closed, but upon the long, black lashes glistened two big
tears. The spirit was brave, but the body had given up the great
struggle.

* * * * *

The calamities that had come sweeping over Verdi well-nigh broke his
proud heart. He was only twenty-six, but he had had a taste of life and
found it bitter.

He lost interest in everything. All his musical studies were abandoned,
his excursions into science went by default, and he was quite content to
bang the piano in a concert saloon for enough to secure the bare
necessaries of life. Suicide seemed to present the best method of
solving the problem, and the various ways of shuffling off this mortal
coil were duly considered. Meanwhile he filled in the time reading
trashy novels--anything to forget time and place, and lose self in
poppy-dreams of nothingness.

Two years of such blankness and blackness followed. He was sure that the
desire to create, to be, to do, would never come again--these were all
of the past. One day on an idle stroll through the park he met Merelli.
As they walked along together, Merelli took from his pocket a book, the
story of "Nabucco," and handing it to Verdi, asked him to look it over,
and see if he thought there was a chance to make an opera out of it.
Verdi responded that he was not in the business of writing operas--he
had quit all such follies. He took the volume, however, but neglected to
look at it for several days. At last he read the pages. He laid the book
down and began to pace the floor. Possibilities of creation were looming
large before him--a rush of thought was upon him. His soul was not
dead--it had only been lying fallow.

He secured the loan of a piano and set to work. In a month the opera was
completed. Merelli hesitated about accepting it--twice he had lost money
on Verdi. Finally he decided he would put the play on, if Verdi would
waive all royalties for the first three performances, if it were a
success, and then sell the opera outright "at a reasonable price," if
Merelli should chance to want it. The "reasonable price" was assumed to
be about a thousand francs--two hundred dollars--pretty good pay for a
month's work.

Verdi took no interest in the production of the piece. He had come to
the conclusion that the public was a fickle, foolish thing, and no one
could tell what it would hiss or applaud. Then he remembered the
blackness of the night when only two years before his other opera was