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diff --git a/1811.txt b/1811.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae4f7a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/1811.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3681 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Massimilla Doni, by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Massimilla Doni + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Clara Bell and James Waring + +Release Date: March 2, 2010 [EBook #1811] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MASSIMILLA DONI *** + + + + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + + + + + +MASSIMILLA DONI + + +By Honore De Balzac + + +Translated by Clara Bell and James Waring + + + + + DEDICATION + + To Jacques Strunz. + + MY DEAR STRUNZ:--I should be ungrateful if I did not set your name + at the head of one of the two tales I could never have written but + for your patient kindness and care. Accept this as my grateful + acknowledgment of the readiness with which you tried--perhaps not + very successfully--to initiate me into the mysteries of musical + knowledge. You have at least taught me what difficulties and what + labor genius must bury in those poems which procure us + transcendental pleasures. You have also afforded me the + satisfaction of laughing more than once at the expense of a + self-styled connoisseur. + + Some have taxed me with ignorance, not knowing that I have taken + counsel of one of our best musical critics, and had the benefit of + your conscientious help. I have, perhaps, been an inaccurate + amanuensis. If this were the case, I should be the traitorous + translator without knowing it, and I yet hope to sign myself + always one of your friends. + + DE BALZAC. + + + + + +MASSIMILLA DONI + + +As all who are learned in such matters know, the Venetian aristocracy is +the first in Europe. Its _Libro d'Oro_ dates from before the Crusades, +from a time when Venice, a survivor of Imperial and Christian Rome which +had flung itself into the waters to escape the Barbarians, was already +powerful and illustrious, and the head of the political and commercial +world. + +With a few rare exceptions this brilliant nobility has fallen into utter +ruin. Among the gondoliers who serve the English--to whom history here +reads the lesson of their future fate--there are descendants of long +dead Doges whose names are older than those of sovereigns. On some +bridge, as you glide past it, if you are ever in Venice, you may admire +some lovely girl in rags, a poor child belonging, perhaps, to one of +the most famous patrician families. When a nation of kings has fallen +so low, naturally some curious characters will be met with. It is not +surprising that sparks should flash out among the ashes. + +These reflections, intended to justify the singularity of the persons +who figure in this narrative, shall not be indulged in any longer, for +there is nothing more intolerable than the stale reminiscences of those +who insist on talking about Venice after so many great poets and petty +travelers. The interest of the tale requires only this record of the +most startling contrast in the life of man: the dignity and poverty +which are conspicuous there in some of the men as they are in most of +the houses. + +The nobles of Venice and of Geneva, like those of Poland in former +times, bore no titles. To be named Quirini, Doria, Brignole, Morosini, +Sauli, Mocenigo, Fieschi, Cornaro, or Spinola, was enough for the pride +of the haughtiest. But all things become corrupt. At the present day +some of these families have titles. + +And even at a time when the nobles of the aristocratic republics were +all equal, the title of Prince was, in fact, given at Genoa to a member +of the Doria family, who were sovereigns of the principality of +Amalfi, and a similar title was in use at Venice, justified by ancient +inheritance from Facino Cane, Prince of Varese. The Grimaldi, who +assumed sovereignty, did not take possession of Monaco till much later. + +The last Cane of the elder branch vanished from Venice thirty years +before the fall of the Republic, condemned for various crimes more +or less criminal. The branch on whom this nominal principality then +devolved, the Cane Memmi, sank into poverty during the fatal period +between 1796 and 1814. In the twentieth year of the present century they +were represented only by a young man whose name was Emilio, and an old +palace which is regarded as one of the chief ornaments of the Grand +Canal. This son of Venice the Fair had for his whole fortune this +useless Palazzo, and fifteen hundred francs a year derived from a +country house on the Brenta, the last plot of the lands his family had +formerly owned on _terra firma_, and sold to the Austrian government. +This little income spared our handsome Emilio the ignominy of accepting, +as many nobles did, the indemnity of a franc a day, due to every +impoverished patrician under the stipulations of the cession to Austria. + +At the beginning of winter, this young gentleman was still lingering in +a country house situated at the base of the Tyrolese Alps, and purchased +in the previous spring by the Duchess Cataneo. The house, erected by +Palladio for the Piepolo family, is a square building of the finest +style of architecture. There is a stately staircase with a marble +portico on each side; the vestibules are crowded with frescoes, and +made light by sky-blue ceilings across which graceful figures float +amid ornament rich in design, but so well proportioned that the building +carries it, as a woman carries her head-dress, with an ease that +charms the eye; in short, the grace and dignity that characterize +the _Procuratie_ in the piazetta at Venice. Stone walls, admirably +decorated, keep the rooms at a pleasantly cool temperature. Verandas +outside, painted in fresco, screen off the glare. The flooring +throughout is the old Venetian inlay of marbles, cut into unfading +flowers. + +The furniture, like that of all Italian palaces, was rich with handsome +silks, judiciously employed, and valuable pictures favorably hung; some +by the Genoese priest, known as _il Capucino_, several by Leonardo da +Vinci, Carlo Dolci, Tintoretto, and Titian. + +The shelving gardens were full of the marvels where money has been +turned into rocky grottoes and patterns of shells,--the very madness +of craftsmanship,--terraces laid out by the fairies, arbors of sterner +aspect, where the cypress on its tall trunk, the triangular pines, and +the melancholy olive mingled pleasingly with orange trees, bays, and +myrtles, and clear pools in which blue or russet fishes swam. Whatever +may be said in favor of the natural or English garden, these trees, +pruned into parasols, and yews fantastically clipped; this luxury of art +so skilfully combined with that of nature in Court dress; those cascades +over marble steps where the water spreads so shyly, a filmy scarf swept +aside by the wind and immediately renewed; those bronzed metal figures +speechlessly inhabiting the silent grove; that lordly palace, an object +in the landscape from every side, raising its light outline at the +foot of the Alps,--all the living thoughts which animate the stone, +the bronze, and the trees, or express themselves in garden plots,--this +lavish prodigality was in perfect keeping with the loves of a duchess +and a handsome youth, for they are a poem far removed from the coarse +ends of brutal nature. + +Any one with a soul for fantasy would have looked to see, on one of +those noble flights of steps, standing by a vase with medallions in +bas-relief, a negro boy swathed about the loins with scarlet stuff, and +holding in one hand a parasol over the Duchess' head, and in the other +the train of her long skirt, while she listened to Emilio Memmi. And +how far grander the Venetian would have looked in such a dress as the +Senators wore whom Titian painted. + +But alas! in this fairy palace, not unlike that of the Peschieri at +Genoa, the Duchess Cataneo obeyed the edicts of Victorine and the Paris +fashions. She had on a muslin dress and broad straw hat, pretty shot +silk shoes, thread lace stockings that a breath of air would have blown +away; and over her shoulders a black lace shawl. But the thing which no +one could ever understand in Paris, where women are sheathed in their +dresses as a dragon-fly is cased in its annular armor, was the perfect +freedom with which this lovely daughter of Tuscany wore her French +attire; she had Italianized it. A Frenchwoman treats her shirt with the +greatest seriousness; an Italian never thinks about it; she does not +attempt self-protection by some prim glance, for she knows that she is +safe in that of a devoted love, a passion as sacred and serious in her +eyes as in those of others. + +At eleven in the forenoon, after a walk, and by the side of a table +still strewn with the remains of an elegant breakfast, the Duchess, +lounging in an easy-chair, left her lover the master of these muslin +draperies, without a frown each time he moved. Emilio, seated at her +side, held one of her hands between his, gazing at her with utter +absorption. Ask not whether they loved; they loved only too well. They +were not reading out of the same book, like Paolo and Francesca; far +from it, Emilio dared not say: "Let us read." The gleam of those eyes, +those glistening gray irises streaked with threads of gold that started +from the centre like rifts of light, giving her gaze a soft, star-like +radiance, thrilled him with nervous rapture that was almost a spasm. +Sometimes the mere sight of the splendid black hair that crowned the +adored head, bound by a simple gold fillet, and falling in satin tresses +on each side of a spacious brow, was enough to give him a ringing in his +ears, the wild tide of the blood rushing through his veins as if it must +burst his heart. By what obscure phenomenon did his soul so overmaster +his body that he was no longer conscious of his independent self, but +was wholly one with this woman at the least word she spoke in that voice +which disturbed the very sources of life in him? If, in utter seclusion, +a woman of moderate charms can, by being constantly studied, seem +supreme and imposing, perhaps one so magnificently handsome as the +Duchess could fascinate to stupidity a youth in whom rapture found some +fresh incitement; for she had really absorbed his young soul. + +Massimilla, the heiress of the Doni, of Florence, had married the +Sicilian Duke Cataneo. Her mother, since dead, had hoped, by promoting +this marriage, to leave her rich and happy, according to Florentine +custom. She had concluded that her daughter, emerging from a convent to +embark in life, would achieve, under the laws of love, that second +union of heart with heart which, to an Italian woman, is all in all. But +Massimilla Doni had acquired in her convent a real taste for a religious +life, and, when she had pledged her troth to Duke Cataneo, she was +Christianly content to be his wife. + +This was an untenable position. Cataneo, who only looked for a duchess, +thought himself ridiculous as a husband; and, when Massimilla complained +of this indifference, he calmly bid her look about her for a _cavaliere +servente_, even offering his services to introduce to her some youths +from whom to choose. The Duchess wept; the Duke made his bow. + +Massimilla looked about her at the world that crowded round her; her +mother took her to the Pergola, to some ambassadors' drawing-rooms, to +the Cascine--wherever handsome young men of fashion were to be met; +she saw none to her mind, and determined to travel. Then she lost her +mother, inherited her property, assumed mourning, and made her way +to Venice. There she saw Emilio, who, as he went past her opera box, +exchanged with her a flash of inquiry. + +This was all. The Venetian was thunderstruck, while a voice in the +Duchess' ear called out: "This is he!" + +Anywhere else two persons more prudent and less guileless would have +studied and examined each other; but these two ignorances mingled like +two masses of homogeneous matter, which, when they meet, form but one. +Massimilla was at once and thenceforth Venetian. She bought the palazzo +she had rented on the Canareggio; and then, not knowing how to invest +her wealth, she had purchased Rivalta, the country-place where she was +now staying. + +Emilio, being introduced to the Duchess by the Signora Vulpato, waited +very respectfully on the lady in her box all through the winter. Never +was love more ardent in two souls, or more bashful in its advances. The +two children were afraid of each other. Massimilla was no coquette. She +had no second string to her bow, no _secondo_, no _terzo_, no _patito_. +Satisfied with a smile and a word, she admired her Venetian youth, with +his pointed face, his long, thin nose, his black eyes, and noble brow; +but, in spite of her artless encouragement, he never went to her house +till they had spent three months in getting used to each other. + +Then summer brought its Eastern sky. The Duchess lamented having to go +alone to Rivalta. Emilio, at once happy and uneasy at the thought of +being alone with her, had accompanied Massimilla to her retreat. And now +this pretty pair had been there for six months. + +Massimilla, now twenty, had not sacrificed her religious principles to +her passion without a struggle. Still they had yielded, though tardily; +and at this moment she would have been ready to consummate the love +union for which her mother had prepared her, as Emilio sat there holding +her beautiful, aristocratic hand,--long, white, and sheeny, ending in +fine, rosy nails, as if she had procured from Asia some of the henna +with which the Sultan's wives dye their fingertips. + +A misfortune, of which she was unconscious, but which was torture to +Emilio, kept up a singular barrier between them. Massimilla, young as +she was, had the majestic bearing which mythological tradition ascribes +to Juno, the only goddess to whom it does not give a lover; for Diana, +the chaste Diana, loved! Jupiter alone could hold his own with his +divine better-half, on whom many English ladies model themselves. + +Emilio set his mistress far too high ever to touch her. A year hence, +perhaps, he might not be a victim to this noble error which attacks none +but very young or very old men. But as the archer who shoots beyond the +mark is as far from it as he whose arrow falls short of it, the Duchess +found herself between a husband who knew he was so far from reaching the +target, that he had ceased to try for it, and a lover who was carried so +much past it on the white wings of an angel, that he could not get back +to it. Massimilla could be happy with desire, not imagining its issue; +but her lover, distressful in his happiness, would sometimes obtain from +his beloved a promise that led her to the edge of what many women call +"the gulf," and thus found himself obliged to be satisfied with plucking +the flowers at the edge, incapable of daring more than to pull off their +petals, and smother his torture in his heart. + +They had wandered out together that morning, repeating such a hymn of +love as the birds warbled in the branches. On their return, the youth, +whose situation can only be described by comparing him to the cherubs +represented by painters as having only a head and wings, had been so +impassioned as to venture to hint a doubt as to the Duchess' entire +devotion, so as to bring her to the point of saying: "What proof do you +need?" + +The question had been asked with a royal air, and Memmi had ardently +kissed the beautiful and guileless hand. Then he suddenly started up in +a rage with himself, and left the Duchess. Massimilla remained in her +indolent attitude on the sofa; but she wept, wondering how, young and +handsome as she was, she could fail to please Emilio. Memmi, on the +other hand, knocked his head against the tree-trunks like a hooded crow. + +But at this moment a servant came in pursuit of the young Venetian to +deliver a letter brought by express messenger. + +Marco Vendramini,--a name also pronounced Vendramin, in the Venetian +dialect, which drops many final letters,--his only friend, wrote to tell +him that Facino Cane, Prince of Varese, had died in a hospital in Paris. +Proofs of his death had come to hand, and the Cane-Memmi were Princes +of Varese. In the eyes of the two young men a title without wealth being +worthless, Vendramin also informed Emilio, as a far more important fact, +of the engagement at the _Fenice_ of the famous tenor Genovese, and the +no less famous Signora Tinti. + +Without waiting to finish the letter, which he crumpled up and put in +his pocket, Emilio ran to communicate this great news to the Duchess, +forgetting his heraldic honors. + +The Duchess knew nothing of the strange story which made la Tinti an +object of curiosity in Italy, and Emilio briefly repeated it. + +This illustrious singer had been a mere inn-servant, whose wonderful +voice had captivated a great Sicilian nobleman on his travels. The +girl's beauty--she was then twelve years old--being worthy of her voice, +the gentleman had had the moderation to have brought her up, as Louis +XV. had Mademoiselle de Romans educated. He had waited patiently till +Clara's voice had been fully trained by a famous professor, and till she +was sixteen, before taking toll of the treasure so carefully cultivated. + +La Tinti had made her debut the year before, and had enchanted the three +most fastidious capitals of Italy. + +"I am perfectly certain that her great nobleman is not my husband," said +the Duchess. + +The horses were ordered, and the Duchess set out at once for Venice, to +be present at the opening of the winter season. + +So one fine evening in November, the new Prince of Varese was crossing +the lagoon from Mestre to Venice, between the lines of stakes painted +with Austrian colors, which mark out the channel for gondolas as +conceded by the custom-house. As he watched Massimilla's gondola, +navigated by men in livery, and cutting through the water a few yards in +front, poor Emilio, with only an old gondolier who had been his father's +servant in the days when Venice was still a living city, could not +repress the bitter reflections suggested to him by the assumption of his +title. + +"What a mockery of fortune! A prince--with fifteen hundred francs a +year! Master of one of the finest palaces in the world, and unable to +sell the statues, stairs, paintings, sculpture, which an Austrian decree +had made inalienable! To live on a foundation of piles of campeachy +wood worth nearly a million of francs, and have no furniture! To own +sumptuous galleries, and live in an attic above the topmost arabesque +cornice constructed of marble brought from the Morea--the land which a +Memmius had marched over as conqueror in the time of the Romans! To see +his ancestors in effigy on their tombs of precious marbles in one of the +most splendid churches in Venice, and in a chapel graced with pictures +by Titian and Tintoretto, by Palma, Bellini, Paul Veronese--and to be +prohibited from selling a marble Memmi to the English for bread for +the living Prince Varese! Genovese, the famous tenor, could get in one +season, by his warbling, the capital of an income on which this son of +the Memmi could live--this descendant of Roman senators as venerable as +Caesar and Sylla. Genovese may smoke an Eastern hookah, and the Prince +of Varese cannot even have enough cigars!" + +He tossed the end he was smoking into the sea. The Prince of Varese +found cigars at the Duchess Cataneo's; how gladly would he have laid the +treasures of the world at her feet! She studied all his caprices, and +was happy to gratify them. He made his only meal at her house--his +supper; for all his money was spent in clothes and his place in the +_Fenice_. He had also to pay a hundred francs a year as wages to his +father's old gondolier; and he, to serve him for that sum, had to live +exclusively on rice. Also he kept enough to take a cup of black coffee +every morning at Florian's to keep himself up till the evening in a +state of nervous excitement, and this habit, carried to excess, he hoped +would in due time kill him, as Vendramin relied on opium. + +"And I am a prince!" + +As he spoke the words, Emilio Memmi tossed Marco Vendramin's letter into +the lagoon without even reading it to the end, and it floated away like +a paper boat launched by a child. + +"But Emilio," he went on to himself, "is but three and twenty. He is +a better man than Lord Wellington with the gout, than the paralyzed +Regent, than the epileptic royal family of Austria, than the King of +France----" + +But as he thought of the King of France Emilio's brow was knit, his +ivory skin burned yellower, tears gathered in his black eyes and hung to +his long lashes; he raised a hand worthy to be painted by Titian to push +back his thick brown hair, and gazed again at Massimilla's gondola. + +"And this insolent mockery of fate is carried even into my love affair," +said he to himself. "My heart and imagination are full of precious +gifts; Massimilla will have none of them; she is a Florentine, and she +will throw me over. I have to sit by her side like ice, while her voice +and her looks fire me with heavenly sensations! As I watch her gondola a +few hundred feet away from my own I feel as if a hot iron were set on +my heart. An invisible fluid courses through my frame and scorches my +nerves, a cloud dims my sight, the air seems to me to glow as it did at +Rivalta when the sunlight came through a red silk blind, and I, without +her knowing it, could admire her lost in dreams, with her subtle smile +like that of Leonardo's Mona Lisa. Well, either my Highness will end +my days by a pistol-shot, or