of my passions diminished. If I had had to deal with a great soul, or
even with a forceful nature, it would have been in my eyes a glorious
task to efface the distressing memories left behind in that heart by my
predecessors. But to succeed such men simply to be misunderstood, and in
all probability to be some day cast aside and forgotten like them, was a
happiness which I no longer cared to purchase at the cost of an enormous
expenditure of passion and will-power. Signora Aldini was a sweet and
lovely woman; but could I not find in a cottage at Chioggia beauty and
sweetness united, without causing tears to flow, without causing
remorse, and above all without leaving shame behind me?
My mind was soon made up. I resolved not only to leave the signora, but
to cease to be a servant. So long as I had been in love with her harp
and her person, I had had no time to reflect seriously on my condition.
But, as soon as I abandoned my foolish aspirations, I realized how
difficult it is to retain one's dignity unimpaired under the protection
of the great, and I recalled the salutary arguments which my father had
urged upon me, and to which I had paid little heed.
When I gave her an inkling of my purpose, I saw, although she opposed
it, that she was greatly relieved; happiness might return and dwell once
more in that affectionate and beneficent heart. The charming frivolity
which was the basis of her character would reappear on the surface with
the first lover who should be able to push aside her confessor, her
servants, and society. A great passion would have shattered her system;
a succession of mild passions and a multitude of lukewarm attachments
would keep her alive in her natural element.
I forced her to admit all that I had divined. She had never studied
herself very much, and she was always most sincere. If there was no
heroism in her character, neither was there any pretension to heroism,
nor the overbearing despotism which is its consequence. She approved my
determination, but she wept and was dismayed at the thought of the blank
my departure would leave in her life; for she loved me still, I am sure,
with all the strength of her nature.
She attempted to worry and fret about what was to become of me. I would
not allow it. The abrupt and haughty tone in which I interrupted her
when she spoke of offering her services closed her mouth once for all in
that respect. I would not even take the clothes she had had made for me.
On the day before I was to take my leave, I purchased the complete
outfit of a sailor of Chioggia, new, but of the coarsest materials; and
in that guise I appeared before her for the last time.
She had requested me to come to her at midnight, so that we could part
without witnesses. I was grateful to her for the affectionate
familiarity with which she embraced me. I do not believe there was
another society woman in all Venice sufficiently sincere and sympathetic
to be willing to repeat the assurance of her love to a man dressed as I
was. Tears poured from her eyes when she passed her little white hands
over the rough material of my scarlet-lined cape; then she smiled, and,
pulling the hood over my head, gazed at me lovingly, and exclaimed that
she had never seen me look so handsome, and that she had done very wrong
ever to make me dress in any other way. The warmth and sincerity of my
thanks, the oaths I took to be faithful to her until death, and never to
think of her except to bless her and commend her to God's keeping,
touched her deeply. She was not accustomed to being left in that way.
"You have a more chivalrous heart," she said to me, "than any of those
who bear the title of chevalier."
Then she gave way to an outburst of enthusiasm: the independence of my
nature, the indifference with which I laid aside luxury and indolence
for the hardest of lives, the respect with which I had never failed to
treat her when it would have been so easy for me to abuse her weakness
for me; all this, she said, raised me far above other men. She threw
herself into my arms, almost at my feet, and again begged me not to go
away, but to marry her.
This outburst was sincere, and, although it did not change my
resolution, it made the signora so lovely and so fascinating that I was
very near casting my heroism to the winds and taking my reward in that
last night for all the sacrifices I had made to my peace of mind. But I
had the strength to resist, and to go forth chaste from a love affair
which nevertheless had its origin in sensual desire. I took my leave,
bathed in her tears, and carrying away, as my sole treasure and trophy,
a lock of her lovely fair hair. As I withdrew I went to little Alezia's
bed, and softly put aside the curtains to take a last look at her. She
at once woke, and did not recognize me at first, for she was frightened;
she did not cry out, but simply called her mother in a voice which she
tried to keep from trembling.
"Signorina," I said, "I am the _Orco_,[3] and I have come to ask you why
you pierce the hearts of your dolls with pins."
She sat up in bed, and replied, glancing at me with a mischievous
expression:
"I do it to see if their blood is blue."
