She said that she knew I was much too simple a girl to give the devil a hold on me ...

My progress, by the voice's own order, was kept a secret between the voice, Mamma Valerius and myself.

It was a curious thing, but, outside the dressing-room, I sang with my ordinary, every-day voice and nobody noticed anything.

I did all that the voice asked.

It said, 'Wait and see: we shall astonish Paris!' And I waited and lived on in a sort of ecstatic dream.
It was then that I saw you for the first time one evening, in the house.