I was able to do with little difficulty,
thanks to my agreement.

"But now began for me the greatest misfortunes. My 'bambino' fell ill
at the beginning of April, the doctors were unable to discover the
cause of his ailment, and the poor little thing, fading away, expired
in the arms of his mother, who was beside herself with despair. That
was not all. A few days after my little daughter fell ill in turn, and
her complaint also terminated fatally. But this even was not all. Early
in June my young companion herself was attacked by acute brain fever,
and on the 19th of June, 1840, a third coffin was carried from my
house.

"I was alone!--alone! In the space of about two months, three loved
ones had disappeared for ever. I had no longer a family. And, in the
midst of this terrible anguish, to avoid breaking the engagement I had
contracted, I was compelled to write and finish a comic opera!

"'Un Giorno di Regno' did not succeed. A share of the want of success
certainly belongs to the music, but part must also be attributed to the
performance. My soul, rent by the misfortunes which had overwhelmed me,
my spirit, soured by the failure of the opera, I persuaded myself that
I should no longer find consolation in art, and formed the resolution
to compose no more! I even wrote to the engineer Pasetti (who since the
fiasco of 'Un Giorno di Regno' had shown no signs of life) to beg him
to obtain from Merelli the cancelling of my contract."

This story is sad enough, Heaven knows, without the melodramatic frills
that have been put upon it. You will read in certain sketches, and even
Mr. Elbert Hubbard has enambered the fable in one of his "Little
Journeys," that Verdi's wife was ill during the performance of the
opera, that the first act was a great success, and he ran home to tell
her. The second act was also successful, and he ran home again, not
noting that his wife was dying of starvation. The third act, and he was
hissed off the stage, and flew home, only to find his wife dead. The
chief objection to the story is the fact that his wife died on the 19th
of June, 1840, and the opera was not produced until the 5th of
September that same year. But it is tragic enough that he should have
been compelled to write a comic opera under the anguish that he felt at
the loss of his two children and his wife, and that his reward should
have been even then a dismal fiasco.

He was dissuaded from his vow to write no more, and it was in