In the Courts of Memory, 1858-1875 Part 7

He says that he is seventy-three years old. I must say that this is difficult to believe, for he does not look it by ten years. He never accepts any invitations. I know I have never seen him anywhere outside his own house, and it was a great surprise to see him now. We once ventured to invite him and his wife to dinner one evening, when the Prince and Princess Metternich were dining with us; and we got this answer: "Merci, de votre invitation pour ma femme et moi. Nous regrettons de ne pouvoir l'accepter. Ma femme ne sort que pour aller a la messe, et moi je ne sors jamais de mes habitudes." We felt snubbed, as no doubt we deserved to be.

Gounod played most enchantingly some selections from "Romeo et Juliette,"

the opera he has just composed. I hear that he wants Christine Nilsson to sing it. The music seems to me even more beautiful than "Faust." Rossini talked a long time with Gounod, and Auber told me that Rossini said, patting Gounod on the back, "Vous etes le chevalier Bayard de la musique."

Gounod answered, "Sans peur, non!"

Rossini said, "Dans tous les cas, sans reproche et sans egal."

Gounod is, I think, the gentlest, the most modest, and the kindest-hearted man in the world. His music is like him, gentle and graceful. Princess Mathilde asked me to sing again; but, as I had not brought any music, Auber offered to accompany me in the "Song of the Djins," from his new opera, which I had so often sung with him. It was not the song I should have selected; but, as Auber desired it, I was glad to gratify him, and was delighted when I saw Rossini compliment Auber, who (like the tenor before the drop-curtain, who waves his hand toward the soprano as if all the merit of the performance was due to her) waved his hand toward me, which suggested to Rossini to make me a reflected compliment.

This was a great occasion, seeing and hearing Rossini, Gounod, and Auber at the same time. I shall never forget that evening. I wonder that I had the courage to sing before them. Among the guests was an Indian Nabob dressed in all his orientals, who in himself would have been sufficient attraction for a whole evening, had he not been totally eclipsed by the three great artists. The Nabob probably expected more homage than he received; but people hardly looked at him.

I was presented to him, and he seemed glad to speak English, which was not of the best, but far better than his French. He told me a great deal about his journey, the attractions of Paris, and about his country and family.

I asked him, by way of saying something (I was not particularly interested in him or his family), how many children he had. He answered, "Quite a few, milady."

"What does your Highness call a few?" I asked.

"Well, I think about forty," he replied, nonchalantly.

"That would be considered quite a large family here," I said.

The Nabob, of course, did not appreciate the profundity of this remark.

A few days after, the Princess Mathilde sent me a lovely fan which she had painted herself, and Mr. Moulton is going to have it mounted. I am very happy to have it as a souvenir of a memorable evening, besides being an exquisite specimen of the Princess's talent as an artist. The Princess is what one might call miscellaneous. She has a Corsican father, a German mother, and a Russian husband, and as "cavaliere servente" (as they say in Italy), a Dutchman. She was born in Austria, brought up in Italy, and lives in France. She said once to Baron Haussmann, "If you go on making boulevards like that, you will shut me up like a vestal."

"I will never make another, your Highness," he answered.

Every one is very much excited about a young Swedish girl called Christine Nilsson, who has walked right into the star-light, for she really is a star of the first magnitude. She has studied with Wachtel only one year, and behold her now singing at the Theatre Lyrique to crowded audiences in the "Flute Enchantee." Her voice has a wonderful charm; she sings without the slightest effort, and naturally as a bird. She has some phenomenal high notes, which are clear as bells. She makes that usually tedious _grand aria_, which every singer makes a mess of, quite lovely and musical, hovering as she does in the regions above the upper line like a b.u.t.terfly and trilling like a canary-bird. A Chinese juggler does not play with his gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s more dexterously than she plays with all the effects and tricks of the voice. What luck for her to have blossomed like that into a full-fledged prima-donna with so little effort. I have got to know her quite well, as Miss Haggerty, who was at some school with her in Paris, invites her often to lunch and asks me to meet her.

