"Your first appearance was a triumph that will live in the memory of Vienna, my dear Christine. In fact, your magnificent rendering of a role which only such singers as Patti, Sembrich and Melba have attempted, has exceeded all expectations. Candidly, I had commenced to blame myself for having yielded to the wishes of Duke Hohenlohe," said the director of the Conservatory with a radiant smile, as he entered Christine's simple four-room apartment, a day later. "And I am most glad to have been commissioned by the Board of Directors to offer you a three years' contract with a suitable salary—but, my dear girl, what is the matter?"
Christine stood before him pale as a ghost. A slight tremor shook her slender frame, her eyes were downcast and red with weeping. She stammered a few words which the director could not understand.
He scrutinized her face sharply, being wholly puzzled, as he endeavored to fathom the true cause of this state of mind.
"Pardon me, my dear girl, if I express my surprise. I hope you are not dissatisfied with your debut. Why, you ought to be singing rhapsodies—be filled with ambition and enthusiasm—after being received by his Majesty and complimented upon your remarkable success."
Without replying, her lips quivering and dumb, Christine slowly and solemnly opened the door of the adjacent room. A mysterious, oppressive something seemed to fill the room like the shadow of death.
In the centre was a catafalque, at the end of which stood two lighted candles, sputtering lightly like the last feeble shrieks of a departing soul. Near the catafalque, on a small pedestal, rested the picture of poor Peter, embedded in a mass of roses.
The autumn sun, shining through the lilac and myrtle boughs that rustled close to the window, glinted over the pure, pale face of the singer. Mournfully, her tearful eyes sought the object of her deep devotion. On a black velvet cushion near Peter's picture, stood a pair of old shoes surrounded by jasmine and white camelias. A ray of sunshine stealing through the myrtle leaves made golden ripples on the shoes.
Christine pressed her hand to her heart, as if beholding that scene in the tavern of her childhood days. "Not yesterday," she said to the director in a trembling voice—"not yesterday, but five years ago I made my debut as a singer, when I earned these shoes in recognition of my singing—from him—" She pointed to Peter's picture, almost overcome by emotion.
"I sympathize most keenly with you, but my dear girl, what are they?"
"They are my only mementoes of my dear friend Peter, who lost his life in the service of the Empire—the first victim of the terrible rebellion at the Southern frontier." She stopped, unable to continue, while her heart contracted painfully, and big tears of sympathy and love for the shoemaker's apprentice trickled down her blanched face.