that escaped from me in my delirium, and let me tell you that I am
subject to attacks of nervous irritation which make me almost insane.
When I am in that condition everything offends me, everything causes me
intense suffering----"
"I do not ask why it was your pleasure to announce so concisely your
judgment of the young woman in the box; I simply ask you for the rest of
the story."
"In order to be perfectly truthful and coherent, I must insist upon the
prologue. Under the influence of a first attack of fever, the beginning
of a serious illness from which I have hardly recovered, I fancied that
I could read profound contempt and frigid irony on the incomparably
lovely face of the young lady in the proscenium box. I was annoyed at
first, then seriously disturbed, and at last completely upset, so that I
lost my head and yielded to a brutal impulse in order to put an end to
the fatal spell which benumbed all my faculties and paralyzed me at the
most powerful and most important part of my rôle. Your ladyship must
forgive me for an act of madness; I believe in magnetism, especially on
those days when I am ill and when my brain is as weak as my legs. I
fancied that the young lady in the box had an injurious influence over
me; and during the cruel disease which took full possession of me on the
day following my offence, I will confess that she often appeared in my
delirium; but always haughty, always threatening, and promising me that
I should pay dearly for the blasphemy that fell from my lips. Such,
signora, is the first part of my story."
I made ready my shield to ward off a volley of epigrams by way of
comment on this strange tale, which, although true, was most improbable,
I must confess. But the young Grimani, gazing at me with a gentleness
which I had no idea could be found in conjunction with her type of
beauty, said to me, leaning a little heavily on the arm of her chair:
"Your face does in truth show signs of great suffering, Signor Lelio;
and if I must confess the whole truth, when I recognized you yesterday,
I said to myself that I must have observed you very carelessly on the
stage; for you seemed to me then ten years younger; but to-day you seem
no older than you did on the stage; but still I think that you look ill,
and I am very, very sorry that I caused you any irritation."
I involuntarily moved my chair nearer to hers; whereupon she at once
resumed her mocking and capricious tone.
"Let us pass to the second part of your story, Signor Lelio," she said,
playing with her fan, "and be kind enough to tell me why, instead of
avoiding the person the sight of whom is so hateful and prejudicial to
you, you have come as far as this in pursuit of her."
"At this point the author finds himself in an embarrassing position," I
replied, pushing back my chair, which moved very easily at the slightest
turn in the conversation. "Shall I tell you that chance alone led me
here? If I do, will your ladyship believe it? and if I say that it was
not chance, will your ladyship tolerate such impertinence?"
"It matters very little to me," she rejoined, "whether it is chance, or
magnetic attraction, as you will say, perhaps, that brings you to this
neighborhood; I simply desire to know by what chance you became a
piano-tuner?"
"The chance of inspiration, signora; a pretext to obtain admission to
this house was all that I wanted."
"But why did you wish to be admitted to this house?"
"I will answer frankly if your ladyship will deign first to tell me what
chance induced you to admit me, although you recognized me at the first
glance?"
"The chance of caprice, Signor Lelio. I was bored to death here, alone
with my cousin, or with a pious old aunt whom I hardly know; and while
one is hunting and the other at church, I thought that I might venture
to enliven by a mad freak the ghastly solitude in which I am left to
pine away."
Once more my chair of its own motion approached hers, but I hesitated to
take her hand. At that moment she seemed to me decidedly forward. There
are some girls who are born women, and who are corrupt before they have
lost their innocence.
"She is a child, beyond doubt," I thought, "but a child who is tired of
being one, and I should be a great fool not to reply to allurements
resorted to so coolly and boldly. Faith! I am sorry for the cousin! Why
does he care more for hunting than for his kinswoman?"
But the signora paid no heed to the agitation that had laid hold of me.
"Now the farce is at an end," she continued; "we have eaten my cousin's
game and I have talked with an actor. I have fooled my aunt and my
future spouse. Last week my cousin was furious because I praised you
with what he considered too great warmth. Now, when he mentions you to
me, and when my aunt says that the actors are all excommunicated in
France, I will look at the floor with a modest and beatific expression,
and laugh in my sleeve to think that I know Signor Lelio, and that I
breakfasted with him, in this very room, without anyone's suspecting it.
