The Daughter of an Empress Part 36

"You know why I do that!" said she. "He is an enamored fool, whom I would win with tender words that I may make him my instrument. You know the object for which I strive, and which I must attain at any price! Ah, Carlo, when once they have crowned me in the capitol, then, I am sure, you will be compelled to love me again!"

"Never again!" he harshly and roughly said.

"Is that your last word?" shrieked she, with flashing eyes and the wild rage of a tigress.

"It is my last word!"

She flew to him like a mad person, seized his hands and fixedly stared him in the face.

"Ungrateful!" said she, gnashing her teeth. "Is it thus you reward my love, is this your return for all I have done for you? Can you forget that it was I who withdrew you from poverty and baseness? What were you but a poor, unnoticed singer in the streets, on whom people bestowed scanty alms? Was it not I who rescued you from that shame, and clothed you and gave you a home? Was it not I who gave you a name and procured you consideration and respect by making you my singer and companion, and allowing you to play upon the harp at my improvisations? How has not all Rome admired you when you sang the canzones I wrote for you, thereby procuring you honor and respectability, and making you a popular man from a low beggar? Go, you cannot leave me, for you are my creature, my property!"

He wildly thrust her aside, and his eyes flashed with indignation.

"Signora," said he, his lips tremulous with rage, "you have rent the last band that bound me to you, and in twitting me of your benefits you have annihilated them! We now have nothing in common with each other, except perhaps mutual hatred, and that, I hope, will have a longer duration than our love!"

And Carlo turned toward the door. Corilla rushed after him with an exclamation of terror.

"You will leave me now!" cried she, with anguish, "now, in this hour when you are so indispensable to me? now, when I am to celebrate a new triumph before this notable a.s.sembly? when all eyes are expectantly turned to the curtain behind which I am to appear? No, no, Carlo, from compa.s.sion remain with me only one hour, only this evening!"

Carlo smiled contemptuously. "I will remain," said he, "for I have promised _her_ that she shall hear you!"

"She has therefore come?" cried Corilla, with an outburst of joy.

"She is now here," he laconically said.

Corilla no longer listened to him, she walked back and forth with a triumphant mien, a cruel, malicious smile playing upon her lips.

At this moment there was a slight knock at the door, which was opened, and a man who appeared upon the threshold glanced into the room with a grinning laugh.

Corilla gave him a sign, and at the same time pointed at Carlo, who, having his back toward her, seemed to have no suspicion of what was occurring behind him. But he saw it, nevertheless, in the tall mirror that stood in the middle of the room; he saw Corilla make signs of intelligence with that man who was in the livery of Cardinal Francesco Albani; he saw the man make answer with his fingers, and then draw forth a dagger, which he threateningly swung over his head.

Oh, Carlo had very well understood what that man said, as he also did that language of the fingers, this much-used language of the Romans and Neapolitans.

The man had said: "She is here, that beautiful lady! She can no longer escape us!"

"You will strike her?" had Corilla asked.

The man had swung the dagger over his head and held up two fingers of his right hand. That signified: "In two hours she will be dead."

"Good! you shall be satisfied with me," had been Corilla's answer.

The door was again closed. Corilla turned smiling to Carlo, her former rancor seemed to have vanished; she was in high spirits.

"Carlo," said she, "how good you are not to leave me! Let us now begin.

I feel myself glowing with inspiration. Ah, I shall enrapture these good Romans, I think!"

"How long will this improvisation last?" Carlo gruffly asked.

"Well, one or two hours, according to the delight we give our public."

"If this farce continues longer than an hour and a half, I shall throw down my harp and go away," said Carlo, in a tone of severity. "I swear it to you by the spirit of my mother! Remember it; I shall show you the time every quarter of an hour."

"You are a tyrant," said she, laughing. "But I suppose I must submit.

Give, therefore, the signal that we are ready."

THE IMPROVISATRICE

All the guests of the cardinal were a.s.sembled in the gigantic hall, and all eyes were anxiously bent upon the mysterious curtain, which still remained closed.

Now resounded a little bell, and Cardinal Bernis smilingly turned to Natalie, who sat by his side.

"I think this mystery is about to be unveiled," said he.

"And I am quite anxious about it," said the young maiden, gracefully laying her hand upon her heart. "My heart beats as violently as if a mystery were about to be unveiled in my own breast. Do you believe in presentiments, Sir Cardinal?"

Bernis had not time to answer her. Just at that moment the curtain drew up, a general "Ah!" of admiration was heard, and, suddenly carried away by their feelings, the whole audience broke into extravagant and long-enduring applause, crying and shouting, "_Evviva Corilla!

l'improvisatrice Corilla!_"

And in fact it was an admirable picture which was there presented to the audience. Those flower-strewed steps led up to an altar, upon the centre of which, between wreaths of flowers, shot up two dark-red flames.