the heir of the Cane will follow old +Carmagnola's advice; we will be sailors, pirates; and it will be amusing +to see how long we can live without being hanged." + +The Prince lighted another cigar, and watched the curls of smoke as the +wind wafted them away, as though he saw in their arabesques an echo of +this last thought. + +In the distance he could now perceive the mauresque pinnacles that +crowned his palazzo, and he was sadder than ever. The Duchess' gondola +had vanished in the Canareggio. + +These fantastic pictures of a romantic and perilous existence, as the +outcome of his love, went out with his cigar, and his lady's gondola +no longer traced his path. Then he saw the present in its real light: +a palace without a soul, a soul that had no effect on the body, a +principality without money, an empty body and a full heart--a thousand +heartbreaking contradictions. The hapless youth mourned for Venice as +she had been,--as did Vendramini, even more bitterly, for it was a great +and common sorrow, a similar destiny, that had engendered such a warm +friendship between these two young men, the wreckage of two illustrious +families. + +Emilio could not help dreaming of a time when the palazzo Memmi poured +out light from every window, and rang with music carried far away over +the Adriatic tide; when hundreds of gondolas might be seen tied up to +its mooring-posts, while graceful masked figures and the magnates of the +Republic crowded up the steps kissed by the waters; when its halls and +gallery were full of a throng of intriguers or their dupes; when +the great banqueting-hall, filled with merry feasters, and the upper +balconies furnished with musicians, seemed to harbor all Venice coming +and going on the great staircase that rang with laughter. + +The chisels of the greatest artists of many centuries had sculptured the +bronze brackets supporting long-necked or pot-bellied Chinese vases, and +the candelabra for a thousand tapers. Every country had furnished some +contribution to the splendor that decked the walls and ceilings. But +now the panels were stripped of the handsome hangings, the melancholy +ceilings were speechless and sad. No Turkey carpets, no lustres bright +with flowers, no statues, no pictures, no more joy, no money--the great +means to enjoyment! Venice, the London of the Middle Ages, was falling +stone by stone, man by man. The ominous green weed which the sea washes +and kisses at the foot of every palace, was in the Prince's eyes, a +black fringe hung by nature as an omen of death. + +And finally, a great English poet had rushed down on Venice like a raven +on a corpse, to croak out in lyric poetry--the first and last utterance +of social man--the burden of a _de profundis_. English poetry! Flung +in the face of the city that had given birth to Italian poetry! Poor +Venice! + +Conceive, then, of the young man's amazement when roused from such +meditations by Carmagnola's cry: + +"Serenissimo, the palazzo is on fire, or the old Doges have risen from +their tombs! There are lights in the windows of the upper floor!" + +Prince Emilio fancied that his dream was realized by the touch of a +magic wand. It was dusk, and the old gondolier could by tying up his +gondola to the top step, help his young master to land without being +seen by the bustling servants in the palazzo, some of whom were buzzing +about the landing-place like bees at the door of a hive. Emilio stole +into the great hall, whence rose the finest flight of stairs in all +Venice, up which he lightly ran to investigate the cause of this strange +bustle. + +A whole tribe of workmen were hurriedly completing the furnishing and +redecoration of the palace. The first floor, worthy of the antique +glories of Venice, displayed to Emilio's waking eyes the magnificence of +which he had just been dreaming, and the fairy had exercised admirable +taste. Splendor worthy of a parvenu sovereign was to be seen even in the +smallest details. Emilio wandered about without remark from anybody, and +surprise followed on surprise. + +Curious, then, to know what was going forward on the second floor, +he went up, and found everything finished. The unknown laborers, +commissioned by a wizard to revive the marvels of the Arabian nights in +behalf of an impoverished Italian prince, were exchanging some inferior +articles of furniture brought in for the nonce. Prince Emilio made his +way into the bedroom, which smiled on him like a shell just deserted by +Venus. The room was so charmingly pretty, so daintily smart, so full of +elegant contrivance, that he straightway seated himself in an armchair +of gilt wood, in front of which a most appetizing cold supper stood +ready, and, without more ado, proceeded to eat. + +"In all the world there is no one but Massimilla who would have thought +of this surprise," thought he. "She heard that I was now a prince; Duke +Cataneo is perhaps dead, and has left her his fortune; she is twice as +rich as she was; she will marry me----" + +And he ate in a way that would have roused the envy of an invalid +Croesus, if he could have seen him; and he drank floods of capital port +wine. + +"Now I understand the knowing little air she put on as she said, 'Till +this evening!' Perhaps she means to come and break the spell. What a +fine bed! and in the bed-place such a pretty lamp! Quite a Florentine +idea!" + +There are some strongly blended natures on which extremes of joy or +of grief have a soporific effect. Now on a youth so compounded that he +could idealize his mistress to the point of ceasing to think of her as +a woman, this sudden incursion of wealth had the effect of a dose of +opium. When the Prince had drunk the whole of the bottle of port, eaten +half a fish and some portion of a French pate, he felt an irresistible +longing for bed. Perhaps he was suffering from a double intoxication. +So he pulled off the counterpane, opened the bed, undressed in a pretty +dressing-room, and lay down to meditate on destiny. + +"I forgot poor Carmagnola," said he; "but my cook and butler will have +provided for him." + +At this juncture, a waiting-woman came in, lightly humming an air from +the _Barbiere_. She tossed a woman's dress on a chair, a whole outfit +for the night, and said as she did so: + +"Here they come!" + +And in fact a few minutes later a young lady came in, dressed in the +latest French style, who might have sat for some English fancy portrait +engraved for a _Forget-me-not_, a _Belle Assemblee_, or a _Book of +Beauty_. + +The Prince shivered with delight and with fear, for, as you know, he was +in love with Massimilla. But, in spite of this faith in love which fired +his blood, and which of old inspired the painters of Spain, which gave +Italy her Madonnas, created Michael Angelo's statues and Ghilberti's +doors of the Baptistery,--desire had him in its toils, and agitated him +without infusing into his heart that warm, ethereal glow which he felt +at a look or a word from the Duchess. His soul, his heart, his reason, +every impulse of his will, revolted at the thought of an infidelity; and +yet that brutal, unreasoning infidelity domineered over his spirit. But +the woman was not alone. + +The Prince saw one of those figures in which nobody believes when +they are transferred from real life, where we wonder at them, to the +imaginary existence of a more or less literary description. The dress of +this stranger, like that of all Neapolitans, displayed five colors, +if the black of his hat may count for a color; his trousers were +olive-brown, his red waistcoat shone with gilt buttons, his coat was +greenish, and his linen was more yellow than white. This personage +seemed to have made it his business to verify the Neapolitan as +represented by Gerolamo on the stage of his puppet show. His eyes looked +like glass beads. His nose, like the ace of clubs, was horribly long and +bulbous; in fact, it did its best to conceal an opening which it would +be an insult to the human countenance to call a mouth; within, three or +four tusks were visible, endowed, as it seemed, with a proper motion and +fitting into each other. His fleshy ears drooped by their own weight, +giving the creature a whimsical resemblance to a dog. + +His complexion, tainted, no doubt, by various metallic infusions as +prescribed by some Hippocrates, verged on black. A pointed skull, +scarcely covered by a few straight hairs like spun glass, crowned this +forbidding face with red spots. Finally, though the man was very thin +and of medium height, he had long arms and broad shoulders. + +In spite of these hideous details, and though he looked fully seventy, +he did not lack a certain cyclopean dignity; he had aristocratic manners +and the confident demeanor of a rich man. + +Any one who could have found courage enough to study him, would have +seen his history written by base passions on this noble clay degraded to +mud. Here was the man of high birth, who, rich from his earliest +youth, had given up his body to debauchery for the sake of extravagant +enjoyment. And debauchery had destroyed the human being and made another +after its own image. Thousands of bottles of wine had disappeared under +the purple archway of that preposterous nose, and left their dregs on +his lips. Long and slow digestion had destroyed his teeth. His eyes had +grown dim under the lamps of the gaming table. The blood tainted with +impurities had vitiated the nervous system. The expenditure of force in +the task of digestion had undermined his intellect. Finally, amours had +thinned his hair. Each vice, like a greedy heir, had stamped possession +on some part of the living body. + +Those who watch nature detect her in jests of the shrewdest irony. For +instance, she places toads in the neighborhood of flowers, as she had +placed this man by the side of this rose of love. + +"Will you play the violin this evening, my dear Duke?" asked the woman, +as she unhooked a cord to let a handsome curtain fall over the door. + +"Play the violin!" thought Prince Emilio. "What can have happened to my +palazzo? Am I awake? Here I am, in that woman's bed, and she certainly +thinks herself at home--she has taken off her cloak! Have I, like +Vendramin, inhaled opium, and am I in the midst of one of those dreams +in which he sees Venice as it was three centuries ago?" + +The unknown fair one, seated in front of a dressing-table blazing with +wax lights, was unfastening her frippery with the utmost calmness. + +"Ring for Giulia," said she; "I want to get my dress off." + +At that instant, the Duke noticed that the supper had been disturbed; he +looked round the room, and discovered the Prince's trousers hanging over +a chair at the foot of the bed. + +"Clarina, I will not ring!" cried the Duke, in a shrill voice of +fury. "I will not play the violin this evening, nor tomorrow, nor ever +again--" + +"Ta, ta, ta, ta!" sang Clarina, on the four octaves of the same note, +leaping from one to the next with the ease of a nightingale. + +"In spite of that voice, which would make your patron saint Clara +envious, you are really too impudent, you rascally hussy!" + +"You have not brought me up to listen to such abuse," said she, with +some pride. + +"Have I brought you up to hide a man in your bed? You are unworthy alike +of my generosity and of my hatred--" + +"A man in my bed!" exclaimed Clarina, hastily looking round. + +"And after daring to eat our supper, as if he were at home," added the +Duke. + +"But am I not at home?" cried Emilio. "I am the Prince of Varese; this +palace is mine." + +As he spoke, Emilio sat up in bed, his handsome and noble Venetian head +framed in the flowing hangings. + +At first Clarina laughed--one of those irrepressible fits of laughter +which seize a girl when she meets with an adventure comic beyond all +conception. But her laughter ceased as she saw the young man, who, as +has been said, was remarkably handsome, though but lightly attired; the +madness that possessed Emilio seized her, too, and, as she had no one to +adore, no sense of reason bridled her sudden fancy--a Sicilian woman in +love. + +"Although this is the palazzo Memmi, I will thank your Highness to +quit," said the Duke, assuming the cold irony of a polished gentleman. +"I am at home here." + +"Let me tell you, Monsieur le Duc, that you are in my room, not in your +own," said Clarina, rousing herself from her amazement. "If you have any +doubts of my virtue, at any rate give me the benefit of my crime--" + +"Doubts! Say proof positive, my lady!" + +"I swear to you that I am innocent," replied Clarina. + +"What, then, do I see in that bed?" asked the Duke. + +"Old Ogre!" cried Clarina. "If you believe your eyes rather than my +assertion, you have ceased to love me. Go, and do not weary my ears! +Do you hear? Go, Monsieur le Duc. This young Prince will repay you the +million francs I have cost you, if you insist." + +"I will repay nothing," said Emilio in an undertone. + +"There is nothing due! A million is cheap for Clara Tinti when a man +is so ugly. Now, go," said she to the Duke. "You dismissed me; now I +dismiss you. We are quits." + +At a gesture on Cataneo's part, as he seemed inclined to dispute this +order, which was given with an action worthy of Semiramis,--the part in +which la Tinti had won her fame,--the prima donna flew at the old ape +and put him out of the room. + +"If you do not leave me in quiet this evening, we never meet again. And +my _never_ counts for more than yours," she added. + +"Quiet!" retorted the Duke, with a bitter laugh. "Dear idol, it strikes +me that I am leaving you _agitata_!" + +The Duke departed. + +His mean spirit was no surprise to Emilio. + +Every man who has accustomed himself to some particular taste, chosen +from among the various effects of love, in harmony with his own nature, +knows that no consideration can stop a man who has allowed his passions +to become a habit. + +Clarina bounded like a fawn from the door to the bed. + +"A prince, and poor, young, and handsome!" cried she. "Why, it is a +fairy tale!" + +The Sicilian perched herself on the bed with the artless freedom of an +animal, the yearning of a plant for the sun, the airy motion of a branch +waltzing to the breeze. As she unbuttoned the wristbands of her sleeves, +she began to sing, not in the pitch that won her the applause of an +audience at the _Fenice_, but in a warble tender with emotion. Her song +was a zephyr carrying the caresses of her love to the heart. + +She stole a glance at Emilio, who was as much embarrassed as she; for +this woman of the stage had lost all the boldness that had sparkled in +her eyes and given decision to her voice and gestures when she dismissed +the Duke. She was as humble as a courtesan who has fallen in love. + +To picture la Tinti you must recall one of our best French singers when +she came out in _Il Fazzoletto_, an opera by Garcia that was then being +played by an Italian company at the theatre in the Rue Lauvois. She was +so beautiful that a Naples guardsman, having failed to win a hearing, +killed himself in despair. The prima donna of the _Fenice_ had the same +refinement of features, the same elegant figure, and was equally young; +but she had in addition the warm blood of Sicily that gave a glow to +her loveliness. Her voice was fuller and richer, and she had that air of +native majesty that is characteristic of Italian women. + +La Tinti--whose name also resembled that which the French singer +assumed--was now seventeen, and the poor Prince three-and-twenty. What +mocking hand had thought it sport to bring the match so near the powder? +A fragrant room hung with rose-colored silk and brilliant with wax +lights, a bed dressed in lace, a silent palace, and Venice! Two young +and beautiful creatures! every ravishment at once. + +Emilio snatched up his trousers, jumped out of bed, escaped into the +dressing-room, put on his clothes, came back and hurried to the door. + +These were his thoughts while dressing:-- + +"Massimilla, beloved daughter of the Doni, in whom Italian beauty is +an hereditary prerogative, you who are worthy of the portrait of +_Margherita_, one of the few canvases painted entirely by Raphael to his +glory! My beautiful and saintly mistress, shall I not have deserved +you if I fly from this abyss of flowers? Should I be worthy of you if +I profaned a heart that is wholly yours? No; I will not fall into the +vulgar snare laid for me by my rebellious senses! This girl has her +Duke, mine be my Duchess!" + +As he lifted the curtain, he heard a moan. The heroic lover looked round +and saw Clarina on her knees, her face hidden in the bed, choking with +sobs. Is it to be believed? The singer was lovelier kneeling thus, her +face invisible, than even in her confusion with a glowing countenance. +Her hair, which had fallen over her shoulders, her Magdalen-like +attitude, the disorder of her half-unfastened dress,--the whole picture +had been composed by the devil, who, as is well known, is a fine +colorist. + +The Prince put his arm round the weeping girl, who slipped from him like +a snake, and clung to one foot, pressing it to her beautiful bosom. + +"Will you explain to me," said he, shaking his foot to free it from +her embrace, "how you happen to be in my palazzo? How the impoverished +Emilio Memmi--" + +"Emilio Memmi!" cried Tinti, rising. "You said you were a Prince." + +"A Prince since yesterday." + +"You are in love with the Duchess Cataneo!" said she, looking at him +from head to foot. + +Emilio stood mute, seeing that the prima dona was smiling at him through +her tears. + +"Your Highness does not know that the man who had me trained for the +stage--that the Duke--is Cataneo himself. And your friend Vendramini, +thinking to do you a service, let him this palace for a thousand crowns, +for the period of my season at the _Fenice_. Dear idol of my heart!" she +went on, taking his hand and drawing him towards her, "why do you fly +from one for whom many a man would run the risk of broken bones? Love, +you see, is always love. It is the same everywhere; it is the sun of our +souls; we can warm ourselves whenever it shines, and here--now--it is +full noonday. If to-morrow you are not satisfied, kill me! But I shall +survive, for I am a real beauty!" + +Emilio decided on remaining. When he signified his consent by a nod the +impulse of delight that sent a shiver through Clarina seemed to him +like a light from hell. Love had never before appeared to him in so +impressive a form. + +At that moment Carmagnola whistled loudly. + +"What can he want of me?" said the Prince. + +But bewildered by love, Emilio paid no heed to the gondolier's repeated +signals. + +If you have never traveled in Switzerland you may perhaps read this +description with pleasure; and if you have clambered among those +mountains you will not be sorry to be reminded of the scenery. + +In that sublime land, in the heart of a mass of rock riven by a +gorge,--a valley as wide as the Avenue de Neuilly in Paris, but a +hundred fathoms deep and broken into ravines,--flows a torrent coming +from some tremendous height of the Saint-Gothard on the Simplon, which +has formed a pool, I know not how many yards deep or how many feet long +and wide, hemmed in by splintered cliffs of granite on which meadows +find a place, with fir-trees between them, and enormous elms, and where +violets also grow, and strawberries. Here and there stands a chalet and +at the window you may see the rosy face of a yellow-haired Swiss girl. +According to the moods of the sky the water in this tarn is blue and +green, but as a sapphire is blue, as an emerald is green. Well, nothing +in the world can give such an idea of depth, peace, immensity, heavenly +love, and eternal happiness--to the most heedless traveler, the most +hurried courier, the most commonplace tradesman--as this liquid diamond +into which the snow, gathering from the highest Alps, trickles through +a natural channel hidden under the trees and eaten through the +rock, escaping below through a gap without a sound. The watery sheet +overhanging the fall glides so gently that no ripple is to be seen on +the surface which mirrors the chaise as you drive past. The postboy +smacks his whip; you turn past a crag; you cross a bridge: suddenly +there is a terrific uproar of cascades tumbling together one upon +another. The water, taking a mighty leap, is broken into a hundred +falls, dashed to spray on the boulders; it sparkles in a myriad jets +against a mass that has fallen from the heights that tower over the +ravine exactly in the middle of the road that has been so irresistibly +cut by the most formidable of active forces. + +If you have formed a clear idea of this landscape, you will see in those +sleeping waters the image of Emilio's love for the Duchess, and in the +cascades leaping like a flock of sheep, an idea of his passion shared +with la Tinti. In the midst of his torrent of love a rock stood +up against which the torrent broke. The Prince, like Sisyphus, was +constantly under the stone. + +"What on earth does the Duke do with a violin?" he wondered. "Do I owe +this symphony to him?" + +He asked Clara Tinti. + +"My dear child,"--for she saw that Emilio was but a child,--"dear +child," said she, "that man, who is a hundred and eighteen in the parish +register of vice, and only forty-seven in the register of the Church, +has but one single joy left to him in life. Yes, everything is +broken, everything in him is ruin or rags; his soul, intellect, heart, +nerves,--everything in man that can supply an impulse and remind him of +heaven, either by desire or enjoyment, is bound up with music, or rather +with one of the many effects produced by music, the perfect unison of +two voices, or of a voice with the top string of his violin. The old +ape sits on my knee, takes his instrument,--he