“But Madame Viardot’s decision—” I opposed hesitatingly.
“Madame Viardot is not infallible; and if you had only kept on with her for a while—”
“Not for the world would I have come into her sight again!”
“But there are other great singing-teachers; we will ask Beranek.”
Herr Beranek was still our lodger, and naturally he was ready at once to take up the proposition of resuming the musical plans. He spoke of Lamperti in Milan, Duprez in Paris, and Marchesi in Vienna as among the greatest teachers. I would not hear of Vienna, but in the very act of pronouncing this limitation I had already tacitly acknowledged that perhaps I would be content, either in Milan or in Paris, to pick up the thread which had been so abruptly broken off in Baden-Baden.
And to that it gradually came. I no longer gave a decided “no” when any one spoke to me of an artistic future, and I resumed my singing lessons with Beranek. The old love of song, the old ambitious plans, the old self-confidence awoke and gathered strength once more. The resolve to persevere in my studies, and to continue them under some famous master, matured in my mind. I wrote to Maître Duprez in Paris to ask him if he would be willing to accept an ambitious, enthusiastic pupil; he replied that he would, and so it came to pass that my life had once more found the “one important thing.”
There was living at that time in Baden an old bachelor, a former ambassador, with whom we constantly associated. His name was Baron Koller. He was tall and very thin, closely shaven, extremely correct and elegant in his attire. He owned a house near the Kurpark, externally insignificant, but furnished in exquisite taste within. Here he frequently gave us little dinners.
The contemplation of the beautiful mementos which he had gathered about him in his rooms was a great pleasure to me. I “turned the leaves” in these rooms as in an interesting book of memoirs. All those fabrics, weapons, trinkets, female portraits, had stories to tell of distant journeys, of high life at courts and in society, and of intimate love affairs. And the master of the house himself: ancien régime in his manners, sparkling with wit in his conversation.
There developed between the old gentleman and me a sort of—what shall I call it?—esprit-flirtation, a tossing back and forth of conversational shuttlecocks. He took special delight in my mastery of the elegances of the French language, and, because I realized this, I wrote in that language a whole booklet about his home, associating with the various trinkets and pictures imaginary stories and all sorts of observations. I copied it neatly, tied it with a blue ribbon, and sent it to him. He then gave it back to me, as a loan, with his marginal notes. He wanted me to see what keen pleasure the reading of it had given him,—a pleasure which was expressed in underlinings, exclamation marks, and a few brief sentences.
One time he honored me by the gift of a cup of old porcelain with the inscription Respice finem. To this I made answer in a few rhymed lines, the text of which I find jotted down in the diary which I was keeping at that time: