r parting shaft. But for all that the operatic
star was not to be frozen out. She managed to get an invitation to the
Easter performance, or came without, for aught I know; she told that
chere Madame Rossini that she positively adored her, and that she was
captivated by her _franchise_ and her _verve intarissable_ (her plain
speaking and her inexhaustible verve), sentiments which presently she
translated for my benefit with the words: "Ah mais, cette chere Madame
Rossini, elle est vraiment impossible" (That dear Madame Rossini, she is
really impossible).

The "Stabat Mater," as we heard it on that evening, was the revised and
remodelled work, very different from the one Rossini had written in his
early days. The score of this he had given to a friend, a monk, after
whose death it passed into the hands of some musician, who published it
much to Rossini's annoyance. "On ne saute pas d'un coup du theatre a
l'eglise" (One does not bound at a leap from the theatre to the church),
he said one day to Kuhe the gifted musician and impresario, as he was
alluding to the shortcomings of that early version and the necessity of
revising it.

Madame Rossini could, when she chose, be an excellent hostess, and she
was usually at her best on those Saturday evenings when she and the
Maestro received, and when naturally all that was prominent in the
musical world gravitated towards the salons of the veteran composer. On
one of these occasions, I nearly got into trouble with her. A lamp was
slowly but surely going out, and any one else in my place, just by the
tail of the grand piano, would have been prompted, as I was, to remove
it. I looked across the room at my hostess, my eyes respectfully putting
the question, "Hadn't I better take that lamp out?" From beneath her
dark Italian eyebrows shot an annihilating glance that made me tremble
in my dress shoes, and that plainly said, "Move if you dare, young
man--but if you do, you will repent it." I did _not_ dare, but the
situation was painful. The select circle of friends gathered around that
grand piano were one and all listening in religious silence, impressed
by the music and the presence of the Maestro; that irreverent lamp alone
showed unmistakable signs of collapse, and soon attracted general
attention. Would it or would it not hold out to the end? It would not;
Madame Rossini had to get up, cross the room and carry out the offender.
She did it defiantly, majestically; I should have d