plays fairly well,--he +produces the notes, and I try to imitate them. Then, when the +long-sought-for moment comes when it is impossible to distinguish in the +body of sound which is the note on the violin and which proceeds from +my throat, the old man falls into an ecstasy, his dim eyes light up with +their last remaining fires, he is quite happy and will roll on the floor +like a drunken man. + +"That is why he pays Genovese such a price. Genovese is the only tenor +whose voice occasionally sounds in unison with mine. Either we really do +sing exactly together once or twice in an evening, or the Duke imagines +that we do; and for that imaginary pleasure he has bought Genovese. +Genovese belongs to him. No theatrical manager can engage that tenor +without me, nor have me to sing without him. The Duke brought me up on +purpose to gratify that whim; to him I owe my talent, my beauty,--my +fortune, no doubt. He will die of an attack of perfect unison. The sense +of hearing alone has survived the wreck of his faculties; that is the +only thread by which he holds on to life. A vigorous shoot springs +from that rotten stump. There are, I am told, many men in the same +predicament. May Madonna preserve them! + +"You have not come to that! You can do all you want--all I want of you, +I know." + + + +Towards morning the Prince stole away and found Carmagnola lying asleep +across the door. + +"Altezza," said the gondolier, "the Duchess ordered me to give you this +note." + +He held out a dainty sheet of paper folded into a triangle. The Prince +felt dizzy; he went back into the room and dropped into a chair, for his +sight was dim, and his hands shook as he read:-- + + "DEAR EMILIO:--Your gondola stopped at your palazzo. Did you not + know that Cataneo has taken it for la Tinti? If you love me, go + to-night to Vendramin, who tells me he has a room ready for you in + his house. What shall I do? Can I remain in Venice to see my + husband and his opera singer? Shall we go back together to Friuli? + Write me one word, if only to tell me what the letter was you + tossed into the lagoon. + + "MASSIMILLA DONI." + + +The writing and the scent of the paper brought a thousand memories back +to the young Venetian's mind. The sun of a single-minded passion +threw its radiance on the blue depths come from so far, collected in +a bottomless pool, and shining like a star. The noble youth could not +restrain the tears that flowed freely from his eyes, for in the languid +state produced by satiated senses he was disarmed by the thought of that +purer divinity. + +Even in her sleep Clarina heard his weeping; she sat up in bed, saw her +Prince in a dejected attitude, and threw herself at his knees. + +"They are still waiting for the answer," said Carmagnola, putting the +curtain aside. + +"Wretch, you have undone me!" cried Emilio, starting up and spurning +Clarina with his foot. + +She clutched it so lovingly, her look imploring some explanation,--the +look of a tear-stained Samaritan,--that Emilio, enraged to find himself +still in the toils of the passion that had wrought his fall, pushed away +the singer with an unmanly kick. + +"You told me to kill you,--then die, venomous reptile!" he exclaimed. + +He left the palace, and sprang into his gondola. + +"Pull," said he to Carmagnola. + +"Where?" asked the old servant. + +"Where you will." + +The gondolier divined his master's wishes, and by many windings brought +him at last into the Canareggio, to the door of a wonderful palazzo, +which you will admire when you see Venice, for no traveler ever fails to +stop in front of those windows, each of a different design, vying with +each other in fantastic ornament, with balconies like lace-work; to +study the corners finishing in tall and slender twisted columns, the +string-courses wrought by so inventive a chisel that no two shapes are +alike in the arabesques on the stones. + +How charming is that doorway! how mysterious the vaulted arcade leading +to the stairs! Who could fail to admire the steps on which ingenious art +has laid a carpet that will last while Venice stands,--a carpet as rich +as if wrought in Turkey, but composed of marbles in endless variety +of shapes, inlaid in white marble. You will delight in the charming +ornament of the colonnades of the upper story,--gilt like those of a +ducal palace,--so that the marvels of art are both under your feet and +above your head. + +What delicate shadows! How silent, how cool! But how solemn, too, was +that old palace! where, to delight Emilio and his friend Vendramin, the +Duchess had collected antique Venetian furniture, and employed skilled +hands to restore the ceilings. There, old Venice lived again. The +splendor was not merely noble, it was instructive. The archaeologist +would have found there such models of perfection as the middle ages +produced, having taken example from Venice. Here were to be seen the +original ceilings of woodwork covered with scrolls and flowers in gold +on a colored ground, or in colors on gold, and ceilings of gilt plaster +castings, with a picture of many figures in each corner, with a splendid +fresco in the centre,--a style so costly that there are not two in the +Louvre, and that the extravagance of Louis XIV. shrunk from such +expense at Versailles. On all sides marble, wood, and silk had served as +materials for exquisite workmanship. + +Emilio pushed open a carved oak door, made his way down the long, +vaulted passage which runs from end to end on each floor of a Venetian +palazzo, and stopped before another door, so familiar that it made +his heart beat. On seeing him, a lady companion came out of a vast +drawing-room, and admitted him to a study where he found the Duchess on +her knees in front of a Madonna. + +He had come to confess and ask forgiveness. Massimilla, in prayer, had +converted him. He and God; nothing else dwelt in that heart. + +The Duchess rose very unaffectedly, and held out her hand. Her lover did +not take it. + +"Did not Gianbattista see you, yesterday?" she asked. + +"No," he replied. + +"That piece of ill-luck gave me a night of misery. I was so afraid lest +you might meet the Duke, whose perversity I know too well. What made +Vendramin let your palace to him?" + +"It was a good idea, Milla, for your Prince is poor enough." + +Massimilla was so beautiful in her trust of him, and so wonderfully +lovely, so happy in Emilio's presence, that at this moment the Prince, +wide awake, experienced the sensations of the horrible dream that +torments persons of a lively imagination, in which after arriving in a +ballroom full of women in full dress, the dreamer is suddenly aware +that he is naked, without even a shirt; shame and terror possess him +by turns, and only waking can relieve him from his misery. Thus stood +Emilio's soul in the presence of his mistress. Hitherto that soul had +known only the fairest flowers of feeling; a debauch had plunged it into +dishonor. This none knew but he, for the beautiful Florentine ascribed +so many virtues to her lover that the man she adored could not but be +incapable of any stain. + +As Emilio had not taken her hand, the Duchess pushed her fingers through +his hair that the singer had kissed. Then she perceived that Emilio's +hand was clammy and his brow moist. + +"What ails you?" she asked, in a voice to which tenderness gave the +sweetness of a flute. + +"Never till this moment have I known how much I love you," he replied. + +"Well, dear idol, what would you have?" said she. + +"What have I done to make her ask that?" he wondered to himself. + +"Emilio, what letter was that which you threw into the lagoon?" + +"Vendramini's. I had not read it to the end, or I should never have gone +to my palazzo, and there have met the Duke; for no doubt it told me all +about it." + +Massimilla turned pale, but a caress from Emilio reassured her. + +"Stay with me all day; we will go to the opera together. We will not +set out for Friuli; your presence will no doubt enable me to endure +Cataneo's," said Massimilla. + +Though this would be torment to her lover's soul, he consented with +apparent joy. + +If anything can give us a foretaste of what the damned will suffer on +finding themselves so unworthy of God, is it not the state of a young +man, as yet unpolluted, in the presence of a mistress he reveres, while +he still feels on his lips the taste of infidelity, and brings into +the sanctuary of the divinity he worships the tainted atmosphere of the +courtesan? + +Baader, who in his lectures eliminated things divine by erotic imagery, +had no doubt observed, like some Catholic writers, the intimate +resemblance between human and heavenly love. + +This distress of mind cast a hue of melancholy over the pleasure the +young Venetian felt in his mistress' presence. A woman's instinct has +amazing aptitude for harmony of feeling; it assumes the hue, it vibrates +to the note suggested by her lover. The pungent flavor of coquettish +spice is far indeed from spurring affection so much as this gentle +sympathy of tenderness. The smartness of a coquette too clearly marks +opposition; however transient it is displeasing; but this intimate +comprehension shows a perfect fusion of souls. The hapless Emilio was +touched by the unspoken divination which led the Duchess to pity a fault +unknown to her. + +Massimilla, feeling that her strength lay in the absence of any sensual +side to her love, could allow herself to be expansive; she boldly and +confidently poured out her angelic spirit, she stripped it bare, just as +during that diabolical night, La Tinti had displayed the soft lines of +her body, and her firm, elastic flesh. In Emilio's eyes there was as it +were a conflict between the saintly love of this white soul and that of +the vehement and muscular Sicilian. + +The day was spent in long looks following on deep meditations. Each of +them gauged the depths of tender feeling, and found it bottomless; a +conviction that brought fond words to their lips. Modesty, the +goddess who in a moment of forgetfulness with Love, was the mother of +Coquettishness, need not have put her hand before her face as she looked +at these lovers. As a crowning joy, an orgy of happiness, Massimilla +pillowed Emilio's head in her arms, and now and then ventured to press +her lips to his; but only as a bird dips its beak into the clear waters +of a spring, looking round lest it should be seen. Their fancy worked +upon this kiss, as a composer develops a subject by the endless +resources of music, and it produced in them such tumultuous and +vibrating echoes as fevered their blood. + +The Idea must always be stronger than the Fact, otherwise desire would +be less perfect than satisfaction, and it is in fact the stronger,--it +gives birth to wit. And, indeed, they were perfectly happy; for +enjoyment must always take something off happiness. Married in heaven +alone, these two lovers admired each other in their purest aspect,--that +of two souls incandescent, and united in celestial light, radiant to +the eyes that faith has touched; and, above all, filled with the rapture +which the brush of a Raphael, a Titian, a Murillo, has depicted, and +which those who have ever known it, taste again as they gaze at those +paintings. Do not such peerless spirits scorn the coarser joys lavished +by the Sicilian singer--the material expression of that angelic union? + +These noble thoughts were in the Prince's mind as he reposed in heavenly +calm on Massimilla's cool, soft, white bosom, under the gentle radiance +of her eyes veiled by long, bright lashes; and he gave himself up to +this dream of an ideal orgy. At such a moment, Massimilla was as one of +the Virgin visions seen in dreams, which vanish at cock-crow, but whom +we recognize when we find them again in their realm of glory,--in the +works of some great painters of Heaven. + +In the evening the lovers went to the theatre. This is the way of +Italian life: love in the morning; music in the evening; the night for +sleep. How far preferable is this existence to that of a country +where every one expends his lungs and strength in politics, without +contributing any more, single-minded, to the progress of affairs than a +grain of sand can make a cloud of dust. Liberty, in those strange lands, +consists in the right to squabble over public concerns, to take care of +oneself, to waste time in patriotic undertakings each more futile than +the last, inasmuch as they all weaken that noble, holy self-concern +which is the parent of all great human achievement. At Venice, on +the contrary, love and its myriad ties, the sweet business of real +happiness, fills up all the time. + +In that country, love is so much a matter of course that the Duchess was +regarded as a wonder; for, in spite of her violent attachment to Emilio, +everybody was confident of her immaculate purity. And women gave their +sincere pity to the poor young man, who was regarded as a victim to the +virtue of his lady-love. At the same time, no one cared to blame the +Duchess, for in Italy religion is a power as much respected as love. + +Evening after evening Massimilla's box was the first object of every +opera-glass, and each woman would say to her lover, as she studied the +Duchess and her adorer: + +"How far have they got?" + +The lover would examine Emilio, seeking some evidence of success; +would find no expression but that of a pure and dejected passion. And +throughout the house, as they visited from box to box, the men would say +to the ladies: + +"La Cataneo is not yet Emilio's." + +"She is unwise," said the old women. "She will tire him out." + +"_Forse!_" (Perhaps) the young wives would reply, with the solemn +accent that Italians can infuse into that great word--the answer to many +questions here below. + +Some women were indignant, thought the whole thing ill-judged, and +declared that it was a misapprehension of religion to allow it to +smother love. + +"My dear, love that poor Emilio," said the Signora Vulpato to +Massimilla, as they met on the stairs in going out. + +"I do love him with all my might," replied the Duchess. + +"Then why does not he look happy?" + +Massimilla's reply was a little shrug of her shoulders. + +We in France--France as the growing mania for English proprieties has +made it--can form no idea of the serious interest taken in this affair +by Venetian society. + +Vendramini alone knew Emilio's secret, which was carefully kept between +two men who had, for private pleasure, combined their coats of arms with +the motto _Non amici, frates_. + + + +The opening night of the opera season is an event at Venice, as in every +capital in Italy. The _Fenice_ was crowded. + +The five hours of the night that are spent at the theatre fill so +important a place in Italian life that it is well to give an account of +the customs that have risen from this manner of spending time. + +The boxes in Italy are unlike those of any other country, inasmuch as +that elsewhere the women go to be seen, and that Italian ladies do not +care to make a show of themselves. Each box is long and narrow, sloping +at an angle to the front and to the passage behind. On each side is a +sofa, and at the end stand two armchairs, one for the mistress of the +box, and the other for a lady friend when she brings one, which she +rarely does. Each lady is in fact too much engaged in her own box to +call on others, or to wish to see them; also no one cares to introduce +a rival. An Italian woman almost always reigns alone in her box; the +mothers are not the slaves of their daughters, the daughters have no +mother on their hands; thus there are no children, no relations to watch +and censure and bore, or cut into a conversation. + +In front every box is draped in the same way, with the same silk: from +the cornice hang curtains, also all to match; and these remain drawn +when the family to whom the box belongs is in mourning. With very few +exceptions, and those only at Milan, there is no light inside the box; +they are illuminated only from the stage, and from a not very brilliant +hanging lustre which, in spite of protests, has been introduced into +the house in some towns; still, screened by the curtains, they are never +very light, and their arrangement leaves the back of the box so dark +that it is very difficult to see what is going on. + +The boxes, large enough to accommodate eight or ten persons, are +decorated with handsome silks, the ceilings are painted and ornamented +in light and pleasing colors; the woodwork is gilt. Ices and sorbets are +served there, and sweetmeats; for only the plebeian classes ever have a +serious meal. Each box is freehold property, and of considerable value; +some are estimated at as much as thirty thousand lire; the Litta family +at Milan own three adjoining. These facts sufficiently indicate the +importance attributed to this incident of fashionable life. + +Conversation reigns supreme in this little apartment, which Stendhal, +one of the most ingenious of modern writers, and a keen student of +Italian manners, has called a boudoir with a window opening on to a +pit. The music and the spectacle are in fact purely accessory; the +real interest of the evening is in the social meeting there, the +all-important trivialities of love that are discussed, the assignations +held, the anecdotes and gossip that creep in. The theatre is an +inexpensive meeting-place for a whole society which is content and +amused with studying itself. + +The men who are admitted take their seats on one of the sofas, in +the order of their arrival. The first comer naturally is next to the +mistress of the box, but when both seats are full, if another visitor +comes in, the one who has sat longest rises, takes his leave and +departs. All move up one place, and so each in turn is next the +sovereign. + +This futile gossip, or serious colloquy, these elegant trivialities of +Italian life, inevitably imply some general intimacy. The lady may be in +full dress or not, as she pleases. She is so completely at home that a +stranger who has been received in her box may call on her next day at +her residence. The foreign visitor cannot at first understand this life +of idle wit, this _dolce far niente_ on a background of music. Only long +custom and keen observation can ever reveal to a foreigner the meaning +of Italian life, which is like the free sky of the south, and where a +rich man will not endure a cloud. A man of rank cares little about +the management of his fortune; he leaves the details to his stewards +(ragionati), who rob and ruin him. He has no instinct for politics, and +they would presently bore him; he lives exclusively for passion, which +fills up all his time; hence the necessity felt by the lady and her +lover for being constantly together; for the great feature of such a +life is the lover, who for five hours is kept under the eye of a woman +who has had him at her feet all day. Thus Italian habits allow of +perpetual satisfaction, and necessitate a constant study of the means +fitted to insure it, though hidden under apparent light-heartedness. + +It is a beautiful life, but a reckless one, and in no country in the +world are men so often found worn out. + +The Duchess' box was on the pit tier--_pepiano_, as it is called in +Venice; she always sat where the light from the stage fell on her face, +so that her handsome head, softly illuminated, stood out against the +dark background. The Florentine attracted every gaze by her broad, high +brow, as white as snow, crowned with plaits of black hair that gave her +a really royal look; by the refinement of her features, resembling the +noble features of Andrea del Sarto's heads; by the outline of her face, +the setting of her eyes; and by those velvet eyes themselves, which +spoke of the rapture of a woman dreaming of happiness, still pure though +loving, at once attractive and dignified. + +Instead of _Mose_, in which la Tinti was to have appeared with +Genovese, _Il Barbiere_ was given, and the tenor was to sing without the +celebrated prima donna. The manager announced that he had been obliged +to change the opera in consequence of la Tinti's being ill; and the Duke +was not to be seen in the theatre. + +Was this a clever trick on the part of the management, to secure two +full houses by bringing out Genovese and Tinti separately, or was +Clarina's indisposition genuine? While this was open to discussion by +others, Emilio might be better informed; and though the announcement +caused him some remorse, as he remembered the singer's beauty and +vehemence, her absence and the Duke's put both the Prince and the +Duchess very much at their ease. + +And Genovese sang in such a way as to drive out all memories of a night +of illicit love, and to prolong the heavenly joys of this blissful day. +Happy to be alone to receive the applause of the house, the tenor +did his best with the powers which have since achieved European fame. +Genovese, then but three-and-twenty, born at Bergamo, a pupil of +Veluti's and devoted to his art, a fine man, good-looking, clever in +apprehending the spirit of a part, was already developing into the +great artist destined to win fame and fortune. He had a wild success,--a +phrase which is literally exact only in Italy, where the applause of the +house is absolutely frenzied when a singer procures it enjoyment. + +Some of the Prince's friends came to congratulate him on coming into his +title, and to discuss the news. Only last evening la Tinti, taken by the +Duke to the Vulpatos', had sung there, apparently in health as sound +as her voice was fine; hence her sudden disposition gave rise to +much comment. It was rumored at the Cafe Florian that Genovese was +desperately in love with Clarina; that she was only anxious to avoid his +declarations, and that the manager had tried in vain to induce her to +appear with him. The Austrian General, on the other hand, asserted that +it was the Duke who was ill, that the prima donna was nursing him, and +that Genovese had been commanded to make amends to the public. + +The Duchess owed this visit from the Austrian General to the fact that a +French physician had come to Venice whom the General wished to introduce +to her. The Prince, seeing Vendramin wandering about the _parterre_, +went out for a few minutes of confidential talk with his friend, whom +he had not seen for three months; and as they walked round the gangway +which divides the seats in the pit from the lowest tier of boxes, he had +an opportunity of observing Massimilla's reception of the foreigner. + +"Who is that Frenchman?" asked the Prince. + +"A physician sent for by Cataneo, who wants to know how long he is +likely to live," said Vendramin. "The Frenchman is waiting for Malfatti, +with whom he is to hold a consultation." + +Like every Italian woman who is in love, the Duchess kept her eyes fixed +on Emilio; for in that land a woman is so wholly wrapped up in her lover +that it is difficult to detect an expressive glance directed at anybody +else. + +"Caro," said the Prince to his friend, "remember I slept at your house +last night." + +"Have you triumphed?" said Vendramin, putting his arm round Emilio's +waist. + +"No; but I hope I may some day be happy with Massimilla." + +"Well," replied Marco, "then you will be the most envied man on earth. +The Duchess is the most perfect woman in Italy. To me, seeing things as +I do through the dazzling medium of opium, she seems the very highest +expression of art; for nature, without knowing it, has made her a +Raphael picture. Your passion gives no umbrage to Cataneo, who has +handed over to me a thousand crowns, which I am to give to you." + +"Well," added Emilio, "whatever you may hear said, I sleep every night +at your house. Come, for every minute spent away from her, when I might +be with her, is torment." + +Emilio took his seat at the back of the box and remained there in +silence, listening to the Duchess, enchanted by her wit and beauty. It +was for him, and not out of vanity, that Massimilla lavished the charms +of her conversation bright with Italian wit, in which sarcasm lashed +things but not persons, laughter attacked nothing that was not +laughable, mere trifles were seasoned with Attic salt. + +Anywhere else she might have been tiresome. The Italians, an eminently +intelligent race, have no fancy for displaying their talents where they +are not in demand; their chat is perfectly simple and effortless, it +never makes play, as in France, under the lead of a fencing master, +each one flourishing his foil, or, if he has nothing to say, sitting +humiliated. + +Conversation sparkles with a delicate and subtle satire that plays +gracefully with familiar facts; and instead of a compromising epigram an +Italian has a glance or a smile of unutterable meaning. They think--and +they are right--that to be expected to understand ideas when they only +seek enjoyment, is a bore. + +Indeed, la Vulpato had said to Massimilla: + +"If you loved him you would not talk so well." + +Emilio took no part in the conversation; he listened and gazed. This +reserve might have led foreigners to suppose that the Prince was a man +of no intelligence,--their impression very commonly of an Italian +in love,--whereas he was simply a lover up to his ears in rapture. +Vendramin sat down by Emilio, opposite the Frenchman, who, as the +stranger, occupied the corner facing the Duchess. + +"Is that gentleman drunk?" said the physician in an undertone to +Massimilla, after looking at Vendramin. + +"Yes," replied she, simply. + +In that land of passion, each passion bears its excuse in itself, and +gracious indulgence is shown to every form of error. The Duchess sighed +deeply, and an expression of suppressed pain passed over her features. + +"You will see strange things in our country, monsieur," she went on. +"Vendramin lives on opium, as this one lives on love, and that one +buries himself in learning; most young men have a passion for a dancer, +as older men are miserly. We all create some happiness or some madness +for ourselves." + +"Because you all want to divert your minds from some fixed idea, for +which a revolution would be a radical cure," replied the physician. "The +Genoese regrets his republic, the Milanese pines for his independence, +the Piemontese longs for a constitutional government, the Romagna cries +for liberty--" + +"Of which it knows nothing," interrupted the Duchess. "Alas! there +are men in Italy so stupid as to long for your idiotic Charter, which +destroys the influence of woman. Most of my fellow-countrywomen must +need read your French books--useless rhodomontade--" + +"Useless!" cried the Frenchman. + +"Why, monsieur," the Duchess went on, "what can you find in a book that +is better than what we have in our hearts? Italy is mad." + +"I cannot see that a people is mad because it wishes to be its own +master," said the physician. + +"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the Duchess, eagerly, "does not that mean +paying with a great deal of bloodshed for the right of quarreling, as +you do, over crazy ideas?" + +"Then you approve of despotism?" said the physician. + +"Why should I not approve of a system of government which, by depriving +us of books and odious politics, leaves men entirely to us?" + +"I had thought that the Italians were more patriotic," said the +Frenchman. + +Massimilla laughed so slyly that her interlocutor could not distinguish +mockery from serious meaning, nor her real opinion from ironical +criticism. + +"Then you are not a liberal?" said he. + +"Heaven preserve me!" said she. "I can imagine nothing in worse taste +than such opinions in a woman. Could you love a woman whose heart was +occupied by all mankind?" + +"Those who love are naturally aristocrats," the Austrian General +observed, with a smile. + +"As I came into the theatre," the Frenchman observed, "you were the +first person I saw; and I remarked to his Excellency that if there was a +woman who could personify a nation it was you. But I grieve to +discover that, though you represent its divine beauty, you have not the +constitutional spirit." + +"Are you not bound," said the Duchess, pointing to the ballet now being +danced, "to find all our dancers detestable and our singers atrocious? +Paris and London rob us of all our leading stars. Paris passes judgment +on them, and London pays them. Genovese and la Tinti will not be left to +us for six months--" + +At this juncture, the Austrian left the box. Vendramin, the Prince, and +the other two Italians exchanged a look and a smile, glancing at the +French physician. He, for a moment, felt doubtful of himself,--a +rare thing in a Frenchman,--fancying he had said or done something +incongruous; but the riddle was immediately solved. + +"Do you thing it would be judicious," said Emilio, "if we spoke our mind +in the presence of our masters?" + +"You are in a land of slaves," said the Duchess, in a tone and with +a droop of the head which gave her at once the look for which the +physician had sought in vain. "Vendramin," she went on, speaking so that +only the stranger could hear her, "took to smoking opium, a villainous +idea suggested to him by an Englishman who, for other reasons of his, +craved an easy death--not death as men see it in the form of a skeleton, +but death draped with the frippery you in France call a flag--a +maiden form crowned with flowers or laurels; she appears in a cloud of +gunpowder borne on the flight of a cannon-ball--or else stretched on a +bed between two courtesans; or again, she rises in the steam of a bowl +of punch, or the dazzling vapor of a diamond--but a diamond in the form +of carbon. + +"Whenever Vendramin chooses, for three Austrian lire, he can be a +Venetian Captain, he can sail in the galleys of the Republic, and +conquer the gilded domes of Constantinople. Then he can lounge on the +divans in the Seraglio among the Sultan's wives, while the Grand Signor +himself is the slave of the Venetian conqueror. He returns to restore +his palazzo with the spoils of the Ottoman Empire. He can quit the women +of the East for the doubly masked intrigues of his beloved Venetians, +and fancy that he dreads the jealousy which has ceased to exist. + +"For three zwanziger he can transport himself into the Council of Ten, +can wield there terrible power, and leave the Doges' Palace to sleep +under the watch of a pair of flashing eyes, or to climb a balcony from +which a fair hand has hung a silken ladder. He can love a woman to whom +opium lends such poetic grace as we women of flesh and blood could never +show. + +"Presently he turns over, and he is face to face with the dreadful frown +of the senator, who holds a dagger. He hears the blade plunged into his +mistress' heart. She dies smiling on him; for she has saved him. + +"And she is a happy woman!" added the Duchess, looking at Emilio. + +"He escapes and flies to command the Dalmatians, to conquer the Illyrian +coast for his beloved Venice. His glory wins him forgiveness, and he +enjoys a life of domestic happiness,--a home, a winter evening, a young +wife and charming children, who pray to San Marco under the care of an +old nurse. Yes, for three francs' worth of opium he furnishes our empty +arsenal, he watches convoys of merchandise coming in, going to the four +quarters of the world. The forces of modern industry no longer reign in +London, but in his own Venice, where the hanging gardens of Semiramis, +the Temple of Jerusalem, the marvels of Rome, live once more. He adds +to the glories of the middle ages by the labors of steam, by new +masterpieces of art under the protection of Venice, who protected it of +old. Monuments and nations crowd into his little brain; there is room +for them all. Empires and cities and revolutions come and vanish in the +course of a few hours, while Venice alone expands and lives; for the +Venice of his dreams is the empress of the seas. She has two millions of +inhabitants, the sceptre of Italy, the mastery of the Mediterranean and +the Indies!" + +"What an opera is the brain of man! What an unfathomed abyss!--even to +those who, like Gall, have mapped it out," cried the physician. + +"Dear Duchess," said Vendramin, "do not omit the last service that my +elixir will do me. After hearing ravishing voices and imbibing music +through every pore, after experiencing the keenest pleasures and +the fiercest delights of Mahomet's paradise, I see none but the most +terrible images. I have visions of my beloved Venice full of children's +faces, distorted, like those of the dying; of women covered with +dreadful wounds, torn and wailing; of men mangled and crushed by the +copper sides of crashing vessels. I begin to see Venice as she is, +shrouded in crape, stripped, robbed, destitute. Pale phantoms wander +through her streets! + +"Already the Austrian soldiers are grinning over me, already my +visionary life is drifting into real life; whereas six months ago real +life was the bad dream, and the life of opium held love and bliss, +important affairs and political interests. Alas! To my grief, I see the +dawn over my tomb, where truth and falsehood mingle in a dubious light, +which is neither day nor darkness, but partakes of both." + +"So you see that in this head there is too much patriotism," said +the Prince, laying his hand on the thick black curls that fell on +Vendramin's brow. + +"Oh, if he loves us he will give up his dreadful opium!" said +Massimilla. + +"I will cure your friend," said the Frenchman. + +"Achieve that, and we shall love you," said the Duchess. "But if on +your return to France you do not calumniate us, we shall love you even +better. The hapless Italians are too much crushed by foreign dominion to +be fairly judged--for we have known yours," she added, with a smile. + +"It was more generous than Austria's," said the physician, eagerly. + +"Austria squeezes and gives us nothing back, and you squeeze to enlarge +and beautify our towns; you stimulated us by giving us an army. You +thought you could keep Italy, and they expect to lose it--there lies the +difference. + +"The Austrians provide us with a sort of ease that is as stultifying and +heavy as themselves, while you overwhelmed us by your devouring energy. +But whether we die of tonics or of narcotics, what does it matter? It is +death all the same, Monsieur le docteur." + +"Unhappy Italy! In my eyes she is like a beautiful woman whom France +ought to protect by making her his mistress," exclaimed the Frenchman. + +"But you could not love us as we wish to be loved," said the Duchess, +smiling. "We want to be free. But the liberty I crave is not your +ignoble and middle-class liberalism, which would kill all art. I ask," +said she, in a tone that thrilled through the box,--"that is to say, I +would ask,--that each Italian republic should be resuscitated, with its +nobles, its citizens, its special privileges for each caste. I would +have the old aristocratic republics once more with their intestine +warfare and rivalry that gave birth to the noblest works of art, that +created politics, that raised up the great princely houses. By extending +the action of one government over a vast expanse of country it is +frittered down. The Italian republics were the glory of Europe in +the middle ages. Why has Italy succumbed when the Swiss, who were her +porters, have triumphed?" + +"The Swiss republics," said the doctor, "were worthy housewives, busy +with their own little concerns, and neither having any cause for +envying another. Your republics were haughty queens, preferring to sell +themselves rather than bow to a neighbor; they fell too low ever to rise +again. The Guelphs are triumphant." + +"Do not pity us too much," said the Duchess, in a voice that made the +two friends start. "We are still supreme. Even in the depths of her +misfortune Italy governs through the choicer spirits that abound in her +cities. + +"Unfortunately the greater number of her geniuses learn to understand +life so quickly that they lie sunk in poverty-stricken pleasure. As for +those who are willing to play the melancholy game for immortality, they +know how to get at your gold and to secure your praises. Ay, in +this land--pitied for its fallen state by traveled simpletons and +hypocritical poets, while its character is traduced by politicians--in +this land, which appears so languid, powerless, and ruinous, worn out +rather than old, there are puissant brains in every branch of life, +genius throwing out vigorous shoots as an old vine-stock throws out +canes productive of delicious fruit. This race of ancient rulers +still gives birth to kings--Lagrange, Volta, Rasori, Canova, Rossini, +Bartolini, Galvani, Vigano, Beccaria, Cicognara, Corvetto. These +Italians are masters of the scientific peaks on which they stand, or of +the arts to which they devote themselves. To say nothing of the singers +and executants who captivate Europe by their amazing perfections: +Taglioni, Paganini, and the rest. Italy still rules the world which will +always come to worship her. + +"Go to Florian's to-night; you will find in Capraja one of our cleverest +men, but in love with obscurity. No one but the Duke, my master, +understands music so thoroughly as he does; indeed he is known here as +_il Fanatico_." + +After sitting a few minutes listening to the eager war of words between +the physician and the Duchess, who showed much ingenious eloquence, the +Italians, one by one, took leave, and went off to tell the news in +every box, that la Cataneo, who was regarded as a woman of great wit and +spirit, had, on the question of Italy, defeated a famous French doctor. +This was the talk of the evening. + +As soon as the Frenchman found himself alone with the Duchess and the +Prince, he understood that they were to be left together, and took +leave. Massimilla bowed with a bend of the neck that placed him at such +a distance that this salute might have secured her the man's hatred, if +he could have ignored the charm of her eloquence and beauty. + +Thus at the end of the opera, Emilio and Massimilla were alone, and +holding hands they listened together to the duet that finishes _Il +Barbiere_. + +"There is nothing but music to express love," said the Duchess, moved by +that song as of two rapturous nightingales. + +A tear twinkled in Emilio's eye; Massimilla, sublime in such beauty as +beams in Raphael's Saint-Cecilia, pressed his hand, their knees touched, +there was, as it seemed, the blossom of a kiss on her lips. The Prince +saw on her blushing face a glow of joy like that which on a summer's day +shines down on the golden harvest; his heart seemed bursting with +the tide of blood that rushed to it. He fancied that he could hear an +angelic chorus of voices, and he would have given his life to feel the +fire of passion which at this hour last night had filled him for the +odious Clarina; but he was at the moment hardly conscious of having a +body. + +Massimilla, much distressed, ascribed this tear, in her guilelessness, +to the remark she had made as to Genovese's cavatina. + +"But, _carino_," said she in Emilio's ear, "are not you as far better +than every expression of love, as cause is superior to effect?" + +After handing the Duchess to her gondola, Emilio waited for Vendramin to +go to Florian's. + + + +The Cafe Florian at Venice is a quite undefinable institution. Merchants +transact their business there, and lawyers meet to talk over their +most difficult cases. Florian's is at once an Exchange, a green-room, a +newspaper office, a club, a confessional,--and it is so well adapted to +the needs of the place that some Venetian women never know what their +husband's business may be, for, if they have a letter to write, they go +to write it there. + +Spies, of course, abound at Florian's; but their presence only sharpens +Venetian wits, which may here exercise the discretion once so famous. +A great many persons spend the whole day at Florian's; in fact, to some +men Florian's is so much a matter of necessity, that between the acts +of an opera they leave the ladies in their boxes and take a turn to hear +what is going on there. + +While the two friends were walking in the narrow streets of the Merceria +they did not speak, for there were too many people; but as they turned +into the Piazzi di San Marco, the Prince said: + +"Do not go at once to the cafe. Let us walk about; I want to talk to +you." + +He related his adventure with Clarina and explained his position. To +Vendramin Emilio's despair seemed so nearly allied to madness that +he promised to cure him completely if only he would give him _carte +blanche_ to deal with Massimilla. This ray of hope came just in time +to save Emilio from drowning himself that night; for, indeed, as he +remembered the singer, he felt a horrible wish to go back to her. + +The two friends then went to an inner room at Florian's, where they +listened to the conversation of some of the superior men of the town, +who discoursed the subjects of the day. The most interesting of these +were, in the first place, the eccentricities of Lord Byron, of whom the +Venetians made great sport; then Cataneo's attachment for la Tinti, for +which no reason could be assigned after twenty different causes had been +suggested; then Genovese's debut; finally, the tilting match between the +Duchess and the French doctor. Just as the discussion became vehemently +musical, Duke Cataneo made his appearance. He bowed very courteously to +Emilio, which seemed so natural that no one noticed it, and Emilio bowed +gravely in return. Cataneo looked round to see if there was anybody he +knew, recognized Vendramin and greeted him, bowed to his banker, a +rich patrician, and finally to the man who happened to be speaking,--a +celebrated musical fanatic, a friend of the Comtesse Albrizzi. Like +some others who frequented Florian's, his mode of life was absolutely +unknown, so carefully did he conceal it. Nothing was known about him but +what he chose to tell. + +This was Capraja, the nobleman whom the Duchess had mentioned to the +French doctor. This Venetian was one of a class of dreamers whose +powerful minds divine everything. He was an eccentric theorist, and +cared no more for celebrity than for a broken pipe. + +His life was in accordance with his ideas. Capraja made his appearance +at about ten every morning under the _Procuratie_, without anyone +knowing whence he came. He lounged about Venice, smoking cigars. He +regularly went to the Fenice, sitting in the pit-stalls, and between the +acts went round to Florian's, where he took three or four cups of coffee +a day; and he ended the evening at the cafe, never leaving it till about +two in the morning. Twelve hundred francs a year paid all his expenses; +he ate but one meal a day at an eating-house in the Merceria, where the +cook had his dinner ready for him at a fixed hour, on a little table at +the back of the shop; the pastry-cook's daughter herself prepared his +stuffed oysters, provided him with cigars, and took care of his money. +By his advice, this girl, though she was very handsome, would never +countenance a lover, lived very steadily, and still wore the old +Venetian costume. This purely-bred Venetian girl was twelve years old +when Capraja first took an interest in her, and six-and-twenty when he +died. She was very fond of him, though he had never even kissed her hand +or her brow, and she knew nothing whatever of the poor old nobleman's +intentions with regard to her. The girl had at last as complete control +of the old gentleman as a mother has of her child; she would tell him +when he wanted clean linen; next day he would come without a shirt, and +she would