to the director for a box for his family. Du Locle replied with an invitation to the rehearsal, adding that he had rather that the minister came himself before he brought his daughters.
Prostrate with it all, poor Bizet returned to Bougival. When forced to give up "Geneviève," he had written to Gallet: "I shall give the whole of May, June, and July to it." And now May was already come, and he was in his bed. "Angine colossale," were the words he sent to Guiraud, who was to have been with him the following Sunday. "Do not come as we arranged; imagine, if you can, a double pedal, A flat, E flat, straight through your head from left to right. This is how I am just now."
He never wrote more than a few pages of "Geneviève." He got worse and worse. But even so, the end came all too suddenly, and on the night of the 2nd of June he died - died as nearly as possible at the exact moment when Galli-Marié at the Opéra Comique was singing her song of fate in the card scene of the third act of his "Carmen." The coincidence was true enough. That night it was with difficulty that she sung her song. Her nervousness, from some cause or another, was so great that it was with the utmost effort she pronounced the words: "La carte impitoyable; répétera la mort; encor, toujours la mort." On finishing the scene, she fainted at the wings. Next morning came the news of Bizet's death. And some friends said — because it was not meet for them to see the body — that the poor fellow had killed himself. Small wonder if it were so!
