The World's Greatest Books - Volume 1 Part 5

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

The Improvisatore

Hans Christian Andersen was born at Odense, in Denmark, on April 2, 1805, the son of a poor bootmaker. His life was full of exciting incidents; his early years in particular const.i.tute a record of hard struggle, poverty and lack of recognition. When nine he tried his hand at tragedy and comedy, and was sent, after his father's death in 1819, to Copenhagen, where he engaged in various occupations with little success, until his talents attracted the attention of a few influential personages, who provided him with the means for continuing his studies. He won considerable reputation with some early poems, and was quite well known to the public before he entered the university in 1828. He next published a satirical story, and after a journey in Italy, his famous novel, "The Improvisatore," which gave him an opportunity for a brilliant series of word-pictures describing the life and character of the parts of Italy he had visited. Apart from his world-famous fairy tales, by which he set no great store, being ambitious of fame as a novelist, he wrote several successful plays, epic poems and novels. His fairy tales have been translated practically into every language. Hans Andersen died at the age of seventy, in Copenhagen, on August 4, 1875.

_I.--A Boyhood in Rome_

My earliest recollections take me back to my tender youth, when I lived with my widowed mother in a little garret in a Roman square. She supported us by sewing and by the rent of a larger room, sublet to a young painter. On the house opposite there was an image of the Virgin, before which, when the evening bells rang, I and the neighbours'

children used to kneel and sing in honour of the Mother of G.o.d and the Child Jesus. Once an English family stopped to listen; and the gentleman gave me a silver coin, "because of my fine voice," as my mother told me.

My mother's confessor, Fra Martino, always showed great kindness to me; and I spent many hours with him at the convent. It was through him that I became chorister in the Capuchin church, and was allowed to carry the great censer.

Before I was nine, I was chosen as one of the boys and girls who were to preach between Christmas and the New Year in the church of Ara Croeli, before the image of Jesus. I had no fear, and it seemed decided that I, of all children, gave most delight; but after me came a little girl of exquisitely delicate form, bright countenance, and so melodious a voice that even my mother, with all her pride of me, awarded her the palm, and declared that she was just like an angel. But I had often to repeat my speech at home, and then made up a new one describing the festival in the church, which was considered just as good.

One moonlit evening, on returning with my mother from a visit in Trastevere, we found a crowd in the Piazza di Trevi, listening to a man singing to a guitar--not songs like those which I had so often heard, but about things around him, of what we saw and heard, and we ourselves were in the song. My mother told me he was an improvisatore; and Federigo, our artist lodger, told me I should also improvise, for I was really a poet. And I tried it forthwith--singing about the foodshop over the way, with its attractively set out window and the haggling customers. I gained much applause; and from this time forth I turned everything into song.

My first visit to the country ended in a sad event, which was to shape the whole course of my life. It was in June, and my mother and her friend Mariuccia took me to see the famous flower fete at Genzano. We stayed the night at an inn, and in the morning joined the dense holiday crowd that moved over the carpet of flowers on the pavement of the main street. Suddenly there was a piercing cry--a pair of unmanageable horses rushed through. I was thrown down, and all was blackness. When I awoke, Mother of G.o.d, I lay with my head on Mariuccia's lap, beside the lifeless form of my mother, crushed by the carriage wheel! The occupant of the carriage, a gentleman of the Borghese family, had escaped with a shaking, and sent a servant in rich livery with a purse containing twenty scudi for the motherless child.

Mariuccia took me back to Rome; it was decided that her parents, who kept flocks in the Campagna--honest people to whom my twenty scudi would be wealth--should take charge of me. Thus, in the dreary Campagna, with honest Benedetto and kindly Domenica, I spent the summer and the early autumn in the ancient tomb which they had transformed into a hut. The first week it rained incessantly; then, with the sun, came the insufferable heat, increasing in intensity from day to day, from week to week. Even the buffaloes lay like dead ma.s.ses upon the burnt-up gra.s.s, unless, excited to madness by the poison-stings of myriads of flies, that covered them as if they were carrion, they rushed in mad career to the Tiber to roll themselves in the yellow water.

One day, towards sunset, I was just opening the door to leave the hut, when a man darted in so suddenly that I was thrown down. With lightning speed he shut the door, and in a distressed tone uttered the name of the Madonna, when a violent blow shattered the door, and the whole opening was filled with the head of a fierce buffalo, whose body was tightly squeezed into the doorway. The stranger seized a gun from the wall, took aim, and shot the beast. The danger over, he lifted me from the ground, and said: "Blessed be Madonna! You have saved my life." He inquired about me. I was made to show him my abominable sketches upon bits of paper and to sing to him, and caused him astonishment at my improvising about the Madonna and himself and the buffalo. He finally asked Domenica to bring me next morning to see him at the Borghese Palace. He was the powerful prince himself, who had unwittingly been the cause of my poor mother's death!

