A Roman Singer Part 9

"Yes. At the last minute my father wanted to change our box for one nearer the stage, and so we went ourselves. The baroness--you know, the lady who went with us to the Pantheon--is going with us to-night."

It was the first time Hedwig had mentioned her, and it was evident that Nino's intimacy with the baroness had been kept a secret. How long would it be so? Mechanically he proceeded with the lesson, thinking mournfully that he should never give her another. But Hedwig was more animated than he had ever seen her, and often stopped to ask questions about the coming performance. It was evident that she was entirely absorbed with the thought of at last hearing to its fullest extent the voice that had haunted her dreams; most of all, with the antic.i.p.ation of what this wonderful singer would be like. Dwelling on the echo of his singing for months had roused her interest and curiosity to such a pitch that she could hardly be quiet a moment, or think calmly of what she was to enjoy; and yet she looked so very cold and indifferent at most times. But Nino had noticed all this, and rejoiced at it; young as he was, however, he understood that the discovery she was about to make would be a shock that would certainly produce some palpable result, when she should see him from her box in the theatre. He trembled for the consequences.

The lesson was over all too soon, and Nino lingered a moment to see whether the very last drops of his cup of happiness might not still be sweet. He did not know when he should see her again, to speak with her; and though he determined it should not be long, the future seemed very uncertain, and he would look on her loveliness while he might.

"I hope you will like my cousin's singing," he said, rather timidly.

"If he sings as he has sung before he is the greatest artist living,"

she said calmly, as though no one would dispute it. "But I am curious to see him as well as to hear him."

"He is not handsome," said Nino, smiling a little. "In fact, there is a family resemblance; he is said to look like me."

"Why did you not tell me that before?" she asked quickly, and fixed her blue eyes on Nino's face as though she wished to photograph the features in her mind.

"I did not suppose the signorina would think twice about a singer's appearance," said Nino quietly. Hedwig blushed and turned away, busying herself with her books. At that moment Graf von Lira entered from the next room. Nino bowed.

"Curious is it," said the count, "that you and the about-to-make-his- appearance tenor should the same name have."

"He is a near relation, Signor Conte,--the same whom you heard sing in the Pantheon. I hope you will like his voice."

"That is what we shall see, Signor Professore," answered the other severely. He had a curious way of bowing, as though he were made only in two pieces, from his waist to his heels, and from his waist to the crown of his head. Nino went his way sadly, and wondering how Hedwig would look when she should recognise him from her box in the theatre that very evening.

It is a terrible and a heart-tearing thing to part from the woman one loves. That is nothing new, you say. Everyone knows that, Perhaps so, though I think not. Only those can know it who have experienced it, and for them no explanations are in any way at all necessary. The mere word "parting" calls up such an infinity of sorrow that it is better to draw a veil over the sad thing and bury it out of sight and put upon it the seal on which is graven "No Hope."

Moreover, when a man only supposes, as Nino did, that he is leaving the woman he loves, or is about to leave her, until he can devise some new plan for seeing her, the case is not so very serious.

Nevertheless, Nino, who is of a very tender const.i.tution of the affections, suffered certain pangs which are always hard to bear, and as he walked slowly down the street he hung his head low, and did not look like a man who could possibly be successful in anything he might undertake that day. Yet it was the most important day of his life, and had it not been that he had left Hedwig with little hope of ever giving her another lesson, he would have been so happy that the whole air would have seemed dancing with sunbeams and angels and flowers. I think that when a man loves he cares very little for what he does.

The greatest success is indifferent to him, and he cares not at all for failure in the ordinary undertakings of life. These are my reflections, and they are worth something, because I once loved very much myself, and was parted from her I loved many times before the last parting.

It was on this day that Nino came to me and told me all the history of the past months, of which I knew nothing; but, as you know all about it, I need not tell you what the conversation was like, until he had finished. Then I told him he was the prince and chief of donkeys, which was no more than the truth, as everybody will allow. He only spread out his palms and shrugged his shoulders, putting his head on one side, as though to say he could not help it.

"Is it perhaps my fault that you are a little donkey?" I asked; for you may imagine whether I was angry or not.

"Certainly not, Sor Cornelio," he said. "It is entirely my own doing; but I do not see that I am a donkey."

"Blood of Bacchus!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, holding up my hands. "He does not believe he is a great stupid!" But Nino was not angry at all. He busied himself a little with his costume, which was laid out on the piano, with the sword and the tinsel collar and all the rest of it.

