersburg on December 17th. In 1885, when she returned to Paris, the hostile attacks upon her were renewed, and M. Carvalho agreed to break the contract. Notwithstanding a riot, which was carried on chiefly by a mob of about a thousand persons, who surrounded the Opera House, Miss Van Zandt made a great success. The people in the house, with a few exceptions, gave her a double recall, men waved their hats, women their handkerchiefs, and there was an immense burst of applause. The rioters kept at the back of the boxes. She now went to London and created a great impression in "Lakmé," at the Gaiety Theatre. An incident of her early career in Paris carried with it a certain amount of romance. A young Frenchman bribed her cabman to take her to a certain restaurant after the opera, where he and his friends were waiting to invite her to supper. Through the vigilance of her mother the plan was frustrated, but the story of the incident reached America, and came to the ears of a young man who had been an early playmate of the prima donna, and whose affection had grown stronger as time passed on. He went over to Paris, and challenged the young Frenchman to mortal combat. The Frenchman acknowledged the irreproachable character of Mlle. Van Zandt, but expressed himself as being quite at the service of the gentleman for any amount of fighting. Details of the fight are not on file. Miss Van Zandt was born in Texas, where her father owned a ranch, and her childhood was spent in the enjoyment of the free life of the plains. Her family later removed to New York, and then to London. She met Adelina Patti, who was so pleased with her voice that she gave her every encouragement, and is said to have called her her successor. But there have been so many successors of Patti! A few years after Miss Van Zandt's début, an amusing rivalry sprang up between her and another young American soprano, Emma Nevada. So bitter was the hostility, that one evening, when Miss Van Zandt was taken ill suddenly during the performance, her friends went so far as to declare that she had been drugged by the adherents of Miss Nevada. Such little quarrels are frequent among prima donnas, and are doubtless largely engineered by the newspapers, whose appetite for the sensational is enormous. On April 27, 1898, at the mayoralty of the Champs Elysées district in Paris, Marie Van Zandt was married to Petrovitch de Tcherinoff, a Russian state councillor, and professor at the Imperial Academy of Moscow, after which it was announced that she would retire from the stage. CHAPTER VII. PRIMA DONNAS OF THE EIGHTIES. To every opera-goer of the past ten years the name of Nordica has become almost as familiar as that of Patti was during the last generation. Nordica, or rather, Giglia Nordica, was the name assumed by Lillian Norton when she made her début on the operatic stage. She was born in Farmington, Me., and at the age of fifteen, giving great promise as a singer, she entered the New England Conservatory in Boston, Mass., where she studied voice under John O'Neil. Three years later she graduated from the Conservatory with honors. She was remarkable for her beauty and amiability as much as for her voice, which was a soprano of the purest kind. During her years of study at the Conservatory she gained much experience by singing in church and in concerts, and for a time she accompanied Samuel R. Kelley's Tableaux d'Art Company, receiving for her services as vocalist the modest compensation of five dollars an evening. [Illustration: _Nordica._] On leaving the Conservatory, she was invited to sing in concerts in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, St. Louis, and New York, where she took leading parts in the oratorios of "Elijah," "Creation," "Messiah," etc. In 1873 she was engaged for a concert tour in England, Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, Holland, and France, during which her repertoire consisted of classical music only. During this tour she sang at the Crystal Palace, near London, and at the Trocadero in Paris. She then went to Milan, where she studied opera under Signor Sangiovanni, and made her operatic début at Brescia, in "Traviata." In October, 1880, she was engaged at Genoa for fifteen performances of "Faust," in which she took the part of Marguerite. She next sang at Novara, where she took the part of Alice in "Roberto," and was afterwards engaged for thirty-five performances at Aquila in "Faust," "Rigoletto," and "Lucia." Her next engagement was in St. Petersburg, where she sang in "L'Africaine," taking the rôle of Inez, in "The Marriage of Figaro" as Cherubino, in "Mignon" as Filina, in "Ugonotti" as Queen Marguerite, in "Don Giovanni" as Zerlina, and in "Il Propheto" as Berta, besides other operas. Thus she acquired in a comparatively short time, and by dint of extremely hard work, quite an extensive repertoire. In 1882 she endured the crucial test of the Grand Opera House in Paris, where, in spite of the "Claque," which is so frequently organized to kill off new singers, she made a grand success, and an engagement for three years ensued. Some years later, however, in spite of the renown which she had gained, fickle Paris grew cold, and critics were laconic. At this time Nordica did not need the approval of Paris, for she was well established among the great singers of the period, and it is recognized that, while a success in Paris is considered an important conquest, a failure counts for little. The firm establishment of the "Claque," which is so well described by Mr. Sutherland Edwards, and the proverbial caprice of Parisian audiences, are sufficient to take the edge off of defeat. At the termination of her engagement in Paris, in 1883, Nordica married Mr. Frederick A. Gower, who shortly afterwards was supposed to have lost his life while attempting to cross the English Channel in a balloon. This matter remained a mystery for many years, for, while there was no doubt that he started on the perilous journey, nothing was ever after seen or heard of him or of the balloon. The question of his death, therefore, remained in doubt, and when, after a lapse of more than a dozen years, it was announced that Madame Nordica was about to enter the bonds of matrimony a second time, she suffered much annoyance from the rumors which were spread about to the effect that Mr. Gower was in various parts of the world. These rumors never proved to have any foundation, and, except for the annoyance, must have been somewhat flattering as evidence of the interest taken in the prima donna by the public. In 1887 Nordica sang in Berlin, and made a complete capture of the Berlinese, a most unusual achievement for an American prima donna. She also appeared in London at Drury Lane, and by the sweetness and freshness of her voice, and by the alternating charm and intensity of her style as an actress, she won a firm and lasting hold on the British public. She now enjoyed the most marked social attentions, and sang at a state concert at Buckingham Palace before an audience composed of princes, princesses, dukes, Indian royalties, etc. The Princess of Wales came forward and thanked her, the prince added his word, and her triumph was complete. The climax was reached, however, when she was commanded by the queen to sing in Westminster Abbey. She sang "Let the bright Seraphim," which selection has for years been the standard for state occasions. Indeed, it may be said that when a prima donna has been commanded to sing "Let the bright Seraphim," in Westminster Abbey, she has achieved the highest honor possible in England. Madame Albani has exceeded this in having had the honor of lunching with the queen, but this latter was more a tribute to her worth as a woman than as an artist. One of Nordica's greatest assumptions has been that of the rôle of Elsa in "Lohengrin." She has the feeling, the artistic understanding, which, combined with beautiful vocal gifts, brings out the most delicate shading of the part. It is doubtful whether any greater representations of "Lohengrin" have been given than when Nordica sang Elsa, and Jean de Reszke the title rôle. Her success in such parts led her to devote her attention more particularly to Wagnerian rôles, and in 1894 she sang with great success at Bayreuth. Nordica has for several seasons visited the United States as a member of the Abbey and Grau Opera Company, which contained such singers as Emma Eames, Melba, Calvé, Scalchi, the De Reszkes, Plançon, and Lassalle. In 1897, when Abbey and Grau failed, Madame Nordica was a creditor to the extent of $5,000. When the affairs of the company were arranged, an agreement was reached with Madame Nordica, by which she was to receive $1,000 a night. To her surprise, she afterwards discovered that Melba was to receive $1,200, Calvé $1,400, Jean de Reszke $1,200, with an additional percentage of the receipts. To add to her humiliation, the part of Brunhilde was given to Madame Melba, whose health, by the way, collapsed suddenly after her first performance of that part, and necessitated a speedy departure for Paris. Nordica left the company, and in doing so had the moral support of the public, for, while there were many complaints about the excessive salaries demanded by opera singers, there seemed to be no reason why Madame Nordica should not insist upon her share. Statements were also made to the effect that Jean de Reszke would never again sing with Nordica. The years 1896 and 1897 were years of much financial depression in the United States, a fact which does not seem to have been fully appreciated by opera singers, for the collapse of the season seems to have given rise to considerable bitterness of feeling. Madame Nordica took unto herself Madame Scalchi, the contralto, and Barron Berthald, a young tenor, who in a night achieved fame, and toured the country giving concerts, but with little success. Whatever truth there may have been in the reported coolness between Madame Nordica and Jean de Reszke, either diplomacy or the exigencies of the opera singer's hard lot brought about an ostensible reconciliation; for in London, during the opera season of 1898, Jean de Reszke sang Tristan with Madame Nordica as Isolde, when a critic wrote, "We have so often been told that this music cannot be sung, and we have so often heard it shouted and declaimed by Tristans who could not sing, and by Isoldes without a voice, that it was a double joy, not only to hear it sung, but to hear it superbly sung, with all the confidence and apparent ease one is accustomed to in a Schubert song, or a Massenet romance." Madame Nordica is now in her prime. What new honors she may win we cannot foresee, but she now stands high in the front rank of the great singers of the day. In 1896 she married Mr. Zoltan Doehme. The engagement, which had been once broken off, came to a sudden climax while Nordica was in Indianapolis. Mr. Doehme suddenly appeared, having travelled from Germany, and in a few hours they were married without any display or previous announcement. Madame Nordica wins many friends by frank, engaging cordiality of manner, while her impulsive nature and enthusiasm help her over many difficulties. One may imagine the consternation caused in the Boston Symphony Orchestra by her startling declaration, at a rehearsal, that they were like a Kalamazoo band. Perhaps the sore is still open, but her winning manners will close it the next time that she comes among them. One of the most brilliant singers among the number of Americans who have, during the latter half of this century, won distinction on the operatic stage, is Emma Nevada. She is the daughter of a physician named William Wallace Wixom, of Nevada City, Cal. As a child she was so musical that she sang in public when only three years old. Her mother died when she was quite young, and she received her education at a seminary in Oakland, California. She was now consumed by a desire to go to Europe and make a study of voice, and she became one of a party of girls under the care of a Doctor Eberl, who was to escort them and keep them under his protection in Berlin. When the vessel anchored in the Elbe, the passengers were transferred to a smaller steamer to be landed. Dr. Eberl went on board the little steamer with the rest, walked into the cabin and died. This was a terrible calamity for the party under his care, but Emma Wixom succeeded in finding her way to Berlin, where she sought advice with regard to her voice, and was recommended to go to Marchesi at Vienna. It is said that on reaching Vienna she found her funds exhausted, but she sought Madame Marchesi and told her her circumstances. Marchesi was so much captivated by her voice and manners that she offered her a home and took care of her until her début. Through Marchesi's influence an engagement was secured for her in London, where she made her début in "Sonnambula" in 1880. On making her appearance in public, Miss Wixom followed the custom of assuming the name of her native place, and so became Emma Nevada. Concerning her début a critic of the time wrote: "Mapleson has brought a new prima donna, Mlle. Nevada, who is gifted with a very light voice, which is, however, extremely flexible, and is used very effectively in the upper registers. The great merits of her voice lie in her staccato effects, chromatic runs,--which she gives with great purity,--and notes in altissimo. The defects are excessive lightness of tone, lack of good lower notes, and a rather imperfect trill. She won many friends by her refined manners and culture, and if not a great singer she is certainly an agreeable one." Another admirer tells us about a performance of "Lucia." In the roulade duet between the flute and the voice, after the competition was ended and her full, firm shake, as effortless as the simplest strain, was about half over, she ran off the stage, the shake continuing just as perfect all the way, and as she disappeared left a final note away up among the clouds. But with all this brilliant execution she delighted as much by her sustained notes, which were of beautiful, flutelike quality. She also won the affection and respect of all her associates, by her kindly ways. A staccato polka was written for Mlle. Nevada, with a view to exhibiting her voice, and her rendering of it was considered a marvellous exhibition of vocal technique. Although her voice was criticised as being too light for grand opera, Mlle. Nevada was engaged at once to sing in Italy, after which she sang in 1883 at the Opera Comique in Paris, and has had an exceptionally successful career, both in Europe and America, where, in 1885, she was warmly welcomed. In April, 1898, Emma Nevada sang in Paris after a tour through Holland, showing no diminution of her artistic powers. A little anecdote was told concerning a performance of "Lucia" in Paris, which tends to show the kindly disposition, of the young prima donna. She was, in the mad scene, accompanied in a most delicious manner by the flutist in the orchestra. One was often puzzled during the celebrated duet to determine which were the notes of the flute and which were those of the singer. Now and then a pathetic vibration would reveal the human voice and cause it to rise triumphant above the instrument. She taxed the skill of the musician to the uttermost to follow her through the intricate mazes of sound. When, through nervousness, she for a moment forgot the words of her song, the humble musician came to her rescue and improvised a few sparkling variations to enable her to regain her breath and recollect the lost phrases. At the end of the duet, two powdered footmen advanced from the wings with a gigantic basket of flowers which had been sent to her from Rome by some friends. She selected the finest rose, and, advancing to the footlights, handed it to the leader of the orchestra to be passed on to the flute player. The action was taken with much grace and spontaneity, and brought down a storm of applause, while the poor flutist, unaccustomed to the recognition of his talent, was overcome with joy at such a graceful acknowledgment. One of her trials took place when the Edgardo (Gayarré), who more than simulated jealous rage, knocked her about in good earnest. His violence made her forget everything but her part, and she had no chance to think of the public while trying to keep her wrists out of his reach. In 1884 Mlle. Nevada had a disagreement with M. Carvalho about a costume. He offered to cancel her contract, and she joyfully accepted the offer, after which they both had ample time to repent of their hasty action. The following year she married Doctor Raymond Palmer, a surgeon practising in the west of England, a big, bluff, handsome Englishman. She was small, slight, and graceful. The marriage, which took place in Paris, in October, 1885, was a great social event in the American colony in Paris. Speeches were made by Consul-General Walker and others. Ambroise Thomas, the composer, was there, and called her "Mignon, my dear interpreter," on which she rose from her seat, went to him, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him. The wedding presents were many and valuable, and the descriptions thereof filled many columns of the newspapers. Never before had an American prima donna been the centre of so much excitement. After a short honeymoon, a concert tour in the United States was undertaken. Madame Nevada did not retire from the stage, but after fifteen years she is still as popular as ever, though her voice is too light to be effective in any of the grand operas of modern times. Unquestionably the greatest artist of her school on the opera stage at the present day is Emma Calvé, whose proper name is Emma Roquer. She was born in 1866, at Décazeville in the Aveyron, her father being a civil engineer, and a member of a good Spanish family. He unfortunately died when his daughter Emma was sixteen years of age, and left his family in poor circumstances. Emma, who was the eldest child, was brought up in a convent, the quiet life of which was very attractive to her, but she was prevented from taking the veil because her mother needed her help at home. A gentleman from Paris, who heard her sing one day in the convent chapel, urged her mother to send her to Paris for musical training, and much against her own wishes the young singer began the course of training which led to her appearance on the operatic stage. Life has not been all sunshine for Emma Calvé. She has acquired her art in the school of adversity. Her early stage experiences were not highly successful, though she was reëngaged. Her début was made at Brussels at the Theatre de Monnaie, as Marguerite in "Faust," in 1881. During this season she received a salary of a hundred and forty dollars a month, which was increased the next year to two hundred and forty. In 1884 she went to Paris, where she created the leading part in "Aben Hamet," by Dubois, at the Theatre Italien, and was decidedly successful. Her teachers up to this time had been a tenor named Puget, and Laborde, but she now began to study under Madame Marchesi, and then followed a successful tour in Italy, during which she gained much by association with the Italian people, and cultivated her dramatic instincts. Here she saw Eleanora Duse, the great actress, whose impersonations made a great impression on the young singer. Calvé's impassioned acting, her magnetic personality, and beautiful voice, won for her the greatest success at La Scala. In 1889 she returned to Paris, and continued her career of hard work and success, but the day of her greatness had not yet come. In 1891 she created the part of Suzel in "L'Amico Fritz," at Rome, an event which added greatly to her renown, and when "Cavalleria Rusticana" was given in Paris for the first time in 1892, Calvé was selected as the most fitting interpreter of the part of Santuzza. Her success in this part was something phenomenal, and was gained after much study of the story, the close intercourse she had made with the Italian people, and by the aid of some suggestions from Mascagni, the composer. Her success as Santuzza was repeated in London, and, after ten years of unremitting labor, Calvé found herself acknowledged as a great artist. Notwithstanding the excellent quality of her voice, and her mastery of technique, her victories have been gained by her dramatic impulses. Her next triumph was achieved in the character of Carmen. In order to study for this part she went to Spain, where she learned the Spanish dances, associated with the Spanish people, and learned as much as possible of the character of the Spanish peasant. In 1894 she appeared at the Opera Comique in Paris, as Carmen. Her triumph has become a matter of history. It was one of the greatest events in the annals of the lyric stage. Patti had played Carmen, Minnie Hauk had played Carmen, Madame Galli-Marié had played Carmen, and all had achieved success in the part; but Calvé _was_ Carmen. Her conception of the character was a revelation. Her fascinating gestures, her complete abandon, the grace of her dances, her dazzling beauty, all combined to make her Carmen one of the most wonderful impersonations ever given in opera. She has been criticised as uncertain, as giving different interpretations at different times, but the fact remains that Calvé stands pre-eminent in the world of operatic art. Her swinging, graceful walk, her fascinating half Oriental dances, her gestures, her infectious, reckless mirth, all help to make up the dazzling impersonation with which her name is associated. Of Calvé's voice little has been said, because, in the perfection of her art, the voice is not obtrusive. It is light and sympathetic, rich in quality, and she never forces it. She frequently misses what many singers would seize as a vocal opportunity, for the sake of dramatic effect, and yet her singing has a marvellous charm. The "Havanaise," as sung by Calvé, is something to remember for a lifetime. Calvé has a superb, lithe form, and her large, dark eyes and delicately modelled features give her a charming appearance. She is frank, cordial, young-spirited, easy-going, and is intensely admired, both by her associates at the theatre, and in the drawing-room. She is a curious combination of the developed woman and the simple girl. No one can prevent her from saying and doing as she pleases, but her impulses are seldom unkind. She believes thoroughly in spiritualism, theosophy, and astrology. Whenever she sings, she carries with her an amulet from Hindostan, and nothing can induce her to appear without it. Her first visit to America was in the season of 1893-94, during which she appeared as Mignon, in Boston, for the first time in any part of the world. Her reception during that tour was splendid. She did not again visit America until the season of 1895-96, but she returned the following season, when her appearance as Marguerite in "Faust" was one of the leading events of the season. During her absence she had improved wonderfully in vocal form and appearance, and the critics gave her unstinted praise. Her impersonation of Carmen again created a furore, and, notwithstanding the superb array of talent exhibited during those seasons, "Calvé" was, above all, the subject of interest to opera-goers. She makes her home in Paris, but her vacations are spent at a picturesque little place called Château Cambrières, situated in the shadow of the Pyrenees. Calvé is not yet at her prime, and with genius such as she possesses it is likely that she will eclipse the achievements of the greatest dramatic singers of the past. Of the numerous successors of Patti, Madame Melba seems to have more fully met the requirements than any other. In many respects she has exceeded them, for her voice is fuller and more powerful than Patti's ever was, but she has the same easy vocalization and marvellous spontaneity that constituted the great charm in Patti's singing. Melba is the daughter of a wealthy citizen of Melbourne in Australia, and in that city, from which she takes her stage name, Nellie Mitchell was born in 1865. There was much musical talent in the family, but it was exercised for their own enjoyment only, for they were of Scotch Presbyterian descent, and the idea of the stage was objectionable to them. For this reason, while their daughter was given every advantage in the study of the pianoforte, violin, and harp, her voice was not cultivated. Singing was nevertheless her chief delight, and her great desire was to take lessons. [Illustration: _Melba as Ophelia._] In 1883 Miss Mitchell married a Captain Armstrong, but the marriage was not a happy one, and when her father, shortly afterwards, was appointed commissioner from Australia to the Colonial exhibition in London, she went there with him, and soon found herself able to enter upon study for a musical career. She went to Paris, where at one of Marchesi's receptions she sang and was heard by the manager of the Brussels opera house, who offered her an engagement, and, after only nine months' training, she made her début. She had been previously offered a five years' engagement by Maurice Strakosch, but his death prevented the carrying out of the contract. It was in 1887 that she made her first appearance in Brussels, and the following year her Parisian début was successfully accomplished. She was rapturously received, and at once found herself classed among the great singers of the century. Her career in Europe and in America was a succession of triumphs. Her voice is rich, sympathetic, and powerful. In flexibility it may be compared with that of Patti, and her trills and cadenzas are accomplished with the ease and brilliancy that belong to naturally gifted singers. Perhaps the most severe ordeal through which she ever had to pass was in 1893, when she made her début in Milan. The Milanese are very jealous of their independence of opinion, and while they will accept leniently a beginner, the artist whose reputation has been gained out of Italy is likely to fare badly at their hands. When it was announced that Melba was to sing at Milan, a feeling hostile to her at once made itself manifest. When Melba arrived, the musicians and critics did their best to keep out of the way and avoid an introduction. Stories went forth, when rehearsals began, that her voice was like a steam whistle, and everything that could contribute towards a failure was done. Madame Melba's friends endeavored to keep all this from her, and for a time they succeeded, but now she began to be pestered with anonymous letters making threats of various kinds. This so unnerved the prima donna that it was found advisable to acquaint the prefect of the police with the details of the matter, and the intrigue was stopped. On the eventful evening the house was packed, and there was an air of hostile expectancy. The opera was "Lucia." The singer appeared amidst silence which was interrupted now and then by hissing sounds. Hardly had her first notes been heard when it was evident that a change of opinion had taken place in the audience, and the ovation which she received after the mad scene was tremendous. The press extolled her incomparable singing, and her victory was complete. Melba is not a great actress; she holds her audience entranced with her marvellous vocalization, and her greatest triumphs have always been in those operas which make the smallest demands upon the dramatic powers of the singer. Adelina Patti could not sing in Wagnerian opera, and was too wise to make the attempt. Melba, advised by her friends, once appeared as Brunhilde and was not a success, and she must rest content with being considered the greatest _vocalist_ of the day. Madame Melba has visited America several times, and during the seasons of 1895-96 and 1896-97 was under the management of Abbey and Grau. After the collapse of that company she became the star of a small opera company travelling as far as the Pacific coast. She makes her home in Paris, where she spends a portion of each year with her son. She is simple and frank in manner, generous by nature, and not given to malice or jealousy. California added a star to the operatic firmament in Sybil Sanderson, who made her début in 1888, under an assumed name, at The Hague, in "Manon." She was successful, and in a few months came out at the Opera Comique in Paris, creating the rôle of Esclarmonde, which Massenet had written for her, and in which she had the advantage of the composer's instruction. Probably no opera singer has ever had greater advantages in the preparation for the stage than those which Miss Sanderson enjoyed. She is the daughter of a lawyer of high repute, who became judge of the Supreme Bench, and later chief counsellor of the Union Pacific Railroad. She was taken by her mother, at an early age, to Paris, where she and her sisters received the best education possible. She desired to become a prima donna, and had every assistance that the wealth of her parents could provide. Her voice is of the kind for which American prima donnas have become celebrated, light, pure, and flexible. Its surpassing excellence lies in the upper register, her G in alt being in itself a phenomenal production. Miss Sanderson is a finished actress, having received the most careful training at the hands of Massenet, who wrote also "Thais" for her. Saint-Saëns entrusted to her the creation of the title rôle of "Phryne," and, in token of his delight at her performance, presented her with a valuable necklace. Miss Sanderson became very popular in Paris and in St. Petersburg, but met with less favor in London and New York. Once when she sang in London, Van Dyck was the tenor. At the rehearsal he sang _sotto voce_ in order to save himself, and he supposed that she was doing likewise. In the evening, at the performance,--the opera was "Manon," which Miss Sanderson sang in Europe two hundred and fifty times,--she was overwhelmed by the power of his voice. Van Dyck, hearing her small, clear tones, and thinking that she was nervous, came near to offer encouragement, and urged her to "let out your voice." "This is all the voice I have," she replied, and he, still thinking she needed encouragement, sang all the louder. Her great personal charm makes itself felt across the footlights, and while she was heavily handicapped in having to sing with such a tremendous tenor, she was yet able to captivate the audience by her sincerity. Ella Russell, who made her début in Provo, Italy, is a native of Cleveland, Ohio. Her voice is large, rich, and even, she has an imposing stage presence and much beauty and dignity. She travelled in Europe with success, and finally made her appearance at Covent Garden in 1885. Another American débutante of 1885 was Marie Engle, a native of Chicago, who at present is one of the opera company at Covent Garden. She has a light voice, high and flexible. Her first appearance was at the Academy of Music in New York, in a concert given by pupils, assisted by members of the Mapleson Opera Company. Colonel Mapleson made her an offer which was accepted, and she went with his company to San Francisco, where she made her début, and afterwards to London, where she has appeared for several seasons. She has so far followed the conventional domestic life of the prima donna as to marry and secure a divorce. Her husband was Gustav Amburg, a theatrical manager, whom she married in 1889. Her life with him was not happy, and he continually ill-treated her. At last she found that he had a wife living in Germany, and she secured her divorce in 1896. In the Abbey and Grau opera company of 1894 a singer who attracted considerable attention was Madame Sigrid Arnoldson. She was the daughter of a Swedish tenor and was born in Stockholm. She made her début in grand opera in London, in 1887, but had already become well known at Stockholm, where, in 1885, so great was the desire to hear her that 2,000 people stood in line all night in order to buy tickets. No singer had been so popular since the days of Jenny Lind and Nilsson. She sang "Mignon," and at the conclusion of the performance she was presented by King Oscar with a decoration exactly like those given to Lind and Nilsson. Madame Arnoldson is petite, piquant and picturesque on the stage, and has dark hair and eyes. She is an excellent linguist, speaking four languages. When she was a small child she would sing like a bird while alone, but could never be induced to sing before strangers. Her father taught her until she was old enough to determine whether she would really have a fine voice. Then she became a pupil of Maurice Strakosch, whose nephew, Robert Fischoff, she married. The appearance of a new singer from America is now looked upon as nothing unusual, for the list of those who have acquired distinction is already long. Clara Louise Kellogg, Annie Louise Cary, Adelaide Phillips, Marie Litta, Minnie Hauk, Marie Van Zandt, Alwina Valleria, Emma Nevada, Marie Engle, Sybil Sanderson, Lillian Nordica,--yes, the list might easily be increased even without enumerating the large number of tenors and basses. The year 1890 witnessed the début of one who is already acknowledged as a great artist, and who adds to her laurels each season. One who, to a glorious voice and attractive personality, adds dramatic power and intelligence of a high order. Emma Eames was born in China, but at a very early age was brought by her mother to Boston, where she received her education. Mrs. Eames was a highly accomplished musician, and was her daughter's earliest music teacher. As her voice developed, she began to sing in church choirs and in concerts, where the beauty of her singing attracted a good deal of attention. After she went to Paris, she experienced considerable difficulty in obtaining an engagement. The road to the opera is full of intrigue and machination. Miss Eames made her way to the front by sheer talent. She was first engaged to sing at the Opera Comique, but, for some reason best known to itself, the management repented of having opened its doors to an unknown singer, and gave her no part. She therefore asked that her contract might be annulled, and her request was granted. A pure, fresh voice, flexible and expressive, remarkably good intonation, and an attractive personality, were the qualities with which Miss Eames ruled the stage. Her fault at first was a degree of calmness in the more vehement scenes. This was noticed particularly in "Faust," and yet her interpretation of the rôle of Marguerite is considered exceptionally fine. In 1891 she accomplished the difficult feat of singing the part of Elsa in "Lohengrin," after only one rehearsal, but her greatest assumption is that of Elizabeth in "Tannhäuser," in which she appeared in 1895, and gained a reputation for originality of conception which the greatest Wagnerian singers had never developed. During the season of 1898 in London she gained new laurels. In 1891 Miss Eames caused a sensation by marrying Mr. Julian Wetmore Story, a young artist of much promise. The circumstances of the marriage were rather romantic, and gave rise at the time to a good deal of newspaper comment. Miss Eames, whose mother was somewhat opposed to her marriage, eluded the vigilance of her natural protector, and was quietly married in the old church at Bray, which dates back 1,000 years. This marriage has turned out very happily. Mr. Story has acquired a high reputation as an artist, and by no means occupies the conventional position of "prima donna's husband," but has an individuality of his own. Their home in Paris is the centre of musical and artistic society, and Madame Eames-Story has become a kind of deity amongst American students in Paris. Only once have there been reports circulated attributing to Madame Eames the feelings of jealousy which seem to permeate the prima donna sisterhood. In Boston there was supposed to have been a coolness between Madame Eames and Calvé, and the latter lady, under the rack of the newspaper reporter, made some disagreeable remarks. Whatever cause there may have been, Madame Eames met Madame Calvé afterwards in Paris, and offered her hand frankly, as if nothing had happened, and it was accepted in the same generous manner. Madame Eames has several times been obliged in her own interests to maintain an independent position in dealing with managers, and when, after her great American successes, the Abbey, Schoeffel, and Grau Company would not offer her what she considered just terms, she would not retreat from the stand which she had taken, and the company decided to punish her by letting her alone. The result was, that Madame Eames reaped a golden harvest in Europe, and built up a reputation so great that her name is now mentioned as one of the four great sopranos,--Melba, Calvé, Nordica, and Eames. [Illustration: _Emma Eames._] With this slight sketch of an interesting career we must be content, for a word must be added about Mlle. Zelie de Lussan, who made herself popular to Americans during her connection with the Boston Ideal Opera Company, from 1885-88, when she secured an engagement in London, and is rapidly building a great reputation. Her great part is Carmen, and in this and Mignon she has delighted the Parisians. She is piquant and brilliant, and has the faculty of charming the audience by her grace and personal magnetism. Mlle. de Lussan was born in New York of French parents, and received her musical education from her mother, who was once a well-known singer. CHAPTER VIII. TENORS AND BARITONES. The operatic tenor is frequently as much of a trial to the impresario as the soprano. Brignoli would feel hurt unless he received what he considered the proper amount of applause, and then he would have a sore throat, and be unable to sing. Ravelli had a mortal hatred of Minnie Hauk, because she once choked his high B flat with a too comprehensive embrace, and his expression of rage, being understood by the audience as a tremendous burst of dramatic enthusiasm, was, in consequence, loudly applauded. Nicolini, in behalf of Patti, once went out and measured the letters on a poster. It had been agreed that Patti's name was to be in letters half as big again as those used for any other singer. It was discovered that the name of Nevada, who was also a member of the company, was a fraction over the stipulated size, and all the posters had to be cut in such a way that a strip was taken out of Nevada's name, and the middle dash of the E and of the A's was amputated. Some tenors have travelled with numerous retainers, who always occupied seats at the theatre for the purpose of directing the applause, but nothing of the kind has ever been heard of with a contralto or basso. Ernest Nicolini, who made his début in 1855, was for some time considered the best French tenor on the stage, but he is better known as Madame Patti's husband than as a singer. Nicolini died in January, 1898. Fancelli and Masini were tenors of merit, with beautiful voices; also Brignoli, who for twenty years lived in America. Fancelli was a very ignorant man, scarcely able to read or write. According to Mapleson, he once attempted to write his name in the album of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society, with deplorable results. He wished to write "Fancelli, Primo Tenore Assoluto," but after great efforts, which resulted in overturning the ink-bottle, the signature appeared thus: "Faneli Primo Tenore Ass--" Masini's voice was more sensuously beautiful than Fancelli's, and he was more full of conceit. He travelled with a retinue of ten people, including cook, barber, doctor, and lawyer. He also distinguished himself in London by sending word to Sir Michael Costa, the conductor of the orchestra, to come around to his apartments, and run through the music of his part, as he did not care to attend the rehearsal. Costa did not go, and Masini returned to Italy in great wrath. Joseph Victor Amédée Capoul, who made his début in 1861, was for many years considered one of the best tenors on the French stage. He was born in 1839, at Toulouse, and entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1859, gaining the first prize in comic opera in 1861. He was good-looking, and had a pleasant voice, somewhat marred by vibrato, and he was an excellent actor in both light and serious parts. He visited America first in 1873, as a member of Strakosch's company, which included Nilsson, Miss Cary, Campanini, Maurel, Del Puente, and others not so well known, and to which were afterwards added Pauline Lucca and Ilma di Murska. He was also chief tenor of a French Opera Bouffe Company, which visited America in 1879-80. During the past few years M. Capoul has lived in New York, where he has become a teacher of singing. Theodore Wachtel was for a long time one of the leading German tenors. He was the son of a stable keeper in Hamburg, and began life by driving his father's cabs. He was born in 1823, and obtained his first operatic engagements in 1854, singing in several German cities. His first appearance in London was in 1862, when he sang the part of Edgardo in "Lucia," and made a complete failure. His later appearances brought better results, and yet his popularity was gained more on account of the fine quality and great power of his voice than from any artistic use of it. His high C was his chief attraction, and this note he produced from the chest with tremendous power. Wachtel sang in America during several seasons. He died in Berlin in 1893. The greatest German tenor, however, for many years was Albert Niemann, who was blessed with a magnificent voice and a fine appearance, suitable for the impersonation of Wagner's heroes, in which he excelled. He was born in 1831, at Erxleben, Magdeburg, and went on the stage in 1849. At first he sang only small parts, or else in the chorus, but, as he improved with study, he attracted the attention of Herr von Hülsen, General Intendant of the Royal German Theatres, who took him to Berlin. He enjoyed a great reputation for a quarter of a century in Germany, and was selected by Wagner to sing Siegmund at Bayreuth, in 1876. Until he came to America in 1886, and 1887, when his voice had long since departed, his only appearances out of Germany were in the unsuccessful production of "Tannhäuser" at Paris, in 1861, and he sang in London in '82. In 1887 he formally retired from the stage. Heinrich Vogl won distinction as an interpreter of Wagner rôles. He was born in 1845, at Au, near Munich, and was instructed in singing by Lachner, and in acting by Jenk, the stage manager of the Royal Theatre, Munich. At this theatre he made his début in 1865 as Max in "Der Freischütz." He was engaged at the same theatre almost permanently after his début and was always immensely popular. In 1868 he married Theresa Thoma, also a singer of renown, and from that time they generally appeared together. Vogl played Loge, in the "Rheingold," and Siegmund, in "Walkyrie," when they were produced in 1869 and 1870, and his greatest triumphs have been gained in Wagner's operas. When the Trilogy was produced at Bayreuth, in 1876, he played the part of Loge, and was highly praised for his admirable declamation and fine acting. Theresa Vogl was the original Sieglinde, at Munich, and was very successful in Wagner opera. She was born in 1846, at Tutzing, Bavaria, and studied singing at the Munich conservatory, appearing first in opera at Carlsruhe in 1865. As Mario's powers began to wane, people wondered who would succeed him, and many based their hopes on Antonio Giuglini, a native of Fano, Italy. Giuglini was born in 1827, but did not appear in England until 1857, when he sang at Her Majesty's Theatre. He possessed a sweet, high tenor voice and an elegance of style which some critics complained of as cold, languid, and drawn out. His singing was without variety and his acting colorless and tame. Notwithstanding all this, he was called by one eminent critic "the best that has been heard since the arrival of Tamberlik," seven years previously. Giuglini's career was, however, of short duration, for he became insane in 1862, and died at Pesaro three years later. In 1872 a tenor appeared who at first seemed to be a worthy successor to Mario,--Italo Campanini, who was born at Parma in 1846. He first attracted public attention by singing the part of Lohengrin when that opera was produced at Bologna, in 1871, and beginning with 1872, he was engaged every season for ten years in London. His first engagement in America was in 1873, when he was a member of a company organized by Mapleson, which included Nilsson, Annie Louise Cary, Capoul, and Maurel. In America he became very popular, although he was considered in Europe to have disappointed the high expectations which his early career had justified. He had a pure tenor voice of richest quality, but owing to some fault in his method of production it decayed rapidly, and his declining days were a succession of unfortunate and unsuccessful attempts to regain his lost powers. As an actor he was melodramatic rather than powerful, and he was looked upon as a hard working and extremely zealous artist. Campanini had a varied and highly interesting experience of the triumphs and vicissitudes of life. He was the son of a blacksmith, and was brought up to his father's trade, which he first left to go soldiering with Garibaldi. He returned after the war, and his vocal powers were soon discovered by a musician who happened to hear him sing, and secured for him a course of free tuition in the Parma conservatory. At the age of twenty-one he commenced his career as an opera singer. He met with some success, and was engaged to travel in Russia for twenty-four dollars a month. On his return to Italy, Campanini went to Milan and took lessons for a year with Lamperti, when he appeared at La Scala in "Faust." His repertoire was remarkable, consisting of over eighty operas. Beginning his career with a salary of eighty cents a night, he rose until he received, under Mapleson's management, $1,000 a night, and in one season with Henry E. Abbey he was paid $56,000,--yet he died poor as well as voiceless. He was simple and unaffected in his manners, and, like many of his fraternity, careless and improvident, but he had many friends and with the public was very popular on ample grounds. Mapleson relates that when he first engaged Campanini to appear in London, he was one day sitting in his office when a rough-looking individual in a colored flannel shirt, with no collar, a beard of three or four days' growth, and a small pot hat, entered and announced that Campanini had arrived in London. "Are you sure?" exclaimed the impresario, wondering how it could interest the individual before him. The strange-looking being burst out laughing, and declared that he was quite sure, as he was himself Campanini. It was a terrible crusher for Mapleson to find that his great star was such a rough-looking customer, but Campanini more than justified the reports about his singing as soon as he made his first appearance on the stage. An American who had the honor of being for three years first tenor at the Royal Opera House, Berlin, and nine years first tenor at the Vienna opera house, is Charles R. Adams. He was born in Charlestown, Mass., in 1834, and after some study with Boston teachers went abroad, where he became a pupil of Barbière in Vienna. After acquiring a high reputation in Europe, he came to America as a member of the Strakosch opera company in 1878, being associated with Miss Kellogg, Miss Cary, Miss Litta, and others. In the following year he decided to remain in Boston, and has since devoted his time chiefly to teaching. The latter half of the nineteenth century has witnessed the growth of the Wagner opera. In several ways has the doctrine of Wagner made itself felt in musical art. Operas no longer consist of a series of solos, duets, and concerted numbers, with an opening and closing chorus, all strung together in such a manner as to give the greatest opportunities to the soloist. An opera at the present day must be a drama set to music. The action of the play must not be interrupted by applause, encores, and the presentation of flowers. This continuity of action is noticeable in every opera of modern times, whether German, Italian, or French, and in itself marks a decided forward movement in the annals of lyric art. [Illustration: _Ed. de Reszke as Mephistopheles._] There have been many complaints that the singing of Wagner opera ruins the voice, but to contradict this statement we have only to look at the careers of the greatest Wagnerian singers,--Materna, Lehmann, Brandt, Niemann, Winkelmann, Vogl, the De Reszkes, Nordica, Brema, and others who have sung the music of Wagner for years without any unlooked-for deterioration. The fact is that they learned the art of vocalization, while many who have come before the public as Wagnerian singers have been practically ignorant of the first principles of voice production. To shout and declaim does not by any means constitute the Wagnerian idea. The music is as singable as the most mellifluous Italian opera of the old school, although it does not call for the flexibility and execution which were considered the great charm of singing in the time of Malibran, Jenny Lind, and Grisi. An eminent London critic writes: "We were tired to death of German coughing, barking, choking, and gargling, when suddenly Jean de Reszke sang Tristan beautifully." Jean de Reszke is a native of Poland, having been born at Warsaw in 1852. His father was a councillor of state and his mother an excellent amateur musician. Their home was the centre of attraction for many notable artists and musicians, so that the children were brought up in an atmosphere of art. Jean was taught singing by his mother, and at the age of twelve sang the solos in the cathedral at Warsaw. He was educated for the profession of the law, but his love of music was such that he decided to prepare himself for the operatic stage, and began to study with Ciaffei, and later on with Cotogni. He made his début in 1874 at Venice as a baritone, and for some years sang baritone parts, until he found the strain telling upon his health. He phrased artistically and possessed sensibility, and his voice was of excellent quality; but feeling that he was not fully prepared, he retired from the stage for a time and studied with Sbriglia in Paris. In 1879 he appeared again, but as a tenor, in "Roberto," at Madrid, when he made a great success, and from that time he was regarded as one of the greatest tenors of the age. Of recent years his successes have been chiefly in Wagnerian rôles. He is an ideal Lohengrin, and has added to his laurels as Tristan and as Siegfried. Probably no tenor since the days of Mario has awakened such widespread public interest. His estates in Poland, which in 1896 were extensively improved for the reception of his bride, the Countess Mailly-Nesle, his love of horses and of sport in general, as well as the jealousies of the numerous ladies who vied with one another for his smiles, all in their turn formed themes for newspaper and magazine comment. The personal appearance, as well as the geniality of the great tenor, helped to make him an object of interest, for he is a man of great physical beauty and grace. Jean de Reszke created a furore in America, and has visited the country several times under the management of Abbey and Grau. When that company failed in 1896, De Reszke attempted to form an opera company to finish the season, and in so doing he incurred a great deal of popular indignation by his treatment of Madame Nordica, who felt obliged to leave the company, and by inducing Madame Melba to assume Wagnerian rôles, in which she proved to be a failure. He became the object of newspaper attack on account of the large price which he demanded for his services, but much of this indignation is unmerited, for the simple reason that the remedy lies with the public rather than with the singer. An opera singer is justified in getting as much money as his services will bring, and as long as he finds people, whether managers or public, who are willing to pay that price, he will ask it. When the price is refused, it lies with him to determine whether he will sing for less money or withdraw, and it seldom happens that it is necessary for a thoroughly popular artist to withdraw, except at the end of his career. Patti received her highest prices when she was past her prime, and the same may be said of almost every great artist. The reason may be found in the fact that their greatness does not dawn upon the general public until years after their position is earned. In 1896 Jean de Reszke married the Countess Mailly-Nesle, to whom he had been engaged for several years. She is an amateur musician of exceptional ability, and a lady of much personal beauty. One of the more recent stars in the operatic firmament, and which is at its height, is Ernest Marie Hubert Van Dyck, born in Antwerp, 1861. He at first intended to become a lawyer, and for a time studied jurisprudence at Louvain and Brussels. His musical gifts and love of art could not be repressed or hidden, and whenever he sang his voice created so great a sensation that, in spite of family opposition, he went to Paris to study. As a means of helping himself he was for a time assistant editor of a Parisian paper, _La Patrie_. In 1883 Massenet heard him sing at a private party at which they were both guests, and was so much struck by his voice and style of singing that he asked him then and there to act as substitute for a tenor who was ill, and could not fill his engagement. The occasion was the performance, under Massenet's management, of a cantata, "Le Gladiateur," by Paul Vidal, at the Institut de France. Within two hours Van Dyck studied and sang the tenor solos with such an effect that he immediately became the topic of conversation among musical Parisians. He was now engaged by Lamoureux, the champion of Wagner in Paris, for a term of four years, during which he sang the rôles of Tristan, Siegmund, etc. In 1887 he sang Lohengrin, but its production caused a great deal of excitement, owing to political causes. Nevertheless, the performance formed a golden epoch in the history of Wagnerian art. Van Dyck was now induced by Levy and Goo, of Bayreuth, to take part in the production of "Parsifal," in 1888. For this he was drilled by Felix Mottl, and he made so great a success that he was at once engaged for the following year. He has proved himself the finest representative of the character of Parsifal that has yet been heard, even Winkelmann not being excepted. Since 1888 Van Dyck has been engaged at Vienna. Mr. Van Dyck married, in 1886, the daughter of Servais, the great violoncellist and composer. He is a knight of Baden of the order of the Lion of Zahringen, and an officer of the Academy of France. Of Wagnerian tenors, Anton Schott and Hermann Winkelmann gained a high reputation. The former made his début in 1870, but his career was interrupted by the outbreak of the Franco-German war, through which he served, as he had also served through the war of 1866 against Austria. Although his reputation was high in Germany, he made a comparatively small impression in England. Winkelmann took the part of Parsifal at Bayreuth, when, in 1882, sixteen performances of that work were given under Wagner's supervision. He also came to America with Materna and Scaria, making a good impression. Max Alvary also was well known in the United States as a Wagnerian singer. He made his operatic début in 1881, and appeared in the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in 1885, since which time he has been heard in America during several seasons. His best parts were Siegfried, Tristan, and Tannhäuser, and he was for many years leading tenor at the Opera in Hamburg. His death, in November, 1898, at the age of forty-one, was the result of an accident. [Illustration: _Alvary in Rigoletto._] Of the Italian school, Francisco Tamagno holds a high position in the operatic world of to-day as a robust tenor. He excels in dramatic rôles, such as Otello and Arnoldo, and he made a great success in "Cavalleria Rusticana." In heroic rôles he sings and acts with a simplicity, power, and authority not surpassed by any other tenor of this generation. He was born at Turin, and began his musical education at the age of eighteen. His début was made in Palermo, at the age of twenty-three, his studies having meanwhile been interrupted by military duties. In Venice he sang with Josephine de Reszke, the sister of Jean and Edouard, who had a short but brilliant career. For many years he remained at La Scala, where he was immensely popular. He is tall, big-chested, and erect, always imposing, and, unlike most Italians, he has fair hair and blue eyes. An American critic wrote of him as "hurling forth his tones without reserve, and with a vocal exuberance not reached by any living tenor. He quells and moves by overwhelming strength and splendor." Tamagno was once the defendant in a lawsuit brought against him by the manager of the opera in Buenos Ayres. It appears that in 1890 the tenor was engaged for a season of forty performances, for which he was to receive $130,000. Of this sum $31,000 was paid in advance before he would leave Italy. When he arrived at Buenos Ayres a revolution broke out, and only four performances of opera were given. The manager endeavored to recover his money. An interesting feature of the trial was that it brought out the fact that Tamagno always travels with a claque of eight, and that it is stipulated in all his contracts that he shall have eight tickets for their use. This, however, has been denied, and it is stated that Tamagno has not read a criticism of his singing for years, knows nothing about the critical opinion of him, cares less; also that the eight tickets are intended for his family. He is said to be the highest-priced tenor of the age. Before leaving the tenors a word should be said concerning Edward Lloyd, who in England seems to have inherited the mantle of Sims Reeves. He was born in 1845, and was educated as a chorister in the choir of Westminster Abbey. He has devoted himself entirely to concert and oratorio singing, and possesses a voice of the purest quality, with a style noted for its excellence and finish. Henry Guillaume Ibos, also, a French tenor formerly a cavalry officer, who made his début in 1885, is a singer whose voice possesses much beauty. He was born at Toulouse in 1862, and has appeared with much success in France, Russia, and England. He also made a tour in 1897-98 in America. There are tenors coming to the surface continually. Some will sink into obscurity, while others will ascend the ladder of fame; but we must leave them to the future and pay a little attention to the baritones, of whom Van Rooy has recently made his mark as Wotan. He has a tremendous voice, sings with ease, and gets a pleasing softness into his tones. He is likely to be well known in the future. Charles Santley, who is known in England as the greatest baritone of the Victorian era, was born in Liverpool in 1834. Having a voice of fine quality, extensive compass, and great power, he left England to study in Milan in 1855. Returning in 1857, he took lessons of Manuel Garcia. In the same year he appeared in oratorio, singing the part of Adam in the "Creation." His first appearance in opera in England was in 1859, as Hoel in "Dinorah" at Covent Garden. Although Mr. Santley sang almost all the baritone rôles in opera, he was not noted for histrionic powers, but rather for his vocal abilities, and his power of seizing on the exact sentiment and significance of his part. In 1871 he visited the United States as a member of the Carl Rosa opera company, during which time he reaped substantial honors. In 1889 he made a concert tour in Australia. In 1892 Joseph Bennett, the eminent critic, wrote: "The foremost baritone of the day is still with us, and though his physical means have suffered changes which no skill can avoid, he is a greater artist than ever, and retains plenty of vitality for his work." Mr. Santley married, in 1859, Miss Gertrude Kemble, the granddaughter of the celebrated actor, and his daughter, Miss Edith Santley, had a short but exceedingly brilliant career as a concert singer, previous to her marriage, in 1884, to the Hon. R. H. Lyttelton. Jean Baptiste Faure, a French singer, will be remembered as the creator of the part of Mephistopheles in Gounod's "Faust." He was a good musician and a fine actor, and he owed more to his genius as a comedian than to his voice, which was of great compass, though not of a brilliant quality. In the winter of 1861 he made his first appearance at the Grand Opera in Paris, though he had made his operatic début nine years before at the Opera Comique. For many years he remained at the Grand Opera, during which time he was a prominent figure in operatic history. Faure was born in 1830, and was the son of a singer at the church of Moulins. His father died when he was but seven years old. At the age of thirteen he entered the solfeggio class at the Conservatoire in Paris, to which city his family had moved when he was three years old. At the breaking of his boy's voice he took up piano and double bass, and was for some time a member of the band at the Odéon theatre. After his voice was settled he joined the chorus at the Théâtre Italien, and in 1850 again entered the Conservatoire, where he gained, in 1852, the first prizes for singing and for opera comique. He is a man of refined tastes and great culture, and an enthusiastic collector of pictures. In 1859 he married Mlle. Lefebre, an actress at the Opera Comique. Of Faure's Mephistopheles, in "Faust," a critic of 1876 writes, "No impersonation of this character at all approaching the general excellence of his could be named." What Faure respected most was the intention of the composer. It is impossible for any one to penetrate more deeply into a part, to adorn it with more delicate gradations of light and shade, to hit upon more felicitous contrasts and juster intonations, to identify himself more thoroughly with a character or an epoch. He proceeded by degrees, led his audience to sublimest heights of enthusiasm by cleverly calculated stages,--he fascinated them. Of French baritones, Victor Maurel is the one who has succeeded Faure. His creation of the part of Iago, in Verdi's "Otello," was considered a masterpiece of lyric acting, and Iago is at the present day his greatest rôle. Maurel was born in 1848 at Marseilles, and, having a penchant for acting and singing, began to play in comedy and light opera in his native town. His ambition soon led him to Paris, where he entered the Conservatoire and studied singing with Vauthrot, and opera with Duvernoy. He gained the first prizes in both subjects in 1867. In 1869 he made his début in "Les Huguenots," but he was not considered sufficiently successful to secure a permanent engagement, so he went for a series of tours in Italy, Spain, and America. His first London appearance was made in 1873, when he took the part of Renato at the Royal Italian Opera, and was engaged there, as a result of his success, every year until 1879, playing the parts of Don Giovanni, Tell, Almaviva, Hoel, Peter the Great, Valentine, Hamlet, and the Cacique. He also played Wolfram and the Flying Dutchman, and in 1878 appeared as Domingo in Massé's "Paul and Virginia." In 1879 he once more appeared in Paris, taking the part of Hamlet. His name had become established since his previous appearance in that city, and he was now a most decided success. About this time M. Maurel undertook the management of Italian opera at the Théâtre des Nations. His enterprise was hailed with joy by the Parisians, who were desirous of having Italian opera. Maurel surrounded himself with a company of the finest artists, including Mesdames Marimon, Adler-Dévriès, Nevada, and Tremelli, and Gayarré, the brothers De Reszke, and Maurel himself. Notwithstanding the attractions offered, the outlay exceeded the income, and M. Maurel relieved himself of a large amount of money in a remarkably short time. His financial disasters in no way interfered with his artistic successes, and his production of Massenet's "Herodiade," on February 1, 1884, was a great triumph. Victor Maurel combines a good voice with a most attractive personality and a great love of his art. He is undoubtedly to be considered one of the greatest baritones of the present day. As an actor M. Maurel is magnificent, as a singer he has never had a marvellous organ, but he has used it with exquisite art. If he ceased to sing he would still be one of the greatest of Shakespearean actors. As Iago he is insidiously great, as Rigoletto overwhelming and thrilling. He first visited the United States in 1874, and he was at once accepted as a great artist. Amongst operatic baritones of the past twenty years Señor Guiseppe Del Puente, a Spaniard, descended from an old and noble family, must be mentioned. He was born in 1845, and studied at the conservatory at Naples. Being a true artist in his instincts, and having a fine voice, he speedily excelled. He became connected with the best operatic enterprises, and was always popular on account of his handsome stage presence, dramatic capability, and fine, rotund, musical baritone voice. He was equally valuable in the comedy parts of light opera, or the heavier ones of serious opera. He was well known in America in the eighties, when he belonged to the Mapleson company, and sang with Gerster, Valleria, Scalchi, Ravelli, and Galassi. The greatest English baritone of the present day is Ffrançon Davies, whose voice was declared by Sims Reeves to be the purest baritone he had ever heard. Besides having this beautifully pure tone, he has perfect control of the breath, and remarkable breadth and intelligence. His first appearance took place at Free-trade Hall, Manchester, at Mr. de Jong's concerts in January, 1890. Mr. Davies was born at Bethesda, Carnarvonshire, North Wales, and, after receiving his early education at Friar's Grammar School, at Bangor, he obtained an exhibition at Jesus College, Oxford. He gained his B.A. and M.A. degrees, but was not devoted to studies only, for he stood well in the athletic world of his University, playing football in his college team, and rowing in the Varsity trial eights. After leaving Oxford he began to study music seriously, and entered the Guildhall School, taking lessons later with Shakespeare. He has a large repertoire of baritone operatic parts, in which he has sung with great success, and he is one of the best oratorio and concert baritones of the day. He visited America in 1896, and confirmed the good accounts which had preceded him. In the list of famous baritones of the present day, America is admirably represented by David Bispham, who has gained his greatest reputation in the part of Falstaff in Verdi's opera of that name. Mr. Bispham was born in Philadelphia, in 1857, his father being a Quaker. Like many of the singers of to-day, he was intended for a commercial career, but, being more interested in music, he eventually allowed his love for art to overcome his desire for business, or, as he has himself said, he went the way of least resistance. His father's musical proclivities manifested themselves on the flute, which instrument he played beautifully, and young Bispham solaced the leisure hours of his youth with the guitar and zither, but never learned much of any other instrument. On every possible occasion he sang. He was a member of several choral societies and church choirs, and had the advantage of many musical friends. He took parts also in amateur dramatic performances, and thus made some progress in his art. In 1885 he gave up business and went to London, where he has since resided. He studied with Vannucini, Shakespeare, and Lamperti, and in 1891 made his début in London in "La Basoche," scoring an instantaneous success. He also made a provincial tour with Sims Reeves. Mr. Bispham has a repertoire of nearly fifty rôles, and can sing entire parts in German, Italian, French, and English. There are few artists who work as conscientiously for the general good of art, and there are few who have made so general a success in such a wide variety of rôles, among the best of which are Wotan, Wolfram, and Beckmesser. He is also without a peer on the concert platform as an interpreter of Wagner. He was seen in opera in America in 1896, and his artistic efforts made a deep impression, for he is one of the few artists who combine with unusual vocal accomplishments great dramatic powers. CHAPTER IX. CONTRALTOS AND BASSOS. The contralto in an opera company has a somewhat thankless task. Her fate is to be either a boy, or else a nurse, duenna, or some character which implies age. She frequently is obliged to stand mute while the prima donna warbles and trills and receives the applause of the house, and yet the musical demands upon the contralto are equal to those made upon the soprano. A contralto who was deservedly popular for many years during the middle of this century was Adelaide Phillips. She was born in Stratford-on-Avon in 1833, and in 1840 went with her family to Canada, afterwards settling in Boston, where, in 1843, she appeared as an infant prodigy at the Boston Museum. In 1850, her voice having attracted attention, she was introduced to Jenny Lind, who advised her to study music. A subscription soon raised the necessary funds, and she was sent to Manuel Garcia in London, after which another fund was raised to enable her to go to Italy, where she made her début in 1854 at Milan. She sang with success in many cities of both hemispheres, and her repertoire consisted of all the contralto parts in the operas that held their places on the Italian stage during the twenty-five years that she was known as an opera singer. In 1879, when the Boston Ideal Opera Company was formed, Adelaide Phillips was the chief contralto. She made her last appearance, in Cincinnati, in December, 1881. In 1882 the state of her health was such that she was obliged to go to Carlsbad, and she died there on October 3d of the same year. In private life Miss Phillips was highly esteemed, for she was not only an artist of sterling abilities, but a woman of grand character and a most devoted friend. She was buried at Marshfield, Mass., where the family had lived for some years on an estate which her success had enabled her to buy. Her life was one of hard and unceasing labor, but she had the satisfaction of being able to care for the necessities of her family, who were thrown upon her in early life. A mezzo-soprano who took the public by storm in the early sixties was Zelia Trebelli, or, as she was more widely known, after her marriage, Madame Trebelli-Bettini. No member of Merelli's Italian troupe was gifted with so brilliant a voice and so much executive power. Her appearances in the opera houses in Germany were a series of triumphs, public and critics alike being carried away by her voice, with its brilliancy and flexibility, and her control over it. Her early triumph was the result of long preparation, for her musical education began when she was six years old, and her vocal training ten years later. It was not until after five years of close application to study that she made her début in Madrid, playing Rosina in "Il Barbiere," with Mario as Count Almaviva. For many years Trebelli-Bettini remained one of the best of the galaxy of opera singers which the operatic stage has displayed during the last half of the century. In 1884 she made a tour in the United States with Mr. Abbey's troupe. She was born in Paris in 1838, and died in 1892. Her proper name was Zelia Gilbert, which expanded and Frenchified into Gillebert and reversed gives Trebelli(g), the Italian name which has for some years appeared to be necessary for all those who wish to succeed in opera. When Gounod's "Faust" received its first performance in England, in 1863, the cast included Tietiens, as Marguerite; Trebelli, as Siebel; Giuglini, as Faust; Gassier, as Mephistopheles; and Charles Santley, as Valentine. Since the days of Alboni there has been no contralto singer to whom the adjective "great" could be so fitly applied as to Sofia Scalchi. She was born in Turin, and her parents were both singers. She made her début in 1866 at Mantua, in the part of Ulrica (Un Ballo in Maschera), when she was only sixteen years of age. Her first appearance in London took place two years later, and from that time she remained a favorite in England, where she sang in the memorable season of "Cenerentola," and every season afterwards for more than twenty-five years. Madame Scalchi is well known in America, where she first appeared under Mapleson's management in 1882. She had been singing in Rio Janeiro, and reached New York after a stormy voyage of twenty two days, which left her in such an exhausted condition that she was incapacitated for a month, and her illness played havoc with Mapleson's managements. [Illustration: _Sofia Scalchi._] Scalchi was the possessor of a voice of delicious quality and unusual range, every note in its compass of two and a half octaves being of a wonderfully soft yet penetrating tone, and of great power. Her popularity was such that Patti and other prima donnas feared her as a rival, and regarded with jealousy the applause which attended her performances. Scalchi was imbued with the prima donna temperament, and had the regulation parrots and other pets during her travels. Concerning this portion of her equipage, Mapleson tells an anecdote to the effect that Scalchi's parrot died the night before the company reached Salt Lake City, in 1884, a bereavement which caused that lady to go into hysterics and take to a bed of sickness. Notwithstanding every art of persuasion and such threats as could be used, Scalchi refused to appear, and her part had to be taken by a substitute. In 1876 Signora Scalchi married Count Luigi Alberto Lolli, and her home is at the Villa Sofia, Turin, Italy. Marianne Brandt is one of those singers who have made their reputation as exponents of Wagner opera. She is the daughter of a gentleman of Vienna, named Bischoff, and it is related that she assumed the name of Brandt upon beginning her stage career on account of her parents, who strongly objected to her going upon the stage, and threw in her way every possible obstacle. Marianne, however, was determined to persevere, and she went through a period of patient, hard work, in order to gain her education. It is said that at one time she supported herself, and paid for her lessons by sewing. Her first teacher was Frau Marschner, at the Conservatorium in Vienna, but later on she took lessons of Madame Pauline Viardot-Garcia. In 1867 she received an engagement at Gratz, where she made her début as Rachel, in "La Juive." Her parents had expected failure, hence their unwillingness to allow the use of the family name. In 1868 she sang at Hamburg, when she played Fides with such success that she was immediately offered a permanent engagement, which was accepted, and lasted for many years. During her leaves of absence she appeared in London as Fidelio, but did not make a remarkable success, though ten years later, when she sang in "Tristan and Isolde," her artistic efforts were heartily appreciated. Fraulein Brandt sang the part of Kundry at the second representation of "Parsifal" at Bayreuth, and it is said that she generously gave her services on that occasion. She has visited the United States several times, taking part in some of the earlier representations of Wagner opera in New York and other cities. The next contralto singer to appear in opera was Annie Louise Cary, a native of the State of Maine, where she was born in 1846, at Wayne. Her family were all musical, and she was the youngest of six musical children. By the time she was sixteen her voice had developed wonderful qualities, and she was able to sing from C in the bass clef to F in alt, a range of three octaves and a half. At the age of eighteen she went to Boston, and secured a position in a church choir, while she studied music. Her career in Boston was much the same as that of many young aspirants for artistic honors,--"church choir and chores," it has been facetiously called. By this it may be understood that she earned her board by assisting in the household duties, while her church choir position enabled her to pay for her vocal lessons. Her splendid voice and musical intelligence soon enabled her to obtain concert engagements, and before she went abroad she sang in many festivals and at the Handel and Haydn Society concerts, on one of which occasions she was associated with Parepa-Rosa. Being possessed of much ambition, and with the energy which characterizes the natives of the State of Maine, Miss Cary organized and gave a concert in Music Hall, which brought her enough funds for a year's study abroad. Her Puritan training forbade the idea of opera, and it was her intention to study for concert and oratorio. At the end of her year she was discouraged, and declared that she sang no better than when she arrived. To this her teacher, Giovanni Conti, made no dissent, for his one idea of singing was _opera_. Miss Cary flung down her music, and left the room in disgust. And now came a curious mental revolution: having refused to consider the possibility of singing in opera, and having on that account left her teacher, she shortly afterwards met an impresario named Lorini, for whom she sang. He offered her an engagement to sing in Italian opera, and she accepted it. For two years she was in Lorini's company, taking all kinds of parts. In 1869 she went to Paris for further study, and while there met Maurice Strakosch, who was at that time forming the Nilsson concert company, for a tour in America. Miss Cary accepted the engagement which he offered her. The company consisted of Miss Nilsson, soprano; Miss Cary, contralto; Brignoli, tenor; Verger, baritone, and Vieuxtemps, violinist. This tour lasted two years, and in 1873 Miss Cary again appeared in opera, creating the part of Amneris, with Italo Campanini as Rhadames, when "Aida" was produced at the Academy of Music in New York. The following year Miss Cary sang Ortrud in "Lohengrin." In 1879 and 1880 Miss Cary was a member of the Kellogg Concert Company. During the last years of her career, 1879 to 1881, she sang again in opera, adding to her repertoire the contralto part in "Favorita." Campanini and Gerster were the tenor and soprano. In 1881 she made her last appearance in opera in Philadelphia, and in 1882 she sang for the last time at the Cincinnati festival, having taken part in each one given from 1873. So well was she known at these festivals that when, in 1884, she attended as a member of the audience, she was at once recognized and received an ovation on taking her seat. On retiring from the stage in 1882, Miss Cary married Dr. C. H. Raymond, putting an end to her public career when she was at the height of her popularity. All young singers may take her early career as a model, for it should give hope and courage to the many who are to-day making a similar struggle. One of the members of Mapleson's company which visited the United States in 1884, and which included Patti and Gerster, was Anna de Belocca, a contralto of much merit. Her first appearance in this country, however, was made under the auspices of Maurice Strakosch, in 1876, when she was a new star on the operatic horizon. Mlle. de Belocca was unusually attractive in person, with brown hair, large black eyes, dead-white complexion, and symmetrical form. She was the daughter of M. de Bellokh, a scholar of St. Petersburg and acting Imperial Councillor of State. Mlle. de Belocca spoke five languages, and because of her aristocratic birth was sought after by the highest circles of society. Mapleson seems to have been well aware of her ideas on social matters, for on one occasion he made use of his knowledge to help himself out of a dilemma. His company was in Dublin, and the one suite of rooms at the hotel was claimed by both Mlle. Salla, the prima donna, and Mlle. Belocca, the contralto. Neither would give way until a happy thought struck Mapleson, and, after taking the landlord aside for a short conference, he asked whether there were actually no other rooms in the house equal to the disputed ones. "There is a suite above this," was the reply, "but they are reserved specially for Lady Spencer (wife of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at that time), and it would be impossible for me to let any one else use them." "Well, can't we look at them?" suggested Mapleson. The landlord assented, and showed Mapleson up, Mlle. Belocca following. As soon as she entered the rooms she declared that they were delightful, and she should insist on remaining there. Of course the landlord and Mapleson gave a reluctant but delighted consent, and Lady Spencer made no requisition. The principal contralto at the festival at Cincinnati in 1896 was Marie Brema, who is to-day considered one of the greatest interpreters of Wagner. Miss Brema was born in Scotland, and made her first appearance in concert at St. James's Hall, London. She was introduced to Frau Wagner, who was so well pleased with her that she offered her an engagement to sing the part of Ortrud in "Lohengrin" and gave her personal instruction. In 1888 a London theatrical manager saw her play in some amateur theatricals, and was so struck by her talent that he wanted to star her as an actress. She declined his proposition, feeling that the operatic stage was better suited to her capabilities. When she appeared at the Bayreuth festival, in 1894, as Kundry and Ortrud, she made an immense triumph. She sang with no apparent effort, naturally and gracefully, as all true singers do. Her voice was full, round, and well placed, and her coloring perfect. Since that time she has fully maintained her reputation, and has been heard in America with the Damrosch company, in 1894-5-9, and with Abbey and Grau the following year. During the opera season in London in 1898 her work elicited the highest praise of the critics. Miss Brema is still young, and is likely to hold a high rank among singers for many years to come. The singer in an opera company who shares with the contralto the hard work, but seldom reaps much of the glory, is the bass, while the tenor is always an object of adoration, or should be, if he is a good singer, and the baritone has many good parts. The basso not only has thankless parts allotted to him, but, from precedent, one generally expects him to be wobbly and to sing frequently out of tune. Some bassos have broken through the law of precedent, and then they have been delightful. An operatic king or duke, who is usually a bass, is very seldom heard to sing in tune, nor is the heavy villain of the opera, who is always a bass, able to keep within half a note of the path laid down for him by the composer. Two bassos who made their appearance at about the same time were Signor Foli (1862) and Signor Agnesi (1864), and for many years they were associated with Italian opera and oratorio throughout Europe. Signor Foli was an Irishman whose real name was Allan James Foley. He was born at Cahir, Tipperary, and went to America when very young. His voice was a rich, powerful bass of more than two octaves, from E below the line to F, and he had a repertoire of over sixty operas. Of late years several singers of English and American origin have achieved distinction without the necessity of Italianizing their name,--Bispham, for instance, being a striking example. There are various reasons assigned for the necessity of a change. One is that the name must be possible of pronunciation by the Italians, in whose country the opera singer germinates, and the other is that Americans and English have not yet learned to appreciate a singer by his merits, but rather by his name. One of the most ridiculous instances of Italianizing was in the case of Mr. John Clarke, of Brooklyn, who became Signor Giovanni Chiari di Broccolini. On the other hand, Santley never found it necessary to become Italian, nor did Sims Reeves. Myron Whitney is a name needing no Italianization. Emma Eames has found her name no bar to renown, and a score of singers who are now climbing the ladder of fame are not ashamed of their Anglo-Saxon origin. Louis Ferdinand Leopold Agnesi (Agniez) was a native of Namur, Belgium, and in his early days essayed to be a composer. He brought out an opera, "Harold le Normand," which met with indifferent success, and then he became a singer, receiving instruction from Duprez. His career was not long, for he died in 1875, but he was a most popular singer. Emil Fischer, who for many years has been associated with Wagner opera, was the son of musicians, his father having been a well-known basso and his mother also a singer of renown. He first appeared at Gratz at the age of seventeen. In 1862 he took the management of the theatre at Dantzig and held it for eight years. In 1882 he became a member of the Royal Opera at Dresden, and remained there until, in 1885, he went to New York and joined the German opera. Since that time he has become well known in America, having appeared in most of the representations of Wagner's operas. Emil Scaria was for many years known as a versatile singer and actor, more particularly in German opera. He made his début in 1862 at Dessau, after having studied in the conservatoire at Vienna and with Garcia in London. From 1865 to 1872 he was at Dresden, and then at Vienna for several years. Later on he visited America, and was one of the celebrated Wagner trio, consisting of Materna, Winkelmann, and Scaria, who in 1884 sang in the Wagner festivals. Scaria was born in 1838 at Gratz. He created the part of Gurnemanz in "Parsifal," at Bayreuth. In 1885 he became a victim to insanity, and died the following year. In 1876 Edouard de Reszke made his début at Paris in "Aida," and entered on a career of renown. He is the younger brother of Jean de Reszke, the tenor, and it was at the instigation of Jean that he abandoned his proposed occupation and took to the stage. Edouard had undergone a course of study at the Agricultural College at Prikao, with a view to developing the resources of the great estates in Poland belonging to the De Reszke family. He accordingly proceeded to Milan, and studied with Stella and Alba, and later on with Coletti. At the end of four years he went to Paris for further study, and to make his début. His voice is a full, rich, resonant bass, capable of sending forth notes of immense volume, or those of the most tender quality. His appearance is that of a great, tall, broad-shouldered giant, with fair skin and blue eyes, and his stage presence is imposing. Four years after his début in Paris he created the part of Il Re, in Catalani's "Elda," and Massenet entrusted to him the creation of "Le Roi de Lahore" when it was produced at La Scala in Milan. He has also created the parts of Carlo V., in Marchetti's "Don Giovanni d'Austria," and Don Diegue, in "Le Cid." He was engaged in London during the seasons from 1880-84, and became immensely popular. He has many friends in England, for he has a weakness for everything connected with sport, in the best sense. Notwithstanding the many parts in which he has made the greatest success, his assumption of the rôle of Mephistopheles, in "Faust," more than any other, established his reputation as a great lyric artist, and he is generally conceded to be one of the greatest bassos of the century. Of late years a French basso has arisen to share the popularity of Edouard de Reszke,--Pol Plançon, who for more than a decade has been one of the permanent stars of the Paris Opera House. M. Plançon was intended for a mercantile career, but having been an enthusiastic singer from the age of four, he rebelled against the decision of his parents. He was nevertheless sent to Paris, and entered a large and fashionable store to learn the business. One day Theodore Ritter, the pianist, heard him sing, for he sang upon every possible occasion, and was so pleased with his voice that he advised him to turn his attention to music. Through the influence of Ritter he was admitted to the École Duprez, and thereby incurred the severe displeasure of his family. M. Plançon made his first appearance at Lyons as St. Bris, in "Les Huguenots," and remained there for two seasons. In 1883 he returned to Paris, and made his Parisian début at the Grand Opera House as Mephisto, in "Faust," a part in which he excels. Since that time he has sung all the chief bass rôles at the Grand Opera House, and has created the parts of François I., in Saint-Saëns's "Ascanio," Don Gomez, in Massenet's "Le Cid," and Pittacus, in Gounod's "Sapho," when that work was revived in 1893. M. Plançon was born in the Ardennes, but since his position as a singer was assured he has resided in Paris, where also his parents, whose objections were disarmed by his success, have joined him. [Illustration: _Plançon as Ramfis in Aida._] Before closing this chapter of bassos a few words should be said concerning three eminent singers whose reputation was made in oratorio and concert singing,--Stockhausen, Henschel, and Myron W. Whitney. Julius Stockhausen was one of the most remarkable singers of the century. He was born at Paris in 1826. His early career was of a varied nature, for he took part in concerts as singer, violinist, accompanist, and even drummer. He did not finally decide on music as a profession until 1848, when he took the part of Elijah in a performance of that oratorio at Basle, and his success decided his future career. Stockhausen's singing in his best days must have been wonderful. Even to those who heard him only after he had passed his prime, it was something never to be forgotten. His delivery of opera and oratorio music was superb in taste, feeling, and execution, but it was the Lieder of Schubert and Schumann that most peculiarly suited him, and these he delivered in a truly remarkable way. The rich beauty of the voice, the nobility of style, the perfect phrasing, the intimate sympathy, and the intelligible way in which the words were given, all combined to make his singing wonderful. His highest achievement is said to have been his delivery of the part of Doctor Marianus, in the third part of Schumann's "Faust." For many years Stockhausen has been one of the chief vocal teachers of Germany, and has recently celebrated his golden wedding to the musical profession, which he formally entered in 1848. Although not an opera singer, but rather a broad musician, the name of Georg Henschel will be remembered from the fact that for a few years he was considered one of the most excellent oratorio and concert singers before the public. He was born at Breslau in 1850, and at the age of eleven commenced his studies under Doctor Schaeffer. A year later he made his début as a pianist at Berlin, where he played Weber's Concerto. He had already composed a good deal of music and shown much talent in that direction. In 1867 he entered the conservatory at Leipzig, and studied under Moscheles, Richter, Reinecke, and Goetze. After spending some time in Weimar, he settled in Berlin. One of his most marked successes was in 1874, at the Cologne festival. In 1877 he went to London, where he soon acquired a great reputation as a bass singer, and in 1879 he produced the Triumphal Hymn of Brahms. In 1880 he visited America on a concert tour, and while in Boston became the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which was organized and established during the three years of his conductorship. In 1881 he married Miss Lillian Bailey, a Boston lady, who was a concert singer of marked ability. In 1884 he returned to London, where he has since organized the London Symphony concerts, and won an enviable position in the musical world. Myron W. Whitney, who was born in 1836 at Ashbury, Mass., decided at an early age on following a musical career. For ten years he sang in concerts, and then went to Italy, where he studied under Vannucini, and later in London under Randegger. He now made a tour of Great Britain, and at the Birmingham festival sang the rôle of Elijah in such a manner as to make an immediate reputation for himself. He has a superb bass voice, which under long and careful training became flexible and even, and which extended for nearly three octaves. After achieving a reputation in England he returned to America, and from 1876 he has sung only in his native land, where his reputation is unexcelled. For many years Mr. Whitney sang in light opera, but he also gave an interpretation of the King in "Lohengrin," under the baton of Theodore Thomas, when the American Opera Company was floated, which is said to have been finer than any heard in this country. Of late years Mr. Whitney has retired from the stage and settled in Boston, where he teaches singing. To give an account of all the singers who have appeared in grand opera would require several volumes. Of American singers alone there are many more who have achieved fame than can be placed in this little book. Alwina Valleria, of Baltimore, was well known, and is now married and settled in England. Emma Juch, Helene Hastreiter, Marie Litta, Emma Abbott, Louise Dotti are all of American origin and became well known. Margaret Reed, Suzanne Adams, Susan Strong are singers whose stars are in the ascendent. As time passes on, the number of singers whose names are handed down as "famous" is very small in proportion to the number of singers who come before the public, and it is possible that even some of those mentioned in this book may become dim in the distance of years. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF FAMOUS SINGERS. The dates in italic are not authenticated. -------------------------------------------+------+------+-------+----- NAME | Birth| Début|Retired|Death -------------------------------------------+------+------+-------+----- Ferri, Baldassare | 1610 | 1621 | | 1680 Abell, John | 1660 | 1682 | |_1716_ Nicolini, Nicolo Grimaldi | 1673 | 1694 | 1726 | ? Leveridge, Richard | 1670 | 1695 | 1730 | 1758 Tofts, Mrs. Katharine | ? | 1703 | 1709 |_1740_ Epine, Francesca Margherita | ? | 1704 | 1718 | ? Valentini, Valentino Urbani | ? | 1707 | 1714 | ? Boschi, Giuseppe | ? | 1711 | 1728 | ? Bernacchi, Antonio | 1690 |_1712_| 1730 | 1756 Galeratti, Catherina | ? | 1714 | 1721 | ? Robinson, Anastasia | ? | 1715 | 1722 | 1750 Bordoni, Faustina (Hasse) | 1700 | 1716 | 1756 | 1783 Cuzzoni, Francesca (Sandoni) | 1700 | 1719 | 1750 | 1770 Senesino, Francesco Bernardi | 1680 | 1719 | 1735 | 1750 Tesi, Tramentini Vittoria |_1690_| 1719 |_1749_ | 1775 Durastanti, Margherita | 1695 | 1720 | 1734 | ? Carestini, Giovanni | 1705 | 1721 | 1758 |_1758_ Farinelli (Carlo Broschi) | 1705 | 1722 |_1762_ | 1782 Borosini, Francesco | 1695 |_1723_| ? | ? Caffarelli, Gaetano Majorano | 1703 | 1724 | 1750 | 1783 Fenton, Lavinia (Duchess of Bolton) | ? | 1726 | 1731 | 1760 Fabri, Annibale | 1697 | 1729 | ? | 1760 Gizziello, Gioacchino Conti | 1714 | 1729 | 1753 | 1761 Monticelli, Angelo Maria | 1710 | 1730 | ? | 1764 Beard, John | 1717 | 1736 | 1767 | 1791 Raff, Anton | 1714 | 1738 |_1779_ | 1797 Amorevoli, Angelo | 1716 | 1741 | ? | 1798 Guarducci, Tommasso Toscano | 1720 | 1745 | 1771 | ? Guadagni, Gaetano | 1725 | 1747 | 1784 | 1797 Gabrielli, Caterina | 1730 | 1747 | 1780 | 1796 Mingotti, Regina | 1728 | 1748 | 1787 | 1807 Ciprandi, Ercole | 1738 | 1754 | 1763 | 1790 Arnould, Madeleine Sophie | 1744 | 1757 | 1778 | 1803 Calori, Angiola | 1732 | 1758 | 1783 |_1790_ Tenducci, Giusto Fernandino | 1736 | 1758 | 1791 |_1800_ Catley, Anne | 1745 | 1762 | 1784 | 1789 Amici, Anna Lucia de | 1740 | 1763 | 1789 | ? Manzuoli, Giovanni | 1725 | 1764 | 1771 | ? Ranzzini, Venanzio | 1747 | 1765 | | 1810 Pacchierotti, Gasparo | 1744 | 1769 | 1796 | 1821 Ansani, Giovanni | 1750 | 1770 | 1800 |_1815_ Allegranti, Madalena | ? | 1771 | 1799 | ? Rubinelli, Giovanni Battista | 1753 | 1771 | 1800 | 1829 Mara, Gertrude Elizabeth | 1749 | 1771 | 1800 | 1833 Lebrun, Francesca | 1756 | 1771 | 1790 | 1791 Davies, Cecilia | 1752 | 1773 | 1791 | 1836 Marchesi, Luigi | 1755 | 1774 | 1806 | 1829 Cavalieri, Katharina | 1761 | 1775 | 1793 | 1801 Saint Huberty, Antoinette Cécile | 1756 | 1777 | 1789 | 1812 Solié, Jean Pierre | 1755 | 1778 | | 1812 Kelly, Michael | 1764 | 1779 | 1826 | 1826 Banti, Brigitta Giorgi | 1759 | 1779 | ? | 1806 Adamberger, Valentin | 1743 | 1780 | ? | 1804 Babbini, Matteo | 1754 |_1780_| 1802 | 1816 Crouch, Mrs. Anna Maria | 1763 | 1780 | 1800 | 1805 Garat, Pierre Jean | 1764 | ? | 1814 | 1823 Storace, Ann Selina | 1766 | 1780 | 1808 | 1817 Sestini, Giovanna | ? | 1783 | 1791 | ? Crescentini, Girolamo | 1766 | 1783 | 1812 | 1846 Incledon, Charles Benjamin | 1763 | 1784 | 1826 | 1826 Bassi, Luigi | 1766 | 1784 | 1815 | 1825 Vogl, Johann Michael | 1768 | ? | ? | 1840 Schröder-Devrient, Wilhelmine | 1804 | 1821 | 1847 | 1860 Billington, Mrs. Elizabeth (née Weichsel) | 1768 | 1784 | 1809 | 1818 Saint Aubin, Jeanne Charlotte Schroeder | 1764 | 1786 | 1818 | 1850 Dickons, Mrs. (née Poole) | 1770 | 1787 | 1822 | 1833 Braham, John | 1774 | 1787 | 1852 | 1856 Bertinotti, Teresa | 1776 | 1788 | 1823 | 1854 Lazzarini, Gustavo | 1765 | 1789 |_1802_ | ? Crivelli, Gaetano | 1774 | 1793 | 1829 | 1836 Grassini, Josephine | 1773 | 1794 | 1817 | 1850 Pellegrini, Felice | 1774 | 1795 | 1829 | 1832 Catalani, Angelica | 1779 | 1795 | 1828 | 1849 Campenhout, François van | 1780 | 1797 | 1827 | 1848 Siboni, Giuseppe | 1780 | 1797 | 1818 | 1839 Velluti, Giovanni Battista | 1781 | 1800 | 1829 | 1861 Tacchinardi, Niccolo | 1776 | 1804 | 1831 | 1850 Galli, Filippo | 1783 | 1804 |_1830_ | 1853 Colbran (Rossini), Isabella Angela | 1785 | 1806 | 1824 | 1845 Forti, Anton | 1790 | 1807 | ? | 1859 Rubini, Giovanni Battista | 1795 | 1807 | 1844 | 1854 Garcia, Manuel del Popolo Vicente | 1775 | 1808 | 1828 | 1832 Davide, Giovanni | 1789 | 1810 | 1841 | 1851 Fodor-Mainvielle, Josephine | 1793 | 1810 | 1833 | ? Pisaroni, Benedetta Rosamunda | 1793 | 1811 | 1829 | 1872 Stephens, Catherine | 1794 | 1812 | 1835 | 1882 Lablache, Luigi | 1794 | 1812 | 1856 | 1856 Begnis, Giuseppe de | 1793 | 1813 | ? | 1849 Begnis, Signora Claudine Ronzi de | 1800 | 1819 | ? | 1853 Brighenti, Mme. Maria | 1792 | 1814 | 1836 | ? Camporese, Violanti | 1785 |_1816_| 1829 | ? Pasta, Giuditta | 1798 | 1816 | 1850 | 1865 Donzelli, Domenico | 1790 | 1816 | 1841 | 1873 Boccabadati, Luigia | ? | 1817 | ? | 1850 Tamburini, Antonio | 1800 | 1818 | 1859 | 1876 Damoreau, Laure Cinthie Montalant | 1801 | 1819 | 1846 | 1863 Sontag, Henriette (Countess Rossi) | 1805 | 1820 | 1854 | 1854 Curioni, Alberico |_1790_|_1815_| ? | ? Nourrit, Adolphe | 1802 | 1821 | 1839 | 1839 Schröder-Devrient, Wilhelmine | 1804 | 1821 | 1847 | 1860 Frischer-Achten, Frau | 1805 | 1821 | 1856 | 1896 Unger, Caroline | 1805 | 1821 | 1840 | 1877 Caradori-Allan, Maria Caterina Rosalbina | 1800 | 1822 | 1846 | 1865 Paton, Mary Anne | 1802 | 1822 | 1844 | 1863 Duprez, Gilbert | 1806 | 1825 |_1842_ | 1896 Gras, Mme. Julie Aimèe Dorus | 1807 | 1825 | 1851 | 1896 Malibran, Maria Felicita | 1808 | 1825 | 1836 | 1836 Badiale, Cesare | 1800 | 1827 | 1865 | 1865 Brambilla, Marietta | 1807 | 1827 | ? | ? Templeton, John | 1802 | 1828 | 1852 | Staudigl, Joseph | 1807 | 1827 | 1856 | 1861 Grisi, Giulia | 1812 | 1829 | 1861 | 1869 Albertazzi, Emma | 1814 | 1830 | 1846 | 1847 Seguin, Arthur Edward Shelden | 1809 | 1831 | ? | 1852 Ronconi, Giorgio | 1810 | 1831 | 1874 | 1890 Bishop, Mme. Anna | 1814 | 1831 | ? | 1884 Persiani, Fanny | 1812 | 1832 | 1858 | 1867 Stoltz, Rosina | 1815 | 1832 | 1849 | ? Loewe, Johanna Sophie | 1815 | 1832 | 1848 | 1866 Frege, Mme. (Livia Gerhard) | 1818 | 1832 | ? | 1847 Moriani, Napoleone | 1806 | 1833 | 1847 | 1878 Novello, Clara Anastasia | 1818 | 1833 | 1860 | Shaw, Mary (Mrs. Alfred Shaw) | 1814 | 1834 | 1843 | 1876 Poole, Elizabeth | 1820 | 1834 | 1870 | Pischek, Johann Baptist | 1814 | 1835 | 1863 | 1873 Nau, Maria Dolores Benedicta Josephina | 1818 | 1836 | 1856 | Sequin, Mrs. (Ann Childe) |_1818_| 1836 | | 1889 Castellan, Jeanne Anaïs | 1819 | 1836 | 1859 | Tichatschek, Joseph Alois | 1807 | 1837 | 1870 | 1885 Fraschini, Gaetano | 1815 | 1837 |_1870_ | Viardot-Garcia, Pauline | 1821 | 1837 | 1870 | Mario, Chevaliere di Candia | 1812 | 1838 | 1867 | 1883 Belletti, Giovanni | 1813 | 1838 | 1863 | Roger, Gustave Hyppolite | 1815 | 1838 | 1859 | 1879 Frezzolini, Erminia | 1818 | 1838 | 1853 | 1884 Thillon, Anna | 1819 | 1838 | 1856 | Lind-Goldschimidt, Jenny | 1820 | 1838 | 1870 | 1887 Harrison, William | 1813 | 1839 | ? | 1868 Reeves, John Sims | 1822 | 1839 |_1891_ | Gardoni, Enrico | 1821 | 1840 | 1874 | 1882 Rudersdorff, Mme. Herminie | 1822 | 1840 | 1872 | 1882 Tamberlik, Enrico | 1820 | 1841 | 1877 | 1889 Saiuton-Dolby, Charlotte Helen | 1821 | 1841 | 1870 | 1885 Formes, Karl | 1810 | 1842 | ? | 1889 Weiss, Willoughby Hunter | 1820 | 1842 | | 1867 Alboni, Marietta | 1823 | 1843 | 1871 | 1894 Reichardt, Alexander | 1825 | 1843 | 1857 | Wagner, Johanna | 1828 | 1844 | 1861 | 1894 Ander, Aloys | 1821 | 1845 | 1864 | 1864 Gassier, Edouard | 1822 | 1845 | | 1871 Hayes, Catharine | 1825 | 1845 | 1857 | 1861 Formes, Theodora | 1826 | 1846 |_1864_ | Borghi, Adelaide | 1829 | 1846 |_1870_ | Bosio, Angiolina | 1830 | 1846 | 1859 | 1859 Cruvelli, Jeanne Sophie Charlotte | 1826 | 1847 | 1855 | Burde-Ney, Jenny | 1826 | 1847 | | 1886 Pyne, Louisa Fanny | 1832 | 1847 | 1868 | ? Cabel, Marie Josephe (née Dreulette) | 1827 | 1849 | 1877 | 1885 Carvalho, Mme. Marie Caroline Félix | 1827 | 1849 | 1882 | 1895 Niemann, Albert | 1831 | 1849 | 1887 Tietiens, Therese Caroline Johanna | 1831 | 1849 | 1877 | 1877 Nantier-Didier, Constance Betsy Rosabelle | 1831 | 1850 | | 1867 Stockhausen, Julius | 1826 | 1848 | 1870 | Faure, Jean Baptiste | 1830 | 1852 | | Piccolomini, Maria | 1836 | 1852 | 1863 | Parepa-Rosa, Euphrosine de Boyesku | 1836 | 1852 | 1873 | 1874 Bettini, Alessandro | 1830 | 1853 | | Wachtel, Theodor | 1823 | 1854 | | 1893 Sedie, Enrico Delle | 1826 | 1854 |_1870_ | Phillips, Adelaide | 1833 | 1854 | 1881 | 1882 Wilt, Marie | 1834 | 1857 | 1878 | 1891 Nicolini, Ernest Nicolas | 1834 | 1855 | 1878 | 1898 Betz, Franz | 1835 | 1856 | | Rokitansky, Victor F. von | 1836 | 1856 | 1871 | Peschka-Leutner, Mme. Minna | 1839 | 1856 | | 1890 Giuglini, Antonio | 1826 | 1857 | 1862 | 1865 Fancelli, Giuseppe | 1836 | ? | ? | 1889 Santley, Charles | 1834 | 1857 | | Marimon, Marie | 1839 | 1857 | 1884 | Artôt, Mme. Marguerite Josephine D. M. | 1835 | 1857 | 1887 | Naudin, Emilio | 1823 | 1858 |_1880_ | Whitney, Myron W. | 1836 | 1858 | 1897 | Galli-Marié, Mme. Celestine | 1840 | 1859 | | Lucca, Pauline | 1841 | 1859 | 1884 | Patti-Nicolini, Mme. Adelina | 1843 | 1859 | | Trebelli-Bettini, Mme. Zelia | 1838 | 1859 | | 1892 Sherrington, Mme. Lemmens | 1834 | 1860 | | Scaria, Emil | 1838 | 1860 | 1884 | 1886 Krauss, Marie Gabrielle | 1842 | 1860 | ? | Foli, Allan James (Foley) | 1841 | 1861 | | Agnesi, Louis Ferdinand Leopold | 1833 | 1861 | | 1871 Capoul, Joseph Victor Amédée | 1839 | 1861 |_1895_ | Patti, Carlotta | 1840 | 1861 |_1880_ | 1889 Kellogg, Clara Louise | 1842 | 1861 | 1882 | Murska, Ilma di | 1836 | 1862 | 1878 | 1889 Kraus, Dr. Emil | 1840 | | | 1889 Henschel, Georg | 1850 | 1862 | | Nilsson, Christine | 1843 | 1864 | 1888 | Materna, Amalie (Frau Friedrich) | 1847 | 1864 | 1894 | Patey, Janet Monach | 1842 | 1865 | | 1894 Vogl, Heinrich | 1845 | 1865 | | Vogl, Theresa Thoma | 1846 | 1865 | | Roze, Marie | 1846 | 1865 | | Nachbaur, Franz | 1835 |_1865_| | Lloyd, Edward | 1845 | 1866 | | Adams, Charles R. | 1848 | 1866 | 1879 | Scalchi, Sophia | 1850 | 1866 | | Brandt, Marianne | 1842 | 1867 | | 1893 Cary, Annie Louise | 1846 | 1867 | 1882 | Lehmann, Lilli | 1848 | 1868 | | Hauck, Minnie | 1852 | 1868 | 1886 | Vaucorbeil, Anna Sternberg | 1845 | 1869 | 1873 | 1898 Heilbron, Marie | 1849 |_1869_| | 1886 Karl, Thomas | 1847 |_1870_|_1890_ | Maurel, Victor |_1845_| 1869 | | Gayarre, Giuliano | 1848 | 1873 | | 1890 Del Puente, Parquale | ? |_1870_| | Schott, Anton | 1846 | 1870 | | Sucher, Rose (Hasselbeck) |_1850_| 1870 | | Albani, Marie L. C. E. Lajeunnesse | | | | (Mrs. Ernest Gye) | 1850 | 1870 | | Sterling, Antoinette | 1851 | 1871 | | Campanini, Italo | 1846 | 1871 | 1890 | 1896 Valleria, Alwina Lohmann | 1848 | 1871 | | Pappenheim, Mme. Eugenie | ? | 1872 | | Abbott, Emma (Mrs. Wetherell) | 1850 | 1872 | | 1891 Malten, Thérèse | 1855 | 1873 | | McGuckin, Barton | 1852 | 1874 | | Belocca, Anna di | 1854 |_1874_| | Reicher, Hedwig | 1853 | 1874 | | 1883 Shakespeare, William | 1849 | 1875 | | Thursby, Emma | 1857 | 1875 | | Gaylord, Mrs. Julia | 1852 | 1875 | | 1894 Reszke, Josephine de |_1855_| 1875 |_1884_ | 1890 Litta, Marie | 1856 | 1876 | 1883 | 1883 De Reszke, Jean | 1852 | 1874 | | De Reszke, Edouard | 1855 | 1876 | | Klafsky, Katharina | 1855 | | | 1896 Gerster, Etelka | 1856 | 1876 | 1887 | Fursch-Madi, Mme | ? | 1876 | | 1894 Sembrich, Marcella | 1858 | 1877 | | Van Zandt, Marie | 1861 | 1879 |_1898_ | Bispham, David Scull | 1857 |_1880_| | Nordica, Giglia (Lillian Norton) | 1856 | 1880 | | L'Allemand, Pauline | 1862 |_1880_| | Nevada, Emma (Wixom) | 1862 | 1880 | | Plançon, Pol |_1860_| 1881 | | Juch, Emma | 1863 | 1881 | | Calvé, Emma (Roquer) | 1866 | 1882 | | Russell, Ella |_1862_| 1882 | | Van Dyk, Ernest Marie Hubert | 1861 | 1883 | | Engel, Marie | ? | 1887 | | Melba, Nellie (Mitchell) | 1864 | 1887 | | Ternina, Milka | ? | 1888 | | Eames, Emma | 1867 | 1888 | | Sanderson, Sybil | 1865 | 1889 | | Davies, Ffrançon | ? | 1890 | | Delna, Marie | 1875 | 1892 | | Brema, Marie | ? | 1892 | | -------------------------------------------+------+------+-------+----- INDEX. Abbott, Emma, 195-199, 323. Adams, Charles R., 271. Adams, Suzanne, 323. Adler-Dévriès, Madame, 289. Agnesi, 312, 313. Agniez. See Agnesi. Albani, Marie, 141, 187-195, 213, 225. Alboni, Marietta, 89-94, 129, 144, 300. Alvary, Max, 280. Arnoldson, Sigrid, 252-253. Arnould, Sophie, 20-22, 23. Artôt, Madame, 113-114. Bailey, Lillian, 321. Belocca, Anna de, 308-309. Berthald, Barron, 228. Betz, 122. Billington, Mrs. Elizabeth, 27, 29-33, 34, 38, 59. Bispham, David, 293-295, 312. Bordogni, 43. Bordoni, Faustina, 14-16. Boschi, Giuseppe, 14. Bosio, Angiolina, 88-89. Braham, John, 35-37, 95, 96. Brandt, Marianne, 272, 302-304. Brema, Marie, 272, 310-311. Brignoli, 165-167, 260, 261, 306. Broccolini, Giovanni Chiari di, 313. Broschi. See Farinelli. Calvé, Emma, 115, 128, 226, 227, 236-243, 257-258. Campanini, Italo, 263, 267-270, 306, 307. Camporese, Violante, 41. Capoul, Joseph Victor Amédée, 262-263, 268. Carvalho, Marie Caroline Félix Miolan, 106-107. Cary, Annie Louise, 145, 186, 254, 263, 268, 271, 304-308. Catalani, Angelica, 37-40, 116, 131. Celli, Filippo, 59. Clarke, John. See Broccolini, Giovanni Chiari di. Colbran, Isabella Angela, 44. Crescentini, Girolamo, 28-29, 33, 36, 44. Cuzzoni, Francesca, 14-15, 116. Damoreau, Laure, 41. Davies, Ffrançon, 291-293. Devrient, 78. Devrient, Madame Schröder. See Schröder-Devrient, Madame. Dotti, Louise, 323. Duprez, Gilbert, 58, 106-107, 313. Durastanti, Margherita, 13. Eames, Emma, 226, 254-258, 313. Engle, Marie, 251-252, 254. Fancelli, 261-262. Farinelli, 16-17, 131. Faure, Jean Baptiste, 99, 106, 110, 285-287. Fenton, Lavinia, 16. Fischer, Emil, 314. Fodor, Josephine, 41. Foli, 312. Formes, Karl, 100-103. Gabrielli, Caterina, 18-20, 116. Galassi, 291. Galli-Marié, Madame, 114-115, 175, 240. Garcia, Madame, 50. Garcia, Manuel, 43, 49-51, 54, 57, 83, 144, 284, 297, 314. Garcia, Pauline. See Viardot-Garcia, Madame. Gardoni, Italo, 89. Gassier, 300. Gayarré, Madame, 235, 289. Gerster, Etelka, 174, 187, 201-209, 213, 291, 307, 308. Gilbert, Zelia. See Trebelli-Bettini, Madame. Ginglini, Antonio, 267, 300. Grassini, Giuseppa, 33-35, 59. Grisi, Madame Giulietta, 58-63, 70, 74-75, 77, 79, 81, 88, 89, 104, 107, 116, 143, 144, 273. Guglielmi, Giacomo, 59. Hastreiter, Helen, 323. Hauk, Minnie, 128, 145, 181-185, 186, 240, 254, 260. Henschel, Georg, 319-321. Ibos, Henry Guillaume, 283. Incledon, Charles Benjamin, 35-36, 144. Juch, Emma, 323. Kalisch, Paul, 180-181. Kellogg, Clara Louise, 145, 147-150, 186, 198, 254, 271. Krauss, Marie Gabrielle, 146. Lablache, Luigi, 60, 65, 67-70, 104. Laborde, 238. Lajeunesse, Marie Louise Cecelia Emma. See Albani, Madame. La Maupin, Madame, 16. Lassalle, 226. Lazzarini, Gustavo, 33. Lehmann, Lilli, 178-181, 272. L'Epine, Margarita de, 12. Le Rochois, Marthe, 16. Levasseur, 43. Lind, Jenny, 47, 81-88, 93, 116, 124, 131, 143, 167, 174, 211, 253, 273, 297. L'Isle, Mécène Marié de, 114-115. Litta, Marie, 254, 271, 323. Lloyd, Edward, 282-283. Lohse-Klafsky, Katharina, 200-201. Lucca, Pauline, 116-127, 140, 144, 150, 263. Lussan, Zelie de, 258-259. Malibran, Maria Felicien, 43, 46-47, 49-53, 54, 55, 61, 77, 81, 107, 131, 143, 273. Malten, Thérèse, 199-200. Mara, Gertrude Elizabeth, 25-28, 38, 59. Marchesi, Luigi, 28, 33. Marchesi, Madame, 202, 231, 238. Marimon, Madame, 289. Mario,----, 17-18. Mario, Cavaliere di Candia, 60, 61, 62, 63, 70-76, 104, 266, 267, 299. Masini, 261-262. Materna, Amalie, 168-175, 180, 200, 272, 280, 315. Maurel, Victor, 263, 268, 287-290. Melba, Madame, 226, 227, 243-248, 258, 275. Mingotti, Caterina, 16. Mitchell, Nellie. See Melba, Madame. Murska, Ilma di, 150-157, 213, 263. Nantier-Didier, Madame, 110. Nevada, Emma, 219, 230-236, 254, 261, 289. Nicolini, Ernest, 110, 139, 260-261. Nicolini, Nicolino Grimaldi, 17-18. Niemann, Albert, 264-265, 272. Nilsson, Christine, 99, 140, 144, 150, 157-168, 174, 184, 193, 211, 253, 263, 268, 306. Nordica, Lillian, 220-230, 254, 258, 272, 275. Nourrit, Adolf, 57-58. Pacchierotti, Gasparo, 22-23. Padilla-y-Ramos, 114. Parepa-Rosa, Euphrosine, 111-113, 174, 197, 305. Pasta, Giuditta, 39, 41-44, 61, 77, 107, 116, 203. Patti, Adelina, 116, 120, 124, 126, 127-142, 144, 145, 150, 152, 157, 161, 164-165, 174, 187, 204-205, 213, 218, 220, 240, 243, 245, 248, 260, 261, 276, 301, 308. Patti, Carlotta, 146-147. Persiani, Fanny, 79-80, 88. Peschka-Leutner, Madame, 113. Phillips, Adelaide, 145, 186, 254, 296-298. Piccolomini, Maria, 111. Pisaroni, Benedetta Rosamunda, 41. Plançon, Pol, 226, 317-318. Puente, Giuseppe del, 263, 291. Puget, 238. Ravelli, 260, 291. Reed, Margaret, 323. Reeves, John Sims, 95-97, 98, 283, 294, 313. Reszke, Edouard de, 226, 272, 281, 289, 315-317. Reszke, Jean de, 98, 226, 227, 228, 272, 273-277, 281, 289, 315. Reszke, Josephine de, 281. Robinson, Anastasia, 13-14. Roger, Gustave Hyppolite, 94-95. Ronconi, Georgio, 89, 104-105. Roquer, Emma. See Calvé, Emma. Rotoli, Angusto, 75. Roze, Marie, 175-178. Rubinelli, Giovanni Battista, 22-23. Rubini, Giambattista, 60, 63-65, 73, 131. Russell, Ella, 251. Salla, Mlle., 309. Sanderson, Sybil, 248-251, 254. Santley, Charles, 112, 284-285, 300, 313. Santley, Edith, 285. Sarti, 28. Scalchi, Sofia, 226, 228, 291, 300-302. Scaria, Emil, 173, 280, 314-315. Schott, Anton, 279. Schröder-Devrient, Madame, 77-78. Seguin, Elizabeth, 111. Sembrich, Marcella, 140-141, 212-214. Senesino, 14. Sontag, Henriette, 39, 45-47, 77, 80, 88, 144. Staudigl, Joseph, 48-49, 101. St. Huberty, Antoinette Cécile Clavel, 24-25. Stockhausen, Julius, 110, 319-320. Strong, Susan, 323. Tacchinardi, 79. Tamagno, Francisco, 131, 280-282. Tamberlik, Enrico, 97-100, 267. Tamburini, Antonio, 60, 65-67. Tenduccini, 30. Thoma, Theresa. See Vogl, Theresa. Tichatschek, Joseph Alois, 104. Tietiens, Theresa Carolin Johanna, 106-109, 300. Todi, 28. Tofts, Katharine, 13. Trebelli-Bettini, Madame, 298-300. Valleria, Alwina, 254, 291, 323. Van Dyck, Ernest Marie Hubert, 250, 277-279. Van Rooy, 283. Van Zandt, Marie, 215-219, 254. Verger, 306. Viardot-Garcia, Madame, 43, 49, 53-57, 79, 95, 107, 114, 303. Vogl, Theresa, 266. Vogl, Heinrich, 265-266, 272. Wachtel, Theodore, 110, 112, 122, 263-264. Weichsel. See Billington. Whitney, Myron W., 313, 319, 322-323. Winkelmann, Hermann, 173, 272, 279-280, 315. Wixom, Emma. See Nevada, Emma. * * * * * The following typographical errors have been corrected by the ebook transcriber: Euphrosyne=>Euphrosine {2} Sidney (unchanged) Astrofiammente=>Astrofiammante Pisaroni, Benadetta Rosamunda=>Pisaroni, Benedetta Rosamunda Gabrielli, Catterina=>Gabrielli, Caterina Crescentini, Girolano=>Crescentini, Girolamo Puente, Guiseppe del=>Puente, Giuseppe del Sontag, Henrietta=>Sontag, Henriette Klafsky, Katarina =>Klafsky, Katharina Malten, Therese=>Malten, Thérèse St. Huberty, Antoinette Cecile Clavel=>St. Huberty, Antoinette Cécile Clavel Carvalho, Mme. Marie Caroline Felix =>Carvalho, Mme. Marie Caroline Félix Plancon=>Plançon {2} Tannhauser=>Tannhäuser {3} Galli-Marie, Mme. Celestine=>Galli-Marié, Mme. Celestine Lohne-Klafsky=>Lohse-Klafsky Billington, Mrs. Elizabeth (née Weichsell)=> Billington, Mrs. Elizabeth (née Weichsel) Capoul, Joseph Victor Amedée=>Capoul, Joseph Victor Amédée Calvè, Emma=>Calvé, Emma 
39392	----	THE SECRETS OF A SAVOYARD [Illustration: The Author as "Jack Point"] THE SECRETS OF A SAVOYARD [Illustration] BY HENRY A. LYTTON JARROLDS PUBLISHERS (LONDON) LTD TO RUPERT D'OYLY CARTE. THE UPHOLDER OF A GREAT TRADITION "THE GONDOLIERS." (After assisting at the first night of the new Gilbert-and-Sullivan revival.) You may boast of your Georgian birds of song And say that never was stuff so strong, That its note of genius simply mocks At yester-century's feeble crocks, And floods the Musical Comedy stage With the dazzling art of a peerless age. But for delicate grace and dainty wit, For words and melody closely knit, Your best purveyors of mirth and joy Were never in sight of the old Savoy; They never began to compete, poor dears, With Gilbert-and-Sullivan's _Gondoliers_. For me, as an out-of-date Victorian, Prehistoric and dinosaurian, I hardly feel that I dare reflect On the art of the day with disrespect; But if anyone asks me, "Who'll survive-- The living dead, or the dead alive? Which of the two will be last to go-- The Gondoliers or the latest show?" I wouldn't give much for the latter's chance; That is the view that I advance, Trusting the public to bear me out (The good from the bad they're quick to sever); "Of this I nurse no manner of doubt, No probable, possible shadow of doubt, No possible doubt whatever."--O. S. _(Reprinted by kind permission of the proprietors of "Punch," and of Sir Owen Seaman._) Contents. PAGE. FOREWORD. BY MR. RUPERT D'OYLY CARTE 8 HENRY A. LYTTON: AN APPRECIATION 9 CHAPTER. I. YOUTH AND ROMANCE 13 II. VAGABONDAGE OF THE COMMONWEALTH 25 III. CLIMBING THE LADDER 38 IV. LEADERS OF THE SAVOY 53 V. ADVENTURES IN TWO HEMISPHERES 69 VI. PARTS I HAVE PLAYED 81 VII. FRIENDS ON AND OFF THE STAGE 94 VIII. HOBBIES OF A SAVOYARD 110 IX. GILBERT AND SULLIVAN 121 THE STORIES OF THE OPERAS 136 A SAVOYARD BIBLIOGRAPHY 185 FOREWORD. _There have been many who have made great reputations in the Gilbert and Sullivan characters and have established themselves as favourites with the public who love and follow the operas, and when the roll comes to be written down finally, if ever it is, Henry Lytton undoubtedly will be assigned a foremost place. He has played a wide variety of the parts, and the scope and versatility of his work is unique. It is unlikely that his record as a Gilbert and Sullivan artiste will ever be surpassed._ [Illustration: (Signature of) Rupert D'Oyly Carte] HENRY A. LYTTON. BY AN ADMIRER OF HIS ART. Sincerely indeed do I offer my good wishes to my old friend, Henry A. Lytton, on his giving to the world this most interesting book, "The Secrets of a Savoyard." Lytton represents a distinct type on our musical comedy stage. No other artiste, I think, has quite that gift of wit which makes one not merely a happier, but a better, man for coming under its spell. Its touch is so true and refined and delightful. Somehow we see in him the mirror of ourselves, our whimsicalities, and our little conceits, and could ever a man captivate us so deliciously with the ironies of life or yet chide us so well with a sigh? Certainly it was fortunate both to him and to us that circumstances, in the romantic manner this book itself describes, first turned his early steps towards Gilbert and Sullivan, and thus opened a career that was to make him one of the greatest, as he is now the last, of the Savoyards. Like the natural humorist he is, he could be and has been a success in ordinary musical comedy rôles, but it is in these wonderful operas that he was bound to find just his right sphere. Lytton in Gilbert and Sullivan is the "true embodiment of everything that is excellent." He was made for these parts, just as they might have been made for him, and no man could have carried into the outer world more of the wholesome charm of the characters he depicts on the stage. He himself tells us on these pages how his own outlook on life has been coloured by his long association with these beautiful plays. So closely, indeed, is he identified in the public mind with the wistful figure of _Jack Point_, or the highly susceptible _Lord Chancellor_, or the agile _Ko-Ko_ that the thousands of Gilbert and Sullivan worshippers who crowd the theatres know all too little of the man behind the motley, the real Henry A. Lytton. For that reason I want to speak less about the great actor whom the multitude knows and more about the manner of man that he is to those, relatively few in numbers, whose privilege it is to own his personal friendship. Lytton's outstanding quality is his modesty. No "star" could have been less spoilt by the flatteries of success or by those wonderful receptions he receives night after night. Something of the eager, impetuous boy still lingers in the heart of him, and he loves the society of kindred souls who have some good story to tell and then cap it with a better one. But all the while he lives for the operas. Even now, after playing in them for twenty-five years, he is constantly asking himself whether this bit of action, this inflection of the voice, this minor detail of make-up, is right. Can it be improved in keeping with the spirit of genuine artistry? So severe a self-critic is he that he will take nothing for granted nor allow his work to become slipshod because of its very familiarity. If ever there was an enthusiast--and there is much in this book to show that he is as great an enthusiast in private life as he is while in front of the footlights--it is Harry Lytton. The great enthusiasm of his life is Gilbert and Sullivan. Nobody who reads these reminiscences will have any doubt about that, for it shows itself on every page, and it is such an infectious enthusiasm that even we who love the operas already find ourselves loving them more, and agreeing with Lytton that they must not be tampered with and brought "up-to-date." From Sir William Gilbert's own lips he heard just what the playwright wanted in every detail, and both by his own acting and by his help to younger colleagues on the stage he has worthily and faithfully upheld the traditions of the Savoy. I have been told more than once by members of the company how, when they have felt disheartened for some reason or other, he would come along with some cheery word, some little bit of advice and encouragement that would make all the difference to them. Often and often he has brightened up the dreary work of rehearsals by his buoyant humour and all-compelling good spirits. What a happy family must be a company that is led by one who is so entirely free from vanity and petty jealousy and whose one aim is to help the performance along! Lytton is _bound_ to have that aim because of his intense loyalty to the operas themselves, but how much springs as well from that inherent kindness of his, which, with that complete lack of affectation, makes him so truly one of Nature's gentlemen. "Each for all and all for each" was the motto of the heart-breaking Commonwealth days, of which he tells us such a pathetic human story here, and it seems to remain his motto now that he has climbed to the top of his profession as a principal of the D'Oyly Carte Company. Lytton's acting always seems to me in such perfect "poise." It is so refined and spontaneous. Each point receives its full measure, and yet is so free of exaggeration or "clowning." He is, that is to say, an artiste to his finger-tips, and no real artiste, even when he is a humorist, has any place for buffoonery. Like the Gilbert and Sullivan operas themselves, he is always so clean and wholesome and pleasant. The clearness of his enunciation is a gift in itself, and his dancing reminds us of the time when all our dancing was so charming and graceful, and thus so different to what it is to-day. And then his versatility! Could one imagine a contrast so remarkable as that between his characterisation of the ugly, repulsive _King Gama_ in "Princess Ida" and the infinitely lovable _Jack Point_ in the "Yeoman of the Guard"? Or between his studies of the engaging and more than candid _Lord Chancellor_ in "Iolanthe" and that pretentious humbug _Bunthorne_ in "Patience"? Or between the endless diversions of his frolicsome _Ko-Ko_ in "The Mikado" and the gay perplexities of the sedate old _General Stanley_ in "The Pirates of Penzance"? So one might continue to speak of his quite remarkable gallery of portraits, both in these operas and apart from them, and one might search one's memory in vain for a part which was not a gem of natural and clever characterisation, rich in humour and unerring in its sympathetic artistry. Yet no rôle of his, I think, stands out with such fascination in the minds of most of us as does dear _Jack Point_, the nimble-witted Merryman. The poor strolling player, with his honest heart breaking beneath the tinsel of folly, is a figure intensely human and intensely appealing, and no less so because of the mingling romance and pathos with which it is played. If Lytton had given us only this part, if he had shown us only in this case how deftly he can win both our laughter and tears, he would have achieved something that would be treasured amongst the tenderest, most fragrant memories of the modern stage. Long may he remain to delight us in these enchanting operas of the Savoy! By them English comic opera has had an infinite lustre added to it--a lustre that will never be dimmed--and no less surely do the operas themselves owe a little of their evergreen freshness and spirit to the art of Henry A. Lytton. THE SECRETS OF A SAVOYARD. I. YOUTH AND ROMANCE. _Apologia--Early Misfortunes of Management--Stage Debut in Schoolboy Dramatics--St. Mark's, Chelsea--The School's Champion Pugilist--The Sale of Jam-Rolls--Student Days with W. H. Trood--An Artist of Parts--A Fateful Night at the Theatre--The Schoolboy and the Actress--A Firm Hand With a Rival--Three Months' Truancy--Our Marriage and Our Honeymoon in a Hansom--The Dominie and the Married Man--First Engagement with D'Oyly Carte--Dilemma of a Sister and Brother._ Eight-and-thirty years on the stage! Looking back over so long a period, memory runs riot with a thousand remembrances of dark days and brighter, and of times of hardship which, in their own way, were not devoid of happiness. It has been my good fortune to own many valued friendships, and it is to my friends that the credit or the guilt, as it may happen to be, of inspiring me to begin this venture belongs. Not once, but many times, I have been asked "Why don't you write your reminiscences, Lytton?" The late Lord Fisher strongly urged me to write them when I paid my last visit to his home a few months before he passed to the Great Beyond. So great was my respect for Lord Fisher, one of the noblest Englishmen of our age, that I felt bound to adopt his suggestion, and it is thus partly in homage to his sterling qualities and gifts that I begin now to reveal these "Secrets of a Savoyard." This much let me say at the very beginning. Naught that is written here will be "set down in malice." Searchers for those too numerous chronicles of scandal will look here for spicy tit-bits in vain. For what it is worth this is the record of one who has lived a happy life, whose vocation it has been to minister to the public's enjoyment, and whose outlook has inevitably been happily coloured by such a long association with the gladsome operas of the old Savoy. I cannot say that my love of the footlights was inherited, but at least it began to show itself at a very early age. One of my earliest recollections is concerned with a little diversion at the village home of my guardian. No doubt my older readers will remember the old gallanty shows which were in vogue some forty or fifty years ago. Explained briefly, these were contrived by use of a number of cardboard figures which, with the aid of a candle, were reflected on to a white sheet, and which could be manipulated to provide one's audience with a rather primitive form of enjoyment. Well, I do not recall where I had been to get the idea, but I decided to have a gallanty show at the bottom of the garden, and to invite the public's patronage. This ranks as my first venture in managerial responsibility. I rigged up a tent--a small and jerry-built contrivance it was--and an announcement of the forthcoming entertainment in my bold schoolboy's hand was pasted on to the outer wall of the garden. The charges for admission were original. Stalls were to be purchased with an apple, lesser seats with a handful of chocolates or nuts, while a few sweets would secure admission to the pit. The boys of the village, having read the notice, turned up and paid their nuts and sweets in accordance with the advertised tariff, but the sad fact has to be related that the show did not please them at all, and by summarily pulling up the pole they brought the tent and the entertainment to grief. In other words, I "got the bird." Nor can I say that was the end of the tragedy. Under threats I had to repay all that the box-office had taken, and as most of the lads claimed more than they had actually given, the stock of nuts and sweets was insufficient to meet the liabilities. So in the cause of art I found myself thus early in life in bankruptcy! My partner in the enterprise proved to be a broken reed, for when the roughs of the village got busy he showed a clean pair of heels and left me alone with the mob and the wreckage. Seeing that this is an actor's narrative, I ought to place on record at once that my first appearance on any stage was in schoolboy dramatics in connection with St. Mark's College, Chelsea. Of St Mark's I shall have much to say. I played the title rôle in "Boots at the Swan." Except that I enjoyed being the cheeky little hotel "Boots" and fancied myself not a little in my striped waistcoat and green apron, I don't remember whether my performance was held to be successful or not, but unconsciously the experience did give me a mental twist towards the stage. St. Mark's was regarded in those times--and I am glad to know is still regarded--as an excellent school for young gentlemen. But certainly my name was never numbered amongst the brightest educational products of that academy. What claim I had to fame was in an entirely different sphere. I was the school's champion pugilist! In those days I simply revelled in fighting. A day without a scrap was a day hardly worth living. Occasionally the older lads thought it good sport to tell the new-comers what an unholy terror they would be up against when they met Lytton. In most cases this was said with such vivid embellishments that the youngsters got a heart-sinking feeling. But there was one lad who was more adroit. He argued that it was all very well for the school champion to fight surrounded by and cheered on by his friends, but that this must put the challenger at a distinct disadvantage. He also considered that no harm would be done if he measured up this much-boomed light-weight before the time came for him to stand up publicly as his antagonist. Luring me, therefore, into a quiet corner one day, he commanded me in so many words to "put 'em up." Now while it is the privilege of a champion to name his own time and conditions, it really was too much to tolerate the pretensions of such an impudent upstart. So we set to in earnest, and very speedily the new boy was giving me some of his best--a straight left timed to the moment--and it needed only two such lefts to make me oblivious of time altogether. Certainly he succeeded in instilling into my mind a decided respect for his prowess. Not being too richly endowed with pocket money, I conceived the idea that to set up in business as the school pastrycook would serve a "long-felt want." Strictly cash terms were demanded. Each day I bought a number of rolls at ½d. each and a pot of jam for 4½d. With these I retailed slices of most appetising bread and jam at a penny a time and made an excellent profit. If the truth must be told the smaller boys got no more than a smear of jam on their bread and the bigger boys rather more than their share, but on the average it worked out fairly well, and the juniors had sufficient discretion not to complain. [Illustration: Sincerely Henry A Lytton] If I had any bent in those days--apart from fighting and selling jam rolls--it was in the direction of painting. For water-colour sketches I had a certain aptitude, and painting remains one of my hobbies, taking only second place to my enthusiasm for golf. For tuition I went to W. H. Trood at his studio in Chelsea. Trood in his time was an artist of parts. He had a fine sense of composition and painted many beautiful pictures. If he had not been deaf and dumb he would have made a great actor, for his gift of facial expression was extraordinary. Clubmen are familiar with a well-known set of five action photographs representing a convivial card-player who has gone "nap." Trood was the subject of those photographs. For some time I attended St. Mark's during the day and went to the studio each evening. I realised very early that there was no money in painting and that it was of little use as a profession. We students were a merry band, and though we had little money, we made the most of what we had to spend. Our studio was only a garret, and it was a common thing for each of us to buy a tough steak for no more than fourpence, grill it with a fork over the meagre fire, and make it serve as our one substantial meal for many hours. It was a Bohemian existence and I have remained a Bohemian ever since. Trood and I were more than master and pupil. We were, if not brothers, then at least uncle and nephew. From time to time we contrived to visit the theatre, for although he could not hear, he loved to study the colour effects on the stage, and had an uncanny talent for following the course of the plot. And one of these nights out was destined to be most fateful for me in my future career. We had gone together into the gallery at the Avenue Theatre (now the Playhouse). The attraction was a French opera-bouffe called "Olivette." And I must confess that my susceptible heart was at once smitten with the charms of a young lady who was playing one of the subsidiary parts. From that moment the play to me was _not_ the thing. Eyes and thoughts were concentrated on that slim, winsome little figure, and I remember that at school the following day the sale of jam rolls was pushed with redoubled vigour in order that I might have the wherewithal to go to the theatre and see my charmer again. I am getting on delicate ground, but the story is well worth the telling. It was clear I could not go on worshipping my fair divinity afar from the "gods." We must make each other's acquaintance. So to Miss Louie Henri I addressed a most courteous note, paying her some exquisite compliments, and inviting her to meet her unknown admirer at the stage door after the performance one night. And my invitation was accepted. I ought to mention here that I was then scarcely seventeen years of age. Louie Henri, as it afterwards transpired, was the same. Well, I bedecked myself in my best and marched off in good time to the trysting place at the stage door. I spent my last sou on a fine box of chocolates. Nothing I could do was to be left undone to make the conquest complete. But first there came a surprise. Another St. Mark's boy was at the stage door already. He, too, had a box of chocolates, and it was bigger than mine. "Who are those for?" I demanded. The tone of my voice must have been forbidding I already had my suspicions. "Louie Henri," answered the lad. Seemingly he thought it wise to be truthful. I had a rival! Crises of this kind have to be met with vigour and thoroughness. "Give them to me," I insisted, "and hook it." The command was terrible in its severity. More than that, I was not the school's champion light-weight for nothing. The rival almost threw the chocolates into my hands and vanished like lightning. When Louie came out there I was with a double load of offerings! She was sensibly impressed. From time to time further delightful meetings took place. Luckily the jam roll trade was flourishing, and so it was seldom the youthful swain met his lady-love empty-handed. Only once did the rival attempt to steal a march on me again. I discovered him loitering round the stage door, but when he saw my fists in a business-like attitude, he apparently realised that discretion was the better part of valour and bolted into the night. All of which proves anew that "faint heart never won fair lady." Louie and I got on famously together, and although we were but children it was not long before we had decided to become engaged. The course of true love was complicated by the fact that while I was at St. Mark's in the daytime she at night had to play her part in "Olivette." So it occurred to me that the only thing was to give up school. I accordingly wrote a letter, in my guardian's name, saying that I was being taken away from St. Mark's for a three-months' holiday, and posted it to the headmaster at Chelsea. Then followed the rapture of sweetheart days. Our pleasures were few--there were no funds for more than an occasional ride on a 'bus--but into the intimacies of those blissful times there is no need to enter. We were married late in 1883 at St. Mary's, Kensington. Louie and I certainly never realised the responsibilities of married life, and love's young dream was not spoiled by anxious reflections about the problem of ways and means, as may be gathered from the fact that our funds were exhausted on the very day of the marriage. I remember that, after the fees at church had been paid, the cash at our disposal amounted to eighteen-pence. The question then was how far this would take us in the matter of a honeymoon. Strolling into Kensington Gardens we decided that we would spend it on the thrills of a ride in a hansom-cab, and the driver was instructed to take us as far as he could for eighteen-pence. The journey was not at all long. I rather think that if the cabby had known the romantic and adventurous couple he had picked up as fares he would have been sport enough to give us a more generous trip. Our plan of action after this honeymoon in a hansom had already been decided upon. My wife went to the theatre for the evening performance. I, on my part, had arranged to go back to school and put the best face on things that was possible. During my absence, of course, it had become known that my guardian's letter was a deception and that my three months care-free existence was truancy. Where I had been the headmaster did not know. What I had done he knew even less. But the delinquency was one which, in the interest of school discipline, had to be visited with extreme severity. The Dominie took me before the class and commenced to use the birch with well-applied vigour. When at the mature age of seventeen one is made a public exhibition of one can have a very acute sense of injured dignity. The rod descended heavily. "Stop it!" I shouted. "You can't thrash me like this. Do you know what you are doing? _You're thrashing a married man!_" "_You_ a married man! You lie!" The birching, bad as it had been, was redoubled in intensity. The master declared that he would teach me a lesson for lying. "But I _am_ a married man," I yelled. "I was married yesterday." But even the dawn of truth meant no reprieve. The explanation put the offence in a still more lurid light. It was bad enough to tell a lie, but a good deal worse to get married, and the headmaster whacked me all the more severely as an awful example to the rest of the boys. Following the thrashing, I enjoyed a fleeting notoriety in the eyes of my school mates, who crowded round to see the interesting matrimonial specimen. "Look who's married!" they shouted. "What's it like?" I'm afraid at the moment that, smarting under the rod, the joys of married life seemed to me to be, as Mark Twain would say, "greatly exaggerated." And worse was to come. Next day the master, considering my knowledge of life made me too black a reprobate to remain in his school any longer, terminated my career as a pupil. For a married man to be in one of the lower classes was too much of an absurdity. Here was a pretty how-d'ye-do! A bridegroom in sad disgrace, and finding himself on the day after his marriage with no work, no prospects, no anything! Louie it was who came to the rescue. "Princess Ida" had just been produced at the Savoy, and she had been engaged for chorus work in the company which was being sent out on a provincial tour, commencing at Glasgow. My wife contrived to see Mr. Carte, and she faithfully followed the strategy that had been decided upon. Seeing that theatrical managers were understood to dislike married couples in companies on tour, she was to ask him whether he would engage her brother for the tour, pointing out that he had a good voice and was "fairly good looking." The upshot was that I was commanded to wait on Mr. Carte. Later in life I came to know him well and to receive many a kindness from him, but this first interview remains in my mind to this day, because it was destined to put my foot on the first rung of the theatrical ladder. "Not much of a voice," was the conductor's comment--not a very flattering compliment, by the way, to one who had been for a long time solo boy in the choir of St. Philip's, Kensington. "Never mind," replied Mr. Carte; "he will do as understudy for David Fisher as _King Gama_." And as chorister and understudy I was engaged. Each of us was to have £2 a week, and in view of our circumstances the money was not merely welcome, but princely. Our troubles seemed to have vanished for ever. One of our difficulties was that, having entered the company as brother and sister, that pretty fiction had to be kept up, and for a devoted newly-married couple that was not very easy. For a brother my attentiveness was almost amusing. The rôle was also sometimes embarrassing. Louie's charms quickly captivated a member of the company who afterwards rose very high in the profession--it would hardly be fair to give his identity away!--and one night he gave me a broad hint that my dutiful watchfulness was carried too far. "Leave her to me," he whispered, affably. When I told him I had promised mother I would not leave her, or some such story, a compromise was arranged whereby after the show, when we were going home, I should drop back and give him the opportunity for playing the "gallant." To have refused would have aroused suspicions that might have led to the discovery of our secret. So like _Jack Point_, I had to walk behind while the other fellow escorted my bride and paid her pretty compliments. It seemed less of a joke at the time than it does to-day. Naturally, the little bubble was bound to explode before long, and it exploded when everything seemed to be going splendidly. It happened when one of the assistant managers, who also admired my wife, somehow induced us to invite him to visit our "digs." "Nice rooms, these," he commented, taking them in at a glance. "What do you pay?" "Sixteen shillings." "Only sixteen shillings? Three rooms for sixteen shillings!" "No! Only two----." The fatal slip! Truth at last had to out. We told him that we had been afraid that, if we had said we were man and wife, we should not have got the engagement, and we were in too much of a dilemma to be sticklers for accuracy. Our "marriage lines" were then and there produced. "Well," said the manager, "you _are_ remarkably alike; no wonder you easily passed for brother and sister." That, in fact, was true. Our marriage, he went on to tell us, would not have been a handicap in the D'Oyly Carte Company. Most managers, he said, did not care for husband and wife to travel together, but that was not the case with Mr. D'Oyly Carte. The news quickly spread through the company, and on every hand we received congratulations. Only one of our colleagues considered that he had a grievance. He was the usurper who had insisted that I should allow him to escort my alleged sister from the theatre to our lodgings. "What a fool you've made of me," he complained. "Why I was going to propose! I did think she would make such a nice little wife!" Long after this it was Mr. Carte's custom, when making enquiries as to my wife, to say dryly, "And how's your sister, Lytton?" Similarly, whenever he spoke to my wife, there was invariably a twinkle in his eye whenever he asked after the welfare and whereabouts of her "brother." [Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AT THE AGE OF TWENTY.] II. VAGABONDAGE OF THE COMMONWEALTH. _£. s. d. on Tour--The Search for Independence--The Old Showman of Shepherd's Bush--Not the "Carte" I Wanted--The Commonwealth--Our Repertory and Our Creditors--"Well, Mr. Bundle"--A Thirsty Situation and a Melodramatic Finale--A Stammerer's Story--Comradeship in Adversity--Roaming the Country--Back in London and the Search for Work--Diverse Occupations and Little Pay--A Savoy Engagement at Last--Understudy to Grossmith--A Real Opportunity._ The "Princess Ida" tour, as I have said, opened at Glasgow. It ran for about a year, with enthusiasm and success wherever the company played, though unluckily for me, my services as understudy were never required. The D'Oyly Carte companies then, as now, were always a happy family, the members of which were always helpful to one another and always remarkably free from those petty jealousies that distinguish some ranks of the profession. Looking back on those romantic times, my wife and I often marvel how, with all our inexperience in housekeeping, our slender finances withstood the strain of our extravagance. Whenever we moved on to a new town we had the usual fears as to what sort of a landlady we were to get. In these times landladies do not always look on actors as their legitimate "prey." But then they were extortioners, though there were, of course, some pleasant exceptions. I remember, for instance, that in some places we were charged 5s. a week for potatoes, and in others only 6d. On the whole, on that tour, we must have been in luck. Notwithstanding that we had lived fairly well--and we did indulge odd tastes for luxuries--we found that at the end of the 52 weeks' engagement we had saved £52. Following the "Princess Ida" tour, we were sent out into the provinces again with other productions, and in this way we served under the Gilbert and Sullivan banner for the best part of two years. But they were not continuous engagements. From time to time we would find ourselves idle and our tiny resources steadily dwindling. Luckily, during this period we always managed to secure a fresh engagement before we had spent our last sovereign, though we were hardly as fortunate in the dark days that were coming. I remember receiving at this time the advice of a dear old friend, a Mr. Chevasse, of Wolverhampton. "The turning-point in your career," he said to me, "will come when you have got 'independence.'" "What," I asked him, "do you mean by that?" "Get £100 in the bank," was his answer, "and in your case that will bring the sense of independence. It will put you on a different footing with everyone you meet, and you will know that at last you are beginning to shape your career yourself. Save everything you can. Save a shilling a week, or two shillings a week, but save whatever happens." And he was right. Later, when I had that £100 stored away, I found myself in a position that enabled me to assert my claim for principal parts, and I was sent out into the provinces to take three leading rôles--_Ko-Ko_, _Jack Point_, and _Sir Joseph Porter_. But this is anticipating my story. Before that time came there were dark days to pass through, days when we did not know where the next meal would come from, and days when we tramped the country as strolling players, footsore and weary. When our modest savings had been exhausted during one prolonged period of "resting," I remember being driven by sheer necessity to apply for an engagement at the booth of an old showman at Shepherd's Bush. I had to do something. So I walked up to the showman, who was standing outside the tent in a prosperous-looking coat with an astrakhan collar, and asked him for a job. What did I want to be? I wanted, I told him, to be an actor, and would play anything from melodrama to low comedy. "All right," said the showman. "Go over there and wash that cart!" I went "over there" and started the washing. But it was no use. Sorry as things were with us, I just could not come down to that, and off I bolted. That was not the sort of "_Carte_" I wanted. Our next venture was very interesting. It brought us no fame, precious little money, a great deal of hardship, and yet a host of pleasant remembrances to look back upon in the brighter days. "We were seven" and one and all down on our luck. Failing to obtain any engagements in town, we decided to band ourselves together as fellow-unfortunates, and to seek what fortune there was as entertainers in the villages and small towns of Surrey. It was to be a Commonwealth. Whatever profits there were made were to be divided equally. One week this division enabled us to take 7s. 10d. each! That was the record. What ill-success our efforts had was certainly not due to any want of "booming." The services of a bill-poster were obviously prohibitive. So at the dead of night we used to put our night-shirts over our clothes to save these from damage, creep out into the streets with our paste-bucket and brush, and fix our playbills to any convenient hoarding or building. It had to be done in double-quick time, but we had spied out the land beforehand, and generally we made sure that our notices were pasted where they would prominently catch the public eye. Our repertory consisted of a striking drama entitled "All for Her," a touching comedy called "Masters and Servants," and an operetta known as "Tom Tug the Waterman." In addition, we did songs and dances, and as it happened these were the best feature of the programme. We had no capital available to spend on dresses and scenery. What we did was to take some ramshackle hall or barn, and then to make a brave show with our posters, though the printer was often lucky if he got more than free tickets for all his family to see our performance. Generally our creditors considered that, as there was small chance of getting any money from us, they might as well have an evening out for nothing. Our costumes were improvised from our ordinary attire. The men figured as society swells by using white paper to represent spats or by tucking in their waistcoats and using more white paper to indicate that they were in immaculate "evening dress." As to scenery all we had was our own crude drawings in crayons and pencil. We presented our plays by what is known as "winging." By that I mean that only one manuscript copy of the play was usually available, and each player had to get an idea of the lines which he or she had to speak after each entrance, though the actual words used on the stage were mainly extemporised. "Winging," even when one has theatrical experience behind one, is not at all easy. I know that in "Tom Tug" I dreaded the very thought of having to go on and make what should have been a long speech designed to give the audience a more or less intelligent idea of the plot. I was so uncertain about it that I took the book on with me in the hope of getting furtive glimpses at it as we went along. "Well, Mr. Bundle," I began. "Well?" Mr. Bundle responded. "Well," I stammered again. "Well?" "Well." The next "Well" did not come from the stage; it came from the audience. "Well?" it yelled, accompanied, so to speak, by a tremendous note of interrogation. "Well?" it echoed again. "Say _something_, can't you?" This was too much. In confusion I rushed off the stage. Even that was not all. I should, as I have said, have outlined the course of the story, but not only did I not do this but in my confusion I left behind me the book of words on which we were all depending. From the others in the wings there came anguished whispers. "Where's the book?" "You've left the book on the table!" So I had to put the best face on things and walk on to get it. But the audience had had enough of me that night. "Get off" they shouted--and I did. "Tom Tug" was also once the occasion of a painful fiasco. Instead of dashing on to the stage where my wife was playing the part of a simple fisher-girl, and greeting her like the jolly sailor-man I was with a boisterous "Here I am my darling," I found myself, standing behind her in such a state of stage-fright that I was absolutely "dried up." I could not utter a word. I simply stood behind her limp, speechless and motionless, and no amount of prompting would induce me to go on with the wooing. So there was nothing for it but to ring down the curtain, and for the rest of the evening we had songs and dances, with which we made amends. "All for Her" was a drama of a desert island that should have melted hearts of stone. We were all dying of thirst (at least, according to the plot). Nowhere on that desert island was water to be found. They sent me out to explore for it while they rolled about the stage moaning and groaning in agony. During my absence from the stage I sat near a fire-bucket in the wings. Then came my cue to reappear. I staggered on famished and weary. The quest had been in vain. "Not a drop," I croaked in a parched, dry voice; "not a drop of water anywhere." "Liar!" screamed the audience in unison. Our audiences, as you will have gathered, were often critical folk who could sit with dry eyes through our most anguishing scenes. It transpired that while I was sitting near that fire-bucket the bottom of my Arab cloak had dipped into the water and there it was dripping, dripping, dripping right across the stage! The dramatic situation was absolutely spoilt. The company included, besides my wife and myself, a young actress named Emmeline Huxley, who after these hard times with us went to America and there undoubtedly "made good." Then there was a "character" whom we called "'Oppy." He was the general utility man who acted as conductor and orchestra rolled into one, and then went behind the scenes to play the cornet, to act as stage adviser, or at a pinch to take a small part. He was an enthusiast who was here, there and everywhere. "'Oppy," in addition to having a wall eye and a club foot, had a decided impediment in his speech, but, strangely enough, he was entirely unconscious of this disability. For that reason we often used to induce him to tell his story of the lady who sang "Home, Sweet Home." This story is bound to lose some of its effect when put into cold print. As "'Oppy" told it the humour was irresistible. "Sh-sh-she wan-wan-ted to go on the sta-sta-sta-stage," he used to say, "and the man-an-an-ager he sa-a-a-aid to her, 'Wh-wh-wh-what can you sing?' And she said, 'Ho-ho-ho-home, Sw-we-we-we-weet Ho-ho-home,' And he told her to sing-sing-sing it. And (here he could not keep a straight face over the poor lady's misfortunes) she-she-she couldn't sing-sing-sing it for-for-for stam-stam-stam-stam-stam-mering." Never did "'Oppy" tell this story, of the ridiculousness of the telling of which he seemed entirely unconscious, without his hearers exploding with laughter. "Wh-what makes you all lau-lau-laugh so?" he used to ask, incredulously. "You lau-lau-lau-lau-laugh altogether to-to-to-too hearty. It's a good-good-good yarn, but I'm dam-dam-dam-damned if it's as fun-fun-fun-funny as that." Once he received an unexpected windfall in the shape of a postal order from a relative for two or three shillings. "Come and have a little dinner with me to morrow," he said to me and my wife. "I know you're hungry." When we arrived we found his plate was already on the table and empty. He apologised profoundly. He had been too hungry to wait for us and had already eaten his dinner. So while my wife and I each enjoyed a chop--the first square meal we had had for many a day--he sat by and kept us entertained. Splendid fellow! Little did we guess that as he did so he was suffering the pangs of hunger accentuated by the sight of our satisfaction. Next day the landlady confided to us the fact that as our friend's windfall had been insufficient to provide chops and vegetables for three, he had smeared his plate with the gravy from the chops we were to have, and then made us believe that he had satisfied his hunger already. What became of him later on I have never discovered. I only know that I have tried hard to find him in order that that noble act of self-denial might be in some generous manner repaid. Neither inquiries nor advertisements, however, have ever revealed his whereabouts to me, and it may be that already this honest fellow has gone to receive his reward. God rest his soul! Then there was Arthur Hendon. If ever a Christian lived it was that sterling fellow. Time after time in those heart-aching days we were on the verge of despair. Luck was dead out. Life was a misery. But Hendon, though he was as sore of heart and as hungry as the rest of us, was always ready with some cheery word, some act of kindness, some "goodness done by stealth." Louie and I were rather small in size, and often as we tramped from one place to another he carried one of us in turn in his arms. For we had little food, and were tired, footsore and "beat." And he, too, was "done." Only his great heart sustained him in those terrible times as our "captain courageous." The Commonwealth venture lasted for about three months altogether. As I have shown it was one continual struggle against adversity and poverty. For some time we were located at Aldershot. Our show ran as a rule from six to eleven o'clock, and for want of better amusement the soldiers gave us a fair amount of patronage at threepence a head. If we did not please them they did not hesitate to fling the dregs of their pint pots on to the stage. One night we felt ourselves highly honoured by the presence of a number of military officers at our performance. "All for Her," I am glad to say, went without a hitch on that gala occasion. Our "theatre" was an outhouse owned by a publican, who was very considerate towards us in the matter of rent, because he found that our presence meant good business for his bar-parlour receipts. From Aldershot we went on to Farnham, and from there to other hamlets where we believed there was an audience, however uncouth and untutored, to be gathered together. Eventually we reached Guildford. By then matters were getting desperate. The Mayor or some other local public man heard of our plight. He drove out to where we were playing, witnessed part of our performance, and engaged us to sing at a garden-party. I remember that, exhausted as we were, gratitude enabled us to give of our very best as the only return we could make for his kindness. He told us it was a great pity that such clever people should be living a precarious existence in the country villages, and offered to pay our train fares to London in addition to the fee for the engagement we had fulfilled. This generosity we accepted with alacrity. The next morning we were back in town again--each to follow his or her different way. So ended the vagabondage of the Commonwealth. It was an experience which none of us was ever likely to forget. Once more in London it would be idle to say that our troubles had disappeared. It meant the dreary search again for employment. Mr. D'Oyly Carte had no immediate vacancies. Other managers had nothing more to offer than promises. Lucky is the actor--if he ever exists--who throughout his career has been free from this compulsory idleness. During this period I had to turn my hand to all sorts of things. Once I called at a draper's shop and secured casual work as a bill distributor. I had to go from door to door in a certain select part of Kensington. I remember I looked at those gilded walls and those red-carpeted stairs with a good deal of envy. Later on I was destined to visit some of those very houses and walk up those same red-carpeted stairs as a guest--those very houses at which to earn an odd shilling or so to buy bread I had delivered those bills! Yes; and there was one house at which I called in those humble days where they abruptly opened the door, showed me a ferocious-looking dog with the most business-like teeth, and significantly commanded me to "get off--and quick!" I had done nothing wrong, and my body and my heart were aching. Years afterwards I became a breeder of bulldogs--about that you shall hear later on--and sold one of them to those very people. And, as if in poetic justice, that bulldog bit them! My training under Trood was turned to advantage during these empty days. A fashion had just set in for plaques. I painted some scores of these terra-cotta miniatures, and although it was not remunerative work, it served to put bare necessities into the pantry. We were living about that time in Stamford Street, off the Waterloo Road, and in those days it was a terrible neighbourhood where one's sleep was often disturbed by cries of "murder" and "police." Our baby's cradle was a travelling basket--we could not afford anything better. I remember, in connection with those plaques, that in after years I was dining at the house of a well-known writer and critic, and he showed me with keen admiration two beautiful plaques, which, he said, had been won by Miss Jessie Bond in a raffle at the Savoy. She had made a present of them to him. "Yes," I commented, "and I painted them." He was kind enough to say that that enhanced their value to him considerably. For a time I went into a works where they made dies for armorial bearings. Here I had to do a good deal of tracing, and the work was fairly interesting. I drew five shillings the first week--hardly an imposing stipend for a family man--but the second week it was ten shillings and the third twenty shillings. Singing at occasional smoking concerts and running errands supplemented this money very acceptably. The job at the die-sinkers might have continued, but the foreman wanted me to clean the floors in addition to doing my artistic work, and at that my dignity revolted. I left. Some months went by in this flitting from one job into another, but it is useless to attempt a full catalogue of my versatility, for it is neither impressive nor very inspiring. During all this hand-to-mouth existence I was calling on theatrical managers. Slender as the rewards which the stage had thus far given me were--just a meagre livelihood and precious little encouragement--the call to return to it remained insistent and strong. Sooner or later I was bound to return, and whether it were to be to good fortune or ill, the very hope buoyed me up. I had worried Mr. Carte with ceaseless importunity. Every week at least I went round to try and see him on the off-chance of an engagement. And at last there came the turn of the tide. It happened on the eve of the first London production of "Ruddigore." Concerning this new opera, the producers had for good reasons maintained an air of secrecy, and the unfolding of the mystery was thus awaited with more than usual public curiosity. It was the talk of the town and the subject of many skittish references in the newspapers. Calling once again at Mr. Carte's office, I caught him, after a long wait, just leaving his room and hurrying along a corridor. Without more ado I button-holed him and asked him once again for an engagement. Mr. Carte was not a man who liked that sort of conduct. "You should not interrupt me like this," he said, in a tone that betrayed his annoyance. "You ought to send up your name." Explaining that I had done so and had been told he was out of town, I repeated my plea for an engagement. Hurrying on his way Mr. Carte told me to go down to the stage. Success had come at last! When Mr. Carte sent a man to the stage that man became _ipso facto_ a member of the company. Later the news came through that Mr. Carte had chosen me as understudy to Mr. George Grossmith as _Robin Oakapple_. This was indeed a slice of good fortune. Understudy to Mr. George Grossmith! "Ruddigore" was produced for the first time on Tuesday, the 22nd January, 1887, at the Savoy. Towards the end of that week Grossmith was taken seriously ill with peritonitis. By an effort he was able to continue playing until the Saturday. Then he collapsed and was taken home for a serious operation. Upon the Monday morning I was told I was to play his part--and play it that very night. Chosen to step into the shoes of the great George Grossmith! Faced with such an ordeal to-day I verily believe I should shirk it. But then, the audacity of youth was to carry me through. The supreme chance had come. At all costs it had to be grasped. III. CLIMBING THE LADDER. _The "Ruddigore" Success--Congratulations from everyone--My First Meeting with Grossmith--Gilbert's Advice to a beginner--Irving's wonderful Acting and its Effect--Speaking to the Man in the Gallery--The Mystery of Jack Point--How My Tragic Ending Was Introduced--Gilbert's Approval--A Memorable Hanley Compliment--Laughter I ought not to have had--Bunthorne's Fall--Accidents, Happy and Otherwise--Ko-Ko's Mobile Toe--Not a Mechanical Trick--The Myth of the Poor Old Man of Seventy--Still Youthful in Spirit and Years._ The Savoy Theatre had its usual large and fashionable audience on that Monday night when I was to play my first big principal part either in or out of London. What my sensations were it would be hard to describe. Nervous I certainly was, and in the front of the house my wife was sitting wondering, wondering whether the stage-fright fiasco in "All for Her" was going to be repeated in this critical performance of "Ruddigore." Both of us knew that here was my great opportunity. If I won the future was assured. If I lost----! I knew the dialogue, and I knew the songs, but during the previous week there had been all too little chance for me to study Grossmith's conception of the part from the "wings." Then my cue came and I went on. The silence of the audience was deathly. They gave me not the slightest welcome. The great Grossmith, the lion comique of his day, was not playing! _Oakapple_ was being taken by an unknown stripling! No wonder they were disappointed and chilling. First I had a few lines to speak, and then I had a beautiful little duet with Miss Leonora Braham, who was playing _Rose Maybud_. And when that duet, "Poor Little Man" was over, and we had responded to the calls for an encore, all my tremors and hesitation had gone. I knew things were all right. With every number the audience grew more and more hearty. The applause when the curtain fell was to me unforgettable. It betokened a triumph. Behind the scenes the principals and the choristers almost mobbed me with congratulations. Up in my dressing-room there were many further compliments. Sir (then Mr.) William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan came to see me together. I heard afterwards that they had been very anxious about the performance. Gilbert, as he shook me by the hand, declared "To-night there is no need for the Lyttons to turn in their graves." Mr. Carte, though always a man of few words, gave me to understand that he realised that his confidence in me had not been misplaced. Cellier, who had occupied the conductor's seat, told me that "From to-night you will never look back." He and I remained fast friends for life. The second act was no less successful. Since then I have come to know how wonderful receptions can be, but never did applause fall more gratefully than when as a young man under the first ordeal of a terrible test, I was making that first appearance at the Savoy. Late as it is, I should like to thank any who were there and who read these lines for that sympathy and encouragement. It gave me confidence in myself and helped me along. For every young artist who comes for the first time before the footlights, may I bespeak always the same kindly feeling? It does mean so much. The Press, to whom my debt has always been great, also said many nice things about that performance. "Carte and Company, it must be admitted," said one leading paper, "are wonderful people for finding out hitherto unexploited talent." Although George Grossmith was at first not expected to live, he made an amazingly rapid recovery, and in about three weeks he was able to resume his part in "Ruddigore." One of the first things he did was to send for me. "Gee-Gee," as the older generation remembers, was in his day a veritable prince of comedians, and in the theatre he was always paid the deference due to a prince. Outside his dressing-room a factotum was always on duty. None dare think of entering without permission. Thus, when I, a mere member of the chorus, was summoned there into the great man's presence, it was regarded by the company as an event, and everyone wanted to know what it was like! Grossmith told me he had heard of my success, gave me a signed copy of his photograph as a memento, and thus laid the foundation of a friendship that was destined to grow very intimate during the coming years. Grossmith was a man of brilliant accomplishments, and as an artiste in facial expression and in wistful fancy, perhaps we have not seen his equal. Shortly after he left the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, he went on tour with a repertory of charming songs he had himself composed, and in that venture he made a good deal of money. For a reason theatre-goers will understand--the desire to avoid becoming a pale imitation of a man playing the same part as oneself--I was never a spectator "in front" when he was in the cast at the Savoy. [Illustration: THE LATE SIR WILLIAM S. GILBERT.] Connected with my "Ruddigore" success I was proud to become the recipient from Gilbert of a gold-mounted walking-stick that is still one of my most treasured possessions, and the letter accompanying this gift it may be well to reproduce:-- 39, Harrington Gardens, South Kensington, 22nd February, '87. MY DEAR SIR,-- Will you do me the favour to accept the accompanying walking-stick as a token of my appreciation of your excellent performance of the part of _Robin Oakapple_, undertaken, as it was, at a very few hours' notice, and without any adequate rehearsal. Faithfully yours, W. S. GILBERT. H. A. Henri, Esq. Let me explain here that, in consequence of the "brother and sister" deception, when I joined the D'Oyly Carte organisation just after my marriage, I adopted my wife's name and was known as H. A. Henri during the early part of my career. It was on Gilbert's own suggestion that I made the change. It was true, as Gilbert said, that I had no adequate rehearsal when I was bidden to step at short notice into George Grossmith's shoes, but during the next few weeks it was my good fortune to be under the playwright's personal coaching. Subsequently I shall have to tell many reminiscences of Gilbert, who in after years gave me the privilege of being both his friend and confidant, but at this moment I want to refer to advice he gave me while "putting me through my paces" in "Ruddigore." In my anxiety I was rather hurrying the speech I was supposed to address to the picture gallery of my ancestors. He pulled me up. "Let me tell you something, young man," he began. "That speech, 'Oh! my forefathers!' is now a short speech, but originally it consisted of three pages of closely-written manuscript. I condensed and condensed. Every word I could I removed until it was of the length you find it to-day. Each word that is left serves some purpose--there is not one word too many. So when you know that it took me three months to perfect that one speech, I am sure you will not hurry it. Try to remember that throughout your career in these operas." Later on he also gave me this sound counsel, "Always leave a little to the audience's imagination. Leave it to them to see and enjoy the point of a joke. I am sure you are intelligent," he went on to say, "but believe me, there are many in the audience who are more intelligent than you!" Now, if an actor in these operas has to be careful of one thing above everything else, it is that of avoiding forcing a point. Gilbert's wit is so neat and so beautifully phrased that it would be utterly spoilt by buffoonery. The lines must be declaimed in deadly seriousness just as if the actor believes absolutely in the fanciful and extravagant thing he is saying. I can think of no better illustration of this than the scene in "Iolanthe" where _Strephon_ rejects recourse to the Chancery Court and says his code of conduct is regulated only by "Nature's Acts of Parliament." _The Lord Chancellor_ then talks about the absurdity of "an affidavit from a thunderstorm or a few words on oath from a heavy shower." What a typical Gilbertian fancy! Well, you know how the "comic" man would say that, how he would whip up his coat collar and shiver at the suggestion of rain, and how he would do his poor best to make it sound and look "funny." And the result would be that he would kill the wittiness of the lines by burlesque. The _Lord Chancellor_ says the words as if he believed an affidavit from a thunderstorm was at least a possibility, and the suggestion that he does think it possible makes the very idea, in the audience's mind, more whimsical still. Imagine, again, in "Patience" how the entire point would be lost if _Bunthorne_ acted as if he himself saw the absurdity of his poem "Oh! Hollow, Hollow, Hollow!" _Grosvenor_, in the same opera, is intensely serious when he laments sadly that his fatal beauty stands between him and happiness. If he were not, the delightful drollery of the piece would, of course, be destroyed. Gilbert, by the way, gave me two other hints which should be useful to those just beginning their careers in the theatre, and they are hints which even older actors may study with profit. He held that it was most important that the artiste who was speaking and the artiste who was being addressed should always be well to the front of the stage. "If you are too far back," he said to me, "you not only lose grip over the audience, but you also lose the power of clear and effective speech." Then there is that old trouble--nearly every novice is conscious of it--as to what one should do with one's hands when on the stage. Somehow they do seem so much in the way, and one does feel one ought to do something with them, though what that something should be is always a problem. I mentioned this matter to Gilbert. "Cut them off at the wrists, Lytton," was his quick reply, "and forget you've got any hands!" Every young professional and young amateur should remember this. So long as one worries about one's hands or one's fingers, one is very liable to be nervous and to do something wrong, and so the only sound rule to follow is to forget them entirely. For a good reason I am going to digress here to tell a story of Sir Henry Irving. It was my good fortune once to be in the wings at the Lyceum when he was playing _Shylock_ in the "Merchant of Venice." The power of his acting upon me that day was extraordinary. Every word I listened to intently until at last, in the trial scene, he had taken out his knife to cut the pound of flesh. I knew, of course, that he was never really going to cut that pound of flesh, but the sharpening of the knife, the dramatic gleam in the great tragedian's eyes, the tenseness of the whole situation, was all too vivid and all too like reality. I hated the sight of bloodshed, and in the shock of anticipation, I fainted. When I came round I was in the green room, and a little later, amongst those who came to see me, was Irving himself. I was deadly white, and if the truth must be told, rather ashamed. But Irving was immensely pleased. He took it as a compliment to the force of his acting. Learning that I was a young actor, he declared that my emotionalism was a good omen, and said that my sensitive and highly-strung nature would help me in my work enormously. Then he went on to give me many hints that should be valuable to every aspirant for success on the stage. One hint I have never forgotten. "See to it," he said, "that you always imagine that in the theatre you have a pal who could not afford the stalls, and who is in the back of the pit or the gallery. Let him hear every line you have to say. It will make you finish your words distinctly and correctly." If it is true, as friends have often told me, that one of the chief merits of my work is the clearness of my elocution in all parts of the house, it is due to the advice given to me in those early days by two of the greatest figures connected with the stage, Gilbert and Irving. Seeing that these operas are now being played by hundreds of amateur societies each year, I want to pass on to those who perform in them this golden rule: Always pitch your voice to reach the man listening from the furthest part of the building. Since Gilbert's death I have often had the feeling that someone is still intently listening to me--someone a long way away! But now I must proceed with my story. When George Grossmith returned to the cast, I was sent out as a principal in one of the provincial companies, and in this work continued for years. Sometimes we played one opera only on tour--the opera most recently produced in town--and sometimes a number of them in repertory. It was towards the end of 1888 that I first played what is, I need hardly say, the favourite of all my parts, _Jack Point_, in the "Yeomen of the Guard," the opera which was Gilbert and Sullivan's immediate successor to "Ruddigore." And in connection with this part let us finally clear up a "mystery." It has been a frequent source of enquiry and even controversy in the newspapers. When at the close of "Yeomen" _Elsie_ is wedded to _Fairfax_, does _Jack Point_ die of a broken heart, or does he merely swoon away? That question is often asked, and it is a matter on which, of course, the real pathos of the play depends. The facts are these. Gilbert had conceived and written a tragic ending, but Grossmith, who created the part, and for whom in a sense it was written, was essentially the accepted wit and laughter-maker of his day, and thus it had to be arranged that the opera should have a definitely humorous ending. He himself knew and told Gilbert that, however he finished it, the audience would laugh. The London public regarded him as, what in truth he was, a great jester. If he had tried to be serious they would have refused to take him seriously. _Whatever_ Grossmith did the audience would laugh, and the manner in which he did fall down at the end was, indeed, irresistibly funny. So it came about that while he was playing _Jack Point_ in his way in London I was playing him in my way in the provinces. The first time I introduced my version of the part was at Bath. For some time I had considered how poignant would be the effect if the poor strolling player, robbed of the love of a lady, forsaken by his friends, should gently kiss the edge of her garment, make the sign of his blessing, and then fall over, not senseless, but--dead! I had told the stage manager about my new ending. From time to time he asked me when I was going to do it, and then when at last I did feel inspired to play this tragic dénouement, what he did was to wire immediately to Mr. Carte: "Lytton impossible for _Point_. What shall I do?" I ought to explain that any departure from tradition in the performance of these operas was strictly prohibited by the management. Thus, while I might demur to the implication that my work was impossible, the fact that he should report me to headquarters was only consistent with his duty. But the sequel was hardly what he expected. The very next day Mr. Carte, unknown to me at the time, came down to Bath. He watched the performance and, after the show, the company were assembled on the stage in order that, in accordance with custom, he could express any criticisms or bestow his approval. What happened seemed to me to be characteristic of this great man's remarkable tact. He first told us that he had enjoyed the performance. "For rehearsals to-morrow," he went on, "I shall want Mr. So-and-so, Mr. So-and-so, Miss So-and-so, Miss So-and-so," and several others. The inference was that there were details in their work that needed correcting. Then he turned to me, shook me most warmly by the hand, and just said very cordially, "Good night, Lytton." And then he left. No "Excellent"--that might have let down the stage manager's authority--but at the same time no condemnation. It was all noncommittal, but it suggested to me, as it actually transpired was the case, that he was anything but displeased with my reading. Gilbert and I, when we had become close friends, often had long talks about this opera, and particularly about my interpretation of the lovable Merryman. I told him what had led me to attempt this conception, and asked him whether he wished me to continue it, or whether it should be modified in any particular way. "No," was his reply; "keep on like that. It is just what I want. _Jack Point_ should die and the end of the opera should be a tragedy." For the sake of fairness I must mention that a fortnight after I had introduced this version of the part, another popular artiste, who was out with one of the other provincial companies, played the rôle in just the same way. It was entirely a coincidence. Neither of us knew that the other had evolved in his mind precisely the same idea, even down to the minutest details, and still less had either of us seen the other play it. One little detail in my make-up for this part may be worth recording. Whenever kings or noblemen in the old days were pleased with their jesters they threw them a ring. For that reason I invariably wear a ring when I appear as _Jack Point_. Simple ornament as it is, it was once owned by Edmund Kean and worn by him on the stage, and another treasured relic of the great tragedian that I possess is a snuff-box, also given to me by my old friend, Charles Brookfield. One of the finest compliments ever paid to me as an artiste occurred at Hanley. We were playing "Yeomen." Many of our audience that night were a rough lot of fellows, some of whom even sat in their shirt sleeves, but there could be no question but that they were keenly following the play. Everywhere we had been on that tour there had been tremendous calls after the curtain. At Hanley when the curtain fell there was--a dead silence! It was quite uncanny. What had happened? Were they so little moved by the closing scene of the piece that they were going out in indifference or in disgust? Gently we drew the edge of the curtain aside, and there, would you believe it, we saw those honest fellows silently creeping out without even a whisper. He was _dead_. _Jack Point_ was _dead_! [Illustration: THE LATE SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN.] I changed in silence myself. The effect of the incident had been so extraordinary. And when I went down to the stage door a crowd of these rough men were waiting. Somehow they knew me for _Point_. "Here he is!" they shouted. "Are you all right, mister, now?" Then, as I walked on, they turned to one another and I overheard one of them say: "He _wasn't_ dead, after all." As they saw the end of the opera they verily believed something had gone wrong. Such a thing in the theatre may possibly be understandable, but that the illusion should have lingered after the curtain had dropped, and even after they had left the theatre and come really to earth in the street, seemed to me extraordinary. The "Yeomen of the Guard" was staged again the following night, but this time the audience must have been told by their pals that they had actually seen me afterwards, and that it was "only a play." _Jack_ didn't die--not really. It was only "pretended." That Hanley audience rather overdrew the gravity of things. Some audiences, on the other hand, go to the opposite extreme and they have their biggest laugh when and where I least expect it. I remember once playing the _Pirate King_ in the "Pirates of Penzance," and as a result of a slip (a physical one) I was the sorry figure in one of those incidents which I might catalogue as "laughs I ought not to have got." I had to come in, armed to the teeth, high up on the stage. By some mischance I slipped down the rocks, and encumbered with all those knives, pistols and cutlasses about me it was a pretty bad drop. The audience, of course, thought my undignified entrance a capital joke. I didn't--it hurt. But I turned the mishap to account, first picking up a dagger and putting it between my teeth, then groping round for the other weapons, and all the while cowing my pirate swashbucklers with a vicious look that suggested "Come on at your peril; I'm ready." That incident was not in the book. Lovers of "Patience" will recall that little diversion where _Lady Jane_ picks up _Bunthorne_ in her arms and carries him off. Well, when Miss Bertha Lewis was playing with me in this scene quite recently, she did something quite unauthorised. She dropped me--it was a terrible crash--and the audience thought it a "scream." In the shelter of the wings I remonstrated with her, pointing out that this was a distinct departure from what Gilbert intended. All the sympathy I got was, "Well, I've dropped you only twice in eight years!" Scarcely an effectual embrocation for bruises! When we were doing "Ruddigore" in Birmingham, some years ago, I broke my ankle in the dance with which the first curtain fell. Somehow I finished the performance, but when I went up to my dressing-room to change I fainted. When I came to I found that my foot had swollen enormously, that the top boot I was wearing had burst, and that they were doing their best to cut it away. The speediest medical aid to be found was that of a veterinary surgeon, and although the pain was awful it was nothing like the feeling of doom when I overheard him saying, "He may not walk again!" Luckily his fears were altogether unfounded, but although the accident has not affected my dancing, the ankle has never been quite right to this day. Once, in the "Yeomen," I kicked one of the posts near the executioner's block. It dislocated my toe, but what a happy accident it was I did not realise until some weeks later, when we were playing "The Mikado," and when I was doing the dance in the "Flowers that Bloom in the Spring," I trod upon a tin-tack, and instinctively drew my toe away, as it were, from the pain. From the audience there came a tremendous roar of laughter. For a moment I could not understand it at all. Looking down, however, I was amazed to find that big toe upright, almost at right angles to the rest of the foot. With my fan I pressed it down--then raised it again. This provoked so much merriment among the audience that I did it a second time, and a third. All this time the theatre was convulsed. I confess that to myself it seemed jolly funny. Here, indeed, was a quaint discovery. This "toe" business has ever since been one of _Ko-Ko's_ greatest mirth-provokers in the "Flowers that Bloom in the Spring." The explanation of its origin shows that it is not a trick mechanical toe nor, as some people suppose, that it is done with a piece of string. The fact is simply that the toe is double-jointed. Now that I have made a brief reference to dancing, I think it may be well to correct a legend which has grown up about my age, and which usually turns up when we have been encored a first or a second time for a dance or some boisterous number, especially in "Iolanthe" or "The Mikado." "Isn't it a shame?" I know some dear kind friends say, "making him do it again. Poor old man! He's well over seventy." Others declare, "Isn't he a marvel for sixty-five?" Well, if a man is as old as he feels, then my age must still be in the thirties, and certainly there is no intention on my part of retiring just yet. But if we have to go by the calendar, and if it is necessary that there should be "no possible shadow of doubt" in the future as to my age, I had better put on record the fact that I was born in London on January 3rd, 1867. The rest, a small matter of arithmetic, may be left to you. At all events I am still some distance from the patriarchal span. The stage is a wonderful tonic in keeping one healthy and strong. Not once, but many times, I have gone to the theatre in the evening suffering from neuralgia, but the moment my cue comes the pain has entirely disappeared. No sooner, worse luck, have I finished for the night than it has returned! IV. LEADERS OF THE SAVOY. _Memories of Gilbert--His instinct for stagecraft--Stories of rehearsals--Jack Point's unanswered conundrum--The craze for the Up-to-Date--Gilbert's experiments on a miniature stage--Nanki-Poo's address--The Japanese colony at Knightsbridge--The geniality of Sullivan--A magician of the orchestra--The cause of an unhappy separation--Only a carpet--Impressions of D'Oyly Carte--Merited rebukes and generous praise--D'Oyly Carte and I rehearse a love scene--A wonderful business woman--Mrs. Carte's part in the Savoy successes--Our leader to-day._ Sir William Gilbert I shall always regard as a pattern of the fine old English gentleman. Of that breed we have only too few survivors to-day. Some who know him superficially have pictured him as a martinet, but while this may have been true of him under the stress of his theatrical work, it fails to do justice to the innate gentleness and courtesy which were his great and distinguishing qualities. Upright and honourable himself, one could never imagine that he could ever do a mean, ungenerous action to anyone, nor had any man a truer genius for friendship. Gilbert, it is true, had sometimes a satirical tongue, but these little shafts of ridicule of his seldom left any sting. The _bons mots_ credited to him are innumerable, but while many may be authentic there are others that are legendary. He was a devoted lover of the classics, and to this may be attributed his command of such beautiful English. Nimble-witted as he was, he would spend days in shaping and re-shaping some witty fancy into phrases that satisfied his meticulous taste, and days and weeks would be given to polishing and re-polishing some lyrical gem. But when a new opera was due for rehearsal, the libretto was all finished and copied, and everything was in readiness. Few men have had so rare an instinct for stagecraft. Few men could approach him in such perfect technique of the footlights. Up at Grim's Dyke, his beautiful home near Harrow, he had a wonderful miniature stage at which he would work arranging just where every character should enter, where he or she should stand or move after this number and that, and when and where eventually he or she should disappear. For each character he had a coloured block, and there were similar devices, of course, for the chorus. Thus, when he came down for rehearsals, he had everything in his mind's eye already, and he insisted that every detail should be carried out just as he had planned. "Your first entrance will be here," he would say, "and your second entrance there. 'Spurn not the nobly born' will be sung by _Tolloller_ just there, and while he sings it _Mountararat_ will stand there, _Phyllis_ there," and so on. When the company had become familiar with the broader outlines of the piece, he would concentrate attention upon the effects upon the audience that could be attained only by the aid of facial expression, gesture and ensemble arrangement. Not only did he lay down his wishes, but he insisted that they must be implicitly obeyed, and a principal who had not reached perfection in the part he was taking would be coached again and again. I remember once that, in one of those moods of weariness and dullness that occasionally steal over one at rehearsals, I did not grasp something he had been telling me, and I was indiscreet enough to blurt out, "But I haven't done that before, Sir William." "No," was his reply, "but I have." The rebuke to my dullness went home! It was Durward Lely, I think, whom he told once to sit down "in a pensive fashion." Lely thereupon unmindfully sat down rather heavily--and disturbed an elaborate piece of scenery. "No! No!" was Gilbert's comment, "I said pensively, not ex-pensively." That quickness of wit was very typical. George Grossmith once suggested that the introduction of certain business would make the audience laugh. Gilbert was quite unsympathetic. "Yes!" he responded in his dryest vein, "but so they would if you sat down on a pork pie!" Grossmith it was, too, who had become so wearied practising a certain gesture that I heard him declare he "had rehearsed this confounded business until I feel a perfect fool." "Ah! so now we can talk on equal terms" was the playwright's instant retort. And the next moment he administered another rebuke. "I beg your pardon," said the comedian, rather bored, in reference to some instructions he had not quite understood. "I accept the apology," was the reply. "Now let's get on with the rehearsal." You will remember that in "The Yeomen" poor _Jack Point_ puts his riddle, "Why is a cook's brainpan like an overwound clock?" The Lieutenant interposes abruptly with "A truce to this fooling," and the poor Merry-man saunters off exclaiming "Just my luck: my best conundrum wasted." Like many in the audience, I have often wondered what the answer to that conundrum is, and one day I put a question about it to Gilbert. With a smile he said he couldn't tell me then, but he would leave me the answer in his will. I'm sorry to say that it was not found there--maybe because there was really no answer to the riddle, or perhaps because he had forgotten to bequeath to the world this interesting legacy. Sir William not only studied the entrances and exits beforehand, but he came with clear-cut ideas as to the colour schemes which would produce the best effect in the scenery, laid down the methods with which the lighting was to be handled, and arranged that no heavy dresses had to be worn by those who had dances to perform. No alterations of any kind could be made without his authority, and thus it comes about that the operas as presented to-day are just as he left them, without the change of a word, and long may they so remain! I ought, perhaps, to answer criticisms which are often laid against me when, as _Ko-Ko_ in "The Mikado," I do not follow the text by saying that _Nanki-Poo's_ address is "Knightsbridge." I admit I substitute the name of some locality more familiar to the audience before whom we are playing. Well, it is not generally known that Knightsbridge is named in the opera because, just before it was written, a small Japanese colony had settled in that inner suburb of London, and a very great deal of curiosity the appearance of those little people in their native costumes aroused in the Metropolis. Gilbert, therefore, in his search for "local colour" for his forthcoming opera, had not to travel to Tokio, but found it almost on his own doorstep near his home, then in South Kensington. A Japanese male-dancer and a Geisha, moreover, were allowed to come from the colony to teach the company how to run or dance in tiny steps with their toes turned in, how to spread or snap their fans to indicate annoyance or delight, and how to arrange their hair and line their faces in order to introduce the Oriental touch into their "make-up." This realism was very effective, and it had a great deal to do with the instantaneous success of what is still regarded as the Gilbert and Sullivan masterpiece. [Illustration: THE LATE MR. RICHARD D'OYLY CARTE.] But to return to the point about Knightsbridge. When "The Mikado" was produced at the Savoy, the significance of the reference to a London audience was obvious and amusing enough, but it was a different matter when the opera was sent into the provinces. Gilbert accordingly gave instructions that the place was to be localised, and there was and always is something very diverting to, say, a Liverpool audience in the unexpected announcement that _Nanki-Poo_, the great Mikado's son, is living at "Wigan." In the case of Manchester it might be "Oldham" or in that of Birmingham "Small Heath." What I want to make clear is that, so far from any liberty being taken on my part, this little variation is fully authorised, and it is the only instance of the kind in the whole of the operas. Sir Arthur Sullivan I knew least of the famous triumvirate at the Savoy. I was under him, of course, at rehearsals, and we had pleasant little talks from time to time, but my relations with him were neither so frequent nor so intimate as they were with the other two partners. We had a mutual friend in Francois Cellier, about whose work as conductor I shall have more to say, and it was through him that I learned much about the fine personal and musical qualities of the composer. Certainly Sullivan was a great man, intensely devoted to his art, and fame and fortune never spoilt a man less. A warm-hearted Irishman, he was always ready to do a good turn for anyone, and it was wonderful how the geniality of his nature was never clouded by almost life-long physical suffering. Sullivan lived and died a bachelor, and I believe there was never a more affectionate tie than that which existed between him and his mother, a very witty old lady, and one who took an exceptional pride in her son's accomplishments. Nor is it generally known that he took upon himself all the obligations for the welfare and upbringing of his dead brother's family. It was to Herbert Sullivan, his favourite nephew, that his fortune was bequeathed. Of Sullivan the musician I cannot very well speak. I have already owned that I have little real musical knowledge. But at the same time he always seemed to me to be something of a magician. Not only could he play an instrument, but he knew exactly what any instrument could be made to do to introduce some delightful, quaint effect into the general orchestral design. "No! No!" he would say at a rehearsal to the double bass, "I don't want it like that. I want a lazy, drawn-out sound like this." And, taking the bow in his fingers, he would produce some deliciously droll effect from the strings. "Oh, no! not that way," he would say to the flutes, and a flute being handed up to him, he would show how the notes on the score were to be made lightsome and caressing. Then it would be the turn of the violins. At the earlier rehearsals it was often difficult for the principals to get the tune of their songs. The stumbling block was the trickiness of rhythm which was one of the composer's greatest gifts. Now, although I cannot read a line of music, my sense of rhythm has always been very strong, and this has helped me enormously both in my songs and my dancing. Once when Sir Arthur was rehearsing us, and we simply could not get our songs right, I asked him to "la la" the rhythm to me, and I then got the measure so well that he exclaimed "That's splendid Lytton. If you're not a musician, I wish there were others, too, who were not." One story about Sullivan--I admit it is not a new one--well deserves telling. Standing one night at the back of the dress-circle, he commenced in a contemplative fashion to hum the melody of a song that was being rendered on the stage. "Look here," declared a sensitive old gentleman, turning round sharply to the composer, "I've paid my money to hear Sullivan's music--not yours." And whenever Sir Arthur told this story against himself he always confessed that he well deserved the rebuke. Gilbert and Sullivan were collaborators for exactly twenty-five years. It was in 1871 that they wrote "Thespis," a very funny little piece of its kind that was produced at the Gaiety, and it was this success that induced Mr. Richard D'Oyly Carte to invite them to associate again in the writing of a curtain-raiser destined to be known as "Trial by Jury." From that time until 1889 they worked in double harness without a break, and it was in that latter year, after the most successful production of "The Gondoliers" that there came the unfortunate "separation." It lasted four years. When, in 1893, the two men re-united their talents, they gave us that delightfully funny play, "Utopia Limited." But with "The Grand Duke" in 1896--and the superstitious will not overlook that this was the thirteenth piece they had written together--the curtain finally came down upon the partnership. It may be expected of me that I should say something about the cause of the famous "separation." It is a matter I should prefer to ignore, partly because the consequences of it were so very unfortunate to the cause of dramatic and musical art, and partly because the reason of it was trivial to a degree. Slight "tiffs" there may have been between the two from time to time--that was inevitable under the strain of rehearsals--but these minor differences were mended within a day or a night. What caused the rift was--would you believe it?--a carpet! This Mr. Carte, who under the contract was responsible for furnishings, had bought for £140, as a means of adding to the comfort, as he believed, of the patrons of the Savoy. Seeing this item in the accounts, Mr. Gilbert objected to it as a sheer waste of money, arguing that it would not bring an extra sixpence into the exchequer. The dispute was a mere "breeze" to begin with, but Gilbert and Carte had each a will of his own, and soon the "breeze" had developed into a "gale." And that miserable carpet led at last to the break-up of the partnership. Sullivan, whether he agreed with the purchase or not, did his best to put an end to the quarrel, but as in the end he had to adhere to one side or the other, he linked himself with Mr. Carte. This, then, was the sole cause of the breach, and by none was it more regretted than by the principals. Gilbert, I know, felt this severance from his old friend very acutely, though in our many talks in after years he was always inclined to be a little reticent as to this subject. Sullivan, too, though he went on composing, was not at all fortunate in his choice of lyrical writers, none of whom had the deftness and quaint turn of fancy of the playwright with whom he had worked so long and so successfully. Before I leave Sullivan, I think students of music will be interested to hear what Cellier once told me as to the composer's methods in writing his beautiful songs. With Gilbert's words before him, he set out first to decide, not what should be the tune, but the rhythm. It was this method of finding exactly what metre best suited the sentiment of the lyric that gave his music such originality. Later, having decided what the rhythm should be, he went on to sketch out the melody, but it was seldom that he set to work on the orchestration until the rehearsals were well under way. In the meanwhile the principals practised their songs to an accompaniment which he vamped on the pianoforte. Sullivan, who could score very quickly, had a mind running riot with musical ideas, and he could always pick out the idea for a given number that fitted it like the proverbial glove. "I have a song to sing O!" he regarded, I have been told, as the most difficult conundrum Gilbert ever set him, and musicians tell me that, in sheer constructive ingenuity, it is one of the cleverest numbers in the "Yeomen of the Guard." Now I must turn to Mr. D'Oyly Carte. From time to time in this book I have given indications as to the manner of man that he was, but although much is known about his capacity as a business manager, the world knows very little indeed of his kindly generosity. It was impossible, of course, for him to take into the company every poor actor who was down on his luck, but certain it is that he never sent him empty away. Seldom did he leave his office without seeing that his pockets were well laden with sovereigns. Out in the Strand, as he knew, there would be some waif of our profession waiting for him, always sure that under cover of a handshake, Mr. Carte would press a golden coin upon him with a cheery "see you get yourself a good lunch," or "a good supper." Mr. Carte, as I have said before, was a man of few words and of a rather taciturn humour, but it would be wrong to think that he was not fond of his joke. First, however, let me tell the story of a small youthful folly of mine, in "The Mikado." It happened in the second act where _Ko-Ko_, _Pooh Bah_ and _Pitti Sing_ are prostrate on the floor in the presence of the _Emperor_. We three had to do our well-known "roll-over" act in which I, like _Pitti Sing_ herself, had to bear the weight of the 20-stone of dear old Fred Billington. Well, an imp of mischief led me one night to conceal a bladder under my costume, and when Fred rolled over it exploded with a terrible "bang." Billington had the fright of his life. "What's happened Harry?" he whispered anxiously, his nose still to the floor, "What have I done?" I am afraid that in those days I had an incurable weakness for practical joking. One night I went for dinner into a well-known hotel in the Strand. Soon after I had entered the restaurant I was roughly grasped by one would-be diner, who was obviously in a very bad temper, and who demanded to know why no one had been to take the order for himself and his guests. Well, if I was to be mistaken for a waiter, it would be just as well to play the part. "Pardon, monsieur!" I exclaimed, dropping at once into a most deferential attitude, and immediately getting ready to write down his order on the back of a menu-card that was handy. The diner, still in the worst of humours, recited the courses he had selected. "And wine, monsieur?" I asked. Yes, he wanted wine as well, and that order also was faithfully booked. Then I went to the far end of the room to join my own party of friends. What combustible heat the diner developed when he found that his wishes were still unattended to, and what verbal avalanche the real waiter had to endure when he had to ask that the order should be repeated, are matters upon which no light can be thrown--by myself! But to return to the story of the "explosion" in "The Mikado." My little bit of devilment was duly reported to the management. Mr. Carte summoned me before him and looked very grave. Unauthorised diversions of this kind would never do--and certainly not when perpetrated by a leading principal. "I think it is about time you stopped your schoolboy pranks," was his rebuke. But a different side of Mr. Carte was seen in connection with a certain incident at the Savoy. The point to remember is that it had reference to something that did not involve any liberties with the performance, and this fact put it, in his eyes, in an entirely different category. We had in the company a man who was always telling tales about the rest to the stage manager. So one night some of us got hold of him, ducked his head in a bucket of dirty water, and kept it there as long as we dare. Naturally he reported us, and in due course we were summoned to attend and explain our conduct to Mr. Carte. We were bidden to enter his room one by one. I, as one of the ring-leaders, was the first to go in. "This is very serious," said Mr. Carte, but having heard my explanation of the incident, and still looking exceedingly severe, he warned me that "this sort of thing must not happen again." Then, as a smile stole over his face, he added "All the same I might have done it myself!" With that he told me, when I went out of the room, to put one hand on my temple and, with the other stretched out in the air, to exclaim "Oh! it's terrible--terrible." What the effect of this melodramatic posture was on those anxiously waiting outside may well be imagined. It could only mean instant dismissal for all of us. Then Mr. Carte had another culprit before him, and having formally rebuked him, commanded him to make his exit in much the same way. It was an excellent joke--except for those at the end of the queue. It was Mr. D'Oyly Carte, by the way, who once did me the compliment of saying, "My dear Lytton, you have given me the finest performance I have ever seen of any part on any stage." Strange as it may seem to-day, the rôle which I was playing then, and which drew those most cordial words from one whose praise was always so measured and restrained, was that of _Shadbolt_ in the 1897 London revivals of "The Yeomen of the Guard." It was impossible for a small man to play the part just as the big men had played it, and so my interpretation of it was that of a creeping, cringing little dwarf who in manner, in method and in mood was not unlike Uriah Heep. This seemed to me to be consistent with the historical figure from which the part was drawn. Gilbert, it is not generally known, took him from a wicked, wizened little wretch who, in the sixteenth century, so legend says, haunted the Tower when an execution was due, and offered the unhappy felon a handful of dust, which was, he said, "a powder that will save you from pain." For reward he claimed the victim's valuables. [Illustration: MR. RUPERT D'OYLY CARTE.] When, by the way, Mr. Carte told me that mine was the best performance he had ever seen on any stage, I was so flattered by the compliment that I asked him if he would write his opinion down for me, and he readily promised to do so. Within a day or two I received a letter containing those words over his signature, and it remains amongst my treasured possessions. Only once did I know him to be guilty of forgetfulness, and that was when, meeting me in London, he said: "Oh! I think I can offer you an engagement, Lytton." I had to point out to him that I was actually playing in one of his companies. We were, I think, at Greenwich at the time, and I was making a flying visit to London. Mr. Carte was a great stage manager. He could take in the details of a scene with one sweep of his eagle eye and say unerringly just what was wrong. Shortly before I was leaving town for a provincial tour he noticed that _Ko-Ko's_ love scene with _Katisha_ might be improved, and so we went together for an extra rehearsal into the pit bar at the Savoy. Mr. Carte said he would be _Katisha_ and I, of course, was to be _Ko-Ko_. Now, to make love to a bearded man, and a man who was one's manager into the bargain, was rather a task but we both entered heartily into the spirit of the thing. "Just act as you would if you were on the stage," was his advice, "though you needn't actually kiss me, you know!" For this scene we had an audience of one. Little Rupert D'Oyly Carte was there, and before the rehearsal commenced I lifted him on to the bar counter, where he sat and simply held his sides with laughter watching me making earnest love to his father! I imagine he remembers that incident still. That "eye" for stagecraft, which in Mr. Richard D'Oyly Carte amounted to genius, has been inherited in a quite remarkable degree by his son, Mr. Rupert D'Oyly Carte. He, too, has the gift of taking in the details of a scene at a glance, and knowing instinctively just what must be corrected in order to make the colours blend most effectively, the action move most perfectly, and the stage arrangement generally to be in balance and proportion. I need not say that in all this he most faithfully observes all the traditions which have stood so well the test of time. So far I have given in this chapter my random reminiscences of the chief three figures--the triumvirate, as I have called them--at the Savoy. But there was also a fourth, and it would be a grave omission were I not to mention one who, in my judgment, was as wonderful as any of them. I refer to Miss Helen Lenoir, who, after acting for some years as private secretary to Mr. Carte, became his wife. There was hardly a department of this great enterprise which did not benefit, little though the wider public knew it, from Mrs. Carte's remarkable genius. It was not alone that hers was the woman's hand that lent an added tastefulness to the dressing of the productions. She was a born business woman with an outstanding gift for organisation. No financial statement was too intricate for her, and no contract too abstruse. Once, when I had to put one of her letters to me before my legal adviser, though not, I need hardly say, with any litigious intent, he declared firmly "this letter _must_ have been written by a solicitor." He would not admit that any woman could draw up a document so cleverly guarded with qualifications. Mrs. Carte, besides her natural business talent, had fine artistic taste and was a sound judge, too, of the capabilities of those who came to the theatre in search of engagements. The New York productions of the operas were often placed in her charge. Naturally enough, the American managers did not welcome the "invasion" any too heartily, and her responsibilities over there must have been a supreme test of her tact and powers of organisation. Yet the success of these transatlantic ventures could not be gainsaid. When her husband died Mrs. Carte took the reins of management entirely into her keeping, and it was one of her most remarkable achievements that, notwithstanding constant pain and declining health, this wonderful woman should have carried the operas through a period when, owing to the natural reaction of time, they were suffering a temporary eclipse. Long before she died in 1913 they had entered upon a new lease of life, and to-day we find them once more on the flood tide of prosperity, loved alike by those who are loyal to their favourites of other days and no less by those of the younger generation who have been captivated by all their joyous charm of wit and melody. Our leader to-day is Mr. Rupert D'Oyly Carte. Of him I find it difficult to speak, as is bound to be the case when one is working in constant association with one who has the same cause at heart, and sharing with him the earnest intention that the great tradition of these operas shall be worthily and faithfully upheld. Upon Rupert D'Oyly Carte's shoulders has fallen the mantle of a splendid heritage. Speaking as the oldest member of his company, and no less as one who may claim also to be a friend, I can assure him that the happy family of artistes who serve under his banner, and who play in these pieces night by night with all the more zest because they love them for their own freshness and grace, will always do their part under him in keeping alight the "sacred lamp" of real English comedy that was first kindled into undying fires within the portals of the Savoy. V. ADVENTURES IN TWO HEMISPHERES. _Actors in real life--Reminiscences of my American visit--A thrill in Sing-Sing--The detective and the crook--Outwitting the Pirates--In "The Gondoliers" in New York--A cutting Press critique--Orchestral afflictions--Our best audiences--Enthusiasm in Ireland and a short-lived interruption--Exciting fire experiences--Too realistic thunder and lightning--"Hell's Full."_ "Lytton," said a well-known man of affairs to me, "we are all actors. You are an actor. I am an actor. Come with me to a meeting at which I am to make a speech and I will show you a real-life drama truer than ever you will see or hear on the stage. The audience would kill me if they dare. They would rend me limb from limb. And yet in half-an-hour--mark my words, in half-an-hour!--they will be shaking me by the hand and everything will be ending happily." We were in Holborn at the time and we took a short cab-ride into the City. My friend had to meet the shareholders of a company which he had promoted and which had not been prospering. No sooner had he entered the meeting room than he was met with a hostile reception. Epithets of an unequivocally abusive kind were flung at him from every side. Men shook their fists in his face. When he reached the platform the demonstration was redoubled, and at first he was not allowed to speak. Solidly he stood his ground waiting for the storm to subside. Eventually they did allow him to speak, and first to a crescendo and then to a diminuendo of interruption he told them how the failure of things could not be his fault at all, how he was ready to stand by the venture to the very end, how he would guarantee to pay them all their money back with interest, and how he would work the flesh off his bones to put the company right. Here, indeed, was real drama--and at a company meeting. Here was a man fighting for his commercial existence, and by the force of wits, sheer self-confidence and personal magnetism gradually winning. Just after the meeting closed a number of those infuriated shareholders were on the platform shaking him by the hand and telling him what a fine fellow he was. Towards the end of his speech I had seen him look at his watch and flash a significant glance in my direction. "Well," he said, when he rejoined me, quite calm and collected, "I did it under half-an-hour--in fact, with just a minute to spare." It is an incident like this which proves that histrionics is no theatrical monopoly. I once met another actor in real life--this time in America. I had gone to New York to do the _Duke_ in "The Gondoliers." Amongst the many delightful people I met there was General Sickles. Sickles was a "character," and also a man of influence. Only a few weeks before he had met Captain Shaw, the chief of the London Fire Brigade, whom Gilbert has immortalised in the Queen's beautiful song in "Iolanthe." Shaw had argued with the General that America's fire-fighting methods were not as speedy as they were in England. "Oh! aren't they?" was the reply. "Come and see." Forthwith the General, who was not a fire chief himself, but who had been Sheriff of New York and was thus a powerful individual, ordered out the New York Fire Brigade. No sooner had a button been touched than the harness automatically fell on the horses, the men came flying down a pole right on to the engine, and in so many seconds the brigade was ready. Long since, of course, all these methods have been adopted in this country, and I believe I am right in saying that the improvement followed this visit of Captain Shaw to the United States. I myself saw a turn-out of the brigade and thought their swiftness astonishing. It was General Sickles who introduced me to Mr. Burke, a famous New York detective of his day, who took me on a most interesting tour of Sing-Sing Prison. He persuaded me to sit in the electric chair, and having put the copper band round my head and adjusted the rest of the apparatus, he took a big switch in his hand and said, "I've simply got to press this and you're electrocuted--dead in a jiffy!" I'll own up I did not share his affection for his plaything. The experience was not at all pleasant. Burke, as an additional thrill, asked me if I should like to meet a notorious bank robber, whom I will call Captain S. It was arranged that the three of us should have dinner together. Captain S., the other real-life actor referred to, was at that time enjoying a spell of liberty, and to me it was amazing how cordial was the friendship between the great detective and the great "crook." When "business" was afoot it was a battle of wits, with the bank robber bringing off some tremendous haul and the detective hot on his tracks to bring him to justice, and probably it was because each had so much respect for the other's talents that socially they could be such excellent pals. "Yes, Burke," I heard Captain S. say, "you've 'lagged' me before this and I expect you'll do it again." I found him a delightful companion, with a fund of good stories, and he played the violin for us most beautifully. Captain S. told us how he planned one of his earlier exploits. It was his custom to pose as an English philanthropist, who was almost eccentric in his liberality and who made himself _persona grata_ in society. Even the most suspicious would have been disarmed by one so benevolent both in manner and in appearance. In this particular case, having decided on the bank he intended to rob, he took a flat over the building. One part of the day was spent in preparing his gang for the coup and the other part in performing kindly acts of charity. "I really felt sorry," he told us, "when the time had come to do the trick. I had been spending a lot of money and thoroughly enjoying myself. Luckily, we had found that, although the bank had steel walls and a steel floor, it had just an ordinary ceiling. That, of course, helped us enormously, and we got away with a regular pile. I left a note on the counter: 'You must blame the designer of the bank for this, not me.'" I have not yet explained the circumstances that took me to America. Shortly after "The Gondoliers" had been produced in London it was put on in the States. No sooner had any new Savoy opera been successfully launched in London than preparations were pushed forward for its production on the other side of the Atlantic. This, in point of fact, was done as a precaution. Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte had learnt the need of that by bitter experience in their earlier ventures, which had been exploited by "pirates." These nimble gentlemen, having secured a rough idea of the new opera that was being produced in London, lost no time in bringing out a miserable travesty of it under the identical title that it was given at the Savoy. Thus not only did they trade on the reputation of these operas, but they were able to prevent the genuine production being given under its own title, inasmuch as this would have transgressed the law of copyright. So the "pirates" had to be forestalled by an immediate staging of the real operas, and in some cases these were put on in America simultaneously with, and in one case actually before, the productions in England. [Illustration: THE LATE MRS. RICHARD D'OYLY CARTE.] "The Gondoliers" in America was not a success. Mr. Carte, who was there at the time, tried to mend matters by completely re-casting the play. I was in York, and I received a cable "Come to New York." It was never my custom to question my manager's requests. Whenever he commanded I was ready to obey. So from York to New York I travelled by the first available steamer and was soon playing the _Duke of Plaza-Toro_. During my first interview with Mr. Carte after my arrival there occurred an incident characteristic of the great manager. "Lytton," he said, producing his note-book, "I believe you owe me £50." I admitted it--the loan had been for a small speculation. "Well," was his reply, striking his pen through the item, "that debt is paid." It was in this way that he chose to show his appreciation of my action in responding to his summons immediately. What I remember most about "The Gondoliers" was the simply uproarious laughter with which the audience greeted the line in the Grand Inquisitor's song, "And Dukes were three a penny." It was quite different to the smiles with which the phrase is received in England. The significance of their merriment was the fact that no fewer than seven men had taken the part of the _Duke of Plaza-Toro_! I myself was there as the seventh! A Press critic, having drawn attention to this rather prolific succession, proceeded to place the seven in the order of merit--at least, as it appeared to his judgment. He gave six of the names in his order of preference in ordinary type, and then came a wide gap of space, followed by the last name in the minutest type. While I do not remember where I stood I do know that mine was not the name in such conspicuous inconspicuousness! Speaking of Press criticisms, which in this country are almost invariably fair and judicious, it was my curious experience once to go into a barber's shop in a small town in which we were playing and to find the wielder of the razor very keen about discussing the operas. He then urged me to be sure to buy a copy of the _Mudford Gazette_. "I've said something very nice about you," he said. I looked perplexed. "Oh! I'm the musical critic, you know," explained the worthy Figaro. Our "properties" in the small towns were sometimes a little primitive. Once in "The Gondoliers" our gondola was made of an egg-box on a couple of rollers, and we had to wade ashore. This was at Queenstown, where there was a strike, and we could not get all our baggage from the liner that had brought us from America. But often the chief affliction was the orchestra. I remember one violinist whose efforts were woeful. "You can't play your instrument," the conductor told him at last in exasperation. "Neither would you if your hands were swollen with hard work like mine," was his retort. "This job doesn't pay me. I just come here in the evening." It transpired that he was a bricklayer. At another place the musicianship of one instrumentalist was truly appalling. "How long have you been playing?" asked the conductor. "Thirty years man and boy," was the response. "It is thirty years too long," was the retort. From time to time I am asked where our best audiences are found. Really it is hard to say. Except for one big city--and why not there it is impossible to explain--the company has a wonderful reception everywhere. The Savoy audiences in the old days, of course, were like no other audiences, and it was something to remember to be at a "first night." Long before the orchestra was due to commence--with Sullivan there to conduct it, as he usually was also at the fiftieth, the hundredth and other "milestone" performances--it was customary for many of the songs and choruses from the older operas to be sung by the "gods." And wonderful singers they were. The London audiences of to-day are also splendid. Our welcome in the 1920 season was a memorable experience. Gilbert and Sullivan operas depend for their freshness and their spirit far more on the audience than do any of the ordinary plays, and as it happens this enthusiasm on both sides is seldom wanting. Yet now and then we find an audience that is cold and quiet at the beginning and then works up to fever-heat as the opera proceeds, whereas on the other hand there is the audience that begins really too well and towards the end has simply worn itself out, being too exhausted to let itself go. The North, if not so demonstrative as the South, is always wonderfully responsive to the spirit of the witty dialogue and the sparkling songs, and two cities in which it is always a pleasure to play are Manchester and Liverpool. And those who declare that the Scots cannot see a joke would be disabused if they were to be at the D'Oyly Carte seasons at Glasgow and Edinburgh. Our visits there are always successful. But if I had to decide this matter on a national basis I should certainly bestow the palm on Ireland. Nowhere are there truer lovers of Gilbert and Sullivan than the Irish. It may be that Gilbert's fantastic wit is the wit they best understand, and it may be, too, that their hearts are warmed by the "plaintive song" of their fellow countryman, Sullivan. Whatever the cause, we have no better receptions anywhere. One feature of our Dublin and Belfast audiences is, oddly enough, shared with those at Oxford and Cambridge. They do not merely clap, but openly cheer again and again, throwing all conventional decorum away. And when the Irish are determined to have encores--no matter how many for a particular piece--there is no denying them. What we have found in the Emerald Isle--even during the unhappy times during and after the war--was that they kept their pleasures and their politics in watertight compartments. Sinn Feiners they might be outside the theatre, but inside it they are determined to enjoy themselves, as an interrupter found on one of our latest visits, when he tried to protest against the song, "When Britain Really Ruled the Waves." "No politics here," shouted someone from the stalls, and the audience agreeing very heartily with this sentiment the protestor subsided into silence. Looking back on the reference earlier in this chapter to fire brigades, I am reminded that I have more than once been on the stage at times when events have occurred which might have had terrible results, though my success as a panic-fighter is a distinction I would rather have foregone. One incident of this kind was at Eastbourne when we did "Haddon Hall." It will be remembered that in one part there are indications of an oncoming storm of thunder and lightning. Nowadays the authorities take care that effects of this kind are contrived with absolute safety to all concerned, but in those times the lightning was produced by a man in the wings taking pinches of explosive powder out of a canister, throwing these on a candle flame, and so securing a vivid flash over the darkening stage. Well, our man had done this so often that he had grown contemptuous of danger, and this time he took such an ample helping of the powder that the flash caught the canister, and there was a tremendous explosion. The canister went right through the stage and embedded itself in the ground. In "Haddon Hall" I was _McCrankie_, dressed in a kilt and playing the bagpipes when the explosion occurred. It plunged both stage and auditorium into darkness. I could hear the injured stage-hand groaning near the wings. Somehow I managed to grope my way to the man, pick him up in my arms, and carry him to one of the exits from the stage. I remember that a number of the chorus ladies, who could not find the door in the darkness, were clawing the walls of the scenery, for in their panic that was the only way they thought they could make their escape. The strange thing was that the door was not a yard away. Still dressed as a kilted Scot, I carried the injured man into the street, and already a crowd had gathered in the belief that there had been a terrible disaster. If not as serious as that, it had been quite bad enough, and it was a miracle that there had not actually been a calamity. In one of the boxes was one of those hardy playgoers who attended our shows night after night. We had nicknamed him "Festive." The concussion had lifted him out of his seat on to the floor. He complained that the thunder had been far too realistic! Fortunately we were able to go on with the performance, though many of us were suffering from nerves very badly. The stage hand had been speedily taken to hospital with serious injuries. It was typical of Mr. Carte's kindness that, although the man had been guilty of a very grave fault, he did not dismiss him from his service, but on his recovery made him a messenger and afterwards gave him a pension. Early in my career as a D'Oyly Carte principal on the provincial tours, we had a fire on the stage at the Lyceum, Edinburgh. It was the week before Henry Irving was due there to give his first production of "Faust." I remember that because we had his great organ behind the stage. Our piece that night was "Ruddigore" and while I was singing one of my numbers I became aware that something was amiss. It proved to be an outbreak of fire in the sky borders over the stage, and small smouldering fragments were falling around me in a manner that was entirely unpleasant. The steps at the back also caught fire, and it was a lucky thing that, the piece being then a new one, the audience should have taken it as a bit of realism added to the ghost scene. Otherwise nothing could have avoided a panic. I remember the stage manager shouting to me from the wings "Keep singing, keep singing." It was not easy, I can assure you, to keep on with a humorous number in circumstances like those, and with sparks dropping over one's head, but I did keep on with the song until they decided to ring down the curtain. Then I was told to run upstairs to warn the girls, whose dressing-rooms were near the flies. Now, as a young man I had made a reputation for myself as a practical joker, and one of my favourite antics was to tell this person or that, quite untruly, "You're wanted on the stage." Thus, when I rushed up to sound the real alarm, it was treated as a cry of "wolf." I banged the doors and entreated them to come out, but it was not until the smoke began to creep into the rooms that the girls knew positively that there was a fire, and promptly scurried for safety. Fortunately the outbreak was speedily subdued and the performance proceeded. A minor incident of this kind may be worth mentioning. We were in "Erminie" at the Comedy, and at the close of one of the acts the chorus, the ladies dressed as fisher girls and holding lighted candles, were singing a concerted "Good Night." Suddenly I noticed that one of the girls who was not paying much attention to her work had let the candle ignite the mob cap she was wearing. If the flame had reached her wig--and wigs in those days were cleaned with spirit--she must have been seriously burnt. So I ran up and tore off her cap, only to be rewarded with a haughty, "How dare you!" Later, when she realised what her danger had been, her apology and thanks were profuse. It may not, I think, be amiss if to these combustible reminiscences is added just one more story, though in a much lighter vein. It occurred in "The Sorcerer." _John Wellington Wells_, the "dealer in magic and spells," disappears at last into the nether regions, as it were, through the trap-door in the stage. One night the trap, having dropped a foot or so, refused to move any further, and there was I, enveloped in smoke and brimstone, poised between earth and elsewhere. So all I could do was to jump back on to the boards, make a grimace at the refractory trap-door, and go off by the ordinary exit. "Hell's full!" shouted an irreverent voice from the "gods." The joke, I know, was not a new one, for legend has it that a similar incident occurred during a performance of "Faust." Whether it did or not I do know that it occurred in that performance of "The Sorcerer." [Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "JACK POINT" IN "THE YEOMEN OF THE GUARD."] VI. PARTS I HAVE PLAYED. _List of my Gilbert and Sullivan Rôles--Parts in Other Comedies--Excursions into Vaudeville--A Human Shuttlecock--When Gilbert Appeared before the Footlights--Essays as a playwright--A Burlesque of Shakespeare--Embarrassing Invitations--A Jester's Hidden Remorse--My Life's Helpmate._ It is my melancholy distinction to be the last of the Savoyards. Numbers of my old comrades, of course, are playing elsewhere or living in their well-earned retirement, but I alone remain actively in Gilbert and Sullivan. In all I have played thirty parts in the operas--no other artiste connected with them has ever played so many--and it may interest my innumerable known and unknown friends if I "put them on my list." In the following table I give incidentally the date of the original production of the comedies in London. "Trial by Jury" (1875) _Judge_; _Counsel_; _Usher_. "The Sorcerer" (1877) _Hercules_; Dr. _Daly_; _Sir_ _Marmaduke_; _John Wellington Wells_. "H.M.S. Pinafore" (1878) _Dick Deadeye_; _Captain Corcoran_; _Sir Joseph Porter_. "The Pirates of Penzance" _Samuel_; _The Pirate King_, (1880) _Major-General Stanley_. "Patience" (1881) _Grosvenor_; _Bunthorne_. "Iolanthe" (1882) _Strephon_; _Lord Mountararat_, _Lord Chancellor_. "Princess Ida" (1884) _Florian_; _King Gama_. "The Mikado" (1885) _The Mikado_; _Ko-Ko_. "Ruddigore" (1887) _Robin Oakapple._ "The Yeomen of the Guard" _Lieutenant of the Tower_; (1888) _Shadbolt_; _Jack Point_. "The Gondoliers" (1889) _Giuseppe_; _The Duke of Plaza-Toro_. "Utopia Ltd" (1893) _The King._ "The Grand Duke" (1896) _The Grand Duke._ My connection with the D'Oyly Carte company falls into three periods. The first of these was in 1884 and 1885, when I went on tour for twelve months with "Princess Ida," to be followed by the heart-breaking time I have recounted in the "Vagabondage of the Commonwealth." Then, in 1887, I rejoined it to win my first success as George Grossmith's understudy in "Ruddigore." That period was destined to continue almost without interruption until 1901. For most of this time I was touring in the provinces, though I was in London for many of the revivals, as well as for several of the plays not by Gilbert and Sullivan produced by Mr. D'Oyly Carte. Eventually this latter enterprise was brought to an end by the death of Sir Arthur Sullivan in 1900, and by that of Mr. Carte himself four months later in 1901. London saw the Gilbert and Sullivan works no more until 1906, though the suburban theatres were sometimes visited by the provincial company, which in the country kept alight the flickering torch that was to burn once more with all its accustomed brightness. Shortly after my old chief had passed away, I closed my second period with the company in order to throw in my lot with the musical comedy stage, and it was my good fortune to play leading comedy parts under several successful managements. Looking back on those years, I regard them as amongst the most prosperous and happy in my career, and yet it is no affectation to say that all other parts seemed shallow and superficial when one has played so long in Gilbert and Sullivan. Shall I say I was anxious to return to them? In a sense that would be true. Certainly the yearning was there--if not the opportunity. Then, in 1909, Sir William Gilbert earnestly invited me to rejoin the company, and I relinquished a very profitable engagement in order to play once more the parts I loved so well. Thus began my third period with the operas. This period has still to be finished. Sir William, I ought to say, was at this time an ageing man, and he had retired with a comfortable fortune. Grim's Dyke and its beautiful grounds gave him all the enjoyment he wanted, and to the end he had the solace and companionship of his devoted wife, Lady Gilbert. He died in 1911. Following a visit to town, he had gone to bathe in the lake in his grounds, and had a heart seizure whilst swimming. He was rescued from the water and carried to his room, but there life was found to be extinct. The curtain had fallen. But to proceed. I propose to give a list of the comedies in which I played between 1901 and 1909. Lacking a good memory for dates, I cannot guarantee at all that the order in which they appear is correct, though approximately this may be the case:-- Comedy. Part. Management. "The Rose of Persia" _The Sultan_ D'Oyly Carte. "The Emerald Isle" _Pat Murphy_ D'Oyly Carte. "Merrie England" _Earl of Essex_ D'Oyly Carte. "The Beauty Stone" _Simon_ D'Oyly Carte. "The Lucky Star" _Tobasco_ D'Oyly Carte. "His Majesty" _The King_ D'Oyly Carte. "The Grand Duchess" _Prince Paul_ D'Oyly Carte. "The Vicar of Bray" _The Vicar_ D'Oyly Carte. "The Princess of Kensington." _Jelf_ D'Oyly Carte. "The Earl and the Girl" _The Earl_ William Greet. "The Spring Chicken" _Boniface_ George Edwardes "The Little Michus" _Aristide_ George Edwardes "My Darling" _Hon. Jack_ _Hylton_ Seymour Hicks. "Talk of the Town" _Lieut. Reggie_ Seymour Hicks. _Drummond._ "The White Chrysanthemum" _Lieut. R._ Frank Curzon. _Armitage_ "The Amateur Raffles" _Raffles_ Music Halls. "Mirette" _Bobinet_ D'Oyly Carte. "The Chieftain" _Peter Grigg_ D'Oyly Carte. "The Grand Duchess" _Prince Paul_ D'Oyly Carte. "Billie Taylor" _Captain Flapper_ D'Oyly Carte. In the opinion of many friends, my best piece of pure character acting was that as _Pat Murphy_, the piper in "The Emerald Isle." Without a doubt it _was_ a fine part. I had to be blind, and in contrast to the manner in which most blind characters were played at that time, my eyes were wide open and rigid. From the moment I entered I riveted my gaze tragically on one particular spot, and my eyes never moved, no matter who spoke or however dramatic the point. Naturally the strain was tremendous. Then, at last, _Pat's_ colleen lover began to have suspicions that he was not really blind--that the idle good-for-nothing fellow was shamming. And when _Pat_ admitted it, the subterfuge had been kept up so long that, both to those on the stage and to the audience, the effect was marvellous to a degree. I loved playing the piper and speaking the brogue. "The Emerald Isle," as is now generally known, was the last work that Sir Arthur Sullivan composed, and on his lamented death the music was completed by my gifted friend, Edward German. I remember that when, later on, the piece was taken to Dublin, we had doubts as to whether anything in it might offend the susceptibilities of the good people of the "disthressful counthree." Strangely enough, no objection of any kind was raised until the jig in the second act, and as it was believed that this was not done correctly and that the girls were lifting their heels too high, the dance was greeted with an outburst of booing. This was quelled by the lusty voice at the back of the pit. "Shame on ye," he shouted. "Can't ye be aisy out of respect for the dead?" And another voice: "Eh, an' Sullivan an Oirishman too, so he was!" The appeal was magical. The interruption died away and the performance proceeded. "The Earl and the Girl," the most successful of all the musical comedies in which I appeared and the one which gave me my biggest real comedy part, ran for one year at the Adelphi, and then for a further year at the Lyric. When it was withdrawn I secured the permission of the management to use "My Cosy Corner," the most tuneful of all its musical numbers, as a scena on the music-halls, and with my corps of Cosy Corner Girls it was a decided success. One other venture of mine on the music-halls was in conjunction with Connie Ediss when we had both completed an engagement at the Gaiety. "United Service," in which we figured together, ran for fourteen weeks at the Pavilion, and it provided me with one of the best salaries I ever drew. The idea of this piece was a contrast in courtships. First we would imitate a stately old colonel paying his addresses to an exquisite lady, and then a ranker making love to the cook, with an idiom appropriate to life "below-stairs." Eighteen changes of dress had to be made by each of us, and the fun waxed fast and furious when the colonel commenced pouring his courtly phrases into the ears of the cook, and when, by a similar deliberate mishap, the soldier in his most ardent vernacular declared his passion for m'lady. Connie Ediss and I might have done as well with a successor to "United Service." But the theatre, she said, "called her back," and accordingly we went our separate ways in "legitimate." Some reminiscences still remain to be told of my struggling early days on the stage. One of these concerns my brief and boisterous connection with the well-known Harvey Troupe. I was chosen as deputy for their page boy, whom these acrobats threw hither and thither as if he were a human shuttlecock, and a very clever act it was, however uncomfortable for the unfortunate youngster. I scarcely relished the job, but old Harvey told me "All you've to do is to come on the stage; leave the rest to us; we'll pull you through." It was not a case of pulling me through. They literally _threw_ me through. For half-an-hour I was thrown from one to another with lightning speed, and that was about all I knew of the performance. "You did very well," they told me afterwards, "didn't you hear the laughs?" I am afraid I hadn't heard them. I had been conscious only of an appalling giddiness and of feeling bruised and sore. Next day I was black and blue, and unable to perform, but in those hard days, when food was scarce, one had to be ready for anything. It was about this time in my career that I secured a pantomime engagement at the Prince's, Manchester, though my rôle was merely that of standard-bearer, in the finale, to the "show lady," before whom I walked with a banner inscribed, "St. George and the Dragon." Unfortunately, in my nervousness, I marched on with the reverse side of the banner to the front, and at the sight of this piece of tawdry linen the audience laughed uproariously. When the Second Demon was absent I was chosen as his understudy, and it seemed to me to be a wonderful honour, because it gave me eight words to speak. I had the comforting feeling of being a big star already. How well I remember those lines:-- Second Demon (sepulchral and sinister): Who calls on me in this unfriendly way? Fairy Queen (in a piping treble): A greater power than yours; hear and obey! Coming to a much later date, I include in my list of memorable theatrical occasions the benefit matinee given in the Drury Lane Theatre for Nellie Farren, for many years the bright particular star at the Gaiety. The stage was determined to pay the worthiest tribute it could to the brilliant artiste who, once the idol of her day, was now laid aside by sickness and suffering, and never had such a wonderful programme been presented. King Edward, then Prince of Wales, gave the benefit his gracious patronage, and it was in every way a remarkable success. The D'Oyly Carte contribution to the entertainment was "Trial by Jury." Gilbert himself figured in the scene as the _Associate_. It was, I believe, his only appearance before the footlights in public, and it was a part in which he had not a line to speak. I played the _Foreman_. Amongst other benefit performances in which I have taken part were those to Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Dacre and Miss Ellen Terry. We gave "Trial by Jury" on these occasions also, and my part was _Counsel_. Speaking of King Edward, I am reminded that when, by going to the Palace Theatre after his accession, His Majesty paid the first visit of any British Sovereign to a music-hall, the occasion coincided with the run there of an operetta of my own, called the "Knights of the Road." It was a Dick Turpin story, for which I had written the lyrics, and the music had been provided by my good friend Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Principal of the Royal Academy of Music. I conceived the idea that pieces of this kind, based on English stories and typically English alike in sentiment and musical setting, might be made an attractive feature on the music-halls, and in point of fact, all that was wrong with the experiment was that it was a little too early. To-day, when the better-class music-halls have attained a remarkable standard of taste, they would be just the thing. Nevertheless, my "Knights of the Road" had a successful career, and it served to give Walter Hyde, now one of our leading operatic tenors, one of his first chances to sing in the Metropolis. I wrote about eight of these pieces altogether. The libretto and the scores are still in existence, and for better or for worse, they may be produced even yet. One of them is written round the well-known picture, "The Duel in the Snow." This depicts a beautiful woman rushing between the two swords in a duel, and my object was to fill in the dramatic significance of the picture, representing how it came about that the men were fighting in those wintry surroundings for the hand of the lady. "For one night only" I appeared with the Follies. I was at the Palace in "My Cosy Corner," and Pellissier asked me to come on, garbed as the poet, in their burlesque on Shakespeare. Leaning from my pedestal, I had to reproach them for daring to take such liberties, and we finished up with a boxing match. Our jokes on that occasion were mainly extemporised. Nobody in the audience knew that I was acting deputy, but those in the wings had heard that a conspiracy of some kind was afoot, and they entered heartily into the spirit of the burlesque. It is far easier, I think, to improvise on the stage than it is away from the footlights, and I well remember my dilemma when I was once invited to an "at home." It was a children's party, and my hostess had told the youngsters that they were going to see _Ko-Ko_, the "funny man" in "The Mikado." No doubt if I had come in my Oriental costume it would have been less difficult to act up to the part, but it was quite another thing to arrive in an immaculate frock-coat and silk hat, to be escorted at once into the circle of children, and invited then and there to act the clown in the circus with "jibe and joke and quip and crank." For some moments I stood almost tongue-tied. Luckily, as it happened, my hostess handed me a cup of tea, and in my nervousness I dropped it. The children giggled hugely. With that trivial incident the ice was broken. Enjoyable as it is to meet so many people in the social sphere, our good friends who see us from the auditorium, and then shower their invitations upon us, are at times a little embarrassing. Kind as they undoubtedly are--and we do appreciate the hospitality so readily offered to us wherever we go--they are perhaps forgetful that every week we have to get through seven or eight hard performances. With rehearsals taken into account, we have not over-much leisure for social enjoyment, and certainly no great reserves of energy. A Scotch lady was once most pressing that I should attend a dance she was arranging. Now, much as I love dancing on the stage, I have never had any taste at all for the conventional ball-room dancing, and really how could one have after doing, say, the courtly gavotte in "The Gondoliers?" "I never dance," I told my Scottish friend, "unless I'm paid for it." Evidently she mistook my meaning, for with her invitation to her dance she enclosed me--a cheque for £5. I returned it with my compliments. From time to time on these social occasions we are prevailed upon to give one or two of our songs from the operas. Songs from the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, nevertheless, seldom sound well away from the stage and their familiar surroundings, and long ago most amateur vocalists dropped them from their repertory. I, personally, have found that the most suitable of my numbers for private circles are the _Lord Chancellor's_ "Dream Song"--it is so dramatic that it goes quite well as an unaccompanied recitation--and _King Gama's_ "I can't tell why." Here I must note a remarkable fact. When I am on the stage, I know not only my own lines, but the lines of everyone else, but away from the stage and the atmosphere of the play my otherwise excellent memory is not always so amenable to discipline. Indeed, I can recall an occasion when, at a garden party, I was asked to sing "Tit Willow." I cheerfully undertook to do so, but half-way through I stumbled, and try as I would even with the promptings of obliging friends, I could get no further than the middle of the second verse. And yet on the stage I have sung "Tit Willow" without a fault many thousands of times. I think I was only once in any danger of forgetting my lines on the stage. It happened in "The Mikado." Behind the scenes, unknown to me, _Pooh Bah_ had fainted, and one of his entrances had to be made by _Pish Tush_. Well, I was on as _Ko-Ko_ at the time, and the sound of an unexpected voice was so strange, so bewildering, that for a moment it seemed to me that my reason had gone! "Get off! It's _Pooh Bah_" I whispered, excitedly. _Pish Tush_ managed to give me a hint that something had happened, and we continued our comedy scene, though in my frame of mind this might easily have come to grief! Speaking of memory, I am reminded that my first recollection in life was that of listening, as a very small child, to a lad playing a quaint little tune on a banjo. I never heard that tune again, but it has ever since remained in my mind, and only a few years ago I was talking about it to a man who had spent nearly all his life in Australia. When we were children we were neighbours in the same village. "Yes," said my long-lost friend, "I was the lad who played that tune on the banjo, and you were lying in a cot in the garden!" Between that incident and our mutual recollection of it nearly fifty eventful years for both of us had passed. Before I close this chapter of random reminiscences I feel I must pay my tribute to the best, the oldest and the truest of all my friends--my helpmate in life, "Louie Henri." As Albert Chevalier would put it, "We've been together now for (almost) forty years, and it don't seem a day too much." Louie Henri, as I have already told, secured me my first engagement, and from that time to this she has been the intimate sharer in whatever troubles and successes have fallen to me in what is now a long and eventful career. Optimistic as I may be in temperament, there were times when her encouragement meant a great deal, and to my wife I pay this brief tribute (as brief it is bound to be). Our family has consisted of three sons and two daughters. Our two elder sons served during the war in the Royal Air Force, and one of them was lost whilst flying in a night-bombing raid in France. I well remember the time when my boy was first reported missing. With that anxious sorrow weighing on my mind, it was no small trial to keep alive the semblance, at least, of comedy. Oh, a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon, If you listen to popular rumour. _Jack Point's_ song appealed to me with peculiar poignancy during that time of heavy anxiety. But to return to my wife. Louie Henri, as the older generation well remembers, is able to count herself amongst the distinguished Savoyards. Before she retired she had probably played a greater number of parts--soprano, contralto, and soubrette--than any other lady connected with the company. I am sure it will be of interest if I enumerate here the rôles she has played:-- "Trial by Jury" _Plaintiff._ "The Sorcerer" _Constance_; _Mrs. Partlet_. "H.M.S. Pinafore" _Josephine_; _Hebe_. "The Pirates of Penzance" _Edith._ "Patience" _Lady Angela._ "Iolanthe" _Iolanthe._ "Princess Ida" _Melissa._ "The Mikado" _Pitti Sing._ "Ruddigore" _Mad Margaret._ "The Yeoman of the Guard" _Phoebe._ "The Gondoliers" _Tessa._ "Utopia, Ltd" _Nelraya._ "The Grand Duke" _Julia._ Mrs. Lytton, apart from her success as an actress, has always been an accomplished musician, and in that respect I owe much to her for the way in which, during the preparation of my new rôles, she has helped me, "a lame, unmusical dog, over the stile." Our pianoforte at home is the one on which Sir Arthur Sullivan first played over his music for "The Mikado." It is a handsome satinwood grand, designed for Mr. D'Oyly Carte by the late Sir Alma Tadema, R.A., and this most interesting and valuable souvenir was presented to me by Mrs. D'Oyly Carte. VII. FRIENDS ON AND OFF THE STAGE. Lessons to the Prince on the Bagpipes--A Charming and Lovable Personality--Queen Alexandra's Compliment--An Afternoon with Fisher--Stories of the Great Seaman--George Edwardes and His Genius for Stagecraft--His Successes on the Turf--"Honest Frank" Cellier--A Model Conductor--Traditions of the Savoy--Rutland Barrington--An Admiral in Disguise--Fred Billington--A Strange Premonition--Our War-Time Experiences--Caught in the Toils of the Dublin Rebellion. It was my great privilege and pleasure, when we were at Oxford on one occasion, to be introduced to the Prince of Wales, who was then in residence at Magdalen. Nothing impressed me more than his sunny nature and the wonderful knack he had of putting everybody at their ease immediately. Since then it has been just those qualities which have made him so immensely popular in his tours of the Empire. Our first meeting was in His Royal Highness's own rooms, where he was accompanied by his tutor, Mr. H. P. Hansell. I remember that as I was speaking to him the members of a college team were brought in to be presented. "Ah!" exclaimed the Prince, "that's the best of being a celebrity, Lytton. I could not draw a muster like this." It was just a little pleasantry, this suggestion that it was myself who was the attraction, but it was an example of his happy knack of putting everybody at their ease immediately. I recall, too, that the Prince at that time was learning the chanter, with which one proceeds to the full glory of playing the bagpipes. Greatly to his surprise, I took the chanter and proceeded to give him a lesson, to which he listened most attentively, and then played a skirl, with which he was delighted. It so happens that, although I am no musician, I do know how to handle the bagpipes, and once a group of Scottish yokels who were listening to me stood open-mouthed with astonishment that such skill should be possessed by a trousered Englishman. This was when I visited my old colleague Durward Lely's place in the Highlands. The Scotties were enjoying a homely dance in a barn, and as the piper had been hard at it and seemed tired, I volunteered to act as his deputy. I don't want to be boastful, but my performance was regarded as a _tour de force_, at least for a Saxon. The Prince came to the theatre frequently during our stay, and one night he came round to our dressing-room, where once more one fell irresistibly under the spell of his lovable and attractive personality. He invariably addressed me as "Ko-Ko." The Prince told me then, as he had done on other occasions, how really delightful he thought the operas were, and he said he looked forward to seeing them again and again. Then he asked to be introduced to a member who, in more than one sense, is one of the stalwarts of the choristers, Joe Ruff. Seeing that Joe had been with us so many years, I thought this special "recognition" was particularly happy, and it was a very great pleasure to me to be allowed to introduce my colleague to the Heir-Apparent. From time to time, both during my connection with D'Oyly Carte and when temporarily away from the company, I have played before Royalty. Especially do I recall a night when Queen Alexandra occupied a box at the Savoy. It was in the "Yeoman of the Guard" revivals and my rôle was _Shadbolt_. Her Majesty was kind enough to send Sir Arthur Sullivan to my dressing-room to compliment me on the clearness of my enunciation, and I need hardly say how gratifying such praise was to me. Seldom was "H.M.S. Pinafore" staged during the 1920 season without Lord Fisher coming to chuckle over Gilbert's clever satire on the "ruler of the Queen's Navee." He revelled in that opera. It was not only, I think, that it smacked of the sea, but he loved the gibes at the politicians and the hearty loyalty of the honest salt who, "in spite of all temptation," firmly resolves to "remain an Englishman." It was after he had seen me several times as _Sir Joseph Porter_ that he invited me to bring a few of my colleagues and spend an afternoon with him at his home in London. I reproduce his very typical letter on another page. My recollections of that afternoon are very delightful. Lord Fisher was a wonderful veteran, and it was difficult afterwards to realise that a fortnight later he was stricken down with his last illness, to which he succumbed in the following July. I remember that we did not have to do much of the talking. Lord Fisher walked up and down, up and down the room as if it were the quarter-deck, and he was telling us all the while such capital stories that we forgot that we, too, were still standing up! Of his yarns there were two that were very typical of the man and his ways. [Illustration: A LETTER FROM THE LATE LORD FISHER.] "One day," he began, "I was walking through Trafalgar Square, and as I always do, I looked up at the statue of the greatest man that ever lived. Then a woman who was munching a bun came along. 