From the Diary of a Singer
Monday:—“Aïda.” Starved with my lover in the prison cell.
Tuesday:—Sang “Gilda” in “Rigoletto.” Was murdered and dragged from the stage in a bag.
Wednesday:—In “Traviata” I sang “Violetta,” and coughed virtuos-tuberculos, my life away.
Thursday:—As “Selika” (in l’Africaine) died from the poisonous odor of the Manzanillen tree.
Friday:—Sang the “Jewess,” and as a finale was thrown into a kettle of boiling oil.
Saturday:—As “Sulamithe” in the “Queen of Saba” was suffocated in the Simoom of the desert.
Sunday:—“Hamlet” and I as “Ophelia” drowned—under a storm of applause—in the brook. How beautiful it is, to be able to devote one’s art and one’s life to give pleasure to one’s fellow-men!