 Part 4 of Part 7 of Trillby. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Estelle Jobson. Trillby by George de Maurier, Part 7, Part 4. Little Belly said, Tell me, Trillby, what made you cut me dead when I bowed to you in the Place de la Concorde, and you were riding with Spengali in that swell carriage? I never rode in a swell carriage with Spengali. Omnibosses were more in our line. You're dreaming, dear little Billy. You're taking me for somebody else. And as for my cutting you, why I had sooner cut myself into little pieces. Where were you staying with Spengali in Paris? I really forget. Were we in Paris? Oh, yes, of course. Hotel Bertrand, Place Notre-Dame de Victoire. How long have you been going about with Spengali? Oh, months, years, I forget. I was very ill. He cured me. Ill? What was the matter? Oh, I was mad with grief and pain in my eyes, and wanted to kill myself when I lost my dear little journal at Vibrai. I fancied I hadn't been careful enough with him. I was crazed. Don't you remember writing to me there, Taffy, through Angel Bois? Such a sweet letter you wrote. I know it by heart. And you too, Sandy. And she kissed him. I wonder where they are, your letters. I've got nothing of my own in the world. Not even your dear letters, nor little billies. Such lots of them. Well, Spengali used to write to me, too. And then he got my address from Angel. When Journal died, I felt I must kill myself or get away from Vibrai, get away from the people there. So when he was buried, I cut my hair short and got a workman's cap and blouse and trousers, and walked all the way to Paris without saying anything to anybody. I didn't want anybody to know. I wanted to escape from Spengali, who wrote that he was coming there to fetch me. I wanted to hide in Paris. When I got there at last, it was two o'clock in the morning, in dreadful pain, and had lost all my money thirty francs through a hole in my trousers pocket. Besides, I had a row with a carter in the alle. He thought I was a man, and hit me, and gave me a black eye, just because I patted his horse and fed it with a carrot I'd been trying to eat myself. He was tipsy, I think. Well, I looked over the bridge at the river, just by the morgue, and wanted to jump in. But the morgue sickened me, so I hadn't the pluck. Spengali used to be always talking about the morgue, and my going there some day. He used to say he'd come and look at me there, and the idea made me so sick I couldn't. I got bewildered and quite stupid. Then I went to Angels in the rue des Clouettes-Rossin-Petronil, and waited about. But I hadn't the courage to ring, so I went to the Place Saint-Anatole-des-Arts, and looked up at the old studio window, and thought how comfortable it was in there with the big seti near the stove, and all that, and felt inclined to ring up Madame Vinard. And then I remembered little Billy was ill there, and his mother and sister were with him. Angèle had written me, you know, poor little Billy. There he was, very ill. So I walked about the Place, and up and down the rue des Trois mauvais Ladres. Then I went down the rue de Seine to the river again, and again I hadn't the pluck to jump in. Besides, there was a sergent de Ville, who followed and watched me. And the fun of it was that I knew him quite well, and he didn't know me a bit. It was Celestein Beaumoulais, who got so tipsy on Christmas night, don't you remember, the tall one who was pitted with the smallpox. Then I walked about till near daylight. Then I could stand it no longer, and went to Svengales in the rue Thierliard. But he'd moved to the rue des Saint-Pères, and I went there and found him. I didn't want to, a bit, but I couldn't help myself. It was fate, I suppose. He was very kind, and cured me almost directly, and got me coffee and bread and butter, the best I ever tasted, and a warm bath from Bi des Frères in the rue Savonne-Roll. It was heavenly, and I slept for two days and two nights. And then he told me how fond he was of me, and how he would always cure me, and take care of me and marry me, if I would go away with him. He said he would devote his whole life to me, and took a small room for me next to his. I stayed with him there a week, never going out or seeing anyone, mostly asleep. I'd caught a chill. He played in two concerts, and made a lot of money, and then we went away to Germany together, and no one was a bit the wiser. And did he marry you? Well, no. He couldn't, poor fellow. He'd already got a wife living, and three children which he declared were not his. They live in Elbefeld in Prussia. She keeps a small, sweet-stuffed shop there. He behaved very badly to them. But it was not through me. He deserted them long before. But he used to send them plenty of money when he'd got any. I made him, for I was very sorry for her. He was always talking about her, and what she said and what she did, and imitating her saying her prayers and eating pickled cucumber with one hand and drinking schnapps with the other, so as not to lose any time, till he made me die of laughing. It could be very funny, Svengali, though he was German, poor dear, and then Gekko joined us and Marta. Who's Marta? His aunt. She cooked for us and all that. She's coming here presently. She sent word from the hotel. She's very fond of him, poor Marta. Poor Gekko. What did he ever do without Svengali? Then what did he do to live? Oh, he played at concerts, I suppose, and all that. Did you ever hear him? Yes, sometimes Marta took me. At the beginning, you know, he was always very much applauded. He played beautifully. Everybody said so. Did he never try and teach you to sing? Oh, my, I, I, not he. Why, he always laughed when I tried to sing, and so did Marta, and so did Gekko. It made them roar. I used to sing Ben Bolt. They used to make me just for fun and go into fits. I didn't mind a scrap. I'd had no training, you know. Was there anybody else he knew, any other woman? Not that I know of. He always made out he was so fond of me that he couldn't even look at another woman, poor Svengali. Hear her eyes filled with tears again. He was always very kind, but I never could be fond of him in the way he wished never. It made me sick even to think of. Once I used to hate him in Paris in the studio. Don't you remember? He hardly ever left me, and then Marta looked after me, for I've always been weak and ill and often so languid that I could hardly walk across the room. It was that three days walk from Vibray to Paris. I never got over it. I used to try and do all I could. Be a daughter to him, or anything else, mained his things and all that, and cook him little French dishes. I fancy he was very poor at one time. We were always moving from place to place. But I always had the best of everything. He insisted on that, even if he had to go without himself. It made him quite unhappy when I wouldn't eat, so I used to force myself. Then, as soon as I felt uneasy about things, or had any pain, he would say, ma mignon, and I would sleep at once for hours, I think, and wake up, oh, so tired, and find him kneeling by me always so anxious and kind, and Marta and Gekko, and sometimes we had the doctor, and I was ill in bed. Gekko used to dine and breakfast with us, if no idea what an angel he is, poor little Gekko. But what a dreadful thing to strike Svengali. Why did he? From all he knows. And you knew no one else, no other woman? No one that I can remember, except Marta, not a soul. And that beautiful dress you had on last night? It isn't mine. It's on the bed upstairs, and so's the fur cloak. They belong to Marta. She's got lots of them, lovely things, silk, satin, velvet, and lots of beautiful jewels. There's lots of money. I've often tried them on. I'm very easy to fit, she said, being so tall and thin. And poor Svengali would kneel down and cry and kiss my hands and feet and tell me I was his goddess and empress and all that, which I hate. And Marta used to cry, too. And then he would say, et maintenant dors, ma mignonne. And when I woke up I was so tired that I went to sleep again on my own account. But he was very patient. Oh, dear me, I've always been a poor, helpless, useless log and burden to him. Once I actually walked in my sleep and woke up in the marketplace at Prague and found an immense crowd and poor Svengali bleeding from the forehead. In a faint on the ground he'd been knocked down by a horse and cart, he told me. He'd got his guitar with him. I suppose he and Gekko had been playing somewhere, for Gekko had his fiddle. If Gekko hadn't been there I don't know what we should have done. You never saw such queer people as they were, such crowds. You'd think they'd never seen an Englishwoman before. The noise they made and the things they gave me, some of them went down on their knees and kissed my hands on the skirts of my gown. He was ill in bed for a week after that and I nursed him and he was very grateful. Poor Svengali. God knows I felt grateful to him for many things. Tell me how he died. I hope he hadn't much pain. They told her it was quite sudden from heart disease. Ah, I knew he had that. He wasn't a healthy man. He used to smoke too much. Marta used always to be very anxious. Just then Marta came in. Marta was a fat elderly Jewess of a rather grotesque and ignoble type. She seemed overcome with grief but all prostrate. Trilby hugged and kissed her and took of her bonnet and shawl and made her sit down in a big armchair and got her a footstool. She couldn't speak a word of anything but Polish and a little German. Trilby had also picked up a little German and with this and by means of signs and no doubt through a long intimacy with each other's ways they understood each other very well. She seemed a very good old creature and very fond of Trilby but in mortal terror of the three Englishmen. Lunch was brought up for the two women and the nurse and our friends left them promising to come again that day. They were utterly bewildered and the lad would have it that there was another madame's fengali somewhere, the real one and that Trilby was a fraud, self-deceived and self-deceiving quite unconsciously so, of course. Truth looked out of her eyes as it always had done. Truth was in every line of her face. The truth only nothing but the truth could ever be told by the voice of Velvet which rang as true when she spoke as that of any thrush or nightingale however rebellious it might be now and forever perhaps to artificial melodic laws and limitations and restraints. The long training it had been subjected to had made it a wonder, a world's delight and though she might never sing another note her mere speech