'Here, master,' she said, 'who's 'e?' 'That's Lord Nelson,' I answered. 'Is it?' she returned, 'and who's 'e?' Fancy! Never heard of Nelson! Such ignorance! 'Well,' I said, 'if it had not been for him, that bun would have cost you, not a halfpenny, but fourpence. Good day!' And I walked on. I suppose she thought she had been talking to a lunatic." Then Lord Fisher spoke of the exertion needed in our dances on the stage. "Energy! Energy! That's what we want," he declared. "Why, I was fed by my mother until I was quite a big baby. I refused to be weaned--I was so determined even in those days! You must have good natural food when you are born. It means everything. It gives you stamina--it makes a man of you." From that interview I brought away a signed portrait of the great seaman. "I'm an ugly blighter, aren't I?" he reflected, sadly, as he handed it to me, "but I'm good." Candour would have compelled one to admit that he was anything but strikingly handsome, but in that small, intensely sallow face there was, after all, something that was extraordinarily kindly and strong. In that sense his face was the faithful mirror of his character. "Jackie Fisher's" candour reminds me of a frank admission made to me by a statesman who still wields a leading influence in present-day politics. I think I had better not mention his name, although he is numbered amongst my friends, and he has often been exceedingly kind in his appreciation of my work on the stage. He told me he once met a lady whom he had not seen for several years, and having cordially greeted her, he said, "I'm so delighted to see you, Sybil." That he should have remembered her, and still more, that he should have remembered her first name, pleased the lady immensely. She said she was charmed that he had not forgotten her name. "Oh," responded the statesman, with the best of intentions, "I've a remarkable memory for trifles." The next moment he realised he had committed an awful _faux pas_. What was more, he saw that he, though a politician, could not explain it away. Not many people remember now that Mr. George Edwardes, who created the vogue for musical comedies as we now know them, and who made a fortune out of his connection with the Gaiety and Daly's, was in his early days Mr. D'Oyly Carte's manager at the Savoy. When he became a producer his flair for stage effect amounted to genius. He could decide in a moment to make the most revolutionary changes in a production. For instance, I have heard him give orders that the first act should be made the second one and the second the first, because he saw that it would better work up the interest in the play. He would transpose a certain scene from here to there because he knew instinctively that there was its proper place. "I don't like that man singing that song," he said once, just before a new comedy was due to have its first performance, and when even the dress rehearsals were almost complete, "We'll give it to a lady." "But," it was objected, "it's a man's song--a military song." "Never mind," he answered in that familiar drawling voice of his, "we'll dress her in a red coat, and we'll bring the chorus on as soldiers too." And his judgment was absolutely right. That girl's soldier song was the great hit of the piece. George Edwardes was a generous, kindly-natured man, accessible to everybody, and a splendid companion. Keenly interested as he was in his theatrical ventures, he never made these his sole and only pre-occupation. Upon the Turf, as every sportsman knows, he was a shining light, and many horses from his stables won the biggest prizes of their year. He often invited me to join him at the races, and never failed to tell me the winners--"well, hardly ever." One day he gave me three running. Just then I was arranging to play under his management for a term of three years, and he said those three winners proved that we could make money together both on and off the stage, and that we must sign up the contract, which we did the next day. One of my closest friends was Francois Cellier, of whom it would be literally true to say that he devoted his life, his talents and all his enthusiasm to the operas at the Savoy. For thirty-five years he served them as conductor, to the exclusion of all the fame he might have won in a wider field, for he was a musician of surpassing accomplishments. He was the younger brother of Alfred Cellier, who was the composer, amongst other delightful comedies, of "Dorothy." Both men were Bohemians, and both of them might have been the architects of their own fortunes if they had put only their own goal in front of them, and pursued it steadily. Francois Cellier--Honest Frank they called him, and the name suited him well--was a prince of good fellows and a most charming and helpful companion. I can never tell the debt I owe to him for all the advice he gave to me regarding our performances. He knew Gilbert's and Sullivan's ideas to the minutest detail, and, with all his love of the operas, he wanted those ideas carried through exactly on the stage. Even with the audiences he had a magnetic personality. Unlike most conductors, who feel they must allow just as many encores as the audience demands, he could indicate by some strange method to those behind him that an encore would be unreasonable or inconsiderate, and immediately the applause would subside and the play would proceed. Cellier had his heart and soul in every performance, and what that means is known only to those who work on the stage, and who do sometimes become dull and listless because of their very familiarity with the parts they are playing or because the audience cannot easily be aroused to "concert pitch." What brightness they may give to their acting is of a superficial and mechanical kind that can give them no pleasure. It is at just such times as these that a real conductor is worth his weight in gold. Notwithstanding that he may have seen the piece hundreds of times--and might with reason be more bored than the principals themselves--he comes to each new performance with an enthusiasm which shakes the company out of themselves and makes everything go with a will. Some conductors I have known have shown so little interest in their work that they did not even attempt to conceal their boredom. This is very unfair to the players. Can anyone expect there to be any spirit in the singing of a chorus when the conductor is just listlessly waving his baton, or when he shows such little respect for the artistes that, during their dialogues, he either yawns sleepily or leans over for a chat with the strings? Cellier was never guilty of that discourtesy. From the time he picked up his baton for the first bar of the overture the "play was the thing." During a chorus you would see him alert and awake and stirring on the company to give their best, and during your own solos or dialogues you would see him listening intently so that, like a friendly critic, he could afterwards praise you for what you had done well or give you hints where there was cause for improvement. It is a great thing to the artistes to see a genial face at the conductor's desk, and the operas go with a great spirit and nerve whenever the conductor, seconded by the orchestra, is doing everything to help us along. Our company's record has been a very fortunate one in this respect. Everybody who plays in Gilbert and Sullivan makes it a point of honour to do his or her best to preserve what we call the traditions of the Savoy. If I were asked to name the secret of the charm of these operas, I should have to answer that there was not one secret, but many, but that one of the chief is their sense of "repose." Gilbert, like the master playwright he was, would never have two situations running together. If, that is to say, the leading character was going to offer his hand to the heroine, the whole company must look on eagerly and expectantly. It would never do for them to be indifferent and uninterested. Still less would it do for subsidiary characters to do something that might attract the audience's eye to them in some other part of the stage. Everything must be focussed on the central incident, and to this end every member of the company must think first and all the time of the play, and not indulge in those hateful individual touches of "pantomime." What I mean is best seen in what happens quite frequently in ordinary plays. Nearly every minor actor and actress seems to take, or is allowed to take, licence to put in a little bit of "business" on his or her own account, and so draw kudos to himself or herself by being supposed to be "funny." It is really only "supposed." Generally it is not funny at all, and it mars the effect of the play by making the entire atmosphere restless and perplexed. Eyes are strained here, there and everywhere, and the poor audience in trying to catch this, that and the other point, is probably missing what is the chief point of the play. Well, if refinement is not the keynote of a production, this may possibly not matter so much, but it is certainly foreign to the tranquil atmosphere of Gilbert and Sullivan. No one, I think, could have done more by his example on the stage to encourage refinement in these operas than my good friend, Rutland Barrington. During his playing career--now at an end, unhappily--he was an artiste to his finger tips. He had also a great asset in his fine presence and personality. Our friendship has been of the closest, and I call to mind an incident when we were at Portsmouth and when there was something important occurring at the Royal Dockyard. "We can't get in without a pass," I said to him, but he only smiled and said that, at all events, we could try. "Watch me," he commanded. Straightening himself up, he walked to the gates as if in the manner born, took the salute from the sentries, and entered the yard. It looked ridiculously easy. So I decided to follow suit. The sentries would not let me through. "Can't come in without a pass," I was told, and let me through they would not on any account, however much I tried to "flatter, cajole and persuade." Barrington always did have "a way with him." I imagine the sentries were impressed by his bearing, or it may be that they had mistaken him for his brother, Admiral Fleet. This naval reference serves to recall a most interesting story bearing on the subject of "make-up." Now, "make-up" has always been a fascinating study to me, and many kind friends tell me that I have a special gift for it, instancing how completely I transform my appearance for parts so different, for example, as the hunchback _King Gama_ and the martial old _General Stanley_. Certainly I do spend more time than most actors do over the arts and deceptions of the dressing-room. For _King Gama_ the make-up of the face alone takes an hour, apart from all the physical deformities that have to be contrived when playing this ugly, ungainly character in "Princess Ida." But all this by the way. What I was going to write about was an incident when a worried young naval lieutenant came to see me at the close of our show at the Savoy. He was at the romantic age then, a trifle oblivious to the passing of time when there was a charming lady at his side, and at the theatre he overlooked that by a certain hour he should have been back at the Naval College at Greenwich. Lieutenant X came round to see me in a terrible state. What was he to do? If he went back, he told me, he would be stopped at the gates by the sentries and he would have to give explanations, of which none he could think of would be adequate. If, on the other hand, he did not return there would be a court-martial, and he would be dismissed from the Service. Before him, whichever way he turned, was the blank ruin of his career and he disgraced in the eyes of his family. Well I don't know which of us actually suggested it, but it occurred to us that if only he could be disguised as an Admiral, he might easily get into the college! An Admiral had to keep no strict hours when absent from duty, and if only he could look and act the part, the sentries would let him pass and ask no awkward questions. So in a very few minutes I was busy treating him with all the arts of "make-up." Certainly the addition of a pointed beard made a most effective disguise, and it answered splendidly, for at Greenwich he marched boldly through the gates to the dutiful salutes of the sentries. The situation was saved. For my own part I felt that I had done something to save a career, and as it happens, the romantic young friend of those days is now a real Admiral, and a very well-known and popular one, in his Majesty's Navy. Numerous are the stories told about my friend and colleague for so many years--Fred Billington. In temperament and character we were entirely opposites, but there was scarcely one disagreement throughout our long companionship, during which we played together almost continuously. He was a Yorkshireman, and before he joined the company, with which he remained for thirty-seven years, he was in the office of the Water Board at Huddersfield. The whole of his stage career was spent with these operas. It was not everybody who understood Billington. Sometimes he could be uncommonly moody and gruff, and if he did not feel in the mood to talk, he would make it clear that he wanted no introductions to one's own acquaintances. But under the rugged surface he was a fine-hearted fellow, who lived life heartily and lived it well, and nothing pleased him better, apart from a game of golf, than to sit and gossip with those whose society he liked. One day he invited three of us to a round of golf, and it being a cold morning, he told us that he was ordering "a good beef-steak and kidney pudding." Well, when we had finished the game and returned to the club-house, in came that steaming pudding. Billington looked at it long and earnestly. "It won't do for four," he reflected. Then a pause. "It would make a poor meal for three. There's scarcely enough for two. I'll tell you what. I'll have it--and you three can have chops." And that is just what we did. Billington had a gift of robust eloquence, and unless one was accustomed to it, the freedom with which it flowed from his tongue was most embarrassing. He was playing a clergyman one day at golf. The cleric, whenever he made a bad shot, invariably relieved his feelings by exclaiming, "Oh, Pickles! Pickles!" Language of this kind in Billington's ears was exceedingly trying, and as if determined to give the parson a lesson, he came out with a string of oaths of the richest and most vivid description. "Thank you very much, Mr. Billington," said the clergyman, smilingly, "thank you very much!" Evidently those were the sort of words which, but for respect for his cloth, he wanted to say! One day he went out for a match with a bishop. The club officials, knowing how exuberant his language could be, were on tenter-hooks of anxiety all the time they were out, and on their return the secretary hastened to take the episcopal visitor apart. "Mr. Billington, the actor, you know, my lord," he explained. "I hope his language didn't shock you." "Oh, no!" responded the bishop, diplomatically, "he did once call on the Almighty, but otherwise his language was beyond reproach." Dear old Billington! Earlier in life he had been with the company on a South African tour, and the wide spaces, the ample life and the boundless opportunities of that vast country appealed to him irresistibly. South Africa had a "call" for him, and he had ambitions, when the time came for him to retire, to settle there. That ambition was never realised. Only the night before he died, while we were in our dressing-room, he surprised me with the question, "How would you like to die, Harry?" From a man so little inclined to brood on the morbid the question was strange. I told him I didn't know. I had never, I told him, thought it out, and didn't intend to, either. "But if you had to die," he insisted, "how would you prefer to go?" "Oh! I don't know," I retorted. "Anyhow, we're not going to die just yet." "Well," was his answer, "if I had my way, it would be a good dinner, a bottle of wine, a good cigar, a good joke, and--pop-off!" It must have been a premonition. The very next day, while still apparently in perfect health, he left Cambridge to keep a luncheon engagement with Mr. Rupert D'Oyly Carte at the Great Eastern Hotel, London. The intention was that he should be back for the night performance. With the lunch they had a bottle of wine, and afterwards, over cigars, they talked with many a hearty joke in between. Then he went out into the foyer--and collapsed. It was at least good to think that the passing of my dear old friend was free from pain or suffering. Fred Billington's end must have been hastened by a sequence of events during the war. Strangely enough, when we were at Sheffield, the town was visited by a Zeppelin raid, and there was another raid when we were at Hull, a third when we were at Kennington, and a fourth when we were at Wimbledon. Billington's nerves, naturally enough, were very upset. Wherever we went the Zepps seemed to be after us. "Do you know, Harry," he said, at last, "I believe that bally Kaiser has got our tour." What he meant, of course, was that our list of bookings had got into the hands of the All-Highest, and that he thought, apparently, that if he could wipe out the Gilbert and Sullivan operas he would be able to break the spirit of England. Looked at in that way, the attention paid to us, whether intentional or not, was certainly flattering. Worse than those raids, however, was the Dublin rebellion, into which we ran at Easter 1916. We should have opened there on the Bank Holiday. In point of fact we did not play one single night. Fred and I were at the Gresham Hotel. The very first day we were not allowed out at all, for we were in the very centre of hostilities, and no one could go into the street except at his peril. Chafing under the restraint, I did at last attempt to venture out, though feeling that there were too many bullets about for things to be healthy. Opposite the Gresham, at the door of the Irish Club, I saw the well-known figure of the Dublin Coroner, Mr. Friery. I rushed across to him, and it was because I spoke to him, I believe, that I was ever able to get back alive. Mr. Friery, with his top hat and frock-coat, was an easily distinguished citizen, and neither the military nor the rebels would have been likely to fire at him deliberately. "You ought never to have come across," he told me, and as it happened, the very same thought had occurred to me. Conditions in the hotel itself were the reverse of pleasant, what with the noise of the firing outside and bullets shooting through our own windows, though these were shuttered and protected as far as possible. Our food stocks commenced to run low--by the end of the week's siege we had only biscuits and ham--and the strain on the larder was added to by the arrival of scores of visitors who had been turned out of the Metropole Hotel. They had been told to take their valuables with them, and it was remarkable how, in the fright of such an emergency, men would grasp the first thing that came into their hands and leave their real treasures behind. One man rushed over clutching two dirty collars, while another had a bath-towel which he had picked up, it seemed, instead of a dressing-gown. English jockeys who were there for the race week hurried over holding a saddle case. Our anxieties were increased in the meanwhile by the systematic operations of the military around Eden Quay. One by one the houses were being demolished by shellfire, and in one of the threatened houses, as we knew, were many of the ladies of the company. To get to them was impossible. Luckily for them a sergeant on signalling duty heard their cries, and at once rushed to their help. "Who are you?" he shouted. "What are you doing here?" "We're the D'Oyly Carte," they answered. The D'Oyly Carte name worked like magic. Signalling to the gunners to cease fire, the sergeant hurried them out and through the streets, where sniping was going on at every corner, and took them to a police-station for safety. All the other members of the company had more or less miraculous escapes. Leicester Tunks, Frederick Hobbs, Leo Sheffield, and several others lost all their luggage, but fortunately none sustained any more serious mishap. From the good people of Dublin we received every possible kindness, but as you will imagine, we were thankful when we heard that there were berths on a boat to take us back to Holyhead. I have not, of course, told all my experiences of that awful week, though in memory these still linger vividly. But one of the things I remember best of all was a quaint remark of Billington's. Outside there was still the noise of the fighting, and most persistent of all was the crack! crack! crack! of a sniper somewhere near our own building. "Oh! Harry," said poor Fred, in utter weariness, "I do wish that bally wood-pecker would chuck it!" VIII. HOBBIES OF A SAVOYARD. _Luckless ventures in Theatrical Management--Farces that failed--New outlets for Enthusiasm--Baldness in the poultry run--Captain Corcoran and the crooks--Floricultural topsy-turvydom--The flowers that did not bloom in the Spring--Recreations that remain--Prize Costumes at fancy-dress balls--The big-game shot and the tiger._ Like "Mr. Punch" in another connection, I have a sound piece of advice for those who may ever think of embarking on theatrical management. "Don't!" I say this after bitter experience. It was not only that my gallanty show as a boy ended disastrously. This, of course, was itself a bad omen, and it ought to have taught me that public taste is fickle and that the gamble of theatrical management is surrounded by all kinds of perils. A West-end audience may be just as capricious and as hard to please as my audience of village lads in the garden. My first real venture, a London one, was at the Criterion Theatre, which with a few others I took on lease from Sir Charles Wyndham, in order to produce "The Wild Rabbit." It was by Mr. George Arliss, who has since given up writing plays in order to act them, and he is now a "star" in America. It was one of those rollicking farces which, one would have thought, would have filled the house every night. I was playing elsewhere at the time, but we got together a really excellent company, amongst whom were the Broughs. But fate was against us from the very beginning. The production coincided with a heat wave, which is bound to be disastrous to all but the best of shows, and one of the facetious complaints of the newspaper critics was that they had to come to the theatre when the temperature was eighty in the shade. "The Wild Rabbit" survived three weeks only. It drew £34 the first night--and that was the high-water mark in the matter of receipts. One night the box-office took a mere £8. Seeing that the expenses were about £600 a week, it will be understood that the failure was severe and complete, and in most circumstances one lesson of the kind would have been enough. However, a number of friends of mine had secured the rights of "Melnotte," an operatic version of that good old comedy, "The Lady of Lyons." They did not ask me to invest any capital, but they invited me to let them have the use of my name in booking a tour for the provinces, as they themselves were unknown to theatrical managers. Upon that basis an eight weeks' tour was arranged. Gathering together about sixty artistes all told, they rehearsed them and bought all the scenery, and were almost on the eve of the first production of "Melnotte." Then one fine morning there came the thunderbolt. They told me that all the money they had put into the venture had gone! It had gone before the company had even left London. What was to be done? Seemingly their idea was centred in how speedily they could cut their losses and abandon the venture. Such a thing to me was impossible. With my name attached to the tour, a breach of faith with so many provincial managers would have been a serious blow to my reputation, and apart from that, the fact that sixty of my fellow artistes were in danger of being thrown out of work compelled me to take both a moral and a financial obligation on my shoulders and run the show myself. I could only hope for the best and wait patiently for the report of my manager that the tour was flourishing. That report never came. Every week I had to post a big cheque to cover the deficit on the takings, and every week made it clearer that, although the play itself was a good one, it was a thoroughly bad speculation. Something certainly was amiss. I could not leave London myself, and the only alternative was to offer a friend his railway fare and expenses and ask him to run into the country, see the play and tell me frankly what was amiss. "Harry," said my friend very meaningly, "I've never done you a bad turn. I've seen it--_once_." Once was enough! Eight weeks saw the end of "Melnotte." From the first it was a forlorn hope, and in any case it was impossible to run a company successfully unless one could be on the spot to superintend the production. The only satisfaction I had out of it--and I admit it with some feelings of pride--was that of standing by my fellow professionals, and, at whatever cost to myself, "playing the game." I have never made--and never shall be lured to make--another plunge into management. The risks are too great. Sometimes I am inclined to contrast my bad luck in these business ventures with the good fortune of a friend who once asked me for a loan of £90. He was in humble circumstances then, but he had a little money of his own and his ambition was to buy the licence of a public-house in Holloway. I lent him the cash, and later on he came to repay me, with many thanks for thus giving him his opportunity. Years afterwards we met again. Upon the basis of that little public-house he had built a comfortable fortune, for he was a director of a brewery concern, had a big interest in various industrial undertakings, and eventually became a well-known member of Parliament. "You have been my mascot," he said--and there have been others who for various reasons have said the very same thing! [Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "THE LORD CHANCELLOR" IN "IOLANTHE."] Once I met a "dear friend"--you may know the kind yourself--who was terribly anxious that I should be "in" with him in a rich gold mine in Alaska. He brought some nuggets to show me, and they were so plentiful, he told me, that he had picked these from the top of the ground. Evidently I must have been a particularly credulous person, because he got a good deal of my money, whereas all I got was experience! Where hobbies are concerned my luck always seems to be appalling. I have had a mania for turning my hands to all sorts of things. It began, I remember, with my determination to commence breeding poultry, and having made up my mind to this, it had to be done very thoroughly. I bought quite a number of chickens and wired them within a very small space. The poor things had nothing like enough room, and they began to get bad tempered, to fight one another, and to pull out their feathers. Further, having pulled out their rivals' feathers and found the oil at the roots very tasty, they set to in earnest, and before long there was not one bird with a feather left in the place. They were all bald! A more miserable collection of freaks you could never imagine. With characteristic humour Dan Leno sent me a bottle of Tatcho for them! From hens to ducks was not a far cry. So I bought a number of ducks' eggs, hatched them in an incubator, and at last decided that it was time the little wretches had their first swim. I accordingly carried them down to a pond to put them in. Alas! once more for my amateur enthusiasm! The ducklings were too young for that, and they got cramp and died. Nothing daunted, I turned now to bulldogs, and in order to do things well I bought seven big kennels, complete with iron gates. They would have done credit to a big estate, where breeding is done on up-to-date lines, and were quite out-of-place in my suburban garden at Chiswick. To begin with we could not get the kennels into the garden. For hours they were on the street pavement while we cogitated just how we were going to get them round to the back of the house, and it was only after a police-officer had intervened with an order to remove them forthwith, because they were a nuisance, that we found that if there is a will, there must be a way. "Captain Corcoran" was the name I gave to my best bulldog, and as he brought me luck, I was glad I had chosen that name from "Pinafore." He was a sturdy fellow, the winner of very many championships, and his progeny have since also carried off valuable prizes. But even my one successful hobby was doomed to be blighted. One day two crafty-looking individuals came to my house and said they wanted to see me about a dog. They were Americans, and they wanted, they told me, to buy "Captain Corcoran." I told them I would not sell him--not at any price. They found it a waste of time to try to fix up a deal. "Well," they said as their parting shot, "we're going to have him, anyhow." Within a day or two police officers called to warn me that two expert dog thieves had taken rooms in the neighbourhood, and I was forced to the conclusion, much as I disliked it, that I must dispose of "Captain Corcoran." Later on I commenced to breed dachshunds and Borzois, but somehow I did not care for the "doggy" people with whom I had to mix, and the end was that I gave up dogs altogether. Then I determined I would venture into the more tranquil arts of floriculture. I would have my own flower garden, and what was more, everything in it should be done by myself. My wife, shrewd woman, said nothing. It was a case of "leave him alone, and he'll play for hours." From Holland I ordered an immense number of bulbs and put them into the ground. Months went by, but not a sign was there of my hyacinths. I pondered deeply over my manual of useful hints for gardening. Watered them? Yes. Raked the soil? Yes. What was wrong? Certain it was that these flowers never bloomed in the spring! Eventually, I saw a tiny yellow spike creeping out of the earth, but the colour and nature of it were not "according to plan." At last I called in a gardener. "Oh," he declared, doing his best to soften the blow, "you've planted the bulbs upside down." And so I had! The poor little shoots had to dig down into the soil before they could curve round and creep into the light. Nearly everything in that unfortunate garden had been planted upside down. Friends of mine chaffed me unmercifully over that topsy-turvy exploit. When they came to my house they would turn all the ornaments upside down. Before I entered the room they would reverse the chairs, the settee and anything they could lay their hands upon, and then they would explain themselves by saying, "We thought you liked things like that, old man. The bulbs you know. We've just heard about the bulbs." Well, after the failure with the hens, the ducks, and the flowers, there seemed only one other diversion to try, and that was photography. Even that did not survive very long, nor yet did my attempt to cultivate mushrooms in my cellar, a craze that threatened very literally to get the place into bad odour. But there are two recreations to which I still remain faithful, and they, after all, are worth all the rest put together. One is golf and the other painting. Golf is a great game for keeping the actor fit, and his mind clear for his work, and it is very popular in our profession. Now and then, too, a day with the palette and easel is a wonderful pleasure to me, and seldom do I take up the brush without a thought of poor old Trood and his studio at Chelsea. One diversion at least in which I have had my share of success has been in the fancy dress balls at Covent Garden. Once I took the first prize with a representation of Nelson, the costume of which was copied in every detail from the uniform of the great seaman preserved in Greenwich Museum, and I remember that my entry was signalised by Dan Godfrey's orchestra striking up "'Twas in Trafalgar Bay." Then I took the chief honours with a wonderful bust of Nero, in connection with which I received enormous help from my old friend, the celebrated sculptor, Albert Toft. From my waist downward I was encased in what appeared to be a blood-marble pedestal. My face was whitened, my eyes were closed, and my brow was adorned with the laurel leaf, and when the lights were focussed on my rigid figure and the plaster frame it was acclaimed as a marvellously clever imitation of the statue of the great Roman Emperor. Once again I took the first prize at Covent Garden with the subject of the Knave of Clubs. The costume was a silk one, half black and half white, and on it were fastened the names of all the well-known clubs in London. Even the members of the Beef Steak Club found that their institution had not been overlooked--and that this title appeared on the costume in an appropriate place! Nowadays, when we are on tour, it is very pleasant to be able to travel by motor-car instead of by train. With my Austin-20 car I have now covered well over 42,000 miles, and probably the only occasion when I deliberately exceeded the speed limit was once outside Plymouth. A doctor with a troublesome car was held up in the roadway. When I drew up and asked whether I could help him, he told me he had been a quarter-of-an-hour trying to get the engine to go, though he was due at a very critical operation some miles away. It was, indeed, a matter of life and death, and in my own car he was very speedily taken to the hospital. It was in the same district, I think, that I gave a "lift" to a man who was footsore and weary, and who said at the end of the journey, "I suppose you won't tell the gov'nor about this, will you?" Evidently he had mistaken me for somebody's chauffeur! Some years ago, when I was setting out from my home at Chiswick, I was held up by a 'bus bound for Twickenham. It was crowded already, and the conductor had to refuse a poor old woman who wanted to board it, and who was very distressed, because she had a job at Twickenham, "and if I don't get there," she told me, "they'll think I'm too old for work and they won't want me again." The problem was easily solved. I offered to take her where she was going. She had never been in a motor-car before, and in trying to stammer her thanks, she asked me to tell her my name "so that I shall never forget you." So I handed her my card--she certainly did not know anything about me or what was my profession--and went on my way. Judge of my surprise when, soon after the end of the war, I found that that old lady had bequeathed to me the two little rooms and all the furniture that had been her poor, but neat and cosy, home at Hammersmith. Luckily, I heard of a demobilised soldier who, with his wife and child, was urgently in need of a shelter, and it was a great pleasure to me to be able to turn this touching legacy to such good account. Speaking of hobbies, I don't think I knew a more curious taste than that of an old friend of mine who was a big-game shot and traveller, and who had a miniature zoo of his own at his home at Derby. Once, when the company was playing in that town, he invited me to go and stay the night with him after the performance, and in his library we sat chatting until the early hours of the morning. He told me many graphic stories about his expeditions into strange lands, about the tigers and elephants he had shot, and about his marvellous escapes. One story was about a faithful servant of his, a powerfully-built black, who stood right in front of an infuriated wounded elephant, which trampled on him and killed him, as the poor fellow doubtless knew would be the case, though he was ready to chance all so that his master might be protected. I remember that my friend, having told me this incident, added, "They are the greatest men on God's earth, are these blacks." "Just half-a-minute," then said the explorer. Listening to those strange adventures in the jungle had already set my nerves on edge, and to be left alone in that dimly-lit room, with everything outside and inside it silent and still, was really uncanny. I heard my host walk along the corridor, open one or two doors, and apparently enter the garden. He had left me alone in that house! In a few moments I heard an unnatural tread in the corridor. Pit-pat, pit-pat! My eyes almost sprang out of my head. Pit-pat, pit-pat. Nearer and nearer it came until at last into the room there sauntered a--tiger! My friend walked in behind it. "For God's sake take it away," I screamed, drawing my feet up into the chair and expecting every second the beast would pounce, "Take it away!" The tiger was really only a cub, but coming like an apparition into that room, it seemed to be the biggest and most ferocious and most ghastly sight on earth. Large beads of perspiration were on my forehead, my heart was beating itself out of my body, and through my mind flashed the countless sins of my youth. My last hours had come. "Take it away," I yelled, again and again, "it will tear us to pieces." Now I think of it, the tiger did not really look as if it had much of an appetite, or if it had, the idea of making a tough meal of an actor did not appeal to its palate. The hunter tried to assure me that the beast was "quite all right." It flopped down by his side, and as he stroked it, the cub purred in a manner which, to me at all events, was not at all pleasant. "I know just how long you can keep them," my host explained. "This one will be harmless for another month. Then it will be dangerous. It is quite all right to-night. Come and stroke it!" Not I! So long as the tiger remained there I kept cringed up in my seat on the other side of the room, and mighty thankful I was when he had taken his strange pet away. I've an old-fashioned notion that a library is not the happiest place for a menagerie. I heard that just a month afterwards the beast did, in fact, turn on the big-game shot, and his arm was terribly ripped. He must have trusted it just a day too long. [Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "KO-KO" IN "THE MIKADO"] IX. GILBERT AND SULLIVAN. _World-wide Fame of the Operas--The Secrets of Their Charm--Sullivan's Music and the Popular Taste--Gilbert and the Englishman--Stage Figures That Are True to National Type--The Germans and "H.M.S. Pinafore"--Characters That Mirror Ourselves--Gilbert's Versatility--Pedigree of the Operas--Practical Hints for Amateurs--The Importance of the First Entrance--Studying the Art of Make-up--A Splendid Heritage of Humour and Song._ The Gilbert and Sullivan public are said to number three millions. Exactly how this figure is arrived at I cannot say, but it is presumed to represent those who make it a point of honour to see the operas whenever they possibly can, who are familiar with all the music and the songs, and who lose no chance of making others as enthusiastic as they are. Literally they are to be found the whole world over--from China to Peru--and the operas are as successful in Australia and America as they are in the United Kingdom. I was told once of an Englishman, exiled in the wilds of China, who had an audience of Celestials listening at his garden gate while he was warbling to himself "Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes!" What a wonderful thing it is that plays which are all well over thirty years old should have such a faithful following! Clearly there must be something exceptional about them, some magnetic force that draws the multitudes to them, some elixir that gives to them the freshness of eternal youth. Imitators have tried hard to capture the secret of their sweet simplicity. That they have failed so far to do so is a misfortune. The Savoy operas still stand alone, unchallenged either by any changing in popular taste or by the passage of time, though if there were more of them it would be good for the public that loves such honest, wholesome enjoyment. It would also be good for the stage. What is the secret? Sullivan's music often reminds me of a beautiful garden. No attempt is there here to picture in bold orchestral strokes the frowning peaks, the expansive landscapes or the scenes of pomp and splendour. The canvas is ever a miniature one. Each melody is comparable to a lily or a daffodil--just as unpretentious and just as charming--while the whole has the fragrance of the flowers that bloom in the spring. We love this music because it soothes and delights. It is not too "intellectual." We appreciate it as a free and easy distraction, just as we appreciate a popular novel, though we may have high-brow moments when we peer into our Darwin and Spencer. Sullivan's greatest virtue was that he wrote music that was "understanded of the people." British folk, as we know, are easy going. We are a little too inclined to doff the thinking-cap at the first opportunity. Speaking generally, we are not a studious race, and we don't want to be bothered with "problems." Sullivan's music is never in the problem style--the problem of intricate chords and modern progressions--and just as certainly does it avoid the strident atrocities of the modern ragtime type. It is transparent and simple. It sparkles like the stream in the sunshine, and it is always joyous, buoyant and happy. We want more of such music. Give the people more of these delicate melodies--frankly popular as they are, and yet supremely good music--and into their own lives will enter much of the same romantic warmth and content. All this shows how Sullivan in his music was perfectly and typically British. What about Gilbert? In his way I think he was the same. British audiences, he knew, did not want either abstruse plots or out-and-out farces, but they did like to be indulged with gentle ripples of laughter. They did not care over-much for the incongruous, but they did love rollicking, good-natured burlesque. And Gilbert was a master of burlesque. Endless arrows are released from his bow, but they hit the mark without disfiguring it, for the tips are not dipped in poison. The Briton can laugh with the best when his own weaknesses and foibles are held up to satire. Certain people would go at once into a tantrum. The Germans, as we know, could never understand "H.M.S. Pinafore." They said it was impossible! No doubt to them it was impossible. Gilbert was making play with Britain's proudest possession--her Navy. Well, the Germans could never have produced a Gilbert of their own in any case, but imagine the enormity of the crime if such a one had written a play caricaturing the omnipotent German War Lords and the old German Army! Whatever the national costume in which the Gilbert characters are dressed, and however remote the age to which these costumes belong, we know at once that the garb is the purest "camouflage." We have met their like in present-day London or Glasgow or Liverpool. What a lot of folk in real life we know with the same little oddities! _The Duke of Plaza-Toro_, though described as a Spanish grandee, is really very much an Englishman. He sings, too, about the human weakness for small titles and orders, and we know that that is not an exclusive weakness of the Venetians or the Baratarians in "The Gondoliers." The cap can find a head to fit it much nearer home. Then there is the character of _Sir Joseph Porter_ in "Pinafore." No doubt he is an exaggerated political type, but he is not exaggerated, after all, beyond recognition. "The Yeomen of the Guard" is, of all operas ever written, the one most essentially English. The Elizabethan setting is there, and so is the happy spirit of old Merrie England. Slightly, perhaps, it may be a drama, but it brings to the surface the tears of gentle melancholy only. That also stamps it as typically British. _Colonel Fairfax_, under the shadow of the executioner's axe, does not strike a dramatic pose and tell us that it is a far, far better thing he is going to do than he has ever done. Not a bit! In effect, he says its rather hard luck, but there it is anyhow, and after all things might be very much worse. A British officer always was ready to face death with a smile. Nor does _Jack Point_ himself, the most lovable of characters, make a parade of his grief. The burning, aching pain is smothered almost to the end beneath the outward jesting, and when his honest heart breaks there is no murmur against the cruelty of fate, nor any cry of vengeance upon the rival who has won _Elsie Maynard_. Yes, we British people can often see ourselves in these characters as if in a mirror, and it is probably due to this, together with the exquisite blend of inimitable music and wit, that the popularity of these operas is so strong and enduring. Stage "puppets" as they may be, they do show us a lot about both our virtues and follies, but rather more about our follies, because as a race we are notoriously shy of our praises being sung! They are always ready to own up to their weaknesses in some capital song. So like the self-depreciating British! Like the rest of us, too, they are for ever getting into some dilemma or other, and they disentangle themselves without excitement or flurry. Each point is made without the banging of drums or the sounding of trumpets. Contrast this with Wagner, who makes a terrible fuss about the merest trifle, and works up his orchestration in a manner that might suggest that the heavens were falling. Whether we like our music like this must be a matter of taste and individual discretion. Here in Gilbert and Sullivan at all events we have common sense--for there can be common sense even in the ridiculous--and a tranquilising atmosphere. In a busy, workaday world, with its ceaseless nervous and physical strain, it is surely a grateful attribute, a pleasant diversion between the burdens of one day and those of the next! Sir William Gilbert, as I have said before, had a master mind as a playwright. Every opera he wrote had a definite and an interesting plot, and a plot which had, moreover, a purpose. "H.M.S. Pinafore," as we know, was a shrewd shaft aimed at some of the absurdities of our political life, though I say this without being in any way a politician myself! In "Patience" he held up to ridicule the æsthetic craze of the 'eighties. With "Iolanthe" we enter the fantastic field, and to me there is always something uncommonly whimsical in the idea that Parliament is ruled by the fairies, who thus must be the real rulers of England. "Princess Ida" was a clever anticipation of the women's movement, though it is well-known that Gilbert took the outlines of the story from Tennyson. Then "The Mikado" transports to the romantic and picturesque land of Japan. "Ruddigore" was intended to be a travesty on the melodramatic stage. Following this came an historical play, designed to show his gifts in a new, more serious and no less successful light. I refer, of course, to "The Yeomen of the Guard." Then "The Gondoliers" carried us to beautiful Venice, whilst last of all were "Utopia Limited," which I trust will soon be revived, and "The Grand Duke." It is remarkable that so wide a range could be covered in one series of plays. * * * * * Gilbert, at an O.P. Club dinner in 1906, admitted his "indebtedness to the author of the 'Bab Ballads,' from whom I have so unblushingly cribbed." The diligent student of the ballads and the operas will find many evidences of the development of ideas from the chrysalis to the butterfly stage. I have to thank Mr. Robert Bell for the following notes--confirmed and amplified by Gilbert during his lifetime--on the pedigree of a few of the more popular operas:-- "H.M.S. Pinafore" "Captain Reece," "The Baby's Vengeance," "General John," "Lieutenant-Colonel Flare," "The Bumboat Woman's Story," "Joe Golightly," "Little Oliver." "The Yeoman of the Guard" "Annie Protheroe," "To Phoebe." "Iolanthe" "The Fairy Curate," "The Periwinkle Girl." "Patience" "The Rival Curates." "H.M.S. Pinafore," it will be seen, owed more to the ballads than did any of the later operas, and it will be noticed that _Captain Corcoran_, with his solicitude for his crew and his carefully moderate language, was clearly of the stock of _Captain Reece_, of "The Mantelpiece," who "Did all that lay within him to Promote the comfort of his crew; A feather bed had every man Warm slippers and hot-water can, Brown Windsor from the captain's store, A valet, too, to every four." --an example of unselfishness to be compared in the other branch of the Service only with the altruism of "Lieutenant-Colonel Flare." The main theme of the opera--the babies changed in their cradles--was a great favourite with Gilbert. In the ballads it appears in "General John" and "The Baby's Vengeance," which latter poem may have suggested, moreover, certain details in "Ruddigore." The origin of _Robin Oakapple's_ bashfulness may possibly be traced back to "The Married Couple," in which the pair were betrothed in infancy, as also happens in "Princess Ida." "Iolanthe" has an obvious resemblance to "The Fairy Curate." In both a fairy marries a mortal, with the result in one case of the curate, _Georgie_, and in the other the Arcadian shepherd, _Strephon_. Then we are bound to notice how the feud of the two poets in "Patience" is modelled on the emulation of the _Rev. Clayton Hooper_ and the _Rev. Hopley Porter_ in "The Rival Curates." Indeed, the parallel between the ballad and the opera was originally so complete that in the opera the dragoons were curates, and _Bunthorne_ and _Grosvenor_ clergymen! Sir William, however, began to doubt whether it was good taste to hold up the clergy to a certain amount of ridicule, and so he changed the principals into æsthetes, and the curates into dragoons. Coming to "The Yeomen of the Guard" we find that _Wilfred Shadbolt_, with his anecdotes of the prison cells and the torture chamber, had a prototype in the jailor in "Annie Protheroe." In both a condemned man is reprieved and enabled to outwit his rival for the love of a lady. "Were I thy Bride" is also a song with an obvious affinity to the ballad, "To Phoebe." So we might continue to trace in the ballads ideas which the playwright turned to the happiest account in the operas. Strangely enough, "The Mikado" is the opera which best keeps its secrets, and one searches the poems in vain for anything in the nature of a "pedigree." Lucky is the actor or actress who secures an engagement in these operas at the outset of his or her career on the stage. The Savoy tradition which Gilbert and Sullivan founded was, of course, entirely different to anything which had preceded it, and the great feature of this new school was the insistence that was and still is placed on clear enunciation, distinct vocal phrasing, and refinement of manner and gesture. The beginner who is trained on these lines is thus taught the essentials of genuine artistry, and it is also a great advantage to a new-comer that, early in his professional life, he has played in pieces which have such an infectious spirit about them and before audiences that are always so ready with encouragement. By the management itself good work is invariably recognised, and it is always possible, as has happened in my own case, for one to rise from the chorus itself to the principal parts. Gilbert and Sullivan's works are now given by hundreds of amateur societies all the year round, and often we hear that parties of those who are going to play in them have travelled some distance to see us, and so to gather notes for their own performances. Scattered about these pages are many practical hints for these amateur players. From an "old hand" they may be of some service, not merely because they are drawn from my own long experience, but because many of these points were given me by Gilbert himself and by great actors like Irving. It will be useful, I think, if I now summarise and amplify these suggestions, which are applicable chiefly to those who are to play in these operas, but which in a general way may be helpful to all amateur and young professional performers. Here they are:-- 1. Study your part very thoroughly beforehand, and when on the stage forget all about yourself, and live that part entirely. Concentrate all your thoughts upon it, and if it is a whimsical part, see that you get the right atmosphere before you begin. 2. Speak clearly and deliberately. Never forget the man at the back of the gallery, and so long as your enunciation is distinct, your words will reach him without any need for shouting. Special care should be taken to phrase clearly when singing. 3. Be perfectly natural in your actions and gestures. The secret of this is, whether you are actually speaking or not, to wrap yourself up in your part and in the play, and so save yourself from being troubled with self-consciousness. 4. Give your audience credit for humorous perception. Gilbert's wit, in other words, is such that the actor must not force his lines through fear, as it were, that the people in front will otherwise not be intelligent enough to "see the joke." Indeed, the more serious and intense he is in many cases, the more oblivious he pretends to be to the absurdity of what he is saying, the quainter and more delightful is the effect on the other side of the footlights. 5. Exceptional instances apart, the actor who is speaking or being spoken to, or who is singing a song, should stand well to the front of the stage. Not only does this let you make the best use of your voice, but it helps you, what is more important, to rivet the attention of the audience. 6. Keep up a keen personal interest in the play. If you are in the chorus, your job is not solely to help in the singing and to show off a picturesque costume, but to assist in focussing the interest on the central incident. If, on the other hand, you are listless and stare about the theatre, it is bound to rob the whole performance of freshness and spontaneity. 7. The Gilbert and Sullivan atmosphere, as I have said several times elsewhere, is "repose." This is impossible if every member of the company--and even the leading principal himself--indulges in little mannerisms liable to take the audience's eye from the central point. 8. Never forget that a company, so far from being divided into principals and chorus, is really one big family, and success depends on one and all "pulling together." Still less should the principals forget what they owe to the chorus for loyally backing them up, and a little kindly appreciation, a word of encouragement from themselves, as the more experienced players, to those who are anxious to learn, goes a mighty long way. Now that the old stock companies have become almost things of the past, our amateur operatic societies should be recognised as one of the best recruiting fields for theatrical talent, and it is a fact that from their ranks many great artistes have sprung. I myself have seen numbers of these amateur shows, and in most of them there have been two or three performers who, with work and experience, could take a creditable place on the professional stage. For this reason I am anxious to give them all the advice it is in my power to give. First and foremost, therefore, I should insist that before any words are memorised the part itself must be thoroughly studied, so that one knows exactly what the author intends and just what sort of figure one has to depict. Especially have I made it my aim, on my first entrance in any part, to let the audience see just what the character is, whether a comedian, a tragedian, a lover, a fool, or a "fop." _Feel_ that you are actually one of these, and especially when you make your first entry, and the battle is half won already. You will then have something of what people variously call "magnetism" or "personality" or "atmosphere." This _feeling_ of your part at the first entrance is of vital importance, and as far as you can, you must try to keep it up right through the play. Take the case of _Jack Point_. From the moment he enters the audience should know the manner of man that he is and he must win their sympathy immediately. He is a poor strolling player who has been dragged from pillar to post. Footsore and weary though he is, _Jack Point_ is anxious to please the crowd who have roughly chased him and _Elsie Maynard_ in, for if he fails them have they not threatened to duck him in the nearest pond? _Jack_ and _Elsie_ are no ordinary players. In Elizabethan times the street dancer was a familiar character. The Merry-man and his maid, however, tell us that they can sing _and_ dance too, a wonderful accomplishment. All this and more is made clear on their first entry. It should be the same in the interpretation of all the other parts. When the _Duke of Plaza-Toro_ arrives, he must at once impress the audience that, although impecunious, he still expects the deference due to birth and breeding. _Ko-Ko_, on the other hand, is a cheap tailor suddenly exalted to the rank of Lord High Executioner, and from _his_ first entrance it is obvious that he was never brought up in the dignified ways of a Court. He tells the gentlemen of Japan that he is "much touched by this reception." Somehow one feels that that speech was written out for him when he received his appointment, that he has since recited it forty times a day, and that now the upstart is trying to make believe it is entirely extempore! Then there is _Sir Joseph Porter_. Whenever I play this rôle I do my best to cultivate a sense of immense self-importance. I do this, of course, whilst waiting my cue, but the effect of it should be seen on the stage. _Bunthorne_'s first appearance should be done in such a way as to stamp him definitely for what he is--an affected "poseur." The exaggeration may be relaxed a little afterwards--but it _must_ be there at the beginning. So long as one has studied one's part beforehand, particularly in regard to the nature of the first entry, the memorisation of the words becomes more or less easy. And amateurs ought to realise what a tremendous help to them it would be to practice their own facial "make-up." Generally they leave that to an expert, but if they practised it themselves, they would find it a very fascinating, and certainly an important, branch of the actor's profession. Many and many a time have I taken my pencils and colours, retired to some quiet room at home, and spent an afternoon experimenting in make-up. Notwithstanding that I have never played any Shakespearian characters, I have made up privately for dozens of them, and the practice has helped me in innumerable ways. For instance, I used to be fond of making up as the hunchback _Richard the Third_, and I turned these experiments to account when I had to play the rôle of _King Gama_. Shakespeare's _Touchstone_ also appealed to me, and having made up as this clown so often, I had many useful ideas when I came to do _Jack Point_. The deathly pallor of the poor jester at the end was contrived from many similar experiments. Setting photographs before me, I would make myself resemble the late Lord Roberts and the late Sir Evelyn Wood, and these were used as a model when I had to be _Major-General Stanley_. Several visits to the Law Courts gave me valuable hints for the _Lord Chancellor_. The _Duke of Plaza-Toro_ was studied from an old print of a grandee. _Ko-Ko's_ make up, which was bound to be a difficult one, was the outcome of a good deal of sketching on paper, particularly in regard to the treatment of the lines round the eyes. When Mrs. D'Oyly Carte first saw me as _Bunthorne_, she exclaimed "How you do remind me of Whistler!" That was a compliment. It was from Whistler, of course, that this rôle was understood to be drawn, and so I was not loath to copy the poet's photograph, even to the white lock in his ample jet-black hair! Yes, make-up well rewards one for all the time one spends in practising it, and many brother professionals agree with me that the great past-masters of the art were the late Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and the late Wilson Barrett. With them, of course, make-up concerned not merely the face but the figure, and it was wonderful how Tree, to instance only two of his great parts, could adapt himself either to the portly and blustering _Falstaff_ or to the lean and haggard _Svengali_. And Barrett, though ordinarily stocky of build, could appear at times as a towering, dominating personality. Seeing that these men were big theatrical figures, they were not compelled to sink their identities in the parts they were playing, and yet they were such great artistes that they always did so completely. I close this book with a simple story of the different operas. This will, I am sure, be read with interest both by those who know them already and by those, the younger generation, who are growing up to know and love them too for what they are--a heritage of pure humour and song of which the nation may well be proud, and to which it will remain faithful as long as the spirit of laughter abides in its heart. Dear are their melodies to England's heart, Pure English is the fount from which they flow, As frank and tender as was English art In the rich times of Purcell, Arne and Blow; As English the libretto every whit, Jests how well polished, whimsies how well said; True English humour, and true English wit, Sword-sharp yet kindly, hearty yet well-bred. Thus have they lasted, and out-last the years. Being in their fantasy to life so true, So intermix't with laughter and with tears. So gay, so wise, so old, and yet so new. Long may they, living for our children's joy, Renew the triumphs of the old Savoy! THE STORIES OF THE OPERAS. "TRIAL BY JURY." _Produced March 25th, 1875._ Gilbert and Sullivan's fame was really based on a little comic opera called "Thespis." It was produced by John Hollingshead at the Gaiety, and its success was so great that Mr. Richard D'Oyly Carte was induced to invite them to collaborate again in the first of what we now know as the D'Oyly Carte operas, the dramatic cantata, "Trial by Jury." Short and slender as it is, this opera has always been immensely popular, and it still appears regularly in the company's programmes. Gilbert, who had himself followed the law before he transferred his talents to the stage, took as his subject an imaginary breach of promise case between Edwin and Angelina. That it is a faithful picture of a court of law and of those who minister there one would never dare to suggest! But as a very free and clever burlesque even those who follow the vocation of the wig and gown will admit its claims immediately. When the curtain rises we see the interior of a court of justice, and the barristers, solicitors and jury are already in their places. The Usher, a functionary of the old school, at once proceeds to give some homely and informal advice to the jurymen, telling them to listen to the case with minds free from vulgar prejudice. With that he goes on to try to soften their masculine hearts over the plight of poor Angelina. When the defendant enters the twelve good men and true shake their fists in his face, hail him as a "monster," and bid him "dread our damages." Edwin ventures to suggest that, as they are in the dark as to the merits of his case, these proceedings are strange. He tells how he once rapturously adored the lady, how she then began to bore him intensely, and how at last he became "another's love-sick boy." The jury reflect that they, too, were rather inconstant in their own youthful days, but now that they are older and "shine with a virtue resplendent" they "haven't a scrap of sympathy with the defendant." The Judge now takes his seat on the bench. The genial soul, as a prelude to the duties of the day, confides how he rose to judicial eminence. For years he searched in vain for briefs, and then he found an easy escape from poverty by marrying a rich attorney's elderly, ugly daughter. He would, his father-in-law said, soon get used to her looks, and in the meanwhile he promised to deluge him with briefs for the "Sessions and Ancient Bailey." By these means he prospered, and then he "threw over that rich attorney's elderly, ugly daughter." And now he is ready to try this present breach of promise of marriage. Counsel for the plaintiff having taken his place, the jury are sworn well and truly to try the case, which they do by kneeling low down in the box and, with the exception of their upraised hands, quite out of sight. The plaintiff's arrival is heralded by that of a beautiful bevy of bridesmaids. The Judge, having taken a fancy to one of them, pens her a little note, which she kisses rapturously. Yet when he sees the plaintiff, a still brighter vision of loveliness, he orders that the note shall be taken from the bridesmaid and given to her. Judge and jury alike are entranced. Counsel proceeds to open the case, and with bitter reproaches he assails the traitor whose heartless wile victimised his "interesting client," to whom "Camberwell (had) become a bower, Peckham an Arcadian vale." The plaintiff weeps. When she is lead to the witness-box she falls in a faint on to the foreman's shoulders, but upon the Judge inquiring whether she would not rather recline on him, the fair lady jumps on to the bench and sits down fondly by the side of the Judge. Edwin, regarded by all as an object of villainy, now proceeds to state his case, and can only offer to marry the lady to-day and then marry his new love to-morrow. The Judge suggests that this may be a fair proposition, but counsel holds that, on the other hand, "to marry two at once is burglaree." Angelina, with a view to increasing the damages, now embraces her inconstant lover and calls upon the jury to witness what a loss she has to deplore. Edwin, in the hope in turn of reducing them, declares that at heart he is a ruffian and a bully, and that she could never endure him a day. The Judge suggests that, as the man declares that when tipsy he would thrash her and kick her, the best plan would be for them to make him tipsy and see! Objection is raised to this on every side, and then the man of law, losing his temper and scattering the books hither and thither, declares that as nothing will please them he will marry the lady himself. This solution seems to carry general agreement. The Judge, having claimed her hand, sings:-- "Though homeward as you trudge You declare my law is fudge, Yet of beauty I'm a judge." To which all in court reply, "And a good judge too!" "THE SORCERER." _Produced November 17th, 1887._ "The Sorcerer" is a merry story of sentimental topsy-turvydom. Cupid could never have performed such mischievous pranks as he did, aided by a magician's love potion, in the pleasant village of Ploverleigh. Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre, a baronet of ancient lineage, has invited the tenantry to his Elizabethan mansion to celebrate the betrothal of his son Alexis, a Grenadier Guardsman, to the lovely Aline. So happy and romantic a union between two old families deserved to be worthily honoured, and a large and lavishly stocked marquee, we notice, has been erected at one side of the garden. Aline herself is rich, the only daughter of the Lady Sangazure, and the seven thousand and thirty-seventh in direct descent, it seems, from Helen of Troy. Nor are there heart-stirrings only in the homes of the great. Early in the opera it transpires that Constance Partlet, the daughter of a humble pew-opener at the Parish Church, has a doting love for the vicar, Dr. Daly. It is a hopeless passion. Not that the vicar, now a bachelor of venerable years, had never felt the throb of romance in his soul, and never recalled the "aching memory of the old, old days." Fondly does he muse over the time when-- "Maidens of the noblest station, Forsaking even military men, Would gaze upon me, rapt in admiration-- Ah, me! I was a pale young curate then." This, indeed, was the time when love and he were well acquainted, as he tells us in a delightful ballad, and when none was better loved that he in all the land! Yet even these dreams of yesteryear fail to awaken in him the desires for a joyous to-morrow. Constance's mother finds him quite unresponsive to her ingenious suggestions, for though he sees the advantage of having a lady installed in the vicarage, he is too old now for his estate to be changed. Sir Marmaduke and Alexis enter. The honest heart of the father glows at the thought of the marriage, though he confesses that he has little liking for the new kind of love-making, in which couples rush into each other's arms rapturously singing:-- "Oh, my adored one!" "Beloved boy!" "Ecstatic rapture!" "Unmingled joy!" So different, he reflects, to the older and more courtly "Madame, I trust you are in the enjoyment of good health"; "Sir, you are vastly polite, I protest I am mighty well." Even thus did he once pay his addresses to the Lady Sangazure. For once they, too, were lovers! But these reveries are ended by the arrival of Aline, and soon afterwards, to the tuneful salutation of the villagers, the marriage contract is signed and sealed in the presence of Counsel. Left alone at last with his betrothed, Alexis tells her of his maxim that true love, the source of every earthly joy, should break down all such artificial barriers as rank, wealth, beauty and age. Upon this subject he has lectured in the workhouses, beershops and asylums, and been received with enthusiasm everywhere, though he cannot deny the aloofness as yet of the aristocracy. He is going to take a desperate step to put those noble principles to proof. From London he has summoned the great John Wellington Wells. He belongs to an old-established firm of family sorcerers, who practise all sorts of magics and spells, with their wonderful penny curse as their quick-selling speciality. From the moment he enters it is obvious that this glib-tongued charlatan is a hustling dynamo. Alexis, much to Aline's alarm, commissions him to supply liberal quantities of his patent love philtre in order that, from purely philanthropical motives, as he explains, he may distribute it secretly amongst the villagers. Wells, like the pushful tradesman he is, has the very thing in his pocket. He guarantees that whoever drinks it will fall in love, as a matter of course, with the first lady he meets who has also tasted it, and his affection will be returned immediately. Then follows a melodramatic incantation as the sorcerer deposits the philtre into a gigantic teapot. "Spirits of earth and air, fiends of flame and fire" are summoned "in shoals" to "this dreadful deed inspire." This done Mr. Wells beckons the villagers, and all the party, except the two lovers, join merrily in drinking a toast drawn from the teapot. Quickly it becomes evident from their strange conduct that the charm is working. All rub their eyes, and the curtain falls on the picture of many amorous couples, rich and poor alike, under the spell of the romantic illusion. The same scene greets us when the second act opens. The couples are strangely assorted--an old man with a girl, an elderly woman with a youth--but all sing and dance to a love that is "the source of all joy to humanity." Constance confesses her rapture for a deaf old Notary. Sir Marmaduke himself walks arm-in-arm with Mrs. Partlet. Dr. Daly is sadly perplexed. The villagers, who had not been addicted to marrying and giving in marriage, have now been coming to him in a body and imploring him to join them in matrimony with little delay. The sentimental old bachelor reflects, moreover, how comely all the maidens are, and sighs that alas! all now are engaged! Meanwhile, Alexis has tried to persuade Aline that they should drink the philtre too, for only thus can they ensure their own undying devotion. She refuses and there is a tiff, but later, to prove that her love for him is true, she does drink the potion, only to be seized by a passionate affection for--Dr. Daly. Nor can the good vicar resist the yearning to reciprocate. Coming to the scene, Alexis is outraged with his lover's perfidy, and at last has very serious doubts about the excellence of his theories and the wisdom of the sorcerer's spell. Dr. Daly, determined to be no man's rival, is ready to quit the country at once and bury his sorrow "in the congenial gloom of a colonial bishopric." But one of the drollest effects of the enchantment has still to be told. The first man on whom the Lady Sangazure casts her eye after she has succumbed is none other than the notorious John Wellington Wells. In vain does he lie to her that he is already engaged. In vain does he describe a beauteous maiden with bright brown hair who waits for him in the Southern Pacific. She threatens at last to end her sorrows in the family vault, and only then does the sorcerer, as a small reparation for all the emotional disturbance he has created, decide that the acceptance of her hand might not be at all a bad bargain. In the end the magic scheme becomes so involved that it must be at all costs disentangled. It can be done in only one way. Someone must yield his life to Ahrimanes. Wells agrees to commit this act of self-immolation, and amidst a wreath of fire and brimstone he disappears, melodramatic to the last, through a trap-door in the stage. With his departure the couples re-assort themselves, selecting mates in keeping with their various social stations and ages, and the betrothal festivities resume their merry sway. "H.M.S. PINAFORE." _Produced May 25th, 1878._ Certainly "H.M.S. Pinafore" was not a model ship as regards the sense of discipline that exists in the real British Navy. But in every other respect it _was_ a model ship. Captain Corcoran was the commander of its jovial crew, and a very fine commander he was, always indulgent to his men and always ready to address them politely. Swearing on board was a thing almost unknown. Corcoran did say "bother it" now and again, but he tells us that he never used "a big, big d----" at least, "hardly ever." Lustily do the crew "give three cheers and one cheer more for the well-bred captain of the Pinafore." The opera has the quarter-deck for its setting, and it is related that Gilbert took as his model for this scene the old Victory, which he went to see at Portsmouth. Our first introduction is to the crew, who busily polish the brasswork and splice the rope while they sing in tuneful nautical strains that their "saucy ship's a beauty" and manned by "sober men and true, attentive to their duty." Only one gruff old salt is there amongst them, and we discover him in the ugly, distorted form of Dick Deadeye. He is thoroughly unpopular. Soon the sailors welcome on board Little Buttercup, a Portsmouth bumboat woman who has come to sell her wares, and who is hailed as "the rosiest, the roundest and the reddest beauty in all Spithead." She has certainly some delightful ditties to sing. One member of the crew is handsome Ralph Rackstraw, who confesses to a passion for Corcoran's pretty daughter, Josephine. The poor fellow is downcast that his ambitions should have soared to such impossible heights. Yet Josephine herself is also sad because of a heart that "hopes but vainly." Corcoran chides her, and tells her how happy she should be when her hand is to be claimed, that very day, by the great Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B., the First Lord of the Admiralty. She confesses that, although she is a proud captain's daughter, she loves a humble sailor on board her father's own ship. Sir Joseph's stately barge is approaching. He comes attended by a host of his sisters and his cousins and his aunts, a very large and charming family group whom the sailors, instead of standing rigidly at attention, salute with effusive politeness. Sir Joseph, attired in the Court dress of his office, proceeds at once to describe his meteoric rise from an office boy in an attorney's firm to become the "ruler of the Queen's Navee." The story is that of an industrious clerk who, having "served the writs with a smile so bland and copied all the letters in a big round hand" is taken at last into partnership, and eventually becomes an obedient party man in Parliament and a member of the Ministry. For landsmen the moral of it all is summed up in this golden rule:-- "Stick close to your desk and never go to sea And you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navee." The First Lord has ideas of his own that the sense of independence in the lower deck must be fully encouraged. The British sailor he holds to be any man's equal, and he insists that Captain Corcoran shall accompany every order of his crew, over whom he has been placed merely by accident of birth, with a courteous "if you please." Then he takes Corcoran into the cabin to teach him another accomplishment--dancing the hornpipe. Josephine meanwhile steals out on to the deck. She meets Ralph Rackstraw, who boldly gambles his all on an immediate protestation of love, only to be refused for his presumption and impetuosity. The poor fellow, before the whole ship's company and without their lifting a hand to restrain him, prepares to blow out his brains, when the girl rushes into his arms. Notwithstanding the evil Dick Deadeye's warning, they arrange to steal ashore at night to be married, and the curtain falls on the crew giving three cheers for the sailor's bride. When the second act opens the deck is bathed in moonlight. Captain Corcoran is strumming his mandoline and singing a plaintive song--he laments that everything is at sixes and sevens--while gazing at him sentimentally is Little Buttercup. Following a duet between them, Sir Joseph Porter enters to complain that he is disappointed in Josephine, and Corcoran can attribute her reticence only to the exalted rank of so distinguished a suitor as the First Lord of the Admiralty. Corcoran afterwards takes his daughter aside and explains to her that love is a platform on which all ranks meet, little mindful how eloquently he is thus pleading the cause of humble Ralph. When the girl has left Dick Deadeye comes to warn the father of the plan for a midnight elopement. Enveloping himself in a cloak, with a cat-o'-nine-tails in his hand, he awaits developments. Soon the crew steal in on tiptoe, and afterwards the two lovers, ready to escape ashore in the dingy. Captain Corcoran surprises them, but, to his amazement, Ralph Rickshaw openly and defiantly avows his love, while the crew chant his praises as an Englishman:-- "For he might have been a Roosian, A French, or Turk, or Proosian, Or perhaps Itali-an. But in spite of all temptations To belong to other nations He remains an Englishman!" Even for the well-bred skipper this is too much. He explodes with a "big, big d----." Sir Joseph hears the bad language and is horrified. He will hear of no explanations. Captain Corcoran is banished to his cabin in disgrace. The First Lord is destined to receive still another shock. He hears of the attachment between Josephine and Ralph. The "presumptuous mariner" is ordered to be handcuffed and marched off to the dungeon. But it is after this that we hear the biggest surprise of all--and from the lips of Little Buttercup. She recalls that in the years long ago she practised baby farming, and to her care were committed two infants, "one of low condition, the other a patrician." Unhappily, in a luckless moment she mixed those children up, and the poor baby really was Corcoran and the rich one Ralph Rackstraw. Ralph thereupon enters in a captain's uniform. Corcoran follows him in the dress of a mere able-seaman. Sir Joseph decides that, although love levels rank in many cases, his own marriage with a common sailor's daughter is out of the question, and he resigns himself then and there to his venerable cousin, Hebe. Ralph claims his Josephine, while the fallen Corcoran links his future with that of the bumboat woman, Little Buttercup. [Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "SIR JOSEPH PORTER" IN "H.M.S. PINAFORE."] "THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE." _Produced April 30th, 1880._ Sheltered in the Cornish coast was the hiding place of a band of tender-hearted pirates. Never was the trade of the skull-and-cross-bones followed by men of such sensitive and compassionate feelings. They made it a point of honour never to attack a weaker party, and whenever they attempted to fight a stronger one they invariably got thrashed. Orphans themselves, they shrank from ever laying a molesting hand on an orphan, and many of the ships they captured had to be released because they were found to be manned entirely by orphans. Little wonder was it that these Pirates of Penzance could not make the grim trade of piracy pay. The curtain rises on a scene of revelry. Frederic has just completed his pirate apprenticeship and is being hailed as a fully-fledged member of the gang. That he had been indentured with them at all was a mistake. When he was a lad his nurse was told to take and apprentice him to a pilot, and when she discovered her stupid blunder she let him stay with the pirates, and remained with them herself as a maid-of-all-work rather than return to brave the parental fury. Frederic, at all times the slave of duty, has loyally served out his time, but now he announces that not only will he not continue at a trade he detests, but he is going to devote himself heart and soul to his old comrades' extermination. The declaration turns the camp from joy into mourning, but these very scrupulous pirates have to admit that a man must act as his conscience dictates, and they can only crave that the manner of their deaths may be painless and speedy. Frederic has never seen a woman's face--no other woman's face, at least, but Ruth's, his old nurse, who adores him--and thus there come as a vision of loveliness to him the figures of the many daughters of Major-General Stanley. They have penetrated into the rocky cove during a picnic. Frederic, sensitive about his detested dress, hides from them for a while, but soon he reveals himself and entreats them all to stoop in pity so low is to accept the hand and heart of a pirate. Only one of them, Mabel, is ready to take him for what he is, and the love-making between the two is swift and passionate. It is interrupted by the return of the gang, each member of which seizes a girl and claims her as his bride, and during this lively interlude there arrives old General Stanley. He has lagged behind the rest of the party. The General, a resplendent figure in his uniform, knows a good deal about the most abstruse and complicated sciences, though he proclaims that he knows no more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery. In this he holds himself to be "the very model of a modern major-general." Completing the candid recital of his attainments and want of them, he inquires what strange deeds are afoot, and he has no liking either for pirates as sons-in-law or for the prospect of being robbed wholesale of his daughters. But where is the way of escape? Luckily the General has heard of these Penzance pirates before, and he wrings their sympathy with the sad news that he, too, is "an orphan boy." For such tender-hearted robbers that is enough. They surrender the girls, and with them all thoughts of matrimonial felicity, and restore the entire party to liberty. The second act is laid in a ruined chapel at night. General Stanley, surrounded by his daughters, has come to do penance for his lie before the tombs of his ancestors, who are his solely by purchase, for he has owned the estate only a year. Frederic is now to lead an expedition against the pirates. For this perilous mission he has gathered together a squad of police, who march in under their sergeant, all of them very nervous and under misgivings that possibly they may be going to "die in combat gory." Soon after they have left there is a whimsical development. Frederic, alone in the chapel, is visited by the Pirate King and Ruth. Covering him first of all with their pistols, they tell him that they have remembered that he was born on the 29th of February, and that as he thus has a birthday only every four years he is still but five years of age! Frederic, as we have observed before, has a keen sense of duty. In blank despair he agrees to return to the gang to finish his apprenticeship. Once more a member of the band, he is bound also to disclose the horrible fact that the old soldier has practised on the pirates' credulous simplicity, and that in truth he is no orphan boy. The Pirate King decrees that there shall be a swift and terrible revenge that very night. When all have left but Mabel, who declares that she will remain faithful to her lover until he has lived his twenty-one leap-years, there re-enter the police. The sergeant laments that the policeman's lot is not a happy one. It is distressing to them to have to be the agents whereby their erring fellow-creatures are deprived of the liberty that everyone prizes. "When the enterprising burglar's not a-burgling, When the cut-throat isn't occupied in crime, He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling And listen to the merry village chime. When the coster's finished jumping on his mother, He loves to lie a-basking in the sun. Ah! Take one consideration with another The policeman's lot is not a happy one." Sounds are heard that indicate the pirates' approach. The police conceal themselves, and soon the intruders enter, armed with all kinds of burglarious tools, and with a cat-like tread (they say so, at least, though they are singing their loudest). They are interrupted, not by the police, but by the appearance of General Stanley. He has had a sleepless night, the effect of a tortured conscience, and he comes in in a dressing-gown and carrying a light. Soon his daughters also appear in their night-caps. The General is seized and ordered to prepare for death. Frederic, even on Mabel's entreaties, cannot save him, for is he not himself a pirate again? Eventually the police, having passively watched the situation so long, summon up courage and tackle the pirates, but they are soon overcome. The sergeant, who with the rest of his men is held prostrate under drawn swords, then calls upon the ruffians to surrender in the name of the Queen. The command acts like magic. Loyally the pirates kneel to their captives, for it transpires from Ruth's lips that they are really "no members of the common throng; they are all noblemen who have gone wrong." All ends happily. The Pirates of Penzance promise to return forthwith to their legislative duties in the House of Lords and, in doing so, they are to share their coronets with the beautiful daughters of old General Stanley. "PATIENCE." _Produced April 23rd, 1881._ There is satire in the very name of this opera. The craze for æstheticism against which it was directed must have placed a strain on the patience of so brilliant an exponent of British commonsense as Sir William Gilbert. Shortly before the play opens, twenty of the maidens of the village adjoining Castle Bunthorne had fallen in love with the officers of the 35th Heavy Dragoons. But when Reginald Bunthorne, a fleshly poet and a devotee of the æsthetic cult, arrived at the castle, they had fallen out of love with their Dragoons and united with Lady Jane (of uncertain age) in worshipping him. When the curtain rises the "twenty love-sick maidens" are lamenting that Bunthorne is "ice-insensible." Lady Jane tells them that he loves Patience, the village milkmaid, who is seen regarding them with pity. Lady Angela tells Patience that if she has never loved she can never have known true happiness. Patience replies that "the truly happy always seem to have so much on their minds," and "never seem quite well." Lady Jane explains that it is "_Not_ indigestion, but æsthetic transfiguration." Patience informs the ladies that the 35th Dragoon Guards have arrived. Lady Ella declares, "We care nothing for Dragoon Guards." "But," exclaims Patience, "You were all engaged to them." "Our minds have been etherealised, our perceptions exalted," answers Lady Angela, who calls on the others to lift up their voices in morning carol to "Our Reginald." The 35th Dragoons arrive and the Colonel gives us in song:-- "A receipt for that popular mystery Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon." One of them who arrives later looks miserable, but declares "I'm as cheerful as a poor devil can be, who has the misfortune to be a Duke with a thousand a day." His wretchedness is not relieved by the entrance of Bunthorne, followed by the maidens, who ignore the Dragoons. The Poet pretends to be absorbed in the composition of a poem, but he slyly observes, "I hear plainly all they say, twenty love-sick maidens they." Lady Jane explains to the soldiers that Bunthorne has idealised them. Bunthorne meanwhile is to be seen writhing in the throes of composition. "Finished!" he exclaims and faints in the arms of the Colonel. When he recovers, the love-sick maidens entreat him to read the poem. "Shall I?" he asks. Fiercely the Dragoons shout "No!" but bidding the ladies to "Cling passionately to one another," he recites "Oh, Hollow! Hollow! Hollow!" When the Colonel reminds the ladies that they are engaged to the Dragoons, Lady Saphir says, "It can never be. You are not Empyrean," while Lady Jane sneers at the crudity of their red and yellow uniforms. The Dragoons resent this "insult" to a uniform which has been "as successful in the courts of Venus as in the field of Mars," and lament that "the peripatetics of long-haired æsthetics" should have captured the ladies' fancy. Angrily they return to their camp. Bunthorne, left "alone and unobserved," confesses to being an "æsthetic sham." "In short," he says, "my mediævalism's affectation, born of a morbid love of admiration." Then Patience enters, and he makes love to her. She repulses him, and tragically he bids her farewell. Lady Angela implores her to "Try, try, try to love." She dilates upon the "Ennobling and unselfish passion" until Patience declares, "I won't go to bed until I'm head over ears in love with somebody." Patience soliloquises, "I had no idea love was a duty. No wonder they all look so unhappy. I'll go at once and fall in love with--" but stops, startled by a figure almost as grotesque as Bunthorne, and exclaims, "A stranger!" The stranger is Archibald Grosvenor, an idyllic poet, who plunges boldly into a declaration of love with his "Prithee pretty maiden, will you marry me." Patience replies, "I do not know you and therefore must decline." He reveals that he was her sweetheart in childhood's days. Grosvenor begs Patience imagine "The horror of his situation, gifted with unrivalled beauty, and madly loved at first sight by every woman he meets." When Patience enquires why he does not disfigure himself to escape such persecution, he replies, "These gifts were given to me for the enjoyment and delectation of my fellow creatures. I am a trustee for beauty." Grosvenor and Patience plight their troth, but as she remembers that love must be unselfish, and that Grosvenor is so beautiful that there can be no unselfishness in loving him, they bid each other "Farewell." Just as they are parting it occurs to Patience that it cannot be selfish for Grosvenor to love her, and he promises, "I'll go on adoring." Bunthorne, crowned and garlanded with roses, returns accompanied by his solicitor and the ladies. The Dragoons arrive also, and ask Bunthorne why he should be so arrayed. He explains that, heart-broken by Patience's rejection, and on the advice of his solicitor, he has put himself up to be raffled for by his admirers. The Dragoons make a fruitless appeal to the ladies in a song by the Duke. The drawing is about to take place when Patience enters, craves Bunthorne's pardon, and offers to be his bride. When Bunthorne rejoices that this is due to the fact that she loves him fondly, Patience tells him that it is because "A maiden who devotes herself to loving you, is prompted by no selfish view." This scene leads to a temporary reconciliation between the Dragoons and the ladies, who embrace each other and declare that "Never, oh never, this heart will range from that old, old love again." Then Grosvenor enters. He walks slowly, engrossed in reading. The ladies are strangely fascinated by him and gradually withdraw from the arms of their martial admirers. Lady Angela asks:-- "But who is this, whose god-like grace Proclaims he comes of noble race." Grosvenor replies: "I'm a broken-hearted troubadour.... I am æsthetic and poetic." With one voice the ladies cry "Then we love you," and leaving their Dragoons they kneel round Grosvenor, arousing the fury of Bunthorne and the horror not only of the Dragoons, but of Grosvenor himself, who declares that "Again my cursed comeliness spreads hopeless anguish and distress." The curtain falls on this scene, and when it rises again Lady Jane is discovered soliloquising upon the fickle crew who have deserted Bunthorne and sworn allegiance to Grosvenor. She alone is faithful to Bunthorne. Grosvenor enters, followed by the twenty love-sick maidens, pleading for "A gentle smile." He reads them two decalets, and wearying of their worship, he tells them that his heart is fixed elsewhere, and bids them remember the fable of the magnet and the churn. Bunthorne and Lady Jane return. The poet is indignant that Grosvenor has cut him out. Lady Jane assures him that she is still faithful, but promises to help him to vanquish his rival, and to achieve this purpose they concert a plan. Then the Duke, the Colonel and the Major appear. They have discarded their uniforms and adopted an æsthetic dress and make-up, and they practise the attitudes which they imagine will appeal to the ladies. When two of these appear, it is evident that the plan is succeeding, for Lady Angela exclaims, "See! The immortal fire has descended upon them." The officers explain they are doing this at some personal inconvenience to show their devotion, and hope that it is not without effect. They are assured that their conversion to the æsthetic art in its highest development has touched the ladies deeply. In due course the officers and ladies disappear and give place to Grosvenor. Looking at his reflection in a hand mirror, he declares, "Ah! I am a veritable Narcissus." Bunthorne now wanders on, talking to himself, and declaring that he cannot live without admiration. He accuses Grosvenor of monopolising the attentions of the young ladies. Grosvenor assures him that they are the plague of his life, and asks how he can escape from his predicament. Bunthorne orders him completely to change his appearance, so as to appear absolutely commonplace. At first Grosvenor declines, but when Bunthorne threatens to curse him, he yields cheerfully, and Bunthorne rejoices in the prospect that:-- "When I go out of door Of damozels a score, All sighing and burning, And clinging and yearning Will follow me as before." Patience enters to find him dancing, and he tells her that, in future, he will be a changed man, having modelled himself upon Grosvenor. She expresses joy, but then recoils from him as she remembers that, as he is now to be utterly free from defect of any kind, her love for him cannot be absolutely unselfish. Just as Bunthorne is offering to relapse, Grosvenor enters, followed by the ladies and the Dragoons. Grosvenor has assumed an absolutely commonplace appearance. They all dance cheerfully round the stage, and when Bunthorne asks the ladies "What it all means," they tell him that as Grosvenor or "Archibald the All-right cannot be all wrong," and as he has discarded æstheticism, "It proves that æstheticism ought to be discarded." Patience now discovers that she is free to love Grosvenor. Bunthorne is disappointed, but Lady Jane, who is still æsthetic tells him to cheer up, as she will never forsake him. They have scarcely time to embrace before the Colonel announces that the Duke has determined to choose a bride. He selects Lady Jane, greatly to the disgust of Bunthorne, who, finding himself the odd man out, declares, "I shall have to be contented with a tulip or lily." [Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "BUNTHORNE" IN "PATIENCE."] "IOLANTHE." _Produced November 25th, 1882._ Iolanthe was a Fairy--the life and soul of Fairyland. She wrote all the fairy songs and arranged the fairy dances. For twenty-five years Iolanthe has been in banishment. She had transgressed the fairy law by marrying a mortal, and it was only the Queen's love which saved her from death. When the curtain rises we witness a gathering of fairies, hear them sing one of Iolanthe's songs, and see them trip her measures. They lament her absence and plead for her pardon. Compassion allied to curiosity impels the Queen to recall Iolanthe. For Iolanthe had chosen to dwell at the bottom of a stream, on whose banks we see the fairies disporting themselves. Rising from the pool, clad in water-weeds, Iolanthe receives the Royal pardon. Compassion having been exercised, curiosity demands satisfaction. The Queen enquires why Iolanthe should have chosen to live at the bottom of a stream. Iolanthe then reveals her secret. She has a son who was born shortly after her banishment, and she wished to be near him. The Queen and the other fairies are deeply interested, and just as the Queen is expressing her desire to see the "half-fairy, half-mortal" Arcadian shepherd, Strephon, he dances up to Iolanthe, and with song and pipe urges her to rejoice because "I'm to be married to-day." Iolanthe tells Strephon that she has been pardoned, and presents Strephon to the Queen and to her fairy sisters. "My aunts!" exclaimed Strephon with obvious delight. Strephon explains the peculiar difficulties consequent on being only half a fairy, and the Queen promises that henceforward the fairies will always be ready to come to his aid should be he in "doubt or danger, peril or perplexitee." Strephon is now joined by Phyllis--a beautiful ward of Chancery and his bride-elect. In the prelude to one of the most delightful love-songs ever written, Phyllis reveals her fear of the consequences which may fall upon Strephon for marrying her without the consent of the Lord Chancellor, and Strephon demonstrates that his fairy ancestry has not freed him from the pangs of jealousy. We now witness the entrance and march of the peers in their gorgeous robes, to the strains of magnificent music, ending with a chorus which is assumed to embody the traditional attitude of the peers to the people:-- "Bow, bow ye lower middle classes, Bow, bow ye tradesmen, bow ye masses." The Lord Chancellor enters at the conclusion of this chorus, and after a song upon his responsibilities as "The constitutional guardian I, of pretty young wards in Chancery," he announces that the business before the House concerns the disposal of the hand of Phyllis, a Ward of Court. All the peers have fallen in love with her and wish the Lord Chancellor to bestow her upon the one whom she may select. The Lord Chancellor confesses to being "singularly attracted by this young person" and laments that his judicial position prevents him from awarding her to himself. Phyllis arrives, and after being proposed to by Lord Tolloller and Lord Mount-Ararat, the whole of the peers invite her acceptance of their coronets and hearts. Phyllis tells them that already "her heart is given." The Lord Chancellor indignantly demands the name of her lover. Before Phyllis can reply, Strephon opportunely enters the "House" and claims "his darling's hand." The peers depart, dignified and stately, with haughty and disdainful glances upon the lovers. The glee with which Strephon and Phyllis have regarded their departure is suddenly ended by the wrathful "Now, sir!" of the Lord Chancellor, who separates the lovers and bids Phyllis depart. His severe and sarcastic admonitions leave Strephon lamenting. Iolanthe returns to find her son in tears. As she tenderly consoles him, Phyllis stealthily re-enters escorted by the peers. Knowing nothing of her lover's fairy origin, and seeing him embracing one who appears equally young and beautiful as herself, she breaks from the hands of the peers just as Iolanthe and Strephon are parting, and accuses the latter of shameless deceit. Strephon's explanation that "this lady's my mother" is disbelieved by Phyllis and greeted with derision by the peers, who decline to admit that "a maid of seventeen" can be the mother of "a man of four or five-and-twenty." Believing herself to have been deceived by Strephon, Phyllis now ruefully offers to accept either Tolloller or Mount-Ararat, but doesn't care which. Just as she has placed the noble lords in this quandary, Strephon reappears, and invokes the aid of the Fairy Queen. Instantaneously the fairy band are seen "tripping hither, tripping thither" among the amazed peers, while the slender Lord Chancellor encounters a rude shock when he collides with the massive form of the Queen. Strephon tells his tale of woe, and there follows an amazing and amusing exchange of reproach and ridicule. The infuriated Queen determines to punish the peers. Strephon shall go into Parliament to wreak vengeance on them. The recital of the measures which he is to carry through Parliament alarms the peers, and the first Act ends, after a pretence at defiance, in their vainly suing for mercy. The second Act of "Iolanthe" is staged in the Palace Yard at Westminster. A solitary sentry is discovered moralising upon the proceedings in "that House." He has observed that if the members have-- "A brain and cerebellum, too, They've got to leave that brain outside And vote just as their leaders tell 'em to." Presently the fairies reappear and rejoice over Strephon's success as a member of Parliament. Then the peers enter and reveal their annoyance with Strephon, whom they describe as "a Parliamentary Pickford--he carries everything." A heated argument ensues between the fairies and the peers. It is ended by a song from Mount-Ararat in praise of the House of Peers, which sparkles with satire on the members of that ancient institution, who make "no pretence to intellectual eminence or scholarship sublime." Having pleaded in vain that the fairies should prevent Strephon from doing further mischief, they depart in anger, and the Queen enters to find her band gazing wistfully after them. Scenting danger, the Queen calls upon them to subdue this "weakness," Celia retorts that "the weakness is so strong." The Queen replies by protesting that, although she herself is not "insensible to the effect of manly beauty" in the person of the stalwart Guardsman still on sentry-go, she is able to subdue her feelings, though in the famous "Captain Shaw" song which follows she asks:-- "Could thy Brigade With cold cascade Quench my great love, I wonder?" Phyllis now re-appears, seeming very unhappy, and is presently joined by Tolloller and Mount-Ararat, who wrangle as to which shall yield her to the other. Phyllis implores them not to fight for her. "It is not worth while," she declares, and after a moment's reflection they agree that "the sacred ties of friendship are paramount." Following the departure of the trio there enters the Lord Chancellor looking dejected and very miserable. He, too, it will be remembered, had fallen in love with Phyllis, and he now mourns aloud that "love unrequited robs him of his rest." Mount-Ararat and Tolloller join him and express their concern at his woebegone appearance. He explains, and they persuade him to make another application to himself for permission to marry Phyllis. Then Phyllis and Strephon encounter each other in the Palace Square. Taunted by a reference to his "young" mother, Strephon discloses that she is a fairy. This leads to a reconciliation. Iolanthe joins them, and when they ask her to appeal to the Lord Chancellor for his consent to their marriage, she reveals the secret of her life. The Lord Chancellor is her husband! He thinks her dead, and she is bound under penalty of death not to undeceive him. The Lord Chancellor enters exclaiming "Victory! victory!" In the highest spirits he relates how he had wrested from himself permission to marry Phyllis. Then Iolanthe, still hiding her identity, pleads Strephon's cause. When he refuses her plea, she determines to gain happiness for her son even at the cost of her own life. Despite the warning song of her fairy sisters, Iolanthe shocks the Chancellor with the words, "It may not be--_I am thy wife_." The Fairy Queen breaks in upon this tragic episode with the threat of Iolanthe's doom, but ere it can be pronounced the Fairy Leila tells the Queen that if Iolanthe must die so must they all, for all have married peers. Bewildered by this dilemma the Fairy Queen is greatly relieved when the Lord Chancellor suggests that instead of the fairy law reading "Every fairy must die who marries a mortal" it should be "Every fairy must die who don't marry a mortal." Accepting the suggestion the Queen finds her own life in peril. She proposes to the stalwart Grenadier still on duty, who gallantly accepts. The peers also agree to exchange the "House of Peers for House of Peris." Wings spring from their shoulders and away they all fly, "Up in the sky, ever so high," where "pleasures come in endless series." "PRINCESS IDA." _Produced January 5th, 1884._ Princess Ida was the daughter of King Gama, and when but twelve-months' old, she had been betrothed to Prince Hilarion, the two-year-old son of King Hildebrand. The opening scene presents King Hildebrand and his courtiers awaiting the arrival of King Gama and Princess Ida for the celebration of the nuptials in accordance with the marriage contract. Some doubt exists as to whether this will be honoured, for Prince Hilarion has heard that his bride has "forsworn the world." It is presently announced that Gama and his train are approaching. His appearance is preceded by that of three bearded warriors clad in armour, who declare that they are "Sons of Gama Rex," and naïvely add, "Like most sons are we, masculine in sex." They are followed by Gama, who fits in appearance Hildebrand's description of him as "a twisted monster--all awry." In a three-verse song Gama describes his own character in detail, each verse ending:-- "Yet everybody thinks I'm such a disagreeable man And I can't think why." Gama proceeds to justify the universal opinion by his venomous remarks to Hildebrand's courtiers, and when Hildebrand demands the reason for Ida's absence, he becomes insulting. Later, he relates that Ida has established and rules a Woman's University in Castle Adamant, from which all males are excluded. Gama tells Hilarion that if he addresses the lady most politely she may deign to look on him. Hildebrand bids Hilarion to go to Castle Adamant and claim Ida as his wife, but adds that if she refuses, his soldiers will "storm the lady." King Gama is detained as hostage, with the warning that "should Hilarion disappear, we will hang you, never fear, most politely, most politely." Gama and his three sons are then marched off to their prison cell. In the second act, we are transported to Castle Adamant, and behold, in the gardens, Lady Psyche surrounded by girl graduates. Lady Blanche arrives, and reads to them the Princess Ida's list of punishments. One student is expelled for bringing in a set of chessmen, while another is punished for having sketched a perambulator. Then Princess Ida herself enters, and is hailed by the students as a "mighty maiden with a mission." Her address to the students is intended to demonstrate woman's superiority over man. Then Lady Blanche, in announcing a lecture by herself on abstract philosophy, reveals that the exclusion of the male sex from the university has not banished jealousy. Ida and the students enter the castle. Hardly have they gone, when Hilarion, accompanied by Cyril and Florian, are seen climbing the garden wall. They don some collegiate robes which they discover, and are appropriately jocular regarding their transformation into "three lovely undergraduates." Surprised by the entry of Princess Ida, they determine to present themselves as would-be students, and she promises them that "if all you say is true, you'll spend with us a happy, happy time." The Princess leaves them alone, but as she goes Lady Psyche enters unobserved. She overhears their conversation, and is amazed by it, but not more so than Florian when he finds that Lady Psyche is his sister. The men entrust her with their secret. She warns them that discovery may mean death, and sings them a song which sums up the Princess Ida's teaching to the effect that man "at best is only a monkey shaved." Melissa now enters. She learns that the visitors are men and loyally promises secrecy. Whilst they are heartily enjoying themselves Lady Blanche, who is the mother of Melissa, has observed them, and as all five are leaving the gardens, she calls Melissa and taxes her with the facts. Melissa explains the situation, and persuades her mother to assist Hilarion's plan. In the next scene the Princess Ida and the students are seen at an alfresco luncheon. Cyril becomes tipsy, discloses the secret of the intruders, and scandalises the Princess by singing an "old kissing song":-- "Would you know the kind of maid Sets my heart aflame--a?" In her excitement at this revelation the Princess falls into the stream which flows through the gardens. Hilarion rescues her, but this gallant feat does not shake the lady's resolution, and she orders their arrest. As they are marched away Melissa brings news of an armed band without the castle. Speedily Hildebrand, at the head of his soldiers, confronts Ida. The three sons of Gama, still clad in armour, warn her that refusal to yield means death. Hildebrand gives Ida until the next day to "decide to pocket your pride and let Hilarion claim his bride." The curtain falls upon the Princess hurling defiance at Hildebrand. When the curtain rises for the third time, we discover that the outer walls and courtyard of Castle Adamant are held by Princess Ida's students, who are armed with battle-axes, and who sing of "Death to the invader." The Princess comes attended by Blanche and Psyche, and warns them that "we have to meet stern bearded warriors in fight to-day." She bids them remember that they have to show that they "can meet Man face to face on his own ground, and beat him there." But as she reviews her forces, she meets with disappointment. The lady surgeon declares that, although she has often cut off legs and arms in theory, she won't cut off "real live legs and arms." The armourer explains that the rifles have been left in the armoury "for fear ... they might go off." The band-mistress excuses the absence of the band who "can't come out to-day." Contemptuously, Ida bids them depart. Lamenting the failure of her plan, she is surprised by the arrival of her father, who announces that he is to give a message from Hildebrand, and then return to "black captivity." The message is that, being loth to war with women, Hildebrand wishes Ida to consent to the disposal of her hand being settled by combat between her three brothers and three of Hildebrand's knights. Ida demands of her father what possesses him that he should convey such an offer. Gama replies: "He tortures me with torments worse than death," and in pity she yields to the proposal. While the girls mount the battlements, Hildebrand and his soldiers enter, and there is a fight between Gama's sons and Hilarion, Cyril and Florian. The latter are victorious. Seeing her brothers lying wounded, Ida cries "Hold--we yield ourselves to you," and resigns the headship of the University to Lady Blanche. Sadly Ida admits the failure of her scheme. She had hoped to band all women together to adjure tyrannic man. To Hildebrand she says that if her scheme had been successful "at my exalted name posterity would bow." Hildebrand retorts, "If you enlist all women in your cause--how is this posterity to be provided?" Ida turns to Hilarion, admitting her error to him, and the opera ends with the company declaring:-- "It were profanity for poor humanity To treat as vanity the sway of love. In no locality or principality Is our mortality its sway above." [Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "KING GAMA" IN "PRINCESS IDA."] "THE MIKADO." _Produced March 14th, 1885._ Although this opera is entitled "The Mikado" very little is seen of that great potentate, which is quite in accordance with Japanese custom, so vastly different to ours in matters of Royalty. The opera concerns much more closely the adventures of Nanki-Poo, the Mikado's son and heir, who has fled in disguise from the Court to escape from Katisha, an elderly lady whom the Mikado had ordered him to marry within a week or perish. Immediately after the opening chorus by the gentlemen of Japan the disguised Crown Prince enters. He is labouring under great excitement, and begs for information as to the dwelling of "a gentle maiden, Yum-Yum." One of the Japanese nobles asks, "Who are you?" and he replies in a delightful song-- "A wandering minstrel I, A thing of shreds and patches, Of ballads, songs and snatches, And dreamy lullaby." In reply to a further question as to his business with the maiden, Nanki-Poo takes the gentlemen of Japan partly into his confidence. He explains that a year before he had fallen in love with Yum-Yum, who returned his affection. As, however, she was betrothed to her guardian Ko-Ko, a cheap tailor, he had left Titipu in despair. Learning that Ko-Ko has been condemned to death for flirting, he now hoped to find Yum-Yum free. Alas! for Nanki-Poo's hopes, they inform him that not only has Ko-Ko been reprieved, but that he has been elevated to the highest rank a citizen can attain, and is now Lord High Executioner. Pish Tush explains that, in order to circumvent the Mikado's decree making flirtation a capital offence, they have appointed Ko-Ko as Lord High Executioner, because, being under sentence of death himself, he cannot cut off anybody else's head until he has cut off his own. Expressing his sense of the condescension shown to him by Pooh-Bah, that portly personage explains that although "a particularly haughty and exclusive person" who can trace his ancestry back to "a protoplasmic, primordial, atomic globule," he mortifies his family pride. In proof of this he points out that, when all the other high officers of State had resigned because they were too proud to serve under an ex-tailor, he had accepted all their posts (and the salaries attached) at once, so that he is now First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral, Master of the Buckhounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop, and Lord Mayor. Pooh-Bah informs Nanki-Poo that Yum-Yum is arriving from school that very day to be married to Ko-Ko. Ko-Ko enters, preceded by a chorus of nobles, and Pooh-Bah refers Nanki-Poo to him for any further information concerning Yum-Yum. This is Ko-Ko's first public appearance as Lord High Executioner, and after thanking the nobles for their welcome, he promises strict attention to his duties. Happily, he remarks, "there will be no difficulty in finding plenty of people whose loss will be a distinct gain to society at large." He proceeds to mention in a song that he's got "a little list" of possible victims and "they'll none of 'em be missed." So far the opera has been an exclusively masculine affair, but Yum-Yum now arrives escorted by a bevy of dainty schoolfellows, who sing of their "Wondering what the world can be." This little chorus contains two exquisite verses-- "Is it but a world of trouble Sadness set to song? Is its beauty but a bubble, Bound to break ere long?" "Are its palaces and pleasures Fantasies that fade? And the glory of its treasures Shadows of a shade?" Yum-Yum and her bridesmaids, Peep-bo and Pitti Sing, introduce themselves by the delicious trio, "Three Little Maids." Ko-Ko and Pooh-Bah enter, and Yum-Yum reluctantly permits Ko-Ko to kiss her. At this moment, Nanki-Poo arrives and the "three little maids" rush over to him and welcome him with great effusion. Ko-Ko's jealousy is aroused, and he asks to be presented. Right boyishly Nanki-Poo blurts out to Ko-Ko that he loves Yum-Yum. He expects Ko-Ko to be angry, but instead Ko-Ko thanks him for agreeing with him as to the lady's charms. Presently Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum manage to get the Courtyard to themselves. During their _tête-a-tête_ Nanki-Poo reveals his secret to Yum-Yum. They are interrupted by the appearance of Ko-Ko and escape in different directions. As Ko-Ko soliloquises upon his beloved, he is interrupted by Pooh-Bah with a letter from the Mikado. This is an intimation that, as no executions have taken place in Titipu for a year, the office of Lord High Executioner will be abolished and the city reduced to the rank of a village unless somebody is beheaded within one month. As this would involve the city in ruin, Ko-Ko declares that he will have to execute someone. Pooh-Bah, pointing out that Ko-Ko himself is under sentence of death, suggests that he should execute himself. This leads to an acrimonious discussion, which is ended by Ko-Ko appointing Pooh-Bah, who is already holding all the other high offices of State, to be Lord High Substitute (for himself as a victim of the headsman). But Pooh-Bah declares "I must set bounds to my insatiable ambition." He draws the line at his own death. Whilst Ko-Ko is lamenting the position as "simply appalling" he is disturbed by the entrance of Nanki-Poo with a rope in his hands. He has made up his mind to commit suicide because Ko-Ko is going to marry Yum-Yum. Finding "threats, entreaties, prayers all useless" Ko-Ko is struck with a brilliant idea. He suggests that Nanki-Poo should at the end of a month's time "be beheaded handsomely at the hands of the Public Executioner." To this Nanki-Poo agrees on condition that Ko-Ko permits him to marry Yum-Yum. Reluctantly Ko-Ko accepts the condition, and when Pooh-Bah returns to enquire what Ko-Ko has decided to do in regard to an execution, he replies, "Congratulate me! I've found a volunteer." Whilst the townsfolk of Titipu are bantering Nanki-Poo on the prospect of marriage and death, their revelry is interrupted by the arrival of the lady who was the cause of Nanki-Poo's wandering. Katisha discovers Nanki-Poo and calls upon him to "give me my place." When he refuses she would have revealed his identity, but every time she tries to say "He is the son of your Mikado" her voice is drowned by the singing of Nanki-Poo, Yum-Yum and the chorus. Eventually Katisha rushes away threatening furious vengeance. When the curtain rises again the scene is the garden of Ko-Ko's palace. We see Yum-Yum decked by her bridesmaids for the wedding, while they sing of her loveliness, and Pitti-Sing bids her "Sit with downcast eye; let it brim with dew." Pitti-Sing tells her also that "modesty at marriage tide well becomes a pretty bride," but this admonition seems lost upon a bride who, when her adornment is complete, frankly revels in her beauty. In "The Sun whose rays," a song of entrancing melody, she declares, "I mean to rule the earth as he the sky." But her rapture is marred by the reminder from Peep-Bo that her bridegroom has only a month to live. Nanki-Poo finds her in tears, and has much difficulty in comforting her, their feelings being aptly expressed in that wonderful madrigal, which although it begins so joyfully with "Brightly dawns our wedding day," yet ends in tears. Ko-Ko now joins the wedding party, and although the sight of Yum-Yum in Nanki-Poo's arms is "simple torture," he insists on remaining so that he may get used to it. When Yum-Yum says it is only for a month, he tells of his discovery that when a married man is beheaded his wife must be buried alive. Naturally, Yum-Yum demurs to a wedding with such a hideous ending to the honeymoon, and Nanki-Poo declares that, as he cannot live without Yum-Yum, he intends to perform the "happy dispatch." Ko-Ko's protest is followed by the entry of Pooh-Bah to announce the approach of the Mikado and his suite. They will arrive in ten minutes. Ko-Ko, believing that the Mikado is coming to see whether his orders regarding an execution have been obeyed, is in great alarm. Nanki-Poo invites Ko-Ko to behead him at once, and Pooh-Bah agitatedly urges Ko-Ko to "chop it off," but he declares that he can't do it. He has "never even killed a blue-bottle." Ko-Ko decides that the making of an affidavit that Nanki-Poo has been executed, witnessed by Pooh-Bah in each of his capacities as Lord Chief Justice, etc., etc., will satisfy the Mikado. Pooh-Bah agrees on condition that he shall be "grossly insulted" with "cash down." Then as Commissionaire Pooh-Bah is ordered to find Yum-Yum, Ko-Ko orders her to go along with the Archbishop (Pooh-Bah), who will marry her to Nanki-Poo at once. Waving aside all questions, Ko-Ko urges them off just as the procession heralding the Mikado and Katisha enters the garden to the strains of "Miya sama, miya sama." The Mikado extols himself as "a true philanthropist" and declares "my object all sublime, I shall achieve in time; to let the punishment fit the crime." His list of social crimes and the penalties prescribed for each class of offender are equally amusing. Ko-Ko, Pooh-Bah and Pitti-Sing now kneel in the presence, and Ko-Ko informs the Mikado that "the execution has taken place" and hands in the coroner's certificate signed by Pooh-Bah. Then the three proceed to describe an event which had happened only in their imaginations. The Mikado seems bored, and explains that though all this is very interesting, he has come about a totally different matter. He asks for his son, who is masquerading in Titipu under the name of Nanki-Poo. Ko-Ko and his associates are visibly disturbed, but he stammers out that Nanki-Poo has gone abroad. The Mikado demands his address. "Knightsbridge" is the reply. (At the time this opera was originally produced there was a Japanese colony in Knightsbridge.) Just then Katisha, reading the coroner's certificate, discovers that it contains the name of Nanki-Poo and shrieks her dismay. Pooh-Bah, Ko-Ko, and Pitti-Sing grovel at the Mikado's feet, and apologise abjectly. The Mikado urges them not to distress themselves, and just as they are feeling that it doesn't really matter, the Mikado turns to Katisha with "I forget the punishment for compassing the death of the heir-apparent." The three culprits learn with horror that it is "something humorous, but lingering, with either boiling oil or molten lead in it." The Mikado appoints "after luncheon" for the punishment which "fits their crime." When the Mikado has departed Ko-Ko and Pooh-Bah decide that Nanki-Poo must "come to life at once." At this moment he and his bride cross the garden--leaving for their honeymoon. Ko-Ko explains that the Mikado wants Nanki-Poo, and Pooh-Bah ironically adds, "So does Katisha." But Nanki Poo fears that, in her anger at his marriage, Katisha will persuade the Mikado to order his execution, thus involving Yum-Yum in a worse fate. He therefore refuses to re-appear until Ko-Ko has persuaded Katisha to marry him. Then "existence will be as welcome as the flowers in spring." As this seems to be the only way of escape, Ko-Ko seeks Katisha. At first she repulses him, but after he has told her in song the story of the little tom-tit that committed suicide because of blighted affection, she relents. Now the Mikado returns from luncheon, and asks if "the painful preparations have been made." Being assured that they have, he orders the three culprits to be produced. As they again grovel at his feet, Katisha intercedes for mercy. She tells the Mikado that she has just married "this miserable object," indicating Ko-Ko. The Mikado is remarking "But as you have slain the heir-apparent" when Nanki-Poo enters saying "the heir-apparent is not slain." He is heartily welcomed by the Mikado, while Katisha denounces Ko-Ko as a traitor. Ko-Ko then explains everything to the Mikado's satisfaction, and the opera ends with the joyous strains of Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum uniting in "the threatened cloud has passed away and fairly shines the dawning day," whilst the entire company help them-- "With joyous shout and ringing cheer, Inaugurate our new career." "RUDDIGORE." _Produced January 22nd, 1887._ In the days of long, long ago there live the wicked Sir Rupert Murgatroyd, baronet of Ruddigore. He spent all his leisure and his wealth in the persecution of witches, and the more fiendish his cruelties, the more he enjoyed the ruthless sport. But there came a day when he was roasting alive an old witch on the village green. The hag uttered a terrible curse both on the baronet and on all his descendants. Every lord of Ruddigore was doomed to commit one crime a day, and if he attempted to avoid it or became satiated with guilt, that very day he should die in awful agony. The prophecy came true. Each heir to the title inherited the curse and came in the end to a fearful death. Upon this plot Gilbert wrote his clever burlesque on the transpontine drama--the drama of the virtuous peasant girl in the clutches of the bold and bad baronet--and amongst his characters is a tragic figure not unlike Shakespeare's Ophelia. The first scene is laid in the pretty Cornish fishing village of Rederring. This village, by the way, has a quaint institution in the form of a troop of professional bridesmaids, who are bound to be on duty from ten to four o'clock every day, but whose services have of late been in little request. The girls can only hope that they may soon be able to celebrate the betrothal of Rose Maybud, the belle of Rederring, a precise little maid whose every action is regulated by a book of etiquette, written by no less an authority than the wife of a Lord Mayor. Should an utter stranger be allowed to pay her pretty compliments? "Always speak the truth," answers the book. It tells her that "in accepting an offer of marriage, do so with apparent hesitation," and this same guide and monitor declares that, in similar circumstances, "a little show of emotion will not be misplaced." Rose, indeed, has had very many suitors, but as yet her heart is free. Early in the opera Dame Hannah, who was herself once wooed by the last baronet in disguise, relates the story of the terrible curse on the house of Murgatroyd. She is Rose's aunt, and she talks to the girl about Robin Oakapple, a young man who "combines the manners of a Marquis with the morals of a Methodist." Now, this same Robin Oakapple, we afterwards learn, is himself the real owner of Ruddigore, but ten years ago he so dreaded the thought of becoming the victim of the witch's malediction that he fled from his ancestral home, assumed the style and name of a simple farmer, and lived unsuspected in Rederring. In the belief that he was dead his younger brother succeeded to the baronetcy and all its obligations to a life of infamy. Only two know the secret--Robin's faithful servant, Old Adam, and his sailor foster-brother, Richard Dauntless. Robin is such a shy fellow that he cannot summon up the pluck to propose to Rose Maybud. She, it seems, would not be unwilling to return his affections if he declared them, and she gives more than a broad hint to her bashful lover in a delightful duet, "Poor Little Man." But Robin has to do his love-making by proxy. Luckily or otherwise, Richard has just returned from the sea, and this hearty British tar sings a rollicking song in the Dibdin manner about how his man-o'-war, the "Tom-Tit," met a little French frigate, and how they had "pity on a poor Parley-voo." When "Ruddigore" was produced, this number gave grave offence to the French people, and there were critics at home who held that it reflected also on the British Navy. The storm, however, never led then and never would lead now to international complications, and what questions of taste there may be in the lyric are soon forgotten in the engaging hornpipe which follows the song. Richard, who talks in nautical phrases and declares that he always acts strictly as his heart dictates, promises to help Robin in securing the hand of Rose Maybud. He at least is not afflicted with too much diffidence, and Robin himself sings the lines, which have now passed into a proverb, that if in the world you wish to advance "you must stir it and stump it and blow your own trumpet." But Richard, when he sees the girl, acts as his heart dictates and falls in love with her himself, the courtship scene being delightfully quaint. Robin returns to claim his bride, but when he finds that his foster-brother has played him false, he is not loath to praise his good qualities. Yet, in a trio, the fickle Rose, having the choice between a man who owns many acres and a humble sailor, gives herself to Robin Oakapple. [Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "ROBIN OAKAPPLE" IN "RUDDIGORE."] This incident is followed by the appearance of Mad Margaret, a crazy figure in white who lost her reason when she was jilted by the reigning baronet, Sir Despard Murgatroyd. The poor, distracted girl is still seeking for her faithless lover, and as she toys with her flowers she sings a plaintive and haunting ballad "To a garden full of posies." Following this strange scene, there arrive the Bucks and Blades--all wearing the regimental uniforms of Wellington's time, the period to which the opera is supposed to belong--and after them the gloomy Sir Despard. The crowd shrink from him in horror, while he, poor man, tells how he has really the heart of a child, but how a whole picture gallery of ancestors threaten him with death if he hesitates to commit his daily crime. Then Richard re-enters. Either because of his anger that Robin has claimed Rose's hand or because, at whatever cost, he must do as his heart dictates, he makes known to the baronet that his missing brother is none other than Robin Oakapple. When, a little later, the nuptial ceremony of the happy couple is about to begin, the festivities are interrupted by Sir Despard dramatically declaring Robin's real identity, and poor Robin has to forfeit Rose, who once more turns to Richard, and face a fateful existence as Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd. For the second act the scene moves to the haunted Picture Gallery of Ruddigore Castle. Sir Ruthven, otherwise Robin, now wears the haggard aspect of a guilty roué, while the once-benevolent Old Adam acts the part of the wicked "confidential adviser of the greatest villain unhung." They discuss a likely crime for the day. It concerns Richard and Rose, who have arrived to ask for the baronet's consent to their marriage, and he retorts by threatening to commit them to a dungeon. This the sailor thwarts by waving a Union Jack. Then Rose prevails upon the wicked relative to relent. Left alone, the unhappy man addresses the portraits of his ancestors, bidding them to remember the time when they themselves welcomed death at last as a means of freedom from a guilty existence, and urging them to let the thought of that repentance "tune your souls to mercy on your poor posterity." The stage darkens for a moment, and then it is seen that the pictures have become animated and that the figures, representing the long line of the accursed race, and garbed magnificently according to the times in which each of the ancestors lived, have stepped from their frames. Sir Roderic, the last of the baronets to die, sings a spectral song about the ghostly revelries by night. Now the ancestors remind their degenerate successor that it is their duty to see that he commits his daily crimes in conscientious and workmanlike style. They are not impressed with his record of the crimes he has so far committed. "Everybody does that," they tell him, when he declares that he has falsified his income-tax return, and they are also unmoved when he says that, on other days, he forged his own will and disinherited his unborn son. They demand that he must at least carry off a lady, and when he refuses they torture him until, in agony, he has to accept their command. When the ghosts have returned to their frames Old Adam is accordingly ordered to bring a maiden--any maiden will do--from the village. Once more we meet Sir Despard and Mad Margaret. They are prim of manner, they wear black of formal cut, and in every way their appearances have changed. They are married and conduct a National School. The ex-baronet has become expert at penny readings. Margaret, now a district visitor, has recovered her sanity, though she has occasional lapses. The quaint duet between them is followed by a meeting with Robin, who hears that his record of infamy includes not only the crimes he has committed during the week, but all those perpetrated by Despard during the ten years he reigned at Ruddigore. He decides, even at the cost of his life, to bid his ancestors defiance. But now Old Adam returns, not with a beautiful maiden, but with old Dame Hannah. She is a tiger cat indeed, and despite the baronet's declaration that he is reforming and that his intentions towards her are honourable, she seizes a formidable dagger from one of the armed figures and declares for a fight to the finish. The episode is interrupted by the re-appearance of the ghostly Sir Roderic. What is more, he and Dame Hannah recognise themselves as old lovers, and a whimsical love-scene leads up to a tender little ballad about the "flower and the oak tree." The end comes swiftly. Robin, accompanied by all the other characters, rushes in to declare his happy discovery. He argues that a baronet can die only by refusing to commit his daily crime, and thus it follows that a refusal to commit a crime is tantamount to suicide, which is in itself a crime. The curse will thus not stand logical analysis! Sir Roderic concurs, and as the natural deduction is that he himself ought never to have died at all, he and Dame Hannah are able at last to bring joy and laughter within the grim walls of Ruddigore. Robin, having found a week as holder of a title ample enough, determines to earn a modest livelihood in agricultural employment, and this time he both claims and keeps the hand of Rose Maybud. Richard, robbed of his intended bride, soon replaces her from amongst the troup of professional bridesmaids, while Despard and Margaret leave to pass a secluded existence in the town of Basingstoke. "THE YEOMEN OF THE GUARD." _Produced October 3rd, 1888._ Jack Point was a poor strolling player in the days of old Merrie England. With pretty Elsie Maynard he tramped through the towns and villages, and everywhere the two entertained the good folk with their songs and their dances, their quips and their cranks. Jack Point could have been no ordinary jester. Some years before he had been in the service of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he mortally offended his Grace by his conundrum that the only difference between the two of them was that "whereas his Grace was paid £10,000 a year for being good, poor Jack Point was good--for nothing." "Twas but a harmless jest," the Merry-man sadly reflected, but the Archbishop had him whipped and put in the stocks as a rogue, and Jack Point was in no humour to "take a post again with the dignified clergy." Then began the vagabondage of the strolling player. Jack and Elsie made but a poor living, though they looked forward to the time when the smiles of fortune, the rewards of honest mirth, would allow them to marry. Certainly Jack Point had a pretty wit, and beneath the motley there beat a true heart of gold, too soon to be broken by tragedy. It was the old, old story of the jester who to the world's eye was a merry and boisterous fellow, though in his inner being he was suffering all the while the tortures of anguish. But list ye now to the story's unfolding! The curtain rises on a faithful picture of the Tower of London, that picturesque and historic old fortress indissolubly connected with some of the brightest, and the darkest, annals of England. Soon we see the Yeomen of the Guard, clad in their traditional garb and carrying their halberds, and amongst them is old Sergeant Meryll. He has a daughter named Phoebe, whose heart and hand is being sought in vain by the grim and repulsive-looking Wilfred Shadbolt, who links the office of head jailor with the "assistant tormentorship." It is part of this uncouth fellow's duty to twist the thumbscrew and turn the rack to wring confessions from the prisoners. So far from Phoebe being attracted to Shadbolt, her thoughts are turned towards a young and handsome officer, Colonel Fairfax, who lies under sentence of death in the Tower by the evil designs of his kinsman, Sir Charles Poltwhistle, a Secretary of State. Fairfax has been condemned on a charge of sorcery, though his cousin's craft is really to secure the succession to his rich estate, which falls to him if he dies unmarried. Some hopes linger that the soldier may yet be reprieved. Leonard Meryll, the old sergeant's son, is coming from Windsor that day after the Court has honoured him for his valour in many martial adventures, and it is possible that he may bring with him the order that will save Colonel Fairfax. He does not bring the reprieve. Sergeant Meryll, whose life the condemned man has twice saved, and who would now readily give his own life for him, thereupon schemes a deception. Leonard's future career is to be with the Yeomen of the Guard, but as his arrival is unknown, it is arranged that he shall hide himself for a while and his place be filled by the imprisoned Fairfax. Just after this the Colonel himself comes into view, under an escort commanded by the Lieutenant, and on his way to the Cold Harbour Tower "to await his end in solitude." He treats death lightly--has he not a dozen times faced it in battle?--but he has one strange last request. Could he, as a means of thwarting his relative, be allowed to marry? The lady would be a bride but for an hour, and her legacy would be his dishonoured name and a hundred crowns, and "never was a marriage contracted with so little of evil to the contracting parties." The Lieutenant, who admires the brave fellow, believes that the task of finding him a wife should be easy. Now we meet Jack Point and Elsie Maynard. Not a little terrified, they are chased in by the crowd, who bid them "banish your timidity and with all rapidity give us quip and quiddity." The choice of the wandering minstrels is their duet, "I have a song to sing, O!" Never was there a more enchanting ditty, and very significantly it tells of a merry-man's love of a maid, and of the humble maid-- "Who loved a lord, and who laughed aloud, At the moan of the merry-man, moping mum Whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum, Who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb, As he sighed for the love of a ladye!" Scarcely have the crowd finished applauding this offering than the Lieutenant enters, clears the rabble from the green, and inquires the history of Jack and Elsie. Jack tells him of their humble means of livelihood. Elsie is still unmarried, "for though I'm a fool," quoths the jester, "there is a limit to my folly." The Lieutenant then outlines his plan to make her a bride for an hour, and as the bargain seems a sound one and money is scarce, the two agree to the subterfuge, and Elsie is led into the Tower cell, blindfolded, to be wedded to Fairfax. Jack Point meanwhile tries on the officer some of his best conundrums and his incorrigible talent for repartee. Shortly after this Phoebe wheedles the keys of the prison from Shadbolt, her "sour-faced admirer," and Fairfax is thus restored to liberty in the guise of a Yeoman of the Guard. Fairfax, of course, is taken for Leonard and complimented on his successful campaigns. And then there tolls the bell of St. Peter's. The crowd enter, the executioner's block is brought on, and the masked headsman takes his place. But when the Yeomen go to fetch the prisoner they find that the cell is empty, and that he has escaped. Shadbolt the jailer is arrested, and the people rush off in confusion, leaving Elsie insensible in the arms of her unknown husband, Fairfax. With this the curtain falls. When it ascends once more on the same scene, the old housekeeper of the Tower, Dame Carruthers, chides the Yeomen on their failure both to keep and to re-capture Fairfax. Then Point and Shadbolt appear in very low spirits. For the Merry-man's dolefulness there is ample cause, and he himself laments how ridiculous it is that "a poor heart-broken man must needs be merry or he will be whipped." Shadbolt, envious of his companion's gifts, confesses to a secret yearning of his own to follow the jester's vocation, and the lugubrious fellow tells how deft and successful are his own delicate shafts of wit in the torture chamber and cells! Jack Point agrees, for a consideration, to teach Shadbolt "the rules that all family fools must observe if they love their profession." The consideration is that the jailor must declare that he shot Fairfax with an arquebus at night as he was attempting to swim over the Thames. The bargain is struck, and in a short time a shot is heard, and the jailor re-enters to declare that the escaped prisoner has been shot and drowned in the river. Fairfax himself has been lamenting that, although free from his fetters grim, he is still bound for good and ill to an unknown bride, a situation that leads up to the first of those delightful quartettes, "Strange Adventure." He meets Elsie, is attracted at once by her beauty, and learns the secret of her perplexity, though how can he proclaim his real self while he is still Leonard Meryll? It is told us in a tuneful trio that "a man who would woo a fair maid should 'prentice himself to the trade and study all day in methodical way how to flatter, cajole and persuade." Certainly Fairfax knows these arts much better than Point. Before the jester's eyes he begins to fascinate the girl with sweet words and tender caresses, and the utter disillusionment of poor Jack Point, a victim of the fickleness of womankind and outwitted in love, is reflected in that haunting number, "When a wooer goes a wooing." Events now race towards their end--an end that to two at least has all the joyous warmth of romance, but to the one pathetic figure in his motley the blackness of despair. Leonard hastens in with the belated reprieve, and Elsie soon learns with happiness that the gallant Yeoman who has captured her heart is, in truth, her own strangely-wed husband, Fairfax. For her the hardship of the stroller's life has passed. So also has it for the broken Merry-man. Sadly he kneels by the girl who has forsaken his arms for another's, gently fondles and kisses the hem of her dress, bestows on her the sign of his blessing, and in the last tremor of grief falls at her feet--dead! "THE GONDOLIERS." _Produced December 7th, 1889._ "The Gondoliers" tells of the strange and romantic fortunes of two sturdy Republicans who are called upon jointly to assume the responsibilities of Monarchy. They are Marco and Guiseppe Palmieri, who ordinarily follow the calling of Venetian gondoliers, and who hold staunchly to the doctrine that "all men are equal." Kingship does, indeed, seem rather less abhorrent to their ideas when they are summoned to fill that exalted office themselves, but at the same time they do concede that neither their courtiers nor their menials are their inferiors in any degree. Indeed, when they rise in the scale of social importance they see that their subjects rise too, and perhaps it is not surprising that in this quaint court of Barataria are functionaries basking in the splendour of such titles as the Lord High Coachman and the Lord High Cook. Even in the heart of the most democratic of mankind does the weakness for titles eternally linger! It is in Venice, with a picturesque canal in the background, that the opera begins. The girls, their arms laden with roses white and roses red, are waiting for the most handsome and popular of all the gondolieri, who are coming to choose their brides from amongst this comely throng. So that, amidst such a bevy of loveliness, fate itself may select whom their partners shall be, the brothers decide to be blindfolded and to undertake to marry whichever two girls they catch. In this way Gianetta is claimed by Marco and Tessa by Guiseppe. And both were the very girls they wanted! Singing and dancing like the lightsome, joyous people they are, the couples hasten to the altar without more ado. A Spanish grandee, the Duke of Plaza-Toro, now arrives by gondola with his Duchess and his daughter, Casilda. With them are their suite--the drummer-lad Luiz. The Duke is a celebrated, cultivated, underrated nobleman of impecunious estate, shabby in attire but unquestionably gentle in breeding. He laments that his entry into the town has not been as imposing as his station requires, but the halberdiers and the band are mercenary people, and their services were not available without pre-payment in cash. Luiz is sent to announce the arrival of the ducal party to the Grand Inquisitor. While he is absent the Duke and Duchess tell their daughter the reason of their visit to Venice. She was married when only six months old to the infant heir to the Baratarian Throne. For State reasons the secret could not be told her before, and it seems that when her husband's father, then the reigning King, became a Wesleyan Methodist and was killed in an insurrection, the baby bridegroom was stolen by the Inquisition. Casilda takes no pleasure in this sudden accession to Queenship. She has nothing to wear, and besides that, the family is penniless. That fact does not disturb the Duke. He has anticipated the problem already. Seeing that his social prestige is enormous, he is having himself floated as a company, the Duke of Plaza-Toro, Limited. He does not regard the proceeding as undignified. This Duke never did follow the fashions. He has made it his business to lead them, and he recalls how "in enterprise of martial kind" when there was any fighting, he "led" his regiment from behind, because "he found it less exciting," Such was this unaffected, undetected, well-connected warrior, the Duke of Plaza-Toro. [Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "THE DUKE OF PLAZA-TORO" IN "THE GONDOLIERS."] Left alone, Luiz and Casilda show themselves to be secretly in love with each other, and they bemoan the miserable discovery that has ruined the sweet dreams of the future. The Duke and Duchess in the meanwhile have gone to pay their respects to the Grand Inquisitor. They return with this lugubrious personage, garbed all in black, and present to him the little lady who, as he says, is so unexpectedly called upon to assume the functions of Royalty. Unfortunately he cannot introduce her to her husband immediately. The King's identity is a little uncertain, though there is no probable, possible shadow of doubt that he is one of two men actually in the town and plying the modest but picturesque calling of the gondolier. It seems that, after the little prince was stolen, he was placed in the charge of a highly-respectable gondolier who had, nevertheless, an incurable weakness for drink, and who could never say which of the two children in his home was his own son and which was the prince. That matter can be solved by their nurse, Luiz's mother, who is being brought from the mountains and whose memory will be stimulated, if need be, by the persuasive methods of the Inquisition. The gondoliers now return with their brides. Tessa tells in a beautiful number how, when a merry maiden marries, "every sound becomes a song, all is right and nothing's wrong." It was too sanguine a thought! The Grand Inquisitor, a gloomy figure amidst these festivities, finds the fact that Marco and Guiseppe have been married an extremely awkward one, and no less awkward their declaration that they are heart and soul Republicans. He does not tell them that one is married already--married to Casilda in infancy--but he does startle them by the news that one of them is a King. Sturdy Republicans as they are, they are loath to accept the idea of immediate abdication, and it is agreed that they shall leave for their country straightaway and, until the rightful heir is established, jointly hold the reins of government. The Grand Inquisitor for good reasons will not let their wives accompany them, but the separation may not be a long one, and the four speculate on the thrills of being a "right-down regular Royal Queen." With a fond farewell the gondoliers then set sail for their distant dominion. When in the second act we see the Pavilion of the Court of Barataria--there in one corner is the double-seated throne--we see also the happy workings of a "monarchy that's tempered with Republican equality." Courtiers and private soldiers, officers of high rank and menials of every degree are enjoying themselves without any regard to social distinctions, and all are splendidly garbed. The Kings neither expect nor receive the deference due to their office, but they try to make themselves useful about the palace, whether by polishing their own crowns, running little errands for their Ministers, cleaning up in the kitchens, or deputising for sentries who go "in search of beer and beauty." It gives them, as Guiseppe sings, the gratifying feeling that their duty has been done, and in some measure it compensates for their two solitary grievances. One of these is that their subjects, while maintaining the legal fiction that they are one person, will not recognise that they have independent appetites. The other is--the absence of their wives. Marco is moved to describe the great specific for man's human happiness:-- "Take a pair of sparkling eyes, Hidden ever and anon, In a merciful eclipse. Do not heed their mild surprise, Having passed the Rubicon. Take a pair of rosy lips, Take a figure trimly planned-- Such as admiration whets (Be particular in this); Take a tender little hand, Fringed with dainty fingerettes. Press it--in parenthesis-- Take all these, you lucky man-- Take and keep them if you can!" No sooner has he finished than the contadine enter, having braved the seas at the risks of their lives, for existence without their menfolk was dull and their womanly sense of curiosity strong. The re-union is celebrated by a boisterous dance (the cachucha). It is interrupted by the arrival of another unexpected visitor--the Grand Inquisitor. The Grand Inquisitor, left alone with his _protégés_, first of all expresses his doubts whether the abolition of social distinctions is a workable theory. It had been tried before, and particularly by a jovial old King who, in moments of tipsy benevolence, promoted so many favourites to the top of the tree that "Lord Chancellors were cheap as sprats, and Bishops in their shovel hats were plentiful as tabby cats--in point of fact, too many." The plain conclusion was that "when everyone is somebodee, then no one's anybody." Then he tells them of the marriage of one of them in infancy. It is certainly an awkward predicament. Two men are the husbands of three wives! Marco, Guiseppe, Tessa and Gianetta try to solve the complicated plot. Soon afterwards the ducal party arrive attired in the utmost magnificence. The Plaza-Toro issue has been most successful, and the Duke proceeds to describe how his money-making devices include those of securing small titles and orders for Mayors and Recorders, and the Duchess's those of chaperoning dubious ladies into high-class society. The Duke ceremoniously receives the two gondoliers, but he has to take exception to the fact that his arrival has been marked by no royal salutes, no guard of honour, and no triumphal arches. They explain that their off-handed people would not tolerate the expense. His Grace thereupon advises them to impress their court with their importance, and to the strains of a delightful gavotte he gives the awkward fellows a lesson in the arts of deportment. Luckily, the tangled plot is swiftly and very happily solved on the appearance of the old foster mother, who declares that the missing Prince is none other than Luiz. He promptly ascends the throne and claims the hand of Casilda, while Marco and Guiseppe, their days of regal splendour completed, are glad enough to return with their wives to beautiful Venice, there to become "once more gondolieri, both skilful and wary." "UTOPIA, LIMITED." _Produced October 7th, 1893._ "Utopia Limited" is the story--and a very diverting story it is--of a remote country that is desperately anxious to bring itself "up-to-date." Utopia is somewhere in the Southern Pacific, and its inhabitants used to idle in easy, tropical langour amidst their picturesque palm groves. Idlers they were, that is to say, until they first heard of the wonders of England, for then it was that they determined that their land must be swiftly and completely Anglicised. The reformation was undertaken with the utmost zest. King Paramount's eldest daughter, the beautiful Princess Zara, has spent five years in England and taken a high degree as a "Girton Girl." She is due home once more at the time that the story of the opera begins, but already her people have heard of the wise and powerful country overseas, and already they have done much to re-model upon it their own manners, customs and forms of government. Existence could never have been altogether dull in Utopia. It is ruled by a monarch, a despot only in theory, for the constitution is really that of a dynasty tempered by dynamite. This may seem a hard saying. The explanation of it is that the King, so far from being an autocrat, is watched over day and night by two Wise Men, and on his first lapse from political or social propriety he is to be denounced to the Public Exploder. It would then be this Court official's duty to blow him up--he always has about him a few squibs and crackers--and doubtless he would discharge this function with greater alacrity because he is himself Heir-apparent. Clearly the King's lot is not a happy one, and no less so because the Wise Men insist that all sorts of Royal scandals and indiscretions shall be written by himself, anonymously, for the spicy columns of the "Palace Peeper." Generally his Majesty's agents contrive to buy each edition up, but isolated copies do occasionally get into unfriendly hands, and one of these contained his stinging little paragraph about his "goings-on" with the Royal Second Housemaid. The King has two younger daughters, the Princesses Nekaya and Kalyba, who are being "finished" by a grave English governess, the Lady Sophy. Exceedingly modest and demure, with their hands folded and their eyes cast down, they are to be exhibited in the market place as patterns of what "from the English standpoint is looked upon as maidenly perfection." In particular they are to reveal the arts of courtship, showing how it is proper for the young lady to be coy and interestedly agitated in turn, and how she must always rehearse her emotions at home before the looking-glass. In the meanwhile the King, very deferential in manner, has an interview with his two Wise Men, Scaphio and Phantis. Notwithstanding that he seems a little hurt about the outrageous attacks on his morality which he has to write and publish at their command, he at least sees the irresistible humour of the strange situation, and he proceeds to sing a capital song about what a farce life is, alike when one's born, when one becomes married, and when one reaches the disillusioned years. Zara now arrives from her long journey. She is escorted by Captain Fitzbattleaxe, together with four troopers of the 1st Life Guards, whose resplendent bearing immediately impress the maids of Utopia. She brings with her, moreover, six representatives of the principal causes which, she says, have tended to make England the powerful, happy and blameless country it is, and their gifts of reorganisation are to work a miracle in her father's realm. The King and his subjects are then and there introduced to these six "Flowers of Progress." One of them, Captain Fitzbattleaxe himself, is to re-model the Utopian Army. Sir Bailey Barre, Q.C., M.P., is a logician who, according to his brief, can demonstrate that black is white or that two and two make five, just as do the clever people of England. Then there is Lord Dramaleigh, a Lord High Chamberlain, who the Princess says is to "cleanse our court from moral stain and purify our stage." A County Councillor, Mr. Blushington, has come with a mind packed with civic improvement schemes, and the wicked music-halls he also intends to purify. Mr. Goldbury is a company promoter. He floats anything from stupendous loans to foreign thrones to schemes for making peppermint-drops. Last of all comes Captain Sir Edward Corcoran, R.N., to show King Paramount how to run an invincible Navy. Joyously do the inhabitants hail these "types of England's power, ye heaven-enlightened band." The King is impressed most of all with the idea of a "company limited." Goldbury explains just what this means, and how one can start the biggest and rashest venture on a capital, say, of eighteen-pence, and yet be safe from liability. "If you succeed," he declares, "your profits are stupendous," whereas "if you fail pop goes your eighteen-pence." It strikes the King as rather dishonest, but if it is good enough for England, the first commercial country in the world, it is good enough for Utopia. What is more, he decides to go down to posterity as the first Sovereign in Christendom who registered his Crown and State under the Joint Stock Company's Act, 1862. It is with this brilliant scheme that the first act comes to a close. The second act is set in the Throne Room of the Palace. Fitzbattleaxe is with the Princess Zara, and he is lamenting how a tenor in love, as he is with her, cannot in his singing do himself justice. The two then discuss the remarkable changes that have come about since the country determined to be Anglicised. The King, when he enters soon afterwards, wears the dress of a British Field Marshal. He is to preside, according to the articles of association, over the first statutory Cabinet Council of Utopia (Limited). For this gathering the "Flowers of Progress" also arrive, and after they have ranged their chairs round in Christy Minstrel fashion, the proceedings open with a rollicking song by the King. This is the chorus:-- "It really is surprising What a thorough Anglicising, We have brought about--Utopia's quite another land In her enterprising movements She is England--with improvements Which we dutifully offer to our motherland!" Following the meeting comes the courtly ceremonial of the Drawing Room. All the ladies are presented in due form to his Majesty. Then, after a beautiful unaccompanied chorus, the stage empties. Scaphio and Phantis, dressed as judges in red and ermine robes, now enter to storm and rage over the new order of things. All their influence has gone. The sundry schemes they had for making provision for their old age are broken and bankrupt. Even the "Palace Peeper" is in a bad way, and as to the clothes they have imported to satisfy the cravings for the English fashions, their customers plead liability limited to a declared capital of eighteen-pence. The King, whom they used to bully to their hearts' content, is no longer a human being, but a corporation. Once he doffed his Crown respectfully before speaking to them, but now he dances about in lighthearted capers, telling them that all they can do is to put their grievances in writing before the Board of Utopia (Limited). The two call into their counsels the Public Exploder. Between them they work out a plot. By a revolution the Act of 1862 must be at all costs repealed. Shortly after the trio have departed to scheme out the details, there is a delightful scene between Lord Dramaleigh and Mr. Goldbury, and the two coy Princesses, Nekaya and Kalyba. The "shrinking sensitiveness" of these young ladies is held by themselves to be most thoroughly English. So far from that, the men have to tell them, the girls in the country they come from are blithe, frank and healthy creatures who love the freshness of the open air and the strenuous exertions of sport, and who are "in every pure enjoyment wealthy." (Gilbert, by the way, wrote this opera in the early 'nineties.) Loyally does Goldbury chant their eulogy:-- "Go search the world and search the sea. Then come you home and sing with me, There's no such gold and no such pearl As a bright and beautiful English girl." Nekaya and Kalyba are quickly converted to the idea that to be her natural self is woman's most winsome quality. Then follows an interlude between the Lady Sophy, whose primness is merely a cloak for ambition, and the King. Compromising paragraphs in the society paper having been explained away, the two declare their mutual love, and soon they are caught by other couples in the act of dancing and kissing. No excuses are attempted and all engage in a wild festive dance. Enter, now, the revolutionary band under the command of Scaphio, Phantis and the Public Exploder. They relate how the prosperity of Utopia has been brought to naught by the "Flowers of Progress." Suddenly the Princess Zara remembers that, in her great scheme of reform, the most essential element of all has been forgotten, and that was--party government! Introduce that bulwark and foundation of Britain's greatness and all will be well! Legislation will thus be brought to a standstill, and then there will be "sickness in plenty, endless lawsuits, crowded jails, interminable confusion in the Army and Navy, and, in short, general and unexampled prosperity." The King decrees that party government and all its blessings shall be adopted, and the opera ends with a song of homage to a brave distant isle which Utopia is henceforward to imitate in her virtues, her charities and "her Parliamentary peculiarities." "Great Britain is that monarchy sublime To which some add (but others do not) Ireland." A SAVOYARD BIBLIOGRAPHY. The literature about Savoy Opera forms a regular library. A great deal of it has been contributed to newspapers and magazines. For the latter the reader should consult Poole's "Index to Periodical Literature" and its successor, "The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature." The following list contains the chief books about the Savoyards. GILBERT. W. S. GILBERT: By Edith A. Browne. Stars of the Stage Series. London: John Lane, 1907. 8vo: pp. xii+96+15 plates, one of them showing Gilbert in a kilt as a (3rd) Gordon Highlander (1868-78): gives a list of Gilbert's plays. The operas are dealt with by themselves (pp. 55-84). There is a photograph of H. A. Lytton in "Patience" (facing p. 58). SIR WILLIAM S. GILBERT: A study in modern satire: a handbook on Gilbert and the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. By Isaac Goldberg, M.A., Ph.D. (Harvard.) Boston: Stratford Publishing Co., 1913. 8vo. pp. 156. The operas are discussed pp. 83-146. "The character of Pooh-Bah is perhaps the greatest single creation of Gilbert's." RECOLLECTIONS OF GILBERT. By G. W. Smalley. _McClure's Magazine_ (January 1903), xx, 302-304. REAL CONVERSATION WITH GILBERT. By William Archer. _Critic_, New York (September 1901), xxxix, 240-240. Mr. Archer's article on Gilbert as a dramatist in the _St. James's Magazine_, London, in 1881 (xlix, 287), was one of the first critical appreciations of Gilbert on a big scale. GILBERT'S HUMOUR. By Max Beerbohm. _Saturday Review_, xcvii, 619; xcix, 696. THE GENIUS OF GILBERT. _Blackwood's Magazine_ (July 1911), cxcix, 121-128. THE ENGLISH ARISTOPHANES. By Walter Sichel. _Fortnightly Review_ (October 1911), xciv, 681-704. THE LIBRETTOS OF W. S. GILBERT. By G. H. Powell. _Temple Bar_, cxxv, 36. MR. GILBERT AS A LIBRETTIST. By J. M. Bulloch. _Evening Gazette_, Aberdeen (June 16, 17, 1890). This was originally an address delivered to the Aberdeen University Literary Society, November 16, 1888. J. M. Bulloch also dealt with "The Pretty Wit of Mr. Gilbert" in the _Sketch_, June 12, 1898; "Mr. Gilbert's Majority as a Savoyard," in the _Sketch_, Sept. 9, 1898; and "The work of W. S. Gilbert," illustrated in the _Bookbuyer_, New York, January, 1899. GILBERT'S PROFITS FROM LIBRETTO. By G. Middleton. _Bookman_, New York (October, 1908), xxviii, 116-123. SIR W. S. GILBERT. Leading article and biography in _The Times_, May 30, 1911, pp. 11-12. PORTRAITS. Ten reproductions are inventoried in the _A.L.A. Portrait Index_ (Washington, 1908: p. 378) including those by Rudolf Lehman and "Spy" in _Vanity Fair_ (1881: xiii., plate 13.). SULLIVAN. SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN, HIS LIFE AND MUSIC. By B. W. Findon, London: James Nisbet and Company, 1904. 8vo. pp. viii+214+[2]: portrait of Sullivan. Dedicated to Mr. Findon's aunt, Mary Clementina Sullivan, 1811-82, mother of Sir Arthur. List of Sullivan's works (pp. 204-214): section specially devoted to the Savoy Opera (pp. 94-126). This book was reprinted by Sisley's, Ltd. [1908] as "Sir Arthur Sullivan and his Operas." SULLIVAN. By Sir George Grove. _Dictionary of Music_ (1908), iv, 743-747. SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN: Life story, letters, and reminiscences. By Arthur Lawrence; with critique by B. W. Findon; and bibliography by W. Bendall London: James Bowden, 1899. 8vo. pp. xvi.+360+11 plates+[8]. There are 19 illustrations, showing Sullivan at the ages of 12, 15, 25, 44, 52 and 57, with eight facsimiles of letters or scores. M. Findon's critique occupies pp. 288-326 and the bibliography, pp. 327-360. SOUVENIR OF SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN, Mus. Doc, M.V.O.; a brief sketch of his life. By Walter J. Wells. London: George Newnes, Ltd., 1901. 8vo. pp. viii. + 106 with 49 illustrations. Contains "Sullivan and Gilbert" (pp. 15-31): "D'Oyly Carte" (pp. 32-46): "American Success" (pp. 47-54.) List of his works (pp. 98-104). ARTHUR SULLIVAN. By H. Saxe Wyndham. London: George Bell and Sons, 1903. 8vo. pp. x+80, with eight illustrations. Dedicated "to my wife through whose skill as a musician the never ending delights of Sullivan's music were first unfolded to me." One of Bell's Miniature Series of Musicians. PORTRAITS. Twenty-one reproductions are inventoried in the _A.L.A. Portrait Index_ (Washington, 1908: p. 1405) including those by Millais and by "Ape" in _Vanity Fair_ (1874: vi, plate 81). CARTE. The starting of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas: a letter written by R. D'Oyly Carte in 1877 to "My Lord" (unnamed), apropos of a proposal to form a small company to produce the operas. Printed in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, May 1, 1907. The petition by the Savoy Theatre and Operas, Ltd., and Reduced, for the approval of the Court to the reduction of the capital from £75,000 to £41,250 was heard before Mr. Justice Walton, August 26, 1903 (_Times_, August 27). This led to a very interesting letter from Gilbert in the _Times_ (Aug. 28) and one in the _Telegraph_ by Mrs. Carte (Aug. 29). PORTRAITS. Four reproductions are inventoried in the _A.L.A. Portrait Index_ (Washington, 1908: p. 259), including that by "Spy" in _Vanity Fair_ (1891: xxiii, plate 498). THE SAVOY OPERAS. GILBERT, SULLIVAN, AND D'OYLY CARTE: Reminiscences of the Savoy and the Savoyards. By Francois Cellier and Cunningham Bridgeman. London: Isaac Pitman and Sons, 1914. 8vo. pp. xxiv+443: with 63 portraits and other illustrations and six facsimile letters; and a complete set of casts at the Savoy (pp. 425-435). The collaboration between Mr. Cellier and Mr. Bridgeman (pp. 3-163) was ended by the former's death, January 5, 1914. The rest of the book (pp. 164-422) was done by Mr. Bridgeman. THE SAVOY OPERA AND THE SAVOYARDS. By Percy Fitzgerald, M.A., F.S.A.; with six illustrations. London: Chatto and Windus, 1894. 8vo. pp. xvi, 248. Most of the illustrations are pen and ink drawings. GILBERT AND SULLIVAN OPERA: a history and a comment. By H. M. Walbrook: with a foreword by Sir Henry Wood. London: F. V. White and Co., Ltd., 1920. 8vo. pp. 155+[3]+4 plates, including two drawings by H. M. Bateman and a reproduction of the Sullivan Memorial in the Victoria Embankment Gardens; with 42 pen and ink sketches in the text: Short bibliography (p. 155). GILBERT AND SULLIVAN JOTTINGS. By Shelford Walsh [Harrogate?] coach to the principal operatic societies in the United Kingdom [1903]. 16 mo.: pp. 24+cover. Contains little stories about the operas. Price 4d. SAVOYARDS ON TOUR: a description of the various companies on the road. _Sketch_, June 13, 1894. SAVOYARD DINNER, given by the O.P. Club in the Hotel Cecil, December 30, 1906. Gilbert's historical speech on this occasion was printed verbatim in the _Daily Telegraph_, December 31, 1906. BARRINGTON. RUTLAND BARRINGTON: a record of thirty-five years' experience on the English stage. By Himself; with a preface by Sir William S. Gilbert, London: Grant Richards, 1908. 8vo. pp. 270+31 illustrations and coloured portrait on the cover. Printed at Plymouth. Dedicated to "My good friend, Mrs. D'Oyly Carte." The Savoy is dealt with pp. 25-86. MORE RUTLAND BARRINGTON. By Himself. London: Grant Richards, 1911. 8vo. pp. 233+[1]+15 illustrations, including one of H. A. Lytton as the Pirate King. Printed in Edinburgh. GROSSMITH. A SOCIETY CLOWN: reminiscences. By George Grossmith. Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith, 1888. 8vo. pp. iv+182. Forming vol. 31 of Arrowsmith's Bristol Library. Chapter on Gilbert and Sullivan pp. 91-125. In "Piano and I" (1910), he describes (pp. 11-18) why he left the Savoy. See also "The Diary of Nobody" (1892). LYTTON. MEMORIES OF A MERRYMAN. By H. A. Lytton. _Graphic_, Nov. 19, 26; Dec. 3, 10, 17, 1921. This consists of some extracts from the present volume. LONDON PRODUCTIONS OF THE SAVOY OPERAS. Opera. Theatre. Produced. Withdrawn. Per. Trial by Jury Royalty Mar. 25, 1875 Dec. 18, 1875 -- The Sorcerer Opera Nov. 17, 1877 May 22, 1878 175 Comique " Savoy Oct. 11, 1884 Mar. 12, 1885 150 " " Sep. 22, 1898 Dec. 31, 1898 102 H.M.S. Opera Pinafore Comique May 25, 1878 Feb. 20, 1880} " " Dec. 16, 1879 Mar. 20, 1880} 700 " Savoy Nov. 12, 1887 Mar. 10, 1888 120 " " June 6, 1889 Nov. 25, 1889 174 " " July 14, 1908 Repertory 61 Season The Pirates Opera Apl. 3, 1880 Apl. 2, 1881 363 of Penzance Comique " Savoy Mar. 17, 1888 June 6, 1888 80 " " June 30, 1900 Nov. 3, 1900 127 " " Dec. 1, 1909 Repertory 43 Season Patience Opera Apl. 23, 1881 Oct. 8, 1881 170 Comique " Savoy Oct. 10, 1881 Nov. 22, 1882 448 " " Nov. 7, 1900 Apl. 20, 1901 150 " " Apl. 4, 1907 Repertory 51 Season Iolanthe Savoy Nov. 25, 1882 Jan. 1, 1884 398 " " Dec. 7, 1901 Mar. 29, 1902 113 " " June 11, 1907 Repertory 42 Season " " Oct. 19, 1908 " 38 Princess Ida Savoy Jan. 5, 1884 Oct. 9, 1884 246 The Mikado " Mar. 14, 1885 Jan. 19. 1887 672 " " Jan. 7, 1888 Sept. 29, 1888 116 " " Nov. 6, 1895 Mar. 4, 1896 127 " " July 11, 1896 Feb. 17, 1897 226 " " Apl. 28, 1908 Repertory 142 Season Ruddigore Savoy Jan. 22, 1887 Nov. 5, 1887 288 The Yeoman of the Guard Savoy Oct. 3, 1888 Nov. 30, 1889 423 " " May 5, 1897 Nov. 20, 1897 186 " " Dec. 8, 1906 Repertory 90 Season " " Mar. 1, 1909 " 28 The Savoy Dec. 7, 1889 June 20, 1891 554 Gondoliers " " Mar. 22, 1898 May 21, 1898 62 " " July 18, 1898 Sep. 17, 1898 63 " " Jan. 22, 1907 Repertory 76 Season " " Jan. 18, 1909 " 22 PRINTED AT RIVERSIDE PRINTING WORKS 32-36, FLEET LANE, LONDON, E.C.4 Transcriber's Notes Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Hyphen removed: "bull[-]dog(s)" (p. 35), "high-water[-]mark" (p. 111), "school[-]boy" (p. 63), "yester[-]year" (p. 139). Hyphen added: "Mount[-]Ararat" (p. 156). The following words appear both with and without hyphens and have not been changed: "light[-]hearted", "Merry[-]man", "Mount-Ararat" / "Mountararat", "re[-]appear(s)". P. 15: "waistcoast" changed to "waistcoat" (my striped waistcoat and green apron). P. 45: "caste" changed to "cast" (When George Grossmith returned to the cast). P. 53: "minature" changed to "miniature" (experiments on a miniature stage). P. 73: "once" changed to "one" (and in one case actually before). P. 73, 108: "occured" changed to "occurred" (there occurred an incident, thought had occurred to me). P. 82: "Guiseppi" changed to "Guiseppe". P. 97 "arn't" changed to "aren't" (I'm an ugly blighter, aren't I?). P. 110: "CHAPTER" removed from title for consistency. P. 123: "disfigurnig" changed to "disfiguring" (hit the mark without disfiguring it). P. 125: "playright" changed to "playwright" (master mind as a playwright). P. 142: "confesess" changed to "confesses" (She confesses that). P. 149: "affection" changed to "affectation" (my mediævalism's affectation). P. 151: "Janes" changed to "Jane" (Lady Jane assures him). P. 170: "hers" changed to "her" (his intentions towards her are honourable). P. 174: "to to" changed to "to" (go to fetch the prisoner). P. 179: "Plazo-Toro" changed to "Plaza-Toro". P. 180: "propropriety" changed to "propriety" (political or social propriety). P. 189: "Sullvian" changed to "Sullivan". P. 190: "Nov. 17, 1877" restored from the context. 
58876	----	FASHIONING A PIPE. "He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, From the deep, cool bed of the river. * * * * * * "Hacked and hewed as a great god can, With his hard, bleak steel at the patient reed, Till there was not a sign of the leaf, indeed, To prove it fresh from the river. He cut it short, did the great god Pan, (How tall it stood in the river!) Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, Steadily from the outside ring, And notched the poor, dry, empty thing In holes as he sat by the river. 'This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan, ... 'The only way since gods began To make sweet music, they could succeed.' ... Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, To laugh as he sits by the river, The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, For the reed which grows nevermore again As a reed with the reeds in the river." --MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. [Illustration: Title page] JUDITH MOORE; OR, FASHIONING A PIPE. BY JOANNA E. WOOD. Author of "The Untempered Wind," etc. TORONTO: THE ONTARIO PUBLISHING CO., Limited 1898. Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight, by THE ONTARIO PUBLISHING Co., Limited, at the Department of Agriculture, Ottawa. JUDITH MOORE. CHAPTER I. "Behold a sower went forth to sow." Andrew Cutler, with his graceful and melancholy red Irish setter at his heels, walked swiftly across his fields to the "clearing" one morning late in spring. He was clad in the traditional blue jeans of the countryman, and wore neither coat nor vest; a leathern belt was drawn about his middle. His shirt, open a bit at the throat, and guiltless of collar and tie, displayed a neck such as we see modelled in old bronzes, and of much the same colour; for Andrew Cutler was tanned to the point of being swart. His head had a somewhat backward pose, expressive of an independence almost over-accentuated. His hair was cropped short, and was of a sun-burnt brown, like his long moustache. His eyes were blue-grey, that softened to hazel or hardened to the hue of steel. His nose was aquiline, with the little flattened plateau on the bridge that we call "Spanish." His chin was strong--the chin of a man who "manlike, would have his way." Mother Nature must laugh in her sleeve at the descriptive names we tack to her models. This man so completely satisfied the appellation "aristocratic," that, with the stubbornness of a much-humoured word, it persists in suggesting itself as the best vehicle to describe this young farmer, and indeed the combination would be entirely to the advantage of the adjective, which is often seen in poor company. A veritable rustic Antinous he was, with broad chest, slim, lithe loins, and muscles strong as steel. Slung athwart his shoulder was a sack of coarse brown canvas that bulged with a heavy load; but he strode on, his balance undisturbed, and presently he stood upon the verge of the clearing. This was simply a part of the woodland that Andrew was taking under cultivation. A somewhat unpromising piece it looked, with its stubborn stumps standing irregularly amid the broken furrows--(for it had been ploughed, in such fashion as ploughing may be done when one has to twist around stumps, over stones, and tear through long strong roots). Andrew remembered the ploughing, as he walked across to begin his sowing, like the good farmer that he was, at the end-rigg. Here was the stump that had resisted gunpowder, leverage and fire, and that now was being tortured by saltpetre, charged in a deep augur hole. Well, it had been a right brave old tree, but the saltpetre would win to the stout oaken heart yet. It was perhaps a step in the right direction, this clearing of the woodland, but all progress seems cruel at first. Here--as he passed over what seemed a particularly smooth bit--the great stone lay hidden that had broken his ploughshare off with a crash, and sent him flying from between the plough-stilts. He would remember that stone for some time! So doubtless would good old Bess, whose patient brown shoulders had borne the brunt of the shock. Ploughing a field is like ploughing the sea--one needs must have a chart of each to steer safely. That more formidable sea, "whose waves are years," has no chart. Next winter would see the uprooting of all these stumps, and the felling of more trees beyond. Next spring the plough would pass straight from end to end, and the seed-drill would sow the space which now he was about to sow in the old classic fashion--as they sowed, in intervals of stormy peace, the grain after the wooden ploughs on the Swiss hillsides; as Ulysses sowed the salt upon the seashore; as the sowers sowed the seed in the far-off East, as has been handed down to us in a matchless allegory. He began his task, hand and foot moving in rhythm, and cadenced by the sharp swish, swish of the grain as it left his hand, spreading fan-wise over the soil. It takes a strong wrist and a peculiar "knack" to sow grain well by hand; he had both. The dog followed him for a couple of ridges, but, besides the ploughed ground being distasteful to him (for he was a dainty dog and fastidious), the buckwheat hit him in the eyes, and his master paid no heed to him, a combination of circumstances not be borne; hence, he shortly betook himself to the woodland, where he raised a beautiful little wild rabbit and coursed after it, until with a final kick of its furry heels it landed safe beneath a great pile of black walnut logs, built up criss-cross fashion to mellow for the market. Rufus (named from "William the Red, surnamed Rufus") returned to his master, not dejectedly, but with a melancholy contempt for rabbits that would not "run it out," but took shelter in a sneaking way where they could not be come at. By this time Andrew was well on with his work. The sack beneath his arm was growing limp, he himself was warm. He paused as a bird flew up from a turned sod at his feet, and a little search showed the simple nest of a grey-bird--open to the sun and rain, built guilelessly, without defence of strategy or strength. There is something amiss with the man or woman whose heart is not touched by a bird's nest--the daintiest possible epitome of love, and home, and honest work, and self-sacrificing patience. Andrew had thrashed many a boy for robbing birds' nests, and had discharged a man in the stress of haying because he knocked down the clay nests of the swallows from beneath the granary eaves with a long pole. Now he bent above this nest with curious-tender eyes, touching the spotted eggs lightly whilst the bird, whose breast had left them warm, flitted to and fro upon the furrows. He remained but a moment (the bird's anxiety was cruel) then, fixing the spot in his memory that he might avoid it in the harrowing, he was about to go on his way, when his ears were assailed by a succession of the sweetest sounds he had ever heard--note after note of purest melody, flung forth unsyllabled, full-throated to the air, inarticulate but eloquent. Again and again it came, liquid, rich, and with that pathos which perfection always touches. At first he could not fix the direction from whence it came. It was as if the heavens above had opened and showered down music upon his heart as he had flung forth the seed upon the earth: and indeed there were two sowings that morning and from each harvests were garnered--first the bloom and then the fruit thereof. But as he listened longer he knew it issued from the wood before him. At the first note some impulse made him snatch off his old felt hat, and he stood there, bareheaded in the sunshine, as one might stand to whom had come the pang of inspiration. The singer was voicing no composition, only uttering isolated notes, or short _crescendos_, terminating in notes of exquisite beauty, but leaving a sense of incompleteness that was so intense us to be almost a physical pain to him--only forgotten when the next utterance robbed him of retrospect and filled him with hope. Any one who has heard a perfect singer practising, knows the sensation. In such fashion the unseen sirens sang, and men willingly risked death to touch the lips that had been parted by such melodious breath. Andrew still stood, and at last silence fell--a silence he hardly comprehended at first, so filled was it with the dream of sound that had passed, so instinct with expectation: but it forced itself upon him, and then suddenly round him there sounded all the commonplace noises of life--the croaking of a tree toad, the buzzing of a chance fly, the far-off shouting of men, and the sounds of birds--all that had been deadened to his ear by the magic of that voice. A voice--then whence? In two strides he was over the ploughed ground and in the woods. He searched through and through it in vain. He looked from its borders at his own far-off farm-house among its trees, at the gables of the village of Ovid clustering together, at the tin on the Baptist Church spire glistening in the midst, at the long low Morris homestead that nestled in a little hollow beyond his wood: but all was as usual, nothing new, nothing strange. No angel's glistening wing was to be seen anywhere. Andrew's grain was spent, but the clearing was not yet all sown. So he went home leaving his task unfinished. From one thing to another was the rule of his busy life. He gave a cheery word or two to his aunt, Miss Myers, who kept house for him, and then he was off to town with a waggon load of implements to be mended in time for the summer work. That night a group of typical Ovidians were gathered in the kitchen of old Sam Symmons' house. Sam Symmons lived in a frame house, just at the foot of the incline which led into the village from the north. Like many of the houses of Ovid, his was distinctly typical of its owner. A new house was such a rare thing in Ovid, that the old ones had time to assimilate the characters of their possessors, and to assume an individuality denied to the factors of a more rapidly growing place. Old Sam's house was a tumble-down, rakish, brave-looking old house, with shutters erstwhile painted green. They had once given the whole house quite an air, but their painful lapses in the way of broken slats, and uneven or lost hinges, now superimposed upon it a look of indecision. One of the weather-boards at the south corner was loose and, freed from the nails' restraint, bent outward, as though beckoning the gazer in. It was a hospitable old house, but wary, too, the ornate tin tops of the rain troughs round the roof giving it a knowing look. The native clematis grew better over the weather-beaten gable than anywhere else in Ovid, and the Provence roses, without any care whatever, bloomed better. It was as if the house and its environs were making a gallant but losing light against encroaching time and adverse circumstances. So it was with old Sam. He was an old man. Long before, when Canada's farmers were more than prosperous, when foreign wars kept the price of food grains high, when the soil was virgin and unexhausted, when the military spirit still animated the country, when regulars were in barracks at the nearest town, when every able man was an eager volunteer, when to drink heavily and swear deeply upon all occasions marked the man of ease, when the ladies danced in buckled shoes and _chéne taffetas_, and were worshipped with chivalrous courtesy and high-flown _sobriquets_--in those days old Sam Symmons had been known as "Gallant Sam Symmons," and had been welcomed by many high in the land. He had ever been first in a fight, the last upright at the table, a gay dancer and a courtly flirt. But now he was glad to get an audience of tolerant villagers to listen to his old tales. For instead of garnering his money he spent it freely, having ever a generous heart and open hand, and of late years he had fallen upon evil times, and gone steadily down hill. Now he had only a strip of barren acres heavily mortgaged. He married late in life the daughter of a country doctor. They had one child, a girl, whose mother died when she was four years old. Sam christened his daughter Susanna Matilda. In the days of his youth--oh, the halcyon time--these two names had been the names of the hour. The Mabels, Lilys and Rubys of to-day were yet unborn. Susanna Waring had been the belle of the county, and her lovers were willing to stake their honour upon her pre-eminence. Matilda Buchanan had been called "The Rose of Canada," and when the Consul, her father, returned to England, she footed it bravely at the Court of St. James. She married a nobleman there. They were long dead, these two beauties. Matilda Buchanan had left all her pomp, and Susanna Waring had passed away from all her unhappiness, for she married an officer who treated her brutally. Well, well, old Sam Symmons, gallant Sam Symmons then, had danced with both of them, had kissed Miss Waring's hand in a minuet, and knocked a man down for saying Matilda Buchanan rouged. She did--they all did in those days--but it was not for the profane lips of man to say so. Thus Sam christened his daughter Susanna Matilda, and felt he had done his duty by her. After his wife's death, her cousin, a good enough woman in a negative sort of way, kept house for him, and brought up the little girl. When Susanna was eighteen, this woman died; so Sam and his daughter were left alone. As has been said, quite a crowd was gathered in old Sam's kitchen that night in the last week of May. There was Sam himself, Jack Mackinnon (a neighbour's hired man and the most noted liar in Ovid), Hiram Green, Oscar Randall, and Susanna. It may be said here that throughout Ovid and its environs Susanna's proper name was a dead letter. She was "Sam Symmons' Suse" to all and sundry. The Ovidian mind was not prone to poetry: still, this alliterative name seemed to have charms for it, and perhaps the poetical element in Ovid only required developing: and it may be that the sibilant triune name found favour because it chimed to some dormant vein of poesy, unsuspected even by its possessors. The occasion calling forth the conclave in Symmons' kitchen was simply that his old mare was very sick; in fact, dying, as all save Sam thought. As every man in Ovid prided himself upon his knowledge of veterinary science, the whole community stirred when it was spread abroad that there was an equine patient to practise upon. Oscar Randall took the dim lantern from the table and went out. He returned, and all awaited his opinion. "Well, Os?" said Jack Mackinnon. "If that was my horse--which she ain't, of course--I'd shoot her," said Oscar, deliberately. "Shoot her!" said Jack Mackinnon: "shoot her! Don't you do it, Mister Symmons. Why, there was old Mr. Pierson wot I worked for in Essex, he had an old mare, most dreadful old and most terrible sick--sick for months. One day we drawed her out in a field, to die easy and so's she'd be easy to bury. Well, by George! she got up, and old Mr. Pen--him wot I worked for as has the dairy farm--he came along, and he says to Mr. Pierson, says he, 'Wot'll you take for the mare?' 'Twenty-five dollars,' says the old man. 'She's my mare, then,' says Mr Pen; 'I'll give you my note for her.' So Mr. Pen took her home and drove her in his milk-cart: and that spring he sold her two colts for a hundred dollars apiece, and in the fall he got two hundred dollars for a little black one; and Mr. Ellis, wot keeps tavern, he bought another pair of 'em in winter, and gave a sorrel horse and a double cutter for 'em. I tell you, she was a good old mare that, and we drug her out to die at old Mr. Pierson's, wot I worked for in Essex, and old Mr. Pen, wot keeps the dairy farm, he came along, and says, 'Wot'll you take for the mare?' And--" "Oh, shut up! Draw it mild, Jack," said Oscar, irascibly. "Sam," said Hiram Green, slowly, "have you tried Epsom salts? and ginger? and saltpetre? and sweet spirits of nitre? and rye? and asafoetida? and bled her? and given her a bran-mash? and tried turpentine and salt?" "Yes," said Sam, "I have, and she's no better." "Now, Sam," said Green, impressively, "did you give her a 'Black's Condition Powder'?" "No, I didn't," said Sam. "I thought so," said Green, significantly. "Do you keep them in the store?" queried Oscar Randall, aggressively. He felt aggrieved with Hiram, having himself intended to ask about the sweet nitre and turpentine. "Do you keep them?" he asked again. "Yes, I do," admitted Hiram, "and I've brought one along in case Sam should like to try it." This rather crushed Oscar's insinuation as to Hiram's business policy in suggesting this remedy, so he sat silent, while old Sam and Hiram Green went out to administer the powder. Jack Mackinnon, to whom silence was impossible, with the freedom of equality prevalent in Ovid, turned to where Suse sat making rick-rack. "Wot are you making, Miss Suse?" he began, and without waiting for a reply, continued: "There was Adah Harris, daughter of old man Harris, wot was a carpenter and had a market garden, wot I worked for in Essex, and she was always a-doing things. She was busy every blessed minute, and I tell you she _was_ smart; she married Henry Haynes wot kept a blacksmith's shop, wot I worked for: and when I left there, I left my clothes be, till I got a job, and when I went back after 'em, there was a new shirt, and two paper collars in a box, and my mother's picture gone. Now I knowed pretty clost to where them things went--and I'll have 'em back if I have to steal 'em. Why I thought no end of mother's picture, it was took standing; I wouldn't have lost that picture for a fifty-cent piece, and there 'twas gone and my new shirt and two collars I'd only had two months. I left them at Henry Haynes' wot married Adah Harris. Old man Harris went carpentering and kept a market garden, but, pshaw! Talk about squashes, why we growed one squash there took three men to get it into the waggon, and then we rolled it up a board--why squashes--" but just then Hiram and old Sam came in. Old Sam blew the long-lit lantern out. "Well, father?" Suse asked. "She's dead," said Sam. "Dead's a door nail," added Hiram. "No!" said Jack, with exaggerated incredulity. "You don't say!" said Oscar, in a tone which betrayed a distinct conflict between self-satisfaction and proper sympathy. He could not resist adding in a lower key, "I seen as much." Soon the trio of visitors departed. Old Sam was smoking a last pipe when a knock came to the door. He opened it to find Andrew Cutler without. "What's this I hear about your mare?" he asked. "Is she dead?" "Yes--couldn't seem to do anything for her," said old Sam, and brave as he was, his tone was somewhat disheartened. "Well, it's too bad, she was a good beast. Better have my little bay till you look about for another," said Andrew. Old Sam's face lightened. "I'll be glad to," he answered. "There's the orchard field to plough and I'm behindhand already, but"--his old pride forbidding him to accept too eagerly--"don't you need him?" "No, not a bit," said Andrew. "Indeed, I'll be glad if you take him awhile. He's getting above himself." "Well, I'll come along for him in the morning, then," said Sam, relieved. "What have you been doing to-day?" "Sowing buckwheat in the clearing, and went to town with some mending," replied Andrew. "I'm just getting home." "How does the clearing look?" asked Sam. "Free of water?" "Yes, it's in good condition." "Hiram Green says that there's a boarder up to the Morris place. Did you see anything of it?" "Man or woman?" asked Andrew, with sudden interest. "Hiram didn't say. I took it was a man." (Andrew's heart sank.) "Suse, did Hiram Green say 'twas a man or a woman had come to board with old Mrs. Morris?" "He didn't say," called Suse from an inner room. "Well, it's a lonely place to choose, isn't it?" said Andrew. "Good-night, Mr. Symmons." "Good-night, good-night. Thank you kindly," said old Sam. The old mare was buried next day in one of Sam's barren fields. "Did you get the shoes off her?" Mr. Horne asked as he encountered old Sam returning from the obsequies with an earthy spade over his rounding shoulders. "No, I didn't," said Sam. "Did you save her tail to make a fly brush?" queried Mr. Horne. "No," answered old Sam. "I never thought of it." "Did you skin her?" asked his questioner bending over. "Did you skin her?" "No," said Sam, thoroughly humiliated. "Well," said Mr. Horne with exuberant sarcasm, as he shook his reins over his team of fat Clydesdales, "It's well you can afford such waste. I couldn't." CHAPTER II. "Say where In upper air Dost hope to find fulfilment of thy dream? On what far peak seest thou a morning gleam? Why shall the stars still blind thee unaware? Why needst thou mount to sing? Why seek the sun's fierce-tempered glow and glare? Why shall a soulless impulse prompt thy wing?" The next day Andrew Cutler went to complete the sowing of the clearing. It was somewhat chill, and he wore an old velveteen coat whose ribbed surface was sadly rubbed and faded to a dingy russet. More than that, it was burnt through in several round spots by ashes from his pipes and cigars. As usual, Rufus followed him, and a very picturesque pair the two made. The air was very clear, the smoke from the village curling bluely up high to the clouds, no shred of it lingering about the roof trees. He could see some white pigeons flying about the church spire; and off to the right, where the river ran, he could see lines of white flashing a moment in the sun, then falling beyond the trees, and these he knew were flashes from the shining breasts and wings of the gulls. The ground had not yet lost the elasticity of spring, and the new grass had not yet quite overcome the dead growth of the year before. It was a buoyant day, and Andrew was in a buoyant mood. He had not come out without the expectation of hearing more singing, and he promised himself he would not wait so long before beginning his search for the singer, whom he took to be the boarder at the Morris house. However, it seemed as if he was to be disappointed, for the sun grew strong, the air warm, and no music came to him. His sowing was done, and he was just about leaving, when, sweet, clear, full, the voice of yesterday shook out a few high notes, and then taking up the words of a song began to sing it in such fashion that Andrew (who knew the song well) could hardly believe that the sound issued from mortal lips--it was so flute-like, so liquid. Now, Andrew's life had not been one of much dissipation; still, there were hours in it he did not care to dwell upon, and the memory of every one of these unworthy hours suddenly smote him with shame. They say that at death's approach one sees in a second all the sins of his soul stand forth in crimson blazonry, and perhaps, in that moment, Andrew's old self died. The singer's voice had taken up another song, one he did not know-- "Out from yourself! For your broken heart's vest; For the peace which you crave; For the end of your quest; For the love which can save; Come! Come to me!" In springing over the fence and making towards where the sound came from, Andrew hardly seemed as if acting upon his own volition. He had been summoned: he went. After all, there is not much mystery about a girl singing among the trees, yet Andrew's heart throbbed with something of that hushed tumult with which we approach some sacred shrine of feeling, or enter upon some new intense delight. He soon saw her, standing with her back against a rough shell-bark hickory. The cloudy greyness of its rugged stem seemed to intensify the pallor and accentuate the delicacy of her face. For she was a very pale-faced, fragile-looking woman who stood there singing: her eyes were wide and wistful, but not unhappy-looking, only pitiable from the intense eagerness that seemed to have consumed her. And, in fact, she was like an overtuned instrument whose tense strings quiver continually. She was clad in a dull red gown made in one of the quaint fashions which _la mode_ has revived of late years. It had many _bizarre_ broideries of blues and black, touched here and there with gold--Russian embroidery, its wearer would have called it. As she sang she made little dramatic gestures with slender hands, and at the last words of her song's refrain, she stretched forth her arms with a gesture expressing the infinitude of yearning. Her face, so mobile as to be in itself speech, seconded her words by an inarticulate but powerful plea. It was as though she pleaded with Fate to manifest its decree at once, and not hold her longer in suspense. And it was for singing such as this, and for acting such as this, that the world had crowned her great--Fools who could not see that the head they crowned was already drooping beneath its lonely burden. Blind fools who could not see it was the passion of an empty heart, the yearning of a solitary soul, the unutterable longing of a woman's nature for love, that rendered her marvellous voice so passionately and painfully sweet. She herself never suspected it; only she believed what the doctors had told her manager and teacher, the good man who wore such big diamonds and used such bad language, that she must have rest, quiet, complete and absolute change. So she and this man had come to Canada, and had driven on and on into the heart of the country till they came to this village in the valley, and there she had elected to stay--a caprice not nearly so extravagant, and certainly more sweet and wholesome than the freaks indulged in by some others of her ilk. So here she was, lying _perdu_, whilst her picture was in every paper in the country, with marvellous tales of her triumphs abroad and whispers of the wonderful treat in store for the music-lovers of America. And her little, good-hearted manager flashed out his biggest diamonds, swore his worst oaths, hoped the child was getting strong, and never dreamed he was killing her. The "Great God Pan" was all unconscious of his cruelty, was he not, when he fashioned the pipe out of a river reed? And as he blew through it the music of the gods, doubtless had good reason for thinking that never reed had been honoured like unto this reed. There are moments in real life, so exotic to the lives into which they have entered, that one hardly realizes the verity of them till long after, when the meaning of his own actions struggles through the mists and confronts him with their consequences. In such moments the most absurd things in the world seem quite in order, and the commonplace actions of life assume grotesque importance. So it is in dreams, which reconcile with magnificent disregard of possibilities, the most wonderful conditions of person, place and time. Well-- "Dreams are true whilst they last And do we not live in dreams?" This is Andrew's only excuse for accepting so promptly the musical invitation extended with such feeling! "I have come," he said, half dreamily--stepping out from the shelter of the trees. The pale-faced singing siren changed to a startled, blushing girl, and in swift sequence Andrew's rapt gaze altered to one not altogether without daring. "Oh, so I see," she half gasped, then laughed outright, looking at him with shy eyes, but mutinously curving lips. The laugh robbed the scene of its last illusion of mystery. Andrew advanced, raising his old felt hat with an instinct of deference that made the commonplace courtesy charming. "I hope I didn't scare you," he said; "but I was working in a field near here yesterday and heard you singing. To-day I made up my mind to find you. Do you mind?" "Do you know who I am?" she asked. "No," he answered; "but I suspect you are the 'Boarder up at old Mis' Morris's.'" "Oh, so a rumour has gone abroad in the land? Yes, I am the boarder; one would think a boarder was a kind of animal." "Yes," assented Andrew. "Old Sam Symmons said he wasn't sure if it was a man or a woman." "I won't be called an 'It'; my name is Judith Moore." "How do you do, Miss Judith Moore. My name is Andrew Cutler." He had come close to her by this time, and as he looked down upon her he began to feel an irritating sense of shyness creep over him. She was such a fantastic little figure in his eyes. And what a queer frock she had on! Surely on any one else it would be horrid. It didn't look so bad on her, though; and what a belt for her to wear, this great burden of metal--a flexible band of silver with, it seemed to him, dozens of silver ornaments hanging to it by chains of varying lengths! What nonsense! It seemed to weigh her down. (Andrew was not up in chatelaines.) Then her feet! But here his masculine horse sense and the instinct of protection which had awakened in him at the first startled look from her big wide eyes, made him overstep all polite bounds and render himself odious to Miss Moore. "Why in the world do you wear shoes like these?" he asked. "And such stockings! and standing on that damp moss! You had better go right into the house and get on decently heavy shoes." This was too much. Miss Judith Moore fancied her own feet, and fancied open-work silk hose, and high-heeled wisps of shoes. Most of all, she liked the combination. In fact, in a harmless little way, she rather liked people to have a chance to appreciate these beauties, and at the very moment Andrew spoke, she had noted his downward glance and felt a righteous peace settle upon her. To be well shod is such moral support, and, lo, this heathen, this wretch, this abominable, conceited, brazen young farmer, had actually dared to suggest a change; more than that, he had spoken of "stockings"--disgusting! So, with a dignity that reduced Andrew to despair, even whilst it roused his ire (she was so slight to be such a "defiant little cat" he told himself), she drew herself up, in a manner to do the traditional Duchess credit, and left him, saying: "Since you don't approve of my feet I'll take them out of your way." "You mean they'll take you," said Andrew, wrathfully conscious that she was, to use a good old figure of speech, "turning up her nose at him." "You are extremely rude," she called back. "And you are a bad-tempered little thing," he answered. So he and his siren, calling names at each other, parted for the first time. Miss Moore went into the little apple orchard behind the Morris homestead, and watched a tiny chipmunk gathering leaves to line its nest--at least Judith supposed it was for that. At any rate, it picked out the dry brown leaves from beneath a maple tree near the gate, sat up on its hind legs, and pleated the leaf into its mouth deftly. It took two or three at a time, and looked very comical with the brown leaves sticking out like fans on each side of its face. She laughed so long and loudly at this, that Mrs. Morris came to the door to see if she had hysterics. "I met a young man in the woods, Mrs. Morris," said Judith, going up to her; "a rude, long-legged young man, named Cutler. Who is he?" "For the land's sake!" said Mrs. Morris. "Did you meet Andrew Cutler? I warrant he'd be took down if he heard you say that. He's thought a good deal of by some people, being on the school board and the council, for all he's unmarried and young; but he's too big feeling to suit me! And he don't profess religion, and is forever smokin' and shootin', and he's got a crank on books--took that off his mother; she was a Myers. They was U. E. Loyalist stock; got their farms for nothing, of course, and hung on to them. Andrew owns a fine place, and he's full of cranks about college farming. Well, 'long-legged'--that's a good one! He is long-legged, there's no mistake about that. All the Myerses are tall. There's Hannah Myers as keeps house for Andrew, and she's tall as my old man, and--for the land's sake, that milk's boiling over!" and Mrs. Morris departed indoors. Presently, out flew two chickens, a collie dog, and a cat, wild-eyed and spitting, from which signs Judith diagnosed that Mrs. Morris had made "things" fly around when she got inside--a miracle she was an adept at performing. Andrew went home to dinner, and came back in the afternoon to harrow down the grain he had sowed. Mr. Morris came out to talk to him. "Who is the girl you've got boarding with you?" asked Andrew. "Oh," said Mr. Morris, "I don't just rightly know, but she's a singing woman of some kind: in the opery, she said. She and a little black-a-vised chap came driving up the lane one day last week, and before I just rightly could make out what they were, he was driving off and she was there for keeps. Next day there came a whole waggon load of trunks. Going to stay all summer, she says. She's greatly took up with the country. She wanted to tie ribbons on the cows' horns, and is bound to learn to make butter. She was going to churn the other day, and worked the dash about a dozen times, and then she scolded right sharp at the butter for not coming. Then she got a spoon and tasted the cream, and she up and says to Mother, 'Why, Mrs. Morris, you've given me sour cream to churn!' and she was real huffy. She wouldn't believe that sweet butter came off sour cream, and she just sat, and never took her eye off that churn till Mother was done with it. She was bound she wasn't going to be fooled. She's real smart some ways, though, only she don't eat a mite, and Mother's dreadful afraid her religion is kind of heathenish. She was looking out the door the other day, and she says, says she, 'It's a perfect idol!' Mother never let on, but soon as she went away Mother came out and looked about, and there was nothing like an idol, except maybe them big queer-marked stones I got down by the lime springs. What did you call 'em?" "Petrifactions," said Andrew. "Yes. Well, Mother always had 'em set up against the door steps kind of tasty, but Mother ain't the one to have no sich temptations around in any one's way, if they be given to sich, so she just rolled 'em along and dropped 'em into the cistern." Mr. Morris was notoriously long-winded, and sometimes Andrew was not over-eager to encounter him, but this day Andrew was more than civil. "What's she here for, anyhow?" asked he. "Her health; she's all drug down, Mother says, and she's full of cranks. Yesterday she would weed in the garden, and she started out with as good a pair of gloves on as you ever seen. Well, she stayed and stayed, and Mother she went out to see if she wanted to come in, because Mrs. Horne was there (them Hornes are a bad lot!) and she wanted to visit a spell. Well, she'd got up about _two_ handfuls of chick-weed, and then sat down and gone sound asleep. All wore out, Mother says." After a bit Mr. Morris departed. He had detailed with great gusto all the "news" told by Mrs. Horne, or deduced by himself from her conversation; but Andrew's interest flagged, so presently Mr. Morris went on his way, if not rejoicing, at least relieved, for it was a boon to him to get a good listener. Andrew went home reflectively. His last conscious thought that night must have been in some way relative to Miss Judith Moore, her feet and her temper, for he muttered to himself, half sleeping, half waking: "Her eyes didn't look like the eyes of a bad-tempered girl:" then "They were so little I could have held both of them in one hand;" later still, "I was pretty bad to her about the shoes, women are such dear little fools." Then this judicially-minded young man slept the sleep of the just. CHAPTER III. "If thou art worn and hard beset With sorrows that thou wouldst forget; If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, Go to the woods and hills; no tears Dim the sweet looks that nature wears." The village of Ovid lay in a valley hollowed out of an otherwise level country into a shallow basin. It called those who dwelt to the north of it, Mountain Hayseeds; and those to the south of it, Swamp Angels--compliments returned in kind, for the youths of the sections thus flattered by Ovidian attention always referred to the villagers as Ovid Idiots. For the most part the houses in Ovid clustered closely together. Some few of them were scattered half way up the sloping hill-sides, but these dwellings were all built facing the village proper, and besides being absurdly fore-shortened always wore a deprecating look as if mutely conscious of their invidious positions. These hills of Ovid were not very formidable, and from a short distance off, say, from Andrew Cutler's clearing, one could see over their crests the gables of the village. There were but two long streets in the village, denominated the Front Street and the Back Street. Upon the Front Street stood the two churches, facing each other, being, however, only in physical juxtaposition, for spiritually they were as far as the poles apart. The one was a Methodist Church, and bore high above its door the inscription, _Eva Methodist Church, A.D. 1860_. This legend must once have been very glaring, seemingly jet black upon a white surface, but some painter, well disposed to mankind evidently, had swept his brush laden with white paint over this inscription. The result was grateful to the eye, even if it did give rise to some uncertainty as to what the words actually were. Great truths often come home to one intuitively; perhaps that is how every one knew what was writ above that door. The Baptist Church was stone, and bore only a date, _1854 A.D._, but it rejoiced in a tin-clad spire that glimmered gayly in the sunlight or shone cold and chill beneath the wintry moon. Between these two churches and the members thereof there was no animosity, but there was a "feeling." A "feeling" is one of those intangible, elusive things, of which no acceptable definition can be given; but every new-comer to Ovid grew into that "feeling" before he had been there a week. Perhaps some perception of this peculiar condition may be gathered by considering the various improvements which took place in the two churches during one autumn in Ovid. They were inaugurated by Hiram Green, who presented a stone tie-post to the Methodist Church. Hiram kept the village grocery store, and had accepted six stone tie-posts in lieu of certain goods supplied to the boarding-house at the stone quarries. The boarding-house keeper had taken them in default of cash from his quarryman boarders. Hiram erected three of the posts before his shop door, at such short distances from each other that it precluded the tying up of more than two horses at a time, and then only to the end posts and facing each other. Having adorned the path before his house with two others, he, at the instigation of his wife, presented the sixth to the Methodist Church. This post was adorned with an iron ring at the top and a somewhat frisky damsel in rude carving on the side. It was a matter of grave consideration whether this carving should be turned to the street or towards the sidewalk, it being debatable in which position she would do the most harm. She was finally turned towards the street, upon the reasonable supposition that persons driving past would pass more swiftly than persons walking; hence, their exposure to evil would be briefer. To further mitigate the demoralizing effect of this bit of stonework, Solomon Ware took a chisel and carefully obliterated the outlines of the figure, missing only one foot, which, in terpsichorean fashion, pointed skyward in a meaningless, disjointed way from a chaos of chisel marks. The week following, the Baptists put up two wooden tie-posts, each surmounted by an iron horse's head. Two weeks later a block of wooden steps appeared beside the stone tie-post, to facilitate those driving to church in alighting from, or mounting to, their conveyances. This was on Wednesday. By the Sunday following, its duplicate stood between the wooden tie-posts, with the additional glory of drab paint. A month later a new fence encircled the Methodist temple, and the Baptist sanctuary was re-shingled. As the autumn advanced the Methodist Church had sheds for its horses erected in the rear of the church. Ere the first snow flew, the Baptist Church was similarly adorned, and its shed rejoiced in elaborate scroll work brackets at the dividing posts. In November the Baptists held a series of revival meetings, and the Methodists commenced a weekly service of song. At New Year's the Methodists raised their pastor's salary fifty dollars a year. In February the Baptists held a memorial service, and had four ministers preach upon one Sunday. It is true, as Hester Green took occasion to remark, that two of them were only students, but the Baptist Church had vindicated the priority of its establishment, and rested on its laurels,--besides the spring work was coming on. The speech of the Ovidians was not in any sense a dialect peculiar to themselves. There were, of course, certain words and phrases which were regular stand-bys, and from which no Ovidian speech was free. For example, when an Ovidian was out of conversational matter, he did not let the talk die away, or the argument fall to pieces whilst waiting for the tardy ideas of his friends to evolve themselves. Far from it. He simply said, in a tone suitable to the occasion, "Well, it beats all!" Closer scrutiny will reveal the resources of this phrase. Did an Ovidian attend a funeral? Then this expression formed the chief staple of his conversation, and its enunciation ran the gamut of emotion, from grief to amazement. Did an Ovidian hear a more than usually spicy piece of gossip? Then he ejaculated the same phrase in a tone of scandalized enjoyment. Was a subject upon which he could not, or would not, give a direct opinion under discussion? Then this non-committal formula answered admirably, entailing no after responsibility upon the speaker, and yet giving him a pleasant sense of conversational duty properly performed. There were a few idioms, also, dear to the Ovidian mind. To be "ambitious" meant simply to be energetic; to be "big feeling," "stuck up," or "toney," meant to be proud (in the sense of despising one's neighbours); to "conjure," with the accent strongly upon the first syllable, meant to think over a thing. Apart, however, from a dozen or two of these lingual idiosyncrasies, the Ovidian speech was the ordinary English of Canadian rural districts, delivered in a peculiar drawling, nasal style, with a clinging to the last syllable of a word and the last word of a sentence. The only interest Ovidians had, apart from Ovid and the dwellers therein, was in watching the progress of the world, as shown by the trend of Canadian politics; and as Ovid they had always with them, and the world only when the weekly papers came in, it was natural they should know Ovid best--and they did. Every one's pet hobby, every one's worst weakness, every one's ambition, every one's circumstances, everyone's antipathies, every one's preferences, every one's record and family record--all this was known and well known, aye, even to the third generation back. But of all Ovidians none knew so much of his fellows' history as did old Sam Symmons. The one attribute that assured Sam a welcome wherever he went, was his knowledge of the generation passed away, the fathers of the present Ovidians: not that his stories were flattering (far from it), but they were never ill-natured, at least upon Sam's part. It was true they were illustrative of the weak points of their heroes rather than their virtues, but then Sam did not make history; he only repeated it, and he was very impartial. So where a dozen Ovidians were gathered together, there Sam would be in the midst. There was a perilous stimulus about their anticipation. He was sure to evolve some personal reminiscence from the chaotic mass of his old memories, and each of the expectant auditors felt that his forebears might be the subject of it. When Sam did choose a victim, and plunged into some old tale about his grandfather or father, then all the others drew in their breath with swift enjoyment of the various points of the story. There was something Druidical and bard-like in this oral handing down of history, and it differed from more pretentious history in one respect. Sam's stories might be oft-repeated, but he never altered a syllable, never deepened the shading to suit some different element in his audience, never swerved from the first intent of the recital, never slurred the truth to let any one off lightly. Perhaps the reason Sam's stories preserved their identity so well was because they were tacitly copyrighted; no one ever tried to tell them but himself, and indeed they would not have sounded the same from other lips, for Sam spoke of the past as one having authority. The loss of his old mare was quite a serious one to Sam, and he went about a shade more irresolute than he was before. Poor old Sam! He had had so many blows, big and little, from fate, that it is not to be wondered at if he did become a little haphazard in his methods of work and business. It is hardly worth while making plans when some evil chance seems to thwart them every time; even if one works till his stiff old limbs are trembling with fatigue, it doesn't seem to make much headway against adverse circumstances; and when fate buffets down even the strongest guard, how can one poor old man fend off its blows? But if his brave old heart was shaken a little within him, Sam still turned a resolute face to the foe. The week after the mare's death, and before he had got used to the blind horse he had bought to replace her, he found his way to Hiram Green's store. The talk turned on drinking. "Yes," said Sam, "there's many a way of drinking"--in a reminiscent tone--"many a way! When I was young, there were three brothers with their three wives, doing settlement duty on a grant of land given one of the officers, in Bruce County. Well, they were fine big fellows, and their wives were big, strapping, healthy women. Strong, too, they were, and had good judgment. Why, one of them went one morning to the wood-pile to get some wood, and when she came back there was a wolf, lean and hungry (for it had been a bitter winter), standing over the cradle where her baby lay. Now, what did she do? Run away and yowl? Not she. Hit it a clip with a billet of wood, and killed it where it stood. Well, the lads used to drive off forty miles with an ox team for provisions, and each would bring his keg of rye back with him; but the women always drank more than their share, and it got to be that there was mostly no meals ready when the lads got back from felling the timber. So the lads hit on the plan of tying the kegs to the roof, where the women could not get at them, and they went away well pleased with themselves. But they were finely taken down when they got back, for the women shot holes in the kegs, and caught the whiskey in a washtub. Yes, yes, there's many a way of drinking. There was your wife's grand-uncle, now"--suddenly becoming personal in his memory, and addressing Hiram--"'twas when he was running for reeve the first time, and he came into Fossil's tavern, and not seeing James Lawson, the younger, and me, where we sat on the settle by the door, he went up to the bar to get a drink. He called for whiskey. He had his drink and laid down the five cents to pay for it. Now, 'twas his way to fill his glass very full, and Fossil, being a close man, was very grouty at that. So, out of the five cents, he pushed back a penny. 'Here,' says he, 'is your change, Mr. Mowbray. I don't charge as much wholesale as I do for single drinks.' Your wife's grand-uncle did not like that. 'Twas just before the polling day when he got overtaken in liquor one night at old Squire Fraser's. 'Twas a bright moonlight night, and some of the lads going home late, also, heard a noise at the village pump, which, coming at, they saw was your wife's grand-uncle, pulling at the pump-handle, and saying, with many oaths, 'Come home, Jack: come home. There will be a sore broil for thee if Mrs. Mowbray see thee. Come home, Jack: come home.' To which persuasion he put many threats and moral advisements to Jack to cease from liquor. Jack was his nephew, a quiet youth, being bred to the pulpit. Well, the boys got hold of both these tales, and when the voting came on, they would seize at anything, a tree, a post, or the fence, when your wife's grand-uncle came by, and, straining at it manfully, would beseech Jack to come home, using many moral persuasions and many oaths also, as he had done to the pump, and feigning to weep sore over the stubbornness of Jack's heart. Then they would say, 'Come home, Jack, and I'll buy thee a drink wholesale at good, generous Master Fossil's.' Yes, yes"--Sam's voice began to weaken--"yes, there's many a way of drinking." There was a pause. No one ever commented upon Sam's stories; there was no need. To deprecate them would be to stir up, who knew what, of oblique reflection upon one's ancestors. For any of those not immediately interested to interfere would be to invite Sam's attention to their cases. "Did you hear that the school-teacher leaves next week?" asked Hiram. "No. Why?" asked Jack Mackinnon, glad of a chance of hearing his own voice. "Because he says he can't afford to keep himself here and his wife in Toronto on three hundred a year." "Then he'd better get," said old Mrs. Slick, as she took the packet of cream of tartar Hiram was weighing. "He'd better get." She hobbled out, giving malevolent sniffs at the thought of the teacher's extravagant ideas. "Yes, he's going," continued Hiram. "He's going, and there's a school meeting to-morrow." Andrew Cutler, Hiram Green and Ben Braddon were school trustees, and it had occurred to each of them that Sam Symmons' Suse would be sure to apply for the position. She held a county certificate permitting her to teach for three years. "I wonder," Andrew said that morning to his aunt, Miss Hannah Myers, "I wonder if Suse will know enough to apply for the place." "Not she! too empty-headed," said Miss Myers, briskly. "I'll go down this afternoon and tell her what I think of her, and make her apply." "Do," said Andrew, heartily. Andrew liked old Sam, and he was a special favourite of the old man's. Many a long story of election fights and tricks, secrets Sam kept even yet, of how votes had been gained and lost, many tales of drinking bouts and more gallant adventures, did old Sam retell for Andrew's benefit. Andrew was not at all worried by Miss Myers' brusqueness of speech. He knew how kind she was to everybody in her own vinegary way. Tall, angular, hatchet-faced and sharp-tongued, Hannah Myers had a heart full of love for every living creature that needed help, only, 'the beggar at her door had first abuse and then a shilling.' And how well the tramps knew the way up to that quaint old kitchen door, with the uneven flag-stones set in a little court-yard round it! A table always covered with glistening tin milk-pans stood outside, and many a good meal had the gentlemen of the road had off that table; scolded vigorously by Miss Myers whilst they ate, the tirade only interrupted by sudden journeys she made to find perhaps a pair of socks, a shirt, or something else she saw they needed: now and then a surly tramp would answer her back, and she would laugh at him in her grim way and say, "Hear the man! Why, don't you see, I like to scold as much as you like to eat; so if you enjoy the one, why mayn't I the other?" Upon one memorable occasion an ungrateful tramp, (and however much he may be idealized nowadays, there are instances of the ingratitude of tramps) attempted to impose upon her, thinking her alone. He had, unfortunately for him, reckoned without his host. Andrew suddenly appeared upon the scene, seized his trampship by the most convenient portion of his attire, and dropped him with quiet, but forcible, precision into a somewhat unappetizing duck pond near by, giving him at the same time a picturesque, but somewhat profane, bit of advice. The fellow took himself off, and Andrew turned his attention to poor Miss Hannah, who was quivering and trembling and crying as the meekest and mildest woman might do. Miss Myers' tongue was a deception, and, as a matter of fact, that and her vinegary aspect were the only defences she had against imposition, for whilst always vaunting her hard-heartedness, she was, in reality, the most gullible of women. She never could resist a pedlar: she always bought their trashy wares. And once, she never forgot it, she burdened herself with a lot of cheap brassy hairpins and extraordinary glass breast pins. That purchase fairly haunted her. Get rid of it she couldn't. Did she try to burn it? Some one came and caught her. Did she intend to throw it away? She did not dare, she knew some one would find it. She did manage finally to find a watery hiding-place for it in the horse pond. Even then its meretricious sparkle assailed her from the mud when the pond went dry. She related this to Judith Moore, and told her with all soberness that she should always pity a murderer trying to get rid of the corpse. As Mrs. Morris had told Judith, Miss Myers was of U. E. Loyalist stock. She might have added that the Cutlers were also. Both families had been given grants of land in Canada. The property in the Myers family had been divided and sub-divided amongst a big family connection. Miss Myers had a little fifty-acre farm as her share of it; it lay some fifteen miles from Ovid. Andrew's farm at Ovid had descended to him through his father and grandfather, old Captain Cutler, the stern old fighter whose sword, with its woven crimson sash, hung in the hall of Andrew's house, with some quaint old pistols and a clumsy musket, relics from Canadian battle fields. Besides the property in Ovid, Andrew owned another fine farm and a wide stretch of woodland in Muskoka. These properties accrued to him through the death of some of his father's relatives. So Andrew was very well off, in a modest way. The Muskoka property bore much fine timber, and an enthusiastic "prospector" assailed Andrew, month in and month out, with tales of the "indications" of minerals he had found beneath the ferns and mosses of his Muskoka woods. But Andrew was content with them as they were, with the trees growing solemnly upward, aspiring to the blue: the wandering streams, a network of silver tracery, starred here and there by broad discs where one widened to a little placid lake or where two or more streams, meeting, gushed together. The sound of their soft confluence and the soughing of the wind, that without moving the leaves seemed ever to sigh between the tree trunks, blent into a soft sensation, half sound, half stir, something perceived nowhere but in the woods, seeming indeed as if there we were very close to Nature's sweet and beautiful breast, hearing in this mysterious pulsation the beating of her kindly heart. Andrew had grown to be in very close touch with Nature during many solitary weeks spent in hunting: in long tramps through the Muskoka woods, shooting the fawn-coloured deers, and the wild fowl that nested in the tiny lakes; and in many a long night when he lay _perdu_ watching for lynx, forgetting his quest in the marvel of the stars, or in wakeful watches, seeing the resinous camp-fire die down to embers and hearing the shrill laughing of the loon, the weird wail of the lynx, the cry of the great owl or the call of the coon. Andrew was past-master of all woodland lore. He had hunted Muskoka through and through. Many a wild duck's breast and fox's mask, and many a pair of antlers proved his prowess. Besides, he had spent many a winter in northern Quebec, snow-shoeing over its silent white wastes upon the traces of moose; the intense cold parching his throat, his half-breed guide padding* along at his side; sometimes faring royally upon juicy steaks and birds, broiled as only hunters can broil--not scorched, yet savoured with fire; sometimes upon a long trail with a bit of frozen bacon in one pocket and a lump of frozen bread in the other, gnawing a morsel off each with care, so that he might not break off his moustache which was frozen in a solid mass with the moisture of his breath. * "Padding" is a term applied by hunters to the silent flat-footed gait of Indian guides. Andrew often heard people say that one did not feel the intense cold in these northern regions; he always longed to have them there and let them try it. He had felt pretty cold up there, only he never remembered the time when he couldn't hold his gun with naked hands. That, though, as every one knows, is the mark of a mighty Nimrod. So soon as his half-breed guide discovered this, he grunted out a guttural prophecy that the shoot would be good. Strange mixtures these guides were; the combination of French suavity and redskin cunning being a continual wonder to Andrew, accustomed as he was to less complex types. This man who slept sometimes rolled close in the same blankets with him for warmth, whose woodcraft made his less intuitive knowledge seem absolute ignorance, whose judgment in matters of the chase was almost flawless, whose strength and agility would not have shamed a Greek--this man cooked his meals, washed the dishes, waited upon him deferentially, and was not to be persuaded to eat at the same time. In the chase, a hero; in the camp, a slave. What tramps those were through the silent solitudes of these untrodden woods! What moments had been his, when, leaving his guide preparing the camp for the night, Andrew had gained some high ridge, and pausing, looked far across the peaks of graduated hills, clad in sombre cedars weighted down with snow, white, silent, yet instinct with that mystery which presses upon us pleading for elucidation, and never so strongly as when we are alone with the unblotted world before us, away from the signs of man's desecration. There is something very pitiful in that mute appeal of nature to be understood--like some sweet woman, smitten into a spell of suffering silence, till such time as the magic word shall release her. A word she knows, yet cannot, of her own power, speak. What magical mysteries shall not be revealed when speech is restored to her! And how her eyes plead and accuse at once! Of a verity, having ears we hear not: truly, having eyes to see, yet are we blind! For there is some great open secret surely in the universe, that being deciphered will set all our jangling dreams in chime. It is about us, around us, above us; the tiniest leaf tells it, the stars of heaven proclaim it, the water manifests it and the earth declares it, and yet we do not see it. When we do, it will be some simple vital principle that we have breathed with the breath of our lips, and handled with the familiar fingers of the flesh. We will be so unable to conceive of the world moving on in ignorance of it, that all the wisdom of the ages past will seem but as the howling of wolves in waste places, or at best, as the babbling of children that play with dry sand, now letting it slip through their fingers, leaving them with empty hands, now getting it in their eyes to torture them, or treading on it with vague discomfort and unease. We have all seen these childish puzzles with hidden faces concealed in the traceries. How hard it is to find these faces, although we know they are there! And yet, when found, it is impossible to see anything else in the picture. They obtrude themselves upon us, and what was formerly the picture becomes now only the background for what at first it completely concealed. So everything will but subserve to show us how palpable the great Central Truth has always been if we could but find it, _and some one will_. So let us go on bravely, each resolving "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." There is indeed within us some spark of the Divine Fire. Let it but once flame fairly up and we shall be gods indeed, moving in the glory of our own transfiguration. There is no destiny too great for man. * * * * * * The northern stars are very clear and cold, the northern skies are very blue and chill, the snowy plains are places meant for thought, and in the silence of those scenes the soul awakes. Andrew bore away with him some reflex of their austerity and intensity, which tempered his mind as the steel is strengthened. His mother's story had been a sad one. She was Miss Myers' elder sister--Isabella Myers; very like Miss Myers yet very unlike; with all those resemblances which pronounce two near of kin, yet all those variations of the type which constitute the difference between beauty and every-day flesh and blood. Isabella had been engaged to a minister's son named Harkness. He was a young man who justified in every respect the many pleasing proverbs about ministers' sons: yet, in spite of all, had a leal heart, a handsome form and face, a tender touch, and a personal magnetism that enabled him to wring an unwilling consent out of stern old Abraham Myers to his betrothal with his daughter Isabella. These two young folk worshipped each other, and the wedding day was set. Isabella was to wear a white taffeta frock and white thread mitts. But troublous times had come to Canada. Young Harkness went to the war. Isabella and he had a sad, sad parting, for the imaginative girl was fey of her fate, and clung to him till his heart melted within him. And as he rode away with a long tress of her dark hair on his breast, it was not the sunshine alone that made his eyes so bright and his vision so uncertain. It was but a puny affray that in the history of the world's wars, but it does not take big battles to make men brave and women's hearts ache. The dark braid had hardly warmed in its place before it was soaked with the blood of the heart on which it lay. The real Isabella Myers died then, too. But a pale apathetic woman in her shape and semblance still went wearily on her way. Ten years later they married her to Andrew Cutler, a man considerably older than herself, and as her father said, "of the old true blue stock." She gave him a boy and died, well rid of the world. Miss Hannah Myers came to keep house for her brother-in-law. She brought up the baby and took charge of the little hide-covered chest which was full of the books ("poetry books and such," Miss Myers called them) that young Harkness had given Isabella long before. Andrew Cutler lived on after his wife's death to a good old age, being killed at last by falling through the trap-door in his hay-loft. Then Andrew was head of his house. As Andrew grew up, he developed such a strange resemblance to one long dead, that sometimes, when a movement, gesture, or expression of his brought it more clearly to Miss Myers' eyes, she felt an eerie thrill creep over her. She described the sensation as "cold chills." For it was not a resemblance to his father, or his grandfather, or even to his mother (although he resembled her, too), but he imaged forth the brave, handsome, devil-may-care lover of his mother's girlhood, he who had died ten years before Andrew's birth. Surely the image of that long-lost lover had been deeply graven on that broken heart. "The Cutler house on the hill," as the villagers described it, was quite a pretentious one in its way. Old Captain Cutler, he of the sword and sash, had not been penniless, by any means, when he left the United States, although he left behind him much valuable property. So when the Canadian Government made him a generous grant, he promptly spent his money in building a house. Now, the forebears of this Captain Cutler had come from England, and many a tale his grandfather had told him of the old farm homestead there, of the garden with brick-paven walks, and brick-built walls upon which grew the espaliered fruit, of the old sun-dial beside the larch tree, and the oaken beams that traversed the plaster of the ceilings, of the flagged kitchen, and the big fire-places. So here on the hill-top overlooking the valley, where later Ovid was to be built, Captain Cutler erected his house, a big stone one with oaken floors, stairways and doors, with heavy rafters of the same sturdy growth, a wide-flagged kitchen, and a hall sheathed in wood half way to the roof, with huge open fire-places. He put a brick wall about his gardens, and over it trained the sprawling branches of currant bushes--red ones, and white and black. Later on, hop vines had been planted here and there along the wall; still later, a row of grape vines had superseded them, and clad the old bricks with fresh festoons of leaves. This made, when the grapes were ripe, a beautiful Bacchanal arabesque of purple fruit and brown stem, twisted tendril and green leaf. He laid down narrow brick walks, too, and by them planted horse-chestnut trees. He put a sun-dial up, a grey stone column with a round top, whereon was rudely carven the symbols of the hours and a lob-sided hour-glass; for lack of a larch tree he filched a linden from the hill-side. The garden took in the level plateau on top of the hill, and some of the slope upon the side farthest from Ovid. The hill-side next the village was laden with lindens, which in spring were covered in blossom. Old Captain Cutler sent to England for English ox-heart cherry trees, and for boxwood, and for hawthorns to plant hedges. The cherry trees flourished and perpetuated themselves in generations of younger trees, the box grew and multiplied, but the hawthorn hedges were failures. All that remained of them was a few scattered hawthorns that had long outgrown the status of the hedge row, and become old gnarled trees. Miss Myers was very proud of her flower garden, which was a mass of circular, oval and diamond-shaped flower beds, bordered by box, spaced off by narrow bricked walks. There were honeysuckles growing over old-fashioned wooden trellises; and roses, crown imperials and lemon lilies; huge clumps of peonies, pink, white and the common crimson; clove pinks and thyme; lilies of the valley and violets, with bushes of rosemary and patches of balm; spotted tiger lilies, and a fragrant white lily called the day lily; little shrubs of the pink flowering almond, "snow on the mountain," "mist on the hill" and acacia shrubs. And beside these, many more old-fashioned perennial plants, like queen of the meadow and thrift; and every summer Andrew brought her heliotropes, and scented geraniums, and mignonette from town. The barns were away down at the foot of the hill. Andrew's men usually all lived in the village, unless he happened to have hired strangers for the stress of harvest or haying, or in winter time when they were needed about the house. Miss Myers, as the village phrased it, "kep' help regular," and often had up old Mrs. Greer from the village, for there was a deal of work to be done in that house. For the rest, Andrew was a practical farmer; it had not occurred to him that he did not need to work so hard, and the active life did him no harm. He was up at daylight in summer, and by candle-light in winter. He ploughed, sowed, reaped and threshed his grain. And when at the threshings he sat at the head of the long table, lined on each side with men "feeding like horses, when you hear them feed," he looked like some young chief among his serfs, albeit he wore blue jeans and flannel shirts as they did. He did not know himself to be so different from his neighbours as he was, only he never seemed to contemplate marrying one of their women, and he pitied them. For they did not recognize the pathos of their own narrow lives. They did not see their surroundings as he did--the beauties of the skies above, and of the earth beneath, and the marvel and mystery of the water. Andrew could not have said this was what made him pity them, for he was one of the inarticulate ones, whose speech is shackled; one of those, too, who know their own limitations in this way, and feel their fetters. At times they seemed to weigh his spirit down. CHAPTER IV. Andrew was eager to see Miss Moore again,--although he felt a masculine irritation against her for taking umbrage at well-meant and thoroughly sensible advice. Perhaps at the bottom of this there lay a _soupçon_ of annoyance with himself, that he had spoken so abruptly to her upon the subject, mingled with a compassionate remembrance of what Mr. Morris had told him of her delicacy. He was very glad to find an excuse to go up to his woods, where they stretched past the Morris house; and a pretence that he was looking for suitable trees to cut down for foundations for his hay-stacks, justified him in his own eyes for strolling among his trees in very leisurely, but apparently disinterested fashion. He must, however, have been paying some attention to the house on his right, for when Mrs. Morris ran out from the old orchard behind the house to the barns, calling, "Father, Father, where are you? Come here, quick, do, hey Father!" Andrew promptly responded, leaping over the fence and speedily reaching her side. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Land of love! But I'm glad you've come, if she did call you long-legged: all the better for her now if you be. I hope she ain't fell by this time. Wonder where Father is. I never seen such a man; always gone when he's wanted. I declare it beats me where he gets to. It's enough to drive--" "What is it, Mrs. Morris?" demanded Andrew, his heart misgiving him. "Can't I help?" "'Deed you can! And to think of her calling you long-legged, and the very next day having to depend on you for her life, may be, or to save one of her own legs being broke--" Mrs. Morris got no further. A little faint cry struck Andrew's ears, coming from the direction of the orchard. "For heaven's sake, come on, and show me what's wrong," he cried. "Don't stand there palavering." "Why, sakes alive! Don't you know? Miss Moore got up in a tree and--" But by this time they were in the orchard. A glance explained the situation to Andrew. High up on an apple-tree branch stood Miss Moore, clinging with both arms round a limb above her, her face white as death, her eyes dilated with fear. A ladder's head was within six inches of her feet. Andrew was up it in an instant. He knew the trouble. Only last year a hired man of his had ascended a tree to pick fruit. He was seized with this ague of dizzy fear, and flinging himself against a stout limb, had held on like grim death. It took two men to get him down; his terror made him clasp the tree convulsively. It was days before he was well again. Miss Moore had evidently not seen him, nor heard his coming. As he slipped his arms about her, she gave a great start, and turned to look at him with eyes which seemed to expect some tangible shape of horror, evolved out of her illogical and intangible fear. When she saw who it was, her eyes filled and her lips trembled. "Oh, take me down. Do take me down." "Yes, indeed, I will," said Andrew, with quiet assurance. "Let go of the branch." She shuddered. The spell of the vertigo was yet upon her. Her arms tightened upon the bough. "Do take me down," she pleaded childishly. "I'm frightened." "My dear, you must loose your hold," said Andrew, steadily. Then, with one arm about her, he reached up and one by one undid the clinging fingers, gathering them into his palm as he did so. With a force that seemed cruel, he pulled down the slender wrist and placed her hand upon his shoulder. Her face expressed the agony of dizziness. With blind instinct she put her other arm about his neck and clasped it close. He felt her form relax, and braced himself in time to sustain her dead weight as she fainted. The descent of the ladder was easy enough. Andrew had carried many a bag of wheat up and down his steep granary stairs. The principle of balancing an inert woman is much the same. He carried her into the house and laid her down upon the broad home-made couch, covered with dark brown calico, that stood in the kitchen. Mrs. Morris had talked volubly during these proceedings, but only after he laid Judith down, did Andrew begin to hear what she was saying. "She does look gashly!" said Mrs. Morris. "Whatever would I do if she was to be took! And this minute she looks fit for laying out." "Goodness alive," said Andrew. "Can't you do anything to bring her to? Bathe her face, or something?" Mrs. Morris flew for water and brought it, trembling. "I say, Andrew, can't you do it? I'm so shook--I never could bear to touch corpses, and--" Andrew gave her a venomous look, dipped his handkerchief in the water, and began clumsily to bathe the girl's brow. Her senses were already reasserting themselves. She put up her hands to her face: they fluttered nervously. Andrew caught one of them and held it between his own brown ones, noting that her wrists were red, almost bruised, creased in rough outline of the apple-tree's bark. "Will you give me some water?" she asked. Mrs. Morris brought a blue and white cup. Andrew, kneeling on the braided mat before the couch, slipped his arm under Judith and put the cup to her lips. She took a mouthful, and fell into a shivering fit of cold. Mrs. Morris rose to this emergency. Ague was an old familiar friend; "shakes" had no terrors for her. In a moment she had found a thick coverlet and placed it over Judith. "You stay by her," she said to Andrew, "and I'll make her a draught of hot elderberry syrup in two shakes." Then she was off to the lean-to kitchen, and they heard her rattling among her kettles. Andrew still knelt upon the mat holding Judith's hand with praiseworthy absent-mindedness. "Are you better now?" he asked. "Yes," she said, her chin quivering as she tried to keep her teeth from chattering. "It was so good of you to take me down. So awfully good. I'm very stupid, but I couldn't help it." "Of course you couldn't. I had a man who behaved much worse than you did in the same situation. Ever so much. Indeed, you behaved very well." There was silence; then Judith began: "Mr. Cutler, I--er--called you a name to Mrs. Morris the other day." "Did you? What did you call me?" "Will you forgive me?" "Tell me what you called me first." "Oh!" "Forgiveness is worth that, isn't it?" "Oh, yes. I called you--long-legged, and--I think, I said you were rude." Andrew suppressed an inclination to laugh, being minded not to belittle the value of his absolution. "Well," he said, "I'll forgive the first part of it because you see it's so awfully true, and as for the second, well--I think you meant 'sensible'; anyhow, I forgive you for it all." Miss Moore experienced a mental sensation she would have called "curling up." A pretty cool specimen, this young farmer! She had thought he would have fallen into faltering excuses. She was really ill, though faint--cold. Mrs. Morris came in with the steaming cup of black syrup. Judith had forgotten till that moment that Andrew held her hand: of course, Andrew had been unconscious of it all along. But as Mrs. Morris appeared in the door a swift intuition of the state of affairs came to Judith. She gave a little gesture of withdrawal, and Andrew released her lingers slowly, rising with praiseworthy calmness to get himself a chair. While Judith tried to drink the hot syrup, Mrs. Morris explained that Miss Moore had never seen a bird's nest with eggs in it, and there being an oriole's nest in the apple-tree, "Father" had put up the ladder for her to see it, and--Andrew knew the rest. "Tree fright is a lot worse than stage fright," said Miss Moore: oracularly, but this was a dark saying to both her listeners. Mrs. Morris talked and talked. Miss Moore had long since lain back on the big brown pillow; her face was flushed, her eyes sleepy. Andrew would have listened to Mrs. Morris forever, provided he could have watched Miss Moore at the same time. But at length Mrs. Morris rose and moved towards her summer kitchen, intimating that her chores needed tending to, so Andrew perforce had to take his leave. "Good-bye, just now," he said. "May I come back and take you to see some birds' nests nearer the ground?" "Oh, do," she said. "And I haven't thanked you half enough for helping me to-day." "Indeed you have. Good-bye, just now." "Good-bye," she said softly. He was just at the door, when a soft but interrogative "Ahem" from the couch attracted his attention. He turned. Miss Judith Moore did not look at him, but with cautious precision she drew the dark blue coverlet up a tiny bit. His eyes became riveted upon the point of a bronze slipper that gradually grew from the shadow of the covering until a whole foot was revealed--a foot at a defiant pose and wearing a little bronze slipper with an exaggeratedly high heel. Andrew's eyes grew daring, and he half turned. Miss Moore seemed to telescope, for head and foot disappeared beneath the coverlet at once. He paused a moment, and then departed. As he went across the fields he thought of the little scene he had left, and, more shame to him, his thoughts were not concerned wholly with the bad effects of wearing high heels, nor yet of the impropriety of Miss Moore's retaliation for his high and mighty granting of forgiveness. Indeed, as he sat for a moment kicking his heels on the top bar of the first fence, he was speculating solely as to whether "they" were open-work or not! He was thinking he would have given his best gun to be able to tell, and summed up his reflections with a dissatisfied little growl, "Of all the mean, miserable, stingy glimpses!" As he walked along, his face changed. After climbing the hill-side to his garden wall, he passed an apple-tree in hill bloom at the gate. He paused beneath it. His face was pale and serious, his eyes tender. He thought of Judith's russet head as it had leaned upon his shoulder: he looked down at his old velvet coat, where it had rested, and fancied some vague perfume rose from it to his face. He remembered he had held her in his arms, and recalled the red marks upon her delicate wrists. Those wrists had been curved about his neck. He could not realize the full height and depth of what had come to him, but his whole being groped for the truth even as he stood beneath the tree. As he walked slowly up the narrow bricked walk to the house, he noticed how the chestnut roots and the frost together had heaved up the bricks and rendered the walk irregular. He wondered anxiously if she could walk over it in those shoes, and as he reached his door, which stood open under its old-fashioned porch, revealing a dusky cool vista beyond, he suddenly saw, as in a vision, a woman's shape stand between the lintels, waiting for him!--a woman with slender hands outstretched in welcome, grave grey eyes, soft hair, tender lips: the woman he loved: _his own_. As this last thought, the sweetest thought man's heart holds, formulated itself in his mind, Andrew knew the truth. He turned down the path, past the apple-tree, through the lindens again, and across his fields, until once more he looked upon the house wherein she rested. He looked at it long from the shelter of his trees, his whole existence resolved into a chaos of uncertain self-communings, until a voice like an angel's seemed to whisper of comfort and to sing of hope. Then he went home, and at four o'clock betook himself to the school-house to attend the meeting in regard to appointing a new teacher. The village school-house stood at the end of the street farthest away from the Cutler homestead. It was a bleak, stone building, with a wooden porch--a gaunt, bare, uninviting-looking building, with none of those picturesque adjuncts of climbing vines and overarching trees, associated so often with thoughts of a country school. It had a perky, self-satisfied little bell-house on top, and its date, 1865, was rudely carved on a big stone in the peak of the north gable. It had eight windows--three at each side, two at one end. In winter, the wood for the box stove was always piled up outside before these. There were always complaints of the school-house being dark in winter, yet it never occurred to any one to select a different site for the wood-pile. The interior of the school-house corresponded in dinginess to the outside. The plaster walls were sadly soiled, particularly beneath the broad window seats, where the children sat kicking their heels whilst they ate their lunches at noon, for the scholars were drawn principally from the outlying farm-houses. A long length of irregularly jointed pipes led the smoke from the box stove at the end to an exit over the teacher's desk. Little tin pails were hung at intervals along this, to catch the black liquid distilled from the soot. The other adornments of the room consisted of a long blackboard, a globe, and some big lettered tablets, round which the teacher was wont to gather the infant class and teach them their letters. In the politics of a little village like Ovid, the smallest public measures became magnified to grotesque importance. The usual custom was for the school trustees to sit in private session first, when any particular business was to be arranged, say, the selection of a teacher, and when this was arranged the doors were flung wide and the meeting was "open." These open school meetings were always well attended. They were the classes in which embryotic statesmen acquired the political alphabet, the ABC of political procedure, the manner of putting a motion, taking a vote, making a nomination, and the correct order of precedence governing the motions and amendments. There too, was acquired the first great requisite of a politician,--the art of saying non-committal things in a most convincing tone of voice, and of treating with much politeness those whom one held in secret abhorrence. There were two offices, those of school trustee and pathmaster, and these two were equal in power and glory. True, they were barren honours, but they ofttimes led to better things. The school trustee had the higher position in one respect: he was chosen by the people at first hand. The pathmaster, upon the contrary, was appointed by the Council. It is needless to say the school trustee smiled in calm superiority at the pathmaster, and the latter in turn felt the making of the roads wherein the whole community walked, was as holy an office as the task of guiding the juvenile wanderers into the school, and seeing that when there, they trod the common road to knowledge, it being well known that there is no royal road thereto. When Andrew arrived at the school-house, the other two trustees, Hiram Green who kept the village store, and Hen Braddon, were present. They immediately entered upon a discussion of the teacher question. The application of Sam Symmons' Suse lay upon the table, written out upon foolscap paper, in big round hand, with many flourishing capitals, rejoicing in "shaded" heads and beautifully involved tails. "I tell you Suse is a good list with a pen," said Hen Braddon, with conviction, and the other two agreed. "She ain't no slouch at spelling either," said Hiram Green. The other two agreed with this also. Then Andrew took up his parable. "Yes," he said, "Suse is quite smart, and being bred right here in Ovid seems to give her a claim to the school. I suggest we just appoint her." "Well, it's as well to be cautious," said Hiram Green. "It'll save advertising," said Hen Braddon. "Suppose we just decide on it then," said Andrew. "Well," said Hiram Green, "well, I ain't got no objections to Suse as Suse, but what I think is, two hundred and fifty is enough to pay a woman for what a man got three hundred." Andrew sneered. He didn't have a sweet expression when he did that. "Don't you think," he said, gravely--"don't you think Suse might include cleaning the school-house and lighting the fires in winter for the two-fifty, being she's a woman?" "No," said Hiram, reflectively; "old Mrs. Slick has done it so long." "But it would save twenty-five dollars," argued Andrew, with meek persuasion. "Well," said Hiram, "Mrs. Slick needs that. She's owin' already, and she might's well draw the money off the school taxes as off the council." "Oh, Mrs. Slick is owing, is she?" queried Andrew, with solicitude. "I hope she pays you all right. Well, about Suse. Being she's a woman, don't you think you could fix it so's she'd chop the wood for winter? That would save twelve dollars." A nasty red flickered up to Hiram's face. He had thought Andrew's proposition about the taking care of the school thoroughly genuine. "Oh," he said, "I ain't particular whether she gets the three hundred or the two-fifty, though I hope you won't deny when nomination comes round that you deliberately threw away fifty dollars of the people's money." "You maybe quite sure I won't deny anything that's true," said Andrew, hotly. "And as for throwing away the people's money, well--some of the teachers, so far as I can recollect, got their salaries raised pretty frequently. Of course, I wasn't on the School Board then, so I only _heard_ why it was done. I can't say of my own knowledge." The fact was that Mr. Hiram Green had several unappetizing daughters, and, as he had been school trustee almost ever since any one remembered, it seemed good in his sight that the teachers, over whom he wielded such paternal authority in such a parental way, should return the compliment by adopting a filial _rôle_, and become sons not only in spirit but in name. But, alas, for the vanity of human wishes! the perfidious teachers had accepted all Hiram's kindness, had slept in the best bedroom and partaken of his best fruit, had ridden by him to town and accompanied the Misses Green to tea-meetings and festivals, had abode in the Green household over Sundays, had gone with them to church, and at choir practice had faithfully served them, and then, with the extra money they had been able to save through Hiram's hospitality and the fortuitous "raise" in their salaries, they had shaken the dust of Ovid from off their feet, and departed to fresh fields and pastures new, to marry the girls they had been engaged to all along or to study for one of the higher professions. Never a one of them all left a love gauge with a Miss Green, and in the bosom of the Green family many were the revilings cast upon those teachers, who, with a goodly countenance and a better appetite, had devoured Mrs. Green's layer cakes and preserves, feasted upon Hiram's peaches and driven his horses upon the false pretences of "intentions." However, in fairness to the teachers, one must remember that "some have greatness thrust upon them." Foolish, indeed, would be the man who deliberately offended his trustees, and Hiram's hospitality was usually somewhat pressingly proffered. This last teacher--bad luck to him!--had described himself in his application as a single man, when at the beginning of the summer vacation he sent in his certificates for consideration in response to Hiram's advertisement, and before these holidays had passed he married and came alone to Ovid to take up school in the autumn, and had eaten five teas and two dinners at Hiram Green's before he asked the eldest daughter, with whom he frequently found himself alone, where she thought he could rent a suitable house for himself and wife. "This is very sudden," murmured Miss Green. "Well, I don't know," he said, in a practical tone of voice, "I've been nearly two weeks away from her now, and I can't stand it much longer." Miss Green gathered his meaning then, and never another tea did that teacher sit down to in Hiram Green's, and indeed the atmosphere of Ovid had been made so frigid for the little smooth-haired, blue-eyed girl he had married, that he soon sent her away, and finding he could not do without her, finally sent in his own resignation. The Greens had a big family connection, and Ovid was made a cold place for those whom they did not like. The Cutler house on the hill and poor old Sam's stubborn door were about the only portals in Ovid that an enemy of the Greens might pass. Henry Braddon acted as a soft, effective buffer between Hiram and Andrew, who both always wanted their own way, and wanted it at once. "Best let Suse have the three hundred," said he: "old Reilly will be foreclosing on Sam soon if he don't raise the money somehow." Now, Reilly was the local usurer, the one hard-hearted, close-fisted old Shylock so often found in rural districts; the one man within a radius of twenty miles who had made a fortune. He was reputedly worth seventy or eighty thousand dollars; possibly he was worth fifty thousand. But when that is divided into mortgages, ranging from two or three hundred dollars up to, perhaps, one or two of five thousand, one can realize what a power he was in the country side; how many heart-strings he had tangled in his grasping fingers; from how many couches his shadowy outstretched hand banished sleep; at how many tables his hollow, gaping palm was seen, as the children put out their hands for food; before how many hearths his spectral presence ever sat with a look of anticipatory proprietorship. He was as cruel as the grave, and as relentless as time. Not one ten minutes of grace did ever any one get from old Reilly. The children looked at him with awe as he drove past in his old-fashioned buggy, a hatchet-faced old man, thin, cold-blooded, with big knuckly hands holding the reins. Hen Braddon knew what he was doing when he referred to him. The week before, Hiram Green's brother had been turned neck and crop out of his farm by this same Reilly. No fear that Hiram would let him get another "haul" off old Sam if he could help it. "That's so," said Hiram, with alacrity. "Andrew, you just make out the appointment, will you? and you post it, Hen, when you go home." Andrew having gained his point, was generously sorry that he had twitted Hiram about the salary matter, so in the subsequent open meeting he let Hiram do all the talking, looking the while at a dark stain on the ceiling, which a coat of whitewash, put on yearly since he was a boy, had failed to obliterate. He would never forget how that ink went up, and that might be the very same old box stove over in the corner, the one upon which he set that tightly corked bottle of frozen ink to thaw, taking precaution at the same time to be out of the road when it exploded. It had been a particularly brilliant "go off" that--straight up to the ceiling and down in a shower of black spatters. Andrew could see the fun of it yet, and found himself involuntarily looking at his palms, as though some traces of the blisters the teacher's rawhide had raised might still be there. Andrew recalled many other such like exploits, and looked at his smooth, brown palms, thinking how many thorough thrashings he had had, when suddenly a line of poetry he had read some days before, came into his head: "Lay thy sweet hands in mine, and trust to me." He sat through the meeting quite oblivious of what was going on, missing what was one of the finest oratorical flights of Hiram Green's career. He was speaking of the departing teacher, and he made many scathing remarks anent the legends and pictures upon the walls, which, as he brilliantly put it, "indicated an entire and deplorable lack of discipline upon the part of the present teacher." The said teacher smiled and said nothing. Had Hiram looked closely at the pictures he would have found that a good many of the drawings were caricatures of himself and his family. In one rude picture the four Misses Green were represented as having hold of a man, who struggled in the midst. By means of certain facial peculiarities, exaggerated as only a genius or a school-boy would dare exaggerate, any one in Ovid could have identified the Misses Green and their victim, a former teacher. One of the ladies held a coat sleeve she had rent off; another a portion of a coat-tail; and over this group the artist had printed in fair round script, "For his garment they cast lots." Under the circumstances the applicability of this would have been a credit to Du Maurier, and be it said in defence of the school-boy artist, it was probably written with no thought of being impious. Your school-boy caricaturist catches the spirit of the times. The participants in the school meeting were just departing from the school-house doors, when to them came old Sam Symmons. He had just been told by Suse of her application, and an almost stifling eagerness was filling his heart. If she got it, it meant so much: but he presented his usual suave, smiling old face to Hen Braddon and Hiram Green, and said nothing. As Andrew passed the old man looked at him. That look of age to green manhood, how pitiful it is! Andrew paused a moment. "We're going to have an Ovid teacher this time," he said. "You'll tell Suse, won't you, Mr. Symmons, that her appointment is in the mails?" Poor old Sam! It was harder for him to carry off good fortune with nonchalance than it was to remain impassive in the face of bad. He had had so much more practice in the latter form of self-control. He drew his breath deeply, and his lips quivered a little. Andrew saw this. "Don't forget to tell her, Mr. Symmons," he added, and went on his way. Forget! "Meeting over, Mr. Braddon? Meeting over?" Sam queried, falling into the irregular ranks of the moving men. "Well, well I remember the time your grandfather and I were school trustees, and he was a shoemaker, and a better man with lasts than letters. In his young days he used to go about from house to house making the shoes. He had regular places for calling; two pairs a year was the allowance--well, that custom has long gone by. Anyhow, we were both trustees, and one day we went out to the Beechwood School, section No. 6 now. Well, the minister was there, too, and Squire Harkness--both long dead now--brothers they were. One of the children handed up her slate for your grandfather to look at, and he, holding it in front of him at arm's length, said, with consideration seemingly to its merits, 'Fair, very fair,' which was right enough truly; but when your grandfather held it over to the rest of us, 'twas plain to be seen he had had the slate upside down. Yes, he was ambitious, too, your grandfather was, and got on well in the world; he even bought him a big silver watch. Watches weren't so plentiful in those days. You didn't get a watch in the pocket of every suit of clothes you bought then, as the papers would show you do now. And when we asked your grandfather what time it was, as we would frequently do, being minded to please him, he would take out his watch, look at it with consideration, and hold it out to us saying, 'Who'd ha' thought 'twas that time o' day,' in surprise seemingly, which was right smart, for he never learned to read time, your grandfather didn't. But a good business man he was, and a good neighbour, as many a poor body knew." Old Sam and his following straggled in twos and threes up the street, past Bill Aikins' house, where Bill stood in the doorway smoking, having just helped his wife Kate, _née_ Horne, hang up the day's washing, school meetings being in his wife's opinion too provocative of idleness, the idleness which the devil improves, to be indulged in by Bill. Bill's house, albeit small, had a particularly aggressive look. It had a door in the centre, and a window with red-painted sash on either side. These windows always shone effulgently clean. Whether this brilliancy of pane or the vermilion paint produced the effect, it is difficult to say, but certain it is that Bill's house always looked as though it were about to spring on the road, which was, figuratively, much the same as the attitude of Bill's wife towards him. Bill Aikins had originally been a boy brought out by one of the benevolent English societies, which gather up the scum of their own cities and trust to the more sparkling atmosphere of the New World to aerate it into "respectable and useful citizens." Bill Aikins had taken French leave of the minister with whom the Horne had placed him. A plenitude of prayers and a paucity of what Bill had called "hot wittles," decided him upon this step. He wandered to Ovid, and for many years had been "hired man" to the various farmers within ten miles of the village. He was a good worker, but lacked ballast, and was rapidly degenerating into a sot when Kate Horne married him, and, as the boys expressed it, "brought him up standing." The men greeted Bill pleasantly, and Bill responded genially, trying to look as if he was unconscious of Kate's criticisms upon the men passing--a somewhat difficult thing to accomplish, as Kate spoke so loudly from the room behind that her remarks were perfectly audible to the subjects of them. One by one the crowd dwindled away, and then old Sam "putting his best foot foremost," as he would have said, hurried home and told Suse of her good fortune. She was very elated, was Suse, and kept murmuring to herself, "I'll just show them Greens what's what." * * * * * * Long after the last light had twinkled out in the village, a shaft of light streamed across the old garden of the house on the hill. For all the calm of Andrew's heart was gone. The peace of the first acceptance of the fact that he loved this stranger girl had vanished. He got down on his knees, reached under the bed and pulled out an old, old-fashioned little chest, covered with untanned cowhide, whose brown and white patches were studded with rows of big brass nails. It held the books over which his mother's pretty dark head had bent so often, close by that other proud one, which soon lay humbly enough in its kindred dust. It was no unusual thing for Andrew to spend half the night poring over these books. There was a fat little copy of Shakespeare, with ruinously small print; a quaint little leather volume of Francis Quarles, George Herbert's poetry; Suckling's and a subscription copy of the Queen's Wake, "dedicated to the Princess Charlotte by a shepherd in the Highlands of Scotland." These, with a few others, had formed his mother's library. Getting them out, he looked for certain passages he knew well--passages that had wrung his heart before this with their description of unattainable sweetness and love--passages that had almost made him despair, and yet, not wholly, for he had dreamed a dream of one day going forth to seek and _find_ a Beatrice, a Juliet, a Desdemona, a Rosalind--all in one divine combination of womanhood, worthy to have been addressed in the immortal sonnets. And, lo! the spring had brought her--would the summer give her to him? The kindly summer that gives the flower to the bee, the sun to the flower, the blue sky to the sun, and all the earth to joy. Surely--and but a mile away Judith slept, dreaming, but not of song. And over the waters that quickened with insect life, through the air all astir with the scents and savours of spring, athwart the earth that was quivering with the growth of all things green--summer came one day nearer. CHAPTER V. "Sweet Spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie, My Musick shows ye have your closes, And all must die." Judith Moore, the operatic singer, was not an ailing woman usually. In fact, she had very sweet and well-balanced health, but in her make-up the mental and physical balanced each other so well, and were so closely allied that any joy or grief--in short, any emotion--reacted strongly upon her physical organism. Heart and brain, sense and spirit were close knit. Delicately strung as an Æolian harp, she vibrated too strongly to the winds that swept over her. As strings grow lax or snap from being over-taut, so her nerves had failed under the tension of excitement, and effort, and triumph. Two years before she had made her _début_ upon the operatic stage in Germany, stepping from the strictest tutelage to an instant and unquestioned success. Even yet when she thought of that night her cheeks would flush, her eyes dilate, her head poise itself more proudly. She recalled it so well. Her manager's eagerness, that made his dark face almost livid: her own fright: the mascot thrust hastily into her hand by an old _attaché_ of the play-house. She remembered all the details of this performance better than any other--the orchestra and the people: the peculiar, loving droop of the shoulder with which one of the 'cello players bent above his sonorous instrument. Then came her effort, and it seemed the next moment the thunderous applause, the flowers, the deep-throated Hoch! Hoch! and the joyous cursing of her manager behind the scenes. Yes, that was life. And as she lived her triumphs over again, she felt the supreme exaltation of a genius in a great gift, the God-like thrill of mastery, the glorious certainty of capacity, the birth-pang of creation. There is no gift so marvellous, so maddening, so divine as the gift of song--none so evanescent, none so sad. This woman inhaled the common ether of a prosaic world, mingled it with her breath and sent it forth glorified as sound--sound such as nothing made with men's hands in all the world can produce. She created something divine, which died even as it was born, and passed into the silence--silence that has absorbed so many sweet and terrible things. She sang; she sent forth her heart, her being, her soul from her lips, like a beautiful unseen dove seeking a sign; and there returned to her--silence. From all the glorious "choir invisible" that had gone before there came back no word. And the wonder, and triumph, and pity of it grew upon her, so that she began to eat her heart out with loneliness. Her voice lifted her up to the gods; when she returned to earth, there was no loving breast for her to rest upon, no strong hands to sustain her, no lips to kiss the pain of music from her own, none to seal the bliss of singing into abiding joy. Two years of this, and Judith Moore left it all, and came, in the summer preceding her American _début_, to this little Canadian village. She had told her manager, the only person she knew well enough to write to, that he was not to write. He knew where she was: she would let him know if she needed him. Let her rest, for just a little, she pleaded. And he agreed. She owed everything she was to this man, who had been a friend of her father's. Passing through the little town where they were, he had come to visit them. He found his old friend's funeral leaving the house. He came back to see the desolate girl. Then followed the discovery of her voice, and his investment in her as a good speculation. It was going to prove one, too, though the anxiety of it had given him a grey hair or two in his black head. Yes, it had been a good speculation already, for the two years' singing abroad had recouped him for all his outlay of money. The American season would repay his patience, and the South American tour, and the winter in Russia--the _impresario's_ plans stretched far into the future through golden vistas of profit. That Judith might have other dreams he never considered. She herself had no well-defined thought but to excel in her art. She did not in the least understand what was amiss with her. Not but what in many dreams by night, and visions by day, she had thought of a passion that was to transfigure her life; but so used was she to passing from the reality of life to the dream on the stage, that the visions and the verities became sadly confused, and so she grew day by day more eager to attain, more anxious to achieve the highest in her art, more unsparing of her own efforts, always trembling just on the threshold of the unknown, always feeling one more upward effort of her wings would take her to the very pinnacle of song. There surely grew the balm of sweet content, of satisfaction, of peace. Poor Judith! For her the real content lay in a green valley, far, far below these perilous peaks upon which she tottered; whereon no woman may safely stand, it seems, without a stronger soul beside her to sustain in time of need. Her happiness lay in a valley where love springs and happiness flows in streams about the feet, and as she aspired higher and higher, and rose farther and farther into the rarefied air which solitary success breathes, she left the Happy Valley farther and farther behind. Had she been less evenly balanced, had her soul been less true, her heart less tender, she might in time have frozen the woman completely, and crystallized into the _artiste_ only--or--but to think of Judith Moore sullying her wings is sacrilege. She was full of womanly tenderness and womanly vanities. She had a thousand little tricks of coquetry and as many balms to ease their smart. She took a good deal of satisfaction out of her pretty gowns and her finger nails, and the contemplation of her little feet becomingly shod had been known to dry her tears. She was essentially the woman of the past, the woman who created a "type" distinct from man: the womanly woman, not the hybrid creature of modern cultivation; the woman of romance. To balance this (for nowadays this doubtless needs excuse) she had a fund of sympathy great enough to endow every living thing that suffered with pity. She had certainly that charity without which all other virtues are as "sounding brass." She sent away those who came in contact with her the better for their meeting, and from her eyes there shone a purity of soul that had abashed some men whose eyes had long forgotten shame. Such was Judith Moore. When Andrew approached the Morris house, the next day after the apple-tree episode, he saw from afar a figure in white sitting perched upon the weather-beaten rail fence which separated his woodland from the Morris farm. He hastened his steps, his heart beating hotly. Judith was in a repentant and somewhat shame-faced mood. Upon reflection it had occurred to her that her behaviour the day before had been little less than bold. Judith had felt badly over it, and had even cried a bit, as foolish women will. She was, of course, prepared to make Andrew suffer for her misdeeds if he in any way showed a recollection of the incident, and had decided to assume a very haughty mien if he dared say "feet." Andrew's intuitions were not slow, even if he was only a farmer, and when he greeted her, and she suddenly, sweetly, strangely blushed and looked up at him half inquiringly, he interpreted it aright. He had been amused, perhaps aroused, by her impertinence; he was touched by her unexpressed penitence. Miss Judith had on an artful frock: most of her frocks were artful and well put on, too, which is this great thing. Judith never considered time thrown away that was spent adorning her "perishing person." This particular frock was of sheer white wool, and because she had a waist of the unhygienic type (and rejoiced thereat exceedingly, be it told, for she was thoroughly unregenerate), she had it girdled with a ribbon, wound round and round her. It had huge loose sleeves of a kind not known in Ovid. "Sort of night-gowny looking," Andrew said afterwards, in describing her appearance to his aunt. How Miss Moore would have raged at that! Paquin, no less, had made those sleeves. She was careful to keep her very toes out of sight this morning, and when she thought Andrew was not looking, she gave anxious little tugs at her skirt to cover them yet more securely. Every one of these tugs Andrew saw, and they raised within him a spirit of deep indignation. "I wish that skirt would come off in her hand--serve her right if it did," he said to himself, aggrievedly, whilst apparently listening to Miss Moore's prophecies regarding the weather. "Going to rain in three days?" he said. "How do you know?" "Oh," said Miss Moore, with an indescribable look of wisdom, "there was a big ring round the moon last night, enclosing three stars. That means in three days it will storm--of course, rain--you'd hardly expect snow, would you?" Miss Moore spoke a little resentfully as she concluded, for Andrew did not look impressed. "Well, no," agreed Andrew. "Did Mr. Morris tell you that?" "Yes: we're going to shear sheep to-morrow." "What?" Andrew was amused at the "we." "_That_," said Judith, who in spite of her air of knowledge was somewhat nervous and not quite certain whether she had put it rightly or not. ("Shear sheep" did sound queer.) "Oh, you are. What else?" "I'm going to learn to make butter. Mrs. Morris says I have real 'butter hands.' They're so cool. Feel." She laid her hand on his. "Yes, lovely," said Andrew, fervently: "but don't you think you ought to get well before you do all this? Stick to prophesying for a while. It's easier." "Oh, if you're going to laugh at me--" "No, indeed." (Miss Moore's brows were knitted.) "I'm not really, honestly: never thought of such a thing." Then, persuasively, "Don't you want to come and see a bird's nest?" Miss Moore's attempt at bad temper collapsed. "I should think I did," she said. "Come on, then," said he. "Oh, is it on that side? How do I get over?" "Let me lift you." "No, indeed! Turn your back, and I'll jump." "Let--" "No!" Andrew wheeled on his heel. There was a soft thud and a scramble. He turned like a flash, but Miss Moore had regained her feet, and stood waiting with an expression of exaggerated patience on her face. "Are you ready?" he asked. "Oh, waiting," she answered, with emphasis. That walk was the first they ever had together. Neither of them ever forgot it. At the moment, it seemed to pass in light-hearted chatter: but beneath all this there was a substratum of eagerness--Judith trying to get in touch with this new creature at her side, this strong, unconventional, natural soul, so different from the artificial creatures she had known; and Andrew feeling his heart going out beyond control to this girl who walked so unsteadily at his side, stumbling every now and then from the unaccustomed roughness of the way. These little feet had evidently had all paths smoothed to them. (He could not guess how chill those carven pathways were.) How tender her eyes grew over the wild flowers, and how sweet her lips when, for a moment, a serious thought came to her! The wild flowers were in full luxuriance, and Judith gathered an armful. They passed a dogwood tree that stood sheeted in its white blossoms, their petals of the texture of white kid. Andrew got her some great branches of it, and she insisted upon carrying it herself, holding all her spoil against her breast with one hand, using the other to lift her gown now and then, or to pluck more flowers. Her face looked out from the flowers with a kind of rapt eagerness upon it that illumined it like a light. Her enjoyment was so intense as to be almost painful. They had gone quite a distance from the Morris house, half the length of Andrew's woods, when they came to a little hollow. A stream ran through it, but so blocked was its way by the burrows of moles that it zigzagged across and across the hollow, seeming almost to form loops at some points. All along its course grew the tall, pale-mauve water-flag, its spikes of bloom rising from clumps of sword-like leaves that grew in the stream's edge. At the farther side of the hollow a mass of wild crab-apple trees were covered with their fragile pink blooms, and heaped up at one end of the hollow was a great mass of loose stones, piled there as they had been gathered from the fields. Dog-tooth violets, which love moisture, grew thickly about their feet, their yellow and brown blossoms springing from between pairs of spotted leaves. Where the leaves grew singly, there were no flowers. Here and there could be seen a blossom of the rarer white variety, the back of its recurved petals delicately tinged with pink. Close by the roots of some stumps there were velvety cushions of the thick green moss so often found in Canadian woods; bryony vines strayed over these, making a rich brocade in tones of green. Tufts of coarse ferns grew in the clefts of the stumps, their last year's fronds withering beside them, the fresh ones just beginning to uncurl. And framing all this in, there was the curtain of trees in the first freshness of foliage. For a moment, in Judith's mind dream and reality became confused. The little glade so exactly simulated a well-set scene. There was something artificial in the piled-up stones: in the stream which made so much of itself in going such a short distance. It was so usual for her to stand before the footlights with her arms full of flowers. And the man at her side--she looked at him, and in a moment realized how completely and artistically he was in accord with his environment. His strong, bronzed face, his lithe, tall form, his expression, his dress, the look of utter comprehension with which his eyes took in the scene, over which her eyes lingered in detail--all this was apparent to her at once. She was well used to considering the "value" of this or that upon the scene, and she told herself the unities were surely satisfied now. "Are you pleased?" he asked. "I'm simply charmed," she said. "It is too beautiful to be real." "Ah," he said, "that's where you make a mistake. It is only beautiful enough to be real." She looked at him. "You are tired," he went on, without waiting for an answer. "I've brought you too far. Will you sit down?" "Yes, I think so. I really am awfully strong, only I soon get tired." "Exactly; one of the signs of great strength. Oh, come, don't get cross." "I hate being laughed at; you're bad to me," she said pettishly. Andrew was smitten to the heart. He began to think he'd been a brute. He took off his coat, making no apology therefor. It did not occur to him that there was anything wrong in shirt sleeves. He spread it at the foot of a stump. "You sit down there and rest," he said, "and I'll go get you some more flowers." "Don't you want to rest?" she inquired solicitously. "No, I'm not tired," he answered gravely. He wouldn't laugh at her again in a hurry! "Well, hurry back." So she watched him pick his way across the little hollow to the twisted and gnarled crab trees. And as she watched there stole over her eager spirit the first whiff of that peace which was soon to settle so sweetly upon her heart--a restful recognition of the joy of calm; and all was blended with the bitter sweet scent of the crab blossoms and the ineffable savour of spring woods. Andrew was soon back at her side with a sheaf of flag lilies and big branches of apple blooms; and Judith for the first time held real crab-apple blossoms in her hands, with their perfume, that mingling of Marah and myrrh, rising to her as incense from a censer. She had long known the distilled perfume; how different this living fragrance was. Something of this she told Andrew. "Yes," he said, "I understand you exactly. You won't like the manufactured stuff any more. I never could eat canned salmon after eating the real article fresh from the stream where I'd caught it." Miss Moore looked at him. He laughed outright at her expression of disgust. "Was it very awful to liken crab blooms to salmon? They're much of the same colour." "Don't dare say another word," said Miss Moore. "You're horrid." Andrew reddened and looked a little stiff. Miss Moore eyed him furtively. "Mr. Cutler?" "Yes." "Would you like me to sing to you?" Like a child Miss Moore proffered her biggest bribe first. "Rather," said Andrew, with emphasis, forgetting his dignity. "I should think I would." Seeing him so eager, Miss Moore was minded to postpone his pleasure a bit. "What shall I sing?" she asked. "Anything--your favourite, anything you like, only sing." And she sang a song by Rosetti, beginning-- "A little while, a little love The hour yet bears for thee and me Who have not drawn the veil to see If still our heaven be lit above." And which ends-- "Not yet the end; be our lips dumb In smiles a little season yet, I'll tell thee, when the end is come, How we may best forget." When it was over he turned and looked at her as at a marvel. What manner of woman was this? The one moment a curious child, the next a proud woman; again, a poor, little tired girl, and then--how should he name this singing angel. Miss Moore was used to homage and applause, and wont to see people moved by her singing, but never a tribute had been more sweet to her than the look in this countryman's eyes. "I will sing again," she said, and began a little Scotch song. Afterwards Miss Moore was sorry about this, and thought bitterly that she could not, even for an hour, put aside the _rôle_ of the opera singer seeking to play upon her public. For she had been taught the value of appealing to sentiment as a factor towards success, and many a night, after singing the most intricate operas, she had responded to the _encore_ by singing "Home, Sweet Home" or "Annie Laurie," or some other simple peasant ballad that touches the heart. It is a trick _prima donnas_ all have. The song she sang Andrew was "Jock o' Hazeldean": the story of the high-born girl who loved Jock o' Hazeldean. Who was he, we wonder. This fascinating Jock, of Hazeldean, smacks more of the Merrie Greenwood than of broad domains. But at any rate he must have been right worthy to be loved, else such a leal, brave-hearted, beautiful girl had not loved him. Torn, too, she was between two thoughts--her family, her plighted troth, riches and--Jock--so that "Whene'er she loot The tears doon fa' For Jock o' Hazeldean." For she had made up her mind evidently to give him up, but these treacherous tears betrayed themselves whenever she bent her head, and when a woman's heart is breaking she cannot always hold her head high. And in the end they nearly married her to the "Lord of Errington." But-- "The kirk was decked at morning tide, The tapers glimmered fair, Both priest and bridegroom wait the bride, And dame and knight were there. They sought her then by bower and ha'; The lady wasna seen-- She's ower the border, and awa With Jock o' Hazeldean." Well Judith Moore sang the words of the song, but she did more. Her vibrant voice expressed all the pathos, the romance, the tenderness, that lives between the words; and in the last two lines there was a sort of timorous triumph, as of one who has gained victory over the world, her family, her own fears, and won to her lover's breast, and yet trembles in her triumph. Women do not give themselves even to their best beloved without tears. This was in reality the great charm of Judith's singing--a charm no perfection of method, no quality of tone could have produced. She felt the full significance of everything she sang, and had that sympathetic magnetism which creates its own moods in others. That is fascination. That is the secret of these women at whose power the world has wondered, whose loves have been the passions of history, whose whims have legislated the affairs of kingdoms. "Don't sing any more," Andrew said when she finished. "I've had enough for one day. I--" "You feel my music as I do myself," she said softly. "It is almost pain." Presently they went back through the woods, more silently than they had come, and yet happier. Judith looked up at him once or twice with no veil of laughter on her eyes. He was thrilled with the expression he found there; now it seemed a steadfast ray of unselfish resolution, again a yearning so poignant that it almost unnerved him. He showed her the nest on the furrows. "In a little while there will be birds in the nest," he said. "Oh, I'll come and watch it every day." "You must not come too often or stay too long," he said, "or the bird will get frightened and forsake her nest--fly away and never come back." "Oh, surely not fly away from that nest," Judith cried. To her that rough little wisp of coiled grass and horsehair represented the perfection of bird architecture. "If you would only come to the house--my house over there on the hill," said Andrew, flushing a little and very eager; "my aunt would like you to so much, and I would show you a lot of nests. We have more birds there" (suddenly feeling very proud of this fact) "than anywhere else in the county." "Oh, I'd like to ever so much," said Judith. "Your aunt?" "Suppose I send my aunt over to see you?" said Andrew, quite ignorant of the etiquette of calls, but hitting it off well in his ignorance. "She'll come to visit Mrs. Morris, and then, of course, if you care to see her, she'll be so glad to ask you to come over." "Does your aunt visit the Morrises?" asked Judith, with some surprise. "Why, of course: we only live a mile away," said Andrew, entirely oblivious of the compliment to himself. "Oh, yes, of course," said Judith, hastily, feeling mean. Finally they said "Good-bye." Andrew had gone but a few steps when she called him. "Wait a moment. When do you think your aunt will come?" "Soon; not to-morrow, she's going to town. Perhaps next day. Why?" "Oh, I want to put on a pretty frock," she said candidly. "Well," said Andrew, with conviction, "you can't beat that one." Miss Moore went back to the house. A weather-beaten frame house it was, with a weather-vane in the shape of a horse on top. When the horse's nose pointed over Judith's window, the wind was east; when it seemed to gallop in the direction of the kitchen, it was west; when it made for the village, it was south, and when it looked with a longing eye, apparently, at the stables, it was north. Mr. Morris explained this to Judith on an average once a day, but she always got it mixed. Mrs. Morris was vigorously making pies when Judith entered. "Baking?" said Judith. "Yes," said Mrs. Morris, breaking the crisp stalks of rhubarb into little pieces. "Yes, I'm sure I'm going to have company" (she broke the last piece of rhubarb with a snap and commenced rolling out her paste with soft thuds). "Yes, company's coming sure. I dropped my dishcloth three times this morning, and then the old brahma, he just stood on that doorstep and crowed for all he was worth. I never knowed that bird to crow on that doorstep without strange feet soon stood on it." Mrs. Morris covered her pie, and then holding the pie plate upon the fingers of one hand, dexterously ran a knife around the edge, trimming off a ring of paste that fell on her arm; then she dabbed it with a fork and put it in the oven. "I want something to put my flowers in," said Judith. "May I take some of those big earthen jars out there?" pointing to the open door of the pantry, within which stood some old-fashioned, rough, grey crocks. "Yes," said Mrs. Morris, absent-mindedly, as she carefully "tried" a cake with a straw from the broom to see if it was done; "yes"--then coming back to sublunary matters as she shut the oven door, "But sake's alive, child, you don't want them things to put them in! I'll get you the scissors and some string so you can cut the blows off them apple branches and make good round bunches, and there's some posy pots I bought in town one day. I'll get them to put them in." Judith's heart sank. She was too afraid of hurting Mrs. Morris' feelings to say anything, but when that busy woman appeared with some hideous blue and green and gilt atrocities, a bright thought struck her. "Oh, Mrs. Morris," she said, "those are too nice altogether. Just let me use the jars; those might get broken." "Well," said Mrs. Morris, pausing in the door of the sitting-room, "they be only wild crabs and dogwood blows. It would be a pity to risk it, maybe." So she took back the vases and replaced the bouquets of everlastings in them, feeling she had done her duty to her boarder, but glad that matters had arranged themselves as they had. So Judith got out the jars and filled them with great bunches of the dogwood, which gives such a Japanesque effect of blossom on bare branch, and with the apple blossoms, the wild iris mingling its dainty mauve equally well with each. Then she leaned back against the door jamb (she was sitting on the doorstep), and dreamily listened to Mrs. Morris. What a strange medley of criticism, information, prophecy and humour the talk of such a woman is, all given forth with no coherence, no sequence of ideas, the _disjecta membra_ of a thousand gossipy stories, the flotsam and jetsam of the slow-flowing stream of country life; now and then hitting off, as if by chance, a word or two which is a complete characterization of a person or place; now and then piercing to the heart of some vital human truth; now and then sowing a seed of scandal to bring forth bitterness; now and then by a pause, a sigh or a word revealing the griefs of a homely heart, and always perpetuating a hundred harmless conceits of fancy, signs, warnings, and what Mrs. Morris called, "omings that mean something." Mrs. Morris was popularly considered the most talkative woman in Ovid, always excepting Bill Aikins' wife who had so far distanced the others as to fairly outclass them. Sometimes Mrs. Morris wearied Judith to death with her tongue, but out of the resources of her generous heart, which always could furnish excuses for everybody, Judith found palliation for Mrs. Morris' fault. There was a certain plot in the unkempt little graveyard in Ovid, wherein were five tiny graves; over each was a coverlet of straggly clove pinks, and each of the little sleepers had been borne away from the farm-house by the woods. Now and then, but rarely, Mrs. Morris spoke of these babies. Their united ages would not have numbered half a dozen years; but Mrs. Morris, with the strange divination of motherhood, had seen in their infantile ways the indications of distinctive character, so that each of these dead children had as individual a place in her memory as though it had worked and wept and wearied itself into old age. And to Judith this seemed excuse enough for poor chattering Mrs. Morris. All the breath other mothers use in speaking to their children, all the time they spend in silent thought about them and for them, was barren to this lonely old woman. "Who could wonder then that she wants to talk a bit?" Judith one day said to Andrew, wistfully, when he was laughing at Mrs. Morris' tongue. Indeed, Judith's tender eyes pierced deep down into the depths of these people's hearts. The ugly gossip, the sneering spite, the malignant whisperings she heard, filled her with a pity divine enough to drown the disgust which their backbiting and meanness awakened. The pity of it! she thought, looking at the miracle of the summer fields beneath the summer sky: the upward aspiration of every blade of grass, of every tiny twig, of every little Morning Glory seedling, striving to lift itself up, stretching forth its tendrils towards anything that would bear it higher: everything reaching towards the light. And these people, surrounded by the strong silent stimulus of nature, going with their eyes fixed upon the clods, or at most raised but to the level of their own heads, striving to grasp some puny self-glorification, letting the real gold of life run through their fingers like sand, whilst with eager palms they snatched at the base alloys which corroded their hands! When Judith heard one woman say of another, "She's a most terrible nice woman. She works like a horse," she did not feel as much like laughing at the narrowness of the vision which pronounced such judgment, as weeping, that life had ways which people trod wherein brutish physical exertion seemed the highest good. It will be seen that Judith had a tender and discerning eye to penetrate the pains and sorrows of others, but she could not decipher her own heart yet. It is hard to get one's self in true perspective. It would indeed be a gift from the gods if we could see ourselves. CHAPTER VI. "He who sings To fill the highest purpose, need not soar Above the lintel of the peasant's door." Before the Morris house there stretched a space of unkempt grass, broken by three or four irregular flower beds, upon which the grass encroached, from which the flowers sometimes strayed afield. In these beds were clumps of jonquils--"yeller petticoats," Mrs. Morris called them--and there were heavy headed daffodils, which, to Judith's delight, she dubbed daffdowndillies. There were patches of purple iris, too, and through one of the beds the sturdy roseate stems of the common pæony were pushing their way. A big bush of flowering currant was covered with its yellow flowers, murmurous with hundreds of bees, for they are very sweet. The stems of the florets are bitten off by children to get a drop of honey in each, just as in the florets of a clover bloom. Up and down the sanded pathway leading to Mrs. Morris' front door paced Judith Moore, two days after Andrew's visit. She had on a brown frock, girdled with a filigreed belt of silver gilt; a bunch of jonquils at her bosom caught together the folds of some soft old lace; her heels added a good two inches to her stature, and she felt herself to be very well turned out. It was warm: the robins were building nests. Presently one flew by with a scrap of brilliant red wool, and in a moment or two flew down from the gable of the house, and regaled itself with a long worm which it had spied from afar. It despatched its lunch with gusto, cocked its head on one side, preened the feathers of its wings with its foot, as one would run the hand through the hair, and then started in on its house-building again. "From labour to refreshment," thought Judith. She herself was in a state of tremulous happiness; her being, freed from all artificial restraints, released from all conventional bonds, was unfolding, as naturally as the flower buds to the sunshine; her thoughts no longer bent exclusively upon her art, no longer dwelling upon the next triumph, found for themselves new and unexpected pathways. For the first time she gave herself up to the perilous pleasure of introspection. In "sessions of sweet silent thought" her fragmentary dreams and ideals of life, love and nature, were attuning themselves to a true and eager aspiration to be worthy the best gift of each. Her heart--well, her heart had not been awakened yet. Like the great white lilies in Miss Myers' garden, it was yet half asleep, but stirring within it was the sweetness of spring, of springing life, and love, and the first poignant sweetness of self-consciousness. The lilies were yet only putting forth feeble leaves, as if to test what manner of upper world wooed them to put forth a blossom. So the little tender impulses of Judith's heart were yet very timorous. But the lilies would bloom in good time--and the heart? Judith was still pacing back and forth when a tall, angular figure, in a black cashmere gown and a broad black shade hat, appeared in the gateway, followed decorously by a melancholy red setter, whose melancholy and good manners vanished simultaneously as a cat, walking speculatively round the corner of the house, caught his eye. Rufus vanished, with the cat in a good lead. Rufus' acceptance of the possibilities of the situation had been so prompt, the cat's transition from a dreamer to a fugitive had been so sudden that Judith forgot the propitiatory smile with which she had intended to greet Miss Myers, and gave a regular peal of laughter. Miss Myers had come to call, or, as she herself put it, had "come to visit a spell with Mrs. Morris." "Oh, the poor cat!" said Judith, not knowing very well what to say, and getting rather red. "Is it your cat? I'm real sorry. Rufus is always hard on cats. There's one cat in the village though--but there, you must be the boarder. I'm real glad to see you." "Yes," said Judith, "I'm Judith Moore, and you must be Miss Myers; I know you by the dog." Then a quick sense of the vision she had just had of Rufus, the eager outstretched nose, the flying heels whisking past the side of the house, the cat's hysteric spitting as she turned and fled--this made Judith catch her breath. Miss Myers laughed grimly. It was her fortune always to look grim, even when she wept. Afterwards, Judith knew that Miss Myers had thoroughly appreciated the humour of the situation, and had loved Judith "from the minute I set eyes on her," as Miss Myers said. Perhaps, out of loyalty to Andrew, Miss Myers exaggerated a little her first feeling toward Judith, but for that kindly exaggeration one could gather her in one's arms. Great indeed must be the love of that woman who is willing to accept, nay, even help, to win the woman who is to displace her in the affections of one with whom she has from babyhood been first. And that is the doom of all women who rear children, whether their own or not; to nurse them, watch them, pray for them, painfully perhaps: keep them as pure as may be; make them as true as possible: and then some day have them bring a stranger, a boy or girl, of whom they have bereft some other woman, and say, "Look, this is my best beloved." Is not that a great reward for which to fast, and thirst, and labour? And yet that is the good guerdon gained by many a woman whose name, if but granted the right meed of praise, would be written in letters of gold on a silver sky. Recognizing this; what tenderness should not be felt towards such women, what gratitude accorded them for the good gift they have rendered up? Mrs. Morris came fussily to the door. "Miss Myers, let me make you acquainted with Miss Moore. Come right in; sit down. Won't take off your things? Well, now, that's real mean! I quite expected you'd come for a good visit. Whatever be these dogs a-yelping at? Well, it beats all! Just look at 'em," pointing out at the sitting-room window, which gave a view of the orchard. In the cleft of an apple-tree, just beyond the reach of the dogs' leaps, sat the cat, an insulting indifference expressed in every line of her crouching shape, turning a calm countenance to her impotent foes. The collie, seduced by the example of Rufus, had cast aside the veneer of amity overlying his natural instinct, and now careered round and round the tree trunk, making futile leaps at the cat; whilst Rufus stood uttering the characteristically mournful bark of his breed, and waving his feathery tail as if courtesy might induce the cat to descend and be worried. However, the cat was an old-stager. Her narrowed eyes gleamed venomously, and she thought evil thoughts, but that was all. "Old Tab 'll tire them dogs out before they get through with her," said Mrs. Morris, placidly; and sometime later, when the ladies looked forth again, the cat was delicately walking along the top of the board fence, and the two dogs were in full cry after a squirrel. It is probable that those dogs, before they slept that night, wondered many a time and oft what trees were created for, if not specially intended to deprive decent dogs of a little legitimate sport. Mrs. Morris, when she had no company, occupied her spare time in "teaming" the wool shorn from the sheep, preparatory to sending it to the woollen mill; but she did not bring this work into the sitting-room. She brought in her braided mat. First she sewed strips of cloth together, and when she had three differently coloured balls made, she braided them into a flat strand, then she sewed that round and round, till it grew into a mat. All the rag carpets in Mrs. Morris' house were bestrewn with these mats, placed at irregular intervals, but practice and instinct so guided Mrs. Morris' feet, that she never, by any chance, no matter how engrossed she might be in other matters, stepped upon a space of carpet. There was something very interesting about this. She did it so unconsciously, so accurately, like an erratic automaton. It is true this practice did not conduce to a Delsartean evenness of step: and indeed, Mrs. Morris, when walking through the fields, or along the road, carried in her gait the _replica_ of the floor plan of her first three rooms. Through the front room, the sitting-room, the kitchen, that was the course she mapped upon the road she travelled again and again. The wily Vivien would not have won readily the secret of Mrs. Morris' woven paces. Miss Myers took off her shade hat and held it on her lap. Judith sat prettily erect, bending forward now and then, as if alert to answer Miss Myers' commonplaces--a flattering attitude that. Mrs. Morris braided her strands firmly, looking benignantly over her spectacles, which, having slipped down to the very point of her nose, by some miracle preserved a tentative hold. Their precarious position gave Miss Myers "nerves." She clasped her thin hands tightly "to stiddy herself up." They talked of the every-day incidents of their homely lives. The first question that came up was house-cleaning, a very vital matter to the country housewife in spring and autumn. Of course, these two women, being notable house-keepers, had theirs done long ago, but there were others--well, neither of these ladies wished to make remarks, least of all about their neighbours, still-- Then they discussed the proper time for picking the geese (that is, denuding the live geese of the feathers they would otherwise lose), and both had often noticed the wilful waste of the Greens, in letting their geese go unplucked, so that the village street was snowed with wasted feathers which floated about in the air, or sailed, the most fragile of crafts, in the little water-cressed stream. This led naturally to the mysterious disappearance of Hiram Green's twelve geese, a story retold for Judith's benefit. Once when Hiram Green was breaking in a colt in his barn-yard, the dogs frightened it, and between Hiram's shouts, the dogs' barks and the colt's plunging, the geese, twelve in number, took unto themselves wings and flew away. The fact that they were able to do this reflected directly upon Hiram's management, and pronounced it poor, for, of course, he should have taken the precaution of clipping the feathers of one wing, as every one did, to prevent just such losses. However, the geese flew away. In the excitement of the moment the direction of their flight was unnoted, but willing volunteers spread the news, and defined the ownership of any stray geese which might be found. The Hornes lived in a house very near the crest of the hill upon the south; so near to the top was it, that it gave the impression of wanting to sneak away out of sight of the village. It seemed to withdraw itself from the village gaze, and had a secretive and uncommunicative look. Perhaps the house did not really deserve this description, but popular opinion accorded it. The Hornes were aliens to Ovid: no one knew much about them, and that in itself is a grievance in such a place as Ovid. Well, a zealous searcher for the geese inquired of Mrs. Horne for tidings of them. Mrs. Horne, standing upon her doorstep, regretted Hiram's loss and deplored not having seen them. The messenger departed. But "people talked" as people will when such coincidences occur--when on the next market day Mr. Horne sold twelve fine fat geese, whilst his own pursued the even tenor of their way unmolested. There was no proof of mal-appropriation, for a dead goose does not usually bear many distinctive marks of individuality--still, people talked. And the next day, when Mrs. Horne bought ticking in Hiram's store, to make a couple of pillows, Hiram felt aggrieved as he tied it up, and vaguely wondered if this was not "seething the kid in its mother's milk." Neither Miss Myers nor Mrs. Morris committed herself to any definite expression of opinion as to the Hornes' responsibility in the matter, for neither of them wished to give the other the opportunity of quoting her verdict, but they shook their heads at each other, and raised their eyebrows and pursed up their lips, and then abruptly branched off to another question, which happened to be whether or not it was advisable to soak carrot seeds in water before planting--the implied decision in the goose question amounting practically to the "Not Proven" verdict of the Scotch courts, than which nothing is more damning. At last Mrs. Morris' spectacles did fall off, and Miss Myers' nervous start had a good deal of relief in it. A crisis is best over. Old Mr. Morris came in, and began to discuss the death of Sam Symmons' mare. Not having been present at the consultation regarding her, he was absolutely certain that she had not been accorded the proper treatment. "Might have been the right treatment for an ellefung, but not for a hoss, no, not for a hoss, not by no means." Then he gave a long and critical dissertation upon the merits of each remedy used, proving conclusively, at least to himself, that in the case of Sam's mare they were all so much poison. Miss Myers must come out and see his sorrel filly. "There was a filly like a filly, not such another in the country!" So they all strolled out to the board fence, and looked at the clean-limbed little sorrel, whilst Mr. Morris dilated upon her good points. A man is always frankly and irrepressibly egotistical upon two subjects--his horses and his judgment. Miss Myers did not go back to the house, and Mrs. Morris and Judith strolled with her to the gate. They bade each other good-bye there, Miss Myers sniffing at a twig of lemon balm which she had gathered. Judith and Mrs. Morris were to visit Miss Myers two days later. Little had been said about Andrew, but enough to show Judith that he was the very apple of Miss Myers' eye. "Sarah Myers thinks a powerful sight of Andrew Cutler," said Mrs. Morris. "It seems sort of heathenish to be so set on any one. I don't hold with it. Well, if you hain't got no children to laugh with, you hain't got none to cry over." The yearning of her empty mother-heart had taught her this pitiable philosophy. * * * * * * It was three o'clock when Mrs. Morris and Judith reached the Cutler house on the hill. Mr. Morris had driven them as far as the village in the democrat waggon. He stopped at the blacksmith shop, and they alighted, to walk through the village to their destination, whilst he went on an errand to town. There were very few people to be seen on the village streets. Tommy Slick and his dog Nip met them. Tommy looked very guileless, with round face, beautifully tinted white and pink, big clear eyes and "lips depressed, as he were meek." In his hands he carried a horse's halter and a tin pail. Nip followed, with limply hanging tail, lowered nose and hunched up shoulders, but an expression not so wholly deprecating as his attitude. When Tommy looked meek, and Nip innocent, it behooved the village to be wary; there was some mischief afoot. "There's that Slick limb," said Mrs. Morris. "I'll be bound he ain't up to no good: and that dog of his, look at it!" "It looks hungry," said Judith. "Then I'll go bail there's no vittles in the village if that dog's going empty," said Mrs. Morris. (Some memory seemed struggling for utterance.) Judith changed the subject and took up Tommy's case. "He looks a nice little chap, and he's got a lovely complexion," said she. "It don't matter how he's complected. He's a Slick," said Mrs. Morris, with decision. "And being a Slick ain't no recommend for a church member; he's got brothers that has been in gaol, that young one has; there's Indian blood in the Slicks. Did you hear any noise when Tommy passed? No, nor you never will. He goes pad, pad along, regular flat-footed Indian fashion--all the Slicks do--no good honest heel-and-toe about them. One of his sisters, the one married over Kneeland way, is just like a squaw for all the world. They say it was the great-great grandmother on the Slick side was a squaw--she came from near Brantford." "I thought Indians were all dark-skinned," ventured Judith, "and that boy certainly--" "Well, if his face ain't complected like them, you can depend on it his heart is," interrupted Mrs. Morris, in a tone suggestive of rising temper. "There's the Slick house now," she said in a voice which indicated that the name of Slick was malodorous to her. She pointed to a rickety, rough plaster house which they were passing. In the doorway stood a frowsy woman, her arms akimbo, her fingers and palms stained a deep purple. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Slick. Been dyeing?" said Mrs. Morris, affably, as they came abreast of her. "Good day. Yes," said the woman, curtly. Upon the clothes-line at the end of the house some garments, dipped in purple dye, hung drying. "Them 'll streak when they dry," said Mrs. Morris, in the discriminating tone of one who knows. Judith wondered vaguely where she had seen that peculiar purple colour; later she remembered that the outside of the tin pail Tommy Slick carried, had been smeared with it. Hiram Green greeted them from his shop door as they passed, and Bill Aikins' wife gave them a brisk salutation, without pausing in her work of "sweeping up" her door steps. They passed the school-house; the children were out at recess. Mrs. Morris' brow contracted, and her voice was a little querulous when she spoke next. "Seems to me children grow powerful noisy these times," she said. "I disremember that they used to be so when I was little." They turned the corner. Hiram Green's house was the last one in the village. It was a brick house, built flush with the street. It had six windows in front, and these windows had been considered very original and genteel, when Hiram had them put in. For, instead of being the ordinary oblong windows, the tops of these were semicircular. Hiram had intended at first to have the semicircle filled with glass, but decided, from economic reasons, to substitute wood. These wooden tops conveyed the impression of the windows having eyebrows, and gave a supercilious air to the whole house, which was a very good indication of the attitude of Hiram Green and his daughters to their neighbours. There _was_ a Mrs. Green, but she was one of those hard-worked nonentities, never considered in the polity of the household save as a labour-saving agent. The Misses Green were usually to be seen on a fine afternoon either on the "stoop," or by the open parlour windows. Mrs. Green was never visible; she was obliterated beneath the burden of work she bore upon her patient shoulders. The Misses Green were out in force as Judith and Mrs. Morris went by. Enshrined in their midst was a sallow young Methodist clergyman, somewhat meagre-looking, but with a countenance full of content. He fairly gaped after Judith. Mrs. Morris greeted the Misses Green coldly. She did not like them. Their mother and Mrs. Morris had been friends in girlhood, and Mrs. Morris had a poor opinion of her old friend's daughters. "Hester Green's got no spunk or she would not stand it," she said with asperity, and added, "Poor thing!" Mrs. Green's wistful eyes looked at them from the kitchen window, where she was frying crullers for the minister's tea. But she did not think of her own lot as being harder than Mrs. Morris'--far from it. "Poor Jane, trapesing along with a strange girl, and me got four daughters," she said to herself, and dropped a bit of potato into the bubbling fat to see if it was at the proper temperature. Perhaps Mrs. Green's daughters as well as their "ways" were rocks of offence to Mrs. Morris, yet they were truly a poor possession to covet. A short walk, and then Judith and Mrs. Morris were at the foot of the hill-side. They entered Andrew's domain; and found, as they closed the gate, that Miss Myers and Andrew had come to meet them. Andrew had longed intensely during the four days just gone to see Judith again. So extravagant had his desire for this been, that when he saw her coming afar off, he felt almost a regret. The anticipation had been so satisfying that he felt a stifled fear, lest the vision he found to surpass the real. But when she gave him her hand, and looked at him, straight from her honest eyes into his--well, then he knew no dream could be so dear as the sweet reality. And from that moment the world put on a different countenance to those two--the sky, the water, the clouds, and the earth's bloom-scented face all changed. As they turned to follow Miss Myers and Mrs. Morris they were a little silent. A quieting hand seemed to have been laid in benediction upon their hasty pulses. An awe, not of each other, but of the holy realm they felt they were entering, fell upon them. From the portals of that Promised Land there seemed to issue a gentle but compelling voice, bidding them tread gently, for the place whereon they stood was holy ground. In Andrew's heart there surged a new strength, a strong tide of resolution. In Judith's heart there sprang to life many sweet hopes, savoured and sanctified almost to pain, by a new sweet fear. Their voices softened. Andrew's tones seemed informed with a new meaning. Judith's accents held a hint of appeal. But this transformation was unacknowledged by each of them. Judith's eyes still met his bravely, and he constrained himself to self-control. But what a glorified place that linden-laden hill-side had become! Judith laughed out happily. "I am happy!" she said, out of sheer light-heartedness. "Are you?" Andrew drew his breath in swiftly, and closed his lips firmly a moment, as to repress some words that strove for utterance. "Yes, I should think I am," he said. They passed under the apple-tree by the garden gate. Its petals seemed almost spent--the life of the apple blossom is short. But how much sweeter the spot, and the tree, when she stood beneath it, than ever it had been before in all its glory and bloom! They were in the garden; the old sun-dial with the linden tree beside it stood in the sunshine. Judith's eyes filled with happy tears, which Andrew did not see; he only thought her eyes were bright. It seemed to her that her spirit had found its natal place here on the hill. These aromatic breaths from the box, the perfume of the violets, the odour of the cherry blossom, the sound of the birds, the rustle of the leaves--surely these were the scents and sounds of home. "Do you know what Mrs. Browning says of such a tree?" she asked. "No: tell me." "I do not know if I can remember it. I'll try. I--" (She was nervous--she who had sung to the Kaiser!) Then she repeated, her voice trembling a little-- "Here a linden tree stood, bright'ning All adown its silver rind; For as some trees draw the lightning, So this true, unto my mind, Drew to earth the blessed sunshine From the sky where it was shrined." "I think it is you who have drawn down the sunshine," he said. "Anyhow, it is always sunshine where you are." She was amazed at the joy which flooded her heart at this commonplace compliment. They loitered about the garden until Miss Myers summoned them to tea. Judith came in almost shyly before these two country women, who, to tell the truth, had felt the freer to enjoy themselves in her absence. Miss Myers took her into a bedroom to lay off her hat. It was cool, quiet, large, with corners already growing dusky in the fading light. A huge bed heaped high with feathers was covered with a snowy coverlet. Some tall geraniums with fragrant, fern-like leaves stood in the windows: a dark, polished table filled one angle. The mirror, a little square of dim glass, was set in a polished mahogany frame, and placed upon a high chest of drawers of the same rich dusky wood. There was something pure, still, almost ascetic, in the large bare room. Its spotlessness seemed to diffuse a sense of restful peace. One would have said no weary eyes had ever held vain vigil here, that no restless heart had here sought slumber without finding it. Judith somehow felt like lowering her voice. She took off her hat and patted her hair solicitously as every normal woman does. She could only see her face in the mirror, nothing more, not even the purple and yellow pansies in the breast of her yellow frock. She touched them gently. Andrew had picked them for her in the garden. "Am I right?" she asked, looking at Miss Myers. "Couldn't be improved," said Miss Myers, heartily, upon whom Judith's interest in the garden and evident desire to please had made quite an impression in the last few minutes. So they went back to the sitting-room together, when Miss Myers excused herself for a few minutes whilst she went to give the finishing touches to her table--to see that the girl had set it properly, get out the best china and the silver teapot, the richest fruit-cake, the finest canned peaches, and fill the cream ewer with the thickest of cream. Andrew was leaning against a window casement as Judith entered the room. The broad window-sills were full of flowers; the heavy old red curtains were pushed far back to the sills, making a dusky background for Andrew's tall figure in its rusty velveteens. Judith advanced toward him, her yellow frock looking almost white in the waning light, the purple heartsease a dark blot upon her breast. "Isn't that plant pretty?" she asked Mrs. Morris, feeling a nervous desire to include her in the conversation--she felt so much alone with Andrew. "Which?" asked Mrs. Morris, joining them at the window. "The 'Aaron's Beard' or the 'Jacob's Ladder'?" "I mean this hanging plant," said Judith. "Oh, the 'Mother of Millions'; yes, it's real handsome," said Mrs. Morris, looking at the luxuriant pot of Kenilworth Ivy over which Judith was bending. "What a funny name!" said Judith. "Oh, it don't make much difference about the names of 'em," returned Mrs. Morris. "Only so long as you know 'em by 'em." Miss Myers entered, and they followed her to the dining-room. Miss Myers was reputedly the most forehanded house-keeper in Ovid, and supposed to set the best table of any one in the village, "and no thanks to her for it; she's got plenty to do with"--as her neighbours often said. But in spite of her liberal house-keeping, Miss Myers "looked well to the ways of her household"; there were no small channels of waste permitted under her _régime_. Judith was charmed with everything--the chicken and ham, which Andrew deftly dispensed; the huge glass dish of peaches, preserved whole, and with a few long green peach-leaves put with them to flavour them; the snowy white cream-cheese set on a bed of parsley: the young lettuce fresh gathered from the garden (of which Mrs. Morris said later, "It was just murdering them lettuce to pick 'em so young"): the black fruit cake: and the bread browned in Miss Myers' brick oven. A cat sprang upon the sill of the open window, and after some pretence of surprise (at which Andrew raised his eyebrows and looked at Judith), Miss Myers gave it a saucer of milk on the window-ledge. Strangely enough there happened to be an extra saucer handy. Judith sat demurely, feeling that there never had been such a joke as she and Andrew perceived in Miss Myers' poor pretence of astonishment at the cat's daring. The cat finished her milk, and sat washing her face industriously. Rufus sat sedately beside his master's chair, with a look almost of sanctity in his big hazel eyes. Rufus never begged, but he shifted his forepaws uneasily and swept his banner of a tail along the floor, mutely importunate. Later on Judith learned this was the regular performance of these two favourites. There were other dogs about the place, and barn cats in plenty, but these two chosen ones had the high seats in the synagogue. There were antlers between the windows, and over the side table, and above the doors; a trophy of wild ducks and water fowl was mounted upon a beautiful hard-wood panel; foxes' masks grinned from the corners. And when they passed out to the hall, there was the old musket, the sword with its crimson sash, a pair of rusty spurs and a cartridge belt, all hung upon the huge horns of the one moose which Andrew's gun had brought down. An incident at the table had disturbed Judith very much. In response to a request for salt, she had handed Andrew some, and Mrs. Morris promptly said: "Well, you shouldn't have done that. That's a bad oming. 'Help one to salt, help them to sorrow.' That's terrible unlucky." "Oh, Mr. Cutler," said Judith, "do you think I've given you sorrow?" "No," said Andrew. "No, indeed; I don't believe any of those old sayings." Miss Myers was silent. "Well," said Mrs. Morris, "I don't know; them things seems bore out sometimes. There was young Henry Braddon; he keeps post-office now" (this to Judith) "and one day his mother gave him some salt to salt the cattle. 'Help one to salt, help one to sorrow,' says he, and off he went, and when he come back his mother lay in the porch, took with the stroke she died of." Judith's face was pale and startled. "Seems to me," said Andrew, dryly, feeling as if he would like to choke Mrs. Morris--"seems to me the brunt of that bad luck fell on her." "I wish I'd never seen salt," said Judith. "Do you think any bad luck will come of it?" "Nonsense," said Andrew, and somehow his manlike scorn did much to reassure Judith, but when the others were not looking, she pushed the offending salt as far as possible from her. Mr. Morris was to call for them, and he arrived very soon, but in the meantime the evening had grown a little chill, and Judith had no wrap. She denied feeling cold, but as they stood in the porch she shivered. Andrew ran in and brought out a huge homespun shawl and bundled her up in it; her face, in contrast to its heavy rough folds, looked very delicate and white. She was seated alone in the second seat of the democrat waggon. Andrew came to her side; his eyes were nearly on a level with hers. "You never showed me the birds' nests!" she said. "Oh, you must come back and see those," he said eagerly. "You will come back?" "As often as Miss Myers will let me," said Judith, unaffectedly. "And"--she coloured a little---"you'll come and see my bird's nest in the field?" "Yes, to-morrow," said Andrew. Mr. Morris shook the reins over the old sorrel. Judith bent over giving Andrew her hand. "Mr. Cutler," she said hastily, "you don't think I gave you sorrow?" "No," he said, some deep feeling making his voice intense in its quiet strength. "No, you give me--" The old sorrel was eager to get back to her slim-fetlocked daughter, and she sprang forward. Judith's hand seemed torn from him; his sentence was left incomplete. "Good-night," he said. "Good-night, good-night," called Judith in return. CHAPTER VII. "Yet love, mere love, is beautiful indeed, And worthy of acceptation." Next day the village was stirred to its depths when Hiram Green passed through the streets, bringing from his pasture his white horse, striped with purple paint, or dye, until it looked like an exotic zebra. With this horse he brought his groceries from town; behind it many a school-teacher had driven in vainglorious ease. Hiram had gone for it that day with intent to do the little Methodist parson honour, by taking him for a drive, a plan necessarily postponed by the hilarious appearance of the horse, which looked out from a pair of artistically drawn purple spectacles upon the excitement which its appearance created. Hiram was furious, the Misses Green were rampant, the parson piously indignant, and even meek Mrs. Green lifted up her voice in wrath. The horse was escorted to the barn-yard, to be subjected to such a course of scrubbing as never fell to the lot of an Ovidian horse before; but aniline dyes are hard to eradicate. That day, and for many days after, the horse went about contentedly in a pale purple coat. There was no direct evidence to convict any one of the prank; but Hiram had refused to give the Slick family any further credit at his store, and from the clothes-line of the Slick house, some garments, dipped in purple dye, flaunted derisively in the breeze. Tommy Slick and Nip went about looking as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths; and all Mrs. Slick was ever heard to say about the matter was: "Let 'em come to me and just as much as hint that Tommy done it! I'll--but just let 'em once, that's all." And whilst nobody showed a disposition to hinder any one else from making the accusation, still no one volunteered to voice the general opinion regarding the matter to Mrs. Slick. Besides, secretly, every one felt a sort of sneaking satisfaction over the matter. Andrew and Judith, to confess the truth, thought it a huge joke, and at Judith's instigation, they made a long journey across the fields to Hiram's pasture lot, to see the horse; and when they beheld him placidly purple, munching away in supreme content, they laughed till their voices rang out through the wood. Judith recalled the purple smears on Tommy's pail the day she had met him, and felt an unholy joy of participation in the plot. Judith didn't like the Greens. As she and Mrs. Morris passed them going to Andrew's, one sentence had rung out clearly to Judith's ears: "My! Ain't she pinched!" That was enough. The Greens never found favour in the eyes of Judith. Andrew, as he had promised to do, went to see Judith's bird's nest the day after her visit to his farm. At that meeting, and in many more such sweet hours which followed, Judith and Andrew lived in the joy of the moment. Their hearts were young, the world was fresh and fair; the one loved deeply, and the other--well--for the time she had forgotten her ambition, forgotten the marvellous gift that made holy the air she breathed, or only remembered it for the pleasure it gave this young countryman; she had forgotten that her name was famous, whispered from lip to lip throughout the musical world; she had forgotten the intoxication of success, the wine of applause; she had forgotten the great debt she owed the man who had made her what she was, a debt that she could only requite in one way, by singing. So surely she must have sipped some Nepenthe of present happiness or future hope! Lotos lands are very sweet, but rarely so satisfying as these two found them. It seems to outrage our sense of proportion, to think of a young farmer aspiring to the hand of one who showed every promise of being the world's _prima donna_. To us it seems grotesque almost, and Andrew seems ridiculously egotistical in hoping that this song-bird would abide in his love-woven cage of rushes, when the doors of so many golden nets were open to her. But Andrew's daring was perhaps excusable. It is true, her voice had led him to her first, and he always heard it as a devotee might hear the voices of angels strike through his prayers; but after that first meeting, Andrew had always seen the _woman_ in her, not the songstress. He did not love her for her singing, her beauty, nor her gentle breeding. He loved her for herself--the truest love of all. For a love founded upon any gift is a frail thing, a banner hung upon a reed. The reed may break, and the banner no longer lifted up may not care to enwrap the broken stem which before upheld it. What does England's greatest woman poet say? "If thou must love me, let it be for naught Except for love's sake only." "For love's sake only"--that should be the supreme reason of every passion. Love, "the fulfilling of the law," the beginning and end of all things. And thus, inasmuch as this great justification was his, Andrew was justified. Nor did he seek with rude hands to snatch his happiness hastily. As one pauses with hushed heart, when he comes in woodland places upon some new sweet flower, or sees through a cleft of the mountains the glory of the sun, or gathers to his breast some soul-satisfying truth, so Andrew paused ere raising the cup of this great joy to his lips. He felt he must purify his hands ere he advanced to stretch them forth for the draught. And should it be denied him? Thought ceased there--beyond was chaos. And Judith gathered the flowers of the hour with eager fingers, trembling with new joy, finding in their perfume complete satisfaction, looking neither before nor after, as a butterfly revels in the sunshine, forgetting the chill of by-gone days, unrecking of the bitter blasts to come. The days became weeks, and the earth grew glad with fruits and flowers and growing grain. During all this time Judith was learning of the people about her, prying with her tender eyes into the pathos of their narrow lives, appreciating keenly the unconscious humour displayed in their processes of thought, marvelling at their stolid disregard of the Beautiful. Rufus and the grey cat knew her well, and Miss Myers was devoted to her. Mrs. Morris and Miss Myers had grounded her thoroughly in the family history of the villagers, and she knew as much about them as about the others, for Miss Myers told her about Mrs. Morris, and _vice versa_. And Judith had developed a keen interest in all the doings of the village people, of whom old Sam Symmons was her favourite, the redoubtable Tommy Slick being a good second. Old Sam liked her, and prophesied freely that she would soon be mistress of Andrew Cutler's house. Suse pretended not to be much impressed with Judith; it was not to be expected that any marriageable girl in the neighbourhood would particularly admire the strange woman who had led away captive the most eligible man for miles around, and, besides, Suse had a love affair of her own upon her hands. The rest of the village girls contented themselves with giggling when Andrew and Judith passed, whispering among themselves that "There didn't seem to be much sign of Miss Myers moving out, and if she was going to live with Andrew and his wife, it was as well he hadn't chosen any of _them_, for _they_ wouldn't stand _that_"--reflections which consoled them very much evidently, and which, being entirely harmless to any one else, were quite admissible. Judith thought this rustic life very quaint and idyllic to look at--like one of Hardy's stories, only hearing the same relation to a story that a game of chess, played as they play it sometimes in the East, with living pawns, does to the more prosaic pastime pondered over upon a table. The village appealed to her as a skilfully set scene, begirt by a beautiful background of changing fields and sky--a stage whereon was enacted an interminable drama, in whose scenes all the constituents of humble life were blended. It never occurred to her that she was the heroine of the story--the queen of the animated chess board, an actress in the life play. Poor Judith! She thought herself only a spectator, and, as such, deemed herself secure from all the pains and penalties of the play. Judith always laughed, though sometimes for shame she strove to hide the laughter when Tommy Slick was before the footlights. Tommy had been making a hilarious record for himself at school. To begin with, Tommy was nearly ten years old, and had been allowed to run wild at home, hence he was utterly ignorant of the world of letters, but wide awake to the vital facts in the world of men: for Tommy's intellect was precocious and practical. Tommy's father was wont to say of this, his youngest hope, "Tommy hain't much of a letter sharp, but he'd be good on a horse trade," and his judgment was about correct. His mother, as a preliminary to Tommy's appearance, called upon Suse, and informed her that "Tommy was a right smart young un, but delikit." Of the first fact Suse was well aware: of the truth of the latter statement she never could convince herself. Did she not, in common with the rest of the village, remember well the day when Tommy and his father furnished forth entertainment for the whole community? The fashion of it did not suggest any extreme debility upon Tommy's part. It was in this wise: One day Tommy, having incited his irascible father even more than usual, perceived blood in his parent's eye, and concluded to run. The chase led up the village street, to the vacant lot where the old store had been burned down. The fleet and flying Tommy, turning here, had perceived his father in full pursuit, and, evidently doubting his own staying powers, had taken to a tree, shinning up a tall, slender, swaying poplar with precocious celerity. He climbed to the very top, and, undaunted by the slenderness of his perch (for the tree bent beneath his weight as a stalk of grain beneath a bird), clung comfortably there, whilst his father, unable to follow up the slender stem, stood at the foot, and alternately threatened, cajoled and cursed. When he resorted to swearing as a safety valve for his wrath, Tommy exchanged oaths genially and freely with him, until Slick, Sen., in a paroxysm of rage, shook the tree continuously and violently, so that Tommy took an earthward flight, fortunately for him landing on a pile of old straw. His father, somewhat cooled down by the spectacle of Tommy shooting through the air, approached him, and as a preliminary, asked him if he was hurt. This gave Tommy an opportunity which he at once improved. He made no reply. And thereupon Suse and the rest of the Ovidians were regaled by seeing Tommy's father carrying his son home tenderly, stepping carefully so as not to jar the presumably broken bones. This progress Tommy rendered as arduous as possible, by lying perfectly limp in his father's arms; in fact, making himself dead weight, and letting his long legs dangle helplessly down, to meet his father's knee-caps, or shins, at every step, with the brass toes of his heavy boots. It was not reported that Tommy suffered much from this experience. Tommy had a fine fund of profanity, which served as a spicy garnish to his deep sense of humour, a genial and easy self-possession, unfailing confidence in his own powers, and a dog he was willing to back against any other in the village, except Hiram Green's brindle bull pup. The first day Tommy went to school, Suse had the "infant" class up before one of the alphabet tablets by the window, and Tommy, affable and completely at ease, came with them. Most children--Ovidian children--when they came to school for the first time, were somewhat abashed by the novelty of their surroundings, given to starting at every sound, stumbling over the legs of desks, and getting hopelessly entangled with the other pupils, in their efforts to obliterate themselves from the teacher's notice. Not so, Tommy. No teacher ever born had terrors for him; the legs outstretched to trip him on his way up the aisle, were withdrawn, tingling from the kicks of Tommy's brass toes. When he was half-way up the aisle, it occurred to him to take a short-cut, so he wriggled between two desks, and landed with a slide over the third, to find most of the class assembled. A sharp pinch of an arm, his elbow applied vigorously to a side, a vicious kick upon a shin, cleared his way of three boys. Then he planted himself at the head of the class, next Suse, and prepared to receive the seeds of knowledge. But his eyes wandered, first with a look all about, then abstractedly to the window. But the abstraction vanished, and a look of intense eagerness made his eyes bright, as they bent in absorbed interest upon one spot, where his disreputable dog, who had followed him to school, _à la_ Mary's sheep, was harassing the life out of a fat and grunting pig, which he had, in his own proper person, surrounded: for, heading off the pig in whatever direction she turned, he seemingly converted himself into twenty disreputable dogs. Having bewildered the pig with a few lightning rushes round it, with a sharp nip at its tail, ears, or nose, as he could best get in a flying bite, he planted himself like a lion in the way, and yelped red-mouthed derision and insult at the impotent foe, who was too fat to follow, either mentally or bodily, the gyrations of its agile tormentor. "Tommy!" said Suse. (Tommy paid no heed.) "Tommy!" repeated she, more imperatively. (No sign from Tommy.) "Tommy Slick!!" accentuating her voice by a sharp rap of her pointer on a desk. Just then the owner of the pig came along, kicked Nip, and Tommy came back to sublunary affairs. "All right, Suse," he said obligingly, "I'm yer man." At that Suse felt the foundations of her throne tottering. In the afternoon, mindful of the temptations of the window, she had Tommy's class up before the blackboard, where, printing the alphabet a letter at a time, she made the class name them. Tommy kept his attention pretty closely fixed until N was reached; then he became absent-minded. He was meditating his revenge upon the pig's owner for kicking Nip. The only step he had decided upon was to try conclusions, immediately after school, with the man's son. The latter was two years older than Tommy, and a good half-head taller, but Tommy never considered such paltry details when an affront to Nip was to be wiped out. Tommy's mind was engrossed with further plans when Suse, after elaborately executing a capital S upon the blackboard, addressed him, not without some trepidation. "Tommy, that's S." (No response.) "Tommy," she said with angry dignity, "you must look at the blackboard. That letter is S." "Oh, is it?" said Tommy, in a pleasantly interested tone, "I always did wonder what the little crooked devil was." For the remainder of Tommy's first day at school Suse felt that her glory was a delusion and a snare. Judith carefully concealed from Mrs. Morris her enjoyment of Tommy's pranks, the former having no patience with "them two imps," as she designated Tommy and Nip. For, once, Mrs. Morris had been expecting company, and the better to entertain them, had baked a batch of pumpkin pies, it being the season when such delicacies were in order. She set them out on a bench in the front porch to cool, taking the precaution to make sure that the collie and the cat were safe in the kitchen. When Mrs. Morris returned, some half-hour later, she found a row of empty pie plates, and sitting beside them, looking at them with the dissatisfied expression of a dog still hungry, was Tommy Slick's dog Nip. Nip fled from the face of Mrs. Morris towards Andrew's woods, where Tommy was gathering hickory nuts, sped upon his way by an earthen flower pot flung with a vigorous but inaccurate hand. Ever since that day Mrs. Morris had cherished a deep hatred of Tommy and his dog. Judith, as the days passed, was very happy; but happy in a blind, unreasoning fashion. With persistent self-delusion she put behind her the fact that this dream-like summer was but an interlude in her life. True, at first she persistently took short views, and only interested herself in matters a day or two beyond the present, but gradually she slipped into the habit of speaking and thinking as if she were to be there always. Now and then there were times when the colder light of reason showed her plainly how factitious this evanescent happiness was. These moods came upon her like so many physical shocks, leaving her feeling much older, much quieter, robbing her life of radiance and giving her almost a distaste for the simple scenes which had created delusions which bade fair to cost her so dear. Sometimes when the clear radiance of the moon shone in upon her at night, she lay and thought of the brilliant scenes, the well-nigh certain triumphs which awaited her--for, immature as she might be in some things, she was mistress of her art and _knew_ it, but her cheeks no longer flushed as they had wont to do, her eyes no longer kindled at the dream: instead, her face set into a cold dignity and her eyes looked out in the moonlight, out into the future with a look of prescient martyrdom--the martyrdom of lonely Genius! The look of those whose brows smooth themselves for the crown of solitary success, that coronal which has so often crushed its wearer, so often obscured the eyes it overshadowed, so that they no longer beheld peace and joy! But at the first sound of Andrew's footsteps, always eager, hasty, hopeful as they approached her, these shadows vanished, and in their place shone the dawn of a newer light. She had never before been considered as a woman, but always as a singer; and her womanhood recognizing the tribute paid to it, stirred into life, responded to the feeling which evoked it, and demanded right of way. There is something dominant in the woman-heart when roused. Judith's nature held deeper depths than she herself wot of--sweet springs for the lilies of love to grow in; reservoirs of feeling, long unsuspected, but now brimming to the brink, threatening to break every barrier, and flood their way over the ruin of her life schemes, her painfully constructed temple of Art, the airy fabric of her ambition; but one obstacle could not be swept aside--the benefits received. When Judith thought of what she owed her manager, then her heart grew faint within her; but, as excessive pain at length numbs sensation, so this thought became one of the accepted facts of her life, the life she was enjoying so much. And the days were so long, and so sweet, that it seemed impossible that the end would ever come. But it was already midsummer, the harvest fields were brightening beneath the sun, the little school-house was closed for the summer holidays; from the orchards came the odour of ripe harvest apples, and the sun-bonneted women gathered wild raspberries from the fences, or picked currants in the garden. And Judith had herself grown infinitely charming; for she was not letting all the sunshine slip from her. As the ruby crystal holds the rays which gives it its roseate charm, so Judith was absorbing the beauties about her, and giving them forth in a gentle radiation of womanly graces. When one part of a nature is nurtured to the exclusion of the rest, it is not strange that the whole suffers somewhat. Judith, taught only to sing, to look well, to win applause by merit, or clever finesse, had known perhaps too little of real womanliness, save the intuitional impulses of her strong, sweet nature. She was wont to be a little petulant, a little self-absorbed, and a little, just a little, arrogant. These blemishes had been chastened into a sweet womanliness, capricious perhaps, but charming. Not but what there were tempests in her summer. As the summer showers swept across the fields, so tears crossed her happy dream. The interest she took in every detail of his daily occupation amused and touched Andrew very much, but now and then he, in a measure, misunderstood her, which was not wonderful, considering how widely severed their modes of life and methods of thought had been. Once he laughed at some views she was expressing, grave conclusions she had arrived at after long thought and minute observation. Andrew laughed outright. Her remarks related to one of the simplest facts of outdoor life, always so well known to Andrew that he hardly apprehended the marvel of it. At his laugh the colour flooded her face, tears sprang to her eyes, she was wounded to the quick. She tried to disguise her feelings as bravely as possible, fighting off a burst of hysteric tears, making commonplace remarks in a tone strained and muffled by reason of the lump in her throat. Andrew's heart ached with regret. He wanted to take her in his arms, and holding her to his breast win from her a silent pardon, offer her a mute but eloquent apology. He dare not yet. A quick sense of her childishness in some matters came to him, a knowledge that if ever he won her, he must be prepared to be patient, prepared to learn much, to teach her many things. Judith saw that he had noticed her distress, knew he was sorry, and tried in an unselfish woman's way, to make him think that she had not minded. The very tenderness which Andrew's voice and manner assumed, pressed home the sting of that laugh. As they parted that night, the tears were heavy beneath Judith's lids. For a fleeting moment as they said good-night, she looked at him. She was standing within the shadow of the porch, but the star-shine revealed those tears. "My poor little girl, I'm so sorry," said Andrew, his dark face pale in the dusk. "It doesn't matter, really. I think my head aches--I mean--good night," she said. "You are not angry?" Andrew's voice was chill with despair, regret. "No, no--oh, I'm not angry, not a bit, I--" He caught her hands, her composure was failing her. "Oh, _do_ let me go," she half whispered, "you are bad to me." Then she fled. Andrew turned away, white to the lips. When they met again, the joy of seeing each other made them happy. Judith was so lovingly eager to make him forget her last words to him, he was so tenderly anxious not to wound her, and each was a little in awe of the other. For they had learned one of the most sacred lessons of love, learned what a terrible power to inflict suffering each held over the other. But their love was sanctified by this dual illumination, and as their eyes met, a little shyly, now and then, there seemed to pass between them a two-fold message, a promise and a plea. And they parted again, with definite words of love still unspoken. But the time was not far off. Andrew's arms were yearning for their birthright, and Judith's head was weary for his breast. Yet fears assailed her, too. One's head may be sore aweary for the pillow, yet the thought of frightsome dreams may make one tremble on the verge of rest, and hesitate ere yielding to the sweetest slumber. CHAPTER VIII. "Ho, ye who seek saving, Go no further. Come hither, for have we not found it? Here is the House of Fulfilment of Craving; Here is the Cup with the roses around it, The world's wound well healed, and the balm that hath bound it." "I'm going to church next Sunday," said Judith to Andrew, as they walked through the chestnut woods. It was evening. Far away beyond the level fields an after-glow opulent in gold was streaming up over the sky--a radiance, living, like the memory of love, long after its source had vanished from the view. The day had been intensely warm, and the wood was full of the pungent odours of leaves, mingled with the sweeter scent of dying wild roses. Coming to them faintly from far-off fields they could hear the lowing of thirsty cows, eager to be let out of their pastures to the ponds. And from the grass meadow which bordered the chestnut woods came the crop, cropping of Andrew's horses grazing greedily, now that the heat of the day had declined. Judith wore a white frock, and had a bunch of somewhat limp-looking ferns in her hand. It was impossible for her to leave the woods without some spoil. Andrew walked by her side, tall and brown, his cap pushed far back upon his head, a measureless content within his eyes. Rufus followed sedately, keeping a wary lookout from the corner of his eye for squirrels and rabbits. Sleepy, white-winged moths were fluttering aimlessly hither and thither amid the grasses, and now and then a bird's call rang through the trees. "Going to church?" said Andrew. "Isn't that a new idea?" "Yes," said Judith, a little wistfully. "Mrs. Morris wants me to, and--I wish I was good." Andrew's face was very tender as he turned towards her. "I don't think you are such a great sinner." She looked at him half happily, half doubtfully. "Well, I'm going anyhow; Mrs. Morris seems so anxious about it." "I'll go, too, then." "Oh, will you?" "Yes." They walked on a few moments in silence; then Andrew said: "Will you sing in church?" "Oh," said Judith, "they'll have singing! I hadn't thought of it. Yes, I'll sing with the rest." Andrew chuckled. "What is it?" demanded Miss Moore, drawing her level brows together in interrogation. "Oh, nothing," said Andrew. "Yes, it is something." "No, really." "You were laughing at me." "No, honestly, I wasn't." "Certain?" Miss Moore looked at him suspiciously. "Come and look at the horses," said Andrew. So they crossed from the path, through the narrow belt of trees to the pasture fence, and presently, in answer to Andrew's calls, the horses came trotting up one by one, standing shyly and sniffing with outstretched noses at Andrew's hand. He crossed the fence into the field and fed them with bunches of grass. Judith looked on longingly. "Could I come over?" she asked doubtfully. "Yes, indeed," he said. "Do." "Turn your back, then." Andrew obeyed promptly, and Miss Moore mounted slowly to the top rail, where she stood uncertainly a moment. It slipped, she gave a little cry, and the next instant Andrew had lifted her lightly down. He held her for a second in his arms; each felt the tremour of the other's heart, and then she was released and was standing trembling by his side. The horses pricked their ears and eyed her nervously, and Andrew gazed down at her with his heart in his eyes. She held out one of her ferns to the horses, shrinking a little closer to Andrew as they drew near to sniff at it with their velvety muzzles. One after another lipped at the fern, but would not take it. "They won't eat that," said Andrew, and his voice was very gentle. "Offer them this." So Judith held out the grass he gave her, catching hold of his sleeve like a child for protection when his big Clydesdale colt stretched out his head towards her. And presently the horses left them one by one, till all were gone except Andrew's clean-limbed bay, upon whose back the wet mark of the saddle was yet visible, for Andrew had ridden into town that afternoon. And Judith grew bolder and patted its soft nose and beautiful neck, and Andrew watching her thought that nowhere, surely nowhere, in all the wide world was there a sweeter woman than this. And he longed to question the universe, if within all its realm there was anything so lovely as the fragile hands which showed so white against Rob Roy's arching neck. The twilight deepened. A little wistful wind rippled through the long meadow-grass. "We must go," said Andrew, "or the dew will wet you." "Oh, it wouldn't hurt me," said Judith. "Better not risk it," said Andrew. So they walked along within the meadow to the gate, Rob Roy following them, every now and then touching Andrew's shoulder with his outstretched nose. He stood whilst the bars were taken down, and whinnied softly as they left him. "What a dear fellow he is," said Judith. They soon reached the Morris house, where Mr. Morris was mending a bridle on the doorstep, and Mrs. Morris in the fading light was busy carrying out a plan to frustrate the assaults of the chickens upon her flower beds: for every chicken in Mrs. Morris's possession seemed inspired with an evil desire to scratch up her seedlings so soon as she transplanted them from the boxes in the kitchen to the beds in front of the house. So between the rows of balsams and marigolds and amongst the ruby-stemmed seedlings of the prince's feather, Mrs. Morris had stuck in bits of shingles. "There," said Mrs. Morris, straightening herself after plunging her last piece into the earth. "There! I guess them chickens has got their work cut out for them before they root out them plants. They do seem to be possessed by evil speerits, them chickens! That's the third planting of marigolds, and what prince's feather there is left is only what sowed itself last year and came up late. My sakes! wasn't it hot in town to-day, Andrew?" "Yes," said Andrew, from where he stood leaning against the porch. Judith was standing by Mrs. Morris, looking at the flower beds where each little seedling was surrounded by a palisade of narrow strips of shingle. Mrs. Morris brought out some chairs, and they sat talking in the dusk while the summer moon grew out of the horizon, and slowly, slowly sailed aloft, paling as it attained its height, till from a glowing disk of yellow it changed to a shadowless silver shield. "Won't you sing to us, Miss Moore?" asked Andrew. "Yes, do," urged Mrs. Morris. "What will I sing!" asked Judith, but without waiting for an answer began. She sang an Italian love-song, a masterpiece of passion and pain--sang it as perhaps no living woman could sing it, making music in such fashion that the hearts of her hearers were melted within them, voicing in it all the timorous new joy, the half-happy fears that filled her heart, with somewhat of the poignant pathos of renunciation. Some one says, "Music is the counterpart of life in spirit speech," and it would seem that in one perfect song there may be condensed all the emotion of life and love, all the pathos of pain and parting. As the song died away Andrew gave a long sigh. The pleasure of such music ofttimes prolongs itself to pain. Perhaps it was some recognition of the great value of Judith's gift of song, perhaps it was because she sang familiarly an unknown tongue that made Andrew suddenly feel the chill of a great gulf fixed between them. The arms which had held her for a moment in the pasture-field yearned with ineffable longing for a joy denied them. But Judith was singing again, "The Angels' Serenade," one of the loveliest things ever written. When she finished there was a silence. Mrs. Morris' hard-worked hands were clasped tremblingly together, tears were streaming over her face, her heart was yearning towards the little mounds in the unkempt churchyard. "Hannah," said her grey-haired husband, laying his hand upon her shoulder. Their eyes met. That was all; but dumbly they had shared the cup of their sorrow. A bitter communion, one would say, yet good to make strong the spirit, as the bitter barks strengthen the body. And a few minutes later Mrs. Morris slipped away into the house, perhaps to open that shrine where were hidden some tiny half-worn garments, perhaps out of sympathy for the two young people who might wish to be alone; and when Judith began to sing again, she and Andrew were alone, for Mr. Morris, with lumbering attempts at caution, had followed his wife. Andrew's heart was aching with inexplicable pain. Judith was singing an old theme, composed long since by some frocked and cowled musician, whose rigid vows and barren life could not quite suppress the dream of music within his soul. It was a simple and austere melody, yet endued with a peculiar pathos, the yearning of a defrauded life for the joy that should have crowned it, the regret of a barren present for a fruitful past, the wail of the must be for the might have been. And as she sang, the gulf which Andrew had perceived between them widened into a great black sea, across which her voice came to him where he stood alone forever upon the shore; and just as the pain grew too poignant to be borne, a bat darted near them, Judith gave a frightened cry and fled to his side, and the gulf was bridged in a second by a strong strand knit of a woman's foolish fear and a man's reassuring word. And soon a light shone down from an upstairs window. Judith started up. "You must go straight away home," she said, "Mrs. Morris has gone to her room." "Come as far as the gate with me," said Andrew, and she went. But after they had talked a moment Judith remembered the bats, so, of course, Andrew had to take her back to the porch in safety. At length he was forced to go, so with a last "good-night," and a last long look into her eyes, he strode away to his home on the hill. The leaves of the chestnut trees were rustling in uncertain flaws of wind; the crickets were creaking eerily from out the darkness; the fields, all pearled with dew, shimmered in the moonlight. It was a solitary hour. But Andrew's heart was light within his breast; Judith's eyes had been very sweet when she said "Good-night." And Judith climbed the blue-painted wooden stairs to her little corner-room, and lay long awake, forgetting the promise of her great future, forgetting the efforts of the past, forgetting the debt she owed her manager, only knowing that she loved and was beloved again, only recalling the eyes this brown young farmer had bent upon her, only remembering the tender strength of his arms, as, for a moment, they had encircled her. A simple dream this? Perhaps. But let such a vision once weave itself into the fabric of a life, and all else will seem poor and mean beside it. It was a beautiful sunshiny Sunday as Judith stood in the porch waiting for Mrs. Morris, who presently appeared, clad in a black calico with white spots on it, black silk gloves and a bonnet with a purple flower. Judith had dressed herself in a little frock of pale green linen, and her face bloomed like a rose above it. Her hat and parasol were of the same cool tint as her frock, and as the walk in the sunshine flushed her cheeks with unaccustomed colour, she looked much like a sweet pink flower set in green leaves; at least, so Andrew thought when he saw her entering the church beside Mrs. Morris. The Methodist church was slowly filling with women and children. Sam Symmons' Suse had just gone in, and the Misses Green were but a few yards behind. The men in Ovid had an evil habit of standing along the sides of the churches talking whilst the first hymn was being sung; and frequently, if there was any particularly interesting topic on hand, till the first prayer was offered. In winter the sunny side was chosen; in summer they availed themselves of the scanty shade afforded by the slanting eaves, standing, their heads and shoulders in shadow, their freshly polished shoes glistening in the sun, their jaws moving rhythmically as they chewed their wads of "black strap." A remark made at one end of the row percolated slowly to the other, each man judicially revolving it in his mind and voicing his opinion in deliberate nasal tones. "Lord, a little band and lowly, We have come to worship thee, Thou art great and high and holy, Oh! how solemn we should be." So the women and children sang inside, accompanied by a wheezy melodeon. They heightened the effect by emphasizing the adjectives strongly and singing "soll_um_" with great unanimity in the last line. Andrew listened for Judith's voice, but evidently she had concluded not to sing. Andrew was disappointed. He had been looking forward in high glee to watching the amazement of his neighbours when they heard that marvellous voice. The truth was, Judith had not seen him where he stood beside the church, and was too busy looking about surreptitiously to see if he had fulfilled his promise about coming, to think of the singing either one way or the other. And when she saw Miss Myers sitting stiffly alone in the corner of a pew near the front, her heart sank like lead, and all her happy eagerness over the service departed. She was piqued, too, and began to feel a nasty heartache stirring within her breast. The singing was over. An interspace of quiet betokened to those outside that the prayer was in progress, and a rustling of leaves and settling of dresses proclaimed the fact that the preacher and his congregation wore ready for the serious business of the day, the proceedings up to this point being tacitly regarded as the preliminary canter before the weekly contest with Original Sin, that dark horse which, ridden by that knowing jockey, Opportunity, wins so many races for the Evil One. At this juncture the men came in one by one, each trying to look as uninterested in his neighbours as possible, to give the impression that this influx of the male element was purely accidental and not the result of concerted movement. It is somewhat doubtful if this impression was conveyed to the preacher, as the same circumstance had occurred every Sunday since he had been there; and certainly it deluded none of the women, who, well aware of the gossiping tendencies of their men, never held themselves at the approved "attention" attitude till this stage in the proceedings, but who then waxed marvellously stiff as to posture, and marvellously meek as to expression. When Judith looked up next time, it was to meet two eager, grey eyes looking at her from Miss Myers' pew, and all at once the incipient heartache vanished, a calm of sweet content fell upon her spirit. She looked around, and apprehended all the poignant blending of pathos and absurdity about her. Her eyes softened as they fell upon old Sam Symmons' hard-wrought hands resting on the top of his stout stick, and lighted as she saw Tommy Slick's rose and white face and impish eyes showing above the door of a centre pew. Her tender eyes sought out and read the story of the deep-lined faces about her, and a great pity for their narrow lives filled her. The sermon was just begun when the green baize door swung back a little, and an investigating dog entered. He was one of those nosing, prying, peering dogs which seem to typify so exactly the attitude of some people towards their neighbours' affairs. He peregrinated through the pews, around the melodeon, up and down the aisle, and then turned his canine attention to the preacher's reading desk. The preacher became manifestly uneasy; all his sensitiveness slowly centred in his heels, round which the dog sniffed. Judith, whose sense of the humorous was painfully acute, gave one glance at Andrew, and then became absorbed in trying to control her laughter. The dog still lingered where he was. The preacher's face was flushed; his words faltered. Every one felt that some one else should do something. At length, after many significant gestures and nudges from his wife, Hiram Green rose and approached the dog with outstretched hand, rubbing his fingers together in the manner which we imagine impresses a dumb animal with a deep sense of pacific intentions. The dog backed away. Hiram followed as the dog retreated. It paused, wagging its tail doubtfully. Hiram sat down on his toes and patted his knee in a wheedling manner with one hand, whilst with the other he made ready to grasp his prey. The dog came a little nearer. Hiram grasped--but grasped short; his fingers met on empty air, and he nearly overbalanced. For the moment he had the wild feeling a person experiences when a rocking-chair goes over with him--a sort of gasping clutch at _terra firma_. Judith was nearly in tears from agonies of suppressed laughter, knowing, as she did, that Andrew was waiting to catch her eye. That, she felt, would finish matters so far as she was concerned; a sense of companionship makes one's appreciation of a joke painfully intense. Hiram was conscious that the Sunday School in the gallery was red with suppressed excitement; that his neighbours' interest in the sermon was purely perfunctory; he even had a horrible thought that the preacher himself was laughing at him. In this he was wrong; the preacher was nearly distracted, having lost the thread of his sermon, and was maundering wildly on, hoping to disentangle his argument before Hiram caught the dog. Hiram, grown desperate, added to his alluring gestures the blandishment of half-voiced words, which sounded like "Poor dog," "Good dog," but which meant, "You infernal brute." The dog succumbed at length, its last suspicions allayed by this specious use of the gift it did not possess, and presently the congregation was edified by seeing Hiram, flushed, but with an expression of great loving-kindness, carry the dog gently down the aisle. Slowly and softly Hiram carried him until near the door, when circumstances made him accelerate his speed, for the dog was Tommy Slick's Nip, a shiny, smooth-coated dog, and Hiram's hold was gradually slipping. He had an unpleasant but confident premonition that the dog would reach for him, as dogs are prone to do, when his fingers got to the tender spot beneath the forepaws. However, he reached and passed the baize door in safety, and in the second which followed, the congregation, with the sigh with which one relinquishes an acme of intense and pleasurable excitement, turned its attention to the preacher. At that moment there came a shrill and ear-splitting yelp. Hiram had taken the dog to the top of the steps, and applied his foot in the manner most likely to speed the parting guest. Hiram entered and took his place with a very red face. He felt dimly that the yelp was a criticism upon the smile with which he carried the dog out. To Hiram that sermon did not tend to edification. That particular Sunday was a memorable one in Ovid. The congregation had just gathered itself together after the incident of the dog, when the preacher announced the hymn. It was one of the few really beautiful hymns, "Lead, kindly Light." Judith rose to sing with the rest, and with the second word her voice joined with the others, dominating them as the matin song of the lark might pierce through the chatter of sparrows along the eaves. When Judith opened her lips to sing, music possessed her, and, a true artiste to her finger-tips, she never sang carelessly. Absorbed in her book--for she did not know the words--she sang on. The people looked and wondered, and one by one the voices died away, the wheezy notes of the melodeon faltered forth from beneath the second Miss Green's uncertain fingers, and Judith sang on serenely, standing erect, her head held high, her soft throat throbbing like a bird's. Outside the air was golden with yellow sunshine, within it was cool and darkened. A rift of light slanted through the closed shutters of the window near which Judith stood; thousands of little motes danced in it, specks and gleams of gold. Through the open windows there came the odour of dried grass, and every now and then a flaw of wind brought a whiff from Oscar Randall's field of white clover. Andrew had laughed in the meadow as he thought of Judith's voice electrifying the people in the church, but he had forgotten that he himself was not secure against its charm. Laughter was far from his thoughts now. "Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead thou me on. The night is dark, and I am far from home; Lead thou me on." The words, upborne upon the wings of matchless song, seemed to soar far beyond the confines of the little church, taking with them the inarticulate trust and hope and confidence of all these humble folk. The preacher sat looking at her, pale and entranced. This singing seemed suddenly to open a long-closed door in his life, so that once more he looked down that chimerical vista from out the misty distances of which illusive hands beckoned him on to brighter things. He had once dreamed of a loftier destiny than the life of a Methodist preacher, but that was long past; still it was sweet to recall so vividly the season when his spirit had wings. He sat before his congregation, a tall, spare man, large of bone and awkward, with a countenance upon which self-denial had graven deep cruel lines, a brow that had weathered many bitter blasts. In type he was near allied to the people before him, the last man, one would fancy, whom dreams would visit. And yet, as he listened to this stranger girl, singing alone in the midst of his congregation, there fell deeply upon him the trance of dead delight; the simple panorama of his past spread itself before his eyes, blotting out the faces before him as a shimmering mist obscures an unlovely scene. It was a very simple vision, a "homespun dream of simple folk." He saw a rosy-cheeked village girl, for whose sake he as a village lad had worked and toiled and slaved. He had fought for education and success that he might lay them at her feet. He had kept her waiting long. She was only a poor, pretty girl, and she had other lovers. One night, when her lover in a garret in the city was poring over his books, his head aching, his heart faltering, yet persevering as much for her sake as for the sake of his faith, she, driving home from a dance through dewy lanes and softly-shadowed country roads, promised to marry the farmer's son who was taking her home. The news reached him in his garret, and something flickered out of his face which never shone there again. But with the tenacity of his race he stuck to his work. His heart was in the green fields always, and he had come from a long line of country men and women. He had no inherited capacity for learning, but he got through his course somehow, and became an accredited minister, and the day he was ordained the news of her death reached him, and that was all. He had never censured her; in his thoughts she had ever been an angel of sweetness and goodness, and as Judith sang, all these things rushed back upon his heart. It was with a very white face and a very soft voice that he rose to address his people, and he spoke home to their hearts, for he knew whereof he spake when he dealt with the pains and trials and troubles of their lives. He was only the height of his platform removed from them, and he had paid dearly for his paltry elevation, but from its height he saw, far off perhaps, but clear, the shining of a great light, and with ineloquent, slow speech he strove to translate its glory and its promise to the people before him. Church was over; the people pressed slowly along the aisle into the palpitant warmth of the summer afternoon. Miss Myers came up to Judith when she stood for a moment at the door, and invited her to go home with them to the house on the hill, and Judith, nothing loath, consented. So presently she and Andrew, with Miss Myers, were walking through the slumberous little streets of the village. As they drew near the house of Bill Aikins, they caught sight of him sitting on the doorstep peeling potatoes, beads of perspiration upon his brow, for he was suffering sorely from Kate's weekly infliction of a white shirt. Bill had "a little wee face, with a little yellow beard, a Cain-coloured beard," and usually wore a deprecatory smile upon his countenance. He was possessed of a perfect temper, and whatever his lot might seem to others, to himself it was all that could be desired. To be the husband of such a woman, could man desire a better fate? And, indeed, Kate Aikins was a fine-looking woman, tall and straight. Old Sam Symmons often said she was a "gallant figure of a woman." As they passed the house they heard Kate's voice sounding shrilly from within: "He did _what_! Weighed the paper with the cheese? And you stood by and never said a word? I'll be bound! Well, 'a fool and his money is soon parted.' There's truth in them old sayings yet. The idea of you being scared to speak to Hi. Green and him cheating you before your very face! Land sakes! What's he I wonder? Next time you go to buy cheese you take paper with you. He asks enough for the cheese without paying for paper." As they got beyond hearing, Judith's face burned out of sympathy for Bill's embarrassment. However, Bill was in nowise troubled. He knew his wife would be quite as ready to express herself towards any one else in the village as to himself, and a philosophy born of that reflection entirely prevented Bill from feeling in any degree abashed by strangers enjoying his wife's eloquence. It was only two days since she had announced to him with much satisfaction that she had "just told Sarah Myers what she thought of her," and she had expressed a longing desire of late to have a five minutes' talk with Andrew Cutler, relative to some supposed slight he had put upon her. The whole village was well aware of many instances of Bill's discomfiture when Kate first married him and undertook his reformation. There was the day when Bill, well on towards being thoroughly drunk, was returning home down the village street, walking carelessly through the deep slush of early spring. Kate met him. She, if truth be told, was on the lookout for him, having despatched him more than two hours before to get some starch from the store. Between waiting for the starch and waiting for Bill, Kate was wroth when she opened the door to begin her search. By an unlucky chance, her first step took her over the ankles in icy slush, which, strange to say, instead of cooling her wrath, raised it to white heat. Therefore, when she, carefully picking her way up one side of the street, beheld Bill advancing down the other, regardless of mud and slush, she paused in disgust, until he was nearly opposite to her, and then ejaculated in a tone of deepest disbelief in her own vision--"Bill! is that you?" "No," promptly replied Bill, "nor nobody like me either;" with which the valiant Bill had resumed his way, feeling proud that he had not only dismissed certainty but even suspicion of his identity from Kate's mind. Before long he was a sadder and for the nonce, a wiser man, for Kate reached home as soon as he did, and thereupon gave him to understand in a very unmistakable way that he was her property and she knew it. All Ovid remembered this, and indeed could not well forget it, for every wash-day, when starch naturally cropped up as one of the circumstances attendant upon the event of washing, Kate might have been heard by any passer-by giving Bill a full and dramatic account of the occurrence, with preface upon drunkenness in general, and appendix upon Bill's phases of the vice in particular, and copious addenda, of contempt, contumely and vituperation. Bill listened, marvelling and admiring, for her flow of language was a great source of pride to Bill, albeit directed at himself. Indeed, he sacrificed his comfort willingly to enjoy the mental treat her angry eloquence afforded him. There had been times, however, when Kate's lessons had taken a more practical and infinitely less entertaining form. It was one of these which effected Bill's final reformation. The memory of it brought smiles to the lips of Ovidians, young or old, whenever they met Bill. With all good managers in Ovid, it is the custom to salt down a small barrel of herrings in autumn. These they buy from their fisherman neighbours for a dollar per hundred. Now Kate, who was certainly, as even her enemies admitted, a forehanded woman, sent Bill with a silver dollar, to get her a hundred herrings, one day when the proper season came around. With this Bill duly proceeded to the fishermen, paid his dollar and got his herrings. As he turned to go, Sam Turner shouted an invitation to him to come down at night and have a share of the beer which was to be on tap at the Upper Fishing Station. Bill assented and went his way. After his six o'clock supper, he told Kate he was going to get his saw sharpened at the blacksmith shop, and so set out. He left the saw at the blacksmith's, then smartened his pace along the street, down the steep incline to the river's edge, carefully along the river path until he disappeared into the fisherman's little hut. The door was closed, then Bill, Sam Turner, and some half-dozen others gathered round the keg of smuggled beer, and all went merry as the traditional wedding bell. About half-past eleven, Bill and the others emerged. The cask was empty--their condition the antithesis of the cask's. Lurching, stumbling, falling, sliding along the river path; scrambling, crawling, climbing up the banks to the level, then along the street to Bill's home. All this took time, and it was the hour when ghosts do walk ere they neared Bill's door. A dim light gleamed in the window. "Beacon tha' lights me home, boys," said Bill, who, having passed the transitory phases of moroseness and pugnaciousness, to the higher state of tears and courage, had now reached the acme of sentiment and drunkenness simultaneously, and was ready, as he expressed several times on the way up the bank in a voice which came from different attitudes, as the speaker stood upright, crept, or lay flat, "To kish Kate and fight for the country b'gosh." Bill and his friends approached the door. Bill gently tried it. It was locked, so Bill said. They each tried it in turn, and each pronounced it locked in a voice betokening a strange and new discovery. They each knocked in turn--silence. They each kicked in turn--silence. Then Bill said in a lordly way, "Kate, open the door!" adding in an aside to his fellows, "I'll forgive her, kish her, make her happy." Then again, "Kate, open the door!" Kate did open the door, with such abrupt and unexpected suddenness that Bill, standing before it, balanced back on his heels and raised his outspread hands. His _confreres_ were preparing to make back-stays of themselves to brace Bill up, when Kate's hand and arm reached forth, and, with one single movement, as Sam Turner afterwards graphically described her action, "yanked" Bill into the house and slammed the door. There was silence for a moment, followed by a slow sliding sound. His late companions surrounded the two uncurtained windows and prepared to watch events. Bill had slowly slid down, until he was now in a sitting posture on the floor, with his back against the door. Kate had vanished; she soon entered from the back of the house bringing two pails of water, with which she proceeded deliberately to give Bill a cold bath. Bill said several times in a weak voice, "Kish me, Kate," but Kate, preserving an admirable silence, continued the deluge until Bill, with some show of sobriety and nimbleness, arose. By this time the water was pouring out beneath the door, and the watchers outside were shivering sympathetically. As Bill rose, he certainly looked miserable enough to excite pity, even in Kate's heart; but the worst was not yet. Disregarding the water streaming on the floor, Kate proceeded to arrange two chairs, with an accompaniment of cloths, knives, salt, and a small keg. Lastly, she produced two baskets of herrings. It was now evident to the horrified watchers that her dire purpose was to make Bill clean, wash, and salt down the hundred herrings then and there. And such was the case. The watchers stayed until eyes and limbs were weary, and then crept away awe-struck at the terrors of matrimony, and deeply impressed by Kate's moral supremacy. And Bill worked and worked. His hand was unsteady, and his blood flowed freely from numerous cuts to mingle with the herrings. He scraped and scraped, and bedaubed himself with scales. He salted and salted, and the salt bit his many cuts. But Kate was inexorable. Every herring was cleaned, scaled, washed, salted and packed, and the _débris_ thoroughly cleaned up before the miserable, white-faced, repentant Bill was allowed to rest, and during it all Kate talked and talked and talked. From that night Bill was a changed man, and his admiration for Kate became more than ever pronounced. Every time one of those herring appeared on the table, Kate gave Bill a _résumé_ of the whole affair, with variations upon her theme, which her vivid and fertile imagination suggested. After the herrings were finished, she revived the subject whenever the names of any of those with him that night, fish, the river, or the fishing station were mentioned. These were the regular cogent subjects. But any reference to salted meats, cold water, late hours, etc., was very apt to draw forth a like narration, so that a day rarely passed without Bill's memory being refreshed thus, which was indeed a work of supererogation, for Bill never forgot it. Andrew and Miss Myers recited many such tales for Judith's edification as they walked up to the Cutler house, and whilst they sat at table. But later on, when Miss Myers hastened off to count the eggs which had been brought in, to see if her chickens were properly fed, and to generally look after the ways of her household, the talk fell into other channels. Andrew and Judith talked seriously, looking into each other's eyes with no veil upon their own, each drinking deeply of the peaceful rapture of the hour. The scents from the old garden filled their nostrils, the breath from the box diffused through the other odours a thread of fresh bitterness, savouring them from satiety. A great clematis hung at one side of the porch, the deep green of its leaves set close with purple stars. Upon the other side a Tartarean honeysuckle was covered with coral-coloured buds. Far off in one corner they could see a blur of gold where the thorny Scotch roses were a mass of bloom. They sat long talking, and presently Miss Myers came round the corner of the house with her dress tucked up about her and the servant girl following with water pails; and soon the scent of fresh moist earth was mingled with the fragrance of the flowers. Rufus lay at their feet, looking up at them with wistful, hazel eyes. It was a simple scene, yet in it was being enacted a drama of delight. There is no sweeter time in a woman's life than the first hours of a mutual love ere speech has profaned it. Judith was having her halcyon hour now, and she rejoiced in it with sweet natural happiness. The memory of her greatness had all but faded from her memory; now and then from sleep's horizon it pointed a threatening finger at her; now and then in morning dreams she recalled it vaguely, the wraith of a not unhappy season. But she had no fear of it. Her only apprehension was that she had misread the message in Andrew's ardent eyes, and that fear only lived when they were apart, for, as she welcomed him upon the old weather-beaten doorstep, where the spent petals of the loose-leaved climbing roses lay, blots of crimson on the grey, or bade him farewell at the gate where the white syringas surrounded them with the odour of orange blossoms, she found in his eyes the strength and blessing of a deep and perfect love. CHAPTER IX. "Now, if this earthly love has power to make Men's being mortal, immortal; to shake Ambitions from their memories, and brim Their measure of content: what merest whim Seems all this poor endeavour after fame." One day Judith, who had been in the village, went up to see Miss Myers. It was intensely warm. To the eye the air seemed to quiver with heat; a brazen sun shone in a cloudless sky; the birds were still; nature was dumb; the only sounds which broke the stillness were echoes of enforced toil. As Judith walked along the lanes, now grown deep in grass, the fragrance of over-ripe clover came to her in waves of satiating sweetness. The birds she startled uttered no cry, but flew heavily to some near perch and sat there languidly, with feathers ruffled on their little heads, their tiny bills apart as if they gasped for breath, their wings drooping loosely with parted feathers at their sides. When she reached the house on the hill, she went straight through the hall to the kitchen, for she had long ago been given the liberty of the house. Miss Myers bustled up with grim kindness, took away her hat, made her sit by the window, and brought her a great cool goblet of raspberry syrup in water. It was very cool in this big kitchen. The windows were heavily hung with Virginian Creeper, and the stove was in the summer kitchen. Rufus lay stretched in one corner, his ears flapping as he snatched irascibly at a tormenting fly. Miss Myers had been a little upset when Judith entered, and she proceeded to tell Judith her worries. She had come out to inspect the kitchen work, and found her milk pans set out without their bunches of grass. "A silly notion of Sarah Myers," the Ovid women called it, but it was a dainty one nevertheless--one Miss Myers' mother and mother's mother had always observed, since ever the first Myers left the meadows of Devon. This notion was that all summer long Miss Myers insisted that the polished milk pans, when set out to sweeten in the sun, should each have a bunch of fresh grass or clover put in it, to wither in the pan. She declared it gave sweetness and flavour to the milk. Miss Myers had many dainty ways in her house-keeping. The glossy linen sheets were laid away with clusters of sweet clover in their folds. Her snowy blankets were packed with cedar sprigs. Her table linen was fragrant all summer with the stolen perfume of violets or rose leaves strewn with them in the linen drawer. And in the winter there were twigs of lemon thyme and lemon verbena there, carefully dried for that purpose. "All notions," the villagers said contemptuously, adding something about old maids. Nevertheless, these notions savoured the whole household with sweetness, and seemed to add beauty to the more prosaic details of every-day work. Since Judith had come so frequently to the house, there had always been flowers upon the dining table and in the parlour, and in the big dim bedroom. Hot as it was, Miss Myers was ready to go out and patrol the garden, which, subdued beneath the sun's caresses, lay exhaling a hundred varied scents. The tall white lilies were in bloom at last, ineffably lovely, with golden hearts and petals whose edges were silvery in the sunshine. When Andrew returned at night from his fields, his strong face a little weary, his eyes restless and eager, the first sight that met his vision was Judith Moore,--Judith, in a simple dark blue frock, standing in the doorway of his home, and looking--he dared hope--for him. She looked so consonant with the old house and the flowerful garden that Andrew felt no other presence in the world would have completed the picture so well. How sweet to see a woman waiting there for him! Even as he had dreamed. He stood some time and watched her, himself unobserved. How sweet and calm her face was--yet anticipative, content--yet eager! He looked at her long across the narrow space from where he stood, and in after days recalled her untroubled beauty very clearly. He tried to note in detail the form of her features, but he could only think of her faithful eyes, the beauty of her honest smile, the promise of her mouth, with the deep hollow between the lower lip and the dimpled hillock of her chin, which is, they say, the truest indication of a woman's capacity for real love, just as heavy eyelids denote modesty, and thin nostrils delicacy of the senses. Some sympathy, some subtle mental influence, made Judith flush and look about her. Andrew slipped around the corner of the house, to come behind her in a few minutes rid of the day's dust. He touched her gently on the shoulder. She started, yet laughed. "I knew you were coming," she said; "I did not hear you, but I was certain of it." After tea, they three (for Judith felt shy of Andrew to-night, and clung to Miss Myers, and gently compelled her to step forth with them) walked up and down the garden walks. The flowers, their fragrance freshened by the dew, flung forth their odours royally. The birds, revived by the coolness, were singing their deferred songs. An oriole's liquid note was answered from the lindens; the robins were flying about from tree to tree with happy confidence; some Phoebe birds were fluttering about the porch; sparrows were wrangling in the box; a humming-bird was darting from bed to bed; emerald-throated, ruby-crested, it vibrated from flower to flower, itself like an animated vagrant blossom; the swallows were darting in long, graceful flights high in air, or soaring in slanting circles over the barns, where their nests were; now and then, flying slowly homeward, a crow crossed their vision, a shadow on the sky. The heavy toads hopped lumberingly forth from their hiding-places to search for slugs; a tree toad gave its shrill call from a cedar tree. Andrew had once shown Judith one, clinging like a lichen to the bark, and of much the same greyish-green colour. The crickets sang shrilly and sweetly, like boy sopranos in a vestured choir; the frogs, in a far-off pond, added their unfinished notes to Nature's vespers; bats flew silently and weirdly overhead. "Do you know what the frogs say?" asked Andrew of Judith. "No; what?" she asked, looking up so eagerly, so trustingly, that a smile twitched the corners of his mouth, even as he longed to gather her in his arms. "The little frogs with the shrill voices say, 'Cut across! cut across! cut across!' The wise old frogs, the big ones, with the bass voices, say, 'Go round! go round! go round!'" Judith listened, her eyes big with interest. "Why, so they do," she said, and looked at him as at a wizard revealing a mystery. Miss Myers laughed, her grimness tempered by a tear. "Tell her about the mill-pond frogs, Andrew," she said. "Oh, well, the frogs in the mill-pond over beyond Ovid, used to say, 'Old Andy Anderson is a thief! Old Andy Anderson is a thief!' and no one paid any attention; but after a while people found out he was cheating them, not giving them the proper weight of flour, and so on, for their grists. Then they found the frogs were telling the truth." "Mr. Cutler," said Judith, "did people know what the frogs said before they found out that the miller stole?" "Well," admitted Andrew, laughing a little, "I don't believe they did." In the instance of the mill-pond frogs the oracle was fitted to the event, as it has been in other cases. Later the dusk fell, and the moon slowly soared aloft; a midsummer moon, indescribably lovely; such a moon as is seen once in a lifetime--pale, perfect, lustrous as frosted silver, white as unsmirched snow, seeming to be embossed upon the sky. Such a moon haunted Keats, inspired Shelley, whispered a suggestion of kinship to Philip Sidney, and long, long ago, shone upon the Avon. And beneath this moon, intense as white flame, pure as a snow crystal, Judith Moore and Andrew Cutler began their walk to the farmhouse by the wood. Judith held her skirts gathered up about her from the dew; she was bareheaded, her broad hat hanging on her arm. They had to pass along a path deep shadowed in trees. Judith started nervously at some sound; that start vibrated to Andrew's heart. He drew her arm within his, and Judith walked dreamily on, feeling secure against the world and all its fears. They emerged into the moonlight, and stopped where Andrew had constructed a rude stile over the rail fence, for Judith's convenience. Their eyes met in the moonlight, each knew the hour had come, and the heart of each leaped to its destiny. "Judith," said Andrew, very softly. "Yes," she whispered. "What is the sweetest time in all the world?" She paused a moment; then, as a flower bends to the sun, as a flame follows the air, she swayed slowly towards him. "Now," she breathed, her heart in the word. And the next moment she was in his arms; their lips had met. From the shadows of the wood they had passed came the silvery call of the cat-bird that sings to the moon--and they two had drunk of "life's great cup of wonder;" only a sip perhaps, but their mouths had touched the golden brim, their lips had been dipped in its priceless nectar (the true nectar of the fabled gods!) and their nostrils had known the sweets of its ineffable perfume. So they stood, heart to heart. All that the world comprehended for Andrew was now in the circle of his arms. And Judith? All her world throbbed in Andrew's breast. And for both there was no other universe but the heaven of their mutual love,--a heaven shut in and hedged about by two strong tender arms; a heaven sustained by two hands that fluttered pleadingly upon Andrew's breast. Not strong hands these, but strong enough to hold in safe-keeping the treasure-trove of a good man's love! And their talk? Well, there are some sacred old-fashioned words, tender words, such as our fathers whispered to our mothers long ago, such as _their_ fathers, and their fathers' fathers, wooed and won their wives with, such as their wives whispered back with trembling lips--these words passed between Andrew and Judith. We all dream these words. Some few happy ones hear them; some brave true souls have spoken them; and from some of us even their echo has departed, to be merged in unending silence. So we will not write them here. And at last they parted. Andrew strode slowly homeward, his face glorified, stopping now and then to fancy he held her once more against his breast, feeling again the fragrance of her hair, hearing in the happy throbs of his heart her trembling words saying that she loved him. _Loved him_! The mystery and magic of its meaning wrought into his heart, until it seemed too small to hold its store of joy. He took off his cap in the moonlight, and looked to the heavens a voiceless aspiration to be worthy. And well might Andrew Cutler bare his brow, for there had been given into his hands the holiest chalice man's lips know, the heart of a good woman! Well might Judith Moore, in a burst of happy tears, vow vows to be worthy, resolving to be better, stronger, nobler, for she had been given that great gift for which, we are told, thanks should be rendered, fasting--the gift of a good man's love! * * * * * * "MY DEAR MASTER,--After all, you see, I am the one to write first, and I am afraid you will be very angry when you read my letter. But I hope you will forgive me. I will tell you now, at once, what it is, and while you read my letter try to forget I am Judith Moore the opera singer, and remember only that I am a woman first and foremost. And a woman needs love, and I have found it, and cannot bear to give it up, as I must, if I come back to you--to the stage. So, will you set me free? Will you let me stay here? Will you let me stop singing and be forgotten? I know how dreadful this will seem to you, how ungrateful I will appear, how ignoble to give up my art for what you will call 'a passion'; but oh, dear master! you cannot know all this is to me, this love. It is _everything_, health, happiness, hope, all. And it is not that I have forgotten your gifts; indeed, indeed, no. It is that I am so sure of your great generosity, that I want you to be still more generous; to add one more gift, the supreme one. For in spite of what I've said it all rests in your hands. I know what you have spent on me, in money alone, besides your continual thought for me. I know how patient you have been, letting me save my voice till it was mature and strong. I know you will have horrible forfeits to pay on the lease of the opera house, and then all the chorus on your hands, and the terrible advertising for this American season. I know the horrible _fiasco_ it will seem to the public, and how your jealous rivals will make capital out of the mythical _prima donna_ who did not materialize. But all this is the price of a woman's whole life, the purchase money of a life's happiness. Will you help pay it? For I will do what I can. There is the money you gave me after the Continental season. It is untouched; take that. And there are my jewels--all these gifts, you know--in the vault. I send you the order for those. And the man I love may be richer yet, and I will say to him, 'I owe a dear friend a debt,' and you shall have, year by year, all we can send. Does it not seem that in time I might make it up? And the artistic disappointment you feel, oh, master! To lose my art seems indeed a crucifixion to me, but in that there is hope of resurrection. To lose my love would be unending death. "I know myself well now. I am a woman full-grown within these last weeks, and even as I write I know that I will have many bitter regrets, many sad hours thinking of my music; but what are these hours compared with an unceasing pain such as will be mine if you say no to my dream? Of course, I know I am bound to you by no contract; but the confidence you have shown in me binds me with a firmer bond, and if you feel you cannot release me I will do my best, my very best to realize your hopes. You know I am honourable enough for that. But one thing, dear master, I lay upon you. If you come for me, taking me away from my happiness, remember never to speak to me of it, never refer to this letter, never tell me your reasons for refusing the boon I crave from you on my knees. If I see you I shall know I have asked too much, and that it has been denied me. There is but one thing more. The man, my man, is utterly ignorant of my money value. He sees in me only a woman to love, take care of, and work for. He does not know that I can earn more in a week than he in years. He realizes most keenly the beauty of music, but he does not know what it brings in the markets of the world. I would ask him to let me sing, but I know well that such singing as mine demands the consecration of all; when I sell my voice, the body, the heart, the soul goes with it, all subordinated to the voice. That would not do. He has given all, he must and shall have all in return, all I have to give, or nothing. He knows me only as a woman who came here for rest, quiet and health; he does not dream my name is billed about the city on coloured posters, talked of as a common possession by every one--does not know the papers are full of my doings or intentions. So you see it is myself he loves. And now, master, this is good-bye. Good-bye to you and the old life, which, before I knew any better, seemed the best of all. I hope I may some time see you again, but not till I can greet you without too great joy in my release, without too keen pain for my music. "Send me a line and tell me I am free, and believe me, ever and ever, Judith Moore, your own grateful little girl. "P.S.--I have said nothing of my gratitude to you, but this letter means that or nothing. Means that I am so sensible of what I owe to you that I will give up my very life showing you that I do not forget your long-continued kindness. J. M." This was the letter the post took away from Ovid next morning, a letter written not without tears. * * * * * * After the music of the gods has once been breathed through a Pipe, it is never quite content to echo common sounds, not even if its heart be given back to it, and it be born again a growing reed among its fellows; even if it echoes back the soughing of the summer wind, and is never torn by the tempest; even if it grows continually in the sunshine, and never bends its head beneath the blast; even if it be crowned with brown tassels, and all men call it beautiful. It still has the hungry longing, the dissatisfied yearning, the pain that comes of remembered greatness, even if that greatness was bought at bitter cost. The true gods may well "Sigh for the cost and pain, For the reed which grows never more again As a reed with the reeds in the river." For that pain is poignant, and perhaps more of us endure it than is imagined. It may be, these inexplicable yearnings of our souls for some vague good, these bitter times when not even life seems sweet, these regrets for what we have not known, for what we think we have never been, for what is not, these may be dim memories from ages back, from the times when the voices of the gods spake through men, and men gave heed to them, and, unmindful of their own personal pain, proclaimed to man the messages of the gods. And though this birthright brings pain with it, yet we, growing like other reeds, and proud as they of our brown tassels, or sorrowing, like them, for our lack, are proud also to know that of our kind the gods chose their instruments for the making known of their music to men. The yearning for the divine breath may be better borne than the cruel _afflatus_ it imparts, and yet we are glad that once we were not unworthy to be so tried, and not all rejoiced that the keener pain, the higher honour, is taken from us. * * * * * * Sometimes before a great storm an illusive hush holds sway, a perilous peace falls upon the face of nature. With it, a mysterious light irradiates the sky; a solemn sunshine, prophetic of after rains, the forerunner of tempest--a luminous warning of wrath to come. In some such fashion surely the face of the angel shone when he, as the writers of tales tell us, drove our parents out of Paradise. It was this illusory illumination that gilded the lives of Judith Moore and Andrew Cutler at this time. How few of us read the rain behind the radiance! They were both happy. As a parched plant vibrates in all its leaves, stirs and quickens when given water that means life to it, so Judith Moore's whole being trembled beneath its baptism of love. For she seems to have had no doubt that her manager--her "master," as she lovingly called him--would grant her request. Already her past life, with all its work, and waiting, and triumph, seemed but a dim dream, her present hope the only reality. She ran about the Morris house so lightly that it seemed to Mrs. Morris she heard the patter of children's feet, the sweetest sound that ever wove itself into this simple woman's dreams. Judith's heart was ever across the fields with her lover, and she "sang his name instead of a song," and found it surpassing sweet. And Andrew's heart and head were both busy with loving plans for Judith. The Muskoka woods might go, and their green mosses be torn for minerals! No more long, lonely hunts for him! He must reap golden harvests wherever he might for Judith, now. He knew all her insufficiencies as a housewife, which poor Judith felt very humble in confessing; and it gave Andrew great joy, in a modest way, that he would be able to let her be quite free of them. And he had higher dreams. Politics offers a wide arena for ambition. Its sands may have been soiled by the blood of victims, trodden by the feet of hirelings, defiled by the struggles of mercenaries; but there are yet some godlike gladiators left, who war for right; there are yet noble strifes, and few to fight them; and Andrew, in whose heart patriotism was as a flaming fire, resolved to dedicate himself for the fray. To win glory for Judith, to do something to savour his life that it might be worthy of her acceptance, that it might leave some fragrance upon the tender hands that held it--that was his aim, and he felt he would not fail. No inherent force can be very great and not give its possessor a thrill of power. Andrew felt within him that which meant mastery of men. And in spite of difficulties and obstacles, Andrew at last won the wreath to which he had aspired in the first flush of his hope and joy. But that was after. * * * * * * One day, a week after Judith had sent the letter, a group of Ovidians were in Hiram Green's store. There was old Sam Symmons, Jack Mackinnon, Oscar Randall (who, together with his hopes of political preferment, aspired to the hand of Sam Symmons' Suse), and Bill Aikins. The latter would "catch it," as he well knew, when he got home, for loitering in the store, and therefore, with some vague thought of palliating his offence, forbore to make himself comfortable, but stood uneasily by the door, jostled by each person who came in, pushed by each who went out. Jack Mackinnon was speaking, his thin dark face wreathed in smiles. "How d'ye like the blind horse, Mr. Symmons? I tell ye blind horses are smart sometimes! There was one Frank Peters, wot I worked for in Essex, owned, and he never would eat black oats. Critters has their likes and dislikes same as people. I once knowed a dog--but that blind horse--well, he'd never eat black oats when he had his sight--went blind along of drawing heavy loads--doctored him all winter--t'wasn't any use, sight gone, gone complete--well, as I said, he wouldn't eat black oats when he had his sight, and when, the horse was blind, sir, he knowed the difference between black oats and white, yes, just the same as when he had his sight. You couldn't timpt that horse to eat black oats, then or no time, he wouldn't so much as nose at 'em, no sir. You couldn't fool that horse on oats. But pshaw! blind horses! why Henry Acres wot I worked for in Essex--" "Oh, shut up, Jack!" said Hiram, and Jack accepted his quietus good-naturedly, quite unabashed. The village arithmetician had once taken the trouble to calculate how long Jack Mackinnon must have worked in Essex, deducing the amount from Jack's account of the number of years he had worked for different people there. The result showed Jack must have spent some hundred and sixty years in Essex if all his tales were true; and Jack always repudiated with scorn any question of his veracity, hoping, with great fervour and solemnity, that he "drop down dead in his tracks" if he was lying, a judgment which never overtook him. The talk turned upon politics, as it always did if Oscar Randall was there, and old Sam Symmons was soon holding forth. "Yes," he said, "yes, the old elections were wont to be rare times. I do remember at one election, near the close of the polls, beguiling Ezra Thompson to a barn, and there two of us held him, by main strength and bodily force, till the polls were closed. Truly he was an angry and profane man when we set him free"--here came a reminiscent chuckle, cut short to answer Oscar Randall's tentative question. "Trouble? Get us into trouble? Yes, of a private kind. Ezra Thompson and I fought that question with our fists some seventeen times, and the lad with me had much the same number of bouts over it. But we neither of us begrudged him satisfaction. In those days a man took satisfaction out of his enemy's skin; he didn't sneak away to lawyers to bleed him in his pocket. No, no. "Yes, 'twere a great election that! Twas the time Mr. Brown ran against Mr. Salmon. Now, it was told of Mr. Salmon, that though of good presence, and very high and mighty towards his neighbours, yet he was ignorant; and when his election came on, it was told of him how he met an English gentleman on the train once, who, wishing to learn of Canada, spoke at length with Mr. Salmon, and in the course of the talk (during which Mr. Salmon was much puffed up), the English gentleman said to him: 'And have you many reptiles in Canada?' 'No,' said Mr. Salmon (and a pompous man he was, very)--'No, we have very few reptiles, only a few foxes.' It was Mr. Salmon, too, who once refused when he was J.P. to look into the case of a poor man whose horse's leg had been broken in a bad culvert. And the man cried in a gust of rage: 'What! did you not swear to see justice done? and now you won't consider this?' 'Swear,' said Mr. Salmon, 'I did no such thing. I only took my affidavit.'" Old Sam's voice died away. Hiram spoke from behind the counter. "The roadmasters do bring the country into terrible expenses. Look at the bill of costs that's been run up in that case at Jamestown." "Yes," said Oscar Randall, as one having authority, "the people's money is wasted in this country with an awful disregard of the public welfare." "You're right there, Os." "Now you bet your head's level." "Don't you mistake yourself, it's level!" "I tell you, you just hit the nail on the head that time!" When this chorus subsided, Mr. Horne, who had just entered, said: "What do you think of that concession, Os, out back of Braddon's?" "There is no doubt," said Oscar, promptly, "but that is a question which must be adjusted. It is such internal disputes as these which weaken and destroy the unity of the country, and lay us open to an unexpected attack from the States, which we, by reason of disunion and strife, would be unable to cope with." The house, composed of Hiram on his sugar barrel, Sam in the one chair, Jack Mackinnon on a cracker box, and a row of men braced against the counters on each side, fairly rose at this. Clearly Oscar Randall had the makings of a great speaker in him! But Mr. Horne was a man of slow mental methods, who always decided one point before he left it for another. He waited till the chorus of "That's so; that's the ticket," "Bet your life; _that's_ the way to talk," "Let 'em try it; we'd be ready for 'em" (this last from Jack Mackinnon who was a volunteer) had died away, when he said: "That's right, Os; you're right there, right enough; but what do you think--ought it to be closed or should it be opened?" "I think," said Oscar, slowly, and with confidential emphasis--"I think, as every patriotic and honest man thinks, that the rights of the people must be preserved." A diversion occurred here. A shout from the roadway took them all out. Before the door stood a carriage with a little black-a-vised man in it; and behind that, an express waggon, beside the driver of which sat a perky-looking woman, different from anything ever seen in Ovid, for French maids of the real Parisian stripe were not apt to visit this village often. "The way to old man Morris'? yes," said Oscar Randall, and proceeded to give minute directions. The little cavalcade started again, the gentleman leaning back in the carriage, murmuring to himself: "Now, I wonder which of these specimens he was." * * * * * * And at that moment Andrew Cutler and Judith Moore were taking farewell, for a few hours as they thought, beneath the shadows of Andrew's chestnut trees. "Darling," he whispered, holding her gently to him, "my arms seem always aching for you when we are parted; my heart cries for you continually. Judith, dear little girl, you won't make me wait too long?" She clung to him silently, hiding her face on his arm. A tremour shook her; after all he was a man, the dominant creature of the world. True, he trembled at her voice and touch now--but then, after? "Andrew," she whispered, "will you be good to me?" "Trust me, dear, and see," he whispered back. "You know I have no one but myself," she said, putting back her head and looking at him with pale cheeks and tear-rilled eyes. "If you are cruel to me or harsh to me: if you make love a burden, not a boon, I will have no one to turn to. I--" she stopped with quivering lips. "My own girl," he said, "trust me. I know I am rough compared to you, but I will be tender. I know my man's ways frighten you, but it shall be all my thought to make you trust me. Give me your presence always, that's all I ask--to see you, feel you near, hear you about the house, have your farewells when I go away, your welcome when I return, your encouragement in what I undertake, your sympathy in what I do. That means heaven to me, but only when you are happy in it. Dearest, you don't think I would be bad to you?" And Judith, in a storm of sobs that seemed to melt away all the icy doubts and fears that had assailed her, laid her head upon his breast, and promised that soon, very soon, she would go to the house on the hill never to leave it; and, when she had grown calmer with a deeper peace than she had yet known, he left her--there, in the shadow of the trees--to return in a few hours. And Judith stole into the kitchen door and up to her room, to find her French maid packing her trunks and be told that "Monsieur awaited her in the _salon_." * * * * * * Her vow had been required of her--that was all she could think, and she prepared herself to keep it. The manager was clever and adroit in his way. He kept Mrs. Morris busy with him, so that she did not see Judith till she entered to say she was ready; and then, as Mrs. Morris told afterward, she got a "turn." For the Judith who came to say "good-bye," was the same Judith who greeted her at first, gracefully languid, pale, self-composed, and somewhat artificially, if charmingly, courteous. "There was some difference," Mrs. Morris said, "but I can't just say what." The difference was that Judith had come a girl, and left a woman. So for the last time Judith crossed the little garden, feeling strangely unfamiliar with the homely flowers she passed. In the meantime the drivers of the conveyances had conferred with Mr. Morris, and the shorter road they took to the railway station was directly away from the village, away from the house on the hill. They caught a glimpse of it as they turned a corner, and suddenly Judith seemed to feel the scent of white lilies, and hear an evening chorus of nature's composition. Her hand held tightly a little envelope, in which she had hurriedly slipped something before she left her room. She was thinking how she could drop it unobserved, when from the shadow of some wild plum trees there issued a disreputable dog--Nip--with Tommy Slick behind him, a basket of wild plums in his hand. She interrupted the manager's flow of news to say-- "Do stop the man a minute, I want to speak to that boy." "I'll call him." "No, no; I'll get out," she said. So without more ado he stopped the carriage; the whims of a _prima donna_ must needs be respected. She got out and ran back to Tommy, who greeted her with a grin. "Tommy," she said, "you like me, don't you? And you like Andrew Cutler? Now, will you do something for me that no one else in the world can do?" "I'll do it," said Tommy, with business-like brevity. "And you will not breathe it to any living soul?" "I kin keep my mouth shut," said Tommy. "Often had to." "Then," said Judith, "I'll trust you. Give this to Andrew Cutler; if you run you will catch him in his chestnut woods. Try to get there quickly, and meet him before he gets near Morris'. Give him this, and say: 'She has gone away! she sends all her love and this.'" Tommy's impish face had a look of concern beyond his years. Tears were running down Judith's face. "Say, be you never coming back?" "Never, never, Tommy!" said Judith. "Good-bye." * * * * * * So in due time Andrew Cutler received from Tommy Slick's fruit-stained hand an envelope containing one long bright lock of hair, and a message sent with it; and was told also of the few other words that passed, and of Judith's tears. And Tommy having delivered his message, and seen the look on Andrew's face, dug his knuckles into his eyes, and with a veritable howl of grief fled away back as he had come; and Andrew suddenly looked about and found life emptied of all joy. Judith seemed so very calm as the weeks went by, that her manager told himself he had been a fool to worry so that night--after he returned her letter to the post-office, and decided to go and fetch her from Ovid. He had sent it back, so that if she had refused to come, or--yes! he had thought of that, being so imbued with stage ways--if she had hinted at killing herself, he might declare with clean hands that he was guiltless, that he had never had her letter, that some one else had got it and sent it back to the Dead Letter office. But, after all, how foolish he was, he thought, watching Judith smile, and reply prettily to the courtesies of some guests whom he had just introduced to her. But then, her letter had seemed full of meaning! Well, that letter was doubtless a manifestation of the stage-craft with which she was thoroughly saturated! So he comforted himself. And meanwhile, Judith was learning that "Face joy's a costly mask to wear," and asking wearily of each day that dawned, "_Is not my destiny complete? Have I not lived? Have I not loved? What more?_" And the time for her American _début_ drew on. CHAPTER X. "Glory itself can be, for a woman, only a loud and bitter cry for happiness."--_Madame de Stael_. Judith Moore made a triumphant success of her first American season. She was lauded to the skies. An ocean of praise was poured in libations before her; its ripples spread across the Atlantic, to break in an ominous wave at Patti's feet, and Patti seeing it, perhaps feeling the chill of its encroachment, determined immediately upon another American tour. There is a picture of Judith Moore painted at this time by one of the deftest masters of facial portraiture. Sittings were given for this whilst past applause was echoing in her ears, with newer shouts awaiting her in an hour or two; but the woman pictured upon this canvas is neither hearkening to past applause, nor anticipating new honour. She is absorbed in the dream of some sweet past, silent in the face of some unachieved joy, the whole face illumined, by an after-glow from some light of other days--a first radiance of a morn that never breaks. It shows a woman with wide, wistful, grey eyes--eyes which had wept, and lips that denied and defied the tears, a brow whereon triumph and grief had warred for mastery and merged at length into patient endurance; but the head is proudly poised, as a head should be that bears a crown. Even a thorny one confers and demands honour. If this woman bore a cross, she did not flaunt it in the face of men; she bore it hidden in her heart, and drew it out in secret places to wash her heart's blood from it with her tears. Tears are the salt of love that savour it to time everlasting. It was the fashion to say that Miss Moore dwelt upon the heights to which her genius of song raised her, that from the peaks of success she looked down contemptuously upon all beneath. Alas! They could not tell how icy these pinnacles were! The roseate glow cast upon the "eternal snows" may look very beautiful, but the humblest hearth where love lights the fire is warmer. She felt, indeed, the exaltation of genius, but upon every side she looked forth into the void. She was possessed again by that agony of vertigo that had seized her among the apple blooms; now, as then, she stood among blossoms; now, as then, her heart sickened within her. But there was one deadly difference; there was no strong arm to take her down. Indeed, it seemed to her even the ladder was gone. Could any man forgive the perfidy of which she had been guilty? Many a hand was outstretched to her, some that would have soiled her own had she clasped them, others she might have met honestly, palm to palm. She brushed gently past them all; if some of them tugged at her skirts, it only gave her some discomfort and pity for their pleading, but no pain. Her manager was most enthusiastic over her. He remembered guiltily a letter he had opened and read, a letter he sent back to the post-office with apologies--"he was sorry, the letter was not for him"--a letter which even now was slowly threading its way back through the Dead Letter office pigeon-holes to an undreamed destination. He was working her too hard, though--so musical people whispered among themselves. She had always needed the curb and not the spur. Of course, it was a great thing to get such a hold upon the public in one's first season, with the sure knowledge that she would have to bid against Patti in her next one; still, all these encores, and Sunday concerts and extra musicales were felt to be too much. And one or two men, whose souls were sensitive, ceased going to hear Miss Moore. There was something of agony, personal agony, mingling with the passion of her voice. One of these men shuddered, when some one, using a hackneyed simile, spoke of her as a human nightingale. There came to his fanciful imagination the old myth of the nightingale that sings with her breast against a thorn. It seemed somehow to him that this woman had grown delirate with the pain, and pressed sorer and sorer upon her thorn. He thought, too, of the birds whose eyes they blind that they may sing better; of the dove that bears ... "thro' heaven a tale of woe, Some dolorous message knit below The wild pulsation of her wings." He thought of the swan's song of death, and of the reed that the "Great God Pan" wrenched from its river home to fashion forth a Pipe. The American papers laughed a good deal at this man, caricaturing him as the poet of soulful lilies and yearning souls, hinting that he would like to inaugurate a pre-Raphaelesque era in America _à la_ Burne Jones. He read these things sometimes. They flushed his thin cheeks, but did not trouble his eyes--those eyes that mirrored forth the soul of the mystic. He was right about Judith Moore. She bowed her head to accept the last accolade of Genius--grief. She had partaken of pain--that chrism which, laid upon poetic lips, sanctifies their words to immortality, but which savours the breath they breathe with the bitterness of death. Byron, Shelley, Keats, Rossetti (how many we might name!) have partaken of that sacrament. But what matter for the Pipe, so that the world, when it has time to listen, may hear sweet singing? The world, in its way, was very good to Judith Moore. It gave her the sweet smile of its approval right royally; it gave her all its luxuries, all its praise, and this Judith did not pretend not to enjoy. But she enjoyed it as one does who drinks what he knows will kill him, yet continues the draught, that in its intoxication he may forget the doom it brings. Judith was seen everywhere, for she availed herself of all the privileges which her genius, her beauty, her untarnished fame won for her. She was pointed out wherever she went; sometimes when a crush of carriages held her own imprisoned, she would hear a whisper from lip to lip, "Look! look! There is Judith Moore." Nothing further was needed; every one knew Judith Moore. And Judith treated the world as it deserved of her. She dressed herself beautifully for it, and smiled and sang to it, and exhibited herself to it everywhere. Everywhere, for she was striving to so tire her spirit that when she was alone it might at least be numb, if not at rest. In vain! That ardent, tender spirit was yet indomitable. The body, the slender, beautiful body it animated, might be sore aweary, but so soon as Judith was alone her spirit fled far away, back to the place of its rejoicing; back to the village in the valley, where it was always spring or summertide; back to the old rail fences with the tangled weeds about them; back to the apple blooms; back to the brown furrows where the grey birds nested; back to the lindens and the chestnuts, and there, hour after hour, her spirit held voiceless commune with that other. Her spirit well might be comforted, but Judith strained listening ears to hear one tender word, wearied her eyes searching for the semblance of a face, stretched forth trembling hands for comfort, and, overcome at last, let them fall, empty. The opera season closed, and an incident that made some talk put the period to Judith's first American season. Judith had sung as she never sang before. Her voice seemed to transcend the limits of human capability, and become something independent of her lips, something sentient, springing ever higher and higher. The man in whose heart she was likened to the pierced nightingale, the blinded lark, the mourning dove, the dying swan, had come to listen to her. At her last appearance there was a roar of applause, a wave of laudation that seemed as if it might carry her off her feet. There is something thrilling, inspiring, almost weird in the union of human voices, something that stirs the imagination, something that never grows old to us, for it never becomes familiar. Usually they jar and jangle across each other as children babble, each fretting for his own toy, so that we almost forget what the power of union is. In praise or blame it makes the world tremble. She made no pretence of retiring for the encore. She made no sign to the musicians. She did not assume the pose, familiar to them, for any of her songs. They sat silent, spellbound with the audience. She stepped slowly forward, stretched forth her arms, and sang unaccompanied, what seemed an invocation to the better Ego of every soul present, a song she had been wont to sing to Andrew: "Out from yourself! Out from the past with its wrecks and contrition, Out from the dull discontentment of now, Out from the future's false-speaking ambition, Out from yourself! For your broken heart's rest; For the peace which you crave; For the end of your quest; For the love which can save; Come! Come to me!" Those who heard that song never forgot it. And one man, at least, never forgot the expression upon the woman's face as she sang. Rapt as of a sibyl who conjures away an evil spirit; winning as a woman who promises all things; informed with the intensity of one who bids her will go forth to accomplish her desire--she held her last pose a moment. The house "rose at her." Even as they cheered a change overspread her face. It grew glorified, exultant, tremulously eager, as of one who feels the pinions of his soul stirring for flight--for flight to longed-for shores. With that look upon her face she fell. * * * * * * Far away from New York, in the silent spaces of a virgin forest, a man was lying on the snow, his gun beneath his arm ready for use. But he was keeping no lookout for game. His eyes were fixed upon an open space amid the tree tops, where a solitary star twinkled desolately. His face was thin; his eyes burned; the snows, the silence, nor the solitude could calm that throbbing at his heart, could cool the fever in his veins. He thought of Judith, and, thinking of her, loved her. It was true she had left him, left him with his kisses warm upon her lips, but--he loved her. It was hard for him to imagine a force strong enough to constrain her to go. It was difficult, having no clue, to conceive of circumstances that would justify her silent desertion, but somehow Andrew, out of the depths of his steadfast heart, found excuses for her. Sometimes the fantastic thought that she was bound in loveless marriage came to him, but he put it by. He remembered her eyes, the misgivings that had assailed her, the tender abandon of her trust in him. No, she was not married. Where was she? It was not her wish that he should know. He hoped her little feet trod pleasant paths. Oh, Judith, Judith! Then, explain it as we may, or leave it still a mystery, there came to him, faint, aëry, bodilessly, the words of a song--a song that ended in a plea, "Come! Come to me," and when it died away, Andrew Cutler sprang to his feet with a cry that echoed far between the icy tree trunks of the forest, "I come, I come." And that same night, at the same hour, at the same pulse of the hour, Judith Moore, with a look of ineffable joy upon her face, fell fainting upon the stage. "So may love, although 'tis understood The mere commingling of passionate breath, Produce more than our searching witnesseth." Next day Andrew started back to Ovid, arriving in a state of feverish expectancy. No tidings of Judith there; and he knew not where to seek. That pleading voice still rang in his ears; by night, by day, it urged the message it had brought to him in the depths of far-off Muskoka, and by day and night he promised it peace, if he could only, only know where to go. Time passed. * * * * * * The voice was dumb now. Only an acme of surpassing love can wing the will through space, and then only perhaps once in a lifetime does such a supreme moment come, and the will behind this love was shattered, for Judith Moore lay sick unto death, was tossing in the delirium of fever, or lying for days sunk in an apathy which words could not pierce. The papers were filled with accounts of her strange illness, daily bulletins of her condition appeared, her manager was showered with opprobrium for overworking her. She was dying. The best doctors said that the miracle was that she had lasted so long. Her little dark-faced manager went about feeling like a murderer, a Shylock, and a Judas, in one. The more so, as he felt he had given her the death-blow in one stroke--when he disregarded that letter. If he had only overworked her, he told himself he would have had no regrets. He would have made any reparation he could, but how on earth was he to find the yokel she was in love with? And what a battle she was having; and yet it was not such a very long one--from latest winter to spring. Andrew was half crazed with love, which, since that winter night, had become almost unendurable through anxiety. Now it was spring, and as he walked through his woods to the Morris house, he passed the crab-apple-trees in full bloom. He often went up to talk to garrulous Mrs. Morris. The little details she let fall about Judith were pearls of great price to him. This day he was hardly within the door before Mrs. Morris said: "Land sakes! but you're just the very person I was wanting to see. There's a gov'iment letter come to Miss Moore yesterday, and I thought you'd maybe know where to send it." "Yes," said Andrew, feeling that the sign had come at last. "Give it me, and I'll see she gets it." He took it, and with scarce a word went away, leaving Mrs. Morris considerably upset by his abruptness. He only waited to get within the shadow of his woods before he tore it open. One reading of her pleading letter to her manager sufficed. Judith was his again. He knew where to find her. New York!--that was not so very far off. He knew when the trains started, and rapidly made his plans. She was such a child! and she liked his old velveteen coat and the big, battered felt hat; he would wear them; she would be pleased; and as he came within sight of the crab-apple-trees a happy thought came to him. He took his knife and cut a huge bundle of flowers, taking off the branches where the flowers were only in bud. Then he went home. His aunt heard his hurried explanation, and bound a great roll of wet moss about the ends of the branches. "They'll look queer, Andrew," she said. "Never mind how they'll look," said Andrew, happily; "she'll like 'em." He was soon on the train, a picturesque figure in tweed, with an old velveteen coat, a wide shabby felt hat, and an enormous bunch of pink flowers. Andrew was entirely oblivious of, and indifferent to, comment. He got hold of a train-man, gave him a dollar and got a pailful of water from him, arranged his flowers in it, put it in the baggage-car and sat by it all night. "A queer duck," the trainmen said. As the Canadian trains reach New York, the morning papers come aboard. Andrew bought one of each, and sat down turning them over with tremulous hands to search for a sign. He had not far to seek--"JUDITH MOORE DYING, THE END APPROACHING." That was what he read in big "scare head" type; that, and its narrations in the other papers, with the usual platitudes telling of the "short but bright career," and so on. With the calm of despair he searched for definite information as to where she was. It seemed every one knew so well that definite detail was superfluous. But at last, in a different part of the paper, he found: "In the corridors of the Brittany Hotel last night, Miss Moore's manager, who had just left her bedside, said all hope was gone." The train was in New York, slowing up in the Grand Central station by the time he found this. He wrapped a couple of handkerchiefs round the stems of his flowers, got into the first carriage he came to, saying only "the Brittany Hotel." He thought the cabman might know where to go. The cabman, of course, did, and ere many minutes he was in the office of the magnificent hotel. He knew nothing of conventional procedure, and if he had, it would not have mattered to him then. He went straight to the desk. "Is Miss Moore alive?" he asked. "Yes, I think so, but--" "I want to go to her at once." The clerk comprehended, and a bell-boy raced before Andrew to a door whose handle was muffled. He knocked very softly. "Go," said Andrew, and he stood alone waiting for the door to open. It would be impious to speak of the agony which knit his soul and heart to endurance, whilst he waited the word from within. The door opened. A miserable little man stood there. When he saw Andrew, he said without astonishment: "You're in time to speak to her. Go in." Andrew advanced to an open door. The little man followed through the outer room. He beckoned to two others within the sick-room, a white-capped woman and a doctor. They saw, understood, and Andrew went up to the bed alone with the door closed behind him. "Judith," he said, "my own little girl." A long tremour shook the slight form under the coverlets, and then--then he was on his knees with the flowers flung all across the bed and his arms about her. And Judith? Poor Judith's eyes were wide and frightened, for she thought the change had come that she had waited for, expected, even longed for; she thought this was Death, and even although the crab blooms were there, and Andrew, still it was awesome. Yet Death should have brought white flowers, not apple blooms such as grew in Andrew's woods. And were Death's arms ever so sustaining, so tender, so warm as these? And surely Death did not come garbed in shabby, smoky velveteen, nor bend above his victims a brown passionate face wet with tears? "Andrew, it's you, and you're crying," and then followed a faint whisper of delight--from her--for Andrew's courage and calm were gone at last. He could not speak. And once more she smiled at him the old womanly smile, from the old honest eyes, and stretched forth feeble fingers striving to reach about his neck. CHAPTER XI. _L'ENVOI._ "Fair love that led home." Judith Moore did not die. She had fallen asleep that day with her fingers trembling about Andrew's sunburnt hair. He held her tenderly till a deeper sleep weighted down those clinging hands, and they fell. He watched by her, without movement, almost without breathing, with the look on his face as of one who battles with Death, pitting all the splendid vitality of his being against the enemy, casting the mantle of his brave soul, strong will and perfect love about the trembling will and failing heart that were so nearly vanquished. Indeed, so completely did Andrew identify himself during those silent hours with the woman he loved, that ever after she had some fleeting touches of his courage, and he had always an intuitional tenderness towards a woman's illogical weakness. The fusion of these two natures took place not in those sweet after hours of passion, lint in that silent room, into which now and then there peeped a white-capped nurse or a black-a-vised little man, who saw always a great mass of fading pink blooms, a pair of broad shoulders in shabby velveteen bent tenderly over the shadowy outline of a little head sunk deep in the pillow. After this supreme crisis there came a week or two of slow convalescence, and then a wedding that no one thought much of, regarding it merely as one of the prescribed formalities, like the buying of the railroad tickets, necessary before Andrew could take her away--away back to the village in the valley, to the old stone farm-house, to the homely flowers, the lindens on the hill, to Rufus and Miss Myers, where, for a time, she was not a wife at all, only a poor little wind-tossed song-bird blown to their bosoms for a refuge. But that all changed. Andrew wooed again a charming, capricious woman, walking by her adoringly over the old bricked walks beneath the horse-chestnuts, his very soul trembling with the love her voice and touch awakened: and she was playfully proud of her power, until suddenly some quick sense of the dominance of the love she aroused frightened her, and she turned to hide from him in his arms, tremblingly afraid, no longer asking love, but pleading against it. Time passes with them. The old farm-house has had some architectural additions--a tiny conservatory, a long dining-room, with quaint porches and latticed windows: for Andrew and his wife appreciate too keenly the beauties of their home to mar its character by modernizing it. Andrew has learned to wear evening clothes as easily as he does his old velveteens, and--_O si sic omnia!_--himself often buys the little high-heeled shoes in which Judith's heart delights, for Judith never put off the old Eve of her harmless vanities. Every winter Andrew and his wife go to town for a while, and visitors come to the farm-house who fairly electrify the village with their "cranks." The best known of these is a little black-a-vised man with big diamonds, a profane tongue and a guilty but "thankful 'eart." He cherishes, so he says, a hopeless passion for Miss Myers, and indeed Miss Myers likes the new _régime_ very well, for she was never ousted from the house-keeping department, and if it was a glory and a credit to manage well for Andrew and herself, how much greater it is to cast honour over a board where such fine people as Judith's friends sit daily. Andrew is secretly very proud that all these fine folk should come and see how happy Judith is. Only once did he have any difference with any of them. That was when Judith first regained her strength and her old manager came to see her. He had a brand-new scheme for Judith's benefit in his brain. She was to sing in grand concerts, and he had all her tour mapped out. He was good enough to say Andrew could come along. Andrew held brief and bitter speech with him, and then went to Judith. He could see how strong the old glamour yet was. He took her in his arms, and after a long, tender discussion she gave him the promise he was pleading for, never more to sing in public, a decision which made Andrew her slave forever, although it wrung his heart to see what this renunciation cost her. He felt it was right. Poor, high-strung Judith needed a steady hand upon the rein of her eager spirit, else it would have soon carried her beyond her strength. And so, ringing about an old farm-house, or through the chestnut woods, or below the lindens on the hill-side, there often sounds a voice once echoed by the _bravos_ of the world. Perhaps the aspiration it awakens in one strong soul is better applause. So Andrew and Judith live on, they two and Miss Myers, as nearly happy as mortals may be. Heaven would be entirely illogical if such as they two had no heartaches. Sometimes Judith steals away from Miss Myers and Andrew and thinks of the old days, the first efforts, the hopes, the fears, the strife and the success--the glorious success that might have been many times repeated: that might, as base metals might be transmuted into gold, have become fame. A nasty heartache gnaws in her breast, her face pales, her eyes grow wide and eager. At such times Andrew knows well the struggle that rends her tender heart, and he soon searches her out: and upon his breast, beneath the spell of his worship her restless spirit quiets itself to peace. What might be a tragedy of distrust is made a bond of stronger union by perfect confidence. But Judith's face will always bear the traces of these times. When a coal is carried from the Divine Fire and laid upon mortal lips, it must be blown into a flame to illumine the world, or it sears the lips it touches. The gods will not have their gifts disregarded. They care little that the mortal breath may be too weak to sustain the flame, though it perish in the effort. Indeed, the gods forgive that, and sometimes spare a little of their glory to gild a grave. But let the breath they demand be stolen for our own sighs or sobs, or stifled by dear-bought kisses, and they give swift recompense of pain. Judith had borne that smart. Andrew, too, has unfulfilled dreams, as Judith knows when she sees his eyes grow wistful as they rest upon the faces of children. And Judith goes to him then, and lays her head upon his arm with an apology so poignant, a love so perfect in her grey eyes, that he forgets everything in the marvel that this woman is his. And thus with each of them, the little shadows only serve to enhance the sunshine. Their life is a glorious reality; their love a poem. Together they know no pain from the past, no regret for the present, no fear for the future. They sometimes even dare to dream that their love will bestow upon them its own immortality--that through eternity they will be as they are now, together and happy. 
