I knew always
that a day would come when she would not need me, she was meant to be the
world's delight, and I had no right to keep her, even if I could. I held my
beautiful, strange bird in her cage, until she beat her wings against the
bars, then I opened the door. At the last, I think, that is all we can do
for our children, our best beloved, our very heart-strings, stand free of
them, let them go. The world is very weary, but we must all find that out
for ourselves, perhaps when they are tired they will come home, perhaps
not, perhaps not. It was to the Conservatoire, at Milan, that I sent her
finally, and it was at La Scala that she afterwards appeared, and at La
Scala too, poor child, she met her evil genius, the man named Romanoff, a
baritone in her company, own son of the devil, whom she married. Ah, if I
could have prevented it, if I could have prevented it!'
He lapsed into a long silence; a great weariness seemed to have come over
him, and in the gray light which filtered in through the dingy window
blinds, his face was pinched and wasted, unutterably old and forlorn.
'But I did not prevent it,' he said at last, 'for all my good will,
perhaps merely hastened it by unseasonable interference.
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