_Blue blood_, you know, is synonymous with noble in the popular language
of Venice.
"But they have no blood," I said; "they are not noble!"
"They are nobler than you," was her retort, "for their blood isn't
black."
Black, you know, is the color of the _nicoloti_, the association of
boatmen.
"_Signora mia_," I said in an undertone to her mother, as I drew the
child's curtains, "you have done well not to splash ink on your azure
crest. Here is a little patrician who would never have forgiven you."
"And my heart," she replied sadly, "is pierced, not with a pin, but with
a thousand swords."
When I was in the street, I stopped to look at the corner of the palace
which stood out in the moonlight from the eaves to the depths of the
Grand Canal. A boat passed, and, causing a ripple in the water, cut and
scattered the reflection of that pure line. It seemed to me that I had
just had a beautiful dream and had awakened in darkness. I began to run
at full speed, never looking behind, and did not stop until I reached
the Paglia bridge, where the boats for Chioggia await passengers, while
the boatmen, wrapped in their capes in winter and summer alike, lie
sound asleep on the parapet, and even across the steps, under the feet
of passers-by. I asked if anyone of my fellow-townsmen would take me to
my father's house.
"Is it you, _kinsman_?" they cried in surprise.
That word _kinsman_, which the Venetians ironically bestow on the
Chioggians, and which the latter have had the good-sense to accept,[4]
was so sweet to my ear that I embraced the first man who called me by
it. They promised to start in an hour, and asked me several questions,
but did not listen to my answers. The Chioggian hardly knows the use of
a bed; but he sleeps while walking, talking, even rowing. They suggested
my taking a nap on the common bed, that is to say on the flagstones of
the quay. I lay on the ground, with my head on one of those worthy
fellows, while another used me as a pillow, and so on. I slept as in the
happiest days of my childhood, and I dreamed that my poor mother--who
had been dead a year--appeared in the doorway of our cottage and
congratulated me on my return. I was awakened by the repeated shouts of
_Chiosa_! _Chiosa_![5] with which our boatmen wake the echoes of the
ducal palace and the prisons, to attract passengers. It seemed to me a
cry of triumph, like the _Italia_! _Italia_! of the Trojans in the
_Æneid_. I jumped aboard a boat with a light heart, and, thinking of
the night Bianca must have passed, reproached myself a little for
sleeping soundly. But I was reconciled to myself by the thought that I
had not poisoned her future peace of mind.
It was midwinter and the nights were long; we reached Chioggia an hour
before dawn. I ran to our cabin. My father was already at sea; only my
youngest brother was left behind to look after the house. It took a long
while for him to wake up and recognize me. It was easy to see that he
was accustomed to sleep amid the roar of the waves and the storm; for I
nearly broke the door down trying to make him hear me. At last he came
out, leaped on my neck, put on his cape and rowed me half a league out
to sea, to the spot where my father's boat lay at anchor. The excellent
man, awaiting the best time to set his nets, was asleep, according to
the custom of old fishermen, stretched out on his back, his body and
face sheltered by a coarse blanket, while the stinging north wind
whistled through the rigging. The white-capped waves beat against the
vessel and covered him with spray; no human voice could be heard in the
vast solitude of the Adriatic. I softly put aside the blanket and looked
at him. He was the image of strength in repose. His gray beard, as
tangled as the seaweed when the tide is rising, his earth-colored jacket
and his dull green woollen cap made him resemble an old Triton asleep in
his shell. He displayed no more surprise when he woke than if he had
been expecting me.
"Oho!" he said, "I was dreaming of the poor woman, and she said to me:
'Get up, old man, here's our son Daniel back again.'"
[Footnote 3: The red devil, or will'o-the-wisp of the lagoons.]
[Footnote 4: The peninsula of Chioggia was originally inhabited by five
or six families which never married except among themselves.]
[Footnote 5: Chioggia!]
SECOND PART
I do not propose, my friends, to describe all the vicissitudes which
marked my passage from the beach at Chioggia to the stage of the leading
theatres in Italy, and from the trade of fisherman to the rôle of
_primo tenore_; that was the work of several years, and my reputation
increased rapidly as soon as I had taken the first step in my career. If
circumstances were often unfavorable, my easy-going disposition was
always able to make the best of them, and I can fairly say that my great
successes did not cost me very dear.
