My Recollections Part 22

I refused this request curtly. I knew Benjamin G.o.dard and his strong-mindedness as well as the wealth and liveliness of his inspiration. I asked Carvalho not to tell of his visit and to let Benjamin G.o.dard finish his own work.

That day ended with a rather drole incident. I set out to get a large carriage to take my guests to the station. At the appointed time an open landau appeared at my door. It had at least sixteen springs, was lined with blue satin, and one got in by a triple step-ladder arrangement which folded up when the door was closed. Two thin, lanky white horses, real Rossinantes, were harnessed to it.

My guests at once recognized this historic looking coach for they had often met its owners riding in it on the Bois de Boulogne. Public malice had found these people so ridiculous that they had given them a nickname which in the interests of decorum I must refrain from mentioning. I will only say that it was borrowed from the vocabulary of zoology.

Never had the streets of that little town, usually so calm and peaceful, echoed with such shouts of laughter. They did not stop till the station was reached, and I will not swear that they were not prolonged after that.

Carvalho decided to give _La Navarraise_ at the Opera-Comique in May, 1895.

I went to Nice to finish _Cendrillon_ at the Hotel de Suede. We were absolutely spoiled by our charming hosts M. and Mme. Roubion. When I was settled at Nice, I got away to Milan for ten days to give hints to the artists of the admirable La Scala Theatre who were rehearsing _La Navarraise_. The protagonist was Lison Frandin, an artist known and loved by all Italy.

As I knew that Verdi was at Genoa, I took advantage of pa.s.sing through that city on the way to Milan to pay him a visit.

When I arrived at the first floor of the old palace of the Dorias, where he lived, I was able to decipher on a card nailed to the door in a dark pa.s.sage the name which radiates so many memories of enthusiasm and glory: Verdi.

He opened the door himself. I stood nonplussed. His sincerity, graciousness and the n.o.bility which his tall stature gave his whole person soon drew us together.

I pa.s.sed unutterably charming moments in his presence, as we talked with the most delightful simplicity in his bedroom and then on the terrace of his sitting room from which we looked over the port of Genoa and beyond on the deep sea as far as the eye could reach. I had the illusion that he was one of the Dorias proudly showing me his victorious fleets.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lucy Arbell]

As I was leaving, I was drawn to remark that "now I had visited him, I was in Italy."

As I was about to pick up the valise I had left in a dark corner of the large reception room, where I had noticed tall gilt chairs which were in the Italian taste of the Eighteenth Century, I told him that it contained ma.n.u.scripts which never left me on my travels. Verdi seized my luggage, briskly, and said he did exactly as I did, for he never wanted to be parted from his work on a journey.

How much I would have preferred to have had his music in my valise instead of my own! The master even accompanied me across the garden of his lordly dwelling to my carriage.

When I got back to Paris in February, I learned with the keenest emotion that my master Ambroise Thomas was dangerously ill.

Although far from well he had dared the cold to attend a festival at the Opera where they had played the whole of that terrible, superb prelude to _Francoise de Rimini_.

They encored the prelude and applauded Ambroise Thomas.

My master was the more moved by this reception, as he had not forgotten how cruelly severe they had shown themselves toward this fine work at the Opera.

He went from the theater to the apartment he occupied at the Conservatoire and went to bed. He never got up again.

The sky was clear and cloudless that day, and the sun shone with its softest brilliance in my venerated master's room and caressed the curtains of his bed of pain. The last words he said were a salutation to gladsome nature which smiled upon him for the last time. "To die in weather so beautiful," he said, and that was all.

He laid in state in the columned vestibule of which I have spoken, at the foot of the great staircase leading to the president's loge which he had honored with his presence for twenty-five years.

The third day after his death, I delivered his funeral oration in the name of the Societe des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques. I began as follows.

"It is said that a king of France in the presence of the body of a powerful seigneur of his court could not help saying, 'How tall he was!' So he who rests here before us seemed tall to us, being of those whose height is only realized after death.

"To see him pa.s.s in life so simple and calm, in his dream of art, who of us, accustomed to feel him kindly and forbearing always at our sides, has seen that he was so tall that we had to raise our eyes to look him fairly in the face."

