Those who have only seen the capricious diva on the stage or in Parisian salons can form little idea of the proprietress of Cabrieres. No shade of coquetry blurs the clear picture of her home life. The capped and saboted peasant women who waited on us were not more simple in their ways. Several times during the meal she left her seat to inquire after the comfort of some invalid girl or inspect the cooking in the adjacent kitchen. These wanderings were not, however, allowed to disturb the conversation, which flowed on after the mellow French fashion, enlivened by much wit and gay badinage. One of our hostess's anecdotes at her own expense was especially amusing.
"When in Venice," she told us, "most prima donnas are carried to and from the opera in sedan chairs to avoid the risk of colds from the draughty gondolas. The last night of my initial season there, I was informed, as the curtain fell, that a number of Venetian nobles were planning to carry me in triumph to the hotel. When I descended from my dressing-room the courtyard of the theatre was filled with men in dress clothes, bearing lanterns, who caught up the chair as soon as I was seated and carried it noisily across the city to the hotel. Much moved by this unusual honor, I mounted to the balcony of my room, from which elevation I bowed my thanks, and threw all the flowers at hand to my escort.
"Next morning the hotel proprietor appeared with my coffee, and after hesitating a moment, remarked: `Well, we made a success of it last night. It has been telegraphed to all the capitals of Europe! I hope you will not think a thousand francs too much, considering the advertisement!' In blank amazement, I asked what he meant. `I mean the triumphal progress,' he answered. `I thought you understood! We always organize one for the "stars" who visit Venice. The men who carried your chair last night were the waiters from the hotels. We hire them on account of their dress clothes'!
Think of the disillusion," added Calve, laughing, "and my disgust, when I thought of myself naively throwing kisses and flowers to a group of Swiss garcons at fifteen francs a head.
There was nothing to do, however, but pay the bill and swallow my chagrin!"
How many pretty women do you suppose would tell such a joke upon themselves? Another story she told us is characteristic of her peasant neighbors.
"When I came back here after my first season in St. Petersburg and London the CURE requested me to sing at our local fete. I gladly consented, and, standing by his side on the steps of the MAIRIE, gave the great aria from the HUGUENOTS in my best manner. To my astonishment the performance was received in complete silence. `Poor Calve,' I heard an old friend of my mother's murmur. `Her voice used to be so nice, and now it's all gone!' Taking in the situation at a glance, I threw my voice well up into my nose and started off on a well-known provincial song, in the shrill falsetto of our peasant women.
The effect was instantaneous! Long before the end the performance was drowned in thunders of applause. Which proves that to be popular a singer must adapt herself to her audience."
Luncheon over, we repaired for cigarettes and coffee to an upper room, where Calve was giving Dagnan-Bouveret some sittings for a portrait, and lingered there until four o'clock, when our hostess left us for her siesta, and a "break" took those who cared for the excursion across the valley to inspect the ruins of a Roman bath. A late dinner brought us together again in a small dining room, the convalescents having eaten their simple meal and disappeared an hour before. During this time, another transformation had taken place in our mercurial hostess! It was the Calve of Paris, Calve the witch, Calve the CAPITEUSE, who presided at the dainty, flower-decked table and led the laughing conversation.
A few notes struck on a guitar by one of the party, as we sat an hour later on the moonlit terrace, were enough to start off the versatile artist, who was in her gayest humor. She sang us stray bits of opera, alternating her music with scenes burlesqued from recent plays. No one escaped her inimitable mimicry, not even the "divine Sarah," Calve giving us an unpayable impersonation of the elderly TRAGEDIENNE as Lorenzaccio, the boy hero of Alfred de Musset's drama.
Burlesquing led to her dancing some Spanish steps with an abandon never attempted on the stage! Which in turn gave place to an imitation of an American whistling an air from CARMEN, and some "coon songs" she had picked up during her stay at New York. They, again, were succeeded by a superb rendering of the imprecation from Racine's CAMILLE, which made her audience realize that in gaining a soprano the world has lost, perhaps, its greatest TRAGEDIENNE.
At eleven o'clock the clatter of hoofs in the court warned us that the pleasant evening had come to an end. A journalist EN ROUTE for Paris was soon installed with me in the little omnibus that was to take us to the station, Calve herself lighting our cigars and providing the wraps that were to keep out the cool night air.
As we passed under the low archway of the entrance amid a clamor of "adieu" and "au revoir," the young Frenchman at my side pointed up to a row of closed windows overhead. "Isn't it a lesson," he said, "for all of us, to think of the occupants of those little rooms, whom the generosity and care of that gracious artist are leaning by such pleasant paths back to health and courage for their toilsome lives?"
