"
"Difficult! Aha, but she must stop, or what become of me, the great
Salvini, who have 200 medals? Look! I will show you from my book what they
say of me. They say, 'Salvini is the greatest in his line.' They say,
'Here is genius; here is a man whose skill transcends the imagination.' So
what I do if madam keep on growing fatter? Ah, you hear that music? It
drive me crazy. I sit every day and listen. You hear her kick. Bang, bang!
That's how she kick up she lie on the back. Ah, it is tragedy, tragedy!"
I nodded in silence as the great Salvini arose and moved across the room,
a dapper figure in a scarlet dressing gown and green silk slippers. He
returned with a fresh load of cigarettes. I noticed his hands--thin,
gentle-looking fingers, like a woman's. They quivered perceptibly as he
lighted his smoke, and I marveled at this--that the wizard fingers of the
great Gabriel Salvini should shake!
"I tell you my story," he resumed. "I tell no one else. But you shall hear
it. It is a story of--of this." And he clapped his hand despairingly over
his heart. "I suffer. Name of God, I suffer every day, every night. And
why? because! You listen to her. She still kick and kick and kick. And I
sit here and think 'Where will it all end?' Another five pounds and I am
ruined.
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