Erlach Court Part 26

Of course she has no idea of going on the stage; she speaks with horror of the theatre, and thinks a dramatic career not at all _comme il faut_.

An elderly Englishwoman, quite copper-coloured, with very long teeth and the figure of a tallow dip, seems to be of a different opinion. She is just confessing in very problematical French to the barytone from Florence how much she repents not having voice enough '_pour remplir un opera_,' and her eyes fill with tears.

Natalie Lipinski has not yet arrived.

With a pleasant greeting to the two sisters of the barytone, and to the crazy Miss Frazer, Stella pa.s.ses as quietly as possible to her place.

After della Seggiola has ended his discourse, and Monsieur Meyare has finished his '_Dolcessi perduti_,' Miss Frazer sings the waltz from 'Traviata' transposed a fifth lower than the original key, breathing very loud, and singing very low. In the middle of it she stops short, lays her red hand, covered to the knuckles with a knitted wristlet, upon her heart, and sighs.

"What is it?" asks della Seggiola, not without a certain impatience.

"What is the matter?"

"This aria is so deeply affecting," sighs the Englishwoman; "it always gives me palpitation of the heart."

"That is very unfortunate," says della Seggiola, taking a pinch of snuff. "Pray consult a physician; he will prescribe digitalis."

"Oh, the doctor could not help me," Miss Frazer a.s.serts, wagging her head to and fro with enthusiasm. "My nervous system is too highly strung. If my voice were only stronger I should certainly have a _succes_ upon the stage,--_parce que je suis tres-pa.s.sionnee_."

Della Seggiola bites his lip. At this moment the door opens, Natalie Lipinski enters, and behind her--Stella can hardly believe her eyes--Zino Capito!

"Permit me to present to you my cousin, Prince Capito, Signor della Seggiola," says Natalie, in her fluent but hard-sounding Russian-French. "He hopes to be allowed to profit by your instructions."

Of course the lesson is interrupted. Miss Frazer's eyes, which always remind one more or less of a melancholy-minded rabbit, and which now wear a very sympathetic air, rest with benevolence upon the Prince, who offers della Seggiola his hand with the _aplomb_ for which he is justly celebrated throughout Europe, hurriedly thanks him for the great pleasure he has given him by his art, and prays beforehand for indulgence and patience, since he is, as he maintains, a beginner,--only a beginner.

Natalie conscientiously presents him to the cla.s.s, blundering, of course, with all the names.

He bows stiffly, looks directly over the gentlemen's heads, scans the ladies with a curious glance, and then goes directly to Stella, beside whom he takes his place, after bowing to her with the most attractive mixture of courtesy and deference. Without being deterred by Miss Frazer's starting off with her transposed song and getting through as much of it as asthma and palpitation of the heart will permit, he begins:

"I made an attempt to see you the day after meeting you at my sister's, but, unfortunately, in vain. Did you get my card?"

"Yes."

"I was so very sorry not to find the ladies at home. Might I be admitted some evening?"

"I will ask mamma; but----"

"And how have you amused yourself meanwhile?"

"Oh, I have been very gay this week; Madame de Rohritz took me with her once to the theatre and once to the Bois de Boulogne."

"And when Therese does not take you out a little do you devote your entire time to historical studies and to your singing?"

"Sometimes I sit about in the Tuileries,--I have made the acquaintance of an old governess, who chaperons me,--and sometimes I go to the Louvre, which I know as perfectly as ever a guide in Paris."

Is it by mere chance that just at this point of the conversation, which is carried on in an undertone, Fraulein Fuhrwesen turns and stares at the Prince and Stella?

Meanwhile, it is Natalie's turn to sing. Her song is the grand cavatina from 'I Puritani,' '_Qui la voce sua soave!_'

Natalie is an odd little person, short, slender, undeveloped as to figure, with a face rather too sallow, but with regular delicate features and dazzling teeth. With a fanatical enthusiasm for art and a determination to go upon the stage she combines a fortune of some millions of roubles, and, what is in still more comical contrast with her proposed career, a strict unbending sense of propriety, far transcending the prudery of the most English of Englishwomen,--not that shy sense of propriety which is always on the defensive, but that which is quick to look down with aggressive contempt upon any infringement of the rules of decorum.

Too well bred to speak when a lady whom he knows, were she a hundred times his cousin, is singing, Zino listens with exemplary attention to the Bellini cavatina, not indeed without a merry twinkle of the eye now and then.

Natalie's voice is rather shrill, her Italian accent harsh; her rendering of the impa.s.sioned aria is strictly confined to following the musical directions, _p.p_., _cresc_., _ritard_., and so forth; even at the point where the inspiration of the love-stricken Elvira culminates in the words '_Vien' ti posa--vien' ti posa sul mio cor!_' she never ceases to beat the time with her right hand.

After this brilliant outburst della Seggiola interrupts her. The Fuhrwesen lifts her hands from the keys, and Natalie looks inquiringly at the maestro, who takes a pinch of snuff and shakes his head.

