hen she stopped at the end
of an air and multitudes of bravos were thrown to her from outstretched
hands, he affected an indifferent and absent manner, and his listless
gaze seemed to say to the spectators: "When you have finished
applauding, I'll sing."

Ah! the applause, that sound like hail reechoing so delightfully through
the lobbies, the house, and the side scenes, once the sweets of it are
tasted, it is impossible to live without it. Great actors do not die of
illness or old age, they cease to exist when applause no longer greets
them. At the indifference of the public, this one was really seized with
a feeling of despair. He grew thin, became peevish and bad-tempered. In
vain did he reason with himself, look his incurable folly well in the
face, repeat to himself before he came on the stage:

"And yet she is my wife, and I love her!"

In the artificial atmosphere of the stage the true sentiment of life
vanished at once. He still loved the wife, but detested the singer. She
realized it, and as one nurses an invalid, watched the sad mania. At
first she thought of lessening her success, of making a sparing use and
not giving the full power of her voice and talent; but her resolutions
like those of her husband could not withstand the glare of the
footlights. Her talent, almost unconsciously, overstepped her will. Then
she humbled herself before him, belittled herself. She asked his advice,
inquired if he thought her interpretation correct, if he understood the
part in that way.

Of course he was never satisfied. With assumed goodnature, in the tone
of false friendship that comedians use so much amongst each other, he
would say, on the evenings of her greatest successes:

"You must watch yourself, dear, you are not doing very well just now,
not improving."

At other times he tried to prevent her singing:

"Take care, you are lavishing yourself. You are doing too much. Don't
wear out your luck. Believe me, you ought to take a holiday."

He even condescended to the most paltry pretexts. Said she had a cold,
was not in good voice. Or else he would try to pick some mean stage
quarrel:

"You took up the end of the duet too quickly; you spoilt my effect. You
did it on purpose."

He never saw, poor wretch, that it was he who hindered her bye play,
hurrying on with his cue in order to prevent any applause, and in his
anxiety to regain the public ear, monopolizing the front of the stage,
leaving his wife in the b