Part 32

When we returned to the salon we discreetly waited for the promised song.

Suddenly Jenny Lind jumped up, saying, "Shall I sing something?"

Of course, every one was wild to hear her. She went to the piano and accompanied herself in "Qui la voce," of "I Puritani." We were all enchanted, clapping our hands with enthusiasm. Then Gounod played and sang, or rather hummed, a new song of his, saying to Jenny Lind, when he took his place at the piano, "I am not worthy to succeed you."

We thought him much too modest.

He hummed deliriously!

They asked me to sing, and, though I really hated to sing after these great artists, I did so to please Auber, who accompanied me in "Los Djins," of which he is very proud, because it has the same bass all the way through. How little it takes to please genius!

After this Jenny Lind and I performed the duo from "Le Premier Jour de Bonheur" we had practised at my house. She put her arm around my waist while we were singing, as if we were two school-girls.

Prince Metternich played one of his brilliant Austrian waltzes, which was so bewildering that if any man had dared to put his arm round Jenny Lind's matronly waist I am sure she would have skipped off in the dance.

For la bonne bouche she gave us a Swedish peasant song, which was simply bewitching. Her high notes were exquisitely pure, the lower ones I thought weak; but that might have been owing to the good dinner she had eaten--at least she said so.

There is a musical phenomenon here just now in the shape of an American negro; he is blind and idiotic, but has a most extraordinary intelligence for music. All his senses seem to have been concentrated in this one sense. Prince and Princess Metternich, Auber, and ourselves went to his concert. Auber said, "Cet idiot, noir et aveugle, est vraiment merveilleux." Blind Tom had learned his répertoire entirely by ear; therefore it was very limited, as he could only remember what he had heard played a few days before. His memory did not last long. He was wonderful. Not only could he execute well, but he could imitate any one's mannerisms and their way of playing. The impresario came forward, saying, "I am told that Monsieur Auber is in the audience. May I dare to ask him to come up and play something?" Auber said he thought he should die of fright. We all urged him, for the curiosity of the thing, to play something of his new opera, which no one as yet had heard, therefore no one could have known it.

Auber mounted the platform, amid the enthusiastic applause of the audience, and performed his solo. Then Blind Tom sat down and played it after him so accurately, with the same staccato, old-fashioned touch of Auber, that no one could have told whether Auber was still at the piano. Auber returned and bowed to the wildly excited public and to us. He said, "This is my first appearance as a pianist, and my last."

Prince Metternich, inspired by Auber's pluck, followed his example, and mounting the stage rattled off one of his own fiery, dashing waltzes, which Blind Tom repeated in the Prince's particular manner. After the concert we went into the artist's room to speak with the impresario, and found poor Tom banging his head against the wall like the idiot he was. Auber remarked, "C'est humiliant pour nous autres."

PARIS, June, 1867.

DEAR M.,--The famous pianist Liszt, the new Abbé, is pervading Paris just now, and is, I think, very pleased to be a priestly lion, taking his success as a matter of course. There are a succession of dinners in his honor, where he does ample honor to the food, and is in no way bashful about his appetite.

He does a great deal of beaming, he has (as some one said) "so much countenance."

He dined with us the other night, the Metternichs, and twenty-five other people, among whom were Auber and Massenet.

In the boudoir, before dinner, he spied a manuscript which Auber had brought that afternoon. He took it up, looked at it, and said, "C'est très joli!" and laid it down again. When we went in to dinner, and after his cigar in the conservatory (he is a great smoker), he went to the piano and played the "joli" little thing of Auber's. Was that not wonderful, that he could remember it all the time during the dinner? He seemed only to have glanced at it, and yet he could play it like that off from memory. He is so kind and good, especially to struggling artists, trying to help them in every way. He seemed extraordinarily amiable that evening, for he sat down at the piano without being asked and played a great many of his compositions--quite an unusual thing for him to do! One has generally to tease and beg him, and then he refuses. But I think, when he heard Massenet improvising at one of the pianos he was inspired, and he put himself at the other (we have two grand pianos), and they played divinely, both of them improvising. He is by far the finest pianist I have ever heard, and has a very seductive way of looking at you while playing, as if he was only playing for you, and when he smiles you simply go to pieces. I don't wonder he is such a lady-killer, and that no woman can resist him; even my father-in-law stayed in the salon, being completely hypnotized by Liszt, who ought to consider this as one of his greatest triumphs, if he only knew.

I sang some of Massenet's songs, accompanied, of course, by Massenet. Liszt was most attentive and most enthusiastic. He said Massenet had a great future, and he complimented me on my singing, especially my phrasing and expression.

I wonder if the story be true that he was engaged to be married to Princess Wittgenstein, and on the day of the wedding, when the bridal- dress was ready to be put on, she got a letter from her fiancé (can any one imagine Liszt as a fiancé) saying that he had taken holy orders that very morning.

They say that she bore it very well and wrote a sweet letter to him. It sounds rather unnatural; but one can believe anything from a person who was under Liszt's influence. He has the most wonderful magnetism. His appearance is certainly original as you see him in his soutane, his long hair, and his numerous moles, that stand out in profile, whichever way he turns his broad face.

But one forgets everything when one hears him play. He is now fifty-five years old. I invited him to go to the Conservatoire with me in the box which Auber had given me for last Sunday's concert. I inclose his letter of acceptance. (See page 164.)

Auber often gives me his box, which holds six people, and I have the pleasure of making four people happy. Auber sits in the back and generally dozes. We are all crowded together like sardines. Auber, being the director of the Conservatoire, has, of course, the best box, except the Imperial one, which is always empty.

The orchestra played Wagner's overture to "Tannhäuser." The applause was not as enthusiastic as Liszt thought it ought to be, so he stood up in the box, and with his great hands clapped so violently that the whole audience turned toward him, and, recognizing him (indeed, it would have been difficult not to recognize him, such a striking figure as he is), began clapping their hands for him. He cried, "Bis!" And the audience in chorus shouted, "Bis!" And the orchestra repeated the whole overture. Then the audience turned again to Liszt and screamed, "Vive Liszt!"

Madame,

Permettez-moi de venir vous remercier demain au Conservatoire de votre gracieuse invitation dont je serai charmé de profiter.

Mille respectueux hommages,

F. Listz

Dimanche matin.]