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value, for after that piece of ritual his manner underwent a sensible softening and he showed by many subtle, indefinable shades in his courteous address that he did me the honor of including me in his friendship. I have his card before me now; a large, oblong piece of pasteboard, with M. Maurice Cristich, Theatre Royal, inscribed upon it amid many florid flourishes. It enabled me to form my first definite notion of his calling, upon which I had previously wasted much conjecture; though I had all along, and rightly as it appeared, associated him in some manner with music.

In time he was good enough to inform me further. He was a musician, a violinist; and formerly, and in his own country, he had been a composer. But whether for some lack in him of original talent, or of patience, whether for some grossness in the public taste, on which the nervous delicacy and refinement of his execution was lost, he had not continued. He had been driven by poverty to London, had given lessons, and then for many years had played a second violin in the orchestra of the opera.

"It is not much, monsieur !" he observed deprecatingly, smoothing his hat with the cuff of his frayed coat-sleeve. "But it is sufficient, and I prefer it to teaching. In effect, they are very charming, the seraphic young girls of your country! But they seem to care little for music; and I am a difficult master, and have not enough patience. Once, you see, a long time ago, I had a perfect pupil, and perhaps that spoiled me. Yes! I prefer the theatre, though it is less profitable. It is not as it once was," he added, with a half sigh; "I am no longer ambitious. Yes, monsieur, when I was young I was ambitious. I wrote a symphony and several concertos. I even brought out at Vienna an opera which I thought would make me famous; but the good folk of Vienna did not appreciate me, and they would have none of my music. They said it was antiquated, my opera, and absurd; and yet it seemed to me good. I think that Gluck, that great genius, would have liked it; and that is what I should have wished. Ah! how long ago it seems, that time when I was ambitious! But you must excuse me, monsieur, your good company makes me garrulous. I must be at the theatre. If

I am not in my place at the half-hour they fine me,-two shillings and sixpence! that is a good deal, you know, monsieur."

In spite of his defeats, his long and ineffectual struggle with adversity, M. Cristich, I discovered, as our acquaintance ripened, had none of the spleen and little of the vanity of the unsuccessful artist. He seemed in his forlorn old age to have accepted his discomfiture with touching resignation, having acquired neither cyncism nor indifference. He was simply an innocent old man, in love with his violin and with his art, who had acquiesced in disappointment; and it was impossible to decide whether he even believed in his talent, or had not silently accredited the verdict of musical Vienna, which had condemned his opera in those days when he was ambitious. The precariousness of the London opera was the one fact which I ever knew to excite him to expressions of personal resentment. When its doors were closed, his hard poverty (it was the only occasion when he protested against it) drove him, with his dear instrument and his accomplished fingers, into the orchestras of lighter houses, where he was compelled to play music which he despised. He grew silent and rueful during these periods of irksome servitude, rolled innumerable cigarettes, which he smoked with fierceness and great rapidity. When dinner was done he was often volubly indignant, in Hungarian, to the proprietor. But with the beginning of the season his mood lightened. He bore himself more sprucely, and would leave me, to assist at a representation of Don Giovanni or Tannhäuser, with a face which was almost radiant. I had known him a year before it struck me that I should like to see him in his professional capacity. I told him of my desire a little diffidently, not knowing how my purpose might strike him. He responded graciously, but with an air of intrigue, laying a gentle hand upon my coat sleeve and bidding me wait. A day or two later, as we sat over our coffee, M. Cristich with a hesitating urbanity offered me an order.

"If you would do me the honor to accept it, monsieur? It is a stall, and a good one! I have never asked for one before, all these years; so they gave it to me easily. You see, I have few friends. It is for to-morrow, as you observe. I demanded it especially; it is an occasion

of great interest to me,-ah! an осса- not until we had crossed the threshold of sion! You will come?" a dingy, high house in a by-way of Bloomsbury, and he had ushered me, with apologies, into his shabby room near the sky, that the sense of his hospitable duties scemed to renovate him.

