"Stevenson_Markheim" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stevenson Robert Louis)

scores a success. Nowadays, however, no one could amass a huge fortune
out of it."

"No one, indeed!" replied Oswald Everard, laughing. "What on earth
made you take to it?"

"It took to me," she said simply. "It wrapped me round with
enthusiasm. I could think of nothing else. I vowed that I would rise
to the top of my profession. I worked day and night. But it means
incessant toil for years if one wants to make any headway."

"Good gracious! I thought it was merely a matter of a few months," he
said, smiling at the little girl.

"A few months!" she repeated, scornfully. "You are speaking the
language of an amateur. No; one has to work faithfully year after
year; to grasp the possibilities, and pass on to greater
possibilities. You imagine what it must feel like to touch the notes,
and know that you are keeping the listeners spellbound; that you are
taking them into a fairy-land of sound, where petty personality is
lost in vague longing and regret."

"I confess I had not thought of it in that way," he said, humbly. "I
have only regarded it as a necessary every-day evil; and to be quite
honest with you, I fail to see now how it can inspire enthusiasm. I
wish I could see," he added, looking up at the engaging little figure
before him.

"Never mind," she said, laughing at his distress; "I forgive you. And,
after all, you are not the only person who looks upon it as a
necessary evil. My poor old guardian abominated it. He made many
sacrifices to come and listen to me. He knew I liked to see his kind
old face, and that the presence of a real friend inspired me with
confidence."

"I should not have thought it was nervous work," he said.

"Try it and see," she answered. "But surely you spoke of singing. Are
you not nervous when you sing?"

"Sometimes," he replied, rather stiffly. "But that is slightly
different." (He was very proud of his singing, and made a great fuss
about it.) "Your profession, as I remarked before, is an unavoidable
nuisance. When I think what I have suffered from the gentlemen of your
profession, I only wonder that I have any brains left. But I am
uncourteous."

"No, no," she said; "let me hear about your sufferings."

"Whenever I have specially wanted to be quiet," he said--and then he