I was much at her house in the Rue de Douai in those days, and it was made doubly attractive to me by Monsieur Viardot, who himself was a man of great artistic and literary attainments. His book on the "Galeries de l'Europe" is a standard work; he had formed a collection of pictures by the best Dutch masters, and he was devoted to them as only the true connoisseur can be. Amongst the many celebrities that I met there were Ary Scheffer, Tourgenieff, Saint Saens, and, on one occasion, Richard Wagner. He had come with his manuscript score of "Tristan and Isolde." Madame Viardot was at the piano reading it at sight, and mastering its intricacies with the grasp of the true musician; whilst Wagner stood by her side, turning the leaves and occasionally breaking in with a word or two.
"N'est ce pas, Matame," he said, carried away by the grandeur of his own creation. "N'est ce pas, Matame, que c'est suplime?"
I chanced to be the only one privileged to be present on that occasion. Close at hand stood a casket in which a treasure was preserved, the original score of "Don Giovanni." No wonder I was fully impressed by the situation, actually in touch as I felt myself with the master of the past and the master of the present. If what I was listening to was well named the Music of the Future, might not the score enshrined in that casket be called the Music of Eternity?
An event that was looked forward to with the greatest interest by the privileged group which enjoyed Rossini's hospitality, was the performance of the "Stabat Mater" at his own house. Those who wanted to be on the list of the invited did well to conciliate Madame; but that was not always an easy matter. She knew her own mind, and would give one a piece of it when she felt so inclined. The following is characteristic of her little ways:—I called one day to introduce a Mr. Mertke, a young musician just arrived from Leipsic, to Rossini. The master was busy conducting a rehearsal of that "Stabat," and so, remembering it was Madame's reception day, I thought I would improve the occasion by paying my respects to her and introducing my friend. She received us politely, but I noticed at once that she was not in the best of tempers and that a squall might be expected at any moment.
My friend and I seated ourselves cautiously on the edges of our chairs and awaited further developments. Happily the clouds gathering round her dark brow were not to burst over our heads; the danger was averted by the appearance of a very handsome and elegant woman. She was a well-known operatic star, and swept into the room with all the assurance that success and an up-to-date Parisian toilette can give. With charming grace and affability she greeted Madame Rossini and beamed kindly on one or two friends. "I have come, chère amie," she said, "to offer my services to the Maestro. I hear he is going to perform his 'Stabat Mater,' and, if he wants a good voice to join in the chorus, I am at his disposal."
"There you are," answered Madame Rossini in her sternest manner; "we have refused more than one of that kind. It's an age one hasn't seen anything of you, and now there's something going on, and you want to be in it, you vouchsafe to reappear."
"Mais chère amie," answered the other, "you don't for a moment believe what you say; you know what has prevented my seeing my dearest friends. Empêchement de force majeure, n'est ce pas?" And therewith she proceeded to give us some interesting details connected with her first experiences as a mother, and with her consequent inability to make afternoon calls—details so minute that they did not fail to convince everybody present excepting the obdurate Madame Rossini, who was about to retort, when the primadonna managed, with marvellous skill, to change the conversation. We soon found ourselves talking of the latest scandal; of a phaeton which a certain lady had no business to show herself in at the Bois, so soon after a certain duel which that particular phaeton had led to. From that we got quite naturally to the chapter of robes et chiffons, and all went so smoothly that my friend and I soon made ourselves more at home on our chairs. But there was to be another brush between the ladies. As the brilliant one rose to leave, she said with a winning smile, "Adieu, très-chère; vous êtes bien la plus excellente des créatures, but really," she added sadly, "just now you were not gentille."
"I did not mean to be," answered madame, "and I did mean every word of what I said." That was her parting shaft. But for all that the operatic star was not to be frozen out. She managed to get an invitation to the Easter performance, or came without, for aught I know; she told that chère Madame Rossini that she positively adored her, and that she was captivated by her franchise and her verve intarissable (her plain speaking and her inexhaustible verve), sentiments which presently she translated for my benefit with the words: "Ah mais, cette chère Madame Rossini, elle est vraiment impossible" (That dear Madame Rossini, she is really impossible).
The "Stabat Mater," as we heard it on that evening, was the revised and remodelled work, very different from the one Rossini had written in his early days. The score of this he had given to a friend, a monk, after whose death it passed into the hands of some musician, who published it much to Rossini's annoyance. "On ne saute pas d'un coup du théâtre à l'église" (One does not bound at a leap from the theatre to the church), he said one day to Kuhe the gifted musician and impresario, as he was alluding to the shortcomings of that early version and the necessity of revising it.
Madame Rossini could, when she chose, be an excellent hostess, and she was usually at her best on those Saturday evenings when she and the Maestro received, and when naturally all that was prominent in the musical world gravitated towards the salons of the veteran composer. On one of these occasions, I nearly got into trouble with her. A lamp was slowly but surely going out, and any one else in my place, just by the tail of the grand piano, would have been prompted, as I was, to remove it. I looked across the room at my hostess, my eyes respectfully putting the question, "Hadn't I better take that lamp out?" From beneath her dark Italian eyebrows shot an annihilating glance that made me tremble in my dress shoes, and that plainly said, "Move if you dare, young man—but if you do, you will repent it." I did not dare, but the situation was painful. The select circle of friends gathered around that grand piano were one and all listening in religious silence, impressed by the music and the presence of the Maestro; that irreverent lamp alone showed unmistakable signs of collapse, and soon attracted general attention. Would it or would it not hold out to the end? It would not; Madame Rossini had to get up, cross the room and carry out the offender. She did it defiantly, majestically; I should have done it meekly, apologetically.