_II.--In the School of Life_

The prince, his daughter Francesca, and her fiance Fabiani, overwhelmed me with kindness. The visit had to be frequently repeated; and I became quite accustomed to the splendours of the palazzo. Finally, Eccellenza decided to have me educated in the Jesuits' school; and I had to bid farewell to good Domenica and to enter upon my school life. New occupations engrossed me; new acquaintances presented themselves; the dramatic portion of my life began to unfold itself. Here years compress themselves together.

I became particularly attached to one of my school-fellows, Bernardo, a gay, almost dissolute son of a Roman senator. When he suddenly left school to join the Papal Guard the whole world seemed to me empty and deserted. One day I saw him pa.s.s my window on a prancing horse. I rushed out, but ran across the porter's wife of the Borghese Palace, who informed me that the young Eccellenza and her husband had just arrived.

Would I not come to give them welcome? To the palace I went, was graciously received by Fabiani and Francesca, who brought me their little daughter Flaminia, the "little abbess," as she was called, having been destined from her birth for the life of a nun. The child had wonderfully bright eyes, and came towards me as though we were old acquaintances, laughing and chattering, and showing me her toys.

On my way back, early in the evening, as luck would have it, I almost ran into the arms of Bernardo. He was delighted to see me, told me of his merry life and adventures, and wanted to drag me into an artists'

tavern to drink a bottle of wine. That was impossible for me, a Jesuits'

pupil. I refused. As we walked on we met a crowd hustling an old Jew. A thick-set brute of a fellow wanted to force him to jump over a long stick, and everybody shouted, "Leap, Jew!" Bernardo sprang forth, s.n.a.t.c.hed the stick out of the fellow's hand, brandished his sword, and cried in a strong, manly voice, "Leap yourself, or I shall cleave your head!" He made him jump, and jump again, and struck him lightly with the flat of his sword. The crowd veered round at once, laughed and applauded, the old Jew meanwhile making his escape. "Come," said I, when we were out of the crowd, "come! Let them say what they may, I will drink a bottle of wine with you. May we always be friends!"

I met Bernardo again some time after at the Vatican. His joy equalled mine, and he immediately plunged into confidences. One day, when straying into the Ghetto, he had encountered the old Jew of our adventure, bowing and sc.r.a.ping, and requesting the honour of receiving, him in his house. They entered; wine was brought to him by a dark Jewish maiden, of such beauty as to set his whole blood on fire. Since then he had vainly tried to see her. He visited the Jew's house on all sorts of pretexts, but his charmer remained invisible. He now made the amazing proposition that I should take up the study of Hebrew with the old Jew, and thus help him in this affair. I explained the utter impossibility of aiding him in a project of this nature. He was obviously offended; and when we parted he returned my warmth with chilly politeness.

We met but rarely after this meeting; Bernardo was always jovial and friendly, though not confidential, until, on the occasion of a dance at the Borghese Palace, when I asked him about the handsome Jewish maiden, he laughed. "I have found," he said, "another and tamer little golden bird. The other has flown out of the Ghetto--nay, even out of Rome!"

My patron's family left Rome; and I had to throw myself into the study for the examination that was to bring me the t.i.tle of an abbe. With the advent of the carnival I had a.s.sumed the black dress and the short silk coat of an abbate, and had become a new and happier person. For the first time I took part in the jollities of the carnival, and at the end of the first day again came across Bernardo, who insisted upon taking me to the opera to hear a new prima donna who had turned everybody's heart at Naples. Rumour had not belied her. Her appearance was greeted with rapturous applause. Bernardo seized my arm; he had recognised in her his Jewish maiden, just as I was about to exclaim, "It is she!"--the lovely child who had preached that Christmas at Ara Coeli. There were endless calls for "Annunciata" when the curtain fell; flowers and garlands were thrown at her feet, and among them a little poem which I had written under the inspiration of her exquisite voice. With a crowd of enthusiasts, we hurried to the stage-door, took the horses from her carriage, and conducted her in triumph to her apartments.

