And such, indeed, they were when Trilby sang of them!
After this, when the long, frantic applause had subsided, she made a gracious bow to the royal British opera-glass (which had never left her face), and sang “Ben Bolt” in English!
And then Little Billee remembered there was such a person as Svengali in the world, and recalled his little flexible flageolet!
“That is how I teach Gecko; that is how I teach la bedite Honorine; that is how I teach il bel canto. … It was lost, il bel canto—and I found it in a dream—I, Svengali!”
And his old cosmic vision of the beauty and sadness of things, the very heart of them, and their pathetic evanescence, came back with a tenfold clearness—that heavenly glimpse beyond the veil! And with it a crushing sense of his own infinitesimal significance by the side of this glorious pair of artists, one of whom had been his friend and the other his love—a love who had offered to be his humble mistress and slave, not feeling herself good enough to be his wife!
It made him sick and faint to remember, and filled him with hot shame, and then and there his love for Trilby became as that of a dog for its master!
She sang once more—“Chanson de Printemps,” by Gounod (who was present, and seemed very hysterical), and the first part of the concert was over, and people had time to draw breath and talk over this new wonder, this revelation of what the human voice could achieve; and an immense hum filled the hall—astonishment, enthusiasm, ecstatic delight!
But our three friends found little to say—for what they felt there were as yet no words!
Taffy and the Laird looked at Little Billee, who seemed to be looking inward at some transcendent dream of his own; with red eyes, and his face all pale and drawn, and his nose very pink, and rather thicker than usual; and the dream appeared to be out of the common blissful, though his eyes were swimming still, for his smile was almost idiotic in its rapture!
The second part of the concert was still shorter than the first, and created, if possible, a wilder enthusiasm.
Trilby only sang twice.
Her first song was “Malbrouck s’en va-t’en guerre.”
She began it quite lightly and merrily, like a jolly march; in the middle of her voice, which had not as yet revealed any exceptional compass or range. People laughed quite frankly at the first verse:
“Malbrouck s’en va-t’en guerre—
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!
Malbrouck s’en va-t’en guerre. …
Ne sais quand reviendra!
Ne sais quand reviendra!
Ne sais quand reviendra!”
The mironton, mirontaine was the very essence of high martial resolve and heroic self-confidence; one would have led a forlorn hope after hearing it once!
“Il reviendra-z-à Pâques—
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!
Il reviendra-z-à Pâques. …
Ou … à la Trinité!”
People still laughed, though the mironton, mirontaine betrayed an uncomfortable sense of the dawning of doubts and fears—vague forebodings!
“La Trinité se passe—
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!
La Trinité se passe. …
Malbrouck ne revient pas!”
And here, especially in the mironton, mirontaine, a note of anxiety revealed itself—so poignant, so acutely natural and human, that it became a personal anxiety of one’s own, causing the heart to beat, and one’s breath was short.
“Madame à sa tour monte—
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!
Madame à sa tour monte,
Si haut qu’elle peut monter!”
Oh! How one’s heart went with her! Anne! Sister Anne! Do you see anything?
“Elle voit de loin son page—
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!
Elle voit de loin son page,
Tout de noir habillé!”
One is almost sick with the sense of impending calamity—it is all but unbearable!
“Mon page—mon beau page!—
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!
Mon page—mon beau page!
Quelles nouvelles apportez?”
And here Little Billee begins to weep again, and so does everybody else! The mironton, mirontaine is an agonized wail of suspense—poor bereaved duchess!—poor Sarah Jennings! Did it all announce itself to you just like that?
All this while the accompaniment had been quite simple—just a few obvious ordinary chords.
But now, quite suddenly, without a single modulation or note of warning, down goes the tune a full major third, from E to C—into the graver depths of Trilby’s great contralto—so solemn and ominous that there is no more weeping, but the flesh creeps; the accompaniment slows and elaborates itself; the march becomes a funeral march, with muted strings, and quite slowly:
“Aux nouvelles que j’apporte—
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!
Aux nouvelles que j’apporte,
Vos beaux yeux vont pleurer!”
Richer and richer grows the accompaniment. The mironton, mirontaine becomes a dirge—
“Quittez vos habits roses—
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!
Quittez vos habits roses,
Et vos satins brochés!”
Here the ding-donging of a big bell seems to mingle with the score; … and very slowly, and so impressively that the news will ring forever in the ears and hearts of those who hear it from la Svengali’s lips:
“Le Sieur Malbrouck est mort—
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!
Le Sieur—Malbrouck—est—mort!
Est mort—et enterré!”
And thus it ends quite abruptly!
And this heartrending tragedy, this great historical epic in two dozen lines, at which some five or six thousand gay French people are sniffling and mopping their eyes like so many Niobes, is just a common old French comic song—a mere nursery ditty, like “Little Bo-peep”—to the tune,
“We won’t go home till morning,
Till daylight doth appear.”
And after a second or two of