give him a clean one to put on in the morning. + +He never looked at a woman either in the theatre or out walking. Though +he was the descendant of an old patrician family he never thought his +rank worth mentioning. But at night, after twelve, he awoke from his +apathy, talked, and showed that he had seen and heard everything. This +peaceful Diogenes, quite incapable of explaining his tenets, half a +Turk, half a Venetian, was thick-set, short, and fat; he had a Doge's +sharp nose, an inquisitive, satirical eye, and a discreet though smiling +mouth. + +When he died, it became known that he had lived in a little den near San +Benedetto. He had two million francs invested in the funds of various +countries of Europe, and had left the interest untouched ever since he +had first bought the securities in 1814, so the sum was now enormous, +alike from the increased value of the capital and the accumulated +interest. All this money was left to the pastry-cook's daughter. + +"Genovese," he was saying, "will do wonders. Whether he really +understands the great end of music, or acts only on instinct, I know +not; but he is the first singer who ever satisfied me. I shall not die +without hearing a _cadenza_ executed as I have heard them in my dreams, +waking with a feeling as though the sounds were floating in the air. The +clear _cadenza_ is the highest achievement of art; it is the arabesque, +decorating the finest room in the house; a shade too little and it is +nothing, a touch too much and all is confusion. Its task is to awake in +the soul a thousand dormant ideas; it flies up and sweeps through space, +scattering seeds in the air to be taken in by our ears and blossom in +our heart. Believe me, in painting his Saint-Cecilia, Raphael gave the +preference to music over poetry. And he was right; music appeals to the +heart, whereas writing is addressed to the intellect; it communicates +ideas directly, like a perfume. The singer's voice impinges not on the +mind, not on the memory of happiness, but on the first principle of +thought; it stirs the elements of sensation. + +"It is a grievous thing that the populace should have compelled +musicians to adapt their expression to words, to factitious emotions; +but then they were not otherwise intelligible to the vulgar. Thus +the _cadenza_ is the only thing left to the lovers of pure music, +the devotees of unfettered art. To-night, as I listened to that last +_cavatina_, I felt as if I were beckoned by a fair creature whose look +alone had made me young again. The enchantress placed a crown on +my brow, and led me to the ivory door through which we pass to the +mysterious land of day-dreams. I owe it to Genovese that I escaped for +a few minutes from this old husk--minutes, short no doubt by the clock, +but very long by the record of sensation. For a brief spring-time, +scented with roses, I was young again--and beloved!" + +"But you are mistaken, _caro_ Capraja," said the Duke. "There is in +music an effect yet more magical than that of the _cadenza_." + +"What is that?" asked Capraja. + +"The unison of two voices, or of a voice and a violin,--the instrument +which has tones most nearly resembling those of the human voice," +replied Cataneo. "This perfect concord bears us on to the very heart of +life, on the tide of elements which can resuscitate rapture and carry +man up to the centre of the luminous sphere where his mind can command +the whole universe. You still need a _thema_, Capraja, but the pure +element is enough for me. You need that the current should flow through +the myriad canals of the machine to fall in dazzling cascades, while +I am content with the pure tranquil pool. My eye gazes across a lake +without a ripple. I can embrace the infinite." + +"Speak no more, Cataneo," said Capraja, haughtily. "What! Do you fail to +see the fairy, who, in her swift rush through the sparkling atmosphere, +collects and binds with the golden thread of harmony, the gems of melody +she smilingly sheds on us? Have you ever felt the touch of her wand, as +she says to Curiosity, 'Awake!' The divinity rises up radiant from the +depths of the brain; she flies to her store of wonders and fingers them +lightly as an organist touches the keys. Suddenly, up starts Memory, +bringing us the roses of the past, divinely preserved and still fresh. +The mistress of our youth revives, and strokes the young man's hair. Our +heart, too full, overflows; we see the flowery banks of the torrent of +love. Every burning bush we ever knew blazes afresh, and repeats the +heavenly words we once heard and understood. The voice rolls on; it +embraces in its rapid turns those fugitive horizons, and they shrink +away; they vanish, eclipsed by newer and deeper joys--those of an +unrevealed future, to which the fairy points as she returns to the blue +heaven." + +"And you," retorted Cataneo, "have you never seen the direct ray of a +star opening the vistas above; have you never mounted on that beam which +guides you to the sky, to the heart of the first causes which move the +worlds?" + +To their hearers, the Duke and Capraja were playing a game of which the +premises were unknown. + +"Genovese's voice thrills through every fibre," said Capraja. + +"And la Tinti's fires the blood," replied the Duke. + +"What a paraphrase of happy love is that _cavatina_!" Capraja went on. +"Ah! Rossini was young when he wrote that interpretation of effervescent +ecstasy. My heart filled with renewed blood, a thousand cravings tingled +in my veins. Never have sounds more angelic delivered me more completely +from my earthly bonds! Never did the fairy wave more beautiful arms, +smile more invitingly, lift her tunic more cunningly to display an +ankle, raising the curtain that hides my other life!" + +"To-morrow, my old friend," replied Cataneo, "you shall ride on the back +of a dazzling, white swan, who will show you the loveliest land there +is; you shall see the spring-time as children see it. Your heart shall +open to the radiance of a new sun; you shall sleep on crimson silk, +under the gaze of a Madonna; you shall feel like a happy lover gently +kissed by a nymph whose bare feet you still may see, but who is about to +vanish. That swan will be the voice of Genovese, if he can unite it to +its Leda, the voice of Clarina. To-morrow night we are to hear _Mose_, +the grandest opera produced by Italy's greatest genius." + +All present left the conversation to the Duke and Capraja, not wishing +to be the victims of mystification. Only Vendramin and the French doctor +listened to them for a few minutes. The opium-smoker understood these +poetic flights; he had the key of the palace where those two sensuous +imaginations were wandering. The doctor, too, tried to understand, and +he understood, for he was one of the Pleiades of genius belonging to the +Paris school of medicine, from which a true physician comes out as much +a metaphysician as an accomplished analyst. + +"Do you understand them?" said Emilio to Vendramin as they left the cafe +at two in the morning. + +"Yes, my dear boy," said Vendramin, taking Emilio home with him. "Those +two men are of the legion of unearthly spirits to whom it is given here +below to escape from the wrappings of the flesh, who can fly on the +shoulders of the queen of witchcraft up to the blue empyrean where the +sublime marvels are wrought of the intellectual life; they, by the power +of art, can soar whither your immense love carries you, whither opium +transports me. Then none can understand them but those who are like +them. + +"I, who can inspire my soul by such base means, who can pack a hundred +years of life into a single night, I can understand those lofty spirits +when they talk of that glorious land, deemed a realm of chimeras by +some who think themselves wise; but the realm of reality to us whom +they think mad. Well, the Duke and Capraja, who were acquainted at +Naples,--where Cataneo was born,--are mad about music." + +"But what is that strange system that Capraja was eager to explain to +the Duke? Did you understand?" + +"Yes," replied Vendramin. "Capraja's great friend is a musician from +Cremona, lodging in the Capello palace, who has a theory that sounds +meet with an element in man, analogous to that which produces ideas. +According to him, man has within him keys acted on by sound, and +corresponding to his nerve-centres, where ideas and sensations take +their rise. Capraja, who regards the arts as an assemblage of means by +which he can harmonize, in himself, all external nature with another +mysterious nature that he calls the inner life, shares all ideas of this +instrument-maker, who at this moment is composing an opera. + +"Conceive of a sublime creation, wherein the marvels of the visible +universe are reproduced with immeasurable grandeur, lightness, +swiftness, and extension; wherein sensation is infinite, and whither +certain privileged natures, possessed of divine powers, are able to +penetrate, and you will have some notion of the ecstatic joys of which +Cataneo and Capraja were speaking; both poets, each for himself alone. +Only, in matters of the intellect, as soon as a man can rise above the +sphere where plastic art is produced by a process of imitation, and +enter into that transcendental sphere of abstractions where everything +is understood as an elementary principle, and seen in the omnipotence of +results, that man is no longer intelligible to ordinary minds." + +"You have thus explained my love for Massimilla," said Emilio. "There +is in me, my friend, a force which awakes under the fire of her look, at +her lightest touch, and wafts me to a world of light where effects are +produced of which I dare not speak. It has seemed to me often that the +delicate tissue of her skin has stamped flowers on mine as her hand +lies on my hand. Her words play on those inner keys in me, of which you +spoke. Desire excites my brain, stirring that invisible world, instead +of exciting my passive flesh; the air seems red and sparkling, unknown +perfumes of indescribable strength relax my sinews, roses wreathe my +temples, and I feel as though my blood were escaping through opened +arteries, so complete is my inanition." + +"That is the effect on me of smoking opium," replied Vendramin. + +"Then do you wish to die?" cried Emilio, in alarm. + +"With Venice!" said Vendramin, waving his hand in the direction of San +Marco. "Can you see a single pinnacle or spire that stands straight? Do +you not perceive that the sea is claiming its prey?" + +The Prince bent his head; he dared no more speak to his friend of love. + +To know what a free country means, you must have traveled in a conquered +land. + +When they reached the Palazzo Vendramin, they saw a gondola moored at +the water-gate. The Prince put his arm round Vendramin and clasped him +affectionately, saying: + +"Good-night to you, my dear fellow!" + +"What! a woman? for me, whose only love is Venice?" exclaimed Marco. + +At this instant the gondolier, who was leaning against a column, +recognizing the man he was to look out for, murmured in Emilio's ear: + +"The Duchess, monseigneur." + +Emilio sprang into the gondola, where he was seized in a pair of soft +arms--an embrace of iron--and dragged down on to the cushions, where +he felt the heaving bosom of an ardent woman. And then he was no +more Emilio, but Clarina's lover; for his ideas and feelings were so +bewildering that he yielded as if stupefied by her first kiss. + +"Forgive this trick, my beloved," said the Sicilian. "I shall die if you +do not come with me." + +And the gondola flew over the secret water. + + + +At half-past seven on the following evening, the spectators were again +in their places in the theatre, excepting that those in the pit always +took their chances of where they might sit. Old Capraja was in Cataneo's +box. + +Before the overture the Duke paid a call on the Duchess; he made a point +of standing behind her and leaving the front seat to Emilio next the +Duchess. He made a few trivial remarks, without sarcasm or bitterness, +and with as polite a manner as if he were visiting a stranger. + +But in spite of his efforts to seem amiable and natural, the Prince +could not control his expression, which was deeply anxious. Bystanders +would have ascribed such a change in his usually placid features to +jealousy. The Duchess no doubt shared Emilio's feelings; she looked +gloomy and was evidently depressed. The Duke, uncomfortable enough +between two sulky people, took advantage of the French doctor's entrance +to slip away. + +"Monsieur," said Cataneo to his physician before dropping the curtain +over the entrance to the box, "you will hear to-night a grand musical +poem, not easy of comprehension at a first hearing. But in leaving you +with the Duchess I know that you can have no more competent interpreter, +for she is my pupil." + +The doctor, like the Duke, was struck by the expression stamped on the +faces of the lovers, a look of pining despair. + +"Then does an Italian opera need a guide to it?" he asked Massimilla, +with a smile. + +Recalled by this question to her duties as mistress of the box, the +Duchess tried to chase away the clouds that darkened her brow, and +replied, with eager haste, to open a conversation in which she might +vent her irritation:-- + +"This is not so much an opera, monsieur," said she, "as an oratorio--a +work which is in fact not unlike a most magnificent edifice, and I shall +with pleasure be your guide. Believe me, it will not be too much to give +all your mind to our great Rossini, for you need to be at once a poet +and a musician to appreciate the whole bearing of such a work. + +"You belong to a race whose language and genius are too practical for +it to enter into music without an effort; but France is too intellectual +not to learn to love it and cultivate it, and to succeed in that as in +everything else. Also, it must be acknowledged that music, as created +by Lulli, Rameau, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Cimarosa, Paisiello, and +Rossini, and as it will be carried on by the great geniuses of the +future, is a new art, unknown to former generations; they had indeed no +such variety of instruments on which the flowers of melody now blossom +as on some rich soil. + +"So novel an art demands study in the public, study of a kind that +may develop the feelings to which music appeals. That sentiment hardly +exists as yet among you--a nation given up to philosophical theories, to +analysis and discussion, and always torn by civil disturbances. +Modern music demands perfect peace; it is the language of loving and +sentimental souls, inclined to lofty emotional aspiration. + +"That language, a thousand times fuller than the language of words, is +to speech and ideas what the thought is to its utterance; it arouses +sensations and ideas in their primitive form, in that part of us where +sensations and ideas have their birth, but leaves them as they are in +each of us. That power over our inmost being is one of the grandest +facts in music. All other arts present to the mind a definite creation; +those of music are indefinite--infinite. We are compelled to accept the +ideas of the poet, the painter's picture, the sculptor's statue; but +music each one can interpret at the will of his sorrow or his gladness, +his hope or his despair. While other arts restrict our mind by fixing it +on a predestined object, music frees it to roam over all nature which +it alone has the power of expressing. You shall hear how I interpret +Rossini's _Mose_." + +She leaned across to the Frenchman to speak to him, without being +overheard. + +"Moses is the liberator of an enslaved race!" said she. "Remember that, +and you will see with what religious hope the whole house will listen +to the prayer of the rescued Hebrews, with what a thunder of applause it +will respond!" + +As the leader raised his bow, Emilio flung himself into a back seat. The +Duchess pointed out the place he had left, for the physician to take +it. But the Frenchman was far more curious to know what had gone wrong +between the lovers than to enter the halls of music built up by the man +whom all Italy was applauding--for it was the day of Rossini's triumph +in his own country. He was watching the Duchess, and she was talking +with a feverish excitement. She reminded him of the Niobe he had admired +at Florence: the same dignity in woe, the same physical control; and yet +her soul shone though, in the warm flush of her cheeks; and her eyes, +where anxiety was disguised under a flash of pride, seemed to scorch the +tears away by their fire. Her suppressed grief seemed calmer when she +looked at Emilio, who never took his eyes off her; it was easy to see +that she was trying to mollify some fierce despair. The state of her +feelings gave a certain loftiness to her mind. + +Like most women when under the stress of some unusual agitation, she +overstepped her ordinary limitations and assumed something of the +Pythoness, though still remaining calm and beautiful; for it was the +form of her thoughts that was wrung with desperation, not the features +of her face. And perhaps she wanted to shine with all her wit to lend +some charm to life and detain her lover from death. + +When the orchestra had given out the three chords in C major, placed +at the opening by the composer to announce that the overture will be +sung--for the real overture is the great movement beginning with this +stern attack, and ending only when light appears at the command of +Moses--the Duchess could not control a little spasmodic start, that +showed how entirely the music was in accordance with her concealed +distress. + +"Those three chords freeze the blood," said she. "They announce trouble. +Listen attentively to this introduction; the terrible lament of a nation +stricken by the hand of God. What wailing! The King, the Queen, their +first-born son, all the dignitaries of the kingdom are sighing; they are +wounded in their pride, in their conquests; checked in their avarice. +Dear Rossini! you have done well to throw this bone to gnaw to the +_Tedeschi_, who declared we had no harmony, no science! + +"Now you will hear the ominous melody the maestro has engrafted on to +this profound harmonic composition, worthy to compare with the most +elaborate structures of the Germans, but never fatiguing or tiresome. + +"You French, who carried through such a bloodthirsty revolution, who +crushed your aristocracy under the paw of the lion mob, on the day when +this oratorio is performed in your capital, you will understand this +glorious dirge of the victims on whom God is avenging his chosen people. +None but an Italian could have written this pregnant and inexhaustible +theme--truly Dantesque. Do you think that it is nothing to have such a +dream of vengeance, even for a moment? Handel, Sebastian Bach, all you +old German masters, nay, even you, great Beethoven, on your knees! Here +is the queen of arts, Italy triumphant!" + +The Duchess had spoken while the curtain was being raised. And now the +physician heard the sublime symphony with which the composer introduces +the great Biblical drama. It is to express the sufferings of a whole +nation. Suffering is uniform in its expression, especially physical +suffering. Thus, having instinctively felt, like all men of genius, that +here there must be no variety of idea, the musician, having hit on his +leading phrase, has worked it out in various keys, grouping the masses +and the dramatis personae to take up the theme through modulations and +cadences of admirable structure. In such simplicity is power. + +"The effect of this strain, depicting the sensations of night and cold +in a people accustomed to live in the bright rays of the sun, and sung +by the people and their princes, is most impressive. There is something +relentless in that slow phrase of music; it is cold and sinister, like +an iron bar wielded by some celestial executioner, and dropping in +regular rhythm on the limbs of all his victims. As we hear it passing +from C minor into G minor, returning to C and again to the dominant G, +starting afresh and _fortissimo_ on the tonic B flat, drifting into +F major and back to C minor, and in each key in turn more ominously +terrible, chill, and dark, we are compelled at last to enter into the +impression intended by the composer." + +The Frenchman was, in fact, deeply moved when all this united sorrow +exploded in the cry: + + "O Nume d'Israel, + Se brami in liberta + Il popol tuo fedel, + Di lui di noi pieta!" + +(O God of Israel, if thou wouldst see thy faithful people free, have +mercy on them, and on us.) + +"Never was a grander synthesis composed of natural effects or a more +perfect idealization of nature. In a great national disaster, each one +for a long time bewails himself alone; then, from out of the mass, +rises up, here and there, a more emphatic and vehement cry of anguish; +finally, when the misery has fallen on all, it bursts forth like a +tempest. + +"As soon as they all recognize a common grievance, the dull murmurs of +the people become cries of impatience. Rossini has proceeded on this +hypothesis. After the outcry in C major, Pharoah sings his grand +recitative: _Mano ultrice di un Dio_ (Avenging hand of God), after which +the original subject is repeated with more vehement expression. All +Egypt appeals to Moses for help." + +The Duchess had taken advantage of the pause for the entrance of Moses +and Aaron to give this interpretation of that fine introduction. + +"Let them weep!" she added passionately. "They have done much ill. +Expiate your sins, Egyptians, expiate the crimes of your maddened Court! +With what amazing skill has this great painter made use of all the +gloomy tones of music, of all that is saddest on the musical palette! +What creepy darkness! what a mist! Is not your very spirit in mourning? +Are you not convinced of the reality of the blackness that lies over +the land? Do you not feel that Nature is wrapped in the deepest shades? +There are no palm-trees, no Egyptian palaces, no landscape. And what +a healing to your soul will the deeply religious strain be of the +heaven-sent Healer who will stay this cruel plague! How skilfully is +everything wrought up to end in that glorious invocation of Moses to +God. + +"By a learned elaboration, which Capraja could explain to you, this +appeal to heaven is accompanied by brass instruments only; it is that +which gives it such a solemn, religious cast. And not merely is the +artifice fine in its place; note how fertile in resource is genius. +Rossini has derived fresh beauty from the difficulty he himself created. +He has the strings in reserve to express daylight when it succeeds +to the darkness, and thus produces one of the greatest effects ever +achieved in music. + +"Till this inimitable genius showed the way never was such a result +obtained with mere _recitative_. We have not, so far, had an air or a +duet. The poet has relied on the strength of the idea, on the vividness +of his imagery, and the realism of the declamatory passages. This scene +of despair, this darkness that may be felt, these cries of anguish,--the +whole musical picture is as fine as your great Poussin's _Deluge_." + +Moses waved his staff, and it was light. + +"Here, monsieur, does not the music vie with the sun, whose splendor +it has borrowed, with nature, whose phenomena it expresses in every +detail?" the Duchess went on, in an undertone. "Art here reaches its +climax; no musician can get beyond this. Do not you hear Egypt waking up +after its long torpor? Joy comes in with the day. In what composition, +ancient or modern, will you find so grand a passage? The greatest +gladness in contrast to the deepest woe! What exclamations! What +gleeful notes! The oppressed spirit breathes again. What delirium in the +_tremolo_ of the orchestra! What a noble _tutti_! This is the rejoicing +of a delivered nation. Are you not thrilled with joy?" + +The physician, startled by the contrast, was, in fact, clapping his +hands, carried away by admiration for one of the finest compositions of +modern music. + +"_Brava la Doni!