He was not a good man, monsieur,
nor an amiable, but a true _virtuoso_ and full of information, and I
grieved. I have had Masses said for the repose of his soul.'
He paid a tribute of silence to the dead man's memory, and then he went on.
'It seemed quite natural that I should take his child. There was no one to
care, no one to object; it happened quite easily. We went, the little one
and I, to another part of the city. We made quite a new life. Oh! my God!
it is a very long time ago.'
Quite suddenly his voice went tremulous; but after a pause, hardly
perceptible, he recovered himself and continued with an accent of apology.
'I am a foolish old man, and very garrulous. It is not good to think of
that, nor to talk of it; I do not know why I do. But what would you have?
She loved me then, and she had the voice and the disposition of an angel.
I have never been very happy. I think sometimes, monsieur, that we others,
who care much for art, are not permitted that. But certainly those few,
rapid days, when she was a child, were good; and yet they were the days
of my defeat. I found myself out then. I was never to be a great artist,
a _maestro_: a second-rate man, a good music-teacher for young ladies,
a capable performer in an orchestra, what you will, but a great artist,
never! Yet in those days, even when my opera failed, I had consolation,
I could say, I have a child! I would have kept her with me always but it
could not be, from the very first she would be a singer.
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