At home the same thing was repeated. Three hours practice every day with the dumb violin. And not only every day in the week, Sundays and all, but every week. Three whole months passed away, and then they said she had learned the positions, and the right motions. She could have some rosin on her bow and begin to play. This was progress. She was really getting on. Now she was to have some music. Nothing but the very dullest kinds of exercises; still, it was music, or something like it.
Long sustained notes by the hour. The exercises were all written out with a pen by her master. Nothing but long slow notes. Not very interesting, certainly. She would not have agreed with you. To get a good tone, to make one pure, smooth note was worth the trying for, and she was content.
The bow hardly moved, so slowly did she draw it up and down. The right arm stretched out to the full length, and then slowly back again, while the wrist bent slowly and gracefully. If she obtained nothing else, she would have a strong, clear tone, and learn to make a grand, full sweep with her bow. Speed and brilliancy would come in good time. Strength, power, and purity of tone were the things worth trying to reach. She would have no feeble, short strokes, but the wide, bold movements of a master hand.
As the weeks grew to months, her fingers and arms gained in power and her child’s violin was exchanged for a larger and finer one, to her great joy and satisfaction.
Slowly and patiently she crept along. By day and by night the beloved violin was ever near her. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes late at night, when ever her teacher could find the time, she listened to his instructions and played over the endless exercises. Seven hours practice every day. Three lessons a week; nothing allowed to interfere. Sleep, eat, a little exercise in the open air, practice and lessons, lessons and practice. Such was her young artist life.
The lessons gradually increased in variety and difficulty. Scales in every key, running passages of every imaginable character; and with it all not a single piece, song, or pretty melody of any kind. Ten months of finger exercises; nearly a year of dry scales.
As we have already mentioned, Nantes was very much given to talking about the little Camilla’s studies. The men in the orchestra laughed at Felix Simon and Salvatore Urso for their silly experiment with the child. The idea of a girl playing a violin! It was too absurd! And of all children, that mite of a Camilla; thin, pale, and too small for her age, she was the last one to think of such a thing.
One day a famous violinist, Apollinaire DeKonstki, now the director of the Conservatory of Music, at Warsaw, visited Nantes, and gave a concert at the theatre. Perhaps it would be well to ask him to hear the child play. His opinion might be of great value, and perhaps it would silence the miserable chatter in the town. “Would DeKonstki kindly hear the little one play?” Yes. He would, with pleasure. He intended to give a banquet to some of his friends that evening, and after the opera, and when the supper was over, she might come to his rooms at the Hotel de France. She sat in her usual corner in the orchestra all through the evening, and then, near midnight, with her violin under her arm, she crossed the Place Graslin and called at the Hotel de France. The great artist was sitting in the dining room by the long table where the banquet had been given. There were goblets and champagne glasses on the table, and after talking about her music for a few moments he took a fork, and gently tapping on a wine-glass, asked her what note that was. It was E. And this one? A. And this one? D. The next? A flat. And the next? G. Round the table he marched, fork in hand, striking the glasses and asking their notes. Camilla followed after, and named every tone correctly and without hesitation. He was greatly pleased with the experiment, and said he would hear her play. “Only, you must mind, I don’t like false notes.” This was too much, and she replied indignantly “I never give ’em, sir.”
He laughed; and then, with demure seriousness, she began to play some of her more difficult exercises from memory. She was a bold and sturdy player, and astonished the master with the graceful sweep of her thin, childish arm. He complimented her in a cordial manner, and hoped she would go on with her studies. “Oh! she would, she would; she meant to study all the time. Some day she would learn to play better still.” And then she went home, well pleased that the master had approved of the method of instruction she had pursued. Let the gossips talk. She was on the right road, and she didn’t care for them.
This was the only time that Camilla played to any one outside her own family during the first year of her musical life. Many musicians and others asked to hear her, but M. Urso thought it best to refuse them. No one was ever allowed to hear her practice, and her musical progress was kept a profound secret. Naturally enough, this only excited curiosity, and the gossip ran wilder than ever.