"You are too good, M. Cristich!" I said with genuine gratitude, for indeed the gift came in season, the opera being at that time a luxury I could seldom command. "Need I say that I shall be delighted? And to hear Madame Romanoff, a chance one has so seldom !"

The old gentleman's mild, dull eyes glistened. "Madame Romanoff!" he repeated. "The marvellous Leonora! Yes, yes! She has sung only once before, in London. Ah, when I remember" He broke off suddenly. As he rose, and prepared for departure, he held my hand a little longer than usual, giving it a more intimate pressure.

"My dear young friend, will you think me a presumptuous old man, if I ask you to come and see me to-morrow in my apartment, when it is over? I will give you a whisky, and we will sinoke pipes, and you shall tell me your impressions. And then I will tell you why to-morrow I shall be so proud, why I show this

emotion."

II.

THE opera was Fidelio that stately, splendid work, whose melody, if one may make a pictorial comparison, has something of that rich and sun-warm color which, certainly, on the canvases of Rubens, affects one as an almost musical quality. It offered brilliant opportunities, and the incomparable singer had wasted none of them. So that when, at last, I pushed my way out of the crowded house and joined M. Cristich at the stage door, where he waited with eyes full of expectancy, the music still lingered about me like the faint, past fragrance of incense, and I had no need to speak my thanks. He rested a light hand on my arm, and we walked toward his lodging silently, the musician carrying his instrument in its sombre case, and shivering from time to time, a tribute to the keen, spring night. He stooped as he walked, his eyes trailing the ground; and a certain listlessness in his manner struck me a little strangely, as though he came fresh from some solemn or hieratic experience, of which the reaction had already begun to set in tediously, leaving him at the last unstrung and jaded, a little weary of himself and the too strenuous occasion. It was

He produced tumblers from an obscure recess behind his bed; set a kettle on the fire, which scarcely smouldered with flickers of depressing, sulphurous flaine, talking of indifferent subjects as he watched for it to boil. Only when we had settled ourselves in uneasy chairs opposite each other, and he had composed me what he termed "a grog"-himself preferring the more innocent mixture known as eau sucrée-did he allude to Fidelio. I praised heartily the discipline of the orchestra, the prima donna, whom report made his country-woman, with her strong, sweet voice and her extraordinary beauty, the magnificence of the music, the fine impression of the whole.

M. Cristich, his glass in hand, nodded approval. He looked intently into the fire, which cast mocking shadows over his quaint, incongruous figure, his antiquated dress coat, his frost-bitten countenance, his cropped gray hair. "Yes," he said, yes! So it pleased you, and you thought her beautiful? I am glad."

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He turned round to me abruptly, and laid a thin hand impressively on my knee.

"You know I invented her, the Romanoff, discovered her, taught her all she learned. Yes, monsieur, I was proud tonight, very proud, to be there, playing for her, though she did not know. Ah! the beautiful creature! . . . and how badly I played! execrably! You could not notice that, monsieur, but they did, my confrères, and could not understand. How should they? How should they dream that I, Maurice Cristich, second violin in the orchestra of the opera, had to do with the Leonora; even I? Her voice thrilled them; ah, but it was I who taught her her notes! They praised her diamonds; yes, but once I gave her that she wanted more than diamonds, bread, and lodging, and love. Beautiful they called her; she was beautiful too when I carried her in my arms through Vienna. I am an old man now, and good for very little; and there have been days, God forgive me, when I have been angry with her; but it was not to-night. To see her there, so beautiful and so great, and to

feel that after all I had a hand in it-that I invented her. Yes, yes! I had my victory to-night, too, though it was so private; a secret between you and me, monsieur Is it not?"