would always be more golden than any silence whatever she might say. But on the one particular point of her singing she had seemed absolutely sane so at least thought Taffy the Laird and Little Billy and each thought to himself besides that this last incarnation of Trilbyness was quite the sweetest, most touching most endearing of all they had not failed to note how rapidly she had aged now that they had seen her without her rouge and pearl powder she looked thirty at least she was only twenty-three. Her hands were almost transparent in their wax and whiteness delicate little frosty wrinkles that gathered round her eyes there were grey streaks in her hair all strength and straightness and elasticity seemed to have gone out of her with the memory of her endless triumphs if she really was, Las Vangali and of her many wanderings from city to city all over Europe it was evident enough that the sudden stroke which had destroyed her power of singing had left her physically a wreck. But she was one of those rarely gifted beings who cannot look or speak or even stir without waking up and satisfying some vague longing that lies dormant in the hearts of most of us, men and women alike. Grace, charm, magnetism whatever the nameless seduction should be called that she possessed to such an unusual degree she had lost none of it when she lost her high spirits, her buoyant health and energy, her wits tuneless and insane she was more of a siren than ever a quite unconscious siren without any guile who appealed to the heart all the more directly and irresistibly that she could no longer stir the passions all this was keenly felt by all three each in his different way by Taffy and Little Billy especially all her past life was forgiven her sins of omission and commission and whatever might be her fate recovery, madness, disease or death of her till she died or recovered should be the principal business of their lives both had loved her all three perhaps one had been loved by her as passionately as purely as unselfishly as any man could wish to be loved and in some extraordinary manner had recovered after many years at the mere sudden sight and sound of her his lost share in our common inheritance the power to love and all its joys and sorrow without which he had found life not worth living though he had possessed every other gift and blessing in such abundance O Cersei poor Cersei dear Cersei divine enchantress that you were, he said to himself in his excitable way a mere look from your eyes, a mere note of your heavenly voice has turned a poor miserable callous brute back into a man again and I will never forget it never and now that is still worse trouble than mine has befallen you, you shall always rest in my thoughts till the end and Taffy felt pretty much the same though he was not by way of talking to himself so eloquently about things as little Billy as they lunged they read the accounts of the previous evenings events in different papers three or four of which, including the times had already got leaders about the famous but unhappy singer who had been so suddenly widowed and struck down in the midst of her glory all these accounts were more or less correct Taffy was mentioned that Madame Svigali was under the roof in care of Mr William Baggore the painter in Fitzroy Square the inquest on Svigali was to take place that afternoon and also Gekko's examination at the Bow Street Police Court for his assault Taffy was allowed to see Gekko who was remanded till the result of the post-mortem and should be made public but beyond inquiring most anxiously and minutely after Trilby and betraying the most passionate concern for her he would say nothing and seemed indifferent as to his own fate when they went to Fitzroy Square late in the afternoon they found that many people musical, literary, fashionable and otherwise, and many foreigners had called to inquire after Madame Svigali but no one had been admitted to see her Mrs Godwin was much elated by the importance of her new lodger Trilby had been writing to Angel Bois at her old address in the Rue des Clouettes Saint Petronil in the hope that this letter would find her still there she was anxious to go back and be a Blanchisseuse de faim with her friend it was a kind of nostalgia for Paris the Cartier-Latin, her clean old trade this project our three heroes did not think it necessary to discuss with her just yet she seemed quite unfit for work of any kind the doctor who had seen her again had been puzzled by her strange physical weakness consultation with some special authority little Billy who was intimate with most of the great physicians wrote about her to Sir Oliver Calfalp she seemed to find a deep happiness in being with her three old friends and talked and listened with all her old eagerness and geniality and much of her old gaiety in spite of her strange and sorrowful position but for this it was impossible to realize that her brain was affected in the slightest degree except when some reference was made to her singing and this seemed to annoy and irritate her as though she were being made fun of the whole of her marvellous musical career and everything connected with it had been clean wiped out of her recollection she was very anxious to get into other quarters that little Billy should suffer no inconvenience and their promise to take rooms for her and Martha on the morrow they told her cautiously all about Spengali and Gekko she was deeply concerned about how much poignant anguish as might have been expected the thought of Gekko troubled her most and she showed much anxiety as to what might befall him next day she moved with Martha to some lodgings in Charlotte Street where everything was made as comfortable for them as possible Sir Oliver saw her with Dr. Thorn the doctor who was attending her and Dr. Jake's Talboys Sir Oliver took the greatest interest in her case both for her sake and his friend little Billy's also his own for he was charmed with her he saw her three times in the course of the week but could not say for certain what was the matter with her beyond taking the very gravest view of her condition for all he could advise or prescribe her weakness and physical prostration increased rapidly through no cause he could discover her insanity was not enough to account for it she lost weight daily she seemed to be wasting her trading away from sheer general atrophy two or three times he took her and Martha for a drive on one of these occasions as they went down Charlotte Street she saw a shop with transparent French blinds in the window and through them some French women with neat white caps ironing it was a French blanche and the sight of it interested and excited her so much that she must needs insist on being put down and on going into it I would like to speak to the boss if it does not bother her she said the boss a genius Parisian was much astonished to hear a great French lady in costly garments evidently a person of fashion and importance applying to her rather humbly for employment in the business and showing a thorough knowledge of the work and of the Parisian work woman's colloquial dialect Martha managed to catch the patron's eye and tapped her own forehead significantly and Sir Oliver nodded so the good woman humed the great lady's fancy and promised her abundance of employment whenever she should want it employment poor Trilby was hardly strong enough to walk back to the carriage and this was her last outing but this little adventure had filled her with hope and good spirits for she had as yet received no answer from Angel Bois who was in Marseille and had begun to realise how dreary an quartier latin would be without Jono, without Angel without the Trois Anglices in the Place Saint-Anatole-des-Arts she was not allowed to see any of the strangers who came and made kind inquiries this her doctors had strictly forbidden any reference to music or singing irritated her beyond measure she would say to Martha in bad German tell them Martha what nonsense it is they are taking me for another they are mad they are trying to make a fool of me I would betray a great uneasiness almost terror when she was appealed to in this way End of Part 7 Recording by Estelle Jobson Rome, Italy Part 8 of Trilby this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Estelle Jobson Trilby by Georges Demoyer Part 8 Part 1 La vie est vain, un peu d'amour un peu de haine et puis bonjour La vie est brève, un peu d'espoir un peu de rêve, et puis bonsoir Sven Gali had died from heart disease the cut he had received from Gekko had not apparently as far as the verdict of a coroner's inquest could be trusted had any effect in aggravating his mortality or hastening his death but Gekko was sent for trial at the Old Bailey and sentenced to hard labour for six months a sentence which if I remember right gave rise to much comment at the time Taffy saw him again but with no better result than before he chose to preserve an obstinate silence on his relations with the Sven Gali's and their relations with each other when he was told how hopelessly ill and insane as Sven Gali was he shed a few tears and said ah povret, povret ah monsieur je l'aimais tant, je l'aimais tant il n'y en a pas beaucoup comme elle dieu de misère, cet ange du paradis and not another word was to be got out of him it took some time to settle Sven Gali's affairs after his death no will was found his old mother came over from Germany and two of his sisters but no wife the comic wife and the three children and the sweet stuff shop in Elbefeld had been humorous inventions of his own a kind of Mrs Harris he left three thousand pounds every penny of which and a far larger sums that he had spent had been earned by La Sven Gali but nothing came to trilby of this nothing but the clothes and jewels he had given her and in this respect he had been lavish enough and there were countless costly gifts from emperors king's great people of all kinds trilby was under the impression that all these belonged to Marta Marta behaved admirably she seemed to bound hand and foot to trilby by a kind of slavish adoration as that of a plain old mother for a brilliant and beautiful but dying child it soon became evident that whatever her disease might be trilby had but a very short time to live she was soon too weak even to be taken out in a bath chair and remained all day in her large sitting room with Marta and there to her great and only joy she received her three old friends every afternoon and gave them coffee and made them smoke cigarettes of cup roll as of old and their hearts were daily harrowed as they watched her rapid