38023	----	[Illustration: Signature; Clara Louise Kellogg Strakosch] Memoirs of an American Prima Donna By Clara Louise Kellogg (Mme. Strakosch) _With 40 Illustrations_ G. P. Putnam's Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1913 COPYRIGHT, 1913 BY CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG STRAKOSCH The Knickerbocker Press, New York WITH AFFECTION AND DEEPEST APPRECIATION OF HER WORTH AS BOTH A RARE WOMAN AND A RARER FRIEND I INSCRIBE THIS RECORD OF MY PUBLIC LIFE TO JEANNETTE L. GILDER FOREWORD The name of Clara Louise Kellogg is known to the immediate generation chiefly as an echo of the past. Yet only thirty years ago it was written of her, enthusiastically but truthfully, that "no living singer needs a biography less than Miss Clara Louise Kellogg; and nowhere in the world would a biography of her be so superfluous as in America, where her name is a household word and her illustrious career is familiar in all its triumphant details to the whole people." The past to which she belongs is therefore recent; it is the past of yesterday only, thought of tenderly by our fathers and mothers, spoken of reverently as a poignant phase of their own ephemeral youth, one of their sweet lavender memories. The pity is (although this is itself part of the evanescent charm), that the singer's best creations can live but in the hearts of a people, and the fame of sound is as fugitive as life itself. A record of such creations is, however, possible and also enduring; while it is also necessary for a just estimate of the development of civilisations. As such, this record of her musical past--presented by Clara Louise Kellogg herself--will have a place in the annals of the evolution of musical art on the North American continent long after every vestige of fluttering personal reminiscence has vanished down the ages. A word of appreciation with regard to the preparation of this record is due to John Jay Whitehead, Jr., whose diligent chronological labours have materially assisted the editor. Clara Louise Kellogg came from New England stock of English heritage. She was named after Clara Novello. Her father, George Kellogg, was an inventor of various machines and instruments and, at the time of her birth, was principal of Sumter Academy, Sumterville, S. C. Thus the famous singer was acclaimed in later years not only as the Star of the North (the _rôle_ of Catherine in Meyerbeer's opera of that name being one of her achievements) but also as "the lone star of the South in the operatic world." She first sang publicly in New York in 1861 at an evening party given by Mr. Edward Cooper, the brother of Mrs. Abram Hewitt. This was the year of her _début_ as Gilda in Verdi's opera of _Rigoletto_ at the Academy of Music in New York City. When she came before her countrymen as a singer, she was several decades ahead of her musical public, for she was a lyric artist as well as a singer. America was not then producing either singers or lyric artists; and in fact we were, as a nation, but just getting over the notion that America could not produce great voices. We held a very firm contempt for our own facilities, our knowledge, and our taste in musical matters. If we did discover a rough diamond, we had to send it to Italy to find out if it were of the first water and to have it polished and set. Nothing was so absolutely necessary for our self-respect as that some American woman should arise with sufficient American talent and bravery to prove beyond all cavil that the country was able to produce both singers and artists. For rather more than twenty-five years, from her appearance as Gilda until she quietly withdrew from public life, when it seemed to her that the appropriate moment for so doing had come, Clara Louise Kellogg filled this need and maintained her contention. She was educated in America, and her career, both in America and abroad, was remarkable in its consistent triumphs. When Gounod's _Faust_ was a musical and an operatic innovation, she broke through the Italian traditions of her training and created the _rôle_ of Marguerite according to her own beliefs; and throughout her later characterisations in Italian opera, she sustained a wonderfully poised attitude of independence and of observance with regard to these same traditions. In London, in St. Petersburg, in Vienna, as well as in the length and breadth of the United States, she gained a recognition and an appreciation in opera, oratorio, and concert, second to none: and when, later, she organised an English Opera Company and successfully piloted it on a course of unprecedented popularity, her personal laurels were equally supreme. In 1887, Miss Kellogg married Carl Strakosch, who had for some time been her manager. Mr. Strakosch is the nephew of the two well-known impresarios, Maurice and Max Strakosch. After her marriage, the public career of Clara Louise Kellogg virtually ended. The Strakosch home is in New Hartford, Connecticut, and Mrs. Strakosch gave to it the name of "Elpstone" because of a large rock shaped like an elephant that is the most conspicuous feature as one enters the grounds through the poplar-guarded gate. Mr. and Mrs. Strakosch are very fond of their New Hartford home, but, the Litchfield County climate in winter being severe, they usually spend their winters in Rome. They have also travelled largely in Oriental countries. In 1912, Mr. and Mrs. Strakosch celebrated their Silver Wedding at Elpstone. On this occasion, the whole village of New Hartford was given up to festivities, and friends came from miles away to offer their congratulations. Perhaps the most pleasant incident of the celebration was the presentation of a silver loving cup to Mr. and Mrs. Strakosch by the people of New Hartford in token of the affectionate esteem in which they are both held. The woman, Clara Louise Kellogg, is quite as distinct a personality as was the _prima donna_. So thoroughly, indeed, so fundamentally, is she a musician that her knowledge of life itself is as much a matter of harmony as is her music. She lives her melody; applying the basic principle that Carlyle has expressed so admirably when he says: "See deeply enough and you see musically." ISABEL MOORE. WOODSTOCK, N. Y. August, 1913 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. MY FIRST NOTES 1 II. GIRLHOOD 11 III. "LIKE A PICKED CHICKEN!" 22 IV. A YOUTHFUL REALIST 33 V. LITERARY BOSTON 43 VI. WAR TIMES 55 VII. STEPS OF THE LADDER 62 VIII. MARGUERITE 77 IX. OPÉRA COMIQUE 90 X. ANOTHER SEASON AND A LITTLE MORE SUCCESS 99 XI. THE END OF THE WAR 110 XII. AND SO--TO ENGLAND! 119 XIII. AT HER MAJESTY'S 129 XIV. ACROSS THE CHANNEL 139 XV. MY FIRST HOLIDAY ON THE CONTINENT 152 XVI. FELLOW-ARTISTS 163 XVII. THE ROYAL CONCERTS AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE 177 XVIII. THE LONDON SEASON 188 XIX. HOME AGAIN 200 XX. "YOUR SINCERE ADMIRER" 212 XXI. ON THE ROAD 227 XXII. LONDON AGAIN 235 XXIII. THE SEASON WITH LUCCA 245 XXIV. ENGLISH OPERA 254 XXV. ENGLISH OPERA--_Continued_ 266 XXVI. AMATEURS AND OTHERS 276 XXVII. "THE THREE GRACES" 289 XXVIII. ACROSS THE SEAS AGAIN 300 XXIX. TEACHING AND THE HALF-TALENTED 309 XXX. THE WANDERLUST, AND WHERE IT LED ME 324 XXXI. SAINT PETERSBURG 334 XXXII. GOOD-BYE TO RUSSIA--AND THEN? 346 XXXIII. THE LAST YEARS OF MY PROFESSIONAL CAREER 357 XXXIV. _CODA_ 370 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG STRAKOSCH _Frontispiece_ LYDIA ATWOOD 2 Maternal Grandmother of Clara Louise Kellogg CHARLES ATWOOD 4 Maternal Grandfather of Clara Louise Kellogg From a Daguerreotype GEORGE KELLOGG 10 Father of Clara Louise Kellogg From a photograph by Gurney & Son CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG, AGED THREE 12 From a photograph by Black & Case CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG, AGED SEVEN 14 From a photograph by Black & Case CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS A GIRL 20 From a photograph by Sarony CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS A YOUNG LADY 28 From a photograph by Black & Case BRIGNOLI, 1865 42 From a photograph by C. Silvy JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, IN 1861 46 From a photograph by Brady CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN, 1861 52 From a photograph by Silabee, Case & Co. CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS FIGLIA 56 From a photograph by Black & Case GENERAL HORACE PORTER 58 From a photograph by Pach Bros. MUZIO 66 From a photograph by Gurney & Son CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS LUCIA 72 From a photograph by Elliott & Fry CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS MARTHA 74 From a photograph by Turner CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS MARGUERITE, 1865 82 From a photograph by Sarony CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS MARGUERITE, 1864 88 From a silhouette by Ida Waugh GOTTSCHALK 106 From a photograph by Case & Getchell JANE ELIZABETH CROSBY 108 Mother of Clara Louise Kellogg From a tintype GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN, 1877 116 From a photograph by Mora HENRY G. STEBBINS 122 From a photograph by Grillet & Co. ADELINA PATTI 130 From a photograph by Fredericks CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS LINDA, 1868 134 From a photograph by Stereoscopic Co. MR. JAMES MCHENRY 138 From a photograph by Brady CHRISTINE NILSSON, AS QUEEN OF THE NIGHT 146 From a photograph by Pierre Petit DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 188 From a photograph by John Burton & Sons CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS CARMEN 230 From a photograph SIR HENRY IRVING AND ELLEN TERRY AS THE VICAR AND OLIVIA 234 From a photograph by Window & Grove FIRST EDITION OF THE "FAUST" SCORE, PUBLISHED IN 1859 BY CHOUSENS OF PARIS, NOW IN THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY 240 NEWSPAPER PRINT OF THE KELLOGG-LUCCA SEASON 250 Drawn by Jos. Keppler CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG IN _MIGNON_ 252 From a photograph by Mora ELLEN TERRY 284 From a photograph by Sarony COLONEL HENRY MAPLESON 290 From a photograph by Downey CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG AS AÏDA 292 From a photograph by Mora FAUST BROOCH PRESENTED TO CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG 298 CARL STRAKOSCH 364 From a photograph by H. W. Barnett LETTER FROM EDWIN BOOTH TO CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG 366 "ELPSTONE," NEW HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT 370 Memoirs of An American Prima Donna CHAPTER I MY FIRST NOTES I was born in Sumterville, South Carolina, and had a negro mammy to take care of me, one of the real old-fashioned kind, of a type now almost gone. She used to hold me in her arms and rock me back and forth, and as she rocked she sang. I don't know the name of the song she crooned; but I still know the melody, and have an impression that the words were: "Hey, Jim along,--Jim along Josy; Hey, Jim along,--Jim along Joe!" She used to sing these two lines over and over, so that I slept and waked to them. And my first musical efforts, when I was just ten months old, were to try to sing this ditty in imitation of my negro mammy. When my mother first heard me she became apprehensive. Yet I kept at it; and by the time I was a year old I could sing it so that it was quite recognisable. I do not remember this period, of course, but my mother often told me about it later, and I am sure she was not telling a fairy story. There is, after all, nothing incredible or miraculous about the fact, extraordinary as it certainly is. We are not surprised when the young thrush practises a trill. And in some people the need for music and the power to make it are just as instinctive as they are in the birds. What effects I have achieved and what success I have found must be laid to this big, living fact: music was in me, and it had to find expression. My music was honestly come by, from both sides of the house. When the family moved north to New England and settled in Birmingham, Connecticut,--it is called Derby now--my father and mother played in the little town choir, he a flute and she the organ. They were both thoroughly musical people, and always kept up with musical affairs, making a great many sacrifices all their lives to hear good singers whenever any sort of opportunity offered. As for my maternal grandmother--she was a woman with a man's brain. A widow at twenty-three, with no money and three children, she chose, of all ways to support them, the business of cotton weaving; going about Connecticut and Massachusetts, setting up looms--cotton gins they were called--and being very successful. She was a good musician also, and, in later years, after she had married my grandfather and was comfortably off, people begged her to give lessons; so she taught _thorough-base_, in that day and generation! Pause for a moment to consider what that meant, in a time when the activity of women was very limited and unrecognised. Is it any wonder that the granddaughter of a woman who could master and teach the science of _thorough-base_ at such a period should be born with music in her blood? [Illustration: =Lydia Atwood= Maternal Grandmother of Clara Louise Kellogg] My other grandmother, my father's mother, was musical, too. She had a sweet voice, and was the soprano of the church choir. Everyone knew I was naturally musical from my constant attempts to sing, and from my deep attention when anyone performed on any instrument, even when I was so little that I could not reach the key-board of the piano on tip-toe. That particular piano, I remember, was very old-fashioned--one of the square box-shaped sort--and stood extremely high. One day my grandmother said to my mother: "I do believe, Jane, if we lifted that baby up to the piano, she could play!" Mother said: "Oh, pshaw!" But they did lift me up, and I did play. I played not only with my right hand but also with my left hand; and I made harmonies. Probably they were not in any way elaborate chords, but they _were_ chords, and they harmonised. I have known some grown-up musicians whose chords didn't! I was three then, and a persistent baby, already detesting failure. I never liked to try to do anything, even at that age, in which I might be unsuccessful, and so learned to do what I wanted to do as soon as possible. My mother was gifted in many ways. She used to paint charmingly; and has told me that when she was a young girl and could not get paint brushes, she made her own of hairs pulled from their old horse's tail. My maternal grandfather was not at all musical. He used to say that to him the sweetest note on the piano was when the cover went down! Yet it was he who accidentally discovered a fortunate possession of mine--something that has remained in my keeping ever since, and, like many fortunate gifts, has at times troubled as much as it has consoled me. One day he was standing by the piano in one room and I was playing on the floor in another. He idly struck a note and asked my mother: "What note is that I am striking? Guess!" "How can I tell?" said my mother. "No one could tell that." "Why, mother!" I cried from the next room, "don't you know what note that is?" "I do not," said my mother, "and neither do you." "I do, too," I declared. "It's the first of the three black keys going up!" It was, in fact, F sharp, and in this manner it was discovered that I had what we musicians call "absolute pitch"; the ability to place and name a note the moment it is heard. As I have said, this has often proved to be a very trying gift, for it is, and always has been impossible for me to decipher a song in a different key from that in which it is written. If it is written in C, I hear it in C; and conceive the hideous discord in my brain while the orchestra or the pianist renders it in D flat! When I see a "Do," I want to sing it as a "Do," and not as a "Re." This episode must have been when I was about five years old, and soon afterward I began taking regular piano lessons. I remember my teacher quite well. He used to come out from New Haven by the Naugatuck railway--that had just been completed and was a great curiosity--for the purpose of instructing a class of which I was a member. [Illustration: =Charles Atwood= Maternal Grandfather of Clara Louise Kellogg From a daguerreotype] I had the most absurd difficulty in learning my notes. I could play anything by ear, but to read a piece of music and find the notes on the piano was another matter. My teacher struggled with this odd incapacity; but I used to cheat him shockingly. "_Do_ play this for me!" I would beg. "Just once, so I can tell how it goes." In spite of this early slowness in music reading, or, perhaps because of it, when I _did_ learn to read, I learned to read thoroughly. I could really play; and I cannot over-estimate the help this has been to me all my life. It is so essential--and so rare--for a _prima donna_ to be not only a fine singer but also a good musician. There was then no idea of my becoming a singer. All my time was given to the piano and to perfecting myself in playing it. But my parents made every effort to have me hear fine singing, for the better cultivation of my musical taste, and I am grateful to them for doing so, as I believe that singing is largely imitative and that, while singers need not begin to train their voices very early, they should as soon as possible familiarise themselves with good singing and with good music generally. The wise artist learns from many sources, some of them quite unexpected ones. Patti once told me that she had caught the trick of her best "turn" from listening to Faure, the baritone. My father and mother went to New York during the Jenny Lind _furore_ and carried me in their arms to hear her big concert. I remember it clearly, and just the way in which she tripped on to the stage that night with her hair, as she always wore it, drawn down close over her ears--a custom that gave rise to the popular report that she had no ears. That concert is my first musical recollection. I was much amused by the baritone who sang _Figaro là Figaro quà_ from _The Barber_. I thought him and his song immensely funny; and everyone around us was in a great state over me because I insisted that the drum was out of tune. I was really dreadfully annoyed by that drum, for it _was_ out of tune! I remember Jenny Lind sang: "Birdling, why sing'st thou in the forest wild? Say why,--say why,--say why!" and one part of it sounded exactly like the call of a bird. Sir Jules Benedict, who was always her accompanist, once told me many years later in London that she had a "hole" in her voice. He said that he had been obliged to play her accompaniments in such a way as to cover up certain notes in her middle register. A curious admission to come from him, I thought, for few people knew of the "hole." Only once during my childhood did I sing in public, and that was in a little school concert, a song _Come Buy My Flowers_, dressed up daintily for the part and carrying a small basketful of posies of all kinds. When I had finished singing, a man in the audience stepped down to the footlights and held up a five-dollar bill. "To buy your flowers!" said he. That might be called my first professional performance! The local paper said I had talent. As a matter of fact, I don't remember much about the occasion; but I do remember only too well a dreadful incident that occurred immediately afterward between me and the editor of the aforesaid local paper,--Mr. Newson by name. I had a pet kitten, and it went to sleep in a rolled up rug beside the kitchen door one day, and the cook stepped on it. The kitten was killed, of course, and the affair nearly killed me. I was crying my eyes out over my poor little pet when that editor chanced along. And he made fun of me! I turned on him in the wildest fury. I really would have killed him if I could. "Laugh, will you!" I shrieked, beside myself. "Laugh! laugh! laugh!" He said afterwards that I absolutely frightened him, I was so small and so tragic. "I knew then," he declared, "that that child had great emotional and dramatic possibilities in her. Why, she nearly burned me up!" Years later, when I was singing in St. Paul, the _Dispatch_ printed this story in an interview with Mr. Newson himself. He made a heartless jest of the alliteration--"Kellogg's Kitten Killed"--and referred to my "inexpressible expression of sorrow and disgust" as I cried, "Laugh, will you!" Said Mr. Newson in summing up: "It was a real tragedic act!" Mr. Newson's description of me as a child is: "A black-eyed little girl, somewhat wayward--as she was an only child--kind-hearted, affectionate, self-reliant, and very independent!" Well--sight-reading became so easy to me, presently, that I could not realise any difficulty about it. To see a note was to be able to sing it; and I was often puzzled when people expressed surprise at my ability. When I was about eleven, someone took me to Hartford to "show me off" to William Babcock, a teacher and a thorough musician. He got out some of his most difficult German songs; songs far more intricate than anything I had ever before seen, of course, and was frankly amazed to find that I read them just about as readily as the simple airs to which I was accustomed. My childhood was very quiet and peaceful, rather commonplace in fact, except for music. Reading was a pleasure, too, and, as my father was a student and had a wonderful library, I had all the books I wanted. I was literally brought up on Carlyle and Chaucer. I must have been a rather queer child, in some ways. Even as a little thing I liked clothes. When only nine years old I conceived a wild desire for a pair of kid gloves. Kid gloves were a sign of great elegance in those days. At last my clamours were successful and I was given a pair at Christmas. They were a source of great pride, and I wore them to church, where I did my little singing in the choir with the others. By this time I could read any music at sight and would sit up and chirp and peep away quite happily. As I spread my kid-gloved hands out most conspicuously, what I had not noticed became very noticeable to everyone else: the fingers were nearly two inches too long. And the choir laughed at me. I was dreadfully mortified and sat there crying, until the kind contralto comforted me. In my young days the negro minstrels were a great diversion. They were amusing because they were so typical. There are none left, but in the old times they were delightful, and it is a thousand pities that they have passed away. All the essence of slavery, and the efforts of the slaves to amuse themselves, were in their quaint performances. The banjo was almost unknown to us in the North, and when it found its way to New England it was a genuine novelty. I was simply fascinated by it as a little girl and used to go to all the minstrel shows, and sit and watch the men play. Their banjos had five strings only and were played with the back of the nail,--not like a guitar. This was the only way to get the real negro twang. There was no refinement about such playing, but I loved it. I said: "I believe I could play that if I had one!" My father, the dignified scholar, was horrified. "When a banjo comes in, I go out," said he. At last a friend gave me one, and I watched and studied the darkies until I had picked up the trick of playing it, and soon acquired a real negro touch. And I also acquired some genuine darky songs. One, of which I was particularly fond, was called: _Hottes' co'n y' ever eat_. I really believe I was the first American girl who ever played a banjo! In a few years along came Lotta, and made the banjo a great feature. Banjo music has natural syncopation, and its peculiarities undoubtedly originated the "rag-time" of our present-day imitations. There was one song that I learned from hearing a man sing it who had, in turn, caught it from a darky, that has never to my knowledge been published and is not to be found in any collection. It began: [Illustration: Musical notation; It'll set this dar-key cra-zy. I don't know what I'll do,] and remains with me in my _répertoire_ unto this day. I have been known to sing it with certain effect--for when I am asked, now, to sing it, my husband leaves the room! The last time I sang it was only a couple of years ago in Norfolk. Herbert Witherspoon said: "Listen to that high C!" "Ah," said I, "that is the last remnant--the very last!" But this chapter is to be about my first notes, not my last ones. In 1857, my father failed, the beautiful books were sold and we went to New York to live. Almost directly afterward occurred one of the most important events of my career. Although I was not being trained for a singer, but as a musician in general, I could no more help singing than I could held breathing, or sleeping, or eating; and, one day, Colonel Henry G. Stebbins, a well-known musical amateur, one of the directors of the Academy of Music, was calling on my father and heard me singing to myself in an adjoining room. Then and there he asked to be allowed to have my voice cultivated; and so, when I was fourteen, I began to study singing. The succeeding four years were the hardest worked years of my life. To young girls who are contemplating vocal study, I always say that it is mostly a question of what one is willing to give up. If you really are prepared to sacrifice all the fun that your youth is entitled to; to work, and to deny yourself; to eat and sleep, not because you are hungry or sleepy, but because your strength must be conserved for your art; to make your music the whole interest of your existence;--if you are willing to do all this, you may have your reward. But music will have no half service. It has to be all or nothing. In Rostand's play, they ask Chanticleer: "What is your life?" And he answers: "My song." "What is your song?" "My life." [Illustration: =George Kellogg= Father of Clara Louise Kellogg Photograph by Gurney & Son] CHAPTER II GIRLHOOD In taking up vocal study, however, I had no fixed intention of going on the stage. All I decided was to make as much as I could of myself and of my voice. Many girls I knew studied singing merely as an accomplishment. In fact, the girl who aspired professionally was almost unknown. I first studied under a Frenchman named Millet, a graduate of the Conservatory of Paris, who was teaching the daughters of Colonel Stebbins and, also, the daughter of the Baron de Trobriand. Later, I worked with Manzocchi, Rivarde, Errani and Muzio, who was a great friend of Verdi. Most of my fellow-students were charming society girls. Ella Porter and President Arthur's wife were with me under Rivarde, and Anna Palmer who married the scientist, Dr. Draper. The idea of my going on the stage would have appalled the families of these girls. In those days the life of the theatre was regarded as altogether outside the pale. One didn't know stage people; one couldn't speak to them, nor shake hands with them, nor even look at them except from a safe distance across the footlights. There were no "decent people on the stage"; how often did I hear that foolish thing said! It is odd that in that most musical and artistic country, Italy, much the same prejudice exists to this day. I should never think of telling a really great Italian lady that I had been on the stage; she would immediately think that there was something queer about me. Of course in America all that was changed some time ago, after England had established the precedent. People are now pleased not only to meet artists socially, but to lionise them as well. But when I was a girl there was a gulf as deep as the Bottomless Pit between society and people of the theatre; and it was this gulf that I knew would open between myself and the friends of whom I was really fond as, in time, I realised that I was improving sufficiently to justify some definite ambitions. My work was steady and unremitting, and by the time I began study with Muzio my mind was pretty nearly made up. A queer, nervous, brusque, red-headed man was Muzio, from the north of Italy, where the type always seems so curiously German. Besides being one of the conductors of the Opera, he organised concert tours, and promised to see that I should have my chance. It was said that he had fled from political disturbances in Italy, but this I never heard verified. Certainly he was quite a big man in the New York operatic world of his day, and was a most cultivated musician, with the "Italian traditions" of opera at his fingers' ends. It is to Muzio, incidentally, that I owe my trill. [Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg. Aged Three= From a photograph by Black & Case] Oddly enough, I had great difficulty with that trill for three years; but in four weeks' study he taught me the trick,--for it is a trick, like so many other big effects. I believe I got it finally by using my sub-conscious mind. Don't you know how, after striving and straining for something, you at last relax and let some inner part of your brain carry on the battle? And how, often and often, it is then that victory comes? So it was with my trill; and so it has been with many difficult things that I have succeeded in since then. No account of my education would be complete without a mention of the great singers whom I heard during that receptive period; that is, the years between fourteen and eighteen, before my professional _début_. The first artist I heard when I was old enough really to appreciate good singing was Louisa Pine, who sang in New York in second-rate English Opera with Harrison, of whom she was deeply enamoured and who usually sang out of tune. We did not then fully understand how well-schooled and well-trained she was; and her really fine qualities were only revealed to me much later in a concert. Then there was D'Angri, a contralto who sang Rossini to perfection. _Italiani in Algeria_ was produced especially for her. About that same time Mme. de la Grange was appearing, together with Mme. de la Borde, a light and colorature soprano, something very new in America. Mme. de la Borde sang the Queen to Mme. de la Grange's Valentine in _Les Huguenots_, and had a French voice--if I may so express it--light, and of a strange quality. The French claimed that she sang a scale of _commas_, that is, a note between each of our chromatic intervals. She may have; but it merely sounded to the listener as if she wasn't singing the scale clearly. Mme. de la Grange was a sort of goddess to me, I remember. I heard her first in _Trovatore_ with Brignoli and Amodio. Piccolomini arrived here a couple of years later and I heard her, too. She was of a distinguished Italian family, and, considering Italy's aristocratic prejudices, it is strange that she should have been an opera singer. She made _Traviata_, in which she had already captured the British public, first known to us: yet she was an indifferent singer and had a very limited _répertoire_. She received her adulation partly because people didn't know much then about music. Adulation it was, too. She made $5000 a month, and America had never before imagined such an operatic salary. She looked a little like Lucca; was small and dark, and decidedly clever in comedy. I was fortunate enough to see her in Pergolese's delightful, if archaic, opera, _La Serva Padrona_--"The Maid as Mistress"--and she proved herself to be an exceptional _comédienne_. She was excellent in tragedy, too. Brignoli was the first great tenor I ever heard; and Amodio the first famous baritone. Brignoli--but all the world knows what Brignoli was! As for Amodio; he had a great and beautiful voice; but, poor man, what a disadvantage he suffered under in his appearance. He was so fat that he was grotesque, he was absurdly short, and had absolutely no saving grace as to physique. He played Mazetto to Piccolomini's Zerlina, and the whole house roared when they came on dancing. I heard nearly all the great singers of my youth; all that were to be heard in New York, at any rate, except Grisi. I missed Grisi, I am sorry to say, because on the one occasion when I was asked to hear her sing, with Mario, I chose to go to a children's party instead. I am much ashamed of this levity, although I was, to be sure, only ten years old at the time. [Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg. Aged Seven= Photograph by Black & Case] Adelina Patti I heard the year before my own _début_. She was a slip of a girl then, when she appeared over here in _Lucia_, and carried the town by storm. What a voice! I had never dreamed of anything like it. But, for that matter, neither had anyone else. What histrionic skill I ever developed I attribute to the splendid acting that I saw so constantly during my girlhood. And what actors and actresses we had! As I look back, I wonder if we half appreciated them. It is certainly true that, viewed comparatively, we must cry "there were giants in those days!" Think of Mrs. John Wood and Jefferson at the Winter Garden; of Dion Boucicault and his wife, Agnes Robertson; of Laura Keene--a revelation to us all--and of the French Theatre, which was but a little hole in the wall, but the home of some exquisite art (I was brought up on the Raouls in French pantomime); and all the wonderful old Wallack Stock Company! Think of the elder Sothern, and of John Brougham, and of Charles Walcot, and of Mrs. John Hoey, Mrs. Vernon, and Mary Gannon,--that most beautiful and perfect of all _ingénues_! Those people would be world-famous stars if they were playing to-day; we have no actors or companies like them left. Not even the Comédie Française ever had such a gathering. It may be imagined what an education it was for a young girl with stage aspirations to see such work week after week. For I was taken to see everyone in everything, and some of the impressions I received then were permanent. For instance, Matilda Heron in _Camille_ gave me a picture of poor Marguerite Gautier so deep and so vivid that I found it invaluable, years later, when I myself came to play Violetta in _Traviata_. I saw both Ristori and Rachel too. The latter I heard recite on her last appearance in America. It was the _Marseillaise_, and deeply impressive. Personally, I loved best her _Moineau de Lesbie_. Shall I ever forget her enchanting reading of the little scene with the jewels?--_Suis-je belle?_ The father of one of my fellow students was, as I have said before, Baron de Trobriand, a very charming man of the old French aristocracy. He came often to the home of Colonel Stebbins and always showed a great deal of interest in my development. He knew Rachel very well; had known her ever since her girlhood indeed, and always declared that I was the image of her. As I look at my early portraits, I can see it myself a little. In all of them I have a desperately serious expression as though life were a tragedy. How well I remember the Baron and his wonderful stories of France! He had some illustrious kindred, among them the Duchesse de Berri, and we were never tired of his tales concerning her. I find, to-day, as I look through some of my old press notices, that nice things were always said of me as an actress. Once, John Wallack, Lester's father, came to hear me in _Fra Diavolo_, and exclaimed: "I wish to God that girl would lose her voice!" He wanted me to give up singing and go on the dramatic stage; and so did Edwin Booth. I have a letter from Edwin Booth that I am more proud of than almost anything I possess. But these incidents happened, of course, later. From all I saw and all I heard I tried to learn and to keep on learning. And so I prepared for the time of my own initial bow before the public. As I gradually studied and developed, I began to feel more and more sure that I was destined to be a singer. I felt that it was my life and my heritage; that I was made for it, and that nothing else could ever satisfy me. And Muzio told me that I was right. In another six months I would be ready to make my _début_. It was a serious time, when I faced the future as a public singer, but I was very happy in the contemplation of it. That summer I took a rest, preparatory to my first season,--how thrillingly professional that sounded, to be sure!--and it was during that summer that I had one of the most pleasant experiences of my girlhood,--one really delightful and _young_ experience, such as other girls have,--a wonderful change from the hard-working, serious months of study. I went to West Point for a visit. In spite of my sober bringing-up, I was full of the joy of life, and loved the days spent in a place filled with the military glamour that every girl adores. West Point was more primitive then than it is now. But it was just as much fun. I danced, and watched the drill, and walked about, and made friends with the cadets,--to whom the fact that they were entertaining a budding _prima donna_ was both exciting and interesting--and had about the best time I ever had in my life. Looking back now, however, I can feel a shadow of sadness lying over the memory of all that happy visit. We were just on the eve of war, little as we young people thought of it, and many of the merry, good-looking boys I danced with that summer fell at the front within the year. Some of them entered the Union Army the following spring when war was declared, and some went South to serve under the Stars and Bars. Among the former was Alec McCook--"Fighting McCook," as he was called. Lieutenant McCreary was Southern, and was killed early in the war. So, also, was the son of General Huger--the General Huger who was then Postmaster General and later became a member of the Cabinet of the Confederacy. It is interesting to consider that West Point, at the time of which I write, was a veritable hotbed of conspiracy. The Southerners were preparing hard and fast for action; the atmosphere teemed with plotting, so that even I was vaguely conscious that something exceedingly serious was going on. The Commandant of the Post, General Delafield, was an officer of strong Southern sympathies and later went to fight in Dixie land. When the war did finally break out, nearly all the ammunition was down South; and this had been managed from West Point. Of course, all was done with great circumspection. Buchanan was a Democratic president; and the Democrats of the South sent a delegation to West Point to try to get the commanding officers to use their influence in reducing the military course from four to three years. This at least was their ostensible mission, and it made an excellent excuse as well as offered great opportunities for what we Federal sympathisers would call treason, but which they probably considered was justified by patriotism. Indeed, James Buchanan was allotted a very difficult part in the political affairs of the day; and the censure he received for what is called his "vacillation" was somewhat unjust. He held that the question of slavery and its abolition was not a national, but a local problem; and he never took any firm stand about it. But the conditions were bewilderingly new and complex, and statesmen often suffer from their very ability to look on both sides of a question. Jefferson Davis was then at West Point; and, as for "Mrs. Jeff"--I always believed she was a spy. She had her niece and son with her at the Point, the latter, "Jeff, Jr.," then a child of five or six years old. He had the worst temper I ever imagined in a boy; and I am ashamed to relate that the officers took a wicked delight in arousing and exhibiting it. He used to sit several steps up on the one narrow stairway of the hotel and swear the most horrible, hot oaths ever heard, getting red in the face with fury. Alec McCook, assistant instructor and a charming fellow of about thirty, would put him on a bucking donkey that was there and say: "Now then, lad, don't you let him put you off!" And the "lad" would sit on the donkey, turning the air blue with profanity. But one thing can be said for him: he did stick on! Lieutenant Horace Porter, who was among my friends of that early summer, was destined to serve with distinction on the Northern side. I met him not long ago, a dignified, distinguished General; and it was difficult to see in him the high-spirited, young lieutenant of the old Point days. "Do you know," he said, "Mrs. Jeff Davis sent for me to come and see her when she was in New York! _Of course_ I didn't go!" He had not forgotten. One does not forget the things that happened just before the war. The great struggle burned them too deeply into our memories. Nothing would satisfy the cadets, who were aware that I was preparing to go on the stage as a professional singer, but that I should sing for them. I was only too delighted to do so, but I didn't want to sing in the hotel. So they turned their "hop-room" into a concert-hall for the occasion and invited the officers and their friends, in spite of Mrs. Jeff Davis, who tried her best to prevent the ball-room from being given to us for our musicale. She did not attend; but the affair made her exceedingly uncomfortable, for she disliked me and was jealous of the kindness and attention I received from everyone. She always referred to me as "that singing girl!" As I have said, many of those attractive West Point boys and officers were killed in the war so soon to break upon us. Others, like General Porter, have remained my friends. A few I have kept in touch with only by hearsay. But throughout the Civil War I always felt a keener and more personal interest in the battles because, for a brief space, I had come so close to the men who were engaged in them; and the sentiment never passed. Ever and ever so many years after that visit to West Point, a note came behind the scenes to me during one of my performances, and with it was a mass of exquisite flowers. "Please wear one of these flowers to-night!" the note begged me. It was from one of the cadets to whom I had sung so long before, but whom I had never seen since. I wore the flower: and I put my whole soul into my singing that night. For that little episode of my girlhood, the meeting with those eager and plucky young spirits just before our great national crisis, has always been close to my heart. As for the three dark years that followed--ah, well,--I never want to read about the war now. [Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg as a Girl= From a photograph by Sarony] It was almost time for my _début_, and there was still something I had to do. To my sheltered, puritanically brought up consciousness, there could be no two views among conventional people as to the life I was about to enter upon. I knew all about it. So, a few weeks before I was to make my professional bow to the public, I called my girl friends together, the companions of four years' study, and I said to them: "Girls, I've made up my mind to go on the stage! I know just how your people feel about it, and I want to tell you now that you needn't know me any more. You needn't speak to me, nor bow to me if you meet me in the street. I shall quite understand, and I shan't feel a bit badly. _Because I think the day will come when you will be proud to know me!_" CHAPTER III "LIKE A PICKED CHICKEN" Before my _début_ in opera, Muzio took me out on a concert tour for a few weeks. Colson was the _prima donna_, Brignoli the tenor, Ferri the baritone, and Susini the basso. Susini had, I believe, distinguished himself in the Italian Revolution. His name means _plums_ in Italian, and his voice as well as his name was rich and luscious. I was a general utility member of the company, and sang to fill in the chinks. We sang four times a week, and I received twenty-five dollars each time--that is, one hundred dollars a week--not bad for inexperienced seventeen, although Muzio regarded the tour for me as merely educational and part of my training. My mother travelled with me, for she never let me out of her sight. Yet, even with her along, the experience was very strange and new and rather terrifying. I had no knowledge of stage life, and that first _tournée_ was comprised of a series of shocks and surprises, most of them disillusioning. We opened in Pittsburg, and it was there, at the old Monongahela House, that I had my first exhibition of Italian temperament, or, rather, temper! When we arrived, we found that the dining-room was officially closed. We were tired out after a long hard trip of twenty-four hours, and, of course, almost starved. We got as far as the door, where we could look in hungrily, but it was empty and dark. There were no waiters; there was nothing, indeed, except the rows of neatly set tables for the next meal. Brignoli demanded food. He was very fond of eating, I recall. And, in those days, he was a sort of little god in New York, where he lived in much luxury. When affairs went well with him, he was not an unamiable man; but he was a selfish egotist, with the devil's own temper on occasion. The landlord approached and told us that the dinner hour was past, and that we could not get anything to eat until the next meal, which would be supper. And oh! if you only knew what supper was like in the provincial hotel of that day! Brignoli was wild with wrath. He would start to storm and shout in his rage, and would then suddenly remember his voice and subside, only to begin again as his anger rose in spite of himself. It was really amusing, though I doubt if anyone appreciated the joke at the moment. At last, as the landlord remained quite unmoved, Brignoli dashed into the room, grabbed the cloth on one of the tables near the door and pulled it off--dishes, silver, and all! The crash was terrific, and naturally the china was smashed to bits. "You'll have to pay for that!" cried the landlord, indignantly. "Pay for it!" gasped Brignoli, waving his arms and fairly dancing with rage, "of course I'll pay for it--just as I'll pay for the dinner, if----" "What!" exclaimed the landlord, in a new tone, "you will pay _extra_ for the dinner, if we are willing to serve it for you now?" "_Dio mio_, yes!" cried Brignoli. The landlord stood and gaped at him. "Why didn't you say so in the first place?" he asked with a sort of contemptuous pity, and went off to order the dinner. When will the American and the Italian temperaments begin to understand each other! Brignoli was not only a fine singer but a really good musician. He told me that he had given piano lessons in Paris before he began to sing at all. But of his absolute origin he would never speak. He was a handsome man, with ears that had been pierced for ear-rings. This led me to infer that he had at some time been a sailor, although he would never let anyone mention the subject. Anyhow, I always thought of Naples when I looked at him. Most stage people have their pet superstitions. There seems to be something in their make-up that lends itself to an interest in signs. But Brignoli had a greater number of singular ones than any person I ever met. He had, among other things, a mascot that he carried all over the country. This was a stuffed deer's head, and it was always installed in his dressing-room wherever he might be singing. When he sang well, he would come back to the room and pat the deer's head approvingly. When he was not in voice, he would pound it and swear at it in Italian. Brignoli lived for his voice. He adored it as if it were some phenomenon for which he was in no sense responsible. And I am not at all sure that this is not the right point of view for a singer. He always took tremendous pains with his voice and the greatest possible care of himself in every way, always eating huge quantities of raw oysters each night before he sang. The story is told of him that one day he fell off a train. People rushed to pick him up, solicitous lest the great tenor's bones were broken. But Brignoli had only one fear. Without waiting even to rise to his feet, he sat up, on the ground where he had fallen, and solemnly sang a bar or two. Finding his voice uninjured, he burst into heartfelt prayers of thanks-giving, and climbed back into the car. Brignoli only just missed being very great. But he had the indolence of the Neapolitan sailor, and he was, of course, sadly spoiled. Women were always crazy about him, and he posed as an _élégante_. Years afterward, when I heard of his death, I never felt the loss of any beautiful thing as I did the loss of his voice. The thought came to me:--"and he hasn't been able to leave it to anyone as a legacy--" But to return to our concert tour. I remember that the concert room in Pittsburg was over the town market. That was what we had to contend with in those primitive days! Imagine our little company of devoted and ambitious artists trying to create a musical atmosphere one flight up, while they sold cabbages and fish downstairs! The first evening was an important event for me, my initial public appearance, and I recall quite distinctly that I sang the Cavatina from _Linda di Chamounix_--which I was soon to sing operatically--and that I wore a green dress. Green was an unusual colour in gowns then. Our young singers generally chose white or blue or pink or something insipid; but I had a very definite taste in clothes, and liked effects that were not only pretty but also individual and becoming. Speaking of clothes, I learned on that first experimental tour the horrors of travel when it comes to keeping one's gowns fresh. I speedily acquired the habit, practised ever since, of carrying a big crash cloth about with me to spread on stages where I was to sing. This was not entirely to keep my clothes clean, important as that was. It was also for the sake of my voice and its effect. Few people know that the floor-covering on which a singer stands makes a very great difference. On carpets, for instance, one simply cannot get a good tone. Just before I went on for that first concert, Madame Colson stopped me to put a rose in my hair, and said to me: "Smile much, and show your teeth!" After the concert she supplemented this counsel with the words: "Always dress your best, and always smile, and always be gracious!" I never forgot the advice. The idea of pretty clothes and a pretty smile is not merely a pose nor an artificiality. It is likewise carrying out a spirit of courtesy. Just as a hostess greets a guest cordially and tries to make her feel at ease, so the tactful singer tries to show the people who have come to hear her that she is glad to see them. Pauline Colson was a charming artist, a French soprano of distinction in her own country and always delightful in her work. She had first come to America to sing in the French Opera in New Orleans where, for many years, there had been a splendid opera season each winter. She had just finished her winter's work there when some northern impresario engaged her for a brief season of opera in New York; and it was at the termination of this that Muzio engaged her for our concert tour. She was one of the few artists who rebelled against the bad costuming then prevalent; and it was said that for more than one of her _rôles_ she made her gowns herself, to be sure that they were correct. It was her example that fired me in the revolutionary steps I was to take later with regard to my own costumes. Our next stop was Cincinnati--_Cincinnata_, as it was called! I had there one of the shocks of my life. The leading newspaper of the city, in commenting on our concert, said of me that "this young girl's parents ought to remove her from public view, do her up in cotton wool, nourish her well, and not allow her to appear again until she looks less like a picked chicken"! No one said anything about my voice! Indeed, I got almost no encouragement before we reached Detroit, and I recall that I cried a good part of the way between the two cities over my failure in Cincinnati. But in Detroit Colson was taken ill, so I had a chance to do the _prima donna_ work of the occasion. And I profited by the chance, for it was in Detroit that an audience first discovered that I had some nascent ability. I _must_ have been an odd, young creature--just five feet and four inches tall, and weighing only one hundred and four pounds. I was frail and big-eyed, and wrapped up in music (not cotton wool), and exceedingly childlike for my age. I knew nothing of life, for my puritanical surroundings and the way in which I had been brought up were developing my personality very slowly. That was a hard tour. Indeed, all tours were hard in those days. Travelling accommodations were limited and uncomfortable, and most of the hotels were very bad. Trains were slow, and connections uncertain, and of course there was no such thing as a Pullman or, much less, a dining-car. Sometimes we had to sit up all night and were not able to get anything to eat, not infrequently arriving too late for the meal hour of the hotel where we were to stop. The journeys were so long and so difficult that they used to say Pauline Lucca always travelled in her nightgown and a black velvet wrapper. All through that tour, as during every period of my life, I was working and studying and practising and learning: trying to improve my voice, trying to develop my artistic consciousness, trying to fit myself in a hundred ways for my career. Work never frightened me; there was always in me the desire to express myself--and to express that self as fully and as variously as I might have opportunity for doing. It sometimes seems to me that one of the strangest things in this world is the realisation that there is never time to perfect everything in us; that we carry seeds in our souls that cannot flower in one short life. Perhaps Paradise will be a place where we can develop every possibility and become our complete selves. In one's brain and one's soul lies the power to do almost anything. I believe that the psychological phenomena we hear so much about are nothing but undiscovered forces in ourselves. I am not a spiritualist. I do not care for so-called supernatural manifestations. Many of my friends have been interested in such matters, and I was taken to the celebrated "Stratford Knockings" and other mediumistic demonstrations when I was a mere child; but it has never seemed to me that the marvels I encountered came from an outside spiritual agency. I believe, profoundly, that, one and all, they are the workings of forces in _us_ that we have not yet learned to develop fully nor to use wisely. [Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg as a Young Lady= From a photograph by Black & Case] I never did anything in my life without study. The ancient axiom that "what is worth doing at all is worth doing well" is more of a truth than most people understand. The thing that one has chosen for one's life work in the world:--what labour could be too great for it, or what too minute? When I knew that I was to make my _début_ as Gilda, in Verdi's opera of _Rigoletto_, I settled down to put myself into that part. I studied for nine months, until I was not certain whether I was really Gilda--or only myself! I was taking lessons in acting with Scola then, in addition to my musical study. And, besides Scola's regular course, I closely observed the methods of individuals, actors, and singers. I remember seeing Brignoli in _I Puritani_, during that "incubating period" before my first appearance in opera. I was studying gesture then,--the free, simple, _inevitable_ gesture that is so necessary to a natural effect in dramatic singing; and during the beautiful melody, _A te, o cara_, which he sang in the first act, Brignoli stood still in one spot and thrust first one arm out, and then the other, at right angles from his body, twenty-three consecutive times. I counted them, and I don't know how many times he had done it before I began to count! "Heavens!" I said, "that's one thing not to do, anyway!" Languages were a very important part of my training. I had studied French when I was nine years old, in the country, and as soon as I began taking singing lessons I began Italian also. Much later, when I sang in _Les Noces de Jeannette_, people would speak of my French and ask where I had studied. But it was all learned at home. I never studied German. There was less demand for it in music than there is now. America practically had no "German opera;" and Italian was the accepted tongue of dramatic and tragic music, as French was the language of lighter and more popular operas. Besides, German always confused me; and I never liked it. Many years later than the time of which I am now writing, I was charmed to be confirmed in my anti-German prejudices when I went to Paris. After the Franco-Prussian War the signs and warnings in that city were put up in every language in the world except German! The German way of putting things was too long; and, furthermore, the French people didn't care if Germans did break their legs or get run over. Of course, all this is changed--and in music most of all. For example, there could be no greater convert to Wagnerism than I! My mother hated the atmosphere of the theatre even though she had wished me to become a singer, and always gloried in my successes. To her rigid and delicate instinct there was something dreadful in the free and easy artistic attitude, and she always stood between me and any possible intimacy with my fellow-singers. I believe this to have been a mistake. Many traditions of the stage come to one naturally and easily through others; but I had to wait and learn them all by experience. I was always working as an outsider, and, naturally, this attitude of ours antagonised singers with whom we appeared. Not only that. My brain would have developed much more rapidly if I had been allowed--no, if I had been _obliged_ to be more self-reliant. To profit by one's own mistakes;--all the world's history goes to show that is the only way to learn. By protecting me, my mother really robbed me of much precious experience. For how many years after I had made my _début_ would she wait for me in the _coulisses_, ready to whisk me off to my dressing-room before any horrible opera singer had a chance to talk with me! Yet she grieved for my forfeited youth--did my dear mother. She always felt that I was being sacrificed to my work, and just at the time when I would have most delighted in my girlhood. Of course, I was obliged to live a life of labour and self-denial, but it was not quite so difficult for me as she felt it to be, or as other people sometimes thought it was. Not only did I adore my music, and look forward to my work as an artist, but I literally never had any other life. I knew nothing of what I had given up; and so was happy in what I had undertaken, as no girl could have been happy who had lived a less restricted, hard-working and yet dream-filled existence. My mother was very strait-laced and puritanical, as I have said, and, naturally, by reflection and association, I was the same. I lay stress on this because I want one little act of mine to be appreciated as a sign of my ineradicable girlishness and love of beauty. When I earned my first money, I went to Mme. Percival's, the smart lingerie shop of New York, and bought the three most exquisite chemises I could find, imported and trimmed with real lace! I daresay this harmless ebullition of youthful daintiness would have proved the last straw to some of my Psalm-singing New England relatives. There was one uncle of mine who vastly disapproved of my going on the stage at all, saying that it would have been much better if I had been a good, honest milliner. He used to sing: [Illustration: Musical notation; "Broad is the road That leads to Hell!"] in a minor key, with the true, God-fearing, nasal twang in it. How I detested that old man! And I had to bury him, too, at the last. I wonder whether I should have been able to do so if I had gone into the millinery business! CHAPTER IV A YOUTHFUL REALIST As I have said, I studied Gilda for nine months. At the end of that time I was so imbued with the part as to be thoroughly at ease. Present-day actors call this condition "getting inside the skin" of a _rôle_. I simply could not make a mistake, and could do everything connected with the characterisation with entire unconsciousness. Yet I want to add that I had little idea of what the opera really meant. My _début_ was in New York at the old Academy of Music, and Rigoletto was the famous Ferri. He was blind in one eye and I had always to be on his seeing side,--else he couldn't act. Stigelli was the tenor. Stiegel was his real name. He was a German and a really fine artist. But I had then had no experience with stage heroes and thought they were all going to be exactly as they appeared in my romantic dreams, and--poor man, he is dead now, so I can say this!--it was a dreadful blow to me to be obliged to sing a love duet with a man smelling of lager beer and cheese! Charlotte Cushman--who was a great friend of Miss Emma Stebbins, the sister of Colonel Stebbins--had always been interested in me; so when she knew that I was to make my _début_ on February 26 (1861), she put on _Meg Merrilies_ for that night because she could get through with it early enough for her to see part of my first performance. She reached the Academy in time for the last act of _Rigoletto_; and I felt that I had been highly praised when, as I came out and began to sing, she cried: "The girl doesn't seem to know that she has any arms!" My freedom of gesture and action came from nothing but the most complete familiarity with the part and with the detail of everything I had to do. In opera one cannot be too temperamental in one's acting. One cannot make pauses when one thinks it effective, nor alter the stage business to fit one's mood, nor work oneself up to an emotional crescendo one night and not do it the next. Everything has to be timed to a second and a fraction of a second. One cannot wait for unusual effects. The orchestra does not consider one's temperament, and this fact cannot be lost sight of for a moment. This is why I believe in rehearsing and studying and working over a _rôle_ so exhaustively--and exhaustingly. For it is only in that most rigidly studied accuracy of action that any freedom can be attained. When one becomes so trained that one cannot conceivably retard a bar, and cannot undertime a stage cross nor fail to come in promptly in an _ensemble_, then, and only then, can one reach some emotional liberty and inspiration. If I had not worked so hard at Gilda I should never have got through that first performance. I was not consciously nervous, but my throat--it is quite impossible to tell in words how my throat felt. I have heard singers describe the first-night sensation variously,--a tongue that felt stiff, a palate like a hot griddle, and so on. My throat and my tongue were dry and thick and woolly, like an Oriental rug with a "pile" so deep and heavy that, if water is spilled on it, the water does not soak in, but lies about the surface in globules,--just a dry and unabsorbing carpet. My mother was with me behind the scenes; and my grandmother was in front to see me in all my stage grandeur. I am afraid I did not care particularly where either of them were. Certainly I had no thought for anyone who might be seated out in the Great Beyond on the far side of the footlights. I sang the second act in a dream, unconscious of any audience:--hardly conscious of the music or of myself--going through it all mechanically. But the sub-conscious mind had been at work all the time. As I was changing my costume after the second act, my mother said to me: "I cannot find your grandmother anywhere. I have been looking and peeping through the hole in the curtain and from the wings, but I cannot seem to discover where she is sitting." Hardly thinking of the words, I answered at once: "She is over there to the left, about three rows back, near a pillar." The criticisms of the press next day said that my most marked specialty was my ability to strike a tone with energy. I liked better, however, one kindly reviewer who observed that my voice was "cordial to the heart!" The newspapers found my stage appearance peculiar. There was about it "a marked development of the intellectual at the expense of the physical to which her New England birth may afford a key." The man who wrote this was quite correct. He had discovered the Puritan maid behind the stage trappings of Gilda. If omens count for anything I ought to have had a disastrous first season, for everything went wrong during that opening week. I lost a bracelet of which I was particularly fond; I fell over a stick in making an entrance and nearly went on my head; and at the end of the third act of the second performance of _Rigoletto_ the curtain failed to come down, and I was obliged to stay in a crouching attitude until it could be put into working order again. But these trying experiences were not auguries of failure or of disaster. In fact my public grew steadily kinder to me, although it hung back a little until after Marguerite. Audiences were not very cordial to new singers. They distrusted their own judgment; and I don't altogether wonder that they did. The week after my _début_ we went to Boston to sing. Boston would not have _Rigoletto_. It was considered objectionable, particularly the ending. For some inexplicable reason _Linda di Chamounix_ was expected to be more acceptable to the Bostonian public, and so I was to sing the part of Linda instead of that of Gilda. I had been working on Linda during a part of the year in which I studied Gilda, and was quite equal to it. The others of the company went to Boston ahead of me, and I played Linda at a _matinée_ in New York before following them. This was the first time I sang in opera with Brignoli. I went on in the part with only one rehearsal. Opera-goers do not hear _Linda_ any more, but it is a graceful little opera with some pretty music and a really charmingly poetic story. It was taken from the French play, _La Grâce de Dieu_, and _Rigoletto_ was taken from Victor Hugo's _Le Roi S'Amuse_. The story of _Linda_ is that of a Swiss peasant girl of Chamounix who falls in love with a French noble whom she has met as a strolling painter in her village. He returns to Paris and she follows him there, walking all the way and accompanied by a faithful rustic, Pierotto, who loves her humbly. He plays a hurdy-gurdy and Linda sings, and so the poor young vagrants pay their way. In Paris the nobleman finds her and lavishes all manner of jewels and luxuries upon little Linda, but at last abandons her to make a rich marriage. On the same day that she hears the news of her lover's wedding her father comes to her house in Paris and denounces her. She goes mad, of course. Most operatic heroines did go mad in those days. And, in the last act, the peasant lover with the hurdy-gurdy takes her back to Chamounix among the hills. On the lengthy journey he can lure her along only by playing a melody that she knows and loves. It is a dear little story; but I never could comprehend how Boston was induced to accept the second act since they drew the line at _Rigoletto_! I liked Linda and wanted to give a truthful and appealing impersonation of her. But the handicaps of those days of crude and primitive theatre conditions were really almost insurmountable. Now, with every assistance of wonderful staging, exquisite costuming, and magical lighting, the artist may rest upon his or her surroundings and accessories and know that everything possible to art has been brought together to enhance the convincing effect. In the old days at the Academy, however, we had no system of lighting except glaring footlights and perhaps a single, unimaginative calcium. We had no scenery worthy the name; and as for costumes, there were just three sets called by the theatre _costumier_ "Paysannes" (peasant dress); "Norma" (they did not know enough even to call it "classic"); and "Rich!" The last were more or less of the Louis XIV period and could be slightly modified for various operas. These three sets were combined and altered as required. Yet, of course, the audiences were correspondingly unexacting. They were so accustomed to nothing but primitive effects that the simplest touch of true realism surprised and delighted them. Once during a performance of _Il Barbiere_ the man who was playing the part of Don Basilio sent his hat out of doors to be snowed on. It was one of those Spanish shovel hats, long and square-edged, like a plank. When he wore it in the next act, all white with snowflakes from the blizzard outside, the audience was so simple and childlike that it roared with pleasure, "Why, it's _real_ snow!" It was also the time when hoop skirts were universally fashionable, so we all wore hoops, no matter what the period we were supposed to be representing. Scola first showed me how to fall gracefully in a hoop skirt, not in the least an easy feat to accomplish; and I shall always remember seeing Mme. de la Grange go to bed in one, in her sleep-walking scene in _Sonnambula_. Indeed, there was no illusion nor enchantment to help one in those elementary days. One had to conquer one's public alone and unaided. I confided myself at first to the hands of the _costumier_ with characteristic truthfulness. I had considered the musical and dramatic aspects of the part; it did not occur to me that the clothes would become my responsibility as well. That theatre _costumier_ at the Academy, I found, could not even cut a skirt. Linda's was a strange affair, very long on the sides, and startlingly short in front. But this was the least of my troubles on the afternoon of that first _matinée_ in New York. When it came to the last act--there having been no rehearsals, and my experience being next to nothing--I asked innocently for my costume, and was told that I would have to wear the same dress I had worn in the first act. "But, I can't!" I gasped. "That fresh, new gown, after months are supposed to have gone by!--when Linda has walked and slept in it during the whole journey!" "No one will think of that," I was assured. But _I_ thought of it and simply could not put on that clean dress for poor Linda's travel-worn last act. I sent for an old shawl from the chorus and ripped my costume into rags. By this time the orchestra was almost at the opening bars of the third act and there was not a moment to lose. Suddenly I looked at my shoes and nearly collapsed with despair. One always provided one's own foot-gear and the shoes I had on were absolutely the only pair of the sort required that I possessed; neat little slippers, painfully new and clean. We had not gone to any extra expense, in case I did not happen to make a success that would justify it, and that was the reason I had only the one pair. Well--there was a moment's struggle before I attacked my pretty shoes--but my passion for realism triumphed. I sent a man out into Fourteenth Street at the stage door of the Academy and had him rub those immaculate slippers in the gutter until they were thoroughly dirty, so that when I wore them onto the stage three minutes later they looked as if I had really walked to Paris and back in them. The next day the newspapers said that the part of Linda had never before been sung with so much pathos. "Aha!" said I, "that's my old clothes! That's my dirt!" I had learned that the more you look your part the less you have to act. The observance of this truth was always Henry Irving's great strength. The more completely you get inside a character the less, also, are you obliged to depend on brilliant vocalism. Mary Garden is a case in point. She is not a great singer, although she sings better than she is credited with doing or her voice could not endure as much as it does, but above all she is intelligent and an artistic realist, taking care never to lose the spirit of her _rôle_. Renaud is one of the few men I have ever seen in opera who was willing to wear dirty clothes if they chanced to be in character. I shall never forget Jean de Reszke in _L'Africaine_. In the Madagascar scene, just after the rescue from the foundered vessel, he appeared in the most beautiful fresh tights imaginable and a pair of superb light leather boots. Indeed, the most distinguished performance becomes weak and valueless if the note of truth is lacking. Theodore Thomas was the first violin in the Academy at the time of which I am writing, and not a very good one either. The director was Maretzek--"Maretzek the Magnificent" as he was always called, for he was very handsome and had a vivid and compelling personality--on whom be benisons, for it was he who, later, suggested the giving of _Faust_, and me for the leading _rôle_. I was not popular with my fellow-artists and did not have a very pleasant time preparing and rehearsing for my first parts. The chorus was made up of Italians who never studied their music, merely learned it at rehearsal, and the rehearsals themselves were often farcical. The Italians of the chorus were always bitter against me for, up to that time, Italians had had the monopoly of music. It was not generally conceded that Americans could appreciate, much less interpret opera; and I, as the first American _prima donna_, was in the position of a foreigner in my own country. The chorus, indeed, could sometimes hardly contain themselves. "Who is she," they would demand indignantly, "to come and take the bread out of our mouths?" One other person in the company who never gave me a kind word (although she was not an Italian) was Adelaide Phillips, the contralto. She was a fine artist and had been singing for many years, so, perhaps, it galled her to have to "support" a younger countrywoman. When it came to dividing the honours she was not at all pleased. As Maddalena in _Rigoletto_ she was very plain; but when she did Pierotto, the boyish, rustic lover in _Linda_, she looked well. She had the most perfectly formed pair of legs--ankles, feet and all--that I ever saw on a woman. In singing with Brignoli there developed a difficulty to which Ferri's blindness was nothing. Brignoli seriously objected to being touched during his scene! Imagine playing love scenes with a tenor who did not want to be touched, no matter what might be the emotional exigencies of the moment or situation. The bass part in _Linda_ is that of the Baron, and when I first sang the opera it was taken by Susini, who had been with us on our preparatory _tournée_. His wife was Isabella Hinckley, a good and sweet woman, also a singer with an excellent soprano voice. I found that the big basso (he was a very large man with a buoyant sense of humour) was a fine actor and had a genuine dramatic gift in singing. His sense of humour was always bubbling up, in and out of performances. I once lost a diamond from one of my rings during the first act. My dressing-room and the stage were searched, but with no result. We went on for the last act and, in the scene when I was supposed to be unconscious, Susini caught sight of the stone glittering on the floor and picked it up. As he needed his hands for gesticulations, he popped the diamond into his mouth and when I "came to" he stuck out his tongue at me with the stone on the end of it! While I was working on the part of Linda myself, I heard Mme. Medori sing it. She gave a fine emotional interpretation, getting great tragic effects in the Paris act, but she did not catch the _naïve_ and ingenuous quality of poor, young Linda. It could hardly have been otherwise, for she was at the time a mature woman. There are some parts,--Marguerite is one of them, also,--that can be made too complicated, too subtle, too dramatic. I was criticised for my immaturity and lack of emotional power until I was tired of hearing such criticism; and once had a quaint little argument about my abilities and powers with "Nym Crinkle," the musical critic of _The World_, A. C. Wheeler. (Later he made a success in literature under the name of "J. P. Mowbray.") "What do you expect," I demanded, in my old-fashioned yet childish way, being at the time eighteen, "what do you expect of a person of my age?" [Illustration: =Brignoli, 1865= From a photograph by C. Silvy] CHAPTER V LITERARY BOSTON My friends in New York had given me letters to people in Boston, so I went there with every opportunity for an enjoyable visit. But, naturally, I was much more absorbed in my own _début_ and in what the public would think of me than I was in meeting new acquaintances and receiving invitations. Now I wish that I had then more clearly realised possibilities, for Boston was at the height of its literary reputation. All my impressions of that Boston season, however, sink into insignificance compared to that of my first public appearance. I sang Linda; and there were only three hundred people in the house! If anything in the world could have discouraged me that would have, but, as a matter of fact, I do not believe anything could. At any rate, I worked all the harder just because the conditions were so adverse; and I won my public (such as it was) that night. I may add that I kept it for the remainder of my stay in Boston. At that period of my life I was very fragile and one big performance would wear me out. Literally, I used myself up in singing, for I put into it every ounce of my strength. I could not save myself when I was actually working, but my way of economising my vitality was to sing only twice a week. It was after that first performance of _Linda_, some time about midnight, and my mother and I had just returned to our apartment in the Tremont House and had hardly taken off our wraps, when a knock came at the door. Our sitting-room was near a side entrance for the sake of quietness and privacy, but we paid a penalty in the ease with which we could be reached by anyone who knew the way. My mother opened the door; and there stood two ladies who overwhelmed us with gracious speeches. "They had heard my Linda! They had come because they simply could not help it; because I had moved them so deeply! Now, _would_ we both come the following evening to a little _musicale_; and they would ask that delightful Signor Brignoli too! It would be _such_ a pleasure! etc." Although I was not singing the following night, I objected to going to the _musicale_ because certain experiences in New York had already bred caution. I said, however, with perfect frankness, that I would go on one condition. "On _any_ condition, dear Miss Kellogg!" "You wouldn't expect me to sing?" "Oh no; no, no!" Accordingly, the next night my mother and I presented ourselves at the house of the older of the two ladies. The first words our hostess uttered when I entered the room were: "Why! where's your music?" "I thought it was understood that I was not to sing," said I. But, in spite of their previous earnest disclaimers on this point, they became so insistent that, after resisting their importunities for a few moments, I finally consented to satisfy them. I asked Brignoli to play for me, and I sang the Cavatina from _Linda_. Then I turned on my heel and went back to my hotel; and I never again entered that woman's house. After so many years there is no harm in saying that the hostess who was guilty of this breach of tact, good taste, and consideration, was Mrs. Paran Stevens, and the other lady was her sister, Miss Fanny Reed, one of the talented amateurs of the day. They were struggling hard for social recognition in Boston and every drawing card was of value, even a new, young singer who might become famous. Later, of course, Mrs. Stevens did "arrive" in New York; but she travelled some difficult roads first. This was by no means the first time that I had contended with a lack of consideration in the American hostess, especially toward artists. Her sisters across the Atlantic have better taste and breeding, never subjecting an artist who is their guest to the annoyance and indignity of having to "sing for her supper." But whenever I was invited anywhere by an American woman, I always knew that I would be expected to bring my music and to contribute toward the entertainment of the other guests. An Englishwoman I once met when travelling on the Continent hit the nail on the head, although in quite another connection. "You Americans are so queer," she remarked. "I heard a woman from the States ask a perfectly strange man recently to stop in at a shop and match her some silk while he was out! I imagine it is because you don't mind putting yourselves under obligations, isn't it?" Literary Boston of that day revolved around Mr. and Mrs. James T. Fields, at whose house often assembled such distinguished men and women as Emerson, Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lowell, Anthony Trollope, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Julia Ward Howe. Mr. Fields was the editor of _The Atlantic Monthly_, and his sense of humour was always a delight. "A lady came in from the suburbs to see me this morning," he once remarked to me. "'Well, Mr. Fields,' she said, with great impressiveness, 'what have you new in literature to-day? I'm just _thusty_ for knowledge!'" Your true New Englander always says "thust" and "fust" and "wust," and Mr. Fields had just the intonation--which reminds me somehow--in a roundabout fashion--of a strange woman who battered on my door once after I had appeared in _Faust_, in Boston, to tell me that "that man Mephisto-fleas was just great!" It was a wonderful privilege to meet Longfellow. He was never gay, never effusive, leaving these attributes to his talkative brother-in-law, Tom Appleton, who was a wit and a humourist. Indeed, Longfellow was rather noted for his cold exterior, and it took a little time and trouble to break the ice, but, though so unexpressive outwardly, his nature was most winning when one was once in touch with it. His first wife was burned to death and the tragedy affected him permanently, although he made a second and a very successful marriage with Tom Appleton's sister. The brothers-in-law were often together and formed the oddest possible contrast to each other. [Illustration: =James Russell Lowell in 1861= From a photograph by Brady] Longfellow and I became good friends. I saw him many times and often went to his house to sing to him. He greatly enjoyed my singing of his own _Beware_. It was always one of my successful _encore_ songs, although it certainly is not Longfellow at his best. But he liked me to sit at the piano and wander from one song to another. The older the melodies, the sweeter he found them. Longfellow's verses have much in common with simple, old-fashioned songs. They always touched the common people, particularly the common people of England. They were so simple and so true that those folk who lived and laboured close to the earth found much that moved them in the American writer's unaffected and elemental poetry. Yet it seems a bit strange that his poems are more loved and appreciated in England than in America, much as Tennyson's are more familiar to us than to his own people. Some years later, when I was singing in London, I heard that Longfellow was in town and sent him a box. He and Tom Appleton, who was with him, came behind the scenes between the acts to see me and, my mother being with me, both were invited into my dressing-room. In the London theatres there are women, generally advanced in years, who assist the _prima donna_ or actress to dress. These do not exist in American theatres. I had a maid, of course, but there was this woman of the theatre, also, a particularly ordinary creature who contributed nothing to the gaiety of nations and who, indeed, rarely showed feeling of any sort. I happened to say to her: "Perkins, I am going to see Mr. Longfellow." Her face became absolutely transfigured. "Oh, Miss," she cried in a tone of awe and curtseying to his name, "you don't mean 'im that wrote _Tell me not in mournful numbers_? Oh, Miss! _'im!_" Lowell I knew only slightly, yet his distinguished and distinctive personality made a great impression on me. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, a blond, curly-headed young man, whose later prosperity greatly interfered with his ability, I first met about this same time. He was too successful too young, and it stultified his gifts, as being successful too young usually does stultify the natural gifts of anybody. On one occasion I met Anthony Trollope at the Fields', the English novelist whose works were then more or less in vogue. He had just come from England and was filled with conceit. English people of that time were incredibly insular and uninformed about us, and Mr. Trollope knew nothing of America, and did not seem to want to know anything. Certainly, English people when they are not thoroughbred can be very common! Trollope was full of himself and wrote only for what he could get out of it. I never, before or since, met a literary person who was so frankly "on the make." The discussion that afternoon was about the recompense of authors, and Trollope said that he had reduced his literary efforts to a working basis and wrote so many words to a page and so many pages to a chapter. He refrained from using the actual word "money"--the English shrink from the word "money"--but he managed to convey to his hearers the fact that a considerable consideration was the main incentive to his literary labour, and put the matter more specifically later, to my mother, by telling her that he always _chose the words that would fill up the pages quickest_. Nathaniel Hawthorne, though he was one of the Fields' circle, I never met at all. He was tragically shy, and more than once escaped from the house when we went in rather than meet two strange women. "Hawthorne has just gone out the other way," Mrs. Fields would whisper, smiling. "He's too frightened to meet you!" I met his boy Julian, however, who was about twelve years old. He was a nice lad and I kissed him--to his great annoyance, for he was shy too, although not so much so as his father. Not so very long ago Julian Hawthorne reminded me of this episode. "Do you remember," he said, laughing, "how embarrassed I was when you kissed me? 'Never you mind' you said to me then, 'the time will come, my boy, when you'll be glad to remember that I kissed you!' And it certainly did come!" All Boston that winter was stirred by the approaching agitations of war; and those two remarkable women, Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Howe were using their pens to excite the community into a species of splendid rage. I first met them both at the Fields' and always admired Julia Ward Howe as a representative type of the highest Boston culture. Harriet Beecher Stowe had just finished _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. Many people believed that it and the disturbance it made were partly responsible for the war itself. Mr. Fields told me that her "copy" was the most remarkable "stuff" that the publishers had ever encountered. It was written quite roughly and disconnectedly on whatever scraps of paper she had at hand. I suppose she wrote it when the spirit moved her. At any rate, Mr. Fields said it was the most difficult task imaginable to fit it into any form that the printers could understand. Mrs. Stowe was a quiet, elderly woman, and talked very little. I had an odd sort of feeling that she had put so much of herself into her book that she had nothing left to offer socially. I did not realise until years afterwards what a precious privilege it was to meet in such a charming _intime_ way the men and women who really "made" American literature. The Fields literally kept open house. They were the most hospitable of people, and I loved them and spent some happy hours with them. I cannot begin to enumerate or even to remember all the literary lights I met in their drawing-room. Of that number there were James Freeman Clarke, Harriet Prescott Spofford, whom I knew later in Washington, and Gail Hamilton who was just budding into literary prominence; and Sidney Lanier. But, as I look back on that first Boston engagement, I see plainly that the most striking impression made upon my youthful mind during the entire season was the opening night of _Linda di Chamounix_ and the three hundred auditors! It was long, long after that first season that I had some of my pleasantest times in Boston with Sidney Lanier. This may not be the right place to mention them, but they certainly belong under the heading of this chapter. The evening that stands out most clearly in my memory was one, in the 'seventies, that I spent at the house of dear Charlotte Cushman who was then very ill and who died almost immediately after. Sidney Lanier was there with his flute, which he played charmingly. Indeed, he was as much musician as poet, as anyone who knows his verse must realise. He was poor then, and Miss Cushman was interested in him and anxious to help him in every way she could. There were two dried-up, little, Boston old maids there too--queer creatures--who were much impressed with High Art without knowing anything about it. One composition that Lanier played somewhat puzzled me--my impertinent absolute pitch was, as usual, hard at work--and at the end I exclaimed: "That piece doesn't end in the same key in which it begins!" Lanier looked surprised and said: "No, it doesn't. It is one of my own compositions." He thought it remarkable that I could catch the change of key in such a long and intricately modulated piece of music. The little old maids of Boston were somewhat scandalised by my effrontery; but there was even more to come. After another lovely thing which he played for us, I was so impressed by the rare tone of his instrument that I asked: "Is that a Böhm flute?" He, being a musician, was delighted with the implied compliment; but the old ladies saw in my question only a shocking slight upon his execution. Turning to one another they ejaculated with one voice, and that one filled with scorn and pity: "She thinks it's the _flute_!" This difference between professionals and the laity is odd. The more enchanted a professional is with another artist's performance, the more technical interest and curiosity he feels. The amateur only knows how to rhapsodise. This seems to be so in everything. When someone rides in an automobile for the first time he only thinks how exciting it is and how fast he is going. The experienced motorist immediately wants to know what sort of engine the machine has, and how many cylinders. I have always loved a flute. It is a difficult instrument to play with colour and variety. It is not like the violin, on which one can get thirds, and sixths, and sevenths, by using the arpeggio: it is a single, thin tone and can easily become monotonous if not played skilfully. Furthermore, there are only certain pieces of music that ever ought to be played on it. Wagner uses the flute wonderfully. He never lets it bore his audience. The Orientals have brought flute playing and flute music to a fine art, and it is one of the oldest of instruments, but, unlike the violin and other instruments, it is more perfectly manufactured to-day than it was in the past. The modern flutes have a far more mellow and sympathetic tone than the old ones. That whole evening at Miss Cushman's was complete in its fulness of experience, as I recall it, looking back across the years. How many people know that Miss Cushman had studied singing and had a very fine _baritone_ contralto voice? Two of her songs were _The Sands o' Dee_ and _Low I Breathe my Passion_. That night, the last time I ever heard her sing, I recalled how often before I had seen her seating herself at the piano to play her own accompaniments, always a difficult thing to do. Again I can see her, at this late day, turning on the stool to talk to us between songs, emphasising her points with that odd, inevitable gesture of the forefinger that was so characteristic of her, and then wheeling back to the instrument to let that deep voice of hers roll through the room in "Will she wake and say good night?"... During that first Boston season of mine, my mother and I used to give breakfasts at the Parker House. We were somewhat noted characters there as we were the first women to stop at it, the Parker House being originally a man's restaurant exclusively; and breakfast was a meal of ceremony. The _chef_ of the Parker House used to surpass himself at our breakfast entertainments for he knew that such an epicure as Oliver Wendell Holmes might be there at any time. This _chef_, by the way, was the first man to put up soups in cans and, after he left the Parker House kitchens, he made name and money for himself in establishing the canned goods trade. [Illustration: =Charlotte Cushman, 1861= From a photograph by Silsbee, Case & Co.] Dear Dr. Holmes! What a delightful, warm spontaneous nature was his, and what a fine mind! We were always good friends and I am proud of the fact. Shall I ever forget the dignity and impressiveness of his bearing as, after the fourth course of one of my breakfasts, he glanced up, saw the waiter approaching, arose solemnly as if he were about to make a speech, went behind his chair,--we all thought he was about to give us one of his brilliant addresses--shook out one leg and then the other, all most seriously and without a word, so as to make room for the next course! Years later Dr. Holmes and I crossed from England on the same steamer. He had been fêted and made much of in England and we discussed the relative brilliancy of American and English women. I contended that Americans were the brighter and more sparkling, while English women had twice as much real education and mental training. Dr. Holmes agreed, but with reservations. He professed himself to be still dazzled with British feminine wit. "I'm tired to death," he declared. "At every dinner party I went to they had picked out the cleverest women in London to sit on each side of me. I'm utterly exhausted trying to keep up with them!" This was the voyage when the benefit for the sailors was given--for the English sailors, that is. It was well arranged so that the American seamen could get nothing out of it. Dr. Holmes was asked to speak and I was asked to sing; but we declined to perform. We did write our names on the programmes, however, and as these sold for a considerable price, we added to the fund in spite of our intentions. My first season in Boston--from which I have strayed so far so many times--was destined to be a brief one, but also very strenuous, due to the fact that in the beginning I had only two operas in my _répertoire_, one of which Boston did not approve. After _Linda_, I was rushed on in Bellini's _I Puritani_ and had to "get up in it" in three days. It went very well, and was followed with _La Sonnambula_ by the same composer and after only one week's rehearsal. I was a busy girl in those weeks; and I should have been still busier if opera in America had not received a sudden and tragic blow. The "vacillating" Buchanan's reign was over. On March 4th Lincoln was inaugurated. A hush of suspense was in the air:--a hush broken on April 12th by the shot fired by South Carolina upon Fort Sumter. On April 14th Sumter capitulated and Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers. The Civil War had begun. CHAPTER VI WAR TIMES At first the tremendous crisis filled everyone with a purely impersonal excitement and concern; but one fine morning we awoke to the fact that our opera season was paralysed. The American people found the actual dramas of Bull Run, Big Bethel and Harpers Ferry more absorbing than any play or opera ever put upon the boards, and the airs of _Yankee Doodle_ and _The Girl I Left Behind Me_ more inspiring than the finest operatic _arias_ in the world. They did not want to go to the theatres in the evening. They wanted to read the bulletin boards. Every move in the big game of war that was being played by the ruling powers of our country was of thrilling interest, and as fast as things happened they were "posted." Maretzek "the Magnificent," so obstinate that he simply did not know how to give up a project merely because it was impossible, packed a few of us off to Philadelphia to produce the _Ballo in Maschera_. We hoped against hope that it would be light enough to divert the public, at even that tragic moment. But the public refused to be diverted. Why I ever sang in it I cannot imagine. I weighed barely one hundred and four pounds and was about as well suited to the part of Amelia as a sparrow would have been. I never liked the _rôle_; it is heavy and uncongenial and altogether out of my line. I should never have been permitted to do it, and I have always suspected that there might have been something of a plot against me on the part of the Italians. But all this made no difference, for we abandoned the idea of taking the opera out on a short tour. We could plainly see that opera was doomed for the time being in America. Then Maretzek bethought himself of _La Figlia del Reggimento_, a military opera, very light and infectious, that might easily catch the wave of public sentiment at the moment. We put it on in a rush. I played the Daughter and we crowded into the performance every bit of martial feeling we could muster. I learned to play the drum, and we introduced all sorts of military business and bugle calls, and altogether contrived to create a warlike atmosphere. We were determined to make a success of it; but we were also genuinely moved by the contagious glow that pervaded the country and the times, and to this combined mood of patriotism and expediency we sacrificed many artistic details. For example, we were barbarous enough to put in sundry American national airs and we had the assistance of real Zouaves to lend colour; and this reminds me that about the same period Isabella Hinckley even sang _The Star Spangled Banner_ in the middle of a performance of _Il Barbiere_. Our attempt was a great success. We played Donizetti's little opera to houses of frantic enthusiasm, first in Baltimore, then in Washington on May the third, where naturally the war fever was at its highest heat. The audiences cheered and cried and let themselves go in the hysterical manner of people wrought up by great national excitements. Even on the stage we caught the feeling. I sang the Figlia better than I had ever sung anything yet, and I found myself wondering, as I sang, how many of my cadet friends of a few months earlier were already at the front. [Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg as Figlia= From a photograph by Black & Case] I felt very proud of these friends when I read the despatches from the front. They all distinguished themselves, some on one side and some on the other. Alec McCook was Colonel of the 1st Ohio Volunteers, being an Ohio man by birth, and did splendid service in the first big battle of the war, Bull Run. He was made Major-General of Volunteers later, I believe, and always held a prominent position in American military affairs. From Fort Pulaski came word of Lieutenant Horace Porter who, though only recently graduated, was in command of the battlements there. He was speedily brevetted Captain for "distinguished gallantry under fire," and after Antietam he was sent to join the Army of the Ohio. He was everywhere and did everything imaginable during the war--Chattanooga, Chickamauga, the Battle of the Wilderness--and was General Grant's _aide-de-camp_ in some of the big conflicts. McCreary and young Huger I heard less of because they were on the other side; but they were both brave fellows and did finely according to their convictions. It is odd to recall that Huger's father, General Isaac Huger, had fought for the Union in the early wars and yet turned against her in the civil struggle between the blues and the greys. The Hugers were South Carolinians though, and therefore rabid Confederates. With the war and its many memories, ghosts will always rise up in my recollection of Custer, the "Golden Haired Laddie,"--as his friends called him. He was a good friend of mine, and after the war was over he used to come frequently to see me and tell me the most wonderful, thrilling stories about it, and of his earliest fights with the Indians. He was a most vivid creature; one felt a sense of vigour and energy and eagerness about him; and he was so brave and zealous as to make one know that he would always come up to the mark. I never saw more magnificent enthusiasm. He was not thirty at that time and when on horseback, riding hard, with his long yellow hair blowing back in the wind, he was a marvellously striking figure. He was not really a tall man, but looked so, being a soldier. Oh, if I could only remember those stories of his--stories of pluck and of danger and of excitement! It has always been a matter of secret pride with me that, in my small way, I did something for the Union too. I heard that our patriotic and inartistic _Daughter of the Regiment_ caused several lads to enlist. I do not know if this were true, but I hoped so at the time, and it might well have been so. I had a dresser, Ellen Conklin, who had some strange and rather ghastly tales to tell of the slave trade in the days before the war. She had been in other opera companies, small troupes, that sang their way from the far South, and the primitive and casual manner of their travel had offered many opportunities for her to visit any number of slave markets. She frequently had been harrowed to the breaking point by the sight of mothers separated from their children, and men and women who loved each other being parted for life. The worst horror of it all had been to her the examining of the female slaves as to their physical equipment, in which the buyers were more often brutal than not. Ellen was Irish and emotional; and it tore her heart out to see such things; but she kept on going to the slave sales just the same. [Illustration: =General Horace Porter= From a photograph by Pach Bros.] "They nearly killed me, Miss," she declared to me with tears in her eyes, "but I could never resist one!" Though I quite understood Ellen's emotions, I found it a little difficult to understand why she invited them so persistently. But I have learned that this is a very common human weakness--luckily for managers who put on harrowing plays. Many people go to the theatre to cry. When I sang Mignon the audience always cried and wiped its eyes; and I felt convinced that many had come for exactly that purpose. Two women I know once went to see Helena Modjeska in _Adrienne Lecouvreur_ and, when the curtain fell, one of them turned to the other with streaming eyes and gasped between her choking sobs: "L--l--let's come--(sob)--again--(sob)--t--t--to-morrow night! (sob, sob)." Personally, I think there are occasions enough for tears in this life, bitter or consoling, without having somebody on the stage draw them out over fictitious joys and sorrows. In the beginning of the war the feeling against the negroes was really more bitter in the North than in the South. The riots in New York were a scandal and a disgrace, although very few people have any idea how bad they actually were. The Irish Catholics were particularly rabid and asserted openly, right and left, that the freeing of the slaves would mean an influx of cheap labour that would become a drug on the market. It was an Irish mob that burned a coloured orphan asylum, after which taste of blood the most innocent black was not safe. Perfectly harmless coloured people were hanged to lamp-posts with impunity. No one ever seemed to be punished for such outrages. The time was one of open lawlessness in New York City. The Irish seem sometimes to be peculiarly possessed by this unreasoning and hysterical mob spirit which, as Ruskin once pointed out, they always manage to justify to themselves by some high abstract principle or sentiment. A story that has always seemed to me illustrative of this is that of the Hibernian contingent that hanged an unfortunate Jew because his people had killed Jesus Christ and, when reminded that it had all happened some time before, replied that "that might be, but they had only just heard of it!" It is a singularly significant story, with much more truth than jest in it. Years later, I recollect that those Irish riots in New York over the negro question served as the basis for some exceedingly heated arguments between an English friend of mine at Aix-les-Bains and a Catholic priest living there. The priest sought to justify them, but his reasonings have escaped me. At the time of these riots our New York home was on Twenty-second Street where Stern's shop now stands. We rented it from the Bryces, Southerners, who had a coloured coachman, a fact that made our residence a target for the animosity of our more ignorant neighbours who lived in the rear. The house was built with a foreign porte-cochère; and, time and again, small mobs would throng under that porte-cochère, battering on the door and trying to break in to get the coachman. The hanging of a negro near St. John's Chapel was an occasion for rejoicing and festivity, and the lower class Irish considered it a time for their best clothes. One hears of bear-baiting and bull-fights. But think of the barbarity of all this! Once, when we went away for a day or two, we left Irish servants in the house and, on returning, I found that the maids had been wearing my smartest gowns to view the riots and lynchings. A common lace collar was pinned to one of my French dresses and I had little difficulty in getting the waitress to admit that she had worn it. She explained _naïvely_ that the riots were gala occasions, "a great time for the Irish." She added that she had met my father on the stairs and had been afraid that he would recognise the dress; but, although she was penitent enough about "borrowing" the finery, she did not in the least see anything odd in her desire to dress up for the tormenting of an unfortunate fellow-creature. Everybody went about singing Mrs. Howe's _Battle Hymn of the Republic_ and it was then that I first learned that the air--the simple but rousing little melody of _John Brown's Body_--was in reality a melody by Felix Mendelssohn. Martial songs of all kinds were the order of the day and all more classic music was relegated to the background for the time being. It was not until the following winter that public sentiment subsided sufficiently for us to really consider another musical season. CHAPTER VII STEPS OF THE LADDER In the three years between my _début_ and my appearance in _Faust_ I sang, in all, a dozen operas:--_Rigoletto_, _Linda_, _I Puritani_, _Sonnambula_, _Ballo in Maschera_, _Figlia del Reggimento_, _Les Noces de Jeannette_, _Lucia_, _Don Giovanni_, _Poliuto_, _Marta_, and _Traviata_. Besides these, I sang a good deal in concert, but I never cared for either concert or oratorio work as much as for opera. My real growth and development came from big parts in which both musical and dramatic accomplishment were necessary. Like all artists, I look back upon many fluctuations in my artistic achievements. Sometimes I was good, and often not so good; and, curiously enough, I was usually best, according to my friends and critics, when most dissatisfied with myself. But of one thing I am fairly confident:--I never really went backward, never seriously retrograded artistically. Each _rôle_ was a step further and higher. To each I brought a clearer vision, a surer touch, a more flexible method, a finer (how shall I say it in English?) _attaque_ is nearest what I mean. This I say without vanity, for the artist who does not grow and improve with each succeeding part is deteriorating. There is no standing still in any life work; or, if there is, it is the standing still of successful effort, the hard-won tenure of a difficult place from which most people slip back. The Red Queen in _Through the Looking Glass_ expressed it rightly when she told Alice that "you have to run just as hard as you can to stay where you are." As Gilda I was laying only the groundwork. My performance was, I believe, on the right lines. It rang true. But it was far from what it became in later years when the English critics found me "the most beautiful and convincing of all Gildas!" As Linda I do not think that I showed any great intellectual improvement over Gilda, but I had acquired a certain confidence and authority. I sang and acted with more ease; and for the first time I had gained a sense of _personal responsibility_ toward, and for, an audience. When I beheld only three hundred people in my first-night Boston audience and determined to win them, and did win them, I came into possession of new and important factors in my work. This consciousness and earnest will-power to move one's public by the force of one's art is one of the first steps toward being a true _prima donna_. _I Puritani_ never taught me very much, simply as an opera. The part was too heavy as my voice was then, and our production of it was so hurried that I had not time to spend on it the study which I liked to give a new _rôle_. But in this very fact lay its lesson for me. The necessity for losing timidity and self-consciousness, the power to fling oneself into a new part without time to coddle one's vanity or one's habits of mind, the impersonal courage needed to attack fresh difficulties:--these points are of quite as much importance to a young opera singer as are fine breath control and a gift for phrasing. _Sonnambula_, too, had to be "jumped into" in the same fashion and was even more of an undertaking, though the _rôle_ suited me better and is, in fact, a rarely grateful one. Yet think of being Amina with only one week's rehearsing! _Sonnambula_ was first given by us as a benefit performance for Brignoli. It was generally understood to be in the nature of a farewell. Indeed, I think he said so himself. But, of course, he never had the slightest idea of really leaving America. He stayed here until he died. But to his credit be it said that he never had any more "farewell" appearances. He did not form the habit. I have spoken of how hopeless it is for an opera singer to try to work emotionally or purely on impulse; of how futile the merely temperamental artist becomes on the operatic stage. Yet too much stress cannot be laid on the importance of feeling what one does and sings. It is in just this seeming paradox that the truly professional artist's point of view may be found. The amateur acts and sings temperamentally. The trained student gives a finished and correct performance. It is only a genius--or something very near it--who can do both. There is something balanced and restrained in a genuine _prima donna's_ brain that keeps her emotions from running away with her, just as there is at the same time something equally warm and inspired in her heart that animates the most clear-cut of her intellectual work and makes it living and lovely. Sometimes it is difficult for an experienced artist to say just where instinct stops and art begins. When I sang Amina I was greatly complimented on my walk and my intonation, both most characteristic of a somnambulist. I made a point of keeping a strange, rhythmical, dreamy step like that of a sleep-walker and sang as if I were talking in my sleep. I breathed in a hard, laboured way, and walked with the headlong yet dragging gait of someone who neither sees, knows, nor cares where she is going. Now, this effect came not entirely from calculation nor yet from intuition, but from a combination of the two. I was in the _mood_ of somnambulism and acted accordingly. But I deliberately placed myself in that mood. This only partly expresses what I wish to say on the subject; but it is the root of dramatic work as I know it. The opera of _Sonnambula_, incidentally, taught me one or two things not generally included in stage essentials. Among others, I had to learn not to be afraid, physically afraid, or at any rate not to mind being afraid. In the sleep-walking scene Amina, carrying her candle and robed in white, glides across the narrow bridge at a perilous height while the watchers below momentarily expect her to be dashed to pieces on the rocks underneath. Our bridge used to be set very high indeed (it was especially lofty in the Philadelphia Opera House where we gave the opera a little later), and I had quite a climb to get up to it at all. There was a wire strung along the side of the bridge, but it was not a bit of good to lean on--merely a moral support. I had to carry the candle in one hand and couldn't even hold the other outstretched to balance myself, for sleep-walkers do not fall! This was the point that I had to keep in mind; I could not walk carefully, but I had to walk with certainty. In a sense it was suggestive of a hypnotic condition and I had to get pretty nearly into one myself before I could do it. At all events, I had to compose myself very summarily first. Just in the middle of the crossing the bridge is supposed to crack. Of course the edges were only broken; but I had to give a sort of "jog" to carry out the illusion and I used to wonder, the while I jogged, if I were going over the side _that_ time! In the wings they used to be quite anxious about me and would draw a general breath of relief when I was safely across. Every night I would be asked if I were sure I wanted to undertake it that night, and every time I would answer: "I don't know whether I _can_!" But, of course, I always did it. Somehow, one always does do one's work on the stage, even if it is trying to the nerves or a bit dangerous. I have heard that when Maud Adams put on her big production of _Joan of Arc_, her managers objected seriously to having her lead the mounted battle charge herself. A "double" was costumed exactly like her and was ready to mount Miss Adams's horse at the last moment. But did she ever give a double a chance to lead her battle charge? Not she: and no more would any true artist. [Illustration: =Muzio= From a photograph by Gurney & Son] _Sonnambula_ also helped fix in my mentality the traditions of Italian opera; those traditions that my teachers--Muzio particularly--had been striving so hard to impress upon and make real to me. The school of the older operas, while the greatest school for singers in the world, is one in which tradition is, and must be, pre-eminent. In the modern growths, springing up among us every year, the singer has a chance to create, to trace new paths, to take venturesome flights. The new operas not only permit this, they require it. But it is a pity to hear a young, imaginative artist try to interpret some old and classic opera by the light of his or her modern perceptions. They do not improve on the material. They only make a combination that is bizarre and inartistic. This struck me forcibly not long ago when I heard a young, talented American sing _A non giunge_, the lovely old _aria_ from the last act of _Sonnambula_. The girl had a charming voice and she sang with musical feeling and taste. But she had not one "tradition" as we understood the term, and, in consequence, almost any worn-out, old-school singer could have rendered the _aria_ more acceptably to trained ears. Traditions are as necessary to the Bellini operas as costumes are to Shakespeare's plays. To dispense with them may be original, but it is bad art. And yet, while I became duly impressed with the necessity of the "traditions," during those early performances, I always tried to avoid following them too servilely or too artificially. I tried to interpret for myself, within certain well-defined limits, according to my personal conception of the characters I was personating. The traditions of Italian opera combined with my own ideals of the lyric heroines,--this became my object and ambition. The summer after my _début_, I went on a concert tour under Grau's management, but my throat was tired after the strain and nervous effort of my first season, and I finally went up to the country for a long rest. In New Hartford, Connecticut, my mother, father, and I renewed many old friendships, and it was a genuine pleasure to sing again in a small choir, to attend sewing circles, and to live the every-day life from which I had been so far removed during my studies and professional work. People everywhere were charming to me. Though only nineteen, I was an acknowledged _prima donna_, and so received all sorts of kindly attentions. This was the summer, I believe, (although it may have been a later one) when Herbert Witherspoon, then only a boy, determined to become a professional singer. He has always insisted that it was my presence and the glamour that surrounded the stage because of me that finally decided him. I did not sing again in New York until the January of 1862. Before that we had a short season on the road, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other places. As there were then but nine opera houses in America our itinerary was necessarily somewhat limited. In November of that year I sang in _Les Noces de Jeannette_, in Philadelphia, a charming part although not a very important one. It is a simple little operetta in one act by Victor Macci. The _libretto_ was in French and I sang it in that language. Pleasing speeches were made about my French and people wanted to know where I had studied it--I, who had never studied it at all except at home! The opera was not long enough for a full evening's entertainment, so Miss Hinckley was put on in the same bill in Donizetti's _Betly_. The two went very well together. The critics found _Jeannette_ a great many surprising things, "broad," "risqué," "typically French," and so on. In reality it was innocent enough; but it must be remembered that this was a day and generation which found _Faust_ frightfully daring, and _Traviata_ so improper that a year's hard effort was required before it could be sung in Brooklyn. I sympathised with one critic, however, who railed against the translated _libretto_ as sold in the lobby. After stating that it was utter nonsense, he added with excellent reason: "But this was to have been expected. That anyone connected with an opera house should know enough about English to make a decent translation into it is, of course, quite out of the question." It was really funny about _Traviata_. In 1861 President Chittenden, of the Board of Directors of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, made a sensational speech arraigning the plot of _Traviata_,[1] and protesting against its production in Brooklyn on the grounds of propriety, or, rather, impropriety. Meetings were held and it was finally resolved that the opera was objectionable. The feeling against it grew into a series of almost religious ceremonies of protest and, as I have said, it took Grau a year of hard effort to overcome the opposition. When, at last, in '62, the opera was given, I took part; and the audience was all on edge with excitement. There had been so much talk about it that the whole town turned out to see _why_ the Directors had withstood it for a year. Every clergyman within travelling distance was in the house. [1] The book is founded upon Dumas's _La Dame aux Camélias_. Its dramatic sister _Camille_ was also opposed violently when Mme. Modjeska played it in Brooklyn in later years. These facts are amusing in the light of present-day productions and their morals, or dearth of them. _Salome_ is, I think, about the only grand opera of recent times that has been suppressed by a Directors' Meeting. But in my youth Directors were very tender of their public's virtuous feelings. When _The Black Crook_ and the Lydia Thompson troupe first appeared in New York, people spoke of those comparatively harmless shows with bated breath and no one dared admit having actually seen them. The "Lydia Thompson Blonds" the troupe was called. They did a burlesque song and dance affair, and wore yellow wigs. Mr. Brander Matthews married one of the most popular and charming of them. I wonder what would have happened to an audience of that time if a modern, up-to-date, Broadway musical farce had been presented to their consideration! At any rate, the much-advertised _Traviata_ was finally given, being a huge and sensational success. Probably I did not really understand the character of Violetta down in the bottom of my heart. Modjeska once said that a woman was only capable of playing Juliet when she was old enough to be a grandmother; and if that be true of the young Verona girl, how much more must it be true of poor Camille. My interpretation of the Lady of the Camellias must have been a curiously impersonal one. I know that when Emma Abbott appeared in it later, the critics said that she was so afraid of allowing it to be suggestive that she made it so, whereas I apparently never thought of that side of it and consequently never forced my audiences to think of it either. There are some things accessible to genius that are beyond the reach of character [wrote one reviewer]. Abbott expects to make _Traviata_ acceptable very much as she would make a capon acceptable. She is always afraid of the words. So she substitutes her own. Kellogg sang this opera and nobody ever thought of the bad there is in it. Why? _Because Kellogg never thought of it._ Abbott reminds me of a girl of four who weeps for pantalettes on account of the wickedness of the world! Violetta's gowns greatly interested me. I liked surprising the public with new and startling effects. I argued that Violetta would probably love curious and exotic combinations, so I dressed her first act in a gown of rose pink and pale primrose yellow. Odd? Yes; of course it was odd. But the colour scheme, bizarre as it was, always looked to my mind and the minds of other persons altogether enchanting. _A propos_ of the Violetta gowns, I sang the part during one season with a tenor whose hands were always dirty. I found the back of my pretty frocks becoming grimier and grimier, and greasier and greasier, and, as I provided my own gowns and had to be economical, I finally came to the conclusion that I could not and would not afford such wholesale and continual ruin. So I sent my compliments to Monsieur and asked him please to be extra careful and particular about washing his hands before the performance as my dress was very light and delicate, etc.,--quite a polite message considering the subject. Politeness, however, was entirely wasted on him. Back came the cheery and nonchalant reply: "All right! Tell her to send me some soap!" I sent it: and I supplied him with soap for the rest of the season. This was cheaper than buying new clothes. Tenors are queer creatures. Most of them have their eccentricities and the soprano is lucky if these are innocuous peculiarities. I used to find it in my heart, for instance, to wish that they did not have such queer theories as to what sort of food was good for the voice. Many of them affected garlic. Stigelli usually exhaled an aroma of lager beer; while the good Mazzoleni invariably ate from one to two pounds of cheese the day he was to sing. He said it strengthened his voice. Brignoli had been long enough in this country to become partly Americanised, so he never smelled of anything in particular. _Poliuto_ by Donizetti was never as brilliant a success as other operas by the same composer. It is never given now. The scene of it is laid in Rome, in the days of the Christian martyrs, and it has some very effective moments, but for some reason those classic days did not appeal to the public of our presentation. I do not believe _Quo Vadis_ would ever have gone then as it did later. The music of _Poliuto_ was easy and showed off the voice, like all of Donizetti's music: and the part of Paulina was exceptionally fine, with splendid opportunities for dramatic work. The scene where she is thrown into the Colosseum was particularly effective. But the American audiences did not seem to be deeply interested in the fate of Paulina nor in that of Septimus Severus. The year before my _début_ in _Rigoletto_ I had rehearsed Paulina and had made something tragically near to a failure of it as I had not then the physical nor vocal strength for the part. Indeed, I should never then have been allowed to try it, and I have always had a suspicion that I was put in it for the express purpose of proving me a failure. That was when Muzio decided to "try me out" in the concert _tournée_ as a sort of preliminary education. Therefore, one of the most comforting elements of the final _Poliuto_ production to me was the realisation that I was appearing, and appearing well, in a part in which I had rehearsed so very discouragingly such a short time before. It was a small triumph, perhaps, but it combined with many other small matters to establish that sure yet humble confidence which is so essential to a singer. So far as personal success went, Brignoli made the hit of _Poliuto_. [Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg as Lucia= From a photograph by Elliott & Fry] Lucia was never one of my favourite parts, but it is a singularly grateful one. It has very few bad moments, and one can attack it without the dread one sometimes feels for a _rôle_ containing difficult passages. Of course Lucia, with her hopeless, weak-minded love for Edgardo, and her spectacular mad scene, reminded me of my beloved Linda, and there were many points of similarity in the two operas. I found, therefore, that Lucia involved much less original and interpretive work than most of my new parts; and it was never fatiguing. Being beautifully high, I liked singing it. My voice, though flexible and of wide range, always slipped most easily into the far upper registers. I can recall the positive ache it was to sing certain parts of Carmen that took me down far too low for comfort. Sometimes too, I must admit, I used to "cheat" it. We nearly always opened in _Lucia_ when we began an opera season. Its success was never sensational, but invariably safe and sure. Sometimes managers would be dubious and suggest some production more startling as a commencement, but I always had a deep and well-founded faith in _Lucia_. "It never draws a capacity house," I would be told. "But it never fails to get a fair one." "It never makes a sensation." "But it never gets a bad notice." I would say. Martha was a light and pleasing part to play. Vocally it taught me very little--little, that is to say, that I can now recognise, although I am loath to make such a statement of any _rôle_. There are so many slight and obscure ways in which a part can help one, almost unconsciously. The point that stands out most strikingly in my recollection of _Martha_ is the rather rueful triumph I had in it with regard to realistic acting. Everyone who knows the story of Flotow's opera will recall that the heroine is horribly bored in the first act. She is utterly uninterested, utterly blasée, utterly listless. Accordingly, so I played the first act. Later in the opera, when she is in the midst of interesting happenings and no longer bored, she becomes animated and eager, quite a different person from the languid great lady in the beginning. So, also, I played that part. Here came my triumph, although it was a left-handed compliment aimed with the intention only to criticise and to criticise severely. One reviewer said, the morning after I had first given my careful and logical interpretation, that "it was a pity Miss Kellogg had taken so little pains with the first act. She had played it dully, stupidly, without interest or animation. Later, however, she brightened up a little and somewhat redeemed our impression of her work as we had seen it in the early part of the evening." I felt angry and hurt about this at the time, yet it pleased me too, for it was a huge tribute even if the critic did not intend it to be so. Although I did sing in _Don Giovanni_ under Grau that year in Boston, I never really considered it as belonging to that period. I did so much with this opera in after years--singing both Donna Anna and Zerlina at various times and winning some of the most notable praise of my career--that I always instinctively think of it as one of my later and more mature achievements. I always loved the opera and feel that it is an invaluable part of every singer's education to have appeared in it. _The Magic Flute_ never seemed to me to be half so genuinely big or so inspired. In _Don Giovanni_ Mozart gave us his richest and most complete flower of operatic work. In our cast were Amodio, whom I had heard with Piccolomini, and Mme. Medori, my old rival in _Linda_, who had recently joined the Grau Company. [Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg as Martha= From a photograph by Turner] All this time the war was going on and our opera ventures, even at their best, were nothing to what they had been in the days of peace. It seemed quite clear for a while that the old favourites would not draw audiences from among the anxious and sorrowing people. For a big success we needed something novel, sensational, exceptional. On the other side of the world people were all talking of Gounod's new opera--the one he had sold for only twelve hundred dollars, but which had made a wonderful hit both in Paris and London. It was said to be startlingly new; and Max Maretzek, in despair over the many lukewarm successes we had all had, decided to have a look at the score. The opera was _Faust_. With all my pride, I was terrified and appalled when "the Magnificent" came to me and abruptly told me that I was to create the part of Marguerite in America. This was a "large order" for a girl of twenty; but I took my courage in both hands and resolved to make America proud of me. I was a pioneer when I undertook Gounod's music and I had no notion of what to do with it, but my will and my ambition arose to meet the situation. Just here, because of its general bearing on the point, I feel that it is desirable to quote a paragraph which was written by my old friend--or was he enemy?--many years later when I had won my measure of success, "Nym Crinkle" (A. C. Wheeler), and which I have always highly valued: There isn't a bit of snobbishness about Kellogg's opinions [he wrote]. For a woman who has sung everywhere, she retains a very wholesome opinion of her own country. She always seems to me to be trying to win two imperishable chaplets, one of which is for her country. So you see we have got to take our little flags and wave them whether it is the correct thing or not. And, so far as I am concerned, I think it is the correct thing.... She has this tremendous advantage that, when she declares in print that America can produce its own singers, she is quite capable of going afterwards upon the stage and proving it! CHAPTER VIII MARGUERITE Mme. Miolan-Carvalho created Marguerite in Paris, at the Théâtre Lyrique. In London Patti and Titjiens had both sung it before we put it on in America,--Adelina at Covent Garden and Titjiens at Her Majesty's Opera House, where I was destined to sing it later. Except for these productions of _Faust_ across the sea, that opera was still an unexplored field. I had absolutely nothing to guide me, nothing to help me, when I began work on it. I, who had been schooled and trained in "traditions" and their observances since I had first begun to study, found myself confronted with conditions that had as yet no traditions. I had to make them for myself. Maretzek secured the score during the winter of '62-'63 and then spoke to me about the music. I worked at the part off and on for nine months, even while I was singing other parts and taking my summer vacation. But when the season opened in the autumn of 1863, the performance was postponed because a certain reaction had set in on the part of the public. People were beginning to want some sort of distraction and relaxation from the horrors and anxieties of war, and now began to come again to hear the old favourites. So Maretzek wanted to wait and put off his new sensation until he really needed it as a drawing card. Then came the news that Anschutz, the German manager, was about to bring a German company to the Terrace Garden in New York with a fine _répertoire_ of grand opera, including _Faust_. Of course this settled the question. Maretzek hurried the new opera into final rehearsal and it was produced at The Academy of Music on November 25, 1863, when I was very little more than twenty years old. Before I myself say anything about _Faust_, in which I was soon to appear, I want to quote the views of a leading newspaper of New York after I had appeared. A brilliant audience assembled last night. The opera was _Faust_. Such an audience ought, in figurative language, "to raise the roof off" with applause. But with the clumsily written, uninspired melodies that the solo singers have to declaim there was the least possible applause. And this is not the fault of the vocalists, for they tried their best. We except to this charge of dullness the dramatic love scene where the tolerably broad business concludes the act. With these facts plain to everyone present we cannot comprehend the announcement of the success of _Faust_! Who was it said "the world goes round with revolutions"? It is a great truth, whoever said it. Every new step in art, in progress along any line, has cost something and has been fought for. Nothing fresh or good has ever come into existence without a convulsion of the old, dried-up forms. Beethoven was a revolutionist when he threw aside established musical forms with the _Ninth Symphony_; Wagner was a revolutionist when he contrived impossible intervals of the eleventh and the thirteenth, and called them for the first time dissonant harmonies; so, also, was Gounod when he departed from all accepted operatic forms and institutions in _Faust_. You who have heard _Cari fior_ upon the hand-organs in the street, and have whistled the _Soldiers' Chorus_ while you were in school; who have even grown to regard the opera of _Faust_ as old-fashioned and of light weight, must re-focus your glass a bit and look at Gounod's masterpiece from the point of view of nearly fifty years ago! It was just as startling, just as strange, just as antagonistic to our established musical habit as Strauss and Debussy and Dukas are to some persons to-day. What is new must always be strange, and what is strange must, except to a few adventurous souls, prove to be disturbing and, hence, disagreeable. People say "it is different, therefore it must be wrong." Even as battle, murder, and sudden death are upsetting to our lives, so Gounod's bold harmonies, sweeping airs, and curious orchestration were upsetting to the public ears. Not the public alone, either. Though from the first I was attracted and fascinated by the "new music," it puzzled me vastly. Also, I found it very difficult to sing. I, who had been accustomed to Linda and Gilda and Martha, felt utterly at sea when I tried to sing what at that time seemed to me the remarkable intervals of this strange, new, operatic heroine, Marguerite. In the simple Italian school one knew approximately what was ahead. A _recitative_ was a fairly elementary affair. An _aria_ had no unexpected cadences, led to no striking nor unusual effects. But in _Faust_ the musical intelligence had an entirely new task and was exercised quite differently from in anything that had gone before. This sequence of notes was a new and unlearned language to me, which I had to master before I could find freedom or ease. But when once mastered, how the music enchanted me; how it satisfied a thirst that had never been satisfied by Donizetti or Bellini! Musically, I loved the part of Marguerite--and I still love it. Dramatically, I confess to some impatience over the imbecility of the girl. From the first I summarily apostrophised her to myself as "a little fool!" Stupidity is really the keynote of Marguerite's character. She was not quite a peasant--she and her brother owned their house, showing that they belonged to the stolid, sound, sheltered burgher class. On the other hand, she explicitly states to Faust that she is "not a lady and needs no escort." In short, she was the ideal victim and was selected as such by Mephistopheles who, whatever else he may have been, was a judge of character. Marguerite was an easy dupe. She was entirely without resisting power. She was dull, and sweet, and open to flattery. She liked pretty things, with no more discrimination or taste than other girls. She was a well-brought-up but uneducated young person of an ignorant age and of a stupid class, and innocent to the verge of idiocy. I used to try and suggest the peasant blood in Marguerite by little shynesses and awkwardnesses. After the first meeting with Faust I would slyly stop and glance back at him with girlish curiosity to see what he looked like. People found this "business" very pretty and convincing, but I understand that I did not give the typically Teutonic bourgeois impression as well as Federici, a German soprano who was heard in America after me. She was of the class of Gretchen, and doubtless found it easier to act like a peasant unused to having fine gentlemen speak to her, than I did. There was very little general enthusiasm before the production of _Faust_. There were so few American musicians then that no one knew nor cared about the music. Neither was the poem so well read as it was later. The public went to the opera houses to hear popular singers and familiar airs. They had not the slightest interest in a new opera from an artistic standpoint. I had never been allowed to read Goethe's poem until I began to study Marguerite. But even my careful mother was obliged to admit that I would have to familiarise myself with the character before I interpreted it. It is doubtful, even then, if I entered fully into the emotional and psychological grasp of the _rôle_. All that part of it was with me entirely mental. I could seize the complete mental possibilities of a character and work them out intelligently long before I had any emotional comprehension of them. As a case in point, when I sang Gilda I gave a perfectly logical presentation of the character, but I am very sure that I had not the least notion of what the latter part of _Rigoletto_ meant. Fear, grief, love, courage,--these were emotions that I could accept and with which I could work; but I was still too immature to have much conception of the great sex complications that underlay the opera that I sang so peacefully. And I dare say that one reason why I played Marguerite so well was because I was so ridiculously innocent myself. Most of the Marguerites whom I have seen make her too sophisticated, too complicated. The moment they get off the beaten path, they go to extremes like Calvé and Farrar. It is very pleasant to be original and daring in a part, but anything original or daring in connection with Marguerite is a little like mixing red pepper with vanilla _blanc mange_. Nilsson, even, was too--shall I say, _knowing_? It seems the only word that fits my meaning. Nilsson was much the most attractive of all the Marguerites I have ever seen, yet she was altogether too sophisticated for the character and for the period, although to-day I suppose she would be considered quite mild. Lucca was an absolute little devil in the part. She was, also, one of the Marguerites who wore black hair. As for Patti--I have a picture of Adelina as Marguerite in which she looks like Satan's own daughter, a young and feminine Mephistopheles to the life. Once I heard _Faust_ in the Segundo Teatro of Naples with Alice Neilson, and thought she gave a charming performance. She was greatly helped by not having to wear a wig. A wig, however becoming, and no matter how well put on, does certainly do something strange to the expression of a woman's face. This was what I had to have--a wig--and it was one of the most dreadful difficulties in my preparations for the great new part. [Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg as Marguerite, 1865= From a photograph by Sarony] A wig may sound like a simple requirement. But I wonder if anybody has any idea how difficult it was to get a good wig in those days. Nobody in America knew how to make one. There was no blond hair over here and none could be procured, none being for sale. The poor affair worn by Mme. Carvalho as Marguerite, illustrates what was then considered a sufficient wig equipment. It is hardly necessary to add that to my truth-loving soul no effort was too great to obtain an effect that should be an improvement on this sort of thing. My own hair was so dark as to look almost black behind the footlights, and in my mind there was no doubt that Marguerite must be a blond. To-day _prime donne_ besides Lucca justify the use of their own dark locks--notably Mme. Eames and Miss Farrar--but I cannot help suspecting that this comes chiefly from a wish to be original, to be _different_ at all costs. There is no real question but that the young German peasant was fair to the flaxen point. Yet, though I knew how she should be, I found it was simpler as a theory than as a fact. I tried powders--light brown powder, yellow powder, finally, gold powder. The latter was little, I imagine, but brass filings, and it gave the best effect of all my early experiments, looking, so long as it stayed on my hair, very burnished and sunny. But--it turned my scalp green! This was probably the verdigris from the brass filings in the stuff. I was frightened enough to dispense entirely with the whole gold and green effect; after which I experimented with all the available wigs, in spite of a popular prejudice against them as immovable. They were in general composed of hemp rope with about as much look about them of real hair as--Mme. Carvalho's! I had, finally, to wait until I could get a wig made in Europe and have it imported. When it came at last, it was a beauty--although my hair troubles were not entirely over even then. I had so much hair of my own that all the braiding and pinning in the world would not eliminate it entirely, and it had a tendency to stick out in lumps over my head even under the wig, giving me some remarkable bumps of phrenological development. I will say that we put it on pretty well in spite of all difficulties, my mother at last achieving a way of brushing the hair of the wig into my own hair and combining the two in such a way as to let the real hair act as a padding and lining to the artificial braids. The result was very good, but it was, I am inclined to believe, more trouble than it was worth. Wigs were so rare and, as a rule, so ugly in those days that my big, blond perruque, that cost nearly $200 (the hair was sold by weight), caused the greatest sensation. People not infrequently came behind the scenes and begged to be allowed to examine it. Artists were not nearly so sacred nor so safe from the public then. Now, it would be impossible for a stranger to penetrate to a _prima donna's_ dressing-room or hotel apartment; but we were constantly assailed by the admiring, the critical and, above all, the curious. Of course I did not know what to wear. My old friend Ella Porter was in Paris at the time and went to see Carvalho in Marguerite, especially on my account, and sent me rough drawings of her costumes. I did not like them very well. I next studied von Kaulbach's pictures and those of other German illustrators, and finally decided on the dress. First, I chose for the opening act a simple blue and brown frock, such as an upper-class peasant might wear. Everyone said it ought to be white, which struck me as singularly out of place. German girls don't wear frocks that have to be constantly washed. Not even now do they, and I am certain they had even less laundry work in the period of the story. It was said that a white gown in the first act would symbolise innocence. In the face of all comment and suggestion, however, I wore the blue dress trimmed with brown and it looked very well. Another one of my points was that I did not try to make Marguerite angelically beautiful. There is no reason to suppose that she was even particularly pretty. "Henceforth," says Mephisto to the rejuvenated Faustus, "you will greet a Helen in every wench you meet!" In the church scene I wore grey and, at first, a different shade of grey in the last act; but I changed this eventually to white because white looked better when the angels were carrying me up to heaven. As for the cut of the dresses, I seem to have been the first person to wear a bodice that fitted below the waist line like a corset. No living mortal in America had ever seen such a thing and it became almost as much of a curiosity as my wonderful golden wig. The theatre costumier was horrified. She had never cared for my innovations in the way of costuming, and her tradition-loving Latin soul was shocked to the core by the new and dreadful make-up I proposed to wear as Marguerite. "I make for Grisi," she declared indignantly, "and I _nevair_ see like dat!" Well, I worked and struggled and slaved over every detail. No one else did. There was no great effort made to have good scenic effects. The lighting was absurd, and I had to fight for my pot of daisies in the garden scene. The jewel box I provided myself, and the jewels. I felt--O, how deeply I felt--that everything in my life, every note I had sung, every day I had worked, had been merely preparation for this great and lovely opera. Colonel Stebbins, who was anxious, said to Maretzek: "Don't you think she had better have a German coach in the part?" Maretzek, who had been watching me closely all along, shook his head. "Let her alone," he said. "Let her do it her own way." So the great night came around. There was no public excitement before the production. People knew nothing about the new opera. On the first night of _Faust_ there was a good house because, frankly, the public liked me! Nevertheless, in spite of "me," the house was a little inanimate. The audience felt doubtful. It was one thing to warm up an old and popular piece; but something untried was very different! The public had none of the present-day chivalry toward the first "try-out" of an opera. Mazzoleni of the cheese addiction was Faust, and on that first night he had eaten even more than usual. In fact, he was still eating cheese when the curtain went up and munched cheese at intervals all through the laboratory scene. He was a big Italian with a voice as big as himself and was, in a measure, one of Max Maretzek's "finds." "The Magnificent" had taken an opera company to Havana when first the war slump came in operatic affairs, and had made with it a huge success and a wide reputation. Mazzoleni was one of the leading tenors of that company. He sang Faust admirably, but dressed it in an atrocious fashion, looking like a cross between a Jewish rabbi and a Prussian _gene d'arme_. Of course, he gave no idea of the true age of Faust--the experienced, mature point of view showing through the outward bloom of his artificial youth. Very few Fausts do give this; and Mazzoleni suggested it rather less than most of them. But the public was not enlightened enough to realise the lack. Biachi was Mephistopheles. He was very good and sang the _Calf of Gold_ splendidly. Yet that solo, oddly enough, never "caught on" with our houses. Biachi was one of the few artists of my day who gave real thought and attention to the question of costuming. He took his general scheme of dress from _Robert le Diable_ and improved on it, and looked very well indeed. The woman he afterwards married was our contralto, a Miss Sulzer, an American, who made an excellent Siebel and considered her work seriously. At first everyone was stunned by the new treatment. In ordinary, accepted operatic form there were certain things to be expected;--_recitatives_, _andantes_, _arias_, choruses--all neatly laid out according to rule. In this everything was new, startling, overthrowing all traditions. About the middle of the evening some of my friends came behind the scenes to my dressing-room with blank faces. "Heavens, Louise," they exclaimed, "what do you do in this opera anyway? Everyone in the front of the house is asking 'where's the _prima donna_?'" Indeed, an opera in which the heroine has nothing to do until the third act might well have startled a public accustomed to the old Italian forms. However, I assured everyone: "Don't worry. You'll get more than enough of me before the end of the evening!" The house was not much stirred until the love scene. That was breathless. We felt more and more that we were beginning to "get them." There were no modern effects of lighting; but a calcium was thrown on me as I stood by the window, and I sang my very, very best. As Mazzoleni came up to the window and the curtain went down there was a dead silence. Not a hand for ten seconds. Ten seconds is a long time when one is waiting on the stage. Time and the clock itself seemed to stop as we stood there motionless and breathless. Maretzek had time to get through the little orchestra door and up on the stage before the applause came. We were standing as though paralysed, waiting. We saw Maretzek's pale, anxious face. The silence held a second longer; then-- The house came down. The thunders echoed and beat about our wondering ears. "Success!" gasped Maretzek, "success--success--_success_!" Yet read what the critics said about it. The musicians picked it to pieces, of course, and so did the critics, much as the German reviewers did Wagner's music dramas. The public came, however, packing the houses to more than their capacity. People paid seven and eight dollars a seat to hear that opera, an unheard-of thing in those days when two and three dollars were considered a very fair price for any entertainment. Furthermore, only the women occupied the seats on the _Faust_ nights. I speak in a general way, for there were exceptions. As a rule, however, this was so, while the men stood up in regiments at the back of the house. We gave twenty-seven performances of _Faust_ in one season; seven performances in Boston in four weeks; and I could not help the welcome knowledge that, in addition to the success of the opera itself, I had scored a big, personal triumph. [Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg as Marguerite, 1864= From a silhouette by Ida Waugh] As I have mentioned, we took wicked liberties with the operas, such as introducing the _Star Spangled Banner_ and similar patriotic songs into the middle of Italian scores. I have even seen a highly tragic act of _Poliuto_ put in between the light and cheery scenes of _Martha_; and I have myself sung the _Venzano_ waltz at the end of this same _Martha_, although the real quartette that is supposed to close the opera is much more beautiful, and the _Clara Louise Polka_ as a finish for _Linda di Chamounix_! The _Clara Louise Polka_ was written for me by my old master, Muzio, and I never thought much of it. Nothing could give anyone so clear an idea of the universal acceptance of this custom of interpolation as the following criticism, printed during our second season: "The production of _Faust_ last evening by the Maretzek troupe was excellent indeed. But why, O why, the eternal _Soldiers' Chorus_? Why this everlasting, tedious march, _when there are so many excellent band pieces on the market that would fit the occasion better_?" As a rule the public were quite satisfied with this chorus. It was whistled and sung all over the country and never failed to get eager applause. But no part of the opera ever went so well as the _Salve dimora_ and the love scene. All the latter part of the garden act went splendidly although nearly everyone was, or professed to be, shocked by the frankness of the window episode that closes it. It is a pity those simple-souled audiences could not have lived to see Miss Geraldine Farrar draw Faust with her into the house at the fall of the curtain! There is, indeed, a place for all things. _Faust_ is not the place for that sort of suggestiveness. It is a question, incidentally, whether any stage production is; but the argument of that is outside our present point. Dear Longfellow came to see the first performance of _Faust_; and the next day he wrote a charming letter about it to Mr. James T. Fields of Boston. Said he: "The Margaret was beautiful. She reminded me of Dryden's lines: "'So pois'd, so gently she descends from high, It seems a soft dismission from the sky.'" CHAPTER IX OPÉRA COMIQUE To most persons "opéra comique" means simply comic opera. If they make any distinction at all it is to call it "high-class comic opera." As a matter of fact, tragedy and comedy are hardly farther apart in spirit than are the rough and farcical stuff that we look upon as comic opera nowadays and the charming old pieces that formed the true "opéra comique" some fifty years ago. "Opéra bouffe" even is many degrees below "opéra comique." Yet "opéra bouffe" is, to my mind, something infinitely superior and many steps higher than modern comic opera. So we have some delicate differentiations to make when we go investigating in the fields of light dramatic music. In Paris at the Comique they try to keep the older distinction in mind when selecting their operas for production. There are exceptions to this rule, as to others, for play-houses that specialise; but for the most part these Paris managers choose operas that are light. I use the word advisedly. By _light_ I mean, literally, _not heavy_. Light music, light drama, does not necessarily mean humorous. It may, on the contrary, be highly pathetic and charged with sentiment. The only restriction is that it shall not be expressed in the stentorian orchestration of a Meyerbeer, nor in the heart-rending tragedy of a Wagner. In theme and in treatment, in melodies and in text, it must be of delicate fibre, something easily seized and swiftly assimilated, something intimate, perfumed, and agreeable, with no more harshness of emotion than of harmony. Judged by this standard such operas as _Martha_, _La Bohème_, even _Carmen_--possibly, even _Werther_--are not entirely foreign to the requirements of "opéra comique." _Le Donne Curiose_ may be considered as an almost perfect revival and exemplification of the form. A careful differentiation discovers that humour, a happy ending, and many rollicking melodies do not at all make an "opéra comique." These qualities all belong abundantly to _Die Meistersinger_ and to Verdi's _Falstaff_, yet these great operas are no nearer being examples of genuine "comique" than _Les Huguenots_ is or _Götterdämmerung_. It was my good fortune to sing in the space of a year three delightful _rôles_ in "opéra comique," each of which I enjoyed hugely. They were Zerlina in _Fra Diavolo_; Rosina in _Il Barbiere_; and Annetta in _Crispino e la Comare_. _Fra Diavolo_ was first produced in Italian in America during the autumn of 1864, the year after I appeared in Marguerite, and it remained one of our most popular operas throughout the season of '65-66. I loved it and always had a good time the nights it was given. We put it on for my "benefit" at the end of the regular winter season at the Academy. The season closed with the old year and the "benefit" took place on the 28th of December. The "benefit" custom was very general in those days. Everybody had one a year and so I had to have mine, or, at least, Maretzek thought I had to have it. _Fra Diavolo_ was his choice for this occasion as I had made one of my best successes in the part of Zerlina, and the opera had been the most liked in our whole _répertoire_ with the exception of _Faust_. _Faust_ had remained from the beginning our most unconditional success, our _cheval de bataille_, and never failed to pack the house. I don't know quite why that _Fra Diavolo_ night stands out so happily and vividly in my memory. I have had other and more spectacular "benefits"; but that evening there seemed to be the warmest and most personal of atmospheres in the old Academy. The audience was full of friends and, what with the glimpses I had of these familiar faces and my loads of lovely flowers and the kindly, intimate enthusiasm that greeted my appearance, I felt as if I were at a party and not playing a performance at all. I had to come out again and again; and finally became so wrought up that I was nearly in tears. As a climax I was entirely overcome when I suddenly turned to find Maretzek standing beside me in the middle of the stage, smiling at me in a friendly and encouraging manner. I had not the slightest idea what his presence there at that moment meant. The applause stopped instantly. Whereupon "Max the Magnificent" made a little speech in the quick hush, saying charming and overwhelming things about the young girl whose musical beginning he had watched and who in a few years had reached "a high pinnacle in the world of art. The young girl"--he went on to say--"who at twenty-one was the foremost _prima donna_ of America." "And now, my dear Miss Kellogg," he wound up with, holding out to me a velvet case, "I am instructed by the stockholders of the Opera Company to hand you this, to remind you of their admiration and their pride in you!" I took the case; and the house cheered and cheered as I lifted out of it a wonderful flashing diamond bracelet and diamond ring. Of course I couldn't speak. I could hardly say "thank you." I just ran off with eyes and heart overflowing to the wings where my mother was waiting for me. The bracelet and the ring are among the dearest things I possess. Their value to me is much greater than any money could be, for they symbolise my young girl's sudden comprehension of the fact that I had made my countrymen proud of me! That seemed like the high-water mark; the finest thing that could happen. Annetta was my second creation. There could hardly be imagined a greater contrast than she presented to the part of Marguerite. Gretchen was all the virtues in spite of her somewhat spectacular career; gentleness and sweetness itself. Annetta, the ballad singer, was quite the opposite. I must say that I really enjoyed making myself shrewish, sparkling, and audacious. Perhaps I thus took out in the lighter _rôles_ I sang many of my own suppressed tendencies. Although I lived such an essentially ungirlish life, I was, nevertheless, full of youthful feeling and high spirits, so, when I was Annetta or Zerlina or Rosina, I had a flying chance to "bubble" just a little bit. Merriment is one of the finest and most helpful emotions in the world and I dare say we all have the possibilities of it in us, one way or another. But it is a shy sprite and does not readily come to one's call. I often think that the art, or the ability,--on the stage or off it--which makes people truly and innocently gay, is very high in the scale of human importance. Personally, I have never been happier than when I was frolicking through some entirely light-weight opera, full of whims and quirks and laughing music. I used to feel intimately in touch with the whole audience then, as though they and I were sharing some exquisite secret or delicious joke; and I would reach a point of ease and spontaneity which I have never achieved in more serious work. _Crispino_ had made a tremendous hit in Paris the year before when Malibran had sung Annetta with brilliant success. It has been sometimes said that Grisi created the _rôle_ of Annetta in America; but I still cling to the claim of that distinction for myself. The composers of the opera were the Rice brothers. I do not know of any other case where an opera has been written fraternally; and it was such a highly successful little opera that I wish I knew more about the two men who were responsible for it. All that I remember clearly is that they both of them knew music thoroughly and that one of them taught it as a profession. Our first Cobbler in _Crispino e la Comare_ ("The Cobbler and the Fairy") was Rovere, a good Italian buffo baritone. He was one of those extraordinary artists whose art grows and increases with time and, by some law of compensation, comes more and more to take the place of mere voice. Rovere was in his prime in 1852 when he sang in America with Mme. Alboni. Later, when he sang with me, a few of the New York critics remembered him and knew his work and agreed that he was "as good as ever." His voice--no. But his art, his method, his delightful manner--these did not deteriorate. On the contrary, they matured and ripened. Our second Cobbler, Ronconi, was even more remarkable. He was, I believe, one of the finest Italian baritones that ever lived, and he succeeded in getting a degree of genuine high comedy out of the part that I have never seen surpassed. He used to tell of himself a story of the time when he was singing in the Royal Opera of Petersburg. The Czar--father of the one who was murdered--said to him once: "Ronconi, I understand that you are so versatile that you can express tragedy with one side of your face when you are singing and comedy with the other. How do you do it?" "Your Majesty," rejoined Ronconi, "when I sing _Maria de Rohan_ to-morrow night I will do myself the honour of showing you." And, accordingly, the next evening he managed to turn one side of his face, grim as the Tragic Mask, to the audience, while the other, which could be seen from only the Imperial Box, was excessively humorous and cheerful. The Czar was greatly amused and delighted with the exhibition. Once in London, Santley was talking with me about this great baritone and said: "Ronconi did something with a phrase in the sextette of _Lucia_ that I have gone to hear many and many a night. I never could manage to catch it or comprehend how he gave so much power and expression to [Illustration: Musical notation; Ah! è mio san-gue, l'ho-tra-di-ta!] Ronconi was deliciously amusing, also, as the Lord in _Fra Diavolo_. He sang it with me the first time it was ever done here in Italian, when Theodor Habelmann was our Diavolo. Though he was a round-faced German, he was so dark of skin and so finely built that he made up excellently as an Italian; and he had been thoroughly trained in the splendid school of German light opera. He was really picturesque, especially in a wonderful fall he made from one precipice to another. We were not accustomed to falls on the stage over here, and had never seen anything like it. Ronconi sang with me some years later, as well, when I gave English opera throughout the country, and I came to know him quite well. He was a man of great elegance and decorum. "You know," he said to me once, "I'm a sly dog--a very sly dog indeed! When I sing off the key on the stage or do anything like that, I always turn and look in an astounded manner at the person singing with me as if to say 'what on earth did you do that for?' and the other artist, perfectly innocent, invariably looks guilty! O, I'm a _very_ sly dog!" _Don Pasquale_ was another of our "opéra comique" ventures, as well as _La Dame Blanche_ and _Masaniello_. It was a particularly advantageous choice at the time because it required neither chorus nor orchestra. We sang it with nothing but a piano by way of accompaniment; which possibly was a particularly useful arrangement for us when we became short of cash, for we--editorially, or, rather, managerially speaking--were rather given in those early seasons to becoming suddenly "hard up," especially when to the poor operatic conditions, engendered spasmodically by the war news, was added the wet blanket of Lent which, in those days, was observed most rigidly. Of the three _rôles_, Zerlina, Rosina, and Annetta, I always preferred that of Rosina. It was one of my best _rôles_, the music being excellently placed for me. _Il Barbiere_ had led the school of "opéra comique" for years, but soon, one after the other, the new operas--notably _Crispino_--were hailed as the legitimate successor of _Il Barbiere_, and their novelty gave them a drawing power in advance of their rational value. In addition to my personal liking for the _rôle_ of Rosina, I always felt that, although the other operas were charming in every way, they musically were not quite in the class with Rossini's masterpiece. The light and delicate qualities of this form of operatic art have never been given so perfectly as by him. I wish _Il Barbiere_ were more frequently heard. Yet I was fond of _Fra Diavolo_ too. I was forever working at the _rôle_ of Zerlina or, rather, playing at it, for the old "opéra comique" was never really work to me. It was all infectious and inspiring; the music full of melody; the story light and pretty. Many of the critics said that I ought to specialise in comedy, cut out my tragic and romantic _rôles_, and attempt even lighter music and characterisation than Zerlina. People seemed particularly to enjoy my "going to bed" scene. They praised my "neatness and daintiness" and found the whole picture very pretty and attractive. I used to take off my skirt first, shake it well, hang it on a nail, then discover a spot and carefully rub it out. That little bit of "business" always got a laugh--I do not quite know why. Then I would take off my bodice dreamily as I sang: "To-morrow--yes, to-morrow I am to be married!" [Illustration: Musical notation; Si, do-ma-ni, Si, do-ma-ni sa-rem ma-ri-to e moghi,] One night while I was carrying the candle in that scene a gust of wind from the wings made the flame gutter badly and a drop of hot grease fell on my hand. Instinctively I jumped and shook my hand without thinking what I was doing. There was a perfect gale of laughter from the house. After that, I always pretended to drop the grease on my hand, always gave the little jump, and always got my laugh. As I say, nearly everybody liked that scene. I was myself so girlish that it never struck anybody as particularly suggestive or immodest until one night an old couple from the country came to see the opera and created a mild sensation by getting up and going out in the middle of it. The old man was heard to say, as he hustled his meek spouse up the aisle of the opera house: "Mary, we'd better get out of this! It may be all right for city folks, but it's no place for us. We may be green; but, by cracky,--we're _decent_!" CHAPTER X ANOTHER SEASON AND A LITTLE MORE SUCCESS One of the pleasant affairs that came my way that year was Sir Morton Peto's banquet in October. Sir Morton was a distinguished Englishman who represented big railway interests in Great Britain and who was then negotiating some new and important railroading schemes on this side of the water. There were two hundred and fifty guests; practically everybody present, except my mother and myself, standing for some large financial power of the United States. I felt much complimented at being invited, for it was at a period when very great developments were in the making. America was literally teeming with new projects and plans and embryonic interests. The banquet was given at Delmonico's, then at Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth Street, and the rooms were gorgeous in their drapings of American and English flags. The war was about drawing to its close and patriotism was at white heat. The influential Americans were in the mood to wave their banners and to exchange amenities with foreign potentates. Sir Morton was a noted capitalist and his banquet was a sort of "hands across the sea" festival. He used, I recall, to stop at the Clarendon, now torn down and its site occupied by a commercial "sky scraper," but then the smart hostelry of the town. I sang that night after dinner. My services had not been engaged professionally, so, when Sir Morton wanted to reward me lavishly, I of course did not care to have him do so. We were still so new to _prime donne_ in New York that we had no social code or precedent to refer to with regard to them; and I preferred, personally, to keep the episode on a purely friendly and social basis. I was an invited guest only who had tried to do her part for the entertainment of the others. I was honoured, too. It was an experience to which anyone could look back with pride and pleasure. But, being English, Sir Morton Peto had a solution and, within a day or two, sent me an exquisite pearl and diamond bracelet. It is odd how much more delicately and graciously than Americans all foreigners--of whatever nationality indeed--can relieve a situation of awkwardness and do the really considerate and appreciative thing which makes such a situation all right. I later found the same tactful qualities in the Duke of Newcastle who, with his family, were among the closest friends I had in England. Indeed, I was always much impressed with the good taste of English men and women in this connection. An instance of the American fashion befell me during the winter of '63-'64 on the occasion of a big reception that was given by the father of Brander Matthews. I was invited to go and asked to sing, my host saying that if I would not accept a stipulated price he would be only too glad to make me a handsome present of some kind. The occasion turned out to be very unfortunate and unpleasant altogether, both at the time and with regard to the feeling that grew out of it. I happened to wear a dress that was nearly new, a handsome and expensive gown, and this was completely ruined by a servant upsetting melted ice cream over it. My host and hostess were all concern, saying that, as they were about to go to Paris, they would buy me a new one. I immediately felt that if they did this, they would consider the dress as an equivalent for my singing and that I should never hear anything more of the handsome present. Of course I said nothing of this, however, to anyone. Well--they went to Paris. Days and weeks passed. I heard nothing from them about either dress or present. I went to Europe. They called on me in Paris. In the course of time we all came home to America; and the night after my return I received a long letter and a set of Castilian gold jewelry, altogether inadequate as an equivalent. There was nothing to do but to accept it, which I did, and then proceeded to give away the ornaments as I saw fit. The whole affair was uncomfortable and a discredit to my entertainers. Not only had I lost a rich dress through the carelessness of one of their servants, but I received a very tardy and inadequate recompense for my singing. I had refused payment in money because it was the custom to do so. But I was a professional singer, and I had been asked to the reception as a professional entertainer. This, however, I must add, is the most flagrant case that has ever come under my personal notice of an American host or hostess failing to "make good" at the expense of a professional. Well--from time to time after Sir Morton's banquet, I sang in concert. On one occasion I replaced Euphrosyne Parepa--she had not then married Carl Rosa--at one of the Bateman concerts. The Meyerbeer craze was then at its height. Good, sound music it was too, if a little brazen and noisy. _L'Étoile du Nord_ (I don't understand why we always speak of it as _L'Étoile du Nord_ when we never once sang it in French) had been sung in America by my old idol, Mme. de la Grange, nearly ten years before I essayed Catarina. My _première_ in the part was given in Philadelphia; but almost immediately we came back to New York for the spring opera season and I sang _The Star_ as principal attraction. Later on I sang it in Boston. It was always good fun playing in Boston, for the Harvard boys adored "suping" and we had our extra men almost without the asking. They were such nice, clean, enthusiastic chaps! The reason why I remember them so clearly is that I never can forget how surprised I was when, in the boat at the end of the first act of _The Star of the North_, I chanced to look down and caught sight of Peter Barlow (now Judge Barlow) grinning up at me from a point almost underneath me on the stage, and how I nearly fell out of the boat! We had difficulty in finding a satisfactory Prascovia. Prascovia is an important soprano part, and had to be well taken. At last Albites suggested a pupil of his. This was Minnie Hauck. Prascovia was sung at our first performance by Mlle. Bososio who was not equal to the part. Minnie Hauck came into the theatre and sang a song of Meyerbeer's, and we knew that we had found our Prascovia. Her voice was very light but pleasing and well-trained, for Albites was a good teacher. She undoubtedly would add value to our cast. So she made her _début_ as Prascovia, although she afterwards became better known to the public as one of the most famous of the early Carmens. Indeed, many people believed that she created that _rôle_ in America although, as a matter of fact, I sang Carmen several months before she did. As Prascovia she and I had a duet together, very long and elaborate, which we introduced after the tent scene and which made an immense hit. We always received many flowers after it--I, particularly, to be quite candid. By this time I was called The Flower Prima Donna because of the quantities of wonderful blossoms that were sent to me night after night. When singing _The Star of the North_ there was one bouquet that I was sure of getting regularly from a young man who always sent the same kind of flowers. I never needed a card on them or on the box to know from whom they came. Miss Hauck used to help me pick up my bouquets. The only trouble was that every one she picked up she kept! As a rule I did not object, and, anyway, I might have had difficulty in proving that she had appropriated my flowers after she had taken the cards off: but one night she included in her general haul my own special, unmistakable bouquet! I recognised it, saw her take it, but, as there was no card, had the greatest difficulty in getting it away from her. I did, though, in the end. Minnie Hauck was very pushing and took advantage of everything to forward and help herself. She never had the least apprehension about the outcome of anything in which she was engaged and, in this, she was extremely fortunate, for most persons cursed with the artistic temperament are too sensitive to feel confident. She was clever, too. This is another exception, for very few big singers are clever. I think it is Mme. Maeterlinck who has made use of the expression "too clever to sing well." I am convinced that there is quite a truth in it as well as a sarcasm. Wonderful voices usually are given to people who are, intrinsically, more or less nonentities. One cannot have everything in this world, and people with brains are not obliged to sing! But Minnie Hauck was a singer and she was also clever. If I remember rightly, she married some scientific foreign baron and lived afterwards in Lucerne. Once I heard of a soldier who was asked to describe Waterloo and who replied that his whole impression of the battle consisted of a mental picture of the kind of button that was on the coat of the man in front of him. It is so curiously true that one's view of important events is often a very small one,--especially when it comes to a matter of mere memory. Accordingly, I find my amethysts are almost my most vivid recollection in connection with _L'Étoile du Nord_. I wanted a set of really handsome stage jewelry for Catarina. In fact, I had been looking for such a set for some time. There are many _rôles_, Violetta for instance, for which rich jewels are needed. My friends were on the lookout for me, also, and it was while I was preparing for _The Star of the North_ that a man I knew came hurrying in with a wonderful tale of a set of imitation amethysts that he had discovered, and that were, he thought, precisely what I was looking for. "The man who has them," he told me, "bought them at a bankrupt sale for ninety-six dollars and they are a regular white elephant to him. Of course, they are suitable only for the stage; and he has been hunting for months for some actress who would buy them. You'd better take a look at them, anyhow." I had the set sent to me and, promptly, went wild over it. The stones, that ranged from the size of a bean to that of a large walnut, appeared to be as perfect as genuine amethysts, and the setting--genuine soft, old, worked gold--was really exquisite. There were seventy stones in the whole set, which included a necklace, a bracelet, a large brooch, ear-rings and a most gorgeous tiara. The colour of the gems was very deep and lovely, bordering on a claret tone rather than violet. The crown was apparently symbolic or suggestive of some great house. It was made of roses, shamrocks, and thistles, and every piece in the set was engraved with a small hare's head. I wish I knew heraldry and could tell to whom the lovely ornaments had first belonged. Of course I bought them, paying one hundred and fifty dollars for the set, which the man was glad enough to get. I wore it in _The Star_ and in other operas, and one day I took it down to Tiffany's to have it cleaned and repaired. The man there, who knew me, examined it with interest. "It will cost you one hundred and seventy dollars," he informed me. "What!" I gasped. "That is more than the whole set is worth!" He looked at me as if he thought I must be a little crazy. "Miss Kellogg," he said, "if you think that, I don't believe you know what you've really got. What do you think this jewelry is really worth?" "I don't know," I admitted. "What do you think it is worth?" "Roughly speaking," he replied, "I should say about six thousand dollars. The workmanship is of great value, and every one of the stones is genuine." Through all these years, therefore, I have been fearful that some Rip Van Winkle claimant might rise up and take my beloved amethysts away from me! My general impressions of this period of my life include those of the two great pianists, Thalberg and Gottschalk. They were both wonderful, although I always admired Gottschalk more than the former. Thalberg had the greater technique; Gottschalk the greater charm. Sympathetically, the latter musician was better equipped than the former. The very simplest thing that Gottschalk played became full of fascination. Thalberg was marvellously perfect as to his method; but it was Gottschalk who could "play the birds off the trees and the heart out of your breast," as the Irish say. Thalberg's work was, if I may put it so, mental; Gottschalk's was temperamental. Gottschalk was one of the first big pianists to come to New York touring. He was from New Orleans, having been born there in the French Quarter, and spoke only French, like so many persons from that city up to thirty years ago. But he had been educated abroad and always ranked as a foreign artist. He must have been a Jew, from his name. Certainly, he looked like one. He had peculiarly drooping eyelids and was considered to be very attractive. He wrote enchanting Spanish-sounding songs; and gave the banjo quite a little dignity by writing a piece imitating it, much to my delight, because of my fondness for that instrument. He was in no way a classical pianist. Thalberg was. Indeed, they were altogether different types. Thalberg was nothing like so interesting either as a personality or as a musician, although he was much more scholarly than his predecessor. I say predecessor, because Thalberg followed Gottschalk in the touring proposition. Gottschalk began his work before I began mine, and I first sang with him in my second season. He and I figured in the same concerts not only in those early days but also much later. [Illustration: =Gottschalk= Photograph by Case & Getchell] Gottschalk was a gay deceiver and women were crazy about him. Needless to say, my mother never let me have anything to do with him except professionally. He was pursued by adoring females wherever he went and inundated with letters from girls who had lost their hearts to his exquisite music and magnetic personality. I shall always remember Gottschalk and Brignoli comparing their latest love letters from matinée girls. Some poor, silly maiden had written to Gottschalk asking for a meeting at any place he would appoint. Said Gottschalk: "It would be rather fun to make a date with her at some absurd, impossible place,--say a ferry-boat, for instance." "Nonsense," said Brignoli, "a ferry-boat is not romantic enough. She wouldn't think of coming to a ferry-boat to meet her ideal!" "She would come anywhere," declared Gottschalk, not at all vaingloriously, but as one stating a simple truth. "I'll make her come; and you shall come too and see her do it!" "Will you bet?" asked Brignoli. "I certainly will," replied Gottschalk. They promptly put up quite a large sum of money and Gottschalk won. That dear, miserable goose of a girl did go to the ferry-boat to meet the illustrious pianist of her adoration, and Brignoli was there to see. If only girls knew as much as I do about the way in which their stage heroes take their innocent adulation, and the wicked light-heartedness with which they make fun of it! But they do not; and the only way to teach them, I suppose, is to let them learn by themselves, poor little idiots. As I look back I feel a continual sense of outrage that I mixed so little with the people and affairs that were all about me; interesting people and important affairs. My dear mother adored me. It is strange that we can never even be adored in the particular fashion in which we would prefer to be adored! My mother's way was to guard me eternally; she would have called it protecting me. But, really, it was a good deal like shutting me up in a glass case, and it was a great pity. My mother was an extraordinarily fine woman, upright as the day and of an unusual mentality. Uncompromising she was, not unnaturally, according to her heritage of race and creed and generation. Yet I sometimes question if she were as uncompromising as she used to seem to me, for was not the life she led with me, as well as her acceptance of it in the beginning, one long compromise between her nature and the actualities? At any rate, where she seemed to draw the line was in keeping me as much as possible aloof from my inevitable associates. I led a deadly dull and virtuous life, of necessity. To be sure, I might have been just as virtuous or even more so had I been left to my own devices and judgments; but I contend that such a life is not up to much when it is compulsory. Personal responsibility is necessary to development. Perhaps I reaped certain benefits from my mother's close chaperonage. Certainly, if there were benefits about it, I reaped them. But I very much question its ultimate advantage to me, and I confess freely that one of the things I most regret is the innocent, normal coquetry which is the birthright of every happy girl and which I entirely missed. It is all very well to be carefully guarded and to be made the archetype of American virtue on the stage, but there is a great deal of entirely innocuous amusement that I might have had and did not have, which I should have been better off for having. My mother could hardly let me hold a friendly conversation with a man--much less a flirtation. [Illustration: =Jane Elizabeth Crosby= Mother of Clara Louise Kellogg From a tintype] CHAPTER XI THE END OF THE WAR The Civil War was now coming to its close. Abraham Lincoln was the hero of the day, as he has been of all days since, in America. The White House was besieged with people from all walks of life, persistently anxious to shake hands with the War President, and he used to have to stand, for incredible lengths of time, smiling and hand-clasping. But he was ever a fine economist of energy and he flatly refused to talk. No one could get out of him more than a smile, a nod, or possibly a brief word of greeting. One man made a bet that he would have some sort of conversation with the President while he was shaking hands with him. "No, you won't," said the man to whom he was speaking, "I'll bet you that you won't get more than two words out of him!" "I bet I will," said the venturesome one; and he set off to try his luck. He went to the White House reception and, when his turn came and his hand was in the huge presidential grasp, he began to talk hastily and volubly, hoping to elicit some response. Lincoln listened a second, gazing at him gravely with his deep-set eyes, and then he laid an enormous hand in a loose, wrinkled white glove across his back. "Don't dwell!" said he gently to his caller; and shoved him along, amiably but relentlessly, with the rest of the line. So the man got only his two words after all. One week before the President was murdered I was in Washington and sat in the exact place in which he sat when he was shot. It was the same box, the same chair, and on Friday too,--one week to the day and hour before the tragedy. When I heard the terrible news I was able to picture exactly what it had been like. I could see just the jump that Booth must have had to make to get away. I never knew Wilkes Booth personally nor saw him act, but I have several times seen him leaving his theatre after a performance, with a raft of adoring matinée girls forming a more or less surreptitous guard afar off. He was a tremendously popular idol and strikingly handsome. Even after his wicked crime there were many women who professed a sort of hysterical sympathy and pity for him. Somebody has said that there would always be at least one woman at the death-bed of the worst criminal in the world if she could get to it; and there were hundreds of the sex who would have been charmed to watch beside Booth's, bad as he was and crazy into the bargain. It is a mysterious thing, the fascination that criminals have for some people, particularly women. Perhaps it is fundamentally a respect for accomplishment; admiration for the doing of something, good or evil, that they would not dare to do themselves. We had all gone to Chicago for our spring opera season and were ready to open, when the tragic tidings came and shut down summarily upon every preparation for amusement of any kind. Every city in the Union went into mourning for the man whom the country idolised; of whom so many people spoke as _our_ "Abraham Lincoln." Perhaps it was because of this universal and almost personal affection that the authorities did such an odd thing--or, at least, it struck me as odd,--with his body. He was taken all over the country and "lay-in-state," as it is called, in different court houses in different states. I was stopping in the Grand Pacific Hotel when the body was brought to Chicago, and my windows overlooked the grounds of the Court House of that city. Business was entirely suspended, not simply for a few memorial moments as was the case when President McKinley was killed, but for many hours during the "lying-in-state." This, however, was probably only partly official. Everyone was so afraid that he would not be able to see the dead hero's face that business men all over the town suspended occupation, closed shops and offices, and made a pilgrimage to the Court House. All citizens were permitted to go into the building and look upon the Martyr President, and vast numbers availed themselves of the privilege--waited all night, indeed, to claim it. From sunset to sunrise the grounds were packed with a silent multitude. The only sound to be heard was the shuffling echo of feet as one person after another went quietly into the Court House, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle,--I can hear it yet. There was not a word uttered. There was no other sound than the sound of the passing feet. One thing that must have been official was that, for quite a long time, not a wheel in the city was allowed to turn. This was an impressive tribute to a man whom the whole American nation loved and counted a friend. The only diversion in the whole melancholy solemnity of it all was the picking of pockets. The crowds were enormous, the people in a mood of sentiment and off their guard, and the army of crooks did a thriving business. It is a sickening thing to realise that in all hours of great national tragedy or terror there will always be people degenerate enough to take advantage of the suffering and ruin about them. Burning or plague-stricken cities have to be put under military law; and it is said that to the multiplied horrors of the San Francisco earthquake the people look back with a shudder to the ghastly system of looting which prevailed afterwards in the stricken city. Every imaginable kind of flowers were sent to the dead President, splendid wreaths and bouquets from distinguished personages, and many little cheap humble nosegays from poor people who had loved him even from afar and wanted to honour him in some simple way. No man has ever been loved more in his death than was Abraham Lincoln. I sent a cross of white camellias. I do not like camellias when they are sent to me, because they always seem such heartless, soulless flowers for living people to wear. But just for that reason, just because they are the most perfect and the most impersonal of all flowers that grow and blossom they seem right and suitable for death. Ever since that time I have associated white camellias with the thought of Abraham Lincoln and with my strange, impressive memory of those days in Chicago. However, nations go on even after the beloved rulers of them are laid in the ground. Our Chicago season opened soon--I in Lucia--and everything went along as though nothing had happened. The only difference was that the end of the war had made the nation a little drunk with excitement and our performances went with a whirl. Finally the victorious generals, Lieutenant-General Grant and Major-General Sherman, came to Chicago as the guests of the city and we gave a gala performance for them. As the _Daughter of the Regiment_ had been our choice to inaugurate the commencement of the great conflict, so the _Daughter of the Regiment_ was also our choice to commemorate its close. The whole opera house was gay with flags and flowers and decorations, and the generals were given the two stage boxes, one on each side of the house. The audience began to come in very early; and it was a huge one. The curtain had not yet risen--indeed, I was in my dressing-room still making-up--when I heard the orchestra break into _See the Conquering Hero Comes_, and then the roof nearly came off with the uproar of the people cheering. I sent to find out what was happening, and was told that General Grant had just entered his box. We were ridiculously excited behind the scenes, all of us; even the foreigners. They were such emotional creatures that they flung themselves into a mood of general excitement even when it was based on a patriotism to which they were aliens. The wild and jubilant state of the audience infected us. I had felt something of the same emotion in Washington at the beginning of the war, when we had done _Figlia_ before, to the frantically enthusiastic houses there. Yet that was different. Mingled with that feeling there had been a grimness and pain and apprehension. Now everyone was triumphant and happy and emotionally exultant. General Sherman came into his box early in the first act and the orchestra had to stop while the house cheered him, and cheered again. Sherman was always just a bit theatrical and loved applause, and he, with his staff, stood bowing and smiling and bowing and smiling. The whole proceeding took almost the form of a great military reception. As I look back at it, I think one of the moments of the evening was created by our basso, Susini. Susini--himself a soldier of courage and experience, a veteran of the Italian rebellion--made his entrance, walked forward, stood, faced one General after the other and saluted each with the most military exactness. They were both plainly delighted; while the house, in the mood to be moved by little touches, broke into the heartiest applause. I had a moment of triumph also when we sang the _Rataplan, rataplan_. Since the early hit I had made with my drum I always played it as the Daughter of the Regiment, and when we came to this scene I directed the drum first toward one box and then toward the other, as I gave the rolling salute. The audience went mad again; and again the orchestra had to stop until the clapping and the hurrahs had subsided. It may not have been a great operatic performance but it was a great evening! Such moments written about afterwards in cold words lose their thrill. They bring up no pictures except to those who have lived them. But on a night such as that, one's heart seems like a musical instrument, wonderfully played upon. Between the acts the two distinguished officers came behind the scenes and were introduced to the artists, making pleasant speeches to us all. Immediately, I liked best the personality of General Grant. There was nothing the least spectacular or egotistical about him; he was absolutely simple and quiet and unaffected. He bewildered me by apologising courteously for not being able to shake hands with me. "You have had an accident to your hand!" I exclaimed. "Not exactly an accident," he said, smiling. "I think I may call it design!" He explained that he had shaken hands with so many people that he could not use his right hand for a while. He held it out for me to see and, sure enough, it was terribly swollen and inflamed and must have been very painful. The great evening came to an end at last. We were not sorry on the whole for, thrilling as it had been, it had been also very tiring. I wonder if such mad, national excitement could come to people to-day? I cannot quite imagine an opera performance being conducted on similar lines in the Metropolitan Opera House. Perhaps, however, it is not because we are less enthusiastic but because our events are less dramatic. In recalling General Sherman I find myself thinking of him chiefly in the later years of my acquaintance with him. After that Chicago night, he never failed to look me up when I sang in any city where he was and we grew to be good friends. He was always quite enthusiastic about operatic music; much more so than General Grant. He confided to me once that above all songs he especially disliked _Marching through Georgia_, and that, naturally, was the song he was constantly obliged to listen to. People, of course, thought it must be, or ought to be, his favourite melody. But he hated the tune as well as the words. He was desperately tired of the song and, above all, he detested what it stood for, and what it forced him to recall. [Illustration: =General William Tecumseh Sherman, 1877= From a photograph by Mora] Like nearly all great soldiers, Sherman was naturally a gentle person and saddened by war. Everything connected with fighting brought to him chiefly the recollection of its horrors and tragedies and always filled him with pain. So it was that his real heart's preference was for such simple, old-fashioned, plantation-evoking, country-smelling airs as _The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane_. One day during his many visits to our home he asked me to sing this and, when I informed him that I could not because I did not know and did not have the words, he said he would send them to me. This he did; and I took pains after that never to forget his preference. [Illustration: Musical notation; In de lit-tle old log cab-in in de lane.] One night when I was singing in a concert in Washington, I caught sight of him sitting quietly in the audience. He did not even know that I had seen him. Presently the audience wanted an encore and, as was my custom in concerts, I went to the piano to play my own accompaniment. I turned and, meeting the General's eyes, smiled at him. Then I sang his beloved _Little Old Log Cabin_. My reward was his beaming expression of appreciation. He was easily touched by such little personal tributes. "Why on earth did you sing that queer old song, Louise," someone asked me when I was back behind the scenes again. "It was an official request," I replied mysteriously. The end of the war was a strenuous time for the nation; and for actors and singers among others. The combination of work and excitement sent me up to New Hartford in sore need of my summer's rest. But I think, of all the many diverse impressions which that spring made upon my memory, the one that I still carry with me most unforgetably, is a _sound_:--the sound of those shuffling feet, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle,--in the Court House grounds in Chicago: a sound like a great sea or forest in a wind as the people of the nation went in to look at their President whom they loved and who was dead. CHAPTER XII AND SO--TO ENGLAND! The following season was one of concerts and not remarkably enjoyable. In retrospect I see but a hurried jumble of work until our decision, in the spring, to go to England. For two or three years I had wanted to try my wings on the other side of the world. Several matters had interfered and made it temporarily impossible, chiefly an unfortunate business agreement into which I had entered at the very outset of my professional career. During the second season that I sang, an _impresario_, a Jew named Ulman, had made me an offer to go abroad and sing in Paris and elsewhere. Being very eager to forge ahead, it seemed like a satisfactory arrangement, and I signed a contract binding myself to sing under Ulman's management _if I went abroad_ any time in three years. When I came to think it over, I regretted this arrangement exceedingly. I felt that the _impresario_ was not the best one for me. To say the least, I came to doubt his ability. At any rate, because of this complication, I voluntarily tied myself up to Max Maretzek for several years and felt it a release as now I could not tour under Ulman even if I cared to. By 1867, however, my Ulman contract had expired and I was free to do as I pleased. I had no contract abroad to be sure, nor any very definite prospects, but I determined to go to England on a chance and see what developed. At any rate I should have the advantage of being able to consult foreign teachers and to improve my method. The uncertainties of my professional outlook did not disturb me in the least. Indeed, what I really wanted was, like any other girl, to go abroad, as the gentleman in the old-fashioned ballad says: ... to go abroad; To go strange countries for to see! I greatly enjoyed the voyage as I have enjoyed every voyage that I have made since, even including the channel crossing when everyone else on board was seasick, and also the one in which I was nearly ship-wrecked off the Irish coast. I have crossed the Atlantic between sixty and seventy times and every trip has given me pleasure of one kind or another. I am never nervous when travelling. Like poor Jack, I have a vague but sure conviction that nothing will happen to _me_; that I am protected by "a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft!" At Queenstown, where we touched before going on to our regular port of Liverpool, a man came on board asking for Miss Clara Louise Kellogg. He was from Jarrett, the agent for Colonel Mapleson who was then _impresario_ of "Her Majesty's Opera" in London, and he brought me word that Mapleson wanted me to call on him as soon as I reached London and, until we could definitely arrange matters, to please give him the refusal of myself, if I may so express it. Perhaps I wasn't a proud and happy girl! Mapleson, I heard later, was then believed to be on the verge of failure and it was hoped that my appearance in his company would revive his fortunes. I grew afterwards cordially to detest and to distrust him, and we had more troubles than I can or care to keep track of: and, as for Jarrett, he was a most unpleasant creature with a positive genius for making trouble. But on that day in Queenstown harbour, with the sun shining and the little Irish fisher boats--their patched sails streaming into the blue off-shore distance,--the man Jarrett had sent to meet me on behalf of Colonel Mapleson seemed like a herald of great good cheer. When we reached London we went to Miss Edward's Hotel in Hanover Square. It was a curious institution, distinctive of its day and generation, a real old-fashioned English hotel, behind streets that were "chained-up" after nightfall. It was called a "private hotel" and unquestionably was one; deadly dull, but maintained in the most aristocratic way imaginable, like a formal, pluperfect, private house where one might chance to be invited to visit. Everyone dined in his own sitting-room, which was usually separated from the bedroom, and never a soul but the servants was seen. The Langham was the first London hotel to introduce the American style of hotel and it, with its successors, have had such an influence upon the other hostelries of London as gradually to undermine the quaint, old, truly English places we used to know, until there are no more "private hotels" like Miss Edward's in existence. We had friends in London and quickly made others. Commodore McVickar, of the New York Yacht Club, had given me a letter to a friend of his, the Dowager Duchess of Somerset. Her cards, by the way, were engraved in just the opposite fashion--"Duchess Dowager." McVickar told me that, if she liked, she could make things very pleasant for me in London. It appeared that she was something of a lion hunter and was always on the lookout for celebrities either arriving or arrived. She went in for everything foreign to her own immediate circle--art, intellect, and Americans--chiefly Americans, in fact, because they were more or less of a novelty, and she had the thirst for change in her so strongly developed that she ought to have lived at the present time. Every night of her life she gave dinners to hosts of friends and acquaintances. Indeed, it is a fact that her sole interest in life consisted of giving dinner parties and making collections of lions, great and small. I have been told that after dinner she sometimes danced the Spanish fandango toward the end of the evening. I never happened to see her do it, but I quite believe her to have been capable of that or of anything else vivacious and eccentric, although she was seventy or eighty in the shade and not entirely built for dancing. I was somewhat impressed by the prospect of meeting a real live Duchess, and had to be coached before-hand. In the early part of the eighteenth century the mode of address "Your Grace" was used exclusively, and very pretty and courtly it must have sounded. Nowadays it is only servants or inferiors who think of using it. Plain "Duke" or "Duchess" is the later form. At the period of which I am writing the custom was just betwixt and between, in transition, and I was duly instructed to say "Your Grace," but cautioned to say it _very_ seldom! [Illustration: =Henry G. Stebbins= From a photograph by Grillet & Co.] On the nineteenth of November, Colonel Stebbins and I went to call. Maria, Dowager Duchess of Somerset lived in Park Lane in a house of indifferent aspect. Its distinctive feature was the formidable number of flunkeys ranged on the steps and standing in front, all in powdered wigs and white silk stockings and wearing waistcoats of a shade carrying out the dominant colour of the ducal coat of arms. It was raining hard when we got there, but not one of these gorgeous functionaries would demean himself sufficiently to carry an umbrella down to our carriage. In the drawing-room we had to wait a long time before a sort of gilt-edged Groom of the Chambers came to the door and announced, "Her Grace, the Duchess!" My youthful American soul was prepared for someone quite dazzling, a magnificent presence. What is the use of diadems and coronets if the owner does not wear them? Of course I knew, theoretically, that duchesses did not wear their coronets in the middle of the day, but I did nevertheless hope for something brilliant or impressive. Then in walked Maria, Dowager Duchess of Somerset. I cannot adequately describe her. She was a little, dumpy, old woman with no corsets, and dressed in a black alpaca gown and prunella shoes--those awful things that the present generation are lucky enough never to have even seen. She furthermore wore a _fichu_ of a style which had been entirely extinct for fifty years at least. I really do not know how there happened to be anyone living even then who could or would make such things for her. No modern modiste could have achieved them and survived. Her whole appearance was certainly beyond words. But she had very beautiful hands, and when she spoke, the great lady was heard instantly. It was all there, of course, only curiously costumed, not to say disguised. After Colonel Stebbins had presented me and she had greeted me kindly, he said: "I am sure Miss Kellogg will be glad to sing for you." "O," said Her Grace, carelessly, "I haven't a piano. I don't play or sing and so I don't need one. But I'll get one in." I was amazed at the idea of a Duchess not owning a piano and having to hire one when, in America, most middle-class homes possess one at whatever sacrifice, and every little girl is expected to take music lessons whether she has any ability or not. Even yet I do not quite understand how she managed without a piano for her musical lions to play on. She did get one in without delay and I was speedily invited to come and sing. I thought I would pay a particular compliment to my English hostess on that occasion by choosing a song the words of which were written by England's Poet Laureate, so I provided myself with the lovely setting of _Tears, Idle Tears_; music written by an American, W. H. Cook by name, who besides being a composer of music possessed a charming tenor voice. In my innocence I thought this choice would make a hit. Imagine my surprise therefore when my hostess's comment on the text was: "Very pretty words. Who wrote them?" "Why," I stammered, "Tennyson." "Indeed? And, my dear Miss Kellogg, who _was_ Tennyson?" Almost immediately after Colonel Stebbins bought her a handsome set of the Poet Laureate's works with which she expressed herself as hugely pleased, although I am personally doubtful if she ever opened a single volume. She did not forget the _Tears, Idle Tears_ episode, however, and had the wit and good humour often to refer to it afterwards and, usually, quite aptly. One of her most charming notes to me touches on it gracefully. She was a great letter-writer and her epistles, couched in flowery terms and embellished with huge capitals of the olden style, are treasures in their way: " ...I know all I feel; and the Tears (_not idle Tears_) that overflow when I read about that Charming and Illustrious 'glorious Queen' ... who is winning all hearts and delighting everyone...." Another letter, one which I think is a particularly interesting specimen of the Victorian style of letter-writing, runs: ...I read with great delight the "critique" of you in _The London Review_, which your Mamma was good enough to send me. The Writer is evidently a man of highly Cultivated Mind, capable of appreciating Excellency and Genius, and like the experienced Lapidary knows a pearl and a Diamond when he has the good fortune to fall in the way of one of high, pure first Water, and great brilliancy. Even _you_ must now feel you have captivated the "elite" of the British Public, and taken root in the country, deep, deep, deep.... My mother and I used often to go to see the Duchess and, through her met many pleasant English people; the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, Lady Susan Vane-Tempest who was Newcastle's sister, Lord Dudley, Lord Stanley, Lord Derby, Viscountess Combermere, Prince de la Tour D'Auvergne, the French Ambassador,--I cannot begin to remember them all--and I came really to like the quaint little old Duchess, who was always most charming to me. One small incident struck me as pathetic,--at least, it was half pathetic and half amusing. One day she told me with impressive pride that she was going to show me one of her dearest possessions, "a wonderful table made from a great American treasure presented to her by her dear friend, Commodore McVickar." She led me over to it and tenderly withdrew the cover, revealing to my amazement a piece of rough, cheap, Indian beadwork, such as all who crossed from Niagara to Canada in those days were familiar with. It was about as much like the genuine and beautiful beadwork of the older tribes as the tawdry American imitations are like true Japanese textures and curios. This poor specimen the Duchess had had made into a table-top and covered it with glass mounted in a gilt frame, and had given it a place of honour in her reception room. I suppose Mr. McVickar had sent it to her to give her a rough general idea of what Indian work looked like. I cannot believe that he intended to play a joke on her. She was certainly very proud of it and, so far as I know, nobody ever had the heart to disillusion her. More than once I encountered in England this incongruous and inappropriate valuation of American things. I do not put it down to a general admiration for us but, on the contrary, to the fact that the English were so utterly and incredibly ignorant with regard to us. The beadwork of the Duchess reminds me of another somewhat similar incident. At that time there were only two really rich bachelors in New York society, Wright Sandford and William Douglass. Willie Douglass was of Scotch descent and sang very pleasingly. Women went wild over him. He had a yacht that won everything in sight. While we were in London, he and his yacht put in an appearance at Cowes and he asked us down to pay him a visit. It was a delightful experience. The Earl of Harrington's country seat was not far away and the Earl with his daughters came on board to ask the yacht's party to luncheon the day following. Of course we all went and, equally of course, we had a wonderful time. Lunch was a deliciously informal affair. At one stage of the proceedings, somebody wanted more soda water, when young Lord Petersham, Harrington's eldest son, jumped up to fetch it himself. He rushed across the room and flung open, with an air of triumph, the door of a common, wooden ice-box,--the sort kept in the pantry or outside the kitchen door by Americans. "Look!" he cried, "did you ever see anything so splendid? It's our American refrigerator and the joy of our lives! I suppose you've seen one before, Miss Kellogg?" I explained rather feebly that I had, although not in a dining-room. But the family assured me that a dining-room was the proper place for it. I have seldom seen anything so heart-rendingly incongruous as that plain ugly article of furniture in that dining-room all carved woodwork, family silver, and armorial bearings! They were dear people and my heart went out to them more completely than to any of my London friends. I soon discovered why. "You are the most cordial English people I've met yet," I said to Lady Philippa Stanhope, the Earl's charming daughter. Her eyes twinkled. "Oh, we're not English," she explained, "we're Irish!" Yet even if I did not find the Londoners quite so congenial, I did like them. I could not have helped it, they were so courteous to my mother and me. Probably they supposed us to have Indians in our back-yards at home; nevertheless they were always courteous, at times cordial. One of the most charming of the Englishwomen I met was the Viscountess Combermere. She was one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, a very vivacious woman, and used to keep dinner tables in gales of laughter. Just then when anyone in London wanted to introduce or excuse an innovation, he or she would exclaim, "the Queen does it!" and there would be nothing more for anyone to say. This became a sort of catch-word. I recall one afternoon at the Dowager Duchess of Somerset's, a cup of hot tea was handed to the Viscountess who, pouring the liquid from the cup into the saucer and then sipping it from the saucer, said: "Now ladies, do not think this is rude, for I have just come from the Queen and saw her do the same. Let us emulate the Queen!" Then, seeing us hesitate, "the Queen does it, ladies! the Queen does it!" Whereupon everyone present drank tea from their saucers. It was the Viscountess, also, who so greatly amused my mother at a luncheon party by saying to her with the most polite interest: "You speak English remarkably well, Mrs. Kellogg! Do they speak English in America?" "Yes, a little," replied mother, quietly. CHAPTER XIII AT HER MAJESTY'S Adelina Patti came to see us at once. I had known her in America when she was singing with her sister and when, if the truth must be told, many people found Carlotta the more satisfactory singer of the two. I was glad to see her again even though we were _prime donne_ of rival opera organisations. Adelina headed the list of artists at Covent Garden under Mr. Gye, among whom were some of the biggest names in Europe. Indeed, I found myself confronted with the competition of several favourites of the English people. At my own theatre, Her Majesty's, was Mme. Titjiens, always much beloved in England and still a fine artist. Christine Nilsson was also a member of the company; had sung there earlier in that year and was to sing there again later in the season. A _tour de force_ of Adelina's was my old friend _Linda di Chamounix_. She was supposed to be very brilliant in the part, especially in the _Cavatina_ of the first act. As for Marguerite it was considered her private and particular property at Covent Garden, and Nilsson's private and particular property at Her Majesty's. I have been often asked my opinion of Patti's voice. She had a beautiful voice that, in her early days, was very high, and she is, on the whole, quite the most remarkable singer that I ever heard. But her voice has not been a high one for many years. It has changed, changed in pitch and register. It is no longer a soprano; it is a mezzo and must be judged by quite different standards. I heard her when she sang over here in America thirteen years ago. She gave her old _Cavatina_ from _Linda_ and sang the whole of it a tone and a half lower than formerly. While the public did not know what the trouble was, they could not help perceiving the lack of brilliancy. Ah, those who have heard her in only the last fifteen years or so know nothing at all about Patti's voice! Yet it was always a light voice, although I doubt if the world realised the fact. She was always desperately afraid of overstraining it, and so was Maurice Strakosch for her. She never could sing more than three times in a week and, of those three, one _rôle_ at least had to be very light. A great deal is heard about the wonderful preservation of Patti's voice. It _was_ wonderfully preserved thirteen years ago. How could it have been otherwise, considering the care she has always taken of herself? Such a life! Everything divided off carefully according to _régime_:--so much to eat, so far to walk, so long to sleep, just such and such things to do and no others! And, above all, she has allowed herself few emotions. Every singer knows that emotions are what exhaust and injure the voice. She never acted; and she never, never felt. As Violetta she did express some slight emotion, to be sure. Her _Gran Dio_ in the last act was sung with something like passion, at least with more passion than she ever sang anything else. Yes: in _La Traviata_, after she had run away with Nicolini, she did succeed in putting an unusual amount of warmth into the _rôle_ of Violetta. [Illustration: =Adelina Patti= From a photograph by Fredericks] But her great success was always due to her wonderful voice. Her acting was essentially mechanical. As an intelligent actress, a creator of parts, or even as an interesting personality, she could never approach Christine Nilsson. Nilsson had both originality and magnetism, a combination irresistibly captivating. Her singing was the embodiment of dramatic expression. In September of that year we went down to Edinburgh to see the ruins of Melrose Abbey. To confess the truth, I remember just two things clearly about Scotland. One was that, at the ruins, Colonel Stebbins picked up a piece of crumbling stone, spoke of the strange effect of age upon it, and let it drop. Around turned the showman, or guide, or whatever the person was called who crammed the sights down our throats. "You Americans are the curse of the country!" he exclaimed sharply. My other distinct memory--with associations of much discomfort and annoyance--is that I left one rubber overshoe in Loch Lomond. So much for Scotland. We did not stay long; and were soon back in London ready for work. Our rehearsals were rather fun. It seemed strange to be able to walk across a stage without getting the hem of one's skirt dirty. English theatres are incredibly clean when one considers what a dirty, sooty, grimy town London is. Our opera was at the old Drury Lane, although we always called it Her Majesty's because that was the name of the opera company. I was amused to find that a member of the company, a big young basso named "Signor Foli," turned out to be none other than Walter Foley, a boy from my old home in the Hartford region. I always called him "the Irish Italian from Connecticut." We opened on November 2d in _Faust_. There was rather a flurry of indignation that a young American _prima donna_ should dare to plunge into Marguerite the very first thing. The fact that the young American had sung it before other artists had, with the exception of Patti and Titjiens, and that she was generally believed to know something about it, mattered not at all. English people are acknowledged idolaters and notoriously cold to newcomers. They cling to some imperishable memory of a poor soul whose voice has been dead for years: and it was undoubtedly an inversion of this same loyalty to their favourites that made them so dislike the idea of Marguerite being selected for the new young woman's _début_. But, really, though on a slightly different scale, it was not so unlike the early days of _Linda_, over again when the Italians accused me with so much animosity of taking the bread out of their mouths. It can easily be believed that, with Nilsson holding all records of Marguerite at Her Majesty's, and with Adelina waiting at Covent Garden with murderous sweetness to see what I was going to do with her favourite _rôle_, I was wretchedly nervous. When the first night came around no one had a good word for me; everybody was indifferent; and I honestly do not know what I should have done if it had not been for Santley--dear, big-hearted Santley. He was our Valentine, that one, great, incomparable Valentine for whom Gounod wrote the _Dio possente_. I was walking rather shakily across the stage for my first entrance, feeling utterly frightened and lonely, and looking, I dare say, nearly as miserable as I felt, when a warm, strong hand was laid gently on my shoulder. "Courage, little one, courage," said Santley, smiling at me and patting me as if I had been a very small, unhappy, frightened child. I smiled back at him and, suddenly, I felt strong and hopeful and brave again. Onto the stage I went with a curiously sure feeling that I was going to do well after all. I suppose I must have done well. There was a packed house and very soon I felt it with me. I was called out many times, once in the middle of the act after the church scene, an occurrence that was so far as I know unprecedented. Colonel Keppel, the Prince of Wales's aide (I did not dream then how well-known the name Keppel was destined to be in connection with that of his royal master), came behind during the _entr'acte_ to congratulate me on behalf of the Prince. In later performances his Highness did me the honour of coming himself. The London newspapers--of which, frankly, I had stood in great dread--had delightful things to say. This is the way in which one of them welcomed me: " ...She has only one fault: if she were but English, she would be simply perfect!" The editorial comments in _The Athenæum_ of Chorley, that gorgon of English criticism, included the following paragraph: Miss Kellogg has a voice, indeed, that leaves little to wish for, and proves by her use of it that her studies have been both assiduous and in the right path. She is, in fact, though so young, a thoroughly accomplished singer--in the school, at any rate, toward which the music of M. Gounod consistently leans, and which essentially differs from the florid school of Rossini and the Italians before Verdi. One of the great charms of her singing is her perfect enunciation of the words she has to utter. She never sacrifices sense to sound; but fits the verbal text to the music, as if she attached equal importance to each. Of the Italian language she seems to be a thorough mistress, and we may well believe that she speaks it both fluently and correctly. These manifest advantages, added to a graceful figure, a countenance full of intelligence, and undoubted dramatic ability, make up a sum of attractions to be envied, and easily explain the interest excited by Miss Kellogg at the outset and maintained by her to the end. But, oh, how grateful I was to that good Santley for giving the little boost to my courage at just the right moment! He was always a fine friend, as well as a fine singer. I admired him from the bottom of my heart, both as an artist and a man, and not only for what he was but also for what he had grown from. He was only a ship-chandler's clerk in the beginning. Indeed, he was in the office of a friend of mine in Liverpool. From that he rose to the foremost rank of musical art. Yet that friend of mine never took the least interest in Santley, nor was he ever willing to recognise Santley's standing. Merely because he had once held so inferior a position this man I knew--and he was not a bad sort of man otherwise--was always intolerant and incredulous of Santley's success and would never even go to hear him sing. It is true that Santley never did entirely shake off the influences of his early environment, a characteristic to be remarked in many men of his nationality. In addition to this, some men are so sincere and simple-hearted and earnest that they do not take kindly to artificial environment and I think Santley was one of these. And he was a dear man, and kind. His wife, a relative of Fanny Kemble, I never knew very well as she was a good deal of an invalid. [Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg as Linda, 1868= From a photograph by Stereoscopic Co.] On the 9th we repeated _Faust_ and on the 11th we gave _Traviata_. This also, I feel sure, must have irritated Adelina. It is a curious little fact that, while the opera of _Traviata_ was not only allowed but also greatly liked in London, the play _La Dame aux Camilias_--which as we all know is practically the _Traviata libretto_--had been rigorously banned by the English censor! _Traviata_ brought me more curtain calls than ever. The British public was really growing to like me! _Martha_ followed on the 15th. This was another _rôle_ in which I had to challenge comparison with Nilsson, who was fond of it, although I never liked her classic style in the part. It was given in Italian; but I sang _The Last Rose of Summer_ in English, like a ballad, and the people loved it. I wore a blue satin gown as Martha which, alas! I lost in the theatre fire not long after. Then came _Linda di Chamounix_, the second _rôle_ that I had ever sung. I was glad to sing it again, and in England, and the newspapers spoke of it as "a great and crowning success" for me. As soon as we had given this opera, Gye, the _impresario_ at Covent Garden, decided it was time to show off Patti in that _rôle_. So he promptly--hastily, even--revived Linda for her. I have always felt, however, that Linda was tacitly given to me by the public. Arditi, our conductor at Her Majesty's, wrote a waltz for me to sing at the close of the opera, _The Kellogg Waltz_, and I wore a charming new costume in the part, a simple little yellow gown, with a blue moiré silk apron and tiny pale pink roses. The combination of pink and yellow was always a favourite one with me. I wore it in my early appearance as Violetta and, later, also in _Traviata_, I wore a variant of the same colour scheme that was called by my friends in London my "rainbow frock." It was composed of a _grosgrain_ silk petticoat of the hue known as apricot, trimmed with mauve and pale turquoise shades; the overskirt was caught back at either side with a turquoise bow and the train was of plain turquoise. I took a serious interest in my costumes in those days--and, indeed, in all days! This latter gown was one of Worth's creations and met with much admiration. More than once have I received letters asking where it was made. The English public was most cordial and kindly toward me and unfailingly appreciative of my work. But I believe from the bottom of my heart that, inherently and permanently, the English are an unmusical people. They do not like fire, nor passion, nor great moments in either life nor art. Mozart's music, that runs peacefully and simply along, is precisely what suits them best. They adore it. They likewise adore Rossini and Handel. They think that the crashing emotional climaxes of the more advanced composers are extravagant; and, both by instinct and principle, they dislike the immoderate and the extreme in all things. They are in fact a simple and primitive people, temperamentally, actually, and artistically. I remember that the first year I was in London all the women were singing: My mother bids me bind my hair And lace my bodice blue! It wandered along so sweetly and mildly, not to say insipidly, that of course it was popular with Victorian England. Finally, came _Don Giovanni_ on December 3d. I played Zerlina as I had done in America. Later I came to prefer Donna Anna. But in London Titjiens did Donna Anna. Santley was the Almaviva and Mme. Sinico was the Donna Elvira. The following spring when we gave our "all star cast" Nilsson was the Elvira. I had no Zerlina costume with me and the decision to put on the opera was made in a hurry, so I got out my old Rosina dress and wore it and it answered the purpose every bit as well as if I had had a new one. The opera went splendidly, so splendidly that, two days later, on the 5th, we gave it again at a matinée, or, as it was the fashion to say then, a "morning performance." The success was repeated. I caught a most terrible cold, however, and returned in a bad temper to Miss Edward's Hotel to nurse myself for a few days and get in condition for the next performance. But there was destined to be no next performance at the old Drury Lane. The following evening at about half-past ten, my mother, Colonel Stebbins, and I were talking in our sitting-room with the window-shades up. Suddenly I saw a red glow over the roofs of the houses and pointed it out. "It's a fire!" I exclaimed. "And it's in the direction of the theatre!" said Colonel Stebbins. "Oh, I hope that Her Majesty's is in no danger!" cried my mother. We did not think at first that it could be the theatre itself, but Colonel Stebbins sent his valet off in a hurry to make enquiries. While he was gone a messenger arrived in great haste from the Duchess of Somerset asking for assurances of my safety. Then came other messages from friends all over London and soon the man servant returned to confirm the reports that were reaching us. Her Majesty's had caught fire from the carpenter's shop underneath the stage and, before morning, had burned to the ground. Arditi had been holding an orchestra rehearsal there at the time and the last piece of music ever played in the old theatre was _The Kellogg Waltz_. [Illustration: =Mr. McHenry= From a photograph by Brady] CHAPTER XIV ACROSS THE CHANNEL Titjiens had smelled smoke and she had been told that it was nothing but shavings that were being burned. Luckily, nobody was hurt and, although some of our costumes were lost, we artists did not suffer so very much after all. But of course our season was summarily put an end to and we all scattered for work and play until the spring season when Mapleson would want us back. My mother and I went across to Paris without delay. I had wanted to see "the Continent" since I was a child and I must say that, in my heart of hearts, I almost welcomed the fire that set me free to go sightseeing and adventuring after the slavery of dressing-rooms and rehearsals. Crossing the Channel I was the heroine of the boat because, while I was just a little seasick, I was not enough so to give in to it. I can remember forcing myself to sit up and walk about and even talk with a grim and savage feeling that I would die rather than admit myself beaten by a silly and disgusting _malaise_ like that; and after crossing the ocean with impunity too. Everyone else on board was abjectly ill and I expect it was partly pride that kept me well. In Paris we went first to the Louvre Hotel where we were nearly frozen to death. As soon as we could, we moved into rooms where we might thaw out and become almost warm, although we never found the temperature really comfortable the whole time we lived in French houses. We saw any number of plays, visited cathedrals and picture galleries, and bought clothes. In fact we did all the regulation things, for we were determined to make the most of every minute of our holiday. Rather oddly, one of the entertainments I remember most distinctly was a production of _Gulliver's Travels_ at the Théâtre Châtelet. It was the dullest play in the world; but the scenery and effects were splendid. I was not particularly enthusiastic over the French theatres. Indeed, I found them very limited and disappointing. I had gone to France expecting every theatrical performance in Paris to be a revelation. Probably I respect French art as much as any one; but I believe it is looked up to a great deal more than is justified. Consider Mme. Carvalho's wig for example, and, as for that, her costume as well. Yet we all turned to the Parisians as authority for the theatre. The pictures of the first distinguished Marguerite give a fine idea of the French stage effects in the sixties. A few years ago I heard _Tannhäuser_ in Paris. The manner in which the pilgrims wandered in convinced me in my opinion. The whole management was inefficient and Wagner's injunctions were disregarded at every few bars. The French Gallicise everything. They simply cannot get inside the mental point of view of any other country. Though they are popularly considered to be so facile and adaptable, they are in truth the most obstinate, one-idead, single-sided race on earth barring none except, possibly, the Italians. Gounod's _Faust_ is a good example--a Ger man story treated by Frenchmen. Remarkably little that is Teutonic has been left in it. Goethe has been eliminated so far as possible. The French were held by the drama, but the poetry and the symbolism meant nothing at all to them. Being German, they had no use for its poetry and its symbolism. The French colour and alter foreign thought just as they colour and alter foreign phraseology. They do it in a way more subtle than any usual difficulties of translation from one tongue to another. The process is more a form of transmuting than of translating--words, thoughts, actions--into another element entirely. How idiotic it sounds when Hamlet sings: _Être--ou n'être pas!_ Perhaps this, however, is not entirely the fault of the French. Shakespeare should never be set to music. There is also the question of traditions. I may seem to be contradicting myself when I find fault with a certain French school for its blind and bigoted adherence to traditions; but there should be moderation in all things and a hidebound rigidity in stupid old forms is just as inartistic as a free-and-easy elasticity in flighty new ones. It is possible to put some old wine in new bottles, but it must be poured in very gently. French artists learn most when once they get away from France. Maurel is a good example. Look at the way he grew and developed when he went to England and America and was allowed to work problems and ideas out by himself. Once when in Paris I wanted to vary and freshen my costume of Marguerite, give it a new yet consistent touch here and there. I was not planning to renovate the _rôle_, only the girl's clothes. Having always felt that the Grand Opera was a Mecca to us artists from afar, I hastened there and climbed up the huge stairway to pay my respects to the Director. Monsieur had never heard of me. Frenchmen make a point never to have heard of any one outside of France. The fact that I was merely the first and the most famous Marguerite across the sea did not count. He was, however, very polite. He brought out his wonderful costume books that were full of new ideas to me and delighted me with numberless fresh possibilities. I saw unexplored fields in the direction of correct costuming and exclaimed over the designs, Monsieur watching my enthusiasm with bored civility. There was one particularly enchanting design for a silver chatelaine, heavy and mediæval in character. I could see it with my mind's eye hanging from Marguerite's bodice. This I said to M. le Directeur: but he shook his dignified head with a frown. "Too rich. Marguerite was too poor," he said with weary brevity. "Oh, no!" I explained volubly and eagerly, "she was of the well-to-do class--the burghers--don't you remember? Marguerite and Valentine owned their house and, though they were of course of peasant blood, this sort of chatelaine seems to me just the thing that any German girl might possess." "Too rich," Monsieur put in imperturbably. "But," I protested, "it might be an heirloom, you know, and----" "Too rich," he repeated politely; and he added in a calm, dreamy voice as he shut up the book, "I think that Mademoiselle will make a mistake _if she ever tries anything new_!" As for sightseeing in France, my mother and I did any amount of it on that first visit. Sometimes I was charmed but more often I was disillusioned. There have been few "sights" in my life that have come up to my "great expectations" or been half as wonderful as my dreams. This is the penalty of a too vivid imagination; nothing can ever be as perfect as one's fancy paints it. The view of Mont Blanc from the terrace of Voltaire's house near the borderland of France and Switzerland is one of the few in my experience that I have found more lovely than I could have dreamed it to be. Of all the palaces that I have been in--and they have numbered several--the only one that ever seemed to me like a real palace was Fontainebleau. Small but exquisite, it looked like a haven of rest and loveliness, as though its motto might well be: "How to be happy though a crowned head!" Speaking of crowned heads reminds me that while we were in Paris Mr. McHenry, our English friend from Holland Park, made an appointment for me to be presented to the ex-Queen of Spain, the Bourbon princess, Christina, so beloved by many Spaniards. I was delighted because I had never been presented to royalty and a Spanish queen seemed a very splendid sort of personage even if she did not happen to be ruling at the moment. Christina had withdrawn from Spain and had married the Duke de Rienzares. They lived in a beautiful palace on the Champs Élysées. There are nothing but shops on the site now but it used to be very imposing, especially the formal entrance which, if I remember correctly, was off the Rue St. Honoré. Mrs. and Mr. McHenry went with me and, after being admitted, we were shown up a marble staircase into what was called the Cameo Room, a small, austere apartment filled with cameos of the Bourbons. Queen Christina liked to live in small and unpretentious rooms; they seemed less suggestive of a palace. I found that "royalty at home" was about as simple as anything could conceivably be; not quite as plain as the old Dowager Duchess of Somerset to be sure but quite plain enough. The Queen and the Duke de Rienzares entered without ceremony. The Queen wore a severe and simple black gown that cleared the floor by an inch or two. It was a perfectly practical and useful dress, admirably suited for housekeeping or tidying up a room. Around the royal lady's shoulders hung a little red plaid shawl such as no American would wear. She was Spanishly dark and her black hair was pulled into a knot about the size of a silver dollar in the middle of the back of her head. I have never seen her _en grande toilette_ and so do not know whether or not she ever looked any less like a respectable housekeeper. She had a delightful manner and was most gracious. She had, with all the Bourbon pride, also the Bourbon gift of making herself pleasant and of putting people at their ease. Of course she was immensely accomplished and spoke Italian as perfectly as she did Spanish. The Duke seemed harmless and amiable. He had little to say, was thoroughly subordinate, and seemed entirely acclimated to his position in life as the ordinarily born husband of a Queen. Our visit was not much of an ordeal after all. It was really quite instinctively that I courtesied and backed out of the room and observed the other points of etiquette that are correct when one is introduced to royalty. As it was a private presentation, it had not been thought necessary to coach me, and as I backed myself out of the august presence, keeping myself as nearly as possible in a courtesying attitude, I caught Mr. McHenry looking at me with amused approval. "Well," said he, when we were safe in the hall and I had straightened up, "I should say that you had been accustomed to courts and crowned heads all your life! You acted as if you had been brought up on it!" "Ah," I replied, "that comes from my opera training. We learn on the stage how to treat kings and queens." Not more than a fortnight after this I had an offer for an engagement at the Madrid Opera for $400.00 a night, very good for Spain in those days. I suppose that it came indirectly through the influence of Queen Christina. I wanted to go to Spain, but my mother would not let me accept. We were almost pioneers of travel in the modern sense and had no one to give us authoritative ideas of other countries. People alarmed us about the climate, declaring it unhealthy; and about the public, which they said was capricious and rude. The warning about the public particularly frightened me. I should never object to my efforts being received in silence in case of disapproval, but I felt that I could not survive what I had been told was the Spanish custom of hissing. I was also told that Spanish audiences were very mercurial and difficult to win. So we refused the Madrid Opera offer, and I have never sung in either Spain or Italy principally because of my dread of the hissing habit. That same year I heard Christine Nilsson for the first time, in _Martha_ at the Théâtre Lyrique and, later, in _Hamlet_ at the same theatre with Faure. Shortly after both Nilsson and Faure were taken over by the Grand Opera. Ophélie had been written for Nilsson and composed entirely around her voice. She created the part, singing it exquisitely, and Ambrose Thomas paid her the compliment of taking his two principal soprano melodies from old Swedish folk-songs. Nilsson could sing Swedish melodies in a way to drive one crazy or break one's heart. I have been quite carried away with them again and again. There was one delicious song that she called _Le Bal_ in which a young fellow asks a girl to dance and she is very shy. It was slight, but ever so pretty, and it had a minor melody that was typically northern. These were the good days before her voice became impaired. In this connection I may mention that it was Christine Nilsson who, having heard the Goodwin girls sing _Way Down upon the Swanee River_, first introduced it on the stage as an _encore_. While speaking of Nilsson, I want to record that I was present on the night, much later, when she practically murdered the high register of her voice. She had five upper notes the quality of which was unlike any other I ever heard and that possessed a peculiar charm. The tragedy happened during a performance of _The Magic Flute_ in London and I was in the Newcastles' box, which was near the stage. Nilsson was the Queen of the Night, one of her most successful early _rôles_. The second aria in _The Magic Flute_ is more famous and less difficult than the first aria and, also, more effective. Nilsson knew well the ineffectiveness of the ending of the first _aria_ in the two weakest notes of a soprano's voice, A natural and B flat. I never could understand why a master like Mozart should have chosen to use them as he did. There is no climax to the song. One has to climb up hard and fast and then stop short in the middle. It is an appalling thing to do: and that night Nilsson took those two notes at the last in _chest tones_. [Illustration: =Christine Nilsson as Queen of the Night= From a photograph by Pierre Petit] "Great heavens!" I gasped, "what is she doing? What is the woman thinking of!" Of course I knew she was doing it to get volume and vibration and to give that trying climax some character. But to say that it was a fatal attempt is to put it mildly. She absolutely killed a certain quality in her voice there and then and she _never recovered it_. Even that night she had to cut out the second great _aria_. Her beautiful high notes were gone for ever. Probably the fatality was the result of the last stroke to a continued strain which she had put upon her voice. After that she, like Mario, began to be dramatic to make up for what she had lost. She, the classical and cold artist, became full of expression and animation. But the later Nilsson was very different from the Nilsson whom I first heard in Paris during the winter of 1868, when, besides singing the music perfectly, she was, with her blond hair and broad brow, a living Ophélie. As I have said, Faure, the baritone, was her Hamlet in that early performance. He was a great artist, a great actor in whatever _rôle_ he took. His voice was not wonderful, but he was saved, and more than saved, by his style and his art. He was a particularly cultivated, musicianly man whose dignity of carriage and elegance of manner could easily make people forget a certain ungrateful quality in his voice. It was Faure who had the brains and perseverance to learn how to sing a particular note from a really bad singer. The bad singer had only one good note in his voice and that happened to be the worst one in Faure's. So, night after night, the great artist went to hear and to study the inferior one to try and learn how he got that note. And he succeeded, too. This is a fair sample of his careful and finished way of doing anything. He was a big artist, and to big artists, especially in singing, music is almost mathematical in its exactness. Adelina Patti, who had also left London for the winter, was singing at the _Italiens_ in Paris. I went to hear her give an indifferent performance of _Ernani_. It was never one of her advantageous _rôles_. Adelina had a most extraordinary charm and a great power over men of very diverse sorts. De Caux, Nicolini, Maurice Strakosch, who married Adelina's sister Amelia, all adored her and felt that whatever she did must be right because she did it. Nicolini, who had been a star tenor singing all over Italy before she captured him, was willing to forget that he ever had a wife or children. Maurice was for years her "manager and representative," and as such put up with incredible complexities in the situation. There is a long and lurid tale about Nicolini's wife appearing in Italy when Nicolini, Maurice, and Adelina were all there. The story ended with Nicolini being kicked downstairs and the press commented upon the episode with an apt couplet from Schiller to the effect that "life is hard, but merry is art!" The names of Paris and of Maurice Strakosch in conjunction conjure up the thought of Napoleon III, who, in his young days of exile, used to be very intimate with Maurice. Louis Napoleon, after he had escaped from the fortress of Ham, spent some time in London, and he and Maurice frequently lunched or dined together. By the way, some years later, at a dinner at the McHenrys' in Holland Park, I was told by Chevalier Wyckoff that it was he who rescued Napoleon from the prison of Ham by smuggling clothes in to him and by having a boat waiting for him. Maurice used to tell of one rather amusing incident that occurred during the London period. Louis Napoleon's dress clothes were usually in pawn, and one night when he wanted to go to some party, he presented himself at Maurice's rooms to borrow his. Maurice was out; but nevertheless Louis Napoleon took the dress clothes anyway, adding all of Maurice's orders and decorations. When he was decked out to his satisfaction he went to the party. Shortly after, in came Maurice, to dress for the same party, and called to his valet to bring him his evening clothes. "Mr. Bonaparte's got 'em on, sir," said the man: and Maurice stayed at home! Napoleon III was a man of many weaknesses. Yet he kept his promises and remembered his friends--when he could. As soon as he became Emperor he sent for Maurice Strakosch and offered him the management of the _Italiens_; but Maurice declined the honour. He was too busy "representing" Patti in those days to care for any other engagement. He did give singing lessons to the Empress Eugénie however, and was always on good terms with her and with the Emperor. When I was in Paris in '68 Napoleon and Eugénie were in power at the Tuileries and day after day I saw them driving behind their splendid horses. Paris was extremely gay and yet somewhat ominous, for there was a wide-spread feeling that clouds were gathering about the throne. When thinking of that period I sometimes quote to myself Owen Meredith's poem, _Aux Italiens_, At Paris it was at the opera there ... * * * * * The Emperor there in his box of state Looked grave, as if he had just then seen The red flag wave from the city gate, Where his eagles in bronze had been. The Tuileries court was a very brilliant one and we were accustomed to splendid costumes and gorgeous turnouts in the Bois, but one day I came home with a particularly excited description of the "foreign princess" I had seen. Her clothes, her horses (she drove postilion), her carriage, her liveries, her servants, all, to my innocent and still ignorant mind, proclaimed her some distinguished visiting royalty. How chagrined I was and how I was laughed at when my "princess" turned out to be one of the best known _demi-mondaines_ in Paris! Even then it was difficult to tell the two _mondes_ apart. A unique character in Paris was Dr. Evans, dentist to the Emperor and Empress. He was an American and a witty, talented man. I remember hearing him laughingly boast: "I have looked down the mouth of every crowned head of Europe!" When disaster overtook the Bonapartes, he proved that he could serve crowned heads in other ways besides filling their teeth. It was he who helped the Empress to escape, and the fact made him an exile from Paris. He came to see me in London years afterwards and told me something of that dark and dramatic time of flight. He felt very homesick for Paris, which had been his home for so long, but the dear man was as merry and charming as ever. We spent in all only a short time in Paris. Two months were taken out of the middle of that winter for travelling on the Continent, after which we returned to the French city for March. When we first started from Paris on our trip we were headed for Nice. It was Christmas Day, and cold as charity. Why _did_ we choose that day of all others on which to begin a journey? Our Christmas dinner consisted of cold soup swallowed at a station. Christmas!--I could have wept! CHAPTER XV MY FIRST HOLIDAY ON THE CONTINENT It seemed very odd to be really idle. From the time I was thirteen I had been working and studying so systematically that to get the habit of leisure was like learning a new and a difficult lesson. It took time, for one thing, to find out how to relax; nervous persons never acquire this art naturally nor possess it instinctively. It is with them the artificial product of painful experience. All my life I had been expending energy at top pressure and building it up again as fast as I could instead of sometimes letting it lie fallow for a bit. When I became exhausted my mother would speedily make strong broths with rice and meat and vegetables and anything else that she considered nourishing to stimulate my jaded vitality; then I would go at my work again harder than ever. When I had finished one thing I plunged, nerves, body, and brain, into another. To be an artist is bad enough; but to be an American artist--! To the temperamental excitability and intensity is added the racial nervousness; and lucky are such if they do not go up in a final smoke of over-energised effort. When I was singing I was always in a fever before the curtain rose. All the day before I was restless to the point of desperation. Instead of letting myself go and becoming comfortably limp so that I might conserve my strength for the performance itself, I would cast about for a hundred secondary ways in which to waste my nervous force. I was nearly as bad as the Viennese _prima donna_, Marie Willt. The story is told of her that a reporter from a Vienna newspaper went to interview her the afternoon before she was to sing in _Il Trovatore_ at the Royal Opera and enquired of the scrubwoman in the hall where he could find Frau Willt. "Here," responded the scrubwoman, sitting up to eye him calmly. When the young man expressed surprise and incredulity she explained, as she continued to mop the soapy water, that she invariably scrubbed the floor the day she was going to sing. "It keeps me busy," she concluded sententiously. Think of the force that went into that scrubbing-brush which might have gone into the part of Leonora! But it is not for me to find fault with such a course of action because I followed a very similar one. If I did not exactly scrub floors, I did, somehow, contrive to find other equally adequate ways of dissipating my strength before I sang. Yet here I was, actually taking a holiday, with no chance at all to work even if I wanted to! When we arrived in Nice the lemons and oranges on the trees and a sky as blue as painted china made the place seem to me somewhat unnatural, like a stage setting. Not yet having learned my lesson of relaxation, I soon became restless and wanted to be again on the move. Nevertheless we stayed there for nearly a month. My mother seemed to like it. She made many friends and spent hours every day painting little pictures--quite dear little pictures they were--of the bright coloured wild flowers that grew roundabout. But possibly a few extracts from the diary kept by my mother of this visit will not be out of place here. The capital letters and italics are hers. _Dec. 25_--Christmas morning. Sun shone for two hours. Left for Nice. Arrived at 5 P.M. A very cold night. Cars warmed by zink hollow planks [boxes] filled with Boiling water which are replaced every three hours at the different stations. Notwithstanding shawls and wraps suffered with the cold. Nothing to eat until we arrived at twelve at Marseilles, where [we] got a poor, cold soup and miserable cup of tea. Arrived at the Hotel Luxembourg in Nice at 6.30 P.M. The city and hotels crowded with people from all parts of the world. Rheumatic people rush here to get into the _sunshine_--a _thing_ seldom seen in Paris or London in winter. Nice is simply a watering-place _without the water_, unless one means the Sea Mediterranean which almost rushes into the Halls of the Hotels. All languages are here spoken; therefore no trouble for any nation to obtain what it desires. The streets are pulverised magnesia. Everybody looks after walking as though they had been to mill "turning hopper." In our promenade [to-day, Dec. 27] we meet in less than twenty minutes as many different nationalities, or representatives of each. Poor in soil, poor in colour, poor in taste is Nice. The Hotels compose the City. Roses bloom by the roadsides in abundance. The gardens of the Hotels are yellow with Oranges. Palm trees line the streets, none of which have shade trees that ever grow enough to shade but _one person at a time_--no soil--no vigour--sun does all the maturing. Things ripen from necessity, not from the soil. _Saturday 28_--Clear beautiful morning. Beach covered with promenaders. At twelve Louise and I took a long walk towards Villa Franca--sun very hot--met Richard Palmer who had just arrived. Enjoyed the morning; were refreshed by our walk. Mr. Stebbins and Charlie called. Drive at 5. Evening had a light wood fire upon the hearth, making rooms and hearts cheerful in direct opposition to the roaring of the wild sea at our very feet. Proprietor of Hotel sent up his Piano for Louise. Basket Phaetons--2 ponies--are hired here for one franc an hour--fine woods but dusty. _29th.--Sunday_--Magnificent morning. The sea smooth as glass. Women line the beach spreading clothes to bleach. There is a short diluted Season of Italian Opera here. _Ernani_ was announced for last evening. There is no odor from the Mediterranean, no sea weeds, no shells, a perfectly clean barren beach. I don't believe it is even salt. Shall go and sip to satisfy Yankee curiosity. There are two Irish heiresses here whose combined weight in gold is 9000 lbs., and the way the nobs and snobs tiptoe, bow, and scrape is something to behold. They are always dressed alike. We are cold enough to have a small wood fire morning and evening in a very primitive style fireplace 18 inches square. Handirons made of 2 cast iron virgins' heads and busts. Bellows thrown in. _One_ P.M.--Took a double Pony Basket Phaeton, Louise and I on the front seat, she driving a grey and bay pony. Drove to Villa Franca where the American fleet is anchored. Saw the old flag once more, which brought home most vividly to my heart and roused the old longing for the dear old spot. _30th._ No letters. No news of trunks. The Monotonous sea singing Hush at measured intervals, not one wave even an inch higher than another. This cannot be a real sea, the Mediterranean, _or it would sometime change its tone_. Yesterday rode through the old Italian part of the City. Houses 6 or 7 stories high. Streets just wide enough for a donkey cart to get through. Never can pass each other. One has to back out. _Tuesday 31._ Took our usual walk. Listened to the band in the Public Gardens. This is a poor, barren country. I believe the plates are _licked by the inhabitants instead of the dogs_. This place is too poor for _them_. The only good conditioned looking people here are the priests. They are bursting with inward satisfaction and joy. When in Paris last October we heard of a most wonderful pair of earrings that had been presented to Adelina Patti by a Gent who glided under the name of Khalil Bey, worth Millions! When in Paris again in December there was a great stir about the Private Picture Gallery of a very wealthy man who had met with severe and great losses at the gaming table. Our friends tried to obtain admission for us to see them, but through some slip we failed. Upon our arrival in Nice, one day there was great confusion and agitation among the Eager. Servants were standing in corners and evidence of something was very vivid. Finally the mystery was solved. And we learned that a great Prince had arrived from St. Petersburg. A Turk! Who was sharing our fate (the order of things is all reversed in Nice. You commence life there by beginning at the top and working your way down) and taken rooms on the 6th floor, accompanied by 2 servants, one especially to take care of the Pipe. His name is Khalil Bey--about 50 years old--a hard, Chinese, cast-iron face run when the iron was very hot--sinking well into the mould--one eye almost blind--short small feet--he seemed to commence to grow at the feet and grew bigger and wider as he went up. _3rd._ He moves in the best "society" over here--has his Box at the Opera--tells frankly his losses at cards--so many million francs--is a man of influence even among a certain class and that far above mediocre. Met him at an evening entertainment. Found him a great admirer of Patti in certain _rôles_--very good judgment upon musical matters in general--and a professed _Gambler_. _4th._ Rained all day. A lost day to comfort outside and in. _5th._ Another day of the same sort. Weary with looking at the sea. _6th._ Clearing. Sunshine at intervals. _7th._ Mr. Kinney called in afternoon. Conversation related to Americans in Europe. Came to the conclusion that as a general rule none but the class denominated "fast" come to Europe and like it. Mr.---- said he would give any American young gentleman or lady just 18 months in European society to lose all refinement and all moral principle, young ladies in particular. The moral principle cannot be strong when one is _laughed at for blushing_! _8th._ Mr. and Mrs. L---- came over in the evening. Sat two hours. Discussed Europe generally and decided _America_ was the _only place for decent people to live in_. _Death_ is all over Europe, an epidemic that has no cure. Death of all moral responsibility. Death of ambition in the way of virtue. Death of all comforts of life. The last man that dies will be carried from the _card table_. In my own recollection of Nice the two men principally mentioned in my mother's diary, Khalil Bey and Admiral Farragut, stand out strikingly. Khalil Bey was a fabulously rich Turk who spent his life wandering luxuriously over the face of the earth with a huge retinue of retainers nearly as picturesque as he was. He was a big, dark, murderous looking creature, not unattractive in a sinister, strange, and piratical way. He had a wild and lurid record and was especially notorious for his reckless gambling, at which his luck was said to be miraculous. He was an opera enthusiast, having heard it in every city in Europe, and was one of Adelina's admirers. My mother disliked him exceedingly, declaring he was like a big snake. But my mother never had any tolerance for foreign noblemen. There were many of them at Nice and her comments were caustic and often apt. I remember her casual summing up of the Marquis de Talleyrand (the particular friend of Mrs. Stevens, an American woman from Hoboken whom he afterwards married) as "a young man belonging to some goose pond or other!" Admiral Farragut, who was in the harbour with his flagship the _Hartford_ and several other American battle-ships, was greatly fêted, being just then a great hero of the war. The United States Consul gave a reception for him which he explained in advance was to be "characteristically American." The only noticeable thing about the entertainment seemed to be the quantity and variety of drinkables that were unceasingly served by swift and persuasive waiters. The Continentals must have had a startling impression of American thirst! The Admiral himself, however, was hardly given time to swallow anything at all, people were so anxious to ask him questions and to shake hands. The Stebbinses and McHenrys joined us when we had been in Nice only a short time, and, after a little stay there together, we went on by way of Genoa and the Corniche Road to Pisa, and thence to Florence. At Florence we met the Admiral again and found him more charming the better we knew him. In Florence, too, we had several glimpses of the Grisi family, Madame and her three daughters. Grisi was, I think, a striking example of a singer being born and not made. When she sang Adalgisa in _Norma_ in Milan, she made a sudden and overwhelming hit. Next day every one was rushing about demanding, "Who was her teacher? Who gave her this wonderful style and tone?" Grisi herself was asked about it and she gave the names of several teachers under whom she had worked. But, needless to say, another Grisi was never made. In her case it didn't happen to be the teacher. Often the credit is given to the master when it really belongs to the pupil, or, rather, to _le bon Dieu_ who made the vocal chords in the first place. For, however we may agree or disagree about fundamental requirements for an artist--breath control, voice placing, tone colour, interpretation,--the simple fact remains that the one great essential for a singer is a voice! One little story that I recall of Grisi interested me. It was said that, when she was growing old and severe exertion told on her, she always, after her fall as Lucretia Borgia, had a glass of beer come up through the floor to her and would drink it as she lay there with her back half turned to the audience. This is what was _said_; and it seemed to me like a very good scheme. The director of the railway between Rome and Naples, M. De la Haute, put his private car at our disposal. In the present era of cars equipped with baths and barber shops, libraries and writing rooms, it would seem primitive, but it was quite the last word in the railroad luxury of that period. I was charmed with the Italian scenery as we steamed through it and, above all, with the highly pictorial peasants that we passed. Their clothes, of quaint cut and vivid hues, were exactly like stage costumes. "Why," I exclaimed excitedly, peering from the car window, "they are all just out of scenes from _Fra Diavolo_!" We were, indeed, going through the mountains of the _Fra Diavolo_ country, where the inhabitants lived in continual fear of the bands of brigands that infested the mountains. Zerlina and Fra Diavolo were literally in their midst. M. De la Haute gave a delightful breakfast for us on one of the terraces outside Naples with the turquoise blue bay beneath, the marvellous Italian sky overhead, and Vesuvius before us. Albert Bierstadt, the American artist, was of the company, and afterwards turned up in Rome, whither we went next. When we made the ascent of Vesuvius, my mother recounts in her diary: "There must have been at least a hundred Italian devils jumping about and screaming to take us up. It seemed as if they must have just jumped out of the burning brimstone." In Rome we dined with Charlotte Cushman. This was, of course, some years before her death and she was not yet ravaged by her tragic illness. She was very full of anecdotes of her friends, the Carlyles, Tennyson, and others, whom she had just left in England. To our little party was added Emma Stebbins, who had been doing famously in sculpture, and, also, Harriet Hosmer, the artist, as well as one or two clever men. It was Carnival Week, and so I had my first glimpse of a true Continental _festa_. I had never before seen any real Latin merriment. The Anglo-Saxon variety is apt to be heavy, rough, or vulgar. But those fascinating people had the wonderful power of being genuinely and innocently gay. They became like happy children at play. They threw confetti, sang and laughed, and tossed flowers about. It was a veritable lesson in joy to us more sober and commonplace Americans who looked on. While I was in Rome I was presented to the Pope, Pius IX, a most lovely and genial personality with a delightful atmosphere about him. I was told that he had very much wanted to be made Pope and had played the invalid so that the Cardinals would not think it was very important whether they elected him or not; so that they could say (as they did say), "Let us elect him:--he'll die anyhow!" He was duly elected and, just as soon as he was in the Pontifical Chair, his health became miraculously restored! When we were presented I could not help being amused at the extraordinary articles brought by people for the good man to bless. One woman had a pair of marble hands. Another offered the Pontiff a photograph of himself; and his Holiness had evident difficulty in keeping a straight face as he explained to her that really he could not bless a likeness of himself. Etiquette at these Vatican receptions is very strict as to what one must wear, what one must do, and where one must stand. Sebasti, of Sebasti e Reali, the famous Roman bankers, has the tale to tell of a Hebrew millionaire from America who contrived to secure an invitation to one of these select audiences and, not being able to see the Pope clearly on account of the crowd, climbed upon a chair to get a better view. In the twinkling of an eye a dozen attendants were after him, whispering harshly, "Giù! Giù! Giù!" ("Get down! Get down! Get down!") and the Israelite climbed down exclaiming in crestfallen accents: "How did you know it?" I have never been presented to the present Pope, but I gather from my friends in Rome that his administration is, as usual, a rather complicated affair. The ruling power is Cardinal Rampolla, the Mephisto of the Church, for whom a distinguished Marchesa has a _salon_ and entertains, so that, in this way, he can meet people on neutral ground. On our return trip we crossed Mont Cenis by diligence. From Lombardy, with the smell of orange flowers all about us, we mounted up and up until the green growing things became fewer and frailer, and the air chillier and more rarified. Between six and seven thousand feet up we struck snow and changed to a sleigh. We made the whole trip in eleven hours--a record in those days. Think of it, you modern tourists who cross Mont Cenis in three! But you will do well to envy us our diligence and sleigh just the same, for you--oh, horrors!--have to do it through a tunnel instead of over a mountain pass! We felt quite adventurous, for it was generally considered a rather hazardous undertaking. By March first we were back again in Paris and, before the end of the month, Mr. Jarrett and Arditi joined us with my renewed contract with Colonel Mapleson. It seemed to me a very short period before it was time for me to go back to Drury Lane for the real London season. Spring had come and Mapleson was ready to make a record opera season; so we said good-bye to our friends in Paris and turned once more toward England. CHAPTER XVI FELLOW-ARTISTS My mother's diary reads as follows: _March 25_ Left Paris for London accompanied by Arditi and Mr. Jarrett. Came by Dover and Calais. Very sick. Had a band on the boat to entice the passengers into the idea that everything was lovely and there is no such thing as seasickness. Arrived in London at ten minutes before six. _28._ Went out house-hunting. Rooms too small. _29._ House-hunting. Dirty houses. A vast difference between American and English housekeeping. Couldn't stand it. Visited ten. Col. Chandler came in the evening. Miss Jarrett went with us. _30._ Went again. Saw a highfalutin Lady who said she wanted to get a _fancy price_ for her house. Couldn't see it. _April 1st._ Miss Jarrett, Lou and I started again and had about given up the ship when Louise discovered a house with "to let" on it. So we ventured in without cards. Lovely! _Neat_ and _nice_. Beautiful large garden, lawn, etc. We were taken to see the Agent who had it in charge. When we got outside we 3 embraced each other and I screamed with _joy_. She (the Landlady) was the first to have a house "to let" that was not painted and powdered an inch thick. _2._ Rehearsal of _Traviata_ for the 4th. Three hours long. Bettini, Santley, Poley and "Miss Kellogg." _3._ Stage rehearsal. _4._ First appearance in the regular season of Miss Kellogg in _Traviata_. Prince of Wales came down end of 2nd act and congratulated her warmly. Also brought the warmest congratulations from the Princess--splendid--called out three times--received 8 bouquets. Forgot powder--sent Annie home--too late--hurried, daubed, nervous, out of breath. Couldn't get champagne opened quick enough--rushed and tore--delayed orchestra 5 minutes--got on all right--at last--went off splendidly. Miss Jarrett, Mr. Jarrett, Arditi, Mr. Bennett of the Press [critic of _The Daily Telegraph_] came and congratulated Louise. The Prince of Wales was very kind--said he remembered the hospitality of the Americans to him years agone. [Louise] Had a new ball room dress--all white with red camilias. This somewhat incoherent record as jotted down by my mother is sketchy but true in spirit. Never in my life, before or since, was I ever so nervous as at our opening performance in London of _Traviata_; no, not even had my American _début_ tried me so sorely. Everything in the world went wrong that could go wrong on this occasion. I forgot my powder and the skirt of my dress, and Annie, my maid, had to rush home in a cab to get them. I tore my costume while making my first entrance and had to play the entire act with a streamer of silk dangling at my feet. I went on half made up, daubed, nervous, out of breath. _Never_ was I in such a state of nerves. But to my astonishment I made a very big success. There was a burst of applause after the first act and I could hardly believe my ears. It struck me as most extraordinary that what I considered so unsatisfactory should please the house. Several of the artists singing with me came to me during the evening much upset. "Don't you know why everything on the stage has been going so badly to-night?" they said. "We've a _jettatura_ in front!" Madame Erminie Rudersdorf, the mother of Richard Mansfield, was in one of the boxes; and she was generally believed to have the Evil Eye. The Italian singers took it very seriously indeed and made horns all through the opera (that is, kept their fingers crossed) to ward off the satanic influence! Madame Rudersdorf was a tall, heavy, and swarthy Russian with ominously brilliant eyes; and one of the most commanding personalities I ever came in contact with. Although she had a dangerously bad temper, I never saw any evidences of it, nor of the _jettatura_ either. She came that night and congratulated me:--and it meant something from her. My professional vocation has brought me up against almost every conceivable superstition, from Brignoli's stuffed deer's head to the more commonplace fetish against thirteen as a number. But I never saw any one more obsessed by an idea of this sort than Christine Nilsson. She actually would not sing unless some one "held her thumbs" first. "Holding thumbs" is quite an ancient way of inviting good luck. One promises to "hold one's thumbs" for a friend who is going through some ordeal, like a first night or an operation for appendicitis or a wedding or anything else desperate. Nilsson was the first person I ever knew who practised the charm the other way about. Before she would even go on the stage somebody, if only the stage carpenter, had to take hold of her two thumbs and press them. She was convinced that the mystic rite brought her good fortune. Many of the Italian artists that I knew believed in the efficacy of coral as a talisman and always kept a bit of it about them to rub "for luck" just before they went on for their part of the performance. Somebody has told me that Emma Trentini had a queer individual superstition: when she was singing for Hammerstein she would never go on the stage until he had given her a quarter of a dollar! Ridiculous as all these _idées fixes_ appear when writing them down, I am convinced that they do help some people. A sense of confidence is a great, an invaluable thing, and whatever can bring that about must necessarily, however foolish in itself, make for a measure of success. I caught Nilsson's "holding thumbs" trick myself without ever believing in it, and often have done it to people since in a sort of general luck-wishing, friendly spirit. The last time I was in Algiers I entered an antique shop that I always visit there and found the little woman who kept it in a somewhat indisposed and depressed state of mind:--so much so in fact that when I left I pinched her thumbs for luck. Not long afterwards I had the sweetest letter from her. "I cannot thank you enough," she wrote; "you did something--whatever it was--that has brought me luck. I feel sure it is all through you!" To return to my mother's diary after our first performance of _Traviata_ in London: _Sunday._ Sat around. Afternoon drove through Hyde Park. _Monday 6th._ Rehearsal of _Gazza Ladra_. I went all over to find dress for Linda--failed. _Tuesday._ Moved out to 48 Grove End Road--8 guineas a week. Received check on County Bank from Mapleson for £100. Drew the money. _Wednesday 8th._ Heard rehearsal of _Gazza Ladra_. Remained in theatre till 5.25 P.M. fitting costume. Rode home in 22 minutes. _Thursday 9th._ Saw Linda. Magnificent. Best thing. Called out three times. Bouquet--dress--yellow. _Moire_ blue satin apron--pink roses--gay! _Friday--Good Friday._ Regulated house. In the evening _Don Giovanni_ was performed. Louise wore her Barber dress--pink satin one--made by Madame Vinfolet in New York--splendid! Poli told me that in the height of the Messiah Season he often made 75 guineas a week. He looked at his operatic engagement as secondary. _Sunday 12._ Louise received basket of Easter eggs with a beautiful bluebird over them from Mrs. McHenry--Paris--beautiful--shall take it to America. Mrs. G---- dined with us at 5. _13th._ Rehearsal of _G. Ladra_--3 hours. I took cold waiting in cold room. No letters. _Tuesday 14._ Letters from Mary Gray, Nell and Leonard and Carter. Pay day at Theatre but it didn't come. 3 hours rehearsal. At 4 P.M. Louise, Mr. S---- and I called by appointment upon the Duchess of Somerset. Met her 3 nieces and the Belgian Minister--a splendid affair--tea was served at 5--went home--dined at 6--went to Covent Garden to hear Mario & Fionetti, the latter said to be the best type of Italian school. Louise thought little of it. Didn't know whether to think less of Davidson's judgment or more of her own. * * * * * _21st._ Green room rehearsal of _Gazza Ladra_. _Don Giovanni_ in the evening--fine house. _22nd._ Rehearsed one act of _Gazza Ladra_. Louise tired and nervous. Rained. Santley rode part way home with us. _23rd._ _Rigoletto_--full house--Duke of Newcastle brought Lord Duppelin for introduction. Opera went off splendidly. Check for £100. Saw the Godwins--Bryant's son-in-law. _24th. Friday._ Drew the money. Reception at the Langs. _25th._ Louise went to new Philharmonic to rehearsal. In the evening went to Queen's Theatre to see Toole in _Oliver Twist_--splendid. Mr. Santley went to Paris. _26th. Sunday._ Dr. Quinn, Mr. Fechter and Arditi called. Louise and Miss Jarrett washed the dog! [This pet was one of the puppies of Titjiens's tiny and beautiful Pomeranian and I had it for a long time and adored it.] The 3 Miss Edwards called. Letter from Sarah. _27._ Louise and I go to Rehearsal of _Gazza Ladra_ and to hear Mr. Fechter in _No Thoroughfare_. He thinks more of himself than of the thoroughfare--good performance though. Letter from George Farnsworth. _28._ Clear and cold. Rehearsed _Gazza Ladra_. _29._ [Louise] sang at Philharmonic--duet _Nozze di Figaro_ with Foli. _30th._ Long rehearsal of Gazza. Dined at Duchess of Somerset's at 8 P.M. Met many best men of London. Duke of Newcastle took Louise in to dinner. Col. Williams took me. Duchess is an old tyrant--sang Louise to death--unmerciful--I despise her for her selfishness. Indeed, every minute of those spring weeks was occupied and more than occupied. I never was so busy before and never had such a good time. The "season" was a delightful one; and certainly no one had a more varied part in it than I. Thanks to the Dowager Duchess and our friends we went out frequently; and I was singing four and five times a week counting concerts. Private concerts were a great fad that season and I have often sung at two or three different ones in the same evening. Colonel Mapleson was in great feather, having three _prime donne_ at his disposal at once, for Christine Nilsson had soon joined us, that curious mixture of "Scandinavian calm and Parisian elegance" as I have heard her described. No two singers were ever less alike, either physically or temperamentally, than she and I; yet, oddly enough, we over and over again followed each other in the same _rôles_. Titjiens, Nilsson, and I sang together a great deal that season, not only in opera but also in concert. Our voices went well together and we always got on pleasantly. Madame Titjiens was no longer at the zenith of her great power, but she was very fine for all that. I admired Titjiens greatly as an artist in spite of her perfunctory acting. Cold and stately, she was especially effective in purely classic music, having at her command all its traditions:--Donna Anna for instance, and Fidelio and the Contessa. I sang with her in the Mozart operas. Particularly do I recall one night when the orchestra was under the direction of Sir Michael Costa. Both Titjiens and Nilsson were singing with me, and the former had to follow me in the _recitative_. Where Susanna gives the attacking note to the Contessa Sir Michael's 'cello gave me the wrong chord. I perceived it instantly, my absolute pitch serving me well, but I hardly knew what to do. I was singing in Italian, which made the problem even more difficult; but, as I sang, my sixth sense was working subconsciously. I was saying over and over in my brain: "_I've got to give Titjiens the right note or the whole thing will be a mess. How am I going to do it?_" I sang around in circles until I was able to give the Contessa the correct note. Titjiens gratefully caught it up and all came out well. When the number was over, both Titjiens and Nilsson came and congratulated me for what they recognised as a good piece of musicianship. But Sir Michael was in a rage. "What do you mean," he demanded, "by taking liberties with the music like that?" One cannot afford to antagonise a conductor and he was, besides, so irascible a man that I did not care to mention to him that his 'cello had been at fault. He was a most indifferent musician as well as a narrow, obstinate man, although London considered him a very great leader. He only infuriated me the more by remarking indulgently, one night not long after, as if overlooking my various artistic shortcomings: "Well, well,--you're a very pretty woman anyway!" It was his "anyway" that irrevocably settled matters between us. He disliked Nilsson too. He declared both in public and in private that her use of her voice was mere "charlatanry and trickery" and not worthy to be called musical. Nilsson was not, in fact, a good musician; few _prime donne_ are. On one occasion she did actually sing one bar in advance of the accompaniment for ten consecutive measures. This is almost inconceivable, but she did it, and Sir Michael never forgave her. Mapleson was planning as a _tour de force_ with which to stun London a series of operas in which he could present all of us. "All-star casts" were rare in those days. Most managers saved their singers and doled them out judiciously, one at a time, in a very conservative fashion. But Mapleson had other notions. Our "all-star" Mozart casts were the wonder of all London. Think of _Don Giovanni_ with Santley as the Don and Titjiens as Donna Anna; Nilsson as Donna Elvira, Rockitanski of Vienna the Leporello, and myself as Zerlina! Think of _Le Nozze di Figaro_ with Titjiens as the Countess, Nilsson Cherubino, Santley the Count, and me as Susanna! These were casts unequalled in all Europe--almost, I believe, in all time! Gye, of Covent Garden, declared that we were killing the goose that laid the golden egg by putting all our _prime donne_ into one opera. He said that this made it not only impossible for rival houses to draw any audiences, but that it also cut off our own noses. Nobody wanted to go on ordinary nights to hear operas that had only one _prima donna_ in them when they could go on star nights and hear three at once. However, Colonel Mapleson found that the scheme paid and our "triple-cast" performances brought us most sensational houses. Personally, as I have already said, I never liked Mapleson, and I had many causes for resentment in a business way. I remember one battle I had with him and the stage manager about a dress I was to wear in _Le Nozze di Figaro_. I do not recall what it was they wanted me to wear; but I know that, whatever it was, I would not wear it. I left in the middle of rehearsal, drove home in an excited state of indignation, and seized upon poor Colonel Stebbins, always my steady help in time of trouble. He went, saw, fought, and conquered, after which the rehearsals went on more or less peaceably. Undoubtedly we had some fine artists at Her Majesty's, but occasionally Mapleson missed a big chance of securing others. One day we were putting on our wraps after rehearsal when my mother and I heard a lovely contralto voice. On inquiry, we learned that Colonel Mapleson and Arditi were trying the voice of a young Italian woman who had come to London in search of an engagement. The Colonel and the Director sat in the orchestra while the young woman sang an _aria_ from _Semiramide_. When the trial was over the girl went away at once and I rushed out to speak to Mapleson. "Surely you engaged that enchanting singer!" I exclaimed. "Indeed I didn't," he replied. She went directly to Gye at Covent Garden, who engaged her promptly and, when she appeared two weeks later, she made a sensation. Her name was Sofia Scalchi. Besides the private concerts of that season there were also plenty of public concerts, a particularly notable one being a Handel Festival at the Crystal Palace on May 1st, when I sang _Oh, had I Jubal's Lyre_! Everything connected with that occasion was on a large scale. There were seven thousand people in the house, the largest audience by far that I had ever sung to before. The place was so crowded that people hung about the doors trying to get in even after every seat was filled; and not one person left the hall until after I had finished--a remarkable record in its way! Some time later, when I was on my way home to America and wanted to buy some antiques, I wandered into a little, odd Dickens-like shop in Wardour Street. I wanted to have some articles sent on approval to meet me at Liverpool, but hesitated to ask the old man in the shop to take such a risk without knowing me. To my surprise he smiled at me a kindly, wrinkled smile and said, with the prettiest old-fashioned bow: "Madame, you are welcome to take any liberties you will with my entire stock. I heard you sing 'Jubal's Lyre.' I shall never forget it, nor be able to repay you for the pleasure you gave me!" I always felt this to be one of my sincerest tributes. Perhaps that is partly why the night of my first Crystal Hall Concert remains so clearly defined in my memory. My mother's diary of this period continues: _May 4._ Mr. Santley dined with us. Played Besique in the evening. _I beat_. _5._ Louise and I went to St. James Hall rehearsal. After went to Theatre. Learned Nilsson did not have as good a house 2nd night as Louise's first one in _La Gazza Ladra_. Mr. Arditi came to rehearse the waltz. _6th._ _La Gazza Ladra._ Full house--enthusiasm--Duke of Newcastle came in. _7._ Arditi's rehearsal for his concert at his house at 5 P.M.