I assured him of my discretion, but he hardly seemed to hear. His sad eyes had wandered away to the live coals, and he considered them pensively as though he found them full of charming memories. I sat back respecting his remoteness; but my silence was charged with surprised conjecture, and indeed the quaint figure of the old musician, every line of his garments redolent of ill success, had become to me of a sudden strangely romantic. Destiny, so amorous of surprises, of pathetic or cynical contrasts, had in this instance excelled herself. My obscure acquaintance Maurice Cristich! The renowned Romanoff! Her name and acknowledged genius had been often in men's mouths of late, a certain luminous, scarcely sacred glamour attaching to it, in a hundred idle stories, due perhaps as much to the wonder of her sorrowful beauty, as to any justification in knowledge of her boundless extravagance, her magnificent fantasies, her various perversity, rumor pointing specially at those priceless diamonds, the favors (not altogether gratuitous it was said) of exalted personages. And with all deductions made, for malice, for the ingenuity of the curious, the im. pression of her perversity was left; she remained enigmatical and notorious, a somewhat scandalous heroine ! And Cristich had known her; he had as he declared--and his accent was not that of braggadocio-invented her. The conjuncture puzzled and fascinated me. It did not make Cristich less interesting, nor the prima donna more perspicuous.

By and by the violinist looked up at me; he smiled with a little dazed air, as though his thoughts had been a far jour

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neither was I very poor; I still had my little patrimony, and I lived in the Strasse, very economically; it is a quarter which many artists frequent. I husbanded my resources, that I might be able to work away at my art without the tedium of making it a means of livelihood. I refused many offers to play in public, that I might have more leisure. I should not do that now; but then I was very confident; I had great faith in me. And I worked very hard at my symphony, and I was full of desire to write an opera. It was a tall, dark house where I lived; there were many other lodgers; but I knew scarcely any of them. I went about with my head full of music, and I had my violin I had no time to seek acquaintance. Only my neighbor at the other side of my passage I knew slightly, and bowed to him when we met on the stairs. He was a dark, lean man, of a very distinguished air; he must have lived very hard, he had death in his face. He was not an artist, like the rest of us: I suspect he was a great profligate and a gambler; but he had the manners of a gentleman. And when I came to talk to him he displayed the greatest knowledge of music that I have ever known. And it was the same with all; he talked divinely of everything in the world, but very wildly and bitterly. He seemed to have been everywhere, and done everything, and at last to be tired of it all, and of himself the most. From the people of the house I heard that he was a Pole, noble, and very poor; and, what surprised me, that he had a daughter with him, a little girl. I used to pity this child, who must have lived quite alone. For the Count was always out, and the child never appeared with him; and for the rest, with his black spleen and tempers, he must have been but sorry company for a little girl. I wished much to see her; for you see, monsieur, I am fond of children, almost as much as of music; and one day it came about. I was at home with my violin; I had been playing all the evening some songs I had made, and once or twice I had seemed to be interrupted by little tedious sounds. At last I stopped and opened the door, and there, crouching down, I found the most beautiful little creature I had ever seen in my life. It was the child of my neighbor. Yes, monsieur! you divine, you divine! That was the Leonora !"

"And she is not your compatriot?'' I asked.

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A Hungarian? ah, no! Yet every piece of her pure Slav! But I weary you, monsieur; I make a long story."

I protested my interest, and after a little side glance of dubious scrutiny, he continued in a constrained monotone, as one who told over to himself some rosary of sad enchanting memories.

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"Ah, yes! she was beautiful; that mysterious, sad Slavonic beauty a thing quite special and apart. And, as a child, it was more tragical and strange; that dusky hair, those profound and luminous eyes, seeming to mourn over tragedies they had never known. A strange, wild, silent child! She might have been eight or nine then; but her little soul was hungry for music. It was a veritable passion and when she became, at last, my good friend, she told me how often she had lain for long hours outside my door, listening to my violin. I gave her a kind of scolding, such as one could to so beautiful a little creature, for the passage was draughty and cold, and sent her away with some bon-bons. She shook back her long dark hair: You are not angry and I am not naughty,' she said; and I shall come back. I thank you for your bonbons; but I like your music better than bon-bons, or fairy tales, or anything in the world.'

