My Recollections Part 9

In spite of the superb general rehearsal in the entirely empty hall--that was the reason I was there, for I had already begun to avoid the excitements of public performances--I waited in a small cafe nearby for the news brought by an old comrade, Taffanel, then the first flute player at the Opera and at the Concerts de l'Harmonie Sacree. Ah, my dear Taffanel, my departed friend, whom I loved so well, how dear to me were your affection and your talent when you conducted my works at the Opera!

After each part Taffanel ran across the street and told me the comforting news. After the third part he was still encouraging, and he told me hastily that it was all over, that the audience had gone, and begged me to come at once and thank Lamoureux.

I believed him, but what a fraud he was! No sooner was I in the musicians' foyer than I was blown like a feather into my confreres arms, which I grabbed as hard as I could, for I now understood the trick. But they put me down on the stage before the audience which was still there and still applauding and waving their hats and handkerchiefs.

I got up, bounced like a ball, and disappeared--furious!

I have drawn this doubtless exaggerated picture of my success because the moments which followed were terrible for me and showed in contrast the vanity of the things of this world.

A servant had been searching for me all the evening as she did not know my whereabouts in Paris and she found me at last at the door of the concert hall. With tears in her eyes she bade me come to my mother who was very ill. My dear mother was living in the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.

I had sent her seats for herself and my sister and I felt sure that both of them had been at the concert.

The servant and I jumped into a cab, and when I reached the landing, my sister, with outstretched arms and sobbing, cried, "Mamma is dead ... at ten o'clock this evening."

Words cannot express my deep grief at this announcement of the terrible misfortune which had come upon me. It darkened my days just at the time when it seemed as if a kind heaven wished to drive away the clouds.

In accordance with my mother's last wishes, she was embalmed the next day. My sister and I, both prostrated by grief, were there, when we were surprised by the sudden appearance of Hartmann. I dragged him swiftly away from the painful sight, and he hurried out, but not before he had said,

"You are down for the cross!"

Poor mother! how proud she would have been!

March, 21, 1875

_Dear Friend:_

If I had not lost your card and, consequently, your address, for which I searched for a quarter of an hour in the _Testaccio_ of my papers, I would have told you yesterday of my keen joy and deep emotion at hearing your _eve_ and at its success. The triumph of one of the Elect should be a festival for the Church. And you are one of the Elect, my dear friend; Heaven has marked you with a sign as one of its children; I feel it in everything which your beautiful work has stirred in my heart. But prepare for the martyr's role--for the part which must be played by all who come from on high and offend what comes from below. Remember that when the Lord said, "He is one of the Elect," he added, "And I will show him how greatly he must suffer in my name."

Wherefore, my dear friend, spread forth your wings boldly, and trust yourself fearlessly to the lofty regions where the lead of earth cannot hit the bird of heaven.

Yours with all my heart,

CH. GOUNOD.

CHAPTER XI

MY DeBUT AT THE OPERA

Death, which by taking away my mother had stricken me in my dearest affections, had also taken her mother from my dear wife. So we lived the next summer at Fontainebleau in a sorrowful house of mourning.

Remembrance of the dear departed still hung over us, when I learned on the fifth of June of the death of Bizet. The news came like a thunder clap. Bizet had been a sincere and affectionate comrade, and I had a respectful admiration for him although we were about the same age.

His life was very hard. He felt the spirit within him, and he believed that his future glory would outlive him. _Carmen_, famous for forty years, appeared to those called upon to judge a work which contained good things, although it was somewhat incomplete, and also--what did they not say at the time?--a dangerous and immoral subject.

What a lesson on too hasty judgments!...

On returning to Fontainebleau after the gloomy funeral I tried to take up my life again and work on _Le Roi de Lah.o.r.e_ on which I had already been busy for several months.

The summer that year was particularly hot and enervating. I was so depressed that one day when a tremendous storm broke I felt almost annihilated and let myself fall asleep.

But if my body was lulled to sleep, my mind remained active; it seemed never to stop working. Indeed my ideas seemed to profit from this involuntary rest imposed by Nature to put themselves in order. I heard as in a dream my third act, the Paradise of India, played on the stage of the Opera. The intangible performance had, as it were, filled my mind. The same phenomenon happened to me on several subsequent occasions.

I never would have dared to hope it. That day and those which followed I began to write the rough draft of the instrumental music for that scene in Paradise.

Between times I continued to give numerous lessons in Paris, which I found equally oppressive and enervating.

I had long since formed the habit of getting up early. My work absorbed me from four o'clock in the morning until midday and lessons took up the six hours of the afternoon. Most of the evenings were given to my pupils' parents. We had music at their homes and we were made much of and entertained. I have been accustomed to working in the morning like this all my life, and I still continue the practice.

After spending the winter and spring in Paris we returned to our calm and peaceful family home in Fontainebleau. At the beginning of the summer of 1876 I finished the whole of the orchestral score for _Le Roi de Lah.o.r.e_ on which I had now spent several years.

Finishing a work is to bid good-by to the indescribable pleasure which the labor gives one!

I had on my desk eleven hundred pages of orchestral score and my arrangement for the piano, which I had just finished.

What would become of this work was the question I asked myself anxiously. Would it ever be played? As a matter of fact it was written for a large stage--that was the danger, the dark spot in the future.

During the preceding winter I had become acquainted with that soulful poet Charles Grandmougin. The delightful singer of the Promenades and the impa.s.sioned bard of the French Patrie had written a sacred legend in four parts, _La Vierge_, which he intended for me.

I have never been able to let my mind lie idle, and I at once started in on Grandmougin's beautiful verses. Why then should bitter discouragement arise? I will tell you later. As a matter of fact I could stand it no longer. I must see Paris again. It seemed to me that I would come back relieved of my weak heartedness which I had undergone without noticing it much.

I went to Paris on the twenty-sixth of July intending to bother Hartmann with my troubles by confessing them to him.

But I did not find him in. I strolled to the Conservatoire to pa.s.s the time. A compet.i.tion on the violin was in progress. When I got there, they were taking a ten minute rest, and I took advantage of it to pay my respects to my master Ambroise Thomas in the large room just off the jury-room.

As that place, then so delightfully alive, is to-day a desert which has been abandoned for other quarters, I will describe what the place was in which I grew up and lived for so many years.

The room of which I have spoken was reached by a great staircase entered through a vestibule of columns. As one reached the landing he saw two large pictures done by some painter or other of the First Empire. The door opposite opened on a room ornamented by a large mantelpiece and lighted by a gla.s.s ceiling in the style of the ancient temples.

The furniture was in the style of Napoleon I.

A door opened into the office of the director of the Conservatoire, a room large enough to hold ten or a dozen people seated about the green cloth table or seated or standing at separate tables. The decoration of the great hall of the Conservatoire was in the Pompeiian style in harmony with the room I have described.

Ambroise Thomas was leaning on the mantelpiece. When he saw me, he smiled joyfully, held out his arms into which I flung myself, and said with an appearance of resignation, delightful at the time, "Accept it; it is the first rung."

"What shall I accept?" I asked.

"What, you don't know? They gave you the cross yesterday?"

emile Rety, the valued general secretary of the Conservatoire, took the ribbon from his b.u.t.tonhole and put it in mine, but not without some difficulty. He had to open it with an ink eraser which he found on the jury's table near the president's desk.

That phrase "the first rung," was delightful and profoundly encouraging.

Now, I had only one urgent errand--to see my publisher.

I must confess to a feeling which enters into my tastes to such an extent as to be indicative of my character. I was still so youthful that I felt uneasy about the ribbon which seemed to blaze and draw all eyes.