Bernardo, who, bolder than I, had called on Annunciata, brought me to her the next day. She was friendly, brilliant in her conversation, and appeared deeply impressed with my improvisation on "Immortality"--the immortality first of eternal Rome, and then of the fair singer's art--to which I was pressed when Bernardo let out the secret of my gift.

"You have given me the sincerest pleasure," she said, and looked confidingly into my eyes. I ventured to kiss her hand. After that I saw her every day during the gay carnival, and was more and more captivated by her charm.

Annunciata left Rome on Ash Wednesday, and with her the brightness seemed to have gone completely out of my life, my only pleasure being the recollection of those happy days of the carnival.

_III.--Love and Adventure in Rome_

I saw Annunciata again when Rome had begun to fill with Easter visitors, and had the happiness of dining with her the same day. She told me that, although born in Spain, she had been, as a child, in Rome; that it was she who preached that day at Ara Coeli, "an orphan, who would have perished of hunger had not a despised Jew given it shelter and food until it could flutter forth over the wild, restless sea." Next day I showed her over the Borghese gallery; and on the day before Easter we drove out to see the procession which initiated the Easter festival, and in the evening to Monte Mario to see the illuminations of St. Peter's-- an unforgettable sight!

As I went into the little inn to fetch some refreshment I found myself in the narrow pa.s.sage face to face with Bernardo, pale, and with glowing eyes. He wildly seized my hand, and said: "I am not an a.s.sa.s.sin, Antonio; but fight with me you shall, or I shall become your murderer!"

I tried to calm him, but he forced a pistol into my hand. "She loves you," he whispered; "and you, in your vanity, will parade it before all the Roman people--before me!" He threw himself upon me. I thrust him back. I heard a report; my hand trembled. Bernardo lay before me in his blood. The people of the house rushed in, and with them Annunciata. I wanted to fling myself, in despair, upon Bernardo's body; but Annunciata lay on her knees beside him, trying to staunch the blood. "Save yourself!" she cried. But I, overcome by anguish, exclaimed: "I am innocent; the pistol went off by accident. Yes, Annunciata, we loved you. I would die for you, like he! Which of us was the dearer to you?

Tell me whether you love me, and then I will escape." She bowed her head down to the dead. I heard her weeping, and saw her press her lips to Bernardo's brow. Then I heard voices shout "Fly, fly!" and, as by invisible hands, I was torn out of the house.

Like a madman I rushed through bushes and underwood until I reached the Tiber. Among the ruins of a tomb I came across three men sitting around a fire, to whom I explained that I wanted a boat to cross the river.

They agreed to take me across; but I had better give them my money to keep for safety. I realised that I had fallen into the hands of robbers, gave them all I had, was tied on to a horse, and taken across the river, riding all night, until at dawn we reached a wild part of the mountains.

They wanted to keep me for ransom, and dispatched one of their number to Rome to find out all he could about me. The man returned; and with a thankful heart I heard that Bernardo was only wounded and on the way to recovery.

My rough hosts having found out my gift, I was asked to sing to them; and once more my power of improvisation stood me in good stead. When I had finished, a wrinkled old woman, who seemed to be held in great reverence by the robbers, came towards me. "Thou hast sung thy ransom!"

she exclaimed. "The sound of music is stronger than gold!" Yet I was detained six days, during which there were mysterious comings and goings. The old witch herself, who had made me write on a piece of paper the words "I travel to Naples" and my name, disappeared for a day, and came back with a letter, which she commanded me not to read then.

Finally, in the midst of night, she led me out of the robbers' den and took me across a rocky path to a dumb peasant with an a.s.s, which I was made to mount. She kissed my forehead and departed. When daylight broke I opened the letter, which contained a pa.s.sport in my name, an order for five hundred scudi on a Naples bank, and the words "Bernardo is out of danger, but do not return to Rome for some months."

When I joined the high-road, I took carriage for Naples. Among my travelling companions was a portly, handsome, Neapolitan lady, with whom I became very friendly, and who invited me to her house. She was the wife of a Professor Maretti, and her name was Santa. The professor himself was a little half-famished looking man, full of learning, by the show of which he was in the habit of boring everybody who came near him.

Santa made up for this by her liveliness and her warm interest in my affairs. Amid music and laughter I spent many happy hours in her house, made friends, and was encouraged to make my debut as an improvisatore. I had written to Eccellenza a true account of the reason of my departure, and informed him of my future intentions; but his reply, which arrived after long delay, was a stunning blow to me. He was exceedingly annoyed, washed his hands of me, and wished me not on any account to connect his name with my public life.

