"Yes," I repeated, "sing. You must throw yourself into that. It will
be the best of all tonics."
"Have I not told you that I should never sing again?"
"Perhaps you have," I replied; "but I don't remember. And even if you
have, as you yourself have just said, you are now wiser, less morbid."
"True!" he murmured. "Yes, I must sing. They want me at Chicago. I
will go, and while there I will spread abroad the fame of Carl
Foster."
He smiled gaily, and then his face became meditative and sad.
"My artistic career has never been far away from tragedy," he said at
length. "It was founded on a tragedy, and not long ago I thought it
would end in one."
I waited in silence, knowing that if he wished to tell me any private
history, he would begin of his own accord.
"You are listening, Carl?"
I nodded. It was growing dusk.
"You remember I pointed out to you the other day the little house in
the Rue d'Ostende where my parents lived?"
"Perfectly."
"That," he proceeded, using that curiously formal and elaborate
English which he must have learned from reading-books, "that was the
scene of the tragedy which made me an artist. I have told you that my
father was a schoolmaster. He was the kindest of men, but he had moods
of frightful severity--moods which subsided as quickly as they arose.
At the age of three, just as I was beginning to talk easily, I became,
for a period, subject to fits; and in one of these I lost the power of
speech. I, Alresca, could make no sound; and for seven years that
tenor whom in the future people were to call 'golden-throated,' and
'world-famous,' and 'unrivalled,' had no voice." He made a deprecatory
gesture. "When I think of it, Carl, I can scarcely believe it--so
strange are the chances of life. I could hear and understand, but I
could not speak.
"Of course, that was forty years ago, and the system of teaching mutes
to talk was not then invented, or, at any rate, not generally
understood. So I was known and pitied as the poor dumb boy. I took
pleasure in dumb animals, and had for pets a silver-gray cat, a goat,
and a little spaniel. One afternoon--I should be about ten years
old--my father came home from his school and sitting down, laid his
head on the table and began to cry. Seeing him cry, I also began to
cry; I was acutely sensitive.
"'What is the matter?' asked my good mother.
"'Alas!' he said, 'I am a murderer!' "'Nay, that cannot be,' she replied.
"'I say it is so,' said my father. 'I have murdered a child--a little
girl. I grumbled at her yesterday. I was annoyed and angry--because
she had done her lessons ill. I sent her home, but instead of going
home she went to the outer canal and drowned herself. They came and
told me this afternoon. Yes, I am a murderer!' "I howled, while my mother tried to comfort my father, pointing out
to him that if he had spoken roughly to the child it was done for the
child's good, and that he could not possibly have foreseen the
catastrophe. But her words were in vain.