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She forgot time as it sped, till at length Gorgo made her appearance. She had not deliberately kept out of the little singer's way; on the contrary, she had been detained by her father, for not till now had she dared to tell him that his mother, the beloved mistress of his house, was no more.
A visit to the singer's New York home is a most interesting experience. He has chosen apartments perched high above the great artery of the city's life Broadway. From the many sun-flooded windows magnificent views of avenue, river and sky are visible, while at night the electrical glamour that meets the eye is fairy-like.
All the time Madame Theophile would evince great pleasure. She was, however, made nervous by certain notes, and at the high la she would tap the singer's mouth with her paw. This was very amusing, and my visitors delighted in making the experiment. It never failed; the dilettante in fun was not to be deceived.
Well; for many a year did the song of the peasants rise up from the fields and oliveyards unnoticed by the good townsfolk taking their holiday at the Tuscan villa; but one day, somewhere in the third quarter of the fifteenth century, the long-drawn chant of the rispetto, telling perhaps how the singer's sweetheart was beautiful as the star Diana, so beautiful as a baby that the Pope christened her with his own hands; the quavering nasal cadence of the stornello saying by chance
"You wish to leave me?" said the countess, and resolutely conceived it. Speaking to her son on this subject, she thought it necessary to make some excuse for a singer's instinct, who really did not live save on the stage.
When he reached his final run, he took a long breath, as if it devolved upon him to set in motion all the windmills in Montmartre, and started with a majestic fury; the first forty notes, while they did not resemble Mademoiselle Grisi's pearly tones, ascended and descended without any notable accident; but at the last stages of the descent, the singer's breath and voice failed him at the same moment, the "A" came out weak, the "G" was stifled, the "F" resembled the buzzing of a bee, and the "E" was absent!
All his life Thomas did his best to repay what he felt he owed to the singer's art. No man could get such singing from choruses, and no man worked harder to raise the standard of singing in schools and churches and choral societies. All through the lesson Thea had felt that Harsanyi was restless and abstracted.
The room was silent when he had finished the verse with one exception, that of the man in the chimney-corner, who, at the singer's word, "Chorus!" joined him in a deep bass voice of musical relish: "And waft 'em to a far countree!"
Some go so far as to say that he foresaw this catastrophe before he contracted his marriage, in the hope of regaining his fortune by the proceeds of the singer's career. However that may be, a separation took place, and Mme. Malibran returned to Paris in 1827.
"The foundation is there," was his verdict. "You have a good body, good muscles, but flabby a lady's muscles, not an opera singer's. And you are stiff not so stiff as when you first came here, but stiff for a professional. Ah, we must go at this scientifically, thoroughly." "You will teach me to breathe and how to produce my voice naturally?" "I will teach you nothing," replied he.
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