The writer is no musician, alas! (as, no doubt, his musical readers have found out by this) save in his thraldom to music of not too severe a kind, and laments the clumsiness and inadequacy of this wild (though somewhat ambitious) attempt to recall an impression received more than thirty years ago; to revive the ever-blessed memory of that unforgettable first night at the Cirque des Bashibazoucks.
Would that I could transcribe here Berlioz's famous series of twelve articles, entitled "La Svengali," which were republished from La Lyre Éolienne, and are now out of print!
Or Théophile Gautier's elaborate rhapsody, "Madame Svengali—Ange, ou Femme?" in which he proves that one need not have a musical ear (he hadn't) to be enslaved by such a voice as hers, any more than the eye for beauty (this he had) to fall the victim of "her celestial form and face." It is enough, he says, to be simply human! I forget in which journal this eloquent tribute appeared; it is not to be found in his collected works.
Or the intemperate diatribe by Herr Blagner (as I will christen him) on the tyranny of the prima donna called "Svengalismus"; in which he attempts to show that mere virtuosity carried to such a pitch is mere viciosity—base acrobatismus of the vocal chords, a hysteric appeal to morbid Gallic "sentimentalismus"; and that this monstrous development of a phenomenal larynx, this degrading cultivation and practice of the abnormalismus of a mere physical peculiarity, are death and destruction to all true music; since they place Mozart and Beethoven, and even himself, on a level with Bellini, Donizetti, Offenbach—any Italian tune-tinkler, any ballad-monger of the hated Paris pavement! and can make the highest music of all (even his own) go down with the common French herd at the very first hearing, just as if it were some idiotic refrain of the café chantant!
So much for Blagnerismus v. Svengalismus.
But I fear there is no space within the limits of this humble tale for these masterpieces of technical musical criticism.
Besides, there are other reasons.
Our three heroes walked back to the boulevards, the only silent ones amid the throng that poured through the Rue St. Honoré, as the Cirque des Bashibazoucks emptied itself of its over-excited audience.
They went arm in arm, as usual; but this time Little Billee was in the middle. He wished to feel on each side of him the warm and genial contact of his two beloved old friends. It seemed as if they had suddenly been restored to him, after five long years of separation; his heart was overflowing with affection for them, too full to speak just yet! Overflowing, indeed, with the love of love, the love of life, the love of death—the love of all that is, and ever was, and ever will be! just as in his old way.
He could have hugged them both in the open street, before the whole world; and the delight of it was that this was no dream; about that there was no mistake. He was himself again at last, after five years, and wide awake; and he owed it all to Trilby!