But now, Signor Lelio, you must tell me why you chose to obtain
admission to this house by playing a false rôle?"
"Forgive me, signora--you just now said something which touched me
deeply. You said, did you not, that you praised me last week with _great
warmth_?"
"Oh! I only did it to make my cousin angry. I am not naturally
enthusiastic."
When she flaunted me, it revived my zest for the adventure, and
emboldened me.
"Since you are so frank with me, signora," I rejoined, "I will be
equally frank with your ladyship. I sought admission to this house with
the intention of atoning for my crime and humbly imploring the
forgiveness of the divine beauty I blasphemed."
As I spoke, I slipped from my chair, and knelt at La Grimani's feet, and
was very near taking possession of her lovely hands. She did not seem
greatly moved by my action; but I saw that, to conceal a slight
embarrassment, she pretended to be examining the Chinese mandarins whose
gowns of purple and gold gleamed resplendent on her fan.
"Really, signor," she said, without looking at me, "you are very good to
think that you owe me an apology. In the first place, if I have a stupid
look, you are not at all to blame for noticing it; in the second place,
if I have not, it is a matter of absolute indifference to me whether or
not you are persuaded that I have."
"I swear by all the gods, and particularly by Apollo, that I said what I
did only because I was angry or mad, or it may be because of a very
different sentiment, which was then but just born and was already sowing
confusion in my mind. I saw that you considered me detestable, and that
you were not inclined to be at all indulgent to me; could I tranquilly
resign myself to lose the only approbation which it would have been
sweet and glorious for me to obtain? In a word, signora, I am here; I
discovered your abode, and though I barely knew your name, I sought you,
pursued you, and reached you in spite of distance and obstacles. I am
here at your feet. Do you think that I would have surmounted such
difficulties if I had not been tortured by remorse, not because of you,
who justly disdain to consider the effect of your charms on a poor
player like myself; but because of God, whose fairest work I insulted
and undervalued?"
While I was speaking, I ventured to take one of her hands; but she
suddenly sprang to her feet, saying:
"Rise, signor, rise! here is my cousin coming back from hunting."
Indeed, I had barely time to run to the piano and open it before Signor
Ettore Grimani, in hunting costume and gun in hand, entered the room and
deposited his well-filled game-bag at his cousin's feet.
"Oh! don't come so near me," said the signora; "you are horribly dirty,
and all those bleeding creatures make me sick. Oh! Hector, go away, I
beg, and take all these nasty great dogs with you; they smell of mud and
soil the floor."
The cousin was fain to be content with that outburst of gratitude, and
to go to his room and perfume himself at his leisure. But he had no
sooner gone out than a sort of duenna appeared and informed the signora
that her aunt had returned and wished to see her.
"I will go," La Grimani replied; "and do you, signor," she said, turning
to me, "take this key away with you, as it is broken, and glue it
firmly. You must bring it back to-morrow, and finish replacing the
missing strings. I can count on you, signor? You will be sure to come?"
"Yes, signora, you may rely upon it," I replied; and I took my leave,
carrying away the wrong key, which was not broken.
I was on hand promptly on the following day. But do not think, my
friends, that I was in love with that young person; the utmost that can
be said is that she attracted me. She was extremely lovely; but I saw
her beauty with the eyes of the body, I did not feel it through the eyes
of the soul; if, from time to time, I was on the point of falling in
love with that childish petulance, my doubts soon returned, and I said
to myself that a girl who lied so coolly to her cousin and her governess
might well have lied to me; that, perhaps, she was twenty years old or
more, as I had thought at first; and that it was quite likely that she
had indulged in some previous escapades for which she had been secluded
in that dull villa, with no other society than a pious old woman whose
duty it was to scold her, and an excellent young cousin predestined to
take upon his back, in his guilelessness, all her errors, past, present
and to come.
I found her in the salon with the dear cousin and three or four hunting
dogs, who came very near devouring me. The signora, who was nothing if
not capricious, honored those noble beasts with very different treatment
from that of the day before, and although they were hardly less dirty
and disagreeable, she obligingly allowed them to lie, one by one, or all
in a heap, on a large sofa of red velvet with gold fringe. From time to
time she sat down in the midst of them, petting some and playfully
teasing others.
