The piano is of a pre-Raphaelite construction, and stands in the middle of the room like an island in a lake, with a footstool placed over the pedals (he considers the pedal as useless). The lid of the piano was absent, and, to judge from the inside, I should say that the piano was the receptacle for everything that belonged to the Delsarte homestead. There were inkstands, pens, pencils, knives, wire, matches, toothpicks, half-smoked cigars, even remnants of his luncheon, which seemed to have been black bread and cheese, and dust galore. Delsarte had on a pair of much-worn embroidered slippers, a velvet _calotte_, the tassels of which swayed with each of his emotions, and a dilapidated _robe de chambre_ which opened at every movement, disclosing his soiled plaid foulard doing duty for a collar. On my telling him that I desired to take some lessons of him, he asked me to sing something for him. Seeing the music of Duprato's "Il était nuit déjà," I proposed singing that, and he sat down at the pedal-less piano to accompany me. When I arrived at the phrase, "Un souffle d'air léger apportait jusqu'à nous l'odeur d'un oranger," he interrupted me. "Repeat that!" he cried. "Il faut qu'on sente le souffle d'air et l'odeur de l'oranger." I said to myself, "... no one could 'sentir un oranger' in this room; one could only smell Delsarte's bad tobacco." He begged me to sing something else. "Will you accompany Gounod's 'Medje' for me?" I asked him. "No," he replied. "I will listen; you must accompany yourself. There are certain songs that cannot be accompanied by any one but the singer. This is one of them! You feel yourself, don't you, that it is absolutely necessary for you to clutch something when singing this? A weak chord or a too powerful one struck in a wrong place would spoil entirely the effect, and even the best accompanist cannot foresee when that effect is going to be produced." I think this is so clever! "'Voi che sapete' can be accompanied by any school girl," he continued. "It is plain sailing; but in 'Medje' the piano must be part of the singer and breathe with him." I sat down at the piano and sang. When I came to "Prends cette lame et plonges la dans mon coeur," he stopped me short, and pointing to a horrible picture on the wall indicating bloody murder and terror (No. 6), he cried, "Voilà l'expression qu'il faut avoir." I sang the phrase over again, trying to imagine what Medje's lover must have felt; but I could not satisfy Delsarte. He said my voice ought to tremble; and, in fact, I ought to sing false when I say, "Ton image encore vivante dans mon coeur qui ne bat plus." "No one," he said, "in such a moment of emotion could keep on the right note." I tried again, in vain! If I had had a dagger in my hand and a brigand before me, I might perhaps have been more successful. However, he let it pass; but to show that it could be done he sang it for me, and actually did sing it false. Curiously enough, it