“Oh! we shall have some sport. Raymond is to sing the aria from Joconde; that tall girl yonder is to sing the inevitable song from Montano et Stéphanie; the pupil from the Conservatoire has brought a song, too; and Monsieur Crachini will obligingly deafen us with a romanza or two. Then Chamonin and his friend are to make an attempt at a duo from the Bouffes. That’s enough, I hope! God grant that Gripaille doesn’t take his guitar to accompany us! if he does, we are lost.”
As the chubby-faced little man finished speaking, Gripaille accosted him, and was greeted with:
“Well, my dear Gripaille, aren’t we to have the pleasure of hearing you? Come, bring out your guitar; these ladies are dying for some of your chords.”
Gripaille, who considered himself the first guitarist in Paris, replied, casting a seductive leer upon the ladies who surrounded us:
“What the devil do you expect me to sing you? I don’t know anything! I’ve got a cold, too; and then, Vauvert’s guitar is such a wretched instrument! a regular chestnut stove! it’s impossible to play on it.”
“With such talent as yours, one can play on anything,” observed a little old woman, throwing herself back in her chair and clasping her hands ecstatically, while tears of pleasure started from her eyes. “Mon Dieu! what blissful moments I owe to you! Music produces such an effect on me—such an effect! you can’t form any idea of it; my nerves are so sensitive, I abandon myself so utterly to the melody! Take your guitar, enchanter! take it and make me dream! You remind me of a handsome traveller who played the guitar under my windows when I was young!”
The chubby-faced gentleman and I turned away, to avoid laughing in the face of the old woman, from whom Gripaille had great difficulty in extricating himself. Old age is certainly most worthy of respect; but it is hard to keep a serious face before such old idiots, who fall into a trance during a ballad or an adagio.
I saw the old man who usually played the ‘cello part look at his watch, and heard him mutter between his teeth:
“This is very disagreeable! I must be at home at eleven o’clock, and we are wasting all this time doing nothing; and I’ve been here since seven! They were laughing at me when they told me that they were going to begin early, and that there would be a full quartette here; but they won’t catch me again.”
At last Monsieur Vauvert appeared, panting, almost breathless, drenched with perspiration, and bending beneath the burden of a tenor violin and several portfolios of music.