Mais que m’importe?
Je passe devant ta maison:
Ouvre ta porte!
Ouvre ta porte!
Bonjour, Suzon!”
And when it began, and while it lasted, and after it was over, one felt really sorry for all the other singers. And nobody sang any more that night; for Glorioli was tired, and wouldn’t sing again, and none were bold enough or disinterested enough to sing after him.
Some of my readers may remember that meteoric bird of song, who, though a mere amateur, would condescend to sing for a hundred guineas in the saloons of the great (as Monsieur Jourdain sold cloth); who would sing still better for love and glory in the studios of his friends.
For Glorioli—the biggest, handsomest, and most distinguished-looking Jew that ever was—one of the Sephardim (one of the Seraphim!)—hailed from Spain, where he was junior partner in the great firm of Moralés, Peralés, Gonzalés & Glorioli, wine-merchants, Malaga. He travelled for his own firm; his wine was good, and he sold much of it in England. But his voice would bring him far more gold in the month he spent here; for his wines have been equalled—even surpassed—but there was no voice like his anywhere in the world, and no more finished singer.
Anyhow, his voice got into Little Billee’s head more than any wine, and the boy could talk of nothing else for days and weeks; and was so exuberant in his expressions of delight and gratitude that the great singer took a real fancy to him (especially when he was told that this fervent boyish admirer was one of the greatest of English painters); and as a mark of his esteem, privately confided to him after supper that every century two human nightingales were born—only two! a male and a female; and that he, Glorioli, was the representative “male rossignol of this soi-disant dix-neuvième siècle.”
“I can well believe that! And the female, your mate that should be—la rossignolle, if there is such a word?” inquired Little Billee.
“Ah! mon ami … it was Alboni till la petite Adelina Patti came out a year or two ago; and now it is la Svengali.”
“La Svengali?”
“Oui, mon fy! You will hear her some day—et vous m’en direz des nouvelles!”
“Why, you don’t mean to say that she’s got a better voice than Madame Alboni?”
“Mon ami, an apple is an excellent thing—until you have tried a peach! Her voice to that of Alboni is as a peach to an apple—I give you my word of honor! but bah! the voice is a detail. It’s what she does with it—it’s incredible! it gives one cold all down the back! it drives you mad! it makes you weep hot tears by the spoonful! Ah! the tear, mon fy! tenez! I can draw everything but that! Ça n’est pas dans mes cordes! I can only madden with love! But la Svengali! … And then, in the middle of it all, prrrout! … she makes you laugh! Ah! le beau rire! faire rire avec des larmes plein les yeux—voilà qui me passe! … Mon ami, when I heard her it made me swear that even I would never try to sing any more—it seemed too absurd! and I kept my word for a month at least—and you know, je sais ce que je vaux, moi!”
“You are talking of la Svengali, I bet,” said Signor Spartia.
“Oui, parbleu! You have heard her?”
“Yes—at Vienna last winter,” rejoined the greatest singing-master in the world. “J’en suis fou! hélas! I thought I could teach a woman how to sing till I heard that blackguard Svengali’s pupil. He has married her, they say!”
“That blackguard Svengali!” exclaimed Little Billee … “why, that must be a Svengali I knew in Paris—a famous pianist! a friend of mine!”
“That’s the man! also une fameuse crapule (sauf vot’ respect); his real name is Adler; his mother was a Polish singer; and he was a pupil at the Leipzig Conservatorio. But he’s an immense artist, and a great singing-master, to teach a woman like that! and such a woman! belle comme un ange—mais bête comme un pot. I tried to talk to her—all she can say is ‘ja wohl,’ or ‘doch,’ or ‘nein,’ or ‘soh’! not a word of English or French or Italian, though she sings them, oh! but divinely! It is ‘il bel canto’ come back to the world after a hundred years. …”
“But what voice is it?” asked Little Billee.
“Every voice a mortal woman can have—three octaves—four! and of such a quality that people who can’t tell one tune from another cry with pleasure at the mere sound of it directly they hear her; just like anybody else. Everything that Paganini could do with his violin she does with her voice—only better—and what a voice! un vrai baume!”
“Now I don’t mind petting zat you are schbeaking of la Sfencali,” said Herr Kreutzer, the famous composer, joining in. “Quelle merfeille, hein? I heard her in St. Betersburg, at ze Vinter Balace. Ze vomen all vent mat, and pulled off zeir bearls and tiamonts and kave zem to her—vent town on zeir knees and gried and gissed her hants. She tit not say vun vort! She tit not efen schmile! Ze men schnifelled in ze gorners, and looked at ze bictures, and tissempled—efen I, Johann Kreutzer! efen ze Emperor!”
“You’re joking,” said Little Billee.
“My vrent, I neffer choke ven I talk apout zinging. You vill hear her zum tay yourzellof, and you vill acree viz me zat zere are two classes of beoble who zing. In ze vun class, la Sfencali; in ze ozzer, all ze ozzer zingers!”
“And does she sing good music?”
“I ton’t know. All music is koot ven she zings it. I forket ze zong; I can only sink of ze zinger. Any koot zinger can zing a peautiful zong and kif bleasure,
