“Now, my friend, let us talk, for we must have a great deal to tell each other.”
“Yes, let us talk; for I confess that my curiosity is strongly excited. I fancy, at times, I am dreaming.”
“I will bring you back to real life,” Antonio continued, “by telling you what has happened to me since we parted. Let us begin with poor Torrini.”
I made a movement of pained surprise.
“What do you say, Antonio? Can our friend——?”
“Yes, it is only too true. Death struck him at the moment we had every reason to hope a happier fate. On leaving you, Torrini intended to return as quickly as possible to Italy. The Count de Grisy was anxious to reassume his name and revisit the scenes of past successes, for he hoped there to become again the brilliant magician of yore. God decided otherwise. Just as we were about leaving Lyons, where we had been giving some successful performances, he was suddenly seized with typhus fever, which carried him off in a few days.
“I was his residuary legatee, and after paying the last honors to a man to whom I had pledged my life, I began realizing my small fortune. I sold the horses and travelling-carriage, and kept the apparatus, as I intended to use it. I had no profession, so I thought I could not do better than to take up one, for which the road was clear before me, and I hoped that my name, to which my brother-in-law had given a certain celebrity in France, would assist me. It was very bold in me to try and fill the place of such a master, but I thought my impudence would answer as well as talent.
“Hence I called myself Signor Torrini, and, after the fashion of my rivals, I added the title of ‘first magician of France.’ Each of us is always the first and the most skillful in the country where he happens to be, unless he think proper to call himself the first in the whole world. Conjuring is a profession in which, as you know, no one errs through excess of modesty, and the custom of producing illusions facilitates this issue of bad money, which the public, it is true, appreciates and sets its true value on.
“So it behaved to me, for, despite my pompous announcements, I frankly confess it did not recognize the celebrity I claimed. On the contrary, my performances were so little attended, that my receipts were hardly sufficient for my existence. Still I went from town to town, giving my performances, and nourishing myself more often on hope than on reality. But the moment arrived when this unsubstantial food no longer sufficed me, and I was forced to stop. I had exhausted my resources: I had nothing left but my instruments. My clothes were reduced to the sheerest necessity, and threatened to desert me at any moment: thus hesitation was impossible. I decided on selling my instruments, and, provided with the small sum they produced me, I set out for Paris, the last refuge of those whose talent is neglected and position hopeless.
“In spite of my ill success, I had lost none of my stock of philosophy, and, though not very happy, I was full of hope in the future. Yes, my friend—yes, I had a presentiment at that time of the brilliant position fate reserved for me, and to which it lead me, I may say, by the hand.