decline day by day she grew more beautiful in their eyes in spite of her freezing pallor and emaciation her skin was so pure and white and delicate and the bones of her face so admirable the eyes recovered all their old humorous brightness when les trois zones liches were with her and the expression of her face was so wistful and tender for all her playfulness so full of eager clinging to existence and to them that they felt the memory of it would haunt them forever and be the sweetest saddest memory of their lives her quick though feeble gestures full of reminiscences of the vigorous and lively girl they had known a few years back sent waves of pity through them and pure brotherly love and the incomparable tones and changes and modulations of her voice as she chatted and laughed bewitched them almost as much as when she had sung the Noosebaum of Schumann in the cell de Bashiwazook sometimes Larimer came and Antony and the Greek it was like a genial little court of Bohemia and Larimer, Antony, the Laird and little Billy made those beautiful chalk and pencil studies of her head which are now so well known all so singularly like her and so singularly unlike each other Trilby vu à travers quatre tempéraments these afternoons were probably the happiest poor Trilby had ever spent in her life with these dear people around her speaking the language she loved talking of old times and jolly Paris days she never thought of the morrow but later at night in the small hours she would wake up with a start from some dream full of tender and blissful recollections and suddenly realize her own mischance and feel the icy hand of that which was to come before many morrows were over and taste the bitterness of death so keenly that she longed to scream out loud and get up and walk up and down and wring her hands at the dreadful thought of parting forever but she lay motionless and mum as a poor little frightened mouse in a trap for fear of waking up the good old tired Marta who was snoring at her side and in an hour or two the bitterness would pass away the creeps and the horrors and the stoical spirit of resignation would steal over her the balm the blessed calm and all her old bravery would come back and then she would sink into sleep again and dream more blissfully than ever till the good Marta woke her with a motherly kiss and a fragrant cup of coffee and she would find feeble as she was and doomed as she felt herself to be that joy cometh of a morning and life was still sweet for her with yet a whole day to look forward to one day she was deeply moved at receiving a visit from Mrs. Bagor who, at little Billy's earnest desire, had come all the way from Devonshire to see her as the graceful little lady came in pale and trembling all over Trilby rose from her chair to receive her and rather timidly put out her hand and smiled in a frightened manner neither could speak for a second Mrs. Bagor stood stock still by the door gazing with all her heart in her eyes at the so terribly altered Trilby, the girl she had once so dreaded Trilby, who seemed also bereft of motion and whose face and lips were ashen, exclaimed I am afraid I haven't quite kept my promise to you after all but things have turned out so differently anyhow you needn't have any fear of me now the mere sound of that voice, Mrs. Bagor who was as impulsive, emotional and unregulated as her son rushed forward crying oh my poor girl, my poor girl and caught her in her arms and kissed and caressed her and burst into a flood of tears and forced her back into her chair hugging her as if she were a long lost child I love you now as much as I always admired you pray believe it oh how kind of you to say that said Trilby her own eyes filling I'm not at all the dangerous or designing person you thought I knew quite well I wasn't a proper person to marry your son all the time and told him so again and again it was very stupid of me to say yes at last I was miserable directly after I assure you somehow I couldn't help myself I was driven oh don't talk of that you've never been to blame in any way I've long known it I've been full of remorse you've been in my thoughts always night and day forgive a poor jealous mother as if any man could help loving you or any woman either forgive me oh Mrs. Bagor forgive you what a funny idea but anyhow you have forgiven me and that's all I care for now I was very fond of your son as fond as could be I am now but in quite a different sort of way and you know the sort of way you must be I fancy there was never another like him that I ever met anywhere you must be so proud of him who wouldn't nobody's good enough for him I would have been only too glad to be his servant his humble servant I used to tell him so but he wouldn't hear of it he was much too kind he always thought of others before himself and oh how rich and famous he's become I've heard all about it and it did me good it does me more good to think of than anything else far more than if I were to ever be so rich and famous myself I can tell you this from Las Vangali whose overpowering fame so utterly forgotten by herself was still ringing all over Europe whose lamentable illness and approaching death were being mourned and discussed and commented upon in every capital of the civilized world as one distressing bulletin appeared after another she might have been a royal personage Mrs. Bagon knew of course the strange form her insanity had taken and made no illusion to the flood of thoughts that rushed through her own brain as she listened to this towering goddess of song and queen of the nightingales humbly gloating over her son's success poor Mrs. Bagon had just come from Little Billy's in Fitzroy Square close by there she had seen Taffy in a corner of Little Billy's studio laboriously answering endless letters and telegrams from all parts of Europe for the good Taffy had constituted himself, Trilby's secretary and Om Dafer unknown to her of course this was no sinecure though he liked it putting aside the numerous people he had to see and be interviewed by there were kind inquiries and messages of condolence and sympathy from nearly all the crowned heads of Europe through their chamberlains applications for help from unsuccessful musical stragglers all over the world to the pre-eminently successful one beautiful letters from great and famous people musical or otherwise disinterested offers of service interested proposals for engagements when the present trouble should be over begings for an interview from famous impresarios to obtain which no distance would be thought too great etc etc etc it was endless in English, French, German, Italian in languages quite incomprehensible many letters had to remain unanswered Taffy took an almost malicious pleasure in explaining all this to Mrs. Bago then there was a constant rolling of carriages up to the door and a thundering of little Billy's knocker Lord and Lady Palmerston wished to know the Lord Chief Justice wishes to know the Dean of Westminster wishes to know the March and S of Westminster wishes to know everybody wishes to know if there is any better news of Madame Svangali these were small things truly but Mrs. Bago was a small person from a small village in Devonshire and one whose heart and eye had hitherto been filled by no larger image than that of little Billy and little Billy's fame as she now discovered for the first time did not quite fill the entire universe and she mustn't be too much blamed if all these obvious signs of a world wide colossal celebrity impressed and even awed her a little Madame Svangali why this was the beautiful girl whom she remembered so well whom she had so grandly discarded with a word and who had accepted her conger so meekly in a minute whom indeed she had been cursing in her heart for years because... because what poor Mrs. Bago felt herself turn hot and red all over and humbled herself to the very dust and almost forgot that she had been in the right after all and that La Grande Trilby was certainly no fit match for her son so she went quite humbly to see Trilby and found a poor pathetic mad creature still more humble than herself who still apologized for... for what? a poor pathetic mad creature who had clean forgotten that she was the greatest singer in all the world one of the greatest artists that had ever lived but who remembered with shame and contrition that she had once taken the liberty of yielding after endless pressure and repeated disinterested refusals of her own and out of sheer irresistible affection to the passionate pleadings of a little obscure art student a mere boy no better off than herself just as penniless and insignificant and nobody but the son of Mrs. Bago all due sense of proportion died out of the poor lady as she remembered and realized all this and then Trilby's pathetic beauty so touching, so winning in its rapid decay the nameless charm of look and voice and manner that was her special appanage and which her malady and singular madness had only increased her childlike simplicity her transparent forgetfulness of self all these so fascinated and entranced Mrs. Bago whose quick susceptibility to such impressions was just as keen as her sons that she very soon found herself all but worshiping this fast fading lily for so she called her in her own mind quite forgetting or affecting to forget on what very questionable soil that lily had been reared and through what strange vicissitudes of evil and corruption it had managed to grow so tall and white and fragrant oh strange compelling power peace and prettiness combined and sweet sincere unconscious natural manners not to speak of worldwide fame for Mrs. Bago was just a shrewd little conventional British country matron of the good upper middle class type bristling all over with provincial proprieties and respectabilities a Philistine of the Philistines in spite of her artistic instincts one who for years had rather unjustly thought of Trilby as a wanton and perilous siren an unchaste and unprincipled and most dangerous daughter of Heth and the special enemy of her house and here she was like all the rest of us monads and nomads and bohemians just sitting at Trilby's feet a washer woman a figure model and heaven knows what besides and she had never even heard her sing it was truly comical to see and hear Mrs. Bago did not go back to Devonshire she remained in Fitzroy Square at her sons and spent most of her time with Trilby doing and devising all kinds of things to distract and amuse her and lead her thoughts gently to heaven and soften for her the coming end of all Trilby had a way of saying and especially of looking, thank you that made one wish to do as many things for her as one could if only to make her say and look it again she had retained much of her old quaint and amusing manner of telling things and had much to tell still left of her wandering life although there were so many strange lapses in her powers of memory gaps which if they could only have been filled up would have been full of such surpassing interest then she was never tired of talking and hearing of little Billy and that was the subject of which Mrs. Bago could never tire either then there were the recollections of the childhood one day in a drawer Mrs. Bago came upon a faded daguerreotype of a woman in a Tamashanta with a face so sweet and beautiful and saint like that it almost took her breath away it was Trilby's mother who and what was your mother Trilby ah poor Mama said Trilby and she looked at the portrait a long time ah she was ever so much prettier than that Mama was once a demoiselle that's a barmaid you know at the Montagnard Écossée in the rue du Paradis Poissonnière a place where men used to drink and smoke without sitting down that was unfortunate wasn't it Papa loved her with all his heart although of course she wasn't his equal they were married at the embassy in the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré her parents weren't married at all her mother was the daughter of a boatman on Lochness near a place called Drumna Drochit but her father was the honourable Colonel Desmond he was related to all sorts of great people in England and Ireland he behaved very badly to my grandmother and to poor Mama his own daughter deserted them both not very honourable of him was it and that's all I know about him and then she went on to tell of the home in Paris that might have been so happy but for her father's passion for drink of her parents' deaths and little genre and so forth and Mrs. Bagoire was much moved and interested by these naive revelations which accounted in a measure for so much that seemed unaccountable in this extraordinary woman who thus turned out to be a kind of cousin though on the wrong side of the blanket to know less a person than the famous Duchess of Towers with what joy would that ever kind and gracious lady have taken poor Trilby to her bosom had she only known she had once been all the way from Paris to Vienna merely to hear her sing but unfortunately the Spengalis had just left for St. Petersburg and she had her long journey for nothing Mrs. Bagoire brought her many good books and read them to her Dr. Cummings on the approaching end of the world and other works of alike comforting tendency for those who are just about to leave it the pilgrims' progress sweet little tracks and whatnot Trilby was so grateful that she listened with much patient attention only now and then a faint gleam of amusement would steal over her face and her lips would almost form themselves to ejaculate oh my eye then Mrs. Bagoire as a reward for such winning docility would read her David Copperfield and that was heavenly indeed but the best of all was for Trilby to teach us pictures of life and character just out she had never seen any drawings of leech before except now and then in an occasional punch that turned up in the studio in Paris and they never pulled upon her and taught her more of the aspect of English life the life she loved than any book she had ever read she laughed and laughed and it was almost as sweet to listen to as if she were vocalising the quick part in Chopin's impromptu one day she said her lips trembling I can't make out why you so wonderfully kind to me Mrs. Bagoire I hope you have not forgotten who and what I am and what my story is I hope you haven't forgotten that I'm not a respectable woman oh my dear child don't ask me I only know that you are you and I am I and that is enough for me you are my poor, gentle, patient suffering daughter whatever else you are more sinned against than sinning I feel sure but there I've misjudged you so and been so unjust that I would give worlds to make you some amends besides I should be just as fond of you if you had committed a murder I really believe you're so strange you're irresistible did you ever in all your life meet anybody Trilby's eyes moistened with tender pleasure and such a pretty compliment then after a few minutes thought she said with engaging candour and quite simply no I can't say I ever did that I can think of just now but I've forgotten such a lot of people end of part 1 part 8 recording by Estelle Jobson Rome, Italy part 2 of part 8th of Trilby this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Estelle Jobson Trilby by George de Maillet part 8th part 2 one day Mrs. Bago told Trilby that her brother-in-law Mr. Thomas Bago would much like to come and talk to her was that the gentleman who came with you to the studio in Paris yes why he's a clergyman isn't he what does he want to come and talk to me about ah my dear child said Mrs. Bago her eyes filling Trilby was thoughtful for a while and then said I'm going to die I suppose oh yes oh yes there's no mistake about that dear Trilby we are all in the hands of an almighty merciful god and the tears rolled down Mrs. Bago's cheeks after a long pause during which she gazed out of the window Trilby said in an abstracted kind of way as though she were talking to herself after all it's not already so ready to clap I have seen who went through there at the end of the process what are you saying to yourself in French Trilby your French is so difficult to understand oh I beg your pardon I was thinking it's not so difficult to die after all I've seen such lots of people do it I've nursed them you know papa and mama and Jeanneau and Angelle Bois's mother-in-law and a poor casseur de pierre Colin Magret who lived in a pasté top Saint-Germain he'd been run over by an omnibus in the rue Vaud-Girard and had to have both his legs cut off they none of them seemed to mind dying a bit they weren't a bit afraid I'm not poor people don't think much of death rich people shouldn't either they should be taught when they're quite young to laugh at it and despise it like the Chinese the Chinese die of laughing just as their heads are being cut off and cheat the executioner it's all in the day's work and we're all in the same boat so who's afraid that it's not all my poor child are you prepared to meet your maker face to face have you ever thought about God and the possible wrath to come if you should die unrepentant oh but I shan't I've been repenting all my life besides there'll be no wrath for any of us not even the worst you're a amnesty general papa told me so and he'd been a clergyman like Mr. Thomas Bagel I often think about God I'm very fond of him one must have something perfect to look up to and be fond of even if it's only an idea even if it's too good to be true though some people don't even believe he exists Le Père Martin didn't but of course he was only a chiffonnier and doesn't count one day though Durian the sculptor who's very clever and a very good fellow indeed said I'm very much afraid he doesn't really exist Le Bon Dieu most unfortunately for me for I adore him I never do a piece of work without thinking how nice it would be if I could only please him with it and I've often thought myself how heavenly it must be to be able to paint or sculpt or make music or write beautiful poetry for that very reason why once on a very hard afternoon was sitting a lot of us in the courtyard outside Le Mère Martin's shop drinking coffee with an old Invalide called Bastide Londormie one of the vieilles gardes who'd only got one leg and one arm and one eye and everybody was very fond of him well a model called Mimila Salop came out of the Monde du Piedet opposite and Père Martin called out to her to come and sit down and gave her a cup of coffee to sing she sang a song of Père Angers about Napoleon the Great in which it says Parlez-nous de lui grand-mère grand-mère, parlez-nous de lui I suppose she sang it very well for it made old Bastide Londormie cry and when Père Martin blagued him about it he said c'est égal voyez-vous to sing like that is to pray and then I thought how lovely it would be to sing like Mimila Salop and I've thought so ever since just to pray what Trilby if you could only sing like oh but never mind I forgot tell me Trilby do you ever pray to him as other people pray pray to him well no not often not in words and on my knees and with my hands together thinking is praying very often and so is being sorry and ashamed when one's done a mean thing and glad when one's resisted a temptation and grateful when it's a fine day and one's enjoying oneself without hurting anyone else what is it but praying when you try and bear up after losing all you care to live for and very good praying too there can be prayers without words just as well as songs I suppose and Svangali used to say the words are the best and then it seems mean to be always asking for things besides you don't get them any the faster that way and that shows La Mer Martin used to be always praying and Père Martin said always to laugh at her yet he always seemed to get the things he wanted oftenest I prayed once very hard indeed I prayed for Geno not to die well but how do you repent Trilby if you do not humble yourself and pray for forgiveness on your knees oh well I don't exactly know look here Mrs. Bagot I'll tell you the lowest and meanest thing I ever did Mrs. Bagot felt a little nervous I'd promised to take Geno on Palm Sunday to Saint-Philippe-du-Roul to hear La Baie Bergamo but Durian that's the sculptor you know asked me to go with him to Saint-Germain where there was a fair or something and with Mathieu who was a student in law and a certain Victorine Le Tellier who who was Mathieu's mistress in fact a lace-mender in the rue Saint-Marie-Donne-La-Pocharde and so I went on Sunday morning to tell Geno that I couldn't take him he cried so dreadfully that I thought I'd give up the others and take him to Saint-Philippe as I promised but then Durian and Mathieu and Victorine drove up and waited outside and so I didn't take him and went with them and I didn't enjoy anything at all I was miserable they were in an open carriage with two horses it was Mathieu's treat and Geno might have ridden on the box by the coachman without being in anybody's way but I was afraid they didn't want him as they didn't say anything and so I didn't dare ask and Geno saw us drive away and I couldn't look back and the worst of it is that when we were half way to Saint-Germain Durian said what a pity you didn't bring Geno and they were all sorry I hadn't it