"We all went to bed. In the middle of the night I heard my dear

silver-gray cat mewing at the back of the house. She had been locked

out. I rose and went down-stairs to let her in. To do so it was

necessary for me to pass through the kitchen. It was quite dark, and I

knocked against something in the darkness. With an inarticulate

scream, I raced up-stairs again to my parents' bedroom. I seized my

mother by her night-dress and dragged her towards the door. She

stopped only to light a candle, and hand-in-hand we went down-stairs

to the kitchen. The candle threw around its fitful, shuddering glare,

and my mother's eyes followed mine. Some strange thing happened in my

throat.

"'Mother!' I cried, in a hoarse, uncouth, horrible voice, and, casting

myself against her bosom, I clung convulsively to her. From a hook in

the ceiling beam my father's corpse dangled. He had hanged himself in

the frenzy of his remorse. So my speech came to me again."

All the man's genius for tragic acting, that genius which had made him

unique in "Tristan" and in "Tannhauser," had been displayed in this

recital; and its solitary auditor was more moved by it than

superficially appeared. Neither of us spoke a word for a few minutes.

Then Alresca, taking aim, threw the end of his cigar out of the

window.

"Yes," I said at length, "that was tragedy, that was!"

He proceeded: "The critics are always praising me for the emotional qualities in my

singing. Well, I cannot use my voice without thinking of the dreadful

circumstance under which Fate saw fit to restore that which Fate had

taken away."

And there fell a long silence, and night descended on the canal, and

the swans were nothing now but pale ghosts wandering soundlessly over

the water.

"Carl," Alresca burst out with a start--he was decidedly in a mood to

be communicative that evening--"have you ever been in love?"

In the gloom I could just distinguish that he was leaning his head on

his arm.

"No," I answered; "at least, I think not;" and I wondered if I had

been, if I was, in love.

"You have that which pleases women, you know, and you will have

chances, plenty of chances. Let me advise you--either fall in love

young or not at all. If you have a disappointment before you are

twenty-five it is nothing. If you have a disappointment after you are

thirty-five, it is--everything."

He sighed.

"No, Alresca," I said, surmising that he referred to his own case,

"not everything, surely?"

"You are right," he replied. "Even then it is not everything. The

human soul is unconquerable, even by love. But, nevertheless, be

warned. Do not drive it late. Ah! Why should I not confess to you, now

that all is over? Carl, you are aware that I have loved deeply. Can

you guess what being in love meant to me? Probably not. I am aging

now, but in my youth I was handsome, and I have had my voice. Women,

the richest, the cleverest, the kindest--they fling themselves at

such as me. There is no vanity in saying so; it is the simple fact. I

might have married a hundred times; I might have been loved a thousand

times. But I remained--as I was. My heart slept like that of a young

girl. I rejected alike the open advances of the bold and the shy,

imperceptible signals of the timid. Women were not for me. In secret I

despised them. I really believe I did.




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