Here my eyes filled with tears and my voice seemed to die away strangled with emotion. Nevertheless I contained myself, mastered my grief, and continued my discourse. I knew that I should have time enough for weeping.

It was very painful to me on that occasion to see the envious looks of those who already saw in me my master's successor at the Conservatoire.

And as a matter of fact, this is exactly what happened, for a little afterwards I was summoned to the Ministry of Public Instruction. At the time the Minister was my confrere at the Inst.i.tute, Rambaud the eminent historian, and at the head of the Beaux-Arts as director was Henri Roujon, since a member of the Academie des Beaux-Arts and the permanent secretary.

The directors.h.i.+p of the Conservatoire was offered me. I declined the honor as I did not want to interrupt my life at the theater which took my whole time.

In 1905 the directors.h.i.+p was offered me again, but I refused for the same reason.

Naturally, I tendered my resignation as professor of composition at the Conservatoire. I had only accepted and held the situation because it brought me in touch with my Director whom I loved so much.

Free at last and loosed from my chains forever, during the first days of summer my wife and I started for the mountains of Auvergne.

CHAPTER XXII

WORK! ALWAYS WORK!

At the beginning of the preceding winter, Henri Cain proposed to Henri Heugel a text for an opera based on Alphonse Daudet's famous romance _Sapho_. He went to Heugel in order that I might the more certainly accept it, for he knew the influence my publisher had with me.

I had gone to the mountains with a light heart. There was to be no directing the Conservatoire and no more cla.s.ses; I felt twenty years younger. I wrote _Sapho_ with an enthusiasm I had rarely felt up to that time.

We lived in a villa, and I felt far removed from everything, the noise, the tumult, the incessant movement and feverish activity of the city. We went for walks and excursions through the beautiful country which has been praised so much for the variety of its scenery, but which was still too much unknown. The only accompaniment of our thoughts was the murmur of the waters which flowed along the roadside; their freshness rose up to us, and often it was from a bubbling spring which broke the quiet of luxuriant nature. Eagles, too, came down from their steep rocks, "Thunder's abode," as Lamartine said, and surprised us by their bold flights as they made the air echo with their shrill, piercing cries.

Even while I journeyed, my mind was working and on my return the pages acc.u.mulated.

I became enamored with this work and I rejoiced in advance at letting Alphonse Daudet hear it, for he was a very dear friend whom I had known when we were both young.

If I insist somewhat of speaking of that time, it is because four works above all others in my long career gave me such joy in the doing that I freely describe it as exquisite: _Marie Magdeleine_, _Werther_, _Sapho_, and _Therese_.

At the beginning of September of that year an amusing incident happened.

The Emperor of Russia came to Paris. The entire population--this is no exaggeration--was out of doors to see the procession pa.s.s through the avenues and boulevards. The people drawn by curiosity had come from everywhere; the estimate of a million people does not seem exaggerated.

We did what everyone else did, and our servants went at the same time; our apartment was empty. We were at the house of friends at a window overlooking the Parc Monceau. The procession had scarcely pa.s.sed when we were suddenly seized with anxiety at the idea that the time was particularly propitious for burglarizing deserted apartments and we rushed home.

When we reached our threshold whispers were coming from inside, which put us in a lively flutter. We knew our servants were out. It had happened! Burglars had broken in!

We were shocked at the idea, but we went in ... and saw in the salon Emma Calve and Henri Cain who were waiting for us and talking together in the meantime. We were struck in a heap. Tableau! We all burst out laughing at this curious adventure. Our servants had come back before we had, and naturally opened the door for our friendly callers who had so thoroughly frightened us for a moment. Oh power of imagination, how manifold are thy fantastic creations!

Carvalho had already prepared the model of the scenery and the costumes for _Cendrillon_, when he learned that Emma Calve was in Paris and put on _Sapho_. In addition to the admirable protagonist of _La Navarraise_ in London and in Paris, our interpreters were the charming artiste Mlle.

Julia Guiraudon (later the wife of my collaborator Henri Cain) and M.

Lepreste who has since died.