ROMEO AND JULIA
One evening the husband came home with a roll of music under his arm
and said to his wife:
"Let us play duets after supper!"
"What have you got there?" asked his wife.
"Romeo and Julia, arranged for the piano. Do you know it?"
"Yes, of course I do," she replied, "but I don't remember ever having
seen it on the stage."
"Oh! It's splendid! To me it is like a dream of my youth, but I've
only heard it once, and that was about twenty years ago."
After supper, when the children had been put to bed and the house lay
silent, the husband lighted the candles on the piano. He looked at the
lithographed title-page and read the title: Romeo and Julia.
"This is Gounod's most beautiful composition," he said, "and I don't
believe that it will be too difficult for us."
As usual his wife undertook to play the treble and they began. D major,
common time, _allegro giusto_.
"It is beautiful, isn't it?" asked the husband, when they had finished
the overture.
"Y--es," admitted the wife, reluctantly.
"Now the martial music," said the husband; "it is exceptionally fine.
I can remember the splendid choruses at the Royal Theatre."
They played a march.
"Well, wasn't I right?" asked the husband, triumphantly, as if he had
composed "Romeo and Julia" himself.
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