Nilsson is tall, graceful, slight, and very attractive, without being actually handsome. She acts well and naturally, and with intelligence, without exerting herself; she has the happy faculty of understanding and seizing things _au vol_, instead of studying them. She has a regal future before her. A second Jenny Lind! Their careers are rather similar. Jenny Lind was a singer in cafes, and Nilsson played the violin in cafes in Stockholm. She is clever, too! She has surrounded herself by a wall of propriety, in the shape of an English _dame de compagnie_, and never moves unless followed by her. This lady (Miss Richardson) is correctness and primness personified, and so _comme il faut_ that it is actually oppressive to be in the same room with her. Nilsson herself is full of fun and jokes, but at the same time dignified and serious.

Christine Nilsson gave Mrs. Haggerty a box at the Theatre Lyrique, where she is now playing "Traviata" (I think it was the director's box), and I was invited to go with her and Clem. The box was behind the curtain and very small and very dark. But it was intensely amusing to see how things were done, and how prosaic and matter-of-fact everything was. If ever I thanked my stars that I was not a star myself it was then.

Everything looked so tawdry and claptrap: the dirty boards, the grossly painted scenery, the dingy workmen shuffling about grumbling and gruff, ordered and scolded by a vulgar superior. Of course the stars do not see all these things, because they only appear when the heavens are ready for them to shine in.

The overture, so it sounded to us, was a clash of drums, trumpets, and trombones all jumbled together. After the three knocks of the director, which started up the dust of ages into our faces until we were almost suffocated, the curtain rose slowly with great noise and rumbling.

The audience looked formidable as we saw it through the mist of cloudy gas-light, a sea of faces, of color and vagueness. The incongruity of costumes was a thing to weep over. If they had tried they could not have made it worse. The lady guests, walking and chatting, in a _soi-disant_ elegant salon, were dressed, some in Louis XV. splendor, some in dogesses'

brocades, some in modern finery, with bows and ribbons and things looped up any way. Nilsson was dressed in quite modern style--flounces, laces, and fringes, and so forth, while Alfredo had donned a black velvet coat _a la_ something, with a huge jabot which fell over a frilled shirt-front. He wore short velvet trousers, and black-silk stockings covered his thin legs without the least attempt at padding.

The "padre" was in a shooting-jacket, evidently just in from a riding- tour. He held a riding-stick, and wore riding-gantlets which he flourished about with such wide gesticulations that I thought he was going to hit Nilsson in the face.

We could not hear the singing so well from where we sat; but the orchestra was overpowering, and the applause deafening, like peals of thunder.

I laughed when the gang of workmen rushed on to the stage as soon as the curtain came down, and began sweeping and taking down one set of furniture and putting on another; especially in the last act, when Violetta's bed came on and the men threw the pillows from one to the other, as if they were playing ball. They hung up a crucifix, which I thought was unnecessary, and brought in a candlestick. I wondered if they were going to put a warming-pan in the bed. A mat was laid down with great precision.

Then Nilsson came in, dressed in a flounced petticoat trimmed with lace, a "matinee," and black slippers, and got into the bed.

After the performance was over the curtain was raised and the artists came forward to bow; the stage was covered with flowers and wreaths. And Nilsson, in picking up her floral tributes, was wreathed in smiles; but they faded like mist before the sun the minute the curtain was lowered, and she looked tired and worn out. Her maid was there, waiting with a shawl to wrap around the shoulders of the hot prima-donna, and the prim Miss Richardson ready to escort her to her room, while the army of shirt- sleeved men invaded the stage like bees, with brooms which, though anything but new, I hope swept clean. Then everything was dark and dismal, lit only by one or two candles and a solitary lantern. All that was so brilliant a moment before was now only a confused ma.s.s of disillusions.

