‘Because I had neither the subject nor the time. One doesn’t write operas after lunch in hotel parlours; and as for a good libretto—well, outside Wagner, there’s only one opera in the world with a good libretto, and that’s Carmen.’
Diaz, who had had a youthful operatic work performed at the Royal School of Music in London, and whose numerous light compositions for the pianoforte had, of course, enjoyed a tremendous vogue, was much more serious about his projected opera than I had imagined. He had frequently mentioned it to me, but I had not thought the idea was so close to his heart as I now perceived it to be. I had written the libretto to amuse myself, and perhaps him, and lo! he was going to excite himself; I well knew the symptoms.
‘You wrote it in that little book,’ he said. ‘You haven’t got it in your pocket?’
‘No,’ I answered. ‘I haven’t even a pocket.’
He would not laugh.
‘Come,’ he said—‘come, let’s see it.’
He gathered up his loose rein and galloped off. He could not wait an instant.
‘Come along!’ he cried imperiously, turning his head.
‘I am coming,’ I replied; ‘but wait for me. Don’t leave me like that, Diaz.’
The old fear seized me, but nothing could stop him, and I followed as fast as I dared.