_" said Vendramin, who had heard the Duchess. + +"Now the introduction is ended," said she. "You have gone through a +great sensation," she added, turning to the Frenchman. "Your heart is +beating; in the depths of your imagination you have a splendid sunrise, +flooding with light a whole country that before was cold and dark. Now, +would you know the means by which the musician has worked, so as to +admire him to-morrow for the secrets of his craft after enjoying +the results to-night? What do you suppose produces this effect of +daylight--so sudden, so complicated, and so complete? It consists of a +simple chord of C, constantly reiterated, varied only by the chord of +4-6. This reveals the magic of his touch. To show you the glory of light +he has worked by the same means that he used to represent darkness and +sorrow. + +"This dawn in imagery is, in fact, absolutely the same as the natural +dawn; for light is one and the same thing everywhere, always alike in +itself, the effects varying only with the objects it falls on. Is it not +so? Well, the musician has taken for the fundamental basis of his music, +for its sole _motif_, a simple chord in C. The sun first sheds its light +on the mountain-tops and then in the valleys. In the same way the chord +is first heard on the treble string of the violins with boreal mildness; +it spreads through the orchestra, it awakes the instruments one by one, +and flows among them. Just as light glides from one thing to the next, +giving them color, the music moves on, calling out each rill of harmony +till all flow together in the _tutti_. + +"The violins, silent until now, give the signal with their tender +_tremolo_, softly _agitato_ like the first rays of morning. That light, +cheerful movement, which caresses the soul, is cleverly supported by +chords in the bass, and by a vague _fanfare_ on the trumpets, restricted +to their lowest notes, so as to give a vivid idea of the last cool +shadows that linger in the valleys while the first warm rays touch the +heights. Then all the wind is gradually added to strengthen the general +harmony. The voices come in with sighs of delight and surprise. At +last the brass breaks out, the trumpets sound. Light, the source of all +harmony, inundates all nature; every musical resource is produced with +a turbulence, a splendor, to compare with that of the Eastern sun. Even +the triangle, with its reiterated C, reminds us by its shrill accent and +playful rhythm of the song of early birds. + +"Thus the same key, freshly treated by the master's hand, expresses the +joy of all nature, while it soothes the grief it uttered before. + +"There is the hall-mark of the great genius: Unity. It is the same +but different. In one and the same phrase we find a thousand various +feelings of woe, the misery of a nation. In one and the same chord we +have all the various incidents of awakening nature, every expression of +the nation's joy. These two tremendous passages are soldered into one by +the prayer to an ever-living God, author of all things, of that woe +and that gladness alike. Now is not that introduction by itself a grand +poem?" + +"It is, indeed," said the Frenchman. + +"Next comes a quintette such as Rossini can give us. If he was ever +justified in giving vent to that flowery, voluptuous grace for which +Italian music is blamed, is it not in this charming movement in which +each person expresses joy? The enslaved people are delivered, and yet +a passion in peril is fain to moan. Pharaoh's son loves a Hebrew woman, +and she must leave him. What gives its ravishing charm to this quintette +is the return to the homelier feelings of life after the grandiose +picture of two stupendous and national emotions:--general misery, +general joy, expressed with the magic force stamped on them by divine +vengeance and with the miraculous atmosphere of the Bible narrative. +Now, was not I right?" added Massimilla, as the noble _sretto_ came to a +close. + + "Voci di giubilo, + D' in'orno eccheggino, + Di pace l' Iride + Per noi spunto." + +(Cries of joy sound about us. The rainbow of peace dawns upon us.) + +"How ingeniously the composer has constructed this passage!" she went +on, after waiting for a reply. "He begins with a solo on the horn, of +divine sweetness, supported by _arpeggios_ on the harps; for the first +voices to be heard in this grand concerted piece are those of Moses and +Aaron returning thanks to the true God. Their strain, soft and +solemn, reverts to the sublime ideas of the invocation, and mingles, +nevertheless, with the joy of the heathen people. This transition +combines the heavenly and the earthly in a way which genius alone could +invent, giving the _andante_ of this quintette a glow of color that I +can only compare to the light thrown by Titian on his Divine Persons. +Did you observe the exquisite interweaving of the voices? the clever +entrances by which the composer has grouped them round the main idea +given out by the orchestra? the learned progressions that prepare us for +the festal _allegro_? Did you not get a glimpse, as it were, of dancing +groups, the dizzy round of a whole nation escaped from danger? And +when the clarionet gives the signal for the _stretto_,--'_Voci di +giubilo_,'--so brilliant and gay, was not your soul filled with the +sacred pyrrhic joy of which David speaks in the Psalms, ascribing it to +the hills?" + +"Yes, it would make a delightful dance tune," said the doctor. + +"French! French! always French!" exclaimed the Duchess, checked in her +exultant mood by this sharp thrust. "Yes; you would be capable of taking +that wonderful burst of noble and dainty rejoicing and turning it into +a rigadoon. Sublime poetry finds no mercy in your eyes. The highest +genius,--saints, kings, disasters,--all that is most sacred must pass +under the rods of caricature. And the vulgarizing of great music by +turning it into a dance tune is to caricature it. With you, wit kills +soul, as argument kills reason." + +They all sat in silence through the _recitative_ of Osiride and Membrea, +who plot to annul the order given by Pharaoh for the departure of the +Hebrews. + +"Have I vexed you?" asked the physician to the Duchess. "I should be in +despair. Your words are like a magic wand. They unlock the pigeon-holes +of my brain, and let out new ideas, vivified by this sublime music." + +"No," replied she, "you have praised our great composer after your own +fashion. Rossini will be a success with you, for the sake of his witty +and sensual gifts. Let us hope that he may find some noble souls, +in love with the ideal--which must exist in your fruitful land,--to +appreciate the sublimity, the loftiness, of such music. Ah, now we have +the famous duet, between Elcia and Osiride!" she exclaimed, and she went +on, taking advantage of the triple salvo of applause which hailed la +Tinti, as she made her first appearance on the stage. + +"If la Tinti has fully understood the part of Elcia, you will hear +the frenzied song of a woman torn by her love for her people, and +her passion for one of their oppressors, while Osiride, full of mad +adoration for his beautiful vassal, tries to detain her. The opera is +built up as much on that grand idea as on that of Pharaoh's resistance +to the power of God and of liberty; you must enter into it thoroughly or +you will not understand this stupendous work. + +"Notwithstanding the disfavor you show to the dramas invented by our +_libretto_ writers, you must allow me to point out the skill with which +this one is constructed. The antithesis required in every fine work, and +eminently favorable to music, is well worked out. What can be finer than +a whole nation demanding liberty, held in bondage by bad faith, upheld +by God, and piling marvel on marvel to gain freedom? What more dramatic +than the Prince's love for a Hebrew woman, almost justifying treason to +the oppressor's power? + +"And this is what is expressed in this bold and stupendous musical poem; +Rossini has stamped each nation with its fantastic individuality, for +we have attributed to them a certain historic grandeur to which every +imagination subscribes. The songs of the Hebrews, and their trust in +God, are perpetually contrasted with Pharaoh's shrieks of rage and vain +efforts, represented with a strong hand. + +"At this moment Osiride, thinking only of love, hopes to detain his +mistress by the memories of their joys as lovers; he wants to conquer +the attractions of her feeling for her people. Here, then, you will find +delicious languor, the glowing sweetness, the voluptuous suggestions +of Oriental love, in the air '_Ah! se puoi cosi lasciarmi_,' sung by +Osiride, and in Elcia's reply, '_Ma perche cosi straziarmi?_' No; two +hearts in such melodious unison could never part," she went on, looking +at the Prince. + +"But the lovers are suddenly interrupted by the exultant voice of the +Hebrew people in the distance, which recalls Elcia. What a delightful +and inspiriting _allegro_ is the theme of this march, as the Israelites +set out for the desert! No one but Rossini can make wind instruments +and trumpets say so much. And is not the art which can express in two +phrases all that is meant by the 'native land' certainly nearer to +heaven than the others? This clarion-call always moves me so deeply that +I cannot find words to tell you how cruel it is to an enslaved people to +see those who are free march away!" + +The Duchess' eyes filled with tears as she listened to the grand +movement, which in fact crowns the opera. + +"_Dov' e mai quel core amante_," she murmured in Italian, as la Tinti +began the delightful _aria_ of the _stretto_ in which she implores pity +for her grief. "But what is the matter? The pit are dissatisfied--" + +"Genovese is braying like a stage," replied the Prince. + +In point of fact, this first duet with la Tinti was spoilt by Genovese's +utter breakdown. His excellent method, recalling that of Crescentini +and Veluti, seemed to desert him completely. A _sostenuto_ in the wrong +place, an embellishment carried to excess, spoilt the effect; or again +a loud climax with no due _crescendo_, an outburst of sound like water +tumbling through a suddenly opened sluice, showed complete and wilful +neglect of the laws of good taste. + +The pit was in the greatest excitement. The Venetian public believed +there was a deliberate plot between Genovese and his friends. La Tinti +was recalled and applauded with frenzy while Genovese had a hint or two +warning him of the hostile feeling of the audience. During this scene, +highly amusing to a Frenchman, while la Tinti was recalled eleven times +to receive alone the frantic acclamations of the house,--Genovese, who +was all but hissed, not daring to offer her his hand,--the doctor made a +remark to the Duchess as to the _stretto_ of the duet. + +"In this place," said he, "Rossini ought to have expressed the deepest +grief, and I find on the contrary an airy movement, a tone of ill-timed +cheerfulness." + +"You are right," said she. "This mistake is the result of a tyrannous +custom which composers are expected to obey. He was thinking more of +his prima donna than of Elcia when he wrote that _stretto_. But this +evening, even if la Tinti had been more brilliant than ever, I could +throw myself so completely into the situation, that the passage, lively +as it is, is to me full of sadness." + +The physician looked attentively from the Prince to the Duchess, but +could not guess the reason that held them apart, and that made this duet +seem to them so heartrending. + +"Now comes a magnificent thing, the scheming of Pharaoh against the +Hebrews. The great _aria 'A rispettarmi apprenda'_ (Learn to respect me) +is a triumph for Carthagenova, who will express superbly the offended +pride and the duplicity of a sovereign. The Throne will speak. He will +withdraw the concessions that have been made, he arms himself in wrath. +Pharaoh rises to his feet to clutch the prey that is escaping. + +"Rossini never wrote anything grander in style, or stamped with more +living and irresistible energy. It is a consummate work, supported by an +accompaniment of marvelous orchestration, as indeed is every portion of +this opera. The vigor of youth illumines the smallest details." + +The whole house applauded this noble movement, which was admirably +rendered by the singer, and thoroughly appreciated by the Venetians. + +"In the _finale_," said the Duchess, "you hear a repetition of the +march, expressive of the joy of deliverance and of faith in God, who +allows His people to rush off gleefully to wander in the Desert! What +lungs but would be refreshed by the aspirations of a whole nation freed +from slavery. + +"Oh, beloved and living melodies! Glory to the great genius who has +known how to give utterance to such feelings! There is something +essentially warlike in that march, proclaiming that the God of armies +is on the side of these people. How full of feeling are these strains +of thanksgiving! The imagery of the Bible rises up in our mind; this +glorious musical _scena_ enables us to realize one of the grandest +dramas of that ancient and solemn world. The religious form given to +some of the voice parts, and the way in which they come in, one by +one, to group with the others, express all we have ever imagined of the +sacred marvels of that early age of humanity. + +"And yet this fine concerted piece is no more than a development of +the theme of the march into all its musical outcome. That theme is the +inspiring element alike for the orchestra and the voices, for the air, +and for the brilliant instrumentation that supports it. + +"Elcia now comes to join the crowd; and to give shade to the rejoicing +spirit of this number, Rossini has made her utter her regrets. Listen +to her _duettino_ with Amenofi. Did blighted love ever express itself +in lovelier song? It is full of the grace of a _notturno_, of the secret +grief of hopeless love. How sad! how sad! The Desert will indeed be a +desert to her! + +"After this comes the fierce conflict of the Egyptians and the Hebrews. +All their joy is spoiled, their march stopped by the arrival of the +Egyptians. Pharaoh's edict is proclaimed in a musical phrase, hollow and +dread, which is the leading _motif_ of the _finale_; we could fancy that +we hear the tramp of the great Egyptian army, surrounding the sacred +phalanx of the true God, curling round it, like a long African serpent +enveloping its prey. But how beautiful is the lament of the duped and +disappointed Hebrews! Though, in truth, it is more Italian than Hebrew. +What a superb passage introduces Pharaoh's arrival, when his presence +brings the two leaders face to face, and all the moving passions of the +drama. The conflict of sentiments in that sublime _ottetto_, where the +wrath of Moses meets that of the two Pharaohs, is admirable. What a +medley of voices and of unchained furies! + +"No grander subject was ever wrought out by a composer. The famous +_finale_ of _Don Giovanni_, after all, only shows us a libertine at odds +with his victims, who invoke the vengeance of Heaven; while here earth +and its dominions try to defeat God. Two nations are here face to face. +And Rossini, having every means at his command, has made wonderful use +of them. He has succeeded in expressing the turmoil of a tremendous +storm as a background to the most terrible imprecations, without making +it ridiculous. He has achieved it by the use of chords repeated in +triple time--a monotonous rhythm of gloomy musical emphasis--and so +persistent as to be quite overpowering. The horror of the Egyptians at +the torrent of fire, the cries of vengeance from the Hebrews, needed a +delicate balance of masses; so note how he has made the development of +the orchestral parts follow that of the chorus. The _allegro assai_ in C +minor is terrible in the midst of that deluge of fire. + +"Confess now," said Massimilla, at the moment when Moses, lifting his +rod, brings down the rain of fire, and when the composer puts forth all +his powers in the orchestra and on the stage, "that no music ever more +perfectly expressed the idea of distress and confusion." + +"They have spread to the pit," remarked the Frenchman. + +"What is it now? The pit is certainly in great excitement," said the +Duchess. + +In the _finale_, Genovese, his eyes fixed on la Tinti, had launched +into such preposterous flourishes, that the pit, indignant at this +interference with their enjoyment, were at a height of uproar. Nothing +could be more exasperating to Italian ears than this contrast of good +and bad singing. The manager went so far as to appear on the stage, to +say that in reply to his remarks to his leading singer, Signor Genovese +had replied that he knew not how or by what offence he had lost the +countenance of the public, at the very moment when he was endeavoring to +achieve perfection in his art. + +"Let him be as bad as he was yesterday--that was good enough for us!" +roared Capraja, in a rage. + +This suggestion put the house into a good humor again. + +Contrary to Italian custom, the ballet was not much attended to. In +every box the only subject of conversation was Genovese's strange +behavior, and the luckless manager's speech. Those who were admitted +behind the scenes went off at once to inquire into the mystery of this +performance, and it was presently rumored that la Tinti had treated her +colleague Genovese to a dreadful scene, in which she had accused the +tenor of being jealous of her success, of having hindered it by his +ridiculous behavior, and even of trying to spoil her performance by +acting passionate devotion. The lady was shedding bitter tears over this +catastrophe. She had been hoping, she said, to charm her lover, who was +somewhere in the house, though she had failed to discover him. + +Without knowing the peaceful course of daily life in Venice at the +present day, so devoid of incident that a slight altercation between two +lovers, or the transient huskiness of a singer's voice becomes a subject +of discussion, regarded of as much importance as politics in England, +it is impossible to conceive of the excitement in the theatre and at the +Cafe Florian. La Tinti was in love; la Tinti had been hindered in her +performance; Genovese was mad or purposely malignant, inspired by the +artist's jealousy so familiar to Italians! What a mine of matter for +eager discussion! + +The whole pit was talking as men talk at the Bourse, and the result was +such a clamor as could not fail to amaze a Frenchman accustomed to the +quiet of the Paris theatres. The boxes were in a ferment like the stir +of swarming bees. + +One man alone remained passive in the turmoil. Emilio Memmi, with his +back to the stage and his eyes fixed on Massimilla with a melancholy +expression, seemed to live in her gaze; he had not once looked round at +the prima donna. + +"I need not ask you, _caro carino_, what was the result of my +negotiation," said Vendramin to Emilio. "Your pure and pious Massimilla +has been supremely kind--in short, she has been la Tinti?" + +The Prince's reply was a shake of his head, full of the deepest +melancholy. + +"Your love has not descended from the ethereal spaces where you soar," +said Vendramin, excited by opium. "It is not yet materialized. This +morning, as every day for six months--you felt flowers opening their +scented cups under the dome of your skull that had expanded to vast +proportions. All your blood moved to your swelling heart that rose to +choke