Before long, I concluded that this revulsion of feeling toward the dogs
was a bit of affectionate coquetry addressed to her cousin; for the
fair-haired Signor Ettore seemed greatly flattered by it, and I don't
know which he loved best, his cousin or his dogs.
She was bewilderingly vivacious, and she seemed to be keyed up to such a
high pitch, the glances that she bestowed upon me in the mirror were so
keen-edged, that I longed for the cousin's departure. And he did leave
the room before long. The signora gave him an errand to do. She had to
ask him several times, but he finally obeyed an imperious glance,
accompanied by a: "Don't you propose to go?" uttered in a tone which he
seemed altogether incapable of defying.
He had no sooner disappeared than I turned away from the piano and rose,
looking in the signora's eyes to see whether I should go to her or wait
for her to come to me. She, too, was standing, and seemed to be trying
to read in my face what I was likely to do. But she gave me little
encouragement, and as I fancied that her lips were partly open to give
me a harsh lesson if I should be unlucky enough to lose my wits in that
perilous engagement, I began to feel somewhat disturbed inwardly. I do
not know why it was that that exchange of glances, at once alluring and
distrustful, that effervescence of our whole being which kept us both as
motionless as statues, that alternation of audacity and fear which
paralyzed me at what was perhaps the decisive moment of my adventure,
and even La Grimani's black velvet gown, and the bright sunlight which
shone into the room through the dark curtains and expired in a fantastic
blending of light and shadow at our feet--the hour, the burning
atmosphere, and the restrained beating of my heart--all combined to
bring vividly to my mind an analogous scene of my youth: Signora Bianca
Aldini, in the shadow of her gondola, enchaining with a magnetic glance
one of my feet on the shore of the Lido, the other on the boat. I felt
the same mental bewilderment, the same inward agitation, the same
desire, ready to give place to the same wrath. "Can it be," I thought,
"that it was self-esteem that made me desire Bianca then, or is it love
that makes me desire La Grimani to-day?"
It was not possible for me to rush forth into the fields, singing
recklessly, as I had on that former occasion leaped ashore on the Lido,
to revenge myself for a bit of innocent coquetry. There was no other
course for me to adopt than to resume my seat, no other way for me to
revenge myself than to begin again on the major fifth:
_A-mi-la-E-si-mi_.
I must admit that that method of venting my spite could not afford me a
signal triumph. An imperceptible smile fluttered about the corners of
the signora's mouth when I bent my legs to sit down, and it seemed to me
that I could read these pleasant words on her face: "Lelio you are a
child."--But, when I abruptly rose again, ready to hurl the piano across
the room and fly to her feet, I plainly read these terrible words in her
black eye: "Signor, you are a madman."
"Signora Aldini," I reflected, "was twenty-two years old, I was fifteen
or sixteen; now I am more than twenty-two. That Bianca should govern me
absolutely was natural enough, but it is not natural that I should be
made a fool of by this girl. So I must be cool."
I calmly resumed my seat, saying:
"Excuse me, signora, if I look at the clock. I cannot stay long, and
this piano seems to be in sufficiently good condition for me to go about
my business."
"In good condition!" she replied with unmistakable irritation. "You have
put it in such good condition that I am afraid I can never play on it as
long as I live. I am very angry about it. You undertook to tune it; you
must do it, Signor Lelio, for your own reputation."
"Signora," I replied, "I care no more about tuning this piano than you
do about playing on it. I obeyed your command to return, in order not to
compromise you by putting an end to this pretence too suddenly. But your
ladyship must understand that the jest cannot be prolonged forever; that
by the third day it ceases to be amusing except to you, and that on the
fourth it would be a little dangerous to me. I am neither so wealthy nor
so renowned that I can afford to waste time. Will not your ladyship
allow me to retire in a few moments; then a genuine tuner will come this
afternoon and finish my work, saying that I am ill and have sent him in
my place. I can find a substitute who will be grateful to me for
providing him with a new customer, all without betraying our little
secret, and without making myself known."
The signora did not say a word in reply; but she turned as pale as
death, and again I felt that I was beaten. The cousin returned. I could
not restrain a gesture of annoyance. The signora noticed it, and again
she triumphed; and again, seeing that I did not propose to go, she
amused herself by playing upon my inward agitation.