Ten years after leaving Venice, I was at Naples, playing Romeo at the
San Carlo theatre. King Murat and his brilliant staff, and all the vain
and venal beauties of Italy, were there. I did not pride myself on being
a particularly ardent patriot, but I did not share the infatuation of
that period for foreign domination. I did not turn my face backward
toward a still more degrading past; I fed upon the first elements of
Carbonarism, which were then fermenting, without definite shape or name,
from Prussia to Sicily.
My heroism was simple and intense, as all religions are at their birth.
I carried into all that I did, and especially into my art, the feeling
of mocking pride and democratic independence which inspired me every day
in the clubs and in clandestine pamphlets. _Friends of Truth_, _Friends
of Light_, _Friends of Liberty_--such were the names under which liberal
sympathies gathered; and even in the ranks of the French army, at the
very side of the victorious leaders, we had associates, children of your
great revolution, who, in their secret hearts, were determined to wash
away the stain of the 18th Brumaire.
I loved the rôle of Romeo, because I could give expression in it to
warlike sentiments and feelings of chivalrous detestation. When my
audience, always half French, applauded my dramatic outbursts, I felt as
if I were revenged for our national degradation; for those conquerors
were unconsciously applauding curses aimed at them, longings for their
death and threats to attain it.
One evening, during one of my finest moments, when it seemed as if the
roof would fall under the explosions of frantic applause, my eyes fell
upon a face in a proscenium box almost on the stage, an impassive face,
the sight of which made my blood suddenly run cold. You have no idea of
the mysterious influences which govern the actor's inspiration, how the
expression of certain faces absorbs him, and stimulates or deadens his
audacity. Speaking for myself at least, I cannot avoid an instant
sympathy with my audience, whether the effect is to spur me on if I find
it inclined to resist, until I subjugate it by my passion, or to melt us
into one as by the action of an electric current, so that its quick
response imparts new vigor to my sensitive talent. But certain glances,
or certain words spoken in whispers close beside me, have sometimes
disturbed me so that it required the utmost effort of which my will was
capable to combat their effect.
The face that impressed me at that moment was ideally beautiful; its
owner was beyond dispute the most beautiful woman in the whole theatre.
Meanwhile, the whole audience was roaring and stamping in admiration,
and she alone, the queen of the evening, seemed to be studying me
dispassionately, and to discover faults which the vulgar eye could not
detect. She was the Muse of Tragedy, stern Melpomene in person, with her
regular oval face, her black eyebrows, her high forehead, her raven
hair, her great eyes gleaming with a dark flame in their vast orbits,
and her stern lip, whose unbending curve was never softened by a smile;
and, with all the rest, in the very bloom and flower of youth, with a
graceful, lithe figure instinct with health.
"Who is that lovely dark girl with such a cold eye?" I asked Count Nasi,
during the entr'acte; he had taken a great liking to me, and came on the
stage every evening to chat with me.
"She is either the daughter or niece of Princess Grimani," was his
reply. "I do not know her, for she has just come from some convent or
other, and her mother, or aunt, is herself a stranger in this region.
All I can tell you is that Prince Grimani loves her like his own child,
that he will give her a handsome dowry, and that she is one of the
richest matches in Italy; and yet I shall never take my place in the
lists."
"Why not, pray?"
"Because they say she is insolent and vain, infatuated with her noble
birth, and of an overbearing disposition. I care so little for women of
that stamp that I don't even care to look at her when I meet her. They
say that she will be queen of the balls next winter, and that her beauty
is something marvellous. I don't know or want to know whether it is or
is not. I can't endure Grimani either; he is a genuine stage _hidalgo_;
and if it were not that he has a handsome fortune and a young wife who
is said to be attractive, I don't know how anyone could be induced to
endure the tedium of his conversation or the freezing stiffness of his
hospitality."
During the following scene I glanced at the proscenium box from time to
time. I was no longer disturbed by the thought that its occupants were
disposed to judge me unfavorably, since I had learned that the Grimanis
were accustomed to maintain a haughty demeanor even with people whom
they considered to belong to their own class. I looked at the girl with
the impartiality of a sculptor or a painter; she seemed to me even
lovelier than at first sight. Old Grimani, who was sitting beside her at
the front of the box, had a fine face, but stern and cold. That
supercilious couple seemed to exchange a few monosyllables at long
intervals, and at the end of the opera he rose slowly and went out,
without waiting for the ballet.