--went--house full--hot and funny. Mr. S---- came in the evening--played one game Besique. _8._ Intended to go to Haymarket Theatre but Miss J---- had headache. Santley came in the afternoon to practise Susanna. _9._ Santley called. McHenry and Stebbins, with another Budget of disagreeables from Mapleson who, not satisfied with cheating her [Louise] out of $500., deliberately asked her to give him 3 nights more! Shall have his money if we have to go to law about it. _Monday._ [Louise] Sang at Old Philharmonic flute song from _The Star_. Mr. Stebbins went to Jarrett and told him Miss Kellogg would sing no longer than the 15th--her engagement closes then--but that Mapleson must pay her what he owed her--that he would have the checks that day or sue him. _Tuesday._ Just got the second check of £150, showing that a little _hell fire and brimstone administered in large doses_ is a good thing. The Englishman has not outwitted the Yankee yet! _12._ Louise sang _Don Giovanni_--Titjiens "Donna Anna," Santley "Don Giovanni," Nilsson "Elvira." Crowded house--seats sold at a premium--Louise received all the honours--everything encored--4 bouquets. Nilsson and Titjiens were encored only for the grand trio. The applause on _Batti Batti_ was something unequalled. _13._ Went to photographers. Miss Jarrett, Santley and ourselves dined at Mr. Stebbins'--went to hear Lucca in _Fra Diavolo_--was delighted--she was not pretty but intelligent--sang well--not remarkable, but showed great cleverness--full of talent--acted it well--filled out the scenes--kept the thing going. The Tenor was good. I remained through the second act. Dropped my fan onto a bald head. Went over to Drury Lane--heard one act of _The Hugenots_. _14._ Mr. S---- dined with us--played Besique in the evening--Louise beat of course. _15._ [Louise] Sang _Don Giovanni_ to a full house. Bennett came and Smith and Mapleson and Duke of Newcastle. _16._ Santley sang in rehearsal _Le Nozze di Figaro_. Mr. Stebbins dined with us. Played solitaire in the evening with the new Besique box. I sang several times at the Crystal Palace Concerts with Sims Reeves, the idolised English tenor. Never have I heard of or imagined an artist so spoiled as Reeves. The spring was a very hot one for London, although to us who were accustomed to the summer heat of America, it seemed nothing. But poor Sims Reeves evidently expected to have heat prostration or a sunstroke, for he always wore a big cork helmet to rehearsals, the kind that officers wear on the plains of India. The picture he made sitting under his huge helmet with a white puggaree around it, fanning himself feebly, was one never to be forgotten. He had a somewhat frumpy wife who waited on him like a slave. I had little patience with him, especially with his trick of disappointing his audiences at the eleventh hour. But he could sing! He was a real artist, and, when he was not troubling about the temperature, or his diet, he was an artist with whom it was a privilege to sing. I remember singing with him and Mme. Patey at a concert at Albert Hall. Mme. Patey was an admirable contralto and gifted with a superb technique. We three sang a trio without a rehearsal and, when it was over, Reeves declared that it was really wonderful the way in which we all three had "taken breath" at exactly the same points, showing that we were all well trained and could phrase a song in the only one correct way. This was also noticed and remarked upon by several professionals who were present. I also sang with Alboni. At an Albert Hall concert on my second visit to England a year or two later, I said to her: "Madame, I cannot tell you how honoured I feel in singing on the same programme with you." She bowed and smiled. She was a very, very large woman, heavily built, but she carried her size with remarkable dignity. I was considerably amused when she replied: "Ah, Mademoiselle, I am only a shadow of what I have been!" My most successful song that season was my old song _Beware_. It was unusual to see a _prima donna_ play her own accompaniment, which I always did to this song and to most _encores_. The simple, rather insipid melody was written by Moulton, the first husband of the present Baronne de Hegeman, and it was not long before it was the rage in the sentimental younger set of London. How tired I became of that ridiculous sign-post cover and the "As Sung by Miss Clara Louise Kellogg" staring up at me! And how much more tired of the foolish tune: [Illustration: Musical notation; I know a maid-en fair to see, Take care! Take care!] One of the greatest honours paid me was the command to sing in one of the two concerts at Buckingham Palace given each season by the reigning sovereign. I have always kept the letter that told me I had been chosen for this great privilege. Cusins, from whom it came, was the Director of the Queen's music at the Palace. CHAPTER XVII THE ROYAL CONCERTS AT BUCKINGHAM The Royal Private Concerts at Buckingham Palace formed in those days, and I believe still form, the last word in exclusiveness. Many persons who have been presented at court, in company with a great crowd of other social aspirants, never come close enough to the inner circle of royalty to get within even "speaking distance" of these concerts. In them the court etiquette is almost mediæval in its brilliant formality; and yet a certain intimacy prevails which could not be possible in a less carefully chosen gathering. So sacred an institution is the Royal Concert that they have a fixed price--twenty-five guineas for all the solo singers, whatever their customary salaries,--the discrepancies between the greater and the lesser being supposedly filled in with the colossal honour done the artists by being asked to appear. Queen Victoria seldom presided at these or similar functions. The Prince of Wales usually represented the Crown and did the honours, always exceedingly well. I have been told by people who professed to know that his good nature was rather taken advantage of by his august mother, who not only worked him half to death in his official capacity, but never allowed him enough income for the purpose. Personally, I always liked the Prince. He was a tactful, courteous man with real artistic feeling and cultivation. He filled a difficult position with much graciousness and good sense. More than once has he come behind the scenes during an operatic performance to congratulate and encourage me. The Princess was good looking, but was said to be both dull and inflexible. The former impression might easily have been the result of her deafness that so handicapped her where social graces were concerned. She could not hear herself speak and, therefore, used a voice so low as to be almost inaudible. When she spoke to me I could not hear a word of what she said. I hope it was agreeable. My mother's entries in her diary at this point are: _Monday. 17_. 3 P.M. Rehearsal at Anderson's for Buckingham Palace Concert. Met Lucca there. A perfect original. Private concert in the evening at No. 7 Grafton Street. Pinsuti conducted. Louise _encored_ with _Beware_. Concert commenced at eleven. Closed at 2 A.M. Saw about five bushels of diamonds. _18th. Tuesday._ Went to Buckingham Palace. Rehearsed at eleven. Very good palace, but dirty. _19._ Rehearsal of Somnambula. Got home at 4. Mr. S---- came in the evening. _20._ Buckingham Palace Concert. The rehearsal at Buckingham Palace was held in the great ballroom with the Queen's orchestra, under Cusins, and the artists were Titjiens, Lucca, Faure, and myself. These concerts were composed of picked singers from both Covent Garden and Her Majesty's and were supposed to represent the best of each. As my mother notes, I first met Pauline Lucca there--such an odd little creature. She amused me immensely. She was always doing absurd things and making quaint, entertaining speeches. She was not pretty, but her eyes were beautiful. On this occasion, I remember, Titjiens was rehearsing one of her great, classic _arias_. When she had finished we all, the orchestra included, applauded. Lucca was sitting between Faure and myself, her feet nowhere near touching the floor, and she applauded rhythmically and quite indifferently, slap-bang! slap-bang! slinging her arms out so as to hit both of us and then slapping them together, the while she kicked up her small feet like a child of six. She was regardless of appearances and was applauding to please herself. Lucca used to warn me not to abuse my upper notes. We knew her as almost a mezzo. She told me, however, that she had once had an exceedingly high voice, and that one of her best parts was Leonora in _Trovatore_. She had abused her gift; but she always had a delightful quality of voice and put a great deal of personality into her work. The approach to the Palace on concert nights was very impressive, for the Grenadier Guards were drawn up outside, and inside were other guards even more gorgeously arrayed than the cavalry. In the concert room itself was stationed a royal bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guards. The commanding officer was called the Exon-in-Waiting. The proportions of the room were magnificent and there were some fine frescoes and an effective way of lighting up the stained glass windows from the outside; but the general impression was not particularly regal. The decorations were plain and dull--for a palace. The stage was arranged with chairs, rising tier above tier, very much like a stage for oratorio singers. Before royalty appears, the singers seat themselves on the stage and remain there until their turn comes to sing. This is always a trial to a singer, who really needs to get into the mood and to warm up to her appearance. To stand up in cold blood and just _sing_ is discouraging. The prospect of this dreary deliberateness did not tend to raise our spirits as we sat and waited. At last, after we had become utterly depressed and out of spirits, there was a little stir and the great doors at the side of the ballroom were thrown open. First of all entered the Silver-Sticks in Waiting, a dozen or so of them, backing in, two by two. All were, of course, distinguished men of title and position; and they were dressed in costumes in which silver was the dominant note and carried long wands of silver. They were followed by the Gold-Sticks in Waiting--men of even more exalted rank--and, finally, by the Royal Party. We all arose and curtesied, remaining standing until their Highnesses were seated. The concerts were called informal and therefore long trains and court veils were not insisted on; but the men had to appear in ceremonial dress--knee breeches and silk stockings--and the women invariably wore gorgeous costumes and family jewels, so that the scene was one full of colour and glitter. The uniforms of the Ambassadors of different countries made brilliant spots of colour. The Prince of Wales and his Princess simply sparkled with orders and decorations. I happened to hear the names of a few of her Royal Highness's. They were the Orders of Victoria and Albert, the Star of India, St. Catherine of Russia, and the Danish Family Order. She also wore many of the crown jewels, and with excellent taste on every occasion I have seen her. With a black satin gown and court train of crimson, for example, she wore only diamonds; while another time I remember she wore pearls and sapphires with a velvet gown of cream and pansy colour. Such good sense and discretion in the choice of gems is rare. So many women seem to think that any jewels are appropriate to any toilet. Tremendously august personages used to be in the audiences of those Buckingham Palace concerts at which I sang then and later, such as the Duke and Duchess of Teck, the Prince and Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Crown Prince of Sweden and Norway, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh. Indeed, royalty, peers of the realm and ambassadors or representatives, and members of the court were the only auditors. In spite of this the concerts were deadly dull, partly, no doubt, because everybody was so enormously impressed by the ceremony of the occasion and by the rigours of court etiquette that they did not dare move or hardly breathe. There was one woman present at my first Buckingham Palace concert, a lady-in-waiting (she looked as if she had become accustomed to waiting) who was even more stiff than any one else and about whose décolleté there seemed to be no termination. Never once, to my certain knowledge, did she move either head or body an inch to the right or to the left throughout the performance. A breach of etiquette was committed on one occasion by a friend of mine, a compatriot, who had accompanied me to one of these gilt-edged affairs. She stood up behind the very last row of the chorus and--used her opera-glasses! Not unnaturally, she wanted for once, poor girl, to get a good look at royalty; but it is needless to say that she was hastily and summarily suppressed. When the Prince and Princess were seated the concert could begin. There were two customs that made those functions particularly oppressive. One was that all applause was forbidden. An artist, particularly a singer or stage person of any kind, lives and breathes through approbation: and for a singer to sing her best and then sit down in a dead and stony silence without any sort of demonstration, is a very chilling experience. The only indication that a performance had been acceptable was when the Prince of Wales wriggled his programme in an approving manner. A hand-clap would have been a terrific breach of etiquette. The other drawback--and the one that affected the guests even more than the artists--was that, when once the Prince and Princess were seated, no one could rise on any pretext or provocation whatever. I think it was at my second appearance at the Royal Concerts that an amusing incident occurred which impressed the inconvenience of this regulation upon my memory. The Duchess of Edinburgh, daughter of the Czar, entered in the Prince of Wales's party. She looked an irritable, dissatisfied, bilious person; and I was told that she was always talking about being "the daughter of the Czar of all the Russias" and that it galled her that even the Princess of Wales took precedence over her. Those were the good old days of tie-backs, made of elastic and steel, a sort of modified hoop-skirt with all of the hoop in the back. The tie-back was the passing of the hoop and its management was an education in itself. I remember mine came from Paris and I had had a bit of difficulty in learning to sit down in it gracefully. Well--the Duchess of Edinburgh had not mastered the art. She was all right until she sat down and looked very regal in a gown of thick, heavy white silk and the most gorgeous of jewels--encrusted diamonds and Russian rubies, the latter nearly the size of a pigeon's eggs. Her tiara and stomacher were so magnificent that they appalled me. The Prince and Princess sat down and every one else followed suit, the daughter of the Czar of all the Russias among the others in the front row. And she sat down wrong. Her tie-back tilted up as she went down; her skirt rose high in front, revealing a pair of large feet, clad in white shoes, and large ankles, nearly up to her knees. There was a footstool under the large feet and they were very much in evidence the whole evening, posing, entirely against their owner's will, on a temporary monument. The awful part of it was that the Duchess knew all about it and was so furious that she could hardly contain herself. It was a study to watch the daughter of the Czar of all the Russias in these circumstances. Her face showed how much she wanted to get up and pull down her dress and hide her robust pedal extremities, but court etiquette forbade, and the Duchess suffered. The end of everything, as a matter of course, was _God Save the Queen_ and, as there were nearly always two _prime donne_ present, each of us sang one verse. All the artists and the chorus sang the third, which constituted "Good-night" and was the official closing of the performance. I usually sang the first verse. When the concert was over, the Prince and Princess with the lesser royalties filed out. They passed by the front of the stage and always had some agreeable thing to say. I recall with much pleasure Prince Arthur--the present Duke of Connaught--stopping to compliment me on a song I had just sung--the Polonaise from _Mignon_--and to remind me that I had sung it at Admiral Dahlgren's reception at the Navy Yard in Washington during his American visit. "You sang that for me in Washington, didn't you, Miss Kellogg?" he said; and I was greatly pleased by the slight courteous remembrance. After royalty had departed every one drew a long breath of partial relaxation. The guests could then move about with more or less freedom, talk with each other, and speak with the artists if they felt so inclined. I was impressed by the stiffness, the shyness and awkwardness of the English people--of even these very great English people, the women especially. One would suppose that authority and ease and graciousness would be in the very blood of those who are, as the saying is, "to the manner born," but they did not seem to have that "manner." Finally I came to the conclusion that they really _liked_ to appear shy and _gauche_, and deliberately affected the stiffness and the awkwardness. So much has been said about the Victorian prejudice against divorce and against scandal of all sorts that no one will be surprised when I say that, on one occasion when I sang at the Palace, I was the only woman singer whom the ladies present spoke to, although the gentlemen paid much attention to the others. The Duchess of Newcastle was particularly cordial to me, as were also the wife of our American Ambassador and Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester. My fellow-artists on that occasion were Adelina Patti and Trebelli Bettina and, as each of them had been associated with scandal, they were left icily alone. At that time Patti and Nicolini were not married and the papers had much to say about the tenor's desertion of his family. I have sung with Nilsson and Patti and Lucca at these concerts. I have sung with Faure and Santley and Capoul (nice little Capoul, known in America as "the ladies' man") and I have sung with Scalchi and Titjiens. I have sung there with even the great Mario. There was a supper at the palace after the Royal Concerts--two supper tables in fact--one for the royal family and one for the artists. I caught a glimpse on my first appearance there of the table set for the former with the historic gold plate, with which English crowned heads entertain their guests. It was splendid, of course, although very heavy and ponderous, and the food must needs have been something superlative to have fitted it. I doubt if it was, however, as British cooks are apt to be mediocre, even those in palaces. Cooking is a matter of the Epicurean temperament or, rather, with the British, the lack of it. Our supper was not at all bad in spite of this, although little Lucca did turn up her nose at it and at the arrangements. "What!" she exclaimed tempestuously, "stay here to 'second supper'! Never! These English prigs want to make us eat with the servants! You may stay for their horrid supper if you choose. But I would rather starve--" and off she went, all rustling and fluttering with childish indignation. It was at one of these after-concert "receptions" at the palace that I had quite a long chat with Adelina Patti about her coming to America. I urged it, for I knew that a fine welcome was awaiting her here. But Nicolini,--her husband for the moment,--who was sitting near, exclaimed: "_Vous voulez la tuer!_" ("Do you want to kill her!") It seems that they were both terribly afraid of crossing the ocean, although they apparently recovered from their dread in later years. There was one Royal Concert which will always remain in my memory as the most marvellous and brilliant spectacle, socially speaking, of my whole life. It was the one given in honour of the Queen's being made Empress of India and among the guests were not only the aristocracy of Great Britain, but all the Eastern princes and rajahs representing her Majesty's new empire. At that time hardly any one had been in India. Nowadays people make trips around the world and run across to take a look at the Orient whenever they feel inclined. But then India sounded to us like a fairy-tale place, impossibly rich and mysterious, a country out of _The Arabian Nights_ at the very least. My mother and I were then living in Belgrave Mansions, not far from the palace nor from the Victoria Hotel where the Indian princes put up, and we used to see them passing back and forth, their attendants bearing exquisitely carved and ornamented boxes containing choice jewels and decorations and offerings to "The Great White Queen across the Seas,"--offerings as earnest of good faith and pledges of loyalty. I was glad to be "commanded" for the Royal Concert at which they were to be entertained, for I knew that it would be a splendid pageant. And it turned out to be, as I have said, the richest display I ever saw. The rich stuffs of the costumes lent themselves most fittingly to a lavish exhibition of jewels. The ornaments of the royal princesses and peeresses that I had been admiring up to that occasion seemed as nothing compared to this array. Every Eastern potentate appeared to be trying to vie with all the others as to the gems he wore in his turban. It would be impossible for me to say how interesting I found all this sort of thing. It was like a play to me--a delicious play, in which I, too, had my part. I am an imperialist by nature. I love pomp and ceremony and circumstance and titles. The few times that I have ever been dissatisfied with my experiences in the lands of crowned heads, it was merely because there wasn't quite grandeur enough to suit my taste! CHAPTER XVIII THE LONDON SEASON Our house in St. John's Wood that we rented for our first London season was small, but it had a front door and a back garden and, on the whole, we were very happy there. Whenever my mother became bored or dissatisfied she thought of the hotels on the Continent and immediately cheered up. There many people sought us out, and others were brought to see us. Newcastle was always coming with someone interesting in tow. Leonard Jerome, who built the Jockey Club, came with Newcastle, I remember, and so did Chevalier Wyckoff, who had something to do with _The Herald_, and did not use his title. [Illustration: =Duke of Newcastle= From a photograph by John Burton & Sons] It was always said of the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle that "he married her for her money and she married him for his title, so that they each got what they wanted." It may have been true and probably was, for they did not seem an ardently devoted couple, and yet it is difficult to believe the rather cruel report--they were both so much too lovable to merit it. The Duchess was a beauty and, when she wore the big, blue, Hope Diamond,--(I have often seen her wearing it) she was a most striking figure. As for Newcastle himself, I always found him a most simple, warm-hearted, generous man, full of delicate and kindly feelings. He had big stables and raced his horses all the time, but it was said of him that he generally lost at the races and one might almost know that he would. He was a sort of "mark" for the racing sharks and they plucked him in a shameless manner. I first met the Newcastles at the dinner table of the Dowager Duchess of Somerset, and more than once afterwards has Newcastle whispered to her "hang etiquette" and taken me in to dinner instead of some frumpy marchioness or countess. We became acquainted with the Tennants of Richmond Terrace. Their house was headquarters for an association of Esoteric Buddhism;--A. P. Sinnett, the author of the book entitled _Esoteric Buddhism_, was a prominent figure there. The family is perhaps best known from the fact that Miss Tennant married the celebrated explorer Stanley. But to me it always stood for the centre of occult societies. The household was an interesting one but not particularly peaceful. I suppose the world is full of queer people and situations, but I do think that among the queerest of both must be ranked Lord Dudley, who owned Her Majesty's Theatre. He lived in Park Lane and was a very grand person in all ways, and, according to hearsay, firmly believed that he was a teapot, and spent his days in the miserable hope that somebody would be kind enough to put him on the stove! He did not go about begging for the stove exactly; his desire was just an ever-present, underlying yearning! He was a nice man, too, as I remember him. A man by the name of Cowen represented the poor peer and we gave Cowen his legitimate perquisites in the shape of benefit concerts and so forth; but we all felt that the whole thing was in some obscure manner terribly grim and pathetic. Many things are so oddly both comic and tragic. During the warm weather we went often into the country to dine or lunch at country houses. I shall never forget Mr. Goddard's dinner at his place. He had a glass house at the end of the regular house that was half buried in a huge heliotrope plant which had grown so marvellously that it covered the walls like a vine. The trunk of it was as thick as a man's arm, and the perfume--! My mother wrote in her diary a single line summing up the day as it had been for her: "Lovely day. Strawberries and two black-eyed children." For my part, I gathered all the heliotrope I wanted for once in my life. Mr. Sampson's entertainment is another notable memory. Mr. Sampson was financial editor of that august journal _The London Times_, much sought after by the large moneyed interests, and lived in Bushy Park, beyond Kensington. Mrs. Heurtly was our hostess; and Lang, who had just been running for Prime Minister, was there and, also, McKenzie, an East Indian importer in a big way who afterwards became Sir Edward McKenzie, through loaning to the Prince of Wales the money for the trousseau and marriage of the Prince of Wales's daughter Louise to the Duke of Fife, and who then was not invited to the wedding! It was through Sampson, too, that I first met the famous critic Davidson, and I think it was on the occasion of his party that I first met Nilsson's great friend Mrs. Cavendish Bentinck. Among all the memories of that time stands out that of the home of the dear McHenrys in Holland Park, overlooking the great sweep of lawn of Holland House on which, it is said, the plotters of an elder day went out to talk and conspire because it was the only place in London where they could be sure that they would not be overheard. Alma Tadema lived just around the corner and we often saw him. Another interesting character of whom I saw a good deal at that time was Dr. Quinn, an Irishman, connected through a morganatic marriage with the royal family. He was very short and jolly, and very Irish. He had asthma horribly and ought really to have considered himself an invalid. He gasped and wheezed whenever he went upstairs, but he simply couldn't resist dinner parties. He loved funny stories, too, not only for his own sake but also because his friend, the Prince of Wales, liked them so much. My mother was very ready in wit and usually had a fund of stories and jokes at her command, and Dr. Quinn used to exhaust her supply, taking the greatest delight in hearing her talk. He would come panting into the house, his round face beaming, and gasp: "Any new American jokes? I'm dining with the Prince and want something new for him!" He loved riddles and conundrums, particularly those that had a poetical twist in them. One of his favourites was: _Why is a sword like the moon?_ _Because it is the glory of the (k)night!_ I have heard him tell that repeatedly, always ending with a little appreciative sigh and the ejaculation, "that is so poetical, isn't it?" One lovely evening we drove out to Greenwich to dinner, in Newcastle's four-in-hand coach. It was not the new style drag, but a huge, lumbering affair, all open, in which one sat sideways. There were postillions in quaint dress and a general flavour of the Middle Ages about the whole episode. There was nothing of the Middle Ages about the dinner however. There were twenty-five of us present in all; among the number Lady Susan Vane-Tempest, a beautiful woman with most brilliant black hair, and Major Stackpoole, and dear Lady Rossmore, his wife (who was so impulsive that I have seen her jump up in her box to throw me the flowers she was wearing), and some of the Hopes (Newcastle's own family), that race that always behaves so badly! A little later in the season, my mother and I accepted with delight an invitation from the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle to visit them at their place in Brighton. The Duke naively explained that he had been having "a run of rotten luck" of late, and thought that I might turn it. Apparently I did, for the very day after we got there his horse won in the races. I sang, of course, in the evening, as their guest. There was no thought of remuneration, nor could there be. The graceful way in which our dear host showed his appreciation was to send me a pin, beautifully executed, of a horse and jockey done in enamel, enclosed in a circle of perfect crystal, the whole surrounded with a rim of superb diamonds and amethysts--purple and white being his racing colours. The brooch was inscribed simply with the date on which his horse ran and won. I wore that pin for years. When I had it cleaned at Tiffany's a long time afterwards, it made quite a sensation, it was so unique. Once, I remember, I was in the studio dwelling on Fifteenth Street of the Richard Watson Gilders when I discovered that, having dressed in a hurry, I had put my pin in upside-down. I started to change it, and then said: "O, what's the use. Nobody will ever notice it. They are all too literary and superior around here!" The first man Mrs. Gilder presented to me was evidently quite too much interested in the pin to talk to me. "Excuse me," he at last said politely, "but you will like to know, I feel sure, that your brooch is upside-down." "O, is it," said I sweetly. But I did not take the trouble to change it even then, and, afterwards, I would not have done so for worlds, for I should have been cheated out of a great deal of quiet amusement. One of the contributors to _The Century_ was later presented to me, and the effect of that pin upside-down was more irritating than it had been to the first man. He almost stood on his head trying to discover what was the trouble. At last: "You've got your pin upside-down," he snapped at me as though a personal affront had been offered him. "I know I have," I snapped back. "What do you wear it that way for?" he demanded. "To make conversation!" I returned, nearly as cross as he was. "I don't see it," he said curtly. As a matter of fact I had just realised that upside-down was the way to wear the pin henceforward. I said to Jeannette Gilder the next day: "My upside-down pin was the hit of the evening. I am never going to wear it any other way!" I have kept my word during all these years. Never have I worn Newcastle's pin except upside-down, and I have never known anyone to whom I was talking to fail to fall into the trap and beg my pardon and say, "you have your brooch on upside-down." Years later I was once talking to Annie Louise Gary in Rome and a perfectly strange man came up and began timidly: "I beg your pardon, but your----" "I know," I told him kindly. "My pin is upside-down, isn't it?" He retreated, thinking me mad, I suppose. But the fun of it has been worth some such reputation. Different people approach the subject so differently. Some are so apologetic and some are so helpful and some, like my _Century_ acquaintance, are so immensely and disproportionately annoyed. But I am wandering far afield and quite forgetting my first London season which, even at this remote day, is an absorbing recollection to me. I had at that time enough youthful enthusiasm and desire to "keep going" to have stocked a regiment of débutantes! Although I was quite as carefully chaperoned and looked out for in England as I had been in America, there was still an unusual sense of novelty and excitement about the days there. I had all of my clothes from Paris and learned that, as Sir Michael Costa had insultingly informed me, I was "quite a pretty woman anyhow." Add to this the generous praise that the London public gave me professionally, and is it to be considered a wonder that I felt as if all were a delightful fairy tale with me as the princess? As my mother has noted in her diary, we went one evening to Covent Garden to hear Patti sing. One really charming memory of Patti is her Juliette. She was never at all resourceful as an actress and was never able to stamp any part with the least creative individuality; but her singing of that music was perfect. Maurice Strakosch came into our box to present to us Baron Alfred de Rothschild who became one of the English friends whom we never forgot and who never forgot us. Maddox, too, called on us in the box that evening. He was the editor of a little journal that was the rival of the _Court Circular_. Maddox I saw a good deal of later and found him very original and entertaining. He ordered champagne that night, so we had quite a little party in our box between the acts. As my mother has also noted, I went to Covent Garden to hear Mario for the first time. Fioretti was the _prima donna_, said to be the best type of the Italian school. Altogether the occasion was expected to be a memorable one and I was full of expectations. Davidson, the critic of _The London Times_ and the foremost musical critic on the Continent, except possibly Dr. Hanslick of Vienna, was full of enthusiasm. But I did not think much of Fioretti nor, even, of Mario! Yes, Mario the great, Mario the golden-voiced, Mario who could "soothe with a tenor note the souls in Purgatory" was a bitter disappointment to me. I was too inexperienced still to appreciate the art he exhibited, and his voice was but a ghost of his past glory. Yet England adored him with her wonderful loyalty to old idols. Several distinguished artists and musicians came into our box that night, Randegger the singing teacher for one, and my good friend Sir George Armitage. Sir George was breathless with enthusiasm. "There is no one like Mario!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands with delight. "This is the first time I ever heard him," I said. "Ah, what an experience!" he cried. "I should never have suspected he was the great tenor," I had to admit. "Oh, my dear young lady," said Sir George eagerly, "that 'la' in the second act! Did you hear that 'la' in the second act? There was the old Mario!" His devotion was so touching that I forebore to remind him that if one swallow does not make a summer, so one "la" does not make a singer. When poor Mario came over to America later he was a dire failure. He could not hold his own at all. He could not produce even his "la" by that time. Like Nilsson, however, he greatly improved dramatically after his vocal resonances were impaired, for I have been told that when in possession of his full voice he was very stiff and unsympathetic in his acting. Sir George Armitage, by the way, was a somewhat remarkable individual, a typical, well-bred Englishman of about sixty, with artistic tastes. He was a perfect example of the dilettante of the leisure class, with plenty of time and money to gratify any vagrant whim. His particular hobby was the opera; and he divided his attentions equally between Covent Garden with Adelina and Lucca, and Her Majesty's with Nilsson, Titjiens, and Kellogg. When operas that he liked were being given at both opera houses, he would make a schedule of the different numbers and scenes with the hours at which they were to be sung:--9.20 (Covent Garden), _Aria_ by Madame Patti. 10 o'clock (Her Majesty's), Duet in second act between Miss Nilsson and Miss Kellogg. 10.30, Sextette at Covent Garden, etc., etc. He kept his brougham and horses ready and would drive back and forth the whole evening, reaching each opera house just in time to hear the music he particularly cared for. He had seats in each house and nothing else in the world to do, so it was quite a simple matter with him, only,--who but an Englishman of the hereditary class of idleness would think of such a way of spending the evening? He was a dear old fellow and we all liked him. He really did not know much about music, but he had a sincere fondness for it and dearly loved to come behind the scenes and offer suggestions to the artists. We always listened to him patiently, for it gave him great pleasure, and we never had to do any of the things he suggested because he forgot all about them before the next time. My mother's diary reads: _June 13._ Last night _Nozze di Figaro_. Mr. and Mrs. McHenry sent five bouquets. Splendid performance. _15._ Dined at Duchess of Somerset's. _16._ Dined with Mr. and Mrs. McHenry. Stebbins--Vanderbilts. _18._ _Don Giovanni._ Checks from Mr. Cowen. Banker came to see us. Duke of Newcastle--Sir George Armitage. _20._ Benedict's Morning Concert, St. James' Hall. _Encore_ "Beware"--_Don Giovanni_ in the evening. _21. Sunday._ Dined with Duke and Duchess of Newcastle. Major Stackpoole, Lady Susan Vane-Tempest and others. Rehearsed _La Figula_. _Monday._ Rehearsal of _La Figula_. In the evening went to hear Patti. Didn't like Patti. Received letter from Colonel Stebbins from Queenstown. _Tuesday._ Rehearsed _La Figula_. Called at Langham on Godwin--all came out in the evening. _Wednesday 24._ Morning performance of _Le Nozze_--got home at 6. P.M. Charity concert for Mr. Cowen at 8.30 at Dudley House. _Thursday._ Rehearsal of _La Figula_. Concert in the evening at Lady Fitzgerald's. _Monday._ Louise and I went to drive. Do not learn anything definite about the future--where I am to be next winter--no one knows. I do not see any settled home for me any more. Sometimes I am satisfied to have it so--at others--get nervous and uneasy and discontented. Yet I have lost interest in going home--it will be so short a visit--so soon a separation--then to some other stranger place--new friends--new faces--I want the old. The surface of life does not interest me. _Tuesday._ Dined at Langs'--large party. _Wednesday 15._ Went to Crystal Palace--Mapleson's Benefit. The whole performance closed with the most magnificent display of Fireworks I ever saw--most marvellous. _16._ _Don Giovanni_--full house--great success in the part--Duchess and Lady Rossmore threw splendid bouquets--house very enthusiastic--papers fine--Mrs. McHenry and Mr. Sampson came down--Duke of Newcastle and Major Stackpoole--Miss Jarrett. _Monday. Le Nozze di Figaro._ _Tuesday. La Figula._ _Thursday._ Went to theatre. Saw Nilsson and all the artists. Went to hear Patti in _Romeo and Juliette_--Strakosch gave us the box. Strakosch introduced Rothschilds. _Friday._ _Le Nozze di Figaro._ Baron Rothschilds, Sir George Armitage came around. _Saturday._ Sir George breakfasted with Louise. Rothschilds called--letter from Mr. Stebbins. _Sunday morning._ Dr. Kellogg of Utica called--spent several hours. Santley called--and McHenry in the evening. I was greatly shocked by the heavy drinking in the 'sixties that was not only the fashion but almost the requirement of fashion in England. My horror when I first saw a titled and distinguished Englishwoman in the opera box of the Earl of Harrington (our friend of the charming luncheon party), call an attendant and order a brandy and soda will never be forgotten. It was the general custom to serve refreshments in the boxes at the opera, and bottles and glasses of all sorts passed in and out of these private "loges" the entire evening. Indeed, people never dreamed of drinking water, although they drank their wines "like water" proverbially. Such prejudice as mine has two sides, as I realise when I think of the landlady of our apartment which we rented during a later London season in Belgrave Mansions. When singing, I had to have a late supper prepared for me--something very light and simple and nourishing. Our good landlady used to be shocked almost to the verge of tears by my iniquitous habit of drinking water _pur-et-simple_ with my suppers. "Oh, miss," she would beg, "let me put a bit of sherry or _something_ in it for you! It'll hurt you that way, Miss! It'll make you ill, that it will!" CHAPTER XIX HOME AGAIN Mapleson asked me to stay on the other side and sing in England, Ireland, and France at practically my own terms, but I refused to do so. I had made my English success and now I wanted to go home in triumph. My mother agreed with me that it was time to be turning homeward. So I accepted an engagement to sing under the management of the Strakosches, Max and Maurice, on a long concert tour. I have only gratitude for the manner in which my own people welcomed my return. The critics found me much improved, and one and all gave me credit for hard and unremitting work. "Here is a young singer," said one, "who has steadily worked her way to the highest position in operatic art." That point of view always pleased me; for I contend now, as I have contended since I first began to sing, that, next to having a voice in the first place, the great essential is to work; and then _work_; and, after that, begin to WORK! New York as a city did not please me when I saw it again. I had forgotten, or never fully realised, how provincial it was. Even to-day I firmly believe that it is undoubtedly the dirtiest city in the world, that its traffic regulation is the worst, and its cab service the most expensive and inconvenient. All this struck me with particular force when I came home fresh from London and Paris. My contract with the Strakosches was for twenty-five weeks, four appearances a week, making a hundred performances in all. This tour was only broken by a short engagement under my old director Maretzek at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, an arrangement made for me by Max Strakosch when we reached that city in the spring; and, with the exception of _Robert le Diable_, _Trovatore_, and one or two other operas, I spent the next three years singing in concert and oratorio entirely. It was not enjoyable, but it was successful. We went all over the country, North, South, East, West, and everywhere found an enthusiastic public. Particularly was this so in the South as far as I personally was concerned. The poor South had not yet recovered from the effects of the Civil War and did not have much money to spend on amusements, but, when at Richmond the people learned that I was Southern born, more than one woman said to me: "Go? To hear you! Yes, indeed; we'll hang up all we have to go and hear you!" One of my popular fellow-artists on the first tour was James M. Wehli, the English pianist. He was known as the "left-handed pianist" and was in reality better suited to a vaudeville stage than to a concert platform. His particular accomplishment consisted in playing a great number of pieces brilliantly with his left hand only, a feat remarkable enough in itself but not precisely an essential for a great artist, and, even as a pianist, he was not inspired. My first appearance after my European experience was in a concert at the Academy of Music in New York. It was a real welcome home. People cheered and waved and threw flowers and clapped until I was literally in tears. I felt that it did not matter in the least whether New York was a real city or not; America was a real country! When the concert was over, the men from the Lotus Club took the horses out of my carriage and dragged it, with me in it, to my hotel. And oh, my flowers! My American title of "The Flower _Prima Donna_" was soon reestablished beyond all peradventure. Flowers in those days were much rarer than they are now; and I received, literally, loads and loads of camellias, and roses enough to set up many florist shops. Without exaggeration, I sent those I received by _cartloads_ to the hospitals. And one "floral offering" that I received in Boston was actually too large for any waggon. A subscription had been raised and a pagoda of flowers sent. I had to hire a dray to carry it to my hotel; and then it could not be got up the stairs but had to spend the night downstairs. In the morning I had the monstrous thing photographed and sent it off to a hospital. Even this was an undertaking as I could not, for some reason, get the dray of the night before; and had to hire several able-bodied men to carry it. I hope it was a comfort to somebody before it faded! It is a pity that this tribute on the part of Boston did not assume a more permanent form, for I should have much appreciated a more lasting token as a remembrance of the occasion. It must not be thought that I was unappreciative because I say this. I love anything and everything that blooms, and I love the spirit that offers me flowers. But I must say that the pagoda was something of a white elephant. While thinking of Boston and my first season at home, I must not omit mention of Mrs. Martin. Indeed, it will have to be rather more than a mere mention, for it is quite a little story, beginning indirectly with Wright Sandford. Wright Sandford was the only man in New York with a big independent fortune, except "Willie" Douglass who spent most of his time cruising in foreign waters. Wright Sandford was more of a friend of mine than "Willie" Douglass, and I used to haul him over the coals occasionally for his lazy existence. He had eighty thousand a year and absolutely nothing to do but to amuse himself. "What do you expect me to do?" he would demand plaintively. "I've no one to play with!" Whenever I was starting on a tour he would send me wonderful hampers put up by Delmonico, with the most delicious things to eat imaginable in them, so that my mother and I never suffered, at least for the first day or two, from the inconveniences of the bad food usually experienced by travellers. A very nice fellow was Wright Sandford in many ways, and to this day I am appreciative of the Delmonico luncheons if of nothing else. When we were _en route_ for Boston on that first tour,--a long trip then, eight or nine hours at least by the fast trains--there sat close to us in the car a little woman who watched me all the time and smiled whenever I glanced at her. I noticed that she had no luncheon with her, so when we opened our Delmonico hamper, I leaned across and asked her to join us. I do not exactly know why I did it for I was not in the habit of making friends with our fellow-travellers; but the little person appealed to me somehow in addition to her being lunchless. She was the most pleased creature imaginable! She nibbled a little, smiled, spoke hardly a word, and after lunch I forgot all about her. In Boston, as I was in my room in the hotel practising, before going to the theatre, there came a faint rap on the door. I called out "Come in," yet nobody came. I began to practise again and again came a little rap. "Come in," I called a second time, yet still nothing happened. After a third rap I went and opened the door. In the dark hall stood a woman. I did not remember ever having seen her before; but I could hardly distinguish her features in the passage. "I've come," said she in a soft, small voice, "to ask you if you would please kiss me?" Of course I complied. Needless to say, I thought her quite crazy. After I had kissed her cheek she nodded and vanished into the darkness while I, much mystified, went back to my singing. That night at the theatre I saw a small person sitting in the front row, smiling up at me. Her face this time was somewhat familiar and I said to myself, "I do believe that's the little woman who had lunch with us on the train!" and then--"I wonder--_could_ it also be the crazy woman who wanted me to kiss her?" During our week's engagement in Boston we were confronted with a dilemma. Max Strakosch came to me much upset. "What are we going to do in Providence--the only decent hotel in the town has burned down," he said. "You'll have to stop with friends." "I haven't any friends in Providence," I replied. "Well, you'll have to get some," he declared. "There's no hotel where you could possibly stay and we can't cancel your engagement. The houses are sold out." Presently a cousin of mine, acting as my agent on these trips, came and told me that a man had called on him at the theatre whose wife wished to "entertain" Miss Kellogg while she was in Providence! The idea appalled me and I flatly refused to accept this extraordinary invitation; but those two men simply forced me into it. Strakosch, indeed, regarded the incident as a clear dispensation from heaven. "Nothing could be more fortunate," he said, "never mind who they are, you go and stay with them anyway. You've wonderful business waiting for you in Providence." Well--I went. Yet I felt very guilty about accepting a hospitality that would have to be stretched so far. It was no joke to have me for a guest. I knew well that we would be a burden on any household, especially if it were a modest one. When I was singing I had to have dinner at half-past four at the latest; I could not be disturbed by anything in the morning and, besides, it meant three beds--for mother, myself, and maid. In Providence we arrived at a tiny house at the door of which I was met by the little woman of the train who was, as I had surmised, the same one who had wanted me to kiss her. Supper was served immediately. Everything was immaculate and dainty and delicious. Our hostess had remembered some of the contents of the Delmonico hamper that I had especially liked and had cooked them herself, perfectly. She made me promise never to stay anywhere else than with her when I was in Providence and I never have. In all, throughout the many years that have intervened between then and now, I must have visited her more than twenty times. During this period I have been privileged to watch the most extraordinary development that could be imagined by any psychologist. When I first stopped with her there was not a book in the house. While everything was exquisitely clean and well kept, it was absolutely primitive. On my second visit I found linen sheets upon the beds and the soap and perfume that I liked were ready for me on the dressing-table. She studied my "ways" and every time I came back there was some new and flattering indication of the fact. Have I mentioned her name? It was Martin, Mrs. Martin, and her husband was conductor on what was called the "Millionaire's Train" that ran between Boston and Providence. I saw very little of him, but he was a nice, shy man, much respected in his business connection. He was "Hezzy" and she was "Lizy"--short for Hezekiah and Eliza. They were a genuinely devoted couple in their quiet way although he always stood a trifle in awe of his wife's friends. She was about ten years older than I and had a really marvellous gift for growing and improving. After a while they left the first house and moved into one a little larger and much more comfortable. They had a library and she began to gather a small circle of musical friends about her. Her knowledge of music was oddly photographic. She would bring me a sheet of music and say: "Please play this part--here; this is the nice part!" But she was, and is, a fine critic. Some big singers are glad to have her approval. As in music so it was with books--the little woman's taste was instinctive but unerring. She has often brought me a book of poetry, pointed out the best thing in it, and said in her soft way: "Don't you think this is nice? I _do_ think it is _so_ nice! It's a lovely poem." There was a young telegraph operator in Providence who had a voice. His name was Jules Jordan. Mrs. Martin took him into her house and practically brought him up. He, too, began to grow and develop and is now the head of the Arion Society, the big musical association of Providence that has some of the biggest singers in the country in its concerts. Mrs. Martin entertains Jules Jordan's artistic friends and goes to the concert rehearsals and says whether they are good or not. She knows, too. "I am called the 'Singers'' friend," she said to me not very long ago. She criticises the orchestra and chorus as well as the solos, and she is right every time. I consider her one of the finest critics I know. As for the professional critics, she is acquainted with them all and they have a very genuine respect for her judgment. She is the sort of person who is called "queer." Most real characters are. If she does not like one, the recipient of her opinion is usually fully aware of what that opinion is. She has no social idea at all, nor any toleration for it. This constitutes one point in which her development is so remarkable. Most women who "make themselves" acquire, first of all, the social graces and veneer, the artificiality in surface matters that will enable them to pass muster in the "great world." She has allowed her evolution to go along different lines. She has really grown, not in accomplishments but in accomplishment; not in manners but in grey matter. Indeed, I hardly know how to find words with which to speak of Mrs. Martin for I think her such a wonderful person; I respect and care for her so much that I find myself dumb when I try to pay her a tribute. If I have dared to speak of her humble beginnings in the first little house it is because it seems to me that only so can I really do her justice as she is to-day. She is a living monument of what a woman can do with herself unaided, save by the force and the aspiration that is in her. Meeting her was one of the most valuable incidents that happened to me in the year of my home-coming. It seems as if I spent most of my time in those days being photographed. Likenesses were stiff and unnatural; and I am inclined to believe that the picture of me that has always been the best known--the one leaning on my hand--marked a new epoch in photography. I had been posing a great deal the day that was taken and was dead tired. There had been much arranging; many attempts to obtain "artistic effects." Finally, I went off into a corner and sat down, leaning my head on my hand, while the photographer put new plates in his camera. Suddenly he happened to look in my direction and exclaimed: "By Jove--if I could only--I'm going to try it anyway!" Then he shouted, "Don't move, please!" and took me just as I was. He was very doubtful as to the result for it was a new departure in photography; but the attempt was very successful, and other photographers began to try for the same natural and easy effect. Another time I happened to have a handkerchief in my lap that threw a white reflection on my face, and the photographer discovered from it the value of large light-coloured surfaces to deflect the light where it was needed. This, too, I consider, was an unconscious factor in the introduction of natural effects into photography. I never, however, took a satisfactory picture. People who depend on expression and animation for their looks never do. My likenesses never looked the way I really did--except, perhaps, one that a photographer once caught while I was talking about Duse, explaining how much more I admired her than I did Bernhardt. In those concert and oratorio years I remember very few pleasurable appearances: but unquestionably one of the few was on June 15th, when the Beethoven Jubilee was held and I was asked to sing as alternative _prima donna_ with Parepa Rosa. Although I had done well in the Crystal Palace, I was not a singer who was generally supposed nor expected to fill so large a place as the American Institute Colosseum on Third Avenue, and many people prophesied that I could not be satisfactorily heard there. I asked my friends to go to different parts of the house and to tell me if my voice sounded well. Even some of my friends out in front, though, did not expect to hear me to advantage. But, contrary to what we all feared, my voice proved to have a carrying quality that had never before been adequately recognised. The affair was a great success. Parepa Rosa did not, as a matter of fact, have quite so big a voice as she was usually credited with having. She had power only to _G_. Above the staff it was a mixed voice. She could diminish to an exquisite quality, but she could not reinforce with any particular volume or vibration. There was another occasion that I remember with a deep sense of its impressiveness:--that of the funeral of Horace Greeley, at which I sang. I knew Horace Greeley personally and recall many interesting things about him; but, naturally perhaps, what stands out in my memory is the fact that, a few days before he died, he came to hear me sing Handel's _Messiah_, being, as he said afterwards, particularly touched and impressed by my rendering of _I know that my Redeemer liveth_. When he came to die, the last words that he said were those, whispered faintly, as if they still echoed in his heart. It may have been because of this fact that it was I who was asked to sing at his funeral. On my return from abroad I was, of course, wearing only foreign clothes and, as a consequence, found myself the embarrassed centre of much curiosity. American women were still children in the art of dressing. At one time I was probably the only woman in America who wore silk stockings and long gloves. People could not accustom themselves to my Parisian fashions. In Saratoga one dear man, whom I knew very well, came to me much distressed and whispered that my dress was fastened crooked. I had the greatest difficulty in convincing him that it was made that way and that the crookedness was the latest French touch. A recent fashion was that humped-up effect that gave the wearer the attitude then known and reviled as the "Grecian Bend." It was made famous by caricatures and jokes in the funny papers of the time, but I, being a new-comer so to speak, was not aware of its newspaper notoriety. Conceive my injured feelings when the small boys in the street ran after me in gangs shouting "Grecian Bend! Grecian Bend!" Another point that hurt the delicate sensibilities of the concert-going American public was the fact that at evening concerts I wore low-necked gowns. On the other side the custom of wearing a dress that was cut down for any and every appearance after dark, was invariable, and it took me some time to grasp the cause of the sensation with my modestly _décolleté_ frocks. People, further, found my ease effrontery, and my carriage, acquired after years of effort, "putting on airs." In spite of the cordiality of my welcome home, therefore, I had many critics who were not particularly kind. Although one woman did write, "who ever saw more simplicity on the stage?" there were plenty of the others who said, "Clara Louise Kellogg has become 'stuck up' during her sojourn abroad." As for my innocent desire to be properly and becomingly clothed, it gave rise to comments that were intended to be quite scathing, if I had only taken sufficient notice of them to think of them ten minutes after they had reached my ears. That year there was put on the millinery market a "Clara Louise" bonnet, by the way, that was supposed to be a great compliment to me, but that I am afraid I would not have been seen wearing at any price! In this connection one champion arose in my defence, however, whose efforts on my behalf must not be overlooked. He was an Ohio journalist, and his love of justice was far greater than his knowledge of the French language. Seeing in some review that Miss Kellogg had "a larger _répertoire_ than any living _prima donna_," this chivalrous writer rushed into print as follows: We do not of course know how Miss Kellogg was dressed in other cities, but upon the occasion of her last performance here we are positively certain that her _répertoire_ did not seem to extend out so far as either Nilsson's or Patti's. It may have been that her overskirt was cut too narrow to permit of its being gathered into such a lump behind, or it may have been that it had been crushed down accidentally, but the fact remains that both of Miss Kellogg's rivals wore _répertoires_ of a much more extravagant size--very much to their discredit, we think ... CHAPTER XX "YOUR SINCERE ADMIRER" A man whose name I never learned dropped a big, fragrant bunch of violets at my feet each night for weeks. Becoming discouraged after a while because I did not seek him out in his gallery seat, he sent me a note begging for a glance and adding, for identification, this illuminating point: "_You'll know me by my boots hanging over!_" Who could disregard such an appeal? That night my eyes searched the balconies feverishly. He had not vainly raised my hopes; his boots _were_ hanging over, large boots, that looked as if they had seen considerable service. I sang my best to those boots and--dear man!--the violets fell as sweetly as before. I have conjured up a charming portrait of this individual, with a soul high enough to love music and violets and simple enough not to be ashamed of his boots. Would that all "sincere admirers" might be of such an ingenuous and engaging a pattern. The variety of "admirers" that are the lot of a person on the stage is extraordinary. It is very difficult for the stage persons themselves to understand it. It has never seemed to me that actors as a class are particularly interesting. Personally I have always been too cognisant of the personalities behind the scenes to ever have any theatrical idols; but to a great many there is something absolutely fascinating about the stage and stage folk. The actor appears to the audience in a perpetual, hazy, calcium glory. We are, one and all, children with an inherent love for fairy tales and it is probably this love which is in a great measure accountable for the blind adoration received by most stage people. I have received, I imagine, the usual number of letters from "your sincere admirer," some of them funny and some of them rather pathetic. Very few of them were really impertinent or offensive. In nearly all was to be found the same touching devotion to an abstract ideal for which, for the moment, I chanced to be cast. Once in a while there was some one who, like a person who signed himself "Faust," insisted that I had "met his eyes" and "encouraged him from afar." Needless to say I had never in my life seen him; but he worked himself into quite a fever of resentment on the subject and wrote me several letters. There was also a man who wrote me several perfectly respectful, but ardent, love letters to which, naturally, I did not respond. Then, finally, he bombarded me with another type of screed of which the following is a specimen: "Oh, for Heaven's sake, say something,--if it is only to rate me for my importunities or to tell me to go about my business! Anything but this contemptuous silence!" But these were exceptions. Most of my "admirers'" letters are gems of either humour or of sentiment. Among my treasures is an epistle that begins: "Miss Clara Louise Kellogg Miss: Before to expand my feelings, before to make you known the real intent of this note, in fine before to disclose the secrets of my heart, I will pray you to pardon my indiscretion (if indiscretion that can be called) to address you unacquainted," etc. Isn't this a masterpiece? There was also an absurdly conceited man who wrote me one letter a year for several years, always in the same vein. He was evidently a very pious youth and had "gotten religion" rather badly, for in every epistle he broke into exhortation and urged me fervently to become a "real Christian," painting for me the joys of true religion if I once could manage to "find it." In one of his later letters--after assuring me that he had prayed for me night and morning for three years and would continue to do so--he ended in this impressive manner: " ...And if, in God's mercy, we are both permitted to walk 'the Golden Streets,' I shall there seek you out and give you more fully my reasons for writing you." Could anything be more entertaining than this naïve fashion of making a date in Heaven? Not all my letters were love letters. Sometimes I would receive a few words from some woman unknown to me but full of a sweet and understanding friendliness. Mrs. Elizabeth Tilton, then the centre of the stage scandal through her friendship with Henry Ward Beecher, wrote me a charming letter that ended with what struck me as a very pathetic touch: "I am unwilling to be known by you as the defiant, discontented woman of the age--rather, as an humble helper of those less fortunate than myself----" I never knew Mrs. Tilton personally, but have often felt that I should have liked her. One of the dearest communications I ever received was from a French working girl, a corset maker, I believe. She wrote: "I am but a poor little girl, Mademoiselle, a toiler in the sphere where you reign a queen, but ever since I was a very little child I have gone to listen to your voice whenever you have deigned to sing in New York. Those magic tone-flowers, scattering their perfumed sweetness on the waiting air, made my child heart throb with a wonderful pulsation...." One of the favourite jests of the critics was my obduracy in matters of sentiment. It was said that I would always have emotional limitations because I had no love affairs like other _prime donne_. Once, when I gave some advice to a young girl to "keep your eyes fixed upon your artistic future," or some such similar phrase, the press had a good deal of fun at my expense. "That" it was declared, "was exactly what was the matter with Clara Louise; she kept her eyes fixed upon an artistic future instead of upon some man who was in love with her!" I was rather a good shot, very fond of target shooting, and many jokes were also made on the supposed damage I did. One newspaper man put it rather more aptly. "Not only in pistol shooting," he said, "but in everything she aims at, our _prima donna_ is sure to hit the mark." My "sincere admirers" were from all parts of the house, but I think I found the "gallery" ones most sincere and, certainly, the most amusing. Max Maretzek used to say that he had no manner of use for an artist unless she could fill the family circle. I am glad to be able to record that I always could. My singing usually appealed to the people. _The Police Gazette_ always gave me good notices! I love the family circle. As a rule the appreciation there is greater because of the sacrifices which they have had to make to buy their seats. When people can go to hear good music every night, they do not care nearly so much about doing it. I wonder if anybody besides singers get such an extraordinary sense of contact and connection with members of their audiences? I have sometimes felt as if thought waves, reaching through the space between, held me fast to some of those who heard me sing. Who knows what sympathies, what comprehensions, what exquisite friendships, were blossoming out there in the dark house like a garden, waiting to be gathered? Letters--not necessarily love letters--rather, stray messages of appreciation and understanding--have brought me a similar sense of joy and of safe intimacy. After the receipt of any such, I have sung with the pleasant sense that a new friend--yes, friend, not auditor--was listening. I have suddenly felt at home in the big theatre; and often, very often, have I looked eagerly over the banked hosts of faces, asking myself wistfully which were the strangers and which mine own people. It was not only in the theatre that I found "admirers." My vacations were beset with those who wanted to look at and speak to a genuine _prima donna_ at close range. Indeed, I had frequently to protect myself from perfectly strange and intrusive people. Often I have gone to Saratoga during the season. Saratoga was a fashionable resort in those days and I always had a good audience. One incident that I remember of Saratoga was a detestable train that invariably came along in the middle of my performance--the evening train from New York. I always had to stop whatever I was singing and wait for it to go by. One night I thought I would cheat it and timed my song a little earlier so that I would be through before the train arrived. It just beat me by a bar; and I could hear it steaming nearer and nearing as I hurried on. As I came to the end there was a loud whistle from the locomotive;--but, for once, luck was on my side, for it was pitched in harmony with my final note! The coincidence was warmly applauded. When on the road I not infrequently practised with my banjo at hotels. It was more practicable to carry about than a piano and, besides, it was not always an easy matter to hire a good piano. One time--also in Saratoga--I was playing that instrument preparatory to beginning my morning practice, when an old gentleman who had a room on the same floor, descended to the office in a fine temper. He was a long, slim, wiry old fellow, with a high, black satin stock about his bony neck, very few hairs on his little round head, deep sunken eyes, pinched features, and an extremely nervous manner. "See here," he burst out in a cracked voice, as he danced about on the marble tiling of the office floor, "have you a band of nigger minstrels in the house, eh! Zounds, sir, there's an infernal banjo tum, tum, tumming in my ears every morning and I can't sleep. Drat banjoes--I hate 'em. And nigger minstrels--I hate 'em too. You must move me, sir, move me at once. That banjo'll set me crazy. Move me at once, d'ye hear?--or I'll leave the house!" "Why, sir," said the clerk suavely, "that banjo player is not a nigger minstrel, at all, sir, but Miss Clara Louise Kellogg, who uses a banjo to practise with." The hard lines in the old fellow's face relaxed, he looked sharply at the clerk and, leaning over the counter, remarked: "What, Clara Louise Kellogg! W--why, I'll go up and listen! Zounds, man, she's my particular favourite. She's charmed me with her sweet voice many a time. D---- n it, give her another banjo! Tell her to play all day if she wants to! Clara Louise Kellogg, eh? H'm, well, well!" He tottered off and, as I observed, after that so long as I stayed left the door of his room open down the hall so that he could hear my "tum, tum, tumming." A very different, though equally ingenuous tribute to my powers was that given by an old Indian trapper who, when in Chicago to sell his hides, went to hear me sing and expressed his emotions to a newspaper man of that city in approximately the following language: I have heard most of the sweet and terrible noises that natives make. I have heard the thunder among the Hills when the Lord was knocking against the earth until it passed; and I have heard the wind in the pines and the waves on the beaches, when the darkness of night was in the woods, and nature was singing her Evening Song and there was no bird nor beast the Lord has made, and I have not heard a voice that would make as sweet a noise as nature makes when the Spirit of the Universe speaks through the stillness; but that sweet lady has made sounds to-night sweeter than my ears have heard on hill or lake shore at noon, or in the night season, and I certainly believe that the Spirit of the Lord has been with her and given her the power to make such sweet sounds. A man might like to have these sweet sounds in his ears when his body lies in his cabin and his spirit is standing on the edge of the great clearing. I wish she could sing for me when my eyes grow dim and my feet strike the trail that no man strikes but once, nor travels both ways. Surely among my friends, if not among my "sincere admirers," I may include Okakura, who came over here with the late John La Farge as an envoy from the Japanese Government to study the art of this country as well as that of Europe. His dream was to found some sort of institution in Japan for the preservation and development of his country's old, national ideals in art. His criticisms of Raphael and Titian, by the way, were something extraordinary. As for music, he had a marvellous sense for it. La Farge took him to a Thomas Concert and he was vastly impressed by the music of Beethoven. One might have thought that he had listened to Occidental classics all his life. But, for that matter, I know two little Japanese airs that Davidson of London told me might well have been written by Beethoven himself; so it may be that there is an obscure bond of sympathy, which our less acute ears would not always recognise, between our great master and the composers of Okakura's native land. Okakura was only twenty-six when I first met him at Richard Watson Gilder's studio in New York, but he was already a professor and spoke perfect English and knew all our best literature. When Munkacsy, the Hungarian painter, came over, his colleague, Francis Korbay, the musician, gave him an evening reception, and I took my Japanese friend. It was a charming evening and Okakura was the success of the reception. When he started being introduced he was nothing but a professor. Before he had gone the rounds he had become an Asiatic prince and millionaire. He had the "grand manner" and wore gorgeous clothes on formal occasions. Some years later I called on his wife in Tokio. I considered this was the polite thing for me to do although Okakura himself was in Osaka at the time. Okakura had an art school in Tokio, kept up with the aid of the Government, where he was trying to fulfil his old ambition of preserving the individuality of his own people's work and of driving out Occidental encroachments. At the school, where we had gone with a guide who could serve also as interpreter, I asked for Madame. My request to see her was met with consternation. I was asking a great deal--how much, I did not realise until afterwards. Before I could enter, I was requested to take off my shoes. This I considered impossible as I was wearing high-laced boots. Furthermore, we were having winter weather, very cold and raw, and nothing was offered me to put on in their place, as the Japanese custom is at the entrances of the temples. My refusal to remove my shoes halted proceedings for a while; but, eventually, I was led around to a side porch where I could sit on a _chair_ (I was amazed at their having such a thing) and speak with the occupants of the house as they knelt inside on their heels. The _shoji_, or bamboo and paper screen, was pushed back, revealing an interior wonderfully clever in its simplicity. The furniture consisted of a beautiful brassier and two rare kakamonos on the wall--nothing more. In came Madame Okakura in a grey kimono and bare feet. Down she went on her knees and saluted me in the prettiest fashion imaginable. We talked through the interpreter until her daughter entered, who spoke to me in bad, limited French. The daughter was an unattractive girl, with an artificially reddened mouth, but I thought the mother charming, like a most exquisite Parisienne masquerading as a "Japanese Lady." Not long after my visit I saw Okakura himself and told him how much I had enjoyed seeing his wife. He gave me an annoyed glance and remained silent. I was nonplussed and somewhat mortified. I could not understand what could be the trouble, for he acted as if his honour were offended. In time I learned that the unpardonable breach of good form in Japan was to mention his wife to a Japanese! So graceful, so delicate in both expression and feeling are the letters that I have received from Okakura, that I cannot resist my inclination to include them in this chapter,--although, possibly, they are somewhat too personal. On January 4, 1887, he wrote: /* MY DEAR MISS KELLOGG: */ France lies three nights ahead of us. The returning clouds still seek the western shore and the ocean rolls back my dreams to you. Your music lives in my soul. I carry away America in your voice; and what better token can your nation offer? But praises to the great sound like flattery, and praises to the beautiful sound like love. To you they must both be tiresome. I shall refrain. You allude to the Eastern Lights. Alas, the Lamp of Love flickers and Night is on the plains of Osaka. There are lingering lights on the crown of the Himalayas, on the edges of the Kowrous, among the peaks of Hira and Kora. But what do they care for the twilight of the Valley? They stand like the ocean moon, regardless of the tempest below. Seek the light in the mansion of your own soul. Are you not yourself the _Spirit Nightingale of the West_? Are you not crying for the moon in union with your Emersons and Longfellows--with your La Farges and your Gilders? Or am I mistaken? I enclose my picture and submit the translation of the few lines on the back to your _axe of anger and the benevolence of your criticism_ as we say at home. I need a great deal of your benevolence and deserve more of your anger, as the lines sound so poor in the English. However they do not appear very grand in the original and so I submit them to your guillotine with a free conscience. The lines are different from the former, for I forget them--or care not to repeat. Will you kindly convey my best regards to Mrs. Gilder, for I owe so much to her, to say nothing of your friendship! Will you also condescend to write to me at your leisure? * * * * * (_Translation_:--One star floats into the ocean of Night. Past the back of Taurus, away among the Pleiades, whither dost thou go? Sadly I watch them all. My soul wanders after them into the infinite. Shall my soul return, or--never?) VIENNA, March 4, 1887. MY DEAR MISS KELLOGG: The home of a traveller is in his sweet memories. Under the shadow of Vesuvius and on the waters of Leman my thoughts were always for America, which you and your friends have made so pleasant to me. Pardon me therefore if my pen again turns toward you. How kind of you to remember me! Your letter reached me here last night and I regret that I did not stay longer in Paris to receive it sooner. Will you not favour me by writing again? Europe is an enigma--often a source of sadness to me. The forces that developed her are tearing her asunder. Is it because all civilisations are destined to have their days and nights of Brahma? Or was the principle that organised the European nations itself a false one? Did they grasp the moon in the waters and at last disturb the image? I know not. I only feel that the Spirit of Unrest is standing beside me. War is coming and must come, sooner or later. Conflicting opinions chase each other across the continent as if the demons fought in the air before the battle of men began. The policy of maintaining peace by increasing the armies is absurd. It is indeed a sad state of things to make such a sophism necessary. I am getting tired of this, though there is some consolation that there are more fools in the world than the Oriental. I have been rather disappointed in the French music. Perhaps I am too much prejudiced by _The Persian Serenade_ to appreciate anything else. The acting was artificial and there was no voice which had anything of the Spirit Nightingale in it. You once told me that you intended to cross the Atlantic this summer. When? My dreams are impatient of your arrival. May you come soon and correct my one-sided impression of Europe! I am going to Rome after two or three weeks' stay in this place. That city interests me deeply, as yet the spiritual centre of the West, whose voice still influences the politics of Central Europe. In May I shall be at the Paris Salon and cross over to London in the early part of June. It snows every day in Vienna and I spend my time mostly with the old doctors of the University. Their talks on philosophy and science are indeed interesting, but somehow or other I don't feel the delight I had in your society in New York. Why? July 12, 1887. MY DEAR MISS KELLOGG: I am very glad to hear that you are in Europe. My duties in London end this week and I have decided to start for Munich next morning, thence to Dresden and Berlin. I am thus looking forward to the great pleasure of meeting you again and gathering fragrance from your conversation. Mrs. Gilder wrote to me that you were not quite well since your tour in the West and my anxiety mingles with my hopes. The atmosphere of English civilisation weighs heavily on me and I am longing to be away. It seems that civilisation does not agree with a member of an Eastern barbaric tribe. My conception of music has been gradually changing. The Ninth Symphony has revolutionised it. Where is the future of music to be? Many questions crowd on me and I am impatient to lay them before you at Carlsbad. Will you allow me to do so? BERLIN. KAISERHAUF, July 24th. MY DEAR MISS KELLOGG: The Spirit of Unrest chases me northward. Dresden glided dimly before me. Holbein was a disappointment. The Sistine Madonna was divine beyond my expectation. I saw Raphael in his purity and was delighted. None of his pictures is so inspired as this. Still my thoughts wandered amid these grand creations. They flitted past in a shower of colours and shadows and I have drifted hither through the hazy forests of Heine and the troubled grey of Millet's twilight.... To me your friendship is the boat that bears me proudly home. I wait with pleasure any line you may send me there. Wishing every good to you, I remain yours respectfully. KAISERHAUF, July 28th, 1887. MY DEAR MISS KELLOGG: Ten thousand thanks for your kind letter. My address in Japan is Monbusho, Tokio, and if you will write to me there I shall be so happy! The task which I have imposed upon myself--the preserving of historical continuity and internal development, etc.,--has to work very slowly. I must be patient and cautious. Still I shall be delighted to confide to you from time to time how I am getting on with my dream if you will allow me to do so. You say that you have a hope of finding what you long for in Buddhism. Surely your lotus must be opening to the dawn. European philosophy has reached to a point where no advance is possible except through mysticism. Yet they ignore the hidden truths on limited scientific grounds. The Berlin University has thus been forced to return to Kant and begin afresh. They have destroyed but have no power to construct, and they never will if they refuse to _see_ more into themselves.... Hoping you the best and the brightest, I am Yours faithfully, OKAKURA KAKUDZO. And so I come to one of all these who was really a "sincere admirer," and a faithful lover, although I never knew him. It is a difficult incident to write of, for I feel that it holds some of the deepest elements of sentiment and of tragedy with which I ever came in touch. I was singing in Boston when a man sent me a message saying that he was connected with a newspaper and had something of great importance about which he wanted to see me. He furthermore said that he wished to see me alone. It was an extraordinary request and, at first, I refused. I suspected a subterfuge--a wager, or something humiliating of that sort. But he persisted, sending yet another message to the effect that he had something to communicate to me which was of an essentially personal nature. Finally I consented to grant him the interview and, as he had requested, I saw him alone. He was just back from the front where he had been war correspondent during the heart of the Civil War, and he told me that he had a letter to give to me from a soldier in his division who had been shot. The soldier was mortally wounded when the reporter found him. He was lying at the foot of a tree at the point of death, and the correspondent asked if he could take any last messages for him to friends or relatives. The soldier asked him to write down a message to take to a woman whom he had loved for four years, but who did not know of his love. "Tell her," he said, speaking with great difficulty, "that I would not try even to meet her; but that I have loved her, before God, as well as any man ever loved a woman." He asked the reporter to feel inside his uniform for the woman's picture. "It is Miss Kellogg," he added, just before he died. "You--don't think that she will be offended if I send her this message--now--do you?" He asked the correspondent to draw his sabre and cut off a lock of hair to send to me, and the reporter wrote down the message on the only scraps of paper at his disposal--torn bits scribbled over with reports of the enemy's movements, and the names of other dead soldiers whose people must be notified when the battle was over. And then the soldier--my soldier--died; and the correspondent left him the picture and came away. The scribbled message and the lock of hair he put into my hands, saying: "He was very much worried lest you would think him presumptuous. I told him that I was sure you would not." I was weeping as he spoke, and so he left me. CHAPTER XXI ON THE ROAD Oh, those first tours! Not only was it exceedingly uncomfortable to travel in the South and West at that time, but it was decidedly risky as well. Highway robberies were numerous and, although I myself never happened to suffer at the hands of any desperadoes, I have often heard first-hand accounts from persons who had been robbed of everything they were carrying. While I was touring in Missouri, Jesse James and his men were operating in the same region and the celebrated highway man himself was once in the train with me. I slipped quietly through to catch a glimpse of him in the smoking-car. Two of his "aides" were with him and, although they were behaving themselves peacefully enough for the time being, I think that most of the passengers were willing to give them a wide berth. During one concert trip of our company I saw something of a situation which might have developed dramatically. There was a "three card monte" gang working on the train. One of their number pretended to be a farmer and entirely innocent, so as to lure victims into the game. I saw this particularly tough-looking individual disappear into the toilet room and come out made up as the farmer. It was like a play. I also saw him finger a pistol that he was carrying in his right hip pocket: and I experienced a somewhat blood-thirsty desire that there might be a genuine excitement in store for us, but the alarm spread and nobody was snared that trip. As there were frequently no through trains on Sundays, we had sometimes to have special trains. I never quite understood the idea of not having through trains on Sundays, for surely other travellers besides unfortunate singers need occasionally to take journeys on the Sabbath. But so it was. And once our "special" ran plump into a big strike of locomotive engineers at Dayton, Ohio. Our engine driver was held up by the strikers bivouacked in the railroad yards and we were stalled there for hours. At last an engineer from the East was found who consented to take our train through and there was much excitement while he was being armed with a couple of revolvers and plenty of ammunition, for the strikers had threatened to shoot down any "scab" who attempted to break the strike. We were all ordered to get down on the floor of the car to avoid the stones that might be thrown through the windows when we started; and when the train began to move slowly our situation was decidedly trying. We could hear a hail of shots being fired, as the engine gathered speed, but our volunteer engineer knew his business and had been authorised to drive the engine at top speed to get us out of the trouble, so soon the noise of shooting and the general uproar were left behind. The plucky strike-breaker was barely grazed, but I, personally, never cared to come any closer to lawlessness than I was then. There were some bright spots on these disagreeable journeys. One day as I was coming out of a hall in Duluth where I had been rehearsing for the concert we were giving that evening, I ran into a man I knew, an Englishman whom I had not seen since I was in London. "There!" he exclaimed, "I knew it was you!" "Did you see the advertisement?" I asked. "No," he returned, "I'm just off the yacht that's lying out there in the Lake. I'm out looking into some mining interests, you know. I heard your voice from the boat and I knew it must be you, so I thought I'd take a run on shore and look you up." But such pleasant experiences were the exception. The South in general was in a particularly blind and dull condition just then. The people could not conceive of any amusement that was not intended literally to "amuse." They felt it incumbent to laugh at everything. My _cheval de bataille_ was the Polonaise from _Mignon_, at the end of which I had introduced some chromatic trills. It is a wonderful piece and required a great deal of genuine technique to master. A portion of the house would appreciate it, of course, but on one occasion a detestable young couple thought the trills were intended to be humorous. Whenever I sang a trill they would poke each other in the ribs and giggle and, when there was a series of the chromatic trills, they nearly burst. The chromatics introduced by me were never written. They went like this: [Illustration: Musical notation.] One disapproving unit in an audience can spoil a whole evening for a singer. I recall one concert when I was obsessed by a man in the front row. He would not even look at me. Possibly he considered that I was a spoiled creature and he did not wish to aid and abet the spoiling, or, perhaps, he was really bored and disgusted. At any rate, he kept his eyes fixed on a point high over my head and not with a beatific expression, either. He clearly did not think much of my work. Well--I sang my whole programme to that one man. And I was a failure. Charmed I ever so wisely, I could not really move him. But I _did_ make him uncomfortable! He wriggled and sat sidewise and clearly was uneasy. He must have felt that I was trying to win him over in spite of himself. I sometimes wonder if other singers do the same with obdurate auditors? Surely they must, for it is a sort of fetish of the profession that there is always one person present who is by far the most difficult to charm. In that clever play _The Concert_ the pianist tells the young woman in love with him that he was first interested in her when he saw her in the audience because she did not cry. He played his best in order to moisten her eyes and, when he saw a tear roll down her cheek, he knew that he had triumphed as an artist. Our audiences were frequently inert and indiscriminating. One night an usher brought me a programme from some one in the audience with a suggestion scribbled on the margin: "Can't you sing something devilish for a change?" I believe they really wanted a song and dance, or a tight-rope exhibition. We had a baritone who sang well "The Evening Star" from _Tannhauser_ and his performance frequently ended in a chill silence with a bit of half-hearted clapping. He had a sense of humour and he used to come off the stage and say: "That didn't go very well! Do you think I'd better do my bicycle act next?" [Illustration: <p>Clara Louise Kellogg as Carmen</p> From a photograph] Times change and standards with them. The towns where they yearned for bicycle acts and "something devilish" are to-day centres of musical taste and cultivation. I never think of the change of standards without being reminded of an old tale of my father's which is curious in itself, although I cannot vouch for it nor verify it. He said that somewhere in Germany there was a bell in a church tower which, when it was first hung, many years before, was pitched in the key of _C_ and which was found to ring, in the nineteenth century, according to our present pitch, at about our _B_ flat. The musical scientists said that the change was not in the bell but in our own standard of pitch, which had been gradually raised by the manufacturers of pianos who pitched them higher and higher to get a more brilliant tone. My throat was very sensitive in those days. I took cold easily and used, besides, to be subject to severe nervous headaches. Yet I always managed to sing. Indeed, I have never had much sympathy with capricious _prime donne_ who consider themselves and their own physical feelings before their obligation to the public that has paid to hear them. While, of course, in fairness to herself, a singer must somewhat consider her own interests, I do believe that she cannot be too conscientious in this connection. In _Carmen_ one night I broke my collar bone in the fall in the last act. I was still determined to do my part and went out, after it had been set, and bought material to match my costumes so that the sling the surgeon had ordered should not be noticed. And, for once fortunately, my audiences were either not exacting or not observing, for, apparently, no comment was ever made on the fact that I could not use my right arm. I could not help questioning whether my gestures were usually so wooden that an arm, more or less, was not perceptible! Our experiences in general with physicians on the road were lamentable. As a result my mother carried a regular medicine chest about with her and all of my fellow-artists used to come to her when anything was the matter with them. Another hardship that we all had to endure was the being on exhibition. It is one of the penalties of fame. Special trains were most unusual, and so were _prime donne_, and crowds used to gather on the station platforms wherever we stopped, waiting to catch a glimpse of us as we passed through. And the food! Some of our trials in regard to food--or, rather, the lack of it--were very trying. Voices are very dependent on the digestion; hence the need of, at least, eatable food, however simple it may be. On one trip we really nearly starved to death for, of course, there were no dining-cars and the train did not stop at any station long enough to forage for a square meal. Finally, in desperation, I told one of the men in the company that, if he would get some "crude material" at the next stop and bring it in, I would cook it. So he succeeded in securing a huge bundle of raw chops, a loaf of bread and some butter. There was a big stove at one end of the car and on its coals I broiled the chops, made tea and toast, and we all feasted. Indeed, it seemed a feast after ten hours with nothing at all! Another time I got off our "special" to hunt luncheon and was left behind. I raced wildly to catch the train but could not make it. After a while the company discovered that they had lost me on the way and backed up to get me. Speaking of food, I shall never forget the battle royal I once had with a hotel manager on the road in regard to my coloured maid, Eliza. She was a very nice and entirely presentable girl and he would not let her have even a cup of tea in the dining-room. We had had a long, hard journey, and she was quite as tired as the rest of us. So, when I found her still waiting after I had lunched, I made a few pertinent remarks to the effect that her presence at the table was much to be preferred to the men who had eaten there without table manners, uncouth, feeding themselves with their knives. "And what else did we have the war for!" I finally cried. How the others laughed at me. But Eliza was fed, and well fed, too. I had always to carry my own bedclothes on the Western tours. When we first started out, I did not realise the necessity, but later, I became wiser. Cleanliness has always been almost more than godliness to me. Before I would use a dressing-room I nearly always had it thoroughly swept out and sometimes cleaned and scrubbed. This all depended on the part of the country we were in. I came to know that in certain sections of the South-west I should have to have a regular house-cleaning done before I would set foot in their accommodations. I missed my bath desperately, and my piano, and all the other luxuries that have become practical necessities to civilised persons. When I could not have a state-room on a train, my maid would bring a cup of cold water to my berth before I dressed that was a poor apology for a bath, but that saved my life on many a morning after a long, stuffy night in a sleeper. The lesser hardships perhaps annoyed me most. Bad food, bad air, rough travelling, were worse than the more serious ills of fatigue and indispositions. But the worst of all was the water. One can, at a pinch, get along with poor food or with no food at all to speak of, but bad water is a much more serious matter. Even dirt is tolerable if it can be washed off afterwards. But I have seen many places where the water was less inviting than the dirt. When I first beheld Missouri water I hardly dared wash in it, much less drink it, and was appalled when it was served to me at the table. I gazed with horror at the brown liquid in my tumbler, and then said faintly to the waiter: "Can't you get me some clear water, please?" "Oh, yes," said he, "it'll be clearer, ma'am, _but it won't be near so rich_!" And all the time I was working, for, no matter what the hardships or distractions that may come an artist's way, he or she must always keep at work. Singing is something that must be worked for just as hard after it is won as during the winning process. Liszt is supposed to have said that when he missed practising one day he knew it; when he missed two days his friends knew it; on the third day the public knew it. I often rehearsed before a mirror, so that I could know whether I looked right as well as sounded right; and, _apropos_ of this, I have been much impressed by the fact that ways of rehearsing are very different and characteristic. Ellen Terry once told me that, when she had a new part to study, she generally got into a closed carriage, with the window open, and was driven about for two or three hours, working on her lines. "It is the only way I can keep my repose," she said. "I only wish I had some of Henry's repose when studying a part!" [Illustration: =Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry as the Vicar and Olivia= From a photograph by Window & Grove] CHAPTER XXII LONDON AGAIN After nearly three years of concert and oratorio and racketing about America on tours, it was a joy to go to England again for another season. The Peace Jubilee Association asked me to sing at their celebration in Boston that spring, but I went to London instead. The offer from the Association was a great compliment, however, and especially the wording of the resolution as communicated to me by the secretary. "Unanimously voted:--That Miss Clara Louise Kellogg, the leading _prima donna_ of America, receive the special invitation of the Executive Committee, etc." The spring season in London was well along when we arrived there and, before I had been in the city a day, I began to feel at home again. Newcastle and Dr. Quinn called almost immediately and Alfred Rothschild sent me flowers, all of which made me realize that this was really England once more and that I was among old and dear friends. I was again to sing under Mapleson's management. The new opera house, built on the site of Her Majesty's that had burned, was highly satisfactory; and he had nearly all of his old singers again--Titjiens, Nilsson, and myself among others. Patti and Lucca were still our rivals at Covent Garden; also Faure and Cotogni; and there was a pretty, young, new singer from Canada with them, Mme. Albani, who had a light, sweet voice and was attractive in appearance. Our two innovations at Her Majesty's were Marie Roze from the Paris Opera Comique--later destined to be associated with me professionally and with Mapleson personally--and Italo Campanini. Campanini was the son of a blacksmith in Italy and had worked at the forge himself for many years before going on the stage, and was the hero of the hour, for not only was his voice a very lovely one, but he was also a fine actor. It was worth while to see his Don José. People forgot that Carmen herself was in the opera. Our other tenor was Capoul, the Frenchman, Trebelli-Bettini was our leading contralto and my friend Foli--"the Irish Italian from Connecticut"--was still with us. Campanini, the idol of the town, was, like most tenors, enormously pleased with himself. To be sure, he had some reason, with his heavenly voice, his dramatic gift, and his artistic instinct; but one would like some day to meet a man gifted with a divine vocal organ and a simple spirit both, at the same time. It appears to be an impossible combination. When Mapleson told Campanini that he was to sing with me in _Lucia_ he frowned and considered the point. "An American," he muttered doubtfully. "I have never heard her--do I know that she can sing? I--Campanini--cannot sing with a _prima donna_ of whom I know nothing! Who is this Miss Kellogg anyway?" "You're quite right," said the Colonel with the most cordial air of assent. "You'd better hear her before you decide. She's singing Linda to-night. Go into the stalls and listen to her for a few moments. If you don't want to sing with her, you don't have to." That evening Campanini was on hand, ready to controvert the very idea of an American _prima donna_ daring to sing with him. After the first act he came out into the foyer and ran into the Colonel. "Well," remarked that gentleman casually, winking at Jarrett, "can she sing?" "Sing?" said Campanini solemnly, "she has the voice of a flute. It is the absolutely perfect tone. It is a--miracle!" So, after all, Campanini and I sang together that season in _Lucia_ and in other operas. While Campanini was a great artist, he was a very petty man in many ways. A little incident when Capoul was singing _Faust_ one night is illustrative. Capoul, much admired and especially in America, was intensely nervous and emotional with a quick temper. Between him and Italo Campanini a certain rivalry had been developing for some time, and, whatever may be asserted to the contrary, male singers are much bitterer rivals than women ever are. On the night I speak of, Campanini came into his box during the _Salve dimora_ and set down to listen. As Capoul sang, the Italian's face became lined with a frown of annoyance and, after a moment or two, he began to drum on the rail before him as if he could not conceal his exasperation and _ennui_. The longer Capoul sang, the louder and more irritated the tapping became until most of the audience was unkind enough to laugh just a little. Poor Capoul tried, in vain, to sing down that insistent drumming, and, when the act was over, he came behind the scenes and actually cried with rage. On what might be called my second _début_ in London, I had an ovation almost as warm as my welcome home to my native land had been three years before. I had forgotten how truly the English people were my friends until I heard the applause which greeted me as I walked onto the stage that night in _Linda di Chamouix_. Sir Michael Costa, who was conducting that year, was always an irascible and inflexible autocrat when it came to operatic rules and ideals. One of the points of observance upon which he absolutely insisted was that the opera must never be interrupted for applause. Theoretically this was perfectly correct; but nearly all good rules are made to be broken once in a while and it was quite obvious that the audience intended this occasion to be one of the times. Sir Michael went on leading his orchestra and the people in front went on clapping until the whole place became a pandemonium. The house at last, and while still applauding, began to hiss the orchestra so that, after a minute of a tug-of-war effect, Sir Michael was obliged to lay down his baton--although with a very bad grace--and let the applause storm itself out. I could see him scowling at me as I bowed and smiled and bowed again, nearly crying outright at the friendliness of my welcome. There were traitors in his own camp, too, for, as soon as the baton was lowered, half the orchestra--old friends mostly--joined in the applause! Sir Michael never before had broken through his rule; and I do not fancy he liked me any the better for being the person to force upon him this one exception. I include here a letter written to someone in America just after this performance by Bennett of _The London Telegraph_ that pleased me extremely, both for its general appreciative friendliness and because it was a _résumé_ of the English press and public regarding my former and my present appearance in England. Miss Kellogg has not been forgotten during the years which intervened, and not a few _habitués_ cherished a hope that she would be led across the Atlantic once more. She was, however, hardly expected to measure herself against the _crème-de-la-crème_ of the world's _prime donne_ with no preliminary beat of drum and blowing of trumpet, trusting solely to her own gifts and to the fairness of an English public. This she did, however, and all the English love of "pluck" was stirred to sympathy. We felt that here was a case of the real Anglo-Saxon determination, and Miss Kellogg was received in a manner which left nothing of encouragement to be desired. Defeat under such circumstances would have been honourable, but Miss Kellogg was not defeated. So far from this, she at once took a distinguished place in our galaxy of "stars"; rose more and more into favour with each representation, and ended, as Susannah in _Le Nozze di Figaro_ by carrying off the honours from the Countess of Mlle. Titjiens and the Cherubino of Mlle. Nilsson. A greater achievement than this last Miss Kellogg's ambition could not desire. It was "a feather in her cap" which she will proudly wear back to her native land as a trophy of no ordinary conflict and success. You may be curious to know the exact grounds upon which we thus honour your talented countrywoman, and in stating them I shall do better than were I to criticise performances necessarily familiar. In the first place, we recognise in Miss Kellogg an artist, and not a mere singer. People of the latter class are plentiful enough, and are easily to be distinguished by the way in which they "reel" off their task--a way brilliant, perhaps, but exciting nothing more than the admiration due to efficient mechanism. The artist, on the other hand, shows in a score of forms that he is more than a machine and that something of human feeling may be made to combine with technical correctness. Herein lies the great charm often, perhaps, unconsciously acknowledged, of Miss Kellogg's efforts. We know at once, listening to her, that she sings from the depth of a keenly sensitive artistic nature, and never did anybody do this without calling out a sympathetic response. It is not less evident that Miss Kellogg is a consummate musician--that "rare bird" on the operatic boards. Hence, her unvarying correctness; her lively appreciation of the composer in his happiest moments, and the manner in which she adapts her individual efforts to the production of his intended effects. Lastly, without dwelling upon the charm of a voice and style perfectly well known to you and ungrudgingly recognised here, we see in Miss Kellogg a dramatic artist who can form her own notion of a part and work it out after a distinctive fashion. Anyone able to do this comes with refreshing effect at a time when the lyric stage is covered with pale copies of traditionary excellence. It was refreshing, for example, to witness Miss Kellogg's Susannah, an embodiment full of realism without coarseness and _esprit_ without exaggeration. Susannahs, as a rule, try to be ladylike and interesting. Miss Kellogg's waiting-maid was just what Beaumarchais intended, and the audience recognised the truthful picture only to applaud it. For all these reasons, and for more which I have no space to name, we do honour to the American _prima donna_, so that whenever you can spare her on your side we shall be happy to welcome her on ours. It was during this season in London that Max Maretzek and Max Strakosch decided to go into opera management together in America; and Maretzek came over to London to get the company together. Pauline Lucca and I were to be the _prime donne_ and one of our novelties was to be Gounod's new opera _Mireille_, founded on the poem by the Provençal poet, Mistral. I say "new opera" because it was still unknown in America; possibly because it had been a failure in London where it had already been produced. "The Magnificent" thought it would be sure to do well in "the States" on account of the wild Gounod vogue that had been started by _Faust_ and _Romeo and Juliette_. [Illustration: First edition of the _Faust_ score, published in 1859 by Chousens of Paris, now in the Boston Public Library] I was to sing it; and Colonel Mapleson sent Mr. Jarrett with me to call on Gounod, who was then living in London, to get what points I could from the master himself. Everybody who knows anything about Gounod knows also about Mrs. Welldon. Georgina Welldon, the wife of an English officer, was an exceedingly eccentric character to say the least. Even the most straight-laced biographers refer to the "romantic friendship" between the composer and this lady--which, after all, is as good a way as any of tagging it. She ran a sort of school for choristers in London and had, I believe, some idea of training the poor boys of the city to sing in choirs. Her house was usually full of more or less musical youngsters. She was, also, something of a musical publisher and the organiser of a woman's musical association, whether for orchestral or choral music I am not quite certain. From this it will be seen that she was, at heart, a New Woman, although her activities were in a period that was still old-fashioned. If she were in her prime to-day, she would undoubtedly be a militant suffragette. She was also noted for the lawsuits in which she figured; one particular case dragging along into an unconscionable length of time and being much commented upon in the newspapers. Gounod and she lived in Tavistock Place, in the house where Dickens lived so long and that is always associated with his name. On the occasion of our call, Mr. Jarrett and I were ushered into a study, much littered and crowded, to wait for the great man. It proved to be a somewhat long drawn-out wait, for the household seemed to be in a state of subdued turmoil. We could hear voices in the hall; some one was asking about a music manuscript for the publishers. Suddenly, a woman flew into the room where we were sitting. She was unattractive and unkempt; she wore a rumpled and soiled kimono; her hair was much tousled; her bare feet were thrust into shabby bedroom slippers; and she did not look in the least as if she had had her bath. Indeed, I am expressing her appearance mildly and politely! She made a dive for the master's writing-table, gathered up some papers--sorting and selecting with lightning speed and an air of authority--and then darted out of the room as rapidly as she had entered. It was, of course, Mrs. Welldon, of whom I had heard so much and whom I had pictured as a fascinating woman. This is the nearest I ever came to meeting this person who was so conspicuous a figure of her day, although I have seen her a few other times. When dressed for the street she was most ordinary looking. Gounod was in the house, it developed, all the time that we waited, although he could not attend to us immediately. He was living like a recluse so far as active professional or social life was concerned, but he was a very busy man and beset with all manner of duties. When he at last came to us, he greeted us with characteristic French courtesy. His manners were exceedingly courtly. He was grey-haired, charming, and very quiet. I think he was really shy. With apologies, he opened his letters, and, while giving orders and hearing messages, a pretty incident occurred. A young girl, very graceful and sweet looking, came into the room. She hurried forward with a little, impulsive movement and, curtseying deeply to Gounod, seized one of his hands in both of hers and raised it to her lips. "_Cher maître!_" she murmured adoringly, and flitted away, the master following her with a smiling glance. It was Nita Giatano, an American, afterwards Mrs. Moncrieff, now the widow of an English officer, who was studying with Gounod and living there and who, later, became fairly well known as a singer. Then Gounod proceeded to say pleasant things about my _Marguerite_ and was interested in hearing that I was planning to do _Mireille_. We then and there went over the music together and he gave me an annotated score of _Mireille_ with his autograph and marginal directions. I treasured it for years afterwards; and a most tragic fate overtook it at last. I sent it to a book-binder to be bound, and, when the score came back, did not immediately look through it. It was some time later, indeed, that I opened it to show it off to someone to whom I had been speaking of the precious notes and autograph. I turned page after page--there were no notes. I looked at the title page--there was no signature. That wretched book-binder had not scrupled to substitute a new and valueless score for my beloved copy, and had doubtless sold the original, with Gounod's autograph and annotations, to some collector for a pretty sum. When I tried to hunt the man up, I found that he had gone out of business and moved away. He was not to be found and I have never been able to regain my score. _Mireille_ was not given for several years, as affairs turned out, and I rather congratulated myself that this was so, for it was not one of Gounod's best productions. I once met Mme. Gounod in Paris, or, rather, in its environs, at a garden party given at the Menier--the Chocolat Menier--place. She was a well-mannered, commonplace Frenchwoman, rather colourless and uninteresting. I came to understand that even Georgina Welldon, with her untidy kimono and her lawsuits, might have been more entertaining. I asked Gounod, on this occasion, to play some of the music of _Romeo and Juliette_. He did so and, at the end, said: "I see you like my children!" Gounod was chiefly famous in London for the delightful recitals he gave from time to time of his own music. He had no voice, but he could render programmes of his own songs with great success. Everybody was enthusiastic over the beautiful and intricate accompaniments that were such a novelty. He was so splendid a musician that he could create a more charming effect without a voice than another man could have achieved with the notes of an angel. Poor Gounod, like nearly all creative genuises, had a great many bitter struggles before he obtained recognition. Count Fabri has told me that, while _Faust_ (the opera which he sold for twelve hundred dollars) was running to packed houses and the whole world was applauding it, Gounod himself was really in need. His music publisher met him in the streets of Paris, wearing a wretched old hat and looking very seedy. "Why on earth," cried the publisher, "don't you get a new hat?" "I did not make enough on _Faust_ to pay for one," was the bitter answer. CHAPTER XXIII THE SEASON WITH LUCCA After the London season and before returning to America we went to Switzerland for a brief holiday. During this little trip there occurred a pleasing and somewhat quaint incident. On the Grünewald Glacier we met a young Italian-Swiss mountaineer who earned his living by making echoes from the crags with a big horn and by the national art of yodeling. There was one particular echo which was the pride of the region and, the day we were exploring the glacier, he did not call it forth as well as usual. Although he tried several times, we could distinguish very little echo. Finally, acting on a sudden impulse, I stood up in our carriage and yodeled for him, ending with a long trill. The high, pure air exhilarated me and made me feel that I could do absolutely anything in the world with my voice, and I actually struck one or two of the highest and strongest notes that I ever sang in my life and one of the best trills. The echoes came rippling back to us with wonderful effect. The young mountaineer took off his Tyrolean hat and bowed to me deeply. "Ah, mademoiselle!" he said, "if I could call into being such an echo, my fortune here would be made!" Our stay there was all too short to please me and the day soon came for us to start for home. We crossed on the _Cuba_ of the Cunard Line, and a very poor steamer she was. It was not in the least an interesting trip. There was no social intercourse, because all the passengers were too seasick to talk or even to listen. It seemed to them like a personal affront for anyone not to succumb to _mal de mer_. "You mean thing," one woman said to me, "why aren't you seasick!" Our passenger list was, however, a somewhat striking one. Rubenstein and Wieniawski were on board and Clara Doria; Mark Smith, the actor; Edmund Yeats and Maddox, the editor whom I had known in London, and, of course, Pauline Lucca. She was registered as the Baroness von Raden and had her baby with her--the one generally believed to have a royal father--and, with her baby and her seasickness, was very much occupied. Her father and mother accompanied her. Lucca, as we know, had been a ballerina. Her toes were all twisted and deformed by her early years of dancing. She once showed them to me, a pitiful record of the triumphs of a ballet dancer. There was something of the ballerina in her temperament, also, which she never entirely outgrew. Certainly she was far from being a _prima donna_ type. An irresistible sense of fun made her a most amusing companion; and her charm lay largely in her unexpectedness. One never could guess what she was going to do or say next. I recall an incident that occurred a little later in Chicago that illustrates this. A very handsome music critic--I will not mention his name--came behind the scenes one night to see us. He was a grave young man, with a brown beard and beautiful eyes, and his appearance gave a vague sense of familiarity as if we had seen it in some well-known picture. Yet I could not place the resemblance. Lucca stood off at a little distance studying him owlishly for a minute or two as he was chatting to me in the wings. Presently she whisked up to him with her brown eyes dancing and, looking up at him in the drollest way, said laughingly: "And how do you do, my Jesus Christ!" On this voyage home I saw more or less of Edmund Yeats who kept us amused with a steady flow of witty talk and who kept up an equally steady flow of brandy and soda, and of Maddox who was not seasick and was willing to both walk and talk. Maddox was an interesting man, with many strange stories to tell of things and people famous and well-known. Among other personalities we discussed Adelaide Neilson, whose real name, by the way, was Mary Ann Rogers. I was speaking of her refinement and pretty manners on the stage, her gracious and yet unassuming fashion of accepting applause, and her general air of good breeding, when Maddox told me, to my great astonishment, that this was more remarkable than I could possibly imagine since the charming actress had come from the most disadvantageous beginnings. She had, in fact, led a life that is generally characterised as "unfortunate" and it was while she was in this life that Maddox first met her, and, finding the girl full of ambition and aspirations toward something higher, had put her in the way of cultivating herself and her talents. These facts as told me by Maddox have always remained in my mind, not in the least to Neilson's discredit, but quite the reverse, for they only make her charming and artistic achievements all the more admirable. I have always enjoyed watching her. She was always just diffident enough without being self-conscious. It used to be pretty to see her from a box where I could look at her behind the scenes compose herself before taking a curtain call. She would slip into the mood of the part that she had just been playing and that she wished still to suggest to the audience. Which reminds me that Henry Irving once told me that he and Miss Terry did exactly this same thing. "We always try to keep within the picture even after the act is over," he said. "An actor should never take his call in his own character, but always in that which he has been personating." On the whole the particular trip of which I am now speaking stands out dominantly in my memory because of Rubenstein. I never, never saw anyone so seasick, nor anyone so completely depressed by the fact. Poor creature! He swore, faintly, that he would never cross the ocean again even to get home! Occasionally he would talk feebly, but his spirit was completely broken. I have not the faintest idea what Rubenstein was like when he was not seasick. He may have sparkled consummately in a normal condition; but he did not sparkle on the _Cuba_. The Lucca-Kellogg season which followed was not a comfortable one, but it netted us large receipts. The work was arduous, the operas heavy, and the management was up to its ears in contentions and jealousies. New York was in a musical fever during the early seventies. We were just finding out how to be musical and it was a great and pleasurable excitement. We were pioneers, and enjoyed it, and were happy in not being hide-bound by traditions as were the older countries, because we had none. One of the season's sensations was Senorita Sanz, a Spanish contralto, whose voice was not unlike that of Adelaide Phillips. She was a beautiful woman and a good actress, and, above all, she had the true Spanish temperament, languid, exotic and yet fiery. Her Azucena was a fine performance; and she created a tremendous _furore_ with La Paloma, which was then a novelty. She used to sing it at Sunday night concerts and set the audiences wild with: [Illustration: Musical notation; Cuan-do...... sa-lí de lo Ha-ba-na Vál-ga-me Dios!] Lucca's operas for the season were _Faust_, _Traviata_, _L'Africaine_, _Fra Diavolo_ and _La Figlia del Regimento_. Mine were _Trovatore_, _Traviata_, _Crispano_, _Linda_ and _Martha_, and _Don Giovanni_. It was to Lucca's _Zerlina_ that I first sang Donna Anna in _Don Giovanni_; and, as in the big concert at the Coliseum my friends had felt some doubts as to the carrying power of my voice, so now many persons expected the _rôle_ to be too heavy for me. But I believe I succeeded in proving the contrary. When we did _Le Nozze di Figaro_, Lucca was the Cherubino, making the quaintest looking of boys and much resembling one of Raphael's cherubs in his painting of the _Sistine Madonna_. Personally, the relations between Lucca and myself were always amicable enough; but we had certain professional frictions, brought about, indeed, by Jarrett who, although he was nothing but an agent and an indifferent one at that, was generally regarded as an authority, and gave out critiques to the newspapers. It so happened that, without my knowledge, the monopoly of singing in _Faust_ was in her contract and I was so prevented from singing Marguerite once during our entire engagement. As Marguerite was my _rôle_ pre-eminently, by right of conquest, in America, I felt very hurt and angry about the matter and, at first, wanted to resign from the company, but, of course, was talked out of that attitude. Jarrett would not, however, consent to my even alternating with Lucca in the part; but possibly he was wise in this as Marguerite was never one of her best personations. She played a very impulsive and un-German Gretchen, in spite of herself, being an Austrian by birth. One of the newspapers said that "she fell in love with Faust at first sight and the Devil was a useless article!" Her characterisation of the part was somewhat devilish in itself; her work was striking, effective, and _piquant_, but not touched by much distinction. The difference between our presentations was said to be that I "convinced by a refined perfection of detail" and Lucca by more vivid qualities. Indeed, our voices and methods were so dissimilar that we never felt any personal rivalry, whatever the critics said to the contrary. As one man justly expressed it: "Neither Lucca nor Kellogg has the talent for quarrelling." There were, of course, rival factions in our public. A man one night sent a note behind the scenes to me containing this message: "Poor Kellogg! you have no chance at all with Lucca!" Two days later Mme. Lucca came to me laughing and said that some one had asked her: "How do you dare to sing on the same bill with Miss Kellogg, the American favourite?" [Illustration: =Newspaper Print of the Kellogg-Lucca Season= Drawn by Jos. Keppler] So interesting did our supposed rivalry become, however, as to excite considerable newspaper comment. In reply to one of these in _The Chicago Tribune_ a contributor answered: _To the Editor of The Chicago Tribune_: SIR: In your issue of this morning, there is an editorial headed "Operatic Failure," which is, in some respects, so unjust and one-sided as to call for an immediate protest against its injustice. Having taken your ideas from _The New York Herald_, and having no other source of information, it is not to be wondered at that you should fall into error. For reasons best known to Mr. James Gordon Bennett, _The New York Herald_, since the commencement of the Jarrett-Maretzek season, has undertaken to write up Madame Lucca at the expense of every other artist connected with the troupe; and it is because of _The Herald's_ fulsome laudations of Lucca, and its outrageously untruthful criticisms of Kellogg, that much of the trouble has occurred. Of the two ladies, Kellogg is by far the superior singer. Lucca has much dramatic force, but, in musical culture, is not equal to her sister artist, and there is no jealousy on the part of either lady of the other. The facts are these: The management, taking their cue from _The Herald_, and being afraid of the power of Mr. Bennett, tried to shelve Kellogg, and the result has been that the dear public would not permit the injustice, and they, the managers, as well as _The Herald_, are amazed and angered at the result of their dirty work. OPERA. Chicago, Oct. 28, 1872. Lucca and I gave _Mignon_ that season together, she playing the part of Mignon and I that of Felina, the cat. Mignon was always a favourite part of my own, a sympathetic _rôle_ filled with poetry and sentiment. When I first studied it, I most carefully read _Wilhelm Meister_, upon which it is founded. Regarding the part of Felina, I have often wondered that people have never been more perceptive than they appear to have been of the analogy between her name and her qualities, for she has all of the characteristics of the feline species. Our dual star bill in the opera was highly successful and effective in spite of Jarrett's continual attacks upon me through the press and in every way open to him. He did me a particularly cruel turn about Felina. I started off in the _rôle_, the opening night, in what I still believe to have been the correct interpretation. _Wilhelm Meister_ was set in a finicky period and its characters wore white wigs and minced about in their actions. My part was all comedy and the gestures should have been little and dainty and somewhat constrained. So I played it, until I saw this criticism, written by one of Jarrett's creatures, "Miss Kellogg has no freedom of movement in the _rôle_ of Felina, etc." My mother, always anxious for me to profit by criticism that might have value, said that perhaps the man was right. At any rate, between the two, I became so self-conscious that the next time I sang Felina I could not get into the mood of it at all. Not to seem restricted in gesture, I waved my arms as if I were in _Norma_; and the performance was a very poor one in consequence. Yet, in spite of Jarrett's machinations, it was said of me in the press of the day: " ...Her rendering of Felina was a magnificent success. From the first scene on the balcony until her light-hearted laughter dies away, she is a vision of beauty and grace, appealing to every high aesthetic emotion and charming all hearts with her sweetness." [Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg in _Mignon_= From a photograph by Mora] Furthermore, an eminent Shakespearean critic, writing then, said: As an actress, Miss Kellogg's superiority cannot justly be questioned. Some things are exquisitely represented by the fair Swede, Miss Nilsson, such as the dazed look, the stupefaction caused by a great shock, like that of the death of Valentin, for instance; such as the madness to which the distracting conflict of many selfish feelings and passions leads. But she is always circumscribed by her own consciousness. Her soul never passes beyond that limit--never surrounds her--filling the stage and infecting the audience with a magnetic atmosphere which is a part of herself, or herself transfused, if such expressions be allowable. In this respect Miss Kellogg is very different and greatly superior. Her sympathies are large. She conceives well the effects of the warmer and more generous passions upon the person who feels them. She can, by the force of her imagination, abandon herself to these influences, and, by her artistic skill, give them apt expression. She can cease to be self-conscious, and feel but the fictitious consciousness of the personage whom she represents, while the force of her own illusion magnetises her auditors till they respond like well-tuned harps to every chord of feeling which she strikes. Such notices, such critiques, were compensations! Taken as a whole, Felina was a successful part for me; largely on account of that piece of glittering generalities, the Polonaise. In this, according to one critic, "she aroused the admiration of her auditors to a condition that was really a tempestuous _furore_." So, as I say, there were compensations for Jarrett's unkindnesses. CHAPTER XXIV ENGLISH OPERA The idea of giving opera in English has always interested me. I never could understand why there were any more reasons against giving an English version of _Carmen_ in New York than against giving a French version of _Die Freischütz_ in Paris or a German version of _La Belle Hélène_ in Berlin. To be sure, it goes without saying, from a purist point of view it is a patent truth, that no libretto is ever so fine after it has been translated. Not only does the quality and spirit of the original evaporate in the process of translating, but, also, the syllables come wrong. Who has not suffered from the translations of foreign songs into which the translator has been obliged to introduce secondary notes to fit the extra syllables of the clumsily adapted English words? These are absolute objections to the performance of any operas or songs in a language other than the one to which the composer first set his music. Wagner in French is a joke; so is Goethe in Italian. A musician of my acquaintance once spoke of Strauss's _Salome_ as a case in point, although it is a queerly inverse one. "Oscar Wilde's French poem or play--whichever you like to call it--" he said, "was translated into German; and it was this translation, or so it is generally understood, that Strauss set to music. When the opera--a French opera in spirit, taken from French text that was most Frenchly treated--was given with Oscar Wilde's original French words, the music often seemed to go haltingly, as though it had been adopted to phrases for which it had not been composed." Several notable singers have recently entered a protest against giving opera in English. Miss Garden--admirable and spontaneous artist though she be--once wrote an article in which she cited _Madame Butterfly_ as an example of the inartistic effects of English librettos. I do not recall her exact words, but they referred to the scene in which Dick Pinkerton offers Sharpless a whiskey and soda. Miss Garden said, If I remember correctly, that the very words "whiskey and soda" were inartistic and spoiled the poetry and picturesqueness of the act. Personally, I do not see that it was the words that were inartistic, but, rather, the introduction of whiskey and soda at all into a grand opera. My point is that such objections obtain not more stringently against English translations than against German, French, or Italian translations. Furthermore, after all is said that can be said against translations into whatsoever language, the fact remains that countries and races are not nearly so different as they pretend to be; and a human sentiment, a dramatic situation, or a lovely melody will permeate the consciousness of a Frenchman, an Englishman, or a German in approximately the same manner and in the same length of time. Adaptations and translations are merely different means, poorer or better as the case may be, of facilitating such assimilations; and, so soon as the idea reaches the audience, the audience is going to receive it joyfully, no matter what nation it comes from or through what medium:--that is, if it is a good idea to begin with. Possibly this may be a little beside the point; but, at least, it serves to introduce the subject of English opera--or, rather, foreign grand opera given in English--the giving of which was an undertaking on which I embarked in 1873. I became my own manager and, with C. D. Hess, organised an English Opera Company that, by its success, brought the best music to the comprehension of the intelligent masses. I believe that the enterprise did much for the advancement of musical art in this country; and it, besides, gave employment to a large number of young Americans, several of whom began their careers in the chorus of the company and soon advanced to higher places in the musical world. Joseph Maas was one of the singers whom this company did much for; and George Conly was another. The former at first played small parts, but his chance came to him as Lorenzo in _Fra Diavolo_, when he made a big hit, and, eventually, he returned to England and became her greatest oratorio tenor. I myself made the versions of the standard operas used by us during the first season of English opera, translating them newly and directly from the Italian and the French and, in some instances, restoring the text to a better condition than is found in English opera generally. My enterprise met with a great deal of criticism and discussion. Usually, public opinion and the opinion of the press were favourable. One of my staunch supporters was Will Davis, the husband of Jessie Bartlett Davis. In _The Chicago Tribune_ he wrote: Unless the public can understand what is sung in opera or oratorio recital, song or ballad, no more than a passing interest can be awakened in the music-loving public. I do not agree with those who claim that language or thought is a secondary consideration to the enjoyment of vocal music. I believe that a superior writer of lyrics can fit words to the music of foreign operas that will not only be sensible but singable. I agree with _The Tribune_ that opera in the English language has never had a fair show, but I claim that the reason for this is because of the bad translations that have been given to the artists to sing. After our success had become assured, one of the press notices read: Never, in this country, has English opera been so creditably produced and so energetically managed as by the present Kellogg-Hess combination. All the business details being supervised by Mr. Hess, one of the longest-headed and hardest-working men of business to be found in even this age and nation, are thoroughly, systematically and promptly attended to; while all the artistic details, being under the direct personal care of Miss Clara Louise Kellogg, confessedly the best as well as the most popular singer America has produced, are brought to and preserved at the highest attainable musical standard. The performers embraced in the Hess-Kellogg English Opera Company comprise several artists of the first rank. The names of Castle, Maas, Peakes, Mrs. Seguin, Mrs. Van Zandt, and Miss Montague are familiar as household words to the musical world, while the _répertoire_ embraces not only all the old established favourites of the public, but many of the most recent or _recherche_ novelties, such as _Mignon_, and _The Star of the North_, in addition to such genuine English operas as _The Rose of Castille_. During the three seasons of our English Opera Company, we put on a great number of operas of all schools, from _The Bohemian Girl_ to _The Flying Dutchman_. The former is pretty poor stuff--cheap and insipid--I never liked to sing it. But--the houses it drew! People loved it. I believe there would be a large and sentimental public ready for it to-day. Its extraneous matter, the two or three popular ballads that had been introduced, formed a part of its attraction, perhaps. Our Devil's Hoof in _The Bohemian Girl_ was Ted Seguin who became quite famous in the part. His wife Zelda Seguin was our contralto and they were among the earliest people to travel with _The Beggar's Opera_ and other primitive performances. George A. Conly was our basso and a fine one. He was a printer by trade and he had his first chance with us at the Globe Theatre in Boston. He was our Deland, too, in _The Flying Dutchman_. Eventually, he was drowned; and I gave a benefit for his widow. Maurice Grau and Hess had gone to London to engage singers for my English Opera Company and had selected, among others, Wilfred Morgan for first tenor and Joseph Maas for second tenor. Morgan had been singing secondary _rôles_ for some time at Covent Garden. On our opening night of _Faust_ he gave out with a sore throat, and Maas took his place successfully. William Carlton once told me that when he was just starting out he bought the theatrical wardrobe of Alberto Lawrence, a baritone, and was looking at himself in a mirror, dressed in one of his second costumes, in the green room of the Academy of Music early during our English season, when Morgan came up to him and said: "Are you going on in those old rags?" Carlton had to go on in them. The critics next day gave him a couple of columns of praise; but Morgan, whose wardrobe was gorgeous, was a complete failure in his _début_. Our manager had finally to tell him that he could be second tenor or resign. In six weeks he was drawing seventy dollars less salary than Carlton, who was a baritone and a beginner. Carlton said that about this time Wilfred Morgan came up to him exclaiming, "Well, Bill, I wish I had your voice and you had my clothes!" William Carlton was a young Englishman, only twenty-three when he joined us; but he was already married and had two children. When we were rehearsing _The Bohemian Girl_, in the scene where the stolen daughter is recognised and Carlton had to take me in his arms, he said: "I ought to kiss you here." "Not lower than _this_!" said I, pointing to my forehead. He was much amused. Indeed, he was always laughing at my mother and me for our prudish ways; and my not marrying was always a joke between us. "It's a sin," he declared once, when we were talking on a train, "a woman who would make such a perfect wife!" "Louise," interrupted my mother sternly, "don't talk so much! You'll tire your voice!" My good mother! She was always ruffling up like an indignant hen about me. In one scene of another opera, I remember, the villain and I had been playing rather more strenuously than usual and he caught my arm with some force. I staggered a little as I came off the stage and my mother flew at him. "Don't you dare touch my daughter so roughly," she cried, much annoyed. Mr. Carlton has paid me a nice tribute when writing of those days and of me at that time. He has said: I have the most grateful memory of the sympathetic assistance I received from the gifted _prima donna_ when I arrived in this country under the management of Maurice Grau and C. D. Hess, who were conducting the business details of the Kellogg Grand Opera Company. Like many Englishmen, I was quite unprepared for the evidences of perfection which characterised the production of opera in the United States and, as I had not yet attained my twenty-fourth year, I was somewhat awed by the importance of the _rôles_ and the position I was imported to fulfil. It was in a great measure due to the gracious help I received from Miss Kellogg that, at my _début_ at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, as Valentine in _Faust_ to her Marguerite, I achieved a success which led up to my renewing the engagement for four consecutive years. In putting on grand opera in English I had, in each case, the tradition of two countries to contend with; but I endeavoured to secure some uniformity of style and usually rehearsed them all myself, sitting at the piano. The singers were, of course, hide-bound to the awful translations that were institutional and to them inevitable. None of them would have ever considered changing a word, even for the better. The translation of _Mignon_ was probably the most completely revolutionary of the many translations and adaptations I indulged in. I shall never forget one fearfully clumsy passage in _Trovatore_. "To the handle, To the handle, To the handle Strike the dagger!" There were two modifications possible, either of which was vastly preferable, and without actually changing a word. "Strike the dagger, Strike the dagger, Strike the dagger To the handle!" or, which I think was the better way, "Strike the dagger To the handle, Strike the dagger To the handle!" a simple and legitimate repetition of a phrase. This is a case in illustration of the meaningless absurdity and unintelligibility of the average libretto. Those were the days in which I devoutly appreciated my general sound musical training. The old stand-bys, _Fra Diavolo_, _Trovatore_, and _Martha_ were all very well. Most singers had been reared on them from their artistic infancy. But, for example, _The Marriage of Figaro_ was an innovation. To it I had to bring my best experience and judgment as cultivated in our London productions; and we finally gave a very creditable English performance of it. Then there were, besides, the new operas that had to be incepted and created and toiled over:--_The Talisman_ and _Lily o'Killarney_ among others. _The Talisman_ by Balfe, an opera of the Meyerbeerian school, was first produced at the Drury Lane in London, with Nilsson, Campanini, Marie Roze, Rota, and others. Our presentation of it was less pretentious, naturally, but we had an excellent cast, with Joseph Maas as Sir Kenneth, William Carlton as Coeur de Lion, Mme. Loveday as Queen Berengaria, and Charles Turner as De Vaux. I was Edith Plantaganet. When the opera was first put on in London, under the direction of Sir Jules Benedict, it was called _The Knight of the Leopard_. Later, it was translated into Italian under the title of _Il Talismano_, and from that finally re-translated by us and given the name of Sir Walter Scott's work on which it was based. It was not only Balfe's one real grand opera, but was also his last important work. _Lily o'Killarney_, by Sir Jules Benedict, was not a striking novelty. It had a graceful duet for the basso and tenor, and one pretty solo for the _prima donna_--"I'm Alone"--but, otherwise, it did not amount to much. But we scored in it because of our good artistry. Our company was a good one. Parepa Rosa did tremendous things with her English opera _tournées_; but I honestly think our work was more artistic as well as more painstaking. There were not many of us; but we did our best and pulled together; and I was very happy in the whole venture. Benedict's _Lily o'Killarney_ was written particularly for me, and was inspired by _Colleen Bawn_, Dion Boucicault's big London success. I have always understood that Oxenford wrote the libretto of that--a fine one as librettos go--but Grove's Dictionary says that Boucicault helped him. Perhaps this is as good a place as any in which to mention Sir George Grove and his dictionary. When I was in London I was told that young Grove--he was not "Sir" then--was compiling a dictionary; and, not having a very exalted idea of his ability, I am free to confess that, in a measure, I snubbed him. In his copiously filled and padded dictionary, he punished me by giving me less than half a column; considerably less space than is devoted in the corresponding column to one Michael Kelly "composer of wines and importer of music!" It is an accurate paragraph, however, and he heaped coals of fire on my head by one passage that is particularly suitable to quote in a chapter on English opera: She organised an English troupe, herself superintending the translation of the words, the _mise en scène_, the training of the singers and the rehearsals of the chorus. Such was her devotion to the project that, in the winter of '74-'75, she sang no fewer than one hundred and twenty-five nights. It is satisfactory to hear that the scheme was successful. Miss Kellogg's musical gifts are great.... She has a remarkable talent for business and is never so happy as when she is doing a good or benevolent action. I have never been able to determine to my own satisfaction whether the "remarkable talent for business" was intended as a compliment or not! The one hundred and twenty-five record is quite correct, a number of performances that tried my endurance to the utmost; but I loved all the work. This particular venture seemed more completely my own than anything on which I had yet embarked. We put on _The Flying Dutchman_, at the Academy of Music (New York), and it was a tremendous undertaking. It was another case of not having any traditions nor impressions to help us. No one knew anything about the opera and the part of Senta was as unexplored a territory for me as that of Marguerite had been. One thing I had particular difficulty in learning how to handle and that was Wagner's trick of long pauses. There is a passage almost immediately after the spinning song in _The Flying Dutchman_ during which Senta stands at the door and thinks about the Flying Dutchman, preceding his appearance. Then he comes, and they stand still and look at each other while a spell grows between them. She recognises Vanderdecken as the original of the mysterious portrait; and he is wondering whether she is the woman fated to save him by self-sacrifice. The music, so far as Siegfried Behrens, my director at the time, and I could see, had no meaning whatever. It was just a long, intermittent mumble, continuing for eighteen bars with one slight interruption of thirds. I had not yet been entirely converted to innovations such as this and did not fully appreciate the value of so extreme a pause. I knew, of course, that repose added dignity; but this seemed too much. "For heaven's sake, Behrens," said I, "what's the public going to do while we stand there? Can we hold their interest for so long while nothing is happening?" Behrens thought there might be someone at the German Theatre who had heard the opera in Germany and who could, therefore, give us suggestions; but no one could be found. Finally Behrens looked up Wagner's own brochure on the subject of his operas and came to me, still doubtful, but somewhat reassured. "Wagner says," he explained, "not to be disturbed by long intervals. If both singers could stand absolutely still, this pause would hold the public double the length of time." We tried to stand "absolutely still." It was an exceedingly difficult thing to do. In _rôles_ that have tense moments the whole body has to hold the tension rigidly until the proper psychological instant for emotional and physical relaxation. The public is very keen to feel this, without knowing how or why. A drooping shoulder or a relaxed hand will "let up" an entire situation. The first time I sang Senta it seemed impossible to hold the pause until those eighteen bars were over. "I have _got_ to hold it! I have _got_ to hold it!" I kept saying to myself, tightening every muscle as if I were actually pulling on a wire stretched between myself and the audience. I almost auto-hypnotized myself; which probably helped me to understand the Norwegian girl's own condition of auto-hypnotism! An inspiration led me to grasp the back of a tall Dutch chair on the stage. That chair helped me greatly and, as affairs turned out, I held the audience quite as firmly as I held the chair! Afterwards I learned the wonderful telling-power of these "waits" and the great dignity that they lend to a scene. There is no hurry in Wagner. His work is full of pauses and he has done much to give leisure to the stage. When I was at Bayreuth--that most beautiful monument to genius--I met many actors from the Théâtre Français who had journeyed there, as to a Mecca, to study this leisurely stage effect among others. Our production was a fair one but not elaborate. We had, I remember, a very good ship, but there were many shortcomings. There is supposed to be a transfiguration scene at the end in which Senta is taken up to heaven; but this was beyond us and _I_ was never thus rewarded for my devotion to an ideal! I liked Senta's clothes and make-up. I used to wear a dark green skirt, shining chains, and a wonderful little apron, long and of white woollen. For hair, I wore Marguerite's wig arranged differently. I should like to be able to put on a production of _Die Fliegende Holländer_ now! There is just one artist, and only one, whom I would have play the Dutchman--and that is Renaud, for the reason, principally, that he would have the necessary repose for the part. I had understudies as a matter of course. One of them was wall-eyed; and, on an occasion when I was ill, she essayed Senta. William Carlton, was, as usual, our Dutchman, and he had not been previously warned of Senta's infirmity. He came upon it so unexpectedly, indeed, and it was so startling to him, that he sang the whole opera without looking at her for fear that he would break down! CHAPTER XXV ENGLISH OPERA (_Continued_) No account of our English Opera would be complete without mention of Mike. He was an Irish lad with all the wit of his race, and his head was of a particularly classic type. He was only sixteen when he joined us, but he became an institution, and I kept track of him for years afterwards. His duties were somewhat arbitrary, and chiefly consisted of calling at the dressing-room of the chorus each night after the opera with a basket to collect the costumes. Beyond this, his principal occupation was watching my scenes and generally pervading the performances with genuine interest. He particularly favoured the third act of _Faust_, I remember; and absolutely considered himself a part of my career, constantly making use of the phrase "Me and Miss Kellogg." One of the operas we gave in English was my old friend _The Star of the North_. It was quite as much a success in English as it had been in the original. We chose it for our _gala_ performance in Washington when the Centennial was celebrated, and my good friends, President and Mrs. Grant, were in the audience. The King of Hawaii was also present, with his suite, and came behind the scenes and paid me extravagant compliments. His Hawaiian Majesty sent me lovely heliotropes, I remember,--my favourite flower and my favourite perfume. At one performance of _The Star of the North_ at a matinée in Booth's Theatre, New York, there occurred an incident that was reminiscent of my London experience with Sir Michael Costa's orchestra. It was in the third act, the camp scene. There is a quartette by Peter, Danilowitz and two _vivandières_ almost without accompaniment in the tent on the stage, and I, as Catherine, had to take up the note they left and begin a solo at its close. The orchestra was supposed to chime in with me, a simple enough matter to do if they had not fallen from the key. It is surprising how relative one's pitch is when suddenly appealed to. Even a very trained ear will often go astray when some one gives it a wrong keynote. Music more than almost any other art is dependent; every tone hangs on other tones. That particular quartette was built on a musical phrase begun by one of the sopranos and repeated by each. She started on the key. The mezzo took it up a shade flat. The tenor, taking the phrase from the mezzo, dropped a little more, and when the basso got through with it, they were a full semitone lower. Had I taken my _attaque_ from their pitch, imagine the situation when the orchestra came in! My heart sank as I saw ahead of us the inevitable discord. It came to the last note. I allowed a half-second of silence to obliterate their false pitch. Then I _concentrated_--and took up my solo in the _original and correct key_. That "absolute pitch" again! Behrens expressed his amazement after the curtain fell. The company, after that, was never tired of experimenting with my gift. It became quite a joke with them to cry out suddenly, at any sort of sound--a whistle, or a bell: "Now, what note is that? What key was that in, Miss Kellogg?" Most of our travelling on these big western tours of opera was very tiresome, although we did it as easily as we could and often had special cars put at our disposal by railroad directors. We were still looked upon as a species of circus and the townspeople of the places we passed through used to come out in throngs at the stations. I have said so much about the poor hotels encountered at various times while on the road that I feel I ought to mention the disastrous effect produced once by a really good hotel. It was at the end of our first English Opera season and, in spite of the fact that we were all worn out with our experiences, we proceeded to give an auxiliary concert trip. We had a special sleeper in which, naturally, no one slept much; and by the time we reached Wilkesbarre we were even more exhausted. The hotel happened to be a good one, the rooms were quiet, and the beds comfortable. Every one of us went promptly to bed, not having to sing until the next night, and William Carlton left word at the office that he was going to sleep: "and don't call me unless there's a fire!" he said. In strict accordance with these instructions nobody did call him and he slept twenty-four hours. When he awoke it was time to go to the theatre for the performance and--he found he couldn't sing! He had slept so much that his circulation had become sluggish and he was as hoarse as a crow. Consequently, we had to change the programme at the last moment. Carlton, like most nervous people, was very sensitive and easily put out of voice, even when he had not slept twenty-four consecutive hours. Once in _Trovatore_ he was seized with a sharp neuralgic pain in his eyes just as he was beginning to sing "Il Balen" and we had to stop in the middle of it. During this same performance, an unlucky one, Wilfred Morgan, who was Manrico, made both himself and me ridiculous. In the _finale_ of the first act of the opera, the Count and Manrico, rivals for the love of Leonora, draw their swords and are about to attack each other, when Leonora interposes and has to recline on the shoulder of Manrico, at which the attack of the Count ceases. Morgan was burly of build and awkward of movement and, for some reason, failed to support me, and we both fell heavily to the floor. It is so easy to turn a serious dramatic situation into ridicule that, really, it was very decent indeed of our audience to applaud the _contretemps_ instead of laughing. Ryloff, an eccentric Belgian, was our musical director for a short time. He was exceedingly fond of beer and used to drink it morning, noon, and night,--especially night. Even our rehearsals were not sacred from his thirst. In the middle of one of our full dress rehearsals he suddenly stopped the orchestra, laid down his baton, and said to the men: "Boys, I _must_ have some beer!" Then he got up and deliberately went off to a nearby saloon while we awaited his good pleasure. I have previously mentioned what a handsome and dashing Fra Diavolo Theodore Habelmann was, and naturally other singers with whom I sang the opera later have suffered by comparison. In discussing the point with a young girl cousin who was travelling with me, we once agreed, I remember, that it was a great pity no one could ever look the part like our dear old Habelmann. Castle was doing it just then, and doing it very well except for his clothes and general make-up. But he was so extremely sensitive and yet, in some ways, so opinionated, that it was impossible to tell him plainly that he did not look well in the part. At last, my cousin conceived the brilliant scheme of writing him an anonymous letter, supposed to be from some feminine admirer, telling him how splendid and wonderful and irresistible he was, but also suggesting how he could make himself even more fascinating. A description of Habelmann's appearance followed and, to our great satisfaction, our innocent little plot worked to a charm. Castle bought a new costume immediately and strutted about in it as pleased as Punch. He really did present a much more satisfactory appearance, which was a comfort to me, as it is really so deplorably disillusioning to see a man looking frumpy and unattractive while he is singing a gallant song like: [Illustration: Musical notation; Proud-ly and wide ... my stand-ard flies O'er dar-ing heads, a no-ble band!] Naturally these tours brought me all manner of adventures that I have long since forgotten--little incidents "along the road" and meetings with famous personages. Among them stand out two experiences, one grave and one gay. The former was an occasion when I went behind the scenes during a performance of _Henry VIII_ to see dear Miss Cushman (it must have been in the early seventies, but I do not know the exact date), who was playing Queen Katherine. She asked me if I would be kind enough to sing the solo for her. I was very glad to be able to do so, of course, and so, on the spur of the moment, complied. I have wondered since how many people in front ever knew that it was I who sang _Angels Ever Bright and Fair_ off stage, during the scene in which the poor, wonderful Queen was dying! The other experience of these days which I treasure was my meeting with Eugene Field. It was in St. Louis, where Field was a reporter on one of the daily papers. He came up to the old Lindell Hotel to interview me; but that was something I would _not_ do--give interviews to the press--so my mother went down to the reception room with her sternest air to dismiss him. She found the waiting young man very mild-mannered and pleasant, but she said to him icily: "My daughter never sees newspaper men." "Oh," said he, looking surprised, "I'm a singer and I thought Miss Kellogg might help me. I want to have my voice trained." (This is the phrase used generally by applicants for such favours.) Mother looked at the young man suspiciously and pointed to the piano. "Sing something," she commanded. Field obediently sat down at the instrument and sang several songs. He had a pleasing voice and an expressive style of singing, and my mother promptly sent for me. We spent some time with him in consequence, singing, playing, and talking. It was an excellent "beat" for his paper, and neither my mother nor I bore him any malice, we had liked him so much, when we read the interview next day. After that he came to see me whenever I sang where he happened to be and we always had a laugh over his "interview" with me--the only one, by the way, obtained by any reporter in St. Louis. On one concert tour--a little before the English Opera venture--we had arrived late one afternoon in Toledo where the other members of the company were awaiting me. Petrelli, the baritone, met me at the train and said immediately: "There is a strange-looking girl at the hotel waiting for you to hear her sing." "Oh, dear," I exclaimed, "another one to tell that she hasn't any ability!" "She's _very_ queer looking," Petrelli assured me. As I went to my supper I caught a glimpse of a very unattractive person and decided that Petrelli was right. She was exceedingly plain and colourless, and had a large turned-up nose. After supper, I went to my room to dress, as I usually did when on tour, for the theatre dressing-rooms were impossible, and presently there was a knock at the door and the girl presented herself. She was poorly clad. She owned no warm coat, no rubbers, no proper clothing of any sort. I questioned her and she told me a pathetic tale of privation and struggle. She lived by travelling about from one hotel to the next, singing in the public parlour when the manager would permit it, accompanying herself upon her guitar, and passing around a plate or a hat afterwards to collect such small change as she could. "I sang last night here," she told me, "and the manager of the hotel collected eleven dollars. That's all I've got--and I don't suppose he'll let me have much of that!" Of course I, who had been so protected, was horrified by all this. I could not understand how a girl could succeed in doing that kind of thing. She told me, furthermore, that she took care of her mother, brothers, and sisters. "I must go to the post-office now and see if there's a letter from mother!" she exclaimed presently, jumping up. It was pouring rain outside. "Show me your feet!" I said. She grinned ruefully as she exhibited her shoes, but she was off the next moment in search of her letter. When she came back to the hotel, I got hold of her again, gave her some clothes, and took her to the concert in my carriage. After I had sung my first song she rushed up to me. "Let me look down your throat," she cried excitedly, "I've got to see where it all comes from!" After the concert we made her sing for us and our accompanist played for her. She asked me frankly if I thought she could make her living by her voice and I said yes. Her poverty and her desire to get on naturally appealed to me, and I was instrumental in raising a subscription for her so that she could come East. My mother immediately saw the hotel proprietor and arranged that what money he had collected the night before should be turned over to her. It has been said that I am responsible for Emma Abbott's career upon the operatic stage, but I may be pardoned if I deny the allegation. My idea was that she intended to sing in churches, and I believe she did so when she first came to New York. She was the one girl in ten thousand who was really worth helping, and of course my mother and I helped her. When we returned from my concert tour, I introduced her to people and saw that she was properly looked out for. And she became, as every one knows, highly successful in opera--appearing in many of my own _rôles_. In a year's time from when I first met her, Emma Abbott was self-supporting. She was a girl of ability and I am glad that I started her off fairly, although, as a matter of fact, she would have got on anyway, whether I had done anything for her or not. Her way to success might have been a longer way, unaided, but she would have succeeded. She was eaten up with ambition. Yet there is much to respect in such a dogged determination to succeed. Of course, she was never particularly grateful to me. Of all the girls I have helped--and there have been many--only one has ever been really grateful, and she was the one for whom I did the least. Emma wrote me a flowery letter once, full of such sentences as "when the great _Prima Donna_ shined on me," and "I was almost in heaven, and I can remember just how you sang and looked," and "never can I forget all your goodness to me." But in the little ways that count she never actually evinced the least appreciation. Whenever we were in any way pitted against each other, she showed herself jealous and ungenerous. She made enemies in general by her lack of tact, and never could get on in London, for instance, although in her day the feeling there for American singers was becoming most kindly. Emma Abbott did appalling things with her art, of which one of the mildest was the introduction into _Faust_ of the hymn _Nearer My God to Thee_! It was in Italy that she did it, too. I believe she introduced it to please the Americans in the audience, many of whom applauded, although the Italians pointedly did not. And yet she was always trying to "purify" the stage and librettos! I have always felt about Emma Abbott that she had _too much_ force of character. Another thing that I never liked about her was the manner in which she puffed her own successes. She was reported to have made five times more than she actually did; but, at that, her earnings were considerable, for she would sacrifice much--except the character--to money-getting. Indeed, she was a very fine business woman. I have spoken about George Conly's tragic death by drowning and of the benefit the Kellogg-Hess English Opera Company gave for his widow. Conly had also sung with Emma Abbott and, when the benefit was given, she and I appeared on the same programme. She knew my baritone, Carlton, and sent for him before the performance. She explained that she wanted him to appear on the bill with her in _Maritana_ and, also, to see that all donations from my friends and colleagues were sent to her, so that her collection should be larger than mine. Carlton explained to her that he was singing with Miss Kellogg and so would send any money that he could collect to her. It seems incredible that any one could do so small an action, and I can only consider it one of many little attempts to be spiteful and to show me that my erstwhile _protégée_ was now at the "top of the ladder." Her thirst for profits finally was the indirect means of her death. When Utah was still a territory, the town of Ogden, where many travelling companies gave concerts, was very primitive. The concert hall had no dressing-room and was cold and draughty. I always refused outright to sing in such theatres, or else dressed in my hotel and drove to the concert warmly wrapped up. Emma Abbott was warned that the stage in the concert hall of the town of Ogden was bitterly cold. The house had sold well, however, and the receipts were considerable. Emma dressed in an improvised screened-off dressing-room, and, having a severe cold to begin with, she caught more on that occasion, and suddenly developed a serious case of pneumonia from which she died, a victim to her own indiscretion. CHAPTER XXVI AMATEURS--AND OTHERS In the seventies New York was interesting musically, chiefly because of its amateurs. This sounds something like a paradox, but at that time New York had a collection of musical amateurs who were almost as highly cultivated as professionals. It was a set that was extremely interesting and quite unique; and which bridged in a wonderful way the traditional gulf between art and society. Those of us who were fortunate enough to know New York then look about us with wonder and amazement now. It seems, with our standards of an earlier generation, as if there were no true social life to-day, just as there are left no great social leaders. As for music--but perhaps it behooves a retired _prima donna_ to be discreet in making comparisons. Mrs. Peter Ronalds; Mrs. Samuel Barlow; her daughter Elsie, who became Mrs. Stephen Henry Olin; May Callender; Minnie Parker--the granddaughter of Mrs. Hill and later the wife of M. de Neufville;--these and many others were the amateurs who combined music and society in a manner worthy of the great French hostesses and originators of _salons_. Mrs. Barlow was in advance of everybody in patronising music. She was cultivated and artistic, had travelled a great deal abroad, and had acquired a great many charming foreign graces in addition to her own good American brains and breeding, and her fine natural social tact. When I returned to New York after a sojourn on the other side, she came to see me one day, and said: "Louise, you've been away so much you don't know what our amateurs are doing. I want you to come to my house to-night and hear them sing." Like all professionals, I was a bit inclined to turn up my nose at the very word "amateur," but of course I went to Mrs. Barlow's that evening, and I have rarely spent a more enjoyable three hours. Elsie Barlow sang delightfully. She had a limited voice, but an unusual musical intelligence; I have seldom heard a public singer give a piece of music a more delicate and discriminating interpretation. Then Miss May Callender sang "Nobile Signor" from the _Huguenots_, and astonished me with her artistic rendering of that _aria_. Miss Callender could have easily been an opera singer, and a distinguished one, if she had so chosen. Eugene Oudin, a Southern baritone, also sang with charming effect. Minnie Parker, an eminent connoisseur in music, had her turn. She sang "Bel Raggio" from _Semiramide_ with fine execution and all the Rossini traditions. And I must not forget to mention Fanny Reed, Mrs. Paran Stevens's sister, who sang very agreeably an _aria_ from _Il Barbiere_. Altogether it was a most startling and illuminating evening, and I was proud of my country and of a society that could produce such amateurs. Mrs. Peter Ronalds was another charming singer of that group; as was, also, Mrs. Moulton, who was Lillie Greenough before her marriage. Both had delightful and well cultivated voices. Mrs. Moulton had studied abroad, but for the most part the amateurs of that day were purely American products. I often visited Mrs. Barlow at her country place at Glen Cove, L. I. She was the most tactful of hostesses, and in her house there was no fuss or formality, nothing but kind geniality and courtesy. She was the first hostess in the United States to ask her women guests to bring their maids; and she never once has asked me to sing when I was there. I did sing, of course, but she was too well-bred to let me feel under the slightest obligation. American hostesses are certainly sometimes very odd in this connection. I have mentioned Fanny Reed and Mrs. Stevens in Boston, and the time I had to play "Tommy Tucker" and sing for my supper; and I am now reminded of another occasion even more unpardonable, one that made me indirectly quite a bit of trouble. Once upon a time when I was visiting in Chicago, and was being made much of as an American _prima donna_ freshly arrived from European triumphs, some old friends of my father gave me a reception. I had been for nearly fourteen months abroad, and had come back with the associations and manners of the best people of the older countries: and this I particularly mention to suggest what a shock my treatment was to me. On the day of the reception I had one of my worst sick headaches. I did not want to go, naturally, but the husband of the woman giving the reception called for me and begged that I would show myself there, if only for a few moments. My mother also urged me to make an effort and go. I made it--and went. In view of what afterwards occurred, I want to say that my costume was a black velvet gown created by Worth, with a heavy, long, handsome coat and a black velvet hat. When I reached the house I was so ill that I could not stand at the door with my hostess to receive the guests, but remained seated, hoping that I would not groan aloud with the throbbing of my head. The ladies began arriving, and nearly every one of them was in full evening dress--_in the afternoon_! Mrs. Marshall Field, I remember, came in an elaborate point lace shawl, and no hat. I had not been there half an hour before I was asked to sing! I had brought no music, there was no accompanist, and I was so dizzy that I could hardly see the keys of the piano, yet, as the request was not altogether the fault of my hostess, I did my best, playing some sort of an accompaniment and singing something--very badly, I imagine. Then I went home and to bed. That episode was served up to me for eight years. I never went to Chicago without reading some reference to it in the newspapers, and my friends have told me that years later it was still discussed with bitterness. It was stated that I was "ungracious," "rude," and that I had "insulted the guests by my plain street attire" (shade of the great Worth!); that I only sang once and then with no attempt to do my best; that I did not eat the elaborate refreshments; did not rise from my chair when people were presented to me; and left the house inside an hour, although the reception was given for me. The bitterest attack was an article printed in one of the morning papers, an article written by a woman who had been among the guests. I never answered that or any other of the attacks because the host and hostess were old friends and felt very badly about the affair; but I have a memory of Chicago that will go with me to the grave. It was very different with the New York hostesses of whom Mrs. Barlow, Mrs. Ronalds, and Mrs. Gilder were the representatives. By them a singer was treated as a little more, not less, than an ordinary human being! O you unfortunate people of a newer day who have not the memory of that enchanting meeting-ground in East Fifteenth Street:--the delightful Gilder studio, the rebuilding of which from a carriage house into a studio-home was about the first piece of architectural work done by Stanford White. There was one big, beautiful room, drawing-room and sitting-room combined, with a fine fireplace in it. Many a time have I done some scene from an opera there, in the firelight, to a sympathetic few. Everybody went to the Richard Watson Gilders'--at least, everybody who was worth while. They were in New York already the power that they remained for so many years. Some pedantic enthusiast once said of them that, "The Gilders were empowered by divine right to put the _cachet_ of recognition upon distinction." Miss Jeannette Gilder came into my life as long ago as 1869. I was singing in a concert in Newark and she was in the wings, listening to my first song. My mother and my maid were near her and, when I came off the stage, as we were trying to find a certain song for an _encore_, the pile of music fell at her feet. Promptly the tall young stranger said: "Please let me hold them for you." Her whole personality expressed a species of beaming admiration. I looked at her critically; and from this small service began our friendship. The Gilders were then living in Newark. The father, who was a Chaplain in the 40th New York Volunteers, died during the Civil War. His sons, Richard Watson Gilder and William H. Gilder, were also soldiers in the Civil War. The Richard Watson Gilders were married in 1874. Mrs. Gilder was Miss Helena de Kay, granddaughter of Joseph Rodman Drake, who was the author of _The Culprit Fay_. I met many interesting people at the Fifteenth Street studio. Helen Hunt Jackson, I remember well. She was then Mrs. Hunt, long before she had married Mr. Jackson or had written _Ramona_. She was a most pleasing personality, just stout enough to be genuinely genial. And Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett I first met there, about the time her _Lass o'Lowrie's_ appeared, a story we all thought most impressive. George Cable was discovered by the Gilders, like so many other literary lights, and he and I used to sing Creole melodies before their big fireplace. His voice was queer and light, without colour, but correct and well in tune. He had only one bit of colour in him and that--the poetry of his nature--he gave freely and exquisitely in his tales of Creole life. At a much later time I saw something of the old French Quarter of New Orleans of which he wrote, the whole spirit of which was so lovely. I also first met John Alexander at the Gilders' after he came back from Paris; and John La Farge, who brought there with him Okakura, the Japanese art connoisseur. That was when I first met Okakura; and on the same occasion he was introduced to Modjeska, she and I being the first stage people he had ever met socially. Later, in '79-'80, I saw a good deal of the Gilders in Paris, where they had a studio in the Quartier Latin. At that time, Mr. Gilder arranged for Millet's autobiography which first made him widely known in America; and in their Paris studio I met Sargent and Bastien Le Page and many other notables. I recall how becomingly Rodman Gilder--then three or four years old--was always dressed, in "Little Lord Fauntleroy" fashion long before the days of his young lordship. It was at this same period that I went to Fontainebleau to study the Barbizon School and met the son of Millet, who was trying to paint and never succeeded. Speaking of the Gilders reminds me, albeit indirectly, of Helena Modjeska, whom I first saw in Sacramento, playing _Adrienne Lecouvreur_. I was simply enchanted and thought I had never seen such delicate and yet such forcible acting. One reason why I was so greatly impressed was that I had acquired the foreign standard of acting, and had been much disturbed when I came home to find such lack of elegance and ease upon the stage. She had the foreign manner--the grace and, at the same time, the authority of the great French and German players; and it seemed to me that she ought to be heard by the big critics. So I wrote home to Jeannette Gilder in New York an enthusiastic account of this actress who was being wasted on the Sacramento Valley. The public-spirited efforts of the Gilders in promoting anything artistic was so well and so long known that it is almost unnecessary to add that they interested themselves in the Polish artist and secured for her an opportunity to play in the East. She came, saw, and conquered; and I shall always feel, therefore, that I was definitely instrumental in launching Modjeska in theatrical New York. "Didn't I tell you so?" I said to Jeannette Gilder. There was always something very odd to me about Helena Modjeska. I never liked her personally half as much as I did as an actress. But she certainly was a wonderful actress. I once met John McCullough and talked with him about Modjeska, and he told me that she first acted in Polish to his English--Ophelia to his Hamlet--out West somewhere, I think it was in San Francisco. He said that he had been the first to urge her to learn English, and he was most enthusiastic about the wonderful effect she created even at that early time. As I had seen her in Sacramento during, approximately, the same period, I could discuss her with him sympathetically and intelligently. Although I never personally liked Helena Modjeska, I have liked as well as known many stage folk and have had, first and last, many real friends among them. It was my good fortune to know the elder Salvini in America. He happened to be stopping at the same hotel. He looked like a successful farmer; a very plain man,--very. He told me, among other interesting things, that no matter how small his part happened to be, he always played each succeeding act in a stronger colour, maintaining a steady _crescendo_, so that the last impression of all was the climax. I remember him in Othello, particularly his delicate and lovely _silent_ acting. When Desdémona came in and told the court how he had won her, Salvini only looked at her and spoke but the one word: "Desdémona!"--but the way he said it "made the tears rise in your heart and gather to your eyes." Irving and Terry, always among my close friends, I first met in London, at the McHenrys' house in Holland Park. At that time the McHenrys' Sunday night dinners were an institution. Later, when they came to America, I saw a great deal of them; and I remember Ellen Terry saying once, after a luncheon given by me at Delmonico's, "What a splendid woman Jeannette Gilder is! You know--" and she gave me a rueful glance--"I am _always_ wrong about men,--but seldom about women!" Dear Ellen Terry! She has always been the freshest, the most wholesome, and the most spontaneous personality on the stage: a sweet and candid woman, with a sound, warm heart and a great genius. At Lady Macmillan's a number of people, most of them literary, were discussing that deadly worthy and respectable actress Madge Robertson--Mrs. Kendall. The morals of stage people was the subject, and Mrs. Kendall was cited as an example of propriety. One of the women present spoke up from her corner: "Well," said she, "all I can say is that if I were giving a party for young girls I would steer very clear of Mrs. Kendall and ask Miss Terry instead. The Kendall lady does nothing but tell objectionable stories that lead to the glorification of her own purity, but you will never in a million years hear an indelicate word from the lips of Ellen Terry!" The only complaint Henry Irving had to make against New York was that he "had no one to play with." He insisted, and quite justly, too, that New York had no leisure class: that cultivated Bohemia, the playground for people of intellectual tastes and varied interests, did not exist in New York. He used to say that after the theatre, and after supper, he could not find anybody at his club who would discuss with him either modern drama or the old dramatic traditions; or give him any exchange of ideas or intelligent comradeship. [Illustration: =Ellen Terry= From a photograph by Sarony] He and I had many delightful talks, and I wish now that I had made notes of the things he told me about stagecraft. He had a great deal to say about stage lighting, a subject he was for ever studying and about which he was always experimenting. It was his idea to do away with shadows upon the stage, and he finally accomplished his effect by lighting the wings very brilliantly. Until his radical reforms in this direction the theatres always used to be full of grotesque masses of light and shade. To-day the art of lighting may be said to have reached perfection. One of the most interesting things about Henry Irving was the way in which he made use of the smallest trifles that might aid him in getting his effects. He knew perfectly his own limitations, and was always seeking to compensate for them. For example, he was utterly lacking in any musical sense; like Dr. Johnson, he did not even possess an appreciation of sweet sounds, and did not care to go to either concerts or operas. But he knew how important music was in the theatre, and he knew instinctively--with that extraordinary stage-sense of his--what would appeal to an audience, even if it did not appeal to him. So, if he went anywhere and heard a melody or sequence of chords that he thought might fit in somewhere, he had it noted down at once, and collected bits of music in this way wherever he went. Sometime, he felt, the need for that particular musical phrase would arrive in some production he was putting on, and he would be ready with it. That was a wonderful thing about Irving--he was always prepared. Speaking of Irving and his statement about the lack of a cultivated leisure class in New York, reminds me of the Vanderbilts, who were shining examples of this very lack, for they were immensely wealthy and yet did not half understand, at that time, the possibilities of wealth. William H. Vanderbilt was always my very good friend. His father, Cornelius, the founder of the family, used to say of him that "Bill hadn't sense enough to make money himself--he had to have it left to him!" The old man was wont to add, "Bill's no good anyway!" The Vanderbilts were plain people in those days, but had the kindest hearts. "Bill" took a course in practical railroading, filling the position of conductor on the Hudson River Railroad, from which "job" he had just been promoted when I first knew him. He did turn out to be some "good" in spite of his father's pessimistic predictions. My mother and I spent many summers at "Clarehurst," my country home at Cold Spring on the Hudson. The Vanderbilts' railroad, the New York Central, ran through Cold Spring, so that my Christmas present from William H. Vanderbilt each year was an annual pass. He began sending it to me alone, and then included my mother, until it became a regular institution. We saw something of Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt at Saratoga also, which was then a fashionable resort, before Newport supplanted it with a higher standard of formality and extravagance. I remember I once started to ask William H. Vanderbilt's advice about investing some money. "You may know of some good security--" I began. "I don't! I don't!" he exclaimed with heat. Then he shook his finger at me impressively, saying: "Let me tell you something that my father always said, and don't you ever forget it. He said that 'it takes a smart man to make money, but a _damned sight smarter one to keep it_!'" My place at Cold Spring was where I went to rest between seasons, a lovely place with the wind off the Hudson River, and gorgeous oak trees all about. When the acorns dropped on the tin roof of the veranda in the dead of night they made an alarming noise like tiny ghostly footsteps. One day when I was off on an herb-hunting expedition, some highwaymen tried to stop my carriage, and that was the beginning of troublous times at Cold Spring. It developed that a band of robbers was operating in our neighbourhood, with headquarters in a cave on Storm King Mountain, just opposite us. They made a specialty of robbing trains, and were led by a small man with such little feet that his footprints were easily enough traced;--traced, but not easily caught up with! He never was caught, I believe. But he, or his followers, skulked about our place; and we were alarmed enough to provide ourselves with pistols. That was when I learned to shoot, and I used to have shooting parties for target practice. My father would prowl about after dark, firing off his pistol whenever he heard a suspicious sound, so that, for a time, what with acorns and pistols, the nights were somewhat disturbed. During the summers I drove all over the country and had great fun stopping my pony--he was a dear pony, too,--and rambling about picking flowers. I never passed a spring without stopping to drink from it. I've always had a passion for woods and brooks; and was the enterprising one of the family when it came to exploring new roads. Of the beaten track I can stand only just so much; then my spirit rises in rebellion. I love a cowpath. I used to be an adept, too, at finding flag-root, which was "so good to put in your handkerchief to take to church"! (We carried our handkerchiefs in our hands in those days.) Or dill, or fresh fennel, "to chew through the long service"! Now the dill flavour is called caraway seed; but it isn't the same, or doesn't seem so. And there was fresh, sweet, black birch! Could anything be more delicious than the taste of black birch? The present generation, with its tea-rooms and soda-water fountains, does not know the refreshment of those delicacies prepared by Nature herself. I feel sure that John Burroughs appreciates black birch, being, as he is, one of the survivals of the fittest! CHAPTER XXVII "THE THREE GRACES" In 1877, I embarked upon a venture that was destined, in spite of much success, to be one of the most unpleasant experiences of my professional career. Max Strakosch and Colonel Mapleson, the younger--Henry Mapleson--organised a Triple-Star Tour all over America, the three being Marie Roze, Annie Louise Cary, and Clara Louise Kellogg. The press called us "The Three Graces" and wrote much fulsome nonsense about "three pure and irreproachable women appearing together upon the operatic stage, etc." The classification was one I did not care for. Here, after many intervening years, I enter and put on record my protest. At the time it all served as advertising to boom the tour and, as it was most of it arranged for by Mapleson himself, I had to let it go by in dignified silence. Nor was Henry Mapleson any better than he should have been either, in his personal life or in his business relations, as his wives and I have reason to know. I say "wives" advisedly, for he had several. Marie Roze was never really married to him but, as he called her Mrs. Mapleson, she ought to be counted among the number. At the time of our "Three-Star Tour," she was playing the _rôle_ of Mapleson's wife and finding it somewhat perilous. She was a mild and gentle woman, very sweet-natured and docile and singularly stupid, frequently incurring her managerial "husband's" rage by doing things that he thought were impolitic, for he had always to manage every effect. She seldom complained of his treatment but nobody could know them without being sorry for her. Previous to this relation with Mapleson, Marie Roze had married an exceedingly fine man, a young American singer of distinction, who died soon after the marriage. She had two sons, one of whom, Raymond Roze, passed himself off as her nephew for years. I believe he is a musical director of position and success in London at the present day. Henry Mapleson did not inherit any of the strong points of his father, Col. J. M. Mapleson of London, who really did know something about giving opera, although he had his failings and was difficult to deal with. Henry Mapleson always disliked me and, over and over again, he put Marie in a position of seeming antagonism to me; but I never bore malice for she was innocent enough. She had some spirit tucked away in her temperament somewhere, only, when we first knew her, she was too intimidated to let it show. When she was singing _Carmen_ she was the gentlest mannered gypsy that was ever stabbed by a jealous lover--a handsome Carmen but too sweet and good for anything. Carlton was the Escamillo and he said to her quite crossly once at rehearsal, "You don't make love to me enough! You don't put enough devil into it!" Marie flared up for a second. "I can be a devil if I like," she informed him. But, in spite of this assertion, she never put any devil into anything she did--on the stage at least. [Illustration: =Colonel Henry Mapleson= From a photograph by Downey] Very few singers ever seem to get really inside Carmen. Some of the modern ones come closer to her; but in my day there was an unwritten law against realism in emotion. In most of the old standard _rôles_ it was all right to idealise impulses and to beautify the part generally, but Carmen is too terribly human to profit by such treatment. She cannot be glossed over. One can, if one likes, play _Traviata_ from an elegant point of view, but there is nothing elegant about Mérimée's Gypsy. Neither is there any sentiment. Carmen is purely--or, rather, impurely--elemental, a complete little animal. I used to love the part, though. When I was studying the part, I got hold of Prosper Mérimée's novel and read it and considered it until I really understood the girl's nature which, _en passant_, I may say is more than the critic of _The New York Tribune_ had done. I doubt if he had ever read Mérimée at all, for he said that my rendering of Carmen was too realistic! The same column spoke favourably in later years, of Mme. Calvé's performance, so it was undoubtedly a case of _autres temps, autres moeurs_! Carmen was, of course, too low for me. It was written for a low mezzo, and parts of it I could not sing without forcing my lower register. The Habanera went very well by being transposed half a tone higher; but the card-playing scene was another matter. The La Morte _encore_ lies very low and I could not raise it. Luckily the orchestra is quite light there and I could sing reflectively as if I were saying to myself, as I sat on the bales, "My time is coming!" [Illustration: Musical notation: Ri-pe-te-rà: l'av-el!....an-cor! au-cor!..La Morte n-cor!] In the fortune-telling quartette I arranged with one of the Gypsy girls--Frasquita, I think it was,--to sing my part and let me sing hers, which was very high, and thus relieve me. A _rôle_ in which I made my _début_ while I was with Marie Roze and Gary was Aïda. Mapleson was anxious that Roze should have it, but Strakosch gave it to me. One of Mapleson's critics wrote severely about my sitting on a low seat instead of on the steps of the dais during the return of Rhadames, I remember in this connection. But nothing could prevent Aïda from being a success and it became one of my happiest _rôles_. A year or two later when I sang it in London my success was confirmed. Gary was Amneris in it and ranked next to the Amneris for whom Verdi wrote it, although she rather over-acted the part. I have never seen an Amneris who did not. There is something about the part that goes to the head. Speaking of my new _rôles_ at that period, I must not forget to mention my mad scene from _Hamlet_; nor my one act of _Lohengrin_ that I added to my _répertoire_. Lucia had always been one of my successes; and I believe that one of the points that made my Senta interesting was that I interpreted her as a girl obsessed with what was almost a monomania. She was a highly abnormal creature and that was the way I played her. It was a satisfaction to me that a few people here and there really appreciated this rather subtle interpretation. In commendation of this interpretation there appeared an anonymous letter in _The Chicago Inter-Ocean_, a part of which read: "In her rendering of this strange character (Senta) Miss Kellogg keeps constantly true to the ideal of the great composer, Wagner. In her acting, as well as in her singing, we see nothing of the woman; only the abnormal manifestations of the subject of a monomania. The writer is informed by a physician whose observations of the insane, extending over many years, enable him to judge of Miss Kellogg's acting in this character, and he does not hesitate to say that she delineates truthfully the victim of a mind diseased. Such a delineation can only be the result of a careful study of the insane, aided by a wonderful intuitive faculty. The representation of the mad Ophelia in the last act of _Hamlet_, given by Miss Kellogg last Saturday, fully confirms the writer in the belief that no woman since Ristori possesses such power in rendering the manifestations of the insane." [Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg as Aïda= From a photograph by Mora] The portion of my tour with Roze and Cary under the management of Max Strakosch that took me to the far West, was particularly uncomfortable. Fortunately the financial results compensated in a large measure for the annoyances. Not only did I have Mapleson's influence and his determination to push Marie Roze at all costs to contend with, and the trying actions and personality of Annie Louise Cary, but I also was subjected to much embarrassment from a manager named Bianchi, with whom, early in my career, I had partially arranged to go to California. Our agreement had fallen through because he was unable to raise the sum promised me; so, when I did go, with Roze and Cary and Strakosch, he was exceedingly bitter against me. Annie Louise Cary was, strictly speaking, a contralto; yet she contrived to be considered as a mezzo and even had a try at regular soprano _rôles_ like _Mignon_. It is almost superfluous to state that she disliked me. So far as I was concerned, she would have troubled me very little indeed if she had been willing to let me alone. I would not know her socially, but professionally I always treated her with entire courtesy and would have been satisfied to hold with her the most amicable relations in the world, as I have with all singers with whom I have appeared in public. Annie Louise Cary, however, willed it otherwise. _The Tribune_ once printed a long editorial in which Max Strakosch was described as pacing up and down the room distractedly, crying: "Oh, what troubles! For God's sake, don't break up my troupe!" This was rather exaggerated; but I daresay there was more truth than fiction in it. Poor Max did have his troubles! Max Strakosch was an Austrian by birth and, having lived the greater part of twenty-five years in this country, considered himself an American. He began his career with Parodi, somewhere back in the rosy dawn of our operatic history. Parodi was a great dramatic singer--the only woman of her day--brought over as the rival of Jenny Lind. Later Max Strakosch was with Thalberg, after which he was connected with the importation of various opera troupes having in their lists such singers as Madame Gazzaniga, Madame Coulsen, Albertini, Stigelli, Brignoli, and Susini. In all these early enterprises he was associated with his brother Maurice. He would himself have become a musician, but Maurice advised differently. So, as he expressed it, he always engaged his artists "by ear"; that is, he had them sing to him and in that way judged of their availability. Maurice used to say to him, "If you are merely a technical musician you can only tell what will please musicians. If you have general musical culture, and know the public, you can tell what will please the public." And, as Max sometimes amplified, "I have discovered this to be correct in many cases. Jarrett, who acted as the agent of Nilsson and Lucca, is not a practical musician. Neither is Morelli, who is a great impresario; neither is Mapleson. But they know what the public want and they furnish it." After he separated from his brother in operatic management, Max travelled with Gottschalk, with Carlotta Patti, and first brought Nilsson to America. Capoul, Campanini, and Maurel all made their appearance on the American operatic stage under his guidance. Do you find your artists difficult to manage? [he was asked by a San Francisco reporter]. In some respects, yes, [was his reply]. They have certain operas which they wish to sing and they decline to learn others. The public get tired of these and demand novelty. With Miss Kellogg there is never this trouble. She knows forty operas and knows them well. She has a wonderful musical memory. She is a student, and learns everything new that is published. She has worked her way to her present high position step by step. She is sure of her position. She has an independent fortune, but loves her art and her country. But she is not obliged to confine herself to America. She has offers from London, Paris, and St. Petersburg, and will probably visit those places next season. She is just now at the zenith of her powers. She has learned _Paul and Virginia_, a very charming opera written for Capoul, and which will be given here for the first time in the United States. If we give our contemplated season of opera here she will sing Valentine in _The Huguenots_ for the first time. This same reporter has described Max as follows: He can be seen almost at any hour about the Palace Hotel when not engaged with a myriad of musicians--opera singers long ago stranded on this coast, young vocalists with voices to be tried, chorus singers seeking employment, players on instruments wanting to perform in his orchestra, and people who come on all imaginable errands--or looking at the objects of curiosity about the city. He is always in a state of vibration; has a tongue forever in motion and a body never at rest. He is as demonstrative as a Frenchman. He talks with all the oscillations, bobs, shrugs, and nervous twitchings of the most mercurial Parisian. He has a pronounced foreign accent. When speaking, his voice runs over the entire gamut, only stopping at _C_ sharp above the lines. In the dining-room he attracts the attention of guests and waiters by the eagerness of his manner. When interested in the subject of conversation, he throws his arms sideways, endangering the lives of his neighbours with his knife and fork, rises in his seat, makes extravagant gestures.... His greeting is always cordial, accompanied by a grasp of the hand like a patent vice or the gentle nip of a hay-press. Mlle. Ilma de Murska, "The Hungarian Nightingale," was with us part of the time on this tour. She was a well-known Amina in _Sonnambula_ and appeared in our all-star casts of _Don Giovanni_. She was said to have had five husbands. I know she had a chalk-white face, a belt of solid gold, and a menagerie of snakes and lizards that she carried about with her. This is all I remember with any vividness of Murska. It all seems long, long ago; and, I find, it is the ridiculously unimportant things that stand out most clearly in my memory. For instance, we gave extra concerts, of course, and one of them lasted so long, thanks to _encores_ and general enthusiasm, that Strakosch had to send word to hold the train by which we were leaving. But the audience wanted more, and yet more, and at last I had to go out on the stage and say: "There's a train waiting for me! If I sing again, I'll miss that train!" Then the people laughingly consented to let me go. Another funny little episode happened in San Francisco, when I did for once break down in the middle of a scene. It was--let me see--I think it must have been in our last season of English opera, instead of in "The Three Graces" tour, for it occurred in _The Talisman_, but speaking of California suggests it to me. We carried six Russian singers. They all joined the Greek Church choir later. One of them was a little man about five feet high, with a sweet voice, but an extremely nervous temperament. There was an unimportant _rôle_ in _The Talisman_ of a crusading soldier who had to rush on and sing a phrase to the effect that St. George's boats and horses were approaching from both sides; I do not recall the words. The only man who could sing the "bit" was our five-foot Russian friend. He had to wear a large Saracen helmet and carry a shield six feet high; and his entrance was a running one. I, playing Lady Edith Plantagenet, looked around to see the poor little chap come staggering along under the immense shield and to hear a very shaky and frightened voice gasp: "Sire, St. George's floats and boats, and flounts and mounts--" I tried to sing "A traitor! A traitor!" but got only as far as "A trai--" when I was overcome with an impulse of laughter and the curtain had to be rung down! I recall, too, a visit I had from a Chinese woman. I had bought something from a Chinese shop in San Francisco, and the wife of the merchant, dressed most ceremoniously and accompanied by four servants, came to see me and expressed her desire to have me call on her. So a cousin who was with me and I went, expecting to see a Chinese interior; but we found the most _banal_ of American furnishings and surroundings. Afterwards we visited Chinatown and one of the opium dens, where we saw the whole process of opium smoking by the men there, lying in bunks along the wall like shelves. It was on this trip, too, when going West, that, as we reached the Junction in Utah to branch off to Salt Lake City, we found the tracks were all filled up with the funeral train--flat decorated cars with seats--left from the funeral of Brigham Young. But the strongest recollection of all--yes, even than the troubles between Annie Louise Cary and myself--stands out, of that Western tour, the knowledge of the good friends I won, personally and professionally, a collective testimonial of which remains with me in the form of a large gold brooch shaped like a lyre, across which is an enamelled bar of music from _Faust_ delicately engraved in gold and with diamonds used as the notes. On the back is inscribed: "Farewell from friends who love thee." The same year I sang at the triennial festival of the Händel and Haydn Society of Boston. Emma Thursby, a high coloratura soprano, was with us. So were Charles Adams and M. W. Whitney. Gary also sang. It was a very brilliant musical event for the Boston of those days. It was in Boston, too, although a little later, that Von Bulow called on me and, speaking of practising on the piano, showed me his fingers, upon the tips of every one of which were very tough corns. In further conversation he remarked, with regard to Wagner, "Ah, he married my widow!" When singing in Boston one night, during "The Three Graces" tour, at a performance of _Mignon_, there was noted by one newspaper man who was present the somewhat curious fact that in singing that Italian opera only one of the principals sang in his or in her native tongue. Cary was an American, Roze a Frenchwoman, Tom Karl (Carroll) an Irishman, Verdi (Green) an American, and myself. The only Italian was Frapoli, the new tenor. [Illustration: =Faust Brooch Presented to Clara Louise Kellogg=] In 1878, on a Western trip, I remember my making a point, in some place in Kansas, of singing in an institute on Sunday for the pleasure of the inmates. We had done this sort of thing frequently before, notably in Utica. So we went to the prison to sing to the prisoners. I said to the company, "I am going to sing to give _pleasure_, and not a hymn is to be in the programme!" When I was told of the desperadoes in the place I was almost intimidated. The guards were particularly imposing. I played my own accompaniments and I sang negro melodies. I never had such an audience, of all my appreciative audiences. Never, I feel sure, have I given quite so much pleasure as to those lawless prisoners out in Kansas. CHAPTER XXVIII ACROSS THE SEAS AGAIN I was glad to be going again to England. My farewell to my native land was, however, more like an ovation than a farewell. One long table of the ship's grand saloon was heaped with flowers sent me by friends and "admirers." The list of my fellow passengers on this occasion was a distinguished one, including Bishop Littlejohn, Bishop Scarborough, Bishop Clarkson, and other Episcopal prelates who were going over to attend the conference in London; the Rev. Dr. John Hall; Maurice Grau, Max Strakosch, Henry C. Jarrett, John McCullough, Lester Wallack, General Rathbone of Albany, Colonel Ramsay of the British army, Frederick W. Vanderbilt, and Joseph Andrede, the Cape of Good Hope millionaire. I was interviewed by a _Sun_ reporter, on deck, and assured him that I was going abroad for rest only. "No," I said, "I shall not sing a note. How could I, after such a season--one hundred and fifty nights of constant labour. No; I shall breathe the sea air, and that of the mountains, and see Paris--delightful Paris! With such a lovely summer before me, it would be a little hard to have to work." It was like old times to be in England once more. Yet I found many changes. One of them was in the state of my old friend James McKenzie who had been in the East Indian trade and had a delightful place in Scotland adjoining that of the Queen, through which she used to drive with the incomparable John Brown. I had been invited up there on my first visit to England, but was not able to accept. When I asked for him this time I learned that he had been knighted for loaning money to the Prince of Wales. A girl I knew quite well told me, this year, a touching little story of a half-fledged romance which had taken place at Sir James's place in Scotland. The Prince who was known in England as "Collars and Cuffs" and who died young, was with the McKenzies for the hunting season and there met my friend,--such a pretty American girl she was! They fell in love with each other and, though of course nothing could come of it, they played out their pathetic little drama like any ordinary young lovers. "Come down early to dinner," the Prince would whisper. "I'll have a bit of heather for you!" And when they met in London, later, he took her to Marlborough House and showed her the royal nurseries and the shelves where his toys were still kept. The girl nearly broke down when she told me about it. I have thought of the little story more than once since. "He hated to have me courtesy to him," she said. "He used to whisper quite fiercely: 'don't you courtesy to me when you can avoid it--I can't bear to have you do it!'" My new _rôle_ in London that season was Aïda. For, of course, I was singing! It went so well that Mapleson (père) wanted to extend my engagement. But I was very, very tired and, for some reason--this, probably,--not in my usual "form," to borrow an Anglicism, so I decided to go to Paris and rest, meanwhile waiting for something to develop that I liked well enough to accept. Maurice Strakosch had been my agent in England, but it seemed to me that his methods were becoming somewhat antiquated. So I gave him up and decided that I would get along without any agent at all. I also gave up Colonel Mapleson. Mapleson owed me money--although, for that matter, he owed everybody. Poor Titjiens sang for years for nothing. So, when, as soon as I was fairly settled in Paris, the Colonel sent me earnest and prayerful summons to come back to London and go on singing _Aïda_, I turned a deaf ear and sent back word that I was too tired. My first appearance in London this season was at a Royal Concert at Buckingham Palace to which, as before, I was "commanded." There were present many royalties, any number of foreign ambassadors, dukes, duchesses, marquises, marchionesses, archbishops, earls, countesses, lords, and viscounts. Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales wore, I remember, a gown of crème satin brocade trimmed with point d'Alençon, trimmed with pansy-coloured velvet; and her jewels were diamonds, pearls, and sapphires. Her tiara was of diamonds and she was decorated with many orders. Said an American press notice: Miss Kellogg, it is a pleasure to say, achieved a complete triumph and received the congratulations of the Prince and Princess of Wales and of everyone present.... And not a whit behind this was the great triumph she gained on the evening of June 19th, in her character of Aïda, without doubt the most impressive and ambitious of her impersonations, and which has won for her in America the highest praise from musical people and public on account of the intensity of feeling which she throws into the dramatic action and music. The London _Times_ critic, who is undoubtedly the best in London, bestows praise in unequivocal language for the excellence of Miss Kellogg's interpretation. That Miss Kellogg has been so successful as a singer will be glad news to her friends, and that she has been so successful as an American singer will be still better news to those people who feel keenly for our national reputation as lovers and promoters of the fine arts. In an interview in London Max Strakosch was asked with regard to his plans for another season: "Why do you contemplate giving English opera instead of Italian?" "For two reasons," he replied. "The first is that English is very popular now and the great generality of people in England and America prefer it. This is especially the case in England. The second reason is that, although Kellogg is the equal of an Italian operatic star, fully as fine as Gerster, immeasurably superior to Hauck, people with set ideas will always have their favourites, and partisanship is possible; whereas in English opera Kellogg stands alone, unapproachable, the indisputable queen." "What is all this talk I hear about a lot of rich men coming to the front in New York to support Mapleson's operatic ventures with their money?" "Why, it is all talk; that's just it. That sort of talk has been talked for years back, but they never do anything. Why didn't these rich men that want opera in New York give me any money? I stood ready to bring out any artists they wanted if they would guarantee me against loss. But they never did anything of the kind, and I have brought out the leading artists of our times at my own risks. The only man who's worth anything of all that lot that's talking so much about opera now in New York is Mr. Bennett. He's got the _Herald_, and that has influence." "What do you think of Americans as an opera-going people?" he was asked. "While we have many music-lovers in America, it is nevertheless a difficult matter to cater to our public," Max replied. "Here in England there is such an immense constituency for opera; people who have solid fortunes, which nothing disturbs, and who want opera and all other beautiful and luxurious things, and will pay largely for them. In America hard times may set everybody to economising and, of course, one of the first things cut off is going to the opera." "Was all that gossip about disputes and jealousies between Kellogg and Gary last season a managerial dodge for notoriety?" "Dear me, no. I haven't the slightest idea how all that stuff and nonsense started. Kellogg and Gary were always good friends. If Gary wasn't pleased with her treatment last year, why should she engage with us again? Besides, what rivalry could there possibly be between a soprano and a contralto? The soprano is the _prima donna_ incontestably, the star of the troupe." In Paris my mother and I took an apartment on the Rue de Chaillot, just off the Champs Élysées. One of the first things I did in Paris was to refuse an offer to sing in Budapesth. While in Paris I, of course, did sing many times, but it was always unprofessionally. I had a wonderful stay in Paris, and went to everything from horse shows to operas. Those were the charming days when Mme. Adam had her _salon_. I met there some of the most gifted and brilliant people of the age. She was the editor of the _Nouvelle Revue_, and it was through her that I met Coquelin. He frequently recited at her receptions; and it was a great privilege to hear his wonderful French and his inimitable intonation in an _intime_ way. The house where I enjoyed visiting more than any other except the Adams', was that of Theodore Robin, who had married a rich American widow and had a beautiful home on Parc Monceau. His baritone voice was a very fine one, and he had studied at first with a view to making a career for himself; but he was naturally indolent and, having married money, his indolence never decreased. Valentine Black was another friend of ours and we spent many an evening at his house listening to Godard and Widor play their songs. Widor was the organist at Saint Sulpice and had composed some charming lyric music. Godard was a very small man, intensely musical. He had the curious gift of being able to copy another composer's style exactly. Few people know, for instance, that he wrote all the recitative music for _Carmen_. It is almost incredible that another brain than Bizet's should have so marvellously caught the spirit and the mood of that music. The Stanley Club gave me a dinner in the following March at which my mother and I were the only ladies present. Mr. Ryan was the President of the Club and represented the _New York Herald_. The foreign correspondents of the _Evening Post_ and the _Boston Advertiser_ were there, and next to Ryan sat Richard Watson Gilder who was representing the _Century Magazine_. There were also there several poets and writers, and more than one painter whose picture hung in the _Salon_ of that year. No one asked me to sing; but I felt that I wanted to and did so. After the "Jewel Song" and the "Polonaise," someone asked for "Way Down on the Suwanee River." I sang it, and was struck by the incongruous touch of the little negro melody, the brilliant Stanley Club, and all Paris outside. No one can live in the atmosphere of artistic Paris without being interested in other branches of art besides one's own. That is a charming trait of French people;--they are not a bit prejudiced when it comes to recognising forms of genius that are unfamiliar. The stupidest Parisian painter will weep over Tschaikowsky's _Pathétique Symphony_ or will wildly applaud one of the rather cumbersome Racine tragedies at the Théâtre Français. I knew Cabanel quite well (not, I hasten to add, that he would be apt to cultivate an artistic taste in anybody) and I met Jules Stewart at the Robins', whose father was the greatest collector of Fortuneys in the world. I think it was he who took me to the Loan Exhibition of the Barbizon School of Painting that year. The pictures were hung beautifully, I remember, so that one could see the stages of their development. It was about the same time that I first heard Josephine de Reszke in Paris. In any case it was somewhere in the seventies. She was a soprano with a beautiful voice but not an attractive personality. Her neck was exceptionally short and set so far down into her shoulders that she just escaped deformity. She was very much the blonde, northern type, and still a young woman. I have heard that she did not have to sing for monetary reasons. A few years later she married a wealthy Polish banker and left the stage. At the time I first heard her the de Reszke men were not singing. It was in _Le Roi de Lahore_ that I heard her, with Lascelle. I never listened to anything more magnificently done than Lascelle's singing of the big baritone _aria_. Maurel followed him as a baritone. He was a great artist also, with possibly more intelligence in his singing than Lascelle. Lascelle relied entirely on his glorious voice; in consequence he never realised all in his career that might have been possible. In reality, if you have one great gift, you have to develop as many other gifts as possible in order to present and to protect that one properly! A little later I heard Maurel in _Iago_. (This reminds me of _Othello_ in Munich, when Vogel, the tenor, sang out of tune and nearly spoiled Maurel's work). What an actor, and what an intelligence! One felt in Maurel a man who had studied his _rôles_ from the original plots. He played a great part in costuming, but, curiously enough, he could never play parts of what I call elemental picturesqueness. His Amonasro in _Aïda_ was good, but it was a bit too clean and tidy. He looked as if he were just out of a Turkish bath, immaculate, in spite of his uncivilised guise. He could, however, play a small part as if it were the finest _rôle_ in the piece; and he had an inimitable elegance and art, even with a certain primitive romantic quality lacking. But what days those were--of what marvellous singing companies! I hear no such vocalism now, in spite of the elaborate and expensive opera that is put on each year. In my mother's diary of this period I find: Louise presented to Verdi and we had no idea she would appear in any newspaper in consequence.... She went to hear the damnation of _Faust_ last Sunday and says the orchestra was _very_ fine. The singing is not so much. She went to hear _Aïda_ last night at the Grau Opera House with Verdi to conduct and Krauss as Aïda. Chorus and orchestra fine artists. _Well_--she was _disappointed_! Krauss sings so false and has not as much power as Louise. She came home quite proud of herself. Took her opera and marked everything. Says her _tempo_ was very nearly correct; but yet she was disappointed. Krauss changes her dress. Louise does not.... We went to Miss Van Zandt's _début_. She made a veritable success. Has a very light tone. The _Théâtre Comique_ is small. She is extremely slender and, if not worked too hard, will develop into a fine artist. Our box joined Patti's. I sat next to her and we lost no time in chatting over everything that was interesting to us both. She told me her whole story. I was very much interested; and had a most agreeable evening. Was glad I went. In a letter written by my mother to my father I find another mention of my meeting Verdi: "Louise was invited to breakfast with Verdi, the composer of _Aïda_. She said he was the most natural, unaffected, and the most amiable man (musical) she ever met." CHAPTER XXIX TEACHING AND THE HALF-TALENTED I have gone abroad nearly every summer and it was on one of these trips, in 1877, that I first met Lilian Nordica. It was at a garden party given by the Menier Chocolat people at their _usine_ just outside Paris, after she had returned from making a tour of Europe with Patrick Gilmore's band. A few years later she and I sang together in Russia; and we have always been good friends. At the time of the Gilmore tour she was quite a girl, but she dressed her hair in a fashion that made her look much older than she really was and that threw into prominence her admirably determined chin. She always attributed her success in life to that chin. Before becoming an opera singer she had done about everything else. She had been a book-keeper, had worked at the sewing machine, and sung in obscure choirs. The chin enabled her to surmount such drudgery. A young person with a chin so expressive of determination and perseverance could not be downed. She told me at that early period that she always kept her eyes fixed on some goal so high and difficult that it seemed impossible, and worked toward it steadily, unceasingly, putting aside everything that stood in the path which led to it. In later years she spoke again of this, evidently having kept the idea throughout her career. "When I sang Elsa," she said, "I thought of Brunhilde,--then Isolde,--" My admiration for Mme. Nordica is deep and abounding. Her breathing and tone production are about as nearly perfect as anyone's can be, and, if I wanted any young student to learn by imitation, I could say to her, "Go and hear Nordica and do as nearly like her as you can!" There are not many singers, nor have there ever been many, of whom one could say that. And one of the finest things about this splendid vocalism is that she has had nearly as much to do with it as had God Almighty in the first place. When I first knew her she had no dramatic quality above _G_ sharp. She could reach the upper notes, but tentatively and without power. She had, in fact, a beautiful mezzo voice; but she could not hope for leading _rôles_ in grand opera until she had perfect control of the upper notes needed to complete her vocal equipment. She went about it, moreover, "with so much judition," as an old man I know in the country says. But it was not until after the Russian engagement that she went to Sbriglia in Paris and worked with him until she could sing a high _C_ that thrilled the soul. That _C_ of hers in the Inflammatus in Rossini's _Stabat Mater_ was something superb. Not many singers can do it as successfully as Nordica, although they can all accomplish a certain amount in "manufactured" notes. Fursch-Nadi, also a mezzo, had to acquire upper notes as a business proposition in order to enlarge her _répertoire_. She secured the notes and the requisite _rôles_; yet her voice lost greatly in quality. Nordica's never did. She gained all and lost nothing. Her voice, while increasing in register, never suffered the least detriment in tone nor _timbre_. It was Nordica who first told me of Sbriglia, giving him honest credit for the help he had been to her. Like all truly big natures she has always been ready to acknowledge assistance wherever she has received it. Some people--and among them artists to whom Sbriglia's teaching has been of incalculable value--maintain a discreet silence on the subject of their study with him, preferring, no doubt, to have the public think that they have arrived at vocal perfection by their own incomparable genius alone. All of my training had been in my native country and I had always been very proud of the fact that critics and experts on two continents cited me as a shining example of what American musical education could do. All the same, when I was in Paris during an off season, I took advantage of being near the great teacher, Sbriglia, to consult him. I really did not want him actually to do anything to my voice as much as I wanted him to tell me there was nothing that needed doing. At the time I went to him I had been singing for twenty years. Sbriglia tried my voice carefully and said: "Mademoiselle, you have saved your voice by singing far _forward_." "That's because I've been worked hard," I told him, "and have had to place it so in self-defence. Many a night I've been so tired it was like _pumping_ to sing! Then I would sing 'way, _'way_ in front and, by so doing, was able to get through." "Ah, that's it!" said he. "You've sung against your teeth--the best thing in the world for the preservation of the voice. You get a _white_, flat sound that way." "Then I don't sing wrong?" I asked, for I knew that the first thing great vocal masters usually have to do is to tell one how not to sing. "Mademoiselle," said Sbriglia, "you breathe by the grace of God! Breathing is all of singing and I can teach you nothing of either." Sbriglia's method was the old Italian method known to teachers as _diaphragmatic_, of all forms of vocal training the one most productive of endurance and stability in a voice. I went several times to sing for him and, on one occasion, met Plançon who had been singing in Marseilles and, from a defective method, had begun to sing out of tune so badly that he resolved to come to Paris to see if he could find someone who might help him to overcome it. He was quite frank in saying that Sbriglia had "made him." I used to hear him practising in the Maestro's apartment and would listen from an adjoining room so that, when I met him, I was able to congratulate him on his improvement in tone production from day to day. Phrasing and expression are what make so many great French artists--that, and an inborn sense of the general effect. French actors and singers never forget to keep themselves picturesque and harmonious. They may get off the key musically but never _artistically_. Germans have not a particle of this sense. They are individualists, egoists, and are forever thinking of themselves and not of the whole. When I heard Slezak, I said to myself: "If only somebody would photograph that man and show him for once what he looks like!" The worst thing Sbriglia had to contend with was the obtuseness of people. They did not know when they were doing well or ill, and would not believe him when he told them. I remember being there one day while a young Canadian girl was making tones for the master. She had a good voice and could have made a really fine effect if she could only have heard herself with her brain. After he had been working with her for a time, she sang a delightful note properly placed. "Good!" exclaimed Sbriglia. "That was lovely," I put in. "_That?_ I wouldn't sing like that for anything! It sounded like an old woman's voice!" cried the girl, quite amazed. Sbriglia threw up his hands in a frenzy and ordered her out of the house. So that was an end of her as far as he was concerned. Sbriglia really loved to teach. It was a genuine joy to him to put the finishing touches on a voice; to do those things for it that, apparently, the Creator had not had time to do. I know one singer who, when complimented upon his vast improvement, replied without the slightest intention of impiety: "Yes, I am singing well now, thanks to Sbriglia,--and, of course, _le bon Dieu_!" he added as an after-thought. Everyone knows what Sbriglia did for Jean de Reszke, turning him from an unsuccessful baritone into the foremost tenor of the world. Sbriglia first met the Polish singer at some Paris party, where de Reszke told him that he was discouraged, that his career as a baritone had not been a fortunate one, and that he had about made up his mind to give it all up and leave the stage. He was a rich man and did not sing for a living like most professionals. Sbriglia had heard him sing. Said he: "M. de Reszke, you are not a baritone." "I am coming to that conclusion myself," said Monsieur ruefully. "No, you are not a baritone," repeated Sbriglia. "You are a tenor." Jean de Reszke laughed. A tenor? He? But it was absurd! Nevertheless Sbriglia was calmly assured; and he was the greatest master of singing in France, if not in the world. After a little conversation, he convinced M. de Reszke sufficiently, at least, to give the new theory a chance. "You need not pay me anything," said the great teacher to the young man. "Not one franc will I take from you until I have satisfied you that my judgment is correct. Study with me for six months only and then I will leave it to you--and the world!" That was the beginning of the course of study which launched Jean de Reszke upon his extraordinarily prosperous and brilliant career. Speaking of Sbriglia leads my thoughts from the study of singing in general to the struggle of young singers, first, for education, and, second, for recognition. I would like to impress upon those who think of trying to make a career or who would like to make one the benefit to be derived from reading the twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters of George Eliot's _Daniel Deronda_, in which she makes clear how much early environment counts. There must have been some musical atmosphere, even if not of an advanced or educated kind. Music must be absorbed with the air one breathes and the food one eats, so as to form part of the blood and tissue. It is sad to see the number of girls with the idea that they are possessed of great gifts just ready to be developed by a short period of study, after which they will blossom out into successful singers. Injudicious friends--absolutely without judgment or musical discrimination--are responsible for the cruel disillusions that so frequently follow. I would like to cry out to them to reject the thought; or only to entertain it when encouraged by those capable by experience or training of truly judging their gifts. Many and many a girl comes out of a household where the highest musical knowledge has been the hand-organ in the street, and believes that she is going to take the world by storm. She is prepared to save and scrimp and struggle to go upon the stage when she really should be stopping at home, ironing the clothes and washing the dishes allotted her by a discriminating and judicious Providence. Said Klesner to Gwendolen who wants to go on the stage in _Daniel Deronda_: You have exercised your talents--you recite--you sing--from the drawing-room _Standpunkt_. My dear _Fräulein_, you must unlearn all that. You have not yet conceived what excellence is. You must unlearn your mistaken admirations. You must know what you have to strive for, and then you must subdue your mind and body to unbroken discipline. Your _mind_, I say. For you must not be thinking of celebrity. Put that candle out of your eyes and look only at excellence. You would, of course, earn nothing. You could get no engagement for a long while. You would need money for yourself and your family.... A mountebank's child who helps her father to earn shillings when she is six years old--a child that inherits a singing throat from a long line of choristers and learns to sing as it learns to talk--has a likelier beginning. Any great achievement in acting or in music grows with the growth. Whenever an artist has been able to say, "I came, I saw, I conquered," it has been at the end of patient practice. Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline. Singing and acting, like the fine dexterity of the juggler with his cups and balls, require a shaping of the organs toward a finer and finer certainty of effect. Your muscles--your whole frame--must go like a watch, true, true, true, to a hair. That is the work of springtime, before habits have been determined. This demonstrates what I cannot emphasise too heartily--the impossibility of taking people out of their normal environment and making anything worth while of them. There is a place in the world for everybody and, if everybody would stay in that place, there would be less confusion and fewer melancholy misfits. Singing is not merely vocal. It is spiritual. One must be _in_ music in some way; must hear it often, or, even, hear it talked about. Merely hearing it talked about gives one a chance to absorb some musical ideas while one's mental attitude is being moulded. Studying in classes supplies the musical atmosphere to a certain extent; and so does hearing other people sing, or reading biographies of musicians. All these are better than nothing--much better--and yet they can never take the place of really musical surroundings in childhood. Being brought up in a household where famous composers are known, loved, and discussed, where the best music is played on the piano and where certain critical standards are a part of the intellectual life of the inmates is a large musical education in itself. The young student will absorb thus more real musical feeling, and judgment, and knowledge, than in spending years at a conservatory. I have often and often received letters asking for advice and begging me to hear the voices of girls who have been told they have talent. It is a heart-breaking business. About one in sixty has had something resembling a voice and then, ten chances to one, she has not been in a position to cultivate herself. It is difficult to tell a girl that a woman must have many things besides a voice to make a success on the stage. It seems so--well!