_IV.--On the Road to Fame_

The bitterness of my misery was brought home to me with new force when I saw Bernardo at a gambling saloon in the company of a handsome woman of doubtful reputation. That Annunciata should have preferred this fickle man to me! My debut at San Carlo aroused great enthusiasm, and Santa, whom I saw next day in her snug heavily curtained room, seemed radiant with happiness at my success. She made me sit on a soft silken sofa, stroked my head, and spoke of my future. I kissed her hand, and looked into her dark eyes with a purity of soul and thought. She was greatly excited. I saw her bosom heave violently; she loosened a scarf to breathe more freely. "You are deserving of love," said she. "Soul and beauty are deserving of any woman's love!" She drew me towards her; her lips were like fire that flowed into my very soul!

Eternal Mother of G.o.d! The holy image, at that moment, fell down from the wall. It was no mere accident. "No, no!" I exclaimed, starting up.

"Antonio," cried she, "kill me! kill me! but do not leave me!" But I rushed out of the house, determined never to set eyes upon Santa again.

The sea air would cool me. I took a boat to Torre del Annunciata; and happiness gradually returned to me as I realised what danger I had escaped by the grace of the Virgin.

I joined the crowd watching the fiery stream of lava slowly descending towards the sea, when I heard somebody calling my name. It was Fabiani, who insisted on taking me at once to see Francesca. The welcome was hearty. There were no recriminations, although I resented for a while the tone of benevolent patronage adopted by my benefactors. I learnt that Bernardo had entered the King of Naples' service, and that Annunciata was shortly expected. An expedition was arranged to Paestum and Capri; and Fabiani insisted upon my joining the party. He also undertook to write to his father-in-law on my behalf....

At Paestum we found the abundance and luxuriance of Sicilian landscape; its Grecian temples and its poverty. We were surrounded by crowds of half-naked beggars. One young girl there was, a little away from the others, scarcely more than eleven years old, but lovely as the G.o.ddess of beauty. Modesty, soul, and a deep expression of suffering were expressed in her countenance. She was blind! I gave her a scudo. Her cheeks burned. She kissed my hand; and the touch seemed to go through my blood. The guide told us afterwards that her name was Lara, and that she generally sat in the Temple of Neptune.

The ruined temple made a mighty impression upon us; I was requested to improvise in these romantic surroundings. Deeply moved by my thoughts of the blind girl, I sang of the glories of Nature and art, and of the poor maiden from whom all this magnificence was concealed. When we left the temple, I lagged behind, and, looking around, I saw Lara on her knees, her hands clasped together. She had heard my song! It smote me to the soul. I saw her pressing my scudo to her lips and smile; I grew quite warm at the sight of it, and pressed a hot kiss upon her forehead. With a thrilling cry she sprang up like a terrified deer, and was gone. I felt as if I had committed a sin, and sadly joined my party.

Amalfi, Capri--I drank the intoxicating beauty of it all. Then I was prevailed upon to return to Rome with Fabiani and Francesca. We spent a day at Naples, where I found two letters waiting for me. The first was a brief note to this effect: "A faithful heart, which intends honourably and kindly towards you, expects you this evening." It gave an address, but no name--merely "Your old friend." The second was from the same hand, and read: "Come, Antonio! The terror of the last unfortunate moment of our parting is now well over. Come quickly! Delay not a moment in coming!" The letters were obviously from Santa.

My mind was made up not to see her again. We left for Rome....

The Palazzo Borghese was now my home. Eccellenza received me with the greatest kindness, but all the family continued to use the old teaching tone and depreciating mode of treatment. Thus six years went by; but somehow my protectors did not realise that I was no longer a boy, and my dependence gave them the right to make them let me feel the bitterness of my position. Even my talent as poet and improvisatore was by no means taken seriously at the palace.

Happiness was brought into my life once more by Flaminia, "the little abbess," who came home to have her last glimpse of the world before taking the veil. She had grown tall and pale of complexion, with an expression of wonderful gentleness in her features. She recalled our early friendship, when she used to sit on my knee and make me draw pictures for her and tell her stories. From her, at any rate, I suffered no humiliation, and from day to day our friendship grew closer. I told her about Bernardo and Annunciata, and about Lara, who became inexpressibly dear to her. I also endeavoured to make her reconsider her decision to take the veil and immure herself for life; but her whole education and inclination tended towards that goal. At last the day itself came--a day of great solemnity and state. Flaminia was dead and buried--and Elizabeth the nun, the bride of Heaven, arose from the bier!

_V.--The Sorrowful Wayfarer_