Part 27 (1/2)
For with very little pressing Glorioli stood up on the platform, with his accompanist by his side at the piano, and in his hands a sheet of music, at which he never looked. He looked at the beautiful ladies, and ogled and smiled; and from his scarcely parted, moist, thick, bearded lips, which he always licked before singing, there issued the most ravis.h.i.+ng sounds that had ever been heard from throat of man or woman or boy! He could sing both high and low and soft and loud, and the frivolous were bewitched, as was only to be expected; but even the earnestest of all, caught, surprised, rapt, astounded, shaken, tickled, teased, harrowed, tortured, tantalized, aggravated, seduced, demoralized, corrupted into naturalness, forgot to dissemble their delight.
And Sebastian Bach (the especially adored of all really great musicians, and also, alas! of many priggish outsiders who don't know a single note and can't remember a single tune) was well forgotten for the night; and who were more enthusiastic than the two great players who had been playing Bach that evening? For these, at all events, were broad and catholic and sincere, and knew what was beautiful, whatever its kind.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”BONJOUR, SUZON!”]
It was but a simple little song that Glorioli sang, as light and pretty as it could well be, almost worthy of the words it was written to, and the words are De Musset's; and I love them so much I cannot resist the temptation of setting them down here, for the mere sensuous delight of writing them, as though I had just composed them myself:
”Bonjour, Suzon, ma fleur des bois!
Es-tu toujours la plus jolie?
Je reviens, tel que tu me vois, D'un grand voyage en Italie!
Du paradis j'ai fait le tour-- J'ai fait des vers--j'ai fait l'amour....
Mais que t'importe!
Mais que t'importe!
Je pa.s.se devant ta maison: Ouvre ta porte!
Ouvre ta porte!
Bonjour, Suzon!
”Je t'ai vue au temps des lilas.
Ton cur joyeux venait d'eclore, Et tu disais: 'je ne veux pas, Je ne veux pas qu'on m'aime encore.'
Qu'as-tu fait depuis mon depart?
Qui part trop tot revient trop tard.
Mais que m'importe?
Mais que m'importe?
Je pa.s.se devant ta maison: Ouvre ta porte!
Ouvre ta porte!
Bonjour, Suzon!”
And when it began, and while it lasted, and after it was over, one felt really sorry for all the other singers. And n.o.body sang any more that night; for Glorioli was tired, and wouldn't sing again, and none were bold enough or disinterested enough to sing after him.
Some of my readers may remember that meteoric bird of song, who, though a mere amateur, would condescend to sing for a hundred guineas in the saloons of the great (as Monsieur Jourdain sold cloth); who would sing still better for love and glory in the studios of his friends.
For Glorioli--the biggest, handsomest, and most distinguished-looking Jew that ever was--one of the Sephardim (one of the Seraphim!)--hailed from Spain, where he was junior partner in the great firm of Morales, Perales, Gonzales & Glorioli, wine-merchants, Malaga. He travelled for his own firm; his wine was good, and he sold much of it in England. But his voice would bring him far more gold in the month he spent here; for his wines have been equalled--even surpa.s.sed--but there was no voice like his anywhere in the world, and no more finished singer.
Anyhow, his voice got into Little Billee's head more than any wine, and the boy could talk of nothing else for days and weeks; and was so exuberant in his expressions of delight and grat.i.tude that the great singer took a real fancy to him (especially when he was told that this fervent boyish admirer was one of the greatest of English painters); and as a mark of his esteem, privately confided to him after supper that every century two human nightingales were born--only two! a male and a female; and that he, Glorioli, was the representative ”male rossignol of this soi-disant dix-neuvieme siecle.”
”I can well believe that! And the female, your mate that should be--_la rossignolle_, if there is such a word?” inquired Little Billee.
”Ah! mon ami ... it was Alboni till la pet.i.te Adelina Patti came out a year or two ago; and now it is _la Svengali_.”
”La Svengali?”
”Oui, mon fy! You will hear her some day--et vous m'en direz des nouvelles!”
”Why, you don't mean to say that she's got a better voice than Madame Alboni?”
”Mon ami, an apple is an excellent thing--until you have tried a peach!