But the duel did not come off: I cannot recall now whether the opponent had left town or whether the witnesses had succeeded in effecting a reconciliation. I only know that the threatening cloud passed over, and that we were all very happy. My really deep-felt and spontaneously shown sympathy had brought me much closer yet to the Mingrelian family; and especially Prince Niko himself, as long as he lived, never forgot that I had so taken to heart the danger to which he had been exposed. When we went home that autumn the war was a thing of the past. We took still another lodger in our Baden villa, a Saxon officer. He most courteously came to make us a call. I do not think that we talked much about the campaign just ended, for I remember only that at the Herr Lieutenant’s second visit, which was his visit of farewell, I sang something for him; I can also remember what it was,—the adagio from the grand aria in _La Sonnambula_, “Ah non credea.” The Saxon officer was enraptured. “Oh, most gracious countess, you sing like Patti!” “That young man has a great appreciation of art,” remarked my mother, when the lieutenant had taken his departure. “And are you really going to stick to your decision that you will renounce an artistic career,” she added after a while; “is that reasonable, is it courageous?” “But Madame Viardot’s decision—” I opposed hesitatingly. “Madame Viardot is not infallible; and if you had only kept on with her for a while—” “Not for the world would I have come into her sight again!” “But there are other great singing-teachers; we will ask Beranek.” Herr Beranek was still our lodger, and naturally he was ready at once to take up the proposition of resuming the musical plans. He spoke of Lamperti in Milan, Duprez in Paris, and Marchesi in Vienna as among the greatest teachers. I would not hear of Vienna, but in the very act of pronouncing this limitation I had already tacitly acknowledged that perhaps I would be content, either in Milan or in Paris, to pick up the thread which had been so abruptly broken off in Baden-Baden. And to that it gradually came. I no longer gave a decided “no” when any one spoke to me of an artistic future, and I resumed my singing lessons with Beranek. The old love of song, the old ambitious plans, the old self-confidence awoke and gathered strength once more. The resolve to persevere in my studies, and to continue them under some famous master, matured in my mind. I wrote to Maître Duprez in Paris to ask him if he would be willing to accept an ambitious, enthusiastic pupil; he replied that he would, and so it came to pass that my life had once more found the “one important thing.”