--so _conceited_--to say to her: "My poor child, you must have presence and personality; good teeth and a knowledge of how to dress; grace of manner, dramatic feeling, high intelligence, and an aptitude for foreign languages besides a great many other essentials that are too numerous to mention but that you will discover fast enough if you try to go ahead without them!" An impulsive and warm-hearted friend was visiting me once when I received a letter from a young woman whom I will call "E. H.," asking permission to come and sing for me. I read the note in despair and threw it over to my friend. "What are you going to do about it?" she asked, after she had glanced through it. "Nothing. The girl has no talent." "How do you know that?" protested my friend. "By her letter. It is a crassly ignorant letter. I feel perfectly sure that she can't sing." "You are very unkind!" my friend reproached me. "You ought at least to hear her. You may be discouraging a genuine genius----" "Now see here," I interrupted, "'E. H.' is evidently ignorant and uneducated. She further admits that she is poor. These facts taken together make a terrible handicap. She'd have to be a miracle to make good in spite of them." "I will pay her expenses to come here and see you," declared my dear friend, obstinate in well-doing, like many another mistaken philanthropist. I told her that she might take that responsibility if she liked, but that I would have nothing to do with raising a girl's false hopes in any such way. "It's a little hard on her," I said, "to have to borrow money to take a journey simply to be told that she can't sing. However, have it your own way and bring her." She came. I saw her approaching up the driveway and simply pointed her out to my misguided friend. Anyone would have known the minute he saw "E. H." that she could not sing. She slouched and dragged her feet and was hopelessly ordinary, every inch of her. It was not merely a matter of plainness, but something far worse. She was quite hopeless. It turned out, poor soul, that she was a chambermaid in a hotel. People had heard her singing at her work and had told her that she ought to have her voice cultivated. It was, as usual, a case of injudicious friends, and, by the way, the very fact of being carried away by such praise is in itself a mark of a certain lack of intelligence. This girl had no temperament, no ear, no equipment, no taste, no advantages in the way of having heard music. I had to say to her: "You have a pretty voice but nothing else, and not a sign of a career. Dismiss it all, for you must have something more than a few sweet notes." She cried, and I did, too. I hate to be obliged to tell girls such disagreeable truths. Another girl came to me with her mother. She was full of herself and her mother equally wrapped up in her. She had taken part in small village affairs in the little Connecticut town where she lived. Her voice was not bad, but she produced her notes in a wrong manner. Her teacher had encouraged her and promised her success. But teachers do that, many of them! I do not know that they can altogether be blamed. "You don't breathe right," I said to this Connecticut girl. "You don't produce your tone right. You've no experience and, of course, you believe your teacher. But you forget one thing. Your teacher has to live and you pay him for stimulating you, even if he does so without justification." What I did not go on to say to her, although I longed to, was that she was not the _build_ of which _prime donne_ are made. A _prima donna_ has to be compactly, sturdily made, with a strong backbone to support her hard work and a _lifted_ chest to let the tones out freely. A niece of Bret Harte's, who appeared for a time in grand opera, drooped her chest as she exhausted her breath and, when I saw her do it, I said: "She sings well; but she won't sing long!" She didn't. My Connecticut girl was big and sloppy, a long-drawn-out person, such as is never, never gifted with a big voice. There is something else which is very necessary for every girl to consider in going on the operatic stage. Has she the means for experimenting, or does she have to earn her living in some way meanwhile? If the former is the case, it will do no harm for her to play about with her voice, burn her fingers if need be, and come home to her mother and father not much the worse for the experience. I sympathise somewhat with the teachers in not speaking altogether freely in cases like these. There is no reason why anyone should take from a girl even one remote chance if _she_ can afford to take it. But poor girls should be told the truth. So I said to my young Connecticut friend: "My dear, you are trying to support yourself and your mother, aren't you? Very well. Now, suppose you go on and find that you can't--what will you do then? What are you fitted for? What can you turn your hand to? What have you acquired? Look how few singers ever arrive and, if you are not one of the few, will you not merely have entirely unfitted yourself for the life struggle along other lines?" Herewith I say the same to four-fifths of all the girl singers who, in villages, in shops, in schools, everywhere, are all yearning to be great. They came to me in shoals in Paris and Milan, begging for just enough money to get home with. I have shipped many a failure back to America, and my soul has been sick for their disappointment and disillusionment. But they will _not_ be guided by advice or warning. They have got to learn actually and bitterly. Neither are they ever grateful for discouragement nor yet for encouragement. If you give them the former, they think you are a selfish pessimist; and if you give them the latter, they accept it as no more than their due. As I have previously mentioned, I have known only one grateful girl and she was of ordinary ability. Emma Abbott, for whom I certainly did a great deal, was only grateful because she knew it was expected of her by the world at large. I believe she really thought that all I did was to hasten her success a little and that she really had not needed my assistance. Possibly, she had not. But this other girl, to whom I gave a little, unimportant advice, wrote me afterwards a most appreciative letter, saying that my advice had been invaluable to her. It was the only word of genuine gratitude I ever received from a young singer; and I kept her letter as a curiosity. I believe there are, or were, more would-be _prime donne_ in Chicago than anywhere else on earth. I shall never forget appointing a Thursday afternoon in the Windy City to hear twelve aspirants to operatic fame--pretty, fresh, self-conscious, young girls for the most part. There was one of the number who was particularly pretty and particularly aggressive. She criticised the others lavishly, but hung back from singing herself. She talked a great deal about her voice, saying that she had sung for Theodore Thomas and that he had told her there was no hall big enough for it! Such colossal conceit prejudiced me in advance and I must confess I felt a little curiosity to hear this "phenomenal organ." It proved to be perfectly useless. She had neither power nor quality nor comprehension. She could, however, make a big noise, as I told her. On Sunday my friends began coming in to see me, full of an article that had appeared in one of the papers that morning. Everyone began with: "Good morning, Louise. My dear! Have you seen,"--etc. The article, that had quite openly been given the paper by the young lady whose voice had been so much admired by Theodore Thomas, described my unkindness to young singers, my jealous objection to praising aspirants, my discouragement of good voices! As a matter of fact, I have always been the friend of young girls, especially of young singers. So far from wishing to hurt or discourage them, I have often gone out of my way to help them along. And I believe that every time I have been obliged to tell a young and eager girl that there was no professional triumph ahead of her, it has cut me almost, if not quite, as deeply as it has cut her. For I always feel that I am maiming, even killing some beautiful thing in discouraging her,--even when I know it to be necessary and beneficial. Another thing that I wish young would-be artists would remember is that, if it is worth while to sing the music of a song, it is equally worth while to sing the words, and that you cannot sing the words really, unless you are singing their meaning. Do I make myself understood, I wonder? Once a girl with a sweetly pretty voice sang to me Nevin's _Mighty Lak a Rose_, the little negro song which Madame Nordica gave so charmingly. When the girl had finished, I said: "My dear, have you read those words?" She looked at me blankly. I know she thought I was crazy. "Because," I proceeded, "if you read the poetry over before you sing that song again, you'll find that it will help you." She had, I presume, "read" the words or she could not have actually pronounced them; but she had not made the slightest attempt to read the spirit of the little song. No picture had come to her of a rosy baby dropping asleep and of a loving mammy crooning over him. She had not read the _feeling_ of the song, even if she had memorised the syllables. Girls hate to work. They, even more than boys, want a short cut to efficiency and success. Labour and effort are cruel words to them. They want the glamour and the fun all at once. What would they say to the noble and inspiring example of old E. S. Jaffray, a merchant of sixty, whom I once knew, who, at that age, decided to learn Italian in order to read Dante in the original? The best way--as I have said before and as I insist on saying--for anyone to learn to sing is by imitation and assimilation. My friend Franceschetti, a Roman gentleman, poor but of noble family, has classes that I always attend when I am in the Eternal City, and wherein the instruction is most advantageously given. He criticises each student in the presence of the others and, if the others are listening at all intelligently, they must profit. But you must listen, and then listen, and then keep on listening, and finally begin to listen all over again. You must keep your ear ready, and your mind as well. Just as Faure, when he heard the bad baritone, said to himself, "that's my note! Now how does he do it?" so you must hold yourself ready to learn from the most humble as well as from the most unlikely sources. Never forget that Faure learned from the really poor singer what no good one had been able to teach him. Remember, too, that Patti learned one of her own flexible effects from listening to Faure himself: and that these great artists were not too proud to acknowledge it. I never went to hear Patti, myself, without studying the fine, forward placing of her voice and coming home immediately and trying to imitate it. Yet, after all one's efforts to help, one can only let the young singers find out for themselves. If we could profit by each other's experience, there would be no need for the doctrine of reincarnation. But I wish--oh, how I wish--that I could save some foolish girls from embarking on the ocean of art as half of them do with neither chart or compass, nor even a seaworthy boat. A better metaphor comes to me in my recollection of a famous lighthouse that I once visited. The rocks about were strewn with dead birds--pitiful, little, eager creatures that had broken their wings and beaten out their lives all night against the great revolving light. So the lighthouse of success lures the young, ambitious singers. And so they break their wings against it. CHAPTER XXX THE WANDERLUST AND WHERE IT LED ME That season of 1879 in Paris was certainly a wonderful one; and yet, before it was over, I caught that strange fever of unrest that sends birds migrating and puts the Romany tribes on the move. With me it came as a result of over-fatigue and ill-health; an instinctive craving for the medicine of change. The preceding London season had been exacting and, in Paris, I had not had a moment in which to really rest. Although the days had been filled most pleasantly and interestingly, they had been filled to over-flowing, and I was very, very tired. So, in the grip of the wanderlust, we packed our trunks and went to Aix-les-Bains. We had not the slightest idea what we would do next. My mother was not very well, either, and my coloured maid, Eliza, had to be in attendance upon her a good deal of the time, so that I was forced to consider the detail of proper chaperonage. We were in a French settlement and I was a _prima donna_, fair game for gossip and comment. Therefore, I invited a friend of mine, a charming young Englishwoman, down from Paris to visit me. She was very curious about America, I remember. She was always asking me about "the States" and was especially interested in my accounts of the anti-negro riots. The fact that they had been almost entirely instigated by the Irish Catholics in New York excited her so that she felt obliged to go and talk with a priest in Aix about it. It was she, also, who said something one day that I thought both amusing and significant. "My dear," she exclaimed, "tell me what are 'buttered nuts'?" "Never heard of them," I replied. "Oh, yes, my dear Louise, you must have! They are in all American books!" Of course she meant _butternuts_, as I laughingly explained. A moment later she observed meditatively, "you know, I never take up an American novel that I don't read some description of food!" I think what she said was quite true. I have remarked it since. Although I do not consider that we are a greedy nation in practice when it comes to food, we do love reading and hearing about good things to eat. Presently, as my mother felt better and had no real need of me, I decided to take a little trip, leaving her at Aix with Eliza. Not quite by myself, of course. I never reached such a degree of emancipation as that. But I asked my English friend to go with me, and one fine day she and I set out in search of whatever entertaining thing might come our way. I had been so held down to routine all my life, my comings and goings had been so ordered and so sensible, that I deeply desired to do a bit of real gypsy wandering without the handicap of a travelling schedule. No travelling is so delightful as this sort. Don Quixote it was, if I remember rightly, who let his horse wander whithersoever he pleased, "believing that in this consisted the very being of adventures." We went first to Geneva and so over the Simplon Pass into Italy. We dreamed among the lakes, reading guide-books to help us decide on our next stopping-point. So, on and on, until after a while we reached Vienna. Three hours after my arrival there Alfred Fischoff, the Austrian impresario, routed me out. "Where are you bound for?" he wanted to know. "Nowhere. That is just the beauty of it!" "Ah!" he commented understandingly. And then he asked, "How would you like to sing?" Even though I was on a pleasure trip the idea allured me, for I always like to sing. "Sing where?" I questioned. "Here, in Vienna." "I couldn't. I don't sing in German," I objected. "You could sing _als Gast_" (as a guest), he said. Finally it was so arranged and, I may add, I was the only _prima donna_ except Nilsson who had ever been permitted to sing in Italian at the Imperial Opera House, while the other artists sang in German. A letter from my mother to my father at that time discloses a light upon her point of view. "Louise telegraphed for Eliza and her costumes. I thought at first she was crazy, but it appears she was sane after all. A fine Vienna engagement...." It was an undertaking to travel in Germany in those days. The German railway officials spoke nothing but German and, furthermore, they are never adaptable and quick like the Italians. In France or Italy they understood you whether you spoke their language or not; but a Teuton has to have everything translated into his own untranslatable tongue. When my mother had finally gathered together my costumes, she wrote out a long document that she had translated into German, concerning all that Eliza was to do, and where she was to go, and gave it to her so that she could produce it along the way and be passed on to the next official without explanation or complication. And after this fashion Eliza and my costumes reached me safely. She was a good traveller and a good maid. She was also very popular in that part of the world. Negroes had no particular stigma attached to them on the Continent. Many of them were no darker of hue than the Hindu and Mohammedan royalties who journeyed there occasionally. So, wherever we went, my good, dark-skinned Eliza was a real belle. There was much to interest me in Vienna, not only as a foreign capital of note, but also as a curiosity. In a long life, and after many and diverse experiences, I never had been in a city so entirely bound up in its own interests and traditions. The luckless sinner battering vainly upon the gates of Heaven has a better fighting chance, all told, than has the ambitious outsider who aspires to social recognition by the Viennese aristocracy. If an American is ever heard to say that he or she has been received by Viennese society, those hearing the speech may laugh in their sleeve and wonder what society it was. The thing cannot be done. A handle to one's name, an estate, all the little earmarks of "nobility" are not only required but insisted on. I believe it to be a safe statement to make that no one without a title, and a title recognised by the Austrians as one of distinction, can be received into the inner circle. Even diplomatic representatives of republics are not exempt from this ruling. They may have the wealth of the Indies, and their wives may possess the beauty of Helen herself, and yet they are not admitted. For this reason Austria is a most difficult post for republican legations. Republican representatives do not stay there long. Usually, the report is that they are recalled for diplomatic reasons, or their health has failed, or some other pride-saving excuse to satisfy a democratic populace. Vienna was, and I suppose is, the dullest Court in the whole world. The German Court at one time had the distinction of being the dullest, but that has looked up a bit during the reign of the present Kaiser. But Austria! The society of Vienna has absolutely no interest in anything or anybody outside its own sacred Inner Circle. On one occasion I was guilty of a great breach of etiquette. Meyerbeer's son-in-law, a Baron of good lineage, was calling on me, and a correspondent from _The London Daily Telegraph_, whom I had met socially and not professionally, happened to be present. Although I knew from my foreign experiences that possibly it was hardly the correct thing to do, I, not unnaturally, presented them to each other. To my surprise the Baron became stiff and the young Englishman somewhat ill at ease. I must say, however, the Englishman carried it off better than the Baron did. When the Austrian had departed, my newspaper acquaintance told me that I had committed a social _faux pas_ in making them known to each other. Introductions are absolutely _taboo_ between titled persons and "commoners," as they are sternly called. A baron could not meet a newspaper man! As a case in point, an Englishman of very distinguished connections arrived in Vienna at the time of one of the Court balls. He applied at his Embassy for an invitation, but was told that such a thing would be quite impossible. Viennese etiquette was too rigid, etc. Therefore, he did not go to the ball. But it so chanced that, a little later, when he went to call on the British Ambassador, he mentioned, casually enough, that he had a courtesy title but never used it when travelling. "Why didn't you say so?" exclaimed the Ambassador. "I could have got you an invitation quite easily, if you had only explained that!" Even the opera was very official and imperial. The Court Theatre was a government house, and the manager of it an _Intendant_ and a rather grand person. In my time he was Baron Hoffman; and he and the Baroness asked me often to their home and placed boxes at the opera at my disposal, this last courtesy being one that the regular artists at the opera are never permitted to receive. The Imperial Opera House of Vienna is perhaps the most complete operatic organisation in existence and especially, at that time, was the company rich in fine _prime donne_. Mme. Materna was considered to be the greatest dramatic singer then living. Mlle. Bianchi was a marvellous _chanteuse légère_, the equal of Gerster. Mme. Ehn was the most poetical of _prime donne_ and not unlike Nilsson. Of Lucca's fame it is needless to speak again. I sang seven _rôles_ in Vienna: _Lucia_, the _Ballo in Maschera_, _Mignon_, _Traviata_, _Trovatore_, _Marta_, and one act of _Hamlet_,--the mad scene, of course. It was during _Marta_ that I had paid to me one of the most satisfying compliments of my life. Dr. Hanslick was then the greatest musical critic of Europe, a distinguished and highly cultivated musical scholar, even if he did war against Wagner and the new school. To the astonishment of the whole theatre, between the acts, he wandered in by himself behind the scenes to call upon me and offer his congratulations. Only one other singer had ever been thus honoured by him before. He was graciousness itself and, in his paper, the _Neue Frei Presse_, he wrote these memorable words: "Miss Kellogg is an artist of the first order--the only one to compare with Patti. It is the first time since Patti has gone that we have heard what one can call singing! I congratulate Vienna on having heard such a colossal artist!" Later, I was asked to the Hoffmans' again to meet Herr Hanslick and his wife; and they were only two of the many distinguished and interesting people that I met at the _Intendant's_ house. Sonnenthal was one of them, the great actor from the Hoftheatre. And Fanny Elssler was another. I wonder how many people to-day know even the name of Fanny Elssler, the dancer who captivated the young King of Rome and lived with him for so long? There is mention of her in _L'Aiglon_. When I met her she was seventy odd, and very quiet and dull. She was vastly respected in Austria and held an exceedingly dignified position. I learned enough German to be able to sing in German for the _Intendant_ and his friends, with I know not what sort of accent. They were very polite about it always, saying more than once to me, "what a gentle accent!" But my German was dealt with less kindly by my audience one night. The spoken dialogue in _Mignon_ simply had to be made comprehensible and therefore I had mastered it, as I thought, quite acceptably enough. But somewhere in it I came what our English friends call a most awful "cropper." I do not know to this day what dreadful thing I could have said, but it afforded the house an ecstasy of amusement. The whole audience laughed loudly and heartily and long; and I confess I was considerably disconcerted. But, all things considered, the Viennese audiences were satisfactory to sing to. They have one little custom, or mannerism, that is decidedly encouraging. When they like anything very much, they do not break the action by applauding, but, instead, a little soft "Ah!" goes all over the house. It was an indescribably comforting sound and spurred a singer on to do her best to please them. I sang Felina in _Mignon_, and the Viennese, to my eternal gratitude, liked me in the part. I remembered Jarrett and the "wooden gestures" he had fixed upon me in the _rôle_, and it was most satisfactory to have people in the Austrian Capitol declare that I was "an exquisite creation after Watteau!" Of course the Germans and Austrians were so wedded to Materna's rather heroic style of singing that I suppose any less strenuous methods might well have struck them as unforceful, but--_à propos_ of Materna and the inevitable comparison of my work with hers--the _Fremden Blatt_ was kind enough to print: "The grand voice, the powerful high tones, and the stupendously passionate accents were not heard. Yet she knows how to sing with a full, strong voice, with high tones, and with a graceful passionateness!" That expression "graceful passionateness" has remained in my vocabulary ever since, for it is a triumph of clumsy phraseology, even for a German paper. I want to quote Dr. Hanslick once more;--it is such a lovely and amazing thing to quote: "From her lips," said this illustrious critic, speaking of your humble servant, "we have heard Verdi's hardest and harshest melodies come forth refined and softened." Is this believable? Edward Hanslick did really apply the adjectives "hard" and "harsh" to Verdi's music! It has to be read to be believed, but what he said is on file. Speaking of "gentle accent," I had, on one occasion, the full beauty of the Teutonic language borne in upon me in a peculiarly striking form. It was in _Robert der Teufel_, that I heard in Vienna. The instance that struck me was in the great scene during which he practises magic in the cave and makes the dead to rise so that they can dance a _ballet_ later on. Alice is wandering around, and the devil is in a great state of mind lest she has seen or overheard something of his magic. "_Was hast du gesehen?_" says he. "_Nichts!_" she replies. "_Nichts?_" he repeats. "_Nichts_," insists she. That "_Nichts!_" was repeated over and over until the whole theatre echoed and resounded with "nichts-ts-ts-ts!" like spitting cats. There never was anything less musical. "Heavens, Alfred," said I to Fischoff, who was with me at the time, "can't they change it to '_Nein?_'" But he regarded me in a shocked manner at the very idea of so sacrilegiously altering the text! German scores are full of loud ringing passages, built on guttural, hissing, spitting consonants. But, then, we must remember that librettists the world over are apparently men of an inferior quality of intellect who know little about music or singing. I cannot help feeling that by nature and cultivation the German writers of the texts for opera suffer from an additional handicap of traditional density. Even one of the greatest of all operas, _Faust_, suffers from being built upon a German theme. At least, I should perhaps say, it suffers in sparkle, vivacity, dramatic glitter. In the deeper, poetic meanings it remains impervious alike to time, place, and individual view-point. I never fully appreciated the _rôle_ of Marguerite until I met the German people at close range. Then I learned by personal observation why she was so dull, and limited, and unimaginative. Such traits are, as I suddenly realised, not only individual; they are racial. Any middle-class girl of sixteen might of course have been deceived by Faust with the aid of Mephisto, but that Gretchen was German made the whole thing a hundred times simpler. CHAPTER XXXI PETERSBURG When I received my engagement to sing at the Opera in Petersburg I was much pleased. The opera seasons in Russia had for years been notably fine. Since then they have, I understand, gone off, and fewer and fewer stars of the first magnitude go there to sing. In 1880, however, it was a criterion of artistic excellence and position to have sung in the Petersburg Opera. My mother and I, a manager to represent me, my coloured maid Eliza, and some seventeen or eighteen trunks set out from Vienna; and we looked forward with pleasurable anticipation to our winter in the mysterious White Kingdom, not knowing then that it was to be one of the dreariest in our lives. Our troubles began just before we reached Warsaw, when we had to cross the frontier. We were, of course, stopped for the examination of passports and luggage and, although the former were all right, the latter was not, according to the views of the Russian officials. I had, personally, fifteen trunks, containing the costumes for my entire _repertoire_ and to watch those Russians inspect these trunks was a veritable study in suspicion. It was late at night. Unpleasant travelling incidents always happen late at night it would seem, when everything is most inconvenient and one is most tired. The Russians appeared ten times more official than the officials of any other nation ever did, and the lateness of the hour added to this impression. Indeed they were highly picturesque, with their high boots and the long skirts of their coats. The lanterns threw queer shadows, and the wind that swept the platform had in it already the chill of the _steppes_. I have no idea what they believed me to be smuggling, bombs or anarchistic literature, but they were not satisfied until they had gone through every trunk to its uttermost depths. Even then, when they had found nothing more dangerous than wigs and cloaks and laces, they still seemed doubtful. The trunks might look all right; but surely there must be something wrong with a woman who travelled with fifteen personal trunks! And I do not know that I altogether blame them. At all events they were not going to let me cross the frontier without further investigation, and I was rapidly falling into despair when, suddenly, I had a brilliant thought. I gave an order to my maid, who proceeded to scatter about the entire contents of one trunk and finally found for me a large, thin, official-looking document, with seals and signatures attached to it. The Russians stood about, watchful and mystified. Then I presented my talisman triumphantly. "The Czar!" they exclaimed in awed whispers; "the Czar's signature!" Whereupon several of them began bowing, almost genuflecting, to show their respect for anyone who possessed a paper signed by the Czar. It was only my contract. The singers at the Russian Opera are not engaged by an impresario, but by the Czar, and that document which served us so well on this occasion was a personal contract with His Imperial Majesty himself. So we succeeded in eventually crossing the frontier and getting into Russia, and, after that, the _espionage_ became a regular thing. The spy system in Russia is beyond belief. One is watched and tracked and followed and records are kept of one, and a species of censorship is maintained of everything that reaches one. At first, one hardly realises this, for the officials have had so much practice that it is done with the most consummate skill. Every letter was opened before it reached me and then sealed up again so cleverly that it was impossible to detect it except with the keenest and most suspicious eye. Every newspaper that I received, even those mailed to me by friends in England and France, had been gone over carefully, and every paragraph referring to Russia--the army, the government, the diplomacy policy, the Nihilistic agitations--had been stamped out in solid black. We stopped at the Hotel d'Europe, and one might think one would be free from surveillance there. Not a bit of it. We soon saw that if we wanted to talk with any freedom or privacy we should have to hang thick towels over the keyholes. And this is precisely what we did! As soon as we reached Petersburg, I was called for a rehearsal--merely a piano affair. I went to it garmented in a long fur cloak, some flannel-lined boots that I had once bought in America for a Canadian trip, and a little bonnet perched, in the awful fashion of the day, on the very top of my head. It was early in October at this time and not any colder than our normal winter climate in the United States of America. There is but little vibration of temperature in Russia, but there are days before November when the snow melts that are very trying. This was one of them. The first thing that happened to me at that rehearsal to which I went in my flannel-lined shoes and my little bonnet, was that a stern doctor confronted me and called me to account for the manner in which I was dressed! A doctor at a rehearsal was new to me; but it seemed that the thoughtful Czar employed two for this purpose. So many singers pretended to be ill when they really were not that His Majesty kept medical men on the spot to prove or disprove any excuses. The doctor who descended upon me was named Thomaschewski. He was the doctor mentioned in Marie Bashkirtseff's _Journal_; and he remained my friend and physician all the time I was in the city. Said he, brusquely, on this first meeting: "Never come out dressed like that again! Get some goloshes immediately, and a hat that comes over your forehead!" I did not understand at the moment why he insisted so strongly on the hat. I soon learned, however, what so few Americans are aware of, that it is through the forehead that one generally catches cold. As for the goloshes, it was self-evident that I needed them, and, after that morning, I never set foot out of doors in Russia without the regular protection worn by everyone in that climate. A big fur cap, tied on with a white woollen scarf arranged as we now arrange motor veils, completed the necessary outfit. Marcella Sembrich and Lillian Nordica were both in the opera company that year. Sembrich had a small, high, clear voice at that time; but she was always the musician and well up in the Italian vocal tricks. Scalchi was there, too, and Cotogni, the famous baritone. He was a masterful singer and an amusing man, with a quaint way of putting things. He is still living in Rome and has, I am sorry to say, fallen from his great estate upon hard times. The tenors were Masini and a Russian named Petrovitch, with whom I sang the _Ballo in Maschera_. They were all very frankly curious about "the American _prima donna_" and about everything concerning her. The _Intendant_ of the Imperial Opera was a man with the title of Baron Küster, the son of one of the Czar's gardeners. No one could understand why he had been made a Baron, but, for some reason, he was in high favour. My _début_ was in _Traviata_, as Violetta. There was an enormous audience and the American Minister was in a stage box. Throughout the performance I never lost a sense of isolation and of chill. The strangeness, the watchfulness, the sense of apprehension with which the air seemed charged, were all on my nerves. It was said that the Opera-House had been undermined by the Nihilists and was ready to explode if the Czar entered. This idea was hardly conducive to ease of mind or cheerfulness of manner. I was glad that it was not sufficiently a gala occasion for the Czar to be present. Never before had I ever sung without having friends in front, friends who could come behind the scenes between the acts and tell me how I was doing and, if need be, cheer me up a bit. I knew nobody in the audience that first night, which gave me a most forlorn feeling, as if the place were filled with unfriendliness as well as with strangers. At last I thought of the American Minister, Mr. Foster (our legation in Russia had not yet attained the dignity of an embassy). I sent my agent to the Fosters' box, asking them to call upon me in my _loge_ at the end of the opera. When he delivered the message, he was met by blank astonishment. "Of course we should be delighted--and it is very kind of Miss Kellogg," said Mr. Foster, "but there is not a chance that we should be allowed to do so!" And they were not. The vigilance, even on the stage, was something appalling. Every scene shifter and stage carpenter had a big brass number fastened conspicuously on his arm, strapped on, in fact, over his flannel shirt so that he could be easily checked off and kept track of. Everything in Russia is numbered. There are no individuals there--only units. I used to feel as if I must have a number myself; as if I, too, must soon be absorbed into that grim Monster System, and my feeling of helplessness and oppression steadily increased. I had over twenty curtain calls that evening--the largest number I ever had. But they did not entirely repay me for the heaviness of heart from which I suffered. Never before or since was I so unhappy during a performance. The house had been undoubtedly cold at first. As an American correspondent to one of the newspapers wrote home: "The house had small confidence in an operatic singer from America, for all history of that country is silent on the subject of _prime donne_, while there is no lack of account of such other persons as Indians, Aztecs, and emigrants from the lower orders of Europe!" In Russia they still reserve the right of hissing a singer that they do not like. It is lucky that I did not know this then, for it would have made me even more nervous than I was. My curtain calls were a real triumph. Even the ladies of the audience arose and waved their handkerchiefs, calling out many times: "Kellogg, _sola_!" They wanted me to receive the honours alone; and the gentlemen joined in their calls, "Kellogg! Kellogg! Kellogg!" until they were hoarse. The subscribers to the opera were divided into three classes in Petersburg; and, as a singer who was popular was demanded by all the subscribers for each of the three nights, it was a novel sensation to conquer an entirely new audience each night. In the Opera-House, as in every other house in Petersburg, one had to go through innumerable doors, one after the other. This architectural peculiarity is what makes the buildings so warm. Russians build for the cold weather as Italians build for warm. The result is that one can be colder in an Italian house than anywhere else on earth, and more correspondingly comfortable in a Russian. Even the Petersburg public Post-Office had to be approached through eight separate doorways. There were a number of other unusual features about that theatre. One was the custom of permitting the _isvoshiks_ (drivers) and _mujiks_ (servants) to come inside to stay while the opera was going on. It struck me as most inconsistent with the general strictness and red tape; but it was entertaining to see them stowed away in layers on ledges along the walls, sleeping peacefully until the people who had engaged them were ready to go home. Another odd thing was the odour that permeated the house. It was not an unpleasant odour; it seemed to me a little like Russia leather. I could not imagine what it was at first. Afterwards I found that it _did_ come from the sheep-skins worn by the _isvoshiks_. The skins are cured in some peculiar way which leaves them with this faint smell. The thing I particularly appreciated that first night was the honour and good fortune of making my _début_ with Masini, who, according to my opinion, was without exception the best tenor of his time. He would have pleased the most exacting of modern critics, for he was the true _bel canto_. It is told of him that, in the early years of his career, he sang so badly out of tune that no impresario would bother with him. So he retired, and worked, until he had not only overcome it but had also made himself into a very great artist. The night before I sang with him, I went to hear him. At first I thought his voice a trifle husky, but, before the evening was over, I did not know if it were husky or not, he sang so beautifully, his method was so perfect, his breath-control was so wonderful. It was a naturally enchanting voice besides. I have never heard a length of breath like his. No phrase ever troubled him; he had the necessary wind for anything. In _L'Africaine_ there is a passage in the big tenor solo needing very careful breathing. Masini did simply what he liked with it, swelling it out roundly and generously when it seemed as if his breath must be exhausted. When the breath of other tenors gave out, Masini only just began to draw on his. I am placing all this emphasis on his method because I know breathing to be the whole secret of singing--and of living, too! Masini was a grave, kind man, not a great actor, but with a stage presence of complete repose and dignity. His manner to me was charmingly thoughtful and considerate during our work together. Yet he was a man who never spoke. I mean this literally: I cannot recall the sound of his speaking voice, although I rehearsed with him for a whole season. His greatest _rôle_ was the Duke in _Rigoletto_ and there was no one I ever heard who could compare with him in it. Nordica was a young singer doing minor _rôles_ that season and, both being Americans, we saw a good deal of each other and exchanged sympathies, for we equally disliked Russia. Our Yankee independence was being constantly outraged by the Russian spy system, and we were always at odds with it. One night, when we were not singing ourselves, we had a box together to hear our fellow-artists, and invited Sir Frederick Hamilton to share it with us. As we knew there was sure to be a crowd after the opera, Nordica suggested that we should leave our wraps in an empty dressing-room behind the scenes and go out by that way when the performance was over. This we accordingly did, going behind through the house by the back door of the boxes, and as a matter of course we took Sir Frederick with us. We had momentarily forgotten that in Russia one never does what one wants to, or what seems the natural thing to do. When we were discovered bringing an Englishman behind the scenes, there was nearly a revolution in that theatre! I sang in _Traviata_ four or five times in Petersburg and in _Don Giovanni_ and in _Semiramide_. This last was the forty-fifth _rôle_ of my _répertoire_. The Russian Opera season was less brilliant than usual that year because the Czarina had recently died and the Court was in mourning. The situation was one that afforded me some amusement. The Czar, Alexander, who was killed that same winter, had for a long time lived with the Princess Dolgoruki, as is well known, and, when the Czarina died, he married the Dolgoruki within a few weeks. To be sure, the marriage did not really count, for she could never be a Czarina because she was not royal, but she was determined to establish her social position as his wife and insisted on keeping him in the country with her at one of the out-of-the-way places. And all the time the Czar went right on with his official mourning for the Czarina! There was something about this that strongly appealed to my American sense of humour. When the Czar did finally leave the country palace and come back to Petersburg, he was in such fear of the Nihilists that he did not dare come in state, but got off the train at a way-station and drove in. Fancy the Czar of all the Russias having to sneak into his own city like that! And the worst of it was that all that vigilance was proved soon after to have been justified. Because of the situation of affairs, the Royal Box at the Opera was never occupied. Even the Czarevitch and his wife (Dagmar of Denmark, sister of Alexandra of England) could not appear. I am inclined to believe that, on the whole, Petersburg society was rather glad of the dull season. As there were no Court functions, the individual social leaders did not have to keep up their end either, and it must have been a relief, for times were hard, owing to the recent Nihilistic panic, and Russians do not know how to entertain unless they can do it magnificently. As a result of the dull social season, I did not go out much in society. But I was much interested in such glimpses as I had of it, for "smart" Russia is most gorgeously picturesque. Many Americans visit Petersburg in summer when everyone is away and so never see the true Russian life. Indeed, it is a very stunning spectacle. The sleighs, the splendid liveries, the beautiful horses, the harnesses, the superb furs--it is all like a pageant. I loved to see the _troikas_ drawn by three horses, with great gold ornaments on the harnesses; and the _drozhkis_ in which the _isvoshiks_ drive standing up. The third horse of the _troika_ is one of the typically Russian features. He is attached to the pair that does the work, and his part is to play the fool. I remember a famous sleigh ride I had in a very smart _drozhki_, behind a horse belonging to one of the English Embassy secretaries. The horse was an extraordinarily fast one and the _drozhki_ was exceptionally light and small. The seat was so narrow that the secretary and I had to be literally buttoned into it to keep us from falling out. The _isvoshik's_ seat was so high that he was practically standing erect and nearly leaning back against it. Evidently the man's directions were to show off the horse's gait to the best advantage; and I know that the speed of that frail sleigh upon the icy snow crust became so terrific that I had to grip the sash of the _isvoshik_ in front of me to stay in the sleigh at all. And, oh, the flatness and mournfulness of those chill wastes of snow outside the city! It was of course bitterly cold, but one did not feel that so much on account of the fine dryness of the air. For me the light--or, rather, the lack of it,--was the most difficult thing to become accustomed to. But if I did not altogether realise the cold for myself, I certainly realised it for my poor horses. I had a splendid pair of blacks that winter and, when I was driven down to the theatre, they would be lathered with sweat. When I came out they would be covered with ice and as white as snow. There would be ice on the harness too, and the other horses we passed were in the same condition. I was much distressed at first, but it appeared that Russian horses were quite used to it and, so I was told, actually throve on it. Petersburg is full of little squares and in every square were heaps of logs, laid one across another like a funeral pyre, which were frequently lighted as a place for the _isvoshiks_ to warm themselves. The leaping flames and the men crowded about, in such contrast to the white snow, seemed so startling and theatrical in the heart of the city that nothing could have more sharply reminded us that we were in a strange and unknown land. The fact that the days were so unbelievably, gloomily short (dawn and bright noonday and the afternoon were unknown) grew to be very depressing. Coasting on the great ice-hills is a favourite Russian amusement, and it is a fine winter sport. But that, too, is shadowed by the strange half-light, which, to anyone accustomed to the long, bright days of more temperate lands, is always conducive to melancholy. There was no sun to speak of. Such as there was moved around in almost one place and stopped shining at four in the afternoon. I never had the least idea of the time; hardly knowing, in fact, whether it was day or night. CHAPTER XXXII GOOD-BYE TO RUSSIA--AND THEN? Prince Oldenburg, the Czar's cousin, was the only member of the Royal Family who could be called a patron of music and had himself composed more or less. On his seventy-fifth birthday the Imperial Opera organised a concert in his honour, that took place at the Winter Palace; and we were really quite _intriguée_, having heard of the Winter Palace for years. I said to Nordica: "If you'll find out how we get there, I'll send my carriage for you and we will go together." She found out, and we arranged to have the hotel people instruct the coachman as to the particular entrance of the palace to which he was to drive us, for he was a Russian and did not understand any other language. Once started, he had to go according to instructions or else turn around and take me back to the hotel for new directions and a fresh start. More than once have I found myself in such a dilemma. However, on this occasion, he seemed to be fairly clear as to our destination and showed gleams of intelligence when reminded that he must make no mistake, since there were only certain doors by which we could enter. The others were open only to the Royal Family and the nobility. Among the five _prime donne_ who had been invited, or, rather, commanded, to appear at this function, there had been some discussion as to our costumes. All of them except myself sent for special gowns, one to Paris, one to Vienna, one to Berlin, one to Dresden--for this concert was to be before members of the Imperial Family and extra preparations had to be made. "What are you going to wear?" Nordica asked me. "Well," said I, "I'll never be in Russia again--God permitting--and I shall wear a gown that I have, a creation of Worth's, made some years ago, without period or date." It was really a gorgeous affair and quite good enough, of an odd, warm, rust colour that was always very becoming to me. We arrived at the palace before anyone else and were driven to the door indicated. There we were not permitted to enter, but were directed to yet another entrance. Again we met with the same refusal and were sent on to another door. At last we drove in under a porte-cochère and an endless stream of lackeys came out and took charge of us. When they had escorted us inside, one took one golosh, and one took another, and then they took off our furs and wraps, and there was no escape for us except by mounting the beautiful red-carpeted marble staircase. At the top of it we were met by two very good-looking young men in uniform, who received us cordially and escorted us to the ballroom, leaving us only when the other artists arrived. The other artists looked cross, I thought. At any rate, they looked somewhat ill at ease and conscious of their elegant new clothes. It was the crackling, ample period, in which it was difficult to be graceful. About the middle of the evening Dr. Thomaschewski came up to me and said: "The Grand Duchess Olga desires me to ask who made Mlle. Kellogg's gown. She finds it the handsomest she ever saw!" So much for my old clothes! I was thankful to be able to say the gown was a creation of Worth's; and I did not add how many years before! The next day, after the affair of the concert was pleasantly over, Nordica came into my room like a whirlwind. "There's the d---- to pay down in the theatre!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "All the other _prime donne_ are threatening to resign! And, apparently, it is our fault!" "What have we done?" "It seems," she went on with an appreciative chuckle, "that we came up the Royal Staircase and were received as members of the Imperial Family, while they had to come in the back way as befitted poor dogs of artists!" "Nordica," said I, "isn't that just plain American luck! Such a thing could never happen to anybody but an American!" We learned in due course that our handsome young men, who had been so agreeable and courteous, were Grand Dukes! But the other _prime donne_ recovered from their mortification and thought better of their project of resigning. We began to be frightfully tired of Russian food. The Russian arrangement for cold storage was very primitive. They merely froze solid anything they wanted to keep and unfroze it when it was needed for use. The staple for every day, and all day, was _gelinotte_, some sort of game. We lived on it until we were ready to starve rather than ever taste it again. It was not so bad, really, in its way, if there had not been so much of it. Some of the Russian food was possible enough, however. The famous sour milk soup, for instance, made of curdled milk and cabbage and, I think, a little fish, was rather nice; and they had a pretty way of serving _bouchers_ between the soup and fish courses. But my mother and I began to feel that we should die if we did not have some plain American food. In fact, we both developed a vulgar craving for corned-beef. And, wonder of wonders! by inquiring at a little shop where garden tools were sold, we found the thing we longed for. As it turned out, the shop was kept by an American and his wife; so we got our corned-beef and my mother made delicious hash of it over our alcohol lamp. She was famous for getting up all manner of dainty and delicious food with a minute saucepan and a tiny spirit flame. The water everywhere was horrid and we were obliged to boil it always before we dared to take a swallow. And all these things told on my poor mother, whose health was becoming very wretched. She came to hate Russia and pined to get away. So I tried to break my contract and leave (considering my mother's health a sufficiently valid reason), but, although money was due me that I was willing to forfeit, I found I could not go until I had sung out the full term of my engagement. I was so wrathful at this that I went to see the American Minister about leaving in spite of everything; but even he was powerless to help us. Apparently the Russians were accustomed to having their country prove too much for foreign singers, for the Minister remarked meditatively: "Finland used to be open, but so many artists escaped that way that it is now closed!" It proved to be even harder to get out of Russia than it had been to get in. One mother and daughter whom I knew went to five hotels in twenty-four hours, trying to evade the officials, so as to leave without the usual red tape; but they were kept merciless track of everywhere and their passports sent for at every one of the five. Such proceedings must be rather expensive for the government. Some Russian friends of mine once came to Aix without notifying their governmental powers and were sent for to come back within twenty-four hours. Fancy being kept track of like that! I am devoutly thankful that I do not live under a _paternal_ government. In time, however, we did succeed in obtaining permission to leave Russia; and profoundly glad were we of it. I had but one desire before we left that dark and frigid land forever, and that was to see the Czar just once. My friends of the English Embassy told me that my best chance would be on the route between the Winter Palace and the Military Riding Academy, where the Czar went every Sunday to stimulate horsemanship. So I started out the following Sunday, alone, in my brougham. There were crowds of the faithful blocking the way everywhere--well interspersed with Nihilists, I have little doubt. Russian men are, on the whole, impressive in appearance; big and fierce and immensely virile. They are half-savage, anyway. The better class wear coats lined and trimmed with black or silver fur; while a crowd of soldiers and peasants make a most picturesque sight. On this occasion the cavalry and mounted police patrolled the route, and ranks of soldiers were drawn up on either side. Yet there was such a surging populace that, in spite of all the military surveillance, there was some confusion. I was driven up and down very slowly. Then I grew cold and got out of the carriage to walk for a short distance. I had gone but a little way and was turning back when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was an official who informed me that I might drive but could not be permitted to walk! So I re-entered the brougham and was driven again, up and down, bowing sweetly each time to the officer who had halted me and dared to take me by the shoulder. And, finally, I caught only a glimpse of the Czar, through the hosts of guardians that surrounded him like a cloud. I could not believe that he cared for all that pomp and ceremony, for he was a weary-looking man and I felt sorry for him. I believe that he would have been as democratic as anyone could well be if he could only have had half a chance. The wife of the shop-keeper who sold garden tools told me that the Czar was perfectly accessible to them and very friendly. He liked new inventions and patents and ingenious farming implements and American machine inventions. A man I once knew had been trying for months to obtain an official introduction at Court in order to exploit a patent which he thought would interest His Majesty, and in vain. But, when he chanced to meet a friend of the Czar's in a picture gallery and told him about his idea, he had no further difficulty. His Minister, who had told him it was hopeless to try to get access to the Czar, was amazed to find him going about at the Court balls in the most intimate manner. "How did you do it?" he demanded. "How did you manage to reach the Czar?" "Just met him through a friend as I would any other fellow," was the reply. We were in Petersburg at the Christmas and New Year's celebrations, which are held two weeks later than ours are. The customs were odd and interesting--notably the one of driving out in a sleigh to "meet the New Year coming in." This pretty custom was always observed by Mme. Helena Modjeska and her husband, Count Bozenta, even in America. I went to services in several of the churches, where I heard divine singing, unaccompanied by any instrument. The vibrations were very slow and throbbed like the tones of an organ. Nothing can be more splendid than bass voices. The decorations of the churches were strange and barbaric to eyes accustomed to the Italian and French cathedrals. The savagery as well as the orientalism of the Russians comes out in a curious way in their ecclesiastical architecture. The walls were often inlaid with lapis and malachite, like the decorations of some Eastern temple, and the _ikons_ were painted gaudily upon metals. There were no pews of any sort; the populace dropped upon its knees and stayed there. The little wayside shrines erected over every spot where anything tragic had ever happened to a royal person are an interesting feature of worship in Russia. As the rulers of Russia have usually passed rather calamitous lives, there are plenty of these shrines, and loyal subjects always kneel and make them reverence. I could see one of these shrines from my window in the Hotel d'Europe and marvelled at the devout fervour of the kneeling men in their picturesque cloaks, praying for this or some other Emperor, with the thermometer far below zero. It was always the men who prayed. I do not remember ever seeing a woman on her knees in the snow. Our experiences in the shops of Petersburg were sometimes interesting. Of course in the larger ones French was spoken, and also German, but in the small places where "notions" were sold, or writing materials, only Russian was understood. To facilitate the shopping of foreigners, little pictures of every conceivable thing for sale were hung outside the shops. All one had to do was to point to the reproduction of a spool, or a safety pin, or an egg, or a trunk, and produce a pocketbook. One day my mother wanted some shoe buttons and we wagered that she could not buy them unaided. I felt sure there would be no painting of a shoe button on the shop wall. But she came back victoriously with the buttons, quite proud of herself because she had thought of pointing to her own boots instead of wasting time hunting among the pictures. It was the collection of Colonel Villiers that first awakened in me an interest in old silver, and the beginning I made in Russia that winter ended in my possessing a collection of value and beauty. Villiers was a member of the Duke of Buckingham's family and was a Queen's Messenger, a position of responsibility and trust. And I had several other friends at the British Embassy. Lord and Lady Dufferin I knew; and one of the secretaries, Mr. Alan, now Sir Alan Johnston, who married Miss Antoinette Pinchot, sister of Gifford Pinchot, I had first met in Vienna. The night that Villiers arrived in Petersburg (before I had met him) some of the English _attachés_ had been invited to dine with us; but the First Secretary arrived at the last moment to explain that the Queen's Messenger was expected with private letters and that they had to be received in person and handed in at Court promptly. "It's the only way they have of sending really private letters, you see," he explained. "Alexandra probably wants to tell Dagmar about the children's last attacks of indigestion, so we have to stay at home to receive the letters!" Well--the glad day did finally come when my mother and I turned our backs on Russia and its eternal twilight and repaired to Nice for a little amusement and recuperation after the Petersburg season. A number of our friends were there, and it was unusually gay. I was warmly welcomed and congratulated, for Petersburg had put the final _cachet_ upon my success. Although I might win other honours, I could win none that the world appraised more highly than those that had come to me that year. In a letter to my father, from Nice, my mother says: The Grand Duke Nicholas has been here in our hotel a month, and his two sons and suite, doctor, _Aide-de-camp_. and servants. There is an inside balcony running two sides of the hotel which is lovely: but the whole is square with other rooms--this width carpeted--sofa--chairs--table--a glass roof. We all assemble there after dinner, and sit around and talk, take _café_ and tea on little tables.... We sat every day after dinner close to the Grand Duke (the Czar's brother) and his suite; knew his doctor and finally the Duke and his sons. I was sitting on the balcony, because I could see everybody who came in or who went out, and I was looking down and saw the Grand Duke receive the despatch of the assassination--and the commotion and emotion was the most exciting thing I ever witnessed. The Grand Duke is a most amiable gentleman, sweet and good as a man can be; his son, sixteen, was the loveliest and most gentle and affectionate of sons. I looked at the Duke all the time. I was almost upset myself by the excitement. Despatches came every twenty minutes. I looked on--sat there _seven hours_. As the Russians outside heard of it they would come in--I saw two women cry--the Duke stayed in his room--I heard that he had fainted--he is in somewhat delicate health.... It seemed as if the others were looking around for their friends and for sympathy, as was natural. I had not talked much with the Doctor because I never felt equal to it in French--especially on ordinary subjects of conversation--but he looked up and saw me on the balcony and came directly to me. I took both his hands--the tears came into his eyes--and we _talked_--the words came to me, enough to show him we were his friends. I said America would sympathise with Russia. He seemed pleased and said, "Yes; but Angleterre, no!" I did not have much to say to that. But I did him good. He told Louise and me the particulars. We both knew the very spot near the bridge where the Czar had fallen. Our sympathy was mostly with the man whose brother had been murdered and his friends. There was a long book downstairs in which people who came in wrote their names from time to time. I do not understand it exactly, but Louise says it contains the names of those who feel an allegiance. Many Russians came in the day of the assassination and wrote their names. Our Consul wrote his, and a beautiful sentence of sympathy. He wanted to lower our flag, but dared not, quite. Louise and I went down and wrote ours--and, while standing, the Duke's physician said to us that there had not been one English name signed. The hotel is all English, nearly. It was an interesting, eventful day. The Duke was pleased when Louise told him his people had been very kind to her in Russia at Petersburg. They all left day before yesterday at 6 P.M. The assassination of the Czar took place three weeks to the day from that Sunday when I had seen him. It all came back to me very clearly, of course--the troops, the crowding people, and the snow. No wonder they were watchful of him, poor man! The bottom dropped out of the season at Nice and people began to flit away. The tragedy of the Czar's death spread a shadow over everything. Nobody felt much like merry-making or recreation, and, again, I was becoming restless--restless in a new way. "Mother," I said, "let's go back to America. I have had enough of Nice and Petersburg and Paris and Vienna and London. I'm tired to death of foreign countries and foreign ways and foreign audiences and foreign honours. I want to go home!" "Thank God!" said my mother. CHAPTER XXXIII THE LAST YEARS OF MY PROFESSIONAL CAREER At Villefranche, on our way to Nice, I had been given a formal reception by the officers of the flagship _Trenton_, that was then lying in the harbour. Admiral Dahlgren was in command, and the reception was more of a tribute to the _prima donna_ than a personal tribute. It was arranged under the auspices of Lieutenant Emory and Lieutenant Clover; and I did not sing. Emory was a natural social leader and the whole affair was perfect in detail. A much more interesting reception, however, arranged by Lieutenant Emory, was the informal one given me by the same hosts not long after. Although informal, it was conducted on the same lines of elegance that marked every social function with which Emory was ever connected. As soon as we appeared on the gun deck, accompanied by Lieutenant-Commander Gridley, to be presented to Captain Ramsay, the orchestra greeted us with the familiar strains of _Hail, Columbia!_ At the end of the _déjeuner_ the whole crew contemplated us from afar as I conversed with our hosts, and, realising what might be expected of me, I sang, as soon as the orchestra had adjusted their instruments, the solo of Violetta from _Traviata_: _Ah force e lui che l'anima_. As an _encore_ I sang _Down on the Suwanee River_. The orchestra not being able to accompany me, I accompanied myself on a banjo that happened to be handy. I was told afterwards that "the one sweet, familiar plantation melody was better to us than a dozen Italian cavatinas." After the _Suwanee River_, I sang yet another negro melody, _The Yaller Gal Dressed in Blue_, which was received with much appreciative laughter. On our way from Nice we went to Milan to visit the Exposition, which was an artistically interesting one, and at which we happened to see the father and mother of the present King of Italy. From Milan we went to Aix-les-Bains; and from there to Paris. I returned to America without an engagement; but on October 5th the Kellogg Concert Company, under the management of Messrs. Pond and Bachert, gave the first concert of a series in Music Hall, Boston. I was supported by Brignoli, the "silver-voiced tenor," Signer Tagliapietra, and Miss Alta Pease, contralto. With us, also, were Timothie Adamowski, the Polish violinist; Liebling, the pianist, and the Weber Quartette. My reception in America, after nearly two years' absence abroad, was, really, almost an ovation. But I want to say that Boston has always been particularly gracious and cordial to me. By way of showing how appreciative was my reception, I cannot resist giving an extract from the _Boston Transcript_ of the following morning: Her singing of her opening number, Filina's _Polonaise_ in _Mignon_, showed at once that she had brought back to us unimpaired both her voice and her exquisite art; that she is now, as formerly, the wonderfully finished singer with the absolutely beautiful and true soprano voice. Her stage experience during the past few years, singing taxing grand soprano parts, so different and more trying to the vocal physique than the light florid parts, the Aminas, Zerlinas, and Elviras, she began by singing, seems to have had no injurious effect upon the quality and trueness of her voice, which has ever been fine and delicate; just the sort of beautiful voice which one would fear to expose to much intense dramatic wear and tear. Its present perfect purity only proves how much may be dared by a singer who can trust to a thoroughly good method. In the following May I sang with Max Strakosch's opera company in Providence to an exceptionally large audience. One of the daily newspapers of the city said, in reference to this occasion: Miss Kellogg must take it as a compliment to herself personally, for the other artists were unknown here, and therefore it must have been her name that attracted so many. She has always been popular here, and has made many personal as well as professional friends. She must have added many more of the latter last night, for she never appeared to better advantage. She was well supported by Signor Giannini as Faust [we gave _Faust_ and I was Marguerite] and Signor Mancini as Mephistopheles. This same year, 1882, I went on a concert trip through the South. In New Orleans I had a peep into the wonderful pawnshops, large, spacious, all filled with beautiful things. I had long been a collector of pewter and silver and old furniture and, on this trip, took advantage of some of my opportunities. For instance, I bought the bureau that had belonged to Barbara Frietchie, and a milk jug and some spoons that had belonged to Henry Clay. Also, I visited Libby Prison and various other prisons, a battle-field, and several cemeteries. One cemetery was half filled with the graves of boys of seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen years of age, showing that in the Civil War the South could not have kept it up much longer. The sight was pitiful! In 1884 I went on a concert tour with Major Pond in the West, making of it so far as we could, as Pond said, something of a picnic. We crossed by the Northern Pacific, seeing, I remember, the ranch of the Duc de Morney, son of the Duc de Morney who was one of Louis Philippe's creations, and who had married the daughter of a wealthy ranchman, Baron von Hoffman. The house of his ancestor in the Champs Élysées and the house next door that he built for his mistress were points of interest in Paris when I first went there. In Miles City, on the way to Helena, Montana, we visited some of the gambling dens, and were interested in learning that the wildest and worst one in the place was run by a Harvard graduate. The streets of the town were strangely deserted and this we did not understand until a woman said to me: "Umph! they don't show themselves when respectable people come along!" My memory of the trip and of the Yellowstone Park consists of a series of strangely beautiful and primitive pictures. We passed through a prairie fire, when the atmosphere was so hot and dense that extra pressure of steam was put on our locomotive to rush our train through it. Never before had I seen Indian women carrying their papooses. I particularly recall one settlement of wigwams on a still, wonderful evening, the chiefs gorgeous in their blankets, when the fires were being lighted and the spirals of smoke were ascending straight up into the clear atmosphere. One day a couple of Indians ran after the train. They looked very fine as they ran and finally succeeded in getting on to the rear platform, where they rode for some distance. At Deer Lodge I sang all of one evening to two fine specimens of Indian manhood. We went down the Columbia River in a boat, greatly enjoying the impressive scenery. One of my most vivid mental impressions was that of an Indian fisherman, standing high out over the rushing waters, at least forty feet up, on a projection of some kind that had been built for the purpose of salmon fishing, his graceful, vigorous bronze form clearly silhouetted against the background of rock and foliage and sky. On the banks of the river farther along we saw a circus troupe boiling their supper in a huge caldron and smoking the _kalama_ or peace pipe. I was so hungry I wanted to eat of the caldron's contents but, on second thoughts, refrained. And we stopped at Astoria where the canning of salmon was done, a town built out over the river on piles. The forest fires had caused some confusion and, for one while, we could hardly breathe because of the smoke. Indeed we travelled days and days through that smoke. The first cowboy I ever saw drove me from the station of Livingston through Yellowstone Park. In Butte City my company went down into the Clarke Copper Mine, but I did not care to join them in the undertaking. Our first sight of Puget Sound was very beautiful. And it was at Puget Sound that I first saw half-, or, rather, quarter-breeds. I remember Pond saying how quickly the half-breeds die of consumption. Later, that same year, I went South again on another concert tour. All through the State of Mississippi there was a strange, horrible flavour to the food, I recall, and, so all-pervading was this flavour that finally I could hardly eat anything. The contralto and I were talking about it one day on the train and saying how glad we should be to get away from it. There being no parlour-cars, we were in an ordinary coach, and a woman who sat in front of me and overheard us, turned around and said: "_I_ know what you mean! _I_ can tell you what it is. It's cotton seed. Everything tastes of cotton seed in this country. They feed their cows on it, and their chickens. _Everything_ tastes of it; eggs, butter, biscuits, milk!" This was true. The only thing, it seems, that could not be raised on cotton seed was fruit; and unfortunately it was not a fruit season when I was there. The recollection of this trip necessitates my saying a little something of Southern hospitality. I was not satisfied with any of the arrangements that had been made for me. I had also taken a severe cold, and, when we reached Charlottesville, where we were to give a concert, I said I would not go on. This brought matters to a climax. I simply would not and could not sing in the condition I was; and declared I would not be subjected to any such treatment at the insistence of the management. The end of it was that I took my maid and started for New York. The trip at first promised to be a very uncomfortable one. Travelling accommodations were poor; food was difficult to obtain, and I was nearly ill. At one point, where the opening of a new bridge had just taken place, we stopped, and I noticed a private car attached to our train, which I coveted. Imagine my gratitude and pleasure, therefore, when the porter presently came to me and said courteously that "Colonel Cawyter" sent his compliments and invited me into his private car. I accepted, of course. But this was not all. As I was making inquiries about train connections and facilities for food, of one of the gentlemen in the car, he realised what was before me, and said that I could go to his home where his wife would care for me. I protested, but he insisted and gave me his card. When we reached the station, I took a carriage and drove to the house, where I was received very courteously. It was a simple household of a mother, grandmother, and children, and they had already lunched when I got there. But they piled on more coal, and in a very short time made me a lunch that was simply delicious--all so easily, simply, and naturally, in spite of the haphazard fashion in which they seemed to live, as to quite win my admiration. And this incident of Southern hospitality enabled me to proceed on my way nourished and restored. Another incident that I recall was of a similar nature in its fundamental kindness. I had no money with which to pay for my berth, and was asking the conductor if there was anyone who would cash a check for me, when a perfect stranger offered me the amount I needed. At first I refused, but finally consented to accept the loan in the same spirit in which it had been offered. On the reorganised version of this trip we went down into Texas, giving concerts in Waco, Dallas, Cheyenne, San Antonio, and Galveston, among other places. This was before the wonderful railroad had been built that runs for miles through the water; and before the tidal wave that wiped the old Galveston out of existence. At Cheyenne, I remember, we had to ford a river to keep our engagement. At Waco a negro was found under the bed of one of the company; a bridge was burning; and a _posse_ of men, with bloodhounds, was starting out to track the incendiaries. I remember speaking there with a negro woman who had a white child in her charge. The child was busily chewing gum and the woman told me that often the child would put her hand on her jaw saying, "Oh, I'm _so_ tired!" But she could not be induced to stop chewing! At Dallas we sang in a hall that had a tin roof, and, during the concert, a terrific thunderstorm came on, so that I had to stop singing. This is the only time, I believe, that the elements ever succeeded in drowning me out. I never before had seen adobe houses, and I found San Antonio very interesting, and drove as far as I could along the road of the old Spanish Missions that maintain the traditions and aspects of the Spanish in the New World. The Southern theatres are the dirtiest places that can be imagined; and I recall eating opossum that was served to us with great pride by my waiter. From this time on I did not contemplate any long engagements. I did not care for them, although I sometimes went to places to sing--and to collect pewter! I never formally retired from public life, but quietly stopped when it seemed to me the time had come. It was a Kansas City newspaper reporter who incidentally brought home to me the fact that I was no longer very young. I had a few grey hairs, and, after an interview granted to this representative of the press--a woman, by the way--I found, on reading the interview in print the next day, that my grey hairs had been mentioned. "They'll find that my voice is getting grey next," I said to myself. I really wanted to stop before everybody would be saying, "You ought to have heard her sing ten years ago!" [Illustration: =Carl Strakosch= From a photograph by H. W. Barnett] The last time I saw Patti I said to her: "Adelina, have you got through singing?" "Oh, I still sing for _mes pauvres_ in London," she replied; but she didn't explain who were her poor. On my last western concert tour I sang at Oshkosh. A special train of three cars on the Central brought down a large delegation for the occasion from Fond du Lac, Ripon, Neenah and Menasha, Appleton and other neighbouring towns. The audience was in the best of humour and a particularly sympathetic one. At the close of the concert I remarked that it was one of the finest audiences I ever sang to. And I added, by way of pleasantry, that, having sung at Oshkosh, I was now indeed ready to leave the stage! But there were even more serious reasons that influenced me in my decision, one of which was that my mother had for some time past been in a poor state of health. More than once, when I went to the theatre, I had the feeling that she might not be alive when I returned home; and this was a nervous strain to me that, combined with a severe attack of bronchitis, brought about a physical condition which might have had seriously lasting results if I had not taken care of myself in time. It was not easy to stop. When each autumn came around, it was very difficult not to go back to the public. I had an empty feeling. There is no sensation in the world like singing to an audience and knowing that you have it with you. I would not change my experience for that of any crowned head. The singer and the actor have, at least, the advantage over all other artists of a personal recognition of their success; although, of course, the painter and writer live in their work while the singer and the actor become only traditions. But such traditions! On the subject of the actor's traditions Edwin Booth has written: In the main, tradition to the actor is as true as that which the sculptor perceives in Angelo, the painter in Raphael, and the musician in Beethoven.... Tradition, if it be traced through pure channels and to the fountainhead, leads one as near to Nature as can be followed by her servant, Art. Whatever Quinn, Barton Booth, Garrick, and Cooke gave to stagecraft, or as we now term it, "business," they received from their predecessors; from Betterton and perhaps from Shakespeare himself, who, though not distinguished as an actor, well knew what acting should be; and what they inherited in this way they bequeathed in turn to their art and we should not despise it. Kean knew without seeing Cooke, who in turn knew from Macklin, and so back to Betterton, just what to do and how to do it. Their great Mother Nature, who reiterates her teachings and preserves her monotone in motion, form, and sound, taught them. There must be some similitude in all things that are True! The traditions of singing are not what they used to be, however, for the new school of opera does not require great finish, although it does demand greater dramatic art. It used to be that Tetrazzinis could make successes through coloratura singing alone; but to-day coloratura singing has no great hold on the public after the novelty has worn off. But it does very well in combination with heavier music, as in Mozart's _Magic Flute_ or _The Huguenots_, and so modern singers have to be both coloraturists and dramaticists. _A propos_ of singing and methods, I append a newspaper interview that a reporter had with me in Paris, 1887. He had been shown a new dinner dress of white _moire_ with ivy leaves woven into the tissue, and writes: [Illustration: =Letter from Edwin Booth to Clara Louise Kellogg=] I examined the rustling treasure critically and decided it was a complete success. The train was long, the stuff rich, the taste perfect, and yet--the great essential was wanting. I could not but reflect on the transformation which would come over that regal robe were it once hung on the shapely shoulders of the famous _prima donna_. "You see, there is nothing like singing to fill out dresses where they should be filled out, and conversely," said Sbriglia, who happened to be present as we came back into the _salon_; "consequently my advice to all ladies who wish to improve their figure is to take vocal lessons." "Yes," agreed Miss Kellogg, "if they can only find right instruction. But, unfortunately good teachers nowadays are rarer than good voices. Even the famous Paris Conservatory doesn't contain good vocal instruction. If there be any teaching in the world which is thoroughly worthless, it is precisely that given in the Rue Bergère. But I cannot do justice to the subject. Do give us your ideas, Professor, about the Paris Conservatory and the French School of voice culture." "As to any French vocal school," replied Sbriglia, "there is none. Each professor has a system of his own that is only less bad than the system of some rival professor. One man tells you to breathe up and down and another in and out. One claims that the musical tones are formed in the head, while another locates them in the throat. And when these gentlemen receive a fresh, untrained voice, their first care is to split it up into three distinct parts which they call registers, and for the arrangement of which they lay down three distinct sets of rules. "As to the Conservatory, it is a national disgrace; and I have no hesitation in saying that it not only does no good, but is actually the means of ruining hundreds of fine voices. Look at the results. It is from the Conservatory that the Grand Opera chooses its French singers, and the simple fact is that in the entire _personnel_ there are no great French artists. There are artists from Russia, Italy, Germany and America, but there are none from France. And yet the most talented students of the Conservatory make their _débuts_ there every year with fine voices and brilliant prospects; but, as a famous critic has well said, 'after singing for three years under the system which they have been taught, they acquire a perfect "style" and lose their voice.' "You ask me what I consider to be the correct method. I dislike very much the use of the word 'method,' because it seems to imply something artificial; whereas in all the vocal processes, there is only a single logical method and that is the one taught us all by nature at our birth. Watch a baby crying. How does he breathe? Simply by pushing the abdomen forward, thus drawing air into the lungs, to fill the vacuum produced, and then bringing it back again, which expels the air. And every one breathes that way, except certain advocates of theoretical nonsense, who have learned with great difficulty to exactly reverse this operation. Such singers make a bellows of the chest, instead of the abdomen, and, as the strain to produce long sounds is evidently greater in forcing the air out than in simply drawing it in, their inevitable tendency is to unduly contract the chest and to distend the abdomen." "Let me give you an illustration of the truth of M. Sbriglia's argument," said Miss Kellogg, rising from her seat. "Now watch me as I utter a musical note." And immediately the rich voice that has charmed so many thousands filled the apartment with a clear "a-a-a-a" as the note grew in volume. "You see Miss Kellogg has little to fear from consumption!" exclaimed Sbriglia. "And I am convinced that invalids with disorders of the chest would do well to stop taking drugs and study the art of breathing and singing." "And even those who have no voice," said Miss Kellogg, "would by this means not only improve in health and looks, but would also learn to read and speak correctly, for the same principles apply to all the vocal processes. It is astonishing how few people use the voice properly. For instance I could read in this tone all the afternoon without fatigue, but if I were to do this" (making a perceptible change in the position of her head), "I should begin to cough before finishing a column. Don't you notice the difference? In the one case the sounds come from here" (touching her chest) "and are free and musical; but in the other, I seem to speak in my throat, and soon feel an irritation there which makes me want the traditional glass of sugar and water." "The irritation which accompanies what you call 'speaking in the throat,'" explained Sbriglia, "is caused by pressing too hard upon the vocal cords, that become, in consequence, congested with blood, instead of remaining white as they should be. Persons who have this habit grow hoarse after very brief vocal exertion, and it is largely for that reason that American men rarely make fine singers. On the other hand, look at Salvini, who, by simply knowing how to place his voice, is able to play a tremendous part like Othello without the slightest sense of fatigue. "About the American 'twang'? Oh, no, it does not injure the voice. On the contrary, this nasal peculiarity, especially common among your women, is of positive value in a proper production of certain tones." CODA The Coda in music is, literally, the tail of the composition, the finishing off of the piece. The influence of Wagner did away with the Coda: yet, as my place in the history of opera is that of an exponent of the Italian rather than the German form, I feel that a Coda, or a last few words of farewell, is admissible. In some ways the Italian opera of my day seems banal. Yet Italian opera is not altogether the thing of the past that it is sometimes supposed to be. More and more, I believe, is it coming back into public favour as people experience a renewed realisation that melody is the perfect thing, in art as in life. I believe that _Mignon_ would draw at the present time, if a good cast could be found. But it would be difficult to find a good cast. Italian opera did what it was intended to do:--it showed the art of singing. It was never supposed to be but an accompaniment to the orchestra as German opera often is; an idea not very gratifying to a singer, and sometimes not to the public. Yet we can hardly make comparisons. Personally, I like German opera and many forms of music beside the Italian very much, even while convinced of the fact that German critics are not the whole audience. At least, the opera could not long be preserved on them alone. [Illustration: ="Elpstone"= New Hartford, Connecticut] It seems to me as I look back over the preceding pages that I have put into them all the irrelevant matter of my life and left out much that was important. Many of my dearest _rôles_ I have forgotten to mention, and many of my most illustrious acquaintances I have omitted to honour. But when one has lived a great many years, the past becomes a good deal like an attic: one goes there to hunt for some particular thing, but the chances are that one finds anything and everything except what one went to find. So, out of my attic, I have unearthed ever so many unimportant heirlooms of the past, leaving others, perhaps more valuable and more interesting, to be eaten by moths and corrupted by rust for all time. There is very little more for me to say. I do not want to write of my last appearances in public. Even though I did leave the operatic stage at the height of my success, there is yet something melancholy in the end of anything. As Richard Hovey says: There is a sadness in all things that pass; We love the moonlight better for the sun, And the day better when the night is near. The last look on a place where we have dwelt Reveals more beauty than we dreamed before, When it was daily ... In our big, young country of America there are the possibilities of many another singer greater than I have been. I shall be proud and grateful if the story of my high ambitions, hard work, and kindly treatment should chance to encourage one of these. For, while it is true that there is nothing that should be chosen less lightly than an artistic career, it is also true that, having chosen it, there is nothing too great to be given up for it. I have no other message to give; no further lesson to teach. I have lived and sung, and, in these memories, have tried to tell something of the living and the singing: but when I seek for a salient and moving word as a last one, I find that I am dumb. Yet I feel as I used to feel when I sang before a large audience. Somewhere out in the audience of the world there must be those who are in instinctive sympathy with me. My thoughts go wandering toward them as, long ago, my thoughts would wander toward the unknown friends sitting before me in the theatre and listening. So poignant is this sense within me that, halting as my message may have been, I feel quite sure that somehow, here and there, some one will hear it, responsive in the heart. INDEX Abbott, Emma, in _Camille_, 70; meeting with, 272-275; 320 Academy of Music, the, _début_ of Kellogg at, 33; stage conditions at, 37; director of, 40; winter season at, 91; benefit at, 92; return to, 201; 258, 259, 263 Adam, Mme., 304 Adamowski, Timothie, 358 Adams, Charles, 298 Adams, Maud, in _Joan of Arc_, 66 Aïda, 292, 301, 302, 307 Albani, Mme., 235 Albertini, 294 Albites, suggestion of, 102 Alboni, Mme., Rovere and, 94; anecdote of, 175 Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 47, 48 Alexander, John, 281 Amina, the _rôle_ of, 64; the opera of, 65; Murska as, 296 Amodio, 13; personal appearance of, 14; in _Don Giovanni_, 74 Amonasro, 307 Andrede, Joseph, 300 Annetta, 91; contrast between Marguerite and, 93; Malibran as, 94; Grisi as, 94; Kellogg as, 93, 94, 96 Anschutz, _Faust_ and, 78 Appleton, Tom, 46, 47 Arditi, 135, 138, 162-164, 168, 171, 173 Armitage, Sir George, 195-198 Association, Peace Jubilee, 235 Azucena, 249 Babcock, William, 7 Bachert, Pond and, 358 Balfe, 261, 262 _Ballo in Maschera_, 55, 62, 329, 338 Banjo, first mention of, 8; music of, 9; old man and the, 217, 218; accompaniment of, 358 _Barbiere, Il_, realistic performance of, 38; 56, 91, 97, 167, 277 Barbizon School, 306 Barlow, Judge Peter, 102 Barlow, Mrs. Samuel, 276-279 Bateman concerts, 101 Beecher, Henry Ward, 214 Beethoven, 78; Jubilee, 209; Okakura and music of, 219; reference to, 366 Behrens, Siegfried, 263, 264, 267 Bellini, 54; traditions of, 67; music of, 80 Benedict, Sir Jules, 6, 197, 261, 262 Bennett, James Gordon, 251, 303 Bennett, Mr., 164, 174, 238 Bentinck, Mrs. Cavendish, 190 Bernhardt, 208 _Beware_, Longfellow and, 46; singing of, 175, 178, 197 Bey, Khalil, 156, 157 Biachi as Mephistopheles, 86 Bianchi, Mlle., 329 Bierstadt, Albert, 160 Bizet, 305 Black, Valentine, 305 _Bohème, La_, 91 _Bohemian Girl, The_, 257, 259 Booth, Edwin, letter from, 16; on stage traditions, 366 Booth, Wilkes, 111 Borde, Mme. de la, in _Les Huguenots_, 13; voice of, 13 Borgia, Lucretia, Grisi as, 159 Bososio, Mlle., as Prascovia, 102 Boucicault, Dion, 15, 262 Brignoli, 13, 14; tour with, 22; temper of, 22, 23; origin of, 24; mascot of, 24, 165; point of view of, 24; anecdote of, 25; death of, 25; in _I Puritani_, 29; in opera with, 36; difficulties with, 41; in Boston with, 44; farewell performance for, 64; Americanisation of, 71; in _Poliuto_, 72; Gottschalk and, 107; mention of, 294, 358 Brougham, John, 15 Bulow, Von, 298 Burnett, Mrs. Frances Hodgson, 281 Burroughs, John, reference to, 288 Butterfly, Madame, 255 Cabanel, 306 Cable, George, 281 Callender, May, 276, 277 Calvé, 81; as Carmen, 291 _Camille_, Matilda Heron in, 15; public attitude toward, 69; mention of, 70; libretto of, 135 Campanini, Italo, 236, 237, 261, 295 Capoul, 184, 236, 237, 295 Carlton, William, 258-261, 265, 268, 275; Marie Roze and, 290 Carmen, 73, 91; Minnie Hauck as, 102; Kellogg in, 231, 236; in English, 254; Marie Roze as, 290; the _rôle_ of, 291; Calvé as, 291; music of, 305 Carvalho, Mme. Miolan-, 77; wig of, 82, 140; as Marguerite, 84 Cary, Annie Louise, 193; Kellogg and, 289, 292-294, 298, 304 _Castille, The Rose of_, 257 Castle, 257, 269, 270 Catherine, in _Star of the North_, 102; jewels for, 104; incident when singing, 267 Châtelet, Théâtre, 140 Christina, ex-Queen, 143, 144 Clarke, James Freeman, 50 Clarkson, Bishop, 300 Clover, Lieutenant, 357 Club, Stanley, 305 Colson, Pauline, tour with, 22; advice of, 26; example in costuming of, 27; illness of, 27 Combermere, Viscountess, 125; anecdote of, 128 Comédie Française, 15 Concerts, private, 168; Buckingham Palace, 179-186, 302; Benedict's, 197; tours, 200-203, 208, 227-230; trials of, 232-234; in Russia, 346 Conklin, Ellen, effect of slavery on, 58, 59 Conly, George, 256, 258, 275 Connaught, Duke of, 183, 184 Contessa, incident in Titjien's _rôle_ of, 169, 170, 239 Cook, W. H., 124 Coquelin, 304 Costa, Sir Michael, 169, 170, 194, 238, 267 Cotogni, 235, 337 Coulsen, 294 Crinkle, Nym, _see_ Wheeler _Crispino e la Comare_, 91, 94; Cobbler in, 94; mention of, 97, 249 _Curiose, Le Donne_, 91 Cushman, Charlotte, attendance at theatre by, 33; evening in Boston with, 50, 52; in Rome with, 160; as Queen Katherine, 270, 271 Cusins, 176, 178 Custer, 57, 58 Czar, the, Ronconi and, 95; daughter of, 182, 183; signature of, 335; physician of, 337; Nihilists and, 338, 343; mourning of, 342; sight of, 350, 351; assassination of, 354, 355 Dahlgren, Admiral, 183, 357 _Dame Blanche, La_, 96 D'Angri, 13 _Daniel Deronda_, quotation from, 315-316 Davidson, 167, 190, 195 Davis, Jefferson, at West Point, 19; son of, 19; wife of, 20 Davis, Will, 256 Debussy, 79 Deland, Conly as, 258 de Reszke, Jean, in _L'Africaine_, 40; Sbriglia and, 313, 314 de Reszke, Josephine, 306 _Diavolo, Fra_, 16, 91; benefit performance of, 92, 93; fondness for, 97; scenes from, 159; Lucca in, 174, 249; Conly in, 256; mention of, 261; Habelmann as, 269 Dickens, house of, 241 Donizetti, 56; opera of _Betly_ by, 68; _Poliuto_ by, 71; music of, 80 Donna Anna, _rôle_ of, 74, 137; Titjiens as, 169, 170, 173; Kellogg as, 249 Doria, Clara, 246 Douglass, William, 126, 203 Duc de Morney, 360 Dudley, Lord, 189 Dufferin, Lord and Lady, 353 Dukas, 79 Duse, 208 _Dutchman, The Flying_, 257, 258, 263-265 Eames, Mme., 83 Edinburgh, Duchess of, 182, 183 Edward, Miss, 121, 137 Ehn, Mme., 329 Elssler, Fanny, 330 Elvira, Donna, 137, 170, 173 Emerson, 45, 221 Emory, Lieutenant, 357 _Ernani_, Patti in, 148, 155 Errani, 11 Eugénie, Empress, 149, 150 Evans, Dr., 150 Fabri, Count, 244 Falstaff, 91 Farragut, Admiral, 157, 158 Farrar, Geraldine, as Marguerite, 81, 83, 89 Faure, 145, 147, 178, 179, 184, 235, 323 _Faust_, first suggestion of Kellogg in, 40; anecdote about, 46; public attitude toward, 68; decision of Maretzek about, 75; on the Continent, 77; criticism of 78; estimate of 79; early effect on public of, 81, 89; Alice Neilson in 82; _Poliuto_ and, 88; liberties with score of, 88, 89; Santley in, 132; French treatment of, 140; in America, 240; mention of, 244, 307; Lucca in, 249, 250; Carlton in, 260; Drury Lane and, 132, 135, 137, 162, 174, 189, 261; Mike and, 266; Emma Abbott in, 274; testimonial, 298; libretto of, 333; mention of, 359 Fechter, Mr., 168 Federici as Marguerite, 80 Felina, 251-253, 331, 358 Ferri, tour with, 22; as Rigoletto, 33; blindness of, 33, 41 Fidelio, Titjiens as, 169 Field, Eugene, 271 Field, Mrs. Marshall, 279 Fields, James T., home of, 45; anecdote of, 46; friends of, 47, 48; opinion of "copy" of Mrs. Stowe, 49; hospitality of, 50; letter to, 89 Fioretti, 195 Fischoff, 326, 332 Flotow, opera of _Martha_ by, 73 Flute, playing of, 2; Lanier and, 51; Wagner's use of, 52 _Flute, The Magic_, 74, 146, 366; song from _The Star_ in, 173 Foley, Walter, 131, 167, 236 Foster, Mr., 338, 339 Franceschetti, 322 Frapoli, 299 _Freischütz, Der_, 254 French, art of the, 140 Fursch-Nadi, 310 Gaiety, 93, 94; Italian, 160 Gannon, Mary, 15 Garden, Covent, 129, 135, 167, 171, 172, 178, 194-196, 235 Garden, Mary, artistic spirit of, 40; English opera and, 255 _Gazza Ladra, La_, 166-168, 173 Gazzaniga, Mme., 294 Gerster, 303, 329 Giatano, Nita, 242, 243 Gilda, study of the _rôle_ of, 29; appearance in, 34, 35, 63; comparison with Marguerite of, 79; Kellogg as, 81 Gilder, Jeannette, 193, 280, 282; Ellen Terry and, 283 Gilder, Richard Watson, 192, 219, 221; Mrs., 279, 281; studio of, 280-282 Gilder, Rodman, 281 Gilder, William H., 280 Gilmore, Patrick, 309 _Giovanni, Don_, 62; under Grau in, 74; at Her Majesty's, 137, 167, 170, 173, 174, 197, 198; mention of, 249, 296, 342 Godard, 305 Goddard, Mr., 190 Goethe, 254 Goodwin, 168, 197 _Götterdämmerung, Die_, 91 Gottschalk, 106, 107, 295 Gounod, new opera by, 75; as revolutionist, 78, 79; mention of, 132; reference to, 133; in London, 140, 240-244; Gounod, Madame, 243 Grange, Mme. de la, in _Les Huguenots_, 13; in _Sonnambula_, 38; in _The Star of the North_, 102 Grant, General, in Chicago, 114, 115; President and Mrs., 266 Grau, Maurice, 67; _Traviata_ and, 69; in Boston with, 74, 258, 259; mention of, 300; Opera House, 307 Greeley, Horace, funeral of, 209 Greenough, Lillie, 277 Gridley, Lieutenant-Commander, 357 Grisi, opportunity to hear, 14; opera costumier and, 85; as Annetta, 94; family of, 158; story of, 159 Grove, Sir George, 262 Gye, Mr., 129, 135, 171, 172 Habelmann, Theodor, in _Fra Diavolo_, 96, 269, 270 Hall, Dr. John, 300 Hamilton, Sir Frederick, 342 Hamilton, Gail, 50 Hamlet, in French, 141; Nilsson in, 145; Faure as, 147; McCullough as, 282; mad scene in, 292, 329 Handel, Festival, 172; _Messiah_ of, 209; and Haydn Society, 298 Hanslick, Dr., 195; complimented by, 329-331 Harrington, Earl of, 126; ice-box of, 127; daughter of, 127; at the opera, 198 Harte, Bret, niece of, 319 Hauck, Minnie, as Prascovia, 102, 103; characterisation of, 103; mention of, 303 Haute, M. De la, 159 Hawaii, King of, 266 Hawthorne, Julian, 49 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 48 _Hélène, La Belle_, 254 Heron, Matilda, 15 Hess, C. D., 256-259; benefit of Kellogg, 275 Heurtly, Mrs., 190 Hinckley, Isabella, 41; in _Il Barbiere_, 56; in _Betly_, 68 Hissing, custom of, in Spain, 145 Hoey, Mrs. John, 15 Hoffman, Baron, 329, 330 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 46; breakfasts with, 52; opinion of English women of, 53 Hosmer, Harriet, 160 Howe, Julia Ward, 46, 49, 61 Huger, General Isaac, son of, 18, 57 _Huguenots, Les_, 91, 174, 295, 366 _Iago_, 307 Irving, Henry, great strength of, 40; repose of, 234, 248; first meeting with, 282; complaint of, 284; reforms of, 284, 285 Jackson, Helen Hunt, 281 Jaffray, E. S., 322 Jarrett, 120, 162, 163; daughter of, 163, 164, 168, 173, 198; Colonel Stebbins and, 173; Gounod and, 241; mention of, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 294, 300, 331 Jerome, Leonard, 188 Johnston, Sir Alan, 353 Jordan, Jules, 206, 207 Juliet, saying of Modjeska about, 70; Patti as, 194, 198; Romeo and, 240; Gounod and, 244 Karl, Tom, 298 Katherine, Queen, 270, 271 Keene, Laura, 15 Kellogg, Clara Louise, first appearance of, 6; description as a child of, 7; dress of, 8, 25, 26, 39, 40, 70, 84, 85, 135, 136, 137, 210, 265, 347; Muzio and, 11, 12, 13; early singers heard by, 13; histrionic skill of, 15, 16; resemblance to Rachel of, 16; _début_ as Gilda of, 33; as Marguerite, 40, 75-92; hospitalities toward, 44, 45, 93, 100, 101, 278, 279, 362, 363; wig of, 82-84; in Opéra Comique, 91-98; jewelry of, 93, 104, 105, 298; as Flower Prima Donna, 103, 202; Lucca and, 245-252; in English Opera, 254-270; favourite flower of; 266; in "Three Graces" Tour, 289-304 Kellogg, George, flute of, 2; failure of, 9; Irish servants and, 61; in New Hartford with, 67; story of, 231 Keppel, Colonel, 133 Korbay, Francis, 219 Krauss, 307 Küster, Baron, 338 La Farge, John, 219, 221, 280 _L'Africaine_, de Reszke in, 40; Lucca in, 249; Masini in, 341 Lang, 190, 198 Lanier, Sidney, 50; anecdote of, 51 Lascelle, 306 Lawrence, Alberto, 258 _Lecouvreur, Adrienne_, 282 Leonora, Marie Willt as, 152; Lucca as, 179; Morgan and, 269 Le Page, Bastien, 281 Leporello, Rockitanski as, 170 _Le Roi de Lahore_, 306 Librettos, inartistic, 255; Emma Abbott and, 274; texts of, 332 Liebling, 358 _Lily o'Killarney_, 261, 262 Lincoln, Abraham, call for volunteers by, 54; anecdote of, 110; death of, 111; lying-in-state of, 112-114, 118 Lind, Jenny, 5, 6, 294 Linda di Chamounix, first public appearance of Kellogg in, 25; Boston's attitude toward, 36; origin of, 36; story of, 36, 37; costuming of, 38, 39; Susini, in, 42; Mme. Medori as, 42; Kellogg in Boston as, 43, 50, 54, 62; teaching of, 63; comparison with Marguerite of, 79; _Clara Louise Polka_ and, 88; Patti in, 129; mention of, 132, 249; at Her Majesty's, 135, 167, 236, 238 Liszt, saying of, 234 Littlejohn, Bishop, 300 _Lohengrin_, 292 Longfellow, 46, 47; poems of, 46, 47; anecdote of, 47; letter by, 89; reference to, 221 Lorenzo, Conly as, 256 Loveday, Mme., 261 Lowell, 46, 47 Lucca, Pauline, Piccolomini's resemblance to, 14; travelling of, 28; as Marguerite, 82; in _Fra Diavolo_, 174; at rehearsal, 178, 179; at Buckingham Palace, 184, 185; at Covent Garden, 196, 235; in America, 240; Kellogg and, 245-250; as Mignon, 251; mention of, 294, 329 Lucia, Patti in, 15, 62; comparison with Linda of, 73; standing of, 73; Kellogg in Chicago as, 113, 237; _rôle_ of, 292; Kellogg as, 329 Maas, Joseph, 256-258, 261 Macci, Victor, opera by, 68 Macmillan, Lady, 284 Maddox, 194, 195, 246, 247 Maeterlinck, Mme., saying of, 103 Malibran, 94 Manchester, Consuelo, Duchess of, 184 Mancini, 359 Mansfield, Richard, mother of, 165 Manzocchi, 11 Mapleson, Col. J. M., 120, 139, 162, 166, 168, 170, 171, 173, 174, 198, 200, 235, 236, 241, 301, 302 Mapleson, Henry, 289, 290, 292-294, 303 Maretzek, Max, at the Academy, 40; during the war, 55; decision with regard to _Faust_ of, 75, 77, 78; Colonel Stebbins and, 85; Mazzoleni and, 86; _Faust_ and, 87, 88; benefit custom and, 91, 92, 119; in Philadelphia with, 201; saying of, 215; management of, 240 Marguerite, interpretation of, 42; estimate of, 80-84, 333; Nilsson as, 82, 129; costume of, 84, 85; Patti as, in France, 140, 141; reference to, 243, 263; Lucca as, 249, 250; Kellogg as, 359 _Maria de Rohan_, Rovere in, 95 Mario, Grisi and, 14; mention of, 147, 167, 185, 195, 196 Martha, 62, 73, 74; comparison with Marguerite of, 79; _Faust_ and, 88; as Opéra Comique, 91; at Her Majesty's, 135; Nilsson as, 145; Kellogg as, 249, 261, 329 Martin, Mrs., 202-207 Masaniello, 96 Masini, 338, 340, 341 Materna, Mme., 329, 331 Matthews, Brander, wife of, 69; reception by father of, 100, 101 Maurel, 141, 295, 306, 307 Mazzoleni as Faust, 86, 87 McCook, Alec, 18, 57 McCreary, Lieutenant, 18, 57 McCullough, John, 282, 300 McHenry, 143, 145, 148, 158, 167, 190, 197, 198 McKenzie, Sir Edward, 190, 300, 301 McVickar, Commodore, 121, 126 Medori, Mme., as Linda, 42; in Don Giovanni, 74 _Meister, Wilhelm_, 251, 252 _Meistersinger, Die_, 91 Melodies, negro, 1, 9, 117, 146, 305, 357 Menier, Chocolat, 243, 309 Meyerbeer, 90; craze for, 101; a song of, 102; son-in-law of, 328 Mignon, effect on audience of, 59; Polonaise from, 183, 229, 305, 358; Lucca and Kellogg in, 251; in English, 257, 260; Cary as, 293; cast of, 298; Kellogg as, 329, 330, 331; reference to, 370 Mike, 266 Millet, 11; son of, 282 Mind, sub-conscious, 13; workings of the, 35, 169, 216 Minstrels, negro, 8 Mireille, 240, 243 Mistral, 240 Modjeska, Helena, in _Adrienne_ _Lecouvreur_, 59; in Camille 69; saying of, 70; Okakura and, 281; Kellogg and, 282, 283; custom of, 352 Moncrieff, Mrs., 243 Morelli, 294 Morgan, Wilfred, 258, 259, 269 Mother, first mention of, 2, 3, 4; attitude toward theatre of, 30, 31; presence at performance of Gilda of, 35; in Boston with, 44, 52; in New Hartford with, 67; _Faust_ and, 81; character of, 108; anecdote of, 128; in England, 137; in Paris, 139, 143; diary of, 154-157, 163, 164, 166-168, 173, 174, 178, 197, 198, 308, 326; mention of, 186, 188, 190, 194, 195, 200, 252, 259, 286, 304, 307, 334; Eugene Field and, 271; in Russia, 349, 352-356; health of, 365 Moulton, melody of _Beware_ by, 175 Moulton, Mrs., 277 Mowbray, J. P., _see_ Wheeler Mozart, operas of, 74; English and, 136; _arias_ of, 146; with Titjiens in operas of, 169; all-star casts of, 170; music of, 366 Munkacsy, 219 Murska, Mlle., Ilma de, 296 Muzio, 11; appearance of, 12; opinion of, 17; concert tour of Kellogg with, 22; Italian traditions and, 66; concert tour under, 72; polka by, 88 Napoleon III, 148, 149 Negroes, treatment of, 58; in New York during the war, 60; discussions regarding the, 60; anti-negro riots, 323 Neilson, Adelaide, 247 Neilson, Alice, in _Faust_, 82 Nevin, 322 Newcastle, Duchess of, 184, 188, 197 Newcastle, Duke of, 100, 125; in box of, 146, 167, 168, 173, 174, 188, 189, 191, 192; pin of the, 193, 194, 197, 198, 235 Newson, 6, 7 Nicolini, 130, 148, 184, 185 Night, Queen of the, Nilsson as, 146 Nilsson, Christine, as Marguerite, 82; in London, 129, 131, 132, 137, 169, 173, 235; as Martha, 145; voice of, 146, 147; superstition of, 165, 166; in opera with, 169; Sir Michael Costa and, 170; at Buckingham Palace, 184; friend of, 190; reference to, 196, 239, 252, 261, 294, 295, 326, 329 _Noces de Jeannette, Les_, 29, 62; libretto of, 68 Nordica, Lillian, 309, 310; Nevin's song and, 322; in Russia with, 337, 341, 347, 348 Norma, Grisi as, 158; reference to, 252 _Nozze di Figaro, Le_, 170, 171, 174, 197, 198, 249, 261 _Oh, had I Jubal's Lyre!_ 172 Okakura, 219-222, 281 Oldenburg, Prince, 346 Olin, Mrs. Stephen Henry, 276, 277 _Opera, The Beggar's_, 258 Opéra bouffe, 90 Opéra comique, 90, 91, 97; of Paris, 236 Opera, traditions of, 12, 77, 79, 263, 277; necessities of, 34; effect of war on, 55, 56; houses in America for, 68; early customs of, 84; innovations of, 87; benefit custom of, 91; Her Majesty's, 120, 129, 136, 171, 178, 235; French, 140, 141; English, 254-258, 260-303; translations of, 255, 256, 260, 261; Strakosch and, 303; Imperial, 326; in Petersburg, 334-342; preparation for, 367; province of Italian, 370 Ophelia, Modjeska as, 282; Kellogg as, 293 Othello, Salvini as, 283; in Munich 307 Oudin, Eugene, 277 Oxenford, 262 Palace, Buckingham, 176-179; concerts at, 179-186, 302 Palace, Crystal, 172, 174, 209 Palmer, Anna, 11 Paloma, La, 249 Parker, Minnie, 276, 277 Parodi, 294 _Pasquale, Don_, 96 Patey, Mme., 174 Patti, Adelina, 5; early appearance of, 15; as Marguerite, 82; voice of, 129, 130, 132, 323; in London 77, 129, 132, 135, 184, 185, 195-198, 235; sister of, 129; in Paris with, 308; comparison with, 330; questioning of, 365 Patti, Carlotta, 295 _Paul and Virginia_, 295 Peakes, 257 Pease, Miss Alta, 358 Pergolese, opera of _La Serva Padrona_ by, 14 Peto, Sir Morton, banquet of, 99 Petrelli, 272 Petrovitch, 338 Phillips, Adelaide, as Maddalena, 41; as Pierotto, 41, 248 Photography, new effects in, 208 Piccolomini, 14, 74 Pinchot, Gifford, sister of, 353 Pine, Louisa, 13 Pitch, absolute, 4, 165, 267; standard of, 231 Plançon, 312 Plantagenet, Lady Edith, 297 _Poliuto_, 62; plot of, 71; _Faust_ and, 88 _Polka, Clara Louise_, 88 Pond, Major, 360, 361 Pope Pius IX., 160 Porter, Ella, 11; in Paris, 84 Porter, General Horace, 19, 20, 57 Prascovia, Minnie Hauck as, 102, 103 Press, criticisms of the, 27, 35, 39, 42, 68, 70, 75, 78, 88, 89, 94, 97, 133, 135, 164, 200, 211, 215, 239, 240, 250, 252, 256, 258, 271, 279, 291, 358; standing of the, 328; in Vienna, 331; censorship in Russia of the, 336; interview, 366 Public, English, 136, 194, 237; American, 229, 230, 238; rival factions of the, 250; characteristics of the, 264, 296; Petersburg, 339; Boston, 358; charm of the, 365, 372 _Puritani, I_, Brignoli in, 29; Kellogg in, 54, 62, 63 Quinn, Dr., 168, 191, 235 Rachel, 16 Racine, 306 Rampolla, Cardinal, 161 Ramsay, Captain, 357 Ramsay, Col., 300 Randegger, 195 Rathbone, General, 300 Reed, Miss Fanny, in Boston, 45; in New York, 277, 278 Reeves, Sims, 174, 175 _Reggimento, La Figlia del_, 56, 58, 62; at close of Civil War, 114; Lucca in, 249 Renaud in opera, 40, 265 Rice brothers, 94 _Rigoletto_, 29, 34, 36; opinion of Boston of, 36; origin of, 36, 62; meaning of, 81, 167; Masini as, 341 Ristori, 16 Rivarde, 11 _Robert le Diable_, 86, 201, 332 Robertson, Agnes, 15 Robertson, Madge (Mrs. Kendall), 284 Robin, Theodore, 304-306 Rockitanski, 170 Ronalds, Mrs. Peter, 276, 277, 279 Ronconi, 94; The Czar and, 95; in _Fra Diavolo_, 95; anecdote of, 96 Rosa, Carl, 101 Rosa, Euphrosyne Parepa, 101, 209, 262 Rosina, 91, 93, 96, 97, 137 Rossini, 13, 97; reference to, 133; English and, 136; traditions of, 277; Nordica and, 310 Rossmore, Lady, 192, 198 Rota, 261 Rothschild, Baron Alfred de, 194, 198, 235 Rovere, 94 Roze, Marie, 236, 261, 289, 290, 292, 293, 298 Rubenstein, 246, 248 Rudersdorf, Mme. Erminie, 165 Ryan, Mr., 305 Ryloff, 269 _Salome_, suppression of, 69, 254 Salvini, 283 Sampson, Mr., 190, 198 Sandford, Wright, 126, 203 Santley, Ronconi and, 95; as Valentine, 132; kindness of, 134; as Almaviva, 137, 167, 168, 170, 173, 174, 184, 198 Sanz, 248, 249 Sargent, 281 Sbriglia, 310-313; Jean de Reszke and, 313, 314, 367-369 Scalchi, Sofia, 172, 185; in Petersburg, 337 Scarborough, Bishop, 300 Scola, lessons in acting from, 29, 38 Scott, Sir Walter, 261 Sebasti, 161 Seguin, Stella, 257, 258 Seguin, Ted, 258 Sembrich, Marcella, 337 Semiramide, 171, 277, 342 Senta, 263-265, 292 _Serenade, The Persian_, 223 Shakespeare in music, 141 Sherman, General, in Chicago, 114 Siebel, Miss Sulzer as, 87 Singing, methods of, 5; Grisi and, 158, 159; _prime donne_ and, 231; early, 307; Nordica and, 310; Sbriglia and, 311-321, 367-369; traditions of, 366 Sinico, Mme., 137 Sinnett, A. P., 189 Slezak, 312 Smith, Mark, 246 Society, Arion, 206 Somerset, Duchess of, 121-124; letters by, 125; beadwork of, 126, 137, 144, 197, 168, 188, 197 _Sonnambula, La_, 54, 62-64; teaching of, 65, 66; _aria_ from 67; Murska in, 296 Sonnenthal, 330 Southern, the elder, 15 Spofford, Harriet Prescott, 50 _Stabat Mater_, 310 Stackpoole, Major, 192, 197, 198 Stage, attitude toward, 11; Italian attitude toward, 12; English precedent of, 12; superstitions of, 24, 36, 165; primitive conditions of, 25, 27, 28, 37, 38, 87; in France, 140 Stanley, 189 _Star of the North, The_, 102; flute song of, 173; in English, 257, 266; quartette in, 267 _Star, The Evening_, 230 Stebbins, Colonel Henry G., 10; daughters of, 11; home of, 16; sister of, 33; _Faust_ and, 85; in England, 122-124, 137; in Scotland, 131; in France, 155, 158; daughter of, 160; friendship of, 171, 173, 174, 197, 198 Stevens, Mrs. Paran, in Boston, 44, 45, 278; sister of, 277 Stewart, Jules, 306 Stigelli, 33, 71, 294 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 46, 49 Strakosch, Maurice, 130, 148; Napoleon and, 149; at Covent Garden with, 194, 198; Patti and, advice of, 294; methods of, 302 Strakosch, Max, 200, 201, 204, 205, 240, 289, 292, 294-296, 300, 303, 359 Strauss, 79, 254 Sulzer, Miss, 87 _Summer, The Last Rose of_, 135 Susanna, Kellogg as, 170, 240 Susini, name of, 22; as the Baron in _Linda_, 41; wife of, 41; sense of humour of, 42; salute of Grant and Sherman by, 115; mention of, 294 Tadema, Alma, 191 Tagliapietra, 358 _Talisman, The_, 261, 297 Talleyrand, Marquis de, 157, 158 _Tannhäuser_, 140, 230 Tennants, 189 Terry, Ellen, 234, 248; opinion of, 283, 284 Thalberg, 106; Strakosch and, 294 Theatre, in England, 131; in France, 140, 141; Her Majesty's 189, 235; traditions of the, 366 Theatre, Booth's, 267 Théâtre Comique, 307 Théâtre Français, 265, 306 Théâtre Lyrique, 145 Thomas, Ambrose, 146 Thomas, Theodore, at the Academy, 40; in Chicago, 321 Thomaschewski, Dr., 337, 347 Thompson troupe, Lydia, 69 _Thorough-base_, 2 Thursby, Emma, 298 Tilton, Mrs. Elizabeth, 214 Titjiens, in London, 77, 129, 132, 137, 139, 170, 173; pet of, 168, 169, 178, 179, 185, 196, 235, 239, 302 _Traviata_, Piccolomini in, 14; the part of Violetta in, 15, 62; libretto of, 68; public opinion of, 69, 70; Patti in, 130; at Her Majesty's, 135, 164; costume in, 136; rehearsal of, 163; success of, 164; Lucca in, 249; interpretation of, 291; Kellogg in 329, 338, 342; solo from, 357 Trebelli-Bettini, 236 Trentini, Emma, superstition of, 166 Trobriand, Baron de, opinions and stories of, 16 Trollope, Anthony, 46, 48 _Trovatore_, Mme. de la Grange in, 13; Marie Willt in, 153; Lucca in, 179; Kellogg in, 201, 249, 260, 261, 329; Carlton in, 268 Tschaikowsky, 306 Turner, Charles, 261 Valentine, Carlton as, 260; Kellogg as, 295 Vanderbilt, Frederick W., 300 Vanderbilt, William H., 197, 285, 286 Vane-Tempest, Lady Susan, 192, 197 Van Zandt, Miss, 307 Van Zandt, Mrs., 257 Verdi, mention of, 11; Falstaff of, 91; reference to, 133, 292, 298; meeting with, 307, 308; criticism of, 331 Vernon, Mrs., 15 Victoria, Queen, 177, 186, 301 Villiers, Colonel, 353 Violetta, 15; character of, 70; gowns of 70; jewels for, 104; Patti as, 130; costume of, 135; Kellogg as, 338; solo of, 357 Vogel, 307 Voltaire, house of, 143 Wagner, fondness of Kellogg for music of, 30; use of flute by, 52; as a revolutionist, 78, 263, 264, 265; reviewers and, 88; mention of, 90, 292; French idea of, 140, 253; von Bulow and, 298; Hanslick and, 329, 330 Walcot, Charles, 15 Wales, Prince of, 133, 164, 177, 178, 180-183; daughter of, 190, 192, 301, 302 Wales, Princess of, 178, 180-183, 302 Wallack, John, exclamation of, 16 Wallack, Lester, 300 _Waltz, The Kellogg_, 135, 138 War, Civil, West Point before the, 19; beginning of the, 54; attitude of public toward, 55; riots in New York during, 59-61; opera during the, 74, 75; close of, 110; after the, 201; reference to, 233, 359, 360 Wehli, James M., 201 Welldon, Georgina, 241-243 Werther, 91 West Point, primitive conditions of, 17; conspiracies at, 18 Wheeler, A. C., 42, 75 White, Stanford, 280 Whitney, M. W., 298 Widor, 305 Wieniawski, 246 Wig, for Marguerite, 82-84, 140; of Leuta, 265 Wilde, Oscar, 254, 255 Willt, Marie, anecdote of, 153 Witherspoon, Herbert, in Norfolk, 9; in New Hartford, 67 Wood, Mrs. John, 15 Worth, creations of, 136, 278, 279, 347, 348 Wyckoff, Chevalier, 148, 188 Yeats, Edmund, 246, 247 Young, Brigham, 298 Zerlina, Piccolomini as, 14; Kellogg as, 74, 91-93, 97, 137, 170; country of, 159; Lucca as, 249 * * * * * _A Selection from the Catalogue of_ G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Complete Catalogue sent on application * * * * * "_A grab-bag of fascinations, for open the pages where one will, each chapter has its racy anecdote and astonishing story._" My Autobiography Madame Judith of the Comédie Française Edited by Paul G'Sell Translated by Mrs. Arthur Bull _With Photogravure Frontispiece. $3.50 net By mail, $3.75_ Madame Judith was not only a stage rival but a close friend of the great French actress, Rachel, and the intimate of Victor Hugo, Alfred de Musset, Alexandra Dumas, Prince Napoleon, and many other men of letters and rank. Madame Judith's memories extend over an intensely interesting period of French history, commencing with the Revolution that ushered in the Second Empire, and ending with the foundation of the Republic after the Franco-Prussian War. Famous actors and actresses, poets, novelists, dramatists, members of the imperial family, statesmen, and minor actors in the drama of life flit across the canvas, their personalities being vividly realized by some significant anecdotes or telling characterizations. Kind-hearted, clear-headed, and brilliantly gifted, Madame Judith led an active and fascinating life, and it is to her credit that while she does not hesitate to tell of the weaknesses of others, she is equally ready to acknowledge her own. New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London * * * * * The Life of Henry Labouchere By Algar Labouchere Thorold _Authorized Edition. 2 vols. With 6 Photogravure Illustrations_ The authorized edition has been prepared by the nephew of Mr. Labouchere, who for the last ten years has been a close neighbor of, and in intimate and personal relation with him. Mr. Labouchere frequently communicated to Mr. Thorold many details of his early life, and discussed with him his numerous activities with great freedom. Mr. Thorold has, furthermore, sole access to a voluminous correspondence, including letters from King Edward VII. when Prince of Wales, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Morley, Sir William Harcourt, Mr. Parnell, Lord Randolph Churchill, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, which shed a new and unexpected light upon his political and personal relations with the events and people of his time, in particular his connection with the Radical Party over a period of a considerable number of years. His life as a war correspondent during the siege of Paris and his action in connection with the Parnell Commission, culminating in the dramatic confession of Pigott, will be treated in full detail. As is well-known Mr. Labouchere was the founder and first editor of _Truth_, that unique production of modern journalism; and much new and interesting information concerning the foundation and early days of this remarkable journal will be brought before the public. New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London * * * * * A Woman's Defense My Own Story By Louisa of Tuscany Ex-Crown Princess of Saxony _With 19 Illustrations from Original Photographs 8º. $3.50 net. (By mail, $3.75)_ In this volume Princess Louisa gives for the first time the authentic inside history of the events that led to her sensational escape from the Court of Saxony and her meeting with Monsieur Giron, with whom the tongue of scandal had associated her name. It is a story of Court intrigue that reads like romance. "As the story of a woman's life, as a description of the private affairs of Royal houses, we have had nothing more intimate, more scandalous, or more readable than this very frank story." _Miss Jeannette L. Gilder in "The Reader."_ "Frank, free, amazingly intimate, refreshing.... She has spared nobody from kings and kaisers to valets and chambermaids." _London Morning Post._ "The Princess is a decidedly vivacious writer, and she does not mince words in describing the various royalties by whom she was surrounded. Some of her pictures of Court life will prove a decided revelation to most readers."--_N. Y. Times._ New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London * * * * * A STARTLING BOOK! My Past Reminiscences of the Courts of Austria and of Bavaria By the Countess Marie Larisch Née Baroness Von Wallersee Daughter of Duke Ludwig and Niece of the Late Empress Elizabeth of Austria _8º. With 21 Illustrations from Original Photographs $3.50 net. By mail, $3.75_ _The True Story of the Tragic Death of Rudolph, Crown Prince of Austria_ The author was the favourite niece of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria and enjoyed her aunt's complete trust. The Empress confided to her many circumstances which this cautious ruler withheld from others close to her person. Her station at the Austrian Court has enabled her to tell many intimate and curiosity-arousing anecdotes concerning the noble families of Europe. Interesting and full of glamour as her life was, however, her place in history is assured primarily through her inadvertent connection with the amour which Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria carried on with the Baroness Mary Vetsera, and which culminated in the tragic death of the lovers at Meyerling. "_An amazing chronicle of imperial and royal scandals, which spares no member of the two august houses to which she is related._"--_N. Y. Tribune._ New York G. P. Putnam's Sons London 
40844	----	THE DIVA'S RUBY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. [Illustration: "Apparently looking down at his loosely hanging hands."--Page 92.] THE DIVA'S RUBY A SEQUEL TO "PRIMADONNA" AND "FAIR MARGARET" BY F. MARION CRAWFORD AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "ARETHUSA," ETC., ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. MONTGOMERY FLAGG New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1908 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY F. MARION CRAWFORD. Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1908. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "Apparently looking down at his loosely hanging hands" _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE "'Funny idea of honour,' observed the American" 62 "'You want my blessing, do you, Miss Barrack?'" 116 "Margaret gazed at him in surprise while she might have counted ten" 154 "She was aware of his slight change of position without turning her eyes" 170 "She grasped Lady Maud's arm" 198 "She watched him intently while he read the printed report" 226 "The two dined on deck" 284 "'What has happened?' she cried. 'Are you ill, dear?'" 294 "She buried her handsome face in the splendid flowers" 340 "Their eyes met" 348 "The man was not Boris Leven" 422 THE DIVA'S RUBY CHAPTER I There is a ruby mine hidden in the heart of the mountains near a remote little city of Central Asia, unknown to European travellers; and the secret of the treasure belongs to the two chief families of the place, and has been carefully guarded for many generations, handed down through the men from father to son; and often the children of these two families have married, yet none of the women ever learned the way to the mine from their fathers, or their brothers, or their husbands, none excepting one only, and her name was Baraka, which may perhaps mean 'Blessed'; but no blessing came to her when she was born. She was much whiter and much more beautiful than the other girls of the little Tartar city; her face was oval like an ostrich egg, her skin was as the cream that rises on sheep's milk at evening, and her eyes were like the Pools of Peace in the Valley of Dark Moons; her waist also was a slender pillar of ivory, and round her ankle she could make her thumb meet her second finger; as for her feet, they were small and quick and silent as young mice. But she was not blessed. When she was in her seventeenth year a traveller came to the little city, who was not like her own people; he was goodly to see, and her eyes were troubled by the sight of him, as the Pools of Peace are darkened when the clouds lie on the mountain-tops and sleep all day; for the stranger was tall and very fair, and his beard was like spun gold, and he feared neither man nor evil spirit, going about alone by day and night. Furthermore, he was a great physician, and possessed a small book, about the size of a man's hand, in which was contained all the knowledge of the world. By means of this book, and three small buttons that tasted of mingled salt and sugar, he cured Baraka's father of a mighty pain in the midriff which had tormented him a whole week. He brought with him also a written letter from a holy man to the chiefs of the town; therefore they did not kill him, though he had a good Mauser revolver with ammunition, worth much money, and other things useful to believers. Satan entered the heart of Baraka, and she loved the traveller who dwelt in her father's house, for she was not blessed; and she stood before him in the way when he went out, and when he returned she was sitting at the door watching, and she took care to show her cream-white arm, and her slender ankle, and even her beautiful face when neither her father nor her mother was near. But he saw little and cared less, and was as grave as her father and the other greybeards of the town. When she perceived that he was not moved by the sight of her, she watched him more closely; for she said in her girl's heart that the eyes that are blind to a beautiful woman see one of three things: gold, or power, or heaven; but her sight was fixed only on him. Then her throat was dry, her heart fluttered in her maiden breast like a frightened bird, and sometimes, when she would have tried to speak, she felt as if her tongue were broken and useless; the fire ran lightly along her delicate body, her eyes saw nothing clearly, and a strange rushing sound filled her ears; and then, all at once, a fine dew wet her forehead and cooled it, and she trembled all over and was as pale as death--like Sappho, when a certain god-like man was near. Yet the stranger saw nothing, and his look was bright and cold as a winter's morning in the mountains. Almost every day he went out and climbed the foot-hills alone, and when the sun was lowering he came back bringing herbs and flowers, which he dried carefully and spread between leaves of grey paper in a large book; and he wrote spells beside them in an unknown tongue, so that no one dared to touch the book when he went out, lest the genii should wake and come out from between the pages, to blind the curious and strike the gossips dumb, and cast a leprosy on the thief. At night he lay on the roof of the fore-house beside the gate of the court, because it was cool there. Baraka came to him, before midnight, when her mother was in a deep sleep; she knelt at his side while he slept in the starlight, and she laid her head beside his, on the sack that was his pillow, and for a little while she was happy, being near him, though he did not know she was there. But presently she remembered that her mother might wake and call her, and she spoke very softly, close to his ear, fearing greatly lest he should start from his sleep and cry out. 'The ruby mine is not far off,' she said. 'I know the secret place. Rubies! Rubies! Rubies! You shall have as many as you can carry of the blood-red rubies!' He opened his eyes, and even in the starlight they were bright and cold. She stroked his hand softly and then pressed it a little. 'Come with me and you shall know the great secret,' she whispered. 'You shall fill this sack that is under your head, and then you shall take me with you to Egypt, and we will live in a marble palace and have many slaves, and be always together. For you will always remember that it was Baraka who showed you where the rubies were, and even when you are tired of her you will treat her kindly and feed her with fig paste and fat quails, such as I hear they have in the south all winter, and Frank rice, and coffee that has been picked over, bean by bean, for the great men.' She said all this in a whisper, stroking his hand; and while she whispered he smiled in his great golden beard that seemed as silvery in the starlight as her father's. 'That is women's talk,' he answered. 'Who has seen mines of rubies? and if you know where they are, why should you show them to me? You are betrothed. If you had knowledge of hidden treasures you would keep it for your husband. This is some trick to destroy me.' 'May these hands wither to the wrists if a hair of your head be harmed through me,' she answered; and as she knelt beside him, the two little hands held his face towards her very tenderly, and then one of them smoothed the thick hair back from his forehead. 'You are betrothed,' he repeated, 'and I am your father's guest. Shall I betray him?' 'I care nothing, neither for father, nor mother, nor brothers, nor betrothed,' Baraka answered. 'I will give you the riches of Solomon if you will take me, for I will have no other man.' 'There are no rubies,' said the stranger. 'Show them to me and I will believe.' The girl laughed very low. 'Did I not know you for a man of little faith?' she asked. 'I have shown you my arm from the wrist to the shoulder. Is it not like the tusk of a young elephant? Yet you have not believed. I have shown you my ankles, and you have seen me span them with my fingers as I sat at the door, yet you believed not. I have unveiled my face, which it is a shame to do, but you could not believe. I have come to you in the starlight when you were asleep, and still you have no faith that I love you, though I shall be cast out to perish if I am found here. But I will give you a little handful of rubies, and you will believe, and take me, when I have shown you where you may get thousands like them.' She took from her neck a bag of antelope skin, no larger than her closed hand, and gave it to him with the thin thong by which it had hung. 'When you have seen them in the sun you will want others,' she said. 'I will take you to the place, and when you have filled your sack with them you will love me enough to take me away. It is not far to the place. In two hours we can go and come. To-morrow night, about this time, I will wake you again. It will not be safe to unbar the door, so you must let me down from this roof by a camel rope, and then follow me.' When Baraka was gone the stranger sat up on his carpet and opened the small bag to feel the stones, for he knew that he could hardly see them in the starlight; but even the touch and the weight told him something, and he guessed that the girl had not tried to deceive him childishly with bits of glass. Though the bag had been in her bosom, and the weather was hot, the stones were as cold as jade; and moreover he felt their shape and knew at once that they might really be rough rubies, for he was well versed in the knowledge of precious stones. When the day began to dawn he went down from the roof to the common room of the fore-house, where guests were quartered, yet although there was no other stranger there he would not take the bag from his neck to examine the stones, lest some one should be watching him from a place of hiding; but afterwards, when he was alone in the foot-hills and out of sight of the town, searching as usual for new plants and herbs, he crept into a low cave at noon, and sat down just inside the entrance, so that he could see any one coming while still a long way off, and there he emptied the contents of the little leathern wallet into his hand, and saw that Baraka had not deceived him; and as he looked closely at the stones in the strong light at the entrance of the cave, the red of the rubies was reflected in the blue of his bright eyes, and made a little purple glare in them that would have frightened Baraka; and he smiled behind his great yellow beard. He took from an inner pocket a folded sheet on which a map was traced in black and green ink, much corrected and extended in pencil; and he studied the map thoughtfully in the cave while the great heat of the day lasted; but the lines that his eye followed did not lead towards Persia, Palestine, and Egypt, where Baraka wished to live with him in a marble palace and eat fat quails and fig paste. She came to him again that night on the roof, bringing with her a small bundle, tightly rolled and well tied up. He wrapped his blanket round her body, and brought it up under her arms so that the rope should not hurt her when her weight came upon it, and so he let her down over the edge of the roof to the ground, and threw the rope after her; and he let himself over, holding by his hands, so that when he was hanging at the full length of his long arms he had only a few feet to drop, for he was very tall and the fore-house was not high, and he wished to take the rope with him. Baraka's house was at the head of the town, towards the foot-hills; every one was sleeping, and there was no moon. She followed the stony sheep-track that struck into the hills only a few hundred paces from the last houses, and the stranger followed her closely. He had his sack on his shoulder, his book of plants and herbs was slung behind him by a strap, and in his pockets he had all the money he carried for his travels and his letters to the chiefs, and a weapon; but he had left all his other belongings, judging them to be of no value compared with a camel-bag full of rubies, and only a hindrance, since he would have to travel far on foot before daylight, by dangerous paths. The girl trod lightly and walked fast, and as the man followed in her footsteps he marked the way, turn by turn, and often looked up at the stars overhead as men do who are accustomed to journeying alone in desert places. For some time Baraka led him through little valleys he had often traversed, and along hillsides familiar to him, and at last she entered a narrow ravine which he had once followed to its head, where he had found that it ended abruptly in a high wall of rock, at the foot of which there was a clear pool that did not overflow. It was darker in the gorge, but the rocks were almost white, so that it was quite possible to see the way by the faint light. The man and the girl stood before the pool; the still water reflected the stars. 'This is the place,' Baraka said. 'Do you see anything?' 'I see water and a wall of rock,' the man answered. 'I have been here alone by day. I know this place. There is nothing here, and there is no way up the wall.' Baraka laughed softly. 'The secret could not have been kept by my fathers for fourteen generations if it were so easy to find out,' she said. 'The way is not easy, but I know it.' 'Lead,' replied the traveller. 'I will follow.' 'No,' returned the girl. 'I will go a little way down the gorge and watch, while you go in.' The man did not trust her. How could he tell but that she had brought him to an ambush where he was to be murdered for the sake of his money and his good weapon? The rubies were real, so far as he could tell, but they might be only a bait. He shook his head. 'Listen,' said Baraka. 'At the other side of the pool there is a place where the water from this spring flows away under the rock. That is the passage.' 'I have seen the entrance,' answered the traveller. 'It is so small that a dog could not swim through it.' 'It looks so. But it is so deep that one can walk through it easily, with one's head above water. It is not more than fifty steps long. That is how I found it, for one day I wandered here alone in the morning for shade, when the air was like fire; and being alone I bathed in the clear pool to cool myself, and I found the way and brought back the stones, which I have hidden ever since. For if my father and brothers know that I have seen the treasure they will surely kill me, because the women must never learn the secret. You see,' she laughed a little, 'I am the first of us who has known it, since many generations, and I have already betrayed it to you! They are quite right to kill us when we find it out!' 'This is an idle tale,' said the traveller. 'Go into the pool before me and I will believe and follow you under the rock. I will not go and leave you here.' 'You are not very brave, though you are so handsome! If they come and find me here, they will kill me first.' 'You say it, but I do not believe it. I think there is a deep hole in the passage and that I shall slip into it and be drowned, for no man could swim in such a place. I have but one life, and I do not care to lose it in a water-rat's trap. You must go in and lead the way if you wish me to trust you.' Baraka hesitated and looked at him. 'How can I do this before you?' she asked. 'I will not go alone,' the man answered, for he suspected foul play. 'Do as you will.' The girl took from her head the large cotton cloth with which she veiled herself, and folded it and laid it down on the rock by the pool; then she let her outer tunic of thin white woollen fall to the ground round her feet and stepped out of it, and folded it also, and laid it beside her veil, and she stood up tall and straight as a young Egyptian goddess in the starlight, clothed only in the plain shirt without sleeves which the women of her country wear night and day; and the traveller saw her cream-white arms near him in the soft gloom, and heard her slip off her light shoes. 'I will go before you,' she said; and she stepped into the pool and walked slowly through the water. The traveller followed her as he was, for he was unwilling to leave behind him anything he valued, and what he had was mostly in the pockets of his coat, and could not be much hurt by water. Even his pressed herbs and flowers would dry again, his cartridges were quite waterproof, his letters were in an impervious case, and his money was in coin. When he entered the pool he took his revolver from its place and he held it above the water in front of him as he went on. With his other hand he carried the sack he had brought, which was one of those that are made of Bokhara carpet and are meant to sling on a camel. Baraka was almost up to her neck in the water when she reached the other side of the pool; a moment later she disappeared under the rock, and the traveller bent his knees to shorten himself, for there was only room for his head above the surface, and he held up his revolver before his face to keep the weapon dry, and also to feel his way, lest he should strike against any jutting projection of the stone and hurt himself. He counted the steps he took, and made them as nearly as possible of equal length. He felt that he was walking on perfectly smooth sand, into which his heavily shod feet sank a very little. There was plenty of air, for the gentle draught followed him from the entrance and chilled the back of his neck, which had got wet; yet it seemed hard to breathe, and as he made his way forward his imagination pictured the death he must die if the rock should fall in behind him. He was glad that the faint odour of Baraka's wet hair came to his nostrils in the thick darkness, and it was very pleasant to hear her voice when she spoke at last. 'It is not far,' she said quietly. 'I begin to see the starlight on the water.' The passage did not widen or grow higher as it went on. If it had been dry, it would have been a commodious cave, open at each end, wide at the bottom and narrowing to a sharp angle above. But the pool was fed by a spring that never failed nor even ebbed, though it must sometimes have overflowed down the ravine through which the two had reached the pool. They came out from under the rock at last, and were in the refreshing outer air. The still water widened almost to a circle, a tiny lake at the bottom of a sort of crater of white stone that collected and concentrated the dim light. On two sides there were little crescent beaches of snow-white sand, that gleamed like silver. The traveller looked about him and upward to see if there were any way of climbing up; but as far as he could make out in the half-darkness the steep rock was as smooth as if it had been cut with tools, and it sloped away at a sharp angle like the sides of a funnel. Baraka went up towards the right, and the bottom shelved, so that presently the water was down to her waist, and then she stood still and pointed to a dark hollow just above the little beach. Her wet garment clung to her, and with her left hand she began to wring the water from her hair behind her head. 'The rubies are there,' she said, 'thousands upon thousands of them. Fill the sack quickly, but do not take more than you can carry, for they are very heavy.' The traveller waded out upon the beach, and the water from his clothes ran down in small rivulets and made little round holes in the white sand. He put down his revolver in a dry place, and both his hands felt for the precious stones in the shadowy hollow, loosening small fragments of a sort of brittle crust in which they seemed to be clustered. 'You cannot choose,' Baraka said, 'for you cannot see, but I have been here by daylight and have seen. The largest are on the left side of the hollow, near the top.' By the stars the traveller could see the pieces a little, as he brought them out, for the white rocks collected the light; he could see many dark crystals, but as to what they were he had to trust the girl. 'Do not take more than you can carry,' she repeated, 'for you must not throw them away to lighten the burden.' 'You can carry some of them,' answered the traveller. He broke up the crust of crystals with a small geologist's hammer and tore them out like a madman, and his hands were bleeding, for though he was a philosopher the thirst for wealth had come upon him when he felt the riches of empires in his grasp, and the time was short; and although he knew that he might some day come back with armed men to protect him, and workmen to help him, he knew also that to do this he must share the secret with the over-lord of that wild country, and that his portion might be the loss of his head. So he tore at the ruby crust with all his might, and as he was very strong, he broke out great pieces at once. 'We cannot carry more than that, both of us together,' said Baraka, though she judged more by the sound of his work than by what she could see. He lifted the sack with both his hands, and he knew by its weight that she was right. Under the water it would be easy enough to carry, but it would be a heavy load for a man to shoulder. 'Come,' Baraka said, 'I will go back first.' She moved down into the deeper water again, till it was up to her neck; and feeling the way with her hands she went in once more under the rock. The traveller followed her cautiously, carrying the heavy sack under water with one hand and holding up his revolver with the other, to keep it dry. 'I begin to see the starlight on the water,' Baraka said, just as before, when they had been going in. When she had spoken, she heard a heavy splash not far off, and the water in the subterranean channel rose suddenly and ran past her in short waves, three of which covered her mouth in quick succession and reached to her eyes, and almost to the top of her head, but sank again instantly; and they passed her companion in the same way, wetting his weapon. 'Go back,' Baraka said, when she could speak; 'the rock is falling.' The traveller turned as quickly as he could, and she came after him, gaining on him because he carried the heavy sack and could not move as fast as she. He felt his damp hair rising with fear, for he believed that, after all, she had brought him into a trap. They reached the opening and came out into the pool again. 'You have brought me here to die,' he said. 'Your father and your brothers have shut up the entrance with great stones, and they will go up the mountain and let themselves down from above with ropes and shoot me like a wolf in a pit-fall. But you shall die first, because you have betrayed me.' So he cocked his revolver and set the muzzle against her head, to kill her, holding her by her slender throat with his other hand; for they were in shallow water and he had dropped the sack in the pool. Baraka did not struggle or cry out. 'I would rather die by your hand than be alive in another man's arms,' she said, quite quietly. He let her go, merely because she was so very brave; for he did not love her at all. She knew it, but that made no difference to her, since no other woman was near; if they could get out alive with the rubies she was sure that he would love her for the sake of the great wealth she had brought him. If they were to starve to death at the bottom of the great rock wall in the mountains, she would probably die first, because he was so strong; and then nothing would matter. It was all very simple. The traveller fished up the sack and waded out upon the tiny beach, and again the water ran down from his clothes in rivulets and made round holes in the white sand. He looked up rather anxiously, though he could not have seen a head looking down from above if there had been any one there. There was not light enough. He understood also that if the men were going to shoot at him from the height they would wait till it was daylight. Baraka stood still in the water, which was up to her waist, and he paid no attention to her, but sat down to think what he should do. The night was warm, and his clothes would dry on him by degrees. He would have taken them off and spread them out, for he thought no more of Baraka's presence than if she had been a harmless young animal, standing there in the pool, but he could not tell what might happen at any moment, and so long as he was dressed and had all his few belongings about him, he felt ready to meet fate. Baraka saw that he did not heed her, and was thinking. She came up out of the water very slowly, and she modestly loosened her wet garment from her, so that it hung straight when she stood at the end of the beach, as far from the traveller as possible. She, also, sat down to dry herself: and there was silence for a long time. After half-an-hour the traveller rose and began to examine the rock, feeling it with his hands wherever there was the least shadow, as high as he could reach, to find if there was any foothold, though he was already sure that there was not. 'There is no way out,' Baraka said at last. 'I have been here by day. I have seen.' 'They will let themselves down from above with ropes, till they are near enough to shoot,' the traveller answered. 'No,' replied Baraka. 'They know that you have a good weapon, and they will not risk their lives. They will leave us here to starve. That is what they will do. It is our portion, and we shall die. It will be easy, for there is water, and when we are hungry we can drink our fill.' The traveller knew the people amongst whom he had wandered, and he did not marvel at the girl's quiet tone; but it chilled his blood, for he understood that she was in earnest; and, moreover, she knew the place, and that there was no way out. 'You said well that I had brought you here to die,' she said presently, 'but I did not know it, therefore I must lose my life also. It is my portion. God be praised.' He was shamed by her courage, for he loved life well, and he held his head down and said nothing as he thought of what was to come. He knew that with plenty of good water a man may live for two or three weeks without food. He looked at the black pool in which he could not even see the reflections of the stars as he sat, because the opening above was not very wide, and he was low down, a good way from the water's edge. It seemed a good way, but perhaps it was not more than three yards. 'You will die first,' Baraka said dreamily. 'You are not as we are, you cannot live so long without food.' The traveller wondered if she were right, but he said nothing. 'If we had got out with the treasure,' continued Baraka, 'you would have loved me for it, because you would have been the greatest man in the world through me. But now, because we must die, you hate me. I understand. If you do not kill me you will die first; and when you are dead I shall kiss you many times, till I die also. It will be very easy. I am not afraid.' The man sat quite still and looked at the dark streak by the edge of the pool where the water had wet it when the falling boulder outside had sent in little waves. He could see it distinctly. Again there was silence for a long time. Now and then Baraka loosened her only garment about her as she sat, so that it might dry more quickly; and she quietly wrung out her thick black hair and shook it over her shoulders to dry it too, and stuck her two silver pins into the sand beside her. Still the traveller sat with bent head, gazing at the edge of the pool. His hands were quite dry now, and he slowly rubbed the clinging moisture from his revolver. Some men would have been thinking, in such a plight, that if starving were too hard to bear, a bullet would shorten their sufferings in the end; but this man was very full of life, and the love of life, and while he lived he would hope. He still watched the same dark streak where the sand was wet; he had not realised that he had been so far from it till then, but by looking at it a long time in the starlight his sight had probably grown tired, so that he no longer saw it distinctly. He raised himself a little on his hands and pushed himself down till it was quite clearly visible again, and he looked at the rock opposite and up to the stars again, to rest his eyes. He was not more than a yard from the water now. The place was very quiet. From far above a slight draught of air descended, warm from the rocks that had been heated all day in the sun. But there was no sound except when Baraka moved a little. Presently she did not move any more, and when the traveller looked he saw that she was curled up on the sand, as Eastern women lie when they sleep, and her head rested on her hand; for her garment was dry now, and she was drowsy after the walk and the effort she had made. Besides, since there was no escape from death, and as the man did not love her, she might as well sleep if she could. He knew those people and understood; and he did not care, or perhaps he also was glad. He was a man who could only have one thought at a time. When he had left the house of Baraka's father he had been thinking only of the rubies, but now that he was in danger of his life he could think only of saving it, if there were any way. A woman could never be anything but a toy to him, and he could not play with toys while death was looking over his shoulder. He was either too big for that, or too little; every man will decide which it was according to his own measure. But Baraka, who had not been taught to think of her soul nor to fear death, went quietly to sleep now that she was quite sure that the traveller would not love her. He had been certain of the distance between his feet and the water's edge as he sat; it had been a yard at the most. But now it was more; he was sure that it was a yard and a half at the least. He rubbed his eyes and looked hard at the dark belt of wet sand, and it was twice as wide as it had been. The water was still running out somewhere, but it was no longer running in, and in an hour or two the pool would be dry. The traveller was something of an engineer, and understood sooner than an ordinary man could have done, that his enemies had intentionally stopped up the narrow entrance through which he had to come, both to make his escape impossible, and to hasten his end by depriving him of water. The fallen boulder alone could not have kept out the overflow of the spring effectually. They must have shovelled down masses of earth, with the plants that grew in it abundantly and filled it with twining threadlike roots, and they must have skilfully forced quantities of the stuff into the openings all round the big stone, making a regular dam against the spring, which would soon run down in the opposite direction. They knew, of course, that Baraka had led him to the place and had gone in with him, for she had left all her outer garments outside, and they meant that she should die also, with her secret. In a week, or a fortnight, or a month, they would come and dig away the dam and pry the boulder aside, and would get in and find the white bones of the two on the sand, after the vultures had picked them clean; and they would take the traveller's good revolver, and his money. He thought of all these things as he sat there in the dim light, and watched the slow receding of the water-line, and listened to the girl's soft and regular breathing. There was no death in her dream, as she slept away the last hours of the night, though there might not be many more nights for her. He heard her breath, but he did not heed her, for the water was sinking before him, sinking away into the sand, now that it was no longer fed from the opening. He sat motionless, and his thoughts ran madly from hope to despair and back again to hope. The water was going down, beyond question; if it was merely draining itself through the sand to some subterranean channel, he was lost, but if it was flowing away through any passage like the one by which he had entered, there was still a chance of escape,--a very small chance. When death is at the gate the tiniest loophole looks wide enough to crawl through. The surface of the pool subsided, but there was no loophole; and as the traveller watched, hope sank in his heart, like the water in the hollow of the sand; but Baraka slept on peacefully, curled up on her side like a little wild animal. When the pool was almost dry the traveller crept down to the edge and drank his fill, that he might not begin to thirst sooner than need be; and just then day dawned suddenly and the warm darkness gave way to a cold light in a few moments. Immediately, because it was day, Baraka stretched herself on the sand and then sat up; and when she saw what the traveller was doing she also went and drank as much as she could swallow, for she had understood why he was drinking as soon as she saw that the pool was nearly dry. When she could drink no more she looked up at the rocks high overhead, and they were already white and red and yellow in the light of the risen sun; for in that country there is no very long time between dark night and broad day. Baraka sat down again, on the spot where she had slept, but she said nothing. The man was trying to dig a little hole in the wet sand with his hands, beyond the water that was still left, for perhaps he thought that if he could make a pit on one side, some water would stay in it; but the sand ran together as soon as he moved it; and presently, as he bent over, he felt that he was sinking into it himself, and understood that it was a sort of quicksand that would suck him down. He therefore threw himself flat on his back, stretching out his arms and legs, and, making movements as if he were swimming, he worked his way from the dangerous place till he was safe on the firm white beach again. He sat up then, and bent his head till his forehead pressed on his hands, and he shut his eyes to keep out the light of day. He had not slept, as Baraka had, but he was not sleepy; perhaps he would not be able to sleep again before the end came. Baraka watched him quietly, for she understood that he despaired of life, and she wondered what he would do; and, besides, he seemed to her the most beautiful man in the world, and she loved him, and she was going to die with him. It comforted her to think that no other woman could get him now. It was almost worth while to die for that alone; for she could not have borne that another woman should have him since he despised her, and if it had come to pass she would have tried to kill that other. But there was no danger of such a thing now; and he would die first, and she would kiss him many times when he was dead, and then she would die also. The pool was all gone by this time, leaving a funnel-shaped hollow in the sand where it had been. If any water still leaked through from without it lost itself under the sand, and the man and the girl were at the bottom of a great natural well that was quite dry. Baraka looked up, and she saw a vulture sitting in the sun on a pinnacle, three hundred feet above her head. He would sit there till she was dead, for he knew what was coming; then he would spread his wings a little and let himself down awkwardly, half-flying and half-scrambling. When he had finished, he would sit and look at her bones and doze, till he was able to fly away. Baraka thought of all this, but her face did not change, and when she had once seen the vulture she did not look at him again, but kept her eyes fixed, without blinking, on her companion's bent head. To her he seemed the most handsome man that had ever lived. There, beside him, lay his camel bag, and in it there were rubies worth a kingdom; and Baraka was very young and was considered beautiful too, among the wild people to whom she belonged. But her father had chosen her name in an evil hour, for she was indeed not blessed, since she was to die so young; and the man with the beard of spun gold and the very white skin did not love her, and would not even make pretence of loving, though for what was left of life she would have been almost satisfied with that. The hours passed, and the sun rose higher in the sky and struck deeper into the shady well, till he was almost overhead, and there was scarcely any shadow left. It became very hot and stifling, because the passage through which the air had entered with the water was shut up. Then the traveller took off his loose jacket, and opened his flannel shirt at the neck, and turned up his sleeves for coolness, and he crept backwards into the hollow where the ruby mine was, to shelter himself from the sun. But Baraka edged away to the very foot of the cliff, where there remained a belt of shade, even at noon; and as she sat there she took the hem of her one garment in her hands and slowly fanned her little feet. Neither he nor she had spoken for many hours, and she could see that in the recess of the rock he was sitting as before, with his forehead against his hands that were clasped on his knees, in the attitude and bearing of despair. He began to be athirst now, in the heat. If he had not known that there was no water he could easily have done without it through a long day, but the knowledge that there was none, and that he was never to drink again, parched his life and his throat and his tongue till it felt like a dried fig in his mouth. He did not feel hunger, and indeed he had a little food in a wallet he carried; but he could not have eaten without water, and it did not occur to him that Baraka might be hungry. Perhaps, even if he had known that she was, he would not have given her of what he had; he would have kept it for himself. What was the life of a wild hill-girl compared with his? But the vulture was watching him, as well as Baraka, and would not move from its pinnacle till the end, though days might pass. The fever began to burn the traveller, the fever of thirst which surely ends in raving madness, as he knew, for he had wandered much in deserts, and had seen men go mad for lack of water. His hands felt red hot, the pulses were hammering at his temples, and his tongue became as hot as baked clay; he would have borne great pain for a time if it could have brought sleep, for this was much worse than pain, and it made sleep impossible. He tried to take account of what he felt, for he was strong, and he was conscious that the heat of the fever, and the throbbing in his arteries, and the choking dryness in his mouth and throat, were not really his main sensations, but only accessories to it or consequences of it. The real suffering was the craving for the sight, the touch, and the taste of water; to see it alone would be a relief, even if he were not allowed to drink, and to dip his hands into a stream would be heaven though he were not permitted to taste a drop. He understood, in a strangely clear way, that what suffered now was not, in the ordinary sense, his own self, that is, his nerves, but the physical composition of his body, which was being by degrees deprived of the one prime ingredient more necessary than all others. He knew that his body was eight-tenths water, or thereabouts, but that this proportion was fast decreasing by the process of thirst, and that what tormented him was the unsettling of the hydrostatic balance which nature requires and maintains where there is any sort of life in animals, plants, or stones; for stones live and are not even temporarily dead till they are calcined to the state of quicklime, or hydraulic cement, or plaster of Paris; and they come to life again with furious violence and boiling heat if they are brought into contact with water suddenly; or they regain the living state by slow degrees if they are merely exposed to dampness. The man knew that what hurt him was the battle between forces of nature which was being fought in his flesh, and it was as much more terrible than the mere pain his fleshly nerves actually suffered from it, as real death is more awful than the most tremendous representation of it that ever was shown in a play. Yet a stage tragedy may draw real burning tears of sorrow and sympathy from them that look on. The traveller was a modern man of science, and understood these things, but the knowledge of them did not make it easier to bear thirst or to die of hunger. Baraka was not thirsty yet, because she had drunk her fill in the morning, and was not used to drink often; it was enough that she could look at the man she loved, for the end would come soon enough without thinking about it. All day long the traveller crouched in the hollow of the ruby cave, and Baraka watched him from her place; when it grew dark the vulture on the pinnacle of rock thrust its ugly head under its wing. As soon as Baraka could not see any more she curled herself up on the white sand like a little wild animal and went to sleep, though she was thirsty. It was dawn when she awoke, and her linen garment was damp with the dew, so that the touch of it refreshed her. The traveller had come out and was lying prone on the sand, his face buried against his arm, as soldiers sleep in a bivouac. She could not tell whether he was asleep or not, but she knew that he could not see her, and she cautiously sucked the dew from her garment, drawing it up to her mouth and squeezing it between her lips. It was little enough refreshment, but it was something, and she was not afraid, which made a difference. Just as she had drawn the edge of her shift down and round her ankles again, the man turned on his side suddenly, and then rose to his feet. For an instant he glared at her, and she saw that his blue eyes were bloodshot and burning; then he picked up the heavy camel bag, and began to make his way round what had been the beach of the pool, towards the passage through which they had entered, and which was now a dry cave, wide below, narrow at the top, and between six or seven feet high. He trod carefully and tried his way, for he feared the quicksand, but he knew that there was none in the passage, since he had walked through the water and had felt the way hard under his feet. In a few moments he disappeared under the rock. Baraka knew what he meant to do; he was going to try to dig through the dam at the entrance to let the water in, even if he could not get out. But she was sure that this would be impossible, for by this time her father and brothers had, no doubt, completely filled the spring with earth and stones, and had turned the water in the other direction. The traveller must have been almost sure of this too, else he would have made the attempt much sooner. It was the despotism of thirst that was driving him to it now, and he had no tool with which to dig--it would be hopeless work with his hands. The girl did not move, for in that narrow place and in the dark she could not have helped him. She sat and waited. By and by he would come out, drenched with sweat and yet parching with thirst, and he would glare at her horribly again; perhaps he would be mad when he came out and would kill her because she had brought him there. After some time she heard a very faint sound overhead, and when she looked up the vulture was gone from his pinnacle. She wondered at this, and her eyes searched every point and crevice of the rock as far as she could see, for she knew that the evil bird could only have been frightened away; and though it fears neither bird nor beast, but only man, she could not believe that any human being could find a foothold near to where it had perched. But now she started, and held her breath and steadied herself with one hand on the sand beside her as she leaned back to look up. Something white had flashed in the high sun, far up the precipice, and the sensation the sight left was that of having seen sunshine on a moving white garment. For some seconds, perhaps for a whole minute, she saw nothing more, though she gazed up steadily, then there was another flash and a small patch of snowy white was moving slowly on the face of the cliff, at some distance above the place where the vulture had been. She bent her brows in the effort to see more by straining her sight, and meanwhile the patch descended faster than it seemed possible that a man could climb down that perilous steep. Yet it was a man, she knew from the first, and soon she saw him plainly, in his loose shirt and white turban. Baraka thought of a big white moth crawling on a flat wall. She was light of foot and sure of hold herself, and could step securely where few living things could move at all without instant danger, but she held her breath as she watched the climber's descent towards her. She saw him plainly now, a brown-legged, brown-armed man in a white shirt and a fur cap, and he had a long gun slung across his back. Nearer still, and he was down to the jutting pinnacle where the vulture had sat, and she saw his black beard; still nearer by a few feet and she knew him, and then her glance darted to the mouth of the cave, at the other end of which the man she loved was toiling desperately alone in the dark to pierce the dam of earth and stones. It was only a glance, in a second of time, but when she looked up the black-bearded man had already made another step downwards. Baraka measured the distance. If he spoke loud now she could understand him, and he could hear her answer. He paused and looked down, and he saw her as plainly as she saw him. She knew him well, and she knew why he had come, with his long gun. He was her father's brother's son, to whom she was betrothed; he was Saäd, and he was risking his life to come down and kill her and the man whom she had led to the ruby mines for love's sake. He would come down till he was within easy range, and then he would wait till he had a fair chance at them, when they were standing still, and she knew that he was a dead shot. The traveller's revolver could never carry as far as the long gun, Baraka was sure, and Saäd could come quite near with safety, since he seemed able to climb down the face of a flat rock where there was not foothold for a cat. He was still descending, he was getting very near; if the traveller were not warned he might come out of the cave unsuspiciously and Saäd would shoot him. Saäd would wish to shoot him first, because of his revolver, and then he would kill Baraka at his leisure. If he fired at her first the traveller would have a chance at him while he was reloading his old gun. She understood why he had not killed her yet, if indeed he wanted to, for it was barely possible that he loved her enough to take her alive. After hesitating for a few moments, not from fear but in doubt, she gathered herself to spring, and made a dash like an antelope along the sand for the mouth of the cave, for she knew that Saäd would not risk wasting his shot on her while she was running. She stopped just under the shelter of the rock and called inward. 'Saäd is coming down the rock with his gun!' she cried. 'Load your weapon!' When she had given this warning she went out again and stood before the mouth of the cave with her back to it. Saäd was on the rock, not fifty feet above the ground, at the other side of the natural wall, but looked as if even he could get no farther down. He was standing with both his heels on a ledge so narrow that more than half the length of his brown feet stood over it; he was leaning back, flat against the sloping cliff, and he had his gun before him, for he was just able to use both his hands without falling. He pointed the gun at her and spoke. 'Where is the man?' 'He is dead,' Baraka answered without hesitation. 'Dead? Already?' 'I killed him in his sleep,' she said, 'and I dragged his body into the cave for fear of the vulture, and buried it in the sand. Be not angry, Saäd, though he was my father's guest. Come down hither and I will tell all. Then you shall shoot me or take me home to be your wife, as you will, for I am quite innocent.' She meant to entice him within range of the stranger's weapon. 'There is no foothold whereby to get lower,' he answered, but he rested the stock of his gun on the narrow ledge behind him. 'Drag out the man's body, that I may see it.' 'I tell you I buried it. I killed him the night before last; I cannot dig him up now.' 'Why did you run to the mouth of the cave when you saw me, if the man is dead?' 'Because at first I was afraid you would shoot me from above, therefore I took shelter.' 'Why did you come out again, if you were in fear?' 'After I had run in I was ashamed, for I felt sure that you would not kill me without hearing the truth. So I came out to speak with you. Get down, and I will show you the man's grave.' 'Have I wings? I cannot come down. It is impossible.' Baraka felt a puff of hot air pass her, just above her right ankle, and at the same instant she heard a sharp report, not very loud, and more like the snapping of a strong but very dry stick than the explosion of firearms. She instinctively sprang to the left, keeping her eyes on Saäd. For a moment he did not move. But he was already dead as he slowly bent forward from the rock, making a deep obeisance with both arms hanging down before him, so that his body shot down perpendicularly to the sand, where it struck head first, rolled over and lay motionless in a heap. The traveller's was a Mauser pistol that would have killed as surely at five hundred yards as fifty; and the bullet had gone through the Tartar's brain. Baraka sprang up the sandy slope and ran along the narrow beach to the body. In an instant she had detached the large brown water-gourd from the thong by which it had hung over Saäd's shoulder, and she felt that it was full. Without a thought for herself she hastened back to the mouth of the cave where the traveller was now standing. His face was dripping with perspiration that ran down into his matted golden beard, his eyes were wild, his hands were bleeding. 'Drink!' cried Baraka joyfully, and she gave him the gourd. He gripped it as a greedy dog snaps at a bit of meat, and pulling out the wooden plug he set the gourd to his lips, with an expression of beatitude. But he was an old traveller and only drank a little, knowing that his life might depend on making the small supply last. A gourd of water was worth more than many rubies just then. 'Are you very thirsty yet?' he asked in a harsh voice. 'No,' answered Baraka bravely; 'keep it for yourself.' His hand closed round the neck of the gourd and he looked up towards the rocks above. The vulture had come back and was circling slowly down. 'You had better bury the body, while I go on working,' said the traveller, turning back into the cave and taking the gourd with him. Baraka had marked the place where he had tried to dig for water and had almost disappeared in the quicksand. She took from the body the wallet, in which were dates and some half-dry bread, and then dragged and pushed, and rolled the dead man from the place where he had fallen. The vulture sat on the lowest ledge where his claws could find a hold, and though he watched her with horrible red eyes while she robbed him of his prey, he did not dare go nearer. The body sank into the moving sand, and Baraka had to roll herself back to firmer ground in haste to escape being swallowed up with the dead man. The last she saw of him was one brown foot sticking up. It sank slowly out of sight, and then she went to the hollow where the ruby mine was and took up a piece of the broken crust, full of precious stones, and threw it at the vulture as hard as she could. It did not hit him, but he at once tumbled off the ledge into the air, opened his queer, bedraggled wings and struck upwards. Then Baraka sat down in the shade and slowly brushed away the dry sand that had got into the folds of her linen garment, and looked steadily at the mouth of the cave and tried not to realise that her throat was parched and her lips almost cracking with thirst, and that the traveller had a gourd almost full of water with him. For she loved him, and was willing to die that he might live a little longer; besides, if he succeeded in digging his way out, there would be plenty to drink, and when he was free she was sure that he would love her because she had made him so rich. The sun rose higher and at last shone down to the bottom of the chasm, and she sat in the narrow strip of shade, where she had passed most of the previous day. She was very thirsty and feverish, and felt tired, and wished she could sleep, but could not. Still the traveller toiled in the darkness, and from time to time she heard sounds from far away as of stones and loose earth falling. He was still working hard, for he was very strong and he was desperate. Baraka thought that if he was able to dig through the dam the water would run in again, and she watched the sand for hours, but it was drier than ever. The shadow broadened again, and crept up the rock quickly as the afternoon passed. It was a long time since she had heard any sound from the cave; she went to the entrance and listened, but all was quite still. Perhaps the traveller had fallen asleep from exhaustion, too tired even to drag himself out into the air when he could work no longer. She sat down in the entrance and waited. An hour passed. Perhaps he was dead. At the mere inward suggestion Baraka sprang to her feet, and her heart beat frantically, and stood still an instant, and then beat again as if it would burst, and she could hardly breathe. She steadied herself against the rock, and then went in to know the truth, feeling her way, and instinctively shading her eyes as many people do in the dark. A breath of cool air made her open them, and to her amazement there was light before her. She thought she must have turned quite round while she was walking, and that she was going back to the entrance, so she turned again. But in a few seconds there was light before her once more, and soon she saw the dry sand, full of her footprints and the traveller's, and then the hollow where the mine was came in sight. She retraced her steps a second time, saw the light as before, ran forward on the smooth sand and stumbled upon a heap of earth and stones, just as she saw the sky through an irregular opening on the level of her face. Scarcely believing her senses she thrust out her hand towards the hole. It was real, and she was not dreaming; the traveller had got out and was gone, recking little of what might happen to her, since he was free with his treasure. Baraka crept up the slope of earth as quickly as she could and got out; if she had hoped to find him waiting for her she was disappointed, for he was nowhere to be seen. He had got clear away, with his camel-bag full of rubies. A moment later she was lying on the ground, with her face in the little stream, drinking her fill, and forgetful even of the man she loved. In order to deprive them of water the men had dug a channel by which it ran down directly from the spring to the ravine on that side; then they had blocked up the entrance with stones and earth, believing that one man's strength could never suffice to break through, and they had gone away. They had probably buried or burnt Baraka's clothes, for she did not see them anywhere. She ate some of the dates from the dead man's wallet, and a bit of the dry black bread, and felt revived, since her greatest need had been for water, and that was satisfied. But when she had eaten and drunk, and had washed herself in the stream and twisted up her hair, she sat down upon a rock; and she felt so tired that she would have fallen asleep if the pain in her heart had not kept her awake. She clasped her hands together on her knees and bent over them, rocking herself. When nearly an hour had passed she looked up and saw that the sun was sinking, for the shadows were turning purple in the deep gorge, and there was a golden light on the peaks above. She listened then, holding her breath; but there was no sound except the tinkling of the tiny stream as it fell over a ledge at some distance below her, following its new way down into the valley. She rose at last, looked upward, and seemed about to go away when a thought occurred to her, which afterwards led to very singular consequences. Instead of going down the valley or climbing up out of it, she went back to the entrance of the cave, taking the wallet with her, dragged herself in once more over the loose stones and earth, reached the secret hollow where the pool had been, and made straight for the little mine of precious stones. The traveller had broken out many more than he had been able to carry, but she did not try to collect them all. She was not altogether ignorant of the trade carried on by the men of her family for generations, and though she had not the least idea of the real value of the finest of the rubies, she knew very well that it would be wise to take many small ones which she could exchange for clothing and necessaries with the first women she met in the hills, while hiding the rest of the supply she would be able to carry in the wallet. When she had made her wise selection, she looked once more towards the quicksand, and left the place for ever. Once outside she began to climb the rocks as fast as she could, for very soon it would be night and she would have to lie down and wait many hours for the day, since there was no moon, and the way was very dangerous, even for a Tartar girl who could almost tread on air. High up on the mountain, over the dry well where Baraka and the stranger had been imprisoned, the vulture perched alone with empty craw and drooping wings. But it was of no use for him to wait; the living, who might have died of hunger and thirst, were gone, and the body of dead Saäd lay fathoms deep in the quicksand, in the very maw of the mountain. CHAPTER II There was good copy for the newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic in the news that the famous lyric soprano, Margarita da Cordova, whose real name was Miss Margaret Donne, was engaged to Monsieur Konstantin Logotheti, a Greek financier of large fortune established in Paris, and almost as well known to art-collectors as to needy governments, would-be promoters, and mothers of marriageable daughters. The mothers experienced a momentary depression such as Logotheti himself felt when an historical Van Dyck which he wanted was secretly sold out of a palace in Genoa to a rival collector and millionaire for a price which he would willingly have given; the people he knew shrugged their shoulders at the news that he was to marry a singer, or shook their heads wisely, or smiled politely, according to the scale of the manners they had inherited or acquired; the shopkeepers sent him thousands of insinuating invitations to inspect and buy all the things which a rich man is supposed to give to his bride, from diamonds and lace and eighty horse-power motor-cars to dressing-cases, stationery and silver saucepans; and the newspapers were generously jubilant, and rioted for a few days in a perfect carnival of adjectives. The people who made the least fuss about the marriage were Cordova and Logotheti themselves. They were both so well used to perpetual publicity that they did not resent being written and talked about for a time as if they were a treaty, a revolution, a divorce, or a fraudulent trust. But they did not encourage the noise, nor go about side by side in an offensively happy way, nor accept all the two hundred and eighty-seven invitations to dine out together which they received from their friends during three weeks. It was as much as their overworked secretaries could do to answer all these within a reasonable and decent time. The engagement was made known during the height of the London season, not long after they had both been at a week-end party at Craythew, Lord Creedmore's place in Derbyshire, where they had apparently come to a final understanding after knowing each other more than two years. Margaret was engaged to sing at Covent Garden that summer, and the first mention of the match was coupled with the information that she intended to cancel all her engagements and never appear in public again. The result was that the next time she came down the stage to sing the Waltz Song in _Romeo and Juliet_ she received a tremendous ovation before she opened her handsome lips, and another when she had finished the air; and she spent one of the happiest evenings she remembered. Though she was at heart a nice English girl, not much over twenty-four years of age, the orphan daughter of an Oxford don who had married an American, she had developed, or fallen, to the point at which very popular and successful artists cannot live at all without applause, and are not happy unless they receive a certain amount of adulation. Even the envy they excite in their rivals is delicious, if not almost necessary to them. Margaret's real nature had not been changed by a success that had been altogether phenomenal and had probably not been approached by any soprano since Madame Bonanni; but a second nature had grown upon it and threatened to hide it from all but those who knew her very well indeed. The inward Margaret was honest and brave, rather sensitive, and still generous; the outward woman, the primadonna whom most people saw, was self-possessed to a fault, imperious when contradicted, and coolly ruthless when her artistic fame was at stake. The two natures did not agree well together, and made her wretched when they quarrelled, but Logotheti, who was going to take her for better, for worse, professed to like them both, and was the only man she had ever known who did. That was one reason why she was going to marry him, after having refused him about a dozen times. She had loved another man as much as she was capable of loving, and at one time he had loved her, but a misunderstanding and her devotion to her art had temporarily separated them; and later, when she had almost told him that she would have him if he asked her, he had answered her quite frankly that she was no longer the girl he had cared for, and he had suddenly disappeared from her life altogether. So Logotheti, brilliant, very rich, gifted, gay, and rather exotic in appearance and manner, but tenacious as a bloodhound, had won the prize after a struggle that had lasted two years. She had accepted him without much enthusiasm at the last, and without any great show of feeling. 'Let's try it,' she had said, and he had been more than satisfied. After a time, therefore, they told their friends that they were going to 'try it.' The only woman with whom the great singer was at all intimate was the Countess Leven, Lord Creedmore's daughter, generally called 'Lady Maud,' whose husband had been in the diplomacy, and, after vainly trying to divorce her, had been killed in St. Petersburg by a bomb meant for a Minister. The explosion had been so terrific that the dead man's identity had only been established by means of his pocket-book, which somehow escaped destruction. So Lady Maud was a childless widow of eight-and-twenty. Her father, when he had no prospect of ever succeeding to the title, had been a successful barrister, and then a hard-working Member of Parliament, and he had been from boyhood the close friend of Margaret's father. Hence the intimacy that grew up quickly between the two women when they at last met, though they had not known each other as children, because the lawyer had lived in town and his friend in Oxford. 'So you're going to try it, my dear!' said Lady Maud, when she heard the news. She had a sweet low voice, and when she spoke now it was a little sad; for she had 'tried it,' and it had failed miserably. But she knew that the trial had not been a fair one; the only man she had ever cared for had been killed in South Africa, and as she had not even the excuse of having been engaged to him, she had married with indifference the first handsome man with a good name and a fair fortune who offered himself. He chanced to be a Russian diplomatist, and he turned out a spendthrift and an unfaithful husband. She was too kind-hearted to be glad that he had been blown to atoms by dynamite, but she was much too natural not to enjoy the liberty restored to her by his destruction; and she had not the least intention of ever 'trying it' again. 'You don't sound very enthusiastic,' laughed Margaret, who had no misgivings to speak of, and was generally a cheerful person. 'If you don't encourage me I may not go on.' 'There are two kinds of ruined gamblers,' answered Lady Maud; 'there are those that still like to watch other people play, and those who cannot bear the sight of a roulette table. I'm one of the second kind, but I'll come to the wedding all the same, and cheer like mad, if you ask me.' 'That's nice of you. I really think I mean to marry him, and I wish you would help me with my wedding-gown, dear. It would be dreadful if I looked like Juliet, or Elsa, or Lucia! Everybody would laugh, especially as Konstantin is rather of the Romeo type, with his almond-shaped eyes and his little black moustache! I suppose he really is, isn't he?' 'Perhaps--just a little. But he is a very handsome fellow.' Lady Maud's lips quivered, but Margaret did not see. 'Oh, I know!' she cried, laughing and shaking her head. 'You once called him "exotic," and he is--but I'm awfully fond of him all the same. Isn't that enough to marry on when there's everything else? You really will help me with my gown, won't you? You're such an angel!' 'Oh, yes, I'll do anything you like. Are you going to have a regular knock-down-and-drag-out smash at St. George's? The usual thing?' Lady Maud did not despise slang, but she made it sound like music. 'No,' answered Margaret, rather regretfully. 'We cannot possibly be married till the season's quite over, or perhaps in the autumn, and then there will be nobody here. I'm not sure when I shall feel like it! Besides, Konstantin hates that sort of thing.' 'Do you mean to say that you would like a show wedding in Hanover Square?' inquired Lady Maud. 'I've never done anything in a church,' said the Primadonna, rather enigmatically, but as if she would like to. '"Anything in a church,"' repeated her friend, vaguely thoughtful, and with the slightest possible interrogation. 'That's a funny way of looking at it!' Margaret was a little ashamed of what she had said so naturally. 'I think Konstantin would like to have it in a chapel-of-ease in the Old Kent Road!' she said, laughing. 'He sometimes talks of being married in tweeds and driving off in a hansom! Then he suggests going to Constantinople and getting it done by the Patriarch, who is his uncle. Really, that would be rather smart, wouldn't it?' 'Distinctly,' assented Lady Maud. 'But if you do that, I'm afraid I cannot help you with the wedding-gown. I don't know anything about the dress of a Fanariote bride.' 'Konstantin says they dress very well,' Margaret said. 'But of course it is out of the question to do anything so ridiculous. It will end in the chapel-of-ease, I'm sure. He always has his own way. That's probably why I'm going to marry him, just because he insists on it. I don't see any other very convincing reason.' Lady Maud could not think of anything to say in answer to this; but as she really liked the singer she thought it was a pity. Paul Griggs, the veteran man of letters, smiled rather sadly when she met him shopping in New Bond Street, and told him of Margaret's engagement. He said that most great singers married because the only way to the divorce court led up the steps of the altar. Though he knew the world he was not a cynic, and Lady Maud herself wondered how long it would be before Logotheti and his wife separated. 'But they are not married yet,' Griggs added, looking at her with the quietly ready expression of a man who is willing that his indifferent words should be taken to have a special meaning if the person to whom he has spoken chooses, or is able, to understand them as they may be understood, but who is quite safe from being suspected of suggesting anything if there is no answering word or glance. Lady Maud returned his look, but her handsome face grew rather cold. 'Do you know of any reason why the marriage should not take place?' she inquired after a moment. 'If I don't give any reason, am I ever afterwards to hold my peace?' asked Griggs, with a faint smile on his weather-beaten face. 'Are you publishing the bans? or are we thinking of the same thing?' 'I suppose we are. Good-morning.' She nodded gravely and passed on, gathering up her black skirt a little, for there had been a shower. He stood still a moment before the shop window and looked after her, gravely admiring her figure and her walk, as he might have admired a very valuable thoroughbred. She was wearing mourning for her husband, not because any one would have blamed her if she had not done so, considering how he had treated her, but out of natural self-respect. Griggs also looked after her as she went away because he felt that she was not quite pleased with him for having suggested that he and she had both been thinking of the same thing. The thought concerned a third person, and one who rarely allowed himself to be overlooked; no less a man, in fact, than Mr. Rufus Van Torp, the American potentate of the great Nickel Trust, who was Lady Maud's most intimate friend, and who had long desired to make the Primadonna his wife. He had bought a place adjoining Lord Creedmore's, and there had lately been a good deal of quite groundless gossip about him and Lady Maud, which had very nearly become a scandal. The truth was that they were the best friends in the world, and nothing more; the millionaire had for some time been interested in an unusual sort of charity which almost filled the lonely woman's life, and he had given considerable sums of money to help it. During the months preceding the beginning of this tale, he had also been the object of one of those dastardly attacks to which very rich and important financiers are more exposed than other men, and he had actually been accused of having done away with his partner's daughter, who had come to her end mysteriously during a panic in a New York theatre. But, as I have told elsewhere, his innocence had been proved in the clearest possible manner, and he had returned to the United States to look after the interests of the Trust. When Griggs heard the news of Margaret's engagement to Logotheti, he immediately began to wonder how Mr. Van Torp would receive the intelligence; and if it had not already occurred to Lady Maud that the millionaire might make a final effort to rout his rival and marry the Primadonna himself, the old author's observation suggested such a possibility. Van Torp was a man who had fought up to success and fortune with little regard for the obstacles he found in his way; he had worked as a cowboy in his early youth, and was apt to look on his adversaries and rivals in life either as refractory cattle or as dangerous wild beasts; and though he had some of the old-fashioned ranchero's sense of fair-play in a fight, he had much of the reckless daring and ruthless savagery that characterise the fast-disappearing Western desperado. Logotheti, on the other hand, was in many respects a true Oriental, supremely astute and superlatively calm, but imbued, at heart, with a truly Eastern contempt for any law that chanced to oppose his wish. Both men had practically inexhaustible resources at their command, and both were determined to marry the Primadonna. It occurred to Paul Griggs that a real struggle between such a pair of adversaries would be worth watching. There was unlimited money on both sides, and equal courage and determination. The Greek was the more cunning of the two, by great odds, and had now the considerable advantage of having been accepted by the lady; but the American was far more regardless of consequences to himself or to others in the pursuit of what he wanted, and, short of committing a crime, would put at least as broad an interpretation on the law. Logotheti had always lived in a highly civilised society, even in Constantinople, for it is the greatest mistake to imagine that the upper classes of Greeks, in Greece or Turkey, are at all deficient in cultivation. Van Torp, on the contrary, had run away from civilisation when a half-educated boy, he had grown to manhood in a community of men who had little respect for anything and feared nothing at all, and he had won success in a field where those who compete for it buy it at any price, from a lie to a life. Lady Maud was thinking of these things as she disappeared from Griggs's sight, and not at all of him. It might have surprised her to know that his eyes had followed her with sincere admiration, and perhaps she would have been pleased. There is a sort of admiration which acknowledged beauties take for granted, and to which they attach no value unless it is refused them; but there is another kind that brings them rare delight when they receive it, for it is always given spontaneously, whether it be the wondering exclamation of a street boy who has never seen anything so beautiful in his life, or a quiet look and a short phrase from an elderly man who has seen what is worth seeing for thirty or forty years, and who has given up making compliments. The young widow was quite unconscious of Griggs's look and was very busy with her thoughts, for she was a little afraid that she had made trouble. Ten days had passed since she had last written to Rufus Van Torp, and she had told him, amongst other things, that Madame da Cordova and Logotheti were engaged to be married, adding that it seemed to her one of the most ill-assorted matches of the season, and that her friend the singer was sure to be miserable herself and to make her husband perfectly wretched, though he was a very good sort in his way and she liked him. There had been no reason why she should not write the news to Mr. Van Torp, even though it was not public property yet, for he was her intimate friend, and she knew him to be as reticent as all doctors ought to be and as some solicitors' clerks are. She had asked him not to tell any one till he heard of the engagement from some one else. He had not spoken of it, but something else had happened. He had cabled to Lady Maud that he was coming back to England by the next steamer. He often came out and went back suddenly two or three times at short intervals, and then stayed away for many months, but Lady Maud thought there could not be much doubt as to his reason for coming now. She knew well enough that he had tried to persuade the Primadonna to marry him during the previous winter, and that if his passion for her had not shown itself much of late, this was due to other causes, chiefly to the persecution of which he had rid himself just before he went to America, but to some extent also to the fact that Margaret had not seemed inclined to accept any one else. Lady Maud, who knew the man better than he knew himself, inwardly compared him to a volcano, quiescent just now, so far as Margaret was concerned, but ready to break out at any moment with unexpected and destructive energy. Margaret herself, who had known Logotheti for years, and had seen him in his most dangerous moods as well as in his very best moments, would have thought a similar comparison with an elemental force quite as truly descriptive of him, if it had occurred to her. The enterprising Greek had really attempted to carry her off by force on the night of the final rehearsal before her first appearance on the stage, and had only been thwarted because a royal rival had caused him to be locked up, as if by mistake, in order to carry her off himself; in which he also had failed most ridiculously, thanks to the young singer's friend, the celebrated Madame Bonanni. That was a very amusing story. But on another occasion Margaret had found herself shut up with her Oriental adorer in a room from which she could not escape, and he had quite lost his head; and if she had not been the woman she was, she would have fared ill. After that he had behaved more like an ordinary human being, and she had allowed the natural attraction he had for her to draw her gradually to a promise of marriage; and now she talked to Lady Maud about her gown, but she still put off naming a day for the wedding, in spite of Logotheti's growing impatience. This was the situation when the London season broke up and Mr. Van Torp landed at Southampton from an ocean greyhound that had covered the distance from New York in five days twelve hours and thirty-seven minutes, which will doubtless seem very slow travelling if any one takes the trouble to read this tale twenty years hence, though the passengers were pleased because it was not much under the record time for steamers coming east. Five hours after he landed Van Torp entered Lady Maud's drawing-room in the little house in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, where she had lived with the departed Leven from the time when he had been attached to the Russian Embassy till he had last gone away. She was giving it up now, and it was already half dismantled. It was to see Van Torp that she was in town in the middle of August, instead of with her father at Craythew or with friends in Scotland. London was as hot as it could be, which means that a New Yorker would have found it chilly and an Italian delightfully cool; but the Londoners were sweltering when Van Torp arrived, and were talking of the oppressive atmosphere and the smell of the pavement, not at all realising how blessed they were. The American entered and stood still a moment to have a good look at Lady Maud. He was a middle-sized, rather thick-set man, with rude hands, sandy hair, an over-developed jaw, and sharp blue eyes, that sometimes fixed themselves in a disagreeable way when he was speaking--eyes that had looked into the barrel of another man's revolver once or twice without wavering, hands that had caught and saddled and bridled many an unridden colt in the plains, a mouth like a carpet-bag when it opened, like a closed vice when it was shut. He was not a handsome man, Mr. Rufus Van Torp, nor one with whom any one short of a prize-fighter would meddle, nor one to haunt the dreams of sweet sixteen. It was not for his face that Lady Maud, good and beautiful, liked him better than any one in the world, except her own father, and believed in him and trusted him, and it was assuredly not for his money. The beggar did not live who would dare to ask him for a penny after one look at his face, and there were not many men on either side of the Atlantic who would have looked forward to any sort of contest with him without grave misgivings. 'Well,' he said, advancing the last step after that momentary pause, and taking the white hand in both his own, 'how have you been? Fair to middling? About that? Well--I'm glad to see you, gladder than a sitting hen at sunrise!' Lady Maud laid her left hand affectionately on the man's right, which was uppermost on hers, and her voice rippled with happiness. 'If you had only said a lark instead of a hen, Rufus!' she laughed. 'We could get along a great sight better without larks than without hens,' answered her friend philosophically. 'But I'll make it a nightingale next time, if I can remember, or a bald eagle, or any bird that strikes you as cheerful.' The terrible mouth had relaxed almost to gentleness, and the fierce blue eyes were suddenly kind as they looked into the woman's face. She led him to an old-fashioned sofa, their hands parted, and they sat down side by side. 'Cheerful,' he said, in a tone of reflection. 'Yes, I'm feeling pretty cheerful, and it's all over and settled.' 'Do you mean the trouble you were in last spring?' 'N--no--not that, though it wasn't as funny as a Sunday School treat while it lasted, and I was thankful when it was through. It's another matter altogether that I'm cheerful about--besides seeing you, my dear. I've done it, Maud. I've done it at last.' 'What?' 'I've sold my interest in the Trust. It won't be made known for some time, so don't talk about it, please. But it's settled and done, and I've got the money.' 'You have sold the Nickel Trust?' Lady Maud's lips remained parted in surprise. 'And I've bought you a little present with the proceeds,' he answered, putting his large thumb and finger into the pocket of his white waistcoat. 'It's only a funny little bit of glass I picked up,' he continued, producing a small twist of stiff writing-paper. 'You needn't think it's so very fine! But it's a pretty colour, and when you're out of mourning I daresay you'll make a hat-pin of it. I like handsome hat-pins myself, you know.' He had untwisted the paper while speaking, it lay open in the palm of his hand, and Lady Maud saw a stone of the size of an ordinary hazel-nut, very perfectly cut, and of that wonderful transparent red colour which is known as 'pigeon's blood,' and which it is almost impossible to describe. Sunlight shining through Persian rose-leaf sherbet upon white silk makes a little patch of colour that is perhaps more like it than any other shade of red, but not many Europeans have ever seen that, and it is a good deal easier to go and look at a pigeon's blood ruby in a jeweller's window. 'What a beautiful colour!' exclaimed Lady Maud innocently, after a moment. 'I didn't know they imitated rubies so well, though, of course, I know nothing about it. If it were not an impossibility, I should take it for a real one.' 'So should I,' assented Mr. Van Torp quietly. 'It'll make a pretty hat-pin anyway. Shall I have it mounted for you?' 'Thanks, awfully, but I think I should like to keep it as it is for a little while. It's such a lovely colour, just as it is. Thank you so much! Do tell me where you got it.' 'Oh, well, there was a sort of a traveller came to New York the other day selling them what they call privately. I guess he must be a Russian or something, for he has a kind of an off-look of your husband, only he wears a beard and an eyeglass. It must be about the eyes. Maybe the forehead too. He'll most likely turn up in London one of these days to sell this invention, or whatever it is.' Lady Maud said nothing to this, but she took the stone from his hand, looked at it some time with evident admiration, and then set it down on its bit of paper, upon a little table by the end of the sofa. 'If I were you, I wouldn't leave it around much,' observed Mr. Van Torp carelessly. 'Somebody might take a fancy to it. The colour's attractive, you see, and it looks like real.' 'Oh, I'll be very careful of it, never fear! I can't tell you how much I like it!' She twisted it up tightly in its bit of paper, rose to her feet, and put it away in her writing-table. 'It'll be a sort of souvenir of the old Nickel Trust,' said her friend, watching her with satisfaction. 'Have you really sold out all your interest in it?' she asked, sitting down again; and now that she returned to the question her tone showed that she had not yet recovered from her astonishment. 'That's what I've done. I always told you I would, when I was ready. Why do you look so surprised? Would you rather I hadn't?' Lady Maud shook her head and her voice rippled deliciously as she answered. 'I can hardly imagine you without the Nickel Trust, that's all! What in the world shall you do with yourself?' 'Oh, various kinds of things. I think I'll get married, for one. Then I'll take a rest and sort of look around. Maybe something will turn up. I've concluded to win the Derby next year--that's something anyway.' 'Rather! Have you thought of anything else?' She laughed a little, but was grave the next moment, for she knew him much too well to believe that he had taken such a step out of caprice, or a mere fancy for change; his announcement that he meant to marry agreed too well with what she herself had suddenly foreseen when she had parted with Griggs in Bond Street a few days earlier. If Margaret had not at last made up her mind to accept Logotheti--supposing that her decision was really final--Rufus Van Torp would not suddenly have felt sure that he himself must marry her if she married at all. His English friend could not have put into words what she felt had taken place in his heart, but she understood him as no one else could, and was certain that he had reached one of the great cross-roads of his life. A woman who has been married for years to such a man as Leven, and who tries to do good to those fallen and cast-out ones who laugh and cry and suffer out their lives, and are found dead behind the Virtue-Curtain, is not ignorant of the human animal's instincts and ways, and Lady Maud was not at all inclined to believe her friend a Galahad. In the clean kingdom of her dreams men could be chaste, and grown women could be as sweetly ignorant of harm as little children; but when she opened her eyes and looked about her she saw, and she understood, and did not shiver with delicate disgust, nor turn away with prim disapproval, nor fancy that she would like to be a mediæval nun and induce the beatific state by merciless mortification of the body. She knew very well what the Virtue-Curtain was trying to hide; she lifted it quietly, went behind it without fear, and did all she could to help the unhappy ones she found there. She did not believe in other people's theories at all, and had none herself; she did not even put much faith in all the modern scientific talk about vicious inheritance and degeneration; much more than half of the dwellers behind the scenes had been lured there in ignorance, a good many had been dragged there by force, a very considerable number had been deliberately sold into slavery, and nine out of ten of them stayed there because no one really tried to get them out. Perhaps no one who did try was rich enough; for it is not to be expected that every human sinner should learn in a day to prefer starving virtue to well-fed vice, or, as Van Torp facetiously expressed it, a large capital locked up in heavenly stocks to a handsome income accruing from the bonds of sin. If Lady Maud succeeded, as she sometimes did, the good done was partly due to the means he gave her for doing it. 'Come and be bad and you shall have a good time while you are young,' the devil had said, assuming the appearance, dress, and manner of fashion, without any particular regard for age. 'Give it up and I'll make you so comfortable that you'll really like not being bad,' said Lady Maud, and the invitation was sometimes accepted. Evidently, a woman who occupied herself with this form of charity could not help knowing and hearing a good deal about men which would have surprised and even shocked her social sisters, and she was not in danger of taking Rufus Van Torp for an ascetic in disguise. On the contrary, she was quite able to understand that the tremendous attraction the handsome singer had for him might be of the most earthly kind, such as she herself would not care to call love, and that, if she was right, it would not be partially dignified by any of that true artistic appreciation which brought Logotheti such rare delight, and disguised a passion not at all more ethereal than Van Torp's might be. In refinement of taste, no comparison was possible between the Western-bred millionaire and the cultivated Greek, who knew every unfamiliar by-way and little hidden treasure of his country's literature and art, besides very much of what other nations had done and written. Yet Lady Maud, influenced, no doubt, by the honest friendship of her American friend, believed that Van Torp would be a better and more faithful husband, even to a primadonna, than his Oriental rival. Notwithstanding her opinion of him, however, she was not prepared for his next move. He had noticed the grave look that had followed her laughter, and he turned away and was silent for a few moments. 'The Derby's a side show,' he said at last. 'I've come over to get married, and I want you to help me. Will you?' 'Can I?' asked Lady Maud, evasively. 'Yes, you can, and I believe there'll be trouble unless you do.' 'Who is she? Do I know her?' She was trying to put off the evil moment. 'Oh, yes, you know her quite well. It's Madame Cordova.' 'But she's engaged to Monsieur Logotheti----' 'I don't care. I mean to marry her if she marries any one. He shan't have her anyway.' 'But I cannot deliberately help you to break off her engagement! It's impossible!' 'See here,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'You know that Greek, and you know me. Which of us will make the best husband for an English girl? That's what Madame Cordova is, after all. I put it to you. If you were forced to choose one of us yourself, which would you take? That's the way to look at it.' 'But Miss Donne is not "forced" to take one of you----' 'She's going to be. It's the same. Besides, I said "if." Won't you answer me?' 'She's in love with Monsieur Logotheti,' said Lady Maud, rather desperately. 'Is she, now? I wonder. I don't much think so myself. He's clever and he's obstinate, and he's just made her think she's in love, that's all. Anyhow, that's not an answer to my question. Other things being alike, if she had to choose, which of us would be the best husband for her?--the better, I mean. You taught me to say "better," didn't you?' Lady Maud tried to smile. 'Of two, yes,' she answered. 'You are forcing my hand, my dear friend,' she went on very gravely. 'You know very well that I trust you with all my heart. If it were possible to imagine a case in which the safety of the world could depend on my choosing one of you for my husband, you know very well that I should take you, though I never was the least little bit in love with you, any more than you ever were with me.' 'Well, but if you would, she ought,' argued Mr. Van Torp. 'It's for her own good, and as you're a friend of hers, you ought to help her to do what's good for her. That's only fair. If she doesn't marry me, she's certain to marry that Greek, so it's a forced choice, it appears to me.' 'But I can't----' 'She's a nice girl, isn't she?' 'Yes, very.' 'And you like her, don't you?' 'Very much. Her father was my father's best friend.' 'I don't believe in atavism,' observed the American, 'but that's neither here nor there. You know what you wrote me. Do you believe she'll be miserable with Logotheti or not?' 'I think she will,' Lady Maud answered truthfully. 'But I may be wrong.' 'No; you're right. I know it. But marriage is a gamble anyway, as you know better than any one. Are you equally sure that she would be miserable with me? Dead sure, I mean.' 'No, I'm not sure. But that's not a reason----' 'It's a first-rate reason. I care for that lady, and I want her to be happy, and as you admit that she will have a better chance of happiness with me than with Logotheti, I'm going to marry her myself, not only because I want to, but because it will be a long sight better for her. See? No fault in that line of reasoning, is there?' 'So far as reasoning goes----' Lady Maud's tone was half an admission. 'That's all I wanted you to say,' interrupted the American. 'So that's settled, and you're going to help me.' 'No,' answered Lady Maud quietly; 'I won't help you to break off that engagement. But if it should come to nothing, without your interfering--that is, by the girl's own free will and choice and change of mind, I'd help you to marry her if I could.' 'But you admit that she's going to be miserable,' said Van Torp stubbornly. 'I'm sorry for her, but it's none of my business. It's not honourable to try and make trouble between engaged people, no matter how ill-matched they may be.' 'Funny idea of honour,' observed the American, 'that you're bound to let a friend of yours break her neck at the very gravel pit where you were nearly smashed yourself! In the hunting field you'd grab her bridle if she wouldn't listen to you, but in a matter of marriage--oh, no! "It's dishonourable to interfere," "She's made her choice and she must abide by it," and all that kind of stuff!' Lady Maud's clear eyes met his angry blue ones calmly. 'I don't like you when you say such things,' she said, lowering her voice a little. 'I didn't mean to be rude,' answered the millionaire, almost humbly. 'You see I don't always know. I learnt things differently from what you did. I suppose you'd think it an insult if I said I'd give a large sum of money to your charity the day I married Madame Cordova, if you'd help me through.' [Illustration: "'Funny idea of honour,' observed the American."] 'Please stop.' Lady Maud's face darkened visibly. 'That's not like you.' 'I'll give a million pounds sterling,' said Mr. Van Torp slowly. Lady Maud leaned back in her corner of the sofa, clasping her hands rather tightly together in her lap. Her white throat flushed as when the light of dawn kisses Parian marble, and the fresh tint in her cheeks deepened softly; her lips were tightly shut, her eyelids quivered a little, and she looked straight before her across the room. 'You can do a pretty good deal with a million pounds,' said Mr. Van Torp, after the silence had lasted nearly half a minute. 'Don't!' cried Lady Maud, in an odd voice. 'Forty thousand pounds a year,' observed the millionaire thoughtfully. 'You could do quite a great deal of good with that, couldn't you?' 'Don't! Please don't!' She pressed her hands to her ears and rose at the same instant. Perhaps it was she, after all, and not her friend who had been brought suddenly to a great cross-road in life. She stood still one moment by the sofa without looking down at her companion; then she left the room abruptly, and shut the door behind her. Van Torp got up from his seat slowly when she was gone, and went to the window, softly blowing a queer tune between his closed teeth and his open lips, without quite whistling. 'Well----' he said aloud, in a tone of doubt, after a minute or two. But he said no more, for he was much too reticent and sensible a person to talk to himself audibly even when he was alone, and much too cautious to be sure that a servant might not be within hearing, though the door was shut. He stood before the window nearly a quarter of an hour, thinking that Lady Maud might come back, but as no sound of any step broke the silence he understood that he was not to see her again that day, and he quietly let himself out of the house and went off, not altogether discontented with the extraordinary impression he had made. Lady Maud sat alone upstairs, so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not hear the click of the lock as he opened and shut the front door. She was much more amazed at herself than surprised by the offer he had made. Temptation, in any reasonable sense of the word, had passed by her in life, and she had never before understood what it could mean to her. Indeed, she had thought of herself very little of late, and had never had the least taste for self-examination or the analysis of her conscience. She had done much good, because she wanted to do it, and not at all as a duty, or with that idea of surprising the Deity by the amount of her good works, which actuates many excellent persons. As for doing anything seriously wrong, she had never wanted to, and it had not even occurred to her that the opportunity for a wicked deed could ever present itself to her together with the slightest desire to do it. Her labours had taken her to strange places, and she knew what real sin was, and even crime, and the most hideous vice, and its still more awful consequences; but one reason why she had wrought fearlessly was that she felt herself naturally invulnerable. She knew a good many people in her own set whom she thought quite as bad as the worst she had ever picked up on the dark side of the Virtue-Curtain; they were people who seemed to have no moral sense, men who betrayed their wives wantonly, young women who took money for themselves and old ones who cheated at bridge, men who would deliberately ruin a rival in politics, in finance, or in love, and ambitious women who had driven their competitors to despair and destruction by a scientific use of calumny. But she had never felt any inclination towards any of those things, which all seemed to her disgusting, or cowardly, or otherwise abominable. Her husband had gone astray after strange gods--and goddesses--but she had never wished to be revenged on them, or him, nor to say what was not true about any one, nor even what was true and could hurt, nor to win a few sovereigns at cards otherwise than fairly, nor to wish anybody dead who had a right to live. She was eight-and-twenty years of age and a widow, when temptation came to her suddenly in a shape of tremendous strength, through her trusted friend, who had helped her for years to help others. It was real temptation. The man who offered her a million pounds to save miserable wretches from a life of unspeakable horror, could offer her twice as much, four, five, or ten millions perhaps. No one knew the vast extent of his wealth, and in an age of colossal fortunes she had often heard his spoken of with the half-dozen greatest. The worst of it was that she felt able to do what he asked; for she was inwardly convinced that the great singer did not know her own mind and was not profoundly attached to the man she had accepted. Of the two women, Margaret was by far the weaker character; or, to be just, the whole strength of her nature had long been concentrated in the struggle for artistic supremacy, and could not easily be brought to exert itself in other directions. Lady Maud's influence over her was great, and Logotheti's had never been very strong. She was taken by his vitality, his daring, his constancy, or obstinacy, and a little by his good looks, as a mere girl might be, because the theatre had made looks seem so important to her. But apart from his handsome face, Logotheti was no match for Van Torp. Of that Lady Maud was sure. Besides, the Primadonna's antipathy for the American had greatly diminished of late, and had perhaps altogether given place to a friendly feeling. She had said openly that she had misjudged him, because he had pestered her with his attentions in New York, and that she even liked him since he had shown more tact. Uncouth as he was in some ways, Lady Maud knew that she herself might care for him more than as a friend, if her heart were not buried for ever in a soldier's grave on the Veldt. That was the worst of it. She felt that it was probably not beyond her power to bring about what Van Torp desired, at least so far as to induce Margaret to break off the engagement which now blocked his way. Under cover of roughness, too, he had argued with a subtlety that frightened her now that she was alone; and with a consummate knowledge of her nature he had offered her the only sort of bribe that could possibly tempt her, the means to make permanent the good work she had already carried so far. He had placed her in such a dilemma as she had never dreamed of. To accept such an offer as he made, would mean that she must do something which she felt was dishonourable, if she gave 'honour' the meaning an honest gentleman attaches to it, and that was the one she had learned from her father, and which a good many women seem unable to understand. To refuse, was to deprive hundreds of wretched and suffering creatures of the only means of obtaining a hold on a decent existence which Lady Maud had ever found to be at all efficacious. She knew that she had not done much, compared with what was undone; it looked almost nothing. But where law-making had failed altogether, where religion was struggling bravely but almost in vain, where enlightened philanthropy found itself paralysed and bankrupt, she had accomplished something by merely using a little money in the right way. 'You can do quite a great deal of good with forty thousand pounds a year.' Van Torp's rough-hewn speech rang through her head, and somehow its reckless grammar gave it strength and made it stick in her memory, word for word. In the drawer of the writing-table before which she was sitting there was a little file of letters that meant more to her than anything else in the world, except one dear memory. They were all from women, they all told much the same little story, and it was good to read. She had made many failures, and some terrible ones, which she could never forget; but there were real successes, too, there were over a dozen of them now, and she had only been at work for three years. If she had more money, she could do more; if she had much, she could do much; and she knew of one or two women who could help her. What might she not accomplish in a lifetime with the vast sum her friend offered her!--the price of hindering a marriage that was almost sure to turn out badly, perhaps as badly as her own!--the money value of a compromise with her conscience on a point of honour which many women would have thought very vague indeed, if not quite absurd in such a case. She knew what temptation meant, now, and she was to know even better before long. The Primadonna had said that she was going to marry Logotheti chiefly because he insisted on it. The duel for Margaret's hand had begun; Van Torp had aimed a blow that might well give him the advantage if it went home; and Logotheti himself was quite unaware of the skilful attack that threatened his happiness. CHAPTER III A few days after she had talked with Lady Maud, and before Mr. Van Torp's arrival, Margaret had gone abroad, without waiting for the promised advice in the matter of the wedding-gown. With admirable regard for the proprieties she had quite declined to let Logotheti cross the Channel with her, but had promised to see him at Versailles, where she was going to stop a few days with her mother's old American friend, the excellent Mrs. Rushmore, with whom she meant to go to Bayreuth to hear _Parsifal_ for the first time. Mrs. Rushmore had disapproved profoundly of Margaret's career, from the first. After Mrs. Donne's death, she had taken the forlorn girl under her protection, and had encouraged her to go on with what she vaguely called her 'music lessons.' The good lady was one of those dear, old-fashioned, kind, delicate-minded and golden-hearted American women we may never see again, now that 'progress' has got civilisation by the throat and is squeezing the life out of it. She called Margaret her 'chickabiddy' and spread a motherly wing over her, without the least idea that she was rearing a valuable lyric nightingale that would not long be content to trill and quaver unheard. Immense and deserved success had half reconciled the old lady to what had happened, and after all Margaret had not married an Italian tenor, a Russian prince, or a Parisian composer, the three shapes of man which seemed the most dreadfully immoral to Mrs. Rushmore. She would find it easier to put up with Logotheti than with one of those, though it was bad enough to think of her old friend's daughter marrying a Greek instead of a nice, clean Anglo-Saxon, like the learned Mr. Donne, the girl's father, or the good Mr. Rushmore, her lamented husband, who had been an upright pillar of the church in New York, and the president of a Trust Company that could be trusted. After all, though she thought all Greeks must be what she called 'designing,' the name of Konstantin Logotheti was associated with everything that was most honourable in the financial world, and this impressed Mrs. Rushmore very much. Her harmless weakness had always been for lions, and none but the most genuine ones were allowed to roar at her garden-parties or at her dinner table. When the Greek financier had first got himself introduced to her more than two years earlier, she had made the most careful inquiries about him and had diligently searched the newspapers for every mention of him during a whole month. The very first paragraph she had found was about a new railway which he had taken under his protection, and the writer said that his name was a guarantee of good faith. This impressed her favourably, though the journalist might have had reasons for making precisely the same statement if he had known Logotheti to be a fraudulent promoter. One of the maxims she had learned in her youth, which had been passed in the Golden Age of old New York, was that 'business was a test of character.' Mr. Rushmore used to say that, so it must be true, she thought; and indeed the excellent man might have said with equal wisdom that long-continued rain generally produces dampness. He would have turned in his well-kept grave if he could have heard a Wall Street cynic say that nowadays an honest man may get a bare living, and a drunkard has been known to get rich, but that integrity and whisky together will inevitably land anybody in the workhouse. Logotheti was undoubtedly considered honest, however, and Mrs. Rushmore made quite sure of it, as well as of the fact that he had an immense fortune. So far as the cynic's observation goes, it may not be equally applicable everywhere, any more than it is true that all Greeks are blacklegs, as the Parisians are fond of saying, or that all Parisians are much worse, as their own novelists try to make out. If anything is more worthless than most men's opinion of themselves, it is their opinion of others, and it is unfortunately certain that the people who understand human nature best, and lead it whither they will, are not those that labour to save souls or to cure sickness, but demagogues, quacks, fashionable dressmakers, and money-lenders. Mrs. Rushmore was a judge of lions, but she knew nothing about humanity. At Versailles, with its memories of her earlier youth, the Primadonna wished to be Margaret Donne again, and to forget for the time that she was the Cordova, whose name was always first on the opera posters in New York, London, and Vienna; who covered her face with grease-paint two or three times a week; who loved the indescribable mixed smell of boards, glue, scenery, Manila ropes and cotton-velvet-clad chorus, behind the scenes; who lived on applause, was made miserable now and then by a criticism which any other singer would have thought flattery, and who was, in fact, an extraordinary compound of genius and simplicity, generosity and tetchiness, tremendous energy in one direction and intellectual torpidity and total indifference in all others. If she could have gone directly from Covent Garden to another engagement, the other self would not have waked up just then; but she meant to take a long holiday, and in order not to miss the stage too much, it was indispensable to forget it for a while. She travelled incognito. That is to say, she had sent her first maid and theatrical dresser Alphonsine to see her relations in Nancy for a month, and only brought the other with her; she had, moreover, caused the stateroom on the Channel boat to be taken in the name of Miss Donne, and she brought no more luggage to Versailles than could be piled on an ordinary cart, whereas when she had last come from New York her servants had seen eighty-seven pieces put on board the steamer, and a hat-box had been missing after all. Mrs. Rushmore came out to meet her on the steps in the hot sunshine, portly and kind as ever, and she applied an embrace which was affectionate, yet imposing. 'My dearest child!' she cried. 'I was sure I had not quite lost you yet!' 'I hope you will never think you have,' Margaret answered, almost quite in her girlish voice of old. She was very glad to come back. As soon as they were alone in the cool drawing-room, Mrs. Rushmore asked her about her engagement in a tone of profound concern, as though it were a grave bodily ailment which might turn out to be fatal. 'Don't take it so seriously,' Margaret answered with a little laugh; 'I'm not married yet!' The elderly face brightened. 'Do you mean to say that--that there is any hope?' she asked eagerly. Margaret laughed now, but in a gentle and affectionate sort of way. 'Perhaps, just a little! But don't ask me, please. I've come home--this is always home for me, isn't it?--I've come home to forget everything for a few weeks.' 'Thank heaven!' ejaculated Mrs. Rushmore in a tone of deep relief. 'Then if--if he should call this afternoon, or even to-morrow--may I tell them to say that you are out?' She was losing no time; and Margaret laughed again, though she put her head a little on one side with an expression of doubt. 'I can't refuse to see him,' she said, 'though really I would much rather be alone with you for a day or two.' 'My darling child!' cried Mrs. Rushmore, applying another embrace, 'you shall! Leave it to me!' Mrs. Rushmore's delight was touching, for she could almost feel that Margaret had come to see her quite for her own sake, whereas she had pictured the 'child,' as she still called the great artist, spending most of her time in carrying on inaudible conversations with Logotheti under the trees in the lawn, or in the most remote corners of the drawing-room; for that had been the accepted method of courtship in Mrs. Rushmore's young days, and she was quite ignorant of the changes that had taken place since then. Half-an-hour later, Margaret was in her old room upstairs writing a letter, and Mrs. Rushmore had given strict orders that until further notice Miss Donne was 'not at home' for any one at all, no matter who might call. When the letter already covered ten pages, Margaret laid down her pen and without the least pause or hesitation tore the sheets to tiny bits, inking her fingers in the process because the last one was not yet dry. 'What a wicked woman I am!' she exclaimed aloud, to the very great surprise of Potts, her English maid, who was still unpacking in the next room, the door being open. 'Beg pardon, ma'am?' the woman asked, putting in her head. 'I said I was a wicked woman,' Margaret answered, rising; 'and what's more, I believe I am. But I quite forgot you were there, Potts, or I probably should not have said it aloud.' 'Yes, ma'am,' answered Potts meekly, and she went back to her unpacking. Margaret had two maids, who were oddly suited to her two natures. She had inherited Alphonsine from her friend the famous retired soprano, Madame Bonanni, and the cadaverous, clever, ill-tempered, garrulous dresser was as necessary to Cordova's theatrical existence as paint, limelight, wigs, and an orchestra. The English Potts, the meek, silent, busy, and intensely respectable maid, continually made it clear that her mistress was Miss Donne, an English lady, and that Madame Cordova, the celebrated singer, was what Mr. Van Torp would have called 'only a side-show.' Potts was quite as much surprised when she heard Miss Donne calling herself a wicked woman as Alphonsine would have been if she had heard Madame Cordova say that she sang completely out of tune, a statement which would not have disturbed the English maid's equanimity in the very least. It might have pleased her, for she always secretly hoped that Margaret would give up the stage, marry an English gentleman with a nice name, and live in Hans Crescent or Cadogan Gardens, or some equally smart place, and send Alphonsine about her business for ever. For the English maid and the French maid hated each other as whole-heartedly as if Cressy or Agincourt had been fought yesterday. Potts alluded to Alphonsine as 'that Frenchwoman,' and Alphonsine spoke of Potts as 'l'Anglaise,' with a tone and look of withering scorn, as if all English were nothing better than animals. Also she disdained to understand a word of their 'abominable jargon'; and Potts quietly called the French language 'frog-talk,' but spoke it quite intelligibly, though without the least attempt at an accent. Nevertheless, each of the two was devoted to Margaret, and they were both such excellent servants that they never quarrelled or even exchanged a rude word--to Margaret's knowledge. They treated each other with almost exaggerated politeness, calling each other respectively 'Meess' and 'Mamzell'; and if Alphonsine's black eyes glared at Potts now and then, the English maid put on such an air of sweetly serene unconsciousness as a woman of the world might have envied. The letter that had been torn up before it was finished was to have gone to Lady Maud, but Margaret herself had been almost sure that she would not send it, even while she was writing. She had poured out her heart, now that she could do so with the consoling possibility of destroying the confession before any one read it. She had made an honest effort to get at the truth about herself by writing down all she knew to be quite true, as if it were to go to her best friend; but as soon as she realised that she had got to the end of her positive knowledge and was writing fiction--which is what might be true, but is not known to be--she had the weakness to tear up her letter, and to call herself names for not knowing her own mind, as if every woman did, or every man either. She had written that she had done very wrong in engaging herself to Logotheti; that was the 'wickedness' she accused herself of, repeating the self-accusation to her astonished maid, because it was a sort of relief to say the words to somebody. She had written that she did not really care for him in that way; that when he was near she could not resist a sort of natural attraction he had for her, but that as soon as he was gone she felt it no longer and she wished he would not come back; that his presence disturbed her and made her uncomfortable, and, moreover, interfered with her art; but that she had not the courage to tell him so, and wished that some one else would do it for her; that he was not really the sort of man she could ever be happy with; that her ideal of a husband was so and so, and this and that--and here fiction had begun, and she had put a stop to it by destroying the whole letter instead of crossing out a few lines,--which was a pity; for if Lady Maud had received it, she would have told Mr. Van Torp that he needed no help from her since Margaret herself asked no better than to be freed from the engagement. Logotheti did not come out to Versailles that afternoon, because he was plentifully endowed with tact where women were concerned, and he applied all the knowledge and skill he had to the single purpose of pleasing Margaret. But before dinner he telephoned and asked to speak with her, and this she could not possibly refuse. Besides, the day had seemed long, and though she did not wish for his presence she wanted something--that indescribable, mysterious something which disturbed her and made her feel uncomfortable when she felt it, but which she missed when she did not see him for a day or two. 'How are you?' asked his voice, and he ran on without waiting for an answer. 'I hope you are not very tired after crossing yesterday. I came by Boulogne--decent of me, wasn't it? You must be sick of seeing me all the time, so I shall give you a rest for a day or two. Telephone whenever you think you can bear the sight of me again, and I'll be with you in thirty-five minutes. I shall not stir from home in this baking weather. If you think I'm in mischief you're quite mistaken, dear lady, for I'm up to my chin in work!' 'I envy you,' Margaret said, when he paused at last. 'I've nothing on earth to do, and the piano here is out of tune. But you're quite right, I don't want to see you a little bit, and I'm not jealous, nor suspicious, nor anything disagreeable. So there!' 'How nice of you!' 'I'm very nice,' Margaret answered with laughing emphasis. 'I know it. What sort of work are you doing? It's only idle curiosity, so don't tell me if you would rather not! Have you got a new railway in Brazil, or an overland route to the other side of beyond?' 'Nothing so easy! I'm brushing up my Tartar.' 'Brushing up what? I didn't hear.' 'Tartar--the Tartar language--T-a-r--'he began to spell the word. 'Yes, I hear now,' interrupted Margaret. 'But what in the world is the use of knowing it? You must be awfully hard up for something to do!' 'You can be understood from Constantinople to the Pacific Ocean if you can speak Tartar,' Logotheti answered in a matter-of-fact tone. 'I daresay! But you're not going to travel from Constantinople to the Pacific Ocean----' 'I might. One never can tell what one may like to do.' 'Oh, if it's because Tartar is useful "against the bites of sharks,"' answered Margaret, quoting Alice, 'learn it by all means!' 'Besides, there are all sorts of people in Paris. I'm sure there must be some Tartars. I might meet one, and it would be amusing to be able to talk to him.' 'Nonsense! Why should you ever meet a Tartar? How absurd you are!' 'There's one with me now--close beside me, at my elbow.' 'Don't be silly, or I'll ring off.' 'If you don't believe me, listen!' He said something in a language Margaret did not understand, and another voice answered him at once in the same tongue. Margaret started slightly and bent her brows with a puzzled and displeased look. 'Is that your teacher?' she asked with more interest in her tone than she had yet betrayed. 'Yes.' 'I begin to understand. Do you mind telling me how old she is?' 'It's not "she," it's a young man. I don't know how old he is. I'll ask him if you like.' Again she heard him speak a few incomprehensible words, which were answered very briefly in the same tongue. 'He tells me he is twenty,' Logotheti said. 'He's a good-looking young fellow. How is Mrs. Rushmore? I forgot to ask.' 'She's quite well, thank you. But I should like to know----' 'Will you be so very kind as to remember me to her, and to say that I hope to find her at home the day after to-morrow?' 'Certainly. Come to-morrow if you like. But please tell me how you happened to pick up that young Tartar. It sounds so interesting! He has such a sweet voice.' There was no reply to this question, and Margaret could not get another word from Logotheti. The communication was apparently cut off. She rang up the Central Office and asked for his number again, but the young woman soon said that she could get no answer to the call, and that something was probably wrong with the instrument of Number One-hundred-and-six-thirty-seven. Margaret was not pleased, and she was silent and absent-minded at dinner and in the evening. 'It's the reaction after London,' she said with a smile, when Mrs. Rushmore asked if anything was the matter. 'I find I am more tired than I knew, now that it's all over.' Mrs. Rushmore was quite of the same opinion, and it was still early when she declared that she herself was sleepy and that Margaret had much better go to bed and get a good night's rest. But when the Primadonna was sitting before the glass and her maid was brushing out her soft brown hair, she was not at all drowsy, and though her eyes looked steadily at their own reflection in the mirror, she was not aware that she saw anything. 'Potts,' she said suddenly, and stopped. 'Yes, ma'am?' answered the maid with meek interrogation, and without checking the regular movement of the big brush. But Margaret said no more for several moments. She enjoyed the sensation of having her hair brushed; it made her understand exactly how a cat feels when some one strokes its back steadily, and she could almost have purred with pleasure as she held her handsome head back and moved it a little in real enjoyment under each soft stroke. 'Potts,' she began again at last, 'you are not very imaginative, are you?' 'No, ma'am,' the maid answered, because it seemed to be expected of her, though she had never thought of the matter. 'Do you think you could possibly be mistaken about a voice, if you didn't see the person who was speaking?' 'In what way, ma'am?' 'I mean, do you think you could take a man's voice for a woman's at a distance?' 'Oh, I see!' Potts exclaimed. 'As it might be, at the telephone?' 'Well--at the telephone, if you like, or anywhere else. Do you think you might?' 'It would depend on the voice, ma'am,' observed Potts, with caution. 'Of course it would,' assented Margaret rather impatiently. 'Well, ma'am, I'll say this, since you ask me. When I was last at home I was mistaken in that way about my own brother, for I heard him calling to me from downstairs, and I took him for my sister Milly.' 'Oh! That's interesting!' Margaret smiled. 'What sort of voice has your brother? How old is he?' 'He's eight-and-twenty, ma'am; and as for his voice, he has a sweet counter-tenor, and sings nicely. He's a song-man at the cathedral, ma'am.' 'Really! How nice! Have you a voice too? Do you sing at all?' 'Oh, no, ma'am!' answered Potts in a deprecating tone. 'One in the family is quite enough!' Margaret vaguely wondered why, but did not inquire. 'You were quite sure that it was your brother who was speaking, I suppose,' she said. 'Oh, yes, ma'am! I looked down over the banisters, and there he was!' Margaret had the solid health of a great singer, and it would have been a serious trouble indeed that could have interfered with her unbroken and dreamless sleep during at least eight hours; but when she closed her eyes that night she was quite sure that she could not have slept at all but for Potts's comforting little story about the brother with the 'counter-tenor' voice. Yet even so, at the moment before waking in the morning, she dreamt that she was at the telephone again, and that words in a strange language came to her along the wire in a soft and caressing tone that could only be a woman's, and that for the first time in all her life she knew what it was to be jealous. The sensation was not an agreeable one. The dream-voice was silent as soon as she opened her eyes, but she had not been awake long without realising that she wished very much to see Logotheti at once, and was profoundly thankful that she had torn up her letter to Lady Maud. She was not prepared to admit, even now, that Konstantin was the ideal she should have chosen for a husband, and whom she had been describing from imagination when she had suddenly stopped writing. But, on the other hand, the mere thought that he had perhaps been amusing himself in the society of another woman all yesterday afternoon made her so angry that she took refuge in trying to believe that he had spoken the truth and that she had really been mistaken about the voice. It was all very well to talk about learning Tartar! How could she be sure that it was not modern Greek, or Turkish? She could not have known the difference. Was it so very unlikely that some charming compatriot of his should have come from Constantinople to spend a few weeks in Paris? She remembered the mysterious house in the Boulevard Péreire where he lived, the beautiful upper hall where the statue of Aphrodite stood, the doors that would not open like other doors, the strangely-disturbing encaustic painting of Cleopatra in the drawing-room--many things which she distrusted. Besides, supposing that the language was really Tartar--were there not Russians who spoke it? She thought there must be, because she had a vague idea that all Russians were more or less Tartars. There was a proverb about it. Moreover, to the English as well as to the French, Russians represent romance and wickedness. She would not go to the telephone herself, but she sent a message to Logotheti, and he came out in the cool time of the afternoon. She thought he had never looked so handsome and so little exotic since she had known him. To please her he had altogether given up the terrific ties, the lightning-struck waistcoats, the sunrise socks, and the overpowering jewellery he had formerly affected, and had resigned himself to the dictation of a London tailor, who told him what he might, could, should, and must wear for each circumstance and hour of daily life, in fine gradations, from deer-stalking to a royal garden-party. The tailor, who dressed kings and made a specialty of emperors, was a man of taste, and when he had worked on the Greek financier for a few weeks the result was satisfactory; excepting for his almond-shaped eyes no one could have told Logotheti from an Englishman by his appearance, a fact which even Potts, who disapproved of Margaret's choice, was obliged to admit. Mrs. Rushmore was amazed and pleased. 'My dear,' she said afterwards to Margaret, 'what a perfectly wonderful change! Think how he used to look! And now you might almost take him for an American gentleman!' He was received by Mrs. Rushmore and Margaret together, and he took noticeable pains to make himself agreeable to the mistress of the house. At first Margaret was pleased at this; but when she saw that he was doing his best to keep Mrs. Rushmore from leaving the room, as she probably would have done, Margaret did not like it. She was dying to ask him questions about his lessons in Tartar, and especially about his teacher, and she probably meant to cast her inquiries in such a form as would make it preferable to examine him alone rather than before Mrs. Rushmore; but he talked on and on, only pausing an instant for the good lady's expressions of interest or approval. With diabolical knowledge of her weakness he led the conversation to the subject of political and diplomatic lions, and of lions of other varieties, and made plans for bringing some noble specimens to tea with her. She was not a snob; she distrusted foreign princes, marquises, and counts, and could keep her head well in the presence of an English peer; but lions were irresistible, and Logotheti offered her a whole menagerie of them, and described their habits with minuteness, if not with veracity. He was telling her what a Prime Minister had told an Ambassador about the Pope, when Margaret rose rather abruptly. 'I'm awfully sorry,' she said to Mrs. Rushmore, by way of apology, 'but I really must have a little air. I've not been out of the house all day.' Mrs. Rushmore understood, and was not hurt, though she was sorry not to hear more. The 'dear child' should go out, by all means. Would Monsieur Logotheti stay to dinner? No? She was sorry. She had forgotten that she had a letter to write in time for the afternoon post. So she went off and left the two together. Margaret led the way out upon the lawn, and they sat down on garden chairs under a big elm-tree. She said nothing while she settled herself very deliberately, avoiding her companion's eyes till she was quite ready, and then she suddenly looked at him with a sort of blank stare that would have disconcerted any one less superlatively self-possessed than he was. It was most distinctly Madame de Cordova, the offended Primadonna, that spoke at last, and not Miss Margaret Donne, the 'nice English girl.' 'What in the world has got into you?' she inquired in a chilly tone. He opened his almond-shaped eyes a little wider, with an excellent affectation of astonishment at her words and manner. 'Have I done anything you don't like?' he asked in a tone of anxiety and concern. 'Was I rude to Mrs. Rushmore?' Margaret looked at him a moment longer, and then turned her head away in silence, as if scorning to answer such a silly question. The look of surprise disappeared from his face, and he became very gloomy and thoughtful but said nothing more. Possibly he had brought about exactly what he wished, and was satisfied to await the inevitable result. It came before long. 'I don't understand you at all,' Margaret said less icily, but with the sad little air of a woman who believes herself misunderstood. 'It was very odd yesterday, at the telephone, you know--very odd indeed. I suppose you didn't realise it. And now, this afternoon, you have evidently been doing your best to keep Mrs. Rushmore from leaving us together. You would still be telling her stories about people if I hadn't obliged you to come out!' 'Yes,' Logotheti asserted with exasperating calm and meekness, 'we should still be there.' 'You did not want to be alone with me, I suppose. There's no other explanation, and it's not a very flattering one, is it?' 'I never flatter you, dear lady,' said Logotheti gravely. 'But you do! How can you deny it? You often tell me that I make you think of the Victory in the Louvre----' 'It's quite true. If the statue had a head it would be a portrait of you.' 'Nonsense! And in your moments of enthusiasm you say that I sing better than Madame Bonanni in her best days----' 'Yes. You know quite as much as she ever did, you are a much better musician, and you began with a better voice. Therefore you sing better. I maintain it.' 'You often maintain things you don't believe,' Margaret retorted, though her manner momentarily relaxed a little. 'Only in matters of business,' answered the Greek with imperturbable calm. 'Pray, is "learning Tartar" a matter of business?' Her eyes sparkled angrily as she asked the question. Logotheti smiled; she had reached the point to which he knew she must come before long. 'Oh, yes!' he replied with alacrity. 'Of course it is.' 'That accounts for everything, since you are admitting that I need not even try to believe it was a man whom I heard speaking.' 'To tell the truth, I have some suspicions about that myself,' answered Logotheti. 'I have a great many.' Margaret laughed rather harshly. 'And you behave as if you wanted me to have more. Who is this Eastern woman? Come, be frank. She is some one from Constantinople, isn't she? A Fanariote like yourself, I daresay--an old friend who is in Paris for a few days, and would not pass through without seeing you. Say so, for heaven's sake, and don't make such a mystery about it!' 'How very ingenious women are!' observed the Greek. 'If I had thought of it I might have told you that story through the telephone yesterday. But I didn't.' Margaret was rapidly becoming exasperated, her eyes flashed, her firm young cheeks reddened handsomely, and her generous lips made scornful curves. 'Are you trying to quarrel with me?' The words had a fierce ring; he glanced at her quickly and saw how well her look agreed with her tone. She was very angry. 'If I were not afraid of boring you,' he said with quiet gravity, 'I would tell you the whole story, but----' he pretended to hesitate. He heard her harsh little laugh at once. 'Your worst enemy could not accuse you of being a bore!' she retorted. 'Oh, no! It's something quite different from boredom that I feel, I assure you!' 'I wish I thought that you cared for me enough to be jealous,' Logotheti said earnestly. 'Jealous!' No one can describe the tone of indignant contempt in which a thoroughly jealous woman disclaims the least thought of jealousy with a single word; a man must have heard it to remember what it is like, and most men have. Logotheti knew it well, and at the sound he put on an expression of meek innocence which would have done credit to a cat that had just eaten a canary. 'I'm so sorry,' he cried in a voice like a child's. 'I didn't mean to make you angry, I was only wishing aloud. Please forgive me!' 'If your idea of caring for a woman is to make her jealous----' This was such an obvious misinterpretation of his words that she stopped short and bit her lip. He sighed audibly, as if he were very sorry that he could do nothing to appease her, but this only made her feel more injured. She made an effort to speak coldly. 'You seem to forget that so long as we are supposed to be engaged I have some little claim to know how you spend your time!' 'I make no secret of what I do. That is why you were angry just now. Nothing could have been easier than for me to say that I was busy with one of the matters you suggested.' 'Oh, of course! Nothing could be easier than to tell me an untruth!' This certainly looked like the feminine retort-triumphant, and Margaret delivered it in a cutting tone. 'That is precisely what you seem to imply that I did,' Logotheti objected. 'But if what I told you was untrue your argument goes to pieces. There was no Tartar lesson, there was no Tartar teacher, and it was all a fabrication of my own!' 'Just what I think!' returned Margaret. 'It was not Tartar you spoke, and there was no teacher!' 'You have me there,' answered the Greek mildly, 'unless you would like me to produce my young friend and talk to him before you in the presence of witnesses who know his language.' 'I wish you would! I should like to see "him"! I should like to see the colour of "his" eyes and hair!' 'Black as ink,' said Logotheti. 'And you'll tell me that "his" complexion is black too, no doubt!' 'Not at all; a sort of creamy complexion, I think, though I did not pay much attention to his skin. He is a smallish chap, good-looking, with hands and feet like a woman's. I noticed that. As I told you, a doubt occurred to me at once, and I will not positively swear that it is not a girl after all. He, or she, is really a Tartar from Central Asia, and I know enough of the language to say what was necessary.' 'Necessary!' 'Yes. He--or she--came on a matter of business. What I said about a teacher was mere nonsense. Now you know the whole thing.' 'Excepting what the business was,' Margaret said incredulously. 'The business was an uncut stone,' answered Logotheti with indifference. 'He had one to sell, and I bought it. He was recommended to me by a man in Constantinople. He came to Marseilles on a French steamer with two Greek merchants who were coming to Paris, and they brought him to my door. That is the whole story. And here is the ruby. I bought it for you, because you like those things. Will you take it?' He held out what looked like a little ball of white tissue-paper, but Margaret turned her face from him. 'You treat me like a child!' she said. To her own great surprise and indignation, her voice was unsteady and she felt something burning in her eyes. She was almost frightened at the thought that she might be going to cry, out of sheer mortification. Logotheti said nothing for a moment. He began to unroll the paper from the precious stone, but changed his mind, wrapped it up again, and put it back into his watch-pocket before he spoke. 'I did not mean it as you think,' he said softly. She turned her eyes without moving her head, till she could just see that he was leaning forward, resting his wrists on his knees, bending his head, and apparently looking down at his loosely hanging hands. His attitude expressed dejection and disappointment. She was glad of it. He had no right to think that he could make her as angry as she still was, angry even to tears, and then bribe her to smile again when he was tired of teasing her. Her eyes turned away again, and she did not answer him. 'I make mistakes sometimes,' he said, speaking still lower, 'I know I do. When I am with you I cannot be always thinking of what I say. It's too much to ask, when a man is as far gone as I am!' 'I should like to believe that,' Margaret said, without looking at him. 'Is it so hard to believe?' he asked so gently that she only just heard the words. 'You don't make it easy, you know,' said she with a little defiance, for she felt that she was going to yield before long. 'I don't quite know how to. You're not in the least capricious--and yet----' 'You're mistaken,' Margaret answered, turning to him suddenly. 'I'm the most capricious woman in the world! Yesterday I wrote a long letter to a friend, and then I suddenly tore it up--there were ever so many pages! I daresay that if I had written just the same letter this morning, I should have sent it. If that is not caprice, what is it?' 'It may have been wisdom to tear it up,' Logotheti suggested. 'I'm not sure. I never ask myself questions about what I do. I hate people who are always measuring their wretched little souls and then tinkering their consciences to make them fit! I don't believe I wish to do anything really wrong, and so I do exactly what I like, always!' Possibly she had forgotten that she had called herself a wicked woman only yesterday; but that had been before the conversation at the telephone. 'If you will only go on doing what you like,' Logotheti answered, 'it will give me the greatest pleasure in the world to help you. I only ask one kindness.' 'You have no right to ask me anything to-day. You've been quite the most disagreeable person this afternoon that I ever met in my life.' 'I know I have,' Logotheti answered with admirable contrition. 'I'll wait a day or two before I ask anything; perhaps you will have forgiven me by that time.' 'I'm not sure. What was the thing you were going to ask?' He was silent now that she wished to know his thought. 