"I am in love," he said. "What would you have?"

"I would have you put a little giudizio, just a grain of judgment and common sense, into your love affairs. Why, you go about it as though it were the most innocent thing in the world to disguise yourself, and present yourself as a professor in a n.o.bleman's house, in order to make love to his daughter! You, to make love to a n.o.ble damigella, a young countess, with a fortune! Go back to Serveti, and marry the first contadina girl you meet, it is much more fitting, if you must needs marry at all. I repeat it, you are an ignorant donkey!"

"Eh!" cried Nino, perfectly unmoved, "if I am ignorant, it is not for lack of your teaching; and as for being the beast of burden to which you refer, I have heard it said that you were once in love yourself.

Meanwhile, I have told you this, because there will perhaps be trouble, and I did not intend you to be surprised."

"Surprised?" said I. "I would not be surprised at anything you might fancy doing now. No, I would not dream of being surprised!"

"So much the better," answered Nino, imperturbably. He looked sad and weary, though, and as I am a prudent man I put my anger away to cool for a little while, and indulged in a cigar until it should be time to go to the theatre; for of course I went with him, and Mariuccia too, to help him with his dress. Poor old Mariuccia! she had dressed him when he was a ragged little boy, and she was determined to put the finishing touches to his appearance now that he was about to be a great man, she said. His dressing-room was a narrow little place, sufficiently ill lighted, and there was barely s.p.a.ce to turn round.

Mariuccia, who had brought the cat and had her pocket full of roasted chestnuts, sat outside on a chair until he was ready for her; and I am sure that if she had spent her life in the profession of adorning players she could not have used her fingers more deftly in the arrangement of the collar and sword. Nino had a fancy to wear a moustache and a pointed beard through the first part of the opera; saying that a courtier always had hair on his face, but that he would naturally shave if he turned monk. I represented to him that it was needless expense, since he must deposit the value of the false beard with the theatre barber, who lives opposite; and it was twenty-three francs. Besides, he would look like a different man--two separate characters.

"I do not care a cabbage for that," said Nino. If they cannot recognise me with their ears, they need not trouble themselves to recognise me at all."

"It is a fact that their ears are quite long enough," said Mariuccia.

"Hush, Mariuccia!" I said. "The Roman public is the most intelligent public in the world." And at this she grumbled.

But I knew well enough why he wanted to wear the beard. He had a fancy to put off the evil moment as long as possible, so that Hedwig might not recognise him till the last act,--a foolish fancy, in truth, for a woman's eyes are not like a man's; and though Hedwig had never thought twice about Nino's personality, she had not sat opposite him three times a week for nearly four months without knowing all his looks and gestures. It is an absurd idea, too, to attempt to fence with time, when a thing must come in the course of an hour or two. What is it, after all, the small delay you can produce? The click of a few more seconds in the clock-work, before the hammer smites its angry warning on the bell, and leaves echoes of pain writhing through the poor bronze, that is Time. As for Eternity, it is a question of the calculus, and does not enter into a singer's first appearance, nor into the recognition of a lover. If it did, I would give you an eloquent dissertation upon it, so that you would yawn and take snuff, and wish me carried off by the diavolo to some place where I might lecture on the infinite without fear of being interrupted, or of keeping sinners like you unnecessarily long awake. There will be no hurry then. Poor old diavolo! he must have a dull time of it amongst all those heretics. Perhaps he has a little variety, for they say he has written up on his door, "Ici l'on parle francais," since Monsieur de Voltaire died. But I must go on, or you will never be any wiser than you are now, which is not saying overmuch.

I am not going to give you a description of the "Favorita," which you may hear a dozen times a year at the theatre, for more or less money--but it is only a franc if you stand; quite enough, too. I went upon the stage before it began, and peeped through the curtain to see what kind of an audience there was. It is an old curtain, and there is a hole in it on the right-hand side, which De Pretis says was made by a foreign tenor some years ago between the acts; and Jacovacci, the impresario, tried to make him pay five francs to have it repaired, but did not get the money. It is a better hole than the one in the middle, which is so far from both sides of the house that you cannot see the people well. So I looked through, and there, sure enough, in a box very near to the stage, sat the Contessina di Lira and the baroness, whom I had never seen before, but recognised from Nino's description; and behind them sat the count himself, with his great gray moustaches and a white cravat. They made me think of the time when I used to go to the theatre myself and sit in a box, and applaud or hiss, just as I pleased. Dio mio! what changes in this world!

