maestro_ Rossini--in Otello! Garcia was Otello,--I was Iago--and
when he rendered the phrase':--here Pantaleone threw himself into an
attitude and began singing in a hoarse and shaky, but still moving
voice:

"L'i ... ra daver ... so daver ... so il fato
lo piu no ... no ... no ... non temero!"

The theatre was all a-quiver, _signori miei_! though I too did not
fall short, I too after him.

"L'i ra daver ... so daver ... so il fato
Temer piu non davro!"

And all of a sudden, he crashed like lightning, like a tiger:
_Morro!... ma vendicato ..._ Again when he was singing ... when he was
singing that celebrated air from "_Matrimonio segreto_," _Pria che
spunti_ ... then he, _il gran Garcia_, after the words, "_I cavalli
di galoppo_"--at the words, "_Senza posa cacciera_,"--listen, how
stupendous, _come e stupendo_! At that point he made ...' The old man
began a sort of extraordinary flourish, and at the tenth note broke
down, cleared his throat, and with a wave of his arm turned away,
muttering, 'Why do you torment me?' Gemma jumped up at once and
clapping loudly and shouting, bravo!... bravo!... she ran to the poor
old super-annuated Iago and with both hands patted him affectionately
on the shoulders. Only Emil laughed ruthlessly. _Cet age est sans
pitie_--that age knows no mercy--Lafontaine has said already.

Sanin tried to soothe the aged singer and began talking to him
in Italian--(he had picked up a smattering during his last tour