your throat. There, in there,"--and he laid his hand on Emilio's +breast,--"you felt rapturous emotions. Massimilla's voice fell on your +soul in waves of light; her touch released a thousand imprisoned joys +which emerged from the convolutions of your brain to gather about you in +clouds, to waft your etherealized body through the blue air to a purple +glow far above the snowy heights, to where the pure love of angels +dwells. The smile, the kisses of her lips wrapped you in a poisoned robe +which burnt up the last vestiges of your earthly nature. Her eyes were +twin stars that turned you into shadowless light. You knelt together +on the palm-branches of heaven, waiting for the gates of Paradise to be +opened; but they turned heavily on their hinges, and in your impatience +you struck at them, but could not reach them. Your hand touched nothing +but clouds more nimble than your desires. Your radiant companion, +crowned with white roses like a bride of Heaven, wept at your anguish. +Perhaps she was murmuring melodious litanies to the Virgin, while the +demoniacal cravings of the flesh were haunting you with their shameless +clamor, and you disdained the divine fruits of that ecstasy in which I +live, though shortening my life." + +"Your exaltation, my dear Vendramin," replied Emilio, calmly, "is still +beneath reality. Who can describe that purely physical exhaustion in +which we are left by the abuse of a dream of pleasure, leaving the +soul still eternally craving, and the spirit in clear possession of its +faculties? + +"But I am weary of this torment, which is that of Tantalus. This is my +last night on earth. After one final effort, our Mother shall have her +child again--the Adriatic will silence my last sigh--" + +"Are you idiotic?" cried Vendramin. "No; you are mad; for madness, the +crisis we despise, is the memory of an antecedent condition acting on +our present state of being. The genius of my dreams has taught me that, +and much else! You want to make one of the Duchess and la Tinti; nay, +dear Emilio, take them separately; it will be far wiser. Raphael alone +ever united form and idea. You want to be the Raphael of love; but +chance cannot be commanded. Raphael was a 'fluke' of God's creation, +for He foreordained that form and idea should be antagonistic; otherwise +nothing could live. When the first cause is more potent than the +outcome, nothing comes of it. We must live either on earth or in the +skies. Remain in the skies; it is always too soon to come down to +earth." + +"I will take the Duchess home," said the Prince, "and make a last +attempt--afterwards?" + +"Afterwards," cried Vendramin, anxiously, "promise to call for me at +Florian's." + +"I will." + +This dialogue, in modern Greek, with which Vendramin and Emilio were +familiar, as many Venetians are, was unintelligible to the Duchess and +to the Frenchman. Although he was quite outside the little circle +that held the Duchess, Emilio and Vendramin together--for these three +understood each other by means of Italian glances, by turns arch and +keen, or veiled and sidelong--the physician at last discerned part of +the truth. An earnest entreaty from the Duchess had prompted Vendramin's +suggestion to Emilio, for Massimilla had begun to suspect the misery +endured by her lover in that cold empyrean where he was wandering, +though she had no suspicions of la Tinti. + +"These two young men are mad!" said the doctor. + +"As to the Prince," said the Duchess, "trust me to cure him. As to +Vendramin, if he cannot understand this sublime music, he is perhaps +incurable." + +"If you would but tell me the cause of their madness, I could cure +them," said the Frenchman. + +"And since when have great physicians ceased to read men's minds?" said +she, jestingly. + +The ballet was long since ended; the second act of _Mose_ was beginning. +The pit was perfectly attentive. A rumor had got abroad that Duke +Cataneo had lectured Genovese, representing to him what injury he was +doing to Clarina, the _diva_ of the day. The second act would certainly +be magnificent. + +"The Egyptian Prince and his father are on the stage," said the Duchess. +"They have yielded once more, though insulting the Hebrews, but they +are trembling with rage. The father congratulates himself on his son's +approaching marriage, and the son is in despair at this fresh obstacle, +though it only increases his love, to which everything is opposed. +Genovese and Carthagenova are singing admirably. As you see, the tenor +is making his peace with the house. How well he brings out the beauty of +the music! The phrase given out by the son on the tonic, and repeated by +the father on the dominant, is all in character with the simple, serious +scheme which prevails throughout the score; the sobriety of it makes the +endless variety of the music all the more wonderful. All Egypt is there. + +"I do not believe that there is in modern music a composition more +perfectly noble. The solemn and majestic paternity of a king is fully +expressed in that magnificent theme, in harmony with the grand style +that stamps the opera throughout. The idea of a Pharaoh's son pouring +out his sorrows on his father's bosom could surely not be more admirably +represented than in this grand imagery. Do you not feel a sense of the +splendor we are wont to attribute to that monarch of antiquity?" + +"It is indeed sublime music," said the Frenchman. + +"The air _Pace mia smarrita_, which the Queen will now sing, is one of +those _bravura_ songs which every composer is compelled to introduce, +though they mar the general scheme of the work; but an opera would as +often as not never see the light, if the prima donna's vanity were not +duly flattered. Still, this musical 'sop' is so fine in itself that it +is performed as written, on every stage; it is so brilliant that the +leading lady does not substitute her favorite show piece, as is very +commonly done in operas. + +"And now comes the most striking movement in the score: the duet between +Osiride and Elcia in the subterranean chamber where he has hidden her to +keep her from the departing Israelites, and to fly with her himself from +Egypt. The lovers are then intruded on by Aaron, who has been to warn +Amalthea, and we get the grandest of all quartettes: _Mi manca la voce, +mi sento morire_. This is one of those masterpieces that will survive +in spite of time, that destroyer of fashion in music, for it speaks the +language of the soul which can never change. Mozart holds his own by +the famous _finale_ to _Don Giovanni_; Marcello, by his psalm, _Coeli +enarrant gloriam Dei_; Cimarosa, by the air _Pria che spunti_; Beethoven +by his C minor symphony; Pergolesi, by his _Stabat Mater_; Rossini will +live by _Mi manca la voce_. What is most to be admired in Rossini is his +command of variety to form; to produce the effect here required, he has +had recourse to the old structure of the canon in unison, to bring +the voices in, and merge them in the same melody. As the form of these +sublime melodies was new, he set them in an old frame; and to give it +the more relief he has silenced the orchestra, accompanying the voices +with the harps alone. It is impossible to show greater ingenuity of +detail, or to produce a grander general effect.--Dear me! again an +outbreak!" said the Duchess. + +Genovese, who had sung his duet with Carthagenova so well, was +caricaturing himself now that la Tinti was on the stage. From a great +singer he sank to the level of the most worthless chorus singer. + +The most formidable uproar arose that had ever echoed to the roof of the +_Fenice_. The commotion only yielded to Clarina, and she, furious at the +difficulties raised by Genovese's obstinacy, sang _Mi manca la voce_ as +it will never be sung again. The enthusiasm was tremendous; the audience +forgot their indignation and rage in pleasure that was really acute. + +"She floods my soul with purple glow!" said Capraja, waving his hand in +benediction at la _Diva_ Tinti. + +"Heaven send all its blessings on your head!" cried a gondolier. + +"Pharaoh will now revoke his commands," said the Duchess, while the +commotion in the pit was calming down. "Moses will overwhelm him, even +on his throne, by declaring the death of every first-born son in Egypt, +singing that strain of vengeance which augurs thunders from heaven, +while above it the Hebrew clarions ring out. But you must clearly +understand that this air is by Pacini; Carthagenova introduces it +instead of that by Rossini. This air, _Paventa_, will no doubt hold +its place in the score; it gives a bass too good an opportunity for +displaying the quality of his voice, and expression here will carry the +day rather than science. However, the air is full of magnificent menace, +and it is possible that we may not be long allowed to hear it." + +A thunder of clapping and _bravos_ hailed the song, followed by deep and +cautious silence; nothing could be more significant or more thoroughly +Venetian than the outbreak and its sudden suppression. + +"I need say nothing of the coronation march announcing the enthronement +of Osiride, intended by the King as a challenge to Moses; to hear it +is enough. Their famous Beethoven has written nothing grander. And this +march, full of earthly pomp, contrasts finely with the march of the +Israelites. Compare them, and you will see that the music is full of +purpose. + +"Elcia declares her love in the presence of the two Hebrew leaders, and +then renounces it in the fine _aria_, _Porge la destra amata_. (Place +your beloved hand.) Ah! What anguish! Only look at the house!" + +The pit was shouting _bravo_, when Genovese left the stage. + +"Now, free from her deplorable lover, we shall hear Tinti sing, +_O desolata Elcia_--the tremendous _cavatina_ expressive of love +disapproved by God." + +"Where art thou, Rossini?" cried Cataneo. "If he could but hear the +music created by his genius so magnificently performed," he went on. +"Is not Clarina worthy of him?" he asked Capraja. "To give life to those +notes by such gusts of flame, starting from the lungs and feeding in +the air on some unknown matter which our ears inhale, and which bears us +heavenwards in a rapture of love, she must be divine!" + +"She is like the gorgeous Indian plant, which deserting the earth +absorbs invisible nourishment from the atmosphere, and sheds from +its spiral white blossom such fragrant vapors as fill the brain with +dreams," replied Capraja. + +On being recalled, la Tinti appeared alone. She was received with a +storm of applause; a thousand kisses were blown to her from finger-tips; +she was pelted with roses, and a wreath was made of the flowers snatched +from the ladies' caps, almost all sent out from Paris. + +The _cavatina_ was encored. + +"How eagerly Capraja, with his passion for embellishments, must have +looked forward to this air, which derives all its value from execution," +remarked Massimilla. "Here Rossini has, so to speak, given the +reins over to the singer's fancy. Her _cadenzas_ and her feeling +are everything. With a poor voice or inferior execution, it would be +nothing--the throat is responsible for the effects of this _aria_. + +"The singer has to express the most intense anguish,--that of a woman +who sees her lover dying before her very eyes. La Tinti makes the house +ring with her highest notes; and Rossini, to leave pure singing free to +do its utmost, has written it in the simplest, clearest style. Then, +as a crowning effort, he has composed those heartrending musical cries: +_Tormenti! Affanni! Smanie!_ What grief, what anguish, in those runs. +And la Tinti, you see, has quite carried the house off its feet." + +The Frenchman, bewildered by this adoring admiration throughout a vast +theatre for the source of its delight, here had a glimpse of genuine +Italian nature. But neither the Duchess nor the two young men paid any +attention to the ovation. Clarina began again. + +The Duchess feared that she was seeing her Emilio for the last time. As +to the Prince: in the presence of the Duchess, the sovereign divinity +who lifted him to the skies, he had forgotten where he was, he no longer +heard the voice of the woman who had initiated him into the mysteries of +earthly pleasure, for deep dejection made his ears tingle with a chorus +of plaintive voices, half-drowned in a rushing noise as of pouring rain. + +Vendramin saw himself in an ancient Venetian costume, looking on at the +ceremony of the _Bucentaur_. The Frenchman, who plainly discerned +that some strange and painful mystery stood between the Prince and the +Duchess, was racking his brain with shrewd conjecture to discover what +it could be. + +The scene had changed. In front of a fine picture, representing +the Desert and the Red Sea, the Egyptians and Hebrews marched and +countermarched without any effect on the feelings of the four persons +in the Duchess' box. But when the first chords on the harps preluded +the hymn of the delivered Israelites, the Prince and Vendramin rose and +stood leaning against the opposite sides of the box, and the Duchess, +resting her elbow on the velvet ledge, supported her head on her left +hand. + +The Frenchman, understanding from this little stir, how important this +justly famous chorus was in the opinion of the house, listened with +devout attention. + +The audience, with one accord, shouted for its repetition. + +"I feel as if I were celebrating the liberation of Italy," thought a +Milanese. + +"Such music lifts up bowed heads, and revives hope in the most torpid," +said a man from the Romagna. + +"In this scene," said Massimilla, whose emotion was evident, "science is +set aside. Inspiration, alone, dictated this masterpiece; it rose from +the composer's soul like a cry of love! As to the accompaniment, it +consists of the harps; the orchestra appears only at the last repetition +of that heavenly strain. Rossini can never rise higher than in this +prayer; he will do as good work, no doubt, but never better: the sublime +is always equal to itself; but this hymn is one of the things that will +always be sublime. The only match for such a conception might be found +in the psalms of the great Marcello, a noble Venetian, who was to music +what Giotto was to painting. The majesty of the phrase, unfolding itself +with episodes of inexhaustible melody, is comparable with the finest +things ever invented by religious writers. + +"How simple is the structure! Moses opens the attack in G minor, ending +in a cadenza in B flat which allows the chorus to come in, _pianissimo_ +at first, in B flat, returning by modulations to G minor. This splendid +treatment of the voices, recurring three times, ends in the last strophe +with a _stretto_ in G major of absolutely overpowering effect. We feel +as though this hymn of a nation released from slavery, as it mounts to +heaven, were met by kindred strains falling from the higher spheres. The +stars respond with joy to the ecstasy of liberated mortals. The rounded +fulness of the rhythm, the deliberate dignity of the graduations leading +up to the outbursts of thanksgiving, and its slow return raise heavenly +images in the soul. Could you not fancy that you saw heaven open, angels +holding sistrums of gold, prostrate seraphs swinging their fragrant +censers, and the archangels leaning on the flaming swords with which +they have vanquished the heathen? + +"The secret of this music and its refreshing effect on the soul is, I +believe, that of a very few works of human genius: it carries us for +the moment into the infinite; we feel it within us; we see it, in +those melodies as boundless as the hymns sung round the throne of God. +Rossini's genius carries us up to prodigious heights, whence we look +down on a promised land, and our eyes, charmed by heavenly light, gaze +into limitless space. Elcia's last strain, having almost recovered from +her grief, brings a feeling of earth-born passions into this hymn of +thanksgiving. This, again, is a touch of genius. + +"Ay, sing!" exclaimed the Duchess, as she listened to the last stanza +with the same gloomy enthusiasm as the singers threw into it. "Sing! You +are free!" + +The words were spoken in a voice that startled the physician. To +divert Massimilla from her bitter reflections, while the excitement +of recalling la Tinti was at its height, he engaged her in one of the +arguments in which the French excel. + +"Madame," said he, "in explaining this grand work--which I shall come to +hear again to-morrow with a fuller comprehension, thanks to you, of its +structure and its effect--you have frequently spoken of the color of the +music, and of the ideas it depicts; now I, as an analyst, a materialist, +must confess that I have always rebelled against the affectation of +certain enthusiasts, who try to make us believe that music paints with +tones. Would it not be the same thing if Raphael's admirers spoke of his +singing with colors?" + +"In the language of musicians," replied the Duchess, "_painting_ is +arousing certain associations in our souls, or certain images in our +brain; and these memories and images have a color of their own; they are +sad or cheerful. You are battling for a word, that is all. According +to Capraja, each instrument has its task, its mission, and appeals to +certain feelings in our souls. Does a pattern in gold on a blue ground +produce the same sensations in you as a red pattern on black or green? +In these, as in music, there are no figures, no expression of +feeling; they are purely artistic, and yet no one looks at them with +indifference. Has not the oboe the peculiar tone that we associate +with the open country, in common with most wind instruments? The brass +suggests martial ideas, and rouses us to vehement or even somewhat +furious feelings. The strings, for which the material is derived from +the organic world, seem to appeal to the subtlest fibres of our nature; +they go to the very depths of the heart. When I spoke of the gloomy hue, +and the coldness of the tones in the introduction to _Mose_, was I +not fully as much justified as your critics are when they speak of the +'color' in a writer's language? Do you not acknowledge that there is a +nervous style, a pallid style, a lively, and a highly-colored style? Art +can paint with words, sounds, colors, lines, form; the means are many; +the result is one. + +"An Italian architect might give us the same sensation that is produced +in us by the introduction to _Mose_, by constructing a walk through +dark, damp avenues of tall, thick trees, and bringing us out suddenly +in a valley full of streams, flowers, and mills, and basking in the +sunshine. In their greatest moments the arts are but the expression of +the grand scenes of nature. + +"I am not learned enough to enlarge on the philosophy of music; go and +talk to Capraja; you will be amazed at what he can tell you. He will say +that every instrument that depends on the touch or breath of man for its +expression and length of note, is superior as a vehicle of expression +to color, which remains fixed, or speech, which has its limits. The +language of music is infinite; it includes everything; it can express +all things. + +"Now do you see wherein lies the pre-eminence of the work you have just +heard? I can explain it in a few words. There are two kinds of music: +one, petty, poor, second-rate, always the same, based on a hundred or +so of phrases which every musician has at his command, a more or less +agreeable form of babble which most composers live in. We listen to +their strains, their would-be melodies, with more or less satisfaction, +but absolutely nothing is left in our mind; by the end of the century +they are forgotten. But the nations, from the beginning of time till +our own day, have cherished as a precious treasure certain strains which +epitomize their instincts and habits; I might almost say their history. +Listen to one of these primitive tones,--the Gregorian chant, +for instance, is, in sacred song, the inheritance of the earliest +peoples,--and you will lose yourself in deep dreaming. Strange and +immense conceptions will unfold within you, in spite of the extreme +simplicity of these rudimentary relics. And once or twice in a +century--not oftener, there arises a Homer of music, to whom God grants +the gift of being ahead of his age; men who can compact melodies full of +accomplished facts, pregnant with mighty poetry. Think of this; remember +it. The thought, repeated by you, will prove fruitful; it is melody, not +harmony, that can survive the shocks of time. + +"The music of this oratorio contains a whole world of great and sacred +things. A work which begins with that introduction and ends with that +prayer is immortal--as immortal as the Easter hymn, _O filii et filioe_, +as the _Dies iroe_ of the dead, as all the songs which in every land +have outlived its splendor, its happiness, and its ruined prosperity." + +The tears the Duchess wiped away as she quitted her box showed plainly +that she was thinking of the Venice that is no more; and Vendramin +kissed her hand. + +The performance ended with the most extraordinary chaos of noises: abuse +and hisses hurled at Genovese and a fit of frenzy in praise of la Tinti. +It was a long time since the Venetians had had so lively an evening. +They were warmed and revived by that antagonism which is never lacking +in Italy, where the smallest towns always throve on the antagonistic +interests of two factions: the Geulphs and Ghibellines everywhere; the +Capulets and the Montagues at Verona; the Geremei and the Lomelli at +Bologna; the Fieschi and the Doria at Genoa; the patricians and the +populace, the Senate and tribunes of the Roman republic; the Pazzi and +the Medici at Florence; the Sforza and the Visconti at Milan; the Orsini +and the Colonna at Rome,--in short, everywhere