She became very rosy and animated once more. She plied her cousin with
cajoleries which were so close to the line between affection and irony
that soon neither he nor I knew what to think. Then she suddenly turned
her back on him, and, coming to my side, requested me, in a low tone and
with a mysterious air, to keep the piano a quarter of a tone below the
pitch, because she had a contralto voice. Whom was she trying to impose
upon--her cousin or myself--by telling me that great secret as if it
were a matter of such importance? I was on the point of going up to
Hector and shaking hands with him, for we seemed to me to cut an equally
foolish and laughable figure. But I saw that the excellent youth
attached more importance to the matter than I did, and he cast a
sidelong glance at me with such a profound and crafty expression, that I
had much difficulty in refraining from laughter. I answered La Grimani,
under my breath and with a still more confidential air:
"I have anticipated your wishes, signora, and the piano is just in tune
with the orchestra at San Carlo, where they lowered the pitch last
season because of my cold."
Thereupon, the signora took her cousin's arm with a theatrical gesture,
and hurriedly led him into the garden. As they walked back and forth in
front of the house, and I could see their shadows on the curtain, I took
my stand behind the curtain and listened to their conversation.
"That is exactly what I wanted to say to you, my dear cousin," the
signora was saying. "This man has a strange, terrifying face; he has no
idea what a piano is, and he will never finish tuning it. You will see!
He is a mere adventurer, mark my words. We must keep our eyes on him,
and do you hold your watch in your hand when he comes near you. I would
take my oath that when I leaned over the piano, unsuspectingly, to tell
him to lower the pitch, he put out his hand to steal my gold chain."
"Nonsense! you are joking, cousin! It is impossible that a thief should
be so bold. That isn't what I want to say to you at all, and you pretend
not to understand me."
"I pretend, Hector? You accuse me of pretending? I pretend! Come, tell
me if you really think you are worth the trouble it would give me to
make up a falsehood?"
"This severity is quite useless, cousin. It seems at all events that I
am worth the trouble of seeking an opportunity to make humiliating
speeches to me."
"But what are you talking about, I would ask, cousin? And why do you say
that this man----"
"I say that this man is not a piano-tuner, that he is not tuning your
piano, that he never tuned a piano in his life. I say that he never
takes his eye off you, that he watches your every movement, that he
breathes in every word you speak. I say that he must have seen you
somewhere, at Naples or Florence, at the theatre or driving, and that he
fell in love with you."
"And gained admittance here, _in disguise_, to see me, and perhaps to
seduce me, the scoundrel, the villain!"
Having said thus much with great vehemence, the signora threw herself
back on a bench, laughing uproariously. As I saw the cousin stalking
toward the door of the salon, apparently in a furious passion, I
returned to my post, and, arming myself with my tuning hammer, resolved
to strike him down with it if he should attempt to insult me; for I had
already set him down as one of the men who arrange matters so as to
avoid fighting, and who call their servants when one challenges them
within hearing of the antechamber.
"He will fall dead before he pulls that bell-rope," I thought, as I
grasped the hammer and cast a rapid glance about me. But my adventure
did not long retain this dramatic aspect. I saw the signora and her
cousin, arm-in-arm once more, walking on the terrace, and pausing from
time to time at the half-open glass door to look at me, she with a
mocking, he with an embarrassed air. I no longer knew what they were
saying to each other, and my wrath rose higher and higher in my throat.
Suddenly a pretty soubrette joined them on the terrace. The signora
spoke to her with much animation, now laughing, now assuming an
imperious tone. The soubrette seemed to hesitate; the cousin seemed to
be urging the signora to do nothing extravagant. At last the maid came
to me in some confusion, and said, blushing to the roots of her hair:
"Signor, the signora bids me say to you, in so many words, that you are
an insolent person, and that you would do much better to tune the piano
than to stare at her as you are doing. Pardon me, signor. I am very sure
that it is a jest."
"And I take it as such," I replied; "but say to the signora that I
present my profound respects to her, and that I beg her not to think me
insolent enough to stare at her. I was not so much as thinking of her,
and if I must tell you the truth, it was you, my lovely maid, whom I saw
out in the field, and who engrossed me so that I forgot to go on with my
work."