was six or seven years ago and I really believe I thought of it every day and sometimes in the middle of the night and when Geno was dying and when he was dead the remembrance of that palm Sunday and if that's not repenting I don't know what is what will be what nonsense that's nothing good heavens putting off a small child I'm thinking of far worse things when you were in that Cartier-latin you know sitting to painters and sculptors surely so attractive as you are oh yes I know what you mean it was horrid and I was frightfully ashamed of myself and it wasn't amusing a bit nothing was till I met your son and dear son in Macalester but then it wasn't deceiving or disappointing anybody or hurting their feelings it was only hurting myself besides all that sort of thing in women is punished severely enough down here God knows unless one's a Russian Empress like Catherine the Great or a grand dame like lots of them or a great genius like Madame Rachel or George Sand why if it hadn't been for that and sitting for the figure I felt myself good enough to marry your son although I was only a Blanchisseuse de Fin you've said so yourself and I should have made him a good wife of that I feel sure he wanted to live all his life at Barbizon and paint you know and didn't care for society in the least anyhow I should have been equal to such a life as that lots of their wives are Blanchisseuse over there or people of that sort and they get on very well indeed and nobody travels about it so I think I've been pretty well punished richly as I've deserved to Trilby have you ever been confirmed I forget I fancy not oh dear oh dear and do you know about our blessed saviour and the atonement and the incarnation and the resurrection oh yes I used to at least I used to have to learn the catechism on Sundays Mama made me whatever her faults and mistakes were poor Mama was always very particular about that it all seemed very complicated but Papa told me not to bother too much about it but to be good he said that God would make it all right for us somehow in the end all of us and that seems sensible doesn't it he told me to be good and not to mind what priests and clergymen tell us and clergymen himself and he knew all about it he said I haven't been very good there's not much doubt about that I'm afraid but God knows I've repented often enough and sore enough I do now but I'm rather glad to die I think and not a bit afraid not a scrap I believe in poor Papa though he was so unfortunate he was the cleverest man I even knew and the best except Taffy and the Laird son there'll be no hell for any of us he told me so except what we make for ourselves and each other down here and that's bad enough for anything he told me that he was responsible for me he often said so and that Mama was too and his parents for him and his grandfathers and grandmothers for them and so on up to Noah and ever so far beyond and God for us all he told me always to think of other people before myself as Taffy does and your son and never to tell lies or be afraid and keep away from drink and I should be all right but I've sometimes been all wrong all the same and it wasn't Papa's fault but poor Mama's and mine and I've known it and been miserable at the time and after and I'm sure to be forgiven perfectly certain I will everybody else even the wickedest that ever lived why just give them sense enough in the next world to understand all their wickedness in this and that'll punish them enough for anything I think that's simple enough isn't it besides there may be no next world that's on the cards too you know and that will be simpler still not all the clergymen in all the world not even the Pope of Rome need out Papa or believe in any punishment after what we've all got to go through here ce sera trop bête so that if you don't want me to very much and he won't think it unkind I'd rather not talk to Mr. Thomas bug or about it I'd rather talk to Taffy if I must he's very clever Taffy though he doesn't often say such clever things as your son does or paint nearly so well and I'm sure he'll think Papa was right and as a matter of fact the good Taffy in his opinion on the solemn subject was found to be at one with the late Reverend Patrick Michael O'Farrell and so was the lad and so to his mother's shocked and pained surprise was little Billy and so were Sir Oliver Calthorpe and Sir Jake's then Mr. Talboy's and Dr. Thorn and Anthony and Lorimer and the Greek and so in after years when grief had well pierced and torn and riddled her through and through and time and age had healed the wounds and nothing remained but the consciousness of great inward scars of recollection to remind her how deep and jagged and wide the wounds had once been did Mrs. Bugg or herself late on one memorable Saturday afternoon just as it was getting dusk in Charlotte Street in her pretty blue dressing gown lay on the sofa by the fire her head well propped her knees drawn up looking very placid and content she had spent the early part of the day dictating her will to the conscientious Taffy it was a simple document although she was not without many valuable trinkets to leave quite a fortune souvenirs from many men and women she had charmed by her singing from royalties downward she had been looking over them with the faithful Martha to whom she had always thought they belonged it was explained to her that they were gifts of Spengalis since she did not remember when and where and by whom they were presented to her except a few that Spengali had given her himself with many passionate expressions of his love which seems to have been deep and constant and sincere nonetheless so perhaps that she could never return it she had left the bulk of these to the faithful Martha but to each of the Trois Anglices she had bequeathed a beautiful ring which was to be worn by their brides if they ever married and the brides didn't object to Mrs. Bago she left a pearl necklace to Mrs. Bago her gold coronet of stars and pretty and most costly gifts to each of the three doctors who had attended her and been so assiduous in their care as she was told would make no charge for attending on Mrs. Spengali and studs and scarf pins to Antony Lorema the Greek Dodor and Zuzu and to Carnegie a little German silver vinaigrette which had once belonged to Lord Widow and pretty souvenirs to the Vinaurs Angel Bois Durian and others and she left a magnificent gold watch and chain to Gekko with the most affectionate letter of the town's which was all she had in money of her own she had taken great interest in discussing with Taffy the particular kind of trinket which would best suit the idiosyncrasy of each particular legatee and derived great comfort from the businesslike and sympathetic conscientiousness with which the good Taffy entered upon all these minutiae he was so solemn and serious about it and took such pains she little guessed how his dumb deeply-feeling heart was harrowed this document had been duly signed and witnessed and entrusted to his care until he laid tranquil and happy and with the sense that nothing remained for her but to enjoy the fleeting hour and make the most of each precious moment as it went by she was quite without pain of either mind or body and surrounded by the people she adored Taffy, the Laird, and little Billy and Mrs. Bagor and Martha who sat knitting in a corner with her black mittens on and her brass spectacles she listened to the chat and joined in it, laughing as usual love in her eyes sat playing as she looked from one to another for she loved them all beyond expression love on her lips was straying and warbling in her breath whenever she spoke and her weakened voice was still larger fuller, softer than any other voice in the room in the world she was joined from another sphere a cart drove up there was a ring at the door and presently a wooden packing case was brought into the room at Trilby's request it was opened and found to contain a large photograph framed and glazed of Svengali in the military uniform of his own Hungarian band which he had always worn until he came to Paris and London where he conducted an ordinary evening dress and looking straight out of the picture he looked at you he was standing by his desk with his left hand turning over a leaf of music and waving his baton with his right it was a splendid photograph by a Viennese photographer and a most speaking likeness and Svengali looked truly fine all made up of importance and authority and his big black eyes were full of stern command Marta trembled as she looked it was handed to Trilby who exclaimed in surprise she had never seen it she had no photograph of him and had never possessed one no message of any kind no letter of explanation accompanied this unexpected present which from the post marks on the case seemed to have travelled all over Europe to London out of some remote province in eastern Russia out of the mysterious east the poisonous east birthplace and home of an ill wind that blows nobody good will be laded against her legs as on a lectern and lay gazing at it with close attention for a long time making a casual remark now and then as he was very handsome I think or that uniform becomes him very well why had he got it on I wonder the others went on talking and Mrs. Bugle made a coffee end of part 2 part 8 recording by Stel jobs in Rome, Italy part 3 of part 8 of Trilby this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by J. C. Guan Trilby by George Dumaurier part 8 part 3 presently Mrs. Bugget took a cup of tea to Trilby and found her still staring intently at the portrait but but with her eyes dilated and quite a strange light in them Trilby, Trilby your coffee what is the matter Trilby Trilby was smiling with fixed eyes and made no answer the others got up and gathered round her in some alarm Martha seemed terror stricken and wished to snatch the photograph away but was prevented from doing so one didn't know what the consequences might be Taffy rang the bell and sent a servant for Dr. Thorn who lived close by in Fitzroy Square presently Trilby began to speak quite softly in French again? with the white voice then isn't it? and not too fast but gradually I can see that he is already at night that's it go and give me the tone then she smiled and seemed to beat time softly by moving her head a little from side to side her eyes intent on the portrait and suddenly she began to sink Chopin's impromptu and lay flat she hardly seemed to breathe as the notes came pouring out without words mere vocalizing it was as if breath were unnecessary for so little voice as she was using though there was enough of it to fill the room to fill the house to drown her small audience in holy heavenly sweetness she was a consummate mistress of her art how that could be seen and also how splendid had been her training it all seemed as easy to her as opening and shutting her eyes and yet how utterly impossible to anybody else between wonder enchantment and alarm they were frozen to statues all except Marta who ran out of the room crying she sang it just as she had sung it only it sounded still more seductive as she was using less voice using the essence of her voice in fact the pure spirit the very cream of it there could be little doubt that these four watchers by that enchanted couch were listening to not only the most divinely beautiful but also the most astounding feat of musical uterance ever heard out of a human throat the usual effect was produced tears were streaming down the cheeks of Mrs. Baggett and little Billy tears were in the layered's eyes a tear on one of Taffy's whiskers tears of sheer delight when she came back to the quick movement again after the Adagio her voice grew louder and shriller and sweet with a sweetness not of this earth and went on increasing in volume as she quickened the time nearing the end and then came the dying away into all but nothing a mere melodic breath and then the little soft chromatic ascending rocket up to E in alt the last parting caress which Vingali had introduced as a finale for it does not exist in the piano score when it was over she said was it this time Vingali? so much better at the end it's not bad and now my friend I am tired good evening her head fell back on the pillar and she lay fast asleep Mrs. Baggett took the portrait away gently little Billy knelt down and held Trilby's hand in his and felt for her pulse not find it he said Trilby and put his ear to her mouth to hear her breath her breath was inaudible but soon she folded her hands across her breast and uttered a little short sigh and in a weak voice said Vingali Vingali they remained in silence round her for several minutes the doctor came he put his hand to her heart his ear to her lips he turned up one of her eyelids and looked at her eye and then his voice quivering with strong emotion he stood up and said Mrs. Vingali's trials and sufferings are all over oh good god is she dead? cried Mrs. Baggett yes Mrs. Baggett for several minutes perhaps a quarter of an hour 20 years later Porto Satos alias Tafiwine is sitting to breakfast opposite his wife at a little table in the courtyard of that huge caravanseray on the boulevard de Capucine Paris where he had sat more than 20 years ago with the lad and little Billy where in fact he had Paul's Vingali's nose pinched in the aspect of the place the same cosmopolite company with more of the American element perhaps the same arrivals and departures in railway omnipuesses cabs, hired carriages and erring his calves on the marble steps stood just another colossal and beautiful old man in black cloth coat and knee breeches and silk stockings as of yore the very same pinched back chain where do they breed these magnificent old Frenchmen in Germany perhaps where all the good big waiters come from and also the same fine weather it is always fine weather in the courtyard of the Grand Hotel as the laird would say they manage these things better there Tafiwine's a short veered which is turning grey his kind blue eye is no longer caloric but mild and friendly as Frank is ever and full of humorous patience he has grown stouter he is very big indeed in all three dimensions but the symmetry and gangliness of the athlete belongs to him still in movement and repose and his clothes fit him beautifully though they are not new and show careful beating and brushing and ironing and even a faint suspicion of all but imperceptible fine drawing here and there what a magnificent old man he will make some day should the Grand Hotel ever run short of them he looks as if he could be trusted down to the ground in all things little or big as if his word were as good as his bond as better his wink as good as his word his nod as good as his wink and in truth as he looks so he is the most cynical disbeliever in the grand old name of gentleman and its virtues as a noun of definition would almost be justified in quite dogmatically asserting at sight and without even being introduced that at all events the gentleman inside and out up and down from the crown of his head which is getting rather bold to the sole of his foot by no means a small one or a lightly shot explained her coulomb indeed this is always the first thing people say of taffy and the last it means perhaps to be everything portos was a trifle doll and so was athos i think and likewise his son the faithful viscount of prajalan bon chien chasse de ras and so was wilfred of Ivanhoe the disinherited and eggard the lord of ravinswood and so for that matter was colonel newcombe of immortal memory yet who does not love them who would not wish to be like them for better for worse taffy's wife is unlike taffy in many ways but fortunately for both very like him and some she is a little woman very well shaped very dark with black wavy hair and very small hands and feet a very graceful, handsome and vivacious person by no means doll indeed of quick perceptions and intuitions deeply interested in all that is going on about and around her and with always lots to say about it but not too much she distinctly belongs to the rare and ever-blessed and most precious race of charmers she had fallen in love with the stalwart taffy more than a quarter of a century ago in the place de saint anatole where he and she and her mother had attended the sick couch of little belly but she had never told her love tout vient à point à qui c'est attendre that is a capital proverb and sometimes even a true one blanche bagot had found it to be both one terrible night never to be forgotten taffy lay fast asleep in bed at his rooms in german street for he was very tired grief tires more than anything and brings a deep slumber that day he had followed trilby to her last home in cancel green with little billy mrs. bagot, the laird antony, the greek and durien who had come over from paris on purpose as chief mourners and very many other people noble, famous or otherwise english and foreign a splendid and most representative gathering as was duly chronicled in all the newspapers here and abroad a fitting ceremony to close the brief but splendid career of the greatest pleasure giver of our time he was awakened by a tremendous ringing at the street door bell as if the house were on fire and then there was a hurried scrambling up in the dark a tumbling of risters and kicking against banisters and little billy had burst into his room calling out oh taffy taffy i'm going mad i'm going mad i'm done for alright old fellow just tweak till i strike a light oh taffy i haven't slept for four nights not a wink she died with damn it i can't get it out that rufian's name on her lips it was just as if he were calling her from the tomb she recovered her senses the very minute she saw his photograph she was so fond of him she forgot everybody else she's gone straight to him after all in some other life to slave for him and sing for him to make better music than ever oh taffy oh catch hold catch and little billy had all but fallen on the floor in a fit and all the old miserable business of five years before had begun over again there has been too much sickness in this story so i will tell as little as possible of poor little billy's long illness his slow and only partial recovery the paralysis of his powers as painter his quick decline his early death his manly calm and most beautiful surrender the wedding of the moth with the star of the night with the morrow for all but blameless as his short life had been and so full of splendid promise and performance nothing ever became him better than the way he left it it was as if he were staring on some distant holy quest like some gallant night of old a baguette to the rescue in another life it shook the infallibility of a certain wiker down to its very foundations and made him think more deeply about things than he had ever thought yet it gave him pause and so wrong his heart that when at the last he stopped to kiss his poor young dead friend's pure white forehead he dropped a bigger tear on it than little billy once so given to the dropping of big tears had ever dropped in his life but it is all too sad to write about it was by little billy's bedside in debenture that taffy had grown to love blanche baguette and not very many weeks after it was all over that taffy had asked her to be his wife and in a year they were married and a very happy marriage it turned down the one thing that poor mrs. baguette still looks upon as a compensation for all the griefs and troubles of her life during the first year or two blanche had perhaps been the most ardently loving of the well assorted pair that beautiful look of love surprised which makes all women's eye look the same came into hers whenever she looked at taffy and filled his heart with tender compunction and a queer sense of his own unworthiness then a boy was born to them and that look fell on the boy and the good taffy caught it as it passed him by and he felt a helpless, absurd jealousy that was nonetheless painful for being so ridiculous and then that look fell on another boy and yet another so that it was through these boys that she looked at their father then his eyes caught the look and kept it for their own use and he grew never to look at his wife without it and as no daughter came she retained for life the monopoly of that most sweet and expressive regard they are not very rich he is a far better sportsman than he will ever be a painter and if he doesn't sell his pictures it is not because they are too good for the public taste indeed he has no illusions on that score himself even if his wife has he is quite the least conceited art duffer I ever met and I have met far many worse duffers than taffy would only that I might kill of his cousin Sir Oscar and Sir Oscar's five sons the wines are good at sons and his seventeen grandsons and the fourteen cousins and their numerous male progeny that stands between taffy and a baronetcy and whatever property goes with it so that he might be Sir taffy and your blanche baguette that was might be called my lady this Shakespearean holocaust would scarcely cost me a pang it is a great temptation when you have duly slain your first hero to enrich hero number two beyond the dreams of avarice to provide him with a title and a castle and park as well as a handsome wife and a nice family but truth is inexorable and besides they are just as happy as they are they are well of enough anyhow to spend a week in Paris at last and even to stop at the Grand Hotel now that two of their sons are at hero with them and the third is safe at a preparatory school at Elstree Hertz it is their first outing since the honeymoon and the layered should have come with them but the good layered of cockpen who is now a famous royal academician is preparing for a honeymoon of his own he has gone to Scotland to be married himself at a suitable age for he has known her ever since she was a bright little lassie in short frocks and he, a promising A.R.A the pride of his native Dundee a marriage of reason and well seasoned affection and mutual esteem and therefore sure to turn out a happy one and in another fortnight or so the pair of them will very possibly be sitting with each other at that very corner table in the courtyard of the Grand Hotel and she will laugh at everything he says and they will live happily ever after so much for hero number three Darth Tagnan here's to you Sandy Malister canyist, genialist and most humorous of Scots most delicate and dainty and fanciful of British painters who will help meet your families may you live long and prosper so Taffy and his wife have come for their second honeymoon their Italian summer honeymoon alone and are well content that it should be so two's always company for such a pair the amusing one and the amusable and they are making the most of it they have been all over the Cartier Latin it is the well remembered spot and even been allowed to enter the old studio through the kindness of the concierge who is no longer Madame Vinaire it is tenanted by two American painters who are coldly civil on being thus disturbed in the middle of their work the studio is very speck and span and most respectable Trollby's foot and the poem have been improved away and a bookshelf put in their place the new concierge who has only been there a year knows nothing of Trollby and of the Vinaire only that they are rich and prosperous and live somewhere in the south of France and that M. Vinaire is mayor of his commune que le bon du les bénices c'était de bien brave gens then Mr. and Mrs. Taffy have also been driven in an open calèche with two horses through the bois de Boulogne to Sainte Cloutte and to Versailles where they launched at the hotel des réservoirs Parlez-moi de ça and to Saint-Germain and to Meudon where they launched at la loge du gare de Champaître a new one they have visited the salon de l'ouvre the Hotel Cluné the Invalides with Napoleon's tomb and seen half a dozen churches including Notre-Dame and the Saint-Chapelle and done with the Dodor and their charming villa near Asnière and with the Zousous and the splendid Hotel de la Roche Martel with the Durianse in the Parc Monceau Dodor's food was best and Zousous worst and at Durianse they were so good that one forgot to notice the food and that was a pity and the young Dodor's are all right and so are the young Durianse as for the young Zousous there aren't any and that's a weight of one's mind and they've been to the Varieté and seen Madame Chaumont and to the Français and seen Sarah Bernhardt and to the Opera and heard Monsieur Lassalle and today being their last day they are going to laze and flay about the boulevards and buy things and lunch anywhere and do the bois once more and see to Paris and dine early at Durianse or Brignons or else the Café des Ambassadeurs and finish up the well-spent day after the Spagne the new theatre to see Madame Cantaridi in Petit Bonheur de Controbonde which they are told is a monthly draw and quite proper funny without being vulgar Dodor was their informant he had taken Madame Dodor to see it three or four times Madame Cantaridi as everybody knows is a very clever plain old woman with a cracked voice of spotless reputation and the irreproachable mother of a grown up family whom she had brought up in perfection they have never been allowed to see their mother and grandmother act not even the sons their excellent father who adores both them and her has drawn the line at that in private life lady but on stage well go and see her and you will understand how she comes to be the idol of the Parisian public for she is the true and liberal dispenser to them of that modern Esprit Gaulois which would make the Côte Rabelais turn uneasily in his grave and blush there like a Benedictine sister and truly she deserves the reverential love and gratitude of the cher Parisian she amused them all through the empire during the anit terrible she was their only stay and comfort and has been their chief delight ever since and is now when they come back from la revanche may Madame Cantaridi be stole at her post les mouches d'Espagne to welcome the returning heroes and exalt and crow with them in her funny cracked old voice or happily even console them once more as the case may be victors or vanquished they will laugh the same Mrs. Taffy is a poor French scholar one must know French very well indeed and many other things besides to seize the subtle points of Madame Cantaridi's play and by play but Madame Cantaridi has so droll a face and voice such very droll odd movements that Mrs. Taffy goes into fits of laughter as soon as the quaint little old lady comes on the stage so heartily does she laugh that a good Parisian bourgeois turns round and remarks to his wife Vlonne jolie petite anglaise qui n'est pas be gueule au moins et le gros bœuf avec les yeux bleus en boule de l'auto c'est son mari sans doute il n'a pas l'air trop content par exemple celui-là the fact is that the good Taffy who knows French very well indeed is quite scandalised and very angry with Dodor for sending them there and as soon as the first act is finished he means without any fuss to take his wife away as he sits patiently too indignant to laugh at what is really funny in the piece much of it is vulgar without being funny he finds himself watching a little white-haired man in the orchestra a fiddler the shape of whose back seems somehow familiar as he plays a nobligate to accompaniment to a very broadly comic song of Madame Cantarides he plays beautifully like a master and the loud applause is as much for him as for the vocalist end of part 3 part 8 recording by JC Iguan Montreal July 2010 part 4 of part 8 of Trillby this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by JC Iguan Trillby by Georges Dumarier part 8 part 4 this fiddler turns his head so that his profile can be seen and Taffy recognizes him after 5 minutes thought Taffy takes a leaf out of his pocket book and writes in perfectly grammatical French Dear Gecko you have not forgotten Taffy Wine I hope and Littrobilly and Littrobilly's sister who is now Mrs Taffy Wine we live Paris tomorrow and would like very much to see you once more will you after the play come and stop with us at the Cafe Anglais if so look up and make yes with the head and enchant you're well devoted Taffy Wine he gives this folded to an attendant for le premier violon celui qui a des cheveux blanc presently he sees Gecko receive the note and read it and ponder for a while then Gecko looks round the theater and Taffy waves his handkerchief and catches the eye of the premier violon who makes yes with the head and then the first act over Mr and Mrs Wine leave the theater Mr explaining why and Mrs very ready to go as she was beginning to feel strangely uncomfortable without quite realizing as yet what was amiss with the lively Madame Cantaridi they went to the Cafe Anglais and bespoke a nice little room on the entre-seules overlooking the boulevard and ordered a nice little supper salami of something very good mayonnaise of lobster and one or two other dishes better still and chanbertin of the best Taffy was particular about these things on a holiday and regardless of expense porthos was very hospitable and liked good food and plenty of it and ethos dearly loved good wine and then they went and sat at a little round table the Cafe de la Paix on the boulevard near the Grand Opéra where it is always very gay and studied Paris life and nursed their appetites till supper time at half past eleven Gekko made his appearance very meek and humble he looked old ten years older than he really was much bowed down and as if he had roughed it all his life and had found living a desperate long hard grind he kissed Mrs. Taffy's hand and seemed half inclined to kiss Taffy's toe and was almost tearful in his pleasure at meeting them again and his gratitude at being asked to sub with them he had soft clinging caressing manners like a nice dog that made you his friend at once he was obviously genuine and sincere and quite pathetically simple as he always had been at first he could scarcely eat for nervous excitement but Taffy's fine example and Mrs. Taffy's genial easy going cordiality and a couple of glasses of chambertin soon put him at his ease and woke up his dormant appetite which was a very large one poor fellow he was told all about little Billy's death and deeply moved to hear the cause which had brought it about and then they talked of Trilby he pulled her watch out of his waistcoat's pocket and reverently kissed it exclaiming ah, c'était un ange un ange du paradis when I tell you I lived with them for five years oh, her kindness Dio, Dio Maria it was and Gekko that and poor Gekko, your toothache how it worries me and Gekko, how tired and pale you look you distressed me so looking like that shall I mix you a may-trunk and Gekko, you love artichokes they remind you of Paris I have heard you say so well I have found out where to get artichokes and I know how to do them and you shall have them for dinner today oh, and all the week after and we did ah, dear kind one what did I really care for artichokes a la barigoule and it was always like that always and to Sven Galli and old Marta just the same and she was never, well never, toujours souffrante and it was she who supported us all in luxury and splendor sometimes and what an artist said taffy ah yes but all that was Sven Galli you know Sven Galli was the greatest artist I ever met Monsieur, Sven Galli was a demon a magician I used to thank him a god he found me playing in the streets for a copper coins and took me by the hand and was my only friend and taught me all I ever knew I could not play my instrument and now he is dead I have forgotten how to play it myself that English chair it demoralized me ruined me forever ah, quel enferre mon de dieu pardon madame I am just good enough to play the obligato at the mouche de Spagne when the old cantaridi sings viens mon marié qui regarde prend garde, ne me chatouille plus it does not want much of an obligato ah, 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 Trobie sang the nous paume of Schumann at the sale de Bâchibouzouc you heard her? well and here, poor Gecko tried to laugh a little sardonic laugh in falsetto, like Sven Galli'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 Trobie 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 on the fingers with his baton and she fell down on her knees and cried monsieur, I would have defended Trobie against the locomotive going Grand 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 Sven Galli, wasn't he very fond of her? or yes, monsieur, Contessa, passionately but she did not love him as he wished to be loved she loved Littlebilly, monsieur Littlebilly, the brother of madame and I suppose that Sven Galli grew angry and jealous at last he changed as soon as he came to Paris perhaps Paris reminded him of Littlebilly and reminded Trobie too but how on earth did Sven Galli 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 Tavi filled his glass and gave him a cigar and lit one himself Monsieur know that is true she had not much ear but she had such a voice as had never been heard Sven Galli knew that he had found it out long ago Litlov had found it out too one day Sven Galli heard Litlov tell Mayor Bia that the most beautiful female voice in Europe belonged to an English Cresat who sat as a model to sculptors in the Cartier Latin but that unfortunately she was quite tone deaf and couldn't sing one single note in tune imagine how Sven Galli 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 work 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 over to you all the perfumes and spices of the garden of Eden Sven Galli, with his little flexible flagellé, I was my violin that is how we taught her to make the sounds and then how to use them she was a phenomenal she could keep on one note and make it go through all the colors in the rainbow according to the ways Sven Galli looked at her she would make you laugh it would make you cry but cry your 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 Sven Galli on the piano and more in tune than any piano ah twin stars monsieur she was the greatest control to 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 ah those bricks and runs and sudden leaps from darkness to light and black again from earth to heaven those slurs and swoops and slides ala Paganini from one note to another like a swallow flying or a gall 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 Sven Galli he was a magician and how she looked singing do you remember her, her dear sweet slender foot on a little stool her thick hair laying down all along her back and that good smile like the Cantonese so soft and bright and kind ah it was to make you weep for love merely to see her it was to make you cry nothing but to see her that was Trollby nightingale and bird of paradise in one of a she could do anything utter any sound she liked when once Sven Galli had shown her how and he was the greatest master that ever lived and when once she knew a thing she knew it et voila her strange said Tavi that she should have suddenly gone out of her senses that night in the rain and so completely forgotten at all I suppose she saw Sven Galli in the box opposite and that drove her mad and then Tavi told the little fiddler about Trollby's death song like a swan and Sven Galli's photograph but Gekko had heard it all from Martha who was now dead Gekko 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? no Monsieur she could never deceive anybody and never would she had forgotten but hang it all my friend Monsieur listen she is dead and Sven Galli is dead and Martha also and I have a good little melody that will kill me soon God sei dank and without much pain I will tell you a secret there were two Trollby's there was the Trollby 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 steeper chase at the Croix de Bernier 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 Saint-Anatelle-des-Arts it was Trollin assubbushé les oreilles well that was Trollby your Trollby that was my Trollby too and I loved her as one loves an only love and only sister and only child a gentle martyr on earth a blessed saint in heaven and that Trollby was enough for me and that was the Trollby 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 litre mille ce qu'il a perdu but all at once prout, presto, augendlich with one wave of his hand over her with one look of his eye with a word svangali could turn her into the other Trollby his Trollby 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 s'adore and she suddenly became an unconscious Trollby of marble who could produce wonderful sounds just the sounds he wanted and nothing else and think his thoughts his wishes and love him at his bidding with a strange unreal factitious love just his own love for himself turned inside out and reflected back on him as from a mirror an echo par autre chose it was not worth having I was not even jealous that was the Trollby he taught how to sing and I helped him god of heaven forgive me that Trollby was just a singing machine an organ to play upon an instrument of music a strativarius a flexible flagellé a flesh and blood a voice and nothing more just the unconscious voice that svangali sang with for it takes two to sing 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 noose palm the impromptu you heard svangali singing with her voice just as you heard Joachim play a chaconne of Bach with his fiddle here Joachim's fiddle what does it know of Sebastian Bach and as for chaconne he doesn't care much about this famous violin and our Trollby what did she know of chaconne chapin nothing at all she mocked herself not badly of noose palms and impromptus they would make her yawn to demantibulate her jaws when svangali's Trollby was being taught to sing when svangali's Trollby was singing or singed to you as if she were singing our Trollby had ceased to exist our Trollby was fast asleep in fact our Trollby was dead ah monsieur that's Trollby of Zungali'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 through her and serenades all night under the window she never knew she heard nothing felt nothing saw nothing 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 care-missing and seen the people go mad to hear her and once at Prague Zungali fell down in a fit from sheer excitement and then suddenly our Trollby woke up and wondered what it was all about and we took him home and put him to bed and left him with Martha and Trollby and I went together arm in arm to fetch a doctor and buy things for supper and that was the happiest hour in all my life ah what in existence, what travels what triumphs, what adventures things to fill a book a dozen books those five happy years with those two Trollbees what recollections I think of nothing else night or day even as I played the fiddle and to think how often I have played the fiddle for Zungali to have done that is to have lived and then to come home to Trollby our Trollby, the real Trollby God sei dank I have geliebt ungelebet geliebt ungelebet geliebt ungelebet Christodidio sweet sister in heaven oh dieu de misère et pitié de nous his eyes were red and his voice was high and shrill and tremulous and full of tears these remembrances were too full for him and perhaps also de chanbertin he put his elbows on the table and hid his face in his hand and wept much rank 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 the star-dials hinted of morn and a fresh breeze had sprung up making the leaves dance and wrestle on the sycamore trees along the boulevard a nice little breeze just the sort of little breeze to do Paris good a four-wheel cab came by at a foot pace the driver humming a tune Taffy hailed him he said and drew up Taffy rang the bell and asked for the bill and paid it Gekko had apparently fallen asleep Taffy gently woke him up and told him how late it was the old man seemed dazed and read the tipsy and looked older than ever 60, 70 any age you like Taffy helped him on with his great coat and taking him by the arm led him downstairs giving him this card and telling him how glad he was to have seen him and that he would write him from England a promise that was kept one may be sure Gekko uncovered his fuzzy white head and took Mrs. Taffy's hand and kissed it and thanked her warmly for her si-bon and sympathique accueil then Taffy all but lifted him into the cab the jolly cab man saying Taffy shook Gekko's hand and asked how strange said Taffy to his wife how touching why that's where Trillby used to live the very number the very floor Oui oui said Gekko waking up c'est l'ancienne mensaire d'être il lui j'y suis depuis 12 ans j'y suis, j'y reste and he laughed feebly at his mild little choke Taffy told the address to the cab man and gave him 5 francs Merci monsieur c'est de l'autre côté de l'eau près de la Sorbonne, c'est pas? on vous a re-soins, c'est bourgeois, soyez tranquille ayez pas peur, car on tue ton IVA bonsoir monsieur Edam and he clapped his whip and rattled away singing v'là mon mari qui regarde, fran garde ne me châteauit plus Mr. and Mrs. Wine walked back to the hotel which was not far she hung up to his big arm and crept close to him and shivered a little it was quite chilly their footsteps were very audible in the stillness pit, pat, floppity, clup otherwise they were both silent they were tired, yawny, sleepy and very sad and each was thinking and knew the other was thinking that a week in Paris was just enough and how nice it would be in just a few hours more to hear the rooks calling round their own quiet little English country home where three jolly boys would soon be coming for the holidays and there we leave them to their useful, humdrum happy domestic existence that which there is no better that I know of at their time of life at no better time of life than theirs ou pourtant être mieux corsant de sa famille that blessed harbor of refuge while within our reach and having really cut our wisdom teeth at last and learned the ropes and left off hankering after the moon we can do what's so little down here a little work, a little play to keep us going and so good day a little warmth a little light of love's bestowing and so good night a little fun to match the sorrow of each day's growing and so good morrow a little trust that when we die we reap our sowing and so goodbye end of part 8 end of Trail B by George du Maurier recording by JC Guan Montreal, August 2010