"'Mother!' I cried, in a hoarse, uncouth, horrible voice, and, casting myself against her bosom, I clung convulsively to her. From a hook in the ceiling beam my father's corpse dangled. He had hanged himself in the frenzy of his remorse. So my speech came to me again."
All the man's genius for tragic acting, that genius which had made him unique in "Tristan" and in "Tannhauser," had been displayed in this recital; and its solitary auditor was more moved by it than superficially appeared. Neither of us spoke a word for a few minutes. Then Alresca, taking aim, threw the end of his cigar out of the window.
"Yes," I said at length, "that was tragedy, that was!"
He proceeded:
"The critics are always praising me for the emotional qualities in my singing. Well, I cannot use my voice without thinking of the dreadful circumstance under which Fate saw fit to restore that which Fate had taken away."
And there fell a long silence, and night descended on the canal, and the swans were nothing now but pale ghosts wandering soundlessly over the water.
"Carl," Alresca burst out with a start—he was decidedly in a mood to be communicative that evening—"have you ever been in love?"
In the gloom I could just distinguish that he was leaning his head on his arm.
"No," I answered; "at least, I think not;" and I wondered if I had been, if I was, in love.