"I cannot do it, father." "You _will_ do it, my daughter; and if you fail in any way, I shall _really_ strike you with my dagger when I am supposed to kill you on the stage." "And he would have done it, too," she would add, "so I played the part." Manuel himself was ever a phenomenally quick "study" in the memorising of any fresh _rôle_. Short though the periods would be which were allowed in the ordinary way for learning a work, they were for him a great deal too long. He was able to commit to memory the whole of his part in two or three days, while at the end of ten he had picked up the parts of all the other singers as well, so that if necessary he was perfectly able to prompt them during the final rehearsals. His father used to take advantage of this extraordinary memory, and, when feeling indisposed, would say, "You must go on, and take my part to-night." The son would proceed to do so, and get through the performance successfully, singing the tenor _rôle_, in which he would alter the high passages to suit his own voice. All this hard work, however, was not accomplished without leaving its mark, and in a few months he began to feel the effects of the strain involved in this perpetual rehearsing and singing not only of his own baritone parts but on occasions of the tenor music. His father was a hard task-master, and the son, though he had a fine voice, found the work involved by an operatic career too hard for his physical resources. At last things reached a point at which, as he once told me, he went through every successive performance in a state of fear lest his voice should leave him suddenly when he was on the stage. His father and mother laughed at this feeling as absurd, and told him that he must study for a time in Italy, and then make his _début_ there, as they had set their hearts on it. Partly, therefore, to please them, partly, it may be, to comfort and assist Maria, of whose intention to set out for Paris in the September he must have been well aware, Manuel Garcia left his parents to continue their season in Mexico, and in the early autumn of 1827 set out for Europe alone. CHAPTER VII. OPERATIC CAREER ABANDONED. (1828-1830.) Manuel Garcia, in the January of 1828, was present at the operatic _début_ of his sister, Maria Malibran, in Paris, the details of which he once gave to me. On another occasion he stated most distinctly that he left his parents in Mexico about the middle of their stay, set out for Paris, and, arriving there not long after his sister, remained with her till after her _début_. He added that during this period she continued her vocal studies under his tuition. Under these circumstances one may safely assume that he arrived in the French capital either in October or in the early part of November, 1827.