"Your first appearance was a triumph that will live in the memory
of Vienna, my dear Christine. In fact, your magnificent rendering
of a role which only such singers as Patti, Sembrich and Melba have
attempted, has exceeded all expectations. Candidly, I had commenced to
blame myself for having yielded to the wishes of Duke Hohenlohe," said
the director of the Conservatory with a radiant smile, as he entered
Christine's simple four-room apartment, a day later. "And I am most
glad to have been commissioned by the Board of Directors to offer you a
three years' contract with a suitable salary--but, my dear girl, what
is the matter?"
Christine stood before him pale as a ghost. A slight tremor shook
her slender frame, her eyes were downcast and red with weeping. She
stammered a few words which the director could not understand.
He scrutinized her face sharply, being wholly puzzled, as he
endeavored to fathom the true cause of this state of mind.
"Pardon me, my dear girl, if I express my surprise. I hope you are
not dissatisfied with your debut. Why, you ought to be singing
rhapsodies--be filled with ambition and enthusiasm--after being
received by his Majesty and complimented upon your remarkable success."
Without replying, her lips quivering and dumb, Christine slowly and
solemnly opened the door of the adjacent room. A mysterious, oppressive
something seemed to fill the room like the shadow of death.
In the centre was a catafalque, at the end of which stood two lighted
candles, sputtering lightly like the last feeble shrieks of a departing
soul. Near the catafalque, on a small pedestal, rested the picture of
poor Peter, embedded in a mass of roses.
The autumn sun, shining through the lilac and myrtle boughs that
rustled close to the window, glinted over the pure, pale face of the
singer. Mournfully, her tearful eyes sought the object of her deep
devotion. On a black velvet cushion near Peter's picture, stood a
pair of old shoes surrounded by jasmine and white camelias. A ray of
sunshine stealing through the myrtle leaves made golden ripples on the
shoes.
Christine pressed her hand to her heart, as if beholding that scene
in the tavern of her childhood days. "Not yesterday," she said to the
director in a trembling voice--"not yesterday, but five years ago I
made my debut as a singer, when I earned these shoes in recognition of
my singing--from him--" She pointed to Peter's picture, almost overcome
by emotion.
"I sympathize most keenly with you, but my dear girl, what are they?"
"They are my only mementoes of my dear friend Peter, who lost his
life in the service of the Empire--the first victim of the terrible
rebellion at the Southern frontier." She stopped, unable to continue,
while her heart contracted painfully, and big tears of sympathy and
love for the shoemaker's apprentice trickled down her blanched face.
* * * * *
Christine is now one of the greatest opera stars on the horizon, and
her sisters are following in her footsteps. But every year when the sad
day of poor Peter's death comes, Christine, clothed all in black, goes
out to the cemetery with flowers in hand, and sits for hours under the
pure white marble obelisk where, in gilded letters, these words are
traced:
_ERECTED IN HONOR OF PETER STARK_,
_By his devoted, sorrowing friend_,
_CHRISTINE_.