“How can I do that?” I answered quickly, and with a smile, “since all I have comes from you.”
Instantly he replied—
“This is the way you are going to do it. I have got you an engagement at the Piazza-Vecchia, where you will certainly make a great success.”
Dismayed by these words, I blushed, I trembled, and, concealing some of my trouble, I exclaimed—
“But the thing would be impossible. Don’t you know, father, that the presence of two or three lookers-on is enough to confuse me when I am taking my lessons?”
Vain subterfuge.
“Make a beginning,” he said harshly; “after you’ve done it a few times you’ll find all the courage you need.”
There was one last expedient left me. I flew to my mother and, with tears, begged her to remember how often she had told me that actresses deserved the most profound contempt. You may judge of my astonishment when I heard her answer thus—
“It was so formerly, my daughter; nowadays all that is changed; on the contrary, those ladies are admired and loved by everybody, and if they sing well they gain great wealth, and even sometimes marry great noblemen.”