“I thought,” said Crowe, quietly, “it was to be all English.”
“Why, what a fool you are, Crowe! Do you think they would ever have any faith in the concern if it were advertised in plain English? Well, to proceed.
—“‘The corps dramatique is composed entirely of English artistes, and the season is to open by the production of an entirely new opera from the pen of our clever—’
“No; not clever, I prefer gifted.
—“‘Of our gifted countryman, Hugo Rossini Smith, entitled Joan of Arc, or the Maid of Domremy.’
“So far so good; but now should come the list of singers, and I have found no English prima-donna—in fact, there is none to find. I must have something good to keep up the house, for there is old Barber to do the Dauphin—enough to empty it any night, except just of a few old fogies who remember him sixty years ago, and still swear by him. To engage a foreigner would be too flagrant after all my promises. Miss Watson is my only chance—a magnificent voice! but, faugh! what can she do with it? And as for acting, my walking-stick would have more idea of it.”
“Some one knocked at the door, sir.”
“Then open it!”
The meek Crowe obeyed, and the visitor came strolling in, and dropped, as if exhausted, into the arm-chair opposite Smith. He was a very tall, gaunt, young man, with tolerably good features and eyes, a beard of several days’ growth, a shirt of apparently several weeks’ wear, and the cuffs, very much ink-stained, turned back to display a pair of long bony hands, armed with black claws, which evidently had not even a passing acquaintance with soap and water. If only this man could have been washed, and shaved, and clothed afresh, you would have considered him a very good-looking fellow. Ah! what a mistake. Hugo Rossini Smith was a genius on the strength of his dirt, his rudeness, and his eccentricities; his musical talent was ordinary enough, but his appearance was unique.
I once knew an old match-seller who, from illness, was reduced to enter the workhouse, where she was at once put into a warm-bath, and, when she emerged again into society, her picturesqueness, her misery, had faded away; she only looked like any other clean, comfortable, old woman, and her trade was bad in proportion to her cleanliness. It took her months to acquire once more her stock in trade of rags and ingrained filth, and she would speak with great pathos of the workhouse episode of her existence, exclaiming:—“They bil’d me, my dear! they bil’d me!” That bath would have been equally fatal to the great composer Hugo Rossini Smith; it would have reduced him to the ordinary standard of civilised men. Now, he was beyond the pale of proprieties, and less bold spirits worshipped him who would accordingly—women particularly, delight in the pressure of that greasy palm, and look up with admiration at that grimy face.
Yes; Mr. Smith was a genius. “Our great English composer” was his ordinary cognomen. The great Englishman’s melodies reminded you of Auber; but his own playing of his own compositions had the effect of some prodigious steam mechanism (at least to the uninitiated)—buzz—whizz—up and down—ease her—back her—let her go—crescendo—accelerando to the very last chord, when it ended in a sudden explosion, with apparently no object at all for all that fuss. You draw a long breath at finding that you are not literally blown up; but Hugo’s face meanwhile beams with inspiration, he shakes his long locks, sways his body to and fro, kicks his legs about, convulsed by the throes of genius like the Pythoness of antiquity, and you are half convinced that there was really a cause for all this stir as the great artist wheels round on his music-stool, pale, limp, exhausted, apparently unheeding the reviving cries around of “Wonderful!” “Admirable!” You do him justice; it was surprising, but it would have been puzzling to explain what others admired.
“Well, Smith, my good fellow, comment ça va? Try a cigar?”
“But so-so,” was the reply, whilst the dirty hand grasped the proffered cigar. “I’m worked to death, Rossi—absolutely dead! They won’t let me alone.”
“Well, I’m glad you have found your way here at any rate, I wanted to speak to you. I’m afraid we shall have to engage Miss Watson, after all.”
“Miss Watson translate my immortal Joan!—never!”
“Then Joan won’t be translated, as you call it, at all; she’ll be a dead language”—and the manager was still laughing at his own wit when the door opened, and Crowe announced “A lady, sir, wishes to see you!” Rossi looked somewhat embarrassed. “A strange lady,” explained the man, and Rossi’s brow cleared. “She would not give her name, she wanted you solely on business, she said,” and even as he spoke the visitor entered.
She was a dark elegant woman, not very young nor very pretty, and after a glance of curiosity the great composer subsided into a reverie, still puffing his cigar, and watching in profound abstraction the curling wreaths of smoke. The manager, not being a genius, could afford to be civil, so threw the remainder of his cigar into the fire, and placed a comfortable seat for the lady, as far as possible from the smoker.
“I heard that you were forming an English company,” began the lady with forced composure, “and I am come to offer myself to you as chief soprano.”
The manager stared at her boldness, the composer twisted himself round to examine her more closely, and both looked at each other with a slight smile at her astonishing presumption. For in spite of her calm bold words she was a modest-looking woman, evidently not one of themselves, but of that class commonly known as shabby-genteel. But the Impresario piqued himself on his politeness to the weaker sex, so he merely asked courteously: “May I know, madam, what have been your previous engagements?”
“I never sang in public in my life, but I was at one time well used to private theatricals” (the composer’s lips curled in intense scorn, and Rossi could hardly conceal his smile.) “My voice has