just pulling herself together to begin her long, swelling
harmonica shake, which was to lead back to the _a-tempo_. Some demon
took possession of me. I crashed down the chord of the dominant with
both hands; the orchestra followed me; and there was an end of
Lauretta's _trillo_, just at the supreme moment when it ought to have
set the audience _in furore_.

"'Lauretta, with a glare of fury at me, which went through me like a
two-edged sword, tore her music in pieces, and sent it flying about my
ears; then rushed away like a mad creature, through the orchestra, into
the ante-room. As soon as the _tutti_ was finished, I hastened after
her. She was sobbing and raving. "Don't come near me, you malignant
fiend!" she screamed: "you have blasted my career for ever; how can I
ever look an audience in the face again? You have robbed me of my name,
and fame, and, oh, of my _trillo_! Out of my sight;" she made a rush at
me, but I slipped deftly out of the door. During the _concerto_--which
somebody or other played--Teresina and the Kapellmeister succeeded in
so far pacifying her as to induce her to appear again--but not with me
at the piano--and in the concluding duet, which the sisters sung,
Lauretta did actually introduce the harmonica shake, was tremendously
applauded, and got into the most delightful temper imaginable.

"'I, however, couldn't get over the style in which I had been treated
before so many strangers; and I had quite made up my mind to be off
back to my native town again the following morning. In fact I was
packing up, when Teresina came into my room. When she saw what was
going on, she was thunderstruck. "_You_ going to leave us?" she cried.
I said that after the way in which Lauretta had behaved to me, I could
not possibly stay.

"'"Then the hasty, petulant outburst of a foolish girl, which she is
heartily ashamed of and sorry for, is going to drive you away; where
else could you carry on your artistic life so happily? It rests
entirely with you to cure Lauretta of those tempers of hers. You are
too good to her, and let her have her own way far too much. You have
too high an opinion of her altogether. She has a very fair voice, and
an enormous compass, no doubt. But all those _fioriture_, those
everlasting scales and passages, and nightingale trills of hers, what
are they but dazzling tricks, more like what an acrobat does on the
tight-rope than anything else? Can such things possibly touch the
heart? The har