“But that was not being as wicked as the Maestro, who got angry at rehearsal, and hit the flute-player on the head with his bâton, so that it raised a hump. You told me that yourself, and how the Maestro——”
“Quite true, petite; I did fetch him a rap, I promise you, and afterwards I put bank-notes for a hundred francs on the lump for a plaster. But come, now, sing to me, and we will give Signor Carlo here something worth hearing. Écoutez, mon cher!”
“Very well, I will sing; but, first, Pierrot must be comfortably seated. That little armchair is just what he likes!” And, as quick as thought, the willful little lady tilted a pile of music out of the little armchair upon the floor. Then she placed Pierrot very carefully in his throne, and, bidding him be very good and listen, because his bonne petite Maman was going to sing him something pretty, she tripped to the piano, and demurely requested the aged musician to accompany her in the Rondo of “Sonnambula.”
Ah! what a miraculous voice proceeded from that small, willful throat! Stirred to the depths by the extraordinary power and beauty of the child’s delivery, Carlo Gladiali listened enthralled; and when the last notes rippled from the pretty red lips of the now demure little creature, the big boy, forgetting her rudeness and his own shyness, started forward, and, sinking on one knee and seizing the small hand of the child-singer, he kissed it impulsively, crying: “Ah, Signorina, you were right, a thousand times! Compared with you, I sing like a cat!”
“Oh, no! I did not mean to say that!” the tiny lady was beginning graciously, when the Maestro broke in:
“You both sing like cherubs and say civil things to one another. One day you will sing like angels—and quarrel like devils! Please Heaven, you will both make your début under my bâton, and then, if I crack a flute-player’s head, it will be for joy.”
Ten years had elapsed. Carlo Gladiali had risen to pre-eminence as a public singer, had attained the prime of his powers and the apogee of his fame. Courted, fêted, and adored, the celebrated tenor, sated with success, laden with gifts, blasé with admiration, retained a few characteristics that might remind those who had known and loved him in boyhood of the ingenuous, honest, simple Carlo of ten years ago.
Certainly Carlo’s jealousy of the prima donna who should dare to usurp a greater share of the public plaudits than he himself received was childish in its unreasonableness, and Othello-like in its tragic intensity.
At first, he would join in the compliments, and smile patronizingly as he helped the successful débutante to gather up the bouquets. Then his admiration would cool; he would tolerate, endure, then sneer, and finally grind his teeth. He would convey to the audience over one shoulder that they were idiots to applaud, and wither the triumphant cantatrice with a look of infinite contempt over the other. He had been known to feign sleep in the middle of a great soprano aria which, against his wish, had been encored. He had—or it was malevolently reputed so—bribed the hotel waiter to place a huge dish of macaroni, dressed exquisitely and smoking hot, in the way of a voracious contralto who within two hours was to essay for the first time the arduous rôle of Brynhild. The macaroni had vanished, the contralto had failed to appear. Numerous were the instances similar to these recorded of the tenor Gladiali, and repeated in every corner of the opera-loving world.