“I should like to come every day, maestro.”
“You may do that; on the other days my son or M. Maton will practice with you. But I have only two hours a week, that is to say, half hours, to spare; that is quite enough.”
We rented and furnished a small flat in the Rue Laval, and forthwith began for me an active epoch of study, bright with hope. I spent all my forenoons in the theater building of the Hôtel Duprez, always accompanied by my mother, a thing which seemed rather tiresome and superfluous to the others who frequented the school. I put myself wholly into the do, re, mi, and into a little aria which the maestro had composed and which he gave me to study for my first piece. But I felt especial interest in my fellow-pupils, who were on the most various levels of ability; and the Friday performances, as I did not yet participate in them, were to me a great enjoyment. When later I myself had to sing up there it was an agony to me, to be sure; for the old nervousness came over me again, and I won no applause. But this did not take place till after the lapse of some time; for the present I was busied only with learning, and I went at it in joyous mood.
In the public recitals there participated also some of the maestro’s finished pupils who were already filling engagements at the theaters and had attained celebrity: the tenor Engel (known as Angèl); Mademoiselle Marimon, the chanteuse légère of the Opéra Comique in Paris; and Jeanne Devriès of Brussels,—all three artists of the first rank. A young sister of the last-named, Fidès Devriès, had begun taking lessons only a short time before, and was the favorite of the maestro, the admiration of the whole class. She filled me with green-eyed envy. She was pretty as a picture—I could have forgiven her that, but she was sixteen years old, which put my twenty-three to shame, and she was making such rapid strides that although she had been in the school only a short time she already sang like a virtuoso and without the slightest nervousness. Ultimately she was engaged at the Paris Grand Opera, where she made her début as Ophelia with huge success. When I witnessed with what facility young Fidès learned the most difficult coloratures, with what correctness she read at sight, what peculiar magic dwelt in the timbre of her voice, and with what freedom and assurance of victory she moved on the little stage, always greeted and rewarded with the applause of the listeners and teachers, I was compelled to say to myself: “That is talent, that is the special gift, that is the something that lies beyond ambition and industry, which one cannot attain but must have, and which I have not....”
I was in and out of the house of the Princess of Mingrelia a great deal. I did not divulge to her anything of my artistic plans. She supposed the “Contessina” had come to Paris merely for the sake of being with her and her daughter, and she invited me to all her dinners and receptions. Together with her family and a numerous body of servants she occupied a suite in the Hôtel du Louvre, with private entrance and private stairway. In the long array of reception rooms, and especially in the salon filled with flowers and bric-a-brac where she usually kept herself, there was once more the odor of Russian cigarettes and orange flowers. I felt myself transported back to the Weckerlin villa at Homburg, and could not help thinking of my infatuation for the Georgian prince, the Bagratide Heraclius. I inquired about him.
“What! Is his picture still alive in your heart, little Contessina? Well, he is soon coming to Paris ... and if you can’t have him, we will find another husband here for you, for it is high time you were married—twenty-three already, that is almost being an old maid! I shall marry off my Salomé before she gets to be twenty; only it is a pity, dearest, that you have not a good big dot. That is the main question here in Paris. Grace and beauty do not suffice. Salomé is to get an income of fifty thousand francs, a present that her brother Niko gives her; with that it will be an easier matter to find a good parti. And I already have my eye on some one, a member of the imperial family.”
“Of Russia?”
“No, of France.”
The princess and her daughter never missed any of the Empress Eugénie’s petits lundis, and the Empress herself had proposed the marriage plan to which the Dedopali referred. She would not say anything more definite about it just then, and even Salomé, whom I questioned, professed to know nothing at all of the matter.
The imperial box at the opera was frequently put at the disposal of the two ladies, and they often invited me to accompany them. One morning, when I came to my lesson at the music school, young Madame Duprez called to me: