 . . . . . . de Trilby. C'est bien gentil, ces M. Durien, qui a fait mettre le verre, quand vous êtes partis, et M. Guineau, qui a composé les pitafes. Pauvre Trilby, qu'est-ce qu'elle est devenue, comme elle était bonne-fuyant, et si belle, et comme elle était vive, elle était vive, elle était vive, et comme elle vous aimait tous bien, et surtout M. Litrobili. N'est-ce pas ? Puis, elle a insisté en leur donnant à eux-mêmes une autre glace liquide, de Thurien, de Ratafia de Cassie, et elle a mis à voir leur collection de briquabracs, autour de l'hôpital, un show gorgeant, et a expliqué tout ce qu'il y avait. Comment elle a commencé, dans un petit moyen, mais en faisant un grand business. Qu'est-ce que c'est de Pondule ? C'est de l'époque de Louis XI, qui a donné le fait, avec ses propres mains, à Mme de Pompadour. Je l'ai offert à Céline. Qu'est-ce que c'est de Laird ? « 150 francs, M. ! c'est bien bon marché, une véritable occasion, et je prends. » C'est de Laird. C'est-à-dire, j'en prends. Puis, elle a montré à eux-mêmes une belle bouche de briquabracs, à laquelle elle a pris un bâton. « Qu'est-ce que c'est de Laird ? « À ça, c'est 300 francs, M., mais je prends. » C'est de Laird. « Et voici des souliers qui vont avec, et que je propose, mais ici. Taffy took de Laird, by the arm, and dragged him, force out of this, two seductive sirenscape. » De Laird told her where to send his purchases, and with many expressions of love and goodwill on both sides, they tore themselves away from M. et Madame Vina. De Laird, however, rushed back for a minute, and hurriedly whispered to M. Vina. « Oh ! et le pied de Trilby, sur le mur, vous savez, avec le verre et tout le reste, coupez le mur. Compris ? Combien ? « Ah, monsieur, c'est M. Vina. C'est un peu difficile, vous savez, couper un mur comme ça, on parlera aux propriétaires si vous voulez, et ça pourrait peut-être s'arranger. « Si c'est en bois, seulement il faut reprendre, » said de Laird, and waved his hand in farewell. They went up de rue vieille et des trois mauvais ladres, and found that about twenty yards of a high wall had been pulled down, just at the bend where De Laird had seen the last of Trilby, as she turned round and kissed her hand to him, and they beheld within a quaint and ancient long neglected garden, a grey old garden with tall, warty, black-bold trees and damp green mossy paths that lost themselves under the brown and yellow leaves and mold and muck, which had drifted into heaps here and there, the accumulation of years. A queer old faded pleasant with wasted bowers and dilapidated carved stone benches and weather beaten discoloured marble statues, noiseless, armless, earless fawns, and hammer-dreads. And at the end of it, in a tumbledown state of utter ruin, a still-inhabited little house with shabby blinds and window curtains, and broken window paints mended with brown paper, et pavillon de fleurs that must have been quite beautiful a hundred years ago, the once mysterious love resort of long-buried abeys with light hearts and well-forgotten lords and ladies-gays, red-healed, patched, powdered, frivolous and shameless, but oh how charming to the imagination of the 19th century. And right through the ragged lawn where a lay upset in the long-duey grass, a broken dolt perambulatored by a tattered policinelle, went a desecrating track made by cartwheels and horses-hoofs, and this, no doubt, was to be a new street. Perhaps as Taffy suggested, la runeuve des trois mauvais lardres, the new street of the three bad leppers. Ah Taffy, sententiously a-pint de-layered with his usual wink at little belly, I've no doubt de y old leppers were the best, bad as they were. I'm quite sure of it, said Taffy, with sad and sober conviction, and a long-drawn sigh. I only wish I had a chance of painting one, just as he really was. How often they had speculated on what lay hidden behind that lofty old brick wall, and now this melancholy little peep into the once festive past, the touching sight of this odd old poverty-stricken abode of heaven knows what present grief and desolation, which, a few strikes of the pickaxe had laid bare, seemed to chime in with their own grey mood that had been so bright and sunny an hour ago, and they went on their way quite dejectedly for a stroll through the Luxembourg gallery and gardens. The same people seemed to be still copying the same pictures in the long, quiet, genial room so pleasantly smelling of oil paint, Rosa Bonheur's La Bourrage Nivernais, Herbert's Malaria, Couture's Decadent Romans, and in the formal dusty gardens were the same paupiers and zoos still walking with the same nunus or sitting by their sides on benches by formal ponds with gold and silver fish in them, and just the same old couples petting the same tutus and loulous. Then they thought they would go and lunch at Le Père Trinces, the restaurant de la Couronne in the rue du Luxembourg for the sake of old long sign. But when they got there, the well-remembered fumes of that humble refactory, which had once seemed not un appetising, turned their stomachs. So they contented themselves with warmly greeting Le Père Trin, who was quite overjoyed to see them again, and anxious to turn the whole establishment topsy-turvy that he might entertain such guests as they deserved. Then the lait suggested an omelette at the Café de l'Odion, but Taffy said, in his masterful way, damn the Café de l'Odion! And hailing a little open fly, they drove to Le Douayin's, or some such place, in the Champs-Élysées, where they feasted and became three prosperous Britons out for a holiday in Paris. Three irresponsible muscateurs, lords of themselves and Lutitia, Béatipos Sidentis, went afterwards, had themselves driven in an open carriage, and pared through the Bois de Boulogne, on the Fête des Sincludes, or what still remains of it, for at last six weeks. The scenes of so many of Dodor's and Zuzu's exploits in past years, and found it more amusing than the Luxembourg Gardens. The lively and irrepressible spirit of Dodor seemed too pervaded still. But it doesn't want the presence of a Dodor to make the blue-bloust sons of the Gallic people, and its neatly shot white-capped daughters delightful to watch as they take their pleasure. And delayed, thinking perhaps of Hampstead Heath on an Easter Monday, must not be blamed for once more quoting his favourite phrase, the pretty little phrase with which the most humorous and least exemplary of British Parsons began his famous journey to France. When they came back to the hotel to dress and dine, the layered found he wanted a pair of white gloves for the concert, au pair de grand blanc, as he called it, and they walked along the boulevards till they came to a haberdasher's shop, a very good and prosperous appearance, and going in were received graciously by the patron, a portly little bourgeois, who waved them to a tall and aristocratic and very well dressed young commie behind the counter, saying, une paire de gants blancs pour monsieur. And what was the surprise of our three friends in recognising Dodor? The gay Dodor, Dodor l'irrésistible, quite un embarrassed by his position was exuberant in his delight at seeing them again, and introduced them to the patron and his wife and daughter, monsieur, madame, and mademoiselle Pasophile. As it soon became pretty evident that in spite of his humble employment in that house, he was a great favourite in that family, and especially with mademoiselle. Indeed, monsieur Pasophile invited our three heroes to stay and dine, then and there, but they compromised matters by asking Dodor to come and dine with them at the hotel, and he accepted with alacrity. Thanks to Dodor, the dinner was a very lively one, and they soon forgot the regretful impression of the day. They learned that he hadn't got a penny in the world, and had left the army, and had, for two years, kept the books at Le Père Pasophiles, and served his customers, and won his good opinion, and his wife's, and especially his daughter's, and that soon he was to be not only his employer's partner, but his son-in-law, and that, in spite of his impecuniosity, he had managed to impress them with the fact that in marrying Éric Goulot de la France, she was marrying a very splendid match indeed. His brother-in-law, the Honourable Jack Reeves, had long cut him for a bad lot. But his sister, after a while, had made up her mind that to marry mademoiselle Pasophile wasn't the worst he could do. At all events, it would keep him out of England. And that was a comfort. And passing through Paris, she had actually called on the Pasophile family, and they had fallen prostrate before such splendour, and no wonder, for Mrs. Jack Reeves was one of the most beautiful, elegant, and fashionable women in London, the smartest of the smart. And how about Le Zou Zou, as Little Belly ? Ah, old Contran, I don't see much of him. We no longer quite move in the same circles, you know, not that he's proud or me either. But he's a sub-loutainant, in the Guides, an officer. Besides, his brother's dead, and he's the Duke de la Roche Martelle, and a special pet of the Empress. He makes her laugh more than anybody. He's looking out for the biggest iris he can find, and he's pretty safe to catch her, with such a name as that. In fact, they say he's caught her already, Miss Lavinia Hunks of Chicago, twenty million dollars, at least, so the Figaro says. Then he gave them news of other old friends, and they did not part till it was time for them to go to the Cirque des Bâchis-Bazoucs, and after they had arranged to dine with his future family on the following day. In the Rue Saint-Honoré was a long double file of cabs and carriages, slowly moving along to the portals of that huge hall, Le Cirque des Bâchis-Bazoucs. Is it there still, I wonder? I don't mind buting not. Just as this period of the Second Empire there was a mania for demolition and remolition, if there is such a word, I have no doubt my Parisian readers would search de Rue Saint-Honoré for the Cirque des Bâchis-Bazoucs in vain. Our friends were shown to their stalls and looked round in surprise. This was before the days of the Albert Hall, and they had never been in such a big place of the kind before. Or one so regal in aspect, so gorgeously imperial with white and gold and crimson velvet. So dazzling with light, so crammed with people from floor to roof and cramming itself still. A platform carpeted with crimson cloth had been erected in front of the gates where the horses had once used to come in, and their fair riders, and the two jolly English clams, and the beautiful noble man with the long frock coat and brass buttons, and soft high boots, and four in-hand whip, la chambrerie. In front of this was a lower stand for the orchestra. The circus itself was filled with stalls, Storks d'orchestre. A pair of crimson curtains hid the entrance to the platform at the back, and by each of these stood a small page ready to draw it aside and admit the diva. The entrance to the orchestra was by a small door under the platform, and some 30 or 40 chairs and music stands grouped around the conductor's estrade were waiting for the band. Paul Belly looked round and recognized many countrymen and countrywomen of his own. Many great musician-celebrities especially, whom he had often met in London. Tears upon tears of people rose up all round in a widening circle, and lost themselves in a daisy mist of light at the top. It was like a picture by Martin. In the imperial box were the English ambassadors and his family. It's an august-british personage sitting in the middle, in front, his broad blue ribbon across his breast and his opera glass to his royal eyes. Little Belly had never felt so excited, so accelerated by such a show before, nor so full of eager anticipation. He looked at his program and saw that the Hungarian band, the first that had yet appeared in Western Europe, I believe, would play an overture of gypsy dances. Then Mme Zvengali would sing Un air connu sans accompagnement, and afterwards other airs including the noose palm of Schumann. For the first time in Paris it seemed. Then the rest of ten minutes, then Moaxardas, then the diva would sing Malbrouk sans va t'en guér, of all things in the world, and finish up with un apprentu de Chopin sans parole. Truly, a somewhat incongruous bill of fair. Close on the stroke of nine, the musicians came in and took their seats. They were dressed in the foreign hussar uniform that was now become so familiar. The first violin had scarcely sat down before our friends recognized in him their old friend Gyakko. Just as the clock struck Zvengali in a reproachable evening dress, tall and stout and quite splendid in appearance, notwithstanding his long black mane, which had been curled, took his place at his desk. Our friends would have known him at a glance, in spite of the wonderful alteration, time and prosperity had wrought in his outward man. He bowed right and left, to the thunderous applause that greeted him, gave his three little button-tops, and the lovely music began at once. We have grown accustomed to strains of this kind during the last twenty years, but they were new then, and the strange seduction was a surprise as well as an enchantment. Besides, no such band as Zvengali's had ever been heard and in listening to this overture, the immense crowd almost forgot that was a mere preparation for the great musical event and tried to encore it. But Zvengali merely turned round and bowed. There were to be no encores that night. Then a moment of silence and breathless suspense, curiosity on tiptoe. Then the two little page boys each drew a silk and rope, and the curtains parted and looped themselves up on each side symmetrically. And a tall female figure appeared, clad in what seemed like a classical dress of cloth of gold, embroidered with garnets and betel-swinges. Her snowy arms and shoulders bare, a gold coronet of stars on her head. Her thick light brown hair tied behind and flowing all down her back to nearly her knees. Just like those ladies in hairdresser's shops who sat with their backs to the plate-classe window to advertise the merits of some particular hair wash. She walked slowly down to the front, her hands hanging at her sides in quite a simple fashion and made a slight inclination of her head and body towards the imperial box, and then to right and left. Her lips and cheeks were rouged, her dark-level eyebrows nearly met at the bridge of her short high nose. Through her parted lips you could see her large, glistening white teeth. Her grey eyes looked straight at Vingardie. Her face was thin and had a rather hargard expression in spite of its artificial freshness. But its contour was divine, and its character so tender, so humble, so touchingly simple. And sweet, that one melted at the sight of her. No such magnificent or seductive apparition has ever been seen before or since on any stage or platform, not even Miss Elan Terry, as the Priestess of Artemis in the late Laureates play The Cup. The house rose at her as she came down to the front, and she bowed again to right and left, and put her hand to her heart quite simply, and with a most winning natural gesture. An adorable goucherie, like the graceful and unconscious schoolgirl, quite innocent of staged apportment. It was Trilby. Trilby, the tone deaf, who couldn't sing one single note in tune. Trilby, who couldn't tell a C from an F. What was going to happen? Her three friends were almost turned to stone in the immensity of their surprise. Yet, the big taffy was trembling all over, the layered jaw had all but fallen on to his chest. Little belly was staring, staring his eyes almost out of his head. There was something to them so strange and uncanny about it all, so oppressive, so anxious, so momentous. End of Part 2 Part 6 Recording by JC Guan, Montreal, June 2010. Part 3 of Part 6 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 JC Guan, Trilby, Bajorge Dumaurier. Part 6 Part 3 The applause had at last subsided. Trilby stood with her hands behind her one foot, the left one, on a little stool that had been left there on purpose. Her lips parted, her eyes on vingallies, ready to begin. She gave his three beats, and the band struck a chord. Then at another beat from him, but in her direction. She began, without the slightest appearance of effort, without any accompaniment whatsoever. He, still beating time, conducting her in fact, as if she had been an orchestra herself. Au clair de la lune, mon ami Piero, prête-moi ta plume pour écrire un mot, m'achandaient les mortes, je n'ai plus de feu, ouvre-moi ta porte pour l'amour de Dieu. This was the absurd old nursery rhyme with which Lassven Gali chose to make her debut before the most critical audience in the world. She sang it three times over, the same verse. There is, but one. The first time she sang it without any expression whatever, not the slightest, just the words and the tune in the middle of her voice, and not loud at all, just as a child sings who is thinking of something else, or just as a young French mother sings who is darning socks by a cradle and rocking her baby to sleep with her foot. But her voice was so immense in its softness, richness, freshness that it seemed to be pouring itself from all round, its intonation absolutely mathematically pure. One felt it to be not only faultless, but infallible, and the seduction, the novelty of it, the strangely sympathetic quality. How can one describe the quality of a peach, or a nectarine, to those who have only known apples? Until Lassven Gali appeared, the world had only known apples, catalanes, jennelins, crises, abonnes, parties, the best apples that can be for sure, but still only apples. If she had spread a pair of large white wings and gracefully fluttered up to the roof and perched upon the chandelier, she could not have produced a greater sensation. The like of that voice has never been heard, nor ever will be again. A woman archangel might sing like that, or some enchanted princess out of a fairytale. Little Billy had already dropped his face into his hands and hid his eyes in his pocket-hand creature. A big tear had fallen onto Taffy's left whisker. The laird was trying hard to keep his tears back. She sang diverse a second time, with but little added expression and no louder, but with a sort of breathy whitening of her voice that made it like a broad heavenly smile of universal motherhood turned into sound. One felt all the genial gaiety and grace of impishness of Pyrrho and Columbine idealized into follexome beauty and holy innocence. As though they were performing for the saints in paradise, a baby Columbine with a cherub for clown. The dream of it all came over you for a second or two, a revelation of some impossible golden age priceless never to be forgotten. How on earth did she do it? Little Billy had lost all control over himself and was shaking with his suppressed sobs. Little Billy, who hadn't shed a single tear for five long years. Half the people in the house were in tears, but tears of sheer delight, of delicate inner laughter. Then she came back to earth and saddened and veiled and darkened her voice as she sang the verse for the third time, and it was a great and sombre tragedy too deep for any more tears, and somehow or other, poor Columbine, forlorn and betrayed and dying, out in the cold at midnight, sinking down to hell, perhaps, with making her last frantic appeal. It was no longer Pyrrho and Columbine, it was Marguerite, it was Faust. It was the most terrible and pathetic of all possible human tragedies, but expressed with no dramatic or histrionic exaggeration of any sort, but mere tone, slight subtle changes in the quality of the sound, too quick and elusive to be taken count of, but to be felt with. Oh, what poignant sympathy! When the song was over, the applause did not come immediately, and she waited, with her kind, wide smile, as if she were well accustomed to wait like this. And then the storm began, and grew and spread and rattled and echoed, voice, hands, feet, sticks, umbrellas. And down came the bouquets, which the little page-boys picked up, and Trilby bowed to front and right and left in her simple de bonheur fashion. It was her usual triumph. It had never failed, whatever the audience, whatever the country, whatever the song. Little Billy didn't applaud. He sat with his head in his hands, his shoulders still heaving. He believed himself to be fast asleep and in a dream, and was trying his utmost not to wake, for a great happiness was his. It was one of those nights to be marked with a white stone. As the first bars of the song came pouring out of her parted lips, whose shape he so well remembered, and her dove-like eyes looked straight over Spingali's head, straight in his own direction, nay at him. Something melted in his brain, and all his long-lost power of loving came back with a rush. It was like the sudden curing of a deafness that had been lasting for years. The doctor blows through your nose into your eustachian tube with a little India rubber machine. Some obstacle gives way. There is a snap in your head, and straight way you hear better than you had ever heard in all your life almost too well, and all your life is once more changed for you. At Lent, he sat up again in the middle of Zlaizvangali's singing of the Noosebaum, and saw her, and saw the leir sitting by him, and taffy, their eyes riveted on Trollby, and knew for certain that it was no dream this time, and his joy was almost a pain. She sang the Noosebaum, to its heavenly accompaniment, as simply as she had sung the previous song. Every separate note was a highly finished gem of sound, linked to the next by a magic bond. You did not require to be a lover of music, to fall beneath the spell of such a voice as that. The mere melodic phrase had all but ceased to matter. Her phrasing, consummate as it was, was as simple as a child's. It was as if she said, see, what does the composer count for? Here is about as beautiful a song as was ever written, with beautiful words to match, and the words have been made French for you by one of your smartest poets. But what do the words signify any more than the tune, or even the language? The Noosebaum is neither better nor worse than Mon ami Piero, when I am the singer. For I am Sven Galli, and you shall hear nothing, see nothing, think of nothing but Sven Galli, Sven Galli, Sven Galli. It was the apotheosis of voice and virtuosity. It was El Belcanto, come back to earth after a hundred years, the Belcanto of Vivarelli, let us say, who sang the same song every night to the same king of Spain for a quarter of a century and was rewarded with a dukdom and wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. And indeed, here was this immense audience made up of the most cynically critical people in the world and the most anti-Germain, assisting with wrapped ears and streaming eyes at the imagined spectacle of a simple German damsel, a Mädchen, a Frau-Line, juste für Lobte, a future Hausfrau, sitting under a walnut tree in some suburban garden, a Berlin, around her. Her family and her friends probably drinking beer and smoking long porcelain pipes and talking politics or business and cracking innocent elaborate old German jokes with baited breath, lest they should disturb her maiden dream of love. And all as though it were a scene in Elysium and of Frau-Line, a nymph of many fountains either, and her people Olympian gods and goddesses. And such indeed they were when Trilby sang of them. After this, when the long frantic applause had subsided, she made a gracious bow to the royal British opera glass, which had never left her face. And sang Ben Bolt in English. And then, little Billy remembered, there was such a person as Vingali in the world and recalled his little flexible flagellet. That is how I teach Kako. That is how I teach La Bedite Honorine. That is how I teach Il Belcanto. It was lost, Il Belcanto, and I found it in a dream, eyes Vingali. And his old cosmic vision of the beauty and sadness of things, the very heart of them, and their pathetic evanescence, came back with a tenfold clearness, that heavenly glimpse beyond the veil, and with it a crushing sense of his own infinitesimal significance by the side of the glorious pair of artists, one of whom had been his friend and the other his love. A love who had offered to be his humble mistress and slave, not feeling herself good enough to be his wife. It made him sick and faint to remember and filled him with hot shame, and then and there his love for Chorby became a stat of a dog for its master. She sang once more, Chanson de printemps, by Gounot, who was present and seemed a very hysterical. And the first part of the concert was over and people had time to draw breath and talk over this new wonder, this revelation of what the human voice could achieve, and an immense hum filled the hall, astonishment, enthusiasm, ecstatic delight. But our three friends found little to say, for what they felt there were as yet no words. Taffy and the Laird looked at Little Billy, who seemed to be looking inward at some transcendent dream of his own, with red eyes, in his face all pale and drawn, and his nose very pink and rather thicker than usual, and the dream appeared to be out of the common, blissful, though his eyes were swimming still. For his smile was almost idiotic in his rapture. The second part of the concert was still shorter than the first and he created, if possible, a wilder enthusiasm. Trilby only sang twice. Her first song was Malbrook sans va-t'en guerre. She began it quite lightly and merrily, like a jolly march, in the middle of a voice which had never as yet revealed any exceptional compass or range. People laughed quite frankly at the first verse. Malbrook sans va-t'en guerre, Myronthon, Myronthon, Myronthaine, Malbrook sans va-t'en guerre, ne sait qu'on reviendra, ne sait qu'on reviendra, ne sait qu'on reviendra. De Myronthon, Myronthaine, was the very essence of high martial resolve and heroic self-confidence. One would have left a forlorn hope after hearing it once. Il reviendra Zapaque, Myronthon, Myronthon, Myronthaine, Il reviendra Zapaque ou à la Trinité. People still laughed, though the Myronthon, Myronthaine, betrayed an uncomfortable sense of the dawning of doubts and fears, vague for bootings. La Trinité se passe, Myronthon, Myronthon, Myronthaine, La Trinité se passe, Malbrook ne revient pas. Surtout dans le Myronthon, Myronthaine, une note de anxiété réveillait elle-même, si proignante, si amusante et humaine, qu'elle a été une anxiété personnelle d'une personne, qui a causé l'air de se battre, et que l'esprit était fort. Mme Massattou remonte, Myronthon, Myronthon, Myronthaine, Mme Massattou remonte, si haut qu'elle peut monter. Oh, how one's heart went with her. Anne, sister Anne, do you see anything? Elle voit de loin son page, Myronthon, Myronthon, Myronthaine, elle voit de loin son page, tout de noir habillé. One is almost sick with the sense of impending calamity. It is all but unbearable. Mon page, mon bout page, Myronthon, Myronthaine, qu'elle nous va apporter. And here, little Billy begins to weep again, and so does everybody else. The Myronthon, Myronthaine, is an agonised will of suspense. Poor bereaved touches, poor serrajinnings. Did it all announce itself to you just like that? All this while, the accompaniment had been quite simple, just a few obvious ordinances. A few obvious ordinary chords. But now, quite suddenly, without a single modulation or note of warning, down goes the tune, a full major third from E to C, into the graveer depths of Treby's great contralter, soul-solon and ominous, that there is no more weeping, but the flesh creeps, the accompaniment slows and elaborates itself. The march becomes a funeral march, with muted strings and quite slowly. Au Nouvel que j'apporte, Myronthon, Myronthon, Myronthaine, Au Nouvel que j'apporte, vos beaux yeux vont pleurer. Richer and richer grows the accompaniment. The Myronthon, Myronthaine, becomes a dirge. Quittez-vous à bi-rose, Myronthon, Myronthon, Myronthaine, Quittez-vous à bi-rose et vous s'atteint brocher. Here, the ding-donging of a big bell seems to mingle with the score, and very slowly, so impressively, that the news will ring forever in the ears and hearts of those who hear it from Las Vengales lips. Le sœur Malbruque est mort, Myronthon, Myronthon, Myronthaine, Le sœur Malbruque est mort et mort ayant tiré. And thus, it ends quite abruptly. And this heart-rending tragedy, this great historical epic in two dozen lines, at which some five or six thousand gay French people are sniffling and mopping their eyes like so many niobes, is just a common old French comic song, a mere nursery-ditty, like Little Bo Peep, to the tune. We don't go home till morning till daylight does appear. And after a second or two of silence, oppressive and impressive, as that which occurs at a burial where the handful of earth is being dropped on the coffin lid. The audience bursts once more into madness and Las Vengales, who accepts no-one course, has to bow for nearly five minutes, standing amid a sea of flowers. Then comes her great and final performance. The orchestra swiftly plays the first four bars of the bass in Chopin's impromptu, a flat, and suddenly, without words, as a light nymph catching the whirl of a double-skipping rope, Las Vengales breaks in and vocalizes that astounding piece of music that so few pianists can even play. But no pianist has ever played it like this. No piano has ever given out such notes as these. Every single phrase is a string of perfect gems, of purest raiserine, strung together on a loose golden thread. The higher in shriller, she sings, the sweeter it is, higher in shriller than any woman had ever sung before. End of part three, part six. Recording by JC Guant, Montreal, July 2010. Part four of part sixth of Trilby. This is LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jersey City Frankie. Trilby by George de Morier. Part sixth, part four. Waves of sweet and tender laughter. The very heart in essence of innocent, high-spirited girlhood. Alive to all that is simple and joyous and elementary in nature. The freshness of the morning. The ripple of the stream. The click of the mill. The lisp of the wind in the trees. The song of the lark and the cloudless sky. The sun and the dew. The scent of early flowers and summer woods and meadows. The sight of birds and bees and butterflies and frolics on young animals at play. All the sights and scents and sounds that are the birthright of happy children. Happy savages and favored climes. Things within the remembrance and the reach of most of us. All this, the memory and the feel of it, are in Trilby's voice as she warbles that long, smooth, lilting, dancing laugh. That shower of linked sweetness. That wondrous song without words. And those who hear it feel it all. And remember it with her. It is irresistible. It forces itself on you. No words, no pictures could ever do the like. So that the tears that are shed out of all these many French eyes are tears of pure, unmixed delight and happy reminiscence. Chopin, it is true, may have meant something quite different. A hot house, perhaps, with orchids and arame lilies and tuberoses and hydrangeas. But all this is neither here nor there as the laird would say in French. Then comes the slow movement, the sudden adagio with its capricious ornaments, the waking of the virgin heart, the stirring of the sap, the dawn of love, its doubts and fears and questionings, and the mellow powerful deep chest notes are like the peeling of great golden bells, with a light little pearl shower tinkling round drops from the upper fringes of her grand voice as she shakes it. Then back again, the quick part, childhood once more, de capo, only quicker, hurry, hurry, but distinct as ever, loud and shrill and sweet beyond compare, drowning the orchestra, of a piercing quality quite ineffable, a joy there is no telling, a clear, pearling, crystal stream that gurgles and foams and bubbles along over sunlit stones, a wonder, a world's delight, and there is not a sign of effort of difficulty overcome. All through Trilby smiles a broad angelic smile, her lips well parted, her big white teeth glistening as she gently jerks her head from side to side in time to Sven Gali's baton, as if to shake the willing notes out quicker and higher and shriller. And in a minute or two, it is all over, like the lovely bouquet of fireworks at the end of the show, and she lets what remains of it the out and away like the afterglow of fading Bengal fires, de distance, coming back to you like an echo from all round from anywhere you please, quite soft, hardly more than a breath, but such a breath, then one last chromatically ascending rocket, pianissimo, up to e and alt, and then darkness and silence. And after a little pause the many-headed rises as one and waves its hats and sticks and handkerchiefs vive la Sven Gali. Sven Gali steps on to the platform by his wife's side and kisses her hand, and they both bow themselves backward through the curtains which fall to rise again and again on this astounding pair. Such was less Sven Gali's debut in Paris. It had lasted a little over an hour, one quarter of which at least had been spent and plotted some courtesies. The writer is no musician alas, as no doubt his musical readers have found out by this. Save in his thralldom to music of not too severe a kind and laments the clumsiness and inadequacy of this wild, though somewhat ambitious, attempt to recall an impression received more than thirty years ago to revive the ever-blessed memory of that unforgettable first night at the Cirque du Besheb-Zouks. Wood that I could transcribe here barely owes famous series of twelve articles d'un électorat qui se sont republissés par L'Eleon, et qui sont maintenant en print. Or theophile Gaultierre s'élaborerait rhapsody madame Sven Gali, ung, au fem, in which he proves that one need not have a musical ear, he hadn't, to be enslaved by such a voice as hers and more than the eye for beauty this he had, to fall the victim of her celestial form and face. It is enough, he says, to be simply human. I forget in which journal this eloquent tribute appeared, it is not to be found in his collected works. Or the intemperate that tribe by her blankner, as I will Christian him, on the tyranny of the primadonna called Sven Gali'smus, in which he attempts to show that mere virtuosity carried to such a pitch is mere visiocity, base acrobatismus of the vocal cords, a hysteric appeal to morbid gaelic sentimentalismus and that this monstrous development of a phenomenal larynx this degrading cultivation and practice of the abnormalismus of a mere physical peculiarity, our death and destruction to all true music since they placed Mozart and Beethoven and even himself on a level with Bellini, Donazetti, Offenbach, any Italian tune tinkler and balladmonger of the hated Paris pavement and can make the highest music of all even his own, go down with the common French herd at the very first hearing just as if it were some idiotic refrain of the Café Chantant so much for blacknerismus versus Sven Gali'smus, but I fear there is no space within the limits of this humble tale for these masterpieces of technical musical criticism besides there are other reasons our three heroes walked back to the boulevards the only silent ones amid the throng that poured through the Rue Saint-Honère and the Cirque du Besouks emptied itself of its over excited audience they went arm and arm as usual but this time little Billy was in the middle he wished to feel on each side of him the warm and genial contact of his two beloved old friends it seemed as if they had been restored to him after five long years of separation his heart was overflowing with affection for them too full to speak just yet overflowing indeed with the love of love the love of life the love of death the love of all that is and ever was and ever will be just as in his old way he could have hugged them both in the open street before the whole world and the delight of it was out that there was no mistake he was himself again at last after five years and wide awake and he owed it all to Trilby and what did he feel for Trilby he couldn't tell yet it was too vast as yet to be measured and at last it was weighed with such a burden of sorrow and regret that he might well put off the thought of it a little while longer and gather in what bliss he might like the man whose hearing has been restored after long years and not go out of his way as yet to listen for the bad news that was already in the air and would come to ruse quite soon enough Taffy and the Laird were silent also Trilby's voice was still in their ears and hearts her image in their eyes and utter bewilderment still oppressed them and kept them dumb it was a warm and balmy night almost like midsummer and they stopped at the first cafe they met on the boulevard de la medalline comme Autrefois and ordered a box of beer and sat at a table on the pavement the only one un occupied for the cafe was already crowded the hum of lively talk was great and las vengales was in every mouth the Laird was the first to speak he emptied his box at a draught and called for another and lit a cigar and said I don't believe it was Trilby after all it was the first time her name had been mentioned between them that evening and for five years good heaven said Taffy can you doubt it? oh yes that was Trilby said little Billy then the Laird proceeded to explain that putting aside the impossibility of Trilby's ever being taught to sing and tune and her well remembered loathing of Sfengali he had narrowly scanned her face through his opera glass and found that in spite of a likeness quite marvellous there were well marked differences her face was narrower and longer and their expression not the same then she seemed taller and stouter and her shoulders broader and more drooping and so forth but the others wouldn't hear of it and voted him cracked and declared they even recognized the peculiar twang of her old speaking voice and the voice she now sang with especially when she sang low down and the all three fell to discussing the wonders of her performance like everybody else all around little Billy leading with an eloquence of technical musical knowledge that quite impressed them and made them feel happy and at ease for they were anxious for his sake about the effect the sudden and so unexpected sight of her would have upon him after all that had passed he seemed transcendently happy and delayed incomprehensibly so in fact and looked at them both with quite a new light in his eyes as if all the music he had heard had troubled not only his joy in being alive but he sang with them evidently he had quite outgrown his old passion for her and that was a comfort indeed but little Billy knew better he knew that his old passion for her had all come back and was so overwhelming and immense that he could not feel it just yet nor yet the hideous pangs of a jealousy so consuming that it would burn up his life he gave himself another 24 hours but he had not to wait so long he woke up after a short uneasy sleep that very night to find that the flood was over him and he realized how hopelessly desperately wickedly insanely he loved this woman who might have been his but was now the wife of another man a greater than he and one to whom she owed it that she was more glorious than any other woman on earth a queen among queens a goddess any earthly throne compared to that she established in the hearts and souls of all who came within the sight and hearing of her beautiful as she was besides beautiful beautiful and what must be her love for the man who had taught her and trained her and revealed her towering genius to herself and to the world a man resplendant also handsome and tall and commanding a great artist from the crown of his head to the soul of his foot and the remembrance of them hand in hand master and pupil husband and wife smiling and bowing in the face of all that splendid tumult they had called forth and could quell stung and tortured and maddened him so that he could not lie still but got up and raged and rampaged up and down his hot narrow stuffy bedroom and long for his old familiar brain disease to come back and narcotise his trouble and be his friend and stay with him till he died where was he to fly for relief from such new memories as these which would never cease and the old memories and all the glamour and grace of them that had been so suddenly called out of the grave and how could he escape now that he felt the sight of her face and the sound of her voice would be a craving a daily want or starving outcast for warmth and meat and drink and little innocent pathetic ineffable well-remembered sweetness of her changing face kept painting themselves on his retina and incomparable tones of this new thing her voice her infinite voice went ringing in his head till he all but shrieked aloud in his agony and then that poisoned and delirious sweetness of those mad kisses by hopeless fancy feigned on lips that are for others and then the gruesome physical jealousy that miserable inheritance of all artistic sons of Adam that plague and torment of the dramatic plastic imagination which can idealize so well and yet realize alas so keenly after three or four hours spent like this he could stand it no longer madness was lying his way so he hurried on a garment and went and knocked at taffy's door good god what's the matter with you explain the good taffy as little billy tumbled into his room calling out oh taffy taffy I've got gone mad I think and then shivering all over and stammering incoherently he tried to tell his friend what was the matter with him with great simplicity taffy in much alarm slipped on his trousers and made little billy get into his bed and sat by his side holding his hand he was greatly perplexed fearing the recurrence of another attack like that of five years back he didn't dare leave him for an instant to wake the laird and send for a doctor suddenly little billy buried his face in the pillow and began to sob and some instinct told taffy this was the best thing that could happen the boy had always been a highly strung emotional over excitable oversensitive and quite uncontrolled mammy's darling a cry baby sort of chap who had never been to school it was all a part of his genius charme it would do him good once more to have a good blob after five years after a while little billy grew quieter and then suddenly he said what a miserable ass you must think me what an unmanly duffer why my friend why for going on in this idiotic way I really couldn't help it I went mad I tell ya I've been walking up and down my room all night till everything seemed to go round so have I you what for and what I was just as fond of trilby as you were only she happened prefer you what cried little billy again you were fond of trilby I believe you my boy in love with her I believe you my boy she never knew it then oh yes she did she never told me then didn't she that's like her I told her at all events to marry me well I am damned when that day we took her to moudan was you know and dined at the guard shum tray and she danced the can can was sandy well I am and she refused you apparently so well I why on earth did she refuse you I suppose she'd already begun to fancy you my friend tu gerona trè fancy me prefer me to you well yes it does seem odd a old fellow but there's no accounting for taste you know she's built on such an ample scale herself I suppose that she likes little unes contrastes you see she's very maternal I think besides you're a smart little chap and you ain't half bad and you've got brains and talent and lots of cheek and all that I already well I'm damned c'est comme ca I took it lying down you see does the layered no no and I don't want him to nor anybody else taffy what a regular downright old trump you are glad you think so anyhow we're both in the same boat and we've got to make the best of it she's another man's wife and probably she's very fond of him qu'est ce qu'il y a c'est une nièce de la bourse c'est le plus obtained il y a eu une nièce de la bourse je ne sais pas je ne sais pas je lui ai marre mais je me suis étouffé de l'amour en fait sur les voies elle a été en illumination en ma main comme ça oh Dieu qu'une femme est soire oh la poche et la chaise et la façon dont ses mains sont mises, a-t-elle vu quelque chose comme ça ? Oh, si seulement je n'avais pas réveillé et disais à ma mère que je vais m'aider, pourquoi ? Nous devons être des hommes et des filles pour cinq ans par cette époque, vivant à Barbizon, peint à l'âge comme mad, qu'est-ce que la vie de l'Hélo ? Oh, curse all a fishes meddling with other people's affairs, oh, whoa ! There you go again, what's the good ? And where do I come in, my friend ? I should have been no better off, old fella, worse than ever, I think. Then there was a long silence. At length, little Billy said, Taffy, I can't tell you what a Trump you are, all I've ever thought of you, and God knows that's enough, will be nothing to what I shall always think of you after this. All right, old chap. And now I think I'm all right again, for a time, and I shall cut back to bed. Good night. Thanks more than I can ever express. And little Billy restored to his balance, cut back to his own bed just as the day was breaking. End of part six. Recording by Estelle Jobson. Trilby by George de Montréal. Part seventh, part one. Next morning our three friends lay late a bed and breakfasted in their rooms. They had all three past white nights, even the layered who had tossed about and pressed a sleepless pillow till dawn, so excited had he been by the wonder of Trilby's reincarnation, so perplexed by his own doubts as to whether it was really Trilby or not. And certain haunting tones of her voice that voice so cruelly sweet, which clove the stillness with a clang so utterly new, so strangely heart piercing and seductive that the desire to hear it once more became nostalgic, almost an ache. Certain bits and bars and phrases of the music she had sung, unspeakable felicities and facilities of execution, sudden exotic warmths, fragrances, tendonesses, graces, depths and breaths, quick changes from grave to gay, from rough to smooth, from great metallic brazen clangers to soft golden suiveties, all the varied modes of sound we try so vainly to borrow from vocal nature by means of wind and reed and string. All this new Trilby-ness kept echoing in his brain all night, for he was of a nature deeply musical, and sleep had been impossible to him. As when we dwell upon a word we know, repeating till the word we know so well becomes a wonder and we know not why, so dwelt the laird upon the poor old tune Benbalt, which kept singing itself over and over again in his tired consciousness and maddened him with novel, strange, un hackneyed, unsuspected beauties such as he had never dreamed of in any earthly music. It had become a wonder and he knew not why. They spent what was left of the morning at the Louvre and tried to interest themselves in the marriage of Cana at the Well and van Dyck's man with the glove and the little princess of Velasquez and Lisa Jaconda's smile. It was of no use trying. There was no sight worth looking at in all Paris but Trilby in her gold raiment. No other princess in the world, no smile but hers, when through her parted lips came bubbling Chopin's impromptu. They had not long to stay in Paris and they must drink of that bubbling fountain once more. Coute que coute. They went to the Sal de Bajibazouk and found that all seats all over the house had been taken for days and weeks and the queue at the door had already begun and they had to give up all hopes of slaking this particular thirst. Then they went and lunched perfunctorily and talked desaltorily over lunch and read criticisms of Las Vengales' debut in the morning papers, a chorus of journalistic acclamations gone mad, a frenzied eulogy in every key, but nothing was good enough for them. Brand new words were wanted, another language. Then they wanted a long walk and could think of nowhere to go in all Paris, that immense Paris where they had promised themselves to see so much that the week they were to spend there had seemed too short. Looking in a paper they saw it announced that the band of the imperial guides would play that afternoon in the pré-catalan, Bois de Boulogne, and thought they might as well walk there as anywhere else and walk back again in time to dine with the pass-fi, a brandial function which did not promise to be very amusing, but still it was something to kill the evening with, since they couldn't go and hear Trilby again. Outside the pré-catalan they found a crowd of cabs and carriages, saddle-horses and grooms. One might have thought oneself in the height of the Paris season. They went in and strolled about here and there and listened to the band which was famous. It has performed in London at the Crystal Palace and they looked about and studied life or tried to. Suddenly they saw, sitting with three ladies, one of whom the eldest was in black, a very smart young officer, a guide all red and green and gold and recognized their old friend Zuzu. They bowed and he knew them at once and jumped up and came to them and greeted them warmly, especially his old friend Taffy, whom he took to his mother, the lady in black, and introduced to the other ladies, the younger of whom, strangely unlike the rest of her country women, was so lamentably so pathetically plain that it would be brutal to attempt the cheap and easy task of describing her. It was Miss Lavinia Hunks, the famous American millenaires and her mother. Then the good Zuzu came back and talked to the lad and little Billy. Zuzu, in some subtle and indescribable way, had become very ducal, indeed. He looked extremely distinguished for one thing in his beautiful guides' uniform and was most gracefully and winningly polite. He inquired warmly after Mrs. and Miss Bago and begged little Billy would recall him to their amiable remembrance when he saw them again. He expressed most sympathetically his delight to see little Billy looking so strong and so well. Little Billy looked like a pallid, little washed out ghost after his white night. They talked of Dodor. He said how attached he was to Dodor and always should be, but Dodor, it seemed, had made a great mistake in leaving the army and going into a retail business, petit commerce. He had done for himself de gringole. He should have stuck to the dragon. With a little patience and good conduct, he would have won his epaulette and then one might have arranged for him a good little marriage, un parti convenable. For he was très joli garçon d'odeur, bonne tournure et très gentiment naît. C'est très ancien les rigolos dont le poitou, je crois, la farce et tout ça tout à fait bien. It was difficult to realize that this polished and discreet and somewhat patronizing young man of the world was the jolly dog who had gone after little Billy's hat on all fours in the rouiller des trois mauvais l'adres and brought it back in his mouth, the cariadide. Little Billy knew that Monsieur le Duke de la Rochemar telle boissegure had quite recently delighted a very small and select and most august imperial supper party at Compiagne with this very story, not blinking a single detail of his own share in it and he had given a most touching and sympathetic description of le joli petit peintre anglais qui s'appelait Litra Billy et ne pouvait pas se tenir sur ses jambes et qui pleurait d'amour fraternel dans les bras de mon copain d'odeur. Ah, Monsieur Gontron, ce que je donnerais pour avoir vu ça, had said the greatest lady in France, un mezoave à quatre pattes dans la rue, un chapeau dans la bouche, oh c'est impayable. Zuzu kept these black guard bohemian reminiscences for the imperial circle alone, to which it was suspected that he was secretly rallying himself. Among all outsiders, especially within the narrow precincts of the cream of the noble Faubourg, which remained aloof from the Tuileries, he was a very proper and gentleman like person indeed, as his brother had been and in his mother's fond belief très bien pensant, très bien vu à Frostorf et à Rome. On lui aurait donné le bon Dieu son confession, as Madame Vinaire had said of Little Billy, they would have shriven him at sight and admitted him to the Holy Communion on trust. He did not present Little Billy and the lad to his mother, nor to Mrs. and Miss Hanks, that honour was reserved for the man of blood alone. Nor did he ask where they were staying, nor invite them to call on him. But in parting he expressed the pleasure it had given him to meet them again, and the hope he had of some day shaking their hands in London. As the friends walked back to Paris together it transpired that the man of blood had been invited by Madame Duchesse Maire, Maman Duchesse, as Zuzu called her, to dine with her next day and meet the Hankses at a furnished apartment she had taken in the Place Vendon. For they had led to the Hankses the Hotel de la Roche Martelle in the Rue de Lille. Le château des bois-ségures Tue monsieur d'espoir au dépoir as he chose to spell himself on his visiting cards, the famous soap manufacturer. Un très brave homme, à ce qu'on dit, and his only son, by the way, soon after married, Mademoiselle Jean Adelaide de la Roche Martelle. Il ne fait pas grâcher nous à présent, je vous assure, Madame Maire had pathetically said to Taffy, but had given him to understand that things would be very much better for his son in the event of his marriage with Miss Hanks. Good heavens, said little Billy on hearing this. That grotesque little bogey in blue why she's deformed, she squints, she's a dwarf and looks like an idiot. Millions or no millions, the man who marries her is a felon. As long as there are stones to break and a road to break them on, he marries a woman like that for anything but pity and kindness and even then dishonours himself insults his ancestry and inflicts on his descendants a wrong that nothing will ever redeem. He nips them in the bud, he blasts them forever. He ought to be cut by his fellowmen sent to coventry, to jail, to penal servitude for life. He ought to have a separate hell to himself when he dies. He ought to shut up, where do you expect to go to yourself with such frightful sentiments and what would become of your beautiful old 12th century dukdoms with a hundred yards of back frontage opposite the Louvre on a beautiful historic river and a dozen beautiful historic names and no money if you had your way and the layered wonk his historic wink. 12th century dukdoms be damned, said Taffy, au grand sérieux, as usual. Little Belly's quite right and Zuzu makes me sick. Besides, what does she marry him for? Not for his beauty either, I guess. She's his fellow criminal, his deliberate accomplice. Parti chèpes delicti. Accessory before, the act and after. She has no right to marry at all. Tar and feathers and a rail for both of them and for Mamondouches too. And I suppose that's why I refused her invitation to dinner. And now let's go and dine with Dodor. Anyhow, Dodor's young woman doesn't marry him for a dukdom or even his deux. Mais bien pour ses beaux yeux. And if the rigolo of the future turn out less nice to look at than their sire and not quite so amusing there will probably be a great improvement on him in many other ways. There's room enough and to spare. Yerir, said little Belly, who always grew flippant when Taffy got on his high horse. Your health and song, sir. Them's my sentiments to a tea. What shall we have the pleasure of drinking after that very nice harmony? After which they walked on in silence each, no doubt, musing on the general contrariness of things and imagining what splendid little winds or bago or McAllister's might have been ushered into a decadent world for its regeneration, if fate had so wielded that certain magnificent and singularly gifted rosette, etc. etc. Misses and mishunks passed them as they walked along in their beautiful blue barouche with sea springs. Un oui ressort. Maman Duchesse passed them in a hired fly. Zuzu passed them on horseback. Tou Paris passed them. But they were none the wiser and agreed that the show was not a patch on that in Hyde Park during the London season. When they reached the Place de la Concorde it was that lovely hour of a fine autumn day in beautiful bright cities when all the lamps are lit in the shops and streets and under the trees and it is still daylight. A quick fleeting joy and as a special treat on this particular occasion the sunset and up rose the yellow moon over eastern Paris and floated above the chimney pots of the Tuileries. They stopped to gaze at the homeward procession of the carriages as they used to do in the old times. Tou Paris was still passing. Tou Paris is very long. They stood among a little crowd of sightseers like themselves little Billy right in front in the road. Presently a magnificent open carriage came by more magnificent than even the hunkses with liveries and harness quite vulgarly resplendant almost Napoleonic. Lolling back in it Lassvengarli with his broad brim felt sombrero over his long black curls wrapped in costly furs smoking his big cigar of the Havana. By his side Lassvengarli also in sables with a large black velvet hat on her light brown hair done up in a huge knot on the nape of her neck. She was rouged and pearl powdered and her eyes were blackened beneath and thus made to look twice their size but in spite of all such disfigurements she was a most splendid vision and caused quite a little sensation in the crowd as she came slowly by. Little Billy's heart was in his mouth. He caught Svengarli's eye and saw him speak to her. She turned her head and looked at him standing there. They both did. Little Billy bowed. She stared at him with a cold stare of disdain and cut him dead. So did Svengarli and as they passed he heard them both snigger. She with a little high-pitched flippant snigger worthy of a London barmaid. Little Billy was utterly crushed and everything seemed turning around. The Laird and Taffy had seen it all without losing a detail. The Svengarli's had not even looked their way. The Laird said it's not Trilby I swear she could never have done that. It's not in her. And it's another face all together I'm sure of it. Taffy was also staggered and in doubt. They caught hold of Little Billy each by an arm and walked him off to the boulevards. He was quite demoralised and wanted not to die in at Pasfi. He wanted to go straight home at once. He longed for his mother as he used to long for her when he was in trouble as a small boy longed for her desperately to hug her and hold her and fondle her and be fondled for his own sake and hers. All his old love for her had come back in full with what areas all his old love for his sister for his old home. When they went back to the hotel to dress, for Dodor had begged them to put on their best evening war paint so as to impress his future mother-in-law. Little Billy became fractious and it was only on Taffy's promising that he would go all the way to Devonshire with him on the morrow and stay with him there that he could be got to dress and dine. The huge Taffy lived entirely by his affections and he hadn't many to live by the Laird, Trilby and Little Billy. Trilby was unattainable the Laird was quite strong and independent enough to get on by himself and Taffy had concentrated all his faculties of protection and affection on Little Billy and was equal to any burden or responsibility all this instinctive young fathering might involve. In the first place Little Billy had always been able to do it quite easily and better than anyone else in the world the very things Taffy most longed to do himself and couldn't and this inspired the good Taffy with a chronic reverence and wonder he could not have expressed in words. Then Little Billy was physically small and weak and incapable of self-control then he was generous amiable affectionate transparent as crystal without an atom of either egotism or conceit and had a gift of amusing you and interesting you by his talk and its complete sincerity that never pawled and even his silence was charming one felt so sure of him there was hardly any sacrifice little or big that Big Taffy was not ready and glad to make for Little Billy on the other hand they lay deep down under Taffy's surface irrascibility and earnestness about trifles and beneath his harmless vanity of the strong man a long suffering patients a real humility a robustness of judgement a sincerity and all roundness a completeness of sympathy that made him very good to trust and safe to lean upon then his powerful and impressive aspect his great stature gladiator like poise of his small round head on his big neck and shoulders his huge deltoids and deep chest and slender loins his clean cut ankles and wrists all the long and bold and highly finished athletic shapes of him that easy grace of strength that made all his movements a pleasure to watch and any garment look well when he wore it all this was a perpetual feast to the quick prehensile aesthetic eye and then he had such a solemn earnest lovable way of bending pokers round his neck and breaking them on his arm and jumping his own height or near it and lifting up arm chairs by one leg with one hand and what not else so that there was hardly any sacrifice little or big that Little Billy would not accept from Big Taffy as a mere matter of course a fitting and proper tribute rendered by bodily strength to genius par Nobile Fratrum well met and well mated for fast and long enduring friendship the family banquet at Monsieur Pasfie would have been dull but for the irrepressible dodor and still more for the laird of cockpen who rose to the occasion and surpassed himself in geniality, drolery and eccentricity of French grammar and accent Monsieur Pasfie was also a drol in his own way and had the quickly familiar jocos facetiousness that seems to belong to the successful middle aged bourgeois all over the world when he's not pompous instead he can even be both sometimes Madame Pasfie was not jocos she was much impressed by the aristocratic splendor of Taffy the romantic melancholy and refinement of Little Billy and their quiet and dignified politeness she always spoke of Dodor as Monsieur de la Fars though the rest of the family and one or two friends who had been invited always called him Monsieur Theodor and he was officially known as Monsieur Rigolore whenever Madame Pasfie addressed him or spoke of him in this aristocratic manner which happened very often Dodor would wink at his friends with his tongue in his cheek it seemed to amuse him beyond measure Mademoiselle Ernestine was evidently much too in love to say anything Monsieur Theodor Whom she had never seen in evening dress before it must be owned that he looked very nice more ducal than even Zuzu and to be Madame de la Fars on perspective and the future owner of such a brilliant husband as Dodor was enough to turn a stronger Little Bourgeois head than Mademoiselle Ernestine she was not beautiful but healthy well grown, well brought up and presumably of a sweet kind and amiable disposition and she knew fresh from her convent innocent as a child no doubt and it was felt that Dodor had done better for himself and for his race than Monsieur Le Duc Little Dodors need have no fear End of part 1, part 7 Recording by Steljobsen Rome Italy Part 2 of part 7 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 Steljobsen Trilby Part 7 Part 2 After dinner the ladies and gentlemen left the dining room together and sat in a pretty salon overlooking the boulevard where cigarettes were allowed and there was music Mademoiselle Ernestine laboriously played Le cloche du monastère by Monsieur Le Febure O'Ely if I'm not mistaken it's the most bourgeois piece of music I know Then Dodor with his sweet high voice so strangely pathetic and true sang goody goody little French songs of innocence of which he seemed to have an endless repertoire to his future wife's conscientious accompaniment to the immense delight also of all his future family who were almost in tears and to the great amusement of the lad at whom he winked in the most pathetic parts putting his forefinger to the side of his nose like Noah Claypole in Oliver Twist The wonder of the hour La Svengali was discussed of course it was unavoidable but our friends did not think it necessary to reveal that she was La Grande Trilby that would soon transpire by itself and indeed before the month was a week older the papers were full of nothing else Mademoiselle Svengali Madame Svengali La Grande Trilby was the only daughter of the honourable and reverent Sir Lord O'Farrell She had run away from the primeval forests and lonely marches of Le Dublin to lead a free and easy life among the artists of the Cartier Latin of Paris, une vie de bohème She was the Venus and a diamine from top to toe She was blanche comme neige with a volcano in the heart Castes of her alabaster feet could be had at Brutiani's in the Rue de la Sorcière Saint-Denis He made a fortune Monsieur Ingres had painted her left foot on the wall of a studio in the Place Saint-Anatole-des-Arts and an eccentric scotch Millaud Le Comte de Pancoc had bought the house containing the flat containing the studio containing the wall on which it was painted had had the house pulled down and the wall framed and glazed and sent to his castle in Edinburgh This unfortunately was in excess of the truth It was found impossible to execute the lait's wish on account of the material the wall was made of So the Lord Count of Pancoc such was Madame Vina's version of Sandy's nickname had to forgo his purchase Next morning our friends were in readiness to leave Paris Even the lait had had enough of it and longed to get back to his work again a harri-kiri in Yokohama He had never been to Japan but no more had anyone else in those early days They had just finished breakfast and were sitting in the courtyard of the hotel which was crowded as usual Little Billy went into the hotel post office to dispatch a note to his mother Sitting sideways there at a small table and reading letters was Svengali of all people in the world But for these two and a couple of clerks the room was empty Svengali looked up They were quite close together Little Billy in his nervousness began to shake and half put out his hand and drew it back again seeing the look of hate on Svengali's face Svengali jumped up put his letters together and passing by Little Billy on his way to the door called him Verfluchte Schweinhund and deliberately spat in his face Little Billy was paralyzed for a second or two Svengali had caught him just at the top of the marble stairs and kicked him and knocked off his hat and made him drop all his letters Svengali turned around and struck him over the mouth and made it bleed Little Billy hit out like a fury but with no effect he couldn't reach high enough for Svengali was well over six feet There was a crowd round them in a minute including the beautiful old man in the court suit and gold chain There was a police a cry that was echoed all over the place Taffy saw the row and shouted bravo little un and jumping up from his table jostled his way through the crowd and Little Billy bleeding and gasping and perspiring and stammering said he spat in my face Taffy damn him I'd never even spoken to him not a word I swear Svengali had not reckoned on Taffy's being there he recognized him at once and turned white Taffy, who had dogskin gloves on put out his right hand and deftly seized Svengali's nose between his fore and middle fingers and nearly pulled it off and swung his head two or three times backward and forward by it and then from side to side Svengali holding onto his wrist and then letting him go gave him a sounding open-handed smack on his right cheek and a smack on the face from Taffy even in play was no joke I'm told it made one smell brimstone and see and hear things that didn't exist Svengali gasped worse than Little Billy and couldn't speak for a while then he said Lâche, grand lâche que fous on ferait mais de moins but your orders said Taffy in beautiful French and drew out his card case and gave him his card in quite the orthodox French manner adding c'est tout le monde mais c'est mon adresse de London en cas que je ne l'aie pas entendu je suis désolé mais il ne faut pas tu sais, ce n'est pas fait je vais venir à toi quand tu m'as envoyé même si j'ai besoin de venir à la fin du monde très bien, très bien il s'est dit que c'est un homme militaire qui a donné Taffy sa carte en cas qu'il pourrait être de l'aide et qui a semblé assez délicat et en fait, c'était vraiment plaisant Sven Gali a été en train de se faire et Taffy a lui-même mis à la disposition de la commissaire il a went into the post office and discussed it all with the old military gentlemen and the major dom in velvet and the two clerks who had seen the original insult and all that was required of Taffy and his friends for the present was their names, pre-names, titles, qualities, age, adresse, nationality, occupation, etc c'est une affaire qui s'arrangeera autrement et autre part, had said the military gentlemen Monsieur le général compte de la tourolou so it blew over quite simply and all that day a fierce un holy joy burned in Taffy's choleric blue eye not indeed that he had any wish to injure Trilby's husband or meant to do him any grievous bodily harm whatever happened but he was glad to have given Sven Gali a lesson in manners that Sven Gali should injure him never entered into his calculations for a moment besides he didn't believe Sven Gali would show fight and in this he was not mistaken but he had for hours the feel of that long thick shapely hero nose being needed between his gloved knuckles and a pleasing sense of the effectiveness of the tweak he had given it so he went about chewing the cud of that heavenly remembrance all day till reflection brought remorse and he felt sorry for he was really the mildest mannered man that ever broke ahead only the sight of little Billy's blood which had been made to flow by such an unequal antagonist had roused the old Adam no message came from Sven Gali to ask for the names and addresses of Taffy's seconds so Dodor and Zuzu not to mention Mr the general count of the tourolourals as the lay had called him were left undisturbed as Gatiers went back to London clean of blood, whole of limb and heartily sick of Paris little Billy stayed with his mother and sister in Devonshire till Christmas Taffy staying at the village inn it was Taffy who told Mrs Baggore about Lassven Gali's all but certain identity with Trilby after little Billy had gone to bed tired and worn out the night of their arrival good heavens said poor Mrs Baggore why that's the new singing woman coming over here there's an article about her in today's times it says she's a wonder and that there's no one like her surely that can't be the Miss O'Farrell I saw in Paris it seems impossible but I'm almost certain it is and Willie has no doubts in the matter on the other hand McAllister declares it isn't oh what trouble so that's why poor Willie looks so ill and miserable it's all come back again could she sing it all then yes not a note her attempts at singing were quite grotesque is she still very beautiful oh yes there's no doubt about that more than ever and her singing is that so very wonderful I remember that she had a beautiful voice in speaking wonderful ah yes I never heard or dreamed the like of it greasy, albony, pati not one of them to be mentioned in the same breath heavens why she must be simply irresistible I wonder you're not in love with her yourself how dreadful these sirens are wrecking the piece of families you mustn't forget that she gave way at once at a word from you Mrs. Bagor and she was very fond of Willie she wasn't a siren then oh yes oh yes that's true she behaved very well she did her duty I can't deny that you must try and forgive me Mr. Winn although I can't forgive her that dreadful illness of poor Willie's that bitter time in Paris and Mrs. Bagor began to cry and taffy forgave oh Mr. Winn let her still hope that there's some mistake that it's only somebody like her why she's coming to sing in London after Christmas my poor boy's infatuation will only increase what shall I do well, she's another man's wife you see so Willie's infatuation is bound to burn itself out Willie recognizes that important fact besides she cut him dead in the Champs-Élysées and her husband and Willie had a row next day at the hotel and cuffed and kicked each other that's rather a bar to any future intimacy I think oh Mr. Winn my son cuffing and kicking a man whose wife he's in love with, good heavens oh it was all right the man had grossly insulted him and Willie behaved like a brick and got the best of it in the end I saw it all oh Mr. Winn and you didn't interfere oh yes I interfered and everybody interfered it was all right I assure you no bones were broken on either side and there was no nonsense about calling out or swords or pistols and all that thank heaven in a week or two little Billy grew more like himself again and painted endless studies of rocks and cliffs and sea and taffy painted with him and was very content the vicar and little Billy patched up their feud the vicar also took an immense fancy to taffy whose cousin, Sir Oscar Winn he had known at college and lost no opportunity of being hospitable and civil to him and his daughter was away in Algiers and all the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood including the poor dear Marquis one of whose sons was in taffy's old regiment was civil and hospitable also to the two painters and taffy got as much sport as he wanted and became immensely popular and they had on the whole a very good time till Christmas and a very pleasant Christmas if not an exuberantly merry one after Christmas little Billy insisted on going back to London to paint a picture for the Royal Academy and taffy went with him and there was dullness in the house of Bagore and many misgivings in the maternal heart of its mistress and people of all kinds high and low from the family at the court to the fishermen on the little pier and their wives and children missed the two genial painters who were the friends of everybody and made such beautiful sketches of their beautiful coast Las Vengales has arrived in London her name is in every mouth her photograph is in the shop windows she is to sing at Jay's monster concerts next week she was to have sung sooner but it seems some hitch has occurred in Monsieur Svengali and his first violin who is a very important person a crowd of people as usual only bigger is assembled in front of the windows of the stereoscopic company in Regent Street gazing at presentments of Madame Svengali in all sizes and costumes she is very beautiful there is no doubt of that and the expression of her face is sweet and kind and sad and of such a distinction that one feels an imperial crown would become her even better than her modest little coronet of gold stars one of the photographs represents her in classical dress with her left foot on a little stool in something of the attitude of the Venus of Milo except that her hands are clasped behind her back and the foot is bare but for a Greek sandal and so smooth and delicate and charming and with her rhythmical asset and curl of the five slender toes the big one slightly tip-tilted and well apart from its longer and more aquiline neighbour that this presentment of her sells quicker than all the rest and a little man who with two bigger men has just forced his way in front says to one of his friends look Sandy look the foot now have you got any doubts oh yes those are Trilby's toes sure enough says Sandy they all go in and purchase largely as far as I have been able to discover the row between Svengali and his first violin had occurred at a rehearsal in Drury Lane Theatre Svengali it seems had never been quite the same since the 15th of October previous and that was the day he had got his face slapped and his nose tweaked by Taffy in Paris he had become short-tempered and irritable especially with his wife if she was his wife Svengali it seems had reasons for passionately hating little Billy he had not seen him for five years not since the Christmas festivity in the Place Saint-Anadol when they had sparred together after supper and Svengali's nose had gotten the way on this occasion and had been made to bleed but that was not why he hated little Billy when he caught sight of him standing on the curb in the Place de la Concorde and watching the procession of Tour Paris he knew him directly and all his hate fled up he cut him dead and made his wife do the same next morning he saw him again in the hotel post office looking small and weak and flurried and apparently alone and being an oriental is relied Hebrew Jew he had not been able to resist the temptation of spitting in his face since he must not throttle him to death the minute he had done this he had regretted the folly of it little Billy had run after him and kicked and struck him and he had returned the blow and drawn blood and then suddenly quite unexpected had come upon the scene that apparition so loathed and dreaded of old the pig-headed Yorkshire man the huge British Philistine the irresponsible bull the junker, the excrimean Fronderbeuf who had always reminded him of the brutal and contemptuous sword clanking spur jingling aristocrats of his own country ruffians that treated Jews like dogs callous as he was to the woes of others and highly strung musician was extra sensitive about himself a very bundle of nerves and especially sensitive to pain and rough usage and by no means physically brave the stern choleric invincible blue eye of the hated northern Gentile had cowed him at once and that violent tweaking of his nose that heavy open-handed blow on his face had so shaken and demoralized him that he had never recovered from it he was thinking about it always day and night and constantly dreaming at night that he was being tweaked and slapped over again by colossal nightmare taffy and waking up in agonies of terror rage and shame all healthy sleep had forsaken him moreover he was much older than he looked nearly fifty and far from sound his life had been a long hard struggle he had for his wife and pupil a fierce jealous kind of affection that was a source of endless torment to him for indelibly graven in her heart which he wished to occupy alone was the never fading image of the little English painter and of this she made no secret Gekko no longer cared for the master all Gekko's dog-like devotion was concentrated on the slave and pupil whom he worshipped with a fierce but pure and un selfish passion the only living soul that Sven Gali could trust was the old US who lived with them his relative but even she had come to love the pupil as much as the master on the occasion of this rehearsal at Drury Lane he, Sven Gali, was conducting and Madame Sven Gali was singing he interrupted her several times angrily and most unjustly and told her she was singing out of tune like if her Flucht at Tomcat which was quite untrue she was singing beautifully sweet home finally he struck her two or three smart blows on her knuckles with his little baton and she fell on her knees weeping and crying out oh oh Sven Gali, ne me batez pas mon ami je fais tout ce que je peux on which little Gekko had suddenly jumped up and struck Sven Gali on the neck near the collar bone and then it was seen that he had a little bloody knife in his hand and blood flowed from Sven Gali's neck and at the sight of it Sven Gali was painted and Madame Sven Gali had taken his head on her lap looking dazed and stupefied as in a waking dream Gekko had been disarmed but as Sven Gali recovered from his faint and was taken home the police had not been sent for and the affair was hushed up and a public scandal avoided but as Sven Gali's first appearance to Monsieur Jay's despair had to be put off for a week for Sven Gali would not allow her him, nor indeed would he be parted from her for a minute or trust her out of his sight end of part 2 part 7 recording by Estelle Jobson Rome, Italy part 3 of part 7 of Trilby this is a Liby Vox recording all Liby Vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibyVox.org recording by Estelle Jobson Trilby by Georges Demaurier part 7 part 3 The wound was a slight one the doctor who attended Sven Gali described the wife as being quite imbecile no doubt from grief and anxiety but she never left her husband's bedside for a moment and had the obedience and devotion of a dog when the night came round for the postponed debut Sven Gali was allowed by the doctor to go to the theatre but he was absolutely forbidden to conduct his grief and anxiety at this were uncontrollable he raved like a madman and M. J. was almost as bad M. J. had been conducting the Sven Gali band at rehearsals during the week in the absence of its master an easy task it had been so thoroughly drilled and knew its business so well that it could almost conduct itself and it had played all the music it had to play much of which consisted of accompaniments to La Sven Gali's songs many times before her repertoire was immense and Sven Gali had written these orchestral scores with great care and felicity on the famous night it was arranged that Sven Gali should sit in a box alone exactly opposite his wife's place on the platform where she could see him well and a code of simple signals was arranged between him and M. J. and the band so that virtually he might conduct himself from his box should any hesitation or hitch occur this arrangement was rehearsed the day before, a Sunday and had turned out quite successfully and La Sven Gali had sung in perfection in the empty theatre when Monday evening arrived everything seemed to be going smoothly the house was soon crammed to suffocation all but the middle box on the grand tier it was not a prominent concert and the pit was turned into guinea stalls the promenade concerts were to begin a week later right in the middle of these stalls sat the lad and taffy and little Billy the band came in by degrees and tuned their instruments eyes were constantly being turned to the empty box and people wondered what royal personages would appear M. J. took his place amid immense applause and bowed in his inimitable way looking often at the empty box then he tapped and waved his baton and the band played its Hungarian dance music with immense success when this was over there was a pause and soon some signs of impatience from the gallery M. J. had disappeared taffy stood up his back to the orchestra looking round someone came into the empty box and stood for a moment in front gazing at the house a tall man deathly pale with long black hair and a beard it was Sfengali he caught sight of taffy and met his eyes and taffy said good god look look then little Billy and the lad got up and looked and Sfengali for a moment glared at them and the expression of his face was so terrible with wonder, rage and fear that they were quite appalled and then he sat down still glaring at taffy the whites of his eyes showing at the top and his teeth baird in a spasmodic grin of hate then thunders of applause filled the house and turning round and seating themselves taffy and little Billy and the lad saw Trilby being led by J. down the platform between the players to the front her face smiling rather vacantly her eyes anxiously intent on Sfengali in his box she made her bows to right and left just as she had done in Paris the band struck up the opening bars of Ben Bolt with which she was announced to make her debut she still stared but she didn't sing and they played the little symphony three times one could hear M. J. in a horse anxious whisper saying mais chantez donc madame pour l'amour de Dieu comment on sait donc comment on sait she turned round with an extraordinary expression of face and said chantez donc voulez-vous que je chante moi chantez quoi alors mais ben bolt par bleu chantez ah ben bolt oui je connais ça then the band began again and she tried but failed to begin herself she turned round and said comment diable voulez-vous que je chante avec tout ce train qu'ils font c'est diable de musicien mais mon Dieu madame qu'est-ce que vous avez donc cried M. J j'ai que j'ai mieux chanté son toute cette satanée musique par bleu j'ai mieux chanté toute seule son musique alors mais chantez chantez the band was stopped the house was in a state of indescribable wonder and suspense she looked all round and downed herself and fingered her dress then she looked up to the chandelier with a tender sentimental smile and began oh don't you remember sweet alice ben bolt sweet alice with hair so brown who weft with delight when you gave her a smile she had not got further than this when the whole house was in an uproar shouts from the gallery shouts of laughter, hoots hisses, catcalls, cockro's she stopped and glared like a brave lioness and called out qu'est-ce que vous avez donc tous ta de vieille pomme cuite que vous êtes est-ce qu'on a peur de vous and then suddenly why you're all English aren't you what's all around about what have you brought me here for what have I done I should like to know and in asking these questions the depth and splendor of her voice was so extraordinary its tones were pathetically feminine yet so full of hurt and indignant command that the tumult was stilled for a moment it was the voice of some being from another world some insulted daughter of a race more Prison and nobler than ours a voice that seemed as if it could never utter a false note then came a voice from the gods in answer oh you're English aren't you why don't you sing as you're bought to sing you've got voice enough anyhow why don't you sing in tune sing in tune cried Trilby I didn't want to sing at all I only sang because I was asked to sing that gentleman asked me that French gentleman with the white waistcoat I won't sing another note oh you won't won't you then let us have our money back or we'll know what for and again the din broke out and the uproar was frightful monsieur Jace screamed out across the theater Sven Gali Sven Gali qu'est-ce qu'elle a donc votre femme elle est devenue folle Indeed she had tried to sing Ben Bolt but had sung it in her old way as she used to sing it in the Cartier Latin the most lamentably grotesque performance ever heard out of a human's throat Sven Gali Sven Gali shriek pour monsieur Jace gesticulating towards the box where Sven Gali was sitting quite impassable gazing at monsieur Jace and smiling a ghastly sardonic smile a rectus of hate and triumphant revenge as if he was saying I've got the laugh of you all this time Taffy the layered little Billy the whole house were now staring at Sven Gali and his wife was forgotten she stood vacantly looking at everybody and everything the chandelier, monsieur Jace Sven Gali in his box the people in the stalls in the gallery and smiling as if the noise you've seen amused and excited her Sven Gali Sven Gali Sven Gali Sven Gali the whole house took up the cry derisively monsieur Jace led madame Sven Gali away she seemed quite passive that terrible figure of Sven Gali sat still immovable watching his wife's retreat still smiling his ghastly smile all eyes were now turned on him once more monsieur Jace was then seen to enter his box with a policeman two or three other men one of them in evening dress he quickly drew the curtains too then a minute or two after he reappeared on the platform bowing and scraping to the audience as pale as death and called for silence the gentleman in evening dress by his side and this person explained that a very dreadful thing had happened that monsieur Sven Gali had suddenly died in that box of apoplexy or heart disease on her place on the stage and had apparently gone out of her senses which accounted for her extraordinary behaviour he added that the money would be returned at the doors and begged the audience to disperse quietly Taffy with his two friends behind him forced his way to a stage door he knew the lad had no longer any doubts on the score of Trilby's identity this Trilby, at all events Taffy knocked and thumped until the door was opened he gave his card to the man who opened it stating that he and his friends were old friends of madame Sven Gali and must see her at once the man tried to slam the door in his face but Taffy pushed through and shut it on the crowd outside and insisted on being taken to monsieur J immediately and was so authoritative and big and looked such a swell that the man was cowed and led him they passed an open door through which they had a glimpse of a prostrate form on a table a man partially undressed and some men bending over him doctors probably that was the last they saw of Sven Gali then they were taken to another door and monsieur J came out and Taffy explained who they were and they were admitted la Sven Gali was there sitting in an armchair by the fire while several of the band stood round gesticulating and talking German or Polish or Yiddish Gekkoon, his knees was alternately chafing her hands and feet she seemed quite dazed but at the sight of Taffy she jumped up and rushed at him saying oh Taffy dear, oh Taffy what's it all about? where on earth am I? what an age since we met then she called sight of the laird and kissed him and then she recognized little Billy she looked at him for a long while and then shook hands with him how pale you are and so changed you've got a moustache what's the matter? why are you all dressed in black with white cravat as if you were going to a funeral where's Sven Gali? I should like to go home where, what do you call home? I mean where is it? asked Taffy c'est à l'hôtel de Normandie dans le Haymarket c'est de monsieur Jay oui c'est ça, c'est Trilby hôtel de Normandie mais Sven Gali, où est-ce qu'il est? et là madame il est très malade malade? qu'est-ce qu'il a? how funny you look with your moustache little Billy dear, dear little Billy so pale, so very pale are you ill too? oh I hope not how glad I am to see you again you can't tell though I promised your mother I wouldn't never, never where are we now, dear little Billy? monsieur Jay seemed to have lost his head he was constantly running in and out of the room distracted the bansmen began to talk and tried to explain in incomprehensible French to Taffy Gekko seemed to have disappeared it was a bewildering business noises from outside the tramp and bustle and shouts of the departing crowd people running in and out and asking for monsieur Jay policemen, firemen and what not then little Billy who had been exerting the most heroic self-control suggested that Trilby should come to his house in Fitzroy square first of all and be taken out of all this and the idea struck Taffy as a happy one and it was proposed to monsieur Jay who saw that our three friends were old friends of madame Sven Gali and people to be trusted and he was only too glad to be relieved of her and gave his consent little Billy and Taffy drove to Fitzroy square to prepare little Billy's landlady who was much put out at first having such a novel and unexpected charge imposed on her it was all explained to her that it must be so that madame Sven Gali the greatest singer in Europe and an old friend of her tenants had suddenly gone out of her mind from grief at the tragic death of her husband this night at least the unhappy lady must sleep under that roof indeed in little Billy's own bed and that he would sleep at a hotel and that a nurse would be provided at once it might be only for that one night and that the lady was quiet as a lamb and would probably recover her faculties after a night's rest a doctor was sent four from close by and soon Trilby appeared with the lad and her appearance and her magnificent sables impressed mrs. Godwin the landlady brought her figuratively on her knees then Taffy, the lad, and little Billy departed again and dispersed to procure a nurse for the night to find Gekko, to fetch some of Trilby's belongings from the hotel de Normandy and her maid the maid, the old German US and Sven Gali's relative distracted by the news of her master's death had gone to the theatre Gekko was in the hands of the police things had got to a terrible pass but our three friends did their best and were up most of the night so much for us Sven Gali's debut in London the present scribe was not present on that memorable occasion and has written this inadequate and most incomplete description partly from hearsay and private information partly from the reports in the contemporary newspapers should any surviving eyewitness of that lamentable fiasco read these pages and see any gross accuracy in this bold account of it the P.S. will feel deeply obliged to the same for any corrections or additions and these will be duly acted upon and great for the acknowledged in all subsequent editions which will be numerous no doubt on account of the great interest still felt in lass Sven Gali even by those who never saw or heard her and their many and also because the present scribe is better qualified by his opportunities a brief biographical sketch than any person now living with the exception of course of Taffy and the Lair to whose kindness even more than to his own personal recollections he owes whatever it may contain of serious historical value next morning they all three went to Fitzroy Square little Billy had slept at Taffy's rooms in German Street Trilby seemed quite pathetically glad to see them again simple and plainly in black her trunks had been sent from the hotel the hospital nurse was with her the doctor had just left he had said that she was suffering from some great nervous shock a pretty safe diagnosis her wits had apparently not come back and she seemed in no way to realize her position ah what it is to see you again all three it makes one feel glad to be alive I've thought of many things but never of this never three nice clean Englishmen all speaking English and such dear old friends ah j'aime tant ça c'est le ciel I wonder I've got a word of English left her voice was so soft and sweet and low that these ingenious remarks sounded like a beautiful song and she made the soft eyes at them all three one after another in her old way soft eyes quickly filled with tears she seemed ill and weak and worn out and insisted on keeping the layers hand in hers what's the matter with Sven Gali he must be dead they're all three looked at each other perplexed ah he's dead I can see it in your faces he's got heart disease oh I'm sorry oh very sorry indeed yes he's dead said taffy and Gekko dear little Gekko is he dead too I saw him last night he warmed my hands and feet where were we no Gekko's not dead but he's had to be locked up for a little while he struck Sven Gali you know you saw it all I no I never saw it but I dreamt something like it Gekko with a knife and people holding him and Sven Gali bleeding on the ground that was just before Sven Gali's illness he'd cut himself in the neck you know with a rusty nail he told me I wonder how but it was wrong of Gekko to strike him there were such friends why did he well it was because Sven Gali struck you with his conductors wand when you were rehearsing struck you on the fingers and made you cry don't you remember struck me rehearsing made me cry what are you talking about dear taffy Sven Gali never struck me he was kindness itself always and what should I rehearse well the songs you were to sing at the theater in the evening sing at the theater I never sang at any theater except last night if that big place was a theater and they didn't seem to like it I'll take precious good care never to sing in a theater again how they howled and there was Sven Gali in the box opposite laughing at me why was I taken there and why did that funny little Frenchman in the white waistcoat asked me to sing I know very well I can't sing well enough to sing in a place like that what a fool I was it all seems like a bad dream what was it all about was it a dream I wonder well but you don't remember singing at Paris in the Sal de Bâchibazouk and at Vienna St. Petersburg lots of places what nonsense dear are you thinking of someone else I never sang anywhere I've been to Vienna and St. Petersburg but I never sang there good heavens then there was a pause and our three friends looked at her helplessly end of part 3 part 7 recording by Estelle Jobson