Nilsson and her duenna drove to Mrs. H----'s and had supper with us. One would never have dreamt that she had been dying of consumption an hour before, to see her stow away ham, salad, and pudding in great quant.i.ties.

Then she embraced us all and drove off in her coupe. The star was going to set. I went home, glad that my life lay in other paths.

PARIS, _March, 1865._

DEAR M.,--Do not be anxious about me. When Mrs. M---- wrote, I was really in danger of a _fluxion de poitrine_. I am sorry she worried you unnecessarily. I am much better; in fact, I am far on the road to recovery. If every one had such a nice time when they are ill as I had they would not be in a hurry to get well. When I was convalescent enough to come down-stairs, and the doctor had said his last word (the traditional "you must be careful"), I had my _chaise-longue_ moved down into Henry's studio, and Monsieur Gudin, who is the kindest man in the world, offered to come there and paint a picture in order to amuse and divert me.

Bierstadt, the American painter, who is in Paris, also proposed to come.

Then those two artists ordered canvases of the same size, and Beaumont, not to be outdone, ordered a larger canvas, and Henry announced his intention of finishing an already commenced landscape.

Behold, then, your invalid, surrounded by these celebrated artists, reclining on a _chaise-longue_, a table with _tisanes_ and remedies near by, and the four painters painting. Gudin is painting a seascape; Bierstadt, a picture of California; Beaumont, of course, his graceful ladies and cherubs. It amused me to see how differently they painted.

Gudin spread his paints on a very large table covered with gla.s.s, and used a great many brushes; Bierstadt used a huge palette, and painted rather finically, whereas Beaumont had quite a small palette and used few brushes. I was very sorry when my convalescence came to an end and the pictures were finished; but I had the delight of receiving the four pictures, which the four artists begged me to accept as a souvenir of the "pleasant days in the studio."

Another pleasant thing happened during "the pleasant days in the studio,"

which was the gift of a beautiful gold medal which the Emperor sent me as a souvenir of the day I sang the _Benedictus_ in the chapel of the Tuileries. It is a little larger than a five-franc piece, and has on one side the head of the Emperor encircled by "Chapelle des Tuileries," and on the other side "Madame Moulton" and the date.

We are all dreadfully sad about the Duke de Morny's death. He was very much appreciated, and a favorite with every one. They say that the d.u.c.h.ess cut off all her hair and put it into his coffin. I never heard before that she was such a loving wife. I only hope that she will not need her braids to keep on her next wedding-wreath.

We have just heard of the a.s.sa.s.sination of that good, kind President Lincoln. How dreadful!

I have a new teacher called Delsarte, the most unique specimen I have ever met. My first impression was that I was in the presence of a _concierge_ in a second-cla.s.s establishment; but I soon saw that he was the great master I had heard described so often. He is not a real singing teacher, for he does not think the voice worth speaking of; he has a theory that one can express more by the features and all the tricks he teaches, and especially by the manner of enunciation, than by the voice.

We were (Aunty and I) first led into the salon, and then into the music- room, so called because the piano is there and the stand for music, but no other inc.u.mbrances as furniture.

On the walls were hung some awful diagrams to ill.u.s.trate the master's method of teaching. These diagrams are crayon-drawings of life-sized faces depicting every emotion that the human face is capable of expressing, such as love, sorrow, murder, terror, joy, surprise, etc.

It is Delsarte's way, when he wants you to express one of these emotions in your voice, to point with a soiled forefinger to the picture in question which he expects you to imitate. The result lends expression to your voice.

The piano is of a pre-Raphaelite construction, and stands in the middle of the room like an island in a lake, with a footstool placed over the pedals (he considers the pedal as useless). The lid of the piano was absent, and, to judge from the inside, I should say that the piano was the receptacle for everything that belonged to the Delsarte homestead. There were inkstands, pens, pencils, knives, wire, matches, toothpicks, half-smoked cigars, even remnants of his luncheon, which seemed to have been black bread and cheese, and dust galore. Delsarte had on a pair of much-worn embroidered slippers, a velvet _calotte_, the ta.s.sels of which swayed with each of his emotions, and a dilapidated _robe de chambre_ which opened at every movement, disclosing his soiled plaid foulard doing duty for a collar.