and on every occasion +there has been the same impulse. + +Out in the streets there were already _Genovists_ and _Tintists_. + +The Prince escorted the Duchess, more depressed than ever by the loves +of Osiride; she feared some similar disaster to her own, and could only +cling to Emilio, as if to keep him next her heart. + +"Remember your promise," said Vendramin. "I will wait for you in the +square." + + + +Vendramin took the Frenchman's arm, proposing that they should walk +together on the Piazza San Marco while awaiting the Prince. + +"I shall be only too glad if he should not come," he added. + +This was the text for a conversation between the two, Vendramin +regarding it as a favorable opportunity for consulting the physician, +and telling him the singular position Emilio had placed himself in. + +The Frenchman did as every Frenchman does on all occasions: he laughed. +Vendramin, who took the matter very seriously, was angry; but he was +mollified when the disciple of Majendie, of Cuvier, of Dupuytren, and +of Brossais assured him that he believed he could cure the Prince of his +high-flown raptures, and dispel the heavenly poetry in which he shrouded +Massimilla as in a cloud. + +"A happy form of misfortune!" said he. "The ancients, who were not such +fools as might be inferred from their crystal heaven and their ideas on +physics, symbolized in the fable of Ixion the power which nullifies the +body and makes the spirit lord of all." + +Vendramin and the doctor presently met Genovese, and with him the +fantastic Capraja. The melomaniac was anxious to learn the real cause +of the tenor's _fiasco_. Genovese, the question being put to him, talked +fast, like all men who can intoxicate themselves by the ebullition of +ideas suggested to them by a passion. + +"Yes, signori, I love her, I worship her with a frenzy of which I never +believed myself capable, now that I am tired of women. Women play the +mischief with art. Pleasure and work cannot be carried on together. +Clara fancies that I was jealous of her success, that I wanted to +hinder her triumph at Venice; but I was clapping in the side-scenes, and +shouted _Diva_ louder than any one in the house." + +"But even that," said Cataneo, joining them, "does not explain why, from +being a divine singer, you should have become one of the most execrable +performers who ever piped air through his larynx, giving none of the +charm even which enchants and bewitches us." + +"I!" said the singer. "I a bad singer! I who am the equal of the +greatest performers!" + +By this time, the doctor and Vendramin, Capraja, Cataneo, and Genovese +had made their way to the piazzetta. It was midnight. The glittering +bay, outlined by the churches of San Giorgio and San Paulo at the end +of the Giudecca, and the beginning of the Grand Canal, that opens so +mysteriously under the _Dogana_ and the church of Santa Maria della +Salute, lay glorious and still. The moon shone on the barques along the +Riva de' Schiavoni. The waters of Venice, where there is no tide, looked +as if they were alive, dancing with a myriad spangles. Never had a +singer a more splendid stage. + +Genovese, with an emphatic flourish, seemed to call Heaven and Earth to +witness; and then, with no accompaniment but the lapping waves, he sang +_Ombra adorata_, Crescentini's great air. The song, rising up between +the statues of San Teodoro and San Giorgio, in the heart of sleeping +Venice lighted by the moon, the words, in such strange harmony with the +scene, and the melancholy passion of the singer, held the Italians and +the Frenchman spellbound. + +At the very first notes, Vendramin's face was wet with tears. Capraja +stood as motionless as one of the statues in the ducal palace. Cataneo +seemed moved to some feeling. The Frenchman, taken by surprise, was +meditative, like a man of science in the presence of a phenomenon that +upsets all his fundamental axioms. These four minds, all so different, +whose hopes were so small, who believed in nothing for themselves +or after themselves, who regarded their own existence as that of a +transient and a fortuitous being,--like the little life of a plant or a +beetle,--had a glimpse of Heaven. Never did music more truly merit the +epithet divine. The consoling notes, as they were poured out, enveloped +their souls in soft and soothing airs. On these vapors, almost visible, +as it seemed to the listeners, like the marble shapes about them in the +silver moonlight, angels sat whose wings, devoutly waving, expressed +adoration and love. The simple, artless melody penetrated to the soul as +with a beam of light. It was a holy passion! + +But the singer's vanity roused them from their emotion with a terrible +shock. + +"Now, am I a bad singer?" he exclaimed, as he ended. + +His audience only regretted that the instrument was not a thing of +Heaven. This angelic song was then no more than the outcome of a man's +offended vanity! The singer felt nothing, thought nothing, of the pious +sentiments and divine images he could create in others,--no more, in +fact, than Paganini's violin knows what the player makes it utter. What +they had seen in fancy was Venice lifting its shroud and singing--and it +was merely the result of a tenor's _fiasco_! + +"Can you guess the meaning of such a phenomenon?" the Frenchman asked of +Capraja, wishing to make him talk, as the Duchess had spoken of him as a +profound thinker. + +"What phenomenon?" said Capraja. + +"Genovese--who is admirable in the absence of la Tinti, and when he +sings with her is a braying ass." + +"He obeys an occult law of which one of your chemists might perhaps give +you the mathematical formula, and which the next century will no doubt +express in a statement full of _x_, _a_, and _b_, mixed up with little +algebraic signs, bars, and quirks that give me the colic; for the finest +conceptions of mathematics do not add much to the sum total of our +enjoyment. + +"When an artist is so unfortunate as to be full of the passion he wishes +to express, he cannot depict it because he is the thing itself instead +of its image. Art is the work of the brain, not of the heart. When you +are possessed by a subject you are a slave, not a master; you are like a +king besieged by his people. Too keen a feeling, at the moment when you +want to represent that feeling, causes an insurrection of the senses +against the governing faculty." + +"Might we not convince ourselves of this by some further experiment?" +said the doctor. + +"Cataneo, you might bring your tenor and the prima donna together +again," said Capraja to his friend. + +"Well, gentlemen," said the Duke, "come to sup with me. We ought to +reconcile the tenor and la Clarina; otherwise the season will be ruined +in Venice." + +The invitation was accepted. + +"Gondoliers!" called Cataneo. + +"One minute," said Vendramin. "Memmi is waiting for me at Florian's; I +cannot leave him to himself. We must make him tipsy to-night, or he will +kill himself to-morrow." + +"_Corpo santo!_" exclaimed the Duke. "I must keep that young fellow +alive, for the happiness and future prospects of my race. I will invite +him, too." + +They all went back to Florian's, where the assembled crowd were holding +an eager and stormy discussion to which the tenor's arrival put an end. +In one corner, near a window looking out on the colonnade, gloomy, with +a fixed gaze and rigid attitude, Emilio was a dismal image of despair. + +"That crazy fellow," said the physician, in French, to Vendramin, "does +not know what he wants. Here is a man who can make of a Massimilla Doni +a being apart from the rest of creation, possessing her in heaven, amid +ideal splendor such as no power on earth can make real. He can behold +his mistress for ever sublime and pure, can always hear within him what +we have just heard on the seashore; can always live in the light of +a pair of eyes which create for him the warm and golden glow that +surrounds the Virgin in Titian's Assumption,--after Raphael had invented +it or had it revealed to him for the Transfiguration,--and this man only +longs to smirch the poem. + +"By my advice he must needs combine his sensual joys and his heavenly +adoration in one woman. In short, like all the rest of us, he will have +a mistress. He had a divinity, and the wretched creature insists on her +being a female! I assure you, monsieur, he is resigning heaven. I will +not answer for it that he may not ultimately die of despair. + +"O ye women's faces, delicately outlined in a pure and radiant oval, +reminding us of those creations of art where it has most successfully +competed with nature! Divine feet that cannot walk, slender forms +that an earthly breeze would break, shapes too frail ever to conceive, +virgins that we dreamed of as we grew out of childhood, admired in +secret, and adored without hope, veiled in the beams of some unwearying +desire,--maids whom we may never see again, but whose smile remains +supreme in our life, what hog of Epicurus could insist on dragging you +down to the mire of this earth! + +"The sun, monsieur, gives light and heat to the world, only because it +is at a distance of thirty-three millions of leagues. Get nearer to +it, and science warns you that it is not really hot or luminous,--for +science is of some use," he added, looking at Capraja. + +"Not so bad for a Frenchman and a doctor," said Capraja, patting the +foreigner on the shoulder. "You have in those words explained the +thing which Europeans least understand in all Dante: his Beatrice. Yes, +Beatrice, that ideal figure, the queen of the poet's fancies, chosen +above all the elect, consecrated with tears, deified by memory, and for +ever young in the presence of ineffectual desire!" + +"Prince," said the Duke to Emilio, "come and sup with me. You cannot +refuse the poor Neapolitan whom you have robbed both of his wife and of +his mistress." + +This broad Neapolitan jest, spoken with an aristocratic good manner, +made Emilio smile; he allowed the Duke to take his arm and lead him +away. + +Cataneo had already sent a messenger to his house from the cafe. + +As the Palazzo Memmi was on the Grand Canal, not far from Santa Maria +della Salute, the way thither on foot was round by the Rialto, or it +could be reached in a gondola. The four guests would not separate and +preferred to walk; the Duke's infirmities obliged him to get into his +gondola. + +At about two in the morning anybody passing the Memmi palace would have +seen light pouring out of every window across the Grand Canal, and have +heard the delightful overture to _Semiramide_ performed at the foot of +the steps by the orchestra of the _Fenice_, as a serenade to la Tinti. + +The company were at supper in the second floor gallery. From the balcony +la Tinti in return sang Almavida's _Buona sera_ from _Il Barbiere_, +while the Duke's steward distributed payment from his master to the +poor artists and bid them to dinner the next day, such civilities as are +expected of grand signors who protect singers, and of fine ladies who +protect tenors and basses. In these cases there is nothing for it but to +marry all the _corps de theatre_. + +Cataneo did things handsomely; he was the manager's banker, and this +season was costing him two thousand crowns. + +He had had all the palace furnished, had imported a French cook, and +wines of all lands. So the supper was a regal entertainment. + +The Prince, seated next la Tinti, was keenly alive, all through the +meal, to what poets in every language call the darts of love. The +transcendental vision of Massimilla was eclipsed, just as the idea +of God is sometimes hidden by clouds of doubt in the consciousness of +solitary thinkers. Clarina thought herself the happiest woman in +the world as she perceived Emilio was in love with her. Confident of +retaining him, her joy was reflected in her features, her beauty was so +dazzling that the men, as they lifted their glasses, could not resist +bowing to her with instinctive admiration. + +"The Duchess is not to compare with la Tinti," said the Frenchman, +forgetting his theory under the fire of the Sicilian's eyes. + +The tenor ate and drank languidly; he seemed to care only to identify +himself with the prima donna's life, and had lost the hearty sense of +enjoyment which is characteristic of Italian men singers. + +"Come, signorina," said the Duke, with an imploring glance at Clarina, +"and you, _caro prima uomo_," he added to Genovese, "unite your voices +in one perfect sound. Let us have the C of _Qual portento_, when light +appears in the oratorio we have just heard, to convince my old friend +Capraja of the superiority of unison to any embellishment." + +"I will carry her off from that Prince she is in love with; for she +adores him--it stares me in the face!" said Genovese to himself. + +What was the amazement of the guests who had heard Genovese out of +doors, when he began to bray, to coo, mew, squeal, gargle, bellow, +thunder, bark, shriek, even produce sounds which could only be described +as a hoarse rattle,--in short, go through an incomprehensible farce, +while his face was transfigured with rapturous expression like that of +a martyr, as painted by Zurbaran or Murillo, Titian or Raphael. The +general shout of laughter changed to almost tragical gravity when they +saw that Genovese was in utter earnest. La Tinti understood that her +companion was in love with her, and had spoken the truth on the stage, +the land of falsehood. + +"_Poverino!_" she murmured, stroking the Prince's hand under the table. + +"By all that is holy!" cried Capraja, "will you tell me what score you +are reading at this moment--murdering Rossini? Pray inform us what you +are thinking about, what demon is struggling in your throat." + +"A demon!" cried Genovese, "say rather the god of music. My eyes, +like those of Saint-Cecilia, can see angels, who, pointing with their +fingers, guide me along the lines of the score which is written in +notes of fire, and I am trying to keep up with them. PER DIO! do you not +understand? The feeling that inspires me has passed into my being; it +fills my heart and my lungs; my soul and throat have but one life. + +"Have you never, in a dream, listened to the most glorious strains, the +ideas of unknown composers who have made use of pure sound as nature +has hidden it in all things,--sound which we call forth, more or less +perfectly, by the instruments we employ to produce masses of various +color; but which in those dream-concerts are heard free from the +imperfections of the performers who cannot be all feeling, all soul? And +I, I give you that perfection, and you abuse me! + +"You are as mad at the pit of the _Fenice_, who hissed me! I scorned the +vulgar crowd for not being able to mount with me to the heights whence +we reign over art, and I appeal to men of mark, to a Frenchman--Why, he +is gone!" + +"Half an hour ago," said Vendramin. + +"That is a pity. He, perhaps, would have understood me, since Italians, +lovers of art, do not--" + +"On you go!" said Capraja, with a smile, and tapping lightly on the +tenor's head. "Ride off on the divine Ariosto's hippogriff; hunt down +your radiant chimera, musical visionary as you are!" + +In point of fact, all the others, believing that Genovese was drunk, let +him talk without listening to him. Capraja alone had understood the case +put by the French physician. + + + +While the wine of Cyprus was loosening every tongue, and each one was +prancing on his favorite hobby, the doctor, in a gondola, was waiting +for the Duchess, having sent her a note written by Vendramin. Massimilla +appeared in her night wrapper, so much had she been alarmed by the tone +of the Prince's farewell, and so startled by the hopes held out by the +letter. + +"Madame," said the Frenchman, as he placed her in a seat and desired the +gondoliers to start, "at this moment Prince Emilio's life is in danger, +and you alone can save him." + +"What is to be done?" she asked. + +"Ah! Can you resign yourself to play a degrading part--in spite of the +noblest face to be seen in Italy? Can you drop from the blue sky where +you dwell, into the bed of a courtesan? In short, can you, an angel of +refinement, of pure and spotless beauty, condescend to imagine what the +love must be of a Tinti--in her room, and so effectually as to deceive +the ardor of Emilio, who is indeed too drunk to be very clear-sighted?" + +"Is that all?" said she, with a smile that betrayed to the Frenchman a +side he had not as yet perceived of the delightful nature of an Italian +woman in love. "I will out-do la Tinti, if need be, to save my friend's +life." + +"And you will thus fuse into one two kinds of love, which he sees as +distinct--divided by a mountain of poetic fancy, that will melt away +like the snow on a glacier under the beams of the midsummer sun." + +"I shall be eternally your debtor," said the Duchess, gravely. + +When the French doctor returned to the gallery, where the orgy had +by this time assumed the stamp of Venetian frenzy, he had a look of +satisfaction which the Prince, absorbed by la Tinti, failed to observe; +he was promising himself a repetition of the intoxicating delights he +had known. La Tinti, a true Sicilian, was floating on the tide of a +fantastic passion on the point of being gratified. + +The doctor whispered a few words to Vendramin, and la Tinti was uneasy. + +"What are you plotting?" she inquired of the Prince's friend. + +"Are you kind-hearted?" said the doctor in her ear, with the sternness +of an operator. + +The words pierced to her comprehension like a dagger-thrust to her +heart. + +"It is to save Emilio's life," added Vendramin. + +"Come here," said the doctor to Clarina. + +The hapless singer rose and went to the other end of the table where, +between Vendramin and the Frenchman, she looked like a criminal between +the confessor and the executioner. + +She struggled for a long time, but yielded at last for love of Emilio. + +The doctor's last words were: + +"And you must cure Genovese!" + +She spoke a word to the tenor as she went round the table. She returned +to the Prince, put her arm round his neck and kissed his hair with an +expression of despair which struck Vendramin and the Frenchman, the +only two who had their wits about them, then she vanished into her room. +Emilio, seeing Genovese leave the table, while Cataneo and Capraja were +absorbed in a long musical discussion, stole to the door of the bedroom, +lifted the curtain, and slipped in, like an eel into the mud. + +"But you see, Cataneo," said Capraja, "you have exacted the last drop +of physical enjoyment, and there you are, hanging on a wire like a +cardboard harlequin, patterned with scars, and never moving unless the +string is pulled of a perfect unison." + +"And you, Capraja, who have squeezed ideas dry, are not you in the same +predicament? Do you not live riding the hobby of a _cadenza_?" + +"I? I possess the whole world!" cried Capraja, with a sovereign gesture +of his hand. + +"And I have devoured it!" replied the Duke. + +They observed that the physician and Vendramin were gone, and that they +were alone. + + + +Next morning, after a night of perfect happiness, the Prince's sleep +was disturbed by a dream. He felt on his heart the trickle of pearls, +dropped there by an angel; he woke, and found himself bathed in the +tears of Massimilla Doni. He was lying in her arms, and she gazed at him +as he slept. + +That evening, at the _Fenice_,--though la Tinti had not allowed him to +rise till two in the afternoon, which is said to be very bad for a +tenor voice,--Genovese sang divinely in his part in _Semiramide_. He was +recalled with la Tinti, fresh crowns were given, the pit was wild with +delight; the tenor no longer attempted to charm the prima donna by +angelic methods. + +Vendramin was the only person whom the doctor could not cure. Love for +a country that has ceased to be is a love beyond curing. The young +Venetian, by dint of living in his thirteenth century republic, and +in the arms of that pernicious courtesan called opium, when he +found himself in the work-a-day world to which reaction brought him, +succumbed, pitied and regretted by his friends. + +No, how shall the end of this adventure be told--for it is too +disastrously domestic. A word will be enough for the worshipers of the +ideal. + +The Duchess was expecting an infant. + +The Peris, the naiads, the fairies, the sylphs of ancient legend, the +Muses of Greece, the Marble Virgins of the Certosa at Pavia, the Day and +Night of Michael Angelo, the little Angels which Bellini was the first +to put at the foot of his Church pictures, and which Raphael painted so +divinely in his Virgin with the Donor, and the Madonna who shivers at +Dresden, the lovely Maidens by Orcagna in the Church of San-Michele, +at Florence, the celestial choir round the tomb in Saint-Sebaldus, at +Nuremberg, the Virgins of the Duomo, at Milan, the whole population of a +hundred Gothic Cathedrals, all the race of beings who burst their +mould to visit you, great imaginative artists--all these angelic and +disembodied maidens gathered round Massimilla's bed, and wept! + + +PARIS, May 25th, 1839. + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + + Cane, Marco-Facino + Facino Cane + + Tinti, Clarina + Albert Savarus + + Varese, Emilio Memmi, Prince of + Gambara + + Varese, Princess of + Gambara + + Vendramini, Marco + Facino Cane + + Victorine + Lost Illusions + Letters of Two Brides + Gaudissart II + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Massimilla Doni, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MASSIMILLA DONI *** + +***** This file should be named 1811.txt or 1811.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/1/1811/ + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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