“V’là mon mari qui r’garde
Prends garde—ne m’chatouille plus!
“It does not want much of an obbligato, hein, a song so noble and so beautiful as that!
“And that song, monsieur, all Paris is singing it now. And that is the Paris that went mad when Trilby sang the ‘Nussbaum’ of Schumann at the Salle des Bashibazoucks. You heard her? Well!”
And here poor Gecko tried to laugh a little sardonic laugh in falsetto, like Svengali’s, full of scorn and bitterness—and very nearly succeeded.
“But what made you strike him with—with that knife, you know?”
“Ah, monsieur, it had been coming on for a long time. He used to work Trilby too hard; it was killing her—it killed her at last! And then at the end he was unkind to her and scolded her and called her names—horrid names—and then one day in London he struck her. He struck her on the fingers with his baton, and she fell down on her knees and cried …
“Monsieur, I would have defended Trilby against a locomotive going grande vitesse! against my own father—against the Emperor of Austria—against the Pope! and I am a good Catholic, monsieur! I would have gone to the scaffold for her, and to the devil after!”
And he piously crossed himself.
“But, Svengali—wasn’t he very fond of her?”
“Oh yes, monsieur! quant à ça, passionately! But she did not love him as he wished to be loved. She loved Litrebili, monsieur! Litrebili, the brother of madame. And I suppose that Svengali grew angry and jealous at last. He changed as soon as he came to Paris. Perhaps Paris reminded him of Litrebili—and reminded Trilby, too!”
“But how on earth did Svengali ever manage to teach her how to sing like that? She had no ear for music whatever when we knew her!”
Gecko was silent for a while, and Taffy filled his glass, and gave him a cigar, and lit one himself.
“Monsieur, no—that is true. She had not much ear. But she had such a voice as had never been heard. Svengali knew that. He had found it out long ago. Litolff had found it out, too. One day Svengali heard Litolff tell Meyerbeer that the most beautiful female voice in Europe belonged to an English grisette who sat as a model to sculptors in the quartier latin, but that unfortunately she was quite tone-deaf, and couldn’t sing one single note in tune. Imagine how Svengali chuckled! I see it from here!
“Well, we both taught her together—for three years—morning, noon, and night—six—eight hours a day. It used to split me the heart to see her worked like that! We took her voice note by note—there was no end to her notes, each more beautiful than the other—velvet and gold, beautiful flowers, pearls, diamonds, rubies—drops of dew and honey; peaches, oranges, and lemons! en veux-tu en voilà!—all the perfumes and spices of the Garden of Eden! Svengali with his little flexible flageolet, I with my violin—that is how we taught her to make the sounds—and then how to use them. She was a phénomène, monsieur! She could keep on one note and make it go through all the colors in the rainbow—according to the way Svengali looked at her. It would make you laugh—it would make you cry—but, cry or laugh, it was the sweetest, the most touching, the most beautiful note you ever heard—except all her others! and each had as many overtones as the bells in the Carillon de Notre Dame. She could run up and down the scales, chromatic scales, quicker and better and smoother than Svengali on the piano, and more in tune than any piano! and her shake—ach! twin stars, monsieur! She was the greatest contralto, the greatest soprano the world has ever known! the like of her has never been! the like of her will never be again! and yet she only sang in public for two years.
“Ach! those breaks and runs and sudden leaps from darkness into light and back again—from earth to heaven! … those slurs and swoops and slides à la Paganini from one note to another, like a swallow flying! … or a gull! Do you remember them? how they drove you mad? Let any other singer in the world try to imitate them—they would make you sick! That was Svengali … he was a magician!
“And how she looked, singing! do you remember? her hands behind her—her dear, sweet, slender foot on a little stool—her thick hair lying down all along her back! And that good smile like the Madonna’s so soft and bright and kind! Ach! Bel ucel di Dio! it was to make you weep for love, merely to see her (c’était à vous faire pleurer d’amour, rien que de la voir)! That was Trilby! Nightingale and bird-of-paradise in one!
“Enfin she could do anything—utter any sound she liked, when once Svengali had shown her how—and he was the greatest master that ever lived! and when once she knew a thing, she knew it. Et voilà!”
“How strange,” said Taffy, “that she should have suddenly gone out of her senses that night at Drury Lane, and so completely forgotten it all! I suppose she saw Svengali die in the box opposite, and that drove her mad!”
And then Taffy told the little fiddler about Trilby’s death-song, like a swan’s, and Svengali’s photograph. But Gecko had heard it all from Marta, who was now dead.
Gecko sat and smoked and pondered for a while, and looked from one to the other. Then he pulled himself together with an effort, so to speak, and said, “Monsieur, she never went mad—not for one moment!”
“What! Do you mean to say she deceived us all?”
“Non, monsieur! She could never deceive anybody, and never would. She had forgotten—voilà tout!”
“But hang it all, my friend, one doesn’t forget such a—”
“Monsieur, listen! She is dead. And
