Bianca made no reply to my jesting remark, but heaving a little sigh, placed the ivory baton in the hand of the Maestro and sat down at the piano. The mummy, finding his services required, woke up and had a little conversation with me before beginning the lesson.
"Eh! Signor Inglése," he croaked--this being his name for me--"London is dark!"
He had a fearful prejudice against London, which he had once visited at a foggy season, and always made the above remark to his English pupils, which no one ever thought of contradicting.
"Yes, yes!" he said, nodding his old head like a Chinese mandarin; "London is always dark."
"Yes, Maestro."
"You've not been working?"
"Indeed I have, Maestro."
"Come then, Signor Inglése, we will see," and the lesson commenced.
Oh, those lessons! what agonies I suffered during them, trying to attain the impossible! To how many fits of despair have I given way in failing time after time to manage my breathing! It was all breathing--a deep drawing in, a slow letting out--the exercise of internal muscles of which I had never heard even the name--the weariness of incessantly practising notes in a still, small voice hardly audible,--it was enough to discourage the most persevering. Some of the female pupils, I believe, cried with vexation when not able to do what was required by the severe Maestro, who denied the existence of the word "impossible" in connection with singing; but I, not being a woman, was reduced to swearing, which certainly relieved my feelings after a battle with a particularly aggravating exercise.
Even now, when I am successful in my art, I often turn cold as I think of those apparently insurmountable obstacles which I had to overcome; but with these painful memories there is mixed at the same time a kindly thought of that noble old Maestro, so patient, so courteous, so painstaking, whose devotion to his art was so great, who was so severe on the least fault and so encouraging of the least success in conquering a difficulty.