February 1st.
Last Thursday, at nine o'clock in the morning, a card was brought to my bedroom. Imagine my astonishment when I read the name of Baroness de C——, the wife of the French Ambassador to the Vatican. What could she want at that early hour? I had heard many stories of her absent- mindedness. I thought that nothing less than being very absent-minded, or else the wish to secure my help for some charity concert, could account for this matutinal visit, especially as I knew her so slightly.
To my great surprise she had only come to invite me to dinner, and never mentioned the word charity concert or music. I thought this very strange; but as she is so distraite she probably did not know what time of day it was, and imagined she was making an afternoon visit.
One of the stories about her is that once she went to pay a formal call on one of her colleagues, and stayed on and on until the poor hostess was in despair, as it was getting late. Suddenly the ambassadress got up and said, "Pardon, dear Madame, I am very much engaged, and if you have nothing further to say to me I should be very grateful if you would leave me." The Baroness had been under the impression that she was in her own salon. They say that, one day, when she was walking in the Vatican gardens with the Pope, and they were talking politics, she said to him, "Oh, all this will be arranged as soon as the Pope dies!"
Well, we went to the dinner, which was quite a large one, and among the guests was Signor Tosti, which would seem to denote that there was, after all, "music in the air"; and sure enough, shortly after dinner the ambassadress begged me to sing some petite chose, and asked Tosti to accompany me. Neither of us refused, and I sang some of his songs which I happened to know, and some of my own, which I could play for myself.
However, I felt myself recompensed, for when she thanked me she asked if I had ever been present at any of the Pope's receptions.
I told her that I had not had the opportunity since I had been here.
"The Pope has a reception to-morrow morning," said she. "Would you care to go? If so, I should be delighted to take you."
"Oh," I said, "that is the thing of all others I should like to do!"
"Then," said she, "I will call for you and take you in my carriage."