I recognised also a great many of our n.o.ble ladies, with jewels and other ornaments, and it seemed to me that some of them were much more beautiful than the German contessina whom Nino had elected to worship, though she was well enough, to be sure, in white silk and white fur, with her little gold cross at her throat. To think that a statue like that, brought up with all the proprieties, should have such a strange chapter of life! But my eye began to smart from peering through the little hole, and just then a rough-looking fellow connected with the stage reminded me that, whatever relation I might be to the primo tenore, I was not dressed to appear in the first act; then the audience began to stamp and groan because the performance did not begin, and I went away again to tell Nino that he had a packed house.

I found De Pretis giving him blackberry syrup, which he had brought in a bottle, and entreating him to have courage. Indeed, it seemed to me that Nino had the more courage of the two; for De Pretis laughed and cried and blew his nose, and took snuff with his great fat fingers, and acted altogether like a poor fool; while Nino sat on a rush-bottomed chair and watched Mariuccia, who was stroking the old cat and nibbling roasted chestnuts, declaring all the while that Nino was the most beautiful object she had ever seen. Then the ba.s.s and the baritone came together and spoke cheering words to Nino, and invited him to supper afterwards; but he thanked them kindly, and told them that he was expected at home, and would go with them after the next performance--if there ever were a "next." He thought he might fail at the last minute.

Nino had judged more rightly than I when he supposed that his beard and moustaches would disguise him from Hedwig during the first two acts. She recognised the wondrous voice, and she saw the strong resemblance he had spoken of. Once or twice as he looked toward her, it seemed indeed that the eyes must be his, with their deep circles and serious gaze. But it was absurd to suppose it anything more than a resemblance. As the opera advanced, it became evident that Nino was making a success. Then in the second act it was clear that the success was growing to be an ovation, and the ovation a furore, in which the house became entirely demoralised, and vouchsafed to listen only so long as Nino was singing--screaming with delight before he had finished what he had to sing in each scene. People sent their servants away in hot haste to buy flowers wherever they could, and he came back to his dressing-room, from the second act, carrying bouquets by the dozen, small bunches and big, such as people had been able to get or had brought with them. His eyes shone like the coals in Mariuccia's scaldino, as he entered, and he was pale through his paint. He could hardly speak for joy; but, as old habits return unconsciously at great moments in a man's life, he took the cat on his knee and pulled its tail.

"Sing thou also, little beast," he said, gravely; and he pulled the tail till the cat squeaked a little, and he was satisfied.

"Bene!" he cried; "and now for the tonsure and the frock." So Mariuccia was turned out into the pa.s.sage while he changed his dress.

De Pretis came back a moment later and tried to help him, but he was so much overcome that he could only shed tears and give a last word of advice for the next act.

"You must not sing it too loud, Nino mio," he said.

"Diavolo!" said Nino. "I should think not!"

"But you must not squeak it out in a little wee false voice, as small as this"; the maestro held up his thumb and finger, with a pinch of snuff between them.

"Bah? Sor Ercole, do you take me for a soprano?" cried the boy, laughing, as he washed off the paint and the gum where the beard had stuck. Presently he got into his frock, which, as I told you, was a real one, provided by Ercole's brother, the Franciscan--quite quietly, of course, for it would seem a dreadful thing to use a real monk's frock in an opera. Then we fastened the rope round his waist, and smoothed his curly hair a little to give him a more pious aspect. He looked as white as a pillow when the paint was gone.

"Tell me a little, my father," said old Mariuccia, mocking him, "do you fast on Sundays, that you look so pale?" Whereat Nino struck an att.i.tude, and began singing a love song to the ancient woman. Indeed, she was joking about the fast, for she had expended my substance of late in fattening Nino, as she called it, for his appearance, and there was to be broiled chickens for supper that very night. He was only pale because he was in love. As for me, I made up my mind to stand in the slides, so that I could see the contessina; for Nino had whispered to me that she had not yet recognised him, though she stared hard across the footlights. Therefore I took up a good position on the left of the stage, facing the Lira box, which was on the right.

The curtain went up, and Nino stood there, looking like a real monk, with a book in his hand and his eyes cast down, as he began to walk slowly along. I saw Hedwig von Lira's gaze rest on his square, pale face at least one whole minute. Then she gave a strange little cry, so that many people in the house looked towards her; and she leaned far back in the shadow of the deep box, while the reflected glare of the footlights just shone faintly on her features, making them look more like marble than ever. The baroness was smiling to herself, amused at her companion's surprise, and the old count stared stolidly for a moment or two, and then turned suddenly to his daughter.