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But she never came back to the passage again, monsieur! The next time I came across the Count, I sent her an invitation, a little diffidently, for he had never spoken to me of her, and he was a strange and difficult man. Now he simply shrugged his shoulders, with a smile in which, for once, there seemed more entertainment than malice. The child could visit me when she chose; if it amused either of us, so much the better. And we were content, and she came to me often; after a while, indeed, she was with me almost always. Child as she was, she had already the promise of her magnificent voice; and I taught her to use it, to sing, and to play on the piano, and on the violin, to which she took the most readily. She was like a singing bird in the room, such pure, clear notes! And she grew very fond of me; she would fall asleep at last in my arms, and so stay until the Count would take her with him when he entered long after midnight. He came to NEW SERIES.-VOL, LIV., No. 5,

me naturally for her soon; and they never seemed long, those hours that I watched over her sleep. I never knew him harsh or unkind to the child; he seemed simply indifferent to her, as to everything else He had exhausted life, and he hated it; and he knew that death was on him, and he hated that even more. And yet he was careful of her, after a fashion; buying her bon-bons, and little costumes, when he was in the vein; pitching his voice softly when he would stay and talk to me, as though he relished her sleep. One night he did not come to fetch her at all. I had wrapped a blanket round the child where she lay on my bed, and had sat down to watch by her; and presently I too fell asleep. I do not know how long I slept, but when I woke there was a gray light in the room. I was very cold and stiff, but I could hear, close by, the soft regular breathing of the child. There was a great uneasiness on me; and after a while I stole out across the passage and knocked at the Count's door. There was no answer, but it gave when I tried it, and so I went in. The lamp had smouldered out; there was a sick odor of pétrol every where, and the shutters were closed: but through the chinks the pitiless gray dawn streamed in, and showed me the Count sitting very still by the table. face wore a most curious smile, and had not his great cavernous eyes been open, I should have believed him asleep suddenly it came to me that he was dead. 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."

His

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.

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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 inan, 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 ny 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. 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 afterward 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

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He stopped me with a solemn appealing gesture.

"You are young, and you do not altogether understand. You must not judge her; you must not believe that she forgets, that she does not care. Only it is better like this, because it could never be as before. I could not help her. I want nothing that she can give me, no, not anything; I have my memories. I hear of her from time to time; I hear what the world says of her, the imbecile world, and I smile. Do I not know best?-I, who carried her in my arms when she was that high !"

III.

I SAW him once more at the little restaurant in Soho, before a sudden change of fortune, calling me abroad for an absence, as it happened, of years, closed the habit of our society. He gave me the God-speed of a brother artist, though mine was not the way of music, with many prophecies of my success; and the pressure of his band as he took leave of me was tremulous.

"I am an old man, monsieur, and we may not meet again in this world. I wish you all the chances you deserve in Paris; but I-I shall greatly miss you. If you come back in time you will find me in the old places; and if not-there are things of mine which I should wish you to have, that shall be sent you.

And indeed it proved to be our last meeting. I went to Paris; a fitful correspondence intervened, grew infrequent, ceased; then a little later came to me the notification, very brief and official, of his death in the French Hospital of pneumonia. It was followed by a few remembrances of him, sent at his request, I learned, by the priest who had administered to him the last offices: some books that he had greatly cherished, works of Gluck, for the most part; an antique ivory crucifix of very curious workmanship; and his violin, a beautiful instrument dated 1670 and made at Nuremberg, yet with a tone which seemed to me at least as fine as that of the Cremonas. It had an intrinsic value to me apart from its associations, for I too was something of an amateur, and since this seasoned melodious wood had come into my possession, I was inspired to take my facility

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