Camilla: A Tale of a Violin. C.J. Barnard

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ seemed to quite satisfy her. The orchestra, the organ and the choir afforded her perpetual amusement, and her life was as happy as that of the most favored child in the town.

      When not listening to music she was very active and merry and displayed an abundant fund of good health and spirits. She early learned to talk and walk and was considered an unusually bright and precocious girl. Her earliest months gave a hint of her love for music. If fretful or peevish with weariness or ill-health she could soon be pacified by a gentle song from her father as he carried her about in his arms.

      The first intimation of a desire to make music herself came when she was three years old. Hearing a hand-organ play in the street while the family were at dinner she softly left the table and went into the next room. Presently the tune on the hand-organ was repeated on the piano in the parlor. Her father opened the door quickly only to find the child trying to hide, as if she had done something wrong.

      Before she could talk she could hum over or sing a number of songs, and at four years of age could repeat in a thin piping voice many of the songs and airs sung by her mother and always insisting that the accompaniment should be played while she sang.

      She did not go to school. Hardly any children in the town had any such advantage. There were a few small primary schools and that was about all the chance that was open to the young people of Nantes for an education.

      So far in Camilla’s life it did not make any particular difference. Things were going on quite to her satisfaction and she was perfectly happy even if she could not read or write.

      Thus in a quiet way with much music the months had slipped away till she was five years old. Then suddenly came the awakening of a new life. Something happened that cast the rosy glow of coming day over the twilight of her life. The morning star that shone out clear and bright before her young eyes took the shape of a violin solo in a mass called St. Cecilia. She was in the church when its promise-speaking light flashed upon her. There was an orchestra, and a full chorus, with the organ. The little Camilla now almost six years old sat in the old organ loft and heard it all. She listened and dreamed and wondered and wished and wished she could only do something like that solo for the first violin. An ordinary piece of music, indifferently played, but somehow it enchained her whole attention. It threw wide open the pearly gates of a new and fairer life.

      Many a time she had heard famous players at the theatre. They had never interested her as did this one. He was not a very fine player. His music was not particularly wonderful, but there was something about it that pleased her greatly. She had been already excited by the music. The majestic and noble character of the mass, the chorus sounding so loud and grand through the church, the orchestra, her father’s organ with its great thunder tones rolling under it all, had sent the blood tingling through her veins. The great company kneeling on the floor so far below. The lights and flowers on the altar. The blue clouds of incense rising softly on the air and the dusky bars of colored light slanting across the springing arches. The scene, the music, everything affected her. Then that song on the violin. It was beautiful – and – if she could. No – she never, never could – and it was all a dream. She was even reluctant to leave for home after the service was over and wanted to linger in the vast, dim church and dream it all over again.

      If she only could play like that – if she could have a real violin, all her own and play on it, why, that would be just too wonderfully grand and splendid for anything. There were not words in the French language that could express the pleasure it would give her. She could not speak of it. It was too good to talk about.

      For several days she thought about it and dreamed of it and wondered if it would do to tell her father and ask him to give her a violin. At last the secret became unbearable and on creeping into her mother’s bed before daylight one morning for her regular petting she ventured to lisp to her mother that she wanted a violin – “a real one, to play upon herself.”

      The morning star faded away quickly, and there was only the dull grey dawn in the child’s sky. Her mother treated her request with laughter and put out the little Camilla’s hope with a flat refusal.

      CHAPTER II.

      SUNRISE

      It was the town talk. The women gathered round the fountain in the Place Royal and filled their water jars and gossiped about Salvatore Urso’s silly whim with his child. Madame Dubois settled her cap and gave it as her opinion that no good would come of such a foolish thing. Madame Tilsit knew better, if the child wanted to play, why, let her play. The priest would not forbid it. Madame Perche knew it was far better than teaching children to read. That would lead them to dreadful infidelity, and what not. Besides, what will you? M. Urso will do as he pleases with the child.

      At its best Nantes is a sleepy place, and in those days it was more narrow, petty and gossipy than can be imagined. A small town in New England where every mother’s daughter can read is bad enough, but in a compact French town where every one must live next door or next floor to everybody else gossip runs wild. Totally ignorant of books or any matter outside of their own town, the people must needs fall back on themselves and quietly pick each other to pieces. Everybody had heard that Salvatore Urso, the flute player intended to teach his little girl the violin. Part of the town approved of this bold, audacious step and part of the town thought it eminently improper, if not positively wicked. There was the Urso party and the anti-Urso party. They talked and quarrelled over it for a long time in a fashion that was quite as narrow minded and petty as could be imagined and it was more than a year before the excitement subsided.

      In the meantime the little Camilla was perfectly happy over her new violin. The first refusal had not discouraged her. She waited a few days and then repeated her request to her father. No. It could not be. This did not seem to disconcert her, for in a few days she again asked if she might have a violin and a teacher. This time the refusal was not so decided. Again and again did the little one ask for a violin – only a violin – that was enough. The importunate pleading carried the day and the father took the matter into consideration.

      Boys might play the violin, but a girl. That was quite another thing. One girl had been known to play the violin. Mlle. Theresa Melanello had played the violin, why not Camilla? If she wished to play so much it must be that she had genius. Should it prove true she might become a famous artist and win a great fortune. Perhaps, even sooner, much money might come from the child’s playing.

      Of course the child must at once go to Paris and enter the Conservatory of music. Paris was a long way off. It would cost a deal of money to get there and when there, it would cost a deal more to live, and there was no way of earning anything in Paris. The theatre, the church and the lessons enabled them to live tolerably well in Nantes. To give up these things would be simple folly. It could not be done. The prospect was brilliant, the way seemed inviting, but it was not available. In his doubt and perplexity over the matter M. Urso went to his friend and companion in the orchestra, Felix Simon. M. Simon played the first violin at the theatre, and one night they talked it over between the acts.

      If Camilla was so exceedingly anxious to play she must have some latent talent. Should she prove a genius or a prodigy it might be the means of bringing the family a fortune. Paris offered the only field for instruction and Paris meant a very great deal of money. With her present limited resources the thing was not to be considered for a moment.

      M. Simon heard it all patiently, talked with the child about it and before her very eyes turned himself into an angel by offering to teach her himself. At first the family could not believe that such good fortune was possible. Still, it was true. M. Simon would teach Camilla one year without pay if he might be allowed to have entire control of her studies. She was to follow his instructions in every thing, she was to have no “pieces” and was to give her whole time to her lessons. If, when the year’s instruction was finished, the child really showed a decided genius for the violin it might be well to talk about Paris. If she then exhibited merely a talent СКАЧАТЬ