for everything that belonged to the Delsarte homestead. There were
inkstands, pens, pencils, knives, wire, matches, toothpicks, half-smoked
cigars, even remnants of his luncheon, which seemed to have been black
bread and cheese, and dust galore. Delsarte had on a pair of much-worn
embroidered slippers, a velvet _calotte_, the tassels of which swayed
with each of his emotions, and a dilapidated _robe de chambre_ which
opened at every movement, disclosing his soiled plaid foulard doing duty
for a collar.

On my telling him that I desired to take some lessons of him, he asked me
to sing something for him. Seeing the music of Duprato's "Il etait nuit
deja," I proposed singing that, and he sat down at the pedal-less piano to
accompany me. When I arrived at the phrase, "Un souffle d'air leger
apportait jusqu'a nous l'odeur d'un oranger," he interrupted me. "Repeat
that!" he cried. "Il faut qu'on sente le souffle d'air et l'odeur de
l'oranger." I said to myself, "... no one could 'sentir un oranger' in
this room; one could only smell Delsarte's bad tobacco."

He begged me to sing something else.

"Will you accompany Gounod's 'Medje' for me?" I asked him.

"No," he replied. "I will listen; you must accompany yourself. There are
certain songs that cannot be accompanied by any one but the singer. This
is one of them! You feel yourself, don't you, that it is absolutely
necessary for you to clutch something when singing this? A weak chord or a
too powerful one struck in a wrong place would spoil entirely the effect,
and even the best accompanist cannot foresee when that effect is going to
be produced." I think this is so clever! "'Voi che sapete' can be
accompanied by any school girl," he continued. "It is plain sailing; but