meet. There is a
dainty brawl, and the fiancee of Cicillo (he's the oysterman's son)
strikes her rival's child to the ground. The mother tries to stab the
fiancee with the operatic Italian woman's ever-ready dagger, and this
act stirs up the embers of Cicillo's love. He takes the mother of his
child back home--to his father's house, that is. The child must be some
four years old by this time, but the oysterman--dear, unsuspecting old
man!--knows nothing about the relation existing between his son and his
housekeeper. He is thinking of marriage with his common law
daughter-in-law when in comes the old fiancee with a tale for Cicillo's
ears of his mistress's unfaithfulness. "It is not true!" shrieks the
poor woman, but the wretch, her seducer, closes his ears to her
protestations; and she throws herself into the sea, where the oysters
come from. Cicillo rushes after her and bears her to the shore, where
she dies in his arms, gasping in articulo mortis, "It is not true!"

The romantic interest in Mascagni's life is confined to the period
which preceded his sudden rise to fame. His father was a baker in
Leghorn, and there he was born on December 7,1863. Of humble origin and
occupation himself, the father, nevertheless, had large ambitions for
his son; but not in the line of art. Pietro was to be shaped
intellectually for the law. Like Handel, the boy studied the pianoforte
by stealth in the attic. Grown in years, he began attending a
music-school, when, it is said, his father confined him to his house;
thence his uncle freed him and took over his care upon himself.
Singularly enough, the man who at the height of his success posed as
the most Italian of Italian masters had his inspiration first stirred
by German poetry. Early in his career Beethoven resolved to set
Schiller's "Hymn to Joy"; the purpose remained in his mind for forty
years or so, and finally became a realization in the finale of the
Ninth Symphony. Pietro Mascagni resolved as a boy to compose music for
the same ode; and did it at once. Then he set to work upon a two-act
opera, "Il Filanda." His uncle died, and a Count Florestan (here is
another Beethovenian echo!) sent him to the Conservatory at Milan,
where, like nearly all of his native contemporaries, he imbibed
knowledge (and musical ideas) from Ponchielli.

After two years or so of academic study he yielded to a gypsy desire
and set out on his wanderings, but not until he had chosen as a
companion