The next day the old man and the young woman were in the same place, in
the same unmoved attitude. I did not once see any trace of emotion, and
Prince Grimani slept sweetly throughout the first acts. The young woman,
on the contrary, seemed to be paying her whole attention to the
performance. Her great eyes were fastened on me like those of a ghost,
and that fixed, searching and profound gaze became so embarrassing to me
that I carefully avoided it. But, as if an evil spell had been cast upon
me, the more I tried to keep my eyes away, the more they persisted in
meeting those of the young sorceress. There was something so
extraordinarily powerful in that mysterious magnetism, that I was
assailed by childish dread of it, and feared that I should not be able
to finish the opera. I had never felt anything like it. There were times
when I fancied that I recognized that marble face, and I seemed to be on
the point of accosting her as an old friend. At other times I believed
that she was my deadly enemy, my evil genius, and I was tempted to hurl
violent reproaches at her.
The _seconda donna_ added to my truly alarming discomfort by whispering
to me:
"Look out, Lelio, you'll catch the fever. That woman in the box will
give you the _jettatura_."[6]
I had been a firm believer in the _jettatura_ during the greater part of
my life. I no longer believed in it; but the love of the marvellous,
which is not easily dislodged from an Italian head, especially that of a
child of the people, had led me to indulge in most extravagant
reflections on the subject of animal magnetism. It was the period when
charming fancies of that sort were blooming luxuriantly all over the
world; Hoffmann was writing his _Tales_, and magnetism was the
mysterious pivot upon which all the hopes of the _illuminati_ turned.
Whether because that foible had taken such complete possession of me
that it controlled my actions, or because it took me by surprise at a
moment when I was not in the best of health, I began to shiver from head
to foot, and I nearly fainted when I returned to the stage. That
wretched weakness finally gave place to wrath, and as I walked toward
the box in question with La Checchina--the _seconda donna_ who had
mentioned the evil eye--I said to her, indicating my fair enemy, but in
a tone too low to be overheard by the audience, these words paraphrased
from one of our finest tragedies:
"_Bella e stupida._"
The signora flushed to the roots of her hair with anger. She started to
rouse Prince Grimani, who was sleeping with all his heart; but she
suddenly stopped, as if she had changed her mind, and kept her eyes
fixed upon me as before, but with a vindictive, threatening expression
which seemed to say:
"You shall repent of that."
Count Nasi accosted me as I left the theatre after the performance.
"Lelio," said he, "you are in love with the Grimani."
"Am I bewitched, in God's name," I cried, "and why is it that I cannot
rid myself of that apparition?"
"You won't rid yourself of it for a long time either, poor boy," said
Checchina, with a half-artless, half-mocking air; "that Grimani is the
devil. Wait a moment," she added, taking my arm, "I know something about
fever, and I will wager--_Corpo della Madonna_!"--she cried, turning
pale, "you have a terrible attack of fever, my poor Lelio!"
"One always has the fever when one acts and sings in a way to give it to
others," said the count; "come to supper with me, Lelio."
I declined; I was ill, in very truth. During the night I had a violent
fever, and the next day I could not leave my bed. Checchina installed
herself at my bedside and did not leave me all the time that I was ill.
Checchina was a young woman of twenty or thereabout, tall and large, and
of a somewhat masculine type of beauty, although very white and fair.
She was my sister and my kinswoman, that is to say, she came from
Chioggia. Like me she was a fisherman's child and had long employed her
strength beating the waters of the Adriatic with oars. A wild love of
independence led her to use her fine voice as a means of assuring
herself a free profession and a wandering life. She had run away from
her father's house and begun to roam about the country on foot, singing
in the public squares. I chanced to meet her at Milan, in a furnished
lodging-house where she was singing for the guests at the table d'hôte.
