"Tell them, Marta—what nonsense it is! They are taking me for another—they are mad. They are trying to make a fool of me!"
And Marta would betray great uneasiness—almost terror—when she was appealed to in this way.
Part Eighth
"La vie est vaine:
Un peu d'amour,
Un peu de haine....
Et puis—bonjour!
"La vie est brève:
Un peu d'espoir,
Un peu de rève....
Et puis—bonsoir."
SVENGALI had died from heart-disease. The cut he had received from Gecko had not apparently (as far as the verdict of a coroner's inquest could be trusted) had any effect in aggravating his malady or hastening his death.
But Gecko was sent for trial at the Old Bailey, and sentenced to hard labor for six months (a sentence which, if I remember aright, gave rise to much comment at the time). Taffy saw him again, but with no better result than before. He chose to preserve an obstinate silence on his relations with the Svengalis and their relations with each other.
When he was told how hopelessly ill and insane Madame Svengali was, he shed a few tears, and said: "Ah, pauvrette, pauvrette—ah! monsieur—je l'aimais tant, je l'aimais tant! il n'y en a pas beaucoup comme elle, Dieu de misère! C'est un ange du Paradis!"
And not another word was to be got out of him.
It took some time to settle Svengali's affairs after his death. No will was found. His old mother came over from Germany, and two of his sisters, but no wife. The comic wife and the three children, and the sweet-stuff shop in Elberfeld, had been humorous inventions of his own—a kind of Mrs. Harris!