Against that altar leaned, exalted and august as a Grecian priestess, the improvisatrice Corilla. Her eyes raised to the heavens, her features lighted up with a rosy glow by the red flames, her half-raised right arm resting upon an urn, while her left arm was stretched upward toward heaven, she thus resembled an inspired priestess, just receiving a message from on high, listening with ecstasy, with suppressed breath and parted lips, to the voice of the Deity, and forgetting the world in a blissful intoxication, she seemed about to take her flight to the empyrean!

And while Corilla, as if absorbed in spiritual contemplation, continued to stand immovable there, began the low notes of a harp, which, gradually becoming fuller and stronger, at length resounded in powerfully rushing and exultant tones. From Corilla all eyes were now turned upon Carlo, who, in the light dress of a Greek youth, his harp upon his arm, was leaning against a pomegranate tree placed in the background of the stage, and with his pale, serious face, with his n.o.ble, manly features, formed a beautiful contrast to the inspired and love-beaming priestess Corilla.

Natalie, feeling something like a slight puncture in her heart, involuntarily carried her hand to her bosom. It was a strange, a wonderful feeling, which stirred within her, partly partaking of joy at seeing and hearing her friend Carlo, as people were murmuring praises of his beauty, and of his great skill upon the harp, and partly a feeling of painful emotion. She knew not why, but as her glance met his, it quickly turned toward Corilla, and quite sadly she said to herself: "She is much handsomer than I!"

Carlo now opened his lips, and to a beautifully simple melody he sweetly sang an introductory song, as it were to prepare the audience for the coming solemnity. Having finished this, two lovely _amourettes_ came forward, with silver vases in their hands, and hastened down the steps to the audience, politely requesting them to furnish themes for the great improvisatrice Corilla.

Then, returning to the altar, they threw into the urn the small sc.r.a.ps of paper on which the guests has proposed themes. The harp again resounded, and with a solemn earnestness, her face and glance still directed upward, Corilla drew one of the little strips of paper from the urn. Accident, or perhaps her own dexterity, had favored her.

"Sappho's lament before throwing herself from the rocks"--that was the theme proposed.

Corilla's face immediately took an expression of sadness; her eyes flashed with an unnatural fire; her previously raised arm fell powerless by her side; her head, like a broken rose, sank upon her breast; her other hand convulsively grasped the urn, and in this position she in fact resembled an abandoned mourner, weeping over the ashes of her lost happiness. She was now the repudiated and forsaken one who, ready to resign her life, was brooding upon thoughts of death. And while her face took this expression, and she, staring upon the earth before her, seemed to be meditating upon irremediable fate, thought Corilla: "This is a charming theme which the good Cardinal Albani has thrown into the urn for me. I found it directly by the small pin which, according to his promise, he inserted in the paper. This cardinal is an agreeable imp, and I must give him a kiss for his complaisance. Besides, the Ta.s.so rhyme will here be the most appropriate!"

Again she directed her gaze, with a gloomy expression, toward the heavens, and with a violently heaving bosom, with feverishly flitting breath, she began the lament of Sappho. Now like rattling thunder, now like the gentle breathings of the flute, rolled this sweet and picturesque language of Italy from her lips--like music sounded those full, artistic rhymes, of which but few of the hearers had the least suspicion that they came from Ta.s.so. To improvise in the Italian language is an easy and a grateful task! What wonder, then, that Corilla acquitted herself so charmingly? The audience paid no attention to the thoughts expressed; they asked not after the quintessence; they were satisfied with the agreeable sound, without inquiring into the sense of her words; it was their melody which was admired. They listened not for the thought, but only for the rhyme, and with ecstatic smiles and admiring glances they nodded to each other when, thanks to the studies which Corilla had made in Ta.s.so, Marino, and Ariosto, she seemed of herself to find rhymes for the most difficult words.

An immense storm of applause resounded when she ended; and as if awakening from an intoxicating ecstasy, Corilla glanced around with an expression of astonishment on her features; she looked around as if she knew not whence she came, and in what strange surroundings she now found herself.

After a short pause, which Carlo filled out with his harp, she again put her hand into the urn and drew out a new theme; again the inspiration seemed to pa.s.s over her, and the holy Whitsuntide of her muse to be renewed. Constantly more and more stormily resounded the plaudits of her hearers; it was like a continued thunder of enthusiasm, a real salvo of joy. It animated Corilla to new improvisations; she again and again recurred to the urn, drawing forth new themes, and seemed to be absolutely inexhaustible.

"It is now enough," whispered Carlo, just as she had drawn forth a new theme. "You have but a quarter of an hour left!"

"Only this theme yet," she begged in a low tone. "It is a very happy one, it will win for me the hearts of all these cardinals and gentlemen!"

"Yet a quarter of an hour, and then your time is up," said he. "Remember my oath, I shall keep my word!"

An inexplicable anxiety, a tormenting uneasiness, came over him; he had hardly strength and recollection sufficient to enable him to accompany Corilla, who was discussing in verse the question, "Which Rome was the happiest, ancient or modern?"