I recognized her as a Chioggian by her accent; I questioned her and
remembered seeing her as a child; but I was careful to say nothing by
which she could identify me as a _kinsman_, especially as that Daniele
Gemello who had left the neighborhood rather suddenly, as the result of
an unlucky duel. That duel cost a poor devil his life and his murderer
many sleepless nights.
Allow me to pass rapidly over that incident, and to avoid awakening a
bitter memory during our quiet evening. It will be enough for me to say
to Zorzi that the practice of duelling with knives was still in full
vigor at Chioggia in my youth, and the whole population acted as
seconds. Duels were fought in broad daylight, on the public square, and
insults were avenged by the wager of combat, as in the days of chivalry.
My melancholy success exiled me from the province! for the _podestat_
was far from lenient in such matters, and the law inflicted severe
penalties upon the last remnants of those savage old customs. Perhaps
this will explain why I always concealed the story of my early years,
and why I travelled over the world under the name of Lelio, sending
money secretly to my family, writing to them with the greatest caution,
and disclosing to no one, not even to them, my means of subsistence, for
fear that, by corresponding with me they might draw upon themselves the
open hostility of those families in Chioggia whom the death of my
assailant had angered more or less.
But, as my origin was betrayed by an ineradicable trace of the Venetian
accent, I passed myself off as a native of Palestrina, and Checchina had
adopted the habit of calling me her _countryman_, her _cousin_ or her
_gossip_, as it happened.
Thanks to my care and my assistance, Checchina rapidly acquired
considerable talent, and at the time of my life of which I am now
speaking, she had been engaged on honorable terms as a member of the
troupe at San Carlo.
She was a strange but most excellent creature, was Checchina; she had
improved wonderfully since I had picked her out of the gutter, so to
speak; but she still retained, and retains to this day, a certain
rusticity which does not altogether disappear on the stage, and which
makes her the first actress in the world in such rôles as Zerlina. She
had corrected in large measure the amplitude of her gestures and the
abruptness of her speech, but she retained enough of both to come very
near being comic in pathetic parts. However, as she had intelligence and
feeling, she raised herself to a relatively high position, but the
public did not give her all the credit she deserved. Opinions were
divided concerning her, and a certain abbé said that she brushed so
close to the sublime and the farcical that there was not enough room
left between the two for her long arms.
Unluckily, Checchina had one failing, from which, by the way, the
greatest artists are not exempt. She satisfied herself only in rôles
which were entirely unsuited to her, and, scorning those in which she
could best display her _verve_, her unconstant and her restless
activity, she insisted upon producing great effects in tragedy. Like a
true village maiden, she was intoxicated by superb costumes, and fancied
that she was really a queen when she wore a diadem and a royal cloak.
Her tall, lithe figure, her graceful, quasi-martial bearing, made of her
a magnificent statue when she was not in motion. But her exaggerated
gestures constantly betrayed the young oarswoman, and when I desired, on
the stage, to warn her to be less vehement, I would whisper: "_Per dio_!
_non vogar_! _non siamo qui sull' Adriatico_."[7]
Whether Checchina was my mistress is a question of little interest to
you, I presume. I can only assure you that she was not at the time of
which I am speaking, and that I was indebted for her affectionate care
to nothing else than the kindness of her heart and her unfailing
gratitude. She has always been a devoted sister and friend to me, and
many a time she has risked a rupture with her most brilliant lovers,
rather than desert me or neglect me when my health or my interests
demanded her zealous care or her aid.
As I was saying, she took up her post at my bedside, and did not leave
me until she had cured me. Her tireless devotion to me vexed Count Nasi
somewhat, although he was my friend and placed full confidence in my
word; but he himself confessed to me what he called his miserable
weakness. When I urged Checchina to deal more gently with that excellent
young man's involuntary sensitiveness, she would say:
"Nonsense! Don't you see that I must train him to respect my
independence? Do you suppose that, when I am his wife, I will consent to
abandon my stage friends and worry about what people in society think of
me? Don't believe it, Lelio. I propose to remain free, and to obey the
voice of my heart and nothing else."
She had persuaded herself, with none too good reason, that the count was
fully determined to marry her; and I may say that she possessed, to a
marvellous degree, the gift of deluding herself with respect to the
violence of the passions she inspired; nothing could equal her
confidence in a promise, unless it were her philosophical and heroic
indifference when she was deceived.