On my telling him that I desired to take some lessons of him, he asked me to sing something for him. Seeing the music of Duprato's "Il etait nuit deja," I proposed singing that, and he sat down at the pedal-less piano to accompany me. When I arrived at the phrase, "Un souffle d'air leger apportait jusqu'a nous l'odeur d'un oranger," he interrupted me. "Repeat that!" he cried. "Il faut qu'on sente le souffle d'air et l'odeur de l'oranger." I said to myself, "... no one could 'sentir un oranger' in this room; one could only smell Delsarte's bad tobacco."

He begged me to sing something else.

"Will you accompany Gounod's 'Medje' for me?" I asked him.

"No," he replied. "I will listen; you must accompany yourself. There are certain songs that cannot be accompanied by any one but the singer. This is one of them! You feel yourself, don't you, that it is absolutely necessary for you to clutch something when singing this? A weak chord or a too powerful one struck in a wrong place would spoil entirely the effect, and even the best accompanist cannot foresee when that effect is going to be produced." I think this is so clever! "'Voi che sapete' can be accompanied by any school girl," he continued. "It is plain sailing; but in 'Medje' the piano must be part of the singer and breathe with him." I sat down at the piano and sang. When I came to "Prends cette lame et plonges la dans mon coeur," he stopped me short, and pointing to a horrible picture on the wall indicating b.l.o.o.d.y murder and terror (No. 6), he cried, "Voila l'expression qu'il faut avoir." I sang the phrase over again, trying to imagine what Medje's lover must have felt; but I could not satisfy Delsarte. He said my voice ought to tremble; and, in fact, I ought to sing false when I say, "Ton image encore vivante dans mon coeur qui ne bat plus." "No one," he said, "in such a moment of emotion could keep on the right note." I tried again, in vain! If I had had a dagger in my hand and a brigand before me, I might perhaps have been more successful. However, he let it pa.s.s; but to show that it could be done he sang it for me, and actually did sing it false. Curiously enough, it sounded quite right, tremolo and all. There is no doubt that he is a _great artist_. One can see that Faure and Coquelin (the actor) have both profited by his unique teaching. He a.s.sured me that there is no art like that of making people believe what you want them to. For instance, he pretends that he can sing "Il pleut, il pleut, bergere," and make you hear the patter of the _bergere's_ heels on the wet sod, or wherever she was trying to _rentrer ses blancs moutons_. He sang it with the fullest conviction, and asked me what I thought of it. I shut my eyes and tried to conjure up the _bergere_ and her heels. My head began to whirl with all this talk, and, on taking leave of my new master, I promised him that I would try to sing false until the next lesson. Another thing he said was: "Never try to accompany yourself when the accompaniment is difficult.

There is nothing so painful as to see a singer struggling with tremolos and arpeggios." How right he is!

He has one theory about the trembling of the chin. It certainly is very effective. When in "Medje" I say, "Tu n'as pas vu mes larmes, tout la nuit j'ai pleure," Delsarte says, "Make your chin tremble; just try it once,"

pointing to a diagram, "and every one will be overcome." I have tried it and have seen the effect. But I am letting you into all Delsarte's most innermost secrets.

PARIS, _July, 1865._

DEAR M.,--You must forgive me if I have not written lately; but we have been on a visit to the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess de Persigny for the past week. I did not have time to do more than dress for driving and drive, dress for afternoon tea, dress for dinner, and dine.

The estates of Chamarande are beautiful, the chateau itself is very magnificent and arranged with the d.u.c.h.ess's taste, which is perfect though ultra-English.