"_Tres-bien, mon enfant_," it is needless to say that this familiar address is very little to the taste of the haughty Russian,--"_tres-bien, mon enfant_; you sing in excellent time, but you must try to infuse animation into your style. Fancy the situation,--half crazy with love and longing, you are calling out into the night, 'Ah, come--come to my heart!' You must sing that with--how shall I express it?--with more conviction, thus:"

The Fuhrwesen drums the accompaniment, and della Seggiola, stretching out his arms like angels' wings, throws back his head a little, and warbles, '_Qui la voce!_'

Estimate as you please his method of instruction, all who still find delight in the old Italian traditions must admit his art in singing.

And Prince Zino--a musical Epicurean to his finger-tips, rejecting everything clumsy and indigestible in music,--Prince Zino, for whom Mozart is the only G.o.d of music and Rossini is his prophet--strokes his moustache, delighted, and calls "Bravo!" and della Seggiola bows.

The lesson continues to be quite interesting.

Signor Trevisiani, the barytone from Florence, sings something very depressing, with the refrain,--

'Maladetto sulla terra, Condannato nel ceil sard.'

The little soprano sings, '_Plaisir d'amour_,' and Zino perfectly, gravely, goes through a scale, swelling the notes, during which two sad facts are brought to light,--first, that he is the third barytone in the cla.s.s,--della Seggiola had hoped for a tenor,--and, secondly, that he cannot read by note. Della Seggiola, however, praises the charming timbre of his voice, and asks if he may not send him a teacher to correct his defective reading; whereupon Fraulein Fuhrwesen declares herself ready to give the Prince lessons. He pretends not to hear this heroic proposition, seeming not even to perceive her; whereby he makes a mortal enemy of that extremely sensitive and irritable person.

The glory of the cla.s.s is the closing performance,--the famous duet between Don Giovanni and Zerlina, rendered by Signor Trevisiani and Natalie Lipinski.

It would be difficult to imagine a more lugubrious Don Giovanni than the young man from Florence. He is freshly shaven, perhaps in honour of his part; his cheeks are covered with red scratches, like those of a German youth who bears about in his face the record of his bravery; his hair, artistically dishevelled about his forehead and ears, falls over his coat-collar at the back of his neck. Except for a gra.s.s-green cravat, he is dressed entirely in black, like the page in 'Marlbrook;'

his costume, evidently provincial, comes from the same quarter of Paris that has produced his sisters' hats,--the Temple.

Much intimidated by his haughty Zerlina, his throat contracts so that his voice, naturally fine and resonant, comes from his dry lips hoa.r.s.e and miserably thready. Although Natalie sings, as ever, in faultless time, the notes that should be in unison are far from sounding so, whereupon della Seggiola advises the singers to take each other's hands. Mademoiselle Lipinski edges away still farther from her Don Giovanni, and extends to him her finger-tips.

Della Seggiola makes them repeat the duo three times, does his best to make it go smoothly, gently entreats Zerlina to be more coquettish, orders Don Giovanni to be more seductive. In vain. Zerlina draws down the corners of her mouth and looks at the wall; Don Giovanni scratches his ear. The duo sounds worse and worse. Much irritated at this melancholy result, which she ascribes entirely to Signor Trevisiani's awkwardness, Natalie at last says crossly to the young Florentine, "I beg you not to torment me any more: it will never do!" Then across her shoulder to her cousin she explains, impatiently, "Zino, Signor Trevisiani is hoa.r.s.e; you and I used to sing the duo together. Come, try it."

"If there is time," Zino says, with amiable readiness, taking his place beside his cousin.

There is really no time for it, as della Seggiola would have informed any one save the Prince. Twelve o'clock has struck, but he does not mention that fact to Zino. Hungry and resigned, he sits down beside the piano, his hands clasped upon his stomach, his eyes fixed upon the tips of his boots stretched out before him, prepared to endure the blessed duo for the fourth time. But what is this? He listens eagerly, all present listen, all eyes are riveted upon the Prince, from whose lips there flows such melody as we expect only from the greatest Italian singers.

Without paying any further attention to Zerlina, della Seggiola inquires at the close of the duo,--

"Do you sing the serenade also?"

"_a peu pres_," says Zino, whereupon the Fuhrwesen strikes the first notes of the accompaniment, and he sings it.

The singers of the new high-art school, the interpreters of Wagner, curse out the notes at their auditors; Prince Zino smiles them at his hearers, and the strong infusion of irony in his smile only heightens the effect of his style.

Erect but unstudied in att.i.tude, his hands in the pockets of his jacket, his head slightly thrown back, he is the veritable personification of the gay, thoughtless _bon-vivant_, Mozart's Don Giovanni as the master created him.

As he ends, Miss Frazer, bathed in tears, rushes up to him with both hands held out, exclaiming, "_Merci! merci!_"