"Yes," I repeated, "sing. You must throw yourself into that. It will

be the best of all tonics."

"Have I not told you that I should never sing again?"

"Perhaps you have," I replied; "but I don't remember. And even if you

have, as you yourself have just said, you are now wiser, less morbid."

"True!" he murmured. "Yes, I must sing. They want me at Chicago. I

will go, and while there I will spread abroad the fame of Carl

Foster."

He smiled gaily, and then his face became meditative and sad.

"My artistic career has never been far away from tragedy," he said at

length. "It was founded on a tragedy, and not long ago I thought it

would end in one."

I waited in silence, knowing that if he wished to tell me any private

history, he would begin of his own accord.

"You are listening, Carl?"

I nodded. It was growing dusk.

"You remember I pointed out to you the other day the little house in

the Rue d'Ostende where my parents lived?"

"Perfectly."

"That," he proceeded, using that curiously formal and elaborate

English which he must have learned from reading-books, "that was the

scene of the tragedy which made me an artist. I have told you that my

father was a schoolmaster. He was the kindest of men, but he had moods

of frightful severity--moods which subsided as quickly as they arose.

At the age of three, just as I was beginning to talk easily, I became,

for a period, subject to fits; and in one of these I lost the power of

speech. I, Alresca, could make no sound; and for seven years that

tenor whom in the future people were to call 'golden-throated,' and

'world-famous,' and 'unrivalled,' had no voice." He made a deprecatory

gesture. "When I think of it, Carl, I can scarcely believe it--so

strange are the chances of life. I could hear and understand, but I

could not speak.

"Of course, that was forty years ago, and the system of teaching mutes

to talk was not then invented, or, at any rate, not generally

understood. So I was known and pitied as the poor dumb boy. I took

pleasure in dumb animals, and had for pets a silver-gray cat, a goat,

and a little spaniel. One afternoon--I should be about ten years

old--my father came home from his school and sitting down, laid his

head on the table and began to cry. Seeing him cry, I also began to

cry; I was acutely sensitive.

"'What is the matter?' asked my good mother.

"'Alas!' he said, 'I am a murderer!' "'Nay, that cannot be,' she replied.

"'I say it is so,' said my father. 'I have murdered a child--a little

girl. I grumbled at her yesterday. I was annoyed and angry--because

she had done her lessons ill. I sent her home, but instead of going

home she went to the outer canal and drowned herself. They came and

told me this afternoon. Yes, I am a murderer!' "I howled, while my mother tried to comfort my father, pointing out

to him that if he had spoken roughly to the child it was done for the

child's good, and that he could not possibly have foreseen the

catastrophe. But her words were in vain.




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