"Very curious is it," he was probably saying, "that this tenor should so much your Italian professor resemble." I could almost see his gray eyes sparkle angrily across the theatre. But as I looked, a sound rose on the heated air, the like of which I have never known. To tell the truth, I had not heard the first two acts, for I did not suppose there was any great difference between Nino's singing on the stage and his singing at home, and I still wished he might have chosen some other profession. But when I heard this I yielded, at least for the time, and I am not sure that my eyes were as clear as usual.

"Spirto gentil dei sogni miei"--the long sweet notes sighed themselves to death on his lips, falling and rising magically like a mystic angel song, and swaying their melody out into the world of lights and listeners; so pathetic, so heart-breaking, so laden with death and with love, that it was as though all the sorrowing souls in our poor Rome breathed in one soft sigh together. Only a poor monk dying of love in a monastery, tenderly and truly loving to the bitter end. Dio mio! there are perhaps many such. But a monk like this, with a face like a conqueror, set square in its whiteness, and yet so wretched to see in his poor patched frock and his bare feet; a monk, too, not acting love, but really and truly ready to die for a beautiful woman not thirty feet from him in the house; above all, a monk with a voice that speaks like the clarion call of the day of judgment in its wrath, and murmurs more plaintively and sadly in sorrow than ever the poor Peri sighed at the gates of Paradise--such a monk, what could he not make people feel?

The great crowd of men and women sat utterly stilled and intent till he had sung the very last note. Not a sound was heard to offend the sorrow that spoke from the boy's lips. Then all those people seemed to draw three long breaths of wonder--a pause, a thrilling tremor in the air, and then there burst to the roof such a roar of cries, such a huge thunder of hands and voices, that the whole house seemed to rock with it, and even in the street outside they say the noise was deafening.

Alone on the stage stood Nino, his eyes fixed on Hedwig von Lira in her box. I think that she alone of all that mult.i.tude made no sound, but only gripped the edge of the balcony hard in her white hands, and leaned far forward with straining eyes and beating heart to satisfy her wonder. She knew well enough, now, that there was no mistake. The humble little Professor Cardegna, who had patiently explained Dante and Leopardi to her for months, bowing to the ground in her presence, and apologising when he corrected her mistakes, as though his whole life was to be devoted to teaching foreigners his language; the decently clad young man, who was always pale, and sometimes pathetic when he spoke of himself, was no other than Giovanni Cardegna the tenor, singing aloud to earth and heaven with his glorious great voice--a man on the threshold of a European fame, such as falls only to the lot of a singer or a conqueror. More, he was the singer of her dreams, who had for months filled her thoughts with music and her heart with a strange longing, being until now a voice Only. There he stood looking straight at her,--she was not mistaken,--as though to say, "I have done it for you, and for you only." A woman must be more than marble to feel no pride in the intimate knowledge that a great public triumph has been gained solely for her sake. She must be colder than ice if she cannot see her power when a conqueror loves her.

The marble had felt the fire, and the ice was in the flame at last.

Nino, with his determination to be loved, had put his statue into a very fiery furnace, and in the young innocence of his heart had prepared such a surprise for his lady as might have turned the head of a hardened woman of the world, let alone an imaginative German girl, with a taste for romance--or without; it matters little. All Germans are full of imagination, and that is the reason they know so much. For they not only know all that is known by other people, but also all that they themselves imagine, which n.o.body else can possibly know. And if you do not believe this, you had better read the works of one Fichte, a philosopher.

I need not tell you any more about Nino's first appearance. It was one of those really phenomenal successes that seem to cling to certain people through life. He was very happy and very silent when it was over; and we were the last to leave the theatre, for we feared the enthusiasm of the crowd. So we waited till everyone had gone, and then marched home together, for it was a fine night. I walked on one side of Nino and De Pretis on the other, all of us carrying as many flowers as we could; Mariuccia came behind, with the cat under her shawl. I did not discover until we reached home why she had brought the beast.

Then she explained that, as there was so much food in the kitchen in antic.i.p.ation of our supper, she had been afraid to leave the cat alone in the house, lest we should find nothing left to eat when we returned. This was sufficiently prudent for a scatter-brained old spendthrift like Mariuccia.

That was a merry supper, and De Pretis became highly dramatic when we got to the second flask.