The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1911-02-18
The Waking of Madame
Castelli.

&A@&0&%444et89
j Madame Castelli was in no pleasant
4 frame of mind. To begin with, hel
4 studio seemed to be saturated with
the raWness of the late October wealth
i er. The cold storms of rain had con
i tinued for several days; the ordinar
/ fly impudent janitor Of the fiats-they
were dignified by the Madame with
the title of Chambers when she had
written out her visiting carlsbad
been extraordinarily impudent when
the Madame had so lost her patience
as to demand that the steam be got.
ten up. He assured her in strong Ian
clad rules which even the persuasive
Madame would be unable to break
Those orders declared that there
would be no steam till the first day of
! November and if she did not like
that she could go to the landlord. And
the janitor insisted upon those last
words in manner that caused Ma
! dame to surmise that in his heart of
hearts he was suggesting that she
might go to less damp place than
the Chambers. But the Madame
disdained quarreling with a petty jan
itor, and instead of indulging in her
usual volubility she retired to her
studio, pulled her wrap about herself
more closely, shivered very emphati-
cally, threw open the cover of the con-
cert piano and struck such chords as
Strauss himself would be unable to
resolve
"The Irish brute she said aloud,
and SO many times that it became the
leitmotif of her improvisation. Go to
the landlord, indeed! And she had been
doing her utmost to quell that gentle
mans disturbed state of mind as often
as he came to insist upon his rent.
She would have his rent, she assured
him, as soon as the vocal business
would pick up again. But as Madame
Castelli improvised and verbally be-
labored the impudent janitor there
was very permanent doubt in her
mind as to the probability of business
becoming better. All last year, on
account of the condition of the mar
ket, few pupils has sought her studio.
Singing lessons were luxury, and the
dilettantes who constituted the ma
iority of Madame's pupils felt obliged
| to curtail their vocal 1abOrs rather
than other more physical and more
pleasurable time-killers. During the
summer season all had dropped away,
much against the advice of Madame,
who had RECALLED them with her stock
proofs that there was no season like
| the summer for the cultivation of the
voice, just as the other muscles were
trained best in the hot season. But
Madame's talk was not always con-
vincing, and so she was obliged to see
| her birds of revenue flee away to
shore and mountains leaving her to
get along as best she could in a small
way in the kitchenette that led out of
her studio, which was transformed at
night by means of pillow-laden couch
into a useful, if not elegant, sleeping
apartment
To make it more difficult for the
/ Madame to be in excellent good hui
NOR in her Arctic studio, her most i'm
portant pupil, Miss Caldwell, had writ
ten to her that she would come that
very day to see about resuming the
/ lessons which the departure of the
1 family from town had obliged her to
drop. l say that Miss Caldwell was
the most important pupil of Madame
because she took three lessons each
week. Not that Miss Caldwells voice
was so full of promise as to necessi-
tate that 1t was light soprano, so
positively birdlike as to lead many au-
ditors to call her vocal efforts pipings;
but then the young lady herself, much
as her ambitions might lead her to
long for the day when she would be
rival of Melba, was really in no dan,
ger of ever being compelled even to
pipe for living. Caldwell, S Nor
was the sole owner of the greateset
wholesale grocery in the city, a pc,
sition of influence to which he had ad.
vanced by his own superhuman ability
for work, and more so, perhaps, by a
/ luck that was proverbial among his
associates as Caldwell luck" 1t was
plain, therefore, that Madame Castelli
appreciated very much the letter
which conveyed to her the welcome
news that her star pupil was returning
to her that day; and it could not be
/ imputed as crime to her that she
was provoked at being forced to vel
come her to such cherries studio.
Madame Castelli-it was puzzling
circumstance that Madame's hus.
band, whose death had obliged her to
turn her knowledge of vocal gym
nasts into a means of getting live
lihood had gone by the name of jerks
i If stage artists were allowed soubri
quet why not the professors of their
art9 True, the Madame might have
reassumed her maiden name, but that
To- axAwy