Madame Bonanni sat in the spring sunshine by the closed window of her
sitting-room in London; she was thankful that there was any sunshine at
all, and by keeping the window shut and wrapping herself in furs she
produced the illusion that it was warming her. The room was not very
large and a good deal of space was taken up by a grand piano, a good
deal more by the big table and the heavy furniture, and the rest by
Madame Bonanni herself. Her bulk was considerably increased by the
white furs, from which only her head emerged; and as her face was made
up for the day with rather more paint than she wore in Paris, on the
ground that London is a darker city, the effect of the whole was highly
artificial and disconcerting. One might have compared the huge bundle
of white to an enormous egg out of which a large and very animated
middle-aged fowl was just hatching.
Lushington was seated before the open piano, but had turned half away
from it on the stool and was looking quietly at his mother. His face
had an expression of listless weariness which was not natural to him.
Madame Bonanni moved just then and the outer fur slipped a little from
its place. Lushington rose at once and arranged it again.
'Will you have anything else over you, mother?' he asked.
'No, my child. I am warm at last. Your English sun is like stage
lime-light. It shines, and shines, and does no good! The man turns it
off, and London is pitch dark! Nothing warms one here but eating five
times a day and wearing a fur coat all the time. But I am growing old.
Why do you say I am not? It is foolish.' 'Your voice is as perfect as ever,' said Lushington.
'My voice, my voice! What did you expect? That it would crack, or that
I should sing false? Ungrateful boy! How can you say such things of
your mother? But I am growing old. Soon I shall make the effect on the
public of a grandmother in baby's clothes. Do you think I am blind?
They will say, "Poor old Bonanni, she remembers Thiers!" They might as
well say at once that I remember the Second Empire! It is infamous!
Have people no heart? But why do I go on singing, my dear? Tell me
that! Why do I go on?' 'Because you sing as well as ever,' suggested Lushington gently.
'It is no reason why I should work as hard as ever! Why should I go on
earning money, money, money? Yes, I know! They come to hear me, they
crowd the house, they pay, they clap their hands when I sing the mad
scene in Lucia, or Juliet's waltz song, or the crescendo trills in
the Huguenots! But I am old, my dear!' 'Nonsense!' interjected Lushington in an encouraging tone.