Sgambati, the very best composer and pianist in Rome, gives lessons to Nina, who he says has “molto talento.”  Sgambati has a wonderful and sympathetic touch, which is at once velvety and masterful.  His gavotte is a chef-d’oeuvre.  He calls it a gavotte, but I tell him he ought to call it “The Procession of the Cavaliers,” because it has such a martial ring to it.  It does not in the least resemble a Gavotte Louis XV.  I seem to see in my mind’s eye Henry V. trying to rally his comrades about him and incite them to combat.  Sgambati looks like a preux chevalier himself, with his soft, mild blue eyes and long hair and serene brow.  He brought a song that he composed, he said, “per la distinta Eccellenza Hegermann expressly by her devoted and admiring Sgambati.”  Although the song was beautiful as a piano piece and as he played it, I could not sing it.  I said: 

“My dear Sgambati, I can never sing ‘Mio’ on a si-bemol.  Can I not change it for an ’A’?”

“No!” answered Sgambati.  “The-whole meaning would be lost; but you can broaden it out and sing ‘Miaa.’”

Another shining light is Tosti, who comes to us very often.  He is by far the best beloved of popular composers.  He understands the voice thoroughly and composes songs which are melodious and easy to sing.  Therefore every one sings them.  He has not much of a voice, but when he sings his compositions he makes them so charming that they sell like wildfire.  He is the most amiable of geniuses, and never refuses to sing when he is asked.

Yesterday I sang something I had composed as a vocalize.  He liked it so much that he asked why I did not sing it as a song.

I said, “I cannot write either it or the accompaniment.”

“That is easy enough,” he replied.  “I will write it for you,” and scribbled it off then and there.

He dedicated a piece to me called “Forever,” which I sing on every occasion.

I have a great friend in Madame Helbig, the wife of Herr Helbig, the German archaeologist in Rome.  She is born a Russian princess, and is certainly one of the best amateur musicians, if not the best, I have ever met.  She is of immense proportions, being very tall and very stout.  One might easily mistake her for a priest, as she is always dressed in a long black garment which is a sort of water-proof; and as her hair is short and she never wears a hat, you may well imagine that she is very well known in Rome.  When she hails a cab to take her up the very steep Caffarelli Hill, where they live, the cabbies, who are humorists in their way, look at her, then at their poor, half-fed horses and the weak springs of their dilapidated bottes (cabs), shake their heads, and, holding up two dirty fingers, say, “In due volte” (which means “in two trips").  Mr. Ross, the Norwegian painter, whose English is not quite up to the mark, said she was the “hell-biggest” woman he ever saw; and when she undertook a journey to Russia, said, “Dear me, how can she ever travel with that corpse of hers?”