“Hu-s-s-sh, don’t roar so, for heaven’s sake! If you really mean it I shall be most grateful for twelve hundred francs.”
“All right. Hunt me up to-morrow and we’ll engage the opera chorus and a real good orchestra. We must give Valentino a good innings this time.”
And we did. The mass was grandly performed at St Roch, and was well spoken of by the papers. Thus, thanks to that blessed de Pons, I got my first hearing and my foot in the stirrup—as it were—of all things most difficult and most important in Paris.
I boldly undertook to conduct the rehearsals of chorus and orchestra myself, and, with the exception of a slip or two, due to excitement, I did not do so badly. But alas! how far I was from being an accomplished conductor, and how much labour and pains it has cost me to become even what I am.
After the performance, seeing exactly how little my mass was worth, I took out the Resurrexit—which seemed fairly good—and held an auto-da-fé of the rest, together with the Gamester, Estelle, and the Passage of the Red Sea. A calm inquisitorial survey convinced me of the justice of their fate.
Mournful coincidence! After writing these lines I met a friend at the Opéra Comique, who asked:
“When did you come back?”
“Some weeks ago.”
“Then you know about de Pons? No? He poisoned himself last week. He said he was tired of living, but I am afraid that, really, he was unable to live since the Revolution scattered his pupils.”
Horrible! horrible! most horrible!