One day Dauphin heard me singing and inquired who I was. Then he came in
the room and said to me, "How much do you get here for teaching and
playing?" I replied, proudly, "six thousand francs a year." He said,
"You shall study with me and some day you shall earn as much as six
thousand francs a month." Dauphin, bless his soul, was wrong. I now earn
six thousand francs every night I sing instead of every month.
I could hardly believe that the opportunity I had waited for so long had
come. Dauphin had me come to his house and there he told me that my
success in singing would depend quite as much upon my own industry as
upon his instruction. Thus one professor in the conservatory taught
another in the art he had long sought to master. Notwithstanding
Dauphin's confidence in me, all of the other professors thought that I
was doing a perfectly insane thing, and did all in their power to
prevent me from going to what they thought was my ruin.