'Have you forgotten it already?' she inquired with a little laugh that was encouraging rather than contemptuous, for her curiosity was roused. They looked at each other at last, and all at once she felt the deeply disturbing sense of his near presence which she had missed for three days, though she was secretly a little afraid and ashamed of it; and to-day it had not come while her anger had lasted. But now it was stronger than ever before, perhaps because it came so unexpectedly, and it drew her to him, under the deep shadow of the elm-tree that made strange reflections in their eyes--moving reflections of fire when the lowering sun struck in between the leaves, and sudden, still depths when the foliage stirred in the breeze and screened the glancing ray. He had played upon her moods for an hour, as a musician touches a delicate and responsive instrument, and she had taken all for earnest and had been angry and hurt, and was reconciled again at his will. Yet he had not done it all to try his power over her, and surely not in any careless contempt of her weaknesses. He cared for her in his way, as he was able, and his love was great, if not of the most noble sort. He was strong, and she waked his strength with fire; he worshipped life, and her vital beauty thrilled the inner stronghold of his being; when she moved, his passionate intuition felt and followed the lines of her moving grace; if she rested, motionless and near him, his waking dream enfolded her in a deep caress. He felt no high and mystic emotion when he thought of her; he had never read of St. Clement's celestial kingdom, where man and woman are to be one for ever, and together neither woman nor man, for such a world could never seem heavenly to him, whose love was altogether earthly. Yet it was Greek love, not Roman; its deity was beauty, not lust; the tutelary goddess of its temple was not Venus the deadly, the heavy-limbed, with a mouth like a red wound and slumbrous, sombre eyes, but Cyprian Aphrodite, immortal and golden, the very life of the sparkling sky itself sown in the foam of the sea. Between the two lies all the distance that separates gross idolatry from the veneration of the symbol; the gulf that divides the animal materialism of a twentieth-century rake from the half-divine dreams of genius; the revolting coarseness of Catullus at his worst from himself at his best, or from an epigram of Meleager or Antipater of Sidon; a witty Greek comedy adapted by Plautus to the brutal humour of Rome from Swinburne's immortal _Atalanta in Calydon_. Twenty-five centuries of history, Hellenic, Byzantine and modern, have gone to make the small band of cultivated Greeks of to-day what they are, two thousand and five hundred years of astounding vicissitudes, of aristocracy, democracy and despotism, of domination and subjection, mastery, slavery and revolution, ending in freedom more than half regained. We need not wonder why they are not like us, whose forefathers of a few centuries ago were still fighting the elements for their existence, and living and thinking like barbarians. The eyes of the Greek and the great artist met, and they looked long at one another in the shade of the elm-tree on the lawn, as the sun was going down. Only a few minutes had passed since Margaret had been very angry, and had almost believed that she was going to quarrel finally, and break her engagement, and be free; and now she could not even turn her face away, and when her hand felt his upon it, she let him draw it slowly to him; and half unconsciously she followed her hand, bending towards him sideways from her seat, nearer and nearer, and very near. And as she put up her lips to his, he would that she might drink his soul from him at one deep draught--even as one of his people's poets wished, in the world's spring-time, long ago. It had been a strange love-making. They had been engaged during more than two months, they were young, vital, passionate; yet they had never kissed before that evening hour under the elm-tree at Versailles. Perhaps it was for this that Konstantin had played, or at least, for the certainty it meant to him, if he had doubted that she was sincere. CHAPTER IV Without offending Mr. Van Torp, Lady Maud managed not to see him again for some time, and when he understood, as he soon did, that this was her wish, he made no attempt to force himself upon her. She was probably thinking over what he had said, and in the end she would exert her influence as he had begged her to do. He was thoroughly persuaded that there was nothing unfair in his proposal and that, when she was convinced that he was right, she would help him. In a chequered career that had led to vast success, he had known people who called themselves honest and respectable but who had done unpardonable things for a hundredth part of what he offered. Like all real financiers, he knew money as a force, not as a want, very much as any strong working man knows approximately how much he can lift or carry, and reckons with approximate certainty on his average strength. To speak in his own language, Mr. Van Torp knew about how many horse-power could be got out of any sum of money, from ten cents to more millions than he chose to speak of in his own case. And once more, before I go on with this tale, let me say that his friendship for Lady Maud was so honest that he would never have asked her to do anything he thought 'low down.' To paraphrase a wise saying of Abraham Lincoln's, some millionaires mean to be bad all the time, but are not, and some are bad all the time but do not mean to be, but no millionaires mean to be bad all the time and really are. Rufus Van Torp certainly did not mean to be, according to his lights, though in his life he had done several things which he did not care to remember; and the righteous had judged him with the ferocious integrity of men who never take a penny unjustly nor give one away under any circumstances. But when he had taken the first step towards accomplishing his purpose, he was very much at a loss as to the next, and he saw that he had never undertaken anything so difficult since he had reorganised the Nickel Trust, trebled the stock, cleared a profit of thirty millions and ruined nobody but the small-fry, who of course deserved it on the principle that people who cannot keep money ought not to have any. Some unkind newspaper man had then nicknamed it the Brass Trust, and had called him Brassy Van Torp; but it is of no use to throw mud at the Golden Calf, for the dirt soon dries to dust and falls off, leaving the animal as beautifully shiny as ever. Mr. Van Torp did not quite see how he could immediately apply the force of money to further his plans with effect. He knew his adversary's financial position in Europe much too well to think of trying to attack him on that ground; and besides, in his rough code it would not be fair play to do that. It was 'all right' to ruin a hostile millionaire in order to get his money. That was 'business.' But to ruin him for the sake of a woman was 'low down.' It would be much more 'all right' to shoot him, after fair and due warning, and to carry off the lady. That was impossible in a civilised country, of course; but as it occurred to him, while he was thinking, that he might find it convenient to go somewhere in a hurry by sea, he bought a perfectly new yacht that was for sale because the owner had died of heart disease the week after she was quite ready to take him to the Mediterranean. The vessel was at least as big as one of the ocean liners of fifty years ago, and had done twenty-two and one-tenth knots on her trial. Mr. Van Torp took her over as she was, with her officers, crew, cook and stores, and rechristened her. She had been launched as the _Alwayn_; he called her the _Lancashire Lass_--a bit of sentiment on his part, for that was the name of a mare belonging to Lady Maud's father, which he had once ridden bareback when he was in an amazing hurry. He had one interview with the Captain. 'See here, Captain,' he said, 'I may not want to take a trip this season. I'm that sort of a man. I may or I may not. But if I do want you, I'll want you quick. See?' With the last word, he looked up suddenly, and the Captain 'saw,' for he met a pair of eyes that astonished him. 'Yes, I see,' he answered mechanically. 'And if you're in one place with your boat, and I wire that I want you in another, I'd like you to get there right away,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'Yes, sir.' 'They say she'll do twenty-two and a tenth,' continued the owner, 'but when I wire I want you I'd like her to do as much more as she can without bursting a lung. If you don't think you've got the kind of engineer who'll keep her red-hot, tell me right off and we'll get another. And don't you fuss about burning coal, Captain. And see that the crew get all they can eat and not a drop of drink but tea and coffee, and if you let 'em go on shore once in a way, see that they come home right side up with care, Captain, and make each of 'em say "truly rural" and "British Constitution" before he goes to bed, and if he can't, you just unship him, or whatever you call it on a boat. Understand, Captain?' The Captain understood and kept his countenance. 'Now, I want to know one thing,' continued the new owner. 'What's the nearest sea-port to Bayreuth, Bavaria?' 'Venice,' answered the Captain without the least hesitation, and so quickly that Mr. Van Torp was immediately suspicious. 'If that's so, you're pretty smart,' he observed. 'You can telephone to Cook's office, sir, and ask them,' said the Captain quietly. The instrument was on the table at Mr. Van Torp's elbow. He looked sharply at the Captain, as he unhooked the receiver and set it to his ear. In a few seconds communication was given. 'Cook's office? Yes. Yes. This is Mr. Van Torp, Rufus Van Torp of New York. Yes. I want to know what's the nearest sea-port to Bayreuth, Bavaria. Yes. Yes. That's just what I want to know. Yes. I'll hold the wire while you look it up.' He was not kept waiting long. 'Venice, you say? You're sure you're right, I suppose? Yes. Yes. I was only asking. No thank you. If I want a ticket I'll look in myself. Much obliged. Good-bye.' He hung the receiver in its place again, and turned to his Captain with a different expression, in which admiration and satisfaction were quite apparent. 'Well,' he said, 'you're right. It's Venice. I must say that, for an Englishman, you're quite smart.' The Captain smiled quietly, but did not think it worth while to explain that the last owner with whom he had sailed had been Wagner-mad and had gone to Bayreuth regularly. Moreover, he had judged his man already. 'Am I to proceed to Venice at once, sir?' he asked. 'As quick as you can, Captain.' The Englishman looked at his watch deliberately, and made a short mental calculation before he said anything. It was eleven in the morning. 'I can get to sea by five o'clock this afternoon, sir. Will that do?' Mr. Van Torp was careful not to betray the least surprise. 'Yes,' he said, as if he were not more than fairly satisfied, 'that'll do nicely.' 'Very well, sir, then I'll be off. It's about three thousand miles, and she's supposed to do that at eighteen knots with her own coal. Say eight days. But as this is her maiden trip we must make allowance for having to stop the engines once or twice. Good-morning, sir.' 'Good-day, Captain. Get in some coal and provisions as soon as you arrive in Venice. I may want to go to Timbuctoo, or to Andaman Islands or something. I'm that sort of a man. I'm not sure where I'll go. Good-bye.' The Captain stopped at the first telegraph office on his way to the Waterloo Station and telegraphed both to his chief engineer, Mr. M'Cosh, and his chief mate, Mr. Johnson, for he thought it barely possible that one or the other might be ashore. 'Must have steam by 4 P.M. to-day to sail at once long voyage. Coming next train. Owner in hurry. Send ashore for my wash. Brown, Captain.' When the clocks struck five on shore that afternoon, and the man at the wheel struck two bells from the wheel-house, and the look-out forward repeated them on the ship's bell, all according to the most approved modern fashion on large steamers, the beautiful _Lancashire Lass_ was steaming out upon Southampton Water. Out of the merest curiosity Mr. Van Torp telegraphed to Cowes to be informed of the exact moment at which his yacht was under way, and before six o'clock he had a message. 'Yacht sailed at four thirty-nine.' The new owner was so much pleased that he actually smiled, for Captain Brown had been twenty-one minutes better than his word. 'I guess he'll do,' thought Mr. Van Torp. 'I only hope I may need him.' He was not at all sure that he should need the _Lancashire Lass_ and Captain Brown; but it has often been noticed that in the lives of born financiers even their caprices often turn out to their advantage, and that their least logical impulses in business matters are worth more than the sober judgment of ordinary men. As for Captain Brown, he was a quiet little person with a rather pink face and sparkling blue eyes, and he knew his business. In fact he had passed as Extra Master. He knew that he was in the service of one of the richest men in the world, and that he commanded a vessel likely to turn out one of the finest yachts afloat, and he did not mean to lose such a berth either by piling up his ship, or by being slow to do whatever his owner wished done, within the boundaries of the possible; but it had not occurred to him that his owner might order him to exceed the limits of anything but mere possibility, such, for instance, as those of the law, civil, criminal, national, or international. Mr. Van Torp had solid nerves, but when he had sent his yacht to the only place where he thought he might possibly make use of it, he realised that he was wasting valuable time while Logotheti was making all the running, and his uncommon natural energy, finding nothing to work upon as yet, made him furiously impatient. It seemed to hum and sing in his head, like the steam in an express engine when it is waiting to start. He had come over to England on an impulse, as soon as he had heard of Cordova's engagement. Until then he had not believed that she would ever accept the Greek, and when he learned from Lady Maud's letter that the fact was announced, he 'saw red,' and his resolution to prevent the marriage was made then and there. He had no idea how he should carry it out, but he knew that he must either succeed or come to grief in the attempt, for as long as he had any money left, or any strength, he would spend both lavishly for that one purpose. Yet he did not know how to begin, and his lack of imagination exasperated him beyond measure. He was sleepless and lost his appetite, which had never happened to him before; he stayed on in London instead of going down to his place in Derbyshire, because he was always sure that he meant to start for the Continent in a few hours, with an infallible plan for success; but he did not go. The most absurd schemes suggested themselves. He was disgusted with what he took for his own stupidity, and he tried to laugh at the sentimental vein that ran through all his thoughts as the thread through a string of beads. He grew hot and cold as he recalled the time when he had asked Margaret to marry him, and he had frightened her and she had fled and locked herself into her own room; his heart beat faster when he thought of certain kindly words she had said to him since then, and on which he built up a great hope now, though they had meant nothing more to her than a general forgiveness, where she really had very little to forgive. A genuine offer of marriage from a millionaire is not usually considered an insult, but since she had chosen to look at it in that light, he was humble enough to be grateful for her pardon. If he had not been so miserably in love he would have been even more amazed and alarmed at his own humility, for he had not shown signs of such weakness before. In a life which had been full of experience, though it was not yet long, he had convinced himself that the 'softening' which comes with years, and of which kind people often speak with so much feeling, generally begins in the brain; and the thought that he himself was growing less hard than he had been, already filled him with apprehension. He asked himself why he had withdrawn from the Nickel Trust, unless it was because his faculties were failing prematurely. At the mere thought, he craved the long-familiar excitement of making money, and risking it, and he wished he had a railway or a line of steamers to play with; since he could not hit upon the scheme for which he was racking his brains. For once in his life, too, he felt lonely, and to make it worse he had not received a line from his friend Lady Maud since she had abruptly left him in her own drawing-room. He wondered whether she had yet made up her mind to help him. He was living in a hotel in London, though he did not like it. Americans, as a rule, would a little rather live in hotels than in houses of their own, perhaps because it is less trouble and no dearer, at least not in American cities. Housekeeping in New York can be done with less risk by a company than by an individual, for companies do not succumb to nervous prostration, whatever may happen to their employees. But Mr. Van Torp was an exception to the rule, for he liked privacy, and even solitude, and though few men were better able to face a newspaper reporter in fair fight, he very much preferred not to be perpetually on the look-out lest he should be obliged to escape by back stairs and side doors, like a hunted thief. He felt safer from such visits in London than in New York or Paris, but only relatively so. He was meditating on the future one morning, over an almost untouched breakfast, between nine and ten o'clock, when his man Stemp brought a visiting card. 'Reporter?' he inquired, without looking up, as he leaned far back in his chair, his gaze riveted on the cold buttered toast. 'No, sir. It's some sort of a foreigner, and he talks a heathen language.' 'Oh, he does, does he?' The question was asked in a tone of far-away indifference. 'Yes, sir.' A long silence followed. Mr. Van Torp still stared at the buttered toast and appeared to have forgotten all about the card. Stemp endeavoured very tactfully to rouse him from his reverie. 'Shall I get you some more hot toast, sir?' he inquired very gently. 'Toast? No. No toast.' He did not move; his steady gaze did not waver. Stemp waited a long time, motionless, with his little salver in his hand. At last Van Torp changed his position, threw his head so far back that it rested on the top of the chair, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers and stared at the ceiling as intently as he had gazed at the plate. Then he spoke to his man again. 'Stemp.' 'Yes, sir.' 'What do you suppose that fellow wants, now, Stemp? Do you suppose he thinks I speak his heathen language? What does he come bothering me for? What's the good?' 'Well, sir,' answered Stemp, 'I can't quite say, but I believe there's something written on the card if you care to look at it, sir, and he has a person with him that speaks a little English. Shall I throw him out, sir?' Stemp asked the question with such perfect gravity that, being an Englishman, he might very well have been thought to mean the words literally. But he did not. He merely adopted Mr. Van Torp's usual way of expressing that the master was not at home. 'I'll look at the card, anyway.' He stretched out one hand without turning his eyes towards it; the careful Stemp promptly brought the little salver into contact with the large fingers, which picked up the card and raised it deliberately to the line of vision. By this means Mr. Van Torp saved himself the trouble of turning his head. It was a rather large card, bearing in the middle two or three odd-looking signs which meant nothing to him, but underneath them he read in plain characters the single work 'Barak.' 'Barrack!' grumbled the American. 'Rubbish! Why not "teapot," or "rocking-horse," or anything else that's appropriate?' As he paused for an answer, Stemp ventured to speak. 'Can't say, sir. P'rhaps it's the only word he knows, sir, so he's had it printed.' Van Torp turned his head at last, and his eyes glared unpleasantly as he examined his valet's face. But the Englishman's features were utterly impassive; if they expressed anything it was contempt for the heathen person outside, who only knew one word of English. Mr. Van Torp seemed satisfied and glanced at the card again. 'I guess you didn't mean to be funny,' he said, as if acknowledging that he had made a mistake. 'Certainly not, sir,' answered Stemp, drawing himself up with an air of injured pride, for he felt that his professional manners were suspected, if not actually criticised. 'That's all right,' observed Mr. Van Torp, turning the card over. 'Oh, the writing's on the back, I see. Yes. Now, that's very curious, I must say,' he said, after reading the words. 'That's very curious,' he repeated, laying strong and equal emphasis on the last two words. 'Ask him to walk in, Stemp.' 'Yes, sir. With the man who speaks English for him, I suppose, sir?' 'No. He can wait outside till I want him, and you can go away too. I'll see the man alone.' 'Very good, sir.' As the valet went out Mr. Van Torp turned his chair half round without getting up, so that he sat facing the door. A moment later Stemp had ushered in the visitor, and was gone. A slim youth came forward without boldness, but without the least timidity, as if he were approaching an equal. He had an oval face, no moustache, a complexion like cream, short and thick black hair and very clear dark eyes that met the American's fearlessly. He was under the average height, and he wore rather thin, loose grey clothes that had been made by a good tailor. His hands and feet were smaller than a European's. 'So you're Mr. Barrack,' Mr. Van Torp said, nodding pleasantly. The young face smiled, and the parted lips showed quite perfect teeth. 'Barak,' answered the young man, giving the name the right sound. 'Yes, I understand, but I can't pronounce it like you. Take a chair, Mr. Barrack, and draw up to the table.' The young man understood the gesture that explained the speech and sat down. 'So you're a friend of Mr. Logotheti's, and he advised you to come to me? Understand? Logotheti of Paris.' Barak smiled again, and nodded quickly as he recognised the name. The American watched his face attentively. 'All right,' he continued. 'You can trot out your things now, right on the table-cloth here.' He had seen enough of Indians and Mexicans in his youth to learn the simple art of using signs, and he easily made his meaning clear to his visitor. Barak produced a little leathern bag, not much bigger than an ordinary purse, and fastened with thin thongs, which he slowly untied. Mr. Van Torp watched the movements of the delicate fingers with great interest, for he was an observant man. 'With those hands,' he silently reflected, 'it's either a lady or a thief, or both.' Barak took several little twists of tissue paper from the bag, laid them in a row on the table-cloth, and then began to open them one by one. Each tiny parcel contained a ruby, and when the young man counted them there were five in all, and they were fine stones if they were genuine; but Mr. Van Torp was neither credulous nor easily surprised. When Barak looked to see what impression he had produced on such a desirable buyer, he was disappointed. 'Nice,' said the American carelessly; 'nice rubies, but I've seen better. I wonder if they're real, anyway. They've found out how to make them by chemistry now, you know.' But Barak understood nothing, of course, beyond the fact that Mr. Van Torp seemed indifferent, which was a common trick of wily customers; but there was something about this one's manner that was not assumed. Barak took the finest of the stones with the tips of his slender young fingers, laid it in the palm of his other hand, and held it under Mr. Van Torp's eyes, looking at him with an inquiring expression. But the American shook his head. 'No rubies to-day, thank you,' he said. Barak nodded quietly, and at once began to wrap up the stones, each in its own bit of paper, putting the twists back into the bag one by one. Then he drew the thongs together and tied them in a neat sort of knot which Mr. Van Torp had never seen. The young man then rose to go, but the millionaire stopped him. 'Say, don't go just yet. I'll show you a ruby that'll make you sit up.' He rose as he spoke, and Barak understood his smile and question, and waited. Mr. Van Torp went into the next room, and came back almost immediately, bringing a small black morocco case, which he set on the table and unlocked with a little key that hung on his watch-chain. He was not fond of wearing jewellery, and the box held all his possessions of that sort, and was not full. There were three or four sets of plain studs and links; there were half a dozen very big gold collar-studs; there was a bit of an old gold chain, apparently cut off at each end, and having one cheap little diamond set in each link; and there was a thin old wedding-ring that must have been a woman's; besides a few other valueless trinkets, all lying loose and in confusion. Mr. Van Torp shook the box a little, poked the contents about with one large finger, and soon found an uncut red stone about the size of a hazel-nut, which he took out and placed on the white cloth before his visitor. 'Now that's what I call a ruby,' he said, with a smile of satisfaction. 'Got any like that, young man? Because if you have I'll talk to you, maybe. Yes,' he continued, watching the Oriental's face, 'I told you I'd make you sit up. But I didn't mean to scare you bald-headed. What's the matter with you, anyway? Your eyes are popping out of your head. Do you feel as if you were going to have a fit? I say! Stemp!' Barak was indeed violently affected by the sight of the uncut ruby, and his face had changed in a startling way; a great vein like a whipcord suddenly showed itself on his smooth forehead straight up and down; his lids had opened so wide that they uncovered the white of the eye almost all round the iris; he was biting his lower lip so that it was swollen and blood-red against the little white teeth; and a moment before Mr. Van Torp had called out to his servant, the young man had reeled visibly, and would perhaps have collapsed if the American had not caught the slender waist and supported the small head against his shoulder with his other hand. Stemp was not within hearing. He had been told to go away, and he had gone, and meant to be rung for when he was wanted, for he had suffered a distinct slight in being suspected of a joke. Therefore Mr. Van Torp called to him in vain, and meanwhile stood where he was with his arm round Barak, and Barak's head on his shoulder; but as no one came at his call, he lifted the slim figure gently and carried it towards the sofa, and while he was crossing the large room with his burden the palpable truth was forced upon him that his visitor's slimness was more apparent than real, and an affair of shape rather than of pounds. Before he had quite reached the lounge, however, Barak stirred, wriggled in his arms, and sprang to the floor and stood upright, blinking a little, like a person waking from a dream, but quite steady, and trying to smile in an apologetic sort of way, though evidently still deeply disturbed. Mr. Van Torp smiled, too, as if to offer his congratulations on the quick recovery. 'Feel better now?' he inquired in a kindly tone, and nodded. 'I wonder what on earth you're up to, young lady?' he soliloquised, watching Barak's movements. He was much too cautious and wise to like being left alone for many minutes with a girl, and a good-looking one, who went about London dressed in men's clothes and passed herself for a ruby merchant. Mr. Van Torp was well aware that he was not a safe judge of precious stones, that the rubies he had seen might very well be imitation, and that the girl's emotion at the sight of the rough stone might be only a piece of clever acting, the whole scene having been planned by a gang of thieves for the purpose of robbing him of that very ruby, which was worth a large sum, even in his estimation; for it was nearly the counterpart of the one he had given Lady Maud, though still uncut. Therefore he returned to the table and slipped the gem into his pocket before going to the door to see whether Stemp was within hail. But Barak now understood what he was going to do, and ran before him, and stood before the door in an attitude which expressed entreaty so clearly that Mr. Van Torp was puzzled. 'Well,' he said, standing still and looking into the beautiful imploring eyes, 'what on earth do you want now, Miss Barrack? Try and explain yourself.' A very singular conversation by signs now began. Barak pointed to the waistcoat-pocket into which he had put the stone. The matter concerned that, of course, and Van Torp nodded. Next, though after considerable difficulty, she made him understand that she was asking how he had got it, and when this was clear, he answered by pretending to count out coins with his right hand on the palm of his left to explain that he had bought it. There was no mistaking this, and Barak nodded quickly and went on to her next question. She wanted to know what kind of man had sold him the ruby. She improvised a pretty little dumb show in which she represented the seller and Mr. Van Torp the buyer of the ruby, and then by gestures she asked if the man who sold it was tall. Van Torp raised his hand several inches higher than his own head. He had bought the ruby from a very tall man. Putting both hands to her chin and then drawing them down as if stroking a long beard, she inquired if the man had one, and again the answer was affirmative. She nodded excitedly and pointed first to Van Torp's sandy hair and then to her own short black locks. The American pointed to his own, and then touched his watch-chain and smiled. The man's hair was fair, and even golden. By a similar process she ascertained that his eyes were blue and not black, and her excitement grew. Last of all she tried to ask where the man was, but it was some time before she could make Mr. Van Torp understand what she meant. As if to help her out of her difficulty, the sun shone through the clouds at that moment and streamed into the room; she pointed to it at once, turned her back to it, and then held out her right hand to indicate the east, and her left to the west. 'Oh, yes,' said Van Torp, who had seen Indians do the same thing, 'it was west of here that I bought it of him, a good way west.' He pointed in that direction, and thrust out his arm as if he would make it reach much further if he could. At this Barak looked deeply disappointed. Several times, to show that she meant London, or at least England, she pointed to the floor at her feet and looked inquiringly at Van Torp, but he shook his head and pointed to the west again, and made a gesture that meant crossing something. He spoke to her as if she could understand. 'I've got your meaning,' he said. 'You're after the big man with the yellow beard, who is selling rubies from the same place, and has very likely gone off with yours. He looked like a bad egg in spite of his handsome face.' He turned his eyes thoughtfully to the window. Barak plucked gently at his sleeve and pretended to write in the palm of her left hand, and then went through all the descriptive gestures again, and then once more pretended to write, and coaxingly pushed him towards a little table on which she saw writing materials. 'You'd like to have his address, would you, Miss Barrack? I wonder why you don't call in your interpreter and tell me so. It would be much simpler than all this dumb crambo.' Once more he made a step towards the door, but she caught at his sleeve, and entreated him in her own language not to call any one; and her voice was so deliciously soft and beseeching that he yielded, and sat down at the small table and wrote out an address from memory. He handed her the half-sheet of paper when he had dried the writing and had looked over it carefully. 'Poor little thing!' he said in a tone of pity. 'If you ever find him he'll eat you.' [Illustration: "'You want my blessing, do you, Miss Barrack?'"] Barak again showed signs of great emotion when she put the address into an inside pocket of her man's coat, but it was not of the same kind as before. She took Van Torp's big hand in both her own, and, bending down, she laid it on her head, meaning that he might dispose of her life ever afterwards. But he did not understand. 'You want my blessing, do you, Miss Barrack? Some people don't think Brassy Van Torp's blessing worth much, young lady, but you're welcome to it, such as it is.' He patted her thick hair and smiled as she looked up, and her eyes were dewy with tears. 'That's all right, my dear,' he said. 'Don't cry!' She smiled too, because his tone was kind, and, standing up, she took out her little leathern bag again quickly, emptied the twists of paper into her hand, selected one by touch, and slipped the rest back. She unwrapped a large stone and held it up to the light, turning it a little as she did so. Van Torp watched her with curiosity, and with an amused suspicion that she had perhaps played the whole scene in order to mollify him and induce him to buy something. So many people had played much more elaborate tricks in the hope of getting money from him, and the stones might be imitations after all, in spite of Logotheti's pencilled line of recommendation. But Barak's next action took Van Torp by surprise. To his amazement, she pressed the ruby lightly to her heart, then to her lips, and last of all to her forehead, and before he knew what she was doing she had placed it in his right hand and closed his fingers upon it. It was a thank-offering. 'Nonsense!' objected the millionaire, smiling, but holding out the stone to her. 'It's very sweet of you, but you don't mean it, and I don't take presents like that. Why, it's worth a thousand pounds in Bond Street any day!' But she put her hands behind her back and shook her head, to show that she would not take it back. Then with her empty hand she again touched her heart, her lips, and forehead, and turned towards the door. 'Here, stop!' said Mr. Van Torp, going after her. 'I can't take this thing! See here, I say! Put it back into your pocket!' She turned and met him, and made a gesture of protest and entreaty, as if earnestly begging him to keep the gem. He looked at her keenly, and he was a judge of humanity, and saw that she was hurt by his refusal. As a last resource, he took out his pocket-book and showed her a quantity of folded bank-notes. 'Well,' he said, 'since you insist, Miss Barrack, I'll buy the stone of you, but I'll be everlastingly jiggered if I'll take it for nothing.' Barak's eyes suddenly flashed in a most surprising way, her lower lip pouted, and her cheek faintly changed colour, as a drop of scarlet pomegranate juice will tinge a bowl of cream. She made one step forwards, plucked the stone from his fingers, rather than took it, and with a quick, but girlishly awkward movement, threw it towards the window as hard as she could, stamping angrily with her little foot at the same moment. Mr. Van Torp was extremely disconcerted, as he sometimes was by the sudden actions of the sex he did not understand. Fortunately the stone hit the wall instead of going out of the window. 'I'm really very sorry, Miss Barrack,' he said in a tone of humble apology, and he went quickly and picked up the gem. 'I hadn't quite understood, you see.' She watched him, and drew back instinctively towards the door, as if expecting that he would again try to give it back to her. But he shook his head now, bowed with all the grace he could affect, which was little, and by way of making her feel that he accepted the gift, he pressed it to his heart, as she had done, and to his lips, but not to his forehead, because he was afraid that might cause some new mistake, as he did not know what the gesture meant. Barak's face changed instantly; she smiled, nodded, and waved her hand to him, to say that it was all right, and that she was quite satisfied. Then she made a sort of salute that he thought very graceful indeed, as if she were taking something from near the floor and laying it on her forehead, and she laughed softly and was out of the room and had shut the door before he could call her back again. He stood still in the middle of the room, looking at the gem in his hand with an expression of grave doubt. 'Well,' he said to himself, and his lips formed the words, though no sound articulated them, 'that's a queer sort of a morning's work, anyway.' He reflected that the very last thing he had ever expected was a present of a fine ruby from a pretty heathen girl in man's clothes, recommended to him by Logotheti. Though he almost laughed at the thought when it occurred to him, he did not like the idea of keeping the stone; yet he did not know what to do with it, for it was more than probable that he was never to see Barak again, and if he ever did, it was at least likely that she would refuse to take back her gift, and as energetically as on the first occasion. At that moment it occurred to him that he might sell it to a dealer and give the proceeds to Lady Maud for her good work. His recollections of Sunday School were very misty, poor man, but a story came back to him about some one who had observed that something valuable might have been sold and the money given to the poor. If he had remembered the rest, and especially that the person who made the suggestion had been Judas Iscariot, he would certainly have hesitated, for he would have been sure that there was something wrong with any advice that came from that quarter. But, happily for the poor, the name of Judas had dropped out of his memory in connexion with the incident. 'At least it will do some good to somebody, and I shall not be keeping what I've no right to.' A mere acquaintance, judging him by his hard face and his extraordinary financial past, would not have believed that such a simple and highly moral reflexion could occur to him. But Lady Maud, who knew him, would have given him credit for this and much more, even though she felt that he had lately tempted her to do something which her father would call dishonourable, and that the temptation had not yet quite taken itself off to the bottomless pit, where temptations are kept in pickle by the devil's housekeeper. Mr. Van Torp took his hat and gloves, but as he was really a good American, he had no stick to take; and he went out without even telling Stemp that he was going. In spite of what Londoners were calling the heat, he walked, and did not even feel warm; for in the first place he had lately come from Washington and New York, where a Hottentot would be very uncomfortable in July, and, moreover, he had never been at all sensitive to heat or cold, and lived as soberly as an Arab in the desert. Therefore London seemed as pleasantly cool to him with the thermometer at eighty as it seems to a newly landed Anglo-Indian who has lately seen the mercury at a hundred and thirty-five on the shady side of the verandah. He walked up at a leisurely pace from his hotel by the river to Piccadilly and Bond Street, and he entered a jeweller's shop of modest appearance but ancient reputation, which had been in the same place for nearly a century, and had previously been on the other side of the street. Outside, two well-dressed men were looking at the things in the window; within, a broad-shouldered, smart-looking man with black hair and dressed in perfectly new blue serge was sitting by the counter with his back to the door, talking with the old jeweller himself. He turned on the chair when he heard the newcomer's step, and Mr. Van Torp found himself face to face with Konstantin Logotheti, whom he had supposed to be in Paris. 'Well,' he said, without betraying the surprise he felt, 'this is what I call a very pleasant accident, Mr. Logotheti.' The Greek rose and shook hands, and the American did not fail to observe on the counter a small piece of tissue paper on which lay an uncut stone, much larger than the one he had in his pocket. 'If you are in any hurry,' said Logotheti politely, 'I don't mind waiting in the least. Mr. Pinney and I are in the midst of a discussion that may never end, and I believe neither of us has anything in the world to do.' Mr. Pinney smiled benignly and put in a word in the mercantile plural, which differs from that of royalty in being used every day. 'The truth is, we are not very busy just at this time of the year,' he said. 'That's very kind of you, Mr. Logotheti,' said Van Torp, answering the latter, 'but I'm not really in a hurry, thank you.' The stress he laid on the word 'really' might have led one to the conclusion that he was pretending to be, but was not. He sat down deliberately at a little distance, took off his hat, and looked at the gem on the counter. 'I don't know anything about such things, of course,' he said in a tone of reflexion, 'but I should think that was quite a nice ruby.' Again Mr. Pinney smiled benignly, for Mr. Van Torp had dealt with him for years. 'It's a very fine stone indeed, sir,' he said, and then turned to Logotheti again. 'I think we can undertake to cut it for you in London,' he said. 'I will weigh it and give you a careful estimate.' As a matter of fact, before Van Torp entered, Logotheti had got so far as the question of setting the gem for a lady's ring, but Mr. Pinney, like all the great jewellers, was as discreet and tactful as a professional diplomatist. How could he be sure that one customer might like another to know about a ring ordered for a lady? If Logotheti preferred secrecy, he would only have to assent and go away, as if leaving the ruby to be cut, and he could look in again when it was convenient; and this was what he at once decided to do. 'I think you're right, Mr. Pinney,' he said. 'I shall leave it in your hands. That's really all,' he added, turning to Mr. Van Torp. 'Really? My business won't take long either, and we'll go together, if you like, and have a little chat. I only came to get another of those extra large collar-studs you make for me, Mr. Pinney. Have you got another?' 'We always keep them in stock for your convenience, sir,' answered the famous jeweller, opening a special little drawer behind the counter and producing a very small morocco case. Mr. Van Torp did not even open it, and had already laid down the money, for he knew precisely what it cost. 'Thanks,' he said. 'You're always so obliging about little things, Mr. Pinney.' 'Thank you, sir. We do our best. Good-morning, sir, good morning.' The two millionaires went out together. Two well-dressed men stood aside to let them pass and then entered the shop. 'Which way?' asked Logotheti. 'Your way,' answered the American. 'I've nothing to do.' 'Nor have I,' laughed the Greek. 'Nothing in the world! What can anybody find to do in London at this time of year?' I'm sure I don't know,' echoed Van Torp, pleasantly. 'I supposed you were on the Continent somewhere.' 'And I thought you were in America, and so, of course, we meet at old Pinney's in London!' 'Really! Did you think I was in America? Your friend, the heathen girl in boy's clothes, brought me your card this morning. I supposed you knew I was here.' 'No, but I thought you might be, within six months, and I gave her several cards for people I know. So she found you out! She's a born ferret--she would find anything. Did you buy anything of her?' 'No. I'm not buying rubies to-day. Much obliged for sending her, all the same. You take an interest in her, I suppose, Mr. Logotheti? Is that so?' 'I?' Logotheti laughed a little. 'No, indeed! Those days were over long ago. I'm engaged to be married.' 'By the bye, yes. I'd heard that, and I meant to congratulate you. I do now, anyway. When is it to be? Settled that yet?' 'Some time in October, I think. So you guessed that Barak is a girl.' 'Yes, that's right. I guessed she was. Do you know anything about her?' 'What she told me. But it may not be true.' 'Told you? Do you mean to say you understand her language?' 'Oh, yes. Tartar is spoken all over the East, you know. It's only a sort of simplified Turkish, and I picked it up in the Crimea and the Caucasus when I was travelling there some years ago. She comes from some place in Central Asia within a possible distance of Samarkand and the Transcaucasian railway, for that was the way she ultimately got to the Caspian and to Tiflis, and then to Constantinople and Paris. How a mere girl, brought up in a Tartar village, could have made such a journey safely, carrying a small fortune with her in precious stones, is something nobody can understand who has not lived in the East, where anything is possible. A woman is practically sacred in a Mohammedan country. Any man who molests her stands a good chance of being torn to ribands by the other men.' 'It used to be something like that in the West, when I punched cattle,' observed Mr. Van Torp, quietly. 'A man who interfered with a lady there was liable to get into trouble. Progress works both ways, up and down, doesn't it? Bears at one end and rots at the other. Isn't that so?' 'It's just as true of civilisation,' answered the Greek. 'They're the same thing, I should say,' objected Mr. Van Torp. 'Oh, not quite, I think!' Logotheti smiled at his own thoughts. To his thinking, civilisation meant an epigram of Meleager, or Simonides' epitaph on the Spartans who fell at Thermopylæ, or a Tragedy of Sophocles, or the Aphrodite of Syracuse, or the Victory of the Louvre. Progress meant railways, the Paris Bourse, the Nickel Trust, and Mr. Van Torp. 'Well,' said the latter, 'you were telling me about Miss Barrack.' 'Is that what you call her?' Logotheti laughed lightly. He seemed to be in very good humour. Men often are, just before marriage; and sometimes, it is said, when they are on the eve of great misfortunes which they cannot possibly foresee. Fate loves unexpected contrasts. Logotheti told his companion the story of the ruby mine, substantially as it was narrated at the beginning of this tale, not dreaming that Van Torp had perhaps met and talked with the man who had played so large a part in it, and to find whom Baraka had traversed many dangers and overcome many difficulties. 'It sounds like the _Arabian Nights_,' said Mr. Van Torp, as if he found it hard to believe. 'Exactly,' assented Logotheti. 'And, oddly enough, the first of these stories is about Samarkand, which is not so very far from Baraka's native village. It seems to have taken the girl about a year to find her way to Constantinople, and when she got there she naturally supposed that it was the capital of the world, and that her man, being very great and very rich, thanks to her, must of course live there. So she searched Stamboul and Pera for him, during seven or eight months. She lived in the house of a good old Persian merchant, under the protection of his wife, and learned that there was a world called Europe where her man might be living, and cities called Paris and London, where people pay fabulous prices for precious stones. Persian merchants are generally well-educated men, you know. At last she made up her mind to dress like a man, she picked up an honest Turkish man-servant who had been all over Europe with a diplomatist and could speak some French and English as well as Tartar, she got a letter of recommendation to me from a Greek banker, through the Persian who did business with him, joined some Greeks who were coming to Marseilles by sea, and here she is. Now you know as much as I do. She is perfectly fearless, and as much more sure of herself than any man ever was, as some young women can be in this queer world. Of course, she'll never find the brute who thought he was leaving her to be murdered by her relations, but if she ever did, she would either marry him or cut his throat.' 'Nice, amiable kind of girl,' remarked Mr. Van Torp, who remembered her behaviour when he had refused her proffered gift. 'That's very interesting, Mr. Logotheti. How long do you count on being in London this time? Three or four days, maybe?' 'I daresay. No longer, I fancy.' 'Why don't you come and take dinner with me some night?' asked the American. 'Day after to-morrow, perhaps. I'd be pleased to have you.' 'Thank you very much,' Logotheti answered. 'Since you ask me, I see no reason why I should not dine with you, if you want me.' They agreed upon the place and hour, and each suddenly remembered an engagement. 'By the way,' said Mr. Van Torp without apparent interest, 'I hope Madame Cordova is quite well? Where's she hiding from you?' 'Just now the hiding-place is Bayreuth. She's gone there with Mrs. Rushmore to hear _Parsifal_. I believe I'm not musical enough for that, so I'm roving till it's over. That's my personal history at this moment! And Miss Donne is quite well, I believe, thank you.' 'I notice you call her "Miss Donne" when you speak of her,' said Van Torp. 'Excuse me if I made a mistake just now. I've always called her Madame Cordova.' 'It doesn't matter at all,' answered Logotheti carelessly, 'but I believe she prefers to be called by her own name amongst friends. Good-bye till day after to-morrow, then.' 'At half after eight.' 'All right--half-past--I shall remember.' But at two o'clock, on the next day but one, Logotheti received a note, brought by hand, in which Mr. Van Torp said that to his very great regret he had been called away suddenly, and hoped that Logotheti would forgive him, as the matter was of such urgent importance that he would have already left London when the note was received. This was more than true, if possible, for the writer had left town two days earlier, very soon after he had parted from Logotheti in Pall Mall, although the note had not been delivered till forty-eight hours later. CHAPTER V Mr. Van Torp knew no more about Bayreuth than about Samarkand, beyond the fact that at certain stated times performances of Wagner's operas were given there with as much solemnity as great religious festivals, and that musical people spoke of the Bayreuth season in a curiously reverent manner. He would have been much surprised if any one had told him that he often whistled fragments of _Parsifal_ to himself and liked the sound of them; for he had a natural ear and a good memory, and had whistled remarkably well when he was a boy. The truth about this seemingly impossible circumstance was really very simple. In what he called his cow-punching days, he had been for six months in company with two young men who used to whistle softly together by the hour beside the camp fire, and none of the other 'boys' had ever heard the strange tunes they seemed to like best, but Van Torp had caught and remembered many fragments, almost unconsciously, and he whistled them to himself because they gave him a sensation which no 'real music' ever did. Extraordinary natures, like his, are often endowed with unnoticed gifts and tastes quite unlike those of most people. No one knew anything about the young men who whistled Wagner; the 'Lost Legion' hides many secrets, and the two were not popular with the rest, though they knew their business and did their work fairly well. One of them was afterwards said to have been killed in a shooting affray and the other had disappeared about the same time, no one knew how, or cared, though Mr. Van Torp thought he had recognised him once many years later. They were neither Americans nor Englishmen, though they both spoke English well, and never were heard to use any other language. But that is common enough with emigrants to the United States and elsewhere. Every one who has been to sea in an American vessel knows how the Scandinavian sailors insist on speaking English amongst themselves, instead of their own language. Mr. Van Torp was fond of music, quite apart from his admiration for the greatest living lyric soprano, and since it was his fancy to go to Bayreuth in the hope of seeing her, he meant to hear Wagner's masterpiece, and supposed that there would not be any difficulty about such a simple matter, nor about obtaining the sort of rooms he was accustomed to, in the sort of hotel he expected to find where so many rich people went every other year. Any one who has been to the holy place of the Wagnerians can imagine his surprise when, after infinite difficulty, he found himself, his belongings and his man deposited in one small attic room of a Bavarian tanner's house, with one feather-bed, one basin and one towel for furniture. 'Stemp,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'this is a heathen town.' 'Yes, sir.' 'I suppose I'm thought close about money,' continued the millionaire, thinking aloud, 'but I call five dollars a day dear, for this room, don't you?' 'Yes, sir, I do indeed! I call it downright robbery. That's what I call it, sir.' 'Well, I suppose they call it business here, and quite a good business too. But I'd like to buy the whole thing and show 'em how to run it. They'd make more in the end.' 'Yes, sir. I hope you will, sir. Beg pardon, sir, but do you think it would cost a great deal?' 'They'd ask a great deal, anyway,' answered the millionaire thoughtfully. 'Stemp, suppose you get me out some things and then take a look around, while I try to get a wash in that--that tea-service there.' Mr. Van Torp eyed the exiguous basin and jug with some curiosity and much contempt. Stemp, impassive and correct under all circumstances, unstrapped a valise, laid out on the bed what his master might need, and inquired if he wished anything else. 'There isn't anything else,' answered Mr. Van Torp, gloomily. 'When shall I come back, sir?' 'In twenty-five minutes. There isn't half an hour's wash in that soup-plate, anyway.' He eyed the wretched basin with a glance that might almost have cracked it. When his man had gone, he proceeded to his toilet, such as it was, and solaced himself by softly whistling as much of the 'Good Friday' music as he remembered, little dreaming what it was, or that his performance was followed with nervous and almost feverish interest by the occupant of the next room in the attic, a poor musician who had saved and scraped for years to sit at the musical feast during three days. 'E sharp!' cried an agonised voice on the other side of the closed door, in a strong German accent. 'I know it is E sharp! I know it!' Mr. Van Torp stopped whistling at once, lowered his razor, and turned a mask of soapsuds in the direction whence the sound came. 'Do you mean me?' he inquired in a displeased tone. 'I mean who whistles the "Good Friday" music,' answered the voice. 'I tell you, I know it is E sharp in that place. I have the score. I shall show you if you believe not.' 'He's mad,' observed Mr. Van Torp, beginning to shave again. 'Are you a lunatic?' he asked, pausing after a moment. 'What's the matter with you anyhow?' 'I am a musician, I tell you! I am a pianist!' 'It's the same thing,' said Mr. Van Torp, working carefully on his upper lip, under his right nostril. 'I shall tell you that you are a barbarian!' retorted the voice. 'Well, that doesn't hurt,' answered Mr. Van Torp. He heard a sort of snort of scorn on the other side and there was silence again. But before long, as he got away from his upper lip with the razor, he unconsciously began to whistle again, and he must have made the same mistake as before, for he was interrupted by a deep groan of pain from the next room. 'Not feeling very well?' he inquired in a tone of dry jocularity. 'Stomach upset?' 'E sharp!' screamed the wretched pianist. Van Torp could hear him dancing with rage, or pain. 'See here, whoever you are, don't call names! I don't like it. See? I've paid for this room and I'm going on whistling if I like, and just as long as I like.' 'You say you make noises you like?' cried the infuriated musician. 'Oh, no! You shall not! There are rules! We are not in London, sir, we are in Bayreuth! If you make noises, you shall be thrown out of the house.' 'Shall I? Well, now, that's a funny sort of a rule for a hotel, isn't it?' 'I go complain of you,' retorted the other, and Mr. Van Torp heard a door opened and shut again. In a few minutes he had done all that the conditions would permit in the way of making himself presentable, and just as he left the room he was met by Stemp, the twenty-five minutes being just over. 'Very good, sir. I'll do what I can, sir,' said the excellent man, as Mr. Van Torp pointed to the things that lay about. As he went out, he recognised the voice of his neighbour, who was talking excitedly in voluble German, somewhere at the back of the house. 'He's complaining now,' thought Mr. Van Torp, with something like a smile. He had already been to the best hotel, in the hope of obtaining rooms, and he had no difficulty in finding it again. He asked for Madame da Cordova. She was at home, for it was an off-day; he sent in his card, and was presently led to her sitting-room. Times had changed. Six months earlier he would have been told that there had been a mistake and that she had gone out. She was alone; a letter she had been writing lay unfinished on the queer little desk near the shaded window, and her pen had fallen across the paper. On the round table in the middle of the small bare room there stood a plain white vase full of corn-flowers and poppies, and Margaret was standing there, rearranging them, or pretending to do so. She was looking her very best, and as she raised her eyes and greeted him with a friendly smile, Mr. Van Torp thought she had never been so handsome before. It had not yet occurred to him to compare her with Lady Maud, because for some mysterious natural cause the beautiful Englishwoman who was his best friend had never exerted even the slightest feminine influence on his being; he would have carried her in his arms, if need had been, as he had carried the Tartar girl, and not a thrill of his nerves nor one faster beat of his heart would have disturbed his placidity; she knew it, as women know such things, and the knowledge made her quite sure that he was not really the coarse-grained and rather animal son of nature that many people said he was, the sort of man to whom any one good-looking woman is much the same as another, a little more amusing than good food, a little less satisfactory than good wine. But the handsome singer stirred his blood, the touch of her hand electrified him, and the mere thought that any other man should ever make her his own was unbearable. After he had first met her he had pursued her with such pertinacity and such utter ignorance of women's ways that he had frightened her, and she had frankly detested him for a time; but he had learned a lesson and he profited by it with that astounding adaptability which makes American men and women just what they are. Margaret held out her hand and he took it; and though its touch and her friendly smile were like a taste of heaven just then, he pressed her fingers neither too much nor too little, and his face betrayed no emotion. 'It's very kind of you to receive me, Miss Donne,' he said quietly. 'I think it's very kind of you to come and see me,' Margaret answered. 'Come and sit down and tell me how you got here--and why!' 'Well,' he answered slowly, as they seated themselves side by side on the hard green sofa, 'I don't suppose I can explain, so that you'll understand, but I'll try. Different kinds of things brought me. I heard you were here from Lady Maud, and I thought perhaps I might have an opportunity for a little talk. And then--oh, I don't know. I've seen everything worth seeing except a battle and _Parsifal_, and as it seemed so easy, and you were here, I thought I'd have a look at the opera, since I can't see the fight.' Margaret laughed a little. 'I hope you will like it,' she said. 'Have you a good seat?' 'I haven't got a ticket yet,' answered Mr. Van Torp, in blissful ignorance. 'No seat!' The Primadonna's surprise was almost dramatic. 'But how in the world do you expect to get one now? Don't you know that the seats for _Parsifal_ are all taken months beforehand?' 'Are they really?' He was very calm about it. 'Then I suppose I shall have to get a ticket from a speculator. I don't see anything hard about that.' 'My dear friend, there are no speculators here, and there are no tickets to be had. You might as well ask for the moon!' 'I can stand, then. I'm not afraid of getting tired.' 'There are no standing places at all! No one is allowed to go in who has not a seat. A week ago you might possibly have picked up one in Munich, given up by some one at the last moment, but such chances are jumped at! I wonder that you even got a place to sleep!' 'Well, it's not much of a place,' said Mr. Van Torp, thoughtfully. 'There's one room the size of a horsebox, one bed, one basin, one pitcher and one towel, and I've brought my valet with me. I've concluded to let him sleep while I'm at the opera, and he'll sit up when I want to go to bed. Box and Cox. I don't know what he'll sit on, for there's no chair, but he's got to sit.' Margaret laughed, for he amused her. 'I suppose you're exaggerating a little bit,' she said. 'It's not really quite so bad as that, is it?' 'It's worse. There's a lunatic in the next room who calls me E. Sharp through the door, and has lodged a complaint already because I whistled while I was shaving. It's not a very good hotel. Who is E. Sharp, anyway? Maybe that was the name of the last man who occupied that room. I don't know, but I don't like the idea of having a mad German pianist for a neighbour. He may get in while I'm asleep and think I'm the piano, and hammer the life out of me, the way they do. I've seen a perfectly new piano wrecked in a single concert by a fellow who didn't look as if he had the strength to kick a mosquito. They're so deceptive, pianists! Nervous men are often like that, and most pianists are nothing but nerves and hair.' He amused her, for she had never seen him in his present mood. 'E sharp is a note,' she said. 'On the piano it's the same as F natural. You must have been whistling something your neighbour knew, and you made a mistake, and nervous musicians really suffer if one does that. But it must have been something rather complicated, to have an E sharp in it! It wasn't "Suwanee River," nor the "Washington Post" either! Indeed I should rather like to know what it was.' 'Old tunes I picked up when I was cow-punching, years ago,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'I don't know where they came from, for I never asked, but they're not like other tunes, that's certain, and I like them. They remind me of the old days out West, when I had no money and nothing to worry about.' 'I'm very fond of whistling, too,' Margaret said. 'I study all my parts by whistling them, so as to save my voice.' 'Really! I had no idea that was possible.' 'Quite. Perhaps you whistle very well. Won't you let me hear the tune that irritated your neighbour the pianist? Perhaps I know it, too.' 'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'I suppose I could. I should be a little shy before you,' he added, quite naturally. 'If you'll excuse me, I'll just go and stand before the window so that I can't see you. Perhaps I can manage it that way.' Margaret, who was bored to the verge of collapse on the off-days, thought him much nicer than he had formerly been, and she liked his perfect simplicity. 'Stand anywhere you like,' she said, 'but let me hear the tune.' Van Torp rose and went to the window and she looked quietly at his square figure and his massive, sandy head and his strong neck. Presently he began to whistle, very softly and perfectly in tune. Many a street-boy could do as well, no doubt, and Mrs. Rushmore would have called it a vulgar accomplishment, but the magnificent Primadonna was too true a musician, as well as a singer, not to take pleasure in a sweet sound, even if it were produced by a street-boy. But as Mr. Van Torp went on, she opened her eyes very wide and held her breath. There was no mistake about it; he was whistling long pieces from _Parsifal_, as far as it was possible to convey an idea of such music by such means. Margaret had studied it before coming to Bayreuth, in order to understand it better; she had now already heard it once, and had felt the greatest musical emotion of her life--one that had stirred other emotions, too, strange ones quite new to her. She held her breath and listened, and her eyes that had been wide open in astonishment, slowly closed again in pleasure, and presently, when he reached the 'Good Friday' music, her own matchless voice floated out with her unconscious breath, in such perfect octaves with his high whistling that at first he did not understand; but when he did, the rough hard man shivered suddenly and steadied himself against the window-sill, and Margaret's voice went on alone, with faintly breathed words and then without them, following the instrumentation to the end of the scene, beyond what he had ever heard. Then there was silence in the room, and neither of the two moved for some moments, but at last Van Torp turned, and came back. 'Thank you,' he said, in a low voice. Margaret smiled and passed her hand over her eyes quickly, as if to dispel a vision she had seen. Then she spoke. 'Do you really not know what that music is?' she asked. 'Really, really?' 'Oh, quite honestly I don't!' 'You're not joking? You're not laughing at me?' 'I?' He could not understand. 'I shouldn't dare!' he said. 'You've been whistling some of _Parsifal_, some of the most beautiful music that ever was written--and you whistle marvellously, for it's anything but easy! Where in the world did you learn it? Don't tell me that those are "old tunes" you picked up on a Californian ranch!' 'It's true, all the same,' Van Torp answered. He told her of the two foreigners who used to whistle together in the evenings, and how one was supposed to have been shot and the other had disappeared, no one had known whither, nor had cared. 'All sorts of young fellows used to drift out there,' he said, 'and one couldn't tell where they came from, though I can give a guess at where some of them must have been, since I've seen the world. There were younger sons of English gentlemen, fellows whose fathers were genuine lords, maybe, who had not brains enough to get into the army or the Church. There were cashiered Prussian officers, and Frenchmen who had most likely killed women out of jealousy, and Sicilian bandits, and broken Society men from New York. There were all sorts. And there was me. And we all spoke different kinds of English and had different kinds of tastes, good and bad--mostly bad. There was only one thing we could all do alike, and that was to ride.' 'I never thought of you as riding,' Margaret said. 'Well, why should you? But I can, because I was just a common cow-boy and had to, for a living.' 'It's intensely interesting--what a strange life you have had! Tell me more about yourself, won't you?' 'There's not much to tell, it seems to me,' said Van Torp. 'From being a cow-boy I turned into a miner, and struck a little silver, and I sold that and got into nickel, and I made the Nickel Trust what it is, more by financing it than anything else, and I got almost all of it. And now I've sold the whole thing.' 'Sold the Nickel Trust?' Margaret was quite as much surprised as Lady Maud had been. 'Yes. I wasn't made to do one thing long, I suppose. If I were, I should still be a cow-boy. Just now, I'm here to go to _Parsifal_, and since you say those tunes are out of that opera, I daresay I'm going to like it very much.' 'It's all very uncanny,' Margaret said thoughtfully. 'I wonder who those two men were, and what became of the one who disappeared.' 'I've a strong impression that I saw him in New York the other day,' Van Torp answered. 'If I'm right, he's made money--doing quite well, I should think. It wouldn't surprise me to hear he'd got together a million or so.' 'Really? What is he doing? Your stories grow more and more interesting!' 'If he's the fellow we used to call Levi Longlegs on the ranch, he's a Russian now. I'm not perfectly sure, for he had no hair on his face then, and now he has a beard like a French sapper. But the eyes and the nose and the voice and the accent are the same, and the age would about correspond. Handsome man, I suppose you'd call him. His name is Kralinsky just at present, and he's found a whole mine of rubies somewhere.' 'Really? I love rubies. They are my favourite stones.' 'Are they? That's funny. I've got an uncut one in my pocket now, if you'd like to see it. I believe it comes from Kralinsky's mine, too, though I got it through a friend of yours, two or three days ago.' 'A friend of mine?' He was poking his large fingers into one of the pockets of his waistcoat in search of the stone. 'Mr. Logotheti,' he said, just as he found it. 'He's discovered a handsome young woman from Tartary or somewhere, who has a few rubies to sell that look very much like Kralinsky's. This is one of them.' He had unwrapped the stone now and he offered it to her, holding it out in the palm of his hand. She took it delicately and laid it in her own, which was so white that the gem shed a delicate pomegranate-coloured light on the skin all round it. She admired it, turned it over with one finger, held it up towards the window, and laid it in her palm again. But Van Torp had set her thinking about Logotheti and the Tartar girl. She put out her hand to give back the ruby. 'I should like you to keep it, if you will,' he said. 'I shan't forget the pleasure I've had in seeing you like this, but you'll forget all about our meeting here--the stone may just make you remember it sometimes.' He spoke so quietly, so gently, that she was taken off her guard, and was touched, and very much surprised to feel that she was. She looked into his eyes rather cautiously, remembering well how she had formerly seen something terrifying in them if she looked an instant too long; but now they made her think of the eyes of a large affectionate bulldog. 'You're very kind to want to give it to me,' she answered after a moment's hesitation, 'but I don't like to accept anything so valuable, now that I'm engaged to be married. Konstantin might not like it. But you're so kind; give me any little thing of no value that you have in your pocket, for I mean to remember this day, indeed I do!' 'I gave nothing for the ruby,' said Van Torp, still not taking it from her, 'so it has no value for me. I wouldn't offer you anything that cost me money, now, unless it was a theatre for your own. Perhaps the thing's glass, after all; I've not shown it to any jeweller. The girl made me take it, because I helped her in a sort of way. When I wanted to pay for it she tried to throw it out of the window. So I had to accept it to calm her down, and she went off and left no address, and I thought I'd like you to have it, if you would.' 'Are you quite, quite sure you did not pay for it?' Margaret asked. 'If we are going to be friends, you must please always be very accurate.' 'I've told you exactly what happened,' said Van Torp. 'Won't you take it now?' 'Yes, I will, and thank you very much indeed. I love rubies, and this is a beauty, and not preposterously big. I think I shall have it set as it is, uncut, and only polished, so that it will always be itself, just as you gave it to me. I shall think of the "Good Friday" music and the Chimes, and this hideous little room, and your clever whistling, whenever I look at it.' 'You're kind to-day,' said Mr. Van Torp, after a moment's debate as to whether he should say anything at all. 'Am I? You mean that I used to be very disagreeable, don't you?' She smiled as she glanced at him. 'I must have been, I'm sure, for you used to frighten me ever so much. But I'm not in the least afraid of you now!' 'Why should any one be afraid of me?' asked Van Torp, whose mere smile had been known to terrify Wall Street when a 'drop' was expected. Margaret laughed a little, without looking at him. 'Tell me all about the Tartar girl,' she said, instead of answering his question. She would not have been the thoroughly feminine woman she was--far more feminine, in the simple human sense, than Lady Maud--if she had not felt satisfaction in having tamed the formidable money-wolf so that he fawned at her feet; but perhaps she was even more pleased, or amused, than she thought she could be by any such success. The man was so very much stronger and rougher than any other man with whom she had ever been acquainted, and she had once believed him to be such a thorough brute, that this final conquest flattered her vanity. The more dangerous the character of the wild beast, the greater the merit of the lion-tamer who subdues him. 'Tell me about this handsome Tartar girl,' she said again. Van Torp told her Baraka's history, as far as he knew it from Logotheti. 'I never heard such an amusing set of stories as you are telling me to-day,' she said. 'That particular one is Logotheti's,' he answered, 'and he can probably tell you much more about the girl.' 'Is she really very pretty?' Margaret asked. 'Well,' said Van Torp, quoting a saying of his favourite great man, 'for people who like that kind of thing, I should think that would be the kind of thing they'd like.' The Primadonna smiled. 'Can you describe her?' she asked. 'Did you ever read a fairy story about a mouse that could turn into a tiger when it liked?' inquired the American in a tone of profound meditation, as if he were contemplating a vision which Margaret could not see. 'No,' said she, 'I never did.' 'I don't think I ever did, either. But there might be a fairy story about that, mightn't there?' Margaret nodded, with an expression of displeased interest, and he went on: 'Well, it describes Miss Barrack to a T. Yes, that's what I call her. She's put "Barak" on her business card, whatever that means in a Christian language; but when I found out it was a girl, I christened her Miss Barrack. People have to have names of some kind if you're going to talk about them. But that's a digression. Pardon me. You'd like a description of the young person. I'm just thinking.' 'How did you find out she was a girl?' Margaret asked, and her tone was suddenly hard. Mr. Van Torp was not prepared for the question, and felt very uncomfortable for a moment. In his conversation with women he was almost morbidly prudish about everything which had the remotest connexion with sex. He wondered how he could convey to Margaret the information that when he had been obliged to carry the pretended boy across the room, he had been instantly and palpably convinced that he was carrying a girl. 'It was a question of form, you see,' he said awkwardly. 'Form? Formality? I don't understand.' Margaret was really puzzled. 'No, no!' Mr. Van Torp was actually blushing. 'I mean his form--or her form----' 'Oh, her figure? You merely guessed it was a girl in boy's clothes?' 'Certainly. Yes. Only, you see, he had a kind of fit--the boy did--and I thought he was going to faint, so I picked him up and carried him to a sofa, and--well, you understand, Miss Donne. I knew I hadn't got a boy in my arms, that's all.' 'I should think so!' assented the Englishwoman--'I'm sure I should! When you found out she was a girl, how did she strike you?' 'Very attractive, I should say; very attractive,' he repeated with more emphasis. 'People who admire brunettes might think her quite fascinating. She has really extraordinary eyes, to begin with, those long fruity Eastern eyes, you know, that can look so far to the right and left through their eyelashes. Do you know what I mean?' 'Perfectly. You make it very clear. Go on, please.' 'Her eyes--yes.' Mr. Van Torp appeared to be thinking again. 'Well, there was her complexion, too. It's first-rate for a dark girl. Ever been in a first-class dairy? Do you know the colour of Alderney cream when it's ready to be skimmed? Her complexion's just like that, and when she's angry, it's as if you squeezed the juice of about one red currant into the whole pan of cream. Not more than one, I should think. See what I mean?' 'Yes. She must be awfully pretty. Tell me more. Has she nice hair? Even teeth?' 'I should think she had!' answered Mr. Van Torp, with even more enthusiasm than he had shown yet. 'They're as small and even and white as if somebody had gone to work and carved them all around half a new billiard ball, not separate, you understand, but all in one piece. Very pretty mouth they make, with those rather broiled-salmon-coloured lips she has, and a little chin that points up, as if she could hold her own. She can, too. Her hair? Well, you see, she's cut it short, to be a boy, but it's as thick as a beaver's fur, I should say, and pretty black. It's a silky kind of hair, that looks alive. You know what I mean, I daresay. Some brunettes' hair looks coarse and dusky, like horsehair, but hers isn't that kind, and it makes a sort of reflection in the sun, the way a young raven's wing-feathers do, if you understand.' 'You're describing a raving beauty, it seems to me.' 'Oh, no,' said the American innocently. 'Now if our friend Griggs, the novelist, were here, he'd find all the right words and things, but I can only tell you just what I saw.' 'You tell it uncommonly well!' Margaret's face expressed anything but pleasure. 'Is she tall?' 'It's hard to tell, in men's clothes. Three inches shorter than I am, maybe. I'm a middle-sized man, I suppose. I used to be five feet ten in my shoes. She may be five feet seven, not more.' 'But that's tall for a woman!' 'Is it?' Mr. Van Torp's tone expressed an innocent indifference. 'Yes. Has she nice hands?' 'I didn't notice her hands. Oh, yes, I remember!' he exclaimed, suddenly correcting himself. 'I did notice them. She held up that ruby to the light and I happened to look at her fingers. Small, well-shaped fingers, tapering nicely, but with a sort of firm look about them that you don't often see in a woman's hands. You've got it, too.' 'Have I?' Margaret looked down at her right hand. 'But, of course, hers are smaller than mine,' she said. 'Well, you see, Orientals almost all have very small hands and feet--too small, I call them--little tiny feet like mice.' Margaret's own were well-shaped, but by no means small. 'The girl is in London, you say?' Her tone made a question of the statement. 'She was there two days ago, when I left. At least, she had been to see me that very morning. Almost as soon as she was gone I went out, and in the first shop I looked into I met Logotheti. It was Pinney's, the jeweller's, I remember, for I bought a collar stud. We came away together and walked some time, and he told me the Tartar girl's story. I asked him to dine to-day, but I was obliged to leave town suddenly, and so I had to put him off with a note. I daresay he's still in London.' 'I daresay he is,' Margaret repeated, and rising suddenly she went to the window. Mr. Van Torp rose too, and thought of what he should say in taking his leave of her, for he felt that he had stayed long enough. Strange to say, too, he was examining his not very sensitive conscience to ascertain whether he had said anything not strictly true, but he easily satisfied himself that he had not. If all was fair in love and war, as the proverb said, it was certainly permissible to make use of the plain truth. The Primadonna was still looking out of the window when the door opened and her English maid appeared on the threshold. Margaret turned at the sound. 'What is it?' she asked quietly. 'There's Mr. Van Torp's man, ma'am,' answered Potts. 'He wants to speak to his master at once.' 'You had better tell him to come up,' Margaret answered. 'You may just as well see him here without going all the way downstairs,' she said, speaking to Van Torp. 'You're very kind, I'm sure,' he replied; 'but I think I'd better be going anyway.' 'No, don't go yet, please! There's something else I want to say. See your man here while I go and speak to Mrs. Rushmore. Send Mr. Van Torp's man up, Potts,' she added, and left the room. The American walked up and down alone for a few moments. Then the impassive Stemp was ushered in by the maid, and the door was shut again. 'Well?' inquired Mr. Van Torp. 'Has anything happened?' 'Yes, sir,' Stemp answered. 'They have turned us out of the house, sir, and your luggage is in the street. Where shall I have it taken, sir?' 'Oh, they've turned us out, have they? Why?' 'Well, sir, I'm afraid it's partly my fault, but there must be some misunderstanding, for I'm quite sure I didn't whistle in your room, sir.' 'So am I, Stemp. Quite sure. Go on. What happened?' 'Well, sir, you hadn't been gone more than ten minutes when somebody knocked, and there was the landlord, if that's what he calls himself, and a strange German gentleman with him, who spoke English. Rather shabby-looking, sir, I thought him. He spoke most uncivilly, and said I was driving him half crazy with my whistling. I said I hadn't whistled, and he said I had, and the landlord talked German at me, as it were, sir. I said again I hadn't whistled, and he said I had, the shabby gentleman, I mean, speaking most uncivilly, sir, I assure you. So when I saw that they doubted my word, I put them out and fastened the door, thinking this was what you would have ordered, sir, if you'd been there yourself, but I'm afraid I did wrong.' 'No, Stemp. You didn't do wrong.' 'Thank you, sir.' 'I suppose, though, that when you put them out they didn't exactly want to go, did they?' 'No, sir, but I had no trouble with them.' 'Any heads broken?' 'No, sir, I was careful of that. I sent the landlord downstairs first, as he was a fat man and not likely to hurt himself, and the shabby gentleman went down on top of him quite comfortably, so he did not hurt himself either. I was very careful, sir, being in a foreign country.' 'What happened next? They didn't come upstairs again and throw you out, I suppose.' 'No, sir. They went and got two of these German policemen with swords, and broke into the room, and told me we must move at once. I didn't like to resist the police, sir. It's sometimes serious. The German gentleman wanted them to arrest me, so I offered to pay any fine there was for having been hasty, and we settled for two sovereigns, which I thought dear, sir, and I'd have gone to the police station rather than pay it, only I knew you'd need my services in this heathen town, sir. I'm highly relieved to know that you approve of that, sir. But they said we must turn out directly, just the same, so I re-packed your things and got a porter, and he's standing over the luggage in the street, waiting for orders.' 'Stemp,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'I'd been whistling myself, before you came in, and the lunatic in the next room had already been fussing about it. It's my fault.' 'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.' 'And it will be my fault if we have to sleep in a cab to-night.' The door opened while he was speaking, and Margaret heard the last words as she entered the room. 'I'm sorry,' she said, 'I thought you had finished. I could not help hearing what you said about sleeping in a cab. That's nonsense, you know.' 'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'they've just turned us out of the one room we had because I whistled _Parsifal_ out of tune.' 'You didn't whistle it out of tune,' Margaret answered, to Stemp's great but well-concealed astonishment. 'I know better. Please have your things brought here at once.' 'Here?' repeated Mr. Van Torp, surprised in his turn. 'Yes,' she answered, in a tone that forestalled contradiction. 'If nothing else can be had you shall have this room. I can do without it.' 'You're kindness itself, but I couldn't do that,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'Bring our things to this hotel, anyway, Stemp, and we'll see what happens.' 'Yes, sir.' Stemp disappeared at once, and his master turned to Margaret again. 'Nothing will induce me to put you to such inconvenience,' he said, and his tone was quite as decided as hers had been. She smiled. 'Nothing will induce me to let a friend of mine be driven from pillar to post for a lodging while I have plenty of room to spare!' 'You're very, very kind, but----' 'But the mouse may turn into a tiger if you contradict it,' she said with a light laugh that thrilled him with delight. 'I remember your description of the Tartar girl!' 'Well, then, I suppose the hyæna will have to turn into a small woolly lamb if you tell him to,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'Yes,' laughed Margaret. 'Be a small, woolly lamb at once, please, a very small one!' 'Knee-high to a kitten; certainly,' replied the millionaire submissively. 'Very well. I'll take you with me to hear _Parsifal_ to-morrow, if you obey. I've just asked Mrs. Rushmore if it makes any difference to her, and she has confessed that she would rather not go again, for it tires her dreadfully and gives her a headache. You shall have her seat. What is it? Don't you want to go with me?' [Illustration: "Margaret gazed at him in surprise while she might have counted ten."] Mr. Van Torp's face had hardened till it looked like a mask, he stared firmly at the wall, and his lips were set tightly together. Margaret gazed at him in surprise while she might have counted ten. Then he spoke slowly, with evident effort, and in an odd voice. 'Excuse me, Miss Donne,' he said, snapping his words out. 'I'm so grateful that I can't speak, that's all. It'll be all right in a second.' A huge emotion had got hold of him. She saw the red flush rise suddenly above his collar, and then sink back before it reached his cheeks, and all at once he was very pale. But not a muscle of his face moved, not a line was drawn; only his sandy eyelashes quivered a little. His hands were thrust deep into the pockets of his jacket, but the fingers were motionless. Margaret remembered how he had told her more than once that she was the only woman the world held for him, and she had thought it was nonsense, rather vulgarly and clumsily expressed by a man who was not much better than an animal where women were concerned. It flashed upon her at last that what he had said was literally true, that she had misjudged an extraordinary man altogether, as many people did, and that she was indeed the only woman in the whole world who could master and dominate one whom many feared and hated, and whom she had herself once detested beyond words. He was unchanging, too, whatever else he might be, and, as she admitted the fact, she saw clearly how fickle she had been in her own likes and dislikes, except where her art was concerned. But even as to that, she had passed through phases in which she had been foolish enough to think of giving up the stage in the first flush of her vast success. While these thoughts were disturbing her a little, Mr. Van Torp recovered himself; his features relaxed, his hands came out of his pockets, and he slowly turned towards her. 'I hope you don't think me rude,' he said awkwardly. 'I feel things a good deal sometimes, though people mightn't believe it.' They were still standing near together, and not far from the door through which Margaret had entered. 'It's never rude to be grateful, even for small things,' she answered gently. She left his side, and went again to the window, where she stood and turned from him, looking out. He waited where he was, glad of the moments of silence. As for her, she was struggling against a generous impulse, because she was afraid that he might misunderstand her if she gave way to it. But, to do her justice, she had never had much strength to resist her own instinctive generosity when it moved her. 'Lady Maud told me long ago that I was mistaken about you,' she said at last, without looking at him. 'She was right and I was quite wrong. I'm sorry. Don't bear me any grudge. You won't, will you?' She turned now, rather suddenly, and found him looking at her with a sort of hunger in his eyes that disappeared almost as soon as hers met them. 'No,' he answered, 'I don't bear you any grudge, I never did, and I don't see how I ever could. I could tell you why, but I won't, because you probably know, and it's no use to repeat what once displeased you.' 'Thank you,' said Margaret, she scarcely knew why. Her handsome head was a little bent, and her eyes were turned to the floor as she passed him going to the door. 'I'm going to see the manager of the hotel,' she said. I'll be back directly.' 'No, no! Please let me----' But she was gone, the door was shut again, and Mr. Van Torp was left to his own very happy reflections for a while. Not for long, however. He was still standing before the table staring at the corn-flowers and poppies without consciously seeing them when he was aware of the imposing presence of Mrs. Rushmore, who had entered softly during his reverie and was almost at his elbow. 'This is Mr. Van Torp, I presume,' she said gravely, inclining her head. 'I am Mrs. Rushmore. You have perhaps heard Miss Donne speak of me.' 'I'm very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Rushmore,' said the American, bowing low. 'I've often heard Miss Donne speak of you with the greatest gratitude and affection.' 'Certainly,' Mrs. Rushmore answered with gravity, and as she established herself on the sofa she indicated a chair not far from her. It was only proper that Margaret should always speak of her with affection and gratitude. Mr. Van Torp sat down on the chair to which she had directed rather than invited him; and he prepared to be bored to the full extent of the bearable. He had known the late Mr. Rushmore in business; Mr. Rushmore had been a 'pillar' of various things, including honesty, society, and the church he went to, and he had always bored Mr. Van Torp extremely. The least that could be expected was that the widow of such an estimable man should carry on the traditions of her deeply lamented husband. In order to help her politely to what seemed the inevitable, Mr. Van Torp mentioned him. 'I had the pleasure of knowing Mr. Rushmore,' he said in the proper tone of mournfully retrospective admiration. 'He was sincerely lamented by all our business men.' 'He was,' assented the widow, as she would have said Amen in church, in the right place, and with much the same solemn intonation. There was a moment's pause, during which the millionaire was trying to think of something else she might like to hear, for she was Margaret's friend, and he wished to make a good impression. He was therefore not prepared to hear her speak again before he did, much less for the subject of conversation she introduced at once. 'You know our friend Monsieur Logotheti, I believe?' she inquired suddenly. 'Why, certainly,' answered Van Torp, brightening at once at the mention of his rival, and at once also putting on his moral armour of caution. 'I know him quite well.' 'Indeed? Have you known many Greeks, may I ask?' 'I've met one or two in business, Mrs. Rushmore, but I can't say I've known any as well as Mr. Logotheti.' 'You may think it strange that I should ask you about him at our first meeting,' said the good lady, 'but I'm an American, and I cannot help feeling that a fellow-countryman's opinion of a foreigner is very valuable. You are, I understand, an old friend of Miss Donne's, though I have not had the pleasure of meeting you before, and you have probably heard that she has made up her mind to marry Monsieur Logotheti. I am bound to confess, as her dear mother's oldest friend, that I am very apprehensive of the consequences. I have the gravest apprehensions, Mr. Van Torp.' 'Have you really?' asked the millionaire with caution, but sympathetically. 'I wonder why!' 'A Greek!' said Mrs. Rushmore sadly. 'Think of a Greek!' Mr. Van Torp, who was not without a sense of humour, was inclined to answer that, in fact, he was thinking of a Greek at that very moment. But he abstained. 'There are Greeks and Greeks, Mrs. Rushmore,' he answered wisely. 'That is true,' answered the lady, 'but I should like your opinion, as one of our most prominent men of business--as one who, if I may say so, has of late triumphantly established his claim to respect.' Mr. Van Torp bowed and waved his hand in acknowledgment of this high praise. 'I should like your opinion about this--er--this Greek gentleman whom my young friend insists upon marrying.' 'Really, Mrs. Rushmore----' 'Because if I thought there was unhappiness in store for her I would save her, if I had to marry the man myself!' Mr. Van Torp wondered how she would accomplish such a feat. 'Indeed?' he said very gravely. 'I mean it,' answered Mrs. Rushmore. There was a moment's silence, during which Mr. Van Torp revolved something in his always active brain, while Mrs. Rushmore looked at him as if she expected that he would doubt her determination to drag Logotheti to the matrimonial altar and marry him by sheer strength, rather than let Margaret be his unhappy bride. But Mr. Van Torp said something quite different. 'May I speak quite frankly, though we hardly know each other?' he asked. 'We are both Americans,' answered the good lady, with a grand national air. 'I should not expect anything but perfect frankness of you.' 'The truth is, Mrs. Rushmore, that ever since I had the pleasure of knowing Miss Donne, I have wanted to marry her myself.' 'You!' cried the lady, surprised beyond measure, but greatly pleased. 'Yes,' said Mr. Van Torp quietly, 'and therefore, in my position, I can't give you an unbiassed opinion about Mr. Logotheti. I really can't.' 'Well,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'I am surprised!' While she was still surprised Mr. Van Torp tried to make some running, and asked an important question. 'May I ask whether, as Miss Donne's oldest friend, you would look favourably on my proposal, supposing she were free?' Before Mrs. Rushmore could answer, the door opened suddenly, and she could only answer by an energetic nod and a look which meant that she wished Mr. Van Torp success with all her excellent heart. 'It's quite settled!' Margaret cried as she entered. 'I've brought the director to his senses, and you are to have the rooms they were keeping for a Russian prince who has not turned up!' CHAPTER VI In the sanctuary of Wagnerians the famous lyric Diva was a somewhat less important personage than in any of those other places which are called 'musical centres.' Before the glories of the great Brunhilde, or the supreme Kundry of the day, the fame of the 'nightingale soprano' paled a little, at least in the eyes of more than half the people who filled the Bayreuth theatre. But she did not pass unnoticed by any means. There were distinguished conductors of Wagner's music who led the orchestra for other operas too; there were Kundrys and Brunhildes who condescended to be Toscas sometimes, as a pure matter of business and livelihood, and there were numberless people in the audience who preferred _Cavalleria Rusticana_ to the _Meistersinger_ or the _Götterdämmerung_, but would not dare to say so till they were at a safe distance; and all these admired the celebrated Cordova, except the few that were envious of her, and who were not many. Indeed, for once it was the other way. When Margaret had come back to her own room after hearing _Parsifal_ the first time, she had sat down and hidden her face in her hands for a few moments, asking herself what all her parts were worth in the end compared with Kundry, and what comparison was possible between the most beautiful of Italian or French operas and that one immortal masterpiece; for she thought, and rightly perhaps, that all the rest of Wagner's work had been but a preparation for that, and that _Parsifal_, and _Parsifal_ alone, had set the genius of music beside the genius of poetry, an equal, at last, upon a throne as high. On that night the sound of her own voice would have given her no pleasure, for she longed for another tone in it; if by some impossible circumstance she had been engaged to sing as Juliet that night, she would have broken down and burst into tears. She knew it, and the knowledge made her angry with herself, yet for nothing she could think of would she have foregone the second hearing of _Parsifal_, and the third after that; for she was a musician first, and then a great singer, and, like all true musicians, she was swayed by music that touched her, and never merely pleased by it. For her no intermediate condition of the musical sense was possible between criticism and delight; but beyond that she had found rapture now, and ever afterwards she would long to feel it again. Whether, if her voice had made it possible to sing the part of Kundry, she could have lifted herself to that seventh heaven by her own singing, only the great Kundrys and Parsifals can tell. In lyric opera she knew the keen joy of being both the instrument and the enthralled listener; perhaps a still higher state beyond that was out of any one's reach, but she could at least dream of it. She took Van Torp with her to the performance the next day, after impressing upon him that he was not to speak, not to whisper, not to applaud, not to make any sound, from the moment he entered the theatre till he left it for the dinner interval. He was far too happy with her to question anything she said, and he obeyed her most scrupulously. Twenty-four hours earlier she would have laughed at the idea that his presence beside her at such a time could be not only bearable, but sympathetic, yet that seemed natural now. The Diva and the ex-cowboy, the accomplished musician and the Californian miner, the sensitive, gifted, capricious woman and the iron-jawed money-wolf had found that they had something in common. Wagner's last music affected them in the same way. Such things are not to be explained, and could not be believed if they did not happen again and again before the eyes of those who know how to see, which is quite a different thing from merely seeing. Margaret's sudden liking for the man she had once so thoroughly disliked had begun when he had whistled to her. It grew while he sat beside her in the darkened theatre. She was absorbed by the music, the action, and the scene, and at this second hearing she could follow the noble poem itself; but she was subconscious of what her neighbour felt. He was not so motionless merely because she had told him that he must sit very still; he was not so intent on what he heard and saw, merely to please her; it was not mere interest that held him, still less was it curiosity. The spell was upon him; he was entranced, and Margaret knew it. Even when they left the theatre and drove back to the hotel, he was silent, and she was the first to speak. Margaret hated the noise and confusion of the restaurant near the Festival Theatre. 'You have enjoyed it,' she said. 'I'm glad I brought you.' 'I've felt something I don't understand,' Van Torp answered gravely. She liked the reply for its simplicity. She had perhaps expected that he would summon up his most picturesque language to tell her how much pleasure the music had given him, or that he would perhaps laugh at himself for having been moved; but instead, he only told her that he did not understand what he had felt; and they walked on without another word. 'Go and get something to eat,' she said when they reached the hotel, 'and I'll meet you here in half an hour. I don't care to talk either.' He only nodded, and lifted his hat as she went up the steps; but instead of going to eat, he sat down on a bench outside, and waited for her there, reflecting on the nature of his new experience. Like most successful men, he looked on all theories as trash, good enough to amuse clever idlers, but never to be taken into consideration in real life. He never asked about the principle on which any invention was founded; his first and only question was, 'Will it work?' Considering himself as the raw material, and the theatre he had just left as the mill, he was forced to admit that _Parsifal_ 'worked.' 'It works all right,' he inwardly soliloquised. 'If that's what it claims to do, it does it.' When he had reached this business-like conclusion, his large lips parted a little, and as his breath passed between his closed teeth, it made soft little hissing sounds that had a suggestion of music in them, though they were not really whistled notes; his sandy lashes half veiled his eyes and he saw again what he had lately seen: the King borne down to the bath that would never heal his wound, and the dead swan, and the wondering Maiden-Man brought to answer for his bow-shot, the wild Witch-Girl crouching by the giant trees, and the long way that led upward through the forest, and upward ever, to the Hall of the Knights, and last of all, the mysterious Sangreal itself, glowing divinely in the midst. He did not really understand what he had seen and saw again as he half closed his eyes. That was the reason why he accepted it passively, as he accepted elemental things. If he could by any means have told himself what illusion it was all intended to produce upon his sight and hearing, he would have pulled the trick to pieces, mentally, in a moment, and what remained would have been the merely pleasant recollection of something very well done, but not in itself different from other operas or plays he had heard and seen elsewhere, nothing more than an 'improvement on _Lohengrin_,' as he would probably have called it. But this was something not 'more,' but quite of another kind, and it affected him as the play of nature's forces sometimes did; it was like the brooding of the sea, the rising gale, the fury of the storm, like the leaden stillness before the earthquake, the awful heave of the earth, the stupendous crash of the doomed city, the long rolling rumble of falling walls and tumbling houses, big with sudden death; or again, it was like sad gleams of autumn sunshine, and the cold cathedral light of primeval forests in winter, and then it was the spring stirring in all things, the rising pulse of mating nature, the burst of May-bloom, the huge glow of the earth basking in the full summer sun. He did not know, and no one knew, what nature meant by those things. How could nature's meaning be put into words? And so he did not understand what he had felt, nor could he see that it might have significance. What was the 'interpretation' of a storm, of an earthquake, or of winter and summer? God, perhaps; perhaps just 'nature.' He did not know. Margaret had told him the story of the opera in the evening; he had followed it easily enough and could not forget it. It was a sort of religious fairy-tale, he thought, and he was ready to believe that Wagner had made a good poem of it, even a great poem. But it was not the story that could be told, which had moved him; it was nothing so easily defined as a poem, or a drama, or a piece of music. A far more cultivated man than he could ever become might sit through the performance and feel little or nothing, of that he was sure; just as he could have carried beautiful Lady Maud in his arms without feeling that she was a woman for him, whereas the slightest touch of Margaret Donne, the mere fact of being near her, made the blood beat in his throat. That was only a way of putting it, for there was no sex in the music he had just heard. He had sat so close to Margaret that their arms constantly touched, yet he had forgotten that she was there. If the music had been _Tristan and Isolde_ he could not have been unaware of her, for a moment, for that is the supreme sex-music of Wagner's art. But this was different, altogether different, though it was even stronger than that. He forgot to look at his watch. Margaret came out of the hotel, expecting to find him waiting for her within the hall, and prepared to be annoyed with him for taking so long over a meal. She stood on the step and looked about, and saw him sitting on the bench at a little distance. He raised his eyes as she came towards him and then rose quickly. 'Is it time?' he asked. 'Yes,' she said. 'Did you get anything decent to eat?' 'Yes,' he answered vaguely. 'That is, now I think of it, I forgot about dinner. It doesn't matter.' She looked at his hard face curiously and saw a dead blank, the blank that had sometimes frightened her by its possibilities, when the eyes alone came suddenly to life. 'Won't you go in and get a biscuit, or a sandwich?' she asked after a moment. 'Oh, no, thanks. I'm used to skipping meals when I'm interested in things. Let's go, if you're ready.' 'I believe you are one of nature's Wagnerites,' Margaret said, as they drove up the hill again, and she smiled at the idea. 'Well,' he answered slowly, 'there's one thing, if you don't mind my telling you. It's rather personal. Perhaps I'd better not.' The Primadonna was silent for a few moments, and did not look at him. 'Tell me,' she said suddenly. 'It's this. I don't know how long the performance lasted, but while it was going on I forgot you were close beside me. You might just as well not have been there. It's the first time since I ever knew you that I've been near you without thinking about you all the time, and I hadn't realised it till I was sitting here by myself. I hope you don't mind my telling you?' 'It only makes me more glad that I brought you,' Margaret said quietly. 'Thank you,' he answered; but he was quite sure that the same thing could not happen again during the Second Part. Nevertheless, it happened. For a little while, they were man and woman, sitting side by side and very near, two in a silent multitude of other men and women; but before long he was quite motionless, his eyes were fixed again and he had forgotten her. She saw it and wondered, for she knew how her presence moved him, and as his hands lay folded on his knee, a mischievous girlish impulse almost made her, the great artist, forget that she was listening to the greatest music in the world and nearly made her lay her hand on his, just to see what he would do. She was ashamed of it, and a little disgusted with herself. The part of her that was Margaret Donne felt the disgust; the part that was Cordova felt the shame, and each side of her nature was restrained at a critical moment. Yet when the 'Good Friday' music began, she was thinking of Van Torp and he was unconscious of her presence. It could not last, and soon she, too, was taken up into the artificial paradise of the master-musician and borne along in the gale of golden wings, and there was no passing of time till the very end; and the people rose in silence and went out under the summer stars; and all those whom nature had gifted to hear rightly, took with them memories that years would scarcely dim. The two walked slowly back to the town as the crowd scattered on foot and in carriages. It was warm, and there was no moon, and one could smell the dust, for many people were moving in the same direction, though some stopped at almost every house and went in, and most of them were beginning to talk in quiet tones. Margaret stepped aside from the road and entered a narrow lane, and Van Torp followed her in silence. 'This leads out to the fields,' she said. 'I must breathe the fresh air. Do you mind?' 'On the contrary.' [Illustration: "She was aware of his slight change of position without turning her eyes."] He said nothing more, and she did not speak, but walked on without haste, dilating her nostrils to the sweet smell of grass that reached her already. In a little while they had left the houses behind them, and they came to a gate that led into a field. Van Torp was going to undo the fastening, for there was no lock. 'No,' she said, 'we won't go through. I love to lean on a gate.' She rested her crossed arms on the upper rail and Van Torp did the same, careful that his elbow should not touch hers, and they both stared into the dim, sweet-scented meadow. He felt her presence now and it almost hurt him; he could hear his slow pulse in his ears, hard and regular. She did not speak, but the night was so still that he could hear her breathing, and at last he could not bear the warm silence any longer. 'What are you thinking about?' he asked, trying to speak lightly. She waited, or hesitated, before she answered him. 'You,' she said, after a time. He moved involuntarily, and then drew a little further away from her, as he might have withdrawn a foot from the edge of a precipice, out of common caution. She was aware of his slight change of position without turning her eyes. 'What made you say what you did to Mrs. Rushmore yesterday afternoon?' she asked. 'About you?' 'Yes.' 'She asked me, point-blank, what I thought of Logotheti,' Van Torp answered. 'I told her that I couldn't give her an unbiassed opinion of the man you meant to marry, because I had always hoped to marry you myself.' 'Oh--was that the way it happened?' 'Mrs. Rushmore could hardly have misunderstood me,' said Van Torp, gathering the reins of himself, so to say, for anything that might happen. 'No. But it sounds differently when you say it yourself.' 'That was just what I said, anyhow,' answered Van Torp. 'I didn't think she'd go and tell you right away, but since she has, I don't regret having said that much.' 'It was straightforward, at all events--if it was all true!' There was the faintest laugh in her tone as she spoke the last words. 'It's true, right enough, though I didn't expect that I should be talking to you about this sort of thing to-night.' 'The effect on Mrs. Rushmore was extraordinary, positively fulminating,' Margaret said more lightly. 'She says I ought to break off my engagement at once, and marry you! Fancy!' 'That's very kind of her, I'm sure,' observed Mr. Van Torp. 'I don't think so. I like it less and less, the more I think of it.' 'Well, I'm sorry, but I suppose it's natural, since you've concluded to marry him, and it can't be helped. I wasn't going to say anything against him, and I wouldn't say anything for him, so there was nothing to do but to explain, which I did. I'm sorry you think I did wrong, but I should give the same answer again.' 'Mrs. Rushmore thinks that Konstantin is a designing foreigner because he's a Greek man of business, and that you are perfection because you are an American business man.' 'If I'm perfection, that's not the real reason,' said Van Torp, snatching at his first chance to steer out of the serious current; but Margaret did not laugh. 'You are not perfection, nor I either,' she answered gravely. 'You are famous in your way, and people call me celebrated in mine; but so far as the rest is concerned we are just two ordinary human beings, and if we are going to be friends we must understand each other from the first, as far as we can.' 'I'll try to do my share,' said Van Torp, taking her tone. 'Very well. I'll do mine. I began by thinking you were amusing, when I first met you. Then you frightened me last winter, and I hated you. Not only that, I loathed you--there's no word strong enough for what I felt. When I saw you in the audience, you almost paralysed my voice.' 'I didn't know it had been as bad as that,' said Mr. Van Torp quietly. 'Yes. It was worse than I can make you understand. And last spring, when you were in so much trouble, I believed every word that was said against you, even that you had murdered your partner's daughter in cold blood to get rid of her, though that looked as incredible to sensible people as it really was. It was only when I saw how Lady Maud believed in you that I began to waver, and then I understood.' 'I'm glad you did.' 'So am I. But she is such a good woman herself that nobody can be really bad in whom she believes. And now I'm changed still more. I like you, and I'm sure that we shall be friends, if you will make me one promise and keep it.' 'What is it?' 'That you will give up all idea of ever marrying me, no matter what happens, even if I broke----' 'It's no use to go on,' interrupted Van Torp, 'for I can't promise anything like that. Maybe you don't realise what you're asking, but it's the impossible. That's all.' 'Oh, nonsense!' Margaret tried to laugh lightly, but it was a failure. 'No, it's very far from nonsense,' he replied, almost sternly. 'Since you've spoken first, I'm going to tell you several things. One is, that I accepted the syndicate's offer for the Nickel Trust so as to be free to take any chance that might turn up. It had been open some time, but I accepted it on the day I heard of your engagement. That's a big thing. Another is, that I played a regular trick on Logotheti so as to come and see you here. I deliberately asked him to dine with me last night in London. I went right home, wrote a note to him, antedated for yesterday afternoon, to put him off, and I left it to be sent at the right hour. Then I drove to the station, and here I am. You may call that pretty sharp practice, but I believe all's fair in love and war, and I want you to understand that I think so. There's one thing more. I won't give up the hope of making you marry me while you're alive and I am, not if you're an old woman, and I'll put up all I have in the game, including my own life and other people's, if it comes to that. Amen.' Margaret bent her head a little and was silent. 'Now you know why I won't promise what you asked,' said Van Torp in conclusion. He had not raised his voice; he had not laid a heavy stress on half his words, as he often did in common conversation; there had been nothing dramatic in his tone; but Margaret had understood well enough that it was the plain statement of a man who meant to succeed, and whose strength and resources were far beyond those of ordinary suitors. She was not exactly frightened; indeed, since her dislike for him had melted away, it was impossible not to feel a womanly satisfaction in the magnitude of her conquest; but she also felt instinctively that serious trouble and danger were not far off. 'You have no right to speak like that,' she said rather weakly, after a moment. 'Perhaps not. I don't know. But I consider that you have a right to know the truth, and that's enough for me. It's not as if I'd made up my mind to steal your ewe-lamb from you and put myself in its place. Logotheti is not any sort of a ewe-lamb. He's a man, he's got plenty of strength and determination, he's got plenty of money--even what I choose to call plenty. He says he cares for you. All right. So do I. He says he'll marry you. I say that I will. All right again. You're the prize put up for the best of two fighting men. You're not the first woman in history who's been fought for, but, by all that's holy, there never was one better worth it, not Helen of Troy herself!' The last few words came with a sort of stormy rush, and he turned round suddenly, and stood with his back against the gate, thrusting his hands deep into his coat-pockets, perhaps with the idea of keeping them quiet; but he did not come any nearer to her, and she felt she was perfectly safe, and that a much deeper and more lasting power had hold of him than any mere passionate longing to take her in his arms and press his iron lips on hers against her will. She began to understand why he was what he was, at an age when many successful men are still fighting for final success. He was a crown-grasper, like John the Smith. Beside him Logotheti was but a gifted favourite of fortune. He spoke of Helen, but if he was comparing his rival with Paris he himself was more like an Ajax than like good King Menelaus. Margaret was not angry; she was hardly displeased, but she was really at a loss what to say, and she said the first sensible thing that suggested itself and that was approximately true. 'I'm sorry you have told me all this. We might have spent these next two days very pleasantly together. Oh, I'm not pretending what I don't feel! It's impossible for a woman like me, who can still be free, not to be flattered when such a man as you cares for her in earnest, and says the things you have. But, on the other hand, I'm engaged to be married to another man, and it would not be loyal of me to let you make love to me.' 'I don't mean to,' said Van Torp stoutly. 'It won't be necessary. If I never spoke again you wouldn't forget what I've told you--ever! Why should I say it again? I don't want to, until you can say as much to me. If it's time to go, hitch the lead to my collar and take me home! I'll follow you as quietly as a spaniel, anywhere!' 'And what would happen if I told you not to follow me, but to go home and lie down in your kennel?' She laughed low as she moved away from the gate. 'I'm not sure,' answered Van Torp. 'Don't.' The last word was not spoken at all with an accent of warning, but it was not said in a begging tone either. Margaret's short laugh followed it instantly. He took the cue she offered, and went on speaking in his ordinary manner. 'I'm not a bad dog if you don't bully me, and if you feed me at regular hours and take me for a walk now and then. I don't pretend I'm cut out for a French pet, because I'm not. I'm too big for a lap-dog, and too fond of sport for the drawing-room, I suppose. A good useful dog generally is, isn't he? Maybe I'm a little quarrelsome with other dogs, but then, they needn't come bothering around!' Margaret was amused, or pretended to be, but she was also thinking very seriously of the future, and asking herself whether she ought to send for Logotheti at once, or not. Van Torp would certainly not leave Bayreuth at a moment's notice, at her bidding, and if he stayed she could not now refuse to see him, with any show of justice. She thought of a compromise, and suddenly stood still in the lane. 'You said just now that you would not say over again any of those things you have told me to-night. Do you mean that?' 'Yes, I mean it.' 'Then please promise that you won't. That's all I ask if you are going to spend the next two days here, and if I am to let you see me.' 'I promise,' Van Torp answered, without hesitation. She allowed herself the illusion that she had both done the right thing and also taken the position of command; and he, standing beside her, allowed himself to smile at the futility of what she was requiring of him with so much earnestness, for little as he knew of women's ways he was more than sure that the words he had spoken that night would come back to her again and again; and more than that he could not hope at present. But she could not see his face clearly. 'Thank you,' she said. 'That shall be our compact.' To his surprise, she held out her hand. He took it with wonderful calmness, considering what the touch meant to him, and he returned discreetly what was meant for a friendly pressure. She was so well satisfied now that she did not think it necessary to telegraph to Logotheti that he might start at once, though even if she had done so immediately he could hardly have reached Bayreuth till the afternoon of the next day but one, when the last performance of _Parsifal_ would be already going on; and she herself intended to leave on the morning after that. She walked forward in silence for a few moments, and the lights of the town grew quickly brighter. 'You will come in and have some supper with us, of course,' she said presently. 'Why, certainly, since you're so kind,' answered Van Torp. 'I feel responsible for your having forgotten to dine,' she laughed. 'I must make it up to you. By this time Mrs. Rushmore is probably wondering where I am.' 'Well,' said the American, 'if she thinks I'm perfection, she knows that you're safe with me, I suppose, even if you do come home a little late.' 'I shall say that we walked home very slowly, in order to breathe the air.' 'Yes. We've walked home very slowly.' 'I mean,' said Margaret quickly, 'that I shall not say we have been out towards the fields, as far as the gate.' 'I don't see any harm if we have,' observed Mr Van Torp indifferently. 'Harm? No! Don't you understand? Mrs. Rushmore is quite capable of thinking that I have already--how shall I say?----' she stopped. 'Taken note of her good advice,' he said, completing the sentence for her. 'Exactly! Whereas nothing could be further from my intention, as you know. I'm very fond of Mrs. Rushmore,' Margaret continued quickly, in order to get away from the dangerous subject she had felt obliged to approach; 'she has been a mother to me, and heaven knows I needed one, and she has the best and kindest heart in the world. But she is so anxious for my happiness that, whenever she thinks it is at stake, she rushes at conclusions without the slightest reason, and then it's very hard to get them out of her dear old head!' 'I see. If that's why she thinks me perfection, I'll try not to disappoint her.' They reached the hotel, went upstairs, and separated on the landing to get ready for supper. Margaret went to her own room, and before joining Mrs. Rushmore she wrote a message to Alphonsine, her theatre maid, who was visiting her family in Alsatia. Margaret generally telegraphed her instructions, because it was much less trouble than to write. She inquired whether Alphonsine would be ready to join her in Paris on a certain day, and she asked for the address of a wig-maker which she had forgotten. On his side of the landing, Mr. Van Torp found Stemp waiting to dress him, and the valet handed him a telegram. It was from Captain Brown, and had been re-telegraphed from London. 'Anchored off Saint Mark's Square to-day, 3.30 P.M. Quick passage. No stop. Coaling to-morrow. Ready for sea next morning.' Mr. Van Torp laid the message open on the table in order to save Stemp the trouble of looking for it afterwards. 'Stemp,' he asked, as he threw off his coat and kicked off his dusty shoes, 'were you ever sea-sick?' 'Yes, sir,' answered the admirable valet, but he offered no more information on the subject. During the silence that followed, neither wasted a second. It is no joke to wash and get into evening dress in six minutes, even with the help of a body-servant trained to do his work at high speed. 'I mean,' said Van Torp, when he was already fastening his collar, 'are you sea-sick nowadays?' 'No, sir,' replied Stemp, in precisely the same tone as before. 'I don't mean on a twenty-thousand-ton liner. Black cravat. Yes. I mean on a yacht. Fix it behind. Right. Would you be sea-sick on a steam yacht?' 'No, sir.' 'Sure?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Then I'll take you. Tuxedo.' 'Thank you, sir.' Stemp held up the dinner-jacket; Mr. Van Torp's solid arms slipped into the sleeves, he shook his sturdy shoulders, and pulled the jacket down in front while the valet 'settled' the back. Then he faced round suddenly, like a soldier at drill. 'All right?' he inquired. Stemp looked him over carefully from head to foot in the glare of the electric light. 'Yes, sir.' Van Torp left the room at once. He found Mrs. Rushmore slowly moving about the supper-table, more imposing than ever in a perfectly new black tea-gown and an extremely smart widow's cap. Mr. Van Torp thought she was a very fine old lady indeed. Margaret had not entered yet; a waiter with smooth yellow hair stood by a portable sideboard on which there were covered dishes. There were poppies and corn-flowers in a plain white jar on the table. Mrs. Rushmore smiled at the financier; it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that she beamed upon him. They had not met alone since his first visit on the previous afternoon. 'Miss Donne is a little late,' she said, as if the fact were very pleasing. 'You brought her back, of course.' 'Why, certainly,' said Mr. Van Torp with an amiable smile. 'You can hardly have come straight from the theatre,' continued the lady, 'for I heard the other people in the hotel coming in fully twenty minutes before you did.' 'We walked home very slowly,' said Mr. Van Torp, still smiling amiably. 'Ah, I see! You went for a little walk to get some air!' She seemed delighted. 'We walked home very slowly in order to breathe the air,' said Mr. Van Torp--'to breathe the air, as you say. I have to thank you very much for giving me your seat, Mrs. Rushmore.' 'To tell the truth,' replied the good lady, 'I was very glad to let you take my place. I cannot say I enjoy that sort of music myself. It gives me a headache.' Margaret entered at this point in a marvellous 'creation' of Chinese crape, of the most delicate shade of heliotrope. Her dressmaker called it also a tea-gown, but Mr. Van Torp would have thought it 'quite appropriate' for a 'dinner-dance' at Bar Harbor. 'My dear child,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'how long you were in getting back from the theatre! I began to fear that something had happened!' 'We walked home very slowly,' said Margaret, with a pleasant smile. 'Ah? You went for a little walk to get some air?' 'We just walked home very slowly, in order to breathe the air,' Margaret answered innocently. It dawned on Mr. Van Torp that the dignified Mrs. Rushmore was not quite devoid of a sense of humour. It also occurred to him that her repetition of the question to Margaret, and the latter's answer, must have revealed to her the fact that the two had agreed upon what they should say, since they used identically the same words, and that they therefore had an understanding about something they preferred to conceal from her. Nothing could have given Mrs. Rushmore such profound satisfaction as this, and it revealed itself in her bright smiles and her anxiety that both Margaret and Van Torp should, if possible, over-eat themselves with the excellent things she had been at pains to provide for them and for herself. For she was something of an epicure and her dinners in Versailles were of good fame, even in Paris. Great appetites are generally silent, like the sincerest affections. Margaret was very hungry, and Mr. Van Torp was both hungry and very much in love. Mrs. Rushmore was neither, and she talked pleasantly while tasting each delicacy with critical satisfaction. 'By the bye,' she said at last, when she saw that the millionaire was backing his foretopsail to come to anchor, as Captain Brown might have expressed it, 'I hope you have not had any further trouble about your rooms, Mr. Van Torp.' 'None at all, that I know of,' answered the latter. 'My man told me nothing.' 'The Russian prince arrived this evening while you were at the theatre, and threatened the director with all sorts of legal consequences because the rooms he had ordered were occupied. He turns out to be only a count after all.' 'You don't say so,' observed Mr. Van Torp, in an encouraging tone. 'What became of him?' Margaret asked, without much interest. 'Did Potts not tell you, my dear? Why, Justine assisted at the whole interview and came and told me at once.' Justine was Mrs. Rushmore's Parisian maid, who always knew everything. 'What happened?' inquired Margaret, still not much interested. 'He arrived in an automobile,' answered Mrs. Rushmore, and she paused. 'What old Griggs calls a sudden-death-cart,' Mr. Van Torp put in. 'What a shocking name for it!' cried Mrs. Rushmore. 'And you are always in them, my dear child!' She looked at Margaret. 'A sudden-death-cart! It quite makes me shiver.' 'Griggs says that all his friends either kill or get killed in them,' explained the American. 'My throat-doctor says motoring is very bad for the voice, so I've given it up,' Margaret said. 'Really? Thank goodness your profession has been of some use to you at last, my dear!' Margaret laughed. 'Tell us about the Russian count,' she said. 'Has he found lodgings, or is he going to sleep in his motor?' 'My dear, he's the most original man you ever heard of! First he wanted to buy the hotel and turn us all out, and offered any price for it, but the director said it was owned by a company in Munich. Then he sent his secretary about trying to buy a house, while he dined, but that didn't succeed either. He must be very wealthy, or else quite mad.' 'Mad, I should say,' observed Mr. Van Torp, slowly peeling a peach. 'Did you happen to catch his name, Mrs. Rushmore?' 'Oh, yes! We heard nothing else all the afternoon. His name is Kralinsky--Count Kralinsky.' Mr. Van Torp continued to peel his peach scientifically and economically, though he was aware that Margaret was looking at him with sudden curiosity. 'Kralinsky,' he said slowly, keeping his eyes on the silver blade of the knife as he finished what he was doing. 'It's not an uncommon name, I believe. I've heard it before. Sounds Polish, doesn't it?' He looked up suddenly and showed Margaret the peeled peach on his fork. He smiled as he met her eyes, and she nodded so slightly that Mrs. Rushmore did not notice the movement. 'Did you ever see that done better?' he asked with an air of triumph. 'Ripping!' Margaret answered. 'You're a dandy dab at it!' 'My dear child, what terrible slang!' 'I'm sorry,' said Margaret. 'I'm catching all sorts of American expressions from Mr. Van Torp, and when they get mixed up with my English ones the result is Babel, I suppose!' 'I've not heard Mr. Van Torp use any slang expressions yet, my dear,' said Mrs. Rushmore, almost severely. 'You will,' Margaret retorted with a laugh. 'What became of Count Kralinsky? I didn't mean to spoil your story.' 'My dear, he's got the Pastor to give up his house, by offering him a hundred pounds for the poor here.' 'It's cheap,' observed Mr. Van Torp. 'The poor always are.' 'You two are saying the most dreadful things to-night!' cried Mrs. Rushmore. 'Nothing dreadful in that, Mrs. Rushmore,' objected the millionaire. 'There's no investment on earth like charity.' 'We are taught that by charity we lay up treasures in heaven,' said the good lady. 'Provided it's not mentioned in the newspapers,' retorted Mr. Van Torp. 'When it is, we lay up treasures on earth. I don't like to mention other men in that connexion, especially as I've done the same thing myself now and then, just to quiet things down; but I suppose some names will occur to you right away, don't they? Where is the Pastor going to sleep, now that the philanthropist has bought him out?' 'I really don't know,' answered Mrs. Rushmore. 'Then he's the real philanthropist,' said Van Torp. 'If he understood the power of advertisement, and wanted it, he'd let it be known that he was going to sleep on the church steps without enough blankets, for the good of the poor who are to have the money, and he'd get everybody to come and look at him in his sleep, and notice how good he was. Instead of that, he's probably turned in under the back stairs, in the coal-hole, without saying anything about it. I don't know how it strikes you, Mrs. Rushmore, but it does seem to me that the clergyman's the real philanthropist after all!' 'Indeed he is, poor man,' said Margaret, a good deal surprised at Van Torp's sermon on charity, and wondering vaguely whether he was talking for effect or merely saying what he really thought. An effect certainly followed. 'You put it very sensibly, I'm sure,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'though of course I should not have looked for anything else from a fellow-countryman I respect. You startled me a little at first, when you said that the poor are always cheap! Only that, I assure you.' 'Well,' answered the American, 'I never was very good at expressing myself, but I'm glad we think alike, for I must say I value your opinion very highly, Mrs. Rushmore, as I had learned to value the opinion of your late husband.' 'You're very kind,' she said, in a grateful tone. Margaret was not sure that she was pleased as she realised how easily Van Torp played upon her old friend's feelings and convictions, and she wondered whether he had not already played on her own that night, in much the same way. But with the mere thought his words and his voice came back to her, with his talk about the uselessness of ever repeating what he had said that once, because he knew she could never forget it. And her young instinct told her that he dealt with the elderly woman precisely as if she were a man, with all the ease that proceeded from his great knowledge of men and their weaknesses; but that with herself, in his ignorance of feminine ways, he could only be quite natural. He left them soon after supper, and gave himself up to Stemp, pondering over what he had accomplished in two days, and also about another question which had lately presented itself. When he was ready to send his valet to bed he sat down at his table and wrote a telegram: 'If you can find Barak, please explain that I was mistaken. Kralinsky is not in New York, but here in Bayreuth for some days, lodging at the Pastor's house.' This message was addressed to Logotheti at his lodgings in London, and Van Torp signed it and gave it to Stemp to be sent at once. Logotheti never went to bed before two o'clock, as he knew, and might very possibly get the telegram the same night. When his man was gone, Van Torp drew his chair to the open window and sat up a long time thinking about what he had just done; for though he held that all was fair in such a contest, he did not mean to do anything which he himself thought 'low-down.' One proof of this odd sort of integrity was that the telegram itself was a fair warning of his presence in Bayreuth, where Logotheti knew that Margaret was still stopping. As for the rest, he was quite convinced that it was Kralinsky himself, the ruby merchant, who had suddenly appeared at Bayreuth, and that this man was no other than the youth he had met long ago as a cow-boy in the West, who used to whistle _Parsifal_ with his companion in exile, and who, having grown rich, had lost no time in coming to Europe for the very purpose of hearing the music he had always loved so well. And that this man had robbed the poor Tartar girl, Mr. Van Torp had no manner of doubt; and he believed that he had probably promised her marriage and abandoned her; and if this were true, to help her to find Kralinsky was in itself a good action. CHAPTER VII When Van Torp and Logotheti left Mr. Pinney's shop, the old jeweller meant to have a good look at the ruby the Greek had brought him, and was going to weigh it, not merely as a matter of business, for he weighed every stone that passed through his hands from crown diamonds to sparks, but with genuine curiosity, because in a long experience he had not seen very many rubies of such a size, which were also of such fine quality, and he wondered where this one had been found. Just then, however, two well-dressed young men entered the shop and came up to him. He had never seen either of them before, but their looks inspired him with confidence; and when they spoke, their tone was that of English gentlemen, which all other Englishmen find it practically impossible to imitate, and which had been extremely familiar to Mr. Pinney from his youth. Though he was the great jeweller himself, the wealthy descendant of five of his name in succession, and much better off than half his customers, he was alone in his shop that morning. The truth was that his only son, the sixth Pinney and the apple of his eye, had just been married and was gone abroad for a honeymoon trip, and the head shopman, who was Scotch, was having his month's holiday in Ayrshire, and the second man had been sent for, to clean and restring the Duchess of Barchester's pearls at her Grace's house in Cadogan Gardens, as was always done after the season, and a couple of skilled workmen for whom Mr. Pinney found occupation all the year round were in the workshop at their tables; wherefore, out of four responsible and worthy men who usually were about, only the great Mr. Pinney himself was at his post. One of the two well-dressed customers asked to see some pins, and the other gave his advice. The first bought a pin with a small sapphire set in sparks for ten guineas, and gave only ten pounds for it because he paid cash. Mr. Pinney put the pin into its little morocco case, wrapped it up neatly and handed it to the purchaser. The latter and his friend said good-morning in a civil and leisurely manner, sauntered out, took a hansom a few steps farther down the street, and drove away. The little paper twist containing Logotheti's ruby was still exactly where Mr. Pinney had placed it on the counter, and he was going to examine the stone and weigh it at last, when two more customers entered the shop, evidently foreigners, and moreover of a sort unfamiliar to the good jeweller, and especially suspicious. The two were Baraka and her interpreter and servant, whom Logotheti had called a Turk, and who was really a Turkish subject and a Mohammedan, though as to race, he was a half-bred Greek and Dalmatian. Now Dalmatians are generally honest, truthful, and trustworthy, and the low-class Greek of Constantinople is usually extremely sharp, if he is nothing more definitely reprehensible; and Baraka's man was a cross between the two, as I have said, and had been brought up as a Musulman in a rich Turkish family, and recommended to Baraka by the Persian merchant in whose house she had lived. He had been originally baptized a Christian under the name of Spiro, and had been subsequently renamed Selim when he was made a real Moslem at twelve years old; so he used whichever name suited the circumstances in which he was placed. At present he was Spiro. He was neatly dressed in grey clothes made by a French tailor, and he wore a French hat, which always made a bad impression on Mr. Pinney. He had brown hair, brown eyes, a brown moustache, and a brown face; he looked as active as a cat, and Mr. Pinney at once put him down in his mind as a 'Froggy.' But the jeweller was less sure about Baraka, who was dressed like any young Englishman, but looked like no European he had ever seen. On the whole, he took the newcomer for the son of an Indian rajah sent to England to be educated. The interpreter spoke broken but intelligible English. He called Baraka his master, and explained that the latter wished to see some rubies, if Mr. Pinney had any, cut or uncut. The young gentleman, he said, did not speak English, but was a good judge of stones. For one moment the jeweller forgot the little paper twist as he turned towards his safe, pulling out his keys at the same time. To reach the safe he had to walk the whole length of the shop, behind the counter, and before he had gone half way he remembered the stone, turned, came back, and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. Then he went and got the little japanned strong-box with a patent lock, in which he kept loose stones, some wrapped up in little pieces of paper, and some in pill-boxes. He brought it to his customers, and opened it before them. They stayed a long time, and Spiro asked many questions for Baraka, chiefly relating to the sliding-scale of prices which is regulated by the weight of the stones where their quality is equally good, and Baraka made notes of some sort in a little English memorandum-book, as if she had done it all her life; but Mr. Pinney could not see what she wrote. He was very careful, and watched the stones, when she took them in her fingers and held them up against the light, or laid them on a sheet of white paper to look at them critically. She bought nothing; and when she had seen all he had to show her, she thanked him very much through Spiro, said she would come back another day, and went out with a leisurely, Oriental gait, as if nothing in the world could hurry her. Mr. Pinney counted the stones again, and was going to lock the box, when his second man came in, having finished stringing the Duchess's pearls. At the same moment, it occurred to Mr. Pinney that he might as well go to luncheon, and that he had better put Logotheti's ruby into the little strong-box and lock it up in the safe until he at last had a chance to weigh it. He accordingly took the screw of paper from his waistcoat pocket, and as a matter of formality he undid it once more. 'Merciful Providence!' cried Mr. Pinney, for he was a religious man. The screw of paper contained a bit of broken green glass. He threw his keys to his shopman without another word, and rushed out into the street without his hat, his keen old face deadly pale, and his beautiful frock-coat flying in his wake. He almost hurled himself upon a quiet policeman. 'Thief!' he cried. 'Two foreigners in grey clothes--ruby worth ten thousand pounds just gone--I'm Pinney the jeweller!' You cannot astonish a London policeman. The one Pinney had caught looked quietly up and down the street, and then glanced at his interlocutor to be sure that it was he, for he knew him by sight. 'All right,' he said quickly, but very quietly. 'I'll have them in a minute, sir, for they're in sight still. Better go in while I take them, sir.' He caught them in less than a minute without the slightest difficulty, and by some odd coincidence two other policemen suddenly appeared quite close to him. There was a little stir in the street, but Baraka and Spiro were too sensible and too sure of themselves to offer any useless resistance, and supposing there was some misunderstanding they walked back quietly to Mr. Pinney's shop between two of the policemen, while the third went for a four-wheeler at the nearest stand, which happened to be the corner of Brook Street and New Bond Street. Mr. Pinney recognised his late customers without hesitation, and went with them to the police station, where he told his story and showed the piece of green glass. Spiro tried to speak, but was ordered to hold his tongue, and as no rubies were found in their pockets he and Baraka were led away to be more thoroughly searched. But now, at last, Baraka resisted, and with such tremendous energy that there would have been serious trouble if Spiro had not called out something which at once changed the aspect of matters. 'Master is lady!' he yelled. 'Lady, man clothes!' 'That makes a pretty bad case,' observed the sergeant who was superintending. 'Send for Mrs. Mowle.' Baraka did not resist when she saw the matron, and went quietly with her to a cell at the back of the station. In less than ten minutes Mrs. Mowle came out and locked the door after her. She was a cheery little person, very neatly dressed, and she had restless bright eyes like a ferret. She brought a little bag of soft deerskin in her hand, and a steel bodkin with a wrought silver handle, such as southern Italian women used to wear in their hair before such weapons were prohibited. Mrs. Mowle gave both objects to the officer without comment. 'Any scars or tattoo-marks, Mrs. Mowle?' he inquired in his business-like way. 'Not a one,' answered Mrs. Mowle, who had formerly taken in washing at home and was the widow of a brave policeman, killed in doing his duty. In the bag there were several screws of paper, which were found to contain uncut rubies of different sizes to a large value. But there was one, much larger than the others, which Mr. Van Torp had not seen that morning. Mr. Pinney looked at it very carefully, held it to the light, laid it on a sheet of paper, and examined it long in every aspect. He was a conscientious man. 'To the best of my belief,' he deposed, 'this is the stone that was on my counter half an hour ago, and for which this piece of green glass was substituted. It is the property of a customer of mine, Monsieur Konstantin Logotheti of Paris, who brought it to me this morning to be cut. I think it may be worth between nine and ten thousand pounds. I can say nothing as to the identity of the paper, for tissue paper is very much alike everywhere.' 'The woman,' observed the officer in charge of the station, 'appears to steal nothing but rubies. It looks like a queer case. We'll lock up the two, Mr. Pinney, and if you will be kind enough to look in to-morrow morning, I'm sure the Magistrate won't keep you waiting for the case.' Vastly relieved and comforted, Mr. Pinney returned to his shop. Formality required that the ruby itself, with the others in the bag, should remain in the keeping of the police till the Magistrate ordered it to be returned to its rightful owner, the next morning; but Mr. Pinney felt quite as sure of its safety as if it were in the japanned strong-box in his own safe, and possibly even a little more sure, for nobody could steal it from the police station. But after he was gone, Spiro was heard calling loudly, though not rudely or violently, from his place of confinement. 'Mr. Policeman! Mr. Policeman! Please come speak!' The man on duty went to the door and asked what he wanted. In his broken English he explained very clearly that Baraka had a friend in London who was one of the great of the earth, and who would certainly prove her innocence, vouch for her character, and cause her to be set at large without delay, if he knew of her trouble. 'What is the gentleman's name?' inquired the policeman. The name of Baraka's friend was Konstantin Logotheti, and Spiro knew the address of the lodgings he always kept in St. James's Place. 'Very well,' said the policeman. 'I'll speak to the officer at once.' 'I thank very much, sir,' Spiro answered, and he made no more noise. The sergeant looked surprised when the message was given to him. 'Queer case this,' he observed. 'Here's the thief appealing to the owner of the stolen property for help; and the owner is one of those millionaire financiers; and the thief is a lovely girl in man's clothes. By the bye, Sampson, tell Mrs. Mowle to get out some women's slops and dress her decently, while I see if I can find Mr. Logotheti by telephone. They'll be likely to know something about him at the Bank if he's not at home, and he may come to find out what's the matter. If Mrs. Foxwell should look in and want to see the girl, let her in, of course, without asking me. If she's in town, she'll be here before long, for I've telephoned to her house, as usual when there's a girl in trouble.' There was a sort of standing, unofficial order that in any case of a girl or a young woman being locked up, Mrs. Foxwell was to know of it, and she had a way of remembering a great many sergeants' names, and doing kind things for their wives at Christmas-time, which further disposed them to help her in her work. But the London police are by nature the kindliest set of men who keep order anywhere in the world, and they will readily help a man or woman who tries to do good in a sensible, practical way; and if they are sometimes a little prejudiced in favour of their own perspicuity in getting up a case, let that policeman, of any other country, who is quite without fault, throw the first stone at their brave, good natured heads. Logotheti was not at his lodgings in St. James's Place, and from each of two clubs to which the officer telephoned rather at random, the only answer was that he was a member but not in the house. The officer wrote a line to his rooms and sent it by a messenger, to be given to him as soon as he came in. [Illustration: "She grasped Lady Maud's hand."] It was late in the hot afternoon when Mrs. Foxwell answered the message by coming to the police station herself. She was at once admitted to Baraka's cell and the door was closed after her. The girl was lying on the pallet bed, dressed in a poor calico skirt and a loose white cotton jacket, which Mrs. Mowle had brought and had insisted that she must put on; and her man's clothes had been taken from her with all her other belongings. She sat up, forlorn, pale and lovely, as the kind visitor entered and stood beside her. 'Poor child!' exclaimed the lady, touched by her sad eyes. 'What can I do to help you?' Baraka shook her head, for she did not understand. Then she looked up into eyes almost as beautiful as her own, and pronounced a name, slowly and so distinctly that it was impossible not to hear each syllable. 'Konstantin Logotheti.' The lady started, as well she might; for she was no other than Lady Maud, who called herself by her own family name, 'Mrs. Foxwell,' in her work amongst the poor women of London. Baraka saw the quick movement and understood that Logotheti was well known to her visitor. She grasped Lady Maud's arm with both her small hands, and looked up to her face with a beseeching look that could not be misunderstood. She wished Logotheti to be informed of her captivity, and was absolutely confident that he would help her out of her trouble. Lady Maud was less sure of that, however, and said so, but it was soon clear that Baraka did not speak a word of any language known to Lady Maud, who was no great linguist at best. Under these circumstances it looked as if there were nothing to be done for the poor girl, who made all sorts of signs of distress, when she saw that the English woman was about to leave her, in sheer despair of being of any use. Just then, however, the sergeant came to the door, and informed the visitor that the girl had an accomplice who spoke her language and knew some English, and that by stretching a point he would bring the man, if Mrs. Foxwell wished to talk with him. The result was that in less than half an hour, Lady Maud heard from Spiro a most extraordinary tale, of which she did not believe a single word. To her plain English mind, it all seemed perfectly mad at first, and on reflection she thought it an outrageous attempt to play upon her credulity; whereas she was thoroughly convinced that the girl had come to grief in some way through Logotheti and had followed him from Constantinople, probably supporting herself and her companion by stealing on the way. Lady Maud's husband had been a brute, but he knew the East tolerably well, having done some military duty in the Caucasus before he entered the diplomatic service; his stories had chiefly illustrated the profound duplicity of all Asiatics, and she had not seen any reason to disbelieve them. When Spiro had nothing more to say, therefore, she rose from the only seat there was and shook her head with an air of utter incredulity, mingled with the sort of pitying contempt she felt for all lying in general. She could easily follow the case, by the help of the sergeant and the Police Court reports, and she might be able to help Baraka hereafter when the girl had served the sentence she would certainly get for such an important and cleverly managed theft. The poor girl implored and wept in vain; Lady Maud could do nothing, and would not stay to be told any more inane stories about ruby mines in Tartary. She called the sergeant, freed herself from Baraka's despairing hold on her hand and went out. Spiro was then marched back to his cell on the men's side. Though it was hot, Lady Maud walked home, as Mr. Van Torp had done that same morning when he had left Mr. Pinney's shop. She always walked when she was in any distress or difficulty, for the motion helped her to think, since she was strong and healthy, and only in her twenty-ninth year. Just now, too, she was a good deal disturbed by what had happened, besides being annoyed by the attempt that had been made to play on her credulity in such a gross way. She was really fond of Margaret Donne, quite apart from any admiration she felt for the Primadonna's genius, by which she might have been influenced. In her opinion, the Tartar girl's appeal for help to reach Logotheti could only mean one thing, and that was very far from being to his credit. If the girl had not been positively proved to be a thief and if she had not attempted to impose upon her by what seemed the most absurd falsehoods, Lady Maud would very probably have taken her under her own protection, as far as the law would allow. But her especial charity was not for criminals or cheats, though she had sometimes helped and comforted women accused of far worse crimes than stealing. In this instance she could do nothing, and she did not even wish to do anything. It was a flagrant case, and the law would deal with it in the right way. The girl had come to grief, no doubt, by trusting Logotheti blindly, and he had thrown her off; if she had sunk into the dismal depths of woe behind the Virtue-Curtain, as most of her kind did, Lady Maud would have gone in and tried to drag her out, as she had saved others. But Logotheti's victim had taken a different turn, had turned thief and had got into the hands of justice. Her sin would be on his head, no doubt, but no power could avert from her the just consequences of a misdeed that had no necessary connexion with her fall. Thus argued Lady Maud, while Baraka lay on her pallet bed in her calico skirt and white cotton jacket, neither weeping, nor despairing by any means, nor otherwise yielding to girlish weakness, but already devising means for carrying on her pursuit of the man she would still seek, even throughout the whole world, though she was just now a penniless girl locked up as a thief in a London police station. It was not one of the down-hearted, crying sort that could have got so far already, against such portentous odds. She guessed well enough that she would be tried the next morning in the Police Court; for Spiro, who knew much about Europe, and England in particular, had told her a great deal during their travels. She had learned that England was a land of justice, and she would probably get it in the end; for the rest, she was a good Musulman girl and looked on whatsoever befell her as being her portion, for good or evil, to be accepted without murmuring. Lady Maud could not know anything of this and took Baraka for a common delinquent, so far as her present situation was concerned. But when the Englishwoman thought of what must have gone before, and of the part Logotheti had almost certainly played in the girl's life, her anger was roused, and she sat down and wrote to Margaret on the impulse of the moment. She gave a detailed account of her experience at the police station, including especially a description of the way Baraka had behaved in trying to send a message to Logotheti. 'I tell you quite frankly,' Lady Maud wrote in conclusion, 'that my friend Mr. Van Torp has begged me very urgently to use any friendly influence I may possess, to induce you to reconsider your engagement, because he hopes that you will accept him instead. You will not think any less well of him for that. A man may ask his best friend to help him to marry the girl he is in love with, I am sure! I told him that I would not do anything to make trouble between you and Logo. If I am making trouble now, by writing all this, it is therefore not to help Mr. Van Torp, but because the impression I have had about Logo has really frightened me, for you. I made such a wretched failure of my own married life that I have some right to warn a friend who seems to be on the point of doing just the same thing. I don't forget that in spite of all your celebrity--and its glories--you are nothing but a young girl still, under twenty-five; but you are not a schoolgirl, my dear, and you do not expect to find that a man like Logo, who is well on towards forty now, is a perfect Galahad. Even I didn't flatter myself that Leven had never cared for any one else, when I married him, and I had not half your knowledge of the world, I fancy. But you have a right to be sure that the man you marry is quite free, and that you won't suddenly meet a lovely Eastern girl of twenty who claims him after you think he is yours; and your friend has a right to warn you, if she feels sure that he is mixed up in some affair that isn't over yet. I'm not sure that I should be a good friend to you if I held my tongue. Our fathers were very close friends before us, Margaret, and there is really a sort of inheritance in their friendship, between you and me, isn't there? Besides, if you think I'm doing wrong, or that I'm making trouble out of nothing, just to help Mr. Van Torp, you can tell me so and we shall part I suppose, and that will be the end of it! Except that I shall be very, very sorry to lose you. 'I don't know where Logo is, but if he were near enough I should go to him and tell him what I think. Of course he is not in town now--nobody is, and I've only stayed on to clear everything out of my house, now that I'm giving it up. I suppose he is with you, though you said you did not want him at Bayreuth! Show him this letter if you like, for I'm quite ready to face him if he's angry at my interference. I would even join you in Paris, if you wanted me, for I have nothing to do and strange to say I have a little money! I've sold almost all my furniture, you know, so I'm not such a total pauper as usual. But in any case answer this, please, and tell me that I have done right, or wrong, just as you feel about it--and then we will go on being friends, or say good-bye, whichever you decide.' Lady Maud signed this long letter and addressed it to Miss Margaret Donne, at Bayreuth, feeling sure that it would be delivered, even without the name of the hotel, which she did not know. But the Bayreuth post-office was overworked during the limited time of the performances, and it happened that the extra assistant through whose hands the letter passed for distribution either did not know that Miss Donne was the famous Cordova, or did not happen to remember the hotel at which she was stopping, or both, and it got pigeonholed under D, to be called for. The consequence was that Margaret did not receive it until the morning after the performance of _Parsifal_ to which she had taken Van Torp, though it had left London only six hours after him; for such things will happen even in extremely well-managed countries when people send letters insufficiently addressed. Furthermore, it also happened that Logotheti was cooling himself on the deck of his yacht in the neighbourhood of Penzance, while poor Baraka was half-stifled in the Police Station. For the yacht, which was a very comfortable one, though no longer new, and not very fast according to modern ideas, was at Cowes, waiting to be wanted, and when her owner parted from Van Torp after promising to dine on the next day but one, it occurred to him that the smell of the wood pavements was particularly nasty, that it would make no real difference whether he returned to Pinney's at once or in two days, or two weeks, since the ruby he had left must be cut before it was mounted, and that he might just as well take the fast train to Southampton and get out to sea for thirty-six hours. This he did, after telegraphing to his sailing-master to have steam as soon as possible; and as he had only just time to reach the Waterloo Station he did not even take the trouble to stop at his lodgings. He needed no luggage, for he had everything he wanted on board, and his man was far too well used to his ways to be surprised at his absence. The consequence of this was that when Baraka's case came up the next morning there was no one to say a word for her and Spiro. Mr. Pinney identified the ruby 'to the best of his belief' as the one stolen from his counter, the fact that Baraka had been disguised in man's clothes was treated as additional evidence, and she and Spiro were sent to Brixton Gaol accordingly, Spiro protesting their innocence all the while in eloquent but disjointed English, until he was told to hold his tongue. Further, Lady Maud read the Police Court report in an evening paper, cut it out and sent it to Margaret as a document confirming the letter she had posted on the previous evening; and owing to the same insufficiency in the address, the two missives were delivered together. Lastly, Mr. Pinney took the big ruby back to his shop and locked it up in his safe with a satisfaction and a sense of profound relief such as he had rarely felt in a long and honourable life; and he would have been horrified and distressed beyond words if he could have even guessed that he had been the means of sending an innocent and helpless girl to prison. The mere possibility of such a mistake would have sent him at the greatest attainable speed to Scotland Yard, and if necessary in pursuit of the Home Secretary himself. The latter was in the north of Scotland, on a friend's moor, particularly preoccupied about his bag and deeply interested in the education of a young retriever that behaved like an idiot during each drive instead of lying quiet behind the butts, though it promised to turn out a treasure in respect of having the nose and eye of a vulture and the mouth of a sucking-dove. The comparisons are those of the dog's owner, including the 'nose' of the bird of prey, and no novelist can be held responsible for a Cabinet Minister's English. One thing more which concerns this tale happened on that same day. Two well-dressed young men drove up to the door of a quiet and very respectable hotel in the West End; and they asked for their bill, and packed their belongings, which were sufficient though not numerous; and when they had paid what they owed and given the usual tips, they told the porter to call two hansoms, and each had his things put on one of them; and they nodded to each other and parted; and one hansom drove to Euston and the other to Charing Cross; and whether they ever met again, I do not know, and it does not matter; but in order to clear Baraka's character at once and to avoid a useless and perfectly transparent mystery, it is as well to say directly that it was the young man who drove to Euston, on his way to Liverpool and New York, who had Logotheti's ruby sewn up in his waistcoat pocket; and that the ruby really belonged to Margaret, since Logotheti had already given it to her, before he had brought it to Mr. Pinney to be cut and set. But the knowledge of what is here imparted to the reader, who has already guessed this much of the truth, would not help Baraka out of Brixton Gaol, where the poor girl found herself in very bad company indeed; even worse, perhaps, than that in which Spiro was obliged to spend his time. CHAPTER VIII Margaret received her friend's letter and the account of Baraka's trial by the same post on the morning after she and Mr. Van Torp had been to hear _Parsifal_ together, and she opened the two envelopes before reading her other letters, though after assuring herself that there was nothing from Logotheti. He did not write every day, by any means, for he was a man of the world and he knew that although most women demand worship at fixed hours, few can receive it so regularly without being bored to the verge of exasperation. It was far better, Logotheti knew, to let Margaret find fault with him for writing too little than to spoil her into indifference by writing too much. Women are often like doctors, who order their patients to do ten things and are uncommonly glad if the patient does one. So Margaret had no letter from Logotheti that morning, and she read Lady Maud's and the enclosure before going on to the unpaid bills, religious tracts, appeals for alms, advertisements of patent medicines, 'confidential' communications from manufacturers of motor cars, requests to sing for nothing at charity concerts, anonymous letters of abuse, real business letters from real business men, and occasional attempts at blackmail, which are the usual contents of a celebrity's post-bag, and are generally but thinly salted with anything like news from friends. The Primadonna, in her professional travels, had grown cautious of reading her letters in a room where there were other people; she had once surprised a colleague who was toying with an opera-glass quite absently, ten paces away, as if trying its range and focus, but who frequently directed it towards a letter she was perusing; and short-sighted people had dropped a glove or a handkerchief at her very feet in order to stoop down and bring their noses almost against a note she held in her hand. The world is full of curious people; curiosity is said, indeed, to be the prime cause of study and therefore of knowledge itself. Margaret assuredly did not distrust Mrs. Rushmore, and she did not fear Potts, but her experience had given her the habit of reading her important letters alone in her own room, and sometimes with the door locked. Similarly, if any one came near her when she was writing, even about the most indifferent matters, she instinctively covered the page with her hand, or with a piece of blotting-paper, sometimes so hastily as to lead a person to believe that she was ashamed of what she had written. Natural habits of behaviour remind us how we were brought up; acquired ones recall to us the people with whom we have lived. Margaret read the newspaper cutting first, supposing that it contained something flattering about herself, for she had been a little short of public admiration for nearly a fortnight. Baraka's case was reported with the rather brutal simplicity which characterises such accounts in the English papers, and Logotheti's name appeared in Mr. Pinney's evidence. There had been the usual 'laughter,' duly noted by the stenographer, when the poor girl's smart man's clothes were produced before the magistrate by the policeman who had arrested her. The magistrate had made a few stern remarks when ordering the delinquents to prison, and had called Baraka 'hardened' because she did not burst into tears. That was all, and there were barely five-and-twenty lines of small print. But the Primadonna bit her handsome lip and her eyes sparkled with anger, as she put the cutting back into the first envelope, and took the folded letter out of the other. The girl had not only stolen a ruby, but it was Margaret's ruby, her very own, the one Logotheti had given her for her engagement, and which she had insisted upon having set as a ring though it would cover more than half the space between her knuckle and the joint of her third finger. Further, it had been stolen by the very girl from whom Logotheti had pretended that he had bought it, a fact which cast the high light of absurdity on his unlikely story! It was natural enough that she should have seen it, and should have known that he was taking it to Pinney's, and that she should have been able to prepare a little screw of paper with a bit of glass inside, to substitute for it. The improbabilities of such an explanation did not occur to Lady Maud, who saw only the glaring fact that the handsome Tartar girl had accompanied Logotheti, between London and Paris, disguised as a man, and had ultimately robbed him, as he richly deserved. She had imposed upon Van Torp too, and had probably tried to sell him the very stone she had stolen from Logotheti, and the one she had made him take as a gift was nothing but a bit of glass, as he said it might be, for all he knew. She devoured Lady Maud's letter in a few moments, and then read it twice again, which took so long that Mrs. Rushmore sent Justine to tell Potts to ask if Miss Donne did not mean to go out that morning, though the weather was so fine. Great singers generally develop a capacity for flying into rages, even if they have not been born with hot tempers. It is very bad for the voice, but it seems to be a part of the life. Margaret was very angry, and Potts became as meek and mild as a little lamb when she saw the storm signals in her mistress's face. She delivered her message in a pathetic and oppressed tone, like a child reciting the collect for the day at a Sunday school. The Primadonna, imposing as a young lioness, walked slowly backwards and forwards between her window and the foot of the iron bedstead. There was an angry light in her eyes and instead of flushing, as her cheeks did for any ordinary fit of temper, they were as white as wax. Potts, who was a small woman, seemed to shrink and become visibly smaller as she stood waiting for an answer. Suddenly the lioness stood still and surveyed the poor little jackal that served her. 'Ask Mrs. Rushmore if she can wait half an hour,' she said. 'I'm very angry, Potts, and it's not your fault, so keep out of the way.' She was generous at all events, but she looked dangerous, and Potts seemed positively to shrivel through the crack of the door as she disappeared. She was so extremely glad to keep out of the way! There were legends already about the great singer's temper, as there are about all her fellow-artists. It was said, without the slightest foundation, that she had once tossed a maid out of the window like a feather, that on another occasion she had severely beaten a coachman, and that she had thrown two wretched lap-dogs into a raging fire in a stove and fastened the door, because they had barked while she was studying a new part. As a matter of fact, she loved animals to weakness, and was kindness itself to her servants, and she was generally justified in her anger, though it sometimes made her say things she regretted. Oedipus found the right answer to the Sphinx's riddle in a moment, but the ingenious one about truth propounded by Pontius Pilate has puzzled more than sixty generations of Christians. If the Sphinx had thought of it, Oedipus would never have got to Thebes and some disgustingly unpleasant family complications would have been prevented by his premature demise. Margaret's wrath did not subside quickly, and as it could not spend itself on any immediate object, it made her feel as if she were in a raging fever. She had never been ill in her life, it was true, and therefore did not know what the sensation was. Her only experience of medical treatment had been at the hands of a very famous specialist for the throat, in New York, to whom she went because all her fellow-artists did, and whose mere existence is said by grateful singers to effectually counteract the effects of the bad climate during the opera season. He photographed her vocal chords, and the diagrams produced by her best notes, made her breathe pleasant-smelling sprays and told her to keep her feet dry in rainy weather. That was the sum of her experience with doctors, and it was not at all disagreeable. Now, her temples throbbed, her hands trembled and were as hot as fire, her lips were drawn and parched, and when she caught sight of herself in the looking-glass she saw that she was quite white and that her eyes were bloodshot. But she was really a sensible English girl, although she was so very angry. 'This is ridiculous!' she said aloud, with emphasis. 'I won't be so silly!' And she sat down to try and think quietly. It was not so easy. A Tartar girl indeed! More probably a handsome Greek. How could they know the difference in a London Police Court? She was not aware that in London and other great cities the police disposes of interpreters for every known language, from the Malay dialects to Icelandic. Besides, it did not matter! She would have been angry if Logotheti had made love to the Duchess of Barchester, or to Lady Dick Savory, the smartest woman in London, or to Mrs. Smythe-Hockaday, the handsomest woman in England; she would have been angry of course, but not so furious as she was now, not in a white rage that made her teeth chatter, and her eyes burn as if they were red-hot in her head. An ignorant Eastern girl! A creature that followed him about in man's clothes! A thief! Pah! Disgusting! Each detail that occurred to her made it more unbearable. She remembered her conversation with him through the telephone when she was at Versailles, his explanation the next day, which she had so foolishly accepted, his kiss! Her blood raged in her eyes, and her hands shook together. On that evening he had refused to stay to dinner; no doubt he had gone back to his house in Paris, and had dined with the girl--in the hall of the Aphrodite! It was not to be believed, and after that memorable moment under the elm-tree, too, when the sun was going down--after an honest girl's first kiss, the first she had given any man since she had been a child and her lips had timidly touched her dead father's forehead! People would not believe it, perhaps, because she was an artist and an opera-singer; but it was true. It was no wonder that they had succeeded in deceiving her for a while, the two Orientals together! They had actually made Rufus Van Torp believe their story, which must have been a very different matter from lying to a credulous young woman who had let herself fall in love! But for her friend Lady Maud she would still be their victim. Her heart went out to the woman who had saved her from her fate, and with the thought came the impulse to send a message of gratitude; and the first fury of her anger subsided with the impulse to do so. By and by it would cool and harden to a lasting resentment that would not soften again. Her hand still shook so that she could hardly hold the pen steady while she wrote the telegram. 'Unspeakably grateful. If can join me here will gladly wait for you. Must see you at once. Do come.' She felt better as she rose from the table, and when she looked at herself in the mirror she saw that her face had changed again and that her natural colour was returning. She rang for Potts, remembering that the half-hour must be almost up. The maid appeared at once, still looking very small and mild; but one glance told her that the worst was past. She raised her head, threw back her shoulders and stood up straight, apparently growing visibly till she regained her ordinary size. 'Potts,' Margaret said, facing round upon her, 'I've been in a rage, but I'm only angry now. Do I look like a human being again?' 'Yes, ma'am,' answered the maid, inspecting her gravely. 'You are still a bit pale, ma'am, and your eye is a trifle wild, I may say. A motor veil, perhaps, if you are thinking of going out, ma'am.' 'I haven't got such a thing, have I? I never motor now.' Potts smiled the smile of the very superior maid, and moved towards a perfectly new leather hat-box that stood in the corner. 'I always put in two for sea, ma'am,' she said. 'You wore one when we crossed the Channel the last time, if you remember.' 'Potts, you're a treasure!' 'Yes, ma'am,' Potts answered vaguely in her meek voice, as she dived into one of the curious secret pockets of the hat-box. 'That is, ma'am,' she said, correcting herself, 'I mean, it's very kind of you to say so.' Without further consulting Margaret, who had seated herself before the dressing-table, Potts proceeded to fasten a broad-brimmed black straw hat on the thick brown hair; she then spread an immense white veil over it, drew it under her mistress's chin and knotted in a way that would have amazed a seaman. When Margaret was putting on her gloves, Mrs. Rushmore herself came to the door, knocked and opened discreetly before there was any answer. 'My dear child,' she asked, 'what in the world is the matter? Nothing serious, I trust?' 'Oh, nothing,' Margaret answered, going forward to meet her, and finding her natural voice. 'I'm sorry if I've kept you waiting.' 'It's so unlike you, my dear,' Mrs. Rushmore said, with emphasis; 'and Potts looked quite grave when she brought me your message half an hour ago.' 'You would have been more surprised if she had burst out laughing,' Margaret said viciously. 'My dear,' Mrs. Rushmore answered, 'I'm astonished at you! I know something has happened. I know it. You are not yourself this morning.' This was a statement so evidently absurd that it could not be answered except by a flat contradiction; so Margaret said nothing, and went on working her hand into a perfectly new glove. 'I see that you have not even opened your letters,' Mrs. Rushmore continued severely. 'Except that,' she added, noticing the loose sheets of Lady Maud's letter on the toilet-table. Margaret gathered them up hastily, folded them into a crumpled package and thrust them into the empty envelope. For once, she had forgotten her caution, but she retrieved herself by pushing the thick letter into her long glove, much to Potts' distress, for it made an ugly lump. She made it worse by forcing in the second envelope, which contained the newspaper cutting. 'I'm ready now,' she said. Mrs. Rushmore turned and led the way with stately steps; she was always imposing, but when she was offended she was monumental. The two went out in silence, opened their parasols, the one black, the other scarlet, and walked slowly down the straight, dull street side by side. Mrs. Rushmore spoke first, after they had gone some distance. 'I know,' she said, 'that something has happened. It was in that letter. You cannot deny it, Margaret. It was in the letter you folded in that hurried manner.' 'The news was,' answered the Primadonna, still vicious. 'I told you so. My dear child, it's not of the slightest use to try to deceive me. I've known you since you were a child.' 'I'm not trying to deceive you.' 'When I asked what had happened, you answered, "Nothing." I do not call that very frank, do you?' 'Potts was there, to begin with,' explained Margaret rather crossly. But Mrs. Rushmore no longer heard. Her head was up, her parasol lay back upon her shoulder, her faded eyes were brighter than before, and the beginning of a social smile wreathed her hitherto grave lips. There was game about, and she was pointing; there were lions to windward. 'There's Mr. Van Torp, my dear,' she said in quite another tone, and very low, 'and unless I'm much mistaken--yes, I knew it! He's with Count Kralinsky. I saw the Count from the window yesterday when he arrived. I hope our friend will present him.' 'I daresay,' Margaret answered indifferently, but surveying the two men through the white mist of her thick veil. 'Yes,' said Mrs. Rushmore with delight, and almost whispering in her excitement. 'He has seen us, and now he's telling the Count who we are.' Margaret was used to her excellent old friend's ways on such occasions, and gave no more heed to them than she would have given to a kitten scampering after a ball of string. The kitten would certainly catch the ball in the end, and Mrs. Rushmore would as surely capture the lion. Mr. Van Torp raised his hat when he was within four or five paces of the ladies, and his companion, who was a head and shoulders taller than he, slackened his pace and stopped a little way behind him as Mrs. Rushmore shook hands and Margaret nodded pleasantly. 'May I present Count Kralinsky?' asked the American. 'I've met him before, and we've just renewed our acquaintance.' Mr. Van Torp looked from Mrs. Rushmore to Margaret, and tried to see her expression through her veil. She answered his look by a very slight inclination of the head. 'We shall be delighted,' said the elder lady, speaking for both. Mr. Van Torp introduced the Count to Mrs. Rushmore and then to Margaret, calling her 'Miss Donne,' and she saw that the man was handsome as well as tall and strong. He had a magnificent golden beard, a clear complexion, and rather uncertain blue eyes, in one of which he wore a single eyeglass without a string. He was quietly dressed and wore no jewellery, excepting one ring, in which blazed a large 'tallow-topped' ruby. He had the unmistakable air of a man of the world, and was perfectly at his ease. When he raised his straw hat he disclosed a very white forehead, and short, thick fair hair. There was no sign of approaching middle age in his face or figure, but Margaret felt, or guessed, that he was older than he looked. In her stiffly correct French, Mrs. Rushmore said that she was enchanted to make his acquaintance, and Margaret murmured sweetly but unintelligibly. 'The Count speaks English perfectly,' observed Mr. Van Torp. He ranged himself beside Margaret, leaving the foreigner to Mrs. Rushmore, much to her gratification. 'We were going to walk,' she said. 'Will you join us?' And she moved on. 'It is a great pleasure to meet you,' Kralinsky said by way of opening the conversation. 'I have often heard of you from friends in Paris. Your little dinners at Versailles are famous all over Europe. I am sure we have many mutual friends, though you may never have heard my name.' Mrs. Rushmore was visibly pleased, and as the way was not very wide, Margaret and Van Torp dropped behind. They soon heard the other two enumerating their acquaintances. Kralinsky was surprised at the number of Mrs. Rushmore's friends, but the Count seemed to know everybody, from all the Grand Dukes and Archdukes in Russia, Germany, and Austria, to the author of the latest successful play in Paris, and the man of science who had discovered how to cure gout by radium. Kralinsky had done the cure, seen the play, and dined with the royalties within the last few weeks. Mrs. Rushmore thought him one of the most charming men she had ever met. In the rear Mr. Van Torp and the Primadonna were not talking; but he looked at her, she looked at him, they both looked at Kralinsky's back, and then they once more looked at each other and nodded; which meant that Van Torp had recognised the man he had met selling rubies in New York, and that Margaret understood this. 'I'll tell you something else that's quite funny, if you don't mind dropping a little further behind,' he said. Margaret walked still more slowly till a dozen paces separated them from the other two. 'What is it?' she asked in a low tone. 'I believe he's my old friend from whom I learned to whistle _Parsifal_,' answered the American. 'I'm pretty sure of it, in spite of a good many years and a beard--two things that change a man. See his walk? See how he turns his toes in? Most cow-boys walk like that.' 'How very odd that you should meet again!' Margaret was surprised, but not deeply interested by this new development. 'Well,' said Van Torp thoughtfully, 'if I'd known I was going to meet him somewhere, I'd have said this was as likely a place as any to find him in, now that I know what it was he whistled. But I admit that the other matter has more in it. I wonder what would happen if I asked him about Miss Barrack?' 'Nothing,' Margaret answered confidently. 'Nothing would happen. He has never heard of her.' Van Torp's sharp eyes tried in vain to penetrate the veil. 'That's not quite clear,' he observed. 'Or else this isn't my good day.' 'The girl fooled you,' said Margaret in a low voice. 'Did she mention his name to you?' 'Well, no----' 'She never saw him in her life, or if she ever did, it was she who robbed him of rubies; and it was not the other way, as you supposed. Men are generally inclined to believe what a nice-looking girl tells them!' 'That's true,' Van Torp admitted. 'But all the same, I don't quite understand you. There's a meaning in your voice that's not in the words. Excuse me if I'm not quick enough this morning, please. I'm doing my best.' 'Your friend Baraka has been arrested and sent to prison in London for stealing a very valuable ruby from the counter in Pinney's,' Margaret explained. 'The stone had just been taken there by Monsieur Logotheti to be cut. The girl must have followed him without his knowing it, and watched her chance, though how old Pinney can have left such a thing lying on the counter where any one could take it is simply incomprehensible. That's what you heard in my voice when I said that men are credulous.' Mr. Van Torp thought he had heard even more in her accent when she had pronounced Logotheti's name. Besides, she generally called him 'Logo,' as all his friends did. The American said nothing for a moment, but he glanced repeatedly at the white veil, through which he saw her handsome features without their expression. 'Well,' he said at last, almost to himself, for he hardly expected her to understand the language of his surprise, 'that beats the band!' 'It really is rather odd, you know,' responded Margaret, who understood perfectly. 'If you think I've adorned the truth I'll give you the Police Court report. I have it in my glove. Lady Maud sent it to me with a letter.' She added, after an instant's hesitation, 'I'm not sure that I shall not give you that to read too, for there's something about you in it, and she is your best friend, isn't she?' 'Out and out. I daresay you'd smile if I told you that I asked her to help me to get you to change your mind.' 'No,' Margaret answered, turning slowly to look at him. 'She tells me so in this letter.' 'Does she really?' Van Torp had guessed as much, and had wished to undermine the surprise he supposed that Margaret had in store for him. 'That's just like her straightforward way of doing things. She told me frankly that she wouldn't lift a finger to influence you. However, it can't be helped, I suppose.' The conclusion of the speech seemed to be out of the logical sequence. 'She has done more than lift a finger now,' Margaret said. 'Has she offended you?' Van Torp ventured to ask, for he did not understand the constant subtone of anger he heard in her voice. 'I know she would not mean to do that.' 'No. You don't understand. I've telegraphed to ask her to join us here.' Van Torp was really surprised now, and his face showed it. 'I wish we were somewhere alone,' Margaret continued. 'I mean, out of the way of Mrs. Rushmore. She knows nothing about all this, but she saw me cramming the letters into my glove, and I cannot possibly let her see me giving them to you.' 'Oh, well, let me think,' said the millionaire. 'I guess I want to buy some photographs of Bayreuth and the _Parsifal_ characters in that shop, there on the right. Suppose you wait outside the door, so that Mrs. Rushmore can see you if she turns around. She'll understand that I'm inside. If you drop your parasol towards her you can get the letters out, can't you? Then as I come out you can just pass them to me behind the parasol, and we'll go on. How's that? It won't take one second, anyhow. You can make-believe your glove's uncomfortable, and you're fixing it, if anybody you know comes out of the shop. Will that do? Here we are. Shall I go in?' 'Yes. Don't be long! I'll cough when I'm ready.' The operation succeeded, and the more easily as Mrs. Rushmore went quietly on without turning her head, being absorbed and charmed by Kralinsky's conversation. 'You may as well read the newspaper cutting now,' Margaret said when they had begun to walk again. 'That cannot attract attention, even if she does look round, and it explains a good many things. It's in the thinner envelope, of course.' Van Torp fumbled in the pocket of his jacket, and brought out the slip of newspaper without the envelope, a precaution which Margaret noticed and approved. If she had been able to forget for a moment her anger against Logotheti she would have been amazed at the strides her intimacy with Van Torp was making. He himself was astounded, and did not yet understand, but he had played the great game for fortune against adversaries of vast strength and skill, and had won by his qualities rather than his luck, and they did not desert him at the most important crisis of his life. The main difference between his present state of mind and his mental view, when he had been fighting men for money, was that he now felt scruples wholly new to him. Things that had looked square enough when millions were at stake appeared to him 'low down' where Margaret was the prize. She watched him intently while he read the printed report, but his face did not change in the least. At that short distance she could see every shade of his expression through the white veiling, though he could not see hers at all. He finished reading, folded the slip carefully, and put it into his pocket-book instead of returning it to the envelope. [Illustration: "She watched him intently while he read the printed report."] 'It does look queer,' he said slowly. 'Now let me ask you one thing, but don't answer me unless you like. It's not mere inquisitiveness on my part.' As Margaret said nothing, though he waited a moment for her answer, he went on. 'That ruby, now--I suppose it's to be cut for you, isn't it?' 'Yes. He gave it to me in Versailles, and I kept it some days. Then he asked me to let him have it to take to London when I came here.' 'Just so. Thank you. One more question, if I may. That stone I gave you, I swear I don't know that it's not glass--anyhow, that stone, does it look at all like the one that was stolen?' 'Oh, no! It's quite another shape and size. Why do you ask? I don't quite see.' 'What I mean is, if these people are around selling rubies, there may be two very much alike, that's all.' 'Well, if there were? What of it?' 'Suppose--I'm only supposing, mind, that the girl really had another stone about her a good deal like the one that was stolen, and that somebody else was the thief. Queer things like that have happened before.' 'Yes. But old Pinney is one of the first experts in the world, and he swore to the ruby.' 'That's so,' said Van Torp thoughtfully. 'I forgot that.' 'And if she had the other stone, she had stolen it from Monsieur Logotheti, I have not the least doubt.' 'I daresay,' replied the millionaire. 'I'm not her attorney. I'm not trying to defend her. I was only thinking.' 'She was at his house in Paris,' Margaret said, quite unable to keep her own counsel now. 'It was when I was at Versailles.' 'You don't say so! Are you sure of that?' 'He admitted it when I was talking to him through the telephone, and I heard her speaking to him in a language I did not understand.' 'Did you really? Well, well!' Mr. Van Torp was beginning to be puzzled again. 'Nice voice, hasn't she?' 'Yes. He tried to make me think he wasn't sure whether the creature was a boy or a girl.' 'Maybe he wasn't sure himself,' suggested the American, but the tone in which she had spoken the word 'creature' had not escaped him. He was really trying to put the case in a fair light, and was not at all manoeuvring to ascertain her state of mind. That was clear enough now. How far she might go he could not tell, but what she had just said, coupled with the way in which she spoke of the man to whom she was engaged as 'Monsieur Logotheti,' made it quite evident that she was profoundly incensed against him, and Van Torp became more than ever anxious not to do anything underhand. 'Look here,' he said, 'I'm going to tell you something. I took a sort of interest in that Tartar girl the only time I saw her. I don't know why. I daresay I was taken in by her--just ordinary "taken in," like a tenderfoot. I gave her that fellow's address in New York.' He nodded towards Kralinsky. 'When I found he was here, I wired Logotheti to tell her, since she's after him. I suppose I thought Logotheti would go right away and find her, and get more mixed up with her than ever. It was mean of me, wasn't it? That's why I've told you. You see, I didn't know anything about all this, and that makes it meaner still, doesn't it?' Possibly if he had told her these facts forty-eight hours earlier she might have been annoyed, but at present they seemed to be rather in his favour. At all events he was frank, she thought. He declared war on his rival, and meant fight according to the law of nations. Lady Maud would not be his friend if he were playing any double game, but she had stuck to him throughout his trouble in the spring, he had emerged victorious and reinstated in public opinion, and she had been right. Lady Maud knew him better than any one else, and she was a good woman, if there ever was one. Yet he had accused himself of having acted 'meanly.' Margaret did not like the word, and threw up her head as a horse does when a beginner holds on by the curb. 'You need not make yourself out worse than you are,' she answered. 'I want to start fair,' said the millionaire, 'and I'd rather your impression should improve than get worse. The only real trouble with Lucifer was he started too high up.' This singular statement was made with perfect gravity, and without the slightest humorous intention, but Margaret laughed for the first time that day, in spite of the storm that was still raging in the near distance of her thoughts. 'Why do you laugh?' asked Van Torp. 'It's quite true. I don't want to start too high up in your estimation and then be turned down as unfit for the position at the end of the first week. Put me where I belong and I won't disappoint you. Say I was doing something that wasn't exactly low-down, considering the object, but that mightn't pass muster at an honour-parade, anyhow. And then say that I've admitted the fact, if you like, and that the better I know you the less I want to do anything mean. It won't be hard for you to look at it in that light, will it? And it'll give me the position of starting from the line. Is that right?' 'Yes,' Margaret answered, smiling. 'Slang "right" and English "right"! You ask for a fair field and no favour, and you shall have it.' 'I'll go straight,' Van Torp answered. He was conscious that he was hourly improving his knowledge of women's little ways, and that what he had said, and had purposely expressed in his most colloquial manner, had touched a chord which would not have responded to a fine speech. For though he often spoke a sort of picturesque dialect, and though he was very far from being highly educated, he could speak English well enough when he chose. It probably seemed to him that good grammar and well-selected words belonged to formal occasions and not to everyday life, and that it was priggish to be particular in avoiding slang and cowardly to sacrifice an hereditary freedom from the bonds of the subjunctive mood. 'I suppose Lady Maud will come, won't she?' he asked suddenly, after a short silence. 'I hope so,' Margaret said. 'If not, she will meet me in Paris, for she offers to do that in her letter.' 'I'm staying on in this place because you said you didn't mind,' observed Van Torp. 'Do you want me to go away if she arrives?' 'Why should I? Why shouldn't you stay?' 'Oh, I don't know. I was only thinking. Much obliged anyway, and I'll certainly stay if you don't object. We shall be quite a party, shan't we? What with us three, and Lady Maud and Kralinsky there----' 'Surely you don't call him one of our "party"!' objected Margaret. 'He's only just been introduced to us. I daresay Mrs. Rushmore will ask him to dinner or luncheon, but that will be all.' 'Oh, yes! I suppose that will be all.' But his tone roused her curiosity by its vagueness. 'You knew him long ago,' she said. 'If he's not a decent sort of person to have about, you ought to tell us--indeed you should not have introduced him at all if he's a bad lot.' Mr. Van Torp did not answer at once, and seemed to be consulting his recollections. 'I don't know anything against him,' he said at last. 'All foreigners who drift over to the States and go West haven't left their country for the same reasons. I suppose most of them come because they've got no money at home and want some. I haven't any right to take it for granted that a foreign gentleman who turns cow-boy for a year or two has cheated at cards, or anything of that sort, have I? There were all kinds of men on that ranch, as there are on every other and in every mining camp in the West, and most of 'em have no particular names. They get called something when they turn up, and they're known as that while they stay, and if they die with their boots on, they get buried as that, and if not, they clear out when they've had enough of it; and some of 'em strike something and get rich, as I did, and some of 'em settle down to occupations, as I've known many do. But they all turn into themselves again, or turn themselves into somebody else after they go back. While they're punching cattle they're generally just "Dandy Jim" or "Levi Longlegs," as that fellow was, or something of that sort.' 'What were you called?' asked Margaret. 'I?' Van Torp smiled faintly at the recollection of his nickname. 'I was always Fanny Cook.' Margaret laughed. 'Of all the inappropriate names!' 'Well,' said the millionaire, still smiling, 'I guess it must have been because I was always sort of gentle and confiding and sweet, you know. So they concluded to give me a girl's name as soon as they saw me, and I turned out a better cook than the others, so they tacked that on, too. I didn't mind.' Margaret smiled too, as she glanced at his jaw and his flat, hard cheeks, and thought of his having been called 'Fanny.' 'Did you ever kill anybody, Miss Fanny?' she asked, with a little laugh. A great change came over his face at once. 'Yes,' he answered very gravely. 'Twice, in fair self-defence. If I had hesitated, I should not be here.' 'I beg your pardon,' Margaret said quietly. 'I should not have asked you. I ought to have known.' 'Why?' he asked. 'One gets that kind of question asked one now and then by people one doesn't care to answer. But I'd rather have you know something about my life than not. Not that it's much to be proud of,' he added, rather sadly. 'Some day you shall tell me all you will,' Margaret answered. 'I daresay you did much better than you think, when you look back.' 'Lady Maud knows all about me now,' he said, 'and no one else alive does. Perhaps you'll be the second that will, and that'll be all for the present. They want us to come up with them, do you see?' Mrs. Rushmore and Kralinsky had stopped in their walk and were waiting for them. They quickened their pace. 'I thought perhaps this was far enough,' said Mrs. Rushmore. 'Of course I could go on further, and it's not your usual walk, my dear, but unless you mind--' Margaret did not mind, and said so readily; whereupon Mrs. Rushmore deliberately took Van Torp for her companion on the way back. 'I'm sure you won't object to walking slowly,' she said to him, 'and Miss Donne and the Count can go as fast as they like, for they are both good walkers. I am sure you must be a great walker,' she added, turning to the Russian. He smiled blandly and bent his head a little, as if he were acknowledging a compliment. Van Torp looked at him quietly. 'I should have thought you were more used to riding,' said the American. 'Ah, yes!' The indifferent answer came in a peculiarly oily tone, though the pronunciation was perfect. 'I was in the cavalry before I began to travel. But I walked over two thousand miles in Central Asia, and was none the worst for it.' Margaret was sure that she was not going to like him, as she moved on with him by her side; and Van Torp, walking with Mrs. Rushmore, was quite certain that he was Levi Longlegs, who had herded cattle with him for six months very long ago. CHAPTER IX Logotheti reached his lodgings in St. James's Place at six o'clock in the evening of the day on which he had promised to dine with Van Torp, and the latter's note of excuse was given to him at once. He read it, looked out of the window, glanced at it again, and threw it into the waste-paper basket without another thought. He did not care in the least about dining with the American millionaire. In fact, he had looked forward to it rather as a bore than a pleasure. He saw on his table, with his letters, a flat and almost square parcel, which the addressed label told him contained the Archæological Report of the Egyptian Exploration Fund, and he had heard that the new number would contain an account of a papyrus recently discovered at Oxyrrhynchus, on which some new fragments of Pindar had been found. No dinner that could be devised, and no company that could be asked to meet him at it, could be half as delightful as that to the man who so deeply loved the ancient literature of his country, and he made up his mind at once that he would not even take the trouble to go to a club, but would have a bird and a salad in his rooms. Unhappily for his peace and his anticipated feast of poetry, he looked through his letters to see if there were one from Margaret, and there was only a coloured postcard from Bayreuth, with the word 'greetings' scrawled beside the address in her large hand. Next to the card, however, there was a thick letter addressed in a commercial writing he remembered but could not at once identify; and though it was apparently a business communication, and could therefore have waited till the next morning, when his secretary would come as usual, he opened it out of mere curiosity to know whence it came. It was from Mr. Pinney the jeweller, and it contained a full and conscientious account of the whole affair of the theft, from the moment when Logotheti and Van Torp had gone out together until Mr. Pinney had locked up the stone in his safe again, and Baraka and Spiro had been lodged in Brixton Gaol. The envelope contained also a cutting from the newspaper similar to the one Margaret had received from Lady Maud. Logotheti laid the letter on the table and looked at his watch. It was now a quarter-past six, and old-fashioned shops like Pinney's close rather early in the dull season, when few customers are to be expected and the days are not so long as they have been. In the latter part of August, in London, the sun sets soon after seven o'clock, and Logotheti realised that he had no time to lose. As he drove quickly up towards Bond Street, he ran over the circumstances in his mind, and came to the conclusion that Baraka had probably been the victim of a trick, though he did not exclude the bare possibility that she might be guilty. With all her cleverness and native sense, she might be little more than a savage who had picked up European manners in Constantinople, where you can pick up any manners you like, Eastern or Western. The merchant who had given her a letter for Logotheti only knew what she had chosen to tell him, and connived in her deception by speaking of her as a man; and she might have told him anything to account for having some valuable precious stones to dispose of. But, on the other hand, she might not be a Tartar at all. Any one, from the Bosphorus to the Amur, may speak Tartar, and pretend not to understand anything else. She might be nothing but a clever half-bred Levantine from Smyrna, who had fooled them all, and really knew French and even English. The merchant had not vouched for the bearer's character beyond saying that 'he' had some good rubies to sell, called himself a Tartar, and was apparently an honest young fellow. All the rest was Baraka's own story, and Logotheti really knew of nothing in her favour beyond his intimate conviction that she was innocent. Against that stood the fact that the stolen ruby had been found secreted on her person within little more than half an hour of her having had a chance to take it from Pinney's shop. From quite another point of view, Logotheti himself argued as Margaret had done. Baraka knew that he possessed the ruby, since she had sold it to him. She knew that he meant to have it cut in London. She might easily have been watching him and following him for several days in the hope of getting it back, carrying the bit of bottle glass of the same size about with her, carefully prepared and wrapped in tissue-paper, ready to be substituted for the gem at any moment. She had watched him go into Pinney's, knowing very well what he was going for; she had waited till he came out, and had then entered and asked to see any rubies Mr. Pinney had, trusting to the chance that he might choose to show her Logotheti's, as a curiosity. Chance had favoured her, that was all. She had doubtless recognised the twist on the counter, and the rest had been easy enough. Was not the affair of the Ascot Cup, a much more difficult and dangerous theft, still fresh in every one's memory? Logotheti found Mr. Pinney himself in the act of turning the discs of the safe before going home and leaving his shopman to shut up the place. He smiled with grave satisfaction when Logotheti entered. 'I was hoping to see you, sir,' he said. 'I presume that you had my letter? I wrote out the account with great care, as you may imagine, but I shall be happy to go over the story with you if there is any point that is not clear.' Logotheti did not care to hear it; he wished to see the ruby. Mr. Pinney turned the discs again to their places, stuck the little key into the secret keyhole which then revealed itself, turned it three times to the left and five times to the right, and opened the heavy iron door. The safe was an old-fashioned one that had belonged to his father before him. He got out the japanned tin box, opened that, and produced the stone, still in its paper, for it was too thick to be put into one of Mr. Pinney's favourite pill-boxes. Logotheti undid the paper, took out the big uncut ruby, laid it in the palm of his hand, and looked at it critically, turning it over with one finger from time to time. He took it to the door of the shop, where the evening light was stronger, and examined it with the greatest care. Still he did not seem satisfied. 'Let me have your lens, Mr. Pinney,' he said, 'and some electric light and a sheet of white paper.' Mr. Pinney turned up a strong drop light that stood on the counter, and produced the paper and a magnifier. 'It's a grand ruby,' he said. 'I see it is,' Logotheti answered rather curtly. 'Do you mean to say,' asked the surprised jeweller, 'that you had bought it without thoroughly examining it, sir--you who are an expert?' 'No, that's not what I mean,' answered the Greek, bending over the ruby and scrutinising it through the strong magnifier. Mr. Pinney felt himself snubbed, which had not happened to him for a long time, and he drew himself up with dignity. A minute passed, and Logotheti did not look up; another, and Mr. Pinney grew nervous; a few seconds more, and he received a shock that took away his breath. 'This is not my ruby,' said Logotheti, looking up, and speaking with perfect confidence. 'Not--your--ruby!' Mr. Pinney's jaw dropped. 'But----' He could get no further. 'I'm sorry,' Logotheti said calmly. 'I'm very sorry, for several reasons. But it's not the stone I brought you, though it's just as large, and most extraordinarily like it.' 'But how do you know, sir?' gasped the jeweller. 'Because I'm an expert, as you were good enough to say just now.' 'Yes, sir. But I am an expert too, and to the best of my expert belief this is the stone you left with me to be cut, the day before yesterday. I've examined it most thoroughly.' 'No doubt,' answered the Greek. 'But you hadn't examined mine thoroughly before it was stolen, had you? You had only looked at it with me, on the counter here.' 'That is correct, sir,' said Mr. Pinney nervously. 'That is quite true.' 'Very well. But I did more than merely look at it through a lens or weigh it. I did not care so much about the weight, but I cared very much for the water, and I tried the ruby point on it in the usual way, but it was too hard, and then I scratched it in two places with the diamond, more out of curiosity than for any other reason.' 'You marked it, sir? There's not a single scratch on this one! Merciful Providence! Merciful Providence!' 'Yes,' Logotheti said gravely. 'The girl spoke the truth. She had two stones much larger than the rest when she first came to me in Paris, this one and another. They were almost exactly alike, and she wanted me to buy both, but I did not want them, and I took the one I thought a little better in colour. This is the other, for she still had it; and, so far as I know, it is her legal property, and mine is gone. The thief was one of those two young fellows who came in just when Mr. Van Torp and I went out. I remember thinking what nice-looking boys they were!' He laughed rather harshly, for he was more annoyed than his consideration for Mr. Pinney made him care to show. He had looked forward to giving Margaret the ruby, mounted just as she wished it; and the ruby was gone, and he did not know where he was to find another, except the one that was now in Pinney's hands, but really belonged to poor Baraka, who could certainly not sell it at present. A much larger sum of money was gone, too, than any financier could lose with equanimity by such a peculiarly disagreeable mishap as being robbed. There were several reasons why Logotheti was not pleased. So far as the money went, he was not sure about the law in such a case, and he did not know whether he could claim it of Pinney, who had really been guilty of gross carelessness after a lifetime of scrupulous caution. Pinney was certainly very well off, and would not suffer nearly as much by the loss of a few thousand pounds as from the shame of having been robbed in such an impudent fashion of a gem that was not even his, but had been entrusted to his keeping. 'I am deeply humiliated,' said the worthy old jeweller. 'I have not only been tricked and plundered, but I have been the means of sending innocent people to prison.' 'You had better be the means of getting them out again as soon as possible,' said Logotheti. 'You know what to do here in England far better than I. In my country a stroke of the pen would free Baraka, and perhaps another would exile you to Bagdad, Mr. Pinney!' He spoke lightly, to cheer the old man, but Mr. Pinney shook his head. 'This is no jesting matter, sir,' he said. 'I feel deeply humiliated.' He really did, and it was evidently a sort of relief to him to repeat the words. 'I suppose,' said Logotheti, 'that we shall have to make some kind of sworn deposition, or whatever you call it, together, and we will go and do it at once, if you please. Lock up the ruby in the safe again, Mr. Pinney, and we will start directly. I shall not go back to my lodgings till we have done everything we can possibly do to-night.' 'But you will dine, sir?' Mr. Pinney put that point as only a well-regulated Englishman of his class can. 'I shall not dine, and you will not dine,' answered Logotheti calmly, 'if our dinner is at all likely to keep those people in prison an hour longer than is inevitable.' Mr. Pinney looked graver than ever. He was in the habit of dining early, and it is said that an Englishman does not fight on an empty stomach, and will eat an excellent breakfast before being hanged. 'You can eat sandwiches in the hansom,' said the Greek coldly. 'I was thinking of you, sir,' Mr. Pinney answered gloomily, as he finished the operation of shutting the safe; he did not like sandwiches, for his teeth were not strong. 'You must also make an effort to trace those two young men who stole the ruby,' said Logotheti. 'I most certainly shall,' replied the jeweller, 'and if it is not found we will make it good to you, sir, whatever price you set upon it. I am deeply humiliated, but nobody shall say that Pinney and Son do not make good any loss their customers sustain through them.' 'Don't worry about that, Mr. Pinney,' said Logotheti, who saw how much distressed the old jeweller really was. So they went out and hailed a hansom, and drove away. It would be tiresome to give a detailed account of what they did. Mr. Pinney had not been one of the principal jewellers in London for forty years without having been sometimes in need of the law; and occasionally, also, the law had been in need of him as an expert in very grave cases, some of which required the utmost secrecy as well as the greatest possible tact. He knew his way about in places where Logotheti had never been; and having once abandoned the idea of dinner, he lost no time; for the vision of dinner after all was over rose softly, as the full moon rises on a belated traveller, very pleasant and companionable by the way. Moreover, as the fact that Baraka and Spiro were really innocent has been kept in view, the manner in which they were proved so is of little importance, nor the circumstances of their being let out of Brixton Gaol, with a vague expression of regret on the part of the law for having placed faith in what Mr. Pinney had testified 'to the best of his belief,' instead of accepting a fairy story which a Tartar girl, caught going about in man's clothes, told through the broken English of a Stamboul interpreter. The law, being good English law, did not make a fuss about owning that it had been mistaken; though it reprimanded Mr. Pinney openly for his haste, and he continued to feel deeply humiliated. It was also quite ready to help him to find the real thieves, though that looked rather difficult. For law and order, in their private study, with no one looking on, had felt that there was something very odd about the case. It was strange, for instance, that the committed person should have a large bank account in Paris in his, or her, own name, and should have made no attempt to conceal the latter when arrested. It was queer that 'Barak' should be known to a number of honourable Paris jewellers as having sold them rubies of excellent quality, but that there should never have been the least suspicion that he, or she, took any that belonged to other people. It was still more extraordinary that 'Barak' should have offered an enormous ruby, of which the description corresponded remarkably well with the one that had appeared in evidence at the Police Court, to two French dealers in precious stones, who had not bought it, but were bearing it in mind for possible customers, and were informed of Barak's London address, in case they could find a buyer. In the short time since Baraka had been in prison, yards of ciphered telegrams had been exchanged between the London and Paris police; for the Frenchmen maintained that if the Englishmen had not made a mistake, there must have been a big robbery of precious stones somewhere, to account for those that Baraka was selling; but that, as no such robbery, or robberies, had been heard of anywhere in Europe, America, India, or Australia, the Englishmen were probably wrong and had locked up the wrong person. For the French jewellers who had bought the stones all went to the Paris Chief of Police and laid the matter before him, being much afraid that they had purchased stolen goods which had certainly not been offered for sale in 'market overt.' The result was that the English police had begun to feel rather nervous about it all, and were extremely glad to have matters cleared up, and to say so, and to see about the requisite order to set the prisoners at large. Also, Mr. Pinney restored the ruby to her, and all her other belongings were given back to her, even including the smart grey suit of men's clothes in which she had been arrested; and her luggage and other things which the manager of the hotel where she had been stopping had handed over to the police were all returned; and when Spiro appeared at the hotel to pay the small bill that had been left owing, he held his head as high as an Oriental can when he has got the better of any one, and that is pretty high indeed. Furthermore, Mr. Pinney insisted on giving Logotheti a formal document by which Messrs. Pinney and Son bound themselves to make good to him, his heirs, or assigns, the loss of a ruby, approximately of a certain weight and quality, which he had lost through their carelessness. All these things were arranged with as little fuss and noise as might be; but it was not possible to keep the singular circumstances out of the newspapers; nor was it desirable, except from Mr. Pinney's point of view, for Baraka had a right to be cleared from all suspicion in the most public manner, and Logotheti insisted that this should be done. It was done, and generously too; and the girl's story was so wonderfully romantic that the reporters went into paroxysms of adjectivitis in every edition of their papers, and scurried about town like mad between the attacks to find out where she was and to interview her. But in this they failed; and the only person they could lay hands on was Logotheti's private secretary, who was a middle-aged Swiss with a vast face that was as perfectly expressionless as a portrait of George the Fourth on the signboard of an English country inn, or a wooden Indian before the door of an American tobacconist's shop. He had been everywhere and spoke most known languages, for he had once set up a little business in Constantinople that had failed; and his power of knowing nothing, when he had a secret to keep for his employer, was as the combined stupidity of ten born idiots. He knew nothing. No, he did not know where Baraka was; he did not know what had become of her servant Spiro; he did not know where Logotheti was; he did not know anything; if the reporters had asked him his own name, he would very likely have answered that he did not know that either. The number of things he did not know was perfectly overwhelming. The reporters came to the conclusion that Logotheti had spirited away the beautiful Tartar; and they made some deductions, but abstained from printing them yet, though they worked them out on paper, because they were well aware that Logotheti was engaged to marry the celebrated Cordova, and was too important a personage to be trifled with, unless he had a fall, which sometimes happens to financiers. On the day following Baraka's liberation, Lady Maud received Margaret's pressing telegram begging her to go to Bayreuth. The message reached her before noon, about the time when Margaret and her companions had come back from their morning walk, and after hesitating for half-an-hour, she telegraphed that she would come with pleasure, and would start at once, which meant that evening. She had just read the official account of the ruby case in its new aspect, and she did not believe a word of the story. To her mind it was quite clear that Logotheti was still infatuated with the girl, that he had come to London as fast as he could, and that he had deliberately sworn that the ruby was not his, but another one, in order to get her out of trouble. If it was not his it had not been stolen from Pinney's, and the whole case fell through at once. If she was declared innocent the stone must be given back to her; he would take it from her as soon as they were alone and return it to his own pocket; and being an Oriental, he would probably beat her for robbing him, but would not let her out of his sight again till he was tired of her. Lady Maud had heard from her late husband how all Turks believed that women had no souls and should be kept under lock and key, and well fed, and soundly beaten now and then for the good of their tempers. This view was exaggerated, but Lady Maud was in a humour to recall it and accept it without criticism, and she made up her mind that before leaving town to join Margaret she would make sure of the facts. No friend of hers should marry a man capable of such outrageous deeds. If she had not been an impulsive woman she could never have done so much good in the world; and she had really done so much that she believed in her impulses, and acted on them without taking into consideration the possibility that she might be doing harm. But the damage which very actively good people sometimes do quite unintentionally is often greater and more lasting than that done by bad people, because the good ones carry with them the whole resistless weight of real goodness and of real good works already accomplished. Perhaps that is why honestly convinced reformers sometimes bring about more ruin in a few months than ten years of bribery and corruption have wrought before them. Lady Maud was a reformer, in a sense, and she was afraid of nothing when she thought she was doing right. She went to Logotheti's lodgings and asked to see him, as regardless of what any one should think of her, if she were recognised, as she had been in the old days when she used to go to Van Torp's chambers in the Temple in the evening. She was told that Logotheti was out of town. Where? The servant did not know that. The lady could see the secretary, who might, perhaps, tell her. He received every one who had business with Monsieur Logotheti. She went up one flight and was admitted to a very airy sitting-room, simply furnished. There were several large easy-chairs of different shapes, all covered with dark wine-coloured leather, and each furnished with a different appliance for holding a book or writing materials. There was a long bookcase full of books behind glass. There was a writing-table, on which were half-a-dozen monstrously big implements of an expensive kind, but handsome in their way: a paper-cutter hewn from at least a third of an elephant's tusk, and heavy enough to fell a man at a blow; an enormous inkstand, apparently made of a solid brick of silver, without ornament, brightly polished, and having a plain round hole in the middle for ink; a blotting-case of the larger folio size, with a Greek inscription on it in raised letters of gold; a trough of imperial jade, two feet long, in which lay a couple of gold penholders fitted with new pens, and the thickest piece of scarlet sealing-wax Lady Maud had ever seen. They were objects of the sort that many rich men receive as presents, or order without looking at them when they are furnishing a place that is to be a mere convenience for a few days in the year. There was nothing personal in what Lady Maud saw, except the books, and she could not have examined them if she had wished to. The one thing that struck her was a delicate suggestion of sweetness in the fresh air of the room, something that was certainly not a scent, and yet was not that of the perfumes or gums which some Orientals like to burn where they live. She liked it, and wondered what it was, as she glanced about for some one of the unmistakable signs of a woman's presence. The Swiss secretary had risen ponderously to receive her, and as she did not sit down he remained standing. His vast face was fringed with a beard of no particular colour, and his eyes were fixed and blue in his head, like turquoises set in pale sole leather. 'I am Countess Leven,' she said, 'and I have known Monsieur Logotheti some time. Will you kindly tell me where he is?' 'I do not know, madam,' was the answer. 'He is not in London?' 'At present I do not know, madam.' 'Has he left no address? Do you not forward his letters to him?' 'No, madam. I do not forward his letters to him.' 'Then I suppose he is on his yacht,' suggested Lady Maud. 'Madam, I do not know whether he is on his yacht.' 'You don't seem to know anything!' 'Pardon me, madam, I think I know my business. That is all I know.' Lady Maud held her beautiful head a little higher and her lids drooped slightly as she looked down at him, for he was shorter than she. But the huge leathern face was perfectly impassive, and the still, turquoise eyes surveyed her without winking. She had never seen such stolidity in a human being. It reminded her of those big Chinese pottery dogs with vacant blue eyes that some people keep beside a fireplace or a hall door, for no explicable reason. There was clearly nothing to be done, and she thought the secretary distinctly rude; but as that was no reason why she should be, she bade him good-morning civilly and turned to go. Somewhat to her surprise, he followed her quickly across the room, opened the door for her and went on into the little hall to let her out. There was a small table there, on which lay some of Logotheti's hats, and several pairs of gloves were laid out neatly before them. There was one pair, of a light grey, very much smaller than all the rest, so small indeed that they might have fitted a boy of seven, except that they looked too narrow for any boy. They were men's gloves as to length and buttons, but only a child could have worn them. Lady Maud saw them instantly, and remembered Baraka's disguise; and as she passed the big umbrella jar to go out, she saw that with two of Logotheti's sticks there was a third, fully four inches shorter; just a plain crook-handled stick with a silver ring. That was enough. Baraka had certainly been in the lodgings and had probably left in them everything that belonged to her disguise. The fact that the gloves and the stick were in the hall, looked very much as if she had come in dressed as a man and had left them there when she had gone away in woman's attire. That she was with Logotheti, most probably on his yacht, Lady Maud had not the least doubt, as she went down the stairs. The Swiss secretary stood at the open door on the landing till she was out of sight below, and then went in again, and returned to work over a heap of business papers and letters. When he had worked half an hour, he leaned back in his leathern chair to rest, and stared fixedly at the bookcase. Presently he spoke aloud in English, as if Lady Maud were still in the room, in the same dull, matter-of-fact tone, but more forcibly as to expression. 'It is perfectly true, though you do not believe me, madam. I do not know anything. How the dickens should I know where they are, madam? But I know my business. That is all.' CHAPTER X The _Erinna_ was steaming quietly down the Channel in a flat calm, at the lazy rate of twelve knots an hour, presumably in order to save her coal, for she could run sixteen when her owner liked, and he was not usually fond of going slow. Though September was at hand, and Guernsey was already on the port quarter, the sea was motionless and not so much as a cat's-paw stirred the still blue water; but the steamer's own way made a pleasant draught that fanned the faces of Logotheti and Baraka as they lay in their long chairs under the double awning outside the deck-house. The Tartar girl wore a skirt and jacket of dark blue yachting serge, which did not fit badly considering that they had been bought ready-made by Logotheti's man. She had little white tennis shoes on her feet, which were crossed one over the other on the deck-chair, but instead of wearing a hat she had bound a dove-coloured motor-veil on her head by a single thick gold cord, in the Asiatic way, and the thin folds hung down on each side, and lay on her shoulders, shading her face, and the breeze stirred them. Logotheti's valet had been sent out in a taximeter, provided with a few measurements and plenty of cash, and commissioned to buy everything that a girl who had nothing at all to wear, visible or invisible, could possibly need. He was also instructed to find a maid who could speak Tartar, or at least a little Turkish. After five hours he had come back with a heavy load of boxes of all shapes and sizes and the required maid. You can find anything in a great city, if you know how to look for it, and he had discovered through an agency a girl from Trebizonde who had been caught at twelve years old by missionaries, brought to England and educated to go into service; she spoke English very prettily, and had not altogether forgotten the _lingua franca_ of Asia. It was her first place, outside of the retired missionary's house, where she had been brought up and taught by a good old lady who had much to say about the heathen, and gave her to understand that all her deceased forefathers and relatives were frying. As she could not quite believe this, and had not a grateful disposition, and was of an exceedingly inquiring turn of mind, she was very glad to get away, and when she learned from the valet that her mistress was a Tartar lady and a Musulman, and could not speak English, her delight was quite boundless; she even said a few unintelligible words, in a thoughtful tone, which did not sound at all like any Christian prayer or thanksgiving she had learned from the missionaries. Moreover, while Logotheti and Baraka were lying in their chairs by the deck-house, she was telling the story of her life and explaining things generally to the good-looking young second mate on the other side of the ship. The consequence of her presence, however, was that Baraka was dressed with great neatness and care, and looked very presentable, though her clothes were only ready-made things, bought by a man-servant, who had only her height and the size of her waist to guide him. Logotheti watched her delicate, energetic profile, admiring the curves of her closed lips, and the wilful turning up of her little chin. She was more than very pretty now, he thought, and he was quietly amused at his own audacity in taking her to sea alone with him, almost on the eve of his marriage. It was especially diverting to think of what the proper people would say if they knew it, and to contrast the intentions they would certainly attribute to him with the perfectly honourable ones he entertained. As for Baraka, it never occurred to her that she was not as safe with him as she had been in her father's house in the little white town far away, nearly three years ago; and besides, her steel bodkin with the silver handle had been given back to her, and she could feel it in its place when she pressed her left hand to her side. But the little maid who had been brought up by the missionaries took quite another point of view, though this was not among the things she was explaining so fluently in her pretty English to the second mate. Logotheti had been first of all preoccupied about getting Baraka out of England without attracting attention, and then for her comfort and recovery from the strain and suffering of the last few days. As for that, she was like a healthy young animal, and as soon as she had a chance she had fallen so sound asleep that she had not waked for twelve hours. Logotheti's intention was to take her to Paris by a roundabout way, and establish her under some proper sort of protection. Margaret was still in Germany, but would soon return to France, and he had almost made up his mind to ask her advice, not dreaming that in such a case she could really deem anything he did an unpardonable offence. He had always laughed at the conventionalities of European life, and had paid very little heed to them when they stood in his way. He had been on deck a long time that day, but Baraka had only been established in her chair a few minutes. As yet he had hardly talked with her of anything but the necessary preparations for the journey, and she had trusted him entirely, being so worn out with fatigue and bodily discomfort, that she was already half asleep when he had at last brought her on board, late on the previous night. Before the yacht had sailed he had received Van Torp's telegram informing him that Kralinsky was at Bayreuth; for his secretary had sat up till two in the morning to telegraph him the latest news and forward any message that came, and Van Torp's had been amongst the number. Baraka turned her head a little towards him and smiled. 'Kafar the Persian said well that you are a great man,' she said in her own language. 'Perhaps you are one of the greatest in the world. I think so. He told me you were very rich, and so did the Greek merchants who came with me to France. When you would not buy the other ruby I thought they were mistaken, but now I see they were right. Where you are, there is gold, and men bow before you. You say: "Set Baraka free," and I am free. Also, you say: "Give her the ruby that is hers," and they give it, and her belongings, too, all clean and in good order and nothing stolen. You are a king. Like a king, you have a new fire-ship of your own and an army of young men to do your bidding. They are cleaner and better dressed than the sailors on the Sultan's fire-ships that lie in the Golden Horn, for I have seen them. They are as clean as the young effendis in London, in Paris! It is wonderful! You have not many on your ship, but you could have ten ships, all with sailors like these, and they would be all well washed. I like clean people. Yes, you are a great man.' She turned her eyes away from him and gazed lazily at the still blue sea, having apparently said all she had to say. Logotheti was well used to Asiatics and understood that her speech was partly conventional and intended to convey that sort of flattery which is dear to the Oriental soul. Baraka knew perfectly well what a real king was, and the difference between a yacht and a man-of-war, and many other things which she had learned in Constantinople. Primitive people, when they come from Asia, are not at all simple people, though they are often very direct in pursuing what they want. 'I have something of importance to tell you,' Logotheti said after a pause. Baraka prepared herself against betraying surprise by letting her lids droop a little, but that was all. 'Speak,' she answered. 'I desire knowledge more than gold.' 'You are wise,' said the Greek gravely. 'No doubt you remember the rich man Van Torp, for whom I gave you a letter, and whom you had seen on the day you were arrested.' 'Van Torp.' Baraka pronounced the name distinctly, and nodded. 'Yes, I remember him well. He knows where the man is whom I seek, and he wrote the address for me. I have it. You will take me there in your ship, and I shall find him.' 'If you find him, what shall you say to him?' Logotheti asked. 'Few words. These perhaps: "You left me to die, but I am not dead, I am here. Through me you are a rich, great man. The rubies are my marriage portion, which you have taken. Now you must be my husband." That is all. Few words.' 'It is your right,' Logotheti answered. 'But he will not marry you.' 'Then he shall die,' replied Baraka, as quietly as if she were saying that he should go for a walk. 'If you kill him, the laws of that country may take your life,' objected the Greek. 'That will be my portion,' the girl answered, with profound indifference. 'You only have one life,' Logotheti observed. 'It is yours to throw away. But the man you seek is not in that country. Van Torp has telegraphed me that he is much nearer. Nevertheless, if you mean to kill him, I will not take you to him, as I intended to do.' Baraka's face had changed, though she had been determined not to betray surprise at anything he said; she turned to him, and fixed her eyes on his, and he saw her lashes quiver. 'You will tell me where he is,' she said anxiously. 'If you will not take me I will go alone with Spiro. I have been in many countries with no other help. I can go there also, where he is. You will tell me.' 'Not if you mean to murder him,' said Logotheti, and she saw that he was in earnest. 'But if he will not be my husband, what can I do, if I do not kill him?' She asked the question in evident good faith. 'If I were you, I should make him share the rubies and the money with you, and then I would leave him to himself.' 'But you do not understand,' Baraka protested. 'He is young, he is beautiful, he is rich. He will take some other woman for his wife, if I leave him. You see, he must die, there is no other way. If he will not marry me, it is his portion. Why do you talk? Have I not come across the world from the Altai, by Samarkand and Tiflis, as far as England, to find him and marry him? Is it nothing that I have done, a Tartar girl alone, with no friend but a bag of precious stones that any strong thief might have taken from me? Is the danger nothing? The travel nothing? Is it nothing that I have gone about like a shameless one, with my face uncovered, dressed in a man's clothes? That I have cut my hair, my beautiful black hair, is that as nothing too? That I have been in an English prison? That I have been called a thief? I have suffered all these things to find him, and if I come to him at last, and he will not be my husband, shall he live and take another woman? You are a great man, it is true. But you do not understand. You are only a Frank, after all! That little maid you have brought for me would understand me better, though she has been taught for six years by Christians. She is a good girl. She says that in all that time she has never once forgotten to say the Fatiheh three times a day, and to say "el hamdu illah" to herself after she has eaten! She would understand. I know she would. But you, never!' The exquisite little aquiline features wore a look of unutterable contempt. 'If I were you,' said Logotheti, smiling, 'I would not tell her what you are going to do.' 'You see!' cried Baraka, almost angrily. 'You do not understand. A servant! Shall I tell my heart to my handmaid, and my secret thoughts to a hired man? I tell you, because you are a friend, though you have no understanding of us. My father feeds many flocks, and has many bondmen and bondwomen, whom he beats when it pleases him, and can put to death if he likes. He also knows the mine of rubies, as his father did before him, and when he desires gold he takes one to Tashkent, or even to Samarkand, a long journey, and sells it to the Russians. He is a great man. If he would bring a camel bag full of precious stones to Europe he could be one of the greatest men in the world. And you think that my father's daughter would open her heart's treasure to one of her servants? I said well that you do not understand!' Logotheti looked quietly at the slim young thing in a ready-made blue serge frock, who said such things as a Lady Clara Vere de Vere would scarcely dare to say above her breath in these democratic days; and he watched the noble little features, and the small white hands, that had come down to her through generations of chieftains, since the days when the primeval shepherds of the world counted the stars in the plains of Káf. He himself, with his long Greek descent, was an aristocrat to the marrow, and smiled at the claims of men who traced their families back to Crusaders. With the help of a legend or two and half a myth, he could almost make himself a far descendant of the Tyndaridæ. But what was that compared with the pedigree of the little thing in a blue serge frock? Her race went back to a time before Hesiod, before Homer, to a date that might be found in the annals of Egypt, but nowhere else in all the dim traditions of human history. 'No,' he said, after a long pause. 'I begin to understand. You had not told me that your father was a great man, and that his sires before him had joined hand to hand, from the hand of Adam himself.' This polite speech, delivered in his best Tartar, though with sundry Turkish terminations and accents, somewhat mollified Baraka, and she pushed her little head backwards and upwards against the top of the deck chair, as if she were drawing herself up with pride. Also, not being used to European skirts, she stuck out one tiny foot a little further across the other, as she stretched herself, and she indiscreetly showed a pale-yellow silk ankle, round which she could have easily made her thumb meet her second finger. Logotheti glanced at it. 'You will never understand,' she said, but her tone had relented, and she made a concession. 'If you will take me to him, and if he will not be my husband, I will let Spiro kill him.' 'That might be better,' Logotheti answered with extreme gravity, for he was quite sure that Spiro would never kill anybody. 'If you will take an oath which I shall dictate, and swear to let Spiro do it, I will take you to the man you seek.' 'What must be, must be,' Baraka said in a tone of resignation. 'When he is dead, Spiro can also kill me and take the rubies and the money.' 'That would be a pity,' observed the Greek, thoughtfully. 'Why a pity? It will be my portion. I will not kill myself because then I should go to hell-fire, but Spiro can do it very well. Why should I still live, then?' 'Because you are young and beautiful and rich enough to be very happy. Do you never look at your face in the mirror? The eyes of Baraka are like the pools of paradise, when the moon rose upon them the first time, her waist is as slender as a young willow sapling that bends to the breath of a spring breeze, her mouth is a dark rose from Gulistán----' But Baraka interrupted him with a faint smile. 'You speak emptiness,' she said quietly. 'What is the oath, that I may swear it? Shall I take Allah, and the Prophet, and the Angel Israfil to witness that I will keep my word? Shall I prick my hand and let the drops fall into your two hands that you may drink them? What shall I do and say? I am ready.' 'You must swear an oath that my fathers swore before there were Christians or Musulmans in the world, when the old gods were still great.' 'Speak. I will repeat any words you like. Is it a very solemn oath?' 'It is the most solemn that ever was sworn, for it is the oath of the gods themselves. I shall give it to you slowly, and you must try to pronounce it right, word by word, holding out your hands, like this, with the palms downwards.' 'I am ready,' said Baraka, doing as he bade her. He quoted in Greek the oath that Hypnos dictates to Hera in the _Iliad_, and Baraka repeated each word, pronouncing as well as she could. 'I swear by the inviolable water of the Styx, and I lay one hand upon the all-nourishing earth, the other on the sparkling sea, that all the gods below may be our witnesses, even they that stand round about Kronos. Thus I swear!' As he had anticipated, Baraka was much more impressed by the importance of the words she did not understand than if she had bound herself by any oath familiar to her. 'I am sorry,' she said, 'but what is done is done, and you would have it so.' She pressed her hand gently to her left side and felt the long steel bodkin, and sighed regretfully. 'You have sworn an oath that no man would dare to break,' said Logotheti solemnly. 'A man would rather kill pigs on the graves of his father and his mother than break it.' 'I shall keep my word. Only take me quickly where I would be.' Logotheti produced a whistle from his pocket and blew on it, and a quartermaster answered the call, and was sent for the captain, who came in a few moments. 'Head her about for Jersey and Carterets, Captain,' said the owner. 'The sea is as flat as a board, and we will land there. You can go on to the Mediterranean without coaling, can you not?' The captain said he could coal at Gibraltar, if necessary. 'Then take her to Naples, please, and wait for instructions.' Baraka understood nothing, but within two minutes she saw that the yacht was changing her course, for the afternoon sun was all at once pouring in on the deck, just beyond the end of her chair. She was satisfied, and nodded her approval. But she did not speak for a long time, paying no more attention to Logotheti's gaze than if he had not existed. No people in the world can remain perfectly motionless so long as Asiatics, perfectly absorbed in their own thoughts. To the Greek's art-loving nature it was pure delight to watch her. Never, since he had first met Margaret Donne, had he seen any woman or young girl who appealed to his sense of beauty as Baraka did, though the impression she made on him was wholly different from that he received when Margaret was near. The Primadonna was on a large scale, robust, magnificently vital, a Niké, even a young Hera; and sometimes, especially on the stage, she was almost insolently handsome, rather than beautiful like Lady Maud. Baraka was an Artemis, virginal, high-bred; delicately modelled for grace and speed rather than for reposeful beauty, for motion rather than for rest. It was true that the singer's walk was something to dream of and write verses about, but Baraka's swift-gliding step was that of the Maiden Huntress in the chase, her attitude in rest was the pose of a watchful Diana, ready to spring up at a sound or a breath, a figure almost boyish in its elastic vigour, and yet deeply feminine in meaning. Baraka once more turned her head without lifting it from the back of the deck-chair. 'I am hungry and thirsty again,' she said gravely. 'I do not understand.' 'What will you eat, and what will you drink?' Logotheti asked. She smiled and shook her head. 'Anything that is good,' she said; 'but what I desire you have not in your ship. I long for fat quails with Italian rice, and for fig-paste, and I desire a sherbet made with rose leaves, such as the merchant's wife and I used to drink at the Kaffedji's by the Galata Bridge, and sometimes when we went up the Sweet Waters in a caïque on Friday. But you have not such things on your ship.' Logotheti smiled. 'You forget that I am myself from Constantinople,' he said. 'It is now the season for fat quails in Italy, and they are sent alive to London and Paris, and there are many in my ship, waiting to be eaten. There is also fig-paste from the Stamboul confectioner near the end of the Galata Bridge, and preserved rose leaves with which to make a sherbet, and much ice; and you shall eat and drink the things you like best. Moreover, if there is anything else you long for, speak.' 'You are scoffing at Baraka!' answered the slim thing in blue serge, with the air of a displeased fairy princess. 'Not I. You shall see. We will have a table set here between us, with all the things you desire.' 'Truly? And coffee too? Real coffee? Not the thin mud-broth of the Franks?' 'Real coffee, in a real fildjan.' Baraka clapped her small white hands for pleasure. 'You are indeed a very great man!' she cried. 'You are one of the kings!' At the sound of the clapping she had made, Logotheti's Greek steward appeared in a silver-laced blue jacket and a fez. 'He comes because you clapped your hands,' Logotheti said, with a smile. Baraka laughed softly. 'We are not in your ship,' she said. 'We are in Constantinople! I am happy.' The smile faded quickly and her dark lashes drooped. 'It is a pity,' she added, very low, and her left hand felt the long steel bodkin through her dress. The steward knew Turkish, but did not understand all she said in her own tongue; and besides, his master was already ordering an unusual luncheon, in Greek, which disturbed even his Eastern faculty of hearing separately with each ear things said in different languages. Baraka was busy with her own thoughts again, and paid no more attention to her companion, until the steward came back after a few minutes bringing a low round table which he placed between the two chairs. He disappeared again and returned immediately with a salver on which there were two small cups of steaming Turkish coffee, each in its silver filigree stand, and two tall glasses of sherbet, of a beautiful pale rose colour. Baraka turned on her chair with a look of pleasure, tasted the light hot foam of the coffee, and then began to drink slowly with enjoyment that increased visibly with every sip. 'It is real coffee,' she said, looking up at Logotheti. 'It is made with the beans of Arabia that are picked out one by one for the Sheikhs themselves before the coffee is sold to the Indian princes. The unripe and broken beans that are left are sold to the great Pashas in Constantinople! And that is all there is of it, for the Persian merchant explained all to me, and I know. But how you have got the coffee of the Sheikhs, I know not. You are a very great man.' 