"I, signor," said the soubrette, blushing more hotly than ever, and
hanging her head in her embarrassment. "How could I engross the signor?"
"Because you are a hundred times prettier than your mistress," I said,
putting my arm about her and giving her a kiss before she had time to
suspect my purpose.
She was a pretty village girl, the signora's foster sister. She too was
dark and tall and slender, but timid in her manner, and as artless and
gentle in her bearing as her young mistress was cunning and determined.
She was thrown into such confusion by being embraced so unceremoniously
before the signora, who had come to the door of the salon, followed by
her idiotic cousin, that she fled, hiding her face in her blue apron
with silver border. The signora, who was equally surprised to find that
I took her impertinence so philosophically, stepped back, and the
cousin, who had seen nothing, repeated several times the question: "What
is it? What's the matter?"
The poor girl would not pause in her flight to reply, and the signora
laughed a forced laugh which I pretended not to notice.
A few moments later she reappeared alone. Her face wore an expression
which was meant to be severe, but was really confused and distressed.
"It is lucky for us both, signor," she said in a voice that trembled
slightly, "that my cousin is simple-minded and gullible; for you must
know that he is of a jealous and quarrelsome disposition."
"Really, signora?" I replied, gravely.
"Do not laugh at me, signor," she retorted angrily. "One may be easily
deceived when one loves; but the name of Grimani stands for personal
courage."
"I do not doubt it, signora," I replied in the same tone.
"I beg you, therefore, signor," she continued, still speaking with
involuntary vehemence, "not to come here again; for all this jesting
might end badly."
"That is as you please, signora," I replied, as imperturbably as before.
"It is evident, however, signor, that you find it very amusing; for you
do not seem disposed to put an end to it."
"If I amuse myself, signora, it is by way of being obedient, as we all
amuse ourselves in Italy under the reign of Napoleon the Great. I wished
to retire an hour ago, and it was you who forbade it."
"I forbade it? Do you dare to say that I forbade it?"
"I intended to say, signora, that you did not think of it; for I
expected that you would give me some sort of a plausible pretext for
taking my leave in the midst of my task; and, for my own part, it was
impossible for me to imagine such a pretext. It would be so entirely
unnatural in the present condition of the piano, and I am so firmly
resolved to do nothing that can possibly compromise you, that I will
return to-morrow."
"You will do nothing of the kind."
"I beg your ladyship's pardon, I will return to-morrow."
"For what purpose, signor? And by what right?"
"I will return to gratify Signor Ettore's curiosity, for he is very much
puzzled to know who I am; and I will return because you have yourself
given me the right to face the man with whom you were pleased to make
merry at my expense."
"Is that a threat, Signor Lelio?" she asked, concealing her fright
beneath the cloak of pride.
"No, signora. A man who does not falter before another man is not of the
threatening sort."
"But my cousin said nothing to you, signor; I did all this jesting
against his will."
"But he is jealous and quarrelsome. Moreover, he is brave. Now, I am not
jealous, signora, I have neither the right nor the desire to be. But I
am quarrelsome, and it may be too that, although my name is not Grimani,
I am a brave man; what do you know about it?"
"Oh! I have no doubt of it, Lelio!" she cried, in a tone that made me
quiver from head to foot, it was so entirely different from what I had
been hearing for two or three days.
I looked at her in amazement; she lowered her eyes with an air at once
modest and proud. Once again I was disarmed.
"Signora," I said, "I will do whatever you choose, as you choose, and
nothing that you do not choose."
She hesitated a moment.
"You cannot come again as a piano-tuner," said she; "if you do, you will
compromise me, for my cousin will certainly tell my aunt that he
suspects you of being a libertine in search of adventures; and, when my
aunt hears it, she will tell my mother. And let me tell you Signor
Lelio, that there is only one person in the world for whom I care in the
least, and that is my mother; that there is only one thing in the world
that I dread, and that is my mother's displeasure. And yet she brought
me up very badly, as you see; she spoiled me shockingly; but she is so
dear, so sweet, so loving, so sad--She loves me so dearly--if you only
knew!"