DOI article:
Willeby, Charles: The composer of "Carmen"
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21215#0077
By Charles Willeby 73
This latter, indeed, was no light matter. The Direction was
then undertaken by two parties: that of Du Locle, tending
towards advancement in everyform ; thatof De Leuven, clinging
with all the force of tradition to the past.
"Then in the evening nothing would do but Bizet should see
me well on my way to Paris. The bridges were not yet restored.
So we set off on foot, in Company with Madame Bizet, to find
the ferry-boat. How deliciouswas that walk by the little islets in
the cool of the twilight; along the towing-path so narrow and
overrun with growth that we were obliged to proceed in Indian
file. And how merry we were, until perchance we stumbled on
the fragment of a shell lying hidden in the grass, or came face to
face with some majestic tree, still smarting from its wounds,
when there would rise before us in all its vividness the terrible
scene so recently enacted 011 that spot. Then we talked of the
war and all its sorrows ; and we tried to descry there on the
right, in the shade of Mount Valerien, the spot where Henri
Regnault feil.
" At length we found the ferry, and reached the other bank.
There at the end of the path we could see the lights of the
Station; so we separated. And although I made many after
visits, none remained so firmly fixed in my memory, or left me
so happy an impression as did this, my first to Bizet's summer
home."
Düring the siege itself, he had been forced to remain in Paris.
But it was much against his will, and he seems to have chafed
sorely at it. Yet it is difficult to picture Bizet bellicose. " Dear
friend," he writes to Guiraud, who was stationed at some outpost,
"the description you give of the palace you are living in makes
us all believe that luck is with you. But every day we think of
the cold, the damp, the ice, the Prussians, and all the other
horrors
This latter, indeed, was no light matter. The Direction was
then undertaken by two parties: that of Du Locle, tending
towards advancement in everyform ; thatof De Leuven, clinging
with all the force of tradition to the past.
"Then in the evening nothing would do but Bizet should see
me well on my way to Paris. The bridges were not yet restored.
So we set off on foot, in Company with Madame Bizet, to find
the ferry-boat. How deliciouswas that walk by the little islets in
the cool of the twilight; along the towing-path so narrow and
overrun with growth that we were obliged to proceed in Indian
file. And how merry we were, until perchance we stumbled on
the fragment of a shell lying hidden in the grass, or came face to
face with some majestic tree, still smarting from its wounds,
when there would rise before us in all its vividness the terrible
scene so recently enacted 011 that spot. Then we talked of the
war and all its sorrows ; and we tried to descry there on the
right, in the shade of Mount Valerien, the spot where Henri
Regnault feil.
" At length we found the ferry, and reached the other bank.
There at the end of the path we could see the lights of the
Station; so we separated. And although I made many after
visits, none remained so firmly fixed in my memory, or left me
so happy an impression as did this, my first to Bizet's summer
home."
Düring the siege itself, he had been forced to remain in Paris.
But it was much against his will, and he seems to have chafed
sorely at it. Yet it is difficult to picture Bizet bellicose. " Dear
friend," he writes to Guiraud, who was stationed at some outpost,
"the description you give of the palace you are living in makes
us all believe that luck is with you. But every day we think of
the cold, the damp, the ice, the Prussians, and all the other
horrors