'The gates of the pleasant places of this world are all locked, and the keys are of gold,' observed Logotheti, who could quote Asiatic proverbs by the dozen, when he liked. 'But the doors of Hades stand always open,' he added, suddenly following a Greek thought, 'and from wheresoever men are, the way that leads to them is but one.' Baraka had tasted the sherbet, which interested her more than his philosophical reflexions. 'This also is delicious,' she said, 'but in Stamboul even a poor man may have it for a few paras.' 'And good water from the fountain for nothing,' returned Logotheti. There was silence again as she leaned back, sufficiently satisfied to wait another hour for the fat quails, the Italian rice, and the fig-paste, to which she was looking forward. And the yacht moved on at her leisurely twelve-knot speed, through the flat calm of the late summer sea, while an atmosphere of bodily peace and comfort gathered round Baraka like a delicate mist that hid the future and softened the past. By and by, when she had eaten the fat quail and the Italian rice, and then the fig-paste, and had drunk more sherbet of rose leaves, and more coffee, but none of these things in any excess, that perfect peace came upon her which none but Asiatics can feel, and which we cannot understand; and they call it Kêf, and desire it more than any other condition of their inner and outer selves; but there is no translating of that word. It is the inexplicable state of the cat when it folds its fore-paw in, and is so quiet and happy that it can hardly purr, but only blinks mildly once in two or three minutes. Logotheti knew the signs of it, though he had never really felt it himself, and he knew very well that its presence has the power to deaden all purpose and active will in those who enjoy it. The sole object of taking opium is to produce it artificially, which is never quite possible, for with most opium-smokers or opium-eaters the state of peace turns into stupor at the very moment when it is about to become consciously beatific. He understood that this wonderful barbarian girl, who had shown such courage, such irresistible energy, such unchanging determination in the search that had lasted more than two years, was temporarily paralysed for any purpose of action by the atmosphere with which he was surrounding her. She would come to herself again, and be as much awake, as determined, and as brave as ever, but she was quiescent now, and the mere thought of effort would be really painful. Perhaps no one who has not lived in Asia can quite understand that. Logotheti took out his notebook, which had a small calendar with a few lines for each day in the year, and he began to count days and calculate dates; for when he had expected to go to Bayreuth with the Primadonna he had found out all about the performances, and he knew how long she meant to stay. His calendar told him that this was the off-day, between the second and third representations of _Parsifal_, and that Margaret had her rooms at the hotel for another week. He would allow two days more for her to reach Versailles and rest from the journey before she would wish to see him; and as he thought she had treated him rather badly in not letting him go with her, because he was not enough of a Wagnerian, he intended to keep her waiting even a day or two longer, on the sometimes mistaken theory that it is better to make a woman impatient than to forestall her wishes before she has had time to change her mind. Besides, Van Torp's telegram showed that he was in Bayreuth, and Logotheti flattered himself that the more Margaret saw of the American, the more anxious she would be to see her accepted adorer. It was her own fault, since Logotheti might have been with her instead. The result of his calculations was that he had at least ten days before him, and that as he was not at all bored by the little Tartar lady in blue serge, it was quite useless to put her ashore at Carterets and take her to Paris by that way. The idea of spending eight or nine hours alone in a hot and dirty railway carriage, while she and her maid passed the night in another compartment, was extremely dreary; and besides, he had not at all made up his mind what to do with her, and it would probably end in his taking her to his own house. Margaret would have some right to resent that; but as for the trip in the yacht, she need never know anything about it. The girl was really as safe with him as any girl could be with her own brother, and so long as no one knew that she was with him, nothing else mattered. Furthermore, he was good enough to be convinced that if she were let loose in Europe by herself, with plenty of money, boundless courage, and such a clever courier as Spiro seemed to be, she would certainly find Kralinsky at last and murder him, regardless of having sworn by the inviolable water of the Styx. Lastly, he saw that she was at present in that state of Asiatic peace in which it was perfectly indifferent to her what happened, provided that she were not disturbed. He rose quietly and went aft. Though she was awake she scarcely noticed that he had left her, and merely opened and shut her eyes twice, like the happy cat already spoken of. She was not aware that the yacht changed her course again, though it was pleasant not to have the reflexion from the sea in her eyes any longer; if Logotheti had told her that he was heading to seaward of Ushant instead of for Jersey and Carterets, she would not have understood, nor cared if she had, and would have been annoyed at being disturbed by the sound of his voice. It was pure bliss to lie there without a want, a thought, or a memory. An imaginative European might fancy that she had waking dreams and visions in the summer air; that she saw again the small white town, the foot-hills, the broad pastures below, the vastness of Altai above, the uncounted flocks, the distant moving herds, the evening sunlight on the walls of her father's house; or that she lived over again those mortal hours of imprisonment in the rocky hollow, and looked into the steel-bright eyes of the man who would not love her and saw the tall figure of Saäd already dead, bending forward from the ledge and pitching headlong to the sand. Not at all. She saw none of these things. She was quiescently blissful; the mysterious Kêf was on her, and the world stood still in the lazy enchantment--the yacht was not moving, the sun was not sinking westwards, her pulse was not beating, she was scarcely breathing, in her own self she was the very self of peace, motionless in an immeasurable stillness. When the sky reddened at evening Logotheti was again in his chair, reading. She heard six bells struck softly, the first sound she had noticed in four hours, and she did not know what they meant; perhaps it was six o'clock _alla Franca_, as she would have called it; no one could understand European time, which was one in Constantinople, another in Paris, and another in England. Besides, it made no difference what time it was; but Kêf was departing from her--was gone already, and the world was moving again--not at all in an unpleasant or disturbing way, but moving nevertheless. 'When shall we reach that place?' she asked lazily, and she turned her face to Logotheti. 'Allah knows,' he answered gravely, and he laid his book on his knees. She had been so well used to hearing that answer to all sorts of questions since she had been a child that she thought nothing of it, and waited awhile before speaking again. Her eyes studied the man's face almost unconsciously. He now wore a fez instead of a yachting cap, and it changed his expression. He no longer looked in the least like a European. The handsome red felt glowed like blood in the evening light, and the long black silk tassel hung backwards with a dashing air. There was something about him that reminded Baraka of Saäd, and Saäd had been a handsome man, even in her eyes, until the traveller had come to her father's house with his blue eyes and golden beard. But Saäd had only seen her unveiled face once, and that was the last thing he saw when the ball from the Mauser went through his forehead. 'I mean,' she asked after some time, 'shall we be there to-morrow? or the next day? I see no land on this side; is there any on the other?' 'No,' Logotheti answered, 'there is no land near. Perhaps, far off, we might see a small island.' 'Is that the place?' Baraka began to be interested at last. 'The place is far away. You must have patience. All hurry comes from Satan.' 'I am not impatient,' the girl answered mildly. 'I am glad to rest in your ship, for I was very tired, more tired than I ever was when I was a child, and used to climb up the foot-hills to see Altai better. It is good to be in your ship for a while, and after that, what shall be, will be. It is Allah that knows.' 'That is the truth,' responded the Greek. 'Allah knows. I said so just now. But I will tell you what I have decided, if you will listen.' 'I listen.' 'It is better that you should rest several days after all your weariness, and the man you seek will not run away, for he does not know you are so near.' 'But he may take another woman,' Baraka objected, growing earnest at once. 'Perhaps he has already! Then there will be two instead of one.' 'Spiro,' said Logotheti, with perfect truth, 'would as soon kill two as one, I am sure, for he is a good servant. It will be the same to him. You call me a great man and a king; I am not a king, for I have no kingdom, though some kingdoms would like to have as much ready-money as I. But here, on the ship, I am the master, not only because it is mine, and because I choose to command, but because the men are bound by English law to obey me; and if they should refuse and overpower me, and take my ship where I did not wish to go, the laws of all nations would give me the right to put them all into prison at once, for a long time. Therefore when I say, "Go to a certain place," they take the ship there, according to their knowledge, for they are trained to that business and can guide the vessel towards any place in the world, though they cannot see land till they reach it. Do you understand all these things?' 'I understand,' Baraka answered, smiling. 'But I am not bound to obey you, and at least I can beg you to do what I ask, and I think you will do it.' Her voice grew suddenly soft, and almost tender, for though she was only a Tartar girl, and very young and slim, she was a woman. Eve had not had long experience of talking when she explained to Adam the properties of apples. Logotheti answered her smile and her tone. 'I shall do what you ask of me, but I shall do it slowly rather than quickly, because that will be better for you in the end. If we had gone on as we were going, we should have got to land to-night, but to a wretched little town from which we should have had to take a night train, hot and dirty and dusty, all the way to Paris. That would not help you to rest, would it?' 'Oh, no! I wish to sleep again in your ship, once, twice, till I cannot sleep any more. Then you will take me to the place.' 'That is what you shall do. To that end I gave orders this afternoon.' 'You are wise, as well as great,' Baraka said. She let her feet slip down to the deck, and she sat on the side of the chair towards Logotheti, looking at her small white tennis-shoes, which had turned a golden pink in the evening reflexions, and she thoughtfully settled her serge skirt over her slim yellow silk ankles, almost as a good many European girls would always do if they did not so often forget it. She rose at last, and went and looked over the rail at the violet sea. It is not often that the Atlantic Ocean is in such a heavenly temper so near the Bay of Biscay. Logotheti got out of his chair and came and stood beside her. 'Is this sea always so still?' she asked. She was gazing at the melting colours, from the dark blue, spattered with white foam, under the yacht's side, to the deep violet beyond, and further to the wine-purple and the heliotrope and the horizon melting up to the eastern sky. Logotheti told her that such days came very rarely, even in summer, and that Allah had doubtless sent this one for her especial benefit. But she only laughed. 'Allah is great, but he does nothing where there are English people,' she observed, and Logotheti laughed in his turn. They left the rail and walked slowly forward, side by side, without speaking; and Logotheti told himself how utterly happy he should be if Baraka could turn into Margaret and be walking with him there; yet something answered him that since she was not by his side he was not to be pitied for the company of a lovely Tartar girl whose language he could understand and even speak tolerably; and when the first voice observed rather drily that Margaret would surely think that he ought to feel very miserable, the second voice told him to take the goods the gods sent him and be grateful; and this little antiphone of Ormuzd and Ahriman went on for some time, till it occurred to him to stop the duo by explaining to Baraka how a European girl would probably slip her arm, or at least her hand, through the arm of the man with whom she was walking on the deck of a yacht, because there was generally a little motion at sea, and she would like to steady herself; and when there was none, there ought to be, and she would do the same thing by force of habit. But Baraka looked at such behaviour quite differently. 'That would be a sort of dance,' she said. 'I am not a dancing girl! I have seen men and women dancing together, both Russians in Samarkand and other people in France. It is disgusting. I would rather go unveiled among my own people!' 'Which may Allah forbid!' answered Logotheti devoutly. 'But, as you say, where there are Englishmen, Allah does nothing; the women go without veils, and the boys and girls dance together.' 'I have done worse,' said Baraka, 'for I have dressed as a man, and if a woman did that among my people she would be stoned to death and not buried. My people will never know what I have done since I got away from them alive. But he thought he was leaving me there to die!' 'Surely. I cannot see why you wish to marry a man who robbed you and tried to compass your death! I can understand that you should dream of killing him, and he deserves to be burnt alive, but why you should wish to marry him is known to the wisdom of the blessed ones!' 'You never saw him,' Baraka answered with perfect simplicity. 'He is a beautiful man; his beard is like the rays of the morning sun on a ripe cornfield. His eyes are bright as an eagle's, but blue as sapphires. He is much taller and bigger and stronger than you are. Do you not see why I want him for a husband? Why did he not desire me for his wife? Am I crooked, am I blinded by the smallpox, or have I six fingers on both hands and a hump on my shoulder like the Witch of Altai? Was my portion a cotton shift, one brass bangle and a horn comb for my hair? I gave him the riches of the world to take me, and he would not! I do not understand. Am I an evil sight in a man's eyes? Tell me the truth, for you are a friend!' 'You are good to see,' Logotheti answered, stopping and pretending to examine her face critically as she stood still and faced him. 'I was telling you what I thought of you before luncheon, I think, but you said I spoke "emptiness," so I stopped.' 'I do not desire you to speak for yourself,' returned Baraka. 'I wish you to speak for any man, since I go about unveiled and any man may see me. What would they say in the street if they saw me now, as a woman? That is what I must know, for he is a Frank, and he will judge me as the Franks judge when he sees me! What will he say?' 'Shall I speak as a Frank? Or as they speak in Constantinople?' 'Speak as he would speak, I pray. But speak the truth.' 'I take Allah to witness that I speak the truth,' Logotheti answered. 'If I had never seen you, and if I were walking in the Great Garden in London and I met you by the bank of the river, I should say that you were the prettiest dark girl in England, but that I should like to see you in a beautiful Feringhi hat and the best frock that could be made in Paris.' Baraka's face was troubled, and she looked into his eyes anxiously. 'I understand,' she said. 'Before I meet him I must have more clothes, many beautiful new dresses. It was shameless, but it was easy to dress as a man, after I had learned, for it was always the same--the difference was three buttons--or four buttons, or a high hat or a little hat; not much. Also the Feringhi men button their garments as the Musulmans do, the left over the right, but I often see their women's coats buttoned like a Hindu's. Why is this? Have the women another religion than the men? It is very strange!' Logotheti laughed, for he had really never noticed the rather singular fact which had struck the born Asiatic at once. 'But this woman's dressing is very difficult to learn,' Baraka went on, leaning back upon the rail with both elbows, and sticking out her little white shoes close together. 'Without the girl Maggy whom you have found for me--but her real name is Gula, and she is a good Musulman--without her, Allah knows what I should do! I could not put on these things for myself; alone, I cannot take them off. When I was like a man, buttons! Two, three, four, twenty--what did it matter? All the same way and soon done! But now, I cannot tell what I am made of. Allah knows and sees what I am made of. Hooks, eyes, strings, little bits one way, little bits the other way, like the rigging of ships--those Turkish ships with many small sails that go up the Bosphorus, you remember? And it is all behind, as if one had no front! Gula knows how it is done. But if I were alone, without her help, Allah is my witness, I would tie the things all round me decently and sit very still for fear they should come off! That is what I should do! The Greek thought her extremely amusing. She punctuated her explanations with small gestures indicative of her ignorance and helplessness. 'You will soon grow used to it,' he said. 'But you must get some pretty things in Paris before you go to meet the man. It would also be better to let your hair grow long before meeting him, for it is hard to wear the hats of the Feringhi ladies without hair.' 'I cannot wait so long as that. Only to get pretty dresses, only so long! I will spend a thousand pounds or two--is that enough? I have much money in Paris; I can give more.' 'You can get a good many things for a thousand pounds, even in Paris,' Logotheti answered. Baraka laughed. 'It will not be what I paid for the first clothes after I ran away,' she said. 'I did not know then what the stones were worth! A little ruby to one woman for a shift and an over-tunic, a little ruby to another for a pair of shoes, a little ruby for a veil and a head-blanket, all little rubies! For each thing one! I did not know; the women did not know. But at Samarkand I sold one for money to a good Persian merchant, and what he gave me was enough for the journey, for me and the old woman servant I hired there, till we got to Tiflis; for the Persian merchants everywhere gave me letters from one to another, and their wives took me in, or I should have been robbed. That is how I reached Stamboul after many, many months, more than a year. The Persian merchants are good men. All fear them, because they are wise in their dealings, but they are honest men. They do not lie, but they are silent and shake their heads, and you must guess what they mean; and if you do not guess right, that is your fault, not theirs. Why should they speak when they can hold their peace? But this is all emptiness! We must talk of the fine dresses I must buy in Paris, and of what I must put on my head. The barbers in Paris sell wigs. I have seen them in the windows, very well made, of all colours, even of the Khenna colour. I shall wear a wig, so that the beautiful Feringhi hat will stay on. I shall perhaps wear a Khenna-coloured wig.' 'I should not advise a wig,' said Logotheti gravely, 'certainly not one of that dye.' 'You know, and you are a friend. When I feel rested we will go to Paris, and you shall take me to all the richest shops and tell them in French what I want. Will you?' 'I shall do all I can to help you,' answered the Greek, wondering what would happen if his friends met him piloting a lovely barbarian about between the smartest linendraper's and the most fashionable dressmaker's establishment in the Rue de la Paix. They had watched the sun set, and the clear twilight glow was in the cloudless sky and on the violet sea. Not a sound disturbed the stillness, except the smooth wash of the water along the yacht's side. At her leisurely three-quarters speed the engines ran noiselessly and the twin screws turned well below the water-line in the flat calm. The watch below was at supper, and the captain was just then working a sunset amplitude in the chart-room to make quite sure of his deviation on the new course; for he was a careful navigator, and had a proper contempt for any master who trusted another man's adjustment of his compasses. Baraka drew one end of her veil round her throat and across her mouth and over to the other side of her face, so that her features were covered almost as by a real yashmak. The action was well-nigh unconscious, for until she had left Constantinople she had never gone with her face uncovered, except for a short time, of necessity, after she had begun her long journey, almost without clothes to cover her, not to speak of a veil. But the sensation of being screened from men's sight came back pleasantly as she stood there; for the Greek was much more like her own people than the French or English, and he spoke her language, and to be with him was not like being with Mr. Van Torp, or walking in the streets of London and Paris. The veil brought back suddenly the sense of real power that the Eastern woman has, and of real security in her perpetual disguise, which every man must respect on pain of being torn to pieces by his fellows. Reams of trash have been written about the inferior position of women in the East; but there, more than anywhere else in the world, they rule and have their will. Their domination there never had a parallel in Europe but once, and that was in the heyday of the Second French Empire, when a great nation was almost destroyed to please a score of smart women. Veiled as she was, Baraka turned to Logotheti, who started slightly and then laughed; for he had not been watching her, and the effect of the improvised yashmak was sudden and striking. He made the Oriental salutation in three movements, touching his heart, his lips, and his forehead with his right hand. 'Peace be with you, Hanum Effendim!' he said, as if he were greeting a Turkish lady who had just appeared beside him. 'Peace, Effendim,' answered Baraka, with a light little laugh; but after a moment she went on, and her voice had changed. 'It is like Constantinople,' she said, 'and I am happy here--and it is a pity.' Logotheti thought he heard her sigh softly behind her veil, and she drew it still more closely to her face with her little ungloved hand, and rested one elbow on the rail, gazing out at the twilight glow. In all his recollections of many seas, Logotheti did not remember such a clear and peaceful evening; there was a spell on the ocean, and it was not the sullen, disquieting calm that often comes before a West Indian cyclone or an ocean storm, but rather that fair sleep that sometimes falls upon the sea and lasts many days, making men wonder idly whether the weather will ever break again. The two dined on deck, with shaded lights, but screened from the draught of the ship's way. The evening was cool, and the little maid had dressed Baraka in a way that much disturbed her, for her taper arms were bare to the elbows, and the pretty little ready-made French dress was open at her ivory neck, and the skirt fitted so closely that she almost fancied herself in man's clothes again. But on her head she would only wear the large veil, confined by a bit of gold cord, and she drew one fold under her chin, and threw it over the opposite shoulder, to be quite covered; and she was glad when she felt cold, and could wrap herself in the wide travelling cloak they had bought for her, and yet not seem to do anything contrary to the customs of a real Feringhi lady. [Illustration: "The two dined on deck."] CHAPTER XI Lady Maud found Mr. Van Torp waiting for her at the Bayreuth station. 'You don't mean to say you've come right through?' he inquired, looking at her with admiration as he grasped her hand. 'You're as fresh as paint!' 'That's rather a dangerous thing to say to a woman nowadays,' she answered in her rippling voice. 'But mine won't come off. How is Margaret?' Her tone changed as she asked the question. 'She showed me your letter about Logo,' answered her friend without heeding the question, and watching her face to see if she were surprised. She got into the carriage he had brought, and he stood by the door waiting for the porter, who was getting her luggage. She had no maid with her. 'I'm glad you have told me,' she answered, 'though I wish she had not. You probably think that when I wrote that letter I remembered what you said to me in London about giving me money for my poor women.' 'No,' said Van Torp thoughtfully, 'I don't believe I do think so. It was like me to make the offer, Maud. It was like the sort of man I've been, and you've known me. But it wouldn't have been like you to accept it. It wasn't exactly low-down of me to say what I did, but it's so precious like low-down that I wouldn't say it again, and I suppose I'm sorry. That's all.' His rough hand was on the side of the little open carriage. She touched it lightly with her gloved fingers and withdrew them instantly, for the porter was coming with her not very voluminous luggage. 'Thank you,' she said quickly. 'I understood, and I understand now.' They drove slowly up the Bahnhofstrasse, through the dull little town, that looks so thoroughly conscious of its ancient respectability as having once been the 'Residenz' of a Duke of Würtemburg, and of its vast importance as the headquarters of Richard Wagner's representatives on earth. 'See here,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'I've almost persuaded them all to run down to Venice, and I want to know why you won't come too?' 'Venice?' Lady Maud was surprised. 'It's as hot as Tophet now, and full of mosquitoes. Why in the world do you want to take them there?' 'Well,' answered the American, taking plenty of time over the monosyllable, 'I didn't exactly mean to stay there more than a few minutes. I've bought a pretty nice yacht since I saw you, and she's there, eating her head off, and I thought you might all come along with me on her and go home that way, or somewhere.' 'I had no idea you had a yacht!' Lady Maud smiled. 'What it is to have the Bank of England in your pocket! Where did you get her, and what is her name? I love yachts!' Van Torp explained. 'I forget what she was called,' he said in conclusion, 'but I changed her name. It's _Lancashire Lass_ now.' 'The dear old mare you rode that night! How nice of you! It's a horse's name, of course, but that doesn't matter. I'm so glad you chose it. I shall never forget how you looked when you galloped off bareback in your evening clothes with no hat!' 'I don't know how I looked,' said Van Torp gravely. 'But I know quite well how I felt. I felt in a hurry. Now, what I want you to decide right away is whether you'll come, provided they will--for I don't suppose you and I could go mooning around in the yacht by ourselves.' 'And I don't suppose,' returned Lady Maud, mimicking him ever so little, 'that if "they" decide not to come, you will have time for a long cruise.' 'Now that's not fair,' objected the American. 'I didn't intend to put it in that way. Anyhow, will you come if they do? That's the point.' 'Really, it depends a little on who "they" are. Do you mean only Margaret and that nice old friend of hers--Mrs. Patmore, isn't she? I never met her.' 'Rushmore,' said Van Torp, correcting her. 'It's the same thing,' said Lady Maud vaguely, for she was trying to make up her mind quickly. 'You don't know her,' replied her friend. 'That's the reason why you say it's the same thing. Nothing's the same as Mrs. Rushmore.' 'Is she very dreadful?' asked Lady Maud, in some apprehension. 'Dreadful? No! She's very sweet, I think. One of those real, old-fashioned, well-educated New York ladies, and refined right down to the ground. There's only one thing----' He stopped, trying to find words to express the one thing. 'What is it? All you say about her sounds very nice----' 'She's got the celebrity habit.' 'Lions?' suggested Lady Maud, who understood him. 'Yes,' he assented, 'she's a dandy after lions. She likes them for breakfast, dinner, and tea, with a sandwich thrown in between times. She likes them to talk to, and to look at, and to tell about. That's just a habit, I suppose, like chewing gum, but she'll never get over it at her age. She's got to have a party of some kind every other minute, even here, or she's uneasy at night. But I'm bound to say, with all truth, she does it well. She's a perfect lady, and she always says the right thing and does the right thing. Besides, we're great friends, she and I. We get on beautifully.' 'You're a celebrity,' observed Lady Maud. 'So's Miss Donne, and a much bigger one. So's Logo, for that matter, but she doesn't think a great deal of Greeks. You're a sort of celebrity, too, and she's perfectly delighted you're coming, because you're "Lady" Maud, and a Russian countess into the bargain. Then there's that other Russian--not that you're one, but you understand--Kralinsky is his name, Count Kralinsky. Ever hear that name?' 'Never. It sounds Polish.' 'He might be anything. Sometimes I'm absolutely sure he's a man I used to know out West when I was on the ranch, and then again there's something quite different about him. Something about his legs or his eyes, I can't tell which. I don't quite make him out. There's one thing, though. He's the Kralinsky I bought your ruby from in New York a month ago, and he doesn't deny it, though I don't remember that he was a Count then. He seemed glad to see me again, but he doesn't seem to talk much about selling rubies now. Perhaps he's got through that, as the camel said to the eye of the needle.' 'Eh? What?' Lady Maud laughed. 'Oh, nothing. I guess it's out of the Bible, or something. I'll tell you all about him by and by. He's going away this afternoon, but he's promised to join us in Venice for a trip, because Mrs. Rushmore finds him so attractive. He seems to know everybody intimately, all over the world. I'd like you to see him. Here we are, and there's Miss Donne waiting for you on the steps. I wish we'd had a longer ride together.' They reached the hotel, and Van Torp went off promptly, leaving Margaret to take Lady Maud upstairs and introduce her to Mrs. Rushmore. An hour later the two young women were together in Margaret's room, while Potts was unpacking for Lady Maud in the one that had been secured for her in spite of all sorts of difficulties. The Primadonna was sitting at her toilet-table, turned away from the glass, and Lady Maud occupied the only possible chair there was, a small, low easy-chair, apparently much too small for such a tall woman, but less uncomfortable than it looked. They exchanged the usual banalities. It was awfully good of Margaret to ask Maud, it was awfully good of Maud to come. The journey had been tolerable, thank you, by taking the Orient Express as far as Stuttgart. Margaret did not compare Maud's complexion to fresh paint, as Van Torp had done, but to milk and roses; and Maud said with truth that she had never seen Margaret looking better. It was the rest, Margaret said, for she had worked hard. 'Are you going on Mr. Van Torp's yacht?' asked Lady Maud suddenly. 'He spoke to me about it on the way from the station, and asked me to come, in case you accept.' 'I don't know. Will you go if I do? That might make a difference.' Lady Maud did not answer at once. She wished that she knew how matters had gone between Margaret and Van Torp during the last few days, for she sincerely wished to help him, now that she had made up her mind as to Logotheti's real character. Nevertheless, her love of fair-play made her feel that the Greek ought to be allowed a chance of retrieving himself. 'Yes,' she said at last, 'I'll go, on one condition. At least, it's not a condition, my dear, it's only a suggestion, though I hate to make one. Don't think me too awfully cheeky, will you?' Margaret shook her head, but looked very grave. 'I feel as if I were getting into a bad scrape,' she said, 'and I shall be only too glad of any good advice. Tell me what I had better do.' 'I must tell you something else first as a continuation of my letter, for all sorts of things happened after I wrote it.' She told Margaret all that has been already narrated, concerning the news that Baraka had been set at large on Logotheti's sworn statement that the ruby was not his, and that he had seen it in her possession in Paris; and she told how she had tried to find him at his lodgings, and had failed, and how strangely the leather-faced secretary's answers had struck her, and how she had seen Baraka's gloves and stick in Logotheti's hall; and finally she said she had taken it into her head that Logotheti had spirited away the Tartar girl on his yacht, which, as every one in town had known through the papers, was at Cowes and in commission. For Logotheti, in his evidence, had explained his absence from the Police Court by the fact that he had been off in the _Erinna_ for two days, out of reach of news. Margaret's face grew darker as she listened, for she knew Lady Maud too well to doubt but that every word was more than scrupulously true; and the deduction was at least a probable one. She bit her lip as she felt her anger rising again. 'What do you advise me to do?' she asked, in a sullen tone. 'Telegraph to Logo and prepay an answer of twenty words. Telegraph to his rooms in St. James's Place and at the same time to his house in Paris. Telegraph anything you like that really needs an immediate reply. That's the important thing. If he does not answer within twenty-four hours--say thirty-six at the most--he is either on his yacht or hiding. Excuse the ugly word, dear--I don't think of any other. If you are afraid of the servants, I'll take the message to the telegraph office and send it for you. I suppose you have some way of signing which the clerks don't recognise--if you sign at all.' Margaret leaned back in her chair in silence. After a few seconds she turned towards the glass, rested her chin on her folded knuckles, and seemed to be consulting her own reflexion. It is a way some women have. Lady Maud glanced at her from time to time, but said nothing. At last the Primadonna rose with a sweep that upset the light chair behind her, one of those magnificent sweeps that look so well on the stage and are a little too large for a room. She got her blotter and pen from a shelf, brought it back to the toilet-table, picked up the chair in a very quiet and sensible way, as if she had never been on the stage in her life, and sat down to write. 'I shall take your advice, dear,' she said, opening the blotter and placing a large sheet of paper in the right position. Lady Maud rose and went to the window, where she stood looking out while Margaret wrote her message. 'You needn't write it out twice,' she said, without turning round. 'Just put "duplicate message" and both addresses.' 'Yes. Thank you.' Margaret was already writing. Her message said it was absolutely necessary that she should see Logotheti directly, and bade him answer at once, if he could come to Bayreuth; if important financial affairs hindered him, she herself would return immediately to Paris to see him. She was careful to write 'financial' affairs, for she would not admit that any other consideration could delay his obedience. While she was busy she heard, but scarcely noticed, an unearthly hoot from a big motor car that was passing before the hotel. There must have been something in the way, for the thing hooted again almost at once, and then several times in quick succession, as if a gigantic brazen ass were beginning to bray just under the window. The noises ended in a sort of wild, triumphant howl, with a furious puffing, and the motor took itself off, just as Margaret finished. She looked up and saw Lady Maud half bent, as if she had been struck; she was clinging with one hand to the flimsy chintz curtain, and her face was as white as a sheet. Margaret started in surprise, and rose to her feet so suddenly that she upset the chair again. 'What has happened?' she cried. 'Are you ill, dear?' The delicate colour came slowly back to the smooth cheeks, the thoroughbred figure in black drew itself up with elastic dignity, and the hand let go of the curtain. 'I felt a little faint,' Lady Maud answered. 'Did I frighten you? It was nothing, and it's quite gone, I assure you.' 'You looked dreadfully ill for a moment,' Margaret said in a tone of concern. 'Won't you let me send for something? Tea? Or something iced? I'm sure you have had nothing to eat or drink for hours! How disgracefully thoughtless of me!' She was just going to ring, but her friend stopped her. 'No--please!' she cried. 'I'm all right, indeed I am. The room is a little warm, I think, and I've been shut up in that stuffy train for thirty hours. Have you written your telegram? I'll put on my hat at once, and take it for you. The little walk will do me good. Where is the telegraph? But they can tell me downstairs. Don't bother! Walking always brings me round, no matter what has happened!' [Illustration: "'What has happened?' she cried. 'Are you ill, dear?'"] She spoke nervously, in disjointed phrases, in a way not like herself, for there was generally an air of easy calm in all she did, as if nothing really mattered in the least, save when she was deeply interested; and hardly anything interested her now except what she had made her work. In all that belonged to that, she was energetic, direct, and quick. Margaret was sure that something was wrong, but let her go, since she insisted, and Lady Maud folded the written message and went to the door. Just as she was going to turn the handle Margaret spoke to her. 'If I have no answer to that by to-morrow afternoon I shall accept Mr. Van Torp's invitation.' 'I hope you will go,' Lady Maud said with sudden decision, 'for if you do, I can go with you, and I'm dying to see the new yacht!' Margaret looked at her in surprise, for it was only a little while since she had seemed much less ready to join the party, and only willing to do so, if at all, in order to please her friend. She saw Margaret's expression. 'Yes,' she said, as if in explanation, 'I've been thinking it over in the last few minutes, and I want very much to go with you all. I shall be back in less than an hour.' 'An hour?' 'Say half an hour. I want a good walk.' She opened the door quickly and passed out, shutting it almost noiselessly after her; she was a very graceful woman and moved easily, whether in small spaces or large. In all her life she had probably never overturned a chair with her skirt, as Margaret had done twice within ten minutes. She had not Baraka's gliding movement, the virginal step of the girl of primeval race; hers was rather the careless, swaying walk of a thoroughbred in good training, long-limbed and deep-breathed, and swift at need, but indolently easy when no call was made upon her strength. She and Baraka and the young Primadonna represented well three of the possible types of beauty, very different from each other; so widely different that perhaps no two of them would be likely to appeal to one man, as mere feminine beauty, at the same period of his life. Straight and tall in her mourning, Lady Maud went down the stairs of the hotel. As she was going out the hall porter raised his cap, and she stopped a moment and asked him which was the nearest way to the telegraph office. He stood on the doorstep and pointed in the direction she was to follow as he answered her question. 'Can you tell me,' she asked, 'whose motor car it was that passed about ten minutes ago, and made so much noise?' 'Count Kralinsky's, my lady,' the porter answered; for he spoke good English, and had the true hotel porter's respect for the British aristocracy abroad. 'He was the gentleman with the big fair beard, I suppose? Yes, thank you.' She went out into the dull street, with its monotonous houses, all two stories high, and she soon found the telegraph office and sent Margaret's duplicate message. She had not glanced at it, but the clerk asked her questions about words that were not quite clearly written, and she was obliged to read it through. It occurred to her that it was couched in extremely peremptory terms, even for an offended bride-elect; but that was none of her business. When the clerk had understood, she walked up the hill to the Festival Theatre. It all looked very dull and heavy, being an off-day, and as she was not a Wagnerian it meant absolutely nothing to her. She was disappointed in the whole town, so far as she had expected anything of it, for she had pictured it as being either grand in its way, or picturesque, or at least charming; and it was not. Her British soul stuck up its nose in the general atmosphere of beer and sausage, which she instantly perceived rather than saw; and the Teutonism of everything, from the appearance of the Festival Theatre itself to the wooden faces of the policemen, and the round pink cheeks of the few children she met, roused antagonism in her from the first. She went on a little farther, and then turned back and descended the hill, always at the same even, easy pace, for she was rarely aware of any change of grade when she walked alone. But by degrees her expression had altered since she had left the telegraph office, and she looked profoundly preoccupied, as if she were revolving a very complicated question in her mind, which disliked complications; and there was now and then a flash of displeased wonder in her face, when she opened her eyes quite wide and shut them, and opened them again, as if to make sure that she was quite awake. She went on, not knowing whither and not caring, always at the same even pace, and hardly noticing the people who passed her, of whom a good many were in two-horse cabs, some in queer little German motors, and a few on foot; and still she thought, and wondered, and tried to understand, but could not. At all events, she was glad to be alone; she was glad not to have even Van Torp with her, who was by far the most congenial person she knew; for he had the rare good gift of silence, and used it very often, and when he talked she liked his odd speech, his unusual expressions, even his Western accent; she liked him for his simple, unswerving friendship, and for his kind heart--though the world would have screamed with laughter at the idea; and more than all, she liked him for himself, and because she knew certainly that neither he nor she could possibly, under any circumstances, grow to like each other in any other way. But she did not wish that he were walking beside her now, and she was quite indifferent to the fact that time was passing, and that Margaret was beginning to wonder where in the world she was. 'My dear child,' Mrs. Rushmore said, when the Primadonna expressed her surprise, 'those English people are all alike, when they are once out on a road by themselves. They must take a long walk. I am quite sure that at this moment Countess Leven is miles from here--miles, Margaret. Do you understand me? I tell you she is walking mile upon mile. All English people do. You are only half English after all, my dear, but I have known you to walk a long distance alone, for no good reason that I could see.' 'It's good for the voice if you don't overdo it,' Margaret observed. 'Yes. But Countess Leven does not sing, my dear. You forget that. Why should she walk mile upon mile like that? And I know Mr. Van Torp is not with her, for Justine told me a quarter of an hour ago that she heard him tell his man to bring him some hot water. So he is at home, you see. Margaret, what do you suppose Mr. Van Torp wants hot water for at this extraordinary hour?' 'I really don't know,' Margaret answered, sipping her tea rather gloomily, for she was thinking of the telegram she had given Lady Maud to send. 'You don't think Mr. Van Torp drinks, do you, my dear?' inquired Mrs. Rushmore. 'Hot water? Some people do. It's good for the digestion.' 'No, you purposely misunderstand me. I mean that he makes use of it for--for the purpose of mixing alcoholic beverages alone in his room.' Margaret laughed. 'Never! If there's a perfectly sober man living, it is he!' 'I am glad to hear you say so, my dear. Because, if I thought he had habits, nothing would induce me to go on board his yacht. Nothing, Margaret! Not all his millions! Do you understand me? Margaret, dear, if you do not mind very much, I think we had better not accept his invitation after all, though I am sure it is well meant.' 'You're very much mistaken if you think he drinks,' Margaret said, still inclined to laugh. 'Well, my dear,' returned Mrs. Rushmore, 'I don't know. Justine certainly heard him tell his man to bring him some hot water a quarter of an hour ago. Perhaps it may have been twenty minutes. It is a very extraordinary hour to ask for such a thing, I am sure.' Margaret suggested that Mr. Van Torp might possibly have a fancy to wash his hands in hot water at that unusual time of day, and Mrs. Rushmore seemed temporarily satisfied, for apparently she had not thought of this explanation. 'Margaret,' she said solemnly, 'if you feel that you can put your hand into the fire for Mr. Van Torp's habits, I will go with you on his yacht. Not otherwise, my dear.' The Primadonna laughed, and at last Mrs. Rushmore herself smiled, for she was not without a sense of humour. 'I cannot help it, my dear,' she said. 'You must not laugh at me if I am nervous about such things; nervous, you understand, not unreasonable. But since you are prepared to take all the responsibility I will go with you, my child. I cannot even say it is a sacrifice on my part, for I am an excellent sailor, as you know, and very fond of the sea. In my young days my dear husband used to have a nice cat-boat at Newport, and he always took me with him. He used to say that I steered quite nicely.' The vision of Mrs. Rushmore steering a Newport cat-boat was quite new to Margaret, and her lips parted in surprise. 'Oh, yes, my child, we were very fond of sailing in those days,' continued the elderly lady, pleased with her recollections. 'I often got quite wet, I assure you, but I remember catching cold only once. I think it rained that day. My dear husband, I recollect, asked me to name the boat when he bought it, and so I called it the _Sea-Mew_.' 'The _Sea-Mew_?' Margaret was mystified. 'Yes. It was a cat-boat, my dear. Cats often mew. You understand, of course. It was not very funny, perhaps, but I remember that my dear husband laughed, and liked the name.' Margaret was laughing softly too. 'I think it's awfully good, you know,' she said. 'You needn't say it's not funny, for it's a very creditable little joke. Do you think you could steer a boat now? I'm sure I could never learn! Everything about sailing and ships is an utter mystery to me.' 'I daresay I could steer a cat-boat,' said Mrs. Rushmore calmly. 'I am sure I could keep a row-boat straight. Let me see--there's a thing you move----' 'The rudder?' suggested Margaret. 'No, my dear. It's not the rudder, nor the boom, nor the centre-board--how all the names come back to me! Yes, it is the tiller. That is the name. When you know which way to move the tiller, it is quite easy to steer.' 'I fancy so,' said Margaret gravely. 'Most people move it the wrong way when they begin,' continued the good lady. 'You see "port" means "left" and "starboard" means "right." But when you turn the tiller to the left the boat goes to the right. Do you understand?' 'It seems all wrong,' observed Margaret, 'but I suppose you know.' 'Yes. In the same way, when you turn the tiller to the right the boat goes to the left. The great thing is to remember that. It is the same way with "weather" and "lee." I could show you if we were in a boat. 'I haven't a doubt of it,' Margaret said. 'You're perfectly amazing! I believe you are a regular sailor.' 'Oh, no,' protested Mrs. Rushmore modestly; 'but indeed I often took the cat-boat out alone, now that I think of it. I used to raise the sail alone--I mean, I hoisted it. "Hoist"--that is the proper word, I remember. I was quite strong in those days.' 'Really, you are most extraordinary!' Margaret was genuinely surprised. 'You'll astonish Mr. Van Torp when he hears your nautical language on the yacht! Fancy your knowing all about sailing! I knew you could swim, for we've often been in together at Biarritz--but sailing! Why did you never tell me?' 'Shall we keep some tea for Countess Leven?' asked Mrs. Rushmore, changing the subject. 'I fear it will get quite cold. Those English people never know when to stop walking. I cannot understand what they can see in it. Perhaps you will kindly touch the bell, my dear, and I will send the tea away. It can be brought fresh for her when she comes. Thank you, Margaret. But she will not come in till it is just time to dress for dinner. Mark my words, my child, the Countess will be late for dinner. All English people are. Have you heard from Monsieur Logotheti to-day?' 'Not to-day,' Margaret answered, repressing a little start, for she was as near to being nervous as she ever was, and she was thinking of him just then, and the question had come suddenly. 'I think it is time you heard from him,' said Mrs. Rushmore, her natural severity asserting itself. 'I should think that after those very strange stories in the papers he would write to you and explain, or come himself. By the bye, perhaps you will kindly pass me the _Herald_, my dear. What did you once tell me was the name of his yacht?' 'The _Erinna_,' Margaret answered, handing Mrs. Rushmore the sheet. 'Exactly! I think that means the "Fury."' 'He told me it was the name of a Greek poetess,' Margaret observed. 'On account of her temper, I suppose,' answered the good lady absently, for she was looking up and down the columns in search of something she had already seen. 'Here it is!' she said. 'It is under the yachting news. "Cape Finisterre. Passed at 4 P.M., going south, steam yacht _Erinna_, with owner and party on board. All well." My dear child, it is quite clear that if this is Monsieur Logotheti's yacht, he is going to Gibraltar.' 'I don't know anything about geography,' Margaret said, and her wrath, which had been smouldering sullenly for days, began to glow again. 'Margaret,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'you surprise me! You were very well taught----' But the Primadonna did not hear the long tirade of mild reproof that followed. She knew well enough where Gibraltar was, and that Logotheti was going all the way round to the Mediterranean on his yacht with some one for company, and that the voyage was a long one. After what Lady Maud had said, there was not the least doubt in her mind as to his companion, who could be no one but Baraka. He had been told that he was not wanted at Bayreuth, and he was celebrating the sunset of his bachelor life in his own way. That was clear. If he received the telegram that had just been sent to him, he would get it at Gibraltar, should he stop there, and as for answering it before Margaret left Bayreuth, she was inclined to make such a thing impossible by going away the next morning, if not that very night. Her angry reflexions and Mrs. Rushmore's lecture on the importance of geography in education were interrupted by the discreet entrance of Mr. Van Torp, who was announced and ushered to the door by Justine in a grand French manner. On the threshold, however, he stood still and asked if he might come in; being pressed to do so, he yielded, advanced, and sat down between the two ladies. 'Mr. Van Torp,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'I insist upon knowing what has become of Countess Leven.' 'I don't know, Mrs. Rushmore,' answered the millionaire, slowly rubbing his hands. 'I haven't spoken to her since I brought her from the station. I daresay she's all right. She's most probably gone to take a walk. She often does in the country, I know--her father's country seat is next to mine, Mrs. Rushmore. I hope you'll pay me a visit some day. Why, yes, Lady Maud sometimes goes off alone and walks miles and miles.' 'There, Margaret,' said Mrs. Rushmore triumphantly, 'what did I tell you? Mr. Van Torp says the Countess often walks for miles and miles.' 'Why, certainly,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'though I'm bound to say she's just as fond of horseback. Her friends generally call her Lady Maud, Mrs. Rushmore. Perhaps you won't mind my telling you, as she prefers it a good deal herself. You see, I've had the pleasure of knowing her several years, so I daresay you'll forgive me for mentioning it.' 'I think it is quite kind of you, on the contrary,' answered Mrs. Rushmore. 'Margaret, why did you never tell me of this? Had you any reason for not telling me?' 'I don't think I noticed what you called her,' Margaret answered patiently. 'Because if you had any reason,' said Mrs. Rushmore, following her own thoughts, 'I insist upon knowing what it was.' 'Well, now, I'll tell you,' rejoined Mr. Van Torp, to save Margaret the trouble of answering the futile little speech, 'her husband didn't treat her very well. There's not a purer woman in the six continents, Mrs. Rushmore, but he tried to divorce her, because he'd lost his money, if he ever had any, and she has none, and he wanted to marry an heiress. However, they automobilised him, or something, in St. Petersburg last June.' 'Auto--what did you say?' inquired Mrs. Rushmore. 'Killed by an automobile,' explained Mr. Van Torp gravely. 'But now I come to think, it wasn't that. He got blown up by a bomb meant for a better man. It was quite instantaneous, I recollect. His head disappeared suddenly, and the greater part of him was scattered around, but they found his pocket-book with his cards and things, so they knew who it was. It was driven through somebody else's hat on the other side of the street, wasn't it, Miss Donne? Things must have been quite lively just then, where it happened. I supposed you knew.' Mrs. Rushmore explained that she had never heard any details. 'Besides,' said Mr. Van Torp, in answer, though not quite relevantly, 'everybody always calls her "Lady Maud" instead of "Countess Leven," which she has on her cards.' 'She would naturally use the higher title,' observed Mrs. Rushmore reverently. 'Well, now, about that,' objected Mr. Van Torp, 'I'm bound to say I think the daughter of an English earl as good as a Russian count, anywhere west of Siberia. I don't know how they figure those things out at courts when they have to balance 'em up for seats at a dinner-party, of course. It's just my impression, that's all, as a business man. He's dead anyway, and one needn't make personal remarks about dead men. All the same, it was a happy release for Lady Maud, and I doubt if she sits up all night mourning for him. Have you been out this afternoon, Miss Donne?' He changed the subject with extreme directness, and Mrs. Rushmore, who was used to the dictatorial ways of lions, took the hint submissively enough, though she would have been glad to discuss the relative and intrinsic values of the designations 'Lady Maud' and 'Countess Leven.' But it was much more important that the lion should be left alone with Margaret as much as possible, and the excellent lady therefore remembered that she had something to do and left them. 'I had a little talk with Kralinsky before he left,' said Van Torp, when she was gone. 'He says he'll meet us in Venice any time in the next few days. He's just going to run over to Vienna in his sudden-death-cart for twenty-four hours; then he'll go south, he says. He ran me up to the hotel and dropped me. I daresay you heard the toots. I thought I saw Lady Maud looking out of the window of your room as I got out.' 'Yes,' Margaret said. 'But how do you know that is my window?' 'In the first place, I've counted the windows. I felt a sort of interest in knowing which was yours. And then, I often see your maid opening the shutters in the morning.' 'Oh!' Margaret smiled. 'Did you notice anything unusual about Lady Maud when you saw her?' she asked, for she knew that he had good eyes. 'Since you mention it, I thought she looked as if she didn't feel quite up to the mark--pale, I thought she was.' 'Yes,' Margaret said. 'She felt ill for a moment, and I thought she was going to faint. But it passed almost directly, and she insisted on going for a walk.' 'Oh,' mused Mr. Van Torp, 'is that so? Well, I daresay it was the best thing she could do. I was telling you about Kralinsky. He's not Levi Longlegs after all, and I'm not sure he was ever in the West.' 'I thought it sounded unlikely,' Margaret said. 'I asked him, just like that, in a friendly way, and he thought a moment and made an effort to recollect, and then he seemed quite pleased to remember that I'd been "Fanny" and he'd been Levi Longlegs, and that he used to whistle things out of _Parsifal_ by the fire of an evening.' 'Well--but in that case---' Margaret stopped with an inquiring look. 'Just so,' continued Van Torp, nodding. 'Did you ever attend a trial and hear a witness being cross-examined by a lawyer who wants him to remember something, and he wants to remember it himself, but can't, because he never heard of it before in his life? It's quite funny. The lawyer makes steps for him and puts his feet into them so that he gets along nicely, unless the judge happens to wake up and kick, and then the little game stops right there, and somebody laughs. Well, my talk with Kralinsky was like that, only there was no judge, so he went away happy; and we're old friends now, and punched cows on the same ranch, and he's coming on my yacht. I only wonder why he was so anxious to remember all that, and why he thought it would be kind of friendly if I called him Levi Longlegs again, and he called me Fanny Cook. I wonder! He says he's still very fond of _Parsifal_, and came on purpose to hear it, but that he's completely forgotten how to whistle. That's funny too. I just thought I'd tell you, because if you come on my yacht and he comes too, you're liable to see quite a good deal of one another.' 'Did you tell him that Mrs. Rushmore and I would come?' Margaret asked. 'And Lady Maud?' 'Why, no. You've not promised yet, any more than you did last night when he was there and we talked about it, so how could I? I forgot to mention Lady Maud to him, or else I thought I wouldn't--I forget which. It doesn't matter.' 'No.' Margaret smiled. 'Not a little bit!' 'You seem amused,' observed Mr. Van Torp. 'By your way of putting it, and your pretending to forget such a thing.' 'It wasn't quite true that I forgot, but I wanted to, so I didn't say anything about her. That's why I put it in that way. I don't choose to leave you any doubt about what I say, or mean, even in the smallest things. The moment you feel the least doubt about the perfect accuracy of anything I tell you, even if it's not at all a downright lie or anything resembling one, you won't trust me at all, in anything. Because, if you trust me, you'll end by liking me, and if you don't trust me you'll go back to thinking that I'm the Beast out of Revelations, or something, as you used to. I've forgotten the Beast's number.' Margaret smiled again, though she was continually conscious of her own sullenly smouldering anger against Logotheti. Van Torp was gaining influence over her in his own uncouth way. Logotheti had been able to play upon her moods, as on that day under the elm-tree at Versailles, and she blushed when she remembered that single kiss he had won from her. But the American had no idea of such tactics in love, for he had never learned them. He was making war on the modern scientific system of never losing a hair's-breadth of ground once gained, keeping his communications constantly open with the base from which he had started, bringing up fresh forces to the front without intermission, and playing his heavy artillery with judgment and tenacity. 'The number doesn't matter,' Margaret said, 'for I've forgotten all about the Beast.' 'Thank you,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'To change the subject--I've got a little scheme to propose. Maybe you'll think well of it. Anyhow, as it's a mere matter of business connected with your career, you won't mind my explaining it to you, will you?' 'No, indeed!' Margaret was interested at once. 'Do tell me!' she said, leaning forward a little. 'Well,' he began, 'I've looked around this place a good deal since I've been here, and I've come to the conclusion that it's not very well done, anyhow, except _Parsifal_. That's what most of the people really come for. I'm informed that they give all the other operas better in Munich, with the advantage of being in what you may call a Christian town, compared with this. Is that correct, do you think?' 'Yes, I believe so.' 'It is, you can depend upon it. Now, what I want to know is, why you and I shouldn't go into a little business partnership, and do this kind of thing brown, as it ought to be done.' Margaret opened her handsome eyes wide. 'Because,' continued Mr. Van Torp, as coolly as if he were explaining a new plan to a board of directors, 'we've got the capital and the ability between us, and there's a demand in New York for what I propose to do. It'll fill a want, I know, and that means success and money. Why don't we build a theatre together? When I say a theatre, I mean a first-class opera-house and not a barn. We'll employ the best architects to build it, and, of course, I'd leave everything about it to you. I've got a block in New York just about in the right place, and it won't take long to build. I'll give the land and put up the money for the building, if you'll undertake the management. You'll put in any money you like, of course, and we'll share the profits. Maybe they'll be quite handsome, for we'll lease the theatre to other people outside of the season. We'll have the best talent in Europe, and pay for it, and the public will pay us back. We'll call it the Cordova Opera, if you like, and you'll run it according to your own ideas, and sing or not, whenever you please.' 'Are you in earnest?' Margaret had some difficulty in pronouncing the words clearly. He had brought up some very heavy artillery indeed, and at the right moment. Was there ever a great soprano who did not dream of having the most perfect theatre of her very own, and who could receive unmoved the offer to build one from a man who could build twenty if he chose? Very rarely in her life had she been aware of her bodily heart, but she could feel it now, beating like a hammer on the anvil. 'I'm in earnest,' Van Torp answered with perfect calm. 'I've thought the whole thing over in all its aspects, just as I would a railroad, or a canal, or a mine, and I've concluded to try it, if you'll help me, because it's going to be a safe investment. You see, Miss Donne,' he went on slowly, 'there's no artist on the Grand Opera stage now who's so well equipped for the business as you are. I'm not flattering you, either. In your own kind of parts you've simply got no rival. Everybody says so, and I suppose you won't play kitty and deny it. Let's start fair, now.' 'It would be silly to deny that I'm one of the first,' Margaret admitted. 'That'll do, thank you. One of the first, and the first is one of them, and you're it. Besides, you've got before you what's behind most of them. You're young. I'm not talking about your personal appearance, but that's just one more item in the assets. Another big one is that you're a first-class musician, whereas half these singers can only bang the box like great, thundering, overgrown schoolgirls. Allow that?' 'I suppose I must "allow" anything!' laughed the Primadonna. 'Well, now, I've told you. You've got the name I need, and you've got the voice, and the talent, and you've got the science and culture. I suppose you'll let me say that I've got the business ability, won't you?' The iron mouth smiled a little grimly. 'Rather! I fancy some people have wished you had less!' 'And the money's here, for I always have a blank cheque in my pocket. If you like, I'll fill it in, and we'll deposit it wherever you say, in the name of the "Cordova Opera Company," or "Madame da Cordova, Rufus Van Torp and Co." We can make out our little agreement in duplicate right here, on the corner of the table, and sign it; and before we leave here you might go around and speak to the best singers about an engagement in New York for a Wagner festival, a year from next Christmas. That's business, and this is a purely business proposition. If you'd like to think it over, I'll go and take a little walk before dinner.' 'It sounds like a dream!' Margaret answered, in a wondering tone. 'Money's an awful reality,' Van Torp remarked. 'I'm talking business, and as I'm the one who's going to put up most of the capital, you'll do me the credit to believe that I'm quite wide awake.' 'Do you really, really, really mean it?' She spoke almost like a child. It was not the first time in his life that the financier had seen the stunning effect of a big sum, projected with precision, like a shell, at exactly the right moment. He was playing the great game again, but for a prize he thought worth more than any he had yet won, and the very magnitude of the risk steadied his naturally steady brain. 'Yes,' he said quietly, 'I do. Perhaps I've startled you a little, and I shouldn't like you to make a decision till you feel quite ready to. I'll just say again that I've thought the whole thing out as a genuine venture, and that I believe in it, or I wouldn't propose it. Maybe you've got some sensible lawyer you have confidence in, and would like to consult him first. If you feel that way, I'd rather you should. A business partnership's not a thing to go into with your eyes shut, and if we had any reason for distrusting one another, it would be better to make inquiries. But so far as that goes, it appears to me that we've got facts to go on, which would make any partnership succeed. You've certainly got the musical brains, besides a little money of your own, and I've certainly got the rest of the funds. I'd like you to put some money in, though, if you can spare it, because that's a guarantee that you're going to be in earnest, too, and do your share in the musical side. You see I'm talking to you just as I would to a man in the same position. Not because I doubt that if you put your name to a piece of paper you really will do your share as a partner, but because I'm used to working in that sort of way in business. How does that strike you? I hope you're not offended?' 'Offended!' There was no mistaking the suppressed excitement and delight in her voice. If he had possessed the intelligence of Mephistopheles and the charm of Faust he could not have said anything more subtly pleasing to her dignity and her vanity. 'Of course,' he said, 'it needn't be a very large sum. Still it ought to be something that would make a difference to you.' She hesitated a moment, and then spoke rather timidly. 'I think perhaps--if we did it--I could manage a hundred thousand pounds,' she said. 'Would that be too little, do you think?' The large mouth twitched and then smiled pleasantly. 'That's too much,' he said, shaking his head. 'You mustn't put all your eggs in one basket. A hundred thousand dollars would be quite enough as your share of the capital, with option to buy stock of me at par, up to a million, or so, if it's a success.' 'Really? Would that be enough? And, please, what is "stock" in such a case?' 'Stock,' said the financier, 'is a little plant which, when well watered, will grow like the mustard seed, till all the birds of Wall Street make their nests in its branches. And if you don't water it too much, it'll be all right. In our case, the stock is going to be that share of the business which most people sell to raise money, and which we mean to keep for ourselves. I always do it that way, when circumstances allow. I once bought all the stock of a railroad for nothing, for instance, and sold all the bonds, and let it go bankrupt. Then I bought the road one day, and found all the stock was in my own pocket. That's only a little illustration. But I guess you can leave the financial side in my hands. You won't lose by it, I'm pretty sure.' 'I fancy not!' Margaret's eyes were wide open, her hands were clasped tightly on her knee, and she was leaning forward a little. 'Besides,' she went on, 'it would not be the money that I should care about! I can earn more money than I want, and I have a little fortune of my own--the hundred thousand I offered you. Oh, no! It would be the splendid power to have the most beautiful music in the world given as it could be given nowhere else! The joy of singing myself--the parts I can sing--in the most perfect surroundings! An orchestra picked from the whole world of orchestras, the greatest living leaders, the most faultless chorus! And the scenery, and the costumes--everything as everything could be, if it were really, really the best that can be had! Do you believe it is possible to have all that?' 'Oh, yes, and with your name to it, too. We'll have everything on earth that money can buy to make a perfect opera, and I'll guarantee it'll pay after the first two seasons. That is, if you'll work at it as hard as I will. But you've got to work, Miss Donne, you've got to work, or it's no use thinking of it. That's my opinion.' 'I'll work like a Trojan!' cried Margaret enthusiastically. 'Trojans,' mused Van Torp, who wanted to bring her back to her ordinary self before Mrs. Rushmore or Lady Maud came in. 'Let me see. They say that because the Trojans had to work so hard to get over the Alps coming down into Italy, don't they?' Whether Mr. Van Torp made this monstrous assertion in ignorance, or for effect, no one will ever know. An effect certainly followed at once, for Margaret broke into an echoing laugh. 'I believe it was the Carthaginians,' she said presently. 'It's the same thing, as Lady Maud is so fond of saying!' 'All in the family, as Cain said when he killed Abel,' observed Van Torp without a smile. Margaret looked at him and laughed again. She would have laughed at anything in the remotest degree amusing just then, for she found it hard to realise exactly what she was doing or saying. The possibility he had suddenly placed within her reach appealed to almost everything in her nature at once, to her talent, her vanity, her real knowledge of her art, her love of power, even to her good sense, which was unusually practical in certain ways. She had enough experience in herself, and enough knowledge of the conditions to believe that her own hard work, combined with Van Torp's unlimited capital, could and certainly would produce such an opera-house, and bring to it such artists as had never been seen and heard, except perhaps in Bayreuth, during its first great days, now long past. Then, too, he had put the matter before her so skilfully that she could look upon it honestly as a business partnership, in which her voice, her judgment, and her experience would bear no contemptible proportion to his money, and in which she herself was to invest money of her own, thereby sharing the risk according to her fortune as well as giving the greater part of the labour. She felt for some weak place in the scheme, groping as if she were dazzled, but she could find none. 'I don't think I shall need time to think this over,' she said, controlling her voice better, now that she had made up her mind. 'As I understand it, I am to put in what I can in the way of ready-money, and I am to give my time in all ways, as you need it, and my voice, when it is wanted. Is that it?' 'Except that, when you choose to sing, the Company will allow you your usual price for each appearance,' answered Van Torp in a business-like manner. 'You will pay yourself, or we both shall pay you, just as much as we should pay any other first-class soprano, or as much more as you would get in London or New York if you signed an engagement.' 'Is that fair?' Margaret asked. 'Why, certainly. But the Company, which is you and I, will probably rule that you mustn't sing in Grand Opera anywhere in the States east of the Rockies. They've got to come to New York to hear you. Naturally, you'll be free to do anything you like in Europe outside of our season, when you can spare the time.' 'Of course.' 'Well, now, I suppose we might as well note that down right away, as a preliminary agreement. What do you say?' 'I say that I simply cannot refuse such an offer!' Margaret answered. 'Your consent is all that's necessary,' he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. He produced from an inner pocket a folded sheet of foolscap, which he spread on the corner of the table beside him. He took out a fountain pen and began to write quickly. The terms and forms were as familiar to him as the alphabet and he lost no time; besides, as he had told the Primadonna, he had thought out the whole matter beforehand. 'What if Mrs. Rushmore comes in just as we are signing it?' asked Margaret. 'We'll tell her, and ask her to witness our signatures,' replied Van Torp without looking up. 'I judge Mrs. Rushmore to have quite a knowledge of business.' 'You seem able to write and talk at the same time,' Margaret said, smiling. 'Business talk, yes.' The pen ran on swiftly. 'There. That's about all, I should say. Do you think you can read my writing? I don't suppose you've ever seen it.' He turned the page round, and handed it to her. The writing was large and perfectly legible, but very different from the 'commercial' hand of most American business men. Any one word, taken at random, might have seemed unformed, at first sight, but the appearance of the whole was oddly strong and symmetrical. Margaret read the clauses carefully. She herself had already signed a good many legal papers in connexion with her engagements and her own small fortune, and the language was not so unfamiliar to her as it would have been to most women. 'Shall I sign first?' she asked, when she had finished. 'My own name? Or my stage name?' 'Your own name, please,' said Van Torp without hesitation. 'The others only binding in your profession, because you appear under it, and it's your "business style."' She wrote 'Margaret Donne' at the foot of the page in her large and rather irregular hand, and passed the paper back to Van Torp, who signed it. He waved the sheet slowly to and fro, to dry the ink. 'It's only a preliminary agreement,' he said, 'but it's binding as far as it goes and I'll attend to the rest. You'll have to give me a power of attorney for my lawyer in New York. By the bye, if you decide to come, you can do that in Venice, where there's a real live consul. That's necessary. But for all matters of business herein set forth, we are now already "The Madame da Cordova and Rufus Van Torp Company, organised for the purpose of building an Opera-house in the City of New York and for giving public performances of musical works in the same, with a nominal capital hereafter to be agreed upon." That's what we are now.' He folded the sheet, returned it to his inner pocket and held out his hand in a cheerful, business-like manner. 'Shall we shake hands on it?' he asked. 'By all means,' Margaret answered readily, and their eyes met; but she drew back her hand again before taking his. 'This is purely a matter of business between us,' she said, 'you understand that? It means nothing else?' 'Purely a matter of business,' answered Rufus Van Torp, slowly and gravely. CHAPTER XII 'Stemp,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'we must have something to eat on that yacht.' 'Yes, sir. Quite so, sir.' Stemp, who could do anything, was clipping the millionaire's thatch of sandy hair, on the morning after the transaction last described. Mr. Van Torp abhorred barbers and shaved himself, and in his less 'prominent' days he had been in the habit of cutting his own hair by using two looking-glasses. The result had rarely been artistic, and even Stemp was not what is described on some American signs as a tonsorial artist, but he managed to clip his master's rough mane with neatness and precision, if not in the 'Bond Street style.' 'I mean,' said Mr. Van Torp, explaining himself, 'we must have something good to eat.' 'Oh, I see, sir,' answered Stemp, as if this were quite a new idea. 'Well, now, do you suppose you can get anything to eat in Italy?' 'Salmon-trout is very good there, sir, and quails are in season at the end of August. They are just going back to Egypt at this time of the year, sir, and are very fat. There's Gorgonzola cheese, too, and figs and muscatel grapes are coming on. I think that's all, sir.' 'It's not bad. How about chickens?' 'Well, sir, the poultry in those parts is not much to boast of. An Italian fowl is mostly either a hawk or a butterfly. That's my experience, sir, when I travelled there with the late Duke of Barchester, a few years ago. His Grace was most particular, sir, having a poor stomach, and nothing to occupy his mind after the Duchess died in a fit of rage, having thrown her wig at him, sir, they do say, and then fallen down in a fit which was quite awful to see, and ended as we all know.' 'As far as I can see, you'd better go on to Venice, Stemp,' said Mr. Van Torp, not interested in his man's reminiscences. 'You'd better go off to-night and tell Captain Brown to hurry up and get ready, because I'm bringing a party of friends down the day after to-morrow. And then you just scratch round and find something to eat.' 'Yes, sir. I'll telegraph to the caterers, and I think you'll be satisfied, sir.' 'There's an American lady coming, who knows what's good to eat, and likes it, and wants it, and means to get it, and you've got to find it for her somehow. I can live on hog and hominy myself. And I shan't want you in the least. You'd better take most of my baggage with you anyway. Just leave my Tuxedo and a couple of suits, and some new flannel pants and a shirt-case, and take the rest. But don't waste time over that either if you've got to catch the train, for the main thing's to get there right away. You can go first-class, Stemp--you won't be so done up.' 'Thank you, sir.' A silence followed, during which the valet's scissors made a succession of little chinking noises; from time to time he turned Mr. Van Torp's head very gingerly to a slightly different position. 'Stemp.' 'Yes, sir.' 'You take a good look around that yacht, and decide about the state-rooms, before I come. This way. You give the best room to Miss Donne, and have a large bouquet of carnations on the table. See?' 'Beg pardon, sir, but carnations are out of season.' 'You get them just the same.' 'Yes, sir.' 'And give the second-best room to her ladyship, Stemp, if there are not two alike, but be extra careful to see that everything's comfortable. Lady Maud likes wood violets, Stemp. You get a handsome bouquet of them, and don't tell me they're out of season too, because you've got to get them, anyway, so it's no use to talk.' 'Yes, sir. I see, sir.' 'And then you get the third-best room ready for Mrs. Rushmore, and you get some flowers for her too, out of your own head. Maybe she likes those roses with stems three feet long. Use your own judgment, anyway.' 'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.' Another silence followed, and the hair-cutting was finished. Mr. Van Torp glanced at himself in the glass and then turned to his valet. 'Say, Stemp, I was thinking. Maybe that third bedroom's not quite so good as the others, and the lady might feel herself sort of overlooked.' 'Yes, sir.' 'Well, I was thinking. If that's the case, and it looks sort of second-class, you go out and get a man and have him gild it all around nicely so as to brighten it up. I guess she'll think it's all right if it's gilt and the others aren't. Some people are like that.' 'I see, sir. Yes, sir. I'll attend to it, sir. Will there be any more ladies and gentlemen, sir?' 'There's that Russian gentleman, Count Kralinsky. Put him at the other end of the ship, somewhere out of the way of the ladies. I suppose he'll bring his valet, and there'll be two or three maids. That's all. Now don't mind me any more, but just fly around, and don't forget anything. Understand? We aren't going to be in England or the States, where you can sit still and telephone for anything you've forgotten, from peanuts to a funeral. You'll have to go full speed ahead in all directions if you're going to wake things up.' Thereupon Mr. Van Torp sat down by the window to read the paper. His attention was arrested by a sensational 'scare-head' about a thief and a ruby worth fifty thousand dollars. Some disaffected colleague in London had known, or cleverly guessed, where the stone was that had been stolen from Mr. Pinney's, and had informed the police; the nice-looking young fellow who spoke like an English gentleman had walked directly into the arms of the plain-clothes man waiting for him on the pier in New York, the stone had been found sewn up in his waistcoat, and his pleasant career of liberty had ended abruptly in a cell. Mr. Van Torp whistled softly as he read the account a second time. Then he neatly cut the column out of the paper, folded it with great precision, smoothed it with care and placed it in his pocket-book next to a cheap little photograph of Madame da Cordova as 'Juliet,' which he had bought in a music-shop in New York the day after he had heard her for the first time, and had carried in his pocket ever since. He looked up to see what Stemp was doing, and as the man was kneeling before a box on the floor, with his back turned, he took out the rather shabby photograph and gazed at it quietly for fully thirty seconds before he put it back again. He took up the mutilated newspaper and looked up and down the columns, and among other information which he gathered in a few moments was the fact that Logotheti's yacht had 'passed Cape Saint Vincent, going east, owner and party on board.' The previous telegram had not escaped him, and if he had entertained any doubts as to the destination of the _Erinna_, they vanished now. She was certainly bound for the Mediterranean. He remembered having heard that many steam yachts coming from England put into Gibraltar for coal and fresh provisions, coal being cheaper there than in French and Italian ports, and he thought it very probable that the _Erinna_ would do the same; he also made some deductions which need not be explained yet. The only one worth mentioning here was that Logotheti would be likely to hear in Gibraltar that the ruby had been found and was on its way back to England, and that as he would know that Margaret would be anxious about it, since he had already given it to her, he would hardly let the occasion of communicating with her go by. As for writing from Gibraltar to any place whatsoever in the hope that a letter will arrive in less than a week, it is sheer folly. Mr. Van Torp had never tried it, and supposed it possible, as it looks, but he was tolerably sure that Logotheti would telegraph first, and had perhaps done so already, for the news of his passing Cape Saint Vincent was already twenty-four hours old. This was precisely what had happened. When Mr. Van Torp opened his door, he came upon Margaret and Mrs. Rushmore on the landing, on the point of going out for a walk, and a servant had just brought the Primadonna a telegram which she was reading aloud, so that the American could not help hearing her. '"Cruising till wanted,"' she read quickly. '"Ruby found. Address, yacht _Erinna_, Naples."' She heard Van Torp close his door, though she had not heard him open it, and turning round she found herself face to face with him. Her eyes were sparkling with anger. 'Very sorry,' he said. 'I couldn't help hearing.' 'It's of no consequence, for I should have told you,' Margaret answered briefly. He argued well for himself from her tone and manner, but he chose to show that he would not force his company upon her just then, when she was in a visible rage, and instead of stopping to exchange more words he passed the two ladies hat in hand, and bowing rather low, after his manner, he went quietly downstairs. Margaret watched him till he disappeared. 'I like that man,' she said, as if to herself, but audibly. 'I cannot help it.' Mrs. Rushmore was more than delighted, but had tact enough not to make any answer to a speech which had probably not been meant for her ears. 'Perhaps,' she said, 'you would rather not go out just yet, my dear?' Margaret was grateful for the suggestion, and they turned back into their rooms. Meanwhile Van Torp had reached the door of the hotel, and found Lady Maud standing there with her parasol up, for the sun was streaming in. 'I was waiting for you,' she said simply, as soon as he reached her side, and she stepped out into the street. 'I thought you would come down, and I wanted to speak to you, for I did not get a chance last night. They were both watching me, probably because they thought I was ill, and I had to chatter like a magpie to keep up appearances.' 'You did it very well,' Van Torp said. 'If I had not seen your face at the window when I got out of the automobile yesterday, I shouldn't have guessed there was anything wrong.' 'But there is--something very wrong--something I can hardly bear to think of, though I must, until I know the truth.' They turned into the first deserted street they came to. 'I daresay I can give a guess at what it is,' Van Torp answered gravely. 'I went to see him alone yesterday on purpose, before he started, and I must say, if it wasn't for the beard I'd feel pretty sure.' 'He had a beard when I married him, and it was like that--just like that!' Lady Maud's voice shook audibly, for she felt cold, even in the sunshine. 'I didn't know,' Van Torp answered. 'That alters the case. If we're not mistaken, what can I do to help you? Let's see. You only had that one look at him, through the window, is that so?' 'Yes. But the window was open, and it's not high above the ground, and my eyes are good. He took off his hat when he said good-bye to you, and I saw his face as distinctly as I see yours. When you've been married to a man'--she laughed harshly--'you cannot be easily mistaken about him, when you're as near as that! That is the man I married. I'm intimately convinced of it, but I must be quite sure. Do you understand?' 'Of course. If he's really Leven, he's even a better actor than I used to think he was. If he's not, the resemblance is just about the most extraordinary thing! It's true I only saw Leven three or four times in my life, but I saw him to look at him then, and the last time I did, when he made the row in Hare Court, he was doing most of the talking, so I remember his voice.' 'There's only one difficulty,' Lady Maud said. 'Some one else may have been killed last June. It may even have been the pickpocket who had stolen his pocket-book. Such things have happened, or do in books! But this is certainly the man you met in New York and who sold you the stone you gave me, is he not?' 'Oh, certainly. And that was at the end of July, and Leven was killed late in June.' 'Yes. That only leaves a month for him to have been to Asia--that's absurd.' 'Utterly, totally, and entirely impossible,' asseverated Mr. Van Torp. 'One of two things. Either this man is your husband, and if he is, he's not the man who found the rubies in Asia. Or else, if he is that man, he's not Leven. I wish that heathen girl had been here yesterday! She could have told in a minute. She'd better have been here anyway than cutting around the Mediterranean with that fellow Logotheti!' 'Yes,' Lady Maud answered gravely. 'But about myself--if Leven is alive, what is my position--I mean--I don't really quite know where I am, do I?' 'Anybody but you would have thought of marrying again already,' observed Mr. Van Torp, looking up sideways to her eyes, for she was taller than he. 'Then you'd really be in a bad fix, wouldn't you? The Enoch Arden thing, I suppose it would be. But as it is, I don't see that it makes much difference. The man's going under a false name, so he doesn't mean to claim you as his wife, nor to try and get a divorce again, as he did before. He's just going to be somebody else for his own good, and he'll get married that way, maybe. That's his business, not yours. I don't suppose you're going to get up in church and forbid the banns, are you?' 'I would, like a shot!' said Lady Maud. 'So would you, I'm sure! Think of the other woman!' 'That's so,' answered Van Torp without enthusiasm. 'However, we've got to think about you and the present, and decide what we'll do. I suppose the best thing is for me to put him off with some excuse, so that you can come on the yacht.' 'Please do nothing of the sort!' cried Lady Maud. 'But I want you to come,' objected her friend. 'I mean to come. Do you think I am afraid to meet him?' Van Torp looked at her in some surprise, and not without admiration. 'There isn't anybody like you, anyway,' he said quietly. 'But there's going to be a circus on that ship if he's Leven,' he added. 'If he makes a fuss, I'll read the Riot Act and lock him up.' 'Oh, no,' answered Lady Maud, who was used to Mr. Van Torp's familiar vocabulary, 'why need there be any trouble? You've not told him I am coming, you say. Very well. If he sees me suddenly after he has been on board a little while, he'll certainly betray himself, and then I shall be sure. Leven is a man of the world --"was" or "is"--God knows which! But if it is he, and he doesn't want to be recognised, he'll behave as if nothing had happened, after the first moment of surprise. At least I shall be certain! You may wonder--I don't know myself, Rufus--I wish you could help me!' 'I will, as far as I can.' 'No, you don't know what I mean! There's something in my life that I never quite told you, I can't tell why not. There must be people who know it besides my mother--I don't think my father ever did. Margaret has an idea of it--I let fall a few words one day. In one way, you and I have been so intimate for years --and yet----' She stopped short, and the soft colour rose in her cheeks like a dawn. Van Torp looked down at the pavement as he walked. 'See here,' he said in a low voice, 'you'd better not tell me. Maybe you'll be sorry some day if you do.' 'It would be the first time,' she answered softly, 'and I've often wished you knew everything. I mean to tell you now--just wait a moment.' They walked on; they were already in the outskirts of the dull little town. Van Torp did not again raise his eyes to her face, for he knew she would speak when she was ready. When she did, her voice was a little muffled, and she looked straight before her as he was doing. They were quite alone in the road now. 'When I was very young--nearly eleven years ago, in my first season--I met a man I liked very much, and he liked me. We grew very, very fond of each other. He was not much older than I, and had just joined the army. We couldn't marry, because we had no money--my father had not come into the title then, you know--but we promised each other that we would wait. We waited, and no one knew, except, perhaps, my mother, and she kept us from seeing each other as much as she could. Then came the Boer war, and he was killed--killed in a wretched skirmish--not even in a battle--buried somewhere on the Veldt--if I only knew where! I read it in a despatch--just "killed"--nothing more. One doesn't die of things, I suppose, and years passed, and I went out just the same, and they wanted me to marry. You know how it is with a girl! I married to get rid of myself--I married Leven because he was good-looking and had money, and--I don't quite know why, but it seemed easier to marry a foreigner than an Englishman. I suppose you cannot understand that! It made all comparison impossible--perhaps that was it. When mine was dead, I could never have taken another who could possibly have known him, or who could be in the remotest degree like him.' 'I understand that quite well,' said Van Torp, as she paused. 'I'm glad, then, for it makes it easier to explain the rest. I don't think I always did my best to be nice to Leven. You see, he soon grew tired of me, and went astray after strange goddesses. Still, I might have tried harder to keep him if I had cared what he did, but I was faithful to him, in my own way, and it was much harder than you can guess, or any one. Oh, it was not any living man that made it hard--not that! It was the other. He came back--dead men do sometimes--and he told me I was his, and not Leven's wife; and I fought against that, just as if a man had made love to me in society. It didn't seem honest and true to my real husband, in my thoughts, you know, and in some things thoughts are everything. I fought with all my might against that one, that dear one. I think that was the beginning of my work--being sorry for other women who perhaps had tried to fight too, and wondering whether I should do much better if my dead man came back alive. Do you see? I'm telling you things I've hardly ever told myself, let alone any one else.' 'Yes, I see. I didn't know any one could be as good as that.' 'You can guess the rest,' Lady Maud went on, not heeding what he said. 'When I believed that Leven was dead the fight was over, and I took my dead man back, because I was really free. But now, if Leven is alive after all, it must begin again. I ought to be brave and fight against it; I must--but I can't, I can't! It's too hard, now! These two months have been the happiest in my life since the day he was killed! How can I go back again! And yet, if I cannot be an honest woman in my thoughts I'm not an honest woman at all--I'm no better than if I deserved to be divorced. I never believed in technical virtue.' Van Torp had seen many sides of human nature, good and bad, but he had never dreamed of anything like this, even in the clear depths of this good woman's heart, and what he heard moved him. Men born with great natures often have a tender side which the world does not dream of; call it nervousness, call it degeneracy, call it hysterical who will; it is there. While Lady Maud was finishing her poor little story in broken phrases, with her heart quivering in her voice, Mr. Rufus Van Torp's eyes became suddenly so very moist that he had to pass his hand over them hastily lest a drop or two should run down upon his flat cheeks. He hoped she would not notice it. But she did, for at that moment she turned and looked at his face, and her own eyes were dry, though they burned. She saw that his glistened, and she looked at him in surprise. 'I'm sorry,' he said, apologising as if he had done something rude. 'I can't help it.' Their hands were hanging near together as they walked, and hers touched his affectionately and gratefully, but she said nothing, and they went on in silence for some time before she spoke again. 'You know everything now. I must be positively sure whether Leven is alive or dead, for what I have got back in these last two months is my whole life. A mere recognition at first sight and at ten yards is not enough. It may be only a marvellous resemblance, for they say every one has a "double" somewhere in the world.' 'They used to say, too, that if you met your "double" one of you would die,' observed Van Torp. 'Those things are all stuff and nonsense, of course. I was just thinking. Well,' he continued, dwelling on his favourite monosyllable, 'if you decide to come on the yacht, and if the man doesn't blow away, we shall know the truth in three or four days from now, and that's a comfort. And even if he turns out to be Leven, maybe we can manage something.' Lady Maud chose not to ask what her friend thought he could 'manage'; for she had glanced at his face when he had spoken, and though it was half turned away from her, she saw his expression, and it would have scared a nervous person. She did not like him to be in that mood, and was sorry that she had brought him to it. But Mr. Van Torp, who was a strong man, and had seen more than one affray in his ranching days, could not help thinking how uncommonly easy it would be to pick up Count Kralinsky and drop him overboard on a dark night next week, when the _Lancashire Lass_ would be doing twenty-two knots, and there might be a little weather about to drown the splash. CHAPTER XIII The millionaire did things handsomely. He offered to motor his party to Venice, and as Margaret declined, because motoring was bad for her voice, he telegraphed for a comfortable special carriage, and took his friends down by railway, managing everything alone, in some unaccountable way, since the invaluable Stemp was already gone in search of something for Mrs. Rushmore to eat; and they were all very luxuriously comfortable. Kralinsky was not on board the yacht when they came alongside at sunset in two gondolas, following the steam-launch, which carried a load of luggage and the two maids. The Primadonna's trunks and hat-boxes towered above Mrs. Rushmore's, and Mrs. Rushmore's above Lady Maud's modest belongings, as the Alps lift their heads above the lower mountains, and the mountains look down upon the Italian foot-hills; and Potts sat in one corner of the stern-sheets with Margaret's jewel-case on her knee, and Justine, with Mrs. Rushmore's, glared at her viciously from the other corner. For the fierce Justine knew that she was going to be sea-sick on the yacht, and the meek Potts never was, though she had crossed the ocean with the Diva in rough weather. Stemp led the way, and Mr. Van Torp took the three ladies to their cabins: first, Mrs. Rushmore, who was surprised and delighted by the rich and gay appearance of hers, for it was entirely decorated in pink and gold, that combination being Stemp's favourite one. The brass bedstead had pink silk curtains held back by broad gold ribbands; there was a pink silk coverlet with a gold fringe; everything that could be gold was gilt, and everything that could be pink was rosy, including the carpet. Mr. Van Torp looked at Stemp with approval, and Stemp acknowledged unspoken praise with silent modesty. 'Beg pardon, madam,' he said, addressing Mrs. Rushmore, 'this is not exactly the largest cabin on the yacht, but it is the one in which you will find the least motion.' 'It's very sweet,' said the American lady. 'Very dainty, I'm sure.' On the writing-table stood a tall gilt vase full of immense pink roses, with stems nearer four feet long than three. Mrs. Rushmore admired them very much. 'How did you know that I love roses above all other flowers?' she asked. 'My dear Mr. Van Torp, you are a wizard, I'm sure!' Lady Maud and Margaret had entered, and kept up a polite little chorus of admiration; but they both felt uneasy as to what they might find in their respective cabins, for Margaret hated pink, and Lady Maud detested gilding, and neither of them was especially fond of roses. They left Mrs. Rushmore very happy in her quarters and went on. Lady Maud's turn came next, and she began to understand, when she saw a quantity of sweet wood violets on her table, just loosened, in an old Murano glass beaker. 'Thank you,' she said, bending to smell them. 'How kind of you!' There was not a trace of gilding or pink silk. The cabin was panelled and fitted in a rare natural wood of a creamy-white tint. 'Beg pardon, my lady,' said Stemp. 'This and Miss Donne's cabin communicate by this door, and the door aft goes to the dressing-room. Each cabin has one quite independent, and this bell rings the pantry, my lady, and this one rings Miss Donne's maid's cabin, as I understand that your ladyship has not brought her own maid with her.' 'Very nice,' said Lady Maud, smelling the violets again. Mr. Van Torp looked at Stemp as he would have looked at a horse that had turned out even better than he had expected. Stemp threw open the door of communication to the cabin he had prepared for the Primadonna. The two cabins occupied the whole beam of the vessel, excepting the six-foot gangway on each side, and as she was one of the largest yachts afloat at the time, there was no lack of room. 'Carnations, at this time of year!' cried Margaret, seeing half an armful of her favourite dark red ones, in a silver wine-cooler before the mirror. 'You really seem to know everything! Thank you so much!' She buried her handsome face in the splendid flowers and drew in a deep, warm breath, full of their sensuous perfume, the spicy scent of a laden clove-tree under a tropical sun. 'Thank you again!' she said enthusiastically. 'Thank you for everything, the delightful journey, and this lovely room, and the carnations!' She stood up suddenly to her height, in sheer pleasure, and held out her hand to him. He pressed it quietly, and smiled. 'Do as you would be done by,' he said. 'That's the Company's rule.' She laughed at the allusion to their agreement, of which Lady Maud knew nothing, for they had determined to keep it secret for the present. Mr. Van Torp had not found an opportunity of speaking to Lady Maud alone, but he wished her to know when Kralinsky might be expected. 'Stemp,' he said, before leaving the cabin, 'have you heard from the Count?' 'Yes, sir. He got here this morning from Vienna in his motor, sir, and sent his things with his man, and his compliments to you and the ladies, and he will come on board in time for dinner. That was all, I think, sir.' [Illustration: "She buried her handsome face in the splendid flowers."] Lady Maud heard, and made a scarcely perceptible movement of the head by way of thanks to her friend, while listening to Margaret's enthusiastic praise of everything she saw. Mr. Van Torp and his man departed, just as Potts appeared, accompanied by a very neat-looking English stewardess in a smart white cap. Lady Maud was unusually silent, but she smiled pleasantly at what Margaret said, and the latter made up her mind to drown her anger against Logotheti, and at the same time to be avenged on him, in an orgy of luxurious comfort, sea-air, and sunshine. The capacity of a perfectly healthy and successful singer for enjoying everything, from a halfpenny bun and a drive in a hansom to a millionaire's yacht and the most expensive fat of the land, or sea, has never been measured. And if they do have terrible fits of temper now and then, who shall blame them? They are always sorry for it, because it is bad for the voice. Mr. Van Torp reached his quarters, and prepared to scrub and dress comfortably after a week at Bayreuth and a railway journey. 'Stemp.' 'Yes, sir.' 'That was quite nicely done. You must have had a lively time.' 'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Hope everything is tolerably satisfactory to you, sir.' 'Yes. Find anything good to eat? Chickens don't take gilding well, you know--doesn't taste together. But I suppose you found something. Seen the cook?' 'Yes, sir. I think things will be tolerable, sir, though this is not London, I must say.' Mr. Van Torp showed no surprise at the statement, and disappeared into his bath-room, well pleased with himself and his man. But a moment later he opened the door again and thrust out his square sandy head. 'Stemp, where have you put the Count? Far from here? I don't want him near me.' 'Last cabin forward on the port side, sir, next to the smoking-room. Very good cabin, sir.' 'Whereabouts is port, right or left?' 'Left-hand side of the vessel, sir,' answered Stemp, who had been on many yachts. 'There are ten more cabins empty, sir, between large and small, if you should think of asking any ladies and gentlemen to join at another point, sir.' 'May pick up a couple somewhere. Can't tell yet.' And Mr. Van Torp disappeared definitely. Lady Maud did not begin to dress at once, as there was plenty of time before dinner; she left the stewardess to unpack her things, and came out upon the six-foot gangway outside her cabin door to breathe the air, for it was warm. The city lay half a mile away in the after-glow of the sunset. The water was very green that evening, as it sometimes is in the Lagoons, though not always, and it was shaded off through many opalescent tints to heliotrope; then it was suddenly black below the steps of the Piazzetta and the Ducal Palace. Within the mysterious canal to the right she could make out the Bridge of Sighs, and there was the Ponte della Paglia, and the long line of irregular buildings to the eastward of the Prisons, as far as the Public Gardens. To the left there was the wide mouth of the Grand Canal, the Salute and the Custom-House, and the broad opening of the Giudecca. It was familiar to her, for she had seen it several times. She missed the Campanile, which she had been made to climb by an energetic governess when she was twelve years old, but all the rest was there and unchanged, a dream of evening colour, an Eastern city rising out of an enchanted water, under an Italian sky. At any other time she would have enjoyed the sight almost without a thought, as she enjoyed everything that seemed to her beautiful or even pretty, though she had no pretensions to cultivated artistic taste or knowledge. But now she felt none of that healthy pleasure which a lovely sight naturally gave her. She was at a crisis of her life, and the exquisite evening scene was the battlefield of a coming struggle, with herself, or with another, she hardly knew. In half an hour, or in an hour, at most, she was to sit at table with a man she fully believed to be the husband for whom she had been wearing mourning, out of mere decency, but with the profound inward satisfaction of being free. She was brave, and could try to think of what was before her if it turned out that she was not mistaken, and she could attempt to understand what had happened. She had already come to the conclusion that if Kralinsky was really Leven, the latter had seized the opportunity offered him by his own supposed death to disappear from St. Petersburg, and had taken another name. Leven had been a ruined man when he had tried to divorce her; when he died, or disappeared, he left nothing but debts, which were extinguished with him, for no one attempted to make his widow responsible for them, since there was no estate and she had no fortune beyond the allowance her father made her. Lord Creedmore was far from being a rich peer, too, and what he gave her was not much, although it would more than suffice for her simple wants, now that she intended to live with him again. But if Leven had not been killed and had turned into Kralinsky, he now had plenty of ready money, though it was not easy to guess how he had obtained possession of a quantity of valuable Asiatic rubies within the few weeks that had elapsed between his supposed destruction by the bomb and the date of Van Torp's transaction with him in New York. That was a mystery. So was his possible acquaintance, or connexion, with the Eastern girl who was looking for him, if there was a shadow of truth in Logotheti's story. Lady Maud did not believe there was, and she felt morally sure that the tale had evolved itself out of the Greek's fertile brain, as a fantastic explanation of his atrocious conduct. While she was thinking over these matters and rehearsing in her thoughts the scene that was before her, she saw a gondola making straight for the yacht across the fast fading green of the lagoon that lay between the vessel and the Piazzetta. It came nearer, and she drew back from the rail against her cabin door, under the shadow of the promenade deck, which extended over the gangway and was supported by stanchions, as on an ocean liner. The _Lancashire Lass_, with her single huge yellow funnel, her one short signal mast, her turret-shaped wheel-house, and her generally business-like appearance, looked more like a cross between a fast modern cruiser and an ocean 'greyhound' than like a private yacht. She even had a couple of quick-firing guns mounted just above her rail. Lady Maud looked at the gondola, and as it came still nearer, she saw that it brought only one passenger, and that he had a fair beard. She quietly opened her cabin door, and went in to dress for dinner. Meanwhile Mr. Van Torp had completed his toilet, and was rather surprised to find himself magnificently arrayed in a dark-blue dinner-jacket, with perfectly new gilt buttons, and an unfamiliar feeling about the pockets. He had belonged to a yacht club for years, because it seemed to be expected of him, and Stemp and the tailor had thought fit that he should possess the proper things for a yachtsman. 'Stemp,' he said, 'is this the correct thing? I suppose you know.' 'Yes, sir. Very smart indeed, sir. White caps are usually worn by yachting gentlemen in the Mediterranean, sir.' Stemp offered him the cap in question, resplendent with a new enamelled badge. 'Beg pardon, sir, but as to caps, most gentlemen lift them to ladies, just like hats, sir, but the captain and the officers touch theirs. His Grace always lifted his cap, sir.' 'I guess that'll be all right,' answered Mr. Van Torp, trying on the cap. 'Send the captain to my study, Stemp, and find out about when the ladies will be ready for dinner.' Stemp disappeared, and in a few moments pink-faced Captain Brown appeared, quiet, round, and smart. 'I suppose you're ready at any moment, Captain?' inquired the millionaire. 'Yes, sir. The pilot is on board, and the gentleman you expected is just coming alongside.' 'Oh, he is, is he?' Mr. Van Torp evidently expected no answer to his favourite form of question when he was thinking over what had just been said; and the captain was silent. 'Then you can start now,' said the owner, after a moment's thought. 'Where are we bound, sir?' 'Oh, well, I don't know. I wanted to say a few words about that, Captain. Do you happen to know anything about a yacht called the _Erinna_, belonging to a Mr. Logotheti, a Greek gentleman who lives in Paris?' 'Yes, sir,' answered Captain Brown, for it was a part of his business to read the yachting news. 'She was at Cowes when we sailed. She was reported the other day from Gibraltar as having entered the Mediterranean after taking fresh provisions, owner and party on board. There is no further word of her.' 'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'I have an idea she's gone to Naples, but I want you to find her right away wherever she is, owner and party on board. That's all, Captain. If you happen to see her anywhere, you just come and tell me if I'm alone, and if I'm not, why send one of your young men to say you want to know something,--anything you happen to think of, and I'll come to your room and tell you what to do. See? That's all, and now let's start, please.' 'All right, sir.' So Captain Brown went off with his instructions, and in a few moments his owner heard the distant sound of the chain coming in over the most noiseless of modern patent steam capstans; and the side-lights and masthead and stern lights shone out as the anchor light went down, and the twin screws began to turn over slowly, well below the water; and the _Lancashire Lass_ was under weigh, with the captain, the pilot, and the two junior officers all in a row on the bridge, while the chief mate was seeing the anchor got inboard and stowed. But while the captain was silently looking ahead into the warm dusk and listening to the orders the pilot gave for the wheel in good English, but with a marvellous Venetian accent, he was also considering how he might most quickly find the _Erinna_, and he reflected that it would be an easier task if he knew a little more definitely where she was. He was not at all disturbed by the orders he had received, however, and was only anxious to get all the speed he could out of his vessel as far as the Straits of Messina, through which the yacht he was to find would almost certainly pass, in preference to the Malta Channel, if she were going to Greece and the East. If she kept to the waters west of Italy, it would not be so very hard to hear of her, as the coast is dotted with excellent marine signal stations, and official information as to the movements of yachts is easily obtained. When the party assembled in the deck saloon for dinner, Lady Maud was missing. Stemp, who did not intend that his master should dine without his personal attention, no matter how much the chief steward might object to his presence, approached Mr. Van Torp and whispered something. Lady Maud begged that the party would sit down without her, and she would join them in a moment. So they took their places, and the vacant one was on the owner's right, between him and the Primadonna. 'You see,' said Mr. Van Torp, explaining to Mrs. Rushmore, which was wholly unnecessary, 'we are Americans, and this ship is America, so the English guest goes first.' But Mrs. Rushmore knew these things, for she was used to handling lions in numbers; and the little lions and the middle-sized ones are very particular about their places at table, but the great big ones do not care 'one dingle Sam,' as Mr. Van Torp would have elegantly expressed their indifference. For he was a great big lion himself. 'Did you ever meet Lady Maud?' he inquired, speaking to Kralinsky. 'Which Lady Maud?' asked the foreigner in his rather oily voice. 'There are several.' 'Countess Leven, who was Lady Maud Foxwell,' explained Mrs. Rushmore. Kralinsky turned quietly to her, his single eyeglass fixed and glittering. 'No,' he answered. 'I knew poor Leven well, but I was never introduced to his wife. I have heard that she is very beautiful.' 'You say you knew the late Count Leven?' observed Mrs. Rushmore, with an encouraging and interrogatory smile. 'Intimately,' answered Kralinsky with perfect self-possession. 'We were in the same regiment in the Caucasus. I daresay you remember that he began life as a cavalry officer and then entered the diplomacy. Gifted man, very,' the Russian added in a thoughtful tone, 'but no balance! It seems to me that I have heard he did not treat his wife very well.' [Illustration: "Their eyes met."] Mr. Van Torp had met several very cool characters in his interesting and profitable career, but he thought that if the man before him was Leven himself, as he seemed to be, he beat them all for calm effrontery. 'Were you ever told that you looked like him?' asked Mr. Van Torp carelessly. Even at this question Kralinsky showed no embarrassment. 'To tell the truth,' he replied, 'I remember that one or two in the regiment saw a slight resemblance, and we were of nearly the same height, I should say. But when I last saw Leven he did not wear a beard.' At this point Lady Maud came in quietly and made directly for the vacant place. The two men rose as soon as she appeared, and she found herself face to face with Kralinsky, with the table between them. Their eyes met, but Lady Maud could not detect the slightest look of recognition in his. Van Torp introduced him, and also watched his face narrowly, but there was not the least change of expression, nor any quick glance of surprise. Yet Kralinsky possibly did not know that Lady Maud was on the yacht, for he had not been told previously that she was to be of the party, and in the short conversation which had preceded her appearance, no one had actually mentioned the fact. She herself had come to dinner late with the express purpose of presenting herself before him suddenly, but she had to admit that the intended surprise did not take place. She was not astonished, however, for she had more than once seen her husband placed in very difficult situations, from which he had generally extricated himself by his amazing power of concealing the truth. Being seated nearly opposite to him, it was not easy to study his features without seeming either to stare at him rudely or to be bestowing more attention on him than on any of the others. Her eyes were very good, and her memory for details was fair, and if she did not look often at his face, she watched his hands and listened to the intonations of his voice, and her conviction that he was Leven grew during dinner. Yet there was still a shadow of doubt, though she could not have told exactly where it lay. She longed to lead him into a trap by asking some question to which, if he were Leven, he would know the answer, though not if he were any one else, a question to which he would not hesitate to reply unsuspectingly if the answer were known to him. But Lady Maud was not ingenious in such conversational tricks, and could not think of anything that would do. The outward difference of appearance between him and the man she had married was so small that she could assuredly not have sworn in evidence that Kralinsky was not her husband. There was the beard, and she had not seen Leven with a beard since the first months of her marriage four years ago, when he had cut it off for some reason known only to himself. Of course a recollection, already four years old, could not be trusted like one that dated only as far back as three months; for he had left her not long before his supposed death. There were the hands, and there was the left hand especially. That might be the seat of the doubt. Possibly she had never noticed that Leven had a way of keeping his left little finger almost constantly crooked and turned inward as if it were lame. But she was not sure even of that, for she was not one of those people who study the hands of every one they know, and can recognise them at a glance. She had certainly never watched her husband's as closely as she was watching Kralinsky's now. Margaret was in the best of spirits, and talked more than usual, not stopping to think how Van Torp's mere presence would have chilled and silenced her three or four months earlier. If Lady Maud had time to spare from her own affairs, it probably occurred to her that the Primadonna's head was slightly turned by the devotion of a financier considerably bigger and more serious than Logotheti; but if she had known of the 'business agreement' between the two, she would have smiled at Van Torp's wisdom in offering a woman who seemed to have everything just the one thing in the world which she desired and had not. Yet for all that, he might be far from his goal. It was possible that Margaret might look upon him as Lady Maud herself did, and wish to make him her best friend. Lady Maud would not be jealous if she succeeded. On the whole it was a gay dinner, and Mrs. Rushmore and Kralinsky knew that it was a very good one, and told each other so afterwards as they walked slowly up and down the great promenade deck in the starlight. For people who are very fond of good eating can chatter pleasantly about their food for hours, recalling the recent delights of a perfect chaud-froid or a faultless sauce; and it was soon evident that there was nothing connected with such subjects which Kralinsky did not understand and appreciate, from a Chinese bird's-nest soup to the rules of the great Marie-Antoine Carême and Brillat-Savarin's Physiology of Taste. Kralinsky also knew everybody. Between gastronomy and society, he appeared to Mrs. Rushmore to know everything there was to be known. Lady Maud caught snatches of the conversation as the two came near her, and then turned back; and she remembered that Leven used to talk on the same subjects with elderly women on whom he wished to make a pleasant impression. The voice was his to the very least intonation, and the walk was his, too, and yet she knew she had a doubt somewhere, a very small doubt, which it was a sort of slow torture to feel was still unsatisfied. Mr. Van Torp sat between her and Lady Margaret, while the two others walked. The deep-cushioned straw chairs stood round a low fixed table on which there had been coffee, and at Margaret's request the light had been put out, though it was only a small opalescent one, placed under the awning abaft the wheel-house and bridge. 'We must be going very fast,' said Lady Maud, 'for the sea is flat as a millpond, and yet there's a gale as soon as one gets out of the lee of things.' 'She's doing twenty-two, I believe,' replied Van Torp, 'and she can do twenty-three if pressed. She will, by and by, when she gets warmed up.' 'Where are we going?' Margaret asked. 'At this rate we are sure to get somewhere!' 'I don't know where we're going, I'm sure.' The millionaire smiled in the gloom. 'But as you say, it doesn't take more than five minutes to get somewhere in a ship like this.' 'You must have told the captain what you wanted him to do! You must have given some orders!' 'Why, certainly. I told him to look around and see if he could find another yacht anything like this, anywhere in the Mediterranean. So he's just looking around, like that, I suppose. And if he finds another yacht anything like this, we'll see which of us can go fastest. You see I don't know anything about ships, or where to go, so I just thought of that way of passing the time, and when you're tired of rushing about and want to go anywhere in particular, why, I'll take you there. If the weather cuts up we'll go in somewhere and wait, and see things on shore. Will that do?' Margaret laughed at the vagueness of such a roving commission, but Lady Maud looked towards her friend in the starlight and tried to see his expression, for she was sure that he had a settled plan in his mind, which he would probably put into execution. 'I've figured it out,' he continued presently. 'This thing will go over five hundred and twenty miles a day for eight days without stopping for coal, and that makes more than four thousand miles, and I call that a pretty nice trip, don't you? Time to cool off before going to Paris. Of course if I chose to take you to New York you couldn't get out and walk. You'd have to go.' 'I've no idea of offering any resistance, I assure you!' said Margaret. 'I'm too perfectly, completely, and unutterably comfortable on your yacht; and I don't suppose it will be any rougher than it was last March when we crossed in the _Leofric_ together.' 'Seems a long time, doesn't it?' Van Torp's tone was thoughtful, but expressed anything rather than regret. 'I prefer this trip, myself.' 'Oh, so do I, infinitely! You're so much nicer than you used to be, or than I thought you were. Isn't he, Maud?' 'Far!' answered Lady Maud. 'I always told you so. Do you mind very much if I go to bed? I'm rather sleepy after the journey.' She rose. 'Oh, I mustn't forget to tell you,' she added, speaking to Margaret, 'I always lock my door at night, so don't be surprised! If you want to come in and talk when you come down just call, or knock, and I'll let you in directly.' 'All right,' Margaret answered. Lady Maud disappeared below, leaving the two together, for Mrs. Rushmore and Kralinsky had found a pleasant sheltered place to sit, further aft, and the Count was explaining to the good American lady the delicious Russian mysteries of 'Borshtsh,' 'Shtshi,' 'Kasha,' and 'Smyetany,' after extolling the unapproachable flavour of fresh sturgeon's roe, and explaining that 'caviare' is not at all the Russian name for it and is not even a Russian word; and Mrs. Rushmore listened with intense interest and stood up for her country, on a basis of Blue Point oysters, planked shad, canvas-backs, and terrapin done in the Philadelphian manner, which she maintained to be vastly superior to the Baltimorian; and each listened to the other with real interest. Van Torp and Margaret had not been alone together for five minutes since they had left Bayreuth on the previous day, but instead of talking, after Lady Maud was gone, the Primadonna began to sing very softly and beautifully, and not quite for herself only, for she well knew what pleasure her voice gave her companion, and she was the more ready to sing because he had never asked her to do so. Moreover, it cost her nothing, in the warm evening air under the awning, and like all great singers she loved the sound of her own voice. To be able to do almost anything supremely well, one must do it with real delight, and without the smallest effort which it is not a real pleasure to make. So Margaret leaned back comfortably in her cushioned chair, with her head inclined a little forward, and the magic notes floated from her lips through the soft moving night; for as the yacht ran on through the calm sea at her great speed, it was as if she lay still and the night itself were flying over her with muffled wings. Margaret sang nothing grand nor very difficult; not the waltz-song that had made her famous, nor the 'Good Friday' music which she could never sing to the world, but sweet old melodious songs she had learned when a girl; Schubert's 'Serenade' and 'Ave Maria,' and Tosti's 'Malia,' and then Beethoven's 'Adelaide'; and Van Torp was silent and perfectly happy, as well he might be. Moreover, Margaret was happy too, which was really more surprising, considering how very angry she had been with Logotheti for a whole week, and that she was quite aware of the manner in which he was passing his time in spite of her urgent message. But before the magnificent possibilities which the 'business agreement' had suddenly opened to her, the probability of her again sending him any word, within a reasonable time, had diminished greatly, and the prospect of flying into a rage and telling him her mind when she saw him was not attractive. She had always felt his influence over her more strongly when they had been together; and it had always lost its power when he was away, till she asked herself why she should even think of marrying him. She would not be the first woman who had thought better of an engagement and had broken it for the greater good of herself and her betrothed. In all probability she had never been really and truly in love, though she had been very sincerely fond of Edmund Lushington the English writer, who had discovered rather late that the magnificent and successful Margarita da Cordova was not at all the same person as the 'nice English girl,' Margaret Donne, whom he had worshipped before she had gone upon the stage. So far as he was concerned, she had received his change of mind as a slight; as for Logotheti, she would never forgive him for not having remained faithful even during the few weeks since they had called themselves engaged; but Van Torp's position as a suitor was different. At all events, she said to herself, he was a man; and he did not offer her romantic affection, but power, and a future which should soon give her the first position in the musical world, if she knew how to use it. She was accustomed to the idea of great wealth and of the ordinary things it could give; mere money impressed her no more than it does most very successful artists, unless they are miserly and fond of it for its own sake, which is comparatively unusual. She wasted most of what she earned, in a sort of half-secret luxury and extravagance which made little show but cost a great deal and gave her infinite satisfaction. Even Lady Maud did not dream of the waste that was a pleasure to the Primadonna, and the meek Potts was as reticent as the fierce Justine was garrulous. It was a secret joy to Potts, besides being a large source of revenue, to live with a mistress who flatly refused ever to wear a pair of silk stockings more than once, much less a pair of gloves. Mrs. Rushmore would have held up her elderly hands at such reckless doings. Margaret herself, trusting to her private fortune for her old age in case she never married, did as she pleased with her money, and never thought of investing it; but now and then, in moments of depression, it had occurred to her that when she left the stage, as she must some day, she would not be able to live as she did now, and the thought vaguely disturbed her for a few minutes, but that was all, and she had always within reach the easy remedy of marrying a millionaire, to whom such a sum as five hundred pounds a year for silk stockings would be an insignificant trifle; and while her voice lasted she could make more than that by giving one concert in Chicago, for instance, or by singing two nights in opera. This is not a digression. The Diva cared nothing for money in itself, but she could use a vast amount of it with great satisfaction and quite without show or noise. Mr. Van Torp's income was probably twenty or thirty times as large as the most she could possibly use, and that was a considerable asset in his favour. He was not a cultivated man, like Logotheti; he had never known a word of Latin or Greek in his life, his acquaintance with history was lacunous--to borrow a convenient Latin word--and he knew very little about the lives of interesting people long dead. He had once read part of a translation of the _Iliad_ and had declared it to be nonsense. There never were such people, he had said, and if there had been, there was no reason for writing about them, which was a practical view of the case, if not an æsthetic one. On the other hand, he was oddly gifted in many ways and without realising it in the least. For instance, he possessed a remarkable musical ear and musical memory, which surprised and pleased even the Diva, whenever they showed themselves. He could whistle her parts almost without a fault, and much more difficult music, too. For everyday life he spoke like a Western farmer, and at first this had been intensely disagreeable to the daughter of the scholarly Oxford classic; but she had grown used to it quickly since she had begun to like him, till his way of putting things even amused her; and moreover, on that night by the gate of the field outside Bayreuth, she had found out that he could speak well enough, when he chose, in grave, strong words that few women could hear quite indifferently. Never, in all her acquaintance with Logotheti, had she heard from the Greek one phrase that carried such conviction of his purpose with it, as Van Torp's few simple words had done then. Big natures are usually most drawn to those that are even bigger than themselves, either to love them, or to strive with them. It is the Second-Rates who take kindly to the little people, and are happy in the adulation of the small-fry. So Margaret was drawn away from Logotheti, the clever spoilt child of fortune, the loving, unproductive worshipper of his own Greek Muses, by the Crown-Grasper, the ruthless, uncultured hard-hitter, who had cared first for power, and had got it unhelped, but who now desired one woman, to the exclusion of all others, for his mate. Vaguely, the Diva remembered how, when Van Torp had asked her to walk with him on the deck of the _Leofric_ and she had at first refused and then consented, Paul Griggs, looking on with a smile, had quoted an old French proverb: 'A fortress that parleys, and a woman who listens, will soon surrender.' When she was silent after singing 'Adelaide,' association brought back the saying of the veteran man of letters, for Van Torp asked her if she cared to walk a little on the quiet deck, where there was a lee; and the sea air and even the chairs recalled the rest, with a little wonder, but no displeasure, nor self-contempt. Was she not her own mistress? What had any one to say, if she chose to change her mind and take the stronger man, supposing that she took either? Had Logotheti established any claim on her but that of constancy? Since that was gone, here was a man who seemed to be as much more enduring than his rival, as he was stronger in every other way. What were small refinements of speech and culture, compared with wide-reaching power? What availed it to possess in memory the passionate love-roses of Sappho's heart, if you would not follow her to the Leucadian cliff? Or to quote torrents of Pindar's deep-mouthed song, if you had not the constancy to run one little race to the end without swerving aside? Logotheti's own words and epithets came back to Margaret, from many a pleasant talk in the past, and she cared for them no longer. Full of life himself, he lived half among the dead, and his waking was only a dream of pleasure; but this rough-hewn American was more alive than he, and his dreams were of the living and came true. When Margaret bid Van Torp good-night she pressed his hand, frankly, as she had never done before, but he took no sudden advantage of what he felt in her touch, and he returned the pressure so discreetly that she was almost disappointed, though not quite, for there was just a little something more than usual there. She did not disturb Lady Maud, either, when she went to her cabin, though if she had known that her beautiful neighbour was wide awake and restless, she would at least have said good-night, and asked her if she was still so very tired. But Lady Maud slept, too, at last, though not very long, and was the only one who appeared at breakfast to keep Van Torp company, for Margaret slept the sleep of a singer, which is deep and long as that of the healthy dormouse, and Mrs. Rushmore had her first tea and toast happily in her cheerful surroundings of pink and gilding. As for Kralinsky, his man informed Stemp and the chief steward that the Count never thought of getting up till between nine and ten o'clock, when he took a cup of chocolate and a slice or two of sponge cake in his own room before dressing. So Lady Maud and Van Torp had the yacht to themselves for some time that morning. 'I fancy from what you said last night that your plan is to catch Logotheti and the Tartar girl at sea,' said Lady Maud, when they were alone. 'I supposed you'd understand,' answered Van Torp. 'Do you see any harm in that? It occurred to me that it might be quite a drastic form of demonstration. How does it strike you? At all low-down?' 'No, frankly not!' Lady Maud was still incensed at Logotheti's conduct. 'A man who does such things deserves anything that his rival can do to him. I hope you may overhaul the yacht, run alongside of her and show Margaret the two, making love to each other in Tartar on deck! That's the least that ought to happen to him!' 'Thank you. I like to hear you talk like that. Captain Brown will do his level best, I think. And now, tell me,' he lowered his voice a little more, 'is that man Leven, or not?' 'I am sure he is,' Lady Maud answered, 'and yet I feel as if there ought to be a little doubt still. I don't know how to express it, for it's rather an odd sensation.' 'I should think it might be! Is there anything I can say or do? I'll ask the man any question you suggest. I'm certain he's not old Levi Longlegs, and if he's not Leven, who on earth is he? That's what I should like to know.' 'I shall find out, never fear! I know I shall, because I must, if I am ever to have any peace again. I'm not a very nervous person, you know, am I? But it's more than I can bear long, to sit opposite a man at table, again and again, as I shall have to, and not be sure whether he's my husband, come back from the dead, or some one else!' She paused, and her nostrils dilated a little, but Van Torp only nodded slowly and sympathetically. 'I mean to know before I go to bed to-night,' she said, with a little desperation in her voice. 'I shall talk to him till I am sure of one thing or the other. At table, I cannot tell, but if we are alone together I know I can settle the question. If you see that we are talking at the other end of the deck, try to keep Mrs. Rushmore and Margaret from coming near us. Will you?' To Mrs. Rushmore's amazement and Margaret's surprise, Lady Maud made a dead set at Kralinsky all that day, an attention which he seemed to appreciate as it deserved. Before breakfast was over, Van Torp had repeated to her what Kralinsky had said about having formerly been intimate with Leven, and Lady Maud took this statement as a basis of operations for finding out just how much he knew of her own life; she judged that if he were not Leven himself, he must soon betray the fact by his ignorance. That was the strangest day she had ever passed. She found it very easy to talk with Kralinsky, as it always is when there has been long familiarity, even if it has been only the familiar intercourse of domestic discord. He knew many details of her life in London. That was clear after half an hour's conversation. She alluded to the idle talk there had been about her and Van Torp; Kralinsky knew all about that and had heard, as he said, some silly story about Leven having found her with the American in certain rooms in the Temple, and about an envelope which was said to have contained over four thousand and one hundred pounds in bank-notes. He politely scouted the story as nonsense, but he had heard it, and Lady Maud knew that every word of it was true. He knew of Leven's unsuccessful attempt to divorce her on that ground, too, and he knew the number of her house in Charles Street, Berkeley Square. On the other hand, there were many things of which he knew nothing, or pretended to be ignorant, such as the names of her brothers and sisters, her father's favourite pursuits and the like. But she understood very well that if he thought she suspected his identity under the disguise of his beard, and if he wished to avoid recognition, he was just the man to pretend blank ignorance of some vital matters, after admitting his acquaintance with many others. He had been very intimate with Leven, to the last, he said; Leven had always written to him very fully about his life, very wittily sometimes, but always without balance! That was it; he had no 'balance.' Yes, he himself had been in Petersburg when Leven was killed and had seen him on the previous day. Within a week he had made a rapid trip to New York, whence he had now just returned. He had crossed on five-day boats both going and coming, and he named them. 'I am naturally interested in meeting any one who knew my husband so well,' Lady Maud said, making a bold dash at a possibility. 'We had many differences, as you seem to know, but I daresay that if he could come back to life and know the real truth, we should forgive each other.' She looked up to him with a gentle smile as she said this, for she had often felt it; and in that instant a flash of light came into his usually rather uncertain eyes. Her heart stood still; she looked at the sea again directly, for she was leaning against the rail; then she drew breath, as if from an effort. She had seen a look that could only mean recognition. Leven was alive and was standing beside her. But she had the courage to go on talking, after a moment, and she tried to change the subject, though not very adroitly. During the afternoon Mr. Van Torp had a revelation, sudden and clear, for he had watched Lady Maud and Kralinsky all day and had thought about them a good deal, considering how his mind was occupied with other matters even nearer to his heart than his best friend's welfare. As soon as the revelation came upon him he rang for his own man. Stemp, see here!' he began. 'You've valeted around with all sorts of different-looking men. How long does it take to grow a beard like Count Kralinsky's?' 'A year, sir. Not a day less, and longer with most gentlemen. If you were thinking of it, sir----' 'You don't believe it could be managed in three months, by taking an expert around with you to work on your face?' 'That's out of the question, sir. Gentlemen's beards that have shaved all their lives, as I suppose you have, sir, do grow faster, but I should consider a year a short time for such a fine one as the Count's. Indeed I should, sir.' 'Do you suppose you could stick it on fresh every day, the way they do for the stage?' 'Not so that it wouldn't show in broad daylight, sir.' 'Well, that's all. I wasn't exactly thinking of trying a beard. I was only thinking--just like that. What I rang for was a cap. Got any more like this? You see I've managed to get a spot of ink on this one. Had it on the table when I was writing, I suppose. That's the worst of white caps, they spot so.' A little later, Mr. Van Torp was looking out for a chance to speak alone with Lady Maud, and as soon as he found his opportunity, he told her what Stemp had said. Strangely enough, it had never occurred to him that such a remarkable beard as Kralinsky's must have taken a long time to grow, and that Leven, who had none, had not left London more than three months ago. He watched the effect of this statement on his friend's face, but to his surprise she remained grave and sad. 'I cannot help it,' she said in a tone of conviction. 'He must be Leven, whatever Stemp tells you about his beard.' 'Well, then it's a false beard, and will come off,' observed Mr. Van Torp, with at least equal gravity. 'Stemp says that's impossible, but he must be wrong, unless you are.' 'It's real,' Lady Maud said, 'and he is my husband. I've talked to him all day, and he knows things about my life that no one else could, and if there are others about which he is vague, that must be because he is pretending, and does not want to show that he knows everything.' Van Torp shook his head, but remained unconvinced; Lady Maud did not change her mind either, and was already debating with herself as to whether it would not be really wiser to speak out and tell Kralinsky that she had recognised him under his transparent disguise. She felt that she must know the worst, if she was ever to rest again. Neither Margaret nor Mrs. Rushmore had ever seen Leven, and they had not the least idea of what was really going on under their eyes. They only saw that Lady Maud was making a dead set at the Count, and if Margaret wondered whether she had misjudged her friend's character, the elder lady had no doubt as to what was happening. 'My dear child,' she said to Margaret, 'your friend is going to console herself. Widows of that age generally do, my dear. I myself could never understand how one could marry again. I should always feel that dear Mr. Rushmore was in the room. It quite makes me blush to think of it! Yet it is an undeniable fact that many young widows marry again. Mark my words, Margaret, your friend is going to console herself before long. If it is not this one, it will be another. My dear, I am quite positive about it.' When the sun went down that evening the yacht had passed Otranto and the Cape, and her course had been changed, to head her for Cape Spartivento and the Straits of Messina, having done in twenty-four hours as much as the little Italian mail-steamers do in forty-eight, and nearly half as much again as the _Erinna_ could have done at her highest speed. As Mr. Van Torp had predicted, his engines had 'warmed up,' and were beating their own record. The gale made by the vessel's way was stronger than a woman could stand in with any regard to her appearance, but as the weather continued to be calm it was from dead-ahead, and there was plenty of shelter on the promenade deck abaft the wheel-house, on condition of not going too near the rail. After dinner Kralinsky and Mrs. Rushmore walked a little, as on the previous evening, and Lady Maud sat with Margaret and Van Torp. But before the two walkers went off to sit down in the quiet corner they had found yesterday, Lady Maud rose, went half-way aft, and deliberately placed herself where they were obliged to pass close to her at each turn, standing and leaning against the bright white side of the engine skylight, which was as high as the wheel-house itself, and broke in aft, where the big ventilating fans were situated, making a square corner inward. She stood there, and as it was not very dark in the clear starlight, Kralinsky saw in passing that she followed his face with her eyes, turning her head to look at him when he was coming towards her, and turning it very slowly back again as he came near and went by. It was impossible to convey more clearly an invitation to get rid of his companion and join her, and he was the last man in the world to misunderstand it. But Mrs. Rushmore saw it too, and as she considered him a lion, and therefore entitled to have his own way, she made it easy for him. 'My dear Count,' she said blandly, after passing Lady Maud twice, 'I have really had enough now, and if you will promise to finish your walk alone, I think I will go and sit with the others.' He left her with Margaret and Van Torp and went back to Lady Maud, who moved as he came up to her, made two steps beside him, and then suddenly slipped into the recess where the fan-house joined the engine skylight. She stood still, and he instantly ranged himself beside her. They were quite out of sight of the others, and of the bridge, and even if it had been daylight they could not have been seen except by some one coming from aft. 'I want to speak to you,' she said, in a low, steady voice. 'Please listen quite quietly, for some of them may begin to walk again.' Kralinsky bent his head twice, and then inclined it towards her, to hear better what she was going to say. 'It has pleased you to keep up this comedy for twenty-four hours,' she began. He made a slight movement, which was natural under the circumstances. 'I do not understand,' he said, in his oily voice. 'What comedy? I really have no----' 'Don't go on,' she answered, interrupting him sharply. 'Listen to what I am going to tell you, and then decide what you will do. I don't think your decision will make very much difference to me, but it will make a difference to the world and to yourself. I saw you from a window when you brought Mr. Van Torp to the hotel in Bayreuth, and I recognised you at once. Since this afternoon I have no doubt left.' 'I never saw you till last night,' said Kralinsky, with some little surprise in his tone, and with perfect assurance. 'Do you really think you can deceive me any longer?' she asked. 'I told you this afternoon that if you could come back from the dead, and know the whole truth, we should probably forgive each other, though we had many differences. Shall we?' She paused a moment, and by his quick change of position she saw that he was much moved. 'I don't mean that we should ever go back to the old life, for we were not suited to each other from the first, you and I. You wanted to marry me because I was pretty and smart, and I married you because I wanted to be married, and you were better-looking than most men, and seemed to have what I thought was necessary--fortune and a decent position. No, don't interrupt me. We soon found out that we did not care for each other. You went your way, and I went mine. I don't mean to reproach you, for when I saw you were beginning to be tired of me I did nothing to keep you. I myself was tired of it already. But whatever you may have thought, I was a faithful wife. Mr. Van Torp had given me a great deal of money for my charity, and does still. I can account for it. I never used a penny of it for myself, and never shall; and he never was, and never will be, any more than a trusted friend. I don't know why you chose to disappear when the man who had your pocket-book was killed and you were said to be dead. It's not my business, and if you choose to go on living under another name, now that you are rich again, I shall not betray you, and few people will recognise you, at least in England, so long as you wear that beard. But you had it when we were married, and I knew you at once, and when I heard you were to be of the party here, I made up my mind at once that I would accept the invitation and come too, and speak to you as I'm speaking now. When I believed you were dead I forgave you everything, though I was glad you were gone; frankly, I did not wish you alive again, but since you are, God forbid that I should wish you dead. You owe me two things in exchange for my forgiveness: first, yours, if I treated you ungenerously or unkindly; and, secondly, you ought to take back every word you ever said to me about Mr. Van Torp, for there was not a shadow of truth in what you thought. Will you do that? I ask nothing else.' 'Indeed I will, my dear Maud,' said Count Kralinsky, in a voice full of emotion. Lady Maud drew a long breath, that trembled a little as it left her heated lips again. She had done what she believed most firmly to be right, and it had not been easy. She had not been surprised by his patient silence while she had been talking; for she had felt that it was hers to speak and his to listen. 'Thank you,' she said now. 'I shall never go back to what I have said, and neither of us need ever allude to old times again during this trip. It will not last long, for I shall probably go home by land from the first port we touch, and it is not likely that we shall ever meet again. If we do, I shall behave as if you were Count Kralinsky whom I have met abroad, neither more nor less. I suppose you will have conscience enough not to marry. Perhaps, if I thought another woman's happiness depended on it, I would consent to divorce you, but you shall never divorce me.' 'No power could make me wish to,' Kralinsky answered, still deeply moved. 'I was mad in those days, Maud; I was beside myself, between my debts and my entanglements with women not fit to touch your shoes. I've seen it all since. That is the chief reason why I chose to disappear from society when I had the chance, and become some one else! I swear to you, on my mother's soul in heaven, that I thought of nothing but that--to set you free and begin life over again as another man. No thought of marrying has ever crossed my mind! Do you think I could be as bad as that? But I'm not defending myself--how could I? All the right is on your side, and all the wrong on mine. And now--I would give heaven and earth to undo it all and to come back to you!' Lady Maud drew as far as she could into the corner where the fan-house joined the engine skylight. She had not expected this; it was too much repentance; it was too like a real attempt to win her again. He had not seen her for more than three months; she knew she was very beautiful; his fleeting passion had come to life again, as he had. But her old repulsion for him was ten times stronger than when they had parted, and she shrank back as far as she could, without speaking. From far below the noiseless engines sent a quick vibration up to the ironwork of the skylight. She felt it, but could hardly tell it from the beatings of her own heart. He saw her shrinking from him and was wise. 'Don't be afraid of me!' he cried, in a low and pleading tone. 'Not that! Oh, please not that! I will not come nearer; I will not put out my hand to touch yours, I swear it to you! But I love you as I never loved you before; I never knew how beautiful you were till I had lost you, and now that I have found you again you are a thousand times more beautiful than in my dreams! No, I ask nothing! I have no right to ask for what I have thrown away! You do not even pity me, I think! Why should you? You were free when you thought me dead, and I have come back to be a burden and a weight on your life. Forgive me, forgive me, my lost darling, for the sake of all that might have been, but don't fear me! Pity me, if you can, but don't be afraid of me! Say that you pity me a little, and I shall be satisfied, and grateful too!' Lady Maud was silent for a few seconds, while he stood turned towards her, his hands clasped in a dramatic gesture, as if still imploring her commiseration. 'I do pity you,' she said at last, quite steadily, for just then she did not fear that he would try to touch even her hand. 'I pity you, if you are really in love with me again. I pity you still more if this is a passing thing that has taken hold of you merely because you still think me handsome. But I will never take you back to be my husband again. Never. That is finished, for good and all.' 'Ah, Maud, listen to me----' But she had already slipped out of the corner and was walking slowly away from him, not towards the others, but aft, so that he might join her quietly before going back to them. He was a man of the world and understood her, and did what was expected of him. Almost as soon as he was beside her, she turned to go forward with her leisurely, careless grace. 'We've been standing a long time,' said she, as if the conversation had been about the weather. 'I want to sit down.' 'I am in earnest,' he said, very low. 'So am I,' answered Lady Maud. They went on towards the wheel-house side by side, without haste, and not very near together, like two ordinary acquaintances. CHAPTER XIV While the _Lancashire Lass_ was racing down to the Straits of Messina the _Erinna_ was heading for the same point from the opposite direction, no longer dawdling along at half-speed, but going her full sixteen knots, after coaling in Naples, and any navigator who knew the positions and respective speeds of the two yachts could have calculated with approximate precision the point at which they would probably sight each other. Logotheti had given up the idea of taking Baraka to Paris, if he had ever really entertained it at all. He assured her that Naples was a great city, too, and that there was a first-rate French dressmaking establishment there, and that the Ville de Lyon would turn her out almost as smartly as the Rue de la Paix itself. He took Baraka ashore and placed her for half a day in the hands of Madame Anna, who undertook to do all that money could do in about a fortnight. He had the effrontery to say that Baraka was a niece of his from Constantinople, whose mother was on board the yacht, but had unfortunately sprained her ankle in falling down the companion during a gale, and could therefore not accompany her daughter on shore. The young lady, he said, spoke only Turkish. Madame Anna, grave and magnificently calm under all circumstances, had a vague recollection of having seen the handsome Oriental gentleman already with another niece, who spoke only French; but that was none of her business. When would the young lady try on the things? On any day Madame Anna chose to name; but in the meantime her uncle would take her down to Sicily, as the weather was so wonderfully fine and it was still so hot. Madame Anna therefore named a day, and promised, moreover, to see the best linen-drapers and sempstresses herself, and to provide the young lady with as complete an outfit as if she were going to be married. She should have all things visible and invisible in the shortest possible time. Logotheti, who considered himself a stranger, insisted on putting down a thousand-franc note merely as a guarantee of good faith. The dressmaker protested almost furiously and took the money, still protesting. So that was settled, and Baraka was to be outwardly changed into a beautiful Feringhi lady without delay. To tell the truth, the establishment is really a smart one, and she was favourably impressed by the many pretty frocks and gowns that were tried on several pretty young women in order that she might make her choice. Baraka would have liked a blue satin skirt with a yellow train and a bright-green silk body, but in her travels she had noticed that the taste of Feringhi ladies was for very sober or gentle colours, compared with the fashionable standards of Samarkand, Tiflis, and Constantinople, and she meekly acquiesced to everything that Logotheti and Madame Anna proposed, after putting their heads together. Logotheti seemed to know a great deal about it. He took Baraka for a long drive in the afternoon, out by Pozzuoli to Baia and back. The girl loved the sea; it was the only thing in the western world that looked big to her, and she laughed at wretched little mountains only four or five thousand feet high, for she had dwelt at the feet of the lofty Altai and had sojourned in Tiflis under the mighty peak of Kasbek. But the sea was always the sea, and to her mountain sight it was always a new wonder beyond measure, vast, moving, alive. She gazed out with wide eyes at the purpled bay, streaked by winding currents of silver, and crisped here and there by the failing summer breeze. Logotheti saw her delight, and musical lines came back to him out of his reading, how the ocean is ever the ocean, and the things of the sea are the sea's; but he knew that he could not turn Greek verse into Turkish, try as he might, much less into that primeval, rough-hewn form of it which was Baraka's native tongue. It was nearly dark when the naphtha launch took them out to the yacht, which lay under the mole where the big English and German passenger steamers and the men-of-war are moored. Logotheti had at last received Margaret's telegram asking him to meet her at once. It had failed to reach him in Gibraltar, and had been telegraphed on thence to Naples, and when he read it he was considerably disturbed. He wrote a long message of explanations and excuses, and sent it to the Primadonna at Bayreuth, tripling the number of words she had prepaid for his answer. But no reply came, for Margaret was herself at sea and nothing could reach her. He sent one of his own men from the yacht to spend the day at the telegraph office, with instructions for finding him if any message came. The man found him three times, and brought three telegrams; and each time as he tore open the little folded brown paper he felt more uncomfortable, but he was relieved to find each time that the message was only a business one from London or Paris, giving him the latest confidential news about a Government loan in which he was largely interested. When he reached the yacht he sent another man to wait till midnight at the office. The Diva was angry, he thought; that was clear, and perhaps she had some right to be. The tone of her telegram had been peremptory in the extreme, and now that he had answered it after a delay of several days, she refused to take any notice of him. It was not possible that such a personage as she was should have left Bayreuth without leaving clear instructions for sending on any telegrams that might come after she left. At this time of year, as he knew, she was beset with offers of engagements to sing, and they had to be answered. From eight o'clock in the morning to midnight there were sixteen hours, ample time for a retransmitted message to reach her anywhere in Europe and to be answered. Logotheti felt a sensation of deep relief when the man came aboard at a quarter-past midnight and reported himself empty-handed; but he resolved to wait till the following evening before definitely leaving Naples for the ten days which must elapse before Baraka could try on her beautiful Feringhi clothes. He told her anything he liked, and she believed him, or was indifferent; for the idea that she must be as well dressed as any European woman when she met the man she was seeking had appealed strongly to her, and the sight of the pretty things at Madame Anna's had made her ashamed of her simple little ready-made serges and blouses. Logotheti assured her that Kralinsky was within easy reach, and showed no inclination to travel far. There was news of him in the telegrams received that day, the Greek said. Spies were about him and were watching him for her, and so far he had shown no inclination to admire any Feringhi beauty. Baraka accepted all these inventions without doubting their veracity. In her eyes Logotheti was a great man, something like a king, and vastly more than a Tartar chieftain. He could send men to the ends of the earth if he chose. Now that he was sure of where Kralinsky was, he could no doubt have him seized secretly and brought to her, if she desired it earnestly of him. But she did not wish to see the man, free or a prisoner, till she had her beautiful new clothes. Then he should look upon her, and judge whether he had done well to despise her love, and to leave her to be done to death by her own people and her body left to the vulture that had waited so long on a jutting point of rock over her head three years ago. Meanwhile, also, there were good things in life; there were very fat quails and marvellous muscatel grapes, and such fish as she had never eaten in Europe during her travels, and there was the real coffee of the Sheikhs, and an unlimited supply of rose-leaf preserve. Her friend was a king, and she was treated like a queen on the yacht. Every day, when Gula had rubbed her small feet quite dry after the luxurious bath, Gula kissed them and said they were like little tame white mice. Saving her one preoccupation, Baraka was in an Eastern paradise, where all things were perfect, and Kêf descended upon her every day after luncheon. Even the thought of the future was brighter now, for though she never left her cabin without her long bodkin, she was quite sure that she should never need it. In imagination she saw herself even more beautifully arrayed in Feringhi clothes than the pretty ladies with champagne hair whom she had seen driving in the Bois de Boulogne not long ago when she walked there with Spiro. She wondered why Logotheti and Gula were both so much opposed to her dyeing her hair or wearing a wig. They told her that ladies with champagne hair were not always good ladies; but what did that matter? She thought them pretty. But she wondered gravely how Gula knew that they were not good. Gula knew a great many things. Besides, Baraka was 'good' herself, and was extremely well aware of the fact, and of its intrinsic value, if not of its moral importance. If she had crossed a quarter of the world in spite of dangers and obstacles which no European girl could pass unharmed, if alive at all, it was not to offer a stained flower to the man she sought when she found him at last. As for Logotheti, though he was not a Musulman, and not even an Asiatic, she felt herself safe with him, and trusted him as she would certainly not have trusted Van Torp, or any other European she had chanced to meet in the course of selling precious stones. He was more like one of her own people than the Greeks and Armenians of Constantinople or even the Georgians of the Caucasus. She was not wrong in that, either. Logotheti was beginning to wonder what he should do with her, and was vaguely surprised to find that he did not like the idea of parting with her at all; but beyond that he had no more thought of harming her than if she had been confided to his care and keeping by his own mother. Few Latins, whether Italians, French, or Spanish, could comprehend that, and most of them would think Logotheti a milksop and a sentimental fool. Many northern men, on the other hand, will think he did right, but would prefer not to be placed in such a trying position, for their own part, because beauty is beauty and human nature is weak, and the most exasperating difficulty in which an honest northern man can find himself where a woman is concerned is that dilemma of which honour and temptation are the two horns. But the best sort of Orientals look on these things differently, even when they are young, and their own women are safer with them than European women generally are among European men. I think that most men who have really known the East will agree with me in this opinion. And besides, this is fiction, even though it be founded on facts; and fiction is an art; and the end and aim of art is always to discover and present some relation between the true and the beautiful--as perhaps the aim of all religions has been to show men the possible connexion between earth and heaven. Nothing is so easily misunderstood and misapplied as bare truth without comment, most especially when it is an ugly truth about the worst side of humanity. We know that all men are not mere animals; for heaven's sake let us believe that very few, if any, must be! Even Demopithekos, the mob-monkey, may have a conscience, when he is not haranguing the people. Logotheti certainly had one, of its kind, though he seemed to Margaret Donne and Lady Maud to be behaving in such an outrageous manner as to have forfeited all claim to the Diva's hand; and Baraka, who was a natural young woman, though a remarkably gifted and courageous one, felt instinctively that she was safe with him, and that she would not need to draw out her sharp bodkin in order to make her position clear, as she had been obliged to do at least twice already during her travels. Yet it was a dreamy and sense-compelling life that she led on the yacht, surrounded with every luxury she had ever heard of, and constantly waited on by the only clever man she had ever really talked with, excepting the old Persian merchant in Stamboul. The vision of the golden-bearded giant who had left her to her fate after treating her with stony indifference was still before her, but the reality was nearer in the shape of a visible 'great man,' who could do anything he chose, who caused her to be treated like a queen, and who was undeniably handsome. She wondered whether he had a wife. Judging marriage from her point of view, there probably had been one put away in that beautiful house in Paris. He was an Oriental, she told herself, and he would not parade his wife as the Feringhis did. But she was one, too, and she considered that it would be an insult to ask him about such things. Spiro knew, no doubt, but she could not demean herself to inquire of a servant. Perhaps Gula had found out already, for the girl had a way of finding out whatever she wanted to know, apparently by explaining things to the second mate. Possibly Gula could be made to tell what she had learned, without being directly questioned. But after all, Baraka decided that it did not matter, since she meant to marry the fair-beard as soon as she had her pretty clothes. Yet she became conscious that if he had not existed, she would think it very satisfactory to marry the great man who could do anything he liked, though if he had a wife already, as he probably had, she would refuse to be the second in his house. The Koran allowed a man four, it was said, but the idea was hateful to her, and moreover the Persian merchant's wife had told her that it was old-fashioned to have more than one, mainly because living had grown so expensive. Logotheti sat beside her for hours under the awnings, talking or not, as she chose, and always reading when she was silent, though he often looked up to see if she wanted anything. He told her when they left Naples that he would show her beautiful islands and other sights, and the great fire-mountains of the South, Ætna and Stromboli, which she had heard of on her voyage to Marseilles but had not seen because the steamer had passed them at night. The fire-mountain at Naples had been quiet, only sending out thin wreaths of smoke, which Baraka insisted came from fires made by shepherds. 'Moreover,' she said, as they watched Vesuvius receding when they left Naples, 'your mountains are not mountains, but ant-hills, and I do not care for them. But your sea has the colours of many sherbets, rose-leaf and violet, and lemon and orange, and sometimes even of pale yellow peach-sherbet, which is good. Let me always see the sea till the fine dresses are ready to be tried on.' 'This sea,' answered Logotheti, 'is always most beautiful near land and amongst islands, and the big fire-mountain of Sicily looks as tall as Kasbek, because it rises from the water's edge to the sky.' 'Then take me to it, and I will tell you, for my eyes have looked on the Altai, and I wish to see a real mountain again. After that we will go back and get the fine dresses. Will Gula know how to fasten the fine dresses at the back, do you think?' 'You shall have a woman who does, and who can talk with Gula, and the two will fasten the fine dresses for you.' Logotheti spoke with becoming gravity. 'Yes,' Baraka answered. 'Spend money for me, that I may be good to see. Also, I wish to have many servants. My father has a hundred, perhaps a thousand, but now I have only two, Gula and Spiro. The man I seek will think I am poor, and that will be a shame. While I was searching for him, it was different; and besides, you are teaching me how the rich Franks live in their world. It is not like ours. You know, for you are more like us, though you are a king here.' She spoke slowly and lazily, pausing between her phrases, and turning her eyes to him now and then without moving her head; and her talk amused him much more than that of European women, though it was so very simple, like that of a gifted child brought suddenly to a new country, or to see a fairy pantomime. 'Tell me,' he said after a time, 'if it were the portion of Kralinsky to be gathered to his fathers before you saw him, what would you do?' Baraka now turned not only her eyes to him but her face. 'Why do you ask me this? Is it because he is dead, and you are afraid to tell me?' 'He was alive this morning,' Logotheti answered, 'and he is a strong man. But the strong die sometimes suddenly, by accident if not of a fever.' 'It is emptiness,' said Baraka, still looking at him. 'He will not die before I see him.' 'Allah forbid! But if such a thing happened, should you wish to go back to your own people? Or would you learn to speak the Frank and live in Europe?' 'If he were dead, which may Allah avert,' Baraka answered calmly, 'I think I would ask you to find me a husband.' 'Ah!' Logotheti could not repress the little exclamation of surprise. 'Yes. It is a shame for a woman not to be married. Am I an evil sight, or poor, that I should go down to the grave childless? Or is there any reproach upon me? Therefore I would ask you for a husband, because I have no other friend but only you among the Feringhis. But if you would not, I would go to Constantinople again, and to the Persian merchant's house, and I would say to his wife: "Get me a husband, for I am not a cripple, nor a monster, nor is there any reproach upon me, and why should I go childless?" Moreover, I would say to the merchant's wife: "Behold, I have great wealth, and I will have a rich husband, and one who is young and pleasing to me, and who will not take another wife; and if you bring me such a man, for whatsoever his riches may be, I will pay you five per cent."' Having made this remarkable statement of her intentions, Baraka was silent, expecting Logotheti to say something. What struck him was not the concluding sentence, for Asiatic match-makers and peace-makers are generally paid on some such basis, and the slim Tartar girl had proved long ago that she was a woman of business. What impressed Logotheti much more was what seemed the cool cynicism of her point of view. It was evidently not a romantic passion for Kralinsky that had brought her from beyond Turkestan to London and Paris; her view had been simpler and more practical; she had seen the man who suited her, she had told him so, and had given him the secret of great wealth, and in return she expected him to marry her, if she found him alive. But if not, she would immediately take steps to obtain another to fill his place and be her husband, and she was willing to pay a high price to any one who could find one for her. Logotheti had half expected some such thing, but was not prepared for her extreme directness; still less had he thought of becoming the matrimonial agent who was to find a match worthy of her hand and fortune. She was sitting beside him in a little ready-made French dress, open at the throat, and only a bit of veil twisted round her hair, as any European woman might wear it; possibly it was her dress that made what she said sound strangely in his ears, though it would have struck him as natural enough if she had been muffled in a yashmak and ferajeh, on the deck of a Bosphorus ferry-boat. He said nothing in answer, and sat thinking the matter over. 'I could not offer to pay you five per cent,' she said after a time, 'because you are a king, but I could give you one of the fine rubies I have left, and you would look at it sometimes and rejoice because you had found Baraka a good husband.' Logotheti laughed low. She amused him exceedingly, and there were moments when he felt a new charm he had never known before. 'Why do you laugh?' Baraka asked, a little disturbed. 'I would give you a good ruby. A king may receive a good ruby as a gift, and not despise it. Why do you laugh at me? There came two German merchants to me in Paris to see my rubies, and when they had looked, they bought a good one, but not better than the one I would give you, and Spiro heard them say to each other in their own language that it was for their King, for Spiro understands all tongues. Then do you think that their King would not have been glad if I had given him the ruby as a gift? You cannot mock Baraka. Baraka knows what rubies are worth, and has some still.' 'I do not mock you,' Logotheti answered with perfect gravity. 'I laughed at my own thoughts. I said in my heart, "If Baraka asks me for a husband, what will she say if I answer, Behold, I am the man, if you are satisfied!" This was my thought.' She was appeased at once, for she saw nothing extraordinary in his suggestion. She looked at him quietly and smiled, for she saw her chance. 'It is emptiness,' she said. 'I will have a man who has no other wife.' 'Precisely,' Logotheti answered, smiling. 'I never had one.' 'Now you are indeed mocking me!' she said, bending her sharp-drawn eyebrows. 'No. Every one knows it who knows me. In Europe, men do not always marry very young. It is not a fixed custom.' 'I have heard so,' Baraka answered, her anger subsiding, 'but it is very strange. If it be so, and if all things should happen as we said, which Allah avert, and if you desired me for your wife, I would marry you without doubt. You are a great man, and rich, and you are good to look at, as Saäd was. Also you are kind, but Saäd would probably have beaten me, for he beat every one, every day, and I should have gone back to my father's house. Truly,' she added, in a thoughtful tone, 'you would make a desirable husband for Baraka. But the man I seek must marry me if I find him alive, for I gave him the riches of the earth and he gave me nothing and departed, leaving me to die. I have told you, and you understand. Therefore let us not jest about these things any more. What will be, will be, and if he must die, it is his portion, and mine also, though it is a pity.' Thereupon the noble little features became very grave, and she leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap, looking out at the violet light on the distant volcano. After that, at dinner and in the evening, they talked pleasantly. She told him tales of her own land, and of her childhood, with legends of the Altai, of genii and enchanted princesses; and he, in return, told her about the great world in which he lived; but of the two, she talked the more, no doubt because he was not speaking his own language. Yet there was a bond of sympathy between them more natural and instinctive than any that had ever drawn him and Margaret together. When the sun was up the next morning and Logotheti came on deck to drink his coffee alone, he saw the magic Straits not many miles ahead, in an opalescent haze that sent up a vapour of pure gold to the pale blue enamel of the sky. He had been just where he was now more than once before, and few sights of nature had ever given him keener delight. On the left, the beautiful outline of the Calabrian hills descended softly into the still sea, on the right the mountains of Sicily reared their lofty crests; and far above them all, twice as high as the highest, and nobler in form than the greatest, Ætna towered to the very sky, and a vast cloud of smoke rose from the summit, and unfolded itself like a standard, in flowing draperies that streamed westward as far as the eye could reach. 'Let her go half-speed, Captain,' said Logotheti, as his sailing-master came up to bid him good-morning. 'I should like my guest to see the Straits.' 'Very good, sir. We shall not go through very fast in any case, for the tide is just turning against us.' 'Never mind,' Logotheti answered. 'The slower the better to-day, till we have Ætna well astern.' Now the tide in the Straits of Messina is as regular and easy to calculate as the tide in the Ocean, and at full and change of the moon the current runs six knots an hour, flowing or ebbing; it turns so suddenly that small freight steamers sometimes get into difficulties, and no sailing vessel I have ever seen has a chance of getting through against it unless the wind is both fresh and free. Furthermore, for the benefit of landsmen, it is well to explain here that when a steamer has the current ahead, her speed is the difference between her speed in slack water and that of the current or tide, whereas, if the latter is with her, its speed increases her own. Consequently, though the _Erinna_ could run sixteen knots, she would only be able to make ten against the tide; for it chanced that it was a spring tide, the moon being new on that very day. Similarly the _Lancashire Lass_, running her twenty-three knots like a torpedo boat, would only do seventeen under the same conditions. CHAPTER XV At two o'clock in the morning Captain Brown was called by the officer of the watch, who told him that he was overhauling a good-sized steam yacht. The latter was heading up for the Straits from the southward, and the officer judged her to be not more than three or four miles on the port bow. Captain Brown, who meant business, was sleeping in his clothes in the chart-room, and was on the bridge in ten seconds, peering over the search-light with his big binocular. At two in the morning even the largest yachts do not show such a blaze of lights as passenger steamers generally do all night, and the one Captain Brown was watching had only two or three, besides the regulation ones. She might be white, too, though she might be a light grey, but he thought on the whole that she was painted white. She was rigged as a two-masted fore-and-aft schooner. So was the _Erinna_ now, though she had once carried square topsails at the fore. She was also of about the same size, as far as it was possible to judge under the search-light. Captain Brown did not feel sure that he recognised her, but considering what his orders were he knew it was his duty to settle the question of her identity, which would be an easy matter in a quarter of an hour or less, as the course of the two vessels converged. He had been told to find the _Erinna_, but for what purpose he knew not, and he naturally supposed it to be a friendly one. As a first step, he ordered the Coston signal of his owner's yacht club to be burned, turned off the search-light, and waited for an answer. None came, however. Foreign yachts do not always burn signals to please vessels of other nations. A couple of minutes later, however, the white beam of a search-light shot out and enveloped Captain Brown and his ship. The other man was evidently having a good look at him, for the light was kept full on for some time. But no signal was burned after it went out. Then Captain Brown turned on his own light again, and looked once more; and he had almost made up his mind that the other yacht was not quite as long as the _Erinna_, when she suddenly starboarded her helm, made a wide sweep away from him, and headed down the Sicilian coast in the direction of Catania. Captain Brown was so much surprised that he lowered his glasses and looked at his chief mate, whose watch it was, and who was standing beside him. It really looked very much as if the other vessel had recognised him and were running away. The chief mate also looked at him, but as they were more or less dazzled by the search-light that had been played on them, they could hardly see one another's faces at all. The captain wished his owner were on deck, instead of being sound asleep below. Owners who are not at all nautical characters do not like to be waked up at two o'clock in the morning by inquiries for instructions. Captain Brown considered the situation for two or three minutes before he made up his mind. He might be mistaken about the length and the bows of the _Erinna_, and if by any possibility it were she, he would not lose much by making sure of her. No other steamer could now pass out of the Straits without being seen by him. 'Hard-a-starboard,' he said to the mate. 'Hard-a-starboard,' said the mate to wheel. The big _Lancashire Lass_ described a vast curve at her racing speed, while the captain kept his eye on the steamer he was going to chase. Before she was dead ahead the mate ordered the wheel amidships, and the _Lancashire Lass_ did the rest herself. 'That will do for a course,' the captain said, when he had the vessel one point on the starboard bow. 'Keep her so,' said the mate to the wheel. 'Keep her so, sir,' answered the quartermaster. It soon became clear to Captain Brown that he was chasing an uncommonly fast vessel, though he was willing to admit that he might have been a little out in judging the distance that separated him from her. Allowing that she might do sixteen knots, and even that is a high speed for yachts, he ought to have overtaken her in half an hour at the outside. But he did not, and he was much puzzled to find that he had gained very little on her when six bells were struck. Twice already he had given a little more starboard helm, and the pursued vessel was now right ahead, showing only her stern-light and the glare of her after-masthead light. 'Didn't I hear four bells go just after you called me?' he asked of the mate. 'Or was it five?' 'Four bells, sir. I logged it. At two-twenty we gave chase.' 'Mr. Johnson,' said the captain solemnly, 'he's doing at least twenty.' 'At least that.' The quartermaster who came to relieve the wheel at the hour, touched his cap, and reported eighty-five and eighty-six revolutions of the port and starboard engines respectively, which meant that the _Lancashire Lass_ was doing her best. Then he took the other quartermaster's place. 'Chase,' said the man relieved. 'Keep her so.' 'Keep her so,' answered the other, taking over the wheel. Captain Brown spoke to his officer. 'Tell them to try and work the port engine up to eighty-six, Mr. Johnson.' The chief mate went to the engine telephone, delivered the message, and reported that the engineer of the watch in the port engine said he would do his best, but that the port engine had not given quite such a good diagram as the starboard one that morning. Then something happened which surprised and annoyed Captain Brown; and if he had not been a religious man, and, moreover, in charge of a vessel which was so very high-class that she ranked as third in the world amongst steam yachts, and perhaps second, a fact which gave him a position requiring great dignity of bearing with his officers, he would certainly have said things. The chased vessel had put out her lights and disappeared into complete darkness under the Sicilian coast. Again he and his officer looked at one another, but neither spoke. They were outside the wheel-house on the bridge on the starboard side, behind a heavy plate-glass screen. The captain made one step to the right, the mate made one to the left, and both put up their glasses in the teeth of the gale made by the yacht's tremendous way. In less than a minute they stepped back into their places, and glanced at each other again. Now it occurred to Captain Brown that such a financier as his owner might be looking out for such another financier as the owner of the _Erinna_ for some reason which would not please the latter, whose sailing-master had without doubts recognised the _Lancashire Lass_ at once, because she was very differently built from most yachts. 'Search-light again, Mr. Johnson,' said the captain. The great beacon ran out instantly like a comet's tail, and he stood behind it with his glasses. Instead of a steamer, he saw a rocky islet sticking up sharp and clear, half a point on the starboard bow, about three miles off. It was the largest of the Isles of the Cyclops, as he very well knew, off Aci Reale, and it was perfectly evident that the chased vessel had first put out her lights and had then at once run behind the islands, close inshore. Captain Brown reflected that the captain he was after must know the waters well to do such a thing, and that the deep draught of his own ship made it the height of folly to think of imitating such a trick at night. Yet so long as the other stayed where she was, she could not come out without showing herself under his search-light. 'Half-speed both engines,' he said quickly. The mate worked the engine telegraph almost as soon as the captain began to speak. 'Starboard five degrees more,' said Captain Brown. The order was repeated to the wheel, and the quartermaster gave it back, and repeated it a second time when the vessel's head had gone off to port exactly to the required degree. 'Slow,' said Captain Brown. 'Stop her,' he said a moment later. Twin-screw steamers cannot be stopped as quickly by reversing as those with a single screw can, and the _Lancashire Lass_ would keep way on for three miles or more, by which time she would be abreast of the islands, and at a safe distance from them. Besides, the spring tide was now running fresh down the Straits, making a current along the coast, as Captain Brown knew. The instant the engines stopped, the third mate came round from the chart-room, where he had been sent to work a sight for longitude by Aldebaran for the good of his young nautical soul. A moment later Mr. Van Torp himself appeared on the bridge in pyjamas. 'Got her?' he asked eagerly. Captain Brown explained that he thought he had cornered the _Erinna_ behind the islet, but was not quite sure of her. Mr. Van Torp waited and said nothing, and the chief mate kept the search-light steadily on the rocks. The yacht lost way rapidly, and lay quite still with the islet exactly abeam, half a mile off, as the captain had calculated. He then gave the order to go slow ahead. A minute had not passed when the vessel that had lain concealed behind the island ran out suddenly with all her regulation lights up, apparently making directly across the bows of the _Lancashire Lass_. Now the rule of the road at sea requires every steamer under weigh to keep out of the way of any steamer that appears on her starboard side forward of the beam. At such a short distance Captain Brown had hardly any choice but to stop his ship again and order 'half-speed astern' till she had no way, and he did so. She was barely moving when the order was given, and a few turns of the engines stopped her altogether. 'Is that the _Erinna_, Captain?' asked Mr. Van Torp. Captain Brown had his glasses up and did not answer at once. After nearly a minute he laid them down on the lid of the small box fastened to the bridge-rail. 'No, sir,' he answered in a tone of considerable disappointment. 'At four miles' distance she looked so much like her that I didn't dare to let her slip through my fingers, but we have not lost more than a couple of hours.' 'What is this thing, anyway? She's coming towards us pretty quick.' 'She's one of those new fast twin-screw revenue cutters the Italians have lately built, sir. They look very like yachts at night. There's a deal of smuggling on this coast, over from Malta. She's coming alongside to ask what we mean by giving chase to a government vessel.' Captain Brown was right, and when the big cutter had crossed his bows, she ran all round him while she slowed down, and she stopped within speaking distance on his starboard side. The usual questions were asked and answered. 'English yacht _Lancashire Lass_, from Venice for Messina, expecting to meet a friend's yacht at sea. Thought the revenue cutter was she. Regretted mistake. Had the captain of the cutter seen or heard of English yacht _Erinna_?' He had not. There was no harm done. It was his duty to watch all vessels. He wished Captain Brown a pleasant trip and good-night. The Italian officer spoke English well, and there was no trouble. Revenue cutters are very civil to all respectable yachts. 'Hard-a-starboard. Port engine slow astern, starboard engine half-speed ahead.' That was all Captain Brown said, but no one could guess what he was thinking as his big vessel turned quickly to port on her heel, and he headed her up for the Straits again. Mr. Van Torp said nothing at all, but his lips moved as he left the bridge and went off to his own quarters. It was now nearly four o'clock and the eastern sky was grey. The current was dead against the yacht through the Straits, which were, moreover, crowded with all sorts of large and small craft under sail, taking advantage of the tide to get through; many of them steered very badly under the circumstances, of course, and it was out of the question to run between them at full speed. The consequence was that it was eight o'clock when the _Lancashire Lass_ steamed slowly into Messina and dropped anchor out in the middle of the harbour, to wait while Captain Brown got information about the _Erinna_, if there were any to be had at the harbourmaster's office. It would have been folly to run out of the Straits without at least looking in to see if she were there, lying quietly moored behind the fortress of San Salvatore and the very high mole. She was not there, and had not been heard of, but a Paris _Herald_ was procured in which it was stated that the _Erinna_ had arrived in Naples, 'owner and party on board.' 'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'let's get to Naples, quick. How long will it take, Captain?' 'About eight hours, sir, counting our getting under weigh and out of this crowded water, which won't take long, for the tide will soon turn.' 'Go ahead,' said Mr. Van Torp. Captain Brown prepared to get under weigh again as quickly as possible. The entrance to Messina harbour is narrow, and it was natural that, as he was in a hurry, a huge Italian man-of-war should enter the harbour at that very moment, with the solemn and safe deliberation which the movements of line-of-battle ships require when going in and out of port. There was nothing to be done but to wait patiently till the fairway was clear. It was not more than a quarter of an hour, but Captain Brown was in a hurry, and as there was a fresh morning breeze blowing across the harbour he could not even get his anchor up with safety before he was ready to start. The result of all these delays was that at about nine o'clock he saw the _Erinna_ right ahead, bows on and only half a mile away, just between Scylla and Faro, where the whirlpool is still a danger to sailing vessels and slow steamers, and just as the tide was turning against her and in his own favour. He did not like to leave the bridge, even for a moment, and sent the second mate with an urgent message requesting Mr. Van Torp to come up as soon as he could. Five minutes earlier the owner had sat down to breakfast opposite Lady Maud, who was very pale and had dark shadows under her eyes for the first time since he had known her. As soon as the steward left them alone, she spoke. 'It is Leven,' she said, 'and he wants me to take him back.' Mr. Van Torp set down his tea untasted and stared at her. He was not often completely taken by surprise, but for once he was almost speechless. His lips did not even move silently. 'I was sure it was he,' Lady Maud said, 'but I did not expect that.' 'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, finding his voice, 'he shan't. That's all.' 'No. I told him so. If I had been dressed I would have asked you to put me ashore at Messina. I thought you were going to stop there--the stewardess told me where we were, but she knew nothing else; and now we're off again.' 'I can't help it, Maud,' said Van Torp, almost in a whisper, 'I don't believe it. I don't believe in impossibilities like that beard of his. It may sound ridiculous in the face of your recognising your own husband, but it's a solid fact, and you can't get over it. I wish I could catch the _Erinna_ and show him to that Tartar girl. She'd know in a minute. He can't be her man and Leven too. There's only one thing to be done that I can see.' 'What?' asked Lady Maud sadly and incredulously. 'Tell him you'll take him back on condition that he'll shave.' Mr. Van Torp, who was in dead earnest, had just given his best friend this piece of sound practical advice when the door opened, though he had not rung, and the steward announced that the second mate had a message for Mr. Van Torp. He was admitted, and he delivered it. The owner sprang to his feet. 'By thunder, we've caught 'em!' he cried, as he rushed out of the deck saloon. Lady Maud leaned back and stared at his empty chair, wondering what was going to happen next. This was what happened. The _Lancashire Lass_ reversed her starboard engine with full speed astern, put her helm hard over to port, and turned back towards the Straits in the smallest space possible for her, passing less than a cable's length from the Scylla rock, and nearly running down half a dozen fishing-boats that pulled like mad to get out of her way; for they supposed that her steering-gear had broken down, unless her captain had gone raving mad. While this was going on, Captain Brown himself, with the International Signal Code in his hand, was calling out letters of the alphabet to a quartermaster, and before his ship had made half a circle the flags ran up the single stick the yacht carried. 'My owner has urgent business with your owner,' was what the flags meant in plain English. The _Erinna_ was going slow, for Baraka was only just ready to come on deck, haste being, in her opinion, an invention of Shaitan's. Logotheti, who wished her to see the Straits, was just inside the door of the deck saloon, waiting for her to come out of her cabin. The officer of the watch read off the signals of the other yacht, ran up the answering pennant, and sent for the sailing-master, but could of course do nothing else without orders. So the _Erinna_ continued to go slow. All this took some minutes, for the officer had naturally been obliged to look up the signal in the Code before answering that he understood it; and in that time Van Torp's yacht had completed her turn and was nearly alongside. The _Lancashire Lass_ slowed down to the _Erinna's_ speed, and the two captains aimed their megaphones accurately at each other from their respective bridges for a little pleasant conversation. Captain Brown, instructed by Mr. Van Torp at his elbow, repeated what his signals had meant. The other sailing-master answered that he had already informed his owner, who was coming to the bridge directly. At that moment Logotheti appeared. There was not much more than a cable's length between the two yachts, which in land-talk means two hundred yards. Van Torp also saw a slim young lady in blue serge, with a veil tied over her hair, leaning on the rail of the promenade deck and looking towards him. With his glasses he recognised the features of Baraka. 'Got 'em!' he ejaculated in a low but audible tone of intense satisfaction. Logotheti had also seen Van Torp, and waved his hand in a friendly manner. 'Ask the gentleman if he'll come aboard, Captain,' said the American. 'I can't talk through your cornopean anyway. I suppose we can send the naphtha launch for him if we stop, can't we?' 'Can't stop here,' answered Captain Brown. 'The currents might jam us into each other, and we should most likely get aground in any case. This is not even a safe place for going slow, when the tide is running.' 'Well, you know your business, and I don't. Tell him we don't want to interfere with any arrangements he's made, and that if he'll kindly set the pace he likes we'll trot along behind him till we get to a nice place, somewhere where we can stop. I suppose he can't run away from us now, can he?' Captain Brown smiled the smile of a man who commands a twenty-three-knot boat, and proceeded to deliver the message in a more concise form. Logotheti heard every word, and the answer was that he was in no hurry and was quite at Mr. Van Torp's disposal. He would be glad to know whom the latter had on board with him. 'Lady Maud Leven, Miss Margaret Donne, Mrs. Rushmore, and Count Kralinsky,' answered Captain Brown, prompted by Van Torp. The latter was watching the Greek through a pair of deer-stalking glasses, and saw distinctly the expression of surprise that came into his face when he heard the last of the names. 'Tell the gentleman,' said Van Torp, 'that if he'll bring his party with him when we stop, I'll be very glad to have them all take lunch with me.' Captain Brown delivered the message. At such a short distance he did not even have to raise his voice to be heard through the six-foot megaphone. To Van Torp's surprise, Logotheti nodded with alacrity, and the answer came that he would bring his party with pleasure, but thought that his visit would be over long before luncheon time. 'All right, good-bye,' said Van Torp, as if he were at the telephone. 'Ring off, Captain. That's all. Just let him give us a lead now and we'll follow him through this creek again, since you say you can't stop here.' As he went off the bridge to return to his breakfast he passed close to the chief mate, who had turned again, though it was his watch below. 'I say, Mr. Johnson,' he asked, 'have we got a barber-shop on board this ship?' 'No, sir,' answered the mate, who knew better than to be surprised at anything. 'It's no matter,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'I was only asking.' He went back to his breakfast with an improved appetite. When he re-entered the saloon Lady Maud was still leaning back in her chair, staring at his empty place. 'Well,' he said, 'they're both coming on board as soon as we get to a place where we can stop.' 'Have you really seen the girl?' Lady Maud sat up, as if she were waking from sleep. 'Oh, yes! There she was, looking over the rail, as neat as a pin, in a blue serge dress, with a white veil tied over her hair, watching me. We've got 'em right enough, and that's going to be the end of this mystery!' 'Did you see any one else on the yacht?' 'Logo. That's all. He and I talked. At least, our captains talked for us. They do know how to yell, those men! If the girl's the party, Logo beats the band for brass, that's all I can say!' 'It is rather cool,' said Lady Maud thoughtfully. 'If he's alone with her, it will be all up with his engagement.' 'Well, if that's the way he's going on, it's about time.' His tone was all at once serious. 'Now, see here, have I done anything you consider unfair to make this happen? I want your opinion right away, for if you think I have, I'll stand up for Logo to Miss Donne as hard as I can. Just think it over, please, and tell me your honest opinion. If I've done anything low-down, I want to go right back and begin over again.' He was thoroughly in earnest, and awaited her answer with evident anxiety. Knowing the man as she did, she would not give it hastily, though it was hard to concentrate her thoughts just then on anything but her own trouble; for she was quite convinced that Baraka would not recognise Kralinsky as the man she was looking for, and that this final proof would settle his identity as Leven, which she already did not doubt. She asked one or two questions. 'Before I answer you,' she said, 'tell me something, as you tell me things, when you do. Have you any entanglement with another woman from which you feel that you're not perfectly free? I don't like to ask such a question, and I wouldn't if you had not put me on my honour for my opinion.' 'No,' answered Van Torp very gravely, 'I have not. No living woman has any claim on me, and no dead woman could have, if she came to life again.' 'Then I think you had a right to do what you've done, and what you are going to do. When a man behaves in that way he deserves no pity, and now that the crisis is coming I may as well tell you that I've done everything in my power to make Margaret give him up, ever since I have been sure that he had taken the girl with him on his yacht. So far as catching them under Margaret's very eyes is concerned, I'm glad you have succeeded--very glad!' On certain points Lady Maud was inflexible as to the conduct of men and women, but especially of men. 'Mrs. Foxwell' spent much time behind the Virtue-Curtain, seeking for poor souls who were willing to be helped, and her experiences had led her to believe a modified version of the story of Adam and Eve and the Apple-tree which was quite her own. In her opinion Adam had been in the habit of talking to his wife about the tree for some time, and when the serpent presented itself to explain things he discreetly withdrew till the interview was over. Therefore 'Mrs. Foxwell' was, on the whole, more charitably inclined to her own sex than the other, and when she was 'Lady Maud' she held very strong views indeed about the obligations of men who meant to marry, and she expressed them when the intended bride was a friend of hers. 'Thank you,' said Mr. Van Torp, after she had finished her speech. 'I'm glad you don't disapprove, for if you did I'd try to begin all over again, as I told you. Any other question? You said "one or two," and I'd like to have them all now.' 'Only one more, though perhaps I've no business to ask it. If Margaret marries you, shall you want her to leave the stage?' 'Why, no!' answered Mr. Van Torp with alacrity. 'That wouldn't suit my plans at all. Besides, we're a Company, she and I.' 'What do you mean?' Lady Maud thought he was joking. 'Well, I wasn't going to tell you till we'd organised, but you're as good as a deaf and dumb asylum about business things. Yes. We're organising as "The Madame da Cordova and Rufus Van Torp Company." I'm going to build an opera-house in New York on some land I've got on Fifth Avenue, and Miss Donne is going to run it, and we mean to have Wagner festivals and things, besides regular grand opera, in which she's engaged to sing as often as she likes. There's never been an opera-house on Fifth Avenue, but there's going to be, and people will go to it. Miss Donne caught on to the scheme right away, so you see she's not going to leave the stage anyhow. As for her accepting me, I can't tell you, because I don't know. Maybe she will, maybe she won't. That isn't going to interfere with the Company either way. Good scheme, isn't it?' 'You're a wonderful man,' said Lady Maud, with genuine admiration. 'Do you mean to say that you have settled all that between you already?' 'She signed the preliminary agreement in Bayreuth, and the papers are being made out by my lawyer in New York. You don't think it was unfair to offer to build a theatre and call it after her, do you? That isn't "exercising undue influence," I suppose?' 'No, and I think you're going to win. The other man hasn't had a chance since you got into your stride.' 'When a man chucks his chances, I'm not going to pick them up for him. Charity begins at home.' 'Even if "home" is a bachelor establishment?' Lady Maud smiled for the first time that day. They talked a few minutes longer, agreeing that she should tell Margaret what was going to happen; but that Mrs. Rushmore and Kralinsky should be kept in ignorance of the plan, the American lady because she might possibly yield to temptation and tell the Count, and the latter for obvious reasons. It was not likely that any of them would be on deck much before Logotheti came on board. There is good anchorage out of the tidal current at Scaletta, some few miles below Messina, on the Sicilian side, and towards this well-known water the _Erinna_ led the way, followed at a short distance by the _Lancashire Lass_. Logotheti and Baraka watched her, and the girl recognised Van Torp on the bridge of his yacht, without even using glasses, for she had eyes like an eagle's, and the American millionaire stood alone at one end of the bridge looking towards her. Logotheti had told her that Kralinsky was on board, and that she should see him as soon as both yachts could anchor. He explained that it was an unforeseen coincidence, and that Mr. Van Torp must have taken him on board somewhere on the previous day. To the Greek's surprise, Baraka showed no outward sign of emotion. He had promised to take her to the man, and had said that he was near at hand; that the meeting should take place sooner than had been intended hardly surprised her, because she had been so perfectly sure that it was near. Her only preoccupation now was about her appearance in her ready-made serge and blouse, when she had meant to show herself to Kralinsky in the glory of a beautiful and expensive Feringhi dress. But Logotheti explained that even the richest Feringhi ladies often wore little blue serge frocks on yachts, and told her to watch the _Lancashire Lass_ with her glasses, as there were three very great Feringhi ladies on board, and she might see one, and be reassured; and presently she saw Lady Maud walking alone on the promenade deck, in clothes very like her own, excepting that they were black instead of dark blue. So Baraka was satisfied, but she never took her eyes from the following yacht, for she hoped that Kralinsky would come out and show himself. All at once he was there, taking off his white cap to Lady Maud, and they stood still facing each other, and talking. 'I see him,' Baraka said in a low voice, without lowering her glasses. 'It is he.' Logotheti, who had been much absorbed in thinking about his coming interview with Margaret, raised his glasses too, for he was curious to see the man at last. He had known Leven for years, though never intimately, as he knew a vast number of people in London, and he was struck at once by the resemblance in size, build, and complexion. 'He is fatter than he was, and paler,' Baraka said quietly, 'but it is he. He is speaking earnestly with the beautiful woman in black. I can see well. He likes her, but she does not like him. I think she is telling him so. I am glad. But she is more beautiful than Baraka, even in those poor clothes. When he sees me, he will deny me, because he likes the beautiful woman in black. I will tell Spiro to be ready. It is a pity, but I see there will be no other way. It is his portion and mine. It is a great pity, for I have been happy with you.' Instead of any look of anger, Logotheti now saw an expression of profound resignation in her lovely young features. If he had been less anxious about his own affairs, he would have smiled at her simplicity. 'When we are on that ship you will let me talk with him a little apart from the rest, and Spiro shall go behind him and wait, looking at me. If he denies me, I will make a sign, and Spiro shall shoot him, and then kill me. It will be very easy and quick.' 'And what will become of Spiro?' inquired Logotheti gravely. 'I do not know,' Baraka said quietly. 'Perhaps he will lose his head. How can I tell? But he is a good servant, and will obey me. Afterwards it will not matter, for he is really a Musulman, and will go at once to paradise if he dies, because he has killed a Christian.' 'But you are a Musulman, and he is to kill you also. What about that?' 'I am only a woman,' answered Baraka with supreme indifference. 'Now I will call Spiro and tell him what he is to do. He has a good revolver.' Logotheti let her clap her hands and send the steward for her man, and she rose when he appeared and made him follow her a little way along the deck. The interview did not last long. She handed him her glasses and made him look carefully at the intended victim; then she apparently repeated her brief instructions again, pointing here and there to the deck at her feet, to show him how they were to stand; after which she turned quietly, came back to Logotheti's side, and sat down again. 'He understands,' she said. 'It will be quite easy.' But Logotheti, looking past her as she came forward, had met Spiro's eyes; and he felt not even the slightest anxiety for Kralinsky's safety, nor for Baraka's. He was still wondering what he should say to Margaret, but while he tried to think it over, his eyes dwelt on the noble little profile of the slender Asiatic girl at his side; and it occurred to him that, although she had worn man's clothes and done things that few women would dare to do, for the one purpose of her life, she would much rather die than show herself on the stage in a very low dress before thousands of people and sing to them, and take money for doing it; and he remembered a time, not much more than two years past, when the mere thought had driven the idea of marrying the Primadonna quite out of his head for a while, and that, after all, it had been her physical attraction that had overcome the prejudice, making him say that he was as much in love with the Cordova as he had been with Margaret Donne, that 'very nice English girl.' For men are changeable creatures after they think they have changed themselves to suit their tastes or their ideals, and the original man in them, good or bad, fine or coarse, generally comes back in the great moments. At a distance, Logotheti had supposed that he could somehow account to the Diva for the position in which he had foolishly placed himself, because he had done nothing and said nothing that he would have been ashamed of before her, if she knew the whole truth; and he fancied that even if they quarrelled she would make up with him before long, and marry him in the end. He had a good opinion of himself as a desirable husband; and with reason, since he had been persecuted for years with offers of excellent marriages from mothers of high degree who had daughters to dispose of. And beneath that conviction there lurked, in spite of him, the less worthy thought, that singers and actresses were generally less squeamish than women of the world about the little entanglements of their intended husbands. But now, at the very moment of meeting Margaret, he knew that if he found her very angry with him, he would simply listen to what she had to say, make a humble apology, state the truth coldly, and return to his own yacht with Baraka, under her very eyes, and in full sight of Lady Maud and Mrs. Rushmore. Besides, he felt tolerably sure that when Spiro failed to carry out the young Tartar girl's murderous instructions, she would forget all about the oath she had sworn by the 'inviolable water of the Styx' and try to kill him with her own hands, so that it would be necessary to take her away abruptly, and even forcibly. Matters did not turn out as he expected, however, after the two yachts stopped their engines in the quiet waters off Scaletta, under the Sicilian mountains. Before the _Erinna_ had quite lost her way, Logotheti had his naphtha launch puffing alongside, and he got into it with Baraka and Spiro, and the _Lancashire Lass_ had barely time to lower her ladder, while still moving slowly, before the visitors were there. Baraka bade Logotheti go up first, and trod daintily on the grated steps as she followed him. The chief mate and chief steward were waiting at the gangway. The mate saluted; the steward led the visitors to the main saloon, ushered them in, and shut the door. Spiro was left outside, of course. Lady Maud was there, sitting in an easy-chair in the farthest corner. She nodded to Logotheti, but did not rise, and paid no more attention to Baraka than if she had not existed. Mr. Van Torp shook hands coldly with Logotheti; Baraka walked directly to Kralinsky, and then stood stone-still before him, gazing up steadily into his eyes. Neither Margaret nor Mrs. Rushmore was to be seen. Van Torp and Logotheti both watched the other two, looking from one face to the other. Kralinsky, with his eye-glass in his eye, surveyed the lovely young barbarian unmoved, and the silence lasted half a minute. Then she spoke in her own language and Kralinsky answered her, and only Logotheti understood what they said to each other. Probably it did not occur to Kralinsky that the Greek knew Tartar. 'You are not Ivan. You are fatter, and you have not his eyes.' Logotheti drew a long breath. 'No,' answered Kralinsky. 'I am Yuryi, his brother. I never saw you, but he told me of you.' 'Where is Ivan?' 'Dead.' The proud little head was bowed down for a moment and Baraka did not speak till several seconds had passed. Then she looked up again suddenly. Her dark eyes were quite dry. 'How long?' 'More than four months.' 'You know it?' 'I was with him and buried him.' 'It is enough.' She turned, her head high, and went to the door, and no one hindered her from going out. 'Monsieur Logotheti!' Lady Maud called him, and the Greek crossed the saloon and stood by her. 'He is not the man, I see,' she said, with a vague doubt in her voice. 'No.' Van Torp was speaking with Kralinsky in low tones. Lady Maud spoke to Logotheti again, after an instant, in which she drew a painful breath and grew paler. 'Miss Donne knows that you are on board,' she said, 'but she wishes me to say that she will not see you, and that she considers her engagement at an end, after what you have done.' Logotheti did not hesitate. 'Will you kindly give a message to Miss Donne from me?' he asked. 'That quite depends on what it is,' Lady Maud answered coldly. She felt that she herself had got something near a death-wound, but she would not break down. 'I beg you to tell Miss Donne that I yield to her decision,' said Logotheti with dignity. 'We are not suited to each other, and it is better that we should part. But I cannot accept as the cause of our parting the fact that I have given my protection to a young girl whom I have extricated from great trouble and have treated, and still treat, precisely as I should have treated Miss Donne if she had been my guest. Will you tell her that?' 'I will tell her that.' 'Thank you. Good-morning.' 'Good-morning,' said Lady Maud icily. He turned and went towards the door, but stopped to speak to Van Torp. 'This gentleman,' he said, 'is not the man my guest was anxious to find, though he is strikingly like him. I have to thank you for giving her an opportunity of satisfying herself. Good-morning.' Mr. Van Torp was extremely grateful to Logotheti for having ruined himself in Margaret's eyes, and would in any case have seen him to the gangway, but he was also very anxious to know what Kralinsky and Baraka had said to each other in Tartar. He therefore opened the door for the Greek, followed him out and shut it behind him. Baraka and Spiro had disappeared; they were already in the launch, waiting. 'Now what did they say, if it isn't a rude question?' asked the American. Logotheti repeated the short conversation almost word for word. 'He said that his name was Yuryi,' he concluded. 'That is George in English.' 'Oh, he's George, is he? And what's his dead brother's name again, please?' 'Ivan. That is John. Before we part, Van Torp, I may as well tell you that my engagement with Miss Donne is at an end. She was good enough to inform me of her decision through Lady Maud. One thing more, please. I wish you to know, as between man and man, that I have treated Baraka as I would my own sister since I got her out of prison, and I beg that you won't encourage any disagreeable talk about her.' 'Well, now,' said the American slowly, 'I'm glad to hear you say that, just in that way. I guess it'll be all right about any remarks on board my ship, now you've spoken.' 'Thank you,' said Logotheti, moving towards the gangway. They shook hands with some cordiality, and Logotheti ran down the steps like a sailor, without laying his hand on the man-rope, stepped on board his launch, and was off in a moment. 'Good-bye! good-bye, Miss Barrack, and good luck to you!' cried Van Torp, waving his cap. Logotheti translated his words to Baraka, who looked back with a grateful smile, as if she had not just heard that the man she had risked her life to find in two continents had been dead four months. 'It was his portion,' she said gravely, when she was alone with Logotheti on the _Erinna_, and the chain was coming in fast. Van Torp went back to the main saloon and found Lady Maud and Kralinsky there. She was apparently about to leave the Count, for she was coming towards the door, and her eyes were dark and angry. 'Rufus,' she said, 'this man is my husband, and insists that I should take him back. I will not. Will you kindly have me put ashore before you start again? My things are ready now.' 'Excuse me,' answered Mr. Van Torp, digging his large thumbs into his waistcoat pockets, 'there's a mistake. He's not your husband.' 'He is, indeed!' cried Lady Maud, in a tone her friend never forgot. 'I am Boris Leven,' said Kralinsky in an authoritative tone, and coming forward almost defiantly. 'Then why did you tell the Tartar girl that your name was George?' asked Mr. Van Torp, unmoved. 'I did not.' 'You've evidently forgotten. That Greek gentleman speaks Tartar better than you. I wonder where you learned it! He's just told me you said your name was George.' 'My name is George Boris,' answered Kralinsky, less confidently. He was not a coward, but he had never been face to face with Van Torp when he meant business, and the terrible American cowed him. 'My husband's name is only Boris--nothing else,' said Lady Maud. 'Well, this isn't your husband; this is George, whoever he is, and if you don't believe it, I'm going to give you an object-lesson.' Thereupon Mr. Van Torp pressed the button of a bell in the bulk-head near the door, which he opened, and he stood looking out. A steward came at once. 'Send me Stemp,' said Van Torp in a low voice, as he stepped outside. 'Yes, sir.' 'And, see here, send six sailors with him.' 'Six, sir?' 'Yes. Big fellows who can handle a man.' 'Very good, sir.' Mr. Van Torp went in again and shut the door. Kralinsky disdained flight, and was looking out of a window. Lady Maud had sat down again. For the first time in her life she felt weak. In less than one minute the door opened and Stemp appeared, impassive and respectful. Behind him was the boatswain, a huge Northumbrian, and five young seamen in perfectly new guernseys, with fair quiet faces. 'Stemp.' 'Yes, sir.' 'Take that man somewhere and shave him. Leave his moustache on.' Van Torp pointed to Kralinsky. For once in his life Stemp gasped for breath. Kralinsky turned a greenish white, and seemed paralysed with rage. 'Take his beard off, sir, you mean?' 'Yes. Leave his moustache. Here, men,' added Van Torp, 'take that fellow outside and hold him down in a chair while Stemp shaves him. See?' The boatswain looked doubtful. 'He's pretending to be somebody he's not,' said Van Torp, 'on my ship, and I want to see his face. It's mutiny if you don't obey orders!' 'Aye, aye, sir,' responded the boatswain cheerfully, for he rather liked the job since there was a good reason for it. But instead of going about his business gently, the Northumbrian giant suddenly dashed past Van Torp in a flash, and jumped and hurled himself head foremost at Kralinsky's legs, exactly as if he were diving. In the Count's violent fall the revolver he had drawn was thrown from his hand and went off in the air. The boatswain had seen it in time. The big man struggled a little, but the five seamen held him fast and carried him out kicking. 'Stemp.' The valet was preparing to follow the prisoner, and was quite calm again. 'Yes, sir.' 'If he won't sit still to be shaved, cut his head off.' 'Yes, sir.' Van Torp's eyes were awful to see. He had never been so angry in his life. He turned and saw Lady Maud pressing her handkerchief to her right temple. The ball had grazed it, though it had certainly not been meant for her. 'Rufus!' she cried in great distress, 'what have you done?' 'The question is what he's done to you,' answered Van Torp. 'I believe the blackguard has shot you!' 'It's nothing. Thank God it hit me! It was meant for you.' Van Torp's rage instantly turned into tender care, and he insisted on examining the wound, which was slight but would leave a scar. By a miracle the ball had grazed the angle of the temple without going near the temporal artery, and scarcely singeing the thick brown hair. Van Torp rang and sent for water and absorbent cotton, and made a very neat dressing, over which Lady Maud tied her big veil. Just as this was done, Stemp appeared at the door. 'It's ready, sir, if you would like to come and see. I've not scratched him once, sir.' 'All right.' Van Torp turned to Lady Maud. 'Do you feel faint? Lean on my arm.' But she would not, and she walked bravely, holding herself so straight that she looked much taller than he, though she felt as if she were going to execution. A moment later she uttered a loud cry and clung to Van Torp's shoulder with both hands. But as for him, he said only two words. 'You hellhound!' The man was not Boris Leven. [Illustration: "The man was not Boris Leven."] The eyes, the upper part of the face, the hair, even the flowing moustaches were his, but not the small retreating chin crossed by the sharp, thin scar of a sword-cut long healed. 'I know who you are,' said Van Torp, surveying him gravely. 'You're Long-legged Levi's brother, that disappeared before he did. I remember that scar.' The sham Kralinsky was securely tied down in a chair and the boatswain and the five seamen stood round him, an admiring public. Captain Brown had been informed of what had happened and was going on, and the discipline he maintained on board was so perfect that every man on the watch was at his post, and the steamer was already under weigh again. The boatswain and his contingent belonged to the watch below, which had not been called for the start. 'Let me off easy,' said Long-legged Levi's brother. 'I've not done you any harm.' 'Beyond wounding Lady Maud, after trying to pass yourself off as her dead husband. No. I won't let you off. Boatswain, I want this man arrested, and we'll take him and all his belongings before the British Consul in Messina in less than an hour. You just attend to that, will you? Somebody go and tell the Captain.' 'Aye, aye, sir.' For the boatswain and the men had seen and heard, and they knew that Mr. Van Torp was right, and they respected him, and the foreign impostor had wounded an English woman; and having given his orders, the owner and Lady Maud turned and left Long-legged Levi's brother tied to the chair, in a very dejected state, and his uncertain eyes did not even follow them. * * * * * The rest is soon told. A long inquiry followed, which led to the solution of the mystery and sent Count Yuryi Leven to Siberia; for he was Boris Leven's twin brother. The truth turned out to be that there had been three brothers, the youngest being Ivan, and they had all entered the same Cossack regiment, and had served in the Caucasus, where most officers learn the Tartar language, which is spoken by all the different tribes. It will be simpler to designate them by the English equivalents for their names. Boris behaved himself tolerably well in the army, but both his brothers, John and George, who was his twin, were broken for cheating at cards, and emigrated to America. So long as they all wore their beards, as officers of Cossack regiments usually do, they were very much alike. They were all educated men of refined tastes, and particularly fond of music. When his two brothers were cashiered, Boris resigned, entered the diplomatic service, married Lady Maud Foxwell, and was killed by a bomb in St. Petersburg. John and George separated in America when they were tired of punching cattle. John was something of a naturalist and was by far the most gifted of the three as well as the most daring. He gravitated to China and at last to Mongolia, wandering alone in search of plants and minerals, and it was to him that Baraka showed the ruby mine. He got back to civilisation with his treasure and took it to Petersburg unmolested. There he found George earning a poor living in an obscure position in the public service, his conduct in the army having been condoned or overlooked. John, who was the incarnation of selfishness, would do nothing for him. George, exasperated by him, and half starved, murdered him in such a way that he was supposed to have died by an accident, took possession of his hoard of unsold rubies, and wrote to his twin brother to come and share the fortune John had left them. George and Boris had been in constant correspondence, and had even helped each other with money from time to time. Some weeks elapsed after Boris's return to St. Petersburg before his death, and during that time, he told George, who knew London well and had moreover helped him in his attempt to get a divorce, a vast number of details about his married life and his wife's behaviour, her character and tastes. Then Boris was killed in the street, and George left the country and changed his name, with the vague idea that his own was not a very creditable one and that if he kept it he might be troubled by his brother Boris's numerous creditors. He began life over again as Kralinsky. He had not entertained the least intention of passing himself for Boris and claiming Lady Maud as his wife, till he met her, and her beauty made him lose his head completely when he saw that she took him for her husband. He would have been found out inevitably sooner or later, but Van Torp's vigorous action shortened Lady Maud's torments. George was tried, and Russian justice awoke, possibly under pressure from England. The family history of the Levens was exhumed and dissected before the courts. The creditors of Boris Leven appeared in legions and claimed that in proper course he should have inherited the rubies from his murdered brother, who would then have been able to pay his debts. The court thought so too, and ordered the confiscated treasure to be sold. But since it had been Boris's, the law was obliged to declare that the residue of the money, after paying the debts, was the property of Countess Leven, Boris's widow. Lady Maud thus found herself in possession of a considerable fortune, for she accepted the inheritance when she was assured that it would go to the Russian Crown if she refused it. But there was a fall in the price of rubies, and the Russian government at once sent an expensive expedition to find the mine, an attempt which altogether failed, because Ivan Leven had never told any one where it was, nor anything about it, and the court only knew from certain jewellers who had dealt both with Kralinsky and Baraka, that it was 'somewhere in Central Asia,' which is an insufficient direction, even for a ruby mine. The wealth Lady Maud thus commands enables her to carry much further than formerly the peculiar form of charity which she believes to be her own invention, if it may be properly called charity at all, and which consists in making it worth while and agreeable to certain unfortunate people to live decent lives in quiet corners without starving, instead of calling to them to come out from behind the Virtue-Curtain and be reformed in public. It is a very expensive charity, however, and very hard to exercise, and will never be popular; for the popular charities are those that cost least and are no trouble. Madame Konstantinos Logotheti is learning French and English, on the Bosphorus, with her husband, and will make a sensation when he brings her to London and Paris. On the day of his marriage, in Constantinople, Logotheti received a letter from Lady Maud, telling him how sorry she was that she had not believed him, that day on the yacht at Scaletta, and saying that she hoped to meet his wife soon. It was an honest apology from an honest woman. He received a letter a few days later from Margaret, and on the same day a magnificently printed and recklessly illustrated booklet reached him, forwarded from Paris. The letter was from Margaret to tell him that she also took back what she had thought about Baraka and hoped to see him and her before long. She said she was glad, on the whole, that he had acted like a lunatic, because it was likely that they would both be happier. She herself, she said, was going to be married to Mr. Van Torp, at St. George's, Hanover Square, before sailing for New York, where she was going to sing at the Opera after Christmas. If he should be in town then, she hoped he would come, and bring his wife. The booklet was an announcement, interleaved with fine etchings, to the effect that 'The Madame da Cordova and Rufus Van Torp Company' would open their new Opera House in Fifth Avenue less than two years hence, with a grand Wagner Festival, to last two months, and to include the performance of _Parsifal_ with entirely new scenery, and the greatest living artistes, whose names were given. There was a plan of the house at the end of the booklet for the benefit of those who wished to make arrangements for being at the festival, and such persons were admonished that they must apply early if they expected to get seats. * * * * * Mr. Van Torp had told the Diva that he would like her to choose a wedding present which she really wanted, adding that he had a few little things for her already. He produced some of them, but some were on paper. Among the latter was a house in New York, overlooking the Park and copied exactly from her own in London, the English architect having been sent to New York himself to build it. Two small items were two luxurious private cars of entirely different patterns, one for America and one for Europe, which she was always to use when she travelled, professionally or otherwise. He said he did not give her the _Lancashire Lass_ because 'it wasn't quite new'--having been about ten months in the water--but he had his own reasons, one of which was that the yacht represented a sentiment to him, and was what he would have called a 'souvenir.' But if she could think of anything else she fancied, 'now was the time.' She said that there was only one thing she should really like, but that she could not have it, because it was not in the market. He asked what it was, and it turned out to be the ruby which Logotheti had given her, and had taken to Pinney's to be cut, and which had been the cause of so many unexpected events, including her marriage. Logotheti had it in his possession, she supposed, but he had shown good taste in not trying to press it on her as a wedding present, for she could not have accepted it. Nevertheless, she wanted it very much, more as a remembrance than for its beauty. Mr. Van Torp said he 'thought he could fix that,' and he did. He went directly to Mr. Pinney and asked what had become of the stone. Mr. Pinney answered that it was now cut, and was in his safe, for sale. The good man had felt that it would not be tactful to offer it to Mr. Van Torp. Logotheti, who was a fine gentleman in his way, had ordered it to be sold, when a good opportunity offered, and directed that the money should be given to the poor Greeks in London, under the supervision of Lady Maud Leven, the Turkish Ambassador, and the Greek Minister, as a committee. Mr. Pinney, after consultation with the best experts, valued it at fourteen thousand pounds sterling. Mr. Van Torp wrote a cheque for the money, put the stone into an inner pocket, and took it to the Diva. 'Well,' he said, smiling, 'here's your ruby, anyway. Anything else to-day?' Margaret looked at him wonderingly, and then opened the small morocco case. 'Oh--oh--oh!' she cried, in rising intimations of delight. 'I never saw anything so beautiful in my life! It's ever so much more glorious than when I last saw it!' 'It's been cut since then,' observed Mr. Van Torp. 'It ought to have a name of its own! I'm sure it's more beautiful than many of the named crown jewels!' She felt half hypnotised as she gazed into the glorious depths of the great stone. 'Thank you,' she cried, 'thank you so very much. I'm gladder to have it than all the other things.' And thereupon she threw her magnificent arms round Rufus Van Torp's solid neck, and kissed his cool flat cheek several times; and it seemed quite natural to her to do so; and she wished to forget how she had once kissed one other man, who had kissed her. 'It wants a name, doesn't it?' assented Mr. Van Torp. 'Yes. You must find one for it.' 'Well,' he said, 'after what's happened, I suppose we'd better call it "The Diva's Ruby."' MR. CRAWFORD'S LATEST NOVELS _Each, cloth, 12mo, $1.50_ =The Primadonna= "Mr. Crawford is a born story-teller. His imagination and inventiveness show as fresh and unwearied in his latest book as they did in 'Mr. Isaacs.'"--_Evening Telegraph_, Philadelphia. =Fair Margaret= A Portrait. "An exhilarating romance, ... alluring in its naturalness and grace."--_Boston Herald._ =Arethusa= Dr. Frederick Taber Cooper, in _The Bookman_, says of Mr. Crawford: "In theory Mr. Crawford is a romanticist; in practice he is in turn realist, psychologue, mystic, whatever for the moment suits his needs or appeals to his instinct of born story-teller." He calls him, in fact, as others have done, "the prince of story-tellers." _By the author of "Saracinesca," etc._ FRANK DANBY'S NEW NOVEL =The Heart of a Child= _Cloth, $1.50_ "A book of such strength, such fineness, such sympathetic insight ... stands out conspicuously above the general level of contemporary fiction."--_The Bookman_. "BARBARA'S" NEW BOOK =The Open Window= Tales of the Months told by "Barbara," author of "The Garden of a Commuter's Wife," "People of the Whirlpool," etc. _Frontispiece. Cloth, $1.50_ Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS THE SARACINESCA SERIES _In the binding of the Uniform Edition, each, $1.50_ =Saracinesca= "The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make it great,--that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of giving a graphic picture of Roman society in the last days of the Pope's temporal power.... The story is exquisitely told."--_Boston Traveler_ =Sant' Ilario.= A Sequel to "Saracinesca" "A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... It fulfils every requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution, accordant with experience, graphic in description, penetrating in analysis, and absorbing in interest."--_New York Tribune._ =Don Orsino.= A Sequel to "Sant' Ilario" "Perhaps the cleverest novel of the year.... There is not a dull paragraph in the book, and the reader may be assured that once begun, the story of _Don Orsino_ will fascinate him until its close."--_The Critic._ =Taquisara= "To Mr. Crawford's Roman novels belongs the supreme quality of uniting subtly drawn characters to a plot of uncommon interest."--_Chicago Tribune._ =Corleone= "Mr. Crawford is the novelist born ... a natural story-teller, with wit, imagination, and insight added to a varied and profound knowledge of social life."--_The Inter-Ocean_, Chicago. =Casa Braccio.= _In two volumes, $2.00_. Illustrated by A. Castaigne. Like _Taquisara_ and _Corleone_, it is closely related in plot to the fortunes of the Saracinesca family. "Mr. Crawford's books have life, pathos, and insight; he tells a dramatic story with many exquisite touches."--_New York Sun._ Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S NOVELS _Each, cloth, gilt tops and titles, $1.50_ =Mr. Crewe's Career= Illustrated "Another chapter in his broad, epical delineation of the American spirit.... It is an honest and fair story.... It is very interesting; and the heroine is a type of woman as fresh, original, and captivating as any that has appeared in American novels for a long time past."--_The Outlook_, New York. "Shows Mr. Churchill at his best. The flavor of his humor is of that stimulating kind which asserts itself just the moment, as it were, after it has passed the palate.... As for Victoria, she has that quality of vivid freshness, tenderness, and independence which makes so many modern American heroines delightful."--_The Times_, London. =The Celebrity= An Episode "No such piece of inimitable comedy in a literary way has appeared for years.... It is the purest, keenest fun."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ =Richard Carvel= Illustrated "... In breadth of canvas, massing of dramatic effect, depth of feeling, and rare wholesomeness of spirit, it has seldom, if ever, been surpassed by an American romance."--_Chicago Tribune._ =The Crossing= Illustrated "'The Crossing' is a thoroughly interesting book, packed with exciting adventure and sentimental incident, yet faithful to historical fact both in detail and in spirit."--_The Dial._ =The Crisis= Illustrated "It is a charming love story, and never loses its interest.... The intense political bitterness, the intense patriotism of both parties, are shown understandingly."--_Evening Telegraph_, Philadelphia. =Coniston= Illustrated "'Coniston' has a lighter, gayer spirit and a deeper, tenderer touch than Mr. Churchill has ever achieved before.... It is one of the truest and finest transcripts of modern American life thus far achieved in our fiction."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ Mr. ROBERT HERRICK'S NOVELS _Cloth, extra, gilt tops, each, $1.50_ =The Gospel of Freedom= "A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social life, in a broad and very much up-to-date sense, that has ever been contributed to American fiction."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ =The Web of Life= "It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American life, and uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most artistically wrought out."--_Buffalo Express._ =The Real World= "The title of the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is true to the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of life to the man who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into conscious possession of his will--only such battles bite into the consciousness."--_Chicago Tribune._ =The Common Lot= "It grips the reader tremendously.... It is the drama of a human soul the reader watches ... the finest study of human motive that has appeared for many a day."--_The World To-day._ =The Memoirs of an American Citizen.= Illustrated with about fifty drawings by F. B. Masters. "Mr. Herrick's book is a book among many, and he comes nearer to reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American spirit than anybody has yet done."--_New York Times._ "Intensely absorbing as a story, it is also a crisp, vigorous document of startling significance. More than any other writer to-day he is giving us _the_ American novel."--_New York Globe._ =Together= "Journeys end in lovers meeting," says the old saw; so all novels used to end--in marriage. Yet Mr. Herrick's interesting new novel only begins there; the best brief description of it is, indeed,--a novel about married people for all who are married. Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS Mr. Crawford has no equal as a writer of brilliant cosmopolitan fiction, in which the characters really belong to the chosen scene and the story interest is strong. His novels possess atmosphere in a high degree. Mr. Isaacs (India) Its scenes are laid in Simla, chiefly. This is the work which first placed its author among the most brilliant novelists of his day. Greifenstein (The Black Forest) "... Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. It possesses originality in its conception and is a work of unusual ability. Its interest is sustained to the close, and it is an advance even on the previous work of this talented author. Like all Mr. Crawford's work, this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be read with a great deal of interest."--_New York Evening Telegram._ Zoroaster (Persia) "It is a drama in the force of its situations and in the poetry and dignity of its language; but its men and women are not men and women of a play. By the naturalness of their conversation and behavior they seem to live and lay hold of our human sympathy more than the same characters on a stage could possibly do."--_The New York Times._ The Witch of Prague (Bohemia) _"A fantastic tale," illustrated by W. J. Hennessy._ "The artistic skill with which this extraordinary story is constructed and carried out is admirable and delightful.... Mr. Crawford has scored a decided triumph, for the interest of the tale is sustained throughout.... A very remarkable, powerful, and interesting story."--_New York Tribune._ Paul Patoff (Constantinople) "Mr. Crawford has a marked talent for assimilating local color, not to make mention of a broader historical sense. Even though he may adopt, as it is the romancer's right to do, the extreme romantic view of history, it is always a living and moving picture that he evolves for us, varied and stirring."--_New York Evening Post._ Marietta (Venice) "No living writer can surpass Mr. Crawford in the construction of a complicated plot and the skilful unravelling of the tangled skein."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ "He has gone back to the field of his earlier triumphs, and has, perhaps, scored the greatest triumph of them all."--_New York Herald._ Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS NOVELS OF ROMAN SOCIAL LIFE _In decorated cloth covers, each, $1.50_ =A Roman Singer= "One of the earliest and best works of this famous novelist.... None but a genuine artist could have made so true a picture of human life, crossed by human passions and interwoven with human weakness. It is a perfect specimen of literary art."--_The Newark Advertiser._ =Marzio's Crucifix= "We have repeatedly had occasion to say that Mr. Crawford possesses in an extraordinary degree the art of constructing a story. It is as if it could not have been written otherwise, so naturally does the story unfold itself, and so logical and consistent is the sequence of incident after incident. As a story, _Marzio's Crucifix_ is perfectly constructed."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ =Heart of Rome.= A Tale of the Lost Water "Mr. Crawford has written a story of absorbing interest, a story with a genuine thrill in it; he has drawn his characters with a sure and brilliant touch, and he has said many things surpassingly well."--_New York Times Saturday Review._ =Cecilia.= A Story of Modern Rome "That F. Marion Crawford is a master of mystery needs no new telling.... His latest novel, _Cecilia_, is as weird as anything he has done since the memorable _Mr. Isaacs_.... A strong, interesting, dramatic story, with the picturesque Roman setting beautifully handled as only a master's touch could do it."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph._ =Whosoever Shall Offend= "It is a story sustained from beginning to end by an ever increasing dramatic quality."--_New York Evening Post._ =Pietro Ghisleri= "The imaginative richness, the marvellous ingenuity of plot, the power and subtlety of the portrayal of character, the charm of the romantic environment,--the entire atmosphere, indeed,--rank this novel at once among the great creations."--_The Boston Budget._ =To Leeward= "The four characters with whose fortunes this novel deals are, perhaps, the most brilliantly executed portraits in the whole of Mr. Crawford's long picture gallery, while for subtle insight into the springs of human passion and for swift dramatic action none of the novels surpasses this one."--_The News and Courier._ =A Lady of Rome= Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS WITH SCENES LAID IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA _In the binding of the Uniform Edition_ =A Tale of a Lonely Parish= "It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief and vivid story.... It is doubly a success, being full of human sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue."--_Critic._ =Dr. Claudius.= A True Story The scene changes from Heidelberg to New York, and much of the story develops during the ocean voyage. "There is a satisfying quality in Mr. Crawford's strong, vital, forceful stories."--_Boston Herald._ =An American Politician.= The scenes are laid in Boston "It need scarcely be said that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined surroundings."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._ =The Three Fates= "Mr. Crawford has manifestly brought his best qualities as a student of human nature and his finest resources as a master of an original and picturesque style to bear upon this story. Taken for all in all, it is one of the most pleasing of all his productions in fiction, and it affords a view of certain phases of American, or perhaps we should say of New York, life that have not hitherto been treated with anything like the same adequacy and felicity."--_Boston Beacon._ =Marion Darche= "Full enough of incident to have furnished material for three or four stories.... A most interesting and engrossing book. Every page unfolds new possibilities, and the incidents multiply rapidly."--_Detroit Free Press._ "We are disposed to rank _Marion Darche_ as the best of Mr. Crawford's American stories."--_The Literary World._ =Katharine Lauderdale= =The Ralstons.= A Sequel to "Katharine Lauderdale" "Mr. Crawford at his best is a great novelist, and in _Katharine Lauderdale_ we have him at his best."--_Boston Daily Advertiser._ "A most admirable novel, excellent in style, flashing with humor, and full of the ripest and wisest reflections upon men and women."--_The Westminster Gazette._ "It is the first time, we think, in American fiction that any such breadth of view has shown itself in the study of our social framework."--_Life._ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK