“I will tell you a secret.
“There were two Trilbys. There was the Trilby you knew, who could not sing one single note in tune. She was an angel of paradise. She is now! But she had no more idea of singing than I have of winning a steeplechase at the croix de Berny. She could no more sing than a fiddle can play itself! She could never tell one tune from another—one note from the next. Do you remember how she tried to sing ‘Ben Bolt’ that day when she first came to the studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts? It was droll, hein? à se boucher les oreilles! Well, that was Trilby, your Trilby! that was my Trilby too—and I loved her as one loves an only love, an only sister, an only child—a gentle martyr on earth, a blessed saint in heaven! And that Trilby was enough for me!
“And that was the Trilby that loved your brother, madame—oh! but with all the love that was in her! He did not know what he had lost, your brother! Her love, it was immense, like her voice, and just as full of celestial sweetness and sympathy! She told me everything! ce pauvre Litrebili, ce qu’il a perdu!
“But all at once—pr‑r‑rout! presto! augenblick! … with one wave of his hand over her—with one look of his eye—with a word—Svengali could turn her into the other Trilby, his Trilby, and make her do whatever he liked … you might have run a red-hot needle into her and she would not have felt it. …
“He had but to say ‘Dors!’ and she suddenly became an unconscious Trilby of marble, who could produce wonderful sounds—just the sounds he wanted, and nothing else—and think his thoughts and wish his wishes—and love him at his bidding with a strange unreal factitious love … just his own love for himself turned inside out—à l’envers—and reflected back on him, as from a mirror … un écho, un simulacre, quoi! pas autre chose! … It was not worth having! I was not even jealous!
“Well, that was the Trilby he taught how to sing—and—and I helped him, God of heaven forgive me! That Trilby was just a singing-machine—an organ to play upon—an instrument of music—a Stradivarius—a flexible flageolet of flesh and blood—a voice, and nothing more—just the unconscious voice that Svengali sang with—for it takes two to sing like la Svengali, monsieur—the one who has got the voice, and the one who knows what to do with it. … So that when you heard her sing the ‘Nussbaum,’ the ‘Impromptu,’ you heard Svengali singing with her voice, just as you hear Joachim play a chaconne of Bach with his fiddle! … Herr Joachim’s fiddle … what does it know of Sebastian Bach? and as for chaconnes … il s’en moque pas mal, ce fameux violon! …
“And our Trilby … what did she know of Schumann, Chopin?—nothing at all! She mocked herself not badly of Nussbaums and impromptus … they would make her yawn to demantibulate her jaws! … When Svengali’s Trilby was being taught to sing … when Svengali’s Trilby was singing—or seemed to you as if she were singing—our Trilby had ceased to exist … our Trilby was fast asleep … in fact, our Trilby was dead. …
“Ah, monsieur … that Trilby of Svengali’s! I have heard her sing to kings and queens in royal palaces! … as no woman has ever sung before or since. … I have seen emperors and grand-dukes kiss her hand, monsieur—and their wives and daughters kiss her lips, and weep. …
“I have seen the horses taken out of her sledge and the pick of the nobility drag her home to the hotel … with torchlights and choruses and shoutings of glory and long life to her! … and serenades all night, under her window! … she never knew! she heard nothing—felt nothing—saw nothing! and she bowed to them, right and left, like a queen!
“I have played the fiddle for her while she sang in the streets, at fairs and festas and Kermessen … and seen the people go mad to hear her … and once, at Prague, Svengali fell down in a fit from sheer excitement! and then, suddenly, our Trilby woke up and wondered what it was all about … and we took him home and put him to bed and left him with Marta—and Trilby and I went together arm in arm all over the town to fetch a doctor and buy things for supper—and that was the happiest hour in all my life!
“Ach! what an existence! what travels! what triumphs! what adventures! Things to fill a book—a dozen books—Those five happy years—with those two Trilbys! what recollections! … I think of nothing else, night or day … even as I play the fiddle for old Cantharidi. Ach! … To think how often I have played the fiddle for la Svengali … to have done that is to have lived … and then to come home to Trilby … our Trilby … the real Trilby! … Gott sei dank! Ich habe geliebt und gelebet! geliebt und gelebet! geliebt und gelebet! Cristo di Dio. … Sweet sister in heaven. … Ô Dieu de Misère, ayez pitié de nous. …”
His eyes were red, and his voice was high and shrill and tremulous and full of tears; these remembrances were too much for him; and perhaps also the chambertin! He put his elbows on the table and hid his face in his hands and wept, muttering to himself in his own language (Whatever that might have been—Polish, probably) as if he were praying.
Taffy and his wife got up and leaned on the window-bar and looked out on the deserted boulevards, where an army of scavengers, noiseless and taciturn, was cleansing the asphalt roadway. The night above was dark, but “star-dials hinted of morn,” and a fresh breeze had sprung up, making the leaves dance and rustle
