ued was the longest I have ever had with any one. It
began at eleven o'clock in the morning and lasted until a like hour in
the evening,--it might have lasted much longer,--and during this whole
time we sat at table in Mr. Chaliapine's own chamber at the Brevoort,
whither he had repaired to escape steam heat, while he consumed vast
quantities of food and drink. I remember a detail of six plates of onion
soup. I have never seen any one else eat so much or so continuously, or
with so little lethargic effect. Indeed, intemperance seemed only to
make him more light-hearted, ebullient, and Brobdingnagian. Late in the
afternoon he placed his own record of the _Marseillaise_ in the
victrola, and then amused himself (and me) by singing the song in unison
with the record, in an attempt to drown out the mechanical sound. He
succeeded. The effect in this moderately small hotel room can only be
faintly conceived.

Exuberant is the word which best describes Chaliapine off the stage. I
remember another occasion a year later when I met him, just returned
from South America, on the Boulevard in Paris. He grasped my hand warmly
and begged me to come to see his zoo. He had, in fact, transformed the
_salle de bain_ in his suite at the Grand Hotel into a menagerie. There
were two monkeys, a cockatoo, and many other birds of brilliant plumage,
while two large alligators dozed in the tub.

My second interview with this singer took place a day or so before he
returned to Europe. He had been roughly handled by the New York critics,
treatment, it is said, which met with the approval of Heinrich Conried,
who had no desire to retain in his company a bass who demanded sixteen
hundred dollars a night, a high salary for a soprano or a tenor. Stung
by this defeat--entirely imaginary, by the way, as his audiences here
were as large and enthusiastic as they are anywhere--the only one, in
fact, which he has suffered in his career up to date, Chaliapine was
extremely frank in his attitude. My interview, published on the first
page of the "New York Times," created a small sensation in operatic
circles. The meat of it follows. Chaliapine is speaking:

"Criticism in New York is not profound. It is the most difficult thing
in the world to be a good critical writer. I am a singer, but the critic
has no right to regard me merely as a singer. He must observe my acting,
my make-up, everything. And he must understand and know about these
things.

"Opera is no