se kind friends. For some reason my cab did not come for me and
when I left the theatre the crowd waiting at the stage door followed me
home, calling out "Come back soon," "Auf Wiedersehen," and many kind
things. These are not perhaps great triumphs, but they make an artist's
life very happy, and the life I led for those three years, comes very
near being the ideal one for an opera singer.

I think it was two years before this, on returning to Paris, that I took
part in Strauss' "Salome." We gave six performances at the Chatelet. I
took the page's small part, just for the fun of it, and so as to study
the opera. The stage manager was a German of course, and spoke very
little French. The singers were all Germans, and the "figurants,"
supers, all French. Things did not go well at rehearsals. Burrian, as
the King would cry for wine or grapes, and no one moved to get what he
wished, as no one understood what he was saying, and so could not get
the musical cue. I was the only person able to speak the two languages
fluently, and finally the stage manager asked me to take charge of all
the business on my side of the stage. "_Suivez Madame!_" he would yell.
So I said "Remove throne." "Bring golden vessels." "Clear stage," etc.,
to the intelligent crowd of supers, many of whom were young actors, who
wanted as I did to study the opera. I remember one hideous little girl,
who had an unattractive sore lip. Some one told her that it did not
matter much, trying to comfort her, as she seemed so depressed about
it, but she was inconsolable, and replied darkly, "it was always seven
days lost." This brave effort to create the impression of an otherwise
lurid existence deceived no one however, though they were too polite to
show their doubt.

Destinn's voice rose thrillingly in the love phrases that _Salome_ pours
at _John_; and though she wore a costume that my young French friends
considered consisted chiefly of _chats enrages_,--mad cats,--as it had
two huge animal heads of gold, where such types of stage villainesses
are always heavily protected, the tense quality of her voice, and the
simple strength of her acting suited the character as Strauss had
painted it with his music, and she achieved results that no other singer
I know of could have done.

I had gone back as usual to de Reszke to have my voice put in order, and
was having, at the same time, my taste put in order by my sculptor
brother Cecil, in our walks and talks about Pa